Coronavirus in the US

Parent Cafe
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General Motors studying whether auto factories can be used to make medical supplies
General Motors is studying whether it can use its auto factories to “support production” of ventilators and other medical equipment to help combat the coronavirus pandemic sweeping across the nation.

CEO Mary Barra spoke with told the Trump administration about the automaker’s decision to pause production, the company said in a statement.

“She also indicated GM is working to help find solutions for the nation during this difficult time and has offered to help, and we are already studying how we can potentially support production of medical equipment like ventilators,” according to the statement.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/18/senate-democrats-raise-alarms-over-googles-coronavirus-screening-site.html

Senate Democrats raise alarms over the security of Google’s coronavirus screening site

A group of five Democratic senators sent letters to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Vice President Mike Pence expressing concerns over how Google would safeguard the data of Americans who use the company’s COVID-19 test screening site.

President Donald Trump announced the site in a press conference Friday.

Google was reportedly caught off guard by the announcement, and the effort seems more limited in scope and in an earlier stage than what Trump originally suggested.

Five Democratic senators raised alarms about potential privacy and cybersecurity issues related to Google’s efforts to help the White House manage the COVID-19 pandemic.

The group of senators, Bob Menendez and Cory Booker of New Jersey, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut and Kamala Harris of California, signed letters addressed to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Vice President Mike Pence.

In the letter to Pichai, the senators said they “appreciate the Administration’s efforts to utilize Google’s technology to disseminate up-to-date information about COVID-19” but feared neither had assessed all the implications of such a system.

Google had reportedly been caught off guard when President Donald Trump announced in a news conference Friday that it was working on a website to help screen Americans for the virus and direct them to the appropriate resources.

The project is being run by Verily, the life sciences company under Alphabet, Google’s parent company. It launched a pilot of the website on Sunday in the San Francisco Bay Area. The site requires users to have a Google account and agree for some information to potentially be shared with the company in order to access the questionnaire that helps determine users’ eligibility for the COVID-19 test.

The unclear rollout of the website, which seems more limited in scope and in an earlier stage than what the president originally outlined, raises questions “about who will be responsible for the website and when it will be launched,” the senators said.

If Google is responsible, they added, “we have specific concerns in light of the company’s ‘Project Nightingale’ initiative with Ascension Health which grants it access to millions of [Americans’] personal health data,” referring to a partnership with the U.S. hospital network revealed late last year.

“There are numerous privacy concerns about such an endeavor, including: whether people will be required to sign waivers forfeiting their privacy and personal data in order to access the questionnaire; whether Google or any of its subsidiaries will be prohibited from using data received through the website for commercial purposes; and whether Google and any of its subsidiaries will be prohibited from selling any data collected through the website to a third-party,” the senators wrote to Pichai.

“If Google and its subsidiaries fail to establish sufficient privacy safeguards, Americans who use the site will be more susceptible to identity theft, negative credit decisions, and employment discrimination,” they wrote.

The senators asked Google and Pence to respond to a list of questions about their work by March 30. The questions seek to nail down a time frame for a national launch of the website and better understand the nature of any formal agreements between the White House and Google on the matter. They also seek to understand whether the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency will be involved in securing the site and whether it will be compliant with laws safeguarding patient data.

“Google is not collecting or retaining user information,” a spokesperson for Verily said in a statement. “Verily is collecting the information needed to fulfill the purposes of the Baseline COVID-19 testing program, and uses Google infrastructure to safely store and protect health information. All the data provided by Baseline users for screening is stored separately and not linked to any of Google’s products and services. Data will not be used for advertising purposes.”

Google’s large data stores have become a source of scrutiny in Washington as antitrust authorities assess whether it has leveraged a dominant position in markets such as online advertising or search to gain an anticompetitive advantage. As that investigation is ongoing, officials are also assessing whether Google should be able to buy smartwatch maker Fitbit, granting it more health data that Google has said it would not monetize for ads.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

CNBC

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Bill Gates thinks places that ‘shut down’ for coronavirus could reopen in six to 10 weeks
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates urged people to remain calm in the face of the coronavirus pandemic.

In an Ask Me Anything session on the discussion forum Reddit, Gates was asked about how long “this” will last.

“If a country does a good job with testing and ‘shut down’ then within 6-10 weeks they should see very few cases and be able to open back up,” he responded.

Business-jet maker Textron Aviation furloughs thousands of US workers
Business-jet maker Textron Aviation said it will furlough thousands of U.S. employees, as the rapid spread of coronavirus hurts the aviation industry and other sectors.

The maker of Cessna and Beechcraft airplanes said it will furlough workers on a staggered schedule from March 23 through May 29. The company declined to say how many it is furloughing but a spokeswoman said it applies to “most” of its U.S. workers, which number 12,000.

Federal Reserve to shore up prime money market funds
The Federal Reserve took another page out of its 2008 crisis-era playbook late Wednesday evening, invoking its emergency authority to create a backstop for prime money market mutual funds.

The new Money Market Mutual Liquidity Fund will provide loans to financial institutions to buy assets from prime money market funds.

