Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

The lights are all blinking red.

Following reporting rules is only for the little people, apparently.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires.

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

“woke” is the new caravan.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Republicans don’t trust women.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

I might just take the rest of the day off and do even more nothing than usual.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

The truth is, these are not very bright guys, and things got out of hand.

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

“But what about the lurkers?”

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

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

Polls are now a reliable indicator of what corporate Republicans want us to think.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

The low info voters probably won’t even notice or remember by their next lap around the goldfish bowl.

Second rate reporter says what?

Let me file that under fuck it.

Pelosi: “He either is stupid, or he thinks the rest of us are.” Why not both?

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Monday-Tuesday, June 15-16

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Monday-Tuesday, June 15-16

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This post is in: ,

Click on the graph for full animation of COVID-19’s rise:

Meanwhile:

… Thomas Hartung and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University made the discovery after adding low levels of Sars-Cov-2, the virus responsible for Covid-19, to tiny neuronal balls known as mini-brains that are grown from human stem cells.

The researchers found the virus infected neurons in the mini-brains via the ACE2 human protein that is known to be an important entry point for Sars-Cov-2. The virus then multiplied within the neurons; within three days the number of copies had increased at least tenfold…

The study, which is under peer review at the journal Altex but not yet published, follows unconfirmed reports of neurological symptoms in Covid-19 patients, including in the original outbreak in Wuhan. More than a third of coronavirus victims who were hospitalised in the Chinese city exhibited neurological symptoms, including dizziness, headache and seizures.

However, it has never been clear whether the virus affects the brain and nerve cells directly or whether such symptoms are a secondary result caused by damage to the patients’ immune and cardiovascular systems…

Although the Johns Hopkins mini-brains show some features of a human brain, including electrical activity and communications between neurons, they lack other features, including the blood-brain barrier.

“Whether or not the Sars-Cov-2 virus passes this barrier has yet to be shown,” Prof Hartung said, “but it is known that severe inflammations, such as observed in Covid-19 patients, make the barrier disintegrate.”…


Extracts from a long thread:

“And I, frankly, do not give a f*vk about other people”…

Reader Interactions

37Comments

  1. 1.

    Kirk Spencer

    I think the forecast of 200,000 by October is low. Oh, if we see no upturn in deaths itll be on the high side, but since we’re seeing case numbers climb for the past three weeks the climbing death numbers are baked in the cake.

  2. 2.

    Brachiator

    New FDA warning advises that, based on a recently completed non-clinical study, the co-administration of hydroxychloroquine with remdesivir may interfere with the antiviral activity of remdesivir and reduce remdesivir’s effectiveness.

    What pisses me off about this is that the media never really pressed Trump on this. Everyone pretended that Trump vs the CDC was somehow two valid sides of an argument. Trump pulled his belief in the effectiveness of malaria pills out of his ass. He was always peddling snake oil. And his insistence that testing somehow “creates” cases is mind boggling ignorance. And still, the GOP backs him and dopes shrug and mumble, “Well, maybe he’s got a point.”

    The dumbest man in the world is president of the United States. Trump will definitely make the history books for this alone.

  3. 3.

    YY_Sima Qian

    On 6/15, Beijing added 27 domestic confirmed cases, 2 suspect cases, and 3 asymptomatic cases. The neighboring province of Hebei added 4 domestic confirmed cases, 2 of whom are close contacts of cases at Xinfadi, 1 a close contact of a prior case in Hebei (who in turn is a close contact of a case at Xinfadi), and 1 a previously asymptomatic case now reclassified as confirmed. The suspect case reported by city of Ya’an in Sichuan Province on 6/14, a close contact of a confirmed case at Xinfadi in Beijing, has been reclassified as confirmed.

    Beyond the Xinfadi produce exchange, confirmed cases have been found at two additional markers in Beijing. Therefore, all residential compounds surround these markets are under lock down, schools closed, and residents will be mass screened. According to the published case report summaries (Beijing has not published detailed case reports, though state media has put together travel history maps for the cases), all 27 confirmed cases have mild or moderate symptoms, or no outward symptoms at all. Most of the confirmed cases first developed symptoms on 6/9 – 6/13, and the majority were found via mass screening of at risk populations. All but two of the cases either worked at Xinfadi exchanged, or frequented the exchange to purchase supplies or groceries. The two non-Xinfadi cases are venders at another produce market in Haidian District in NW Beijing, one case has adjacent stalls that sourced produce from Xinfadi.

