Coronavirus was 'not manmade or genetically modified': U.S. spy agency https://t.co/VNgcsGAyPs pic.twitter.com/cwmRFPJsYx
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 30, 2020
Maryland @GovLarryHogan on whether he was concerned that the federal government would seize the tests the state procured from South Korea. He says the tests are being guarded by the National Guard at an undisclosed location. https://t.co/uGcUi6U5rL pic.twitter.com/15BhHmLzql
— Washington Post Live (@postlive) April 30, 2020
Trump on funds for "Democrat states". "If we do that we're going to have to get something for it." pic.twitter.com/Yd0dnvXXV4
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 30, 2020
You might call that a quid pro quo.
— Josh K (@JoshKatz9) May 1, 2020
FACT:
US has conducted 16.4 tests per every 1,000 people, below the world average and about the same as *Belarus*Iceland: 136 per 1,000
Bahrain: 71
Italy: 30
Russia: 22
Belarus: 17 https://t.co/Cuj4j5czc5— Carol Leonnig (@CarolLeonnig) April 29, 2020
Follow live updates: https://t.co/PlUPtN3NnR and subscribe to our newsletter: https://t.co/YMNwSuIwMz pic.twitter.com/4J42lKiPX0
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 1, 2020
The U.S. has seen at least 66,000 more deaths than usual so far this year, according to government figures. The coronavirus accounts for much — but not all — of the increase. https://t.co/38hvxFRLKn
— AP Health & Science (@APHealthScience) April 30, 2020
This whole thread is spot on. A pattern is emerging… the largest clusters in the US are in people who live or work in crowded conditions and can’t just “stay at home.” Meat packing plants. Prisons. Nursing homes. Outbreak control must start there. https://t.co/OWzbE2tOrO
— Natalie E. Dean, PhD (@nataliexdean) May 1, 2020
Antibody tests show we’re nowhere near herd immunity, writes @nataliexdean and @cmyeaton in @PostEverything https://t.co/Wa7xBTy1ht
— Washington Post Opinions (@PostOpinions) April 29, 2020
The inversion here is bonkers. SD’s COVID19 outbreak is overwhelmingly POC in one of the most lilly white states in the country. https://t.co/PUaw4PSZDQ
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) May 1, 2020
With a checkerboard approach to lifting movement restrictions, areas that go first will likely seed more #Covid19 cases in places that move more slowly, public health experts told @DrewQJoseph. https://t.co/rfd4KHpadL
— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) April 30, 2020
v. good piece on the routine, weariness, and fear of being on frontlines (h/t @PatBlanchfield)https://t.co/k3cksP8THI
— James "Stay In. Make Masks. Test People" Palmer (@BeijingPalmer) April 30, 2020
May is bringing cautious reopenings from coronavirus lockdowns, from Beijing's Forbidden city to shopping malls in Texas, as the grim economic toll from the pandemic ticks higher. https://t.co/yK0C0I3ZE9
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 1, 2020
Happy to report that Beijing has returned to normal—the traffic as well as the air. pic.twitter.com/q2FexLdWcv
— Tianyu M. Fang (@tianyuf) April 30, 2020
Beijing’s parks and museums including the ancient Forbidden City reopen to the public after being closed by coronavirus. https://t.co/6ZzBQiZEMb
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 1, 2020
The malls are open in Wuhan again. Nobody's shopping. That's our near future (and unlike Wuhan, we don't even have the necessary testing and tracing).https://t.co/vGRF7yDRip
— Steve M. (@nomoremister) April 30, 2020
Under Japan’s coronavirus state of emergency, people have been asked to stay home. Many are not. https://t.co/rXzhpt5XzX
— The Associated Press (@AP) April 30, 2020
Life after lockdown: some practices and trends foreseen to continue to prevent the spread of #coronavirus, as governments ease lockdown restrictions @AFP @AFPgraphics pic.twitter.com/9Ey5XS0Jgh
— AFP South Asia (@AFPSouthAsia) April 30, 2020
Putin's Prime Minister informs the President he is positive for #COVID19.#Putin's reaction: ?♂️ https://t.co/f2fImpCq6n
— Slava Malamud (@SlavaMalamud) April 30, 2020
Putin crosses him off of a list. Not a great sign.
