True - the raw numbers don’t really tell the story. It’s the per capita rate.
I’m hoping for this new antibody test. If a substantial number of people are immune then they can return to work.
The Palm Springs area doesn’t want any visitors either. Banned until the end of April at least.
Who’s failing whom here? Had the federal government done its duty and not dismantled its pandemic prevention operations in the US and China, these ventilators may not have been necessary.
Nike executives said Tuesday that shoppers in key Asian markets are beginning to return to stores as the company reported a rare drop in Chinese quarterly revenues cushioned by stronger e-commerce sales.
“Traffic is back,” Nike Chief Executive John Donahoe said of the dynamic in China that is also beginning to play out in Japan and South Korea, two other countries that are also passed the worst of the outbreak.
“Consumers are back in the stores,” he told analysts during an earnings conference call.
“They are often wearing facemasks, but they’re back in the store.”
Guardian
Easter reopening goal for US may be more of an “aspirational date”
From CNN’s chief White House correspondent Jim Acosta
The United States’ coronavirus task force is receiving plenty of feedback from public health experts who are sounding the alarm over easing the social distancing guidelines next week, a source familiar with the matter said.
Although President Donald Trump has talked about reopening the country by Easter, the President hasn’t reached a final decision on exactly when the government’s guidelines would be relaxed to get the economy back up and running, the source told CNN.
Trump is hearing from advisers who are urging him to make Easter more of an “aspirational date,” the source added. When the President talked up the idea of packing churches on Easter, the source continued, he knew it was more wishful thinking than a realistic goal.
“He was being himself,” the source said.
The current thinking is that it’s unlikely Trump will relax the social distancing guidelines next week, when the 15-day period for those measures is scheduled to come to an end.
That kind of a move would likely spark fierce debate inside the task force, the source said.
Expanding testing: One idea being discussed inside the task force is dramatically expanding self-testing for the coronavirus on a massive scale, the source said.
That would provide public health experts with a wealth of data to make more informed decisions about restarting the economy.
The problem right now, the source said, is that very little data is available due to the slow rollout of testing across the country.
“We don’t have the testing to know what’s going on,” the source said.
India bans export of key malaria drug amid coronavirus outbreak
The Indian government has banned the export of hydroxychloroquine and formulations made from the medication, as experts test the efficacy of the drug in helping treat patients infected with Covid-19.
There are currently no approved treatments, or preventive vaccines for Covid-19.
Researchers are studying existing treatments and working on experimental ones, but most current patients receive only supportive care such as breathing assistance.
Hydroxychloroquine, a malaria drug, is among the medications that are being tested, as a potential treatment for patients with the disease. Earlier this week, the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists, which maintains a list of drug shortages, said hydroxychloroquine was in shortage.
Trump seeks to reopen ‘large sections’ of US by Easter, clashing with experts
Donald Trump is aiming to reopen “large sections of the country” by Easter, he told reporters on Tuesday, as officials advised anyone who has recently left New York to self-quarantine for two weeks.
The US president has put himself on collision course with his own health experts by floating a deadline for firing up the economy, claiming without evidence that the current shutdown would cause more deaths than the coronavirus itself.
“I hope we can do this by Easter,” Trump told reporters at an unusually brisk White House briefing. “I think that would be a great thing for our country.”
Asked if that timeline – 12 April – was realistic , he replied: “We’re going to look at it. We’ll only do it if it’s good and maybe we do sections of the country, we do large sections of the country.”
The president, known for his love of media spectacle, said he picked Easter because “I just thought it was a beautiful time, a beautiful timeline, it’s a great day”, adding: “It was based on a certain level of weeks from the time we started. And it happened – actually, we were thinking sooner. I’d love to see it come even sooner.”
Guardian
Trump privately appeals to Asia and Europe for medical help to fight coronavirus
Despite president’s rhetoric that the US would not rely on foreign nations for help, the administration has approached European and Asian partners
The US has been appealing to its allies for help in obtaining medical supplies to overcome critical shortages in its fight against coronavirus.
In his public rhetoric Donald Trump has been talking up the domestic private sector response to the crisis.
