Written by rjs, MarketWatch 666
The news posted last week for the coronavirus 2019-nCoV (aka SARS-CoV-2), which produces COVID-19 disease, has been surveyed and some important articles are summarized here. The articles are more or less organized with general virus news and anecdotes first, then stories from around the US, followed by news from other countries around the globe. This week we have increased coverage of overseas hotspots, especially Brazil. Economic news related to COVID-19 is found here.
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COVID19: New Practical Results on Airborne Transmission Indoors – Lambert Strether – From the beginning of the #COVID19 pandemic, we’ve been washing our hands, masking up, cleaning surfaces, and social distancing. These measures have worked (especially masking), but now we know more. There’s mounting evidence that airborne transmission indoors is a key – perhaps the main – pathway to SARS-COV-2 transmission. In this post I want to look at why that’s so, give examples, and suggest a simple heuristic to stay safe. Material like this might also be used to inform public policy (here; here) by reducing superspreader events in enclosed spaces like churches (airborne transmission via singing), restaurants (loud talking, especially if room is noisy), bars (ditto), nursing homes (shouting[1]), gyms (grunting), meat-packing plants (shouting), call centers (talking), offices generally (air conditioning), and other hot spots, but working that polucy out is not the object of this post (see here for engineering controls for airborne transmission, and here for covid-proofing public spaces). This article from PNAS seems to be the index publication for airborne transmission. From “The airborne lifetime of small speech droplets and their potential importance in SARS-CoV-2 transmission“: Speech droplets generated by asymptomatic carriers of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) are increasingly considered to be a likely mode of disease transmission. Highly sensitive laser light scattering observations have revealed that loud speech can emit thousands of oral fluid droplets per second. In a closed, stagnant air environment, they disappear from the window of view with time constants in the range of 8 to 14 min, which corresponds to droplet nuclei of ca. 4 μm diameter, or 12- to 21-μm droplets prior to dehydration. These observations confirm that there is a substantial probability that normal speaking causes airborne virus transmission in confined environments. That experiment was done inside a box. Vox translates to real world terms: A crowded indoor place, then, with poor ventilation, filled with people talking, shouting, or singing for hours on end will be the riskiest scenario. A sparsely populated indoor space with open windows is less risky (but not completely safe). Running quickly past another jogger outside is on the other end of the spectrum; minimal risk. (In other words, the problem is not density or proximity; the problem is transmission of the virus, through the air, by human vocalization[2] (of which coughing and sneezing are a small, and symptomatic, subset.) That would explain why masks have worked. (One could argue that masks need only be worn indoors, but most people are constantly moving from the outdoors to the indoors and out again, which would involved touching the mask constantly to remove and replace it; better to wear it all the time. In any case, minimal risk, to others, is not no risk).
Coronavirus Uses Same Strategy As HIV To Evade, Cripple Immune System- Chinese Study Finds -Back on February 1, we published an article referencing an Arxiv pre-print which found that the covid-19 genome contained “HIV Insertions”, stoking fears that the virus was an artificially created bioweapon. While the mere suggestion that this virus was man-made – nevermind sharing discrete segments of its genetic structure with HIV – sparked outrage among the well-paid mercenary enforcers of the First Amendment known as “fact-checkers” who are employed by such biased organizations as Twitter and Facebook to stifle any line of inquiry that runs contrary to whatever dominant narrative has been blessed by the Zuckerbergs and Dorseys of the world, it was none other than the man who discovered the HIV virus back in 1983, that confirmed our suspicions saying that “the virus was man-made.”As we reported in April, Professor Luc Montagnier, the 2008 Nobel Prize winner for Medicine, claimed that SARS-CoV-2 is a manipulated virus that was accidentally released from a laboratory in Wuhan, China, and added that the WUhan laboratory, known for its work on coronaviruses, tried to use one of these viruses as a vector for HIV in the search for an AIDS vaccine.Needless to say, since this narrative was destructive to China and all those self-proclaimed experts who had vowed there is no way the Wuhan virus was i) manmade, ii) released by a Chinese lab and iii) had HIV-insertions, the story was quickly buried and never received as much as a minute of airtime in conventional media sources.That may all change now, as a result of the third, and perhaps most startling yet twist in the bizarre saga of the coronavirus, after the South China Morning Post reported that a new study by Chinese scientists has found that the novel coronavirus uses the same strategy to evade attack from the human immune system as HIV. Specifically, both viruses remove marker molecules on the surface of an infected cell that are used by the immune system to identify invaders, the researchers said in a non-peer reviewed paper titled “The ORF8 Protein of SARS-CoV-2 Mediates Immune Evasion through Potently Downregulating MHC-I”, posted on pre-print website bioRxiv.org on Sunday (a paper which the great hordes of amateur epidemiologists will make sure is promptly taken down or else their carefully planted propaganda may be obliterated). They warned that this commonality could mean Sars-CoV-2, the clinical name for the virus, could be around for some time, like HIV.
Men with long ring fingers are less likely to die from the coronavirus: study – Men with longer ring fingers may have a lower chance of dying from the coronavirus and could be more likely to face mild symptoms, according to a new study published in the journal Early Human Development.The reason? The length of ring fingers is believed to be linked to how much testosterone men are exposed to in utero – the longer the finger, the greater the hormonal exposure. And testosterone is believed to protect against severe coronavirus-related illness because it increases the concentration of angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) in the body. Earlier this month, researchers estimated that men, with no mention of finger length, are more than twice as likely to die from COVID-19 than women because of the greater presence of ACE2 found in their blood. ACE2, a receptor and a gatekeeper to cells, binds to the coronavirus, allowing it to cause infection. So while it may not stop them from getting the coronavirus, it could be a sign that the symptoms won’t be as severe. Other studies suggest that even higher levels of ACE2 – thought to create greater entry points for the virus to infect cells – can protect men against lung damage, the Daily Mail notes.With regards to the lungs, the coronavirus is known to lower the number of ACE2 receptors once inside the body. But it appears that men who have higher levels of the enzyme could be better protected from the disease’s wrath than men with a lower count.The Swansea University-led researchers pored over data from 200,000 people across 41 countries where they measured volunteers’ ring fingers in relation to their index fingers to the nearest millimeter. A smaller “digit ratio” means the ring finger is longer, and this trait was found in countries including Malaysia, Russia and Mexico – where the COVID-19 fatality rate was lower. Countries where men have a higher digit ratio, meaning the ring finger is shorter, include the United Kingdom, Spain and Bulgaria – where there’s been a higher fatality rate.
Dogs Can Smell COVID-19 – In a pilot study at the University of Helsinki, dogs trained as medical diagnostic assistants were taught to recognize the previously unknown odor signature of the COVID-19 disease caused by the novel coronavirus. And they learned with astonishing success: After only a few weeks, the first dogs were able to accurately distinguish urine samples from COVID-19 patients from urine samples of healthy individuals. “We have solid experience in training disease-related scent detection dogs. It was fantastic to see how fast the dogs took to the new smell,” says DogRisk group leader Anna Hielm-Björkman. After only a short time, the animals identified the urine of people infected by the novel coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2, almost as reliably as a standard PCR test. The Finnish scientists are now preparing a randomized, double-blind study in which the dogs will sniff a larger number of patient samples. Only then will the scent tests be used in clinical practice. The very rapid and promising findings from Finland are also important for other research teams, such as those in Great Britain and France, who are training sniffer dogs to detect COVID-19. Fellow researchers from the German Assistance Dog Center (TARSQ) have also benefited from the Finnish results. “No one could tell us with certainty whether training with the aggressive virus is dangerous or not for humans and dogs. We wanted to gather more information first before we started training because the German virologists advised us against it – after all, so little is known about the virus so far,” explains Luca Barrett from TARSQ. It is still unclear which substances in urine produce the apparently characteristic COVID-19 odor. Since SARS-CoV-2 not only attacks the lungs, but also causes damage to blood vessels, kidneys and other organs, it is assumed that the patients’ urine odor also changes. This is something which the dogs, with their highly sensitive olfactory organs, notice immediately. Certain diseases appear to have a specific olfactory signature that trained dogs can sniff out with amazing accuracy, Barrett says.
What Parents Should Know About Coronavirus as Kids Return to Babysitters, Day Cares and Camps Reopening states after the COVID-19 lockdown raises unnerving questions for working parents who depend on some form of child care, from nannies to day camp.Instead of coming home with a snotty nose, is your child going to bring back the coronavirus? And how do you know your in-home babysitter or nanny, even your child’s teacher, isn’t a symptom-free spreader?The short answer is that there are no easy answers. Every family’s budget and needs and risk tolerance are going to be different. ProPublica scoured the latest research and talked to seven infectious disease and public health experts to help think through the issues facing parents. We were surprised to find the experts were reassuring. In fact, with the proper precautions and monitoring in place, most of them thought parents could safely rely on caregivers, day care centers and perhaps even counselors at sleep-away camp.There’s also a hopeful nugget of information out of New Jersey. We called the state’s Department of Health to see if COVID-19 had been spreading within the child care centers that had opened April 1 to serve children of essential workers. There have been no reports of outbreaks of two or more cases, an official said.But don’t get too excited. Some key questions still can’t be answered because of a frustrating lack of research. For example, it’s hard to say how much children transmit the disease among themselves or to others. And while some child care centers have been open, experts were not aware of any studies taking place about transmission within them.The dearth of research about the coronavirus and kids is “a huge loss,” said Dr. Ashish Jha, incoming dean of the Brown University School of Public Health. “The idea that we’re not using every opportunity to study this stuff blinds us when making decisions,” he said.
Wearing face masks at home might help ward off COVID-19 spread among family members – Wearing face masks at home might help ward off the spread of COVID-19 infection among family members living in the same household, but only before symptoms develop, suggests a study of Chinese families in Beijing, accepted for publication in BMJ Global Health. This practice was 79% effective at curbing transmission before symptoms emerged in the first person infected, but it wasn’t protective once symptoms had developed, the study shows. The researchers wanted to know what factors might heighten or lessen the risk of subsequently catching the virus within the incubation period–14 days from the start of that person’s symptoms. During this time, secondary transmission–spread from the first infected person to other family members–occurred in 41 out of the 124 families. A total of 77 adults and children were infected in this way, giving an ‘attack rate’ of 23% or around 1 in 4. Around a third of the study children caught the virus (36%; 13 out of 36) compared with more than two thirds of the adults (just over 69.5%; 64 out of 92). Twelve of the children had mild symptoms; one had none. Most (83%) of the adults had mild symptoms; in around 1 in 10, symptoms were severe, and one person became critically ill. Daily use of disinfectants, window opening, and keeping at least 1 metre apart were associated with a lower risk of passing on the virus, even in more crowded households. But daily contact and the number of family members wearing a face mask after the start of symptoms in the first person to develop them were associated with a heightened risk. Of all the behavioural and hygiene factors, four were significantly associated with secondary transmission of the virus. Diarrhoea in the first person to become infected and close daily contact with them increased the risk of passing on the virus: diarrhoea was associated with a quadrupling in risk, while close daily contact, such as eating meals round a table or watching TV together, was associated with an 18-fold increased risk. Frequent use of bleach or disinfectants for household cleaning and the wearing of a face mask at home before symptoms emerged, including by the first person to have them, were associated with a reduced risk of viral transmission. A face mask worn before symptoms started was 79% effective, and disinfection 77% effective, at stopping the virus from being passed on.
