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Day 39: COVID-19 Outside of China
Fifty-eight countries are now reporting COVID-19 cases. First cases reported in the following countries (with source of infection): Belarus (Iran); Lithuania (Italy); Nigeria (Italy); Mexico (Italy); New Zealand (Iran); Azerbaijan (Iran?). Latest news from Worldometer.com:
Published in GeneralFebruary 28 (GMT):
Europe | Middle East | Africa | North America | Oceania | Asia
EUROPE
- Italy to release its daily coronavirus report in a press briefing at 17:00 GMT [source]
1 new death of a British man who was on the Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan. [source]
- 2 new cases in Romania: both had recently traveled to Italy. [source]
- 11 new cases in Germany [source]
- 1 new case in the Netherlands “has no link to the first patient.” The patient is in home quarantine in the town of Diemen, 6 kilometres southeast of Amsterdam’s city centre. [source] [source]
- 3 new cases in the UK, including:
– 1st in Wales: a person who had traveled to Italy. [source]
– 2 in England: “the virus was passed on in Iran and the patients have been transferred to specialist NHS infection centres at the Royal Free Hospital.” in London [source]- 7 new cases in Switzerland. [source]
– currently there is “no case where one would have lost the chain of infection in Switzerland“.
– events with more than 1,000 people are now banned in response to the coronavirus threat. “The ban comes into force with immediate effect and is valid until March 15 at least.” The Geneva Motor Show (scheduled to start on March 5) is going to be cancelled or postponed. [source]- 8 new cases in Spain. Total cases include: [source]
5 cases in Madrid
8 in the Valencia area
6 in Andalusia
6 in the Canary Islands
3 in Catalonia
2 in Castilla y León
1 in Aragon
1 in Balearic Islands
Today’s new cases include: (first in Aragon): a 27-year-old woman in Zaragoza who had recentlytraveled to Milan, Italy. [source]- 1 new case in France (first in Nice): a woman returning from Milan, Italy. [source]
- 1 new case in Greece: a Greek woman aged 36, who had recently traveled to one of the virus-stricken regions in Italy and developed mild symptoms after her return.
- 2 new cases in Croatia (Zagreb and Rijeka): contacts of the first and third cases in Croatia. The first case got infected after being in Milan, Italy for a match, the second is his brother, and the third is a person in Rijeka who works in Italy.
- 2 new cases in France, in the village of La Balme-de-Sillingy, in Haute-Savoie: they are relatives of the first contaminated in the town: a man who had returned from a trip to Italy and whose wife, friend, and friend’s wife then contracted the virus. The infected friends had then participated to a 120-guest gathering on Feb. 15. “It is quite possible that there are many more cases in our town,” said the mayor, who admits “being worried“. [source]
[ Feb. 28 News ↑ ]
MIDDLE EAST
– Iran’s former ambassador to the Vatican, Hadi Khosroshahi, has died of coronavirus: he was 80 years-old and had a pre exisiting condition.- 2 hotels in Abu Dhabi have been put in an effective lockdown by authorities after two Italians in the country for the UAE Tour cycling race tested positive for the coronavirus. [source]
- 3 new cases in Bahrain [source]
- 1 new case in Israel: contact of the first confirmed case (a person returning from Italy). First transmission within Israel. [source]
[ Feb. 28 News ↑ ]
AFRICA
[ Feb. 28 News ↑ ]
NORTH AMERICA
- 1 new case in Canada (Quebec): a woman who had returned to Montreal from a trip to Iran on a flight from Doha, Qatar. She went to a clinic on Feb. 24, with minor symptoms. She did not take public transit to get to the clinic, and she hadn’t gone back to work since returning from Iran, so she has “limited contact” with people in the community. [source] [source]
[ Feb. 28 News ↑ ]
OCEANIA
- A person, in their 60s, who had recently travelled to Iran
- They arrived in NZ on Feb. 26 via Emirates flight EK450 from Iran, via Bali, and travelled home in a private car
- The person’s family, who were wearing medical masks, went to Auckland City Hospital where the person was admitted. The person is now a stable condition
- First two tests, taken from a throat sample, were negative . The symptoms of a lung infection were present though so a third test was done, coming back positive
- New Zealanders who have returned from Iran in the last 14 days asked to self isolateand register with Healthline.
