ALL HANDS, ON THE 1MC:
(ABCNNBCBS) "CDC warns Americans of 'significant disruption' from coronavirus.
U.S. health officials issued a strong warning about novel coronavirus on Tuesday.Until now, health officials said they'd hoped to prevent community spread in the U.S. But following community transmissions in Italy, Iran and South Korea, health officials believe the virus may not be able to be contained at the border and that Americans should prepare for a "significant disruption."
"Ultimately, we expect we will see community spread in this country," Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said Tuesday at a news conference.
Messonnier added that Americans should channel their concern about the virus into preparing for its arrival.
Officials said that Americans should continue to practice protective measures -- hand-washing, staying home from work when sick -- while local officials should make sure systems are in place -- teleschooling, working remotely -- should face-to-face interactions need to be reduced. Health care facilities should be prepared to increase telehealth systems and delay elective surgeries should the need arise, they said.
Messonnier noted that every community's response will be different. What's appropriate for a community with local transmission may not be appropriate for a community in which no local transmissions has occurred.
So far there has been no community spread in the United States. Forty-three people repatriated on charter flights from Wuhan, China, and from the Diamond Princess cruise ship have tested positive for COVID-19, and 15 cases have been detected in the U.S. via the country's health system. Among those 57 cases, only two involved human transmission in the United States, and those transmissions were among members of the same household.
For those having any difficulty parsing officialese, let me be crystal clear:Health Secretary Alex Azar told reporters at a Tuesday afternoon press conference that U.S. would be undertaking "the most aggressive containment efforts in modern history"
"We are going to continue taking those measures but we are realistic that we will see more cases and as we see more cases we might have to take community mitigation efforts," he said.
If the White House's request for funds is improved, the $1.25 billion will be earmarked for accelerated vaccine development, the procurement of equipment and supplies and to support preparedness and response activities, according to the White House Office of Management and Budget."
1) Kung Flu is coming.
2) It's going to affect your everyday life for some weeks to months.
3) Including up to 3% of people who'll probably die. Hopefully less, but...
4) Quarantines, like closing schools, businesses, and public events and activities, are in the cards.
BIGLY.
(That's what "community mitigation efforts" are. Capice?)
5) That means you won't be going to the game, the movies, the mall, or the supermarket. Possibly not even work and school.
6) The CDC just told you to get your collective sh*t in one bag, and start preparing to bunker in at home for an extended period of time. EXTENDED. Which means as long as "for 2020". Possibly ALL of it. It's now February. Let that sink in. Act intelligently now to avoid a panic.
7) Don't even think about going to the hospital for this. You'll be #463,197 when you get there, and we'll be serving #18. If you're lucky.
If you want the rest of the story from the rest of the world, condensed, and with the politics hacked out, the excerpt continues below.
We'll talk about this further later on.
Otherwise, that is all.
Carry on.
"At the same time, Bruce Aylward, an epidemiologist who led a team of international experts in China, said that the epidemic is slowing in China.
In addition to a falling rate of new infections, hospital beds are opening up and there's no wait for tests at fever clinics, Aylward explained. It's impossible to know if this trend of decreasing cases will continue, but for now, Aylward thinks China's response to the outbreak, which included rapidly building hospitals and imposing strict lockdown measures in cities hardest hit by the virus, is working.
"The implications are that you can actually effect the course of this disease, but it takes a very aggressive and tough program," Aylward said at a WHO news briefing in Geneva on Tuesday.
As of Tuesday, China's National Health Commission said it's received more than 80,000 reports of confirmed cases and 2,696 deaths on the Chinese mainland. More than 83% of the cases and all but one death were in Hubei province, which includes the city of Wuhan. Chinese authorities have since placed the city under lockdown.
An additional 121 confirmed infections have been reported in the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao as well as Taiwan, with two deaths in Hong Kong and one in Taiwan, according to China's National Health Commission.
WHO experts in China are currently reporting a 2% to 4% fatality rate in Wuhan and a 0.7% fatality rate outside the city. For mild cases of the disease, there's a roughly two-week recovery rate, and for more severe cases, the recovery rate is between three and six weeks.
COVID-19 causes symptoms similar to pneumonia, ranging from the mild, such as a slight cough, to the more severe, including fever and difficulty breathing, according to the CDC. There is no vaccine yet for the virus.
