Coronavirus COVID-19 (a.k.a. 2019-nCoV) outbreak in China

[FreeLancer]

NYT:  C.D.C. Confirms First Possible Community Transmission of Coronavirus in U.S.

A person in California who was not exposed to anyone known to be infected with the coronavirus, and had not traveled to countries in which the virus is circulating, has tested positive for the infection.

It may be the first case of community spread in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday.

“At this point, the patient’s exposure is unknown,” the C.D.C. statement said. “The case was detected through the U.S. public health system and picked up by astute clinicians.”

It looks like our turn has come, and this is probably just the tip of the iceberg. 

If there's one, there's a hundred, because each infected person spreads it to 2 or 3 others.  Flu infections, in comparison, spreads to significantly less than 2 others.  Unfortunately, we don't have sufficient testing capacity at the community level right now because CDC's initial test kits were unreliable and are being redesigned. 


Contrary to what you may have heard today, the number of current US COVID infections today was not 15 nor is it going to zero anytime soon.

[mountainmoma]

NYT:  C.D.C. Confirms First Possible Community Transmission of Coronavirus in U.S.


It looks like our turn has come, and this is probably just the tip of the iceberg. 

If there's one, there's a hundred, because each infected person spreads it to 2 or 3 others.  Flu infections, in comparison, spreads to significantly less than 2 others.  Unfortunately, we don't have sufficient testing capacity at the community level right now because CDC's initial test kits were unreliable and are being redesigned. 


Contrary to what you may have heard today, the number of current US COVID infections today was not 15 nor is it going to zero anytime soon.

Yep, and my youngest, the attending college student here in CA now has some type of asthma thing going one, so has compromised lungs.  I am unhappy with doctors.  How do they know it is asthma ?  Arent there other things that cause lung problems ? How do they test ?  So far as I have seen there is no test, I know they have done no scan.  Breathing problems and cough respond to using an inhaler, ok, but not definitive.  At the office visit, wich didnt happen until yesterday, so when not having a bad episode the Dr tested flow or capacity or something ( just try and get sense or details out of a young adult) whatever it was was only 300, which is low and shows in general low lung capacity. 

Also, a young adult like this is not in tune or in the mood to hear about new virus's, so how can you try and talk to them about the risks of the new condition ?  Cant get the student to avoid things that trigger needing the inhaler.  The whole probable asthma and inhaler thing is 2 weeks old, 2 weeks ago was the urgent care trip where student was put in the front of the line due to low fingertip monitor O2 and given an inhaler.  Student continued to do physical activities resulting in continual daily use of the inhaler.  I swear the youth think they are invincible.  Then you throw in an emerging virus that likes to go to teh lower lungs.

[FreeLancer]

Italy resident describes living under coronavirus lockdown:  https://youtu.be/yUjEyxa-kZA

Leyla Bicer and her family live in Casalpusterlengo, a town southeast of Milan. Ten towns in the region of Lombardy are under lockdown, yet Bicer says residents are free to roam as they'd like — as long as they don't leave town. A 12th person in northern Italy died as a result of contracting the coronavirus, while the number of confirmed cases has risen to 374, the head of the Civil Protection agency said Wednesday.


Five days ago Italy had 20 cases and now they're approaching 500.

[LeonardMaine]

It spreads out quickly, Italy is a perfect example. But as long as people try to obey the rules (don't go out and enter into contact with others if they are suspected) everything should eventually tone down. Woefully, people don't ever listen and this is why the situation is escalating. I don't believe this is our end, however, but a lot of lives are affected and even lost over the ignorance of others who just don't listen to indications and roam around infecting others.

[Greekman]

The data is incomplete so we don’t have exact comparisons to flu. Of the people who test positive for COVID, about 1 in 5 has serious symptoms.  At this point the fatality rate is over 2%, but likely will come down, while flu is 0.1%.

