Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

All hail the time of the bunny!

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

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

This isn’t Democrats spending madly. This is government catching up.

Second rate reporter says what?

Text STOP to opt out of updates on war plans.

There is no right way to do the wrong thing.

When we show up, we win.

Reality always lies in wait for … Democrats.

The line between political reporting and fan fiction continues to blur.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

In my day, never was longer.

Yeah, with this crowd one never knows.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

Relentless negativity is not a sign that you are more realistic.

So many bastards, so little time.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

They love authoritarianism, but only when they get to be the authoritarians.

Republicans: The threats are dire, but my tickets are non-refundable!

Not rolling over. fuck you, make me.

You are here: Home / Healthcare / COVID-19 / COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Wednesday – Thursday, July 15-16

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update: Wednesday – Thursday, July 15-16

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41Comments

  1. 1.

    Amir Khalid

    Malaysia’s daily numbers. Three new cases. Two from local infection, both non-Malaysian: a Vietnamese immigration detainee and an Indonesian worker screened at work. One case of imported infection, a Malaysian returned from Nigeria. Cumulative total 8,737 cases.

    12 more patients recovered and were discharged, total 8,538 patients recovered or 97.7% of the cumulative total. 77 active cases are in hospital for isolation/treatment; three are in ICU, one of them on a respirator.

    No new deaths. Total 122 deaths. Infection fatality rate 1.39%, case fatality rate 1.41%.

  3. 3.

    SiubhanDuinne

    From Georgia:

    Gov. Brian Kemp on Wednesday extended Georgia’s coronavirus restrictions while explicitly banning cities and counties from adopting rules requiring masks or other face coverings, a measure that could bolster the state’s case in a possible legal battle.

    W. A. S. F.

  5. 5.

    mrmoshpotato

    @SiubhanDuinne: A little early in the morning to have one’s mind boggled.

    Unbelievable.  So glad we kicked our Rethuglican governor to the curb in IL.

    I wonder how the thieving bastard feels about rotten fruit, tar and feathers.

  6. 6.

    zhena gogolia

    OT, but this is priceless:

    Welcome to Story Hour.What will we be reading? Excerpts from Mary Trump's new book, 'Too Much and Never Enough,' of course.See you tomorrow at 8p EST for episode 2. pic.twitter.com/AMTxdy6e1m— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) July 16, 2020

  7. 7.

    Mary G

    1. Had a nice phone appt. with my GP today and was informed that except for the really old people I am their patient most likely to die of the rona. Thanks! The OC didn’t have as many new cases today, but most test results are taking a week to ten days to come back unless you’re hospitalized, so who knows. We still have 40% of ICU capacity. Percent positive still lousy, over 14%.
  12. 12.

    Mary G

    Just posted this on the last thread by mistake, so recopying it here:

    Andy Slavitt, Obama’s healthcare head, took Ron DeSantis out behind the woodshed but good last night on Twitter. I am posting the whole thread compiled by @threadreaderapp, it is so good.

    The state of Florida now has more daily cases now than NY at its peak. A couple things need to happen now.

    We need to get enough Rem & Dexy to the state (therapies). We will need a lot. Those drugs weren’t around as common treatments when NY had its peak. This can keep more people alive.

    But first we have to reduce hospitalizations or find capacity and medical staff.

    Particularly in the densely populated areas of Miami & Tampa & the LatinX communities, we need to increase testing. An 18% test positive rate means uncontrolled spreaders, many asymptomatic.

    Someone needs to talk to DeSantis about schools & what will happen if the schools open face to face. Individual districts should defy state orders if they have unmitigated spread.

    Florida has no state tax dollars and counts on tourism for growth & jobs.

    He may or may not care about the immigrant communities that make up so much of Florida’s rich culture, but the rest of the country does.

    DeSantis is the slowest to catch on that death follows hospitalization which follows cases. That older people get it after younger people.

    He must get past the point that he believes he has super skills that others don’t to battle the virus. He lacks even the most basic disposition for a crisis & his defensiveness clouds his judgement.

    The business community & civic leaders have attempted to help increase testing capacity & help in other ways. Last I’ve heard he hasn’t answered the calls or arranged a meeting.

    This week I’ve talked to three different families who had the means to leave the state and have. They both believed an airplane ride was an easy decision and much less risky.

    I need a cigarette after that. Hope all Florida jackals stay safe.

  15. 15.

    Central Planning

    @Mary G: Over the past 45 days, I’ve had two ‘rona tests, and each time I got the results in less than 24 hours.

    i wonder how long it takes to run each test. I’m in western NY where the our infection rate is low.

    edit: typo

  17. 17.

