COVID-19 Mega thread

[Almost Anyone But Biden Or Trump (ABBoT but not Greg Abbott)]

Is this the one that could kill hundreds of thousands of people?

It would be fantastic and amazingly great if it only killed hundreds of thousands of people. That does not look likely at the moment.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Is this the one that could kill hundreds of thousands of people?

It would be fantastic and amazingly great if it only killed hundreds of thousands of people. That does not look likely at the moment.

Maybe, but, apart from the epicentre of the virus, I am thinking that the people who have died would probably have died from the normal flu anyway.

It's not really looking like a massive pandemic despite the panic.

[GoTfan]

Is this the one that could kill hundreds of thousands of people?

It would be fantastic and amazingly great if it only killed hundreds of thousands of people. That does not look likely at the moment.

I meant hundreds and thousands. Like 100,000+.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Trump was not told coronavirus-infected Americans would be flown home from cruise ship

Arrangements had been made in case passengers developed symptoms on the plane ride home, so officials in Washington from the State Department and a top administration health official overruled the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention based on information from operators on the ground in Tokyo. They decided to bring the infected passengers back home on the same planes but place them in an isolation area.

One of the officials arguing they should all be flown home together was Robert Kadlec, assistant secretary for preparedness and response for the Department of Health and Human Services and a member of the task force.

After Trump learned of the change, he complained to his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, Domestic Policy Council director Joseph Grogan and HHS Secretary Alex Azar, who is running the president’s coronavirus task force, and other officials. Others who briefed the president and heard his ire include State Department official Stephen Biegun and Ken Cuccinelli, acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director.

So much whining!

I guess Trump's lackeys couldn't reach him while he was busy driving around the track at Daytona.

[It’s so Joever]

Trump was not told coronavirus-infected Americans would be flown home from cruise ship

Arrangements had been made in case passengers developed symptoms on the plane ride home, so officials in Washington from the State Department and a top administration health official overruled the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention based on information from operators on the ground in Tokyo. They decided to bring the infected passengers back home on the same planes but place them in an isolation area.

One of the officials arguing they should all be flown home together was Robert Kadlec, assistant secretary for preparedness and response for the Department of Health and Human Services and a member of the task force.

After Trump learned of the change, he complained to his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, Domestic Policy Council director Joseph Grogan and HHS Secretary Alex Azar, who is running the president’s coronavirus task force, and other officials. Others who briefed the president and heard his ire include State Department official Stephen Biegun and Ken Cuccinelli, acting U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services director.

So much whining!

I guess Trump's lackeys couldn't reach him while he was busy driving around the track at Daytona.

Not whining.
Trump is angry, and rightfully so, that he wasn’t even told about this awful decision (which went against CDC recommendations)
Hopefully some people are fired for this decision, but it may not matter at this point.

[Beet]

Holy MOTHER of ******. The number of cases in South Korea nearly than TRIPLED since my last update yesterday to 556, from 200 or so! I can't even express this. Is thing is literally exploding. Time to ban all travel from South Korea. They are f--ed. Meanwhile it's going nuts in Italy too, going from 18 to 79 in a single  day. Japan is confirming cases all over the place at 122 now.

Death rate.

Three days ago officially officially 2,125 died and 16,322 recovered. Today officially 2,460 died and 23,032 recovered. The case fatality rate in the last 3 days is 5%.

The number of confirmed cases by Region:
Hubei Province: 64,084 (+630)
Outside Hubei, China:  12,852 (+18)
Outside China: 1,694 (+323)

[It’s so Joever]

Holy MOTHER of ******. The number of cases in South Korea nearly than TRIPLED since my last update yesterday to 556, from 200 or so! I can't even express this. Is thing is literally exploding. Time to ban all travel from South Korea. They are f--ed. Meanwhile it's going nuts in Italy too, going from 18 to 79 in a single  day. Japan is confirming cases all over the place at 122 now.

Death rate.

Three days ago officially officially 2,125 died and 16,322 recovered. Today officially 2,460 died and 23,032 recovered. The case fatality rate in the last 3 days is 5%.

The number of confirmed cases by Region:
Hubei Province: 64,084 (+630)
Outside Hubei, China:  12,852 (+18)
Outside China: 1,694 (+323)

Lol politicians aren’t going to ban travel from South Korea (Or Italy if it spreads more)
They will let it get out of hand as usual.
Good news is that a majority of the SK cases are linked to one hospital and a cult.
If anything, we should be *really* concerned about Iran. The amount of deaths they have for cases doesn’t match up at all. I bet they have hundreds of hidden cases.

[Tintrlvr]

Holy MOTHER of ******. The number of cases in South Korea nearly than TRIPLED since my last update yesterday to 556, from 200 or so! I can't even express this. Is thing is literally exploding. Time to ban all travel from South Korea. They are f--ed. Meanwhile it's going nuts in Italy too, going from 18 to 79 in a single  day. Japan is confirming cases all over the place at 122 now.