    1 community/neighborhood in Beijing has been classified as High Risk area (the one around Xinfadi exchange), and 22 communities/neighborhoods have been designated as Medium Risk area. In Beijing, it only takes one confirmed/asymptomatic case for the community/neighborhood to become a Medium Risk area, and for the affected residential compound to go under restricted access. Any cluster or or > 50 cumulative cases would redesignate an area to High Risk. To be reclassified as low risk, an area needs to have 0 active cases, or no new confirmed cases for 14 days. Almost all of the 100+ cases from the Xinfadi outbreak so far are migrant workers with non-Beijing “Hukous”.

    So far 30+ jurisdictions across China (provinces and cities) have implemented mandatory 14 day quarantines for visitors from Beijing. Many companies have issued policies refusing to accept any visitors from Beijing, even employees from their own Beijing branches. Companies within Beijing are also refusing any outside visitors, even if they also live and work within the city. Even after the outbreak real in Beijing is suppressed, I would expect Beijingers will need to present negate RT-PCR test reports within 7 days prior to travel to the rest of China, just like what is currently required for residents of cities with relatively recent outbreaks (Harbin and Mudanjian in Heilongjiang Province, Jilin City of Jilin Province), and what was required for residents of Hubei Province.

  4. 4.

    Evil_Paul

    The thing that’s got me scared is that, while the number of new cases in the US seems to be holding constant at around 20,000/day, the number of COVID deaths has been consistently going down.

    A steady 20k of new cases makes a certain amount of sense.  A decrease in high-population density states like NY being offset by an increase in low-density states.  But if the new cases are holding steady, then shouldn’t the death toll be more or less steady as well?

    I know that Republican governors have been trying to fudge the numbers in certain states (like Florida), but I didn’t think they’d be this successful.  How long is this sustainable?  What happens when people catch on to the truth?

  5. 5.

    YY_Sima Qian

    I left Wuhan for the first time this week since the start of COVID-10 epidemic in China, business trip to Shenzhen and Dongguan in Guangdong Province. Hubei residents are no longer required to present negative RT-PCR test results within the past 7 days to get onto a flight (negative IgM/IgG anti-body results was also required) or check into a hotel. However, many businesses in Guangdong still require visitors from Hubei to produce negative RT-PCR test results within the past 7 days. Therefore, last week I got tested for RT-PCR for the fifth time, and serological antibody for the fourth time.

    The flight from Wuhan to Shenzhen was only ~ 70% full, and Wuhan airport is running at ~ 40% of pre-COVID capacity. The airport felt fairly empty. All crew and passengers wore masks, green health code was required for boarding. Shenzhen airport felt a bit more busy when I landed, but still noticeably below pre-COVID levels. Shenzhen has not had any domestic cases for several months, and few imported cases (unlike Guangzhou). The metro crowd and automobile traffic at Shenzhen is almost back to normal, and masking is mandatory on the metro. Checking into hotels and office towers, one is often asked to scan QR code for a national tracking APP that tracks whether one has been to medium to high risk areas, via mobile GPS signals. Only green code is allowed inside. Office towers’ managements will set out boxes of tissues and Q-tips to press elevator buttons with. The elevators no longer have floor markings to ensure strict distancing.

    In the Central Business District area of Shenzhen (a huge metropolis of nearly 20 million people),  masking rate is > 90% during the day, but drop to ~ 70% later in the evening. However, at any given time ~ 20% of the people with masks are wearing them improperly, exposing nose and/or mouth. As one who lived through the horrors of Wuhan in late Jan. – early Feb., and through 80+ days of strict lock down, I am rather pissed at the signs of nonchalance. Yes, Shenzhen has not reported any cases in a long time, and ever was hard hit to begin with, and weather is hot and humid right now. However, as the new outbreak in Beijing demonstrates, danger may lie just below the surface, and consistently and correctly wearing a mask is not a great sacrifice. The restaurants and shops here thrived on the mass of day time traffic, which is noticeably reduced. Most of the businesses seem to have survived, I think only ~ 10% are shuttered, waiting for new tenants. Far fewer people are frequenting the restaurants, coffee/tea shops, confectionaries or bars. Restaurants that used to have long lines at the door by 11:30 AM (with 30 min waiting times) now have no waiting line, and only 70% full in the middle of lunch hour. The office workers are either ordering delivery or bringing prepared meals from home.

