# Coronavirus COVID-19 (2019-nCoV) Thread - 2020 Breaking News **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Tags:** covid-quarantine\ **Created:** [February 11, 2020, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758 "2020-02-11T01:16:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 19
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/361 "2020-03-07T06:15:49Z")
It’s here in Hawaii now. First confirmed case announced this afternoon. A local resident who had been on that cruise ship now off San Francisco. He flew back to Hawaii last month from Mexico. ---
**Author:** ![psychonaut](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/psychonaut/32/4655_2.png) [@psychonaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/psychonaut)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/362 "2020-03-07T06:21:20Z")
All this talk of coronavirus disasters on cruise ships makes me wonder whether any countries have reported outbreaks in prisons—another kind of place where it can be impractical to let people leave for external quarantine. Does anyone know of any such cases, and if so, how did they pan out? ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/363 "2020-03-07T07:43:33Z")
> [@steatopygia](#): > > WE elected the US government. No? No, a rigged electoral system where the majority loses is what installed Team Trimp. But that’s a subject for other threads. Sit back and view the attempted White House coverup. ---
**Author:** ![eenerms](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/cdc98d/32.png) [@eenerms](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eenerms)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/364 "2020-03-07T08:01:08Z")
> [@RioRico](#): > > No, a rigged electoral system where the majority loses is what installed Team Trimp. But that’s a subject for other threads. Sit back and view the attempted White House coverup. This again.::eek: ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/365 "2020-03-07T10:04:44Z")
> [@steatopygia](#): > > This cruise ship case is so similar to the one in Tokyo that it almost seems like a test. > Did we learn anything? Did we learn that close confinement within a ship will lead to hundreds of cases? Certainly some preventable deaths. Did we learn that those people need to be transferred to land based quarantine _before_ everyone is infected? Trump blurted out yesterday that he wants those people kept on the cruise ship because by bringing them onto land they increase the official number of cases in the US and he doesn’t want the US numbers increased. In other words - the PotUS would rather Americas die on a cruise ship than be brought ashore for medical treatment so he, the PotUS, doesn’t look bad or risk he re-election. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 10:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/366 "2020-03-07T10:12:37Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Mike Pence announced that 45 people on the cruise ship near San Francisco were tested, and 21 were positive. > > It turns out, the people who tested positive were not informed of the results before Pence went public. > > [https://twitter.com/stevenportnoy/status/1236075885008125953?s=19](https://twitter.com/stevenportnoy/status/1236075885008125953?s=19) > > The cruelty is the point. Oh, but from Pence’s viewpoint if they had accepted (his version of) Jesus and prayed hard enough they wouldn’t have gotten the virus! They are unclean, and no more deserving of privacy, compassion, or help than the HIV positive people in Scott County who had their one healthcare provided defunded by Pence, were denied any form of government help in accessing healthcare, and those who caught that virus from people untested and untreated… well sucks to be them, they didn’t get any help either. Or they are not “deserving”, like the people of East Chicago during Pence’s reign as governor who were showing signs of lead poisoning, where the very ground was toxic and Pence denied there was a problem, denied testing of the environment, and refused to declare the mess either a public health emergency or a superfund site (both actions his successor did immediately on gaining office). Your kid is permanently brain damaged by lead? Sucks to be you, you should have been “more responsible” and known that the place where you lived was as contaminated as a lead water main in Flint, Michigan despite none of that information being available to the public. You can’t afford treatment for you, your family and your children and the on-going help needed to mitigate lead poisoning? Sucks to be you, get a better job - oh wait, you can’t, your sick and you have a special needs child, guess it’s time to pray to Jesus. :rolleyes: **This is the man in charge of the US covid-19 response.** Holy shit, we’re all in trouble. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 10:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/367 "2020-03-07T10:14:59Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > There, across the globe, are hardly ANY cases of COVID-19 being reported in children…_[snip]_…A big question is if that means there really are so few kids infected, or if there are many cases in kids, but with mild infections that resolve on their own never coming to any medical attention. While young adults are getting tested with moderate illness that they recover from. So… it’s the Logan’s Run virus? ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 10:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/368 "2020-03-07T10:16:49Z")
