Tracking of passenger's previous flights re. 2019-nCoV
 

In light of the coronavirus crisis, what technical means exist to track where a person disembarking had traveled previously?

Not just immediately preceding (connecting) flights, but flights taken within maybe the previous 2 weeks?

Is tracking information from the use of smartphones available outside of NSA/CIA, etc?

And if such information is available, is it being used to screen potential carriers of the virus?

Thanks,

George (slf)

The information is available but you are looking at an incomplete set of contacts.

• Pax infected 5 days ago - now infectious and is shedding virus but is currently asymptomatic - had left Wuhan and made way to Chengdu, Flies on widebody from Chengdu with 240 other pax
• Arrives SFO and joins crowds in immigration hall and is in a weaving line past perhaps 500 other pax from various other aircraft hands passport to immigration then hands customs form to customs
• Wends way through SFO having collected bags and makes way through crowd to packed airline lounge.
• Wends way through SFO to departure gate for next flight and joins line at gate for flight to DIA
• Flies DIA - ATL in narrow body making a few bathroom trips up and down aircraft and waiting in line for lav to be available
• Arrives ATL and joins crowds in concourse and goes to crowded airline lounge waiting for 2 hours for flight to MIA
• Flies ATL - MIA for conference leaves crowded MIA and goes by bus to hire car then to conference resort hotel for 'meet and greet' with 1000 conference attendees
• After 2 days in conference flies MIA - ATL - LGA same crowded concourses and goes home
• Next day wakes up with what could be a cold.....

Yes you can possibly trace the flights - but how many did our notional 'patient zero' actually manage to pass the infection to- not only on the flights? How many did they manage to pass the infection to 2 days after they were infected until they realized they were sick? Imagine a couple of immigration border protection officers that are infective handling hundreds of passports a day and giving them back.
This is the reason for the world being a little on edge. The spread of a modern equivalent to the 1918 'Spanish Flu' would be infinitely faster and further. A lot depends on how infectious the disease is, some diseases need less than 10 infectious particles others require thousands.

Now you know the reason for the panic

Depends on how long PAX manifests are stored. Given that Germany plans within the next 24h
make a mandatory store of such manifests for 30 days ... well, not very long so far (likely also short due to GPDR)

How comforting. :(

But it really comes down to what happens with pax (and flight crew!) upon approach/landing. If the past travel record is available for every single person on board a flight, why even let them disembark into the terminal??

We could cordon them off and put them into quarantine!

No facilities? I call BS - given the will, the developed countries are more than able to "seize" hotel complexes (owner will be reimbursed) to house people for quarantine purposes.

The only other option would be to ban entry from the most afflicted areas - but that still requires tracking of previous movements/locations of the people.

I have the impression our governments are are f***ing doing s*it to try to stop the spread.

And it is not just about spread & lethality - widespread fear and panic is enough to render our highly developed societies inoperable. When people don't come to work....supply chains, power generation, sanitation, etc... all go to sh*t. In a snap.

I fear people, especially those in responsible positions, have NO idea how dangerous this situation is.

G.

They have plenty of idea - there's no shortage of data.

It's basically of the same order of magnitude of danger (transmissibility and mortality) as influenza. Flu kills thousands of people every year in Germany. Why don't you panic about that instead?

Sadly, the spread of this virus worldwide(major cities etc) is inevitable due to it's nature and the interconnectivity of modern life. As mentioned above, it seems to be for the most part unpleasant, but not deadly. That said, if there are underlying health issues then the mortality rate would climb. Practice good and sensible hygiene when out and about and don't stress yourself overly as this won't help and might well hinder as it surpasses the immune system.

@Paul852 Quite simple: Because we have "herd immunity" (and vaccination) to the common flu. Sure, it wipes out large numbers of people every year. People that (for the most cases) are pretty close to their end anyhow.

A new virus is vastly different. Do your research. I did.

G.

Combine threads?
 

Time to combine with the Funneling thread?
Arguments match up.

I would love to see any data which shows that this virus is killing anyone other than old, chronically ill, or otheriwse immuno-compromised patients.