WHO halts trials of hydroxychloroquine over safety fears – Testing of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine as a possible treatment for coronavirus has been halted because of safety fears, the World Health Organization (WHO) says. Trials in several countries are being “temporarily” suspended as a precaution, the agency said on Monday. It comes after a recent medical study suggested the drug could increase the risk of patients dying from Covid-19. President Donald Trump has said he has taken the drug to ward off the virus. The US president has repeatedly promoted the anti-malarial drug, against medical advice and despite warnings from public health officials that it could cause heart problems. Last week, a study in medical journal The Lancet said there were no benefits to treating coronavirus patients with hydroxychloroquine, and that taking it might even increase the number of deaths among those in hospital with the disease. Hydroxychloroquine is safe for malaria, and conditions like lupus or arthritis, but no clinical trials have recommended its use for treating Covid-19. The WHO, which is running clinical trials of various drugs to assess which might be beneficial in treating the disease, has previously raised concerns over reports of individuals self-medicating and causing themselves serious harm. On Monday, officials at the UN health agency said hydroxychloroquine would be removed from those trials pending a safety assessment. The Lancet study involved 96,000 coronavirus patients, nearly 15,000 of whom were given hydroxychloroquine – or a related form chloroquine – either alone or with an antibiotic. The study found that the patients were more likely to die in hospital and develop heart rhythm complications than other Covid patients in a comparison group. The death rates of the treated groups were: hydroxychloroquine 18%; chloroquine 16.4%; control group 9%. Those treated with hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine in combination with antibiotics had an even higher death rate.
Exclusive: U.S. plans massive coronavirus vaccine testing effort to meet year-end deadline – The project will compress what is typically 10 years of vaccine development and testing into a matter of months, testimony to the urgency to halt a pandemic that has infected more than 5 million people, killed over 335,000 and battered economies worldwide. To get there, leading vaccine makers have agreed to share data and lend the use of their clinical trial networks to competitors should their own candidate fail, the scientists said. Candidates that demonstrate safety in small early studies will be tested in huge trials of 20,000 to 30,000 subjects for each vaccine, slated to start in July. Between 100,000 and 150,000 people may be enrolled in the studies, said Dr. Larry Corey, a vaccine expert at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, who is helping design the trials. “If you don’t see a safety problem, you just keep going,” Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), told Reuters. The vaccine effort is part of a public-private partnership called Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) announced last month. The effort fits into the research and development arm of “Operation Warp Speed,” the White House program announced last week to accelerate coronavirus vaccine development. Vaccines, which are intended for use in healthy people, are typically tested in successive steps, starting with trials in animals. Human testing begins with a small safety trial in healthy volunteers, followed by a larger study to find the right dose and get an early read on efficacy. The final stage consists of large-scale testing in thousands of people. Only then would a vaccine developer commit to manufacturing millions of doses. In the era of coronavirus, many of those steps will overlap, particularly the mid-stage and late-stage trials, Collins and Corey said. The approach has its risks, as certain safety issues may only appear in large-scale trials. Americans are concerned about the speed of the vaccine effort, a Reuters/Ipsos poll showed. A highly effective vaccine could be tested in as little as six months if there is a big difference in benefit between the vaccine and placebo groups, Corey said. For a modestly effective vaccine, trials could take nine to 12 months. .
Nature Pimps for Fundamentally Flawed Gates-Funded “Swab Yourself” Covid-19 Test – Yves Smith – One wonders what sexual favors were exchanged for the normally well-regarded publication Nature to run a defense of the indefensible, in this case, an obviously half-baked idea for Seattle residents to volunteer themselves for a home science study by jamming swabs through their noses to the back of their throats to collect their own Covid-19 samples and send them in by mail. Remarkably, the FDA woke up, cleared its throat, and said it needed to evaluate this “do it yourself” specimen collection. Now mind you, that’s actually the more charitable interpretation as far as the Gates Foundation and the FDA is concerned. It is possible that the Seattle testing initiative was using mere nose swabs (as in just of the nasal cavity), which is not the current standard for Covid-19 tests. If that is so, the Gates Foundation and its allies in the Seattle medical-academic community are setting out to promote tests that are known to be less accurate via inferior sample collection. They will endanger patients and the public by virtue of generating false negatives due to choosing inferior sampling methods.Yet Nature wails over the FDA stopping a testing program that either way was sure to generate a lot of bad samples and therefore bad results in Scientists baffled by decision to stop a pioneering coronavirus testing project.Honestly, any scientists who are “baffled” are revealing their lack of powers of observation and common sense.So what accounts for Nature shilling for such a flawed program? The too-obvious explanation is Bill Gates’ influence. He is the big money behind this so-called SCAN. Before we take apart the Nature story (actually two but the second one is more important), it goes without saying that the US has a problem with Covid-19 testing, that in general, not enough is being done, and those who are worried that they might have contracted it don’t want to show up in an emergency room or outpatient clinic and risk getting infected. And medical professionals probably aren’t so keen about handling Covid-19 tests interspersed with other duties, particularly if they don’t have the best PPE to begin with. The same conundrum exists with going to your regular MD’s office to get tested (assuming you have one and assuming he’ll even test you).
It’s Not Obesity. It’s Slavery – The era of slavery was when white Americans determined that black Americans needed only the bare necessities, not enough to keep them optimally safe and healthy. It set in motion black people’s diminished access to healthy foods, safe working conditions, medical treatment and a host of other social inequities that negatively impact health. This message is particularly important in a moment when African-Americans have experienced the highest rates of severe complications and death from the coronavirus and “obesity” has surfaced as an explanation. The cultural narrative that black people’s weight is a harbinger of disease and death has long served as a dangerous distraction from the real sources of inequality, and it’s happening again. Reliable data are hard to come by, but available analyses show that on average, the rate of black fatalities is 2.4 times that of whites with Covid-19. In states including Michigan, Kansas and Wisconsin and in Washington, D.C., that ratio jumps to five to seven black people dying of Covid-19 complications for every one white death. Despite the lack of clarity surrounding these findings, one interpretation of these disparities that has gained traction is the idea that black people are unduly obese (currently defined as a body mass index greater than 30) which is seen as a driver of other chronic illnesses and is believed to put black people at high risk for serious complications from Covid-19. These claims have received intense media attention, despite the fact that scientists haven’t been able to sufficiently explain the link between obesity and Covid-19. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 42.2 percent of white Americans and 49.6 percent of African-Americans are obese. Researchers have yet to clarify how a 7 percentage-point disparity in obesity prevalence translates to a 240 percent-700 percent disparity in fatalities.
Putting the Risk of Covid-19 in Perspective – The New York Times – How dangerous is it to live in New York City during this pandemic? How much safer is it in other places? Is the risk of dying from Covid-19 comparable to driving to work every day, skydiving or being a soldier in a war?We are awash in statistics about Covid-19: number of deaths, fatality rates, contagion rates. But what does this all mean in terms of personal risk? Fortunately, there are tools for assessing risk that can help us put the daily torrent of numbers in perspective. I found the best way to communicate the level of risk was to put it in terms that allowed easier comparison to other, more familiar, risks. One could then talk, for instance, about how dangerous living in a contaminated city was compared to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. A useful way to understand risks is by comparing them with what is called a “micromort,” which measures a one-in-a-million chance of dying. Note that we are considering only fatality risks here, not the risk of growing sick from coronavirus, or morbidity. The micromort allows one to easily compare the risk of dying from skydiving, for example (7 micromorts per jump), or going under general anesthesia in the United States (5 micromorts), to that of giving birth in the United States (210 micromorts).The average American endures about one micromort of risk per day, or one in a million chance of dying, from nonnatural causes, such as being electrocuted, dying in a car wreck or being struck by an asteroid (the list is long).Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, New York City experienced approximately 24,000 excess deaths from March 15 to May 9, when the pandemic was peaking. That’s 24,000 more deaths than would have normally occurred during the same time period in previous years, without this pandemic. This statistic is considered a more accurate estimate of the overall mortality risk related to Covid-19 than using the reported number of deaths resulting from confirmed cases, since it captures indirect deaths associated with Covid-19 (because of an overwhelmed health care system, for example) as well as the deaths caused by the virus itself. Converting this to micromort language, an individual living in New York City has experienced roughly 50 additional micromorts of risk per day because of Covid-19. That means you were roughly twice as likely to die as you would have been if you were serving in the U.S. armed forces in Afghanistan throughout 2010, a particularly deadly year.
How Stanford Lost Its Soul – The Nation – Stanford University enjoys an international reputation for excellence and an endowment of more than $27 billion, making it the third-wealthiest private school in America. The endowment lags behind only Harvard and Yale. In some ways, Stanford’s wealth is all more impressive since, unlike its venerable Ivy League rivals, the school itself is the very source of its own fortune. The campus is surrounded by Big Tech firms that were more or less created by its former students. Start at the center of Stanford and head north to go to Facebook, south to hit Apple, east to run into Google. The close proximity is no accident: Silicon Valley is the child of Stanford. Big Tech, out of filial gratitude, is always happy to lavishly fund its alma mater. But during the current pandemic, Stanford is making a mark for something less admirable than birthing the tech revolution. Stanford has become the main academic vector for contrarian Covid-19 thinking, helping give legitimacy to arguments that the world is overreacting to the virus. In March, Richard Epstein, a fellow at the Hoover Institution, a Stanford-affiliated think tank, published an influential article arguing that America could expect only around 500 deaths from the pandemic. He later revised that number to 5,000. Still later, he said he meant 50,000. Even that number, of course, is far short of the more than 93,000 Americans who have already died of Covid-19 – a figure that itself is almost certainly an undercount. It’s easy enough to dismiss Epstein as a buffoon. He’s a law professor, not an epidemiologist, and is known for his extremist libertarian views. Much more serious was the April 17 study released by a team headed by Dr. John Ioannidis, a professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Unlike the interloper Epstein, Ioannidis is one of the world’s leading experts on epidemics. The study reported findings based on tests done in Santa Clara County showing that the virus was much more prevalent than previously suspected, which also means the overall mortality rate is much lower than commonly assumed. The Santa Clara study, as it came to be called, was quickly picked up by the right-wing media, eager for ammunition for the argument that the lockdown had to be ended quickly. “Most of the population has minimal risk, in the range of dying while you’re driving from home to work and back,” Ioannidis told Fox News. The Santa Clara study was a preprint, meaning it had not been peer reviewed but was being shared so it could be examined by colleagues. The response of the scientific community was harsh. As a column in The New York Times by Aleszu Bajak and Jeff Howe noted, “What followed next was the academic version of a roast, with critics raising issues with the researchers’ recruitment method (Facebook ads), flaws in their statistical methods, and even the tests themselves – manufactured in China, and since banned from export.”
