Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666
The news posted last week for the Wuhan coronavirus 2019-nCoV, which produces COVID-19 disease, has been surveyed and some important articles are summarized here. Although there are indications the spread of the disease may be slowing in China, there are concerns that hotspots developing in other countries – Japan, South Korea, Iran, and Italy topping that list at present – may be the cause of another widespread explosion of the disease globally. News items about economic affects of the virus are reported separately in a companion article.
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COVID-19 Incubation Period: An Update – NEJM Journal – Infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, appears to be highly contagious and is primarily spread by droplets. Containment efforts have emphasized quarantine during the incubation period as the most effective measure to limit spread. Because of the personal and economic toll of this measure and its implication for transmission, we need to maximize our understanding of the incubation period. These authors studied the case records of 181 patients (median age, 44.5 years; 60% male) who had visited Wuhan, the city in China where the infection was first identified (161 cases), or been in contact with an infected person before becoming symptomatic and testing positive for COVID-19 between January 4 and February 24, 2020. The investigators classified risk for undetected symptomatic infection as low (1 in 10,000), medium (1 in 1000), or high (1 in 100) and considered monitoring programs of varying length. In the resulting models, estimated median incubation time (IT) of COVID-19 was 5.1 days; mean IT was 5.5 days. For 97.5% of infected persons, symptoms appear by 11.5 days. Fewer than 2.5% are symptomatic within 2.2 days. Estimated median IT to fever was 5.7 days. Among 108 patients diagnosed outside mainland China, median IT was 5.5 days; the 73 patients diagnosed inside China had a median IT of 4.8 days. Using exposures designated as high risk and a 7-day monitoring period, the estimate for missed cases was 21.2 per 10,000. After 14 days, the estimated number of missed high-risk cases was 1 per 10,000 patients.
‘Don’t believe the numbers you see’: Johns Hopkins professor says up to 500,000 Americans have coronavirus – According to Dr. Marty Makary, a medical professor at Johns Hopkins University, the coronavirus is something that “people need to take seriously.” “I’m concerned when I hear a neighbor or a friend say that they’re planning to go to a kid’s swim meet in three weeks or going on vacation next week,” Makary said on Yahoo Finance’s “On the Move” (video above) on Friday. “No – we’re about to experience the worst public health epidemic since polio.” In the U.S. there are over 1,600 confirmed cases, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with 41 deaths. Makary said that the number of cases, though, is likely much higher. “Don’t believe the numbers when you see, even on our Johns Hopkins website, that 1,600 Americans have the virus,” he said. “No, that means 1,600 got the test, tested positive. There are probably 25 to 50 people who have the virus for every one person who is confirmed.” He added: “I think we have between 50,000 and half a million cases right now walking around in the United States.” Part of the reason the number of cases might be higher without people realizing it is because of the shortage of coronavirus testing kits from the CDC. Between Jan. 18 and March 12, there were 13,624 tests for COVID-19 conducted in the U.S. Meanwhile, South Korea has conducted over 100,000 tests, and the U.K. has tested nearly 25,000 people.
Coronavirus: Governor orders Ohio bars, restaurants to shut down – The Columbus Dispatch – –Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine ordered bars and restaurants to shut down to slow the spread of coronavirus. Ohio has 37 cases diagnosed so far. The governor also indicated that schools might stay closed through the school year.Gov. Mike DeWine and the state health director ordered all Ohio bars and restaurants closed by 9 p.m. Sunday.The announcement, made less than six hours before the deadline, had restaurants and bars scrambling to plan their next steps.DeWine said he decided on the shutdown after hearing from people around the state Saturday night who were concerned about crowded bars. He said he was worried that with St. Patrick’s Day coming up Tuesday, people would ignore warnings and go out to bars.The governor encouraged restaurants to offer carryout or delivery service, but he said they would not be allowed to have people congregating in the businesses. “This is a matter of life and death, and so we’re very mindful of the economic hurt. … This is brutally tough, and my heart goes out to business owners and workers, but we have to do what we have to do to save their lives,” DeWine said.Lt. Gov Jon Husted said the governor will sign an executive order to provide unemployment benefits for people affected by COVID-19. That will include people who are self-quarantining and those whose employers are closing.The cost of these additional unemployment benefits will be “neutralized,” Husted said. He said there is “no doubt” that the administration will have to ask the legislature to strengthen Ohio’s unemployment system, but that isn’t required immediately.Husted said the decision to close bars and restaurants was a hard one. The state did not want people to stop buying food from restaurants and instead go to grocery stores because that would stress already-depleted stores. The Small Business Administration, Husted said, is also offering loans to assist businesses.
Gov. DeWine asks dentists, doctors, and veterinarians to delay elective surgeries to accommodate for Ohio coronavirus patients(WOIO) – Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine spoke on Saturday afternoon about the statewide increase in confirmed coronavirus cases and what is being done to help those impacted by the health crisis. One suggestion DeWine made, after announcing a total of 26 confirmed coronavirus cases, was directed at medical professionals across the state. The Governor is recommending that dentists, doctors, and veterinarians consider postponing non-essential surgeries in order to free up hospital beds, personal protective equipment, and medical supplies that could be of more value to individuals who test positive for coronavirus. Governor Mike DeWine @GovMikeDeWine .@DrAmyAction: Re: postponing elective surgeries There is a shortage of surgical masks. This is 1 reason why we want to limit elective procedures. We need to preserve these supplies. We must take the healthcare situation very, very seriously. #COVID19 #COVID19OhioReady The Ohio Department of Health said on Saturday that 264 persons are under investigation for a possible coronavirus diagnosis.
Mapping Ohio’s 67 confirmed cases of coronavirus – cleveland.com – The first 67 confirmed coronavirus cases in Ohio are spread across 16 counties, with a concentration in Northeast Ohio, the Ohio Department of Health reported Tuesday.Testing has stepped up considerably across the case, including at multiple hospitals in Cleveland. Seventeen people have been hospitalized, the state said.The statewide total is up from 50 on Monday, 37 the day before. It was at 26 on Saturday and 13 on Friday. The first case was confirmed on March 9. Here is how the number of confirmed cases of coronavirus in Ohio has grown in recent days. Gov. Mike DeWine and Health Director Dr. Amy Acton have repeatedly emphasized that many more people likely have the virus, some maybe with few symptoms.Those testing postive range in age from 14 to 86, with a median age of 48, Acton said. Twenty-six are females; 41 are males.A total of 333 people are under health supervision after arriving in Ohio from overseas countries with large numbers of infection. Here is the breakdown by county, according to the latest information available:
US moves nearer to shutdown; Ohio, Illinois order bars and restaurants closed… – Officials across the country curtailed elements of American life to fight the coronavirus outbreak on Sunday, with governors closing restaurants, bars, and schools and a government expert saying a 14-day national shutdown may be needed. At the same time, long airport lines for virus screenings raised doubts that the government is prepared to respond to the crisis. Parts of America already look like a ghost town, and others are about to follow as theme parks closed, Florida beaches shooed away spring breakers, Starbucks said it will accept only drive-thru and takeout orders and the governors of Ohio and Illinois ordered bars and restaurants shuttered. New York City, New Jersey and elsewhere are considering similar measures.”The time for persuasion and public appeals is over,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said. “This is not a joke. No one is immune to this.”His decision came hours after Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious disease expert, said he would like to see a 14-day national shutdown imposed to prevent the virus’s spread.”I think Americans should be prepared that they are going to have to hunker down significantly more than we as a country are doing,” said Fauci, a member of the White House task force on combating the spread of coronavirus. He heads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health.There is no indication President Donald Trump is considering such a move. The worldwide outbreak has sickened more than 156,000 people and left more than 5,800 dead, with thousands of new cases confirmed each day. The death toll in the United States climbed to 64, while infections neared 3,000. Meanwhile, harsh criticism rained on Trump and his administration Sunday from state and local officials over long lines of returning international passengers at some U.S. airports that could have turned them into coronavirus carriers as they tried to get home.
US hospitals are already starting to run out of respirator masks crucial for coronavirus protection – Hospitals around the United States are preparing to treat an influx of patients with the highly infectious new coronavirus – and many health care providers are already beginning to run short on crucial respirator masks, The New York Times reported yesterday (March 9). Several hospitals the Times spoke to said they have little more than a month’s supply of respirator masks left, and that restocking the crucial masks has proven difficult as global cases of the new coronavirus, also called SARS-CoV-2, continue to climb daily. “We can’t get any. Everything’s back ordered,” Dr. Marc Habert, a pediatrician in Fishkill, N.Y., whose group works from eight offices in three counties, told the Times. “I was on a phone call earlier with the local department of health and they basically said the state has supplies, but we need to show we tried to order from three separate places first.” The masks, known as N95 respirator masks, are thicker and tighter fitting than normal surgical masks, blocking 95% of small airborne particles, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The masks are a crucial piece of personal protective equipment for health care workers tasked with treating large numbers of potential patients with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus.The FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommend that N95 masks should be used by medical professionals only, not by the general public. Global supplies of respirator masks are already dwindling after the prolonged coronavirus outbreak in China, the Times reported, and the widespread hoarding of masks by nervous citizens is exacerbating the problem.According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), health care facilities facing a shortage of supplies should first petition their local or state public health departments, many of which carry their own emergency supplies. If the state does not have enough, state officials may ask the HHS for assistance.The federal government’s Strategic National Stockpile – the nation’s largest supply of emergency medical supplies, managed by the HHS – includes 12 million N95 masks and 30 million surgical masks. According to HHS estimates, that’s only about 1% of the 3.5 billion masks that would be required in the U.S. in the first year if the outbreak escalates to pandemic levels
The World Needs Masks. China Makes Them – But Has Been Hoarding Them. – NYT. – As hospitals and governments hunt desperately for respirators and surgical masks to protect doctors and nurses from the coronavirus pandemic, they face a difficult reality: The world depends on China to make them, and the country is only beginning to share. China made half the world’s masks before the coronavirus emerged there, and it has expanded production nearly 12-fold since then. But it has claimed mask factory output for itself. Purchases and donations also brought China a big chunk of the world’s supply from elsewhere. Now, worries about mask supplies are rising. As the virus’s global spread escalates, governments around the world are restricting exports of protective gear, which experts say could worsen the pandemic. That has put growing pressure on China to meet the world’s needs, even as it continues to grapple with the coronavirus itself. Although government data suggests China has brought infection rates under control, epidemiologists warn that its outbreak could flare again as officials loosen travel limits and more people return to work. Peter Navarro, an adviser to President Trump on manufacturing and trade, contended on Fox Business last month that China had essentially taken over factories that make masks on behalf of American companies. Beijing, he said, had opted to “nationalize effectively 3M, our company.” In a statement, Minnesota-based 3M said most of the masks it made at its factory in Shanghai had been sold within China even before the outbreak. It declined to comment on when exports from China might resume. Tan Qunhong, the general manager of a small manufacturer of disposable masks in central China, said that she had filled the government’s purchase orders and was starting to resume exports. The Chinese government is also shipping masks abroad as part of goodwill packages. Other manufacturers say the Chinese government is still claiming all the masks that their factories in the country make. “Mask exports are still not authorized, but we are following the situation every day,” said Guillaume Laverdure, chief operating officer of Medicom, a Canadian manufacturer that makes three million masks a day at its Shanghai factory. Much as it dominates manufacturing of cars, steel, electronics and other necessities, China is essential to the world’s supply of protective medical gear. Most of what it makes are the disposable surgical masks worn by health professionals. It makes a smaller number of N95 respirator masks, which provide more filtration for doctors and nurses. Though companies say China is claiming virtually all mask output, the Chinese government said it had never issued a regulation prohibiting mask exports and was willing to work with other countries to share. China did not just stop selling masks – it also bought up much of the rest of the world’s supply. According to official data, China imported 56 million respirators and masks in the first week after the January lockdown of the city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus emerged. On Jan. 30, the last day for which data is available, China managed to import 20 million respirators and surgical masks in just 24 hours. Through February, civic-minded entrepreneurs and aid groups visited pharmacies in affluent countries and emerging markets alike, buying masks in bulk to send to China.
