Also, being best prepared does not necessarily mean:
A. Being well prepared. If everyone else is very poorly prepared, but you are poorly prepared, you can be the best, but still not well prepared.
B. That the specific preparations match the event.
C. That actions during the pandemic will make good use of the preparations.
Netflix, Facebook to cut data traffic in India to ease network congestion
Streaming service Netflix Inc and social media giant Facebook Inc said they would reduce the amount of data their services use to ease congested telecoms networks in India, were millions are using home internet amid a lockdown to contain the coronavirus outbreak.
Netflix will reduce traffic over Indian telecom networks by 25 percent over the next 30 days, the company said in a statement, following similar moves in Europe to help internet service providers experiencing a surge in usage.
Top Nigerian president aide tests positive for coronavirus
The Nigerian president’s influential chief of staff has tested positive for coronavirus, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said.
Abba Kyari, who is in his 70s, is an important figure in President Muhammadu Buhari’s government and his illness could have ramifications for the running of the country.
Matthew Page, an associate fellow with the Africa Programme at Chatham House, described Kyari as the “lynchpin” of the Buhari government. “This has the potential to further slow down decision-making within top tiers of Nigerian government,” he said.
Tough combined measures key in virus fight: study
Quarantining infected people, workplace distancing and school closures are most effective in combatting the spread of the new coronavirus when implemented together, according to new research released looking at Singapore’s response to the killer disease.
Researchers from the National University of Singapore saw a dramatic drop in projected cases when all three physical distancing measures were done at once.
But they warned that if a large number of infected people in the community had no symptoms, or if infection rates were very high, the policies had a much reduced effect.
Singapore has used a policy of testing and tracing of COVID-19 patients to limit the spread of the virus, without ordering a widespread lockdown of society and the economy.
Coronavirus reaches world heritage Galapagos Islands
The coronavirus pandemic has reached Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands, a UNESCO World Heritage site, an official source said.
Norman Wray, president of the Galapagos Government Council, told the state EcuadorTV channel that tests results on Monday established that four people had contracted the COVID-19 disease.
The four permanent residents of the archipelago had returned to the islands from the port of Guayaquil, the worst affected city in Ecuador with more than half of its near 1,000 confirmed cases.
Brazil’s Bolsonaro buries hatchet with China’s Xi to fight coronavirus
Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro laid to rest a diplomatic spat with China in a call with President Xi Jinping, with the two agreeing to work together to fight coronavirus as Brazil’s largest city went into lockdown.
The conversation appeared to mark the end of a dispute that began last week with the president’s son blaming Chinese authoritarianism for preventing faster action against coronavirus, drawing blistering comments from China’s ambassador to Brazil and entangling the upper reaches of Brazilian government in the row.
China ‘resolutely opposed’ to US stigamatisation: foreign ministry
China’s foreign ministry attacked US officials for labeling the novel coronavirus the “Chinese virus” or “Wuhan virus”, saying it was a deliberate attempt to smear China.
“Some US politicians and senior officials have continued to use this expression to stigmatize China, causing great indignation and opposition among the Chinese people,” said Geng Shuang, a spokesman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Badly strained ties between the United States and China are deteriorating further with the two sides hurling harsh accusations at each other over responsibility for the spread of the novel coronavirus.
Vatican employees balk at lack of full shutdown amid virus
The Vatican is under pressure to let more employees work from home as several of its offices remain open two weeks after the Italian government ordered people to stay home and shut down all non-essential businesses in an urgent attempt to contain the coronavirus.
Vatican employees in three different offices expressed alarm that superiors adopted different policies about working from home. Concern that the varying approaches put people at risk of exposure has been heightened because many Vatican employees live in priests’ residences or religious communities and eat together in communal dining rooms at home.
Nationwide, more than 50 priests with the virus have died, most of them elderly and from the hard-hit northern Lombardy region, the Italian bishops’ conference said.
German minister says calls to protect economy over slowing down virus ‘cynical’
Calls to protect the economy rather than slow the spread of the coronavirus are “cynical and ill-considered,” German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz told Bild newspaper.
“You can see that countries which were pursuing that objective, as Britain appears to have been doing, have now changed course,” he said in an online video interview.
Asked about suggestions from some US politicians that older people might be sacrificed for the sake of the economy their grandchildren would inherit, he was even more forthright.
“That makes me shudder,” he said. “It’s utterly cynical and indefensible and I am very glad to live in a country where such opinions have no relevance.”
Australia limits number of people at weddings, funerals
Australia banned people from eating in shopping centre food courts and limited the number of people at weddings, funerals and social gatherings in a tightening of measures to curb the spread of coronavirus.
“This will be a significant sacrifice, I know,” Prime Minister Scott Morrison told reporters in Canberra after an emergency meeting of state and territory leaders.
