Coronavirus in the US

Parent Cafe
5161

In the USA, recommendations aimed at stopping the virus’s spread are due to be unveiled in the four hardest-hit states soon, the vice president Mike Pence has promised. He’s told reporters:

In the next 24 hours, we will be working with not only Washington state, but California, with New York and Florida and unveiling our recommendations. (Guardian)

EU announces funding for coronavirus fight

The EU has agreed to fund researchers seeking a vaccine for the coronavirus, allow member states greater flexibility on providing subsidies to companies and invest €25bn (£21.5bn) in parts of the European economy worst hit by the epidemic.

Following a two and a half hour teleconference, the first such summit in the EU’s history, the European council president, Charles Michel, said the 27 heads of state and government would make €7.5bn of the funding immediately with the rest to follow.

The European commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said the EU’s executive branch had already released €140m for research on vaccines and treatment but that the socio-economic impact needed to be addressed immediately. She said:

We will bring forward, a corona response investment fund directed at the healthcare systems, directed at SMEs and at the labour market and other vulnerable parts of our economies. The instrument will be sizable and reach €25bn quickly.

To realise this, I will propose to council and parliament this week to release €7.5bn of investment liquidity.

As EU member states, including Slovenia and Austria, closed their borders with Italy, Von der Leyen added that home affairs ministers would in future have daily phone calls to ensure that all acts were proportionate to the crisis.

[props to Macron for coordinating this]

In the United States, senior Republican figures are facing backlash over an apparent effort to label Covid-19 as “Chinese coronavirus” – as China accused some US politicians of “disrespecting science” in order to “stigmatize” the country, Adam Gabbatt in New York reports.

Kevin McCarthy, the House minority leader, and Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, are among those to add a geographical marker to the coronavirus in recent days.

Pompeo called the virus the “Wuhan coronavirus” on Friday, referring to the Chinese city where the outbreak started, and McCarthy used the term “Chinese coronavirus” on Monday, when he tweeted out a link to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the federal agency that has led the US effort to fight the virus. (Guardian)

5162

Parents of UF students, email or tweet UF President Fuchs and demand to close the campus. Classes are slowly moving online but students are staying on campus in close quarters. What will happen, especially to out-of-staters, when students will need to be quarantined? Not a far-fetched idea: https://www.alligator.org/news/uf-students-exposed-to-coronavirus-at-pro-israel-conference/article_876a4cb2-61c6-11ea-8b5c-4344bc4818d8.html. Already too late?

5163

"Authorities in Berlin have announced the closure of all theatres, concert halls and its three opera houses to dampen the spread of coronavirus, until at least the end of the Easter holidays on April 19, Kate Connolly reports.

Berlin has also become the 7th of Germany’s 16 states to ban gatherings of 1000 people or more. Angela Merkel, the German chancellor has said authorities should be strict about implementing the bans, insisting at a meeting of her CDU parliamentary group this afternoon that all non essential events should be cancelled with immediate effect.

She said the fact that Bundesliga matches were going ahead empty stadiums “is not the worst that can happen to this country.”

Separately, the head of Poland’s army, Jaroslaw Mika, has tested positive for coronavirus following a visit to German troops, according to the Polish defence ministry. He and his aides are all in quarantine.

Meanwhile leading German economists say that Europe’s largest economy is heading for a recession. “Unfortunately we’re expecting Germany to go into recession in the first half of the year,” the head of the Kiel Institute for World Economy, (IfW), Gabriel Felbermayr.

Other leading economists have voiced the same concerns." (Guardian)

5164

Great - and (surprisingly) completely non-political article that explains what is happening in Italy (and no paywall). Really recommend if you are interested (as I am) in how this blew up in Italy, which was my real wake up call:

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/coronavirus-what-is-happening-in-italy/#slide-1

"On 18 February, a fit 38-year old with no apparent links to China fell ill in Codogno. He saw his GP and ** visited his local hospital several times **, but his symptoms were not picked up as resulting from the coronavirus.

Known as Patient One by the Italian media, when he was finally admitted to hospital he was tested ** after a 36-hour delay, which he spent outside isolation **. By that time he had infected a number of medical personnel and other contacts over a period of days."

This is how a super spreader is made.