    My travel plan has just changed to visiting Shanghai later in the week. One of my team members from Beijing was supposed to go, but he is now persona-non-grata… As a Wuhan resident, a negative RT-PCR result is required by the customer to grant access, and a test result is only good for 7 days. So, this afternoon I went to the Hong Kong University Hospital’s Shenzhen campus to get another test, my sixth naso/oropharyngeal swab! There are a lot more people taking tests there than I have seen in Wuhan. The level of protection worn by the sample collecting staff is a bit lower than in Wuhan, but probably still adequate.

    It will be interesting to what life is like in Shanghai, I imagine it is probably similar to Shenzhen, almost back to normal.

  6. 6.

    Fair Economist

    @Evil_Paul:There are two reasons the death rate can drop without recorded cases dropping. First, testing is better, so constant reported cases means actual cases are lower. Second, there have been some improvements in care. Anticoagulation has been shown to improve outcome in randomized trials. I suspect the shift from ventilation to high flow supplemental oxygen has helped too, although there are no trials.

  7. 7.

    Brachiator

    @Evil_Paul: 

    But if the new cases are holding steady, then shouldn’t the death toll be more or less steady as well?

    I’m not sure. Even if some Republican governors are not reporting accurate figures, I think that Democrats are honest. Testing data is collected and reported at varying times. It’s not uniform. When and where people get sick or hospitalized, or die, is not uniform.

    That’s my main guess. But there may be other explanations as well.

  8. 8.

    prostratedragon

    Wow, who knew that minibrains could be useful? (Happens to be my most recent epithet for that certain someone.)

  10. 10.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Evil_Paul: I think what you’re seeing there is the result of cases having been massively undercounted at the peak of the initial wave in the Northeast, when testing capacity was not what it is now. We’re still seeing the declining tail of that first burst of cases in the death counts, because it can take a long time to die from COVID. I doubt the undercounting of deaths is getting worse; it’s more likely that the undercounting of new cases is getting less bad.

  11. 11.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Patricia Kayden: I think there’s something about being raised with conservative/libertarian mental training that makes it literally difficult to conceive of the utility of doing something that mostly benefits other people. You can see it in people’s rants about how not following the rules is their personal choice, and you should go ahead and do it if you’re so scared. Their brains cannot understand what a collective action is.

  12. 12.

    terben

    From the Australian Dept of Health:

    ‘As at 3:00pm on 16 June 2020, a total of 7,347 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Australia, including 102 deaths and 6,856 have been reported as recovered from COVID-19.

    • Over the past week, there has been an average of 12 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 1,848,000 tests have been conducted nationally. Of those tests conducted 0.4% have been positive.’

    12 new cases today, 9 in Victoria. Victoria is not doing well. Of 80 cases in Australia in the past week, 54 are in Victoria. 17 cases in Hospital, 3 in ICU.

    Big news in my state today. From midnight local time, residents from Western Australia, the Northern Territory and Tasmania can enter the state without a requirement for 14-day quarantine. The previously announced date of July 20 will still apply to the other states, but will be reassessed before that date. This is not a reciprocal arrangement at this time, so if we do have any visitors they would have to be quarantined when they returned to their own states.

  13. 13.

    Barbara

    @Fair Economist: Medical facilities in earlier hot spots were also overwhelmed with cases. It seems like that could happen in newer hot spots like Arizona, but it hasn’t yet.

  14. 14.

    Matt McIrvin

    My city’s mayor just announced the first day in months with zero new cases; urged people to stay the course and keep wearing masks and distancing. Things are continuing to improve in Massachusetts, and I hope we can continue this and don’t just let up in relief and let it rip like out west.

  15. 15.

    Amir Khalid

    Sorry I’m late. Malaysia’s daily numbers. 11 new cases: 10 from local infection comprising four Malaysians and six non-Malaysians; one imported case. Total 8,505 cases.