- 1 new case in Australia from the Diamond Princess cuise ship.
[ Feb. 28 News ↑ ]
ASIA
- 12 new cases and 1 death in Japan.
– Hokkaido declares state of emergency and urges people to stay at home
– Tokyo Disney Resort and Universal Studios Japan being closed for at least 2 weeks- 1 new death on teh Diamond Princess cruise ship in Japan: a Japanese woman in her 70s. [source]
- 2 new cases in Taiwan.
- 1 new case in Thailand.
- 327 new cases and 44 new deaths (of which 318 cases and 41 deaths in Hubei) occurred in China on Feb. 27, as reported by the National Health Commission (NHC) of China. [source]
Just wanted to say I appreciate these posts very much. Thanks for the time and effort you put in.
I agree 100%!! I was able to help calm very worried extended family members yesterday by sharing that smart, knowledgeable members of Ricochet are closely tracking reports of the spread of the virus outside of China. Your daily reports are invaluable, @rodin, and the posts and comments by other highly engaged Ricochet members have helped me to stay vigilant but not panicked so far. If we actually have a 10th anniversary Ricochet celebration this summer (with or without surgical masks) I bet you won’t pay for a drink all evening. Thank you!!!
What happened to the post yesterday that had all the handy links to information sites? Meant to bookmark it, failed to get that done and now I can’t find it. Can anyone help?
Agree, I like these posts.
From “Why is the FDA stalling on more CoronaVirus testing” at the American Conservative:
“The Association of Public Health Laboratories has asked the agency for permission to develop tests for the virus, but their pleas have been met with persistent foot-dragging. The FDA’s frustrating risk aversion is nothing new, and things will not change absent a wholesale reevaluation of the agency’s mission. The country cannot wait for bureaucrats’ delay tactics.
The saga began on February 4, when the FDA announced that it had granted “emergency use authorization” to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to test for coronavirus detection at qualified laboratories across the country. There have been a number of kinks in CDC testing, and currently, only a handful of states are even qualified to use it—California, Illinois, Nebraska, Nevada, and Tennessee. So while the CDC has been busy working out problems with the diagnostics, private labs are champing at the bit to develop their own tests. It’s up to the FDA to grant those labs the permission to make their own rival tests, yet there’s little indication that the agency intends to do that anytime soon.
By most accounts, the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) track-record in approving new products and testing procedures isn’t very good. The cost of bringing a new medication to market is now more than $2 billion and patients have to wait more than a decade to see life-saving drugs become available. Even if the FDA does finally get around to approving coronavirus testing, drug development to defeat the disease will prove prohibitively pricey thanks to agency regulations. “
Time for Trump to assert those emergency powers he has been talking about and to tell the FDA to butt out- there are literally killing people with this nonsense.
It is also long past time for the FDA to be thoroughly reformed along with those traitorous knuckleheads in Congress that protect them.
The column to which I pay attention is the “Total Recovered.” So much of the news media focuses on the new cases and the fatalities, leaving the impression that no one ever recovers. So I am encourage to see that the number of people who do recover is large and growing.
https://www.autoblog.com/2020/02/28/coronavirus-geneva-motor-show-canceled/
@acook, I don’t know what post you are referring to, but here are some links that may be useful:
Centers for Disease Control
World Health Organization
Worldometers COVID-19
Johns Hopkins COVID-19 page
Chris Martenson videos on COVID-19
The party of coronavirus and plague:
Senator Warren proposes diverting money from border security to “fight coronavirus.” Open borders are critical plank in the Democrat platform. I’m sure there’s no connection, but the chances of electing a Democrat president would go up if an epidemic harms the US economy. The Chinese would like that too.
Never attribute to malice, etc:
On the other hand, Obama installed more than two thirds of the Senior Executive Service, not to mention putting thousands of Leftist ideologues into every federal agency.
Thanks. Got it bookmarked this time!
