Given that Sydney has more Chinese than any other city outside of China, Taiwan and the SARs, and that it's Chinese are highly mobile in travelling between China and Australia, will Sydney become Australia's 'Wuhan' for a major outbreak of the deadly coronavirus?

I am avoiding travel on public transport and wearing a mask if I must, not eating in Chinese restaurants and cafes or places where Chinese are handling food, and avoiding public places like shopping malls, libraries, movies, etc.

>Given that Sydney has more Chinese than any other city outside of China, Taiwan and the SARs,
So you're starting with a false premise. Sydney's Chinese population is nowhere near that of Singapore.

>and that it's Chinese are highly mobile in travelling between China and Australia,
>will Sydney become Australia's 'Wuhan' for a major outbreak of the deadly coronavirus?
No. They're doing a pretty good job of stopping the spread. Meanwhile a vaccine will be developed soon.

Aidan,

OK, let's rephrase the opening line to read: "Given that Sydney has more Chinese than any other city outside of China, Taiwan and the SARs, and Singapore ........"

Regards your second comment I would say it's early days yet. Last I heard Australia has the same number of cases as the US which should be ringing some bells given that the US outnumbers us almost 14 to 1.

I also heard a rumor that Germany actually had developed a vaccine for this sort of virus some years ago and had offered to make it available to China but the Chinese refused to pay for it.

It doesn't seem to worry you so am I right to assume you will be visiting places where lots of Chinese hang out. I suppose you're sold on that old Aussie expression: 'It'll be alright mate, don't worry about it!"

Just a note, since the outbreak of the coronavirus about 5,000 people have been arriving at Sydney airport from China each day.

The symptoms take about 2 weeks to show up and the virus can be passed from person to person within that period when symptoms are not noticeable (apparently they don't actually understand how it is passed from person to person.)

I just watched statements from the NSW health minister and the NSW chief health officer on TV news and it appeared to me that they had different views on the level of danger presented to the community. Seeing that didn't fill me with confidence that they have it under control!

I've just heard of an alleged leak by a nurse caught inside Wuhan that things are much worse than the images and figures the Chinese government is releasing to the rest of the world. Apparently it is catastrophic with people collapsing everywhere and dying in much larger numbers and medical facilities totally inadequate to cope with the situation.

Has anyone blamed Donald Trump yet?

And straight out of left field...runner, scoring for the winning team, as he places
the ball between the "posts"...

Dan

I wonder if that hospital to be built in one week in Wuhan might actually turn out to really be a crematorium to get rid of the corpses infected with the coronavirus: kill two birds with one stone so to speak.

runner and diver dan,

Am I right in thinking that both of you have a plentiful supply of The Wiggles in your DVD collections?

Mr O you are an ignorant, insulting and stupid person. This whole thread of yours is nonsense and you know it. The Chinese are everywhere and to try and attach it to Sydney, for good or ill is just juvenile.
I assume you do this to wind people up so rest assured you will never see any reply from me again.

I second that. Just go away OPIN.

Other countries have many more Chinese than Australia. http://www.statista.com/statistics/279530/countries-with-the-largest-number-of-overseas-chinese/.

In the 2016 census 1,213,903 people (5.6%) identified as being of Chinese descent. Two in five (41 per cent) were born in China, with Australia the second most common country of birth (25 per cent); Malaysia (8.0 per cent), Hong Kong (6.5 per cent). Of those born in Australia, many have Chinese ancestry back to the 1850s gold rushes. If you met these Australians today you wouldn't guess this unless they told you.

The ABS’s most recent Estimated Resident Population figures suggest Sydney has 526,040 residents born in China, in a total of about 5 million; so about 1/10th.

But will Australia become another Wuhan?

No. Wuhan (11 million people) is the origin of the virus; it's unclear how long it's been around, and how many people may have been infected; but clearly this is in the thousands. Sydney is not the origin, so the virus has to get here from China. Given that just a handful of people have tested positive in Australia, it is known that they brought the virus from China, they are in quarantine, there are checks on all arriving passengers from China, we can be confident that Sydney will not be a centre for expansion of the virus as Wuhan has been. We have always been ahead of the world in quarantine control of diseases so we are safer than most countries with overseas Chinese population and tourism (the latter of course has shrunk because of this).

Why does Australia have the same or more cases than the US? Since in both cases the numbers are under ten, the difference is probably not statistically significant. Also, we have a lot of recent or temporary Chinese residents in Australia, a large number of whom would have gone back to China for the New Year Festival to see family. This explains why there were so many children from Australia in Wuhan; they were visiting grand-parents.

It's disappointing (I'm being polite) that this serious medical situation is being used to promote anti-Chinese sentiment via unproven rumours and innuendo.

Not to worry. Our vigilant health officers are handing out leaflets at airports. They are also saying it's OK for kids to go to school or university. To hell with the 14 day incubation period! When you've infected everyone else, just amble in to a hospital.

Of all our incompetent government departments, Health must be among the top five worse. At least two private schools in Adelaide have ignored that advice, and banned any students who have been ANYWHERE China for the school holidays.