    Today saw a whopping 333 patients recovered, total 7,733 recovered or 90.9% of all cases. That leaves only 651 active and contagious cases, all isolated in hospital whether symptomatic or not. Of this number, four are in ICU and no one is on a ventilator.

    No deaths, total stands at 121. Infection fatality rate is 1.42%, case fatality rate is 1.54%.

  16. 16.

    Robert Sneddon

    @Fair Economist: There is also the brutal fact that a lot of high-risk people (elderly, infirm, chronically sick) who caught the disease early because there was no lockdown and distancing going on have already died from it and are no longer in the running to die from it now. Welcome to the New Normal.

  17. 17.

    Matt McIrvin

    @YY_Sima Qian:

    Therefore, last week I got tested for RT-PCR for the fifth time, and serological antibody for the fourth time.

    This sentence is like a dispatch from another universe. We’re just getting to the point that most people at elevated risk might be able to get tested ONCE.

    The bit about people not wearing masks properly, though, sounds like my last visit to Market Basket.

  18. 18.

    Evil_Paul

    @Brachiator

    @Fair Economist

    @Matt McIrvin

    I hope you guys are right.  The one thing that’s really been haunting me since this pandemic began was the thought we might delude ourselves into bigger and bigger disasters.  I mean, epidemics are manageable to a certain degree.  Humans have been fumbling our way through them for thousands of years.  But we can always choose to screw ourselves over worse.

  19. 19.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Barbara: I think Arizona is about a week or two out from starting to realize the full horror of this. Their new cases have skyrocketed but the deaths haven’t yet. My friends there are all scared shitless describing people continuing to pack into the bars and restaurants and offices.

  20. 20.

    Amir Khalid

    The US, with about ten times my country’s population, has going on for 250 times as many Covid-19 cases and 1,000 times as many deaths. Its rush to reopen is frightening. It is nowhere near getting the pandemic under control, in fact quite the opposite. Much of its leadership is in denial about how serious things are, and the White House is maintaining that’s over when it very clearly is not. I am very worried for my American friends.

  21. 21.

    debbie

    In less than one month, the confirmed cases in my county have gone from 2,005 to 7,202.

  22. 22.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Evil_Paul: From a somewhat selfish perspective, what I’m wondering about is what a second wave in the Northeast would look like, since there probably will be one–will we act like we’re better prepared and know what’s coming, or will it be like the first one all over again? Even with all that’s happened here, the highest credible estimates of total infections are far short of herd immunity; most of us are still as susceptible as ever.

  23. 23.

    debbie

    @Brachiator:

    He’s still saying that the problem is the testing, that if we didn’t test so much, our numbers would be better. No, numbnuts, if we didn’t test so much, many more people would be infected and infect others. ? ?

  24. 24.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Amir Khalid: The Northeast US, which got hit hard early, looks more like Europe: nothing like the level of control they’ve managed in East Asia, but we’re recovering from the initial wave and capabilities are increasing. The situation in the West and South is just terrifying; many places seemed to think they were somehow magically protected from what they saw happening in New York. The onset was just a bit slower because some people were taking precautions.

  25. 25.

    Matt McIrvin

    @Evil_Paul: Oh, it’s bad. I think another part of what’s happening is that the steady case rate you’re seeing is the sum of declines in the Northeast and rises elsewhere. And in some places, the big spike in cases just happened and those people just haven’t died yet. The thing that makes it hard to compare cases and deaths at a given moment in time is just that people can hang on in ICUs for weeks before they die.

  28. 28.

    Drdavechemist

    @Robert Sneddon: I don’t know if that population has decreased all that much. My guess is that the early spread in nursing homes in WA and other states convinced even people of the “herd immunity” persuasion that visiting nursing homes is a REALLY bad idea.

    Here in RI, somewhere around 75-80% of fatalities have been from long-term care facilities. If some of the “open the economy” states are still keeping infections out of nursing homes, then I can see why cases and hospitalizations could be rising while fatalities are still falling.

  29. 29.

    YY_Sima Qian

    And I thought Tom Price is one of the very few slightly reasonable Rs (by today’s standards) left in Congress.

  30. 30.

    Shalimar

    Rep. Tom Rice’s opponent has his closing ad there.

    Voiceover: “This is Tom Rice explaining why he didn’t wear a mask at work.”

    Rice:  “My understanding is a mask doesn’t really protect you as it much as it protects other people.”

