Coronavirus - International stories and thoughts

One of the main purposes for the existence of that lab was to test bat viruses. The fact that they had bat viruses is not surprising.

China is going to use every heavy hand it has to try and stop any sort of economic penalty on them for covid-19, including bribery and extortion. They do not want to be held accountable by a world court and will fight any court battle with proportional responsibility claims of other countries refusing to do what they did (ie total lockdown, 1 family member allowed to go out every other day, public transit shut down, airports closed, roads closed, etc).

They have real risk in many of their loans that are secured by infrastructure that they plan on taking over. If those small, but many, governments win judgements against China as part of a larger international framework, they do not have to collect, they can simply write off the debt and keep the infrastructure. Ports, airports, rail lines, power plants, electrical transmission lines, etc.

 

https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/369/bmj.m1992.full.pdf

Results from the first round of antibody testing in Spain showed that just 5% of participants had contracted covid-19.2 The study, carried out by the Carlos III Institute of Health and the National Statistics Institute, began on 27 April and tested 60 000 people for the presence of antibodies to covid-19.

Infection rates were much higher in Madrid, which had a prevalence of 11.3%. Soria (14.2%) and Cuenca (13.5%), in the central regions of Castilla y Leon and Castilla La Mancha, were the provinces with the highest prevalence.

The results indicate that 2.3 million of Spain’s 45 million population have been affected by the virus—more than 10 times the official count of 230 000 cases. “We have not been surprised” by the results, said Salvador Illa, health minister, at a news briefing. “There is no herd immunity in Spain.” He said that the results supported Spain’s policy of staggering the release of lockdown.3

One problem with the Spanish study is that it used a rapid antibody test, which had a sensitivity of 79% and specificity of 100% for IgG antibodies.

 

only 96 of those were new. rest were adjustments

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/a...eath-toll-jumps-sharply-after-new-cases-added

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - Chile revised its death toll linked to the novel coronavirus outbreak sharply higher on Sunday, adding fatalities from databases that previously had not been included. Health Minister Jaime Mañalich said 653 additional deaths linked to COVID-19 had to be counted, bringing the total number to 2,290. That included 96 new deaths announced in the Sunday daily report.

Chile has one of the highest numbers of cases in Latin America, which has become an epicenter of the pandemic even as countries worldwide have begun to reopen. Brazil, Peru and Mexico have also been hard hit by the virus.

Mañalich said that databases on deceased persons certified by the civil registry had been reviewed and along with information from laboratories doing PCR tests for the virus had been consolidated into a single list.

"This is an adjustment we have to make and report, a commitment to legitimacy, especially when we've made a huge effort to search additional databases for information not present in the databases that we were using before," he said.

 

Maldives not under control but opening up in full in July

The Maldives welcomes all tourists in July with risky open-border approach