Coronavirus germs as cartoon villains. Celebrities and politicians wearing masks. Tributes to health care workers. @AP photographers show street art offering some comic relief and beauty amid the pandemic. https://t.co/kwjVtq6XUq
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 29, 2020
The @WHO and 37 countries launched an initiative aimed at sharing vaccines, medicines and diagnostic tools to tackle the coronavirus pandemic https://t.co/dtNzZVJRyi pic.twitter.com/heOGbYX1jI
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 30, 2020
This: "Thirty countries and multiple international partners & institutions have signed up to support the #COVID19 Technology Access Pool (C-TAP), aimed at making #vaccines, tests, treatments & other health tech to fight COVID-19 accessible to all."https://t.co/r2Y5PgpJaY
— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) May 29, 2020
The number of people dying from the coronavirus in the U.S. far exceeds the number of people who would be expected to die in a normal year. Our analysis of CDC data shows how many more people are dying in each state.https://t.co/iVlXAoIyjb
— NYT Graphics (@nytgraphics) May 29, 2020
Sound the trumpets!???
"Zero #COVID19 patient deaths yesterday!" said Montefiore Med CEO. "First time since #pandemic hit."@NYGovCuomo said 67 NYers lost their lives to #coronavirus on Thurs, "the lowest level ever."
The virus has killed 21,477 in NYC.https://t.co/EFkKUCzCUb— Laurie Garrett (@Laurie_Garrett) May 29, 2020
Saturated hospitals, airlifts as California border region virus cases surge https://t.co/icaLwLiAtb pic.twitter.com/pWgHH389T7
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 30, 2020
I’m not convinced yet, but this link was retweeted by respected virologist Ian M. McKay:
These “superspreading” events have become a trademark of Covid-19.
But many people who get the disease don’t pass it on to anyone at all. One new study estimates that 10% of those infected cause 80% of new transmissions https://t.co/cQOpcHAyIk pic.twitter.com/6cLqmrn32a
— Bloomberg Opinion (@bopinion) May 29, 2020
Singapore and China to restart essential business travel next month, with "effective Covid-19 prevent-and-control measures" in placehttps://t.co/j8Mpz1FamZ pic.twitter.com/a05wy4Imgn
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 29, 2020
More than 200 schools in South Korea have been forced to close just days after they re-opened, due to a new spike in coronavirus cases
But before they closed we spent the day with pupils to see what changes were being madehttps://t.co/O9FfnFXwnJ pic.twitter.com/CEzYa03RG9
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 29, 2020
Vietnam, a country of 97 million people, has not reported a single coronavirus-related death and on Saturday had just 328 confirmed cases, despite its long border with China and the millions of Chinese visitors it receives each year https://t.co/dsfRQeyseT
— CNN International (@cnni) May 30, 2020
Every year hundreds of thousands of students in India flood visa centres and consulates to start paperwork to travel and study abroad
But Covid-19 has put those dreams on hold https://t.co/XjlqcKpTN5
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 29, 2020
Denmark and Norway exclude Sweden from tourism travel bubble https://t.co/xFKSUQIE5G
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 29, 2020
Poland to let fans back into stadiums to watch professional football from 19 June https://t.co/11GvNpwsCw pic.twitter.com/EwhhezlByj
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 29, 2020
Archbishop of Dublin issues warning after church opens for Mass https://t.co/eScOjpUziX
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 29, 2020
Covid-19 spreading too fast to lift lockdown in England. Agree with John & clear science advice. TTI has to be in place, fully working, capable dealing any surge immediately, locally responsive, rapid results & infection rates have to be lower. And trusted https://t.co/ZmYKs4Go3W
— Jeremy Farrar (@JeremyFarrar) May 29, 2020
Brazil reaches 27,878 coronavirus deaths, surpasses Spain https://t.co/480BoSMXBs pic.twitter.com/cgQtPvY7Yb
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 30, 2020
'You can't ask people to die': Coronavirus woes deepen Argentina's crisis https://t.co/alnYOKrNgo
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 29, 2020
“The virus is killing all of us here.” In Latin American nations and other developing countries, the coronavirus, initially brought largely by wealthy citizens or visitors, is now increasingly concentrated in poorer neighborhoods. https://t.co/Aq497D6zXB
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 29, 2020
Red light: Mexican coronavirus restart hits speed bumps https://t.co/PL4s2YWVYF pic.twitter.com/oAX2POX6Xf
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 30, 2020
Twelve migrants test positive for coronavirus at Mexican government shelter https://t.co/60rMV26zuD pic.twitter.com/H755gNIWIq
— Reuters (@Reuters) May 30, 2020
Australia:
#BREAKING: Passengers on board the Ruby Princess cruise that lead to the State’s biggest Coronavirus cluster, have been issued with another health warning, after a crew member was diagnosed with tuberculosis this week.
