3. As of 10 a.m. Geneva time Monday, there were 8774 #Covid19 cases outside of China, 1598 in the previous 24 hours. There've been 128 deaths, 24 in the last day. This isn't just a China problem anymore.
This virus likes to spread. pic.twitter.com/oH1HyXwJ3L— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) March 3, 2020
One of the best media interactions that I had last week was with a producer of this excellent episode of @LastWeekTonight on #COVID19 . Highly recommended viewing! https://t.co/G6GpKGdhW6
— Jennifer Nuzzo, DrPH (@JenniferNuzzo) March 2, 2020
"We are in uncharted territory."
The WHO's director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on the "right measures" needed to contain the #coronavirus pic.twitter.com/cyGjE8bdne
— QuickTake by Bloomberg (@QuickTake) March 3, 2020
Daily #covid19 sitrep from @WHO is up (numbers as of 10am Geneva time):
China:
80174 (+206) cases
2915 (+42) deathsOutside China:
8774 (+1598) cases
in 64 (+6)countries
128 (+24) deathsNew countries: Armenia, Czechia, Dominican Republic, Luxembourg, Iceland, Indonesia
— Kai Kupferschmidt (@kakape) March 2, 2020
Anti-coronavirus measures no one tells you (trust me I’m a biochemist ??): cut your nails or wash under them every time; don’t touch toilet door handles after washing hands (plenty of ppl don’t); alcohol-based sanitizers (with >60% alcohol) kill viruses, others mainly bacteria.
— Yuan Ren (@girlinbeijing) March 2, 2020
For those tracking #COVID19, some important data (also, leave it to the risk managers to have these tools!): https://t.co/sREbEgQJZT
1) List of TRAVEL restrictions by country: https://t.co/rmV5etGAqV
2) List of AIRLINE restrictions by country and airline: https://t.co/QuNsDZBVzN— Jen Kates (@jenkatesdc) March 2, 2020
Very informative! Iranian health professional uses paint to demonstrate spots we often miss when washing hands in the wake of #Coronavirus outbreak. At the end she shows how to safely remove disposable gloves without touching the polluted surface. pic.twitter.com/FfdzfSvKWS
— Ali Noorani (@ali_noorani_teh) February 24, 2020
Who's in the race to develop a #Covid19 vaccine or drug? At what stage are they and what's their approach? @damiangarde has produced a handy little cheat sheet. https://t.co/Ec8ytdXhsJ
— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) March 2, 2020
Instead of spending your money on masks consider buying my patent pending product FaceOff. Rubber bands around your wrist anchor to your hips and as you reach for your face the tension reminds you to stop. pic.twitter.com/X21S60Sg2L
— Rose Eveleth ▷▷ (@roseveleth) March 2, 2020
===
Really good Q&A by @juliaoftoronto with Bruce Aylward, who led the @WHO joint mission to China on #covid19. https://t.co/nNN2HLsnPv
— Dr. Tara C. Smith (@aetiology) March 3, 2020
On Friday the report of the joint @WHO-China mission on #covid19 came out and I’m surprised there hasn’t been more coverage of it, since it seems one of the crucial documents of this epidemic. Story from @sciencecohen and me is here, short thread to come. https://t.co/X6tTeQv5OV
— Kai Kupferschmidt (@kakape) March 2, 2020
It wasn’t a ‘short’ thread, but it’s worth reading the whole thing:
That means (to pick a few things):
⁰- intensive contact tracing. In Wuhan alone > 1800 teams of 5 or more people traced tens of thousands of contacts
– building two dedicated hospitals in Wuhan and pulling health care workers from all over the country— Kai Kupferschmidt (@kakape) March 2, 2020
Beijing virus controls tightening, as top leaders say capital must be safe. Office building rang 1st thing to ask if any quarantined staff would be coming to work & to say only 1/3 of our staff may be in office at any time. Here’s latest must-carry apartment block, office passes pic.twitter.com/qPmstb7mto
— David Rennie ??? (@DSORennie) March 2, 2020
To fight the coronavirus China is undertaking its biggest experiment yet in rule by data: an app that automates quarantines. Alibaba software, using unexplained data, now decides whether millions can leave their home. It also shares data with the police. https://t.co/uCqHH4DIIZ
— Paul Mozur ??? (@paulmozur) March 2, 2020
Scoop: Data we have obtained show that in one Chinese prov, asymptomatic #COVID19 cases exceed 1 in 6 individuals tested positive, but are kept out of published "confirmed cases," suggesting scale of epidemic larger than acknowledged. With @michaelmina_labhttps://t.co/krsOjslt0d
— Dave Yin ??? (@yindavid) March 2, 2020
===
Just finished interview with Dr. Fauci, US director of infectious diseases. Hour-long interview. Detailed. He said: We're dealing with clearly an emerging infectious disease that has “now reached outbreak proportions and likely pandemic proportions.”
