well one welcome it's Saturday the 22nd
of February 2020 and a warm welcome to
the video I was hoping not to have to
make because I do conclude now that we
are in the opening stages of a pandemic
of covered 19 but don't take my word
that's not some sources to see what the
evidence is now the World Health
Organization are concerned about the
number of increasing cases with no
obvious epidemiological link now what
this means is in the past it's been
possible to say well he went to WHO
Bayon met someone who from Peking and
well he he met someone from from Wuhan
or someone from Wuhan flew to Singapore
who met someone from England who flew
back to England those links were
possible to make but now those links
often can't be made so that means
there's infected people who don't know
how they got infected and to me this
means there's now self-sustaining
community spread of the virus that
people are just passing it to each other
within communities and don't know where
the infectious sauce was and the
infectious sauce can no longer be
related back to the epicenter of the
epidemic that's me saying that the World
Health Organization are saying window of
opportunity to stop the spread of cough
in 19 is narrowing that is their turn of
phrase this morning it is narrowing the
u.s. crisis management team has been
activated by the World Health
Organization and all countries are told
by the World Health Organization to
invest seriously to prepare for the
arrival of covered 19 so a lot of that
is is pretty concerning and the World
Health Organization of course have been
gross under status and yet they're
talking in these terms
now there's been quite a few new cases
in Italy with 30 confirmed cases in
Italy southern Europe South Korea now
South Korea yesterday at 206 cases and
today they have 433 cases so it's more
than doubled overnight largely but not
all centered on the city of Daegu there
are cases in many Korean provinces and
this religious group that seemed to
spread it a lot to begin with a thousand
people from that group now have symptoms
and ourself isolating and at home that's
a lot of people they haven't all been
tested yet and has also been rapid
spread in a hospital in South Korea now
one of the things that have been
expressing concern about for a couple of
weeks now is spread in institutions such
as hospitals and prisons and
unfortunately we are starting to see
that now now Japan cases are also
increasing 109 confirmed cases in
different parts of Japan in addition to
the 643 cases from the diamond princess
that we already knew about which we
talked about yesterday
now the situation in Africa one
confirmed case in Africa in Egypt but
the World Health Organization have been
rushing test kits and personal
protective equipment to various African
countries and The Lancet have identified
medical journal The Lancet and
identified priority areas in Africa so
what this paper did was they looked at
the countries in Africa which have the
most connectivity to China the most
flights and the most people going back
and forward in Egypt Algeria and South
Africa came out on top so they're the
highest importation risk moderate
importation risk they say Nigeria
Ethiopia Sudan Angola
Tanzania Ghana
Kenya now I must say Ethiopia has got a
lot of regular flights between China and
Ethiopia via addis ababa
um so I would put Ethiopia up here
myself but um this is where The Lancet
article had put it so I was listening to
the head of Ethiopian Airlines this
morning on the news and he said they're
still flying regularly to China and back
because the World Health Organization
have told them it's okay to do so and
given that there's no health concerns in
the view of this airline executive he
would operate in commercial interests of
the airline this sort of thinking
terrifies me I don't know about you but
basically what the airlines are doing is
the maximum the World Health
Organization lets them get away with
well if you Theo pian airline said they
were working so it said they were
operating in the commercial interests of
the airline so really I do feel it's
time further
w-h-o to tighten that up but um
basically we can expect to see cases in
all of those African countries
unfortunately I'm just before I leave
this page you'll be glad to hear there's
no cases at all in North Korea
absolutely none not one case if you want
to believe that we have good evidence
that is not true
Hong Kong 68 new confirmed cases again
clusters in more than one prison in Hong
Kong which is concerning again this
institutional spread is a concern now
Iran Chinese construction worker went to
Coombe started some infection there the
Combe city is virtually shut down but
Combe city is a site of pilgrimage
there's a lot of people coming and going
18 to 28 cases officially in Iran five
to 13 deaths now the reason I put this
- preparing oars this is like official
news here that bit after this it's me
I'm gonna tell you why it's me I've been
in communication with a few people from
Iran who've been talking to me and they
are very concerned about the situation
in the great country of Iran they're
very concerned and it's been reported to
me that there's more deaths than this is
it by people who know report the many
more deaths than this from respite or
distress as you would expect and viral
myocarditis now my Oh heart my oh my oh
card iam is that my o is actually the
heart muscle the myocardium card heart
itis inflammation of so inflammation of
the heart muscle this big pumping muscle
in the heart so viral myocarditis now
the problem is with viral myocarditis is
it can damage the heart muscle so for
example there's a well known virus that
damages the heart muscle called
coxsackievirus and it can damage the
heart muscle quite severely so when I
read viral myocarditis that's that
concerned me I've been told the 700 750
suspected cases in around and I've been
told that six major cities are involved
again this is not official this is from
my contacts directly in Iran I've also
been told by my Iranian people that
doctors are surprised at the speed of
action with rapid clinical deterioration
so they're saying that patients are
deteriorating quite rapidly within a few
hours so it's looking like for some
reason the Iranian doctors are seeing a
high a high virulence presentation of
the covered 19 in Iran for some reason
and they're also saying that the case
fatality rate is much higher than the
Chinese 2 percent can't put a figure on
that just now but they are concerned
that is much higher than the 2
in China and one of my contacts in Iran
I said there's terrible things going on
here please tell the world no I have no
idea this is what people are emailing me
from around and that's the direct quote
I was asked to please tell the world
from this person in Iran now of course
in Iran at the moment is election time
so it's inconvenient travel infection so
the government aren't really closing
much down although we know that six
major cities it's been reported to me
that six major cities are are involved
and although Iran is a very advanced
country scientifically in many ways
there is a lack of medical facilities
there apparently so bit of a mystery the
situation in Iran but I'm getting emails
of great concern from people in in that
country now here's a direct quote from
our NHS website put it in quote marks
our world-class NHS is well-prepared
there you go we are well-prepared and we
are doing everything we can to protect
the public now it kind of questioned
this second bit we're doing everything
we can to protect the public a question
that a bit but this is a statement from
a presumably a highly paid official in
the NHS it's on the NHS website but
we're well prepared apparently so they
go nothing to worry about now last year
I was working on the local A&E
department and very often we were
prepared for a Monday morning and if
there was a few cases of chest
infections or influenza we weren't but
we were struggling very much struggling
the idea that there could be an epidemic
of coughing 19 on top of that and that
were well per day for this is absolute
nonsense so how can we criticise North
korea-china he ran for not telling us
the whole truth if the official voice of
the UK government is telling me that we
are well prepared to deal with
what it means is the complications of
potentially thousands of people getting
sick all at the same time we are not
well prepared for that and I quite like
to have a word with whoever wrote that
but there you go