Morrison said businesses involved in beauty therapy, tattoo parlours, physiotherapists and other allied health services could no longer operate. Real estate open houses and auctions were also banned, he said.
Weddings could go ahead only with five people present, including the celebrant, while funerals could proceed with 10 people at most and outdoor social gatherings should also be limited to 10, Morrison added.
Austria to use more rapid tests as it broadens testing
Austria will start using more rapid tests to be able to test hundreds of thousands of people as quickly as possible, Chancellor Sebastian Kurz said.
So far, the Alpine country with a population of 8.8 million has tested around 24,000 people with nearly 4,500 cases confirmed.
The government is still collecting data regarding the effectiveness of its measures to curb the spread of the virus and will give an update on that on Friday, Kurz said.
Trump acknowledges acquiring masks, ventilators ‘not easy’
US President Donald Trump on Tuesday acknowledged the difficulty in procuring crucial healthcare supplies amid the coronavirus pandemic, saying the “world market … is crazy” and that it “is not easy” for the federal government help US states obtain face masks and ventilators.
[ yet he expects governors to do so? ]
Al Jazeera
Agreed, @sorghum . This is old news, and is also misleading. Here is what JHU had to say back in February about the report:
Though the U.S. does sit atop the rankings, overall the report—produced by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security at the university’s Bloomberg School of Public Health, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, and The Economist Intelligence Unit—paints a discouraging picture of global readiness.
“National health security is fundamentally weak around the world,” the 324-page report concludes. “No country is fully prepared for epidemics or pandemics, and every country has important gaps to address.”
To develop the index, a process that took two and a half years from start to finish, the project team created a framework of 140 questions, organized into six categories and 34 indicators to assess a country’s capabilities. Out of a possible score of 100, the average score of all countries assessed was 40.2.
The U.S. scored 83.5 and ranked No. 1 in five of six categories: prevention, early detection and reporting, rapid response and mitigation, sufficient and robust health system, and compliance with international norms. It ranks 19th in overall risk environment and vulnerability to biological threats, a category that assesses political and security risk, socioeconomic resilience, the adequacy of infrastructure, environmental risks, and public health vulnerabilities that may inhibit a country’s ability to prevent or respond to an epidemic or pandemic.
The report offers 33 recommendations to address the gaps identified in the report, including:
The UN Secretary-General should call a heads-of-state-level summit by 2021 on biological threats, including a focus on financing and emergency response
National governments should commit to take action to address health security risks
Health security capacity in every country should be transparent and regularly measured, and results should be published at least once every two years
Leaders should improve coordination in insecure environments, especially linkages between security and public health authorities
“COVID-19 is the latest global reminder of the power of infectious disease outbreaks to cause significant harm to health, peace, and prosperity if countries are not adequately prepared,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, senior scholar at the Center for Health Security and one of the co-leaders of the GHS Index project. “It is important that national leaders recognize these threats and commit to increasing and sustaining countries’ capacities to prevent, detect, and respond to these events.”
Utah senator Mitt Romney is self-quarantining despite testing negative for coronavirus.
Mitt Romney
@MittRomney
Thankfully I’ve tested negative for COVID-19. Nevertheless, guidance from my physician, consistent with the CDC guidelines, requires me to remain in quarantine as the test does not rule out the onset of symptoms during the 14-day period.
Romney is the latest in an ongoing list of lawmakers who have had to go into quarantine in response to the coronavirus. Kentucky senator Rand Paul was the first member of his chamber to test positive for the virus. (Guardian)
First ICE detainee tests positive for coronavirus
From CNN’s Priscilla Alvarez
A 31-year-old Mexican national is the first detainee to test positive for coronavirus in Immigration and Customs Enforcement custody, the agency announced Tuesday.
The detainee, who has been held at the Bergen County Jail in Hackensack, New Jersey, has been quarantined and is receiving care, ICE said, adding that the agency “is suspending intake at the facility until further information is available.”
Immigrant advocates and lawmakers have warned about the potential spread of coronavirus in detention facilities, which have a checkered history of dealing with illnesses.
As part of its efforts to stop coronavirus from spreading, the agency recently announced it was temporarily suspending social visitation at ICE facilities “as a precautionary measure” – meaning family members, friends and advocates who used to be able to visit detained loved ones in person can’t anymore, at least for now.
Connecticut sees spike of 200 cases in one day
From CNN’s Sheena Jones
Connecticut has seen a spike of 200 more cases since yesterday, Gov. Ned Lamont said at a news conference Tuesday.
The state now has a total of 618 cases, up from 400 previously reported.
The governor said he placed orders for a million N95 respirator masks and 3,000 thermometers.
