Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Another missed opportunity for Jamie Dimon to just shut the fuck up.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Jack Smith: “Why did you start campaigning in the middle of my investigation?!”

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Thanks to your bullshit, we are now under siege.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

I didn’t have alien invasion on my 2023 BINGO card.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

The most dangerous place for a black man in America is in a white man’s imagination.

I’m just a talker, trying to find a channel!

Of course you can have champagne before noon. That’s why orange juice was invented.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Every day Vance writes another chapter in the book called “Worst VP Pick Ever”.

It’s a new day. Light all those Biden polls of young people on fire and throw away the ashes.

There are no moderate republicans – only extremists and cowards.

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Quote tweet friends, screenshot enemies.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Hi god, it’s us. Thanks a heap, you’re having a great week and it’s only Thursday!

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Tuesday/Wednesday, 2/25-2/26

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Tuesday/Wednesday, 2/25-2/26

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35Comments

  1. 1.

    Patricia Kayden

    I get that Trump is too dumb to figure out how to handle a possible pandemic outbreak but find it hard to believe that no one surrounding him is able to come up with a plan.  I thought he promised us “the best people.”

    Trump is the broccoli samosa of people— Padma Lakshmi (@PadmaLakshmi) February 24, 2020

  3. 3.

    Sab

    Wash your hands a lot. Every time you come home from outside. Everytime you handle food. Everytime you eat food. Don’t touch your face casually. Stay home if you are sick.

    These are just basics we should all do always.

    We are freaking out about novel corona because it kills us olds. But flu kills lots of tiny children every year and people ignore it.

    Badic hygiene helps a lot.  Wash your hands. Stay home if sick.

  5. 5.

    rikyrah

     

     

    You remember how breathless the MSM was about Ebola leading up to the 2014 Elections?

    Now, we have a probable pandemic, and the GOP has done nothing but cut the staff, refuse to staff, and cut the budgets of those agencies who would have been leading the charge from our government….
    How come THAT isn’t leading the news every hour.?

    To be blunt, the Democrats should be bringing it up everytime they are in front of a camera.

  7. 7.

    Barbara

    I think state public health departments are going to assume a larger role, probably NYC and large health systems as well. They’ve seen how heavily politicized health policy has become.

  8. 8.

    RaflW

    So if the last two days are what it’s like with Trump calming the markets, what’s it gonna be like when the first cases of in-the-wild CV19 start popping in US cities?

    Also, have I said lately, much ballyhooed markets suck at pricing risk? We get all this shit about how gubmit is awful (though Trump is providing this at the moment), but capitalism gets a giant pass as billions in people’s pensions, IRAs and 401(k)s evaporate in a matter of days, with more declines very likely to follow.

  10. 10.

    Betty Cracker

    Sending human Sharpie Larry Kudlow out to reassure Wall Street is a genius move. It couldn’t be more obvious that the Trump admin is more concerned the possibility a pandemic could dent the stock market and Trump’s reelection prospects than the danger to the public. Venal incompetents, the entire lot.

  11. 11.

    Barbara

    @RaflW:  Much depends on the death rate. If it turns out to be approximately no worse than flu, then expect disruption on the lower side. If higher, then we are in new territory. A lot of disruptive effects so far are due to uncertainty and efforts to contain virus until there is greater understanding of its true risks, and maybe a vaccine.

  12. 12.

    RaflW

    @Sab: It’s still early, and data is incomplete, but CV19 appears to kill at a much higher rate than flu. Estimated 2% vs 0.1%, so while I am not panicked, I am seriously concerned.

    We’ve been doing some laying in of basics: analgesics, non-perishables, a dozen boxes of extra soft tissues, things like that. Stuff we’ll use up in the normal course of our lives IF this turns out to be more of a nothing, stateside. But disruption, even if modest, seem likely. Big disruptions, and certainly a hit to global GDP are all too possible.

  13. 13.

    David ??Merry Christmas?? Koch

    {cough, cough} but…  {wheeze} but…  {choking} but…  (gasping for breath} but her emails. {collapses}

  14. 14.

    RaflW

    @Barbara: From an economic standpoint, the disruption is already happening.

    I’m an aviation nerd. This thing is gonna have big repercussions, in part due to where we are in the larger economic cycle.

    Much of Boeing’s (and Airbus, though they aren’t MAXed out) order book is from aggressive and young Asian airlines. Seattle, Wichita, and a number of other big aircraft MFG regions could be hard hit, with knock-on effects.

