CORONAVIRUS TRACKING –
Jonathan M. Metsch, Dr.P.H.
PARTS 1-12 (and
prequels). March 10, 2020
PART 1. January 21, 2020. “The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention on Tuesday confirmed the first U.S. case of a deadly new
coronavirus that has killed six people in China.”
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday
confirmed the first U.S. case of a deadly new coronavirus that has killed six
people in China.”
“Chinese researchers say they have identified a new virus
behind an illness that has infected dozens of people across Asia, setting off
fears in a region that was struck by a deadly epidemic 17 years ago.
There is no evidence that the new virus is readily spread by
humans, which would make it particularly dangerous, and it has not been tied to
any deaths. But health officials in China and elsewhere are watching it
carefully to ensure that the outbreak does not develop into something more
severe.
Researchers in China have “initially identified” the new
virus, a coronavirus, as the pathogen behind a mysterious, pneumonialike
illness that has sickened 59 people in the city of Wuhan and caused a panic in
the central Chinese region, the state broadcaster, China Central Television,
said on Thursday. They detected this virus in 15 of the people who fell ill,
the report said.
The new coronavirus “is different from previous human
coronaviruses that were previously discovered, and more scientific research is
needed for further understanding,” the report said.” (A)
“China released the genetic sequence of a new coronavirus
believed to be responsible for a cluster 0f unusual pneumonia cases in Wuhan.
Phylogenetic analysis shows the coronavirus to be closely related to SARS CoV,
the virus responsible for the SARS pandemic which began in China in 2003.
Further analysis is necessary, but this preliminary analysis
shows the virus is also quite similar to other SARS-related coronaviruses which
appear to be endemic to the area. Prior EcoHealth Alliance research has found
evidence that these viruses are spilling into human populations. We are also
conducting behavioral analysis with the goal of reducing risk for this
spillover.
The virus responsible for the current outbreak in Wuhan has
so far killed one person; fortunately it’s not currently believed that the
virus has the ability to spread human-to-human. Our work has shown that there
is a large diversity of coronaviruses that are endemic to China.” (B)
“Chinese officials confirmed Tuesday that six people have
died from a pneumonialike coronavirus, while raising the number of confirmed
cases of the illness to 300, sparking fears of an outbreak in the country. The
virus, which was first confirmed on Dec. 31 in the city of Wuhan, is believed
to have been transmitted from animals to humans, but Chinese health officials
now say they have evidence that human-to-human transmission is also possible,
potentially via saliva. The World Health Organization says the symptoms of the
virus are fever, cough, and respiratory difficulties such as shortness of
breath, all of which can, in serious cases, lead to pneumonia, kidney failure,
and, in the most severe cases, death.” (C)
“Officials in China are racing to contain the spread of a
new virus that has left at least six people dead and sickened more than 300,
after it was confirmed the infection can spread between humans.
Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the coronavirus was
first detected, announced a series of new measures Tuesday, including the
cancellation of upcoming Lunar New Year celebrations, expected to attract
hundreds of thousands of people.
Tour agencies have been banned from taking groups out of
Wuhan and the number of thermal monitors and screening areas in public spaces
will be increased. Traffic police will also conduct spot checks on private
vehicles coming in and out of the city to look for live poultry or wild
animals, after the virus was linked to a seafood and live animal market,
according to a report by state media outlet the People’s Daily, citing Wuhan’s
Municipal Health Commission.
The new measures come after Chinese President Xi Jinping
ordered “resolute efforts to curb the spread” of the virus Monday.
There are now fears, however, that efforts to contain it are
coming too late, hampered by a slow-moving Chinese bureaucracy which failed to
put sufficient measures in place in time.
In the coming days, hundreds of millions of Chinese are
expected to begin traveling across the country and overseas as the annual Lunar
New Year break gets fully underway, compounding concerns of a further spike in
cases.
Though infections were first detected in Wuhan in
mid-December, infrared temperature screening areas were not installed in the
city’s airports and stations until January 14, according to state media.
On Tuesday, China’s National Health Commission announced
that it had received 291 confirmed cases of the Wuhan coronavirus, with 77 new
cases reported on January 20.” (D)
“Earlier on Monday, Chinese authorities reported that the
number of cases had tripled over the weekend to 218. The outbreak has spread to
Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzen, hundreds of miles from Wuhan, where the virus
first surfaced last month.” (E)
“Thailand and Japan each reported new cases of a coronavirus
that has left two people dead and at least 40 sick in China, adding to concerns
about the spread of the virus beyond Chinese borders ahead of a major holiday.
Health officials in Thailand on Friday said they had found a
second case of the mysterious pneumonialike coronavirus in that country, in a
74-year-old Chinese woman. The woman is in good and stable condition, said a
spokesman for Thailand’s public health ministry, Rungrueng Kitphati.
The woman entered Thailand through Bangkok via a flight from
the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. Investigators
were still trying to gather information from the woman but have been hindered
by a language barrier, Mr. Rungrueng said.
On Thursday, Japan’s Health Ministry said that a Chinese man
in his 30s tested positive for the coronavirus. The man, a resident of Kanagawa
Prefecture, just south of Tokyo, returned to Japan on Jan. 6 after traveling to
Wuhan. The man, who came down with a fever on Jan. 3, was hospitalized on
Friday but was discharged five days later because he had recovered, according
to the Health Ministry.” (F)
“A British tourist is feared to have contracted the
mysterious coronavirus that’s sweeping Asia after he was hospitalized on a trip
to Thailand, according to a report.
Ash Shorley, 32, was admitted in critical condition to a
Phuket hospital, where he’s being treated for pneumonia-like lung infections,
the Sun reported.
Doctors believe his symptoms are consistent with the new
Chinese coronavirus, which has killed three patients and infected hundreds of
others.
“They think he is the first Western victim of the Chinese
flu,” his father, Chris, told the outlet. “We are waiting on tests.”” (G)
“Airports in New
York, San Francisco and Los Angeles will begin screening passengers arriving
from Wuhan, China, for infection with a mysterious respiratory virus that has
killed two people and sickened at least 45 overseas, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention announced on Friday.” (H)
“Officials this week also confirmed that the new
coronavirus, which is linked to a seafood and animal market in Wuhan, is
transmissible between humans. This ultimately sparked fears that a person
infected with the virus and experiencing the most severe stage of infection
could be a super-spreader — someone who
transmits the virus to a considerable more amount of people than the average
infected person, the South China Morning Post reported…
In response to the outbreak, the World Health Organization
(WHO) is holding an emergency meeting on Wednesday to determine whether or not
it should be considered an international public health emergency, according to
the South China Morning Post…
Australia is taking similar measures, with officials there
announcing Tuesday that the country will also begin screening passengers who
are arriving from Wuhan, according to The New York Times. Japan and South Korea
also announced increased airport screenings.
But even with screening measures, “You cannot absolutely
prevent entry into the country of a disease like this,” Brendan Murphy, the
chief medical officer for the Australian government, said, according to the
newspaper. Some people who are infected may not show symptoms, he explained.”
(I)
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday
confirmed the first U.S. case of a deadly new coronavirus that has killed six
people in China.
The CDC and Washington state officials said the man, in his
30s, was in good condition at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett.
The symptoms presented Sunday and the diagnosis was confirmed Monday.
Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for
Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, called the news “concerning.”
“We’re still in the early days of this investigation,”
Messonnier said.” (J)
A.China Identifies New Virus Causing Pneumonialike Illness,
by Sui-Lee Wee and Donald G. McNeil Jr.,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/health/china-pneumonia-outbreak-virus.html
B.Phylogenetic Analysis Shows Novel Wuhan Coronavirus
Clusters with SARS,
https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/2020/01/phylogenetic-analysis-shows-novel-wuhan-coronavirus-clusters-with-sars
C.Deadly Coronavirus in China Raises Fears of Outbreak as
Human Transmission Confirmed, by ELLIOT HANNON,
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/01/coronavirus-china-outbreak-human-transmission-airport-screen-pandemic.html
D.6 people dead, 300 infected as China confirms Wuhan virus
can be spread by humans, by James Griffiths and Nectar Gan,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/21/asia/china-china-coronavirus-sars-intl-hnk/index.html
E.China confirms new coronavirus can spread between humans,
by Nectar Gan, Yong Xiong and Eliza Mackintosh,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/19/asia/china-coronavirus-spike-intl-hnk/index.html
F.Japan and Thailand Confirm New Cases of Chinese
Coronavirus, by Sui-Lee Wee,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/world/asia/coronavirus-japan-china.html
G.British tourist feared to be victim of deadly new Chinese
coronavirus, by Jackie Salo, https://nypost.com/2020/01/20/british-tourist-feared-to-be-victim-of-deadly-new-chinese-coronavirus/?utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter
H.Three U.S. Airports to Check Passengers for a Deadly
Chinese Coronavirus, by Denise Grady, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/17/health/china-coronavirus-airport-screening.html
I.Coronavirus outbreak in China sparks ‘super-spreader’
fears as pneumonia-like illness sickens hundreds, by Madeline Farber,
https://www.foxnews.com/health/coronavirus-outbreak-china-sparks-super-spreader-fears
J.First US case of deadly coronavirus reported in Washington
state, CDC says, by John Bacon,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/01/21/china-coronavirus-outbreak-cdc-first-us-case-washington-state/4532063002/
PART 2. January 29, 2020. CORONAVIRUS. “If it’s not
contained shortly, I think we are looking at a pandemic..”….. “With isolated
cases of the dangerous new coronavirus cropping up in a number of states,
public health officials say it is only a matter of time before the virus
appears in New York City.”
CORONAVIRUS. “If it’s not contained shortly, I think we are
looking at a pandemic..”….. “With isolated cases of the dangerous new
coronavirus cropping up in a number of states, public health officials say it
is only a matter of time before the virus appears in New York City.”
In July of 2009 the Mayor of Hoboken asked me to initiate a
H1N1 “Swine Flu” Task Force. We started with a set of questions based on
reports from communities that had already experienced a Swine Flu surge:
Health Officer: Where vaccination sites should be
established? Is there a special plan to monitor restaurants and food shops
where flu-related safety guidelines need to be strictly enforced? Who will
start preparing a Community Education plan?
Hospital: What is the back-up plan if hospital becomes
“contaminated” and is closed to admissions, or if nursing staff is depleted by
flu-related absenteeism, etc.? ICU triage? Availability of respirators?
OEM: off-site
screening centers if hospital ER is on overload
Hoboken Volunteer Ambulance Corps: “mutual assist” plan
Hoboken Police Department & Hoboken Fire Department:
back-up plan if the ranks get depleted by the flu
BOE: criteria in deciding whether or not to close schools
Stevens Institute of Technology: surveillance and plan for
(college) students
“Field Manual” for the Mayor
Interestingly Swine Flu never flourished in the Hoboken area
probably due to herd immunity acquired from the Swine Flu in 2008 in New York
City, where many Hobokenites work and visit.
Acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory
illness caused by a coronavirus, called SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV).
SARS was first reported in Asia in February 2003 and the illness spread to more
than two dozen countries in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia
before the SARS global outbreak was contained. According to the World Health
Organization (WHO), a total of 8,098 people worldwide became sick with SARS
during the 2003 outbreak. Of these, 774 died. In the United States, only eight
people had laboratory evidence of SARS-CoV infection. All of these people had
traveled to other parts of the world with SARS.” (A)
With SARS preparedness underway in NJ LibertyHealth/ Jersey
City Medical Center, where I was President, proposed that our 100 bed community
hospital with all single-bedded rooms, be immediately transformed into an
EMERGENCY SARS ISOLATION Hospital.
The Hospital was in a small town at the intersection of many
major highways. It could be easily secured since it had no immediately
contiguous neighbors. It had a helicopter pad. Its patients could be easily
transferred. And it could be managed by the Public Health Service or military
medicine if necessary.
It didn’t happen!
“We understand that many people in the Unites States are
worried about this virus,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National
Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (part of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention).
“At this time, in the U.S., the virus is not spreading in
the community,” she added. “For that reason we continue to believe that the
immediate health risk from the new virus to the general public is low at this
time.”
In the U.S., 110 individuals from 26 states are being investigated
to determine whether they have coronavirus. Of those individuals, 32 have
tested negative, five have tested positive, and the remaining test results are
pending.
No new coronavirus cases have been diagnosed overnight,
according to the CDC, and all five cases were in people who had traveled to
China. Two of those five cases are in Southern California and Chicago,
Washington state and Arizona have each reported one coronavirus case…
Five U.S. airports, in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Chicago and Atlanta, continue to screen passengers from Wuhan for
pneumonia-like symptoms, such as fever and respiratory problems. So far,
airports have screened about 2,400 passengers, with screenings declining
following strict travel bans and a quarantine in Wuhan…
The CDC is in the process of developing a real-time
diagnostic test to identify the virus and is hoping to quickly roll that test
out to states. For now, all samples are being sent to the CDC in Atlanta, a
process which takes about a day, from the time clinicians and the CDC agree to
test a patient for coronavirus until results come back from Atlanta. Other
countries are doing similar centralized testing, Messonnier explained. While
speed is important, accurate testing is the agency’s priority.
While a report in the Lancet, published Jan. 24, suggested
that people who contract coronavirus might be able spread the disease before
they develop symptoms, Messonnier maintained that the CDC has “no clear
evidence” of patients’ being infectious before symptom onset. For now, the
virus’ incubation period is believed to be between two and 14 days..
The World Health Organization did not declare a public
health emergency of international concern last week, after deliberating for two
days over the decision.” (C)
“It appears to be very well contained,” Mark Parrish,
regional medical director of Northern Europe at International SOS, told CNBC
Tuesday.
“The Chinese have done some extraordinary things,
identifying the virus and its molecular structures and then instigating those
quarantine measures in China where they have shut down these huge cities and
stopped all movement. It’s come at a really bad time of the year … It’s likely
to have moved around China.”
“It appears though that the death rate remains at about 2% to
3%, it seems to be very well contained at the moment,” he said.
“Putting it into perspective, 100 deaths or so, so far, all
in elderly people and those that have other co-existing diseases unfortunately.
And those are the ones that are most likely to be affected by this as their
respiratory systems find it difficult to deal with these things.”..
Global media organizations have fixated on whether the
outbreak will be declared a “global health emergency” by the World Health
Organization (WHO). Currently, the WHO has the virus at a “high risk” level
after admitting on Monday its error in initially stating (last week) that the
global risk was “moderate.”
Christian Lindmeier, spokesperson for the WHO, told CNBC
Tuesday that the assessment was done by a group of independent experts and that
the situation would be re-evaluated “very soon.”
He said there was definitely a crisis in China “but
declaring this a public health emergency of international concern is another
step. It means that internationally this is spreading and is transmitting from
human to human internationally.
“So not only a traveler carrying it from China into another
country and it being contained there, but it spreading onward from there and
this is something we’ve not yet seen, let’s be very clear about this,” he said.
Although it has not happened yet, Lindmeier said it would
not be surprising if the virus spread further. He said health systems should
closely monitor the situation and “be aware that this is what could come to
their shores.”..
“The jury’s still out just how bad it will be, but when you
think that the number of cases has doubled in one day, that’s very worrisome,”
he said.” (D)
“With isolated cases of the dangerous new coronavirus
cropping up in a number of states, public health officials say it is only a
matter of time before the virus appears in New York City.
As a result, hospitals have been on the lookout for patients
with recent travel involving Wuhan, the Chinese city where the coronavirus is
believed to have originated. And they have urged those who recently traveled
there — or who have been in contact with someone who has — to quickly seek
medical care if they have any respiratory or flulike symptoms.
“It’s inevitable that we will have someone who is positive
with coronavirus,” New York City’s health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, said
Sunday.
Some of the last passengers to arrive at Kennedy
International Airport on the last direct flights from Wuhan before they were
canceled were quarantining themselves at home. One man told of how he had
confined himself to his house in Queens, as friends left special Lunar New Year
meals on his doorstep.
So far, state officials have sought testing for nine
patients who were deemed potential cases of the new coronavirus, sending
samples to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing.
Four of those patients were found not to have the virus, and
the tests involving the other five are still pending, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said
Monday in a statement.
When the first case does arrive, health officials said, that
patient may end up in a biocontainment unit in Bellevue Hospital or sent home
to ride out the illness in his or her bedroom. That will depend largely on how
sick they are, public health officials say…
By and large, the message to the public has been one of
reassurance. “We are encouraging New Yorkers to go about their everyday lives
and suggest practicing everyday precautions that we do through the flu season,”
Dr. Barbot said.
But there is considerable anxiety and debate over the proper
precautions within the city’s Chinatowns. That has only grown in the past few
days as more alarming news has emerged out of Wuhan about the virus’s spread.
So far more than 4,500 people have been sickened and more than 100 people have
died.” (E)
“New York’s colleges, which enroll some 50,000 students from
China, put out warnings to be on alert for symptoms of the deadly coronavirus
as classes started up again for the spring semester.
Most of the Chinese students in the state are studying in
the New York City area, according to the Institute for International
Education’s most recent report.
New York University, which has upwards of 19,000
international students — more than any other college in the country — said it
reached out to students from China’s Wuhan region, where the virus originated,
and “provided them with information about the symptoms, instructed them to
check in with us if they are experiencing those symptoms, reminded them about
the availability of NYU health services.”
Spring semester classes begin Monday at NYU. A college
spokesman would not say how many students come from the Wuhan area.” (F)
“The first U.S. patient, an unidentified man in his 30s, had
traveled to the Wuhan area at the end of last year. He fell ill shortly after
flying back to the U.S., where he lives north of Seattle.
In Washington state, health agencies have identified more
than 60 people who came in close contact with the infected man before he was
hospitalized in Everett, a city in Snohomish County outside Seattle.
The case quickly grabbed headlines, but it didn’t rattle
local health clinic workers who had recently geared up to handle another
infectious disease.
“The measles really kind of enlightened everybody about
‘Wow, there are a lot of things out there that can be really contagious and can
get you really sick, really fast,’ ” says Tove Skaftun, the chief nursing
officer for the Community Health Center of Snohomish County.
Skaftun says she’s glad that last year’s outbreak forced
them to improve how they approach these situations.
“We’ve recently grown our infection-control program so it’s
kind of at the forefront of a lot of what we do,” says Skaftun.
She says that effort focused on educating staff about the
correct precautions to take when faced with different kinds of infectious
diseases — including wearing protective air-purifying respirators when in
contact with patients who may be infected…
The patient in Seattle first went to a local health clinic
when he started showing symptoms. Once it became clear he was at risk for
coronavirus, he was transported to Providence Regional Medical Center in
Everett, a hospital north of Seattle, where he was treated in isolation. He
remains in “satisfactory” condition, according to the Washington State
Department of Health.
Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips, the chief clinical officer at
Providence St. Joseph Health, which runs that hospital, says it was set up to
handle high-level infectious pathogens during the Ebola scare of 2014.
“All types of infrastructure had been put in place to ensure
that when something came around we’d be ready,” says Compton-Phillips.
Those include specialized gurneys to keep patients isolated
while they’re wheeled around the hospital, robots that can listen to patients’
lungs and take blood pressure, and rooms with negative-pressure air flow so
germs aren’t circulated throughout the rest of the hospital…
She says staff have practiced getting ready for an
infectious outbreak pretty recently. Last year, Clark County, Wash., which is
part of suburban Portland, Ore., had an alarming outbreak of 71 cases of
measles, mostly among unvaccinated children…
“There are a lot of unknowns,” says Janet Baseman, professor
of epidemiology at the University of Washington. “The best thing public health
can do now is assume that it will be similar to other coronavirus outbreaks we
have seen in recent years until proven otherwise.”
“Being overprepared is the name of the game,” she says.” (G)
“The emergency call was made to Hackensack University
Medical Center late Thursday night.
A doctor’s office was sending a woman in her mid-20s to the
emergency room, according to reports, with a suspected case of coronavirus, the
deadly novel virus sweeping through China and much of Asia.
The alert turned out to be a false alarm: The patient did
not have the coronavirus. Although a relief, it was a scenario hospitals across
the state have been bracing for as fears mount that this new, mysterious virus
will spread to New Jersey.
Emergency rooms throughout the Garden State are ramping up their
procedures in preparation for the time when a patient does arrive with the
deadly virus.
“The key is to recognize it early so you can isolate early,
and that prevents the likelihood of spreading in our facility and to other
patients and employees,” Dr. Jerry Zuckerman, vice president of infection
prevention and control at Hackensack Meridian Health System, told NJ Advance
Media…
Experts determined the patient who entered the Hackensack
emergency room Thursday night was not infected with the virus after an
evaluation, a spokeswoman for Hackensack Meridian Health said. Zuckerman
declined to discuss the patient, but shed some light on how such a virus is
contained in an emergency room.
The protocols are anything but high-tech. But they work,
Zuckerman said.
Interview the patient. Mask the patient. Isolate the
patient.
That’s it.
It may sound rudimentary, but that is all that stands
between the virus spreading or being contained.
First, patients are interviewed to determine whether they’ve
visited the outbreak’s place of origin. Then patients are masked and isolated,
before being placed in an airborne infection isolation room — also called a
negative pressure room. These rooms isolate pathogens.
If medical personnel must enter an isolation room, they have
to wear respirator masks, gloves and goggles — think of the protective gear
worn in the 1995 Dustin Hoffman film, “Outbreak.”..
“Although this novel
virus in understandably a cause for concern, it is important for New Jersey
residents to know that the risk to the public remains low,” Health Commissioner
Judith Persichilli said in the Department of Health statement.
“The New Jersey Department of Health works with hospitals
and local health departments throughout respiratory virus and flu season on
hundreds of disease outbreaks each year and we are prepared — along with our
partners — to respond to potential novel coronavirus cases.”” (H)
“The Chinese city of Wuhan is rapidly building a new
1,000-bed hospital to treat victims of a new coronavirus, mobilising machinery
to get it ready by early next week, state media said…
The new hospital is being built around a holiday complex
originally intended for local workers, set in gardens by a lake on the
outskirts of the city, the official Changjiang Daily reported on Friday.
Prefabricated buildings which will have 1,000 beds will be put up, it said.
Building machinery, including 35 diggers and 10 bulldozers,
arrived at the site on Thursday night, with the aim to get the new facility
ready by Monday, the paper added.
“The construction of this project is to solve the shortage
of existing medical resources” the report said.
“Because it will be prefabricated buildings, it will not
only be built fast but it also won’t cost much.”” (I)
“How is China able to build a hospital in six days?
“China has a record of getting things done fast even for
monumental projects like this,” says Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global
health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
He points out that the hospital in Beijing in 2003 was built
in seven days so the construction team is probably attempting to beat that
record. Just like the hospital in Beijing, the Wuhan centre will be made out of
prefabricated buildings.
“This authoritarian country relies on this top down
mobilisation approach. They can overcome bureaucratic nature and financial
constraints and are able to mobilise all of the resources.”
Mr Huang said that engineers would be brought in from across
the country in order to complete construction in time.
“The engineering work is what China is good at. They have
records of building skyscrapers at speed. This is very hard for westerners to
imagine. It can be done,” he added.
In terms of medical supplies, Wuhan can either take supplies
from other hospitals or can easily order them from factories.
On Friday, the Global Times confirmed 150 medical personnel
from the People’s Liberation Army had arrived in Wuhan. However it did not
confirm if they would be working in the new hospital once it has been
built.” (J)
“Some infectious disease experts are warning that it may no
longer be feasible to contain the new coronavirus circulating in China. Failure
to stop it there could see the virus spread in a sustained way around the world
and even perhaps join the ranks of respiratory viruses that regularly infect
people.
“The more we learn about it, the greater the possibility is
that transmission will not be able to be controlled with public health
measures,” said Dr. Allison McGeer, a Toronto-based infectious disease
specialist who contracted SARS in 2003 and who helped Saudi Arabia control
several hospital-based outbreaks of MERS.
If that’s the case, she said, “we’re living with a new human
virus, and we’re going to find out if it will spread around the globe.” McGeer
cautioned that because the true severity of the outbreak isn’t yet known, it’s
impossible to predict what the impact of that spread would be, though she noted
it would likely pose significant challenges to health care facilities.
The pessimistic assessment comes from both researchers
studying the dynamics of the outbreak—the rate at which cases are rising in and
emerging from China—and infectious diseases experts who are parsing the first
published studies describing cases to see if public health tools such as
isolation and quarantine could as effective in this outbreak as they were in
the 2003 SARS epidemic…
China’s health minister, Ma Xiaowei, warned Sunday that the
virus seems to be becoming more transmissible and the country—which has taken
unprecedentedly draconian steps to control the virus—was entering a “crucial
stage.”..
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of National Center for
Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, said the agency knows transmission of the virus within the United
States may be on the horizon.
“We’re leaning far forward. And we have been every step of
the way with an aggressive stance to everything we can do in the U.S.,” she
told STAT. “And yet those of us who have been around long enough know that
everything we do might not be enough to stop this from spreading in the U.S.”
To date, at least 14 countries and territories outside of
mainland China have reported nearly 60 cases. There have been no reports yet of
unchecked spreading from those imported cases to others…
“If it’s not
contained shortly, I think we are looking at a pandemic,” Bedford said, though
he cautioned that it’s impossible to know at this point how severe that type of
event would be…
“I’m not making a
prediction that it’s going to happen,” Inglesby said, though he noted the
mathematical modeling, the statements from Chinese authorities, and the sharply
rising infection numbers make a case for this possible outcome. “I think just
based on those pieces of limited information, it’s important for us to begin
some planning around the possibility that this won’t be contained.”” (K)
“Laurie Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer,
told Yahoo Finance that despite swelling panic over the spread of coronavirus,
people should be “realistic” about the infection and the protections they
employ against it.
“One of the smart ways to approach thinking about ‘how do
you protect yourself,’ is to ask, well, when somebody here in the office has a
common cold, and they’re sneezing all over the place, how do you make yourself
not get the cold?” asked Garrett, the author of “The Coming Plague,” a book
about emerging deadly diseases.
“Social distancing; that’s step number one. Keep your
distance from other people” in order to avoid contracting or spreading an infection,
Garrett told “The Final Round.” Cleanliness and personal hygiene is also of
utmost concern, she added.
“For yourself, think of your hands as your number one
problem: anything you touch that’s a common surface,” the author said,
explaining that the same principle governs why people are discouraged from
sharing utensils or cups.
“Here, in New York City, we think about the subways, we
think about how we move around in the city; the answer, if you’re nervous, is
wear gloves. Then take your gloves and wash them at night,” Garrett said. “If
it’s socially required to shake hands, wash your hands afterwards.”…
Garrett said that “…unlike SARS, which only is contagious
when you have a fever, this one seems to be contagious when you don’t even know
that you’ve been infected, and the incubation time is much longer.”
While SARS only took three to five days to incubate, the
coronavirus “is going out ten days. That means that, potentially, individuals
are contagious to others for ten days, without knowing it, traveling about and
doing whatever they do with their daily life and infecting so many other
people.”
The author also argued that official numbers are “grossly
underestimating” the true toll of infections.
“They have a lag time in testing people; they don’t have
enough test kits; they have lines around the block, in Wuhan, of people trying
to get tested,” says Garrett. “It’s wholly backed up.”” (L)
“A flight carrying about 200 American evacuees landed
Wednesday at a US military base in Southern California after leaving the
epicenter of the deadly coronavirus outbreak in China.
The flight — operated by Kalitta Air out of Ypsilanti
Township, Michigan — was seen taxiing down the runway shortly after 8 a.m. (11
a.m. ET). Several law enforcement vehicles greeted it on the tarmac, their
lights flashing…
The US Defense Department will work with the US Department
of Health and Human Services, which includes the CDC, to provide housing and,
if any individuals are ill, care at a local civilian hospital, Defense
Department spokeswoman Alyssa Fara said.
In Alaska, officials conducted two health screenings after
prior screenings in China. The CDC cleared all passengers to continue on to
California, Alaska officials said.
Passengers were screened in an isolated area of the Anchorage
airport’s north terminal, which handles international flights, and had no
impact on general travel, airport manager Jim Szczesniak said.
The CDC will work with airport officials to clean the
terminal, and there are no international flights scheduled at the airport until
May, he said…
Precautions were taken to separate the crew on the plane’s
upper level from the passengers on the plane’s lower level, she said, and the
crew did not disembark in China.
“These individuals will be screened before they take off;
monitored during the duration of the flight by medical personnel on board;
screened again on landing to refuel in Anchorage, Alaska; monitored on the last
leg of the flight by medical personnel on board; evaluated upon arrival at
March Air Reserve Base … and then monitored for symptoms post-arrival,” the CDC
said.
The passengers may be forced to stay in isolation between
three days and two weeks, an official said.
Priority was given to US citizens at risk
The passengers include US diplomats and their families. The
State Department said US citizens could board on a reimbursable basis if space
was available.
While there are about 1,000 Americans living in Wuhan,
priority was given to US citizens who are “most at risk for contracting
coronavirus” if they stay in the city, the State Department said.” (M)
“How would you describe the rate of spread?
Honestly, we don’t know, and part of the reason that it’s
continuing at this point in time is because testing is just becoming available.
So, while we’re seeing a big bolus [large number] of diagnosed cases, we don’t
yet know when they were actually infected.
What we’re waiting for from the World Health Organization is
the “epi curve,” which is the graph that shows, by date, the number of new
cases and the date of onset of their symptoms. It may be that we’ve been seeing
200 cases a day over 10 days, or it may be that we saw 3 cases, and then we saw
15 and then we saw 100 and then we saw 500 and now a thousand.
We just don’t understand yet whether the case count is due
to accelerating spread, or is that just kind of an artificial understanding
because of the way the tests are being deployed and the diagnoses are coming
in…
How should health officials communicate with the public?
In any frightening new situation, trust is the most
important thing. And when you don’t have all of the facts and you’re not sure
about what’s going on, maintaining your credibility and your trust are of
paramount importance. If you’re going to try to influence what people do or how
they decide to manage themselves in a situation like this, you have a lot
better chance of helping them decide to do the right thing if they trust you.
So that means first and foremost, telling them the truth.
Tell them what you know is going on, tell them what you wish you knew but
don’t. Then it’s important to tell them what you’re doing to get answers and,
above all, that you promise that when you have new information, you will share
it in a timely manner.
If you can keep that cadence going in an outbreak, people
will trust you because you do what you say, and they will come to rely upon you
as a credible source of updated information.” “(N)
Here are my main takeaways from that experience for ordinary
people on the ground:
1. Wash your hands frequently.
2. Don’t go to the office when you are sick. Don’t send your
kids to school or day care when they are ill, either.
Notice I didn’t say anything about masks. Having a mask with
you as a precaution makes sense if you are in the midst of an outbreak, as I
was when out reporting in the field during those months. But wearing it
constantly is another matter. I donned a mask when visiting hospitals where
SARS patients had been housed. I wore it in the markets where wild animals that
were the suspected source of the outbreak were being butchered, blood droplets
flying. I wore it in crowded enclosed spaces that I couldn’t avoid, like
airplanes and trains, as I traveled to cities involved in the outbreak, like
Guangzhou and Hong Kong. You never know if the guy coughing and sneezing two
rows ahead of you is ill or just has an allergy.
But outdoors, infections don’t spread well through the air.
Those photos of people walking down streets in China wearing masks are dramatic
but uninformed. And remember if a mask has, perchance, intercepted viruses that
would have otherwise ended up in your body, then the mask is contaminated. So,
in theory, to be protected maybe you should use a new one for each outing.
The simple masks are better than nothing, but not all that
effective, since they don’t seal well. For anyone tempted to go out and buy the
gold standard, N95 respirators, note that they are uncomfortable. Breathing is
more work. It’s hard to talk to people. On one long flight at the height of the
outbreak, on which my few fellow passengers were mostly epidemiologists trying
to solve the SARS puzzle, many of us (including me) wore our masks for the
first couple of hours on the flight. Then the food and beverage carts
came.” (O)
“The spread of a fast-moving virus outside of China is of
“grave concern” and has prompted the World Health Organization to reconvene an
emergency meeting this week to decide whether it’s become a global health
emergency, WHO officials said Wednesday.
The coronavirus has spread to a handful of people through human-to-human
contact outside of China, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health
emergencies program, said at a news conference at the organization’s Geneva
headquarters Wednesday.
“These developments in terms of the evolution of the outbreak
and further development of transmission, these are of grave concern and has
spurred countries into action,” Ryan said, adding that he just returned from
China on Wednesday. “What we know at this stage, this is still obviously a very
active outbreak and information is being updated and changing by the hour.””
(P)
B.B. S. POLLAK HOSPITAL (FORMER) – JERSEY CITY NJ,
https://livingnewdeal.org/projects/old-bs-pollak-hospital-jersey-city-nj/
C.New coronavirus ‘not spreading’ in the US, CDC says, by
Erin Schumaker,
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/coronavirus-spreading-us-cdc/story?id=68560892
D.Health experts call for calm as coronavirus cases rise, by
Holly Ellyatt, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/28/coronavirus-health-experts-urge-calm-over-virus.html
E.New York Braces for Coronavirus: ‘It’s Inevitable’, by
Joseph Goldstein and Jeffrey E. Singer,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/nyregion/new-york-city-coronavirus.html
F.New York colleges on coronavirus alert as classes begin,
by Melissa Klein,
https://nypost.com/2020/01/25/new-york-colleges-on-coronavirus-alert-as-classes-begin/
G.Response To 1st Coronavirus Case In Washington State Draws
On Lessons From Measles, by WILL STONE,
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/01/28/800248710/response-to-1st-coronavirus-case-in-washington-state-draws-on-lessons-from-measl
H.After coronavirus false alarm, see how one N.J. hospital
is preparing for the real thing, by Spencer Kent
https://www.nj.com/healthfit/2020/01/after-coronavirus-false-alarm-nj-emergency-rooms-ramp-up-protocols.html
I.Wuhan virus: China building 1,000-bed hospital over the
weekend to treat coronavirus patients,
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/china-building-1000-bed-hospital-over-the-weekend-to-treat-coronavirus
J.Coronavirus: How can China build a hospital so quickly?,
by Sophie Williams, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51245156
K.Experts Warn of Possible Sustained Global, by Helen Branswell,
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-warn-of-possible-sustained-global-spread-of-new-coronavirus/
L.Author: Protect yourself against coronavirus infection
with one simple step, by Olivia Balsamo,
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-to-protect-yourself-against-coronavirus-152101500.html
M.US evacuees from China land at California military base as
coronavirus outbreak grows, by Eliott C. McLaughlin and Faith Karimi,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/29/health/us-coronavirus-evacuation-wednesday/index.htmlBeginning
to look ‘pretty intense’:
N.Former CDC head who led U.S. SARS response speaks about
coronavirus, by Erika Edwards,
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/beginning-look-pretty-intense-former-cdc-head-who-led-u-n1124531
O.How to Avoid the Coronavirus? Wash Your Hands, by
Elisabeth Rosenthal,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/opinion/coronavirus-prevention-tips.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
P.WHO officials say coronavirus spread outside of China is
of ‘grave concern’, Berkeley Lovelace Jr.,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/29/who-officials-say-coronavirus-spread-outside-of-china-is-of-grave-concern.html
(The old B.S. Pollak Hospital, part of the old Jersey City
Medical Center, was constructed with federal funds during the Great Depression.
The building is now privately owned.
“The Pollak Hospital facility was formerly the site of a
three-story building constructed in 1918 for the Jersey City School for
Crippled Children. It was taken over as the Infectious Disease Hospital and in
1934 received a loan of $2,996,000 by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation
for a new county tuberculosis hospital. The 250-bed facility was eventually
named for Dr. B.S. Pollak and became noted for the treatment of chest diseases.
When completed in 1936, the 22-floor hospital, at 320 feet, was the tallest
building in Jersey City until 1989 with the construction of Exchange Place
Center at 490 feet.”) (B)
PART 3. February 3, 2020. “The Wuhan
coronavirus spreading from China is now likely to become a pandemic that circles
the globe…”..Trump appeared to downplay concerns about the flu-like virus
…We’re gonna see what happens, but we did shut it down..” (D)
“The Wuhan coronavirus spreading from China is now likely to
become a pandemic that circles the globe…”..Trump appeared to downplay concerns
about the flu-like virus …We’re gonna see what happens, but we did shut it
down..” (D)
The prospect is daunting. A pandemic — an ongoing epidemic
on two or more continents — may well have global consequences, despite the
extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now imposed by China and
other countries, including the United States.
Scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus
is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much damage a pandemic might cause.
But there is growing consensus that the pathogen is readily transmitted between
humans.
The Wuhan coronavirus is spreading more like influenza,
which is highly transmissible, than like its slow-moving viral cousins, SARS
and MERS, scientists have found.
“It’s very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is
going to be a pandemic,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
“But will it be catastrophic? I don’t know.”
In the last three weeks, the number of lab-confirmed cases
has soared from about 50 in China to more than 17,000 in at least 23 countries;
there have been more than 360 deaths.
But various epidemiological models estimate that the real
number of cases is 100,000 or even more. While that expansion is not as rapid
as that of flu or measles, it is an enormous leap beyond what virologists saw
when SARS and MERS emerged.” (A)
“The World Health Organization declared a global health
emergency on Thursday as the coronavirus outbreak spread well beyond China,
where it emerged last month.
The move reversed the organization’s decision just a week
ago to hold off such a declaration. Since then, there have been thousands of
new cases in China and clear evidence of human-to-human transmission in several
other countries, including the United States.
All of which warranted a reconsideration by the W.H.O.’s
emergency committee, officials said.
The declaration “is not a vote of no confidence in China,”
said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director-general. “On the
contrary, the W.H.O. continues to have confidence in China’s capacity to
control the outbreak.”
The declaration comes now, he said, because of fears that
the coronavirus may reach countries with weak health care systems, where it
could run amok, potentially infecting millions of people and killing
thousands.” (B)
“The Donald Trump administration declared the coronavirus
outbreak to be a public health emergency in the United States on Friday,
setting quarantines of Americans who have recently been to certain parts of
China.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said it
was the first quarantine order issued by the federal government in over 50
years. Marty Cetron, director of CDC’s Division of Global Migration and
Quarantine, said the last time a quarantine was used was in the 1960s for
smallpox…
U.S. citizens who have been in China’s Hubei province during
the past 14 days and are returning to the U.S. States will undergo health
screenings and be monitored during mandatory quarantines of up to 14 days,
officials said.
Azar also announced a temporary suspension of entry into the
United States of foreign nationals who pose a risk for the transmission of the
coronavirus.
As a precaution, any U.S. citizen who has been anywhere else
in mainland China beyond Hubei province will be screened when they return for
evidence of coronavirus symptoms. They will also be subject to self-quarantines
of up to 14 days and monitored by local health officials.
All flights from China to the U.S. will be funneled to one
of seven airports that are designated ports of entry: New York, San Francisco,
Seattle, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta.” (C)
“The United States has taken decisive action to protect
Americans from the threat of a fast-moving coronavirus while offering help to
China, President Donald Trump said on Sunday, but a key adviser said Beijing
had not accepted the offers of assistance.
Trump appeared to downplay concerns about the flu-like virus
that has killed more than 300 people in China and spread to more than two dozen
countries, telling Fox television in an interview, “We’re gonna see what
happens, but we did shut it down, yes.” (D)
“People showing no symptoms appear to be able to spread the
novel coronavirus that has caused an outbreak in China and led world health
authorities to declare a global emergency, researchers reported Thursday in the
New England Journal of Medicine. If confirmed, the finding will make it much
harder to contain the virus.
The case described — from Germany — could help resolve one
of the major unknowns about the virus, which as of Thursday night had infected
nearly 9,700 people in China and killed 213. About 100 more infections have
been reported in 18 other countries, but no deaths.
Some viruses, including SARS, which is another coronavirus,
can only be passed when a person is showing symptoms. Others, like the flu, can
be spread a day or two before the onset of symptoms. If people are contagious
before they become sick, they can be unknowingly spreading the virus as they go
shopping or to work or to the movies. Trying to snuff out the virus in that
case is a much more difficult task.
What’s also concerning is that the spread from an
asymptomatic person appeared to lead to two generations of cases, meaning the
person who contracted the virus then passed it on to others.” (E)
“Close to 10,000 people have contracted the new coronavirus
that originated in Wuhan, China—more cases than SARS in 2003. So far, 213
people have died. The preliminary fatality rate for 2019-nCoV hovers around
3%—which is low, but still concerning because of the number of cases
accumulating.
But that fatality rate is likely to be higher in older
adults. Unofficial open-source data from researchers based in the UK and China
show that out of 41 deaths, 39 were in people over 50. Bloomberg reports
similar figures. While that’s not unexpected, it indicates the need for
effective therapies targeted at this population. And as the proportion of
adults over 50 continues to increase globally, future pandemics could be
deadlier than they’ve been in the past…
There are two reasons older adults are more susceptible to
infections. First, seniors are more likely to have other chronic health
conditions, like diabetes or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, that make
it harder for their bodies to cope with damage caused by a new pathogen. Every
year, the majority of flu deaths are seen in people 65 or older.
Second, the immune system changes with age—particularly in
its ability to respond to coronaviruses. Unlike the flu virus, which does most
of the damage to your body on its own, most of the symptoms from coronavirus
infections actually come from the body’s immune response, Menachery says.
Although he and his lab team are still characterizing these reactions, it seems
like coronaviruses encourage older immune systems to kick in with extra
inflammation, which can have a cascading effect.” (F)
“Two more Americans, a husband and wife, were confirmed to
have the coronavirus late Sunday in the second person-to-person transmission in
the U.S. and the 10th and 11th cases in the country, respectively.
The husband, from San Benito County, California, recently
traveled to Wuhan, China, the center of the virus’ outbreak, and apparently
passed the disease to his wife, who did not go to China. Both 57, neither has
been hospitalized, but they have also not left their home.
The couple’s diagnosis brings the total number of positive
cases in the United States to 11. The ninth case in the country, in Santa Clara
County, California, was announced Sunday afternoon. The other human-to-human
transmission was also between a husband and wife and was announced last week in
Illinois.” (G)
“Stopping the spread of a rapidly emerging disease takes
masterful medical detective work, including tracing the people who have been
infected and figuring out their web of contacts, steps that are vital to
understanding how it’s being transmitted. US public health officials are
following those trails to quickly detect new cases of the Wuhan coronavirus,
including the report on Thursday of a sixth US infection—the husband of a woman
who became ill after traveling from China back home to Chicago—which was
followed by a seventh, in California, on Friday.
Yet there’s a potential wildcard, a deviation that throws
off the most careful calculations. For reasons that are still unclear, some
people, known as super-spreaders, transmit disease much more readily than
others, and to many more people. Like an infectious grenade, they can set off a
sudden cluster of illnesses. “These super-spreader events are very unique and
fall out of the world of averages,” says Michael Osterholm, an infectious
disease expert and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and
Policy at the University of Minnesota. Yet super-spreading can shape the
trajectory of an outbreak in unexpected ways, making it more difficult to
control. Instead of infecting just a few people who are close to them, a
super-spreader may inadvertently infect dozens—who go on to spread the disease
elsewhere.” (H)
“Can wearing a medical face mask protect you against the new
coronavirus? It’s a question many people, including pet owners who are putting
canine face masks on their dogs, are asking.
If it’s a regular surgical face mask, the answer is “no,”
Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious-disease specialist at Vanderbilt
University in Tennessee, told Live Science.
A more specialized mask, known as an N95 respirator, can
protect against the new coronavirus, also called 2019-nCoV. The respirator is
thicker than a surgical mask, but Schaffner doesn’t recommend it for public
use, at least not at this point.” (I)
“New York City health officials announced on Saturday that a
patient at Bellevue Hospital Center might have the new coronavirus and that
samples were being sent to the federal authorities for laboratory testing. If
confirmed, it would be the first known instance of the virus in New York City.
Based on the patient’s symptoms and travel history from
China, city officials were taking the potential case seriously. This was the
first time city officials had sent a sample to the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention for testing.
Another reason the health authorities suspect it might be
the new coronavirus: They had tested the patient for influenza and other common
illnesses, and those tests came back negative, health officials said.
They said they did not expect to receive results from the
C.D.C. for 36 to 48 hours, or possibly longer.
“An individual with a travel history to China felt unwell
and sought help from a medical provider who promptly contacted the Health
Department,” the health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, said in a statement.”
(J)
“China completed building on Sunday a massive, makeshift
hospital in Wuhan that will serve as the frontline in battling the coronavirus
epidemic, according to a report.
Huoshenshan Hospital was built in less than two weeks to
treat patients at the epicenter of the virus that has killed more than 300
people, BBC reported.
The hospital, which has 1,000 beds, started construction
Jan. 23 and will begin admitting patients on Monday, according to Chinese state
media China Global Television Network.
Around 40 million people tuned into livestreams of the
construction on YouTube and Periscope, while workers rushed to complete one of
two hospitals that will specialize in treating the virus.
Chinese officials are still working to build the second
emergency hospital, Leishenshan Hospital, which is expected to open Wednesday
around 25 miles away from the newest site, CGTN reported.” (K)
“The 195 Americans who flew from China to California were
first told they must clear medical tests that could take 72 hours or many days.
Now they are all being quarantined for two weeks…
This makeshift community on a military base in Riverside,
Calif., is made up of evacuees from Wuhan, the city in China that is the
epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. The 195 people, including diplomats,
infants, a football player and a theme-park designer, are among Americans who
have managed to leave Wuhan since a quarantine was imposed.
Now they find themselves stuck in place in the United
States. The federal government on Friday imposed a 14-day quarantine,
retroactive to when the plane left Wuhan. The patients were initially told they
had to wait at least 72 hours for medical testing to be completed.” (L)
“The BlueDot algorithm scours news reports and airline
ticketing data to predict the spread of diseases like those linked to the flu
outbreak in China.
On January 9, the World Health Organization notified the
public of a flu-like outbreak in China: a cluster of pneumonia cases had been
reported in Wuhan, possibly from vendors’ exposure to live animals at the
Huanan Seafood Market. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had
gotten the word out a few days earlier, on January 6. But a Canadian health
monitoring platform had beaten them both to the punch, sending word of the
outbreak to its customers on December 31.
BlueDot uses an AI-driven algorithm that scours
foreign-language news reports, animal and plant disease networks, and official
proclamations to give its clients advance warning to avoid danger zones like
Wuhan.
Speed matters during an outbreak, and tight-lipped Chinese
officials do not have a good track record of sharing information about
diseases, air pollution, or natural disasters. But public health officials at
WHO and the CDC have to rely on these very same health officials for their own
disease monitoring. So maybe an AI can get there faster. “We know that
governments may not be relied upon to provide information in a timely fashion,”
says Kamran Khan, BlueDot’s founder and CEO. “We can pick up news of possible
outbreaks, little murmurs or forums or blogs of indications of some kind of
unusual events going on.” (M)
““The outbreak is probably a lot bigger than one the public
health officials have confirmation of,” says James Lawler, an infectious
disease specialist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, who treated
quarantined Ebola patients in 2017 and 2018. “Just using a back-of-the-envelope
calculation on how many travelers there are from China in a given week, and
percentage than might have been affected, it’s a lot.”
An area containing eight cities and 35 million people have
now been quarantined in China, The New York Times reported Friday, while The
Wall Street Journal reports that hospitals in the epicenter of Wuhan are
turning away patients and medical supplies such as masks and sanitizers have
run out.
Lawler and others say that the coronavirus outbreak will continue
to spread as travelers from China to other nations exhibit symptoms of
infection. He says we still don’t know how many people will get sick, and how
many of those will die before the outbreak recedes.
To stop the spread of disease, public health officials will
need to tell the truth and tell it quickly. But in the meantime, it might be
worth deputizing an AI-driven epidemiologist.” (N)
As the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread across
China, a flurry of early research is drawing a clearer picture of how the
pathogen behaves and the key factors that will determine whether it can be
contained.
How contagious is the virus?
It seems moderately infectious, similar to SARS.
How deadly is the virus?
It’s hard to know yet. But the fatality rate is probably
less than 3 percent, much less than SARS.
How long does it take to show symptoms?
Possibly between 2 to 14 days, allowing the illness to go
undetected.
How much have infected people traveled?
The virus spread quickly because it started in a transportation
hub.
How effective will the response be?” (O)
“The World Health Organization has declared the growing
coronavirus outbreak in China to be a global health emergency. It’s a
recognition that the outbreak — now with nearly 10,000 cases — may continue to
spread beyond China, and that the nations of the world should lend their
assistance and be prepared.
Just a month ago, this virus, called 2019-nCoV, was unknown
to science. Now, health officials are working furiously to understand it,
trying to prevent a pandemic (a larger global spread of an infection).
These are still early days. Critical questions about the
virus — namely how it spreads, and how deadly it is — remain to be firmly
answered. But it’s not too soon to wonder: How does this outbreak end?
Right now, infectious disease experts are outlining three
broad scenarios for the future of this outbreak. Keep in mind there’s a lot of
uncertainty about how this will unfold.
1) The spread of the virus gets under control through public
health interventions
This is the best-case scenario, and essentially what
happened with the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak in 2003…
2) The virus burns itself out after it infects all or most
of the people most susceptible to it
Disease outbreaks are a bit like fires. The virus is the
flame. Susceptible people are the fuel. Eventually, a fire burns itself out if
it runs out of kindling. A virus outbreak will end when it stops finding
susceptible people to infect.
3) Coronavirus becomes yet another common virus
There’s a third scenario about how this outbreak ends. That
it doesn’t.
This has happened before. In 2009, a new strain of the H1N1
flu virus encircled the globe in a pandemic. But, “after a while it became a
part of our normal repertoire of what might come up each flu season,” Mina
says.” (P)
“Each new crisis follows a familiar playbook, as scientists,
epidemiologists, health-care workers, and politicians race to characterize and
contain the new threat. Each epidemic is also different, and each is a mirror
that reflects the society it affects. In the new coronavirus, we see a world
that is more connected than ever by international travel, but that has also
succumbed to growing isolationism and xenophobia. We see a time when scientific
research and the demand for news, the spread of misinformation and the spread
of a virus, all happen at a relentless, blistering pace. The new crisis is very
much the kind of epidemic we should expect, given the state of the world in
2020. “It’s almost as if the content is the same but the amplitude is
different,” Bhadelia said. “There’s just a greater frenzy, and is that a
function of the disease, or a function of the changed world? It’s unclear.”
And there will be a next epidemic. A new disease was always
going to rear its head to test the world’s mettle, and more almost certainly
will in the future. As I argued in 2018, the world isn’t ready. There has
assuredly been progress—vaccines can be produced faster, global cooperation is
tighter, basic research is nimbler—but supply chains are stretched,
misinformation is rife, and investments in preparedness always fall into
neglect once panic subsides. “Every year, things get more and more connected,”
Inglesby says. “Epidemics like this show that all of it can be relatively quickly
put at risk.” (Q)
A.Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic,
Experts Say, by Donald G. McNeil Jr.,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/health/coronavirus-pandemic-china.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
B.W.H.O. Declares Global Emergency as Wuhan Coronavirus
Spreads, by Sui-Lee Wee, Donald G. McNeil Jr. and Javier C. Hernández,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/health/coronavirus-world-health-organization.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
C.Trump administration declares coronavirus emergency,
orders first quarantine in 50 years, by David Jackson,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/01/31/coronavirus-donald-trump-declares-public-health-emergency/4625299002/
D.Trump says U.S. has ‘shut down’ coronavirus threat; China
shuns U.S. help, by Doina Chiacu, Andrea Shalal,
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-usa/trump-says-us-has-shut-down-coronavirus-threat-china-shuns-us-help-idUSKBN1ZW0OJ
E.Study documents first case of coronavirus spread by a
person showing no symptoms, by Andrew Joseph/
https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/30/first-documented-case-of-coronavirus-spread-by-person-showing-no-symptoms/
F.Coronaviruses hit seniors the hardest, by Katherine Ellen
Foley,
https://qz.com/1794241/seniors-seem-to-have-the-highest-risk-of-dying-from-coronavirus/
G.2nd person-to-person transmission of coronavirus reported
in US; 1st death confirmed outside China, by Christina Carrega,
https://abcnews.go.com/International/1st-coronavirus-related-death-china-reported/story?id=68707431
H.Wuhan Coronavirus ‘Super-Spreaders’ Could Be Wildcards, by
MICHELE COHEN MARILL,
https://www.wired.com/story/wuhan-coronavirus-super-spreaders-could-be-wildcards/
I.Can wearing a face mask protect you from the new
coronavirus?, by Laura Geggel, https://www.livescience.com/face-mask-new-coronavirus.html
J.New York City Eyes First Suspected Case of Coronavirus, by
Joseph Goldstein,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/01/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-city.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
K.China completes emergency coronavirus hospital in just
days, by Jackie Salo,
https://nypost.com/2020/02/02/china-completes-emergency-coronavirus-hospital-in-just-days/
L.Inside the California Military Base a Coronavirus Evacuee
Tried to Flee, by Miriam Jordan, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/us/coronavirus-americans-evacuate.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
M.An AI Epidemiologist Sent the First Warnings of the Wuhan
Virus, by ERIC NIILER,
https://www.wired.com/story/ai-epidemiologist-wuhan-public-health-warnings/
N.An AI Epidemiologist Sent the First Warnings of the Wuhan
Virus, by ERIC NIILER,
https://www.wired.com/story/ai-epidemiologist-wuhan-public-health-warnings/
O.How Bad Will the Coronavirus Outbreak Get? Here Are 6 Key
Factors, by Knvul Sheikh, Derek Watkins, Jin Wu and Mika Gröndah,
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/asia/china-coronavirus-contain.html
P.Coronavirus: How does this outbreak end?, by Brian
Resnick,
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/1/31/21115109/coronavirus-outbreak-end-sars-comparison
PART 4. February 9,
2020. “A study published Friday in JAMA found that 41% of the first 138
patients diagnosed at one hospital in Wuhan, China, were presumed to be
infected in that hospital.…
“A study published Friday in JAMA found that
41% of the first 138 patients diagnosed at one hospital in Wuhan, China, were
presumed to be infected in that hospital.….
“Five health care workers at
Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose were exposed to the new coronavirus while
treating a patient there and have been sent home and told to remain isolated
until Feb. 11, according to Santa Clara County public health officials…
The workers are being kept at
home “to protect the public’s health and limit any potential spread of the
virus,” Santa Clara County public health officials said in a statement.” (A)
“During SARS, patients were sent
to nine hospitals all over Hong Kong so that no one hospital had to bear the
full burden of the outbreak. Despite this effort to spread the load, the
outbreak overwhelmed the city’s health-care system. The Tuen Mun public
hospital in the northwest of the city was one of the treatment facilities. The
toll on the hospital was steep. Staff had to work long hours with the threat of
a deadly virus looming over them. Non-emergency patients were turned away.
Entire wards were turned into isolation zones. And the first of many casualties
among health-care workers in Hong Kong occurred at Tuen Mun on April 26, 2003…
During SARS much of the spread
was happening in hospitals. Once that became clear, public health officials put
in place rigid infection control measures in medical settings; the outbreaks in
Hong Kong, China, Toronto and elsewhere were brought under control. Cowling
says transmission of this new coronavirus is quite different from SARS…
Public health officials don’t
yet know what it will take to stop the new Wuhan coronavirus, but Seto says
fanatically enforcing hand washing — at home and in hospitals — will probably
be one of the keys.” (B)
“Most transmission appears
to be occurring in the community,” he says. “We’ve seen a small
number of infections of health-care workers, but nothing like SARS where one
third of the cases were health-care workers. For the new coronavirus it’s a
much smaller fraction in hospitals, and probably most transmission occurring in
the general community. And that’s much, much more difficult for public health
measures to deal with.”
Infectious disease specialists
and scientists say the new coronavirus that’s shuttering companies across
mainland China may be more contagious than current data shows.
Emerging in Wuhan, China, about
a month ago, the virus has spread from about 300 people as of Jan. 21 to close
to 21,000 and killed more than 420 — with the number of new cases growing by
the thousands every day.
“The rapid acceleration of cases
is of concern,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health
Organization’s emergencies program, said at a news conference last week before
the agency declared a global health emergency.
Chinese scientists worry the
respiratory illness, which world health officials say likely came from a fish
market, has mutated to adapt to its new human hosts far more quickly than SARS.
Data on the virus is changing by the day, and some infectious disease
specialists say it will take weeks before they can see just how contagious it
is. What they’re seeing so far is concerning and leading U.S. and international
scientists to believe the virus is more contagious than the current data shows,
according to interviews with epidemiologists, scientists and infectious disease
specialists.” (C)
“The Wuhan coronavirus spreading
from China is now likely to become a pandemic that circles the globe, according
to many of the world’s leading infectious disease experts.
The prospect is daunting. A
pandemic — an ongoing epidemic on two or more continents — may well have global
consequences, despite the extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now
imposed by China and other countries, including the United States.
Scientists do not yet know how
lethal the new coronavirus is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much
damage a pandemic might cause. But there is growing consensus that the pathogen
is readily transmitted between humans.
The Wuhan coronavirus is
spreading more like influenza, which is highly transmissible, than like its
slow-moving viral cousins, SARS and MERS, scientists have found.
“It’s very, very transmissible,
and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci,
director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.” (D)
“When the H1N1 flu began
spreading a decade ago, U.S. hospitals were flooded with patients. The
pandemic, which was declared over in 2010, left nearly 275,000 hospitalized, as
health officials fretted whether they would have enough beds, enough medical
supplies, or enough protective gear…
Hospitals across the country are
convening near-daily meetings to check in on their emergency preparedness
plans. And they’ve called all hands on deck. Nearly everyone — from physicians
and nurses to public affairs representatives and the employees responsible for
ordering supplies and keeping the hospital clean — is involved in making sure a
hospital’s existing emergency plans are up to date.
“But as we project outward with the potential
for this to be a much longer situation, one of the things that we’re actively
working on is projecting the long-term needs for our health care system,” Dr.
Nancy Messonnier, director of Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters on
Wednesday…
Much of that work revolves
around hospitals planning for what Biddinger called the “four S’s” of a surge
in patients amid an outbreak: supplies, staff, space, and the system that
governs all of them.
They need to review their
inventory of supplies, including ventilators, oxygen tanks, and the respirator
masks that health workers might need to wear to care for infected patients.
They need to plan for how to protect other patients in the hospital,
particularly those with weak immune systems. They need to review screening
procedures and the proper way to put on protective gear. And they need to
educate everyone — from the front desk employees in the ER to the workers who
take out the trash in patient rooms — in those protocols.” (E)
“Given the unknowns about
2019-nCoV, in the coming days and weeks, we’re in for some twists and turns.
For now, many experts believe this outbreak could get a lot worse: burdening
the Chinese health system, spreading in poorer countries with weaker health
systems, and sickening and killing thousands more people along the way.
Alternatively, it could get much better, with new cases and deaths steadily
dropping. Here are the key factors that will determine which way it goes.
4 ways this outbreak could take
a turn for the worse
1) China can’t contain the new
coronavirus
2) The new coronavirus spreads
in countries with weak health systems
3) The virus is actually
deadlier than it seems right now
4 things that could unfold that
would prevent a pandemic
1) China contains the virus
2) Local clusters of the disease
in other countries don’t grow
3) The virus can’t spread in
poorer countries with hotter climates
4) We learn the virus is not as
deadly as it seems (F)
“Princess Cruises late Tuesday
said nine passengers and a crew member on one of its ships in Japan had tested
positive for the new coronavirus from China, prompting local authorities to
order a multiweek quarantine of the vessel.
The Santa Clarita,
California-based line said more than 2,600 passengers and 1,044 crew on the
Diamond Princess would remain quarantined on the ship for at least 14 days.
The 10 people who have tested
positive for the virus are being taken off the ship, which is in the harbor of
Yokohama, Japan — the port for Tokyo. They’ll be transferred to local
hospitals…
Early Wednesday, another cruise
vessel arriving in a major Asian port was quarantined until passengers could
undergo screening for coronavirus. The quarantine of the 3,376-passenger World
Dream, in Hong Kong, was ordered after three passengers from a previous sailing
tested positive for the virus. World Dream is operated by Dream Cruises, an
Asia-based cruise company that caters to Asian travelers.//
Princess said Diamond Princess
would head out to sea to perform normal marine operations including, but not
limited to, the production of fresh water and ballast operations, before
returning to Yokohama and docking at the city’s port. Food and other supplies
needed for the extended quarantine of the vessel will be brought onboard.
Passengers have been confined to
their cabins for the duration of the quarantine, and many shipboard services
have been shut down. Food is being delivered to cabins at regular intervals.
Passengers have access to complimentary internet and telephone service to stay
in contact with their families and other loved ones.” (G)
“A southern New Jersey military
installation is on a list of potential coronavirus quarantine locations should
the need arise.
The Department of Health and
Human Services has requested the support of the Department of Defense to
provide space if primary and secondary facilities become full.
The Department of Defense
identified 11 locations near major airports, including Joint Base
McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, which spans through portions of Burlington and Ocean
counties, according to a news release issued Thursday.
The military involvement would
be limited to providing housing support for up to 20 people as they undergo a
period of quarantined observation, the Department of Defense release said.
Military personnel will not be in direct contact with quarantined people and
will minimize contact with personnel supporting the evacuees, officials said…
There are currently 12 confirmed
cases in the United States, CNN reported Thursday. The news network report said
that “planeloads” of Americans fleeing the outbreak in China are arriving at military
bases across the United States.” (H)
“Current efforts to contain the
coronavirus differ in many ways from those inflicted on lepers in the past
century. Americans who may have been exposed to the virus in China are
quarantined for 14 days and are not sentenced to life in isolation. The medical
treatment is significantly improved and the chances of recovery are good.
However, the corona virus is far more contagious than leprosy, against which
95% of people are naturally immune. Precautions are certainly useful.
But this recent outbreak raises
questions similar to the health authorities that struggled with decades ago.
Are quarantine and isolation the most effective way to contain a disease? Do
you hesitate to identify yourself as a potential victim?
“It fails because people are
headed for the hills,” said Wendy Parmet, a professor of health law at
Northeastern University, Rob Stein from the NPR. “People don’t call and look
for medical care … and medical care providers are afraid to treat patients because
they don’t want to be quarantined.”
There are other questions as
well.
Will the US decision to close
its borders for foreigners who have recently visited China do more harm than
good? The World Health Organization believes that such travel bans may and
warns of panic and anxiety measures.
Perhaps more importantly, how
are those who are believed to be potential carriers of the virus treated by
those around them? NPR’s Maria Godoy reports that some Asian Americans are
already experiencing a setback. A student was told to leave a cafe and “take
the corona virus with her.”” (I)
“The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention has shipped the diagnostic test for the novel coronavirus to
more than 100 public health labs nationwide, allowing states to test for
coronavirus cases themselves and receive results quicker.
Why it matters: The FDA bypassed
usual regulatory channels to distribute the test under an Emergency Use
Authorization, which has been used in life-threatening situations like MERS,
Ebola and the Zika virus.
Before, specimens from all over
the country had to be shipped to Atlanta to have their suspected cases
validated.
“This continues to be an
evolving situation and the ability to distribute this diagnostic test to
qualified labs is a critical step forward in protecting the public
health,” FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said.” (J)
“CDC created this interim
guidance to provide US public health authorities and other partners with a
framework for assessing and managing risk of potential exposures to 2019-nCoV
and implementing public health actions based on a person’s risk level and
clinical presentation. Public health actions may include active monitoring or
supervision of self-monitoring by public health authorities, or the application
of movement restrictions, including isolation and quarantine, when needed to
prevent the possible spread of 2019-nCoV in US communities. The recommendations
in this guidance apply to US-bound travelers and people located in the United
States who may have been exposed to 2019-nCoV. CDC acknowledges that state and
local jurisdictions may make risk management decisions that differ from those
recommended here. However, a harmonized national approach will facilitate
smooth coordination and minimize confusion. The guidance may be updated based
on the evolving circumstances of the outbreak.” (K)
“Infection control procedures
including administrative rules and engineering controls, environmental hygiene,
correct work practices, and appropriate use of personal protective equipment
(PPE) are all necessary to prevent infections from spreading during healthcare
delivery. Prompt detection and effective triage and isolation of potentially
infectious patients are essential to prevent unnecessary exposures among
patients, healthcare personnel, and visitors at the facility. All healthcare
facilities must ensure that their personnel are correctly trained and capable
of implementing infection control procedures; individual healthcare personnel
should ensure they understand and can adhere to infection control requirements.
This guidance is based on the
currently limited information available about 2019-nCoV related to disease
severity, transmission efficiency, and shedding duration. This cautious
approach will be refined and updated as more information becomes available and
as response needs change in the United States. This guidance is applicable to
all U.S. healthcare settings. This guidance is not intended for non-healthcare
settings (e.g., schools) OR to persons outside of healthcare settings. For
recommendations regarding clinical management, air or ground medical transport,
or laboratory settings, refer to the main CDC 2019-nCoV website.” (L)
“Whether it’s an influx of
coronavirus carriers or another Superstorm Sandy, a new nonprofit report finds
New Jersey is in a relatively good position to handle the next public health
emergency.
An annual survey released
Wednesday by The Trust for America’s Health shows that New Jersey is among a
top tier of 17 states considered to have the best health care and emergency
response systems, along with the training and capacity to protect residents
against communicable diseases, natural disasters and other calamities.
Officials at the Trust — a
national research and advocacy group focused on public health and injury
prevention — said the Garden State has ranked in the top third of states for
the last several years, a significant improvement from 2013, when it came in as
one of the seven lowest-scoring states.” (M)
“Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday launched
a task force to make sure New Jersey is prepared for any threat from the
surging coronavirus.
Murphy also noted that Newark
Liberty International Airport is one of 11 major U.S. airports that receive
flights from China requiring enhanced screening for the virus.
There are no confirmed cases of
coronavirus in New Jersey, but Murphy said it’s “critical” the state has
“strong preparedness protocols in place.”
“By establishing the Coronavirus
Task Force, we are bringing together experts across state agencies, health
officials, and federal partners to ensure that we are working collaboratively
to protect the health and safety of all New Jerseyans,” the governor
added.
According to an executive order
Murphy signed Monday, the task force will coordinate all state efforts to
“prepare for and respond to the public health hazard posed” by
coronavirus.
The task force is chaired by
state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli and will include members of the
state’s human services, law and public safety, education, and homeland security
departments, as well as the State Police.” (N)
““I have to emphasize that the
risk right now, certainly to the United States but definitely to the residents
of New Jersey, is still low,” said state health commissioner Judith Persichilli,
whom Murphy named as the chair of a new Coronavirus Task Force…
Authorities also said that
Newark Liberty International Airport is one of 11 airports in the nation where
flights from China will be allowed to land, and passengers on those flights will
be screened and, if necessary, quarantined.
“We’ve been very proactive, we
have teams in place ready to go,” Persichilli said. “There will be screening at
the Newark Airport. We are prepared to handle quarantine of any person that
comes in.”
Also represented on the task
force are the State Police, the Office of Homeland Security, the attorney
general and the Department of Education. The group will coordinate with
hospitals and other health care facilities as well as federal authorities and
the Port Authority, which runs Newark Airport.
Also Monday, Princeton
University has told students who recently returned from China to
“self-quarantine” for 14 days from the time they were last in China, a step the
university said was being taken as a precaution. The number of students
affected by the order is more than 100, according to various news reports.
The precaution matches a general
advisory issued for travelers by state public health officials.
“If you’ve traveled to China and
return from that travel, we would urge residents to monitor their symptoms for
14 days,” said Dr. Lisa McHugh, program coordinator for infectious disease
epidemiology for the state health department. “If you develop symptoms, again
we would urge you to contact your health care provider, and we’ll work through
them to determine if the individual should be tested at the Centers for Disease
Control.”” (O)
“China on Thursday finished
building a second new hospital to isolate and treat patients of a virus that
has killed more than 560 people and continues to spread, disrupting travel and
people’s lives and fueling economic fears.
A first group of patients was
expected to start testing a new antiviral drug, as China also moved people with
milder symptoms into makeshift hospitals at sports centers, exhibition halls
and other public spaces.
Other treatment centers had
tight rows of simple cots lining cavernous rooms where patients with milder
symptoms would be cared for. And Wuhan had another 132 quarantine sites with
more than 12,500 beds, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.” (P)
“United States citizen died from
the coronavirus in Wuhan, China, American officials said on Saturday. It was
the first known American death from the illness, and was likely to add to
diplomatic friction over Beijing’s response to the epidemic.” (Q)
“A study published Friday in the
medical journal JAMA found that 41% of the first 138 patients diagnosed at one
hospital in Wuhan, China, were presumed to be infected in that hospital.
This is big news. In plain
English, it means that nearly half of the initial infections in this hospital
appear to have been spread within the hospital itself. This is called
nosocomial transmission. (Doctors use big words to hide bad things: Nosocomial
means caught it in the hospital.)
What’s more, most spread doesn’t
appear to have been the result of a so-called “super-spreader event,”
in which a single patient transmits infection to many other people. In these
events, a procedure such as bronchoscopy — where a doctor inserts a tube into
the patient’s lungs — can result in many infections.
This would be a concern, but not
nearly as much as what appears to have happened: Many health care workers and
many patients got infected in many parts of the hospital. What’s more, since there’s
a broad spectrum of infection and only patients who were sick were tested, it’s
quite likely that there was even more transmission in the hospital.
So, like SARS and MERS — other
coronaviruses — before it, the Wuhan coronavirus is spreading in hospitals.”
(R)
“The World Health Organization’s
director-general cautioned Saturday that transmission of the new coronavirus
outside of China may increase and countries should prepare for that
possibility.
“It’s slow now, but it may accelerate,” Tedros
Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press conference in Geneva. “So while it’s
still slow there is a window of opportunity that we should use to the maximum
in order to have a better outcome, and further decrease the progress and stop
it.”
Tedros’s warning came after
health authorities in Singapore announced they had diagnosed the infection in a
man with no travel history to China and no known link to other cases in
Singapore…
Infectious diseases expert
Michael Osterholm warned that it is unwise to conclude that just because the
world hasn’t yet seen outbreaks in other countries they won’t happen. It takes
several generations of transmission — an imported case passed on to two others,
who then infect two others and so on — before an outbreak takes off, he said.”
“What we’re watching is the
public health community trying to catch up to the speed of the virus,” said
Osterholm, who is the director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for
Infectious Diseases Research and Policy.” (S)
“With an intense flu season in
full swing, hundreds of thousands of coughing and feverish patients have
already overwhelmed emergency rooms around the United States. Now, hospitals
are bracing for the potential spread of coronavirus that could bring another
surge of patients.
So far, only a dozen people in
the United States have become infected with the novel coronavirus, but an
outbreak could severely strain the nation’s hospitals.
“We’re talking about the
possibility of a double flu pandemic,” where a second wave starts before the
first is over, said Dr. Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins
Center for Health Security.
Public health experts are also
closely watching reserves of vital medical supplies and medications, many of
which are made in China. Some hospitals in the United States are already
“critically low” on respirator masks, according to Premier Inc., which secures
medical supplies and equipment on behalf of hospitals and health systems. And
China is the dominant supplier of the raw ingredients needed for penicillin,
ibuprofen and even aspirin — drugs taken daily by millions of Americans and
dispensed routinely to hospital patients.
“All the hospitals are taxed
with a large flu season and other bugs,” said Dr. Mark Jarrett, the chief
quality officer for Northwell Health, which operates 23 hospitals across Long
Island and elsewhere in New York. About 400 patients are coming to its
emergency rooms each day with flulike symptoms.
“Everybody is at maximum
capacity,” Dr. Jarrett said…
“Many of us are holding our
breath to see the downstream effect on pharmaceuticals and other medical
supplies because of this outbreak in China,” said Dr. Paul Biddinger, who helps
oversee emergency preparedness for Partners Healthcare, the Boston hospital
group that includes Massachusetts General.
Experts like Dr. Toner say
supplies could easily become depleted, especially at smaller hospitals that
tend to have less inventory of basic items like masks, gowns and gloves.
Hospitals have long struggled with shortages of injectable medications and
staples like saline. In 2017, Hurricane Maria knocked out power to several
pharmaceutical factories in Puerto Rico, leading to a shortage of saline bags…
Because the nature of the virus
is still unknown, public health officials said it’s unclear what future
challenges hospitals will face if the coronavirus spreads into an epidemic in
the United States. While the current government guidelines call for patients to
be treated in specialized isolation rooms, experts say it is unlikely that
there will be enough isolation rooms at individual facilities.” (T)
“The number of deaths from novel
coronavirus in mainland China increased to 811 Sunday, health officials with
China’s National Health Commission said.
This exceeds the number of
deaths reported from the SARS outbreak in 2003, which killed 774 people,
according to the World Health Organization.
Outside of China, two people
died from the disease in the last two week, one in the Philippines and one in
Hong Kong, bringing total number of global deaths to at least 813.
As of Sunday, more than 37,198
confirmed cases have been reported on mainland China…
Six more people aboard a cruise
ship quarantined in Japan have tested positive for novel coronavirus, bringing
the total on the Diamond Princess to 70, Japan’s health ministry said Sunday.
The ministry said one of the six
confirmed cases is a woman in her 70s who has Hong Kong residency, but is also
a U.S. citizen. That brings the total number of American passengers who were
confirmed to have the virus to 14.” (U)
“Four passengers on Friday were
taken to a hospital after their cruise ship arrived in New Jersey for
evaluation of coronavirus..
The CDC has confirmed just 12
cases in the United States, mostly in California; there have been no cases in
New Jersey or New York
Four passengers traveling on a
cruise ship that returned to New Jersey have tested negative for the new virus
that has sickened tens of thousands in mainland China and killed more than 800.
Governor Phil Murphy said all
passengers tested negative and “New Jersey currently has no confirmed
cases of novel coronavirus and the risk to residents remains low.” (V)
(A) Five San Jose hospital workers sent home after exposure to
coronavirus, by Deanne Fitzmauric
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Five-San-Jose-hospital-workers-sent-home-after-15030563.phpe,
(B) How Hong Kong Beat SARS: Lessons Learned, by Jason
Beaubien, https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/npr/npr-story/802701836
(C) Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic,
Experts Say, by Donald G. McNeil Jr.,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/04/researchers-say-the-coronavirus-may-be-more-contagious-than-current-data-shows.html
(D) Researchers say the coronavirus may be more contagious than
current data shows, by Berkeley Lovelace, Jr., https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/04/researchers-say-the-coronavirus-may-be-more-contagious-than-current-data-shows.html
(E) ‘We need everyone for this’: U.S. hospitals harnessing
resources to brace for any spike in coronavirus cases, by MEGAN THIELKING,
https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/07/hospitals-harnessing-resources-brace-spike-coronavirus-
(F) What happens next in the coronavirus outbreak? We mapped 8
scenarios, by Julia Belluz,
https://www.vox.com/2020/2/5/21122758/coronavirus-outcomes-pandemic-travel-china-map
(G) Nearly 4,000 people quarantined on cruise ship for 14 days
after coronavirus confirmed onboard, by Gene Sloan,
https://thepointsguy.com/news/coronavirus-princess-cruise-ship-quarantine/
(H) N.J. military base is among potential coronavirus
quarantine locations, by Justin Auciello,
https://whyy.org/articles/n-j-military-base-is-among-potential-coronavirus-quarantine-locations/
(I) Will Corona Virus Quarantines Help or Harm? A look back at
leprosy, by Gwen Olson, https://mashviral.com/will-corona-virus-quarantines-help-or-harm-a-look-back-at-leprosy-shots/
(J) FDA allows states to test for coronavirus for faster
results, by Marisa Fernandez,
https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-state-testing-fda-approval-831a1a2a-4a80-47fa-a88b-983a81756bc3.html
(K) Interim US Guidance for Risk Assessment and Public Health
Management of Persons with Potential 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)
Exposure in Travel-associated or Community Settings,
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/risk-assessment.html
(L) Interim Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations
for Patients with Confirmed 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) or Persons Under
Investigation for 2019-nCoV in Healthcare Settings,
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/infection-control.html
(M) How Ready Is NJ to Handle Public Health Emergencies? The
Latest Results, by LILO H. STAINTON,
https://www.njspotlight.com/2020/02/how-ready-is-nj-to-handle-public-health-emergencies-the-latest-results/
(N) Gov. Murphy launches task force to protect N.J. from coronavirus,
by Brent Johnson,
https://www.nj.com/politics/2020/02/gov-murphy-launches-task-force-to-protect-nj-from-coronavirus.html
(O) Murphy Sets Up Coronavirus Task Force, State Health
Officials Say Risk in NJ ‘Is Still Low’, by Joanna Gagis, https://www.njspotlight.com/2020/02/murphy-sets-up-coronavirus-task-force-state-health-officials-say-risk-in-nj-is-still-low/
(P) China finishes second new hospital built for coronavirus
patients, https://www.foxnews.com/health/china-opens-new-hospitals-coronavirus-patients
(Q) First American Dies of Coronavirus, Raising Questions About
U.S. Response, by Raymond Zhong and Edward Wong,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/08/world/asia/china-coronavirus-american-dead.html?partner=msn
(R) New study an eye-opener on how coronavirus is spreading and
how little we know, by Dr. Tom Frieden,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/08/health/coronavirus-hospital-infections-frieden/index.html
(S) WHO cautions that transmission of the new coronavirus
outside of China could increase, by HELEN BRANSWELL,
https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/08/who-cautions-coronavirus-transmission-could-increase-beyond-china/
(T) Hospitals are currently making preparations for a possible
outbreak of the new coronavirus, by Reed Abelson and Katie Thomas,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/health/hospitals-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
(U) Coronavirus updates: 14 Americans aboard quarantined cruise
ship now confirmed to have coronavirus,
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/new-coronavirus-updates-number-confirmed-cases-drops-disease-s-epicenter-n1133141
PART 5. CORONAVIRUS. “In
short, shoe-leather public health and basic medical care—not miracle drugs—are
generally what stop outbreaks of emerging infections..”
“Nearly six weeks after China
announced the coronavirus outbreak, there’s still a surprising amount we don’t
know about this newly discovered disease. But one thing is becoming clear:
China’s silence in the earliest days of the crisis may have made it worse.
Chinese authorities delayed
informing the world about the severity of a deadly disease spreading within the
country’s borders — even trying to muzzle whistleblowers, like the late Dr. Li
Wenliang. Now hailed as a national hero, Li was forced on January 3 by police
to sign a letter saying he spread “untrue speech” for warning colleagues about
the virus that eventually took his life.
With more than 40,500 people
infected and 910 deaths, China’s missteps early on seem increasingly fateful.
The fact that the international community has not acknowledged those missteps
is also consequential…
But the reality is this: China’s
mishandling and the ensuing silence from the international community is
emblematic of how the global system governing the international response to
pandemics fails to work, half a dozen global health experts told Vox.
Though we have global health
laws — in particular, the International Health Regulations, or IHR — meant to
guide countries dealing with outbreaks, they’re not actually enforceable. “You
can’t penalize [countries that] don’t follow it,” said Devi Sridhar, the chair
in global public health at the University of Edinburgh. Instead, the international
community has to rely on “soft law and norms” — or “disease diplomacy.”..
The revised IHR asks countries
to build out their disease surveillance capacities and report public health
crises immediately. It also asks nations not yet affected by a new pathogen to
avoid punishing those that are through travel and trade restrictions. “These
revisions were all about trying to get countries to sacrifice their short-term
interests for the long-term well-being of all countries,” said Sridhar…
“The IHR operates on mutual trust largely, and
it is a mutual trust,” said Eccleston-Turner. “That mutual trust has been
eroded over a number of outbreaks where member states have ignored the
recommendations from WHO.”” (A)
“Human intervention, or lack
thereof, may also have been a factor. More than half a dozen doctors first
discussed the threat of a potential coronavirus outbreak in early December only
to be silenced by the local Communist Party, according to some critics of the
government.
Yaxue Cao, founder and editor of
the political pressure group ChinaChange.org, said a Wuhan doctor posted in a
WeChat group to say there were seven cases of SARS connected to the seafood
market. He was then scolded by the party disciplinary office, and forced to
retract that, Cao said.
“From the same report, we
learned that Wuhan health authorities were having overnight meetings about the
new ‘SARS’ at end of December,” Cao posted on Jan. 27. “Earlier today. the
Wuhan mayor said he was not ‘authorized’ to publicize the epidemic until Jan.
20.”…
The spread was likely helped by
China’s Lunar New Year holiday last month. Wuhan mayor Zhou Xianwang said 5
million people had left the city before travel restrictions were imposed ahead
of the Chinese New Year.
“People unfamiliar with China
have trouble understanding the immense travel phenomenon that occurs during
Lunar New Year, when, over a one-month period, some 3 billion people are on the
move, many returning to their home towns and regions but others vacationing,”
Tanner Brown, a Beijing-based journalist, wrote for MarketWatch last month.
“Peak travel occurs this week.”..
People also may not know they’re
carrying the virus. Symptoms of common human coronaviruses include a runny
nose, headache, cough, sore throat, fever and a general feeling of being
unwell, according to the CDC. Symptoms of the new coronavirus can include
fever, cough and shortness of breath…
But it was weeks since the virus
was first discovered before flights were curtailed, and the global travel
industry is ideal for many viruses to travel long distances.
In an attempt to remain
competitive, airlines have decreased their turnaround times in recent years.
Many budget airlines have reduced turnaround times to 25 minutes by removing
the seat pockets. Other airlines have managed to have long-haul turnaround
times of 90 minutes. Not only do planes get a new plane load of passengers,
they often get a completely different crew.
Deep cleans are not always
possible during such turnarounds. Charles Gerba, a microbiologist at the University
of Arizona, recommends using hand sanitizers or disinfectant wipes,
particularly when traveling and/or at the office, where people may be reluctant
to stay home if they’re sick.” (B)
“China’s new coronavirus may
peter out. Or it might join the flu on the roster of the world’s winter
illnesses — a bug that will be routinely vaccinated against. Or it might become
a global pandemic, killing millions of people.
Experts don’t have enough
information to predict which of these very different scenarios will come to
pass. So for now, they are cautious.
“The issue is, we don’t know.
And any sort of prediction would be ill-advised,” said the director of National
Institute of Allergy And Infectious Disease, Anthony Fauci, at a Friday
briefing by the presidential task force on coronavirus. “You really do prepare
for the worst possible scenario.”
Scenario 1: The virus stays
mostly in China
WHO officials this week still
expressed hope that the Chinese government will largely contain the coronavirus
through unprecedented travel restrictions and quarantine in Hubei province and
elsewhere that most closely resemble martial law enacted over tens of millions
of people. The quarantines began two weeks ago, and the coronavirus is thought
to have an incubation period of up to 14 days, which is leading to questions
about how well the measures have worked, especially after China locked down
Guangzhou City, population 14 million, just this Friday…
Scenario 2: Another seasonal flu
If the coronavirus does manage
to spread widely outside of China, it isn’t necessarily catastrophic. It could
turn out to have seasonal behavior, flaring up in winter like the flu. That
pattern has been seen in at least two of the common coronaviruses that affect
people. If that’s the case for this new one, said Fauci, “when you start
getting into the spring weather of April, May, and June, it almost certainly
would start to turn around.”
On the downside, that means it
would just come back next winter. That happened with the 1918 Spanish flu
pandemic that hit the world in two seasonal waves.
Still, the extra time wouldn’t
hurt, allowing for clinical trials to test the effectiveness of antiviral drugs
used on an emergency basis in the outbreak. China has started two randomized
clinical trials of a promising drug called remdesivir, overseen by respiratory
disease expert Cao Bin at Beijing’s China–Japan Friendship Hospital. (One of
the 12 US patients with the coronavirus tried the drug and recovered a day
later.)..
Scenario 3: Deadly global
pandemic
Then there’s the worst-case
scenario: The relatively few cases popping up in dozens of countries flare up
worldwide in the coming months with deadly consequences. It happened in 1957,
when a flu pandemic killed 1.1 million people worldwide, and again in 1968, when
another flu strain killed about 1 million people….
…That means the new coronavirus
might have already skirted containment efforts and might be worse than reported
in Hubei province, where some news reports have come of elderly people dying
without ever being tested by hospitals. China’s nationwide travel ban, and
reports of one province offering a $140 bounty to people who turn in recent
arrivals from Wuhan, said Fisman, “are not things you do when you are winning
against an outbreak.”…
The one caution about all
predictions early in past outbreaks is that they don’t tend to match up with
the outcome,” said Fisman, acknowledging his own expectations have worsened as
the outbreak has continued. “We still don’t know a lot.”(C)
“As it continues to spread around
the world, bringing panic with it, scientists are striving to develop ways of
fighting this previously unknown threat. Sophisticated computer modelling is
being used to track and predict its transmission, while virologists are
attempting to engineer a vaccine. Others are seeking drug treatments that can
help those who fall ill with the infection.
But this is not the first
coronavirus scientists have encountered, and defeating them is harder than you
might think. Even after decades of trying, coronaviruses are formidable foes…
In order to get a reliable model
of how the disease spreads, Donnelly says, there are a few things we need to
know about the virus. First, how long someone might be infected by it before
developing symptoms. This is called the incubation period. Second, we need to
know how long someone with the virus remains infectious for, and in cases where
patients do not recover, how quickly the virus can cause death. “That helps us
estimate the case fatality rate,” says Donnelly.
Super spreaders shed far larger
numbers of the virus particles than other patients, increasing the chance they
will infect someone else
Another important factor is the
reproduction number, which is how many other people someone with the disease
will infect. Donnelly and her colleagues have estimated the new coronavirus to
have a reproduction number of about 2.6. “If that number is greater than one,
then you expect there to be an outbreak,” she says….
Even if it can be diagnosed
quickly, finding an effective treatment for a virus like this is famously
difficult…
The speed at which coronaviruses
mutate and so change their characteristics makes them hard to vaccinate
against. Vaccines tend to train the immune system to target a particular
feature, such as a protein structure on the shell of the virus. But by
continually altering its appearance, our immune systems find it hard to
recognise different infections. It is partly why the common cold has been so
difficult to develop a vaccine against…
But it is still an open question
as to whether a treatment or a vaccine will be found within a matter of months
or if it will take years. Until then, says Donnelly, all that can be done is to
continue to monitor the virus and try to stop it spreading.” (D)
“What do we most need to know next?
For epidemiologists who track infectious diseases, the most pressing concerns
are how to estimate the lethality of the disease and who is susceptible;
getting detailed information on how it spreads; and evaluating the success of
control measures so far.
No. 1 is the “clinical iceberg”
question: How much of it is hidden below the surface? Because the outbreak is
still evolving, we can’t yet see the totality of those infected. Out of view is
some proportion of mildly infected people, with minor symptoms or no symptoms,
who no one knows are infected…
In 2003, during the early days
of the SARS outbreak, the medical community got the math wrong. At first, we
believed that case fatality hovered between 2 percent and 3 percent. It took
two pages of longhand algebra, written in Oxford, England, coded into a
computer in London and then applied to data from Hong Kong, to get it right.
The actual case fatality for Hong Kong was staggering: 17 percent…
Knowing the number of people
likely to die, or who get seriously sick or have zero symptoms, will help
health authorities determine the strength of the response required. They can
better estimate how many isolation beds, heart-lung machines and medicines,
among other things, are needed…
Along with getting a grasp on
the level of severity is figuring out susceptibility, or who is most at risk
for infection. The data so far indicates that this would include older adults,
the obese and people with underlying medical conditions. There are few reports
of children becoming infected. But are they not showing symptoms, or are they
immune? And could they infect others as silent carriers?..
Returning to the big picture, we
must also refine what we know about how the new coronavirus is passed between
people. Even as the outbreak appears to keep escalating, we believe the rapid —
sometimes necessarily draconian — response of governments and health
authorities has made a dent in transmission. In another recent study, we
estimated how many people could get infected if there were no drastic public
health interventions. Our goal with this report was to sound the alarm over
what could be, so that it wouldn’t be…
The goal is to stay at least a
couple of steps ahead of the epidemic curve. Scientists must prepare health
authorities to catch any subsequent waves of infections and prepare for the
possibility that this particular virus could reappear seasonally — and maybe
one day it could be only as bad as the common cold.
I’ve seen record-breaking
outbreaks before and witnessed the world rally. If we all play our roles and
remain on guard, then chances are we will defeat the new coronavirus, too…” (E)
“Even as U.S. authorities have
taken the drastic steps of quarantining residents returning from China and
temporarily banning foreign visitors who recently traveled to affected Chinese
regions, they have urged the vast majority of U.S. residents to go about their
regular activities.
But there are exceptions. People
who returned from China on or after Feb. 3 have been formally quarantined or
asked to stay home. And behind the scenes, local public health officials have
launched painstaking efforts to reach “close contacts” of people with confirmed
cases of the virus, dubbed 2019-nCoV, asking them to self-quarantine and submit
to ongoing monitoring.
So what exactly is a ‘close
contact’?..
For the new coronavirus,
guidelines from the federal U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
define “close contact” as anyone who has been within 6 feet of a person
infected with the virus for a “prolonged period of time,” as well as those who
have had direct contact with the infected person’s secretions. These guidelines
are then interpreted by local public health departments…
In the US, health officials
continue to stress low risk of coronavirus..
There is some case-by-case
decision-making in assessing risk, Rudman said. Whether a health professional
was wearing gloves, a mask or other protective equipment, and what kind of
interaction they had with the patient, all factor in.
And because they work with
people who are sick and may be at higher risk from infection, health care
workers may be asked to take more extreme precautions. Santa Clara County’s
public health department asked at least five people to go on two weeks of paid
leave after a man who visited the hospital where they worked later tested
positive for the virus.
Earlier cases were not so
straightforward. One factor that has made the investigations particularly
challenging is confusion over whether the virus can be spread by an infected person
who is not showing symptoms. Health departments say that, given the
uncertainty, they are taking a cautious approach and looking for any contacts
going back three days before symptoms started. “Fortunately, we have so few
cases, so we can do that,” Rudman said.
Rudman declined to say how many
people are being monitored in Santa Clara but noted that having so few cases
has meant she and her colleagues have had time to be methodical about who might
be at risk. She hopes that will provide comfort to others in the community.”
(F)
“A new report into the range of
symptoms experienced by coronavirus patients suggests that around one in 10
suffer from diarrhea and nausea for a few days before developing breathing
difficulties, leading to suggestions that the pathogen may be transmitted via
feces. While this route of transmission has not been confirmed, the new data
does raise the possibility that doctors may have missed some key early warning
signs by focusing only on cases involving respiratory symptoms.
It has already been established
that the virus is primarily passed on by droplets in an infected person’s
cough, and the new study – which features in the Journal of the American
Medical Association (JAMA) – found that the majority of coronavirus patients at
a hospital in Wuhan, China, suffered from symptoms such as fever, muscle pain,
and shortness of breath at the onset of the illness.
However, of the 138 patients
observed by the study authors, 14 initially presented with diarrhea or nausea,
developing more classic coronavirus symptoms a day or two later. According to
Chinese media reports, doctors found traces of viral nucleic acids in the stool
of patients who exhibited these atypical digestive symptoms.
The first US patient to be
diagnosed with coronavirus is also said to have experienced diarrhea for a few
days, and the virus was also found to be present in his feces.
While this doesn’t mean that
fecal matter is responsible for the spread of the illness, it does provide
evidence for another similarity between coronavirus and SARS, to which it is
related. Back in 2003, hundreds of people in a Hong Kong housing estate became
infected with SARS thanks to a plume of warm air emanating from a bathroom that
had been used by an infected person…
Significantly, 41 percent of
patients in the study became infected in hospital, with both healthcare workers
and patients who had been hospitalized for other reasons catching coronavirus.
Regardless of the transmission route, therefore, it seems that hospitals are a
potential breeding ground for the virus, suggesting that improved hygiene may
be necessary to prevent its spread.” (G)
“The coronavirus epidemic could
grip about two-thirds of the world’s population if the deadly bug is not
controlled, a top public health official said — as another expert predicted
that cases in China could peak this month and fade away by April.
Professor Gabriel Leung, chair
of public health medicine at Hong Kong University, told the Guardian he was
examining the implications of the World Health Organization’s Monday warning
that cases of coronavirus spreading outside China are the “tip of the iceberg.”
Most experts believe that each
person infected can go on to transmit coronavirus to about 2.5 other people —
creating an “attack rate” of 60 to 80 percent, Leung told the paper.
“Sixty percent of the world’s
population is an awfully big number,” he said.
Even with a general fatality
rate as low as 1 percent — a possibility once milder cases are taken into
account — there could still be a massive global death toll, he added.
Meanwhile, experts are
attempting to map out the likely course of the illness, Leung told the
Guardian.
“Is 60 to 80 percent of the
world’s population going to get infected?” he said. “Maybe not. Maybe this will
come in waves. Maybe the virus is going to attenuate its lethality because it
certainly doesn’t help it if it kills everybody in its path, because it will
get killed as well.”
Health officials are also
attempting to determine whether restrictions put in place in Wuhan — the
epicenter of the outbreak — as well as other cities, have made a positive
impact.
“Have these massive public
health interventions, social distancing, and mobility restrictions worked in
China?” Leung asked. “If so, how can we roll them out, or is it not possible?”
“(H)
“The disease caused by the new
coronavirus that’s sickened more than 42,000 people in China now has an
official name: COVID-19. It stands for the coronavirus disease that was
discovered in 2019.
The World Health Organization
announced the name Tuesday, saying it was careful to find a name without
stigma.
“We had to find a name that
did not refer to a geographical location, an animal, or an individual or group
of people,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a call
with reporters.” (I)
“Time will tell if the new
coronavirus ends up being less or more dangerous than the flu; we don’t fully
know yet how bad it is. Usually, the diseases that stick around tend to become
less lethal. Only live hosts can continue to make more viruses. Influenza is
also pretty devious in how it mutates its surface molecules from year to year
to evade immune system detection. If 2019-nCoV is not able to do that, people’s
immunity to it could gradually improve.
But therein lies the paradox.
The outcome that has public health officials really concerned is that 2019-nCoV
will turn into something like a disease that we have a tough time making you
worry about right now.
Every year physicians and public
health officials try to get you to immunize yourselves against the flu, and far
too many of you don’t. We beg you to practice proper precautions and hygiene —
and, still, tens of thousands of people die, and too few worry enough.
Governments and employers could
help by making it easier for sick people to stay home from work. Many Americans
without paid sick leave go to work despite feeling ill, and many of those work
at restaurants, schools and hospitals, where disease is easily spread.
The most significant defense the
United States has to prevent pandemics is a solid public health infrastructure.
The public has to trust it. The system also needs to be properly prepared and
have the resources to handle a widespread infection. (The system is currently
stretched thin and underfunded.) It’s critical to make sure there are enough
medical supplies available, as well as necessities like food, to get a
community through an outbreak.” (J)
“The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention is preparing for the coronavirus, named COVID-19, to “take a
foothold in the U.S.,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National
Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters. “At some
point, we are likely to see community spread in the U.S. or in other
countries,” said Messonnier. “This will trigger a change in our response
strategy.” (K)
“An apartment building in Hong
Kong, its units linked by pipes. A department store in the eastern Chinese city
of Tianjin, where more than 11,000 shoppers and employees mingled. A ski chalet
in France, home base for a group of British citizens on vacation.
These sites, scattered around
the world, have become linked by a grim commonality: They are places where
pockets of new coronavirus cases have emerged in recent days, raising fears
about the virus’s ability to spread quickly and far beyond its origins in
central China.” (L)
“Right now scientists are trying
to accomplish something that was inconceivable a decade ago: create a vaccine
against a previously unknown virus rapidly enough to help end an outbreak of
that virus. In this case, they’re trying to stop the spread of the new
coronavirus that has already infected tens of thousands of people, mainly in
China, and given rise to a respiratory condition now known as COVID-19.
Typically, making a new vaccine
takes a decade or longer. But new genetic technologies and new strategies make
researchers optimistic that they can shorten that timetable to months, and
possibly weeks — and have a tool by the fall that can slow the spread of
infection.” (M)
“As the new coronavirus
continued to spread unabated within the city of Wuhan, China, government
officials last week imposed draconian measures.
Workers in protective gear were
instructed to go to every home in the city, removing infected residents to
immense isolation wards built hastily in a sports stadium, an exhibition center
and a building complex…
Many experts are skeptical that
isolating thousands of patients in shelters can stanch the spread of the
coronavirus. There are more than 40,000 cases in China now, in every province,
although the wide majority are in Hubei Province.
“This is a bit like closing the
barn door after the horses are already out,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an
infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville…
Wuhan’s makeshift shelters may
yet become breeding grounds for infection, especially if patients are not
properly screened, Dr. Markel and other experts said.
The patients already are in a
weakened state, and facilities like these make it easy for viruses and bacteria
to travel — not just the coronavirus, but also any of the dozens of pathogens
that may thrive when people gather in tight quarters.
“Whenever we put people in
facilities together, even during a hurricane, we are concerned about them
getting infectious diseases,” said Nicole A. Errett, a researcher at the
University of Washington who is a co-director of the Collaborative on Extreme
Event Resilience.” (N)
“CMS sent a memo to state survey
agency directors urging them to double down on compliance with basic infection
control practices.
The memo includes information
and links to resources to combat the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.
It also states that healthcare staff and surveyors, including federal, state
and local contractors are expected to adhere to standard infection control
practices, such as CDC recommendations on standard hand hygiene practices.
In 2020 surveys, CMS and
accrediting organization acute care surveyors will be especially alert to hand
hygiene practices, including the use of alcohol-based hand rub/hand sanitizer,
the preferred method of hand hygiene in clinical settings, the memo says.
“We know that adherence to
basic infection control and prevention practices such as hand hygiene can help
reduce the risk of infectious disease spread in all healthcare settings,”
the memo reads.” (O)
“Successful outbreak control
works like this: Patients report their symptoms to health-care workers. Those
health-care workers then report unusual cases to local public-health officials
who investigate the illness. Those officials may isolate ailing patients,
identify others with whom they have come into contact, and monitor those
individuals. The results of these investigations are reported to government
officials, who communicate reliable information about the outbreak and its
causes to the public and the press. That information enables those who are not
sick to take measures, such as hand washing and avoiding crowds, to prevent
themselves from getting infected and spreading the outbreak. The promise of
reliable information and competent, supportive medical care convinces others
who are suffering symptoms to come forward so that new cases are identified,
tracked, and treated. This cycle continues until the virus stops infecting new
people, the people already infected get well or perish, and the outbreak burns
out.
In short, shoe-leather public
health and basic medical care—not miracle drugs—are generally what stop
outbreaks of emerging infections like severe-acute respiratory syndrome and the
Ebola virus. However, in many countries without responsive governments, open
press, and rudimentary health-care systems, controlling an infection becomes
much harder. Officials in repressive societies are more apt to rely on
counterproductive censorship and quarantine measures that unduly interfere with
citizens’ rights and spread distrust.” (P)
“Further increasing the danger
of outbreaks and epidemics is another by-product of better health: complacency.
In 2013, less than 0.5 percent of international health aid was devoted to
preventing infectious-disease outbreaks, and the portion of the World Health
Organization budget funded by dues from 194 member countries had dwindled to
less than the budget of the New York City Department of Health. Starved of
funds, the international system intended to control outbreaks like Ebola failed
miserably in West Africa.
After that episode, the Obama
administration established a White House–based directorate to respond to
outbreaks and dedicated $1 billion to help poor countries build the basic
capabilities to prevent, detect, and respond to pandemic threats. The Trump
administration has assisted in the international response to Ebola in Congo and
offered China help in the current coronavirus crisis, but it also dismantled
the White House directorate on pandemic preparedness and urged that U.S.
funding for global health security return to pre-2014 levels.” (Q)
(A) The tricky business of disease diplomacy, by Julia Bellu,
https://www.vox.com/2020/2/10/21124881/coronavirus-outbreak-china-li-wenliang-world-health-organization
(B) As coronavirus infections exceed 37,000, here’s how it
spread so rapidly, by QUENTIN FOTTRELL,
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-the-mysterious-coronavirus-from-china-has-spread-so-quickly-2020-01-21
(C) Three Scenarios For The Coronavirus, by Dan Vergano,
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/danvergano/coronavirus-spread-flu-pandemic
(D) In just a couple of months the new coronavirus that emerged
from the Chinese city of Wuhan has spread around the world, sparking a race to
find treatments and vaccines against it, by Abigail Beall,
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200210-coronavirus-finding-a-cure-to-fight-the-symptoms
(E) The Urgent Questions Scientists Are Asking About Coronavirus,
by Gabriel Leung,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/opinion/coronavirus-china-research.html?referringSource=articleShare
(F) US health officials are seeking ‘close contacts’ of
coronavirus. Here’s what that means, Anna Maria Barry, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/02/10/us-health-officials-seek-coronavirus-close-contacts-what-means/4714247002/
(G) Coronavirus May Be Transmitted Via Poop As Well As Coughing,
Scientists Suggest, by Ben Taub,
https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/coronavirus-may-transmitted-via-poop-well-coughing-scientists-suggest/
(H) Expert warns coronavirus could infect 60% of world’s
population, by Amanda Woods,
https://nypost.com/2020/02/11/expert-warns-coronavirus-could-infect-60-of-worlds-population/
(I) Coronavirus gets official name from WHO: COVID-19, by
Erika Edwards,
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/coronavirus-gets-official-name-who-covid-19-n1134756
(J) Lessons That Go Beyond the Coronavirus Outbreak, by Aaron
E. Carroll, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/upshot/coronavirus-risk-prevention-advice.html?referringSource=articleShare
(K) CDC prepares for community outbreaks in US,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/12/coronavirus-latest-updates.html
(L) A Store, a Chalet, an Unsealed Pipe: Coronavirus Hot Spots
Flare Far From Wuhan, by Viviann Wang, Austin Ramzy and Megan Specia,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/world/asia/china-coronavirus-clusters.html?referringSource=articleShare
(M) Timetable For A Vaccine Against The New Coronavirus? Maybe
This Fall, by JOE PALCA,
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/02/12/804628081/timetable-for-a-vaccine-against-the-new-coronavirus-maybe-this-fall
(N) Huge Shelters for Coronavirus Patients Pose New Risks,
Experts Fear, by Roni Caryn Rabin, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/health/coronavirus-quarantine.html?referringSource=articleShare
(O) Don’t slip on infection control basics amid coronavirus
outbreak, CMS warns, by Anuja Vaidya,
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/don-t-slip-on-infection-control-basics-amid-coronavirus-outbreak-cms-warns.html
(P) Coronavirus likely now ‘gathering steam’, by Alvin Powell,
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/02/harvard-expert-says-coronavirus-likely-just-gathering-steam/
(Q) Coronavirus Is Spreading Because Humans Are Healthier, by
Thomas J. Bollyky,
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/coronavirus-spreading-because-humans-are-healthier/606448/
POST 6. February 17,
2020. Coronovirus. “Amid assurances that the (ocean liner) Westerdam was
disease free, hundreds of people disembarked in Cambodia…” “ One was later
found to be infected”…. “Over 1,000… passengers were in…transit home”…. “This
could be a turning point””
“Confronting a viral epidemic
with a scant supply of protective equipment, more than 1,700 Chinese medical
workers have already been infected, and six have died.
In the hospital where Yu Yajie
works, nurses, doctors and other medical professionals fighting the new
coronavirus have also been fighting dire shortages. They have used tape to
patch up battered protective masks, repeatedly reused goggles meant for
one-time use, and wrapped their shoes in plastic bags for lack of specialized
coverings.
Ms. Yu is now lying at home,
feverish and fearful that she has been infected with the virus. She and other
employees at the hospital said a lack of protective wear had left medical
workers like her vulnerable in Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the heart of
the epidemic that has engulfed this region.
“There are risks — there simply
aren’t enough resources,” Ms. Yu, an administrator at Wuhan Central Hospital,
said in a brief telephone interview, adding that she was too weak to speak at
length.
Chinese medical workers at the
forefront of the fight against the coronavirus epidemic are often becoming its
victims, partly because of government missteps and logistical hurdles.
After the virus emerged in Wuhan
late last year, city leaders played down its risks, so doctors didn’t take
precautions…
On Friday, the Chinese
government for the first time disclosed the toll the outbreak was taking on
hospital employees: 1,716 medical workers had contracted the virus, including
1,502 in Wuhan, and six had died.” (A)
“Officials are also looking to
see whether the medical workers were exposed to the virus unknowingly within a
clinical environment and whether they were wearing protective equipment at the
time, Ryan said. “There are a whole lot of factors we need to look at, and we
will be doing that with Chinese authorities.”…
Dr. Sylvie Briand, head of WHO’s
Global Infectious Hazard Preparedness division, told reporters that the health
workers may have been fatigued at the time they were infected and weren’t
taking proper protective measures because they were too tired. China has sent
medical professionals from several regions to support those workers, she said….
WHO is asking suppliers of
protective gear to prioritize sending the equipment to regions most affected by
the virus.
Last week, WHO said it sent
medical supplies such as masks, gloves, gowns and diagnostic tests around the
world. It is discouraging stockpiling of protective gear, saying the limited
number of items need to be saved for regions most affected by the virus. The
price of protective gear has increased, while availability has decreased, WHO
officials said…
On Thursday, world health
officials said they were scrambling to determine just how widespread the new
coronavirus is as Chinese authorities reported a surge in new cases after
changing how they count confirmed infections.
“How big is the iceberg?” Ryan
said. “We do know, and we all accept, that there is transmission occurring at
some level in communities. We’ve all seen those clusters, we’ve all seen those
super spreading events.” (B)
“A sudden spike in new coronavirus
cases in China this week shocked researchers. But the huge bump in numbers
isn’t a sign that the epidemic is worsening, say researchers, it is instead the
result of authorities changing how cases are confirmed.
On 12 February, Hubei province
reported nearly 15,000 new cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the
coronavirus, representing a 33% jump in total infections worldwide in a single
day. Total infections in China now number around 64,000, with more than 1,300
deaths.
But most of the Hubei cases — about
13,000 — are the result of a new policy in the province that means physicians
can diagnose suspected cases of COVID-19 on the basis of chest images, rather
than having to wait for genetic tests to confirm the presence of the virus,
which can take days.
The policy is in response to
pleas from clinicians who are overwhelmed by patients with respiratory
diseases, and don’t have time to wait for lab results, says Wu Zunyou, chief
epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, who
helped design and implementing the new policy. “The clinicians in Hubei made a
very strong request to modify the criteria because of their heavy work load,”
he says. Now they can care for people more quickly and ensure they are properly
isolated to protect others, says Wu. “We need to save lives.”
The policy makes sense from a
medical point of view, says Michael Mina, an infectious-disease immunologist
and epidemiologist at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston,
Massachusetts. “Triaging based on symptomatic evaluation and physical exam is
the bed rock of hospital-based and clinical triage,” he says.” (C)
“Hospitals in Wuhan, China — the
largest city in Hubei Province and the center of the epidemic — have struggled
to diagnose infections with scarce and complicated tests that detect the
virus’s genetic signature directly. Other countries, too, have had such issues.
Instead, officials in Hubei now
seem to be including infections diagnosed by using lung scans of symptomatic
patients. This shortcut will help get more patients into needed care,
provincial officials said. Adding them to the count could make it easier for
the authorities to decide how to allocate resources and assess treatment
options.
But the change also shows the
enormous number of people in Hubei who are sick and have not been counted in
the outbreak’s official tally. It also raises the question whether the
province, already struggling, is equipped to deal with the new patients.
The few experts to learn of the
new numbers on Wednesday night were startled. Lung scans are an imperfect means
to diagnose patients. Even patients with ordinary seasonal flu may develop
pneumonia visible on a lung scan.” (D)
“Even before today’s news,
experts complained that epidemiological information from China has been
incomplete, threatening containment efforts.
The new coronavirus is highly
transmissible and will be difficult to squelch. A single infected
“super-spreader” can infect dozens of others. Outbreaks can seem to recede,
only to rebound in short order, as the weather or conditions change.
Recent clusters of coronavirus
cases suggest the new coronavirus not only spreads quickly, but also in ways
that are not entirely understood.
In Hong Kong, people living 10
floors apart were infected, and an unsealed pipe was blamed. A British citizen
apparently infected 10 people, including some at a ski chalet, before he even
knew he was sick.
In Tianjin, China, at least 33
of 102 confirmed patients had a connection of some sort with a large department
store.
“This outbreak could still go in
any direction,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World
Health Organization, said on Wednesday.
A change in diagnosis may make
it still harder to track the virus, said Dr. Peter Rabinowitz, co-director of
the University of Washington MetaCenter for Pandemic Preparedness and Global
Health Security.” (E)
“The head of the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention said the new coronavirus, which has killed
nearly 1,400 people and is still spreading in China, could be around for at
least another year. The outbreak has affected almost 50,000 people worldwide.
There are 15 confirmed cases in the U.S. but none are said to be suffering
serious symptoms.
The agency is setting up five
labs around the U.S. where people with flu-like symptoms can be tested for
coronavirus if their flu results are negative. The virus, dubbed COVID-19, has
spread to more than two dozen countries.
The CDC is ramping up its own
response to the epidemic by setting up five labs around the U.S. where people
with flu-like symptoms can now be tested for coronavirus if their flu results
are negative. This comes as scientists around the world race to develop a
vaccine.” (F)
“Another U.S. case of infection
with the novel coronavirus was confirmed Thursday, bringing the total number of
domestic cases to 15. Around the world, cases have reached nearly 60,000 to
date.
But if something changes and
large numbers of people get infected in the U.S., is the country’s health
system prepared to cope with a surge of patients with this virus, or any future
pathogen?
“Surge capacity in the
health care system is something that we think a lot about and prepare for in
the U.S., and not specifically to coronavirus per se, but for a whole host of
events that could occur in the United States,” says Jonathan Greene,
director of emergency management and medical operations at the Department of
Health and Human Services…
“No one is ready for a
worst case-scenario for a really bad, lethal, fast-moving pandemic,” says
bioterrorism and biosafety expert Dr. Tara O’Toole, former undersecretary for
science and technology at the Department of Homeland Security and now at
In-Q-Tel, a nonprofit strategic investment firm that supports U.S. national security.
For instance, O’Toole thinks
that hospitals would have a very hard time handling a lot of critically ill
patients who need to be in isolation. “That’s why we want to make sure
that the people we’re putting in hospitals and keeping isolated are really the ones
who need that kind of care,” she says…
What’s needed is a strategic
approach to rapidly deal with an epidemic, says O’Toole, but “we don’t
have a strategy and we haven’t built the infrastructure” to do so….
On the other hand, HHS official
Greene argues that the nation’s health care system is better prepared than it
has been in the past. “We’ve gone through outbreaks of other diseases,
other coronaviruses, SARS and MERS,” he says. And each one of those
experiences has helped the system develop “tactics, capabilities, training
and education to be able to deal with whatever comes down the road. This is
just one more in a long history of disease outbreaks that we’re being asked to
tackle.”
The strategic national
stockpile, says Greene, holds “millions of face masks, and supplies of
respirators, gloves and surgical gowns that could potentially be deployed if
state and local supplies are diminished during this current outbreak.”
Greene says that HHS is working with the health care sector and the supply chain
to ensure that any disruptions that may occur or shortages are
“short-lived and that the right amount of material can be provided”
as soon as possible.” (G)
“Dr. Craig Spencer was the first
patient in New York diagnosed with Ebola in 2014. After that experience, he
wrote, “When we look back on this epidemic, I hope we’ll recognize that fear
caused our initial hesitance to respond — and caused us to respond poorly when
we finally did.” In terms of New York, what has changed since then?
Our overall preparedness in
maintaining our readiness — that’s a key phrase we use — has exponentially
increased since 2014 because we’re constantly collaborating, coordinating, and
communicating at all levels — local, state, national, and even international.
We’ve been given funding on a national scale to prepare for Ebola and special
pathogens. It wasn’t just specifically for viral hemorrhagic fevers like Ebola;
it gave us funding to prepare for coronavirus disease, for MERS, for SARS, the
full gamut. From that funding we were able to do more drills, exercises,
collaborative public health. The unfortunate part is that funding was only for
five years, and it actually expires in a matter of months — in 2020. So this
entire infrastructure that we’ve built across the nation is going to get
dismantled in a couple of months, which is mind-boggling knowing we’re in a
potential pandemic situation and we’re letting our guard down.
The other thing we’ve also done
is, we want to make sure we’re giving patients the opportunity to tell us what
they have. Before, it was you come in, come to the front desk, and they ask,
“What are you here for.” By that time it’s basically too late. Because you’ve
come in through the door, there are probably 50 people waiting in the waiting
area, if you’re coming in with something respiratory and you’re coughing and
sneezing, you’ve probably infected a number of folks around there. One of the
strategies we’ve implemented is something very basic: respiratory stations,
which basically have simple masks, hand sanitizer, a tissue, and a sign that
says, “Do you have a fever? Do you have a cough? Do you have a rash? Yes?
Please take a mask. If a mask is not there use a tissue and sanitize your
hands.” And it tells you, “If you have travel history let us know immediately.”
So now we’re letting patients self-identify. It helps expedite that triage
process. Before this outbreak and the Ebola outbreak in 2014, we only had those
stands during seasonal flu time, and once seasonal flu was done we would take
out that stand. Now we know these infectious diseases are all around us, so
it’s all season long…
What are you most concerned
about right now sitting here? What’s going to keep you up tonight?
Based on everything that we’ve
been seeing, reading, looking at what’s happening in China, it doesn’t seem
like this virus is containable. It’s not the fault of the government itself or
China itself, it’s the nature of the virus. You just can’t stop a respiratory
virus, especially a respiratory one in nature where it’s the sheer form of
breathing and having droplets develop — you just can’t control it. It’s one of
those things we know we can’t contain, so we need to continue to prepare very
aggressively for it. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. What’s keeping me up
at night is knowing that these cases are going to continue to occur, and that’s
what the CDC has stated, that we’re going to see an increased number of cases.