Here’s a Covid-19 Number Worth Watching – Cathy O’Neil – R(t) tells us how fast the disease is spreading at a given moment. If it’s greater than one, the growth is exponential: One case can become a million in a matter of weeks. If it’s less than one, the pandemic is petering out. It reflects both the nature of the virus and the measures people take to avoid infecting one another. It also tends to decline naturally: as time goes on, more people get sick, recover and hence become immune, leaving fewer to infect. R(t) can explain a lot. Consider, for example, how soon a place might reach herd immunity – the point at which enough people become immune that the disease can no longer spread exponentially. 1 Let’s say the initial reproduction rate – known as R(0) – is 3, the best estimate for the coronavirus. When everyone is susceptible, three people will get sick from the average infected person. But if two out of three are already immune, only one will get sick. R(t) will be 1. In other words, there’s a predictable mathematical relationship. If R(0) is 3, the threshold for herd immunity is two thirds of the population. If R(0) is 4, the threshold is three fourths. Note that’s a lower bound, and doesn’t necessarily apply to pockets of society – such as nursing homes, prisons or crowded bars – where the local R(t) is higher. So what does this mean for the U.S.? If R(0) is 3 and the population is 330 million, then about 220 million must get infected to achieve herd immunity. If the death rate is 1%, that’s 2.2 million fatalities, assuming no change in social practices. This also happens to be what the now-famousImperial College London model originally estimated back in mid-March. But people in the U.S. have changed their social practices. They have stayed at home and started using masks, helping to push R(t) down below 1, judging from the declining daily numbers of fatalities. There also might be some effect from growing immunity, but it’s minor, given that infections probably don’t exceed 4% of the population. 2 So while the country remains very far from herd immunity, Americans have managed to postpone a lot of deaths, ideally until a vaccine can be developed. In the meantime, R(t) can still be useful. Tracked closely across states with different mitigation strategies, it can help calculate which practices and scenarios have the biggest effect. For example, we’re learning it’s rare to get infected with the coronavirus outside. Hello parks and barbeques. We’ve similarly learned how long it lasts on surfaces, how safe groceries are, how well surgical masks protect us. Just how bad is a baseball stadium with an open roof? Let’s compute its contribution to R(t) and see if we can afford it. The more data we have, the more we’ll be able to focus on what works, and eschew measures where the cost outweighs the benefit – all with an eye toward keeping R(t) below 1. As a result, maybe life can be a little bit better as we inch toward the end of this ordeal.
“Like It Was Designed To Infect Humans”: COVID-19 ‘Cell Culture’ Theory Gains Steam – A scientific study which found COVID-19 may have been a “cell-culture” uniquely adapted for transmission to humans (more so than any other animal – including bats), is gaining steam. The paper, currently under peer review, comes from Flinders University Professor Nikolai Petrovsky, who has spent over two decades developing vaccines against influenza, Ebola, and animal Sars. He says his findings allow for the possibility that COVID-19 leaked from a laboratory, according to Sky News. “The two possibilities which I think are both still open is that it was a chance transmission of a virus from an as yet unidentified animal to human. The other possibility is that it was an accidental release of the virus from a laboratory,” said Petrovsky, adding “Certainly we can’t exclude the possibility that this came from a laboratory experiment rather than from an animal. They are both open possibilities.”Professor Petrovsky, who is the Chairman and Research Director of Vaxine Pty Ltd, said COVID-19 has genetic elements similar to bat coronaviruses as well as other coronaviruses.The way coronavirus enters human cells is by binding to a protein on the surface of lung-cells called ACE2. The study showed the virus bound more tightly to human-ACE2 than to any of the other animals they tested.“It was like it was designed to infect humans,” he said.“One of the possibilities is that an animal host was infected by two coronaviruses at the same time and COVID-19 is the progeny of that interaction between the two viruses. –Sky News“The same process can happen in a petri-dish,” added Petrovsky. “If you have cells in culture and you have human cells in that culture which the viruses are infecting, then if there are two viruses in that dish, they can swap genetic information and you can accidentally or deliberately create a whole third new virus out of that system.”
Americans spend holiday at beaches and parks as virus death toll nears 100,000 – (Reuters) – Americans sunbathed on beaches, fished from boats and strolled on boardwalks this holiday weekend, even as the U.S. death toll from COVID-19 fast approaches 100,000. The Memorial Day weekend that signals the start of the U.S. summer is normally a time when cemeteries across the nation fill with American flags and ceremonies to remember those who died in U.S. wars. This year it has also become a time to mourn the loss of more than 97,000 people due to the coronavirus pandemic in the United States. The New York Times filled its entire front page with the names and selected details of 1,000 victims on Sunday seeking to illustrate the humanity of the lives lost. “We were trying to capture that personal toll,” Marc Lacey, the newspaper’s national editor, told Reuters. “We were trying to humanize these numbers which keep growing and have reached such unfathomable heights that they’re really hard to grasp any more. …This is about everyday people. It’s about a death toll, reaching a number that’s really just jaw-dropping.” All 50 states have relaxed coronavirus restrictions to some degree. In some states, like Illinois and New York, restaurants are still closed to in-person dining and hair salons remain shuttered. In many southern states, most businesses are open, with restrictions on capacity. Last week, 11 states reported a record number of new COVID-19 cases, including Alabama, Arkansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, New Hampshire, Maryland, Maine, Nevada, Utah, Virginia and Wisconsin, according to a Reuters tally. It is not clear if the cases are rising from more testing or a second wave of infections.
American virus deaths at 100,000: What does a number mean? -The fraught, freighted number of this particular American moment is a round one brimming with zeroes: 100,000. A hundred thousands. A thousand hundreds. Five thousand score. More than 8,000 dozen. All dead. This is the week when America’s official coronavirus death toll reaches six digits. One hundred thousand lives wiped out by a disease unknown to science a half a year ago. And as the unwanted figure arrives – nearly a third of the global pandemic deaths in the first five months of a very trying year – what can looking at that one and those five zeroes tell us? What does any number deployed in momentous times to convey scope and seriousness and thought really mean? “We all want to measure these experiences because they’re so shocking, so overwhelming that we want to bring some sense of knowability to the unknown,” says Jeffrey Jackson, a history professor at Rhodes College in Tennessee who teaches about the politics of natural disasters. This is not new. In the mid-1800s, a new level of numerical precision was emerging in Western society around the same time the United States fought the Civil War. Facing such massive death and challenges counting the dead, Americans started to realize that numbers and statistics represented more than knowledge; they contained power, according to historian Drew Gilpin Faust. “Their provision of seemingly objective knowledge promised a foundation for control in a reality escaping the bounds of the imaginable,” Faust wrote in “This Republic of Suffering,” her account of how the Civil War changed Americans’ relationship with death. “Numbers,” she wrote, “represented a means of imposing sense and order on what Walt Whitman tellingly depicted as the `countless graves’ of the `infinite dead.’” Today’s Americans have precedents for visualizing and understanding 100,000 people – dead and alive. They have numerous comparisons at hand. For example: Beaver Stadium, seen often on TV as the home to Penn State football and one of the country’s largest sports venues, holds 106,572 people when full. The 2018 estimated population of South Bend, Indiana, was 101,860. About 100,000 people visit the Statue of Liberty every 10 days. The total amount of U.S. Civil War deaths – combat and otherwise – was 655,000. For World War I it was more than 116,000, for World War II more than 405,000 and for the Korean and Vietnam wars more than 36,000 and more than 58,000 respectively. Those don’t include non-U.S. deaths. Gun violence killed more than 37,000 people a year on average between 2014 and 2018 in the United States. And 9/11 took exactly 2,996 lives, a figure that the U.S. coronavirus tally passed in early April. At some point with numbers, though, things start feeling more abstract and less comprehensible.
Memorial Day in America: 100,000 COVID-19 deaths surpass combined combat fatalities in Korea and Vietnam. – On this Memorial Day, the consequences of the Trump administration’s indifference to the death of American workers and subordination of human life to corporate profits is summed up in the tragic milestone of more than 100,000 deaths from COVID-19. It is an extraordinary fact that the 100,000 people officially lost to the virus in barely two months already surpasses the combined US combat death toll in the three-year Korean War (33,686) and the 11-year US war in Vietnam (58,220). It is also nearly twice the number of American soldiers killed in World War I (53,402). This staggering loss of human life, however, is only the beginning. The Trump administration is marking the holiday by promoting activities in defiance of all social distancing rules, which will cause a sharp increase in infections and deaths. Donald Trump and Deborah Birx at a press conference in April. (Image credit: Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian) On Friday, Trump demanded that governors remove all restrictions on church services. He is promoting one quack “miracle” cure or unproven virus program after another, including boasting that he himself is taking hydroxychloroquine. On Saturday he had himself filmed playing golf, without a mask, as is the case with all his public appearances. On Sunday, Trump tweeted, “Cases, numbers and deaths are going down all over the country!” The last is a flat out lie. Nationally new cases continue at more than 20,000 a day, and new deaths at more than 1,000. In hot spots such as Montgomery, Alabama, hospitals are overwhelmed. Patients showing up at Montgomery hospitals are being shipped to Birmingham. Over the weekend, the horrifying results played out across the country. With the support of much of the media, people are being misled and encouraged to engage in very dangerous activity. There were scenes of packed beaches and boardwalks, with hundreds and thousands of people mingling without masks or any other form of protection. Hundreds of party-goers crowded together in a pool at the Lake of Ozarks in Missouri, a state where nearly 12,000 have tested positive and more than 680 have died. In the same state, which has reopened businesses including gyms and beauty salons, two stylists at a Great Clips hair salon tested positive for COVID-19. The two worked for days while carrying and spreading the virus, exposing a total of 140 customers and staff. Churches in many states took their lead from Trump and held in-person services. This follows a May 10 Mother’s Day service at a church in Butte County, California that exposed 160 people to the virus.
Missouri officials slam ‘irresponsible and dangerous’ behavior seen in images of Memorial Day crowds –Missouri officials on Monday slammed the “irresponsible and dangerous” behavior of people who crowded pools and patios at the Lake of the Ozarks over Memorial Day weekend.Department of Health and Senior Services Director Randall Williamsreleased a statement Monday warning people that the coronavirus pandemic is not over.“This Memorial Day, we caution that COVID-19 is still here, and social distancing needs to continue to prevent further spread of infections,” he said. “Close contact with others even if you are in the outdoors is still considered close contact and can lead to more infections as we still have new cases of COVID-19 being detected each day in Missouri.”The comments come after videos and photos showed scores of people at the Lake of the Ozarks during the holiday weekend. Footage of a resort in the area, which went viral after being shared by an anchor for CNN affiliate KTVK in Arizona, showed dozens in the pool without masks.St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson condemned the people in crowds, especially at the Lake of the Ozarks, calling their actions “irresponsible and dangerous.” The city of St. Louis does not have jurisdiction over the area, but its constituents frequently visit the lake.“Now, these folks will be coming home to St. Louis and counties all over Missouri and the Midwest, raising concerns about the potential of more positive cases, hospitalizations, and tragically, deaths,” Krewson said, in a statement obtained by The Hill. “It’s just deeply disturbing.”
86% of choir members got infected with COVID-19 after church practice: report — A new report from the Skagit County Public Health Department in Washington state published by the CDC Friday, shows how quickly the coronavirus spread after a choir practice became a “superspreader event” for the disease that infected 86% of attending members and killed two of them. Now state health officials say the findings in the report, based on the experience of Skagit Valley Chorale that normally rehearses at the Mount Vernon Presbyterian Church on Tuesday evenings and once a month on a Saturday morning, could have significant implications for future church gatherings. “It’s really important that people realize that by meeting, by gathering, 86% of them could become ill and the results and aftermath of that is hard to fathom,” Skagit County Health Officer Dr. Howard Leibrand said in a King 5 report.The report from the health department showed how the 122-member chorale was likely exposed to a “superemitter” of the virus who attended choir practice on March 3 and March 10. “One person at the March 10 practice had cold-like symptoms beginning March 7. This person, who had also attended the March 3 practice, had a positive laboratory result for SARS-CoV-2 by reverse transcription – polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing,” the report said. Of the 78 members who attended the March 3 practice, 51 or 65.4% of them got infected with the virus. All but one of the infected individuals from the March 3 practice were among the 60 members who also attended the March 10 practice, 86.7% of them tested positive for the disease. Among the 21 members who only attended the March 3 practice only one of them became ill. “The 2.5-hour singing practice provided several opportunities for droplet and fomite transmission, including members sitting close to one another, sharing snacks, and stacking chairs at the end of the practice. The act of singing, itself, might have contributed to transmission through emission of aerosols, which is affected by loudness of vocalization,” the report said.