Trump needs to in a very public way harshly criticize the FDA brass in a very big way for their CoronaVirus response. Trump is vulnerable on the Test Kit issue, but the real culprit is the FDA. Put the onus on the FDA. The names of all the senior FDA staff need to be publicized and called on to the carpet. Right now. These people are criminally negligent and many could likely die because of their misconduct. They hide behind the “Chevron Deference” decision to corruptly protect their Big Pharma friends and to derail the drug trials of companies not in the Big Pharma club. This has to stop. Right now.
If the Democrats want to politicize the Corona Virus outbreak, Trump needs to point out that it is this bloated Deep State bureaucracy that is so protected by the Dems and Globalists that for years it has been restricting drug trials to their friends in Big Pharma and killing thousands of Americans in the process. The whole process has been an outrageous scandal for years.
I have a very good friend that survived pancreatic cancer after she had been given just months live by using a drug trial therapy that was later killed by the FDA. How many thousands of people are out there who did not get those promising therapies and died because of it? Actually in a better world most of the FDA brass should be tried and convicted for manslaughter and packed off to the Hoosegow for life.
Trump needs to order that all FDA Drug Trial of all the therapies and drugs of any CoronaVirus product or drug under review for a FDA trial will be paid by the Federal Government and that all drug trials need to be expedited in a super fast way with no expense spared.
ZH has an article saying that Iran is pressing ahead with Friday prayers and “health visits” to Qom. That is not good. We have learned from S.Korea that religious gathering + Covid19 = disaster. Iran has several cases among political leaders (a VP and Health Min.) and I am worried their entire leadership, mostly elderly, are at serious risk. Conversely, Saudi Arabia has shut down Mecca visits (haj).
COVID-19 containment North Korean style:
I wonder if common Communist practice was followed and the patient’s family was charged for the bullet.
I’ve been trying to understand for the last month the theory behind quarantining cities or towns or regions, which is what China has been doing.
Comparing the impact of COVID-19 versus the flu, the new corona virus is not as bad. Every specialist in infectious diseases I’ve heard speak or read about it has seemed somewhat gobsmacked over the fear of the corona virus because the United States is seeing one of the worst flu seasons it has had in a long time. The doctors halt every conversation with reporters with “Could we first talk about the flu?” :-)
For communicable dangerous diseases, Massachusetts has always taken the quarantine-individuals approach. In other words, we have protocols in place to quarantine individuals who are symptomatic. This approach makes perfect sense to me given my understanding of how “herd immunity” works. A light exposure to a new virus stimulates the immune system to recognize it and learn how to defend against it. In lieu of manufactured vaccines–a slow and expensive process in terms of developing, testing, manufacturing, and distributing–it seems to me that it would be better for sick people to have more, not less, contact with other people not yet sick.
That said, that did not seem to happen with the flu in 1918 or with small pox in Boston in the 1770s or with the myriad bacteria and viruses that scientists say killed the Native American population during their first years of exposure to the Europeans. (The small pox blanket theory of genocide has been debunked. What happened to the Native American population was not an intentional act of the colonialists. It was a result of the tragic way communicable diseases work.) My point is that history seems to argue in favor of quarantining entire cities.
I just can’t figure out whether quarantining people is a good idea or not. It seems that it would make things worse, especially when we finally release people who have been super exposed to the disease because they were quarantined (the Diamond Princess story). On the other hand, I know of times in history when it took so long for the human immune system to get to work that millions of people died.
Why are so many countries rushing to quarantine measures for this particular bug? What are they trying to accomplish? Are they wrong to do this and actually making this epidemic worse?
[continued in comment 15]
(letting imagination run away….)
Just seems like this is a lot like the first few chapters of Stephen King’s ‘The Stand”
(pulls mind back to earth…..)
[continued from comment 13]
The WSJ today has a partial explanation for the world’s putting so much faith in the quarantine theory:
But St. Louis took a milder approach–quarantine individuals and suspend large public gatherings–than China is taking today.
It seems to me that St. Louis took the more sensible and successful approach, and that’s all that we should be doing with the coronavirus today. China’s approach may actually be prolonging the life of the virus within communities and making the disease worse for those who succumb to it.