We need to make sure that we’re able to identify every single one. It just
takes one person coming into one of our facilities to start an outbreak.” (H)
““On December 27, Syra Madad
published an op-ed in the Washington Post co-written with Ronald A. Klain. The
piece warned lawmakers that vital funding needed to prepare hospitals for
infectious-disease outbreaks would expire in May. “We do not know when the next
dangerous pathogen will arrive in our country,” it read, “but we do know that
it will happen — sooner or later.” Four days after the article was published,
on December 31, the government in Wuhan, China, reported to the World Health
Organization that it was treating dozens of patients for pneumonia of unknown
cause.
That was the beginning of a busy
January for Madad. As the senior director for the systemwide special-pathogens
program for NYC Health and Hospitals, it was her job to prepare the city’s 11
hospitals for an outbreak. Madad also happened to be the star of Pandemic, a
six part docuseries that premiered on Netflix on January 22 — a week after she
gave birth to her third child…
We want more time to continue
our trainings, so we can continue to prepare our front lines for the inevitable
surge of cases that we may potentially see. We may not get a whole lot of cases
or we may get a number of cases, but either way it’s best for us to prepare for
the worst-case scenario. If we have a surge of cases present, we’re looking at
it from a 4S standpoint or the emergency-management approach: staffing, stuff,
space, and system. Based on those four high-level domains, we’re looking at how
we can bulk up staffing. Because the No. 1 asset in the health-care system is
our people, and without our people we can’t take care of patients. Do we get
volunteers involved? Do we look at our memorandum of agreements with other
agencies to bulk up our staffing? Things like that. (I)
“Doctors in five U.S. cities
will begin testing patients with flu-like symptoms for the new coronavirus, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
The coronavirus test will only
be given to patients who test negative for the flu. So far, the testing
protocol will be implemented in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco
and Seattle, though more cities will be added.
It’s a sign that the U.S. is
broadening its surveillance of the illness.
This is just the starting
point,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for
Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during a press briefing Friday.
“We plan to expand to more sites in the coming weeks.”
Messonnier said the increased
testing is part of an effort to determine whether the virus is spreading in
communities across the U.S. “The results would be an early warning signal
to trigger a change in our response strategy,” she said.” (J)
“As an outbreak of a novel
coronavirus has swept through Hubei province, China, the US Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention has been preparing for its worst case scenario — a
widespread outbreak of illnesses in the United States.
“Right now we’re in an
aggressive containment mode,” CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told CNN’s
Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta in an interview on Thursday.
“We don’t know a lot about
this virus,” he said. “This virus is probably with us beyond this
season, beyond this year, and I think eventually the virus will find a foothold
and we will get community-based transmission.”
As of Thursday, there have been
15 cases of the novel coronavirus confirmed in seven states: eight in
California; two in Illinois; and one in Arizona, Washington, Massachusetts,
Wisconsin and Texas.
While more research is needed to
fully understand the virus, Redfield told Gupta that the CDC has focused on
surveillance to track cases and containment strategies to slow possible
progression of the virus in the United States. Slowing progression gives more
time for researchers to work on developing and testing a vaccine and antiviral
drugs for this novel coronavirus. Currently, there is no known cure for the
virus.
“The containment phase is
really to give us more time. This virus will become a community virus at some
point in time, this year or next year,” Redfield said. “We don’t have
any evidence that this coronavirus is really embedded in the community at this
time, but with that said, we want to intensify our surveillance so that we’re
basing those conclusions based on data.”
The containment strategy refers
to efforts to prevent widespread transmission of the coronavirus in the United
States, including having people with confirmed cases stay in isolation and
placing restrictions on travel between affected areas in the world. Such
containment measures were used widely during the SARS global outbreak of 2003,
during which 8,098 people worldwide became sick and of those, 774 died,
according to the CDC…
“What I’ve learned in the
last two weeks is that the spectrum of this illness is much broader than was
originally presented. There’s much more asymptomatic illness,” Redfield
said. “A number of the confirmed cases that we confirmed actually just
presented with a little sore throat.””
(K)
“When 195 Americans, including
diplomats, were evacuated from Wuhan, China, last month, they were tested for
the coronavirus on arrival at a California military base. Health officials
swabbed the throats and noses of everyone in the group — the first to be
evacuated from Wuhan — and they were relieved when all of their tests came back
negative.
But as more government-arranged
flights evacuated Americans from China in the days that followed, the federal
health authorities adopted a new protocol: Only people who showed symptoms of
illness during a 14-day quarantine period would be tested. For some among the
more than 600 people who are still waiting to be cleared to go home from
military bases in three states, the new rule has left them worried — and angry.
Some are pleading with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to test
them for the coronavirus.
“We are not asking for
skateboards or toys,” said Jacob Wilson, 33, one of more than 30 people in
quarantine on a base in San Diego who signed a petition this week calling for
tests. “We are asking to get tested and make sure we are not passing anything
to other people.” (L)
The concerns come as three
people in quarantine on bases in San Diego and San Antonio, Texas, tested
positive for the virus, which has killed more than a thousand people in China
but so far has been found to have infected only 15 people in the United States.
In San Diego, where 232 people
are waiting out a government-mandated two-week quarantine, some evacuees said
they worried that they and their children had spent days mingling with people —
in an eating area, on a playground and in a laundry room — and would like to
know for sure whether or not they have the virus.
Fifteen cases of the coronavirus
have been confirmed in the United States, including a 35-year-old man in
Washington State, a couple in their 60s in Chicago and eight people in
California.
One of the people evacuated from
Wuhan last week to San Diego had coronavirus but was discharged because of a
labeling error.
Some evacuees are wondering why
they aren’t being tested on bases…
“We believe testing everyone at
the facility would help identify potential suspects as early as possible, so
the appropriate treatment could be put in place,” the evacuees wrote in the
petition, which they called a “suggestion letter” and shared with one another
over WeChat, a Chinese instant-messaging app.
The C.D.C., however, has
declined to test every evacuee. Officials said that such tests are less
accurate before people show symptoms, so a negative early result could be
misleading rather than helpful. The agency tested everyone on the first
evacuation flight, the officials said, because they were learning about the
virus and because doing so allowed them to collect more data about it. Since
then, they said, they have determined that swabbing hundreds of seemingly
healthy people is not useful.
“Every test has a limit of
detection,” said Dr. Joseph Bresee, a deputy incident manager for the C.D.C.’s
response to the coronavirus. “Early on, the test may or may not be able to pick
it up.”
Almost everyone who gets sick
from the virus will show symptoms within 14 days of exposure, often early
within that window, Dr. Bresee said. Evacuees on military bases are having
their temperature checked at least twice a day and are asked to alert health
officials if they feel sick or if their temperature rises.
Dr. Bresee said that he
empathized with evacuees who want definitive answers about whether they are
healthy.
“They’re concerned, they’re
nervous, and they want to be assured of their safety,” he said, adding that the
cost of testing was not a factor in the decision not to test everyone. “We
don’t think testing would be helpful, and if we did, we would test them.”” ..
“At the San Diego base, Marine
Corps Air Station Miramar, Mr. Wilson and others said that people had to leave
their rooms to get breakfast, lunch and dinner from a small room, which is also
where their temperatures were taken. People rummaged through boxes of fruit and
snacks with their bare hands, he said, and they stood shoulder to shoulder in
line waiting to check their temperatures despite being told to stay six feet
away from one another.
After the petition was
circulated, health officials agreed as of Thursday to deliver meals and take
temperatures at the room doors of evacuees who preferred it that way.
“The reality is, it’s impossible
for us to keep any distace from each other,” said Mr. Wilson, a tech
entrepreneur in Wuhan. He and others also said officials had not required
evacuees to wear masks.
Earlier in the week, a labeling
error led the authorities to return an ill woman to the base from a San Diego
hospital, though a test later showed that she had the coronavirus. The mistake
raised new worries among some evacuees. The C.D.C. had erroneously informed the
hospital that the woman had tested negative for the virus when, in fact, her
samples had not been tested. Health officials have tried to calm concerns,
saying the woman had been isolated from other evacuees before returning to the
hospital.
Dr. Bresee said that health
officials were learning more about the virus each day, but that there were no
plans to change testing procedures for the hundreds in quarantine.
“As we learn more, we may
pivot,” he said. “It doesn’t mean we were wrong once and are right now, it just
means we’re learning.”” (M)
“To combat the spread of the
coronavirus, Chinese officials are using a combination of technology and
policing to track movements of citizens who may have visited Hubei Province.
Mobile phone owners in China get
their service from one of three state-run telecommunications firms, which this
week introduced a feature for subscribers to send text messages to a hotline
that generates a list of provinces they have recently visited.
That has created a new way for
the authorities to see where citizens have traveled.
At a high-speed rail station in
the eastern city of Yiwu on Tuesday, officials in hazmat suits demanded that
passengers send the text messages and then show their location information to
the authorities before being permitted to leave the station. Those who had
passed through Hubei were unlikely to be allowed entry.
Other cities were taking similar
measures.
Companies in China generally shy
away from sharing location data with the local authorities, over fears it could
be leaked or sold. And there were some signs that the companies were
uncomfortable with the new rule.
China Mobile cautioned that the
data should be used cautiously, because it indicates where the phone has been,
not its owner. It also doesn’t differentiate between people who briefly passed
through a province and those who spent significant time there. (N)
“Coronavirus Test Kits Sent to
States Are Flawed, C.D.C. Says
Some tests distributed by the
agency deliver “inconclusive” readings. The C.D.C. will need to ship new ingredients,
further delaying results.
Some of the coronavirus testing
kits sent to state laboratories around the country have flaws and do not work
properly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday.
The kits were meant to enable
states to conduct their own testing and have results faster than they would by
shipping samples to the C.D.C. in Atlanta. But the failure of the kits means
that states that encountered problems with the test should not use it, and
would still have to depend on the C.D.C.’s central lab, which could cause
several days’ delay in getting results.
“Obviously, a state wouldn’t
want to be doing this test and using it to make clinical decisions if it isn’t
working as well, as perfectly, at the state as it is at C.D.C.,” Dr. Nancy
Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory
Diseases, said at a news conference on Wednesday.
The C.D.C. recommends testing
for some people who have symptoms like fever, cough or shortness of breath, and
who, within the past 14 days, have traveled to China or have been in close
contact with a patient known to be infected with the coronavirus. Doctors with
patients in that category are supposed to consult their state health department
about whether the patients should be tested for the virus…
Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of
the infectious diseases division at the University of Alabama at Birmingham,
said accurate diagnostic tests were invaluable.
“The test is the only way you
can definitely know you have the infection,” Dr. Marrazzo said. “You absolutely
need it for case counting. It allows you to know who’s infected. You can treat
those people, if a treatment is available, and you can isolate them.”..
The C.D.C. does not recommend
testing for people who may have been exposed to the virus but have no symptoms.
Even if they are infected, if they are still in the incubation period there may
not be enough virus in their bodies for the test to detect.
The inability to detect very
early infections is one reason for keeping planeloads of people from Wuhan in
quarantine instead of just testing them and letting them go if the results are
negative. A person could test negative and still be infected.
For the same reason, health
authorities say there is no benefit to testing symptom-free people on cruise
ships.
Because there is an unknown
window of time between when a person becomes infected and when the test can
find the virus, health officials have determined that a quarantine of two weeks
— believed to be the incubation period of the illness — is the best way to make
sure that people who may be infected do not transmit the virus to others.
Tests for other infectious
diseases can also fail to detect some cases. A panel of tests used to screen
for respiratory viruses when pneumonia is suspected can give negative results
even if a patient is infected, Dr. Marrazzo said. So can rapid tests for flu
and strep throat. Blood tests for H.I.V. can miss the diagnosis in people who
were recently infected.”
“There is no perfect test for
pretty much any infectious disease I can think of,” Dr. Marrazzo said. (O)
“The Diamond Princess cruise
ship docked at Yokohama, Japan, on Friday. More than 200 coronavirus cases have
been confirmed on the ship since it was quarantined last week.
The Diamond Princess cruise ship
docked at Yokohama, Japan, on Friday. More than 200 coronavirus cases have been
confirmed on the ship since it was quarantined last week.Credit…Jae C.
Hong/Associated Press
The United States will evacuate
Americans from the cruise ship that has been quarantined for more than a week
in Japan because of coronavirus infections on board, the United States Embassy
in Tokyo told Americans aboard the ship on Saturday.
American passengers and crew
members were told in an email from the embassy that a chartered flight would
arrive on Sunday for those who wanted to return to the United States.
The ship, the Diamond Princess,
was placed under quarantine at the city of Yokohama early last week with about
3,700 passengers and crew members aboard, after a man who had disembarked in
Hong Kong tested positive for the coronavirus. Since then, at least 218 cases
have been confirmed aboard the ship.
There are about 400 Americans
aboard, and at least 40 who were infected with the virus have been taken off
the ship for treatment.
Americans will be subject to a
14-day federal quarantine and will be housed at two existing quarantine sites,
in California and Texas, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in
a statement on Saturday.” (P)
“Errors by a hospital in San
Diego and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention led to a woman with
the novel coronavirus being sent back to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar
instead of isolation at the hospital, according to a health official familiar
with the situation.
The woman was among Americans in
federal quarantine at the base, and is the first US evacuee from China known to
be infected with the novel coronavirus.
She flew to the base on February
5 on a US Department of State flight evacuating Americans from Wuhan, China.
The next day, she started experiencing symptoms of the novel coronavirus and
was taken to UC San Diego Health. Three other people exhibiting symptoms were
also transported to the hospital.
The hospital sent their
specimens to a CDC lab in Atlanta for testing. According to the source, three
of the four specimens were incorrectly labeled upon arrival and so they were
not tested. The CDC lab did not realize the specimens were from the Miramar
patients.
When no results were reported
back, CDC staffers mistakenly gave UC San Diego Health the results of other
patients who tested negative. That mistake led to the Miramar patients being
transferred back to the base Sunday afternoon.
After they arrived back at the
base, the mistake was discovered and the tests were run on the three Miramar
patients.
The results for the woman came
back positive, and she was transported back to UC San Diego Health on Monday
morning, where she remains in isolation. The woman has had a very mild illness,
according to the source, with no fever and a slight cough…
In a response Tuesday, the CDC
said: “At all times, appropriate infection control precautions were taken
around all of the persons quarantined at Miramar, including these three
patients. From now on, a CDC laboratory staff member will form part of CDC
quarantine field teams to ensure that specimens are correctly labeled/CLIA
compliant to avoid delays in testing.””
During a press conference on
Tuesday, Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC, said
“there was a little bit of a mix-up there” around the testing for the
Miramar patient, but would not elaborate.” (Q)
“San Diego leaders declared a
local emergency and public health emergency for seven days over the novel
coronavirus, giving officials access to resources to address the virus.
CDC and county health officials
cautioned that the declarations did not mean residents faced an increased risk
of the virus.
Under the declarations, the
county will be able to seek mutual aid, potentially be reimbursed for their
response, and ensure resources to first responders and hospitals, stock pile
medical supplies and gain access to hospital beds, and state and federal
emergency funds if necessary.
“This action does not
signify an increase in the risk to the residents in San Diego County to
coronavirus,” Supervisor Nathan Fletcher told the media. “This is a
step that positions us best to confront the challenges of this virus, this
action best equips us to be in the strongest position to coordinate efforts,
ensure access to available supplies, and best protect public health.”…
So far, San Diego has two
confirmed cases of coronavirus. Those patients are under isolation at UC San
Diego Medical Center.
According to Eric McDonald,
medical director of the County’s Epidemiology and Immunization Branch, San
Diego cases include:
Seven people are under
investigation. Five of them have tested negative and two have tested positive;
Four non-San Diego residents who
traveled to the region (but not Wuhan, China) monitored: Two tested negative
and two have results still pending; Monitored 171 people returning from China
with no symptoms: 48 have been cleared after self quarantine, 123 people are
still being monitored. None are under investigation;
Thirteen San Diegans were on
flights next to people confirmed for coronavirus. Eight people have been
cleared after two weeks, four people are still self-quarantined, and one person
was a person under investigation who has since tested negative.
MCAS Miramar has hosted two
flights of passengers being evacuated from the coronavirus zone in Wuhan,
China. Those passengers have been staying at the base under a 14-day
quarantine. Once that quarantine ends next week, low to medium risk individuals
will be asked to self-quarantine at home.” (R)
“Hundreds left a cruise ship in
Cambodia. Then one tested positive for the coronavirus.
An American woman who
disembarked from a cruise ship in Cambodia last week has tested positive twice
for the coronavirus since flying on to Malaysia, officials in that country said
on Sunday.
Cambodia allowed the ship, the
Westerdam, to dock after five other ports
turned it away over concerns about the coronavirus.
Officials said more than
140 passengers from the ship had flown
from Cambodia to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital. All but the American woman
and her husband had been allowed to continue to their destinations, including
airports in the United States, the Netherlands and Australia. (S)
“A man who visited Hawaii was
confirmed to have coronavirus when he returned home to Japan, Hawaii officials
said Friday.
Health officials were tracking
down details about his travel in the Aloha State, including his flight
information and people with whom he had close contact.
The U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention notified Hawaii about the man having the illness known
as COVID-19 on Friday morning, Hawaii Health Director Bruce Anderson said.
The man was in Hawaii Jan. 28 to
Feb. 7. He first visited the island of Maui, where he had no symptoms, Anderson
said. He was on Oahu, the state’s most populated island, Feb. 3-7. While on
Oahu, he had cold-like symptoms, but no fever, Anderson said.
He developed more serious
symptoms when he returned to Japan, where he was tested and found to be
positive for the illness, Anderson. He did not seek medical care in Hawaii,
Anderson said.
Because of when his symptoms
began, officials believe he became infected in Japan or while in transit to
Hawaii, said state epidemiologist Dr. Sarah Park.” (T)
“The cruise ship had been
shunned at port after port for fear it might carry the coronavirus, but when
the Westerdam arrived in Cambodia on Thursday, the prime minister greeted its
passengers with flowers.
Amid assurances that the ship
was disease free, hundreds of elated passengers disembarked. Some went
sightseeing, visiting beaches and restaurants and getting massages. Others
traveled on to destinations around the world.
One, however, did not make it
much farther than the thermal scanners at the Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia.
The passenger, an American, was stopped on Saturday, and later tested positive
for the coronavirus.
On Sunday, with passengers
already headed for destinations on at least three continents, health officials
were scrambling to determine how a big a problem they now have — and how to
stop it from getting bigger.
“We anticipated glitches, but I
have to tell you I didn’t anticipate one of this magnitude,” said Dr. William
Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical
Center.
With more than a thousand
passengers from the Westerdam headed for home, Dr. Schaffner said, it may be
harder than ever to keep the coronavirus outbreak contained to China.
“This could be a turning point,”
he said.
It is unclear how well the
passengers were screened before they were allowed off the ship. But the best
approach to containing a broader spread of the virus from the Westerdam would
be to track down all of the passengers and quarantine them for two weeks,
experts said…
More than 140 passengers from
the ship flew to Malaysia, and all but the American woman who tested positive
and her husband were eventually allowed to continue on to their destinations,
including the United States, the Netherlands and Australia, officials said.
Over 1,000 other passengers took charter flights to Phnom Penh, the capital of
Cambodia, and were in various stages of transit home, the cruise line said….
The global fight against the
coronavirus is complicated by the fact that different countries may have
different levels of disease surveillance and prevention measures. While the
World Health Organization provides guidance, it is up to each country to
enforce these standards, including whether to quarantine people who may have
been exposed or to stop them from traveling.” (U)
(A) China’s Doctors, Fighting the Coronavirus, Beg for Masks,
Chris Buckley, Sui-Lee Wee and Amy Qin,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/world/asia/china-coronavirus-doctors.html
(B) WHO is investigating 1,716 health workers in China infected
with coronavirus, by Berkeley Lovelace Jr.,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/14/who-and-china-investigate-1716-health-workers-infected-with-coronavirus.html
(C) Coronavirus latest: Chinese cases spike after changes to
diagnosis method, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00154-w
(D) Coronavirus Cases Seemed to Be Leveling Off. Not Anymore,
by Roni Caryn Rabin,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/coronavirus-cases-china.html?referringSource=articleShare
(E) A worker cleans the floor of a temporary ward for patients
with coronavirus in Wuhan, China, by Roni Caryn Rabin,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/coronavirus-cases-china.html?referringSource=articleShare
(F) Coronavirus death toll mounts in China as U.S. braces for
long fight, by CARTER EVANS,
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/coronavirus-china-outbreak-death-toll-infections-cruise-ship-latest-updates-2020-02-14/
(G) Would The U.S. Health System Be Ready For A Surge In
Coronavirus Cases?, by PATTI NEIGHMOND,
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/02/13/799534865/would-the-u-s-health-system-be-ready-for-a-surge-in-coronavirus-cases
(H) Is NYC Prepared for Coronavirus?, by James D. Walsh,
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/coronavirus-is-new-york-city-prepared-for-its-arrival.html
(J) Doctor Who Survived Ebola Says He Was Unfairly Cast as a
Hazard and a Hero, by Anemona Hartocollis,
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/26/nyregion/craig-spencer-new-york-ebola-doctor-speaks-out.html
(K) 5 U.S. cities to start testing patients with flu-like
symptoms for coronavirus, by Erika Edwards,
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/5-u-s-cities-start-testing-patients-flu-symptoms-coronavirus-n1136941
(L) CDC director: Novel coronavirus ‘is probably with us
beyond this season, beyond this year’, by Jacqueline Howard,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/13/health/coronavirus-cdc-robert-redfield-gupta-intv/index.html
(M) Some Wuhan Evacuees Ask Why They Aren’t Being Tested for the
Coronavirus, by Miriam Jordan and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/us/coronavirus-quarantine-tests.html?referringSource=articleShare
(N) China Is Tracking Travelers From Hubei,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
(O) Coronavirus Test Kits Sent to States Are Flawed, C.D.C.
Says, by Denise Grady, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/coronavirus-test-kits-cdc.html
(P) The U.S. says it will evacuate Americans from the cruise
ship quarantined off Japan,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/15/world/asia/coronavirus-china-live-updates.html#link-4c91f3a8
(Q) “CDC and hospital errors led to US coronavirus patient being
sent back to military base, health official says, by Elizabeth Cohen and Jon
Passantino,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/10/health/evacuee-wuhan-coronavirus-mistakenly-released/index.html
(R) San Diego declares two emergencies over coronavirus to free
up resources, by Mark Saunders,
https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/san-diego-declares-two-emergencies-over-coronavirus-to-free-up-resources
(S) Hundreds left a cruise ship in Cambodia. Then one tested
positive for the coronavirus, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/16/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
(T) Japanese man who visited Hawaii confirmed with coronavirus.
by JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/15/world/asia/coronavirus-china-live-updates.html#link-4c91f3a8
(U) Coronavirus Infection Found After Cruise Ship Passengers
Disperse, by Richard C. Paddock, Sui-Lee Wee and Roni Caryn Rabin,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/16/world/asia/coronavirus-cruise-americans.html?referringSource=articleShare
PART 7. CORONAVIRUS. February 20, 2020. With SARS
preparedness underway in NJ LibertyHealth/ Jersey City Medical Center, where I
was President, proposed that our 100 bed community hospital with all
single-bedded rooms, be immediately transformed into an EMERGENCY SARS
ISOLATION Hospital.
The Hospital was in a small town at the intersection of many
major highways. It could be easily secured since it had no immediately
contiguous neighbors. It had a helicopter pad. Its patients could be easily
transferred. And it could be managed by the Public Health Service or military
medicine if necessary.
It didn’t happen!
In 2014, I suggested several anchor principles for Ebola
preparedness in New Jersey, as hospitals of all sizes and scope “marketed”
their Ebola readiness, only to learn that it took well over 20/ 25 full time
staff to care for one Ebola patient (and 50 in Dallas!).
These recommendations included that every hospital that
certified its Emergency Room as ready for Ebola be subject to at least three
separate drills using a standardized format, and then be subject to random
“secret shopper” inspections;
that anyone with a confirmed or suspected Ebola diagnosis be
immediately transferred to a regional center hospital designated by national
standardized criteria which could demonstrate that it has sufficient nursing
staff “volunteers” to care for a least five patients round the clock;
and that isolation hospitals be readied for instant
activation, whether a closed hospital prepared for Ebola now and standing by,
or a “virtual” hospital ready-to-go in military fashion.
Also there was a need to minimize Ebola patients walking
into an ER unannounced, and suggested a statewide 800 number be established so
patients can call ahead and be transported by a prepared ambulance team and
taken to a regional center.
The Federal government, later than sooner, did exclusively
designate three national bio containment facilities hospitals as Ebola Centers.
In 2016 I suggested that similar organizing principles were
urgently need to be established for tiered Zika hospital preparedness by
designating Zika Regional Referral Centers. More specifically:
1. There should not be an automatic default to just
designating Ebola Centers as ZRRCs, although there is likely to be significant
overlap.
2. Zika Centers should be academic medical centers with
respected, comprehensive infectious disease diagnostic/ treatment and research
capabilities, and rigorous infection control programs. They should also offer
robust, comprehensive perinatology, neonatology, and pediatric neurology
services, with the most sophisticated imaging capabilities (and Zika-related
“reading” expertise).
3. National leadership in clinical trials.
4. A track record of successful, large scale clinical Rapid
Response.
5. Organizational wherewithal to address intensive resource
absorption.
6. Start preliminary planning for Zika care out of the
initial designated ZRRCs.
7. Zika protocols will be templates for are other mosquito
borne diseases lurking on the horizon, such as Chikungunya, MERS, and Dengue.
“The Wuhan coronavirus spreading from China is now likely to
become a pandemic that circles the globe, according to many of the world’s
leading infectious disease experts.
The prospect is daunting. A pandemic — an ongoing epidemic
on two or more continents — may well have global consequences, despite the
extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now imposed by China and
other countries, including the United States.
Scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus
is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much damage a pandemic might
cause. But there is growing consensus that the pathogen is readily transmitted
between humans.
The Wuhan coronavirus is spreading more like influenza,
which is highly transmissible, than like its slow-moving viral cousins, SARS
and MERS, scientists have found.
“It’s very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is
going to be a pandemic,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. But will it be catastrophic? I
don’t know.”…
At the moment, it seems unlikely that the virus will spread
widely in countries with vigorous, alert public health systems, said Dr.
William Schaffner, a preventive medicine specialist at Vanderbilt University
Medical Center.
“Every doctor in the U.S. has this top of mind,” he said.
“Any patient with fever or respiratory problems will get two questions. ‘Have
you been to China? Have you had contact with anyone who has?’ If the answer is
yes, they’ll be put in isolation right away.”..
But even if an outbreak fades in June, there could be a
second wave in the fall, as has occurred in every major flu pandemic, including
those that began in 1918 and 2009….
“In God we trust,” Dr. Schaffner said. “All others must
provide data.”” (A)
“A comprehensive study of more than 72,000 confirmed and
suspected cases of the novel coronavirus by Chinese scientists has revealed new
information about the deadly infection which has brought much of the country to
a halt.
Carried out by a group of experts at the Chinese Center for
Disease Control and Prevention and published in the Chinese Journal of
Epidemiology on Monday, the study is the largest and most comprehensive
examination of coronavirus cases so far.
It found that the novel coronavirus is more contagious than
the related viruses which cause SARS and MERS. While the resulting disease,
Covid-19, is not as fatal on a case-by-case basis, its greater spread has
already led to more deaths than its related coronaviruses.” (B)
“Numbers have a certain mystique: They seem precise, exact,
sometimes even beyond doubt. But outside the field of pure mathematics, this
reputation rarely is deserved. And when it comes to the coronavirus epidemic,
buying into that can be downright dangerous….
Constant on-the-nose reporting, however much it seems to
serve transparency, has limitations, too.
It’s a short-term, and shortsighted, approach that’s
difficult to resist, especially when people are afraid and the authorities are
taking draconian actions. It’s only natural to compare and contrast whatever
hard facts are available. And yet it’s especially dangerous to do that
precisely because people are so anxious, and fear can trick the mind.
A view from a loftier perch — a month’s, or even just a
week’s, perspective — would, and will, produce far more reliable information.”
(C)
“One of the enduring images of the current coronavirus
outbreak is a space-age looking thermometer pointed at an airplane passenger.
Eleven airports in the United States are using these
temperature checks as part of expanded screening for novel coronavirus, and
those measures might seem reassuring. If someone doesn’t have a fever, it seems
like they’re fine — right?..
Earlier this month, British researchers published a study
showing that temperature checks will fail to detect a coronavirus infection
nearly half the time….
Since mid-January, the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention has been employing temperature checks at selected airports, at first
on people flying in from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak, and now
on all passengers who’ve been anywhere in mainland China in the past 14 days.
The temperature checks are part of an overall screening
effort that includes giving passengers cards telling them to watch out for
fever, cough and trouble breathing, all symptoms of the novel coronavirus
disease, also called COVID-19.
“Finding sick people who are at risk for COVID-19,
alerting asymptomatic travelers who may develop COVID-19 symptoms after
arrival, and rapidly responding to any suspect COVID-19 illness, we can most
effectively protect the health and safety of the American public,” said
Dr. Martin Cetron, director of CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine.
Some experts say it’s that card — a simple card listing
symptoms in English and Chinese — that holds the key to detecting coronavirus
infection — not a thermometer.” (D)
“On Wednesday, the initial 14-day quarantine aboard a
coronavirus-stricken cruise ship docked in Yokohama, Japan, officially ended.
But the grueling saga seems far from for over for the ship’s 3,711 passengers
and crew…
Japanese health officials are facing international criticism
for their handling of the quarantine on the ship, the Diamond Princess. The
quarantine was intended to curb the spread of disease by keeping people aboard,
isolated from each other and from the public on land. But as cases mounted over
the two weeks, it became clear that the control efforts only enabled the new
coronavirus to spread. In fact, the 621 cases include at least three Japanese
health officials, who were there to support the quarantine efforts but ended up
becoming infected themselves….
Just before Dr. Hopland and his wife planned to board an evacuation
plane chartered by the US State Department on Sunday, test results came back
indicating his wife had contracted the virus. She was moved to a local
hospital, and Dr. Hopland remains on the ship in an extended quarantine.
The chartered flights, meanwhile, repatriated over 300 other
American cruise ship passengers, 14 of whom tested positive for the virus en
route to the US.
“I was surprised I was negative because I knew the virus had
swept through this boat like wildfire,” Dr. Hopland told the Journal. “My
analogy is they put us in a petri dish to get infected.” (E)
“Nebraska’s specialized medical care has handled Ebola. Now
it’s taking on the novel coronavirus
“They’re in the chicken soup stage right now,”
Rupp said. “It’s really just watching them and giving them supportive care
that you would probably get at home from a loving provider.”
The US Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness
Response asked UNMC early Monday morning to take in a total of 13 patients who
had either tested positive, or had a high likelihood of testing positive, for
the novel coronavirus.
The patients had been on a cruise ship docked off the cost
of Japan for two weeks. The center said it was prepared.
“We’re having them under surveillance in quarantine
until we know that they are not a danger to the public,” Rupp said, adding
that most units have an exercise bike or a treadmill as well as a TV and WiFi
so they’re able to communicate…
UNMC was commissioned by the US Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention in 2005 to create the biocontainment unit where one patient
currently is. The rest of the patients are in a separate federal quarantine
center on the campus, that UNMC built through a private-public partnership.
In 2014, UNMC successfully treated three patients with
Ebola, and the medical facility has the capacity to manage other highly
infectious diseases like SARS, monkeypox and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.”
(F)
“In addition to the biocontainment unit, the hospital’s
campus has the only federal quarantine unit in the country.
“We do a huge amount of research in these areas,” said Dr.
Jeffrey P. Gold, chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical Center,
citing work on infectious diseases and research on countermeasures to weapons
of mass destruction.
“What — heaven forbid
— happens if an employee or staff member gets exposed to one of these agents,
or even worse than that, gets infected, where are you going to put them? You
can’t just call up a local hospital and say, ‘I’ve got somebody who has anthrax,
make up a bed,’” he said. “You need facilities that can do everything from air
and water handling to the complexities of waste disposal.”” (G)
“The Center for Disease Control does not recognize surgical
masks as a means of protection from viruses. Health professionals use N95
respirators that are formed tightly around the nose and mouth. Dr. Seery says
N95s are expensive and not practical for the public.
“Surgical masks aren’t bad. If you’re stuck in
something like a plane, I don’t think it’s going to do you much good,” Dr.
Seery says. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop all the air that you breathe in
around the mask, but if you’re out and about in a community that has the flu,
for example, it might reduce your chances of coming into contact with that flu
virus while walking through someone’s sneeze cloud.”” (H)
“The director of a Chinese hospital at the epicenter of the
coronavirus outbreak became one of its victims Tuesday despite
“all-out” efforts to save his life, Chinese health officials said…
Liu Zhiming, president of Wuhan Wuchang Hospital in Hubei
province, died of coronavirus-related pneumonia, China Daily reported. The
hospital, one of the seven designated for the epidemic in Wuhan, treated
thousands of people a day…
“Unfortunately he became infected and passed away at
10:54 Tuesday morning after all-out efforts to save him failed,” the commission
said.” (I)
“An Oregon comedian who had been stranded on a Holland
America cruise ship in Cambodia due to COVID-19 virus concerns managed to get a
flight back home by breaking quarantine in a hotel where ship’s passengers were
being held pending test results…
“There was no official ‘you can’t leave’ (at the hotel)
but if you tried to go out the front door with your luggage, security would
stop you,” King said. “But if you went out with your backpack and you
were sightseeing, not a problem.”..
He says he chose to fly back on his own on a more
full-service airline, even purchasing a full-price, upgraded ticket as not to
raise suspicion that he was trying to quickly leave the country at the last
minute as cheaply as possible.
King said he sailed through the airports on his three
connecting flights, only being asked if he had been to China, and had a rental
car reserved in Seattle to get home to Eugene if he couldn’t fly from here.
King said somebody asked him if it was “kind of selfish
to self deport?” He said while the results of his virus test weren’t back,
he’s confident he’s OK since he has not shown any symptoms, nor fever, and says
he had been essentially in quarantine for 14 days.” (J)
“In one school district, families are pulling their kids out
of school. In others, students show up in face masks.
Educators in another Southern California community agreed to
suspend an exchange program to keep visiting Chinese students out of
quarantine.
School districts across the U.S., particularly those with
large Asian American populations, have scrambled to respond to the outbreak of
the coronavirus, which has killed more than 1,500 people and sickened tens of
thousands more, almost all in China.
At least 15 cases have been confirmed in the U.S., mostly in
California, home to about one-third of the nation’s Chinese immigrants.
The districts find themselves in uncharted territory as they
apply new federal travel rules to their student bodies. And in some cases,
administrators are making decisions to address parental fears – not actual
disease – with no official guidance. They’re weighing whether to allow students
to work from home, even if they haven’t traveled abroad recently, or let them
wear face masks in class.
Balancing these requests against broader public health needs
often leads to different conclusions.
“We’re just doing our best to comply” as the rules and
outbreak evolve, said Jenny Owen, spokesperson for the Duarte Unified School
District, about 20 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. About 6% of the
district’s students identify as Asian…
To prevent the virus’s spread in the U.S., the federal
government has issued rules for returning travelers: U.S. citizens and legal
permanent residents who visited the epicenter of the outbreak in China, Hubei
province, in the previous 14 days must undergo a mandatory two-week quarantine
at a government-run facility. Those who visited other parts of China must stay
home and “self-quarantine” for two weeks.
The policies began Feb. 2, and as a result, an exchange
program that brought children from China to Duarte schools has been temporarily
halted to prevent the students from being quarantined, Owen said.
State public health departments are using the federal rules
to draft guidelines for school districts.
The policies made a “night and day” difference in clearing
up confusion, especially for families who had recently traveled from China and
were wondering whether to send their kids to school, said Don Austin,
superintendent of the nearly 12,000-student Palo Alto Unified School District
in the Bay Area, where about 36% of students identify as Asian.
“When I first heard of the concept of self-quarantine, my
first instinct was, this could be problematic if we’re alone on that and trying
to create some of these policies and practices on the fly,” he said.
But school districts and local health departments still have
to make quick decisions in cases that fall outside federal guidelines.” (K)
“As the U.S. responds to a growing threat of the 2019 novel
coronavirus, CMS and other organizations are clarifying how to code for testing
and treatment of the disease.
Six things to know:
1. CMS created a new Healthcare Common Procedure Coding
System code for providers and labs testing patients for SARS-CoV-2, or severe
acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.
2. Providers can use the HCPCS code U0001 to test patients
for coronavirus using the CDC’s 2019 novel coronavirus real-time RT-PCR
Diagnostic Test Panel.
3. Medicare’s claims processing system will start accepting
the code April 1 for dates of services Feb. 4 onward.
4. Audrey Howard, senior outsource services consultant with
3M Health Information Systems, reviewed in a blog post the current ICD-10-CM
codes providers could use to code for the virus.
5. For classifying coronavirus not associated with SARS,
providers could use:
Pneumonia due to coronavirus: J12.89 and B97.29
Sepsis due to coronavirus: A41.89 and B97.29
Other infection caused by coronavirus: B34.2
Contact with and (suspected) exposure to other viral
communicable diseases: Z20.828
6. For classifying the SARS-associated coronavirus,
providers could use:
Pneumonia due to SARS-associated coronavirus: J12.81
Sepsis due to SARS-associated coronavirus: A41.89 and
B97.21” (L)
“Staff at NYU Langone Health in New York City has designated
the new virus as a “level 1” priority.
“A big part of this level is communication,” said Dr.
Jennifer Lighter, hospital epidemiologist there.
“We are trying to communicate to NYU staff and patients in
our medical center how to best protect themselves from the flu or COVID-19,”
Lighter said. “That’s just general info like basic hand hygiene, sneezing into
the end of your elbow and practicing safe distance from someone who is sick.”
NYU is also preparing for a level 2 or 3 scenario, she
added, where there is transmission in the city and it begins to impact hospital
operations. The health-care system has implemented a conservation plan and
medical supplies, especially respirator masks, are only given to staff as
needed, she said.
“If a team needed more, they would have to be
infection-prevention approved or manager approved before someone would get
more,” she said, adding staff is already feeling the brunt of the flu season.
The hospital is also recommending patients with more mild
symptoms to stay at home, she said. The hospital has been ramping up its
virtual urgent care, including training doctors and purchasing more iPads and other
machines. “If you’re shortness of breath, obviously, please come in,” Lighter
said.” (M)
(A) Wuhan
Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic, Experts Say, by Donald G.
McNeil Jr., https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/health/coronavirus-pandemic-china.html?referringSource=articleShare
(B) Chinese
CDC study finds Covid-19 virus to be more contagious than SARS or MERS, by
James Griffiths and Nectar Gan,
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/chinese-cdc-study-finds-covid-19-virus-to-be-more-contagious-than-sars-or-mers/ar-BB108Z9X
(C) Constant
on-the-nose reporting, however much it seems to serve transparency, has
limitations, too, by John Allen Paulos,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/opinion/coronavirus-china-numbers.html
(D) No US
coronavirus cases were caught by airport temperature checks. Here’s what has
worked, by Elizabeth Cohen and John Bonifield,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/19/health/coronavirus-airport-temperature-checks/index.html
(E) Americans
on coronavirus cruise ship barred from US after failed quarantine, by BETH
MOLE,
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/02/americans-on-coronavirus-cruise-ship-barred-from-us-after-failed-quarantine/
(F) Nebraska
doctors are providing coronavirus patients with chicken soup and Tylenol, by
Amir Vera and Nick Watt,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/18/health/nebraska-coronavirus-unmc-chicken-soup/index.html
(G) First
Ebola, Now Coronavirus. Why an Omaha Hospital Gets the Toughest Cases, by Sarah
Mervosh, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/us/coronavirus-omaha-nebraska-medical-center.html
(H) Do
surgical masks protect against illness?, by Kristen Boxman, https://www.kwch.com/content/news/Do-surgical-masks-protect-against-illness-567967131.html
(I) Coronavirus
20 times more lethal than the flu? Death toll passes 2,000, by John Bacon,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/02/18/wuhan-china-coronavirus-hospital-director-dies-covid/4792597002/
(J) Hotel
getaway: Oregon comedian quarantined amid cruise ship virus sneaks flight to
Seattle,
https://komonews.com/news/local/man-stranded-on-coronavirus-infected-cruise-ship-arrives-at-sea-tac-airport
(K) School
districts grapple with coronavirus quarantines, face masks and fear, by Anna
Almendrala,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/02/17/coronavirus-forces-schools-grapple-quarantines-masks-and-fear/4775522002/
(L) Coding
for coronavirus: 6 things to know, by Morgan Haefner,
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/coding-for-coronavirus-6-things-to-know.html
(M) Hospitals
across the US prepare for coronavirus outbreak to become global pandemic, by
Berkeley Lovelace Jr., https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/19/hospitals-across-the-us-prepare-for-coronavirus-outbreak-to-become-global-pandemic.html
PART 8. CORONAVIRUS. “…every country’s top priority
should be to protect its health care workers. This is partly to ensure that
hospitals themselves do not become sites where the coronavirus is spread more
than it is contained.”
“Why this looks like the beginning of a pandemic
These outbreaks outside of China, along with the latest
science on Covid-19, suggest we may soon see a rapid rise in infections — both
in China and in more countries around the world. Here’s why.
1) The virus is very contagious and some people seem to be
able to infect others before they know they’re sick: Researchers currently believe
one infected person generally infects two to three others, which would make the
new coronavirus more contagious than other coronaviruses, like SARS and MERS.
“TRYING TO STOP INFLUENZA-LIKE TRANSMISSION IS LIKE TRYING
TO STOP THE WIND. IT’S VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE.”…
2) Countries are still mostly looking for the disease in
people who’ve traveled from China: The main method of screening in many
countries is still testing passengers coming from China, or from Hubei province
only. But as we’ve seen, spread is happening beyond those people. And other
cases may be undetected…
3) With flu season ongoing, it can take time to identify
cases and outbreaks: “The challenge with this illness is that the clinical
symptoms resemble other viral illnesses, like flu,” said Inglesby. So people
with the flu, and doctors examining them, may not even be thinking of Covid-19
yet, especially in people who haven’t traveled to China.
4) China may also see another surge in cases soon as travel
restrictions are gradually lifted: The country has taken extraordinarily
draconian measures to stop this virus, quarantining millions, and shutting down
transit and travel. But the business community is growing increasingly
frustrated with the restrictions, and is pressuring government officials to
ease some of the restrictions…
5) Many countries are only now getting testing up and
running: Even the US — with one of the most highly-resourced health systems in
the world — doesn’t have adequate diagnostic capacity right now:
Reminder: As of today (Feb 23), the US remains extremely
limited in #COVID19 testing. Only 3 of ~100 public health labs have @CDC test
kits working and CDC is not sharing what went wrong with the kits. How to know
if COVID19 is spreading here if we are not looking for it.
6) Some people may have abdominal pain before respiratory
symptoms — and that’s not something health officials are screening for: This
coronavirus is still very new, and we don’t know its entire spectrum of illness
yet, but we’re learning the disease may sometimes surface in surprising ways.
Though it’s a respiratory infection, a recent JAMA article found some have
abdominal symptoms such as discomfort first. This means “we may not be
detecting cases that do not present in the classic way with fever and respiratory
symptoms,” said William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt
University….
We need to prepare for a pandemic…
For now, countries need to move from trying to contain the
virus to mitigating its harm — reducing the spread, and caring for the very
sick, said Jennifer Nuzzo, an infectious disease expert and senior scholar at
the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “It is beyond time,” she added.”
(A)
“On Tuesday, Feb. 18, no coronavirus cases had been reported
in Iran. On Sunday, the government announced 43 cases and eight deaths. Some
152 cases (and at least three deaths) were confirmed in Italy on Sunday, up
from three cases on Thursday. The number of infected people in South Korea
jumped to 763 (and six deaths) in just days.
As of Monday, Covid-19 was detected in at least 29
countries. In nations with few or no reported cases so far, particularly in
South America and Africa, the absence of evidence shouldn’t be interpreted as
evidence of absence. More likely, it reflects lack of testing.
Is the Covid-19 outbreak now a pandemic, whether or not the
World Health Organization calls it that yet? If so, what’s next?
In a world ill-prepared for a potentially life-threatening,
easily transmitted disease like Covid-19, the most effective way to mitigate
the pandemic’s impact is to focus on supporting health care systems that
already are overburdened…
This is the main reason every country’s top priority should
be to protect its health care workers.
The United States and other countries in the Northern
Hemisphere already are in the throes of a moderately severe flu season. Their
inventories of protective equipment used by doctors, nurses and emergency
medical workers — N-95 respirator masks, gloves, eye protection, disposable suits
— are running low. These limited supplies must go to health care workers first,
rather than the public. This is partly to ensure that hospitals themselves do
not become sites where the coronavirus is spread more than it is contained: If
infected health care workers die in large numbers, entire societies may be
shaken to the point of panic.
Governments should also conduct Covid-19 preparedness drills
in local hospitals and expand hospitals’ temporary capacity, for example, by
setting up emergency tents in parking lots, as is already happening in some
places in the United States. To minimize the strain on overstressed acute-care
hospitals, supportive nursing care might have to be provided, in makeshift
facilities and patients’ homes, as was done during severe pandemics in the
past, such as the Great Influenza of 1918-19…
Ensuring all of this means facing the hard facts of this
unfolding pandemic — and that requires thorough, transparent disclosures to the
public. Past experiences, with the anthrax-laced letters in 2001 and the 2014
Ebola outbreak, suggest that people react more rationally and show greater
resilience to a full-blown crisis if they are prepared intellectually and
emotionally for it.” (B)
“The number of coronavirus cases in South Korea has soared
to about 602, according to The New York Times. More than half of those cases
involve members of, or those somehow linked to, the religious sect, the
Shincheonji Church of Jesus, where a so-called superspreader infected at least
37 people last week.
A so-called superspreader infected at least 37 people at her
church with the new coronavirus, and dozens of additional worshippers are also
showing symptoms of the disease, called COVID-19, according to news reports.
The 61-year-old woman attends the Shincheonji Church of
Jesus the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony in Daegu, South Korea,
according to the international news outlet AFP. The city, located in the
southern part of the country, is home to about 2.5 million people. The woman,
called “Patient 31” by Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, developed a fever on Feb. 10 and attended four church services
before being diagnosed with COVID-19. ..
Authorities described the outbreak as a
“super-spreading event,” as the lone woman transmitted the infection
to an unusually high number of people, according to Reuters. Current estimates
suggest that a single person with the novel coronavirus spreads the infection
to about 2.2 additional people, on average. The surge of infection at the
church brings the total number of confirmed cases in South Korea to 104; one
death associated with the virus has occurred in the country so far.” (C)
“Rain was falling on the night of Jan. 18, so the windows of
the Tokyo party boat were shut. Inside were about 90 guests of a local taxi
association who were celebrating the new year as the vessel floated down the
Sumida River. Also on board, unbeknown to them, was a coronavirus capable of
spreading ferociously.
It did just that. A driver in his 70s soon fell ill with
fever; he later tested positive. The same day as his diagnosis, his
mother-in-law died; she also was infected. Officials then discovered that 10
others from the boat were, too, including an employee who had served passengers
from Wuhan, China. Still more who did not attend the party caught the virus
after coming into contact with those who did.
As public health officials look for clues to one of the
biggest uncertainties about the new coronavirus epidemic — whether it will
eventually expand rapidly beyond its center in China — they are closely
studying clusters of cases that have emerged recently in Japan.
The issue has taken on more urgency as passengers have begun
walking off a contaminated cruise ship in Yokohama where 634 people have tested
positive for the virus and two later died. Experts fear that some who were
cleared to leave an onboard quarantine could later test positive, spreading
infections on land in the same way that the party boat has done.
Alarmed officials are rushing to learn more about how the
virus is transmitted, including how many of those infected experience mild
symptoms or none at all, and whether it can be spread by people who are
symptom-free.” (D)
“Most of the Americans who were being monitored at the
University of Nebraska Medical Center for coronavirus after evacuating a cruise
ship in Japan tested positive for the virus, the hospital says.
UNMC said in a statement Thursday that the US Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention verified the Nebraska Public Health Lab results
showing that 11 of the 13 patients have the novel coronavirus. The other two
evacuees who were taken to the Omaha hospital tested negative, the statement
said.
Bert Kelly, a CDC spokesman, told CNN that the agency has
verified the results, bringing the total of confirmed cases in the United
States to 26.
The hospital had said some of the patients had tested
positive in Japan but some “came with a lack of clarity of what their test
results were,” Shelly Schwedhelm told CNN. Schwedhelm is the UNMC/Nebraska
Medical Executive Director of Emergency Management and Biopreparedness who has
clinical oversight of the quarantine and biocontainment units.
Nine of the patients had tested positive for the virus in
Japan and were positive again after being rested in the United States, another
CDC spokesman, Joe Smith, told CNN on Friday.” (E)
“Preventing the spread of infectious disease is the essence
of public health work, but the scale of efforts by state and local health
departments across the country to contain the virus known as COVID-19, experts
said, has rarely been seen. Since early February, thousands of people returning
to the United States from mainland China, the center of the outbreak, have been
asked to isolate themselves at home for 14 days…
Local health officials check in daily by email, phone or
text. They arrange tests for people who come down with symptoms, and in some
cases, groceries and isolated housing. There is no centralized tally in the
United States of people being monitored or asked to remain in isolation, and
they are scattered across the nation’s nearly 3,000 local health jurisdictions.
People arriving from mainland China are added each day,
while those who have completed 14-day “self-quarantine” periods are released
from oversight. In California alone, the department of public health has been
monitoring more than 6,700 returning travelers from China, while health
officials in Washington State have tracked about 800, and officials in Illinois
more than 200.
At least 34 cases have been confirmed in the U.S. and more
infections are expected…
“All hands on deck
are being pulled into this,’’ said Dr. Marcus Plescia, the chief medical
officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, a
nonprofit organization that represents public health agencies across the
country. “If it really blows up, at some point, it could overwhelm state and
local health departments.”…
In Washington, where the first coronavirus patient in the
United States was confirmed on Jan. 21, health officials tracked down and
monitored 69 individuals with whom the man had come in contact, including work
colleagues, health workers and other patients present in a clinic he visited
when he first felt sick. Still, there have been issues. One person the man had
been in contact with and who had developed symptoms of illness flew on a plane
to Wisconsin during the 14-day period when she was supposed to be isolated at
home.
“There is no way,
with something this large, that you can make it seal-proof,’’ said Dr. Wiesman,
who has started twice-weekly conference calls with the chief health officers in
every state and territory to share tips and seek advice on how to manage the
shifting challenges of the coronavirus response. While enforcing total
compliance with isolation orders may not be possible, Dr. Wiesman said, “We
have to try for 80 to 85 percent, and hopefully that will work.’’
Federal authorities are in charge of setting guidelines to
manage the danger, such as deciding how much risk a returning traveler poses
and who should be tested for the coronavirus. But the day-to-day work putting
those policies in place and tracking thousands of people falls to the vast,
decentralized network of local health departments across the country.
Travelers’ data, culled from federal customs officials, is passed on to state
health agencies, who farm out lists of people returning from China to local
health departments.” (F)
Health experts sounded the alarm Friday over the worldwide
threat of the coronavirus, with officials “warning of its “likely”
community spread in the United States and the World Health Organization
cautioning that “the window of opportunity is narrowing” for
containing the outbreak worldwide.
The COVID-19 coronavirus, which erupted in China in
December, has killed at least 2,360 people and sickened at least 77,900
worldwide, the majority of cases in mainland China.
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center
for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters Friday that U.S.
health officials are preparing for the coronavirus to become a pandemic.
“We’re not seeing community spread here in the United
States, yet, but it’s very possible, even likely, that it may eventually
happen,” she said. “Our goal continues to be slowing the introduction of the virus
into the U.S. This buys us more time to prepare communities for more cases and
possibly sustained spread.”
She said the CDC is working with state and local health
departments “to ready our public health workforce to respond to local cases.”
These measures include collaboration with supply chain partners, hospitals,
pharmacies and manufacturers to determine what medical supplies are needed.
She said the “day may come” here where we have to shut down
schools and businesses like China has done.” (G)
“In the U.S., the number of confirmed cases rose to at least
34, as a number of evacuated individuals from the Diamond Princess cruise ship
have tested positive.
Several other Americans who were on board the ship have been
diagnosed and hospitalized in Japan, according to the CDC. As of Friday
afternoon, there were no plans to evacuate those patients. The U.S. Department
of State said it will not rescue other Americans who choose to go on cruises in
Asia.
“Such repatriation flights do not reflect our standard practice,
and should not be relied upon as an option for U.S. citizens,” Ian
Brownlee, an executive within the Department of State, said during a media
briefing Friday.
On its website, the department has warned Americans to
reconsider any planned cruises to or within Asia, saying such trips “may
be impacted by travel restrictions affecting their itineraries or ability to
disembark, or may be subject to quarantine procedures implemented by the local
authorities.
How countries are able to contain the virus and prevent it
from sustained person-to-person transmission will be important in determining
the “ultimate end game” of the virus, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of
the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NBC News.
“If infection control gets out of control in many of
these countries throughout the world, then it’s going to be very difficult to
prevent cases from then going, by travel, to all parts of the world,”
Fauci said. “That’s how a pandemic starts.”
As part of a team of international scientists led by the
World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health and the CDC have
staff members in China, observing containment and infection control efforts.
They’re scheduled to travel into the epicenter of the outbreak, Wuhan, on Saturday.
“We still believe we can contain the virus,” WHO
Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday during a media
briefing. “But the window of opportunity is narrowing.”” (H)
“About 150 prescription drugs — including antibiotics,
generics and some branded drugs without alternatives — are at risk of shortage
if the coronavirus outbreak in China worsens, according to two sources familiar
with a list of at-risk drugs compiled by the Food and Drug Administration.
Why it matters: China is a huge supplier of the ingredients
used to make drugs that are sold in the U.S. If the virus decreases China’s
production capability, Americans who rely on the drugs made from these
ingredients could be in trouble.
What they’re saying: The FDA declined to comment on the
list, but said in a statement that it’s “keenly aware that the outbreak
could impact the medical product supply chain,” and has devoted additional
resources toward identifying potential vulnerabilities to U.S. medical products
stemming specifically from the outbreak.
The agency has been in contact with hundreds of drug and
medical device manufacturers, and it’s also coordinating with global regulators
like the European Medicines Agency.
It pointed out that there aren’t any vaccines, gene
therapies or blood derivatives licensed by the FDA that are manufactured in
China, although raw materials for many products do come from China and other
southeastern Asian countries. The agency is in contact with biologics
manufacturers to monitor supply concerns.
“If a potential shortage or disruption of medical
products is identified by the FDA, we will use all available tools to react
swiftly and mitigate the impact to U.S. patients and health care
professionals,” said an FDA spokesperson.” (I)
“A group of 46 Congress members sent a letter to the Trump
administration Feb. 20 urging the government not to give exclusive licenses to
any drugmaker that develops a coronavirus vaccine using U.S. taxpayer funds.
The lawmakers expressed concern that if drugmakers are given
excluisve licenses on coronavirus treatments or vaccines, they would raise the
prices and make treatments inaccessible for many people affected by the virus.”
(J)
“As the novel coronavirus, called COVID-19, continues to
spread across the globe, Cleveland’s major hospitals are preparing for
potential cases.
From screening patients for the virus to protecting medical
providers, local health care systems are taking precautions to ensure that if
they do get a case of COVID-19, it doesn’t spread, as it has in China.
“Part of preparedness is thinking ahead,” said Dr. Amy Ray,
medical director of infection prevention at the MetroHealth System…
Early identification of patients who are at risk for
COVID-19 infection is important, Ray said.
MetroHealth staff who schedule urgent appointments in
doctors’ offices are trained to look for patients who are having fever and
cough, or fever and shortness of breath, and have traveled in China or been in
close contact with someone who traveled there, Ray said…
At the Cleveland Clinic, the electronic medical records
vendor turned on a function that automatically prompts those who are checking
in patients or taking calls to ask if patients have traveled to China and are
experiencing symptoms such as cough and fever, said Dr. Tom Fraser, vice
chairman of infectious disease at the Clinic…
At MetroHealth’s main campus in south Tremont area,
officials have set aside a two-bed unit, called the Special Diseases Care Unit,
for possible COVID-19 patients.
The unit has its own blood lab and an anteroom where health
care workers can put on and take off their protective gear. The Infection
Prevention Team is looking for other areas of MetroHealth with
negative-pressure ventilation systems that could be used to care for COVID-19
patients, Ray said.
Portable X-ray and other equipment can be brought to the
isolation rooms to minimize the need to move patients through the hospital,
limiting the danger of transmission to others…
At each hospital system, medical personnel wear protective
gear that covers their nose, mouth and eyes to examine patients suspected of
having COVID-19. That means wearing fitted respirators, a face shield or
goggles, gloves and a gown.
Keeping health care workers protected and healthy is a
priority because they come in contact with so many others, Saade said.
“A big problem in these big epidemics — thankfully, we’re
not there yet — is that you don’t have enough health care workers to help with
people care,” he said…
While it’s ideal to isolate all patients in the hospital, if
there were a COVID-19 outbreak, those with lesser symptoms would need to
self-quarantine at home, Saade said.
“If we have just a few people, we can isolate them,” he
said. “That’s not something that can happen if it’s widespread.”
Fraser said that a lot of the precautions that health
systems are taking for COVID-19 are built on day-to-day infection-prevention
practices.
In the end, it all comes down to the basics, he said.
“Everybody’s seen the Hazmat suits and stuff like that on
TV. But if we don’t wash our hands well between patients, then you can have all
kinds of fancy suits” but not be protected, Frazer said.
“Clean hands going in, and clean hands going out” is the
“fail safe,” he said. “Because not everybody is going to come with a sign that
says ‘I’ve got coronavirus.’ ”
The Clinic emphasizes daily basic infection-prevention
practices, such as hand hygiene and proper cough etiquette.
“Those kind of basics, without those, everything else would
fall apart,” Fraser said.” (K)
Labs in the US will start looking for the new coronavirus
this week (L)
Specialized respirators are key to stopping spread of
coronavirus to medical staff (M)
Flowchart to Identify and Assess 2019 Novel Coronavirus for
the evaluation of patients who may be ill with or who may have been exposed to
2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)
For the evaluation of patients who may be ill with or who
may have been exposed to 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) (N)
Coronavirus: What it does to the body (O)
How the coronavirus can kill people (P)
Coronavirus Disease 2019 Information for Travel
This page includes information about Coronavirus Disease
2019 (COVID-19) for travelers and travel related industries. (Q)
Interim Guidance for Businesses and Employers to Plan and
Respond to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), February 2020 (R)
(A) “We are at
a turning point”: The coronavirus outbreak is looking more like a pandemic, by
Julia Belluz,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic.html?referringSource=articleShare
(B) Is It a
Pandemic Yet? It’s now clear that the coronavirus epidemic was never going to
be contained. What’s next?, by Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic.html?referringSource=articleShare
(C) Superspreader’
in South Korea infects nearly 40 people with coronavirus, by Nicoletta Lanese,
https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-superspreader-south-korea-church.html
(D) What a
Party in Japan May Tell Us About the Coronavirus’s Spread, by Sui-Lee Wee and
Makiko Inoue,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/world/asia/japan-coronavirus-clusters.html?referringSource=articleShare
(E) 11 cruise
ship passengers test positive for coronavirus, Nebraska hospital says, Nicole Chavez, https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/20/health/nebraska-coronavirus-positive-tests/index.html
(F) Local
health officials check in daily by email, phone or text with the thousands of
people returning to the United States from mainland China, where they may have
encountered the virus, by Amy Harmon and Farah Stockman,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/22/us/coronavirus-local-health-response.html?referringSource=articleShare
(G) CDC is
preparing for the ‘likely’ spread of coronavirus in the US, officials say, by
Doug Stanglin, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/02/21/coronavirus-who-contain-outbreak-iran-deaths-south-korea-cases/4829278002/
(H) U.S. takes
steps to prepare for pandemic as global coronavirus cases rise, by Erika
Edwards, https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/u-s-takes-steps-prepare-pandemic-global-coronavirus-cases-rise-n1140371
(I) Scoop:
Coronavirus threatens shortages of about 150 drugs, by Caitlin Owens,
https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-threatens-drug-shortage-318c9e7b-5d92-4a5e-b992-2478023c6d01.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top
(J) Don’t
allow monopoly of coronavirus drug rights, lawmakers urge Trump, by Maia
Anderson,
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/pharmacy/don-t-allow-monopoly-of-coronavirus-drug-rights-lawmakers-urge-trump.html
(K) Protecting
patients, health care workers priorities as Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth and
UH prepare for coronavirus, by Ginger Christ,
https://www.cleveland.com/business/2020/02/cleveland-hospitals-prepare-for-potential-novel-coronavirus-cases.html
PART 9. CORONAVIRUS. Responding to a question about
the likelihood of a U.S. outbreak, President Trump said, “I don’t think
it’s inevitable…”It probably will. It possibly will,” he continued.
“It could be at a very small level, or it could be at a larger level.”
“A person in
California who was not exposed to anyone infected with the coronavirus, and had
not traveled to countries in which the virus is circulating, has tested
positive for the infection in what may be the first case of community spread
here in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said
on Wednesday.
“At this point, the patient’s exposure is unknown,” the
C.D.C. statement said. “The case was detected through the U.S. public health
system and picked up by astute clinicians.”
The case was announced shortly after President Trump
concluded a news briefing in which he said that aggressive public health
containment measures and travel entry restrictions had successfully limited the
spread of coronavirus in the United States.
It brings the number of cases in the country to 60,
including the 45 cases among Americans who were repatriated from Wuhan, China —
the epicenter of the outbreak — and the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was
overwhelmed by the virus after it docked in Japan.
Until now, public health officials have been able to trace
all of the infections in the country to a recent trip abroad or a known
patient.
This new case appears to be one of community spread — one in
which the source of infection is unknown. It is possible the patient may have
been exposed to a returning traveler who was infected, the C.D.C. said.” (A)
“The first suspected U.S. case of a patient getting the new
coronavirus through “community spread” – with no history of travel to
affected areas or exposure to someone known to have the COVID-19 illness — was
left undiagnosed for days because a request for testing wasn’t initially
granted, according to officials at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento,
Calif.
The patient in Northern California is now the 60th confirmed
case of the new coronavirus in the United States. The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention disclosed the latest case Wednesday evening, as
President Trump assigned Vice President Pence to lead the administration’s
response to the disease.
“This case was detected through the U.S. public health
system — picked up by astute clinicians,” the CDC said in a brief
statement about the new patient.
UC Davis included more details about the case in its own
statement, drawing on an email sent to staff at its medical center. It said the
CDC initially ruled out a test for the coronavirus because the patient’s case
didn’t match its criteria.” (S)
“An American soldier in South Korea has tested positive for
the new coronavirus, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.
The patient, a 23-year-old man, is based in Camp Carroll in
Waegwan, only 12 miles from Daegu, the South Korean city at the center of an outbreak in the country.
The soldier, the first U.S. service member to become
infected, has been quarantined in his off-base residence, the military said.
The soldier visited Camp Walker, a military base in Daegu,
on Monday and visited Camp Carroll from Friday to Tuesday.
South Korean and American “health professionals are actively
conducting contact tracing to determine whether any others may have been
exposed,” the military said.
The military added that it was “implementing all appropriate
control measures to help control the spread of Covid-19 and remains at risk
level ‘high’” for all its 28,500 soldiers stationed in South Korea “as a
prudent measure to protect the force.” “(B)
“Why this looks like the beginning of a pandemic
These outbreaks outside of China, along with the latest
science on Covid-19, suggest we may soon see a rapid rise in infections in more
countries around the world. Here’s why.
1) The virus is very contagious, and some people seem to be
able to infect others before they know they’re sick: Researchers currently
believe one infected person generally infects two to three others, which would
make the new coronavirus more contagious than other coronaviruses, like SARS
and MERS…
2) Countries are still mostly looking for the disease in
people who’ve traveled from China: The main method of screening in many
countries is still testing passengers coming from China or from Hubei province
only. But as we’ve seen, spread is happening beyond those people. And other
cases may be undetected…
3) With flu season ongoing, it can take time to identify
cases and outbreaks: “The challenge with this illness is that the clinical
symptoms resemble other viral illnesses, like flu,” said Inglesby. So people
with the flu, and doctors examining them, may not even be thinking of Covid-19
yet, especially in people who haven’t traveled to China.
4) China’s case toll is falling — but it may see another
surge soon as travel restrictions are gradually lifted: The country has taken
extraordinarily draconian measures to stop this virus, quarantining millions,
and shutting down transit and travel. But the business community is growing increasingly
frustrated with the restrictions and is pressuring government officials to ease
some of them…
5) Many countries are only now getting testing up and
running: Even the US, with one of the most highly resourced health systems in
the world, doesn’t have adequate diagnostic capacity right now..
6) Some people may have abdominal pain before respiratory
symptoms — and that’s not something health officials are screening for: This
coronavirus is still very new, and we don’t know its entire spectrum of illness
yet, but we’re learning the disease may sometimes surface in surprising ways.
Though it’s a respiratory infection, a recent JAMA article found some have
abdominal symptoms such as discomfort first. This means “we may not be
detecting cases that do not present in the classic way with fever and respiratory
symptoms,” said William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt
University…” (D)
“Outside China, there are now 2,790 cases in 37
countries, and 44 deaths,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
said at a briefing in Geneva…
Tedros is urging the international community to have
“hope, courage and confidence” that the new respiratory virus can be
contained, citing 14 countries that haven’t reported a new case in more than a
week.
Worldwide, there are currently 81,191 cases of the novel
coronavirus, according to a dashboard created by the Johns Hopkins Whiting
School of Engineering. That number includes 30,281 cases in which people
recovered from COVID-19.
But Tedros also warned that the situation could get worse,
saying, “At the same time, all countries, whether they have cases or not,
must prepare for a potential pandemic.”..
On a broader scale, the WHO’s Tedros says every country
should make it a top priority to protect workers who are dealing with the
health crisis. And he says agencies should work with communities whose members
are most at risk, “particularly the elderly and people with underlying
health conditions.”
Despite the worrying rise of cases at the international
level, Tedros again rejected calls Wednesday for the WHO to declare a pandemic,
saying it’s not an accurate label for a virus he still views as containable. He
has also recently noted that the virus’s fatality rate outside of Hubei
province is less than 1%.
The WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a global health
emergency in January, as cases surged in China. The organization now says it
believes the epidemic peaked and plateaued in China between the end of January
and the early February.” (E)
“The World Health Organization (WHO) still avoided using the
word “pandemic” to describe the burgeoning crisis today, instead talking about
“epidemics in different parts of the world.” But many scientists say that
regardless of what it’s called, the window for containment is now almost
certainly shut. “It looks to me like this virus really has escaped from China
and is being transmitted quite widely,” says Christopher Dye, an epidemiologist
at the University of Oxford. “I’m now feeling much more pessimistic that it can
be controlled.” In the United States, “disruption to everyday life might be
severe,” Nancy Messonnier, who leads the coronavirus response for the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned on 25 February. “We are
asking the American public to work with us to prepare for the expectation that
this is going to be bad.”
Dye and others say it’s time to rethink the public health
response. So far, efforts have focused on containment: slowing the spread of
the virus within China, keeping it from being exported to other countries, and,
when patients do cross borders, aggressively tracing anyone they were in
contact with and quarantining those people for 2 weeks. But if the virus, named
SARS-CoV-2, has gone global, travel restrictions may become less effective than
measures to limit outbreaks and reduce their impact, wherever they are—for
instance, by closing schools, preparing hospitals, or even imposing the kind of
draconian quarantine imposed on huge cities in China.” …
To prepare for what’s coming, hospitals can stockpile
respiratory equipment and add beds. More intensive use of the vaccines against
influenza and pneumococcal infections could help reduce the burden of those
respiratory diseases on the health care system and make it easier to identify
COVID-19 cases, which produce similar symptoms. Governments can issue messages
about the importance of handwashing and staying home if you’re ill.
Whatever the rest of the world does, it’s essential that it
take action soon, Aylward says, and he hopes other countries will learn from
China. “The single biggest lesson is: Speed is everything,” he says. “And you
know what worries me most? Has the rest of the world learned the lesson of
speed?” (F)
“White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow
said Tuesday that the U.S. has “contained” the threat of a domestic coronavirus
outbreak, breaking with the warnings of officials from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
“We have contained this, I won’t say airtight but pretty
close to airtight,” Kudlow told CNBC’s Kelly Evans on Tuesday afternoon…
Some of his comments stood in contrast to public
pronouncements from CDC officials Tuesday that painted the coronavirus’ health
threat to the U.S. as the most serious it‘s been.
Nancy Messonnier, who heads the National Center for
Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned that American communities need to
prepare now for the possibilities of remote work, teleschooling and other
provisional measures when the disease starts spreading domestically.” (G)
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday
warned that it expects the novel coronavirus that has sparked outbreaks around
the world to begin spreading at a community level in the United States, as a
top official said that disruptions to daily life could be “severe.”
“As we’ve seen from recent countries with community spread,
when it has hit those countries, it has moved quite rapidly. We want to make
sure the American public is prepared,” Nancy Messonnier, director of CDC’s
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters.
“As more and more countries experience community spread,
successful containment at our borders becomes harder and harder,” she said.
There have been 14 cases of the virus diagnosed in the U.S.,
all in people who traveled recently to China or their close contacts. Another
39 U.S. residents have been infected in other parts of the world before being
repatriated and quarantined. But CDC officials say the country could soon see
more cases as the virus starts to spread through communities in areas outside
China, including Iran, South Korea, and Italy.
The CDC urged American businesses and families to start
preparing for the possibility of a bigger outbreak. Messonnier said that
parents should ask their children’s schools about plans for closures. Businesses
should consider whether they can offer telecommuting options to their
employees, while hospitals might need to look into expanding telehealth
services, she said.
“Disruption to everyday life might be severe,” Messonnier
said, adding that she talked to her children about the issue Tuesday morning.
“While I didn’t think they were at risk right now, we as a family ought to be
preparing for significant disruption to our lives.”
The CDC’s messaging seemed to be at odds with the position
of the World Health Organization, which reiterated Tuesday that countries could
stop transmission chains if they acted swiftly and aggressively…
Messonnier said the CDC is evaluating data on measures that
could be used to stem the spread of the virus, including school closures and
other social distancing strategies, voluntary home quarantines, and surface
cleaning methods. The CDC is using data from past flu outbreaks to study those
strategies, but will tailor its recommendations for the new virus.
In a press briefing Tuesday afternoon, other top health
officials pushed back on the perception that the public needs to take direct
action now to prepare for community spread of the virus. They also doubled down
on the message that the U.S. has successfully contained the spread of the virus
thus far…
Messonnier said the CDC is also in conversation about
whether to change the case definition that triggers a sick patient to be tested
for the virus. Currently, health officials recommend testing only for people
who have respiratory symptoms and have recently traveled to China, or those who
have been in close contact with someone who was infected. But as community
spread picks up in other countries, the case definition could change.” (H)
“President Donald Trump on Wednesday tried to ease growing
fears over the spreading coronavirus, saying at the White House that his
administration has the situation under control and is “ready to
adapt” if the virus spreads.
“Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American
people remains very low,” Trump said. “We’re ready to adapt and ready
to do whatever we have to as the disease spreads, if it spreads.
“We’re very, very ready for this,” Trump said,
adding that only 15 people had contracted the virus in the U.S. and that all
were expected to recover.
Trump, speaking from the Brady Briefing Room, said he was
putting Vice President Mike Pence in charge of his administration’s response to
the potential pandemic. Trump, however, rejected that he had made Pence a
“czar” for the response to the virus.
Pence, speaking after Trump, reiterated that the
“threat to the American public remains low” and said, “We will
continue to bring the full resources of the federal government … to see to
the health and well-being and to the effective response to the coronavirus in
the United States of America.”
Trump — who this week announced a $2.5 billion plan to help
combat the illness — said at the briefing, “We’re going to spend whatever
is appropriate.”
Following the remarks of Trump and Pence, several senior
officials from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention spoke — and many didn’t paint quite as rosy a picture.
One NIH official said a potential coronavirus vaccine was still at least a year
away.
The president’s address came amid a tumbling stock market
and grave criticism from Democrats who say his handling of the outbreak has
been inadequate. It also came just a day after the CDC warned that it was only
a matter of time before the illness, known as COVID-19, will spread across
communities in the United States…
Measures to contain the virus in the U.S. so far have
involved restricting travel to and from China — the center of the outbreak —
and isolating identified cases.
Trump on Wednesday called those efforts “some very good
early decisions” and indicated that he would consider restricting travel
to South Korea and other countries “at the right time.”…
Federal health officials added Tuesday that they are
preparing for a potential pandemic. CDC officials said the virus could disrupt
daily lives, including closing schools, forcing people to work from home and
delaying elective medical procedures.
Trump, asked Wednesday whether schools should prepare for a
spread of the virus, replied that “every aspect of our society”
should be prepared. He added that he doesn’t think it would come to that but
that people should be prepared “just in case.”
But he also vacillated at various points during his news
conference between agreeing with and rejecting the stark warnings of a broader
potential outbreak issued by government public health experts.
Responding to a question about the likelihood of a U.S.
outbreak, he said, “I don’t think it’s inevitable.
“It probably will. It possibly will,” he
continued. “It could be at a very small level, or it could be at a larger
level.”
At another point, Trump said, “Nothing is
inevitable.” “ (I)
“Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s health emergencies program,
suggested countries need to be working full bore to be ready to deal with the
virus.
“It is time to prepare. It is time to do everything you
would do in preparing for a pandemic,” he insisted…
Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s health emergencies program,
suggested countries need to be working full bore to be ready to deal with the
virus.
“It is time to prepare. It is time to do everything you
would do in preparing for a pandemic,” he insisted.
Continuing to focus on trying to contain the virus — a goal
many infectious diseases experts are skeptical can be met — buys time, Ryan
said, noting if the illness can be prevented from spreading in Europe until flu
season ends, hospitals won’t face a double blow.
“Even slowing down the virus by a month or six weeks has a
massive positive benefit to the system,’’ he said.
But people need to be realistic about the limits of
containment. “We cannot shut down the world,” Ryan said. “That’s not going to
work.”
Countries should be working on trying to reduce the risk of
imported cases, reduce the risk of spread from cases that get in, and increase
the chance that people who get sick survive the infection. “But I think we have
to be very, very careful in trying to suggest that we could absolutely stop the
virus from spreading from one country to the next,” he said. “I don’t think
that’s possible.”” (J)
“A federal health official warned Tuesday that the deadly
coronavirus could cause “severe” disruptions in the USA as global
experts struggled to fend off the outbreak and avoid a pandemic.
Is it too late?
“Disruption to everyday life may be severe,” Nancy
Messonnier, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned at a news
conference Tuesday. Schools could be closed, mass public gatherings suspended
and businesses forced to have employees work remotely, she said.
Messonnier said the coronavirus has caused sickness and
death and sustained person-to-person transmission. That’s two of the three
factors for a pandemic, she said.
“As community spread is detected in more and more countries,
the world moves closer to meeting the third criteria – worldwide spread of the
new virus,” Messonnier said.
Although the World Health Organization determined Monday
that the term pandemic “did not fit the facts,” experts said it very
soon could…..
Melissa Nolan, a medical doctor and professor of
epidemiology at the University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public
Health, cited new clusters in Iran, which faces at least 95 cases and has had
16 deaths, and Italy, which is dealing with 322 cases.
“If we continue to see focalized local transmission in
areas outside of China, the WHO will need to reconvene,” Nolan told USA
TODAY on Tuesday. “We are very close to seeing this virus becoming a
pandemic.”
Nolan said responses to the outbreaks in Iran and Italy
could help health officials in other countries prepare their own medical and
quarantine policies before an outbreak. That is crucial, said Robert Glatter,
an emergency physician at New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital who fears the world is
on the “cusp” of a pandemic.
“Trying to contain a disease which spreads like
influenza, in this case COVID-19, is almost impossible,” he said. “We
are talking about rapid-fire and sustained transmission.”…
Ogbonnaya Omenka, an assistant professor and public health
specialist at Butler University’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, said
he understands the concerns. The main implication of declaring a pandemic is
requiring, or at least further urging, national governments to prepare
facilities and health workers to treat a lot of patients, Omenka told USA
TODAY.
“Not only is this costly, it may also trigger
panic,” he warned. “Countries may as well put in place these plans
without the official announcement.”
Tedros stressed that a pandemic declaration would not eliminate
the need for health authorities to continue testing, limiting contact with the
sick and encouraging frequent hand washing – the front-line defense….
Messonnier acknowledged the CDC struck a more urgent tone in
warnings about the virus in the USA. The proliferation of coronavirus in
countries outside China raised the agency’s expectations the virus will spread
here.
“People are concerned about this situation – I would say rightfully so,” Messonnier
said. “But we are putting our concerns to work preparing. Now is the time
for businesses, hospitals, communities, schools and everyday people to begin
preparing as well.”
“It’s not so much a question of if this will happen
anymore but rather more a question of exactly when,” an official said.”
(K)
“When you start to see sustained transmission in other
countries throughout the world, it’s inevitable that it will come to the United
States,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases, told NBC News.
In the U.S., 57 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19,
the illness caused by the new coronavirus. The majority are among repatriated
residents who were passengers of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, docked in
Japan.
The CDC said Americans should prepare for the possibility of
disruptions to their daily lives if the virus were to start spreading in the
U.S. That could include closing schools, working from home and delaying
elective medical procedures.
“We should all be dusting off our pandemic preparedness
plans and rehearse them very quickly,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an
infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University. “The core concept
is social distancing.”
Business leaders, Schaffner said, should start considering
which employees could work from home. Perhaps the time will come, he and other
experts said, to observe religious practices and ceremonies at home, rather
than attend larger community gatherings at places of worship. And families
should start asking themselves how they would handle a week or two at home,
without traveling even short distances for food, medicine or
entertainment.” (L)
“Gown, gloves, goggles, mask — deposit in biohazard
container and wash hands for 20 seconds. That’s how to take it off safely.
It’s a drill that’s becoming muscle memory for health care
workers these days as hospitals and medical facilities prepare for the
anticipated spread of the new coronavirus from China. Blanchard wants it to
feel as routine for the Teaneck hospital’s staff as tying their shoes or
fastening a seat belt.
Practice in donning and doffing personal protective
equipment — or PPE, as it is called — has gained new urgency as the United
States braces for a possible surge in infections. Health care workers are on
the front lines…
There has been no community transmission in the United
States, Messonnier said. New Jersey has no cases.
But the near certainty that the virus will arrive — whether
in small, localized outbreaks or as a widespread epidemic — has state and local
health officials and hospital leaders on the alert and concerned.
In New Jersey, a governor’s task force meets weekly and has
updated a preparedness plan. Hospital infection-control practitioners, chief
medical officers and executives met with state health officials earlier this
month. A conference call with 250 hospital executives — the second since the
COVID epidemic began in China — is planned for later this week.
At individual hospitals, staff members are scanning for
updates and new information on the virus, taking inventory of supplies, drawing
up plans and reviewing infection-control procedures. One large system —
RWJBarnabas Health — has a daily meeting of its emergency response team and a
secure communication line systemwide.
“We don’t know who we may encounter in the Emergency
Department,” said Jesson Yeh, an emergency physician at Holy Name who was part
of that hospital’s training this week. “We need to be prepared for any possible
situation, which may include people with viruses like the coronavirus, flu —
Ebola, even.”
“Sometimes we do need a brush-up on how to prepare,” said
Jennifer Temple, an Emergency Department nurse taking Blanchard’s review
program. “Not that we forget. But it’s an emergency room; we want to work so fast.
This is a great way to remind us.”
Health care workers are the front lines of defense against
the coronavirus’s spread as they diagnose and treat the sick. Their close
proximity, exposure to the spray of coughs and sneezes and high touch contact
as they do everything from take temperatures to insert breathing tubes vastly
increases their risk of infection…
For hospitals, that means two things, said Dr. Adam Jarrett,
Holy Name’s chief medical officer: “The first thing we’re doing is reinforcing
the training our staff has.” Then, “we’re making sure we have appropriate
supplies.”
Previous exercises involving government agencies across the
nation “did show us that if we had a pandemic, there were going to be supply
issues,” said Messonnier, of the CDC. “We are now thinking through and working
on those supply issues,” to ensure there’s protection for health care
workers.
“There’s absolutely a shortage of masks and gowns,” said
Jarrett, of Holy Name. “There hasn’t been a problem because there haven’t been
any patients yet,” he said. “If there’s a significant outbreak in the tri-state
area, I think there could be.”
CDC guidelines call for workers to wear N95 masks, which are
also used in some construction or industrial settings. They form hard domes over
the mouth and nose, with material like a HEPA filter filtering all air in and
out. Hospitals are carefully controlling their use. Washable gowns might be
used and thrown away, Jarrett said, if there aren’t enough disposable gowns.
Another concern, depending on how the spread of the virus
evolves, could be high rates of absentees among health care workers and other
essential workers. New Jersey’s earlier pandemic flu preparedness plan, drafted
in the wake of the 2009 swine flu epidemic, told hospitals to prepare for
absences of 30% to 50%.
CDC guidelines say health care institutions should err on
the side of caution when workers may have been exposed to COVID-19 and show
symptoms of fever or illness. They should stay home from work and
self-quarantine, the agency suggested.
Hospitals could manage those shortages by shifting the
workers to concentrate on critical needs, employing temporary agency nurses, or
canceling elective procedures, a spokeswoman for the state Health Department
said.
During Superstorm Sandy, for example, hard-hit facilities
were able to waive standard credentialing procedures to make it faster to bring
in personnel from other areas or out of state. “ (M)
“In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy said preparations are
ramping up. He noted that there are currently no confirmed cases in the state,
but said it was prudent to anticipate that there would be.
“It’s pretty clear from financial markets the past couple of
days, it’s pretty clear when you look at South Korea, Iran, Italy, that this is
not going away anytime soon,” he said.
“We had a whole-of-government meeting this morning in
Newark, just going over, once again, protocols, pre-emptive action — what do we
do if X or Y happens,” he said, during remarks Wednesday at an unrelated news event
at William Paterson University. “We’re doing everything to get out ahead of
this and also be prepared as possible if something hits us.”
Murphy also said Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli on
Wednesday was to convene a conference call with all hospitals in the state
about preparations, noting that the state’s designated center for handling
cases, University Hospital in Newark, “has a capacity of only so much.”.. (N)
“Against a backdrop of educated guesses — the state
epidemiologist predicted it could be like a bad flu season with 500 deaths, but
with no vaccine — Connecticut hospital officials said they have been drilling
for weeks, got practice from the Ebola scare in 2014 and with the flu in 2009
and this year, and are ready for a coronoavirus outbreak if it comes to that.
In anticipation, as the virus spread in China, Hartford
Hospital activated its emergency preparedness plan in early January, involving
more than 300 units of the hospital, Dr. Ajay Kumor, chief medical officer,
said at a news briefing Wednesday afternoon.
Gov. Ned Lamont outlines steps Connecticut has taken to
prepare for coronavirus, urges residents to follow CDC guidelines to prevent
spread of the disease »
For Dr. Mike Ivy of Yale-New Haven Hospital, the process is
worn smooth on his lips: You have flu-like symptoms. You come into the
emergency room. At the registration desk, you’ll be asked if you’ve traveled
abroad to an area with there has been transmission of the virus — China, Iran,
South Korea, Japan, northern Italy.
If the answer is yes, you’d be taken to an isolation room
with negative air pressure, evaluated by a doctor and nurse and tested for
coronavirus. You’ll be admitted if you’re sick enough, sent home if you’re not.
“People can isolate themselves at home so they do not infect
anyone else,” said Ivy, deputy chief medical officer.
If you stay at the hospital, your treatment team will be
wearing gowns, gloves and masks when they come in.
“And then, hopefully, you get better,” Ivy said, “as the
majority of the patients do.”… (N)
“Health organizations in Rhode Island said Tuesday that they
are taking their coronavirus preparedness efforts to a higher level.
The United States said officials are warning Americans to
prepare for the spread of coronavirus in communities across the country.
Doctors with Lifespan said they have created an emergency
task force, so each facility can work together to combat the virus should it
spread into Rhode Island…
The Rhode Island Department of Health said they’ve been
having frequent talks with schools here, too.
A spokesperson for the University of Rhode Island said they
have 50 students and one faculty member in Italy.
“The University remains in frequent contact with its
study-abroad host partners, who have been communicating regularly with the
students about the COVID-19 situation in Italy,” said the spokesperson.
Rhode Island Hospital Disaster Medicine and Emergency
Preparedness Director, Dr. Selim Suner, said a concern is how exactly it’s
spreading.
“We don’t know if it’s airborne yet because those
studies have not been done,” said Suner…
The best preparation he said we know well.
“Hand-washing and keeping a distance from ill people is
the best prevention,” said Suner.” (P)
“Reacting to concerns about the quickening spread of
coronavirus, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Wednesday that the state would set
aside some $40 million to fight the virus, as well as plan for possible
quarantines at homes, hotels and hospitals.
In a briefing in the Capitol, the governor and his health commissioner,
Dr. Howard Zucker, stressed that New York still had no confirmed cases of the
virus, but warned that its spread to the state was inevitable.
The scope of the virus’s spread and the importance of New
York as a center of global commerce and transportation led Mr. Cuomo, a
third-term Democrat, to ask for additional funding for fighting the disease.
“It is highly probable that we will have people in New York
State who test positive,” said Mr. Cuomo, noting that New York City is “the
front door internationally” for many travelers. “No one should be surprised
when we have positive cases.”
In addition to the $40 million from the Legislature, Mr.
Cuomo said he would ask federal authorities permission to test patient samples
in a laboratory in New York, rather than waiting several days for results from
the C.D.C. in Atlanta….
State officials have already been taking precautions against
the disease, asking some 700 recent visitors to China to voluntarily quarantine
themselves, even as Customs and Border Protection agents continue to screen
passengers at area airports. Individuals who have visited mainland China are
judged to be of “medium risk,” according to the State Health Department, though
it said none of those self-isolating individuals had exhibited symptoms of
coronavirus.
In New York City, where officials say seven potential
patients have been tested and cleared, Mayor Bill de Blasio has expressed
confidence that the city is prepared, citing previous scares involving even
more deadly diseases like Ebola in 2014…
“We are in a state of
high vigilance, high readiness, all elements of the city government, to address
this crisis,” he said at a news conference on Wednesday. “We have the greatest
public health capacity of anywhere in this country.”
The city has made 1,200 hospital beds available for anyone
suspected of having coronavirus and has distributed 1.5 million face masks to
health care workers.
But the mayor warned that the city needed help from the
federal government in obtaining more protective gear — at least 300,000 more
masks, he said — and stressed the importance of giving local health departments
the ability to test for the virus on their own.
Other major cities were also taking precautions, including
San Francisco, which declared a local state of emergency on Tuesday, despite no
confirmed cases, saying “the global picture is changing rapidly.”
On Wednesday, officials at the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority said they were working with state and federal health officials to
assess potential contingency plans.
Those measures could include limiting or staggering public
transit ridership, according to a document prepared by City Hall and the New
York City’s Emergency Management Department in 2014 that focused on how the
city might respond to a flu pandemic…
Similarly, state health officials were regularly consulting
with the C.D.C. as well as county officials, and studying federal
recommendations for mitigation in case of a large outbreak, including basic
precautions such as covering one’s face when sneezing or coughing, to more
expansive measures such as school closures and cancellation of public events.
“If you prepare correctly, you’ll have less of an issue when
a situation develops into something that is more problematic,” Mr. Cuomo said.
“The threat you don’t take seriously is the one that becomes serious.” (Q)
“A man in Miami went to the hospital to receive a test for
the coronavirus after developing flu-like symptoms, only to receive the news
that he didn’t have it — and a $3,270 medical bill, the Miami Herald reports.
Why it matters: The man had just returned from a work trip
to China, so took his symptoms more seriously than normal, which is exactly
what public health experts want people to do.
Our thought bubble: The episode would be a great parody of
the health care system, if it wasn’t real.
The man has a short-term health insurance plan, which
usually have skimpy benefits in exchange for lower premiums, and don’t have to
cover pre-existing conditions. The Trump administration has expanded them.
The hospital told the Herald that the patient is only on the
hook for $1,400 based on his insurance, but his insurer told him that first, he
must provide three years of medical records to prove that his flu didn’t relate
to pre-existing conditions.
And more bills are probably coming.” (R)
(A) C.D.C.
Confirms First Possible Community Transmission of Coronavirus in U.S., by Roni
Caryn Rabin, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/health/coronavirus-cdc-usa.html?referringSource=articleShare
(B) U.S.
Soldier Tests Positive for Virus in South Korea,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/world/asia/coronavirus-news.html?referringSource=articleShare
(C) Last 48
hours,
https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-latest-developments-8b8990c4-6762-494a-8ee0-5091746bda9b.html
(D) “We are at
a turning point”: The coronavirus outbreak is looking more like a pandemic, by
Julia Belluz https://www.vox.com/2020/2/23/21149327/coronavirus-pandemic-meaning-italy
(E) Coronavirus:
More New Cases Are Now Reported Outside China Than Inside, by Bill CHAPPELL,
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/02/26/809568686/coronavirus-more-new-cases-are-now-reported-outside-china-than-inside
(F) The
coronavirus seems unstoppable. What should the world do now?, by Jon Cohen, Kai
Kupferschmidt,
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/coronavirus-seems-unstoppable-what-should-world-do-now
(G) Kudlow
breaks with CDC on coronavirus: ‘We have contained this’, by ELI OKUN,
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/25/kudlow-white-house-coronavirus-117402
(H) CDC
expects ‘community spread’ of coronavirus, as top official warns disruptions
could be ‘severe’, by MEGAN THIELKING,
https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/25/cdc-expects-community-spread-of-coronavirus-as-top-official-warns-disruptions-could-be-severe/
(I) Trump
says coronavirus risk to Americans ‘very low,’ puts Pence in charge of gov’t
response, by Adam Edelman, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-coronavirus-risk-americans-very-low-administration-effectively-handling-n1143756
(J) WHO tells
countries to prepare for coronavirus pandemic, but insists it’s too soon to
make that call, by HELEN BRANSWELL, https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/24/who-tells-countries-prepare-coronavirus-pandemic-too-soon-to-make-call/
(K) Could a
coronavirus pandemic be stopped? US warns of ‘severe’ disruptions, by John
Bacon, Ken Alltucker,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/02/25/coronavirus-pandemic-can-outbreak-still-be-stopped/4865934002/
(L) CDC warns
Americans of coronavirus outbreak, by Erika Edwards,
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/americans-should-prepare-coronavirus-spread-u-s-cdc-says-n1142556
(M) ‘Not a
question of if … but when’: How NJ hospitals are preparing for coronavirus
spread, by Lindy Washburn,
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/health/2020/02/25/coronavirus-how-nj-hospitals-preparing-possible-epidemic/4858668002/
(N) Officials
Urge Preparations for Coronavirus in U.S., Noting Global Spread, by DAVID CRUZ,
https://www.njspotlight.com/2020/02/officials-urge-preparations-for-coronavirus-in-u-s-noting-global-spread/
(O) Connecticut
hospitals say they are ready for the coronavirus, but with no vaccine, ‘inevitable’
challenges lie ahead, by Josh Kovner,
https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-news-coronavirus-hospitals-emergency-preparation-20200226-rl2mxh7frbb4ja6qdwplual3jm-story.html
(P) Lifespan
creates emergency task force as coronavirus fears heighten, https://turnto10.com/news/local/lifespan-creates-emergency-task-force-as-coronavirus-fears-heighten
(Q) Coronavirus
in New York: $40 Million to Combat Spread, by Jesse McKinley, Luis
Ferré-Sadurní and Christina Goldbaum, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-cuomo.html?referringSource=articleShare
Part 10. CORONAVIRUS. Stop Surprise Medical Bills
for Coronavirus care. (&) Lessons Learned (or not) In California and
Washington State from community acquired cases.
“A man in Miami went to the hospital to receive a test for
the coronavirus after developing flu-like symptoms, only to receive the news
that he didn’t have it — and a $3,270 medical bill, the Miami Herald reports.
Why it matters: The man had just returned from a work trip
to China, so took his symptoms more seriously than normal, which is exactly
what public health experts want people to do.
Our thought bubble: The episode would be a great parody of
the health care system, if it wasn’t real.
The man has a short-term health insurance plan, which usually
have skimpy benefits in exchange for lower premiums, and don’t have to cover
pre-existing conditions. The Trump administration has expanded them.
The hospital told the Herald that the patient is only on the
hook for $1,400 based on his insurance, but his insurer told him that first, he
must provide three years of medical records to prove that his flu didn’t relate
to pre-existing conditions.
And more bills are probably coming.” (A)
“Frank Wucinski and his 3-year-old daughter, Annabel, are
among the dozens of Americans the government has flown back to the country from
Wuhan, China, and put under quarantine to check for signs of coronavirus.
Now they are among what could become a growing number of
families hit with surprise medical bills related to government-mandated
actions.
Mr. Wucinski, a Pennsylvania native who has lived in China
for years, accepted the U.S. government’s offer to evacuate from Wuhan with
Annabel in early February as the new coronavirus spread. His wife, who is not
an American citizen and remains in China, developed pneumonia that doctors
think resulted from Covid-19, the disease caused by the respiratory virus. Her
father, whom she helped care for, was infected and recently died.
The first stop for Mr. Wucinski and Annabel was a two-week
quarantine at Marine Corps Station Miramar near San Diego. During that time,
they had two mandatory stays in an isolation unit at a nearby children’s
hospital. The first started upon arrival in the United States, and the second
was a few days later, after an official heard Annabel coughing…
After their release from quarantine, Mr. Wucinski and his
daughter went to stay with his mother in Harrisburg, Pa. That’s where they
found a pile of medical bills waiting: $3,918 in charges from hospital doctors,
radiologists and an ambulance company.
“I assumed it was all being paid for,” Mr. Wucinski said.
“We didn’t have a choice. When the bills showed up, it was just a pit in my
stomach, like, ‘How do I pay for this?’”
The federal government has the authority to quarantine and
isolate patients if officials believe them to be a public health threat. These
powers, which date back to cholera outbreaks among ship passengers in the late
19th century, are rarely used. They don’t say anything about who pays when the isolation
happens in a nongovernmental medical facility — or when they’re brought there
by a private ambulance company…
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman
declined to comment on whether it would pay the bills of patients kept in
mandatory isolation…
“My question is why are we being charged for these stays, if
they were mandatory and we had no choice in the matter?” Mr. Wucinski wrote in
his message.
…. hen contacted by The New York Times, a Rady Children’s
Hospital spokesman said the physicians’ bill had been sent in error and that
the family would not be held responsible for the charges.
“We’re in the process of assessing how the error occurred,”
the spokesman, Benjamin Metcalf, said. “We are working with government agencies
regarding billing for these cases.”
The ambulance company that transported the Wucinskis,
American Medical Response, charged the family $2,598 for taking them to the
hospital. A company representative declined to comment on the bill “due to
patient privacy concerns,” but said the company would look into the case.
An additional $90 in charges came from radiologists who read
the patients’ X-ray scans and do not work for the hospital. Having such
doctors, who may be outside a patient’s insurance networks, provide services to
hospital patients is one of the major causes of surprise medical bills.” (W)
“Health officials in Washington state said on Saturday a
coronavirus patient has died, marking the first death in the U.S. from
COVID-19, the illness associated with the virus.
The person who died was a man in his 50s who had underlying
health conditions, and there was no evidence he contracted the virus through
travel, health officials said.
Shortly after announcement of the death, President Donald
Trump at a White House press conference said the United States is issuing more
travel restrictions and warnings to help prevent spread of the virus. He also
said he is meeting with pharmaceutical executives to discuss work toward a
coronavirus vaccine.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee meanwhile declared a state of
emergency in response to new cases of COVID-19, directing state agencies to use
all resources necessary to prepare for and respond to the outbreak.
“This will allow us to get the resources we need,” Inslee
said. “This is a time to take commonsense, proactive measures to ensure the
health and safety of those who live in Washington state.”” (B)
“A patient infected with the novel coronavirus in Washington
state has died, a state health official said Saturday, marking the first death
due to the virus in the United States…
Three new presumptive positive cases were announced in
Washington state on Saturday, meaning a test given by a state or local lab came
back positive, but has yet to be confirmed by the CDC’s lab in Atlanta.
Among those three cases was the patient who died, health
officials said.
The person-to-person cases include several of unknown
origin, including:
• A woman in Washington County, Oregon, who is presumptive
positive. She is in isolation.
• A high school boy in Snohomish County, Washington, who is
presumptive positive. He’s doing well, according to Dr. Chris Spitters, interim
health officer for the Snohomish Health District.
• An older woman in Santa Clara County, California, who
tested positive.
• A Solano County, California, woman who is in serious
condition at UC Davis Medical Center.” (C)
“The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and
Washington state health officials have launched an investigation into two cases
of coronavirus at a nursing home in a suburb of Seattle, the same town where
the nation’s first coronavirus fatality occurred.
An outbreak in such a facility is particularly troubling
because of the close quarters and the vulnerability of the elderly residents to
disease.
A health care worker at the Life Care Center in Kirkland and
a female resident in her 70s have tested positive for the disease, state and
federal officials revealed in a media call Saturday.
Around 27 of 108 residents and 25 of 180 staff members also
have some symptoms of COVID-19, and are being tested, officials said.
Authorities are “very concerned about an outbreak in this
setting, where there are many older people,” said county health official Jeff
Duchin.” (D)
“Researchers who have examined the genomes of two
coronavirus infections in Washington State say the similarities between the
cases suggest that the virus may have been spreading in the state for weeks.
Washington had the United States’ first confirmed case of
coronavirus, announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on
Jan. 20. Based on an analysis of the virus’s genetic sequence, another case
that surfaced in the state and was announced on Friday probably was descended
from that first case.
The two people live in the same county, but are not known to
have had contact with one another, and the second case occurred well after the
first would no longer be expected to be contagious. So the genetic findings
suggest that the virus has been spreading through other people in the community
for close to six weeks, according to one of the scientists who compared the
sequences, Trevor Bedford, an associate professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer
Research Center and the University of Washington.
Dr. Bedford said it was possible that the two cases could be
unrelated, and had been introduced separately into the United States. But he
said that was unlikely, however, because in both cases the virus contained a
genetic variation that appears to be rare — it was found in only two of the 59
samples whose sequences have been shared from China, where the virus
originated.” (E)
“The first suspected U.S. case of a patient getting the new
coronavirus through “community spread” — with no history of travel to
affected areas or exposure to someone known to have the COVID-19 illness — was
left undiagnosed for days because a request for testing wasn’t initially
granted, according to officials at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento,
Calif.
The patient in Northern California is now the 60th confirmed
case of the coronavirus in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention disclosed the latest case Wednesday evening, as President Trump
assigned Vice President Pence to lead the administration’s response to the
disease.
“This case was detected through the U.S. public health
system — picked up by astute clinicians,” the CDC said in a brief
statement about the new patient.
UC Davis included more details about the case in its own
statement, drawing on an email sent to staff at its medical center. It said the
officials initially ruled out a test for the coronavirus because the patient’s
case didn’t match the CDC’s criteria.
The new patient, who lives in Solano County and has not been
identified, was transferred to UC Davis Medical in Sacramento County from
another hospital this month. Staff at UC Davis then suspected the patient might
be infected with the coronavirus that has caused more than 2,800 deaths.
“Upon admission, our team asked public health officials
if this case could be COVID-19,” the hospital said. “We requested
COVID-19 testing by the CDC, since neither Sacramento County nor CDPH
[California Department of Public Health] is doing testing for coronavirus at
this time. Since the patient did not fit the existing CDC criteria for
COVID-19, a test was not immediately administered. UC Davis Health does not
control the testing process.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Thursday
morning that the CDC is streamlining the process it uses to test for the
coronavirus across the country, saying it will spread the new process to all of
its labs.
Azar said all of the CDC’s network of nearly 100 public labs
will soon be using the modified process. The next step, he said, is to develop
a “bedside diagnostic” that doctors and hospitals could use. He did
not give details about when that might occur.” (F)
“About 124 health care workers — including at least 36
nurses — are under self-quarantine after possible exposure to the coronavirus
patient admitted to UC Davis Medical Center last week, a nurse union said.
“Despite University of California medical facilities
being generally better prepared and equipped to treat challenging medical
cases, the recent UC Davis Medical Center COVID-19 case highlights the
vulnerability of the nation’s hospitals to this virus and the insufficiency of
current Centers for Disease Control guidelines,” the National Nurses
United said in a news release Friday.
“We know that we can be successful in getting all our
hospitals prepared to control the spread of this virus. We are committed to
working with hospitals and state and federal agencies to be ready,” Bonnie
Castillo, the union’s executive director, said in a statement. “But nurses
and health care workers need optimal staffing, equipment, and supplies to do
so.”
The patient was transferred to UC Davis on February 19 from
a Northern California hospital. Officials from both hospitals said the patient
wasn’t initially tested for the virus because she didn’t meet the existing CDC
criteria.
The patient didn’t have any relevant travel history or
exposure to another known patient, said Dr. Sara Cody, director of the county’s
public health department.
Confirmation that the Solano County woman had contracted the
virus came Sunday, after UC Davis doctors insisted on testing.
Since then, CDC officials say they’ve updated their testing
guidelines.
“As soon as that case was recognized, we met and we
revised our case definition for persons under investigation,” CDC Director
Dr. Robert Redfield said earlier this week. “Today, that has been posted (to
the CDC website) along with a new health advisory that the recommendation
should be when a clinician or individual suspects coronavirus, then we should
be able to get a test for coronavirus.”” (G)
“Sacramento County’s top health official says he expects a
few of the UC Medical Center employees exposed to the coronavirus last week to
test positive themselves in the coming days.
That’s not as alarming as it may sound, Peter Beilenson,
county health services director, said on Friday. Those employees, if infected,
stand a good likelihood that they will not become sick or will only be mildly
ill, and may not need to be treated.
“I expect there will be a few positives, probably
asymptomatic,” Beilenson said. He said he bases that prediction on early data
indicating 80 percent of people infected by the new virus have mild symptoms or
none at all…
“I think there will be more cases. That is not a horrible
thing,” he said. “Once the disease gets into the population, with so many mild
symptoms, common cold-like symptoms, people will be spreading it unbeknownst to
them. It gets it to be more a common variety.”
In total, more than 100 employees of three Northern
California hospitals are believed to have been exposed. In addition to those at
the Vacaville hospital and UC Davis Medical Center, another three employees
recently were sent home from Kaiser Permanente-South in Sacramento after
potential exposure to the virus, according to Rep. John Garamendi…
“The best guess is that there are people who are not showing
symptoms, but, are, nevertheless, infected. That’s a very normal way for
diseases to spread,” Matyas said. “To public health officials, this is what
disease does. The issue is that it’s not alarming, but we have to move to the
next phase.”
That not only means testing and screening, but also being
more rigorous at the hospital level, as Matyas said, to “universally assume the
possibility” that a patient seeking care and has flu- or cold-like symptoms may
carry the virus.
The mystery patient at UC Davis Medical Center has been the
center of national attention and politicized debate since officials at the
center announced on Wednesday that they had what was believed to be the first
coronavirus patient in the U.S. with no known provenance for the illness.” (H)
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that 33 people
have tested positive for COVID-19 and the state is currently monitoring at
least 8,400 others —a day after U.S. health officials confirmed the first
possible community transmission of the coronavirus in a Solano County resident.
“This is a fluid situation right now and I want to emphaize
the risk to the American public remains low,” said Dr. Sonia Y. Angell,
California Department of Public Health Director and State Health Officer during
a press conference. “There have been a limited number of confirmed cases to
date.”..
“We are currently in deep partnership with CDC on one
overriding protocol that drives our principle focus right now and that’s
testing, and the importance to increase our testing protocols and to have point
of contact diagnostic testing as our top priority not just in the state of
California but I imagine all across the United States,” Newsom said at a press
conference.
Newsom said five of the 33 patients who tested positive for
the virus have since left the state. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the 33
positive cases were part of the group of Diamond Princess passengers who were
evacuated from the cruise ship that was quarantined off the coast of Japan. The
U.S. had 60 cases as of Wednesday night, 42 of which are people who were on the
ship, according to the CDC.
California health officials have 200 testing kits on hand
and will be receiving more over the next few days, Newsom said.
“We have just a few hundred testing kits and that’s surveillance
testing as well as diagnostic testing. That’s simply inadequate to do justice
to the kind of testing that is required to address this issue head on,” he
said.
Newsom said that the CDC has made “firm commitments” to
improve the state’s testing capacity, but did not provide details, such as how
many testing kits the agency has agreed to send to the state.” (I)
“It was the nation’s first infection that had unknown
origins. The director of California’s Public Health Department last week called
her case a “turning point” that could signal widespread infection is
increasingly difficult to stop.
The woman’s case unleashed a deluge of questions and
concerns about how local, state and federal officials responded to the mounting
public health concern after the evacuees arrived at Travis Air Force Base — and
what future responses might look like. A U.S. government whistleblower now says
federal workers did not have the necessary protective gear or training when
they were deployed to help quarantined people, including those at Travis.
Since the Solano County woman’s illness became known, teams
of health care investigators have fanned out across Northern California trying
to understand exactly how — and how widely — the virus has spread.
“We have deployed there,” Secretary of Health and Human
Services Alex Azar told McClatchy this week. “We’ll send whatever we need to
assist the state and local public health authorities with the contact tracing
and getting to the bottom of her case.”” (J)
“For weeks, public health experts have been watching to see
whether factory shutdowns and shipping problems in China caused by the
coronavirus epidemic will cause drug shortages in the United States.
Late Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration issued a
statement noting that one drug is now in short supply because of problems
related to the coronavirus outbreak. But it refused to disclose the name of the
drug and its manufacturer — as well as where the product or its ingredients
were made — saying that it could not reveal “confidential commercial
information.”
The agency’s vague announcement angered public health
advocates and those who track drug shortages, who said the lack of information
would only create more confusion as the virus has spread around the globe to at
least 56 countries from the original epidemic in China.
The F.D.A. has long been criticized by public interest
groups for refusing to reveal company information that could affect public
safety. Federal law protects companies from having trade secrets and confidential
proprietary information disclosed, which the agency has cited to withhold
details, like naming countries where raw ingredients come from….”
The F.D.A. has said it is closely monitoring about 20
products where the manufacturers rely solely on China for their finished
products or active pharmaceutical ingredients. Dr. Hahn said Thursday that the
drugs being monitored are considered “noncritical drugs.”
Hospitals have struggled for years with shortages of
hundreds of critical drugs, many of them staples of medical care that have been
on the market for decades. In 2017, Hurricane Maria damaged many pharmaceutical
factories in Puerto Rico, closing them for weeks and leading to supply
problems, including a shortage of saline bags made by Baxter. Problems with
manufacturing quality have caused other shortages, including a global shortfall
of valsartan, a widely used blood pressure drug.
Erin Fox, a drug shortage expert at the University of Utah,
said, “When the F.D.A. tells the American public that there is a shortage
without disclosing the specific drug, this only creates fear and panic, which
is unacceptable in the current situation.”
The F.D.A. frequently cites companies’ proprietary reasons
for why it does not disclose certain information, including the names of
specific drugs when companies are cited for manufacturing problems, or details
about clinical trials, Dr. Carome said. “Those are examples where I think it’s
an overuse,” he said.” (K)
“The surgeon general on Saturday urged the public to stop
buying masks, warning that it won’t help against the spread of the coronavirus
but will take away important resources from health care professionals.
“Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS!” the surgeon general,
Jerome M. Adams, said in a tweet on Saturday morning. “They are NOT effective
in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if health care
providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our
communities at risk!”
The plea comes as panicked consumers rush to buy masks online,
including so-called N95s, a surge that has led to price gouging and counterfeit
products.
In another tweet, Mr. Adams said the best way to protect
against the virus is to wash hands regularly, and for those who are feeling ill
to stay home.
Health officials around the world have been imploring the
public to stop buying masks if they are healthy or not caring for someone who
is ill. Medical professionals need a large supply of the masks because they are
in direct contact with infected patients and must change their masks
repeatedly.
“There are severe strains on protective equipment around the
world,” said Dr. Michael J. Ryan, executive director of the health emergency
program at the World Health Organization, during a briefing on Friday. “Our
primary concern is to ensure that our front line health workers are protected
and that they have the equipment they need to do their jobs.”
Dr. Ryan said masks primarily prevent a person from giving
the disease to someone else.
“There are limits to how a mask can protect you from being
infected,” he said. “The most important thing everyone can do is wash your
hands, keep your hands away from your face and observe very precise hygiene.”
The W.H.O.’s guidelines recommend that health workers use
surgical masks to cover their mouths and noses but the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention has instructed them to wear masks known as N95s, which
are thicker, fit more tightly around the mouth and nose, and block out much
smaller particles than surgical masks do.
Both masks help prevent the spread of droplets from a
person’s cough or sneeze, but medical specialists have said that for average
members of the public, they are generally not effective.
A person is more likely to get infected by touching
contaminated surfaces than from a droplet traveling through the air.
Air can also get in around the edges of the masks,
particularly flat surgical masks. Health care workers who wear N95 masks as
part of their jobs are required to undergo a fit test at least once a year to
ensure that there are no gaps around their mouths.
Most people are unlikely to know how to wear these masks and
could accidentally contaminate themselves if they touch the outside of the mask
when they remove it and then touch their face.
“Not having a mask does not necessarily put you at any
increased risk of contracting this disease,” Dr. Ryan said…
Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday that it
was critical that masks remain available for doctors and nurses who were caring
for those affected by the virus and for people tending to loved ones with the
illness.
“There is no role for these masks in the community,” he
said. “These masks need to be prioritized for health care professionals that as
part of their job are taking care of individuals.”” (L)
It has been nearly three months since the first cases of a
new coronavirus pneumonia appeared in Wuhan, China, and it is now a global
outbreak. And yet, despite over 80,000 infections worldwide (most of them in
China), the world still doesn’t have a clear picture of some of the most basic
information about this outbreak…
In recent days the W.H.O. has complained that China has not
been sharing data on infections in health care workers. Earlier this month, the
editors of the journal Nature called on researchers to “ensure that their work
on this outbreak is shared rapidly and openly.”..
Lest Americans feel that it could never happen here, Dr.
Lipkin points out that it took many months for health officials in the United
States to acknowledge and recognize H.I.V. as a new virus, despite the fact
that gay men were turning up at alarming rates with unusual pneumonias and skin
cancers.
Scientific competition has also slowed reaction and
response, experts fear — leading to the extraordinary editors’ plea in Nature.
For a young researcher, a paper in Nature or the New England Journal of
Medicine is gold in career currency. Scientific prestige may encourage
perfecting data for peer review, but preparedness requires rapid dissemination
of information.
While federal officials in the United States warn Americans
to be ready for the virus, there are some important aspects of its spread about
which we have little information — even though they have likely already been
studied by scientists and officials, in China, in Japan and elsewhere.
Scientists in various countries are presumably gathering large amounts of data
day by day and the world deserves to see more of it.
“Were there patterns around infections, places, procedures?
Maybe that is being collected and readied for the medical literature. But it
would be hugely important to know,” said Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the
Center for Health Security of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health, which studies epidemics.
For example: Of the more than 1,700 health workers who were
infected in China, did those infections occur before they knew to wear
protective equipment? Were they doing procedures that might lead to exposure?
Those answers would quell fears about how the virus spreads and how to protect
front line workers.
Likewise, there were hundreds of people who tested positive
aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship and were transferred to the hospital.
But there has been little public information released about what shape they
were in. How many in the cohort were really sick, how many just had minor
symptoms and how many just needed isolation? Does the pattern of infection
suggest a role for transmission via plumbing on the ship?” (M)
“The federal government is “ramping up testing” in the
United States for the coronavirus and is looking to vastly increase its
screening efforts as global cases of the virus continue to rise, said Health
and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Sunday.
Azar and Vice President Mike Pence made the rounds of the
Sunday morning political talk shows looking to assure the public that risk to
most Americans remains low despite the inevitability of more cases arising in
the near future.
“I think it’s very important that we treat the American
people like adults and explain to them that we don’t know where this will go,
that we will see more cases, that we will see continued community spreading in
the United States, as we’re seeing around the world,” Azar said during an
appearance on ABC’s “This Week.” “How big that gets, we do not know. But we
have the most advanced public health system and surveillance system in the
world. We are actively working on a vaccine. We are actively working on
therapeutics. The diagnostic is out in the field, and we’re going to work to
protect the American people with every tool that we’ve got.”..
Pence, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” said “there’s no
question” there will be more cases of the virus formally known as COVID-19, but
said the risk “remains low” to Americans.
“We’re going to bring the best scientific minds, experts
together … we’re going to work every day … to contain this disease, to
treat those that are contracted, and I’m very confident we’re ready, and I know
… that we’ll get through this,” said Pence who was tapped by Trump to lead
the federal government’s response to the disease.
Pence told “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd that the
administration would “respect any decisions that are made at the state and
local level” to address the virus. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Saturday announced
that New York had received approval by federal health officials to begin its
testing, the approval coming after the governor pressed Pence to fast track the
decision.” (N)
“The Trump administration may use a 70-year-old law to speed
up the manufacturing of medical supplies before a coronavirus outbreak, Alex M.
Azar II, the health secretary, said on Friday, a seeming acknowledgment that
the virus poses a threat beyond the reassurances of President Trump.
The Defense Production Act, passed by Congress in 1950
during the Korean War, allows the president to expand production of the
materials for national security purposes. Mr. Azar said that the federal
government could move to expedite certain contracts, including for supplies
like face masks, gowns and gloves. Mr. Azar has said that 300 million of a type
of mask known as N95 are needed for the emergency medical stockpile for health
care workers.