> [@steatopygia](#): > > WE elected the US government. No? The guys currently in charge are not the people I voted for in 2016. So I did my best to NOT elect our current government. Please do not tar me with whatever form of collective guilt you are feeling. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 10:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/369 "2020-03-07T10:19:28Z")
> [@psychonaut](#): > > All this talk of coronavirus disasters on cruise ships makes me wonder whether any countries have reported outbreaks in prisons—another kind of place where it can be impractical to let people leave for external quarantine. Does anyone know of any such cases, and if so, how did they pan out? Iran. [Iran temporarily released 54,000 criminals from prison due to the outbreak](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51723398) I’m not up on all the details there. Given the apparent chaos in Iran, likely no one is up on all the details. ---
**Author:** ![paulmarkj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9e8a1a/32.png) [@paulmarkj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/paulmarkj)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/370 "2020-03-07T10:36:47Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Trump doesn’t want to let the [Grand Princess dock and let the passengers do quarantine on land](https://www.newsweek.com/trump-says-those-grand-princess-cruise-ship-should-stay-boat-so-us-coronavirus-numbers-dont-go-1491038) because he doesn’t want to increase the number of cases in the US. After what happened on the Diamond Princess, I hope everyone can see the idiocy of that. And it won’t make any difference. At least one site, and I expect most sites, are already including them in the US count anyway. I can’t understand his thinking on this: if the number gets to 50,000 or 500,000 it doesn’t matter if it is now 400 or 800. And if the numbers don’t get high, everyone will be happy. Trump should be more concerned about the number of tests carried out. My guess is that countries like the UK (who have tested many) have some understanding of how many people are affected. But the US probably have 10x more cases than currently known. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/371 "2020-03-07T10:40:22Z")
Trump should be concerned about the welfare of the people. ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 10:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/372 "2020-03-07T10:45:50Z")
In that famous Johns Hopkins chart, South Korea (which seems to have implemented widespread testing better than anyone else) shows over 7,000 infected, with only 44 deaths. Another article said that Korea has tested 160,000 people so far. If that sample is representative of the real stats, then doesn’t that lead to a relatively positive outlook? At least in terms of deaths? > **[ArcGIS Dashboards](https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/dashboards/index.html)** > > ArcGIS Dashboards ---
**Author:** ![asahi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asahi/32/8693_2.png) [@asahi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/asahi)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/373 "2020-03-07T13:17:06Z")
> [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](#): > > In that famous Johns Hopkins chart, South Korea (which seems to have implemented widespread testing better than anyone else) shows over 7,000 infected, with only 44 deaths. Another article said that Korea has tested 160,000 people so far. If that sample is representative of the real stats, then doesn’t that lead to a relatively positive outlook? At least in terms of deaths? > > [ArcGIS Dashboards](https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6) It’s only positive if the situation is handled appropriately, which countries like Singapore and South Korea have. I also suspect that we’re going to have more than a few cases here in the United States in which people avoided the medical system because they feared the expense of hospitalization. This is when you want people to have reliable access to healthcare that’s affordable, and the United States doesn’t have it. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/374 "2020-03-07T17:01:27Z")