— KGY (@KGYEG) April 30, 2020
Scandinavians: Not, traditionally, a hands-on people. Swedes might have overestimated the worth of this. (Also, Sweden has kind of a reputation for — let’s call it resolute stubbornness — among its Scandinavian neighbors.)
Sweden has defied conventional wisdom and refused to order a wholesale lockdown to flatten the curve of the coronavirus pandemic. Our correspondent @ThomasErdbrink shows what life is like in Stockholm now. https://t.co/u7Eg5tSWxC pic.twitter.com/GJlEx5ObMi
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 1, 2020
Has Sweden found the best response to the coronavirus? Its death rate suggests it hasn’t. https://t.co/P0pizjIUUQ @AlexWardVox @voxdotcom pic.twitter.com/ahxnLhDKqS
— Andrew Revkin (@Revkin) May 1, 2020
Denmark says coronavirus spread has not accelerated since reopening began https://t.co/UMRButs5OQ pic.twitter.com/Y1zvFsvyFK
— Reuters (@Reuters) April 30, 2020
Love this @kakape profile of @c_drosten, long known as a rock star in the world of virology & now similarly appreciated by the German public. https://t.co/9lSjbdV67C
— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) April 30, 2020
Germany has relaxed the coronavirus lockdown for playgrounds, churches and zoos. But a decision on whether to loosen the rules for restaurants, hotels and pre-schools has been postponed. https://t.co/HlMDWV3epc
— AP Europe (@AP_Europe) April 30, 2020
UK ethnic minorities suffer extra COVID deaths: think tank https://t.co/hYvSKbj2Sp pic.twitter.com/riyiSxGbGY
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 1, 2020
That's "congiunti”: Italy's cooped-up citizens are trying to parse who counts as family after the nation's leader used an archaic-sounding word to define visiting rights the government is restoring next week. https://t.co/fxhMzYMfeF
— AP Europe (@AP_Europe) May 1, 2020
A French inventor has created an automated miniature doctor's office, where patients speak to a real doctor via a video link while using sensors to get themselves tested https://t.co/yTmKHVrwaN pic.twitter.com/qNltqiPM8Z
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 1, 2020
Today will be 3 months since I declared a public health emergency of international concern – the highest @WHO emergency alert – over #COVID19.
I took a few moments today to brief media on the period preceding that announcement and to clarify what WHO knew, and what we did. https://t.co/AEpJGES3nj— Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus (@DrTedros) April 30, 2020
The @nytimes clearly displays the enormous difference between aspired targets for developing & globally distributing a #COVID19 #vaccine versus the typical vax development reality. The size of the gap is staggering: Where is realism?https://t.co/QdxNoquuHU pic.twitter.com/Na4A0wdLXL
— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) April 30, 2020
Look, I’m just recapping published events here:
– Former Gilead lobbyist joins White House
– Gilead drug achieves modest effect against #COVID19
– Gliead drug announced as “standard of care” and basis of future trials
– Former Gilead lobbyist announces is leaving White House pic.twitter.com/AeAxFEUe0U— Maryn McKenna (@marynmck) April 30, 2020
by next week, fox news is going to call for an end to child labor laws to supplement vulnerable adult workers. https://t.co/bTAgOZAZE2
— golikehellmachine (@golikehellmachi) May 1, 2020
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s daily numbers: 69 new cases, of whom 57 are from local infection and the rest from repatriated Malaysians; total to date 6,071 cases. 39 recovered, total to date 4,210 — 69.3% of total cases. One death, total to date 103; case fatality rate holding at 2.39%.
In his Labour Day TV address, Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin announced changes to the Movement Control Order (lockdown) regulations that reflect Malaysia’s shift to a recovery phase. Muhyiddin notes that lockdown is costing RM2.4billion (about US$600million) a day in lost economic activity. That’s going on RM100billion since March 18.
