Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

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

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Proof that we need a blogger ethics panel.

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

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Come on, man.

A lot of Dems talk about what the media tells them to talk about. Not helpful.

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

We still have time to mess this up!

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

Tick tock motherfuckers!

Hot air and ill-informed banter

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

And we’re all out of bubblegum.

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

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

“Can i answer the question? No you can not!”

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

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

Their freedom requires your slavery.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Friday/Saturday, April 24/25

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update – Friday/Saturday, April 24/25

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33Comments

  1. 1.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia reports just 51 new cases, for a total of 5,742 to date; two deaths, total 98. Another 99 patients recovered and discharged, total recovered 3,762 or 65.5% of recorded cases. CFR holding steady at 2.5%. DG of Health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah warned those living in green zones (no positive tests in two weeks) should not start taking things lightly, and urged them to keep observing all precautions including personal hygiene, staying at home, and social distancing.

  3. 3.

    David C

    Good morning! I knew that the name “John Ionnidis” sounded familiar. If inactivated virus works and doesn’t make the disease worse we could have something. The Covid contrarians are pointing to Sweden as the path we should pursue, but it’s useless to compare when the health systems of Sweden and the US are so different. Two of my work colleagues are picking up some extra tomato and basil seedlings I had left over. We will keep at least a six-foot distance. Our young neighbor has friends over – they sit in a circle six feet apart.

     

    The study of Korean call center workers confirms and expands on the restaurant in China study. Stay safe!

  4. 4.

    SFAW

    How overly optimistic modeling distorted Trump team’s coronavirus response
    Administration latched onto projections from respected University of Washington site, but reality turned out to be more dire.

    Because every engineer (or operations person or project person) knows that you ALWAYS go with the absolutely most optimistic scenario, because “nothing can go wrong, now.” [As the saying goes: that was real sarcasm.]

     

    Fucking morons, all of them.

  6. 6.

    terben

    Today is ANZAC Day in Australia. The latest Dept of Health bulletin:
    ‘As at 3:00pm on 25 April 2020, there have been 6,695 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia. There have been 20 new cases since 3:00pm yesterday.
    Of the 6,695 confirmed cases in Australia, 80 have died and 5,372 have been reported as recovered from COVID-19. More than 494,000 tests have been conducted across Australia.’
    Of the 1323 current cases, 129 are hospitalised, 43 of whom are in ICU.

    1.4% of tests have been positive and the CFR is 1.4%

  8. 8.

    SFAW

    Ramadan kareem, Amir.

    [By the way, “The U.S. Sun” (which I guess is The Colonies’ version of “The Sun” from Old Blighty) has a headline spelling it as “Maradan Kareem.” Awesome.]

  9. 9.

    SFAW

    @WereBear:

    Not just a state of mind, but also a job description!

    In that regard, only partial: it’s not just the morons they’re fucking.

  11. 11.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Following the case reports in the last few days,  it appears that the clusters in Guangzhou In Guangdong Province and Harbin in Heilongjiang Province may be under control. Only one new domestic confirmed case and one new domestic asymptomatic case in Harbin yesterday, both are traced close contacts already under quarantine. You know you are ahead of the outbreak when the new cases are coming from traced close contacts under isolation, there is very good chance the transmission chains have already been cut. There have been 80 confirmed and asymptomatic cases so far from this cluster, including exports to one other city within Heilongjing Province and two other cities in two other provinces, Fortunately, there is yet any indication of new clusters forming at those locations. Transmission chain: imported case infecting neighboring family (though actual vector seems to be tenuous so far); dinner party between two families’ spread the infection to another family; sick elder from second family visits two different hospitals in the city and causes two sub-clusters due to lax protocols, infecting fellow patients, their care takers, and medical staff; infection spreads further to the families and friends of those infected at the hospitals. The hospital with the larger sub-cluster is now closed for thorough disinfection. Resumption of classroom instruction has been delayed.

    Guangzhou has only reported less than a handful of domestic confirmed and asymptomatic cases over the past several days. Apparently, since Apr. 5, the city has tested 138.7K people, finding 21 confirmed cases and 164 asymptomatic cases, most among the African immigrant community and their Chinese close contacts. As the the schools in Guangzhou prepare for partial return to classroom instruction. The city is also testing all 207K people who will be returning (Grade 9, last year of junior middle school, Grade 12, last year of senior middle school, and all school staff). Of the 35K persons with results, no positives.

    The small nosocomial cluster reported in early Apr. from Qingdao, in Shandong Province, does not appear to have spread beyond the initial 5 cases. Senior administrators of the affect hospital have been relieved.

    Unfortunately, the nosocomial cluster in the city of Mudanjiang, in Heilongjiang Province, still appears to be expanding, with 14 domestic confirmed and asymptomatic cases so far. Index case appears to be someone working at the Suifenhe border crossing, where hundreds of infected Chinese nationals fleeing Russia, have been found.

