Covid-19 Pandemic

[Der Zeitgeist]

With the new clusters popping up that are no longer clearly linked to recent travels, and the enaction of social distancing policies in northern Italy, I think it's finally time to move this topic out of "Because China" and start a dedicated thread.

 

For starters, here are a few interesting Twitter threads about what to expect in the coming days and weeks:

 

https://twitter.com/kakape/status/1231193492002611200

 

https://twitter.com/T_Inglesby/status/1231363420907343873

 

https://twitter.com/joshmich/status/1231270744895762438

[JasonJ]

Good idea.

For old referencing, the first post about it in the China thread linked below:

http://www.tank-net.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=43226&page=5&do=findComment&comment=1464845

[JasonJ]

Currently at 19 deaths outside of China. 5 from ROK and 5 from Iran. 2 from the cruise ship quarantined ship in Japan with 1 from Japan itself, 2 from HK, 1 from the Philippines, France, Taiwan, and Italy each.

 

Deaths in China at 2,442.

Edited February 23, 2020 by JasonJ

[JasonJ]

ROK cases have surged, now at 556. It was only 51 last week on Wednesday (4 days ago).

 

South Korea reported two more deaths from the new coronavirus and another spike in the number of infections on Sunday as the country fights to rein in the rapid spread of the deadly disease.

 

As of Sunday morning, the number of infections had surged overnight by 123 to 556, with most of the new cases traced to the Daegu branch of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The number of deaths from COVID-19 rose to five, with two more deaths reported Sunday.

 

Cases of the disease have skyrocketed here in the past few days, having seen a tenfold increase from 51 on Wednesday to 556 as of 9 a.m. Sunday. The death rate in Korea from COVID-19 stands at 0.7 percent.

 

Out of the 556 infections, 306 cases, or 55.6 percent, have been traced to the Daegu branch of the Shincheonji Church and 111 cases were linked to the Daenam hospital in Cheongdo. Three of the five deaths were linked to the hospital.

 

Seven of the patients were in critical condition as of Sunday afternoon, the KCDC said.

 

Of 123 new cases confirmed Sunday morning, 75 were tied to the church, with 63 of them being Daegu residents. Health authorities are trying to identify the infection routes for the rest of the patients.

 

 

The KCDC said it is checking the health status of 9,336 members of the religious group, with the members being placed in self-isolation. More than 1,200 people on the list reportedly said they had suspicious symptoms, and 293 of those people got tested for the virus. Some 61 doctors were dispatched to carry out virus screening tests for the rest of them by Monday, the agency said.

 

A 4-year-old girl was diagnosed with the coronavirus in Daegu on Sunday. She is youngest patient in the country so far.

 

Though most of those infected with the virus, 465 people, have been from Daegu or North Gyeongsang Province, cases of the coronavirus were confirmed in nearly every part of the country over the weekend, including Busan, Ulsan, Jeju Island and Gangwon Province.

 

In Seoul, a second case was confirmed at Eunpyeong St. Mary’s Hospital on Sunday morning. The 63-year-old male patient is thought to have contracted the virus from a 35-year-old hospital worker, who tested positive Friday. That hospital worker came into contact with 302 people, according to the health agency.

 

Ulsan is also on alert as a 27-year-old woman, at the center of the first confirmed case in the city, joined a service Feb. 9 at the Daegu branch of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, and another at the Ulsan branch on Feb. 16. The municipality said it will check church members’ infection status.

 

In Busan, the number of those infected with the virus rose by 11 to 16 as of Sunday morning, with eight of them linked to a church in Busan. The patients went on a two-day workshop in a group of about 150, according to the Busan City government.

 

In Gwangju, seven more people were infected with the virus. All those cases have been traced to the Shincheonji Church in Daegu.

 

North Gyeongsang Province reported 18 more infections. Those infected had made a group pilgrimage to Israel earlier this month and were later confirmed to be infected with the coronavirus. The church was shut down and those who visited the church were advised to go into self-isolation.

 

Daegu and Cheongdo were designated as “special care zones” Friday.

 

Some 6,039 people are awaiting test results, and 18 people have been released after making full recoveries as of Sunday morning.

 

In a rare public message on Saturday night, Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun apologized for the recent spike in infections and reassured people that the virus can be contained if the public cooperates with the government’s instructions.