“We should never be reliant on a foreign country for the means of our own survival,” Trump said at a White House briefing on Tuesday evening. “America will never be a supplicant nation.”
However behind the scenes, the administration has approached European and Asian partners to secure supplies of testing kits and other medical equipment that are in desperately short supply in the US.
On Tuesday, Trump spoke by phone with the South Korean president, Moon Jae-in, asking if his country could supply medical equipment.
The official White House account made no mention of the request, but according to the South Korean presidency, the Blue House, the call was made at Trump’s “urgent request”.
Trump praised the South Korean testing programme, which has helped contain the outbreak there. Moon told Trump that he would support South Korean exports of critical supplies to the US “if there is a domestic surplus”.
Foreign Policy reported that the third-ranking diplomat in the state department, David Hale, had asked for a list of countries that might be able to sell “critical medical supplies and equipment” to the US.
“Depending on critical needs, the United States could seek to purchase many of these items in the hundreds of millions with purchases of higher end equipment such as ventilators in the hundreds of thousands,” an email sent to embassies in Europe and Eurasia said.
The email underlined that the request applied to host countries “minus Moscow”.
On 15 March, German officials said they had fended off a Trump administration offer to buy exclusive access to a potential vaccine being developed by a German company, CureVac.
The US has scaled up its diagnostic testing after a slow start and Trump boasted on Tuesday that the country had performed more tests in eight days than South Korea had managed in eight weeks.
As of last week, South Korea had tested 270,000 people (one in 190 of the population) since the beginning of the outbreak while the US has performed 266,000 tests (one in 1,230) in the past eight days. Seoul also started testing much earlier in the country’s outbreak.
Some of the critical components of the diagnostic test are in short supply globally, including the reagents needed to identify the presence of the Covid-19 virus, and nasal swabs used for taking the samples.
The shortages will constrain the US ability to carry out mass testing in the near term, and the administration’s medical experts have been urging that tests are restricted to patients who have already been hospitalised.
On March 18, the Defense One military news site reported that the US air force had quietly flown half a million nasal swabs from Italy to Memphis, where they were distributed around the country.
The US is turning its allies at a time when it has strained relations with many of them. Trump has been demanding South Korea pay much more, reportedly up to $5 bn a year, to cover the costs of US troops based on its soil and the US military has threatened to lay off thousands of Korean employees if Seoul does not agree to a deal.
“It’s almost like we shouldn’t have used alliances as protection rackets, shaking down a close and highly-capable partner for $5 billion, imagining there would be no consequences for transactional unilateralism,” Mira Rapp-Hooper, senior fellow for Asia studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, commented on Twitter.
The US is by far the largest buyer of pharmaceuticals and medical supplies from China, and is seeking to import Chinese face masks and protective gear, but negotiations have been complicated by growing acrimony between the two countries, over what Trump has insisted until very recently on calling the “China virus”.
Severe disruptions in international air links caused by the outbreak have also disrupted US imports.
“It’s a supply chain which has multiple dynamically shifting bottlenecks and the administration is trying to overcome them one at a time, as they pop up,” Prashant Rao, visiting fellow at the Center for Global Development, said. “What we need is a far more comprehensive approach.”
The Nigerian president’s influential chief of staff has tested positive for coronavirus, a source with direct knowledge of the matter said on Tuesday.
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.
His case was one of a growing number in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, with a state governor also testing positive and the Lagos state health commissioner warning that they were beginning to see the virus “spread in the community”.
Previously, most cases were travellers who had recently returned from the United Kingdom or the United States.
Kyari has a history of medical complications, including diabetes, and is the gatekeeper to the president. Many who wish to deal with Buhari must go through Kyari, including Nigeria’s top politicians and business owners.
It is unclear if Kyari, who three diplomats also said had tested positive for coronavirus, self-isolated upon his return to Nigeria.
As of Tuesday, Nigeria had 42 confirmed cases of coronavirus, two of whom had recovered, and one death - a 67-year-old former oil official. It was unclear if Kyari or Mohammed’s diagnoses were included in that total.
People who suffer from hypertension appear to be very susceptible to the coronavirus, according to figures from Italy’s epidemiology institute.
