Coronavirus in the US

Parent Cafe
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Top 10 and other countries seen high increases either overall or percentage-wise.
Noticeable increases in many Latin American countries.

CHINA - 41 new cases totaling 81,008 and 7 new deaths totaling 3,255.
590 new discharges. For the 3rd day in a row, no new confirmed or suspected cases have been reported in Wuhan and in Hubei.

ITALY - 5,986 new cases totaling 47,021 and 627 new deaths totaling 4,032.
In the city of Bergamo (population 120K), there were 108 more deaths in the first 15 days of March this year compared to 2019 (164 deaths in 2020 vs. 56 deaths in 2019) according to the mayor of the city Giorgio Gori. During this period, 31 deaths were attributed to the coronavirus (less than 30% of the additional deaths this year)

“There are significant numbers of people who have died but whose death hasn’t been attributed to the coronavirus because they died at home or in a nursing home and so they weren’t swabbed,” said the mayor

*SPAIN - 3,433 new cases totaling 21,510 and 262 new deaths totaling 1,093.

GERMANY - 4,528 new cases totaling 19,848 and 24 new deaths totaling 68.

IRAN - 1,237 new cases totaling 19,644 and 149 new deaths totaling 1,433.

**USA - 5,786 new cases totaling 19,575 and 55 new deaths totaling 262.

FRANCE - 1,617 new cases totaling 12,612 and 78 new deaths totaling 450.

S. KOREA - 234 new cases totaling 8,799 and 11 new deaths totaling 102.

SWITZERLAND - 1,393 new cases totaling 5,615 and 13 new deaths totaling 56.

UK - 714 new cases totaling 3,983 and 33 new deaths totaling 177.

NETHERLANDS - 534 new cases totaling 2,994 and 30 new deaths totaling 106.

AUSTRIA - 470 new cases totaling 2,649.

BELGIUM - 462 new cases totaling 2,257 and 16 new deaths totaling 37.

SWEDEN - 200 new cases totaling 1,639 and 5 new deaths totaling 16.

CANADA - 214 new cases totaling 1,087.

MALAYSIA - 130 new cases totaling 1,030 and 1 new death totaling 3.

*PORTUGAL - 234 new cases totaling 1,020 and 2 new deaths totaling 6.

*BRAZIL - 330 new cases totaling 970 and 4 new deaths totaling 11.

AUSTRALIA - 172 new cases totaling 928.

CZECH REPUBLIC - 139 new cases totaling 833.

IRELAND - 126 new cases totaling 683.

*TURKEY - 311 new cases totaling 670 and 5 new deaths totaling 9.

*LUXEMBOURG - 149 new cases totaling 484 and 1 new deaths totaling 5.

*CHILE - 92 new cases totaling 434.

*ECUADOR - 166 new cases totaling 426. 4 new deaths totaling 7.

POLAND - 70 new cases totaling 425.

ICELAND - 79 new cases totaling 409.

SINGAPORE - 40 new cases totaling 385.

*INDONESIA - 60 new cases totaling 344 and 7 new deaths totaling 32.

*SAUDI ARABIA - 70 new cases totaling 344.

THAILAND - 50 new cases totaling 322.

EGYPT - 29 new cases totaling 285 and 1 new death totaling 8.

*PERU - 29 new cases totaling 263. 3 new deaths totaling 4.

HONG KONG 0 48 new cases totaling 256.

RUSSIA - 54 new cases totaling 253.

INDIA - 55 new cases totaling 249 and 1 new death totaling 5.

*SOUTH AFRICA - 354 new cases totaling 202.

*PANAMA - 63 new cases totaling 200.

*ARGENTINA - 30 new cases totaling 158.

*COLOMBIA - 37 new cases totaling 145.

TIAWAN - 27 new cases totaling 135. 1 new death totaling 2.

COSTA RICA - 26 new cases totaling 113 and 1 new death totaling 2.

URUGUAY - 31 new cases totaling 110.

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA - 25 new cases totaling 89.

MOROCCO - 23 new cases totaling 86 and 1 new death totaling 3.

NORTH MACEDONIA - 26 new cases totaling 76.

  • DOMINICAN REPUBLIC - 38 new cases totaling 72.

NEW ZEALAND - 25 new cases totaling 53.

1st cases confirmed - Madagascar (3), Angola, Cabo Verde, Papua New Guinea, Zimbabwe

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Well, the lung nurses and lung docs on my morning conference call were having family members help sew them masks, so they must believe they have SOME use! I was surprised. They also add tissue or paper towel for more filtering/protection.