    NotMax

    Most cases reported over past 24 hours.

    U.S. ~66k
    Brazil ~40k
    India ~35k
    South Africa ~13k
    Russia ~8k
    Colombia ~7k
    Mexico ~6k

  18. 18.

    Mary G

    @Central Planning: I’m just going by what my doctor told me, and things like the long line of cars at Dodger Stadium in LA in the tweet AL posted above.

    Orange County’s Board of Health says that 329,001 people have been tested since the beginning in late February. That’s not that many for a population of more than 3 million.

  19. 19.

    terben

    From the Australian Dept of Health:

    ‘As at 3pm on 16 July 2020, a total of 10,810 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Australia, including 113 deaths, and 8,036 have been reported as recovered from COVID-19.

    • Over the past week, there has been an average of 252 new cases reported each day. Of the newly reported cases, the majority have been from Victoria.
    • Following the peak of cases at the end of March, there have been a relatively low number of new cases reported daily between mid-April and early-June 2020. Cases have increased since mid-June however they remain below the March peak of daily cases.
    • Of cases with a reported place of acquisition, 47% have recent international travel history, including over 1,300 cases associated with cruise ships.
    • The overall proportion of cases under investigation in each state and territory is relatively low, indicating that public health actions, including case identification and contact tracing, is occurring in a timely manner.
    • To date, over 3,287,500 tests have been conducted nationally. Of those tests conducted 0.3% have been positive.
    • On 3 July, 189 historic cases reported in crew members on board a ship were classified as Australian cases and included in New South Wales totals.’

    New cases 330, reclassified 15, net increase 315. New cases in Victoria 307. A strange new case in my state today. A person who returned from overseas,  tested negative twice during 14 day quarantine in Victoria and was tested upon arrival in SA…… and was positive. Possibly different tests. So two more weeks in quarantine.

  22. 22.

    Gvg

    I ‘m in Florida. I’ve had coughing and cold symptoms so I got a test. It’s been 8 days and I don’t have the results. My county still has a low rate of infection, probably because the University students aren’t back yet.
    The positivity rate has been in the news because it turned out that some of the newly hired private labs were only reporting positive test results. Reporters noted the 100% results from some labs and questioned it. Supposedly they know better going forward but also it’s estimated that won’t change the over all rate because these were all small labs hired to supplement the big labs and so there weren’t enough negative results to change the overall %. We’ll see, but watch for corrections.

  23. 23.

    prostratedragon

    A facet grid of weekly average new cases per day for several States. The data are from Johns Hopkins. While looking at CA, FL, and TX especially it’s instructive to recall how locked down NY got even before hitting its peak. CA has moved in that direction as a State, but what in the great world is going to happen in FL or TX? I guess we’ll see whether piecemeal actions can be effective.

     

    ETA: Data are through July 14.

  24. 24.

    Robert Sneddon

    Scotland — the First Minister has announced eleven new confirmed cases and one death in the past 24 hours. The number of people in intensive care remains at six with 630 people in hospital receiving treatment.

     

    Other worrying news is that a number of temporary visa agricultural workers from eastern Europe who are working on Scottish farms for the harvest season travelled to the UK on the same flight as some of the workers at an English farm in Herefordshire where there’s been a serious outbreak of COVID-19, with 93 confirmed cases out of 200 workers. Just to add to the fun we’ve now been told that three of the farm workers on the Herefordshire farm have absconded from quarantine. They have apparently been tracked down, tested and are supposed to be in isolation. Supposed to be, riiiiight.

     

    The big thing here in Scotland is the decision to fully open the schools from the middle of August. Teachers will be required to wear masks etc. but the kids are thought to be safe given the low prevalence of COVID-19 generally in Scotland. Best estimates by the scientific community is that there are at most 700 infectious individuals in Scotland. We’ll see. My wild-assed guess is that this won’t work, there will be school-centred spreading events and all the schools will be closed in a panic in a few weeks time. The First Minister has repeatedly warned us that resumption of lockdowns will happen if things turn bad again.

  25. 25.

    Central Planning

    @Mary G: In comparison, NY is not testing that many people. I get Cuomo’s daily email about the pandemic, and we are generally testing 60-70k people per day (one third of 1% of the population), and 1% of the tests are positive.

    Cuomo has come out with guidelines for when it is safe to re-open schools. I’m still scared about sending my kids back, both to high school and college.

  26. 26.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Geneva pegs the overall infection fatality rate there at 0.64%

    So with 140,000 deaths that means the real number of infected is 21 million not 3 million, if I did the math right. 6% of the population. So “only” a million more deaths to go before herd immunity.

