Coronavirus - International stories and thoughts

but they havent fallen for the aquarium supply cure yet

 

This NYT story from Italy is just awfully sad. I knew oxygen saturation was an issue, but 50%. Wow. Doctors put you on o2 when you are below 90%.

‘We Take the Dead From Morning Till Night’

 

In Iraq, coronavirus terrifies even doctors hardened by conflict

 

It appears the virus is starting to pick up in central and south america.

Mexico with 132 new cases and Argentina with 101 as well as others with double digits.

It will not take much to overwhelm their health systems.

Coronavirus Update (Live): 597,262 Cases and 27,365 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Outbreak - Worldometer

 

Malaysia expects coronavirus case tally to surge in mid-April

Malaysia expects the number of coronavirus cases to surge in mid-April, a health ministry official said on Saturday, as the country ramps up testing amid a nationwide shutdown.

The number of confirmed cases in Malaysia has nearly doubled in the past week to 2,320, the highest in Southeast Asia, with 27 deaths. It has imposed travel restrictions and a curb on people movement until April 14 to try to contain the spread.

The country can expect a surge in cases by mid-April, Noor Hisham Abdullah, the director-general of health said, citing analysts’ estimates of a peak between 6,300 and 8,900 cases.

 

It's also understood there was nothing they could do to prevent spreading it. They think like I've been thinking for weeks that the virus was already in the population far earlier than originally thought. There was a huge spike in pneumonia weeks before the "official" outbreak and they think it was the coronavirus. Italy is like New Orleans, they travel all over to many events, socializing and sharing coffee but they think all of that had already infected the vast majority of the population. Some doctors think up to 10 million Italians are infected. The other issue is one I've harped on our liberal friends here - the tests are unreliable. Italy gave up 10 days ago trying to use testing to confirm cases because of the 30% false negatives. They now go strictly on a set of symptoms and treat them as if they have the virus. I firmly believe there was nothing we do to stop what is happening in the US. There are maybe over 100 million infected in the US right now with the vast majority of them asymptomatic or with mild symptoms. What we are seeing at the hospital level are the minority of cases that are highly symptomatic. We'll see over the next 2 weeks when we peak and it'll get ugly simply because this hit like H1N1 but faster and a longer duration. But the idea of flattening the curve may not have worked because many think we needed to do it back around Thanksgiving when nobody knew about the virus.

Why? Like I said in another post, Chinese that travel to the US may have already brought it to our shores as early as Thanksgiving. We see around 600,000 chinese traveling between China and the US during the period from Thanksgiving to mid-January. They are located in all areas of the country, so any of them that brought it back infected almost every part of the country. Containment is lost at that point. The virus just kept infecting people and doctors probably treated the worst with anti-virals and eventually they got better but some developed pneumonia and died. We are now looking back at all pneumonia deaths between that time period and asking where we treating the virus or a really bad spike in flu cases? I don't know if they will ever give out their findings. But I do know it will show that the virus was already here and all over the country 6 weeks before patient zero came to Spokane, Washington on January 20 from Wuhan, China. Think about it - Thanksgiving travel, then Christmas travel and New Year's Celebrations and bowl games spreading it all over the country even further. Those with "colds" mingling with others getting the "flu".

 

Mexican president toughens stance, urges people to stay home to contain pandemic

“I know this is going to mean costs, but we could be losing more. Without prevention, the economy could fall even more,” he said. Mexico slipped into recession last year, and the struggling economy was one factor that pushed the president’s approval rating below 50% for the first time in a poll on Friday.


Lopez Obrador has also drawn criticism in recent weeks by holding mass rallies around Mexico and hugging and kissing supporters - even as his own medical experts urged people to avoid physical contact.

 

Swiss coronavirus deaths reach 235, confirmed cases top 13,000

 

NOPE

They just announced they are closing all their borders to foreigners. They know a second wave is coming.

 

Watching the new numbers coming in. It the small poor countries that need to be watched.
Their numbers are slowly increasing.

Coronavirus Update (Live): 617,084 Cases and 28,376 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Outbreak - Worldometer
We are/were having problems with testing. So you can just imagine the problems these small poor countries are having.

I personally don't think their numbers are accurate and they have many who don't go to hospital. They stay in their small communities and get sick and die.

 

If only it was warmer there so the virus couldn't thrive.

 

Six weeks ago there was a lot we could do to contain the spread of the virus. South Korea got their first infection the same day as us. Their response was to mobilize and actively work to stop it. Our response was to deny there was anything wrong. They got very different results than we did.

 

Yep, that whole theory seems to ignore the difference between us and some other countries with different approaches. Esp when it came to early availability of testing.

 

Good news out of China, needs to be watch for a second wave.

China's Wuhan, where the coronavirus emerged, begins to lift its lockdown

 

Not that we can compare ourselves it Iran in many things, but they actually had it under a good slowing trend before it got loose again. This is why we aren’t going back to “normal” anytime soon. This doesn’t include today’s numbers yet, where they are up again.

 

Would be interesting to compare that to religious holidays. Many reports of people brushing off shelter orders to attend services.

 

The South Korean situation was a little different. Their outbreak seemed to come from an infected person at one church. It was easier to know who was immediately exposed and how. The U.S. had numerous sources of the virus arriving on planes from China. Yes, the government should have taken it more seriously, with quarantines enforced on all who arrived from China. But we were playing whack-a-mole all over the country, which is much more difficult than dealing with a localized problem.

Also, Korea does not have as many imbeciles as the U.S. I don't recall any videos of Koreans licking toilet seats, or touching cell phones at a press conference, to show how inconsequential coronavirus is. Containing a pandemic is largely a function of your most idiotic citizens. It isn't that much different than American troops in Vietnam bathing in drums of Agent Orange to show how harmless it is and how tough they are. Germany and South Korea are handling this virus reasonably well because their least educated citizens are still way smarter (and more disciplined) than ours. I saw a full crowd of vehicles at the day care the other day, and I've seen three parties in my neighborhood (two at a rental house where several young nurses live). The U.S. Idiocracy is not serving us well in this pandemic.

 

UK will have done well if fewer than 20,000 die, NHS medical director says

UK coronavirus deaths top 1,000 as country steps up testing

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The UK went from 104 deaths to over 1000 in 10 days