But effective Star Wars Day on Monday, as long as new case numbers don’t spike again, most business activities will be allowed to resume provided social distancing and strict hygiene precautions are observed; there will be inspections. Restaurants may also reopen for dine-in. But business and other activities that involve crowds/audiences/congregations are still suspended. Thus no cultural events, sports events, exhibitions, Iftar gatherings etc.
Outdoor recreational non-contact sports are now permitted. Malaysians may go for a jog, for example, or play badminton or tennis or golf. But no football or rugby or other contact sports.
Muhyiddin also noted that we’ll all have get used to the new post-lockdown normal, and not act like the status quo ante is back.
Rusty
The core American belief is FYIGM. We killed a lot of people, particularly people of color, the poor, by neglect. Now the same attitude is killing them by active infection. What is your life compared to my desire for a haircut? We have really moved into bizzaro-land when states have to guard critical health supplies from random confiscation by the federal government.
WereBear
I have never seen so much denial with such terrible consequences.
Amir Khalid
Via CNN, Elon Musk reminds the world that he is a rich, entitled knob.
Amir Khalid
@Amir Khalid:
I should also add: unlike other countries that have lifted such restrictions, Malaysia is also maintaining all border restrictions: on incoming travellers, other than Malaysians repatriating from abroad; and on unnecessary domestic travel between states (other than commuting between home and work).
Anne Laurie
@Amir Khalid: See my earlier post for some prime twitter pushback on Mr. Musk.
(Hasn’t been swarmed by his stans yet, but that may change… )
WereBear
@Amir Khalid: That is smart and will be a factor in the US, since states can vary so widely in public health measures.
debbie
@WereBear:
There’s far more assholism than denial, from what I’ve seen. I’m not sure we (as in humankind) deserve to survive this. The world certainly deserves better.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: They go hand in hand. The denial of “It can’t happen to me.” goes hand in hand with the assholish “Why should I bear the slightest inconvenience for you?”
Amir Khalid
I don’t understand the Swedish strategy of going straight for herd immunity. They must have understood that not imposing lockdown was going to result in more infections and more deaths. I would not consider that trade-off morally acceptable.
NotMax
terben
In Australia today, 12 new cases were reported, for a total of 6765. These were in NSW and Victoria with all six other states/territories reporting zero new cases.
One death was reported, bringing the total to 93. The number of reported recoveries is 5745, leaving 927 active cases. Of these cases, 83 are hospitalised with 28 in ICU.
Nationally, testing continues with 25,000+ today bringing the total to 588,000+
In my state, South Australia, we had our 9th consecutive day with no cases. Closing the internal borders has stopped the spread between the worst affected states and the rest of the country and isolation, testing and contact tracing has done the rest.
zzyzx
I hate the conversation we’re (not we as in Balloon Juice but we as in the nation) having on this topic because it’s so all or nothing. Herd immunity isn’t an on/off switch, it’s a continuum.
The problem with Coronavirus isn’t as much that it kills everyone, but that it spreads quickly, overwhelms populations, and is hard to control. It’s not that 25% immunity means that it’s over. It would mean that we get real gains in slowing the curve and controlling this for free; changing an R0 from 2.0 to 1.5 is a huge difference in how fast an exponential growth of a new population happens.
The argument shouldn’t be, “Are we going to be safe after the first round?” but rather, “Will it be easier to control outbreaks after it?” And that’s where the difference between 30% or 3% (both of which I could see possible at the end of this wave) is so huge.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
I suppose. For me, what gets me the most is the lack of empathy. Not just with COVID; I’ve seen an alarming lack of empathy in the (all younger than me) people I work with. And management is no better; they all pimp empathy, but they sure as hell don’t model it.
OzarkHillbilly
Let me just sum the tl;dr up for you:
Lesson #1: Don’t elect Republicans.
Lesson #2: Don’t elect Republicans.
Lesson #3: Don’t elect Republicans.