 

Chung asked people to refrain from attending mass gatherings, including rallies and religious services, to prevent the spread of the virus.

 

Despite the surge in the number of infections here, the government said it would not raise the four-tier virus alert level from the current “orange level” to the most serious “red level,” as the virus is spreading only in a limited number of areas.

http://m.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20200223000229

[BansheeOne]

In fact I think a friendly admin (Iä, iä etc.) should move the whole shebang here from the China thread. The last nine pages there are about nothing else.

 

Italy looks like it's about to go hot:

 

Date 23.02.2020

 

Coronavirus: Italy towns in lockdown, South Korea declares highest alert

 

Several Italian towns have taken urgent measures to stop the virus from spreading following the deaths of two people and 80 confirmed infections. South Korea is also taking "unprecedented" steps after a spike in cases.

 

The Italian government on Saturday said it was considering "extraordinary measures" to fight the coronavirus following the deaths of two citizens.

 

The outbreak has also caused Italian authorities to place several towns on lockdown amid an increase in the number of cases to almost 80, as well as the two deaths reported on Friday and Saturday.

 

The death of a 75-year-old woman on Saturday near the small town of Codogno in Lombardy came just a day after a 78-year-old man succumbed to the virus in the neighboring region of Veneto, marking the first deaths in Italy.

 

Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte expressed his sympathies for the two who passed away and said he had called an emergency meeting, as more than 50,000 people from about a dozen towns in two northern regions were asked to stay at home by authorities.

 

Growing cluster of cases

 

The cluster was located in a handful of small towns in the Lombardy region, according to the head of regional health, Giulio Gallera.

 

The first to fall ill from the virus was a 38-year-old Italian who met with someone who had returned from China on January 21, health authorities confirmed.

 

The 38-year-old is now hospitalized and in critical condition. His wife and a friend of his have also tested positive for the coronavirus.

 

Tests were being administered on the 38-year-old's doctor, who paid him a home visit, as well as on 120 people he worked with at the research and development branch of Unilever in the town of Casalpusterlengo, Gallera said.

 

Three patients at the hospital in Codogno, where he went with flu-like symptoms earlier this week, have also been infected, as have five nurses and doctors.

 

Scare reaches Milan Fashion Week

 

A dozen towns in northern Italy are now effectively in lockdown after a growing cluster of cases were reported with no direct links to the origin of the outbreak abroad. Streets were deserted, along with signs announcing the closure of public buildings.

 

Italian designer Giorgio Armani announced early Sunday that, due to the health risk, his fashion house would hold its Milan Fashion Week runway show behind closed doors.

 

Eight more shows are scheduled for Sunday, though it was unclear if all would be held as planned.

 

[...]

 

Russia, meanwhile, denied all allegations that it is spreading false information on social media that the US started the coronavirus outbreak.

US officials said thousands of profiles on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter were spreading the theory.

 

"This is a deliberately false story," foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told Russian news agency Tass.

 

https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-italy-towns-in-lockdown-south-korea-declares-highest-alert/a-52477823

 

On the last bit, Ukraine has claimed that Russian disinformation lead to riots outside a local quarantine facility. Of course I think it has at least as much to do with the last line in the report below.

 

Date 21.02.2020

 

Coronavirus: Riots erupt in Ukraine as China evacuees enter quarantine

 

Residents of a town that will house evacuees from Wuhan clashed with police amid fears of a coronavirus spread. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has assured locals that the evacuees present no danger to the community.

 

A central Ukrainian town was the scene of clashes on Thursday as outraged residents protested against the arrival of evacuees from China, who were set to be quarantined for the coronavirus.

 

Some 45 Ukrainians and 27 foreign nationals were evacuated from the Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak, and brought to a sanatorium in the town of Novi Sanzhary, east of Kyiv, for a two-week quarantine period.

 

So far, no confirmed cases of the virus have been registered in Ukraine. But fears of a possible spread of the virus drove locals to confront the convoy of buses that were transporting the evacuees.

 

'Shame on you'

 

In a daylong standoff, residents clashed with authorities, burned tires, attempted to block a bridge and hurled projectiles at the buses. Two of the vehicles' windows were smashed while the evacuees were inside. Protesters shouted "shame on you" at hundreds of helmeted police that had been deployed to maintain order.