Also -BBC news on Italy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_69sOxWU0jo

5165

The testing crisis in the United States continues, with the governor of North Carolina warning that his state has only enough supplies left to test 300 more people.

NCDHHS
:heavy_check_mark:
@ncdhhs
. @NC_Governor -Right now, we have supplies to test 300 more people, and like other states, we are continuing to do everything possible to get more supplies and more tests to our state. #COVID19NC (Guardian)

For something a little more light hearted. Go google “Landerneau smurfs” :slight_smile:

Despite warnings over mass gatherings and the spread of the coronavirus, the mayor of a small town in France has defended a record-breaking rally of people dressed as Smurfs that went ahead in France over the weekend.

Just a day before French authorities banned all gatherings of more than 1,000 people, in a bid to contain the virus, more than 3,500 painted their faces blue and donned the cartoon characters’ liberty cap-style headgear for the gathering in Landerneau, western France.

With its limited social safety net, the US seems to outside observers to be particularly vulnerable to an outbreak of coronavirus. Sam Levin, one of the Guardian’s US correspondents, has spoken to California’s homeless organisations, which say they lack the resources and government support to stop the spread of infections.

The lack of a coordinated coronavirus strategy for homeless communities could be catastrophic for sick and older people already struggling to survive in tents and overcrowded shelters in California, advocates warned.

Homeless organizations in California, which now has the highest numbers of reported Covid-19 infections along with New York and Washington state, say they lack the resources and government support to effectively stop the virus’ spread in encampments and shelters, and that the shortage of tests and beds could have devastating consequences. California is home to the largest homeless population in the US, with a housing crisis that is already a public health emergency in Los Angeles, the Bay Area and other regions.

“We are not prepared yet for a crisis like this,” said Rev Andy Bales, who runs the Union Rescue Mission (URM) at Skid Row, the epicenter of homelessness in downtown LA. “Individually, we are doing everything we can … but we will be losing precious souls out on the street if we don’t take immediate action.” (Guardian)

5166

This was linked in the first link above - interview with an Italian doctor that is worth a read, IMO. Read about the percentages requiring hospitalization. I would be interested in knowing if the strain in Italy has mutated much from the China strain to be presenting somewhat differently in terms of death rate.

5167

@suzyQ7 , thank you for linking the National Review article on Italy. I have been trying to figure out what happened there, and this is the first clear explanation I’ve found. It seems that the initial testing protocols caused a lot of trouble everywhere.

5168

Los Angeles is particularly vulnerable and many west coast cities. There have outbreaks of diseases that are directly related to the homeless living in such squalid conditions.

However to think that people haven’t been banging on their drums calling for intervention to the homeless crisis is not being intellectually honest. It’s complex and a third rail political issue.

5169

The testing protocols missed were that because he had no contact with China, so he didn’t qualify for a test. But he was so ill, he kept coming back to the hospital and they let him sit outside isolation. Not really different from where we were 10 days ago in Washington State and other parts of the USA because our doctors could not get testing because of our own protocols.

5170

Not sure how many colleges have computer requirements for students. A random check of a community college indicates that it just has computers that students can use in the library, implying that it expects that some students do not have them.

Fordham says at https://www.fordham.edu/info/21175/computer_acquisitions/2187/personal_computer_purchases_and_specifications that it “encourages but does not require students to bring their own computers to campus.”

5171

The cruise ship Grand Princess has docked in San Francisco Bay, Reuters reports:

Hundreds of travellers who boarded a cruise liner for Hawaii last month in sandals and sunglasses trudged off the coronavirus-stricken ship in face masks at the Port of Oakland, California, on Tuesday, headed to quarantine sites around the country.

The tightly controlled disembarkation began on Monday, hours after the cruise ship Grand Princess arrived at a specially secured terminal across San Francisco Bay from its home port amid cheers from weary passengers who had spent days at sea confined to their staterooms.

By midday Tuesday, nearly 700 passengers wearing surgical masks had left the ship in small groups, escorted by personnel dressed in full protective gear to chartered buses.

Addressing a news conference on Tuesday in Sacramento, the state capital, Governor Gavin Newsom said he hoped to finish getting all 2,400 some passengers off the ship within 72 hours.

Plans originally called for the 1,100 crew members, except those requiring immediate medical care, to remain aboard the Grand Princess when it leaves port for a two-week quarantine period at sea.