Why Even A Huge Medical Stockpile Will Be of Limited Use Against COVID-19 — The U.S. government maintains an enormous stockpile of emergency medical supplies, and officials have already started dipping into it to help fight the novel coronavirus. But while having a stockpile is better than not having it, experts say, there’s a limit to what a stockpile can do in this crisis.”It’s never going to be as big as you want, because it’s just too expensive to do that,” saysTara O’Toole, a former homeland security official who is now executive vice president at a nonprofit called In-Q-Tel. Almost everything about the stockpile is secret, for security reasons, although the broad outlines of its holdings are known. About $8 billion worth of vaccines, pharmaceuticals, protective gear, ventilators and other kinds of medical equipment are housed in warehouses that are strategically located around the United States. Locked, caged-off sections of the warehouses store controlled substances such as painkillers. Rows of ventilators, which can support people who are having trouble breathing, are kept charged up and ready to roll at a moment’s notice. When the stockpile started, back in 1999, the goal was to get prepared for unusual, unprecedented national threats, says O’Toole, who chaired an advisory committee on the stockpile for the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. “The stockpile started out being very specialized and intended to supply drugs we would need if there were a chemical, radiological, biological or nuclear attack,” she explains. That’s why the stockpile contains vaccines against smallpox and anthrax, as well as antitoxins and drugs to treat radiation sickness. “In many cases, the Strategic National Stockpile is the only source for particular pharmaceuticals. And it is the only buyer for some of these pharmaceuticals,” says Greg Burel, who directed the stockpile program before retiring last year. “Our Strategic National Stockpile is the envy of the world that understands these things and knows what’s there.”
China is now shipping coronavirus test kids and masks to the U.S. -As the number of coronavirus cases outside China passes the number of cases inside that country, Beijing is trying to recast itself from the source of the global pandemic to the world’s savior. Its latest gambit: sending testing kits and masks to the U.S. Jack Ma, the billionaire founder of the online giant Alibaba, posted two pictures of supplies being loaded onto a China Cargo Airlines flight on Monday morning.”The first shipment of masks and coronavirus test kits to the U.S. is taking off from Shanghai. All the best to our friends in America,” Ma tweeted. The tweet was Ma’s first since joining Twitter this week.The Jack Ma Foundation tweeted that the shipment contains 500,000 testing kits and 1 million masks. The supplies will be handed over to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention this week.The supplies will arrive in the U.S. as shutdowns and closures ramp upacross the country. The Trump administration continues to face criticism for its handling of the outbreak: the president’s repeatedly downplayed the severity of the virus, and the administration has failed to provide adequate tests to those who need them.The U.S. currently has 3,400 confirmed coronavirus infections and 65 deaths have been reported. “Drawing from my own country’s experience, speed and accurate testing and adequate personal protective equipment for medical professionals are most effective in preventing the spread of the virus. We hope that our donation can help Americans fight against the pandemic,” the foundation said in a statement.
WHO considers ‘airborne precautions’ after study shows coronavirus can survive in air – The World Health Organization is considering “airborne precautions” for medical staff after a new study showed the coronavirus can survive in the air in some settings. The virus is transmitted through droplets, or little bits of liquid, mostly through sneezing or coughing, Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, head of WHO’s emerging diseases and zoonosis unit, told reporters during a virtual news conference on Monday. “When you do an aerosol-generating procedure like in a medical care facility, you have the possibility to what we call aerosolize these particles, which means they can stay in the air a little bit longer.” She added: “It’s very important that health-care workers take additional precautions when they’re working on patients and doing those procedures.” World health officials say the respiratory disease spreads through human-to-human contact, droplets carried through sneezing and coughing as well as germs left on inanimate objects. The coronavirus can go airborne, staying suspended in the air depending on factors such as heat and humidity, they said. Kerkhove said health officials are aware of several studies in a number of countries looking at the different environmental conditions that COVID-19 can persist. Scientists are specifically looking at how humidity, temperature and ultraviolet lighting affects the disease as well as how long it lives on different surfaces, including steel, she said. Health officials use the information to make sure WHO’s guidance is appropriate, and “so far … we are confident that the guidance that we have is appropriate,” she added. Health officials recommend medical staff wear so-called N95 masks because they filter out about 95% of all liquid or airborne particles. “In health-care facilities, we make sure health-care workers use standard droplet precautions with the exception … that they’re doing an aerosol-generating procedure,” she said.
Coronavirus confirmed in all 50 states and D.C., after West Virginia confirms first case – Confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, which has rapidly spread across United States in a matter of weeks, have now been reported in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.West Virginia became the last state to confirm its first case Tuesday as local municipalities, state governments and the White House have worked to broaden testing access and implement mitigation protocols with the hope of slowing down the infection’s spread.”Our health officials came to me and said we do have our first positive in the Eastern Panhandle,” West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice (R) said in a news conference. “We knew it was coming. We’ve prepared for this, and we shouldn’t panic.”Alabama, Idaho and Montana were among the final states to report covid-19 cases.In a statement issued Wednesday evening, Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) underscored the urgent need for additional testing in the state, which he said contains the highest percentage of adults 18 and over. As of yesterday, West Virginia had conducted 84 coronavirus tests and had just 500 tests available, he added.Manchin said Stephen Hahn, commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, had committed to supplying more tests.”I am hearing from West Virginians across the state about being denied testing despite having physical symptoms,” Manchin wrote. “Medical professionals, community leaders and so many others are also reporting a shortage of the equipment they need to do their job safety.”Manchin said he had also called on Health and Human Service Secretary Alex Azar to help better equip local medical personnel.The novel coronavirus has infected more than 5,500 people and killed more than 100 in the United States since January, when the first confirmed case was reported in a Washington man who had traveled to Wuhan, China, to visit family.
Coronavirus spreads quickly and sometimes before people have symptoms, study finds– Infectious disease researchers at The University of Texas at Austin studying the novel coronavirus were able to identify how quickly the virus can spread, a factor that may help public health officials in their efforts at containment. They found that time between cases in a chain of transmission is less than a week and that more than 10% of patients are infected by somebody who has the virus but does not yet have symptoms. In the paper in press with the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, a team of scientists from the United States, France, China and Hong Kong were able to calculate what’s called the serial interval of the virus. To measure serial interval, scientists look at the time it takes for symptoms to appear in two people with the virus: the person who infects another, and the infected second person. Researchers found that the average serial interval for the novel coronavirus in China was approximately four days. This also is among the first studies to estimate the rate of asymptomatic transmission. The speed of an epidemic depends on two things — how many people each case infects and how long it takes for infection between people to spread. The first quantity is called the reproduction number; the second is the serial interval. The short serial interval of COVID-19 means emerging outbreaks will grow quickly and could be difficult to stop, the researchers said. “Ebola, with a serial interval of several weeks, is much easier to contain than influenza, with a serial interval of only a few days. “The data suggest that this coronavirus may spread like the flu. That means we need to move quickly and aggressively to curb the emerging threat.” Meyers and her team examined more than 450 infection case reports from 93 cities in China and found the strongest evidence yet that people without symptoms must be transmitting the virus, known as pre-symptomatic transmission. According to the paper, more than 1 in 10 infections were from people who had the virus but did not yet feel sick.
Undiagnosed Coronavirus Cases Are Fueling The Pandemic, Study Finds – In the United States, the confirmed number of COVID-19 cases passed the grim milestone of 5,000 on Tuesday – and the true total is probably five to 10 times higher, according to a new analysis.No one knows the actual number of cases in the US because the nation is weeks behind in widespread testing since the first known case arrived in January. The new study, published Monday in the journal Science, suggests that undiagnosed cases are a significant driver in the highly contagious and deadly pandemic, based on how the early days of the outbreak unfolded in China. In mid-January throughout China, only 14% of the people who were infected were actually diagnosed by a doctor, researchers estimated. That left 86% of cases walking around unrecognized by the health care system.These projections are based on data from before Jan. 23, when China enacted strict travel restrictions in an attempt to stem transmission. The researchers say that the US is in a similar early period of its own outbreak.”I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s more than 50,000 people who have been infected at this point in the United States,” Jeffrey Shaman, an infectious disease expert at Columbia University and senior author of the study, told BuzzFeed News. Other researchers were from Imperial College London, the University of California at Davis, the University of Hong Kong, and Tsinghua University in Beijing. Outside experts said the study further emphasizes the need for catching the milder cases that can drive an epidemic. Testing in the US has been significantly delayed due to the CDC providing glitchy lab equipment and initially setting strict criteria for who could get tested, critics say.
CDC analysis shows coronavirus poses serious risk for younger people – Early data analyzed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that younger Americans are at substantial risk of experiencing serious medical problems from the coronavirus sweeping the globe. That data runs counter to some of the early messaging from public health officials in other parts of the world. A new CDC analysis of more than 2,400 cases of COVID-19 that have occurred in the United States in the last month shows that between 1 in 7 and 1 in 5 people between the ages of 20 and 44 in the sample of those who are confirmed cases require hospitalization, a level significantly higher than the hospitalization rates for influenza. The true percentage of young people who require hospitalization is likely much less, because many remain asymptomatic. Between 2 percent and 4 percent of confirmed cases among people that young are admitted to intensive care units. The fatality rate is low, only 0.1 percent to 0.2 percent. Health outcomes are much worse among those who are older and those who have underlying health conditions. The early estimates show that a fifth to a third of those between the ages of 45 and 65 who contract the disease are hospitalized. Among those over 75 years old, hospitalization estimates range from 30 percent to more than 70 percent. Among the oldest cohort, those over the age of 85, somewhere between 10 percent and a quarter of all patients die. The data show adults over the age of 65 account for 80 percent of the deaths associated with the coronavirus. But younger Americans are contracting the virus at the same rates as those who are older. The initial round of data actually found more people between the ages of 20 and 44 who landed in the hospital than those over the age of 75 who wound up in treatment, even though mortality rates were lower for the younger set. “Lots of young people are getting hospitalized, a lot more than we’re messaging, and, yes, maybe you don’t die, but living with a damaged lung or damaged organ is not a good outcome,” said Prabhjot Singh, a physician and health systems expert at Mount Sinai Health System and the Icahn School of Medicine. Deborah Birx, one of the Trump administration’s top experts on its coronavirus task force, said Wednesday that early data from France and Italy, both dealing with thousands of coronavirus cases, seemed to underscore the threat to younger people.
Coronavirus can persist in air for hours and on surfaces for days: study – (Reuters) – The highly contagious novel coronavirus that has exploded into a global pandemic can remain viable and infectious in droplets in the air for hours and on surfaces up to days, according to a new study that should offer guidance to help people avoid contracting the respiratory illness called COVID-19. Scientists from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health, attempted to mimic the virus deposited from an infected person onto everyday surfaces in a household or hospital setting, such as through coughing or touching objects. They used a device to dispense an aerosol that duplicated the microscopic droplets created in a cough or a sneeze. The scientists then investigated how long the virus remained infectious on these surfaces, according to the study that appeared online in the New England Journal of Medicine on Tuesday – a day in which U.S. COVID-19 cases surged past 5,200 and deaths approached 100. The tests show that when the virus is carried by the droplets released when someone coughs or sneezes, it remains viable, or able to still infect people, in aerosols for at least three hours. On plastic and stainless steel, viable virus could be detected after three days. On cardboard, the virus was not viable after 24 hours. On copper, it took 4 hours for the virus to become inactivated. In terms of half-life, the research team found that it takes about 66 minutes for half the virus particles to lose function if they are in an aerosol droplet. That means that after another hour and six minutes, three quarters of the virus particles will be essentially inactivated but 25% will still be viable. The amount of viable virus at the end of the third hour will be down to 12.5%, according to the research led by Neeltje van Doremalen of the NIAID’s Montana facility at Rocky Mountain Laboratories. On stainless steel, it takes 5 hours 38 minutes for half of the virus particles to become inactive. On plastic, the half-life is 6 hours 49 minutes, researchers found. On cardboard, the half-life was about three and a half hours, but the researchers said there was a lot of variability in those results “so we advise caution” interpreting that number. The shortest survival time was on copper, where half the virus became inactivated within 46 minutes.
Coronavirus: NY, NJ, Connecticut agree to restrict restaurants, limit events to fewer than 50 people – The governors of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut announced Monday they have agreed to jointly reduce density throughout the region, closing movie theaters, most restaurants and bars and limiting public gatherings to fewer than 50 people.The federal government has “been behind from day one on this crisis,” said New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo. “States, frankly, don’t have the capacity or the power to make up for the federal government.” He called on U.S. officials to coordinate closings across the country, saying state and local leaders have adopted a “hodge podge” of different actions.”We have agreed to a common set of rules that will pertain in all of our states, so don’t even think about going to a neighboring state because there’s going to be a different set of conditions,” Cuomo said during a joint media call with fellow Democratic Govs. Ned Lamont of Connecticut and Phil Murphy of New Jersey on the fast-spreading COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S.The states will prohibit crowds of 50 or more, including private parties. Restaurants, bars, gyms and movie theaters will need to close by 8 p.m. on Monday. Casinos, other than tribal casinos, will also need to close. Restaurants that can serve take out food will be allowed to continue doing so, Cuomo said. The rules are in effect “until further notice,” Murphy said. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday urged people across the U.S. to cancel or postpone events with 50 or more attendees for the next eight weeks to try to contain the fast-moving coronavirus pandemic.On Sunday, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio said he will sign an executive order, set to take effect Tuesday, that effectively closes restaurants, bars and cafes. Over the weekend, Cuomo announced that New York City’s public school system will begin to shut down this week to help combat the spread of the new virus, which has infected 729 people throughout the state as of Sunday afternoon.Cuomo has also announced a ban on gatherings of 500 or more people across the state “for the foreseeable future.” He said the state was trying to limit the contagion by reducing “density,” or events where a large number of people gather in a close environment. Cuomo said Friday that New York was ramping up its testing, having just received federal approval to allow 28 labs in state to begin running coronavirus tests. He said at the time the state should be able to process 6,000 tests a day. The state has been able to run a total of just 3,000 tests, he said Friday.
