Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

The next time the wall street journal editorial board speaks the truth will be the first.

If you can’t control your emotions, someone else will.

GOP baffled that ‘we don’t care if you die’ is not a winning slogan.

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Hell hath no fury like a farmer bankrupted.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

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

Within six months Twitter will be fully self-driving.

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

“The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits.”

It’s the corruption, stupid.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

A tremendous foreign policy asset… to all of our adversaries.

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

The words do not have to be perfect.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

“Jesus paying for the sins of everyone is an insult to those who paid for their own sins.”

Jesus, Mary, & Joseph how is that election even close?

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Friday / Saturday, June 12-13

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Friday / Saturday, June 12-13

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41Comments

  1. 1.

    Phylllis

    We are full steam ahead with providing summer academic camps for K-3 students here in South Carolina starting in about a month to last four weeks. Combined with the rising infections and hospitalizations, I’m even more confident my prediction back in early May that we would not be back in regular, face-to-face school until after Labor Day seems more likely by the day.

  2. 2.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s daily numbers. 43 new cases: 38 from local infection comprising 15 Malaysians and 23 non-Malaysians, 21 of them immigration detainees; five imported cases comprising four Malaysians and one permanent resident all returning from abroad. Total 8,445 cases.

    143 more patients recovered, total 7,311 or 86.6% of all cases. Of 1,014 active and contagious cases, four are in ICU and no one is on a ventilator. One new death, a 96-year-old woman in Sabah who died at home and whose remains tested positive. Total 120 deaths. Infection fatality rate 1.2%, case fatality rate 1.61%.

  4. 4.

    Jay Noble

    I forget where I saw it now but the 140 hairsylist customers – only 46 of them were/have been tested.

    Pence is polishing his silverware. All customers are white. Seems everyone was banded – ironically with blue bands.

  5. 5.

    Brachiator

    As a global public health expert, I don’t accept that US & UK poor responses were due to capacity. Poorer countries did much better. It’s down to absent leadership, incompetence & a deliberate decision to treat COVID-19 like flu for weeks in Feb & March & just ‘let it go’.

    I think this pretty much summarizes where we are. The absence of real leadership at the federal level will make it harder for re-opening the economy to be handled rationally.

    Trump’s foolish insistence on just ignoring the virus and the stubborn defiance among a lot of ordinary people may result in a sullen acceptance of overburdened hospitals and increased deaths as just the cost of maintaining our “economic well being.”

  6. 6.

    Jay Noble

    @Jay Noble: Silly me. The info on the Hairstylists was in the CNN article too. That story could be a beacon if they get all of those folks tested and keep the tracing up.

  7. 7.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Phylllis: Three words – Governor’s mansion tours.

    Also, think about tearing down your governor and throwing them in a lake.

  8. 8.

    satby

    @Jay Noble: The assumption on the ones who refused testing was that since the incubation period had ended and none of them appeared to have any symptoms that the virus hadn’t transmitted to them either. Since it’s a virus with a high rate of asymptomatic cases I’m not sure that’s a correct interpretation, but they can’t force people to get tested if they don’t want to be.

  9. 9.

    terben

    From the Australian Dept of Health:

    ‘As at 3:00pm on 13 June 2020, a total of 7,302 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Australia, including 102 deaths and 6,812 have been reported as recovered from COVID-19.

    • Over the past week, there has been an average of 7 new cases reported each day. Of the newly reported cases, the majority have been from Victoria.
    • Of cases with a reported place of acquisition, 62% have recent international travel history, including over 1,300 cases associated with cruise ships.
    • To date, over 1,782,500 tests have been conducted nationally. Of those tests conducted 0.4% have been positive.’

    No new deaths today, 12 new cases, 8 in Victoria. There are 16 cases in hospital, 2 in ICU, 2 ventilated.

  11. 11.

    gkoutnik

    It’s just anecdotal, but most of the (increasing number of ) stories I’ve read about health directors being forced out for not lying or otherwise acting without integrity, are about female directors being forced out by county (etc.) legislative bodies that are mostly male (assuming almost no legislative bodies nationwide that are majority female).

    The girls aren’t getting with the program and can no longer be in the boys’ club.

  12. 12.

    Brachiator

    A curious little factoid. Not sure if this has been noted here already:

    Wambier and his team conducted two studies in Spain. The results of one of those studies, published in the American Academy of Dermatology, showed that 79% of 122 men who tested positive for Covid-19 and admitted to three hospitals in Madrid were bald.
    A separate study of 41 patients in Spain showed that 71% of them were bald.
    The researchers did not control for age in these studies, but age also puts more people at risk of severe coronavirus symptoms as well as hair loss.

  13. 13.

