Coronavirus in the US

Parent Cafe
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Yeah, in 2 months time, plenty of people will have more to grieve for than the cancellation of spring activities and graduation. It’s already inevitable that hundreds of thousands (likely millions) across the world will die from this pandemic.

The rest of Europe is 1-2 weeks away from being like Italy. The US is about 10 days away:
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/03/coronavirus-growth-in-western-countries-march-16-update/

If all countries across the world adopt SKorea’s strategy (massive testing of everyone everywhere and tracking of Covid19 carriers) or China’s (draconian lockdowns) starting right now, we could save 6-7 figures in lives. But I don’t see that happening.

China’s lockdowns (causing huge economic disruption) bought the world a few extra precious days, but other than SKorea (and arguably Japan, which didn’t do much besides close all schools early, which still may have made a huge difference as children can be asymptomatic carriers of the virus), the whole world seems to have squandered that sacrifice.

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Trump administration working to send checks directly to Americans
From CNN’s John Harwood, Kevin Liptak, and Betsy Klein

The Trump administration is working to send money directly to Americans in a bid to curb the economic fallout of the coronavirus crisis.

“We’re looking at sending checks to Americans immediately,” Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told reporters at the White House.

Mnuchin said the administration was looking at ways to provide the checks within the next two weeks.

He also said the administration will allow Americans to defer up to $1 million in payments to the Internal Revenue Service for 90 days.

Mnuchin said the IRS would not charge interest or penalties for the deferral. He said corporations could defer up to $10 million in IRS payments.

CNN’s John Harwood also asked President Donald Trump and Treasury Sec. Steve Mnuchin about the logistics of an economic stimulus idea that could give $1,000 checks to Americans, which is gaining some bipartisan support.

Mnuchin expressed some support for the idea and it would be discussed during his Capitol Hill meetings.

“I think it’s clear we don’t need to send people who make a million dollars a year checks. But we like — that’s one of the ideas we like. We’re going to preview that today and then we’ll be talking about details afterwards,” Mnuchin said.

Trump chimed in, saying, “I think we’re going to do something that gets money to them as quickly as possible. That may not be an accurate way of doing it because obviously some people shouldn’t be getting checks for $1000. But we’ll have a pretty good idea by the end of the day what we’re going to be doing.”

[ I am on board for the $1k check thing. How about you? ]

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If everyone who can would self-isolate, then testing would be less important. Many who are spreading the virus have zero symptoms and are surprised that they test positive. They would not even seek out testing.

Just stay home and the virus will have no more victims.

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Over 70s should stop having Sunday lunch with their families, says UK’s top science adviser
From CNN’s Tara John

Healthy people over the age of 70 should avoid crowded places and social gatherings – even family Sunday lunches – the UK’s chief scientific adviser said Tuesday as he clarified some of the government advice given to the British public the day before.

Sir Patrick Vallance told the House of Commons Health and Social Care Select Committee that everyone over 70 – not just those with underlying health conditions – should drastically change their daily routines.

“Avoid crowded spaces, avoid gatherings, don’t got to the club where you normally go to, reduce travel, try to avoid unnecessary travel, don’t [do] your usual things in terms of going to the shops unless you absolutely have to,” Vallance said.

Asked by the committee’s chairman, and former health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, whether people that age should avoid Sunday lunch with their grandchildren, Vallance said they should.

Giving evidence later, the chief executive of the National Health Service in England, Sir Stewart Stevens, said elective (non-urgent) operations would be suspended until April 15, or earlier, if hospitals could manage it, in order to free up capacity to deal with the expected spike in coronavirus cases.

Asked whether the country would have enough ventilators to treat the expected number of cases in the new set of modelling published by scientists at Imperial College London yesterday, Stevens demurred, saying that it would be necessary to wait and see what the real-life effects of the social distancing advice given by the UK government would be.