    Voiceover: “We elected you to protect other people, Tom.  Please don’t vote for this asshole again on November 3rd.”

  31. 31.

    Geminid

    @Amir Khalid: Because the U.S. has a federal system, and governors are empowered to respond to  public health problems, the scope of mitigation measures varies from state to state.  Virginia has a mask mandate, and at my Kroger’s  grocery 100% of staff and customers  wear masks. My friend in Atlanta reports 2/3 of customers, and all staff are masked. He said a large portion of the unmasked were younger white males. Georgia masking rates are probably less the further one is from Atlanta.       As we move through this second phase of the pandemic (i.e. when it goes everywhere) I expect to see a lot of divergence in disease rates among various states.           Of course, when so much rides on voluntary adherence to mandated health measures, the miserable leadership we experience at the national level undercuts the efforts of Democratic governors, and discourages Republican governors from implementing sound public health  practices.

  32. 32.

    opiejeanne

    @Matt McIrvin: King County, WA just applied to move to a step 2 reopening. Seattle is in King County, and we have nearly three times as many cases as the next highest county, Snohomish. We have 8797 cases to date in King County, and 574 deaths: 6.5%.

    Washington’s average daily reported deaths has been climbing over the past six weeks, after it had declined to fewer than 200 new cases per day. Now it’s running about 300 new cases per day, and some of it is due to more testing, but I am not reassured by this knowledge and plan to spend the summer the way we’ve spent the past 4 months. We are not quite recluses yet, we wave at neighbors walking their dogs and talk to them across the rail fence, from a safe distance. Instacart has been really good at getting us whatever stuff we need.

  33. 33.

    zzyzx

    @opiejeanne: Phase 2 isn’t all that different than the phase 1.5 that we’re in. The one big thing is that restaurants can move to 50% occupancy which scares me, but I’m not planning to eat out any time soon.

    I like that it takes 3 weeks after moving to phase 2 before anyone can apply for phase 3. As for me, I’m going to sit back and wait and watch. I’m not in any real hurry and it’s not really until phase 4 that anything I want to do will reopen anyway.

  34. 34.

    sherparick

    @Patricia Kayden: I was scanning for someone to say something. This is the quote from the interview: “My understanding is that a mask doesn’t really protect you as much as it protects other people. I don’t think it would have made much of a difference.”https://www.wsj.com/articles/gop-rep-tom-rice-fell-ill-from-coronavirus-11592263448 …”

    In other words, its all about me “fuck the rest of you” and “I’m a Christian and God loves me.” (Is he in for a surprise.)

  35. 35.

    New Deal democrat

    @Evil_Paul: Give it about two more weeks: the effects of recklessly reopening will show up in deaths by then.

    It took a good 2 to 3 weeks for new infections to start rising in those States that recklessly reopened, and another week or two for the pattern to be clear. And it is now very, very clear. The rate of increase in most of the States that have been most reckless – Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, South Carolina, and Texas – is beginning to look exponential.

    It will take another several weeks for these infections to demonstrably (sadly) progress to an increase in deaths. If you go over to 91-divoc.com and scroll down to the fourth (last) set of graphs, which show States’ data per capita, and select the top 25 for deaths in the past 7 days, you will see that the top 10 are still dominated by the States of the Northeast megalopolis, and their death rates are declining. Down near the bottom you can see the recklessly reopened States, with death rates just beginning to rise. That’s why the national death rate has not increased – yet.

  36. 36.

    JaneE

    The number of new cases in the US looks to me like a repeating pattern over about a week’s time.  Church Services?  Weekend outings?  Coincidence?

    What it doesn’t look like is a drop in cases any time soon.

  37. 37.

    JaneE

    @Evil_Paul: We are also learning more about how to take care of and treat people.  Just today there was a report out of the UK that indicated they could lower the death rate with a low-dose inexpensive steroid.  Remdesivir can reduce the viral load and may keep someone from hitting the tipping point.  Blood thinners are being used to break up clots.  Proning is being used to help people breathe without ventilators, and the ventilators that they want to use are the low pressure types, not the standard therapy ones that may have made things worse, not better.  Whether they are fudging the numbers or not, we should see better outcomes and fewer deaths as we learn more about what does and does not work.

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