outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

even january is, i think, quite a bit earlier than they were thinking we had anyone infected in the US? and it almost certainly should indicate that more people were infected at that time.

about this morning's news:

WASHINGTON — The alarming messages came fast and furious in mid-March, popping up on the cellphone screens and social media feeds of millions of Americans grappling with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.

Spread the word, the messages said: The Trump administration was about to lock down the entire country.

“They will announce this as soon as they have troops in place to help prevent looters and rioters,” warned one of the messages, which cited a source in the Department of Homeland Security. “He said he got the call last night and was told to pack and be prepared for the call today with his dispatch orders.”

did anyone here from the U.S. receive any text message like that, or hear of anyone else that did? i didn't.

sorry, forgot to include this snip as well:

Since that wave of panic, United States intelligence agencies have assessed that Chinese operatives helped push the messages across platforms, according to six American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to publicly discuss intelligence matters. The amplification techniques are alarming to officials because the disinformation showed up as texts on many Americans’ cellphones, a tactic that several of the officials said they had not seen before.

yeah, I don’t think the bullet point here is early january, just january and california — the emphasis has been on february cases in washington. january and california is a whole new epidemiological exploration

Nope. I got a two local ones from the City of Chicago, but I never saw a single national one.

(xpost)

Karl; I think they mean people in the community
texting each other, not an agency doing it

“cited a source in DHS” is the covid version of “my uncle at nintendo told me about luigi”

yep, i know mh, i was just wondering how widespread they got. because honestly it just sounds like the kind of dumb made-up shit that people send to each other all the time anyway; i'm surprised it could be tracked down

where is all this "hospitals are intentionally inflating the death count" stuff coming from? how does that square with the fact that the federal government is still trying to downplay this as much as possible?

Another group of governors have formed a multi-state pact to figure out when and how to open their states. This is not good news.

Republican governors across the Southeast are teaming up to reopen the region’s economy, even as they lack the testing to know how rapidly the coronavirus is spreading.

One health expert called the political decision a “perfect storm” for the virus to reassert itself.

The newly formed coalition includes Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama and Mississippi, a part of the country that has underfunded health systems, as well as high rates of obesity, diabetes and other illnesses that amplify the deadliness of the coronavirus.

And unlike their peers in New York, New Jersey and other Northeastern states that have been working cooperatively since last week to restart their economies, the six in the South have lagged on testing and social distancing measures.

“If you put these states together, there is a perfect storm for a massive epidemic peak later on,” said Jill Roberts of the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health. “The Southeast region is not known for having the best health record. Diabetes and heart disease come to mind. I am very concerned about how our states will do it.”

...

As of Tuesday morning, the six states had collectively tested about one-tenth of 1 percent of their total populations. Mississippi, which ranks 15th nationally in testing, had the group’s best testing rate at 1.7 percent of its population. Georgia was the lowest, with a testing rate of less than one one-hundredth of 1 percent, or 42nd in the country, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

By comparison, the coalition of seven states in the Northeast has a collective testing rate twice that of the Southeast, having swabbed more than two-tenths of 1 percent of their collective population.

Five of the seven states included in the Northeastern coalition are in the top 15 nationally in per-capita testing.

Beyond the numbers, the two regions differ culturally and in the political instincts of their leaders. Even as the Northeast looks to band together, its governors are urging caution.

Southern governors, most of whom have built political careers on small-government conservatism, are driving, by contrast, to restart their economies and get people back to work, even as infections mount.

...

Dr. Aileen Marty, a pandemic and infectious disease expert at Florida International University, said gains made through social distancing and other precautions are good signs, but not the signal to loosen efforts that Southern governors think they are.

“They are heavily Republican with social conservatives who are all of a like mind,” Marty said. “They are tempting fate by having the virus out and about among us, but if they don’t do it in a controlled way, we will again be back in situations of overwhelmed hospitals and more people dying.”

i think the idea is that hospitals are calling all deaths by ppl who tested positive for covid-19 covid-19 deaths "even if" they died of some pre-existing condition (that covid-19 maybe didn't exacerbate? idk these ppl aren't that smart) but the truth is that hospitals are undercounting the death count bc loads of ppl who die at home and are never tested have it too (which is why they've had to revise numbers in many places). xp

where is all this "hospitals are intentionally inflating the death count" stuff coming from?

generally the people saying that are buying the federal government's line of bullshit and make arguments that if you were hospitalized with covid-19 then died of organ failure or a heart attack it doesn't count because.. you died of organ failure

Apparently it's just a funny coincidence to these people that death rates are way above average.

if you were hospitalized with covid-19 then died of organ failure or a heart attack it doesn't count because.. you died of organ failure

Ultimately, we all die of cardiac arrest.

unless we get 'sploded

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vM3J9jDoaTA

Following the Covid-19 pathology literature it seems it may soon be easier to name organs Covid-19 doesn't attack in critical cases. Lungs, kidneys, heart, liver, central nervous system all are accounted for. DIC associated with Covid-19 and SIRS associated with Covid-19 are bad bad news, all over the body.

And death attribution doesn't really matter in the end. Whether one dies of Covid-19, with Covid-19, or without Covid-19 because medical resources are overwhelmed, or because one fears engaging with the medical system during a pandemic, its all fairly directly attributable to the ongoing pandemic.

