North Korea’s Kim Jong Un gets a letter from Trump, saying that the US is prepared to help North Korea with anti-epidemic work.
Nice.
However, if you are from New York, tough shit, no help from the Feds for you.
Senator Rand Paul first Senator to get COVID-19:
Why would someone with no signs get tested? Proximity to POTUS/Veep?
Would having pneumonia, which she has, qualify as an underlying condition?
This sounds serious … next thursday is March 26th
…and now it’s at 8,149 cases. Apparently a reporting glitch. I should do as Snowboarder Bo does and not check until the end of the day.
Coronavirus, if it hits you badly enough, produces pneumonia. That is how it kills. The girl went in with pneumonia and tested positive several days later. Chances are her pneumonia was caused by a COVID-19 infection.
More things; two survivors from the 1918-1919 flu pandemic (both over 100 years old) give their comments on the Coronavirus pandemic.
Seeing as how she received her diagnosis of pneumonia and COVID19 within days of each other, I am assuming that the former was caused by the latter. Mayhap that is not what actually happened, but it is a reasonable assumption to make IMHO.
As if this whole situation wasn’t weird enough, we now have this to look forward to:
“Members of extremist groups are encouraging one another to spread the virus, if contracted, through bodily fluids and personal interactions,” according to the alert issued by the FBI’s New York office Thursday.
Intercepted messages from these groups show members were asked to use spray bottles filled with body fluids to attack police. Others were directed to spread to Jews by going to “any place they may be congregated, to include markets, political offices, businesses and places of worship.”
“Extremist groups” are White power assholes, by the way. They could have just said that in the story.
The number of cases in Taiwan has jumped recently, more than triple from a little more than a week ago and up to 167.
Some of the latest news:
I think I reported this the other day, I think but it’s relevant. Taiwan has closed it’s borders to nonresidents with only a few exceptions. Many people live here and do visa runs to Hong Kong every 90 days. I have a friend who does that. It’s not possible not.
People returning home from overseas are not allowed to use public transportation home and have to take a taxi if they can’t arrange for someone to pick them up. Long lines in the airport.
Taiwan is barring international transits starting tonight after a number of infected Chinese used Taoyuan Airport to try to get home.
Yesterday, there were only 7,800 passengers at Taoyuan Airport, compared to the normal daily average of 133,000.
A person required to be in 14-day quarantine decided that’s boring and went clubbing. They were fined NT$1,000,000 which is about US$33,000. Taiwan still isn’t under lockdown so clubs are bars are operating.
Taiwan still have few cases of community spread, but is very carefully watching the situation.
There have been a number of articles in various international media praising the Taiwan’s response. So far, things have not been too bad, but it can get worse.
Austria news today:
[ul]
[li]Eight entire districts in the state of Upper Austria are now under strict quarantine.[/li]
[li]The city of Vienna has produced a two-minute cartoon video for kids, with subtitles available in multiple languages (including English). The video explains what coronavirus is and why kids can no longer play with their friends or visit their grandparents.[/li]
[li]The Czech government has informed Austria that its border will remain closed for at least half a year. Exceptions include the transport of goods, cross-border workers, and foreigners permanently departing the Czech Republic.[/li]
[li] Austria’s justice minister has said that children of separated parents may now resume their visitation schedules, provided appropriate precautions are taken. She’s also said that the legal measures taken to control the spread of the coronavirus have built-in sunset clauses making them expire, at the latest, at the end of the year.[/li]
[li]Current statistics: 3244 infected, 16 dead, 9 recovered. The curve appears to be flattening; new infections from Saturday to Sunday rose just 15.3%, compared to around 40% the previous weekend.[/li]
[/ul]
I think it is fair that the POTUS/VP, members of Congress and cabinet officials pretty much be tested regularly. There’s already enough panic out there without the leaders of the government starting to drop over dead. Especially given how elderly many are.
Can you imagine how much worse it would be if we had Trump, Pelosi, McConnell, Schumer, et al. either dead or in intensive care with Acting President Pence trying to reassure us (with 3 of those advisors behind him not in the press conference because they are dead) that all is well?
Since you are keeping tabs on Austria, we today saw on the news that the virus seems to have been going around in ski areas like Ischgl and Mayrhofen recently. Whole groups of fairly young people that got ill when getting back (or during the last days of their holiday.
Verstuurd vanaf mijn moto g(6) met Tapatalk
Harbor Freight Tools will make a big donation of supplies.
Maybe we need a thread for companies stepping up?
Canada is up to 1420 cases with 20 deaths, including one death in Toronto (up from 1050 cases and 13 deaths yesterday). Several new assessment clinics have opened.
Epidemiological experts can have significant differences of opinion and have given various estimates for the real number of cases. It would be more useful if hospitalization, ICU and deaths were reported by age cohort. The number of cases is one part of the picture only.
In the few open stores social distancing (which some argue should be called physical distancing) is being taken seriously. Even the parks are surprisingly empty; the university campus is deserted.
I’ve heard people argue that there are privacy concerns in giving the age of those who’ve died or been infected. Just saying.
GIF (so, short) that offers a vivid illustration of what social-or-physical distancing can accomplish:
Taiwan announces the gender and age of those infected.
Perhaps, but what was wanted wasn’t age but an age range (cohort), that is, folks 0-20, 21-40, 41-60, 61-80, over 80.
I would be very surprised if this is possible in the US. I think private insurers could probably do it on their own, but not sure how incentivized they’d be to do so. It would probably cost them a bundle, and their excuse could be protecting the privacy of their members.