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If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

Make the republican party small enough to drown in a bathtub.

“Squeaker” McCarthy

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

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

It’s the corruption, stupid.

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

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

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

Consistently wrong since 2002

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

An almost top 10,000 blog!

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

Take your GOP plan out of the witness protection program.

Republicans are radicals, not conservatives.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Wow, you are pre-disappointed. How surprising.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

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

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Do not shrug your shoulders and accept the normalization of untruths.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Saturday/Sunday, September 12-13

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Saturday/Sunday, September 12-13

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  1. 1.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Yesterday, China reported 0 new domestic confirmed cases and 0 new domestic asymptomatic case, and 10 new imported confirmed cases, 70 imported asymptomatic cases:

    * Shanghai Municipality – 3 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from the US and the Philippines, and 1 Italian national coming from France (via Moscow)
    * Ningbo in Zhejiang Province – 2 confirmed and 4 asymptomatic cases, all Chinese nationals returning from India
    * Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Turkey; 5 asymptomatic case, 2 Chinese nationals returning from Nigeria, 1 each from Kazakhstan, the Ukraine and Indonesia
    * Shenzhen in Guangdong Province – 7 asymptomatic cases, all Chinese national returning from Russia
    * Foshan in Guangdong Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from the Philippines
    * Nanning in Guangxi Province – 1 confirmed case and 3 asymptomatic cases, all Chinese national returning from overseas, no further information released
    * Tianjin Municipality – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese National returning from Chad (via Paris CdG); 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Mexico (via Paris CdG)
    * Zhengzhou in Henan Province – 1 confirmed and 38 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    * Xi’an in Shaanxi Province – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Nigeria (via Muscat); 1 asymptomatic case, a Chinese national returning from Pakistan
    * Chengdu in Sichuan Province – 3 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from the Philippines (via Inchon), Sudan and the United Arab Emirates
    * Xiamen in Fujian Province – 3 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Bolivia, Kazakhstan and Hong Kong
    * Chongqing Municipality – 2 asymptomatic cases, both Chinese nationals returning from the UAE
    * Shenyang in Liaoning Province – 1 asymptomatic case, a South Korean National coming from Seoul

    Not yet officially reported by the National Helath Commission, but Ruili in Yunnan Province (on the border with Myanmar) reported a suspect case in one of the residential compounds last night. The entire compound is under lock down, pending confirmation of the case.

    Today, Hong Kong reported 19 new cases, 11 from local transmission, 3 without clear source of transmission.

  2. 2.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s daily numbers. 47 new cases. 45 cases from local infection. 28 Malaysians: 14 in Kedah, comprising 13 from the Tawar cluster and one from the Sungai cluster; 14 in Sabah, comprising eight from the Benteng Lahad Datu cluster, three senior citizens, one screened with influenza-like illness, one health-care worker, and one police detainee. 17 non-Malaysians, comprising two quarantined persons, one old-age home resident, and 14 from the Benteng Lahad Datu cluster.

    Two imported cases, both non-Malaysians, arriving from Morocco and the Maldives.

    The cumulative reported total is 9,915 cases.

    Seven more patients recovered and were discharged, for a total of 9,196 patients recovered — 92.75% of the cumulative reported total. 591 active and contagious cases are currently being isolated/treated in hospital; nine are in ICU, four of them on respirators.

    There are still no new deaths since 1st September, and the total remains at 128 deaths — 1.29% of the cumulative reported total, 1.37% of resolved cases.

  3. 3.

    NeenerNeener

    We were doing so well in my county (which is also mistermix’s county, I think) in the middle of the week. Only 8 new cases on Wednesday and low 20s on Thursday and most of those were people under 50. We hadn’t had a death in a week. I looked at yesterday’s stats and we’re back up to 38 cases pretty much evenly distributed across all age groups and 1 new death.

  4. 4.

    Brachiator

    Nate is playing down the COVID situation on college campuses, but he’s got the wrong denominator. Those 36,000 cases on campuses are not out of the 20M students in the US, but out of the much small number on campus in person right now.

    Damn funny how Nate Silver got basic math wrong. Also, I listen to some sports talk radio to get away from politics, and am amazed to hear how deeply radio announcers want to see college sports, especially football, start up again.  They keep blathering about how healthy most student athletes are and that most colleges have great health facilities in case athletes get sick.