Saudi Arabia will no longer allow Muslims to conduct their five daily prayers and the weekly Friday prayer inside mosques as part of efforts to limit the spread of coronavirus, state news agency SPA said on Tuesday.

The prayers will continue only at the two holy mosques in Mecca and Medina, the holiest places in Islam, SPA said, citing a decision from the Council of Senior Scholars, the kingdom’s highest religious body. (Guardian)

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Reading some of these comments about schools has me wondering how any children manage to live/eat over summer vacation when school is out for 2-3 months.

(I applaud districts - including ours - and businesses that are working to fill in the gaps with food understanding the greater good that will hopefully happen from the shut downs IF people participate.)

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The French Open (tennis) is being postponed until September 20.

The Kentucky Derby postponed until September also.

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Turkey has detained 19 people over “unfounded and provocative” social media posts about the government’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak, the interior ministry has said.

A statement late on Monday said that 93 suspects have been identified for social media posts “targeting officials and spreading panic and fear” by suggesting that the virus had spread widely in Turkey and that officials had taken insufficient measures.

While no deaths have been recorded, since the first case of Covid-19 was reported last Wednesday the number of patients in Turkey has risen to 47.

Ankara has intensified a crackdown on government criticism since a failed coup attempt in 2016. To date, hundreds of people, including prominent political opposition members and journalists, are facing criminal charges under sweeping anti-terrorism laws related to social media posts.

The arrests come as Turkey implements a lockdown across the country to fight the virus, with cafes, restaurants and entertainment venues shut and communal prayers in mosques banned until further notice. Schools and universities were closed last week and civil servants over the age of 60 told to stay away from workplaces.

Turkey has also quarantined at least 5,300 pilgrims returning from holy sites in Saudi Arabia, suspended flights to 20 hard-hit destinations and closed its borders with Iran and Azerbaijan.

Approximately 3,600 Turkish nationals stranded in Europe will be evacuated to Istanbul and quarantined, foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said on Tuesday.

Turkey, a major economy and tourist hub linking Europe and western Asia, had around 50 million visitors last year. It is also host to the largest refugee population in the world, mostly Syrians displaced by the neighbouring civil war.

The Red Cross, Red Crescent and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) have said Covid-19 could have catastrophic effects if it reaches vulnerable undocumented and refugee populations in the Middle East, including Turkey. (Guardian)

[“Strong Man” leaders will take advantage of this crisis to expand their controls impacting personal freedoms]

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For those that need a break from the covid-19 news and doom and gloom, I recommend googling “zoo virtual safari”. A lot of zoos are closed, so they’re broadcasting “virtual safaris” where you can see the animals. I plan to keep one up in a small window while I’m working.

Here’s one example. There’s plenty out there to choose from:
http://cincinnatizoo.org/news-releases/cincinnati-zoo-is-bringing-the-zoo-to-you/

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Some school districts/cities absolutely have programs to feed food insecure children during the summer.

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The Shedd Aquarium had a cute video of some of their penguins roaming around freely in the closed building.

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And this is what they are setting up now too. People are taking action. They aren’t just overlooking it. At our school they have more volunteers than they need.

7412

Maybe , despite whatever they say in public, both have full confidence in the next person in the presidential succession line…

@doschicos Israel is so small and crowded that, if there are a lot of people out hiking, it is impossible to maintain a 2 meter distance between hikers. This was the case when I was living there 20 years ago, and now there are even fewer places to go, and more people out there. In most parks in the USA which are not Central park in NYC, the ratio of open space to people is enough to allow distancing.

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@TatinG: Virtually impossible for everyone to self-isolate 24/7. Just as an example, I don’t have a work laptop so can’t work from home currently (I put in an order weeks ago but who knows how long it will take the bureaucratic company I’m at to get it to me) yet nobody has called for work deadlines to be suspended or moved yet. There are people with families living paycheck to paycheck who have to go out to put food on the table.

Really, the only viable path for a democracy is to ramp up testing to SKorea levels, and fast. Actually, it’s probably already too late for that to contain the pandemic here.

