Depends on the lu test. If it is an immuno test, you might as well flip a coin. Molecular tests not only tell if flu is present, but also could differentiate the specific flu stain type (A, B, etc.)
Yes, there is an ideal of how things are done, and a reality of how they often are. I took my youngest kid in for a fever a few weeks back. Suspected viral infection, but they had no clue as what it was. They rule things out. For those of us with lab experience (it sounds like you have some), itâs highly unsatisfying especially knowing how quickly weâve advanced with sequencing technologies. Medicine still feels very primitive at times. Maybe in a decade weâll be able to get complete viromes after a healthcare provider visit.
Iâm wondering whether the CA Bay Area reported cases in the two counties are because those are the only counties where the disease is found, or because the UC Davis people insisted their case be tested, and Santa Clara County has a good health department so they were persistent. I suspect the latter.
From the President of the American University of Beirut: âI am writing to inform you that following discussions between the minister of education and Lebanonâs leading private universitiesâAUB, LAU, and USJâwe have agreed to suspend all student-related activities on campus for one week from March 2, 2020 as part of national efforts to contain the novel coronavirus COVID-19.â
Thank God my son graduated from AUB in December. Classes were cancelled for weeks during the fall term due to rioting. And now this. Sonâs fiancee is still at AUB, so he is worried about her. There were seven confirmed cases in the country, according to the latest report I could find.
More than one mom in a pregnancy group has decided to toss anything they canât confirm was made in the US.
Some people are ridiculous. (I offered to gladly take it and pay shipping but they donât want it going through the mail. What a waste!)
Iâm apparently high risk at age 68 with medication controlled diabetes. But my immune system is pretty good - few colds and never the flu. San Diego started local testing two days ago and the first dozen or so tests have been negative.
More concerned about our son in Seattle. So far all the cases have been Eastside and beyond, and heâs in the city. But it seems highly likely theyâll start getting positive results all over now that testing has begun. The more I hear, the more I wonder if he already had it the first week of February. He had a bad bout of the flu (for him); low fever for several days, chills, fatigue, and a lingering cough. He saw a doctor and was diagnosed with the flu without any testing. Heâs fully recovered now so who knows.
INDONESIA - First 2 cases reported in worldâs fourth most populous country (well, I learned something new) - a 64-year-old woman and her 31-year-old daughter were in contact with a Japanese national who tested positive after leaving Indonesia.
"Health experts have warned that the lack of confirmed patients in Indonesia, a country of 272 million people, was surprising, especially given its close links to ChinaâŠresearchers at Harvard analysed air traffic from WuhanâŠand concluded case numbers were lower than expectedâŠAt the time, Indonesian health minister Terawan Agus Putranto called the study âinsultingâ.
Further concerns were raised when New Zealand and Malaysia reported that patients who tested positive for their disease within their borders had recently traveled to IndonesiaâŠ
the Jakarta Post, questioned whether officials were being transparent, adding that the government appeared more worried âabout the social and economic impact of a mass hysteria created by the virus outbreak than the outbreak itselfâ.
Indonesiaâs âŠsole agency tasked with testingâŠhad only concluded around 140 lab tests"" (Guardian)
New England Journal of medicine study on 1,099 Covid-19 patients
The New England Journal of Medicine published its latest report on the coronavirus, in which it extracted data regarding 1,099 patients with laboratory-confirmed Covid-19 from 552 hospitals in 30 provinces, autonomous regions, and municipalities in China through January 29, 2020.
You can read the whole study here, but here are the main points:
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2002032
The median age of the patients was 47 years and 41.9% of the patients were female.
0.9% of the patients were younger than 15 years of age.
5% were admitted to intensive care, and 1.4% died.
Only 1.9% of the patients had a history of direct contact with wildlife.
The most common symptoms were fever (43.8% on admission and 88.7% during hospitalisation) and cough (67.8%).
Among the overall population, 23.7% had at least one coexisting illness (e.g. hypertension and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease).
