COVID-19

[Sam]

Note that at the Prague Airport that they are going to check passengers for symptoms coming from Italy.

To date, not one person infected with the virus has been detected that way. To the contrary, asymptomatic carriers is how the virus has slipped past such screens.

With the outbreak now in the wild in Italy, and with such lax controls as suggested with Prague and the open borders of the EU, it is now just a matter of time before the virus spreads throughout the EU.

Unless other governments use better controls than these, this virus will now go global essentially unchecked.

We are proverbialy locking the barn doors after the horses have gone.

There is a persistent under estimation of the infectivity and lethality of viruses like COVID-19. As a world, we have gotten lucky with EBOLA, SARS and MERS. For EBOLA and MERS we got lucky because they are so lethal. With SARS we got lucky because it was less infectious and the Chinese again worked like crazy to get it under control.

Now with COVID-19 we have what seems to be a perfect storm, a virus that is extremely infectious, that spreads rapidly, that has gone airborne, that has a several day (or longer) latent infectious period before symptoms are apparent, and that is quite lethal to those over 60, but with a long enough period before deaths are counted to lull populations and governments into believing - 'oh, it isn't that bad', or similar sentiments.

We humans have a strong desire to look on the positive side. In many ways that is highly laudable. With a rampant infectious disease, doing that can be lethal.

What is also I think forgotten is just how horrible the non-lethal impacts are of this disease on a large portion of the population. Many of those infected will have life long maladies and likely die early because of the damage the disease can cause.

From an evolutionary perspective (no solace here), this disease will predominantly injure and kill people with a certain (as yet not entirely known) set of genes. These seem mostly to do with the ACE2 genes. There may be others.

The black death did something similar. Those whose ancestors survived the black death had different genes than those who died. The ancestors of that group have a much greater ability to survive both the black death and HIV infection as a result. No doubt something similar will happen with the SARS viruses, whether this one or some future variant of the family.

People also forget I think that COVID-19 is but one virus of an evolving family of viruses that includes MERS and SARS. Nature is knocking on the door. These viruses are as a class near outbreak constantly in the human population. There will be other variants. Some will no doubt be innocuous and mild. Others will be lethal. Our thinking, our societal structures and our medical systems and responses are not well setup to deal with these. COVID-19 proved that. Will we learn anything? If the past is any indication, the answers to that rhetorical question is that we will not learn from this. Instead, as before we will shrug and say 'it's not so bad'.

Sam

[Tom_Mazanec]

nanning:
I asked Neven to remove it above, and he said he will keep it for a week.

[pietkuip]

I think the poll is an entertainment factor that's very inappropriate. We have humans fearful/dying and families crying.
It is coming to you and your family too.
Please, remove the poll.

I don't see the entertainment that you see.

I expect that this will go pandemic, that everybody will be exposed to it. I expect to catch this bug maybe several times in the decade when I am in my 60's (and male). I am pretty sure my chances of dying of this virus are larger than 1 %.

I don't understand how people can guess that fewer than 10 000 would die. That is a flu season in the Netherlands alone.

[dnem]

Over one billion

Bruce, I find you a smart, reasonable and well-informed poster. This chilled me.

[Neven]

I don't understand how people can guess that fewer than 10 000 would die. That is a flu season in the Netherlands alone.

I thought the poll was for 2020 only, not for the whole decade. I don't think there will be deaths on a massive scale this year, at least not much more than regular influenza. It's difficult to predict 10 years in advance. I don't know what to vote on that.

The poll is a poll, just like the polls for Arctic sea ice loss, which I would say is an even more serious issue than COVID-19.

[Tom_Mazanec]

The Fall Of Wuhan
https://www.epsilontheory.com/the-fall-of-wuhan/

A city falls when its healthcare system is overwhelmed. A city falls when its national government fails to prepare and support its doctors and nurses. A city falls when its government is more concerned with maintaining some bullshit narrative of “Yay, Calm and Competent Control!” than in doing what is politically embarrassing but socially necessary.

[oren]

I am sure no one is entertained by the poll. Regardless of its existence, I think this is a sobering discussion that should be held - how bad is it gonna be? This is not climate related, but is still a global issue and does stem from current human civilization parameters, so I think quite relevant to the forum's patronage.

I can see two options, <10k or in the range 10M-100M.
If it is miraculously stopped, it will end at <10k. I was still secretly hoping for containment, as China seems to have done an amazing job of this impossible task, but I think Iran and Italy as well as South Korea have destroyed the last hopes of that happening.
If not, it will probably infect a few billions - 30-70% of the human population - overwhelm local healthcare capacities, and kill around 0.5%-2% of those infected. Ergo 10M-100M. Many others will be asymptomatic or have a mild illness, and if lockdowns and quarantines are mostly avoided the global economy will not collapse and mass starvation and mass shortages avoided. This will increase the % infected though, so maybe 70% makes more sense than 30%. A worst case scenario could go above 100M, but surely less than 1B.
Maybe some antivirals or some vaccine will be ready in time to mitigate some of the effects, but it will not make a big difference to the global outcome.
That's my sad but sober estimate.

[vox_mundi]

Coronavirus Could Cause 'Severe Disruption' In America, CDC Says
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/25/coronavirus-outbreak-severe-disruption-america-cdc-united-states

The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has warned that the coronavirus outbreak could cause “severe disruption” to the lives of ordinary Americans, and urged families and communities to start making preparations.

“The data over the last week in the spread in other countries has certainly raised our level of concern and raised our level of expectation that we are going to have community spread here,” Messonnier said.

The extent of the spread of the virus in the US is uncertain, as the CDC stopped the distribution of coronavirus testing kits after they were found to be flawed. Working testing kits are now available in only a handful of states, and it is not clear when new kits will be ready.

Donald Trump told journalists in India on Tuesday that coronavirus is “very well under control in our country” and “is going to go away”

However, the head of immunization at the CDC, Nancy Messonnier, said that disruption to everyday life may be severe as the virus spreads among local communities.

-----------------------

Death toll in Italy rises again to 11
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/25/coronavirus-live-updates-outbreak-latest-news-italy-italia-deaths-symptoms-china-stocks-wall-street-dow-jones-economy-falls

A 76-year-old woman has died in the northern Italian city of Treviso, the Veneto region has said. She is the 11th victim in the country.  (... 3% mortality rate)

[Tom_Mazanec]

Here is another forum's extensive discussion of the epidemic:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/covid-19-or-the-wuhan-coronavirus-sars-mk-ii.482180/
BTW, the DJIA is down 2.4% (-671.36) and dropping.

[etienne]

People in Luxembourg seem to prepare themselves. Since yesterday, I was in two supermarkets where flour was sold out. Toilet paper also seems a trendy item, but stocks are more important.