— ABC News (@abcnews) May 30, 2020
This. ??
Humans share this planet with other life forms or quasi/non life forms, ie viruses. We may think being on top of the food chain gives us control, but we're kidding ourselves. https://t.co/hZ90sUjTQ4— Helen Branswell (@HelenBranswell) May 30, 2020
A concern over #COVID19 household contact studies is that if they didn't test asymptomatic people, they may underestimate infection in children
This study tested all household contacts *regardless of symptoms*https://t.co/VWx8EZ7r6z
Infected <5yrs = 20%
Infected >18y = 40-55% pic.twitter.com/ORXokLvI5Y— Alasdair Munro (@apsmunro) May 29, 2020
Looking for a simple set of #COVID19 explainers? @XTOTL and I have covered everything from testing & contact tracing to disease progression & epidemiology. Now you can see (& download) the lot all in one place over at @TheSpinoffTV. Enjoy our 'boxset'! https://t.co/PBFGaDozkQ
— Dr Siouxsie Wiles (@SiouxsieW) May 18, 2020
Some military training changes due to the coronavirus are proving beneficial and could become permanent. Defense leaders say a two-week quarantine has helped recruits get focused while masks and social distancing have reduced their respiratory illnesses. https://t.co/CpcBf2pUUh
— AP Politics (@AP_Politics) May 29, 2020
Breaking News: The Supreme Court, in a 5-4 decision, rejected a California church’s challenge to pandemic restrictions on attendance at religious services https://t.co/IoO5avHlgC
— The New York Times (@nytimes) May 30, 2020
Heat relief centers are opening amid soaring temperatures in southwestern US desert cities, where coronavirus lockdowns have closed government-run spaces like libraries and community centers that typically provide shelter. https://t.co/eCMWrC6umu
— AP West Region (@APWestRegion) May 29, 2020
“I think everybody went into mourning.” Cheyenne, Wyoming, business people fear for future after the city’s famous cowboy-and-rodeo festival, Cheyenne Frontier Days, is canceled because of the coronavirus crisis. https://t.co/0J7qMh9pwh
— AP West Region (@APWestRegion) May 29, 2020
… Health-wise, COVID-19 has left Wyoming relatively unscathed. The least-populated state ranks near the bottom of states for deaths and active cases.
Wyoming’s economy is another matter. Diminished electricity use during the pandemic has hit coal mining hard in the top coal-producing state. A global oil price war and coronavirus-related demand problems have slammed the state’s big oil and gas industries.
Not even accounting for potential bankruptcies in the minerals industry, the state is looking at an up to $1.5 billion revenue hit over the next two years — equivalent to all state spending on public education or the entire state workforce, take your pick…
Do you think you had the coronavirus in the U.S. in December or early January? Public health researchers say it was probably the flu. https://t.co/T59eeMAdE1
— AP Health & Science (@APHealthScience) May 29, 2020
cliosfanboy
Can we just de-state Wyoming already? Sheesh. Just make it a national park or something.
Martin
@cliosfanboy: Huh, the extraction industries you relied on for your entire economy just dried up one day? Man, that never happens.
