People on Twitter observed that the places that currently have outbreaks are the places that have airports with lots of international travel: Detroit, Chicago, Seattle, SF Bay Area, Los Angeles, New York City area, Miami. Why does Detroit have a lot of cases and Cleveland not yet? Auto manufacturers; Detroit has a lot of direct flights to China.
But viruses move. No place is safe.
This looks promising
NY governor: ‘Your stupid actions don’t just affect you’
Al Jazeera’s Radmilla Suleymanova has this report from New York:
"New York Governor Andrew Cuomo blasted those ignoring strict social distancing orders to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, a day after crowds gathered to catch a glimpse of the USNS Comfort docking in New York Harbor.
‘You want to go out and act stupid for yourself that’s one thing. But your stupid actions don’t just affect you. You come home and can infect someone else and even cause death for them,’ Cuomo said during his daily briefing.
People gathered on the west side of Manhattan yesterday, taking photos, clapping and waving the American flag at the US Navy’s floating hospital equipped with 1000-beds to treat COVID-19 patients."
Ethiopia’s national elections postponed due to coronavirus
Ethiopia’s electoral commission said it would delay national elections scheduled for August because of the coronavirus outbreak.
The board will announce a new timeline once the pandemic had subsided, the Amharic-language statement said.
The August polls were seen as a key test of the reformist agenda of Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.
Coronavirus tracking app must be voluntary: German minister
German Justice Minister Christine Lambrecht told Deutschlandfunk radio that tracking apps to help tackle coronavirus could only be used voluntarily in Germany.
“It’s a real infringement if I have such data so I can only agree with everyone who says that if there is such a solution that actually breaks the chains of infection, it’s only possible if those who have it on their mobile phones and so use it do so voluntarily,” Lambrecht said.
Germany hopes to launch a smartphone app within weeks to help trace coronavirus infections, after a broad political consensus emerged that adopting an approach pioneered by Singapore can be effective without invading people’s privacy.
Al Jazeera
Northern Italy has a high percentage of Chinese workers . This article seems interesting :
https://www.ecnmy.org/engage/prato-chinese-stuff-look-around/
I know completely how you feel. My son, 19 has Primary Immune Deficiency so I bought a box of masks well before anyone was even staying home or really worried about this. I wear one when I grocery shop for our family because I can not bring this home to him but I also feel terribly guilty about wearing a mask with the ppe shortage. I hope you stay safe and healthy.
Florida reports 1,037 new cases over 24 hours. This is the first time the state has reported more than one thousand cases over that interval. Florida does not yet have a statewide stay-at-home order.
Source: Dr. Matt McCarthy, assistant professor at Weill Cornell, on Twitter.
The US is not the only one with vulnerable nursing homes
Latest numbers out of Westchester County NY:
9967 positives
275 in hospital (in and out of county), which makes a hospitalization rate of 2.8 percent.
25 fatalities (up from 19 yesterday)
Hospitalization and death rates still well below NYC, especially Queens and Bklyn.
This man needs to be charged and held in jail without bail until the end of April, when the Governor’s current lockdown ends. He cannot be trusted. He is a public health menace!
He violated the Governor’s order 2 Sundays in a row and they should have parked a Humvee in front of the doors to his church before that 2nd Sunday, and taken him away. Honestly, I think some religions are really death cults hiding behind a very thin veil of arrogance.
From CNN, “Coronavirus pits cities and states against each other as they try to stop spread from out-of-towners”:
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/31/us/coronavirus-travel-bans-local-state/index.html
Is it time for a nationwide lockdown?
Yes, about a week or two ago.
This is what got people suspicious of the official numbers of deaths due to COVID-19 in Wuhan (about 2,500). It is likely that this is the number who died after being diagnosed with COVID-19, but not the likely number who died of probable COVID-19 including those who died at home without being diagnosed with COVID-19.