[Bruce Steele]

Dnem, Ten years directly and Indirectly
I have watched as aquatic plagues crashed multiple invertebrate stocks. The one thing that seems to be shared by these crashes has been stress. For the invertebrates it is heat and environmental stress that leads to disease outbreaks. Stress is what Iran has to deal with as we embargo the medicines and hospital equipment they need to fight this disease.  Stress on food resources is what the Horn of Africa has to deal with as the locusts swarm. Food shortages are an issue that will change the lethality of this disease even for the youth not now considered at risk. War is stress on Syrian populations that will have Covid -19 soon enough. There are tens of thousands of refuges in tent camps with terrible sanitation problems. Asymmetric  war is what will happen if whole populations starve as we Americans refuse to send them relief aid. How hard is it to ship this problem to your enemies?
 I have a pig farm and pigs can also get coronaviruses. There is one called SADS. I deliver my pigs to the one and only slaughter house in Calif. south of San Francisco. Every time I go there I immediately wash the trailer with detergent and Clorox the truck and trailer tires before I return home.  I wear disposal plastic boots  and gloves that are either thrown away or sprayed with Clorox.  There are multiple diseases that could destroy my herd if I were to track them back home. I quarantine every new breeding pig I purchase before it is introduced to the herd.
 I don’t know what other stress multipliers will come along over the next ten years but I am guessing there will be more and more of them as planet earth begins to cook. Air conditioning systems may be a potential way to spread this disease. I don’t trust technology , mass transportation , instant worldwide
airfreight , or biotech but combined with asymmetric war we are in for lots of more trouble.

I farm by myself, if I get sick I worry about who can take care of my herd. In general if I keep working when I get sick I run the risk of making my pigs sick also. If visitors visit my farm they can pass disease on to my pigs. My situation isn’t unique and there are farmers in China who are dealing with how to feed their pigs during a quarantine , who can take care of their pigs while they sweat out a month in a hospital and whether they will have the strength to deal with the farm when they get home.
If they remain healthy but the grain truck can’t deliver when do they euthanize their starving animals?
My grandfather farmed a dairy , got sick ,kept working, got pneumonia , died. I carry his name.
 
 

[Alexander555]

A 2th case in Africa, in Algeria. And 2 new cases in France. One came from Italy. The other one a young Chinese woman that arrived in Paris a few weeks ago.

https://www.france24.com/en/20200225-france-confirms-two-new-cases-of-coronavirus-one-returning-from-italy?fbclid=IwAR1kMM9AYgVM4OSI74jn-vzMshn-CS8gRZIKHXwy3eKeFkP_gWzbST5_kUo

[philopek]

less than 10k.

Its under control in China, maybe 5k total there. It will be more easily controlled elsewhere, maybe 2k total there. Summer is coming.

I voted the same. I'm more worried about the panic than the disease itself. Once people realise this isn't a Hollywood blockbuster and boredom sets in again, we'll have another flu variant at the most. Probably a good time to invest in the pharmaceutical industry.

I make it simple:

+1

Same vote, same opinion and i find it horrible how many sensation hungryly treat this like if it was a video game.

For each concerned individual and group, be it health-wise or economically, it's dire
situation but globally, without media, it would be close to not existent.

All the numbers have to be put into relation with the population in the respective places and
I'm sure that there are several illnesses and causes of death that rate way higher than this-one.

I suspect that a few politicians need an excuse for past/ongoing and future economic failures.

Not a coincident IMO that Italy shot from almost zero to current numbers in a few days.
Their reported numbers were too low before and still are now, they are first who need
an excuse for non-development as well as to apply for aid and deferment of payments
from the EU.

[Alexander555]

A new infection in Germany. https://m.focus.de/panorama/welt/landesregierung-teilt-mit-erster-coronavirus-fall-in-baden-wuerttemberg_id_11704523.html?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=facebook-focus-online-panorama&fbc=facebook-focus-online-panorama&ts=202002252104&cid=25022020&fbclid=IwAR3nUS4kos5aXD4njJDNnUfiEHDRNMC1LjaBMRkjfItaUKIMum2nBQn-dqc

[swoozle]

Here is another forum's extensive discussion of the epidemic:
https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/covid-19-or-the-wuhan-coronavirus-sars-mk-ii.482180/
BTW, the DJIA is down 2.4% (-671.36) and dropping.

Before you bother clicking this: access requires that you sign up for an account.

[Tom_Mazanec]

Signing up is free, but if you don't want to, here is a thread on a hard science forum on epidemics (Covid-19 takes over on this page):
https://forum.cosmoquest.org/showthread.php?170332-Disease-and-pandemics-thread-(because-it-s-science)/page2
DJIA is now down 3% (-839.58).
A lot of my money is in the Dow 

[edmountain]

I too find the poll rather shameful and wish it were taken down.

With respect to the earlier discussion about the case fatality rate (CFR), it's safe to say that the authors of that JAMA paper are well and truly aware of the pitfalls of measuring the CFR when things are still evolving. That said, the CFR estimate they provide is specifically for that series of cases and for that series the number of new cases was virtually nil by February 11 as evidenced by the height of the blue bars from their Figure 1.


Source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762130

Whence given what we know about the duration of the disease I think it's unlikely the overall CFR will be significantly higher than the 2.3% for this series of cases. Indeed, the authors discuss the foibles of estimating the CFR and provide good reasons why it might actually be lower than this:

As of the end of February 18, 2020, China has reported 72 528 confirmed cases (98.9% of the global total) and 1870 deaths (99.8% of the global total). This translates to a current crude CFR of 2.6%. However, the total number of COVID-19 cases is likely higher due to inherent difficulties in identifying and counting mild and asymptomatic cases. Furthermore, the still-insufficient testing capacity for COVID-19 in China means that many suspected and clinically diagnosed cases are not yet counted in the denominator. This uncertainty in the CFR may be reflected by the important difference between the CFR in Hubei (2.9%) compared with outside Hubei (0.4%). Nevertheless, all CFRs still need to be interpreted with caution and more research is required.

Source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762130

[pietkuip]

Not a coincident IMO that Italy shot from almost zero to current numbers in a few days.
Their reported numbers were too low before and still are now, they are first who need
an excuse for non-development as well as to apply for aid and deferment of payments
from the EU.

And that was the most ridiculous part.

I would guess that excess mortality in the affected provinces in China since november is higher than 10 k. But we do not have the weekly death numbers of total mortality.   

[gerontocrat]

Fear stalks the market.
DJ and S&P down 3%
WTI crude below $ 50.
To paraphrase  Bloomberg News "supply chains are very efficient but very fragile" .

The US's CDC says the USA must expect some outbreaks here and there.
While new cases in China continue to decline, elsewhere new cases accelerate.
China enters a new risk - reopening factories and other places where people mingle.