It was the second program in two days to use a $10 billion backstop from the Treasury Department’s Exchange Stabilization Fund. And it was the second time in two days that the Fed invoked its emergency authority under section 13.3 of the Federal Reserve Act.

The move was another sign of turmoil inside the financial system created by the coronavirus, and it remained unclear if the constant barrage of programs from the Fed and the Treasury would be enough to restore order.

CNBC

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Coronavirus Ravages 7 Members of a Single Family, Killing 3

The matriarch of the large New Jersey family died Wednesday night without ever knowing that her two oldest children had died before her.

By Tracey Tully
March 18, 2020

Grace Fusco — mother of 11, grandmother of 27 — would sit in the same pew at church each Sunday, surrounded by nearly a dozen members of her sprawling Italian-American family. Sunday dinners drew an even larger crowd to her home in central New Jersey.

Now, her close-knit clan is united anew by unspeakable grief: Mrs. Fusco, 73, died on Wednesday night after contracting the coronavirus — hours after her son died from the virus and five days after her daughter’s death, a relative said.

Four other children who contracted coronavirus remain hospitalized, three of them in critical condition, the relative, Roseann Paradiso Fodera, said.

Mrs. Fusco’s eldest child, Rita Fusco-Jackson, 55, of Freehold, N.J., died Friday; after her death, the family learned she had contracted the virus. Her eldest son, Carmine Fusco, of Bath, Pa., died on Wednesday, said Ms. Paradiso Fodera, the family’s lawyer who is Mrs. Fusco’s cousin and is serving as a spokeswoman.

Mrs. Fusco, of Freehold, died after spending Wednesday “gravely ill” and breathing with help from a ventilator, unaware that her two oldest children had died, Ms. Paradiso Fodera said.

Nearly 20 other relatives are quarantined at their homes, praying in isolated solitude, unable to mourn their deep collective loss together.

“If they’re not on a respirator, they’re quarantined,” Ms. Paradiso Fodera said.

“It is so pitiful,” she added. “They can’t even mourn the way you would.”

As of Wednesday afternoon, five New Jersey residents had died after contracting the virus, which has infected at least 427 people statewide. Nationwide, at least 7,047 people across every state, plus Washington, D.C., and three U.S. territories, have tested positive for coronavirus, and at least 121 have died, according to a New York Times database.

But the virus’s devastating toll on a single family is considered as rare as it is perplexing.

“They’re young and they don’t have any underlying conditions,” Ms. Paradiso Fodero said.

Mrs. Fusco and four of her children were being treated at CentraState Medical Center in Freehold, about an hour south of Manhattan, relatives said. Mr. Fusco died at a Pennsylvania hospital near his home, Ms. Paradiso Fodera said.

The family has deep ties to the horse-racing industry near Freehold Raceway. Some trained horses. Others raced them. The children’s father, Vincenzo L. Fusco, did both, according to his obituary.

A person who had contact with a man who died in New Jersey on March 10, becoming the state’s first coronavirus-related fatality, had attended a recent Fusco family gathering, the state’s health commissioner, Judith M. Persichilli, has said.

The first New Jersey man to die has been identified by a close friend and the harness track where he worked, Yonkers Raceway, as John Brennan.

Ms. Paradiso Fodera said the gathering was a routine Tuesday dinner.

“A party to most people was a regular dinner to them,” she said before counting names on a family tree that listed 27 grandchildren.

The gathering is believed to be the source of the virus, and information about the number of people infected there led to a new intensity in Ms. Persichilli’s warnings over the weekend against even small get-togethers with friends or relatives.

“I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to take personal responsibility and to avoid even small gatherings,” Ms. Persichilli said during a press briefing on Sunday.

Dr. James Matera, chief medical officer of CentraState Medical Center, said he had discussed the uniqueness of treating so many members of the same family with the state’s health commissioner and officials at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

He said officials are in the process of evaluating the patients’ medical histories to look for clues about why the disease might have progressed so rapidly, and been so potent.

“I don’t know if it’s a strain thing,” Dr. Matera said. “I would consider these particular people to be unusual.”

Ms. Fusco-Jackson died a day before her test for coronavirus came back positive on Saturday evening.

Her relatives are urging officials at CentraState or the C.D.C. to conduct an autopsy to learn more about how the virus killed Ms. Fusco-Jackson. She had been in good health, they said, and taught religious education classes at the Roman Catholic church where many members of the large extended family worshiped, St. Robert Bellarmine in Freehold.

Ms. Fusco-Jackson, a mother of three, also sang in the choir, coordinated parish weddings and volunteered in the church’s gardening club, the pastor, Msgr. Sam Sirianni, said.

She had attended a retreat for students preparing for the sacrament of confirmation on Feb. 29, but her contact with participants was minimal, the church said on Facebook.

“I can’t tell you enough about her,” Monsignor Sirianni said on Wednesday in an interview. “She was always willing to assist and to lead.”

The family was among the founding members of the church, he added.

“Until this virus came, they were still the family that would gather for Sunday dinner,” Monsignor Sirianni said. “If grandma was there, everybody came.”

The church has since been deep-cleaned, and Monsignor Sirianni, like all members of the parish staff, is operating under quarantine based on possible exposure.

