Dr. Rick Bright, whistleblower who says he was ousted after warning the Trump administration to prepare for the virus pandemic, tells Congress the U.S. needs a plan to create a supply chain for producing tens of millions of doses of a possible vaccine. https://t.co/bwehKPbejy
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 14, 2020
Global coronavirus death toll exceeds 300,000: Reuters tally https://t.co/CxpJw5BaHj pic.twitter.com/dqi3kkJBtO
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 15, 2020
#UPDATE 1,754 people died from the #coronavirus in the US in the past 24 hours, bringing the total number of deaths to 85,813, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The country has now confirmed a total of 1,416,528 cases
? Johannes Eisele pic.twitter.com/yPp4l5gcyh
— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 15, 2020
Five US sailors have been evacuated with coronavirus from an aircraft carrier despite extensive screening as the warship prepares its return to sea following a major outbreak, a US official confirmed https://t.co/pj1Nxa0Oi1
— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 14, 2020
Antibody testing might help governments and companies determine who would most likely be safe to return to work, thus easing stay-at-home restrictions pic.twitter.com/I1hrwt1bUX
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 15, 2020
#US FDA alerting public to early data that suggest potential inaccurate results from using the Abbott ID NOW point-of-care test to diagnose COVID-19. Specifically, the test may return false negative results. https://t.co/oVJTrtljNQ
— COVID19 (@V2019N) May 15, 2020
U.S. health officials are telling doctors to watch for a rare but serious condition in children linked with the coronavirus.https://t.co/y83Fa4JqPG
— AP Health & Science (@APHealthScience) May 15, 2020
The first 5000 #COVID19 patients to receive convalescent plasma transfusions: reassuringly safe, but ~15% mortality, albeit difficult to interpret, suggests the efficacy will not be extremely high https://t.co/pFgl9iXAoehttps://t.co/dj1WoZ5RoQ
— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) May 14, 2020
More than 1 in 4 of the most-watched #COVID19 videos on YouTube in English contains misleading/inaccurate info, reveals the 1st study of its kind, reported in BMJ Global Health. Misinformation is far more pervasive than previous pandemics, experts say https://t.co/E4i9fGIpFk pic.twitter.com/FR2vCQJ5f2
— delthia ricks ? (@DelthiaRicks) May 14, 2020
On Thursday, health officials released some of the long-delayed guidance in the form of “decision tools” that use graphics to tell organizations what they should consider before reopening. https://t.co/RbQKdXO73Y
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 14, 2020
Dr. Joseph Fair has been in many epidemics, contracted #Ebola in West Africa, and is now in hospital w/#COVID19 — which, he thinks, he contracted through his eyes on an airplane.
HCWers in ICU wear goggles, for a reason. If Fair is right, big implications for workplaces. https://t.co/Zi0QcAmqGf— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) May 14, 2020
(H/t commentor RedShift)
Sitting in a freezer for years, potential SARS vaccine now ready for trial on usefulness against coronavirus https://t.co/q0aKS3EeHH
— Journal Sentinel (@journalsentinel) May 13, 2020
very interesting (and encouraging), but I'm curious to know the accuracy rate, which is crucial for a test like this https://t.co/XcLZKo97SY
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) May 15, 2020
COVID patients given malaria drug didn't see significant improvements: studies https://t.co/TSinrrQQ7b pic.twitter.com/trYlgtSkz7
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 15, 2020
VIDEO: Virus cluster in Wuhan sparks mass screening.