Coronavirus live updates: NY tri-state area imposes new restrictions, Workday to give workers cash – 11:30 am Monday:
- Global cases: More than 169,387, according to Johns Hopkins University.
- Global deaths: At least 6,513, according to Johns Hopkins University.
- US cases: At least 3,774, according to Johns Hopkins University.
- US deaths: At least 69, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The governors of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut have agreed to a common set of rules to reduce density throughout the region, closing restaurants and bars and limiting public gatherings to less than 50 people. “We have agreed to a common set of rules that will pertain in all of our states, so don’t even think about going to a neighboring state because there’s going to be a different set of conditions,” New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced Monday during a press call on the fast-spreading COVID-19 outbreak in the state. The briefing came after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday urged people across the U.S. to cancel or postpone events with 50 or more attendees for the next eight weeks to try to contain the fast-moving coronavirus pandemic. Workday will pay its lower-level employees the equivalent of two-weeks pay as a cash bonus to help support them during the fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic. The move, which excludes executives at the vice president level and above in addition to “certain senior individual contributors,” is expected to add about $80 million to Workday’s first quarter and full-year 2021 expenses compared to initial guidance, the company said in a financial filing. Workday, which provides human resources software, reported 12,200 total employees as of the end of January and said it also employs contractors. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said he has yet to receive a final draft of the coronavirus relief bill that the House passed early Saturday morning. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Saturday that, while he and the House had agreed on a second legislative package to help the country as it battles the virus, the two parties had also agreed to issue a “technical correction” to the bill on Monday. “I don’t want people being surprised,” he said. “We will be doing a technical correction on Monday morning.” He said that there was language he, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., agreed on that didn’t make it into the bill.
3 family members in NJ die from coronavirus, 4 others infected – Three family members in New Jersey have died from COVID-19, with four other members hospitalized, The New York Times reported Wednesday. The matriarch of the family, 73-year-old Grace Fusco, died Wednesday without knowing that her eldest son died hours earlier or that her eldest daughter passed away the previous week, the family lawyer and spokeswoman Roseann Paradiso Fodera told the Times. Rita Fusco-Jackson, 55, of Freehold, N.J., died Friday, a day before her coronavirus test came back positive. Carmine Fusco of Bath, Pa., died Wednesday. The four hospitalized family members are also Grace Fusco’s children. Three of them are in critical condition, Paradiso Fodera, a cousin of Grace Fusco, told the Times. The matriarch and four of her children were treated at CentraState Medical Center in Freehold. Almost 20 other relatives of the family have been quarantined at their homes amid the tragedy. “If they’re not on a respirator, they’re quarantined,” Paradiso Fodera said. “They can’t even mourn the way you would.” Grace Fusco, the mother of 11 and grandmother of 27, was part of a tight-knit family that regularly got together for family dinners. A person who had been in contact with a man who was the first New Jersey fatality on March 10 attended a recent family gathering, New Jersey Health Commissioner Judith M. Persichilli told the Times. Paradiso Fodera said it was a regular Tuesday dinner for the family. James Matera, the chief medical officer at CentraState Medical Center, said the hospital has worked with the state’s health commissioner and officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to identify how the disease spread so quickly. “I don’t know if it’s a strain thing,” he said. “I would consider these particular people to be unusual.”
De Blasio calls on Trump to deploy military to set up hospitals in New York – New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio (D) is calling on President Trump to deploy the U.S. military to New York in an effort to fight the rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak. “President Trump has to mobilize the United States military to fully act in the coronavirus situation,” de Blasio said Wednesday on CNN’s “Anderson Cooper 360.” “I want their medical teams, which are first rate, I want their logistical support, I want their ability to get stuff from factories all over the country where they’re needed most,” he added. “The only force in America that can do it effectively and quickly is the United States military, and they are being sidelined right now by Donald Trump when he should be calling them to the front. This is the front right now.” De Blasio said the military should be sent to New York, Seattle and California, the areas hit hard by the pandemic. The mayor said it’s necessary for the military deployment to aid the city as its hospitals are depleted of basic and necessary equipment, including ventilators, medical masks and surgical gowns. “We’re deeply concerned about where we’re going to be in a few weeks, and there’s the problem: the federal government is absent in this discussion right now,” de Blasio said. “President Trump at this point is the Herbert Hoover of his generation. There’s a massive national crisis going on and he is consistently late and very marginal in what he does. He’s taking actions that are far, far behind the curve and aren’t addressing the core concerns.” Hospitals may run out of equipment in weeks, de Blasio said, noting the surge in cases in the city. The number of cases nearly doubled overnight and is approaching 2,000 cases in New York City alone, he added.
Trump Deploys Navy Floating Hospital To NYC Harbor As Virus Cases Soar – New York is experiencing an exponential rise in confirmed Covid-19 cases requiring hospitalization. The problem is when hospital beds and ICU level care capacity is exhausted, treatment for the most vulnerable is not seen, and that is the point when mortality rates surge. To mitigate an Italy-style crisis, President Trump is set to deploy two hospital ships, which could provide several thousand additional hospital beds to New York City’s capacity, reported CNN.”I have directed, as the President has mentioned, the hospital ships Mercy and Comfort to be prepared to deploy to increase the nation’s medical capacity and we’ve also alerted a variety of field and expeditionary hospitals to be prepared to deploy as well as needed,” Defense Secretary Mark Esper said at the White House on Wednesday. Pentagon Spokesman Jonathan Hoffman told reporters on Wednesday that USNS Comfort is currently undergoing maintenance in Virginia and would be ready to set sail and anchor in the New York Harbor in mid-April.WAVY’s Chopper 10 over the USNS Comfort. The Norfolk based “floating hospital” will be heading to New York City to give aid during the outbreak. It will be used for patients not diagnosed with the Coronoavirus the Navy emphasized. More info on https://t.co/C74EBoHKWb @WAVY_News pic.twitter.com/DxRcBtRCGo – Jeff Myers (@wavyphotog) March 18, 2020 Hoffman said USNS Mercy, its sister ship, will accompany the USNS Comfort, and both are being sent to New York because that is a region where the federal government believes the hospital system could soon be overwhelmed by Covid-19 patients. The vessel’s personnel are trained to handle combat-related injuries and are not trained in treating infectious diseases. This suggests that the ships would be used to treat non-Covid-19 patients.
Army Deploys To New York As NYC Reports 1 Coronavirus Death Per Hour On Friday: Live Updates – For nearly a week now, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has been begging the White House or the Pentagon to send in the Army Corp of Engineers to quickly transform existing businesses into coronavirus hospitals where patients from the impending surge can be isolated and treated. If the state doesn’t quickly make up for its twin shortages of hospital beds and medical equipment, Cuomo warned, it could lead to thousands of preventable deaths. Now, a few days after President Trump and Defense Secretary Mark Esper dispatched a Navy hospital ship to New York to help with the outbreak, President Donald Trump formally approved FEMA aid to the state late Friday night after declaring New York the nation’s first “major disaster area” since the start of the national outbreak. Billions of dollars in emergency funding are now available to help combat the outbreak in the state, FEMA said in a statement. “Federal funding is also available to state, tribal, and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency protective measures,” FEMA said in a statement. President Trump’s national emergency declaration earlier this month activated FEMA, and made a pot of $42 billion in disaster-relief funds available. The decision comes after New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio claimed that his city has become the epicenter of the national outbreak, as public health authorities in the city counted at least one coronavirus-linked death per hour on Friday. Between just 10 am and 6 pm, 14 people in NYC died from the virus, raising the death toll in America’s largest city to 43. It was the first time NYC’s daily death toll hit double-digits. NYC Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot warned on Saturday morning that double-digit increases in deaths may become the new normal for New Yorkers, for at least a time.
Bay Area orders ‘shelter in place,’ only essential businesses open in 6 counties – SFChronicle.com – Six Bay Area counties announced a “shelter in place” order for all residents on Monday – the strictest measure of its kind yet in the continental United States – directing everyone to stay inside their homes and away from others as much as possible for the next three weeks as public health officials desperately try to curb the rapid spread of coronavirus across the region.The directive begins at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday and involves San Francisco, Santa Clara, San Mateo, Marin, Contra Costa and Alameda counties – a combined population of more than 6.7 million. It is to stay in place until at least April 7. Three other Bay Area counties – Sonoma, Solano and Napa – were not immediately included.The order falls just short of a full lockdown, which would forbid people from leaving their homes without explicit permission. A wide swath of businesses that do not provide “essential” services must send workers home. Among those remaining open are grocery stores, pharmacies, restaurants for delivery only and hardware stores. Most workers are ordered to stay home, with exceptions including health care workers; police, fire and other emergency responders; and utility providers such as electricians, plumbers and sanitation workers.”We were seeing a tipping point here in Santa Clara County with exponential growth of our cases,” said Dr. Sara Cody, health officer for the county, at a news conference Monday. The county has 138 cases as of Monday – an increase of 72 since Friday. “Over the weekend, I had a discussion with fellow health officers in the Bay Area and we realized that we are one region, and that what’s happening in Santa Clara County today will soon be happening in the adjacent jurisdictions. We decided collectively we need to take swift action as soon as possible to prevent further spread.”These orders were crafted with great thought and with great care,” Cody said. “They were also crafted very, very quickly.”She said residents would get more information over the coming days as to what exactly is expected of them – but the priority is to stay inside and and away from others.
Newsom- 56% Of Californians To Be Infected With COVID-19 Within Eight Weeks – California Governor Gavin Newsom says that an estimated 56% of the state’s population – some 25.5 million people – will be infected with coronavirus within the next eight weeks.Newsom made the sobering claim in a Wednesday letter to President Trump asking for the US Navy’s Mercy Hospital Ship to be stationed at the Port of Los Angeles until September in order to provide backup to the region’s healthcare system.”The acquisition of the Mercy here off the coast of the state of California would provide additional 1,000 bed capacity, provides support for pharmacists and other diagnostic equipment,” said Newsom, adding “This resource will help decompress the health care delivery system to allow the Los Angeles region to ensure that it has the ability to address critical acute care needs, such as heart attacks and strokes or vehicle accidents, in addition to the rapid rise of COVID-19 cases.””We have community acquired transmission in 23 counties with an increase of 44 community acquired infections in 24 hours. We project that roughly 56 percent of our population – 25.5 million people – will be infected with the virus over an eight week period,” the letter continues. A spokesperson for the governor said the projection shows why it’s so critical that Californians take action to slow the spread of the disease – and those mitigation efforts aren’t taken into account in those numbers. The spokesperson added that the state is deploying every resource at its disposal to meet this challenge and is continuing to ask for the federal government’s assistance in this fight. –ABC 7
Colorado county issues shelter-in-place order – A county in Colorado issued a shelter-in-place order Wednesday in an effort to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus outbreak. San Miguel County’s shelter in place order will be in effect until at least April 3 at the discretion of the public health director, according to the county’s announcement. As part of its mitigation plan, San Miguel officials will also test the entire county for COVID-19. The testing will be offered free of charge and will be administered by the county public health department. “We know just testing is not enough to fight this virus. If we invest in the short-term inconveniences of isolation and sheltering-in-place now, we will save lives,” Grace Franklin, the county’s public health and environment director, said in a statement. The county is currently prohibiting events of more than 10 people, as well as all events at community centers. It is also ceasing activities at business facilities except for minimum basic operations and essential services. Violators of the county orders are subject to criminal and civil charges. “Our actions now seem exaggerated to some, but let me assure you all, any actions we want to take later will be severely inadequate,” county medical officer Dr. Sharon Grundy added. There are no confirmed cases in the county as of Tuesday, according to county data. Across Colorado, there are 216 confirmed cases of the virus, according to the state’s data.
March 19 Update: US COVID-19 Tests per Day – Tests per day is a key number to track (along with actual cases and, sadly, deaths). But total tests were a key for South Korea slowing the spread of COVID-19. South Korea has been conducting 15,000 tests per day with about one-fifth of the US population, so the US needs to test 70,000 to 100,000 per day.