Virginia reports most new cases in one day Monday morning – According to the Virginia Department of Health, the number of new confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 across the state stands at 37,727 as of Monday morning, which means 1,483 new cases were confirmed in a 24-hour period. Yesterday, only 495 more cases were added. On Saturday, 799 cases were added; Friday, the number of new cases was 813 and Thursday, 1,229 cases were added, for the greatest number of new cases added in a single day (until today). Virginia added 37 COVID-19 related deaths Monday morning; 12 were added yesterday and 37 the day before. The Virginia Department of Health reports that there have been 1,158 confirmed and 50 probable deaths related to COVID-19. The state’s death toll now stands at 1,208.
Coronavirus is spiking disproportionately in counties that voted for Trump in 2016 – The 2016 election may help map the next coronavirus hotspots. While COVID-19 is finally beginning to wane in some of the U.S. cities it hit hardest and earliest, coronavirus spread is still far from its peak in most small cities and rural areas across the country. And over the past four weeks, it’s been more likely that counties will show a high prevalence of coronavirus next if they voted for President Trump in 2016, an analysis by the Brookings Institution reveals. A high prevalence of coronavirus means a county saw coronavirus case rates of 100 or more per 100,000 people. Hundreds of counties have gained high-prevalence status over the past few weeks, and 176 new counties joined that list from May 10 to May 17 alone. Those 176 counties voted for Trump by a 12 percent margin in 2016 – Trump outright won 151 of them – and are also less urban and less racially diverse than areas where coronavirus spread in March and April, Brookings notes. COVID-19 obviously doesn’t discriminate based on politics, so there is no definitive reason why these counties are seeing coronavirus spikes now. It’s likely just because rural counties are more spread out than urban areas and have seen slower coronavirus spread, and also coincidentally went for Trump in 2016. But Trump has also been eager to reopen businesses, especially in less populous areas that didn’t see as many coronavirus cases. And if his supporters were more likely to follow his lead and get back to normal, that could be aiding the spread as well. Find the whole study at the Brookings Institution.
Where U.S. coronavirus cases are on the rise – (Reuters) – Twenty U.S. states reported an increase in new cases of COVID-19 for the week ended May 24, up from 13 states in the prior week, as the death toll from the novel coronavirus approaches 100,000, according to a Reuters analysis. South Carolina had the biggest weekly increase at 42%. Alabama’s new cases rose 28% from the previous week, Missouri’s rose 27% and North Carolina’s rose 26%, according to the analysis of data from The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the outbreak. New cases in Georgia, one of the first states to reopen, rose 21% after two weeks of declines. (Open tmsnrt.rs/2WTOZDR in an external browser for a Reuters interactive) Nationally, new cases of COVID-19 fell 0.8% for the week ended May 24, compared with a decline of 8% in the prior week. All 50 states have now at least partially reopened, raising fears among some health officials of a second wave of outbreaks. The increase in cases could also be due to more testing. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended states wait for their daily number of new COVID-19 cases to fall for 14 days before easing social distancing restrictions. As of May 24, 15 states had met that criteria, up from 13 in the prior week, according to the Reuters analysis. Washington state, where the U.S. outbreak started, has the longest streak with cases falling for eight weeks in a row, followed by Hawaii at seven weeks and Pennsylvania and New York at six weeks. Washington state posted the biggest drop in cases, down over 50%, followed by Kentucky, where new cases fell nearly 30%. New York saw new cases drop 23%, according to the Reuters analysis. Texas saw new cases fall 15% after they rose 22% in the prior week.
Number of Minnesota coronavirus patients needing ICU beds reaches record high – The number of coronavirus patients in Minnesota needing intensive care beds reached a single-day high Monday, a spike officials said was expected. Minnesota Health Department officials said patients needing ICU beds increased to 248 Monday. They also announced another 12 deaths, bringing the state total to 881. The previous single-day high for intensive care bed usage, 233, occurred Friday, with the number dipping again to 207 by Sunday. “This is an expected trend,” Jennifer DeCubellis, CEO of Hennepin Healthcare, which oversees Hennepin County Medical Center (HCMC), told the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. “We anticipated that social distancing would allow health systems time to get space, staff, and supplies in place in order to be better prepared for higher volumes – but that the volumes would still increase, ideally at a slower and more manageable pace.” The additional 41 ICU beds filled also marked a single-day increase for Minnesota since the pandemic began. The previous record for an increase was on May 16, when the number of beds in use increased by 25 to 225. DeCubellis said HCMC had established an ICU surge area last week in anticipation of a spike. “Our biggest pressure point is on the staff who are managing high acuity care, in higher volumes, and with longer lengths of stay,” she told the newspaper, saying staff remain “truly focused on the mission of caring for our community under all circumstances.” About 87 percent of ICU beds in the Twin Cities metro area were full as of Monday, but Department of Health spokesman Scott Smith said there should be sufficient capacity to care for patients, noting that beds often reach 95 percent capacity during the flu season. However, HCMC also has the state’s only emergency hyperbaric chamber and is the state’s largest Level 1 trauma hospital, forcing it to pull off a balancing act that makes staff and resources available for trauma care as well. The state announced 745 new cases of the virus overall Monday, bringing the official count to 21,315.
Minnesota buys a warehouse to store expected COVID-19 deaths –On May 18, the state of Minnesota purchased a 75,000 square foot refrigerated produce warehouse with the capacity to store 5100 bodies of persons expected to succumb to the surge of COVID-19 in the coming weeks. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the state paid $5.5 million for the Bix Produce Company cold storage facility to serve as an “emergency morgue.” Operational and improvement costs for the repurposing of the property are estimated to bring the total to about $6.9 million. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is expected to reimburse the state of Minnesota for 3/4’s of the expense. The property had been for sale for over a year. When the Minnesota Department of Administration approached warehouse owners in the Twin Cities seeking lease agreements for buildings suitable for the macabre project, none could be persuaded to rent for the stated purpose. The Bix Produce Company is headquartered in Little Canada, Minnesota, a northern suburb of the Twin Cities. The company had used the recently acquired warehouse as a distributing facility for the bulk trucking of pre-cut fruits and vegetables to supermarkets, hotels, schools and restaurants in the greater metro. The Department of Administration explained the building was needed to “accommodate a surge in demand for the timely, dignified, and temporary storage of human remains.” A surge in deaths is expected as the direct consequence of the abandonment of any and all effective public health preventive measures across the country to protect the population against coronavirus.
Bad state data hides coronavirus threat as Trump pushes reopening -Federal and state officials across the country have altered or hidden public health data crucial to tracking the coronavirus’ spread, hindering the ability to detect a surge of infections as President Donald Trump pushes the nation to reopen rapidly.In at least a dozen states, health departments have inflated testing numbers or deflated death tallies by changing criteria for who counts as a coronavirus victim and what counts as a coronavirus test, according to reporting from POLITICO, other news outlets and the states’ own admissions. Some states have shifted the metrics for a “safe” reopening; Arizona sought to clamp down on bad news at one point by simply shuttering its pandemic modeling. About a third of the states aren’t even reporting hospital admission data – a big red flag for the resurgence of the virus. The spotty data flow is particularly worrisome to public health officials trying to help Americans make decisions about safely venturing out. The lack of accurate and consistent Covid-19 data, coupled with the fact that the White House no longer has regular briefings where officials reinforce the need for ongoing social distancing, makes that task even harder.
Rise in deaths attributed to pneumonia suggests official US coronavirus death toll is grossly undercounted – Data collected by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggests that tens of thousands of deaths attributed to pneumonia were more likely caused by the coronavirus pandemic, and that the real death toll from COVID-19 is nearly 50 percent higher than the officially reported number of about 103,000. According to provisional data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), there were at least 63,752 deaths caused by the pandemic from the week ending April 4 through the week ending May 2, reflecting the sharp rise in cases in the United States beginning in mid-March. During that same period, there were 47,812 pneumonia deaths, which is 65 percent higher than normal, based on seasonal averages. Assuming that these excess deaths were actually caused by the pandemic, either directly by the virus or by those who fell sick and were afraid to get treated at a hospital, this would bring the COVID-related mortality in April to 92,524. Extrapolating through May, this would bring the actual number of dead as a result of the coronavirus to just under 150,000. And even these numbers are likely an underestimate. The CDC itself notes that mortality reporting is often behind by two months. Connecticut has not submitted its tally for pneumonia and influenza deaths since April 25, and North Carolina has not submitted such data since April 18. The most recent data collected, from the week ending on May 16, is at most 30.6 percent complete. The likely higher numbers are corroborated by data from the website statista.com, which shows that from February to May 16, the number of COVID-19 deaths was 73,639, and that the number of pneumonia deaths was 89,555. Subtracting the seasonal average for pneumonia leaves 32,555 fatalities unaccounted for. Assuming again that these excess deaths were all caused by the pandemic, this brings the COVID-19 total during that period up to 106,194, an increase of 44 percent. A review of this data also makes clear that the deadliness of the coronavirus dwarfs that of influenza. The data from statista shows 6,253 deaths from the flu, barely eight percent of the deaths from COVID-19. And even those, the site notes, also include “deaths with pneumonia or COVID-19 also listed as a cause of death.” The unexplained sharp increase in pneumonia deaths is notable in many of the states that rushed to reopen as early as possible. In Colorado, which let its stay-at-home order expire on April 26, there are 919 coronavirus deaths recorded for April in the CDC’s provisional database and 762 fatalities from pneumonia, more than three times the seasonal average. If the excess deaths are counted as COVID-19, the state’s coronavirus mortality rate jumps by nearly 60 percent. Similarly for Mississippi, which loosened restrictions starting April 27, the real mortality rate is likely at least 49 percent higher.