We've heard all about 'Australians' infected or not, but just how many real Australians have been holidaying in this little-known Chinese city.

But will Australia become another Wuhan?
Cossomby,
Hopefully not but it appears to be already the Wuhan of the world in matters of Leftism !

Cossomby,

Thanks for those figures. So if 1/10 of Sydney's population was born in China then we could probably make a guess that another 1/10 Chinese were born here. That would make 2/10 people in Sydney are Chinese.

From my own observations travelling on public transport, shopping in malls, and just generally numbers around the CBD and my own local area, I would put that figure higher, say up to 5/10.

But having high numbers within the city is not a threat unless they have been and still are travelling between Sydney and China. And that figure appears to be about 10,000 people travelling between Sydney and China (5000 leaving, 5000 arriving) each day. If just ONE of these people is an asymptomatic carrier then it will pose a threat because that one person could within a matter of days spread the coronavirus to hundreds of people who each in turn if consequently affected could each spread it to another hundred people and so on.

Here's a couple of data from today:

In China
20 Jan: 500 infected
24 Jan: 1000 infected (doubled in 4 days)
27 Jan: 4500 infected (4.5x in 3 days)
That's quite a rapid rate of exponential growth in infections over a week.

In the US
5 people tested positive.
110 people under surveillance across 26 states
NO PERSON-TO-PERSON TRANSMISSION

From these figures I get the impression that the virus spreads very rapidly and is hard to detect because the inital carriers are asymptomatic.

But according to JBowyer and Bazz we don't have anything to worry about. So why don't we just leave it all in their capable hands.

PS If a major outbreak in Sydney happens it will be interesting to see how many Liberal politicians start going on holidays to Hawaii.

Our borders should be closed as long as people with much lower standards than ours are likely to bring their diseases here.

Morrison has announced that 'Australians' coming here from Wuhan will be quarantined on Christmas Island. He probably meant Chinese coming here, or returning here, will be quarantined on Christmas Island.

Hey Aiden,
"Meanwhile a vaccine will be developed soon."

http://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2020/01/26/vaccine-for-the-china-virus-the-planet-is-the-guinea-pig-for-a-vast-experiment/

http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-h1n1-swine-flu-pandemic-manipulating-the-data-to-justify-a-worldwide-public-health-emergency/14901

Here's a good map showing current spread of coronavirus,

http://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2020-wuhan-novel-coronavirus-outbreak/

Interesting to see how intensely it has spread across China in just over a week. Won't be long before the entire country is dark red and China is to the world what Wuhan is to China ie China will become the epicentre for a global pandemic.

Perhaps this Virus will stop the Chinese spread ?

individual,

China has lost the battle to contain the coronavirus and it is now spreading around the world.

I assume you heard the news this morning where WHO has declared a global pandemic.

When I posited the question 'Will Sydney become another Wuhan?' I was considering the situation in which Sydney has an outbreak of the coronavirus. This has not happened as yet and can probably be averted if Australia takes action immediately.

But I doubt if adequate action will happen because the Australian governments depend on a steady supply of cashed-up Chinese coming into the country to keep the Australian economy afloat. If the cashed-up Chinese stop coming the Australian economy will take a nosedive.

Good old SBS has come up with a story about 'racism' against Chinese because of the virus. All hearsay, as usual, no proof. They are even calling this real, imagined or, more likely, invented, situation 'Sinophobia', adding another simple to use term of abuse against white people, along with Islamophobia and all the other phobias we are supposed to be guilty of.

Does it matter what happens in todays Sydney?

After all there are so few fair dinkum Ozzies left in the place, it is doubtful we can truly say it is part of Australia

Hasbeen,

If it wasn't for that fact I wouldn't be able to enjoy playing Spot The Aussie on the train. So there is some benefit in Sydney being a highly multifunctional society.

Well folks,

Something just happened that I didn't think would happen.

Scott Morrison has just banned Chinese from mainland China from entering Australia unless they are Australian citizens, Australian dependents (which I assume means permanent residents, etc.), or spouses of the former.

Well I didn't see that one coming!

Scott Morrison putting the public interest before economic policy. What next, state-of-the-art public health and education and rapid public transport. There truly must be a God!

The measures imposed yesterday are necessary but I really have reservations that given the extensive numbers of Chinese in Sydney it will be sufficient to prevent an outbreak of coronavirus.

Who knows how many asymptomatic carriers have been able to slip under the radar and have been transmitting the virus across the city.

The asymptomatic carrier never gets sick but everyone around him or her starts dropping like flies. We can only wait and see.

https://www.spatialsource.com.au/latest-news/gridded-population-of-the-world-gpwv4-now-available

For those interested in following the spread of the coronavirus I recommend the Wikipedia link below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019–20_Wuhan_coronavirus_outbreak

My fear is that asymptomatic carriers will slip under the radar and we will end up with an outbreak in Sydney. Just imagine the consequence of having a carrier who cannot be detected because they don't get the symptoms themselves roaming around the city infecting everyone he/she comes in contact with. Maybe this is part of the problem in China, with a virtual handful of asymptomatic carriers who are 'invisible' to the authorities.