# 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:** 217
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4339 "2020-08-20T01:31:02Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > New drug coming out on Fox News is Famotidine. That’s actually not new news. There was something about it way back in March based on Chinese anecdotes. I even started a thread about it at that time, but can’t access it now. (The search engine comes up empty; Google sees it, but the board says it doesn’t exist.) ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4340 "2020-08-20T01:57:49Z")
…latest update from New Zealand. > **[COVID-19: Current cases](https://www.health.govt.nz/covid-19-novel-coronavirus/covid-19-data-and-statistics/covid-19-current-cases)** > > Information about confirmed and probable cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand. 5 new cases: 4 in Auckland, 1 in Tokoroa, 1 of the Auckland cases they haven’t found a link to the current cluster but investigations are continuing. 18,000 tests yesterday so the numbers are coming down, but the labs are still working overtime to get the testing processed. The “detective case” into the outbreaks is continuing. The testing of the Americold site has largely come back negative, which makes it extremely unlikely it came through frozen meat, and they’ve effectively ruled that out. They have found a link between the Maintenance Worker and the person in managed isolation: they both used the same **elevator** within minutes of each other (they weren’t in it at the same time) . At the moment they can’t find any other overlap, so the elevator is **likely** to be where the worker caught the virus. ---
**Author:** ![icon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c6cbf5/32.png) [@icon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/icon)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4341 "2020-08-20T02:07:40Z")
What this article describes is similar to what my father experienced. It wasn’t until months after he collapsed that we were able to determine by taking an anti-body test that COVID-19 was the most likely cause of his illness. My parents repeatedly asked for a test, but because he didn’t exhibit the classic symptoms he never got one. Instead they ran all kinds of other tests to determine what was wrong and came up with essentially nothing. Although he thankfully survived, he is moving around a lot slower than he used to. He is slowly regaining his energy but who knows when he will be back to normal. `//i\\` ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4342 "2020-08-20T03:05:15Z")
That possibility honestly concerns me more. It implies that the index individual has super spreader potential. If they spread it to one person who was in an elevator minutes later, no actual close contact, then they likely spread it more than that … hard to imagine not. Potential doesn’t mean it happened but scary as a possibility. ---
**Author:** ![aurora\_maire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aurora_maire/32/328_2.png) [@aurora\_maire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aurora_maire)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4343 "2020-08-20T04:05:11Z")
> [@Banquet\_Bear](#): > > They have found a link between the Maintenance Worker and the person in managed isolation: they both used the same **elevator** within minutes of each other (they weren’t in it at the same time) . At the moment they can’t find any other overlap, so the elevator is **likely** to be where the worker caught the virus. Do they know if both were wearing masks at the time? That’s pretty scary to get it from the aerosolized virus floating in the elevator. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4344 "2020-08-20T04:09:41Z")
22,579,141 total cases 791,002 dead 15,301,257 recovered In the US: 5,700,931 total cases 176,337 dead 3,062,331 recovered Yesterday’s numbers for comparison: > [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > 22,306,538 total cases > 784,353 dead > 15,047,779 recovered > > In the US: > > 5,655,974 total cases > 175,074 dead > 3,011,098 recovered A week from now the US will have more than 6,000,000 total cases and more than 180,000 dead from Covid-19. ---
**Author:** ![Banquet\_Bear](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/banquet_bear/32/373_2.png) [@Banquet\_Bear](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Banquet_Bear)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4345 "2020-08-20T04:28:38Z")
…the question was asked at the press conference: the answer was there are no cameras in the elevator, but protocol was for everyone to wear masks, including guests and the worker, so they should have been wearing masks, but can’t (at this stage) know for sure. This will probably be one of the things investigated over the next few days. Its fascinating detective work because we have so few cases they can do a deep dive into each and every case, I’ll keep everyone updated. ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4346 "2020-08-20T05:04:32Z")