Coronavirus is a common family of diseases causing colds and other maladies. This outbreak is indeed serious, since severely affected people may die even following aggressive and expensive interventions. Influenza kills hundreds of thousands each year. Many children get sick. Those who die often have other health problems or live in countries where care is suboptimal. But by no means always - reasonably healthy people can also be severely affected by influenza. This outbreak has a number of features suggesting the number of cases is severely under diagnosed. It is also odd that, unlike “flu” (a number of viral families other than influenza cause similar symptoms), children don’t seem to be much affected at all. Time will tell, but I suspect this is good news. I think it is already pretty widespread, and much more than 80% of cases are likely mild. Because these numbers come from reported positive tests (conceding the test itself as imperfect), the death rate is much lower than reported if the number of cases is far higher. If you have a cold, you are unlikely to seek medical care. And the doctor is unlikely to do a full work up if you are otherwise well. If you don’t have a fever. It is unclear what percentage of patients do. The financial impact of a case requiring aggressive resuscitation is significant. The impact of fear on world markets is enormous. The social costs of pulling 300 million kids out of school is massive, and they don’t seem to get the disease in a severe form. There is a difference between severity and its reaction fanned by unprecented access to information and dissemination, excessive news coverage and misinformation. The public authorities have to prepare responsibly and not make premature or inaccurate statements affecting public trust. So they are doing the right thing by not drawing all the conclusions suggested by the data. It is better to be prepared and better for people to wash their hands, have some degree of emergency supplies and be aware of further developments. But I doubt this will turn out to be the disease that kills many millions of people, which does not mean it is not severe or concerning. It is indeed very serious. There has still been some over reaction, in my view, and I would not personally worry excessively or do much apart from washing my hands more often and avoiding travel to some places. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/375 "2020-03-07T17:08:00Z")
More than thirty million Americans have avoided or have a close relation who have avoided seeking crucial medical care because of cost (according to Harper’s which also suggest Dems are 5 times more likely than Reps to fulfill this - I have not looked at the data). In a public health crisis, this factor is indeed very serious. It’s serious without a crisis, and frankly should spur more widespread coverage and care. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/376 "2020-03-07T17:26:15Z")
Specifically, page 9 of the February 2020 Harper’s suggests “34,000,000 Americans have lost a friend or family member since they couldn’t afford high medical bills”. This differs slightly from my above statement. Also 52.9% of Americans are “afraid or very afraid” of high medical bills. This is higher than most other things surveyed (apart from “corrupt government officials” at 73%). But this is a separate thread. I am interested in seeing widespread, reasonably affordable medical care independent of political party or other political views, regardless of how any party currently views health matters. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/377 "2020-03-07T17:32:55Z")
Unfortunately, Trump’s thinking is probably along the lines of: “Will this thing kill more Democrat voters than my voters? If so, then that’s terrific. Let 'er rip.” ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/378 "2020-03-07T18:42:43Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Unfortunately, Trump’s thinking is probably along the lines of: > > “Will this thing kill more Democrat voters than my voters? If so, then that’s terrific. Let 'er rip.” That doesn’t seem to be the case with the Grand Princess infections. He’s more worried about how the US looks in terms of numbers of cases, so he won’t let the 21 people who tested positive on that (most of whom are crew, as I understand it) on land to be treated. So he’s going to let those people sit out there and suffer (and also spread their viruses to others) just so he looks better. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/379 "2020-03-07T18:47:43Z")
Mike Pence: The U.S. does not have enough coronavirus tests to meet the expected demand. Alex Azar, HHS Secretary: There is no testing kit shortage, nor has there ever been > **[Azar contradicts Pence, says there’s no coronavirus testing kit shortage](https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/486416-azar-contradicts-pence-says-theres-no-coronavirus-testing-kit-shortage/)** > > Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar maintained that the administration is not in the midst of a coronavirus testing kit shortage, contradicting a warning issued by Vice President Pence ea… Individual 1 said there are more than a million test kids. Oh, good, it should only take six months to test everybody in the country. ---
**Author:** ![Dr\_Paprika](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr_paprika/32/3042_2.png) [@Dr\_Paprika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr_Paprika)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2020, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/380 "2020-03-07T18:55:44Z")
It should be stated the 34m number applies SINCE 2014. Trump was in favour of a Canadian type scheme for health care. Before he ran for President and abandoned his personal views. The Canadian system has many problems. But to me, it is difficult to justify not providing more widespread and reasonably affordable medical care. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758.md?page=18) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758.md?page=20)