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Day 46: COVID-19 “In the Wild”
95 countries now in the “club”. The screen grab above doesn’t even include all of the countries with 100+ cases. The total official count now exceeds 100,000. Iran’s epidemic appears to be very much out of control, and note how may cases elsewhere are known to be sourced in Iran. There are suspicions that the death count reported from Iran may be low. There are now believed to be two main strains of COVID-19 — types L and S– with L being more severe and S less so. There may be more as, like influenza, this virus mutates.
Cruise ships continue to be featured in this pandemic. There is a cruise ship on the Nile River in Egypt that has 12 persons on board with COVID-19. This doesn’t seem comparable to the behemoth ships like the Diamond and Grand Princess, but the passenger capacity is less than 100. The pandemic is going to slam tourism hard, hard, hard. There was a report of a crowd of Reunion islanders who greeted a Princess cruise ship demanding that passengers be tested before being allowed to disembark. Of course there was neither plan nor capability to do so. And so police controlled the crowd while passengers boarded buses for their onshore excursion. The island population is under 1,000,000 and is frequently visited by tourists both by air and sea. Tourism is a big industry there, so the cruise ship greeting was not what local officials planned.
The US is now up to 12 deaths from COVID-19 (NBC is reporting 14). All but 1 were in Washington state in the Seattle area. Half were associated with a single long term care facility.
A new term (to me) is being discussed on the World Health Organization website: Infomedics.
Infodemics are an excessive amount of information about a problem, which makes it difficult to identify a solution. Infodemics can spread misinformation, disinformation and rumors during a health emergency. Infodemics can hamper an effective public health response and create confusion and distrust among people.
And, you guessed it, WHO has a plan: EPI-WIN.
Working with the World Economic Forum, EPI-WIN has established networks with the key business sectors and public enterprises likely to be impacted by COVID-19 and future epidemics. These have been grouped into networks of Healthcare & Health Workers, Travel & Tourism, Food & Agriculture and International Mass Gatherings. Within each network, there are multi-national enterprises, professional associations and UN specialized bodies representing sectors that employ tens of millions of people and account for many billions of dollars in economic activity.
Keep Calm and Carry On, indeed.
[Note: Links to all my COVID-19 posts can be found here.]
Worldometers.com news update below. Reporting both March 5 & 6 as updates made to March 5 since last post:
March 6 (GMT):
- 47 new cases and 1 new death in the UK, including: [source]
– First Birmingham coronavirus case [source]
– 5 new cases in Scotland, bringing the total to 11: Tayside, Ayrshire and Arran, Forth Valley, Greater Glasgow and Clyde, Grampian, Fife and Lothian [source]
– 2 British Airways baggage handlers [source]- 4 new cases in Portugal: 3 are in the hospital center of São João, in Porto and “have an epidemiological link to previous cases”, which indicates that the source of the infection is in Italy. The other case, for which no information was provided, is receiving treatment in a health care in Lisbon. [source]
154 new cases and 2 new deaths in France [source]
- 33 new cases in Germany [source]
- 1 new case in Bahrain [source]
- 1 new case in the Dominican Republic (second case in the country): a Canadian tourist who was staying at a hotel in Bayahibe [source]
- 6 new cases in Russia [source]
- 46 new cases and 1st death in the Netherlands: an 86-year-year old man in Rotterdam whose source of infection is unknown [source] [source]
- 100 new cases in Spain [source]
- 18 new cases in Switzerland [source]
- 2 new cases in San Marino [source]
1st case in Peru: a 25-year-old man who was in Spain, France and the Czech Republic [source]
- 1 new case in Brazil (first in Bahia): a 34-year-old woman, resident of Feira de Santana, who was in Italy and returned to Brazil on Feb. 25 [source] [source]
- 3 new cases in Denmark [source]
- 13 new cases in Singapore (largest single-day increase) [source]
- 14 new cases in Greece (Zakynthos): part of the travel group who returned from the Holy Land in Israel. 3 from this group are in serious condition [source]
- 12 new cases in Egypt on a Nile cruise ship heading to the southern city of Luxor from Aswan [source]
- 2 new cases in Romania:
– a 51-year-old woman who came in contact with the Suceava case. She will be admitted to Craiova. [source]
– a young classmate of the 16-year-old boy who was diagnosed with coronavirus previously. The young woman has been transferred to the Victor Babes hospital in Timisoara [source]1st case in Slovakia: a patient aged 52 from a small, unspecified town in Slovakia, who has been hospitalized at the infectology clinic of the University Hospital in Bratislava. No recent travel history abroad, but his son – who does not show any symptoms of the virus – has been to Venice, Italy [source] [source]
- 63 new cases and 2 new deaths in Spain [source]
- 59 new cases in Belgium: total more than doubled since yesterday [source]