The institute is releasing details about who is dying from the disease in Italy, which has seen the most fatalities of any country. One of the interesting details refers to the victims’ underlying health conditions, so-called comorbidities.
The data up to 20 March shows that almost 75% of people who died suffered from hypertension, or high blood pressure. Almost 34% had diabetes. Only 1.2 % of cases had no comorbidities. The data shows the vast majority are aged over 70.
Guardian
Malaria Drug Chloroquine No Better Than Regular Coronavirus Care, Study Finds
In the Chinese study, which was conducted by researchers from the department of infection and immunity at the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Center, the 15 patients who didn’t get hydroxychloroquine were treated with conventional care.
This includes bed rest, oxgen inhalation, and the use of anti-viral drugs recommended in China’s treatment guidelines like lopinavir and ritonavir, and antibiotics when necessary.
One patient treated with hydroxychloroquine progressed to severe disease during the study. Four patients given the medicine developed diarrhea and signs of potential liver damage, compared with three getting conventional treatment.
The researchers concluded that additional studies using larger numbers of patients are needed to fully investigate the drug’s risks and benefits.
To a large degree, there isn’t a current number that is going to tell.
What is showing up for tests are the symptomatic, including the worriers. Cull the worriers out and you’re left with a group that can be divided into two: the ones that are going to have a flu case, and those that will need hospitalization.
Absent, are the mild and asymptomatic. Without a count of them, I don’t see how you can calculate anything in regards to mortality risk.
This scientist created a database to connect labs all over the country with the resources they need for coronavirus testing: https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/24/call-to-scientists-share-skills-resources-covid19/
Scientists who study anything other than SARS-CoV-2 have had to shut their labs, but many of them know how to do the RNA extraction and PCR needed to test for the virus. Many labs also have the reagents needed for RNA extraction in stock, and even swabs.
The database aims to distribute resources where they are needed:
That’s where studies like the Seattle Flu study can fill in the gaps. - doing it as we speak.
"India Bans Exports of Trump-Backed Virus Drug as Demand Surges
India’s government banned exports of hydroxychloroquine, as global demand surges for the malaria drug touted by U.S. President Donald Trump as a potential coronavirus treatment.
Exports will be limited to fulfilling existing contracts, while certain shipments on humanitarian grounds may also be allowed on a case-by-case basis, according to a statement issued Wednesday by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade.
Trump has vowed to make the medication widely available to fight the pandemic, calling the drug a “game changer” in the treatment of the coronavirus.
Though there is no conclusive scientific evidence that hydroxychloroquine can treat the infection from the novel pathogen, U.S. hospitals and consumers have begun stockpiling the drug after reports of its efficacy in some small clinical studies – but not in others – began circulating online and in the media."
THIS is what happens when people who are NOT scientists claim that a unproven drug works!
Trump is, in my opinion, no more qualified to announce a treatment has been found for Covid-19 than a charlatan snake oil peddler.
He is doing nothing more than grasping for straws…
More Than 750,000 Masks Auctioned for Huge Markup While Hospitals Run Out
At a time when shortages of protective gear are putting health-care workers at risk, more than 750,000 medical-grade masks went up for online auction in Texas.
Bottles of Purell sold for over $40. A box of 16 masks went for $170. They could be had retail for $3 each before the coronavirus.
The week-long bidding that ended Tuesday was hosted by the website Auctions Unlimited. The health-related products pulled in $154,000 in sales, according to Houston-based website owner Tim Worstell. He estimated that he personally made as much as $40,000 on the sales.
Worstell would not publicly divulge the names of the buyers, and he identified the sellers only as “large companies.” He said the companies commissioned his website to sell masks, disinfectant wipes, cleaning solutions and hand sanitizer, all items in high demand as coronavirus spreads. Because the Texas attorney general issued a cease-and-desist order on March 20 to block the sales during a state of emergency, which was declared March 16 by Governor Greg Abbott, Worstell said the transactions couldn’t be completed without approval from law enforcement.
disgusting…
Won’t link to it, since it’s a Swiss doctor’s translation and summation of a report written in Italian. Might would, if I was fluent in Italian, but that’s yet another thing I’ve not gotten around to learning.
