MimosaMornings
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Coronavirus COVID-19 *Global Health Pandemic* #20
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SAMS
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An interesting read:
I’m an American in Italy, where 60 million are trapped by the coronavirus. It’s horrific.
Camogli, Italy —
Under other Circumstances, being homebound here might not seem a bad thing. Not for nothing is this stretch of the Italian Riviera called the Golfo Paradiso, the Gulf of Paradise. From our apartment, my wife and I look out at the Mediterranean, the nearby city of Genoa and the snow-capped mountains beyond. Now, with no one supposed to leave home, there are no errands to run, grace periods have been granted on mortgage, utility and tax bills. My shelves bulge with books that I now have more time to read.
But these circumstances are horrific. Italy is living through a national tragedy of incomprehensible proportions. More than 10,000 people here are ill with the coronavirus and more than 800 have died. Things could get worse, much worse, before they get better.
And no one knows when this will end.
This region, known as Liguria, is not the worst hit, but is just south of the areas that are. On Saturday, March 7, our streets and beaches teemed with tourists from the colder cities of the north.
On Sunday morning, the government ordered the northern regions most affected by the virus sealed off. Two days later the whole country was locked down.
On Wednesday night, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced the nationwide closure of all shops, except food stores and pharmacies. Now our streets and beaches are deserted, with most of the locals behind closed doors.
It has come to this even though Italy moved early and aggressively against the coronavirus threat with what it thought were strict measures of containment. When two travelers, who arrived in Italy from Wuhan, China, tested positive, they were quarantined and further flights from China were banned. When a new cluster of cases emerged in northern Italy in late February, the government moved quickly to blockade all areas of known infection, sealing off some 50,000 people in 11 northern municipalities. But what seemed unusually strict soon turned out to be not strict.
There are huge economic and social consequences to shutting down a whole country of 60 million people, telling everyone to stay home and enforcing restrictions on even short-range travel.
But the most profound crisis, and the one that is driving the government toward all these restrictions, is the potential overwhelming of Italy’s hospital system, particularly intensive care. If not soon checked, this epidemic could lead to triage decisions that would potentially require rationing emergency care to those with the best underlying health and with the longest remaining life expectancy.
There is special concern about the virus spreading to southern Italy, with its lower number of current coronavirus cases but much thinner medical infrastructure. But local officials report that areas of the north, like Lombardy, are already close to being overwhelmed. And with Italian hospitals stretched to capacity caring for coronavirus victims, other medical needs are going unattended.
Italy is now a test case for the rest of Europe and perhaps the U.S. as well. Learning the right lessons from Italy’s current trials is now a matter of life and death.
David C. Unger teaches American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University SAIS Europe and is author of “The Emergency State.”
Op-Ed: I'm an American in Italy. We're on coronavirus lockdown. It's horrific
I’m an American in Italy, where 60 million are trapped by the coronavirus. It’s horrific.
Camogli, Italy —
Under other Circumstances, being homebound here might not seem a bad thing. Not for nothing is this stretch of the Italian Riviera called the Golfo Paradiso, the Gulf of Paradise. From our apartment, my wife and I look out at the Mediterranean, the nearby city of Genoa and the snow-capped mountains beyond. Now, with no one supposed to leave home, there are no errands to run, grace periods have been granted on mortgage, utility and tax bills. My shelves bulge with books that I now have more time to read.
But these circumstances are horrific. Italy is living through a national tragedy of incomprehensible proportions. More than 10,000 people here are ill with the coronavirus and more than 800 have died. Things could get worse, much worse, before they get better.
And no one knows when this will end.
This region, known as Liguria, is not the worst hit, but is just south of the areas that are. On Saturday, March 7, our streets and beaches teemed with tourists from the colder cities of the north.
On Sunday morning, the government ordered the northern regions most affected by the virus sealed off. Two days later the whole country was locked down.
On Wednesday night, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte announced the nationwide closure of all shops, except food stores and pharmacies. Now our streets and beaches are deserted, with most of the locals behind closed doors.
It has come to this even though Italy moved early and aggressively against the coronavirus threat with what it thought were strict measures of containment. When two travelers, who arrived in Italy from Wuhan, China, tested positive, they were quarantined and further flights from China were banned. When a new cluster of cases emerged in northern Italy in late February, the government moved quickly to blockade all areas of known infection, sealing off some 50,000 people in 11 northern municipalities. But what seemed unusually strict soon turned out to be not strict.
There are huge economic and social consequences to shutting down a whole country of 60 million people, telling everyone to stay home and enforcing restrictions on even short-range travel.