    WereBear

    @Brachiator:

    Trump’s foolish insistence on just ignoring the virus and the stubborn defiance among a lot of ordinary people may result in a sullen acceptance of overburdened hospitals and increased deaths as just the cost of maintaining our “economic well being.”

     
    And we won’t get any “economic well being” either. They can force people back to work, and they do, but gloom and uncertainty restricts spending.

  14. 14.

    Mary G

    Still in awe of the magnificent  7 day a week posts for months on end, AL.

    @Amir Khalid:  Also still in awe of Malaysia’s handling of the pandemic.  How America has fallen. Plus, I watched the YouTube of burgers you put up and now I want one.

  15. 15.

    Brachiator

    The movie industry is still struggling with trying to adjust to a post pandemic world. From Variety and elsewhere.

    Wonder Woman 1984 and Christopher Nolan’s Tenet are being delayed as studios grapple with when they can start releasing their biggest movies in theaters around the world. Tenet will now open on July 31st, instead of July 17th. It’s the second delay for Wonder Woman, which was originally slated to premiere June 5th, then August 14th, and will now arrive on October 2nd.

    If not for the pandemic we would be deep into the summer movie season. But now, who knows whether people will return to theaters or whether studios can make money if social distancing and other measures are used to reduce maximum capacity.

  16. 16.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    I live and work in Alameda County is which is getting the worse surge in the SF Bay Area and curious why it’s happening.  Every were I go (which admittedly is work/grocery store) the traffic is light, people wear masks religiously.  On the other hand my nephew’s girlfriend works with a professor who is part of the testing effort and she was saying they are starting in Richmond, California and working their way down the county testing the cities one by one, Richmond is a big, poor city so they may just be finding stuff that was always there.

  17. 17.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @WereBear: And we won’t get any “economic well being” either. They can force people back to work, and they do, but gloom and uncertainty restricts spending.

    Yep, I’ve been watching videos on the Black Death in 1345 and the same thing happened “Sure, 70% of the population is dying, but think of the real victim, the economy”  so Europe ended up with both 70% of the population dead, a broken economy and then social strife as the survivors who whose friends and relatives were outraged over being thrown to the wolves.  The consensus seems to be that the Enlightenment, Protestant Reformation, Industrial Revolution and Western Democracy all come out of the reaction to the Black Death. So interesting to note how Black Lives Matter is suddenly an irresistible political force.

  19. 19.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Cytokine storm and a runaway immune, hyper-inflammatory response are frequently what leads to the demise of patients with #COVID19

    Interesting, my 92 year old, on-line Indian friend who survived the Virus said his doctor focused on anti-inffammaitonaries to get him threw it.

  20. 20.

    JeanneT

    It makes me crazy to see so many articles and tweets promoting mask use that either show someone wearing an N95 mask with an outflow valve (stay safe but spread your germs around!) or show people with masks that don’t cover their noses.   How hard is it to get pictures of proper mask use?

  21. 21.

    Brachiator

    @WereBear:

    And we won’t get any “economic well being” either. They can force people back to work, and they do, but gloom and uncertainty restricts spending.

    A lot of people want to get back to work. A lot of people need to get back to work.

    And there appears to be a chunk of dopes who simply resist being “told what to do,” and are fighting off what they stupidly perceive to be the controlling leash of the government. These dopes want to return to socializing even more than they want to go back to work.

    These people dismiss or discount the risk to themselves and others. We will be in quite a jam if the cases continue to increase.

  23. 23.

    Brachiator

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    The consensus seems to be that the Enlightenment, Protestant Reformation, Industrial Revolution and Western Democracy all come out of the reaction to the Black Death.

    Well, probably a lot of coincidence and complicating factors.

    So interesting to note how Black Lives Matter is suddenly an irresistible political force.

    It certainly feels as though some increased sensitivity related to the lock down may have contributed to the sympathetic reaction to the protests.

    And yet, we see the counter-reactions as well, the hard law-and-order rhetoric, and the refusal of Trump and many conservatives to even try to see beyond their narrow insistence on obedience to authority. And of course many police unions have become hysterically reactionary.

    It is also interesting to see that the 2nd Amendment gun humpers did not side with the police, but still degenerated into white tribalism, only wanting to defend white rural communities from supposed looters.

  24. 24.

    Amir Khalid

    @Brachiator:

    There is a way to reopen an economy in pandemic times, but not an easy one. It takes a lot of forward planning: developing a comprehensive plan to keep workplaces sanitised and people socially distanced, modifying HVAC systems and other infrastructure where needed, support for contact tracing. It takes strict enforcement of such plans in every workplace. It takes discipline in the workplace and in the community about observance of all precautions against spread. I don’t think any of this is easy.