Death rate.

Three days ago officially officially 2,125 died and 16,322 recovered. Today officially 2,460 died and 23,032 recovered. The case fatality rate in the last 3 days is 5%.

The number of confirmed cases by Region:
Hubei Province: 64,084 (+630)
Outside Hubei, China:  12,852 (+18)
Outside China: 1,694 (+323)

Lol politicians aren’t going to ban travel from South Korea (Or Italy if it spreads more)
They will let it get out of hand as usual.
Good news is that a majority of the SK cases are linked to one hospital and a cult.
If anything, we should be *really* concerned about Iran. The amount of deaths they have for cases doesn’t match up at all. I bet they have hundreds of hidden cases.

Yeah, Iran is really worrisome. Another death today. Given the number of deaths being reported in Iran, they probably have at least 500 cases, even though only 29 are reported. The good news for the rest of the world I suppose is that Iran is relatively isolated, unlike South Korea or Japan or Italy or other countries currently reporting significant increases.

[100% pro-life no matter what]

I'm am almost certain that, whatever the true numbers are and have been, the epidemic within China is well past its peak.  However, Japan, South Korea, Iran, and Italy are a little concerning for me, with South Korea probably being the one in the most imminent danger of a China-like situation.

I'm supposed to go on vacation to Italy in three months, so obviously I'm watching this.

[Beet]

Disturbing new allegations reported by dissident media New Tang Dynasty.

"A social media user named Wu Xiaohua, with a Ph.D. in biological related fields according to his WeChat profile...disclosed that some biolabs in China are very poorly regulated.

For instance, some researchers in these labs kept the laboratory dogs as pets; some disposed of animal carcasses casually because following the biosafety rules and cremating them costs a lot of money. Some cut up the laboratory pigs and took the meat home to eat. I know this happened at Beijing 301 Hospital’s spine surgery lab. Worst of all, some laboratory animals were sold to wet markets as wild-caught animals for profit,” he wrote.

Xu Bo, a well-known IT magnate and billionaire in China, cited reports and articles to support Wu’s statements.

In his blog, Xu cited a news report about a lawsuit against biologist Li Ning.Li is an academician of China Engineering Academy, and a former professor at China Agricultural University. The judgment in Li’s case, which came out on Jan. 2 this year, stated that between 2008 and 2012, Li’s lab sold experimental pigs, cows, and milk to local markets. These animal and animal products were bought using research funds; but Li and his fellow colleagues pocketed the money, a total of 10,179,201 yuan ($1,460,304), from the sale of these animals and animal products.

Li was sentenced to 12 years in prison for embezzlement.

According to a 2016 report from the China Experimental Animal Information Network, Chinese researchers use tens of millions of laboratory animals every year. The Experimental Animal Research Center of Hubei Province alone handles about 300,000 animals a year, either for bioresearch experiments inside the center, or to be sold and distributed to other labs in Hubei Province."

https://www.ntd.com/the-origin-of-the-coronavirus-report_431784.html

If the virus was engineered to go from bats to pangolins, and then some researcher at the lab, not knowing that the particular virus these animals carried had been engineered to allow zoonosis, to earn extra money, took the pangolins to the Seafood Market, where unexpected zoonosis occurred, that would explain a lot. I hope it's not true, but...

[Torrain]

Two deaths in Italy, and 60 confirmed cases in the country’s northern Lombardy region. Lombardy includes Milan, a major economic and travel hub for the region.

Local authorities are locking down local towns, but if a super-spreader gets on an intercity train from Milan to Bern, Berlin or Paris, we could see cases ripple across the continent. Europe is well connected, and with the Schengen treaty, it’s as easy to travel from Italy to Greece as it is to get from NY to LA.

 If spread continues, the EU have got an incredible headache on their hands.

[Torrain]

Most models have the Chinese outbreak slowing, and coming under control (although this will be tested once the restrictions on movement are lifted, and may lead to a second surge of cases)

Good post. Just wondering if you can clarify a bit here what these "most" models are, and in particular what sort of data/assumptions they are using. Is that a new/so-far-unpublished update of Ferguson's/Imperial College's work, or something else? And what is the idea that the outbreak in China is slowing based on?

Are the models that show this simply assuming that the ratio of reported/detected cases hasn't changed in China? Previously Ferguson/Imperial College estimated that about 5% of actual infections were probably being detected in China. Is the assumption that the current Chinese statistics can be taken at face value and there is still a ~20 to 1 ratio of actual cases to detected/reported cases?

The thing I am afraid of is that there is probably quite a bit of person-to-person transmission going on in China outside of Hubei province, and that since outside of Hubei province they are only testing people who have been to Wuhan/Hubei, that is not being reported in the statistics. So although this makes it appear that the # of new cases outside of Wuhan/Hubei are going down, that may not necessarily be the case (and at least personally I would definitely strongly doubt is the case). And if that is so, then the ratio of actual cases to detected/reported cases outside of Hubei would have increased from something like ~20 to 1 to something larger (maybe 40 to 1, maybe 30 to 1, maybe 100 to 1, who knows the exact amount, but the point being that it would be larger than 20 to 1).