The US conducted 27,450 tests in the last 24 hours. That is progress. This data is from the COVID Tracking Project. Some states could do a better job of reporting the number of tests – so this is probably low. Testing it getting better, but needs to at least triple from here.
Coronavirus leads Ohio to delay election despite judge’s refusal – (Reuters) – Ohio will postpone its presidential nominating election planned for Tuesday, despite a judge’s refusal to endorse a postponement, because the public health emergency caused by the coronavirus makes it too dangerous, Governor Mike DeWine said. DeWine had asked a state court for permission to postpone the election, but after a judge denied the request he said the state’s health director would order the polls shut as part of the public health emergency caused by the virus. “During this time when we face an unprecedented public health crisis, to conduct an election tomorrow would force poll workers and voters to place themselves at an unacceptable health risk of contracting coronavirus,” DeWine said on Twitter Monday night. While he had first sought the approval of the courts to move the election, judge Richard Frye rejected the request to postpone the primary on Tuesday despite growing concerns about the coronavirus that have shut down schools, restaurants and large gatherings across the country.
119 confirmed cases of coronavirus in Ohio; 33 hospitalized –Confirmed cases, testing numbers as of March 19:
- 119 confirmed cases in Ohio in 24 counties
- 33 hospitalized
Latest updates on COVID-19 in Ohio:
- DeWine activates 300 members of Ohio National Guard to help with food distribution
- Central Ohio hospitals to restrict visitors amid COVID-19 pandemic
- Barbershops, hair and nail salons ordered to close amid coronavirus concerns
- DeWine orders closure of Bureau of Motor Vehicles locations during COVID-19 pandemic
- Mayor Ginther declares State of Emergency for Columbus
Ohio Department of Health confirms 1 death, 169 cases of COVID-19 –Confirmed cases, testing numbers as of March 20:
- 1 death (Lucas County resident)
- 169 confirmed cases in Ohio in 28 counties
- Number of counties with cases: Ashland (1), Ashtabula (1), Belmont (2), Butler (12), Clark (1), Coshocton (2), Cuyahoga (69), Darke (1), Delaware (2), Franklin (14), Geauga (1), Hamilton (7), Huron (1), Lake (3), Lorain (10), Lucas (2), Mahoning (7), Marion (1), Medina (6), Miami (1), Montgomery (1), Richland (1), Stark (6), Summit (10), Trumbull (3), Tuscarawas (1), Union (1), Warren (2)
- 39 hospitalizations
Latest updates on COVID-19 in Ohio:
- DeWine activates 300 members of Ohio National Guard to help with food distribution
- Coronavirus brings changes, concerns about social distancing at Columbus’ big employers
- Central Ohio hospitals to restrict visitors amid COVID-19 pandemic
The state has nearly 120 confirmed cases of the virus, with 33 hospitalizations. The state is limiting testing to those who are hospitalized and to healthcare workers. The Ohio Health Department says people with suspected symptoms should call a medical provider first, but seek immediate help if symptoms are serious, such as difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. For most people, the virus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia, or death. The vast majority of people recover.
D.C. cases surge, Maryland adds new restrictions as coronavirus reaches grim milestones – Maryland is escalating social-distancing measures after the state’s first covid-19-related death and the first report of a child testing positive. Scores of D.C. emergency personnel are under quarantine, with three firefighters confirmed to be infected. Virginia is easing access to health care during the pandemic and giving residents until June to pay taxes.Two weeks after the first novel coronavirus cases were reported in the Washington region, government leaders, residents and businesses are confronting a hard reality: There’s no immediate end in sight.Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) on Thursday ordered the closure of enclosed shopping malls and entertainment venues, restricted access to Baltimore-Washington International Marshall Airport and prohibited gatherings of more than 10 people. He chastised residents who are not taking the situationseriously.”Unfortunately, we are only at the beginning of this crisis,” Hogan said, citing the state’s first fatality, a Prince George’s County man. “While this is the first death in Maryland, unfortunately it will not be the last.” Disruptions to daily life are likely to stretch at least into April, experts say, with the continued spread of the virus inevitable.
U.S. confirmed cases double – The Washington Post – Global travel restrictions are dramatically ramping up amid the growing coronavirus outbreak, with U.S. officials urging Americans abroad to return home or prepare to shelter in place and the entire state of California going into effective lockdown as confirmed U.S. cases doubled in a single day.China on Friday announced for the second consecutive day that no new local infections were recorded in the country the previous day. Out of 39 infections confirmed on Thursday, all were imported from abroad, Chinese officials said, as the outbreak appears to slow in the place where it was first recorded late last year.In Italy, where the government is extending its large-scale lockdown, the death toll climbed to 3,405 on Thursday. More people have now died from the illness in Italy than in China, and morgues there are running out of space. Asian markets were mixed on Friday after U.S. stocks clawed back some ground Thursday, with the Dow closing above the 20,000 level. But uncertainty lingers about the economic toll the pandemic will take on U.S. households as restrictions upend normal business. Here are some significant developments:
- Officials say the number of cases in the United States will continue to rise sharply as more test results become available.
- India barred incoming commercial flights for a week, as more countries closed their borders to noncitizens.
- Senate Republicans introduced a $1 trillion fiscal package – the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act – which includes sending direct cash payments to many Americans.
- President Trump canceled the in-person G-7 summit scheduled for June at Camp David, due to the coronavirus pandemic, deciding instead to hold the annual meeting by videoconference.
The US has reported 195 coronavirus deaths, and more than 13,000 cases across all 50 states. Here’s what we know about the US patients. – The US has reported 195 deaths from the coronavirus as of March 19. The country’s case tally is more than 13,600, with patients reported in all 50 states and Washington, DC. The illness has also spread to Guam, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands. The World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic on March 11, and two days later President Donald Trump declared a national emergency.Because county- and state-level health authorities are reporting the latest case counts before the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) does, Business Insider is tallying those local reports and updating this story regularly to give a comprehensive picture of where the virus is spreading in the US.The virus originated in Wuhan, China, in December. It causes a respiratory disease known as COVID-19.For the latest global case totals, death tolls, and travel information, see Business Insider’s live updates here.Here’s everything we know about the coronavirus in the US – in the list below, states are ordered by their number of cases.Note: This post was last updated at 7:30 p.m. ET on Thursday, March 19. At least 195 people have died from the coronavirus on US soil. Here are the death tolls by state:
Coronavirus Map: U.S. Cases Surpass 15,000 – NY Times — The number of known cases of the coronavirus in the United States surged past 15,000 on Friday morning as testing expanded and the virus spread. As of Friday afternoon, at least 15,650 people across every state, plus Washington, D.C., and three U.S. territories, have tested positive for coronavirus, according to a New York Times database, and at least 202 patients with the virus have died. Where cases have been reported: (see state table and map) Note: The map shows the known locations of coronavirus cases by county. Circles are sized by the number of people there who have tested positive, which may differ from where they contracted the illness. Some people who traveled overseas were taken for treatment in California, Nebraska and Texas. Puerto Rico and the other U.S. territories are not shown. Sources: State and local health agencies, hospitals, C.D.C. Data as of 12:36 p.m. E.T., Mar. 20.More state and private labs have started running tests for the coronavirus in recent days, increasing the capacity to identify new patients after weeks of delays and test kit shortages. Officials in New York State announced more than 2,900 new cases on Friday morning alone, more than any other state has identified to date.As the United States scrambled to understand the scope of an escalating public health crisis, life in many states has come to a standstill: Governors have ordered schools and businesses to close. Gatherings, meetings and sporting events have been canceled. In some places, residents have been ordered to stay inside.As the death toll surpassed 200 on Friday, the danger that the coronavirus poses – especially to older people and those with health problems – became even more clear.At least 35 of the deaths were connected to a single nursing center in Washington, and residents of other long-term care facilities – in Kansas, Louisiana, South Carolina and at least two other centers in Washington – have also died.The outbreak looks vastly different in the United States than it did just a few weeks ago. At the start of March, with extremely limited testing underway, 70 cases had been reported in the country, most of them tied to overseas travel. Since then, new cases have been reported, first by the hundreds, now by the thousands.
“This Could Go On For Months” – Cuomo Closes All ‘Nonessential’ Businesses, Orders “100%” Of Workers To Stay Home: Live Updates – The morning after California laid out the most restrictive measures to combat the virus in the US, NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Friday laid out new measures for New York State to combat the coronavirus outbreak, imposing new restrictions like ordering “100% of the workforce” to stay home.During this time, Cuomo is order all businesses in the state that aren’t deemed “essential” to close, and added that though public transit will remain open for people who need it to travel to their ‘essential’ jobs, and to get to places like hospitals and doctors offices and grocery stores and pharmacies, he urged New Yorkers to only take the trains if absolutely necessary.All non-essential businesses must close, Cuomo and NYC Mayor de Blasio have said that the state will find better ways to accommodate essential employees who need childcare or other things. But Cuomo threatened to fine businesses and individuals caught breaking the rules. “These are not helpful hints…they will be enforced. There will be a civil fine and mandatory closure for any business that is not in compliance. Again, your actions can affect my health, that’s where we are. There is a social compact that we have…we must make society safe for everyone,” Cuomo said about the executive action that he’s preparing to sign.New York reported 2,950 new cases on Friday, bringing the state-wide total to 7,102 cases, with 4,408 cases in NYC. As he chided the public for not taking the outbreak seriously enough, Cuomo declared that young people saying they can’t get the virus is “simply wrong,” claiming that 25% of cases are people ages 20-44. During the press conference, Cuomo confirmed that the state had reached the capacity to test 10,000 New Yorkers a day, becoming perhaps the only state in the country to overshoot on its daily testing target of 6k tests. Along with these new ‘dramatic actions’, Cuomo announced more confirmed cases and deaths.
4,000 National Guard Troops Deployed Across Country To Combat COVID-19 – Defense Secretary Mark Esper says more than 4,000 National Guard reservists have been deployed in 31 states to help battle the coronavirus. Esper told Fox News that the Army Corps of Engineers were in New York three days ago working to help identify sites, such as college dorms or hotels, that it could renovate for hospital beds. Esper says the military also is preparing Army units to assemble field hospitals. Esper, who has spoken with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, says the Comfort hospital ship will be in New York. He says the Mercy hospital ship will be deployed early next week on the West Coast. He adds 67 U.S. service members are infected with coronavirus and that 1,500 Americans are quarantined on four U.S. bases in an effort to lighten the burden on the nation’s civilian medical facilities.
‘Tens of thousands’ of National Guard troops could be activated for coronavirus response — Tens of thousands of National Guard troops could be activated in states across the country in the next several weeks to help deal with the coronavirus pandemic, the head of the National Guard said Thursday.”It’s hard to tell what the exact requirement will be, but I’m expecting tens of thousands to be used inside the states as this grows,” National Guard Bureau Chief Gen. Joseph Lengyel told reporters at the Pentagon.”I think that this could quickly blossom in the next couple of weeks as governors and states determine their needs and ways to use their National Guards.” All 54 states, territories and the District of Columbia have declared a state of emergency in response to the COVID-19 outbreak. As of Thursday, governors in 27 states have activated a total 2,050 Guardsmen. Lengyel said the bureau anticipates that number will go up “relatively quickly, in fact, doubling by this weekend.” Asked if the White House could federalize the Guard to respond to the illness, Lengyel said that President Trump could do so if desired but that such a move “would not make sense in this situation.””Every state has a different way to deal with disasters. If you were to federalize [the Guard], you would lose that ability.” He added: “There’s no plans that I’m aware of to take the National Guards in the states and put them in a federal status. They’re much better used in a state status under the command and control of the governors.”
Coronavirus likely to keep Americans home for several weeks: Dr. Fauci — A doctor on the front lines of battling the coronavirus in the US said the pandemic will likely keep Americans at home for several weeks as it runs its course.In a “Today” show interview Friday morning, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said Americans shouldn’t expect to go back to their daily routines for quite a while.”If you look at the trajectory of the curves of outbreaks in other areas, it’s at least going to be several weeks,” Fauci said. “I cannot see that all of a sudden next week or two weeks from now, it’s going to be over. I don’t think there’s a chance of that – I think it’s going to be several weeks.” But Fauci noted that the availability of COVID-19 testing in the country is now on the upswing.”Clearly more needs to be done, but we are rapidly getting to the point where we will have multiple tests available out there for virtually everyone early on,” he said on the program. “As I’ve said, it wasn’t as much as it should have been. But now we’re very much in the right direction, flooding the system with it … It’s not a perfect system yet, but we’re getting there very rapidly.” By Friday morning, more than 14,000 COVID-19 cases had been reported in the US, and just over 200 deaths.