NotMax
92-year-old Mom in NYC area went in on Thursday to eye doctor to have stitches removed from her eye (all went well; appointment had been pushed back about 6 weeks as the office shut down during the height of the emergency). Told me that not only are masks required by the office but they won’t even let you in with your own mask, instead meeting you at the door to issue a fresh mask of their own. Distancing protocols strictly enforced in the waiting room.
As she wouldn’t be able to drive herself back after the procedure, she wisely opted to hire a car service for the 18 mile trip each way rather than risk public transportation.
Aleta
thanks AL, curator of corona portraiture
NotMax
Brazil reported more new cases in the past 24 hours than did the U.S. Source
OzarkHillbilly
@NotMax: I had to go to my Doc this week. They were very grateful I had a mask, so probably a bit of a shortage here yet. Got temp taken before entering. Social distancing? None, but only because there was no one to be distant from. People come in one door, go to their room, and out the back door. The only people I saw were the front desk, the nurse*, and my NP.
*the nurse told me she is the only(?) covid tester for all of Crawford County. I called her Covid Jenny. She usually laughs at my jokes, but not that one. I wonder why?
Aleta
* director of the Indiana Center for Regenerative Medicine and Engineering at the IU School of Medicine
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
I probably would have fumbled through some lame comment about the job involving handling testees.
:)
OzarkHillbilly
@Aleta: That is some cool shit.
@NotMax: I think too subtle for Jennifer, probably would go right over her head.
WereBear
@Aleta: Wearable tech indeed!
terben
@OzarkHillbilly: It could have been worse, you could have called her Covid Karen.
OzarkHillbilly
Amir Khalid
Malaysia’s daily numbers: 30 new cases, 27 from local infection including 17 foreign nationals, and three imported cases. Total 7,762 cases.
95 more patients recovered, total 6,330 recovered or 81.33% of all cases. Of 1,317 active cases, nine are in ICU of whom two are on ventilators. No new deaths, total still at 115. Infection fatality rate 1.48%, case fatality rate 1.78%.
Geminid
Released three days ago, modeling from the University of Virginia made a very sobering projection for this state: new Covid-19 cases will peak the first week of August at 5,000 a day, 35,000 a week. Currently we are at ~1200 a day, total 40,000 to date. And this models a “light” rebound. Assuming a heavier rebound, the model projects a 65,000 week total, peaking the last week of July. I wonder about attrition of health care workers through sickness and physical and emotional burnout. Will schools open in September? I guess that event will be modeled soon, and the result won’t be pretty.
Barbara
@OzarkHillbilly: It’s not the outdoor activity but going to bars and restaurants that presents the highest risk. Looking at the daily trackers, deaths seem to have plateaued — down in the hardest hit urban areas, so probably up in many other places.
OzarkHillbilly
@Barbara:
WereBear
I know that for some part of the population, this is a large part of their social life and disposable income.
gkoutnik
@Barbara:
We always, always have to remember that death stats are inaccurate, often purposely so.
Amir Khalid
DG of Health Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah told today’s media briefing that at present, Malaysians account for only 22% of local infections, the rest being foreign workers and illegal immigrants. He said it will be necessary to ensure that these non-Malaysians be educated on social distancing and get any help they need to practise it, including less crowded accommodations.
He also said that any school reopening would start with fifth- and sixth-formers (around 17 and 19 years respectively). These two grades sit for critical public exams at the end of the school year.
terben
From the Australian Dept of Health:
‘As at 3:00pm on 30 May 2020, a total of 7,185 cases of COVID-19 have been reported in Australia, including 103 deaths and 6,606 have been reported as recovered from COVID-19.
Over the past week, there has been an average of 12 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 2020, there has been a sustained and relatively low number of new cases reported daily since approximately 19 April 2020.
Of cases with a reported place of acquisition, 62% 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 1,428,500 tests have been conducted nationally. Of those tests conducted 0.5% have been positive.’
