Friday, 28 February 2020

Covid-19 virus update, 28 February

From Worldometer where many details
UPDATE: A 25-member international independent team of medical experts, under the auspices of the WHO, gave its report on 25 February and that is on YouTube here. It’s rather long, shorter versions by googling Dr Bruce Aylward (one here), the team leader and international expert on viral diseases.
At least listen to the first twenty minutes all about the amazing things being done by China to control the outbreak.
Cable and social news people especially in the US, who relentlessly bash China ought to take note. America is doing nothing like China and doesn’t even know how many cases it has because CDC had been making a hash of testing.
…
The new cases are mostly now outside China. 80-some countries now have Covid-19 patients.
There are doubts about the source of this coronavirus. Was it really the wet market in Wuhan? Was it Wuhan? Was it even China ?  (I’m not conspiracy theorising here. There is genuine puzzlement in the international experts’ community). 
Meantime we’re learning that the US has tested very few people with the proper kit (under 500), so actual cases there could be much higher.
ADDED: according to WHO (link above), Guangzhou, China, has tested over 300,000 and found 0.012% positive. Wuhan tests 20,000 per day. Korea tested 50,000 last week. China just sent 40,000 test kits to Japan. Experts are still uncertain as to patient zero. By contrast America has tested fewer than 600 up to this morning. 
While Trump is tweeting unhelpfully and (at times) incorrectly* about the virus which doesn’t help to quell concerns about a pandemic. He’d be better to leave matters to his Health Secretary and the CDC, but who can tell that man anything?

Titania McGrath: weighs in. “As a vegan and a humanitarian I welcome refugees of all species. And, yes, that includes the coronavirus”. On bigotry against viruses. (Nod,/wink… she’s a spoof).

Go here to see the tweet. Or click on screenshot
In other viral news:
Stock market virally volatile. Dow’s biggest one day drop. Hitting supply chains
The good, the bad and the ugly of authoritarianism
France braces for epidemic. And California
Israel can help
While… OT: crimes rise and arrests drop as police busy with protests
[The Titania exchanges are so funny, I’m posting the screenshots below the fold...]
* EG, below the fold, below Titania. It’s not under control...







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