“I don’t have any procurements I need it for now, but if I
need it, we’ll use it,” Mr. Azar told reporters at a White House briefing on
the administration’s request to Congress for emergency funds to respond to the
virus…
Mr. Azar said that “the situation may worsen, and we may
need to mitigate its spread in the United States.” If cases of the coronavirus
began spreading widely, he said, those showing mild symptoms should stay home
rather than seek help at hospitals, to avoid the risk of overcrowding health
facilities.
“The advice is going to be: Stay home, manage your symptoms,
and we’ll provide guidance of at what point would you seek high-level medical
attention,” Mr. Azar said.
Mr. Azar’s remarks appeared to reflect a recognition that
the outbreak may reach a newer and more dangerous phase. In addition to his
comments about the government stockpiling protective equipment and about how
people should seek medical care in the case of a wider outbreak, he also raised
the possibility of school closures.
“It might make sense to close a school or certain schools or
take other measures like that,” Mr. Azar said. “Every option needs to be on the
table as we assess the situation, but it depends on the circumstances.”” (O)
“Hospitals and public health officials on the leading edge
of the U.S. mitigation strategy have been getting ready for weeks…
At the sprawling NYU Langone Health system in New York,
which has nearly 1,700 inpatient beds at six facilities, doctors are working to
prevent patients from swamping hospitals with minor respiratory complaints and crowding
out patients who may need more intensive care.
They are ramping up messaging that tells people how to
arrange online appointments with providers and other alternatives, said Michael
S. Phillips, chief hospital epidemiologist for the system…
NYU is already working to conserve “personal protective
equipment” — full-body “moon suits,” masks, face shields and other gear — for a
shortage that Phillips considers inevitable. Many masks used in U.S. hospitals
come from Hubei province in China, where the outbreak began. And when
production in China resumes, equipment surely will be reserved for use in that
country, he said. About 65 percent of N95 respirators are manufactured outside
the continental United States, in China and Mexico, according to HHS data.
NYU is urging health care personnel to re-use moon suits now
to help preserve inventory for later. That is appropriate, for example, in
treating patients with tuberculosis, he said. Face masks can be used again by
the same person, especially after practice sessions, he said.
“We are really looking carefully at how we’re utilizing
[protective equipment]
, and I think every hospital in the United States is
girding for these kind of shortages,” Phillips said.
While some hospitals have as many as 14 weeks worth of masks
on hand, the overall situation is grim. India, Taiwan and Thailand also have
halted or limited exports as they brace for spikes in demand in their own
countries.
Anticipating a surge in need, California’s state officials
have ordered 300,000 masks to distribute to hospitals and clinics on an
emergency basis, hoping to add to the 20,000 currently in state stockpiles.
Officials would not say where they hope to find that many masks.
Health care systems nationally have about two weeks of
supply left on hand, said Soumi Saha, senior director of advocacy at Premier
Inc., a large group purchasing organization that serves 4,000 hospitals.
Normally, an average of 2 million masks per month are used
in the United States, Premier said. That rises to 4 million per month during a
typical flu season.
Two domestic manufacturers that use raw material from the
United States — 3M and Prestige Ameritech — are ramping up production but are
not expected to be able to satisfy demand of 4 million masks a month until April,
Saha said.
“I don’t think hospitals can sort of buy their way out of
this problem. It is not a bidding war for N95s,” said Amy Ray, director of
infection prevention for the MetroHealth System in Cleveland. “The supply is
the supply, and prudence is necessary to preserve the stock that we have.’’”
(P)
“The World Health Organization on Friday raised its
assessment of the global coronavirus risk from “high” to “very high,” the most
serious assessment in its new four-stage alert system.
“This is a reality check for every government on the
planet,” said Dr. Michael J. Ryan, deputy director of W.H.O.’s health emergency
program. “Wake up. Get ready. This virus may be on its way.”
The assessment addresses the risks of both uncontrolled
spread of the virus and the resulting impacts.
United States health officials have given similarly alarming
assessments, though President Trump has played down the threat.
The W.H.O. does not officially use the word “pandemic,”
often defined as the worldwide spread of a new disease, but many health experts
say the coronavirus epidemic is one, or soon will be.” (Q)
“President Trump complained on Friday that Democrats and the
news media were trying to scare Americans about the coronavirus to score
political points against him but asserted that the outbreak had been relatively
limited because of his action to stem infections…
Mr. Trump spoke hours after Mick Mulvaney, the acting White
House chief of staff, likewise blamed the news media for exaggerating the
seriousness of coronavirus because “they think this will bring down the
president, that’s what this is all about.”..
Mr. Mulvaney said the administration took “extraordinary
steps four or five weeks ago,” to prevent the spread of the virus when it
declared a rare public health emergency and barred entry by most foreign
citizens who had recently visited China.
“Why didn’t you hear about it?” Mr. Mulvaney said of travel
restrictions that were widely covered in the news media. “What was still going
on four or five weeks ago? Impeachment, that’s all the press wanted to talk
about.”
The news media has been covering the global spread of
coronavirus for months.
But Mr. Mulvaney claimed that the news media was too
preoccupied covering impeachment, he said, “because they thought it would bring
down the president.”
The media’s focus switched to the coronavirus for the same
reason, he continued.
“The reason you’re seeing so much attention to it today is
that they think this is going to be the thing that brings down the president,”
he added. “That’s what this is all about it.”
Following the president’s lead, Mr. Mulvaney also brushed
off concerns over the virus; there have been 60 cases identified in the United
States.
“The flu kills people,” he said. “This is not Ebola. It’s
not SARS, it’s not MERS. It’s not a death sentence, it’s not the same as the
Ebola crisis.” (R)
“If the next few weeks or months bring calm — and scientists
increasingly worry that they will not — the world would do well to remember
this time what it seems to have forgotten again and again. Another pathogen
will emerge soon enough, and another after that. Eventually, one of them will
be far worse than all its predecessors. If we are very unlucky, it could be
worse than anything in living memory. Imagine something as contagious as
measles (which any given infected person passes to 90 percent of the people he
or she encounters) only many times more deadly, and you’ll have a good sense of
what keeps global health officials up at night.
Here’s what is certain: Despite many warnings over many
years, we are still not ready. Not in China, where nearly two decades after
that SARS outbreak food markets that sell live animals still thrive and
authoritarianism still undermines honest and accurate communication about
infectious diseases. Not in Africa, where basic public health capacity remains
hobbled by a lack of investment and, in some cases, by political unrest and
violence. Not in the United States, where shortsighted budget cuts and growing
nationalism have shrunk commitments to pandemic preparedness, both at home and
abroad.
To be sure, some broad progress has been made in the past
few years. Vaccine development and deployment now proceed faster than at any
point in history. The World Health Organization has corrected many of the institutional
shortcomings that thwarted its responses to previous outbreaks. Other
countries, in both Europe and Africa, have stepped up to fill the global health
leadership position that America appears to have vacated.”
But, as Covid-19 makes clear, much more is still needed.”
(S)
“Today, as the country faces the possibility of a widespread
outbreak of a new respiratory infection caused by the coronavirus, there are
nowhere near that many ventilators, and most are already in use. Only about
62,000 full-featured ventilators were in hospitals across the country, a 2010
study found. More than 10,000 others are stored in the Strategic National
Stockpile, a federal cache of supplies and medicines held in case of
emergencies, according to Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, a former director of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Tens of thousands of other respiratory devices could be
repurposed in an emergency, experts say, but the shortfall could be stark,
potentially forcing doctors to make excruciating life-or-death decisions about
who would get such help should hospitals become flooded with the desperately
sick…
Across the country, educators, businesses and local
officials are beginning to confront the logistics of enduring a possible
pandemic: school closings that could force millions of children to remain at
home, emergency plans that would require employees to work remotely,
communities scrambling to build up supplies.
In plausible worst-case-scenarios given the pattern of the
outbreak thus far, the country could experience acute shortages not just in
ventilators but also health workers to operate them and care for patients;
hospital beds; and masks and other protective equipment.
“Even during mild flu pandemics, most of our I.C.U.s are
filled to the brim with severely ill patients on mechanical ventilation,” said
Dr. Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health
Security and an expert on health care preparedness. “I hope and pray Covid-19
turns out to be a moderate pandemic, but if not, we’re in serious trouble,” he
said, referring to the name given the disease caused by the virus.
Resources are concentrated in the most populous and
wealthiest cities, leaving rural areas and other neglected communities exposed
to greater risk. And public health experts worry that efforts to contain an
outbreak could be hamstrung by budget cuts that have weakened state health
departments.
In an extreme situation, some hospitals’ plans include
provisions for rationing, even removing some patients from ventilators without
requiring their consent to make way for others presumed to have a better chance
of survival. Some plans would also limit the access of certain categories of
patients from critical care or even hospitalization during a peak pandemic based
on criteria such as their age or an underlying chronic disease.
The concept of imposing such measures makes physicians
dedicated to saving every life uncomfortable, and there is evidence that many
people who could be removed from life support or refused care under such
protocols would otherwise survive.” (T)
“Leading health experts from around the world have been
meeting at the World Health Organization’s Geneva headquarters to assess the
current level of knowledge about the new COVID-19 disease, identify gaps and
work together to accelerate and fund priority research needed to help stop this
outbreak and prepare for any future outbreaks…
The meeting, hosted in collaboration with GloPID-R (the
Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness) brought
together major research funders and over 300 scientists and researchers from a
large variety of disciplines. They discussed all aspects of the outbreak and
ways to control it including:
the natural history of the virus, its transmission and diagnosis;
animal and environmental research on the origin of the
virus, including management measures at the human-animal interface;
epidemiological studies;
clinical characterization and management of disease caused
by the virus;
infection prevention and control, including best ways to
protect health care workers;
research and development for candidate therapeutics and
vaccines;
ethical considerations for research;
and integration of social sciences into the outbreak
response. (U)
“The first confirmed case of novel coronavirus in New York
State — a woman in her 30s who recently traveled to Iran — was announced Sunday
night by Governor Cuomo.
“There is no reason for undue anxiety — the general
risk remains low in New York,” Cuomo said in a statement. “We are
diligently managing this situation and will continue to provide information as
it becomes available.”
Cuomo said the woman who contracted the virus is currently
isolated in her home.
“The patient has respiratory symptoms, but is not in
serious condition and has been in a controlled situation since arriving to New
York,” Cuomo said. “This was expected. As I said from the beginning,
it was a matter of when, not if there would be a positive case of novel
coronavirus in New York.” (V)
(A) How a
coronavirus scare can lead to surprise medical bills, by Caitlin Owens,
https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-surprise-medical-bills-miami-1b808778-2450-4746-864c-d5fc9459eefb.html,
(B) First
coronavirus death in the U.S. happens in Washington state, by Nicole Acevedo and
Minyvonne Burke,
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/1st-coronavirus-death-u-s-officials-say-n1145931
(C) First
death from coronavirus in the United States confirmed in Washington state, by
Dakin Andone, Jamie Gumbrecht and Michael Nedelman, https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/health/us-coronavirus-saturday/index.html
(D) Washington
State Probing Troubling Coronavirus Outbreak In Nursing Home, by Mary
Papenfuss,
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-washington-state-nursing-home-covid-19_n_5e5aee89c5b601022111c4be
(E) Coronavirus
May Have Spread in U.S. for Weeks, Gene Sequencing Suggests, by Sheri Fink and
Mike Baker,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/health/coronavirus-washington-spread.html?referringSource=articleShare
(F) Diagnosis
Of Coronavirus Patient In California Was Delayed For Days, by BILL CHAPPELL,
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/02/27/809944423/diagnosis-of-coronavirus-patient-in-california-was-delayed-for-days
(G) More than
120 UC Davis health care staff in self-quarantine after possible exposure to
coronavirus, by Christina Maxouris and Alexandra Meeks,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/health/uc-davis-health-care-workers-self-quarantine/index.html
(H) Expect
more Sacramento coronavirus cases in the next few days, county health chief
warns, by TONY BIZJAK AND DARRELL SMITH,
https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article240745121.html
(I) California
is monitoring at least 8,400 people for the coronavirus, by Berkeley Lovelace
Jr., https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/27/california-is-monitoring-8400-people-for-the-coronavirus.html
(J) Coronavirus
evacuees passed through California military base. Did safety plan break down?,
by JASON POHL, FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, DARRELL SMITH, AND CATHIE ANDERSON,
https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article240767626.html
(K) First Drug
Shortage Caused by Coronavirus, F.D.A. Says. But It Won’t Disclose What Drug or
Where It’s Made, by Katie Thomas,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/health/drug-coronavirus-shortage.html?referringSource=articleShare
(L) Surgeon
General Urges the Public to Stop Buying Face Masks, by Maria Cramer and Knvul
Sheikh,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/health/coronavirus-n95-face-masks.html?referringSource=articleShare
(M) We Don’t
Really Know How Many People Have Coronavirus, by Elisabeth Rosenthal,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/opinion/coronavirus-death-rate.html?referringSource=articleShare
(N) Testing for
coronavirus to vastly increase, federal officials say, by Laura Figueroa
Hernandez,
https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/coronavirus-testing-pence-azar-1.42368749
(O) Government
Eyes War Powers to Speed Medical Manufacturing Ahead of Virus, by Noah Weiland
and Emily Cochrane,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/us/politics/trump-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
(P) Shortages,
confusion and poor communication complicate coronavirus preparations, by Lena
H. Sun, Christopher Rowland and Lenny Bernstein,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/shortages-confusion-and-poor-communication-complicate-coronavirus-preparations/2020/02/25/d9e56396-575d-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html
(Q) The World
Health Organization on Friday raised its assessment of the global coronavirus
risk from “high” to “very high,” the most serious assessment in its new
four-stage alert system.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/world/coronavirus-update.html
(R) “The flu
kills people,” Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, said.
“This is not Ebola.”, by Annie Karni, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/us/politics/cpac-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
(S) Here Comes
the Coronavirus Pandemic,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/opinion/sunday/corona-virus-usa.html?referringSource=articleShare
(T) How
Prepared Is the U.S. for a Coronavirus Outbreak?,
https://twnews.us/us-news/how-prepared-is-the-u-s-for-a-coronavirus-outbreak
(U) World
experts and funders set priorities for COVID-19 research,
https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/12-02-2020-world-experts-and-funders-set-priorities-for-covid-19-research
(V) Officials:
First confirmed case of novel coronavirus in New York State, by David M. Schwartz and Lisa L. Colangelo,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/health/us-coronavirus-saturday/index.html
(W) Kept at the
Hospital on Coronavirus Fears, Now Facing Large Medical Bills, by Sarah Kliff,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/upshot/coronavirus-surprise-medical-bills.html?referringSource=articleShare
PART 11. CORONAVIRUS. “Gov. Andrew Cuomo… would
require employers to pay workers and protect their jobs if they are quarantined
because of the coronavirus.”
“This epidemic is a wake-up call for companies to carefully
review the strategies, policies, and procedures they have in place to protect
employees, customers, and operations in this and future epidemics. Here are
eight questions that companies should ask as they prepare for — and respond to
— the spread of the virus.
1. How can we best protect our employees from exposure in
the workplace?
2. When should we exclude workers or visitors from the
workspace?
3. Should we revise our benefits policies in cases where
employees are barred from the worksite or we close it?
4. Have we maximized employees’ ability to work remotely?
5. Do we have reliable systems for real-time public health
communication with employees?
6. Should we revise our policies around international and
domestic business travel?
7. Should we postpone or cancel scheduled conferences or
meetings?
8. Are supervisors adequately trained?
Diligent planning for global health emergencies can help
protect employees, customers, and the business.
But plans are only as good as their execution. Companies should use the
current situation to optimize and battle-test their plans. Whether or not
Covid-19 becomes a full-blown pandemic, these capabilities will prove
invaluable as the emergence of a global pandemic, caused by this coronavirus or
another agent in the future, is not a matter of “if” but “when.” “(A)
“Some companies have already taken precautions like limiting
travel to affected countries or big international conferences. Others have
asked employees to stay home because they visited a country with a more serious
outbreak.
But with new unexplained cases being reported in the United
States — and the first domestic death from the illness reported on Saturday — a
growing number of American workers could soon be asked to alter their routines,
or just stay home.
Exactly how that affects you will depend on many factors,
including the generosity of your employer’s benefits and where you live. Here’s
what labor lawyers and business groups say could potentially unfold in your
workplace — and what rights workers have.
The situation is ever-evolving as the virus continues to
spread — and policies are being revised daily as employers monitor public
health notices.
Nobody wants employees to come to work if they are sick or
have been exposed to the virus, but U.S. workers are less likely to be covered
by a paid sick leave policy than those in other developed countries.
“This can put hourly workers in a bind, and make employees
in the U.S. more likely to show up for work when they are sick,” said Joseph
Deng, who specializes in employment and compensation law at Baker &
McKenzie in Los Angeles.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has
recommended that employers establish “nonpunitive” policies, encouraging
employees who are sick or exhibiting symptoms to stay at home.
“We may see companies develop more flexible and generous
sick leave policies,” Mr. Deng said. That could reduce the hard choices that
employees have to make…
What can my employer ask me to do?
Will I be paid if I’m told to stay home?
What happens if I or a family member get sick?
What are my rights if I’m worried about going to work?
Can my employer ask me to wear a mask?
Will my employer tell me if a colleague is infected?” (B)
“Amber Clayton, who directs the Society for Human Resource
Management’s Knowledge Center, which fields calls from HR professionals seeking
guidance, said many employers have business continuity plans in place for
atypical situations, and some even have infectious disease management plans,
but still it has been getting questions from companies, some about employees
coming back from China: “Do they have to come back into the office right away?
Can we require them to stay at home?”..
Even though technology can help facilitate some workplace
decisions, Clayton said employers can find themselves in “unknown territory”
with labor law implications, especially if the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S.
gets much worse and forces more widespread business impacts…
The issues are more complicated for workers who are not on
salary, and whose employers do not offer paid time off for leave, since often
these hourly-wage employees have no legal protection for any nonworking hours,
based on the Fair Labor Standards Act, which in other cases does protect them,
such as in cases of overtime-pay claims.
Clayton said firms should consider paying employees for time
they will be out, even if not covered by medical-leave laws or other company
policies, but without a legal requirement this could hit hourly workers hard in
sectors where there is no remote work option, such as restaurants and
hospitality; or furloughed factory workers without specific protections in an
existing collective-bargaining agreement…
“The idea that if you’re not coming in, staying home sick,
that you will not get put on the next big project or not get the next
promotion, this is the time to combat that … to change the norms,” he said.
“At the majority of companies, that is still not the case. Employees are still
worried in normal flu season about this, even though it saves a company money
when people stay at home, and in this environment it’s a whole different ball
game.”
SHRM’s Clayton said she is less sure about permanent changes
to workplace culture resulting from the current outbreak, but she said that, in
the least, for companies that don’t have business continuity plans and infectious
disease management plans in place, it is time to implement them.” (C)
“The authorities confirmed on Tuesday a second case of
coronavirus in New York, a man in his 50s who lives in Westchester County, just
outside New York City, touching off an intense search by health investigators
across the region to determine whether he had infected others.
The inquiry stretched from a hospital in Bronxville, N.Y.,
to a nearby high school, to both a law office and a college campus in
Manhattan. The effort provided one of the first glimpses in New York of the
kind of comprehensive efforts that health officials in countries across the
world have mounted to stem to spread of the coronavirus.
New York health officials were tracking down doctors and
nurses who treated the man in a hospital for days before he was confirmed to
have the illness — and placing some in quarantine. And they were growing
concerned that his son, a college student who officials believe lives in
university housing, might be showing symptoms of the illness, too, raising
fears of further transmission.
“I think we have to assume this contagion will grow,” George
Latimer, the Westchester County executive, said at a news conference on
Tuesday.
The man became ill on Feb. 22 and was admitted to a hospital
in Westchester on Feb. 27., according to Dr. Demetre C. Daskalakis, the deputy
commissioner for disease control at New York City’s Department of Health and
Mental Hygiene. Officials acknowledged that the patient might have exposed
doctors, nurses and others to the illness.
“We believe that a couple of the medical professionals have
been quarantined,” Mr. Latimer said, adding that state health officials were
examining “what exposure might exist” to the staff at that medical facility,
the NewYork-Presbyterian Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville.
The patient has since been transferred to a Manhattan
hospital. He is a lawyer who lives in New Rochelle, N.Y., and works in
Manhattan.
Two of the man’s children have links to New York City. One
child attends a Jewish high school in the Bronx’s Riverdale neighborhood, and
the school was closed on Tuesday as a precaution. The other, the college
student, attends Yeshiva University but had not been on campus since Feb. 27,
according to a statement released by the school. Additionally, the statement
said, a student at the university’s law school was in self-quarantine after
having contact with the law firm where the Westchester man works.
City officials said the stricken man’s son, the Yeshiva
student, exhibited light symptoms that could be the coronavirus, or perhaps
nothing at all.
The city’s disease detectives were trying to recreate the
son’s movements to learn whom he had close contact with. They have also been in
touch with the small Midtown law firm where the Westchester man works and they
have spoken with the man’s close colleagues to evaluate their level of
exposure, officials said.” (D)
“New Jersey has yet to see any cases and state officials
insist the public health system is ready to respond, but it is now a question
of when — not if — coronavirus will be discovered in the Garden State…
“My Administration is
actively engaged in a multi-level, whole-of-government approach — from our
hospitals, to our schools, to our ports — to implement a preparedness and
response plan for the potential spread of the coronavirus in New Jersey,”
Murphy said. “Together, we are prepared to respond properly and swiftly to any
future individuals who meet the (CDC) guidelines for coronavirus testing.”
The DOH has also launched a webpage with a host of resources
for communities, businesses and schools. Persichilli said she is working with
other government officials, local health departments and hospital leaders to
ensure they are planning properly for a potential outbreak.
“As you know, hospitals are on the front line of this
response,” Persichilli said. “We are actively working with the (New Jersey
Hospital Association) and hospitals directly to ensure they have sufficient
plans in place to prepare for and respond to a surge in ill patients or a
(medical goods) supply chain disruption.”
The CDC also issued new guidance for hospitals designed to
help them maintain proper stocks of medical supplies, including very limited
re-use of certain respirators used by clinical staff. NJHA president and CEO
Cathy Bennett, who previously served as state health commissioner, said this
input allows facilities to help plan how best to protect staff and patients.
“The updated testing criteria can be helpful in improving
disease surveillance,” Bennett added. “The more insight the better in honing
our preparations and response.”
State Department of Education Commissioner Lamont O.
Repollet, who joined Murphy’s briefing, said his department has been working to
update school districts on the outbreak and urged local leaders to remain in
contact with county school officials, who are serving as a conduit to the
state. He reminded districts they should already have in place a policy for
home instruction, consider rescheduling group events, and properly report any
communicable diseases identified at school.
Repollet also reminded school officials not to allow concern
about coronavirus to evolve into fear, stigma or racism against individuals of
Chinese or other Asian descent. “Let’s make sure we are better than that. Stigma
hurts everyone. Bullying and harassment hurt everyone,” he said.” (E)
“As confirmed cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus spread in
the U.S. this week, school leaders nationwide are preparing for their
worst-case scenario emergency plans. Some are already shutting down schools or
considering online learning if the health threat persists.
And some are simply saying: Wash your hands.
So, who’s right? Perhaps everyone.
District leaders are right to emphasize hand washing,
staying home if you’re sick and covering your cough with a sleeve or tissue,
school and health leaders said. But they should also disclose their emergency
plans to parents about what will happen if the virus becomes more widespread –
even if it unnerves families, leaders said this week…
So far, the response from schools and health officials has
varied depending on whether a locality has confirmed cases – and experts’ views
on how much action is appropriate is rapidly evolving. But the uncertainty of
how far the virus will spread has put school leaders in a difficult spot of
projecting a sense of calm while also acting with an abundance of caution for
student safety…
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late last
week offered different guidance to schools and daycare centers depending on
whether they have a locally identified case of COVID-19.
For institutions that don’t have a confirmed case, the CDC
said schools should review and update their emergency plans, emphasize
hand-washing, communicate with local health departments and review attendance
policies – including dropping rewards for perfect attendance.
For institutions located in areas with COVID-19 cases, the
CDC recommends schools talk with their
local health officials before canceling classes. Together, they can determine
how long schools should be closed. And schools can also determine options for
distance or online learning so kids don’t fall behind…
In the event of a school closure, he said, “there’s
also a huge cost to not doing anything.”” (F)
“As state and local public health offices scramble to
respond to the coronavirus outbreak, they do so against a backdrop of years
long budget cuts, leaving them without the trained employees or updated
equipment to adequately address the virus’ growing threat, former public health
officials say.
In the past 15 years, public health, the country’s
front-line defense in epidemics, lost 45% of its inflation-adjusted funding for
staff, training, equipment and supplies. The Public Health Emergency Fund,
created for such disease or disaster relief, is long depleted. And much of the
money the federal government is racing to come up with now to combat the
COVID-19 outbreak will be pulled from other often-dire health needs and
probably will arrive too late to hire the needed personnel.
Florida, with two cases so far, and Washington, where six
deaths have been reported, have declared states of emergency, and state and
local officials there and elsewhere assure they have staff, equipment and
procedures ready. But early testing glitches in California, the failure to
protect federal health officials from the virus in cruise ship patients and a
climbing number of U.S. cases raise questions about that confidence.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told a Senate
panel last week that only about 30 million of the 300 million face masks needed
for health care workers are available.
“Once again, we’re not that prepared,” said Dr.
Boris Lushniak, a former deputy and acting U.S. surgeon general who spent 13
years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is now dean of
University of Maryland’s School of Public Health. “When those (basic public health
efforts) aren’t supported well, in the time of emergency you don’t have the
infrastructure to shift gears and go into emergency mode.”
The prospect of contending with an epidemic hits
often-ignored public health departments already taxed by at least 70 homegrown
threats, including a host of sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis.
It has been 16 months since President Donald Trump declared
opioid abuse a public health emergency and less than a year since Kentucky
warned it might have to close 42 of its county health departments amid the
country’s worst outbreak of Hepatitis A. In New York City, an explosion of
measles among unvaccinated children that ended just six months ago cost the
city more than $2 million to fight and involved 400 public health employees,
according to the Big Cities Health Coalition…
Time is also a problem, said Oscar Alleyne, program director
at the National Council of County and Local Health Officials. State and local
health departments have lost about 30,000 people over the past seven years, he
said, and now have to find or wait for money to hire recent public health
graduates and train them for these new, often short-term jobs.
It takes six to nine months to find and hire the people
capable of doing the testing and other surveillance work needed, said Dr. Lamar
Hasbrouck, a former CDC medical epidemiologist, who was Illinois’ health
secretary from 2012 to 2015.
“The time lag is so significant, by time the people get
hired, the whole thing can be over,” he said.
Dr. Nirav Shah, who was New York’s state health commissioner
from 2011 to 2014, said that in addition to supplies and other department
resources, funding will be needed for staff to trace the contacts of infected
people. He worries most about cuts to the Epidemiological Intelligence Service,
which can go straight to the source of the virus…
The health care system relies on public health agencies.
In a full-blown outbreak, coronavirus patients will be
spread across many hospitals that are usually competitors, so public health
agencies have to be the connective tissue that coordinates the response, said
Dr. Tom Talbot, chief hospital epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University Medical
Center.
“They are my heroes,” said Talbot, “because they are
drastically under funded and still on the front lines helping to fight this
thing.”” (G)
“Looser regulations on who can develop tests for the virus
will allow for a significant increase in the number of Americans likely to be
screened, the F.D.A. commissioner said.
The Trump administration said on Monday that it could have
the capacity for nearly a million tests for the coronavirus by the end of this
week, as the government prepares to escalate screening as the American death
toll reached six and U.S. infections topped 100.
Private companies and academic laboratories have been pulled
in to develop and validate their own coronavirus tests, a move to get around a
government bottleneck after a halting start, and to widen the range and number
of Americans screened for the virus, Dr. Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the
Food and Drug Administration, said Monday at a White House briefing…
“We expect to have a
substantial increase in the number of tests this week, next week and throughout
the month,” Dr. Hahn said, flanked by Vice President Mike Pence and top federal
health officials.
Dr. Hahn’s initial comments caused some confusion about the
number of tests that would be administered by the end of the week, but the
administration clarified that he was speaking of the capacity for increased
testing, not the number of Americans that would be tested. That number is still
unknown…
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview with NBC on Monday
that the virus had “reached outbreak proportions and likely pandemic
proportions.”..
Earlier in the day, Mr. Pence discussed the virus with the
nation’s governors, and later joined the president in the meeting with
pharmaceutical companies where Mr. Trump said he heard that a vaccine would be
ready in three to four months. Dr. Fauci, who was in the room, clarified that
deploying a vaccine was at least a year away…
Restrictions on testing have severely constrained local
health departments, which were desperate to catch up with and contain the
spread. Dow Constantine, the executive of King County, Wash., said the county
was preparing to buy a motel in the Seattle area where people who were infected
with the coronavirus could stay to remain isolated.
On Saturday, the F.D.A. said that hundreds of academic
medical centers that have developed and validated diagnostic materials for the
virus could begin testing patients immediately, even before the F.D.A.
completes an emergency authorization review, which laboratories run by states
and private companies have also applied for.” (H)
“Vice President Mike Pence said the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention was lifting all restrictions on testing for coronavirus,
and would be releasing new guidelines to fast-track testing for people who fear
they have the virus, even if they are displaying mild symptoms.
“Today we will issue new guidance from the C.D.C. that will
make it clear that any American can be tested, no restrictions, subject to
doctor’s orders,” Mr. Pence told reporters at the White House.
The federal government has promised to significantly ramp up
testing, after drawing criticism for strictly limiting testing in the first
weeks of the outbreak. But health care supply companies and public health
officials have cast doubt on the government’s assurances, as complaints
continue that the need for testing remains far greater than the capacity.
“The estimates we’re getting from industry right now — by
the end of this week, close to a million tests will be able to be performed,”
the head of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Stephen Hahn, said at a White
House briefing on Monday.
But some companies developing tests say their products are
still weeks away from approval.
And even if a million test kits were available, public
health laboratories say they would not be able to process nearly that many
within a week. A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said
on Monday that public health labs currently can test 15,000 people daily,
though that figure is expected to grow.” (I)
“An outbreak of coronavirus disease in a nursing home near
Seattle is prompting urgent calls for precautionary tactics at America’s elder
care facilities, where residents are at heightened risk of serious
complications from the illness because of the dual threat of age and close
living conditions.
As of Monday afternoon, the emergence of the novel
contagious illness at the Life Care Center of Kirkland, Washington, had left
four residents dead and others hospitalized, local health officials said. A
health care worker also has been hospitalized. In total, Washington state has
reported six deaths, officials said.
Officials previously said that of the nursing home’s 108
residents and 180 staff members, more than 50 have shown signs of possible
COVID-19 infections, the name given the illness caused by a novel coronavirus
that emerged from Wuhan, China, late last year. Visits from families,
volunteers and vendors have been halted and new admissions placed on hold,
according to a statement from Ellie Basham, the center’s executive director…
The situation may be akin to the spread of coronavirus on
cruise ships, such as the Diamond Princess that was quarantined off the coast
of Japan, with one key exception, Steinberg said. People on cruise ships can be
confined to their rooms with minimal interaction with staff and fellow
residents. People in nursing centers are there because they need help with
activities of daily living, he noted…
In the Washington state center, Duchin said, officials are
advising health workers to separate cohorts of sick patients from those who
remain well and to don personal protective gear, including eye protection, to avoid
infection. “It’s a very challenging environment with so many vulnerable
patients to manage an outbreak,” he said.” (J)
“New York is among the first states in the country to waive
some fees and expenses for people who undergo testing for the coronavirus, as
public health officials are increasingly worried that medical bills will
discourage the poor and uninsured from getting medical care.
The federal government is also considering paying for care
for those affected, possibly based on funds available through federal disaster
relief programs. There are “initial conversations,” Dr. Robert Kadlec, a senior
official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told Congress on
Wednesday.
In addition to the nation’s 27.5 million uninsured, some
lawmakers are concerned that the tens of millions who are underinsured —
Americans with high deductibles or limited insurance — may also be at risk of
unexpected expenses as more and more people are exposed to the virus.
The health insurance system “is designed to make you think
twice to seek care every time you get a runny nose, fever and cough,” said John
Graves, a health policy expert at Vanderbilt University. Even though
identifying people with the virus in the early stages is critical to preventing
a spread of the disease, Dr. Graves said, many people are likely to wait out
any symptoms to avoid expensive care.
New York said it would require some health insurance
companies to waive any cost sharing for coronavirus testing, including the cost
of going to the emergency room, doctor’s office or urgent care center if within
a plan’s network.
“Containing this virus depends on us having the facts about
who has it — and these measures will break down any barriers that could prevent
New Yorkers from getting tested,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a statement on
Monday.” (K)
Bergen New Bridge Medical Center said March 3 that it has
expanded its Telehealth service Bergen New Bridge Cares to screen patients for
COVID-19.
Along with partner Air Visits, Bergen New Bridge Cares
offers urgent-care screening and assessment by a licensed physician of patients
who have medical complaints and symptoms. Telehealth consultations with an
infectious disease physician are available if necessary. Patients can access
Bergen New Bridge Cares at 201-204-0712.
The COVID-19 screenings are based on the most current CDC
Evaluating and Reporting Persons Under Investigation (PUI) guidelines. If
further evaluation is necessary, a physician will evaluate each patient and
coordinate additional care.
“With the rapidly evolving health crisis, we felt extending
the reach of our services into the home was crucial in identifying patients and
expediting care while also limiting community exposure,” said Deborah Visconi,
president and CEO at Bergen New Bridge Medical Center.
“It is our hope that by putting our experts at the
fingertips of the community, people’s fears will be eased and they will be more
willing to seek early evaluation and treatment,” Visconi added.” (L)
“In early February, Royal Caribbean’s Anthem of the Seas
docked in Bayonne, New Jersey, in need of a hospital. The cruise ship was
carrying patients who had traveled from China, where an outbreak of COVID-19
had taken root. Four passengers needed to go somewhere for further medical
observation.
The obvious next step was University Hospital in Newark, a
major academic medical center equipped with isolation rooms. “The hospital is
following proper infection control protocols while evaluating these
individuals,” Gov. Phil Murphy said in a statement. The patients tested
negative, but the governor was clear. The state’s first coronavirus cases would
go to University…
But infection control has been a recurring problem at some
of the very hospitals that would likely be called upon to treat COVID-19
patients, a ProPublica review of hundreds of hospital inspection reports found.
This raises concerns that they could become hotbeds for disease, putting
patients at risk and rendering infected workers unable to care for others.
“Health care workers are my top worry,” said Dr. Peter
Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of
Medicine in Houston. He noted that in China, so far, about 15% of infected
hospital workers have become severely ill. “If this takes place in the U.S.,
and we see those numbers of workers sent home or in the ICU, being taken care
of by their colleagues, things will start to unravel. This is the soft
underbelly of our preparedness system right now.”
At least two health care workers in Northern California had
preliminary positive tests for COVID-19 at NorthBay VacaValley Hospital,
pending CDC confirmation. The hospital had treated a patient who later tested
positive for the disease. Other health care workers who came into contact with
the patient are also in quarantine.
There is no list of designated centers to handle the most
critical COVID-19 patients, experts said. But the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, during the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak, named 55 hospitals it
considered to be in the first tier of treatment centers to handle that kind of
crisis — mostly large, urban teaching hospitals capable of complex care like
blood transfusions and ventilation.
ProPublica analyzed five years of federal hospital
inspection reports for these facilities and found violations for infection
control failures or other factors that could hamper the response to an outbreak
at more than half of them. About 1 in 5 of the facilities had four or more
violations; the analysis found more than a hundred overall. It’s not clear by
looking at the reports how many of the violations led to patient infections.
Problems that get cited on the inspection reports are required to be corrected
as part of the regulation process.
But it’s also true that inspections only flag a small number
of the actual problems in hospitals. American hospitals, overall, are so bad at
preventing infections that hospital-acquired infections are considered a
leading cause of death in the United States. The hope would be that the sites
designated as specialized infection-control centers would do better…
Medical experts say they wonder: if hospitals can’t control
the spread of pathogens under normal conditions, what happens if they face a
rush of patients with a disease as contagious and serious as the one caused by
COVID-19?
During the SARS outbreak in the greater Toronto area, 44% of
the total cases were among health care workers. A retrospective study,
published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases in 2004, hypothesized
that “lapses in infection control measures may be responsible,” noting that
caregivers were particularly at risk during procedures like intubation…” (M)
“Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he would amend his budget proposal
on paid sick leave to include a provision that would require employers to pay
workers and protect their jobs if they are quarantined because of the
coronavirus. The announcement of the change came at a press conference Tuesday
morning at the state Capitol where Cuomo signed a controversial new law
expanding his gubernatorial powers in the event of such an emergency.
“I’m going to amend the paid sick leave bill that I sent to
the Legislature to where there is a specific provision that says people, who
because of this situation with coronavirus, have to be quarantine should be
protected,” the governor said. “Their employer should pay them for the period
of quarantine and their job should be protected. And I’m going to make that
available to be paid sick leave, bill that I sent up.”” (N)
“A cruise ship was being held off the coast of San Francisco
on Thursday amid fears that more than 3,500 passengers and crew may have been
exposed to the coronavirus blamed for almost 3,300 deaths worldwide.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the Grand Princess was
sailing with 62 passengers who company officials say had been on the ship’s
previous voyage with a 71-year-old man who eventually died from the virus. The
current cruise was scheduled to arrive in San Francisco on Wednesday but will
not return to port until testing can take place, Newsom said. Test kits were
being flown onto the ship, he said.
More than 20 passengers and crew members have developed
symptoms consistent with COVID-19, Newsom said.
“We will be able to test very quickly… to determine if
these individuals that are symptomatic just have traditional colds or the flu
or may have contracted the COVID-19 virus,” Newsom said.” (O)
“In the wake of a series of avoidable mistakes, Donald Trump
and his team have confronted quite a bit of criticism over their handling on
the coronavirus outbreak. For the most part, the president has responded by
arguing that the unflattering assessments are part of a “hoax” cooked
up by his political enemies.
Yesterday, however, during a White House event, Trump
switched gears a bit, implicitly acknowledging the missteps, but insisting that
Barack Obama deserves the blame. From the official transcript:
“[T]he Obama administration made a decision on testing
that turned out to be very detrimental to what we’re doing. And we undid that
decision a few days ago so that the testing can take place in a much more
accurate and rapid fashion. That was a decision we disagreed with. I don’t
think we would have made it, but for some reason it was made. But we’ve undone
that decision.”” (P)
“The House voted to approve a roughly $8 billion emergency
funding deal to address the coronavirus on Wednesday, the latest step in a race
to contain the outbreak that has killed nearly a dozen in the US.
It included more than $3 billion for the research and
development of vaccines and diagnostics, roughly $2.2 billion to fund public
health programs, and $1 billion for medical supplies and other preparedness
measures.” (Q)
(A) 8
Questions Employers Should Ask About Coronavirus, by Jeff Levin-Scherz and
Deana Allen, https://hbr.org/2020/03/8-questions-employers-should-ask-about-coronavirus
(B) Coronavirus
and the Workplace: What if the Boss Says to Stay Home?, by Tara Siegel Bernard,
https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-work-job.html?referringSource=articleShare
(C) The
‘stranded employee’ is a coronavirus problem the work world has never seen, by
Eric Rosenbaum,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/03/stranded-employee-is-coronavirus-issue-work-world-has-never-seen.html
(D) Coronavirus
in N.Y.: Second Case Sets Off Search for Others Exposed, by Joseph Goldstein
and Jesse McKinley,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-state.html?referringSource=articleShare
(E) Preparing
for Coronavirus in NJ: Not if But When, Say Murphy Officials, by LILO H. STAINTON,
https://www.njspotlight.com/2020/03/preparing-for-coronavirus-in-nj-not-if-but-when-say-murphy-officials/
(F) US schools
are in a ‘state of alert’ amid coronavirus outbreak. Are they overreacting – or
not doing enough?, by Erin Richards, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/03/03/coronavirus-schools-closing-online-florida-washington-california/4928377002/
(G) ‘This is
not sustainable’: Public health departments, decimated by funding cuts,
scramble against coronavirus. By Jayne O’Donnell,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/03/02/coronavirus-response-depleted-public-health-departments-scramble-respond/4868693002/
(H) Vice
President Mike Pence’s reassurances contrasted with warnings delivered on
Monday by top officials across the federal government, by Noah WeilandEmily
Cochrane,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/us/coronavirus-testing.html?referringSource=articleShare
(I) Coronavirus
Updates: U.S. Will Drop Limits on Testing, Pence Says.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/world/coronavirus-live-news-updates.html
(J) Coronavirus
Risk In Elder Care Facilities, by JoNel Aleccia,
https://khn.org/news/nursing-home-outbreak-spotlights-coronavirus-risk-in-elder-care-facilities/
(K) Waive Fees
for Coronavirus Tests and Treatment, Health Experts Urge, by Reed Abelson and
Sarah Kliff,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/health/coronavirus-tests-uninsured.html?referringSource=articleShare
(L) Bergen
New Bridge expands telehealth service for COVID-19, by Anthony Vecchione,
https://njbiz.com/bergen-new-bridge-medical-center-expands-telehealth-service-covid-19/
(M) U.S.
Hospitals Say They’re Ready for Coronavirus. Their Infection Control Violations
Say Otherwise, by Marshall Allen, Caroline Chen, J. David McSwane and Lexi
Churchill, https://www.propublica.org/article/us-hospitals-say-theyre-ready-for-coronavirus-their-infection-control-violations-say-otherwise?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter
(N) A new paid
sick leave plan for coronavirus, Cuomo expands his proposal in response to the
public health threat, by ZACH WILLIAMS,
https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/policy/health-care/new-paid-sick-leave-plan-coronavirus.html
(O) Coronavirus
updates: Cruise ship kept off West Coast; California, LA declare emergencies,
by John Bacon,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/03/05/coronavirus-live-updates-us-death-toll-schools-amtrak/4953471002/
(P) With bogus
claim, Trump tries to blame coronavirus missteps on Obama, by Steve Benen,
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/bogus-claim-trump-tries-blame-coronavirus-missteps-obama-n1150346
Part 12. CORONAVIRUS. “Tom Bossert, Donald Trump’s
former homeland security advisor…(said) that due to the coronavirus outbreak,
“We are 10 days from the hospitals getting creamed.”
“On Friday night, the Uber driver from Queens tested
positive, and the case prompted more than 40 doctors, nurses and other workers
at a hospital there to go into voluntary self-isolation over fears that they
might have been exposed to the coronavirus, officials said on Saturday.” (A)
“Employees of the University of Washington’s UW Medicine
system can now get tested for coronavirus without leaving their cars.
The system’s medical center in northwest Seattle has turned
a hospital garage lot into a drive-through clinic that can test a person every
five minutes. They typically get results within a day or so.
But the idea involves more than convenience. It’s also about
safety.
“Because of the way this virus could be spread, we want
to make sure there’s good ventilation,” says Dr. Seth Cohen, who runs the
infectious disease clinic at UW Medical Center Northwest.
Coronavirus has already caused at least 17 deaths in the
Seattle area and infected at least 83 people.
So staff have placed three medical tents on the first floor
of the center’s multilevel garage, which is not enclosed. Signs and orange
cones funnel vehicles to the testing site…
“We want to make sure that if our staff test negative
we get them back to work as soon as we can,” Cohen says. “But if they
test positive we want to keep them out of the workforce to make sure they’re
not going on to infect other staff or patients.”” (B)
“ “We’re past the point of containment,” Dr. Scott Gottlieb,
commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration during the first two years of
President Trump’s administration, said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”
“We have to implement broad mitigation strategies. The next
two weeks are really going to change the complexion in this country. We’ll get
through this, but it’s going to be a hard period. We’re looking at two months,
probably, of difficulty,” Gottlieb said.
U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams said that shifting to a
mitigation phase means that communities will see more cases and need to start
thinking about whether it makes sense to cancel large gatherings, close schools
and make it more feasible for employees to work from home.
That’s what happened Sunday, with more reported school closings,
warnings against group gatherings and cancellation of big events, such as the
BNP Paribas Open, an Indian Wells tennis tournament scheduled to start this
week.
“And that’s going to be different in Seattle than what it’s
going to be in Jackson, Miss.,” Adams said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But
communities need to have that conversation and prepare for more cases so we can
prevent more deaths.”…
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of
Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that people who are older or have
underlying health conditions should also consider avoiding large crowds and
travel.
“If you are an elderly person with an underlying condition,
if you get infected, the risk of getting into trouble is considerable,” Fauci
said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“So it’s our responsibility to protect the vulnerable. When
I say protect, I mean right now. Not wait until things get worse. Say no large
crowds, no long trips. And above all, don’t get on a cruise ship.”
The comments from current and former officials marked a big
shift, acknowledging that the country is past the point of being able to
contain the outbreak and needs to pivot to aggressive efforts to mitigate the
virus’ spread.” (C)
“Tom Bossert, Donald Trump’s former homeland security
advisor, told NBC News on Tuesday that due to the coronavirus outbreak, “We are
10 days from the hospitals getting creamed.”
In an op-ed published by The Washington Post on Monday,
Bossert also stated, “officials must pull the trigger on aggressive interventions,”
later adding, “Aggressive interventions put off and ease the peak burden on
hospitals and other health-care infrastructure.”
Bossert specifically suggesting that “School closures,
isolation of the sick, home quarantines of those who have come into contact
with the sick, social distancing, telework and large-gathering cancellations
must be implemented before the spread of the disease in any community reaches 1
percent.”
“If we fail to take action, we will watch our health-care
system be overwhelmed,” he warned, “Starting now, public health messaging
should be framed in light of this clear objective.”” (D)
““They’re coming in so intensely now that being able to give
you a detailed case breakdown, we’re not in that position to do that at this
moment because there are so many coming forward,” de Blasio said, speaking at
Bellevue Hospital in Manhattan. “As of 12 noon … the number of confirmed
cases in New York City is 36. That’s 16 new since yesterday and 11 new even
since this morning at 7 a.m. when I last spoke about this.”
Almost 2,000 New York City residents are in voluntary
isolation while 30 people are in mandatory quarantine, he said.
Dr. Mitchell Katz, CEO of NYC Health + Hospitals, said local
hospitals are bracing for an onslaught of COVID-19 cases, adding that local
hospitals are preparing to discharge current patients to handle incoming
coronavirus patients.
“We are prepared at
Bellevue and all of our hospitals that were we to have many patients with
respiratory distress, we would rapidly discharge those patients who are in the
hospital now and do not need to be in the hospital because they can be safely
cared for at home,” Katz said.” (E)
“Schools, temples, churches and other large gathering places
within much of the New York City suburb of New Rochelle will be shut down for
two weeks as the state battles to contain of one of the nation’s worst
coronavirus clusters.
The National Guard will be called in to help clean
facilities and deliver food, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Tuesday.
Cuomo announced plans to enforce a “containment
area” for a 1-mile radius around the center of the cluster, an area of
Westchester County that includes much of the city of New Rochelle and stretches
into the town of Eastchester. As of Tuesday afternoon, the state had 174
confirmed cases of the coronavirus, second only to Washington state.
“This is literally a matter of life and death,”
Cuomo said.” (F)
“California’s Sacramento County is calling off automatic
14-day quarantines that have been implemented for the coronavirus, saying it
will focus instead on mitigating the impact of COVID-19.
The change is an acknowledgement that the county cannot
effectively manage the quarantines while its health system copes with
coronavirus cases. It also reflects problems with the U.S. government’s
coronavirus testing program — issues that slowed efforts to identify people
with the deadly virus and to contain COVID-19.
“With the shift from containment to mitigation, it is
no longer necessary for someone who has been in contact with someone with
COVID-19 to quarantine for 14 days,” the county says.
Effective immediately, people in Sacramento County should
not quarantine themselves if they’ve been exposed to the COVID-19. Instead,
they should go into isolation only if they begin to show symptoms of the
respiratory virus, the county’s health department says.
Sacramento County has at least 10 coronavirus cases,
including one person who recovered.
Decisions on how to try to contain and control the
coronavirus have largely been left to state and local officials, rather than
those at the federal level.” (G)
“Nursing homes and assisted living centers should take
unprecedented action to curtail most social visits, and should even take steps
to keep some employees away, to slow the spread of the new coronavirus, the
industry said on Tuesday.
The recommendation follows an outbreak of the virus in the
region around Seattle, where five long-term care facilities have been hit with
cases, including a facility in Kirkland, Wash., where 18 residents have died.
There have now been more than 950 cases of coronavirus in the United States,
including 29 deaths.
“The mortality rate is shocking,” said Mark Parkinson,
president and chief executive officer of the American Health Care Association.
He said that the death rate might well exceed the 15 percent reported in China
for people aged 80 and older who were infected.
The challenge of the virus “is one of the most significant,
if not the most significant” issues the industry has ever faced, he said.
Industry officials said they are recommending that nursing
homes should allow people to enter only if it is essential.
Staff members, contractors and government officials should
be asked, “Do you need to be in-building to operate?” said Dr. David Gifford, the
health care association’s chief medical officer.
As for family members, he said, “Our recommendation is they
should not be visiting.”
Anyone who does visit, he said, should be screened carefully
at reception and anyone who has signs of illness should be turned away.” (H)
“N95 masks are essential for protecting health care workers
and controlling the epidemic, but some hospitals have been unable to get new
shipments as supplies dwindle.
As hospitals around the country prepare for an influx of
highly infectious coronavirus cases, their supplies of a crucial type of
respirator mask are dwindling fast.
“We’re not willing to run out of N95 masks,” Dr. Susan Ray,
an infectious disease specialist at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, said in
a phone interview, referring to the masks by their technical name. “That’s not
O.K. at my hospital.”” (I)
“It’s bad enough in ordinary times for a doctor or nurse to
work while sick. But as Covid-19 hits hospitals, as it almost certainly will,
the tendency of health care professionals to work through illness will present
a serious threat to both patient safety and the public’s health…
It is tempting to point the finger at health care
professionals who come to work when sick. After all, if their illness is
contagious, they pose a threat — in some cases a potentially life-threatening
one — to vulnerable patients. But that would be a mistake.
As patient safety expert Paul Batalden has said, “every
system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.” In the case of
presenteeism in health care, it is precisely that system — or, more precisely,
the lack of a system — that deserves the lion’s share of the blame.” (J)
“As the U.S. battles to limit the spread of the contagious
new coronavirus, the number of health care workers ordered to self-quarantine
because of potential exposure to an infected patient is rising at a rapid pace.
In Vacaville, Calif., alone, one case — the first documented instance of
community transmission in the U.S. — left more than 200 hospital workers under
quarantine and unable to work for weeks.
Across California, dozens more health care workers have been
ordered home because of possible contagion in response to more than 80
confirmed cases as of Sunday morning. In Kirkland, Wash., more than a quarter
of the city’s fire department was quarantined after exposure to a handful of
infected patients at the Life Care Center nursing home.
With the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases growing by the
day, a continued quarantine response of this magnitude would quickly leave the
health care system short-staffed and overwhelmed. The situation has prompted
debate in the health care community about just what standards medical
facilities should use before ordering workers quarantined — and what safety
protocols need to become commonplace in clinics and emergency rooms.
“It’s just not sustainable to think that every time a
health care worker is exposed they have to be quarantined for 14 days. We’d run
out of health care workers,” Nuzzo says. Anyone showing signs of infection
should stay home, she adds, but providers who may have been exposed but are not
symptomatic should not necessarily be excluded from work.
The correct response, she and others say, comes down to a
careful balance of the evolving science with the need to maintain a functioning
health care system…
As the virus continues to spread, hospitals should be
stockpiling such equipment, figuring out how to add beds and planning for
staffing shortages, says Dr. Richard Waldhorn, a professor of medicine at
Georgetown University and contributing scholar at Johns Hopkins who recently
co-authored recommendations for hospitals on how to prepare for a COVID-19
pandemic.
Hospitals should already be training providers to take on
expanded duties, Waldhorn says. If a hospital becomes overwhelmed, the Medical
Reserve Corps can be mobilized, as can networks of providers who have
volunteered to aid in emergency situations. Once workers have been infected and
recover, it might make sense to have them treat other coronavirus patients
since they likely will have immunity.
Eventually, as a disease becomes widespread, quarantine
simply stops being a priority, says Nina Fefferman, a mathematician and
epidemiologist at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville.
“There’s a point where we stop trying to quarantine
anyone and we just say, OK, we’re going to have more deaths from the fire
department not being able to fight fire than from everyone getting the
disease.”” (K)
“At the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City,
patients who are worried that they may have the coronavirus no longer enter the
hospital itself. Instead, they are treated just outside in big tents, where
physicians donning protective gear test them and a special air filter whisks
germs away.
Two 20-foot-wide tents were put up on Saturday as a way to
limit the exposure between individuals suspected of having the coronavirus and
patients in other areas of the hospital. A third, smaller tent was erected on
Sunday.
As of Monday afternoon, only two Utahns were confirmed to
have the coronavirus, including one evacuated from the stricken Diamond
Princess cruise ship — but the University of Utah Health, which includes the
Salt Lake City hospital, is not taking any chances.
“It’s an all-hands-on-deck situation right now.”
“We’re spending almost all of our time right now at the
hospital system educating our staff, educating the public. It’s an
all-hands-on-deck situation right now,” Kathy Wilets, spokeswoman for
University of Utah Health, said.
Through social media and news conferences, the health care
system is urging people to call first if they believe they may have COVID-19,
the illness caused by the coronavirus.
Over the phone, the patients will be directed to the tents
outside of the hospital, Wilets said, or be told to drive to an urgent care
center, where a doctor in personal protective equipment will walk over to their
car and test them without them having to get out of the driver’s seat. They
will then be instructed to drive home, where they are to remain while they wait
for the test results.” (L)
“At the very beginning [of an outbreak] this will happen
because you don’t know patients are infected and you only realize later that
people were exposed,” said Grzegorz Rempala, a mathematician at the College of
Public Health at Ohio State University who models the spread of infectious
diseases.
Now that the disease has started to spread through the
community, any patient with respiratory symptoms potentially could be infected,
though health officials note the likelihood remains low. As providers start
routinely wearing protective gear and employing strict safety protocols,
accidental exposure should decline…
“We’re not used to
being concerned, before we even do the triage assessment, [about] whether the
patient is infectious and could infect hospital workers,” said Dr. Kristi
Koenig, the EMS medical director of San Diego County. She said that thinking
started to evolve during the 2014 Ebola outbreak. Hospitals should routinely
mask patients who come in with respiratory symptoms, she said, given any such
patient could have an infectious disease such as tuberculosis.
Yet providers don’t often think in those terms. “In many
ways we’re spoiled because we’ve gone from a society 50 or 100 years ago where
the major killers were infectious disease,” said Dr. Michael Wilkes, a
professor at UC Davis School of Medicine. “Now we’ve become complacent because
the major killers are heart disease and diabetes.”
Faced with this new infection risk, many hospitals are
scrambling to retrain workers in safety precautions, such as how to correctly
don and doff personal protective equipment.
Sutter Health, which has 24 hospitals in Northern
California, started ramping up its emergency management system five weeks ago
in preparation for COVID-19. Before coming to the emergency room, Sutter
patients are asked to call a hotline to be assessed by a nurse or an automated
system designed to screen for symptoms of the virus. Those with likely symptoms
are guided to a telemedicine appointment unless they need to be admitted to a
hospital…
As the virus continues to spread, hospitals should be
stockpiling such equipment, figuring out how to add beds and planning for
staffing shortages, said Dr. Richard Waldhorn, a professor of medicine at
Georgetown University and contributing scholar at Johns Hopkins who recently
co-authored recommendations for hospitals on how to prepare for a COVID-19
pandemic.
Hospitals should already be training providers to take on
expanded duties, Waldhorn said. If a hospital becomes overwhelmed, the Medical
Reserve Corps can be mobilized, as can networks of providers who have
volunteered to aid in emergency situations. Once workers have been infected and
recover, it might make sense to have them treat other coronavirus patients
since they will have immunity.” (M)
“In this California epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak,
officials say they are trying to be as transparent as possible. They’re keeping
a cruise ship out at sea, updating citizens on new cases and providing
emergency resources to battle the epidemic.
But on one matter there remains absolute silence: the names
of those who have died after being exposed to COVID-19. One California patient
and at least 13 Seattle-area residents
have died from the illness.
Experts in public health and bioethics say that far from
helping society, a decision to reveal the identities of people – dead or alive
– who have contracted the coronavirus would be a disaster with far-reaching
ramifications.
“Doctors don’t out people,” says Jeffrey Kahn, director of
the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics in Maryland, which focuses on
the ethical implications of scientific advancement. “Whether it’s HIV,
syphilis, coronavirus or anything else, people simply won’t show up to their
doctor if they feel they might be outed for a condition.”
Kahn pointed to the Hippocratic Oath, which explicitly
states that a physician will “respect the privacy of my patients, for their
problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know.”
What’s more, laws laid down in 1996 by the Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) ensure that a person’s health records remain undisclosed to the
general public long after their death. That means releasing names of anyone
with COVID-19 would violate HIPAA. There have been 51 confirmed COVID-19 cases
in California…
What officials are duty-bound to do in any sort of
infectious case – whether it’s a sexually transmitted disease or tuberculosis –
is referred to as “contact tracing” investigation. This piece of detective work
involves finding out anyone who has been in contact with the infected patient
and advising them of best next steps…
“HIPAA requires us to
protect confidentiality, and we are only releasing as much information as is
necessary to protect public health,” says Combs Prichard, adding that officials
did disclose that the one COVID-19 victim in the county – described as an older
adult with underlying conditions – was from the city of Rocklin.
“We are absolutely 100% doing a thorough contact
investigation, that’s why we don’t feel there is a public health reason to
release more identifying information,” she says. “We’ve been able to develop a
thorough list of close contacts and are contacting them directly and placing
them in quarantine.”
Placer County’s approach represents “a constant discussion
in public health, as we’re walking a fine line between causing harm and getting
people unnecessarily frightened versus making sure they adopt the right
precautions,” says Claire Wheeler, professor of Public Health at Portland
State University.
Wheeler points out that while medical officials may be
following protocol by not releasing the names of COVID-19 victims or those who
have the virus, that doesn’t stop those contacted by health workers from
sharing details, including a name, with friends or through social media.
Should such personal information be leaked to the media or
online, “it could be very bad for those individuals,” Wheeler says.
“What if they lost their jobs? In these situations, people become
hysterical. That’s the most dangerous piece of this.”” (N)
“Bridgeport Hospital President Anne Diamond addressed the
media Saturday afternoon. Diamond said the doctor who tested positive for
coronavirus did not expose patients to the illness because he was exhibiting no
symptoms when he made rounds at the hospital.
A doctor who works in Connecticut and recently made rounds
at Bridgeport Hospital has tested positive for the coronavirus, the governor
announced Saturday.
This is the second New York state resident who works in a
Connecticut hospital to test positive for the virus, also known as COVID-19.
State officials announced Friday night that an employee who works at both
Danbury and Norwalk hospitals has tested positive for the coronavirus.
The doctor in Bridgeport did not shows symptoms of coronavirus
while working with patients, the governor’s office said, and “stayed home to
self monitor.” Officials said he was not an employee of the hospital, but
rather a community doctor who made rounds there.
“This physician saw a limited number of patients at Bridgeport
Hospital. At that time, the physician displayed no symptoms associated with
COVID-19,” said Anne Diamond, president of the hospital. “As a result, the
physician contact here during that time does not constitute an exposure.”
Hospital staff were notified and the “very small number of
patients” who came into contact with the doctor were isolated, she said. The
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has since told them that isolation
is not necessary.
“The CDC has advised us that our staff will not require
isolation or furlough given the nature of the encounter, but we are asking that
all staff self monitor for symptoms in the future,” Diamond said.” (O)
(A) Coronavirus
in N.Y.: Cuomo Declares State of Emergency, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/07/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-queens.html?referringSource=articleShare
(B) Seattle
Health Care System Offers Drive-Through Coronavirus Testing For Workers, by JON
HAMILTON,
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/08/813501632/seattle-health-care-system-offers-drive-through-coronavirus-testing-for-workers
(C) ‘We’re
past the point of containment’: Coronavirus fight enters new phase, by ANITA
CHABRIA, LAURA KING, ANDREW J. CAMPA, ALEX WIGGLESWORTH,
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-03-08/grand-princess-cruise-ship-to-dock-in-oakland-some-passengers-quarantine-in-san-antonio
(D) Trump’s
Former Homeland Security Advisor Tells NBC: ‘We Are 10 Days Away From Our
Hospitals Getting Creamed’, by Leia Idliby, https://www.mediaite.com/news/trumps-former-homeland-security-advisor-tells-nbc-we-are-10-days-away-from-our-hospitals-getting-creamed/
(E) NYC
coronavirus cases are ‘coming in so intensely now,’ Mayor de Blasio says, by
William Feuer, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/10/nyc-coronavirus-cases-are-coming-in-so-intensely-now-mayor-de-blasio-says.html
(F) Coronavirus
updates: Suburban New York community to enact ‘containment’ area, close
schools, by John Bacon,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/03/10/coronavirus-live-updates-us-death-toll-dow-jones-donald-trump/5002558002/
(G) Coronavirus:
Sacramento County Gives Up On Automatic 14-Day Quarantines, by BILL CHAPPELL,
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/10/813990993/coronavirus-sacramento-county-gives-up-on-automatic-14-day-quarantines
(H) Nursing
homes should bar most family and friend visits, the industry says,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/10/world/coronavirus-news.html?referringSource=articleShare
(I) Some
Hospitals Are Close to Running Out of Crucial Masks for Coronavirus,by Abby
Goodnough,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/health/coronavirus-n95-face-masks.html?referringSource=articleShare
(J) Doctors
working while sick is bad enough in ordinary times. During the Covid-19
outbreak it could be catastrophic, by Steven Joffe,
https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/09/doctors-working-while-sick-covid19-catastrophe/
(K) Scarcity
Of Health Workers A New Concern As Self-Quarantining Spreads With Virus, by
JENNY GOLD, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/03/09/813557328/scarcity-of-health-workers-a-new-concern-as-self-quarantining-spreads-with-virus
(L) Amid
growing coronavirus cases, hospitals have shared goal: Prevent the spread
within their walls, by Elizabeth Chuck,
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/amid-growing-coronavirus-cases-hospitals-have-one-goal-prevent-spread-n1153461
(M) Surging
Health Care Worker Quarantines Raise Concerns As Coronavirus Spreads, by Jenny
Gold,
https://khn.org/news/surging-health-care-worker-quarantines-raise-concerns-as-coronavirus-spreads/
(N) Keeping
coronavirus patients anonymous is crucial to battling the outbreak, by Marco
della Cava,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/03/06/coronavirus-us-naming-victims-would-violate-hipaa-dangerous/4964498002/
(O) Doctor who
made rounds at Bridgeport Hospital has tested positive for COVID-19, by JENNA CARLESSO,
https://ctmirror.org/2020/03/07/connecticut-has-its-first-case-of-covid-19/
PREQUELS
“A SEVERE FLU PANDEMIC… could
kill more than 33 million people worldwide in just 250 days.” – “Boy, do we not
have our act together.” — Bill Gates”. (J)
PART 4. CANDIDA AURIS. “..
nursing facilities, and long-term hospitals, are…continuously cycling infected
patients, or those who carry the germ, into hospitals and back again.”
1. How can we best protect our employees from exposure in
the workplace?
2. When should we exclude workers or visitors from the
workspace?
3. Should we revise our benefits policies in cases where
employees are barred from the worksite or we close it?
4. Have we maximized employees’ ability to work remotely?
5. Do we have reliable systems for real-time public health
communication with employees?
6. Should we revise our policies around international and
domestic business travel?
7. Should we postpone or cancel scheduled conferences or
meetings?
8. Are supervisors adequately trained?
Diligent planning for global health emergencies can help
protect employees, customers, and the business.
But plans are only as good as their execution. Companies should use the
current situation to optimize and battle-test their plans. Whether or not Covid-19
becomes a full-blown pandemic, these capabilities will prove invaluable as the
emergence of a global pandemic, caused by this coronavirus or another agent in
the future, is not a matter of “if” but “when.” “(A)
“Some companies have already taken precautions like limiting
travel to affected countries or big international conferences. Others have
asked employees to stay home because they visited a country with a more serious
outbreak.
But with new unexplained cases being reported in the United
States — and the first domestic death from the illness reported on Saturday — a
growing number of American workers could soon be asked to alter their routines,
or just stay home.
Exactly how that affects you will depend on many factors,
including the generosity of your employer’s benefits and where you live. Here’s
what labor lawyers and business groups say could potentially unfold in your
workplace — and what rights workers have.
The situation is ever-evolving as the virus continues to
spread — and policies are being revised daily as employers monitor public
health notices.
Nobody wants employees to come to work if they are sick or
have been exposed to the virus, but U.S. workers are less likely to be covered
by a paid sick leave policy than those in other developed countries.
“This can put hourly workers in a bind, and make employees
in the U.S. more likely to show up for work when they are sick,” said Joseph
Deng, who specializes in employment and compensation law at Baker &
McKenzie in Los Angeles.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has
recommended that employers establish “nonpunitive” policies, encouraging
employees who are sick or exhibiting symptoms to stay at home.
“We may see companies develop more flexible and generous
sick leave policies,” Mr. Deng said. That could reduce the hard choices that
employees have to make…
What can my employer ask me to do?
Will I be paid if I’m told to stay home?
What happens if I or a family member get sick?
What are my rights if I’m worried about going to work?
Can my employer ask me to wear a mask?
Will my employer tell me if a colleague is infected?” (B)
“Amber Clayton, who directs the Society for Human Resource
Management’s Knowledge Center, which fields calls from HR professionals seeking
guidance, said many employers have business continuity plans in place for
atypical situations, and some even have infectious disease management plans,
but still it has been getting questions from companies, some about employees
coming back from China: “Do they have to come back into the office right away?
Can we require them to stay at home?”..
Even though technology can help facilitate some workplace
decisions, Clayton said employers can find themselves in “unknown territory”
with labor law implications, especially if the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S.
gets much worse and forces more widespread business impacts…
The issues are more complicated for workers who are not on
salary, and whose employers do not offer paid time off for leave, since often
these hourly-wage employees have no legal protection for any nonworking hours,
based on the Fair Labor Standards Act, which in other cases does protect them,
such as in cases of overtime-pay claims.
Clayton said firms should consider paying employees for time
they will be out, even if not covered by medical-leave laws or other company
policies, but without a legal requirement this could hit hourly workers hard in
sectors where there is no remote work option, such as restaurants and
hospitality; or furloughed factory workers without specific protections in an
existing collective-bargaining agreement…
“The idea that if you’re not coming in, staying home sick,
that you will not get put on the next big project or not get the next
promotion, this is the time to combat that … to change the norms,” he said.
“At the majority of companies, that is still not the case. Employees are still
worried in normal flu season about this, even though it saves a company money
when people stay at home, and in this environment it’s a whole different ball game.”
SHRM’s Clayton said she is less sure about permanent changes
to workplace culture resulting from the current outbreak, but she said that, in
the least, for companies that don’t have business continuity plans and
infectious disease management plans in place, it is time to implement them.”
(C)
“The authorities confirmed on Tuesday a second case of
coronavirus in New York, a man in his 50s who lives in Westchester County, just
outside New York City, touching off an intense search by health investigators
across the region to determine whether he had infected others.
The inquiry stretched from a hospital in Bronxville, N.Y.,
to a nearby high school, to both a law office and a college campus in
Manhattan. The effort provided one of the first glimpses in New York of the
kind of comprehensive efforts that health officials in countries across the
world have mounted to stem to spread of the coronavirus.
New York health officials were tracking down doctors and
nurses who treated the man in a hospital for days before he was confirmed to
have the illness — and placing some in quarantine. And they were growing
concerned that his son, a college student who officials believe lives in
university housing, might be showing symptoms of the illness, too, raising
fears of further transmission.
“I think we have to assume this contagion will grow,” George
Latimer, the Westchester County executive, said at a news conference on
Tuesday.
The man became ill on Feb. 22 and was admitted to a hospital
in Westchester on Feb. 27., according to Dr. Demetre C. Daskalakis, the deputy
commissioner for disease control at New York City’s Department of Health and
Mental Hygiene. Officials acknowledged that the patient might have exposed
doctors, nurses and others to the illness.
“We believe that a couple of the medical professionals have
been quarantined,” Mr. Latimer said, adding that state health officials were
examining “what exposure might exist” to the staff at that medical facility,
the NewYork-Presbyterian Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville.
The patient has since been transferred to a Manhattan
hospital. He is a lawyer who lives in New Rochelle, N.Y., and works in
Manhattan.
Two of the man’s children have links to New York City. One
child attends a Jewish high school in the Bronx’s Riverdale neighborhood, and
the school was closed on Tuesday as a precaution. The other, the college
student, attends Yeshiva University but had not been on campus since Feb. 27,
according to a statement released by the school. Additionally, the statement
said, a student at the university’s law school was in self-quarantine after
having contact with the law firm where the Westchester man works.
City officials said the stricken man’s son, the Yeshiva
student, exhibited light symptoms that could be the coronavirus, or perhaps
nothing at all.
The city’s disease detectives were trying to recreate the
son’s movements to learn whom he had close contact with. They have also been in
touch with the small Midtown law firm where the Westchester man works and they
have spoken with the man’s close colleagues to evaluate their level of
exposure, officials said.” (D)
“New Jersey has yet to see any cases and state officials
insist the public health system is ready to respond, but it is now a question
of when — not if — coronavirus will be discovered in the Garden State…
“My Administration is
actively engaged in a multi-level, whole-of-government approach — from our
hospitals, to our schools, to our ports — to implement a preparedness and
response plan for the potential spread of the coronavirus in New Jersey,”
Murphy said. “Together, we are prepared to respond properly and swiftly to any
future individuals who meet the (CDC) guidelines for coronavirus testing.”
The DOH has also launched a webpage with a host of resources
for communities, businesses and schools. Persichilli said she is working with
other government officials, local health departments and hospital leaders to
ensure they are planning properly for a potential outbreak.
“As you know, hospitals are on the front line of this
response,” Persichilli said. “We are actively working with the (New Jersey
Hospital Association) and hospitals directly to ensure they have sufficient
plans in place to prepare for and respond to a surge in ill patients or a
(medical goods) supply chain disruption.”
The CDC also issued new guidance for hospitals designed to
help them maintain proper stocks of medical supplies, including very limited
re-use of certain respirators used by clinical staff. NJHA president and CEO
Cathy Bennett, who previously served as state health commissioner, said this
input allows facilities to help plan how best to protect staff and patients.
“The updated testing criteria can be helpful in improving
disease surveillance,” Bennett added. “The more insight the better in honing
our preparations and response.”
State Department of Education Commissioner Lamont O.
Repollet, who joined Murphy’s briefing, said his department has been working to
update school districts on the outbreak and urged local leaders to remain in contact
with county school officials, who are serving as a conduit to the state. He
reminded districts they should already have in place a policy for home
instruction, consider rescheduling group events, and properly report any
communicable diseases identified at school.
Repollet also reminded school officials not to allow concern
about coronavirus to evolve into fear, stigma or racism against individuals of
Chinese or other Asian descent. “Let’s make sure we are better than that.
Stigma hurts everyone. Bullying and harassment hurt everyone,” he said.” (E)
“As confirmed cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus spread in
the U.S. this week, school leaders nationwide are preparing for their
worst-case scenario emergency plans. Some are already shutting down schools or
considering online learning if the health threat persists.
And some are simply saying: Wash your hands.
So, who’s right? Perhaps everyone.
District leaders are right to emphasize hand washing,
staying home if you’re sick and covering your cough with a sleeve or tissue,
school and health leaders said. But they should also disclose their emergency
plans to parents about what will happen if the virus becomes more widespread –
even if it unnerves families, leaders said this week…
So far, the response from schools and health officials has
varied depending on whether a locality has confirmed cases – and experts’ views
on how much action is appropriate is rapidly evolving. But the uncertainty of
how far the virus will spread has put school leaders in a difficult spot of
projecting a sense of calm while also acting with an abundance of caution for
student safety…
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late last
week offered different guidance to schools and daycare centers depending on
whether they have a locally identified case of COVID-19.
For institutions that don’t have a confirmed case, the CDC
said schools should review and update their emergency plans, emphasize
hand-washing, communicate with local health departments and review attendance
policies – including dropping rewards for perfect attendance.
For institutions located in areas with COVID-19 cases, the
CDC recommends schools talk with their
local health officials before canceling classes. Together, they can determine
how long schools should be closed. And schools can also determine options for
distance or online learning so kids don’t fall behind…
In the event of a school closure, he said, “there’s
also a huge cost to not doing anything.”” (F)
“As state and local public health offices scramble to
respond to the coronavirus outbreak, they do so against a backdrop of years long
budget cuts, leaving them without the trained employees or updated equipment to
adequately address the virus’ growing threat, former public health officials
say.
In the past 15 years, public health, the country’s
front-line defense in epidemics, lost 45% of its inflation-adjusted funding for
staff, training, equipment and supplies. The Public Health Emergency Fund,
created for such disease or disaster relief, is long depleted. And much of the
money the federal government is racing to come up with now to combat the
COVID-19 outbreak will be pulled from other often-dire health needs and
probably will arrive too late to hire the needed personnel.
Florida, with two cases so far, and Washington, where six
deaths have been reported, have declared states of emergency, and state and
local officials there and elsewhere assure they have staff, equipment and
procedures ready. But early testing glitches in California, the failure to protect
federal health officials from the virus in cruise ship patients and a climbing
number of U.S. cases raise questions about that confidence.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told a Senate
panel last week that only about 30 million of the 300 million face masks needed
for health care workers are available.
“Once again, we’re not that prepared,” said Dr.
Boris Lushniak, a former deputy and acting U.S. surgeon general who spent 13
years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is now dean of
University of Maryland’s School of Public Health. “When those (basic public health
efforts) aren’t supported well, in the time of emergency you don’t have the
infrastructure to shift gears and go into emergency mode.”
The prospect of contending with an epidemic hits
often-ignored public health departments already taxed by at least 70 homegrown
threats, including a host of sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis.
It has been 16 months since President Donald Trump declared
opioid abuse a public health emergency and less than a year since Kentucky
warned it might have to close 42 of its county health departments amid the
country’s worst outbreak of Hepatitis A. In New York City, an explosion of
measles among unvaccinated children that ended just six months ago cost the
city more than $2 million to fight and involved 400 public health employees,
according to the Big Cities Health Coalition…
Time is also a problem, said Oscar Alleyne, program director
at the National Council of County and Local Health Officials. State and local
health departments have lost about 30,000 people over the past seven years, he
said, and now have to find or wait for money to hire recent public health
graduates and train them for these new, often short-term jobs.
It takes six to nine months to find and hire the people
capable of doing the testing and other surveillance work needed, said Dr. Lamar
Hasbrouck, a former CDC medical epidemiologist, who was Illinois’ health
secretary from 2012 to 2015.
“The time lag is so significant, by time the people get
hired, the whole thing can be over,” he said.
Dr. Nirav Shah, who was New York’s state health commissioner
from 2011 to 2014, said that in addition to supplies and other department
resources, funding will be needed for staff to trace the contacts of infected
people. He worries most about cuts to the Epidemiological Intelligence Service,
which can go straight to the source of the virus…
The health care system relies on public health agencies.
In a full-blown outbreak, coronavirus patients will be
spread across many hospitals that are usually competitors, so public health
agencies have to be the connective tissue that coordinates the response, said
Dr. Tom Talbot, chief hospital epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University Medical
Center.
“They are my heroes,” said Talbot, “because they are
drastically under funded and still on the front lines helping to fight this
thing.”” (G)
“Looser regulations on who can develop tests for the virus
will allow for a significant increase in the number of Americans likely to be
screened, the F.D.A. commissioner said.
The Trump administration said on Monday that it could have
the capacity for nearly a million tests for the coronavirus by the end of this
week, as the government prepares to escalate screening as the American death
toll reached six and U.S. infections topped 100.
Private companies and academic laboratories have been pulled
in to develop and validate their own coronavirus tests, a move to get around a
government bottleneck after a halting start, and to widen the range and number
of Americans screened for the virus, Dr. Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the
Food and Drug Administration, said Monday at a White House briefing…
“We expect to have a
substantial increase in the number of tests this week, next week and throughout
the month,” Dr. Hahn said, flanked by Vice President Mike Pence and top federal
health officials.
Dr. Hahn’s initial comments caused some confusion about the
number of tests that would be administered by the end of the week, but the
administration clarified that he was speaking of the capacity for increased
testing, not the number of Americans that would be tested. That number is still
unknown…
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview with NBC on Monday
that the virus had “reached outbreak proportions and likely pandemic
proportions.”..
Earlier in the day, Mr. Pence discussed the virus with the
nation’s governors, and later joined the president in the meeting with
pharmaceutical companies where Mr. Trump said he heard that a vaccine would be
ready in three to four months. Dr. Fauci, who was in the room, clarified that
deploying a vaccine was at least a year away…
Restrictions on testing have severely constrained local
health departments, which were desperate to catch up with and contain the
spread. Dow Constantine, the executive of King County, Wash., said the county
was preparing to buy a motel in the Seattle area where people who were infected
with the coronavirus could stay to remain isolated.
On Saturday, the F.D.A. said that hundreds of academic
medical centers that have developed and validated diagnostic materials for the
virus could begin testing patients immediately, even before the F.D.A.
completes an emergency authorization review, which laboratories run by states
and private companies have also applied for.” (H)
“Vice President Mike Pence said the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention was lifting all restrictions on testing for coronavirus,
and would be releasing new guidelines to fast-track testing for people who fear
they have the virus, even if they are displaying mild symptoms.
“Today we will issue new guidance from the C.D.C. that will
make it clear that any American can be tested, no restrictions, subject to
doctor’s orders,” Mr. Pence told reporters at the White House.
The federal government has promised to significantly ramp up
testing, after drawing criticism for strictly limiting testing in the first
weeks of the outbreak. But health care supply companies and public health
officials have cast doubt on the government’s assurances, as complaints
continue that the need for testing remains far greater than the capacity.
“The estimates we’re getting from industry right now — by
the end of this week, close to a million tests will be able to be performed,”
the head of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Stephen Hahn, said at a White
House briefing on Monday.
But some companies developing tests say their products are
still weeks away from approval.
And even if a million test kits were available, public
health laboratories say they would not be able to process nearly that many
within a week. A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said
on Monday that public health labs currently can test 15,000 people daily,
though that figure is expected to grow.” (I)
“An outbreak of coronavirus disease in a nursing home near
Seattle is prompting urgent calls for precautionary tactics at America’s elder
care facilities, where residents are at heightened risk of serious
complications from the illness because of the dual threat of age and close
living conditions.
As of Monday afternoon, the emergence of the novel
contagious illness at the Life Care Center of Kirkland, Washington, had left
four residents dead and others hospitalized, local health officials said. A
health care worker also has been hospitalized. In total, Washington state has
reported six deaths, officials said.
Officials previously said that of the nursing home’s 108
residents and 180 staff members, more than 50 have shown signs of possible
COVID-19 infections, the name given the illness caused by a novel coronavirus
that emerged from Wuhan, China, late last year. Visits from families,
volunteers and vendors have been halted and new admissions placed on hold,
according to a statement from Ellie Basham, the center’s executive director…
The situation may be akin to the spread of coronavirus on
cruise ships, such as the Diamond Princess that was quarantined off the coast
of Japan, with one key exception, Steinberg said. People on cruise ships can be
confined to their rooms with minimal interaction with staff and fellow
residents. People in nursing centers are there because they need help with
activities of daily living, he noted…
In the Washington state center, Duchin said, officials are
advising health workers to separate cohorts of sick patients from those who
remain well and to don personal protective gear, including eye protection, to
avoid infection. “It’s a very challenging environment with so many vulnerable
patients to manage an outbreak,” he said.” (J)
“New York is among the first states in the country to waive
some fees and expenses for people who undergo testing for the coronavirus, as
public health officials are increasingly worried that medical bills will
discourage the poor and uninsured from getting medical care.
The federal government is also considering paying for care
for those affected, possibly based on funds available through federal disaster
relief programs. There are “initial conversations,” Dr. Robert Kadlec, a senior
official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told Congress on
Wednesday.
In addition to the nation’s 27.5 million uninsured, some
lawmakers are concerned that the tens of millions who are underinsured —
Americans with high deductibles or limited insurance — may also be at risk of
unexpected expenses as more and more people are exposed to the virus.
The health insurance system “is designed to make you think
twice to seek care every time you get a runny nose, fever and cough,” said John
Graves, a health policy expert at Vanderbilt University. Even though
identifying people with the virus in the early stages is critical to preventing
a spread of the disease, Dr. Graves said, many people are likely to wait out
any symptoms to avoid expensive care.
New York said it would require some health insurance
companies to waive any cost sharing for coronavirus testing, including the cost
of going to the emergency room, doctor’s office or urgent care center if within
a plan’s network.
“Containing this virus depends on us having the facts about
who has it — and these measures will break down any barriers that could prevent
New Yorkers from getting tested,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a statement on
Monday.” (K)
Bergen New Bridge Medical Center said March 3 that it has
expanded its Telehealth service Bergen New Bridge Cares to screen patients for
COVID-19.
Along with partner Air Visits, Bergen New Bridge Cares
offers urgent-care screening and assessment by a licensed physician of patients
who have medical complaints and symptoms. Telehealth consultations with an
infectious disease physician are available if necessary. Patients can access
Bergen New Bridge Cares at 201-204-0712.
The COVID-19 screenings are based on the most current CDC
Evaluating and Reporting Persons Under Investigation (PUI) guidelines. If
further evaluation is necessary, a physician will evaluate each patient and
coordinate additional care.
“With the rapidly evolving health crisis, we felt extending
the reach of our services into the home was crucial in identifying patients and
expediting care while also limiting community exposure,” said Deborah Visconi,
president and CEO at Bergen New Bridge Medical Center.
“It is our hope that by putting our experts at the
fingertips of the community, people’s fears will be eased and they will be more
willing to seek early evaluation and treatment,” Visconi added.” (L)
“In early February, Royal Caribbean’s Anthem of the Seas
docked in Bayonne, New Jersey, in need of a hospital. The cruise ship was
carrying patients who had traveled from China, where an outbreak of COVID-19
had taken root. Four passengers needed to go somewhere for further medical
observation.
The obvious next step was University Hospital in Newark, a
major academic medical center equipped with isolation rooms. “The hospital is
following proper infection control protocols while evaluating these individuals,”
Gov. Phil Murphy said in a statement. The patients tested negative, but the
governor was clear. The state’s first coronavirus cases would go to University…
But infection control has been a recurring problem at some
of the very hospitals that would likely be called upon to treat COVID-19
patients, a ProPublica review of hundreds of hospital inspection reports found.
This raises concerns that they could become hotbeds for disease, putting
patients at risk and rendering infected workers unable to care for others.
“Health care workers are my top worry,” said Dr. Peter
Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of
Medicine in Houston. He noted that in China, so far, about 15% of infected
hospital workers have become severely ill. “If this takes place in the U.S.,
and we see those numbers of workers sent home or in the ICU, being taken care
of by their colleagues, things will start to unravel. This is the soft
underbelly of our preparedness system right now.”
At least two health care workers in Northern California had
preliminary positive tests for COVID-19 at NorthBay VacaValley Hospital,
pending CDC confirmation. The hospital had treated a patient who later tested
positive for the disease. Other health care workers who came into contact with
the patient are also in quarantine.
There is no list of designated centers to handle the most
critical COVID-19 patients, experts said. But the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, during the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak, named 55 hospitals it
considered to be in the first tier of treatment centers to handle that kind of
crisis — mostly large, urban teaching hospitals capable of complex care like
blood transfusions and ventilation.
ProPublica analyzed five years of federal hospital inspection
reports for these facilities and found violations for infection control
failures or other factors that could hamper the response to an outbreak at more
than half of them. About 1 in 5 of the facilities had four or more violations;
the analysis found more than a hundred overall. It’s not clear by looking at
the reports how many of the violations led to patient infections. Problems that
get cited on the inspection reports are required to be corrected as part of the
regulation process.
But it’s also true that inspections only flag a small number
of the actual problems in hospitals. American hospitals, overall, are so bad at
preventing infections that hospital-acquired infections are considered a
leading cause of death in the United States. The hope would be that the sites
designated as specialized infection-control centers would do better…
Medical experts say they wonder: if hospitals can’t control
the spread of pathogens under normal conditions, what happens if they face a
rush of patients with a disease as contagious and serious as the one caused by
COVID-19?
During the SARS outbreak in the greater Toronto area, 44% of
the total cases were among health care workers. A retrospective study,
published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases in 2004, hypothesized
that “lapses in infection control measures may be responsible,” noting that
caregivers were particularly at risk during procedures like intubation…” (M)
“I’m going to amend the paid sick leave bill that I sent to
the Legislature to where there is a specific provision that says people, who
because of this situation with coronavirus, have to be quarantine should be
protected,” the governor said. “Their employer should pay them for the period
of quarantine and their job should be protected. And I’m going to make that
available to be paid sick leave, bill that I sent up.”” (N)
“A cruise ship was being held off the coast of San Francisco
on Thursday amid fears that more than 3,500 passengers and crew may have been
exposed to the coronavirus blamed for almost 3,300 deaths worldwide.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the Grand Princess was
sailing with 62 passengers who company officials say had been on the ship’s
previous voyage with a 71-year-old man who eventually died from the virus. The
current cruise was scheduled to arrive in San Francisco on Wednesday but will
not return to port until testing can take place, Newsom said. Test kits were
being flown onto the ship, he said.
More than 20 passengers and crew members have developed
symptoms consistent with COVID-19, Newsom said.
“We will be able to test very quickly… to determine if
these individuals that are symptomatic just have traditional colds or the flu
or may have contracted the COVID-19 virus,” Newsom said.” (O)
“In the wake of a series of avoidable mistakes, Donald Trump
and his team have confronted quite a bit of criticism over their handling on
the coronavirus outbreak. For the most part, the president has responded by
arguing that the unflattering assessments are part of a “hoax” cooked
up by his political enemies.
Yesterday, however, during a White House event, Trump
switched gears a bit, implicitly acknowledging the missteps, but insisting that
Barack Obama deserves the blame. From the official transcript:
“[T]he Obama administration made a decision on testing
that turned out to be very detrimental to what we’re doing. And we undid that
decision a few days ago so that the testing can take place in a much more
accurate and rapid fashion. That was a decision we disagreed with. I don’t
think we would have made it, but for some reason it was made. But we’ve undone
that decision.”” (P)
“The House voted to approve a roughly $8 billion emergency
funding deal to address the coronavirus on Wednesday, the latest step in a race
to contain the outbreak that has killed nearly a dozen in the US.
It included more than $3 billion for the research and
development of vaccines and diagnostics, roughly $2.2 billion to fund public
health programs, and $1 billion for medical supplies and other preparedness
measures.” (Q)
CORONAVIRUS TRACKING –
Jonathan M. Metsch, Dr.P.H.
PARTS 1-11 (and
prequels). March 5, 2020
PART 1. January 21, 2020. “The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention on Tuesday confirmed the first U.S. case of a deadly new
coronavirus that has killed six people in China.”
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday
confirmed the first U.S. case of a deadly new coronavirus that has killed six
people in China.”
“Chinese researchers say they have identified a new virus
behind an illness that has infected dozens of people across Asia, setting off
fears in a region that was struck by a deadly epidemic 17 years ago.
There is no evidence that the new virus is readily spread by
humans, which would make it particularly dangerous, and it has not been tied to
any deaths. But health officials in China and elsewhere are watching it
carefully to ensure that the outbreak does not develop into something more
severe.
Researchers in China have “initially identified” the new
virus, a coronavirus, as the pathogen behind a mysterious, pneumonialike
illness that has sickened 59 people in the city of Wuhan and caused a panic in
the central Chinese region, the state broadcaster, China Central Television,
said on Thursday. They detected this virus in 15 of the people who fell ill,
the report said.
The new coronavirus “is different from previous human
coronaviruses that were previously discovered, and more scientific research is
needed for further understanding,” the report said.” (A)
“China released the genetic sequence of a new coronavirus
believed to be responsible for a cluster 0f unusual pneumonia cases in Wuhan.
Phylogenetic analysis shows the coronavirus to be closely related to SARS CoV,
the virus responsible for the SARS pandemic which began in China in 2003.
Further analysis is necessary, but this preliminary analysis
shows the virus is also quite similar to other SARS-related coronaviruses which
appear to be endemic to the area. Prior EcoHealth Alliance research has found
evidence that these viruses are spilling into human populations. We are also
conducting behavioral analysis with the goal of reducing risk for this
spillover.
The virus responsible for the current outbreak in Wuhan has
so far killed one person; fortunately it’s not currently believed that the
virus has the ability to spread human-to-human. Our work has shown that there
is a large diversity of coronaviruses that are endemic to China.” (B)
“Chinese officials confirmed Tuesday that six people have
died from a pneumonialike coronavirus, while raising the number of confirmed
cases of the illness to 300, sparking fears of an outbreak in the country. The
virus, which was first confirmed on Dec. 31 in the city of Wuhan, is believed
to have been transmitted from animals to humans, but Chinese health officials
now say they have evidence that human-to-human transmission is also possible,
potentially via saliva. The World Health Organization says the symptoms of the
virus are fever, cough, and respiratory difficulties such as shortness of
breath, all of which can, in serious cases, lead to pneumonia, kidney failure,
and, in the most severe cases, death.” (C)
“Officials in China are racing to contain the spread of a
new virus that has left at least six people dead and sickened more than 300,
after it was confirmed the infection can spread between humans.
Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the coronavirus was
first detected, announced a series of new measures Tuesday, including the
cancellation of upcoming Lunar New Year celebrations, expected to attract
hundreds of thousands of people.
Tour agencies have been banned from taking groups out of
Wuhan and the number of thermal monitors and screening areas in public spaces
will be increased. Traffic police will also conduct spot checks on private
vehicles coming in and out of the city to look for live poultry or wild
animals, after the virus was linked to a seafood and live animal market,
according to a report by state media outlet the People’s Daily, citing Wuhan’s
Municipal Health Commission.
The new measures come after Chinese President Xi Jinping
ordered “resolute efforts to curb the spread” of the virus Monday.
There are now fears, however, that efforts to contain it are
coming too late, hampered by a slow-moving Chinese bureaucracy which failed to
put sufficient measures in place in time.
In the coming days, hundreds of millions of Chinese are
expected to begin traveling across the country and overseas as the annual Lunar
New Year break gets fully underway, compounding concerns of a further spike in
cases.
Though infections were first detected in Wuhan in
mid-December, infrared temperature screening areas were not installed in the
city’s airports and stations until January 14, according to state media.
On Tuesday, China’s National Health Commission announced
that it had received 291 confirmed cases of the Wuhan coronavirus, with 77 new
cases reported on January 20.” (D)
“Earlier on Monday, Chinese authorities reported that the
number of cases had tripled over the weekend to 218. The outbreak has spread to
Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzen, hundreds of miles from Wuhan, where the virus
first surfaced last month.” (E)
“Thailand and Japan each reported new cases of a coronavirus
that has left two people dead and at least 40 sick in China, adding to concerns
about the spread of the virus beyond Chinese borders ahead of a major holiday.
Health officials in Thailand on Friday said they had found a
second case of the mysterious pneumonialike coronavirus in that country, in a
74-year-old Chinese woman. The woman is in good and stable condition, said a
spokesman for Thailand’s public health ministry, Rungrueng Kitphati.
The woman entered Thailand through Bangkok via a flight from
the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. Investigators
were still trying to gather information from the woman but have been hindered
by a language barrier, Mr. Rungrueng said.
On Thursday, Japan’s Health Ministry said that a Chinese man
in his 30s tested positive for the coronavirus. The man, a resident of Kanagawa
Prefecture, just south of Tokyo, returned to Japan on Jan. 6 after traveling to
Wuhan. The man, who came down with a fever on Jan. 3, was hospitalized on
Friday but was discharged five days later because he had recovered, according
to the Health Ministry.” (F)
“A British tourist is feared to have contracted the
mysterious coronavirus that’s sweeping Asia after he was hospitalized on a trip
to Thailand, according to a report.
Ash Shorley, 32, was admitted in critical condition to a
Phuket hospital, where he’s being treated for pneumonia-like lung infections,
the Sun reported.
Doctors believe his symptoms are consistent with the new
Chinese coronavirus, which has killed three patients and infected hundreds of
others.
“They think he is the first Western victim of the Chinese
flu,” his father, Chris, told the outlet. “We are waiting on tests.”” (G)
“Airports in New
York, San Francisco and Los Angeles will begin screening passengers arriving
from Wuhan, China, for infection with a mysterious respiratory virus that has
killed two people and sickened at least 45 overseas, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention announced on Friday.” (H)
“Officials this week also confirmed that the new
coronavirus, which is linked to a seafood and animal market in Wuhan, is
transmissible between humans. This ultimately sparked fears that a person
infected with the virus and experiencing the most severe stage of infection
could be a super-spreader — someone who
transmits the virus to a considerable more amount of people than the average
infected person, the South China Morning Post reported…
In response to the outbreak, the World Health Organization
(WHO) is holding an emergency meeting on Wednesday to determine whether or not
it should be considered an international public health emergency, according to
the South China Morning Post…
Australia is taking similar measures, with officials there
announcing Tuesday that the country will also begin screening passengers who
are arriving from Wuhan, according to The New York Times. Japan and South Korea
also announced increased airport screenings.
But even with screening measures, “You cannot absolutely
prevent entry into the country of a disease like this,” Brendan Murphy, the
chief medical officer for the Australian government, said, according to the
newspaper. Some people who are infected may not show symptoms, he explained.”
(I)
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday
confirmed the first U.S. case of a deadly new coronavirus that has killed six
people in China.
The CDC and Washington state officials said the man, in his
30s, was in good condition at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett.
The symptoms presented Sunday and the diagnosis was confirmed Monday.
Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for
Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, called the news “concerning.”
“We’re still in the early days of this investigation,”
Messonnier said.” (J)
A.China Identifies New Virus Causing Pneumonialike Illness,
by Sui-Lee Wee and Donald G. McNeil Jr.,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/health/china-pneumonia-outbreak-virus.html
B.Phylogenetic Analysis Shows Novel Wuhan Coronavirus
Clusters with SARS,
https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/2020/01/phylogenetic-analysis-shows-novel-wuhan-coronavirus-clusters-with-sars
C.Deadly Coronavirus in China Raises Fears of Outbreak as
Human Transmission Confirmed, by ELLIOT HANNON,
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/01/coronavirus-china-outbreak-human-transmission-airport-screen-pandemic.html
D.6 people dead, 300 infected as China confirms Wuhan virus
can be spread by humans, by James Griffiths and Nectar Gan,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/21/asia/china-china-coronavirus-sars-intl-hnk/index.html
E.China confirms new coronavirus can spread between humans,
by Nectar Gan, Yong Xiong and Eliza Mackintosh,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/19/asia/china-coronavirus-spike-intl-hnk/index.html
F.Japan and Thailand Confirm New Cases of Chinese
Coronavirus, by Sui-Lee Wee,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/world/asia/coronavirus-japan-china.html
G.British tourist feared to be victim of deadly new Chinese
coronavirus, by Jackie Salo, https://nypost.com/2020/01/20/british-tourist-feared-to-be-victim-of-deadly-new-chinese-coronavirus/?utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter
H.Three U.S. Airports to Check Passengers for a Deadly
Chinese Coronavirus, by Denise Grady, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/17/health/china-coronavirus-airport-screening.html
I.Coronavirus outbreak in China sparks ‘super-spreader’
fears as pneumonia-like illness sickens hundreds, by Madeline Farber,
https://www.foxnews.com/health/coronavirus-outbreak-china-sparks-super-spreader-fears
J.First US case of deadly coronavirus reported in Washington
state, CDC says, by John Bacon,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/01/21/china-coronavirus-outbreak-cdc-first-us-case-washington-state/4532063002/
PART 2. January 29, 2020. CORONAVIRUS. “If it’s not
contained shortly, I think we are looking at a pandemic..”….. “With isolated
cases of the dangerous new coronavirus cropping up in a number of states,
public health officials say it is only a matter of time before the virus
appears in New York City.”
CORONAVIRUS. “If it’s not contained shortly, I think we are
looking at a pandemic..”….. “With isolated cases of the dangerous new
coronavirus cropping up in a number of states, public health officials say it
is only a matter of time before the virus appears in New York City.”
In July of 2009 the Mayor of Hoboken asked me to initiate a
H1N1 “Swine Flu” Task Force. We started with a set of questions based on
reports from communities that had already experienced a Swine Flu surge:
Health Officer: Where vaccination sites should be
established? Is there a special plan to monitor restaurants and food shops
where flu-related safety guidelines need to be strictly enforced? Who will
start preparing a Community Education plan?
Hospital: What is the back-up plan if hospital becomes
“contaminated” and is closed to admissions, or if nursing staff is depleted by
flu-related absenteeism, etc.? ICU triage? Availability of respirators?
OEM: off-site
screening centers if hospital ER is on overload
Hoboken Volunteer Ambulance Corps: “mutual assist” plan
Hoboken Police Department & Hoboken Fire Department:
back-up plan if the ranks get depleted by the flu
BOE: criteria in deciding whether or not to close schools
Stevens Institute of Technology: surveillance and plan for
(college) students
“Field Manual” for the Mayor
Interestingly Swine Flu never flourished in the Hoboken area
probably due to herd immunity acquired from the Swine Flu in 2008 in New York
City, where many Hobokenites work and visit.
Acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory
illness caused by a coronavirus, called SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV).
SARS was first reported in Asia in February 2003 and the illness spread to more
than two dozen countries in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia
before the SARS global outbreak was contained. According to the World Health
Organization (WHO), a total of 8,098 people worldwide became sick with SARS
during the 2003 outbreak. Of these, 774 died. In the United States, only eight
people had laboratory evidence of SARS-CoV infection. All of these people had
traveled to other parts of the world with SARS.” (A)
With SARS preparedness underway in NJ LibertyHealth/ Jersey
City Medical Center, where I was President, proposed that our 100 bed community
hospital with all single-bedded rooms, be immediately transformed into an
EMERGENCY SARS ISOLATION Hospital.
The Hospital was in a small town at the intersection of many
major highways. It could be easily secured since it had no immediately
contiguous neighbors. It had a helicopter pad. Its patients could be easily
transferred. And it could be managed by the Public Health Service or military
medicine if necessary.
It didn’t happen!
“We understand that many people in the Unites States are
worried about this virus,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National
Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (part of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention).
“At this time, in the U.S., the virus is not spreading in
the community,” she added. “For that reason we continue to believe that the
immediate health risk from the new virus to the general public is low at this
time.”
In the U.S., 110 individuals from 26 states are being
investigated to determine whether they have coronavirus. Of those individuals,
32 have tested negative, five have tested positive, and the remaining test
results are pending.
No new coronavirus cases have been diagnosed overnight,
according to the CDC, and all five cases were in people who had traveled to
China. Two of those five cases are in Southern California and Chicago,
Washington state and Arizona have each reported one coronavirus case…
Five U.S. airports, in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Chicago and Atlanta, continue to screen passengers from Wuhan for
pneumonia-like symptoms, such as fever and respiratory problems. So far,
airports have screened about 2,400 passengers, with screenings declining
following strict travel bans and a quarantine in Wuhan…
The CDC is in the process of developing a real-time
diagnostic test to identify the virus and is hoping to quickly roll that test
out to states. For now, all samples are being sent to the CDC in Atlanta, a
process which takes about a day, from the time clinicians and the CDC agree to
test a patient for coronavirus until results come back from Atlanta. Other
countries are doing similar centralized testing, Messonnier explained. While
speed is important, accurate testing is the agency’s priority.
While a report in the Lancet, published Jan. 24, suggested
that people who contract coronavirus might be able spread the disease before
they develop symptoms, Messonnier maintained that the CDC has “no clear
evidence” of patients’ being infectious before symptom onset. For now, the
virus’ incubation period is believed to be between two and 14 days..
The World Health Organization did not declare a public
health emergency of international concern last week, after deliberating for two
days over the decision.” (C)
“It appears to be very well contained,” Mark Parrish,
regional medical director of Northern Europe at International SOS, told CNBC
Tuesday.
“The Chinese have done some extraordinary things,
identifying the virus and its molecular structures and then instigating those
quarantine measures in China where they have shut down these huge cities and
stopped all movement. It’s come at a really bad time of the year … It’s likely
to have moved around China.”
“It appears though that the death rate remains at about 2%
to 3%, it seems to be very well contained at the moment,” he said.
“Putting it into perspective, 100 deaths or so, so far, all
in elderly people and those that have other co-existing diseases unfortunately.
And those are the ones that are most likely to be affected by this as their
respiratory systems find it difficult to deal with these things.”..
Global media organizations have fixated on whether the
outbreak will be declared a “global health emergency” by the World Health
Organization (WHO). Currently, the WHO has the virus at a “high risk” level
after admitting on Monday its error in initially stating (last week) that the
global risk was “moderate.”
Christian Lindmeier, spokesperson for the WHO, told CNBC
Tuesday that the assessment was done by a group of independent experts and that
the situation would be re-evaluated “very soon.”
He said there was definitely a crisis in China “but
declaring this a public health emergency of international concern is another
step. It means that internationally this is spreading and is transmitting from
human to human internationally.
“So not only a traveler carrying it from China into another
country and it being contained there, but it spreading onward from there and
this is something we’ve not yet seen, let’s be very clear about this,” he said.
Although it has not happened yet, Lindmeier said it would
not be surprising if the virus spread further. He said health systems should
closely monitor the situation and “be aware that this is what could come to
their shores.”..
“The jury’s still out just how bad it will be, but when you
think that the number of cases has doubled in one day, that’s very worrisome,”
he said.” (D)
“With isolated cases of the dangerous new coronavirus
cropping up in a number of states, public health officials say it is only a
matter of time before the virus appears in New York City.
As a result, hospitals have been on the lookout for patients
with recent travel involving Wuhan, the Chinese city where the coronavirus is
believed to have originated. And they have urged those who recently traveled
there — or who have been in contact with someone who has — to quickly seek
medical care if they have any respiratory or flulike symptoms.
“It’s inevitable that we will have someone who is positive
with coronavirus,” New York City’s health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, said
Sunday.
Some of the last passengers to arrive at Kennedy
International Airport on the last direct flights from Wuhan before they were
canceled were quarantining themselves at home. One man told of how he had
confined himself to his house in Queens, as friends left special Lunar New Year
meals on his doorstep.
So far, state officials have sought testing for nine
patients who were deemed potential cases of the new coronavirus, sending
samples to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing.
Four of those patients were found not to have the virus, and
the tests involving the other five are still pending, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said
Monday in a statement.
When the first case does arrive, health officials said, that
patient may end up in a biocontainment unit in Bellevue Hospital or sent home
to ride out the illness in his or her bedroom. That will depend largely on how
sick they are, public health officials say…
By and large, the message to the public has been one of
reassurance. “We are encouraging New Yorkers to go about their everyday lives
and suggest practicing everyday precautions that we do through the flu season,”
Dr. Barbot said.
But there is considerable anxiety and debate over the proper
precautions within the city’s Chinatowns. That has only grown in the past few
days as more alarming news has emerged out of Wuhan about the virus’s spread.
So far more than 4,500 people have been sickened and more than 100 people have
died.” (E)
“New York’s colleges, which enroll some 50,000 students from
China, put out warnings to be on alert for symptoms of the deadly coronavirus
as classes started up again for the spring semester.
Most of the Chinese students in the state are studying in
the New York City area, according to the Institute for International
Education’s most recent report.
New York University, which has upwards of 19,000
international students — more than any other college in the country — said it
reached out to students from China’s Wuhan region, where the virus originated,
and “provided them with information about the symptoms, instructed them to
check in with us if they are experiencing those symptoms, reminded them about
the availability of NYU health services.”
Spring semester classes begin Monday at NYU. A college
spokesman would not say how many students come from the Wuhan area.” (F)
“The first U.S. patient, an unidentified man in his 30s, had
traveled to the Wuhan area at the end of last year. He fell ill shortly after
flying back to the U.S., where he lives north of Seattle.
In Washington state, health agencies have identified more
than 60 people who came in close contact with the infected man before he was
hospitalized in Everett, a city in Snohomish County outside Seattle.
The case quickly grabbed headlines, but it didn’t rattle
local health clinic workers who had recently geared up to handle another
infectious disease.
“The measles really kind of enlightened everybody about
‘Wow, there are a lot of things out there that can be really contagious and can
get you really sick, really fast,’ ” says Tove Skaftun, the chief nursing
officer for the Community Health Center of Snohomish County.
Skaftun says she’s glad that last year’s outbreak forced
them to improve how they approach these situations.
“We’ve recently grown our infection-control program so it’s
kind of at the forefront of a lot of what we do,” says Skaftun.
She says that effort focused on educating staff about the
correct precautions to take when faced with different kinds of infectious
diseases — including wearing protective air-purifying respirators when in
contact with patients who may be infected…
The patient in Seattle first went to a local health clinic
when he started showing symptoms. Once it became clear he was at risk for
coronavirus, he was transported to Providence Regional Medical Center in
Everett, a hospital north of Seattle, where he was treated in isolation. He
remains in “satisfactory” condition, according to the Washington State
Department of Health.
Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips, the chief clinical officer at
Providence St. Joseph Health, which runs that hospital, says it was set up to
handle high-level infectious pathogens during the Ebola scare of 2014.
“All types of infrastructure had been put in place to ensure
that when something came around we’d be ready,” says Compton-Phillips.
Those include specialized gurneys to keep patients isolated
while they’re wheeled around the hospital, robots that can listen to patients’
lungs and take blood pressure, and rooms with negative-pressure air flow so
germs aren’t circulated throughout the rest of the hospital…
She says staff have practiced getting ready for an
infectious outbreak pretty recently. Last year, Clark County, Wash., which is
part of suburban Portland, Ore., had an alarming outbreak of 71 cases of
measles, mostly among unvaccinated children…
“There are a lot of unknowns,” says Janet Baseman, professor
of epidemiology at the University of Washington. “The best thing public health
can do now is assume that it will be similar to other coronavirus outbreaks we
have seen in recent years until proven otherwise.”
“Being overprepared is the name of the game,” she says.” (G)
“The emergency call was made to Hackensack University
Medical Center late Thursday night.
A doctor’s office was sending a woman in her mid-20s to the
emergency room, according to reports, with a suspected case of coronavirus, the
deadly novel virus sweeping through China and much of Asia.
The alert turned out to be a false alarm: The patient did
not have the coronavirus. Although a relief, it was a scenario hospitals across
the state have been bracing for as fears mount that this new, mysterious virus
will spread to New Jersey.
Emergency rooms throughout the Garden State are ramping up
their procedures in preparation for the time when a patient does arrive with
the deadly virus.
“The key is to recognize it early so you can isolate early,
and that prevents the likelihood of spreading in our facility and to other
patients and employees,” Dr. Jerry Zuckerman, vice president of infection
prevention and control at Hackensack Meridian Health System, told NJ Advance
Media…
Experts determined the patient who entered the Hackensack
emergency room Thursday night was not infected with the virus after an
evaluation, a spokeswoman for Hackensack Meridian Health said. Zuckerman
declined to discuss the patient, but shed some light on how such a virus is
contained in an emergency room.
The protocols are anything but high-tech. But they work,
Zuckerman said.
Interview the patient. Mask the patient. Isolate the
patient.
That’s it.
It may sound rudimentary, but that is all that stands
between the virus spreading or being contained.
First, patients are interviewed to determine whether they’ve
visited the outbreak’s place of origin. Then patients are masked and isolated,
before being placed in an airborne infection isolation room — also called a
negative pressure room. These rooms isolate pathogens.
If medical personnel must enter an isolation room, they have
to wear respirator masks, gloves and goggles — think of the protective gear
worn in the 1995 Dustin Hoffman film, “Outbreak.”..
“Although this novel
virus in understandably a cause for concern, it is important for New Jersey
residents to know that the risk to the public remains low,” Health Commissioner
Judith Persichilli said in the Department of Health statement.
“The New Jersey Department of Health works with hospitals
and local health departments throughout respiratory virus and flu season on
hundreds of disease outbreaks each year and we are prepared — along with our
partners — to respond to potential novel coronavirus cases.”” (H)
“The Chinese city of Wuhan is rapidly building a new
1,000-bed hospital to treat victims of a new coronavirus, mobilising machinery
to get it ready by early next week, state media said…
The new hospital is being built around a holiday complex
originally intended for local workers, set in gardens by a lake on the
outskirts of the city, the official Changjiang Daily reported on Friday.
Prefabricated buildings which will have 1,000 beds will be put up, it said.
Building machinery, including 35 diggers and 10 bulldozers,
arrived at the site on Thursday night, with the aim to get the new facility
ready by Monday, the paper added.
“The construction of this project is to solve the shortage
of existing medical resources” the report said.
“Because it will be prefabricated buildings, it will not
only be built fast but it also won’t cost much.”” (I)
“How is China able to build a hospital in six days?
“China has a record of getting things done fast even for
monumental projects like this,” says Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global
health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
He points out that the hospital in Beijing in 2003 was built
in seven days so the construction team is probably attempting to beat that
record. Just like the hospital in Beijing, the Wuhan centre will be made out of
prefabricated buildings.
“This authoritarian country relies on this top down
mobilisation approach. They can overcome bureaucratic nature and financial
constraints and are able to mobilise all of the resources.”
Mr Huang said that engineers would be brought in from across
the country in order to complete construction in time.
“The engineering work is what China is good at. They have
records of building skyscrapers at speed. This is very hard for westerners to
imagine. It can be done,” he added.
In terms of medical supplies, Wuhan can either take supplies
from other hospitals or can easily order them from factories.
On Friday, the Global Times confirmed 150 medical personnel
from the People’s Liberation Army had arrived in Wuhan. However it did not
confirm if they would be working in the new hospital once it has been
built.” (J)
“Some infectious disease experts are warning that it may no
longer be feasible to contain the new coronavirus circulating in China. Failure
to stop it there could see the virus spread in a sustained way around the world
and even perhaps join the ranks of respiratory viruses that regularly infect
people.
“The more we learn about it, the greater the possibility is
that transmission will not be able to be controlled with public health
measures,” said Dr. Allison McGeer, a Toronto-based infectious disease
specialist who contracted SARS in 2003 and who helped Saudi Arabia control
several hospital-based outbreaks of MERS.
If that’s the case, she said, “we’re living with a new human
virus, and we’re going to find out if it will spread around the globe.” McGeer
cautioned that because the true severity of the outbreak isn’t yet known, it’s
impossible to predict what the impact of that spread would be, though she noted
it would likely pose significant challenges to health care facilities.
The pessimistic assessment comes from both researchers
studying the dynamics of the outbreak—the rate at which cases are rising in and
emerging from China—and infectious diseases experts who are parsing the first
published studies describing cases to see if public health tools such as
isolation and quarantine could as effective in this outbreak as they were in
the 2003 SARS epidemic…
China’s health minister, Ma Xiaowei, warned Sunday that the
virus seems to be becoming more transmissible and the country—which has taken
unprecedentedly draconian steps to control the virus—was entering a “crucial
stage.”..
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of National Center for
Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, said the agency knows transmission of the virus within the United
States may be on the horizon.
“We’re leaning far forward. And we have been every step of
the way with an aggressive stance to everything we can do in the U.S.,” she
told STAT. “And yet those of us who have been around long enough know that
everything we do might not be enough to stop this from spreading in the U.S.”
To date, at least 14 countries and territories outside of
mainland China have reported nearly 60 cases. There have been no reports yet of
unchecked spreading from those imported cases to others…
“If it’s not
contained shortly, I think we are looking at a pandemic,” Bedford said, though
he cautioned that it’s impossible to know at this point how severe that type of
event would be…
“I’m not making a
prediction that it’s going to happen,” Inglesby said, though he noted the
mathematical modeling, the statements from Chinese authorities, and the sharply
rising infection numbers make a case for this possible outcome. “I think just
based on those pieces of limited information, it’s important for us to begin some
planning around the possibility that this won’t be contained.”” (K)
“Laurie Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer,
told Yahoo Finance that despite swelling panic over the spread of coronavirus,
people should be “realistic” about the infection and the protections they
employ against it.
“One of the smart ways to approach thinking about ‘how do
you protect yourself,’ is to ask, well, when somebody here in the office has a
common cold, and they’re sneezing all over the place, how do you make yourself
not get the cold?” asked Garrett, the author of “The Coming Plague,” a book
about emerging deadly diseases.
“Social distancing; that’s step number one. Keep your
distance from other people” in order to avoid contracting or spreading an
infection, Garrett told “The Final Round.” Cleanliness and personal hygiene is
also of utmost concern, she added.
“For yourself, think of your hands as your number one
problem: anything you touch that’s a common surface,” the author said,
explaining that the same principle governs why people are discouraged from
sharing utensils or cups.
“Here, in New York City, we think about the subways, we
think about how we move around in the city; the answer, if you’re nervous, is
wear gloves. Then take your gloves and wash them at night,” Garrett said. “If
it’s socially required to shake hands, wash your hands afterwards.”…
Garrett said that “…unlike SARS, which only is contagious
when you have a fever, this one seems to be contagious when you don’t even know
that you’ve been infected, and the incubation time is much longer.”
While SARS only took three to five days to incubate, the
coronavirus “is going out ten days. That means that, potentially, individuals
are contagious to others for ten days, without knowing it, traveling about and doing
whatever they do with their daily life and infecting so many other people.”
The author also argued that official numbers are “grossly
underestimating” the true toll of infections.
“They have a lag time in testing people; they don’t have
enough test kits; they have lines around the block, in Wuhan, of people trying
to get tested,” says Garrett. “It’s wholly backed up.”” (L)
“A flight carrying about 200 American evacuees landed
Wednesday at a US military base in Southern California after leaving the
epicenter of the deadly coronavirus outbreak in China.
The flight — operated by Kalitta Air out of Ypsilanti
Township, Michigan — was seen taxiing down the runway shortly after 8 a.m. (11
a.m. ET). Several law enforcement vehicles greeted it on the tarmac, their
lights flashing…
The US Defense Department will work with the US Department
of Health and Human Services, which includes the CDC, to provide housing and,
if any individuals are ill, care at a local civilian hospital, Defense
Department spokeswoman Alyssa Fara said.
In Alaska, officials conducted two health screenings after
prior screenings in China. The CDC cleared all passengers to continue on to
California, Alaska officials said.
Passengers were screened in an isolated area of the
Anchorage airport’s north terminal, which handles international flights, and
had no impact on general travel, airport manager Jim Szczesniak said.
The CDC will work with airport officials to clean the
terminal, and there are no international flights scheduled at the airport until
May, he said…
Precautions were taken to separate the crew on the plane’s
upper level from the passengers on the plane’s lower level, she said, and the
crew did not disembark in China.
“These individuals will be screened before they take off;
monitored during the duration of the flight by medical personnel on board;
screened again on landing to refuel in Anchorage, Alaska; monitored on the last
leg of the flight by medical personnel on board; evaluated upon arrival at
March Air Reserve Base … and then monitored for symptoms post-arrival,” the CDC
said.
The passengers may be forced to stay in isolation between
three days and two weeks, an official said.
Priority was given to US citizens at risk
The passengers include US diplomats and their families. The
State Department said US citizens could board on a reimbursable basis if space
was available.
While there are about 1,000 Americans living in Wuhan,
priority was given to US citizens who are “most at risk for contracting
coronavirus” if they stay in the city, the State Department said.” (M)
“How would you describe the rate of spread?
Honestly, we don’t know, and part of the reason that it’s
continuing at this point in time is because testing is just becoming available.
So, while we’re seeing a big bolus [large number] of diagnosed cases, we don’t
yet know when they were actually infected.
What we’re waiting for from the World Health Organization is
the “epi curve,” which is the graph that shows, by date, the number of new
cases and the date of onset of their symptoms. It may be that we’ve been seeing
200 cases a day over 10 days, or it may be that we saw 3 cases, and then we saw
15 and then we saw 100 and then we saw 500 and now a thousand.
We just don’t understand yet whether the case count is due
to accelerating spread, or is that just kind of an artificial understanding
because of the way the tests are being deployed and the diagnoses are coming
in…
How should health officials communicate with the public?
In any frightening new situation, trust is the most
important thing. And when you don’t have all of the facts and you’re not sure
about what’s going on, maintaining your credibility and your trust are of
paramount importance. If you’re going to try to influence what people do or how
they decide to manage themselves in a situation like this, you have a lot
better chance of helping them decide to do the right thing if they trust you.
So that means first and foremost, telling them the truth.
Tell them what you know is going on, tell them what you wish you knew but
don’t. Then it’s important to tell them what you’re doing to get answers and,
above all, that you promise that when you have new information, you will share
it in a timely manner.
If you can keep that cadence going in an outbreak, people
will trust you because you do what you say, and they will come to rely upon you
as a credible source of updated information.” “(N)
Here are my main takeaways from that experience for ordinary
people on the ground:
1. Wash your hands frequently.
2. Don’t go to the office when you are sick. Don’t send your
kids to school or day care when they are ill, either.
Notice I didn’t say anything about masks. Having a mask with
you as a precaution makes sense if you are in the midst of an outbreak, as I
was when out reporting in the field during those months. But wearing it
constantly is another matter. I donned a mask when visiting hospitals where
SARS patients had been housed. I wore it in the markets where wild animals that
were the suspected source of the outbreak were being butchered, blood droplets
flying. I wore it in crowded enclosed spaces that I couldn’t avoid, like
airplanes and trains, as I traveled to cities involved in the outbreak, like
Guangzhou and Hong Kong. You never know if the guy coughing and sneezing two rows
ahead of you is ill or just has an allergy.
But outdoors, infections don’t spread well through the air.
Those photos of people walking down streets in China wearing masks are dramatic
but uninformed. And remember if a mask has, perchance, intercepted viruses that
would have otherwise ended up in your body, then the mask is contaminated. So,
in theory, to be protected maybe you should use a new one for each outing.
The simple masks are better than nothing, but not all that
effective, since they don’t seal well. For anyone tempted to go out and buy the
gold standard, N95 respirators, note that they are uncomfortable. Breathing is
more work. It’s hard to talk to people. On one long flight at the height of the
outbreak, on which my few fellow passengers were mostly epidemiologists trying
to solve the SARS puzzle, many of us (including me) wore our masks for the
first couple of hours on the flight. Then the food and beverage carts
came.” (O)
“The spread of a fast-moving virus outside of China is of
“grave concern” and has prompted the World Health Organization to reconvene an
emergency meeting this week to decide whether it’s become a global health
emergency, WHO officials said Wednesday.
The coronavirus has spread to a handful of people through
human-to-human contact outside of China, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of
the WHO’s health emergencies program, said at a news conference at the
organization’s Geneva headquarters Wednesday.
“These developments in terms of the evolution of the
outbreak and further development of transmission, these are of grave concern
and has spurred countries into action,” Ryan said, adding that he just returned
from China on Wednesday. “What we know at this stage, this is still obviously a
very active outbreak and information is being updated and changing by the
hour.”” (P)
B.B. S. POLLAK HOSPITAL (FORMER) – JERSEY CITY NJ,
https://livingnewdeal.org/projects/old-bs-pollak-hospital-jersey-city-nj/
C.New coronavirus ‘not spreading’ in the US, CDC says, by
Erin Schumaker,
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/coronavirus-spreading-us-cdc/story?id=68560892
D.Health experts call for calm as coronavirus cases rise, by
Holly Ellyatt, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/28/coronavirus-health-experts-urge-calm-over-virus.html
E.New York Braces for Coronavirus: ‘It’s Inevitable’, by
Joseph Goldstein and Jeffrey E. Singer,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/nyregion/new-york-city-coronavirus.html
F.New York colleges on coronavirus alert as classes begin,
by Melissa Klein,
https://nypost.com/2020/01/25/new-york-colleges-on-coronavirus-alert-as-classes-begin/
G.Response To 1st Coronavirus Case In Washington State Draws
On Lessons From Measles, by WILL STONE, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/01/28/800248710/response-to-1st-coronavirus-case-in-washington-state-draws-on-lessons-from-measl
H.After coronavirus false alarm, see how one N.J. hospital
is preparing for the real thing, by Spencer Kent https://www.nj.com/healthfit/2020/01/after-coronavirus-false-alarm-nj-emergency-rooms-ramp-up-protocols.html
I.Wuhan virus: China building 1,000-bed hospital over the
weekend to treat coronavirus patients,
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/china-building-1000-bed-hospital-over-the-weekend-to-treat-coronavirus
J.Coronavirus: How can China build a hospital so quickly?,
by Sophie Williams, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51245156
K.Experts Warn of Possible Sustained Global, by Helen
Branswell, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-warn-of-possible-sustained-global-spread-of-new-coronavirus/
L.Author: Protect yourself against coronavirus infection
with one simple step, by Olivia Balsamo,
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-to-protect-yourself-against-coronavirus-152101500.html
M.US evacuees from China land at California military base as
coronavirus outbreak grows, by Eliott C. McLaughlin and Faith Karimi, https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/29/health/us-coronavirus-evacuation-wednesday/index.htmlBeginning
to look ‘pretty intense’:
N.Former CDC head who led U.S. SARS response speaks about
coronavirus, by Erika Edwards, https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/beginning-look-pretty-intense-former-cdc-head-who-led-u-n1124531
O.How to Avoid the Coronavirus? Wash Your Hands, by
Elisabeth Rosenthal,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/opinion/coronavirus-prevention-tips.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
P.WHO officials say coronavirus spread outside of China is
of ‘grave concern’, Berkeley Lovelace Jr.,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/29/who-officials-say-coronavirus-spread-outside-of-china-is-of-grave-concern.html
(The old B.S. Pollak Hospital, part of the old Jersey City
Medical Center, was constructed with federal funds during the Great Depression.
The building is now privately owned.
“The Pollak Hospital facility was formerly the site of a
three-story building constructed in 1918 for the Jersey City School for
Crippled Children. It was taken over as the Infectious Disease Hospital and in
1934 received a loan of $2,996,000 by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation
for a new county tuberculosis hospital. The 250-bed facility was eventually
named for Dr. B.S. Pollak and became noted for the treatment of chest diseases.
When completed in 1936, the 22-floor hospital, at 320 feet, was the tallest
building in Jersey City until 1989 with the construction of Exchange Place
Center at 490 feet.”) (B)
PART 3. February 3, 2020. “The Wuhan coronavirus
spreading from China is now likely to become a pandemic that circles the
globe…”..Trump appeared to downplay concerns about the flu-like virus …We’re
gonna see what happens, but we did shut it down..” (D)
“The Wuhan coronavirus spreading from China is now likely to
become a pandemic that circles the globe…”..Trump appeared to downplay concerns
about the flu-like virus …We’re gonna see what happens, but we did shut it
down..” (D)
The prospect is daunting. A pandemic — an ongoing epidemic
on two or more continents — may well have global consequences, despite the
extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now imposed by China and
other countries, including the United States.
Scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus
is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much damage a pandemic might
cause. But there is growing consensus that the pathogen is readily transmitted
between humans.
The Wuhan coronavirus is spreading more like influenza,
which is highly transmissible, than like its slow-moving viral cousins, SARS
and MERS, scientists have found.
“It’s very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is
going to be a pandemic,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
“But will it be catastrophic? I don’t know.”
In the last three weeks, the number of lab-confirmed cases
has soared from about 50 in China to more than 17,000 in at least 23 countries;
there have been more than 360 deaths.
But various epidemiological models estimate that the real
number of cases is 100,000 or even more. While that expansion is not as rapid
as that of flu or measles, it is an enormous leap beyond what virologists saw
when SARS and MERS emerged.” (A)
“The World Health Organization declared a global health
emergency on Thursday as the coronavirus outbreak spread well beyond China,
where it emerged last month.
The move reversed the organization’s decision just a week
ago to hold off such a declaration. Since then, there have been thousands of
new cases in China and clear evidence of human-to-human transmission in several
other countries, including the United States.
All of which warranted a reconsideration by the W.H.O.’s
emergency committee, officials said.
The declaration “is not a vote of no confidence in China,”
said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director-general. “On the
contrary, the W.H.O. continues to have confidence in China’s capacity to
control the outbreak.”
The declaration comes now, he said, because of fears that
the coronavirus may reach countries with weak health care systems, where it
could run amok, potentially infecting millions of people and killing
thousands.” (B)
“The Donald Trump administration declared the coronavirus
outbreak to be a public health emergency in the United States on Friday,
setting quarantines of Americans who have recently been to certain parts of
China.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said it
was the first quarantine order issued by the federal government in over 50
years. Marty Cetron, director of CDC’s Division of Global Migration and
Quarantine, said the last time a quarantine was used was in the 1960s for
smallpox…
U.S. citizens who have been in China’s Hubei province during
the past 14 days and are returning to the U.S. States will undergo health
screenings and be monitored during mandatory quarantines of up to 14 days,
officials said.
Azar also announced a temporary suspension of entry into the
United States of foreign nationals who pose a risk for the transmission of the
coronavirus.
As a precaution, any U.S. citizen who has been anywhere else
in mainland China beyond Hubei province will be screened when they return for
evidence of coronavirus symptoms. They will also be subject to self-quarantines
of up to 14 days and monitored by local health officials.
All flights from China to the U.S. will be funneled to one
of seven airports that are designated ports of entry: New York, San Francisco,
Seattle, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta.” (C)
“The United States has taken decisive action to protect
Americans from the threat of a fast-moving coronavirus while offering help to
China, President Donald Trump said on Sunday, but a key adviser said Beijing
had not accepted the offers of assistance.
Trump appeared to downplay concerns about the flu-like virus
that has killed more than 300 people in China and spread to more than two dozen
countries, telling Fox television in an interview, “We’re gonna see what
happens, but we did shut it down, yes.” (D)
“People showing no symptoms appear to be able to spread the
novel coronavirus that has caused an outbreak in China and led world health
authorities to declare a global emergency, researchers reported Thursday in the
New England Journal of Medicine. If confirmed, the finding will make it much
harder to contain the virus.
The case described — from Germany — could help resolve one
of the major unknowns about the virus, which as of Thursday night had infected
nearly 9,700 people in China and killed 213. About 100 more infections have
been reported in 18 other countries, but no deaths.
Some viruses, including SARS, which is another coronavirus,
can only be passed when a person is showing symptoms. Others, like the flu, can
be spread a day or two before the onset of symptoms. If people are contagious
before they become sick, they can be unknowingly spreading the virus as they go
shopping or to work or to the movies. Trying to snuff out the virus in that
case is a much more difficult task.
What’s also concerning is that the spread from an
asymptomatic person appeared to lead to two generations of cases, meaning the
person who contracted the virus then passed it on to others.” (E)
“Close to 10,000 people have contracted the new coronavirus
that originated in Wuhan, China—more cases than SARS in 2003. So far, 213
people have died. The preliminary fatality rate for 2019-nCoV hovers around
3%—which is low, but still concerning because of the number of cases
accumulating.
But that fatality rate is likely to be higher in older adults.
Unofficial open-source data from researchers based in the UK and China show
that out of 41 deaths, 39 were in people over 50. Bloomberg reports similar
figures. While that’s not unexpected, it indicates the need for effective
therapies targeted at this population. And as the proportion of adults over 50
continues to increase globally, future pandemics could be deadlier than they’ve
been in the past…
There are two reasons older adults are more susceptible to
infections. First, seniors are more likely to have other chronic health
conditions, like diabetes or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, that make
it harder for their bodies to cope with damage caused by a new pathogen. Every
year, the majority of flu deaths are seen in people 65 or older.
Second, the immune system changes with age—particularly in
its ability to respond to coronaviruses. Unlike the flu virus, which does most
of the damage to your body on its own, most of the symptoms from coronavirus
infections actually come from the body’s immune response, Menachery says.
Although he and his lab team are still characterizing these reactions, it seems
like coronaviruses encourage older immune systems to kick in with extra
inflammation, which can have a cascading effect.” (F)
“Two more Americans, a husband and wife, were confirmed to
have the coronavirus late Sunday in the second person-to-person transmission in
the U.S. and the 10th and 11th cases in the country, respectively.
The husband, from San Benito County, California, recently
traveled to Wuhan, China, the center of the virus’ outbreak, and apparently
passed the disease to his wife, who did not go to China. Both 57, neither has
been hospitalized, but they have also not left their home.
The couple’s diagnosis brings the total number of positive
cases in the United States to 11. The ninth case in the country, in Santa Clara
County, California, was announced Sunday afternoon. The other human-to-human
transmission was also between a husband and wife and was announced last week in
Illinois.” (G)
“Stopping the spread of a rapidly emerging disease takes
masterful medical detective work, including tracing the people who have been
infected and figuring out their web of contacts, steps that are vital to
understanding how it’s being transmitted. US public health officials are
following those trails to quickly detect new cases of the Wuhan coronavirus,
including the report on Thursday of a sixth US infection—the husband of a woman
who became ill after traveling from China back home to Chicago—which was
followed by a seventh, in California, on Friday.
Yet there’s a potential wildcard, a deviation that throws
off the most careful calculations. For reasons that are still unclear, some
people, known as super-spreaders, transmit disease much more readily than
others, and to many more people. Like an infectious grenade, they can set off a
sudden cluster of illnesses. “These super-spreader events are very unique and
fall out of the world of averages,” says Michael Osterholm, an infectious
disease expert and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and
Policy at the University of Minnesota. Yet super-spreading can shape the
trajectory of an outbreak in unexpected ways, making it more difficult to
control. Instead of infecting just a few people who are close to them, a
super-spreader may inadvertently infect dozens—who go on to spread the disease
elsewhere.” (H)
“Can wearing a medical face mask protect you against the new
coronavirus? It’s a question many people, including pet owners who are putting
canine face masks on their dogs, are asking.
If it’s a regular surgical face mask, the answer is “no,”
Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious-disease specialist at Vanderbilt
University in Tennessee, told Live Science.
A more specialized mask, known as an N95 respirator, can
protect against the new coronavirus, also called 2019-nCoV. The respirator is
thicker than a surgical mask, but Schaffner doesn’t recommend it for public
use, at least not at this point.” (I)
“New York City health officials announced on Saturday that a
patient at Bellevue Hospital Center might have the new coronavirus and that
samples were being sent to the federal authorities for laboratory testing. If
confirmed, it would be the first known instance of the virus in New York City.
Based on the patient’s symptoms and travel history from
China, city officials were taking the potential case seriously. This was the
first time city officials had sent a sample to the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention for testing.
Another reason the health authorities suspect it might be
the new coronavirus: They had tested the patient for influenza and other common
illnesses, and those tests came back negative, health officials said.
They said they did not expect to receive results from the
C.D.C. for 36 to 48 hours, or possibly longer.
“An individual with a travel history to China felt unwell
and sought help from a medical provider who promptly contacted the Health
Department,” the health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, said in a statement.”
(J)
“China completed building on Sunday a massive, makeshift
hospital in Wuhan that will serve as the frontline in battling the coronavirus
epidemic, according to a report.
Huoshenshan Hospital was built in less than two weeks to
treat patients at the epicenter of the virus that has killed more than 300
people, BBC reported.
The hospital, which has 1,000 beds, started construction
Jan. 23 and will begin admitting patients on Monday, according to Chinese state
media China Global Television Network.
Around 40 million people tuned into livestreams of the
construction on YouTube and Periscope, while workers rushed to complete one of
two hospitals that will specialize in treating the virus.
Chinese officials are still working to build the second
emergency hospital, Leishenshan Hospital, which is expected to open Wednesday
around 25 miles away from the newest site, CGTN reported.” (K)
“The 195 Americans who flew from China to California were
first told they must clear medical tests that could take 72 hours or many days.
Now they are all being quarantined for two weeks…
This makeshift community on a military base in Riverside,
Calif., is made up of evacuees from Wuhan, the city in China that is the
epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. The 195 people, including diplomats, infants,
a football player and a theme-park designer, are among Americans who have
managed to leave Wuhan since a quarantine was imposed.
Now they find themselves stuck in place in the United
States. The federal government on Friday imposed a 14-day quarantine,
retroactive to when the plane left Wuhan. The patients were initially told they
had to wait at least 72 hours for medical testing to be completed.” (L)
“The BlueDot algorithm scours news reports and airline
ticketing data to predict the spread of diseases like those linked to the flu
outbreak in China.
On January 9, the World Health Organization notified the
public of a flu-like outbreak in China: a cluster of pneumonia cases had been
reported in Wuhan, possibly from vendors’ exposure to live animals at the
Huanan Seafood Market. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had
gotten the word out a few days earlier, on January 6. But a Canadian health
monitoring platform had beaten them both to the punch, sending word of the
outbreak to its customers on December 31.
BlueDot uses an AI-driven algorithm that scours
foreign-language news reports, animal and plant disease networks, and official
proclamations to give its clients advance warning to avoid danger zones like
Wuhan.
Speed matters during an outbreak, and tight-lipped Chinese
officials do not have a good track record of sharing information about
diseases, air pollution, or natural disasters. But public health officials at
WHO and the CDC have to rely on these very same health officials for their own
disease monitoring. So maybe an AI can get there faster. “We know that
governments may not be relied upon to provide information in a timely fashion,”
says Kamran Khan, BlueDot’s founder and CEO. “We can pick up news of possible
outbreaks, little murmurs or forums or blogs of indications of some kind of
unusual events going on.” (M)
““The outbreak is probably a lot bigger than one the public
health officials have confirmation of,” says James Lawler, an infectious
disease specialist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, who treated
quarantined Ebola patients in 2017 and 2018. “Just using a back-of-the-envelope
calculation on how many travelers there are from China in a given week, and
percentage than might have been affected, it’s a lot.”
An area containing eight cities and 35 million people have
now been quarantined in China, The New York Times reported Friday, while The
Wall Street Journal reports that hospitals in the epicenter of Wuhan are
turning away patients and medical supplies such as masks and sanitizers have
run out.
Lawler and others say that the coronavirus outbreak will
continue to spread as travelers from China to other nations exhibit symptoms of
infection. He says we still don’t know how many people will get sick, and how
many of those will die before the outbreak recedes.
To stop the spread of disease, public health officials will
need to tell the truth and tell it quickly. But in the meantime, it might be
worth deputizing an AI-driven epidemiologist.” (N)
As the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread across
China, a flurry of early research is drawing a clearer picture of how the
pathogen behaves and the key factors that will determine whether it can be
contained.
How contagious is the virus?
It seems moderately infectious, similar to SARS.
How deadly is the virus?
It’s hard to know yet. But the fatality rate is probably
less than 3 percent, much less than SARS.
How long does it take to show symptoms?
Possibly between 2 to 14 days, allowing the illness to go
undetected.
How much have infected people traveled?
The virus spread quickly because it started in a
transportation hub.
How effective will the response be?” (O)
“The World Health Organization has declared the growing
coronavirus outbreak in China to be a global health emergency. It’s a
recognition that the outbreak — now with nearly 10,000 cases — may continue to
spread beyond China, and that the nations of the world should lend their
assistance and be prepared.
Just a month ago, this virus, called 2019-nCoV, was unknown
to science. Now, health officials are working furiously to understand it,
trying to prevent a pandemic (a larger global spread of an infection).
These are still early days. Critical questions about the
virus — namely how it spreads, and how deadly it is — remain to be firmly
answered. But it’s not too soon to wonder: How does this outbreak end?
Right now, infectious disease experts are outlining three
broad scenarios for the future of this outbreak. Keep in mind there’s a lot of
uncertainty about how this will unfold.
1) The spread of the virus gets under control through public
health interventions
This is the best-case scenario, and essentially what
happened with the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak in 2003…
2) The virus burns itself out after it infects all or most
of the people most susceptible to it
Disease outbreaks are a bit like fires. The virus is the
flame. Susceptible people are the fuel. Eventually, a fire burns itself out if
it runs out of kindling. A virus outbreak will end when it stops finding
susceptible people to infect.
3) Coronavirus becomes yet another common virus
There’s a third scenario about how this outbreak ends. That
it doesn’t.
This has happened before. In 2009, a new strain of the H1N1
flu virus encircled the globe in a pandemic. But, “after a while it became a
part of our normal repertoire of what might come up each flu season,” Mina
says.” (P)
“Each new crisis follows a familiar playbook, as scientists,
epidemiologists, health-care workers, and politicians race to characterize and
contain the new threat. Each epidemic is also different, and each is a mirror
that reflects the society it affects. In the new coronavirus, we see a world
that is more connected than ever by international travel, but that has also
succumbed to growing isolationism and xenophobia. We see a time when scientific
research and the demand for news, the spread of misinformation and the spread
of a virus, all happen at a relentless, blistering pace. The new crisis is very
much the kind of epidemic we should expect, given the state of the world in
2020. “It’s almost as if the content is the same but the amplitude is
different,” Bhadelia said. “There’s just a greater frenzy, and is that a
function of the disease, or a function of the changed world? It’s unclear.”
And there will be a next epidemic. A new disease was always
going to rear its head to test the world’s mettle, and more almost certainly
will in the future. As I argued in 2018, the world isn’t ready. There has
assuredly been progress—vaccines can be produced faster, global cooperation is
tighter, basic research is nimbler—but supply chains are stretched,
misinformation is rife, and investments in preparedness always fall into
neglect once panic subsides. “Every year, things get more and more connected,”
Inglesby says. “Epidemics like this show that all of it can be relatively
quickly put at risk.” (Q)
A.Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic,
Experts Say, by Donald G. McNeil Jr., https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/health/coronavirus-pandemic-china.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
B.W.H.O. Declares Global Emergency as Wuhan Coronavirus
Spreads, by Sui-Lee Wee, Donald G. McNeil Jr. and Javier C. Hernández,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/health/coronavirus-world-health-organization.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
C.Trump administration declares coronavirus emergency,
orders first quarantine in 50 years, by David Jackson,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/01/31/coronavirus-donald-trump-declares-public-health-emergency/4625299002/
D.Trump says U.S. has ‘shut down’ coronavirus threat; China
shuns U.S. help, by Doina Chiacu, Andrea Shalal,
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-usa/trump-says-us-has-shut-down-coronavirus-threat-china-shuns-us-help-idUSKBN1ZW0OJ
E.Study documents first case of coronavirus spread by a
person showing no symptoms, by Andrew Joseph/
https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/30/first-documented-case-of-coronavirus-spread-by-person-showing-no-symptoms/
F.Coronaviruses hit seniors the hardest, by Katherine Ellen
Foley,
https://qz.com/1794241/seniors-seem-to-have-the-highest-risk-of-dying-from-coronavirus/
G.2nd person-to-person transmission of coronavirus reported
in US; 1st death confirmed outside China, by Christina Carrega,
https://abcnews.go.com/International/1st-coronavirus-related-death-china-reported/story?id=68707431
H.Wuhan Coronavirus ‘Super-Spreaders’ Could Be Wildcards, by
MICHELE COHEN MARILL,
https://www.wired.com/story/wuhan-coronavirus-super-spreaders-could-be-wildcards/
I.Can wearing a face mask protect you from the new
coronavirus?, by Laura Geggel,
https://www.livescience.com/face-mask-new-coronavirus.html
J.New York City Eyes First Suspected Case of Coronavirus, by
Joseph Goldstein, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/01/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-city.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
K.China completes emergency coronavirus hospital in just
days, by Jackie Salo,
https://nypost.com/2020/02/02/china-completes-emergency-coronavirus-hospital-in-just-days/
L.Inside the California Military Base a Coronavirus Evacuee
Tried to Flee, by Miriam Jordan,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/us/coronavirus-americans-evacuate.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
M.An AI Epidemiologist Sent the First Warnings of the Wuhan
Virus, by ERIC NIILER, https://www.wired.com/story/ai-epidemiologist-wuhan-public-health-warnings/
N.An AI Epidemiologist Sent the First Warnings of the Wuhan
Virus, by ERIC NIILER,
https://www.wired.com/story/ai-epidemiologist-wuhan-public-health-warnings/
O.How Bad Will the Coronavirus Outbreak Get? Here Are 6 Key
Factors, by Knvul Sheikh, Derek Watkins, Jin Wu and Mika Gröndah,
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/asia/china-coronavirus-contain.html
P.Coronavirus: How does this outbreak end?, by Brian
Resnick, https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/1/31/21115109/coronavirus-outbreak-end-sars-comparison
PART 4. February 9,
2020. “A study published Friday in JAMA found that 41% of the first 138
patients diagnosed at one hospital in Wuhan, China, were presumed to be
infected in that hospital.…
“A study published Friday in JAMA found that
41% of the first 138 patients diagnosed at one hospital in Wuhan, China, were
presumed to be infected in that hospital.….
“Five health care workers at
Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose were exposed to the new coronavirus while
treating a patient there and have been sent home and told to remain isolated
until Feb. 11, according to Santa Clara County public health officials…
The workers are being kept at
home “to protect the public’s health and limit any potential spread of the
virus,” Santa Clara County public health officials said in a statement.” (A)
“During SARS, patients were sent
to nine hospitals all over Hong Kong so that no one hospital had to bear the
full burden of the outbreak. Despite this effort to spread the load, the
outbreak overwhelmed the city’s health-care system. The Tuen Mun public
hospital in the northwest of the city was one of the treatment facilities. The
toll on the hospital was steep. Staff had to work long hours with the threat of
a deadly virus looming over them. Non-emergency patients were turned away.
Entire wards were turned into isolation zones. And the first of many casualties
among health-care workers in Hong Kong occurred at Tuen Mun on April 26, 2003…
During SARS much of the spread
was happening in hospitals. Once that became clear, public health officials put
in place rigid infection control measures in medical settings; the outbreaks in
Hong Kong, China, Toronto and elsewhere were brought under control. Cowling
says transmission of this new coronavirus is quite different from SARS…
Public health officials don’t
yet know what it will take to stop the new Wuhan coronavirus, but Seto says
fanatically enforcing hand washing — at home and in hospitals — will probably
be one of the keys.” (B)
“Most transmission appears
to be occurring in the community,” he says. “We’ve seen a small
number of infections of health-care workers, but nothing like SARS where one
third of the cases were health-care workers. For the new coronavirus it’s a
much smaller fraction in hospitals, and probably most transmission occurring in
the general community. And that’s much, much more difficult for public health
measures to deal with.”
Infectious disease specialists
and scientists say the new coronavirus that’s shuttering companies across
mainland China may be more contagious than current data shows.
Emerging in Wuhan, China, about
a month ago, the virus has spread from about 300 people as of Jan. 21 to close
to 21,000 and killed more than 420 — with the number of new cases growing by
the thousands every day.
“The rapid acceleration of cases
is of concern,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health
Organization’s emergencies program, said at a news conference last week before
the agency declared a global health emergency.
Chinese scientists worry the
respiratory illness, which world health officials say likely came from a fish
market, has mutated to adapt to its new human hosts far more quickly than SARS.
Data on the virus is changing by the day, and some infectious disease
specialists say it will take weeks before they can see just how contagious it
is. What they’re seeing so far is concerning and leading U.S. and international
scientists to believe the virus is more contagious than the current data shows,
according to interviews with epidemiologists, scientists and infectious disease
specialists.” (C)
“The Wuhan coronavirus spreading
from China is now likely to become a pandemic that circles the globe, according
to many of the world’s leading infectious disease experts.
The prospect is daunting. A
pandemic — an ongoing epidemic on two or more continents — may well have global
consequences, despite the extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now
imposed by China and other countries, including the United States.
Scientists do not yet know how
lethal the new coronavirus is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much
damage a pandemic might cause. But there is growing consensus that the pathogen
is readily transmitted between humans.
The Wuhan coronavirus is
spreading more like influenza, which is highly transmissible, than like its
slow-moving viral cousins, SARS and MERS, scientists have found.
“It’s very, very transmissible,
and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci,
director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.” (D)
“When the H1N1 flu began
spreading a decade ago, U.S. hospitals were flooded with patients. The
pandemic, which was declared over in 2010, left nearly 275,000 hospitalized, as
health officials fretted whether they would have enough beds, enough medical
supplies, or enough protective gear…
Hospitals across the country are
convening near-daily meetings to check in on their emergency preparedness
plans. And they’ve called all hands on deck. Nearly everyone — from physicians
and nurses to public affairs representatives and the employees responsible for
ordering supplies and keeping the hospital clean — is involved in making sure a
hospital’s existing emergency plans are up to date.
“But as we project outward with the potential
for this to be a much longer situation, one of the things that we’re actively
working on is projecting the long-term needs for our health care system,” Dr.
Nancy Messonnier, director of Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters on
Wednesday…
Much of that work revolves
around hospitals planning for what Biddinger called the “four S’s” of a surge
in patients amid an outbreak: supplies, staff, space, and the system that
governs all of them.
They need to review their
inventory of supplies, including ventilators, oxygen tanks, and the respirator
masks that health workers might need to wear to care for infected patients.
They need to plan for how to protect other patients in the hospital,
particularly those with weak immune systems. They need to review screening
procedures and the proper way to put on protective gear. And they need to
educate everyone — from the front desk employees in the ER to the workers who
take out the trash in patient rooms — in those protocols.” (E)
“Given the unknowns about
2019-nCoV, in the coming days and weeks, we’re in for some twists and turns.
For now, many experts believe this outbreak could get a lot worse: burdening
the Chinese health system, spreading in poorer countries with weaker health
systems, and sickening and killing thousands more people along the way.
Alternatively, it could get much better, with new cases and deaths steadily
dropping. Here are the key factors that will determine which way it goes.
4 ways this outbreak could take
a turn for the worse
1) China can’t contain the new
coronavirus
2) The new coronavirus spreads
in countries with weak health systems
3) The virus is actually
deadlier than it seems right now
4 things that could unfold that
would prevent a pandemic
1) China contains the virus
2) Local clusters of the disease
in other countries don’t grow
3) The virus can’t spread in
poorer countries with hotter climates
4) We learn the virus is not as
deadly as it seems (F)
“Princess Cruises late Tuesday
said nine passengers and a crew member on one of its ships in Japan had tested
positive for the new coronavirus from China, prompting local authorities to
order a multiweek quarantine of the vessel.
The Santa Clarita,
California-based line said more than 2,600 passengers and 1,044 crew on the
Diamond Princess would remain quarantined on the ship for at least 14 days.
The 10 people who have tested
positive for the virus are being taken off the ship, which is in the harbor of
Yokohama, Japan — the port for Tokyo. They’ll be transferred to local
hospitals…
Early Wednesday, another cruise
vessel arriving in a major Asian port was quarantined until passengers could
undergo screening for coronavirus. The quarantine of the 3,376-passenger World
Dream, in Hong Kong, was ordered after three passengers from a previous sailing
tested positive for the virus. World Dream is operated by Dream Cruises, an
Asia-based cruise company that caters to Asian travelers.//
Princess said Diamond Princess
would head out to sea to perform normal marine operations including, but not
limited to, the production of fresh water and ballast operations, before
returning to Yokohama and docking at the city’s port. Food and other supplies
needed for the extended quarantine of the vessel will be brought onboard.
Passengers have been confined to
their cabins for the duration of the quarantine, and many shipboard services
have been shut down. Food is being delivered to cabins at regular intervals.
Passengers have access to complimentary internet and telephone service to stay
in contact with their families and other loved ones.” (G)
“A southern New Jersey military
installation is on a list of potential coronavirus quarantine locations should
the need arise.
The Department of Health and
Human Services has requested the support of the Department of Defense to provide
space if primary and secondary facilities become full.
The Department of Defense
identified 11 locations near major airports, including Joint Base
McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, which spans through portions of Burlington and Ocean
counties, according to a news release issued Thursday.
The military involvement would
be limited to providing housing support for up to 20 people as they undergo a
period of quarantined observation, the Department of Defense release said.
Military personnel will not be in direct contact with quarantined people and
will minimize contact with personnel supporting the evacuees, officials said…
There are currently 12 confirmed
cases in the United States, CNN reported Thursday. The news network report said
that “planeloads” of Americans fleeing the outbreak in China are arriving at
military bases across the United States.” (H)
“Current efforts to contain the
coronavirus differ in many ways from those inflicted on lepers in the past
century. Americans who may have been exposed to the virus in China are
quarantined for 14 days and are not sentenced to life in isolation. The medical
treatment is significantly improved and the chances of recovery are good.
However, the corona virus is far more contagious than leprosy, against which
95% of people are naturally immune. Precautions are certainly useful.
But this recent outbreak raises
questions similar to the health authorities that struggled with decades ago.
Are quarantine and isolation the most effective way to contain a disease? Do
you hesitate to identify yourself as a potential victim?
“It fails because people are
headed for the hills,” said Wendy Parmet, a professor of health law at
Northeastern University, Rob Stein from the NPR. “People don’t call and look
for medical care … and medical care providers are afraid to treat patients
because they don’t want to be quarantined.”
There are other questions as
well.
Will the US decision to close
its borders for foreigners who have recently visited China do more harm than
good? The World Health Organization believes that such travel bans may and
warns of panic and anxiety measures.
Perhaps more importantly, how
are those who are believed to be potential carriers of the virus treated by
those around them? NPR’s Maria Godoy reports that some Asian Americans are
already experiencing a setback. A student was told to leave a cafe and “take
the corona virus with her.”” (I)
“The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention has shipped the diagnostic test for the novel coronavirus to
more than 100 public health labs nationwide, allowing states to test for
coronavirus cases themselves and receive results quicker.
Why it matters: The FDA bypassed
usual regulatory channels to distribute the test under an Emergency Use
Authorization, which has been used in life-threatening situations like MERS,
Ebola and the Zika virus.
Before, specimens from all over
the country had to be shipped to Atlanta to have their suspected cases
validated.
“This continues to be an
evolving situation and the ability to distribute this diagnostic test to
qualified labs is a critical step forward in protecting the public
health,” FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said.” (J)
“CDC created this interim
guidance to provide US public health authorities and other partners with a
framework for assessing and managing risk of potential exposures to 2019-nCoV
and implementing public health actions based on a person’s risk level and
clinical presentation. Public health actions may include active monitoring or
supervision of self-monitoring by public health authorities, or the application
of movement restrictions, including isolation and quarantine, when needed to
prevent the possible spread of 2019-nCoV in US communities. The recommendations
in this guidance apply to US-bound travelers and people located in the United
States who may have been exposed to 2019-nCoV. CDC acknowledges that state and
local jurisdictions may make risk management decisions that differ from those
recommended here. However, a harmonized national approach will facilitate smooth
coordination and minimize confusion. The guidance may be updated based on the
evolving circumstances of the outbreak.” (K)
“Infection control procedures
including administrative rules and engineering controls, environmental hygiene,
correct work practices, and appropriate use of personal protective equipment
(PPE) are all necessary to prevent infections from spreading during healthcare
delivery. Prompt detection and effective triage and isolation of potentially
infectious patients are essential to prevent unnecessary exposures among
patients, healthcare personnel, and visitors at the facility. All healthcare
facilities must ensure that their personnel are correctly trained and capable
of implementing infection control procedures; individual healthcare personnel
should ensure they understand and can adhere to infection control requirements.
This guidance is based on the
currently limited information available about 2019-nCoV related to disease
severity, transmission efficiency, and shedding duration. This cautious
approach will be refined and updated as more information becomes available and
as response needs change in the United States. This guidance is applicable to
all U.S. healthcare settings. This guidance is not intended for non-healthcare
settings (e.g., schools) OR to persons outside of healthcare settings. For
recommendations regarding clinical management, air or ground medical transport,
or laboratory settings, refer to the main CDC 2019-nCoV website.” (L)
“Whether it’s an influx of
coronavirus carriers or another Superstorm Sandy, a new nonprofit report finds
New Jersey is in a relatively good position to handle the next public health
emergency.
An annual survey released
Wednesday by The Trust for America’s Health shows that New Jersey is among a top
tier of 17 states considered to have the best health care and emergency
response systems, along with the training and capacity to protect residents
against communicable diseases, natural disasters and other calamities.
Officials at the Trust — a
national research and advocacy group focused on public health and injury
prevention — said the Garden State has ranked in the top third of states for
the last several years, a significant improvement from 2013, when it came in as
one of the seven lowest-scoring states.” (M)
“Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday
launched a task force to make sure New Jersey is prepared for any threat from
the surging coronavirus.
Murphy also noted that Newark
Liberty International Airport is one of 11 major U.S. airports that receive
flights from China requiring enhanced screening for the virus.
There are no confirmed cases of
coronavirus in New Jersey, but Murphy said it’s “critical” the state has
“strong preparedness protocols in place.”
“By establishing the Coronavirus
Task Force, we are bringing together experts across state agencies, health
officials, and federal partners to ensure that we are working collaboratively
to protect the health and safety of all New Jerseyans,” the governor
added.
According to an executive order
Murphy signed Monday, the task force will coordinate all state efforts to
“prepare for and respond to the public health hazard posed” by
coronavirus.
The task force is chaired by
state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli and will include members of the
state’s human services, law and public safety, education, and homeland security
departments, as well as the State Police.” (N)
““I have to emphasize that the
risk right now, certainly to the United States but definitely to the residents
of New Jersey, is still low,” said state health commissioner Judith
Persichilli, whom Murphy named as the chair of a new Coronavirus Task Force…
Authorities also said that
Newark Liberty International Airport is one of 11 airports in the nation where
flights from China will be allowed to land, and passengers on those flights
will be screened and, if necessary, quarantined.
“We’ve been very proactive, we
have teams in place ready to go,” Persichilli said. “There will be screening at
the Newark Airport. We are prepared to handle quarantine of any person that
comes in.”
Also represented on the task
force are the State Police, the Office of Homeland Security, the attorney
general and the Department of Education. The group will coordinate with
hospitals and other health care facilities as well as federal authorities and
the Port Authority, which runs Newark Airport.
Also Monday, Princeton
University has told students who recently returned from China to
“self-quarantine” for 14 days from the time they were last in China, a step the
university said was being taken as a precaution. The number of students
affected by the order is more than 100, according to various news reports.
The precaution matches a general
advisory issued for travelers by state public health officials.
“If you’ve traveled to China and
return from that travel, we would urge residents to monitor their symptoms for
14 days,” said Dr. Lisa McHugh, program coordinator for infectious disease
epidemiology for the state health department. “If you develop symptoms, again
we would urge you to contact your health care provider, and we’ll work through
them to determine if the individual should be tested at the Centers for Disease
Control.”” (O)
“China on Thursday finished
building a second new hospital to isolate and treat patients of a virus that
has killed more than 560 people and continues to spread, disrupting travel and
people’s lives and fueling economic fears.
A first group of patients was
expected to start testing a new antiviral drug, as China also moved people with
milder symptoms into makeshift hospitals at sports centers, exhibition halls
and other public spaces.
Other treatment centers had
tight rows of simple cots lining cavernous rooms where patients with milder
symptoms would be cared for. And Wuhan had another 132 quarantine sites with
more than 12,500 beds, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.” (P)
“United States citizen died from
the coronavirus in Wuhan, China, American officials said on Saturday. It was
the first known American death from the illness, and was likely to add to
diplomatic friction over Beijing’s response to the epidemic.” (Q)
“A study published Friday in the
medical journal JAMA found that 41% of the first 138 patients diagnosed at one
hospital in Wuhan, China, were presumed to be infected in that hospital.
This is big news. In plain
English, it means that nearly half of the initial infections in this hospital
appear to have been spread within the hospital itself. This is called
nosocomial transmission. (Doctors use big words to hide bad things: Nosocomial
means caught it in the hospital.)
What’s more, most spread doesn’t
appear to have been the result of a so-called “super-spreader event,”
in which a single patient transmits infection to many other people. In these
events, a procedure such as bronchoscopy — where a doctor inserts a tube into
the patient’s lungs — can result in many infections.
This would be a concern, but not
nearly as much as what appears to have happened: Many health care workers and
many patients got infected in many parts of the hospital. What’s more, since
there’s a broad spectrum of infection and only patients who were sick were
tested, it’s quite likely that there was even more transmission in the
hospital.
So, like SARS and MERS — other
coronaviruses — before it, the Wuhan coronavirus is spreading in hospitals.”
(R)
“The World Health Organization’s
director-general cautioned Saturday that transmission of the new coronavirus
outside of China may increase and countries should prepare for that
possibility.
“It’s slow now, but it may accelerate,” Tedros
Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press conference in Geneva. “So while it’s
still slow there is a window of opportunity that we should use to the maximum
in order to have a better outcome, and further decrease the progress and stop
it.”
Tedros’s warning came after
health authorities in Singapore announced they had diagnosed the infection in a
man with no travel history to China and no known link to other cases in
Singapore…
Infectious diseases expert
Michael Osterholm warned that it is unwise to conclude that just because the
world hasn’t yet seen outbreaks in other countries they won’t happen. It takes
several generations of transmission — an imported case passed on to two others,
who then infect two others and so on — before an outbreak takes off, he said.”
“What we’re watching is the
public health community trying to catch up to the speed of the virus,” said
Osterholm, who is the director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for
Infectious Diseases Research and Policy.” (S)
“With an intense flu season in
full swing, hundreds of thousands of coughing and feverish patients have
already overwhelmed emergency rooms around the United States. Now, hospitals
are bracing for the potential spread of coronavirus that could bring another
surge of patients.
So far, only a dozen people in
the United States have become infected with the novel coronavirus, but an
outbreak could severely strain the nation’s hospitals.
“We’re talking about the
possibility of a double flu pandemic,” where a second wave starts before the
first is over, said Dr. Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins
Center for Health Security.
Public health experts are also
closely watching reserves of vital medical supplies and medications, many of
which are made in China. Some hospitals in the United States are already
“critically low” on respirator masks, according to Premier Inc., which secures
medical supplies and equipment on behalf of hospitals and health systems. And
China is the dominant supplier of the raw ingredients needed for penicillin,
ibuprofen and even aspirin — drugs taken daily by millions of Americans and
dispensed routinely to hospital patients.
“All the hospitals are taxed
with a large flu season and other bugs,” said Dr. Mark Jarrett, the chief
quality officer for Northwell Health, which operates 23 hospitals across Long
Island and elsewhere in New York. About 400 patients are coming to its
emergency rooms each day with flulike symptoms.
“Everybody is at maximum
capacity,” Dr. Jarrett said…
“Many of us are holding our
breath to see the downstream effect on pharmaceuticals and other medical
supplies because of this outbreak in China,” said Dr. Paul Biddinger, who helps
oversee emergency preparedness for Partners Healthcare, the Boston hospital
group that includes Massachusetts General.
Experts like Dr. Toner say
supplies could easily become depleted, especially at smaller hospitals that
tend to have less inventory of basic items like masks, gowns and gloves.
Hospitals have long struggled with shortages of injectable medications and
staples like saline. In 2017, Hurricane Maria knocked out power to several
pharmaceutical factories in Puerto Rico, leading to a shortage of saline bags…
Because the nature of the virus
is still unknown, public health officials said it’s unclear what future
challenges hospitals will face if the coronavirus spreads into an epidemic in
the United States. While the current government guidelines call for patients to
be treated in specialized isolation rooms, experts say it is unlikely that
there will be enough isolation rooms at individual facilities.” (T)
“The number of deaths from novel
coronavirus in mainland China increased to 811 Sunday, health officials with
China’s National Health Commission said.
This exceeds the number of
deaths reported from the SARS outbreak in 2003, which killed 774 people,
according to the World Health Organization.
Outside of China, two people
died from the disease in the last two week, one in the Philippines and one in
Hong Kong, bringing total number of global deaths to at least 813.
As of Sunday, more than 37,198
confirmed cases have been reported on mainland China…
Six more people aboard a cruise
ship quarantined in Japan have tested positive for novel coronavirus, bringing
the total on the Diamond Princess to 70, Japan’s health ministry said Sunday.
The ministry said one of the six
confirmed cases is a woman in her 70s who has Hong Kong residency, but is also
a U.S. citizen. That brings the total number of American passengers who were
confirmed to have the virus to 14.” (U)
“Four passengers on Friday were
taken to a hospital after their cruise ship arrived in New Jersey for
evaluation of coronavirus..
The CDC has confirmed just 12
cases in the United States, mostly in California; there have been no cases in
New Jersey or New York
Four passengers traveling on a
cruise ship that returned to New Jersey have tested negative for the new virus
that has sickened tens of thousands in mainland China and killed more than 800.
Governor Phil Murphy said all
passengers tested negative and “New Jersey currently has no confirmed
cases of novel coronavirus and the risk to residents remains low.” (V)
(A) Five San Jose hospital workers sent home after exposure to
coronavirus, by Deanne Fitzmauric
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Five-San-Jose-hospital-workers-sent-home-after-15030563.phpe,
(B) How Hong Kong Beat SARS: Lessons Learned, by Jason
Beaubien, https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/npr/npr-story/802701836
(C) Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic,
Experts Say, by Donald G. McNeil Jr.,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/04/researchers-say-the-coronavirus-may-be-more-contagious-than-current-data-shows.html
(D) Researchers say the coronavirus may be more contagious than
current data shows, by Berkeley Lovelace, Jr.,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/04/researchers-say-the-coronavirus-may-be-more-contagious-than-current-data-shows.html
(E) ‘We need everyone for this’: U.S. hospitals harnessing
resources to brace for any spike in coronavirus cases, by MEGAN THIELKING,
https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/07/hospitals-harnessing-resources-brace-spike-coronavirus-
(F) What happens next in the coronavirus outbreak? We mapped 8
scenarios, by Julia Belluz, https://www.vox.com/2020/2/5/21122758/coronavirus-outcomes-pandemic-travel-china-map
(G) Nearly 4,000 people quarantined on cruise ship for 14 days
after coronavirus confirmed onboard, by Gene Sloan,
https://thepointsguy.com/news/coronavirus-princess-cruise-ship-quarantine/
(H) N.J. military base is among potential coronavirus
quarantine locations, by Justin Auciello,
https://whyy.org/articles/n-j-military-base-is-among-potential-coronavirus-quarantine-locations/
(I) Will Corona Virus Quarantines Help or Harm? A look back at
leprosy, by Gwen Olson,
https://mashviral.com/will-corona-virus-quarantines-help-or-harm-a-look-back-at-leprosy-shots/
(J) FDA allows states to test for coronavirus for faster
results, by Marisa Fernandez,
https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-state-testing-fda-approval-831a1a2a-4a80-47fa-a88b-983a81756bc3.html
(K) Interim US Guidance for Risk Assessment and Public Health
Management of Persons with Potential 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)
Exposure in Travel-associated or Community Settings,
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/risk-assessment.html
(L) Interim Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations
for Patients with Confirmed 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) or Persons Under
Investigation for 2019-nCoV in Healthcare Settings,
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/infection-control.html
(M) How Ready Is NJ to Handle Public Health Emergencies? The
Latest Results, by LILO H. STAINTON,
https://www.njspotlight.com/2020/02/how-ready-is-nj-to-handle-public-health-emergencies-the-latest-results/
(N) Gov. Murphy launches task force to protect N.J. from
coronavirus, by Brent Johnson,
https://www.nj.com/politics/2020/02/gov-murphy-launches-task-force-to-protect-nj-from-coronavirus.html
(O) Murphy Sets Up Coronavirus Task Force, State Health
Officials Say Risk in NJ ‘Is Still Low’, by Joanna Gagis,
https://www.njspotlight.com/2020/02/murphy-sets-up-coronavirus-task-force-state-health-officials-say-risk-in-nj-is-still-low/
(P) China finishes second new hospital built for coronavirus
patients, https://www.foxnews.com/health/china-opens-new-hospitals-coronavirus-patients
(Q) First American Dies of Coronavirus, Raising Questions About
U.S. Response, by Raymond Zhong and Edward Wong,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/08/world/asia/china-coronavirus-american-dead.html?partner=msn
(R) New study an eye-opener on how coronavirus is spreading and
how little we know, by Dr. Tom Frieden,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/08/health/coronavirus-hospital-infections-frieden/index.html
(S) WHO cautions that transmission of the new coronavirus
outside of China could increase, by HELEN BRANSWELL,
https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/08/who-cautions-coronavirus-transmission-could-increase-beyond-china/
(T) Hospitals are currently making preparations for a possible
outbreak of the new coronavirus, by Reed Abelson and Katie Thomas,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/health/hospitals-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
(U) Coronavirus updates: 14 Americans aboard quarantined cruise
ship now confirmed to have coronavirus,
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/new-coronavirus-updates-number-confirmed-cases-drops-disease-s-epicenter-n1133141
PART 5. CORONAVIRUS. “In
short, shoe-leather public health and basic medical care—not miracle drugs—are
generally what stop outbreaks of emerging infections..”
“Nearly six weeks after China
announced the coronavirus outbreak, there’s still a surprising amount we don’t
know about this newly discovered disease. But one thing is becoming clear:
China’s silence in the earliest days of the crisis may have made it worse.
Chinese authorities delayed
informing the world about the severity of a deadly disease spreading within the
country’s borders — even trying to muzzle whistleblowers, like the late Dr. Li
Wenliang. Now hailed as a national hero, Li was forced on January 3 by police
to sign a letter saying he spread “untrue speech” for warning colleagues about
the virus that eventually took his life.
With more than 40,500 people
infected and 910 deaths, China’s missteps early on seem increasingly fateful.
The fact that the international community has not acknowledged those missteps
is also consequential…
But the reality is this: China’s
mishandling and the ensuing silence from the international community is
emblematic of how the global system governing the international response to
pandemics fails to work, half a dozen global health experts told Vox.
Though we have global health
laws — in particular, the International Health Regulations, or IHR — meant to
guide countries dealing with outbreaks, they’re not actually enforceable. “You
can’t penalize [countries that] don’t follow it,” said Devi Sridhar, the chair
in global public health at the University of Edinburgh. Instead, the international
community has to rely on “soft law and norms” — or “disease diplomacy.”..
The revised IHR asks countries
to build out their disease surveillance capacities and report public health
crises immediately. It also asks nations not yet affected by a new pathogen to
avoid punishing those that are through travel and trade restrictions. “These
revisions were all about trying to get countries to sacrifice their short-term
interests for the long-term well-being of all countries,” said Sridhar…
“The IHR operates on mutual trust largely, and
it is a mutual trust,” said Eccleston-Turner. “That mutual trust has been
eroded over a number of outbreaks where member states have ignored the
recommendations from WHO.”” (A)
“Human intervention, or lack
thereof, may also have been a factor. More than half a dozen doctors first
discussed the threat of a potential coronavirus outbreak in early December only
to be silenced by the local Communist Party, according to some critics of the
government.
Yaxue Cao, founder and editor of
the political pressure group ChinaChange.org, said a Wuhan doctor posted in a
WeChat group to say there were seven cases of SARS connected to the seafood
market. He was then scolded by the party disciplinary office, and forced to
retract that, Cao said.
“From the same report, we
learned that Wuhan health authorities were having overnight meetings about the
new ‘SARS’ at end of December,” Cao posted on Jan. 27. “Earlier today. the
Wuhan mayor said he was not ‘authorized’ to publicize the epidemic until Jan.
20.”…
The spread was likely helped by
China’s Lunar New Year holiday last month. Wuhan mayor Zhou Xianwang said 5
million people had left the city before travel restrictions were imposed ahead
of the Chinese New Year.
“People unfamiliar with China
have trouble understanding the immense travel phenomenon that occurs during
Lunar New Year, when, over a one-month period, some 3 billion people are on the
move, many returning to their home towns and regions but others vacationing,”
Tanner Brown, a Beijing-based journalist, wrote for MarketWatch last month.
“Peak travel occurs this week.”..
People also may not know they’re
carrying the virus. Symptoms of common human coronaviruses include a runny
nose, headache, cough, sore throat, fever and a general feeling of being
unwell, according to the CDC. Symptoms of the new coronavirus can include
fever, cough and shortness of breath…
But it was weeks since the virus
was first discovered before flights were curtailed, and the global travel
industry is ideal for many viruses to travel long distances.
In an attempt to remain
competitive, airlines have decreased their turnaround times in recent years.
Many budget airlines have reduced turnaround times to 25 minutes by removing
the seat pockets. Other airlines have managed to have long-haul turnaround
times of 90 minutes. Not only do planes get a new plane load of passengers,
they often get a completely different crew.
Deep cleans are not always
possible during such turnarounds. Charles Gerba, a microbiologist at the University
of Arizona, recommends using hand sanitizers or disinfectant wipes,
particularly when traveling and/or at the office, where people may be reluctant
to stay home if they’re sick.” (B)
“China’s new coronavirus may
peter out. Or it might join the flu on the roster of the world’s winter
illnesses — a bug that will be routinely vaccinated against. Or it might become
a global pandemic, killing millions of people.
Experts don’t have enough
information to predict which of these very different scenarios will come to
pass. So for now, they are cautious.
“The issue is, we don’t know.
And any sort of prediction would be ill-advised,” said the director of National
Institute of Allergy And Infectious Disease, Anthony Fauci, at a Friday
briefing by the presidential task force on coronavirus. “You really do prepare
for the worst possible scenario.”
Scenario 1: The virus stays
mostly in China
WHO officials this week still
expressed hope that the Chinese government will largely contain the coronavirus
through unprecedented travel restrictions and quarantine in Hubei province and
elsewhere that most closely resemble martial law enacted over tens of millions
of people. The quarantines began two weeks ago, and the coronavirus is thought
to have an incubation period of up to 14 days, which is leading to questions
about how well the measures have worked, especially after China locked down
Guangzhou City, population 14 million, just this Friday…
Scenario 2: Another seasonal flu
If the coronavirus does manage
to spread widely outside of China, it isn’t necessarily catastrophic. It could
turn out to have seasonal behavior, flaring up in winter like the flu. That
pattern has been seen in at least two of the common coronaviruses that affect
people. If that’s the case for this new one, said Fauci, “when you start
getting into the spring weather of April, May, and June, it almost certainly
would start to turn around.”
On the downside, that means it
would just come back next winter. That happened with the 1918 Spanish flu
pandemic that hit the world in two seasonal waves.
Still, the extra time wouldn’t
hurt, allowing for clinical trials to test the effectiveness of antiviral drugs
used on an emergency basis in the outbreak. China has started two randomized
clinical trials of a promising drug called remdesivir, overseen by respiratory
disease expert Cao Bin at Beijing’s China–Japan Friendship Hospital. (One of
the 12 US patients with the coronavirus tried the drug and recovered a day
later.)..
Scenario 3: Deadly global
pandemic
Then there’s the worst-case
scenario: The relatively few cases popping up in dozens of countries flare up
worldwide in the coming months with deadly consequences. It happened in 1957,
when a flu pandemic killed 1.1 million people worldwide, and again in 1968, when
another flu strain killed about 1 million people….
…That means the new coronavirus
might have already skirted containment efforts and might be worse than reported
in Hubei province, where some news reports have come of elderly people dying
without ever being tested by hospitals. China’s nationwide travel ban, and
reports of one province offering a $140 bounty to people who turn in recent
arrivals from Wuhan, said Fisman, “are not things you do when you are winning
against an outbreak.”…
The one caution about all
predictions early in past outbreaks is that they don’t tend to match up with
the outcome,” said Fisman, acknowledging his own expectations have worsened as
the outbreak has continued. “We still don’t know a lot.”(C)
“As it continues to spread around
the world, bringing panic with it, scientists are striving to develop ways of
fighting this previously unknown threat. Sophisticated computer modelling is
being used to track and predict its transmission, while virologists are
attempting to engineer a vaccine. Others are seeking drug treatments that can
help those who fall ill with the infection.
But this is not the first
coronavirus scientists have encountered, and defeating them is harder than you
might think. Even after decades of trying, coronaviruses are formidable foes…
In order to get a reliable model
of how the disease spreads, Donnelly says, there are a few things we need to
know about the virus. First, how long someone might be infected by it before
developing symptoms. This is called the incubation period. Second, we need to
know how long someone with the virus remains infectious for, and in cases where
patients do not recover, how quickly the virus can cause death. “That helps us
estimate the case fatality rate,” says Donnelly.
Super spreaders shed far larger
numbers of the virus particles than other patients, increasing the chance they
will infect someone else
Another important factor is the
reproduction number, which is how many other people someone with the disease
will infect. Donnelly and her colleagues have estimated the new coronavirus to
have a reproduction number of about 2.6. “If that number is greater than one,
then you expect there to be an outbreak,” she says….
Even if it can be diagnosed
quickly, finding an effective treatment for a virus like this is famously
difficult…
The speed at which coronaviruses
mutate and so change their characteristics makes them hard to vaccinate
against. Vaccines tend to train the immune system to target a particular
feature, such as a protein structure on the shell of the virus. But by
continually altering its appearance, our immune systems find it hard to
recognise different infections. It is partly why the common cold has been so
difficult to develop a vaccine against…
But it is still an open question
as to whether a treatment or a vaccine will be found within a matter of months
or if it will take years. Until then, says Donnelly, all that can be done is to
continue to monitor the virus and try to stop it spreading.” (D)
“What do we most need to know next?
For epidemiologists who track infectious diseases, the most pressing concerns
are how to estimate the lethality of the disease and who is susceptible;
getting detailed information on how it spreads; and evaluating the success of
control measures so far.
No. 1 is the “clinical iceberg”
question: How much of it is hidden below the surface? Because the outbreak is
still evolving, we can’t yet see the totality of those infected. Out of view is
some proportion of mildly infected people, with minor symptoms or no symptoms,
who no one knows are infected…
In 2003, during the early days
of the SARS outbreak, the medical community got the math wrong. At first, we
believed that case fatality hovered between 2 percent and 3 percent. It took
two pages of longhand algebra, written in Oxford, England, coded into a
computer in London and then applied to data from Hong Kong, to get it right.
The actual case fatality for Hong Kong was staggering: 17 percent…
Knowing the number of people
likely to die, or who get seriously sick or have zero symptoms, will help
health authorities determine the strength of the response required. They can
better estimate how many isolation beds, heart-lung machines and medicines,
among other things, are needed…
Along with getting a grasp on
the level of severity is figuring out susceptibility, or who is most at risk
for infection. The data so far indicates that this would include older adults,
the obese and people with underlying medical conditions. There are few reports
of children becoming infected. But are they not showing symptoms, or are they
immune? And could they infect others as silent carriers?..
Returning to the big picture, we
must also refine what we know about how the new coronavirus is passed between
people. Even as the outbreak appears to keep escalating, we believe the rapid —
sometimes necessarily draconian — response of governments and health
authorities has made a dent in transmission. In another recent study, we
estimated how many people could get infected if there were no drastic public
health interventions. Our goal with this report was to sound the alarm over
what could be, so that it wouldn’t be…
The goal is to stay at least a
couple of steps ahead of the epidemic curve. Scientists must prepare health
authorities to catch any subsequent waves of infections and prepare for the
possibility that this particular virus could reappear seasonally — and maybe
one day it could be only as bad as the common cold.
I’ve seen record-breaking
outbreaks before and witnessed the world rally. If we all play our roles and
remain on guard, then chances are we will defeat the new coronavirus, too…” (E)
“Even as U.S. authorities have
taken the drastic steps of quarantining residents returning from China and
temporarily banning foreign visitors who recently traveled to affected Chinese
regions, they have urged the vast majority of U.S. residents to go about their
regular activities.
But there are exceptions. People
who returned from China on or after Feb. 3 have been formally quarantined or
asked to stay home. And behind the scenes, local public health officials have
launched painstaking efforts to reach “close contacts” of people with confirmed
cases of the virus, dubbed 2019-nCoV, asking them to self-quarantine and submit
to ongoing monitoring.
So what exactly is a ‘close
contact’?..
For the new coronavirus,
guidelines from the federal U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
define “close contact” as anyone who has been within 6 feet of a person
infected with the virus for a “prolonged period of time,” as well as those who
have had direct contact with the infected person’s secretions. These guidelines
are then interpreted by local public health departments…
In the US, health officials
continue to stress low risk of coronavirus..
There is some case-by-case
decision-making in assessing risk, Rudman said. Whether a health professional
was wearing gloves, a mask or other protective equipment, and what kind of
interaction they had with the patient, all factor in.
And because they work with
people who are sick and may be at higher risk from infection, health care
workers may be asked to take more extreme precautions. Santa Clara County’s
public health department asked at least five people to go on two weeks of paid
leave after a man who visited the hospital where they worked later tested
positive for the virus.
Earlier cases were not so
straightforward. One factor that has made the investigations particularly
challenging is confusion over whether the virus can be spread by an infected person
who is not showing symptoms. Health departments say that, given the
uncertainty, they are taking a cautious approach and looking for any contacts
going back three days before symptoms started. “Fortunately, we have so few
cases, so we can do that,” Rudman said.
Rudman declined to say how many
people are being monitored in Santa Clara but noted that having so few cases
has meant she and her colleagues have had time to be methodical about who might
be at risk. She hopes that will provide comfort to others in the community.”
(F)
“A new report into the range of
symptoms experienced by coronavirus patients suggests that around one in 10
suffer from diarrhea and nausea for a few days before developing breathing
difficulties, leading to suggestions that the pathogen may be transmitted via
feces. While this route of transmission has not been confirmed, the new data
does raise the possibility that doctors may have missed some key early warning
signs by focusing only on cases involving respiratory symptoms.
It has already been established
that the virus is primarily passed on by droplets in an infected person’s
cough, and the new study – which features in the Journal of the American
Medical Association (JAMA) – found that the majority of coronavirus patients at
a hospital in Wuhan, China, suffered from symptoms such as fever, muscle pain,
and shortness of breath at the onset of the illness.
However, of the 138 patients
observed by the study authors, 14 initially presented with diarrhea or nausea,
developing more classic coronavirus symptoms a day or two later. According to
Chinese media reports, doctors found traces of viral nucleic acids in the stool
of patients who exhibited these atypical digestive symptoms.
The first US patient to be
diagnosed with coronavirus is also said to have experienced diarrhea for a few
days, and the virus was also found to be present in his feces.
While this doesn’t mean that
fecal matter is responsible for the spread of the illness, it does provide
evidence for another similarity between coronavirus and SARS, to which it is
related. Back in 2003, hundreds of people in a Hong Kong housing estate became
infected with SARS thanks to a plume of warm air emanating from a bathroom that
had been used by an infected person…
Significantly, 41 percent of
patients in the study became infected in hospital, with both healthcare workers
and patients who had been hospitalized for other reasons catching coronavirus.
Regardless of the transmission route, therefore, it seems that hospitals are a
potential breeding ground for the virus, suggesting that improved hygiene may
be necessary to prevent its spread.” (G)
“The coronavirus epidemic could
grip about two-thirds of the world’s population if the deadly bug is not
controlled, a top public health official said — as another expert predicted
that cases in China could peak this month and fade away by April.
Professor Gabriel Leung, chair
of public health medicine at Hong Kong University, told the Guardian he was
examining the implications of the World Health Organization’s Monday warning
that cases of coronavirus spreading outside China are the “tip of the iceberg.”
Most experts believe that each
person infected can go on to transmit coronavirus to about 2.5 other people —
creating an “attack rate” of 60 to 80 percent, Leung told the paper.
“Sixty percent of the world’s
population is an awfully big number,” he said.
Even with a general fatality
rate as low as 1 percent — a possibility once milder cases are taken into
account — there could still be a massive global death toll, he added.
Meanwhile, experts are
attempting to map out the likely course of the illness, Leung told the
Guardian.
“Is 60 to 80 percent of the
world’s population going to get infected?” he said. “Maybe not. Maybe this will
come in waves. Maybe the virus is going to attenuate its lethality because it
certainly doesn’t help it if it kills everybody in its path, because it will
get killed as well.”
Health officials are also
attempting to determine whether restrictions put in place in Wuhan — the
epicenter of the outbreak — as well as other cities, have made a positive
impact.
“Have these massive public
health interventions, social distancing, and mobility restrictions worked in
China?” Leung asked. “If so, how can we roll them out, or is it not possible?”
“(H)
“The disease caused by the new
coronavirus that’s sickened more than 42,000 people in China now has an
official name: COVID-19. It stands for the coronavirus disease that was
discovered in 2019.
The World Health Organization
announced the name Tuesday, saying it was careful to find a name without
stigma.
“We had to find a name that
did not refer to a geographical location, an animal, or an individual or group
of people,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a call
with reporters.” (I)
“Time will tell if the new
coronavirus ends up being less or more dangerous than the flu; we don’t fully
know yet how bad it is. Usually, the diseases that stick around tend to become
less lethal. Only live hosts can continue to make more viruses. Influenza is
also pretty devious in how it mutates its surface molecules from year to year
to evade immune system detection. If 2019-nCoV is not able to do that, people’s
immunity to it could gradually improve.
But therein lies the paradox.
The outcome that has public health officials really concerned is that 2019-nCoV
will turn into something like a disease that we have a tough time making you
worry about right now.
Every year physicians and public
health officials try to get you to immunize yourselves against the flu, and far
too many of you don’t. We beg you to practice proper precautions and hygiene —
and, still, tens of thousands of people die, and too few worry enough.
Governments and employers could
help by making it easier for sick people to stay home from work. Many Americans
without paid sick leave go to work despite feeling ill, and many of those work
at restaurants, schools and hospitals, where disease is easily spread.
The most significant defense the
United States has to prevent pandemics is a solid public health infrastructure.
The public has to trust it. The system also needs to be properly prepared and
have the resources to handle a widespread infection. (The system is currently
stretched thin and underfunded.) It’s critical to make sure there are enough
medical supplies available, as well as necessities like food, to get a
community through an outbreak.” (J)
“The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention is preparing for the coronavirus, named COVID-19, to “take a
foothold in the U.S.,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National
Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters. “At some
point, we are likely to see community spread in the U.S. or in other
countries,” said Messonnier. “This will trigger a change in our response
strategy.” (K)
“An apartment building in Hong
Kong, its units linked by pipes. A department store in the eastern Chinese city
of Tianjin, where more than 11,000 shoppers and employees mingled. A ski chalet
in France, home base for a group of British citizens on vacation.
These sites, scattered around
the world, have become linked by a grim commonality: They are places where
pockets of new coronavirus cases have emerged in recent days, raising fears
about the virus’s ability to spread quickly and far beyond its origins in
central China.” (L)
“Right now scientists are trying
to accomplish something that was inconceivable a decade ago: create a vaccine
against a previously unknown virus rapidly enough to help end an outbreak of
that virus. In this case, they’re trying to stop the spread of the new
coronavirus that has already infected tens of thousands of people, mainly in
China, and given rise to a respiratory condition now known as COVID-19.
Typically, making a new vaccine
takes a decade or longer. But new genetic technologies and new strategies make
researchers optimistic that they can shorten that timetable to months, and
possibly weeks — and have a tool by the fall that can slow the spread of
infection.” (M)
“As the new coronavirus
continued to spread unabated within the city of Wuhan, China, government
officials last week imposed draconian measures.
Workers in protective gear were
instructed to go to every home in the city, removing infected residents to
immense isolation wards built hastily in a sports stadium, an exhibition center
and a building complex…
Many experts are skeptical that
isolating thousands of patients in shelters can stanch the spread of the
coronavirus. There are more than 40,000 cases in China now, in every province,
although the wide majority are in Hubei Province.
“This is a bit like closing the
barn door after the horses are already out,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an
infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville…
Wuhan’s makeshift shelters may
yet become breeding grounds for infection, especially if patients are not
properly screened, Dr. Markel and other experts said.
The patients already are in a
weakened state, and facilities like these make it easy for viruses and bacteria
to travel — not just the coronavirus, but also any of the dozens of pathogens
that may thrive when people gather in tight quarters.
“Whenever we put people in
facilities together, even during a hurricane, we are concerned about them
getting infectious diseases,” said Nicole A. Errett, a researcher at the
University of Washington who is a co-director of the Collaborative on Extreme
Event Resilience.” (N)
“CMS sent a memo to state survey
agency directors urging them to double down on compliance with basic infection
control practices.
The memo includes information
and links to resources to combat the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.
It also states that healthcare staff and surveyors, including federal, state
and local contractors are expected to adhere to standard infection control
practices, such as CDC recommendations on standard hand hygiene practices.
In 2020 surveys, CMS and
accrediting organization acute care surveyors will be especially alert to hand
hygiene practices, including the use of alcohol-based hand rub/hand sanitizer,
the preferred method of hand hygiene in clinical settings, the memo says.
“We know that adherence to
basic infection control and prevention practices such as hand hygiene can help
reduce the risk of infectious disease spread in all healthcare settings,”
the memo reads.” (O)
“Successful outbreak control
works like this: Patients report their symptoms to health-care workers. Those
health-care workers then report unusual cases to local public-health officials
who investigate the illness. Those officials may isolate ailing patients,
identify others with whom they have come into contact, and monitor those
individuals. The results of these investigations are reported to government
officials, who communicate reliable information about the outbreak and its
causes to the public and the press. That information enables those who are not
sick to take measures, such as hand washing and avoiding crowds, to prevent
themselves from getting infected and spreading the outbreak. The promise of
reliable information and competent, supportive medical care convinces others
who are suffering symptoms to come forward so that new cases are identified,
tracked, and treated. This cycle continues until the virus stops infecting new
people, the people already infected get well or perish, and the outbreak burns
out.
In short, shoe-leather public
health and basic medical care—not miracle drugs—are generally what stop
outbreaks of emerging infections like severe-acute respiratory syndrome and the
Ebola virus. However, in many countries without responsive governments, open
press, and rudimentary health-care systems, controlling an infection becomes
much harder. Officials in repressive societies are more apt to rely on
counterproductive censorship and quarantine measures that unduly interfere with
citizens’ rights and spread distrust.” (P)
“Further increasing the danger
of outbreaks and epidemics is another by-product of better health: complacency.
In 2013, less than 0.5 percent of international health aid was devoted to
preventing infectious-disease outbreaks, and the portion of the World Health
Organization budget funded by dues from 194 member countries had dwindled to
less than the budget of the New York City Department of Health. Starved of
funds, the international system intended to control outbreaks like Ebola failed
miserably in West Africa.
After that episode, the Obama
administration established a White House–based directorate to respond to
outbreaks and dedicated $1 billion to help poor countries build the basic
capabilities to prevent, detect, and respond to pandemic threats. The Trump
administration has assisted in the international response to Ebola in Congo and
offered China help in the current coronavirus crisis, but it also dismantled
the White House directorate on pandemic preparedness and urged that U.S.
funding for global health security return to pre-2014 levels.” (Q)
(A) The tricky business of disease diplomacy, by Julia Bellu,
https://www.vox.com/2020/2/10/21124881/coronavirus-outbreak-china-li-wenliang-world-health-organization
(B) As coronavirus infections exceed 37,000, here’s how it
spread so rapidly, by QUENTIN FOTTRELL,
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-the-mysterious-coronavirus-from-china-has-spread-so-quickly-2020-01-21
(C) Three Scenarios For The Coronavirus, by Dan Vergano,
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/danvergano/coronavirus-spread-flu-pandemic
(D) In just a couple of months the new coronavirus that emerged
from the Chinese city of Wuhan has spread around the world, sparking a race to
find treatments and vaccines against it, by Abigail Beall,
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200210-coronavirus-finding-a-cure-to-fight-the-symptoms
(E) The Urgent Questions Scientists Are Asking About Coronavirus,
by Gabriel Leung,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/opinion/coronavirus-china-research.html?referringSource=articleShare
(F) US health officials are seeking ‘close contacts’ of
coronavirus. Here’s what that means, Anna Maria Barry, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/02/10/us-health-officials-seek-coronavirus-close-contacts-what-means/4714247002/
(G) Coronavirus May Be Transmitted Via Poop As Well As Coughing,
Scientists Suggest, by Ben Taub,
https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/coronavirus-may-transmitted-via-poop-well-coughing-scientists-suggest/
(H) Expert warns coronavirus could infect 60% of world’s
population, by Amanda Woods,
https://nypost.com/2020/02/11/expert-warns-coronavirus-could-infect-60-of-worlds-population/
(I) Coronavirus gets official name from WHO: COVID-19, by
Erika Edwards,
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/coronavirus-gets-official-name-who-covid-19-n1134756
(J) Lessons That Go Beyond the Coronavirus Outbreak, by Aaron
E. Carroll, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/upshot/coronavirus-risk-prevention-advice.html?referringSource=articleShare
(K) CDC prepares for community outbreaks in US,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/12/coronavirus-latest-updates.html
(L) A Store, a Chalet, an Unsealed Pipe: Coronavirus Hot Spots
Flare Far From Wuhan, by Viviann Wang, Austin Ramzy and Megan Specia,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/world/asia/china-coronavirus-clusters.html?referringSource=articleShare
(M) Timetable For A Vaccine Against The New Coronavirus? Maybe
This Fall, by JOE PALCA,
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/02/12/804628081/timetable-for-a-vaccine-against-the-new-coronavirus-maybe-this-fall
(N) Huge Shelters for Coronavirus Patients Pose New Risks,
Experts Fear, by Roni Caryn Rabin, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/health/coronavirus-quarantine.html?referringSource=articleShare
(O) Don’t slip on infection control basics amid coronavirus
outbreak, CMS warns, by Anuja Vaidya,
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/don-t-slip-on-infection-control-basics-amid-coronavirus-outbreak-cms-warns.html
(P) Coronavirus likely now ‘gathering steam’, by Alvin Powell,
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/02/harvard-expert-says-coronavirus-likely-just-gathering-steam/
(Q) Coronavirus Is Spreading Because Humans Are Healthier, by
Thomas J. Bollyky,
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/coronavirus-spreading-because-humans-are-healthier/606448/
POST 6. February 17,
2020. Coronovirus. “Amid assurances that the (ocean liner) Westerdam was
disease free, hundreds of people disembarked in Cambodia…” “ One was later
found to be infected”…. “Over 1,000… passengers were in…transit home”…. “This
could be a turning point””
“Confronting a viral epidemic
with a scant supply of protective equipment, more than 1,700 Chinese medical
workers have already been infected, and six have died.
In the hospital where Yu Yajie
works, nurses, doctors and other medical professionals fighting the new
coronavirus have also been fighting dire shortages. They have used tape to
patch up battered protective masks, repeatedly reused goggles meant for
one-time use, and wrapped their shoes in plastic bags for lack of specialized
coverings.
Ms. Yu is now lying at home,
feverish and fearful that she has been infected with the virus. She and other
employees at the hospital said a lack of protective wear had left medical
workers like her vulnerable in Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the heart of
the epidemic that has engulfed this region.
“There are risks — there simply
aren’t enough resources,” Ms. Yu, an administrator at Wuhan Central Hospital,
said in a brief telephone interview, adding that she was too weak to speak at
length.
Chinese medical workers at the
forefront of the fight against the coronavirus epidemic are often becoming its
victims, partly because of government missteps and logistical hurdles.
After the virus emerged in Wuhan
late last year, city leaders played down its risks, so doctors didn’t take
precautions…
On Friday, the Chinese
government for the first time disclosed the toll the outbreak was taking on
hospital employees: 1,716 medical workers had contracted the virus, including
1,502 in Wuhan, and six had died.” (A)
“Officials are also looking to
see whether the medical workers were exposed to the virus unknowingly within a
clinical environment and whether they were wearing protective equipment at the
time, Ryan said. “There are a whole lot of factors we need to look at, and we
will be doing that with Chinese authorities.”…
Dr. Sylvie Briand, head of WHO’s
Global Infectious Hazard Preparedness division, told reporters that the health
workers may have been fatigued at the time they were infected and weren’t
taking proper protective measures because they were too tired. China has sent
medical professionals from several regions to support those workers, she said….
WHO is asking suppliers of
protective gear to prioritize sending the equipment to regions most affected by
the virus.
Last week, WHO said it sent
medical supplies such as masks, gloves, gowns and diagnostic tests around the
world. It is discouraging stockpiling of protective gear, saying the limited
number of items need to be saved for regions most affected by the virus. The
price of protective gear has increased, while availability has decreased, WHO
officials said…
On Thursday, world health
officials said they were scrambling to determine just how widespread the new
coronavirus is as Chinese authorities reported a surge in new cases after
changing how they count confirmed infections.
“How big is the iceberg?” Ryan
said. “We do know, and we all accept, that there is transmission occurring at
some level in communities. We’ve all seen those clusters, we’ve all seen those
super spreading events.” (B)
“A sudden spike in new coronavirus
cases in China this week shocked researchers. But the huge bump in numbers
isn’t a sign that the epidemic is worsening, say researchers, it is instead the
result of authorities changing how cases are confirmed.
On 12 February, Hubei province
reported nearly 15,000 new cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the
coronavirus, representing a 33% jump in total infections worldwide in a single
day. Total infections in China now number around 64,000, with more than 1,300
deaths.
But most of the Hubei cases — about
13,000 — are the result of a new policy in the province that means physicians
can diagnose suspected cases of COVID-19 on the basis of chest images, rather
than having to wait for genetic tests to confirm the presence of the virus,
which can take days.
The policy is in response to
pleas from clinicians who are overwhelmed by patients with respiratory
diseases, and don’t have time to wait for lab results, says Wu Zunyou, chief
epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, who
helped design and implementing the new policy. “The clinicians in Hubei made a
very strong request to modify the criteria because of their heavy work load,”
he says. Now they can care for people more quickly and ensure they are properly
isolated to protect others, says Wu. “We need to save lives.”
The policy makes sense from a
medical point of view, says Michael Mina, an infectious-disease immunologist
and epidemiologist at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston,
Massachusetts. “Triaging based on symptomatic evaluation and physical exam is
the bed rock of hospital-based and clinical triage,” he says.” (C)
“Hospitals in Wuhan, China — the
largest city in Hubei Province and the center of the epidemic — have struggled
to diagnose infections with scarce and complicated tests that detect the
virus’s genetic signature directly. Other countries, too, have had such issues.
Instead, officials in Hubei now
seem to be including infections diagnosed by using lung scans of symptomatic
patients. This shortcut will help get more patients into needed care,
provincial officials said. Adding them to the count could make it easier for
the authorities to decide how to allocate resources and assess treatment
options.
But the change also shows the
enormous number of people in Hubei who are sick and have not been counted in
the outbreak’s official tally. It also raises the question whether the
province, already struggling, is equipped to deal with the new patients.
The few experts to learn of the
new numbers on Wednesday night were startled. Lung scans are an imperfect means
to diagnose patients. Even patients with ordinary seasonal flu may develop
pneumonia visible on a lung scan.” (D)
“Even before today’s news,
experts complained that epidemiological information from China has been
incomplete, threatening containment efforts.
The new coronavirus is highly
transmissible and will be difficult to squelch. A single infected
“super-spreader” can infect dozens of others. Outbreaks can seem to recede,
only to rebound in short order, as the weather or conditions change.
Recent clusters of coronavirus
cases suggest the new coronavirus not only spreads quickly, but also in ways
that are not entirely understood.
In Hong Kong, people living 10
floors apart were infected, and an unsealed pipe was blamed. A British citizen
apparently infected 10 people, including some at a ski chalet, before he even
knew he was sick.
In Tianjin, China, at least 33
of 102 confirmed patients had a connection of some sort with a large department
store.
“This outbreak could still go in
any direction,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World
Health Organization, said on Wednesday.
A change in diagnosis may make
it still harder to track the virus, said Dr. Peter Rabinowitz, co-director of
the University of Washington MetaCenter for Pandemic Preparedness and Global
Health Security.” (E)
“The head of the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention said the new coronavirus, which has killed
nearly 1,400 people and is still spreading in China, could be around for at
least another year. The outbreak has affected almost 50,000 people worldwide.
There are 15 confirmed cases in the U.S. but none are said to be suffering
serious symptoms.
The agency is setting up five
labs around the U.S. where people with flu-like symptoms can be tested for
coronavirus if their flu results are negative. The virus, dubbed COVID-19, has
spread to more than two dozen countries.
The CDC is ramping up its own
response to the epidemic by setting up five labs around the U.S. where people
with flu-like symptoms can now be tested for coronavirus if their flu results
are negative. This comes as scientists around the world race to develop a
vaccine.” (F)
“Another U.S. case of infection
with the novel coronavirus was confirmed Thursday, bringing the total number of
domestic cases to 15. Around the world, cases have reached nearly 60,000 to
date.
But if something changes and
large numbers of people get infected in the U.S., is the country’s health
system prepared to cope with a surge of patients with this virus, or any future
pathogen?
“Surge capacity in the
health care system is something that we think a lot about and prepare for in
the U.S., and not specifically to coronavirus per se, but for a whole host of
events that could occur in the United States,” says Jonathan Greene,
director of emergency management and medical operations at the Department of
Health and Human Services…
“No one is ready for a
worst case-scenario for a really bad, lethal, fast-moving pandemic,” says
bioterrorism and biosafety expert Dr. Tara O’Toole, former undersecretary for
science and technology at the Department of Homeland Security and now at
In-Q-Tel, a nonprofit strategic investment firm that supports U.S. national security.
For instance, O’Toole thinks
that hospitals would have a very hard time handling a lot of critically ill
patients who need to be in isolation. “That’s why we want to make sure
that the people we’re putting in hospitals and keeping isolated are really the ones
who need that kind of care,” she says…
What’s needed is a strategic
approach to rapidly deal with an epidemic, says O’Toole, but “we don’t
have a strategy and we haven’t built the infrastructure” to do so….
On the other hand, HHS official
Greene argues that the nation’s health care system is better prepared than it
has been in the past. “We’ve gone through outbreaks of other diseases,
other coronaviruses, SARS and MERS,” he says. And each one of those
experiences has helped the system develop “tactics, capabilities, training
and education to be able to deal with whatever comes down the road. This is
just one more in a long history of disease outbreaks that we’re being asked to
tackle.”
The strategic national
stockpile, says Greene, holds “millions of face masks, and supplies of
respirators, gloves and surgical gowns that could potentially be deployed if
state and local supplies are diminished during this current outbreak.”
Greene says that HHS is working with the health care sector and the supply chain
to ensure that any disruptions that may occur or shortages are
“short-lived and that the right amount of material can be provided”
as soon as possible.” (G)
“Dr. Craig Spencer was the first
patient in New York diagnosed with Ebola in 2014. After that experience, he
wrote, “When we look back on this epidemic, I hope we’ll recognize that fear
caused our initial hesitance to respond — and caused us to respond poorly when
we finally did.” In terms of New York, what has changed since then?
Our overall preparedness in
maintaining our readiness — that’s a key phrase we use — has exponentially
increased since 2014 because we’re constantly collaborating, coordinating, and
communicating at all levels — local, state, national, and even international.
We’ve been given funding on a national scale to prepare for Ebola and special
pathogens. It wasn’t just specifically for viral hemorrhagic fevers like Ebola;
it gave us funding to prepare for coronavirus disease, for MERS, for SARS, the
full gamut. From that funding we were able to do more drills, exercises,
collaborative public health. The unfortunate part is that funding was only for
five years, and it actually expires in a matter of months — in 2020. So this
entire infrastructure that we’ve built across the nation is going to get
dismantled in a couple of months, which is mind-boggling knowing we’re in a
potential pandemic situation and we’re letting our guard down.
The other thing we’ve also done
is, we want to make sure we’re giving patients the opportunity to tell us what
they have. Before, it was you come in, come to the front desk, and they ask,
“What are you here for.” By that time it’s basically too late. Because you’ve
come in through the door, there are probably 50 people waiting in the waiting
area, if you’re coming in with something respiratory and you’re coughing and
sneezing, you’ve probably infected a number of folks around there. One of the
strategies we’ve implemented is something very basic: respiratory stations,
which basically have simple masks, hand sanitizer, a tissue, and a sign that
says, “Do you have a fever? Do you have a cough? Do you have a rash? Yes?
Please take a mask. If a mask is not there use a tissue and sanitize your
hands.” And it tells you, “If you have travel history let us know immediately.”
So now we’re letting patients self-identify. It helps expedite that triage
process. Before this outbreak and the Ebola outbreak in 2014, we only had those
stands during seasonal flu time, and once seasonal flu was done we would take
out that stand. Now we know these infectious diseases are all around us, so
it’s all season long…
What are you most concerned
about right now sitting here? What’s going to keep you up tonight?
Based on everything that we’ve
been seeing, reading, looking at what’s happening in China, it doesn’t seem
like this virus is containable. It’s not the fault of the government itself or
China itself, it’s the nature of the virus. You just can’t stop a respiratory
virus, especially a respiratory one in nature where it’s the sheer form of
breathing and having droplets develop — you just can’t control it. It’s one of
those things we know we can’t contain, so we need to continue to prepare very
aggressively for it. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. What’s keeping me up
at night is knowing that these cases are going to continue to occur, and that’s
what the CDC has stated, that we’re going to see an increased number of cases.
We need to make sure that we’re able to identify every single one. It just
takes one person coming into one of our facilities to start an outbreak.” (H)
““On December 27, Syra Madad
published an op-ed in the Washington Post co-written with Ronald A. Klain. The
piece warned lawmakers that vital funding needed to prepare hospitals for
infectious-disease outbreaks would expire in May. “We do not know when the next
dangerous pathogen will arrive in our country,” it read, “but we do know that
it will happen — sooner or later.” Four days after the article was published,
on December 31, the government in Wuhan, China, reported to the World Health
Organization that it was treating dozens of patients for pneumonia of unknown
cause.
That was the beginning of a busy
January for Madad. As the senior director for the systemwide special-pathogens
program for NYC Health and Hospitals, it was her job to prepare the city’s 11
hospitals for an outbreak. Madad also happened to be the star of Pandemic, a
six part docuseries that premiered on Netflix on January 22 — a week after she
gave birth to her third child…
We want more time to continue
our trainings, so we can continue to prepare our front lines for the inevitable
surge of cases that we may potentially see. We may not get a whole lot of cases
or we may get a number of cases, but either way it’s best for us to prepare for
the worst-case scenario. If we have a surge of cases present, we’re looking at
it from a 4S standpoint or the emergency-management approach: staffing, stuff,
space, and system. Based on those four high-level domains, we’re looking at how
we can bulk up staffing. Because the No. 1 asset in the health-care system is
our people, and without our people we can’t take care of patients. Do we get
volunteers involved? Do we look at our memorandum of agreements with other
agencies to bulk up our staffing? Things like that. (I)
“Doctors in five U.S. cities
will begin testing patients with flu-like symptoms for the new coronavirus, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
The coronavirus test will only
be given to patients who test negative for the flu. So far, the testing
protocol will be implemented in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco
and Seattle, though more cities will be added.
It’s a sign that the U.S. is
broadening its surveillance of the illness.
This is just the starting
point,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for
Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during a press briefing Friday.
“We plan to expand to more sites in the coming weeks.”
Messonnier said the increased
testing is part of an effort to determine whether the virus is spreading in
communities across the U.S. “The results would be an early warning signal
to trigger a change in our response strategy,” she said.” (J)
“As an outbreak of a novel
coronavirus has swept through Hubei province, China, the US Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention has been preparing for its worst case scenario — a
widespread outbreak of illnesses in the United States.
“Right now we’re in an
aggressive containment mode,” CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told CNN’s
Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta in an interview on Thursday.
“We don’t know a lot about
this virus,” he said. “This virus is probably with us beyond this
season, beyond this year, and I think eventually the virus will find a foothold
and we will get community-based transmission.”
As of Thursday, there have been
15 cases of the novel coronavirus confirmed in seven states: eight in
California; two in Illinois; and one in Arizona, Washington, Massachusetts,
Wisconsin and Texas.
While more research is needed to
fully understand the virus, Redfield told Gupta that the CDC has focused on
surveillance to track cases and containment strategies to slow possible
progression of the virus in the United States. Slowing progression gives more
time for researchers to work on developing and testing a vaccine and antiviral
drugs for this novel coronavirus. Currently, there is no known cure for the
virus.
“The containment phase is
really to give us more time. This virus will become a community virus at some
point in time, this year or next year,” Redfield said. “We don’t have
any evidence that this coronavirus is really embedded in the community at this
time, but with that said, we want to intensify our surveillance so that we’re
basing those conclusions based on data.”
The containment strategy refers
to efforts to prevent widespread transmission of the coronavirus in the United
States, including having people with confirmed cases stay in isolation and
placing restrictions on travel between affected areas in the world. Such
containment measures were used widely during the SARS global outbreak of 2003,
during which 8,098 people worldwide became sick and of those, 774 died,
according to the CDC…
“What I’ve learned in the
last two weeks is that the spectrum of this illness is much broader than was
originally presented. There’s much more asymptomatic illness,” Redfield
said. “A number of the confirmed cases that we confirmed actually just
presented with a little sore throat.””
(K)
“When 195 Americans, including
diplomats, were evacuated from Wuhan, China, last month, they were tested for
the coronavirus on arrival at a California military base. Health officials
swabbed the throats and noses of everyone in the group — the first to be
evacuated from Wuhan — and they were relieved when all of their tests came back
negative.
But as more government-arranged
flights evacuated Americans from China in the days that followed, the federal
health authorities adopted a new protocol: Only people who showed symptoms of
illness during a 14-day quarantine period would be tested. For some among the
more than 600 people who are still waiting to be cleared to go home from
military bases in three states, the new rule has left them worried — and angry.
Some are pleading with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to test
them for the coronavirus.
“We are not asking for
skateboards or toys,” said Jacob Wilson, 33, one of more than 30 people in
quarantine on a base in San Diego who signed a petition this week calling for
tests. “We are asking to get tested and make sure we are not passing anything
to other people.” (L)
The concerns come as three
people in quarantine on bases in San Diego and San Antonio, Texas, tested
positive for the virus, which has killed more than a thousand people in China
but so far has been found to have infected only 15 people in the United States.
In San Diego, where 232 people
are waiting out a government-mandated two-week quarantine, some evacuees said
they worried that they and their children had spent days mingling with people —
in an eating area, on a playground and in a laundry room — and would like to
know for sure whether or not they have the virus.
Fifteen cases of the coronavirus
have been confirmed in the United States, including a 35-year-old man in
Washington State, a couple in their 60s in Chicago and eight people in
California.
One of the people evacuated from
Wuhan last week to San Diego had coronavirus but was discharged because of a
labeling error.
Some evacuees are wondering why
they aren’t being tested on bases…
“We believe testing everyone at
the facility would help identify potential suspects as early as possible, so
the appropriate treatment could be put in place,” the evacuees wrote in the
petition, which they called a “suggestion letter” and shared with one another
over WeChat, a Chinese instant-messaging app.
The C.D.C., however, has
declined to test every evacuee. Officials said that such tests are less
accurate before people show symptoms, so a negative early result could be
misleading rather than helpful. The agency tested everyone on the first
evacuation flight, the officials said, because they were learning about the
virus and because doing so allowed them to collect more data about it. Since
then, they said, they have determined that swabbing hundreds of seemingly
healthy people is not useful.
“Every test has a limit of
detection,” said Dr. Joseph Bresee, a deputy incident manager for the C.D.C.’s
response to the coronavirus. “Early on, the test may or may not be able to pick
it up.”
Almost everyone who gets sick
from the virus will show symptoms within 14 days of exposure, often early
within that window, Dr. Bresee said. Evacuees on military bases are having
their temperature checked at least twice a day and are asked to alert health
officials if they feel sick or if their temperature rises.
Dr. Bresee said that he
empathized with evacuees who want definitive answers about whether they are
healthy.
“They’re concerned, they’re
nervous, and they want to be assured of their safety,” he said, adding that the
cost of testing was not a factor in the decision not to test everyone. “We
don’t think testing would be helpful, and if we did, we would test them.”” ..
“At the San Diego base, Marine
Corps Air Station Miramar, Mr. Wilson and others said that people had to leave
their rooms to get breakfast, lunch and dinner from a small room, which is also
where their temperatures were taken. People rummaged through boxes of fruit and
snacks with their bare hands, he said, and they stood shoulder to shoulder in
line waiting to check their temperatures despite being told to stay six feet
away from one another.
After the petition was
circulated, health officials agreed as of Thursday to deliver meals and take
temperatures at the room doors of evacuees who preferred it that way.
“The reality is, it’s impossible
for us to keep any distace from each other,” said Mr. Wilson, a tech
entrepreneur in Wuhan. He and others also said officials had not required
evacuees to wear masks.
Earlier in the week, a labeling
error led the authorities to return an ill woman to the base from a San Diego
hospital, though a test later showed that she had the coronavirus. The mistake
raised new worries among some evacuees. The C.D.C. had erroneously informed the
hospital that the woman had tested negative for the virus when, in fact, her
samples had not been tested. Health officials have tried to calm concerns,
saying the woman had been isolated from other evacuees before returning to the
hospital.
Dr. Bresee said that health
officials were learning more about the virus each day, but that there were no
plans to change testing procedures for the hundreds in quarantine.
“As we learn more, we may
pivot,” he said. “It doesn’t mean we were wrong once and are right now, it just
means we’re learning.”” (M)
“To combat the spread of the
coronavirus, Chinese officials are using a combination of technology and
policing to track movements of citizens who may have visited Hubei Province.
Mobile phone owners in China get
their service from one of three state-run telecommunications firms, which this
week introduced a feature for subscribers to send text messages to a hotline
that generates a list of provinces they have recently visited.
That has created a new way for
the authorities to see where citizens have traveled.
At a high-speed rail station in
the eastern city of Yiwu on Tuesday, officials in hazmat suits demanded that
passengers send the text messages and then show their location information to
the authorities before being permitted to leave the station. Those who had
passed through Hubei were unlikely to be allowed entry.
Other cities were taking similar
measures.
Companies in China generally shy
away from sharing location data with the local authorities, over fears it could
be leaked or sold. And there were some signs that the companies were
uncomfortable with the new rule.
China Mobile cautioned that the
data should be used cautiously, because it indicates where the phone has been,
not its owner. It also doesn’t differentiate between people who briefly passed
through a province and those who spent significant time there. (N)
“Coronavirus Test Kits Sent to
States Are Flawed, C.D.C. Says
Some tests distributed by the
agency deliver “inconclusive” readings. The C.D.C. will need to ship new ingredients,
further delaying results.
Some of the coronavirus testing
kits sent to state laboratories around the country have flaws and do not work
properly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday.
The kits were meant to enable
states to conduct their own testing and have results faster than they would by
shipping samples to the C.D.C. in Atlanta. But the failure of the kits means
that states that encountered problems with the test should not use it, and
would still have to depend on the C.D.C.’s central lab, which could cause
several days’ delay in getting results.
“Obviously, a state wouldn’t
want to be doing this test and using it to make clinical decisions if it isn’t
working as well, as perfectly, at the state as it is at C.D.C.,” Dr. Nancy
Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory
Diseases, said at a news conference on Wednesday.
The C.D.C. recommends testing
for some people who have symptoms like fever, cough or shortness of breath, and
who, within the past 14 days, have traveled to China or have been in close
contact with a patient known to be infected with the coronavirus. Doctors with
patients in that category are supposed to consult their state health department
about whether the patients should be tested for the virus…
Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of
the infectious diseases division at the University of Alabama at Birmingham,
said accurate diagnostic tests were invaluable.
“The test is the only way you
can definitely know you have the infection,” Dr. Marrazzo said. “You absolutely
need it for case counting. It allows you to know who’s infected. You can treat
those people, if a treatment is available, and you can isolate them.”..
The C.D.C. does not recommend
testing for people who may have been exposed to the virus but have no symptoms.
Even if they are infected, if they are still in the incubation period there may
not be enough virus in their bodies for the test to detect.
The inability to detect very
early infections is one reason for keeping planeloads of people from Wuhan in
quarantine instead of just testing them and letting them go if the results are
negative. A person could test negative and still be infected.
For the same reason, health
authorities say there is no benefit to testing symptom-free people on cruise
ships.
Because there is an unknown
window of time between when a person becomes infected and when the test can
find the virus, health officials have determined that a quarantine of two weeks
— believed to be the incubation period of the illness — is the best way to make
sure that people who may be infected do not transmit the virus to others.
Tests for other infectious
diseases can also fail to detect some cases. A panel of tests used to screen
for respiratory viruses when pneumonia is suspected can give negative results
even if a patient is infected, Dr. Marrazzo said. So can rapid tests for flu
and strep throat. Blood tests for H.I.V. can miss the diagnosis in people who
were recently infected.”
“There is no perfect test for
pretty much any infectious disease I can think of,” Dr. Marrazzo said. (O)
“The Diamond Princess cruise
ship docked at Yokohama, Japan, on Friday. More than 200 coronavirus cases have
been confirmed on the ship since it was quarantined last week.
The Diamond Princess cruise ship
docked at Yokohama, Japan, on Friday. More than 200 coronavirus cases have been
confirmed on the ship since it was quarantined last week.Credit…Jae C.
Hong/Associated Press
The United States will evacuate
Americans from the cruise ship that has been quarantined for more than a week
in Japan because of coronavirus infections on board, the United States Embassy
in Tokyo told Americans aboard the ship on Saturday.
American passengers and crew
members were told in an email from the embassy that a chartered flight would
arrive on Sunday for those who wanted to return to the United States.
The ship, the Diamond Princess,
was placed under quarantine at the city of Yokohama early last week with about
3,700 passengers and crew members aboard, after a man who had disembarked in
Hong Kong tested positive for the coronavirus. Since then, at least 218 cases
have been confirmed aboard the ship.
There are about 400 Americans
aboard, and at least 40 who were infected with the virus have been taken off
the ship for treatment.
Americans will be subject to a
14-day federal quarantine and will be housed at two existing quarantine sites,
in California and Texas, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in
a statement on Saturday.” (P)
“Errors by a hospital in San
Diego and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention led to a woman with
the novel coronavirus being sent back to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar
instead of isolation at the hospital, according to a health official familiar
with the situation.
The woman was among Americans in
federal quarantine at the base, and is the first US evacuee from China known to
be infected with the novel coronavirus.
She flew to the base on February
5 on a US Department of State flight evacuating Americans from Wuhan, China.
The next day, she started experiencing symptoms of the novel coronavirus and
was taken to UC San Diego Health. Three other people exhibiting symptoms were
also transported to the hospital.
The hospital sent their
specimens to a CDC lab in Atlanta for testing. According to the source, three
of the four specimens were incorrectly labeled upon arrival and so they were
not tested. The CDC lab did not realize the specimens were from the Miramar
patients.
When no results were reported
back, CDC staffers mistakenly gave UC San Diego Health the results of other
patients who tested negative. That mistake led to the Miramar patients being
transferred back to the base Sunday afternoon.
After they arrived back at the
base, the mistake was discovered and the tests were run on the three Miramar
patients.
The results for the woman came
back positive, and she was transported back to UC San Diego Health on Monday
morning, where she remains in isolation. The woman has had a very mild illness,
according to the source, with no fever and a slight cough…
In a response Tuesday, the CDC
said: “At all times, appropriate infection control precautions were taken
around all of the persons quarantined at Miramar, including these three
patients. From now on, a CDC laboratory staff member will form part of CDC
quarantine field teams to ensure that specimens are correctly labeled/CLIA
compliant to avoid delays in testing.””
During a press conference on
Tuesday, Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC, said
“there was a little bit of a mix-up there” around the testing for the
Miramar patient, but would not elaborate.” (Q)
“San Diego leaders declared a
local emergency and public health emergency for seven days over the novel
coronavirus, giving officials access to resources to address the virus.
CDC and county health officials
cautioned that the declarations did not mean residents faced an increased risk
of the virus.
Under the declarations, the
county will be able to seek mutual aid, potentially be reimbursed for their
response, and ensure resources to first responders and hospitals, stock pile
medical supplies and gain access to hospital beds, and state and federal
emergency funds if necessary.
“This action does not
signify an increase in the risk to the residents in San Diego County to
coronavirus,” Supervisor Nathan Fletcher told the media. “This is a
step that positions us best to confront the challenges of this virus, this
action best equips us to be in the strongest position to coordinate efforts,
ensure access to available supplies, and best protect public health.”…
So far, San Diego has two
confirmed cases of coronavirus. Those patients are under isolation at UC San
Diego Medical Center.
According to Eric McDonald,
medical director of the County’s Epidemiology and Immunization Branch, San
Diego cases include:
Seven people are under
investigation. Five of them have tested negative and two have tested positive;
Four non-San Diego residents who
traveled to the region (but not Wuhan, China) monitored: Two tested negative
and two have results still pending; Monitored 171 people returning from China
with no symptoms: 48 have been cleared after self quarantine, 123 people are
still being monitored. None are under investigation;
Thirteen San Diegans were on
flights next to people confirmed for coronavirus. Eight people have been
cleared after two weeks, four people are still self-quarantined, and one person
was a person under investigation who has since tested negative.
MCAS Miramar has hosted two
flights of passengers being evacuated from the coronavirus zone in Wuhan,
China. Those passengers have been staying at the base under a 14-day
quarantine. Once that quarantine ends next week, low to medium risk individuals
will be asked to self-quarantine at home.” (R)
“Hundreds left a cruise ship in
Cambodia. Then one tested positive for the coronavirus.
An American woman who
disembarked from a cruise ship in Cambodia last week has tested positive twice
for the coronavirus since flying on to Malaysia, officials in that country said
on Sunday.
Cambodia allowed the ship, the
Westerdam, to dock after five other ports
turned it away over concerns about the coronavirus.
Officials said more than
140 passengers from the ship had flown
from Cambodia to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital. All but the American woman
and her husband had been allowed to continue to their destinations, including
airports in the United States, the Netherlands and Australia. (S)
“A man who visited Hawaii was
confirmed to have coronavirus when he returned home to Japan, Hawaii officials
said Friday.
Health officials were tracking
down details about his travel in the Aloha State, including his flight
information and people with whom he had close contact.
The U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention notified Hawaii about the man having the illness known
as COVID-19 on Friday morning, Hawaii Health Director Bruce Anderson said.
The man was in Hawaii Jan. 28 to
Feb. 7. He first visited the island of Maui, where he had no symptoms, Anderson
said. He was on Oahu, the state’s most populated island, Feb. 3-7. While on
Oahu, he had cold-like symptoms, but no fever, Anderson said.
He developed more serious
symptoms when he returned to Japan, where he was tested and found to be
positive for the illness, Anderson. He did not seek medical care in Hawaii,
Anderson said.
Because of when his symptoms
began, officials believe he became infected in Japan or while in transit to
Hawaii, said state epidemiologist Dr. Sarah Park.” (T)
“The cruise ship had been
shunned at port after port for fear it might carry the coronavirus, but when
the Westerdam arrived in Cambodia on Thursday, the prime minister greeted its
passengers with flowers.
Amid assurances that the ship
was disease free, hundreds of elated passengers disembarked. Some went
sightseeing, visiting beaches and restaurants and getting massages. Others
traveled on to destinations around the world.
One, however, did not make it
much farther than the thermal scanners at the Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia.
The passenger, an American, was stopped on Saturday, and later tested positive
for the coronavirus.
On Sunday, with passengers
already headed for destinations on at least three continents, health officials
were scrambling to determine how a big a problem they now have — and how to
stop it from getting bigger.
“We anticipated glitches, but I
have to tell you I didn’t anticipate one of this magnitude,” said Dr. William
Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical
Center.
With more than a thousand
passengers from the Westerdam headed for home, Dr. Schaffner said, it may be
harder than ever to keep the coronavirus outbreak contained to China.
“This could be a turning point,”
he said.
It is unclear how well the
passengers were screened before they were allowed off the ship. But the best
approach to containing a broader spread of the virus from the Westerdam would
be to track down all of the passengers and quarantine them for two weeks,
experts said…
More than 140 passengers from
the ship flew to Malaysia, and all but the American woman who tested positive
and her husband were eventually allowed to continue on to their destinations,
including the United States, the Netherlands and Australia, officials said.
Over 1,000 other passengers took charter flights to Phnom Penh, the capital of
Cambodia, and were in various stages of transit home, the cruise line said….
The global fight against the
coronavirus is complicated by the fact that different countries may have
different levels of disease surveillance and prevention measures. While the
World Health Organization provides guidance, it is up to each country to
enforce these standards, including whether to quarantine people who may have
been exposed or to stop them from traveling.” (U)
(A) China’s Doctors, Fighting the Coronavirus, Beg for Masks,
Chris Buckley, Sui-Lee Wee and Amy Qin,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/world/asia/china-coronavirus-doctors.html
(B) WHO is investigating 1,716 health workers in China infected
with coronavirus, by Berkeley Lovelace Jr.,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/14/who-and-china-investigate-1716-health-workers-infected-with-coronavirus.html
(C) Coronavirus latest: Chinese cases spike after changes to
diagnosis method, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00154-w
(D) Coronavirus Cases Seemed to Be Leveling Off. Not Anymore,
by Roni Caryn Rabin,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/coronavirus-cases-china.html?referringSource=articleShare
(E) A worker cleans the floor of a temporary ward for patients
with coronavirus in Wuhan, China, by Roni Caryn Rabin,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/coronavirus-cases-china.html?referringSource=articleShare
(F) Coronavirus death toll mounts in China as U.S. braces for
long fight, by CARTER EVANS,
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/coronavirus-china-outbreak-death-toll-infections-cruise-ship-latest-updates-2020-02-14/
(G) Would The U.S. Health System Be Ready For A Surge In
Coronavirus Cases?, by PATTI NEIGHMOND,
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/02/13/799534865/would-the-u-s-health-system-be-ready-for-a-surge-in-coronavirus-cases
(H) Is NYC Prepared for Coronavirus?, by James D. Walsh,
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/coronavirus-is-new-york-city-prepared-for-its-arrival.html
(J) Doctor Who Survived Ebola Says He Was Unfairly Cast as a
Hazard and a Hero, by Anemona Hartocollis,
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/26/nyregion/craig-spencer-new-york-ebola-doctor-speaks-out.html
(K) 5 U.S. cities to start testing patients with flu-like
symptoms for coronavirus, by Erika Edwards,
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/5-u-s-cities-start-testing-patients-flu-symptoms-coronavirus-n1136941
(L) CDC director: Novel coronavirus ‘is probably with us
beyond this season, beyond this year’, by Jacqueline Howard,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/13/health/coronavirus-cdc-robert-redfield-gupta-intv/index.html
(M) Some Wuhan Evacuees Ask Why They Aren’t Being Tested for the
Coronavirus, by Miriam Jordan and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/us/coronavirus-quarantine-tests.html?referringSource=articleShare
(N) China Is Tracking Travelers From Hubei,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
(O) Coronavirus Test Kits Sent to States Are Flawed, C.D.C.
Says, by Denise Grady, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/coronavirus-test-kits-cdc.html
(P) The U.S. says it will evacuate Americans from the cruise
ship quarantined off Japan,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/15/world/asia/coronavirus-china-live-updates.html#link-4c91f3a8
(Q) “CDC and hospital errors led to US coronavirus patient being
sent back to military base, health official says, by Elizabeth Cohen and Jon
Passantino,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/10/health/evacuee-wuhan-coronavirus-mistakenly-released/index.html
(R) San Diego declares two emergencies over coronavirus to free
up resources, by Mark Saunders,
https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/san-diego-declares-two-emergencies-over-coronavirus-to-free-up-resources
(S) Hundreds left a cruise ship in Cambodia. Then one tested
positive for the coronavirus, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/16/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
(T) Japanese man who visited Hawaii confirmed with coronavirus.
by JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/15/world/asia/coronavirus-china-live-updates.html#link-4c91f3a8
(U) Coronavirus Infection Found After Cruise Ship Passengers
Disperse, by Richard C. Paddock, Sui-Lee Wee and Roni Caryn Rabin,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/16/world/asia/coronavirus-cruise-americans.html?referringSource=articleShare
PART 7. CORONAVIRUS. February 20, 2020. With SARS
preparedness underway in NJ LibertyHealth/ Jersey City Medical Center, where I
was President, proposed that our 100 bed community hospital with all
single-bedded rooms, be immediately transformed into an EMERGENCY SARS
ISOLATION Hospital.
The Hospital was in a small town at the intersection of many
major highways. It could be easily secured since it had no immediately
contiguous neighbors. It had a helicopter pad. Its patients could be easily
transferred. And it could be managed by the Public Health Service or military
medicine if necessary.
It didn’t happen!
In 2014, I suggested several anchor principles for Ebola
preparedness in New Jersey, as hospitals of all sizes and scope “marketed”
their Ebola readiness, only to learn that it took well over 20/ 25 full time
staff to care for one Ebola patient (and 50 in Dallas!).
These recommendations included that every hospital that
certified its Emergency Room as ready for Ebola be subject to at least three
separate drills using a standardized format, and then be subject to random
“secret shopper” inspections;
that anyone with a confirmed or suspected Ebola diagnosis be
immediately transferred to a regional center hospital designated by national
standardized criteria which could demonstrate that it has sufficient nursing
staff “volunteers” to care for a least five patients round the clock;
and that isolation hospitals be readied for instant
activation, whether a closed hospital prepared for Ebola now and standing by,
or a “virtual” hospital ready-to-go in military fashion.
Also there was a need to minimize Ebola patients walking
into an ER unannounced, and suggested a statewide 800 number be established so
patients can call ahead and be transported by a prepared ambulance team and
taken to a regional center.
The Federal government, later than sooner, did exclusively
designate three national bio containment facilities hospitals as Ebola Centers.
In 2016 I suggested that similar organizing principles were
urgently need to be established for tiered Zika hospital preparedness by
designating Zika Regional Referral Centers. More specifically:
1. There should not be an automatic default to just
designating Ebola Centers as ZRRCs, although there is likely to be significant
overlap.
2. Zika Centers should be academic medical centers with
respected, comprehensive infectious disease diagnostic/ treatment and research
capabilities, and rigorous infection control programs. They should also offer
robust, comprehensive perinatology, neonatology, and pediatric neurology
services, with the most sophisticated imaging capabilities (and Zika-related
“reading” expertise).
3. National leadership in clinical trials.
4. A track record of successful, large scale clinical Rapid
Response.
5. Organizational wherewithal to address intensive resource
absorption.
6. Start preliminary planning for Zika care out of the
initial designated ZRRCs.
7. Zika protocols will be templates for are other mosquito
borne diseases lurking on the horizon, such as Chikungunya, MERS, and Dengue.
“The Wuhan coronavirus spreading from China is now likely to
become a pandemic that circles the globe, according to many of the world’s
leading infectious disease experts.
The prospect is daunting. A pandemic — an ongoing epidemic
on two or more continents — may well have global consequences, despite the
extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now imposed by China and
other countries, including the United States.
Scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus
is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much damage a pandemic might
cause. But there is growing consensus that the pathogen is readily transmitted
between humans.
The Wuhan coronavirus is spreading more like influenza,
which is highly transmissible, than like its slow-moving viral cousins, SARS
and MERS, scientists have found.
“It’s very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is
going to be a pandemic,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. But will it be catastrophic? I
don’t know.”…
At the moment, it seems unlikely that the virus will spread
widely in countries with vigorous, alert public health systems, said Dr.
William Schaffner, a preventive medicine specialist at Vanderbilt University
Medical Center.
“Every doctor in the U.S. has this top of mind,” he said.
“Any patient with fever or respiratory problems will get two questions. ‘Have
you been to China? Have you had contact with anyone who has?’ If the answer is
yes, they’ll be put in isolation right away.”..
But even if an outbreak fades in June, there could be a
second wave in the fall, as has occurred in every major flu pandemic, including
those that began in 1918 and 2009….
“In God we trust,” Dr. Schaffner said. “All others must
provide data.”” (A)
“A comprehensive study of more than 72,000 confirmed and
suspected cases of the novel coronavirus by Chinese scientists has revealed new
information about the deadly infection which has brought much of the country to
a halt.
Carried out by a group of experts at the Chinese Center for
Disease Control and Prevention and published in the Chinese Journal of
Epidemiology on Monday, the study is the largest and most comprehensive
examination of coronavirus cases so far.
It found that the novel coronavirus is more contagious than
the related viruses which cause SARS and MERS. While the resulting disease,
Covid-19, is not as fatal on a case-by-case basis, its greater spread has
already led to more deaths than its related coronaviruses.” (B)
“Numbers have a certain mystique: They seem precise, exact,
sometimes even beyond doubt. But outside the field of pure mathematics, this
reputation rarely is deserved. And when it comes to the coronavirus epidemic,
buying into that can be downright dangerous….
Constant on-the-nose reporting, however much it seems to
serve transparency, has limitations, too.
It’s a short-term, and shortsighted, approach that’s
difficult to resist, especially when people are afraid and the authorities are
taking draconian actions. It’s only natural to compare and contrast whatever
hard facts are available. And yet it’s especially dangerous to do that
precisely because people are so anxious, and fear can trick the mind.
A view from a loftier perch — a month’s, or even just a
week’s, perspective — would, and will, produce far more reliable information.”
(C)
“One of the enduring images of the current coronavirus
outbreak is a space-age looking thermometer pointed at an airplane passenger.
Eleven airports in the United States are using these
temperature checks as part of expanded screening for novel coronavirus, and
those measures might seem reassuring. If someone doesn’t have a fever, it seems
like they’re fine — right?..
Earlier this month, British researchers published a study
showing that temperature checks will fail to detect a coronavirus infection
nearly half the time….
Since mid-January, the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention has been employing temperature checks at selected airports, at first
on people flying in from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak, and now
on all passengers who’ve been anywhere in mainland China in the past 14 days.
The temperature checks are part of an overall screening
effort that includes giving passengers cards telling them to watch out for
fever, cough and trouble breathing, all symptoms of the novel coronavirus
disease, also called COVID-19.
“Finding sick people who are at risk for COVID-19,
alerting asymptomatic travelers who may develop COVID-19 symptoms after
arrival, and rapidly responding to any suspect COVID-19 illness, we can most
effectively protect the health and safety of the American public,” said
Dr. Martin Cetron, director of CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine.
Some experts say it’s that card — a simple card listing
symptoms in English and Chinese — that holds the key to detecting coronavirus
infection — not a thermometer.” (D)
“On Wednesday, the initial 14-day quarantine aboard a
coronavirus-stricken cruise ship docked in Yokohama, Japan, officially ended.
But the grueling saga seems far from for over for the ship’s 3,711 passengers
and crew…
Japanese health officials are facing international criticism
for their handling of the quarantine on the ship, the Diamond Princess. The
quarantine was intended to curb the spread of disease by keeping people aboard,
isolated from each other and from the public on land. But as cases mounted over
the two weeks, it became clear that the control efforts only enabled the new
coronavirus to spread. In fact, the 621 cases include at least three Japanese
health officials, who were there to support the quarantine efforts but ended up
becoming infected themselves….
Just before Dr. Hopland and his wife planned to board an evacuation
plane chartered by the US State Department on Sunday, test results came back
indicating his wife had contracted the virus. She was moved to a local
hospital, and Dr. Hopland remains on the ship in an extended quarantine.
The chartered flights, meanwhile, repatriated over 300 other
American cruise ship passengers, 14 of whom tested positive for the virus en
route to the US.
“I was surprised I was negative because I knew the virus had
swept through this boat like wildfire,” Dr. Hopland told the Journal. “My
analogy is they put us in a petri dish to get infected.” (E)
“Nebraska’s specialized medical care has handled Ebola. Now
it’s taking on the novel coronavirus
“They’re in the chicken soup stage right now,”
Rupp said. “It’s really just watching them and giving them supportive care
that you would probably get at home from a loving provider.”
The US Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness
Response asked UNMC early Monday morning to take in a total of 13 patients who
had either tested positive, or had a high likelihood of testing positive, for
the novel coronavirus.
The patients had been on a cruise ship docked off the cost
of Japan for two weeks. The center said it was prepared.
“We’re having them under surveillance in quarantine
until we know that they are not a danger to the public,” Rupp said, adding
that most units have an exercise bike or a treadmill as well as a TV and WiFi
so they’re able to communicate…
UNMC was commissioned by the US Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention in 2005 to create the biocontainment unit where one patient
currently is. The rest of the patients are in a separate federal quarantine
center on the campus, that UNMC built through a private-public partnership.
In 2014, UNMC successfully treated three patients with
Ebola, and the medical facility has the capacity to manage other highly
infectious diseases like SARS, monkeypox and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.”
(F)
“In addition to the biocontainment unit, the hospital’s
campus has the only federal quarantine unit in the country.
“We do a huge amount of research in these areas,” said Dr.
Jeffrey P. Gold, chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical Center,
citing work on infectious diseases and research on countermeasures to weapons
of mass destruction.
“What — heaven forbid
— happens if an employee or staff member gets exposed to one of these agents,
or even worse than that, gets infected, where are you going to put them? You
can’t just call up a local hospital and say, ‘I’ve got somebody who has anthrax,
make up a bed,’” he said. “You need facilities that can do everything from air
and water handling to the complexities of waste disposal.”” (G)
“The Center for Disease Control does not recognize surgical
masks as a means of protection from viruses. Health professionals use N95
respirators that are formed tightly around the nose and mouth. Dr. Seery says
N95s are expensive and not practical for the public.
“Surgical masks aren’t bad. If you’re stuck in
something like a plane, I don’t think it’s going to do you much good,” Dr.
Seery says. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop all the air that you breathe in
around the mask, but if you’re out and about in a community that has the flu,
for example, it might reduce your chances of coming into contact with that flu
virus while walking through someone’s sneeze cloud.”” (H)
“The director of a Chinese hospital at the epicenter of the
coronavirus outbreak became one of its victims Tuesday despite
“all-out” efforts to save his life, Chinese health officials said…
Liu Zhiming, president of Wuhan Wuchang Hospital in Hubei
province, died of coronavirus-related pneumonia, China Daily reported. The
hospital, one of the seven designated for the epidemic in Wuhan, treated
thousands of people a day…
“Unfortunately he became infected and passed away at
10:54 Tuesday morning after all-out efforts to save him failed,” the commission
said.” (I)
“An Oregon comedian who had been stranded on a Holland
America cruise ship in Cambodia due to COVID-19 virus concerns managed to get a
flight back home by breaking quarantine in a hotel where ship’s passengers were
being held pending test results…
“There was no official ‘you can’t leave’ (at the hotel)
but if you tried to go out the front door with your luggage, security would
stop you,” King said. “But if you went out with your backpack and you
were sightseeing, not a problem.”..
He says he chose to fly back on his own on a more
full-service airline, even purchasing a full-price, upgraded ticket as not to
raise suspicion that he was trying to quickly leave the country at the last
minute as cheaply as possible.
King said he sailed through the airports on his three
connecting flights, only being asked if he had been to China, and had a rental
car reserved in Seattle to get home to Eugene if he couldn’t fly from here.
King said somebody asked him if it was “kind of selfish
to self deport?” He said while the results of his virus test weren’t back,
he’s confident he’s OK since he has not shown any symptoms, nor fever, and says
he had been essentially in quarantine for 14 days.” (J)
“In one school district, families are pulling their kids out
of school. In others, students show up in face masks.
Educators in another Southern California community agreed to
suspend an exchange program to keep visiting Chinese students out of
quarantine.
School districts across the U.S., particularly those with
large Asian American populations, have scrambled to respond to the outbreak of
the coronavirus, which has killed more than 1,500 people and sickened tens of
thousands more, almost all in China.
At least 15 cases have been confirmed in the U.S., mostly in
California, home to about one-third of the nation’s Chinese immigrants.
The districts find themselves in uncharted territory as they
apply new federal travel rules to their student bodies. And in some cases,
administrators are making decisions to address parental fears – not actual
disease – with no official guidance. They’re weighing whether to allow students
to work from home, even if they haven’t traveled abroad recently, or let them
wear face masks in class.
Balancing these requests against broader public health needs
often leads to different conclusions.
“We’re just doing our best to comply” as the rules and
outbreak evolve, said Jenny Owen, spokesperson for the Duarte Unified School
District, about 20 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. About 6% of the
district’s students identify as Asian…
To prevent the virus’s spread in the U.S., the federal
government has issued rules for returning travelers: U.S. citizens and legal
permanent residents who visited the epicenter of the outbreak in China, Hubei
province, in the previous 14 days must undergo a mandatory two-week quarantine
at a government-run facility. Those who visited other parts of China must stay
home and “self-quarantine” for two weeks.
The policies began Feb. 2, and as a result, an exchange
program that brought children from China to Duarte schools has been temporarily
halted to prevent the students from being quarantined, Owen said.
State public health departments are using the federal rules
to draft guidelines for school districts.
The policies made a “night and day” difference in clearing
up confusion, especially for families who had recently traveled from China and
were wondering whether to send their kids to school, said Don Austin,
superintendent of the nearly 12,000-student Palo Alto Unified School District
in the Bay Area, where about 36% of students identify as Asian.
“When I first heard of the concept of self-quarantine, my
first instinct was, this could be problematic if we’re alone on that and trying
to create some of these policies and practices on the fly,” he said.
But school districts and local health departments still have
to make quick decisions in cases that fall outside federal guidelines.” (K)
“As the U.S. responds to a growing threat of the 2019 novel
coronavirus, CMS and other organizations are clarifying how to code for testing
and treatment of the disease.
Six things to know:
1. CMS created a new Healthcare Common Procedure Coding
System code for providers and labs testing patients for SARS-CoV-2, or severe
acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.
2. Providers can use the HCPCS code U0001 to test patients
for coronavirus using the CDC’s 2019 novel coronavirus real-time RT-PCR
Diagnostic Test Panel.
3. Medicare’s claims processing system will start accepting
the code April 1 for dates of services Feb. 4 onward.
4. Audrey Howard, senior outsource services consultant with
3M Health Information Systems, reviewed in a blog post the current ICD-10-CM
codes providers could use to code for the virus.
5. For classifying coronavirus not associated with SARS,
providers could use:
Pneumonia due to coronavirus: J12.89 and B97.29
Sepsis due to coronavirus: A41.89 and B97.29
Other infection caused by coronavirus: B34.2
Contact with and (suspected) exposure to other viral
communicable diseases: Z20.828
6. For classifying the SARS-associated coronavirus,
providers could use:
Pneumonia due to SARS-associated coronavirus: J12.81
Sepsis due to SARS-associated coronavirus: A41.89 and
B97.21” (L)
“Staff at NYU Langone Health in New York City has designated
the new virus as a “level 1” priority.
“A big part of this level is communication,” said Dr.
Jennifer Lighter, hospital epidemiologist there.
“We are trying to communicate to NYU staff and patients in
our medical center how to best protect themselves from the flu or COVID-19,”
Lighter said. “That’s just general info like basic hand hygiene, sneezing into
the end of your elbow and practicing safe distance from someone who is sick.”
NYU is also preparing for a level 2 or 3 scenario, she
added, where there is transmission in the city and it begins to impact hospital
operations. The health-care system has implemented a conservation plan and
medical supplies, especially respirator masks, are only given to staff as
needed, she said.
“If a team needed more, they would have to be
infection-prevention approved or manager approved before someone would get
more,” she said, adding staff is already feeling the brunt of the flu season.
The hospital is also recommending patients with more mild
symptoms to stay at home, she said. The hospital has been ramping up its
virtual urgent care, including training doctors and purchasing more iPads and other
machines. “If you’re shortness of breath, obviously, please come in,” Lighter
said.” (M)
(A) Wuhan
Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic, Experts Say, by Donald G.
McNeil Jr., https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/health/coronavirus-pandemic-china.html?referringSource=articleShare
(B) Chinese
CDC study finds Covid-19 virus to be more contagious than SARS or MERS, by
James Griffiths and Nectar Gan,
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/chinese-cdc-study-finds-covid-19-virus-to-be-more-contagious-than-sars-or-mers/ar-BB108Z9X
(C) Constant
on-the-nose reporting, however much it seems to serve transparency, has
limitations, too, by John Allen Paulos,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/opinion/coronavirus-china-numbers.html
(D) No US
coronavirus cases were caught by airport temperature checks. Here’s what has
worked, by Elizabeth Cohen and John Bonifield,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/19/health/coronavirus-airport-temperature-checks/index.html
(E) Americans
on coronavirus cruise ship barred from US after failed quarantine, by BETH
MOLE,
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/02/americans-on-coronavirus-cruise-ship-barred-from-us-after-failed-quarantine/
(F) Nebraska
doctors are providing coronavirus patients with chicken soup and Tylenol, by
Amir Vera and Nick Watt,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/18/health/nebraska-coronavirus-unmc-chicken-soup/index.html
(G) First
Ebola, Now Coronavirus. Why an Omaha Hospital Gets the Toughest Cases, by Sarah
Mervosh, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/us/coronavirus-omaha-nebraska-medical-center.html
(H) Do
surgical masks protect against illness?, by Kristen Boxman, https://www.kwch.com/content/news/Do-surgical-masks-protect-against-illness-567967131.html
(I) Coronavirus
20 times more lethal than the flu? Death toll passes 2,000, by John Bacon,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/02/18/wuhan-china-coronavirus-hospital-director-dies-covid/4792597002/
(J) Hotel
getaway: Oregon comedian quarantined amid cruise ship virus sneaks flight to
Seattle,
https://komonews.com/news/local/man-stranded-on-coronavirus-infected-cruise-ship-arrives-at-sea-tac-airport
(K) School
districts grapple with coronavirus quarantines, face masks and fear, by Anna
Almendrala,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/02/17/coronavirus-forces-schools-grapple-quarantines-masks-and-fear/4775522002/
(L) Coding
for coronavirus: 6 things to know, by Morgan Haefner,
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/coding-for-coronavirus-6-things-to-know.html
(M) Hospitals
across the US prepare for coronavirus outbreak to become global pandemic, by
Berkeley Lovelace Jr., https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/19/hospitals-across-the-us-prepare-for-coronavirus-outbreak-to-become-global-pandemic.html
PART 8. CORONAVIRUS. “…every country’s top priority
should be to protect its health care workers. This is partly to ensure that
hospitals themselves do not become sites where the coronavirus is spread more
than it is contained.”
“Why this looks like the beginning of a pandemic
These outbreaks outside of China, along with the latest
science on Covid-19, suggest we may soon see a rapid rise in infections — both
in China and in more countries around the world. Here’s why.
1) The virus is very contagious and some people seem to be
able to infect others before they know they’re sick: Researchers currently believe
one infected person generally infects two to three others, which would make the
new coronavirus more contagious than other coronaviruses, like SARS and MERS.
“TRYING TO STOP INFLUENZA-LIKE TRANSMISSION IS LIKE TRYING
TO STOP THE WIND. IT’S VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE.”…
2) Countries are still mostly looking for the disease in
people who’ve traveled from China: The main method of screening in many
countries is still testing passengers coming from China, or from Hubei province
only. But as we’ve seen, spread is happening beyond those people. And other
cases may be undetected…
3) With flu season ongoing, it can take time to identify
cases and outbreaks: “The challenge with this illness is that the clinical
symptoms resemble other viral illnesses, like flu,” said Inglesby. So people
with the flu, and doctors examining them, may not even be thinking of Covid-19
yet, especially in people who haven’t traveled to China.
4) China may also see another surge in cases soon as travel
restrictions are gradually lifted: The country has taken extraordinarily
draconian measures to stop this virus, quarantining millions, and shutting down
transit and travel. But the business community is growing increasingly
frustrated with the restrictions, and is pressuring government officials to
ease some of the restrictions…
5) Many countries are only now getting testing up and
running: Even the US — with one of the most highly-resourced health systems in
the world — doesn’t have adequate diagnostic capacity right now:
Reminder: As of today (Feb 23), the US remains extremely
limited in #COVID19 testing. Only 3 of ~100 public health labs have @CDC test
kits working and CDC is not sharing what went wrong with the kits. How to know
if COVID19 is spreading here if we are not looking for it.
6) Some people may have abdominal pain before respiratory
symptoms — and that’s not something health officials are screening for: This
coronavirus is still very new, and we don’t know its entire spectrum of illness
yet, but we’re learning the disease may sometimes surface in surprising ways.
Though it’s a respiratory infection, a recent JAMA article found some have
abdominal symptoms such as discomfort first. This means “we may not be
detecting cases that do not present in the classic way with fever and respiratory
symptoms,” said William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt
University….
We need to prepare for a pandemic…
For now, countries need to move from trying to contain the
virus to mitigating its harm — reducing the spread, and caring for the very
sick, said Jennifer Nuzzo, an infectious disease expert and senior scholar at
the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “It is beyond time,” she added.”
(A)
“On Tuesday, Feb. 18, no coronavirus cases had been reported
in Iran. On Sunday, the government announced 43 cases and eight deaths. Some
152 cases (and at least three deaths) were confirmed in Italy on Sunday, up
from three cases on Thursday. The number of infected people in South Korea
jumped to 763 (and six deaths) in just days.
As of Monday, Covid-19 was detected in at least 29
countries. In nations with few or no reported cases so far, particularly in
South America and Africa, the absence of evidence shouldn’t be interpreted as
evidence of absence. More likely, it reflects lack of testing.
Is the Covid-19 outbreak now a pandemic, whether or not the
World Health Organization calls it that yet? If so, what’s next?
In a world ill-prepared for a potentially life-threatening,
easily transmitted disease like Covid-19, the most effective way to mitigate
the pandemic’s impact is to focus on supporting health care systems that
already are overburdened…
This is the main reason every country’s top priority should
be to protect its health care workers.
The United States and other countries in the Northern
Hemisphere already are in the throes of a moderately severe flu season. Their
inventories of protective equipment used by doctors, nurses and emergency
medical workers — N-95 respirator masks, gloves, eye protection, disposable suits
— are running low. These limited supplies must go to health care workers first,
rather than the public. This is partly to ensure that hospitals themselves do
not become sites where the coronavirus is spread more than it is contained: If
infected health care workers die in large numbers, entire societies may be
shaken to the point of panic.
Governments should also conduct Covid-19 preparedness drills
in local hospitals and expand hospitals’ temporary capacity, for example, by
setting up emergency tents in parking lots, as is already happening in some
places in the United States. To minimize the strain on overstressed acute-care
hospitals, supportive nursing care might have to be provided, in makeshift
facilities and patients’ homes, as was done during severe pandemics in the
past, such as the Great Influenza of 1918-19…
Ensuring all of this means facing the hard facts of this
unfolding pandemic — and that requires thorough, transparent disclosures to the
public. Past experiences, with the anthrax-laced letters in 2001 and the 2014
Ebola outbreak, suggest that people react more rationally and show greater
resilience to a full-blown crisis if they are prepared intellectually and
emotionally for it.” (B)
“The number of coronavirus cases in South Korea has soared
to about 602, according to The New York Times. More than half of those cases
involve members of, or those somehow linked to, the religious sect, the
Shincheonji Church of Jesus, where a so-called superspreader infected at least
37 people last week.
A so-called superspreader infected at least 37 people at her
church with the new coronavirus, and dozens of additional worshippers are also
showing symptoms of the disease, called COVID-19, according to news reports.
The 61-year-old woman attends the Shincheonji Church of
Jesus the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony in Daegu, South Korea,
according to the international news outlet AFP. The city, located in the
southern part of the country, is home to about 2.5 million people. The woman,
called “Patient 31” by Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, developed a fever on Feb. 10 and attended four church services
before being diagnosed with COVID-19. ..
Authorities described the outbreak as a
“super-spreading event,” as the lone woman transmitted the infection
to an unusually high number of people, according to Reuters. Current estimates
suggest that a single person with the novel coronavirus spreads the infection
to about 2.2 additional people, on average. The surge of infection at the
church brings the total number of confirmed cases in South Korea to 104; one
death associated with the virus has occurred in the country so far.” (C)
“Rain was falling on the night of Jan. 18, so the windows of
the Tokyo party boat were shut. Inside were about 90 guests of a local taxi
association who were celebrating the new year as the vessel floated down the
Sumida River. Also on board, unbeknown to them, was a coronavirus capable of
spreading ferociously.
It did just that. A driver in his 70s soon fell ill with
fever; he later tested positive. The same day as his diagnosis, his
mother-in-law died; she also was infected. Officials then discovered that 10
others from the boat were, too, including an employee who had served passengers
from Wuhan, China. Still more who did not attend the party caught the virus
after coming into contact with those who did.
As public health officials look for clues to one of the
biggest uncertainties about the new coronavirus epidemic — whether it will
eventually expand rapidly beyond its center in China — they are closely
studying clusters of cases that have emerged recently in Japan.
The issue has taken on more urgency as passengers have begun
walking off a contaminated cruise ship in Yokohama where 634 people have tested
positive for the virus and two later died. Experts fear that some who were
cleared to leave an onboard quarantine could later test positive, spreading
infections on land in the same way that the party boat has done.
Alarmed officials are rushing to learn more about how the
virus is transmitted, including how many of those infected experience mild
symptoms or none at all, and whether it can be spread by people who are
symptom-free.” (D)
“Most of the Americans who were being monitored at the
University of Nebraska Medical Center for coronavirus after evacuating a cruise
ship in Japan tested positive for the virus, the hospital says.
UNMC said in a statement Thursday that the US Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention verified the Nebraska Public Health Lab results
showing that 11 of the 13 patients have the novel coronavirus. The other two
evacuees who were taken to the Omaha hospital tested negative, the statement
said.
Bert Kelly, a CDC spokesman, told CNN that the agency has
verified the results, bringing the total of confirmed cases in the United
States to 26.
The hospital had said some of the patients had tested
positive in Japan but some “came with a lack of clarity of what their test
results were,” Shelly Schwedhelm told CNN. Schwedhelm is the UNMC/Nebraska
Medical Executive Director of Emergency Management and Biopreparedness who has
clinical oversight of the quarantine and biocontainment units.
Nine of the patients had tested positive for the virus in
Japan and were positive again after being rested in the United States, another
CDC spokesman, Joe Smith, told CNN on Friday.” (E)
“Preventing the spread of infectious disease is the essence
of public health work, but the scale of efforts by state and local health
departments across the country to contain the virus known as COVID-19, experts
said, has rarely been seen. Since early February, thousands of people returning
to the United States from mainland China, the center of the outbreak, have been
asked to isolate themselves at home for 14 days…
Local health officials check in daily by email, phone or
text. They arrange tests for people who come down with symptoms, and in some
cases, groceries and isolated housing. There is no centralized tally in the
United States of people being monitored or asked to remain in isolation, and
they are scattered across the nation’s nearly 3,000 local health jurisdictions.
People arriving from mainland China are added each day,
while those who have completed 14-day “self-quarantine” periods are released
from oversight. In California alone, the department of public health has been
monitoring more than 6,700 returning travelers from China, while health
officials in Washington State have tracked about 800, and officials in Illinois
more than 200.
At least 34 cases have been confirmed in the U.S. and more
infections are expected…
“All hands on deck
are being pulled into this,’’ said Dr. Marcus Plescia, the chief medical
officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, a
nonprofit organization that represents public health agencies across the
country. “If it really blows up, at some point, it could overwhelm state and
local health departments.”…
In Washington, where the first coronavirus patient in the
United States was confirmed on Jan. 21, health officials tracked down and
monitored 69 individuals with whom the man had come in contact, including work
colleagues, health workers and other patients present in a clinic he visited
when he first felt sick. Still, there have been issues. One person the man had
been in contact with and who had developed symptoms of illness flew on a plane
to Wisconsin during the 14-day period when she was supposed to be isolated at
home.
“There is no way,
with something this large, that you can make it seal-proof,’’ said Dr. Wiesman,
who has started twice-weekly conference calls with the chief health officers in
every state and territory to share tips and seek advice on how to manage the
shifting challenges of the coronavirus response. While enforcing total
compliance with isolation orders may not be possible, Dr. Wiesman said, “We
have to try for 80 to 85 percent, and hopefully that will work.’’
Federal authorities are in charge of setting guidelines to
manage the danger, such as deciding how much risk a returning traveler poses
and who should be tested for the coronavirus. But the day-to-day work putting
those policies in place and tracking thousands of people falls to the vast,
decentralized network of local health departments across the country.
Travelers’ data, culled from federal customs officials, is passed on to state
health agencies, who farm out lists of people returning from China to local
health departments.” (F)
Health experts sounded the alarm Friday over the worldwide
threat of the coronavirus, with officials “warning of its “likely”
community spread in the United States and the World Health Organization
cautioning that “the window of opportunity is narrowing” for
containing the outbreak worldwide.
The COVID-19 coronavirus, which erupted in China in
December, has killed at least 2,360 people and sickened at least 77,900
worldwide, the majority of cases in mainland China.
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center
for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters Friday that U.S.
health officials are preparing for the coronavirus to become a pandemic.
“We’re not seeing community spread here in the United
States, yet, but it’s very possible, even likely, that it may eventually
happen,” she said. “Our goal continues to be slowing the introduction of the virus
into the U.S. This buys us more time to prepare communities for more cases and
possibly sustained spread.”
She said the CDC is working with state and local health
departments “to ready our public health workforce to respond to local cases.”
These measures include collaboration with supply chain partners, hospitals,
pharmacies and manufacturers to determine what medical supplies are needed.
She said the “day may come” here where we have to shut down
schools and businesses like China has done.” (G)
“In the U.S., the number of confirmed cases rose to at least
34, as a number of evacuated individuals from the Diamond Princess cruise ship
have tested positive.
Several other Americans who were on board the ship have been
diagnosed and hospitalized in Japan, according to the CDC. As of Friday
afternoon, there were no plans to evacuate those patients. The U.S. Department
of State said it will not rescue other Americans who choose to go on cruises in
Asia.
“Such repatriation flights do not reflect our standard practice,
and should not be relied upon as an option for U.S. citizens,” Ian
Brownlee, an executive within the Department of State, said during a media
briefing Friday.
On its website, the department has warned Americans to
reconsider any planned cruises to or within Asia, saying such trips “may
be impacted by travel restrictions affecting their itineraries or ability to
disembark, or may be subject to quarantine procedures implemented by the local
authorities.
How countries are able to contain the virus and prevent it
from sustained person-to-person transmission will be important in determining
the “ultimate end game” of the virus, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of
the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NBC News.
“If infection control gets out of control in many of
these countries throughout the world, then it’s going to be very difficult to
prevent cases from then going, by travel, to all parts of the world,”
Fauci said. “That’s how a pandemic starts.”
As part of a team of international scientists led by the
World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health and the CDC have
staff members in China, observing containment and infection control efforts.
They’re scheduled to travel into the epicenter of the outbreak, Wuhan, on Saturday.
“We still believe we can contain the virus,” WHO
Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday during a media
briefing. “But the window of opportunity is narrowing.”” (H)
“About 150 prescription drugs — including antibiotics,
generics and some branded drugs without alternatives — are at risk of shortage
if the coronavirus outbreak in China worsens, according to two sources familiar
with a list of at-risk drugs compiled by the Food and Drug Administration.
Why it matters: China is a huge supplier of the ingredients
used to make drugs that are sold in the U.S. If the virus decreases China’s
production capability, Americans who rely on the drugs made from these
ingredients could be in trouble.
What they’re saying: The FDA declined to comment on the
list, but said in a statement that it’s “keenly aware that the outbreak
could impact the medical product supply chain,” and has devoted additional
resources toward identifying potential vulnerabilities to U.S. medical products
stemming specifically from the outbreak.
The agency has been in contact with hundreds of drug and
medical device manufacturers, and it’s also coordinating with global regulators
like the European Medicines Agency.
It pointed out that there aren’t any vaccines, gene
therapies or blood derivatives licensed by the FDA that are manufactured in
China, although raw materials for many products do come from China and other
southeastern Asian countries. The agency is in contact with biologics
manufacturers to monitor supply concerns.
“If a potential shortage or disruption of medical
products is identified by the FDA, we will use all available tools to react
swiftly and mitigate the impact to U.S. patients and health care
professionals,” said an FDA spokesperson.” (I)
“A group of 46 Congress members sent a letter to the Trump
administration Feb. 20 urging the government not to give exclusive licenses to
any drugmaker that develops a coronavirus vaccine using U.S. taxpayer funds.
The lawmakers expressed concern that if drugmakers are given
excluisve licenses on coronavirus treatments or vaccines, they would raise the
prices and make treatments inaccessible for many people affected by the virus.”
(J)
“As the novel coronavirus, called COVID-19, continues to
spread across the globe, Cleveland’s major hospitals are preparing for
potential cases.
From screening patients for the virus to protecting medical
providers, local health care systems are taking precautions to ensure that if
they do get a case of COVID-19, it doesn’t spread, as it has in China.
“Part of preparedness is thinking ahead,” said Dr. Amy Ray,
medical director of infection prevention at the MetroHealth System…
Early identification of patients who are at risk for
COVID-19 infection is important, Ray said.
MetroHealth staff who schedule urgent appointments in
doctors’ offices are trained to look for patients who are having fever and
cough, or fever and shortness of breath, and have traveled in China or been in
close contact with someone who traveled there, Ray said…
At the Cleveland Clinic, the electronic medical records
vendor turned on a function that automatically prompts those who are checking
in patients or taking calls to ask if patients have traveled to China and are
experiencing symptoms such as cough and fever, said Dr. Tom Fraser, vice
chairman of infectious disease at the Clinic…
At MetroHealth’s main campus in south Tremont area,
officials have set aside a two-bed unit, called the Special Diseases Care Unit,
for possible COVID-19 patients.
The unit has its own blood lab and an anteroom where health
care workers can put on and take off their protective gear. The Infection
Prevention Team is looking for other areas of MetroHealth with
negative-pressure ventilation systems that could be used to care for COVID-19
patients, Ray said.
Portable X-ray and other equipment can be brought to the
isolation rooms to minimize the need to move patients through the hospital,
limiting the danger of transmission to others…
At each hospital system, medical personnel wear protective
gear that covers their nose, mouth and eyes to examine patients suspected of
having COVID-19. That means wearing fitted respirators, a face shield or
goggles, gloves and a gown.
Keeping health care workers protected and healthy is a
priority because they come in contact with so many others, Saade said.
“A big problem in these big epidemics — thankfully, we’re
not there yet — is that you don’t have enough health care workers to help with
people care,” he said…
While it’s ideal to isolate all patients in the hospital, if
there were a COVID-19 outbreak, those with lesser symptoms would need to
self-quarantine at home, Saade said.
“If we have just a few people, we can isolate them,” he
said. “That’s not something that can happen if it’s widespread.”
Fraser said that a lot of the precautions that health
systems are taking for COVID-19 are built on day-to-day infection-prevention
practices.
In the end, it all comes down to the basics, he said.
“Everybody’s seen the Hazmat suits and stuff like that on
TV. But if we don’t wash our hands well between patients, then you can have all
kinds of fancy suits” but not be protected, Frazer said.
“Clean hands going in, and clean hands going out” is the
“fail safe,” he said. “Because not everybody is going to come with a sign that
says ‘I’ve got coronavirus.’ ”
The Clinic emphasizes daily basic infection-prevention
practices, such as hand hygiene and proper cough etiquette.
“Those kind of basics, without those, everything else would
fall apart,” Fraser said.” (K)
Labs in the US will start looking for the new coronavirus
this week (L)
Specialized respirators are key to stopping spread of
coronavirus to medical staff (M)
Flowchart to Identify and Assess 2019 Novel Coronavirus for
the evaluation of patients who may be ill with or who may have been exposed to
2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)
For the evaluation of patients who may be ill with or who
may have been exposed to 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) (N)
Coronavirus: What it does to the body (O)
How the coronavirus can kill people (P)
Coronavirus Disease 2019 Information for Travel
This page includes information about Coronavirus Disease
2019 (COVID-19) for travelers and travel related industries. (Q)
Interim Guidance for Businesses and Employers to Plan and
Respond to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), February 2020 (R)
(A) “We are at
a turning point”: The coronavirus outbreak is looking more like a pandemic, by
Julia Belluz,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic.html?referringSource=articleShare
(B) Is It a
Pandemic Yet? It’s now clear that the coronavirus epidemic was never going to
be contained. What’s next?, by Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic.html?referringSource=articleShare
(C) Superspreader’
in South Korea infects nearly 40 people with coronavirus, by Nicoletta Lanese,
https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-superspreader-south-korea-church.html
(D) What a
Party in Japan May Tell Us About the Coronavirus’s Spread, by Sui-Lee Wee and
Makiko Inoue,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/world/asia/japan-coronavirus-clusters.html?referringSource=articleShare
(E) 11 cruise
ship passengers test positive for coronavirus, Nebraska hospital says, Nicole Chavez, https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/20/health/nebraska-coronavirus-positive-tests/index.html
(F) Local
health officials check in daily by email, phone or text with the thousands of
people returning to the United States from mainland China, where they may have
encountered the virus, by Amy Harmon and Farah Stockman,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/22/us/coronavirus-local-health-response.html?referringSource=articleShare
(G) CDC is
preparing for the ‘likely’ spread of coronavirus in the US, officials say, by
Doug Stanglin, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/02/21/coronavirus-who-contain-outbreak-iran-deaths-south-korea-cases/4829278002/
(H) U.S. takes
steps to prepare for pandemic as global coronavirus cases rise, by Erika
Edwards, https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/u-s-takes-steps-prepare-pandemic-global-coronavirus-cases-rise-n1140371
(I) Scoop:
Coronavirus threatens shortages of about 150 drugs, by Caitlin Owens,
https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-threatens-drug-shortage-318c9e7b-5d92-4a5e-b992-2478023c6d01.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top
(J) Don’t
allow monopoly of coronavirus drug rights, lawmakers urge Trump, by Maia
Anderson,
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/pharmacy/don-t-allow-monopoly-of-coronavirus-drug-rights-lawmakers-urge-trump.html
(K) Protecting
patients, health care workers priorities as Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth and
UH prepare for coronavirus, by Ginger Christ,
https://www.cleveland.com/business/2020/02/cleveland-hospitals-prepare-for-potential-novel-coronavirus-cases.html
PART 9. CORONAVIRUS. Responding to a question about
the likelihood of a U.S. outbreak, President Trump said, “I don’t think
it’s inevitable…”It probably will. It possibly will,” he continued.
“It could be at a very small level, or it could be at a larger level.”
“A person in
California who was not exposed to anyone infected with the coronavirus, and had
not traveled to countries in which the virus is circulating, has tested
positive for the infection in what may be the first case of community spread
here in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said
on Wednesday.
“At this point, the patient’s exposure is unknown,” the
C.D.C. statement said. “The case was detected through the U.S. public health
system and picked up by astute clinicians.”
The case was announced shortly after President Trump
concluded a news briefing in which he said that aggressive public health
containment measures and travel entry restrictions had successfully limited the
spread of coronavirus in the United States.
It brings the number of cases in the country to 60,
including the 45 cases among Americans who were repatriated from Wuhan, China —
the epicenter of the outbreak — and the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was
overwhelmed by the virus after it docked in Japan.
Until now, public health officials have been able to trace
all of the infections in the country to a recent trip abroad or a known
patient.
This new case appears to be one of community spread — one in
which the source of infection is unknown. It is possible the patient may have
been exposed to a returning traveler who was infected, the C.D.C. said.” (A)
“The first suspected U.S. case of a patient getting the new
coronavirus through “community spread” – with no history of travel to
affected areas or exposure to someone known to have the COVID-19 illness — was
left undiagnosed for days because a request for testing wasn’t initially
granted, according to officials at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento,
Calif.
The patient in Northern California is now the 60th confirmed
case of the new coronavirus in the United States. The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention disclosed the latest case Wednesday evening, as
President Trump assigned Vice President Pence to lead the administration’s
response to the disease.
“This case was detected through the U.S. public health
system — picked up by astute clinicians,” the CDC said in a brief
statement about the new patient.
UC Davis included more details about the case in its own
statement, drawing on an email sent to staff at its medical center. It said the
CDC initially ruled out a test for the coronavirus because the patient’s case
didn’t match its criteria.” (S)
“An American soldier in South Korea has tested positive for
the new coronavirus, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.
The patient, a 23-year-old man, is based in Camp Carroll in
Waegwan, only 12 miles from Daegu, the South Korean city at the center of an outbreak in the country.
The soldier, the first U.S. service member to become
infected, has been quarantined in his off-base residence, the military said.
The soldier visited Camp Walker, a military base in Daegu,
on Monday and visited Camp Carroll from Friday to Tuesday.
South Korean and American “health professionals are actively
conducting contact tracing to determine whether any others may have been
exposed,” the military said.
The military added that it was “implementing all appropriate
control measures to help control the spread of Covid-19 and remains at risk
level ‘high’” for all its 28,500 soldiers stationed in South Korea “as a
prudent measure to protect the force.” “(B)
“Why this looks like the beginning of a pandemic
These outbreaks outside of China, along with the latest
science on Covid-19, suggest we may soon see a rapid rise in infections in more
countries around the world. Here’s why.
1) The virus is very contagious, and some people seem to be
able to infect others before they know they’re sick: Researchers currently
believe one infected person generally infects two to three others, which would
make the new coronavirus more contagious than other coronaviruses, like SARS
and MERS…
2) Countries are still mostly looking for the disease in
people who’ve traveled from China: The main method of screening in many
countries is still testing passengers coming from China or from Hubei province
only. But as we’ve seen, spread is happening beyond those people. And other
cases may be undetected…
3) With flu season ongoing, it can take time to identify
cases and outbreaks: “The challenge with this illness is that the clinical
symptoms resemble other viral illnesses, like flu,” said Inglesby. So people
with the flu, and doctors examining them, may not even be thinking of Covid-19
yet, especially in people who haven’t traveled to China.
4) China’s case toll is falling — but it may see another
surge soon as travel restrictions are gradually lifted: The country has taken
extraordinarily draconian measures to stop this virus, quarantining millions,
and shutting down transit and travel. But the business community is growing increasingly
frustrated with the restrictions and is pressuring government officials to ease
some of them…
5) Many countries are only now getting testing up and
running: Even the US, with one of the most highly resourced health systems in
the world, doesn’t have adequate diagnostic capacity right now..
6) Some people may have abdominal pain before respiratory
symptoms — and that’s not something health officials are screening for: This
coronavirus is still very new, and we don’t know its entire spectrum of illness
yet, but we’re learning the disease may sometimes surface in surprising ways.
Though it’s a respiratory infection, a recent JAMA article found some have
abdominal symptoms such as discomfort first. This means “we may not be
detecting cases that do not present in the classic way with fever and respiratory
symptoms,” said William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt
University…” (D)
“Outside China, there are now 2,790 cases in 37
countries, and 44 deaths,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
said at a briefing in Geneva…
Tedros is urging the international community to have
“hope, courage and confidence” that the new respiratory virus can be
contained, citing 14 countries that haven’t reported a new case in more than a
week.
Worldwide, there are currently 81,191 cases of the novel
coronavirus, according to a dashboard created by the Johns Hopkins Whiting
School of Engineering. That number includes 30,281 cases in which people
recovered from COVID-19.
But Tedros also warned that the situation could get worse,
saying, “At the same time, all countries, whether they have cases or not,
must prepare for a potential pandemic.”..
On a broader scale, the WHO’s Tedros says every country
should make it a top priority to protect workers who are dealing with the
health crisis. And he says agencies should work with communities whose members
are most at risk, “particularly the elderly and people with underlying
health conditions.”
Despite the worrying rise of cases at the international
level, Tedros again rejected calls Wednesday for the WHO to declare a pandemic,
saying it’s not an accurate label for a virus he still views as containable. He
has also recently noted that the virus’s fatality rate outside of Hubei
province is less than 1%.
The WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a global health
emergency in January, as cases surged in China. The organization now says it
believes the epidemic peaked and plateaued in China between the end of January
and the early February.” (E)
“The World Health Organization (WHO) still avoided using the
word “pandemic” to describe the burgeoning crisis today, instead talking about
“epidemics in different parts of the world.” But many scientists say that
regardless of what it’s called, the window for containment is now almost
certainly shut. “It looks to me like this virus really has escaped from China
and is being transmitted quite widely,” says Christopher Dye, an epidemiologist
at the University of Oxford. “I’m now feeling much more pessimistic that it can
be controlled.” In the United States, “disruption to everyday life might be
severe,” Nancy Messonnier, who leads the coronavirus response for the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned on 25 February. “We are
asking the American public to work with us to prepare for the expectation that
this is going to be bad.”
Dye and others say it’s time to rethink the public health
response. So far, efforts have focused on containment: slowing the spread of
the virus within China, keeping it from being exported to other countries, and,
when patients do cross borders, aggressively tracing anyone they were in
contact with and quarantining those people for 2 weeks. But if the virus, named
SARS-CoV-2, has gone global, travel restrictions may become less effective than
measures to limit outbreaks and reduce their impact, wherever they are—for
instance, by closing schools, preparing hospitals, or even imposing the kind of
draconian quarantine imposed on huge cities in China.” …
To prepare for what’s coming, hospitals can stockpile
respiratory equipment and add beds. More intensive use of the vaccines against
influenza and pneumococcal infections could help reduce the burden of those
respiratory diseases on the health care system and make it easier to identify
COVID-19 cases, which produce similar symptoms. Governments can issue messages
about the importance of handwashing and staying home if you’re ill.
Whatever the rest of the world does, it’s essential that it
take action soon, Aylward says, and he hopes other countries will learn from
China. “The single biggest lesson is: Speed is everything,” he says. “And you
know what worries me most? Has the rest of the world learned the lesson of
speed?” (F)
“White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow
said Tuesday that the U.S. has “contained” the threat of a domestic coronavirus
outbreak, breaking with the warnings of officials from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
“We have contained this, I won’t say airtight but pretty
close to airtight,” Kudlow told CNBC’s Kelly Evans on Tuesday afternoon…
Some of his comments stood in contrast to public
pronouncements from CDC officials Tuesday that painted the coronavirus’ health
threat to the U.S. as the most serious it‘s been.
Nancy Messonnier, who heads the National Center for
Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned that American communities need to
prepare now for the possibilities of remote work, teleschooling and other
provisional measures when the disease starts spreading domestically.” (G)
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday
warned that it expects the novel coronavirus that has sparked outbreaks around
the world to begin spreading at a community level in the United States, as a
top official said that disruptions to daily life could be “severe.”
“As we’ve seen from recent countries with community spread,
when it has hit those countries, it has moved quite rapidly. We want to make
sure the American public is prepared,” Nancy Messonnier, director of CDC’s
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters.
“As more and more countries experience community spread,
successful containment at our borders becomes harder and harder,” she said.
There have been 14 cases of the virus diagnosed in the U.S.,
all in people who traveled recently to China or their close contacts. Another
39 U.S. residents have been infected in other parts of the world before being
repatriated and quarantined. But CDC officials say the country could soon see
more cases as the virus starts to spread through communities in areas outside
China, including Iran, South Korea, and Italy.
The CDC urged American businesses and families to start
preparing for the possibility of a bigger outbreak. Messonnier said that
parents should ask their children’s schools about plans for closures. Businesses
should consider whether they can offer telecommuting options to their
employees, while hospitals might need to look into expanding telehealth
services, she said.
“Disruption to everyday life might be severe,” Messonnier
said, adding that she talked to her children about the issue Tuesday morning.
“While I didn’t think they were at risk right now, we as a family ought to be
preparing for significant disruption to our lives.”
The CDC’s messaging seemed to be at odds with the position
of the World Health Organization, which reiterated Tuesday that countries could
stop transmission chains if they acted swiftly and aggressively…
Messonnier said the CDC is evaluating data on measures that
could be used to stem the spread of the virus, including school closures and
other social distancing strategies, voluntary home quarantines, and surface
cleaning methods. The CDC is using data from past flu outbreaks to study those
strategies, but will tailor its recommendations for the new virus.
In a press briefing Tuesday afternoon, other top health
officials pushed back on the perception that the public needs to take direct
action now to prepare for community spread of the virus. They also doubled down
on the message that the U.S. has successfully contained the spread of the virus
thus far…
Messonnier said the CDC is also in conversation about
whether to change the case definition that triggers a sick patient to be tested
for the virus. Currently, health officials recommend testing only for people
who have respiratory symptoms and have recently traveled to China, or those who
have been in close contact with someone who was infected. But as community
spread picks up in other countries, the case definition could change.” (H)
“President Donald Trump on Wednesday tried to ease growing
fears over the spreading coronavirus, saying at the White House that his
administration has the situation under control and is “ready to
adapt” if the virus spreads.
“Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American
people remains very low,” Trump said. “We’re ready to adapt and ready
to do whatever we have to as the disease spreads, if it spreads.
“We’re very, very ready for this,” Trump said,
adding that only 15 people had contracted the virus in the U.S. and that all
were expected to recover.
Trump, speaking from the Brady Briefing Room, said he was
putting Vice President Mike Pence in charge of his administration’s response to
the potential pandemic. Trump, however, rejected that he had made Pence a
“czar” for the response to the virus.
Pence, speaking after Trump, reiterated that the
“threat to the American public remains low” and said, “We will
continue to bring the full resources of the federal government … to see to
the health and well-being and to the effective response to the coronavirus in
the United States of America.”
Trump — who this week announced a $2.5 billion plan to help
combat the illness — said at the briefing, “We’re going to spend whatever
is appropriate.”
Following the remarks of Trump and Pence, several senior
officials from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention spoke — and many didn’t paint quite as rosy a picture.
One NIH official said a potential coronavirus vaccine was still at least a year
away.
The president’s address came amid a tumbling stock market
and grave criticism from Democrats who say his handling of the outbreak has
been inadequate. It also came just a day after the CDC warned that it was only
a matter of time before the illness, known as COVID-19, will spread across
communities in the United States…
Measures to contain the virus in the U.S. so far have
involved restricting travel to and from China — the center of the outbreak —
and isolating identified cases.
Trump on Wednesday called those efforts “some very good
early decisions” and indicated that he would consider restricting travel
to South Korea and other countries “at the right time.”…
Federal health officials added Tuesday that they are
preparing for a potential pandemic. CDC officials said the virus could disrupt
daily lives, including closing schools, forcing people to work from home and
delaying elective medical procedures.
Trump, asked Wednesday whether schools should prepare for a
spread of the virus, replied that “every aspect of our society”
should be prepared. He added that he doesn’t think it would come to that but
that people should be prepared “just in case.”
But he also vacillated at various points during his news
conference between agreeing with and rejecting the stark warnings of a broader
potential outbreak issued by government public health experts.
Responding to a question about the likelihood of a U.S.
outbreak, he said, “I don’t think it’s inevitable.
“It probably will. It possibly will,” he
continued. “It could be at a very small level, or it could be at a larger
level.”
At another point, Trump said, “Nothing is
inevitable.” “ (I)
“Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s health emergencies program,
suggested countries need to be working full bore to be ready to deal with the
virus.
“It is time to prepare. It is time to do everything you
would do in preparing for a pandemic,” he insisted…
Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s health emergencies program,
suggested countries need to be working full bore to be ready to deal with the
virus.
“It is time to prepare. It is time to do everything you
would do in preparing for a pandemic,” he insisted.
Continuing to focus on trying to contain the virus — a goal
many infectious diseases experts are skeptical can be met — buys time, Ryan
said, noting if the illness can be prevented from spreading in Europe until flu
season ends, hospitals won’t face a double blow.
“Even slowing down the virus by a month or six weeks has a
massive positive benefit to the system,’’ he said.
But people need to be realistic about the limits of
containment. “We cannot shut down the world,” Ryan said. “That’s not going to
work.”
Countries should be working on trying to reduce the risk of
imported cases, reduce the risk of spread from cases that get in, and increase
the chance that people who get sick survive the infection. “But I think we have
to be very, very careful in trying to suggest that we could absolutely stop the
virus from spreading from one country to the next,” he said. “I don’t think
that’s possible.”” (J)
“A federal health official warned Tuesday that the deadly
coronavirus could cause “severe” disruptions in the USA as global
experts struggled to fend off the outbreak and avoid a pandemic.
Is it too late?
“Disruption to everyday life may be severe,” Nancy
Messonnier, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned at a news
conference Tuesday. Schools could be closed, mass public gatherings suspended
and businesses forced to have employees work remotely, she said.
Messonnier said the coronavirus has caused sickness and
death and sustained person-to-person transmission. That’s two of the three
factors for a pandemic, she said.
“As community spread is detected in more and more countries,
the world moves closer to meeting the third criteria – worldwide spread of the
new virus,” Messonnier said.
Although the World Health Organization determined Monday
that the term pandemic “did not fit the facts,” experts said it very
soon could…..
Melissa Nolan, a medical doctor and professor of
epidemiology at the University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public
Health, cited new clusters in Iran, which faces at least 95 cases and has had
16 deaths, and Italy, which is dealing with 322 cases.
“If we continue to see focalized local transmission in
areas outside of China, the WHO will need to reconvene,” Nolan told USA
TODAY on Tuesday. “We are very close to seeing this virus becoming a
pandemic.”
Nolan said responses to the outbreaks in Iran and Italy
could help health officials in other countries prepare their own medical and
quarantine policies before an outbreak. That is crucial, said Robert Glatter,
an emergency physician at New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital who fears the world is
on the “cusp” of a pandemic.
“Trying to contain a disease which spreads like
influenza, in this case COVID-19, is almost impossible,” he said. “We
are talking about rapid-fire and sustained transmission.”…
Ogbonnaya Omenka, an assistant professor and public health
specialist at Butler University’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, said
he understands the concerns. The main implication of declaring a pandemic is
requiring, or at least further urging, national governments to prepare
facilities and health workers to treat a lot of patients, Omenka told USA
TODAY.
“Not only is this costly, it may also trigger
panic,” he warned. “Countries may as well put in place these plans
without the official announcement.”
Tedros stressed that a pandemic declaration would not eliminate
the need for health authorities to continue testing, limiting contact with the
sick and encouraging frequent hand washing – the front-line defense….
Messonnier acknowledged the CDC struck a more urgent tone in
warnings about the virus in the USA. The proliferation of coronavirus in
countries outside China raised the agency’s expectations the virus will spread
here.
“People are concerned about this situation – I would say rightfully so,” Messonnier
said. “But we are putting our concerns to work preparing. Now is the time
for businesses, hospitals, communities, schools and everyday people to begin
preparing as well.”
“It’s not so much a question of if this will happen
anymore but rather more a question of exactly when,” an official said.”
(K)
“When you start to see sustained transmission in other
countries throughout the world, it’s inevitable that it will come to the United
States,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases, told NBC News.
In the U.S., 57 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19,
the illness caused by the new coronavirus. The majority are among repatriated
residents who were passengers of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, docked in
Japan.
The CDC said Americans should prepare for the possibility of
disruptions to their daily lives if the virus were to start spreading in the
U.S. That could include closing schools, working from home and delaying
elective medical procedures.
“We should all be dusting off our pandemic preparedness
plans and rehearse them very quickly,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an
infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University. “The core concept
is social distancing.”
Business leaders, Schaffner said, should start considering
which employees could work from home. Perhaps the time will come, he and other
experts said, to observe religious practices and ceremonies at home, rather
than attend larger community gatherings at places of worship. And families
should start asking themselves how they would handle a week or two at home,
without traveling even short distances for food, medicine or
entertainment.” (L)
“Gown, gloves, goggles, mask — deposit in biohazard
container and wash hands for 20 seconds. That’s how to take it off safely.
It’s a drill that’s becoming muscle memory for health care
workers these days as hospitals and medical facilities prepare for the
anticipated spread of the new coronavirus from China. Blanchard wants it to
feel as routine for the Teaneck hospital’s staff as tying their shoes or
fastening a seat belt.
Practice in donning and doffing personal protective
equipment — or PPE, as it is called — has gained new urgency as the United
States braces for a possible surge in infections. Health care workers are on
the front lines…
There has been no community transmission in the United
States, Messonnier said. New Jersey has no cases.
But the near certainty that the virus will arrive — whether
in small, localized outbreaks or as a widespread epidemic — has state and local
health officials and hospital leaders on the alert and concerned.
In New Jersey, a governor’s task force meets weekly and has
updated a preparedness plan. Hospital infection-control practitioners, chief
medical officers and executives met with state health officials earlier this
month. A conference call with 250 hospital executives — the second since the
COVID epidemic began in China — is planned for later this week.
At individual hospitals, staff members are scanning for
updates and new information on the virus, taking inventory of supplies, drawing
up plans and reviewing infection-control procedures. One large system —
RWJBarnabas Health — has a daily meeting of its emergency response team and a
secure communication line systemwide.
“We don’t know who we may encounter in the Emergency
Department,” said Jesson Yeh, an emergency physician at Holy Name who was part
of that hospital’s training this week. “We need to be prepared for any possible
situation, which may include people with viruses like the coronavirus, flu —
Ebola, even.”
“Sometimes we do need a brush-up on how to prepare,” said
Jennifer Temple, an Emergency Department nurse taking Blanchard’s review
program. “Not that we forget. But it’s an emergency room; we want to work so fast.
This is a great way to remind us.”
Health care workers are the front lines of defense against
the coronavirus’s spread as they diagnose and treat the sick. Their close
proximity, exposure to the spray of coughs and sneezes and high touch contact
as they do everything from take temperatures to insert breathing tubes vastly
increases their risk of infection…
For hospitals, that means two things, said Dr. Adam Jarrett,
Holy Name’s chief medical officer: “The first thing we’re doing is reinforcing
the training our staff has.” Then, “we’re making sure we have appropriate
supplies.”
Previous exercises involving government agencies across the
nation “did show us that if we had a pandemic, there were going to be supply
issues,” said Messonnier, of the CDC. “We are now thinking through and working
on those supply issues,” to ensure there’s protection for health care
workers.
“There’s absolutely a shortage of masks and gowns,” said
Jarrett, of Holy Name. “There hasn’t been a problem because there haven’t been
any patients yet,” he said. “If there’s a significant outbreak in the tri-state
area, I think there could be.”
CDC guidelines call for workers to wear N95 masks, which are
also used in some construction or industrial settings. They form hard domes over
the mouth and nose, with material like a HEPA filter filtering all air in and
out. Hospitals are carefully controlling their use. Washable gowns might be
used and thrown away, Jarrett said, if there aren’t enough disposable gowns.
Another concern, depending on how the spread of the virus
evolves, could be high rates of absentees among health care workers and other
essential workers. New Jersey’s earlier pandemic flu preparedness plan, drafted
in the wake of the 2009 swine flu epidemic, told hospitals to prepare for
absences of 30% to 50%.
CDC guidelines say health care institutions should err on
the side of caution when workers may have been exposed to COVID-19 and show
symptoms of fever or illness. They should stay home from work and
self-quarantine, the agency suggested.
Hospitals could manage those shortages by shifting the
workers to concentrate on critical needs, employing temporary agency nurses, or
canceling elective procedures, a spokeswoman for the state Health Department
said.
During Superstorm Sandy, for example, hard-hit facilities
were able to waive standard credentialing procedures to make it faster to bring
in personnel from other areas or out of state. “ (M)
“In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy said preparations are
ramping up. He noted that there are currently no confirmed cases in the state,
but said it was prudent to anticipate that there would be.
“It’s pretty clear from financial markets the past couple of
days, it’s pretty clear when you look at South Korea, Iran, Italy, that this is
not going away anytime soon,” he said.
“We had a whole-of-government meeting this morning in
Newark, just going over, once again, protocols, pre-emptive action — what do we
do if X or Y happens,” he said, during remarks Wednesday at an unrelated news event
at William Paterson University. “We’re doing everything to get out ahead of
this and also be prepared as possible if something hits us.”
Murphy also said Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli on
Wednesday was to convene a conference call with all hospitals in the state
about preparations, noting that the state’s designated center for handling
cases, University Hospital in Newark, “has a capacity of only so much.”.. (N)
“Against a backdrop of educated guesses — the state
epidemiologist predicted it could be like a bad flu season with 500 deaths, but
with no vaccine — Connecticut hospital officials said they have been drilling
for weeks, got practice from the Ebola scare in 2014 and with the flu in 2009
and this year, and are ready for a coronoavirus outbreak if it comes to that.
In anticipation, as the virus spread in China, Hartford
Hospital activated its emergency preparedness plan in early January, involving
more than 300 units of the hospital, Dr. Ajay Kumor, chief medical officer,
said at a news briefing Wednesday afternoon.
Gov. Ned Lamont outlines steps Connecticut has taken to
prepare for coronavirus, urges residents to follow CDC guidelines to prevent
spread of the disease »
For Dr. Mike Ivy of Yale-New Haven Hospital, the process is
worn smooth on his lips: You have flu-like symptoms. You come into the
emergency room. At the registration desk, you’ll be asked if you’ve traveled
abroad to an area with there has been transmission of the virus — China, Iran,
South Korea, Japan, northern Italy.
If the answer is yes, you’d be taken to an isolation room
with negative air pressure, evaluated by a doctor and nurse and tested for
coronavirus. You’ll be admitted if you’re sick enough, sent home if you’re not.
“People can isolate themselves at home so they do not infect
anyone else,” said Ivy, deputy chief medical officer.
If you stay at the hospital, your treatment team will be
wearing gowns, gloves and masks when they come in.
“And then, hopefully, you get better,” Ivy said, “as the
majority of the patients do.”… (N)
“Health organizations in Rhode Island said Tuesday that they
are taking their coronavirus preparedness efforts to a higher level.
The United States said officials are warning Americans to
prepare for the spread of coronavirus in communities across the country.
Doctors with Lifespan said they have created an emergency
task force, so each facility can work together to combat the virus should it
spread into Rhode Island…
The Rhode Island Department of Health said they’ve been
having frequent talks with schools here, too.
A spokesperson for the University of Rhode Island said they
have 50 students and one faculty member in Italy.
“The University remains in frequent contact with its
study-abroad host partners, who have been communicating regularly with the
students about the COVID-19 situation in Italy,” said the spokesperson.
Rhode Island Hospital Disaster Medicine and Emergency
Preparedness Director, Dr. Selim Suner, said a concern is how exactly it’s
spreading.
“We don’t know if it’s airborne yet because those
studies have not been done,” said Suner…
The best preparation he said we know well.
“Hand-washing and keeping a distance from ill people is
the best prevention,” said Suner.” (P)
“Reacting to concerns about the quickening spread of
coronavirus, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Wednesday that the state would set
aside some $40 million to fight the virus, as well as plan for possible
quarantines at homes, hotels and hospitals.
In a briefing in the Capitol, the governor and his health commissioner,
Dr. Howard Zucker, stressed that New York still had no confirmed cases of the
virus, but warned that its spread to the state was inevitable.
The scope of the virus’s spread and the importance of New
York as a center of global commerce and transportation led Mr. Cuomo, a
third-term Democrat, to ask for additional funding for fighting the disease.
“It is highly probable that we will have people in New York
State who test positive,” said Mr. Cuomo, noting that New York City is “the
front door internationally” for many travelers. “No one should be surprised
when we have positive cases.”
In addition to the $40 million from the Legislature, Mr.
Cuomo said he would ask federal authorities permission to test patient samples
in a laboratory in New York, rather than waiting several days for results from
the C.D.C. in Atlanta….
State officials have already been taking precautions against
the disease, asking some 700 recent visitors to China to voluntarily quarantine
themselves, even as Customs and Border Protection agents continue to screen
passengers at area airports. Individuals who have visited mainland China are
judged to be of “medium risk,” according to the State Health Department, though
it said none of those self-isolating individuals had exhibited symptoms of
coronavirus.
In New York City, where officials say seven potential
patients have been tested and cleared, Mayor Bill de Blasio has expressed
confidence that the city is prepared, citing previous scares involving even
more deadly diseases like Ebola in 2014…
“We are in a state of
high vigilance, high readiness, all elements of the city government, to address
this crisis,” he said at a news conference on Wednesday. “We have the greatest
public health capacity of anywhere in this country.”
The city has made 1,200 hospital beds available for anyone
suspected of having coronavirus and has distributed 1.5 million face masks to
health care workers.
But the mayor warned that the city needed help from the
federal government in obtaining more protective gear — at least 300,000 more
masks, he said — and stressed the importance of giving local health departments
the ability to test for the virus on their own.
Other major cities were also taking precautions, including
San Francisco, which declared a local state of emergency on Tuesday, despite no
confirmed cases, saying “the global picture is changing rapidly.”
On Wednesday, officials at the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority said they were working with state and federal health officials to
assess potential contingency plans.
Those measures could include limiting or staggering public
transit ridership, according to a document prepared by City Hall and the New
York City’s Emergency Management Department in 2014 that focused on how the
city might respond to a flu pandemic…
Similarly, state health officials were regularly consulting
with the C.D.C. as well as county officials, and studying federal
recommendations for mitigation in case of a large outbreak, including basic
precautions such as covering one’s face when sneezing or coughing, to more
expansive measures such as school closures and cancellation of public events.
“If you prepare correctly, you’ll have less of an issue when
a situation develops into something that is more problematic,” Mr. Cuomo said.
“The threat you don’t take seriously is the one that becomes serious.” (Q)
“A man in Miami went to the hospital to receive a test for
the coronavirus after developing flu-like symptoms, only to receive the news
that he didn’t have it — and a $3,270 medical bill, the Miami Herald reports.
Why it matters: The man had just returned from a work trip
to China, so took his symptoms more seriously than normal, which is exactly
what public health experts want people to do.
Our thought bubble: The episode would be a great parody of
the health care system, if it wasn’t real.
The man has a short-term health insurance plan, which
usually have skimpy benefits in exchange for lower premiums, and don’t have to
cover pre-existing conditions. The Trump administration has expanded them.
The hospital told the Herald that the patient is only on the
hook for $1,400 based on his insurance, but his insurer told him that first, he
must provide three years of medical records to prove that his flu didn’t relate
to pre-existing conditions.
And more bills are probably coming.” (R)
(A) C.D.C.
Confirms First Possible Community Transmission of Coronavirus in U.S., by Roni
Caryn Rabin, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/health/coronavirus-cdc-usa.html?referringSource=articleShare
(B) U.S.
Soldier Tests Positive for Virus in South Korea,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/world/asia/coronavirus-news.html?referringSource=articleShare
(C) Last 48
hours,
https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-latest-developments-8b8990c4-6762-494a-8ee0-5091746bda9b.html
(D) “We are at
a turning point”: The coronavirus outbreak is looking more like a pandemic, by
Julia Belluz https://www.vox.com/2020/2/23/21149327/coronavirus-pandemic-meaning-italy
(E) Coronavirus:
More New Cases Are Now Reported Outside China Than Inside, by Bill CHAPPELL,
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/02/26/809568686/coronavirus-more-new-cases-are-now-reported-outside-china-than-inside
(F) The
coronavirus seems unstoppable. What should the world do now?, by Jon Cohen, Kai
Kupferschmidt,
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/coronavirus-seems-unstoppable-what-should-world-do-now
(G) Kudlow
breaks with CDC on coronavirus: ‘We have contained this’, by ELI OKUN,
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/25/kudlow-white-house-coronavirus-117402
(H) CDC
expects ‘community spread’ of coronavirus, as top official warns disruptions
could be ‘severe’, by MEGAN THIELKING,
https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/25/cdc-expects-community-spread-of-coronavirus-as-top-official-warns-disruptions-could-be-severe/
(I) Trump
says coronavirus risk to Americans ‘very low,’ puts Pence in charge of gov’t
response, by Adam Edelman, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-coronavirus-risk-americans-very-low-administration-effectively-handling-n1143756
(J) WHO tells
countries to prepare for coronavirus pandemic, but insists it’s too soon to
make that call, by HELEN BRANSWELL, https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/24/who-tells-countries-prepare-coronavirus-pandemic-too-soon-to-make-call/
(K) Could a
coronavirus pandemic be stopped? US warns of ‘severe’ disruptions, by John
Bacon, Ken Alltucker,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/02/25/coronavirus-pandemic-can-outbreak-still-be-stopped/4865934002/
(L) CDC warns
Americans of coronavirus outbreak, by Erika Edwards,
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/americans-should-prepare-coronavirus-spread-u-s-cdc-says-n1142556
(M) ‘Not a
question of if … but when’: How NJ hospitals are preparing for coronavirus
spread, by Lindy Washburn,
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/health/2020/02/25/coronavirus-how-nj-hospitals-preparing-possible-epidemic/4858668002/
(N) Officials
Urge Preparations for Coronavirus in U.S., Noting Global Spread, by DAVID CRUZ,
https://www.njspotlight.com/2020/02/officials-urge-preparations-for-coronavirus-in-u-s-noting-global-spread/
(O) Connecticut
hospitals say they are ready for the coronavirus, but with no vaccine, ‘inevitable’
challenges lie ahead, by Josh Kovner,
https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-news-coronavirus-hospitals-emergency-preparation-20200226-rl2mxh7frbb4ja6qdwplual3jm-story.html
(P) Lifespan
creates emergency task force as coronavirus fears heighten, https://turnto10.com/news/local/lifespan-creates-emergency-task-force-as-coronavirus-fears-heighten
(Q) Coronavirus
in New York: $40 Million to Combat Spread, by Jesse McKinley, Luis
Ferré-Sadurní and Christina Goldbaum, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-cuomo.html?referringSource=articleShare
Part 10. CORONAVIRUS. Stop Surprise Medical Bills
for Coronavirus care. (&) Lessons Learned (or not) In California and
Washington State from community acquired cases.
“A man in Miami went to the hospital to receive a test for
the coronavirus after developing flu-like symptoms, only to receive the news
that he didn’t have it — and a $3,270 medical bill, the Miami Herald reports.
Why it matters: The man had just returned from a work trip
to China, so took his symptoms more seriously than normal, which is exactly
what public health experts want people to do.
Our thought bubble: The episode would be a great parody of
the health care system, if it wasn’t real.
The man has a short-term health insurance plan, which usually
have skimpy benefits in exchange for lower premiums, and don’t have to cover
pre-existing conditions. The Trump administration has expanded them.
The hospital told the Herald that the patient is only on the
hook for $1,400 based on his insurance, but his insurer told him that first, he
must provide three years of medical records to prove that his flu didn’t relate
to pre-existing conditions.
And more bills are probably coming.” (A)
“Frank Wucinski and his 3-year-old daughter, Annabel, are
among the dozens of Americans the government has flown back to the country from
Wuhan, China, and put under quarantine to check for signs of coronavirus.
Now they are among what could become a growing number of
families hit with surprise medical bills related to government-mandated
actions.
Mr. Wucinski, a Pennsylvania native who has lived in China
for years, accepted the U.S. government’s offer to evacuate from Wuhan with
Annabel in early February as the new coronavirus spread. His wife, who is not
an American citizen and remains in China, developed pneumonia that doctors
think resulted from Covid-19, the disease caused by the respiratory virus. Her
father, whom she helped care for, was infected and recently died.
The first stop for Mr. Wucinski and Annabel was a two-week
quarantine at Marine Corps Station Miramar near San Diego. During that time,
they had two mandatory stays in an isolation unit at a nearby children’s
hospital. The first started upon arrival in the United States, and the second
was a few days later, after an official heard Annabel coughing…
After their release from quarantine, Mr. Wucinski and his
daughter went to stay with his mother in Harrisburg, Pa. That’s where they
found a pile of medical bills waiting: $3,918 in charges from hospital doctors,
radiologists and an ambulance company.
“I assumed it was all being paid for,” Mr. Wucinski said.
“We didn’t have a choice. When the bills showed up, it was just a pit in my
stomach, like, ‘How do I pay for this?’”
The federal government has the authority to quarantine and
isolate patients if officials believe them to be a public health threat. These
powers, which date back to cholera outbreaks among ship passengers in the late
19th century, are rarely used. They don’t say anything about who pays when the isolation
happens in a nongovernmental medical facility — or when they’re brought there
by a private ambulance company…
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman
declined to comment on whether it would pay the bills of patients kept in
mandatory isolation…
“My question is why are we being charged for these stays, if
they were mandatory and we had no choice in the matter?” Mr. Wucinski wrote in
his message.
…. hen contacted by The New York Times, a Rady Children’s
Hospital spokesman said the physicians’ bill had been sent in error and that
the family would not be held responsible for the charges.
“We’re in the process of assessing how the error occurred,”
the spokesman, Benjamin Metcalf, said. “We are working with government agencies
regarding billing for these cases.”
The ambulance company that transported the Wucinskis,
American Medical Response, charged the family $2,598 for taking them to the
hospital. A company representative declined to comment on the bill “due to
patient privacy concerns,” but said the company would look into the case.
An additional $90 in charges came from radiologists who read
the patients’ X-ray scans and do not work for the hospital. Having such
doctors, who may be outside a patient’s insurance networks, provide services to
hospital patients is one of the major causes of surprise medical bills.” (W)
“Health officials in Washington state said on Saturday a
coronavirus patient has died, marking the first death in the U.S. from
COVID-19, the illness associated with the virus.
The person who died was a man in his 50s who had underlying
health conditions, and there was no evidence he contracted the virus through
travel, health officials said.
Shortly after announcement of the death, President Donald
Trump at a White House press conference said the United States is issuing more
travel restrictions and warnings to help prevent spread of the virus. He also
said he is meeting with pharmaceutical executives to discuss work toward a
coronavirus vaccine.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee meanwhile declared a state of
emergency in response to new cases of COVID-19, directing state agencies to use
all resources necessary to prepare for and respond to the outbreak.
“This will allow us to get the resources we need,” Inslee
said. “This is a time to take commonsense, proactive measures to ensure the
health and safety of those who live in Washington state.”” (B)
“A patient infected with the novel coronavirus in Washington
state has died, a state health official said Saturday, marking the first death
due to the virus in the United States…
Three new presumptive positive cases were announced in
Washington state on Saturday, meaning a test given by a state or local lab came
back positive, but has yet to be confirmed by the CDC’s lab in Atlanta.
Among those three cases was the patient who died, health
officials said.
The person-to-person cases include several of unknown
origin, including:
• A woman in Washington County, Oregon, who is presumptive
positive. She is in isolation.
• A high school boy in Snohomish County, Washington, who is
presumptive positive. He’s doing well, according to Dr. Chris Spitters, interim
health officer for the Snohomish Health District.
• An older woman in Santa Clara County, California, who
tested positive.
• A Solano County, California, woman who is in serious
condition at UC Davis Medical Center.” (C)
“The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and
Washington state health officials have launched an investigation into two cases
of coronavirus at a nursing home in a suburb of Seattle, the same town where
the nation’s first coronavirus fatality occurred.
An outbreak in such a facility is particularly troubling
because of the close quarters and the vulnerability of the elderly residents to
disease.
A health care worker at the Life Care Center in Kirkland and
a female resident in her 70s have tested positive for the disease, state and
federal officials revealed in a media call Saturday.
Around 27 of 108 residents and 25 of 180 staff members also
have some symptoms of COVID-19, and are being tested, officials said.
Authorities are “very concerned about an outbreak in this
setting, where there are many older people,” said county health official Jeff
Duchin.” (D)
“Researchers who have examined the genomes of two
coronavirus infections in Washington State say the similarities between the
cases suggest that the virus may have been spreading in the state for weeks.
Washington had the United States’ first confirmed case of
coronavirus, announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on
Jan. 20. Based on an analysis of the virus’s genetic sequence, another case
that surfaced in the state and was announced on Friday probably was descended
from that first case.
The two people live in the same county, but are not known to
have had contact with one another, and the second case occurred well after the
first would no longer be expected to be contagious. So the genetic findings
suggest that the virus has been spreading through other people in the community
for close to six weeks, according to one of the scientists who compared the
sequences, Trevor Bedford, an associate professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer
Research Center and the University of Washington.
Dr. Bedford said it was possible that the two cases could be
unrelated, and had been introduced separately into the United States. But he
said that was unlikely, however, because in both cases the virus contained a
genetic variation that appears to be rare — it was found in only two of the 59
samples whose sequences have been shared from China, where the virus
originated.” (E)
“The first suspected U.S. case of a patient getting the new
coronavirus through “community spread” — with no history of travel to
affected areas or exposure to someone known to have the COVID-19 illness — was
left undiagnosed for days because a request for testing wasn’t initially
granted, according to officials at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento,
Calif.
The patient in Northern California is now the 60th confirmed
case of the coronavirus in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention disclosed the latest case Wednesday evening, as President Trump
assigned Vice President Pence to lead the administration’s response to the
disease.
“This case was detected through the U.S. public health
system — picked up by astute clinicians,” the CDC said in a brief
statement about the new patient.
UC Davis included more details about the case in its own
statement, drawing on an email sent to staff at its medical center. It said the
officials initially ruled out a test for the coronavirus because the patient’s
case didn’t match the CDC’s criteria.
The new patient, who lives in Solano County and has not been
identified, was transferred to UC Davis Medical in Sacramento County from
another hospital this month. Staff at UC Davis then suspected the patient might
be infected with the coronavirus that has caused more than 2,800 deaths.
“Upon admission, our team asked public health officials
if this case could be COVID-19,” the hospital said. “We requested
COVID-19 testing by the CDC, since neither Sacramento County nor CDPH
[California Department of Public Health] is doing testing for coronavirus at
this time. Since the patient did not fit the existing CDC criteria for
COVID-19, a test was not immediately administered. UC Davis Health does not
control the testing process.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Thursday
morning that the CDC is streamlining the process it uses to test for the
coronavirus across the country, saying it will spread the new process to all of
its labs.
Azar said all of the CDC’s network of nearly 100 public labs
will soon be using the modified process. The next step, he said, is to develop
a “bedside diagnostic” that doctors and hospitals could use. He did
not give details about when that might occur.” (F)
“About 124 health care workers — including at least 36
nurses — are under self-quarantine after possible exposure to the coronavirus
patient admitted to UC Davis Medical Center last week, a nurse union said.
“Despite University of California medical facilities
being generally better prepared and equipped to treat challenging medical
cases, the recent UC Davis Medical Center COVID-19 case highlights the
vulnerability of the nation’s hospitals to this virus and the insufficiency of
current Centers for Disease Control guidelines,” the National Nurses
United said in a news release Friday.
“We know that we can be successful in getting all our
hospitals prepared to control the spread of this virus. We are committed to
working with hospitals and state and federal agencies to be ready,” Bonnie
Castillo, the union’s executive director, said in a statement. “But nurses
and health care workers need optimal staffing, equipment, and supplies to do
so.”
The patient was transferred to UC Davis on February 19 from
a Northern California hospital. Officials from both hospitals said the patient
wasn’t initially tested for the virus because she didn’t meet the existing CDC
criteria.
The patient didn’t have any relevant travel history or
exposure to another known patient, said Dr. Sara Cody, director of the county’s
public health department.
Confirmation that the Solano County woman had contracted the
virus came Sunday, after UC Davis doctors insisted on testing.
Since then, CDC officials say they’ve updated their testing
guidelines.
“As soon as that case was recognized, we met and we
revised our case definition for persons under investigation,” CDC Director
Dr. Robert Redfield said earlier this week. “Today, that has been posted (to
the CDC website) along with a new health advisory that the recommendation
should be when a clinician or individual suspects coronavirus, then we should
be able to get a test for coronavirus.”” (G)
“Sacramento County’s top health official says he expects a
few of the UC Medical Center employees exposed to the coronavirus last week to
test positive themselves in the coming days.
That’s not as alarming as it may sound, Peter Beilenson,
county health services director, said on Friday. Those employees, if infected,
stand a good likelihood that they will not become sick or will only be mildly
ill, and may not need to be treated.
“I expect there will be a few positives, probably
asymptomatic,” Beilenson said. He said he bases that prediction on early data
indicating 80 percent of people infected by the new virus have mild symptoms or
none at all…
“I think there will be more cases. That is not a horrible
thing,” he said. “Once the disease gets into the population, with so many mild
symptoms, common cold-like symptoms, people will be spreading it unbeknownst to
them. It gets it to be more a common variety.”
In total, more than 100 employees of three Northern
California hospitals are believed to have been exposed. In addition to those at
the Vacaville hospital and UC Davis Medical Center, another three employees
recently were sent home from Kaiser Permanente-South in Sacramento after
potential exposure to the virus, according to Rep. John Garamendi…
“The best guess is that there are people who are not showing
symptoms, but, are, nevertheless, infected. That’s a very normal way for
diseases to spread,” Matyas said. “To public health officials, this is what
disease does. The issue is that it’s not alarming, but we have to move to the
next phase.”
That not only means testing and screening, but also being
more rigorous at the hospital level, as Matyas said, to “universally assume the
possibility” that a patient seeking care and has flu- or cold-like symptoms may
carry the virus.
The mystery patient at UC Davis Medical Center has been the
center of national attention and politicized debate since officials at the
center announced on Wednesday that they had what was believed to be the first
coronavirus patient in the U.S. with no known provenance for the illness.” (H)
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that 33 people
have tested positive for COVID-19 and the state is currently monitoring at
least 8,400 others —a day after U.S. health officials confirmed the first
possible community transmission of the coronavirus in a Solano County resident.
“This is a fluid situation right now and I want to emphaize
the risk to the American public remains low,” said Dr. Sonia Y. Angell,
California Department of Public Health Director and State Health Officer during
a press conference. “There have been a limited number of confirmed cases to
date.”..
“We are currently in deep partnership with CDC on one
overriding protocol that drives our principle focus right now and that’s
testing, and the importance to increase our testing protocols and to have point
of contact diagnostic testing as our top priority not just in the state of
California but I imagine all across the United States,” Newsom said at a press
conference.
Newsom said five of the 33 patients who tested positive for
the virus have since left the state. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the 33
positive cases were part of the group of Diamond Princess passengers who were
evacuated from the cruise ship that was quarantined off the coast of Japan. The
U.S. had 60 cases as of Wednesday night, 42 of which are people who were on the
ship, according to the CDC.
California health officials have 200 testing kits on hand
and will be receiving more over the next few days, Newsom said.
“We have just a few hundred testing kits and that’s surveillance
testing as well as diagnostic testing. That’s simply inadequate to do justice
to the kind of testing that is required to address this issue head on,” he
said.
Newsom said that the CDC has made “firm commitments” to
improve the state’s testing capacity, but did not provide details, such as how
many testing kits the agency has agreed to send to the state.” (I)
“It was the nation’s first infection that had unknown
origins. The director of California’s Public Health Department last week called
her case a “turning point” that could signal widespread infection is
increasingly difficult to stop.
The woman’s case unleashed a deluge of questions and
concerns about how local, state and federal officials responded to the mounting
public health concern after the evacuees arrived at Travis Air Force Base — and
what future responses might look like. A U.S. government whistleblower now says
federal workers did not have the necessary protective gear or training when
they were deployed to help quarantined people, including those at Travis.
Since the Solano County woman’s illness became known, teams
of health care investigators have fanned out across Northern California trying
to understand exactly how — and how widely — the virus has spread.
“We have deployed there,” Secretary of Health and Human
Services Alex Azar told McClatchy this week. “We’ll send whatever we need to
assist the state and local public health authorities with the contact tracing
and getting to the bottom of her case.”” (J)
“For weeks, public health experts have been watching to see
whether factory shutdowns and shipping problems in China caused by the
coronavirus epidemic will cause drug shortages in the United States.
Late Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration issued a
statement noting that one drug is now in short supply because of problems
related to the coronavirus outbreak. But it refused to disclose the name of the
drug and its manufacturer — as well as where the product or its ingredients
were made — saying that it could not reveal “confidential commercial
information.”
The agency’s vague announcement angered public health
advocates and those who track drug shortages, who said the lack of information
would only create more confusion as the virus has spread around the globe to at
least 56 countries from the original epidemic in China.
The F.D.A. has long been criticized by public interest
groups for refusing to reveal company information that could affect public
safety. Federal law protects companies from having trade secrets and confidential
proprietary information disclosed, which the agency has cited to withhold
details, like naming countries where raw ingredients come from….”
The F.D.A. has said it is closely monitoring about 20
products where the manufacturers rely solely on China for their finished
products or active pharmaceutical ingredients. Dr. Hahn said Thursday that the
drugs being monitored are considered “noncritical drugs.”
Hospitals have struggled for years with shortages of
hundreds of critical drugs, many of them staples of medical care that have been
on the market for decades. In 2017, Hurricane Maria damaged many pharmaceutical
factories in Puerto Rico, closing them for weeks and leading to supply
problems, including a shortage of saline bags made by Baxter. Problems with
manufacturing quality have caused other shortages, including a global shortfall
of valsartan, a widely used blood pressure drug.
Erin Fox, a drug shortage expert at the University of Utah,
said, “When the F.D.A. tells the American public that there is a shortage
without disclosing the specific drug, this only creates fear and panic, which
is unacceptable in the current situation.”
The F.D.A. frequently cites companies’ proprietary reasons
for why it does not disclose certain information, including the names of
specific drugs when companies are cited for manufacturing problems, or details
about clinical trials, Dr. Carome said. “Those are examples where I think it’s
an overuse,” he said.” (K)
“The surgeon general on Saturday urged the public to stop
buying masks, warning that it won’t help against the spread of the coronavirus
but will take away important resources from health care professionals.
“Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS!” the surgeon general,
Jerome M. Adams, said in a tweet on Saturday morning. “They are NOT effective
in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if health care
providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our
communities at risk!”
The plea comes as panicked consumers rush to buy masks online,
including so-called N95s, a surge that has led to price gouging and counterfeit
products.
In another tweet, Mr. Adams said the best way to protect
against the virus is to wash hands regularly, and for those who are feeling ill
to stay home.
Health officials around the world have been imploring the
public to stop buying masks if they are healthy or not caring for someone who
is ill. Medical professionals need a large supply of the masks because they are
in direct contact with infected patients and must change their masks
repeatedly.
“There are severe strains on protective equipment around the
world,” said Dr. Michael J. Ryan, executive director of the health emergency
program at the World Health Organization, during a briefing on Friday. “Our
primary concern is to ensure that our front line health workers are protected
and that they have the equipment they need to do their jobs.”
Dr. Ryan said masks primarily prevent a person from giving
the disease to someone else.
“There are limits to how a mask can protect you from being
infected,” he said. “The most important thing everyone can do is wash your
hands, keep your hands away from your face and observe very precise hygiene.”
The W.H.O.’s guidelines recommend that health workers use
surgical masks to cover their mouths and noses but the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention has instructed them to wear masks known as N95s, which
are thicker, fit more tightly around the mouth and nose, and block out much
smaller particles than surgical masks do.
Both masks help prevent the spread of droplets from a
person’s cough or sneeze, but medical specialists have said that for average
members of the public, they are generally not effective.
A person is more likely to get infected by touching
contaminated surfaces than from a droplet traveling through the air.
Air can also get in around the edges of the masks,
particularly flat surgical masks. Health care workers who wear N95 masks as
part of their jobs are required to undergo a fit test at least once a year to
ensure that there are no gaps around their mouths.
Most people are unlikely to know how to wear these masks and
could accidentally contaminate themselves if they touch the outside of the mask
when they remove it and then touch their face.
“Not having a mask does not necessarily put you at any
increased risk of contracting this disease,” Dr. Ryan said…
Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday that it
was critical that masks remain available for doctors and nurses who were caring
for those affected by the virus and for people tending to loved ones with the
illness.
“There is no role for these masks in the community,” he
said. “These masks need to be prioritized for health care professionals that as
part of their job are taking care of individuals.”” (L)
It has been nearly three months since the first cases of a
new coronavirus pneumonia appeared in Wuhan, China, and it is now a global
outbreak. And yet, despite over 80,000 infections worldwide (most of them in
China), the world still doesn’t have a clear picture of some of the most basic
information about this outbreak…
In recent days the W.H.O. has complained that China has not
been sharing data on infections in health care workers. Earlier this month, the
editors of the journal Nature called on researchers to “ensure that their work
on this outbreak is shared rapidly and openly.”..
Lest Americans feel that it could never happen here, Dr.
Lipkin points out that it took many months for health officials in the United
States to acknowledge and recognize H.I.V. as a new virus, despite the fact
that gay men were turning up at alarming rates with unusual pneumonias and skin
cancers.
Scientific competition has also slowed reaction and
response, experts fear — leading to the extraordinary editors’ plea in Nature.
For a young researcher, a paper in Nature or the New England Journal of
Medicine is gold in career currency. Scientific prestige may encourage
perfecting data for peer review, but preparedness requires rapid dissemination
of information.
While federal officials in the United States warn Americans
to be ready for the virus, there are some important aspects of its spread about
which we have little information — even though they have likely already been
studied by scientists and officials, in China, in Japan and elsewhere.
Scientists in various countries are presumably gathering large amounts of data
day by day and the world deserves to see more of it.
“Were there patterns around infections, places, procedures?
Maybe that is being collected and readied for the medical literature. But it
would be hugely important to know,” said Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the
Center for Health Security of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health, which studies epidemics.
For example: Of the more than 1,700 health workers who were
infected in China, did those infections occur before they knew to wear
protective equipment? Were they doing procedures that might lead to exposure?
Those answers would quell fears about how the virus spreads and how to protect
front line workers.
Likewise, there were hundreds of people who tested positive
aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship and were transferred to the hospital.
But there has been little public information released about what shape they
were in. How many in the cohort were really sick, how many just had minor
symptoms and how many just needed isolation? Does the pattern of infection
suggest a role for transmission via plumbing on the ship?” (M)
“The federal government is “ramping up testing” in the
United States for the coronavirus and is looking to vastly increase its
screening efforts as global cases of the virus continue to rise, said Health
and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Sunday.
Azar and Vice President Mike Pence made the rounds of the
Sunday morning political talk shows looking to assure the public that risk to
most Americans remains low despite the inevitability of more cases arising in
the near future.
“I think it’s very important that we treat the American
people like adults and explain to them that we don’t know where this will go,
that we will see more cases, that we will see continued community spreading in
the United States, as we’re seeing around the world,” Azar said during an
appearance on ABC’s “This Week.” “How big that gets, we do not know. But we
have the most advanced public health system and surveillance system in the
world. We are actively working on a vaccine. We are actively working on
therapeutics. The diagnostic is out in the field, and we’re going to work to
protect the American people with every tool that we’ve got.”..
Pence, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” said “there’s no
question” there will be more cases of the virus formally known as COVID-19, but
said the risk “remains low” to Americans.
“We’re going to bring the best scientific minds, experts
together … we’re going to work every day … to contain this disease, to
treat those that are contracted, and I’m very confident we’re ready, and I know
… that we’ll get through this,” said Pence who was tapped by Trump to lead
the federal government’s response to the disease.
Pence told “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd that the
administration would “respect any decisions that are made at the state and
local level” to address the virus. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Saturday announced
that New York had received approval by federal health officials to begin its
testing, the approval coming after the governor pressed Pence to fast track the
decision.” (N)
“The Trump administration may use a 70-year-old law to speed
up the manufacturing of medical supplies before a coronavirus outbreak, Alex M.
Azar II, the health secretary, said on Friday, a seeming acknowledgment that
the virus poses a threat beyond the reassurances of President Trump.
The Defense Production Act, passed by Congress in 1950
during the Korean War, allows the president to expand production of the
materials for national security purposes. Mr. Azar said that the federal
government could move to expedite certain contracts, including for supplies
like face masks, gowns and gloves. Mr. Azar has said that 300 million of a type
of mask known as N95 are needed for the emergency medical stockpile for health
care workers.
“I don’t have any procurements I need it for now, but if I
need it, we’ll use it,” Mr. Azar told reporters at a White House briefing on
the administration’s request to Congress for emergency funds to respond to the
virus…
Mr. Azar said that “the situation may worsen, and we may
need to mitigate its spread in the United States.” If cases of the coronavirus
began spreading widely, he said, those showing mild symptoms should stay home
rather than seek help at hospitals, to avoid the risk of overcrowding health
facilities.
“The advice is going to be: Stay home, manage your symptoms,
and we’ll provide guidance of at what point would you seek high-level medical
attention,” Mr. Azar said.
Mr. Azar’s remarks appeared to reflect a recognition that
the outbreak may reach a newer and more dangerous phase. In addition to his
comments about the government stockpiling protective equipment and about how
people should seek medical care in the case of a wider outbreak, he also raised
the possibility of school closures.
“It might make sense to close a school or certain schools or
take other measures like that,” Mr. Azar said. “Every option needs to be on the
table as we assess the situation, but it depends on the circumstances.”” (O)
“Hospitals and public health officials on the leading edge
of the U.S. mitigation strategy have been getting ready for weeks…
At the sprawling NYU Langone Health system in New York,
which has nearly 1,700 inpatient beds at six facilities, doctors are working to
prevent patients from swamping hospitals with minor respiratory complaints and crowding
out patients who may need more intensive care.
They are ramping up messaging that tells people how to
arrange online appointments with providers and other alternatives, said Michael
S. Phillips, chief hospital epidemiologist for the system…
NYU is already working to conserve “personal protective
equipment” — full-body “moon suits,” masks, face shields and other gear — for a
shortage that Phillips considers inevitable. Many masks used in U.S. hospitals
come from Hubei province in China, where the outbreak began. And when
production in China resumes, equipment surely will be reserved for use in that
country, he said. About 65 percent of N95 respirators are manufactured outside
the continental United States, in China and Mexico, according to HHS data.
NYU is urging health care personnel to re-use moon suits now
to help preserve inventory for later. That is appropriate, for example, in
treating patients with tuberculosis, he said. Face masks can be used again by
the same person, especially after practice sessions, he said.
“We are really looking carefully at how we’re utilizing
[protective equipment]
, and I think every hospital in the United States is
girding for these kind of shortages,” Phillips said.
While some hospitals have as many as 14 weeks worth of masks
on hand, the overall situation is grim. India, Taiwan and Thailand also have
halted or limited exports as they brace for spikes in demand in their own
countries.
Anticipating a surge in need, California’s state officials
have ordered 300,000 masks to distribute to hospitals and clinics on an
emergency basis, hoping to add to the 20,000 currently in state stockpiles.
Officials would not say where they hope to find that many masks.
Health care systems nationally have about two weeks of
supply left on hand, said Soumi Saha, senior director of advocacy at Premier
Inc., a large group purchasing organization that serves 4,000 hospitals.
Normally, an average of 2 million masks per month are used
in the United States, Premier said. That rises to 4 million per month during a
typical flu season.
Two domestic manufacturers that use raw material from the
United States — 3M and Prestige Ameritech — are ramping up production but are
not expected to be able to satisfy demand of 4 million masks a month until April,
Saha said.
“I don’t think hospitals can sort of buy their way out of
this problem. It is not a bidding war for N95s,” said Amy Ray, director of
infection prevention for the MetroHealth System in Cleveland. “The supply is
the supply, and prudence is necessary to preserve the stock that we have.’’”
(P)
“The World Health Organization on Friday raised its
assessment of the global coronavirus risk from “high” to “very high,” the most
serious assessment in its new four-stage alert system.
“This is a reality check for every government on the
planet,” said Dr. Michael J. Ryan, deputy director of W.H.O.’s health emergency
program. “Wake up. Get ready. This virus may be on its way.”
The assessment addresses the risks of both uncontrolled
spread of the virus and the resulting impacts.
United States health officials have given similarly alarming
assessments, though President Trump has played down the threat.
The W.H.O. does not officially use the word “pandemic,”
often defined as the worldwide spread of a new disease, but many health experts
say the coronavirus epidemic is one, or soon will be.” (Q)
“President Trump complained on Friday that Democrats and the
news media were trying to scare Americans about the coronavirus to score
political points against him but asserted that the outbreak had been relatively
limited because of his action to stem infections…
Mr. Trump spoke hours after Mick Mulvaney, the acting White
House chief of staff, likewise blamed the news media for exaggerating the
seriousness of coronavirus because “they think this will bring down the
president, that’s what this is all about.”..
Mr. Mulvaney said the administration took “extraordinary
steps four or five weeks ago,” to prevent the spread of the virus when it
declared a rare public health emergency and barred entry by most foreign
citizens who had recently visited China.
“Why didn’t you hear about it?” Mr. Mulvaney said of travel
restrictions that were widely covered in the news media. “What was still going
on four or five weeks ago? Impeachment, that’s all the press wanted to talk
about.”
The news media has been covering the global spread of
coronavirus for months.
But Mr. Mulvaney claimed that the news media was too
preoccupied covering impeachment, he said, “because they thought it would bring
down the president.”
The media’s focus switched to the coronavirus for the same
reason, he continued.
“The reason you’re seeing so much attention to it today is
that they think this is going to be the thing that brings down the president,”
he added. “That’s what this is all about it.”
Following the president’s lead, Mr. Mulvaney also brushed
off concerns over the virus; there have been 60 cases identified in the United
States.
“The flu kills people,” he said. “This is not Ebola. It’s
not SARS, it’s not MERS. It’s not a death sentence, it’s not the same as the
Ebola crisis.” (R)
“If the next few weeks or months bring calm — and scientists
increasingly worry that they will not — the world would do well to remember
this time what it seems to have forgotten again and again. Another pathogen
will emerge soon enough, and another after that. Eventually, one of them will
be far worse than all its predecessors. If we are very unlucky, it could be
worse than anything in living memory. Imagine something as contagious as
measles (which any given infected person passes to 90 percent of the people he
or she encounters) only many times more deadly, and you’ll have a good sense of
what keeps global health officials up at night.
Here’s what is certain: Despite many warnings over many
years, we are still not ready. Not in China, where nearly two decades after
that SARS outbreak food markets that sell live animals still thrive and
authoritarianism still undermines honest and accurate communication about
infectious diseases. Not in Africa, where basic public health capacity remains
hobbled by a lack of investment and, in some cases, by political unrest and
violence. Not in the United States, where shortsighted budget cuts and growing
nationalism have shrunk commitments to pandemic preparedness, both at home and
abroad.
To be sure, some broad progress has been made in the past
few years. Vaccine development and deployment now proceed faster than at any
point in history. The World Health Organization has corrected many of the institutional
shortcomings that thwarted its responses to previous outbreaks. Other
countries, in both Europe and Africa, have stepped up to fill the global health
leadership position that America appears to have vacated.”
But, as Covid-19 makes clear, much more is still needed.”
(S)
“Today, as the country faces the possibility of a widespread
outbreak of a new respiratory infection caused by the coronavirus, there are
nowhere near that many ventilators, and most are already in use. Only about
62,000 full-featured ventilators were in hospitals across the country, a 2010
study found. More than 10,000 others are stored in the Strategic National
Stockpile, a federal cache of supplies and medicines held in case of
emergencies, according to Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, a former director of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Tens of thousands of other respiratory devices could be
repurposed in an emergency, experts say, but the shortfall could be stark,
potentially forcing doctors to make excruciating life-or-death decisions about
who would get such help should hospitals become flooded with the desperately
sick…
Across the country, educators, businesses and local
officials are beginning to confront the logistics of enduring a possible
pandemic: school closings that could force millions of children to remain at
home, emergency plans that would require employees to work remotely,
communities scrambling to build up supplies.
In plausible worst-case-scenarios given the pattern of the
outbreak thus far, the country could experience acute shortages not just in
ventilators but also health workers to operate them and care for patients;
hospital beds; and masks and other protective equipment.
“Even during mild flu pandemics, most of our I.C.U.s are
filled to the brim with severely ill patients on mechanical ventilation,” said
Dr. Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health
Security and an expert on health care preparedness. “I hope and pray Covid-19
turns out to be a moderate pandemic, but if not, we’re in serious trouble,” he
said, referring to the name given the disease caused by the virus.
Resources are concentrated in the most populous and
wealthiest cities, leaving rural areas and other neglected communities exposed
to greater risk. And public health experts worry that efforts to contain an
outbreak could be hamstrung by budget cuts that have weakened state health
departments.
In an extreme situation, some hospitals’ plans include
provisions for rationing, even removing some patients from ventilators without
requiring their consent to make way for others presumed to have a better chance
of survival. Some plans would also limit the access of certain categories of
patients from critical care or even hospitalization during a peak pandemic based
on criteria such as their age or an underlying chronic disease.
The concept of imposing such measures makes physicians
dedicated to saving every life uncomfortable, and there is evidence that many
people who could be removed from life support or refused care under such
protocols would otherwise survive.” (T)
“Leading health experts from around the world have been
meeting at the World Health Organization’s Geneva headquarters to assess the
current level of knowledge about the new COVID-19 disease, identify gaps and
work together to accelerate and fund priority research needed to help stop this
outbreak and prepare for any future outbreaks…
The meeting, hosted in collaboration with GloPID-R (the
Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness) brought
together major research funders and over 300 scientists and researchers from a
large variety of disciplines. They discussed all aspects of the outbreak and
ways to control it including:
the natural history of the virus, its transmission and diagnosis;
animal and environmental research on the origin of the
virus, including management measures at the human-animal interface;
epidemiological studies;
clinical characterization and management of disease caused
by the virus;
infection prevention and control, including best ways to
protect health care workers;
research and development for candidate therapeutics and
vaccines;
ethical considerations for research;
and integration of social sciences into the outbreak
response. (U)
“The first confirmed case of novel coronavirus in New York
State — a woman in her 30s who recently traveled to Iran — was announced Sunday
night by Governor Cuomo.
“There is no reason for undue anxiety — the general
risk remains low in New York,” Cuomo said in a statement. “We are
diligently managing this situation and will continue to provide information as
it becomes available.”
Cuomo said the woman who contracted the virus is currently
isolated in her home.
“The patient has respiratory symptoms, but is not in
serious condition and has been in a controlled situation since arriving to New
York,” Cuomo said. “This was expected. As I said from the beginning,
it was a matter of when, not if there would be a positive case of novel
coronavirus in New York.” (V)
(A) How a
coronavirus scare can lead to surprise medical bills, by Caitlin Owens,
https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-surprise-medical-bills-miami-1b808778-2450-4746-864c-d5fc9459eefb.html,
(B) First
coronavirus death in the U.S. happens in Washington state, by Nicole Acevedo and
Minyvonne Burke,
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/1st-coronavirus-death-u-s-officials-say-n1145931
(C) First
death from coronavirus in the United States confirmed in Washington state, by
Dakin Andone, Jamie Gumbrecht and Michael Nedelman, https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/health/us-coronavirus-saturday/index.html
(D) Washington
State Probing Troubling Coronavirus Outbreak In Nursing Home, by Mary
Papenfuss,
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-washington-state-nursing-home-covid-19_n_5e5aee89c5b601022111c4be
(E) Coronavirus
May Have Spread in U.S. for Weeks, Gene Sequencing Suggests, by Sheri Fink and
Mike Baker,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/health/coronavirus-washington-spread.html?referringSource=articleShare
(F) Diagnosis
Of Coronavirus Patient In California Was Delayed For Days, by BILL CHAPPELL,
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/02/27/809944423/diagnosis-of-coronavirus-patient-in-california-was-delayed-for-days
(G) More than
120 UC Davis health care staff in self-quarantine after possible exposure to
coronavirus, by Christina Maxouris and Alexandra Meeks,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/health/uc-davis-health-care-workers-self-quarantine/index.html
(H) Expect
more Sacramento coronavirus cases in the next few days, county health chief
warns, by TONY BIZJAK AND DARRELL SMITH,
https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article240745121.html
(I) California
is monitoring at least 8,400 people for the coronavirus, by Berkeley Lovelace
Jr., https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/27/california-is-monitoring-8400-people-for-the-coronavirus.html
(J) Coronavirus
evacuees passed through California military base. Did safety plan break down?,
by JASON POHL, FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, DARRELL SMITH, AND CATHIE ANDERSON,
https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article240767626.html
(K) First Drug
Shortage Caused by Coronavirus, F.D.A. Says. But It Won’t Disclose What Drug or
Where It’s Made, by Katie Thomas,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/health/drug-coronavirus-shortage.html?referringSource=articleShare
(L) Surgeon
General Urges the Public to Stop Buying Face Masks, by Maria Cramer and Knvul
Sheikh,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/health/coronavirus-n95-face-masks.html?referringSource=articleShare
(M) We Don’t
Really Know How Many People Have Coronavirus, by Elisabeth Rosenthal,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/opinion/coronavirus-death-rate.html?referringSource=articleShare
(N) Testing for
coronavirus to vastly increase, federal officials say, by Laura Figueroa
Hernandez,
https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/coronavirus-testing-pence-azar-1.42368749
(O) Government
Eyes War Powers to Speed Medical Manufacturing Ahead of Virus, by Noah Weiland
and Emily Cochrane,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/us/politics/trump-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
(P) Shortages,
confusion and poor communication complicate coronavirus preparations, by Lena
H. Sun, Christopher Rowland and Lenny Bernstein,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/shortages-confusion-and-poor-communication-complicate-coronavirus-preparations/2020/02/25/d9e56396-575d-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html
(Q) The World
Health Organization on Friday raised its assessment of the global coronavirus
risk from “high” to “very high,” the most serious assessment in its new
four-stage alert system.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/world/coronavirus-update.html
(R) “The flu
kills people,” Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, said.
“This is not Ebola.”, by Annie Karni, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/us/politics/cpac-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
(S) Here Comes
the Coronavirus Pandemic,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/opinion/sunday/corona-virus-usa.html?referringSource=articleShare
(T) How
Prepared Is the U.S. for a Coronavirus Outbreak?,
https://twnews.us/us-news/how-prepared-is-the-u-s-for-a-coronavirus-outbreak
(U) World
experts and funders set priorities for COVID-19 research,
https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/12-02-2020-world-experts-and-funders-set-priorities-for-covid-19-research
(V) Officials:
First confirmed case of novel coronavirus in New York State, by David M. Schwartz and Lisa L. Colangelo,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/health/us-coronavirus-saturday/index.html
(W) Kept at the
Hospital on Coronavirus Fears, Now Facing Large Medical Bills, by Sarah Kliff,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/upshot/coronavirus-surprise-medical-bills.html?referringSource=articleShare
PART 11. CORONAVIRUS. “Gov. Andrew Cuomo… would
require employers to pay workers and protect their jobs if they are quarantined
because of the coronavirus.”
“This epidemic is a wake-up call for companies to carefully
review the strategies, policies, and procedures they have in place to protect
employees, customers, and operations in this and future epidemics. Here are
eight questions that companies should ask as they prepare for — and respond to
— the spread of the virus.
1. How can we best protect our employees from exposure in
the workplace?
2. When should we exclude workers or visitors from the
workspace?
3. Should we revise our benefits policies in cases where
employees are barred from the worksite or we close it?
4. Have we maximized employees’ ability to work remotely?
5. Do we have reliable systems for real-time public health
communication with employees?
6. Should we revise our policies around international and
domestic business travel?
7. Should we postpone or cancel scheduled conferences or
meetings?
8. Are supervisors adequately trained?
Diligent planning for global health emergencies can help
protect employees, customers, and the business.
But plans are only as good as their execution. Companies should use the
current situation to optimize and battle-test their plans. Whether or not
Covid-19 becomes a full-blown pandemic, these capabilities will prove
invaluable as the emergence of a global pandemic, caused by this coronavirus or
another agent in the future, is not a matter of “if” but “when.” “(A)
“Some companies have already taken precautions like limiting
travel to affected countries or big international conferences. Others have
asked employees to stay home because they visited a country with a more serious
outbreak.
But with new unexplained cases being reported in the United
States — and the first domestic death from the illness reported on Saturday — a
growing number of American workers could soon be asked to alter their routines,
or just stay home.
Exactly how that affects you will depend on many factors,
including the generosity of your employer’s benefits and where you live. Here’s
what labor lawyers and business groups say could potentially unfold in your
workplace — and what rights workers have.
The situation is ever-evolving as the virus continues to
spread — and policies are being revised daily as employers monitor public
health notices.
Nobody wants employees to come to work if they are sick or
have been exposed to the virus, but U.S. workers are less likely to be covered
by a paid sick leave policy than those in other developed countries.
“This can put hourly workers in a bind, and make employees
in the U.S. more likely to show up for work when they are sick,” said Joseph
Deng, who specializes in employment and compensation law at Baker &
McKenzie in Los Angeles.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has
recommended that employers establish “nonpunitive” policies, encouraging
employees who are sick or exhibiting symptoms to stay at home.
“We may see companies develop more flexible and generous
sick leave policies,” Mr. Deng said. That could reduce the hard choices that
employees have to make…
What can my employer ask me to do?
Will I be paid if I’m told to stay home?
What happens if I or a family member get sick?
What are my rights if I’m worried about going to work?
Can my employer ask me to wear a mask?
Will my employer tell me if a colleague is infected?” (B)
“Amber Clayton, who directs the Society for Human Resource
Management’s Knowledge Center, which fields calls from HR professionals seeking
guidance, said many employers have business continuity plans in place for
atypical situations, and some even have infectious disease management plans,
but still it has been getting questions from companies, some about employees
coming back from China: “Do they have to come back into the office right away?
Can we require them to stay at home?”..
Even though technology can help facilitate some workplace
decisions, Clayton said employers can find themselves in “unknown territory”
with labor law implications, especially if the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S.
gets much worse and forces more widespread business impacts…
The issues are more complicated for workers who are not on
salary, and whose employers do not offer paid time off for leave, since often
these hourly-wage employees have no legal protection for any nonworking hours,
based on the Fair Labor Standards Act, which in other cases does protect them,
such as in cases of overtime-pay claims.
Clayton said firms should consider paying employees for time
they will be out, even if not covered by medical-leave laws or other company
policies, but without a legal requirement this could hit hourly workers hard in
sectors where there is no remote work option, such as restaurants and
hospitality; or furloughed factory workers without specific protections in an
existing collective-bargaining agreement…
“The idea that if you’re not coming in, staying home sick,
that you will not get put on the next big project or not get the next
promotion, this is the time to combat that … to change the norms,” he said.
“At the majority of companies, that is still not the case. Employees are still
worried in normal flu season about this, even though it saves a company money
when people stay at home, and in this environment it’s a whole different ball
game.”
SHRM’s Clayton said she is less sure about permanent changes
to workplace culture resulting from the current outbreak, but she said that, in
the least, for companies that don’t have business continuity plans and
infectious disease management plans in place, it is time to implement them.”
(C)
“The authorities confirmed on Tuesday a second case of
coronavirus in New York, a man in his 50s who lives in Westchester County, just
outside New York City, touching off an intense search by health investigators
across the region to determine whether he had infected others.
The inquiry stretched from a hospital in Bronxville, N.Y.,
to a nearby high school, to both a law office and a college campus in
Manhattan. The effort provided one of the first glimpses in New York of the
kind of comprehensive efforts that health officials in countries across the
world have mounted to stem to spread of the coronavirus.
New York health officials were tracking down doctors and
nurses who treated the man in a hospital for days before he was confirmed to
have the illness — and placing some in quarantine. And they were growing
concerned that his son, a college student who officials believe lives in
university housing, might be showing symptoms of the illness, too, raising
fears of further transmission.
“I think we have to assume this contagion will grow,” George
Latimer, the Westchester County executive, said at a news conference on
Tuesday.
The man became ill on Feb. 22 and was admitted to a hospital
in Westchester on Feb. 27., according to Dr. Demetre C. Daskalakis, the deputy
commissioner for disease control at New York City’s Department of Health and
Mental Hygiene. Officials acknowledged that the patient might have exposed
doctors, nurses and others to the illness.
“We believe that a couple of the medical professionals have
been quarantined,” Mr. Latimer said, adding that state health officials were
examining “what exposure might exist” to the staff at that medical facility,
the NewYork-Presbyterian Lawrence Hospital in Bronxville.
The patient has since been transferred to a Manhattan
hospital. He is a lawyer who lives in New Rochelle, N.Y., and works in
Manhattan.
Two of the man’s children have links to New York City. One
child attends a Jewish high school in the Bronx’s Riverdale neighborhood, and
the school was closed on Tuesday as a precaution. The other, the college
student, attends Yeshiva University but had not been on campus since Feb. 27,
according to a statement released by the school. Additionally, the statement
said, a student at the university’s law school was in self-quarantine after
having contact with the law firm where the Westchester man works.
City officials said the stricken man’s son, the Yeshiva
student, exhibited light symptoms that could be the coronavirus, or perhaps
nothing at all.
The city’s disease detectives were trying to recreate the
son’s movements to learn whom he had close contact with. They have also been in
touch with the small Midtown law firm where the Westchester man works and they
have spoken with the man’s close colleagues to evaluate their level of exposure,
officials said.” (D)
“New Jersey has yet to see any cases and state officials
insist the public health system is ready to respond, but it is now a question
of when — not if — coronavirus will be discovered in the Garden State…
“My Administration is
actively engaged in a multi-level, whole-of-government approach — from our
hospitals, to our schools, to our ports — to implement a preparedness and
response plan for the potential spread of the coronavirus in New Jersey,”
Murphy said. “Together, we are prepared to respond properly and swiftly to any
future individuals who meet the (CDC) guidelines for coronavirus testing.”
The DOH has also launched a webpage with a host of resources
for communities, businesses and schools. Persichilli said she is working with
other government officials, local health departments and hospital leaders to
ensure they are planning properly for a potential outbreak.
“As you know, hospitals are on the front line of this
response,” Persichilli said. “We are actively working with the (New Jersey
Hospital Association) and hospitals directly to ensure they have sufficient
plans in place to prepare for and respond to a surge in ill patients or a
(medical goods) supply chain disruption.”
The CDC also issued new guidance for hospitals designed to
help them maintain proper stocks of medical supplies, including very limited
re-use of certain respirators used by clinical staff. NJHA president and CEO
Cathy Bennett, who previously served as state health commissioner, said this
input allows facilities to help plan how best to protect staff and patients.
“The updated testing criteria can be helpful in improving
disease surveillance,” Bennett added. “The more insight the better in honing
our preparations and response.”
State Department of Education Commissioner Lamont O.
Repollet, who joined Murphy’s briefing, said his department has been working to
update school districts on the outbreak and urged local leaders to remain in
contact with county school officials, who are serving as a conduit to the state.
He reminded districts they should already have in place a policy for home
instruction, consider rescheduling group events, and properly report any
communicable diseases identified at school.
Repollet also reminded school officials not to allow concern
about coronavirus to evolve into fear, stigma or racism against individuals of
Chinese or other Asian descent. “Let’s make sure we are better than that.
Stigma hurts everyone. Bullying and harassment hurt everyone,” he said.” (E)
“As confirmed cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus spread in
the U.S. this week, school leaders nationwide are preparing for their
worst-case scenario emergency plans. Some are already shutting down schools or
considering online learning if the health threat persists.
And some are simply saying: Wash your hands.
So, who’s right? Perhaps everyone.
District leaders are right to emphasize hand washing,
staying home if you’re sick and covering your cough with a sleeve or tissue,
school and health leaders said. But they should also disclose their emergency
plans to parents about what will happen if the virus becomes more widespread –
even if it unnerves families, leaders said this week…
So far, the response from schools and health officials has
varied depending on whether a locality has confirmed cases – and experts’ views
on how much action is appropriate is rapidly evolving. But the uncertainty of
how far the virus will spread has put school leaders in a difficult spot of
projecting a sense of calm while also acting with an abundance of caution for
student safety…
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention late last
week offered different guidance to schools and daycare centers depending on
whether they have a locally identified case of COVID-19.
For institutions that don’t have a confirmed case, the CDC
said schools should review and update their emergency plans, emphasize
hand-washing, communicate with local health departments and review attendance
policies – including dropping rewards for perfect attendance.
For institutions located in areas with COVID-19 cases, the
CDC recommends schools talk with their
local health officials before canceling classes. Together, they can determine
how long schools should be closed. And schools can also determine options for
distance or online learning so kids don’t fall behind…
In the event of a school closure, he said, “there’s
also a huge cost to not doing anything.”” (F)
“As state and local public health offices scramble to
respond to the coronavirus outbreak, they do so against a backdrop of years
long budget cuts, leaving them without the trained employees or updated
equipment to adequately address the virus’ growing threat, former public health
officials say.
In the past 15 years, public health, the country’s
front-line defense in epidemics, lost 45% of its inflation-adjusted funding for
staff, training, equipment and supplies. The Public Health Emergency Fund,
created for such disease or disaster relief, is long depleted. And much of the
money the federal government is racing to come up with now to combat the
COVID-19 outbreak will be pulled from other often-dire health needs and
probably will arrive too late to hire the needed personnel.
Florida, with two cases so far, and Washington, where six
deaths have been reported, have declared states of emergency, and state and
local officials there and elsewhere assure they have staff, equipment and
procedures ready. But early testing glitches in California, the failure to
protect federal health officials from the virus in cruise ship patients and a
climbing number of U.S. cases raise questions about that confidence.
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told a Senate
panel last week that only about 30 million of the 300 million face masks needed
for health care workers are available.
“Once again, we’re not that prepared,” said Dr.
Boris Lushniak, a former deputy and acting U.S. surgeon general who spent 13
years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and is now dean of
University of Maryland’s School of Public Health. “When those (basic public health
efforts) aren’t supported well, in the time of emergency you don’t have the
infrastructure to shift gears and go into emergency mode.”
The prospect of contending with an epidemic hits
often-ignored public health departments already taxed by at least 70 homegrown
threats, including a host of sexually transmitted diseases and tuberculosis.
It has been 16 months since President Donald Trump declared
opioid abuse a public health emergency and less than a year since Kentucky
warned it might have to close 42 of its county health departments amid the
country’s worst outbreak of Hepatitis A. In New York City, an explosion of
measles among unvaccinated children that ended just six months ago cost the
city more than $2 million to fight and involved 400 public health employees,
according to the Big Cities Health Coalition…
Time is also a problem, said Oscar Alleyne, program director
at the National Council of County and Local Health Officials. State and local
health departments have lost about 30,000 people over the past seven years, he
said, and now have to find or wait for money to hire recent public health
graduates and train them for these new, often short-term jobs.
It takes six to nine months to find and hire the people
capable of doing the testing and other surveillance work needed, said Dr. Lamar
Hasbrouck, a former CDC medical epidemiologist, who was Illinois’ health
secretary from 2012 to 2015.
“The time lag is so significant, by time the people get
hired, the whole thing can be over,” he said.
Dr. Nirav Shah, who was New York’s state health commissioner
from 2011 to 2014, said that in addition to supplies and other department
resources, funding will be needed for staff to trace the contacts of infected
people. He worries most about cuts to the Epidemiological Intelligence Service,
which can go straight to the source of the virus…
The health care system relies on public health agencies.
In a full-blown outbreak, coronavirus patients will be
spread across many hospitals that are usually competitors, so public health
agencies have to be the connective tissue that coordinates the response, said
Dr. Tom Talbot, chief hospital epidemiologist at Vanderbilt University Medical
Center.
“They are my heroes,” said Talbot, “because they are
drastically under funded and still on the front lines helping to fight this
thing.”” (G)
“Looser regulations on who can develop tests for the virus
will allow for a significant increase in the number of Americans likely to be
screened, the F.D.A. commissioner said.
The Trump administration said on Monday that it could have
the capacity for nearly a million tests for the coronavirus by the end of this
week, as the government prepares to escalate screening as the American death
toll reached six and U.S. infections topped 100.
Private companies and academic laboratories have been pulled
in to develop and validate their own coronavirus tests, a move to get around a
government bottleneck after a halting start, and to widen the range and number
of Americans screened for the virus, Dr. Stephen Hahn, the commissioner of the
Food and Drug Administration, said Monday at a White House briefing…
“We expect to have a
substantial increase in the number of tests this week, next week and throughout
the month,” Dr. Hahn said, flanked by Vice President Mike Pence and top federal
health officials.
Dr. Hahn’s initial comments caused some confusion about the
number of tests that would be administered by the end of the week, but the
administration clarified that he was speaking of the capacity for increased
testing, not the number of Americans that would be tested. That number is still
unknown…
Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the director of the National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an interview with NBC on Monday
that the virus had “reached outbreak proportions and likely pandemic
proportions.”..
Earlier in the day, Mr. Pence discussed the virus with the
nation’s governors, and later joined the president in the meeting with
pharmaceutical companies where Mr. Trump said he heard that a vaccine would be
ready in three to four months. Dr. Fauci, who was in the room, clarified that
deploying a vaccine was at least a year away…
Restrictions on testing have severely constrained local
health departments, which were desperate to catch up with and contain the
spread. Dow Constantine, the executive of King County, Wash., said the county
was preparing to buy a motel in the Seattle area where people who were infected
with the coronavirus could stay to remain isolated.
On Saturday, the F.D.A. said that hundreds of academic
medical centers that have developed and validated diagnostic materials for the
virus could begin testing patients immediately, even before the F.D.A.
completes an emergency authorization review, which laboratories run by states
and private companies have also applied for.” (H)
“Vice President Mike Pence said the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention was lifting all restrictions on testing for coronavirus,
and would be releasing new guidelines to fast-track testing for people who fear
they have the virus, even if they are displaying mild symptoms.
“Today we will issue new guidance from the C.D.C. that will
make it clear that any American can be tested, no restrictions, subject to
doctor’s orders,” Mr. Pence told reporters at the White House.
The federal government has promised to significantly ramp up
testing, after drawing criticism for strictly limiting testing in the first
weeks of the outbreak. But health care supply companies and public health
officials have cast doubt on the government’s assurances, as complaints
continue that the need for testing remains far greater than the capacity.
“The estimates we’re getting from industry right now — by
the end of this week, close to a million tests will be able to be performed,”
the head of the Food and Drug Administration, Dr. Stephen Hahn, said at a White
House briefing on Monday.
But some companies developing tests say their products are
still weeks away from approval.
And even if a million test kits were available, public
health laboratories say they would not be able to process nearly that many
within a week. A spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services said
on Monday that public health labs currently can test 15,000 people daily,
though that figure is expected to grow.” (I)
“An outbreak of coronavirus disease in a nursing home near
Seattle is prompting urgent calls for precautionary tactics at America’s elder
care facilities, where residents are at heightened risk of serious
complications from the illness because of the dual threat of age and close
living conditions.
As of Monday afternoon, the emergence of the novel
contagious illness at the Life Care Center of Kirkland, Washington, had left
four residents dead and others hospitalized, local health officials said. A
health care worker also has been hospitalized. In total, Washington state has
reported six deaths, officials said.
Officials previously said that of the nursing home’s 108
residents and 180 staff members, more than 50 have shown signs of possible
COVID-19 infections, the name given the illness caused by a novel coronavirus
that emerged from Wuhan, China, late last year. Visits from families,
volunteers and vendors have been halted and new admissions placed on hold,
according to a statement from Ellie Basham, the center’s executive director…
The situation may be akin to the spread of coronavirus on
cruise ships, such as the Diamond Princess that was quarantined off the coast
of Japan, with one key exception, Steinberg said. People on cruise ships can be
confined to their rooms with minimal interaction with staff and fellow
residents. People in nursing centers are there because they need help with
activities of daily living, he noted…
In the Washington state center, Duchin said, officials are
advising health workers to separate cohorts of sick patients from those who
remain well and to don personal protective gear, including eye protection, to
avoid infection. “It’s a very challenging environment with so many vulnerable
patients to manage an outbreak,” he said.” (J)
“New York is among the first states in the country to waive
some fees and expenses for people who undergo testing for the coronavirus, as
public health officials are increasingly worried that medical bills will
discourage the poor and uninsured from getting medical care.
The federal government is also considering paying for care
for those affected, possibly based on funds available through federal disaster
relief programs. There are “initial conversations,” Dr. Robert Kadlec, a senior
official at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, told Congress on
Wednesday.
In addition to the nation’s 27.5 million uninsured, some
lawmakers are concerned that the tens of millions who are underinsured —
Americans with high deductibles or limited insurance — may also be at risk of
unexpected expenses as more and more people are exposed to the virus.
The health insurance system “is designed to make you think
twice to seek care every time you get a runny nose, fever and cough,” said John
Graves, a health policy expert at Vanderbilt University. Even though
identifying people with the virus in the early stages is critical to preventing
a spread of the disease, Dr. Graves said, many people are likely to wait out
any symptoms to avoid expensive care.
New York said it would require some health insurance
companies to waive any cost sharing for coronavirus testing, including the cost
of going to the emergency room, doctor’s office or urgent care center if within
a plan’s network.
“Containing this virus depends on us having the facts about
who has it — and these measures will break down any barriers that could prevent
New Yorkers from getting tested,” Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a statement on
Monday.” (K)
Bergen New Bridge Medical Center said March 3 that it has
expanded its Telehealth service Bergen New Bridge Cares to screen patients for
COVID-19.
Along with partner Air Visits, Bergen New Bridge Cares
offers urgent-care screening and assessment by a licensed physician of patients
who have medical complaints and symptoms. Telehealth consultations with an
infectious disease physician are available if necessary. Patients can access
Bergen New Bridge Cares at 201-204-0712.
The COVID-19 screenings are based on the most current CDC
Evaluating and Reporting Persons Under Investigation (PUI) guidelines. If
further evaluation is necessary, a physician will evaluate each patient and
coordinate additional care.
“With the rapidly evolving health crisis, we felt extending
the reach of our services into the home was crucial in identifying patients and
expediting care while also limiting community exposure,” said Deborah Visconi, president
and CEO at Bergen New Bridge Medical Center.
“It is our hope that by putting our experts at the
fingertips of the community, people’s fears will be eased and they will be more
willing to seek early evaluation and treatment,” Visconi added.” (L)
“In early February, Royal Caribbean’s Anthem of the Seas
docked in Bayonne, New Jersey, in need of a hospital. The cruise ship was
carrying patients who had traveled from China, where an outbreak of COVID-19
had taken root. Four passengers needed to go somewhere for further medical
observation.
The obvious next step was University Hospital in Newark, a
major academic medical center equipped with isolation rooms. “The hospital is
following proper infection control protocols while evaluating these individuals,”
Gov. Phil Murphy said in a statement. The patients tested negative, but the
governor was clear. The state’s first coronavirus cases would go to University…
But infection control has been a recurring problem at some
of the very hospitals that would likely be called upon to treat COVID-19
patients, a ProPublica review of hundreds of hospital inspection reports found.
This raises concerns that they could become hotbeds for disease, putting
patients at risk and rendering infected workers unable to care for others.
“Health care workers are my top worry,” said Dr. Peter
Hotez, dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of
Medicine in Houston. He noted that in China, so far, about 15% of infected
hospital workers have become severely ill. “If this takes place in the U.S.,
and we see those numbers of workers sent home or in the ICU, being taken care
of by their colleagues, things will start to unravel. This is the soft
underbelly of our preparedness system right now.”
At least two health care workers in Northern California had
preliminary positive tests for COVID-19 at NorthBay VacaValley Hospital,
pending CDC confirmation. The hospital had treated a patient who later tested
positive for the disease. Other health care workers who came into contact with
the patient are also in quarantine.
There is no list of designated centers to handle the most
critical COVID-19 patients, experts said. But the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, during the 2014-16 Ebola outbreak, named 55 hospitals it
considered to be in the first tier of treatment centers to handle that kind of
crisis — mostly large, urban teaching hospitals capable of complex care like
blood transfusions and ventilation.
ProPublica analyzed five years of federal hospital
inspection reports for these facilities and found violations for infection
control failures or other factors that could hamper the response to an outbreak
at more than half of them. About 1 in 5 of the facilities had four or more
violations; the analysis found more than a hundred overall. It’s not clear by
looking at the reports how many of the violations led to patient infections.
Problems that get cited on the inspection reports are required to be corrected
as part of the regulation process.
But it’s also true that inspections only flag a small number
of the actual problems in hospitals. American hospitals, overall, are so bad at
preventing infections that hospital-acquired infections are considered a leading
cause of death in the United States. The hope would be that the sites
designated as specialized infection-control centers would do better…
Medical experts say they wonder: if hospitals can’t control
the spread of pathogens under normal conditions, what happens if they face a
rush of patients with a disease as contagious and serious as the one caused by
COVID-19?
During the SARS outbreak in the greater Toronto area, 44% of
the total cases were among health care workers. A retrospective study,
published in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases in 2004, hypothesized
that “lapses in infection control measures may be responsible,” noting that
caregivers were particularly at risk during procedures like intubation…” (M)
“Gov. Andrew Cuomo said he would amend his budget proposal
on paid sick leave to include a provision that would require employers to pay
workers and protect their jobs if they are quarantined because of the
coronavirus. The announcement of the change came at a press conference Tuesday
morning at the state Capitol where Cuomo signed a controversial new law
expanding his gubernatorial powers in the event of such an emergency.
“I’m going to amend the paid sick leave bill that I sent to
the Legislature to where there is a specific provision that says people, who
because of this situation with coronavirus, have to be quarantine should be
protected,” the governor said. “Their employer should pay them for the period
of quarantine and their job should be protected. And I’m going to make that
available to be paid sick leave, bill that I sent up.”” (N)
“A cruise ship was being held off the coast of San Francisco
on Thursday amid fears that more than 3,500 passengers and crew may have been
exposed to the coronavirus blamed for almost 3,300 deaths worldwide.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said the Grand Princess was
sailing with 62 passengers who company officials say had been on the ship’s
previous voyage with a 71-year-old man who eventually died from the virus. The
current cruise was scheduled to arrive in San Francisco on Wednesday but will
not return to port until testing can take place, Newsom said. Test kits were
being flown onto the ship, he said.
More than 20 passengers and crew members have developed
symptoms consistent with COVID-19, Newsom said.
“We will be able to test very quickly… to determine if
these individuals that are symptomatic just have traditional colds or the flu
or may have contracted the COVID-19 virus,” Newsom said.” (O)
“In the wake of a series of avoidable mistakes, Donald Trump
and his team have confronted quite a bit of criticism over their handling on
the coronavirus outbreak. For the most part, the president has responded by
arguing that the unflattering assessments are part of a “hoax” cooked
up by his political enemies.
Yesterday, however, during a White House event, Trump
switched gears a bit, implicitly acknowledging the missteps, but insisting that
Barack Obama deserves the blame. From the official transcript:
“[T]he Obama administration made a decision on testing
that turned out to be very detrimental to what we’re doing. And we undid that
decision a few days ago so that the testing can take place in a much more
accurate and rapid fashion. That was a decision we disagreed with. I don’t
think we would have made it, but for some reason it was made. But we’ve undone
that decision.”” (P)
“The House voted to approve a roughly $8 billion emergency
funding deal to address the coronavirus on Wednesday, the latest step in a race
to contain the outbreak that has killed nearly a dozen in the US.
It included more than $3 billion for the research and
development of vaccines and diagnostics, roughly $2.2 billion to fund public
health programs, and $1 billion for medical supplies and other preparedness
measures.” (Q)
(A) 8
Questions Employers Should Ask About Coronavirus, by Jeff Levin-Scherz and
Deana Allen,
https://hbr.org/2020/03/8-questions-employers-should-ask-about-coronavirus
(B) Coronavirus
and the Workplace: What if the Boss Says to Stay Home?, by Tara Siegel Bernard,
https://www.nytimes.com/article/coronavirus-work-job.html?referringSource=articleShare
(C) The
‘stranded employee’ is a coronavirus problem the work world has never seen, by
Eric Rosenbaum,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/03/stranded-employee-is-coronavirus-issue-work-world-has-never-seen.html
(D) Coronavirus
in N.Y.: Second Case Sets Off Search for Others Exposed, by Joseph Goldstein
and Jesse McKinley,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-state.html?referringSource=articleShare
(E) Preparing
for Coronavirus in NJ: Not if But When, Say Murphy Officials, by LILO H.
STAINTON,
https://www.njspotlight.com/2020/03/preparing-for-coronavirus-in-nj-not-if-but-when-say-murphy-officials/
(F) US schools
are in a ‘state of alert’ amid coronavirus outbreak. Are they overreacting – or
not doing enough?, by Erin Richards,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/education/2020/03/03/coronavirus-schools-closing-online-florida-washington-california/4928377002/
(G) ‘This is
not sustainable’: Public health departments, decimated by funding cuts,
scramble against coronavirus. By Jayne O’Donnell,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/03/02/coronavirus-response-depleted-public-health-departments-scramble-respond/4868693002/
(H) Vice
President Mike Pence’s reassurances contrasted with warnings delivered on
Monday by top officials across the federal government, by Noah WeilandEmily
Cochrane,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/02/us/coronavirus-testing.html?referringSource=articleShare
(I) Coronavirus
Updates: U.S. Will Drop Limits on Testing, Pence Says.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/world/coronavirus-live-news-updates.html
(J) Coronavirus
Risk In Elder Care Facilities, by JoNel Aleccia,
https://khn.org/news/nursing-home-outbreak-spotlights-coronavirus-risk-in-elder-care-facilities/
(K) Waive Fees
for Coronavirus Tests and Treatment, Health Experts Urge, by Reed Abelson and
Sarah Kliff,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/03/health/coronavirus-tests-uninsured.html?referringSource=articleShare
(L) Bergen
New Bridge expands telehealth service for COVID-19, by Anthony Vecchione,
https://njbiz.com/bergen-new-bridge-medical-center-expands-telehealth-service-covid-19/
(M) U.S.
Hospitals Say They’re Ready for Coronavirus. Their Infection Control Violations
Say Otherwise, by Marshall Allen, Caroline Chen, J. David McSwane and Lexi
Churchill,
https://www.propublica.org/article/us-hospitals-say-theyre-ready-for-coronavirus-their-infection-control-violations-say-otherwise?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dailynewsletter
(N) A new paid
sick leave plan for coronavirus, Cuomo expands his proposal in response to the
public health threat, by ZACH WILLIAMS,
https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/policy/health-care/new-paid-sick-leave-plan-coronavirus.html
(O) Coronavirus
updates: Cruise ship kept off West Coast; California, LA declare emergencies,
by John Bacon,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/03/05/coronavirus-live-updates-us-death-toll-schools-amtrak/4953471002/
(P) With bogus
claim, Trump tries to blame coronavirus missteps on Obama, by Steve Benen,
https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/bogus-claim-trump-tries-blame-coronavirus-missteps-obama-n1150346
(Q) House
passes $8 billion emergency package in scramble to fight coronavirus outbreak
in US, by Gina Heeb,
https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/congress-lawmakers-8-billion-funding-deal-fight-coronavirus-outbreak-2020-3-1028965749
PREQUELS
“A SEVERE FLU PANDEMIC… could
kill more than 33 million people worldwide in just 250 days.” – “Boy, do we not
have our act together.” — Bill Gates”. (J)
PART 4. CANDIDA AURIS. “..
nursing facilities, and long-term hospitals, are…continuously cycling infected
patients, or those who carry the germ, into hospitals and back again.”
“A man in Miami went to the hospital to receive a test for
the coronavirus after developing flu-like symptoms, only to receive the news
that he didn’t have it — and a $3,270 medical bill, the Miami Herald reports.
Why it matters: The man had just returned from a work trip
to China, so took his symptoms more seriously than normal, which is exactly
what public health experts want people to do.
Our thought bubble: The episode would be a great parody of
the health care system, if it wasn’t real.
The man has a short-term health insurance plan, which usually
have skimpy benefits in exchange for lower premiums, and don’t have to cover
pre-existing conditions. The Trump administration has expanded them.
The hospital told the Herald that the patient is only on the
hook for $1,400 based on his insurance, but his insurer told him that first, he
must provide three years of medical records to prove that his flu didn’t relate
to pre-existing conditions.
And more bills are probably coming.” (A)
“Frank Wucinski and his 3-year-old daughter, Annabel, are
among the dozens of Americans the government has flown back to the country from
Wuhan, China, and put under quarantine to check for signs of coronavirus.
Now they are among what could become a growing number of
families hit with surprise medical bills related to government-mandated
actions.
Mr. Wucinski, a Pennsylvania native who has lived in China
for years, accepted the U.S. government’s offer to evacuate from Wuhan with
Annabel in early February as the new coronavirus spread. His wife, who is not
an American citizen and remains in China, developed pneumonia that doctors
think resulted from Covid-19, the disease caused by the respiratory virus. Her
father, whom she helped care for, was infected and recently died.
The first stop for Mr. Wucinski and Annabel was a two-week
quarantine at Marine Corps Station Miramar near San Diego. During that time,
they had two mandatory stays in an isolation unit at a nearby children’s
hospital. The first started upon arrival in the United States, and the second
was a few days later, after an official heard Annabel coughing…
After their release from quarantine, Mr. Wucinski and his
daughter went to stay with his mother in Harrisburg, Pa. That’s where they
found a pile of medical bills waiting: $3,918 in charges from hospital doctors,
radiologists and an ambulance company.
“I assumed it was all being paid for,” Mr. Wucinski said.
“We didn’t have a choice. When the bills showed up, it was just a pit in my
stomach, like, ‘How do I pay for this?’”
The federal government has the authority to quarantine and
isolate patients if officials believe them to be a public health threat. These
powers, which date back to cholera outbreaks among ship passengers in the late
19th century, are rarely used. They don’t say anything about who pays when the
isolation happens in a nongovernmental medical facility — or when they’re
brought there by a private ambulance company…
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman
declined to comment on whether it would pay the bills of patients kept in
mandatory isolation…
“My question is why are we being charged for these stays, if
they were mandatory and we had no choice in the matter?” Mr. Wucinski wrote in
his message.
…. hen contacted by The New York Times, a Rady Children’s
Hospital spokesman said the physicians’ bill had been sent in error and that
the family would not be held responsible for the charges.
“We’re in the process of assessing how the error occurred,”
the spokesman, Benjamin Metcalf, said. “We are working with government agencies
regarding billing for these cases.”
The ambulance company that transported the Wucinskis,
American Medical Response, charged the family $2,598 for taking them to the
hospital. A company representative declined to comment on the bill “due to
patient privacy concerns,” but said the company would look into the case.
An additional $90 in charges came from radiologists who read
the patients’ X-ray scans and do not work for the hospital. Having such
doctors, who may be outside a patient’s insurance networks, provide services to
hospital patients is one of the major causes of surprise medical bills.” (W)
“Health officials in Washington state said on Saturday a
coronavirus patient has died, marking the first death in the U.S. from
COVID-19, the illness associated with the virus.
The person who died was a man in his 50s who had underlying
health conditions, and there was no evidence he contracted the virus through
travel, health officials said.
Shortly after announcement of the death, President Donald
Trump at a White House press conference said the United States is issuing more
travel restrictions and warnings to help prevent spread of the virus. He also
said he is meeting with pharmaceutical executives to discuss work toward a
coronavirus vaccine.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee meanwhile declared a state of
emergency in response to new cases of COVID-19, directing state agencies to use
all resources necessary to prepare for and respond to the outbreak.
“This will allow us to get the resources we need,” Inslee
said. “This is a time to take commonsense, proactive measures to ensure the
health and safety of those who live in Washington state.”” (B)
“A patient infected with the novel coronavirus in Washington
state has died, a state health official said Saturday, marking the first death
due to the virus in the United States…
Three new presumptive positive cases were announced in
Washington state on Saturday, meaning a test given by a state or local lab came
back positive, but has yet to be confirmed by the CDC’s lab in Atlanta.
Among those three cases was the patient who died, health
officials said.
The person-to-person cases include several of unknown
origin, including:
• A woman in Washington County, Oregon, who is presumptive
positive. She is in isolation.
• A high school boy in Snohomish County, Washington, who is
presumptive positive. He’s doing well, according to Dr. Chris Spitters, interim
health officer for the Snohomish Health District.
• An older woman in Santa Clara County, California, who
tested positive.
• A Solano County, California, woman who is in serious
condition at UC Davis Medical Center.” (C)
“The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and
Washington state health officials have launched an investigation into two cases
of coronavirus at a nursing home in a suburb of Seattle, the same town where
the nation’s first coronavirus fatality occurred.
An outbreak in such a facility is particularly troubling
because of the close quarters and the vulnerability of the elderly residents to
disease.
A health care worker at the Life Care Center in Kirkland and
a female resident in her 70s have tested positive for the disease, state and
federal officials revealed in a media call Saturday.
Around 27 of 108 residents and 25 of 180 staff members also
have some symptoms of COVID-19, and are being tested, officials said.
Authorities are “very concerned about an outbreak in this
setting, where there are many older people,” said county health official Jeff
Duchin.” (D)
“Researchers who have examined the genomes of two
coronavirus infections in Washington State say the similarities between the
cases suggest that the virus may have been spreading in the state for weeks.
Washington had the United States’ first confirmed case of
coronavirus, announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on
Jan. 20. Based on an analysis of the virus’s genetic sequence, another case
that surfaced in the state and was announced on Friday probably was descended
from that first case.
The two people live in the same county, but are not known to
have had contact with one another, and the second case occurred well after the
first would no longer be expected to be contagious. So the genetic findings
suggest that the virus has been spreading through other people in the community
for close to six weeks, according to one of the scientists who compared the
sequences, Trevor Bedford, an associate professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer
Research Center and the University of Washington.
Dr. Bedford said it was possible that the two cases could be
unrelated, and had been introduced separately into the United States. But he
said that was unlikely, however, because in both cases the virus contained a
genetic variation that appears to be rare — it was found in only two of the 59
samples whose sequences have been shared from China, where the virus
originated.” (E)
“The first suspected U.S. case of a patient getting the new
coronavirus through “community spread” — with no history of travel to
affected areas or exposure to someone known to have the COVID-19 illness — was
left undiagnosed for days because a request for testing wasn’t initially
granted, according to officials at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento,
Calif.
The patient in Northern California is now the 60th confirmed
case of the coronavirus in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention disclosed the latest case Wednesday evening, as President Trump
assigned Vice President Pence to lead the administration’s response to the
disease.
“This case was detected through the U.S. public health
system — picked up by astute clinicians,” the CDC said in a brief
statement about the new patient.
UC Davis included more details about the case in its own
statement, drawing on an email sent to staff at its medical center. It said the
officials initially ruled out a test for the coronavirus because the patient’s
case didn’t match the CDC’s criteria.
The new patient, who lives in Solano County and has not been
identified, was transferred to UC Davis Medical in Sacramento County from
another hospital this month. Staff at UC Davis then suspected the patient might
be infected with the coronavirus that has caused more than 2,800 deaths.
“Upon admission, our team asked public health officials
if this case could be COVID-19,” the hospital said. “We requested
COVID-19 testing by the CDC, since neither Sacramento County nor CDPH
[California Department of Public Health] is doing testing for coronavirus at
this time. Since the patient did not fit the existing CDC criteria for
COVID-19, a test was not immediately administered. UC Davis Health does not control
the testing process.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Thursday
morning that the CDC is streamlining the process it uses to test for the
coronavirus across the country, saying it will spread the new process to all of
its labs.
Azar said all of the CDC’s network of nearly 100 public labs
will soon be using the modified process. The next step, he said, is to develop
a “bedside diagnostic” that doctors and hospitals could use. He did
not give details about when that might occur.” (F)
“About 124 health care workers — including at least 36
nurses — are under self-quarantine after possible exposure to the coronavirus
patient admitted to UC Davis Medical Center last week, a nurse union said.
“Despite University of California medical facilities
being generally better prepared and equipped to treat challenging medical
cases, the recent UC Davis Medical Center COVID-19 case highlights the
vulnerability of the nation’s hospitals to this virus and the insufficiency of
current Centers for Disease Control guidelines,” the National Nurses
United said in a news release Friday.
“We know that we can be successful in getting all our
hospitals prepared to control the spread of this virus. We are committed to
working with hospitals and state and federal agencies to be ready,” Bonnie
Castillo, the union’s executive director, said in a statement. “But nurses
and health care workers need optimal staffing, equipment, and supplies to do
so.”
The patient was transferred to UC Davis on February 19 from
a Northern California hospital. Officials from both hospitals said the patient
wasn’t initially tested for the virus because she didn’t meet the existing CDC
criteria.
The patient didn’t have any relevant travel history or
exposure to another known patient, said Dr. Sara Cody, director of the county’s
public health department.
Confirmation that the Solano County woman had contracted the
virus came Sunday, after UC Davis doctors insisted on testing.
Since then, CDC officials say they’ve updated their testing
guidelines.
“As soon as that case was recognized, we met and we
revised our case definition for persons under investigation,” CDC Director
Dr. Robert Redfield said earlier this week. “Today, that has been posted
(to the CDC website) along with a new health advisory that the recommendation
should be when a clinician or individual suspects coronavirus, then we should
be able to get a test for coronavirus.”” (G)
“Sacramento County’s top health official says he expects a
few of the UC Medical Center employees exposed to the coronavirus last week to
test positive themselves in the coming days.
That’s not as alarming as it may sound, Peter Beilenson,
county health services director, said on Friday. Those employees, if infected,
stand a good likelihood that they will not become sick or will only be mildly
ill, and may not need to be treated.
“I expect there will be a few positives, probably
asymptomatic,” Beilenson said. He said he bases that prediction on early data
indicating 80 percent of people infected by the new virus have mild symptoms or
none at all…
“I think there will be more cases. That is not a horrible
thing,” he said. “Once the disease gets into the population, with so many mild
symptoms, common cold-like symptoms, people will be spreading it unbeknownst to
them. It gets it to be more a common variety.”
In total, more than 100 employees of three Northern
California hospitals are believed to have been exposed. In addition to those at
the Vacaville hospital and UC Davis Medical Center, another three employees
recently were sent home from Kaiser Permanente-South in Sacramento after
potential exposure to the virus, according to Rep. John Garamendi…
“The best guess is that there are people who are not showing
symptoms, but, are, nevertheless, infected. That’s a very normal way for
diseases to spread,” Matyas said. “To public health officials, this is what
disease does. The issue is that it’s not alarming, but we have to move to the
next phase.”
That not only means testing and screening, but also being
more rigorous at the hospital level, as Matyas said, to “universally assume the
possibility” that a patient seeking care and has flu- or cold-like symptoms may
carry the virus.
The mystery patient at UC Davis Medical Center has been the
center of national attention and politicized debate since officials at the
center announced on Wednesday that they had what was believed to be the first
coronavirus patient in the U.S. with no known provenance for the illness.” (H)
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that 33 people
have tested positive for COVID-19 and the state is currently monitoring at
least 8,400 others —a day after U.S. health officials confirmed the first
possible community transmission of the coronavirus in a Solano County resident.
“This is a fluid situation right now and I want to emphaize
the risk to the American public remains low,” said Dr. Sonia Y. Angell,
California Department of Public Health Director and State Health Officer during
a press conference. “There have been a limited number of confirmed cases to
date.”..
“We are currently in deep partnership with CDC on one overriding
protocol that drives our principle focus right now and that’s testing, and the
importance to increase our testing protocols and to have point of contact
diagnostic testing as our top priority not just in the state of California but
I imagine all across the United States,” Newsom said at a press conference.
Newsom said five of the 33 patients who tested positive for
the virus have since left the state. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the 33
positive cases were part of the group of Diamond Princess passengers who were
evacuated from the cruise ship that was quarantined off the coast of Japan. The
U.S. had 60 cases as of Wednesday night, 42 of which are people who were on the
ship, according to the CDC.
California health officials have 200 testing kits on hand
and will be receiving more over the next few days, Newsom said.
“We have just a few hundred testing kits and that’s
surveillance testing as well as diagnostic testing. That’s simply inadequate to
do justice to the kind of testing that is required to address this issue head
on,” he said.
Newsom said that the CDC has made “firm commitments” to
improve the state’s testing capacity, but did not provide details, such as how
many testing kits the agency has agreed to send to the state.” (I)
“It was the nation’s first infection that had unknown
origins. The director of California’s Public Health Department last week called
her case a “turning point” that could signal widespread infection is increasingly
difficult to stop.
The woman’s case unleashed a deluge of questions and
concerns about how local, state and federal officials responded to the mounting
public health concern after the evacuees arrived at Travis Air Force Base — and
what future responses might look like. A U.S. government whistleblower now says
federal workers did not have the necessary protective gear or training when
they were deployed to help quarantined people, including those at Travis.
Since the Solano County woman’s illness became known, teams
of health care investigators have fanned out across Northern California trying
to understand exactly how — and how widely — the virus has spread.
“We have deployed there,” Secretary of Health and Human
Services Alex Azar told McClatchy this week. “We’ll send whatever we need to
assist the state and local public health authorities with the contact tracing
and getting to the bottom of her case.”” (J)
“For weeks, public health experts have been watching to see
whether factory shutdowns and shipping problems in China caused by the
coronavirus epidemic will cause drug shortages in the United States.
Late Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration issued a
statement noting that one drug is now in short supply because of problems
related to the coronavirus outbreak. But it refused to disclose the name of the
drug and its manufacturer — as well as where the product or its ingredients
were made — saying that it could not reveal “confidential commercial
information.”
The agency’s vague announcement angered public health
advocates and those who track drug shortages, who said the lack of information
would only create more confusion as the virus has spread around the globe to at
least 56 countries from the original epidemic in China.
The F.D.A. has long been criticized by public interest
groups for refusing to reveal company information that could affect public
safety. Federal law protects companies from having trade secrets and
confidential proprietary information disclosed, which the agency has cited to
withhold details, like naming countries where raw ingredients come from….”
The F.D.A. has said it is closely monitoring about 20
products where the manufacturers rely solely on China for their finished
products or active pharmaceutical ingredients. Dr. Hahn said Thursday that the
drugs being monitored are considered “noncritical drugs.”
Hospitals have struggled for years with shortages of
hundreds of critical drugs, many of them staples of medical care that have been
on the market for decades. In 2017, Hurricane Maria damaged many pharmaceutical
factories in Puerto Rico, closing them for weeks and leading to supply
problems, including a shortage of saline bags made by Baxter. Problems with
manufacturing quality have caused other shortages, including a global shortfall
of valsartan, a widely used blood pressure drug.
Erin Fox, a drug shortage expert at the University of Utah,
said, “When the F.D.A. tells the American public that there is a shortage
without disclosing the specific drug, this only creates fear and panic, which
is unacceptable in the current situation.”
The F.D.A. frequently cites companies’ proprietary reasons
for why it does not disclose certain information, including the names of
specific drugs when companies are cited for manufacturing problems, or details
about clinical trials, Dr. Carome said. “Those are examples where I think it’s
an overuse,” he said.” (K)
“The surgeon general on Saturday urged the public to stop
buying masks, warning that it won’t help against the spread of the coronavirus
but will take away important resources from health care professionals.
“Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS!” the surgeon general,
Jerome M. Adams, said in a tweet on Saturday morning. “They are NOT effective
in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if health care
providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our
communities at risk!”
The plea comes as panicked consumers rush to buy masks
online, including so-called N95s, a surge that has led to price gouging and
counterfeit products.
In another tweet, Mr. Adams said the best way to protect
against the virus is to wash hands regularly, and for those who are feeling ill
to stay home.
Health officials around the world have been imploring the
public to stop buying masks if they are healthy or not caring for someone who
is ill. Medical professionals need a large supply of the masks because they are
in direct contact with infected patients and must change their masks repeatedly.
“There are severe strains on protective equipment around the
world,” said Dr. Michael J. Ryan, executive director of the health emergency
program at the World Health Organization, during a briefing on Friday. “Our
primary concern is to ensure that our front line health workers are protected
and that they have the equipment they need to do their jobs.”
Dr. Ryan said masks primarily prevent a person from giving
the disease to someone else.
“There are limits to how a mask can protect you from being
infected,” he said. “The most important thing everyone can do is wash your
hands, keep your hands away from your face and observe very precise hygiene.”
The W.H.O.’s guidelines recommend that health workers use
surgical masks to cover their mouths and noses but the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention has instructed them to wear masks known as N95s, which are
thicker, fit more tightly around the mouth and nose, and block out much smaller
particles than surgical masks do.
Both masks help prevent the spread of droplets from a
person’s cough or sneeze, but medical specialists have said that for average
members of the public, they are generally not effective.
A person is more likely to get infected by touching
contaminated surfaces than from a droplet traveling through the air.
Air can also get in around the edges of the masks,
particularly flat surgical masks. Health care workers who wear N95 masks as
part of their jobs are required to undergo a fit test at least once a year to
ensure that there are no gaps around their mouths.
Most people are unlikely to know how to wear these masks and
could accidentally contaminate themselves if they touch the outside of the mask
when they remove it and then touch their face.
“Not having a mask does not necessarily put you at any
increased risk of contracting this disease,” Dr. Ryan said…
Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday that it
was critical that masks remain available for doctors and nurses who were caring
for those affected by the virus and for people tending to loved ones with the
illness.
“There is no role for these masks in the community,” he
said. “These masks need to be prioritized for health care professionals that as
part of their job are taking care of individuals.”” (L)
It has been nearly three months since the first cases of a
new coronavirus pneumonia appeared in Wuhan, China, and it is now a global
outbreak. And yet, despite over 80,000 infections worldwide (most of them in
China), the world still doesn’t have a clear picture of some of the most basic
information about this outbreak…
In recent days the W.H.O. has complained that China has not
been sharing data on infections in health care workers. Earlier this month, the
editors of the journal Nature called on researchers to “ensure that their work
on this outbreak is shared rapidly and openly.”..
Lest Americans feel that it could never happen here, Dr.
Lipkin points out that it took many months for health officials in the United
States to acknowledge and recognize H.I.V. as a new virus, despite the fact
that gay men were turning up at alarming rates with unusual pneumonias and skin
cancers.
Scientific competition has also slowed reaction and response,
experts fear — leading to the extraordinary editors’ plea in Nature. For a
young researcher, a paper in Nature or the New England Journal of Medicine is
gold in career currency. Scientific prestige may encourage perfecting data for
peer review, but preparedness requires rapid dissemination of information.
While federal officials in the United States warn Americans
to be ready for the virus, there are some important aspects of its spread about
which we have little information — even though they have likely already been
studied by scientists and officials, in China, in Japan and elsewhere.
Scientists in various countries are presumably gathering large amounts of data
day by day and the world deserves to see more of it.
“Were there patterns around infections, places, procedures?
Maybe that is being collected and readied for the medical literature. But it
would be hugely important to know,” said Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the
Center for Health Security of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,
which studies epidemics.
For example: Of the more than 1,700 health workers who were
infected in China, did those infections occur before they knew to wear
protective equipment? Were they doing procedures that might lead to exposure?
Those answers would quell fears about how the virus spreads and how to protect
front line workers.
Likewise, there were hundreds of people who tested positive
aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship and were transferred to the hospital.
But there has been little public information released about what shape they
were in. How many in the cohort were really sick, how many just had minor
symptoms and how many just needed isolation? Does the pattern of infection
suggest a role for transmission via plumbing on the ship?” (M)
“The federal government is “ramping up testing” in the
United States for the coronavirus and is looking to vastly increase its
screening efforts as global cases of the virus continue to rise, said Health
and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Sunday.
Azar and Vice President Mike Pence made the rounds of the
Sunday morning political talk shows looking to assure the public that risk to
most Americans remains low despite the inevitability of more cases arising in
the near future.
“I think it’s very important that we treat the American
people like adults and explain to them that we don’t know where this will go,
that we will see more cases, that we will see continued community spreading in
the United States, as we’re seeing around the world,” Azar said during an
appearance on ABC’s “This Week.” “How big that gets, we do not know. But we
have the most advanced public health system and surveillance system in the
world. We are actively working on a vaccine. We are actively working on
therapeutics. The diagnostic is out in the field, and we’re going to work to
protect the American people with every tool that we’ve got.”..
Pence, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” said “there’s no
question” there will be more cases of the virus formally known as COVID-19, but
said the risk “remains low” to Americans.
“We’re going to bring the best scientific minds, experts
together … we’re going to work every day … to contain this disease, to
treat those that are contracted, and I’m very confident we’re ready, and I know
… that we’ll get through this,” said Pence who was tapped by Trump to lead
the federal government’s response to the disease.
Pence told “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd that the
administration would “respect any decisions that are made at the state and
local level” to address the virus. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Saturday announced
that New York had received approval by federal health officials to begin its
testing, the approval coming after the governor pressed Pence to fast track the
decision.” (N)
“The Trump administration may use a 70-year-old law to speed
up the manufacturing of medical supplies before a coronavirus outbreak, Alex M.
Azar II, the health secretary, said on Friday, a seeming acknowledgment that
the virus poses a threat beyond the reassurances of President Trump.
The Defense Production Act, passed by Congress in 1950
during the Korean War, allows the president to expand production of the
materials for national security purposes. Mr. Azar said that the federal
government could move to expedite certain contracts, including for supplies
like face masks, gowns and gloves. Mr. Azar has said that 300 million of a type
of mask known as N95 are needed for the emergency medical stockpile for health
care workers.
“I don’t have any procurements I need it for now, but if I
need it, we’ll use it,” Mr. Azar told reporters at a White House briefing on
the administration’s request to Congress for emergency funds to respond to the
virus…
Mr. Azar said that “the situation may worsen, and we may
need to mitigate its spread in the United States.” If cases of the coronavirus
began spreading widely, he said, those showing mild symptoms should stay home
rather than seek help at hospitals, to avoid the risk of overcrowding health
facilities.
“The advice is going to be: Stay home, manage your symptoms,
and we’ll provide guidance of at what point would you seek high-level medical
attention,” Mr. Azar said.
Mr. Azar’s remarks appeared to reflect a recognition that
the outbreak may reach a newer and more dangerous phase. In addition to his
comments about the government stockpiling protective equipment and about how
people should seek medical care in the case of a wider outbreak, he also raised
the possibility of school closures.
“It might make sense to close a school or certain schools or
take other measures like that,” Mr. Azar said. “Every option needs to be on the
table as we assess the situation, but it depends on the circumstances.”” (O)
“Hospitals and public health officials on the leading edge
of the U.S. mitigation strategy have been getting ready for weeks…
At the sprawling NYU Langone Health system in New York, which
has nearly 1,700 inpatient beds at six facilities, doctors are working to
prevent patients from swamping hospitals with minor respiratory complaints and
crowding out patients who may need more intensive care.
They are ramping up messaging that tells people how to
arrange online appointments with providers and other alternatives, said Michael
S. Phillips, chief hospital epidemiologist for the system…
NYU is already working to conserve “personal protective equipment”
— full-body “moon suits,” masks, face shields and other gear — for a shortage
that Phillips considers inevitable. Many masks used in U.S. hospitals come from
Hubei province in China, where the outbreak began. And when production in China
resumes, equipment surely will be reserved for use in that country, he said.
About 65 percent of N95 respirators are manufactured outside the continental
United States, in China and Mexico, according to HHS data.
NYU is urging health care personnel to re-use moon suits now
to help preserve inventory for later. That is appropriate, for example, in
treating patients with tuberculosis, he said. Face masks can be used again by
the same person, especially after practice sessions, he said.
“We are really looking carefully at how we’re utilizing
[protective equipment]
, and I think every hospital in the United States is
girding for these kind of shortages,” Phillips said.
While some hospitals have as many as 14 weeks worth of masks
on hand, the overall situation is grim. India, Taiwan and Thailand also have
halted or limited exports as they brace for spikes in demand in their own
countries.
Anticipating a surge in need, California’s state officials
have ordered 300,000 masks to distribute to hospitals and clinics on an emergency
basis, hoping to add to the 20,000 currently in state stockpiles. Officials
would not say where they hope to find that many masks.
Health care systems nationally have about two weeks of
supply left on hand, said Soumi Saha, senior director of advocacy at Premier
Inc., a large group purchasing organization that serves 4,000 hospitals.
Normally, an average of 2 million masks per month are used
in the United States, Premier said. That rises to 4 million per month during a
typical flu season.
Two domestic manufacturers that use raw material from the
United States — 3M and Prestige Ameritech — are ramping up production but are
not expected to be able to satisfy demand of 4 million masks a month until
April, Saha said.
“I don’t think hospitals can sort of buy their way out of
this problem. It is not a bidding war for N95s,” said Amy Ray, director of
infection prevention for the MetroHealth System in Cleveland. “The supply is
the supply, and prudence is necessary to preserve the stock that we have.’’”
(P)
“The World Health Organization on Friday raised its
assessment of the global coronavirus risk from “high” to “very high,” the most
serious assessment in its new four-stage alert system.
“This is a reality check for every government on the
planet,” said Dr. Michael J. Ryan, deputy director of W.H.O.’s health emergency
program. “Wake up. Get ready. This virus may be on its way.”
The assessment addresses the risks of both uncontrolled
spread of the virus and the resulting impacts.
United States health officials have given similarly alarming
assessments, though President Trump has played down the threat.
The W.H.O. does not officially use the word “pandemic,”
often defined as the worldwide spread of a new disease, but many health experts
say the coronavirus epidemic is one, or soon will be.” (Q)
“President Trump complained on Friday that Democrats and the
news media were trying to scare Americans about the coronavirus to score
political points against him but asserted that the outbreak had been relatively
limited because of his action to stem infections…
Mr. Trump spoke hours after Mick Mulvaney, the acting White
House chief of staff, likewise blamed the news media for exaggerating the
seriousness of coronavirus because “they think this will bring down the
president, that’s what this is all about.”..
Mr. Mulvaney said the administration took “extraordinary
steps four or five weeks ago,” to prevent the spread of the virus when it declared
a rare public health emergency and barred entry by most foreign citizens who
had recently visited China.
“Why didn’t you hear about it?” Mr. Mulvaney said of travel
restrictions that were widely covered in the news media. “What was still going
on four or five weeks ago? Impeachment, that’s all the press wanted to talk
about.”
The news media has been covering the global spread of
coronavirus for months.
But Mr. Mulvaney claimed that the news media was too
preoccupied covering impeachment, he said, “because they thought it would bring
down the president.”
The media’s focus switched to the coronavirus for the same
reason, he continued.
“The reason you’re seeing so much attention to it today is
that they think this is going to be the thing that brings down the president,”
he added. “That’s what this is all about it.”
Following the president’s lead, Mr. Mulvaney also brushed
off concerns over the virus; there have been 60 cases identified in the United
States.
“The flu kills people,” he said. “This is not Ebola. It’s
not SARS, it’s not MERS. It’s not a death sentence, it’s not the same as the
Ebola crisis.” (R)
“If the next few weeks or months bring calm — and scientists
increasingly worry that they will not — the world would do well to remember
this time what it seems to have forgotten again and again. Another pathogen
will emerge soon enough, and another after that. Eventually, one of them will
be far worse than all its predecessors. If we are very unlucky, it could be
worse than anything in living memory. Imagine something as contagious as
measles (which any given infected person passes to 90 percent of the people he
or she encounters) only many times more deadly, and you’ll have a good sense of
what keeps global health officials up at night.
Here’s what is certain: Despite many warnings over many
years, we are still not ready. Not in China, where nearly two decades after
that SARS outbreak food markets that sell live animals still thrive and
authoritarianism still undermines honest and accurate communication about infectious
diseases. Not in Africa, where basic public health capacity remains hobbled by
a lack of investment and, in some cases, by political unrest and violence. Not
in the United States, where shortsighted budget cuts and growing nationalism
have shrunk commitments to pandemic preparedness, both at home and abroad.
To be sure, some broad progress has been made in the past
few years. Vaccine development and deployment now proceed faster than at any
point in history. The World Health Organization has corrected many of the
institutional shortcomings that thwarted its responses to previous outbreaks.
Other countries, in both Europe and Africa, have stepped up to fill the global
health leadership position that America appears to have vacated.”
But, as Covid-19 makes clear, much more is still needed.”
(S)
“Today, as the country faces the possibility of a widespread
outbreak of a new respiratory infection caused by the coronavirus, there are
nowhere near that many ventilators, and most are already in use. Only about
62,000 full-featured ventilators were in hospitals across the country, a 2010
study found. More than 10,000 others are stored in the Strategic National
Stockpile, a federal cache of supplies and medicines held in case of
emergencies, according to Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, a former director of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Tens of thousands of other respiratory devices could be
repurposed in an emergency, experts say, but the shortfall could be stark,
potentially forcing doctors to make excruciating life-or-death decisions about
who would get such help should hospitals become flooded with the desperately
sick…
Across the country, educators, businesses and local
officials are beginning to confront the logistics of enduring a possible
pandemic: school closings that could force millions of children to remain at
home, emergency plans that would require employees to work remotely,
communities scrambling to build up supplies.
In plausible worst-case-scenarios given the pattern of the
outbreak thus far, the country could experience acute shortages not just in
ventilators but also health workers to operate them and care for patients;
hospital beds; and masks and other protective equipment.
“Even during mild flu pandemics, most of our I.C.U.s are
filled to the brim with severely ill patients on mechanical ventilation,” said
Dr. Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health
Security and an expert on health care preparedness. “I hope and pray Covid-19
turns out to be a moderate pandemic, but if not, we’re in serious trouble,” he
said, referring to the name given the disease caused by the virus.
Resources are concentrated in the most populous and
wealthiest cities, leaving rural areas and other neglected communities exposed
to greater risk. And public health experts worry that efforts to contain an
outbreak could be hamstrung by budget cuts that have weakened state health
departments.
In an extreme situation, some hospitals’ plans include
provisions for rationing, even removing some patients from ventilators without
requiring their consent to make way for others presumed to have a better chance
of survival. Some plans would also limit the access of certain categories of
patients from critical care or even hospitalization during a peak pandemic
based on criteria such as their age or an underlying chronic disease.
The concept of imposing such measures makes physicians
dedicated to saving every life uncomfortable, and there is evidence that many
people who could be removed from life support or refused care under such
protocols would otherwise survive.” (T)
“Leading health experts from around the world have been
meeting at the World Health Organization’s Geneva headquarters to assess the
current level of knowledge about the new COVID-19 disease, identify gaps and
work together to accelerate and fund priority research needed to help stop this
outbreak and prepare for any future outbreaks…
The meeting, hosted in collaboration with GloPID-R (the
Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness) brought
together major research funders and over 300 scientists and researchers from a
large variety of disciplines. They discussed all aspects of the outbreak and
ways to control it including:
the natural history of the virus, its transmission and
diagnosis;
animal and environmental research on the origin of the
virus, including management measures at the human-animal interface;
epidemiological studies;
clinical characterization and management of disease caused
by the virus;
infection prevention and control, including best ways to
protect health care workers;
research and development for candidate therapeutics and
vaccines;
ethical considerations for research;
and integration of social sciences into the outbreak
response. (U)
“The first confirmed case of novel coronavirus in New York
State — a woman in her 30s who recently traveled to Iran — was announced Sunday
night by Governor Cuomo.
“There is no reason for undue anxiety — the general
risk remains low in New York,” Cuomo said in a statement. “We are
diligently managing this situation and will continue to provide information as
it becomes available.”
Cuomo said the woman who contracted the virus is currently
isolated in her home.
“The patient has respiratory symptoms, but is not in
serious condition and has been in a controlled situation since arriving to New
York,” Cuomo said. “This was expected. As I said from the beginning,
it was a matter of when, not if there would be a positive case of novel
coronavirus in New York.” (V)
CORONAVIRUS TRACKING –
Jonathan M. Metsch, Dr.P.H.
PARTS 1-10 (and
prequels). March 1, 2020
PART 1. January 21, 2020. “The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention on Tuesday confirmed the first U.S. case of a deadly new
coronavirus that has killed six people in China.”
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday
confirmed the first U.S. case of a deadly new coronavirus that has killed six
people in China.”
“Chinese researchers say they have identified a new virus
behind an illness that has infected dozens of people across Asia, setting off
fears in a region that was struck by a deadly epidemic 17 years ago.
There is no evidence that the new virus is readily spread by
humans, which would make it particularly dangerous, and it has not been tied to
any deaths. But health officials in China and elsewhere are watching it
carefully to ensure that the outbreak does not develop into something more
severe.
Researchers in China have “initially identified” the new
virus, a coronavirus, as the pathogen behind a mysterious, pneumonialike
illness that has sickened 59 people in the city of Wuhan and caused a panic in
the central Chinese region, the state broadcaster, China Central Television,
said on Thursday. They detected this virus in 15 of the people who fell ill,
the report said.
The new coronavirus “is different from previous human
coronaviruses that were previously discovered, and more scientific research is
needed for further understanding,” the report said.” (A)
“China released the genetic sequence of a new coronavirus
believed to be responsible for a cluster 0f unusual pneumonia cases in Wuhan.
Phylogenetic analysis shows the coronavirus to be closely related to SARS CoV,
the virus responsible for the SARS pandemic which began in China in 2003.
Further analysis is necessary, but this preliminary analysis
shows the virus is also quite similar to other SARS-related coronaviruses which
appear to be endemic to the area. Prior EcoHealth Alliance research has found
evidence that these viruses are spilling into human populations. We are also
conducting behavioral analysis with the goal of reducing risk for this
spillover.
The virus responsible for the current outbreak in Wuhan has
so far killed one person; fortunately it’s not currently believed that the
virus has the ability to spread human-to-human. Our work has shown that there
is a large diversity of coronaviruses that are endemic to China.” (B)
“Chinese officials confirmed Tuesday that six people have
died from a pneumonialike coronavirus, while raising the number of confirmed
cases of the illness to 300, sparking fears of an outbreak in the country. The
virus, which was first confirmed on Dec. 31 in the city of Wuhan, is believed
to have been transmitted from animals to humans, but Chinese health officials
now say they have evidence that human-to-human transmission is also possible,
potentially via saliva. The World Health Organization says the symptoms of the
virus are fever, cough, and respiratory difficulties such as shortness of
breath, all of which can, in serious cases, lead to pneumonia, kidney failure,
and, in the most severe cases, death.” (C)
“Officials in China are racing to contain the spread of a
new virus that has left at least six people dead and sickened more than 300,
after it was confirmed the infection can spread between humans.
Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the coronavirus was
first detected, announced a series of new measures Tuesday, including the
cancellation of upcoming Lunar New Year celebrations, expected to attract
hundreds of thousands of people.
Tour agencies have been banned from taking groups out of
Wuhan and the number of thermal monitors and screening areas in public spaces
will be increased. Traffic police will also conduct spot checks on private
vehicles coming in and out of the city to look for live poultry or wild
animals, after the virus was linked to a seafood and live animal market,
according to a report by state media outlet the People’s Daily, citing Wuhan’s
Municipal Health Commission.
The new measures come after Chinese President Xi Jinping
ordered “resolute efforts to curb the spread” of the virus Monday.
There are now fears, however, that efforts to contain it are
coming too late, hampered by a slow-moving Chinese bureaucracy which failed to
put sufficient measures in place in time.
In the coming days, hundreds of millions of Chinese are
expected to begin traveling across the country and overseas as the annual Lunar
New Year break gets fully underway, compounding concerns of a further spike in
cases.
Though infections were first detected in Wuhan in
mid-December, infrared temperature screening areas were not installed in the
city’s airports and stations until January 14, according to state media.
On Tuesday, China’s National Health Commission announced
that it had received 291 confirmed cases of the Wuhan coronavirus, with 77 new
cases reported on January 20.” (D)
“Earlier on Monday, Chinese authorities reported that the
number of cases had tripled over the weekend to 218. The outbreak has spread to
Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzen, hundreds of miles from Wuhan, where the virus
first surfaced last month.” (E)
“Thailand and Japan each reported new cases of a coronavirus
that has left two people dead and at least 40 sick in China, adding to concerns
about the spread of the virus beyond Chinese borders ahead of a major holiday.
Health officials in Thailand on Friday said they had found a
second case of the mysterious pneumonialike coronavirus in that country, in a
74-year-old Chinese woman. The woman is in good and stable condition, said a
spokesman for Thailand’s public health ministry, Rungrueng Kitphati.
The woman entered Thailand through Bangkok via a flight from
the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. Investigators
were still trying to gather information from the woman but have been hindered
by a language barrier, Mr. Rungrueng said.
On Thursday, Japan’s Health Ministry said that a Chinese man
in his 30s tested positive for the coronavirus. The man, a resident of Kanagawa
Prefecture, just south of Tokyo, returned to Japan on Jan. 6 after traveling to
Wuhan. The man, who came down with a fever on Jan. 3, was hospitalized on
Friday but was discharged five days later because he had recovered, according
to the Health Ministry.” (F)
“A British tourist is feared to have contracted the
mysterious coronavirus that’s sweeping Asia after he was hospitalized on a trip
to Thailand, according to a report.
Ash Shorley, 32, was admitted in critical condition to a
Phuket hospital, where he’s being treated for pneumonia-like lung infections,
the Sun reported.
Doctors believe his symptoms are consistent with the new
Chinese coronavirus, which has killed three patients and infected hundreds of
others.
“They think he is the first Western victim of the Chinese
flu,” his father, Chris, told the outlet. “We are waiting on tests.”” (G)
“Airports in New
York, San Francisco and Los Angeles will begin screening passengers arriving
from Wuhan, China, for infection with a mysterious respiratory virus that has
killed two people and sickened at least 45 overseas, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention announced on Friday.” (H)
“Officials this week also confirmed that the new
coronavirus, which is linked to a seafood and animal market in Wuhan, is
transmissible between humans. This ultimately sparked fears that a person
infected with the virus and experiencing the most severe stage of infection
could be a super-spreader — someone who
transmits the virus to a considerable more amount of people than the average
infected person, the South China Morning Post reported…
In response to the outbreak, the World Health Organization
(WHO) is holding an emergency meeting on Wednesday to determine whether or not
it should be considered an international public health emergency, according to
the South China Morning Post…
Australia is taking similar measures, with officials there
announcing Tuesday that the country will also begin screening passengers who
are arriving from Wuhan, according to The New York Times. Japan and South Korea
also announced increased airport screenings.
But even with screening measures, “You cannot absolutely
prevent entry into the country of a disease like this,” Brendan Murphy, the
chief medical officer for the Australian government, said, according to the
newspaper. Some people who are infected may not show symptoms, he explained.”
(I)
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday
confirmed the first U.S. case of a deadly new coronavirus that has killed six
people in China.
The CDC and Washington state officials said the man, in his
30s, was in good condition at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett.
The symptoms presented Sunday and the diagnosis was confirmed Monday.
Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for
Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, called the news “concerning.”
“We’re still in the early days of this investigation,”
Messonnier said.” (J)
A.China Identifies New Virus Causing Pneumonialike Illness,
by Sui-Lee Wee and Donald G. McNeil Jr.,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/health/china-pneumonia-outbreak-virus.html
B.Phylogenetic Analysis Shows Novel Wuhan Coronavirus
Clusters with SARS,
https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/2020/01/phylogenetic-analysis-shows-novel-wuhan-coronavirus-clusters-with-sars
C.Deadly Coronavirus in China Raises Fears of Outbreak as
Human Transmission Confirmed, by ELLIOT HANNON,
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/01/coronavirus-china-outbreak-human-transmission-airport-screen-pandemic.html
D.6 people dead, 300 infected as China confirms Wuhan virus
can be spread by humans, by James Griffiths and Nectar Gan,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/21/asia/china-china-coronavirus-sars-intl-hnk/index.html
E.China confirms new coronavirus can spread between humans,
by Nectar Gan, Yong Xiong and Eliza Mackintosh,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/19/asia/china-coronavirus-spike-intl-hnk/index.html
F.Japan and Thailand Confirm New Cases of Chinese
Coronavirus, by Sui-Lee Wee,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/world/asia/coronavirus-japan-china.html
G.British tourist feared to be victim of deadly new Chinese
coronavirus, by Jackie Salo, https://nypost.com/2020/01/20/british-tourist-feared-to-be-victim-of-deadly-new-chinese-coronavirus/?utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter
H.Three U.S. Airports to Check Passengers for a Deadly
Chinese Coronavirus, by Denise Grady, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/17/health/china-coronavirus-airport-screening.html
I.Coronavirus outbreak in China sparks ‘super-spreader’
fears as pneumonia-like illness sickens hundreds, by Madeline Farber,
https://www.foxnews.com/health/coronavirus-outbreak-china-sparks-super-spreader-fears
J.First US case of deadly coronavirus reported in Washington
state, CDC says, by John Bacon,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/01/21/china-coronavirus-outbreak-cdc-first-us-case-washington-state/4532063002/
PART 2. January 29, 2020. CORONAVIRUS. “If it’s not
contained shortly, I think we are looking at a pandemic..”….. “With isolated
cases of the dangerous new coronavirus cropping up in a number of states,
public health officials say it is only a matter of time before the virus
appears in New York City.”
CORONAVIRUS. “If it’s not contained shortly, I think we are
looking at a pandemic..”….. “With isolated cases of the dangerous new
coronavirus cropping up in a number of states, public health officials say it
is only a matter of time before the virus appears in New York City.”
In July of 2009 the Mayor of Hoboken asked me to initiate a
H1N1 “Swine Flu” Task Force. We started with a set of questions based on
reports from communities that had already experienced a Swine Flu surge:
Health Officer: Where vaccination sites should be
established? Is there a special plan to monitor restaurants and food shops
where flu-related safety guidelines need to be strictly enforced? Who will
start preparing a Community Education plan?
Hospital: What is the back-up plan if hospital becomes
“contaminated” and is closed to admissions, or if nursing staff is depleted by
flu-related absenteeism, etc.? ICU triage? Availability of respirators?
OEM: off-site
screening centers if hospital ER is on overload
Hoboken Volunteer Ambulance Corps: “mutual assist” plan
Hoboken Police Department & Hoboken Fire Department:
back-up plan if the ranks get depleted by the flu
BOE: criteria in deciding whether or not to close schools
Stevens Institute of Technology: surveillance and plan for
(college) students
“Field Manual” for the Mayor
Interestingly Swine Flu never flourished in the Hoboken area
probably due to herd immunity acquired from the Swine Flu in 2008 in New York
City, where many Hobokenites work and visit.
Acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory
illness caused by a coronavirus, called SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV).
SARS was first reported in Asia in February 2003 and the illness spread to more
than two dozen countries in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia
before the SARS global outbreak was contained. According to the World Health
Organization (WHO), a total of 8,098 people worldwide became sick with SARS
during the 2003 outbreak. Of these, 774 died. In the United States, only eight
people had laboratory evidence of SARS-CoV infection. All of these people had
traveled to other parts of the world with SARS.” (A)
With SARS preparedness underway in NJ LibertyHealth/ Jersey
City Medical Center, where I was President, proposed that our 100 bed community
hospital with all single-bedded rooms, be immediately transformed into an
EMERGENCY SARS ISOLATION Hospital.
The Hospital was in a small town at the intersection of many
major highways. It could be easily secured since it had no immediately
contiguous neighbors. It had a helicopter pad. Its patients could be easily
transferred. And it could be managed by the Public Health Service or military
medicine if necessary.
It didn’t happen!
“We understand that many people in the Unites States are
worried about this virus,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National
Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (part of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention).
“At this time, in the U.S., the virus is not spreading in
the community,” she added. “For that reason we continue to believe that the
immediate health risk from the new virus to the general public is low at this
time.”
In the U.S., 110 individuals from 26 states are being
investigated to determine whether they have coronavirus. Of those individuals,
32 have tested negative, five have tested positive, and the remaining test
results are pending.
No new coronavirus cases have been diagnosed overnight,
according to the CDC, and all five cases were in people who had traveled to
China. Two of those five cases are in Southern California and Chicago,
Washington state and Arizona have each reported one coronavirus case…
Five U.S. airports, in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Chicago and Atlanta, continue to screen passengers from Wuhan for
pneumonia-like symptoms, such as fever and respiratory problems. So far,
airports have screened about 2,400 passengers, with screenings declining
following strict travel bans and a quarantine in Wuhan…
The CDC is in the process of developing a real-time
diagnostic test to identify the virus and is hoping to quickly roll that test
out to states. For now, all samples are being sent to the CDC in Atlanta, a
process which takes about a day, from the time clinicians and the CDC agree to
test a patient for coronavirus until results come back from Atlanta. Other
countries are doing similar centralized testing, Messonnier explained. While
speed is important, accurate testing is the agency’s priority.
While a report in the Lancet, published Jan. 24, suggested
that people who contract coronavirus might be able spread the disease before
they develop symptoms, Messonnier maintained that the CDC has “no clear
evidence” of patients’ being infectious before symptom onset. For now, the
virus’ incubation period is believed to be between two and 14 days..
The World Health Organization did not declare a public
health emergency of international concern last week, after deliberating for two
days over the decision.” (C)
“It appears to be very well contained,” Mark Parrish,
regional medical director of Northern Europe at International SOS, told CNBC
Tuesday.
“The Chinese have done some extraordinary things,
identifying the virus and its molecular structures and then instigating those
quarantine measures in China where they have shut down these huge cities and
stopped all movement. It’s come at a really bad time of the year … It’s likely
to have moved around China.”
“It appears though that the death rate remains at about 2%
to 3%, it seems to be very well contained at the moment,” he said.
“Putting it into perspective, 100 deaths or so, so far, all
in elderly people and those that have other co-existing diseases unfortunately.
And those are the ones that are most likely to be affected by this as their
respiratory systems find it difficult to deal with these things.”..
Global media organizations have fixated on whether the
outbreak will be declared a “global health emergency” by the World Health
Organization (WHO). Currently, the WHO has the virus at a “high risk” level
after admitting on Monday its error in initially stating (last week) that the
global risk was “moderate.”
Christian Lindmeier, spokesperson for the WHO, told CNBC
Tuesday that the assessment was done by a group of independent experts and that
the situation would be re-evaluated “very soon.”
He said there was definitely a crisis in China “but
declaring this a public health emergency of international concern is another
step. It means that internationally this is spreading and is transmitting from
human to human internationally.
“So not only a traveler carrying it from China into another
country and it being contained there, but it spreading onward from there and
this is something we’ve not yet seen, let’s be very clear about this,” he said.
Although it has not happened yet, Lindmeier said it would
not be surprising if the virus spread further. He said health systems should
closely monitor the situation and “be aware that this is what could come to
their shores.”..
“The jury’s still out just how bad it will be, but when you
think that the number of cases has doubled in one day, that’s very worrisome,”
he said.” (D)
“With isolated cases of the dangerous new coronavirus
cropping up in a number of states, public health officials say it is only a
matter of time before the virus appears in New York City.
As a result, hospitals have been on the lookout for patients
with recent travel involving Wuhan, the Chinese city where the coronavirus is
believed to have originated. And they have urged those who recently traveled
there — or who have been in contact with someone who has — to quickly seek
medical care if they have any respiratory or flulike symptoms.
“It’s inevitable that we will have someone who is positive
with coronavirus,” New York City’s health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, said
Sunday.
Some of the last passengers to arrive at Kennedy
International Airport on the last direct flights from Wuhan before they were
canceled were quarantining themselves at home. One man told of how he had
confined himself to his house in Queens, as friends left special Lunar New Year
meals on his doorstep.
So far, state officials have sought testing for nine
patients who were deemed potential cases of the new coronavirus, sending
samples to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing.
Four of those patients were found not to have the virus, and
the tests involving the other five are still pending, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said
Monday in a statement.
When the first case does arrive, health officials said, that
patient may end up in a biocontainment unit in Bellevue Hospital or sent home
to ride out the illness in his or her bedroom. That will depend largely on how
sick they are, public health officials say…
By and large, the message to the public has been one of
reassurance. “We are encouraging New Yorkers to go about their everyday lives
and suggest practicing everyday precautions that we do through the flu season,”
Dr. Barbot said.
But there is considerable anxiety and debate over the proper
precautions within the city’s Chinatowns. That has only grown in the past few
days as more alarming news has emerged out of Wuhan about the virus’s spread.
So far more than 4,500 people have been sickened and more than 100 people have
died.” (E)
“New York’s colleges, which enroll some 50,000 students from
China, put out warnings to be on alert for symptoms of the deadly coronavirus
as classes started up again for the spring semester.
Most of the Chinese students in the state are studying in
the New York City area, according to the Institute for International
Education’s most recent report.
New York University, which has upwards of 19,000
international students — more than any other college in the country — said it
reached out to students from China’s Wuhan region, where the virus originated,
and “provided them with information about the symptoms, instructed them to
check in with us if they are experiencing those symptoms, reminded them about
the availability of NYU health services.”
Spring semester classes begin Monday at NYU. A college
spokesman would not say how many students come from the Wuhan area.” (F)
“The first U.S. patient, an unidentified man in his 30s, had
traveled to the Wuhan area at the end of last year. He fell ill shortly after
flying back to the U.S., where he lives north of Seattle.
In Washington state, health agencies have identified more
than 60 people who came in close contact with the infected man before he was
hospitalized in Everett, a city in Snohomish County outside Seattle.
The case quickly grabbed headlines, but it didn’t rattle
local health clinic workers who had recently geared up to handle another
infectious disease.
“The measles really kind of enlightened everybody about
‘Wow, there are a lot of things out there that can be really contagious and can
get you really sick, really fast,’ ” says Tove Skaftun, the chief nursing
officer for the Community Health Center of Snohomish County.
Skaftun says she’s glad that last year’s outbreak forced
them to improve how they approach these situations.
“We’ve recently grown our infection-control program so it’s
kind of at the forefront of a lot of what we do,” says Skaftun.
She says that effort focused on educating staff about the
correct precautions to take when faced with different kinds of infectious
diseases — including wearing protective air-purifying respirators when in
contact with patients who may be infected…
The patient in Seattle first went to a local health clinic
when he started showing symptoms. Once it became clear he was at risk for
coronavirus, he was transported to Providence Regional Medical Center in
Everett, a hospital north of Seattle, where he was treated in isolation. He
remains in “satisfactory” condition, according to the Washington State
Department of Health.
Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips, the chief clinical officer at
Providence St. Joseph Health, which runs that hospital, says it was set up to
handle high-level infectious pathogens during the Ebola scare of 2014.
“All types of infrastructure had been put in place to ensure
that when something came around we’d be ready,” says Compton-Phillips.
Those include specialized gurneys to keep patients isolated
while they’re wheeled around the hospital, robots that can listen to patients’
lungs and take blood pressure, and rooms with negative-pressure air flow so
germs aren’t circulated throughout the rest of the hospital…
She says staff have practiced getting ready for an
infectious outbreak pretty recently. Last year, Clark County, Wash., which is
part of suburban Portland, Ore., had an alarming outbreak of 71 cases of
measles, mostly among unvaccinated children…
“There are a lot of unknowns,” says Janet Baseman, professor
of epidemiology at the University of Washington. “The best thing public health
can do now is assume that it will be similar to other coronavirus outbreaks we
have seen in recent years until proven otherwise.”
“Being overprepared is the name of the game,” she says.” (G)
“The emergency call was made to Hackensack University
Medical Center late Thursday night.
A doctor’s office was sending a woman in her mid-20s to the
emergency room, according to reports, with a suspected case of coronavirus, the
deadly novel virus sweeping through China and much of Asia.
The alert turned out to be a false alarm: The patient did
not have the coronavirus. Although a relief, it was a scenario hospitals across
the state have been bracing for as fears mount that this new, mysterious virus
will spread to New Jersey.
Emergency rooms throughout the Garden State are ramping up
their procedures in preparation for the time when a patient does arrive with
the deadly virus.
“The key is to recognize it early so you can isolate early,
and that prevents the likelihood of spreading in our facility and to other
patients and employees,” Dr. Jerry Zuckerman, vice president of infection
prevention and control at Hackensack Meridian Health System, told NJ Advance
Media…
Experts determined the patient who entered the Hackensack
emergency room Thursday night was not infected with the virus after an
evaluation, a spokeswoman for Hackensack Meridian Health said. Zuckerman
declined to discuss the patient, but shed some light on how such a virus is
contained in an emergency room.
The protocols are anything but high-tech. But they work,
Zuckerman said.
Interview the patient. Mask the patient. Isolate the
patient.
That’s it.
It may sound rudimentary, but that is all that stands
between the virus spreading or being contained.
First, patients are interviewed to determine whether they’ve
visited the outbreak’s place of origin. Then patients are masked and isolated,
before being placed in an airborne infection isolation room — also called a
negative pressure room. These rooms isolate pathogens.
If medical personnel must enter an isolation room, they have
to wear respirator masks, gloves and goggles — think of the protective gear
worn in the 1995 Dustin Hoffman film, “Outbreak.”..
“Although this novel
virus in understandably a cause for concern, it is important for New Jersey
residents to know that the risk to the public remains low,” Health Commissioner
Judith Persichilli said in the Department of Health statement.
“The New Jersey Department of Health works with hospitals
and local health departments throughout respiratory virus and flu season on
hundreds of disease outbreaks each year and we are prepared — along with our
partners — to respond to potential novel coronavirus cases.”” (H)
“The Chinese city of Wuhan is rapidly building a new
1,000-bed hospital to treat victims of a new coronavirus, mobilising machinery
to get it ready by early next week, state media said…
The new hospital is being built around a holiday complex
originally intended for local workers, set in gardens by a lake on the
outskirts of the city, the official Changjiang Daily reported on Friday.
Prefabricated buildings which will have 1,000 beds will be put up, it said.
Building machinery, including 35 diggers and 10 bulldozers,
arrived at the site on Thursday night, with the aim to get the new facility
ready by Monday, the paper added.
“The construction of this project is to solve the shortage
of existing medical resources” the report said.
“Because it will be prefabricated buildings, it will not
only be built fast but it also won’t cost much.”” (I)
“How is China able to build a hospital in six days?
“China has a record of getting things done fast even for
monumental projects like this,” says Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global
health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
He points out that the hospital in Beijing in 2003 was built
in seven days so the construction team is probably attempting to beat that
record. Just like the hospital in Beijing, the Wuhan centre will be made out of
prefabricated buildings.
“This authoritarian country relies on this top down
mobilisation approach. They can overcome bureaucratic nature and financial
constraints and are able to mobilise all of the resources.”
Mr Huang said that engineers would be brought in from across
the country in order to complete construction in time.
“The engineering work is what China is good at. They have
records of building skyscrapers at speed. This is very hard for westerners to
imagine. It can be done,” he added.
In terms of medical supplies, Wuhan can either take supplies
from other hospitals or can easily order them from factories.
On Friday, the Global Times confirmed 150 medical personnel
from the People’s Liberation Army had arrived in Wuhan. However it did not
confirm if they would be working in the new hospital once it has been
built.” (J)
“Some infectious disease experts are warning that it may no
longer be feasible to contain the new coronavirus circulating in China. Failure
to stop it there could see the virus spread in a sustained way around the world
and even perhaps join the ranks of respiratory viruses that regularly infect
people.
“The more we learn about it, the greater the possibility is
that transmission will not be able to be controlled with public health
measures,” said Dr. Allison McGeer, a Toronto-based infectious disease
specialist who contracted SARS in 2003 and who helped Saudi Arabia control
several hospital-based outbreaks of MERS.
If that’s the case, she said, “we’re living with a new human
virus, and we’re going to find out if it will spread around the globe.” McGeer
cautioned that because the true severity of the outbreak isn’t yet known, it’s
impossible to predict what the impact of that spread would be, though she noted
it would likely pose significant challenges to health care facilities.
The pessimistic assessment comes from both researchers
studying the dynamics of the outbreak—the rate at which cases are rising in and
emerging from China—and infectious diseases experts who are parsing the first
published studies describing cases to see if public health tools such as
isolation and quarantine could as effective in this outbreak as they were in
the 2003 SARS epidemic…
China’s health minister, Ma Xiaowei, warned Sunday that the
virus seems to be becoming more transmissible and the country—which has taken
unprecedentedly draconian steps to control the virus—was entering a “crucial
stage.”..
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of National Center for
Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, said the agency knows transmission of the virus within the United
States may be on the horizon.
“We’re leaning far forward. And we have been every step of
the way with an aggressive stance to everything we can do in the U.S.,” she
told STAT. “And yet those of us who have been around long enough know that
everything we do might not be enough to stop this from spreading in the U.S.”
To date, at least 14 countries and territories outside of
mainland China have reported nearly 60 cases. There have been no reports yet of
unchecked spreading from those imported cases to others…
“If it’s not
contained shortly, I think we are looking at a pandemic,” Bedford said, though
he cautioned that it’s impossible to know at this point how severe that type of
event would be…
“I’m not making a
prediction that it’s going to happen,” Inglesby said, though he noted the
mathematical modeling, the statements from Chinese authorities, and the sharply
rising infection numbers make a case for this possible outcome. “I think just
based on those pieces of limited information, it’s important for us to begin some
planning around the possibility that this won’t be contained.”” (K)
“Laurie Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer,
told Yahoo Finance that despite swelling panic over the spread of coronavirus,
people should be “realistic” about the infection and the protections they
employ against it.
“One of the smart ways to approach thinking about ‘how do
you protect yourself,’ is to ask, well, when somebody here in the office has a
common cold, and they’re sneezing all over the place, how do you make yourself
not get the cold?” asked Garrett, the author of “The Coming Plague,” a book
about emerging deadly diseases.
“Social distancing; that’s step number one. Keep your
distance from other people” in order to avoid contracting or spreading an
infection, Garrett told “The Final Round.” Cleanliness and personal hygiene is
also of utmost concern, she added.
“For yourself, think of your hands as your number one
problem: anything you touch that’s a common surface,” the author said,
explaining that the same principle governs why people are discouraged from
sharing utensils or cups.
“Here, in New York City, we think about the subways, we
think about how we move around in the city; the answer, if you’re nervous, is
wear gloves. Then take your gloves and wash them at night,” Garrett said. “If
it’s socially required to shake hands, wash your hands afterwards.”…
Garrett said that “…unlike SARS, which only is contagious
when you have a fever, this one seems to be contagious when you don’t even know
that you’ve been infected, and the incubation time is much longer.”
While SARS only took three to five days to incubate, the
coronavirus “is going out ten days. That means that, potentially, individuals
are contagious to others for ten days, without knowing it, traveling about and doing
whatever they do with their daily life and infecting so many other people.”
The author also argued that official numbers are “grossly
underestimating” the true toll of infections.
“They have a lag time in testing people; they don’t have
enough test kits; they have lines around the block, in Wuhan, of people trying
to get tested,” says Garrett. “It’s wholly backed up.”” (L)
“A flight carrying about 200 American evacuees landed
Wednesday at a US military base in Southern California after leaving the
epicenter of the deadly coronavirus outbreak in China.
The flight — operated by Kalitta Air out of Ypsilanti
Township, Michigan — was seen taxiing down the runway shortly after 8 a.m. (11
a.m. ET). Several law enforcement vehicles greeted it on the tarmac, their
lights flashing…
The US Defense Department will work with the US Department
of Health and Human Services, which includes the CDC, to provide housing and,
if any individuals are ill, care at a local civilian hospital, Defense
Department spokeswoman Alyssa Fara said.
In Alaska, officials conducted two health screenings after
prior screenings in China. The CDC cleared all passengers to continue on to
California, Alaska officials said.
Passengers were screened in an isolated area of the
Anchorage airport’s north terminal, which handles international flights, and
had no impact on general travel, airport manager Jim Szczesniak said.
The CDC will work with airport officials to clean the
terminal, and there are no international flights scheduled at the airport until
May, he said…
Precautions were taken to separate the crew on the plane’s
upper level from the passengers on the plane’s lower level, she said, and the
crew did not disembark in China.
“These individuals will be screened before they take off;
monitored during the duration of the flight by medical personnel on board;
screened again on landing to refuel in Anchorage, Alaska; monitored on the last
leg of the flight by medical personnel on board; evaluated upon arrival at
March Air Reserve Base … and then monitored for symptoms post-arrival,” the CDC
said.
The passengers may be forced to stay in isolation between
three days and two weeks, an official said.
Priority was given to US citizens at risk
The passengers include US diplomats and their families. The
State Department said US citizens could board on a reimbursable basis if space
was available.
While there are about 1,000 Americans living in Wuhan,
priority was given to US citizens who are “most at risk for contracting
coronavirus” if they stay in the city, the State Department said.” (M)
“How would you describe the rate of spread?
Honestly, we don’t know, and part of the reason that it’s
continuing at this point in time is because testing is just becoming available.
So, while we’re seeing a big bolus [large number] of diagnosed cases, we don’t
yet know when they were actually infected.
What we’re waiting for from the World Health Organization is
the “epi curve,” which is the graph that shows, by date, the number of new
cases and the date of onset of their symptoms. It may be that we’ve been seeing
200 cases a day over 10 days, or it may be that we saw 3 cases, and then we saw
15 and then we saw 100 and then we saw 500 and now a thousand.
We just don’t understand yet whether the case count is due
to accelerating spread, or is that just kind of an artificial understanding
because of the way the tests are being deployed and the diagnoses are coming
in…
How should health officials communicate with the public?
In any frightening new situation, trust is the most
important thing. And when you don’t have all of the facts and you’re not sure
about what’s going on, maintaining your credibility and your trust are of
paramount importance. If you’re going to try to influence what people do or how
they decide to manage themselves in a situation like this, you have a lot
better chance of helping them decide to do the right thing if they trust you.
So that means first and foremost, telling them the truth.
Tell them what you know is going on, tell them what you wish you knew but
don’t. Then it’s important to tell them what you’re doing to get answers and,
above all, that you promise that when you have new information, you will share
it in a timely manner.
If you can keep that cadence going in an outbreak, people
will trust you because you do what you say, and they will come to rely upon you
as a credible source of updated information.” “(N)
Here are my main takeaways from that experience for ordinary
people on the ground:
1. Wash your hands frequently.
2. Don’t go to the office when you are sick. Don’t send your
kids to school or day care when they are ill, either.
Notice I didn’t say anything about masks. Having a mask with
you as a precaution makes sense if you are in the midst of an outbreak, as I
was when out reporting in the field during those months. But wearing it
constantly is another matter. I donned a mask when visiting hospitals where
SARS patients had been housed. I wore it in the markets where wild animals that
were the suspected source of the outbreak were being butchered, blood droplets
flying. I wore it in crowded enclosed spaces that I couldn’t avoid, like
airplanes and trains, as I traveled to cities involved in the outbreak, like
Guangzhou and Hong Kong. You never know if the guy coughing and sneezing two rows
ahead of you is ill or just has an allergy.
But outdoors, infections don’t spread well through the air.
Those photos of people walking down streets in China wearing masks are dramatic
but uninformed. And remember if a mask has, perchance, intercepted viruses that
would have otherwise ended up in your body, then the mask is contaminated. So,
in theory, to be protected maybe you should use a new one for each outing.
The simple masks are better than nothing, but not all that
effective, since they don’t seal well. For anyone tempted to go out and buy the
gold standard, N95 respirators, note that they are uncomfortable. Breathing is
more work. It’s hard to talk to people. On one long flight at the height of the
outbreak, on which my few fellow passengers were mostly epidemiologists trying
to solve the SARS puzzle, many of us (including me) wore our masks for the
first couple of hours on the flight. Then the food and beverage carts
came.” (O)
“The spread of a fast-moving virus outside of China is of
“grave concern” and has prompted the World Health Organization to reconvene an
emergency meeting this week to decide whether it’s become a global health
emergency, WHO officials said Wednesday.
The coronavirus has spread to a handful of people through
human-to-human contact outside of China, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of
the WHO’s health emergencies program, said at a news conference at the
organization’s Geneva headquarters Wednesday.
“These developments in terms of the evolution of the
outbreak and further development of transmission, these are of grave concern
and has spurred countries into action,” Ryan said, adding that he just returned
from China on Wednesday. “What we know at this stage, this is still obviously a
very active outbreak and information is being updated and changing by the
hour.”” (P)
B.B. S. POLLAK HOSPITAL (FORMER) – JERSEY CITY NJ,
https://livingnewdeal.org/projects/old-bs-pollak-hospital-jersey-city-nj/
C.New coronavirus ‘not spreading’ in the US, CDC says, by
Erin Schumaker,
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/coronavirus-spreading-us-cdc/story?id=68560892
D.Health experts call for calm as coronavirus cases rise, by
Holly Ellyatt, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/28/coronavirus-health-experts-urge-calm-over-virus.html
E.New York Braces for Coronavirus: ‘It’s Inevitable’, by
Joseph Goldstein and Jeffrey E. Singer,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/nyregion/new-york-city-coronavirus.html
F.New York colleges on coronavirus alert as classes begin,
by Melissa Klein,
https://nypost.com/2020/01/25/new-york-colleges-on-coronavirus-alert-as-classes-begin/
G.Response To 1st Coronavirus Case In Washington State Draws
On Lessons From Measles, by WILL STONE, https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/01/28/800248710/response-to-1st-coronavirus-case-in-washington-state-draws-on-lessons-from-measl
H.After coronavirus false alarm, see how one N.J. hospital
is preparing for the real thing, by Spencer Kent https://www.nj.com/healthfit/2020/01/after-coronavirus-false-alarm-nj-emergency-rooms-ramp-up-protocols.html
I.Wuhan virus: China building 1,000-bed hospital over the
weekend to treat coronavirus patients,
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/china-building-1000-bed-hospital-over-the-weekend-to-treat-coronavirus
J.Coronavirus: How can China build a hospital so quickly?,
by Sophie Williams, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51245156
K.Experts Warn of Possible Sustained Global, by Helen
Branswell, https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-warn-of-possible-sustained-global-spread-of-new-coronavirus/
L.Author: Protect yourself against coronavirus infection
with one simple step, by Olivia Balsamo,
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-to-protect-yourself-against-coronavirus-152101500.html
M.US evacuees from China land at California military base as
coronavirus outbreak grows, by Eliott C. McLaughlin and Faith Karimi, https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/29/health/us-coronavirus-evacuation-wednesday/index.htmlBeginning
to look ‘pretty intense’:
N.Former CDC head who led U.S. SARS response speaks about
coronavirus, by Erika Edwards, https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/beginning-look-pretty-intense-former-cdc-head-who-led-u-n1124531
O.How to Avoid the Coronavirus? Wash Your Hands, by
Elisabeth Rosenthal,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/opinion/coronavirus-prevention-tips.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
P.WHO officials say coronavirus spread outside of China is
of ‘grave concern’, Berkeley Lovelace Jr.,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/29/who-officials-say-coronavirus-spread-outside-of-china-is-of-grave-concern.html
(The old B.S. Pollak Hospital, part of the old Jersey City
Medical Center, was constructed with federal funds during the Great Depression.
The building is now privately owned.
“The Pollak Hospital facility was formerly the site of a
three-story building constructed in 1918 for the Jersey City School for
Crippled Children. It was taken over as the Infectious Disease Hospital and in
1934 received a loan of $2,996,000 by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation
for a new county tuberculosis hospital. The 250-bed facility was eventually
named for Dr. B.S. Pollak and became noted for the treatment of chest diseases.
When completed in 1936, the 22-floor hospital, at 320 feet, was the tallest
building in Jersey City until 1989 with the construction of Exchange Place
Center at 490 feet.”) (B)
PART 3. February 3, 2020. “The Wuhan coronavirus
spreading from China is now likely to become a pandemic that circles the
globe…”..Trump appeared to downplay concerns about the flu-like virus …We’re
gonna see what happens, but we did shut it down..” (D)
“The Wuhan coronavirus spreading from China is now likely to
become a pandemic that circles the globe…”..Trump appeared to downplay concerns
about the flu-like virus …We’re gonna see what happens, but we did shut it
down..” (D)
The prospect is daunting. A pandemic — an ongoing epidemic
on two or more continents — may well have global consequences, despite the
extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now imposed by China and
other countries, including the United States.
Scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus
is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much damage a pandemic might
cause. But there is growing consensus that the pathogen is readily transmitted
between humans.
The Wuhan coronavirus is spreading more like influenza,
which is highly transmissible, than like its slow-moving viral cousins, SARS
and MERS, scientists have found.
“It’s very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is
going to be a pandemic,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
“But will it be catastrophic? I don’t know.”
In the last three weeks, the number of lab-confirmed cases
has soared from about 50 in China to more than 17,000 in at least 23 countries;
there have been more than 360 deaths.
But various epidemiological models estimate that the real
number of cases is 100,000 or even more. While that expansion is not as rapid
as that of flu or measles, it is an enormous leap beyond what virologists saw
when SARS and MERS emerged.” (A)
“The World Health Organization declared a global health
emergency on Thursday as the coronavirus outbreak spread well beyond China,
where it emerged last month.
The move reversed the organization’s decision just a week
ago to hold off such a declaration. Since then, there have been thousands of
new cases in China and clear evidence of human-to-human transmission in several
other countries, including the United States.
All of which warranted a reconsideration by the W.H.O.’s
emergency committee, officials said.
The declaration “is not a vote of no confidence in China,”
said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director-general. “On the
contrary, the W.H.O. continues to have confidence in China’s capacity to
control the outbreak.”
The declaration comes now, he said, because of fears that
the coronavirus may reach countries with weak health care systems, where it
could run amok, potentially infecting millions of people and killing
thousands.” (B)
“The Donald Trump administration declared the coronavirus
outbreak to be a public health emergency in the United States on Friday,
setting quarantines of Americans who have recently been to certain parts of
China.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said it
was the first quarantine order issued by the federal government in over 50
years. Marty Cetron, director of CDC’s Division of Global Migration and
Quarantine, said the last time a quarantine was used was in the 1960s for
smallpox…
U.S. citizens who have been in China’s Hubei province during
the past 14 days and are returning to the U.S. States will undergo health
screenings and be monitored during mandatory quarantines of up to 14 days,
officials said.
Azar also announced a temporary suspension of entry into the
United States of foreign nationals who pose a risk for the transmission of the
coronavirus.
As a precaution, any U.S. citizen who has been anywhere else
in mainland China beyond Hubei province will be screened when they return for
evidence of coronavirus symptoms. They will also be subject to self-quarantines
of up to 14 days and monitored by local health officials.
All flights from China to the U.S. will be funneled to one
of seven airports that are designated ports of entry: New York, San Francisco,
Seattle, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta.” (C)
“The United States has taken decisive action to protect
Americans from the threat of a fast-moving coronavirus while offering help to
China, President Donald Trump said on Sunday, but a key adviser said Beijing
had not accepted the offers of assistance.
Trump appeared to downplay concerns about the flu-like virus
that has killed more than 300 people in China and spread to more than two dozen
countries, telling Fox television in an interview, “We’re gonna see what
happens, but we did shut it down, yes.” (D)
“People showing no symptoms appear to be able to spread the
novel coronavirus that has caused an outbreak in China and led world health
authorities to declare a global emergency, researchers reported Thursday in the
New England Journal of Medicine. If confirmed, the finding will make it much
harder to contain the virus.
The case described — from Germany — could help resolve one
of the major unknowns about the virus, which as of Thursday night had infected
nearly 9,700 people in China and killed 213. About 100 more infections have
been reported in 18 other countries, but no deaths.
Some viruses, including SARS, which is another coronavirus,
can only be passed when a person is showing symptoms. Others, like the flu, can
be spread a day or two before the onset of symptoms. If people are contagious
before they become sick, they can be unknowingly spreading the virus as they go
shopping or to work or to the movies. Trying to snuff out the virus in that
case is a much more difficult task.
What’s also concerning is that the spread from an
asymptomatic person appeared to lead to two generations of cases, meaning the
person who contracted the virus then passed it on to others.” (E)
“Close to 10,000 people have contracted the new coronavirus
that originated in Wuhan, China—more cases than SARS in 2003. So far, 213
people have died. The preliminary fatality rate for 2019-nCoV hovers around
3%—which is low, but still concerning because of the number of cases
accumulating.
But that fatality rate is likely to be higher in older adults.
Unofficial open-source data from researchers based in the UK and China show
that out of 41 deaths, 39 were in people over 50. Bloomberg reports similar
figures. While that’s not unexpected, it indicates the need for effective
therapies targeted at this population. And as the proportion of adults over 50
continues to increase globally, future pandemics could be deadlier than they’ve
been in the past…
There are two reasons older adults are more susceptible to
infections. First, seniors are more likely to have other chronic health
conditions, like diabetes or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, that make
it harder for their bodies to cope with damage caused by a new pathogen. Every
year, the majority of flu deaths are seen in people 65 or older.
Second, the immune system changes with age—particularly in
its ability to respond to coronaviruses. Unlike the flu virus, which does most
of the damage to your body on its own, most of the symptoms from coronavirus
infections actually come from the body’s immune response, Menachery says.
Although he and his lab team are still characterizing these reactions, it seems
like coronaviruses encourage older immune systems to kick in with extra
inflammation, which can have a cascading effect.” (F)
“Two more Americans, a husband and wife, were confirmed to
have the coronavirus late Sunday in the second person-to-person transmission in
the U.S. and the 10th and 11th cases in the country, respectively.
The husband, from San Benito County, California, recently
traveled to Wuhan, China, the center of the virus’ outbreak, and apparently
passed the disease to his wife, who did not go to China. Both 57, neither has
been hospitalized, but they have also not left their home.
The couple’s diagnosis brings the total number of positive
cases in the United States to 11. The ninth case in the country, in Santa Clara
County, California, was announced Sunday afternoon. The other human-to-human
transmission was also between a husband and wife and was announced last week in
Illinois.” (G)
“Stopping the spread of a rapidly emerging disease takes
masterful medical detective work, including tracing the people who have been
infected and figuring out their web of contacts, steps that are vital to
understanding how it’s being transmitted. US public health officials are
following those trails to quickly detect new cases of the Wuhan coronavirus,
including the report on Thursday of a sixth US infection—the husband of a woman
who became ill after traveling from China back home to Chicago—which was
followed by a seventh, in California, on Friday.
Yet there’s a potential wildcard, a deviation that throws
off the most careful calculations. For reasons that are still unclear, some
people, known as super-spreaders, transmit disease much more readily than
others, and to many more people. Like an infectious grenade, they can set off a
sudden cluster of illnesses. “These super-spreader events are very unique and
fall out of the world of averages,” says Michael Osterholm, an infectious
disease expert and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and
Policy at the University of Minnesota. Yet super-spreading can shape the
trajectory of an outbreak in unexpected ways, making it more difficult to
control. Instead of infecting just a few people who are close to them, a
super-spreader may inadvertently infect dozens—who go on to spread the disease
elsewhere.” (H)
“Can wearing a medical face mask protect you against the new
coronavirus? It’s a question many people, including pet owners who are putting
canine face masks on their dogs, are asking.
If it’s a regular surgical face mask, the answer is “no,”
Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious-disease specialist at Vanderbilt
University in Tennessee, told Live Science.
A more specialized mask, known as an N95 respirator, can
protect against the new coronavirus, also called 2019-nCoV. The respirator is
thicker than a surgical mask, but Schaffner doesn’t recommend it for public
use, at least not at this point.” (I)
“New York City health officials announced on Saturday that a
patient at Bellevue Hospital Center might have the new coronavirus and that
samples were being sent to the federal authorities for laboratory testing. If
confirmed, it would be the first known instance of the virus in New York City.
Based on the patient’s symptoms and travel history from
China, city officials were taking the potential case seriously. This was the
first time city officials had sent a sample to the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention for testing.
Another reason the health authorities suspect it might be
the new coronavirus: They had tested the patient for influenza and other common
illnesses, and those tests came back negative, health officials said.
They said they did not expect to receive results from the
C.D.C. for 36 to 48 hours, or possibly longer.
“An individual with a travel history to China felt unwell
and sought help from a medical provider who promptly contacted the Health
Department,” the health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, said in a statement.”
(J)
“China completed building on Sunday a massive, makeshift
hospital in Wuhan that will serve as the frontline in battling the coronavirus
epidemic, according to a report.
Huoshenshan Hospital was built in less than two weeks to
treat patients at the epicenter of the virus that has killed more than 300
people, BBC reported.
The hospital, which has 1,000 beds, started construction
Jan. 23 and will begin admitting patients on Monday, according to Chinese state
media China Global Television Network.
Around 40 million people tuned into livestreams of the
construction on YouTube and Periscope, while workers rushed to complete one of
two hospitals that will specialize in treating the virus.
Chinese officials are still working to build the second
emergency hospital, Leishenshan Hospital, which is expected to open Wednesday
around 25 miles away from the newest site, CGTN reported.” (K)
“The 195 Americans who flew from China to California were
first told they must clear medical tests that could take 72 hours or many days.
Now they are all being quarantined for two weeks…
This makeshift community on a military base in Riverside,
Calif., is made up of evacuees from Wuhan, the city in China that is the
epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. The 195 people, including diplomats, infants,
a football player and a theme-park designer, are among Americans who have
managed to leave Wuhan since a quarantine was imposed.
Now they find themselves stuck in place in the United
States. The federal government on Friday imposed a 14-day quarantine,
retroactive to when the plane left Wuhan. The patients were initially told they
had to wait at least 72 hours for medical testing to be completed.” (L)
“The BlueDot algorithm scours news reports and airline
ticketing data to predict the spread of diseases like those linked to the flu
outbreak in China.
On January 9, the World Health Organization notified the
public of a flu-like outbreak in China: a cluster of pneumonia cases had been
reported in Wuhan, possibly from vendors’ exposure to live animals at the
Huanan Seafood Market. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had
gotten the word out a few days earlier, on January 6. But a Canadian health
monitoring platform had beaten them both to the punch, sending word of the
outbreak to its customers on December 31.
BlueDot uses an AI-driven algorithm that scours
foreign-language news reports, animal and plant disease networks, and official
proclamations to give its clients advance warning to avoid danger zones like
Wuhan.
Speed matters during an outbreak, and tight-lipped Chinese
officials do not have a good track record of sharing information about
diseases, air pollution, or natural disasters. But public health officials at
WHO and the CDC have to rely on these very same health officials for their own
disease monitoring. So maybe an AI can get there faster. “We know that
governments may not be relied upon to provide information in a timely fashion,”
says Kamran Khan, BlueDot’s founder and CEO. “We can pick up news of possible
outbreaks, little murmurs or forums or blogs of indications of some kind of
unusual events going on.” (M)
““The outbreak is probably a lot bigger than one the public
health officials have confirmation of,” says James Lawler, an infectious
disease specialist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, who treated
quarantined Ebola patients in 2017 and 2018. “Just using a back-of-the-envelope
calculation on how many travelers there are from China in a given week, and
percentage than might have been affected, it’s a lot.”
An area containing eight cities and 35 million people have
now been quarantined in China, The New York Times reported Friday, while The
Wall Street Journal reports that hospitals in the epicenter of Wuhan are
turning away patients and medical supplies such as masks and sanitizers have
run out.
Lawler and others say that the coronavirus outbreak will
continue to spread as travelers from China to other nations exhibit symptoms of
infection. He says we still don’t know how many people will get sick, and how
many of those will die before the outbreak recedes.
To stop the spread of disease, public health officials will
need to tell the truth and tell it quickly. But in the meantime, it might be
worth deputizing an AI-driven epidemiologist.” (N)
As the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread across
China, a flurry of early research is drawing a clearer picture of how the
pathogen behaves and the key factors that will determine whether it can be
contained.
How contagious is the virus?
It seems moderately infectious, similar to SARS.
How deadly is the virus?
It’s hard to know yet. But the fatality rate is probably
less than 3 percent, much less than SARS.
How long does it take to show symptoms?
Possibly between 2 to 14 days, allowing the illness to go
undetected.
How much have infected people traveled?
The virus spread quickly because it started in a
transportation hub.
How effective will the response be?” (O)
“The World Health Organization has declared the growing
coronavirus outbreak in China to be a global health emergency. It’s a
recognition that the outbreak — now with nearly 10,000 cases — may continue to
spread beyond China, and that the nations of the world should lend their
assistance and be prepared.
Just a month ago, this virus, called 2019-nCoV, was unknown
to science. Now, health officials are working furiously to understand it,
trying to prevent a pandemic (a larger global spread of an infection).
These are still early days. Critical questions about the
virus — namely how it spreads, and how deadly it is — remain to be firmly
answered. But it’s not too soon to wonder: How does this outbreak end?
Right now, infectious disease experts are outlining three
broad scenarios for the future of this outbreak. Keep in mind there’s a lot of
uncertainty about how this will unfold.
1) The spread of the virus gets under control through public
health interventions
This is the best-case scenario, and essentially what
happened with the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak in 2003…
2) The virus burns itself out after it infects all or most
of the people most susceptible to it
Disease outbreaks are a bit like fires. The virus is the
flame. Susceptible people are the fuel. Eventually, a fire burns itself out if
it runs out of kindling. A virus outbreak will end when it stops finding
susceptible people to infect.
3) Coronavirus becomes yet another common virus
There’s a third scenario about how this outbreak ends. That
it doesn’t.
This has happened before. In 2009, a new strain of the H1N1
flu virus encircled the globe in a pandemic. But, “after a while it became a
part of our normal repertoire of what might come up each flu season,” Mina
says.” (P)
“Each new crisis follows a familiar playbook, as scientists,
epidemiologists, health-care workers, and politicians race to characterize and
contain the new threat. Each epidemic is also different, and each is a mirror
that reflects the society it affects. In the new coronavirus, we see a world
that is more connected than ever by international travel, but that has also
succumbed to growing isolationism and xenophobia. We see a time when scientific
research and the demand for news, the spread of misinformation and the spread
of a virus, all happen at a relentless, blistering pace. The new crisis is very
much the kind of epidemic we should expect, given the state of the world in
2020. “It’s almost as if the content is the same but the amplitude is
different,” Bhadelia said. “There’s just a greater frenzy, and is that a
function of the disease, or a function of the changed world? It’s unclear.”
And there will be a next epidemic. A new disease was always
going to rear its head to test the world’s mettle, and more almost certainly
will in the future. As I argued in 2018, the world isn’t ready. There has
assuredly been progress—vaccines can be produced faster, global cooperation is
tighter, basic research is nimbler—but supply chains are stretched,
misinformation is rife, and investments in preparedness always fall into
neglect once panic subsides. “Every year, things get more and more connected,”
Inglesby says. “Epidemics like this show that all of it can be relatively
quickly put at risk.” (Q)
A.Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic,
Experts Say, by Donald G. McNeil Jr., https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/health/coronavirus-pandemic-china.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
B.W.H.O. Declares Global Emergency as Wuhan Coronavirus
Spreads, by Sui-Lee Wee, Donald G. McNeil Jr. and Javier C. Hernández,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/health/coronavirus-world-health-organization.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
C.Trump administration declares coronavirus emergency,
orders first quarantine in 50 years, by David Jackson,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/01/31/coronavirus-donald-trump-declares-public-health-emergency/4625299002/
D.Trump says U.S. has ‘shut down’ coronavirus threat; China
shuns U.S. help, by Doina Chiacu, Andrea Shalal,
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-usa/trump-says-us-has-shut-down-coronavirus-threat-china-shuns-us-help-idUSKBN1ZW0OJ
E.Study documents first case of coronavirus spread by a
person showing no symptoms, by Andrew Joseph/
https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/30/first-documented-case-of-coronavirus-spread-by-person-showing-no-symptoms/
F.Coronaviruses hit seniors the hardest, by Katherine Ellen
Foley,
https://qz.com/1794241/seniors-seem-to-have-the-highest-risk-of-dying-from-coronavirus/
G.2nd person-to-person transmission of coronavirus reported
in US; 1st death confirmed outside China, by Christina Carrega,
https://abcnews.go.com/International/1st-coronavirus-related-death-china-reported/story?id=68707431
H.Wuhan Coronavirus ‘Super-Spreaders’ Could Be Wildcards, by
MICHELE COHEN MARILL,
https://www.wired.com/story/wuhan-coronavirus-super-spreaders-could-be-wildcards/
I.Can wearing a face mask protect you from the new
coronavirus?, by Laura Geggel,
https://www.livescience.com/face-mask-new-coronavirus.html
J.New York City Eyes First Suspected Case of Coronavirus, by
Joseph Goldstein, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/01/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-city.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
K.China completes emergency coronavirus hospital in just
days, by Jackie Salo,
https://nypost.com/2020/02/02/china-completes-emergency-coronavirus-hospital-in-just-days/
L.Inside the California Military Base a Coronavirus Evacuee
Tried to Flee, by Miriam Jordan,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/us/coronavirus-americans-evacuate.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
M.An AI Epidemiologist Sent the First Warnings of the Wuhan
Virus, by ERIC NIILER, https://www.wired.com/story/ai-epidemiologist-wuhan-public-health-warnings/
N.An AI Epidemiologist Sent the First Warnings of the Wuhan
Virus, by ERIC NIILER,
https://www.wired.com/story/ai-epidemiologist-wuhan-public-health-warnings/
O.How Bad Will the Coronavirus Outbreak Get? Here Are 6 Key
Factors, by Knvul Sheikh, Derek Watkins, Jin Wu and Mika Gröndah,
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/asia/china-coronavirus-contain.html
P.Coronavirus: How does this outbreak end?, by Brian
Resnick, https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/1/31/21115109/coronavirus-outbreak-end-sars-comparison
PART 4. February 9,
2020. “A study published Friday in JAMA found that 41% of the first 138
patients diagnosed at one hospital in Wuhan, China, were presumed to be
infected in that hospital.…
“A study published Friday in JAMA found that
41% of the first 138 patients diagnosed at one hospital in Wuhan, China, were
presumed to be infected in that hospital.….
“Five health care workers at
Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose were exposed to the new coronavirus while
treating a patient there and have been sent home and told to remain isolated
until Feb. 11, according to Santa Clara County public health officials…
The workers are being kept at
home “to protect the public’s health and limit any potential spread of the
virus,” Santa Clara County public health officials said in a statement.” (A)
“During SARS, patients were sent
to nine hospitals all over Hong Kong so that no one hospital had to bear the
full burden of the outbreak. Despite this effort to spread the load, the
outbreak overwhelmed the city’s health-care system. The Tuen Mun public
hospital in the northwest of the city was one of the treatment facilities. The
toll on the hospital was steep. Staff had to work long hours with the threat of
a deadly virus looming over them. Non-emergency patients were turned away.
Entire wards were turned into isolation zones. And the first of many casualties
among health-care workers in Hong Kong occurred at Tuen Mun on April 26, 2003…
During SARS much of the spread
was happening in hospitals. Once that became clear, public health officials put
in place rigid infection control measures in medical settings; the outbreaks in
Hong Kong, China, Toronto and elsewhere were brought under control. Cowling
says transmission of this new coronavirus is quite different from SARS…
Public health officials don’t
yet know what it will take to stop the new Wuhan coronavirus, but Seto says
fanatically enforcing hand washing — at home and in hospitals — will probably
be one of the keys.” (B)
“Most transmission appears
to be occurring in the community,” he says. “We’ve seen a small
number of infections of health-care workers, but nothing like SARS where one
third of the cases were health-care workers. For the new coronavirus it’s a
much smaller fraction in hospitals, and probably most transmission occurring in
the general community. And that’s much, much more difficult for public health
measures to deal with.”
Infectious disease specialists
and scientists say the new coronavirus that’s shuttering companies across
mainland China may be more contagious than current data shows.
Emerging in Wuhan, China, about
a month ago, the virus has spread from about 300 people as of Jan. 21 to close
to 21,000 and killed more than 420 — with the number of new cases growing by
the thousands every day.
“The rapid acceleration of cases
is of concern,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health
Organization’s emergencies program, said at a news conference last week before
the agency declared a global health emergency.
Chinese scientists worry the
respiratory illness, which world health officials say likely came from a fish
market, has mutated to adapt to its new human hosts far more quickly than SARS.
Data on the virus is changing by the day, and some infectious disease
specialists say it will take weeks before they can see just how contagious it
is. What they’re seeing so far is concerning and leading U.S. and international
scientists to believe the virus is more contagious than the current data shows,
according to interviews with epidemiologists, scientists and infectious disease
specialists.” (C)
“The Wuhan coronavirus spreading
from China is now likely to become a pandemic that circles the globe, according
to many of the world’s leading infectious disease experts.
The prospect is daunting. A
pandemic — an ongoing epidemic on two or more continents — may well have global
consequences, despite the extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now
imposed by China and other countries, including the United States.
Scientists do not yet know how
lethal the new coronavirus is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much
damage a pandemic might cause. But there is growing consensus that the pathogen
is readily transmitted between humans.
The Wuhan coronavirus is
spreading more like influenza, which is highly transmissible, than like its
slow-moving viral cousins, SARS and MERS, scientists have found.
“It’s very, very transmissible,
and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci,
director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.” (D)
“When the H1N1 flu began
spreading a decade ago, U.S. hospitals were flooded with patients. The
pandemic, which was declared over in 2010, left nearly 275,000 hospitalized, as
health officials fretted whether they would have enough beds, enough medical
supplies, or enough protective gear…
Hospitals across the country are
convening near-daily meetings to check in on their emergency preparedness
plans. And they’ve called all hands on deck. Nearly everyone — from physicians
and nurses to public affairs representatives and the employees responsible for
ordering supplies and keeping the hospital clean — is involved in making sure a
hospital’s existing emergency plans are up to date.
“But as we project outward with the potential
for this to be a much longer situation, one of the things that we’re actively
working on is projecting the long-term needs for our health care system,” Dr.
Nancy Messonnier, director of Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters on
Wednesday…
Much of that work revolves
around hospitals planning for what Biddinger called the “four S’s” of a surge
in patients amid an outbreak: supplies, staff, space, and the system that
governs all of them.
They need to review their
inventory of supplies, including ventilators, oxygen tanks, and the respirator
masks that health workers might need to wear to care for infected patients.
They need to plan for how to protect other patients in the hospital,
particularly those with weak immune systems. They need to review screening
procedures and the proper way to put on protective gear. And they need to
educate everyone — from the front desk employees in the ER to the workers who
take out the trash in patient rooms — in those protocols.” (E)
“Given the unknowns about
2019-nCoV, in the coming days and weeks, we’re in for some twists and turns.
For now, many experts believe this outbreak could get a lot worse: burdening
the Chinese health system, spreading in poorer countries with weaker health
systems, and sickening and killing thousands more people along the way.
Alternatively, it could get much better, with new cases and deaths steadily
dropping. Here are the key factors that will determine which way it goes.
4 ways this outbreak could take
a turn for the worse
1) China can’t contain the new
coronavirus
2) The new coronavirus spreads
in countries with weak health systems
3) The virus is actually
deadlier than it seems right now
4 things that could unfold that
would prevent a pandemic
1) China contains the virus
2) Local clusters of the disease
in other countries don’t grow
3) The virus can’t spread in
poorer countries with hotter climates
4) We learn the virus is not as
deadly as it seems (F)
“Princess Cruises late Tuesday
said nine passengers and a crew member on one of its ships in Japan had tested
positive for the new coronavirus from China, prompting local authorities to
order a multiweek quarantine of the vessel.
The Santa Clarita,
California-based line said more than 2,600 passengers and 1,044 crew on the
Diamond Princess would remain quarantined on the ship for at least 14 days.
The 10 people who have tested
positive for the virus are being taken off the ship, which is in the harbor of
Yokohama, Japan — the port for Tokyo. They’ll be transferred to local
hospitals…
Early Wednesday, another cruise
vessel arriving in a major Asian port was quarantined until passengers could
undergo screening for coronavirus. The quarantine of the 3,376-passenger World
Dream, in Hong Kong, was ordered after three passengers from a previous sailing
tested positive for the virus. World Dream is operated by Dream Cruises, an
Asia-based cruise company that caters to Asian travelers.//
Princess said Diamond Princess
would head out to sea to perform normal marine operations including, but not
limited to, the production of fresh water and ballast operations, before
returning to Yokohama and docking at the city’s port. Food and other supplies
needed for the extended quarantine of the vessel will be brought onboard.
Passengers have been confined to
their cabins for the duration of the quarantine, and many shipboard services
have been shut down. Food is being delivered to cabins at regular intervals.
Passengers have access to complimentary internet and telephone service to stay
in contact with their families and other loved ones.” (G)
“A southern New Jersey military
installation is on a list of potential coronavirus quarantine locations should
the need arise.
The Department of Health and
Human Services has requested the support of the Department of Defense to provide
space if primary and secondary facilities become full.
The Department of Defense
identified 11 locations near major airports, including Joint Base
McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, which spans through portions of Burlington and Ocean
counties, according to a news release issued Thursday.
The military involvement would
be limited to providing housing support for up to 20 people as they undergo a
period of quarantined observation, the Department of Defense release said.
Military personnel will not be in direct contact with quarantined people and
will minimize contact with personnel supporting the evacuees, officials said…
There are currently 12 confirmed
cases in the United States, CNN reported Thursday. The news network report said
that “planeloads” of Americans fleeing the outbreak in China are arriving at
military bases across the United States.” (H)
“Current efforts to contain the
coronavirus differ in many ways from those inflicted on lepers in the past
century. Americans who may have been exposed to the virus in China are
quarantined for 14 days and are not sentenced to life in isolation. The medical
treatment is significantly improved and the chances of recovery are good.
However, the corona virus is far more contagious than leprosy, against which
95% of people are naturally immune. Precautions are certainly useful.
But this recent outbreak raises
questions similar to the health authorities that struggled with decades ago.
Are quarantine and isolation the most effective way to contain a disease? Do
you hesitate to identify yourself as a potential victim?
“It fails because people are
headed for the hills,” said Wendy Parmet, a professor of health law at
Northeastern University, Rob Stein from the NPR. “People don’t call and look
for medical care … and medical care providers are afraid to treat patients
because they don’t want to be quarantined.”
There are other questions as
well.
Will the US decision to close
its borders for foreigners who have recently visited China do more harm than
good? The World Health Organization believes that such travel bans may and
warns of panic and anxiety measures.
Perhaps more importantly, how
are those who are believed to be potential carriers of the virus treated by
those around them? NPR’s Maria Godoy reports that some Asian Americans are
already experiencing a setback. A student was told to leave a cafe and “take
the corona virus with her.”” (I)
“The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention has shipped the diagnostic test for the novel coronavirus to
more than 100 public health labs nationwide, allowing states to test for
coronavirus cases themselves and receive results quicker.
Why it matters: The FDA bypassed
usual regulatory channels to distribute the test under an Emergency Use
Authorization, which has been used in life-threatening situations like MERS,
Ebola and the Zika virus.
Before, specimens from all over
the country had to be shipped to Atlanta to have their suspected cases
validated.
“This continues to be an
evolving situation and the ability to distribute this diagnostic test to
qualified labs is a critical step forward in protecting the public
health,” FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said.” (J)
“CDC created this interim
guidance to provide US public health authorities and other partners with a
framework for assessing and managing risk of potential exposures to 2019-nCoV
and implementing public health actions based on a person’s risk level and
clinical presentation. Public health actions may include active monitoring or
supervision of self-monitoring by public health authorities, or the application
of movement restrictions, including isolation and quarantine, when needed to
prevent the possible spread of 2019-nCoV in US communities. The recommendations
in this guidance apply to US-bound travelers and people located in the United
States who may have been exposed to 2019-nCoV. CDC acknowledges that state and
local jurisdictions may make risk management decisions that differ from those
recommended here. However, a harmonized national approach will facilitate smooth
coordination and minimize confusion. The guidance may be updated based on the
evolving circumstances of the outbreak.” (K)
“Infection control procedures
including administrative rules and engineering controls, environmental hygiene,
correct work practices, and appropriate use of personal protective equipment
(PPE) are all necessary to prevent infections from spreading during healthcare
delivery. Prompt detection and effective triage and isolation of potentially
infectious patients are essential to prevent unnecessary exposures among
patients, healthcare personnel, and visitors at the facility. All healthcare
facilities must ensure that their personnel are correctly trained and capable
of implementing infection control procedures; individual healthcare personnel
should ensure they understand and can adhere to infection control requirements.
This guidance is based on the
currently limited information available about 2019-nCoV related to disease
severity, transmission efficiency, and shedding duration. This cautious
approach will be refined and updated as more information becomes available and
as response needs change in the United States. This guidance is applicable to
all U.S. healthcare settings. This guidance is not intended for non-healthcare
settings (e.g., schools) OR to persons outside of healthcare settings. For
recommendations regarding clinical management, air or ground medical transport,
or laboratory settings, refer to the main CDC 2019-nCoV website.” (L)
“Whether it’s an influx of
coronavirus carriers or another Superstorm Sandy, a new nonprofit report finds
New Jersey is in a relatively good position to handle the next public health
emergency.
An annual survey released
Wednesday by The Trust for America’s Health shows that New Jersey is among a top
tier of 17 states considered to have the best health care and emergency
response systems, along with the training and capacity to protect residents
against communicable diseases, natural disasters and other calamities.
Officials at the Trust — a
national research and advocacy group focused on public health and injury
prevention — said the Garden State has ranked in the top third of states for
the last several years, a significant improvement from 2013, when it came in as
one of the seven lowest-scoring states.” (M)
“Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday
launched a task force to make sure New Jersey is prepared for any threat from
the surging coronavirus.
Murphy also noted that Newark
Liberty International Airport is one of 11 major U.S. airports that receive
flights from China requiring enhanced screening for the virus.
There are no confirmed cases of
coronavirus in New Jersey, but Murphy said it’s “critical” the state has
“strong preparedness protocols in place.”
“By establishing the Coronavirus
Task Force, we are bringing together experts across state agencies, health
officials, and federal partners to ensure that we are working collaboratively
to protect the health and safety of all New Jerseyans,” the governor
added.
According to an executive order
Murphy signed Monday, the task force will coordinate all state efforts to
“prepare for and respond to the public health hazard posed” by
coronavirus.
The task force is chaired by
state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli and will include members of the
state’s human services, law and public safety, education, and homeland security
departments, as well as the State Police.” (N)
““I have to emphasize that the
risk right now, certainly to the United States but definitely to the residents
of New Jersey, is still low,” said state health commissioner Judith
Persichilli, whom Murphy named as the chair of a new Coronavirus Task Force…
Authorities also said that
Newark Liberty International Airport is one of 11 airports in the nation where
flights from China will be allowed to land, and passengers on those flights
will be screened and, if necessary, quarantined.
“We’ve been very proactive, we
have teams in place ready to go,” Persichilli said. “There will be screening at
the Newark Airport. We are prepared to handle quarantine of any person that
comes in.”
Also represented on the task
force are the State Police, the Office of Homeland Security, the attorney
general and the Department of Education. The group will coordinate with
hospitals and other health care facilities as well as federal authorities and
the Port Authority, which runs Newark Airport.
Also Monday, Princeton
University has told students who recently returned from China to
“self-quarantine” for 14 days from the time they were last in China, a step the
university said was being taken as a precaution. The number of students
affected by the order is more than 100, according to various news reports.
The precaution matches a general
advisory issued for travelers by state public health officials.
“If you’ve traveled to China and
return from that travel, we would urge residents to monitor their symptoms for
14 days,” said Dr. Lisa McHugh, program coordinator for infectious disease
epidemiology for the state health department. “If you develop symptoms, again
we would urge you to contact your health care provider, and we’ll work through
them to determine if the individual should be tested at the Centers for Disease
Control.”” (O)
“China on Thursday finished
building a second new hospital to isolate and treat patients of a virus that
has killed more than 560 people and continues to spread, disrupting travel and
people’s lives and fueling economic fears.
A first group of patients was
expected to start testing a new antiviral drug, as China also moved people with
milder symptoms into makeshift hospitals at sports centers, exhibition halls
and other public spaces.
Other treatment centers had
tight rows of simple cots lining cavernous rooms where patients with milder
symptoms would be cared for. And Wuhan had another 132 quarantine sites with
more than 12,500 beds, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.” (P)
“United States citizen died from
the coronavirus in Wuhan, China, American officials said on Saturday. It was
the first known American death from the illness, and was likely to add to
diplomatic friction over Beijing’s response to the epidemic.” (Q)
“A study published Friday in the
medical journal JAMA found that 41% of the first 138 patients diagnosed at one
hospital in Wuhan, China, were presumed to be infected in that hospital.
This is big news. In plain
English, it means that nearly half of the initial infections in this hospital
appear to have been spread within the hospital itself. This is called
nosocomial transmission. (Doctors use big words to hide bad things: Nosocomial
means caught it in the hospital.)
What’s more, most spread doesn’t
appear to have been the result of a so-called “super-spreader event,”
in which a single patient transmits infection to many other people. In these
events, a procedure such as bronchoscopy — where a doctor inserts a tube into
the patient’s lungs — can result in many infections.
This would be a concern, but not
nearly as much as what appears to have happened: Many health care workers and
many patients got infected in many parts of the hospital. What’s more, since
there’s a broad spectrum of infection and only patients who were sick were
tested, it’s quite likely that there was even more transmission in the
hospital.
So, like SARS and MERS — other
coronaviruses — before it, the Wuhan coronavirus is spreading in hospitals.”
(R)
“The World Health Organization’s
director-general cautioned Saturday that transmission of the new coronavirus
outside of China may increase and countries should prepare for that
possibility.
“It’s slow now, but it may accelerate,” Tedros
Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press conference in Geneva. “So while it’s
still slow there is a window of opportunity that we should use to the maximum
in order to have a better outcome, and further decrease the progress and stop
it.”
Tedros’s warning came after
health authorities in Singapore announced they had diagnosed the infection in a
man with no travel history to China and no known link to other cases in
Singapore…
Infectious diseases expert
Michael Osterholm warned that it is unwise to conclude that just because the
world hasn’t yet seen outbreaks in other countries they won’t happen. It takes
several generations of transmission — an imported case passed on to two others,
who then infect two others and so on — before an outbreak takes off, he said.”
“What we’re watching is the
public health community trying to catch up to the speed of the virus,” said
Osterholm, who is the director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for
Infectious Diseases Research and Policy.” (S)
“With an intense flu season in
full swing, hundreds of thousands of coughing and feverish patients have
already overwhelmed emergency rooms around the United States. Now, hospitals
are bracing for the potential spread of coronavirus that could bring another
surge of patients.
So far, only a dozen people in
the United States have become infected with the novel coronavirus, but an
outbreak could severely strain the nation’s hospitals.
“We’re talking about the
possibility of a double flu pandemic,” where a second wave starts before the
first is over, said Dr. Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins
Center for Health Security.
Public health experts are also
closely watching reserves of vital medical supplies and medications, many of
which are made in China. Some hospitals in the United States are already
“critically low” on respirator masks, according to Premier Inc., which secures
medical supplies and equipment on behalf of hospitals and health systems. And
China is the dominant supplier of the raw ingredients needed for penicillin,
ibuprofen and even aspirin — drugs taken daily by millions of Americans and
dispensed routinely to hospital patients.
“All the hospitals are taxed
with a large flu season and other bugs,” said Dr. Mark Jarrett, the chief
quality officer for Northwell Health, which operates 23 hospitals across Long
Island and elsewhere in New York. About 400 patients are coming to its
emergency rooms each day with flulike symptoms.
“Everybody is at maximum
capacity,” Dr. Jarrett said…
“Many of us are holding our
breath to see the downstream effect on pharmaceuticals and other medical
supplies because of this outbreak in China,” said Dr. Paul Biddinger, who helps
oversee emergency preparedness for Partners Healthcare, the Boston hospital
group that includes Massachusetts General.
Experts like Dr. Toner say
supplies could easily become depleted, especially at smaller hospitals that
tend to have less inventory of basic items like masks, gowns and gloves.
Hospitals have long struggled with shortages of injectable medications and
staples like saline. In 2017, Hurricane Maria knocked out power to several
pharmaceutical factories in Puerto Rico, leading to a shortage of saline bags…
Because the nature of the virus
is still unknown, public health officials said it’s unclear what future
challenges hospitals will face if the coronavirus spreads into an epidemic in
the United States. While the current government guidelines call for patients to
be treated in specialized isolation rooms, experts say it is unlikely that
there will be enough isolation rooms at individual facilities.” (T)
“The number of deaths from novel
coronavirus in mainland China increased to 811 Sunday, health officials with
China’s National Health Commission said.
This exceeds the number of
deaths reported from the SARS outbreak in 2003, which killed 774 people,
according to the World Health Organization.
Outside of China, two people
died from the disease in the last two week, one in the Philippines and one in
Hong Kong, bringing total number of global deaths to at least 813.
As of Sunday, more than 37,198
confirmed cases have been reported on mainland China…
Six more people aboard a cruise
ship quarantined in Japan have tested positive for novel coronavirus, bringing
the total on the Diamond Princess to 70, Japan’s health ministry said Sunday.
The ministry said one of the six
confirmed cases is a woman in her 70s who has Hong Kong residency, but is also
a U.S. citizen. That brings the total number of American passengers who were
confirmed to have the virus to 14.” (U)
“Four passengers on Friday were
taken to a hospital after their cruise ship arrived in New Jersey for
evaluation of coronavirus..
The CDC has confirmed just 12
cases in the United States, mostly in California; there have been no cases in
New Jersey or New York
Four passengers traveling on a
cruise ship that returned to New Jersey have tested negative for the new virus
that has sickened tens of thousands in mainland China and killed more than 800.
Governor Phil Murphy said all
passengers tested negative and “New Jersey currently has no confirmed
cases of novel coronavirus and the risk to residents remains low.” (V)
(A) Five San Jose hospital workers sent home after exposure to
coronavirus, by Deanne Fitzmauric
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Five-San-Jose-hospital-workers-sent-home-after-15030563.phpe,
(B) How Hong Kong Beat SARS: Lessons Learned, by Jason
Beaubien, https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/npr/npr-story/802701836
(C) Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic,
Experts Say, by Donald G. McNeil Jr.,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/04/researchers-say-the-coronavirus-may-be-more-contagious-than-current-data-shows.html
(D) Researchers say the coronavirus may be more contagious than
current data shows, by Berkeley Lovelace, Jr.,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/04/researchers-say-the-coronavirus-may-be-more-contagious-than-current-data-shows.html
(E) ‘We need everyone for this’: U.S. hospitals harnessing
resources to brace for any spike in coronavirus cases, by MEGAN THIELKING,
https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/07/hospitals-harnessing-resources-brace-spike-coronavirus-
(F) What happens next in the coronavirus outbreak? We mapped 8
scenarios, by Julia Belluz, https://www.vox.com/2020/2/5/21122758/coronavirus-outcomes-pandemic-travel-china-map
(G) Nearly 4,000 people quarantined on cruise ship for 14 days
after coronavirus confirmed onboard, by Gene Sloan,
https://thepointsguy.com/news/coronavirus-princess-cruise-ship-quarantine/
(H) N.J. military base is among potential coronavirus
quarantine locations, by Justin Auciello,
https://whyy.org/articles/n-j-military-base-is-among-potential-coronavirus-quarantine-locations/
(I) Will Corona Virus Quarantines Help or Harm? A look back at
leprosy, by Gwen Olson,
https://mashviral.com/will-corona-virus-quarantines-help-or-harm-a-look-back-at-leprosy-shots/
(J) FDA allows states to test for coronavirus for faster
results, by Marisa Fernandez,
https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-state-testing-fda-approval-831a1a2a-4a80-47fa-a88b-983a81756bc3.html
(K) Interim US Guidance for Risk Assessment and Public Health
Management of Persons with Potential 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)
Exposure in Travel-associated or Community Settings,
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/risk-assessment.html
(L) Interim Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations
for Patients with Confirmed 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) or Persons Under
Investigation for 2019-nCoV in Healthcare Settings,
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/infection-control.html
(M) How Ready Is NJ to Handle Public Health Emergencies? The
Latest Results, by LILO H. STAINTON,
https://www.njspotlight.com/2020/02/how-ready-is-nj-to-handle-public-health-emergencies-the-latest-results/
(N) Gov. Murphy launches task force to protect N.J. from
coronavirus, by Brent Johnson,
https://www.nj.com/politics/2020/02/gov-murphy-launches-task-force-to-protect-nj-from-coronavirus.html
(O) Murphy Sets Up Coronavirus Task Force, State Health
Officials Say Risk in NJ ‘Is Still Low’, by Joanna Gagis,
https://www.njspotlight.com/2020/02/murphy-sets-up-coronavirus-task-force-state-health-officials-say-risk-in-nj-is-still-low/
(P) China finishes second new hospital built for coronavirus
patients, https://www.foxnews.com/health/china-opens-new-hospitals-coronavirus-patients
(Q) First American Dies of Coronavirus, Raising Questions About
U.S. Response, by Raymond Zhong and Edward Wong,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/08/world/asia/china-coronavirus-american-dead.html?partner=msn
(R) New study an eye-opener on how coronavirus is spreading and
how little we know, by Dr. Tom Frieden,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/08/health/coronavirus-hospital-infections-frieden/index.html
(S) WHO cautions that transmission of the new coronavirus
outside of China could increase, by HELEN BRANSWELL,
https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/08/who-cautions-coronavirus-transmission-could-increase-beyond-china/
(T) Hospitals are currently making preparations for a possible
outbreak of the new coronavirus, by Reed Abelson and Katie Thomas,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/health/hospitals-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
(U) Coronavirus updates: 14 Americans aboard quarantined cruise
ship now confirmed to have coronavirus,
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/new-coronavirus-updates-number-confirmed-cases-drops-disease-s-epicenter-n1133141
PART 5. CORONAVIRUS. “In
short, shoe-leather public health and basic medical care—not miracle drugs—are
generally what stop outbreaks of emerging infections..”
“Nearly six weeks after China
announced the coronavirus outbreak, there’s still a surprising amount we don’t
know about this newly discovered disease. But one thing is becoming clear:
China’s silence in the earliest days of the crisis may have made it worse.
Chinese authorities delayed
informing the world about the severity of a deadly disease spreading within the
country’s borders — even trying to muzzle whistleblowers, like the late Dr. Li
Wenliang. Now hailed as a national hero, Li was forced on January 3 by police
to sign a letter saying he spread “untrue speech” for warning colleagues about
the virus that eventually took his life.
With more than 40,500 people
infected and 910 deaths, China’s missteps early on seem increasingly fateful.
The fact that the international community has not acknowledged those missteps
is also consequential…
But the reality is this: China’s
mishandling and the ensuing silence from the international community is
emblematic of how the global system governing the international response to
pandemics fails to work, half a dozen global health experts told Vox.
Though we have global health
laws — in particular, the International Health Regulations, or IHR — meant to
guide countries dealing with outbreaks, they’re not actually enforceable. “You
can’t penalize [countries that] don’t follow it,” said Devi Sridhar, the chair
in global public health at the University of Edinburgh. Instead, the international
community has to rely on “soft law and norms” — or “disease diplomacy.”..
The revised IHR asks countries
to build out their disease surveillance capacities and report public health
crises immediately. It also asks nations not yet affected by a new pathogen to
avoid punishing those that are through travel and trade restrictions. “These
revisions were all about trying to get countries to sacrifice their short-term
interests for the long-term well-being of all countries,” said Sridhar…
“The IHR operates on mutual trust largely, and
it is a mutual trust,” said Eccleston-Turner. “That mutual trust has been
eroded over a number of outbreaks where member states have ignored the
recommendations from WHO.”” (A)
“Human intervention, or lack
thereof, may also have been a factor. More than half a dozen doctors first
discussed the threat of a potential coronavirus outbreak in early December only
to be silenced by the local Communist Party, according to some critics of the
government.
Yaxue Cao, founder and editor of
the political pressure group ChinaChange.org, said a Wuhan doctor posted in a
WeChat group to say there were seven cases of SARS connected to the seafood
market. He was then scolded by the party disciplinary office, and forced to
retract that, Cao said.
“From the same report, we
learned that Wuhan health authorities were having overnight meetings about the
new ‘SARS’ at end of December,” Cao posted on Jan. 27. “Earlier today. the
Wuhan mayor said he was not ‘authorized’ to publicize the epidemic until Jan.
20.”…
The spread was likely helped by
China’s Lunar New Year holiday last month. Wuhan mayor Zhou Xianwang said 5
million people had left the city before travel restrictions were imposed ahead
of the Chinese New Year.
“People unfamiliar with China
have trouble understanding the immense travel phenomenon that occurs during
Lunar New Year, when, over a one-month period, some 3 billion people are on the
move, many returning to their home towns and regions but others vacationing,”
Tanner Brown, a Beijing-based journalist, wrote for MarketWatch last month.
“Peak travel occurs this week.”..
People also may not know they’re
carrying the virus. Symptoms of common human coronaviruses include a runny
nose, headache, cough, sore throat, fever and a general feeling of being
unwell, according to the CDC. Symptoms of the new coronavirus can include
fever, cough and shortness of breath…
But it was weeks since the virus
was first discovered before flights were curtailed, and the global travel
industry is ideal for many viruses to travel long distances.
In an attempt to remain
competitive, airlines have decreased their turnaround times in recent years.
Many budget airlines have reduced turnaround times to 25 minutes by removing
the seat pockets. Other airlines have managed to have long-haul turnaround
times of 90 minutes. Not only do planes get a new plane load of passengers,
they often get a completely different crew.
Deep cleans are not always
possible during such turnarounds. Charles Gerba, a microbiologist at the University
of Arizona, recommends using hand sanitizers or disinfectant wipes,
particularly when traveling and/or at the office, where people may be reluctant
to stay home if they’re sick.” (B)
“China’s new coronavirus may
peter out. Or it might join the flu on the roster of the world’s winter
illnesses — a bug that will be routinely vaccinated against. Or it might become
a global pandemic, killing millions of people.
Experts don’t have enough
information to predict which of these very different scenarios will come to
pass. So for now, they are cautious.
“The issue is, we don’t know.
And any sort of prediction would be ill-advised,” said the director of National
Institute of Allergy And Infectious Disease, Anthony Fauci, at a Friday
briefing by the presidential task force on coronavirus. “You really do prepare
for the worst possible scenario.”
Scenario 1: The virus stays
mostly in China
WHO officials this week still
expressed hope that the Chinese government will largely contain the coronavirus
through unprecedented travel restrictions and quarantine in Hubei province and
elsewhere that most closely resemble martial law enacted over tens of millions
of people. The quarantines began two weeks ago, and the coronavirus is thought
to have an incubation period of up to 14 days, which is leading to questions
about how well the measures have worked, especially after China locked down
Guangzhou City, population 14 million, just this Friday…
Scenario 2: Another seasonal flu
If the coronavirus does manage
to spread widely outside of China, it isn’t necessarily catastrophic. It could
turn out to have seasonal behavior, flaring up in winter like the flu. That
pattern has been seen in at least two of the common coronaviruses that affect
people. If that’s the case for this new one, said Fauci, “when you start
getting into the spring weather of April, May, and June, it almost certainly
would start to turn around.”
On the downside, that means it
would just come back next winter. That happened with the 1918 Spanish flu
pandemic that hit the world in two seasonal waves.
Still, the extra time wouldn’t
hurt, allowing for clinical trials to test the effectiveness of antiviral drugs
used on an emergency basis in the outbreak. China has started two randomized
clinical trials of a promising drug called remdesivir, overseen by respiratory
disease expert Cao Bin at Beijing’s China–Japan Friendship Hospital. (One of
the 12 US patients with the coronavirus tried the drug and recovered a day
later.)..
Scenario 3: Deadly global
pandemic
Then there’s the worst-case
scenario: The relatively few cases popping up in dozens of countries flare up
worldwide in the coming months with deadly consequences. It happened in 1957,
when a flu pandemic killed 1.1 million people worldwide, and again in 1968, when
another flu strain killed about 1 million people….
…That means the new coronavirus
might have already skirted containment efforts and might be worse than reported
in Hubei province, where some news reports have come of elderly people dying
without ever being tested by hospitals. China’s nationwide travel ban, and
reports of one province offering a $140 bounty to people who turn in recent
arrivals from Wuhan, said Fisman, “are not things you do when you are winning
against an outbreak.”…
The one caution about all
predictions early in past outbreaks is that they don’t tend to match up with
the outcome,” said Fisman, acknowledging his own expectations have worsened as
the outbreak has continued. “We still don’t know a lot.”(C)
“As it continues to spread around
the world, bringing panic with it, scientists are striving to develop ways of
fighting this previously unknown threat. Sophisticated computer modelling is
being used to track and predict its transmission, while virologists are
attempting to engineer a vaccine. Others are seeking drug treatments that can
help those who fall ill with the infection.
But this is not the first
coronavirus scientists have encountered, and defeating them is harder than you
might think. Even after decades of trying, coronaviruses are formidable foes…
In order to get a reliable model
of how the disease spreads, Donnelly says, there are a few things we need to
know about the virus. First, how long someone might be infected by it before
developing symptoms. This is called the incubation period. Second, we need to
know how long someone with the virus remains infectious for, and in cases where
patients do not recover, how quickly the virus can cause death. “That helps us
estimate the case fatality rate,” says Donnelly.
Super spreaders shed far larger
numbers of the virus particles than other patients, increasing the chance they
will infect someone else
Another important factor is the
reproduction number, which is how many other people someone with the disease
will infect. Donnelly and her colleagues have estimated the new coronavirus to
have a reproduction number of about 2.6. “If that number is greater than one,
then you expect there to be an outbreak,” she says….
Even if it can be diagnosed
quickly, finding an effective treatment for a virus like this is famously
difficult…
The speed at which coronaviruses
mutate and so change their characteristics makes them hard to vaccinate
against. Vaccines tend to train the immune system to target a particular
feature, such as a protein structure on the shell of the virus. But by
continually altering its appearance, our immune systems find it hard to
recognise different infections. It is partly why the common cold has been so
difficult to develop a vaccine against…
But it is still an open question
as to whether a treatment or a vaccine will be found within a matter of months
or if it will take years. Until then, says Donnelly, all that can be done is to
continue to monitor the virus and try to stop it spreading.” (D)
“What do we most need to know next?
For epidemiologists who track infectious diseases, the most pressing concerns
are how to estimate the lethality of the disease and who is susceptible;
getting detailed information on how it spreads; and evaluating the success of
control measures so far.
No. 1 is the “clinical iceberg”
question: How much of it is hidden below the surface? Because the outbreak is
still evolving, we can’t yet see the totality of those infected. Out of view is
some proportion of mildly infected people, with minor symptoms or no symptoms,
who no one knows are infected…
In 2003, during the early days
of the SARS outbreak, the medical community got the math wrong. At first, we
believed that case fatality hovered between 2 percent and 3 percent. It took
two pages of longhand algebra, written in Oxford, England, coded into a
computer in London and then applied to data from Hong Kong, to get it right.
The actual case fatality for Hong Kong was staggering: 17 percent…
Knowing the number of people
likely to die, or who get seriously sick or have zero symptoms, will help
health authorities determine the strength of the response required. They can
better estimate how many isolation beds, heart-lung machines and medicines,
among other things, are needed…
Along with getting a grasp on
the level of severity is figuring out susceptibility, or who is most at risk
for infection. The data so far indicates that this would include older adults,
the obese and people with underlying medical conditions. There are few reports
of children becoming infected. But are they not showing symptoms, or are they
immune? And could they infect others as silent carriers?..
Returning to the big picture, we
must also refine what we know about how the new coronavirus is passed between
people. Even as the outbreak appears to keep escalating, we believe the rapid —
sometimes necessarily draconian — response of governments and health
authorities has made a dent in transmission. In another recent study, we
estimated how many people could get infected if there were no drastic public
health interventions. Our goal with this report was to sound the alarm over
what could be, so that it wouldn’t be…
The goal is to stay at least a
couple of steps ahead of the epidemic curve. Scientists must prepare health
authorities to catch any subsequent waves of infections and prepare for the
possibility that this particular virus could reappear seasonally — and maybe
one day it could be only as bad as the common cold.
I’ve seen record-breaking
outbreaks before and witnessed the world rally. If we all play our roles and
remain on guard, then chances are we will defeat the new coronavirus, too…” (E)
“Even as U.S. authorities have
taken the drastic steps of quarantining residents returning from China and
temporarily banning foreign visitors who recently traveled to affected Chinese
regions, they have urged the vast majority of U.S. residents to go about their
regular activities.
But there are exceptions. People
who returned from China on or after Feb. 3 have been formally quarantined or
asked to stay home. And behind the scenes, local public health officials have
launched painstaking efforts to reach “close contacts” of people with confirmed
cases of the virus, dubbed 2019-nCoV, asking them to self-quarantine and submit
to ongoing monitoring.
So what exactly is a ‘close
contact’?..
For the new coronavirus,
guidelines from the federal U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
define “close contact” as anyone who has been within 6 feet of a person
infected with the virus for a “prolonged period of time,” as well as those who
have had direct contact with the infected person’s secretions. These guidelines
are then interpreted by local public health departments…
In the US, health officials
continue to stress low risk of coronavirus..
There is some case-by-case
decision-making in assessing risk, Rudman said. Whether a health professional
was wearing gloves, a mask or other protective equipment, and what kind of
interaction they had with the patient, all factor in.
And because they work with
people who are sick and may be at higher risk from infection, health care
workers may be asked to take more extreme precautions. Santa Clara County’s
public health department asked at least five people to go on two weeks of paid
leave after a man who visited the hospital where they worked later tested
positive for the virus.
Earlier cases were not so
straightforward. One factor that has made the investigations particularly
challenging is confusion over whether the virus can be spread by an infected person
who is not showing symptoms. Health departments say that, given the
uncertainty, they are taking a cautious approach and looking for any contacts
going back three days before symptoms started. “Fortunately, we have so few
cases, so we can do that,” Rudman said.
Rudman declined to say how many
people are being monitored in Santa Clara but noted that having so few cases
has meant she and her colleagues have had time to be methodical about who might
be at risk. She hopes that will provide comfort to others in the community.”
(F)
“A new report into the range of
symptoms experienced by coronavirus patients suggests that around one in 10
suffer from diarrhea and nausea for a few days before developing breathing
difficulties, leading to suggestions that the pathogen may be transmitted via
feces. While this route of transmission has not been confirmed, the new data
does raise the possibility that doctors may have missed some key early warning
signs by focusing only on cases involving respiratory symptoms.
It has already been established
that the virus is primarily passed on by droplets in an infected person’s
cough, and the new study – which features in the Journal of the American
Medical Association (JAMA) – found that the majority of coronavirus patients at
a hospital in Wuhan, China, suffered from symptoms such as fever, muscle pain,
and shortness of breath at the onset of the illness.
However, of the 138 patients
observed by the study authors, 14 initially presented with diarrhea or nausea,
developing more classic coronavirus symptoms a day or two later. According to
Chinese media reports, doctors found traces of viral nucleic acids in the stool
of patients who exhibited these atypical digestive symptoms.
The first US patient to be
diagnosed with coronavirus is also said to have experienced diarrhea for a few
days, and the virus was also found to be present in his feces.
While this doesn’t mean that
fecal matter is responsible for the spread of the illness, it does provide
evidence for another similarity between coronavirus and SARS, to which it is
related. Back in 2003, hundreds of people in a Hong Kong housing estate became
infected with SARS thanks to a plume of warm air emanating from a bathroom that
had been used by an infected person…
Significantly, 41 percent of
patients in the study became infected in hospital, with both healthcare workers
and patients who had been hospitalized for other reasons catching coronavirus.
Regardless of the transmission route, therefore, it seems that hospitals are a
potential breeding ground for the virus, suggesting that improved hygiene may
be necessary to prevent its spread.” (G)
“The coronavirus epidemic could
grip about two-thirds of the world’s population if the deadly bug is not
controlled, a top public health official said — as another expert predicted
that cases in China could peak this month and fade away by April.
Professor Gabriel Leung, chair
of public health medicine at Hong Kong University, told the Guardian he was
examining the implications of the World Health Organization’s Monday warning
that cases of coronavirus spreading outside China are the “tip of the iceberg.”
Most experts believe that each
person infected can go on to transmit coronavirus to about 2.5 other people —
creating an “attack rate” of 60 to 80 percent, Leung told the paper.
“Sixty percent of the world’s
population is an awfully big number,” he said.
Even with a general fatality
rate as low as 1 percent — a possibility once milder cases are taken into
account — there could still be a massive global death toll, he added.
Meanwhile, experts are
attempting to map out the likely course of the illness, Leung told the
Guardian.
“Is 60 to 80 percent of the
world’s population going to get infected?” he said. “Maybe not. Maybe this will
come in waves. Maybe the virus is going to attenuate its lethality because it
certainly doesn’t help it if it kills everybody in its path, because it will
get killed as well.”
Health officials are also
attempting to determine whether restrictions put in place in Wuhan — the
epicenter of the outbreak — as well as other cities, have made a positive
impact.
“Have these massive public
health interventions, social distancing, and mobility restrictions worked in
China?” Leung asked. “If so, how can we roll them out, or is it not possible?”
“(H)
“The disease caused by the new
coronavirus that’s sickened more than 42,000 people in China now has an
official name: COVID-19. It stands for the coronavirus disease that was
discovered in 2019.
The World Health Organization
announced the name Tuesday, saying it was careful to find a name without
stigma.
“We had to find a name that
did not refer to a geographical location, an animal, or an individual or group
of people,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a call
with reporters.” (I)
“Time will tell if the new
coronavirus ends up being less or more dangerous than the flu; we don’t fully
know yet how bad it is. Usually, the diseases that stick around tend to become
less lethal. Only live hosts can continue to make more viruses. Influenza is
also pretty devious in how it mutates its surface molecules from year to year
to evade immune system detection. If 2019-nCoV is not able to do that, people’s
immunity to it could gradually improve.
But therein lies the paradox.
The outcome that has public health officials really concerned is that 2019-nCoV
will turn into something like a disease that we have a tough time making you
worry about right now.
Every year physicians and public
health officials try to get you to immunize yourselves against the flu, and far
too many of you don’t. We beg you to practice proper precautions and hygiene —
and, still, tens of thousands of people die, and too few worry enough.
Governments and employers could
help by making it easier for sick people to stay home from work. Many Americans
without paid sick leave go to work despite feeling ill, and many of those work
at restaurants, schools and hospitals, where disease is easily spread.
The most significant defense the
United States has to prevent pandemics is a solid public health infrastructure.
The public has to trust it. The system also needs to be properly prepared and
have the resources to handle a widespread infection. (The system is currently
stretched thin and underfunded.) It’s critical to make sure there are enough
medical supplies available, as well as necessities like food, to get a
community through an outbreak.” (J)
“The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention is preparing for the coronavirus, named COVID-19, to “take a
foothold in the U.S.,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National
Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters. “At some
point, we are likely to see community spread in the U.S. or in other
countries,” said Messonnier. “This will trigger a change in our response
strategy.” (K)
“An apartment building in Hong
Kong, its units linked by pipes. A department store in the eastern Chinese city
of Tianjin, where more than 11,000 shoppers and employees mingled. A ski chalet
in France, home base for a group of British citizens on vacation.
These sites, scattered around
the world, have become linked by a grim commonality: They are places where
pockets of new coronavirus cases have emerged in recent days, raising fears
about the virus’s ability to spread quickly and far beyond its origins in
central China.” (L)
“Right now scientists are trying
to accomplish something that was inconceivable a decade ago: create a vaccine
against a previously unknown virus rapidly enough to help end an outbreak of
that virus. In this case, they’re trying to stop the spread of the new
coronavirus that has already infected tens of thousands of people, mainly in
China, and given rise to a respiratory condition now known as COVID-19.
Typically, making a new vaccine
takes a decade or longer. But new genetic technologies and new strategies make
researchers optimistic that they can shorten that timetable to months, and
possibly weeks — and have a tool by the fall that can slow the spread of
infection.” (M)
“As the new coronavirus
continued to spread unabated within the city of Wuhan, China, government
officials last week imposed draconian measures.
Workers in protective gear were
instructed to go to every home in the city, removing infected residents to
immense isolation wards built hastily in a sports stadium, an exhibition center
and a building complex…
Many experts are skeptical that
isolating thousands of patients in shelters can stanch the spread of the
coronavirus. There are more than 40,000 cases in China now, in every province,
although the wide majority are in Hubei Province.
“This is a bit like closing the
barn door after the horses are already out,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an
infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville…
Wuhan’s makeshift shelters may
yet become breeding grounds for infection, especially if patients are not
properly screened, Dr. Markel and other experts said.
The patients already are in a
weakened state, and facilities like these make it easy for viruses and bacteria
to travel — not just the coronavirus, but also any of the dozens of pathogens
that may thrive when people gather in tight quarters.
“Whenever we put people in
facilities together, even during a hurricane, we are concerned about them
getting infectious diseases,” said Nicole A. Errett, a researcher at the
University of Washington who is a co-director of the Collaborative on Extreme
Event Resilience.” (N)
“CMS sent a memo to state survey
agency directors urging them to double down on compliance with basic infection
control practices.
The memo includes information
and links to resources to combat the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.
It also states that healthcare staff and surveyors, including federal, state
and local contractors are expected to adhere to standard infection control
practices, such as CDC recommendations on standard hand hygiene practices.
In 2020 surveys, CMS and
accrediting organization acute care surveyors will be especially alert to hand
hygiene practices, including the use of alcohol-based hand rub/hand sanitizer,
the preferred method of hand hygiene in clinical settings, the memo says.
“We know that adherence to
basic infection control and prevention practices such as hand hygiene can help
reduce the risk of infectious disease spread in all healthcare settings,”
the memo reads.” (O)
“Successful outbreak control
works like this: Patients report their symptoms to health-care workers. Those
health-care workers then report unusual cases to local public-health officials
who investigate the illness. Those officials may isolate ailing patients,
identify others with whom they have come into contact, and monitor those
individuals. The results of these investigations are reported to government
officials, who communicate reliable information about the outbreak and its
causes to the public and the press. That information enables those who are not
sick to take measures, such as hand washing and avoiding crowds, to prevent
themselves from getting infected and spreading the outbreak. The promise of
reliable information and competent, supportive medical care convinces others
who are suffering symptoms to come forward so that new cases are identified,
tracked, and treated. This cycle continues until the virus stops infecting new
people, the people already infected get well or perish, and the outbreak burns
out.
In short, shoe-leather public
health and basic medical care—not miracle drugs—are generally what stop
outbreaks of emerging infections like severe-acute respiratory syndrome and the
Ebola virus. However, in many countries without responsive governments, open
press, and rudimentary health-care systems, controlling an infection becomes
much harder. Officials in repressive societies are more apt to rely on
counterproductive censorship and quarantine measures that unduly interfere with
citizens’ rights and spread distrust.” (P)
“Further increasing the danger
of outbreaks and epidemics is another by-product of better health: complacency.
In 2013, less than 0.5 percent of international health aid was devoted to
preventing infectious-disease outbreaks, and the portion of the World Health
Organization budget funded by dues from 194 member countries had dwindled to
less than the budget of the New York City Department of Health. Starved of
funds, the international system intended to control outbreaks like Ebola failed
miserably in West Africa.
After that episode, the Obama
administration established a White House–based directorate to respond to
outbreaks and dedicated $1 billion to help poor countries build the basic
capabilities to prevent, detect, and respond to pandemic threats. The Trump
administration has assisted in the international response to Ebola in Congo and
offered China help in the current coronavirus crisis, but it also dismantled
the White House directorate on pandemic preparedness and urged that U.S.
funding for global health security return to pre-2014 levels.” (Q)
(A) The tricky business of disease diplomacy, by Julia Bellu,
https://www.vox.com/2020/2/10/21124881/coronavirus-outbreak-china-li-wenliang-world-health-organization
(B) As coronavirus infections exceed 37,000, here’s how it
spread so rapidly, by QUENTIN FOTTRELL,
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-the-mysterious-coronavirus-from-china-has-spread-so-quickly-2020-01-21
(C) Three Scenarios For The Coronavirus, by Dan Vergano,
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/danvergano/coronavirus-spread-flu-pandemic
(D) In just a couple of months the new coronavirus that emerged
from the Chinese city of Wuhan has spread around the world, sparking a race to
find treatments and vaccines against it, by Abigail Beall,
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200210-coronavirus-finding-a-cure-to-fight-the-symptoms
(E) The Urgent Questions Scientists Are Asking About Coronavirus,
by Gabriel Leung,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/opinion/coronavirus-china-research.html?referringSource=articleShare
(F) US health officials are seeking ‘close contacts’ of
coronavirus. Here’s what that means, Anna Maria Barry, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/02/10/us-health-officials-seek-coronavirus-close-contacts-what-means/4714247002/
(G) Coronavirus May Be Transmitted Via Poop As Well As Coughing,
Scientists Suggest, by Ben Taub,
https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/coronavirus-may-transmitted-via-poop-well-coughing-scientists-suggest/
(H) Expert warns coronavirus could infect 60% of world’s
population, by Amanda Woods,
https://nypost.com/2020/02/11/expert-warns-coronavirus-could-infect-60-of-worlds-population/
(I) Coronavirus gets official name from WHO: COVID-19, by
Erika Edwards,
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/coronavirus-gets-official-name-who-covid-19-n1134756
(J) Lessons That Go Beyond the Coronavirus Outbreak, by Aaron
E. Carroll, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/upshot/coronavirus-risk-prevention-advice.html?referringSource=articleShare
(K) CDC prepares for community outbreaks in US,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/12/coronavirus-latest-updates.html
(L) A Store, a Chalet, an Unsealed Pipe: Coronavirus Hot Spots
Flare Far From Wuhan, by Viviann Wang, Austin Ramzy and Megan Specia,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/world/asia/china-coronavirus-clusters.html?referringSource=articleShare
(M) Timetable For A Vaccine Against The New Coronavirus? Maybe
This Fall, by JOE PALCA,
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/02/12/804628081/timetable-for-a-vaccine-against-the-new-coronavirus-maybe-this-fall
(N) Huge Shelters for Coronavirus Patients Pose New Risks,
Experts Fear, by Roni Caryn Rabin, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/health/coronavirus-quarantine.html?referringSource=articleShare
(O) Don’t slip on infection control basics amid coronavirus
outbreak, CMS warns, by Anuja Vaidya,
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/don-t-slip-on-infection-control-basics-amid-coronavirus-outbreak-cms-warns.html
(P) Coronavirus likely now ‘gathering steam’, by Alvin Powell,
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/02/harvard-expert-says-coronavirus-likely-just-gathering-steam/
(Q) Coronavirus Is Spreading Because Humans Are Healthier, by
Thomas J. Bollyky,
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/coronavirus-spreading-because-humans-are-healthier/606448/
POST 6. February 17,
2020. Coronovirus. “Amid assurances that the (ocean liner) Westerdam was
disease free, hundreds of people disembarked in Cambodia…” “ One was later
found to be infected”…. “Over 1,000… passengers were in…transit home”…. “This
could be a turning point””
“Confronting a viral epidemic
with a scant supply of protective equipment, more than 1,700 Chinese medical
workers have already been infected, and six have died.
In the hospital where Yu Yajie
works, nurses, doctors and other medical professionals fighting the new
coronavirus have also been fighting dire shortages. They have used tape to
patch up battered protective masks, repeatedly reused goggles meant for
one-time use, and wrapped their shoes in plastic bags for lack of specialized
coverings.
Ms. Yu is now lying at home,
feverish and fearful that she has been infected with the virus. She and other
employees at the hospital said a lack of protective wear had left medical
workers like her vulnerable in Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the heart of
the epidemic that has engulfed this region.
“There are risks — there simply
aren’t enough resources,” Ms. Yu, an administrator at Wuhan Central Hospital,
said in a brief telephone interview, adding that she was too weak to speak at
length.
Chinese medical workers at the
forefront of the fight against the coronavirus epidemic are often becoming its
victims, partly because of government missteps and logistical hurdles.
After the virus emerged in Wuhan
late last year, city leaders played down its risks, so doctors didn’t take
precautions…
On Friday, the Chinese
government for the first time disclosed the toll the outbreak was taking on
hospital employees: 1,716 medical workers had contracted the virus, including
1,502 in Wuhan, and six had died.” (A)
“Officials are also looking to
see whether the medical workers were exposed to the virus unknowingly within a
clinical environment and whether they were wearing protective equipment at the
time, Ryan said. “There are a whole lot of factors we need to look at, and we
will be doing that with Chinese authorities.”…
Dr. Sylvie Briand, head of WHO’s
Global Infectious Hazard Preparedness division, told reporters that the health
workers may have been fatigued at the time they were infected and weren’t
taking proper protective measures because they were too tired. China has sent
medical professionals from several regions to support those workers, she said….
WHO is asking suppliers of
protective gear to prioritize sending the equipment to regions most affected by
the virus.
Last week, WHO said it sent
medical supplies such as masks, gloves, gowns and diagnostic tests around the
world. It is discouraging stockpiling of protective gear, saying the limited
number of items need to be saved for regions most affected by the virus. The
price of protective gear has increased, while availability has decreased, WHO
officials said…
On Thursday, world health
officials said they were scrambling to determine just how widespread the new
coronavirus is as Chinese authorities reported a surge in new cases after
changing how they count confirmed infections.
“How big is the iceberg?” Ryan
said. “We do know, and we all accept, that there is transmission occurring at
some level in communities. We’ve all seen those clusters, we’ve all seen those
super spreading events.” (B)
“A sudden spike in new coronavirus
cases in China this week shocked researchers. But the huge bump in numbers
isn’t a sign that the epidemic is worsening, say researchers, it is instead the
result of authorities changing how cases are confirmed.
On 12 February, Hubei province
reported nearly 15,000 new cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the
coronavirus, representing a 33% jump in total infections worldwide in a single
day. Total infections in China now number around 64,000, with more than 1,300
deaths.
But most of the Hubei cases — about
13,000 — are the result of a new policy in the province that means physicians
can diagnose suspected cases of COVID-19 on the basis of chest images, rather
than having to wait for genetic tests to confirm the presence of the virus,
which can take days.
The policy is in response to
pleas from clinicians who are overwhelmed by patients with respiratory
diseases, and don’t have time to wait for lab results, says Wu Zunyou, chief
epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, who
helped design and implementing the new policy. “The clinicians in Hubei made a
very strong request to modify the criteria because of their heavy work load,”
he says. Now they can care for people more quickly and ensure they are properly
isolated to protect others, says Wu. “We need to save lives.”
The policy makes sense from a
medical point of view, says Michael Mina, an infectious-disease immunologist
and epidemiologist at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston,
Massachusetts. “Triaging based on symptomatic evaluation and physical exam is
the bed rock of hospital-based and clinical triage,” he says.” (C)
“Hospitals in Wuhan, China — the
largest city in Hubei Province and the center of the epidemic — have struggled
to diagnose infections with scarce and complicated tests that detect the
virus’s genetic signature directly. Other countries, too, have had such issues.
Instead, officials in Hubei now
seem to be including infections diagnosed by using lung scans of symptomatic
patients. This shortcut will help get more patients into needed care,
provincial officials said. Adding them to the count could make it easier for
the authorities to decide how to allocate resources and assess treatment
options.
But the change also shows the
enormous number of people in Hubei who are sick and have not been counted in
the outbreak’s official tally. It also raises the question whether the
province, already struggling, is equipped to deal with the new patients.
The few experts to learn of the
new numbers on Wednesday night were startled. Lung scans are an imperfect means
to diagnose patients. Even patients with ordinary seasonal flu may develop
pneumonia visible on a lung scan.” (D)
“Even before today’s news,
experts complained that epidemiological information from China has been
incomplete, threatening containment efforts.
The new coronavirus is highly
transmissible and will be difficult to squelch. A single infected
“super-spreader” can infect dozens of others. Outbreaks can seem to recede,
only to rebound in short order, as the weather or conditions change.
Recent clusters of coronavirus
cases suggest the new coronavirus not only spreads quickly, but also in ways
that are not entirely understood.
In Hong Kong, people living 10
floors apart were infected, and an unsealed pipe was blamed. A British citizen
apparently infected 10 people, including some at a ski chalet, before he even
knew he was sick.
In Tianjin, China, at least 33
of 102 confirmed patients had a connection of some sort with a large department
store.
“This outbreak could still go in
any direction,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World
Health Organization, said on Wednesday.
A change in diagnosis may make
it still harder to track the virus, said Dr. Peter Rabinowitz, co-director of
the University of Washington MetaCenter for Pandemic Preparedness and Global
Health Security.” (E)
“The head of the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention said the new coronavirus, which has killed
nearly 1,400 people and is still spreading in China, could be around for at
least another year. The outbreak has affected almost 50,000 people worldwide.
There are 15 confirmed cases in the U.S. but none are said to be suffering
serious symptoms.
The agency is setting up five
labs around the U.S. where people with flu-like symptoms can be tested for
coronavirus if their flu results are negative. The virus, dubbed COVID-19, has
spread to more than two dozen countries.
The CDC is ramping up its own
response to the epidemic by setting up five labs around the U.S. where people
with flu-like symptoms can now be tested for coronavirus if their flu results
are negative. This comes as scientists around the world race to develop a
vaccine.” (F)
“Another U.S. case of infection
with the novel coronavirus was confirmed Thursday, bringing the total number of
domestic cases to 15. Around the world, cases have reached nearly 60,000 to
date.
But if something changes and
large numbers of people get infected in the U.S., is the country’s health
system prepared to cope with a surge of patients with this virus, or any future
pathogen?
“Surge capacity in the
health care system is something that we think a lot about and prepare for in
the U.S., and not specifically to coronavirus per se, but for a whole host of
events that could occur in the United States,” says Jonathan Greene,
director of emergency management and medical operations at the Department of
Health and Human Services…
“No one is ready for a
worst case-scenario for a really bad, lethal, fast-moving pandemic,” says
bioterrorism and biosafety expert Dr. Tara O’Toole, former undersecretary for
science and technology at the Department of Homeland Security and now at
In-Q-Tel, a nonprofit strategic investment firm that supports U.S. national security.
For instance, O’Toole thinks
that hospitals would have a very hard time handling a lot of critically ill
patients who need to be in isolation. “That’s why we want to make sure
that the people we’re putting in hospitals and keeping isolated are really the ones
who need that kind of care,” she says…
What’s needed is a strategic
approach to rapidly deal with an epidemic, says O’Toole, but “we don’t
have a strategy and we haven’t built the infrastructure” to do so….
On the other hand, HHS official
Greene argues that the nation’s health care system is better prepared than it
has been in the past. “We’ve gone through outbreaks of other diseases,
other coronaviruses, SARS and MERS,” he says. And each one of those
experiences has helped the system develop “tactics, capabilities, training
and education to be able to deal with whatever comes down the road. This is
just one more in a long history of disease outbreaks that we’re being asked to
tackle.”
The strategic national
stockpile, says Greene, holds “millions of face masks, and supplies of
respirators, gloves and surgical gowns that could potentially be deployed if
state and local supplies are diminished during this current outbreak.”
Greene says that HHS is working with the health care sector and the supply chain
to ensure that any disruptions that may occur or shortages are
“short-lived and that the right amount of material can be provided”
as soon as possible.” (G)
“Dr. Craig Spencer was the first
patient in New York diagnosed with Ebola in 2014. After that experience, he
wrote, “When we look back on this epidemic, I hope we’ll recognize that fear
caused our initial hesitance to respond — and caused us to respond poorly when
we finally did.” In terms of New York, what has changed since then?
Our overall preparedness in
maintaining our readiness — that’s a key phrase we use — has exponentially
increased since 2014 because we’re constantly collaborating, coordinating, and
communicating at all levels — local, state, national, and even international.
We’ve been given funding on a national scale to prepare for Ebola and special
pathogens. It wasn’t just specifically for viral hemorrhagic fevers like Ebola;
it gave us funding to prepare for coronavirus disease, for MERS, for SARS, the
full gamut. From that funding we were able to do more drills, exercises,
collaborative public health. The unfortunate part is that funding was only for
five years, and it actually expires in a matter of months — in 2020. So this
entire infrastructure that we’ve built across the nation is going to get
dismantled in a couple of months, which is mind-boggling knowing we’re in a
potential pandemic situation and we’re letting our guard down.
The other thing we’ve also done
is, we want to make sure we’re giving patients the opportunity to tell us what
they have. Before, it was you come in, come to the front desk, and they ask,
“What are you here for.” By that time it’s basically too late. Because you’ve
come in through the door, there are probably 50 people waiting in the waiting
area, if you’re coming in with something respiratory and you’re coughing and
sneezing, you’ve probably infected a number of folks around there. One of the
strategies we’ve implemented is something very basic: respiratory stations,
which basically have simple masks, hand sanitizer, a tissue, and a sign that
says, “Do you have a fever? Do you have a cough? Do you have a rash? Yes?
Please take a mask. If a mask is not there use a tissue and sanitize your
hands.” And it tells you, “If you have travel history let us know immediately.”
So now we’re letting patients self-identify. It helps expedite that triage
process. Before this outbreak and the Ebola outbreak in 2014, we only had those
stands during seasonal flu time, and once seasonal flu was done we would take
out that stand. Now we know these infectious diseases are all around us, so
it’s all season long…
What are you most concerned
about right now sitting here? What’s going to keep you up tonight?
Based on everything that we’ve
been seeing, reading, looking at what’s happening in China, it doesn’t seem
like this virus is containable. It’s not the fault of the government itself or
China itself, it’s the nature of the virus. You just can’t stop a respiratory
virus, especially a respiratory one in nature where it’s the sheer form of
breathing and having droplets develop — you just can’t control it. It’s one of
those things we know we can’t contain, so we need to continue to prepare very
aggressively for it. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. What’s keeping me up
at night is knowing that these cases are going to continue to occur, and that’s
what the CDC has stated, that we’re going to see an increased number of cases.
We need to make sure that we’re able to identify every single one. It just
takes one person coming into one of our facilities to start an outbreak.” (H)
““On December 27, Syra Madad
published an op-ed in the Washington Post co-written with Ronald A. Klain. The
piece warned lawmakers that vital funding needed to prepare hospitals for
infectious-disease outbreaks would expire in May. “We do not know when the next
dangerous pathogen will arrive in our country,” it read, “but we do know that
it will happen — sooner or later.” Four days after the article was published,
on December 31, the government in Wuhan, China, reported to the World Health
Organization that it was treating dozens of patients for pneumonia of unknown
cause.
That was the beginning of a busy
January for Madad. As the senior director for the systemwide special-pathogens
program for NYC Health and Hospitals, it was her job to prepare the city’s 11
hospitals for an outbreak. Madad also happened to be the star of Pandemic, a
six part docuseries that premiered on Netflix on January 22 — a week after she
gave birth to her third child…
We want more time to continue
our trainings, so we can continue to prepare our front lines for the inevitable
surge of cases that we may potentially see. We may not get a whole lot of cases
or we may get a number of cases, but either way it’s best for us to prepare for
the worst-case scenario. If we have a surge of cases present, we’re looking at
it from a 4S standpoint or the emergency-management approach: staffing, stuff,
space, and system. Based on those four high-level domains, we’re looking at how
we can bulk up staffing. Because the No. 1 asset in the health-care system is
our people, and without our people we can’t take care of patients. Do we get
volunteers involved? Do we look at our memorandum of agreements with other
agencies to bulk up our staffing? Things like that. (I)
“Doctors in five U.S. cities
will begin testing patients with flu-like symptoms for the new coronavirus, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
The coronavirus test will only
be given to patients who test negative for the flu. So far, the testing
protocol will be implemented in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco
and Seattle, though more cities will be added.
It’s a sign that the U.S. is
broadening its surveillance of the illness.
This is just the starting
point,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for
Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during a press briefing Friday.
“We plan to expand to more sites in the coming weeks.”
Messonnier said the increased
testing is part of an effort to determine whether the virus is spreading in
communities across the U.S. “The results would be an early warning signal
to trigger a change in our response strategy,” she said.” (J)
“As an outbreak of a novel
coronavirus has swept through Hubei province, China, the US Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention has been preparing for its worst case scenario — a
widespread outbreak of illnesses in the United States.
“Right now we’re in an
aggressive containment mode,” CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told CNN’s
Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta in an interview on Thursday.
“We don’t know a lot about
this virus,” he said. “This virus is probably with us beyond this
season, beyond this year, and I think eventually the virus will find a foothold
and we will get community-based transmission.”
As of Thursday, there have been
15 cases of the novel coronavirus confirmed in seven states: eight in
California; two in Illinois; and one in Arizona, Washington, Massachusetts,
Wisconsin and Texas.
While more research is needed to
fully understand the virus, Redfield told Gupta that the CDC has focused on
surveillance to track cases and containment strategies to slow possible
progression of the virus in the United States. Slowing progression gives more
time for researchers to work on developing and testing a vaccine and antiviral
drugs for this novel coronavirus. Currently, there is no known cure for the
virus.
“The containment phase is
really to give us more time. This virus will become a community virus at some
point in time, this year or next year,” Redfield said. “We don’t have
any evidence that this coronavirus is really embedded in the community at this
time, but with that said, we want to intensify our surveillance so that we’re
basing those conclusions based on data.”
The containment strategy refers
to efforts to prevent widespread transmission of the coronavirus in the United
States, including having people with confirmed cases stay in isolation and
placing restrictions on travel between affected areas in the world. Such
containment measures were used widely during the SARS global outbreak of 2003,
during which 8,098 people worldwide became sick and of those, 774 died,
according to the CDC…
“What I’ve learned in the
last two weeks is that the spectrum of this illness is much broader than was
originally presented. There’s much more asymptomatic illness,” Redfield
said. “A number of the confirmed cases that we confirmed actually just
presented with a little sore throat.””
(K)
“When 195 Americans, including
diplomats, were evacuated from Wuhan, China, last month, they were tested for
the coronavirus on arrival at a California military base. Health officials
swabbed the throats and noses of everyone in the group — the first to be
evacuated from Wuhan — and they were relieved when all of their tests came back
negative.
But as more government-arranged
flights evacuated Americans from China in the days that followed, the federal
health authorities adopted a new protocol: Only people who showed symptoms of
illness during a 14-day quarantine period would be tested. For some among the
more than 600 people who are still waiting to be cleared to go home from
military bases in three states, the new rule has left them worried — and angry.
Some are pleading with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to test
them for the coronavirus.
“We are not asking for
skateboards or toys,” said Jacob Wilson, 33, one of more than 30 people in
quarantine on a base in San Diego who signed a petition this week calling for
tests. “We are asking to get tested and make sure we are not passing anything
to other people.” (L)
The concerns come as three
people in quarantine on bases in San Diego and San Antonio, Texas, tested
positive for the virus, which has killed more than a thousand people in China
but so far has been found to have infected only 15 people in the United States.
In San Diego, where 232 people
are waiting out a government-mandated two-week quarantine, some evacuees said
they worried that they and their children had spent days mingling with people —
in an eating area, on a playground and in a laundry room — and would like to
know for sure whether or not they have the virus.
Fifteen cases of the coronavirus
have been confirmed in the United States, including a 35-year-old man in
Washington State, a couple in their 60s in Chicago and eight people in
California.
One of the people evacuated from
Wuhan last week to San Diego had coronavirus but was discharged because of a
labeling error.
Some evacuees are wondering why
they aren’t being tested on bases…
“We believe testing everyone at
the facility would help identify potential suspects as early as possible, so
the appropriate treatment could be put in place,” the evacuees wrote in the
petition, which they called a “suggestion letter” and shared with one another
over WeChat, a Chinese instant-messaging app.
The C.D.C., however, has
declined to test every evacuee. Officials said that such tests are less
accurate before people show symptoms, so a negative early result could be
misleading rather than helpful. The agency tested everyone on the first
evacuation flight, the officials said, because they were learning about the
virus and because doing so allowed them to collect more data about it. Since
then, they said, they have determined that swabbing hundreds of seemingly
healthy people is not useful.
“Every test has a limit of
detection,” said Dr. Joseph Bresee, a deputy incident manager for the C.D.C.’s
response to the coronavirus. “Early on, the test may or may not be able to pick
it up.”
Almost everyone who gets sick
from the virus will show symptoms within 14 days of exposure, often early
within that window, Dr. Bresee said. Evacuees on military bases are having
their temperature checked at least twice a day and are asked to alert health
officials if they feel sick or if their temperature rises.
Dr. Bresee said that he
empathized with evacuees who want definitive answers about whether they are
healthy.
“They’re concerned, they’re
nervous, and they want to be assured of their safety,” he said, adding that the
cost of testing was not a factor in the decision not to test everyone. “We
don’t think testing would be helpful, and if we did, we would test them.”” ..
“At the San Diego base, Marine
Corps Air Station Miramar, Mr. Wilson and others said that people had to leave
their rooms to get breakfast, lunch and dinner from a small room, which is also
where their temperatures were taken. People rummaged through boxes of fruit and
snacks with their bare hands, he said, and they stood shoulder to shoulder in
line waiting to check their temperatures despite being told to stay six feet
away from one another.
After the petition was
circulated, health officials agreed as of Thursday to deliver meals and take
temperatures at the room doors of evacuees who preferred it that way.
“The reality is, it’s impossible
for us to keep any distace from each other,” said Mr. Wilson, a tech
entrepreneur in Wuhan. He and others also said officials had not required
evacuees to wear masks.
Earlier in the week, a labeling
error led the authorities to return an ill woman to the base from a San Diego
hospital, though a test later showed that she had the coronavirus. The mistake
raised new worries among some evacuees. The C.D.C. had erroneously informed the
hospital that the woman had tested negative for the virus when, in fact, her
samples had not been tested. Health officials have tried to calm concerns,
saying the woman had been isolated from other evacuees before returning to the
hospital.
Dr. Bresee said that health
officials were learning more about the virus each day, but that there were no
plans to change testing procedures for the hundreds in quarantine.
“As we learn more, we may
pivot,” he said. “It doesn’t mean we were wrong once and are right now, it just
means we’re learning.”” (M)
“To combat the spread of the
coronavirus, Chinese officials are using a combination of technology and
policing to track movements of citizens who may have visited Hubei Province.
Mobile phone owners in China get
their service from one of three state-run telecommunications firms, which this
week introduced a feature for subscribers to send text messages to a hotline
that generates a list of provinces they have recently visited.
That has created a new way for
the authorities to see where citizens have traveled.
At a high-speed rail station in
the eastern city of Yiwu on Tuesday, officials in hazmat suits demanded that
passengers send the text messages and then show their location information to
the authorities before being permitted to leave the station. Those who had
passed through Hubei were unlikely to be allowed entry.
Other cities were taking similar
measures.
Companies in China generally shy
away from sharing location data with the local authorities, over fears it could
be leaked or sold. And there were some signs that the companies were
uncomfortable with the new rule.
China Mobile cautioned that the
data should be used cautiously, because it indicates where the phone has been,
not its owner. It also doesn’t differentiate between people who briefly passed
through a province and those who spent significant time there. (N)
“Coronavirus Test Kits Sent to
States Are Flawed, C.D.C. Says
Some tests distributed by the
agency deliver “inconclusive” readings. The C.D.C. will need to ship new ingredients,
further delaying results.
Some of the coronavirus testing
kits sent to state laboratories around the country have flaws and do not work
properly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday.
The kits were meant to enable
states to conduct their own testing and have results faster than they would by
shipping samples to the C.D.C. in Atlanta. But the failure of the kits means
that states that encountered problems with the test should not use it, and
would still have to depend on the C.D.C.’s central lab, which could cause
several days’ delay in getting results.
“Obviously, a state wouldn’t
want to be doing this test and using it to make clinical decisions if it isn’t
working as well, as perfectly, at the state as it is at C.D.C.,” Dr. Nancy
Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory
Diseases, said at a news conference on Wednesday.
The C.D.C. recommends testing
for some people who have symptoms like fever, cough or shortness of breath, and
who, within the past 14 days, have traveled to China or have been in close
contact with a patient known to be infected with the coronavirus. Doctors with
patients in that category are supposed to consult their state health department
about whether the patients should be tested for the virus…
Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of
the infectious diseases division at the University of Alabama at Birmingham,
said accurate diagnostic tests were invaluable.
“The test is the only way you
can definitely know you have the infection,” Dr. Marrazzo said. “You absolutely
need it for case counting. It allows you to know who’s infected. You can treat
those people, if a treatment is available, and you can isolate them.”..
The C.D.C. does not recommend
testing for people who may have been exposed to the virus but have no symptoms.
Even if they are infected, if they are still in the incubation period there may
not be enough virus in their bodies for the test to detect.
The inability to detect very
early infections is one reason for keeping planeloads of people from Wuhan in
quarantine instead of just testing them and letting them go if the results are
negative. A person could test negative and still be infected.
For the same reason, health
authorities say there is no benefit to testing symptom-free people on cruise
ships.
Because there is an unknown
window of time between when a person becomes infected and when the test can
find the virus, health officials have determined that a quarantine of two weeks
— believed to be the incubation period of the illness — is the best way to make
sure that people who may be infected do not transmit the virus to others.
Tests for other infectious
diseases can also fail to detect some cases. A panel of tests used to screen
for respiratory viruses when pneumonia is suspected can give negative results
even if a patient is infected, Dr. Marrazzo said. So can rapid tests for flu
and strep throat. Blood tests for H.I.V. can miss the diagnosis in people who
were recently infected.”
“There is no perfect test for
pretty much any infectious disease I can think of,” Dr. Marrazzo said. (O)
“The Diamond Princess cruise
ship docked at Yokohama, Japan, on Friday. More than 200 coronavirus cases have
been confirmed on the ship since it was quarantined last week.
The Diamond Princess cruise ship
docked at Yokohama, Japan, on Friday. More than 200 coronavirus cases have been
confirmed on the ship since it was quarantined last week.Credit…Jae C.
Hong/Associated Press
The United States will evacuate
Americans from the cruise ship that has been quarantined for more than a week
in Japan because of coronavirus infections on board, the United States Embassy
in Tokyo told Americans aboard the ship on Saturday.
American passengers and crew
members were told in an email from the embassy that a chartered flight would
arrive on Sunday for those who wanted to return to the United States.
The ship, the Diamond Princess,
was placed under quarantine at the city of Yokohama early last week with about
3,700 passengers and crew members aboard, after a man who had disembarked in
Hong Kong tested positive for the coronavirus. Since then, at least 218 cases
have been confirmed aboard the ship.
There are about 400 Americans
aboard, and at least 40 who were infected with the virus have been taken off
the ship for treatment.
Americans will be subject to a
14-day federal quarantine and will be housed at two existing quarantine sites,
in California and Texas, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in
a statement on Saturday.” (P)
“Errors by a hospital in San
Diego and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention led to a woman with
the novel coronavirus being sent back to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar
instead of isolation at the hospital, according to a health official familiar
with the situation.
The woman was among Americans in
federal quarantine at the base, and is the first US evacuee from China known to
be infected with the novel coronavirus.
She flew to the base on February
5 on a US Department of State flight evacuating Americans from Wuhan, China.
The next day, she started experiencing symptoms of the novel coronavirus and
was taken to UC San Diego Health. Three other people exhibiting symptoms were
also transported to the hospital.
The hospital sent their
specimens to a CDC lab in Atlanta for testing. According to the source, three
of the four specimens were incorrectly labeled upon arrival and so they were
not tested. The CDC lab did not realize the specimens were from the Miramar
patients.
When no results were reported
back, CDC staffers mistakenly gave UC San Diego Health the results of other
patients who tested negative. That mistake led to the Miramar patients being
transferred back to the base Sunday afternoon.
After they arrived back at the
base, the mistake was discovered and the tests were run on the three Miramar
patients.
The results for the woman came
back positive, and she was transported back to UC San Diego Health on Monday
morning, where she remains in isolation. The woman has had a very mild illness,
according to the source, with no fever and a slight cough…
In a response Tuesday, the CDC
said: “At all times, appropriate infection control precautions were taken
around all of the persons quarantined at Miramar, including these three
patients. From now on, a CDC laboratory staff member will form part of CDC
quarantine field teams to ensure that specimens are correctly labeled/CLIA
compliant to avoid delays in testing.””
During a press conference on
Tuesday, Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC, said
“there was a little bit of a mix-up there” around the testing for the
Miramar patient, but would not elaborate.” (Q)
“San Diego leaders declared a
local emergency and public health emergency for seven days over the novel
coronavirus, giving officials access to resources to address the virus.
CDC and county health officials
cautioned that the declarations did not mean residents faced an increased risk
of the virus.
Under the declarations, the
county will be able to seek mutual aid, potentially be reimbursed for their
response, and ensure resources to first responders and hospitals, stock pile
medical supplies and gain access to hospital beds, and state and federal
emergency funds if necessary.
“This action does not
signify an increase in the risk to the residents in San Diego County to
coronavirus,” Supervisor Nathan Fletcher told the media. “This is a
step that positions us best to confront the challenges of this virus, this
action best equips us to be in the strongest position to coordinate efforts,
ensure access to available supplies, and best protect public health.”…
So far, San Diego has two
confirmed cases of coronavirus. Those patients are under isolation at UC San
Diego Medical Center.
According to Eric McDonald,
medical director of the County’s Epidemiology and Immunization Branch, San
Diego cases include:
Seven people are under
investigation. Five of them have tested negative and two have tested positive;
Four non-San Diego residents who
traveled to the region (but not Wuhan, China) monitored: Two tested negative
and two have results still pending; Monitored 171 people returning from China
with no symptoms: 48 have been cleared after self quarantine, 123 people are
still being monitored. None are under investigation;
Thirteen San Diegans were on
flights next to people confirmed for coronavirus. Eight people have been
cleared after two weeks, four people are still self-quarantined, and one person
was a person under investigation who has since tested negative.
MCAS Miramar has hosted two
flights of passengers being evacuated from the coronavirus zone in Wuhan,
China. Those passengers have been staying at the base under a 14-day
quarantine. Once that quarantine ends next week, low to medium risk individuals
will be asked to self-quarantine at home.” (R)
“Hundreds left a cruise ship in
Cambodia. Then one tested positive for the coronavirus.
An American woman who
disembarked from a cruise ship in Cambodia last week has tested positive twice
for the coronavirus since flying on to Malaysia, officials in that country said
on Sunday.
Cambodia allowed the ship, the
Westerdam, to dock after five other ports
turned it away over concerns about the coronavirus.
Officials said more than
140 passengers from the ship had flown
from Cambodia to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital. All but the American woman
and her husband had been allowed to continue to their destinations, including
airports in the United States, the Netherlands and Australia. (S)
“A man who visited Hawaii was
confirmed to have coronavirus when he returned home to Japan, Hawaii officials
said Friday.
Health officials were tracking
down details about his travel in the Aloha State, including his flight
information and people with whom he had close contact.
The U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention notified Hawaii about the man having the illness known
as COVID-19 on Friday morning, Hawaii Health Director Bruce Anderson said.
The man was in Hawaii Jan. 28 to
Feb. 7. He first visited the island of Maui, where he had no symptoms, Anderson
said. He was on Oahu, the state’s most populated island, Feb. 3-7. While on
Oahu, he had cold-like symptoms, but no fever, Anderson said.
He developed more serious
symptoms when he returned to Japan, where he was tested and found to be
positive for the illness, Anderson. He did not seek medical care in Hawaii,
Anderson said.
Because of when his symptoms
began, officials believe he became infected in Japan or while in transit to
Hawaii, said state epidemiologist Dr. Sarah Park.” (T)
“The cruise ship had been
shunned at port after port for fear it might carry the coronavirus, but when
the Westerdam arrived in Cambodia on Thursday, the prime minister greeted its
passengers with flowers.
Amid assurances that the ship
was disease free, hundreds of elated passengers disembarked. Some went
sightseeing, visiting beaches and restaurants and getting massages. Others
traveled on to destinations around the world.
One, however, did not make it
much farther than the thermal scanners at the Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia.
The passenger, an American, was stopped on Saturday, and later tested positive
for the coronavirus.
On Sunday, with passengers
already headed for destinations on at least three continents, health officials
were scrambling to determine how a big a problem they now have — and how to
stop it from getting bigger.
“We anticipated glitches, but I
have to tell you I didn’t anticipate one of this magnitude,” said Dr. William
Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical
Center.
With more than a thousand
passengers from the Westerdam headed for home, Dr. Schaffner said, it may be
harder than ever to keep the coronavirus outbreak contained to China.
“This could be a turning point,”
he said.
It is unclear how well the
passengers were screened before they were allowed off the ship. But the best
approach to containing a broader spread of the virus from the Westerdam would
be to track down all of the passengers and quarantine them for two weeks,
experts said…
More than 140 passengers from
the ship flew to Malaysia, and all but the American woman who tested positive
and her husband were eventually allowed to continue on to their destinations,
including the United States, the Netherlands and Australia, officials said.
Over 1,000 other passengers took charter flights to Phnom Penh, the capital of
Cambodia, and were in various stages of transit home, the cruise line said….
The global fight against the
coronavirus is complicated by the fact that different countries may have
different levels of disease surveillance and prevention measures. While the
World Health Organization provides guidance, it is up to each country to
enforce these standards, including whether to quarantine people who may have
been exposed or to stop them from traveling.” (U)
(A) China’s Doctors, Fighting the Coronavirus, Beg for Masks,
Chris Buckley, Sui-Lee Wee and Amy Qin,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/world/asia/china-coronavirus-doctors.html
(B) WHO is investigating 1,716 health workers in China infected
with coronavirus, by Berkeley Lovelace Jr.,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/14/who-and-china-investigate-1716-health-workers-infected-with-coronavirus.html
(C) Coronavirus latest: Chinese cases spike after changes to
diagnosis method, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00154-w
(D) Coronavirus Cases Seemed to Be Leveling Off. Not Anymore,
by Roni Caryn Rabin,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/coronavirus-cases-china.html?referringSource=articleShare
(E) A worker cleans the floor of a temporary ward for patients
with coronavirus in Wuhan, China, by Roni Caryn Rabin,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/coronavirus-cases-china.html?referringSource=articleShare
(F) Coronavirus death toll mounts in China as U.S. braces for
long fight, by CARTER EVANS,
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/coronavirus-china-outbreak-death-toll-infections-cruise-ship-latest-updates-2020-02-14/
(G) Would The U.S. Health System Be Ready For A Surge In
Coronavirus Cases?, by PATTI NEIGHMOND,
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/02/13/799534865/would-the-u-s-health-system-be-ready-for-a-surge-in-coronavirus-cases
(H) Is NYC Prepared for Coronavirus?, by James D. Walsh,
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/coronavirus-is-new-york-city-prepared-for-its-arrival.html
(J) Doctor Who Survived Ebola Says He Was Unfairly Cast as a
Hazard and a Hero, by Anemona Hartocollis,
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/26/nyregion/craig-spencer-new-york-ebola-doctor-speaks-out.html
(K) 5 U.S. cities to start testing patients with flu-like
symptoms for coronavirus, by Erika Edwards,
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/5-u-s-cities-start-testing-patients-flu-symptoms-coronavirus-n1136941
(L) CDC director: Novel coronavirus ‘is probably with us
beyond this season, beyond this year’, by Jacqueline Howard,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/13/health/coronavirus-cdc-robert-redfield-gupta-intv/index.html
(M) Some Wuhan Evacuees Ask Why They Aren’t Being Tested for the
Coronavirus, by Miriam Jordan and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/us/coronavirus-quarantine-tests.html?referringSource=articleShare
(N) China Is Tracking Travelers From Hubei,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
(O) Coronavirus Test Kits Sent to States Are Flawed, C.D.C.
Says, by Denise Grady, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/coronavirus-test-kits-cdc.html
(P) The U.S. says it will evacuate Americans from the cruise
ship quarantined off Japan,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/15/world/asia/coronavirus-china-live-updates.html#link-4c91f3a8
(Q) “CDC and hospital errors led to US coronavirus patient being
sent back to military base, health official says, by Elizabeth Cohen and Jon
Passantino,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/10/health/evacuee-wuhan-coronavirus-mistakenly-released/index.html
(R) San Diego declares two emergencies over coronavirus to free
up resources, by Mark Saunders,
https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/san-diego-declares-two-emergencies-over-coronavirus-to-free-up-resources
(S) Hundreds left a cruise ship in Cambodia. Then one tested
positive for the coronavirus, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/16/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
(T) Japanese man who visited Hawaii confirmed with coronavirus.
by JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/15/world/asia/coronavirus-china-live-updates.html#link-4c91f3a8
(U) Coronavirus Infection Found After Cruise Ship Passengers
Disperse, by Richard C. Paddock, Sui-Lee Wee and Roni Caryn Rabin,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/16/world/asia/coronavirus-cruise-americans.html?referringSource=articleShare
PART 7. CORONAVIRUS. February 20, 2020. With SARS
preparedness underway in NJ LibertyHealth/ Jersey City Medical Center, where I
was President, proposed that our 100 bed community hospital with all
single-bedded rooms, be immediately transformed into an EMERGENCY SARS
ISOLATION Hospital.
The Hospital was in a small town at the intersection of many
major highways. It could be easily secured since it had no immediately
contiguous neighbors. It had a helicopter pad. Its patients could be easily
transferred. And it could be managed by the Public Health Service or military
medicine if necessary.
It didn’t happen!
In 2014, I suggested several anchor principles for Ebola
preparedness in New Jersey, as hospitals of all sizes and scope “marketed”
their Ebola readiness, only to learn that it took well over 20/ 25 full time
staff to care for one Ebola patient (and 50 in Dallas!).
These recommendations included that every hospital that
certified its Emergency Room as ready for Ebola be subject to at least three
separate drills using a standardized format, and then be subject to random
“secret shopper” inspections;
that anyone with a confirmed or suspected Ebola diagnosis be
immediately transferred to a regional center hospital designated by national
standardized criteria which could demonstrate that it has sufficient nursing
staff “volunteers” to care for a least five patients round the clock;
and that isolation hospitals be readied for instant
activation, whether a closed hospital prepared for Ebola now and standing by,
or a “virtual” hospital ready-to-go in military fashion.
Also there was a need to minimize Ebola patients walking
into an ER unannounced, and suggested a statewide 800 number be established so
patients can call ahead and be transported by a prepared ambulance team and
taken to a regional center.
The Federal government, later than sooner, did exclusively
designate three national bio containment facilities hospitals as Ebola Centers.
In 2016 I suggested that similar organizing principles were
urgently need to be established for tiered Zika hospital preparedness by
designating Zika Regional Referral Centers. More specifically:
1. There should not be an automatic default to just
designating Ebola Centers as ZRRCs, although there is likely to be significant
overlap.
2. Zika Centers should be academic medical centers with
respected, comprehensive infectious disease diagnostic/ treatment and research
capabilities, and rigorous infection control programs. They should also offer
robust, comprehensive perinatology, neonatology, and pediatric neurology
services, with the most sophisticated imaging capabilities (and Zika-related
“reading” expertise).
3. National leadership in clinical trials.
4. A track record of successful, large scale clinical Rapid
Response.
5. Organizational wherewithal to address intensive resource
absorption.
6. Start preliminary planning for Zika care out of the
initial designated ZRRCs.
7. Zika protocols will be templates for are other mosquito
borne diseases lurking on the horizon, such as Chikungunya, MERS, and Dengue.
“The Wuhan coronavirus spreading from China is now likely to
become a pandemic that circles the globe, according to many of the world’s
leading infectious disease experts.
The prospect is daunting. A pandemic — an ongoing epidemic
on two or more continents — may well have global consequences, despite the
extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now imposed by China and
other countries, including the United States.
Scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus
is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much damage a pandemic might
cause. But there is growing consensus that the pathogen is readily transmitted
between humans.
The Wuhan coronavirus is spreading more like influenza,
which is highly transmissible, than like its slow-moving viral cousins, SARS
and MERS, scientists have found.
“It’s very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is
going to be a pandemic,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. But will it be catastrophic? I
don’t know.”…
At the moment, it seems unlikely that the virus will spread
widely in countries with vigorous, alert public health systems, said Dr.
William Schaffner, a preventive medicine specialist at Vanderbilt University
Medical Center.
“Every doctor in the U.S. has this top of mind,” he said.
“Any patient with fever or respiratory problems will get two questions. ‘Have
you been to China? Have you had contact with anyone who has?’ If the answer is
yes, they’ll be put in isolation right away.”..
But even if an outbreak fades in June, there could be a
second wave in the fall, as has occurred in every major flu pandemic, including
those that began in 1918 and 2009….
“In God we trust,” Dr. Schaffner said. “All others must
provide data.”” (A)
“A comprehensive study of more than 72,000 confirmed and
suspected cases of the novel coronavirus by Chinese scientists has revealed new
information about the deadly infection which has brought much of the country to
a halt.
Carried out by a group of experts at the Chinese Center for
Disease Control and Prevention and published in the Chinese Journal of
Epidemiology on Monday, the study is the largest and most comprehensive
examination of coronavirus cases so far.
It found that the novel coronavirus is more contagious than
the related viruses which cause SARS and MERS. While the resulting disease,
Covid-19, is not as fatal on a case-by-case basis, its greater spread has
already led to more deaths than its related coronaviruses.” (B)
“Numbers have a certain mystique: They seem precise, exact,
sometimes even beyond doubt. But outside the field of pure mathematics, this
reputation rarely is deserved. And when it comes to the coronavirus epidemic,
buying into that can be downright dangerous….
Constant on-the-nose reporting, however much it seems to
serve transparency, has limitations, too.
It’s a short-term, and shortsighted, approach that’s
difficult to resist, especially when people are afraid and the authorities are
taking draconian actions. It’s only natural to compare and contrast whatever
hard facts are available. And yet it’s especially dangerous to do that
precisely because people are so anxious, and fear can trick the mind.
A view from a loftier perch — a month’s, or even just a
week’s, perspective — would, and will, produce far more reliable information.”
(C)
“One of the enduring images of the current coronavirus
outbreak is a space-age looking thermometer pointed at an airplane passenger.
Eleven airports in the United States are using these
temperature checks as part of expanded screening for novel coronavirus, and
those measures might seem reassuring. If someone doesn’t have a fever, it seems
like they’re fine — right?..
Earlier this month, British researchers published a study
showing that temperature checks will fail to detect a coronavirus infection
nearly half the time….
Since mid-January, the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention has been employing temperature checks at selected airports, at first
on people flying in from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak, and now
on all passengers who’ve been anywhere in mainland China in the past 14 days.
The temperature checks are part of an overall screening
effort that includes giving passengers cards telling them to watch out for
fever, cough and trouble breathing, all symptoms of the novel coronavirus
disease, also called COVID-19.
“Finding sick people who are at risk for COVID-19,
alerting asymptomatic travelers who may develop COVID-19 symptoms after
arrival, and rapidly responding to any suspect COVID-19 illness, we can most
effectively protect the health and safety of the American public,” said
Dr. Martin Cetron, director of CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine.
Some experts say it’s that card — a simple card listing
symptoms in English and Chinese — that holds the key to detecting coronavirus
infection — not a thermometer.” (D)
“On Wednesday, the initial 14-day quarantine aboard a
coronavirus-stricken cruise ship docked in Yokohama, Japan, officially ended.
But the grueling saga seems far from for over for the ship’s 3,711 passengers
and crew…
Japanese health officials are facing international criticism
for their handling of the quarantine on the ship, the Diamond Princess. The
quarantine was intended to curb the spread of disease by keeping people aboard,
isolated from each other and from the public on land. But as cases mounted over
the two weeks, it became clear that the control efforts only enabled the new
coronavirus to spread. In fact, the 621 cases include at least three Japanese
health officials, who were there to support the quarantine efforts but ended up
becoming infected themselves….
Just before Dr. Hopland and his wife planned to board an evacuation
plane chartered by the US State Department on Sunday, test results came back
indicating his wife had contracted the virus. She was moved to a local
hospital, and Dr. Hopland remains on the ship in an extended quarantine.
The chartered flights, meanwhile, repatriated over 300 other
American cruise ship passengers, 14 of whom tested positive for the virus en
route to the US.
“I was surprised I was negative because I knew the virus had
swept through this boat like wildfire,” Dr. Hopland told the Journal. “My
analogy is they put us in a petri dish to get infected.” (E)
“Nebraska’s specialized medical care has handled Ebola. Now
it’s taking on the novel coronavirus
“They’re in the chicken soup stage right now,”
Rupp said. “It’s really just watching them and giving them supportive care
that you would probably get at home from a loving provider.”
The US Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness
Response asked UNMC early Monday morning to take in a total of 13 patients who
had either tested positive, or had a high likelihood of testing positive, for
the novel coronavirus.
The patients had been on a cruise ship docked off the cost
of Japan for two weeks. The center said it was prepared.
“We’re having them under surveillance in quarantine
until we know that they are not a danger to the public,” Rupp said, adding
that most units have an exercise bike or a treadmill as well as a TV and WiFi
so they’re able to communicate…
UNMC was commissioned by the US Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention in 2005 to create the biocontainment unit where one patient
currently is. The rest of the patients are in a separate federal quarantine
center on the campus, that UNMC built through a private-public partnership.
In 2014, UNMC successfully treated three patients with
Ebola, and the medical facility has the capacity to manage other highly
infectious diseases like SARS, monkeypox and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.”
(F)
“In addition to the biocontainment unit, the hospital’s
campus has the only federal quarantine unit in the country.
“We do a huge amount of research in these areas,” said Dr.
Jeffrey P. Gold, chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical Center,
citing work on infectious diseases and research on countermeasures to weapons
of mass destruction.
“What — heaven forbid
— happens if an employee or staff member gets exposed to one of these agents,
or even worse than that, gets infected, where are you going to put them? You
can’t just call up a local hospital and say, ‘I’ve got somebody who has anthrax,
make up a bed,’” he said. “You need facilities that can do everything from air
and water handling to the complexities of waste disposal.”” (G)
“The Center for Disease Control does not recognize surgical
masks as a means of protection from viruses. Health professionals use N95
respirators that are formed tightly around the nose and mouth. Dr. Seery says
N95s are expensive and not practical for the public.
“Surgical masks aren’t bad. If you’re stuck in
something like a plane, I don’t think it’s going to do you much good,” Dr.
Seery says. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop all the air that you breathe in
around the mask, but if you’re out and about in a community that has the flu,
for example, it might reduce your chances of coming into contact with that flu
virus while walking through someone’s sneeze cloud.”” (H)
“The director of a Chinese hospital at the epicenter of the
coronavirus outbreak became one of its victims Tuesday despite
“all-out” efforts to save his life, Chinese health officials said…
Liu Zhiming, president of Wuhan Wuchang Hospital in Hubei
province, died of coronavirus-related pneumonia, China Daily reported. The
hospital, one of the seven designated for the epidemic in Wuhan, treated
thousands of people a day…
“Unfortunately he became infected and passed away at
10:54 Tuesday morning after all-out efforts to save him failed,” the commission
said.” (I)
“An Oregon comedian who had been stranded on a Holland
America cruise ship in Cambodia due to COVID-19 virus concerns managed to get a
flight back home by breaking quarantine in a hotel where ship’s passengers were
being held pending test results…
“There was no official ‘you can’t leave’ (at the hotel)
but if you tried to go out the front door with your luggage, security would
stop you,” King said. “But if you went out with your backpack and you
were sightseeing, not a problem.”..
He says he chose to fly back on his own on a more
full-service airline, even purchasing a full-price, upgraded ticket as not to
raise suspicion that he was trying to quickly leave the country at the last
minute as cheaply as possible.
King said he sailed through the airports on his three
connecting flights, only being asked if he had been to China, and had a rental
car reserved in Seattle to get home to Eugene if he couldn’t fly from here.
King said somebody asked him if it was “kind of selfish
to self deport?” He said while the results of his virus test weren’t back,
he’s confident he’s OK since he has not shown any symptoms, nor fever, and says
he had been essentially in quarantine for 14 days.” (J)
“In one school district, families are pulling their kids out
of school. In others, students show up in face masks.
Educators in another Southern California community agreed to
suspend an exchange program to keep visiting Chinese students out of
quarantine.
School districts across the U.S., particularly those with
large Asian American populations, have scrambled to respond to the outbreak of
the coronavirus, which has killed more than 1,500 people and sickened tens of
thousands more, almost all in China.
At least 15 cases have been confirmed in the U.S., mostly in
California, home to about one-third of the nation’s Chinese immigrants.
The districts find themselves in uncharted territory as they
apply new federal travel rules to their student bodies. And in some cases,
administrators are making decisions to address parental fears – not actual
disease – with no official guidance. They’re weighing whether to allow students
to work from home, even if they haven’t traveled abroad recently, or let them
wear face masks in class.
Balancing these requests against broader public health needs
often leads to different conclusions.
“We’re just doing our best to comply” as the rules and
outbreak evolve, said Jenny Owen, spokesperson for the Duarte Unified School
District, about 20 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. About 6% of the
district’s students identify as Asian…
To prevent the virus’s spread in the U.S., the federal
government has issued rules for returning travelers: U.S. citizens and legal
permanent residents who visited the epicenter of the outbreak in China, Hubei
province, in the previous 14 days must undergo a mandatory two-week quarantine
at a government-run facility. Those who visited other parts of China must stay
home and “self-quarantine” for two weeks.
The policies began Feb. 2, and as a result, an exchange
program that brought children from China to Duarte schools has been temporarily
halted to prevent the students from being quarantined, Owen said.
State public health departments are using the federal rules
to draft guidelines for school districts.
The policies made a “night and day” difference in clearing
up confusion, especially for families who had recently traveled from China and
were wondering whether to send their kids to school, said Don Austin,
superintendent of the nearly 12,000-student Palo Alto Unified School District
in the Bay Area, where about 36% of students identify as Asian.
“When I first heard of the concept of self-quarantine, my
first instinct was, this could be problematic if we’re alone on that and trying
to create some of these policies and practices on the fly,” he said.
But school districts and local health departments still have
to make quick decisions in cases that fall outside federal guidelines.” (K)
“As the U.S. responds to a growing threat of the 2019 novel
coronavirus, CMS and other organizations are clarifying how to code for testing
and treatment of the disease.
Six things to know:
1. CMS created a new Healthcare Common Procedure Coding
System code for providers and labs testing patients for SARS-CoV-2, or severe
acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.
2. Providers can use the HCPCS code U0001 to test patients
for coronavirus using the CDC’s 2019 novel coronavirus real-time RT-PCR
Diagnostic Test Panel.
3. Medicare’s claims processing system will start accepting
the code April 1 for dates of services Feb. 4 onward.
4. Audrey Howard, senior outsource services consultant with
3M Health Information Systems, reviewed in a blog post the current ICD-10-CM
codes providers could use to code for the virus.
5. For classifying coronavirus not associated with SARS,
providers could use:
Pneumonia due to coronavirus: J12.89 and B97.29
Sepsis due to coronavirus: A41.89 and B97.29
Other infection caused by coronavirus: B34.2
Contact with and (suspected) exposure to other viral
communicable diseases: Z20.828
6. For classifying the SARS-associated coronavirus,
providers could use:
Pneumonia due to SARS-associated coronavirus: J12.81
Sepsis due to SARS-associated coronavirus: A41.89 and
B97.21” (L)
“Staff at NYU Langone Health in New York City has designated
the new virus as a “level 1” priority.
“A big part of this level is communication,” said Dr.
Jennifer Lighter, hospital epidemiologist there.
“We are trying to communicate to NYU staff and patients in
our medical center how to best protect themselves from the flu or COVID-19,”
Lighter said. “That’s just general info like basic hand hygiene, sneezing into
the end of your elbow and practicing safe distance from someone who is sick.”
NYU is also preparing for a level 2 or 3 scenario, she
added, where there is transmission in the city and it begins to impact hospital
operations. The health-care system has implemented a conservation plan and
medical supplies, especially respirator masks, are only given to staff as
needed, she said.
“If a team needed more, they would have to be
infection-prevention approved or manager approved before someone would get
more,” she said, adding staff is already feeling the brunt of the flu season.
The hospital is also recommending patients with more mild
symptoms to stay at home, she said. The hospital has been ramping up its
virtual urgent care, including training doctors and purchasing more iPads and other
machines. “If you’re shortness of breath, obviously, please come in,” Lighter
said.” (M)
(A) Wuhan
Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic, Experts Say, by Donald G.
McNeil Jr., https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/health/coronavirus-pandemic-china.html?referringSource=articleShare
(B) Chinese
CDC study finds Covid-19 virus to be more contagious than SARS or MERS, by
James Griffiths and Nectar Gan,
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/chinese-cdc-study-finds-covid-19-virus-to-be-more-contagious-than-sars-or-mers/ar-BB108Z9X
(C) Constant
on-the-nose reporting, however much it seems to serve transparency, has
limitations, too, by John Allen Paulos,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/opinion/coronavirus-china-numbers.html
(D) No US
coronavirus cases were caught by airport temperature checks. Here’s what has
worked, by Elizabeth Cohen and John Bonifield,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/19/health/coronavirus-airport-temperature-checks/index.html
(E) Americans
on coronavirus cruise ship barred from US after failed quarantine, by BETH
MOLE,
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/02/americans-on-coronavirus-cruise-ship-barred-from-us-after-failed-quarantine/
(F) Nebraska
doctors are providing coronavirus patients with chicken soup and Tylenol, by
Amir Vera and Nick Watt,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/18/health/nebraska-coronavirus-unmc-chicken-soup/index.html
(G) First
Ebola, Now Coronavirus. Why an Omaha Hospital Gets the Toughest Cases, by Sarah
Mervosh, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/us/coronavirus-omaha-nebraska-medical-center.html
(H) Do
surgical masks protect against illness?, by Kristen Boxman, https://www.kwch.com/content/news/Do-surgical-masks-protect-against-illness-567967131.html
(I) Coronavirus
20 times more lethal than the flu? Death toll passes 2,000, by John Bacon,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/02/18/wuhan-china-coronavirus-hospital-director-dies-covid/4792597002/
(J) Hotel
getaway: Oregon comedian quarantined amid cruise ship virus sneaks flight to
Seattle,
https://komonews.com/news/local/man-stranded-on-coronavirus-infected-cruise-ship-arrives-at-sea-tac-airport
(K) School
districts grapple with coronavirus quarantines, face masks and fear, by Anna
Almendrala,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/02/17/coronavirus-forces-schools-grapple-quarantines-masks-and-fear/4775522002/
(L) Coding
for coronavirus: 6 things to know, by Morgan Haefner,
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/coding-for-coronavirus-6-things-to-know.html
(M) Hospitals
across the US prepare for coronavirus outbreak to become global pandemic, by
Berkeley Lovelace Jr., https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/19/hospitals-across-the-us-prepare-for-coronavirus-outbreak-to-become-global-pandemic.html
PART 8. CORONAVIRUS. “…every country’s top priority
should be to protect its health care workers. This is partly to ensure that
hospitals themselves do not become sites where the coronavirus is spread more
than it is contained.”
“Why this looks like the beginning of a pandemic
These outbreaks outside of China, along with the latest
science on Covid-19, suggest we may soon see a rapid rise in infections — both
in China and in more countries around the world. Here’s why.
1) The virus is very contagious and some people seem to be
able to infect others before they know they’re sick: Researchers currently believe
one infected person generally infects two to three others, which would make the
new coronavirus more contagious than other coronaviruses, like SARS and MERS.
“TRYING TO STOP INFLUENZA-LIKE TRANSMISSION IS LIKE TRYING
TO STOP THE WIND. IT’S VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE.”…
2) Countries are still mostly looking for the disease in
people who’ve traveled from China: The main method of screening in many
countries is still testing passengers coming from China, or from Hubei province
only. But as we’ve seen, spread is happening beyond those people. And other
cases may be undetected…
3) With flu season ongoing, it can take time to identify
cases and outbreaks: “The challenge with this illness is that the clinical
symptoms resemble other viral illnesses, like flu,” said Inglesby. So people
with the flu, and doctors examining them, may not even be thinking of Covid-19
yet, especially in people who haven’t traveled to China.
4) China may also see another surge in cases soon as travel
restrictions are gradually lifted: The country has taken extraordinarily
draconian measures to stop this virus, quarantining millions, and shutting down
transit and travel. But the business community is growing increasingly
frustrated with the restrictions, and is pressuring government officials to
ease some of the restrictions…
5) Many countries are only now getting testing up and
running: Even the US — with one of the most highly-resourced health systems in
the world — doesn’t have adequate diagnostic capacity right now:
Reminder: As of today (Feb 23), the US remains extremely
limited in #COVID19 testing. Only 3 of ~100 public health labs have @CDC test
kits working and CDC is not sharing what went wrong with the kits. How to know
if COVID19 is spreading here if we are not looking for it.
6) Some people may have abdominal pain before respiratory
symptoms — and that’s not something health officials are screening for: This
coronavirus is still very new, and we don’t know its entire spectrum of illness
yet, but we’re learning the disease may sometimes surface in surprising ways.
Though it’s a respiratory infection, a recent JAMA article found some have
abdominal symptoms such as discomfort first. This means “we may not be
detecting cases that do not present in the classic way with fever and respiratory
symptoms,” said William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt
University….
We need to prepare for a pandemic…
For now, countries need to move from trying to contain the
virus to mitigating its harm — reducing the spread, and caring for the very
sick, said Jennifer Nuzzo, an infectious disease expert and senior scholar at
the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “It is beyond time,” she added.”
(A)
“On Tuesday, Feb. 18, no coronavirus cases had been reported
in Iran. On Sunday, the government announced 43 cases and eight deaths. Some
152 cases (and at least three deaths) were confirmed in Italy on Sunday, up
from three cases on Thursday. The number of infected people in South Korea
jumped to 763 (and six deaths) in just days.
As of Monday, Covid-19 was detected in at least 29
countries. In nations with few or no reported cases so far, particularly in
South America and Africa, the absence of evidence shouldn’t be interpreted as
evidence of absence. More likely, it reflects lack of testing.
Is the Covid-19 outbreak now a pandemic, whether or not the
World Health Organization calls it that yet? If so, what’s next?
In a world ill-prepared for a potentially life-threatening,
easily transmitted disease like Covid-19, the most effective way to mitigate
the pandemic’s impact is to focus on supporting health care systems that
already are overburdened…
This is the main reason every country’s top priority should
be to protect its health care workers.
The United States and other countries in the Northern
Hemisphere already are in the throes of a moderately severe flu season. Their
inventories of protective equipment used by doctors, nurses and emergency
medical workers — N-95 respirator masks, gloves, eye protection, disposable suits
— are running low. These limited supplies must go to health care workers first,
rather than the public. This is partly to ensure that hospitals themselves do
not become sites where the coronavirus is spread more than it is contained: If
infected health care workers die in large numbers, entire societies may be
shaken to the point of panic.
Governments should also conduct Covid-19 preparedness drills
in local hospitals and expand hospitals’ temporary capacity, for example, by
setting up emergency tents in parking lots, as is already happening in some
places in the United States. To minimize the strain on overstressed acute-care
hospitals, supportive nursing care might have to be provided, in makeshift
facilities and patients’ homes, as was done during severe pandemics in the
past, such as the Great Influenza of 1918-19…
Ensuring all of this means facing the hard facts of this
unfolding pandemic — and that requires thorough, transparent disclosures to the
public. Past experiences, with the anthrax-laced letters in 2001 and the 2014
Ebola outbreak, suggest that people react more rationally and show greater
resilience to a full-blown crisis if they are prepared intellectually and
emotionally for it.” (B)
“The number of coronavirus cases in South Korea has soared
to about 602, according to The New York Times. More than half of those cases
involve members of, or those somehow linked to, the religious sect, the
Shincheonji Church of Jesus, where a so-called superspreader infected at least
37 people last week.
A so-called superspreader infected at least 37 people at her
church with the new coronavirus, and dozens of additional worshippers are also
showing symptoms of the disease, called COVID-19, according to news reports.
The 61-year-old woman attends the Shincheonji Church of
Jesus the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony in Daegu, South Korea,
according to the international news outlet AFP. The city, located in the
southern part of the country, is home to about 2.5 million people. The woman,
called “Patient 31” by Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, developed a fever on Feb. 10 and attended four church services
before being diagnosed with COVID-19. ..
Authorities described the outbreak as a
“super-spreading event,” as the lone woman transmitted the infection
to an unusually high number of people, according to Reuters. Current estimates
suggest that a single person with the novel coronavirus spreads the infection
to about 2.2 additional people, on average. The surge of infection at the
church brings the total number of confirmed cases in South Korea to 104; one
death associated with the virus has occurred in the country so far.” (C)
“Rain was falling on the night of Jan. 18, so the windows of
the Tokyo party boat were shut. Inside were about 90 guests of a local taxi
association who were celebrating the new year as the vessel floated down the
Sumida River. Also on board, unbeknown to them, was a coronavirus capable of
spreading ferociously.
It did just that. A driver in his 70s soon fell ill with
fever; he later tested positive. The same day as his diagnosis, his
mother-in-law died; she also was infected. Officials then discovered that 10
others from the boat were, too, including an employee who had served passengers
from Wuhan, China. Still more who did not attend the party caught the virus
after coming into contact with those who did.
As public health officials look for clues to one of the
biggest uncertainties about the new coronavirus epidemic — whether it will
eventually expand rapidly beyond its center in China — they are closely
studying clusters of cases that have emerged recently in Japan.
The issue has taken on more urgency as passengers have begun
walking off a contaminated cruise ship in Yokohama where 634 people have tested
positive for the virus and two later died. Experts fear that some who were
cleared to leave an onboard quarantine could later test positive, spreading
infections on land in the same way that the party boat has done.
Alarmed officials are rushing to learn more about how the
virus is transmitted, including how many of those infected experience mild
symptoms or none at all, and whether it can be spread by people who are
symptom-free.” (D)
“Most of the Americans who were being monitored at the
University of Nebraska Medical Center for coronavirus after evacuating a cruise
ship in Japan tested positive for the virus, the hospital says.
UNMC said in a statement Thursday that the US Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention verified the Nebraska Public Health Lab results
showing that 11 of the 13 patients have the novel coronavirus. The other two
evacuees who were taken to the Omaha hospital tested negative, the statement
said.
Bert Kelly, a CDC spokesman, told CNN that the agency has
verified the results, bringing the total of confirmed cases in the United
States to 26.
The hospital had said some of the patients had tested
positive in Japan but some “came with a lack of clarity of what their test
results were,” Shelly Schwedhelm told CNN. Schwedhelm is the UNMC/Nebraska
Medical Executive Director of Emergency Management and Biopreparedness who has
clinical oversight of the quarantine and biocontainment units.
Nine of the patients had tested positive for the virus in
Japan and were positive again after being rested in the United States, another
CDC spokesman, Joe Smith, told CNN on Friday.” (E)
“Preventing the spread of infectious disease is the essence
of public health work, but the scale of efforts by state and local health
departments across the country to contain the virus known as COVID-19, experts
said, has rarely been seen. Since early February, thousands of people returning
to the United States from mainland China, the center of the outbreak, have been
asked to isolate themselves at home for 14 days…
Local health officials check in daily by email, phone or
text. They arrange tests for people who come down with symptoms, and in some
cases, groceries and isolated housing. There is no centralized tally in the
United States of people being monitored or asked to remain in isolation, and
they are scattered across the nation’s nearly 3,000 local health jurisdictions.
People arriving from mainland China are added each day,
while those who have completed 14-day “self-quarantine” periods are released
from oversight. In California alone, the department of public health has been
monitoring more than 6,700 returning travelers from China, while health
officials in Washington State have tracked about 800, and officials in Illinois
more than 200.
At least 34 cases have been confirmed in the U.S. and more
infections are expected…
“All hands on deck
are being pulled into this,’’ said Dr. Marcus Plescia, the chief medical
officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, a
nonprofit organization that represents public health agencies across the
country. “If it really blows up, at some point, it could overwhelm state and
local health departments.”…
In Washington, where the first coronavirus patient in the
United States was confirmed on Jan. 21, health officials tracked down and
monitored 69 individuals with whom the man had come in contact, including work
colleagues, health workers and other patients present in a clinic he visited
when he first felt sick. Still, there have been issues. One person the man had
been in contact with and who had developed symptoms of illness flew on a plane
to Wisconsin during the 14-day period when she was supposed to be isolated at
home.
“There is no way,
with something this large, that you can make it seal-proof,’’ said Dr. Wiesman,
who has started twice-weekly conference calls with the chief health officers in
every state and territory to share tips and seek advice on how to manage the
shifting challenges of the coronavirus response. While enforcing total
compliance with isolation orders may not be possible, Dr. Wiesman said, “We
have to try for 80 to 85 percent, and hopefully that will work.’’
Federal authorities are in charge of setting guidelines to
manage the danger, such as deciding how much risk a returning traveler poses
and who should be tested for the coronavirus. But the day-to-day work putting
those policies in place and tracking thousands of people falls to the vast,
decentralized network of local health departments across the country.
Travelers’ data, culled from federal customs officials, is passed on to state
health agencies, who farm out lists of people returning from China to local
health departments.” (F)
Health experts sounded the alarm Friday over the worldwide
threat of the coronavirus, with officials “warning of its “likely”
community spread in the United States and the World Health Organization
cautioning that “the window of opportunity is narrowing” for
containing the outbreak worldwide.
The COVID-19 coronavirus, which erupted in China in
December, has killed at least 2,360 people and sickened at least 77,900
worldwide, the majority of cases in mainland China.
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center
for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters Friday that U.S.
health officials are preparing for the coronavirus to become a pandemic.
“We’re not seeing community spread here in the United
States, yet, but it’s very possible, even likely, that it may eventually
happen,” she said. “Our goal continues to be slowing the introduction of the virus
into the U.S. This buys us more time to prepare communities for more cases and
possibly sustained spread.”
She said the CDC is working with state and local health
departments “to ready our public health workforce to respond to local cases.”
These measures include collaboration with supply chain partners, hospitals,
pharmacies and manufacturers to determine what medical supplies are needed.
She said the “day may come” here where we have to shut down
schools and businesses like China has done.” (G)
“In the U.S., the number of confirmed cases rose to at least
34, as a number of evacuated individuals from the Diamond Princess cruise ship
have tested positive.
Several other Americans who were on board the ship have been
diagnosed and hospitalized in Japan, according to the CDC. As of Friday
afternoon, there were no plans to evacuate those patients. The U.S. Department
of State said it will not rescue other Americans who choose to go on cruises in
Asia.
“Such repatriation flights do not reflect our standard practice,
and should not be relied upon as an option for U.S. citizens,” Ian
Brownlee, an executive within the Department of State, said during a media
briefing Friday.
On its website, the department has warned Americans to
reconsider any planned cruises to or within Asia, saying such trips “may
be impacted by travel restrictions affecting their itineraries or ability to
disembark, or may be subject to quarantine procedures implemented by the local
authorities.
How countries are able to contain the virus and prevent it
from sustained person-to-person transmission will be important in determining
the “ultimate end game” of the virus, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of
the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NBC News.
“If infection control gets out of control in many of
these countries throughout the world, then it’s going to be very difficult to
prevent cases from then going, by travel, to all parts of the world,”
Fauci said. “That’s how a pandemic starts.”
As part of a team of international scientists led by the
World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health and the CDC have
staff members in China, observing containment and infection control efforts.
They’re scheduled to travel into the epicenter of the outbreak, Wuhan, on Saturday.
“We still believe we can contain the virus,” WHO
Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday during a media
briefing. “But the window of opportunity is narrowing.”” (H)
“About 150 prescription drugs — including antibiotics,
generics and some branded drugs without alternatives — are at risk of shortage
if the coronavirus outbreak in China worsens, according to two sources familiar
with a list of at-risk drugs compiled by the Food and Drug Administration.
Why it matters: China is a huge supplier of the ingredients
used to make drugs that are sold in the U.S. If the virus decreases China’s
production capability, Americans who rely on the drugs made from these
ingredients could be in trouble.
What they’re saying: The FDA declined to comment on the
list, but said in a statement that it’s “keenly aware that the outbreak
could impact the medical product supply chain,” and has devoted additional
resources toward identifying potential vulnerabilities to U.S. medical products
stemming specifically from the outbreak.
The agency has been in contact with hundreds of drug and
medical device manufacturers, and it’s also coordinating with global regulators
like the European Medicines Agency.
It pointed out that there aren’t any vaccines, gene
therapies or blood derivatives licensed by the FDA that are manufactured in
China, although raw materials for many products do come from China and other
southeastern Asian countries. The agency is in contact with biologics
manufacturers to monitor supply concerns.
“If a potential shortage or disruption of medical
products is identified by the FDA, we will use all available tools to react
swiftly and mitigate the impact to U.S. patients and health care
professionals,” said an FDA spokesperson.” (I)
“A group of 46 Congress members sent a letter to the Trump
administration Feb. 20 urging the government not to give exclusive licenses to
any drugmaker that develops a coronavirus vaccine using U.S. taxpayer funds.
The lawmakers expressed concern that if drugmakers are given
excluisve licenses on coronavirus treatments or vaccines, they would raise the
prices and make treatments inaccessible for many people affected by the virus.”
(J)
“As the novel coronavirus, called COVID-19, continues to
spread across the globe, Cleveland’s major hospitals are preparing for
potential cases.
From screening patients for the virus to protecting medical
providers, local health care systems are taking precautions to ensure that if
they do get a case of COVID-19, it doesn’t spread, as it has in China.
“Part of preparedness is thinking ahead,” said Dr. Amy Ray,
medical director of infection prevention at the MetroHealth System…
Early identification of patients who are at risk for
COVID-19 infection is important, Ray said.
MetroHealth staff who schedule urgent appointments in
doctors’ offices are trained to look for patients who are having fever and
cough, or fever and shortness of breath, and have traveled in China or been in
close contact with someone who traveled there, Ray said…
At the Cleveland Clinic, the electronic medical records
vendor turned on a function that automatically prompts those who are checking
in patients or taking calls to ask if patients have traveled to China and are
experiencing symptoms such as cough and fever, said Dr. Tom Fraser, vice
chairman of infectious disease at the Clinic…
At MetroHealth’s main campus in south Tremont area,
officials have set aside a two-bed unit, called the Special Diseases Care Unit,
for possible COVID-19 patients.
The unit has its own blood lab and an anteroom where health
care workers can put on and take off their protective gear. The Infection
Prevention Team is looking for other areas of MetroHealth with
negative-pressure ventilation systems that could be used to care for COVID-19
patients, Ray said.
Portable X-ray and other equipment can be brought to the
isolation rooms to minimize the need to move patients through the hospital,
limiting the danger of transmission to others…
At each hospital system, medical personnel wear protective
gear that covers their nose, mouth and eyes to examine patients suspected of
having COVID-19. That means wearing fitted respirators, a face shield or
goggles, gloves and a gown.
Keeping health care workers protected and healthy is a
priority because they come in contact with so many others, Saade said.
“A big problem in these big epidemics — thankfully, we’re
not there yet — is that you don’t have enough health care workers to help with
people care,” he said…
While it’s ideal to isolate all patients in the hospital, if
there were a COVID-19 outbreak, those with lesser symptoms would need to
self-quarantine at home, Saade said.
“If we have just a few people, we can isolate them,” he
said. “That’s not something that can happen if it’s widespread.”
Fraser said that a lot of the precautions that health
systems are taking for COVID-19 are built on day-to-day infection-prevention
practices.
In the end, it all comes down to the basics, he said.
“Everybody’s seen the Hazmat suits and stuff like that on
TV. But if we don’t wash our hands well between patients, then you can have all
kinds of fancy suits” but not be protected, Frazer said.
“Clean hands going in, and clean hands going out” is the
“fail safe,” he said. “Because not everybody is going to come with a sign that
says ‘I’ve got coronavirus.’ ”
The Clinic emphasizes daily basic infection-prevention
practices, such as hand hygiene and proper cough etiquette.
“Those kind of basics, without those, everything else would
fall apart,” Fraser said.” (K)
Labs in the US will start looking for the new coronavirus
this week (L)
Specialized respirators are key to stopping spread of
coronavirus to medical staff (M)
Flowchart to Identify and Assess 2019 Novel Coronavirus for
the evaluation of patients who may be ill with or who may have been exposed to
2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)
For the evaluation of patients who may be ill with or who
may have been exposed to 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) (N)
Coronavirus: What it does to the body (O)
How the coronavirus can kill people (P)
Coronavirus Disease 2019 Information for Travel
This page includes information about Coronavirus Disease
2019 (COVID-19) for travelers and travel related industries. (Q)
Interim Guidance for Businesses and Employers to Plan and
Respond to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), February 2020 (R)
(A) “We are at
a turning point”: The coronavirus outbreak is looking more like a pandemic, by
Julia Belluz,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic.html?referringSource=articleShare
(B) Is It a
Pandemic Yet? It’s now clear that the coronavirus epidemic was never going to
be contained. What’s next?, by Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic.html?referringSource=articleShare
(C) Superspreader’
in South Korea infects nearly 40 people with coronavirus, by Nicoletta Lanese,
https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-superspreader-south-korea-church.html
(D) What a
Party in Japan May Tell Us About the Coronavirus’s Spread, by Sui-Lee Wee and
Makiko Inoue,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/world/asia/japan-coronavirus-clusters.html?referringSource=articleShare
(E) 11 cruise
ship passengers test positive for coronavirus, Nebraska hospital says, Nicole Chavez, https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/20/health/nebraska-coronavirus-positive-tests/index.html
(F) Local
health officials check in daily by email, phone or text with the thousands of
people returning to the United States from mainland China, where they may have
encountered the virus, by Amy Harmon and Farah Stockman,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/22/us/coronavirus-local-health-response.html?referringSource=articleShare
(G) CDC is
preparing for the ‘likely’ spread of coronavirus in the US, officials say, by
Doug Stanglin, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/02/21/coronavirus-who-contain-outbreak-iran-deaths-south-korea-cases/4829278002/
(H) U.S. takes
steps to prepare for pandemic as global coronavirus cases rise, by Erika
Edwards, https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/u-s-takes-steps-prepare-pandemic-global-coronavirus-cases-rise-n1140371
(I) Scoop:
Coronavirus threatens shortages of about 150 drugs, by Caitlin Owens,
https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-threatens-drug-shortage-318c9e7b-5d92-4a5e-b992-2478023c6d01.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top
(J) Don’t
allow monopoly of coronavirus drug rights, lawmakers urge Trump, by Maia
Anderson,
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/pharmacy/don-t-allow-monopoly-of-coronavirus-drug-rights-lawmakers-urge-trump.html
(K) Protecting
patients, health care workers priorities as Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth and
UH prepare for coronavirus, by Ginger Christ,
https://www.cleveland.com/business/2020/02/cleveland-hospitals-prepare-for-potential-novel-coronavirus-cases.html
PART 9. CORONAVIRUS. Responding to a question about
the likelihood of a U.S. outbreak, President Trump said, “I don’t think
it’s inevitable…”It probably will. It possibly will,” he continued.
“It could be at a very small level, or it could be at a larger level.”
“A person in
California who was not exposed to anyone infected with the coronavirus, and had
not traveled to countries in which the virus is circulating, has tested
positive for the infection in what may be the first case of community spread
here in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said
on Wednesday.
“At this point, the patient’s exposure is unknown,” the
C.D.C. statement said. “The case was detected through the U.S. public health
system and picked up by astute clinicians.”
The case was announced shortly after President Trump
concluded a news briefing in which he said that aggressive public health
containment measures and travel entry restrictions had successfully limited the
spread of coronavirus in the United States.
It brings the number of cases in the country to 60,
including the 45 cases among Americans who were repatriated from Wuhan, China —
the epicenter of the outbreak — and the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was
overwhelmed by the virus after it docked in Japan.
Until now, public health officials have been able to trace
all of the infections in the country to a recent trip abroad or a known
patient.
This new case appears to be one of community spread — one in
which the source of infection is unknown. It is possible the patient may have
been exposed to a returning traveler who was infected, the C.D.C. said.” (A)
“The first suspected U.S. case of a patient getting the new
coronavirus through “community spread” – with no history of travel to
affected areas or exposure to someone known to have the COVID-19 illness — was
left undiagnosed for days because a request for testing wasn’t initially
granted, according to officials at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento,
Calif.
The patient in Northern California is now the 60th confirmed
case of the new coronavirus in the United States. The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention disclosed the latest case Wednesday evening, as
President Trump assigned Vice President Pence to lead the administration’s
response to the disease.
“This case was detected through the U.S. public health
system — picked up by astute clinicians,” the CDC said in a brief
statement about the new patient.
UC Davis included more details about the case in its own
statement, drawing on an email sent to staff at its medical center. It said the
CDC initially ruled out a test for the coronavirus because the patient’s case
didn’t match its criteria.” (S)
“An American soldier in South Korea has tested positive for
the new coronavirus, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.
The patient, a 23-year-old man, is based in Camp Carroll in
Waegwan, only 12 miles from Daegu, the South Korean city at the center of an outbreak in the country.
The soldier, the first U.S. service member to become
infected, has been quarantined in his off-base residence, the military said.
The soldier visited Camp Walker, a military base in Daegu,
on Monday and visited Camp Carroll from Friday to Tuesday.
South Korean and American “health professionals are actively
conducting contact tracing to determine whether any others may have been
exposed,” the military said.
The military added that it was “implementing all appropriate
control measures to help control the spread of Covid-19 and remains at risk
level ‘high’” for all its 28,500 soldiers stationed in South Korea “as a
prudent measure to protect the force.” “(B)
“Why this looks like the beginning of a pandemic
These outbreaks outside of China, along with the latest
science on Covid-19, suggest we may soon see a rapid rise in infections in more
countries around the world. Here’s why.
1) The virus is very contagious, and some people seem to be
able to infect others before they know they’re sick: Researchers currently
believe one infected person generally infects two to three others, which would
make the new coronavirus more contagious than other coronaviruses, like SARS
and MERS…
2) Countries are still mostly looking for the disease in
people who’ve traveled from China: The main method of screening in many
countries is still testing passengers coming from China or from Hubei province
only. But as we’ve seen, spread is happening beyond those people. And other
cases may be undetected…
3) With flu season ongoing, it can take time to identify
cases and outbreaks: “The challenge with this illness is that the clinical
symptoms resemble other viral illnesses, like flu,” said Inglesby. So people
with the flu, and doctors examining them, may not even be thinking of Covid-19
yet, especially in people who haven’t traveled to China.
4) China’s case toll is falling — but it may see another
surge soon as travel restrictions are gradually lifted: The country has taken
extraordinarily draconian measures to stop this virus, quarantining millions,
and shutting down transit and travel. But the business community is growing increasingly
frustrated with the restrictions and is pressuring government officials to ease
some of them…
5) Many countries are only now getting testing up and
running: Even the US, with one of the most highly resourced health systems in
the world, doesn’t have adequate diagnostic capacity right now..
6) Some people may have abdominal pain before respiratory
symptoms — and that’s not something health officials are screening for: This
coronavirus is still very new, and we don’t know its entire spectrum of illness
yet, but we’re learning the disease may sometimes surface in surprising ways.
Though it’s a respiratory infection, a recent JAMA article found some have
abdominal symptoms such as discomfort first. This means “we may not be
detecting cases that do not present in the classic way with fever and respiratory
symptoms,” said William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt
University…” (D)
“Outside China, there are now 2,790 cases in 37
countries, and 44 deaths,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
said at a briefing in Geneva…
Tedros is urging the international community to have
“hope, courage and confidence” that the new respiratory virus can be
contained, citing 14 countries that haven’t reported a new case in more than a
week.
Worldwide, there are currently 81,191 cases of the novel
coronavirus, according to a dashboard created by the Johns Hopkins Whiting
School of Engineering. That number includes 30,281 cases in which people
recovered from COVID-19.
