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You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 Coronavirus / COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Thursday/Friday, Oct. 15-16

COVID-19 Coronavirus Updates: Thursday/Friday, Oct. 15-16

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  1. 1.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Yesterday, China reported 0 new domestic confirmed cases and 0 new domestic asymptomatic cases. At Qingdao, for a total of 13 confirmed cases, 1 in critical condition, 3 serious, 7 moderate and 2 mild.
    As of 8PM on 10/15, 532 Tier 1 close contacts have all been tested 3 times, 408 Tier 2 close contacts have been tested 3 times, and 859 regular contacts have been tested, all results negative. 217,075 individuals whoa re staff, patients and caretakers at medical facilities in the city have been swabbed, the 210,704 results are all negative. As of 8 AM on 10/16, 1.078M residents have been swabbed as part of the city-wide mass screening, 1.016M results obtained so far are all negative. The authorities expect to complete sample collection of all residents by 12 PM, and have all results by 6 PM. The Shandong Provincial government designated 5 medium sized cities in the province to each pair up with one of Qingdao’s urban districts to provide direct support in sample testing. Together, they sent out 7 testing teams totaling 210 individuals, and bringing 28 test equipment. BGI greatly expanded the “Fire Eye” mobile testing lab at the city by 10/14, increasing testing capacity there by 20X. Other cities in the province sent over 1K individuals to support sample collection. The prosperous coastal Qingdao had been paired up with the rural and relatively poor Longnan city in Gansu Province (in northwestern China) as part of the national poverty eradication program. In this instance, Longnan sent a team of 50 medical staff to support sample collection effort. In all, over 10K medical personnel and 20K community workers and volunteers were involved in the mass sample collection effort. Mass mobilization at a society level is certainly one of the CCP regime’s defining strengths.
    The Qingdao Municipal Health Administration also just announced the findings from the epidemiological investigation to the source of the nosocomial cluster: they have determined (to high degree of confidence) the vector to be fomite contamination at the CT room of the Pulmonology hospital. The 2 then asymptomatic dockworkers reported on 9/24 have been treated at this hospital, along with the imported confirmed and asymptomatic cases. Being a small hospital with only 1 CT room, it has been shared by COVID-19 and TB patients. After the 2 dock workers were scanned, surveillance video footage showed that disinfection procedures were not strictly followed. 2 TB patients were scanned the next day, who then brought COVID-19 to the TB ward. Full genomic sequencing confirmed that the viruses from the dock workers and the TB patients are almost identical, suggesting direct transmission.
    There appears to have been multiple break downs here:

    1. The Qingdao Municipal Health Commission selected a small institution that is not ideally suited to consistently ensure isolation of COVID-19 patients from others; and having TB patients in the same building placed vulnerable people at higher risk
    2. The hospital administration failed to ensure that protocols preventing nosocomial transmission re vigorously and rigorously followed
    3. Medical staff failed to recognize the symptoms of TB patients also developing COVID-19, some of the patients that tested positive were immediately diagnosed as moderate or even severe cases; I understand there is probably significant overlap in symptoms of TB and COVID-19, but these patients are under 24/7 medical care and observation; If the infected patients previously discharged from the Pulmonology hospital had not gone back to hospitals for further treatment (or other illnesses) and were caught at intake screening, when would the medical staff realize their TB patients were also developing COVID-19
    4. If the Qingdao municipal CDC had completed the investigation sooner, the expensive 100% mass screening of all city residents might not have been necessary

    No wonder the party secretary of the MHC has been suspended and the chief of the Pulmonology hospital has been relieved. Qingdao is lucky that none of the medical staff at the hospital had been infected, bringing COVID-19 to the wider community.
    Yesterday, China reported 24 new imported confirmed cases and 10 imported asymptomatic cases and 1 imported suspect case:

