76 people being monitored for coronavirus, Oregon Health Authority says
Monday, February 24th 2020
“"We recognize people are very worried about COVID-19, particularly given that we don’t know everything we wish we could know about how it’s transmitted," said Lillian Shirley, director of the OHA Public Health Division. "People need to understand their real risks and feel confident the state and their local health departments are working hard to protect their health. We hope sharing these PUM (person under monitoring) and PUI (person under investigation) data will help do that."
The
Oregon Health Authority will release updates on the numbers each Tuesday starting on March 3.”
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“In fact, there are some encouraging trends, especially in Hubei Province, where most of the cases have been reported.
The epidemic there appears to have plateaued in late January and is continuing on a good trajectory. Dr. Bruce Aylward led a WHO trip to China with a scientific delegation that just concluded. On Sunday, he told reporters in Beijing that trend is real.
Aylward said that he'd spoken to a researcher in Wuhan who is testing potential drugs to treat COVID-19 "and when I asked him what challenge they're finding in trying to implement the trial, he said the single biggest one is recruiting new patients ... because of the drop in cases."
That's a good kind of problem. The message from China is that it's not hopeless, he says. It is possible to control this disease.
"Now we're starting to see countries like Italy take extremely aggressive actions," Aylward said. "What China has demonstrated is you have to do this, and if you do it you can save lives and prevent thousands of cases of what is a very difficult disease."”
H1N1 Was The Last Pandemic. Here's Why COVID-19 Isn't Yet In That Category
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“South Korea was racing Tuesday to contain the largest
outbreak of the new coronavirus outside China, as the new COVID-19 disease claimed more lives there and spread farther in Italy — Europe's first significant cluster of cases. The nearly 1,000 cases and 10 confirmed deaths from the illness in South Korea pushed the global tally of cases over 80,000 and the death toll closer to 3,000. Iran also reported more deaths from the disease on Tuesday, amid fears the Islamic clerics who run the country could be under-reporting cases there.
With 53 cases confirmed in the U.S. as of Monday, the Trump administration has sought billions of dollars in additional funding from Congress to buy protective gear and work on treatments and a vaccine for the new virus. Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi lambasted the White House funding plan as "long overdue and completely inadequate to the scale of this emergency."“
Coronavirus live updates: South Korea races to contain outbreak as virus fears slam stock markets
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“The Harvard epidemiology professor
Marc Lipsitch is exacting in his diction, even for an epidemiologist. Twice in our conversation he started to say something, then paused and said, “Actually, let me start again.” So it’s striking when one of the points he wanted to get exactly right was this: “I think the likely outcome is that it will ultimately not be containable.””
[...]
“Lipsitch predicts that, within the coming year, some 40 to 70 percent of people around the world will be infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. But, he clarifies
emphatically, this does not mean that all will have severe illnesses. “It’s likely that many will have mild disease, or may be asymptomatic,” he said. As with influenza, which is often life-threatening to people with chronic health conditions and of older age, most cases pass without medical care. (Overall, around
14 percent of people with influenza have no symptoms.)
Lipsitch is
far from alone in his belief that this virus will continue to spread widely. The emerging consensus among epidemiologists is that the most likely outcome of this outbreak is a new seasonal disease—a fifth “
endemic” coronavirus. With the other four, people are not known to develop long-lasting immunity. If this one follows suit, and if the disease continues to be as severe as it is now, “cold and flu season” could become “cold and flu and COVID-19 season.””
You’re Likely to Get the Coronavirus
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COVID-19: 2nd patient released from UC San Diego Health
Updated 6:25 PM PST February 24, 2020
“At this time, there are no more patients with confirmed or possible cases of COVID-19 being cared for at UC San Diego Health.”