12 new cases today, 11 in Victoria. In Oz, 22 are in hospital, 4 in ICU. 476 active cases
In recent days there has been an outbreak in Western Australia aboard a live sheep carrier. Nearly half the crew of 48 has arrived from UAE in the Middle East, infected. The ship arrived to take on board 56,000 live sheep before the end of May. From the 1st of June, live exports are banned for 3 months because many sheep die from heat stress on the journey. There seem little chance that the virtually crewless ship is going anywhere, anytime soon.
JeanneT
I found a link to donate to WHO’s international efforts re Covid 19: Covid-19 Response Fund.
satby
@NotMax: Good to hear she’s doing well.
YY_Sima Qian
Wife and I went to a major shopping mall in Wuhan this afternoon, specifically the Walmart there. The traffic at the mall is about 50% of pre-COVID weekend levels, especially since the million plus college student population have yet to return to the city. Most of the shops and stores have survived, as are all of the large chain restaurants, but about a third of food stalls have shuttered. The Walmart was actually crowded, almost back to normal levels. People are cooking at home much more these days. Masking was universal, as are temperature and health code checks at Walmart, but not for the other stores.
Barbara
OzarkHillbilly: Hence my comment. You seem primed to overlook agreement.
Barbara
@gkoutnik: And therefore what? Of course they are, but even with that, the point is that THEY ARE NOT GOING DOWN. They have gone down in NYC but stopped going down overall, thus, going up in other places. I should just stay off line today.
Dirk Reinecke
The news from South Africa continue to be incredibly grim. The lock down (one of the harshest in the world, including all sales of alcohol and cigarettes) has been going on for 63 days, this has completely devastated the economy, and the special COVID-19 relief payments of R350 ($20) per month, has only been made to 10 people.
On Monday, alcohol sales will be allowed again, but still no cigarettes.
The country will soon be re-opening schools and churches, despite the daily infections reaching a the highest it has even been 1800 new infections.
gkoutnik
@Barbara: Therefore… we really don’t know the full extent of the virus’s impact, and therefore can’t plan effectively, or research accurately. Agreed that numbers of deaths are not going down (in many/most places) but the true numbers are very clearly much higher. Political expediency is trumping (pun intended) the research and planning that will move us out of this crisis.
Barbara
@gkoutnik: Which is why people are focusing on year over year death rates, a data point that clearly suggests undercounting of deaths from the virus. The more pernicious practice is to combine serology and virus tests so that appears the incidence of new cases is going down.
YY_Sima Qian
@Dirk Reinecke: How is the infection rate staying so high in spite of the hard lock down, it contradicts experience elsewhere in the world – I.e., the more vigorous the lock down, the slower the spread and the faster an outbreak is suppressed. Who are being infected and what are the transmission vectors. Are the infections mostly in the crowded townships?
gkoutnik
@Barbara: Agreed
Princess
@YY_Sima Qian: It’s an excellent question. The same thing is happening in Peru. Two weeks after their first case, when they still had fairly few reported cases they locked down completely. Only one member of the household about to go out for food. Strict curfew. And yet their cases have exploded.
debbie
@OzarkHillbilly:
I went to my GP last Friday. It’s a large practice, I think maybe 7 physicians/nurse practitioners, always hopping. I was the lone patient. Most chairs were taped off or moved and piled on each other. I needed blood tests so the social distancing was less than ideal, but everything else was very rigorous.
debbie
@terben:
And there’s the idea for a graphic novel: The Adventures of COVID Karen and COVID Carl.
Jinchi
This is probably the real reason Trump is pulling out of the WHO. He has always been adamant that private companies should be able to profit off a vaccine and been publicly worried that the Chinese are “trying to steal our coronavirus research”. The idea of sharing a cure is incomprehensible to him.
Brachiator
This is not good, especially if the changes made were not effective.
Fair Economist
@Princess: My interpretation is that this is being driven by people who can’t properly isolate themselves. Cases keep rising here in OC CA (new highs in all bad indicators this week) and they are overwhelmingly concentrated in the poorer cities. I think it’s driven by a combination of crowded conditions, a need to work due to undocumented status, not being able to afford masks and sanitizers, and not speaking the dominant local language, so being disconnected from public info and warnings.