But Newsom told reporters that some crew members, many from the Philippines, may end up repatriated to their home countries instead.

Among the first people off the ship were 26 US residents taken by ambulance to hospitals around the region, including two passengers diagnosed with coronavirus during on-board testing last week that also found 19 crew members infected, Newsom said.

Princess Cruises, the ship’s owner-operator, said those crew members were deemed asymptomatic and confined to their individual cabins. (Guardian)

5172

Other protocols missed in this Italy Patient 1 case were his visits wound up infecting other hospital patients (helping drive up the death rate early) and health care workers who didn’t know they were then dealing with Covid-19 - again, similar to many scenarios in the US and elsewhere.

5173

“OK, this is a little kooky. Are we trying to stop the spread of this virus or are we just playing that role on t.v.?”
No, it is a fact well known in medicine : if the pre test probability is low ( like in no symptoms ), you test anyway and you get a positive result, it is more likely a false positive. More is not better in this case.

5174

I thought this article about the response to COVID-19 in Taiwan was interesting, especially in contrast to what has happened in Italy :disappointed:

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762689

Taiwan was expected to be inundated with cases of COVID-19 because out of their 23 million citizens, 850, 000 reside in and 404, 000 work in China.

But, after Taiwan went through The SARS epidemic, they established the National Health Command Center (NHCC).

The NHCC is part of a disaster management center that focuses on large-outbreak response and acts as the operational command point for direct communications among central, regional, and local authorities.

They have been on constant alert and ready to act on any new disease coming out of China. I know their population, politics and culture are very different from ours, but I still think we could learn so much from their coordinated response.

They did things like integrating their national health insurance database with their immigration and customs database so they could generate real-time alerts for doctors during a clinical visit based on travel history and clinical symptoms to aid case identification.

On February 18, the government announced that all hospitals, clinics, and pharmacies in Taiwan would have access to patients’ travel histories.

The Central Epidemic Control Center took an active role in resource allocation, including setting the price of masks and using government funds and military personnel to increase mask production. On January 20, the Taiwan CDC announced that the government had under its control a stockpile of 44 million surgical masks, 1.9 million N95 masks, and 1100 negative-pressure isolation rooms.

As of February 24, Taiwan has 30 cases of COVID-19. These cases represent the 10th-highest case number among countries affected thus far, but far fewer than the initial models predicting that Taiwan would have the second-highest importation risk.

5175

Here’s my concern.

People visiting might sit on your couch/chairs spreading the virus from their pants.

They might cough and spread the virus into your house

They might drink out of a cup or water glass that you gave them.

They might go to the bathroom and touch the toilet seat lid, faucet handle, bar of soap, and yes door handle.

My point is there are so many touch points that we humans do hundreds of times a day that are not just touching door handles.

When you really think about it, any time we let others (and amazon products, groceries, dry cleaning, etc) into our homes or go outside and touch anything, you are potentially at risk.

It’s a false sense of security to think that wiping door knobs is all we need to do. For example, you can wash your hands dozens of times a day but if you don’t also clean and disinfect your cellphone an equal number of times, the hand washing will not help as you will be touching your possibly infected cellphone once you just finished washing your hands, again transferring the virus to your hands.

This whole thing is rather depressing…

5176

Thread has come to have three legs: patient counts, school closings, lack of test kits.

No particular order, in that list, btw.

5177

“In the United States, senior Republican figures are facing backlash over an apparent effort to label Covid-19 as “Chinese coronavirus” – as China accused some US politicians of “disrespecting science” in order to “stigmatize” the country, Adam Gabbatt in New York reports.”
Honestly, China’s communist party should tone down their wounded national pride, especially since this is not the first viral outbreak that starts in their own backyard and everybody else ends up paying for it. A little decency would go a long way…

5178

Thought you were taking a break? :slight_smile: Feel free to post other Covid-19 related topics.

5179

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3074506/coronavirus-lesson-china-dont-make-patients-pay-tests-and

Article with info on different countries approaches to testing, paying for tests, etc.

5180

My son has decided to move to back to Beirut mid-April, for at least three months. A professor over there told me he would not want his own son visiting there at this point, due to the political and financial turmoil, as well as the spread of the virus. Sigh. Son’s girlfriend is still in school there and he will not listen to reason.