“It means I turn to the Lord even more,” Monsignor Sirianni said. “What came to mind last week was. ‘Lord save your people.’ And that’s been one of my mantras when I go to pray.”

He said he was struggling to come to terms with being unable to visit the sick at CentraState.

In addition to those who have tested positive for coronavirus at CentraState, a midsize hospital that operates as a nonprofit, 27 community members who have been tested for the virus but are awaiting results are hospitalized under observation, Dr. Matera said on Wednesday.

He said the lengthy turnaround time for test results leaves patients in the dark and burdens the hospital’s limited resources. Patients who might ultimately test negative for coronavirus, and be healthy enough to leave the hospital, are instead being kept in isolation.

If tests were returned more quickly, more patients could be discharged.

“That opens up beds,” Dr. Matera said. “It lowers the anxiety of the staff.”

Ms. Fusco-Jackson’s relatives also believe that speedier test results could have made a difference in her care.

“They didn’t treat her as a confirmed case because everything is so delayed,” Ms. Paradiso Fodera said. “It’s a big bureaucracy. The testing result time is important.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/nyregion/new-jersey-family-coronavirus.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage

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^my sister is in freehold and knows this family, Apparently, a family member from Italy visited, and the loving family tragedy started.

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I had heard that NJ Patient #1, John Brennan, who worked at the Yonkers Raceway and also died of COVID19, was the contact. There had been a gathering where they had been together.

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Many thanks to @doschicos (and others) for keeping us informed.

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I am behind on this thread so probably this has already been pointed out, but just in case… The 86% figure referred to the percentage of cases that were not reported inWuhan before the travel restrictions. This doesn’t mean asymptomatic.

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Really noticing a major uptick in the reporting about the younger people getting very sick. Seeing those scenes of the FL beaches is terrifying. And to think, they will all go home to their respective communities. Infuriating.

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Super sad and super scary. Is it something genetically with the family or the strain mutating or both?

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@CIEE83

“The 86% figure referred to the percentage of cases that were not reported inWuhan before the travel restrictions. This doesn’t mean asymptomatic.”

Technically true I guess about not meaning entirely “asymptomatic,” but here is the paper’s language:

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2020/03/13/science.abb3221

Perhaps given all the media attention now, people would be more likely to seek COVID-19 testing at any symptoms, but if we are to believe the Chinese numbers and the researchers’ estimates, it remains that infection was probably (1) more widespread than reported numbers would have suggested, and (2) largely asymptomatic or mild in the large majority of cases.

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6-10 weeks is probably manageable, but if it goes much more than that I suspect it’s going to be problematic. At some point the economic damage will be so bad that the cure will seem worse than the disease. I say this as a 60 year old with two 80-something parents.

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If I could, I’d make all of those fools on the Florida beaches quarantine. Watching them interview on television was just embarrassing.

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Which Country Has Flattened the Curve for the Coronavirus?

The NYT has an article with great graphics. Sorry if its been linked before. I cant do it on my phone and the kids have the ipad for legitimate purposes.

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Most Florida beaches look nothing like in those interviews. But I am sure that people will be happy to know that the largely empty Palm Beach County beaches, many of which are not very easy to get to without resident passes, were closed yesterday (still possible to walk on in a few places though). Gyms are still open here by the way. Just crazy!

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Tourism appears to be great driver of the epidemic, much more than business travel or refugees. I think it makes people careless - “but I’ve spent so much money to enjoy myself!”. If you travel because you must, driven by circumstances or an exacting employer, you are much more likely to take precautions seriously, to avoid travel or to accept restrictions.

I dont understand why anyone would get on a cruise ship these days. The thought of being shut up in an indoor cabin while desperately sailing from port to closed port, in hopes of finally being allowed to dock somewhere, anywhere, in order to get off…its a nightmare to me. Heartbreaking for those who work in the industry, but i think its going down for good.

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From WaPo,

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/expelling-us-journalists-during-coronavirus-crisis-china-doubles-down-on-media-war/ar-BB11njBA?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=mailsignout

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Where does 6-10 weeks come from? I assumed 2 weeks is for anyone to show symptoms if they are carrying the virus so we know by the end of two weeks who has it. 3-4 weeks may be enough for those with mild symptoms to be cured? So why 6-10 weeks?

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No way extreme social distancing will work in the United States for more than 10 weeks. I doubt we could do it for 6. Not for a virus with a less than 1% fatality rate. Just my opinion.

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Bay Area is doing it for 3 weeks. It seems right amount. I don’t see what we get after 2-3. Hopefully, in 2-3 weeks we will be better prepared to deal with it. After that, we will have to resort to a controlled contagion. This thing is so contagious that there’s no way to stop the virus until we get the herd immunity. Like it or not, the herd immunity may happen within a year before any vaccine becomes available for the general public.

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We are going into the summer in 6 weeks, and the virus is new and we are all in a state of shock, so I can see why school (for instance) will likely be out for the remainder of this school year.

But they will reopen next fall, I’d bet my (dwindling) IRA on it, lol. Most people will be back at work. Life goes on. The public will not tolerate this level of cessation for too long.