Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

As long as McCarthy is Speaker, the House will never be in order.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Meanwhile over at truth Social, the former president is busy confessing to crimes.

We cannot abandon the truth and remain a free nation.

Consistently wrong since 2002

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

Roe isn’t about choice, it’s about freedom.

“woke” is the new caravan.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

The willow is too close to the house.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

Ron DeSantis, the grand wizard, oops, governor of FL

You can’t love your country only when you win.

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

This fight is for everything.

Republicans: slavery is when you own me. freedom is when I own you.

Everybody saw this coming.

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

Trump’s legal defense is going to be a dumpster fire inside a clown car on a derailing train.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

American History and Black History Cannot Be Separated

White supremacy is terrorism.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Tuesday / Wednesday, 3/3 – 3/4

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Tuesday / Wednesday, 3/3 – 3/4

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Thoughts & prayers, Seattle readers…


I’ve been privately worried about coronavirus in Indonesia for some time. It’s the world’s fourth most populous nation, with the largest Muslim population of any country (lots of religious travel to the Middle East), and shares approximately the same sort of intensive ‘business relationship’ with China as Mexico does with the U.S. And yet, officially, there were *no* coronavirus cases in Indonesia until this week…


Science reports “Indonesia finally reports two coronavirus cases. Scientists worry it has many more”:

Indonesia finally reported its first two COVID-19 cases on Monday. At a press conference in Jakarta, President Joko Widodo announced that two women aged 31 and 64 from Depok had contracted the virus. But some scientists believe the country, which has close ties to China, almost certainly has a “silent epidemic” within its borders and should urgently boost its surveillance efforts.

Scientists at the Eijkman Institute for Molecular Biology tell Science they have offered to the Indonesian Ministry of Health to help test more people, but have been snubbed so far…

But epidemiologists have long said COVID-19’s absence in the world’s fourth most populous nation was implausible, given the large number of visitors—both for tourism and business—from nearby China. A modeling study based on the number of travelers from Wuhan, published by a team at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health on bioRxiv on 11 February, concluded that even then, it was unlikely that Indonesia did not have a single COVID-19 case. (Indonesian Minister of Health Terawan Agus Putranto called the study insulting and later said the lack of cases was the result of prayer.)

Today, “It’s statistically impossible that we only have two cases,” says Ahmad Utomo of the Stem Cell and Cancer Research Institute.

So far, all testing for COVID-19 has taken place at the health ministry’s National Institute of Health Research and Development (Balitbangkes). The lab can handle 1000 samples per day, says Ahmad Yurianto of the health ministry’s Disease Control and Prevention Directorate. Since the start of the epidemic, Balitbangkes has only tested 333 people, however…

Small ray of hope?

When it comes to playing games, can’t beat the IOC!

Speaking of hopeless cases…

Reader Interactions

15Comments

  1. 1.

    Dan B

    South Seattle resident.  Many neighbors are Chinese but not travelers that we know.  Most Chinese restaurants are experiencing very slow business.  The Mayor has even reported this.  She needs a photo op since telling people business is down is more likely to encourage confirmation bias.  There was a story going around that 38%of beer drinkers were never drinking Corona again.  Probably an urban legend.

    The grocery I shop at, a coop, is taking measures to reduce the spread but many of the shelves were empty a few days ago – pasta, tomato sauce, TP, etc.

    Opiejeanne and Mr. O are very close to Kirkland where the nursing home is located.  So is a client’s clinic.

    It will be interesting to see what happens to Amazon since they have a confirmed case.  Boeing and Microsoft are forecasting lower or flat earnings due to supply chain issues, and Boeing due also to reduced travel.

  2. 2.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    This is in California; At work today HR sent out an email that anyone with a fever was to stay home and if a manager had an employee who had a feaver they were to send them home, that meetings that could be done over the phone were to be done that way and people who could work at home were to do so.  I guess the Chines CEO is taking this seriously.

  3. 3.

    JPL

    @Dan B: Thank you.   There are two confirmed cases in Fulton Cty., GA and they are at home, so the local store shelves are now empty.   I didn’t understand the buying frenzy until I saw the letter sent out from a temple in New Rochelle, NY advising their congregation to self quarantine.

  4. 4.

    Shalimar

    @Dan B: I think the poll was 38% would never drink Corona.  4% said it was because of the virus.  The rest apparently just don’t like it or want to like it.

  5. 5.

    Princess

    My uncle died in Indonesia in late January, in Bali which is a major tourist destination for China. He had COPD. I have wondered whether COVID-19 played a role. I have no evidence at all of this. But I have wondered.

  6. 6.

    Uncle Cosmo

    This is a bit concerning (from Begley at StatNews):

    Some of the most serious symptoms of Covid-19 result from an immune system on the rampage rather than a lethargic one, Chinese scientists found: An extreme immune response called cytokine storm, a flood of immune cells and the biochemicals they produce, tears through lung tissue.

    For context, recall that the prime suspect in the lethality of the socalled Spanish Flu of 1918-19 is pretty much this, overreaction of the immune system. OTOH, cytokine storm has been invoked to explain why the earlier virus had its most severe effects amongst healthy younger victims with (one presumes) stronger immune systems. Which is the opposite of what’s been observed here.

    Also, a single research result.

    Conclusion: Bears monitoring but at this point not much more.

  7. 7.

    Feathers

    @Dan B: @JPL: From what I recall the question was would you buy Corona beer now? No – 38%. Same question, with and have you previously ever bought Corona beer? 4%

    There was also the observation that even though if you liked Corona beer and knew damn well it has nothing to do with the virus, you just might not want to hear people’s shitty jokes about it right now if they saw it in your fridge.

  8. 8.

    Emma

    Funnily enough, the school district where Kirkland is (and where I work) seems to be the least freaked out by all this compared to the district just north of us, who closed a high school for 2 days last week for disinfection, and then closed all schools yesterday to train teachers in tele-teaching or whatever the term is. I’m just praying that the last day of school remains on a Friday, and that we don’t bleed over into Monday in the last week of June.

  12. 12.

    opiejeanne

    @ziggy: My niece wants to get together for a birthday party soon, and after discussing it we decided not to go to a restaurant, but to have a potluck instead. No one thought going out for supper was appealing.

    mr opiejeanne turns 73 tomorrow, I turn 70 on Monday, our son-in-law has a birthday toward the end of March (we have it written down).

    My sister’s was on the first but she still lives in SoCal, so maybe we can have a video visit with her. She seems unconcerned about all of this, just got back from a month in Switzerland with her younger daughter, and is going out to restaurants twice this week. In fact, her neighbors and friends all seem unconcerned about the virus.

  14. 14.

    opiejeanne

    The death count in WA is now 10. They added another death from Feb 26 that they just identified as the result of COVID-19. Is back-identified a useful term?

  15. 15.

    opiejeanne

    The total is now 11, and the first death is recorded in California, in Placer County.

Comments are closed.