    As the above case reports show, when COVID-19 is successfully suppressed, it requires readily available testing, with short turnaround time on results (more than 2 days will not cut it), rigorous contact tracing, and rapid isolation of confirmed and lose contacts, to keep the fire from reigniting. This is now well recognized around the world, but I hope China’s (and SK’s) recent experiences make it more “real”.

  12. 12.

    zzyzx

    @SFAW: The problem with the UW model isn’t that it’s optimistic, but rather that it’s trying to project based only on the actual data we’re receiving and it’s very incomplete. It’s very swingy. Remember about a month ago, it was giving absolute best case scenarios of 250k deaths by May/June. Then when we didn’t hit the worst peaks and hospitals weren’t overrun, it swung way down. But it didn’t know then about the very long tails of Spain and Italy, so it couldn’t factor that in.

    It’s the danger of trusting too much in a particular model and locking it in with your thoughts, without reevaluating it when new information comes in.

  14. 14.

    YY_Sima Qian

    As some of the regions around the world hardest hit by COVID-19 reaches inflection or into the down slope (Norther Italy, Greater Madrid, Ile-de-France, NYC(?)), and many regions/nations plan for or starting to execute relaxing of lock down or social distancing measures (Australia, New Zealand, Austria, Denmark, Germany, Slovenia, Czech Republic, Greece, etc.), it may be instructive to see where Wuhan is today in terms of testing rate and test capacity.

    Right now, the city of Wuhan has capacity for ~ 59K PCR tests per day, and surged to 63K tests maximum in one day last week. There are now 55 labs in Wuhan capable of processing PCR swab samples, and 211 testing sites. On demand testing (nasal and throat swab) is being rolled out all across the country. I assume testing is even easier in South Korea.

    Guangzhou is testing hundreds of thousands of people now, despite never having seen a large outbreak. Most cities in China are only planning partial resumption of classroom instruction, only for the grades that will be taking entrance exams to reach the next level (Grade 9 from junior middle school to senior middle school, and Grade 9 from senior middle school to university). Clearly, Guangzhou is testing everyone who will be returning to class, but I believe every other city in China is doing the same. There is no return dates even rumored for universities. The crowded undergraduate dormitories typical in Chinese universities (4 – 6 to a room, with shared restrooms and shower rooms, a more rustic parallel is Singapore’s foreign guest worker dorms) would be petri dishes for COVID-19. And more of the undergrads may be asymptomatic, or have only very mold symptoms, or have long incubation periods. I have told my wife, who works in a university, that I am concerned for her if and when the students finally return to campus, unless vaccines are widely available.

    China has launched community surveys (PCT and antibody) in nine select regions (district level) in nine cities scattered across the country. The idea is to see the prevalence of asymptomatic carriers, as well as percentage of population who have been infected. I believe this is phase 1, to be expanded later. I am sure all of Wuhan and most of Hubei will ultimately have community surveys done.

    I have not been able to find any statistic on the contact tracing force China is employing, other than a comment in the Joint WHO-China Mission Report referring to 12K persons in 1800 contract tracing teams in Wuhan alone at the height of the epidemic. The case travel history that each local government publish are fairly detailed and thorough, some more transparent (such as Heilongjiang Province) than others (such as Guangdong Province). I think Singapore and South Korea are still the golden standard in both effectiveness and transparency in contact tracing. I strongly suspect Chinese authorities may actually have access to even more invasion data than either country, but not everything is published in the case reports.

  15. 15.

    low-tech cyclist

    Just a comment on Sean Davis’ tweet: he’s comparing annual deaths due to other causes with the coronavirus’ rampage to date.  Sure, 170,000 people died in accidents last year.  That’s just over 14,000/month.

    The coronavirus has killed 47,000 Americans in the first 24 days of April.  That’s 3.5 months’ worth of deaths in accidents, or 15 months of motor vehicle fatalities, or more American deaths than in the Korean war, or 80% of American deaths in all the years of the war in Vietnam, you name it – in the past 24 days.

    Anyone who’s blase about this is a fucking monster.

  16. 16.

    Barbara

    @SFAW: The IHME people factored extreme social distancing into their calculations, and have been continuously adjusting numbers upward based on new data. So it was really a working model in progress subject to the kind of variables that can change, like lifting lock downs before infections have peaked.

    I usually consider Ioannidis to be one of the good guys in pushing back on extravagant claims made by researchers, but that article was disappointing and tone deaf, to say the least. It is as if he wants lock downs lifted so he can get more data, who cares about the dead people.

  17. 17.

    ziggy

    One of my favorite to-go lunch places is across the parking lot from a drive-through Covid testing site. I’ve watched the activity there, from a month ago when there was a huge line of cars, to a few cars, to yesterday, when at times there were no cars there at all. The “greeter” actually looked rather bored sitting on his chair.

