Coronavirus - Major Security Flaw

The day to day of any security professional is understanding risk and finding effective ways to mitigate those risks. In short, the higher the risk the more extreme the risk mitigation measures should be. A consequence of this line of work is habitually applying this thinking in all areas.

I was struck and rather concerned about what I perceive to be a major security flaw in the containment of the new Coronavirus discovered in Wuhan, China. A virus previously unknown to humans with a serious complication rate of ~ 10%.

At the time of writing Beijing has been put on lockdown in an attempt to either prevent the virus from entering the capital or prevent it from leaving, the former being the most likely scenario. Information is also coming out that the transmission rate of the virus is thought to be quite high.

We now know that the incubation period of the virus is thought to be between 1 and 14 days before any symptoms appear such as fever, vomiting or flu like symptoms. The critical piece of information which has come out is that carriers of the virus are infectious during the incubation period. This is extremely important.

The virus containment measures being put in place at Wuhan Airport (still operational) and international airports with flights coming from Wuhan Airport is to read the temperature of passengers in order to identify anyone with a fever. They can then be stopped and quarantined during tests.

We know however that these measures will not identify anyone infected with this particular virus whilst its in its incubation period, they will pass through undetected whilst still carrying the virus and potentially infecting those around them for up to 14 days. The risk mitigation measures are therefore wholly insufficient considering the risks at play.

Knowing this seemingly major flaw I do wonder why we still have flights coming and going from this area and why the WHO haven't declared this an international emergency. I suspect that the World Health Organisation are thinking more like the World Trade Organisation and concern for the economic impact of declaring such an emergency would have.

I am however always reminded of the old saying "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure".