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posted by janrinok on Sunday March 01 2020, @03:29AM   Printer-friendly
from the sick-and-tired-of-being-sick-and-tired dept.

Many nations have begun to take special measures to address the problem of the spread of the COVID-19 virus over every continent. It would be pointless to report the details of all such measures; they are limited to each specific country and liable to frequent change as the situation develops. The USA FDA (Food and Drug Administration) have carried out what they describe as a "Supply Change Update", see the link below, but for others we suggest using a bit of web-search-fu to discover a site more appropriate to your own area of interest.

Worldwide, newspapers and other media need to maintain sales and subscriptions — many tend, therefore, to sensationalize their reporting. This has two undesirable effects: firstly it can result in data being quoted out of context to support the report they are making and, secondly, it tends to stress the possible effects of the COVID pandemic, should it be declared as such. In a comment elsewhere, I reported 2 tables which contain the most accurate figures we can find from a reputable source. They indicate the vulnerability of people to the virus by age, and any links to comorbidity (as far as they are known). There is no doubt that the virus poses a serious threat but it is not the same for all ages and many deaths are attributed to a combination of COVID-19 infection and other pre-existing conditions. For the latter it has not be proven that the virus was the sole cause of death; it is possible that the person would have died anyway. As postmortems have not been carried out in the vast majority of cases, the figures are open to misinterpretation. The WHO (World Health Organization) stresses that they will be unable to clarify these findings for a long time to come.

As it stands, for a person below the age of 70 with no other medical conditions, the chances of dying from a COVID-19 infection is less than 1%. That is still a large number of people at risk and the implications for every nation are significant. It is, however, much lower than some of the figures that have been quoted in the press. The figures for people over 70 and with other conditions cause the rate to rise quite sharply, and I would suggest that we all keep an watchful eye on the elderly or infirm members of our family and friends.

The majority of people will only suffer mild flu-like symptoms and will make a full recovery. - janrinok

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Supply Chain Update

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Supply Chain Update:

As I have previously communicated, the FDA has been closely monitoring the supply chain with the expectation that the COVID-19 outbreak would likely impact the medical product supply chain, including potential disruptions to supply or shortages of critical medical products in the U.S.

A manufacturer has alerted us to a shortage of a human drug that was recently added to the drug shortages list. The manufacturer just notified us that this shortage is related to a site affected by coronavirus. The shortage is due to an issue with manufacturing of an active pharmaceutical ingredient used in the drug. It is important to note that there are other alternatives that can be used by patients. We are working with the manufacturer as well as other manufacturers to mitigate the shortage. We will do everything possible to mitigate the shortage.

Additional Information on Human Drugs

Since January 24, the FDA has been in touch with more than 180 manufacturers of human drugs, not only to remind them of applicable legal requirements for notifying the FDA of any anticipated supply disruptions, but also asking them to evaluate their entire supply chain, including active pharmaceutical ingredients (the main ingredient in the drug and part that produces the intended effects, e.g., acetaminophen) and other components manufactured in China.

Also, as part of our efforts, the FDA has identified about 20 other drugs, which solely source their active pharmaceutical ingredients or finished drug products from China. We have been in contact with those firms to assess whether they face any drug shortage risks due to the outbreak. None of these firms have reported any shortage to date. Also, these drugs are considered non-critical drugs.

We will remain in contact with manufacturers so that we can continue to assist them with any potential issues in the fastest way.

The report continues for several pages and covers a variety of issues relevant to the USA.

Coronavirus lessons from the 1918-1919 Spanish flu

As the threat of additional community spreading of the coronavirus in the US grows, at least some people are recommending large-scale quarantines in American cities. There is precedent for this with the 1918-1919 Spanish flu and evidence that it was effective at curbing fatalities. Cities like St. Louis, Kansas City, Milwaukee, and San Francisco implemented strict quarantines early during the spread of infections and experienced lower fatality rates than cities that waited to impose quarantines. The quarantine in St. Louis was particularly notable because it was one of the top ten largest cities in the US at that time. On October 5, 1918, St. Louis ordered a wide range of measures being proposed currently for mitigating the coronavirus such as closing schools and other public places and many businesses.

Coronavirus Outbreak: All the Latest Updates

Coronavirus outbreak: All the latest updates:

Hopes that the coronavirus would be contained to China have vanished as the first case in sub-Saharan Africa was announced in Nigeria, while number of infections continue to grow in Europe pounding stock markets amid fears of a global recession.

On Friday, the US State Department raised its alert level for Italy, warning Americans to reconsider travel due to the outbreak. "Many cases of COVID-19 have been associated with travel to or from mainland China or close contact with a travel-related case, but sustained community spread has been reported in Italy," the department added. Italy has reported 650 coronavirus cases and 17 deaths - the most in Europe from the epidemic that originated in China, which is by far the most affected country.

The US on Friday warned against non-essential travel to Italy, a top destination for US tourists, over the growing coronavirus epidemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention "recommends that travellers avoid all nonessential travel to Italy. There is limited access to adequate medical care in affected areas," it said in a statement.

In China - the epicentre of the deadly disease - the National Health Commission reported on Saturday at least 47 new coronavirus deaths, bringing to 2,835 the number of fatalities nationwide. >There were also 427 new infections, up from 327 the previous day, pushing the confirmed cases in mainland China so far to 79,251, and more than 83,000 worldwide. Of the total number of deaths, at least 45 were from Hubei, the epicentre of the outbreak. Of the 45 deaths in Hubei, 37 were from the city of Wuhan.

The US state of California has confirmed a second case of coronavirus. "Now we have a case who did not recently travel or come in contact with anyone known to be ill," Sara Cody, the director of public health for Santa Clara County, near San Francisco, told reporters. She said the second patient is an adult woman who is being treated at a hospital.

Two South Africans on board the quarantined Diamond Princess cruise ship have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to a state-run medical institute. "We confirm that these citizens are currently being treated in Japan and are in good care," said a statement by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases.

Three Confirmed Cases of Corona Virus in Washington State

Washington State Department of Health reports there are now three confirmed cases of Coronavirus inside the state: https://www.doh.wa.gov/Emergencies/Coronavirus with 1 case in King County and 2 cases in Snohomish County. Seattle is inside King County and Snohomish is just north of King.

ABC reports that the infections are of unknown origin and that more potential cases exist in the bordering state of Oregon.

A second case of COVID-19 with an unknown origin was identified in Santa Clara county, California on Friday, and two other potential cases of unknown origin were identified in Oregon and Washington state.

NPR calls Seattle the first confirmed case of Corona virus in the US:

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, has reported the first case in the United States of a new and deadly coronavirus. A resident of Washington state in the Seattle area is infected. The man had traveled to central China to the city of Wuhan, where the virus was first discovered. It has killed at least 17 people, and scientists now say humans can transmit the virus to one another. And as Will Stone from member station KNKX in Seattle reports, officials in Washington state are trying to prevent the spread of the virus, and also projecting calm.

My own analysis indicates that the symptom profile has changed as well from flu like symptoms to mild flu like symptoms or mild cold like symptoms and more specifically that fever is not mandatory any longer but I am not able to find sources reliable enough to include in a submission.

Three More People Test Positive in England

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51684624

Three more people from England have tested positive for coronavirus, taking the total number of UK cases to 23.

Two of the patients had recently returned from Italy, while the other had come back from Asia, chief medical officer Prof Chris Whitty said.

The cases are from Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire and Berkshire.

It comes as health officials try to discover how a man from Surrey caught the virus, after he became the first person to be infected within the UK.

The man, who is being treated at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital in central London, had not been abroad recently - unlike the other cases in the UK.

[...] Ten more cases of the virus in the UK in just over two days might raise eyebrows, but health officials say all but one can be easily explained because the patients have travelled from the most affected countries, including Northern Italy and Iran.

Since the first UK cases were confirmed in York - two Chinese nationals - positive tests have been recorded in the south of England, Derbyshire, south Wales and Northern Ireland.

Government's Mixed Messages On Coronavirus Are Dangerous: Experts

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

“It’s really important for the U.S. government to be speaking with one common voice about these issues right now,” Tom Inglesby, an infectious diseases physician and director of the Center for Health Security of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, tells STAT

That’s not happening. On Tuesday (January 25), a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) official announced that COVID-19 could start spreading at the community level in the US shortly and that if the outbreak did hit the states, there could be “severe” disruptions to daily life. The next day, President Donald Trump held an evening press conference in which he said he didn’t think an outbreak in the US is inevitable. “I don’t think it’s inevitable because we’re doing a really good job in terms of maintaining borders and turning—in terms of letting people in, in terms of checking people,” he told reporters. He did not mention a new disease case reported the same day in California that couldn’t be accounted for by foreign travel or contact with someone known to be infected.

In the same press conference, Trump contradicted his own health officials. He predicted that there might be just one or two more people who report being infected in the next short period of time, yet, minutes later, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar and CDC Principal Deputy Director Anne Schuchat both said that they expected the number of infections to grow. There are currently 60 reported cases of COVID-19 in the US. 

Earlier in February, Trump also said the spread of the virus could dissipate by April when the weather warms. While some viruses, such as the flu, don’t spread as easily in higher temperatures, it is not clear SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, is one of them. Government officials saying that the coronavirus outbreak is just like the flu isn’t entirely accurate, notes Ronald Klain, who oversaw the Ebola response in President Barack Obama’s administration. He responded to comments Tuesday by Chad Wolf, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, in testimony before Congress. “The responsible answer [to whether the outbreak is like the flu] is ‘we don’t know yet,’” Klain said.

“Americans need facts and science—not reassurance that all will be well. The presidential press conference on the coronavirus pandemic was, sadly, a disappointment,” Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at NYU Langone Health, says in a statement emailed to The Scientist.

Disagreement between the State Department and CDC about the decision to fly home 14 Americans infected with SARS-CoV-2 also led to questions about who was leading the effort to contain the disease in the US. The CDC recommended that the patients not be flown home from Tokyo after leaving quarantine on the Diamond Princess cruise ship, but the State Department overruled the recommendation, according to The Washington Post. 

Government messaging may become more consistent, as President Trump announced Wednesday (January 26) that Vice President Mike Pence would be coordinating the response to the disease threat going forward. Now, government health officials and scientists are required to coordinate any statements and public appearances with Pence’s office, officials tell The New York Times reports. That includes Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. 


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by DrkShadow on Sunday March 01 2020, @04:38PM (6 children)

    by DrkShadow (1404) on Sunday March 01 2020, @04:38PM (#964944)

    Isn't this exactly what was said about Swine Flu?

    Now we have Zika too, something that provoked a similar reaction, but has already come-and-gone.

    This disease will now be with humanity for the rest of ever. There is nothing that we will be able to do to eradicate this virus from the human population -- so why are we quarantining entire populations _now_ when we're not going to do that _later_? At best we're buying ourselves time to create tools to identify the virus and symptoms, disseminate information to doctors on how to advise patients, and we'll tell them to do the same thing any time they have the flu: Go home, wash your hands, get bed rest, watch out for X and Y symptoms, and come back if things worsen.

    The reaction is the same. The health outcomes will be the same. We will not, as a people, live in bubbles, or wash our hands generally any more than before. We will continue on. (Until then, lets shut everything down stop shipping and flights work from home avoid conferences and population centers interrupt the economy tell everyone to go home because someone somewhere else is sick!)

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2020, @11:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday March 01 2020, @11:14PM (#965118)

    Zika is not "come-and-gone" and birth defects from it are factored into health system forecasts.

  • (Score: 2) by edIII on Monday March 02 2020, @03:43AM (4 children)

    by edIII (791) on Monday March 02 2020, @03:43AM (#965264)

    No, this is not the same. What you're not factoring in, is that the health care system will be overwhelmed. So the mortality rate is going to adjust to factor in lack of proper care. The ignorance regarding the comparisons to the flu are fucking amazing, when you have scientists directly saying (even above), "this is not like the flu". It has several attributes that make it far more likely to spread longer and faster. Part of that, is a low mortality.

    The reaction is NOT THE SAME. The health outcomes will NOT BE THE SAME. THIS IS NOT THE FLU.

    Your argument was parroted by business interests nearly 100 years ago. The economy is already disrupted. What do you think will happen? Slowdown from China is already affecting things, and when half your workforce is down with it, you will have impacted economies. Not getting around that just because of ignorant bravado, and greed's desire for more profit. A workforce will no paid medical leave, will spread it to the entire workforce in short order.

    There is going to be a few week period in which a large amount of productivity will be gone. Inevitable at this point.

    What you're missing is analogy to help you. You think this is the flu, or a regular wave on the ocean. Ships can deal with regular waves, and indeed rough seas. What this virus can do is hit so many, so fast, and some so much harder, that the factors all contribute to rogue wave action. Those waves have taken out the largest ships on the ocean, and severely damaged others.

    interrupt the economy tell everyone to go home because someone somewhere else is sick!

    That's just plain ignorant and part of the problem. Smartest people in the world right now dealing with this, advise two things explicitly. Detection & Containment. Allowing the plane flights to continue, or allowing many thing to continue as normal, is not inline with the goal of containment.

    You know why China is likely to survive? No Chinese person has been successful with ignorant arguments like yours, and the Chinese government has enough strength over the people to perform containment.

    We don't have any of that unity, or capabilities. Just as you've proved, we cannot even get containment going because people are going with ignorance, luck, and sticking their heads in the sand. Which is why, it is highly likely, that cases will explode so fast that our systems are simply overwhelmed. Who knows what that will really do.

    A very bruised economy is about the best case scenario right now, and the worst is 2-3 million dead based on the mortality rate, and the fact the ignorance will help this thing spread faster than wildfire.

    While we're going back and forth, and entire senior center tested positive for the virus.

    --
    Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
    • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Monday March 02 2020, @01:41PM (3 children)

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Monday March 02 2020, @01:41PM (#965458) Journal

      Ed, you do need to calm down. We already handled an actual Ebola outbreak, which as a hemorrhagic fever is far worse than this bugger.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
      • (Score: 2) by edIII on Monday March 02 2020, @07:46PM (2 children)

        by edIII (791) on Monday March 02 2020, @07:46PM (#965635)

        My apologies, but that's just ignorant. You can't compare this to Ebola or hemorrhagic fever. It's apples and oranges, and a very ignorant comparison that can give you a false sense of confidence.

        Ebola, would actually be better. Shows symptoms much faster.

        It's because this thing is mild enough for so many, that it's dangerous. It's how it can spread, which comes down to the numbers, and those don't lie. Precisely due to its nature, it has a much better ability than Ebola or something "far worse", to travel through populations. This one is different, because it has such a dramatically different effect in older and vulnerable populations.

        This is not the flu, it's not comparable to Ebola, and intelligence dictates that you evaluate this bug on its own. Many are saying to evaluate it without Hubei data, because their situation was different and we shouldn't expect the same outcomes.

        Incorrectly comparing this to Ebola isn't going to bring calm to anyone with two brain cells that can read charts and graphs.

        --
        Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
        • (Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Tuesday March 03 2020, @05:23AM (1 child)

          by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday March 03 2020, @05:23AM (#965867) Journal

          Technically, Ed, I wasn't comparing Corona virus with Ebola, I was contrasting them. The former is not very lethal, the latter is quite lethal (anything that dissolves the internal organs deserves to be feared). Yet for the greater lethality of Ebola and its ease in spreading, we were able to contain it. The long incubation time of Coronavirus will probably defeat containment, but thankfully it is not very lethal.

          And given that the lethality of Coronavirus is low, the greater danger seems to be the panic that nefarious parties are sowing. A lot of people are carried off by regular old flu every year, but for the most part people don't give in to hysteria about it. Like with flu it is wise to take precautions, and it is not to be pooh-poohed, but the world must roll on.

          --
          Washington DC delenda est.
          • (Score: 2) by edIII on Tuesday March 03 2020, @08:08PM

            by edIII (791) on Tuesday March 03 2020, @08:08PM (#966120)

            You're not getting the main points of concern.

            Last thing I will say is, is that the lethality is going to be directly related to the quality of medical care obtained. All of those recovery numbers include proper medical care. Factor in quality of care, and access to ICU equipped rooms, and as others have pointed out, we only have a fraction of what is needed according to the numbers.

            It's not probably defeating containment in this country, it's we're not going to contain it. Political will isn't there, and people will not shut down productivity and schools for as long as they would need to be. Factor in our own socioeconomic bullshit into your equations. Which we can easily see in history, because those same arguments kept cities from reacting fast enough. It always takes a lot of deaths, that aren't good for political campaigns, before correct actions occur.

            As we've learned nothing, and as this is a much more serious virus, there is room for some serious concern.

            Good luck dude, and if your parents are still around, cherish the hell out of them right now. They're the ones in danger.

            --
            Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.