— Richard Engel (@RichardEngel) March 2, 2020
Medical experts at the White House have to patiently explain to Trump that his idea of using the flu vaccine to address the coronavirus will not work. pic.twitter.com/acghVStSvK
— Oliver Willis (@owillis) March 2, 2020
He’s used to trials without evidence, so what else do you expect? https://t.co/3KO5FnBsy3
— George Conway (@gtconway3d) March 3, 2020
If you don't follow lots of Seattle people, you're probably not seeing the disconcerting string of "Huh, it's been here 6 weeks, I wonder if that thing I had a few weeks ago was it, if I knew there was a chance I wouldn't have risked infecting all those people" posts that I am.
— David Watkins (@djw172) March 2, 2020
In case you’re interested, I’ve created this list of trusted epidemiologists, public health experts, researchers, agencies, health and infectious disease journalists who are providing real time information on the COVID-19 outbreak. https://t.co/96er9P3FfB
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 2, 2020
Important context from @mlipsitch:
"This is not an existential threat. It is very much like a bad pandemic of influenza, which we experienced arguably twice or three times in the 20th century, but none of those brought civilization to its knees….and this won't either." https://t.co/Si8vSEP2Yc
— Carl T. Bergstrom (@CT_Bergstrom) March 3, 2020
Christine Lagarde joined the crowd of leading central bankers pledging to take action if needed against the economic damage from the coronavirus outbreak https://t.co/amSaOpeHcE
— Bloomberg (@business) March 3, 2020
Twitter told its 5,000 employees to work from home because of the coronavirus https://t.co/cS6Df7SuGF
— Vox (@voxdotcom) March 3, 2020
Brachiator
Discount any advice that includes the phrase “trust me.”
Otherwise great post, as always. The praise Dr Jennifer Nuzzo offered to the John Oliver show was especially noteworthy.
It’s a weird sign of the times when satirical shows are often better than the information coming from the Trump Administration (which is a farce, not a satire).
JPL
Imagine if they gave trump a surprise quiz to see if he was paying attention.
OzarkHillbilly
@JPL: Imagine if trump was a human being.
OzarkHillbilly
What’s the old saw about fooling some of the people all of the time?
Rob
My wife told me about this song this morning: La Cumbia del Coronavirus by Mister Cumbia. A tune to take your mind off of things.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zG7KShvqg9A
(there’s no actual video, just an image and the tune)
YY_Sima Qian
I find the decision by Chinese National Health Commission to count the asymptomatic with positive test results separately from confirmed to be curious. It’s not like an extra 16% on top of the daily confirmed numbers over the past month would change the overall trend or narrative. And the asymptomatic positives are being kept track of and quarantined. The numbers do not show up on the tabulation APPs, but they are there in the Joint China-WHO Mission report. Similarly, the daily data dump from China NHC does not break down the suspect cases (and changes thereof) or the severe and critical cases by geographical locations, only the national totals, but daily local government press releases routine include such information. Not sure why China makes it more cumbersome for people to analyze the data, since it is clearly not being kept secret.
