Coronavirus COVID-19 *Global Health Emergency* #14

[FrostOwl]

Sweden have reported 137 cases of CoViD-19 at 19,39 o'clock on March 6. 80 of these cases is in Stockholm and the surrounding county.

 

[Henry2326]

"These scientists haven't slept in weeks as they worked to get this paper out. Such an important and timely contribution to our understanding of #COVID19.
Led by a team at @NUnetsi incl. @alexvespi @mattk7 @jessicadavis_ @apastorepiontti & many more."
The effect of travel restrictions on the spread of the 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak Brennan on Twitter

 

[afitzy]

New CDC guidance says older adults should 'stay at home as much as possible' due to coronavirus - CNN

Quotes from article:

(CNN)Amid a coronavirus outbreak in the United States, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is encouraging older people and people with severe chronic medical conditions to "stay at home as much as possible."

This advice is on a CDC website that was posted Thursday, according to a CDC spokeswoman.
Early data suggests older people are twice as likely to have serious illness from the novel coronavirus, according to the CDC.
A Trump administration official tells CNN that the US Department of Health and Human Services "is in the process of doing targeted outreach to the elderly community and those that have serious underlying health conditions."



I live in Kirkland, epicenter of the US outbreak. We need Trump to take this seriously
The CDC guidance comes as two top infectious disease experts with ties to the federal government have advised people over 60 and those with underlying health problems to strongly consider avoiding activities that involve large crowds, such as traveling by airplane, going to movie theaters or concerts, attending family events, shopping at crowded malls, and going to religious services.
Dr. William Schaffner, a Vanderbilt University professor and longtime adviser to the CDC, said these two groups should strongly consider avoiding activities that involve large crowds, such as traveling by airplane, going to movie theaters, attending family events, shopping at crowded malls, and going to religious services.
People in these two groups "should strongly consider not doing these activities at this juncture," Schaffner said.
"This ought to be top of mind for people over 60, and those with underlying health problems, such as heart or lung disease, diabetes, or compromised immune systems," Schaffner added. "The single most important thing you can do to avoid the virus is reduce your face to face contact with people."


Key things we've learned this week as the deadly coronavirus outbreak grows in the US
Michael Osterholm, the former state epidemiologist for Minnesota, agreed that people over age 60 should take such steps.
"I think clearly the time has come to take these steps," said Osterholm, who has served on committees advising the federal government on public health issues and is director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
Both experts, who are over age 60, said they have taken some of these steps themselves.
"When my wife and I need to go shopping, we're going late at night when there are no crowds, and we get in and out efficiently," Schaffner said.
He added that his wife goes to a bridge club with dozens of other people -- but not anymore.
"She enjoys bridge and it's an important part of her life and it keeps her mentally active, but she's going to give it up for a while," he said.


If coronavirus spreads within the US, here's how daily life might change
Osterholm said he has canceled some air travel plans.
"It's always been easy to be abstract when you're a public health person when something's happening in Africa or Asia or the Arabian peninsula," he said. "But now it's happening here, and we have to internalize this."
Schaffner and Osterholm said data from China shows that elderly people and those with underlying health issues are most at risk of becoming seriously ill and of dying from the novel coronavirus. Younger and healthier people often get only mild to moderate symptoms, or sometimes no symptoms at all.

The basics of 'social distancing'
Schaffner and Osterholm said their advice has some flexibility for important events.
"This is not an instruction. This is not an order," Schaffner said. "I'm not asking everyone to stay at home and lock the door for a month. I'm saying, be thoughtful every time you contemplate getting together with a crowd or group."

For example, if a grandparent wants to attend a grandchild's wedding, they could sit off to the side, and bump elbows with relatives instead of hugging and kissing.
But someone might want to avoid, for example, a regular weekend religious service.
"Don't go. Be reverent at home," Schaffner said.
CNN's Alexandra Benisek, John Bonifield, Jacqueline Howard and Gina Yu contributed to this report.

 

[Henry2326]

ALPHARETTA, Ga. — Atlanta pastor Andy Stanley has asked an unprecedented favor of people in his congregation: “Please skip church.”