  25. 25.

    Phylllis

    @SectionH:  Just about every country that has tried reopening schools had to close them almost immediately, including Finland, South Korea, and most recently Israel.

  26. 26.

    Phylllis

    @mrmoshpotato: I think it has reopened for tours, actually. Nothing on the website indicates they are currently unavailable at least. As for Governor Deputy Dawg, we are stuck with him until 2022.

  27. 27.

    YY_Sima Qian

    The Xinfadi Wholesale Exchange in Beijing the largest if it’s kind in Asia (and third largest in the world), with nearly two thousand employees and nearly ten thousand vendors. It supposedly supplies 60% of the vegetables and 80% of fruits to the capital. It is at least an order of magnitude larger than the Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan, which is the site of the first known outbreak. From photo it appears to be newer and better regulated than the Huanan market in Wuhan.

    In addition to the 2 employees of the China Meat Research Center reported early yesterday (whose job include collecting samples from meats sold around the country, including the Xinfangdi exchange), 4 additional confirmed cases have been reported by the Beijing authorities later yesterday. No detailed information on the latter cases, yet, but all are working and/or living at the Xinfadi exchange.

    Contact tracing and screening is happening at a furious pace. Beijing reported that 100% screening of the 1940 workers at Xinfadi is ongoing, of the 517 samples tested so far, there have been 45 positive PCR results. None of the 45 cases have developed symptoms yet, nor have they been reported as asymptomatic cases (perhaps by tomorrow). All vendors will be tested, too, as will all persons who have visited the exchange since 5/30. One person tested positive at a wet market in Haitian District, a close contact of a case from Xinfadi. The province of Liaoning in NE China reported 2 asymptomatic cases yesterday, both close contacts of cases from Xinfadi.

    5424 samples have been collected from all of the foodstuff and the environment at the Xinfadi exchange, so far meats (pork, beef, lamb, poultry), vegetables and fruits have tested negative, but apparently 40 samples collected from the environment, including one from a cutting board handling imported salmon, have tested positive. The 9 persons working around salmon have tested negative, so far. All salmon have been removed from shelves across Beijing.

    Having an outbreak centered around the Xinfadi exchange is highly problematic. Over 50K passes through the markets everyday. Suppliers and logistic personnel come from (and return to) across China, and customers are scattered all around Beijing. People from the exchange often will go on to wet markets around the city, visited by hundreds of thousands of residents daily. The cases from 6/11 and 6/12 developed symptoms as early as 6/6, so they had been infectious for nearly a week before being identified.

    The exchange is temporarily shut. Dozens of personnel from the local CDC are onsite to collect more samples, before the entire site is disinfected. It function is broken into different categories and diverted to several alternative sites around the city. The 11 residential compounds around the exchange are under lock down, the adjacent long distance bus station is shut, as well. Beijing is going in higher epidemic alert status. Schools are closed, sporting events suspended. It appears residential compounds will be placed under more restricted access going forward.

    Much like the outbreak centered around nightclubs at Seoul a few weeks ago, it appears this cluster developed to sizable proportions before the authorities noticed. The coming weeks will be tense in Beijing.

  28. 28.

    Brachiator

    @Amir Khalid:

    There is a way to reopen an economy in pandemic times, but not an easy one.

    I think a lot of this is new. We don’t have a lot of experience in almost totally shutting down the worldwide economy and then trying to open it up again. We even forgot some of what happened during the era of the Spanish Flu (there was also censorship and active forgetting as a reaction to the war).

    It takes a lot of forward planning: developing a comprehensive plan to keep workplaces sanitised and people socially distanced, modifying HVAC systems and other infrastructure where needed, support for contact tracing.

    Especially here in the US, we are lacking any significant planning and leadership at the federal level. Hell, Trump just wants to forget about the pandemic as much as possible. There is no sense of adapting to the pandemic, just “getting back to normal.” This is, of course, ridiculous, and self-defeating.

    It takes strict enforcement of such plans in every workplace. It takes discipline in the workplace and in the community about observance of all precautions against spread. I don’t think any of this is easy.

    As much as I admire what state and local governments did here in California in shutting things down, I think their re-opening plans have sometimes been overly detailed, too strict and did not get local businesses and individuals involved and so may not be as effective as they might otherwise have been.

    For example, I don’t see that restaurants can survive with some of the reduced capacity rules. I think that hair salons can only serve one customer at a time, and everyone else has to wait outside, or maybe stay home until time for their appointment.