    • Shanghai Municipality – 11 confirmed cases, 9 Chinese nationals returning from Ethiopia, and 1 each returning from Russia and the UK; 1 suspect case, no information released
    • Hohhot in Inner Mongolia – 5 confirmed cases, no information released
    • Tianjin Municipality – 2 confirmed cases (1 previous asymptomatic), 1 Chinese national each returning from France and the Ukraine
    • Nanjing in Jiangsu Province – 2 confirmed cases, both Chinese nationals returning from Italy; 4 asymptomatic cases, no information released
    • Guangzhou in Guangdong Province – 2 confirmed cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Syria and the Philippines; 3 asymptomatic cases, 2 Chinese nationals returning from Iran and 1 from Iraq
    • Chongqing Municipality – 1 confirmed case, a Chinese national returning from Nepal
    • Fuzhou in Fujian Province – 1 confirmed case (previously asymptomatic), a Chinese national returning from Indonesia
    • Xiamen in Fujian Province – 3 asymptomatic cases, 1 Chinese national each returning from Singapore, Hungary and Russia

    Today, Hong Kong reported 7 new cases, 1 from local transmission, 2 sources of transmission unknown.

  2. 2.

    Brachiator

    Trump falsely claims, again, that the CDC just found “85% of the people that wear masks catch it.” Guthrie, excellently, tells him she knows that study and that’s not what it says. Trump says that’s what he heard.

    Trump always pulls this shit. He sounds like the average lunkhead in a bar talking shit. And this ground level ignorance appeals to his base and makes him seem like a guy they can relate to because he is just as stupid as they are.

    But Trump trapped himself here. The obvious reply is “the CDC works for you. You are not some average Joe hearing “stuff.” Who told you this? Better yet, why don’t you call Dr Fauci right now and ask him?”

    I hate this crap with a cold fury. Trump cannot change, he cannot put aside his need to bullshit and bluster even when lives are at risk.

    There is something seriously wrong with him.

  3. 3.

    TS (the original)

    Asia Today: Australia’s largest city Sydney has lifted quarantine restrictions on travelers from New Zealand while the second largest city, Melbourne, marked the 100th day of one of the world’s longest pandemic lockdowns.

    My bold.  Melbourne had TWO cases today (and zero deaths). In 100 days – from over 700 to 2 cases. Despite the whinges, most people think it was worth it.

    I’m not even sure about the 100 days. The full blown lockdown, with curfew didn’t start until August 2. There were some restrictions from July 8.

    In other news of you can’t trust anyone,  14 of the passengers from New Zealand to Sydney flew on to Melbourne. International arrivals are not currently allowed into Melbourne. They have been detained, where and for how long has not been released. No doubt there will be another fight between the Federal Government and the states as to who allowed this to happen.

  4. 4.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Correction, should be 10.76M residents swabbed and 10.16M residents tested negative as of 8 AM today at Qingdao

  5. 5.

    TS (the original)

    @Brachiator:

    There is something seriously wrong with him.

    He thinks the presidency is reality TV. If he says it, it is right – no-one can argue. This has been his presidency for 4 years aided and abetted by McConnell and Co., most of whom will never pay for what they have done.

  7. 7.

    raven

    @Baud:

    He’s botching the study’s findings, repeatedly. The study cited, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, did not find that 85% of mask wearers catch COVID-19. If that were the case, the majority of Americans would be infected.
    It found something quite different: that 85% of the small group of COVID-19 patients surveyed — about 150 on this question — reported they had worn a mask often or always around the time they would have become infected.
    The group’s exposure to potentially infected people in the community varied. Most reported shopping or being in a home with multiple people. But they were twice as likely to have eaten at a restaurant, where masks are set aside for the meal, than were uninfected people in a control group.
    Most studies have shown that wearing masks reduces the transmission of the virus by blocking respiratory droplets. Several studies have also shown that masks could offer some protection for the people who wear them.

    The findings were in a CDC Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published last month.

  8. 8.

    Brachiator

    @Baud:

    Just curious, do you know what the study says? I’ve only heard Trump’s lies about it.

    Trump is a deeply stupid man who does not understand science. NBC news had a good summary of the study. And of course, Trump could have asked his CDC what the results meant.