Residents of China's original #coronavirus epicentre, Wuhan, queue up to be tested after a new cluster of cases sparks a mass screening campaign pic.twitter.com/ybT5kE31n1
— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 15, 2020
China's Wuhan says it has tested almost a third of its citizens for coronavirus https://t.co/GVNhNnslta pic.twitter.com/DDFUJU79td
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 15, 2020
Coronavirus: How 'overreaction' made Vietnam a virus success https://t.co/Oclk8GAWsm
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 15, 2020
State of emergency lifted in most of Japan after sharp fall in new coronavirus infections https://t.co/RVLNE1R75K
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 14, 2020
These toy pandas ensure customers follow social distancing while keeping diners company at a restaurant in Bangkok pic.twitter.com/OrLRI7D7XY
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 15, 2020
Two people test positive for Covid-19 in world's largest refugee camp https://t.co/rMGWsnr47J
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 14, 2020
Coronavirus: Is Putin rushing Russia out of lockdown? https://t.co/ojWZvjqQun
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 14, 2020
Baltics open Europe's first pandemic 'travel bubble' as curbs ease https://t.co/KujHBmO7pf pic.twitter.com/Vv3tADjqyr
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 14, 2020
The European Commission unveiled sweeping proposals aimed at ensuring people can start traveling safely across Europe again as governments try to revive tourism and the airline industry pic.twitter.com/mHNlaCafDn
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 14, 2020
Few places in the world have suffered from COVID-19 as badly as the northern Italian city of Bergamo, but its mayor says that he is confident his city will recover https://t.co/EvUzyk0dhQ pic.twitter.com/73YQ1QXrKq
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 15, 2020
The UK government has rejected calls to disclose coronavirus deaths in individual nursing homes, where thousands of died across the country, citing the need to project privacy and to avoid ‘creating confusion’ https://t.co/0gDdOy868X pic.twitter.com/hWeXe7xJJw
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 15, 2020
There has been a 42% increase in the number of confirmed cases of #COVID19 in the African Region in the past week. The West African region is most affected, accounting for 43% of cases.
For more detailed analysis, read our most recent COVID-19 Report: https://t.co/q8y7mQPyOo pic.twitter.com/3llT0DdaVV
— WHO African Region (@WHOAFRO) May 14, 2020
Virus could infect more than 200 million in Africa: @WHO modellinghttps://t.co/Qwyapk2O0g
? Marco Longari pic.twitter.com/AAoaiQEVqo
— AFP news agency (@AFP) May 15, 2020
Venezuela scientists face government backlash for research predicting surge in COVID-19 cases https://t.co/KOB2379RAt pic.twitter.com/e8sHIV4HRT
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 15, 2020
In March, Brazilian President Bolsonaro visited President Trump in Florida.
Bolsonaro’s former Health Minister @lhmandetta says that, “from the people that went with him, 17 tested positive in about 15 days after they arrived. So this trip was really a corona trip.” pic.twitter.com/QKDoQYwPS3
— Christiane Amanpour (@camanpour) May 13, 2020
In Amazon city, indigenous chief felled by COVID-19 buried with dance and singing https://t.co/WWj8gXrhVc pic.twitter.com/FA9uxsCnYM
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 15, 2020
Mexico at 'peak moment' of coronavirus crisis after biggest daily rise in cases https://t.co/QvIX0oaEWZ
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 15, 2020
Canada's Trudeau: world has changed even if pandemic ends, vaccine found https://t.co/kn5oFd84Cd pic.twitter.com/QE0Llp9lur
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 15, 2020
Australian soap opera ‘Neighbours’ is filming new episodes again, but the scripts have been re-worked so that actors can adhere to strict social distancing rules https://t.co/AopZLZgI7r pic.twitter.com/obyQUIxWlz
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 15, 2020
The Las Vegas airport has installed new vending machines loaded with personal protective equipment https://t.co/2kgilFQ9os
— CNN (@CNN) May 15, 2020
Walt Disney World and unions agree on safeguards for returning to work https://t.co/5UqBwfcl4Q pic.twitter.com/bcjuwDVxNe
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 15, 2020
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s daily numbers: 36 new cases, including 28 foreign nationals. No breakdown for local infection vs imported cases. Total 6,855 cases. 88 more patients recovered, total 5439 or 79.3% of all cases recorded. Of 1,304 active cases, 14 are in ICU of whom 5 are on ventilators. Case fatality rate 2.02%.
As of noon today, DG of Health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said, the Health Ministry had screened 424,306 people of whom 6,855 were positive, giving a testing rate of about 13 per 1,000 population — among the best in Asia — and a positive test rate of 1.62%.
WereBear
I have always made glasses part of my shopping gear. Not goggles, but something.
terben
Before I report the results for Australia, some local news from my home state of South Australia:
Total confirmed cases 439, recovered cases 435, deaths 4. CFR 0.91%
Our last confirmed case was reported on May 8th, someone who presented for testing some 6 weeks after having mild symptoms while self-isolating. It’s too early for a happy dance, but I hope that won’t be too far in the future. Now back to the real world.