The outbreak of the new coronavirus has continued to spread overseas, with at least 2,069 confirmed cases in at least 33 other countries, resulting in at least 33 fatalities, according to the latest data from the WHO, which has declared the epidemic a global health emergency.
Although the virus "absolutely" has the potential to become a pandemic, WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said it's still too soon to classify it that way.
"For the moment, we are not witnessing the uncontained global spread of this virus and we are not witnessing large-scale severe disease or deaths," he told reporters at a press conference in Geneva on Monday. "Does this virus have pandemic potential? Absolutely it has. Are we there yet from our assessment? Not yet."
The heightened warning came on the same day that officials said a relative of a U.S. service member in South Korea had been diagnosed with the novel coronavirus. In a press release, U.S. Forces Korea announced that it had been informed by South Korea's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that a military dependent living in Daegu had tested positive for COVID-19.
It's the first time a U.S. Forces Korea-related individual has been infected with the virus, according to the press release.
South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo said as of Monday there were 13 South Korean military personnel infected.
Partly as a result, U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper said Monday that the United States and South Korea were considering scaling back an upcoming joint military command exercise.
Japan has the third-highest national total, when including the nearly 700 cases diagnosed aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship.
The cruise ship has been quarantined at Yokohama port since Feb. 5 and 695 people on board have tested positive for COVID-19. Three passengers have died, all of whom were Japanese nationals and in their 80s, according to Japan's Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare.
All those who have been infected were brought ashore for treatment, while the rest were confined to their rooms until the quarantine period ends. Passengers who have tested negative for the virus have been disembarking the ship since last Wednesday.
Clusters of coronavirus cases in Italy and Iran have raised concerns of the global spread of the outbreak.
As of Tuesday, Italy's Ministry of Health had recorded 322 confirmed cases and 10 fatalities. The majority of those cases were in the northern Lombardy region, prompting some towns to suspend public gatherings, demonstrations and sporting events and to close schools, businesses and restaurants.
The initial cases in Italy were linked to Chinese tourists, according to the health ministry. Syracuse University alerted students Tuesday that it was closing its Florence campus for the semester and helping the 342 students who were studying there return home.
"We believe this is absolutely necessary to reduce the risk of our students being unable to leave Italy due to Italian containment efforts," the school said in a statement.
Switzerland and Austria, which border northern Italy, reported their first COVID-19 cases Tuesday.
At least 95 cases have been confirmed in Iran, along with 15 deaths, the country's state-run news agency reported.
Schools were closed across the country on Tuesday for a second day, and health workers have begun a daily sanitizing of public buses and the Tehran metro.
Among those infected is Iran's deputy health minister, Iraj Harirchi, who is head of the national headquarters tasked with containing the coronavirus outbreak. He had strongly opposed suggestions to quarantine the hard-hit city of Qom.
Meanwhile, a tourist hotel on the island of Tenerife in Spain's Canary Islands has been placed under quarantine after an Italian guest tested positive for COVID-19. The guest, a doctor from Italty's virus-hit Lombardy region, went to a local hospital on Monday and was placed in isolation along with his wife, who tested negative for the disease, public health officials for the Canary Islands told ABC News.
Around 1,000 guests staying at the Costa Adeje Palace hotel have been confined to their rooms while health workers test everyone for the virus on Tuesday. All samples will be sent to Madrid for testing, officials told ABC News.
So far, Spain has two confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, according to the WHO. "
21 comments:
Heard the mp3 linked in one previous post, and sent it to my family. My family thinks this is just like the flu... It is like they do not have eyes in their faces.
Because the world was too stupidly greedy to quarantine China when the infection was known but still contained.
If this pathetically weak bug ends up killing 1/1000th as many as the common cold does yearly, I'll be surprised.
"...According to new estimates published today, between 291,000 and 646,000 people worldwide die from seasonal influenza-related respiratory illnesses each year, higher than a previous estimate of 250,000 to 500,000...." (CDC, 2017, link above)
~ ~ ~
Everybody keep your sphincters firmly clenched, and maintain situational awareness as to how govt-media instigated panics massage the global markets for the big players who've had their trades in long before the public news, and will roto-rooter you once you're all-in on margin the wrong way.