First known juvenile death from coronavirus in the US
From CNN’s Arman Azad, Jamie Gumbrecht, Jon Passantino and Cheri Mossburg
The death of a person under the age of 18 in Los Angeles County is believed to be the first from the novel coronavirus in the United States.
The juvenile lived in Lancaster, California, according to L.A. County health officials.
Coronavirus-related deaths in children remain rare.
“In the mortality data that has been provided to us, there has been no child under 15 that has succumbed to the virus in Europe,” Dr. Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response coordinator, said during a White House briefing on Monday. “There was the one 14-year-old in China. So we still see that there is less severity in children, and so that should be reassuring to the moms and dads out there.”
According to studies released previously, a 10-month-old infant and a 14-year-old boy died after being infected with the novel coronavirus.
The 10-month-old infant who died had a pre-existing condition called intussusception, where one part of the intestine slides into another, potentially blocking the passage of food. The child experienced multi-organ failure and died four weeks after being admitted to a hospital in Wuhan, China, according to research published last week in the New England Journal of Medicine.
The 14-year-old boy from Hubei province in China died on February 7. No further details were available on his death, which was reported in a study published last week in Pediatrics that looked at 2,143 children with confirmed or suspected coronavirus.
New York City now has nearly 15,000 cases
From CNN’s Laura Ly
New York City currently has at least 14,776 cases due to Covid-19, Mayor Bill de Blasio said at a news conference Tuesday.
De Blasio said the idea that the city could be back to normal in April is “absolutely inconceivable."
He added that he believes April will be “unquestionably worse” than March and that he fears May could be worse than April.
I didn’t post in praise of panic buying and hoarding, so you’ll have to ask the people that did what they were intending compared to the state’s actions.
The point I think is important is that this is a virus - it doesn’t respect state borders. If we don’t have a national plan - and that plan can come from the federal government or states can work together - any grabbing of resources is very short sighted. Say we sent every piece of scarce equipment (PPE, tests, materials for tests, experimental drugs, healthcare workers, ventilators, etc) to NY. Other states would have hugely increased infections in the meantime and since people and goods are still traveling between states, the infections in NY would be increasing as well as travelers arrived with the virus.
This can’t be solved on a state by state basis unless every single state is willing and able to completely close their borders for probably the next 1-2 years. And even NY can’t do that - it’s dependent on other states for basics like food, waste disposal, medical supplies.
If we really want to flatten the curve, decrease deaths, or work to contain this virus, we have to have a national strategy that’s based on directing resources where they’re needed, not where the influential have cried out the loudest. Right now, testing has been so skewed we do not truly know where the most infections are, where there are hot spots among vulnerable people, etc. So we react to media soundbites, which further fuels the problem since the media is also located in the disproportionately grabby area.
Even if you don’t believe it’s an issue of morality to disproportionately direct or allow one state to grab national and scarce resources to one state and let the other states wait, it’s a bad strategy from a standpoint of reducing or containing the virus.
From Gallup today (Jeffrey Jones):
"President Donald Trump may be enjoying a small rally in public support as the nation faces the COVID-19 pandemic. Forty-nine percent of U.S. adults, up from 44% earlier this month, approve of the job Trump is doing as president. Trump also had 49% job approval ratings – the best of his presidency – in late January and early February around the time of the Senate impeachment trial that resulted in his acquittal.
Independents’ and Democrats’ approval of Trump’s performance has increased slightly since earlier this month, tying as the best he has registered to date among each group. The president’s approval rating among Republicans was already above 90%, and remains so – but is not currently his highest on record (94% in late January).
Trump’s response to the novel coronavirus pandemic may be behind his higher overall approval rating. Americans give the president generally positive reviews for his handling of the situation, with 60% approving and 38% disapproving. Ninety-four percent of Republicans, 60% of independents and 27% of Democrats approve of his response."
@milee30 did you know that Governor Cuomo and you are in agreement? He strongly urged a federal plan for buying and distributing supplies and equipment. He thinks it’s terrible that states are competing with each other, and driving prices up. So don’t blame NY – its government agrees with you.
So why isn’t Florida acting more aggressively? The governor there is in complete denial. You should be hounding him, and not NYers.
From a CNN article:
DeSantis has grown only more defiant. On Monday, instead of buckling to political pressure to issue a shelter-in-place order, he said he would restrict visitors coming into the state from coronavirus hot spots including New York. And he’s now literally ignoring pleas from Florida Democrats to be more aggressive.
Nearly 20 governors across the state have issued some form of a stay-at-home order. DeSantis, by contrast, has taken a more piecemeal approach, shut down parks, movie theaters, gyms and most businesses and some beaches. He‘s waived work requirements for federal assistance. DeSantis has also asked the Trump administration for a major disaster declaration, a move supported by Florida GOP Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott.