From The Australian Dept of Health:
‘As at 3:00pm on 15 May 2020, a total of 7,019 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Australia, including 98 deaths and 6,337 have been reported as recovered from COVID-19.
Over the past week, there has been an average of 15 new cases reported each day. Of the newly reported cases, the majority have been from Victoria.
To date, over 983,500 tests have been conducted nationally. Of those tests conducted 0.71% have been positive.’
This is an increase of 30 new cases since yesterday, including 20 in the state of Victoria.
OzarkHillbilly
Covid-19 being used as weapon in attacks on US police and grocers
Where there’s a will, there’s an idiot American finding a way.
raven
germy
OzarkHillbilly
World agog as Trump flails over pandemic despite claims US leads way
OzarkHillbilly
@raven: You’re not the boss of me!
@germy: Obviously a white man. A black man would have been met with a taser.
Bruce K
@OzarkHillbilly: From Europe, Donald Trump is basically cited as a joke. As in: “There will be hand sanitizer at your desks if you need to come in to work. Despite what Donald Trump says, you shouldn’t drink it.”
(Greece is officially out of its strict lockdown, but my law office is maintaining its own lockdown until next Monday, and the people in charge are strongly encouraging everyone to continue working from home unless there’s some task that can’t be accomplished without going into the office. That thing about “don’t take Donald Trump’s advice about drinking the hand sanitizer” came directly from one of the senior partners.)
germy
@OzarkHillbilly:
He would have been so much happier if he’d lost to HRC.
Republican are best at heckling, blocking and impeding from the sidelines. Actual governing? Not so much.
J R in WV
As many may know, we had a tree fall onto our house Wednesday two weeks ago, with a really loud BANG! Since then I’ve made extra trips to town for roofing supplies to patch the many holes in the rubber membrane our house is roofed with. Stopped while still in our rural neighborhood for hotdogs when going into town.
The young woman making the sandwiches and hotdogs was angry that Gov Justice (R-Shithead) wanted to reopen for business, knew it was too early. At the roofing supply warehouse, owner was glad to be able to provide material to those who needed roofing supplies, but thought a general opening was dangerous.
Yesterday a neighbor who does gutter and roofing work came over to look at our tree-smashed gutters, one of which provided a direct path for rainwater into the ceiling of the guest bedroom. My age, about, tall skinny country guy, has lived in these remote hollers all his life. After we were down off the roof, he started talking, said way back when the Spanish Flu hit in 1918, they thought they had it beat and then in 1919 it killed far more people than in the first wave. I agreed with him totally, and we were both amazed that so few remember that reality!!!
If these ordinary country folk can see that Coronavirus-19 is a deadly and ongoing threat, why can’t our supposedly advanced leadership from downtown see that obvious threat? Are they so greedy they don’t really care? Deluded about the odds of their own families being struck down by a virus that doesn’t know or care about the politics of the situation?
Because the Virus does not care about your social rank, your political position, your powerful sway in your community. It just wants to reproduce using your body as a host.
I am uplifted by my neighbors, who wear masks to go to the big box hardware store for supplies, who try to keep a distance even outdoors. I went to shake hands with Carson twice but didn’t, once when he came, then after he was done and leaving, and then hesitated, and said “Consider your hand shaken, fondly!” and he grinned and said “You, too!” and left for home, just over the ridge.
Not that everyone shares our lean towards wearing an uncomfortable heavy industrial mask in the big stores… but thinkers and makers appear to. Darwin at work?
germy
I visited a large pharmacy yesterday to fill a prescription.
The floors are marked with places to stand (six feet apart) and there are signs saying “Keep six feet apart.”
When I entered, the first person I encountered was a young lady who was singing at the top of her lungs. I guess this was her way of expressing that this pandemic wasn’t going to dampen her spirit. She wore a mask (as all customers and staff are expected to) but I couldn’t help but think of that choir who infected each other from the force of their song expelling droplets.
Then an old man came within an inch of me. I backed off, indicated that he should continue through the aisle six feet from me, but he stopped in his tracks and said loudly (after coughing) you don’t have to move back there!”
