Coronavirus in the US

Singapore will deny from Monday entry or transit to visitors who have been in Italy, France, Spain or Germany in the last 14 days, as part of measures to control the fast-spreading coronavirus, the health ministry said on Friday.

For Singapore citizens, permanent residents and long-term pass holders who visited those countries recently, they would be issued with stay-home notices where they will have to remain in their place of residence at all times for two weeks after returning.

The southeast Asian travel hub, which also advised against non-essential travel to the four countries, will immediately halt docking by cruise ships, it added.

Singapore has a similar ban in place for travellers from Iran, South Korea and China, where the virus first surfaced late last year.

Singapore has at least 187 confirmed cases to-date and 96 of those patients have been discharged, government tally showed. There have not been any reported deaths from the disease. (Guardian/CNBC)

India registers first coronavirus death

India has registered its first coronavirus death: a 76-year-old man in Karnataka who had fallen sick on returning to India on 29 February after a pilgrimage to Mecca. He died on Tuesday and was later confirmed to have tested positive. Officials are tracing all the people he came into contact with.

As the number of cases rose to 73, the Delhi government ordered the closure of all schools, colleges, and cinemas till 31 March and made it mandatory for shopping malls, government offices and public spaces to be disinfected every day.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has told all ministers not to travel abroad.

With the Indian Premier League – a hugely popular cricket tournament – starting on 29 March, the government has advised against going ahead with it but left the decision to the organisers.

Google confirmed today that one of its employees in Bengaluru is infected. The man had recently returned from Greece.

On Thursday, the Indian stock market saw the worst crash since 2008, crashing by 2,919 points. (Guardian)

Denver public schools is extending its spring break for three weeks. It’s a large urban district with a fair percentage of children in need. Free breakfast and lunches – on a grab and go basis – will be distributed through the district at several locations.

On Facebook and Nextdoor.com people are listing their names/locations, offering help with shopping/running errands for those at high risk, and lots of offers of babysitting/day care.

Kind of nice to see people rise to the occasion. I hope we can get through this as a community.

Australia bans mass gatherings of more than 500 people
From CNN’s Akanksha Sharma and Karina Tsui in Hong Kong

Australia is canceling mass gatherings of more than 500 people to curb the spread of coronavirus, Prime Minister Scott Morrison said in a news conference today.

The measures will come into effect on Monday.

“Based on the advice we have received today about the increasing number of cases and the evidence of community transmissions, it has been recommended to us that we move to a position by Monday where we will be advising against organized, non-essential gatherings of persons of more than 500 people or greater more,” Morrison said.
Australia has 140 coronavirus cases, Morrison said yesterday.

Even before Morrison’s announcement, many events were already beginning to be canceled. Formula 1 canceled the Australian Grand Prix after a racer tested positive, and the movie Tom Hanks was filming in the country has been suspended after he and his wife both tested positive.

President Donald Trump is the first world leader to suggest postponing this summer’s Olympics
From CNN’s Emiko Jozuka and Junko Ogura

President Donald Trump has become the first world leader to suggest postponing the Tokyo 2020 Olympics as the coronavirus pandemic spreads.

“This is just my idea 
 Maybe they postpone it for a year,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office, 134 days before the opening ceremony is scheduled to take place in Tokyo’s Olympic Stadium.

Trump added that delaying the Olympics by a year would be a better option than holding it with no crowds. However, he said he would not relay the message to Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, according to Japan’s public broadcaster NHK. The pair held telephone talks Friday Japan local time.

In response to Trump’s comments, Japan’s Olympics minister, Seiko Hashimoto, stressed the preparations for a “safe and secure” Games was still underway.

“I’m aware of President Trump’s remarks, however, neither the IOC nor the organizing committee has considered any postponement or cancellation of the Games," she said.

Trump’s latest comments came as the Olympic flame lighting ceremony kicked off in Greece Thursday, and as International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said Tokyo 2020 would go ahead as planned.

[ He won’t relay the message to Abe but will relay it to the world. Okay now. ]

I am interested in the objections to school shut downs, have you been in your local school lately? Have you seen the teachers? How many of them are older/obese/unhealthy? Look at the admin age group, the aides age group? Pop down to your local title one school. Look who is doing food service, cleaning, etc. You think they don’t matter? The kids will be all right, but they will be snot nosed carriers.

Hopeful news about the researchers at Columbia who are working on treatments for the virus:

https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/columbia-university-researchers-awarded-2-million-identify-antiviral-drugs-new-coronavirus

Especially cool that they can take antibodies from COVID-19 patients who have survived, and engineer them to make them more potent. Then they will send them to collaborating labs in China to be tested against the actual virus and in animals. Eventually, they’ll be injected into sick patients, and will bind to the virus and neutralize it.

The researchers have 2.1 million dollars from Chinese businessman Jack Ma. They have four teams and will simultaneously go down four different pathways to attack the virus, because multiple drugs are likely to be needed. If you only have one drug and it doesn’t completely wipe out the virus, you have selected for a drug resistant form of the virus, so you have to go at it from different directions.

Quote from famous AIDS researcher David Ho who heads the project:

So sad that all they needed was 2 million dollars and they could have gotten this going after SARS-1. But SARS-1 did not become a pandemic.

Peter Hotez of the Center for Vaccine Development in Houston testified before Congress last week about how he begged for money to finish their research after SARS-1, but got nothing and had to shelve the research.

The bright side is that now there is money and progress is happening. Ho estimates that the treatments will go to trial within a year, so likely faster than a vaccine. DH guesses that something will be fast-tracked for critical cases even sooner.