On admission, the degree of severity of Covid-19 was categorised as non-severe in 926 patients and severe in 173 patients.
The median incubation period was 4 days.
Many did not have abnormal radiologic findings (X-ray/CT scan).
A majority of the patients (58.0%) received intravenous antibiotic therapy, and 35.8% received oseltamivir therapy.
Oxygen therapy was administered in 41.3% and mechanical ventilation in 6.1%; higher percentages of patients with severe disease received these therapies
(Guardian)
USA - 89 confirmed cases, â including 44 evacuated passengers from the Diamond Princess cruise ship, 3 repatriated from Wuhan, 38 cases that were detected and tested on US soil and 4 cases âpresumed positive.â
Hereâs the breakdown:
44 passengers repatriated from the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan.
3 repatriated from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak.
42 who were detected and tested on US soil:
19 travel-related
19 person-to-person
4 undetermined (1 in Illinois, 1 in California and 2 in Washington)
Hereâs a state-by-state breakdown of the cases identified within the US:
California: 16
Washington: 13, including 2 deaths
Illinois: 3
Florida: 2
Oregon: 2
Rhode Island: 2
Arizona: 1
Massachusetts: 1
New York: 1
Wisconsin: 1
ANDORRA - 1st case confirmed - 20 year old male citizen who had travelled to Milan.
(CNN)
PORTUGAL - 1st two cases on Monday - one case was discovered in a man who had recently travelled to Italy and another one in a man who had returned from Spain. Both were taken to hospital in Porto.
KUWAIT - 10 new cases, all traveled to Iran.
AUSTRALIA - 3 new cases including the first case of local transmission for 30 total of which 9 are Diamond Princess evacuees
-43-year-old Iranian man who flew to Australia from Iran.
-the manâs 42-year-old sister, who did not travel to Iran but was under quarantine.
-53-year-old health worker who has no travel history in the past three months. He had been working in a clinical environment before contracting the virus, and officials believed that this is likely a case of local transmission.
ISRAEL - âIsraelis are voting in a national election today and the government has set up 16 special voting booths for roughly 5,6000 people who are in precautionary home isolationâŠThe polling stations are small tents made of plastic sheeting, with staff in full protective suits. 10 Israelis in total have contracted the virusâ (Guardian)
Doesnât traveling to the special voting booths and back take them out of quarantine?
INDIA - 2 new cases - 1 in New Delhi, 1 in the southern state of Telangana, the patients had a travel history from Italy and the United Arab Emirates, respectively. First cases confirmed since evacuation flights out of Wuhan.
GERMANY - 20 new cases totaling 150 on Monday. More than half of the cases, 86, are in the western region of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germanyâs most populous state, where several schools and daycare centers will be closed on Monday to try to prevent the spread of the virus after staff members tested positive.
IRAN - 523 new cases for a total of 1,501 and 12 new deaths for a total of 66.
A member of the council that advises Ali Khamenei, leader of Iran, has died today of Covid-19. Expediency council member Mohammad Mirmohammadi, 71, died at a Tehran hospital of the virus, making him the the first top official to succumb to the illness that is affecting members of the Islamic Republicâs leadership. The council advises Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as settles disputes between the supreme leader and parliament, according to AP. (Guardian)
NETHERLANDS - Nike will close its European headquarters in the Netherlands on Monday and Tuesday after an employee was infected with the coronavirus. The employee was staying home in isolation for 14 days, it said. Roughly 2,000 employees from 80 countries work at the site. The country has 10 confirmed cases.
CHINA - Authorities in China have closed the first of 16 hospitals specially built in Wuhan to tackle the coronavirus epidemic. (Reuters)
Discussion of a paper claiming woman saved by stem cell therapy
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3053080/coronavirus-critically-ill-chinese-patient-saved-stem-cell
Vital Climate Talks Might Be Derailed
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/mar/02/vital-cop26-climate-talks-could-be-derailed-by-coronavirus
The scientist you are referring to is Trevor Bedford, follow him on Twitter, as I am now.