AP count: Over 4,500 virus patients sent to NY nursing homes (AP) – More than 4,500 recovering coronavirus patients were sent to New York’s already vulnerable nursing homes under a controversial state directive that was ultimately scrapped amid criticisms it was accelerating the nation’s deadliest outbreaks, according to a count by The Associated Press. AP compiled its own tally to find out how many COVID-19 patients were discharged from hospitals to nursing homes under the March 25 directive after New York’s Health Department declined to release its internal survey conducted two weeks ago. It says it is still verifying data that was incomplete. Whatever the full number, nursing home administrators, residents’ advocates and relatives say it has added up to a big and indefensible problem for facilities that even Gov. Andrew Cuomo – the main proponent of the policy – called “the optimum feeding ground for this virus.”“It was the single dumbest decision anyone could make if they wanted to kill people,” Daniel Arbeeny said of the directive, which prompted him to pull his 88-year-old father out of a Brooklyn nursing home where more than 50 people have died. His father later died of COVID-19 at home.“This isn’t rocket science,” Arbeeny said. “We knew the most vulnerable — the elderly and compromised — are in nursing homes and rehab centers.”Told of the AP’s tally, the Health Department said late Thursday it “can’t comment on data we haven’t had a chance to review, particularly while we’re still validating our own comprehensive survey of nursing homes admission and re-admission data in the middle of responding to this global pandemic.” Cuomo, a Democrat, on May 10 reversed the directive, which had been intended to help free up hospital beds for the sickest patients as cases surged. But he continued to defend it this week, saying he didn’t believe it contributed to the more than 5,800 nursing and adult care facility deaths in New York – more than in any other state – and that homes should have spoken up if it was a problem. “Any nursing home could just say, ‘I can’t handle a COVID person in my facility,’” he said, although the March 25 order didn’t specify how homes could refuse, saying that “no resident shall be denied re-admission or admission to the (nursing home) solely based” on confirmed or suspected COVID-19.
NYC Doctors Warn “There Will Always Be COVID Patients” As WHO Warns ‘Second Wave’ Is Coming – Across New York City, hospital workers are exhausted after three months of combating what was without question the worst outbreak in the country. Recent surveillance testing conducted by the state revealed, unsurprisingly, that as many as 1 in 4 New Yorkers might have caught the virus.Assuming the official data represent a complete accounting of the city’s infections and deaths, the ~30k confirmed deaths represent a mortality rate of ~0.35%. While a larger denominator (total cases) would likely lead to a reduction in the overall mortality rate, it’s widely believed that thousands of deaths have also gone uncounted.Dr. Nazish Ilyas, an internist at Lenox Hill Hospital on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, told WSJ during a recent interview that she was only just beginning to “process” the events of the last two months, which included treating patients as they confronted their own mortality, and even falling ill with the virus herself. Not only did she administer life-saving treatment, but for the patients who couldn’t be saved, she held their hands, pressed cellphones to the faces of the dying as they breathed their last words to loved ones.“It was constantly go, go, go…I think people are carrying a lot of emotion, and they’re carrying around heavy hearts,” she said.As states scramble to rebuild stockpiles of PPE, COVID tests and critical equipment like ventilators, Dr. Ilyas, who missed 2 weeks of work after catching the virus herself, told reporters that she, and many other doctors working in hospitals around the city, have come to a much different conclusion than experts and the WHO which, after opposing lockdowns in the US and Europe, has implied that countries are risking an immediate ‘second wave’ by reopening too quickly.Dr. Ilyas believes that the virus will never go away, that humanity will simply need to adjust to the reality of living with it, until a vaccine is developed – however long that might take.“To some extent, we’ve accepted that there will always be Covid patients,” Dr. Ilyas said. This is why most hospital systems around the country are rushing to assess what worked – for many, telemedicine has proven to be a powerful tool – while identifying areas where improvements are needed – like closing “care gaps” in minority communities. Personnel working in finance and other departments have successfully managed to handle their duties from home.
Half of newly diagnosed coronavirus cases in Washington are in people under 40 — Half of new coronavirus infections in Washington are now occurring in people under the age of 40, a marked shift from earlier in the epidemic when more than two-thirds of those testing positive were in older age groups. A new analysis finds that by early May, 39% of confirmed cases statewide were among people age 20 to 39, while those 19 and younger accounted for 11%. The trend is concerning and should be kept in mind as more counties begin to ease restrictions and reopen businesses, said Seattle epidemiologist Judith Malmgren, who is affiliated with the University of Washington and is lead author of the report. Though younger people are less likely to die or be hospitalized with the virus, they can still suffer serious illness – as underscored by recent reports of a rare, life-threatening inflammatory syndrome in children. And even if younger people don’t get sick, they can pass the virus on to others who are more vulnerable. “Younger people are the most likely to be socially active, they are the most likely to work in essential professions and have more contact with the public,” Malmgren said. Malmgren and her colleagues don’t attempt to tease out all the reasons for the shift in age distribution, but one factor is obvious, she said. “Being a Seattleite, just walking around and seeing so many young people congregating without wearing masks, I thought: ‘This is interesting.’ “
San Francisco New Health Order Requires Residents And Workers To Wear Face Coverings Outside The Home – Mayor London N. Breed and Director of Health Dr. Grant Colfax today announced that everyone in San Francisco will be required to wear face coverings on most occasions when they are outside of their homes, a step that will be critical to the City’s ability to safely reopen further. The new rule strengthens the existing face covering Health Order by extending it to more activities. As the City embarks on the path to recovery, relaxing restrictions on outdoor activities and employment, allowing retail curbside pickup and offering summer camps, there will be more movement of people outside their homes, even with the Stay Home order still in place. Wearing face coverings will be an essential habit to reduce the likelihood of transmitting the virus from person to person. “As we begin to reopen, it is going to be more important than ever that people cover their faces when they are outside the home,” said Mayor Breed. “With more people moving about, we are tempting the virus to spread, and we need to do everything we can to stop that from happening. By covering your face, keeping six feet apart, and washing your hands, you will be helping us continue to make our way out of the crisis and onto the path of better times ahead.” Face coverings help to stop droplets that may be infectious, even if the person wearing the mask has no or mild symptoms. By strengthening this form of protection, San Franciscans will be better prepared to participate safely in the gradual reopening of activities as we begin to move out of the health emergency. The requirement is a Health Order by Dr. Tomfls Aragón, Health Officer of the City and County of San Francisco. The Order is effective at 11:59 p.m. on May 29, 2020. It is informed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines. Previously, the City recommended face coverings on April 2nd, and then required them on April 17th for all essential businesses and in public facilities, on transit and when performing essential work. Now that requirement is expanded to whenever people are outside their homes in most situations in San Francisco, with very limited exceptions.
Cruise ship workers protest government and cruise line inaction -Since the industrywide shutdown on March 13 in response to coronavirus pandemic, thousands of cruise ship and maritime workers have been stranded at sea with no foreseeable path to repatriation. Last week, the WSWS reported on initiatives taken by cruise ship staff to voice their opposition to the inadequate responses by both international governments and cruise ship companies to bring employees home. Such actions included a protest on Royal Caribbean Cruise Line’s Mariner of the Seas, a hunger strike on the Navigator of the Seas, a protest on the German-owned Mein Schiff 3, as well as a deluge of stranded workers speaking out to the press, as well as on social media. ast week, there was another crew death on board Virgin’s Scarlet Lady, as well as a suicide attempt on Cruise & Maritime Voyages’ (CMV) Vasco Da Gama. In the month of May alone, there have been 8 widely-reported, non COVID-related deaths on marooned ships. All of these deaths have been widely suspected to be suicides.There have also been over a dozen crew member deaths from COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic, according to a memorial page on Crew-Center.com. A Business Insider article dated March 25 states that there had initially been 32 cruise ships with outbreaks of the virus, and further reports of infection on ships continue to emerge.While some governments and cruise lines have arranged repatriation plans for ship workers after significant delay, thousands still remain trapped on board with no end in sight. The government of Mauritius, under Prime Minister Pravind Jugnauth, has recently come under furious opposition from its nationals who remain stranded at sea, as it has denied the entry of hundreds of its own citizens into their country. The Colombian government has also refused to accept a humanitarian flight for stranded crew from Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, a major hub for the cruise industry.Only on Monday did Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte order “all government resources and whatever means of transportation” to be used to assist in bringing home approximately 24,000 Filipino nationals who are either stranded on ships or in shoreside quarantine facilities. According to aSouth China Morning Post report from the same day, “Overseas Filipino Workers, or OFWs, are breadwinners and a key support base for Duterte. Their more than US$30 billion of annual remittances is a driver of the Philippine economy, sustaining millions of family members.”
Canada: 81 percent of Coronavirus Deaths are in Nursing Homes – A new report citing Canada’s Chief Public Health Officer Theresa Tam, confirms that among Canada’s coronavirus fatalities, 81 percent were in nursing homes – affecting the elderly with long-term chronic health conditions.This rate is nearly double the rate of that in the US as a whole, but is comparable to data from some individual states including two ‘hot spots’ in the US, Washington State and New York State.A Yale professor recently described the US nursing home death rate as ‘staggering’, showing how more than half of all deaths in 14 US states Are from elderly care facilities. Similarly, countries like Scotland saw half of all deaths from care homes.The report describes one Toronto facility, 100 people including 40 staff members are currently battling the coronavirus, and another 57 residents are said to have already have died of it, as reported by the Washington Post.According to those familiar with the case, cramped buildings and employees doing part-time shifts and traveling between several care facilities in order to make a living were two chief factors thought to have contributed to heavy outbreaks in assisted living facilities.
Cuba Develops Effective Peptide Against COVID-19 Cuba’s Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) developed the CIGB-258, a new protein effective in Covid-19 treatment. “It is an immunomodulatory peptide, derived from the cellular stress response protein, known as HSP60. This molecule was designed by bioinformatic tools and is obtained by chemical synthesis,” affirmed CIGB’s researcher Dr. Gillian Martinez Donato. According to Martinez, CIGB-258 operates in the regulation of the immune system. This protein increases its concentration during viral infections and inflammatory processes. The CIGB requested the use of CIGB-258 in COVID confirmed patients in the severe and critical stages. Since May 5, 31 patients had received therapy with this peptide. As Donato explained, 12 patients started CIGB-258 therapy intheir severe stages and 19 in the critical disease phase. In the first group, survival was 92 percent, while in the second group it was 73 percent. “This peptide is safe, with evidence of efficacy in an initial clinical study phase in patients with rheumatoid arthritis, by reducing the clinical activity associated with that condition, including synovitis and edema in the hands of patients,” Martinez stated. The CIGB submitted the request to the Cuban Center for Medicines, Equipment, and Medical Devices’ Control (Cecmed) for its therapeutic use in confirmed patients of the COVID-19 in the severe and critical stages. “A phase II clinical trial is currently underway in 187 patients with rheumatoid arthritis, and the results will be ready by the end of 2020,” the CIGB specialist explained. So far, Cuba registered 1,881 positive cases of coronavirus, including 79 deaths, and 1,505 recoveries.
Cuba credits two drugs with slashing coronavirus death toll (Reuters) – Communist-run Cuba said this week that use of two drugs produced by its biotech industry that reduce hyper-inflammation in seriously ill COVID-19 patients has sharply curbed its coronavirus-related death toll. Health authorities have reported just two virus-related deaths over the past nine days among more than 200 active cases on the Caribbean’s largest island, a sign they may have the worst of the outbreak under control. The government, which hopes to increase its biopharmaceutical exports, has touted various drugs it produces for helping prevent infection with the new coronavirus and treating the COVID-19 disease it causes. It ascribes the recent reduction in deaths of severely ill COVID-19 patients largely to the use beginning in April of two drugs that appear to help calm the “cytokine storm,” a dangerous overresponse by the immune system in which it attacks healthy tissue as well as the invading virus. One is itolizumab, a monoclonal antibody produced in Cuba and elsewhere. The other is a peptide that Cuba says its biotech industry discovered and has been testing for rheumatoid arthritis in Phase II clinical trials. “Some 80 percent of patients who end up in critical condition are dying. In Cuba, with the use of these drugs, 80 percent of those who end up in critical or serious condition are being saved,” President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on Thursday in a meeting shown on state television. Scientists caution that large placebo-controlled studies are needed to assess the safety and efficacy of these drugs for treating COVID-19. But Cuba’s experimental treatments have helped it achieve an overall COVID-19 death rate of 4.2%, compared with the regional and global averages of 5.9% and 6.6%, respectively, health authorities say. Fatality rates depend on many variables, including the rate of testing, quality of healthcare systems, and age and underlying health condition of the population. Official data suggests that Cuba, with universal healthcare and a well-staffed care system, has done well in containing its outbreak. It has registered less than 20 cases per day over the past week, down from a peak of 50 to 60 in mid-April. In total, Cuba has reported 1,916 cases for a population of 11 million and 81 death.