     

    Coronavirus infections in the Dakotas are growing faster than anywhere else in the nation. The rise of the virus is fueling impassioned debates over masks and personal freedom after months in which the two states avoided the worst of the pandemic.

    And neighboring Nebraska has decided to do away with any mandatory pandemic protective measures.

    Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts will end nearly all of his state’s social-distancing restrictions on Monday even as the number of new coronavirus cases has trended upward over the last few months.
    The new rules will still limit the size of large indoor gatherings, such as concerts, meeting halls and theaters, but will drop all other state-imposed mandates in favor of voluntary guidelines, as other conservative states have done.
    “We are loosening the restrictions further on Sept. 14,” Ricketts said at a news conference.
    State officials said they made the decision based on the availability of hospital beds and ventilators, in keeping with the Republican governor’s goal of not overwhelming medical facilities.

    It’s weird how these red state governors believe that assertions of liberty and belief in the Second Amendment can defeat a virus.

    And yet, the fact that Israel is about to impose a second national lockdown suggests how difficult it is to get this virus under control.

  5. 5.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Recently, I had lunch with someone who works at the Wuhan CDC. He worked 12 – 16 hour days from New Year’s Eve 2019 through to end of Mar., without a day’s rest, and stayed way from home to avoid infecting his family. He was posted to the Leishenshan temporary hospital for weeks. His wife gave birth to their daughter at end of Feb., when Wuhan was still adding hundreds of confirmed cases each day, he did not see his daughter until a month later. The wife had done prenatal visits to the Wuhan Center Hospital in Jan., the worst hit in the city. The mother-in-law worked in the district government, had was assigned to the front lines in the communities, as well, and did not go home until mid-Apr.

    He was tasked to visit hospitals throughout Jan., and later found out he was in high risk exposure situations several times, having had lunch with doctors and hospital administrators that later became confirmed or suspect cases (because it was difficult to get confirmation due to lack of reliable test kits). Fortunately, they ate box lunches quickly, in large conference rooms with windows open, which helped reduce risk of infection. I asked why he was not quarantined following the high risk exposures, he said at that time, if they quarantined everyone who had been exposed, there would be no one left to work. He also said that the medical personnel, CDC and health commission staff, and contact tracers were so exhausted that it was common for people hoping to be infected or quarantined. It would at least mean some rest. A.L. had posted a link before to an article about a Taoist priest in China making memorial plaques to honor the hundreds who have died fighting COVID-19. The vast majority were front line social workers, community volunteers, police officers, and government bureaucrats who died from exhaustion or stress, not COVID-19.

    I also asked him what happened in Jan. in Wuhan, with the slow government response. As a frontline CDC worker, he is not privy to the deliberations at municipal or provincial administration. From his perspective, the initial response to the emergence of a novel virus was rapid. When the first doctor raised warnings to Wuhan CDC and Municipal Health Commission of a novel coronavirus on 12/28, it was quickly reported up the chain to provincial and national levels, the WHO’s Beijing office was notified on 12/30, and the National Health Commission sent an experts team on 12/31 to investigate. Full genomic sequencing was completed at multiple labs by Jan. 9. However a lot of the early focus was on the serious and critical cases that first trickled, then steadily streamed, into the hospitals, and everyone was referencing 2003 SARS, with it extreme virulence. They simply did not appreciate that the serious of critical cases were simply the tip of an iceberg of moderate, mild and asymptomatic cases. I asked why the authorities made the notorious statement of “limited human to human transmission” in mid-Jan., when there were nosocomial transmission in hospitals already. He said early epidemiological investigation of > 7000K close contacts of the initial 40+ cases showed that many cases did not infect others, or only infected 1 person in the same household. That suggested limited H-H transmission. Of course, with only very limited and unreliable test kits at the time, they missed the mild and asymptomatic/pre-symptomatic cases. Clinical diagnoses only really worked for critical, severe, or the more serious moderate cases. He also admitted that the authorities were too focused on the Huanan Seafood Market, and missed other transmission chains. I asked him why the case count stuck at 40+ for two weeks in mid-Jan., he did suggest the local government prevented hospitals from reporting case (confirmed or suspect) to the Wuhan CDC, and the municipal CDC could only report the numbers they had. He speculated that preventing mass panic ahead of the municipal and provincial Party Congresses, as well as Chinese New Year, was the primary motivation.