But he also has overtly pushed back against a broad shelter-in-place order. Instead, on Monday he announced that anyone flying from New York, New Jersey or Connecticut to Florida would have to undergo a 14 day self-quarantine, an announcement that drew criticism from New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who said it was not the “most enlightened approach.”
“When you are ordering people to shelter in place, you are consigning probably hundreds-of-thousands of Floridians to lose their jobs,” DeSantis said Monday in remarks live streamed from the governor’s office. “You are throwing their lives into potential disarray.”
NY is acting the way the federal government indicated it should act. That doesn’t make it right, but it has been acting rationally. Not ethically IMO, especially since the calls for a federal plan have only come after it took steps to grab what it could privately first…
We should all ask for more of our leaders.
All I’ve done is point out the facts - that NY has tested more than its share of the population. If you feel that’s hounding or blaming, perhaps you’re a bit sensitive at the fit of the shoe.
Should the rest of the country just sit slack jawed absorbing without question whatever coverage the largely NY based media puts out or should we continue to question the basis of some of the assertions?
From Chicago Sun Times 3/22/2020:
As life in Chicago largely comes to a halt, shootings continue on South, West sides
Shortly after Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced his order for Illinois residents to stay at home in his boldest attempt to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, gunshots rang out in the West Pullman neighborhood.
A 25-year-old man was walking east about 4:20 p.m. Friday in the 11500 block of South Perry when one of the bullets pierced his neck, according to Chicago police. He was rushed to Roseland Hospital in good condition as officers began investigating.
While life for many Chicagoans has come to a grinding halt as many businesses and all schools have been forced to close in the wake of the rising COVID-19 crisis, shootings continued to plague communities on the South and West sides.
As of 6:50 p.m. Sunday, 10 people had been gunned down in weekend shootings across the city, one of them fatally. Last year, four people were killed and 10 others were wounded in shootings over the course of the same weekend.
[The optics of trying to lock down neighborhoods like these all across America are going to be horrendous. Look for bans on cell phone video, and calls to restrict police body cam footage. Out of sight, out of mind.]
Entities - states, cities, hospitals, truckers - acting with enlightened self-interest is what makes markets work. Let it be known what you need and work to get it. If there are conflicts higher levels of government can step in, but there is no excuse for any entity standing around like a baby bird waiting for food to be forced down its gullet.
Cuomo is advocating effectively for the needs of his state, DeSantis can do the same. Maybe not the best leader, but his opponent in the last election doesn’t seem to be working to make anyone think he’d have done better.
I do understand the frustration if your state is not getting what New York is getting. Working with/pressuring your state’s leaders is the right place to focus that frustration.
I found this article interesting. Which states are following social distancing and which are not.
Cuomo has been consistent from the get go in calling out people at the federal level in needing to act more quickly. In the meantime, he’s been doing what he needs to do for the people in his state. I see no ethical dilemma here, personally. The rest of the 50 governors should be calling for more federal level action. Only a handful or so have done so publicly. Cuomo’s comments have moved the needle in a way that will benefit all states.
Buck stops at the top.
It’s not frustration “my” state isn’t getting something, it’s disbelief that there isn’t a wider sense that what impacts one state also impacts the others. The answer isn’t urging “my” or your or anybody’s state to fight harder, it’s pointing out to everybody that again - unless you think your state has the resources and ability to lock itself down from all other states for the next 1-2 years, you better start considering what’s going on in these other states.
There are a limited number of certain supplies and unless we come up with a strategy to deploy them in a way that reduces overall infections in the US, places that were pushed aside will re-infect the first to grab.
The infections that are brewing in place with virtually no testing - West Virginia anyone? - could be the ones that reinfect your state tomorrow. There are no good solutions other than national ones unless you think your state can totally quarantine for 1-2 years with no movement between or supplies from other states.
I also expect New Jersey to go up a lot. They were behind on testing, and with their proximity to NYC and many people working there, I expect Bergen County to catch up to many of the NY counties with NYC commuters.
I don’t think anyone is unaware of the ways in which states impact one another. But there is no cohesive federal response and governors can only harness so much power. Cuomo said today that he needs ventilators and he’s aware that other states will need them, too. He said he would make sure they got transported to where they needed to go because resources have to be shared.
NY is trying to do the RIGHT thing by its people. The remaining 49 states should be doing the same. And I’m almost 2,000 miles from New York, so the shoe and fit is a moot point. The president has told states they have to do their share of the work, and has tweeted " [Governors] shouldn’t be blaming the Federal Government for their own shortcomings"
The message is clear. I read it as, Florida isn’t going to get its “fair” share of anything (whatever fair means) UNLESS IT FIGHTS FOR IT.