I would also need to see the actual government document from Heilongjiang, referred to in the Caixin report. 1 out of 6 cases being asymptomatic does not align with the data and the conclusions from the Joint Mission report, that there are very few truly asymptomatic cases in the wild, and the vast majority of asymptomatic cases eventually develop symptoms. If there were truly 104 asymptomatic cases in Heilongjiang on Feb. 25, then we should have seen a steady increase in confirmed cases over the past week. Instead, not a single new confirmed case has been reported over that span. If the percentage of asymptomatic but contagious cases is really that high, then Chinese containment measures would have no hope of succeeding, particularly as more than 100 millions people have already returned to work since Feb. 10. Maybe 104 is the cumulative number of asymptomatic cases since start of data records, but that is a meaningless metric, since it would just be a temporary bin for cases that later develop symptoms and shift to confirmed, like suspect cases…
I continue to shake my head at western commentators (even scientists) making overwrought statements about human rights versus draconian countermeasures. What about the human rights of those who will perish due to lack of effective measures being taken, those of their families, and those who recover but are faced with lasting side effects and financial bankruptcy, or those who suffer in the economic recession/depression as the pandemic slowly courses through the population? The Joint Mission report estimated that the Chinese containment measures prevented (or at least significantly delayed) hundreds of thousands of infections, which translates to thousands of deaths. If there had been multiple Wuhans raging across China, the CFR of China ex-Hubei would not have been 0.9%, but the 4+% seen in Wuhan, and CFR in Wuhan would have been even higher because reinforcement would not have been forthcoming.
The Joint Mission was quite clear in its report that there is no single “China Model”, but a range of measures were adopted and adapted depending the local situation. Governments can pick and choose what is appropriate or palatable. If one does not let the situation get to Jan. 23 Wuhan level, then massive lock down of a metropolitan area should not be necessary, and one can be more selective in the quarantine measures. If one is really proactive with testing, contact tracing and isolation of confirmed/suspect cases, like Singapore (also benefiting from limited points of entry), then no “Chinese style” draconian measures need apply. However, if the situation does get out of hand, then governments should absolutely take extraordinary measures. Even in democracies, the tools are there, in the emergency ordinances.
As someone who lives in the center of the storm in Wuhan, through the anxious days of late Jan. to early Feb., I cannot emphasize enough that the greatest human tragedies (none touched my family, fortunately) I had known are not people getting stir crazy in their small flats, binge watching TV dramas, honing their culinary skills, surfing the web, and gaining weight. The real tragedies were viscerally illustrated by the pleas from desperate people asking for help on social media, as their symptomatic parents or grandparents get turn away from hospital after hospital due to lack of beds, and watching them slowly succumb to suffocation, sometimes without even a diagnosis let alone confirmation; and from pleas by medical workers and hospital staff begging the general public for PPE supplies, while forced to the front lines without proper equipment, and do so anyway. Any government has a responsibility to its citizens to prevent this from happening, or to turn the situation around as quickly as possible if it has happened. If the effort requires going to war footing, so be it. At such times, the population wants to know that everything possible is being done to keep them safe, or least that there will be light at the end of the tunnel.
If people in western democracies truly have faith in their/our democratic institutions and values, then they should be confident that their countries can end the war footing effort when it is no longer needed, and return to normal. Or, take decisive action early enough so that war footing (and the restrictions on civil liberties that imply) is not needed. The problem is, as an American, that faith is less than rock solid.