    And in parts of Orange County, California, maybe other places, people are rebelling and defying rules and guidelines. Trump’s negative example reinforces this defiance, but also some of the rules, though well intentioned in theory, may be unnecessarily strict and may make re-opening more difficult than it should be. And I can also see a lot of non-compliance with tracing and self-isolation requirements, especially if people will lose pay if they have to stay home from work for two weeks.

  29. 29.

    egorelick

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: I am also in Alameda County and just can’t imagine seeing a scene with that many unmasked people that close together.  It’s not just Pence’s table; everyone in the background doesn’t have a mask.

  30. 30.

    Jinchi

    Nationally there’s no “second wave.” There’s one long wave.

    A wave that rapidly peaks and takes forever to fall off is called a tsunami.

  31. 31.

    Obdurodon

    @Amir Khalid:  The “modified HVAC system” point has not received enough attention IMO. We know that airflow is a *major* factor affecting viral transmission. Mostly we think of this as a bad thing, e.g. the Guangzhou restaurant or the Skagit Valley choir. It can also be a *good* thing, if there’s a good flow of properly purified air (HEPA + UV or similar) in and evacuation of contaminated air out. A well designed system of filters, fans, and partial barriers to channel air could allow places like restaurants or stores to remain safe at higher densities than they would otherwise. Combined with testing etc. that could make the difference between a sustainable level of custom and going out of business. This could also help with the “back to school” issue. Half of the previous student density would still be painful, but it would be *far* more manageable than a quarter or less (which is what my town has been looking at).

    I’m sure the people who build such systems are hard at work making them cheaper, less intrusive, and easier to retrofit into existing spaces. I wish them all the success in the world, and I suspect that they’ll be amply rewarded as more people recognize the value in such things.

  32. 32.

    Exregis

    @JeanneT:wearing an N95 mask with an outflow valve (stay safe but spread your germs around!)

    The inflow/outflow valve is filtered.

  33. 33.

    Obdurodon

    @Exregis: That seems to be true of real N95/N99 masks, because they couldn’t achieve certification otherwise. OTOH, there are a lot of more consumer-oriented masks with outflow-only valves – often used as a selling point because they reduce fogging and such. Many of those don’t have filters at all. Others come with a few filters, which many users will run through quickly and never replace. Those are the ones that truly annoy me.

  34. 34.

    Miss Bianca

    @gkoutnik: That appears to be the case in our county as well. Our (female) Public Health Director just resigned yesterday, partially as a result of the dickheadedness of one of our (male) county commissioners.

  36. 36.

    frosty

    From the New Yorker article: “When you have a community that cares about each other, then people are interested in adhering [to the guidelines] for other people,”

    There’s the problem with the US response in a nutshell. Add in the stories of armed goons threatening public health staff (and their decisions to quit) from another of Anne’s links….

    This isn’t going away any time soon.

  37. 37.

    Fair Economist

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Every were I go (which admittedly is work/grocery store) the traffic is light, people wear masks religiously. On the other hand my nephew’s girlfriend works with a professor who is part of the testing effort and she was saying they are starting in Richmond, California and working their way down the county testing the cities one by one, Richmond is a big, poor city so they may just be finding stuff that was always there.

    Here in OC the case rises are being driven by cities with a large proportion of poor people, so you just may not be seeing the people who are catching it (e.g. they’re mostly not driving because they don’t have cars, and don’t shop as much because they don’t have money).

    My next door neighbor just told be last night not to wear a mask because it “traps toxins”. I don’t *think* he’s a wingnut because he’s an immigrant from India. I think he’s just a fool.

  39. 39.

    Fair Economist

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques:

    Interesting, my 92 year old, on-line Indian friend who survived the Virus said his doctor focused on anti-inffammaitonaries to get him threw it.

    Single anecdotes means almost nothing because the overwhelming majority survive, even among the very elderly.

    With SARS, anti-inflammatory steroids are considered a double-edged weapon and I suspect the same is true of SARS2. Many anti-inflammatories are also anti-coagulants, and that definitely helps although it’s not a miracle.

  40. 40.

    RSA

    @JeanneT: …or show people with masks that don’t cover their noses.

    I noticed that too! I hope she’s not unlucky. If only we had some kind of nationally recognized government organization to provide reliable information and guidance on public health issues…

  41. 41.

    J R in WV

    @satby:

    they can’t force people to get tested if they don’t want to be.

    I’ll bet they can. Health departments have lots of power during a medical emergency. At the least, they could put them all into tight “Cannot leave the premises at all for any reason, except in an ambulance ! ” quarantine without a negative test.

    For 21 days just to be sure. I would suspect everyone would take the test rather than be forced into quarantine for 3 weeks. With a cop car outside to enforce the order.

    Not sure why they wouldn’t use their powers, perhaps they know people would turn violent? Crazy people do crazy things!!

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