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Locally we have a summer lunch program that continues school meals with distribution points like schools, parks and libraries. https://www.fns.usda.gov/sfsp/summer-food-service-program

Additionally, Mid-Ohio Foodbank distributes weekend food bags. They also have fresh produce distribution days that comes up monthly in summer. Mid-Ohio also partners with local food pantries. https://www.midohiofoodbank.org/who-we-are/what-we-do/

“MEAL GAP
Mid-Ohio Foodbank distributed about 66 million pounds of food last year, half of which was fresh. Yet there is still a gap.
Each year, hungry neighbors in Franklin County miss about 69 million meals. Across our 20-county footprint, about 145 million meals are missed.”

Edited to add: Mid-Ohio’s National Partner is https://www.feedingamerica.org/

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Far from taking the coronavirus threat seriously, thousands of Argentinians, rather than going into self-isolation during the government-mandated two-week leave of absence from non-essential jobs, are rushing to the beach in the last days of Argentina’s southern
hemisphere summer.

A line of cars two kilometres long queued outside the Atlantic beach
resort of Monte Hermoso on Monday, waiting to get in and take advantage of the warm weather.

“There’s a lot of irresponsibility and little understanding by people,” the Monte Hermoso mayor, Alejandro Dichiara, said in a radio interview.

“We need to stay home and not contaminate.”

“Can somebody explain to me why so many people are going to Monte
Hermoso at this hour? It’s a quarantine … not holidays! We never
learn,” Leandro Grecco, a resident of the city of Ingeniero White, in
the same province of Buenos Aires as Monte Hermoso, asked in the
caption to a video he tweeted of the long line of cars.

Argentina reported nine new cases of coronavirus on Monday, including a health worker, bringing the total number of cases to 65, including two reported deaths, almost all recent arrivals from Europe, at least one from the US and another from Israel.

Iranian police have dispersed crowds who forced their way into two popular shrines soon after they were closed because of the threat from the coronavirus outbreak.

Shia Muslims entered the Imam Reza shrine in Mashhad and the Fatima Masumeh shrine in Qom on Monday night, protesting at the closures announced earlier in the day on Iranian state television.

The shrines are normally open for prayers around the clock. Health officials had told pilgrims that kissing and touching the shrines could spread the virus, and had urged clergy to close them for weeks.

Worshippers who entered the shrines chanted objections to the closures. In a statement, religious leaders and a prominent Qom seminary urged pilgrims to rely on wisdom and patience during the crisis.

The incident comes as religious authorities all over the world take steps to limit contact or close places of worship in response to the pandemic.

The virus has erupted as the world’s most popular religions prepare for important festivals during which large numbers of people usually gather to pray and celebrate. Easter and Passover take place next month, and the Islamic holy month of Ramadan – during which most of the world’s 1.8 billion Muslims will fast – begins around 23 April.

Bloomberg Philanthropies, the multibillionaire Michael Bloomberg’s charitable foundation, has announced it is to fund a $40m global initiative to fight the spread of coronavirus in low- and middle-income countries.

Announcing the plan, Bloomberg, who recently spent about 14 times that amount in an abortive bid for the Democrat presidential nomination, said:

Millions of lives depend on getting the coronavirus response right – and so does the economic and social health of communities around the world. We need to slow transmission of the virus and minimize the impact of the outbreak in all countries.

As we launch the Coronavirus Local Response Initiative this week here in the U.S., we also are creating a new effort to prevent its spread globally, particularly in Africa. I know from my experience as mayor of New York City that giving public health professionals the tools to protect the public is vital to saving lives – and to help mitigate the kind of economic and social damage that could make this crisis even more debilitating for families and communities.

Guardian

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People should be isolating now not distancing by 6 feet. And some idiot will stop for gas, a drink, whatever. Rural areas don’t need others’ germs.