    Hawaii relies heavily on Japan for tourism. Imagine Las Vegas if we end up in a US ‘shelter place’ phase of pandemic.

  15. 15.

    debbie

    My company, with its usual sense of brilliance in timing, has begun rush cross-training in case people are stuck at home. After thinking about it for the last several years. /eyeroll/

  19. 19.

    Cermet

    Well, since it is not known if this virus will continue into spring, that now is THE question. If it does, and the death rate falls into the 0.4 to 1% range (likely), it will have a massive impact on economic and social aspects throughout the world. On the bright side it certainly will convince people that vaccines are good … .

  20. 20.

    Princess

    @Barbara: It’s not just the death rate. In China, some 15-20% become seriously ill with pneumonia and need expensive interventions. Last time I had the flu I just stayed home. Even if it ends up being half that, it is going to strain even Western hospital capacity

    ETA: the virus is doing fine in Singapore and it is 90 degrees there. Don’t count on it ending in Spring.

  21. 21.

    Geminid

    @Princess: Yeah, I was thinking that “it will likely fade away in the spring” notion was wishful thinking. Then Trump repeated it and I thought, uh-oh, better buy that mask.

  22. 22.

    Andrew Johnston

    Hard to say what to make of the situation this close to the origin. By the numbers, things are stabilizing (“improving” might be a bit strong). On the other hand, nothing has changed on the ground. I’m still stuck here in the middle of nowhere. I’m probably going to end up working remotely, which suggests that no one thinks things will get back to normal by the end of the month. Four weeks of this and I’m not sure how much more I can tolerate, but leaving isn’t really an option.

  23. 23.

    Cermet

    @Princess: I don’t believe its that high; that is because that number of nearly 20%  is based on proven cases – likely far more people got Corona virus, didn’t need to go to the hospital since it was just a flu to them and so weren’t counted. Considering how easy it transmits, likely far more had the illness and the value for seriously ill is more like 1-2%.

    Also, since zero children under the age of ten have died (unlike the so-called “common flu”), I suspect this virus needs an underlying pre-condition to be deadly (i.e. previous damage to the lung via smoking/pollution or health related illness that damaged the lungs.) Conjecture but does makes sense with the data.

    You may be correct in which case, we are royally fuck so, hoping my premise is correct.

  24. 24.

    chopper

    @Geminid:

    yeah, it’s a dumb idea. cold-causing coronaviruses are typically winter viruses. so’s seasonal flu. doesn’t mean swine flu in 2009 took a break when spring came. that’s not the way pandemic flu or this new virus work.

  25. 25.

    YY_Sima Qian

    On the subject of whether a large of number of mild or asymptomatic cases are not being captured by the Chinese authorities: I think outside of Hubei (especially Wuhan) at least the mild cases are mostly being captured. Anyone with temperature higher than 37.3 C needs to report to the community clinics, are captured into the system, and are sent to quarantine facility or self-quarantine at home for medical observation. Since the medical systems in China ex-Hubei have not been overwhelmed, and test kit availability have not been a constraint, my personal opinion is that the data is largely trustworthy, and capturing all but the asymptomatic and the mildest cases.

    Within Hubei, and especially Wuhan, the case numbers from Dec. through Jan. 23 are worthless, for two reasons: first, political pressure to suppress the bad news; second, lack of means of testing (because the virus had not been sequenced) meaning cases were based on tentative clinical diagnosis, skewed toward the severe/critical cases. Clinical diagnosis at the time were also problematic due to then lack of familiarity with the disease. From Jan. 23 – Feb. 11, the confirmed case numbers in Hubei (and especially Wuhan) missed an unknown number of severe/critical cases, and probably a lot of mild cases. At the time, the criteria or confirmation was positive on PCR test kit. Due to both lack of test kits and lack of hospital beds (if you tested positive, hospitals had to take you in), a lot of infected people were stuck in the the “Suspect Cases” pool. For this time period, it is important to look at both the number of confirmed cases and the number of suspect cases in Hubei, they were very close to each other. Of course, not all suspect cases were COVID-19 patients waiting for confirmation. My WAG is 40 – 50% were. I believe the Chinese authorities actually kept (and still keep) tallies of clinically diagnosed cases during that time, because I see figures occasionally referred in new reports , but I cannot find it compiled on publicly available platforms. During those 3 chaotic weeks, when the medical systems in Wuhan collapsed, and the public health parts of government was under extreme duress, people with mild symptoms were encourage to self-quarantine, and few people wanted to go to the extremely overcrowded hospitals (with high risk of cross-infection) unless absolutely necessary. I imagine there were many mild and some severe/critical cases who were not even captured in the “Suspect Cases” pool. On Feb. 12, Hubei changed the definition for confirmation to include clinical diagnosis. In  three days or so, the stock of suspect cases were digested, and either shifted to confirmed or cleared; hence, the huge jumped in confirmed cases at that time. From Feb. 16 – 19, there was a major effort to capture all the cases with symptoms still “in the wild” in Hubei, to get them into the system and into quarantine and treatment facilities (away from their families and the general population). By that time, enough beds have been made available from the two new constructed temporary hospitals, standard wards in existing hospitals converted to isolation wards, and public spaces converted to temporary treatment facilities, that most people with symptoms were willing to report themselves to the authorities. My belief is that the current data in Hubei and Wuhan largely reflect reality, including the vast majority of mild cases, as much as any data collection effort can. The people who do not report themselves (and are not captured at temperature taking check points or reported by their neighbors) are not captured. Those who had mild symptoms and self-healed before Feb. 16 would not have been captured at all. Neither would those who progressed to critical and died before diagnosis and/or confirmation. I mentioned in previous posts that I do not believe Chinese government data will ever include cases in the military and paramilitary, or cases (if any) in the extra-judicial “re-education” facilities in Xinjiang and Tibet.