[AbruptSLR]

It is past time to tell the public how to prepare for the coming COVID-19 pandemic:

Title: "Past Time to Tell the Public: “It Will Probably Go Pandemic, and We Should All Prepare Now”"

https://virologydownunder.com/past-time-to-tell-the-public-it-will-probably-go-pandemic-and-we-should-all-prepare-now/

Extract: "We want – and need – to hear advice like this:

•   Try to get a few extra months’ worth of prescription meds, if possible.
•   Think through now how we will take care of sick family members while trying not to get infected.
•   Cross-train key staff at work so one person’s absence won’t derail our organization’s ability to function.
•   Practice touching our faces less. So how about a face-counter app like the step-counters so many of us use?
•   Replace handshakes with elbow-bumps (the “Ebola handshake”).
•   Start building harm-reduction habits like pushing elevator buttons with a knuckle instead of a fingertip.
…
Suggesting things people can do to prepare for a possible hard time to come doesn’t just get them better prepared logistically.  It also helps get them better prepared emotionally.  It helps get them through the Oh My God (OMG) moment everyone needs to have, and needs to get through, preferably without being accused of hysteria.
It is better to get through this OMG moment now rather than later.
…
Below are links to specific preparedness messaging we drafted for a possible H5N1 pandemic.  The links are all from our 2007 website column What to Say When a Pandemic Looks Imminent: Messaging for WHO Phases Four and Five.  Each item is in two parts – a draft message (a summary sentence followed by a few paragraphs of elaboration), then a risk communication discussion of why we think it’s an appropriate pre-pandemic message.  Because these were written with H5N1 in mind, the pandemic they contemplate is more severe and less likely than the one we contemplate today.  So some changes may be called for – but frankly, in our judgment, not many.
•   We may have a window of opportunity now to make some practical preparations. We must make the most of it – even though the effort may be wasted if a severe pandemic doesn’t happen.
•   What matters most is how households, neighborhoods, community groups, and businesses prepare.
•   Individual and community preparations will focus on three tasks – reducing each person’s chance of getting sick, helping households with basic survival needs during a pandemic, and minimizing and coping with larger societal disruption.
•   Social distancing will be important but unpleasant.
•   School closings present a particularly difficult social distancing dilemma.
•   Hand-washing is far from a panacea. But it’s easy, it’s under your control, and it has no significant downside.
•   Like washing your hands, wearing a facemask may help a bit. But it has more downside than washing your hands.
•   Getting ready for a pandemic is largely about preparing for possible shortages.
•   It’s probably too late to stockpile much now, but do what you can.
•   Now is also the time to think about how you will care for loved ones at home.
•   To get ourselves through the hard times that may be coming, we will need volunteers. How can you help?

One of the scariest messaging failures in the developed world is not telling people vividly about what the end of containment will look like, for instance the end of contact-tracing and most quarantines.

The FAQs on the Singapore Ministry of Health webpage (https://www.moh.gov.sg/covid-19/faqs) can serve as a model that other developed countries can adapt to start talking to their publics about this now, to reduce the shock and anger when governments stop trying to contain all identified cases."

[Sam]

I too find the poll rather shameful and wish it were taken down.

With respect to the earlier discussion about the case fatality rate (CFR), it's safe to say that the authors of that JAMA paper are well and truly aware of the pitfalls of measuring the CFR when things are still evolving. That said, the CFR estimate they provide is specifically for that series of cases and for that series the number of new cases was virtually nil by February 11 as evidenced by the height of the blue bars from their Figure 1.


Source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762130

Whence given what we know about the duration of the disease I think it's unlikely the overall CFR will be significantly higher than the 2.3% for this series of cases. Indeed, the authors discuss the foibles of estimating the CFR and provide good reasons why it might actually be lower than this:

As of the end of February 18, 2020, China has reported 72 528 confirmed cases (98.9% of the global total) and 1870 deaths (99.8% of the global total). This translates to a current crude CFR of 2.6%. However, the total number of COVID-19 cases is likely higher due to inherent difficulties in identifying and counting mild and asymptomatic cases. Furthermore, the still-insufficient testing capacity for COVID-19 in China means that many suspected and clinically diagnosed cases are not yet counted in the denominator. This uncertainty in the CFR may be reflected by the important difference between the CFR in Hubei (2.9%) compared with outside Hubei (0.4%). Nevertheless, all CFRs still need to be interpreted with caution and more research is required.

Source: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762130

Edmountain,

In a word - wrong.

Note that the blue bars are about new incidence. And yes for this cohort, new incidence is nearing an apparent end.

But note then the gold bars - confirmed. That count is about 2/3rds complete due to the delay in testing compared to symptomoligy.

Note too the absence of the other two needed colors for deaths and recoveries.
‘We know with certainty that deaths trail confirmation. Our best (not great) estimate of that is that deaths trail confirmations by 6-9 days. As a result, the count of deaths is at best about half complete. And since recoveries trail deaths by 9-11 days (even poorer estimate), the count of those is very incomplete. This alone suggests perhaps as much as doubling their CFR estimates.

We do not have a good estimate for how many unconfirmed cases convert to confirmed cases. We also do not know how those aggregate into the existing data. They may aggregate into the past, meaning that the existing curves though they appear to be complete - are not.

The early years of the spread of HIV and conversion to AIDS looked like this. The most recent days and weeks always looked like the number of cases were declining through several periods. This happened because of delays in confirmation and delays in case reporting. These aggregated into the past with future succeeding reports. This was consistent enough to allow estimation of the actual numbers from the reported numbers. And that always showed a continuing rise at an alarming rate until the most vulnerable populations (predominantly gay and IV drug users) effectively saturated. After that the rates slowed. Then with the development of effective protease inhibitors and education campaigns, even more reduction in growth occurred. However, through it all - press reports always had things just turning the corner. They weren’t.

In this case, the only similar factor are the massive quarantines and controls. Those likely cause the apparent peak in cases in this data set. But, just like happened with the HIV spread, this may be less real than it appears.

When we look at the most recent data comparing the death count to the confirmed case count we are close to 4% death rate, despite an incomplete accounting for deaths.

At the same time we know next to nothing about the community numbers not counted in the hospital numbers. But for the JAMA datasets they are the hospital numbers. So something is very much amiss.

Also, a lot of “hope” for lower death rates is being placed on the idea that there is a large fraction of people in the community who have gotten and are getting sick with the virus but never reporting to hospital. Early modeling suggested that.  Models aren’t reality, and aren’t evidence either. They are only models. Those can be useful. They are often misleading.

This would also be expected during the growth phase as those infected and not yet showing symptoms would count as community infections, and only later as hospital infections. But we also know how severe the Chinese effort has been to drive potentially infected people into the hospital count. This makes it likely that the community counts are less than those counted, perhaps now much less. To get to under 1% CFR the reverse would need to be true. There is no evidence that I know of to believe that. Mind you - that does not mean models suggesting things. That means actual evidence.

Data incompleteness, reporting delays, and other temporal issues are frequently serious problems in datasets of this type.

Worse though is that if those are not recognized, then the results may seriously mislead those who rely on the reports conclusions for decision making. And that can result in very tragic outcomes.

Sam

[Shared Humanity]

I wish everyone would stay focused on the large lab experiment that is being conducted called Diamond Princess. This is the perfect way to understand community transmission and mortality rates.