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The public won’t take lockdowns for more than a few weeks. Rather than bankrupt everyone, defiance.

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People in our area are doing the same. Every single hospital in my state is calling out for donations. These handmade masks aren’t perfect but better than nothing.

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Actually, the current situation of most people social distancing and staying mostly at home but with a substantial minority (probably at least a quarter) ignoring all of that risks resulting in the worst of both worlds: failure to contain the virus, with greater damage to the economy, especially since those fearing the virus will continue to reduce their economic activity after the end of governmental restrictions.

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The New South Wales government is set to announce it will close Sydney’s Bondi Beach, the Guardian’s Ben Smee reports.

The announcement - to be made by NSW and emergency services police minister David Elliot at 2pm AEDT - comes after concerns were raised that large numbers of beachgoers were not abiding by public health advice. Images from Australia’s most iconic beach in recent days have shown large crowds of people.

Guardian Australia understands the closure will affect Bondi Beach alone at this stage, though the NSW government could extend the restriction to other beaches if they find more than 500 people gathered at any time.

Five US states have either closed, or are set to close, all non-essential businesses account. Here’s some useful background on the likely economic impact of the shutdowns.

California, New York, Illinois, New Jersey and Connecticut – which are all issuing “stay at home orders” – Account for almost a third of the world’s biggest economy. They rank first, third, fifth, eight and 23rd respectively among all 50 states by GDP, according to Reuters.

California alone has a $3 trillion economy that accounts for 14.5% of the US output, making the state by itself a bigger economic powerhouse than all but four nations.

Together, the five states produced $6.4 trillion in goods and services in 2018, Bureau of Economic Analysis data shows. For reference, President Donald Trump’s administration and congress are currently negotiating a $1 trillion-plus economic stimulus package, which equates to about one-20th of annual US economic output.

About 5.4 million residents across the five states do not have health insurance, according to data from the Kaiser Family Foundation. That is about 19% of the total US uninsured.

Guardian

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Fair enough, as long we extend the same skepticism to the motivated second guessers.

In that spirit, I’d suggest the full-body quotes have a “made-in-wherever” stamp on them.

Edited to add: Apologies - the article I referred to does have a link, one that makes it clear who composed it. Seen so many without, I guess I passed over it.

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I swear I read somewhere…maybe Senator Murphy from CT. The CT health insurance exchange is having a special open enrollment period for people affected by Covid19 and health insurance benefits. I think that’s great.

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I’d love to know what Germany is doing to treat COVID-19 – its death rate is so much lower.

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I cite my sources. Many news services are using a blog format for Covid-19 news so no link to provide yet I cite the sources. Longer format stuff, I typically include a link when available.

Given people’s own inclinations, they may not like the WaPo article but WaPo IS a credible source and has journalistic credibility.

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Here’s some thoughts on that:

With Its COVID-19 Caseload Spiking To 14,000, Here’s Why Germany’s Mortality Rate Is 40 Times Lower Than Italy’s

In the last eight days, Germany has leapt several places ahead on the list of countries whose infection rates from SARS-CoV-2 are undergoing a dramatic spike, bringing it to sixth in numbers of officially reported cases, behind China, Italy, Iran, Spain and Korea. The counts are friable—in Iran, for instance, where the reporting tends to lag for obvious political and societal reasons. But the spike in Germany mirrors what the government actually knows, and is now, at a shade under 14,000 known cases as of this morning, 13,987 to be precise, according to the German state’s official heath reporting organization, the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).

This iteration of Germany’s spike may turn out to be just the run-up to the flattening of the curve that Chancellor Merkel was touting in her March 12 press conference—in other words, the gamble is that, although the curve hasn’t flattened yet, it may, if the measures being put in place to control it are heeded, and if they work. The speed of the curve’s flattening depends on the effectiveness of Germany’s social distancing measures, which are, as of yesterday, comparatively light, and on the response of its health-care infrastructure. But for now: Germany remains on a steep ascending curve. The number of infections has multiplied 14 times over the last eight days. Some 2,958 more cases were reported in the 24 hours between 10 a.m. on March 19 to 10 a.m. on March 20.

The German government’s reporting authority is the Robert Koch Institut (RKI), the equivalent of America’s Centers for Disease Control. Although the cases of infection are now spread throughout the country, the numbers from RKI still show a decided daisy-chain of three hotpoints, the very same hotpoints of ten days ago, namely, Baden Württemberg, North Rhineland-Westfalia, and Bavaria. These three states are, also, where the vast majority of Germany’s 31 deaths have been.