Herd immunity works by having a good portion of population immune such that active infections can’t propagate. There is no such thing as “light exposure” with a viral infection. It grows in you well or poorly (not everyone is equally fertile). The important function of social isolation is to slow the spread. We are collectively hoping for warm weather to kill this thing (SARS died out in summer). We are also allowing the healthcare system to ramp up testing skills and equipment. It is also important to the level of sick people low enough that they can be treated. In S.Korea there are twice as many confirmed cases as hospital beds. That is bad. Isolation is good, but it is also a pain in the butt.
But isn’t there? Isn’t that the theory behind the way antibiotics and immunizations work? A person defends himself or herself against the pathogen by having a slight exposure that wakes up the immune system or teaches it for future exposures. The slight exposure shortens the time it takes for the immune system to react and kill the pathogen.
“Comparing the impact of COVID-19 versus the flu, the new corona virus is not as bad. Every specialist in infectious diseases I’ve heard speak or read about it has seemed somewhat gobsmacked over the fear of the corona virus because the United States is seeing one of the worst flu seasons it has had in a long time.”
OMG!
Marci who are these nutcases you have heard speak?
Point One: I have never in my long life known a person to die from flu, not that it doesn’t happen, but usually the person who dies from the flu is very old and in really poor health.The mortality rate for the flu is somewhat less than 0.01%.
Point Two: The mortality rate for this CoronaVirus is somewhere between 2 and 15%, ( which is between 20 to 150 times as much)( the original Lancet Study the mortality rate was 15.6%) and we don’t really have enough data to know exactly . Some studies have shown 82% of those inflicted have mild symptoms and recover for the most part we think. But of those who develop critical/severe symptoms the situation is very grave and by a lot of accounts half will die. That is wildly more dangerous than the common flu. This disease is also often asymptomatic so containing it is much harder.
Point Three: Your point: “A light exposure to a new virus stimulates the immune system to recognize it and learn how to defend against it.” That is true for the flu; not apparently with the Corona Virus. There are many cases of people recontracting this Corona Virus after they apparently recovered and the second time around is much worse than the first. The immune response antibodies that the flu develops may not be happening with this disease.
Point Four: There is now overwhelming evidence that this CoronaVirus did not come from nature but from a BioWeapons lab. Now, several studies have shown this Covid-19 has strands of HIV in it in such a way that the probability of the HIV insertions happening from nature are almost impossibly remote. Severe cases need HIV drugs to be treated. Whether this disease was intentionally released or not; it was meant to be a Serial Killing Mass Murdering machine because it appears the HIV was inserted to damage the immune system and to make it much more communicable. That is why re-infection has been so damaging.
Point Five: Because of the HIV immune damaging factor we have no idea what the long term effects are and really how many are really cured.
Point Six: No vaccine has ever been created to combat SARS or MERS; it may be the same for this disease- I really hope not.
Suffice to say this disease is not to be made light of; to even compare to the flu is delusional. The damage this disease could do to the health of the nation and the economy is just unbelievable.
No, this is not how it works with a virulent disease. As DonG said, there is no such thing as a light exposure. Immunizations do work on that theory, but by using crippled or dead versions of the disease, or related, non-virulent diseases closely enough related to confer immunity to both (cowpox/smallpox, where it all started).
What you may be thinking of in the case of antibiotics is that they do not work alone, definitely needing the assistance of the immune system. Antibiotics kill enough of the circulating bacteria, it is hoped, that the immune system can mop up those still remaining. That’s also why taking the full course of antibiotic is necessary–even after clinical symptoms are gone. The remaining bacteria are generally the ones least susceptible to the antibiotic and if too many are left behind for the immune system to handle, they are the ones multiplying and causing re-infection, which is consequently far more difficult to treat.
Some good news on the rapid test kit and vaccines fronts. I love the “coincidence” in the vaccine story. They’ve been working on a vaccine for a different disease the last 4 years and just happened to choose a coronavirus for “proof of concept” research. Turns out it is active against the C-19 strain. Very cool work coming out of Israel. (The reasons I put quotes on coincidence is because…well, “light among the nations” and all that.)
antibiotics poison bacteria (killing or slowing reproduction) and natural immune response clears it out. immunizations use a de-activated virus (slow replicating or non-replicating) to stimulate antibody/memory-B cell development without the risk of serious illness or contagiousness. Exposure to active virus (able to rapidly reproduce) brings on the full disease with full contagiousness. it takes 6 months to cookup the huge quantity and de-activate the flu virus vaccines each year. The typical annual vaccine has the 3 most expected varieties for the next winter.
except that someone somewhere was listed as recovered, by testing negative. and has since represented by testing positive. so now, do those people go back into the case list a second time?