    Trump was referring to a Sept. 10 report from the CDC that found that dining out raised the risk of infection more than other social activities. The report has gone viral this week on social media, with the claims that the agency’s mask guidance isn’t preventing people from getting sick. On Wednesday afternoon, the CDC tweeted that “the interpretation that more mask-wearers are getting infected compared to non-mask wearers is incorrect.”

    But no one really needed to track down the details. It is supremely absurd for any president, who has quick access to all kinds of experts, to resort to gossip.

    Whenever Trump says “that’s what I heard” he is making shit up.

  9. 9.

    Tony Jay

    Over here in Lesser Brexitannia today’s C-19 newsbomb revolves around the face-off between the Johnson regime and the (mostly) northern areas it wants to force into severe local Lockdown. The argument of the North, voiced most eloquently by the Labour Mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham, is that if the Government wants areas like his to lead the way in an experimental localised Lockdown patchwork that its own scientific advisors don’t think will work, it should provide the necessary financial support to enable these areas to protect their economies and prevent their populations being left jobless and homeless in the aftermath.

    The Government’s response, voiced most moronically by the peanut headed Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, is that Burnham and Co are being meeeeeaaaaaan and should stop bullying the poor ickle national Government when all it’s trying to do is save lives, save money and save itself from taking responsibility for its own decisions. The BBC is currently jumping up and down excitedly that the Tory-led leadership of the country of Lancashire (the bit in between and north of Labour led Liverpool and Manchester) have struck a deal with the Government to go into Tier 3 severe Lockdown in return for (drumroll) pretty generous financial support. Countdown to a fudged U-turn starts in 10…9….8….

    Incidentally it would be nice if the Leader of the Labour Party ventured an opinion supporting the Labour-led (but not solely) Labour opposition to the Government’s partisan Lockdown diktats, but I suppose he’s too busy dealing with the fallout from his decision to order the Party’s MPs to abstain on a vote over whether the Security Services and their informants should have free rein to kill, torture, rape or whatever else they deem necessary in the battle against anyone suspected of threatening British lives, property or economic system, which pretty overtly includes anti-Capitalism protestors, Trade Unions and anyone else on the Libertarian shit-list. Eight front bench MPs have resigned in protest, which would have led to days of “Labour Leadership Crisis” headlines a year ago, but now just generates bored approval from our utterly useless political Media. They’re only lefties, after all, and who cares what they think?

    Oh, and the EU has entered NFLTG mode over Brexit. I’m shocked, don’t they know that the UK holds all the cards and they have a duty to blink first…. any day now.

  14. 14.

    JWR

    @Brachiator: Whenever Trump says “that’s what I heard” he is making shit up.

    Either that, or it’s a version of something he really did hear, most likely from Herd Immunity proponent Scott Atlas, (who Guthrie last night rightfully said was not the right sort of “expert”, which Trump shrugged off as “well, he’s an expert”.)

  15. 15.

    Brachiator

    Don’t know if it’s been referenced before, but ScienceMag has an interesting article on some possible genetic links to the severity of some Covid-19 cases.

    Now, a U.K. group studying more than 2200 COVID-19 patients has pinned down common gene variants that are linked to the most severe cases of the disease, and that point to existing drugs that could be repurposed to help. “It’s really exciting. Each one provides a potential target” for treatment, says genetic epidemiologist Priya Duggal of Johns Hopkins University.

    Obviously this is very preliminary, but it demonstrates the variety of approaches to dealing with the pandemic.

  16. 16.

    Brachiator

    @JWR:

    Whenever Trump says “that’s what I heard” he is making shit up.

    Either that, or it’s a version of something he really did hear, most likely from Herd Immunity proponent Scott Atlas, (who Guthrie last night rightfully said was not the right sort of “expert”, which Trump shrugged off as “well, he’s an expert”.)

    Atlas, who is not an expert on infectious disease, was added to the pandemic task force in mid-August.  Trump is slowly but deliberately trying to bypass the CDC and other agencies in pushing his “don’t worry, be happy” approach to the virus.