Yes there have been a couple Republican Govs who have done at least as good a job of handling this as anyone else (2 of 26 in fact) but really, just play it safe and don’t elect Republicans.
Comrade Scrutinizer
@Amir Khalid: Here’s a question: if the “flatten the curve” approach is basically to stretch out the total number of cases over a longer time period to avoid overwhelming healthcare facilities, but is not meant to reduce the total number of infections (which was the raison d’etre given for lockdowns); and if antibodies do prevent repeat infections; then if you think your healthcare system is up to the task, then why not avoid disruptions from lockdowns?
Baud
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Same infections, fewer deaths.
Baud
@OzarkHillbilly: To be fair, Georgia didn’t elect Kemp. Kemp elected himself.
OzarkHillbilly
@debbie: Once upon a time empathy was what separated homo sapiens from the rest of the animal world. I think we are devolving into a new species: Homo Americanus.
OzarkHillbilly
@Baud: True enough.
Anne Laurie
There’s an old ‘joke’ I’ve heard from Danes, Norwegians, ‘ethnic’ (part-Sami) Swedes and their American descendants:
Ten thousand Swedes came through the weeds to fit a sick Norwegian
Ten thousand more, stood up and swore, the fairest fight they ever saw…
There is a (quite probably exaggerated) conviction that Sweden has always relied on its size, in comparison to its neighbors, to triumph. The slur is that Swedes are wilful boneheads, who don’t mind being used as cannon-fodder by their leaders.
I haven’t had time to research general opinion from the English-language Scandinavian press, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the Swedes’ Sure, herd immunity, after all YOLO! may just possibly be seen in this context…
zzyzx
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
The other argument is that by stalling, you learn and hopefully the death rate in June is lower than the death rate in March because we have better treatments.
Anne Laurie
@OzarkHillbilly: To be fair, it seems pretty clear that a (slight) majority of Georgia voters voted against the Repubs, or weren’t permitted by then-Secretary of State, now-Gov. Kemp to vote at all.
And, of course, those ‘wrongthought’ voters are, largely, the groups disproportionately suffering & dying right now…
Comrade Scrutinizer
@zzyzx: The timeline for the development of treatment strategies and vaccines is typically long compared to the length of any sustainable lockdown.
@Baud: The reduction in death rate is related to healthcare capacity, which is the point of curve-flattening. The ideal case mortality percentage is based on our ability to provide supportive care. Shelter-at-home orders are meant to bring the caseload to within that capacity. If a country feels that they have the capacity to effectively treat their population, is there a need for stay-at-home orders and distancing?
Amir Khalid
@Comrade Scrutinizer:
Lockdown — keeping physically apart from others as much as possible — sharply reduces opportunities for contagion, and reduces total infections; it is essential to a flatten-the-curve strategy, so that the Covid-19 case load doesn’t overwhelm the hospitals.
The Swedish approach has been, not to flatten the curve, but to let people get infected and so build up herd immunity. No one knows yet how post-recovery immunity will work for individuals, let alone the community, so counting on future herd immunity like that is risky. Also, the more are infected, the more will inevitably die. The death rate in Sweden has exceeded that in the rest of Scandinavia, and half the deaths in Sweden have been of old people in care homes. I think the Swedish approach has resulted in fatalities that could have been avoided.
Amir Khalid
A Swedish academic takes a not very flattering look at her country’s approach to Covid-19. The article begins:
(Emphasis mine.) Remember that BoJo stuck with that strategy until he himself was infected.
YY_Sima Qian
6 new domestic confirmed cases from China yesterday. 5 at the city of Mudanjiang in Heilongjiang Province, all were previously identified as asymptomatic, and already under quarantine and medical observation. 1 case at Hulun Buir in Inner Mongolia, previously identified as suspect case exported from the Harbin cluster, also already under medical quarantine and treatment. So far, so good.