- Total number of COVID-19 cases worldwide tops 100,000
1,234 new cases and 16 new deaths in Iran [source]
- 28 new cases in Malaysia [source]
- 2 new cases in Iceland [source]
- 1 new case and 3 new recoveries in Taiwan [source]
- 5 new cases in Estonia [source]
- 7 new cases in Sweden: 5 in Skåne and 2 in Västra Götaland. Total now tops 100 [source]
• Stockholm region: 59
• Västra Götaland region: 14
• Region of Skåne: 14
• Region of Värmland: 5
• Region Uppsala: 4
• Region Jönköping County: 3
• Region Örebro county: 1
• Region Gävleborg: 1- 2 new cases in Indonesia [source]
1st case in Cameroon: a 58 years old French man who entered the country from France on Feb. 24 [source]
1st case in Serbia: a 43-year-old man who traveled to Budapest [source] [source]
1st case in Vatican City [source]
- 1 new case in India: a person who has travelled to Thailand and Malaysia [source]
- 1 new case in Pakistan [source]
- 4 new cases in Austria [source]
- 3 new cases in Finland [source]
- 17 new cases in Japan
309 new cases and 1 death in South Korea [source] [source]
- 2 new cases in Norway (Bærum, Viken County). Total now tops 100 [source]
- 2 new cases in the Philippines: a 48-year-old male Filipino with travel history to Japan and a 62-year-old male Filipino with no overseas travel history [source]
- 12 new cases in Canada, including:
1 in Ontario: a person who traveled to Las Vegas for an international conference [source]
8 in British Columbia: 1 has no travel history, 2 had recently returned from Iran, 4 are linked to a previously confirmed case, 1 is connected to University Canada West where a presumptive case is being investigated [source]
1 in Alberta: a woman in her 50s from the Calgary area who had been on board of the Grand Princess cruise ship, which is currently quarantined off the coast of California awaiting tests for all passengers and crew [source]- 12 new cases and 2 new deaths in the United States, including:
– 2 new deaths in King County, Washington state.
– 2 new cases in Washington state
– first 2 cases in Colorado (Summit County): 1 is a 30-year old man who had traveled to Italy in February and was in contact with a confirmed case outside of Colorado.[source]
– first 3 cases in Maryland (Montgomery County): they had all recently traveled overseas. [source]1st case in Bhutan: a 76-year old American tourist who arrived in Bhutan on March 2 via India. [source]
- 143 new cases (126 in Hubei), 30 new deaths (29 in Hubei) and 1,681 new discharges occurred in China on March 5, as reported by the National Health Commission (NHC) of China. [source]
March 5:
- 1 new case in Argentina: a 23-year old man who had recently traveled to Italy [source]
1st case in Costa Rica: a woman who had traveled to Italy and Tunisia [source]
- 1 new case in Chile: a Cook County resident in his 20s who flew into O’Hare after traveling from Italy where he caught the illness [source]’
- 2 new cases in Hungary: including a man in Debrecen who works in Milan, Italy [source]
- 1 new case in New Zealand: the partner of a previously confirmed case [source]’
- 63 new cases and 1 new death in the United States, including at least:
– 1st case in Colorado [source]’
– 1 case in Middlesex County, Massachusetts
– fifth case in Illinois a person who returned from Italy. He’s in isolation at Rush. [source]’
– second case in New Jersey: a 32-year-old man from Fort Lee [source]’
– 2 cases in Harris County, Texas: both are travel-related to Egypt [source]’
– 1 new death in King County (Washington state): a woman in her 90s
– a resident of Sonoma County (second case there) who traveled internationally on the Grand Princess ship from San Francisco to Mexico [source]
– 4 in Los Angeles County, California [source]
– the 1st cases in San Francisco, California [source]’
– 11 in New York State: 3 are in serious condition and are treated in intensive care units [source] New cases include a man in his 40s and a woman in her 80s [source]
– the 1st case in Nevada [source]
– 1 in Tennessee (Williamson County) [source]
– a Facebook worker in Seattle [source]
– the 1st case in New Jersey: a man in his 30s hospitalized in Bergen County [source]138 new cases and 3 new deaths in France, including the first 3 cases in Corsica [source][source]
- 7 new cases in Ireland: including the first in Cork, with no recent history of travel, who is being treated in an intensive care unit. [source]
- 1 new death in Iran today is of a senior Iranian politician, Hossein Sheikholeslam, Iran’s former ambassador to Syria and former advisor to current Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif. He was 67 years old [source]
- 5 new cases in Brazil [source]
- 1 new case in Luxembourg: a person who had recently returned from Northern Italy [source]
283 new cases in Germany [source]
First 7 cases in Palestine, West Bank. 5 new cases in addition to the first 2 reported earlier. Palestinian Authority closes Bethlehem churches and mosques for two weeks [source] [source]
1st death in the UK, an older patient with pre-existing conditions. [source]
769 new cases and 41 new deaths in Italy, which becomes the country with the largest daily increase in cases and deaths in the world. [source]
Among the 3,296 active cases, 1,790 (54%) are hospitalized, 331 of which (representing 11% of active cases) are in intensive care.
