Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

This fight is for everything.

With all due respect and assumptions of good faith, please fuck off into the sun.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Disagreements are healthy; personal attacks are not.

T R E 4 5 O N

This really is a full service blog.

Balloon Juice, where there is always someone who will say you’re doing it wrong.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

A democracy can’t function when people can’t distinguish facts from lies.

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Trump should be leading, not lying.

I’m starting to think Jesus may have made a mistake saving people with no questions asked.

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

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

You passed on an opportunity to be offended? What are you even doing here?

This country desperately needs a functioning fourth estate.

It’s all just conspiracy shit beamed down from the mothership.

I really should read my own blog.

Whatever happens next week, the fight doesn’t end.

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

Sadly, there is no cure for stupid.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Republicans do not pay their debts.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Thursday / Friday, April 16/17

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Thursday / Friday, April 16/17

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Of course, Facebook events are pretty much the exemplar of ‘things that can/should be put off until *after* we know everything else is working’…

Reader Interactions

33Comments

  1. 1.

    Amir Khalid

    President Trump says the US government is looking into unverified reports that coronavirus originated in a Chinese laboratory

    The BBC’s @rincon_p asks, is there any evidence for this theory?

    Of course there is evidence. President Trump pulled it out of his own arse.

  3. 3.

    Amir Khalid

    @rikyrah:

    You’d expect a higher proportion of asymptomatic/minimally symptomatic cases in a group of mostly fit and healthy young adults, like the crew of a US Navy vessel. Which is good for them individually. But such cases would also be the ones most likely to unknowingly infect others.

  4. 4.

    WereBear

    I hope everyone who voted for Trump in 2016 wakes up screaming. I wish every media person who gave him all that free airtime goes around worrying about the threat of death.

    I want Republicans to keep building that connection between their brand and the Grim Reaper. Because it’s accurate.

  5. 5.

    OzarkHillbilly

    South Korea had a plan in place to make voting easy and safe.

    Yeah. Sure. Over every Republican in America’s dead body.

  6. 6.

    Ascap_scab

    I have a question. Now that spring is here, is Covid-19 transmissible by mosquitos?

  7. 7.

    TriassicSands

    Reopening the economy without universal testing and tracking, and a vaccine, will be a disaster.

    For this and other Trump administration acts, I suggest a neologism. It is the next step above what is crudely called a clusterf*ck. The new word would be suitable for use at work, in mixed company, with strangers, or around children:
    Clustertrump, n, Something unimaginably messed up, far beyond SNAFUs and things that are FUBAR. Much worse than your worst nightmare. Business as usual for D. J. Trump and his Merry Mob of Mindless Miscreants.

  8. 8.

    Amir Khalid

    Waiting for the daily media briefing from Malaysia’s Director-General of Health. Dr Noor Hisham has become a national hero in this pandemic.

  10. 10.

    TriassicSands

    @WereBear:

    I hope everyone who voted for Trump in 2016 wakes up screaming.

    The problem is they aren’t asleep. They’re all out protesting physical distancing rules and the closure of businesses, the cancelling of sporting events, and anything that might interfere with their having enough money to buy another gun (or fifty) and enough ammo to singlehandedly take over a small country.

  12. 12.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @TriassicSands: Yeah, they woke up screaming.

    “Say WHAT??? You mean I might have to make a small sacrifice??? Suffer an infinitesimal inconvenience??? Just so Nana and PawPaw can watch their grandchildren grow up??? Oh, HELL NO!!!! YOU”RE ALL A BUNCH OF NAZIS!!!!!!!”

    OK. For some people the sacrifices aren’t quite so small and the inconveniences aren’t so infinitesimal. But why do I get the feeling a Venn diagram would show a very small intersection of those 2 circles? The people I know in that situation are the ones thinking about how to save gas, not waste it on right wing kabuki theater.

  13. 13.

    WereBear

    @TriassicSands: This is why, in my mind, their thought processes resemble that of pithed frogs. It’s all reflex and resentment.

    I know, my small-town southern high school was infested with them.

    I think their utter disregard for reality would classify them as some kind of mental illness. I think Authoritarian mindset qualifies, since it’s all living in a fog of imposed Baboon Social Structure where every single human transaction moves up and down a tree of either dominance or obsequism.

