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You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Wednesday/Thursday, June 24-25

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Wednesday/Thursday, June 24-25

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CAUTION:

Suddenly Ted Cruz is a supporter of big-gubmint federal intervention:

Nobody’s going to Disneyland:

Reader Interactions

30Comments

  1. 1.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s daily numbers. Four new cases: one local infection, a non-Malaysian who presented with severe acute respiratory infection and was screened in a hospital; three imported infections in Malaysians returning from Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Egypt. Cumulative total 8,600 cases.

    40 more patients recovered and were discharged; total 8,271 recovered or 96.2% of all cases. That leaves 208 active cases; two are in ICU, and neither one is on a ventilator.

    No new deaths were recorded, for an 11th consecutive day. Total stands at 121 deaths. Infection fatality rate is 1.41%, case fatality rate is 1.44%.

    Fifth and sixth formers (16- and 18-year olds) resumed classes yesterday. These grades were prioritised because they are the ones facing crucial public exams in November. Attendance on the first day was about 96%.

    I see the US making the opposite of progress against this pandemic, and the sight deeply saddens me.

  2. 2.

    SFAW

    Suddenly Ted Cruz is a supporter of big-gubmint federal intervention:

    Wasn’t he also a big supporter of hurricane relief for Texas etc. a few years ago (I forget which hurricane), but (shockingly, I know) an opponent of relief for NYC and environs in the aftermath of Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy (which came later)

    Asking for a friend country.

  3. 3.

    ?BillinGlendaleCA

    @Amir Khalid:

    I see the US making the opposite of progress against this pandemic, and the sight deeply saddens me.

    I’ve been told by(checks notes) the President of the United States that the solution for this is to test less.  See, cases go down, problem solved.

  4. 4.

    Sab

    The thing that makes me so incandescently angry as my life is seriously dsirupted is that it is so unnecesary. Team USA knew how to handle this. They just couldn’t be bothered, and we are a big enough country that our failures matter globally. We have had several potenial pandemics just in the  last 20 years that were controlled by sensible government intervention. The first SARS. MERS. Flu H1N1. Those could have been catastrohic but weren’t because of public health intervention.

    Phoenix is biggish by American standards: 1,700 new cases. Beijing is  mind-boggling huge by HUGE by anyones standards,  17 new cases.

  6. 6.

    wvng

    @Sab: I don’t see this as a Team USA problem. I put this entirely at Trump’s doorstep. Every other President in my 66 years would have done far better at leading our country through this.

  7. 7.

    gkoutnik

    It occurred to me this morning that after way too many days of this post anchoring my understanding of one of the defining events of my lifetime, there are once again no tweets included from the Tweeter-In-Chief – because he has, not once in six months, had anything useful or important to say.  The President of the United States has not said or done anything useful, important, or positive enough to be mentioned in this so-important compendium – or any other, I assume.  Not one thing that suggests that he knows anything about his job of leading America.  Today, just two things that he has done/said that are blindingly moronic.

    I have family in California, Arizona and Washington.  I don’t even know what to say.

  8. 8.

    prostratedragon

    Only just under 18.1 million seconds until the next President is inaugurated.

  10. 10.

    Ohio Mom

    I remember when we thought Vietnam needed our “help.” I hope they are enjoying the irony thst the country that waged war on them for so many years is way behind them in keeping its own citizens safe, healthy and alive. I am.

  11. 11.

    WereBear

    @Amir Khalid:

    I see the US making the opposite of progress against this pandemic, and the sight deeply saddens me.

     
    Thanks for the sympathy, Amir. While I mourn the deaths and disruption, the unexpected silver lining is how it has exposed Republican lies and incompetence.

    As sad as it is, I swear nothing less would have made a dent…

  12. 12.

    prostratedragon

    @Ohio Mom:  Don’t know if I’m enjoying, exactly, but there sure is a good illustration of something about motes and beams here.

  13. 13.