Coronavirus cluster traced to German church – A cluster of 40 coronavirus infections in the city of Frankfurt am Main and the surrounding area have been linked back to a Baptist church service that took place on May 10, reported German news outlet der Tagesspiegel on Saturday. “The vast majority of them are not especially ill,” said the newspaper, citing Rene Gottschalk, the Frankfurt health authority’s chief. “According to our current information, only one person has been hospitalized,” added Gottschalk. The state of Hesse, where the church is based, banned religious ceremonies and gatherings from mid-March as part of restrictions implemented nationwide to slow the spread of the coronavirus. But Hesse permitted religious ceremonies to resume from May 1 as long as social distancing and other hygiene measures are implemented, meaning the church broke no rules in holding the service. At least 16 infection cases in the town of Hanau, 25 kilometers (15.5 miles) east of Frankfurt, have been traced back to the May 10 church service, said Hanau authorities. “It’s a very dynamic event,” Antoni Walczok, head of Hanau’s health authority, said in comments to German daily newspaper, Frankfurter Rundschau. As a result of the new infections, the town has called off a fasting and prayer gathering for more than 1,000 participants from several Muslim institutions in the Rhine-Main region. The risk for further infections was “too high,” explained Hanau mayor Claus Kaminsky. For many Muslims, the coronavirus lockdown has been particularly hard, as preventative measures have stopped them gathering for prayer and breaking fast together during the holy month of Ramadan.
‘Thousands’ Of Dutch COVID-19 Survivors Likely Have Permanent Lung Damage According To Top Pulmonologist – COVID-19 may be far less deadly than originally projected – and asymptomatic cases may be even more common than first suspected, but for those who have caught it and come down with symptoms, the disease can result in lasting symptoms, including shortness of breath, lethargy, recurrent fevers, headaches, itchiness and other mystery problems that aren’t going away.To that end, a top pulmonologist in the Netherlands says that thousands of Dutch residents who have recovered from COVID-19 may be left with permanent lung damage, resulting in decreased lung capacity and difficulty absorbing oxygen. According to Leon van den Toorn, Chairman of the Dutch Association of Physicians for Pulmonary Disease and Tuberculosis NVALT, people are underestimating the consequences of the coronavirus. “In severe cases, a kind of scar formation occurs, we call this lung fibrosis. The lungs shrink and the lung tissue becomes stiffer, making it harder to get enough oxygen,” Van den Toorn told Dutch newspaper AD (via the NL Times), adding that “there may be thousands of people in the Netherlands who suffered permanent injury to the lungs from corona.” Of the 1,200 Covid-19 patients who so far recovered after admission to intensive care, “almost 100 percent went home with residual damage”, he said to AD. And about half of the 6 thousand people who were hospitalized, but did not need intensive care, will have symptoms for years to come. So far 45,500 people in the Netherlands tested positive for the coronavirus. Many did not get sick enough to need hospital care. In this group, Van den Toorn expects that permanent problems will be less serious, but still possible. –NL Times Van den Toorn says that patients experiencing lung issues should immediately see a pulmonologist, as “there may be a low oxygen level in the blood, which is harmful to the body.” “People with a history of corona infection should be monitored closely to see if recovery is complete,” he added.
Nearly 1,200 workers contract COVID-19 at remote Siberian goldmine – Nearly 1,200 workers at a goldmine deep in the Siberian wilderness have come down with COVID-19. The virus was first detected at the Olimpiada mining and processing plant on May 8 and has spread uncontrolled ever since. About 20 percent of the facility’s workforce is now infected. Coronavirus cases and fatalities continue to climb in Russia as a whole, with the country now having more than 350,000 known infections and 3,633 official deaths. Yegor Korchagin, the chief doctor at the regional hospital in Krasnoyarsk – which at 350 miles to the south is the nearest major city to the mining operation – attributed the outbreak to crowded conditions. When the first cases appeared, sickened miners received care from on-site medics. Shortly after, further medical personnel arrived, many of whom also then fell ill, but work continued at the mine. Korchagin said that about 700 of those infected are asymptomatic, while others are moderately to severely sick. Given the total number of infections at the mine, this would mean hundreds of workers are in need of medical care. The mine quickly became one of the main hotspots for the spread of the coronavirus in Russia. On May 14, the US-funded Radio Free Europe/Liberty reported that the National Guard had been deployed to the plant. One miner told the outlet: “If the infection has already spread, we’ll all get infected. Everyone understands this and people are already losing their nerve. They brought in the National Guard so that we don’t start a riot, surrounded us like in prisons with patrols everywhere.” At the time, the miners, including those receiving medical treatment, were reportedly forbidden to leave the site under the threat of significant fines and even imprisonment. With the aid of the military, a field hospital was eventually set up at the Olimpiada plant, which is owned by Russia’s largest gold producer, Polyus. However, relatives of the miners have been pleading for weeks for the company to extract their ill family members, as they cannot get to a major hospital on their own because the remoteness of the mine requires evacuation by helicopter or other heavy-duty transport.
Russian researchers test coronavirus vaccine on THEMSELVES, team leader says they now have antibodies Scientists in Russia have carried out the first unofficial trial of a Covid-19 vaccine – and they say it’s effective. Epidemiologists in Moscow took the unorthodox step of injecting themselves and examining their own results. The test, conducted by employees at the National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology, reportedly saw the participants gaining immunity to the virus with no adverse effects. According to the research center’s director, Alexander Ginzburg, this is a step towards state-sanctioned trials. “We will consider the experiment successful when we get permission for official trials from the Ministry of Health and carry them out,” he said, speaking to Russian news agency TASS. According to Ginzburg, the scientists chose to vaccinate not only to prove the effectiveness of their creation but also to defend themselves from the virus and gain immunity, enabling them to continue working throughout the pandemic. The director did not specify how many people were vaccinated, but described them all as “alive, healthy and happy.” Ginzburg believes that it would take about six months to immunize the entire country once the vaccine is officially approved. If everything goes to plan, he hopes it will be approved by the end of summer. In his opinion, the first people to be immunized should be frontline doctors and the elderly.
Latin America surpasses Europe, US in daily COVID-19 infections, health group says – Latin America has exceeded Europe and the U.S. in its daily number of reported COVID-19 cases, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) announced at a press briefing Tuesday. Director of PAHO Carissa Etienne said the region “has become the epicenter of the COVID pandemic,” adding that over 2.4 million cases and more than 143,000 fatalities have been recorded in all of the Americas, CNN reported. Peru and Chile rank as two of the countries most impacted by the coronavirus, according to figures compiled by Our World in Data, with the world’s highest infection rates per capita over a seven-day moving average. PAHO is also closely eyeing the situation in Brazil, where rising numbers of cases recently made for “the highest for a seven-day period since the outbreak began,” Etienne said. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been sharply criticized for his response to the pandemic, including undermining preventative measures from local leaders and dismissing the coronavirus as a “little flu.” “The behavior of President Bolsonaro is the wrong behavior. He is against social isolation. He’s against orientation of the science,” Sao Paulo Gov. Joao Doria told CNN.
Brazil surpasses 350,000 cases as politicians promote rapid reopening of economy – On Monday, for the first time, Brazil announced a larger number of deaths from COVID-19 in a single day than the United States. On Sunday, Latin America’s largest country recorded 703 deaths, while the US registered 617. The confirmed death toll in Brazil has already surpassed 23,000. The country currently has the second-largest number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the world, 367,906 in total. It trails the United States, which has 1,697,182 cases, and is just ahead of Russia with 353,427 cases. Brazil’s testing rate, however, is significantly lower than that of both these countries, with only 3,461 tests per million inhabitants, compared to 25,456 tests per million inhabitants in the United States and 61,300 tests per million in Russia. An estimate based on parameters established by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine indicates that only one in 20 cases of COVID-19 is being reported in Brazil. This would translate into an actual number of cases exceeding 7 million. As a consequence of the uncontrolled spread of the virus, the country’s precarious health care system is collapsing in every region. Cemetery workers place crosses over a common grave after burying five people at the Nossa Senhora Aparecida cemetery in Manaus, Brazil, Wednesday, May 13, 2020. The new section of the cemetery was opened last month to cope with a surge in deaths. (AP Photo/Felipe Dana) The state of São Paulo is the center of the disease, with 83,625 cases and 6,220 deaths. The city of São Paulo already has more than 90 percent of its ICU beds occupied, despite the hundreds of new beds opened in field hospitals. Thirteen hospitals in the metropolitan region of São Paulo are already full and the disease is spreading more rapidly (up to four times faster) through the state’s countryside. In second place is the state of Rio de Janeiro, with 37,912 cases and 3,993 confirmed deaths. Like São Paulo, occupation of the ICU beds has also reached 90 percent, and there are more than 200 patients waiting for intensive care. There are also indications of high under-reporting of deaths in the state, suggesting twice the number recorded by the government. Nevertheless, the right-wing governors of these states – São Paulo’s João Doria of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) and Rio de Janeiro’s Wilson Witzel of the Christian Social Party (PSC) – are promoting a general resumption of economic activities.
Brazil warned against reopening as it records more deaths in 24 hours than the United States – The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned Brazil against reopening its economy before performing more testing to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Brazil has recorded more COVID-19 deaths on Monday than the United States, for the first time since the pandemic started, making it the world’s second-worst coronavirus epicentre. According to Johns Hopkins University, there were 807 coronavirus-related deaths in Brazil in 24 hours, while the US recorded 620, taking their death tolls to 23,473 and 98,218 respectively. Brazil has now been marked the second-worst-hit country, with about 375,000 confirmed cases. The US has more than 1.6 million cases. WHO executive director Michael Ryan said in a news conference that Brazil’s “intense” transmission rates meant it should keep some sort of stay-at-home measures in place, regardless of negative impacts on the economy. Coronavirus update: Follow all the latest news in our daily wrap. However, Rio de Janeiro Mayor Marcelo Crivella, an evangelical bishop, announced he was including religious institutions in the list of “essential services”. That would mean churches would be able to open their doors, while keeping a minimum of 2 metres between attendees, in spite of existing recommendations for people to stay at home and most businesses remaining shut.