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I completely agree, and in fact i own a liquor brand, and made the decision to source everything (bottle, label etc) in the USA. That said, US goods are more expensive, so really, the consumer has to be ok with paying more.

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Top doctor says “it’s possible” US could see peak in coronavirus cases in 45 days

Top US infectious disease doctor Anthony Fauci said at a news conference “it’s possible” the country could see a peak in the number of cases in 45 days, around May 1.

“45 days is not unreasonable,” Fauci said.

Fauci also added that officials talk more about a range than a specific date: “You have to be careful. When you get a number, you own the number. If the number does not come out then you are in trouble.”

What’s this about: Earlier today, Gov. Andrew Cuomo of New York said that he expects the peak to be in around 45 days, based on information he has received from experts. Cuomo said at that point the state will need as many as 110,000 hospital beds. CNN

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The governor of Rio de Janeiro state and mayor of São Paulo have both declared an “emergency situation” over coronavirus as numbers of confirmed cases in Brazil rose to 234.

Rio’s famous Sugar Loaf mountain was also closed to visitors but its Christ the Redeemer statue remains open – for now.

Rio’s state governor, Wilson Witzel, suspended sporting events, shows, cinemas, theatres, prison visits, visits to coronavirus patients in hospitals, state schools, and interstate busses from states with coronavirus circulation for 15 days. He said.

We are trying to avoid what happened in other countries with many deaths, like Italy and Spain.

He also recommended that bars and restaurants operate at 30% capacity, gyms close, trains, ferries and busses be only half full, and that flights and cruise liners from states or countries with coronavirus no longer land or dock in Rio.

People were recommended to avoid beaches, a message reinforced on Monday by lifeguards with megaphones. Rio city hall has also suspended classes and holidays for health workers and will no longer licence public events.

The São Paulo mayor, Bruno Covas, closed theatres, libraries and cultural centres, cancelled events, ordered busses disinfected and suspended classes from 23 March. City employees over 60 were told to work from home. São Paulo state government on Saturday banned events with more than 500 people and suspended classes for a week.

Lothar Wieler, the president of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) in Berlin, the National Public Health Institute in Germany, has said the risk to Germans was now “high”, adding that is the highest gradation there is.

He told a daily conference said that 99% of registered cases had so far survived the illness, and although he had “no idea” what the death rate would eventually be, at the moment all evidence points to the fact that only 1/5 of persons infected will be seriously ill.

Four out of five people will suffer only light symptoms or none at all. And according to information based on existing and previous cases, only around half of those who will be infected, actually get sick, “the other half do not notice it at all”, he said.

The RKI is developing various tools to assist Germany’s medical system, including one which monitors intensive bed capacity in order to enable the optimisation of the health system.

Stanley Johnson, father of the UK prime minister, has indicated he would ignore official advice to tackle the spread of coronavirus and still go to the pub.

His comments came a day after Boris Johnson urged everyone to “avoid pubs, clubs, theatres and other such social venues”.

The prime minister said the advice was particularly important for people over 70. But Stanley Johnson, 79, said: “Of course I’ll go to a pub if I need to go to a pub.”

Speaking on ITV’s This Morning, he said landlords “don’t want people to be not in the pub at all”.

This is a pandemic that will open up sinkholes in society and volunteers may have to help out in services from deliveries to education, writes Gaby Hinsliff in the Guardian today.

Referring to the UK – although it’s as relevant to other places as well – she adds:

People whose jobs have vanished from beneath their feet need money to live on but soon they’ll also need a purpose, something to do for months on end.

We will have a vast reservoir of bored, frustrated, depressed citizens whose jobs weren’t essential to survival on one hand, and on the other, a shortage of people to do essential work from social care to food production as others go down sick.

Ministers should be thinking now about how to match them up, in ways that don’t spread infection – if those who have had it do turn out to be immune, should they be trained or organised to fill the sinkholes that will open up in society?

Guardian

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In our urban school district, food is provided year round to qualified families through various organizations and venues.