FreeLancer are yuo sur about these figures..
I did a search for the flu's mortality rate in Greece and it is 0.1% for the total of the populace (9.7 deaths per 100000 people, infected or not)
And i think that the 2% fatality relates to the number of sick people

[Ken325]

The proper way to calculate mortality is by dividing deaths/ total infections AFTER the pandemic has ended.  A lot of people are doing that calculation now and are including people who were just infected.  This virus has a 2-3 week incubation period and is spreading exponentially. This means a lot of people who were just infected are included in the mortality figures people are quoting.  If you look at resolved cases (fully recovered or dead) you see about a 10% mortality rate.

[FreeLancer]

FreeLancer are yuo sur about these figures..
I did a search for the flu's mortality rate in Greece and it is 0.1% for the total of the populace (9.7 deaths per 100000 people, infected or not)
And i think that the 2% fatality relates to the number of sick people

The 0.1% case fatality rate for flu is a firm rate, 1 out of every 1000 infections dies.

Nothing is firm with COVID at this point.

[FreeLancer]

The proper way to calculate mortality is by dividing deaths/ total infections AFTER the pandemic has ended.  A lot of people are doing that calculation now and are including people who were just infected.  This virus has a 2-3 week incubation period and is spreading exponentially. This means a lot of people who were just infected are included in the mortality figures people are quoting.  If you look at resolved cases (fully recovered or dead) you see about a 10% mortality rate.

It’s also not clear how many mild or asymptomatic cases there are, like we have established with flu over the years, and we won’t know for awhile.

Regardless of what the true fatality rate is, it’s always worse when the hospital beds and ventilators run out. A 60 year old who could have easily survived this pneumonia with ICU treatment is going to die on a cot in medical isolation tent at the local fairgrounds instead.

[Mr. Bill]

NYT:  C.D.C. Confirms First Possible Community Transmission of Coronavirus in U.S.

More on this:

AP, 2/27/20: New US coronavirus case may be 1st from unknown origin

...California officials said the person is a resident of Solano County, northeast of San Francisco, and is getting medical care in Sacramento County. They said they have begun the process of tracking down people who the patient has been in contact with, a process known as contact tracing.

The patient was brought to UC Davis Medical Center from another Northern California hospital on Feb. 19 but it was four days before the CDC heeded a request to test the patient for COVID-19....

The patient arrived on a ventilator and special protection orders were issued “because of an undiagnosed and suspected viral condition,” according to the email sent to employees.

The hospital asked the CDC to test for the coronavirus but testing was delayed until Sunday “since the patient did not fit the existing CDC criteria for COVID-19,” the email said. ...

Something I'm wondering.  Has this virus been all over the world for months, and mistaken for a generic "influenza-like illness"?  Is it being detected in scattered locations now, only because they are finally testing for it?  This case would have been missed entirely, if somebody hadn't finally ignored the CDC testing guidelines.

[FreeLancer]

Something I'm wondering.  Has this virus been all over the world for months, and mistaken for a generic "influenza-like illness"?  Is it being detected in scattered locations now, only because they are finally testing for it?  This case would have been missed entirely, if somebody hadn't finally ignored the CDC testing guidelines.

It does make you wonder. 

[FreeLancer]

WaPo:  U.S. workers without protective gear assisted coronavirus evacuees, HHS whistleblower says

The complaint alleges HHS staffers were “improperly deployed” and were “not properly trained or equipped to operate in a public health emergency situation.” The complaint also alleges the workers were potentially exposed to coronavirus because appropriate steps were not taken to protect them and staffers were not trained in wearing personal protective equipment, even though they had face-to-face contact with returning passengers. The workers were in contact with passengers in an airplane hangar where evacuees were received and on two other occasions: when they helped distribute keys for room assignments and hand out colored ribbons for identification purposes.

In some instances, the teams were working alongside personnel from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in “full gown, gloves and hazmat attire,” the complaint said.

[IKN]

The wife saw a post this morning on Facebook about a confirmed case found in a dog who's owner was also diagnosed with the virus.
Anyone else see or hear anything ?