I wonder why the catchy name, Kung Flu, that you've invented for it hasn't caughten on with the general public? Couldn't be racist could it? Couldn't be that China would be delivering another condescending public outrage announcement about what a poor choice the name Kung Flu is when the disease already has an "official" moniker, even though they're responsible for the outbreak?
I'm sure there was some catchy gallows humor name of the Bubonic Plague back in the day. I just can't seem to ... oh wait Black Death. There's the ticket.
Nemo
"Ultimately, we expect we will see community spread in this country," Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said Tuesday at a news conference.
Messonnier added that Americans should channel their concern about the virus into preparing for its arrival."
Just read on one of my blogs that Dr. Messonnier just happens to be Rod Rosenstein's only sister--- So who would a tanked US economy benefit, hum?
So, mike, do the math, and work out how many is 30X 291,000-646,000.
Basic coronavirus is 30X more lethal than seasonal influenza.
18M dead, worldwide, is getting into the lower range of Spanish Flu numbers.
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/1918-flu-pandemic
If you consider that a "pathetically weak bug", you haven't been paying close enough attention.
meh......tfat is right. 300m+
> Basic coronavirus is 30X more lethal than seasonal influenza.
And 30x less contagious than influenza, if that. Essentially, if you're not an elderly chain-smoker or hookah-huffer, you don't appear to have much to worry about from coronavirus relative to the common cold. Unlike the Spanish Flu, this isn't preferentially killing healthy young people (except maybe unless you're a Chinese doctor who blew the whistle when the Beijing Communist Party had really wanted you to shutupayaface).
I will go so far as to assert the following: If it were no containment in place whatsoever regarding either SARS-1 or SARS-2, their death tolls, multiplied by ten, would still fit comfortably inside the "291,000-646,000" seasonal flu figure variation with no one the wiser since the elderly drop like flies all the time anyway whether they're frying their lungs out with tobacco tar or not. It's just not newsworthy news when half a million people die of the cold every year *if* that many die every year. For example, "Swine Flu", which killed between 150,000–575,000 has already been forgotten about even though it was barely over a decade ago.
In a curious coincidence, SARS-1 occurred from November 2002 to July 2003, almost perfectly overlapping the final stock-market washout following the 2000 "Dot.com Bubble" crash, of which SARS had absolutely nothing to do with. But I've no doubt that certain shakers were paying attention, (as well as Swine-Flu overlapping the 2009 S&L debacle crash) and squirreled that knowledge away for later at the other end of the massaged Keynesian cyclical Fed shenanigans a decade or so later where we are now. They're always looking for a new angle to play as an "explanation" for market-movement in the media-circus era.
Mike, you're talking out of your ass, and you've got the results on the cruise liner to show it's one helluva lot more contagious than flu.
All you're adding to this discussion is ass gas, not information.
You want to sniff your own farts, that's your business.
But you shouldn't show it off.
@mike18xx: I'm no medical professional but I've seen estimates of an R0 from 2 up to 7.5. At this point these numbers and the trend of cases indicate much more contagious than your regular flu. Even if the R0 is the same the fact that apparently Kung Flu is contagious when someone is asymptomatic would appear to be a factor that would increase R0. My guess is that regular flu would have also have a higher R0 if when you had you did not nearly immediately feel like shit and stay in bed.
It all boils down to risk assessment. Lets assume we have good numbers and the fatality rate is only 2%. No big deal.. unless you are the 2%. Now, factor in asymptomatic transmission. So you won't even know you've been exposed until you feel like shit but have already spread it to numerous other people.
As has been stated on this blog and other places multiple times the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th order effects will likely be the real bugger. Our systems are pretty much all highly technological and consequently fragile. Here is a though exercise: how often does your PC for phone do weird shit that can only be fixed by human intervention. Now apply that to every supply chain, the electrical grid, municipal water supplies, hospitals.. etc. in an environment where very few people are going to work at these places and possibly up to 2% of them are dead. Lets not forget the effect on M2.
This may be like an earthquake in the ocean.. no biggie cause its in the middle of nowhere but the tsunami generated has disastrous effects far from the epicenter.
I wouldn't hole up yet.. but it is most certainly time to consider it a real possibility. Not a likely scenario yet.. but very well could be.
To quote our host "Plan accordingly".