There is one major difference between Germany’s Covid-19 demographic and that of the European hot zone of Italy. The first is that the onslaught of Covid-19 arrived in the teeth of Europe’s ski season, so that many Germans who initially contracted the virus did so in Italy, which is why—for the moment—70% of all reported cases in Germany remain among the young, or more broadly, among the not-elderly, between the ages of 20 and 50.

The corollaries to extrapolate are that most (not all) people who ski are of average or above-average fitness, regardless of age, and that, in order to go skiing safely, there is a decided, natural fitness barrier that does exist as the skiers get older. Muscularly and in basic orthopedic terms, it’s just not possible for every 70-to-90-year-old to ski. Put another way, this initial group of ‘selected,’ relatively fit patients in Germany were in generally decent shape, and have to a large extent survived Covid-19.

Which brings us to the primary and most striking difference between the German patient population and that of the rest of the world: The mortality rate. Of the 14,000 cases to date, just 31 Germans have died. At this writing the most enviable German Covid-19 mortality rate stands at 0.2%, or about 40 times less than that of Italy’s mortality rate. That’s a big difference.

According to German medical professionals, and no less a medical statistician than the President of the Robert Koch Institut, Lothar Wieler, on Friday morning, March 20, that it was simply Germany’s good fortune that it simply began among the young. His expectation is that the infection rate will spike, heavily, as will the mortality rate, before Germany is able to flatten it. “We are at the beginning of an epidemic,” he said Friday morning in Berlin. “We are all in a crisis, the size of which I never imagined. We will need as many intensive care beds as possible. I expect that the hospitals will be prepared.”

What Mr. Wieler was referring to is this: Germany’s hospitals are prepared in a really interesting, and good, way. Hotels are being cleared and set up as ersatz-hospitals for the less critically ill non-Covid-29 patients, which clears beds in extant hospitals for Covid-19 patients. Germany has a reported availability of some 20,000 intensive-care beds, which is a lot—but which, as in every country during its SARS-CoV-2 spike, may not be enough.

Mr. Wieler is dutifully and aptly grave in delivering his assessments, but the problem for him, and for Germany in general, will be making the gravity of the global situation clear to his country’s young. In Berlin, which is always ready for a party, its estimated 10,000 bars, clubs and restaurants are, as of March 19, still allowed to be open until 6 p.m.

The simply unabashedly young and the heedless among the hipoisie have been staging ad-hoc “Corona parties.” This can be understood historically, under the rubric that Berlin—as a party town and now as the global capital of techno — has a devil-may-care attitude toward danger and a long-time flirtation with the Dark Side since the 1920s. But in the long run, or even within the steep spike of Covid-19 infections in the coming weeks, Corona parties will not do Berlin, or its tremendous asset of its effervescent youth, much good.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/guymartin/2020/03/20/with-its-covid-19-caseload-spiking-to-14000-heres-why-germanys-mortality-rate-is-002-or-4000-times-lower-than-italys/#443884ff77ad

[ Germany also has a strong health care system and at close to 3x the hospital beds per capita of the US and Italy. ]

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Pressure mounts for Trump to actually use the Defense Production Act
From CNN’s Lauren Fox, Kaitlan Collins and Kristen Holmes in Washington

US President Donald Trump has repeatedly said he’s invoking the Defense Production Act to ramp up production, but he hasn’t wielded his federal powers yet as health officials voice alarm about potential shortages of lifesaving medical supplies like ventilators and protective gear for doctors on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic.

Trump signed the measure after several people urged him to act amid mounting concerns over a supplies shortage, a person familiar with the situation told CNN. But as he signed the emergency bill earlier this week, the administration had yet to conduct a full account of inventory across the nation. Nor had it identified which companies it would need to make what products. That still hadn’t been done as of Friday night, this person said, despite Trump insisting the act would be used to acquire “millions of masks.”

Amid the confusion over whether he’ll act or not, several companies have cast doubt on whether the President needs to carry out orders under the Defense Production Act at all. And several aides have privately advised against it.

The Defense Production Act, legislation passed in the 1950s on the cusp of the Korean War, provides the President with a broad set of powers to require businesses to “prioritize and accept government contracts” as well as “provide economic incentives” to ensure the US has the stockpiles it needs to handle an impending medical crisis.

