So the US share of that 2 billion people would be 4.3%(our population compared to the rest of the world) That's about 86 million. For comparison about 45 million people were infected with the flu in 2018. So Coronavirus will barely be noticeable. So lets turn off the panic button until the numbers are 1/100th the numbers of the flu or 450 times higher than now. Then we can raise an eyebrow.
As of now there are 56 million people under quarantine in China. All outbound international flights from China will be cancelled starting Monday. How does that work? In the US, cities have about 3 days worth of groceries, medicine and fuel on-hand. Assuming a similar situation in Chinese cities how will those cities be supplied? It boggles the mind. As for our status here in North America, it is winter and quite a cold winter. It is certainly less likely to be epidemic here as is usually the case. Should this continue into the spring things might be different.
Why does it always have to come from China. Are they doing something in their bio labs and accidentally got leaked? Biological weapon labs?
No, they have a penchant for game meat. There are markets filled with strange bush meat like bats and snakes. They were just asking for it.
The bio lab thing is a definite factor but they also have other compounding factors. One is that historically they have had poor disease management among their livestock - swine, poultry etc so that is a breeding ground for more disease. Also, they eat a lot of animals - exotic and/or repugnant that are not consumed elsewhere so some diseases that developed in those animals get transmitted that way. Suppression of public information and trying to hide problems until the last minute is also definitely a compounding factor. That's where it helpful to Americans and other open societies a bit if this gets out of hand, because the population can get pretty vicious when there are coverups. Also just having a very large population like China increases the odds of new things developing in that country- especially in the presence of poor sanitation. Los Angeles, I am looking at you.
Yeh, I was typing a similar comment below your post when you posted. Most likely we will be accused of making some kind of racist comments.
Chinese have the habit of eating wild animals. I saw a video of a man actually, eating live rats I kid you not. A lot of those wild animals including, ferrets, squirrels, etc. have viruses. Viruses are tougher to get rid of than mere bacteria. Antibiotics do not cure viruses although, can control bacteria. China needs to clean out its act. President Xi Ping must outlaw the practice. A huge problem is the infection and transfer of viruses since, this is airborne. Travelers from China are probably, spreading the Corona virus all over the world right now.
It won't matter. Consumption of bush meat in Africa is part of daily life for millions of people who literally depend on it to supply adequate protein to their diet. Most of the really bad viruses have come from Central Africa and trace to consumption of bush meat including Ebola and possibly HIV. Unless we plan on feeding a large portion of Africa there will be a continued problem. These viruses have popped up there for centuries but until the 20th century the means of travel to and from Africa took a great deal of time like steamships and overland travel and people would become sick and die in transit instead of arriving at distant destinations. The propagation vector necessary for epidemic was non-existent. An exception is the Spanish Flu but that is thought to have originated in Europe. As I mentioned, I think our winters protect us to a large degree. We seldom see secondary transmission in North America and there hasn't been a single case of secondary transmission here yet.