Just read on one of my blogs that Dr. Messonnier just happens to be Rod Rosenstein's only sister--- So who would a tanked US economy benefit, hum?
Of course, but it's not like speeding that process up by a few days or weeks will make a difference in November, assuming any of the old Presidential candidates are still alive by them, Pete Buttplug is the only young one.
Uncharacteristically, the CDC has not yet published a transcript of that teleconference, and the administration reactions of the video press conference later that day, with Alan Azar, Secretary of HHS, and Dr. Tony Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in the NIH being the only familiar faces, no sign of the CDC director, plus now Trump's announced press conference this evening, tells me she went beyond the administration's current narrative.
But that doesn't mean she didn't say anything that wasn't true, certainly none of the published or excerpted audio soundbites struck me as incorrect. And she has one other reason to do this: the part of the CDC she's responsible for is abjectly failing in testing. Getting better, now 10 locations in 5 dates, but she wasn't willing to give any date for when the CDC's RT-PCR test would be rolled out nationwide. Meanwhile Hawaii believes "not before mid-March" and is requesting that they be allowed to use Japanese test kits, and other states are asking the FDA to allow them to devise their own kits.
Given that Dr. Messonnier is reasonably certain along with the rest of us that when our public health infrastructure actually starts looking for community transmission they're going to find it, probably lots of it, striking this sort of blow, claiming today that the CDC will find it and what that means in their moving to mitigation which she and her boss have already been talking about, might help her position.
Aesop wrote, and I replied:
> > Basic coronavirus is 30X more lethal than
> > seasonal influenza.
>
> And 30x less contagious than influenza, if that.
> Essentially, if you're not an elderly chain-smoker
> or hookah-huffer, you don't appear to have much to
> worry about from coronavirus relative to the common cold.
~ ~ ~
Our astute regular audience will note the distinction being made between lethality and contagiousness, as they are not the same thing *at all*, and have nothing to do with one another.
Mr. Anonymous then enjoined: "Mike, you're talking out of your ass, and you've got the results on the cruise liner..."
--How many have *died* on said cruise liner?
(Let's give Mr. Anonymous plenty of time to research this while the music plays.)
Time's up. Let's look at the "results":
Of the so-far 705 tested-positive cases on the Diamond Princess, *four* have died. All four were octogenarians. 5/705 yields a lethality rate of 0.567% and this lethality rate is arguably elevated given a data-set skewed toward the elderly, e.g., cruise-ship retirees one-foot-in-the-coffin already, cooped up indoors aboard in quarantine and sneezing all over each other. (Indeed, one marvels that only 19% of the 3700 passengers and crew tested positive during the full month from "Patient Zero" boarding to the ship being put ashore.)
--Now, you can tell me why *Chinese* lethality is 3.4% as opposed to 0.567%, just as soon you head over there and figure out what's going on for yourself and report back to us.
I have my own guess, and it involves them smoking three packs a day since infancy.
Using the Diamond Princess as a sufficiently large (for nominally viable statistically analysis) data-set outside of communist management, we have approximately 20% contagiousness with 0.0% lethality in the subset under eighty years of age.
Dramatic hamster is shocked.
CDC headed by a member of the Rosenstein family...we gonna be told a lot of lies...
Not that it matters much, since the Protocols of the Elders of *snicker* Rosenstein (or whatever other ZOG nonsense one chooses to be fascinated by) has zip-doodah to do with the numbers China is releasing.
The fatality rate in China, whatever it may actually be, is the fatality rate with zero treatment, among smokers who live in unheated buildings.
The fatality rate on the plague ship in Japan, whatever it may be when all is over, is the fatality rate with top notch medical care.
I do expect that those two fatality rates will be different.
If we get pandemic Corona-chan here in the US, nobody is getting treatment after the hospital beds and cots in corridors get filled. Don't count on the electric or natural gas grids staying up, so your house might be unheated, too. Our fatality rate could end up being closer to the Chinese number than the plague ship number.
"...The fatality rate on the plague ship in Japan, whatever it may be when all is over, is the fatality rate with top notch medical care...."
--I think this blog has pretty well established that they weren't getting "top notch medical care" while still aboard ship, I.e., was anybody getting plasma transfusions aboard ship? I doubt it. More like: "Here, Grandpa; take a huff of oxygen and swallow these antibiotics of dubious worth, and hope your smoker's lungs can hold on!" is about all they can do. You're 80+ and have pneumonia. Will you make it? Jostle your Magic 8-Ball.
