My name is Poker, and I am a possible super-spreader.
In fact, many conference attendees are. We fly in to work, meet many people, then fly out carrying a microscopic souvenir to some other meeting or conference. The transmission of Covid-2019 in a Singapore Grand Hyatt hotel (see: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51480613 ) works quite similarly to the yearly "conference season" viruses plaguing each Annual Meeting.
If the media and social-media weren't so hyperstimulated, this reminder post would be entirely unnecessary. The risks are tiny. T-i-n-y. However, it also compounds with just how globalised our lives have become. Even as a bog-standard ex-postdoc, my detailed travel over the last month looks like this:
Sydney → Taipei → Sydney → Lorne → San Diego.
One Chinese new year holiday and two conferences, just as countries begin to ban travel to mainland China. There would be a fair few attendees who would have similarly flown past a secondary site not (yet) banned for travel. Our lack of precise knowledge on transmission mechanisms, virulence, and actual extent should justify some increased level of caution.
Therefore, I have added alcohol sanitizers to my luggage and a regular phone reminder to (A) use it, and (B) keep a little distance. I don't currently believe Covid-2019 transmits asymptomatically, but would invite any virologists to correct me at #bps20. In any case, as was said to me by a masked tea merchant who was in Beijing over Christmas [translated]: "This is my responsibility to you, and as an act of respect." As someone who has traveled frequently and has infected his husband while possessing almost-zero symptoms, it is my duty.
Given how fast Cryo-EM is taking over the structual biology world, I'm half-expecting a surprise announcement at some random session next week. Keep watch of the Twitter sphere. Listen attentively to conversations (at arms length), and maybe there'll be some exciting news coming our way.
Until the structure of a complete Covid-2019 virus emerges, however, I'll be replacing its image with the beauiful beast headlining this post: the Australian Magie. (Image credits to Fir0002/Flagstaffotos under CC-BY-NC). Sample of its songs abound on the internet: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oYEYc8Ge3nw