[ Sounds like some companies are stepping up to either increase production (3M) or convert factories for production (GM) so perhaps it isn’t needed. However, if this report is accurate that nobody has conducted an inventory of what is available nation-wide - which seems like it should be one of the first steps as well as pinpointing options on where to go - that is frustrating. ]

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I guess while we were spending trillions protecting Germany from Russian invasion threats and they provided little in terms of their gdp on the same concerns, they built hospitals.

Also if it infects any elder facilities the rates spike like in WA. Perhaps they’ve avoided that by chance until now.

I’m glad we’ve locked down so many facilities for the elderly.

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Malaysia’s health minister has been criticised for suggesting that drinking warm water can prevent coronavirus, with experts pointing out that his comments are not evidence-based and that people should follow World Health Organisation advice.

Health Minister Dr Adham Baba had told Malaysia’s public broadcaster, RTM, that people should drink warm water because the virus cannot cope with heat. The water would flush the virus into the stomach, he said.

Dr Amalina Bakri, a doctor based in the UK, said the comments were not backed up by science and that people should be wary of such myths. (Guardian)

Colombia to hold 19-day quarantine to fight coronavirus

BOGOTA (Reuters) - Colombia will enter a nationwide quarantine from Tuesday night, President Ivan Duque said late on Friday, the most drastic measure implemented so far by the South American country as it seeks to prevent the spread of the fast-moving coronavirus.

The quarantine will last for 19 days. The capital Bogota began holding a 4-day quarantine drill on Friday. The country has 158 confirmed cases of the virus.

China’s imported coronavirus cases jump as students, expats flock home
Engen Tham, Yilei Sun

SHANGHAI/BEIJING (Reuters) - China reported a record rise in imported coronavirus cases on Friday as expatriates returned home from the United States and Europe, sparking fears of a second wave of infections just as the country recovers from the initial outbreak.

All 41 of the new confirmed cases in China were imported from abroad, the country’s National Health Commission said on Saturday, bringing the total number of such cases to 269.

Beijing and Shanghai were the main entry points for the returnees, many of whom are students who were studying abroad, according to official reports. They have come back after many campuses in the United States and Europe shut down to stem rapidly rising infection rates there.

Also returning in a flight to safety were China-based expats, as businesses begin to reopen.

The pivot to stemming imported cases has led to a tightening of quarantine restrictions in the country.

Guangdong’s health commission said on Saturday travelers who enter Guangdong province from abroad will be subject to a 14-day quarantine on arrival either in personal residences or at a centralized quarantine center at the expense of the traveler.

The total number of confirmed cases in mainland China stood at 81,008 at the end of Friday, the health authority said. The death toll was 3,255, up by seven, a much slower rate than at the height of the crisis.

The lack of locally transmitted cases for the third day running underscored a recovery that has prompted officials to relax restrictions, even in the virus epicenter of Wuhan, which was responsible for all seven new deaths.

City officials said last week that residents could walk around their compounds, loosening restrictions that had kept them to their personal living areas.

On Saturday, the official Xinhua news agency said commercial outlets in residential communities and villages without existing cases of virus can resume business, citing the municipal bureau of commerce.

As well as Beijing and Shanghai, the major transport hub of Shenzhen, near Hong Kong, has facilitated infected returnees. The southern provinces of Guangdong, Fujian, and the eastern provinces of Shandong and Zhejiang, as well as Shaanxi and Sichuan have also all reported cases.

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Winter is coming: cooler South America weather could fan coronavirus spread
Gabriel Stargardter, Jake Spring

RIO DE JANEIRO/BRASILIA (Reuters) - The coronavirus is landing in South America as summer in the southern hemisphere draws to a close and winter approaches, potentially worsening the spread of the pandemic in Brazil and other parts of the region, medical experts told Reuters.

Little is known about how changes in seasonal weather affect the new coronavirus. But six infectious disease experts in Brazil said that past outbreaks in the country, including the 2009 H1N1 swine flu pandemic, point to colder temperatures exacerbating contagion.

Although much of Brazil is tropical, monthly temperatures in parts of the south and southeast can average 5-6 degrees Celsius (41°F-43°F) in June and July. Temperatures start falling in April, when flu infections tend to rise, experts said.

“There’s never a good moment for the coronavirus to arrive… but this is not a good moment,” said Maria da Gloria Teixeira, an epidemiologist at the Federal University of Bahia.

The concerns were echoed in other southern hemisphere countries. Australia has had a similar number of confirmed cases as Brazil, but authorities have said they expect them to increase rapidly as winter arrives.