US coronavirus death toll hits 300 as more states urge residents to stay home – More than 300 people infected with the novel coronavirus have died in the United States as states ramp up restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the disease. As of Saturday, 302 people have died. The highest number of deaths were in Washington at 94, followed by 53 deaths in New York, according to CNN’s tally. The number of cases continued rising, surpassing 23,000 nationwide, with almost half of the cases reported in New York state. There were 10,356 confirmed cases across the state, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said at a news conference. A majority of those cases, 54%, were individuals between the ages of 18 and 49. “You’re not Superman and you’re not Superwoman,” the governor said, addressing younger people who have not complied with social distancing. “You can get this virus and you can transfer the virus and you can wind up hurting someone who you love.” New York is among a handful of states that have urged nonessential workers to stay home in an effort to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, alleviate stress on the health-care system and preserve dwindling medical supplies. The most recent state to enact such a measure was New Jersey, where Gov. Phil Murphy announced a statewide “stay at home” order, closing nonessential retail businesses and asking residents to stay home until further notice. The order, effective at 9 p.m. ET Saturday, also prohibits gatherings and asks individuals to practice social distancing. “We know the virus spreads through person-to person contact,” the governor said in a news release, “and the best way to prevent further exposure is to limit our public interactions to only the most essential purposes.” Similar measures have been announced in California, Illinois and Connecticut, directing nonessential workers to stay home, though each state provides for certain exceptions, such as visiting grocery stories, pharmacies or healthcare facilities, among others. Those restrictions followed similar directives issued by state and local leaders urging residents to stay put and limiting bars and restaurants to take-out and delivery services. “Every state will head this way,” CNN national security analyst Juliette Kayyem said Friday. “People need to prepare themselves that this gets harder before this gets easier.”
Yes, Young People Are Falling Seriously Ill From Covid-19 – New evidence from Europe and the U.S. suggests that younger adults aren’t as impervious to the novel coronavirus that’s circulating worldwide as originally thought. Despite initial data from China that showed elderly people and those with other health conditions were most vulnerable, young people – from twenty-somethings to those in their early forties – are falling seriously ill. Many require intensive care, according to reports from Italy and France. The risk is particularly dire for those with ailments that haven’t yet been diagnosed. “It may have been that the millennial generation, our largest generation, our future generation that will carry us through for the next multiple decades, here may be a disproportional number of infections among that group,” Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus response coordinator, said in a press conference on Wednesday, citing the reports. relates to Yes, Young People Are Falling Seriously Ill From Covid-19 The data bears out that concern. In Italy, the hardest hit country in Europe, almost a quarter of the nearly 28,000 coronavirus patients are between the ages of 19 and 50, according to data website Statista. Similar trends have been seen in the U.S. Among nearly 2,500 of the first coronavirus cases in the U.S., 705 were aged 20 to 44, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Between 15% and 20% eventually ended up in the hospital, including as many as 4% who needed intensive care. Few died. One of those younger adults is Clement Chow, an assistant professor of genetics at the University of Utah. “I’m young and not high risk, yet I am in the ICU with a very severe case,” Chow said in a March 15 tweet. “We really don’t know much about this virus.” According to his Twitter posts, Chow had a low-grade fever for a few days and then a bad cough that led to respiratory failure. It turned out to be the coronavirus. He ended up on high flow oxygen in the ICU. When he arrived last Thursday, he was the first patient there. “Now there are many more,” he tweeted.
Cops investigating ‘disturbing trend’ of teens coughing on produce — A group of teenagers filmed themselves coughing on produce at a Virginia grocery store and then posted the sick stunt to social media – a “disturbing trend”amid the coronavirus pandemic.”We have learned that this appears to be a disturbing trend on social media across the country, and we ask for help from parents to discourage this behavior immediately,” Purcellville police said in a Facebook post Thursday.”We are asking for parental assistance in monitoring your teenagers’ activities, as well as their social media posts to avoid the increase of any further such incidents.”The cops didn’t cite other specific incidents but urged parents to “talk with your children and explain to them why such behavior is wrong.” The grocery store, which was not mentioned by name, removed the befouled fruits and veggies. The teens remain at large.
Army enters Paris as Macron announces coronavirus lockdown in France – Last night, military vehicles entered Paris as President Emmanuel Macron announced in a televised address that the French population would be placed under confinement amid the coronavirus pandemic. The total number of SARS-CoV-2 cases in France grew by 1,210 yesterday to 6,663, with 148 deaths. For weeks, French political authorities have downplayed the dangers posed by the coronavirus pandemic, and taken disjoined, belated and insufficient actions, wasting precious time for combating the disease. Until last Thursday, the government’s main concern was to reassure the financial markets that all economic activity would continue as usual. “Beginning tomorrow at midday, going for a walk and meeting friends in the park or on the street, will no longer be possible,” Macron said. “It is a matter of limiting all contacts outside the house to a minimum. On all French territories, overseas and here, only necessary travel will be allowed: To go shopping, while maintaining a one-meter separation from others, without holding hands, without hugging. Obviously, this includes travel to work, when working from home is not possible.” Macron did not place any restrictions on the operations of large non-essential companies, except vaguely referring to requirements that employers put in place safe conditions. After the speech by Macron, Interior Minister Christophe Castaner announced that 100,000 police and gendarmes would be deployed to the streets to maintain the quarantine. To leave their homes, people must carry forms that can be downloaded from the interior ministry website to certify that they are going out for authorized reasons: shopping, medical care, helping a dependent person, or work. Police will give 38-euro fines, soon to be raised to 135 euros, for violations. The lock-down is to last 15 days but will be renewable by Macron’s order. Given that the incubation period of the disease lasts 14 days, it is likely that the number of cases will rise rapidly throughout the first period of containment; the health services would then need to renew the containment in order to identify and diagnose all the patients. As in Italy and Spain, the French army is being mobilized. It will build a field hospital to treat coronavirus patients in the east of the country, which has been particularly affected. As Macron spoke, images were published on social media showing armored personnel tanks and other military vehicles arriving in Paris. It remains unclear what measures are being taken to support workers and small business by these major restrictions on economic activity. Macron claimed that 300 billion euros would be used to assist businesses, including by exempting them from rent and payroll taxes that fund social spending. Macron also pledged that “partial unemployment” payments would be expanded to cover all workers who lose their job due to the pandemic at 84 percent of their net wages, according to government statements to the press. Nor did Macron explain why Europe is not mobilizing hundreds of billions of euros to support the public healthcare system in the treatment of the sick, while Italy, devastated by the virus, desperately needs international support. In contrast, the European central bank has already announced the provision of 120 billion euros directly to the financial markets.
Spain deploys army to impose coronavirus lockdown – The Spanish army is being deployed in major cities under the state of alarm as deaths linked to coronavirus have gone up from 136 to 329 in the past 48 hours. Spain has registered more than 9,191 infections, according to the latest data from the Ministry of Health, becoming the second country after Italy with most newly registered infections. The army has deployed 1,100 soldiers from the Military Emergency Unit (UME) in 13 provinces throughout Spain. Army personnel have also been dispatched to clean up swathes of Madrid, which health officials fear may have been infected by large crowds, and to the borders. Madrid has closed its borders with France and Portugal. According to the state of alarm, soldiers will be considered “representatives of authority” which implies that they may issue orders to civilians and that those who fail to comply with them or resist them may be accused of disobedience or resistance to authority. The Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE)-Podemos government will deploy the army in the streets for control and surveillance, to ensure compliance with the regulations limiting freedom of movement under confinement. The government has also taken control of state, regional and local police, including that of Catalonia and the Basque Country, while private security officers will be under the command of the police. Anyone violating “non-compliance or resistance to the orders of the authority” faces fines of euro 600 to euro 30,000, according to the Citizen Security Law. They also face up to four years in prison. The same law that the PSOE and Podemos promised to remove once in power, is now being implemented under a state of alarm. From Monday on, millions of people will be confined to their homes for at least two weeks. The government has already said it will extend the state of alarm beyond the 15 days mandated by law. Under the state of alarm, people can only go to specific shops individually, and stay in them for the time “strictly necessary”, avoiding crowds and stay at least one meter away from other people. Only food, beverage, products and essential goods establishments will remain open such as pharmacies, medical supply stores, opticians, shops for orthopaedic and hygienic products, press, fuel and pet food stores. Millions of other workers who cannot work from home are being forced to go to their workplaces, travelling in unhygienic conditions and working in an unsafe environment. These are not health workers, nurses, pharmacists or supermarket staff, but factory and construction workers whose companies have decided not to stop production during the following 15 days.
Special Report: ‘All is well’. In Italy, triage and lies for virus patients – (Reuters) – The fight against death pauses every day at 1 p.m. At that time, doctors in the intensive care unit of Policlinico San Donato phone relatives of the unit’s 25 critically-ill coronavirus patients, all of whom are sedated and have tubes down their throats to breathe, to update the families. Lunchtime used to be for visiting hours at this Milan hospital. But now, as the country grapples with a coronavirus outbreak that has killed more than 2,000 people, no visitors are allowed in. And no one in Italy leaves their homes anymore. When the doctors make the calls, they try not to give false hope: They know that one out of two patients in intensive care with the disease caused by the virus is likely to die. As the COVID-19 epidemic expands and the disease progresses, these beds are in increasing demand, especially because of the breathing problems the illness can bring. Every time a bed comes free, two anaesthesiologists consult with a specialist in resuscitation and an internal medicine physician to decide who will occupy it. Age and pre-existing medical conditions are important factors. So is having a family. “We have to take into account whether older patients have families who can take care of them once they leave the ICU, because they will need help,” says Marco Resta, deputy head of Policlinico San Donato’s Intensive Care Unit. Even if there is no chance, he says, you have to “look a patient in the face and say, ‘All is well.’ And this lie destroys you.” The most devastating medical crisis in Italy since World War Two is forcing doctors, patients and their families to make decisions that Resta, a former military doctor, said he has not experienced even in war. As of Monday, 2,158 people had died and 27,980 been infected by coronavirus in Italy – the second highest number of reported cases and deaths in the world behind China. Resta says that 50% of those with COVID-19 who are accepted into intensive care units in Italy are dying, compared with a usual mortality rate of 12% to 16% in such units nationwide.
Coronavirus live news: Italy deaths up by 475, biggest jump anywhere in a single day – The coronavirus death toll in Italy has increased by 475, the highest number so far recorded any country in a single day, according to the latest figures from the Civil Protection Agency. In total the death toll from the virus in the country, the worst affected in Europe by the outbreak, has now reached 2,978 – an increase of 19%, Reuters reported. The total number of cases in Italy, the European country hardest hit by the virus, rose to 35,713 from a previous 31,506, up 13.35% Of those originally infected, 4,025 had fully recovered compared to 2,941 the day before. Some 2,257 people were in intensive care against a previous 2,060.The coronavirus death toll in the UK has reached 104 after NHS England said a further 32 people had died in England after testing positive. This brings the total number of confirmed reported deaths in England to 99. The patients were aged between 59 and 94 years old and had underlying health conditions.Boris Johnson has announced that UK schools will close, after days of pressure and the announcement of the closure of schools in Wales and Scotland earlier today. The prime minister said there is a need to apply further pressure on the upward curve of the disease. He refused to say how long he thought closures would last. Baltic states have deployed ships, a train and a plane to repatriate hundreds of citizens stuck at the border between Germany and Poland after Warsaw banned foreign nationals over the coronavirus, the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency reports. A ship from Germany docked at the Lithuanian port of Klaipeda Wednesday, hours after a train arrived in the central city of Kaunas, said Aldona Griniene; a spokeswoman for the nation’s transport ministry. Vilnius also sent a military transport plane to airlift dozens of people from Germany who were unable to cross into Poland earlier this week. More ships are scheduled in the coming days, AFP reports.
Italy coronavirus: country surpasses China in number of coronavirus deaths – CNN – Italy has just surpassed China for the most number of deaths related to coronavirus, making it the world’s deadliest center of the outbreak. The number of deaths in Italy reached 3,405 on Thursday, the Italian Civil Protection Agency said at a news conference — 156 more than China’s toll, which, according to Johns Hopkins University, stands at 3,249. The total number of cases in Italy rose to 41,035 with 5,322 new cases, officials added. The grim figure comes hours after China marked a major milestone in the battle to limit the spread, reporting no new locally transmitted coronavirus cases for the first time since the pandemic began.As cases ratcheted up, Italy imposed nationwide restrictions similar to those seen in China — placing more than 60 million people under lockdown.Italy’s world-class health system has been pushed to the brink amid the outbreak, especially in the country’s north, which has seen the highest concentration of cases. People are being treated in field hospitals and lined up in corridors inside its straining public hospitals. Doctors and nurses are being infected, due to a lack of adequate protection.Italian authorities are considering lengthening school closures beyond April 3, amid rumors of the lockdown also being extended.”I think we are going toward an extension,” Italian Education minister Lucia Azzolina said Thursday, adding that schools would reopen once there is “certainty of absolute safety.”Corriere della Sera quoted Thursday Italian PM Giuseppe Conte as saying “it is clear” the measures to tackle the outbreak, “both the one that has closed a lot of the country’s businesses and individual activities, and the one that concerns the school, can only be extended to the deadline.” The Prime Minister’s spokesperson told CNN no official decision had yet been taken.