Thanks for this, @Banquet_Bear. It’s fascinating to have a window into what’s going on over in NZ. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4347 "2020-08-20T12:57:43Z")
There was an earlier outbreak of 70 people which they think started from initial transmission in an elevator: > **[An asymptomatic coronavirus carrier infected an apartment neighbor without...](https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-jumped-between-people-via-elevator-surfaces-study-2020-7)** > > A woman infected her downstairs neighbor even though the two never came into close contact. Transmission likely occurred in the elevator. They think it was due to contact contamination from the buttons rather than air in the elevator. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4348 "2020-08-20T13:14:04Z")
> [@filmore](#): > > There was an earlier outbreak of 70 people which they think started from initial transmission in an elevator … > > They think it was due to contact contamination from the buttons rather than air in the elevator. That was on July 5th – I wonder if there has been a follow-up. My money would be all-in on “_it was the exhaled aerosols in the air, not the buttons_” … but that’s more from an impression of how I _believe_ (not _know_) COVID-19 works rather than hard evidence. I’ve come to dismiss any and all “_lasts for X days on surfaces!_” studies. From what I’ve read, if your not rubbing a veritable COVID-laden loogie into your eyes, you’re not going to get it from a surface. Again … belief, not knowledge. ---
**Author:** ![filmore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7993a0/32.png) [@filmore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/filmore)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4349 "2020-08-20T13:26:44Z")
One possibility might be that if someone is alone in an elevator, they may take off their mask to cough or sneeze and not be very careful about keeping the area sterile. It could be that both the air is thick with droplets and there are droplets on the surfaces. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4350 "2020-08-20T15:45:56Z")
Not sure there is any way to follow up …the CDC assessment at the time was based on the then current belief that aerosols were not a major factor and [this article](https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762692) that demonstrated surface contamination, as measured by detectable virus using RT-PCR, not viral culture, in the rooms of outbreak centers, but which also recognized that their results did not demonstrate the presence of any viable virus on such surfaces. (And even “viable” does not necessarily mean of sufficient numbers to be a transmission risk.) Since then of course the potential role of aerosols in at least some cases has become more elevated, and the role of surfaces as a major transmission source is less favored. Also _just a belief_ - but my belief is that the estimated 10% of all those infected who are super spreaders (responsible for an estimated 80% of all the spread) include specific individuals with high lung viral loads (which may not correlate with nasal viral loads) and who effectively aerosolize it out of their lungs into the air. Biggest harms when these relatively few specific individuals do so in crowded closed environments, but still able to spread even by having left aerosols wafting in an elevator that they had been in a few minutes before. ---
**Author:** ![bordelond](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bordelond/32/150_2.png) [@bordelond](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bordelond)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4351 "2020-08-20T17:02:28Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > Also _just a belief_ - but my belief is that the estimated 10% of all those infected who are super spreaders (responsible for an estimated 80% of all the spread) include specific individuals with high lung viral loads (which may not correlate with nasal viral loads) and who effectively aerosolize it out of their lungs into the air. Biggest harms when these relatively few specific individuals do so in crowded closed environments, but still able to spread even by having left aerosols wafting in an elevator that they had been in a few minutes before. Very much agreed. I wonder if there will ever be an easy-ish way to tell if an infected person is a superspreader. I also wonder if most infectious pathogens are the same way – do individual people vary wildly in how well their bodies transmit flu, meningitis, mononucleosis, norovirus, measles, chicken pox, etc. Is there such thing as a person with a severe flu who is somehow physically unable to spread the virus to others? ---
**Author:** ![Tfletch1](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tfletch1/32/5340_2.png) [@Tfletch1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tfletch1)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4352 "2020-08-20T19:54:47Z")
> [@bordelond](#): > > My money would be all-in on “ _it was the exhaled aerosols in the air, not the buttons_ ” … but that’s more from an impression of how I _believe_ (not _know_ ) COVID-19 works rather than hard evidence. I’ve come to dismiss any and all “ _lasts for X days on surfaces!