    There’s betting money saying that Trump will announce a vaccine just before the election. And if he is defeated in November, Trump will do everything he can from November to January to undermine anything that Biden might want to do to deal with the pandemic.

  18. 18.

    Waldo

    Hard to feel sorry for the Wisconsin bar owner who, to hear him tell it, had no idea that keeping a bar open during a pandemic might adversely affect his health. But I do hope he hangs on long enough for science to develop a cure for stupid.

  19. 19.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s daily Covid-19 numbers. Director-General of Health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah reports 629 new cases today, for a cumulative reported total of 18,758 cases. He also reports six new deaths for a total of 176 Covid-19 deaths.

    627 new cases are from local infection. Sabah has the most, 489 cases: 260 close-contact screenings, 71 in existing clusters, and 158 detected in other Covid-19 screenings. Selangor has 50 cases: 25 close-contact screenings, eight from the new Merbok cluster, six in existing clusters, six persons back from high-risk zones in Sabah, and five detected in other Covid-19 screenings. Penang has 33 cases: 32 from existing clusters, and one person screened in a police lockup.

    Labuan has 19 cases: nine in the Bah Bundle cluster, six back from high-risk zones in Sabah, three close-contact screenings, and one person screened upon signing off from a ship’s crew. KL has eight local cases: three back from high-risk zones in Sabah, one close-contact screening, and four detected in other Covid-19 screenings.

    Perak has nine cases: five from the new Buntar cluster, and four from the new Lekir cluster. Kedah has seven cases: six from the Tembok prison cluster, and one person screened for severe acute respiratory illness. Johore has five cases: two from the Simera cluster, one person back from a high-risk zone in Sabah, one close-contact screening, and one symptomatic person. Melaka has three cases: two from the 1Utama shopping mall cluster in Selangor, and one close-contact screening.

    Putrajaya has two cases one from the Selasih cluster and one from the new Buntar cluster. Negeri Sembilan has one case, a close-contact screening. And Pahang has one case, who tested positive upon signing on to a ship’s crew.

    16 of today’s new cases are Malaysians returning from Sabah to other states, for a total of 437 cases in this category.

    The two new imported cases are both Malaysians, both reported in KL, returning from Singapore and New Zealand.

    245 more patients recovered and were discharged today, for a total of 12,259 patients recovered — 65.35% of the cumulative reported total. 6,323 active and contagious cases are currently in hospital; 99 are in ICU, of whom 31 are on respirators.

    The six deaths reported today consist of five in Sabah and one in KL: a 66-year-old man in Sabah with hypertension, diabetes and a history of stroke; a 72-year-old man in Sabah with heat disease; a 39 in Sabah with a history of stroke; a 74-year-old woman in Sabah with hypertension, diabetes and kidney disease; a 67-year-old man in Sabah with hypertension, hert disease, and stroke; and a 52-year-old man in KL with hypertension, heart disease, psoriasis and a bone disease. The Covid-19 fatality rates are 0.94% of the cumulative reported total, and 1.42% of resolved cases.

  20. 20.

    Amir Khalid

    @JWR:

    The President of the United States shouldn’t be reporting what he heard, like, from nobody in particular; he should be reporting what he was briefed by staff with specific competence and knowledge. This insight may have been in the transition briefings four years ago that Trump simply decided to blow off.

  21. 21.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Misery is now #4 for infections in the country. We really need to up our game if we want to win this thing.

  22. 22.

    Amir Khalid

    @TS (the original):

    In other news of you can’t trust anyone,

    Facepalm.

    I still remember the quarantine hotel scandal, where security guards admitted to very intimate contact with quarantined persons.

  23. 23.

    SFAW

    @Baud:

    So it’s like how condoms cause pregnancies when you don’t wear them.

    Someone should have told the Murderer-in-Chief that proper usage of condoms, when he was boinking Stormy et al., was pulled down over his face, so that the VD thingies wouldn’t get him, and the women wouldn’t get pregnant. [Not that I think any of the women had VD, but he’d believe it anyway.]