People on the ship were getting pulled off and hospitalized once they showed symptoms.
The level of contagiousness is pretty well-established by the fact that non-symptomatic people were spreading the disease, in ever-widening circles, for the exact reasons laid out at the time, and at a rate of a dozen new infections/day.
Flu doesn't propagate like that.
And anyone likely to make it into a hospital bed for treatment from this is going to have to be on death's door. Anything less will be kicked the fuck back out. We don't have enough hospital beds for everything day-to-day, and this virus. Most days, we barely have enough for day-to-day stuff. That means people will die, waiting, because there's no choice. And we aren't going to pull half a million ICU beds, complete with nursing staff 24/7/365, out of our asses overnight to deal with it.
Lethality in China is unknowable; their numbers are all b.s.
Extrapolating the fatality rate from the Death Princess is pointless, because it isn't how it's going to be once this becomes widespread.
There will be zero medical care after about a week, and all care after that will be self-care, home care, or no care. And 2-4% fatality. Rounded average to 3%.
Which is 30 times more than any flu you've ever seen (flu mortality runs at 0.1%). Somewhere between 1.5M and 9M fatalities nationwide, barring a miracle. I broke that down already
https://raconteurreport.blogspot.com/2020/02/more-fun-with-math.html
Trust me, 1 death, 20 visits, and 10 hospital admits/day, every day, for a year, in every hospital you know of (and worse than that in the bigger ones) is going to be an unmitigated shitstorm.
3%, if everybody gets it, means in every classroom or office with 33 workers, or every apartment complex with 33 tenants, somebody's going to die.
This ain't the flu.
If it was, they wouldn't be talking about "community mitigation efforts".
The phrase, "Whistling past the graveyard" came from somewhere - meaning that the habit of people dismissing any threat to themselves, their family and their community because it doesn't fit their worldview, is not at all new. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt.
FACT: this disease is at least as communicable as the "ordinary" (i.e. not Spanish flu from 100 years ago) flu, and quite likely more so;
FACT: the mortality rate is somewhere between 2.0% and 4.0%. Of COURSE that depends on your age, your immune status before you get it, how much smoke/pollution your lungs have been exposed to, WHEN you go to a clinic, doctor or ER and begin to get treatment, the quality of the treatment (as in, being bled by leaches is probably not a high-probability-of-success treatment for the Kung Flu) and several other factors...not the least of which is how overloaded the medical system is. While we have better tools to fight this thing, those tools can only be applied if they actually exist and are applied to a particular patient. Knowing what to do to cure a disease, without the medications to actually do that, is rather useless. Our system gets overloaded...and you're looking at a substantially higher lethality rate.
Normalcy bias: believing that something outside of the normal experience and set of expectations cannot happen, mainly because the person afflicted with Normalcy Bias cannot or does not wish to, seriously consider the possibility that such an event could actually occur. Those afflicted generally are correct...until they aren't, at which point they often become nominees for that year's Darwin Awards.
Novel Coronavirus infection confirmed in NORCAL. BLUF: Patient hospitalized over a week ago was transferred to UC Davis Med on the 19th(!!!), while intubated and on a ventilator. 4 days after CDC test is requested, it's finally performed, and the case was confirmed yesterday.
https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/california/new-case-of-novel-coronavirus-in-northern-california-cdc/2242792/
The thing about the death rates with this thing is that people don't normally look at such large numbers. Many, many people get a cold and/or the flu every year. I'd hazard a guess that it approaches 50%. A rhinovirus, influenza, something. Those things have extremely low mortality rates and still manage to kill a substantial amount each year. The way this is spreading, we can make a reasonable assumption that it's at least as infectious as the aforementioned things. If even with quarantine, say 1/4 of the population gets this, 330M people x .25 x .03 = 2,475,000. That's appx the population of Houston. <5% death rates aren't too scary, until the number of die-rolls has ten digits (worldwide).
And this doesn't account for deaths from food and medical shortages after everything goes on lockdown like China has.
You can do what you like, Mikey.
But...
Do not expect anyone to help you in any way if things don't turn out as rosey as you think. You come to my door and all you'll get 7.62 NATO.
Post a Comment