The asymptomatic cases yesterday, however, raised some concerns. 4 of the 6 asymptomatic cases found outside of Hubei were exported from Hubei. However, one of the asymptomatic cases in Sichuan Province in southwestern China was imported from Yanbian Prefecture in Jilin Province in northeastern China. It is always concerning when a region that has not reported a confirmed or asymptomatic case for weeks exports an infected person elsewhere. Yanbian is on the border with North Korea, has a large ethnic Korean population, and has a lot of business and cultural links with both Koreas (and many emigrants in South Korea). Could there be an outbreak there lurking under the surface? The city of Guangzhou in Guangdong Province reported an asymptomatic case, related to imported case(s). What is worrying is that the case was found in the exurban district of Zengcheng, nowhere near the districts in the heart of the city that the African immigrant community congregate. There has been 8 confirmed and asymptomatic cases from Zengcheng in the past few days, so there is a separate cluster there. The detailed case reports for Yanbian and Zengcheng is not published, yet.
Ji County in Henan Province, Harbin and Mudanjiang in Heilongjiang Province, Qingdao in Shandong Province, Guangzhou in Guangdong Province, and possibly Yanbian in Jilin Province, all in the past month or so. This is what wack-a-mole looks like, until vaccines are widely available.
YY_Sima Qian
A significant reason for traffic congestion, in cities across China, quickly approaching pre-pandemic levels is the fact that people are wary of taking public transportation. Same reason automobile sales appear to be rebounding. This development, while quite understandable, is not great for air quality or climate change.
Beijing has lowered its epidemic prevention and control status from Level 1 to Level 2, meaning 2 weeks of self-quarantine is no long required for travelers from the rest of the country to the capital. The exception, of course, is Hubei Province, including Wuhan. This is a bit frustrating, since not even people from Harbin are now required to self-quarantine when arriving in Beijing, despite its possibly still active cluster! Understandable, perhaps, since Hubei is still adding 10 – 20 asymptomatic cases per day, and exporting a few asymptomatic cases to the rest of China each day, even if these cases do not appear to be infectious.
With the 5 days of International Labor Day break coming up, I really do wish I could have the chance of seeing the Forbidden City with so few tourists!
The Bloomberg article does a pretty good job describing life (especially work life) in Wuhan right now, in spite of the clickbait headline. No many of the described measures need to be construed as “Dystopian”, just good common sense under the new normal. The only potentially dystopian measure, the mobile APP based health code and tracking system, is not investigated in depth. Similar systems are planned or implemented in South Korea, Singapore and Australia.
Amir Khalid
@YY_Sima Qian:
It’s also been implemented here. I got the text fron the National Security Council asking my to download the app, MySejahtera, to my phone.
Laura Too
@YY_Sima Qian: Thank you! I so appreciate hearing from you and everyone else from around the world. My sister lives in Bendigo (Victoria) Australia so the updates from there are also valuable. Having Amer Khalid’s daily numbers make it so much more personal than reading statistics in a paper. I like having global pen pals that keep me connected to the rest of the world. Too much USA, USA – I get tired of us. One of the most damaging things about 45 is how much oxygen he steals from what should be world unity.
YY_Sima Qian
China and South Korea just signed an agreement to allow expedited processing for business travelers to enter each other’s territories. Need an official invitation from a domestic entity (including local subsidiary of a multinational), report detailing health status in the previous 14 days before travel, negative PCR test report within 7 days of travel, another PCR test immediately upon arrival, and a 2 day quarantine while waiting for the results. This agreement is possible because both countries have their COVID-19 epidemics suppressed, and each government trusts the information the other is publicizing.
I expect such agreements to proliferate across the Asia Pacific region, to eventually cover other nations and territories that have successfully suppressed their outbreaks (or on track to achieve suppression): Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan (if the deep freeze in cross-strait relations can be circumvented), Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand(?), Singapore (after they contain the big outbreak among the foreign guest workers), Australia (though Sino-Aussie intergovernmental relation appears to be souring at an astonishing speed), and New Zealand.