WRT South Africa it has very high inequality even by 3rd world standards, and heavy linguistic complications.
Miss Bianca
Oh, thank God. Cheyenne is cancelling Frontier Days. With any hope, that means our local Saddle Club will call off plans for our rodeo. The Rodeo Committee said they were waiting till June 19 to make the call, partially because they were waiting to see what Cheyenne did.
It was supposed to a big deal, a very big deal, this year. The first year that the rodeo, which had been a small and largely local affair, went pro.
Still and all, I simply could not believe that we were really planning to go ahead with it. I was incensed at the very notion. I belong to the Saddle Club, but I have zero investment in the rodeo – I mostly belong so I can use the arena and the grounds. But we had cancelled every other big summer event – the Shakespeare in the park, the bluegrass festival, the Star Fest (we are a Dark Skies community), the community radio station’s Rock and Soul Jam…
The county fair will probably go on, but under a very strict and impressively detailed set of guidelines, and it won’t be open to the general public, just exhibitors and judges.
dimmsdale
@NotMax: Thursday I had a doc appointment uptown; took subway up and walked home afterwards (approx. 40 city blocks each way). At mid-day, there were four people in the subway car with me, all of them masked. Car itself was cleaner than I ever remember seeing before. I’d say the mask wearing in NYC (at least the parts I frequent) is running ~90%. The city is supposed to re-open in Phase 1 on June 8; it would be nice if one could move around relatively freely (although wearing a mask of course) but I for one am sitting tight till I see follow-on stats generated by the opening. I’m fortunate not to have to endure the sight of maskless goobers invading my personal space, the way so many are; I’d have trouble differentiating between justifiable alarm for my health and fury at the lack of respect that non-mask-wearing implies. Good luck to all; stay safe.
slightly_peeved
@Brachiator:
The outbreak wasn’t in the schools. Most of the cases were in a distribution centre, and schools in the harder-hit areas have delayed opening.
The vast majority of schools in South Korea are re-opening as planned.
In Australia, most of the schools have re-opened (apart from the states where schools never closed). The data gathered here is that children play a relatively small role in re-transmission: https://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2020-05-12/kids-cornavirus-symptoms-spread-schools-kawasaki/12236614
Ruckus
@OzarkHillbilly:
I’ve been to the VA three times since the first of the year. The first time, in early Jan I had to go to the hospital for an apt. The security guard asked you questions before you went in, that was it. The second was for lab tests, at a clinic and a nurse came to my car and took my temp before I could park. And of course mask wearing was not optional. Third time I had an optometry apt at a different clinc and the signs said you had to have temp checked as you entered through the only entry into the building. But no one took my temp, and once again you had to wear a mask at all times. Every surface you might touch or might have touched was cleaned both the second and third times. There were no people loitering the second or third visits, and they really were trying to limit appointments, to keep down the number of possible interactions.
Ruckus
@Jinchi:
Fixed it for you. But it’s really the idea of always trying to profit from every interaction is what is important to shitforbrains. He rarely actually does profit but that’s his goal.
Ruckus
@Fair Economist:
I live in Covina and the number of people out and about has skyrocketed over the last month or so. I walk because I have to exercise or else my fluid retention issue makes my life extra, extra crappy. The only thing that helps is sweating, so I walk 2-3 miles a day, as fast as I can, masked of course and will always walk in the street if necessary to stay away from people. The number of people without masks is growing, the number of cars on the road is dramatically higher, the stores are far more crowded when you do have to shop. And places that are opening up, like MO, that is not going to go well. None of this is helping to keep the numbers down. NYC had a huge problem because it’s difficult to be in the city without being close to others. Normal social distance there is inches, not feet. Many places in the world are like that. But NYC responded and that’s been going a lot better. People refuse to see that this is not a one time thing, it’s ongoing till there is a vaccine for everyone. Life has changed, life will not get back to normal for a long time, if really ever, that’s just the way it is. And on top of this you have the government ruined by idiots, because they think that government is the problem, and all the while it’s just the idiots.