The post stated the dog didn't show any symptoms of being sick, but was carrying the virus.

[David in MN]

More on this:

AP, 2/27/20: New US coronavirus case may be 1st from unknown origin

Something I'm wondering.  Has this virus been all over the world for months, and mistaken for a generic "influenza-like illness"?  Is it being detected in scattered locations now, only because they are finally testing for it?  This case would have been missed entirely, if somebody hadn't finally ignored the CDC testing guidelines.

It did cross my mind. When you consider that some survivors liken it to a very mild flu how would one even know? Getting a flu during flu season is pretty humdrum, no? And I do wonder about the actual numbers. There are some weird aspects to this disease. It seems to hit men harder than women and hits ethnically Chinese people harder than ethnic Europeans. We don't know why it seems worse on Iranians than Brits as well. So if those of us with European ancestry shake it off like a bad cold there's almost no telling how long it's been floating around. Everybody gets sick from time to time and without the popularity how would medical personnel even know to look for it?

There are a lot of questions that bodies like the CDC are going to have to wade through in the aftermath in order to piece this puzzle together.

[FreeLancer]

CNBC:  Bill Gates: Coronavirus may be ‘once-in-a-century pathogen we’ve been worried about’

“I hope it’s not that bad, but we should assume it will be until we know otherwise,” Gates wrote in an article published Friday in The New England Journal of Medicine.

NEJM:  Responding to Covid-19 — A Once-in-a-Century Pandemic?

Now we also face an immediate crisis. In the past week, Covid-19 has started behaving a lot like the once-in-a-century pathogen we’ve been worried about. I hope it’s not that bad, but we should assume it will be until we know otherwise.

There are two reasons that Covid-19 is such a threat. First, it can kill healthy adults in addition to elderly people with existing health problems. The data so far suggest that the virus has a case fatality risk around 1%; this rate would make it many times more severe than typical seasonal influenza, putting it somewhere between the 1957 influenza pandemic (0.6%) and the 1918 influenza pandemic (2%).2

Second, Covid-19 is transmitted quite efficiently. The average infected person spreads the disease to two or three others — an exponential rate of increase. There is also strong evidence that it can be transmitted by people who are just mildly ill or even presymptomatic.3 That means Covid-19 will be much harder to contain than the Middle East respiratory syndrome or severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which were spread much less efficiently and only by symptomatic people. In fact, Covid-19 has already caused 10 times as many cases as SARS in a quarter of the time.

[FreeLancer]

NYT:  C.D.C. Confirms First Possible Community Transmission of Coronavirus in U.S.

Second unexplained case just announced in Northern California.

[FreeLancer]

NYT:  Government Eyes War Powers to Speed Medical Manufacturing Ahead of Virus

The Trump administration may use a 70-year-old law to speed up the manufacturing of medical supplies before a coronavirus outbreak, Alex M. Azar II, the health secretary, said on Friday, a seeming acknowledgment that the virus poses a threat beyond the reassurances of President Trump.

The Defense Production Act, passed by Congress in 1950 during the Korean War, allows the president to expand production of the materials for national security purposes. Mr. Azar said that the federal government could move to expedite certain contracts, including for supplies like face masks, gowns and gloves. Mr. Azar has said that 300 million of a type of mask known as N95 are needed for the emergency medical stockpile for health care workers.

“I don’t have any procurements I need it for now, but if I need it, we’ll use it,” Mr. Azar told reporters at a White House briefing on emergency funds that the White House is asking Congress to allocate to respond to the virus.

[FreeLancer]

WaPo:  ‘People are getting a little crazy’: Life in Italy’s coronavirus ‘red zone’

“We’re all going to get it,” said 22-year-old Claudia Ghidoni, sitting at a plastic table with two friends, the first time she’s been out of the house since Italian cases of covid-19 jumped last week.