    I asked him what made the authorities do a 180 by second half of Jan. He said by that time, clinical diagnoses of severe and critical cases were popping up at hospitals across the city, with no links to each other, and greater availability of the still unreliable test kits showed very high positive rate, suggesting a runaway outbreak. He though the decision to establish a cordon sanitaire around Wuhan and locking down the city was a gutsy decision, given lack of precedence in modern human history, and the inevitable human/economic/political impact. It was not something the authorities ever planned or prepared for.

    He agreed that SARS-CoV-2 is probably still transmitting at very low levels even in Wuhan, though it is impossible to be sure. The odd positive RT-PCR result still pops up occasionally, but they seem to be false positives, or non-infectious (possibly people who had self-healed and are shedding dead viral particles). Therefore, they are not reported as confirmed or asymptomatic. Different regions in China seem to have different standards treating such cases. The recent asymptomatic case reported by Nanjing probably would not have been reported at Wuhan, given the case did not infect any of the 7K+ contacts.

    He shared that, in the assessment of the Chinese CDC, the US probably had ~ 30M cases by beginning of Sept. I said it generally aligns (same order of magnitude) with academic studies I have seen, including from the US CDC. I gently probed how many cases he though there were in Wuhan. He would not say outright, but said it is probably several times the official tally, based on modeling. My WAG is 200 – 300K, which is actually low compared to the modeled counts for other hot spots (Lombardia, NYC, etc.).

    Just the thoughts of a front line public health worker at Wuhan, for what it’s worth. Nothing that was too surprising to me, but added some granular details to what I have suspected.

  6. 6.

    bjacques

    Ugh. France hit 10,561cases in the past 24 hours, up from ~9800 a couple of days ago. Tomorrow we fly back to NL, where cases are similarly climbing. French airports are offering free COVID tests, results available in 1-2 days, so we’ll take that opportunity. The French government are taking this more seriously than the Dutch government, who are strangely reluctant to lay down any more measures. Holiday was relaxing, under the circumstances, back to hunkering down.

  7. 7.

    Amir Khalid

    @Brachiator:

    It’s weird how these red state governors believe that assertions of liberty and belief in the Second Amendment can defeat a virus.

    They believe in defending liberty yadda yadda yadda against the tyranny of public-health measures to fight the spread of a lethal virus. I think that is the real stupidity at work here.

  8. 8.

    raven

    Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg plans to spend at least $100 million in Florida to help elect Democrat Joe Biden, a massive late-stage infusion of cash that could reshape the presidential contest in a costly toss-up state central to President Trump’s reelection hopes.

  9. 9.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Amir Khalid:

    They believe in defending liberty yadda yadda yadda against the tyranny of public-health measures to fight the spread of a lethal virus. I think that is the real stupidity at work here.

    We have seen such people in every country (see the anti-public health measures protests across Europe, Australia and New Zealand), but in the US they seem to represent a much higher percentage of the population, and an even higher percentage of those in positions of power, and have hijacked much of the polity. In East and most of Southeast Asia, government policies and community peer pressure do not give such sentiments oxygen.

  10. 10.

    Baud

    Face masks could be giving people Covid-19 immunity, researchers suggest
    Mask wearing might also be reducing the severity of the virus and ensuring that a greater proportion of new infections are asymptomatic

  11. 11.

    Ian R

    That crowd shot from the Israel article, with not one person wearing a mask properly. *shudder*

    (Ok, the guy in the black mask talking on the phone is wearing his poorly-fitting mask almost properly.)

  13. 13.

    WereBear

    @Brachiator: It’s weird how these red state governors believe that assertions of liberty and belief in the Second Amendment can defeat a virus.

    If they had any self-awareness, which they don’t, that would let them know they are in a cult.

    This can’t end well for them, though of course, worse for us, but they are heedless of consequences, and in fact, don’t even consider them.

  14. 14.

    Mousebumples

    The NEJM article, while promising, is only a theory. Hopefully not grounded in science than the Hydroxychloroquine cure theory, but still a theory. Here’s hoping an evidence truckload proving that is published soon.

  15. 15.

    Cermet

    Nate Silver – an average statistician who has very little grasp of concepts related to accrurate data; hence, the term, garbage in, garbage out.

  16. 16.

    Cermet

    @Mousebumples: There is a bases upon the concept – some types of illnesses can be defeated by the body if one is exposed to a low dose of the virus or spore. Add to that the observation that people with fairly average masks get ill less often and one can make a guess about this a possiblity. Not proven in real terms but it is evidence based, none-the-less.