I should write things down, but I definitely heard or read that information on a relatively reputable source.
soon, will there be a columns of
“reinfected”
“died of secondary causes”
MarciN, I heard some discussion that the corona virus interacts with our immune system differently. in my unsciency memory, it was something about the virus getting in to cells through a back door in our immune response during a SECOND occurence of the virus.
now, nobody quote me, and the research is still out on COVID-19, clearly so much to learn. but I’ve just heard too many things that suggest COVID-19 could be similar to the flu the way a dragon is similar to a salamander.
we will just have to wait, for more information.
Furthermore, although healthy people can die from the flu, the overwhelming majority such deaths are associated with significantly delayed diagnosis and treatment. Thus, it is a huge apples-to-oranges comparison.
Unlike the passengers on Diamond Princess, traditional flu patients were not being tested when asymptomatic and then aggressively treated upon positive test. Flu patients were not being retested at the first sign of symptoms. Flu patients often were not being treated even when the symptoms got severe. They sought treatment, if at all, only when severe symptoms persisted. Only once in my adult life have I seen the doctor due to flu-like symptoms and that was only after several days of persistence and failure of OTC medications.
@rodin thank you so much for this daily post. It was not my intent to deride your work, when i said about missing columns in the chart, but more to observe that this thing is evolving, and what we categorize now many change over time.
I want to know the age discriminators of the dead and seriously ill. I want to know preconditions. I’m sure that chart is being built somewhere.
thank you again.
We had an exchange on this the other day. That data is hard to find. I did see a study based on Chinese data (dubious) that had 15% case-fatality for those 80+ and a 8% case-fatality for those 70+. Remember, that the people affected in China are not random. Early on this thing spread through hospitals, so the population was already vulnerable. If you put a person with respiratory problems into a hospital with other folks with respiratory problems and the one happened to have Covid-19, you could lose them all. It would be interesting to see data out of S.Korea. The people at that church were presumably healthy enough to go to church where they were exposed. If you find such a study, please share.
My point was that they are both viruses and they both obey the rules of the human immune system versus the threatening virus. For many viruses, once you’ve had it, you cannot “get it” again because your immune learns from your earlier exposure to it. A lot of people are being exposed to it and not becoming ill from it, which is what I meant by “slight exposure.”
Again, no such thing. They have the same exposure, but also had a robust immune response. That’s the way of…well, everything in medicine. (Not every smoker gets lung cancer, etc). If we ever unlock that aspect of the mysterious workings of the immune system, we will be on the way to curing everything (except accidents and violence). We’re nowhere near that, unfortunately, even for the most closely examined diseases, let alone all of them.
I have heard the claim that this virus was engineered, but I have also heard claims to the contrary. @unsk, is there a reference that you could share? Thanks.
I, too, have seen reports of “re-infections” as well as concerns about a cytokine storm in a recovered person re-infected. I think it is important to confirm the details of these stories. It appears there is an infectious period both before symptoms appear and after symptoms disappear. COVID-19 is not unique in that regard. The period of both asymptomatic contagion periods has not been definitively established so far as I know. The rule of thumb is 14 days prior to symptoms (although there are outliers at 27 days) and I have seen no published number for contagion risk after recovery. And so it is that the “re-infected” persons may have been labeled so because they recovered and yet they continue to carry the virus. In the reports I have seen they do not say that they are re-experiencing symptoms. If that were the case, then it is a true re-infection rather than post recovery contagion capability.
The cytokine storm when I first heard about it sounded like we are all doomed. But the detail is that after recovery (antibodies defeating the virus) the antibodies slowly decline over time. At some point in that decline of antibodies, exposure to the virus or some mutation thereof will be recognized by the antibodies but the antibodies actually facilitate and enhance the infection rather than defeat it. These cases are particularly deadly, but the probability is unknown. More needs to be understood about this disease.
I really appreciate the great work you have done. Information is everything. I feel so blessed to live in Rural America right now.