Stanley, the pastor of North Point Community Church, Buckhead Church, Decatur City Church and several others, sent a letter to congregants Friday titled “Permission to stay home!”

Stanley said as concerns grow around the spread of the coronavirus, he’s asking anyone who has traveled to affected countries, been exposed to someone with the flu or who feels sick themselves to stay home from church.

Atlanta pastor amid coronavirus outbreak: ‘Please skip church’ if sick

 

[Henry2326]

Reuters: Italy has ordered all major sporting events throughout the country, including top-flight Serie A soccer games, to be played without fans for one month in a bid to curb Europe's worst coronavirus outbreak.
Vincent Lee on Twitter

LONDON, March 6 (Reuters) - The British government has called a meeting with its sports authorities and broadcasters to discuss how events could be staged without fans present if the coronavirus outbreak escalates, two people familiar with the matter said.
Vincent Lee on Twitter

 

[Henry2326]

A Montgomery County health officer briefed the media on three #coronavirus cases in Maryland stating the patients contracted the disease while traveling and were ‘doing well clinically’ Coronavirus found on cruise ship as more U.S. states report cases Reuters on Twitter

 

[Inthedetails]

ALPHARETTA, Ga. — Atlanta pastor Andy Stanley has asked an unprecedented favor of people in his congregation: “Please skip church.”

Stanley, the pastor of North Point Community Church, Buckhead Church, Decatur City Church and several others, sent a letter to congregants Friday titled “Permission to stay home!”

Stanley said as concerns grow around the spread of the coronavirus, he’s asking anyone who has traveled to affected countries, been exposed to someone with the flu or who feels sick themselves to stay home from church.

Atlanta pastor amid coronavirus outbreak: ‘Please skip church’ if sick

Have people noticed changes in services at church?
jmo

 

[Lilibet]

Why hasn't America been using the WHO tests?

I found the answer. Google is my friend. I hope this article helps folks understand the criticism of HOW this has been handled. As I keep saying, it is not automatically a partisan attack on WHO made these decisions.

The CDC, a U.S. federal agency, opted to develop its own test kit rather than use the existing one recommended by the World Health Organization; it is not yet clear why. Early on, CDC sent 200 of its test kits to state labs across the country (each kit can test 700 to 800 samples), but in mid-February, the agency announced that some of the kits were flawed, and asked labs to send samples to the CDC's central lab in Atlanta to be tested, a move that delayed results by several days.

Much more at link:
Why US coronavirus testing lags so far behind other countries'

 

[Hatfield]

Is there a current, accurate map of effected states?

The only map I can find that I think is doing a fairly good job of covering the cases for all of US is the BNO map. Link below. They are a little late lately with some of the new states reporting in the US because they wait to get official state figures, but usually within a day or so they seem to catch up.

You can zoom in and out, and also drag the map left and right. Then if you click on a DOT, it gives latest information for that area.

You may already be familiar with this map as we have shared it a lot when this started in China.

ETA - I am also including another site link "Worldometer" below that one that doesnt have a map for US but does have some good information for the world cases everywhere.

SARS-CoV-2 (BNO News / BNO Noticias Coronavirus tracker) - خرائطي على Google

Coronavirus Update (Live): 102,050 Cases and 3,494 Deaths from COVID-19 Wuhan China Virus Outbreak - Worldometer

 

[Henry2326]

FLOYD COUNTY, Ga. — A presumed case of coronavirus in north Georgia has led to a precautionary self-quarantine for 20 hospital employees who had contact with the patient.

Floyd Medical Center spokesperson Daniel Bevels confirmed to 11Alive that the employees will remain under quarantine for 14 days from the time they made contact with the patient.

Suspected coronavirus case at Floyd Medical Center leads to self-quarantine for 20

 

[Henry2326]

Breaking: British Columbia has identified eight new cases of #COVID19, including the first known case of community transmission. That woman is in Vancouver Coastal Health region, detected during regular influenza testing.
Andrea Woo | 鄔瑞楓 on Twitter

 

[Henry2326]

A Seattle-based employee has been advised by their doctor that they likely have COVID-19, though still awaiting final testing. While the employee has not been at a Twitter office for several weeks & hasn't been in contact w/others - we’re closing our Seattle office to deep clean.
Twitter Comms on Twitter

 

[JerseyGirl]

Gov. Ige confirms first case of coronavirus in Hawaii

Hawaii resident who was a passenger aboard the Grand Princess cruise ship that docked in Hawaii in late February.

