Second patient with coronavirus in New York remains in critical condition
The second patient confirmed to have coronavirus in New York City remains in critical condition at New York-Presbyterian/ Columbia University Irving Medical Center in Manhattan…The man is in his 50s, lives in Westchester County and works at the Lewis and Garbuz P.C. law firm in Manhattan…
His daughter attends SAR Academy and High School in the Bronx. The administrators at her school voluntarily closed, the release said. The patient’s son attends Yeshiva University in Manhattan…
Health Department officials are encouraging anyone who had close contact with the family to call 311.
“Now, more than ever, New Yorkers must come together as a city to limit the spread of COVID-19. If you have symptoms like cough, fever, or shortness of breath, call your health care provider,” Health Commissioner Dr. Oxiris Barbot said. “The Health Department will do everything in our power to minimize the disruption caused by this evolving situation, and we will continue to communicate openly and honestly with New Yorkers."" (CNN)
Looks like NY is taking a page out of the Singapore book and Hong Kong book - releasing pertinent details about the infected patient to improve contact tracing.
One vaccine trial underway utilizes a novel method of immunization. Rather than injecting viral proteins to induce an immune response, recipients of the vaccine will be injected with mRNA for one of the coat proteins and their own cellular machinery will produce the protein. Your body will recognize the foreign protein as it is synthesized and mount an immune response.
The speed with which this virus was sequenced and target proteins selected for vaccine production is awe inspiring and should be cause for great optimism for future pandemics. It also resulted from virtually borderless collaboration between research groups in different countries. Chinese scientists sequenced the virus and made the information public immediately. The subsequent vaccine design was accomplished with sophisticated protein structure modeling software, all done without the need to even have a sample of the pure virus.
^^The law firm is located in Grand Central. The patient likely took Metro North trains everyday before he was hospitalized. Grand Central is among the most crowded places in NYC.
It apparently has been spreading from some people with no symptoms. In others apparently there are just very mild symptoms.
Even if we immediately tested everyone in the entire country this virus would still spread from the ones not yet showing symptoms. At this point it’s a perfect storm.
Testing is part of containment - isolating, etc. It’s part of protocol for epidemics/pandemics. That’s why some countries are doing so much of it. It’s not some novel concept here.
I used to participate in healthy studies all the time. I know the testing these things go through so it’s not like people put stuff in a syringe and said “well let’s try this on humans!”
Now I’m in the sick group. In fact, I’m in a study right now related to my pregnancy. (obviously not medication or vaccine-based)
ETA: The lupus excludes me from most healthy studies now but I bet I could get Mr R to volunteer - he knows how important vaccines are to us and others.
US Navy to self-quarantine ships in Europe due to coronavirus
"The US Navy’s 6th fleet is now also doing a 14-day self-quarantine between port visits by US Navy ships in Europe over concerns of the coronavirus, according to two US Navy officials, the move is intended to bring the fleet into line with instructions from US Pacific Fleet.
Ships will stay at sea for at least 14 days after visiting any port in Europe in order to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
“In conjunction with the other fleets, we have instituted a 14-day underway period between port visits to allow for crew monitoring,” said Cdr. Kyle Raines, spokesperson for the 6th fleet.
Some context: The 6th fleet is responsible for the US Navy presence in Europe, including Russia and nearly the entire continent of Africa." (CNN)
Good thing the military is mostly on the younger side.
Iran temporarily frees 54,000 prisoners to prevent the spread of coronavirus
From CNN’s Mohammed Tawfeeq
"Iran announced Tuesday that it will temporarily release more than 54,000 prisoners in an attempt to prevent the spread of coronavirus, according to Iran’s semi-official news agency ISNA citing Iran’s Judiciary spokesperson Gholamhossein Esmaili.
The spokesperson said that the release of prisoners is under the supervision of Iran’s Health Ministry, ISNNA said in its report.
“The health of the prisoners is very important for us regardless of their status as security prisoners or regular prisoners.” Esmaili said as quoted on ISNA.
Some context: There are now 77 people dead in Iran from novel coronavirus, and 2,336 positive cases of infection, Deputy Health Minister Alireza Raisi said on state TV Tuesday" (CNN)
I’m trying to think of the angles of this…needs more thinking.
Another indication, IMO, on just how bad things must be in Iran.
Asymptomatic transmission isn’t one of the main mechanisms for this virus, according the the joint report by WHO and China. It only accounts for a small percentage of cases.
Whether a person is asymptomatic or not has no bearing on the test. So the test could determine if a person has been infected even before symptoms are shown.
The kids of the 2 people who tested positive in GA are home-schooled, so that hopefully reduced concerns re: exposure. However, they said that since the father was asymptomatic when he returned to the US, they aren’t concerned about exposure/contamination to other passengers in the plane or at the airport, etc. is that correct (that there is no risk to others If he was asymptomatic on the flight home or in the airport)?
I was skeptical about this. Seemed like the decimal point is in the wrong place. But no, I went to the site, and sure enough, that teeny weeny percentage is in fact what the CDC web page numbers say.
On the other hand, we’re at something like 104 confirmed cases of covid-19 and 9 deaths. So that’s about 200 times as deadly.
The main means of transmission is close contact with a symptomatic person through droplets coughed or sneezed out, mucus, and maybe feces. So, I would not say “no risk“, but “low risk“.
CF, that’s assuming that we caught all the COVID cases. We obviously haven’t so honestly any numbers out there right now are an educated guess at best.
“State health officials said that the first coronavirus patient “attended an invitation-only private event on Friday” despite being told to stay isolated. That person has now been ordered to remain isolated and all others who came into “close contact” with them at the event were asked to stay isolated for 14 days.”
Those numbers are skewed though because the majority of deaths so far are because the virus attacked a highly vulnerable population in a nursing home. Of course their death rates will be higher compared to the general population.
Asymptomatic transmission might not be a primary type of transmission but it’s still happening meaning it can’t be easily stopped.
Are we going to immediately test everyone? Then what? This thing is spreading fast. I don’t think we can contain it. I think we will either get a vaccine going to slow it down or it will naturally slow itself like other seasonal viruses.