    Those are the two choices, forever and ever, amen.

    That’s where the racism, sexism, and all-around general bigotry comes from. And it’s long past any usefulness in 21st century society. It’s now like an appendix which only exists to become infected.

  17. 17.

    p.a.

    Can’t judge based on a tweet (formerly ‘blurb’), but have to wonder abt the Hong Kong tweet and how it equates regular mask use with HK’s (apparent) success against the virus: here we were told not to mask (even before widespread infection) not because we needed masks for the med community but because masks aren’t effective.  Was this in part Western scientific racism?  “Pfft we know better than THEM.”

     

    Also too, does Trudeau look like ‘Coop’ from Nurse Jackie?

  18. 18.

    Amir Khalid

    Just got done with the DG of Health’s daily media briefing. New cases have dipped below 100 — just 69, total 5,251; new deaths 2, total 86. 201 patients recovered in the 24 hours to noon, total recovered 2,967. Worldometer summary here. Dr Noor Hisham says despite the encouraging numbers, it is still premature to contemplat an exit strategy.

  19. 19.

    Chyron HR

    @p.a.:

    Alternatively, Hong Kong controlled the virus spread so well because the average citizen took it seriously from the beginning and regular mask use was just an example of that.

  20. 20.

    Amir Khalid

    @p.a.:

    The thinking on masks was quite recently revised from “my mask doesn’t give total protection so it doesn’t really help” to “my mask helps protect not only me from you, but also you from me”.

  21. 21.

    YY_Sima Qian

    COVID-19 certainly is exposing the ugly underbellies of every polity. For Singapore, it is the exploited foreign guest workers.

    I am actually surprised that the Wuhan authorities updated the COVID-19 case and death counts, by adding 325 confirmed cases and 1290 deceased cases. There was not much domestic pressure on them to do so, and there is no upside to the CCP regime internationally (anyone predisposed to mistrust Chinese data, out of genuine skepticism or cynical opportunism, will not change their opinion). There is upside domestically, however, allowing the regime to message the population that it is respectful of all who suffered in the epidemic, and being more transparent with the data.

    According to Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, 217 confirmed cases were expunged (due to duplicate reporting as patients tried multiple hospitals), 542 confirmed cases were added (due to some small or private institutions not connected to the national reporting system), for net increase of 325 cases and 50333 total. The MHC also reported that 164 deaths were expunged (due to duplication or filing error of non-COVID patients), and 1454 deaths were added (deaths outside of hospitals, and in small and private institutions that were not connected to the national reporting system), for net increase of 1290 deaths and 3869 total.

    So, one step closer to more accurate and transparent data for Wuhan. However, it seems to me (though I may be wrong) that the updated death count still only includes the deceased that had been confirmed, not those were suspected to have COVID-19, but passed before confirmation. It certainly does not include the excess deaths to other causes, due to shortage of medical care resources. Assume that is the case, I update my WAG of total excess deaths (directly and indirectly from COVID-19) to 7,5000 – 12,500 during the lock down.

    The updates are for Wuhan only, I am sure similar factors had been at play for the rest of Hubei Province. We may see additional updates from other cities in Hubei in the coming days.

  22. 22.

    Buckeye

    Jordan Schactel is a Breitbart alumn and works for The Blaze and The Federalist. Could we not link to him?

  23. 23.

    YY_Sima Qian

    I would caution against taking twitter assessments of Hong Kong’s containment and prevention methods at face value, be they expat or locals. Since the protests last year, a segment of the population (with magnified online presence) will absolutely refuse to give the government any credit, and will in fact do their utmost to discredit and de-legitimize the administration, and play up the community response. A great deal of the dissatisfaction and distrust toward the CCP regime and the local administration is understandable, and universal mask wearing is absolutely helpful when pre-symptomatic transmission is a huge vector and asymptomatic transmission is a real danger. However, it was not the community that mobilized contact tracing, ordered social distancing, enforced mandatory quarantines, and refused entry to all non-Hong Konger residents. Anti-Mainlander nativism helped to force the local government to severely restrict entry by Mainlanders at the start of the epidemic. However, there was not much pressure to tighten restriction or monitoring of foreign visitors or returnees from Europe and the US, even as the pandemic escalated quickly in those regions, until almost too late.