Coronavirus: Record 9,600 cited for breaking lockdown on Thursday – English – Rome, March 20 – A record daily number of 9,600 people were cited Thursday for breaking coronavirus lockdown rules, the interior ministry said Friday. Some 200,842 people were checked and 9,407 cited for being out and about without good reason while 99,806 shops were controlled with 205 operators cited and 21 shops closed down. The number of people controlled from March 11 to 19 thus rose to 1,427,011, with 61,425 cited; 743,532 shops were controlled and 1,973 operators cited.
“Worse Than War”: Italian Army Convoy Removes Coffins From Overwhelmed Town – Reuters has confirmed widely circulating which shows a deeply disturbing apocalyptic and dystopian scene of a large convoy of military trucks removing bodies from a town in northern Italy which has been devastated by coronavirus. Local government and morgue facilities in the town of Bergamo, northeast of Milan, have been overwhelmed by the number of cases and deaths.”Italy ordered the army to move bodies from a northern town at the center of the coronavirus outbreak where funeral services have been overwhelmed as the government prepared to prolong emergency lockdown measures across the country,” Reuters reports. I was sent this video from Bergamo, Italy. The military has been asked to transport dead bodies and coffins because there are no more spaces in the crematoriums or the mortuaries. #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/PGVuuqxEoh – Alessandra (@alessabocchi) March 18, 2020The local newspaper Eco di Bergamo was among the first media outlets to publish the footage, which also went viral on social media. Some 60 coffins were transported to crematoria outside the town on Wednesday night alone, the Italian newspaper reports: Army vehicles brought numerous coffins, about sixty, from the cemetery of Bergamo to the crematoria of other regions where there are municipalities that have made themselves available to accept them.
Coronavirus live updates: global cases top quarter of a million, as Italy sees biggest daily rise in deaths – Italy reported a record 627 new deaths from the novel coronavirus, taking its overall toll past 4,000 as the pandemic gathered pace despite government efforts to halt its spread. The total number of deaths was 4,032, with the number of infections reaching 47,021. Italy’s previous one-day record death toll was 475 on Wednesday. The nation of 60 million now accounts for 36.6% of the world’s coronavirus deaths. Italy has seen more than 1,500 deaths from Covid-19 in the past three days alone. Its current daily death rate is higher than that officially reported by China at the peak of its outbreak around Wuhan’s Hubei province.Summary: the latest global updates
- There have now been at least 10,316 deaths from coronavirussince it emerged and more than half of those deaths (5,168) have been in Europe, according to an AFP tally based on official sources.
- More than a quarter of a million cases have been detected in 161 countries and territories around the world.
- Among the worst-affected countries is Iran with 1,433 deaths and 19,644 cases, Spain, with 1,002 deaths and 19,980 cases, France with 372 deaths and 10,995 cases, and the United States with 205 deaths and 14,250 cases.
- For a second consecutive day China has reports no new domestic cases. But it is now worried about a second wave of infections coming from abroad and on Friday the health commission reports 39 more imported cases.
- International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach says it is “premature” to postpone the Tokyo Games planned for July-August, but admits the body is “considering different scenarios”.
- Pharmaceutical industry executives say they expect it will take 12 to 18 months to roll out a vaccine and jointly pledge to make it available worldwide based on need.
- The Canada-US border is expected to be closed by Saturday for non-essential travel. The same measure is being considered for the US-Mexico border.
Military to enforce coronavirus lockdown in Italy – Soldiers are being brought in to enforce a lockdown in Italy as the country struggles to contain the exploding coronavirus outbreak within its borders. The country is the hardest hit in Europe and has experienced the most coronavirus-related deaths out of any country in the world. The federal and local governments have been slammed with criticism over what some say are insufficient efforts to curb the spread of the illness. “(The request to use the army) has been accepted … and 114 soldiers will be on the ground throughout Lombardy … it is still too little, but it is positive,” Attilio Fontana, the president of the Lombardy region, said at a press conference Friday, according to a translation by CNN. “Unfortunately we are not seeing a change of trend in the numbers, which are rising.” Soldiers have already been stationed in several Italian cities, but have been ordered simply to ensure general security rather than enforce government orders. The news comes as Italy reported its largest one-day coronavirus death toll Friday, with 627 people dying in a 24-hour span. More than 47,000 people have been infected with the coronavirus in Italy, and more than 4,000 have died.
Italy’s coronavirus deaths spike by nearly 800 in one day – Italy’s coronavirus death toll spiraled by 793 in 24 hours Saturday, just two days after the country surpassed China’s total fatalities.Italy has now registered 4,825 deaths, with more than 53,000 people infected. China’s death toll was 3,255 with more than 81,000 people infected since the pandemic began earlier this yearThe hardest hit region is the province of Lombardy in the northern part of the country, with 3,095 deaths and more than 25,000 people infected, according to government statistics.Italy was among the first countries in Europe to institute strict measures on travel and quarantine, yet police reported more than 70,000 violations since measures were introduced March 11. On Friday alone there were more than 10,000 quarantine violations registered by Italian police.
Coronavirus in Italy: The elderly are being left to die alone during crisis – The death toll from hard-hit northern Italy has become so dramatic that Italian officials have called in more soldiers to enforce the lockdown. But even they can’t do anything to help the increasing numbers of elderly victims dying alone – and medical staff who are getting sick themselves.In Italy, more than 4,000 people, the majority of them over 70, have died. Chinese medical experts aiding Italian doctors say the restrictions imposed by the government haven’t been enough to stem the rising tide of deaths.Nurses said the situation in the Lombardy area is so dire that the dead are no longer even being counted. “We’re working in a state of very high stress and tension,” Daniela Confalonieri, a nurse in Milan told Reuters. “We can’t contain the situation, there’s a high level of contagion. It’s unimaginable.””We are at the end of our strength. The staff are beginning to get sick,” Romano Paolucci, a doctor in the Lombardy city of Cremona, told Reuters. Paolucci said the saddest thing about the coronavirus crisis is that many elderly victims cannot be visited by their relatives “and often die on their own.”
Coronavirus Outbreak: United Kingdom’s Response an Outlier –It is absolutely baffling. Last Tuesday, with lockdowns spreading throughout the world as the extent of the threat posed by COVID-19 became clear, videos circulated of tens of thousands of people at a Stereophonics gig in Cardiff, Wales, jumping up and down, singing along to their favorite songs.France, Belgium, and Ireland had all canceled sporting events. English soccer authorities would eventually follow suit, suspending the Premier League by themselves. But the U.K. government had not banned – and, as of now, still only discourages – mass gatherings. Many are left wondering: What does the British government know that the rest of the world doesn’t? How can its approach be so different from that of other countries’ governments? On Friday, Britain’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, said that 40 million people would need to catch the coronavirus to build up “herd immunity.” He said that the government’s approach could help “reduce the peak of the epidemic, pull it down, and broaden it” while protecting the elderly and vulnerable. “If you suppress something very, very hard, when you release those measures it bounces back, and it bounces back at the wrong time,” he told the BBC. This suggested that the government considered mass infection to be inevitable.Jenny Harries, England’s deputy chief medical officer, emphasized the continued importance of proper handwashing and other hygienic measures. The country’s chief medical officer, Professor Chris Whitty, said measures to tackle the spread of the disease would need to be in place for a “prolonged period,” and thus the government was introducing them more gradually so they could be sustained. Whitty also confirmed that the National Health Service would no longer test those with mild symptoms, reserving tests for those who present at hospitals with respiratory problems. This was in contradiction with the World Health Organization’s advice to keep testing.On Saturday, Britons over 70 were told to stay in strict isolation in their homes until July, in a “wartime-style” mobilization effort that will also see the requisitioning of hotels and other buildings as temporary hospitals and the emergency manufacturing of respirators for the critically ill.
UK: NHS anticipates year-long coronavirus crisis and 8 million hospitalised – A leaked document by Public Health England (PHE) for senior National Health Service (NHS) doctors and officials has given the lie to all previous official discussions of the gravity of the Covid-19 pandemic and its impact. The PHE expects that the UK’s coronavirus epidemic will last a year and that up to 7.9 million people will require hospitalisation in this time. The number of cases is forecast to increase rapidly over the next 10 to 14 weeks, reaching a roughly one-month peak from the end of May to mid-June. A 10-week decline in cases and deaths is expected to follow, falling to a relatively low level during the summer months. The authors of the report are concerned that the virus could then resurge in autumn and winter. According to the document, obtained by Britain’s Guardian newspaper, “As many as 80 percent of the population are expected to be infected with Covid-19 in the next 12 months, and up to 15 percent (7.9 million people) may require hospitalisation.” Assuming a fatality rate of just 1 percent, the infection of over 50 million people would mean 531,100 deaths. Even by Chief Medical Officer Professor Chris Whitty’s estimate of 0.6 percent, the death toll would be over 318,000. But the global fatality rate is currently around 3.4 percent. This staggering assessment is yet another indictment of the government’s laissez-faire approach to the pandemic and their worthless assurances that services will be able to cope. The UK, along with much of the rest of the world, faces a prolonged social emergency which will affect the lives of millions. Over the weekend, a new-born baby in London tested positive for coronavirus. Italian doctors are reporting that a new wave of younger patients is now being hospitalised. Dr. Luca Lorini, head of anaesthesia and intensive care at a northern Italian hospital, said, “The type of patient is changing. They are a bit younger, between 40 to 45 years old. People are arriving who got ill six or seven days ago and treated themselves at home, and then their conditions became more and more critical.” The PHE document is explicit in its fear that the overstretched NHS and other social services will be unable to cope. Work considered vital – “in essential services and critical infrastructure” such as the NHS, social care, policing, transport and the fire brigade – will not be able to function normally. The document warns, “it is estimated that at least 10 percent of people in the UK will have a cough at any one time during the months of peak Covid-19 activity,” meaning they would have to self-isolate for at least seven days under the government’s guidelines. This equates to a shortfall of half a million vital workers. PHE admit that the health service cannot come close to testing everyone with suspected symptoms for the virus, including NHS staff. Only the very seriously ill in hospital or those in prisons or care homes where the virus has already been detected will be tested.
Study: Coronavirus Outbreak Could Get Very Bad and Last a Very Long Time – The COVID-19 Response Team at Imperial College London has released the results of some new simulations for the U.S. and U.K. predicting how different efforts to fight the disease might pan out. These types of exercises involve strong assumptions and will inevitably be wrong to some extent. But even with that caveat in mind, the numbers are frightening.Basically, we can have two different goals here. The less disruptive one, “mitigation,” aims to slow the spread of the virus so that it doesn’t overwhelm our ability to treat severe cases. (This is often called “flattening the curve.”) The more aggressive approach, “suppression,” aims to squelch the outbreak entirely.Here’s a chart showing the simulated effect of some mitigation strategies, such as isolating people who are diagnosed and closing schools. (This simulation is for Great Britain, but the situation isn’t much better in the U.S.) These measures are far better than nothing; they manage to spread out the load on hospitals’ critical-care capacity, and they could reduce deaths by half. But hospital capacity is still overwhelmed many times over. That’s not good, so what about the more forceful approaches taken in China and South Korea, which require population-wide social distancing? The good news is that this works, as we’ve seen in those places. The bad news is that it works only so long as it’s in effect, at least according to these simulations. Here’s one for the U.S. where the efforts are lifted after five months: Importantly, though, these are not the only suppression measures that countries might try. As the report notes, “as case numbers fall, it becomes more feasible to adopt intensive testing, contact tracing and quarantine measures akin to the strategies being employed in South Korea today.” It might also be possible to tighten and relax restrictions repeatedly, or tighten them in some places but not others, as needed, which would lessen the total amount of time people spend under harsh social-distancing rules. And again, this is just a simulation that involves tons of guesswork. But regardless, the upshot here is that we could be actively working to suppress COVID-19 at great financial and social cost – or paying the price in dead bodies for our failure to do so – until a vaccine becomes available. Oh, and that will be about 12 to 18 months.