But the most profound crisis, and the one that is driving the government toward all these restrictions, is the potential overwhelming of Italy’s hospital system, particularly intensive care. If not soon checked, this epidemic could lead to triage decisions that would potentially require rationing emergency care to those with the best underlying health and with the longest remaining life expectancy.
There is special concern about the virus spreading to southern Italy, with its lower number of current coronavirus cases but much thinner medical infrastructure. But local officials report that areas of the north, like Lombardy, are already close to being overwhelmed. And with Italian hospitals stretched to capacity caring for coronavirus victims, other medical needs are going unattended.
Italy is now a test case for the rest of Europe and perhaps the U.S. as well. Learning the right lessons from Italy’s current trials is now a matter of life and death.
David C. Unger teaches American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University SAIS Europe and is author of “The Emergency State.”
Op-Ed: I'm an American in Italy. We're on coronavirus lockdown. It's horrific
Lilibet
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I ju$t got a robocall the other day offering me a free vacay at Di$ney World. $o $weet of them to think of me!
Trudie
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From your link:
The governor also said he’s coordinating with people in the tourism industry.
McMaster named several events across the state that are important for tourism: “the Volvo Car Open in Charleston, the Heritage in Hilton Head and the country music festival in Myrtle Beach, among others." He did not say the events were certain to go on as planned, but he did say the events are important to the economy.
“There remains no cause for public alarm in South Carolina,” McMaster said. "Schools should continue to remain open and provide instruction. State government offices in all 46 counties will stay open. South Carolinians should remain calm and continue their daily normal routines and responsibilities.”
The governor urged people who are sick to stay home. He also said people should wash their hands “all day long” and follow CDC instructions to help not spread the virus.
Really?
South Jersey USA
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Do it !It's way too close to home for me now.I just want to hibernate until this is all over.
margarita25
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How Coronavirus Is Impacting NYC’s Food World
@KALI
—-
New York officials traced more than 50 coronavirus cases back to one attorney
10 hrs ago
*this is interesting to see the tracing
—-
Two Asians assaulted in coronavirus-fear-fueled hate crimes: cops
“Gov. Cuomo said the state police Hate Crimes Task Force will assist the NYPD.
“This incident was not only despicable but also illegal,” Cuomo said of the attack on the woman, noting it was "apparently motivated by the bigoted notion that an Asian person is more likely to carry or transmit the novel coronavirus.””
—-
New York late-night shows will ditch live audiences in an effort to prevent coronavirus from spreading
“Late-night TV shows filmed in New York will now be taped without a live audience as the coronavirus pandemic spreads.”
[...]
“Morning news programs like “Good Morning America,” “Today” and daytime talk shows including “Dr. Phil,” “The View” and “Live With Kelly and Ryan” announced similar precautions earlier in the day.”
@KALI
—-
New York officials traced more than 50 coronavirus cases back to one attorney
10 hrs ago
*this is interesting to see the tracing
—-
Two Asians assaulted in coronavirus-fear-fueled hate crimes: cops
“Gov. Cuomo said the state police Hate Crimes Task Force will assist the NYPD.
“This incident was not only despicable but also illegal,” Cuomo said of the attack on the woman, noting it was "apparently motivated by the bigoted notion that an Asian person is more likely to carry or transmit the novel coronavirus.””
—-
New York late-night shows will ditch live audiences in an effort to prevent coronavirus from spreading
“Late-night TV shows filmed in New York will now be taped without a live audience as the coronavirus pandemic spreads.”
[...]
“Morning news programs like “Good Morning America,” “Today” and daytime talk shows including “Dr. Phil,” “The View” and “Live With Kelly and Ryan” announced similar precautions earlier in the day.”
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zecats
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Well, in that case, I hope I did already have it. And that we cannot get it again.
LaborDayRN
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It's basic triage but this must be devastating for the families of those who are ill and the health care team as well. I can't imagine making these decisions.
The Extraordinary Decisions Facing Italian Doctors
Two weeks ago, Italy had 322 confirmed cases of the coronavirus. At that point, doctors in the country’s hospitals could lavish significant attention on each stricken patient.
One week ago, Italy had 2,502 cases of the virus, which causes the disease known as COVID-19. At that point, doctors in the country’s hospitals could still perform the most lifesaving functions by artificially ventilating patients who experienced acute breathing difficulties.
Today, Italy has 10,149 cases of the coronavirus. There are now simply too many patients for each one of them to receive adequate care. Doctors and nurses are unable to tend to everybody. They lack machines to ventilate all those gasping for air.