Vast bulk of deaths in Italy involved patients that had from 1 to 3 chronic conditions. By vast, I mean almost all, and by chronic it reported them as being treated by medication. Very small percentage of deaths were among those under 60. The death of a 39 year old doctor makes the news but doesn’t budge the stats.
I’ve seen some speculation that the difference in German and Italian mortality might be because the virus circulated among the hospitals in Italy until it finally broke the surface, got noticed, and…
Chronic conditions, that many, you’re either in the hospital or making regular visits.
Fashion industry answers the call for masks and personal protective equipment to fight Covid-19
CNN
Written by
Oscar Holland
Contributors
Ananda Pellerin
With stores closed, runway shows canceled and global supply chains disrupted, much of the fashion industry has been rendered idle by the coronavirus pandemic.
Now, designers, luxury labels and fashion conglomerates are all stepping up to help overcome shortages of masks and other personal protective equipment (PPE) in some of the hardest-hit countries.
In the US, where health officials have warned that stockpiles of medical equipment may be insufficient despite manufacturers ramping up production, some medical workers have been forced to reuse masks between patients and even make their own.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo took his appeal for assistance in the country’s worst-hit state to Twitter, writing: “We need companies to be creative to supply the crucial gear our healthcare workers need.”
His call was answered with offers to retool production and put sewing teams and unused resources to good use.
One of the first to respond was designer and “Project Runway” alumni, Christian Siriano. “If @NYGovCuomo says we need masks my team will help make some,” he tweeted. “I have a full sewing team still on staff working from home that can help.”
Just days after his online exchange with Cuomo, the designer posted a video of facemask production already underway.
Christian Siriano
@CSiriano
A very productive day today.
Nepalese-American designer Prabal Gurung, who is based in New York, has also offered to help, saying via his brand’s Instagram account that he hoped “not only to fill the void of critical PPE, but to mobilize our domestic partners, revitalizing US producers and suppliers.” And designer Brandon Maxwell, who has dressed high-profile figures from Lady Gaga to Michelle Obama, announced that he is redirecting resources toward the production of gowns for medical workers.
Elsewhere in the country, luxury swimwear brand Karla Colletto has offered up its Virginia factory, and Los Angeles Apparel (a brand founded by American Apparel’s Dov Charney) donated the services of its 450-person-plus workforce to produce face masks. And it’s not just consumer brands pitching in to help – apron and culinary clothing manufacturer Hedley & Bennett, for instance, is now producing masks for frontline workers with the help of donations.
European heavyweights step up
It is in Europe, however, that the most substantial offers have emerged, with some of the world’s biggest fashion companies throwing their weight behind PPE production. Two of the continent’s giants, H&M and Inditex, Zara’s parent company, have both committed to gearing their sizable operations toward medical supplies.
French Luxury conglomerate Kering announced that two of its brands, Balenciaga and Yves Saint Laurent, are preparing to manufacture covid masks. The group has also committed to acquiring 3 million Chinese masks for French health service, while its largest brand, Gucci, is looking to make and donate 1.1 million masks and 55,000 medical overalls to authorities in hard-hit Italy.
Rival LVMH, which owns Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior among others, is also leveraging its global supply chain to source 40 million facemasks from China over the next four weeks. The multinational will finance the first week’s worth of deliveries, a pledge amounting to five million euros, according to a press release.
Italy is perhaps where new equipment is needed most, with the country’s north now the world’s worst-affected area. Here, Prada said it has begun production of 80,000 medical overalls and 110,000 masks at the request of authorities in Tuscany.
But not all the industry’s champions are big-name luxury brands. Textile firm Miroglio Group, who work across the fashion supply chain from sourcing textiles to making finished garments, has recently retooled its operation in the Piedmont region, and last week delivered its first batch of 10,000 “hygienic” washable cotton and elastane masks, which they are supplying to emergency workers, NGOs and journalists, first in Italy but also further afield.
“After our first batch went out we started receiving lots of orders from other companies. We are giving priority to older people and those who are managing the crisis – police, healthcare workers,” said the company’s CEO Alberto Racca over the phone. The company aims to complete another 600,000 by the middle of next week, and believes it can eventually produce as many as 100,000 a day.