Coronavirus could lead to collapse of German healthcare system as early as May – The coronavirus (SARS CoV2) is spreading rapidly in Germany. The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) reported on Sunday evening that 4,838 people have been infected, an increase of over 1,040 from Saturday and almost a tripling from the approximately 1,600 total cases recorded by Wednesday. Thus far, the deaths of nine people have been linked to the virus. Professor Christian Drosten, a virologist at Berlin’s Charite hospital, warned Monday of an “extremely serious situation.” He added, “We must assume that we are rushing into the midst of an epidemic,” and urged swift public action and radical measures. By contrast, the federal government in Berlin has not shifted from its fatalistic attitude. At lunchtime on Thursday, federal Education Minister Anja Karliczek (Christian Democrats) claimed that a nationwide closing of schools was not being considered. A conference of education ministers from Germany’s 16 federal states on Thursday afternoon concluded with no decision being taken, with participants merely agreeing that closing schools and nurseries would be “possible.” Over the course of the weekend most states have announced the shutdown schools and kindergartens in the next days. On Wednesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel stated bluntly that one had to expect that between 60 and 70 percent of the population would contract coronavirus. Her priority is to avoid the healthcare system being “overwhelmed.” According to Merkel, the key issue is “to keep economic life going to some extent.” Just this week, the World Health Organisation declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic. The highly contagious coronavirus is spreading rapidly across every continent. Around the world, over 130,000 people have been infected, and the death toll has surpassed 5,000. The number of cases in Germany is doubling every four to five days. If this trend continues at the same pace, Germany could have 9 million cases by May. Assuming a fatality rate in the range of 0.5-5 percent, anywhere from 45,000 to 450,000 people would die. These were the case numbers first projected Thursday by the Suddeutsche Zeitung. In its report, “The power of the big number,” the newspaper predicted that by mid-May at the latest, some 1.2 million people would be infected. Already by mid-April, there would be a shortage of hospital beds to treat the sick. The article stated, “In the majority of cases, the illness takes a harmless course. But roughly one in five illnesses takes a more serious c
Anti-inflammatories may aggravate Covid-19, France advises – French authorities have warned that widely used over-the-counter anti-inflammatory drugs may worsen the coronavirus. The country’s health minister, Olivier Veran, who is a qualified doctor and neurologist, tweeted on Saturday: “The taking of anti-inflammatories [ibuprofen, cortisone … ] [aspirin] could be a factor in aggravating the infection. In case of fever, take paracetamol (acetaminophen) If you are already taking anti-inflammatory drugs, ask your doctor’s advice.” Health officials point out that anti-inflammatory drugs are known to be a risk for those with infectious illnesses because they tend to diminish the response of the body’s immune system. The health ministry added that patients should choose paracetamol because “it will reduce the fever without counterattacking the inflammation”. French patients have been forced to consult pharmacies since mid-January if they want to buy popular painkillers, including ibuprofen, paracetamol and aspirin, to be reminded of the risks. Jean-Louis Montastruc, the head of pharmacology at Toulouse hospital, told RTL radio: “Anti-inflammatory drugs increase the risk of complications when there is a fever or infection.”
In France, more than half of coronavirus patients in intensive care are under 60, suggesting it’s not just the elderly at risk – More than half of France’s coronavirus patients in intensive care are under 60, the country’s top health official said on Saturday. According to CNN, Jerome Salomon, the director-general for health, said, “We have serious cases also amid adults, and let me remind you that more than 50% of people in intensive care are under 60.” Salomon did not give a detailed breakdown of the intensive-care figures, so it’s unclear how many are significantly younger than 60. In Italy, which has one of the world’s oldest populations, the average age of people who have died from the virus is 81, Business Insider’s Rosie Perper reported last week. A study published in February by China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention also found that older people were more seriously affected, Business Insider’s Aria Bendix reported.
Health official warns that 150,000 Australians could die in coronavirus pandemic – After reprehensively denying the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic for weeks, Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government yesterday admitted, via a senior health official, that up to 150,000 Australians could die from the coronavirus under a worst-case scenario.Deputy Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly told a media conference the number of infections would range from 20 percent to 60 percent of the population. “The death rate is around 1 percent. You can do the maths,” he declared. In fact, as in other supposedly “developed” countries, the mortality rate could be much higher. Italy’s rate exceeds 5 percent. But even on a 1 percent rate, 15 million people would get the coronavirus and 150,000 would die. On the “best-case” scenario that Kelly outlined, that of a 20 percent infection rate, about 50,000 people out of 5 million infected with COVID-19 would die. A “moderate” scenario of 10 million infections – 40 percent of the population – would mean 100,000 dead. What Kelly did not say is that many of these people would die as a direct result of the failure of Australia’s governments, both federal and state. They have refused to take the necessary action soon enough to stem the spread of the disease, and to allocate the funding and resources urgently needed to test people and identify, isolate and treat the victims. The federal Liberal-National Coalition government and the various state and territory governments – the majority Labor Party-led – did not establish a nation-wide system for widespread testing, despite the World Health Organisation’s January 30 classification of the coronavirus as a “global health emergency.” Up until last weekend, Morrison was still encouraging people to shake hands, go about life as “normal” and even attend football games. These were not just mistakes. Every public relations message and government decision has been based on trying to protect corporate profits, not the lives and health of the population.As a result, the official number of coronavirus cases in Australia appears to be almost doubling every three days, following the same deadly exponential pattern seen in Italy, and taking hold across Europe, including the UK, the United States and internationally. The first coronavirus case in Australia was confirmed nearly two months ago, on January 25. By March 12, the country had 159 cases. As of this morning, the total had exceeded 450 confirmed cases, with five deaths.
Coronavirus live updates: China reports 13 new cases, Taiwan to bar entry to most foreigners – China’s National Health Commission said there were 13 new cases of infection in the country and that 11 more people have died from the virus; all of the deaths occurred in Hubei province, where the outbreak was first detected. Altogether, China has 80,894 confirmed cases, of which, 69,601 have recovered and 3,237 died. As of now, China accounts for less than 50% of the total number of cases confirmed globally. Other countries, such as Italy, Iran, Spain, Germany, France, South Korea, and the United States have seen a sharp spike in infections in recent weeks.South Korea reported 93 new cases and 3 additional deaths, according to the country’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The total number of confirmed infection cases in South Korea stands at 8,413 and 84 people have died. General Motors, Ford Motor and Fiat Chrysler have negotiated with the United Auto Workers union to “review and implement” rotating partial shutdown of facilities and other additional measures in an attempt to keep workers safe and healthy amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the union announced. The union said it expects “more detailed information to be released in the next 24 hours. Singapore reported 23 new cases on Tuesday night, with most of them imported from overseas as people returned from trips to areas like Europe and the United States. The city-state currently has 152 active cases, while 114 people have recovered. Last week, Singapore banned new visitors with recent travel to Italy, France, Spain, and Germany.Hong Kong reported new cases that brought its total from 157 on Monday to 167 on Tuesday. Chief executive Carrie Lam yesterday announced all inbound travelers would be subject to quarantine measures and the government also issued the second-highest alert for outbound travel. Residents were urged to avoid all non-essential travel.Taiwan reported 10 new cases of infection on Tuesday that brought its total to 77. It advised residents to avoid non-essential travel as that heightens the risk of bringing the infection back to the island. Taiwan will ban most foreigners from entering as it seeks to contain the coronavirus outbreak, its government said, according to a Reuters report. Anyone who enters Taiwan will also have to serve out a home quarantine period of 14 days, the report said, citing its health minister Chen Shih-chung. He said the number of imported cases have “increased sharply.” The new measures will be effective from midnight, and the government did not say how long they will be in effect, according to the report.
- Global cases: At least 184,976, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organization
- Global deaths: At least 7,529, according to the latest figures from the WHO
Coronavirus live updates: Singapore reports its first two deaths, Italy locks down further – Singapore reported its first two confirmed deaths related to the COVID-19 outbreak.The city-state’s health ministry said the two patients who died were a 75-year-old woman, and a 64-year-old man. The female patient had pre-existing conditions including heart disease, while the male patient had been hospitalized in Indonesia for pneumonia, and also had a history of heart disease, according to the health ministry. Singapore has been lauded globally for its approach in managing the outbreak. In February, the World Health Organization said that it was “very impressed” with the way the city-state has tackled the outbreak. The number of deaths in Italy spiked by 627 in a single day – the highest daily increase recorded globally – prompting the country to impose further restrictions. On Thursday, Italy overtook China to be the world’s deadliest hotspot. As of Mar. 20, total fatalities was 4,032. The mayor of the most badly affected city, Bergamo in Lombardy, said the true number of fatalities in his area was four times higher than what was officially reported, Reuters said. Italy’s health ministry said that new restrictions include closure of all parks, and people can only exercise around their residences. Authorities were frustrated that people were still out and about despite appeals for them to stay indoors, according to reports. New cases in South Korea jumped by 147, as of Saturday morning, and it reported eight more deaths.That brings the country’s total to 8,799 confirmed cases, and 102 deaths, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Daily new infections in the country have generally been on a downward trend over the past week, with 87 new cases on Friday, but the numbers reported on Saturday brings the number of new cases back above 100. China’s National Health Commission (NHC) said there were 41 new cases, and seven more deaths as of Mar. 20. That brought the country’s total to 81,008 confirmed cases, and 3255 deaths.There were no new cases in Hubei, the epicenter of the outbreak, but all the additional deaths were in the province. China said all of the new cases were imported, meaning people who traveled from overseas. The NHC said that brings China’s total number of imported cases to 269.The rise in imported cases come as students flock home from campuses in the U.S. and Europe, according to reports, sparking fears of a second wave of infections.
Containing Covid-19 (Or Not) – Stuart Staniford – In any given country, there are only two ways this virus ends. Either it spreads everywhere, completely overwhelms the health system, and culls 5-10% of the human population (and leaves some additional number with permanent lung damage). Or it gets contained – all the cases get tracked down, isolated, and the epidemic is stopped. China and Korea have demonstrated that containment is possible. The above graph shows the five day compound growth rate in the countries I’m tracking. Those two countries are clearly getting the virus under control. Japan is an intermediate case, and no-one knows whether to believe the Iranian numbers. Of the western countries, Italy has made some progress with the school closures and lockdown, but the health system is badly overwhelmed, and it’s still spreading with a doubling time of around four days. Probably the full benefit of the lockdown is not apparent yet, both because it takes a while to get enforcement really working, and because cases take a while to incubate from initial infection to being diagnosed. It’s not clear which of the two possible endings Italy is headed for. The US and the UK are both still with 30%/day spreads, which is a doubling time of just over 2 1/2 days. No doubt mandatory lockdowns are imminent. Here are the crude fatality rates (current known deaths over current known cases). Note that Italy is up over 7% – reflecting both an overwhelmed health system and an older population.
As lockdowns mount over COVID-19 worldwide, WHO pleads for more testing -17 March – There are now 183,000 cases of the coronavirus in 162 countries and territories worldwide, meaning that the number of active COVID-19 cases now exceeds the number of recovered patients. This includes more than 600 new deaths, bringing the total toll to over 7,200. The cases outside of China, which is now relatively stable, have now exceeded those within, as Europe has emerged as the new epicenter of the global pandemic with the United States not far behind. Emergency measures across entire nations are now commonplace as the virus shows little signs of being contained. France, Italy, Spain and Germany are under lockdown, a condition now affecting more than 250 million across Europe. Those four countries alone are collectively dealing with upwards of 52,000 cases, of which 2,663 have resulted in deaths. Fifty-seven countries on every inhabited continent have some form of travel restriction, many of them directed against Europe or the United States, in an attempt to stem the pandemic that is accelerating across the globe. In the United States, California, Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Washington, Kentucky, Maryland, Indiana, Rhode Island and Pennsylvania have all issued orders to close schools, restaurants and/or bars. The 6.7 million people living in the six counties including and surrounding San Francisco are now under a “shelter in place” order for the next three weeks, which will be enforced by local police to “ensure compliance.” New Jersey residents are now being “strongly discouraged” from leaving their homes after 8:00 p.m., which will be enforced by the state’s contingent of the National Guard. These bans are in addition to a nationwide directive from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced Monday recommending against any gathering of more than 10 people. As the World Health Organization (WHO) noted, however, such actions in and of themselves are insufficient to stop the spread of the disease. WHO Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said yesterday that governments were not doing enough to combat the pandemic and urged them to step up their testing programs. “[W]e have not seen an urgent enough escalation in testing, isolation and contact tracing – which is the backbone of the response. … You can’t fight a fire blindfolded and we can’t stop this pandemic if we don’t know who is infected,” he said at a news conference in Geneva. “We have a simple message for all countries: test, test, test.”