  18. 18.

    joel hanes

    I’m surprised you chose to run that salmon thing.

    While I have no doubt that intact SARS-CoV2 virions persisted for a week on refrigerated salmon, I am not aware of a single case of COVID-19 attributed to eating contaminated food.   I believe that stomach acids destroy the virus, and that the mouth and throat are not known to be sites of initial infection.

    The tissues most susceptible to initial infection are the sinuses, interior of the nose, and the mucosa around the eyes.    I suppose that you could handle contaminated salmon, and then touch your face near the eye or pick your nose.

    Or one could be running scraps down a garbage disposal that aerosolizes them so that one could inhale contaminated salmon through one’s nose …

  19. 19.

    mrmoshpotato

    @Brachiator:

    It’s weird how these red state governors believe that assertions of liberty and belief in the Second Amendment can defeat a virus. 

    It’s their God-given right to pump the virus full of lead, you dirty hippie!  ‘Murika!

  21. 21.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Brachiator: It’s weird how these red state governors believe that assertions of liberty and belief in the Second Amendment can defeat a virus.

    These states have populations smaller than the population of a typical suburban county in a big blue state. What they are banking on is the number of dead will be so small it won’t be noticed.

  22. 22.

    Sloane Ranger

    @YY_Sima Qian: Thank you for this. I found this “eye witness” account really interesting. Actually, despite all the China bashing going about (not on this site), I’m not convinced that any other government would have done any better.

    At the beginning, doctors were confronted with flu like symptoms and, quite reasonably, treated it as such. It was only when more and more cases started appearing that didn’t react to the tried and trusted treatments that medical experts would start thinking they might be dealing with something else. Then it took time to work out that they were dealing with something completely new, the “rules” of which would take time to work out.

    Then, I’m sure, when the experts took it to the government authorities, they initially went into denial mode before the deteriorating situation forced them to accept the evidence. That would be quite normal for human beings. Hell, the UK government was in denial mode for months, despite the evidence from China, Italy and Spain. It was only after BoJo’s brush with death that they started taking it seriously and the Trump admin. is still officially in denial.

    Anyway, while I’m here, yesterday’s figures from the UK.
    There were 3497 new cases (about the same as the day before.) Broken down by nation – England 3008; Northern Ireland 108; Scotland 221 and Wales 164.

    There were 9 new deaths, the dashboard shows 1 in England 0 in Wales with figures for Scotland and Northern Ireland unavailable so where the hell they got that figure from is anyone’s guess.

    There were 884 people in hospital as of Thursday, 10 September and 79 on ventilators on Friday 11th.

    Local observation, children are now back at school. I passed my local primary school yesterday and I noticed an announcement that it was using the local park as a marshalling area. Pupils are told to gather around their class teacher in the park and then walked in crocodile to the school, with each class socially distanced. The same process is followed in reverse at the end of the day. Unfortunately, there was no information about what they did at play and lunch times.

  23. 23.

    sdhays

    @Brachiator: Also, I listen to some sports talk radio to get away from politics, and am amazed to hear how deeply radio announcers want to see college sports, especially football, start up again. They keep blathering about how healthy most student athletes are and that most colleges have great health facilities in case athletes get sick.

    I personally couldn’t care less about sports, so maybe I’m missing something, but to me people whose sole occupation is to jabber on about sports all day being desperate for sports to start up again, regardless of the consequences for the athletes, is just about the most predictable thing ever.

  25. 25.

    J R in WV

    My rural WV county has just over 21,000 residents. So far there are 137 identified Covid cases in the county, and 2 deaths.

    I guess those numbers are pretty low compared to places where more folks are more mobile. I hope they stay low. I know that in my county masks aren’t as universal as they appear to be in Charleston, where nearly everyone wears a mask of some sort, even if it’s a tee shirt tied around their face. I would guess in the high 90% range in Kroger’s. Not quite so high at the Farmer’s Market, which is outdoors, more like 80% or so.

  26. 26.

    Bill Arnold

    Re that salmon story, is there some cultural practice involving grinding salmon to fine powder and snorting it? /s

    Seriously, there remains zero solid evidence/case studies that SARS-CoV-2 spreads other than by inhalation of droplets or smaller airborne particles, and a very large number of studies/case studies showing airborne spread.  This is really getting tiresome. The UK in particular is still big on hand washing and less so on ways to limit sharing of unfiltered exhaled air, but many other countries are misspending their non pharmaceutical intervention budget (what the public will put up with) vs SARS-CoV-2  efforts on methods that have not been shown to be helpful.
    (Yes, some trade war antics are almost certainly at play. Grounds are BS.)