    TS (the original)

    The Australian Governments appear to be standing firm especially with the worsening figures from Victoria & the sorrowful announcements from Qantas Chief (not my favourite person). Be wonderful if the Federal government was forced to buy it back & turn it into the airline it used to be.

    Qantas has announced they are unlikely to run overseas flights before July next year. 6000 workers are being sacked/made redundant and 15,000 are currently stood down. The total employment is 30,000 when all is well.

    The PM has been fighting for re-opening everything except the borders but the Victorian numbers are causing him to have to backtrack. He has also accepted Trump’s invitation to join the G7 meeting – which I cannot imagine is going to happen, so Trump’s attempt to ruin something else/get Putin to attend, might be a big fail. Trump’s defeat in November may save our PM from becoming an utter MAGA fail.

  15. 15.

    terben

    From the Australian Dept of Health:

    ‘As at 3:00pm on 25 June 2020, a total of 7,558 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Australia, including 104 deaths and 6,942 have been reported as recovered from COVID-19.

    • Over the past week, there has been an average of 24 new cases reported each day. Of the newly reported cases, the majority have been from Victoria.
    • Of cases with a reported place of acquisition, 61% have recent international travel history, including over 1,300 cases associated with cruise ships.
    • To date, over 2,232,000 tests have been conducted nationally. Of those tests conducted 0.3% have been positive.’

    33 of today’s 37 new case were from Victoria. On the positive side, 14 of the cases were detected in recently returned travellers who are in quarantine.

  16. 16.

    Viva BrisVegas

    @TS (the original): Trump’s defeat in November may save our PM from becoming an utter MAGA fail.

    Too late for that. Morrison is as MAGA as a red hat on a statue of Stonewall Jackson.

  17. 17.

    David C

    I would be careful with the “a lot more cases, deaths not as bad” claim. The IHME isn’t one of the best modeling groups.

  18. 18.

    Steeplejack

    From last night:

    I was tested for COVID-19 five days ago. They told me I would receive results in 3-5 days. No results.

    Bear that in mind when you see FL, TX, CA and others reporting record new cases.

    Those are people tested days or weeks ago.

    — The Hoarse Whisperer (@HoarseWisperer)
    June 24, 2020

    What’s interesting is the thread of comments, detailing how utterly haphazard the procedures are in different states. How can we make statistical sense out of any of this—except (possibly) deaths?

  19. 19.

    David C

    And about the dexamethasone paper – in other models of use, dex is indicated if there is respiratory distress. The whole use/don’t use part depends on whether you want a strong immune system to fight off the virus or an attenuated immune system that will not kill you.

  20. 20.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Yesterday, Beijing reported 13 new domestic confirmed cases. No new suspect or asymptomatic cases. Beijing authorities was prompt with case information today, with more detailed case summaries for all cases yesterday, as well as a case from 6/23 whose information had not been released. Out of the 14 cases, all but two have been under self-quarantine or centralized quarantine when testing positive, so transmission chains had been largely cut. If this pattern keeps up for a couple of more days, I would feel comfortable that the authorities in Beijing are now ahead of the outbreak.

    Out if the 256 confirmed cases in Beijing up to 6/24, 137 (53%) were identified from mass screening, 81 cases (32%) were found at fever clinics, and 38 cases as traced contacts (only 15%). However, on 6/22 and 6/23, only 15% of new confirmed cases were found at fever clinics, and the remainder were evenly split between contact tracing and mass screening. The percentage found by contact tracing is much lower than previous outbreaks at Harbin, Mudanjiang and Jilin City. There are a couple of way to interpret the data. First, the nature of an outbreak epicenter at a huge wholesale produce exchange with massive traffic (two of the clusters seeded by Xinfadi outbreak are also produce markets) make it much more challenging for contact tracers. Second, Beijing went for mass screening of select populations almost immediately, which probably caught cases before contact tracers got to them. The cities with previous outbreaks never did mass screening.