  27. 27.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    @Gvg: My county still has a low rate of infection, probably because the University students aren’t back yet.

    Notice this bit?

    n Spain, there were ~1 million hidden, asymptomatic #coronavirus cases. In an effort to understand the outbreak’s scope, 61k randomly selected people were tested. ~1/3 positives showed zero symptoms. Extrapolating that data suggests ~1mln went undetected

    Your county has a low rate of detected infections.

  28. 28.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    That last graphic, the one for Arizona if that trend  of hospitalizations peaking and going down keeps up is a bit inspiring. Even the idiot Right will do the smart thing and drop the Pown all Libertards if scared enough.

  30. 30.

    opiejeanne

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Switzerland has reopened. My niece lives there, and she and her husband are on vacation, driving from Switzerland to Italy, with the baby. I’m guessing that they’re going to visit his family.

    Before the baby, they both worked in Uganda for the UN but she got a job in Switzerland not long after the baby was born last year.  Her husband got out of Entebbe and into Switzerland just before everything locked down this spring, but their dogs are still in Entebbe. They’re trying to get them onto a cargo flight but have had no luck so far. Her husband now has a new job in Italy, about an hour away from where she lives.

    Their married lives have been so complicated I can’t imagine how they cope.

  31. 31.

    YY_Sima Qian

    Yesterday, China reported 1 imported confirmed and 1 imported asymptomatic cases. The confirmed case was reported by Shanghai, a Chinese national returning from Zambia.

    There are some negative developments in the past 24 hours, though. Yesterday, Shaoxing in Zhejiang Province reported an asymptomatic case introduced from Xinjiang in far northwestern China, a businessman from Urumqi in Xinjiang doing business in Shaoxing. Today, Urumqi reported a new domestic confirmed case and 3 new domestic asymptomatic cases, the numbers will show up in tomorrow’s data dump by the China National Health Commission.

    The confirmed case at Urumqi is a saleswoman working at a shopping mall, who felt discomfort in the throat on 7/10, and was taken by ambulance to a designated COVID-19 hospital. She developed more severe symptoms on 7/14 (fever and headache), and tested positive on RT-PCR on 7/15. The 3 asymptomatic cases are found via contact tracing, and the businessman who traveled to Zhejiang Province was also alerted as a close contact and advised to get tested at Shaoxing immediately. The source of the cluster is unidentified, as of yet.

    Much like the other outbreaks in China, finding a cluster of cases in rapid succession, with origin unknown, probably indicates that an outbreak of a few dozen cases has already occurred. We shall have to see. Xinjiang only reported a grand total of 76 confirmed cases (before today) for COVID-19, and none since late Feb. On the other hand, the Xinjiang “Autonomous” Region borders Russia, Kazakstan, Kirghizistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan, none of whom have yet to bring COVID-19 under control. Of course, the borders are very mountainous and difficult to traverse, and the only major border crossings are with Kazakstan, and a treacherous one with Pakistan on the high Hindu Kush.

    Xinjiang’s health care resources are significantly lower than the Han Chinese dominated core regions. This is especially true in the poorer and more rural Uighur hinterland in western Xinjiang, the cities, towns and oasis settlements along the western edge of the Tarim Basin. These relatively more insular regions have not reported any COVID-19 cases to date, nor have there been any remotely believable rumors concerning outbreaks there from within or outside of China. Urumqi, at least as the capital of Xinjiang, has the best medical facilities in the region. The city is majority Han Chinese. Nevertheless, a widespread outbreak in the Uighur dominated areas would be very bad. Uighurs in rural communities generally live in large multi-generation family dwellings. Tens, possibly hundreds of thousands, are still semi-interned in detention camps and/or factory dormitories under crowded conditions (and yet are still allowed to visit families on weekends). With the harsh oppressive measures taken by the CCP regime against Uighurs, I am not sure Uighurs are that eager to be tested at government run medical facilities.

    We will also have to see if the authorities are willing to be as transparent with the situation in Xinjiang, as it has been in the rest of China with previous localized outbreaks.

  32. 32.

    YY_Sima Qian

    I am currently on business travel at Xiamen, in Fujian Province on the southeastern coast of China. COVID-19 is almost like an afterthought here. The city has only reported 35 confirmed COVID-19 cases through the epidemic, and has not had any local transmission since Feb. While masking rate is high on public transportation, hotels, and industrial parks, it is much lower on the streets. Taking a stroll after dinner, masking rate is less than 20%, restaurants are packed.

    I understand the human urge to return to normalcy. However, as Beijing has shown (and Urumqi just now, Harbin, Mudanjiang and Jilin City before), one never know when the virus will suddenly reemerge with a new cluster, even after weeks of zero reported local transmissions.