Interesting read to contrast how different governments approach Covid-19
" one place thatâs managed to limit the spread of the disease is Hong KongâŠsits right up against Chinaâs Guangdong Province, which has had more than 1,300 cases, the second largest number on the mainland after HubeiâŠHong Kong has seen fewer than 100 casesâŠcome at a steep cost to the city. Schools are closed. Many businesses are shuttered. All train, bus and ferry service to mainland China is suspended, and the border with China is essentially shut down. People keep their distance from each other. Almost everyone on the street wears a surgical mask. Some even wear gas masks. Few people shake hands.
âŠresidents are hunkering downâŠZhang says she only ventures out once or twice a week to buyâŠgroceries. When she does go out, she tries to not have any skin exposed âŠwears a face mask, wraparound sunglasses and a large cloth hat that flops over her ears and shields much of her faceâŠdisposable plastic gloves that she tapes around her wristsâŠ
âŠaggressively tracking down suspected casesâŠquarantining anyone whoâs potentially been exposed. At one pointâŠnearly 12,000 people in quarantineâŠheld in what used to be summer campsâŠa just-completed complex of public housing towersâŠelectronically monitored at home.
âŠevery day announce the addresses and occupations of people newly diagnosedâŠthen they call on residents who may have had contact with those people to come forward."
There is no reason to think it will be better in theUS than in other countries where it has already caused widespread disruption, and many reasons to think it will be worse. A substantial population with no health insurance, many insured wary of incurring huge medical bills, no paid sick leave for millions-all will likely contribute to more contagion.
Iâm going to email my doctor today and ask her if this virus me and my husband had (that she said had been going around the Seattle area), might have been CV. It will be interesting to hear her response, she is always tied in to what is going on.
@busdriver11 when I read that virus probably has been in area for 6 weeks, I thought of you, , will be interesting to know what your dr suggests,
For those interested in Trevor Bedford, apparently Bill gates foundation donating $100 million towards research for Corona virus.
https://www.fredhutch.org/en/news/center-news/2020/02/aaas-annual-meeting-seattle.html
I just saw that Tampa (HIllsborough) had a confirmed case. Whatâs crazy is that my 17 year old D told me last Thursday or Friday that there was a patient in quarantine in Tampa. (We live on outskirts of city.) HmmâŠ
Mortality was much less. .02% vs 2% for COVID-19
Thatâs 2 people dying with 10,000 infections vs 200 people dying in 10,000 infections.
Does anyone else watch ABC News? Dr. Jenn Ashton is their medical consultant and the past few days she has been trying to put the coronavirus into perspective, citing the flu infections and deaths in the US so far this year. She at times seems annoyed with the news anchor.
@busdriver11. No way for your doctor to know without testing. Canât even guess on this one.
Sounds like a good strategy to wait. Maybe youâll get better deals, also.
Donât confuse no confirmed cases with no cases. Perhaps there really arenât any cases in the whole state of Maine but from what I read in the Portland paper this morning, they donât currently have testing capability there yet.
"Shah [Director of the Maine CDC] said another key part of preparing is for states to obtain the capability to conduct their own novel coronavirus tests, which should happen in Maine within the next few weeks. It can take a few days to get test results back when the sample has to be sent out of state for testing, compared to potentially less than 24 hours for in-state tests, Mills said.
Shah said a new testing machine that cost $58,000 in federal funds should be arriving soon in Maine, plus the U.S. CDC is sending Maine coronavirus testing kits. The U.S. CDC had to recall coronavirus testing kits sent to states because they did not work properly, but Alex Azar, secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told federal lawmakers on Friday that the issue has been fixed and new testing kits should be available to the states by next week.
âBeing able to do our own testing is really important,â Shah said. âWe have to be able to know whatâs happening on the ground quickly.â"
https://www.pressherald.com/2020/03/02/maine-health-care-providers-gearing-up-for-coronavirus/