“We’ve never manufactured a mask in our whole history, what we tried to do immediately was gather in one room all the key people in our company with the relevant skills, and in a couple of hours, we came up with a prototype,” he said. They now have 500 employees working on producing the masks, which are being sold at cost, while some costs are being covered by individual donations.
“We have roughly 5,000 people working for us in Italy, and all of them, including those not directly involved in this process, felt a sense of pride for what the company is doing. Especially in these times, where there is a lot of uncertainty, people really feel powerless. But feeling that you can join forces and actually make something happen, is for everyone, and for myself I have to say, a great sense of purpose,” Racca said.
Question of effectiveness
Most of the firms offering to produce PPE in recent days have specified that their output is intended to help medical workers and first responders. But few have outlined in how, or even if, their creations will meet strict medical requirements.
Health officials usually recommend the use of an N95 mask, which can filter out 95% of airborne particles, though America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has now said that other filtering facepiece respirators (FFRs) are acceptable in times of shortage.
Siriano has expressed hopes that his masks will be approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), while culinary clothing firm Hedley & Bennett said that its reusable items aren’t. (“They are not direct substitutes for N95 surgical or procedural masks,” the company stressed, though the items, “if used correctly, should help reduce person-to-person droplet transmission of the virus.”)
Given the severity of shortages around the world, however, something may be better than nothing. Los Angeles Apparel, for instance, has accepted that its terry cotton mask is not ideal, though it “seems to be a worthwhile substitute for those without access to surgical masks or other.”
Even if the items end up in public, rather than medical hands, they may still aid the fight against Covid-19. While the effectiveness of face masks in preventing the spread of disease remains a matter of debate, demand has surged around the world, and a new supply could make it easier for medical staff – for whom wearing one can be a matter of life and death – to get the equipment they need.
The fashion industry is not alone in helping meet the shortfall of medical supplies. In the US, mask donors have included dentists, woodwork enthusiasts and the investment bank Goldman Sachs. Medical workers have been using the hashtag #GetMePPE to elicit donations from members of the public, while prison inmates in Chicago and New York have been enlisted to produce protective equipment.
Perfume makers and distilleries are among the businesses that have retooled their facilities to produce hand sanitizer, which has also been in short supply.
https://www.cnn.com/style/article/fashion-industry-masks-protective-equipment-covid-19/index.html
Some coronavirus test results in the US can take up to a week
From CNN’s Curt Devine
Demand for coronavirus tests at some US commercial labs continues to exceed capacity, even as millions of tests have become available. Test turnaround times range from 24 hours to a week or more, according to labs contacted by CNN.
Quest Diagnostics: One of the largest US clinical laboratories said current turnaround time for coronavirus tests is on average four to five days, from the time of specimen pickup to the time results are delivered, though some results may not be provided for about a week.
“Although we are rapidly expanding testing capacity, demand for the testing is growing faster, and we cannot accommodate everyone who wants testing and meet tight turnaround time expectations,” Quest said in a statement.
TriCore Reference Laboratories: The New Mexico-based lab said its turnaround time is about five days.
Eurofins: A spokesperson for laboratory network Eurofins said its labs are running up to 5,000 tests a day, many in 24 hours, but also said, “due to the backlog, unprecedented demand, pressures on our supply chain, and shipping delays … our turnaround time has been pushed beyond what we normally experience. At most, we are looking at results in 72 hours.”
BioReference Laboratories: While there had been a backlog in its facilities, the company said it has cleared it within a week of making their testing for Covid-19 available and cut its turnaround time to 24 hours for inpatients and 48 to 72 hours for the general public.
Dr. Alex Greninger, an assistant professor at the University of Washington’s Department of Laboratory Medicine, said unprecedented demand is the driving factor of such wait times for test results.
Faster delivery of tests is critical to conserve personal protective equipment, he said.
“It’s not just about testing but about getting results in a clinically actionable time frame. The faster you get results, the less protective equipment you use and the quicker you can get a patient properly isolated,” Greninger said.
@catahoula I posted this earlier in case you missed it.