    Would have saved the world a lot of pain.

    ETA: In case the latex wouldn’t stretch that far, someone could have told him that his dingus is so massive, that only shrink-wrap would do.

  25. 25.

    Sloane Ranger

    Update from the UK. Yesterday we had 18,980 new cases, down by about 1000 from the day before. The UK now has had a total of 673,622 cases. All home nations, apart from Scotland, have over 1000 cases per 100,000 of population. Broken down by home nation the new cases are,

    England -16,139 (up by 7)

    Northern Ireland – 763 (down by @400)

    Scotland – 1351 (down by @700)

    Wales – 727 (down by @200).

    Deaths – There were 138 new deaths yesterday of which 111 were in England, 4 in Northern Ireland, 13 in Scotland and 10 in Wales. The trend continues upwards.

    Testing – 295,690 tests were conducted out of a capacity of 345,135.

    Hospitalisations – 4941 people were in hospital with COVID on 13th October, continuing the slow rate of increase and 563 were on ventilators as of 14th October, again trending upwards.

    General – Tony Jay has pointed out the continuing row between Andy Burnham (Mayor of Manchester) and the government. Annie has posted the opinion of medical staff there. Personally, I think Burnham’s trying to squeeze every penny he can out of the government before agreeing but, at the end of the day, the government has the power to force Manchester into Tier 3. Central Scotland (where most people live) continues under increased restrictions. The Welsh First Minister has officially closed the border to visitors from high incidence areas in England and Scotland from tomorrow and is planning for a short, sharp full lockdown in the near future and Northern Ireland will begin it’s short sharp lockdown at 6pm today. Schools to close for 2 weeks from Monday.

  26. 26.

    SFAW

    The Wisconsin bar owner who hosted the chummy Axios interview w/ Donald Trump Jr back in March now has Covid and wants to punch the President.

    “When asked about for whom [NB: waves at Subaru Dianne] he will vote Mr. Dumbasaboxofrocks said ‘Well, I’m really pissed at Mr. Trump, but that Hillary Biden — well, I JUST DON’T KNOW.’ Mr. Dumbasaboxofrocks was particularly upset by Mr. Biden’s recent bill to fund Antifa, including supplying them with Molotov cocktails. And Hunter Biden doing something something something.”

  28. 28.

    SFAW

    @JWR:

    Either that, or it’s a version of something he really did hear, most likely from Herd Immunity proponent Scott Atlas, (who Guthrie last night rightfully said was not the right sort of “expert”, which Trump shrugged off as “well, he’s an expert”.)

    As someone noted on B-J yesterday (I think), Professor Irwin Corey was probably more of an expert than Scott Atlas will ever be.

    And don’t think I didn’t notice the “shrugged.” Well done.

  29. 29.

    Taken4Granite

    @Waldo: I have to disagree with you, but only because I am extremely pessimistic that science will ever find a cure for stupid.

    “There are only two things that are infinite, the Universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the Universe.”–Albert Einstein

  31. 31.

    mrmoshpotato

    @JWR:

    Scott Atlas, (who Guthrie last night rightfully said was not the right sort of “expert”, which Trump shrugged off as “well, he’s an expert”.) 

    JFC!  To hell with this stupid toddler!

  32. 32.

    StringOnAStick

    @Humanities Prof: The guy who played Cliff Claven is a wing nut in real life, so the role of ‘end of bar loudmouth know it all’ really wasn’t much of a stretch for him.

  34. 34.

    Bill Arnold

    @Brachiator:

    Who told you this?

    Perhaps Scott Atlas. (I loath that guy as much as I loath Stephen Miller.) Scott Atlas is an anti-masker, and is too lazy to read the emerging literature in support of masks vs SARS-CoV-2 transmission. There are some other propagandists out there, who produce slick “analyses”/”surveys” that are not representative of the current body of research literature on masks, which has at least quadrupled this year, and on masks and SARS-CoV-2, which has increased an infinite amount this year since SARS-CoV-2 wasn’t being studied last year (maybe a bit in hospital in December).

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