The death rate for the Diamond Princess passengers seems very low, considering the age of most of them. I'm wondering whether clean air on the ship vs polluted air in Wuhan might have made a difference, since the main cause of death is lung infections.

By Chinese urban standards, Wuhan isn't that polluted - but I notice that they did have some major anti-pollution protests there last year.

Actually read that a ship's air handling system makes it the worst possible environment for conducting a quarantine.

[vox_mundi]

Sen. Richard Blumenthal:

This morning’s classified coronavirus briefing should have been made fully open to the American people—they would be as appalled & astonished as I am by the inadequacy of preparedness & prevention.

https://mobile.twitter.com/SenBlumenthal/status/1232316382253133824

The U.S. currently has a stockpile of 30 million surgical masks, but HHS estimates suggest the country needs 300 million masks.

... “The coming week is going to be a very telling time in this outbreak,” Saskia Popescu, an epidemiologist at George Mason University, said. “There’s a lot of concern around the limited testing that’s getting done in the United States right now.”

Popescu said there was also a serious shortage of personal protective equipment, such as masks and hazmat suits.

--------------------------

Faulty CDC Coronavirus Test Delays U.S. Understanding of Disease’s Spread
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/02/25/cdc-coronavirus-test/

Problems with a government-created coronavirus test have limited the U.S. capacity to rapidly increase testing, just as the outbreak has entered a worrisome new phase in countries around the world.

Experts are increasingly concerned that the small number of U.S. cases thus far may be a reflection of limited testing, not of the virus’s spread.

While South Korea has run more than 35,000 coronavirus tests, the United States has tested only 426 people for the virus, not including people who returned on evacuation flights. Only about a dozen state and local laboratories can now run tests outside of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta because the CDC kits sent out nationwide a week and a half ago included a faulty component.

U.S. guidelines recommend testing for a very narrow group of people — those who display respiratory symptoms and have recently traveled to China or had close contact with an infected person. But many public health experts believe that in light of evidence the disease has taken root and spread locally in Singapore, South Korea, Iran and Italy, it’s time to broaden testing in the United States.

Infectious disease experts fear that aside from the 14 cases picked up by public health surveillance, there may be other cases, undetected, mixed in with those of colds and flu. What scares experts the most is that the virus is beginning to spread locally in countries outside China, but no one knows if that’s the case here, because they aren’t checking.

---------------------

... Meanwhile, Trump’s acting Homeland Security Secretary, Ken Cuccinelli, thought it was a good idea to speculate on Twitter about a momentary service disruption to Johns Hopkins’ dashboard.

https://mobile.twitter.com/HomelandKen/status/1232026318801338368

------------------------------

CDC Warns Americans of 'Significant Disruption' From Coronavirus

Kudlow Urges Calm After CDC Virus Warning
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/cdc-warning-new-europe-cases-rattle-investors-virus-update/ar-BB10nR5h

... White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow called for calm after U.S. health officials said that an outbreak inside the U.S. could cause significant disruptions to daily life if emergency plans were put into place.

“I think people should be as calm as possible in assessing this,” Kudlow said at the White House. “Emergency plans don’t necessarily mean they’ll have to be put into place.”



... Trump administration Acting Department of Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf said Tuesday the threat to the U.S. from coronavirus "remains low," despite the White House seeking $1.25 billion in emergency funding to combat the virus.



--------------------------

... You were serious about dat???

My Cousin Vinny (1992)

--------------------------

[edmountain]

[
Edmountain,

In a word - wrong.

Note that the blue bars are about new incidence. And yes for this cohort, new incidence is nearing an apparent end.

But note then the gold bars - confirmed. That count is about 2/3rds complete due to the delay in testing compared to symptomoligy.

...

Sam, you misread the graph. All cases are confirmed.

[Sam]

[
Edmountain,

In a word - wrong.

Note that the blue bars are about new incidence. And yes for this cohort, new incidence is nearing an apparent end.

But note then the gold bars - confirmed. That count is about 2/3rds complete due to the delay in testing compared to symptomoligy.

...

Sam, you misread the graph. All cases are confirmed.

If that is true (I.e. that the blue and gold bars represent the same set of patients), then it is clear that a large subset of patients not counted in these bars and represented by the as yet missing right tail of the gold bars will when counted increase the counts in the blue bars shifting the distribution to the right as they are counted.

The data as presented in the synopsis is not (at least at first reading) absolutely clear which case is true. 1) that the blue bars represent all cases reporting with symptoms, or 2) that the blue bars only represent those cases presenting with symptoms that are later confirmed.

The rest of the analysis is unchanged. The death count is incomplete, as is the recovery count.

Sam

[KiwiGriff]

Actually read that a ship's air handling system makes it the worst possible environment for conducting a quarantine.

The air conditioning would drive filtered air from  intakes well outside of accessible areas  into cabins pressurizing them. https://heinenhopman.com/en/cruise-ferry/cruise-ship/cruise-ship-air-conditioning/
As long as you stayed within your cabin you would be in a safe pressurized quarantine cell .
From what I have read they made little effort to insure the crew were unaffected and taking suitable precautions around cleanness.
Probably many infections came from contact transfer from crew members .

[Tom_Mazanec]

Edmountain:
I thought I might get some “wisdom of crowds” with the poll. Believe it or not I try to take peoples suggestions here to heart. I attempted to remove the poll and was unable to...I could reset it to zero but that would be kind of pointless. I asked Neven to do so and he wants to wait a week.

[pietkuip]

Schools close in Erkelenz in Germany where a 47-year-old male is critically ill, needs respirator care:
https://www.bild.de/news/inland/news-inland/coronavirus-alle-infos-zur-lungenkrankheit-im-nachrichten-ticker-68674604.bild.html

Also a case in Baden-Würtemberg, someone who had been in Milano, 25-year-old male.

[Sigmetnow]

How would my government respond if this virus spread across my country?

“For the United States, the answers are especially worrying because the government has intentionally rendered itself incapable. In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure.”

And has not replaced them.  Recently, the administration appointed a “coronavirus task force” — with members like climate-change denier Ken Cuccinelli, who had to turn to Twitter to try to obtain the most basic information on the outbreak.

Trump Has Sabotaged America’s Coronavirus Response
As it improvises its way through a public health crisis, the United States has never been less prepared for a pandemic.
https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/01/31/coronavirus-china-trump-united-states-public-health-emergency-response/

[pietkuip]

“For the United States, the answers are especially worrying because the government has intentionally rendered itself incapable. In 2018, the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure.”[/i]

And has not replaced them.  Recently, the administration appointed a “coronavirus task force” — with members like climate-change denier Ken Cuccinelli, who had to turn to Twitter to try to obtain the most basic information on the outbreak.

I would not be surprised if it was already spreading. Many people in the US cannot afford to see a doctor.  They may not be the ones traveling abroad, but still.