Since then, life in parts of northern Italy has taken on a surreal air. Just across the furrowed fields from the bar in Santo Stefano Lodigiano, 40 miles southeast of Milan, more than 50,000 people live under lockdown in a quarantine area that stretches across 11 villages and towns.

A network of dozens of roadblocks staffed by police and soldiers keeps residents in and visitors out. Those who breach the quarantine zone are threatened with fines and jail time. The number of cases in the country surged this week to 800; there have been 21 deaths.

Elena Forvi, 36, an engineer from the village of Bertonico, said she panicked when the military arrived to set up roadblocks. “The last time we saw the army around these towns was the end of World War II,” she said. “I just felt useless, that I had no power over my freedom.”

The checkpoints have become handover points with the outside world. Some people come to give their relatives or friends gifts of cheese. Others hand over documents caught on the other side. One woman comes to collect special cat food dropped off by a friend.

Trucks and essential workers can pass through the barriers with the right paperwork.

In the first days of the quarantine, residents of nearby towns said some red-zone villagers would stroll out on country roads to buy a newspaper or go to a cafe.

But in recent days, more police have been deployed on back roads; the twinkling blue lights of police cars dot the horizon at dusk. Hay bales have been moved to block bicycle paths.

[FreeLancer]

Third community acquired case reported in Northern California.

[FreeLancer]

San Antonio just confirmed 11 cases.

[FreeLancer]

Oregon has a case with no travel or China connection.

This patient is a teacher in the Portland Metro area, hospitalized in Hillsboro.

[FreeLancer]

NYT:  Unexplained Coronavirus Cases in Three States Raise Specter of Spread

Troubling new signs that the coronavirus is spreading in the United States emerged on Friday, as cases not explained by overseas travel or contact with a person known to be infected were reported in California, Oregon and Washington State.

Officials from the three states announced that their testing had found new cases: a high school student from north of Seattle; an employee of an elementary school in Oregon, near Portland; and a woman in Santa Clara County, Calif., in the heart of Silicon Valley.

As word emerged of the unexplained cases, local officials scrambled to trace everyone who had come in contact with those who were ill. California health officials said they were increasing testing. And in Washington State, officials suggested that people needed to prepare for the possibility of schools closing and businesses keeping workers home.

“We’re going to be increasingly recommending that people try and avoid crowds and close contact with other people,” Dr. Jeff Duchin, health officer for Public Health Seattle & King County, said. “We may get to a point where we want to recommend canceling large public gatherings — social events, sporting events, entertainment — until we get over a hump of what might be a large outbreak.”

Emergency medical workers in San Jose who answer calls from people with coronavirus-like symptoms will now be instructed to wear protective clothing, he said. “We are going to need to take every reasonable precaution without resorting to panic or finger-pointing.”

For weeks, local and state health departments across the country have been stretched thin by the coronavirus outbreak, and the cases of unknown origin signaled a new front in their efforts. “Most public health departments can respond to one case or two cases,” Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, a public health professor at Johns Hopkins, said. “But it’s going to be many more than that.”

[iam4liberty]

We’re going to be increasingly recommending that people try and avoid crowds and close contact with other people,” Dr. Jeff Duchin, health officer for Public Health Seattle & King County, said. “We may get to a point where we want to recommend canceling large public gatherings — social events, sporting events, entertainment — until we get over a hump of what might be a large outbreak.”

Yrs.  I was at a conference this past week and one issue was the potentisl cancellation of the Olympic Games in Tokyo.  They have only been rarely cancelled as part of their culture is being a sign of hope even in most difficult times.  And it isnt really able to be moved or suspended given the incredible lead times needed to host 15,000 athletes and millions of tourists.

[iam4liberty]

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/north-korea-official-suspected-having-21488373
North Korea official suspected of having coronavirus 'shot dead for trip to public baths'
A trade official has reportedly been killed by a firing squad after defying coronavirus quarantine orders in the authoritarian Asian country, while a National Security Agency official was sent to work on a farm for similar offences

[FreeLancer]

Trump announced first death in the US, a woman in her 50’s in Seattle area with other chronic medical conditions. 