Outside in the parking lot were tents. They were doing testing. I noticed a police car parked a few feet away. I wondered why, and then it dawned on me he was watching for troublemakers who might attack the testers as unpatriotic or something.
People are fucking stupid.
J R in WV
@germy:
Dumb lady should have been asked to leave, arrested for behavior likely to spread disease. All these “resisters” of health rules should be arrested and kept in a stadium or basketball arena, fed potato chips, kept from circulating in open society. No patience with people sharing their virii. None!
Kinda stunned to learn that the rigorgous White House testing is being done with a shitty test with a high rate of false negative results. Because it’s fast.
Guess those masters of the universe never heard the old project management slogan, “Fast, well done, inexpensive — pick two!”
Martin
So, we failed plan A – test and trace. We’re determined to fail plan B – mitigate. Plan C is to coast to a vaccine, and I’m checking with various people and there is no capacity ramp for a vaccine in the US – something we can do in the US – we make a lot of vaccines in the US, but not 300 million doses a year. Now, maybe there’s a belief we can just outbid the Chinese government for Chinese made vaccines, but I don’t think that’s going to work. So if the US finds themselves with a vaccine, and US virologists are very likely to be the first out the gate with this – we have very good people at this – they then hand it over to be manufactured, and nothing has been done. So we turn out 10 million doses a month. Who gets them? Do the governors get to bid for them again? Will we have to endure the covid hoaxers screaming with their AR-15s for not getting the first vaccines? A slow rollout with no plan will turn into chaos. My sincere hope for a vaccine is that it doesn’t come until January, because at least by then we will hopefully have some competent people running the government.
New Deal democrat
I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy End of Coronavirus Day!
Because remember that today is the 15th, which is the day, according to the White House Official Cubit Coronavirus Model, that deaths go to zero.
Sigh.
On a more serious note, a few days ago someone asked what was happening with new infections in the “reopened” States. So far there is no clear pattern. In a few like Texas, infections have increased. In Georgia and Florida, there has been no increase. In a few like Arkansas, cases have decreased.
For those of us who are responsible, the case remains that outdoor activities are fine with social distancing. Prolonged Indoor activities where lots of people circulate should be avoided like, well, the plague.
satby
So in my personal entry into the “people are stupid” logs, while I was at the market yesterday (where almost all of the customers wore masks but less vendors than ever did) one woman vendor who stopped to talk called the current crisis “this flu thing”. I told her it’s not the flu and not to call it that, 85k+ people don’t die from the flu in 3 months, and the flu doesn’t cause strokes and sudden death in young, otherwise healthy people. I was only there to meet a customer for her order pickup, thankfully less than an hour. I’m honestly thinking this nation will be very lucky to get out of this with under 500,000 deaths.
raven
@Martin: How’s the cohort plan coming? My niece is a Banana Slug and I’m pretty sure they are not coming back F2F in the fall.
Butch
@Martin: I’m also not clear since testing for the virus has become En Attendant Godot how anyone thinks antibody testing is going to be any different. And even if it becomes a sort of “home pregnancy test,” how do you designate who is safe to return to work? Tattoo a red A for Antibody on their forehead? Finally, the idea that “you’re free to go back to work and you’re not” is going to last more than 20 minutes…..
WereBear
@OzarkHillbilly: I am sadly unsurprised.
Sloane Ranger
@OzarkHillbilly: Don’t worry. It’s happening in the UK as well.
Every nation has more than its fair share of arseholes
Just returned from my weekly shopping trip and the lady on the till was telling me about some of her close encounters with this subspecies. I was disgusted, but, sadly, not surprised.
OzarkHillbilly
@WereBear: Same here.
OzarkHillbilly
@Sloane Ranger: Yeah, idiocy is a virus without respect for nationality or ethnicity.
Brachiator
@New Deal democrat:
Someone needs to pull that snippet and beat Trump’s head with it today.
YY_Sima Qian
The 4 new domestic confirmed cases yesterday were all reported by Shulan and Fengman District of Jilin City, in Jilin Province. For the first time in the outbreak there, all of the cases were already under quarantine for several days, having been contact traced and declared asymptomatic or suspect cases. This is important l, because it implies during their periods of peak infectivity (up to three days before onset of symptoms), these cases are held in isolation, rather than in the community.