 

"Isn't there any other place in Ukraine that can host 50 people, that is located in more or less remote villages or in far off areas where there is no threat to population?" resident Yuriy Dzyubenko was quoted by Reuters as saying.

 

Despite the riots, the evacuees were successfully brought to the clinic, which was promptly sealed off by police.

 

Health minister to be quarantined

 

In a show of solidarity with the evacuees, Ukraine's health minister announced she will join the quarantine.

 

"I will spend the next 14 days with them, in the same premises, under the same conditions," Health Minister Zoryana Skaletska said late Thursday in a statement addressed to the residents of Novi Sanzhary.

 

"These people are our compatriots," she wrote on Facebook. "We live in one country and have to take care of their health and safety." She added that she was "shaken" by the widespread panic and aggression.

 

[...]

 

Ukrainians are deeply mistrustful of their government, as the country is plagued by corruption and has a weak healthcare system. The country has also struggled with a measles epidemic, amid reluctance by some to vaccinate themselves and their children.

 

https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-riots-erupt-in-ukraine-as-china-evacuees-enter-quarantine/a-52455287

[Stuart Galbraith]

Its appropriate, from what they say on CNN, it seems to be going cold in China at last. I guess being an authoritarian state can be quite useful sometimes after all.

[Ivanhoe]

One thing I haven't seen discussed online, yet, is what are the common factors amongst mortality cases and survivors. I know its early in the game, but with citizens/residents of western nations, I am hoping the WHO etc. are reviewing the heck out of medical records.

[Der Zeitgeist]

There's a few papers with statistics from the Chinese cases which show a correlation of mortal outcomes with age and pre-existing cardiovascular and respiratory conditions, as could be expected. Of course, as these are Chinese statistics, the picture is probably incomplete and not necessarily comparable with how it will play out in western countries.

[Stargrunt6]

Its appropriate, from what they say on CNN, it seems to be going cold in China at last. I guess being an authoritarian state can be quite useful sometimes after all.

Broken clocks and all. They should not have hidden their numbers though.

 

But yeah, nothing like a sorta-command economy when you need a bunch of hospitals built overnight and medical staff to be transferred.

 

Some studies.

 

This one may imply that the virus is more fatal in asians due to receptor polymorphisms.

 

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.26.919985v1

 

... also more lethal in men than women:

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/18/coronavirus-is-more-fatal-in-men-than-women-major-study-suggests.html

 

Overview of the virus for the geek inclined:

 

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4369385/

 

"Another decade another coronavirus:"

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMe2001126?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3Dpubmed

Edited February 23, 2020 by Stargrunt6

[Nobu]

Interesting regarding its possible higher lethality in Asians, which is something that a family member commented on the other day as a speculative observation.

Edited February 23, 2020 by Nobu

[RETAC21]

You think China was bad, well, the Italians are going to show you BAD:

 

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51602007

[Der Zeitgeist]

Yes, it's moving pretty fast now. Austria just cut its train traffic with Italy across the Brenner. Apparently, there were passengers with suspicious fever symptoms on a EuroCity train from Venice to Munich.

 

Edited February 23, 2020 by Der Zeitgeist

[Burncycle360]

Is this going to disproportionately affect the young and healthy like the spanish flu? The doctor didn't seem that old.

[lucklucky]

It seems to not hit children, which is strange.

[Der Zeitgeist]

The real test case for European countries will be the upcoming carnival festivities. Lots of exchanges of various bodily fluids there...

 

 

Meanwhile, Iran is getting hit pretty hard:

Edited February 24, 2020 by Der Zeitgeist

[DB]

Non+authoritarian states can switch modes very quickly if they feel threatened. The advantage they have is that the messenger rarely gets actually shot.

[Mobius]

I've been avoiding crowds. Also, sold a bunch of my stocks last week. Today the markets might be down a lot.

[Der Zeitgeist]

I'm stocking up on some essential medicine, including a prescription drug I need to take regularly. In a few days, there might be a lot of patients at the doctor's office and at pharmacies you might not want to hang around too closely.

[rmgill]

Its appropriate, from what they say on CNN, it seems to be going cold in China at last. I guess being an authoritarian state can be quite useful sometimes after all.

That presumes that an Authoritarian state will do anything remotely effectively in the early to middle stages of the 'response'. Anyone walking around collecting the sick while wearing a 'surgical mask' is not remotely protected from inhaling airborne virus particles. Even the Chinese PM addressing everyone wearing one of those masks is representative of ineffective. You want to be protected from small particles, you need at LEAST a P100 mask with a good face seal.