YY_Sima Qian
I think when people in the West hear about draconian containment measures in China, some of them think of YouTube videos of people being welded into their apartments, or being dragged kicking and screaming into ambulances into quarantine (concentration camps in some fevered imaginations). All of them are either isolated incidents or simply taken out of context. The welding of doors happened in some Tier 4 city, by overzealous community workers to keep a suspect case from repeatedly breaching self-quarantine. It was rounded criticized on social media, and those responsible quickly reprimanded. If a suspect case cannot respect a self-quarantine, I fully support having him/her dragged (kicking and screaming, if necessary) into quarantine facility. The makeshift aid facilities where mild cases are treated are indeed rustic, with rows upon rows of bunk beds. However, the patients are generally kept warm and well fed, and medical personnel administering medicine or IV to ameliorate their mild symptoms. If anyone develop into severe or critical conditions, he/she is quickly transferred to one of the designated hospitals. The suspect cases and close contacts are quarantined in cheap hotels and university dormitories. Hardly luxurious, or even comfortable, but not exactly inhumane, either.
The lock downs in Wuhan and across China are enforced not by the police or the military. China has some of the lowest police to population ratio in the world, and the vast majority of them unarmed. The military and paramilitary are not on the streets in force. Its only the meagerly paid security guards manning the gates of the residential compounds, along with property management workers, workers from the neighborhood committees, as well as volunteers from the community. Arms bands and thermo guns are all they are armed with. If people in China are largely cooperating with the lock downs and quarantines, they are doing so out of self-interest, not fear.
Interestingly, South Korea seems to have taken the recommendations from the Joint Mission report to heart, and aggressively testing, tracing and imposing social distancing. President Moon just declared the nation to be on war footing, in fight against the epidemic.
opiejeanne
@YY_Sima Qian: Thank you for this report.
And, how long before N. Korea interprets that “war footing” in S. Korea as a threat to their country?
ziggy
@opiejeanne: IIRC, you are really in the belly of the beast, how are you doing?
I am just steaming over the testing situation. China gave us the precious gift of time, with their draconian measures, and the powers that be in the US have completely squandered it! We don’t have near enough effective tests, and that is going to result in much more tragedy. Countries like South Korea, Taiwan, England are making us look like a third world country with their efficient, accurate and free testing. This is ridiculous!
There are reports all over of people that have symptoms (some quite severe), live in affected areas, or have contact with those from affected areas, and can’t get testing. IMHO the number of positive cases reported is pretty much meaningless, obviously the number of actual cases is much, much higher, they just haven’t been tested. The CDC now has taken the number of cases tested info off of their website (too embarrassing?!).
I’m assuming that before long I will be exposed to the virus. I’m not worried as I’m quite healthy, but I work for a lot of elderly people, so I will need to be careful.
ziggy
Yep, it’s a shame, but I can’t see the measures taken in China flying in the US. The mindset is too different. It’s a mess here, obviously. Thanks again for your insight.
Bill Arnold
@YY_Sima Qian:
[First, thank you for your regular writing on this.]
Yeah, I thinking about the Chinese approaches to epidemic control as a real-time experiment. Impressive so far.
People in Western democracies are concerned about the stickiness of emergency powers, yes. We were discussing this (lack of faith) last night in another thread, e.g. https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/01/presidential-emergency-powers/576418/
opiejeanne
@ziggy: We are fine. We still go out to forage for groceries and supplies, but the idea of eating out has certainly lost its appeal. I’m not very worried about catching it, more worried about mr opiejeanne.
I feel like I should keep a diary like Defoe’s “Journal of the Plague Year”. It’s fascinating to watch this all unfolding, Mike Pence being exposed to the coronavirus (shook hands with cadets who have a classmate/roommate who has it), people not buying Corona beer because they think they’ll get the virus, or Chinese food for the same reason.
I got a little argument on Friday from mr opiejeanne when we went to Costco early that morning. he kept telling me we weren’t out of this or that, and I kept having to remind him what we were doing. He has stopped arguing, after seeing people over-buying but also seeing the many empty shelves, and the run on alcohol wipes for injections, we think by people who couldn’t find the Clorox Wipes. I got the last pack so I have about 18 months now, because Costco. I yelled at someone on twitter yesterday who suggested buying those if people couldn’t find Clorox wipes.