 

[jjenny]

Some birds deal with danger by burying their heads in the sand. If you barely test, you will have low numbers of infections.

 

[K.jill]

The only map I can find that I think is doing a fairly good job of covering the cases for all of US is the BNO map. Link below. They are a little late lately with some of the new states reporting in the US because they wait to get official state figures, but usually within a day or so they seem to catch up.

You can zoom in and out, and also drag the map left and right. Then if you click on a DOT, it gives latest information for that area.

You may already be familiar with this map as we have shared it a lot when this started in China.

ETA - I am also including another site link "Worldometer" below that one that doesnt have a map for US but does have some good information for the world cases everywhere.

SARS-CoV-2 (BNO News / BNO Noticias Coronavirus tracker) - خرائطي على Google

Coronavirus Update (Live): 102,050 Cases and 3,494 Deaths from COVID-19 Wuhan China Virus Outbreak - Worldometer

I have been referring to this one quite a bit
Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS

 

[Deleted member 158085]

The only map I can find that I think is doing a fairly good job of covering the cases for all of US is the BNO map. Link below. They are a little late lately with some of the new states reporting in the US because they wait to get official state figures, but usually within a day or so they seem to catch up.

You can zoom in and out, and also drag the map left and right. Then if you click on a DOT, it gives latest information for that area.

You may already be familiar with this map as we have shared it a lot when this started in China.

ETA - I am also including another site link "Worldometer" below that one that doesnt have a map for US but does have some good information for the world cases everywhere.

SARS-CoV-2 (BNO News / BNO Noticias Coronavirus tracker) - خرائطي على Google

Coronavirus Update (Live): 102,050 Cases and 3,494 Deaths from COVID-19 Wuhan China Virus Outbreak - Worldometer

I’m going to ask mods to copy this to page 1 of the new threads. Thanks!

@JerseyGirl

 

[Hatfield]

Is there a current, accurate map of effected states?

Oh, and just found out on this link below, if you scroll past the international figures, at the bottom of that long list, you can click on USA and if you scroll up after clicking USA, it gives totals for each city. Again, they sometimes are a little late like a day or so to catch up with the breaking state news, but they usually get them pretty close and fairly quickly for US.

Tracking coronavirus: Map, data and timeline

 

[Deleted member 158085]

I have been referring to this one quite a bit
Operations Dashboard for ArcGIS

@JerseyGirl Can we carry this one to the next thread, too?

 

[Henry2326]

Trevor Bradford concerning Seattle forecasts....

(This analysis and tweet thread in collaboration with @famulare_mike) The existence of a community transmission cluster of #COVID19 in Snohomish and King Counties is now supported by 8 confirmed and sequenced cases (Trevor Bedford on Twitter). 1/7

As of today, in addition to the one traveller case, there are ~60 more cases in King and Snohomish counties from which we don't yet know the sequences. 2/7

Many of them are surely related to this cluster and some may be recent traveller importations. But some may also represent other clusters not yet confirmed. The model below describes our best estimates for only the confirmed cluster. 3/7

Using forward simulation, with a doubling time of 6.2 (5.1, 8.2) days, we estimate the prevalence of active infections on Mar 5 is 620 (90% uncertainty interval 120, 1600). 4/7

If growth continues unabated, this cluster alone may be responsible for 1100 (210, 2800) active infections by March 10 and 2000 (370, 5000) by March 15. 5/7 Trevor Bedford on Twitter

We think this phylogenetic evidence continues to support the comprehensive actions recommended by @KCPubHealth, @SnoHD, @WADeptHealth to reduce the rate of transmission. Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Public Health recommendations to protect our community - King County 6/7

 

[Henry2326]

South Carolina

Officials do not know how the patient in Kershaw County contracted COVID-19.

The Post and Courier on Twitter