    It struck me that I think we are going to get a handle on this. Other respiratory illnesses that have Covid-similar symptoms are going to wane. This will cut back a lot on needed testing, as currently 97% of the testing in my county (for those with symptoms) is negative for Covid. That freed-up testing can be used where it is really needed, such as health-care workers, nursing homes, and others working in tight quarters.

    This is only one small area, but we’ve had the virus circulating for quite a while in the PNW. Sure there will be areas where Covid will continue to grow, due to dumb policies and behavior, but I am optimistic that overall things are going to move in a positive, down direction.

  18. 18.

    Another Scott

    @YY_Sima Qian: As always, thanks for your reports.

    where hundreds of infected Chinese nationals fleeing Russia

    ??!

    Are they fleeing because Russia is doing far less than China to control and treat COVID-19, or there some sort of pogrom of Chinese nationals going on, or something else?

    Thanks.

    Stay safe.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  19. 19.

    zzyzx

    @ziggy: It’s a lot easier to be optimistic up here. It’s a different world. Our curve is completely flat. There’s plenty of TP in stores. We’re donating hospital equipment back to the east coast. It does feel more normal here.

    It makes me scared that we’re very vulnerable for a really bad second wave.

  23. 23.

    CaseyL

    @zzyzx: The tracking stats I’m seeing show Washington’s cases are still increasing by a couple hundred every day.  The curve is flattening, but not flat yet, and not decreasing. (Not criticizing, just noting.)

  24. 24.

    PJ

    @ziggy:

     

    @zzyzx: There is no ban on travel within the US.  Testing is minimal in most areas (in NYC, previously tests were restricted to symptomatic patients who presented at hospitals and whose oxygen intake was < 90%; just this weekend, testing has been extended to first line responders (health care workers, EMTs, police, and fire fighters)).

     

    So all it would really take for infection rates in the PNW to start rising would be for asymptomatic people to travel from, say, Florida or Iowa to Seattle and start circulating.  Until we have sufficient tests to actually test everyone, or we enact a travel ban, we are not going to have this under control.

  25. 25.

    terry chay

    @David C: Sweden will have a huge resurgence in a couple weeks. There is a big strain of exceptionalism there. Their numbers are terrible for their population density and income, and now that the right wing is parroting “be like Sweden” the reason their stupid health expert has not had to eat his words (people are socially distancing anyways because neighboring countries are bringing their protocols with them) is falling away.

    When countries like China and Singing are seeing huge second wave outbreaks just due to foreigners reintroducing the virus, imagine what i’ll look like in Japan and Sweden when the virus is already latent in the population but exceptionalism is causing these people to believe it is their country, and not insulation due to the actions of their neighbors that is the reason they’re not an Italy, Spain, or the U.S.

    Very easy to stay indoors in Sweden when it is dark for 18 hours out of the day. Not so easy when the weather warms up and you’ve convinced yourself you have “herd immunity” because “Swedes are just better than the rest of Europe.”

  26. 26.

    terry chay

    @zzyzx: The UW model also treats the entire US like it is just a region. This means it is going to be heavily weighted when the worst affected region starts to flatten (New York). It also assumes that the U.S. will have the same response that other regions do. While New York’s curve may be similar to Spain’s, Florida’s won’t be because models like this cause them to prematurely relax restrictions.

    The data on prematurely relaxing restrictions is incomplete.p, but there is not a single example I’ve seen where the the results haven’t been much worse than the models, often times well outside the margin of error.

  27. 27.

    ziggy

    @terry chay: I’ve been watching Sweden, and it has not been hit as hard as expected, and I doubt it will be at this point. There is no formal “stay at home” order, but I think people underestimate how cooperative and responsible Swedes can be (just look at how they switched the roadway travel sides in one day!). Most Swedes are practicing social distancing, and working from home if at all possible.

    By now the days in Sweden are getting longer, and soon will be very long. Everything I have read about transmission indicates that the virus does not do well outdoors, and being indoors is much more dangerous. Unless people congregate very closely, I doubt being outdoors more is going to increase the case load.

  28. 28.

    zzyzx

    @CaseyL: I’m using flat to mean the growth curve. It’s been linear as opposed to exponential and it’s slowed down.

    Oregon is the state that’s really been shut down.

  29. 29.

    zzyzx

    @PJ:

    That’s my fear about a second wave. We’re sitting here feeling good about things, but it could blow up since we still pretty much where we were a few months ago.

    Unless there’s something special about the situation here, it just feels like we’re going to get hit hard later.

  31. 31.

    Doug R

    @zzyzx: The UW model I think is based on the percentage of social distancing that Washington state has been able to sustain so far-being the gateway to Asia and having been hit before with SARS and slammed hard with covid early helped everyone in Washington state (except for the douche who’s Snohomish county sheriff) realize just how serious this is.

  32. 32.

    Doug R

    @Another Scott: Stories out of Russia while they were claiming only a few infections (while Moscow had 1900 excess “pneumonia” cases in January) was that their method of controlling the virus was to harass anyone that looked Chinese.

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