The article https://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/wuhan-deaths-03272020182846.html (linked previously in this thread) says that “a source close to the provincial civil affairs bureau said many people had died at home, without being diagnosed with, or treated for, COVID-19” and that “the source said Wuhan saw 28,000 cremations in the space of a single month”. The article quotes a citizen that normal cremations in Wuhan were about 220 per day, or about 6,380 to 6,820 per month, so that means that the month in question had about 21,000 or so excess cremations compared to normal, far more than the 2,500 official number who died of COVID-19 in the more than one month time frame in Wuhan.
The UK numbers don’t reflect those who die at home, IIRC neither do France’s numbers, many sources are not reliable.
Watch the video @OHMomof2 posted. The virus doesn’t transmit by air. There’s nothing a mask need to stop. Except your hand touching your face. The doctor in the video does a good job calming you down.
US should prepare for 100,000 deaths due to coronavirus, Fauci says
CNN
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the US should prepare for a reality where 100,000 Americans are killed from coronavirus, he said Tuesday afternoon during a coronavirus task force briefing.
“As sobering as that number is, we should be prepared for it. Is it going to be that much? I hope not and I think the more we push back on mitigation, the less likelihood it would that number. But as being realistic, we need to prepare ourselves that that is a possibility that that’s what we’ll see,” Fauci said.
Fauci added on the projected numbers of deaths: “We don’t accept that number. We are going to do everything we can to be below that.”
“This is the thing to anticipate but that doesn’t mean that we are going to accept it,” Fauci said in the White House briefing room.
[ They also, upon questioning, admitted that the modeling showing 100-200K deaths is the “best case scenario”. ]
White House predicts up to 240,000 deaths
The White House has predicted 100,000 to 240,000 deaths in the US from coronavirus pandemic, even with mitigation measures. This isn’t the first time that the task force scientists have presented these grim projections.
But Birx said the model doesn’t assume every American does everything they’re supposed to do, “so it can be lower than that,” she said.
“Our hope is to get that down as much as we can,” Fauci added. The numbers are what “we need to anticipate, but that doesn’t mean that that’s what we’re going to accept.” (Guardian)
[ So far, despite the sobering info imparted, I’m finding this WH press briefing better than the others thus far. Trump has deferred to Fauci and Birx throughout much of the briefing and they have presented slides and scientific facts and modeling. I wish this info had been imparted in a presser 2 weeks ago in order to get people to take it seriously. I also think we need a national lockdown. ]
21.000 deaths sound plausible, considering the size of Wuhan and the capability of the local healthcare system.
To anyone who might still think Sweden was handling it “better,” their deaths per million is now up to 18. Compare that to neighbors Norway (7) and Finland’s (3). The US is currently at 11.
Italy is at 206. Spain at 181. France is at 54, but I know they said they weren’t counting anyone who didn’t die in the hospital (not counting nursing homes or home deaths, etc). Not sure if that’s true or not in other countries.
Hopefully social distancing is helping. Shutting down sooner sure seems to have helped over not, but 'tis still “early” so who knows?
Trump defends US coronavirus testing capabilities
From CNN’s Jason Hoffman and Maegan Vazquez
President Trump defended the ability of the US to conduct tests for coronavirus, despite medical workers saying they cannot test everyone who needs one.
“We’re doing more than anyone in the world, by far. We are testing highly accurate tests, these are tests that work,” Trump said. “Well we’re doing, every day, and the word is exponential we are getting more and more and more, and now we have a new test that will be rolled out tomorrow or the next day and that’s going to take only a few minutes to see the result. And it’s a highly accurate result."
Vice President Mike Pence later attempted to clarify why there is a discrepancy in the amount of tests that the administration said had been distributed and the amount of tests that have been conducted.
Pence said under the old testing system, tests were being sent out, but had to be returned to labs that could only tests a small number per day.
“I think that the misunderstanding early on was that there are many tests being distributed, many test kits being sent, but under the old system, the antiquated system those were being processed in state labs or at CDC that could only produce 30 to 50 tests a day," Pence said.
Dr. Deborah Birx, the task force response coordinator, also said she’s disappointed that Abbott Laboratories coronavirus test disbursed around the country are not being utilized.
“It is disappointing to me right now that we have about 500,000 capacity of Abbott tests that are not being utilized. So, they are out. They’re in the states. They’re not being run and not utilized. And now we have to figure out how do we create awareness,” Birx said during the briefing Tuesday.
