Egypt..yes we found today 21 new cases who had been last week to Israel and Egypt for religious tourism. These countries arent in the red list like Korea Itay and China, so if it wasn't for one man getting serious pneumonia and the doctors reacting with amazing speed it could have gone undetected and spread all over. They seem to have silent outbreaks especially in the religious sites like Jerusalem and Bethleem.
Chinese scientistst had analysed the new virus genes since the start of January. They waited for 10 days for the government to let them publisize to the world but nothing happened. So they went against orders and released it on their own. Two days later, the whole lab was shut down by the CCP. If it wasnt for the conscience and duty of the Chinese scientists and doctors this could have been 10 times worse.
My understanding is they cut off Wuhan first and then additional cities in Hubei province completely. They didn't do that for the other cities, but instead uses traditional social distancing (but yes, with very intrusive tools - app, must do self monitoring, must self isolate...) In a way, they acted late and have to "sacrifice" Wuhan for the rest of the country. We can do social distancing with fast and accurate data. Hard-core quarantine would probably back-fire (as people fear to be lock down and would avoid being tested). Very cool map of the outbreak: https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/4fdc0d03d3a34aa485de1fb0d2650ee0
Confirmed 1 is a Rice University employee. 1 Fort Bend + 2 Harris went to Egypt for a trip as part of a larger group.
They are testing the rest of the travel group and will probably get more positives. It all aligns to the rumors of the Woodlands people plus the self quarantining at Rice from last week.
I’m curious if the international pizza expo in Vegas is still going to happen. I’m willing to risk the sniffles for some good pizza, just sayin.
The CDC has been an absolute failure in this. They have actually impeded testing. It's ridiculous. That said this issue is supposedly going to be resolved by the end of the week with the capacity to test nearly half a million by then. Then by the end of the next week we are supposed to be able to test 1-1.5 million people. "STEIN: Yeah, so the problem has been is that there's no way for most state and local labs around the country to do their own testing, so pretty much all the testing has had to go through the CDC in Atlanta. And that's created a real bottleneck. And the reason for that is that one of the three steps in the CDC's test kit hasn't been working, but that's finally been resolved. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar explained this during a congressional hearing today." https://www.npr.org/sections/health...o-know-as-it-becomes-available-across-the-u-s Why hasn't broader testing been available until now? The first test kits sent by the CDC to state and local labs didn't work as planned. It was a three-step process, and the third step was causing problems. The FDA subsequently authorized the use of just the first and second steps to provide a definitive diagnostic. That set the U.S. back several weeks, and public health officials lost a crucial window to contain the virus and prevent it from getting a foothold in the United States. Secondly, the CDC was using very strict criteria to determine who could be tested. That's what happened with the community spread case last month at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, Calif. The CDC later revised the criteria for testing to include people who are so sick that they need to be hospitalized but don't know how they might have been exposed. It has since expanded the criteria further. Updated Wednesday at 4:20 p.m. ET After a slow initial roll-out, test kits for the new coronavirus are now becoming more widely available in the United States. That means a big surge in testing is coming — one that will likely cause a significant increase in identified cases of the COVID-19 illness.
At this point, we would need to issue quarantine for all international travelers to do anything. Europe is screwed, the middle east is screwed, this is leaking into India and Africa. We're doomed son. China is now reporting VERY few new cases. Would be interesting to see if this is a legitimate interruption of the disease, and not the more likely scenario of government ****ery with the numbers.
I went to play trivia at a pub on 6th Street here in Austin last night. Allergies are bad right now, and several people were sneezing, the occasional cough. I actually began to wonder if I should be there. I play trivia every week at the same place, if the rest of our team is there. This virus thing is beginning to get to me, make me worry when I’m in a crowd, and the crowd wasn’t as large as it usually is. I wish I could laugh about it, but none of this is funny. We have an incompetent executive government in Washington, hundreds of Federal positions vacant, many in important positions and in all departments. The lack of leadership is palpable. Much of the top positions in critical spots are temporary appointments, acting secretary of this, acting under-secretary of that. The response to the Coronavirus is not what I am used to seeing in a crisis, and it comes at the worst possible time.
Crazy how this was reported on reddit a week ago. So we all knew but the government/city were just keeping things under wraps. This thing is probably much worse then their portraying. Just not trying to cause mass hysteria.
1. There's scientific disagreement over the importance of the variations. As one molecular biologist said, "The 1st rule of virus phylogenetics - if it looks like the virus is behaving differently, 99% of the time it is because of epidemiology." http://virological.org/t/response-to-on-the-origin-and-continuing-evolution-of-sars-cov-2/418 2. We're not getting a million test kits. That talking point died quickly. It will be more like 75,000. Woefully inadequate. 3. New case of student at Community College in Seattle area. School is now closed indefinitely for "deep cleaning." Also, several new cases in British Columbia (just up the road from Seattle), and a California school teacher, and a California nurse, and 3 people in Maryland, and 2,733 are under quarantine and observation in NYC, and so on. 4. Confirmed case in New Zealand went to a Tool concert with several thousand people before being diagnosed. Good luck to the public health crew who draws that tracking assignment. 5. Washington state issued an emergency order allowing refills of Rx drugs and requiring insurers to waive deductions and copays for testing. Every state should do this tomorrow morning. 6. Another cruise ship. Floating petri dishes, they are.
First case in Colorado -- was in Italy, contact with known COVID-19 person in Italy, flew here to go skiing, walking through Denver airport, drove to Breckingridge, stayed in condo with friends. Article doesn't say if he actually went on the slopes, though. But I can't imagine he didn't go skiing on Sunday, if he wasn't feeling sick, yet...which Polis claims. wtf -- Gov Polis said chance of transmission in the airport was low, because he was asymptomatic. Is that true???
wait didn't they have some type of voluntary pseudo quarantine a while back? Either there's a reason or there's not, and sounds like there was... no half assing.
It is going to spread anyway. It would be nice if it waited until more is known and we are better prepared but it is still inevitable.
Vietnam is a special case. They got 16 cases (started on 1/23) and then it stop. They went the hard core quarantine path and acted very quickly. Interesting interview with an ex-Israli doctor who was involved. How were they so successful? Was it their quarantine plans? Are they lying about the number (probably not)? Is it the heat & humidity? https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/...tnam-on-how-to-beat-the-coronavirus-1.8589685
No it's a lie. If he gave a handshake , went to the bathroom or touched anything like an elevator button or doorhandle same he could have infected others as he if he was sneezing and coughing.