Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Speaker Mike Johnson is a vile traitor to the House and the Constitution.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

These are not very smart people, and things got out of hand.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

This really is a full service blog.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

My years-long effort to drive family and friends away has really paid off this year.

I would try pessimism, but it probably wouldn’t work.

Fear or fury? The choice is ours.

I like political parties that aren’t owned by foreign adversaries.

The real work of an opposition party is to hold the people in power accountable.

The lights are all blinking red.

Conservatism: there are people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

White supremacy is terrorism.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

You can’t attract Republican voters. You can only out organize them.

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

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

You come for women, you’re gonna get your ass kicked.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

I’d like to think you all would remain faithful to me if i ever tried to have some of you killed.

Hot air and ill-informed banter

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update (International) – Tuesday/Wednesday, March 31 – April 1

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update (International) – Tuesday/Wednesday, March 31 – April 1

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  1. 1.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Far as I’m concerned, you can line ever ransomeware hacker you find up against a wall and machine gun him to jelly in a bit of summary justice. Televise it and run it on pay per view.

    Ransomeware hacking would stop.

  2. 2.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Under popular pressure, and to assuage popular concerns, the China National Health Commission is finally starting to publicly report asymptomatic cases in daily reports, from Apr. 1. According to the NHC, there are currently 1541 asymptomatic cases in Mainland China, include 203 imported cases. Hubei supposedly added 47 asymptomatic cases yesterday. They are being found through contact tracing, screening at hospital ERs and out-patient clinics (for non-COVID illness) and possibly community survey.

    These cases have always been tracked, quarantined under medical observation, and their close contacts also traced and isolated. However, they have not been not counted as confirmed cases since early Feb., with the publishing of the 2nd edition of the National Prevention, Control and Treatment Guidelines. Only if the asymptomatic cases turn out to be pre-symptomatic, and eventually develop symptoms, would they then be counted as confirmed.

    During the height of the epidemic, with daily increases of hundreds or thousands of new confirmed cases, asymptomatics were probably a small minority and not the focus of people’s and the authority’s attention. With newly reported confirmed cases (non-imports) dropping to nearly zero across Mainland China over the past weeks, these cases take on a new significance. There have been published case reports that describe isolated confirmed cases possibly being infected by asymptomatic ones, and social media reports of several instances of ambulance taking someone away from his/her residence, while the local authorities reporting no new confirmed cases for that day. These reports have caused a lot of anxiety and skepticism among the Chinese population in recent days, and fueled discussion online and in mass media, which is probably why the NHC felt compelled to change course. The authorities probably aIso wanted to warn the public to guard against complacency in personal hygiene and social distancing.

    I never understood why asymptomatic cases were not publicly reported in the first place, even as a separate category. I think part of it is different case categorization/definition in China. China literally categorizes cases by diagnosis: 确诊病例 (confirmed patients, symptomatic and tested positive), 疑似病例 (suspect patients, symptomatic and testing negative), 亲密接触者 (close contacts, under quarantine and observation), 无症状感染者 (asymptomatic infected, under quarantine and observation). The last two categories are not considered patients, and had not been included in the daily NHC data dumps. They have been some times disclosed in more comprehensive reports or news articles, and have been some times reported at the local level. True asymptomatic cases (as opposed to pre-symptomatic) are analogous to HIV+ carriers, as opposed to AIDS patients.

    The big questions is how infectious are the true asymptomatics, and are they a major driver of transmission, and the answer to date is still inconclusive. Very little study has been published that track the viral loading and shedding of asymptomatic cases, although one case in Guangdong apparently exhibited similar viral loading in upper respiratory tract and nasal cavity as symptomatic cases. My personal opinion is that true asymptomatics are not large percentage of the infected population and not a major driver of transmission. If they were, Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and Vietnam would never have been successful at containment, South Korea would not have bent the curve and achieved suppression, and China would have seen a large second wave by now. I think the pre-symptomatics and mild to very mild cases remain the real challenge.

  3. 3.

    WereBear

    It’s eerie. Locked down, I watched Cherobyl with Mr WereBear, who had seen it when it premiered. This led me to a book about it, Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster.

    Both works illuminate how a totalitarian regime, devoted to lies and public relations and pretending, leads inevitably to the kind of giant catastrophe which upends empires.

    It’s not even about politics. The Catholic Church in Europe was a similar ruler, riddled with corruption, devoted to what it perceived as its own interests. This left the door open to the rebellion of the masses, needing only a spark for their influence to crumble and, eventually, wane.

    Like now, as fundamentalism defies the virus; and endangers us all. That, like Fox News’ behavior of late, is going to be remembered.

  4. 4.

    Dirk Reinecke

    Here in South Africa we are currently in day 6 of 21 lockdown days. President Ramaphosa announced the lockdown when the amount of tested cases had reached 800. It seems to be working.