Among the 562 closed cases, 414 (74%) have recovered, 148 (26%) have died.- 42 new cases in Sweden, bringing the total number of cases in the country to 94. [source]
- 5 new cases in Slovenia [source]
- 5 new cases in Denmark including former Danish footballer Thomas Kahlenberg [source]
- 28 new cases in the UK [source]
- 2 new cases in Israel [source]
- 3 new cases and 1 new death in Iraq: a 65-year-old person in Baghdad [source] [source] [source]
- 1 new case in Israel [source]
- 2 new cases and 1 new recovery in Canada (Ontario) [source]
- 3 new cases in Ecuador: all linked to the first confirmed case [source]
- 1 new case in Oman: a man who had recently traveled to Milan, Italy [source]
- Diamond Princess cruise ship: The Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare has corrected the number of cases from 706 to 696. After examining the results of the virus test, it was reported that some people were counted twice. [source]
- 4 new cases in the Czech Republic [source]
- 1 new case in Lebanon: a Lebanese woman coming from Britain [source]
- 3 new cases in Portugal: two males, aged between 40 and 50, admitted to São João Hospital in Porto, and a man in Lisbon who had recently traveled to Italy [source]
- 44 new cases in the Netherlands [source]
- 26 new cases and 1st death in Switzerland: a 74-year-old woman who had been hospitalized since March 3. The woman suffered from a chronic illness. Source of infection still unclear. [source][source]
- 54 new cases and 1 death in Spain [source]
- 33 new cases in Japan, including 8 in Tokyo and 8 in Aichi
- 5 new cases in the Republic of San Marino bringing the total to 21: 15 are hospitalized, 3 are in serious condition. [source]
- 1 new case in India (Ghaziabad) [source]
- 22 new cases in Greece [source]
- 1 new case in Canada (Québec) [source]
- 5 new cases and 2 new recoveries in Singapore [source]
- 3 new cases in Saudi Arabia [source]
1st case in South Africa: a 38-year-old man who had traveled to Italy with his wife. They were part of a group of 10 who arrived back in South Africa on March 1. [source]
- 9 new cases in Iceland [source]
- 1 new case in Egypt, bringing the total to 3 [source]
- 3 new cases and 3 new recoveries in Bahrain [source]
- 5 new cases in Malaysia [source]
- 27 new cases in Belgium [source]
- 6 new case in Georgia: a person who had recently visited Italy. [source]
- 3 new cases in Azebaijan: they had all visited Iran. [source]
- 3 new case in Estonia: including a resident of Tallinn who had been on the same flight from Bergamo, Italy, to Riga as the second confirmed case. [source]
- 1 new case in Slovenia: a person who was in contact with the first case. [source]
591 new cases and 15 new deaths in Iran
- 5 new cases in Finland: 3 in the Helsinki and Uusimaa hospital district, 1 is in Pirkanmaa and 1 in Kanta-Häme. The case in Kanta-Häme is a child in Hämeenlinna who had returned from northern Italy with their family on Tuesday. [source]
- 3 new cases in Scotland (UK) [source]
- 1 new case in Russia: an Italian citizen [source]
1st case in Bosnia and Herzegovina: a middle-aged man and his child who recently visited Italy. His wife tested negative. He is in stable condition, hospitalized in isolation in Banja Luka. School children who have had contact with the infected child will now be tested. [source]
- 1 new case in Morocco: a Moroccan woman who recently returned to Casablanca from Italy. [source]
- 2 new cases in Kuwait [source] [source]
- 11 new cases in Norway [source]
- 15 new cases in Austria [source]
- 4 new cases in Thailand [source]
– a 29 year-old Italian man who arrived in Thailand on March 1
– a 42 year-old Thai male office worker who returned from Italy
– a 22 year-old Chinese male student who was screened with symptoms while in transit at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport while traveling from Iran to China.