  27. 27.

    Bill Arnold

    @Brachiator:

    Also, I listen to some sports talk radio to get away from politics, and am amazed to hear how deeply radio announcers want to see college sports, especially football, start up again. They keep blathering about how healthy most student athletes are and that most colleges have great health facilities in case athletes get sick.

    An infection with SARS-CoV-2 could easily wreck the potential for an athletic career. Lung damage, heart damage could easily make somebody less than top-tier competitive. Brain damage too.

  29. 29.

    Tokyokie

    @Bill Arnold: Dead thread, but case in point: Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez caught the virus and developed myocarditis. He’s been ruled out of being able to play this season, and his ability to play going forward will depend on the long-term damage he suffers.

  30. 30.

    Jay

    @Bill Arnold:

    China has proven over 187 cases, of formate transmission of SARS Covid 19.

    All of the cases, so far, have been packing plants, where the workers, processing various meats for repackaging, have become infected, from contaminated meats and packaging.

    For most people, covid infections come from shared space airisols, but if you are sharing space with an infected individual, formate transmission is a possibility.

    If you work in a meat/food repackaging plant, the product can also be a danger.

    so yeah, wear a mask, don’t touch your face, and wash your hands you dirty, filthy animals.

  32. 32.

    Mike G

    The U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly approves a wide-ranging resolution on tackling the coronavirus pandemic over objections from the United States and Israel. https://t.co/W8jivpOZgp

    A Republican US administration on the stupid side at the UN, yet again.
    What is Israel’s beef with it?

  33. 33.

    YY_Sima Qian

    @Jay:

    China has proven over 187 cases, of formate transmission of SARS Covid 19.

    China has not proven fomite transmission, beyond a shadow of doubt. That is really difficult to do, since it is impossible to tell whether the contaminated products infected the person or the infected person contaminated the product, but there have been a number of probable cases.

    The Xinfadi outbreak at Beijing is strongly suspected to be originated from contaminated imported seafood, since genetic sequencing indicated the viral strain to be one that was prevalent in Europe in Apr., rather than the ones that were prevalent in China in Jan. – Mar., or ones that were prevalent in Europe in Jun., at the time of the outbreak. There was a case of people being infected from using public restroom (a poorly ventilated one in the basement of a shopping mall) shortly after it was used by a confirmed case, but that could have been aerosol transmission (especially from flushing of toilet) or fomite transmission.

    The outbreak in Dalian originating from an imported seafood processing plant is also strongly suspected to be caused by contaminated seafood. The vast majority of the 100+ cases at the plant surely were infected by coworkers, via droplet or aerosol, but the initial cases might have been infected by imported seafood.

    Then there is the recent outbreak at Auckland, New Zealand, with one of the first reported patients working at a cold store that handled imported seafood. However, I am not sure if New Zealand authorities ever thoroughly tested the cold chain logistics’ environment and products.

    There is a rather famous case in Guangzhou, where the home of an infected case suffered a burst pipe, and the contaminated waste water flowed down the mount toward apartments at lower elevation. Some residents living at the lower apartments walked through the pools of contaminated water, and got the virus on the bottoms of their shoes and bicycle tires and frame. Since those residents did not change their shoes in their homes, they were very likely infected from taking off their shoes and/or working on their bikes.

    So yes, the point of spraying disinfectant onto the ground is to prevent the virus from getting onto people’s shoes, though in most cases such dramatic displays are indeed theater.

    @Bill Arnold:

    Re that salmon story, is there some cultural practice involving grinding salmon to fine powder and snorting it? /s

    The risk is not from ingesting contaminated product, but from work with contaminated product.

    In places where COVID-19 is still highly prevalent, which is most of the world, the focus should be on the main vectors of transmission, which are droplets and aerosol (in enclosed, poorly ventilated spaces). However, in countries where COVID-19 is largely eradicated (China, Vietnam, Taiwan, New Zealand) or substantially suppressed (South Korea, Australia ex-Victoria, Southeast Asia ex-Philippines/Indonesia), it makes sense to apply more attention low probability tail risks, to protect their hard-won achievements. Fomite transmission is clearly considered a risk, otherwise why the universal recommendations to frequently wash hands and not to touch faces.

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