  5. 5.

    WereBear

    Discovering that other nations are dealing with leaders even stupider than the tRump administration is not happy making. But it does suggest we have a path out, when there are areas with real leadership from governors who live in the 21st century.

  6. 6.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @WereBear: I rewatched the series over the weekend, as well. I remember telling my wife and in-laws back in late Jan., as the epidemic was exploding in Wuhan, that I thought the CCP regime’s tendency toward opacity, secrecy and bureaucratic inertia toward sweeping bad news under the rug, made such crises more likely develop in China; however, given its extraordinary capability and capacity for organization and mobilization, and healthy respect by the central leadership to science and data, I also thought the CCP’s regime’s ability to respond to such a crisis is also unmatched. A bit reminiscent of the USSR depicted in Chernobyl. The then USSR also displayed extraordinary organizational and mobilization abilities in face of the self-inflicted calamity, supported by enormous dedication and sacrifice of scientists, engineers, soldiers, and miners, etc.

    On the other hand, I expected the relative transparency in western democracies meant such crises are less likely to occur, but their governments are less well equipment to confront the crises, should they develop.

    Well, I was basically right about the CCP regime, and only half right about most of the western democracies. The COVID-19 epidemic could very well have been the CCP’s Chernobyl, if so many other countries have not failed so miserably, despite months of advanced warning.

    In fact, the divide across different quality of government responses has not been the form of government, but competence and capacity. Those that responded well include hard authoritarians (China and Vietnam), soft authoritarians (Singapore, Hong Kong, and Macau), and relatively young democracies (South Korea and Taiwan, though both employed highly intrusive surveillance without hesitation or debate), and staunch liberal democracies (Germany, Denmark, etc.). Those that responded poorly include hard authoritarians (Iran, Russia), and established democracies (US, UK, Italy, Spain, etc.). We will see about the democracies that have been sliding toward illiberalism (India, Japan, Poland, Hungary, Israel, etc.).

  7. 7.

    WereBear

    @YY_Sima Qian: Excellent analysis!

    The US has some trend lines that I see reflected in, say, Scandinavia: a geographic region of different autonomous governments, yet within a population with strong cultural similarities.

    The different responses are going to generate a lot of graphs.

  8. 8.

    Another Scott

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    My personal opinion is that true asymptomatics are not large percentage of the infected population and not a major driver of transmission.

    I hope that is the case as well.

    The stories (e.g. in the SF Chronicle) about the carrier Theodore Roosevelt (that 3 infections were detected 15 days out of Vietnam) would seem to indicate that the incubation time can be very long.

    Thank you very much for your reporting from Hubei. It’s greatly appreciated. Take care.

    Cheers,
    Scot.

  9. 9.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Another Scott: The younger the infected person, the stronger the immune system, the longer the incubation period before onset of symptoms (and higher probability of being truly asymptomatic). That is my guess. However, apparently the young sailors are still highly infectious, or that aircraft carriers are even more efficient petri dishes than cruise ships (packed quarters, hot bunking, shared showers and toilets…).

  10. 10.

    ziggy

    @YY_Sima Qian: Curious to know what kind of general population surveys are being done in China, to find asymptomatic carriers.

    I agree with you that the asymptomatic are likely not carrying large virus reservoirs. But they are much more mobile and I suspect that they can still cause a lot of problems when they meet up with very vulnerable people (witness what is happening in nursing homes). Then those people can become efficient virus spreaders. Healthy younger people can fight off a low virus count.

    More and more I agree that we need to have quarantine hotels for asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic people. They can’t care for themselves without putting others at risk. Lots of testing of the general population as well as any contacts, pull out virus carriers, quarantine immediately. Keep vulnerable people segregated and safe. That is how we will be able to get the economy back up and running.

  11. 11.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @ziggy: I am only aware of Iceland and Faroe Islands doing large scale (relative to overall population) community surveys. Italy has done a small scale survey at Vo in Venetto. Even South Korea, with its massive testing effort, has only been focused on close contacts and clusters. From WHO briefings I think community surveys for asymptomatic/pre-symptomatic/very mild cases, and serological antibody surveys of unknowingly infected then recovered, are planned in China and possibly underway. However, China typically is not transparent on such efforts, so we may have to wait for the papers to be published.

    It is impossible to screen a large percentage of the population in the fairly populous countries. There are not enough test kits and lab capacity. Even if conducted, it only gives you a snapshot that will be out of date in 24 hours, since it often takes days from the initial infection to when a positive PCR test results can be obtained.

    NYC has converted (by the Army Corps of Engineers) the Javits Exhibition center into the kind of makeshift medical quarantine facility found in Wuhan. Not sure whether it has started services, and what kind of patients are being sent there.

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