On Sunday there were lines to get into Costco. They sold out of ALL of the toilet paper on Sunday in more than one location. We saw people buying 4 of those mega-packs. We bought one, and one large pack of paper towels. They’re in the garage and we won’t touch them until we need to.
I swear, it’s like getting ready to be snowed in for a month. I even ordered some shelf stable milk, something I’ve never done before.
Doesn’t look like the trip to France is happening, but Iceland Air hasn’t cancelled the flight yet. The staff at The Louvre voted to close, over the objections of management, so probably a lot more things will be closed by late April. This isn’t going away just because the weather warms up. If we don’t go, we’ll just hunker down here and garden like mad.
Haggens in Woodinville looked like they were recovering from a tornado inside. We went at 6am thinking they would have finished re-stocking the shelves, but they were still hard at work, especially in produce. They were sold out of a lot of sweet potatoes and Spanish onions, but there were “sweet” onions. I still have green scallions in the garden. We picked up a bag of small onions, a bag of red potatoes, and some meat to go in the freezer. There was lots of food available, just not everything you might want. The roadside market in Bothell called Yakima won’t be open until tomorrow… well, they hope it will open tomorrow. I hope it will open tomorrow, but I don’t know what to expect when it does, because people have lost their damned minds. What is with buying every head of cabbage in the store?
The cashier said that yesterday, Monday, it was a madhouse. Silly me, I thought everyone would be back at work and the store would have recovered by today.
opiejeanne
@ziggy: The body count is now 7. A person died last Wednesday and was not originally counted as having the virus, but they have now been added to the WA total. Stupid CDC, dragging their feet on testing people who haven’t been to China. They died in Seattle at Harborview.
I’m guessing that this revelation, a person who was not in isolation AFAICT, will make the number of sidelined personnel skyrocket. We already have something like 27 first responders who are quarantined, a whole fire station shuttered to become the site of quarantine.
YY_Sima Qian
@opiejeanne: Based on the actions taken by the NK regime, like closing schools and cancelling events, and an aggressive public awareness campaign, my WAG is they are on war footing themselves with the epidemic.
YY_Sima Qian
@ziggy: Locking down a metropolitan area? Probably not, since there could more than one epicenter in the US going forward. Aggressive testing and contact tracing, prompt isolation of confirmed/suspect/close contacts? Should be doable, but are not being done.
opiejeanne
And the death count is now 9.
Those people in the Life Care Center are living in a Petri dish, just like the people stuck on that cruise ship off of Japan. They can’t leave, their families can’t visit them; they are elderly and have health problems, they are just sitting ducks.
KrackenJack
I watched the Iranian health professional video twice and then went to sink to test my usual hand washing technique against hers. I like to think I’m pretty through, but her fingernail technique is faster and more through than mine. I needed more thumb attention, too.
I occasionally use rubber gloves for bike work, so the removal technique was interesting as well.
Thank you AL for sharing that!
YY_Sima Qian
@opiejeanne: There has been an outbreak in a nursing facility in Wuhan, as well, with equally bad consequences. There are a lot more nursing homes scattered across the US. Time is now to enact procedures to prevent the virus from entering these facilities.
Likewise with prisons and sanitariums.
From press photos, it does not appear that the vast majority of medical workers handling confirmed or suspect COVID-19 cases are any better than those in Wuhan in late Jan. That is recipe for rapid and significant attrition of medical personnel from infection or quarantine…
ziggy
@opiejeanne:
This thread is probably long dead also. But anyway–my sisters both live in Seattle and they are also in “hunker down” mode. Don’t leave the house if you don’t absolutely have to, no eating out, no get-togethers. One of them is actually very sick with a fever and respiratory symptoms, she gets everything that goes around. No point in going to the doctor unless it gets worse.
Down here in Olympia we’re still making dark jokes and going out, but hoarding a bit. Me and my husband are going to eat out as much and as long as we possibly can, to support our favorite places. I don’t think we would do that around the Eastside though.