  33. 33.

    a thousand flouncing lurkers was fidelio

    @Mary G:

    For comparison, Tennessee has a population of over 6 million and by this point we’ve tested over a million.

  34. 34.

    Another Scott

    On the Bloomberg video, on the Moderna vaccine tests – it’s still very early.

    StatNews:

    One big question is whether producing antibodies predicts protection against infection — and how much protection. Another is whether the antibodies will last.

    “We don’t know how much [antibody] we need to be protected, so we can’t say” all the participants “achieved a protective level,” Kathryn Edwards, scientific director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Research Program, said in an email to STAT. “What we can say is that they made antibody that neutralized the virus, which is good.”

    The study enrolled 45 healthy volunteers ages 18 to 55, testing three dose levels of Moderna’s vaccine. The trial participants were split roughly 50-50 between men and women. The population was 89% white, 13% Hispanic, 4% Black, 2% Asian, and 2% Native American. More results are expected to be reported later for older patients, who often mount a weaker immune response.

    Volunteers got a shot in the arm on day 1 followed by a booster shot four weeks later. At the 100-microgram dose, the one Moderna is advancing into larger trials, all 15 patients experienced side effects, including fatigue, chills, headache, muscle pain, and pain at the site of injection. All side effects were considered mild or moderate.

    A higher, 250-microgram dose led to more serious reactions and has been set aside. Although no side effects were severe — meaning that they required hospitalization — they were unpleasant, as was made clear when one volunteer in the study, Ian Haydon, went public with his experience taking the 250-microgram dose.

    We need to remember that these were healthy volunteers. Older, sicker people will do worse.

    If it turns out that one needs a high dose to get sufficient immune response for protection, and the side effects of the high dose are severe enough (compared to the very common asymptomatic infection), then the vaccine will be a hard sell to people.

    We can only rush these things so much. It’s going to take time.

    Fingers crossed that several of these vaccines work well. We’re going to need the knowledge and production capacity to keep costs under control and to know how to attack the next pandemic.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  35. 35.

    The Pale Scot

    Last night I saw a twitter with a graph showing that FL had more cases/deaths then the whole EU. I didn’t bookmark it and now I can’t find it. It looked like a FT graph (pale pink background). As anyone seen it?

  36. 36.

    Brachiator

    @Mary G: 

    Andy Slavitt, Obama’s healthcare head, took Ron DeSantis out behind the woodshed but good last night on Twitter.

    Smart thinking about the pandemic. Things will be much better if we can dump Trump in November.

  38. 38.

    WaterGirl

    @Mary G:

    Had a nice phone appt. with my GP today and was informed that except for the really old people I am their patient most likely to die of the rona.

    It looks like no one else has responded to this yet, and I can only surmise that people were skimming and did not actually take in what you wrote.  Yikes!  That’s not the news you want to hear.

    Did they just blurt that out to be… helpful?

    To ensure that you know that you need to be really careful?  (Like you don’t already know that.)

    In answer to a direct question from you?

    To give you information that might get your housemates’ attention?

    In any case, that has to be unsettling, to say the least.  Stay safe.

  39. 39.

    J R in WV

    @Mary G:

    Had a nice phone appt. with my GP today and was informed that except for the really old people I am their patient most likely to die of the rona. Thanks!

    Our family doc told both of us that wife is not at all likely to survive a Covid-19 infection. But she was 70-30 unlikely to survive Septic Shock 10 years ago, also. I am trying to deal with it.

    Some nights I have bad dreams, imagine that.

    Best wishes for good luck, Mary G ~!!!~

    ETA: Pretty sure our doc intended for us to be extremely careful, which that’s sure working well… hard to deal with, tho!

  40. 40.

    prostratedragon

    @WaterGirl:
    Wow, those are very good questions to which Mary G. might want to insist upon an answer. For reference, I’ve talked this month to my cardiologist, pulmonologist, and nephrologist, and none of them was that blunt, beyond suggesting that I continue to stay safe.

    (Note: I have professional relationship with at least that many specialists.)

  41. 41.

    Mary G

    Just got back to the blog and wanted to say I don’t keep doctors that aren’t willing to be truthful and blunt. And treat me as an equal partner in our relationship. He said that in response to my saying that maybe I was being too cautious and regretted cancelling my 4th of July plans and feel awful not having a hug or any human touch in 4+ months. I needed the reinforcement and it’s typical. I couldn’t count all the doctors in my life who’ve told me how fascinating my many medical issues are. A couple have had interns practice taking a history from me and it’s fun to torture them.

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