Got any sources as a result of your research?

It's killed one of the medical staff, presumably healthy.

This is basically flu, but one that could kill tens of millions, because thats what flu can do.

How about if the notional patient toured around China via car or train, possibly passing through Wuhan en route and then left China via Shanghai or Canton etc? What travel records would there then be?
Although this new virus is not identical to SARS, it has enough similarities to make comparisons valid. And SARS, after all the panic and hysteria that accompanied it, finished up with 8,900 cases and a 9.6% fatality rate. Which is not exactly world ending.

It seems that where Influenza has a mortality rate of 0.1% initial assessments of Coronavirus are 3% the infectiousness may also be higher - Spanish Flu of 1918 had mortality rate of 2,5% so lower than the assessment for this Coronavirus. All figures are still being assessed and the actual numbers infected is difficult to assess as the symptoms are not clear cut. It could be as or more severe as 1918 - nobody knows as yet. But the Chinese are building a couple of hospitals in less than 10 days - so they think it is serious and not just another influenza variant.

See Homeland Security Site - Wuhan novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)

@Paul852 Data on the current outbreak is both sparse and questionable, considering the source.

The general difference between outbreaks of a previously unknown virus and other known ones (even if mutated) is very well understood in epidemiology.
As to the lethality of the new virus: We simply don't know enough. A new strain is bound to wipe out the infirm and old first, and quickly. But what about the healthy population? Again, we don't know yet. However, going from the Chinese official figures, it appears that the ratio between death and healed are about 2:1, at best 1: 1. That does not forebode well.

But at this point in time, it is quite speculative. However, even if mortality is low, the unprecedented infectiousness (spread) of the virus alone makes it extremely dangerous. The new virus (just going by Chinese official numbers) has infected more people in 10 days than SARS in 6 months.

And very renowned institutes in Hong Kong, the UK, Canada, Australia and elsewhere estimate that the real numbers are likely 10 times as high as the officially reported ones. And you still think this is under control?

And why, for god's sake, don't we implement strict travel restrictions? Some countries have. North Korea, Mongolia, Hong Kong and some others. (Often hidden behind "We don't issue visas anymore)".

Even if (my) fears are exaggerated, is it not better to err on the safe side?

G.

Here is a case of a person who never traveled to China.

Japan confirms coronavirus in man who hadn't been to China https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/japan-...hina-1.4786760

Japanese authorities said Tuesday a man with no recent travel to China has contracted the novel strain of coronavirus -- apparently after driving tourists visiting from Wuhan, where a deadly outbreak began.

The man in his sixties from Nara in western Japan drove two groups of Wuhan tourists earlier in January and was hospitalised on Saturday with flu-like symptoms, the health ministry said.

@Longtimer Not the first case. The one reported German case is a guy who has not been to China, but contracted the virus from a Chinese woman from Shanghai during a company education/training in Germany.

She had previously met with people from the most afflicted areas. So, we already have evidence of a multiple-step transmission chain. In a single case - and how many other cases did they not catch at this point in time?

I presume there are already 100eds, if not 1000ands of people infected in Germany alone.

G.

You are confusing the mortality rate of all those known to be infected with that of those hospitalised. For the current flu season in the USA for example, hospitalisations are running at about 55,000 and deaths at about 2900. So the mortality rate amongst those hospitalized with flu is approximately 5.2%.

It was also reported that the woman was from Shanghai, but was visited by her parents from the Wuhan region before she left. In addition, she did not have any symptoms until the return flight. If this is all true then it's unlikely that the spread can be halted unless the virus peters out like influenza in Spring.

It's under control to exactly the same extent that influenza is (i.e. not at all). We don't lock down countries for that but it kills hundreds of thousands of people a year.

Lest we forget, most of the otherwise healthy people who died with SARS in Hong Kong at least were killed by the "treatment", not by the disease. Professor Yuen Kwok-Yung (the head of microbiology at HKU then and now) is on record (South China Morning Post, 9 May 2003) as saying: "most SARS patients died because of the serious side-effects of the steroids".

I hope that he has learnt his lesson from that. But I fear not.