– a 20 year-old Thai male student who arrived from Iran on Feb. 27- 467 new cases, 7 new deaths, and 47 new recoveries in South Korea [source] [source]
-
139 new cases (134 in Hubei), 31 new deaths (all in Hubei) and 2,189 new discharges occurred in China on March 4, as reported by the National Health Commission (NHC) of China. [source]
From what I’m reading, that’s not as likely because this is a new virus.
“We can’t blame them. This neglect in procedures and equipment has been known since the Ebola and Zika scares.”
Normally yes. But this in not a normal situation. Trump almost certainly will be blamed if this pandemic gets out of control no matter who is really to blame.
“I’m putting all of my hope in an early spring.”
You can put that in my hoping and wishing category. It would be great if that were true, but there is no evidence yet to support that, and this disease is not just a normal flu. The HIV inserts complicate matters- potentially a lot. Weather in warmer climes has not been shown to decrease the spread of the disease.
My daughter is living in Manhattan right now, and when I consider the potential for craziness there, I can’t think straight. So I’m going to keep hoping. :-)
From the NY Post and Saeed Ghasseminejad” How Iran’s regime set off a coronavirus bomb on it’s own economy”:
“The coronavirus has shattered any hope of the Iranian economy clawing out from under two years of deep recession. To the ruling regime’s chagrin, the virus has begun to adversely affect precisely those sectors that seemed poised for growth after weathering the return of US sanctions.”
“By sacrificing public health to politics, the clerical regime turned Iran into a coronavirus bomb exploding across the Middle East. When the epidemic broke out, Tehran failed to cut, limit or even supervise contacts with China. As always, ordinary Iranians have been the main victim of the Islamist regime’s incompetence and psychopathic indifference toward its own citizens.”
“Beginning in late January, social media reported cases of the virus in Iran, especially in the holy city of Qom. Rather than taking action, the regime issued denials and accused the individuals who reported the problem of “spreading rumors.” The result one month later is an official death toll of 77, likely massively understated, while the country’s deputy health minister admitted to testing positive for coronavirus the day after a news conference at which he sweatily insisted the situation was under control.”
So there you have it , rather than “taking action” the regime issue denials and accused people of “spreading rumors”. Kinda sounds familiar.
If schools close, a fair number of parents are going to want their kids to receive some kind of instruction online, which means that you would have an opportunity to start something up or partner with people involved in selling instruction. Someone will be needed to organize the available teachers, set prices, create procedures, and so forth. This is stuff that you could figure out by signing your kids up for tutoring and looking at how the center operates.
I don’t mean to sound callous here, Drew, but you can’t just accept poverty.
Iran is a country of young people. That will be of help.
Minor point: the disease is COVID-19. The virus is SARS-CoV-2. (Reference) People infected with SARS-CoV-2 contract COVID-19.
I don’t fully understand. Is it that if you get infected by sars cov2 then you are said to suffer from covid 19? Why two names for same thing? Or is it the same thing? Are there other examples is it like hiv and aids?
Actually I think I get it now I dug out my old college notes and got an example. Feline coronavirus causes feline infectious peritonitis
Not if we take their guns, damn those sick gun-owning people!
The good news is that, if the hyperbole is to believed, you’ll have plenty of corpses to loot, shortly.
They said on the news last night that although reports about the outbreak emerged in early Jan. (and the expulsions of 4 Chinese lab workers in US and Canada), the reality was more like the outbreak occurred in Oct. in China. (?) Also, can they make a vaccine without knowing the actual source and has that even been determined? Lab (man-made) or natural outbreak?
Like banks, they should be required to do reg. stress tests and preparedness – even if they are ground zero for testing and info!