[vox_mundi]

First Potential Case in Latin America
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/26/coronavirus-latest-updates-who-mission-director-warns-world-is-simply-not-ready

Latin America has recorded what would be its first confirmed case of coronavirus on Tuesday as Brazilian authorities reported that a 61-year-old man in São Paulo had tested positive for the illness.

According to the O Globo newspaper the man recently arrived back in Brazil’s economic capital from Italy.

https://oglobo.globo.com/sociedade/brasileiro-tem-confirmado-primeiro-teste-para-coronavirus-24271946

------------------------

In Geneva, Dr Bruce Aylward, who headed the joint WHO-Chinese mission to Wuhan, called for countries to “prepare for a potential pandemic”.

He hailed the measures taken in China, but told reporters that other nations were “simply not ready” for reining in the outbreak.

... Authorities should prepare hospital beds, isolation zones and respirators for severe cases, Aylward said, adding: “China knows how to keep people alive.”

“You have to be ready to manage this at a larger scale... and it has to be done fast,” Aylward said.

----------------------------

Australian Health Sector Emergency Response Plan For Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19)
https://www.health.gov.au/resources/publications/australian-health-sector-emergency-response-plan-for-novel-coronavirus-covid-19

Two weeks ago, the Australian Federal Health Department published an ‘Emergency Response Plan’.

It states that “the novel coronavirus outbreak represents a significant risk to Australia”.

“It has the potential to cause high levels of morbidity and mortality and to disrupt our community socially and economically... the response to the novel coronavirus outbreak is now in the Initial Action stage,” the document states.

“The level of impact that the novel coronavirus has on the Australian community will depend on a number of factors. The most influential will be the clinical severity and transmissibility of the disease, and the capacity of the health system to cope with the demand and the need for specialist services.”

... as with influenza, vulnerable people including those with other illnesses, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and the elderly are at risk of more severe symptoms and even death. So even if coronavirus proves to have a relatively low death rate once more data is collected, that can still represents thousands of deaths if millions become infected.

The majority of cases are likely to experience mild to moderate clinical features. People in at-risk groups and those with comorbidities may experience more severe illness. At the peak of the outbreak, and increasingly when transmissibility is higher, primary care and hospital services may become stretched in areas associated with respiratory illness and acute care. Existing legislation is likely to be sufficient to support activities.”

[vox_mundi]

There is an opportunity for things to get worse. MERS-CoV is currently circulating in Saudi Arabia. It would be unfortunate if an individual had both of these viruses and they decided to hybridize.

---------------------------

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) – The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
https://www.who.int/csr/don/24-february-2020-mers-saudi-arabia/en/

From 1 December 2019 through 31 January 2020, the National IHR Focal Point of Saudi Arabia reported 19 additional cases of MERS-CoV infection, including 8 associated deaths. The cases were reported from Aseer (7 cases), Riyadh (6 cases), Al-Qassim (2 cases), Eastern (2 cases), Madinah (1 case), and Aljouf (1 case) regions. In January 2020, a hospital outbreak was reported in Aseer region with a cluster of 6 cases. Three of the cases were health care workers, two were patients and one was a visitor. One of the cases of this cluster died on 4 February 2020.

Infection with MERS-CoV can cause severe disease resulting in high mortality. Humans are infected with MERS-CoV from direct or indirect contact with dromedaries. MERS-CoV has demonstrated the ability to transmit between humans. So far, the observed non-sustained human-to-human transmission has occurred mainly in health care settings.

Infection prevention and control measures (IPC) are critical to prevent the possible spread of MERS-CoV in health care facilities. It is not always possible to identify patients with MERS-CoV infection early because like other respiratory infections, the early symptoms of MERS-CoV infection are non-specific.

[edmountain]

If that is true (I.e. that the blue and gold bars represent the same set of patients), then it is clear that a large subset of patients not counted in these bars and represented by the as yet missing right tail of the gold bars will when counted increase the counts in the blue bars shifting the distribution to the right as they are counted.

The data as presented in the synopsis is not (at least at first reading) absolutely clear which case is true. 1) that the blue bars represent all cases reporting with symptoms, or 2) that the blue bars only represent those cases presenting with symptoms that are later confirmed.

The rest of the analysis is unchanged. The death count is incomplete, as is the recovery count.

Sam

The graph represents 44,672 confirmed cases. Of these almost 90% had onset of illness by January 31. The "death count" while not complete is going to be pretty close.

[vox_mundi]

South Korea Reported a Jump of 169 New Cases, 1 Additional Death
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/26/coronavirus-latest-updates-who-mission-director-warns-world-is-simply-not-ready
 
South Korea reported a jump of 169 new cases, bringing the country’s total to 1,146 infected, according to the country’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday morning.

It reported one additional death, bringing the total number of fatalities to 11.

Of the 169 new cases, 134 were from Daegu city, where a branch of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, which has been linked to outbreaks, is located.

The BBC’s correspondent in South Korea is reporting that an official in Daegu who had a meeting with the president has tested positive for coronavirus.

There has been a confirmed case of coronavirus in a Daegu city hall official. People who’d been working with that official were in the meeting with the South Korean President yesterday.
https://mobile.twitter.com/yonhaptweet/status/1232471816641236993



-----------------------------

http://who.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/ead3c6475654481ca51c248d52ab9c61

--------------------------------

China Reports 406 New Cases, 52 Additional Deaths
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/26/coronavirus-latest-updates-asia-stocks.html

China’s National Health Commission reported 406 new confirmed cases, and an additional 52 deaths, as of Feb. 25.

Of the new cases, 401 were in Hubei, the epicenter of the outbreak. The additional deaths are all in Hubei.

----------------------------



----------------------------

China’s Health Care System Under Pressure
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/26/coronavirus-china-health-care-system-under-pressure-in-wuhan.html

Wuhan, Hubei province’s capital city, accounts for 60% of mainland China’s total confirmed cases and about 77% of the deaths.

Even though local authorities have rushed to build new hospitals, first-hand reports still describe inadequate hospital beds and medical care.

China has sent more than 30,000 medical staff to Hubei, among which roughly two-thirds were sent to Wuhan. Chinese health officials say that 10% of China’s critical care medical staff are currently deployed in Wuhan to fight against the virus.

Wuhan has also designated 46 hospitals to care for confirmed coronavirus cases, and is racing to re-purpose other locations into medical facilities.

“These greatly relieved the stress, but because the number of confirmed cases is too large and keeps rising, demand can hardly get met in a short period of time,” a doctor familiar with the situation in Wuhan said last week, according to a CNBC translation of the Mandarin-language remarks. The source asked not to be named, due to the sensitivity of the topic.

To be clear, insufficient health care services have been an issue for China — even before the outbreak. At the end of 2018, Wuhan’s health commission said the occupancy rate of hospital beds was already at 94%, and that the city’s medical institutions had a total staff of 136,300.

This year, however, the rapid increase in coronavirus patients into the tens of thousands is stretching the medical system further.