That could also apply to South American countries like Argentina and Chile, which are less populous than Brazil but have colder weather.

“In South America in general, our health care systems have trouble responding to the needs that arise in winter,” said Christian Garcia, a public health specialist at the University of Santiago, Chile.

Argentina, which has so far registered 128 cases of coronavirus, with three deaths, went into full lockdown mode on Friday. The government has shut borders to non-residents, restricted long-distance domestic travel and curtailed large events.

CHILL IN THE AIR
Infectious disease experts say they cannot be sure if the coronavirus is seasonal, because it has not been around long enough to gather enough evidence. However, with respiratory diseases like colds and flu, scientists think cold air causes nasal and airway irritation that makes people more susceptible to infection.

In Brazil, disease experts and officials pointed to concerns for the south.

In Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil’s southernmost state, 20% of people were 60 or more. Health Minister Luiz Henrique Mandetta said on Friday the state was a particular concern.

A study by the University of Sao Paulo’s Institute of Tropical Medicine on the 2009 swine flu outbreak confirmed the highest incidence of infections was in Brazil’s three coldest and southernmost states. A 2006 study found that pneumonia and influenza deaths peak in Brazil’s southern states during winter.

“We can surmise that the coronavirus will conform to the same framework,” said Expedito Luna, an Institute of Tropical Medicine researcher.

Thursday was Brazil’s last day of summer, and on Friday Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro suggested June was likely to be the most critical month for the coronavirus outbreak. Mandetta said he expected cases to plateau in July and hopefully begin to fall quickly in September.

Tania Vergara, the president of the Infectology Society of Rio de Janeiro State, said heat likely weakened the ability of the virus to survive on places like doorknobs or in the air.

“This is an advantage for us right now when it’s hot,” she said. “It won’t be an advantage going forward.”

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@suteiki77 The story they disbanded the pandemic team has been refuted and debunked.

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And by the way, I’m rooting for Trump. All of us are. We need him to do very, very well. I don’t care about my personal opinion of him. I care that our country has the least impact from this horrible situation possible.

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Lyft drivers can join new delivery service, founders donate salaries

(Reuters) - Lyft Inc on Friday told drivers they could sign up for work driving deliveries under a new service as ride-hailing demand plummets during the rapid spread of coronavirus in the United States.

In an email to drivers, Lyft co-founders John Zimmer and Logan Green said, “Those who would like to help neighbors get to grocery stores, workers to hospitals and caretakers to their jobs” can join a new “LyftUp Driver Task Force.”

A link sends drivers to a Google doc sign-up sheet.

Lyft said the service did not yet exist but will allow drivers to help out with direct on-the-ground needs in their community.

Delivery would include medical supplies and test kits and meals for kids and seniors in need that would be picked up from distribution centers and dropped off without contact.

The effort will start in the Bay Area, with plans to expand the program across California and the country, Lyft said.

In the same email, Zimmer and Green said they would contribute their salaries through the end of June to company efforts supporting drivers during the coronavirus crisis.

Lyft also said it was teaming up with other companies to provide drivers access to temporary work opportunities, but it did not provide details.

Drivers across the country talking to Reuters over the past week have said income has dropped by more than 70%.

The chief executive of larger ride-hailing rival Uber Technologies Inc, Dara Khosrowshahi, on Thursday told investors that rides had tumbled by 60% to 70% in virus-hit areas such as Seattle.

Both Uber and Lyft have suspended shared rides on their platforms in the United States and Canada as authorities push for social distancing to fight the spread of the virus.

They have also temporarily halted the onboarding of new drivers to avoid increasing competition for dwindling trip requests.

The companies have set up funds to pay drivers diagnosed with COVID-19 or put under individual quarantine by a public health agency.

Uber, unlike Lyft, already offers drivers an alternative to transporting passengers during the coronavirus crisis. Its restaurant food delivery platform UberEats is seeing growth as more people avoid going out to eat and cities order restaurants to close dine-in areas, Khosrowshahi said on Thursday.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-lyft-delivery/lyft-drivers-can-join-new-delivery-service-founders-donate-salaries-idUSKBN2172L3

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To be fair, it actually was ineffective at stopping virus entry, so the critics were correct on that. Also, remember that the POTUS had already primed people to think of his travel bans as being xenophobically motivated with the previous one (and those blocked by courts), among other statements and actions. Had there not been a history of xenophobia, people may have been less prone to automatically think that a travel ban was using the current situation to try to implement a xenophobic policy.

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https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/trump-fire-pandemic-team/