Coronavirus update: Brazil records highest daily increase, hundreds flee quarantine in East Africa, South Korea returns to lockdown – Brazil has reported a daily record of 26,417 new coronavirus cases, bringing its total to more than 438,000.The country’s death toll rose by 1,156, just shy of a record of 1,188 deaths recorded on May 21.Brazil is now second only to the United States in the total number of coronavirus cases recorded, and is behind the US, UK, Spain, Italy and France in terms of deaths. It came on a day President Jair Bolsonaro took aim at the nation’s Supreme Court for investigating an alleged disinformation and intimidation campaign by his supporters, criticising court-ordered police raids on those accused of spreading lies on social media.”The Supreme Court investigation is targeting those who support me,” he said. In a social media video, Mr Bolsonaro said the court’s investigation was unconstitutional and any move to restrict fake news in Brazil would establish censorship in the country. The crisis has continued to distract from efforts to control the country’s exploding coronavirus outbreak. Mr Bolsonaro’s tensions with the judiciary boiled over last week, when a judge released a video of a Cabinet meeting where one of Mr Bolsonaro’s ministers said the Supreme Court justices should be jailed. Searches have begun after hundreds of people, some with coronavirus, fled quarantine centres in Zimbabwe and Malawi, triggering fears for the countries’ compromised health systems.In Malawi, more than 400 people recently repatriated from South Africa and elsewhere fled a centre at a stadium, jumping over a fence or strolling out the gate while police and health workers watched.Police and health workers told reporters they were unable to stop them as they lacked adequate protective gear.At least 46 people who left had tested positive for the virus. Some of those who fled told reporters they had bribed police.In Zimbabwe, where a 21-day quarantine is mandatory for those returning from abroad, police spokesman Paul Nyathi said officers were “hunting down” more than 100 people who left one of the quarantine centres.“They escape and sneak into the villages … We are warning people to stop sheltering them. These escapees are becoming a serious danger to communities,” Mr Nyathi said.Nearly all of Zimbabwe’s 75 new cases this week came from the centres that hold hundreds of people who have returned, sometimes involuntarily, from neighbouring South Africa and Botswana. South Korea reported 79 new coronavirus cases on Thursday, the most in nearly eight weeks, triggering the return of tougher social distancing measures.At least 82 cases this week have been linked to a cluster of infections at a logistics facility run by Coupang, one of the country’s largest online shopping firms, in Bucheon, west of Seoul, the Korea Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) said. About 4,100 workers, including 603 delivery people, at the warehouse were believed to have not properly followed social distancing and protective measures, such as mask wearing, KCDC deputy director Kwon Jun-wook told a briefing.
Special Report: Bolsonaro brought in his generals to fight coronavirus. Brazil is losing the battle – (Reuters) – In mid-March, Brazil took what seemed to be a forceful early strike against the coronavirus pandemic. The Health Ministry mandated that cruises be canceled. It advised local authorities to scrap large-scale events. And it urged travelers arriving from abroad to go into isolation for a week. Although Brazil had yet to report a single death from COVID-19, public health officials appeared to be getting out in front of the virus. They acted on March 13, just two days after the World Health Organization called the disease a pandemic. Less than 24 hours later, the ministry watered down its own advice, citing “criticism and suggestions” it had received from local communities. In fact, four people familiar with the incident told Reuters, the change came after intervention from the chief of staff’s office for Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro. “That correction was due to pressure,” said Julio Croda, an epidemiologist who was then the head of the Health Ministry’s department of immunization and transmissible diseases. The intervention by the chief of staff’s office has not been previously reported. The about-face, given scant attention at the time, marked a turning point in the federal government’s handling of the crisis, according to the four people. Behind the scenes, they said, power was shifting from the Health Ministry, the traditional leader on public health matters, to the office of the president’s chief of staff, known as Casa Civil, led by Walter Souza Braga Netto, an Army general. Brazil has lost two health ministers in the past six weeks – one was fired, the other resigned – after they disagreed publicly with Bolsonaro over how best to combat the virus. The interim leader now in charge of the Health Ministry is another Army general. More importantly, the revisions underlined the hardening of Bolsonaro’s view that keeping Brazil’s economy running was paramount, the people said. Bolsonaro, a far-right former Army captain, has never wavered on that stance formulated during a crucial few days in mid-March, despite domestic and international criticism of his handling of the crisis, and a snowballing death toll. Brazil now has the world’s second-worst outbreak behind the United States, with more than 374,000 confirmed cases. More than 23,000 Brazilians have died from COVID-19. “So what?” Bolsonaro said recently when asked by reporters about Brazil’s mounting fatalities. “What do you want me to do?”
Coronavirus update: WHO warns the first wave of COVID-19 is not over — The World Health Organization’s top health expert has issued a sobering reminder that the world is still in the middle of the pandemic, dampening hopes for a speedy global economic rebound and renewed international travel. “We’re still very much in a phase where the disease is actually on the way up,” said Dr Mike Ryan, one of the World Health Organization’s executive directors. “Right now, we’re not in the second wave. We’re right in the middle of the first wave globally.” Dr Ryan then made specific mention of Brazil, where despite cases being on the rise Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro has been bullish about opening the country back up. Brazil has nearly 375,000 coronavirus infections – second only to the 1.66 million cases in the US – and has counted over 23,000 deaths but many fear Brazil’s true toll is much higher. Dr Ryan warned that authorities must first have enough testing in place to control the spread of the pandemic and said Brazil’s “intense” transmission rates means it should keep some stay-at-home measures in place, regardless of the negative impacts on its economy. “You must continue to do everything you can,” he said. Worldwide, the virus has infected nearly 5.5 million people, killing over 346,000, according to a tally by Johns Hopkins University. Experts say the tally understates the real effects of the pandemic due to counting issues in many nations.
Coronavirus in the developing world: Covid-19 is killing young people in Brazil, Mexico and India – When the coronavirus first came to Brazil and a call went out for volunteers to work the critical care wards, Isabella Rêllo analyzed the risks. She was 28. She lived alone. She didn’t have preexisting conditions.So while older physicians stepped back from the front lines of the coronavirus response, Rêllo stepped up.Soon Rêllo, a pediatrician, was treating dozens of coronavirus patients. But they weren’t who she’d expected. This patient was only 30 years old. That one was 32. Nearly half the people she was seeing were young, she said, and many were dying. The narrative seared into the global consciousness in the early months of the pandemic – that the virus spared the young and ravaged the elderly – was not what she was watching unfold in Brazil.The young were at risk. She was at risk.“One patient was young, apparently healthy,” she said. “He was so sick, with so many complications. I thought, ‘This could be me. He could be my friend.’ The quickness that this kills people, including the young, has been a shock.” As the coronavirus escalates its assault on the developing world, the victim profile is beginning to change. The young are dying of covid-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, at rates unseen in wealthier countries – a development that further illustrates the unpredictable nature of the disease as it pushes into new cultural and geographic landscapes. In Brazil, 15 percent of deaths have been people under 50 – a rate more than 10 times greater than in Italy or Spain. In Mexico, the trend is even more stark: Nearly one-fourth of the dead have been between 25 and 49. In India, officials reported this month that nearly half of the dead were younger than 60. In Rio de Janeiro state, more than two-thirds of hospitalizations are for people younger than 49.S “This is new terrain compared to what’s happened in other countries,” said Daniel Soranz, the former municipal health minister in Rio de Janeiro. “Brazil is a very important country to be looking at.” Analysts say the emerging data suggests many of the problems that have long troubled the developing world – intractable poverty, extreme inequality, fragile health systems – are increasing vulnerability to the disease. In countries with more poverty and fewer resources, people who might have survived elsewhere are instead dying.
South Asian countries ease COVID-19 lockdowns despite sharp rise in infections Ignoring the rapidly increasing number of coronavirus cases and deaths across South Asia, the region’s governments have begun easing lockdown restrictions in a bid to “reopen” the economy. Collectively, the total number of government-confirmed COVID-19 cases in the region to date stands at 229,000 – more than 3.5 times the number on May 1. Official fatalities, as of yesterday, stood at 5,290. Alarming as are these figures, they are a vast underestimate of the true extent of the pandemic. The absence of health care infrastructure across the region means that huge numbers of cases are going undetected, and many are dying due to a lack of basic medical care. One indication of the desperate state of health care infrastructure is the disastrously low levels of testing for COVID-19. India has carried out just 2,135 tests per 1 million residents, compared to 2,149 in Pakistan, 1,481 in Bangladesh, 44,200 in the United States, and 59,300 in Russia. All of the region’s governments have failed miserably in providing assistance to the hundreds of millions of impoverished workers and toilers who have lost their jobs and incomes as the result of government anti-COVID-19 lockdowns. Their harrowing plight has been illustrated most graphically in India, where millions of migrant workers who had been left to fend for themselves walked home or attempted to walk home, until they were herded into cramped, makeshift internal refugee camps. Now, the same governments that callously abandoned them are cynically exploiting the masses’ financial destitution and social distress to justify forcing them to return to work under unsafe conditions that will accelerate the spread of the virus in the weeks and months ahead. The social misery confronting the vast majority of the population underscores the incapacity of all factions of South Asia’s reactionary and corrupt bourgeoisie to overcome the legacy of colonialism and imperialist oppression. With 1.93 billion inhabitants, almost one-fourth of the world’s population, South Asia is the most densely populated region in the world. This, along with widespread poverty and ramshackle public health systems, makes the region especially vulnerable to pandemics like COVID-19. Ominously, the coronavirus appears to have become entrenched in the slums of some of the region’s biggest cities, including Delhi and Mumbai in India, Karachi in Pakistan and Dhaka in Bangladesh.
China’s ‘Bat Woman’ Warns Coronavirus Is Just Tip of the Iceberg – Shi Zhengli, a virologist renowned for her work on coronavirus in bats, said in an interview on Chinese state television that viruses being discovered now are “just the tip of the iceberg” and called for international cooperation in the fight against epidemics. Known as China’s “bat woman,” the deputy director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology said research into viruses needs scientists and governments to be transparent and cooperative, and that it is “very regrettable” when science is politicized.“If we want to prevent human beings from suffering from the next infectious disease outbreak, we must go in advance to learn of these unknown viruses carried by wild animals in nature and give early warnings,” Shi told CGTN. “If we don’t study them there will possibly be another outbreak.”Her interview with TV channel CGTN coincided with the start of the National People’s Congress, an annual meeting of China’s top leadership in Beijing. This year’s NPC comes as the country’s relationship with the U.S. turns increasingly frayed, with President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Michael Pompeo both saying the coronavirus sweeping the world is likely linked to the Wuhan laboratory. China has rejected the accusations. Shi has said that the genetic characteristics of the viruses she’s worked with didn’t match those of the coronavirus spreading in humans. In a social media post, she wrote she would “swear on my life” the pandemic had nothing to do with her lab. In another interview with CGTN over the weekend, the director of the Wuhan Institute of Virology, Wang Yanyi, said the idea that the virus escaped from the lab was “pure fabrication.”The outbreak has infected more than 5.4 million people worldwide and killed over 345,000.
India among 10 worst-hit Covid-19 nations even as air travel resumes – India on Monday (May 25) posted its biggest single-day jump in cases of Covid-19, overtaking Iran to become one of the 10 worst-hit nations, even as the government allowed domestic air travel to restart.India reported another 6,977 cases, taking its total to 138,845, according to government data, despite the world’s longest lockdown imposed in March by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Total deaths have passed 4,000.The rise in new cases came as some businesses and travel reopened under a new phase of thenational coronavirus lockdown.Some passengers and crew members scheduled to board a flight on Monday at New Delhi airport said the mood at the terminal was sombre as security forces implemented strict social distancing norms and passengers donned masks.While the federal government has not insisted that passengers be quarantined after their flights, some states have implemented their own quarantine measures, creating confusion among travellers.”Flying to meet my family almost feels like I am entering a war zone. It’s the mask and gloves that add to the stress,” said Mr Subham Dey, an engineer travelling to the north-eastern state of Assam.Indian Railways also said it would run an additional 2,600 special trains in the next 10 days to help nearly 3.5 million stranded migrant workers get to their homes.