Amid the sheer number of cases, many locals say it’s difficult to get medical care. Many coronavirus patients’ families have turned to the public for help, with some even turning to social media.

The intensity of the situation has resulted in hospitals and quarantine centers accepting more and more fever patients, while new demand continues to emerge, with non-coronavirus patients asking for help.

Ke Huibing, a 41-year-old professor from a well-known University at Wuhan, died of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma on Feb 19, according to state media. The same university lost five professors in about two weeks, the report said. “If it weren’t for the epidemic, he should have had surgery right after the Lunar New Year (Jan. 24), but this unexpected outbreak disrupted his treatment,” Ke’s sister said in a Chinese-language post on Weibo translated by CNBC. She called for attention on non-pneumonia patients who had other critical conditions that needed urgent medical care.

... “At present, a big concern will be outbreaks in hospitals, which will be very hard to control in China, as elsewhere.”

Last week, Chinese media reported clusters of coronavirus cases at three Beijing hospitals, which raised concerns about the virus spreading further. The capital city officially reported one new confirmed case on Monday, and none over the weekend.

[interstitial]

1 whitehouse asks congress for 2.5 billion for covid 19
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/International/coronavirus-live-updates-cdc-warns-americans-significant-disruption/story
this suggests it is about to get a lot worse


2 between the idiot in chiefs hubris and refusal to listen to experts he is going to make it even worse than if we did nothing. He will probably spend the money on magnetic bracelets or some other snake oil.

[Shared Humanity]

1 whitehouse asks congress for 2.5 billion for covid 19
https://abcnews.go.com/amp/International/coronavirus-live-updates-cdc-warns-americans-significant-disruption/story
this suggests it is about to get a lot worse


2 between the idiot in chiefs hubris and refusal to listen to experts he is going to make it even worse than if we did nothing. He will probably spend the money on magnetic bracelets or some other snake oil.

setting up secret bank accounts in the Ukraine.

[be cause]

So what's really going on in Hubei ? 

in the last 10 days .. borrowing from John Hopkin's version of the 'facts' as we know them .. Hubei's share of the recovered was @ 13,000
  Hubei's share of the dead > 2,000 .
So a total of at least 15,000 beds should have become available
 Meanwhile the last 10 days saw Hubei gain no more than 7,000 new patients . (> 90% of china's claimed total of 7,700 new patients )
 Should they not be reporting the delight of having 8,000 empty beds and staff going home  rather than a desperate rush to create more beds as demand collapses .

or do I smell something blindingly obviously fishy in the accounts ?  .. we see .. b.c.

   

[vox_mundi]

^ I'll go with door # 2 b.c.

-----------------------------

US Soldier In South Korea Tests Positive
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/26/coronavirus-latest-updates-who-mission-director-warns-world-is-simply-not-ready

A US soldier has tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a statement from US Forces Korea.

The 23-year-old, who had been based at Camp Carroll, 22 km (13 miles) north of Daegu, was in self-isolation at his off-base residence. The soldier also visited Camp Walker, which is around 4 km from Daegu, earlier in the week.

South Korean authorities and US military health workers were tracing his contacts for people who might have been exposed.

“USFK is implementing all appropriate control measures to help control the spread of Covid-19 and remains at risk level ‘high’ for USFK peninsula-wide as a prudent measure to protect the force,” the statement said.

--------------------------

On a U.S. military base in Daegu, the center of infections in South Korea, officials said a 61-year-old widow of a U.S. service member had also been infected. It was the first known case among people related to the thousands of U.S. troops stationed in the country.

----------------------------

A second person who visited Bali, Indonesia, has tested positive for the virus.

According to Japanese and Indonesian media, the Tokyo man in his sixties visited Bali shortly before testing positive for Covid-19.

According to the Jakarta Post, the man works at an aged care home, and returned to work for at least one day after presenting to a health clinic with cold-like symptoms and being discharged because he was not diagnosed with pneumonia.

“We have started contact tracing. We found the hotel he stayed at during his visit to Bali,” Bali Health Agency head Ketut Suarjaya told The Jakarta Post.

It’s the second case of someone who had visited Bali later testing positive for the virus on their return home. A Chinese man was diagnosed eight days after he retuned from the island earlier this month.

Indonesia says it has no confirmed cases of the virus, and that 28 people from Bali who showed symptoms all tested negative.

-------------------------------

Australian Diamond Princess Passenger Tests Positive
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/26/coronavirus-latest-updates-who-mission-director-warns-world-is-simply-not-ready

An eighth Australian passenger from the Diamond Princess cruise ship has tested positive for the virus. His partner had already tested positive, and so he has been in isolation, and will now receive treatment.

----------------------------

Customers At Supermarkets In Beijing Must Keep a Distance From Each Other
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/26/coronavirus-latest-updates-asia-stocks.html

Supermarkets in Beijing must keep customers at least 2 square meters (roughly 6 ft. by 7 ft.) apart from each other, the Beijing Municipal Commerce Bureau said in an online statement Wednesday.

The announcement was made in an effort to limit the spread of the coronavirus, and told stores to use “smart, rapid and automatic sensing equipment” to improve the efficiency of evaluating body temperatures, and prevent crowding, according to a CNBC translation of the Chinese-language text.

---------------------------

Japan's Hokkaido Prefecture Seeks Closure of Schools
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/china-coronavirus-outbreak-latest-updates-200226003835539.html

The board of education in Japan's northern Hokkaido prefecture will seek to close all public elementary and junior high schools for a few days starting from Thursday, Kyodo news agency reported on Wednesday

Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost main island, has confirmed a total of 35 coronavirus cases - the highest number outside Tokyo. A number of them have been discovered in people who have strong links to schools, including students, teachers, school bus drivers, and cafeteria worker

-------------------------------

Kuwait Reports Two New Coronavirus Cases, Taking Total To 11
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/02/china-coronavirus-outbreak-latest-updates-200226003835539.html

Kuwait announced on Wednesday there were two new coronavirus cases in the country, with the infections occurring among people returning from Iran.

The new cases bring the total number to 11 in Kuwait, according to a statement from the health ministry.

[wili]

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/25/coronavirus-cases-hit-80370-heres-why-health-sector-so-unprepared.html

Coronavirus cases hit 80,370. Here's why the health sector is so woefully unprepared

• Investment in infectious diseases has plummeted to a mere $372 million in 2018, down from almost $1 billion the previous year.

• Some of the reasons include the stigma of antibiotics and the recent move by some major pharmaceutical companies to abandon their infectious-disease divisions.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2020/02/25/coronavirus-outbreak-spreads-risks-us-economy-grow/4863214002/

'An economic pandemic': The coronavirus is becoming a bigger threat to the U.S., economists say

As the coronavirus spreads and raises the risk of recession, some analysts are further downgrading their forecasts for the U.S. economy.

Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics, estimates the outbreak will reduce growth during the first three months of 2020 by six-tenths of a percentage point to 1.3%, more than his previous forecast of a four- to five-tenths of a point. The halt to Boeing’s production of its 737 Max airliner also is set to significantly hurt the economy this quarter.

[Sam]

https://ncov.dxy.cn/ncovh5/view/pneumonia?from=groupmessage&isappinstalled=0

截至 2020-02-25 21:06 全国数据统计
数据说明

45,607 现存确诊  -2,153 较昨日
  2,491 现存疑似    +439 较昨日
  8,752 现存重症     -374 较昨日
78,190 累计确诊    +411 较昨日
  2,718 累计死亡     +52 较昨日
29,865 累计治愈 +2,512 较昨日

As of 2020-02-25 21:06 National Statistics
the data shows

45,607 Confirmed diagnosed  -2,153 since yesterday
  2,491 Existing suspected       +439 since yesterday
  8,752 Existing severe illness   -374 since yesterday
78,190 Cumulative diagnoses  +411 since yesterday
  2,718 Cumulative deaths        +52 since yesterday
29,865 Cumulative cure       +2,512 since yesterday

Bounding estimate for this population based on this data
3.48% < CFR < 8.34%

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6
Johns Hopkins
81,002 Confirmed
  2,762 Deaths
30,070 Recovered

Bounding estimate for these populations based on this data
Total
3.41% < CFR < 8.41%
Non-China
1.56% < CFR < 17.67%

https://nextstrain.org/ncov?c=country&p=grid&r=country
Next Strain
119 genomes sequenced

Sam

[solartim27]

This site has been mentioned previously, but this thread has grown quite a bit since then.  With the outbreak breaking to so many different countries, this page gives a great overview, with highlighted changes.  I believe it is updated 2x per day, might be more.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

[vox_mundi]

45 Allowed Off Diamond Princess Virus-Hit Cruise Ship Have 'Symptoms': Minister
https://m.dw.com/en/coronavirus-updates-us-soldier-in-south-korea-contracts-virus/a-52536472

Dozens of passengers who were allowed off the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship have developed symptoms including fever and will be asked to take tests for the coronavirus, Japan's health minister said on Wednesday.

Around 970 passengers were allowed off the boat last week after testing negative for the virus, but several have subsequently been found to be carrying the disease.

The ministry found "45 people had certain symptoms," health minister Katsunobu Kato told parliament.

"We asked all of them (who have symptoms) to see a doctor and to take tests," Kato said.

-------------------------------

Two European Hotels are Locked Down as New Cases Spread Across the Continent.
nytimes.com

A second European hotel was put on lockdown on Wednesday, as coronavirus infections spread across the Continent.

The authorities in Innsbruck, an Austrian ski town in the Alps, sealed off the 108-room Grand Hotel after an Italian employee there tested positive for the virus. The cordon was the second at a European hotel in two days, after Spain on Tuesday cordoned off the H10 Costa Adeje Palace on the resort island of Tinorefe after a guest, also from Italy, tested positive.

Each of the infected Italians had recently visited the Lombardy region of the country.

-------------------------------------

Collateral Damage: In China, Pregnant Women Face a Sudden Shortage of Health Care.
nytimes.com

Pregnant women in China are facing an emergency they could hardly have imagined a few months ago: The doctors and hospitals they were relying on are suddenly unavailable.

The government has taken nurses and doctors away from their usual jobs and assigned them to work on the coronavirus outbreak. That has left many small community hospitals, where prenatal care and childbirth are often handled, so understaffed that they have closed temporarily.

Many pregnant women have been unable to find even basic care, while reports of infected mothers giving birth have heightened fears of passing on the virus to newborns — though there is no evidence of such transmission.

In Wuhan, the city at the center of the outbreak, pregnant women have struggled to figure out where they can give birth. Not only are hospitals closed, so is the public transit system, and residents are not allowed to leave the city.

“I worry every day about whether my child will die in my belly,” said Jane Huang. “I worry if there is an early delivery, it will not be able to survive.”

Women who have given birth in China since the epidemic began say they have received minimal care in short-handed hospitals. Regular checkups for babies have been postponed, and mothers have been unable to get their infants vaccinated.

-----------------------------------

Number of South Korea Coronavirus Cases Expected To Jump As Mass Testing of More Than 200,000 Begins
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/26/coronavirus-latest-updates-asia-stocks.html

SEOUL — The number of South Korean coronavirus cases is widely expected to jump in coming days, as the country begins the mass testing of more than 200,000 members of a messianic religious movement at the center of an outbreak in the city of Daegu.

... South Korea’s military said 18 soldiers have been diagnosed with the virus as of Wednesday. Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo told soldiers not to leave their barracks other than for exceptional situations.

---------------------------

Kuwait Bans Foreign ships - Except Oil Tankers - To Fight Virus
https://m.dw.com/en/coronavirus-updates-us-soldier-in-south-korea-contracts-virus/a-52536472

Kuwait has barred foreign ships, except those carrying oil, from several countries to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, according to a notice seen by Reuters on Wednesday.

The notice, dated February 25, banned vessels from and to South Korea, Italy, Thailand, Singapore, Japan, China, Hong Kong and Iraq.

------------------------------

Three more people have been diagnosed with Covid-19 in Bahrain, bringing the country’s total to 26.

-------------------------

Thailand has reported 3 new cases
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/26/coronavirus-latest-updates-who-mission-director-warns-world-is-simply-not-ready

Thailand has reported three new cases today, taking total infections to 40, Reuters is reporting, citing Sukhum Kanchanapimai, permanent secretary at the health ministry.

The patients are all Thai nationals. Two had returned from holidays in Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido, and came into contact with the third.

[vox_mundi]

[vox_mundi]

Europe Cases Rise, More Dead in Iran (5:35 p.m. HK)
bloomberg.com

Italy said cases in Lombardy rose to 259 from 240. France said it found three more cases and reported a fatality.

Iran confirmed 44 new cases, taking its total to 139, and the death toll there rose to 19. Bahrain reported a total of 26 cases and shut schools for two weeks, while Kuwait has reported 18 cases so far.

--------------------------------

Thailand at Risk of Widespread Outbreak, Minister Says (4:46 p.m. HK)

With Thailand’s 40 total confirmed coronavirus cases, the country is at risk of entering “phase 3,” which is the highest level of outbreak advisory, the country’s health minister said.

---------------------------------

Spain Hotel Remains in Lockdown (4:38 p.m. HK)

Around 700 guests remained confined to their Canary Islands hotel as Spain stepped up efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Italy and other European nations were on high alert.

The number of infections in Tenerife has risen to four after two more Italians at the hotel were found to have the virus. Separately, Madrid’s regional government has confirmed a second coronavirus case, Cadena Ser radio reported.

-----------------------------

South Korean Cases Jump to 1,261 (4:07 p.m. HK)

South Korea confirmed 115 more coronavirus cases, bringing total infections to 1,261. A week ago, the country had only 51 cases.