People with heart disease, diabetes, COPD, and immune suppressed conditions like cancer and treatment for rheumaltologic diseases are going to be at higher risk of contracting the pneumonia this virus is capable of.  Obviously the older one gets the chance of having one or more of these conditions increases. The good news is that kids aren’t dying from this, but they can certainly spread it to adults who could require hospitalization.

Take care of yourself and family members. Don’t expose anyone to unnecessary risk. Get lots of sleep. Stay in bed if you get upper respiratory symptoms. Don’t overdo it when you think you’ve recovered because there appears to be relapse or reinfection potential that is more severe than the first round.

[Greekman]

I stumbled on this channel in YT suggestions. The guy seems very legit and offers daily updates.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rOTz9duXwo

[LvsChant]

Thanks for sharing all this...  looks to be an interesting year.

[FreeLancer]

NYT:  How Prepared Is the U.S. for a Coronavirus Outbreak?

In 2005, the federal government sought to assess how a respiratory-related pandemic might play out in the United States. Its report estimated that a severe influenza pandemic would require mechanical ventilators for 740,000 critically ill people.

Today, as the country faces the possibility of a widespread outbreak of a new respiratory infection caused by the coronavirus, there are nowhere near that many ventilators, and most are already in use. Only about 62,000 full-featured ventilators were in hospitals across the country, a 2010 study found. More than 10,000 others are stored in the Strategic National Stockpile, a federal cache of supplies and medicines held in case of emergencies, according to Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, a former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Tens of thousands of other respiratory devices could be repurposed in an emergency, experts say, but the shortfall could be stark, potentially forcing doctors to make excruciating life-or-death decisions about who would get such help should hospitals become flooded with the desperately sick.

In plausible worst-case-scenarios given the pattern of the outbreak thus far, the country could experience acute shortages not just in ventilators but also health workers to operate them and care for patients; hospital beds; and masks and other protective equipment.

“Even during mild flu pandemics, most of our I.C.U.s are filled to the brim with severely ill patients on mechanical ventilation,” said Dr. Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and an expert on health care preparedness. “I hope and pray Covid-19 turns out to be a moderate pandemic, but if not, we’re in serious trouble,” he said, referring to the name given the disease caused by the virus.

Resources are concentrated in the most populous and wealthiest cities, leaving rural areas and other neglected communities exposed to greater risk. And public health experts worry that efforts to contain an outbreak could be hamstrung by budget cuts that have weakened state health departments.

China’s decision to quarantine tens of millions of its citizens raises questions about what kind of measures American authorities might adopt. Although public health experts in the United States say walling off entire cities and shutting down transport systems would most likely be counterproductive and do more harm than good, federal and state laws give governments the authority to limit civil liberties to protect the public health.

To help avert a severe epidemic, health officials are legally empowered to isolate the infected and those who had contact with them, restrain the sick if they resist treatment and close down whole institutions, from hospitals to churches.

In an extreme situation, some hospitals’ plans include provisions for rationing, even removing some patients from ventilators without requiring their consent to make way for others presumed to have a better chance of survival. Some plans would also limit the access of certain categories of patients from critical care or even hospitalization during a peak pandemic based on criteria such as their age or an underlying chronic disease.

Skilled nursing homes represent one of the greatest vulnerabilities in the health care system. They serve older adults and the infirm — the demographic most at risk from the coronavirus — and such facilities face particular challenges in stopping the spread of infection. Multiple studies have shown that germs spread easily in such places, partly because employees are overworked or poorly trained, and because the patients are so susceptible to infection.

Most major companies in the United States have said little about how they would respond to an outbreak, except to note their concern for the health and well-being of employees.

A spokeswoman for Amazon said the company was “watching this situation closely” but declined to comment on specific protocols. Representatives for several major banks, retailers and technology companies said they would look to the C.D.C. for guidance.