Now the Italian College of Anesthesia, Analgesia, Resuscitation and Intensive Care (SIAARTI) has published guidelines for the criteria that doctors and nurses should follow in these extraordinary circumstances. The document begins by likening the moral choices facing Italian doctors to the forms of wartime triage that are required in the field of “catastrophe medicine.” Instead of providing intensive care to all patients who need it, its authors suggest, it is becoming necessary to follow “the most widely shared criteria regarding distributive justice and the appropriate allocation of limited health resources.”
The principle they settle upon is utilitarian. “Informed by the principle of maximizing benefits for the largest number,” they suggest that “the allocation criteria need to guarantee that those patients with the highest chance of therapeutic success will retain access to intensive care.”
The authors, who are medical doctors, then deduce a set of concrete recommendations for how to manage these impossible choices, including this: “It may become necessary to establish an age limit for access to intensive care.”
Those who are too old to have a high likelihood of recovery, or who have too low a number of “life-years” left even if they should survive, will be left to die. This sounds cruel, but the alternative, the document argues, is no better. “In case of a total saturation of resources, maintaining the criterion of ‘first come, first served’ would amount to a decision to exclude late-arriving patients from access to intensive care.”
In addition to age, doctors and nurses are also told to take a patient’s overall state of health into account: “The presence of comorbidities needs to be carefully evaluated.” This is in part because early studies of the virus seem to suggest that patients with serious preexisting health conditions are significantly more likely to die. But it is also because patients in a worse state of overall health could require a greater share of scarce resources to survive: “What might be a relatively short treatment course in healthier people could be longer and more resource-consuming in the case of older or more fragile patients.”
These guidelines apply even to patients who require intensive care for reasons other than the coronavirus, because they too make demands on the same scarce medical resources. As the document clarifies, “These criteria apply to all patients in intensive care, not just those infected with CoVid-19.”
My academic training is in political and moral philosophy. I have spent countless hours in fancy seminar rooms discussing abstract moral dilemmas like the so-called trolley problem. If a train is barreling toward five innocent people who are tied to the tracks, and I could divert it by pulling the lever, but at the cost of killing an innocent bystander, should I do it?
Part of the point of all those discussions was, supposedly, to help professionals make difficult moral choices in real-world circumstances. If you are an overworked nurse battling a novel disease under the most desperate circumstances, and you simply cannot treat everyone, however hard you try, whose life should you save?
Despite those years of theory, I must admit that I have no moral judgment to make about the extraordinary document published by those brave Italian doctors. I have not the first clue whether they are recommending the right or the wrong thing.
But if Italy is in an impossible position, the obligation facing the United States is very clear: To arrest the crisis before the impossible becomes necessary.
This means that our political leaders, the heads of business and private associations, and every one of us need to work together to accomplish two things: Radically expand the capacity of the country’s intensive-care units. And start engaging in extreme forms of social distancing.
Cancel everything. Now.
Lilibet
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More cases are awaiting test results in your neck of the woods
Yes, I mentioned “only” 2 cases to her “because we aren’t testing” and she agreed.
Trudie
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What are the symptoms of novel coronavirus?
When you have a virus, it’s not actually the virus that makes you sick, but your immune system’s efforts to get rid of it. For example, your immune system can raise your body temperature and give you a fever, to make it hot enough to kill a virus. All the hard work your immune system is doing can also use up energy and make you feel tired.
Everyone’s body is different, and because symptoms are caused by your immune system and not the virus itself, different people can have slightly different symptoms when they have the same virus, and some people’s symptoms will be worse than others.
Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is a respiratory illness, which means it affects the parts of your body you use to breathe: your nose, throat and lungs. If you’re sick with novel coronavirus (COVID-19), your symptoms might include:
Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) spreads between people, usually when a sick person coughs or sneezes.
You might catch novel coronavirus (COVID-19) if someone with the virus sneezes or coughs onto you. You could also catch the virus if they have coughed or sneezed onto a surface (like a door handle) that you touch, getting the droplets on your hands and then transferring them to your mouth, nose or eyes when you touch your face or eat.
Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) – everything you need to know, in language you can understand
When you have a virus, it’s not actually the virus that makes you sick, but your immune system’s efforts to get rid of it. For example, your immune system can raise your body temperature and give you a fever, to make it hot enough to kill a virus. All the hard work your immune system is doing can also use up energy and make you feel tired.
Everyone’s body is different, and because symptoms are caused by your immune system and not the virus itself, different people can have slightly different symptoms when they have the same virus, and some people’s symptoms will be worse than others.
Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is a respiratory illness, which means it affects the parts of your body you use to breathe: your nose, throat and lungs. If you’re sick with novel coronavirus (COVID-19), your symptoms might include:
- fever
- a cough
- sore throat
- fatigue
- shortness of breath.
Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) spreads between people, usually when a sick person coughs or sneezes.
You might catch novel coronavirus (COVID-19) if someone with the virus sneezes or coughs onto you. You could also catch the virus if they have coughed or sneezed onto a surface (like a door handle) that you touch, getting the droplets on your hands and then transferring them to your mouth, nose or eyes when you touch your face or eat.
Novel coronavirus (COVID-19) – everything you need to know, in language you can understand
margarita25
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CDC awards New York $16.7M to help fight coronavirus
“The Centers for Disease Control awarded New York State $16.7 million to help combat the Coronavirus, federal officials announced Wednesday.”
It’s the first batch of federal aid for New York — part of the $8.3 billion emergency measure approved by President Trump and Congress to battle the spread of COVID-19.
In total, the CDC awarded $560 million to states and localities nationwide Wednesday to address the crisis, which the World Health Organization declared is now a pandemic.“
“The Centers for Disease Control awarded New York State $16.7 million to help combat the Coronavirus, federal officials announced Wednesday.”
It’s the first batch of federal aid for New York — part of the $8.3 billion emergency measure approved by President Trump and Congress to battle the spread of COVID-19.
In total, the CDC awarded $560 million to states and localities nationwide Wednesday to address the crisis, which the World Health Organization declared is now a pandemic.“
Trudie
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The attorney was like a WMD! Awful. Not his fault, he obviously got it from someone....
LaborDayRN
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I was in the same boat. I gave up too.
whitelilac
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Denmark second European country to impose lockdown against coronavirus
....following in the footsteps of Italy where unprecedented travel and social restrictions took effect this week.
Read more: Denmark second European country to impose lockdown against coronavirus | Metro News
....following in the footsteps of Italy where unprecedented travel and social restrictions took effect this week.
Read more: Denmark second European country to impose lockdown against coronavirus | Metro News
SAMS
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Steve McCarron KOMO on Twitter
JUST IN | King Co. Sheriff's Office asking people NOT to call 911 or the county's non-emergency line to report gatherings over 250 people.
If you need to contact someone in relation to a gathering, you can call the King County Novel Coronavirus call center at 206-477-3977.
JUST IN | King Co. Sheriff's Office asking people NOT to call 911 or the county's non-emergency line to report gatherings over 250 people.
If you need to contact someone in relation to a gathering, you can call the King County Novel Coronavirus call center at 206-477-3977.
whitelilac
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Coronavirus could peak next winter, says scientific study
A new study predicts that coronavirus infections could drop over the summer but then rise again next winter. Researchers looked at what will happen if the new coronavirus causing Covid-19 acts in the same way as other coronaviruses, which have lower transmission rates during the warmer months. In a paper which is currently undergoing peer review, ‘Potential Impact of Seasonal Forcing on a SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic’, researchers warn that we shouldn’t be complacent if the number of cases start to reduce. Their model showed that a ‘small peak in early 2020 in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere’ would be followed by ‘a larger peak in winter 2020-21’.
Read more: Coronavirus could peak next winter, says scientific study | Metro News
A new study predicts that coronavirus infections could drop over the summer but then rise again next winter. Researchers looked at what will happen if the new coronavirus causing Covid-19 acts in the same way as other coronaviruses, which have lower transmission rates during the warmer months. In a paper which is currently undergoing peer review, ‘Potential Impact of Seasonal Forcing on a SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic’, researchers warn that we shouldn’t be complacent if the number of cases start to reduce. Their model showed that a ‘small peak in early 2020 in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere’ would be followed by ‘a larger peak in winter 2020-21’.
Read more: Coronavirus could peak next winter, says scientific study | Metro News
gregjrichards
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U.K Coronavirus news
Thousands of trainee nurses in their final year will be 'invited' to start their careers before they qualify so they can help to tackle coronavirus
NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens said some of the 18,000 students who are now in their final year of training would be ‘invited’ into clinical practice.
They are in their last 12 months of a three-year degree and would start practising on hospital wards up to six months early without finishing their full training.
NHS trainee nurses to work on wards to help tackle coronavirus | Daily Mail Online
Thousands of trainee nurses in their final year will be 'invited' to start their careers before they qualify so they can help to tackle coronavirus
NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens said some of the 18,000 students who are now in their final year of training would be ‘invited’ into clinical practice.
They are in their last 12 months of a three-year degree and would start practising on hospital wards up to six months early without finishing their full training.
NHS trainee nurses to work on wards to help tackle coronavirus | Daily Mail Online
Another coronavirus case brings Iowa total to 14 Another person in Johnson county and on the Egyptian cruise. All cases are now confirmed and not just presumptive positive.
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