    Containment, suppression and mitigation of COVID-19 requires both strong government action and collective action and cooperation of the governed. To think it can be mitigated purely by community action is utopian magical thinking. Hong Kongers, taken as a whole, are just like people elsewhere. They are not more (or less) enlightened, conscientious, disciplined, or civic minded. One example, while a segment of the native population are discriminating against the African community in Guangzhou, a segment of Hong Kong’s population were discriminating against Caucasian American and European expatriates, as imported cases mounted.

  25. 25.

    Mousebumples

    2 related links and apps that I’ve been thinking about the past few days…

    1) https://www.nih.gov/news-events/news-releases/nih-begins-study-quantify-undetected-cases-coronavirus-infection

    2) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.joinzoe.covid_zoe

    The first is an NIH study to try to test how many undetected positive cases there have been based on antibodies in your blood. You’d need to take your own blood sample if you aren’t in Bethesda.

    The second is a pretty brief “how are you feeling ?” daily check in to try to track symptom and disease spread. Hard to know who’s behind the app for sure, but it seems to be a non profit from what I’ve been able to find.

  26. 26.

    YY_Sima Qian

    The outbreaks in Guangzhou and Harbin continue to expand. 3 new confirmed and 4 new asymptomatic domestic cases at Harbin yesterday, likely related to the cluster there (case reports not yet published). 1 new asymptomatic and 2 new suspect cases in Mudanjiang of Heilongjiang Provinces. Not sure if it is related to the Harbin cluster, yet. Hopefully it is not a new cluster! A new confirmed case in Fushun Liaoning Province in northeastern China, the daughter of the super spreader in Harbin, who visited and cared for his father in the hospital. It is likely she has infected a few of her family members, so expect a cluster in Fushun, as well. Hospitals in Heilongjiang province has just been ordered to start screening all patients, as I expected.

    An emerging cluster in emerged in Qingdao of Shandong Province (opposite South Korea). Two new domestic confirmed cases yesterday, linked to a confirmed imported case (young student returnee from the UK) from late Mar. Another cluster apparently caused by nosocomial transmission. The imported case infected a fellow patient and his wife before he was moved to isolation, who were confirmed 10 days ago. Now the patient’s son and his girlfriend have also been confirmed. Chinese social media claims a nurse working in the ward and another fellow patient have been confirmed, as well, yet to be reported. Although the specific vector of transmission is unclear from case reports, I am at a complete loss as to how a suspect imported case with symptoms could have been placed in a position to infect non-COVID patients in nosocomial setting. Clearly there was a lapse in procedure and protocol.

    I guess all hospitals in China will really have to copy the protocols and setups from Wuhan. Both of the clusters in Harbin and Qingdao were triggered by imported cases before mandatory 14 day centralized quarantine was ordered for all returnees across the country. With the new quarantine requirements, imported cases should be less likely to cause new clusters.

    4 new confirmed and 18 new asymptomatic domestic cases in Guangzhou yesterday. 3 of the confirmed were reclassified from asymptomatic, and the last one was found at a fever clinic. All were close contacts to confirmed imported cases. All 18 asymptomatic cases (2 Chinese nationals and 16 African nationals) were close contacts already under medical quarantine. Overall, I think the Guangzhou authorities is actually taking the right actions to contain the outbreak. Mandatory quarantines and lock downs at the community level is standard practice when new confirmed and asymptomatic cases are found. One positive test and the entire unit of the residential building is locked down (each residential building in China typically has several units with separate entrances, and each unit goes from the ground floor to the top floor, with all the apartments in the unit sharing the sames staircase and elevator). Multiple cases in multiple buildings/units and the entire residential compound is locked down. Medical quarantine and observation is 14 days, with multiple PCR tests. No one gets released early with a single negative test. High risk groups (such as returnees from overseas) are quarantined as a matter of policy. It is likely that the authorities in Guangzhou has deemed the entire African community (and their Chinese close contacts) high risk. 2.4% infection rate (and climbing) is very high, and the African community interacts a great deal with the native population, and can travel extensively in China on business. The problem is that Guangzhou government does not seem to have communicated these processes and expectations to the African community, leading to confusion and fear. Nor has the local government planned to house and handle the undocumented immigrants with illegal status, or those with legal status unfairly thrown to the streets. There are clear mistakes and abuse in execution. Landlords has no business evicting people with valid papers and rental contracts. If regular hotels are not allowed to take African nationals, due to the entire community is deemed high risk, then they should at least contact the authorities and direct the would be quests to the quarantine facilities. China should considering giving the undocumented (and their landlords) temporary immunity, to prevent them going underground, but that will probably invite a domestic backlash.

