"Factors such as population growth, human migration, international travel, wars and political unrest, poverty and changes linked to social and economic development are all of critical importance."

That truly is the crux of the matter. We have been sold the "global village view" of the world without ANY understanding of the consequences. Combined with our use and faith in anti-biotics and ignorance of the endless mutation capacity of viruses we have literally been asking for SARS, corona and more to come.

Mind you which is worse, a real virus or the virus of misinformation over climate change cultism. Perhaps more spent on the social and medical management of such outbreaks, and less on the climate change gravy train, we might get a better return for our taxes.

The current virus is down to China. If we hadn't sucked up to the Communist dictatorship for the sake of money, Australia would not have had to worry about such things.

Wuhan is an industrial city, not a tourist attraction, so the people involved in the threat to Australia are Chinese, not Australian tourists. Reports on 'Australians' affected is guff; they are Chinese immigrants and students.

The modern trend of mass immigration between countries with different attitudes to health, humanity and ethics is completely unnatural and dangerous to Western countries. We can thank the stupidity and greed of our politicians for threats we now face from globalisation, needless immigration, and the consequent fall in standards of health and safety in Australia.

In Perth,a child has arrived from Singapore with measles. While there is the slightest chance that foreign arrivals will bring disease to Australia, our borders should be closed.

When our kind first walked upright around 1.5 million years ago, the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere was around 51% It's less than half that now.

Some countries still sterilise their drinking water with oxygen as this also kills most of the nasty pathogens as does UV. Most viruses can only survive for minutes without a host and don't do well when exposed simultaneously to pure oxygen and UV outside a host!!

I contend that the treatment regime for all these viral infections needs to include treatment in a hyperbaric chamber with at least 3 atmospheres. And pure oxygen delivered directly to the patient via a face mask. They can be shaded so the treatment room can be saturated with black light/UV! And staff can be suitably attired so as to protect them from overexposure! Hats, gloves etc.

All the other standard ops and treatment, hydration etc, can continue uninterrupted if we utilise robotics and automation.

What our super-intelligent leaders, geniuses one and all, is, we need to reoxygenate the entire planet, by cultivating more trees and putting broad-scale irrigation into our most arid regions! And transitioning to carbon-free fuels/energy, i.e., MSR thorium nuclear power!

Yes I know that's not possible, nor is manned flight or putting a man on the moon! Or going faster than the speed of sound. Or the speed of light!

So many things are impossible and as distant as someone conquering Mount Everest!

I dare say that would have been less difficult when the percentage of oxygen in the atmosphere was 51%.

We need to understand that oxygen is implicated in all healing and if a hyperbaric chamber is not complete isolation then what is!?
Alan B.

SARS killed about 800 people world wide. Eight in the USA.

Coronavirus has so far killed around 150.

This season over 8000 people died from influenza in the US alone. Estimates are around half-million deaths per year world-wide.

Get a grip folks. Its a problem to be addressed, not a disaster to go to water over.

Still it helps to fill the papers now that the bushfires are controlled.

Could this Corona Virus possibly be modified to attack stupidity ? It would solve the overpopulation problem !

ManBearPig had to come into it didn't it.

Anyway, "Will we ever eliminate infectious disease?". My opinion, nope! Probably be our ultimate end if we did. Like the old saying, What doesn't kill us makes us stronger.

Frustrating that we can't really trust any information we're fed anymore. Boy who cried wolf effect.

My expectation with this one's that with quarantining effort it'll peter out like they usually do.

Jamo,

What've ya got against Peter? I'm not even aware he's got the coronavirus - he denied it three times.....Corona Beer, yes: virus nup.

Apparently there are more cases of influenza than the current outbreak.
David

Most viruses don't kill anyone, just make a few of us sick. This is one of those that do kill and do so without warning!

The fact that this particular virus was transferred from another species and can also transfer from human contact and from a seemingly healthy host!

Is what makes it a danger not to be taken too lightly by folk with no acquired immunity, i.e., all commenting here and making light of a problem not yet theirs.

Although it could be, some of it has already breached our alleged quarantine and is moving among us. And in folk with no apparent symptoms! That's what makes this one extremely dangerous!

If you feel unwell or are running a fever, don't tough it out, go and get checked out!
Alan B.

Just went and googled 'peter out'

The history of the world clearly displays that when ever any organism becomes completely dominant within any environment, something will come along and control it's numbers by using it as food. This has always been the case of every situation where plantations of cotton, oranges, or any other useful crop is planted in very large numbers in concentrated areas. There are antibodies to everything.

It can be said that the planet is now hideously over populated by humans, and if we take the earth as the victim, you could say that humans are the disease that is killing it. But sooner or later, some pathogen is going to take advantage of human numbers and use us as food. You could say that humans are the disease, and pathogens are the antibodies to that ever expanding disease.

The conditions are now just right for the introduction of a new sort of Black Death. In California, once considered one of the most fortunate states in the world, overpopulation is causing widespread homelessness leading to the streets of it's most prominent cities being littered with human faeces, with a growing rat population.

Throw in international air travel where people from very backward countries where human pathogens are still undiscovered, can come and go into advanced societies, and the human race is walking a tightrope. It is only a matter of time before we fall off.

According to the book "The Coming Plague", one such example of a previously unknown virus is instructive. It was known in Africa that a certain breed of very small monkeys inhabited ideal monkey habitats, and the question arose as to why bigger monkey species did not drive them out? It happens that these little monkeys are carriers of a monkey specific cancer that is airborne, and all a little monkey has to do is breath upon a larger monkey and it will quickly die of cancer.

If a little monkey like that ever breathes into the face of a human with a weakened immune system caused by AIDs, that disease could become transgenic, and woe shall betide us

"The fact that nearly three quarters of all emerging infectious diseases originate in the animal kingdom is still not fully appreciated"
Is the figure really that low? Where do the other quarter come from?

will infections continue to dominate?
The infectious transmission of stupidity will not abate !