Indonesia experiences major surge in confirmed COVID-19 cases – Over the past week, there has been a dramatic spike in Indonesia’s confirmed coronavirus case figures. Every day since last Wednesday has witnessed over 500 new cases, with new daily records set on Thursday (973) and Saturday (949). The number of nationwide infections now stands at 23,165 with 1,418 deaths. This surge has taken place amid a widespread mass exodus from the major cities to the countryside, drawn out over the past two months. This has resulted in formerly isolated rural areas now becoming COVID-19 hotspots. Confronted with financial ruin and potential starvation in the cities, Indonesian workers have fled en masse, since partial lockdown measures were first adopted in April, to live with their relatives in the country, where subsistence agriculture still prevails. Another driving force has been Idul Fitri, a religious holiday marking the end of Ramadan. Traditionally, Idul Fitri is celebrated by the congregation of families across the country, resulting in an annual mass exodus, or mudik . Even though tens of millions were expected to return home to the countryside, posing the risk of a catastrophic transmission of the virus, the Widodo administration refused for weeks to implement transport restrictions. When a “ mudik ban” was finally announced on April 21, it consisted of little more than a government recommendation to stay at home. By this time, hundreds of thousands in Java alone had already migrated from the cities, which had become centres of viral infection. In only eight days in late March, for example, more than 14,000 passengers travelled on almost 900 buses from capital city Jakarta to Wonogiri regency in Central Java. Similar numbers journeyed to West Java over the same period. Even as recently as mid-May, Soekarno-Hatta Airport in Jakarta was thronged with travellers desperate to catch a flight home, as public transportation was allowed to resume 50 percent of its capacity. Throughout the last two weeks, thousands have been passing daily through the port of Merak, the main gateway between Java and Sumatra islands. The government’s mixed messages and sheer indifference to the danger of the virus have found their reflection in scenes emerging from the Indonesian press of overcrowded markets and shopping malls during Idul Fitri, which took place last weekend. Markets and retail stores were permitted to remain open through the holiday season. More broadly, the government’s delayed, ineffective and negligent response to the coronavirus pandemic has been characterised by a persistent prioritisation of the security of the stock market and financial sector over the safety of the working and rural masses.
Meet Rural Health Volunteers, the Unsung Heroes on Virus Frontline – As soon as a woman in her rural community registered a high fever, Auntie Arun alerted the local hospital doctors, who soon arrived in at least three cars, prepped to transport a COVID-19 patient.Fortunately enough, the woman did not have the coronavirus, and the Moo 11 village in Nong Khai province remains free of the pandemic. Auntie Arun, or Arunrat Rukthin, 60, said she plans to keep it that way. Arun is not a doctor, but a member of the nationwide Village Health Volunteers, known by their Thai acronym Aor Sor Mor – the unsung heroes on the frontline to monitor and protect residents from the coronavirus. They are also credited as one of the reasons why COVID-19 figures in Thailand stayed relatively low.“We’re very ready, every village, subdistrict, district. We know everyone, who’s living where. We knock on doors, ask where people travelled to, and give our numbers to them so they can call. We distribute pamphlets about COVID and washing hands, and stick them up on doors,” Auntie Arun said. The volunteers act as middlemen between rural residents and health officials, conveying medical facts and doctors’ orders to neighbors they’ve known all their lives. Their job is to knock on doors to check temperatures, as well as educating locals about hand-washing and social distancing.
South Australia records first new coronavirus case in 19 days amid easing restrictions – ABC News – South Australia has recorded its first COVID-19 case in 19 days – an overseas traveller who was given an exemption from quarantine. SA Health said the woman, aged in her 50s, had travelled from the United Kingdom to Victoria where she had been quarantined in a hotel for less than a week, before travelling to South Australia. She was given an exemption to fly to South Australia for “compelling family reasons” and was tested on arrival at Adelaide Airport. Chief Public Health Officer Nicola Spurrier said the woman is now isolated and there is “no further risk” to anybody in South Australia. Dr Spurrier said the woman had a “significant number” of contacts in South Australia, who would be followed up on. However, all of those people were associated with her flight and her time at Adelaide Airport, and the woman had not been “freely moving around” the state.
New Zealand has no new coronavirus cases and just discharged its last hospital patient. Here are the secrets to the country’s success. – The day the US mourned reaching a tragic milestone – 100,000 novel coronavirus deaths – people on the other side of the world in New Zealand celebrated a much more hopeful one: No new coronavirus cases over the prior five days. What’s more, the country’s last hospitalized coronavirus patient was discharged, officials said during a press briefing on May 27, according to CBS. Now, only 21 people in the country have active COVID-19 cases. Overall, the country confirmed about 1,500 cases and 21 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins’ Coronavirus Resource Centre. Meanwhile, the US has confirmed 1.74 million cases (and counting) and, again, more than 100,000 deaths. Of course, New Zealand is a much smaller country, with a population of 4.8 million to the US’s 328.2 million, and more sparsely populated too – 46 people per square mile compared to 94 people per square mile in the US. That alone hinders the coronavirus’s ability to spread. But overall, like Australia, the country has reported smaller-than-average coronavirus cases and deaths when compared to other Western nations. “Here in New Zealand, we are all very aware of how lucky we are, and we connect with colleagues overseas and really feel for them,” Auckland City Hospital intensive-care specialist Chris Poynter previously told Business Insider. Experts say it’s more than luck, but rather early lockdown efforts, citizen’s adherence to the rules, widespread testing and contact tracing, and good communication that are the keys to its success. Beginning February 3, New Zealand began imposing restrictions on travel – even though it had no known cases, Insider’s Rosie Perper previously reported. It recorded its first case February 28 and less than a month later had 102 confirmed cases. At that point, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern raised the country’s alert to Level 3 restrictions, which closed schools, cancelled mass gatherings, and allowed people to speak to their doctors online. Two days later, the country progressed to Level 4 restrictions, issuing stay-at-home orders country-wide and severely limiting travel. “At least for New Zealand, it was relatively prompt action at an early stage to go for a strong lockdown,” New Zealanders followed those restrictions in earnest, and there’s data to prove it. “The Google data shows that New Zealanders have followed the lockdown rules … with a remarkably high level of behaviour change,” Wilson wrote in an April 12 blog post. “Activity dropped almost instantly, by over 90% from baseline levels in some categories,” he added.
Yemen was facing the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. Then the coronavirus hit — Even before the virus’ arrival, Yemen was grappling with “the largest humanitarian crisis in the world,” as a result of a civil war now grinding into its sixth year, says Jens Laerke, a spokesperson at the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Yemen has 3.6 million internally displaced people, scores of attacks have left half of the nation’s medical facilities in tatters, and a cholera outbreak has sickened some 2.3 million Yemenis, killing nearly 4000. The United Nations classifies nearly one-quarter of the population of 30 million as malnourished. And now, after staging massive aid operations in Yemen over the past few years, the United Nations is running out of cash as donations from member countries – busy battling COVID-19 on their own turf – dry up. “Tragically, we do not have enough money to continue” the relief work, the heads of the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and other U.N. agencies write in an urgent call to donors issued today. “COVID-19 could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back,” says Abdulwahed Al-Serouri, technical adviser to the Yemen Field Epidemiology Training Program run by the health ministry in Sana’a. Yemen reported its first COVID-19 case on 10 April in a port town in Hadhramout governorate; authorities closed schools days later, and mosques posted signs asking people to pray 1 meter apart. Official case numbers remain low: As of 27 May, the country had reported 253 cases and 50 deaths. That’s hard to square with reports of mass graves being dug in Aden, the capital. On 21 May, Doctors Without Borders reported at least 68 people had died from the virus at its facility in Aden alone, and that scores more were dying at home. In Sana’a, the former capital where Houthi rebels, aligned with Iran, have set up their own government, the rebel health ministry has so far reported just four COVID-19 cases. But Al-Serouri says there are unofficial reports of hundreds of laboratory-confirmed cases. The rival health ministries in Aden and Sana’a “each accuse the other of lying about the extent of COVID-19 in the areas they control,” says Hakeem Al-Jawfy, a critical care and respiratory specialist at Al Thawra Modern General Hospital. Altaf Musani, an epidemiologist who heads WHO’s office in Yemen, says one problem is that official tallies only reflect severely ill patients in COVID-19 isolation wards. People with mild or moderate symptoms – not to mention asymptomatic individuals – are simply not getting tested. The fuse for a calamity has been lit. “We have at least nine clusters showing active transmission in the south,” Musani says. Earlier this week, during a monthlong ceasefire in much of the country, revelers celebrating Eid, the festival marking the end of Ramadan, thronged markets. “Many people are going about their lives unconcerned and unaware of danger,” says Abdul Rahman Al-Azraqi, a physician and former hospital manager in Taiz.
Did Japan Just Beat the Virus Without Lockdowns Or Mass Testing? – Japan’s state of emergency is set to end with new cases of the coronavirus dwindling to mere dozens. It got there despite largely ignoring the default playbook.No restrictions were placed on residents’ movements, and businesses from restaurants to hairdressers stayed open. No high-tech apps that tracked people’s movements were deployed. The country doesn’t have a center for disease control. And even as nations were exhorted to “test, test, test,” Japan has tested just 0.2% of its population — one of the lowest rates among developed countries.Yet the curve has been flattened, with deaths well below 1,000, by far the fewest among the Group of Seven developed nations. In Tokyo, its dense center, cases have dropped to single digits on most days. While the possibility of a more severe second wave of infection is ever-present, Japan has entered and is set to leave its emergency in just weeks, with the status lifted already for most of the country and Tokyo and the remaining four other regions set to exit Monday.Analyzing just how Japan defied the odds and contained the virus while disregarding the playbook used by other successful countries has become a national conversation. Only one thing is agreed upon: that there was no silver bullet, no one factor that made the difference. “Just by looking at death numbers, you can say Japan was successful,” said Mikihito Tanaka, a professor at Waseda University specializing in science communication, and a member of a public advisory group of experts on the virus. “But even experts don’t know the reason.” One widely shared list assembled 43 possible reasons cited in media reports, ranging from a culture of mask-wearing and a famously low obesity rate to the relatively early decision to close schools. Among the more fanciful suggestions include a claim Japanese speakers emit fewer potentially virus-laden droplets when talking compared to other languages. Experts consulted by Bloomberg News also suggested a myriad of factors that contributed to the outcome, and none could point to a singular policy package that could be replicated in other countries.Nonetheless, these measures still offer long-term lessons for countries in the middle of pandemic that may yet last for years.An early grassroots response to rising infections was crucial. While the central government has been criticized for its slow policy steps, experts praise the role of Japan’s contact tracers, which swung into action after the first infections were found in January. The fast response was enabled by one of Japan’s inbuilt advantages — its public health centers, which in 2018 employed more than half of 50,000 public health nurses who are experienced in infection tracing. In normal times, these nurses would be tracking down more common infections such as influenza and tuberculosis. “It’s very analog — it’s not an app-based system like Singapore,” said Kazuto Suzuki, a professor of public policy at Hokkaido University who has written about Japan’s response. “But nevertheless, it has been very useful.”
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