 

[Jeff]

See, it's not a pandemic, it's a PHEIC (public health emergency of international concern). I feel much better now.

 

WHO says it no longer uses 'pandemic' category, but virus still emergency

[Jeff]

Hooray for globalization!

 

Coronavirus: US dependence on China for pharmaceutical ingredients will hinder outbreak response, lawmakers are told

 

US drug companies rely heavily on China as a supplier of raw materials that go into the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), said Scott Gottlieb, former head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

 

“In many cases China is the sole source of that material,” Gottlieb, who led the FDA for two years under Trump, said during a hearing on Capitol Hill.

 

[snip]

 

Beyond pharmaceuticals, vulnerabilities in the supply chain could also affect the flow of health care provisions like gloves, masks and materials used in patient isolation, said Julie Gerberding, former head of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

 

Luciana Borio, who led medical and biodefence preparedness in Trump’s National Security Council (NSC) until 2019, said the US had failed to protect the supply of essential medicine and medical equipment. “That needs to change going forward,” she said.

 

 

[Stargrunt6]

Hooray for globalization!

 

Coronavirus: US dependence on China for pharmaceutical ingredients will hinder outbreak response, lawmakers are told

 

US drug companies rely heavily on China as a supplier of raw materials that go into the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), said Scott Gottlieb, former head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

 

“In many cases China is the sole source of that material,” Gottlieb, who led the FDA for two years under Trump, said during a hearing on Capitol Hill.

 

[snip]

 

Beyond pharmaceuticals, vulnerabilities in the supply chain could also affect the flow of health care provisions like gloves, masks and materials used in patient isolation, said Julie Gerberding, former head of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

 

Luciana Borio, who led medical and biodefence preparedness in Trump’s National Security Council (NSC) until 2019, said the US had failed to protect the supply of essential medicine and medical equipment. “That needs to change going forward,” she said.

 

 

 

I keep thinking of that scene from Munich where the operatives paid fixer keeps giving them bad equipment and intel. One of the team members finally asks the question "WHY ARE WE TRUSTING THEM?"

[lucklucky]

Hooray for globalization!

 

Coronavirus: US dependence on China for pharmaceutical ingredients will hinder outbreak response, lawmakers are told

 

US drug companies rely heavily on China as a supplier of raw materials that go into the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), said Scott Gottlieb, former head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

 

“In many cases China is the sole source of that material,” Gottlieb, who led the FDA for two years under Trump, said during a hearing on Capitol Hill.

 

[snip]

 

Beyond pharmaceuticals, vulnerabilities in the supply chain could also affect the flow of health care provisions like gloves, masks and materials used in patient isolation, said Julie Gerberding, former head of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

 

Luciana Borio, who led medical and biodefence preparedness in Trump’s National Security Council (NSC) until 2019, said the US had failed to protect the supply of essential medicine and medical equipment. “That needs to change going forward,” she said.

 

 

Do you want more expensive medicines?

[RETAC21]

I've been avoiding crowds. Also, sold a bunch of my stocks last week. Today the markets might be down a lot.

 

Time to buy in!

[Stargrunt6]

 

 

Hooray for globalization!

 

Coronavirus: US dependence on China for pharmaceutical ingredients will hinder outbreak response, lawmakers are told

 

US drug companies rely heavily on China as a supplier of raw materials that go into the production of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs), said Scott Gottlieb, former head of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

 

In many cases China is the sole source of that material, Gottlieb, who led the FDA for two years under Trump, said during a hearing on Capitol Hill.

 

[snip]

 

Beyond pharmaceuticals, vulnerabilities in the supply chain could also affect the flow of health care provisions like gloves, masks and materials used in patient isolation, said Julie Gerberding, former head of the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

 

Luciana Borio, who led medical and biodefence preparedness in Trumps National Security Council (NSC) until 2019, said the US had failed to protect the supply of essential medicine and medical equipment. That needs to change going forward, she said.

 

Do you want more expensive medicines?

They already have been.

 

I had a bunch of gold ETFs i sold last month for extra cash, so glad I did:

 

https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/gold-suddenly-hammered-multi-billion-dollar-sale

Edited February 24, 2020 by Stargrunt6