Ironically, during the press conference, the CDC told the Chronicle that the newest case was not a traveler that was infected overseas. They currently don't know how he was infected. That means we have a secondary or perhaps tertiary infection. This is how outbreaks begin. You can bet the CDC and local health department are both scrambling to figure out how this person became infected.
This is extremely worrisome. Most likely we already have dozens if not hundreds of low-grade infections in the county that were indistinguishable from a cold/flu, that people didn't seek treatment for. We'll probably have known community spreading by the end of March.
I guess we're about to find out what the actual death rate is with decent healthcare, assuming U. S. hospitals don't get overwhelmed.
I think it’s certain that we have community spread in the US right now. Because of the limited number of test kits, testing has been limited to those showing symptoms and who have returned recently from China or have been in contact with someone who has. An article in the Post describes a man who displayed a Covid-19 symptoms but was not tested because he’d returned from China and not Singapore. The new patient in CA was not tested for several days because she hasn’t been to China or in contact with someone who was. She does, however, live in the same county where US citizens were quarantined after being repatriated from China. I think it’s likely her case will be traced back to the quarantined folks.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
Doctor CamNC4Me wrote:Thank damned god the stocks are good.
- Doc
The Lord works in mysterious ways, Doc. Sometimes in ways that extraordinarily opaque and incomprehensible to us mere mortals. You just have to have faith that God's imperfect vessel on earth is an obese spray-tanned porn-star bonking narcissist who, when not at Mar a Lago, occasionally spends tine at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
At the moment I write this, the market is down 335 today. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
"The great problem of any civilization is how to rejuvenate itself without rebarbarization." - Will Durant "We've kept more promises than we've even made" - Donald Trump "Of what meaning is the world without mind? The question cannot exist." - Edwin Land
Res Ipsa wrote:I think it’s certain that we have community spread in the US right now.
I'm a little worried. While the death risk for my age group (30s) is low, I'll be 3rd trimester on 3-7-20. I developed hypertension in the final month of my first two pregnancies, so it will probably happen again. I've never had gestational diabetes, but am at greater risk for it now. Glucose tolerance test is tomorrow.
Both hypertension and diabetes seem to increase the death risk exponentially.
And Chicago is a major transportation hub, so it won't take long for it to start spreading if it makes its way here.
I am just reading the reports, practicing good hand hygiene, and waiting.
"It seems to me that these women were the head (κεφάλαιον) of the church which was at Philippi." ~ John Chrysostom, Homilies on Philippians 13
Because of his particular combination of mental illnesses, Trump is unable to speak without telling lies. Hopefully, there will be an information spokesperson other than Trump and who has not been corrupted by Trump into also telling lies.
Good information is easy to get. Go to the CDC, WHO, or the Worldometer coronavirus section. The latter aggregates information from the first two, as well as reliable news sources, in a format that is easy to read and use.
I’d trust the CDC spokesperson over any higher-up at HHS.
ETA: Well, I’m less optimistic. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/27/us/p ... pence.html All communication to the public must be approved by Pence. The CDC had been holding regular pressers. I wonder if those will stop now.
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
I had cautious optimism that self-interest would blunt the impact of having an incompetent psychopath running an authoritarian government on this one. I am feeling a little less optimistic now.
MsJack wrote:No; I'm well aware that the US lags behind a number of other developed nations in healthcare. But most of the deaths have come from China (esp. Wuhan), where many, many people reported being turned away from overcrowded hospitals. Even some of those admitted were simply put in a bed and given little care.
Japan has excellent healthcare and has lost 4 so far plus 4 from the Diamond Princess out of 912 cases total; I believe all were in their 80s. So Japan could be an indicator of what I'm saying. Or Japan could lose more people and their death rate will mirror China's. We'll see.
Japan does appear to have phenomenally screwed up the Diamond Princess quarantine, but quarantine and healthcare aren't the same.
Italy concerns me as they have excellent healthcare and have also seen a high number of deaths. An aged population could be part of the reason for that (and could be part of the problem in Japan as well).
Because the illness caused by this virus is flu-like and varies significantly in severity from person to person and during the course of the illness, America probably is going to have an issue with people not going to the doctor due to lack of insurance or under-insurance in a way you wouldn’t quite see in Germany. People are going to avoid shelling out potentially thousands off their high deductible for moderate flu. I don’t want to see how that affects outcomes, but I bet it affects outcomes in relative terms.
I wonder if the HHS Director is just hoping the free market will take care of this issue? As a reminder the coronavirus has a kill rate between 2-3%, so, I dunno. Maybe Walgreens will distro a new GlaxoSmithKline cherry-flavored coronavirus elixir of some sort?
- Doc
In the face of madness, rationality has no power - Xiao Wang, US historiographer, 2287 AD.
Every record...falsified, every book rewritten...every statue...has been renamed or torn down, every date...altered...the process is continuing...minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Ideology is always right.
If what this whistleblower says is accurate, this is a total debacle. It likely has spread coronavirus throughout the country. Without saying so, it looks like the CDC has given up on containment. We aren’t testing or quarantining travelers from Korea, Italy or Iran.
This blunder probably does show that Trump’s reduction of our pandemic preparedness has hurt us. Why is it that every time I manage to muster up little optimism that this administration will do something right, Trump manages to crush it and grind it under his heel?
You can label the day that happened day one of the US outbreak. I wonder if this is what upset the Congresscritters when they were briefed?
“The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.”
― Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951