    On the subject of risk from asymptomatic carriers: I do not believe there is a significant percentage of carriers who stay asymptomatic and thus are impossible to trace. If there is indeed a large percentage of un-captured asymptomatic or very mild cases, then as ~ 100 million Chinese workers returned to work (or their places of work) since Feb. 10, we should have seen a spike in new cases the Yangtze and Pearl River Deltas, and the Beijing-Tianjin region, regions with the largest intake of returning migrants. Either the asymptomatic cohort is vanishingly small, or they are not contagious (in which case, they are irrelevant, other than of academic interest). To me, the biggest risk is actually from the infected persons who are currently asymptomatic or very mild, but contagious, but will eventually progress to more noticeable symptoms. That is why the regional lock downs and the 14 day quarantines of people who travel from infected areas are critical. It allows the symptoms of the infected to present, and for the infected persons to be identified and isolated.

    On the subject of whether the “China Model” can or should be imitated: to me, that is the wrong question. First, Bruce Aylward is correct that the Chinese response to the epidemic has been varied and fluid, with the central authorities setting the objective and the general guidelines and marshalling resources, a great deal of local experimentation tailoring to specific local circumstances (some times to over-zealotry and excess), the successful experiments are quickly copied to the rest of the country where appropriate, the unsuccessful ones reined in or stopped. It is not just the measures taken in Wuhan and Hubei. In this way, it is similar to the larger Chinese model of governance since the start of the Reform and Opening period. The trend toward centralization of power and authority in the Xi Jinping era reduced the scope of local experimentation and initiative, but the scale and speed of the COVID-19 challenge forced Beijing to delegation many of the containment decisions to provincial and municipal government to speed up the response. Depending on the scale of the local outbreak, the containment methods can be more, or less, draconian and coercive. I think any national and local policy makers in the world can investigate the broad range of measures employed across China (and what is being deployed in South Korea and Italy, for that matter), and reference the ones more appropriate to their circumstances. In fact, some of the tougher measures were first introduced in provinces other than Hubei, then adopted in Wuhan. In each case, I would say Wuhan should have adopted them sooner, would have prevented some cases of infection, reduced the loading on the overstretched medical system, saved some lives, and prevented some tragedies.

    One example is that, over the past several weeks in Wuhan, residents’ movement in and out of apartment complexes have become increasing restricted. It started as people strongly encouraged to stay home and shop for groceries online, but still free to go out to markets and supermarkets to stock up if that is their choice. Then it became communities were encouraged to purchase standard packages of vegetables/meats arranged by property management, and only one designated member per family were allowed to go outside every two days to shop. Then supermarkets were required to only allow a certain number of people in at a time, and those waiting in line had to keep 1 – 1.5m spacing, as marked on the pavements. Then the government closed all supermarkets and stopped all delivery services, and residents have to purchase the standard packages from property management or neighborhood committees. I assume these evermore restrictive measures were put in place because contact tracing found supermarkets and delivery boys to be persistent vectors for transmission. I have actually read case reports on Chinese media that support this. For the residents, the choices become more limited, and getting grocery more of a nuisance (but a safer exercise), and no one we know of is in danger of starvation or malnutrition.