This seems pretty obvious, yet there are a lot of people arguing the exact opposite. That if the cause of death isn't directly attributable to COVID, then it's completely unrelated, and therefore numbers are grossly exaggerated in order to undermine the glorious Trump economy. Yes, it's absurd, but this will absolutely be the official line in the US as deaths continue to spike.

You assume it's satire, but remember, this is America in 2020.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EWOjjUcXYAEB95H.jpg

not much more bizarre than the "GIVE ME FREEDOM OR GIVE ME COVID-19" sign I saw at Phoenix protest

the FREEEEEEEEDOM!!!! Above All Else "school" of "thought" prevalent in the US is so poisonous to society ugh

like way to go America, you've given selfish dipshits something to perpetually validate their selfish dipshittery

BREAKING: The USDA reports that two pet cats in New York have tested positive for the novel coronavirus. These are the first domestic pets in the U.S. to test positive. Both expected to recover.

*Note: there remains NO EVIDENCE that domestic animals can pass the virus to humans*

— Natasha Daly (@natashaldaly) April 22, 2020

Those cats didn't get it from bats or pangolins.

Many of you have asked if I am willing to travel around Florida wearing Grim Reaper attire to the beaches and other areas of the state opening up prematurely. The answer is absolutely yes. Beginning May 1 we will hit the road here in state. Please retweet and spread the word. pic.twitter.com/UO7QKg161n

— Daniel Uhlfelder (@DWUhlfelderLaw) April 22, 2020

I don't know who that is, but I like the idea that people are just randomly coming up to some guy and demanding to know if he is willing to do that.

That YouTube clip of all the commercials is dead-on--I've been very conscious the past week or so (when COVID commercials really started appearing) of the split between weirdly outdated commercials where the world is as it was before and the already cliched coronavirus-tailored commercial (some of which are effective).

anyone believe this?

Taken to the woodshed... https://t.co/Rt5cryLi2b

— Jeffrey St. Clair (@JSCCounterPunch) April 22, 2020

Reuters: Former Labradoodle breeder tapped to lead U.S. pandemic task force

Shortly after his televised comments, (HHS Secretary) Azar tapped a trusted aide with minimal public health experience to lead the agency’s day-to-day response to COVID-19. The aide, Brian Harrison, had joined the department after running a dog-breeding business for six years. Five sources say some officials in the White House derisively called him “the dog breeder.”

Harrison decided, the sources say, to exclude FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn from the task force. “He said he didn’t need to be included,” said one official with knowledge of the matter.

Two sources familiar with events say the White House wasn’t getting information from the FDA about the state of the testing effort, a crucial element of the coronavirus response.

When you've screwed the pooch, who better to oversee the results?

the father of a thousand sonsofbitches

Michael Brown had been horse breeder, I think?

really like that image above, hope uhlfelder follows through

I don't find it too surprising that there were cases in California in January, and probably in the NYC area as well. There were direct flights from Wuhan to SF and NYC all through December and most of January, when there was basically zero testing or screening, so it would be more surprising if no cases were transmitted.

The USA has ~4% of the global population, ~32% of active COVID-19 cases & ~26% of global COVID-19 fatalities.

FLU

~50% of the world’s population lives in countries that are lying their ass off about the numbers

does seem like so many more people have perished from this than has been officially registered

FT estimated that 40K have died in the UK, rather than the 17K reported, based on ONS data for excess mortality over the norm for these months. In other places like Italy and Spain excess mortality was running about 80-120% over reported Covid-19 deaths.

What the FUCK is Cuomo talking about? Bloomberg isn't "designing" anything, I hope.

“Michael Bloomberg will design the program, design the training, he’s going to make a financial contribution,” Cuomo said at a news conference in Albany. “He has tremendous insight both governmentally and from a private sector business perspective in this.”

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/22/billionaire-mike-bloomberg-will-help-new-york-develop-coronavirus-test-and-trace-program-gov-cuomo-says.html

US may not be lying about their cases, but are sure as shit not testing much

The French government now says that the return to school for students on May 11 will not be obligatory, but rather only on a volunteer basis. Good. I suspect there will be rather few volunteers. We certainly won't be.

kinda want to know just how those cats were tested

I dig it, daddio.

by a very brave veterinarian with a 20-foot pole, i'm assuming

xxp blood antibody test I would think, but yeah... what lab, and what's the channel for veterinarians to submit samples?

Those cats had multiple samples taken at National Veterinary Services Laboratories, probably their lab on Plum Island off the tip of Long Island. Having taken cats to the vet before, I'm positive they were sedated for this.

I could imagine sneaking a swab to the back of their throat under sedation. But even that may not necessary going forward:
there's a (preprint) study that found saliva samples were better for rtPCR screening than the usual nasopharyngeal swabs (in humans).

Madagascar hands out 'miracle' virus cure as it lifts lockdown

Unarmed Madagascar soldiers went door-to-door in the capital Antananarivo, doling out sachets of a local herbal tea touted by President Andry Rajoelina as a powerful remedy against the novel coronavirus.

"We can change the history of the entire world," he said, after downing a dose. "Two people have now been cured by this treatment."

Oh good

xp: Also, NVSL seems to be using rtPCR, just with a different set of reagents.

Performing animal testing should not reduce the availability of tests for people. Testing performed on animals may be based on the published tests used in people, however, reagents are available that are not required for testing people. The NVSL and National Animal Health Laboratory Network (NAHLN) laboratories are using reagents for testing animals that are not required for testing in people.