US Army issuing volunteer call-up of Individual Ready Reserve members
From CNN’s Ryan Browne
The US Army has begun calling up members of the Individual Ready Reserve on a voluntary basis in order to help combat the spread of the novel coronavirus — another sign that the US military is seeking to bolster its medical capability as the pandemic continues to spread.
“On March 29, Human Resources Command sent messages regarding the voluntary recall to nearly 10,000 members of the (Individual Ready Reserve) with specific medical skills,” Lt. Col. Emmanuel Ortiz told CNN in a statement. “Protecting our citizens from the coronavirus is a vital call to action. We need the help of many of our Individual Ready Reserve medical professionals. They possess valuable training, education, skills and talents necessary to win this fight.”
In most cases, after concluding their military obligations, service members will enter into what is known as the Individual Ready Reserve.
By the numbers: At present, the Individual Ready Reserve contains 224,841 members, according to the Department of Defense.
The ready reserve status requires no active participation or drilling, leading the vast majority of service members to consider being in that status the same as being out of the military. Most service members are in that designation for a period of years.
A spokesperson for the Army said that some 9,000 retirees had expressed interest in volunteering.
Trump discusses the potential need for Americans to wear masks
From CNN’s Jason Hoffman
President Trump discussed the need for Americans to wear masks to help stop the spread of coronavirus.
Trump said that Americans “can wear scarves” in lieu of masks.
“You know, you can use a scarf. A lot of people have scarfs, and you can use a scarf. A scarf would be very good. My feeling is if people want to do it, there’s certainly no harm to it. I would say do it, but use a scarf if you want, rather than going out and getting a mask or whatever, we’re making millions and millions of masks," Trump said when asked if he would recommend all Americans wear masks.
Trump said he wants the masks being produced to go to hospitals that need them.
“We want them to go to the hospitals. But one of the things that Dr. Fauci told me today is we don’t want everybody competing with the hospitals where you really need them,” Trump added.
Trump did say that it might not be a bad idea for Americans to use some sort of face cover, for at least a period of time.
“So you can use scarves if you want, it can be something else, it does not have to be a mask, but it’s not a bad idea at least for a period of time. I mean eventually you’re not going to want to do that, you’re not going to have to do that. It’s going to be gone. It’s going to be gone, hopefully gone for a long time," Trump said.
Trump warns coronavirus more “vicious” than flu, despite his previous comments
From CNN’s Allie Malloy
President Trump acknowledged Tuesday that Covid-19 is worse than the seasonal flu, despite claiming otherwise multiple times in the past.
“It’s not the flu. It’s vicious,” Trump said of Covid-19 Tuesday while discussing a personal friend of his who is in a coma battling coronavirus.
Some context: The tone is new for Trump who on March 9 tweeted: “So last year 37,000 Americans died from the common Flu. It averages between 27,000 and 70,000 per year. Nothing is shut down, life & the economy go on. At this moment there are 546 confirmed cases of CoronaVirus, with 22 deaths. Think about that!”
Two days after Trump made that comment, Dr. Anthony Fauci warned that coronavirus is “10 times more lethal than the seasonal flu.”
Today members of the coronavirus task force warned that Americans should be “prepared” for over 100,000 deaths.
Governor Cuomo’s daily update:
This morning, I found out that my brother Chris Cuomo is positive for Coronavirus and he is self-isolating in the basement of his house. He is a sweet, beautiful guy — my best friend.
I share this news to illustrate that no one is immune to the reach of this virus. It’s my family. It’s your family. Countless New Yorkers have already been affected by it and many more will be. That’s why it’s so important that we practice social distancing and avoid spreading the virus accidentally to the people we love. It is not just about protecting ourselves, but protecting everyone around us, especially the most vulnerable.
Here’s what else you need to know tonight:
Tonight’s “Deep Breath Moment”: Last Friday, hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers joined together to clap and cheer for all our healthcare professionals on the frontlines. The outpouring of support could not be more well-deserved. (Watch the video here.)
Ever Upward,
Governor Andrew M. Cuomo