    I find the soul searching over whether some measures are too draconian for western democracies overwrought in the context of public health crisis. Just about every democratic government is endowed with emergency powers to respond to extraordinary situations. If a Wuhan-like wildfire starts to rage, I think those powers will be invoked, with those powers the authorities will be able to implement policies that we have seen in China (even in Wuhan), and IMO it would be the appropriate response. Then it becomes a questions of the organizing capability and capacity of the government in question. That the situation has remained calm even in Wuhan is not just due to the compliance and sense of duty of the vast majority of the population, it is also because public utilities and services have not been interrupted, and basic necessities met. If there had been water/power/natural gas/internet outage for extended period of time, or significant food shortages, I think there would have been a flood of people trying to breach the lock down, and possibly rioting in the streets.

    The danger of invoking emergency power, IMHO is that there has been a trend of some liberal or new democracies sliding toward illiberalism, populism and authoritarianism. With some of the characters currently in charge, some countries may find it difficult to return entirely to the status ante, before the emergency.

  26. 26.

    dnfree

    I read these threads but don’t comment because I have nothing useful to contribute. But I appreciate the effort and the information!

  27. 27.

    chris

    @YY_Sima Qian: Thanks for your excellent reporting and…JFC!

    The danger of invoking emergency power, IMHO is that there has been a trend of some liberal or new democracies sliding toward illiberalism, populism and authoritarianism. With some of the characters currently in charge, some countries may find it difficult to return entirely to the status ante, before the emergency.

    That’s chilling. And had already occurred to me.

  28. 28.

    ziggy

    The situation in Iran is ugly, with Harirchi coming down with the virus, and the ridiculous and obviously false statements coming out of the government. If I was an Iranian citizen, I would have zero confidence in the ability of the government to handle this properly. The virus arising in China is almost a best case scenario, due to the factors YY Sima Qian outlines.

    What concerns me is the ease which with this virus could have been weaponized and introduced into Iran. Find someone (or a few people) mildly ill and pay them a large amount of money, give them the necessary forged documents, and a travel plan that includes lots of crowds, as well as a few government buildings.

  30. 30.

    Dupe1970

    @Sab: While I agree with you overall, the mortality rate between influenza and COVID-19 appears to be dramatically different. That is a big concern.

  31. 31.

    Barbara

    @Princess: That’s a really good point.  There are people whose symptoms remain mild or manageable without significant intervention, but it also appears that compared to the flu, there is a higher rate of people whose symptoms are manageable or non-lethal, but only with significant medical support.

    We were talking about this in a work meeting yesterday, and it turns out one of my colleagues is really nervous because he has had asthma his whole life.

    @RaflW: Travel related services are going to be hit really hard this year.  There is no way to spin that. There is disruption and there will be more, but how much more does depend on how the disease actually behaves.

  32. 32.

    Barbara

    @Cermet: I think there will be a contingent of people who will insist that the vaccines either caused the disease (because they are that stupid) or that their immune systems are virtuous, just like them, and they can handle it. There is no stupidity quite like anti-vaxxer stupidity, because it masquerades so thoroughly as self-love.

  33. 33.

    J R in WV

    @Barbara:

    I love me as much as it is possible to love someone. And that is one of the reasons I seek out vaccinations for any disease I might someday encounter. Of course I got a crap-ton of vaccinations while in boot camp, and have been to the public health offices in both my rural home county and downtown for various vaccinations.

    Got a flu  shot at the local high school once, along with many others — I forget the exact circumstances, other than that the vaccine was scarce and my primary care doctor told us the health department was the place to go at that point.

    Hoping that local county health departments continue to show professionalism in the face of this virus. Beloved next door neighbor works for the more urban county health department next to our rural county… been neighbors and good friends for 40+ years now.

  34. 34.

    Dev Null

    I haven’t been following comments the past couple of months, so apologies if someone has already made similar comparisons:

    1. The UK has tested more than 7100 people as of this morning.
    2. The US has tested fewer than 500 as of yesterday.
    3. The population of the UK is about 68M.
    4. The population of the US is about 330M.

    With a population about 1/5 of the US population, the UK has run 14x more tests than the US.

    South Korea, with a population of about 51M, has run more than 40K tests; I haven’t looked for the official number.

    The UK recently (I didn’t see a date) introduced limited / experimental home tests.

    (Dr.) Rasmussen discusses test technology here.

    E2A: As of yesterday PM, the CDC still did not know when their tests would be ready for distribution to regional facilities.

    And this.

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