The lack of strong containment measures from the South Korean government in the city of Daegu, where most cases are emerging, is sparking questions over whether the virus will continue to spread through the country.

---------------------------------

Japan’s Hokkaido Region Reports First Death (2:17 p.m. HK)

Hokkaido prefecture in the far north of Japan reported its first death from the coronavirus. It’s the second fatality in Japan excluding passengers from the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship, which has seen four deaths. The person was identified only as an elderly patient. Hokkaido has the most cases of the virus in Japan.

-----------------------------

Japan Wants Big Events Halted or Scaled Back (12:28 p.m. HK)

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe called for major sporting and cultural events to be called off, postponed or scaled down over the next two weeks, saying the move was crucial in preventing the domestic spread of the new coronavirus.

-------------------------

Afghanistan Coronavirus Outbreak
https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2020/feb/26/coronavirus-latest-updates-who-mission-director-warns-world-is-simply-not-ready

Preparations for an outbreak of coronavirus were underway in Afghanistan as the country confirmed its first case in the western province of Herat, which borders Iran.

Seven more suspected cases have been identified in Herat, and three cases in the nearby provinces of Farah and Ghor.

The affected Herat residents had recently returned from Qom in Iran, where the coronavirus outbreak has already killed at least 16 people and infected dozens of others, according to Iranian officials.

... Oral swabs have been sent from Herat to Kabul’s central public health laboratory for testing. The laboratory in Kabul is the only one in the country of 35 million people able to test for the virus. It has just three machines.

“If there are more cases in the provinces in the future, we cannot continue to send all of them to Kabul,” he said

--------------------------------

Coronavirus Could Affect Supplies of Coke.

Coca-Cola’s suppliers of sugar alternatives, used in diet and Coke-zero drinks, have been delayed.

“We have initiated contingency supply plans and do not foresee a short-term impact due to these delays,” Coca-Cola wrote in an annual report on Monday.

“However, we may see tighter supplies of some of these ingredients in the longer term should production or export operations in China deteriorate.”

In the annual report, Coca-Cola said sucralose, the sugar substitute better known as Splenda, was a “critical raw material” sourced from suppliers in the US and China.

-----------------------------

Japanese Doctors Test Avigan to Treat Virus (4:40 p.m. HK)

Doctors in Japan are testing several drugs including Fujifilm Holding Corp’s anti-influenza drug Avigan on preclincal research to treat the new coronavirus, according to the health ministry.

Favipiravir, also known as T-705 or Avigan, is an antiviral drug being developed by Toyama Chemical(Fujifilm group) of Japan with activity against many RNA viruses. In February 2020 Favipiravir was being studied in China for experimental treatment of the emergent COVID-19

[Gray-Wolf]

As one of the many that H1N1 left with a 'Post Viral Syndrome' I would urge you all to take some time over the weeks to come to practice 'relaxation techniques'?

As we saw back in the 80's (when it was called 'Yuppie flu') the syndrome seems to strike those with high stress/high anxiety lives.

My take is that the 'fight or flight response is firmly locked 'On' in such people (my stresses were the 24/7 care of my seriously disabled son) so the immune system is switched 'Off' leaving you open to 'complications' from viruses that trigger the autoimmune cascade of symptoms?

I'm not being a 'killjoy' and telling you to lay off the hooch (if you self medicate with such?) but to get your head into as good a space as you can prior to exposure...... you DO NOT want to end up like me once you've survived the virus!!!

Be well people!

[vox_mundi]

Nurses In Wuhan Make a Public Appeal for International Help
nytimes.com

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(20)30065-6/fulltext

Nurses in Wuhan, China, psychologically stressed and physically exhausted, appealed to medical workers around the world to come to the heart of the outbreak and help them treat the thousands of infected people there.

The unusually public appeal for help, made in an open letter published Monday in the medical journal The Lancet, underlines how severely overwhelmed and understaffed the hospitals in the city continue to be despite the thousands of volunteers the government has deployed.

The government has sought to promote its efforts in the party’s propaganda outlets, hailing the sacrifices of the medical workers as patriots while downplaying the shortages in hospitals beds, protective gear and medical supplies that have been made worse by a monthlong lockdown. The residents and medical workers in Wuhan have borne the brunt of the deaths from the disease, Covid-19

... “We are asking nurses and medical staff from countries around the world to come to China now, to help us in this battle,” read the letter signed by nurses working in isolation units at a hospital in Wuhan. “In addition to the physical exhaustion, we are also suffering psychologically. While we are professional nurses, we are also human.”

Severe shortages of protective equipment and a lack of health care professionals in Wuhan were exacerbating the tough conditions inside isolation wards, the letter said. Wearing thick layers of protective gear for long stretches means having to “speak very loudly” to communicate, while some nurses developed pressure ulcers on their foreheads and ears from the special masks and goggles and blisters around their mouths.

The front line workers are at particular risk for infection. More than 3,000 medical workers across China have been infected with the virus, according to the Chinese government.

“Like everyone else, we feel helplessness, anxiety, and fear,” the letter said.

----------------------------

... doesn't sound like things are winding down.

[vox_mundi]

Sound advice GW ... Stay safe

[Tom_Mazanec]

Asia and Europe sharply down, as are Dow futures.
Looks like the slide is gonna continue.

[Archimid]

Dr. Bruce Aylward, Team Lead WHO-China Joint commission on Covid-19




This is a very informative talk about the situation in China, the main points I got:

1. China has been very successful in stopping the spread of this virus within China
2. The rest of the world can do it too, but only if they take the threat seriously.
3. China is restarting its industry at a controlled pace and taking precautions while doing so.
4. The way he describes available resources, it does indeed looks like the best place in the world to get Covid-19 treatment is in China.

If the data is real, and this person is honest, then China might actually get through this relatively unscathed. I'm not sure about the rest of the world. The US response is laughable. The US is betting all in that the virus loses infectiousness during spring.

[Archimid]

I think Dr. Campbell makes a few great points here:

Contagion more rapid than thought



The R0 value is not inherent to the virus but it comes from the observations of the interactions between humans and the virus. In the wild, without awareness of the virus, without masks, without quarantines, just business as usual, the R0 can be estimated to be 4.7 to 6.6.


Their source:

Title: The Novel Coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, is Highly Contagious and More
Infectious Than Initially Estimated

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.07.20021154v1.full.pdf

The novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is a recently emerged human pathogen that has spread
widely since January 2020. Initially, the basic reproductive number, R0, was estimated to be 2.2
to 2.7. Here we provide a new estimate of this quantity. We collected extensive individual case
reports and estimated key epidemiology parameters, including the incubation period. Integrating
these estimates and high-resolution real-time human travel and infection data with
mathematical models, we estimated that the number of infected individuals during early
epidemic double every 2.4 days, and the R0 value is likely to be between 4.7 and 6.6. We further
show that quarantine and contact tracing of symptomatic individuals alone may not be effective
and early, strong control measures are needed to stop transmission of the virus.