686 close contacts have been traced and isolated in Jilin Province, in connection with the clusters in Jilin City. The city of Shenyang in Liaoning Province is quarantining 7500 people who are deemed at risk, in connection to the cluster of three cases there (first one introduced from Shulan in Jilin Province, and the two infected by that case). Such a large number of people is going well beyond close contacts. Only 1093 of them are close or indirect contacts, 6434 of them are “at risk”, whatever that means. It represents either an abundance of caution on the part of the municipal government there, or overzealous overreactions, or a bit of both. All people under isolation will be quarantined for 21 days.
It appears 21 day quarantine is increasingly common across China. Travelers from any region classified as Medium or High Risk (Harbin, Mudanjiang, Jilin City, Guangzhou for a time) Are required to undergo 21 day centralized quarantine in most parts of the country. Many locations now require an additional 14 days of centralized quarantine at city of residence for those entering China from overseas (with at least two sets of PCR and antibody tests), even after they have completed 14 days of centralized quarantine at the point of entry (with at least two sets of PCR and antibody tests), some with another 7 days of at home self-quarantine tacked on (with one more set of PCR and antibody tests)! The national policy set by the National Health Commission remains 14 days of mandatory centralized quarantine at point of entry.
The new cluster in Wuhan has not added any confirmed cases since last weekend, but the municipal government is pressing ahead with the 100% screening of the city’s residents. I am pretty certain all 5K residents of the compound with the new cluster have already been tested. Some of our relatives in another district north of the Yangtze River have already been tested (the river and a tributary divide the city into three sections). A tent has been set up in my in-laws residential compound, preparing to screen the residents here. Screening at my apartment compound is supposed to happen on Monday, or thereabouts.
Wuhan ran a strategies survey of 11K people in mid-Apr. for PCR and antibodies. Only 1 positive for PCR among them, but the antibody survey results were never released. Supposed there were questions associated with the antibody results, and the antibody survey was being expanded. There are now unconfirmed rumors that the 11K antibody tests produced ~ 5% positive results. Not knowing the specificity of the tests used, it is difficult to estimate the actual percentage of population who had been infected with SARS-CoV-2. For the rapid tests 3 – 5 false positive rate is not unheard of. If the blood samples were taken from the veins, as is common practice in China, the the specificity should be very high. 5% infection rate would not be out of line, given the scope of the outbreak here.
WaterGirl
@OzarkHillbilly:
I hope that can be written on the tombstone of the (hopefully soon-to-be-dead) Republican party.
Another Scott
@YY_Sima Qian:
I wonder if that should be the new norm.
From AL’s pointer to the AFP story via Yahoo News:
This strikes me as very bad news. Either the tests still have severe issues (incorrectly grabbing samples from patients, insufficient sensitivity, who knows), or people are getting re-infected (which seems unlikely), or the virus is moving around and not getting cleared fully by 2 weeks (is that a thing?). Or maybe all of the above. Or maybe something else.
Is even 3 weeks long enough to end a quarantine??
We need to be able to trust test results to be able to do sensible contact tracing and isolation to “reopen” safely.
It’s still early in this pandemic – it’s only been 4 months! But we need to do much better in the USA.
Cheers,
Scott.
Martin
@raven: It’s coming. I wish i was more optimistic about it, though. Data wise, it looks like it can work if I can just get a little smarter regarding how to build these machine learning models. It’s getting close, though.
But lets say I get a working system, I then need to convince the various administrations – my own and to a lesser degree the system (UC is a big place) to go along with this, understanding that there will be a tiny riot among the faculty because this does require them to do a bit more work – but it’s just a bit. Everyone has to put something in this pot – students, faculty, etc.
And then if I convince them, then they need to convince the state that while this doesn’t technically comply with their reopening directives, it achieves the same goal. And I have no idea how possible or impossible some of those things are – I’ve never tried them.
I’ve threaded similarly difficult needles before, but it took me years and many interventions from people around me to not give up. So, I’m building this plan for the following reasons:
If my institution doesn’t buy it, I’ll shop it around and see if anyone else is interested. I know a lot of university leaders.