    If Beijing’s strategy works, then we should indeed see a cliff like drop off in cases in the coming days. In fact, the peak in new cases was 30+ cases /day for a few days last week. Daily new case count has since Been dropping rapidly to 20s, the low teens and high single digits. The mass screening at Wuhan might also have been a demonstration of what is possible, establishing another tool for cities with future outbreaks.

    In terms of clinical symptoms, out of the 256 cases, 93% developed fevers, 36% with dry cough, 24% with coughing up phlegm, 23% with sore throat, 14% presented diarrhea, 13% with loss of taste, 8% with loss of smell.

    Hebei Province reported 1 new domestic confirmed case yesterday, a close contact of a confirmed case in Beijing.

    It appears that the State of Victoria in Australia is taking a page out of Wuhan and Beijing’s playbook, to commence mass screening of residents to uncover asymptomatic/pre-symptomatic cases, by employing the army going door to door.

  21. 21.

    Alex

    @Ohio Mom: yeah, it seems a lot of Americans have yet to adjust their views about our country’s superiority, though. That Reuter’s headline about Indonesian “social taboos” is a piece of work considering the folks turning public meetings into anti mask Pizzagate parties here in the US.

  22. 22.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Ohio Mom: I remember Conmerce Secretary Wilbur Ross going on CNBC crowing that COVID-19 will help push re-shoring of production from China back to the US. This was in early Feb., when China was desperately trying to contain the the. Massive outbreak in Wuhan and Hubei Province, as well as cases and clusters in every province and municipality.

    There is strongly sense of schadenfreude in China right now.

  23. 23.

    Soprano2

    Last night the city of Joplin’s city council voted 5-4 against a mandatory mask ordinance, even though they’re right next to a COVID “hot spot” due to two poultry processing plants in McDonald County. I’d been waiting for that area to become a “hot spot”, because I knew they had a lot of poultry processing down there. I’ve never been so grateful that Tyson closed down the turkey processing plant that used to be right by the downtown area here! I’m hearing now that Springfield’s city council is considering a mandatory mask ordinance. They’ve been surprisingly good considering we’re right smack dab in the middle of MAGA country here. I expect some crazies like the ones from FL will show up at the meeting if they do decide to consider it. People just don’t understand is that the time to take action is BEFORE everything gets really bad.

    Funny enough, I’m not hearing anything from my MAGA FB friends anymore about how all the worst states for COVID are run by Democrats. LOL

  25. 25.

    gkoutnik

    People just don’t understand is that the time to take action is BEFORE everything gets really bad.

    You’d think that a city that was leveled by a tornado just a few years ago would have preparedness on their mind.

  26. 26.

    Matt McIrvin

    @David C: Conservatives having a good laugh at the hysterical libs now that the projected death count is now only 60 9/11s instead of 70 9/11s.

  27. 27.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @wvng: This is very much a Team USA problem. Trump is just a symptom of a strong minority of Americans getting brainwashed by conservative voodoo, and apathy among a significant portion of the rest. Trump should have no business being a serious GOP candidate for any office, let alone winning the White House, even with Russian interference. The system of checks and balances across branches of government has also substantially failed because one of two major political parties in the US have gone off the deep end, in a vicious cycle with their core supporters, with no respect for rules and norms representative bodies build upon rules and norms. The system of bureaucratic checks within the Executive Branch is also failing, as career civil servants are resigning in disgust, driven out, fired, or co-opted. The only checks that are working are push back from the States, resistance from the Democratic House. The final defense is the vote in November, but the “will of the people” is distorted by gerrymandering, the Electoral College, equal representation among states in the Senate, as well as foreign interference. Even in the likely event that Biden wins, how will the US avoid similar lapses in the future? Who in the hell thought Obama would be succeeded by Trump?!

  29. 29.

    Soprano2

    @gkoutnik: You would think, wouldn’t you? Unfortunately, this is a high MAGA area, so mask-wearing is a charged political issue rather than a health issue. I’m sure down there in McDonald County they’re complaining about the “lifestyle” of people who work in poultry processing plants as an explanation for their sudden cluster.

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