[FreeLancer]

Contrary to what you may have heard today, the number of current US COVID infections today was not 15 nor is it going to zero anytime soon.

WaPo:  Inside Trump’s frantic attempts to minimize the coronavirus crisis

Minutes before President Trump was preparing Wednesday to reassure a skittish nation about the coronavirus threat, he received a piece of crucial information: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had identified in California the first U.S. case of the illness not tied to foreign travel, a sign that the virus’s spread in the United States was likely to explode.

But when Trump took to the lectern for a news conference intended to bring transparency to the spiraling global crisis, he made no explicit mention of the California case and its implications — and falsely suggested the virus might soon be eradicated in the United States.

“And again, when you have 15 people — and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero — that’s a pretty good job we’ve done,” he said.

By the time he landed at Joint Base Andrews, Trump was already furious over what he considered an alarmist response by his administration and also thought he was being treated unfairly by the media. He was eager to inject his own voice into the unfolding drama and scheduled the White House news conference for Wednesday evening.

When Trump stepped in front of the cameras, “he had not slept for a day-and-a-half, two-and-a-half” days, as acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney told a gathering of conservatives Friday morning. The president offered an account that was, by turns, misleading and sanguine.

“Well, I don’t think it’s inevitable,” Trump said, contradicting Messonnier and the health officials who spoke after him Wednesday. “It probably will, it possibly will. It could be at a very small level or it could be at a larger level. Whatever happens, we’re totally prepared.”

The decision to tap Pence and streamline all communication through the vice president’s office was primarily driven by a potent combination of a lack of leadership and structure inside the White House, four senior officials said, as well as a faulty CDC coronavirus diagnostic test, botched and conflicting messaging from senior health officials, and Trump’s obsession with the falling financial markets, two senior administration officials said. Many HHS employees fretted that financial concerns, rather than public health considerations, were dictating the administration’s response, one of the officials added.

Trump only added to the uncertainty. During a meeting with African American leaders Thursday evening, the president offered a contradictory and ambiguous message about the virus.

“It’s going to disappear. One day — it’s like a miracle — it will disappear,” Trump said. “And from our shores, we — you know, it could get worse before it gets better. It could maybe go away. We’ll see what happens. Nobody really knows.”

And Trump held a long-standing campaign rally Friday in North Charleston, S.C., where he accused Democrats of “politicizing” the coronavirus.

“And this is their new hoax,” the president crowed from the stage.

As Trump was dismissing the virus as a serious threat, the infection continued spreading in the country. California officials Friday evening announced the state’s second case of coronavirus of unknown origin, and just hours later, a northwest Oregon resident tested positive for the virus.

[iam4liberty]

Trump wasn't dismissing the virus as a hoax, but rather the distortiins by the democrats.  Ironically, they have moved from criricizing the administration for having any checks at the border to now having too few.

https://apnews.com/d36d6c4de29f4d04beda3db00cb46104
AP FACT CHECK: Democrats distort coronavirus readiness

Democratic presidential contenders are describing the federal infectious-disease bureaucracy as rudderless and ill-prepared for the coronavirus threat because of budget cuts and ham-handed leadership by President Donald Trump. That’s a distorted picture.
...


https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-campaign-media-coronavirus-hoax.amp
Trump campaign blasts media for 'massively dishonest' claim POTUS called coronavirus a 'hoax'

"Trump says the media’s hysteria-inducing coverage of the government response is the hoax, not the virus itself. Willful and malicious dishonesty," Murtaugh said. He also blasted The Washington Post's Dana Milbank and commentator Bill Kristol arguing that their claims proved Trump's point about Democratic hysteria surrounding the illness.

[Carver]

Chris Wallace has come out as the forefront leader of the anti-Trump brigade stating that Trump's statement was ineffective in subduing the virus hysteria; is that something that a president can do, or is that in the lap of the media and maybe even a personal responsibility?