Uncle Cosmo
Confined spaces where the air exchange with the outside is restricted. Especially when it’s hot out and the A/C is not only running but set to keep already-cooled air inside the space.
Outside, particularly in summertime, the earth’s surface absorbs sunlight and heats up & in turn heats the air at the surface, decreasing its density relative to the not-so-heated air above it. That air then rises, gradually losing heat & increasing its density until it’s the same as the surrounding air, when it stops rising, but keeps losing heat, making it denser than the surrounding air, so it sinks back toward the surface. This is a convection cell. In summer on a clear day over a surface like concrete or sand, the air may be so heated as to rise as much as 2000′ before it tops out.**
The top of the convection cell defines the mixing layer or planetary boundary layer, & it confines the air (& anything suspended in in, like droplets) like the ceiling of a room. The higher the layer, the more the droplets are diluted in the outdoor environment, particularly when people are spread out enough (1.5-2m minimum) to allow the intervening air to rise.
So folks who stay outdoors – grabbing take-away food & picnicking or eating on the terrace – are (with suitable social distancing) keeping their chances of being infected (or infecting others beyond their immediate neighbors, who presumably they already know & have had a chance to infect) fairly low.
The problems are going to come in high summer, when it is hotter than hell outside & people are (understandably but unfortunately) prone to retreating inside bars, restaurants, etc. – confined spaces with air-conditioning. That is when the next wave is going to show up with a vengeance.
My semiscientific wild-ass guess is that the spread of illness will be fairly quiescent for the next 3-4 weeks, but we will start to see indoor transmission jump starting around 15 June, showing up as a spike in new cases 10-14 days later.
** FTR I spent 15 years working in CBW defense & a fair amount of that involved manipulating airborne transport & diffusion models, so I’m not entirely blowing smoke here, OK?
J R in WV
“Acccessible to all” but for the United States, because our leader is a dumb MF beyond all belief, to leave the WHO just when we need them most of all!
J R in WV
@Uncle Cosmo:
What about the giant mister fans blowing water droplets around patios at bars and restaurants? We were surprised to see those at so many places in Houston, all over TX, really when we were down there years ago to be with my dad.
Those seemed to make it possible to be outside even during the summertime.
Off topic: Wife had an older cousin who spent a career in the Army working on CBW stuff in Maryland, lived in the Eastern Panhandle of WV on a farm with an historic old cabin across the road from their stone farmhouse. An officer with multiple degrees in such stuff as droplet formation and air movement, chem, bio, etc.
WaterGirl
@J R in WV:
I can’t tell whether you’re thinking that would be a good thing, because people could still be outside. Or a bad thing, because giant misting fans blowing water droplets would see to not be a good thing with all the COVID droplets that would be circulating.
J R in WV
@WaterGirl:
Even, maybe giant water droplets would capture tiny droplets of spit and take them to the ground? I dunno.
Won’t catch me outdoors anywhere it’s so hot you need mister fans to keep from overheating. I overheat pretty quick any more. Loved Key West in the early 1970s without having air conditioning, went back a couple of years ago in September, couldn’t stand being outside in the daytime.
glc
Re superspreading: three different studies with various methodologies reach similar conclusions.
There isn’t a whole lot that we actually “know” about this virus – such as whether immunity is acquired and lasts for at least a year, which tends to be treated as a fact mainly because we don’t have a sensible way of thinking about the alternative, or whether contact with surfaces actually plays any kind of significant role in transmission, which we (or people my age, in any case) are obliged to treat as a fact as long as it is not proven otherwise.
But there does seem to be some reasonable evidence on this particular point.
—
Where I live the first cases originated at a party attended by two epidemiologists who had been at a conference 2 weeks before, and that resulted in 15 infections among those in attendance. On the other hand one tends to put the basic reproductive number more in the 2 to 3 range, as far as I know. E.g.:
(One thing I have learned: during an epidemic, avoid the company of epidemiologists, if possible, at least in the early stages.)