Thank you, @drlorentz and @marjoriereynolds.
I work on periodicals that are distributed to schools with content provided by schools. No schools, no content, no distribution.
Plan B: Can they email the content that you need in the meantime to keep going?
This feline doesn’t want that either…………..!
That’s how it works now. Still, if schools are closed, there’s nobody to distribute to. The publisher won’t publish at that point. (We never publish anything in the summer months.)
It’s fine. It’s not going to happen, right? I mean, even in Seattle the schools are still open. But I live in a state where the governor is completely controlled by the teachers’ unions, and I could just see him deciding to give teachers the rest of the year off with pay.
Well, the schools will be physically closed, but many will carry on with an online format.
So you still should have a demand hopefully.
Right. But there wouldn’t be a physical location to distribute the newspapers. This is mostly fears about my client giving up and deciding not to bother publishing. She’s skipped months before on minor pretexts. But I have to assume that she won’t want to lose the advertising money. These are advertiser-supported periodicals, so it would all depend on advertisers. But it also depends on trying to convince those advertisers to keep advertising while schools are closed.
Anyway, let’s talk about everyone else’s anxieties!
SXSW was canceled in Austin. That festival makes around $350 million for the local economy. Gone. I don’t think @drewinwisconsin has irrational fears at all. Personally, I think the bigger threat is panic, whatever the virus does. Maybe I’m silly, but I’m much more worried about the health of the economy than my health.
I’m not worried about my own health, I am concerned for my elderly parents who were both hospitalised at Christmas with flu/pneumonia. However I think our risk on infection is low due to where we live and our limited movements. There’s some risk but still I think it’s low.
But it’s not out of the bounds of possibility that my workplace (and a lot of others) could close and while I could withstand a few weeks without being paid it would start to hurt soon enough.
Not a trivial concern:
Well at least That should make Greta happy. Although she doesn’t seem to mind about Asian emissions.
I think Greta wants us to live in some combination of a Stone Age with internet. Good luck with that!
Ok, that is scary…
I am grateful for the data collection done by Rodin, because it is important to monitor such things, for there is a real possibility of danger. But I think people are becoming unnecessarily panicked over this pandemic. We’ve been through so many of these scares in the past, that I am skeptical. The human species was supposed to be decimated by Aids, SARS, MERSA, Swine Flu, Avian Bird Flu, Ebola, Anthrax, DDT, Lead Paint, Trans Fats, nuclear fallout from Japan, Mad Cows, and Rachel Maddow. Curiously, we survived without significant loss of life, maybe excepting for Aids, and Rachel Maddow.
We are living in the Age of Trump Hysteria and everything in the news is exaggerated by a factor of ten. It seems to me that this is no exception. Trump gives them even more incentive to blow this out of proportion, and I don’t want to be hoodwinked by it. Previous commenters have pointed out that the death rates in China may be reasonably exacerbated by their unsanitary third-world conditions, unusually high rates of smoking cigarettes, and some of the worst air pollution on the planet. We won’t know the real extent of this for a month or more.
Front Seat: “the reality was more like the outbreak occurred in Oct. in China.”
Their is some speculation that the Cruise Line passenger who contracted the disease and then died in California actually contracted the disease in California before boarding which is seemingly borne out by working backward the time of incubation and the time the symptoms occurred. This speculation has led to other speculation that the disease has been spreading here a lot longer than originally thought , particularly in places like California that has hundreds of thousands of Chinese Nationals who may have traveled back and forth to China undetected.
That may be a scary thought as Jules worries, but it also may be a hopeful sign that we will not be hit as hard as other places around the world. It could be that the new Covid -19 CoronaVirus was in California as early as late December and that the particularly nasty flu that hit in Janurary/February was actually the CoronaVirus.
Italy has just cancelled . . . everything.
That’s pretty severe disruption to their economy. What’s going on over there? This makes our initial travel bans seem wise. Of course, we didn’t realize Italy was going to be a hotspot, and many cases now in the U.S. are traced back to there. Italy currently has the most cases outside of China. But what accounts for Italy being hit so hard by a virus that began in China?
I am not a virologist, but it suggests to me that 1) it’s spread a lot farther in this country than anyone realizes (sneaking around like our seasonal flu), but therefore 2) it may not be as fatal as everyone fears.
Heck, what do I know. I’m in self-soothing mode.