US senate passes nearly $2tn stimulus package
Lauren Gambino, Guardian
The US Senate has passed a nearly $2tn stimulus package to help rescue the American economy ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic as Donald Trumpconsiders easing restrictions aimed at combating the contagion.
After days of around-the-clock negotiations between senators and administration officials, a bipartisan compromise was struck over what is expected to be the largest US economic stimulus measure ever passed.
The bill next goes to the House, where Democrats have introduced their own proposal.
Australian doctors warned off after prescribing potentially deadly Covid-19 trial drug to themselves
Drugs regulator cracks down on ability to prescribe anti-malarial hydroxychloroquine that was touted by Trump
Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration says it is concerned about shortages of the drug hydroxychloroquine for people who need it following increased off-label prescribing as a result of the Covid-19 reports.
Australia’s drugs regulator has been forced to restrict powers to prescribe a drug undergoing clinical trials to treat Covid-19, because doctors have been inappropriately prescribing it to themselves and their family members despite its potentially deadly side-effects.
The anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine and the similar compound chloroquine are currently used mostly for patients with autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, but stocks in Australia have been diminished thanks to global publicity – including from Donald Trump – about the potential of the drug to treat Covid-19.
Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have potentially severe and even deadly side effects if used inappropriately, including heart failure and toxicity. Some Australian media outlets have wrongly reported the drug as a “cure” for the virus even though trials have been either inconclusive or too small to be useful, have only been conducted in test tubes, are not yet complete, or have not even received ethics approval.
Decades-old drug in two Australian trials related to Covid-19 but experts urge caution
Read more
Australia’s Therapeutic Goods Administration said it was concerned about shortages of the drug for people who need it following increased off-label prescribing as a result of the Covid-19 reports. As well as heart attacks the drug can lead to irreversible eye damage and severe depletion of blood sugar potentially leading to coma, the TGA warned.
Trump touted hydroxychloroquine as possibly “one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine” and said that “it’s not going to kill anybody”. Soon after a US man died after he drank chloroquine found in fish tank cleaner because he was scared of getting sick. Other countries have also reported poisonings.
The TGA has placed tight new restrictions on doctors who are authorised to write new prescriptions for the drug, limiting it to a small group of clinical specialties. The Pharmaceutical Society of Australia wrote to members urging them to “refuse the dispensing of hydroxychloroquine if there is not a genuine need”.
The letter said the PSA was receiving reports from pharmacists that “they are receiving prescriptions from doctors prescribing for other doctors and their families, as well as dentists prescribing to the community and their families”.
Locum pharmacist Daniel Roitman, who has been working at pharmacies in and around Melbourne, said he had seen general practitioners prescribing the drug to themselves and their family members, which is illegal in Victoria. He said he had also seen people attempting to collect multiple repeats of the drug from different pharmacies in the same day.
“I had a GP on Monday morning come in and he had written a script for hydroxychloroquine for his wife,” Roitman said. “I had to tell him off in no uncertain terms. I’ve also seen spikes in prescriptions of antibiotics also being used in clinical trials. I have had to tell so many people I am not dispensing these drugs, and I’ll give them the script back and write on the script that it’s inappropriate prescribing. I have also had to call the pharmacies who I see on scripts have already dispensed hydroxychloroquine that day to warn them.”
He urged people to think twice before attempting to get hold of the drug. He said he had seen a “50/50 split of doctors prescribing for themselves or prescribing for family members”.
“There are people with conditions that desperately rely on this medication and suffer excruciating pain without it and will suffer if we run out,” he said. “These drugs have a lot of risks that need to be managed and they’re not something the rest of the public should be taking. And even if eventually if it does prove to be effective in treating Covid-19, it has to be in the hands of clinical decision-makers who decide who needs it most, just like they make the same decisions about ventilators.
“It should not be in people’s pantries.”
The Australian Medical Association and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners have been contacted for comment.
New South Wales Health said it was aware of people self-medicating to treat or prevent Covid-19 and issued a statement warning of the dangers.
“At this time, there are no vaccines that protect against Covid-19 and no medications with approved indications to treat Covid-19,” the department said.
“as the crisis reaches what is expected to be its most dangerous period, doctors’ and nurses’ groups say their members are being expected to take unacceptable risks.”