So it does seem quite likely that all the quarantine/travel restriction measures imposed by China have at least slowed the growth of cases as compared to what it was before, but that doesn't necessarily mean that actual cases are actually decreasing (i.e. an effective R_0 < 1). So is the argument/modeling assumption leading to the conclusion that it may be actually decreasing simply that this 20 to 1 ratio has not changed? And if so, how does that make any sense if non-Hubei/Wuhan linked cases are not being tested outside of Hubei province?

Hey, I think he was working on the reduction in the increase of cases, as reported by Beijing. He noted that it "wouldn't do" for him to say something the tabloids would drum up, and wanted to inform rather than prognosticate.

Personally, I'm more pessimistic about the situation, but I wanted to just report the contents of the seminar, without my own input.

Your points are valid, and at this point I'm too uncertain about the direction we're going to make any conclusions myself.

Sorry for late reply, been travelling the last few days, back home.

[Beet]

Something weird is going on at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. On February 1, a mere week after Wuhan was locked down due to a COVID-19 outbreak, the Trump administration announced a drastic 80% cut in all funding to preventing epidemics and diseases.

Then, the CDC sent faulty test to local health centers that had to be returned, and is not either saying why the test were faulty or when hospitals will be getting new onses.

https://twitter.com/michaelmina_lab/status/1231503887816892416

[It’s so Joever]

Keep in mind this virus has an average incubation period of 7~ days. What is happening now is what technically spread 7 days ago. Expect the SK outbreak to worsen over the next few days even though precautions have been taken. Same for Italy, but even longer (the outbreak just started) In a week we will have a better understanding of how bad the outbreak really is.

[It’s so Joever]

Friendly reminder: You are all going to die slowly of COVID-19

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Something weird is going on at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control. On February 1, a mere week after Wuhan was locked down due to a COVID-19 outbreak, the Trump administration announced a drastic 80% cut in all funding to preventing epidemics and diseases.

Your link just goes to the WaPo's front page. Is this the one you meant?

CDC to cut by 80 percent efforts to prevent global disease outbreak

[It’s so Joever]

When the **** will we get some new data from China (especially Hubei)?

[Beet]

South Korea continues to surge with 763 cases. Italy now has more cases than Japan. In Japan, a woman in her 20s is said to be in critical condition. This would be the first time we have heard of an individual case (not in a statistical study) of someone in their 20s in serious condition who is not a health care worker (although there are rumors that a 15 year old Iranian died, this cannot be confirmed). This is troubling.

Also, China has been forced to open up a new category of "tentatively recovered." Previously, the criteria for release was two negative PCR swabs on two days, no fever for 10 days, and significant improvement on chest scans. This is a pretty strict criteria but unfortunately some cases of people who relapsed within 14 days, and at least one case of a person re-admitted to the hospitals, presumably because they failed to develop antibodies. Therefore the so called "recovered" patients are now going into another 14 day quarantine.

Dow futures are down 400. This could cause a global recession easily.

Death rate.

Three days ago officially officially 2,247 died and 18,404 recovered. Today officially 2,619 died and 24,963 recovered. The case fatality rate in the past 3 days is 5%.

The number of confirmed cases by Region:
Hubei Province: 64,287 (+203)
Outside Hubei, China:  12,863 (+11)
Outside China: 2,210 (+516)

[Almost Anyone But Biden Or Trump (ABBoT but not Greg Abbott)]

Friendly reminder: You are all going to die slowly of COVID-19

I know this is posted in jest, but this should be said - most people won't die (or even be seriously ill) as a result of COVID-19 even in a worst case scenario. However, that is not necessary for things to get bad. Even a small percentage of the population being seriously ill and/or dying - provided that it is significantly larger than what the medical system's capacity normally is - can have very significant effects on society and is sufficient to lead to substantial changes in everyday life for billions of people, as well as on the economy and other things.

[Meclazine for Israel]

...is sufficient to lead to substantial changes in everyday life for billions of people, as well as on the economy and other things.

We are already there I would say. Australia has taken a significant economic hit from this:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-24/australian-share-market-tumbles-on-coronavirus-spread-fears-asx/11993842

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/24/business/china-coronavirus-global-impact-intl/index.html

[Sir Mohamed]

When the **** will we get some new data from China (especially Hubei)?

Probably never. China is keeping this under the rug because the regime sees its power threatened. It's likely there aren't even any hard numbers after they stopped to count patients without symptoms.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

WHO's Situation Reports

The Lancet's COVID-19 Resource Centere

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

https://twitter.com/suilee/status/1231830037541687296

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/HelenKennedy/status/1231960624189648897

[ON Progressive]

https://twitter.com/HelenKennedy/status/1231960624189648897

Any reason why the CFR is far higher in Wuhan than outside it?