Coronavirus: think warmer weather will kill the outbreak? It hasn’t in Australia

Because flus and colds tend to fluctuate with the seasons, some have expressed optimism that springtime warmth could stymie the virus’ spread

But experts do not think we can bank on seeing a retreat of the new coronavirus come spring and summer in the Northern Hemisphere

US President Donald Trump and many other people have expressed optimism that the coronavirus might go away when weather warms in a similar way to the seasonal flu. But it’s summer in Australia and the average temperature is about 23 degrees Celsius (74 degrees Fahrenheit). At least 128 people there have got the coronavirus and three have died
It’s evidence that warmer weather does not make the coronavirus disappear


Because flus and colds tend to fluctuate with the seasons, retreating in summer and returning in the winter each year, many people – including Trump – have expressed optimism that impending springtime warmth could stymie the virus’ spread.

But experts do not think we can bank on seeing a retreat of the new coronavirus

“The short answer is that while we may expect modest declines in the contagiousness of Sars-CoV-2 in warmer, wetter weather, and perhaps with the closing of schools in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, it is not reasonable to expect these declines alone to slow transmission enough to make a big dent,” epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch wrote in a post for Harvard University.

But Maria van Kerkhove, an infectious-disease expert with the World Health Organisation, said at a press conference on March 5 that “we have no reason to believe that this virus would behave differently in different temperatures.”

According to Lipsitch, that could be because even seasonal infections can happen “out of season” when they are new. “New viruses have a temporary but important advantage – few or no individuals in the population are immune to them,” he wrote. “In simple terms, viruses that have been around for a long time can make a living – spread through the population – only when the conditions are the most favourable, in this case in winter,” he said, referring to flu.

But never-before-seen viruses like the new coronavirus can “spread outside the normal season for their longer-established cousins,” Lipsitch added. Respiratory viruses can spread more easily in winter because cooler temperatures help harden a protective gel-like coating that surrounds the virus particles. A stronger shell allows them to survive long enough to travel from one person to the next. The flu virus in particular “survives better in cool, dry temperatures,” Amanda Sinek, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee, told Insider. But of course, the northern and southern hemispheres do not experience the same seasons at the same time. So once China and the US see warmer weather, countries in South America and Oceania will be entering winter. Plus, some countries do not experience dramatic seasonal changes at all, so “the flu circulates there year-round,” said Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease expert at the Johns Hopkins Centre for Health Security.

“We’ve only known about this virus for eight weeks or so – starting in late December, and now we’re into March,” van Kerkhove said. “So if anything, we don’t know much about what this virus will do over the course of a season.” (SCMP)

Kind of nice to see people rise to the occasion. <<<<<<<<<

This is where widespread testing would help, I would like to know that I had been exposed and recovered and had immunity before I was out exposing others if there is a really major shutdown of life. Or do we say that that is secondary? That it is better than not getting food?

Ah yes
 we would all like widespread testing - medical care - leadership - vision - courage. All appear in short supply at the top, so we the little people have to cope as best we can. Doesn’t mean we’re not angry and dismayed
 just not yet defeated.

Several states in our country have closed schools till after Easter. We live right on the state line and one state has closed and the other hasn’t, so H and younger kids are off, oldest kid (so far) is not. In theory, oldest kid is to meet tomorrow with kids from Ancient Greek Club from three schools to prepare their trip to Greece in late May. I’m not sanguine.

@CIEE83 , May I treat you as the resident flu expert on this thread? What are we to make of my husband as an asymptomatic flu carrier? Can he infect others? Is that a way the vaccine can be counterproductive?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/italian-doctor-an-experience-i-would-compare-to-a-world-war

Quote: “What we are experiencing is not a normal flu, we are getting 40 cases a day of pneumonia in the emergency room.”

I feel people thought, for the longest time, this can only be a problem for yellow people who eat bats. Now that it’s a problem for white people who eat pizza, will they finally listen?

In Berlin, a 2 year old is in intensive care with corona induced pneumonia. No, it’s just a problem for the old and damaged doesn’t cut it anymore either.

NYS (beyond NYC) is invariably closing schools soon. The state is directing food service directors to plan for meal service to those who qualify. They have given them a few options how to do this.

Let’s remember this staff prepares and delivers meals in a school setting. They have no refrigerated trucks for delivery to ensure food safety and bringing kids into the schools for meals defeats the purpose of social distancing.

Above all, as of now, the state has not planned for nor provided these workers protective gear so they will be protected from Covid19. While the teachers and staff are home and safe, NYS is expecting food service workers to go to work and be within the community. These people are not healthcare providers. They the cafeteria workers. This seems above and beyond to me as well as defeating the social distancing plan.

It’s noble to want to continue the food plan but this seems short sighted to me. It is beyond the realm of our school kitchen staffs.

First two positive cases in Austin reported. The school district is closing for today. My sister is an AISD teacher. She will probably continue to get paid for that job, but if the private school she also works for is closed she will lose that paycheck.

DC schools closed from Monday until April 1.

Now every thread is the corona-virus thread


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/13/us/coronavirus-deaths-estimate.html?action=click&module=Spotlight&pgtype=Homepage

CDC estimates on number of deaths (presumably classified, and leaked?). Also numbers projected to be hospitalized compared to numbers of available beds.

Extremely interesting, and clearly explains why social distancing works.

What is the news out of Russia??

@cinnamon1212 , thanks for the link. It’s nice to be informed, but scary, too.

I received this correspondence from a friend who lives in South Africa. It’s her opinion
but I agree.

Fake news?