  27. 27.

    YY_Sima Qian

    The probability of SARS-CoV-2 being a naturally born virus being studied at the BSL-2 lab near the Huanan Seafood Market, and escaped by mistake, is not absolutely zero. (The BLS-4 lab is nowhere near the wet market, though.) There have been precedents for lab breach incidents across the world, including China and the US. However, it is extremely unlikely. If it is a virus already under investigation, China should have had the gene sequence available, been better positioned to ready PCR tests, had better understanding of its infectiousness and virulence, and been able to isolate and contain the outbreak much earlier. Instead, every action by all levels of the Chinese bureaucracy indicate being taken by surprise, and executing to standard response plans to varying degrees of faithfulness effectiveness.

    As soon as the outbreak was publicly acknowledged, the leading Chinese virologist studying bat corona viruses rushed to check if it was something that escaped from her lab, and found it not to be the case. If it had escaped from her lab, the Chinese government would not have trusted her to give interviews to western media. In any case, her research was well known and widely respected, had collaborated closely with colleagues in the US and elsewhere, and was even partly funded by the US under the PREDICT program de-funded by Trump. Her research has always been published in leading journals.

    Preponderance of historical precedence show zoonotic origin being most likely. This is just the Trump Administration taking a page out of the Russian playbook of sh*t stirring to deflect culpability.

  28. 28.

    EmbraceYourInnerCrone

    Chief Petty Officer Charles Robert Thacker Jr., 41, of Fort Smith, Arkansas died from the coronavirus Monday at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Guam.

    Navy identifies Theodore Roosevelt sailor who died of COVID-19

    “Thacker tested positive for coronavirus on March 30 and was taken off the ship and placed in “isolation housing” at Naval Base Guam. On the morning of April 9 he was found unresponsive during a medical check and was moved to a local hospital’s intensive care unit.”

  29. 29.

    Fair Economist

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    It certainly does not include the excess deaths to other causes, due to shortage of medical care resources. Assume that is the case, I update my WAG of total excess deaths (directly and indirectly from COVID-19) to 7,5000 – 12,500 during the lock down.

    We are seeing elsewhere (Madrid, Italy, NYC) that approximately as many deaths occur unrecorded as are officially attributed to COVID, so that’s not a wild guess at all. It’s about what you’d expect if the Chinese government is now being about as honest as Western ones.

  30. 30.

    Fair Economist

    @YY_Sima Qian: I don’t see how Western nations can copy the Chinese control system. We just don’t have anything like the housing block system to contain initial outbreaks. Plus our commutes are crazy. Two cycles of infection can spread from a locale to the workplace to almost anywhere in the metro area, and two cycles aren’t much with a disease with such a high presymptomatic/asymptomatic transmission rate.

  31. 31.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Fair Economist: Most people living in individual houses (at least North America and Australia?) should actually make it easier to contain and quarantine, lock down each infected residence rather than the whole community, with smaller impact to society. Commute by personal automobile is also much better from epidemiology perspective than mass transit.

    Mind you, China is locking down buildings and compounds after the positives, the suspects and the close contacts have already been identified and sent to hospitals or centralized quarantine. The US can send the confirmed individual to the hospital or medical quarantine, and keeping the rest of the family in enforced quarantine in their house, until 14 days has passed since the last one developed symptoms.

  32. 32.

    Uncle Cosmo

    @Buckeye: Um, that looks like significant information, and it ought to be readily verifiable. Until & unless it is, I’ll file it under the heading of “claims not yet substantiated.”

    If you have a link to a source that says substantially the same thing but has an employment history more palatable to you – or one that effectively debunks the story – you should provide it. If not, you are cordially invited to do the blog a favor & look around for one instead of whining about its provenance.

  33. 33.

    TruthOfAngels

    I see remdesivir is made by . . . Gilead Sciences. That seems about right for 2020.

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