On the subject of herd immunity as public health policy and goal, I do find it ironic that the one regime historically portrayed by western MSMs as essentially heartless and prioritizes GDP growth over individual lives, is the one that has been the fastest to shut down economic and social life to minimize the danger to the collection of 1.4 billion individual lives. It is not because the CCP regime suddenly converted to liberal humanism, but because it has always had a finely tuned sense of self-preservation. One way for governments and regimes in China to lose legitimacy (Mandate of Heaven) historically is poor handling of natural disasters: plagues, floods, earthquakes, droughts. The regime has always pulled out all the stops when responding to earthquakes and floods, so it’s response to COVID-19 is not at all surprising to me.
On the other hand, the two countries who either had flirted with, or is still flirting with, herd immunity, are the world’s oldest democracy (the U.K.) and the poster child of social democracy (Sweden). I am not too shocked by the former, with BoJo and his merry band of Brexit charlatans in charge, but I must say I am surprised by the latter, especially in light of the responses by the rest of Scandinavia.
Exregis
Dumbshit says we have more confirmed COVID-19 cases relative to the rest of the world because we do so much testing. Well, using this morning’s Worldometer statistics, we have 63913 deaths out of the world’s 234771, or 27% of the COVID-19 deaths in the world, with just 4% of the world’s population. Unless the rest of the world is not reporting five sixths of its COVID-19 deaths, we are way out of line.
So-called extra testing won’t account for the fact that Americans are dying at a rate six times more than the world average.
Exregis
Something that annoys me about all the test reporting: the media and the government don’t seem to account for multiple testing. So far this morning, we have conducted 6,408,713 tests. The US population is around 327,000,000. The media divide one number by the other (6,408,713 / 327,000,000) and say that 2.0% of the American population has been tested.
That’s not true. Individual people, like Dumbshit (and his many mannequins) and COVID-19 patients get tested more than once. I’m guess that there are at least a million tests given to people already tested. That’s how, for example, we close COVID-19 cases, by getting one or two negative tests after an initial positive test and subsequent positive tests. Keep in mind we have over a million initial positive tests. Multiple tests reduce the percentage of Americans tested.
Exregis
@Amir Khalid: To be fair, Boris Johnson abandoned the herd strategy long before he was tested positive, due to all the UKers who objected to killing some people to protect others.
YY_Sima Qian
@Laura Too: Depressingly, the Republicans’ avowed election strategy this year’s is to play the Red Baiting and Yellow Peril cards. That, plus the fact that there are many elements in the bipartisan national security and even economic policy elites who are actively promoting great power competition with and economic/technological decoupling from China as the overriding national concern, even with COVID-19. They are certainly dragging their sympathizers in the U.K., Canada, Australia and parts of Europe along. The prickly reactions from Chinese reign policy functionaries are not helping either, especially a disturbing new trend of diplomatic communication via trolling. They just have learned from the Russians. Putin regime’s trolling and sh*t stirring activities have a lot of admirers among Chinese nationalists in government and in population. At least the Chinese trolling have so far been kept at mid-ranking level, and not policy maker level.
So no, I do not see much chance for a world united response, at lease not at the governmental level. I do have hope it can be facilitated by non-governmental actors (which is happening organically, but also haphazardly), as long as governments do not try to be too counterproductive.
YY_Sima Qian
@Exregis: They have the causal relationship backward. The US has tested so many because the epidemic is so widespread there. What is more important than per capita testing rate is whether the testing is adequate to the scope of the epidemic. Given the ~ 20% positive rate, and the still overly restrictive criteria for testing in most places, the US is not testing nearly enough.
J R in WV
@YY_Sima Qian:
Our fearful leader, the pig-ignorant and incompetent Trump, can’t manage a simple business meeting, let alone respond well to a real plague. We see this on daily TV reporting.
We may muddle through, but Trump’s leadership will not help with it at all.
Exregis
@YY_Sima Qian:
Exactly. Many of the restrictions imposed because we do not have an adequate testing environment guarantee that we test those in the general population who we are pretty sure are already positive. That makes opening up society so risky, hence stupid.