_ ” studies. From what I’ve read, if your not rubbing a veritable COVID-laden loogie into your eyes, you’re not going to get it from a surface. Again … belief, not knowledge. I agree. That’s what scientists are now saying. The news article was published in July but the original preprint of the study was back in March when they had not yet discovered how much aerosols play a role in transmission. Since then, fomite transmission is now thought to be much more rare. It’s possible that he got on the elevator at some point right after she got off. Aerosols would still be present. Either no one was wearing a mask or she wasn’t wearing a mask and he was only wearing a light mask. That seems more probable based on the current understanding. ---
**Author:** ![MN\_Maenad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e95f7d/32.png) [@MN\_Maenad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MN_Maenad)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4353 "2020-08-20T20:43:52Z")
Looks like the data collection is moving back to the CDC. I hope this is a good thing, but I’m not holding my breath: [Trump administration to put CDC back in charge of collecting hospitals’ COVID-19 data: Birx - MarketWatch](https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-administration-puts-cdc-back-in-charge-of-hospitals-covid-19-data-collection-2020-08-20) ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4354 "2020-08-20T22:51:34Z")
U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) has covid. > **[Sen. Cassidy tests positive for virus, has COVID-19 symptoms](https://apnews.com/283fee7f880d5bb03e1270b5cdfe15e0)** > > BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy announced Thursday that he has tested positive for the ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4355 "2020-08-20T22:53:08Z")
Oh, and yeah: some people who went to the rally in Sturgis have covid: > **[Officials: Some who went to huge Sturgis rally have COVID-19](https://apnews.com/9911f482047845ab8b9638be6ad2478b)** > > SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — South Dakota health officials warned Thursday that a number of people who attended the 10-day Sturgis Motorcycle Rally this month, including some who came from out of state, have come down with COVID-19. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2020, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4356 "2020-08-20T23:54:48Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Oh, and yeah: some people who went to the rally in Sturgis have covid: How could anyone have forseen this? ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4357 "2020-08-21T03:30:06Z")
Here’s some news: > **[PNG demands China explain COVID-19 vaccine trial on miners](https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-health-international-news-asia-pacific-76c376657094a018f84db4731c3c754f)** > > CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — Papua New Guinea blocked the arrival of a flight carrying workers from China after a Chinese mine operator said its employees were given a coronavirus vaccine in a possible unauthorized trial, authorities said Friday. > [@](#): > > A document on company letterhead entitled “Vaccination Statement” said 48 Chinese employees “have been vaccinated with SARS-COV-2 vaccine” on Aug. 10. > > The statement was sent to the Papua New Guinea Health Department and advised that the vaccine could cause false-positive test results in those who received it, the newspaper said. > > Manning has written to Chinese Ambassador Xue Bing seeking “immediate clarification of the Chinese government’s position regarding the vaccination statement.” > > Ramu is a subsidiary of one of China’s largest state-owned enterprises, Metallurgical Corp. of China. > [@](#): > > National Pandemic Response Controller David Manning banned COVID-19 vaccine testing or trials in Papua New Guinea on Thursday and later noted the National Department of Health had not approved any trials. > > “Any vaccines imported into PNG must be approved by NDoH and must go through vigorous vaccine trials, protocols and procedures” and must be pre-qualified by the World Health Organization, Manning said in a statement on Friday. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2020, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758/4358 "2020-08-21T04:05:06Z")
22,861,685 total cases 797,105 dead 15,516,734 recovered In the US: 5,746,272 total cases 177,424 dead 3,095,484 recovered Yesterday’s numbers for comparison: > [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > 22,579,141 total cases > 791,002 dead > 15,301,257 recovered > > In the US: > > 5,700,931 total cases > 176,337 dead > 3,062,331 recovered [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758.md?page=216) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coronavirus-covid-19-2019-ncov-thread-2020-breaking-news/847758.md?page=218)