Study finds COVID-19 spread in China fueled by “stealth transmission” A new study published in the journal Science has tracked the spread of the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV2, across China in January concluding 86 percent of early infections were undocumented. The researchers suggest a “radical increase” in identification of undocumented cases is vital to slow the spread. The study, from scientists at Columbia University, Imperial College London, UC Davis and the University of Hong Kong, used a computer model to simulate the spatiotemporal spread of the virus based on reported cases in 375 Chinese cites between January 10 and 23. The model ultimately showed the total spread of the virus throughout China in January could not be explained by just accounting for confirmed cases. In fact, the model suggests 86 percent of infections across that period of time went undocumented. “The explosion of COVID-19 cases in China was largely driven by individuals with mild, limited, or no symptoms who went undetected,” says Jeffrey Shaman, from Columbia University Mailman School and co-author on the new study. “Depending on their contagiousness and numbers, undetected cases can expose a far greater portion of the population to virus than would otherwise occur. We find for COVID-19 in China these undetected infected individuals are numerous and contagious. These stealth transmissions will continue to present a major challenge to the containment of this outbreak going forward.” The study found these undocumented cases were not as contagious as confirmed cases, with estimates suggesting they were only around half as contagious. However, the study did report these milder undocumented cases were most likely responsible for causing 79 percent of the subsequent documented cases.
Top Cleric On Iran’s Powerful Council Of Experts Dies Of Covid-19 – – Top Iranian clerics who are close to the supreme leader have increasingly been testing positive for Covid-19, and one senior cleric has just died from it. Multiple regional news outlets have reported the death Ayatollah Hashem Bathaei-Golpaygani Monay after he tested positive for coronavirus over the weekend, in the very first instance of a member of the powerful Council of Experts diagnosed with the virus.The Council of Experts is the top clerical-government advisory body that chooses the country’s supreme leader when the former dies or steps down. It’s but the latest instance of the deadly virus appearing to come closer and closer to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the current supreme leader of the Islamic Republic.The 79-year old Bathaei-Golpaygani had been rushed to a hospital the city of Qom on Saturday. Mehr News Agency reported that he passed away Monday morning in the ICU.Starting weeks ago top Iranian officials began catching the virus, and a top former ambassador to Egypt and the Vatican also died from it, as it’s also increasingly penetrated the top ranks of the country’s elderly powerful clerical establishment. For example, 71-year-old cleric Mohammad Mirmohammadi died of the virus early this month. He was a member of the Expediency Discernment Council – also an important advisory body to the Ayatollah Khamenei.Meanwhile hard-hit Iran’s death toll has jumped overnight once again. Al Jazeera reports based on Iranian state sources: Iran state TV says new coronavirus has killed another 129 people, pushing the death toll to 853 amid 14,991 confirmed cases.“Our plea is that everyone take this virus seriously and in no way attempt to travel to any province,” health ministry spokesman Kianoush Jahanpour said in a televised news conference.“In the past 24 hours we had 1,053 confirmed new cases of coronavirus and 129 new deaths,” a top health official, Alireza Vahabzadeh, stated Monday.
50 New Infections Every Hour In Iran, One Death Per 10 Minutes: Health Ministry Despite that between Tuesday and Wednesday of this week Iran witnessed its biggest ever single-day spike in Covid-19 cases, authorities are still struggling to get everyone to observe quarantine and self-isolation measures, especially after throngs of hardline Shia demonstrators have gathered to protest the closure of two of the country’s holiest shrines in the city of Qom. Toward this end, Iran’s Health Ministry spokesman Kianush Jahanpur made an astounding statement to put things in perspective, saying the current soaring numbers show that – “In Iran, every ten minutes one person dies from the coronavirus, 50 get infected.” He added in the Twitter statement “And every 10 minutes one person dies.”#Iran‘s Health Ministry’s Spokesman: Every hour 50 Iranians contract #Covid19 and every 10 minutes 1 dies. Keep this data in your mind and think twice when you decide to visit relatives in Nowruz or travel to other cities. https://t.co/BBbYwv6czM – Fereshteh Sadeghi Ùرشته صادقی (@fresh_sadegh) March 19, 2020 He further urged citizens to think about this extreme risk every time they break national directives and go out to visit people or travel to other cities. This as on Thursday the national number of cases climbed to 18,407 – a jump of 1,046 cases from the day prior. The death toll in Iran from the coronavirus outbreak has risen to 1,284, state media reported on Thursday, among those 149 people dying of the virus in the last 24 hours, with 1,046 new cases emerging.
As Iran Hits 20,000 Cases, US Says ‘Coronavirus Won’t Save You From Sanctions’ – Even amid a global pandemic that’s altering daily life as everyone knows it, and with borders shut, markets collapsing, and talk of mobilizing the military domestically, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is keeping up the administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign on Iran. “The United States sent Iran a blunt message this week: the spread of the coronavirus will not save it from U.S. sanctions that are choking off its oil revenues and isolating its economy,” Reuters reports. Consider too the blunt headline to the report – U.S. to Iran: Coronavirus won’t save you from sanctions. This as a top Iranian health expert warned his fellow citizens to brace for “millions” possibly killed as a result of the deadly pandemic. “Our policy of maximum pressure on the regime continues,” Brian Hook, the US Special Representative for Iranian Affairs, told reporters this week. But as Spencer Ackerman reports, this policy will actually make the Covid-19 spread more dangerous for us all: “We are not safe in any place until everyone all over the world is safe,” Paul Anatharajah Tambyah, the president of the Asia-Pacific Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infection, told the Wall Street Journal about a new wave of COVID-19 cases in east Asia. “You have to facilitate these medical goods. Anyone who argues otherwise, or does otherwise, is a sociopath or a moron,” [bold mine-DL] said Jarrett Blanc, a former State Department official who monitored Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal that the Trump administration abandoned. “The U.S. should be busting its ass to make sure permissible medical exports are available to Iran. It’s in our self-interest.” The administration gleefully (and fanatically some would say) rolled out with new sanctions this week targeting over a dozen Iran-linked entities and individuals.
Can hot weather, like in Malaysia, stop coronavirus? – A dramatic surge in coronavirus infections in Southeast Asia in recent days has increased doubts over a theory that warmer weather could stem the spread of the virus, health experts say. Relatively low cases of infections in many Southeast Asian countries had been cited as possible evidence that hotter weather was suppressing the virus, giving hope to Europe and the United States as they head into spring. But countries from Indonesia to Thailand to Malaysia and the Philippines have recorded their highest rate of infections in recent days as testing has ramped up, in a sign seasonal factors may only play a limited role in coronavirus’ spread. “The temperature theory doesn’t really hold up given what’s happening right now in much of Southeast Asia,” said Tikki Pangestu, a professor at Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. Though a limited amount is known about the new virus, some of the symptoms show similarities with winter influenza, which is more widespread in colder temperatures, although this is partly attributed to people crowding together inside. Places where the virus has been felt most severely, such as Wuhan in central China, northern Italy and parts of the United States, share similar climates and temperatures. In Southeast Asia, which shares a hot tropical climate, many countries had reported few cases even months after the initial outbreak at the end of last year in China, in spite of the region’s close travel, business and investment ties to China. But health experts said, rather than the hot climate, this was more down to limited testing, under-detection due to a lack of resources and more imported cases as the virus moves to multiple epicentres outside of China. The spike of cases in many Southeast Asian countries has been dramatic in recent days, leading governments to take drastic action to stem the tide. In the Philippines, deaths more than doubled to 12 at the weekend, with confirmed cases rising to 140 – compared to three 10 days ago – prompting authorities to place the entire capital Manila under “community quarantine”. Malaysia reported a further 125 coronavirus cases on Monday – bringing its total to 553 – the highest in Southeast Asia. Many were linked to a single event at a mosque. Thailand, which reported 33 new cases on Monday, its biggest daily jump, plans to close schools, bars, movie theatres, cockfighting arenas and other entertainment centres. Indonesia confirmed 17 more cases on Monday, taking its toll to 134, amid concerns that there could be large under-reporting in the world’s fourth most populous country. Indonesia, which only recorded its first cases on March 2, had carried out only 220 tests a week ago but that has now risen to nearly a thousand.
Boffins claim HIV and malaria drugs could ‘cure coronavirus -Scientists claim that a cure for the disease is possible, thanks to two existing drugs normally used to treat malaria and HIV.The drugs, called Chloroquine and Lopinavir, could also be administered to patients with coronavirus, boffins from the University of Queensland Centre for Clinical Research claimed.According to Professor David Paterson , who is leading the research, the drugs have already been shown to wipe out the virus in test tubes.Speaking to news.com.au , he explained: “It’s a potentially effective treatment. Patients would end up with no viable coronavirus in their system at all after the end of therapy.”Researchers now want to carry out a clinical study across Australia to test the effects of the drugs on patients with the virus, MirrorOnline reports. He added: “What we want to do at the moment is a large clinical trial across Australia, looking at 50 hospitals, and what we’re going to compare is one drug, versus another drug, versus the combination of the two drugs.”
China’s Virus Center Has No New Cases After Two-Month Ordeal – The Chinese province at the center of the coronavirus outbreak reported no new infections for the first time since the pathogen emerged more than two months ago, marking a turning point in an epidemic that’s infected almost 81,000 Chinese and threatens to push the world’s second-largest economy into its first quarterly contraction in decades. The milestone for Hubei province comes as China struggles to get back on its feet after being flattened by a disease that exploded out of the city of Wuhan in late January. It’s grappling with the aftermath of containment measures that have wrought enormous social and economic damage, most of all in the 60-million province of Hubei, which is still under mass quarantine. And with the virus accelerating its spread worldwide and people within China resuming work and social activities, a second wave of infections is almost guaranteed, say experts, given how contagious the pathogen is and how easily it slips past country borders. Indeed, even as Hubei’s numbers have dwindled to zero, China is facing another concern as imported cases continue to add to the country’s tally of infections. The National Health Commission reported 34 new cases for March 18, all of them patients who brought the disease from other countries. China should watch out for “very infectious” cases among travelers entering China from other countries, and some show no symptoms at first, prominent Chinese infectious disease expert Zhong Nanshan said in a press conference on Wednesday. As its new cases dropped to zero on Thursday from a peak of 15,000 a month ago, Hubei also partially lifted the mass quarantine that’s been in place since Jan. 23, allowing some residents in lower-risk areas to leave the province for work. According to local media reports, people have to get a “green code” certification proving they are in good health in order to leave. Hubei’s mass quarantine, which encompasses Wuhan and surrounding cities, was aimed at sealing off the region where the virus first emerged from the rest of the country and world. The unprecedented and draconian measures are now being replicated by some of the highly-infectious countries. Now as work resumes and movement restrictions are lifted, the chance of another wave of infections is high, because the majority of the Chinese population is still not immune as they did not get infected in the first wave, said Raina MacIntyre, head of the biosecurity program at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. “Even if there were over 100 times more cases in China than were reported, less than 1% of the entire population were infected, leaving most people in China still susceptible,” said MacIntyre.
Coronavirus: South Korea’s infection rate falls without citywide lockdowns like China, Italy – South Korea has seen a steady decrease in new coronavirus cases for four consecutive days, despite being one of the worst-affected countries outside China, although global attention has shifted towards outbreaks in Italy and Iran. As of end-Monday, it had 7,513 cases and 54 deaths. The Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said there was an increase of 131 cases from Sunday to Monday. The country averaged more than 500 new infections a day for the past two weeks, but last Friday, this number dipped to 438, then 367 on Saturday and 248 on Sunday. The daily number of confirmed cases is reported the following day. South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Monday noted his country’s “slowing trend” of new infections but warned: “We should not be complacent at all.” His point was underscored by the KCDC, which said that among the new patients were more than 60 people who were infected while working in close proximity to each other at an insurance company call centre. “The total number of new confirmed cases is on a downturn but there are concerns over such mass infection cases”, said KCDC Deputy Director Kwon Jun-wook.
Kenyan Man Stoned To Death By Mob For Having Coronavirus – A man suspected of COVID-19 was stoned to death by locals in one African town, reported ZimEye News.The incident occurred in Kibundani Village, Kwale County, a coastal region in Kenya, on Tuesday.The man, George Kotini Hezron, was walking home from a local bar in the village of Msambweni when a mob of youths viciously attacked him.…namely George Kotini Hezron while heading home from a drinking spree and on reaching Kibundani area about 3kms west of the station met a group of youth and an argument ensued as the youth took advantage of his drunkenness and started accusing him of suffering from Corona virus https://t.co/bcZsHwWHgU – Fred Ng’etich (@ngetichfred) March 18, 2020 Hezron was rushed to Msambweni Subcounty Hospital, where he later died of his injuries.
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