But Tedros also warned that the situation could get worse,
saying, “At the same time, all countries, whether they have cases or not,
must prepare for a potential pandemic.”..
On a broader scale, the WHO’s Tedros says every country
should make it a top priority to protect workers who are dealing with the
health crisis. And he says agencies should work with communities whose members
are most at risk, “particularly the elderly and people with underlying
health conditions.”
Despite the worrying rise of cases at the international
level, Tedros again rejected calls Wednesday for the WHO to declare a pandemic,
saying it’s not an accurate label for a virus he still views as containable. He
has also recently noted that the virus’s fatality rate outside of Hubei
province is less than 1%.
The WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a global health
emergency in January, as cases surged in China. The organization now says it
believes the epidemic peaked and plateaued in China between the end of January
and the early February.” (E)
“The World Health Organization (WHO) still avoided using the
word “pandemic” to describe the burgeoning crisis today, instead talking about
“epidemics in different parts of the world.” But many scientists say that
regardless of what it’s called, the window for containment is now almost
certainly shut. “It looks to me like this virus really has escaped from China
and is being transmitted quite widely,” says Christopher Dye, an epidemiologist
at the University of Oxford. “I’m now feeling much more pessimistic that it can
be controlled.” In the United States, “disruption to everyday life might be
severe,” Nancy Messonnier, who leads the coronavirus response for the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned on 25 February. “We are
asking the American public to work with us to prepare for the expectation that
this is going to be bad.”
Dye and others say it’s time to rethink the public health
response. So far, efforts have focused on containment: slowing the spread of
the virus within China, keeping it from being exported to other countries, and,
when patients do cross borders, aggressively tracing anyone they were in
contact with and quarantining those people for 2 weeks. But if the virus, named
SARS-CoV-2, has gone global, travel restrictions may become less effective than
measures to limit outbreaks and reduce their impact, wherever they are—for
instance, by closing schools, preparing hospitals, or even imposing the kind of
draconian quarantine imposed on huge cities in China.” …
To prepare for what’s coming, hospitals can stockpile
respiratory equipment and add beds. More intensive use of the vaccines against
influenza and pneumococcal infections could help reduce the burden of those
respiratory diseases on the health care system and make it easier to identify
COVID-19 cases, which produce similar symptoms. Governments can issue messages
about the importance of handwashing and staying home if you’re ill.
Whatever the rest of the world does, it’s essential that it
take action soon, Aylward says, and he hopes other countries will learn from
China. “The single biggest lesson is: Speed is everything,” he says. “And you
know what worries me most? Has the rest of the world learned the lesson of
speed?” (F)
“White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow
said Tuesday that the U.S. has “contained” the threat of a domestic coronavirus
outbreak, breaking with the warnings of officials from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
“We have contained this, I won’t say airtight but pretty
close to airtight,” Kudlow told CNBC’s Kelly Evans on Tuesday afternoon…
Some of his comments stood in contrast to public
pronouncements from CDC officials Tuesday that painted the coronavirus’ health
threat to the U.S. as the most serious it‘s been.
Nancy Messonnier, who heads the National Center for
Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned that American communities need to
prepare now for the possibilities of remote work, teleschooling and other
provisional measures when the disease starts spreading domestically.” (G)
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday
warned that it expects the novel coronavirus that has sparked outbreaks around
the world to begin spreading at a community level in the United States, as a
top official said that disruptions to daily life could be “severe.”
“As we’ve seen from recent countries with community spread,
when it has hit those countries, it has moved quite rapidly. We want to make
sure the American public is prepared,” Nancy Messonnier, director of CDC’s
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters.
“As more and more countries experience community spread,
successful containment at our borders becomes harder and harder,” she said.
There have been 14 cases of the virus diagnosed in the U.S.,
all in people who traveled recently to China or their close contacts. Another
39 U.S. residents have been infected in other parts of the world before being
repatriated and quarantined. But CDC officials say the country could soon see
more cases as the virus starts to spread through communities in areas outside
China, including Iran, South Korea, and Italy.
The CDC urged American businesses and families to start
preparing for the possibility of a bigger outbreak. Messonnier said that
parents should ask their children’s schools about plans for closures. Businesses
should consider whether they can offer telecommuting options to their
employees, while hospitals might need to look into expanding telehealth
services, she said.
“Disruption to everyday life might be severe,” Messonnier
said, adding that she talked to her children about the issue Tuesday morning.
“While I didn’t think they were at risk right now, we as a family ought to be
preparing for significant disruption to our lives.”
The CDC’s messaging seemed to be at odds with the position
of the World Health Organization, which reiterated Tuesday that countries could
stop transmission chains if they acted swiftly and aggressively…
Messonnier said the CDC is evaluating data on measures that
could be used to stem the spread of the virus, including school closures and
other social distancing strategies, voluntary home quarantines, and surface
cleaning methods. The CDC is using data from past flu outbreaks to study those
strategies, but will tailor its recommendations for the new virus.
In a press briefing Tuesday afternoon, other top health
officials pushed back on the perception that the public needs to take direct
action now to prepare for community spread of the virus. They also doubled down
on the message that the U.S. has successfully contained the spread of the virus
thus far…
Messonnier said the CDC is also in conversation about
whether to change the case definition that triggers a sick patient to be tested
for the virus. Currently, health officials recommend testing only for people
who have respiratory symptoms and have recently traveled to China, or those who
have been in close contact with someone who was infected. But as community
spread picks up in other countries, the case definition could change.” (H)
“President Donald Trump on Wednesday tried to ease growing
fears over the spreading coronavirus, saying at the White House that his
administration has the situation under control and is “ready to
adapt” if the virus spreads.
“Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American
people remains very low,” Trump said. “We’re ready to adapt and ready
to do whatever we have to as the disease spreads, if it spreads.
“We’re very, very ready for this,” Trump said,
adding that only 15 people had contracted the virus in the U.S. and that all
were expected to recover.
Trump, speaking from the Brady Briefing Room, said he was
putting Vice President Mike Pence in charge of his administration’s response to
the potential pandemic. Trump, however, rejected that he had made Pence a
“czar” for the response to the virus.
Pence, speaking after Trump, reiterated that the
“threat to the American public remains low” and said, “We will
continue to bring the full resources of the federal government … to see to
the health and well-being and to the effective response to the coronavirus in
the United States of America.”
Trump — who this week announced a $2.5 billion plan to help
combat the illness — said at the briefing, “We’re going to spend whatever
is appropriate.”
Following the remarks of Trump and Pence, several senior
officials from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention spoke — and many didn’t paint quite as rosy a picture.
One NIH official said a potential coronavirus vaccine was still at least a year
away.
The president’s address came amid a tumbling stock market
and grave criticism from Democrats who say his handling of the outbreak has
been inadequate. It also came just a day after the CDC warned that it was only
a matter of time before the illness, known as COVID-19, will spread across
communities in the United States…
Measures to contain the virus in the U.S. so far have
involved restricting travel to and from China — the center of the outbreak —
and isolating identified cases.
Trump on Wednesday called those efforts “some very good
early decisions” and indicated that he would consider restricting travel
to South Korea and other countries “at the right time.”…
Federal health officials added Tuesday that they are
preparing for a potential pandemic. CDC officials said the virus could disrupt
daily lives, including closing schools, forcing people to work from home and
delaying elective medical procedures.
Trump, asked Wednesday whether schools should prepare for a
spread of the virus, replied that “every aspect of our society”
should be prepared. He added that he doesn’t think it would come to that but
that people should be prepared “just in case.”
But he also vacillated at various points during his news
conference between agreeing with and rejecting the stark warnings of a broader
potential outbreak issued by government public health experts.
Responding to a question about the likelihood of a U.S.
outbreak, he said, “I don’t think it’s inevitable.
“It probably will. It possibly will,” he
continued. “It could be at a very small level, or it could be at a larger
level.”
At another point, Trump said, “Nothing is
inevitable.” “ (I)
“Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s health emergencies program,
suggested countries need to be working full bore to be ready to deal with the
virus.
“It is time to prepare. It is time to do everything you
would do in preparing for a pandemic,” he insisted…
Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s health emergencies program,
suggested countries need to be working full bore to be ready to deal with the
virus.
“It is time to prepare. It is time to do everything you
would do in preparing for a pandemic,” he insisted.
Continuing to focus on trying to contain the virus — a goal
many infectious diseases experts are skeptical can be met — buys time, Ryan
said, noting if the illness can be prevented from spreading in Europe until flu
season ends, hospitals won’t face a double blow.
“Even slowing down the virus by a month or six weeks has a
massive positive benefit to the system,’’ he said.
But people need to be realistic about the limits of
containment. “We cannot shut down the world,” Ryan said. “That’s not going to
work.”
Countries should be working on trying to reduce the risk of
imported cases, reduce the risk of spread from cases that get in, and increase
the chance that people who get sick survive the infection. “But I think we have
to be very, very careful in trying to suggest that we could absolutely stop the
virus from spreading from one country to the next,” he said. “I don’t think
that’s possible.”” (J)
“A federal health official warned Tuesday that the deadly
coronavirus could cause “severe” disruptions in the USA as global
experts struggled to fend off the outbreak and avoid a pandemic.
Is it too late?
“Disruption to everyday life may be severe,” Nancy
Messonnier, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned at a news
conference Tuesday. Schools could be closed, mass public gatherings suspended
and businesses forced to have employees work remotely, she said.
Messonnier said the coronavirus has caused sickness and
death and sustained person-to-person transmission. That’s two of the three
factors for a pandemic, she said.
“As community spread is detected in more and more countries,
the world moves closer to meeting the third criteria – worldwide spread of the
new virus,” Messonnier said.
Although the World Health Organization determined Monday
that the term pandemic “did not fit the facts,” experts said it very
soon could…..
Melissa Nolan, a medical doctor and professor of
epidemiology at the University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public
Health, cited new clusters in Iran, which faces at least 95 cases and has had
16 deaths, and Italy, which is dealing with 322 cases.
“If we continue to see focalized local transmission in
areas outside of China, the WHO will need to reconvene,” Nolan told USA
TODAY on Tuesday. “We are very close to seeing this virus becoming a
pandemic.”
Nolan said responses to the outbreaks in Iran and Italy
could help health officials in other countries prepare their own medical and
quarantine policies before an outbreak. That is crucial, said Robert Glatter,
an emergency physician at New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital who fears the world is
on the “cusp” of a pandemic.
“Trying to contain a disease which spreads like
influenza, in this case COVID-19, is almost impossible,” he said. “We
are talking about rapid-fire and sustained transmission.”…
Ogbonnaya Omenka, an assistant professor and public health
specialist at Butler University’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, said
he understands the concerns. The main implication of declaring a pandemic is
requiring, or at least further urging, national governments to prepare
facilities and health workers to treat a lot of patients, Omenka told USA
TODAY.
“Not only is this costly, it may also trigger
panic,” he warned. “Countries may as well put in place these plans
without the official announcement.”
Tedros stressed that a pandemic declaration would not eliminate
the need for health authorities to continue testing, limiting contact with the
sick and encouraging frequent hand washing – the front-line defense….
Messonnier acknowledged the CDC struck a more urgent tone in
warnings about the virus in the USA. The proliferation of coronavirus in
countries outside China raised the agency’s expectations the virus will spread
here.
“People are concerned about this situation – I would say rightfully so,” Messonnier
said. “But we are putting our concerns to work preparing. Now is the time
for businesses, hospitals, communities, schools and everyday people to begin
preparing as well.”
“It’s not so much a question of if this will happen
anymore but rather more a question of exactly when,” an official said.”
(K)
“When you start to see sustained transmission in other
countries throughout the world, it’s inevitable that it will come to the United
States,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases, told NBC News.
In the U.S., 57 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19,
the illness caused by the new coronavirus. The majority are among repatriated
residents who were passengers of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, docked in
Japan.
The CDC said Americans should prepare for the possibility of
disruptions to their daily lives if the virus were to start spreading in the
U.S. That could include closing schools, working from home and delaying
elective medical procedures.
“We should all be dusting off our pandemic preparedness
plans and rehearse them very quickly,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an
infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University. “The core concept
is social distancing.”
Business leaders, Schaffner said, should start considering
which employees could work from home. Perhaps the time will come, he and other
experts said, to observe religious practices and ceremonies at home, rather
than attend larger community gatherings at places of worship. And families
should start asking themselves how they would handle a week or two at home,
without traveling even short distances for food, medicine or
entertainment.” (L)
“Gown, gloves, goggles, mask — deposit in biohazard
container and wash hands for 20 seconds. That’s how to take it off safely.
It’s a drill that’s becoming muscle memory for health care
workers these days as hospitals and medical facilities prepare for the
anticipated spread of the new coronavirus from China. Blanchard wants it to
feel as routine for the Teaneck hospital’s staff as tying their shoes or
fastening a seat belt.
Practice in donning and doffing personal protective
equipment — or PPE, as it is called — has gained new urgency as the United
States braces for a possible surge in infections. Health care workers are on
the front lines…
There has been no community transmission in the United
States, Messonnier said. New Jersey has no cases.
But the near certainty that the virus will arrive — whether
in small, localized outbreaks or as a widespread epidemic — has state and local
health officials and hospital leaders on the alert and concerned.
In New Jersey, a governor’s task force meets weekly and has
updated a preparedness plan. Hospital infection-control practitioners, chief
medical officers and executives met with state health officials earlier this
month. A conference call with 250 hospital executives — the second since the
COVID epidemic began in China — is planned for later this week.
At individual hospitals, staff members are scanning for
updates and new information on the virus, taking inventory of supplies, drawing
up plans and reviewing infection-control procedures. One large system —
RWJBarnabas Health — has a daily meeting of its emergency response team and a
secure communication line systemwide.
“We don’t know who we may encounter in the Emergency
Department,” said Jesson Yeh, an emergency physician at Holy Name who was part
of that hospital’s training this week. “We need to be prepared for any possible
situation, which may include people with viruses like the coronavirus, flu —
Ebola, even.”
“Sometimes we do need a brush-up on how to prepare,” said
Jennifer Temple, an Emergency Department nurse taking Blanchard’s review
program. “Not that we forget. But it’s an emergency room; we want to work so fast.
This is a great way to remind us.”
Health care workers are the front lines of defense against
the coronavirus’s spread as they diagnose and treat the sick. Their close
proximity, exposure to the spray of coughs and sneezes and high touch contact
as they do everything from take temperatures to insert breathing tubes vastly
increases their risk of infection…
For hospitals, that means two things, said Dr. Adam Jarrett,
Holy Name’s chief medical officer: “The first thing we’re doing is reinforcing
the training our staff has.” Then, “we’re making sure we have appropriate
supplies.”
Previous exercises involving government agencies across the
nation “did show us that if we had a pandemic, there were going to be supply
issues,” said Messonnier, of the CDC. “We are now thinking through and working
on those supply issues,” to ensure there’s protection for health care
workers.
“There’s absolutely a shortage of masks and gowns,” said
Jarrett, of Holy Name. “There hasn’t been a problem because there haven’t been
any patients yet,” he said. “If there’s a significant outbreak in the tri-state
area, I think there could be.”
CDC guidelines call for workers to wear N95 masks, which are
also used in some construction or industrial settings. They form hard domes over
the mouth and nose, with material like a HEPA filter filtering all air in and
out. Hospitals are carefully controlling their use. Washable gowns might be
used and thrown away, Jarrett said, if there aren’t enough disposable gowns.
Another concern, depending on how the spread of the virus
evolves, could be high rates of absentees among health care workers and other
essential workers. New Jersey’s earlier pandemic flu preparedness plan, drafted
in the wake of the 2009 swine flu epidemic, told hospitals to prepare for
absences of 30% to 50%.
CDC guidelines say health care institutions should err on
the side of caution when workers may have been exposed to COVID-19 and show
symptoms of fever or illness. They should stay home from work and
self-quarantine, the agency suggested.
Hospitals could manage those shortages by shifting the
workers to concentrate on critical needs, employing temporary agency nurses, or
canceling elective procedures, a spokeswoman for the state Health Department
said.
During Superstorm Sandy, for example, hard-hit facilities
were able to waive standard credentialing procedures to make it faster to bring
in personnel from other areas or out of state. “ (M)
“In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy said preparations are
ramping up. He noted that there are currently no confirmed cases in the state,
but said it was prudent to anticipate that there would be.
“It’s pretty clear from financial markets the past couple of
days, it’s pretty clear when you look at South Korea, Iran, Italy, that this is
not going away anytime soon,” he said.
“We had a whole-of-government meeting this morning in
Newark, just going over, once again, protocols, pre-emptive action — what do we
do if X or Y happens,” he said, during remarks Wednesday at an unrelated news event
at William Paterson University. “We’re doing everything to get out ahead of
this and also be prepared as possible if something hits us.”
Murphy also said Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli on
Wednesday was to convene a conference call with all hospitals in the state
about preparations, noting that the state’s designated center for handling
cases, University Hospital in Newark, “has a capacity of only so much.”.. (N)
“Against a backdrop of educated guesses — the state
epidemiologist predicted it could be like a bad flu season with 500 deaths, but
with no vaccine — Connecticut hospital officials said they have been drilling
for weeks, got practice from the Ebola scare in 2014 and with the flu in 2009
and this year, and are ready for a coronoavirus outbreak if it comes to that.
In anticipation, as the virus spread in China, Hartford
Hospital activated its emergency preparedness plan in early January, involving
more than 300 units of the hospital, Dr. Ajay Kumor, chief medical officer,
said at a news briefing Wednesday afternoon.
Gov. Ned Lamont outlines steps Connecticut has taken to
prepare for coronavirus, urges residents to follow CDC guidelines to prevent
spread of the disease »
For Dr. Mike Ivy of Yale-New Haven Hospital, the process is
worn smooth on his lips: You have flu-like symptoms. You come into the
emergency room. At the registration desk, you’ll be asked if you’ve traveled
abroad to an area with there has been transmission of the virus — China, Iran,
South Korea, Japan, northern Italy.
If the answer is yes, you’d be taken to an isolation room
with negative air pressure, evaluated by a doctor and nurse and tested for
coronavirus. You’ll be admitted if you’re sick enough, sent home if you’re not.
“People can isolate themselves at home so they do not infect
anyone else,” said Ivy, deputy chief medical officer.
If you stay at the hospital, your treatment team will be
wearing gowns, gloves and masks when they come in.
“And then, hopefully, you get better,” Ivy said, “as the
majority of the patients do.”… (N)
“Health organizations in Rhode Island said Tuesday that they
are taking their coronavirus preparedness efforts to a higher level.
The United States said officials are warning Americans to
prepare for the spread of coronavirus in communities across the country.
Doctors with Lifespan said they have created an emergency
task force, so each facility can work together to combat the virus should it
spread into Rhode Island…
The Rhode Island Department of Health said they’ve been
having frequent talks with schools here, too.
A spokesperson for the University of Rhode Island said they
have 50 students and one faculty member in Italy.
“The University remains in frequent contact with its
study-abroad host partners, who have been communicating regularly with the
students about the COVID-19 situation in Italy,” said the spokesperson.
Rhode Island Hospital Disaster Medicine and Emergency
Preparedness Director, Dr. Selim Suner, said a concern is how exactly it’s
spreading.
“We don’t know if it’s airborne yet because those
studies have not been done,” said Suner…
The best preparation he said we know well.
“Hand-washing and keeping a distance from ill people is
the best prevention,” said Suner.” (P)
“Reacting to concerns about the quickening spread of
coronavirus, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Wednesday that the state would set
aside some $40 million to fight the virus, as well as plan for possible
quarantines at homes, hotels and hospitals.
In a briefing in the Capitol, the governor and his health commissioner,
Dr. Howard Zucker, stressed that New York still had no confirmed cases of the
virus, but warned that its spread to the state was inevitable.
The scope of the virus’s spread and the importance of New
York as a center of global commerce and transportation led Mr. Cuomo, a
third-term Democrat, to ask for additional funding for fighting the disease.
“It is highly probable that we will have people in New York
State who test positive,” said Mr. Cuomo, noting that New York City is “the
front door internationally” for many travelers. “No one should be surprised
when we have positive cases.”
In addition to the $40 million from the Legislature, Mr.
Cuomo said he would ask federal authorities permission to test patient samples
in a laboratory in New York, rather than waiting several days for results from
the C.D.C. in Atlanta….
State officials have already been taking precautions against
the disease, asking some 700 recent visitors to China to voluntarily quarantine
themselves, even as Customs and Border Protection agents continue to screen
passengers at area airports. Individuals who have visited mainland China are
judged to be of “medium risk,” according to the State Health Department, though
it said none of those self-isolating individuals had exhibited symptoms of
coronavirus.
In New York City, where officials say seven potential
patients have been tested and cleared, Mayor Bill de Blasio has expressed
confidence that the city is prepared, citing previous scares involving even
more deadly diseases like Ebola in 2014…
“We are in a state of
high vigilance, high readiness, all elements of the city government, to address
this crisis,” he said at a news conference on Wednesday. “We have the greatest
public health capacity of anywhere in this country.”
The city has made 1,200 hospital beds available for anyone
suspected of having coronavirus and has distributed 1.5 million face masks to
health care workers.
But the mayor warned that the city needed help from the
federal government in obtaining more protective gear — at least 300,000 more
masks, he said — and stressed the importance of giving local health departments
the ability to test for the virus on their own.
Other major cities were also taking precautions, including
San Francisco, which declared a local state of emergency on Tuesday, despite no
confirmed cases, saying “the global picture is changing rapidly.”
On Wednesday, officials at the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority said they were working with state and federal health officials to
assess potential contingency plans.
Those measures could include limiting or staggering public
transit ridership, according to a document prepared by City Hall and the New
York City’s Emergency Management Department in 2014 that focused on how the
city might respond to a flu pandemic…
Similarly, state health officials were regularly consulting
with the C.D.C. as well as county officials, and studying federal
recommendations for mitigation in case of a large outbreak, including basic
precautions such as covering one’s face when sneezing or coughing, to more
expansive measures such as school closures and cancellation of public events.
“If you prepare correctly, you’ll have less of an issue when
a situation develops into something that is more problematic,” Mr. Cuomo said.
“The threat you don’t take seriously is the one that becomes serious.” (Q)
“A man in Miami went to the hospital to receive a test for
the coronavirus after developing flu-like symptoms, only to receive the news
that he didn’t have it — and a $3,270 medical bill, the Miami Herald reports.
Why it matters: The man had just returned from a work trip
to China, so took his symptoms more seriously than normal, which is exactly
what public health experts want people to do.
Our thought bubble: The episode would be a great parody of
the health care system, if it wasn’t real.
The man has a short-term health insurance plan, which
usually have skimpy benefits in exchange for lower premiums, and don’t have to
cover pre-existing conditions. The Trump administration has expanded them.
The hospital told the Herald that the patient is only on the
hook for $1,400 based on his insurance, but his insurer told him that first, he
must provide three years of medical records to prove that his flu didn’t relate
to pre-existing conditions.
And more bills are probably coming.” (R)
(A) C.D.C.
Confirms First Possible Community Transmission of Coronavirus in U.S., by Roni
Caryn Rabin, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/health/coronavirus-cdc-usa.html?referringSource=articleShare
(B) U.S.
Soldier Tests Positive for Virus in South Korea,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/world/asia/coronavirus-news.html?referringSource=articleShare
(C) Last 48
hours,
https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-latest-developments-8b8990c4-6762-494a-8ee0-5091746bda9b.html
(D) “We are at
a turning point”: The coronavirus outbreak is looking more like a pandemic, by
Julia Belluz https://www.vox.com/2020/2/23/21149327/coronavirus-pandemic-meaning-italy
(E) Coronavirus:
More New Cases Are Now Reported Outside China Than Inside, by Bill CHAPPELL,
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/02/26/809568686/coronavirus-more-new-cases-are-now-reported-outside-china-than-inside
(F) The
coronavirus seems unstoppable. What should the world do now?, by Jon Cohen, Kai
Kupferschmidt,
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/coronavirus-seems-unstoppable-what-should-world-do-now
(G) Kudlow
breaks with CDC on coronavirus: ‘We have contained this’, by ELI OKUN,
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/25/kudlow-white-house-coronavirus-117402
(H) CDC
expects ‘community spread’ of coronavirus, as top official warns disruptions
could be ‘severe’, by MEGAN THIELKING,
https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/25/cdc-expects-community-spread-of-coronavirus-as-top-official-warns-disruptions-could-be-severe/
(I) Trump
says coronavirus risk to Americans ‘very low,’ puts Pence in charge of gov’t
response, by Adam Edelman, https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-coronavirus-risk-americans-very-low-administration-effectively-handling-n1143756
(J) WHO tells
countries to prepare for coronavirus pandemic, but insists it’s too soon to
make that call, by HELEN BRANSWELL, https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/24/who-tells-countries-prepare-coronavirus-pandemic-too-soon-to-make-call/
(K) Could a
coronavirus pandemic be stopped? US warns of ‘severe’ disruptions, by John
Bacon, Ken Alltucker,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/02/25/coronavirus-pandemic-can-outbreak-still-be-stopped/4865934002/
(L) CDC warns
Americans of coronavirus outbreak, by Erika Edwards,
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/americans-should-prepare-coronavirus-spread-u-s-cdc-says-n1142556
(M) ‘Not a
question of if … but when’: How NJ hospitals are preparing for coronavirus
spread, by Lindy Washburn,
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/health/2020/02/25/coronavirus-how-nj-hospitals-preparing-possible-epidemic/4858668002/
(N) Officials
Urge Preparations for Coronavirus in U.S., Noting Global Spread, by DAVID CRUZ,
https://www.njspotlight.com/2020/02/officials-urge-preparations-for-coronavirus-in-u-s-noting-global-spread/
(O) Connecticut
hospitals say they are ready for the coronavirus, but with no vaccine, ‘inevitable’
challenges lie ahead, by Josh Kovner,
https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-news-coronavirus-hospitals-emergency-preparation-20200226-rl2mxh7frbb4ja6qdwplual3jm-story.html
(P) Lifespan
creates emergency task force as coronavirus fears heighten, https://turnto10.com/news/local/lifespan-creates-emergency-task-force-as-coronavirus-fears-heighten
(Q) Coronavirus
in New York: $40 Million to Combat Spread, by Jesse McKinley, Luis
Ferré-Sadurní and Christina Goldbaum, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-cuomo.html?referringSource=articleShare
Part 10. CORONAVIRUS. Stop Surprise Medical Bills
for Coronavirus care. (&) Lessons Learned (or not) In California and
Washington State from community acquired cases.
“A man in Miami went to the hospital to receive a test for
the coronavirus after developing flu-like symptoms, only to receive the news
that he didn’t have it — and a $3,270 medical bill, the Miami Herald reports.
Why it matters: The man had just returned from a work trip
to China, so took his symptoms more seriously than normal, which is exactly
what public health experts want people to do.
Our thought bubble: The episode would be a great parody of
the health care system, if it wasn’t real.
The man has a short-term health insurance plan, which usually
have skimpy benefits in exchange for lower premiums, and don’t have to cover
pre-existing conditions. The Trump administration has expanded them.
The hospital told the Herald that the patient is only on the
hook for $1,400 based on his insurance, but his insurer told him that first, he
must provide three years of medical records to prove that his flu didn’t relate
to pre-existing conditions.
And more bills are probably coming.” (A)
“Frank Wucinski and his 3-year-old daughter, Annabel, are
among the dozens of Americans the government has flown back to the country from
Wuhan, China, and put under quarantine to check for signs of coronavirus.
Now they are among what could become a growing number of
families hit with surprise medical bills related to government-mandated
actions.
Mr. Wucinski, a Pennsylvania native who has lived in China
for years, accepted the U.S. government’s offer to evacuate from Wuhan with
Annabel in early February as the new coronavirus spread. His wife, who is not
an American citizen and remains in China, developed pneumonia that doctors
think resulted from Covid-19, the disease caused by the respiratory virus. Her
father, whom she helped care for, was infected and recently died.
The first stop for Mr. Wucinski and Annabel was a two-week
quarantine at Marine Corps Station Miramar near San Diego. During that time,
they had two mandatory stays in an isolation unit at a nearby children’s
hospital. The first started upon arrival in the United States, and the second
was a few days later, after an official heard Annabel coughing…
After their release from quarantine, Mr. Wucinski and his
daughter went to stay with his mother in Harrisburg, Pa. That’s where they
found a pile of medical bills waiting: $3,918 in charges from hospital doctors,
radiologists and an ambulance company.
“I assumed it was all being paid for,” Mr. Wucinski said.
“We didn’t have a choice. When the bills showed up, it was just a pit in my
stomach, like, ‘How do I pay for this?’”
The federal government has the authority to quarantine and
isolate patients if officials believe them to be a public health threat. These
powers, which date back to cholera outbreaks among ship passengers in the late
19th century, are rarely used. They don’t say anything about who pays when the isolation
happens in a nongovernmental medical facility — or when they’re brought there
by a private ambulance company…
A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman
declined to comment on whether it would pay the bills of patients kept in
mandatory isolation…
“My question is why are we being charged for these stays, if
they were mandatory and we had no choice in the matter?” Mr. Wucinski wrote in
his message.
…. hen contacted by The New York Times, a Rady Children’s
Hospital spokesman said the physicians’ bill had been sent in error and that
the family would not be held responsible for the charges.
“We’re in the process of assessing how the error occurred,”
the spokesman, Benjamin Metcalf, said. “We are working with government agencies
regarding billing for these cases.”
The ambulance company that transported the Wucinskis,
American Medical Response, charged the family $2,598 for taking them to the
hospital. A company representative declined to comment on the bill “due to
patient privacy concerns,” but said the company would look into the case.
An additional $90 in charges came from radiologists who read
the patients’ X-ray scans and do not work for the hospital. Having such
doctors, who may be outside a patient’s insurance networks, provide services to
hospital patients is one of the major causes of surprise medical bills.” (W)
“Health officials in Washington state said on Saturday a
coronavirus patient has died, marking the first death in the U.S. from
COVID-19, the illness associated with the virus.
The person who died was a man in his 50s who had underlying
health conditions, and there was no evidence he contracted the virus through
travel, health officials said.
Shortly after announcement of the death, President Donald
Trump at a White House press conference said the United States is issuing more
travel restrictions and warnings to help prevent spread of the virus. He also
said he is meeting with pharmaceutical executives to discuss work toward a
coronavirus vaccine.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee meanwhile declared a state of
emergency in response to new cases of COVID-19, directing state agencies to use
all resources necessary to prepare for and respond to the outbreak.
“This will allow us to get the resources we need,” Inslee
said. “This is a time to take commonsense, proactive measures to ensure the
health and safety of those who live in Washington state.”” (B)
“A patient infected with the novel coronavirus in Washington
state has died, a state health official said Saturday, marking the first death
due to the virus in the United States…
Three new presumptive positive cases were announced in
Washington state on Saturday, meaning a test given by a state or local lab came
back positive, but has yet to be confirmed by the CDC’s lab in Atlanta.
Among those three cases was the patient who died, health
officials said.
The person-to-person cases include several of unknown
origin, including:
• A woman in Washington County, Oregon, who is presumptive
positive. She is in isolation.
• A high school boy in Snohomish County, Washington, who is
presumptive positive. He’s doing well, according to Dr. Chris Spitters, interim
health officer for the Snohomish Health District.
• An older woman in Santa Clara County, California, who
tested positive.
• A Solano County, California, woman who is in serious
condition at UC Davis Medical Center.” (C)
“The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and
Washington state health officials have launched an investigation into two cases
of coronavirus at a nursing home in a suburb of Seattle, the same town where
the nation’s first coronavirus fatality occurred.
An outbreak in such a facility is particularly troubling
because of the close quarters and the vulnerability of the elderly residents to
disease.
A health care worker at the Life Care Center in Kirkland and
a female resident in her 70s have tested positive for the disease, state and
federal officials revealed in a media call Saturday.
Around 27 of 108 residents and 25 of 180 staff members also
have some symptoms of COVID-19, and are being tested, officials said.
Authorities are “very concerned about an outbreak in this
setting, where there are many older people,” said county health official Jeff
Duchin.” (D)
“Researchers who have examined the genomes of two
coronavirus infections in Washington State say the similarities between the
cases suggest that the virus may have been spreading in the state for weeks.
Washington had the United States’ first confirmed case of
coronavirus, announced by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on
Jan. 20. Based on an analysis of the virus’s genetic sequence, another case
that surfaced in the state and was announced on Friday probably was descended
from that first case.
The two people live in the same county, but are not known to
have had contact with one another, and the second case occurred well after the
first would no longer be expected to be contagious. So the genetic findings
suggest that the virus has been spreading through other people in the community
for close to six weeks, according to one of the scientists who compared the
sequences, Trevor Bedford, an associate professor at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer
Research Center and the University of Washington.
Dr. Bedford said it was possible that the two cases could be
unrelated, and had been introduced separately into the United States. But he
said that was unlikely, however, because in both cases the virus contained a
genetic variation that appears to be rare — it was found in only two of the 59
samples whose sequences have been shared from China, where the virus
originated.” (E)
“The first suspected U.S. case of a patient getting the new
coronavirus through “community spread” — with no history of travel to
affected areas or exposure to someone known to have the COVID-19 illness — was
left undiagnosed for days because a request for testing wasn’t initially
granted, according to officials at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento,
Calif.
The patient in Northern California is now the 60th confirmed
case of the coronavirus in the United States. The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention disclosed the latest case Wednesday evening, as President Trump
assigned Vice President Pence to lead the administration’s response to the
disease.
“This case was detected through the U.S. public health
system — picked up by astute clinicians,” the CDC said in a brief
statement about the new patient.
UC Davis included more details about the case in its own
statement, drawing on an email sent to staff at its medical center. It said the
officials initially ruled out a test for the coronavirus because the patient’s
case didn’t match the CDC’s criteria.
The new patient, who lives in Solano County and has not been
identified, was transferred to UC Davis Medical in Sacramento County from
another hospital this month. Staff at UC Davis then suspected the patient might
be infected with the coronavirus that has caused more than 2,800 deaths.
“Upon admission, our team asked public health officials
if this case could be COVID-19,” the hospital said. “We requested
COVID-19 testing by the CDC, since neither Sacramento County nor CDPH
[California Department of Public Health] is doing testing for coronavirus at
this time. Since the patient did not fit the existing CDC criteria for
COVID-19, a test was not immediately administered. UC Davis Health does not
control the testing process.”
Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said Thursday
morning that the CDC is streamlining the process it uses to test for the
coronavirus across the country, saying it will spread the new process to all of
its labs.
Azar said all of the CDC’s network of nearly 100 public labs
will soon be using the modified process. The next step, he said, is to develop
a “bedside diagnostic” that doctors and hospitals could use. He did
not give details about when that might occur.” (F)
“About 124 health care workers — including at least 36
nurses — are under self-quarantine after possible exposure to the coronavirus
patient admitted to UC Davis Medical Center last week, a nurse union said.
“Despite University of California medical facilities
being generally better prepared and equipped to treat challenging medical
cases, the recent UC Davis Medical Center COVID-19 case highlights the
vulnerability of the nation’s hospitals to this virus and the insufficiency of
current Centers for Disease Control guidelines,” the National Nurses
United said in a news release Friday.
“We know that we can be successful in getting all our
hospitals prepared to control the spread of this virus. We are committed to
working with hospitals and state and federal agencies to be ready,” Bonnie
Castillo, the union’s executive director, said in a statement. “But nurses
and health care workers need optimal staffing, equipment, and supplies to do
so.”
The patient was transferred to UC Davis on February 19 from
a Northern California hospital. Officials from both hospitals said the patient
wasn’t initially tested for the virus because she didn’t meet the existing CDC
criteria.
The patient didn’t have any relevant travel history or
exposure to another known patient, said Dr. Sara Cody, director of the county’s
public health department.
Confirmation that the Solano County woman had contracted the
virus came Sunday, after UC Davis doctors insisted on testing.
Since then, CDC officials say they’ve updated their testing
guidelines.
“As soon as that case was recognized, we met and we
revised our case definition for persons under investigation,” CDC Director
Dr. Robert Redfield said earlier this week. “Today, that has been posted (to
the CDC website) along with a new health advisory that the recommendation
should be when a clinician or individual suspects coronavirus, then we should
be able to get a test for coronavirus.”” (G)
“Sacramento County’s top health official says he expects a
few of the UC Medical Center employees exposed to the coronavirus last week to
test positive themselves in the coming days.
That’s not as alarming as it may sound, Peter Beilenson,
county health services director, said on Friday. Those employees, if infected,
stand a good likelihood that they will not become sick or will only be mildly
ill, and may not need to be treated.
“I expect there will be a few positives, probably
asymptomatic,” Beilenson said. He said he bases that prediction on early data
indicating 80 percent of people infected by the new virus have mild symptoms or
none at all…
“I think there will be more cases. That is not a horrible
thing,” he said. “Once the disease gets into the population, with so many mild
symptoms, common cold-like symptoms, people will be spreading it unbeknownst to
them. It gets it to be more a common variety.”
In total, more than 100 employees of three Northern
California hospitals are believed to have been exposed. In addition to those at
the Vacaville hospital and UC Davis Medical Center, another three employees
recently were sent home from Kaiser Permanente-South in Sacramento after
potential exposure to the virus, according to Rep. John Garamendi…
“The best guess is that there are people who are not showing
symptoms, but, are, nevertheless, infected. That’s a very normal way for
diseases to spread,” Matyas said. “To public health officials, this is what
disease does. The issue is that it’s not alarming, but we have to move to the
next phase.”
That not only means testing and screening, but also being
more rigorous at the hospital level, as Matyas said, to “universally assume the
possibility” that a patient seeking care and has flu- or cold-like symptoms may
carry the virus.
The mystery patient at UC Davis Medical Center has been the
center of national attention and politicized debate since officials at the
center announced on Wednesday that they had what was believed to be the first
coronavirus patient in the U.S. with no known provenance for the illness.” (H)
California Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that 33 people
have tested positive for COVID-19 and the state is currently monitoring at
least 8,400 others —a day after U.S. health officials confirmed the first
possible community transmission of the coronavirus in a Solano County resident.
“This is a fluid situation right now and I want to emphaize
the risk to the American public remains low,” said Dr. Sonia Y. Angell,
California Department of Public Health Director and State Health Officer during
a press conference. “There have been a limited number of confirmed cases to
date.”..
“We are currently in deep partnership with CDC on one
overriding protocol that drives our principle focus right now and that’s
testing, and the importance to increase our testing protocols and to have point
of contact diagnostic testing as our top priority not just in the state of
California but I imagine all across the United States,” Newsom said at a press
conference.
Newsom said five of the 33 patients who tested positive for
the virus have since left the state. It wasn’t immediately clear whether the 33
positive cases were part of the group of Diamond Princess passengers who were
evacuated from the cruise ship that was quarantined off the coast of Japan. The
U.S. had 60 cases as of Wednesday night, 42 of which are people who were on the
ship, according to the CDC.
California health officials have 200 testing kits on hand
and will be receiving more over the next few days, Newsom said.
“We have just a few hundred testing kits and that’s surveillance
testing as well as diagnostic testing. That’s simply inadequate to do justice
to the kind of testing that is required to address this issue head on,” he
said.
Newsom said that the CDC has made “firm commitments” to
improve the state’s testing capacity, but did not provide details, such as how
many testing kits the agency has agreed to send to the state.” (I)
“It was the nation’s first infection that had unknown
origins. The director of California’s Public Health Department last week called
her case a “turning point” that could signal widespread infection is
increasingly difficult to stop.
The woman’s case unleashed a deluge of questions and
concerns about how local, state and federal officials responded to the mounting
public health concern after the evacuees arrived at Travis Air Force Base — and
what future responses might look like. A U.S. government whistleblower now says
federal workers did not have the necessary protective gear or training when
they were deployed to help quarantined people, including those at Travis.
Since the Solano County woman’s illness became known, teams
of health care investigators have fanned out across Northern California trying
to understand exactly how — and how widely — the virus has spread.
“We have deployed there,” Secretary of Health and Human
Services Alex Azar told McClatchy this week. “We’ll send whatever we need to
assist the state and local public health authorities with the contact tracing
and getting to the bottom of her case.”” (J)
“For weeks, public health experts have been watching to see
whether factory shutdowns and shipping problems in China caused by the
coronavirus epidemic will cause drug shortages in the United States.
Late Thursday, the Food and Drug Administration issued a
statement noting that one drug is now in short supply because of problems
related to the coronavirus outbreak. But it refused to disclose the name of the
drug and its manufacturer — as well as where the product or its ingredients
were made — saying that it could not reveal “confidential commercial
information.”
The agency’s vague announcement angered public health
advocates and those who track drug shortages, who said the lack of information
would only create more confusion as the virus has spread around the globe to at
least 56 countries from the original epidemic in China.
The F.D.A. has long been criticized by public interest
groups for refusing to reveal company information that could affect public
safety. Federal law protects companies from having trade secrets and confidential
proprietary information disclosed, which the agency has cited to withhold
details, like naming countries where raw ingredients come from….”
The F.D.A. has said it is closely monitoring about 20
products where the manufacturers rely solely on China for their finished
products or active pharmaceutical ingredients. Dr. Hahn said Thursday that the
drugs being monitored are considered “noncritical drugs.”
Hospitals have struggled for years with shortages of
hundreds of critical drugs, many of them staples of medical care that have been
on the market for decades. In 2017, Hurricane Maria damaged many pharmaceutical
factories in Puerto Rico, closing them for weeks and leading to supply
problems, including a shortage of saline bags made by Baxter. Problems with
manufacturing quality have caused other shortages, including a global shortfall
of valsartan, a widely used blood pressure drug.
Erin Fox, a drug shortage expert at the University of Utah,
said, “When the F.D.A. tells the American public that there is a shortage
without disclosing the specific drug, this only creates fear and panic, which
is unacceptable in the current situation.”
The F.D.A. frequently cites companies’ proprietary reasons
for why it does not disclose certain information, including the names of
specific drugs when companies are cited for manufacturing problems, or details
about clinical trials, Dr. Carome said. “Those are examples where I think it’s
an overuse,” he said.” (K)
“The surgeon general on Saturday urged the public to stop
buying masks, warning that it won’t help against the spread of the coronavirus
but will take away important resources from health care professionals.
“Seriously people — STOP BUYING MASKS!” the surgeon general,
Jerome M. Adams, said in a tweet on Saturday morning. “They are NOT effective
in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if health care
providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our
communities at risk!”
The plea comes as panicked consumers rush to buy masks online,
including so-called N95s, a surge that has led to price gouging and counterfeit
products.
In another tweet, Mr. Adams said the best way to protect
against the virus is to wash hands regularly, and for those who are feeling ill
to stay home.
Health officials around the world have been imploring the
public to stop buying masks if they are healthy or not caring for someone who
is ill. Medical professionals need a large supply of the masks because they are
in direct contact with infected patients and must change their masks
repeatedly.
“There are severe strains on protective equipment around the
world,” said Dr. Michael J. Ryan, executive director of the health emergency
program at the World Health Organization, during a briefing on Friday. “Our
primary concern is to ensure that our front line health workers are protected
and that they have the equipment they need to do their jobs.”
Dr. Ryan said masks primarily prevent a person from giving
the disease to someone else.
“There are limits to how a mask can protect you from being
infected,” he said. “The most important thing everyone can do is wash your
hands, keep your hands away from your face and observe very precise hygiene.”
The W.H.O.’s guidelines recommend that health workers use
surgical masks to cover their mouths and noses but the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention has instructed them to wear masks known as N95s, which
are thicker, fit more tightly around the mouth and nose, and block out much
smaller particles than surgical masks do.
Both masks help prevent the spread of droplets from a
person’s cough or sneeze, but medical specialists have said that for average
members of the public, they are generally not effective.
A person is more likely to get infected by touching
contaminated surfaces than from a droplet traveling through the air.
Air can also get in around the edges of the masks,
particularly flat surgical masks. Health care workers who wear N95 masks as
part of their jobs are required to undergo a fit test at least once a year to
ensure that there are no gaps around their mouths.
Most people are unlikely to know how to wear these masks and
could accidentally contaminate themselves if they touch the outside of the mask
when they remove it and then touch their face.
“Not having a mask does not necessarily put you at any
increased risk of contracting this disease,” Dr. Ryan said…
Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention, told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Thursday that it
was critical that masks remain available for doctors and nurses who were caring
for those affected by the virus and for people tending to loved ones with the
illness.
“There is no role for these masks in the community,” he
said. “These masks need to be prioritized for health care professionals that as
part of their job are taking care of individuals.”” (L)
It has been nearly three months since the first cases of a
new coronavirus pneumonia appeared in Wuhan, China, and it is now a global
outbreak. And yet, despite over 80,000 infections worldwide (most of them in
China), the world still doesn’t have a clear picture of some of the most basic
information about this outbreak…
In recent days the W.H.O. has complained that China has not
been sharing data on infections in health care workers. Earlier this month, the
editors of the journal Nature called on researchers to “ensure that their work
on this outbreak is shared rapidly and openly.”..
Lest Americans feel that it could never happen here, Dr.
Lipkin points out that it took many months for health officials in the United
States to acknowledge and recognize H.I.V. as a new virus, despite the fact
that gay men were turning up at alarming rates with unusual pneumonias and skin
cancers.
Scientific competition has also slowed reaction and
response, experts fear — leading to the extraordinary editors’ plea in Nature.
For a young researcher, a paper in Nature or the New England Journal of
Medicine is gold in career currency. Scientific prestige may encourage
perfecting data for peer review, but preparedness requires rapid dissemination
of information.
While federal officials in the United States warn Americans
to be ready for the virus, there are some important aspects of its spread about
which we have little information — even though they have likely already been
studied by scientists and officials, in China, in Japan and elsewhere.
Scientists in various countries are presumably gathering large amounts of data
day by day and the world deserves to see more of it.
“Were there patterns around infections, places, procedures?
Maybe that is being collected and readied for the medical literature. But it
would be hugely important to know,” said Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the
Center for Health Security of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public
Health, which studies epidemics.
For example: Of the more than 1,700 health workers who were
infected in China, did those infections occur before they knew to wear
protective equipment? Were they doing procedures that might lead to exposure?
Those answers would quell fears about how the virus spreads and how to protect
front line workers.
Likewise, there were hundreds of people who tested positive
aboard the Diamond Princess cruise ship and were transferred to the hospital.
But there has been little public information released about what shape they
were in. How many in the cohort were really sick, how many just had minor
symptoms and how many just needed isolation? Does the pattern of infection
suggest a role for transmission via plumbing on the ship?” (M)
“The federal government is “ramping up testing” in the
United States for the coronavirus and is looking to vastly increase its
screening efforts as global cases of the virus continue to rise, said Health
and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on Sunday.
Azar and Vice President Mike Pence made the rounds of the
Sunday morning political talk shows looking to assure the public that risk to
most Americans remains low despite the inevitability of more cases arising in
the near future.
“I think it’s very important that we treat the American
people like adults and explain to them that we don’t know where this will go,
that we will see more cases, that we will see continued community spreading in
the United States, as we’re seeing around the world,” Azar said during an
appearance on ABC’s “This Week.” “How big that gets, we do not know. But we
have the most advanced public health system and surveillance system in the
world. We are actively working on a vaccine. We are actively working on
therapeutics. The diagnostic is out in the field, and we’re going to work to
protect the American people with every tool that we’ve got.”..
Pence, appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” said “there’s no
question” there will be more cases of the virus formally known as COVID-19, but
said the risk “remains low” to Americans.
“We’re going to bring the best scientific minds, experts
together … we’re going to work every day … to contain this disease, to
treat those that are contracted, and I’m very confident we’re ready, and I know
… that we’ll get through this,” said Pence who was tapped by Trump to lead
the federal government’s response to the disease.
Pence told “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd that the
administration would “respect any decisions that are made at the state and
local level” to address the virus. Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Saturday announced
that New York had received approval by federal health officials to begin its
testing, the approval coming after the governor pressed Pence to fast track the
decision.” (N)
“The Trump administration may use a 70-year-old law to speed
up the manufacturing of medical supplies before a coronavirus outbreak, Alex M.
Azar II, the health secretary, said on Friday, a seeming acknowledgment that
the virus poses a threat beyond the reassurances of President Trump.
The Defense Production Act, passed by Congress in 1950
during the Korean War, allows the president to expand production of the
materials for national security purposes. Mr. Azar said that the federal
government could move to expedite certain contracts, including for supplies
like face masks, gowns and gloves. Mr. Azar has said that 300 million of a type
of mask known as N95 are needed for the emergency medical stockpile for health
care workers.
“I don’t have any procurements I need it for now, but if I
need it, we’ll use it,” Mr. Azar told reporters at a White House briefing on
the administration’s request to Congress for emergency funds to respond to the
virus…
Mr. Azar said that “the situation may worsen, and we may
need to mitigate its spread in the United States.” If cases of the coronavirus
began spreading widely, he said, those showing mild symptoms should stay home
rather than seek help at hospitals, to avoid the risk of overcrowding health
facilities.
“The advice is going to be: Stay home, manage your symptoms,
and we’ll provide guidance of at what point would you seek high-level medical
attention,” Mr. Azar said.
Mr. Azar’s remarks appeared to reflect a recognition that
the outbreak may reach a newer and more dangerous phase. In addition to his
comments about the government stockpiling protective equipment and about how
people should seek medical care in the case of a wider outbreak, he also raised
the possibility of school closures.
“It might make sense to close a school or certain schools or
take other measures like that,” Mr. Azar said. “Every option needs to be on the
table as we assess the situation, but it depends on the circumstances.”” (O)
“Hospitals and public health officials on the leading edge
of the U.S. mitigation strategy have been getting ready for weeks…
At the sprawling NYU Langone Health system in New York,
which has nearly 1,700 inpatient beds at six facilities, doctors are working to
prevent patients from swamping hospitals with minor respiratory complaints and crowding
out patients who may need more intensive care.
They are ramping up messaging that tells people how to
arrange online appointments with providers and other alternatives, said Michael
S. Phillips, chief hospital epidemiologist for the system…
NYU is already working to conserve “personal protective
equipment” — full-body “moon suits,” masks, face shields and other gear — for a
shortage that Phillips considers inevitable. Many masks used in U.S. hospitals
come from Hubei province in China, where the outbreak began. And when
production in China resumes, equipment surely will be reserved for use in that
country, he said. About 65 percent of N95 respirators are manufactured outside
the continental United States, in China and Mexico, according to HHS data.
NYU is urging health care personnel to re-use moon suits now
to help preserve inventory for later. That is appropriate, for example, in
treating patients with tuberculosis, he said. Face masks can be used again by
the same person, especially after practice sessions, he said.
“We are really looking carefully at how we’re utilizing
[protective equipment]
, and I think every hospital in the United States is
girding for these kind of shortages,” Phillips said.
While some hospitals have as many as 14 weeks worth of masks
on hand, the overall situation is grim. India, Taiwan and Thailand also have
halted or limited exports as they brace for spikes in demand in their own
countries.
Anticipating a surge in need, California’s state officials
have ordered 300,000 masks to distribute to hospitals and clinics on an
emergency basis, hoping to add to the 20,000 currently in state stockpiles.
Officials would not say where they hope to find that many masks.
Health care systems nationally have about two weeks of
supply left on hand, said Soumi Saha, senior director of advocacy at Premier
Inc., a large group purchasing organization that serves 4,000 hospitals.
Normally, an average of 2 million masks per month are used
in the United States, Premier said. That rises to 4 million per month during a
typical flu season.
Two domestic manufacturers that use raw material from the
United States — 3M and Prestige Ameritech — are ramping up production but are
not expected to be able to satisfy demand of 4 million masks a month until April,
Saha said.
“I don’t think hospitals can sort of buy their way out of
this problem. It is not a bidding war for N95s,” said Amy Ray, director of
infection prevention for the MetroHealth System in Cleveland. “The supply is
the supply, and prudence is necessary to preserve the stock that we have.’’”
(P)
“The World Health Organization on Friday raised its
assessment of the global coronavirus risk from “high” to “very high,” the most
serious assessment in its new four-stage alert system.
“This is a reality check for every government on the
planet,” said Dr. Michael J. Ryan, deputy director of W.H.O.’s health emergency
program. “Wake up. Get ready. This virus may be on its way.”
The assessment addresses the risks of both uncontrolled
spread of the virus and the resulting impacts.
United States health officials have given similarly alarming
assessments, though President Trump has played down the threat.
The W.H.O. does not officially use the word “pandemic,”
often defined as the worldwide spread of a new disease, but many health experts
say the coronavirus epidemic is one, or soon will be.” (Q)
“President Trump complained on Friday that Democrats and the
news media were trying to scare Americans about the coronavirus to score
political points against him but asserted that the outbreak had been relatively
limited because of his action to stem infections…
Mr. Trump spoke hours after Mick Mulvaney, the acting White
House chief of staff, likewise blamed the news media for exaggerating the
seriousness of coronavirus because “they think this will bring down the
president, that’s what this is all about.”..
Mr. Mulvaney said the administration took “extraordinary
steps four or five weeks ago,” to prevent the spread of the virus when it
declared a rare public health emergency and barred entry by most foreign
citizens who had recently visited China.
“Why didn’t you hear about it?” Mr. Mulvaney said of travel
restrictions that were widely covered in the news media. “What was still going
on four or five weeks ago? Impeachment, that’s all the press wanted to talk
about.”
The news media has been covering the global spread of
coronavirus for months.
But Mr. Mulvaney claimed that the news media was too
preoccupied covering impeachment, he said, “because they thought it would bring
down the president.”
The media’s focus switched to the coronavirus for the same
reason, he continued.
“The reason you’re seeing so much attention to it today is
that they think this is going to be the thing that brings down the president,”
he added. “That’s what this is all about it.”
Following the president’s lead, Mr. Mulvaney also brushed
off concerns over the virus; there have been 60 cases identified in the United
States.
“The flu kills people,” he said. “This is not Ebola. It’s
not SARS, it’s not MERS. It’s not a death sentence, it’s not the same as the
Ebola crisis.” (R)
“If the next few weeks or months bring calm — and scientists
increasingly worry that they will not — the world would do well to remember
this time what it seems to have forgotten again and again. Another pathogen
will emerge soon enough, and another after that. Eventually, one of them will
be far worse than all its predecessors. If we are very unlucky, it could be
worse than anything in living memory. Imagine something as contagious as
measles (which any given infected person passes to 90 percent of the people he
or she encounters) only many times more deadly, and you’ll have a good sense of
what keeps global health officials up at night.
Here’s what is certain: Despite many warnings over many
years, we are still not ready. Not in China, where nearly two decades after
that SARS outbreak food markets that sell live animals still thrive and
authoritarianism still undermines honest and accurate communication about
infectious diseases. Not in Africa, where basic public health capacity remains
hobbled by a lack of investment and, in some cases, by political unrest and
violence. Not in the United States, where shortsighted budget cuts and growing
nationalism have shrunk commitments to pandemic preparedness, both at home and
abroad.
To be sure, some broad progress has been made in the past
few years. Vaccine development and deployment now proceed faster than at any
point in history. The World Health Organization has corrected many of the institutional
shortcomings that thwarted its responses to previous outbreaks. Other
countries, in both Europe and Africa, have stepped up to fill the global health
leadership position that America appears to have vacated.”
But, as Covid-19 makes clear, much more is still needed.”
(S)
“Today, as the country faces the possibility of a widespread
outbreak of a new respiratory infection caused by the coronavirus, there are
nowhere near that many ventilators, and most are already in use. Only about
62,000 full-featured ventilators were in hospitals across the country, a 2010
study found. More than 10,000 others are stored in the Strategic National
Stockpile, a federal cache of supplies and medicines held in case of
emergencies, according to Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, a former director of the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Tens of thousands of other respiratory devices could be
repurposed in an emergency, experts say, but the shortfall could be stark,
potentially forcing doctors to make excruciating life-or-death decisions about
who would get such help should hospitals become flooded with the desperately
sick…
Across the country, educators, businesses and local
officials are beginning to confront the logistics of enduring a possible
pandemic: school closings that could force millions of children to remain at
home, emergency plans that would require employees to work remotely,
communities scrambling to build up supplies.
In plausible worst-case-scenarios given the pattern of the
outbreak thus far, the country could experience acute shortages not just in
ventilators but also health workers to operate them and care for patients;
hospital beds; and masks and other protective equipment.
“Even during mild flu pandemics, most of our I.C.U.s are
filled to the brim with severely ill patients on mechanical ventilation,” said
Dr. Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health
Security and an expert on health care preparedness. “I hope and pray Covid-19
turns out to be a moderate pandemic, but if not, we’re in serious trouble,” he
said, referring to the name given the disease caused by the virus.
Resources are concentrated in the most populous and
wealthiest cities, leaving rural areas and other neglected communities exposed
to greater risk. And public health experts worry that efforts to contain an
outbreak could be hamstrung by budget cuts that have weakened state health
departments.
In an extreme situation, some hospitals’ plans include
provisions for rationing, even removing some patients from ventilators without
requiring their consent to make way for others presumed to have a better chance
of survival. Some plans would also limit the access of certain categories of
patients from critical care or even hospitalization during a peak pandemic based
on criteria such as their age or an underlying chronic disease.
The concept of imposing such measures makes physicians
dedicated to saving every life uncomfortable, and there is evidence that many
people who could be removed from life support or refused care under such
protocols would otherwise survive.” (T)
“Leading health experts from around the world have been
meeting at the World Health Organization’s Geneva headquarters to assess the
current level of knowledge about the new COVID-19 disease, identify gaps and
work together to accelerate and fund priority research needed to help stop this
outbreak and prepare for any future outbreaks…
The meeting, hosted in collaboration with GloPID-R (the
Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness) brought
together major research funders and over 300 scientists and researchers from a
large variety of disciplines. They discussed all aspects of the outbreak and
ways to control it including:
the natural history of the virus, its transmission and diagnosis;
animal and environmental research on the origin of the
virus, including management measures at the human-animal interface;
epidemiological studies;
clinical characterization and management of disease caused
by the virus;
infection prevention and control, including best ways to
protect health care workers;
research and development for candidate therapeutics and
vaccines;
ethical considerations for research;
and integration of social sciences into the outbreak
response. (U)
“The first confirmed case of novel coronavirus in New York
State — a woman in her 30s who recently traveled to Iran — was announced Sunday
night by Governor Cuomo.
“There is no reason for undue anxiety — the general
risk remains low in New York,” Cuomo said in a statement. “We are
diligently managing this situation and will continue to provide information as
it becomes available.”
Cuomo said the woman who contracted the virus is currently
isolated in her home.
“The patient has respiratory symptoms, but is not in
serious condition and has been in a controlled situation since arriving to New
York,” Cuomo said. “This was expected. As I said from the beginning,
it was a matter of when, not if there would be a positive case of novel
coronavirus in New York.” (V)
(A) How a
coronavirus scare can lead to surprise medical bills, by Caitlin Owens,
https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-surprise-medical-bills-miami-1b808778-2450-4746-864c-d5fc9459eefb.html,
(B) First
coronavirus death in the U.S. happens in Washington state, by Nicole Acevedo and
Minyvonne Burke,
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/1st-coronavirus-death-u-s-officials-say-n1145931
(C) First
death from coronavirus in the United States confirmed in Washington state, by
Dakin Andone, Jamie Gumbrecht and Michael Nedelman, https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/health/us-coronavirus-saturday/index.html
(D) Washington
State Probing Troubling Coronavirus Outbreak In Nursing Home, by Mary
Papenfuss,
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/coronavirus-washington-state-nursing-home-covid-19_n_5e5aee89c5b601022111c4be
(E) Coronavirus
May Have Spread in U.S. for Weeks, Gene Sequencing Suggests, by Sheri Fink and
Mike Baker,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/01/health/coronavirus-washington-spread.html?referringSource=articleShare
(F) Diagnosis
Of Coronavirus Patient In California Was Delayed For Days, by BILL CHAPPELL,
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/02/27/809944423/diagnosis-of-coronavirus-patient-in-california-was-delayed-for-days
(G) More than
120 UC Davis health care staff in self-quarantine after possible exposure to
coronavirus, by Christina Maxouris and Alexandra Meeks,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/health/uc-davis-health-care-workers-self-quarantine/index.html
(H) Expect
more Sacramento coronavirus cases in the next few days, county health chief
warns, by TONY BIZJAK AND DARRELL SMITH,
https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article240745121.html
(I) California
is monitoring at least 8,400 people for the coronavirus, by Berkeley Lovelace
Jr., https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/27/california-is-monitoring-8400-people-for-the-coronavirus.html
(J) Coronavirus
evacuees passed through California military base. Did safety plan break down?,
by JASON POHL, FRANCESCA CHAMBERS, DARRELL SMITH, AND CATHIE ANDERSON,
https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/health-and-medicine/article240767626.html
(K) First Drug
Shortage Caused by Coronavirus, F.D.A. Says. But It Won’t Disclose What Drug or
Where It’s Made, by Katie Thomas,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/health/drug-coronavirus-shortage.html?referringSource=articleShare
(L) Surgeon
General Urges the Public to Stop Buying Face Masks, by Maria Cramer and Knvul
Sheikh,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/health/coronavirus-n95-face-masks.html?referringSource=articleShare
(M) We Don’t
Really Know How Many People Have Coronavirus, by Elisabeth Rosenthal,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/opinion/coronavirus-death-rate.html?referringSource=articleShare
(N) Testing for
coronavirus to vastly increase, federal officials say, by Laura Figueroa
Hernandez,
https://www.newsday.com/news/nation/coronavirus-testing-pence-azar-1.42368749
(O) Government
Eyes War Powers to Speed Medical Manufacturing Ahead of Virus, by Noah Weiland
and Emily Cochrane,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/us/politics/trump-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
(P) Shortages,
confusion and poor communication complicate coronavirus preparations, by Lena
H. Sun, Christopher Rowland and Lenny Bernstein,
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/shortages-confusion-and-poor-communication-complicate-coronavirus-preparations/2020/02/25/d9e56396-575d-11ea-9b35-def5a027d470_story.html
(Q) The World
Health Organization on Friday raised its assessment of the global coronavirus
risk from “high” to “very high,” the most serious assessment in its new
four-stage alert system.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/world/coronavirus-update.html
(R) “The flu
kills people,” Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, said.
“This is not Ebola.”, by Annie Karni, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/28/us/politics/cpac-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
(S) Here Comes
the Coronavirus Pandemic,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/opinion/sunday/corona-virus-usa.html?referringSource=articleShare
(T) How
Prepared Is the U.S. for a Coronavirus Outbreak?,
https://twnews.us/us-news/how-prepared-is-the-u-s-for-a-coronavirus-outbreak
(U) World
experts and funders set priorities for COVID-19 research,
https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/12-02-2020-world-experts-and-funders-set-priorities-for-covid-19-research
(V) Officials:
First confirmed case of novel coronavirus in New York State, by David M. Schwartz and Lisa L. Colangelo,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/health/us-coronavirus-saturday/index.html
(W) Kept at the
Hospital on Coronavirus Fears, Now Facing Large Medical Bills, by Sarah Kliff,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/29/upshot/coronavirus-surprise-medical-bills.html?referringSource=articleShare
(X)
PREQUELS
“A SEVERE FLU PANDEMIC… could
kill more than 33 million people worldwide in just 250 days.” – “Boy, do we not
have our act together.” — Bill Gates”. (J)
PART 4. CANDIDA AURIS. “..
nursing facilities, and long-term hospitals, are…continuously cycling infected
patients, or those who carry the germ, into hospitals and back again.”
“A person in
California who was not exposed to anyone infected with the coronavirus, and had
not traveled to countries in which the virus is circulating, has tested
positive for the infection in what may be the first case of community spread
here in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said
on Wednesday.
“At this point, the patient’s exposure is unknown,” the
C.D.C. statement said. “The case was detected through the U.S. public health
system and picked up by astute clinicians.”
The case was announced shortly after President Trump
concluded a news briefing in which he said that aggressive public health
containment measures and travel entry restrictions had successfully limited the
spread of coronavirus in the United States.
It brings the number of cases in the country to 60,
including the 45 cases among Americans who were repatriated from Wuhan, China —
the epicenter of the outbreak — and the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was
overwhelmed by the virus after it docked in Japan.
Until now, public health officials have been able to trace
all of the infections in the country to a recent trip abroad or a known
patient.
This new case appears to be one of community spread — one in
which the source of infection is unknown. It is possible the patient may have
been exposed to a returning traveler who was infected, the C.D.C. said.” (A)
“The first suspected U.S. case of a patient getting the new
coronavirus through “community spread” – with no history of travel to
affected areas or exposure to someone known to have the COVID-19 illness — was
left undiagnosed for days because a request for testing wasn’t initially granted,
according to officials at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento, Calif.
The patient in Northern California is now the 60th confirmed
case of the new coronavirus in the United States. The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention disclosed the latest case Wednesday evening, as
President Trump assigned Vice President Pence to lead the administration’s
response to the disease.
“This case was detected through the U.S. public health
system — picked up by astute clinicians,” the CDC said in a brief statement
about the new patient.
UC Davis included more details about the case in its own
statement, drawing on an email sent to staff at its medical center. It said the
CDC initially ruled out a test for the coronavirus because the patient’s case
didn’t match its criteria.” (S)
“An American soldier in South Korea has tested positive for
the new coronavirus, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.
The patient, a 23-year-old man, is based in Camp Carroll in
Waegwan, only 12 miles from Daegu, the South Korean city at the center of an outbreak in the country.
The soldier, the first U.S. service member to become
infected, has been quarantined in his off-base residence, the military said.
The soldier visited Camp Walker, a military base in Daegu,
on Monday and visited Camp Carroll from Friday to Tuesday.
South Korean and American “health professionals are actively
conducting contact tracing to determine whether any others may have been
exposed,” the military said.
The military added that it was “implementing all appropriate
control measures to help control the spread of Covid-19 and remains at risk
level ‘high’” for all its 28,500 soldiers stationed in South Korea “as a
prudent measure to protect the force.” “(B)
“Why this looks like the beginning of a pandemic
These outbreaks outside of China, along with the latest
science on Covid-19, suggest we may soon see a rapid rise in infections in more
countries around the world. Here’s why.
1) The virus is very contagious, and some people seem to be
able to infect others before they know they’re sick: Researchers currently
believe one infected person generally infects two to three others, which would
make the new coronavirus more contagious than other coronaviruses, like SARS
and MERS…
2) Countries are still mostly looking for the disease in
people who’ve traveled from China: The main method of screening in many
countries is still testing passengers coming from China or from Hubei province
only. But as we’ve seen, spread is happening beyond those people. And other
cases may be undetected…
3) With flu season ongoing, it can take time to identify
cases and outbreaks: “The challenge with this illness is that the clinical
symptoms resemble other viral illnesses, like flu,” said Inglesby. So people
with the flu, and doctors examining them, may not even be thinking of Covid-19
yet, especially in people who haven’t traveled to China.
4) China’s case toll is falling — but it may see another
surge soon as travel restrictions are gradually lifted: The country has taken
extraordinarily draconian measures to stop this virus, quarantining millions,
and shutting down transit and travel. But the business community is growing
increasingly frustrated with the restrictions and is pressuring government
officials to ease some of them…
5) Many countries are only now getting testing up and
running: Even the US, with one of the most highly resourced health systems in
the world, doesn’t have adequate diagnostic capacity right now..
6) Some people may have abdominal pain before respiratory
symptoms — and that’s not something health officials are screening for: This
coronavirus is still very new, and we don’t know its entire spectrum of illness
yet, but we’re learning the disease may sometimes surface in surprising ways.
Though it’s a respiratory infection, a recent JAMA article found some have
abdominal symptoms such as discomfort first. This means “we may not be detecting
cases that do not present in the classic way with fever and respiratory
symptoms,” said William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt
University…” (D)
“Outside China, there are now 2,790 cases in 37
countries, and 44 deaths,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
said at a briefing in Geneva…
Tedros is urging the international community to have
“hope, courage and confidence” that the new respiratory virus can be
contained, citing 14 countries that haven’t reported a new case in more than a
week.
Worldwide, there are currently 81,191 cases of the novel
coronavirus, according to a dashboard created by the Johns Hopkins Whiting
School of Engineering. That number includes 30,281 cases in which people
recovered from COVID-19.
But Tedros also warned that the situation could get worse,
saying, “At the same time, all countries, whether they have cases or not,
must prepare for a potential pandemic.”..
On a broader scale, the WHO’s Tedros says every country
should make it a top priority to protect workers who are dealing with the
health crisis. And he says agencies should work with communities whose members
are most at risk, “particularly the elderly and people with underlying
health conditions.”
Despite the worrying rise of cases at the international
level, Tedros again rejected calls Wednesday for the WHO to declare a pandemic,
saying it’s not an accurate label for a virus he still views as containable. He
has also recently noted that the virus’s fatality rate outside of Hubei province
is less than 1%.
The WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a global health
emergency in January, as cases surged in China. The organization now says it
believes the epidemic peaked and plateaued in China between the end of January
and the early February.” (E)
“The World Health Organization (WHO) still avoided using the
word “pandemic” to describe the burgeoning crisis today, instead talking about
“epidemics in different parts of the world.” But many scientists say that
regardless of what it’s called, the window for containment is now almost
certainly shut. “It looks to me like this virus really has escaped from China
and is being transmitted quite widely,” says Christopher Dye, an epidemiologist
at the University of Oxford. “I’m now feeling much more pessimistic that it can
be controlled.” In the United States, “disruption to everyday life might be
severe,” Nancy Messonnier, who leads the coronavirus response for the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned on 25 February. “We are
asking the American public to work with us to prepare for the expectation that
this is going to be bad.”
Dye and others say it’s time to rethink the public health
response. So far, efforts have focused on containment: slowing the spread of
the virus within China, keeping it from being exported to other countries, and,
when patients do cross borders, aggressively tracing anyone they were in
contact with and quarantining those people for 2 weeks. But if the virus, named
SARS-CoV-2, has gone global, travel restrictions may become less effective than
measures to limit outbreaks and reduce their impact, wherever they are—for
instance, by closing schools, preparing hospitals, or even imposing the kind of
draconian quarantine imposed on huge cities in China.” …
To prepare for what’s coming, hospitals can stockpile
respiratory equipment and add beds. More intensive use of the vaccines against
influenza and pneumococcal infections could help reduce the burden of those
respiratory diseases on the health care system and make it easier to identify
COVID-19 cases, which produce similar symptoms. Governments can issue messages
about the importance of handwashing and staying home if you’re ill.
Whatever the rest of the world does, it’s essential that it
take action soon, Aylward says, and he hopes other countries will learn from
China. “The single biggest lesson is: Speed is everything,” he says. “And you
know what worries me most? Has the rest of the world learned the lesson of
speed?” (F)
“White House National Economic
Council Director Larry Kudlow said Tuesday that the U.S. has “contained” the
threat of a domestic coronavirus outbreak, breaking with the warnings of
officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We have contained this, I won’t say
airtight but pretty close to airtight,” Kudlow told CNBC’s Kelly Evans on
Tuesday afternoon…
Some of his comments stood in
contrast to public pronouncements from CDC officials Tuesday that painted the
coronavirus’ health threat to the U.S. as the most serious it‘s been.
Nancy Messonnier, who heads the
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned that American
communities need to prepare now for the possibilities of remote work,
teleschooling and other provisional measures when the disease starts spreading
domestically.” (G)
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday
warned that it expects the novel coronavirus that has sparked outbreaks around
the world to begin spreading at a community level in the United States, as a
top official said that disruptions to daily life could be “severe.”
“As we’ve seen from recent countries with community spread,
when it has hit those countries, it has moved quite rapidly. We want to make
sure the American public is prepared,” Nancy Messonnier, director of CDC’s
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters.
“As more and more countries experience community spread,
successful containment at our borders becomes harder and harder,” she said.
There have been 14 cases of the virus diagnosed in the U.S.,
all in people who traveled recently to China or their close contacts. Another
39 U.S. residents have been infected in other parts of the world before being
repatriated and quarantined. But CDC officials say the country could soon see
more cases as the virus starts to spread through communities in areas outside
China, including Iran, South Korea, and Italy.
The CDC urged American businesses and families to start
preparing for the possibility of a bigger outbreak. Messonnier said that
parents should ask their children’s schools about plans for closures.
Businesses should consider whether they can offer telecommuting options to
their employees, while hospitals might need to look into expanding telehealth
services, she said.
“Disruption to everyday life might be severe,” Messonnier
said, adding that she talked to her children about the issue Tuesday morning.
“While I didn’t think they were at risk right now, we as a family ought to be
preparing for significant disruption to our lives.”
The CDC’s messaging seemed to be at odds with the position
of the World Health Organization, which reiterated Tuesday that countries could
stop transmission chains if they acted swiftly and aggressively…
Messonnier said the CDC is evaluating data on measures that
could be used to stem the spread of the virus, including school closures and
other social distancing strategies, voluntary home quarantines, and surface
cleaning methods. The CDC is using data from past flu outbreaks to study those
strategies, but will tailor its recommendations for the new virus.
In a press briefing Tuesday afternoon, other top health
officials pushed back on the perception that the public needs to take direct
action now to prepare for community spread of the virus. They also doubled down
on the message that the U.S. has successfully contained the spread of the virus
thus far…
Messonnier said the CDC is also in conversation about
whether to change the case definition that triggers a sick patient to be tested
for the virus. Currently, health officials recommend testing only for people
who have respiratory symptoms and have recently traveled to China, or those who
have been in close contact with someone who was infected. But as community spread
picks up in other countries, the case definition could change.” (H)
“President Donald Trump on Wednesday tried to ease growing
fears over the spreading coronavirus, saying at the White House that his
administration has the situation under control and is “ready to
adapt” if the virus spreads.
“Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American
people remains very low,” Trump said. “We’re ready to adapt and ready
to do whatever we have to as the disease spreads, if it spreads.
“We’re very, very ready for this,” Trump said,
adding that only 15 people had contracted the virus in the U.S. and that all
were expected to recover.
Trump, speaking from the Brady Briefing Room, said he was
putting Vice President Mike Pence in charge of his administration’s response to
the potential pandemic. Trump, however, rejected that he had made Pence a
“czar” for the response to the virus.
Pence, speaking after Trump, reiterated that the
“threat to the American public remains low” and said, “We will
continue to bring the full resources of the federal government … to see to
the health and well-being and to the effective response to the coronavirus in
the United States of America.”
Trump — who this week announced a $2.5 billion plan to help
combat the illness — said at the briefing, “We’re going to spend whatever
is appropriate.”
Following the remarks of Trump and Pence, several senior
officials from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention spoke — and many didn’t paint quite as rosy a picture.
One NIH official said a potential coronavirus vaccine was still at least a year
away.
The president’s address came amid a tumbling stock market
and grave criticism from Democrats who say his handling of the outbreak has
been inadequate. It also came just a day after the CDC warned that it was only
a matter of time before the illness, known as COVID-19, will spread across
communities in the United States…
Measures to contain the virus in the U.S. so far have
involved restricting travel to and from China — the center of the outbreak —
and isolating identified cases.
Trump on Wednesday called those efforts “some very good
early decisions” and indicated that he would consider restricting travel
to South Korea and other countries “at the right time.”…
Federal health officials added Tuesday that they are
preparing for a potential pandemic. CDC officials said the virus could disrupt
daily lives, including closing schools, forcing people to work from home and
delaying elective medical procedures.
Trump, asked Wednesday whether schools should prepare for a
spread of the virus, replied that “every aspect of our society”
should be prepared. He added that he doesn’t think it would come to that but
that people should be prepared “just in case.”
But he also vacillated at various points during his news
conference between agreeing with and rejecting the stark warnings of a broader
potential outbreak issued by government public health experts.
“It probably
will. It possibly will,” he continued. “It could be at a very small
level, or it could be at a larger level.”
At another point, Trump said, “Nothing is
inevitable.” “ (I)
“Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s health emergencies program,
suggested countries need to be working full bore to be ready to deal with the
virus.
“It is time to prepare. It is time to do everything you
would do in preparing for a pandemic,” he insisted…
Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s health emergencies program,
suggested countries need to be working full bore to be ready to deal with the
virus.
“It is time to prepare. It is time to do everything you would
do in preparing for a pandemic,” he insisted.
Continuing to focus on trying to contain the virus — a goal
many infectious diseases experts are skeptical can be met — buys time, Ryan
said, noting if the illness can be prevented from spreading in Europe until flu
season ends, hospitals won’t face a double blow.
“Even slowing down the virus by a month or six weeks has a
massive positive benefit to the system,’’ he said.
But people need to be realistic about the limits of
containment. “We cannot shut down the world,” Ryan said. “That’s not going to
work.”
Countries should be working on trying to reduce the risk of
imported cases, reduce the risk of spread from cases that get in, and increase
the chance that people who get sick survive the infection. “But I think we have
to be very, very careful in trying to suggest that we could absolutely stop the
virus from spreading from one country to the next,” he said. “I don’t think
that’s possible.”” (J)
“A federal health official warned Tuesday that the deadly
coronavirus could cause “severe” disruptions in the USA as global
experts struggled to fend off the outbreak and avoid a pandemic.
Is it too late?
“Disruption to everyday life may be severe,” Nancy
Messonnier, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned at a news
conference Tuesday. Schools could be closed, mass public gatherings suspended
and businesses forced to have employees work remotely, she said.
Messonnier said the coronavirus has caused sickness and
death and sustained person-to-person transmission. That’s two of the three
factors for a pandemic, she said.
“As community spread is detected in more and more countries,
the world moves closer to meeting the third criteria – worldwide spread of the
new virus,” Messonnier said.
Although the World Health Organization determined Monday
that the term pandemic “did not fit the facts,” experts said it very
soon could…..
Melissa Nolan, a medical doctor and professor of
epidemiology at the University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public
Health, cited new clusters in Iran, which faces at least 95 cases and has had
16 deaths, and Italy, which is dealing with 322 cases.
“If we continue to see focalized local transmission in
areas outside of China, the WHO will need to reconvene,” Nolan told USA
TODAY on Tuesday. “We are very close to seeing this virus becoming a
pandemic.”
Nolan said responses to the outbreaks in Iran and Italy
could help health officials in other countries prepare their own medical and
quarantine policies before an outbreak. That is crucial, said Robert Glatter,
an emergency physician at New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital who fears the world is
on the “cusp” of a pandemic.
“Trying to contain a disease which spreads like
influenza, in this case COVID-19, is almost impossible,” he said. “We
are talking about rapid-fire and sustained transmission.”…
Ogbonnaya Omenka, an assistant professor and public health
specialist at Butler University’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, said
he understands the concerns. The main implication of declaring a pandemic is
requiring, or at least further urging, national governments to prepare
facilities and health workers to treat a lot of patients, Omenka told USA
TODAY.
“Not only is this costly, it may also trigger
panic,” he warned. “Countries may as well put in place these plans
without the official announcement.”
Tedros stressed that a pandemic declaration would not
eliminate the need for health authorities to continue testing, limiting contact
with the sick and encouraging frequent hand washing – the front-line defense….
Messonnier acknowledged the CDC struck a more urgent tone in
warnings about the virus in the USA. The proliferation of coronavirus in
countries outside China raised the agency’s expectations the virus will spread
here.
“People are concerned about this situation – I would say rightfully so,” Messonnier
said. “But we are putting our concerns to work preparing. Now is the time
for businesses, hospitals, communities, schools and everyday people to begin
preparing as well.”
“It’s not so much a question of if this will happen
anymore but rather more a question of exactly when,” an official said.”
(K)
“When you start to see sustained transmission in other
countries throughout the world, it’s inevitable that it will come to the United
States,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases, told NBC News.
In the U.S., 57 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19,
the illness caused by the new coronavirus. The majority are among repatriated
residents who were passengers of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, docked in
Japan.
The CDC said Americans should prepare for the possibility of
disruptions to their daily lives if the virus were to start spreading in the
U.S. That could include closing schools, working from home and delaying
elective medical procedures.
“We should all be dusting off our pandemic preparedness
plans and rehearse them very quickly,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an
infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University. “The core concept
is social distancing.”
Business leaders, Schaffner said, should start considering
which employees could work from home. Perhaps the time will come, he and other
experts said, to observe religious practices and ceremonies at home, rather
than attend larger community gatherings at places of worship. And families
should start asking themselves how they would handle a week or two at home,
without traveling even short distances for food, medicine or entertainment.” (L)
“Gown, gloves, goggles, mask — deposit in biohazard
container and wash hands for 20 seconds. That’s how to take it off safely.
It’s a drill that’s becoming muscle memory for health care
workers these days as hospitals and medical facilities prepare for the
anticipated spread of the new coronavirus from China. Blanchard wants it to
feel as routine for the Teaneck hospital’s staff as tying their shoes or fastening
a seat belt.
Practice in donning and doffing personal protective
equipment — or PPE, as it is called — has gained new urgency as the United
States braces for a possible surge in infections. Health care workers are on
the front lines…
There has been no community transmission in the United
States, Messonnier said. New Jersey has no cases.
But the near certainty that the virus will arrive — whether
in small, localized outbreaks or as a widespread epidemic — has state and local
health officials and hospital leaders on the alert and concerned.
In New Jersey, a governor’s task force meets weekly and has
updated a preparedness plan. Hospital infection-control practitioners, chief
medical officers and executives met with state health officials earlier this
month. A conference call with 250 hospital executives — the second since the
COVID epidemic began in China — is planned for later this week.
At individual hospitals, staff members are scanning for
updates and new information on the virus, taking inventory of supplies, drawing
up plans and reviewing infection-control procedures. One large system —
RWJBarnabas Health — has a daily meeting of its emergency response team and a
secure communication line systemwide.
“We don’t know who we may encounter in the Emergency
Department,” said Jesson Yeh, an emergency physician at Holy Name who was part
of that hospital’s training this week. “We need to be prepared for any possible
situation, which may include people with viruses like the coronavirus, flu —
Ebola, even.”
“Sometimes we do need a brush-up on how to prepare,” said
Jennifer Temple, an Emergency Department nurse taking Blanchard’s review
program. “Not that we forget. But it’s an emergency room; we want to work so
fast. This is a great way to remind us.”
Health care workers are the front lines of defense against
the coronavirus’s spread as they diagnose and treat the sick. Their close
proximity, exposure to the spray of coughs and sneezes and high touch contact
as they do everything from take temperatures to insert breathing tubes vastly
increases their risk of infection…
For hospitals, that means two things, said Dr. Adam Jarrett,
Holy Name’s chief medical officer: “The first thing we’re doing is reinforcing
the training our staff has.” Then, “we’re making sure we have appropriate
supplies.”
Previous exercises involving government agencies across the
nation “did show us that if we had a pandemic, there were going to be supply
issues,” said Messonnier, of the CDC. “We are now thinking through and working
on those supply issues,” to ensure there’s protection for health care
workers.
“There’s absolutely a shortage of masks and gowns,” said
Jarrett, of Holy Name. “There hasn’t been a problem because there haven’t been
any patients yet,” he said. “If there’s a significant outbreak in the tri-state
area, I think there could be.”
CDC guidelines call for workers to wear N95 masks, which are
also used in some construction or industrial settings. They form hard domes
over the mouth and nose, with material like a HEPA filter filtering all air in
and out. Hospitals are carefully controlling their use. Washable gowns might be
used and thrown away, Jarrett said, if there aren’t enough disposable
gowns.
Another concern, depending on how the spread of the virus evolves,
could be high rates of absentees among health care workers and other essential
workers. New Jersey’s earlier pandemic flu preparedness plan, drafted in the
wake of the 2009 swine flu epidemic, told hospitals to prepare for absences of
30% to 50%.
CDC guidelines say health care institutions should err on
the side of caution when workers may have been exposed to COVID-19 and show
symptoms of fever or illness. They should stay home from work and
self-quarantine, the agency suggested.
Hospitals could manage those shortages by shifting the
workers to concentrate on critical needs, employing temporary agency nurses, or
canceling elective procedures, a spokeswoman for the state Health Department
said.
During Superstorm Sandy, for example, hard-hit facilities
were able to waive standard credentialing procedures to make it faster to bring
in personnel from other areas or out of state. “ (M)
“In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy said preparations are
ramping up. He noted that there are currently no confirmed cases in the state,
but said it was prudent to anticipate that there would be.
“It’s pretty clear from financial markets the past couple of
days, it’s pretty clear when you look at South Korea, Iran, Italy, that this is
not going away anytime soon,” he said.
“We had a whole-of-government meeting this morning in
Newark, just going over, once again, protocols, pre-emptive action — what do we
do if X or Y happens,” he said, during remarks Wednesday at an unrelated news
event at William Paterson University. “We’re doing everything to get out ahead
of this and also be prepared as possible if something hits us.”
Murphy also said Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli on
Wednesday was to convene a conference call with all hospitals in the state
about preparations, noting that the state’s designated center for handling
cases, University Hospital in Newark, “has a capacity of only so much.”.. (N)
“Against a backdrop of educated guesses — the state
epidemiologist predicted it could be like a bad flu season with 500 deaths, but
with no vaccine — Connecticut hospital officials said they have been drilling
for weeks, got practice from the Ebola scare in 2014 and with the flu in 2009
and this year, and are ready for a coronoavirus outbreak if it comes to that.
In anticipation, as the virus spread in China, Hartford
Hospital activated its emergency preparedness plan in early January, involving
more than 300 units of the hospital, Dr. Ajay Kumor, chief medical officer,
said at a news briefing Wednesday afternoon.
Gov. Ned Lamont outlines steps Connecticut has taken to
prepare for coronavirus, urges residents to follow CDC guidelines to prevent
spread of the disease »
For Dr. Mike Ivy of Yale-New Haven Hospital, the process is
worn smooth on his lips: You have flu-like symptoms. You come into the
emergency room. At the registration desk, you’ll be asked if you’ve traveled
abroad to an area with there has been transmission of the virus — China, Iran,
South Korea, Japan, northern Italy.
If the answer is yes, you’d be taken to an isolation room
with negative air pressure, evaluated by a doctor and nurse and tested for
coronavirus. You’ll be admitted if you’re sick enough, sent home if you’re not.
“People can isolate themselves at home so they do not infect
anyone else,” said Ivy, deputy chief medical officer.
If you stay at the hospital, your treatment team will be
wearing gowns, gloves and masks when they come in.
“And then, hopefully, you get better,” Ivy said, “as the
majority of the patients do.”… (N)
“Health organizations in Rhode Island said Tuesday that they
are taking their coronavirus preparedness efforts to a higher level.
The United States said officials are warning Americans to
prepare for the spread of coronavirus in communities across the country.
Doctors with Lifespan said they have created an emergency
task force, so each facility can work together to combat the virus should it
spread into Rhode Island…
The Rhode Island Department of Health said they’ve been
having frequent talks with schools here, too.
A spokesperson for the University of Rhode Island said they
have 50 students and one faculty member in Italy.
“The University remains in frequent contact with its
study-abroad host partners, who have been communicating regularly with the
students about the COVID-19 situation in Italy,” said the spokesperson.
Rhode Island Hospital Disaster Medicine and Emergency
Preparedness Director, Dr. Selim Suner, said a concern is how exactly it’s
spreading.
“We don’t know if it’s airborne yet because those
studies have not been done,” said Suner…
The best preparation he said we know well.
“Hand-washing and keeping a distance from ill people is
the best prevention,” said Suner.” (P)
“Reacting to concerns about the quickening spread of
coronavirus, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Wednesday that the state would set
aside some $40 million to fight the virus, as well as plan for possible
quarantines at homes, hotels and hospitals.
In a briefing in the Capitol, the governor and his health
commissioner, Dr. Howard Zucker, stressed that New York still had no confirmed
cases of the virus, but warned that its spread to the state was inevitable.
The scope of the virus’s spread and the importance of New
York as a center of global commerce and transportation led Mr. Cuomo, a
third-term Democrat, to ask for additional funding for fighting the disease.
“It is highly probable that we will have people in New York
State who test positive,” said Mr. Cuomo, noting that New York City is “the
front door internationally” for many travelers. “No one should be surprised
when we have positive cases.”
In addition to the $40 million from the Legislature, Mr.
Cuomo said he would ask federal authorities permission to test patient samples
in a laboratory in New York, rather than waiting several days for results from
the C.D.C. in Atlanta….
State officials have already been taking precautions against
the disease, asking some 700 recent visitors to China to voluntarily quarantine
themselves, even as Customs and Border Protection agents continue to screen
passengers at area airports. Individuals who have visited mainland China are
judged to be of “medium risk,” according to the State Health Department, though
it said none of those self-isolating individuals had exhibited symptoms of
coronavirus.
In New York City, where officials say seven potential
patients have been tested and cleared, Mayor Bill de Blasio has expressed
confidence that the city is prepared, citing previous scares involving even
more deadly diseases like Ebola in 2014…
“We are in a state of
high vigilance, high readiness, all elements of the city government, to address
this crisis,” he said at a news conference on Wednesday. “We have the greatest
public health capacity of anywhere in this country.”
The city has made 1,200 hospital beds available for anyone
suspected of having coronavirus and has distributed 1.5 million face masks to
health care workers.
But the mayor warned that the city needed help from the
federal government in obtaining more protective gear — at least 300,000 more
masks, he said — and stressed the importance of giving local health departments
the ability to test for the virus on their own.
Other major cities were also taking precautions, including
San Francisco, which declared a local state of emergency on Tuesday, despite no
confirmed cases, saying “the global picture is changing rapidly.”
On Wednesday, officials at the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority said they were working with state and federal health officials to
assess potential contingency plans.
Those measures could include limiting or staggering public
transit ridership, according to a document prepared by City Hall and the New
York City’s Emergency Management Department in 2014 that focused on how the
city might respond to a flu pandemic…
Similarly, state health officials were regularly consulting
with the C.D.C. as well as county officials, and studying federal
recommendations for mitigation in case of a large outbreak, including basic
precautions such as covering one’s face when sneezing or coughing, to more
expansive measures such as school closures and cancellation of public events.
“If you prepare correctly, you’ll have less of an issue when
a situation develops into something that is more problematic,” Mr. Cuomo said.
“The threat you don’t take seriously is the one that becomes serious.” (Q)
“A man in Miami went to the hospital to receive a test for
the coronavirus after developing flu-like symptoms, only to receive the news
that he didn’t have it — and a $3,270 medical bill, the Miami Herald reports.
Why it matters: The man had just returned from a work trip
to China, so took his symptoms more seriously than normal, which is exactly
what public health experts want people to do.
Our thought bubble: The episode would be a great parody of
the health care system, if it wasn’t real.
The man has a short-term health insurance plan, which
usually have skimpy benefits in exchange for lower premiums, and don’t have to
cover pre-existing conditions. The Trump administration has expanded them.
The hospital told the Herald that the patient is only on the
hook for $1,400 based on his insurance, but his insurer told him that first, he
must provide three years of medical records to prove that his flu didn’t relate
to pre-existing conditions.
PART 1. January 21, 2020. “The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention on Tuesday confirmed the first U.S. case of a deadly new
coronavirus that has killed six people in China.”
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday
confirmed the first U.S. case of a deadly new coronavirus that has killed six
people in China.”
“Chinese researchers say they have identified a new virus
behind an illness that has infected dozens of people across Asia, setting off
fears in a region that was struck by a deadly epidemic 17 years ago.
There is no evidence that the new virus is readily spread by
humans, which would make it particularly dangerous, and it has not been tied to
any deaths. But health officials in China and elsewhere are watching it
carefully to ensure that the outbreak does not develop into something more
severe.
Researchers in China have “initially identified” the new
virus, a coronavirus, as the pathogen behind a mysterious, pneumonialike
illness that has sickened 59 people in the city of Wuhan and caused a panic in
the central Chinese region, the state broadcaster, China Central Television,
said on Thursday. They detected this virus in 15 of the people who fell ill,
the report said.
The new coronavirus “is different from previous human
coronaviruses that were previously discovered, and more scientific research is
needed for further understanding,” the report said.” (A)
“China released the genetic sequence of a new coronavirus
believed to be responsible for a cluster 0f unusual pneumonia cases in Wuhan.
Phylogenetic analysis shows the coronavirus to be closely related to SARS CoV,
the virus responsible for the SARS pandemic which began in China in 2003.
Further analysis is necessary, but this preliminary analysis
shows the virus is also quite similar to other SARS-related coronaviruses which
appear to be endemic to the area. Prior EcoHealth Alliance research has found
evidence that these viruses are spilling into human populations. We are also
conducting behavioral analysis with the goal of reducing risk for this
spillover.
The virus responsible for the current outbreak in Wuhan has
so far killed one person; fortunately it’s not currently believed that the
virus has the ability to spread human-to-human. Our work has shown that there
is a large diversity of coronaviruses that are endemic to China.” (B)
“Chinese officials confirmed Tuesday that six people have
died from a pneumonialike coronavirus, while raising the number of confirmed
cases of the illness to 300, sparking fears of an outbreak in the country. The
virus, which was first confirmed on Dec. 31 in the city of Wuhan, is believed
to have been transmitted from animals to humans, but Chinese health officials
now say they have evidence that human-to-human transmission is also possible,
potentially via saliva. The World Health Organization says the symptoms of the
virus are fever, cough, and respiratory difficulties such as shortness of
breath, all of which can, in serious cases, lead to pneumonia, kidney failure,
and, in the most severe cases, death.” (C)
“Officials in China are racing to contain the spread of a
new virus that has left at least six people dead and sickened more than 300,
after it was confirmed the infection can spread between humans.
Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the coronavirus was
first detected, announced a series of new measures Tuesday, including the
cancellation of upcoming Lunar New Year celebrations, expected to attract
hundreds of thousands of people.
Tour agencies have been banned from taking groups out of
Wuhan and the number of thermal monitors and screening areas in public spaces
will be increased. Traffic police will also conduct spot checks on private
vehicles coming in and out of the city to look for live poultry or wild
animals, after the virus was linked to a seafood and live animal market,
according to a report by state media outlet the People’s Daily, citing Wuhan’s
Municipal Health Commission.
The new measures come after Chinese President Xi Jinping
ordered “resolute efforts to curb the spread” of the virus Monday.
There are now fears, however, that efforts to contain it are
coming too late, hampered by a slow-moving Chinese bureaucracy which failed to
put sufficient measures in place in time.
In the coming days, hundreds of millions of Chinese are
expected to begin traveling across the country and overseas as the annual Lunar
New Year break gets fully underway, compounding concerns of a further spike in
cases.
Though infections were first detected in Wuhan in
mid-December, infrared temperature screening areas were not installed in the city’s
airports and stations until January 14, according to state media.
On Tuesday, China’s National Health Commission announced
that it had received 291 confirmed cases of the Wuhan coronavirus, with 77 new
cases reported on January 20.” (D)
“Earlier on Monday, Chinese authorities reported that the
number of cases had tripled over the weekend to 218. The outbreak has spread to
Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzen, hundreds of miles from Wuhan, where the virus
first surfaced last month.” (E)
“Thailand and Japan each reported new cases of a coronavirus
that has left two people dead and at least 40 sick in China, adding to concerns
about the spread of the virus beyond Chinese borders ahead of a major holiday.
Health officials in Thailand on Friday said they had found a
second case of the mysterious pneumonialike coronavirus in that country, in a
74-year-old Chinese woman. The woman is in good and stable condition, said a
spokesman for Thailand’s public health ministry, Rungrueng Kitphati.
The woman entered Thailand through Bangkok via a flight from
the central Chinese city of Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak. Investigators
were still trying to gather information from the woman but have been hindered
by a language barrier, Mr. Rungrueng said.
On Thursday, Japan’s Health Ministry said that a Chinese man
in his 30s tested positive for the coronavirus. The man, a resident of Kanagawa
Prefecture, just south of Tokyo, returned to Japan on Jan. 6 after traveling to
Wuhan. The man, who came down with a fever on Jan. 3, was hospitalized on
Friday but was discharged five days later because he had recovered, according
to the Health Ministry.” (F)
“A British tourist is feared to have contracted the
mysterious coronavirus that’s sweeping Asia after he was hospitalized on a trip
to Thailand, according to a report.
Ash Shorley, 32, was admitted in critical condition to a
Phuket hospital, where he’s being treated for pneumonia-like lung infections,
the Sun reported.
Doctors believe his symptoms are consistent with the new
Chinese coronavirus, which has killed three patients and infected hundreds of
others.
“They think he is the first Western victim of the Chinese
flu,” his father, Chris, told the outlet. “We are waiting on tests.”” (G)
“Airports in New
York, San Francisco and Los Angeles will begin screening passengers arriving
from Wuhan, China, for infection with a mysterious respiratory virus that has
killed two people and sickened at least 45 overseas, the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention announced on Friday.” (H)
“Officials this week also confirmed that the new
coronavirus, which is linked to a seafood and animal market in Wuhan, is
transmissible between humans. This ultimately sparked fears that a person
infected with the virus and experiencing the most severe stage of infection
could be a super-spreader — someone who
transmits the virus to a considerable more amount of people than the average
infected person, the South China Morning Post reported…
In response to the outbreak, the World Health Organization
(WHO) is holding an emergency meeting on Wednesday to determine whether or not
it should be considered an international public health emergency, according to
the South China Morning Post…
Australia is taking similar measures, with officials there
announcing Tuesday that the country will also begin screening passengers who
are arriving from Wuhan, according to The New York Times. Japan and South Korea
also announced increased airport screenings.
But even with screening measures, “You cannot absolutely
prevent entry into the country of a disease like this,” Brendan Murphy, the
chief medical officer for the Australian government, said, according to the
newspaper. Some people who are infected may not show symptoms, he explained.”
(I)
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday
confirmed the first U.S. case of a deadly new coronavirus that has killed six
people in China.
The CDC and Washington state officials said the man, in his
30s, was in good condition at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett.
The symptoms presented Sunday and the diagnosis was confirmed Monday.
Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for
Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, called the news “concerning.”
“We’re still in the early days of this investigation,”
Messonnier said.” (J)
A.China Identifies New Virus Causing Pneumonialike Illness,
by Sui-Lee Wee and Donald G. McNeil Jr.,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/08/health/china-pneumonia-outbreak-virus.html
B.Phylogenetic Analysis Shows Novel Wuhan Coronavirus
Clusters with SARS,
https://www.ecohealthalliance.org/2020/01/phylogenetic-analysis-shows-novel-wuhan-coronavirus-clusters-with-sars
C.Deadly Coronavirus in China Raises Fears of Outbreak as
Human Transmission Confirmed, by ELLIOT HANNON, https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/01/coronavirus-china-outbreak-human-transmission-airport-screen-pandemic.html
D.6 people dead, 300 infected as China confirms Wuhan virus
can be spread by humans, by James Griffiths and Nectar Gan,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/21/asia/china-china-coronavirus-sars-intl-hnk/index.html
E.China confirms new coronavirus can spread between humans,
by Nectar Gan, Yong Xiong and Eliza Mackintosh,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/19/asia/china-coronavirus-spike-intl-hnk/index.html
F.Japan and Thailand Confirm New Cases of Chinese
Coronavirus, by Sui-Lee Wee,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/15/world/asia/coronavirus-japan-china.html
G.British tourist feared to be victim of deadly new Chinese
coronavirus, by Jackie Salo, https://nypost.com/2020/01/20/british-tourist-feared-to-be-victim-of-deadly-new-chinese-coronavirus/?utm_medium=SocialFlow&utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=NYPTwitter
H.Three U.S. Airports to Check Passengers for a Deadly
Chinese Coronavirus, by Denise Grady, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/17/health/china-coronavirus-airport-screening.html
I.Coronavirus outbreak in China sparks ‘super-spreader’
fears as pneumonia-like illness sickens hundreds, by Madeline Farber,
https://www.foxnews.com/health/coronavirus-outbreak-china-sparks-super-spreader-fears
J.First US case of deadly coronavirus reported in Washington
state, CDC says, by John Bacon,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/01/21/china-coronavirus-outbreak-cdc-first-us-case-washington-state/4532063002/
PART 2. January 29, 2020. CORONAVIRUS. “If it’s not
contained shortly, I think we are looking at a pandemic..”….. “With isolated
cases of the dangerous new coronavirus cropping up in a number of states,
public health officials say it is only a matter of time before the virus
appears in New York City.”
CORONAVIRUS. “If it’s not contained shortly, I think we are
looking at a pandemic..”….. “With isolated cases of the dangerous new
coronavirus cropping up in a number of states, public health officials say it
is only a matter of time before the virus appears in New York City.”
In July of 2009 the Mayor of Hoboken asked me to initiate a
H1N1 “Swine Flu” Task Force. We started with a set of questions based on
reports from communities that had already experienced a Swine Flu surge:
Health Officer: Where vaccination sites should be
established? Is there a special plan to monitor restaurants and food shops
where flu-related safety guidelines need to be strictly enforced? Who will
start preparing a Community Education plan?
Hospital: What is the back-up plan if hospital becomes
“contaminated” and is closed to admissions, or if nursing staff is depleted by
flu-related absenteeism, etc.? ICU triage? Availability of respirators?
OEM: off-site
screening centers if hospital ER is on overload
Hoboken Volunteer Ambulance Corps: “mutual assist” plan
Hoboken Police Department & Hoboken Fire Department:
back-up plan if the ranks get depleted by the flu
BOE: criteria in deciding whether or not to close schools
Stevens Institute of Technology: surveillance and plan for
(college) students
“Field Manual” for the Mayor
Interestingly Swine Flu never flourished in the Hoboken area
probably due to herd immunity acquired from the Swine Flu in 2008 in New York
City, where many Hobokenites work and visit.
Acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is a viral respiratory
illness caused by a coronavirus, called SARS-associated coronavirus (SARS-CoV).
SARS was first reported in Asia in February 2003 and the illness spread to more
than two dozen countries in North America, South America, Europe, and Asia
before the SARS global outbreak was contained. According to the World Health
Organization (WHO), a total of 8,098 people worldwide became sick with SARS
during the 2003 outbreak. Of these, 774 died. In the United States, only eight
people had laboratory evidence of SARS-CoV infection. All of these people had
traveled to other parts of the world with SARS.” (A)
With SARS preparedness underway in NJ LibertyHealth/ Jersey
City Medical Center, where I was President, proposed that our 100 bed community
hospital with all single-bedded rooms, be immediately transformed into an
EMERGENCY SARS ISOLATION Hospital.
The Hospital was in a small town at the intersection of many
major highways. It could be easily secured since it had no immediately
contiguous neighbors. It had a helicopter pad. Its patients could be easily
transferred. And it could be managed by the Public Health Service or military
medicine if necessary.
It didn’t happen!
“We understand that many people in the Unites States are
worried about this virus,” said Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National
Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (part of the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention).
“At this time, in the U.S., the virus is not spreading in
the community,” she added. “For that reason we continue to believe that the
immediate health risk from the new virus to the general public is low at this
time.”
In the U.S., 110 individuals from 26 states are being
investigated to determine whether they have coronavirus. Of those individuals,
32 have tested negative, five have tested positive, and the remaining test
results are pending.
No new coronavirus cases have been diagnosed overnight,
according to the CDC, and all five cases were in people who had traveled to
China. Two of those five cases are in Southern California and Chicago,
Washington state and Arizona have each reported one coronavirus case…
Five U.S. airports, in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles,
Chicago and Atlanta, continue to screen passengers from Wuhan for
pneumonia-like symptoms, such as fever and respiratory problems. So far,
airports have screened about 2,400 passengers, with screenings declining
following strict travel bans and a quarantine in Wuhan…
The CDC is in the process of developing a real-time
diagnostic test to identify the virus and is hoping to quickly roll that test
out to states. For now, all samples are being sent to the CDC in Atlanta, a
process which takes about a day, from the time clinicians and the CDC agree to
test a patient for coronavirus until results come back from Atlanta. Other
countries are doing similar centralized testing, Messonnier explained. While
speed is important, accurate testing is the agency’s priority.
While a report in the Lancet, published Jan. 24, suggested
that people who contract coronavirus might be able spread the disease before
they develop symptoms, Messonnier maintained that the CDC has “no clear
evidence” of patients’ being infectious before symptom onset. For now, the
virus’ incubation period is believed to be between two and 14 days..
The World Health Organization did not declare a public
health emergency of international concern last week, after deliberating for two
days over the decision.” (C)
“It appears to be very well contained,” Mark Parrish,
regional medical director of Northern Europe at International SOS, told CNBC
Tuesday.
“The Chinese have done some extraordinary things,
identifying the virus and its molecular structures and then instigating those
quarantine measures in China where they have shut down these huge cities and
stopped all movement. It’s come at a really bad time of the year … It’s likely
to have moved around China.”
“It appears though that the death rate remains at about 2%
to 3%, it seems to be very well contained at the moment,” he said.
“Putting it into perspective, 100 deaths or so, so far, all
in elderly people and those that have other co-existing diseases unfortunately.
And those are the ones that are most likely to be affected by this as their
respiratory systems find it difficult to deal with these things.”..
Global media organizations have fixated on whether the
outbreak will be declared a “global health emergency” by the World Health
Organization (WHO). Currently, the WHO has the virus at a “high risk” level
after admitting on Monday its error in initially stating (last week) that the
global risk was “moderate.”
Christian Lindmeier, spokesperson for the WHO, told CNBC
Tuesday that the assessment was done by a group of independent experts and that
the situation would be re-evaluated “very soon.”
He said there was definitely a crisis in China “but
declaring this a public health emergency of international concern is another
step. It means that internationally this is spreading and is transmitting from
human to human internationally.
“So not only a traveler carrying it from China into another
country and it being contained there, but it spreading onward from there and
this is something we’ve not yet seen, let’s be very clear about this,” he said.
Although it has not happened yet, Lindmeier said it would
not be surprising if the virus spread further. He said health systems should
closely monitor the situation and “be aware that this is what could come to
their shores.”..
“The jury’s still out just how bad it will be, but when you
think that the number of cases has doubled in one day, that’s very worrisome,”
he said.” (D)
“With isolated cases of the dangerous new coronavirus
cropping up in a number of states, public health officials say it is only a
matter of time before the virus appears in New York City.
As a result, hospitals have been on the lookout for patients
with recent travel involving Wuhan, the Chinese city where the coronavirus is
believed to have originated. And they have urged those who recently traveled
there — or who have been in contact with someone who has — to quickly seek
medical care if they have any respiratory or flulike symptoms.
“It’s inevitable that we will have someone who is positive
with coronavirus,” New York City’s health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, said
Sunday.
Some of the last passengers to arrive at Kennedy
International Airport on the last direct flights from Wuhan before they were
canceled were quarantining themselves at home. One man told of how he had
confined himself to his house in Queens, as friends left special Lunar New Year
meals on his doorstep.
So far, state officials have sought testing for nine
patients who were deemed potential cases of the new coronavirus, sending
samples to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for testing.
Four of those patients were found not to have the virus, and
the tests involving the other five are still pending, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said
Monday in a statement.
When the first case does arrive, health officials said, that
patient may end up in a biocontainment unit in Bellevue Hospital or sent home
to ride out the illness in his or her bedroom. That will depend largely on how
sick they are, public health officials say…
By and large, the message to the public has been one of
reassurance. “We are encouraging New Yorkers to go about their everyday lives
and suggest practicing everyday precautions that we do through the flu season,”
Dr. Barbot said.
But there is considerable anxiety and debate over the proper
precautions within the city’s Chinatowns. That has only grown in the past few
days as more alarming news has emerged out of Wuhan about the virus’s spread.
So far more than 4,500 people have been sickened and more than 100 people have
died.” (E)
“New York’s colleges, which enroll some 50,000 students from
China, put out warnings to be on alert for symptoms of the deadly coronavirus
as classes started up again for the spring semester.
Most of the Chinese students in the state are studying in
the New York City area, according to the Institute for International
Education’s most recent report.
New York University, which has upwards of 19,000
international students — more than any other college in the country — said it
reached out to students from China’s Wuhan region, where the virus originated,
and “provided them with information about the symptoms, instructed them to
check in with us if they are experiencing those symptoms, reminded them about
the availability of NYU health services.”
Spring semester classes begin Monday at NYU. A college
spokesman would not say how many students come from the Wuhan area.” (F)
“The first U.S. patient, an unidentified man in his 30s, had
traveled to the Wuhan area at the end of last year. He fell ill shortly after
flying back to the U.S., where he lives north of Seattle.
In Washington state, health agencies have identified more
than 60 people who came in close contact with the infected man before he was
hospitalized in Everett, a city in Snohomish County outside Seattle.
The case quickly grabbed headlines, but it didn’t rattle
local health clinic workers who had recently geared up to handle another
infectious disease.
“The measles really kind of enlightened everybody about
‘Wow, there are a lot of things out there that can be really contagious and can
get you really sick, really fast,’ ” says Tove Skaftun, the chief nursing
officer for the Community Health Center of Snohomish County.
Skaftun says she’s glad that last year’s outbreak forced
them to improve how they approach these situations.
“We’ve recently grown our infection-control program so it’s
kind of at the forefront of a lot of what we do,” says Skaftun.
She says that effort focused on educating staff about the
correct precautions to take when faced with different kinds of infectious
diseases — including wearing protective air-purifying respirators when in
contact with patients who may be infected…
The patient in Seattle first went to a local health clinic
when he started showing symptoms. Once it became clear he was at risk for
coronavirus, he was transported to Providence Regional Medical Center in
Everett, a hospital north of Seattle, where he was treated in isolation. He
remains in “satisfactory” condition, according to the Washington State
Department of Health.
Dr. Amy Compton-Phillips, the chief clinical officer at
Providence St. Joseph Health, which runs that hospital, says it was set up to
handle high-level infectious pathogens during the Ebola scare of 2014.
“All types of infrastructure had been put in place to ensure
that when something came around we’d be ready,” says Compton-Phillips.
Those include specialized gurneys to keep patients isolated
while they’re wheeled around the hospital, robots that can listen to patients’
lungs and take blood pressure, and rooms with negative-pressure air flow so
germs aren’t circulated throughout the rest of the hospital…
She says staff have practiced getting ready for an
infectious outbreak pretty recently. Last year, Clark County, Wash., which is
part of suburban Portland, Ore., had an alarming outbreak of 71 cases of
measles, mostly among unvaccinated children…
“There are a lot of unknowns,” says Janet Baseman, professor
of epidemiology at the University of Washington. “The best thing public health
can do now is assume that it will be similar to other coronavirus outbreaks we
have seen in recent years until proven otherwise.”
“Being overprepared is the name of the game,” she says.” (G)
“The emergency call was made to Hackensack University
Medical Center late Thursday night.
A doctor’s office was sending a woman in her mid-20s to the
emergency room, according to reports, with a suspected case of coronavirus, the
deadly novel virus sweeping through China and much of Asia.
The alert turned out to be a false alarm: The patient did
not have the coronavirus. Although a relief, it was a scenario hospitals across
the state have been bracing for as fears mount that this new, mysterious virus
will spread to New Jersey.
Emergency rooms throughout the Garden State are ramping up their
procedures in preparation for the time when a patient does arrive with the
deadly virus.
“The key is to recognize it early so you can isolate early,
and that prevents the likelihood of spreading in our facility and to other
patients and employees,” Dr. Jerry Zuckerman, vice president of infection
prevention and control at Hackensack Meridian Health System, told NJ Advance
Media…
Experts determined the patient who entered the Hackensack
emergency room Thursday night was not infected with the virus after an
evaluation, a spokeswoman for Hackensack Meridian Health said. Zuckerman
declined to discuss the patient, but shed some light on how such a virus is
contained in an emergency room.
The protocols are anything but high-tech. But they work,
Zuckerman said.
Interview the patient. Mask the patient. Isolate the
patient.
That’s it.
It may sound rudimentary, but that is all that stands
between the virus spreading or being contained.
First, patients are interviewed to determine whether they’ve
visited the outbreak’s place of origin. Then patients are masked and isolated,
before being placed in an airborne infection isolation room — also called a
negative pressure room. These rooms isolate pathogens.
If medical personnel must enter an isolation room, they have
to wear respirator masks, gloves and goggles — think of the protective gear
worn in the 1995 Dustin Hoffman film, “Outbreak.”..
“Although this novel
virus in understandably a cause for concern, it is important for New Jersey
residents to know that the risk to the public remains low,” Health Commissioner
Judith Persichilli said in the Department of Health statement.
“The New Jersey Department of Health works with hospitals
and local health departments throughout respiratory virus and flu season on
hundreds of disease outbreaks each year and we are prepared — along with our
partners — to respond to potential novel coronavirus cases.”” (H)
“The Chinese city of Wuhan is rapidly building a new
1,000-bed hospital to treat victims of a new coronavirus, mobilising machinery
to get it ready by early next week, state media said…
The new hospital is being built around a holiday complex
originally intended for local workers, set in gardens by a lake on the
outskirts of the city, the official Changjiang Daily reported on Friday.
Prefabricated buildings which will have 1,000 beds will be put up, it said.
Building machinery, including 35 diggers and 10 bulldozers,
arrived at the site on Thursday night, with the aim to get the new facility
ready by Monday, the paper added.
“The construction of this project is to solve the shortage
of existing medical resources” the report said.
“Because it will be prefabricated buildings, it will not
only be built fast but it also won’t cost much.”” (I)
“How is China able to build a hospital in six days?
“China has a record of getting things done fast even for
monumental projects like this,” says Yanzhong Huang, a senior fellow for global
health at the Council on Foreign Relations.
He points out that the hospital in Beijing in 2003 was built
in seven days so the construction team is probably attempting to beat that
record. Just like the hospital in Beijing, the Wuhan centre will be made out of
prefabricated buildings.
“This authoritarian country relies on this top down
mobilisation approach. They can overcome bureaucratic nature and financial
constraints and are able to mobilise all of the resources.”
Mr Huang said that engineers would be brought in from across
the country in order to complete construction in time.
“The engineering work is what China is good at. They have
records of building skyscrapers at speed. This is very hard for westerners to
imagine. It can be done,” he added.
In terms of medical supplies, Wuhan can either take supplies
from other hospitals or can easily order them from factories.
On Friday, the Global Times confirmed 150 medical personnel
from the People’s Liberation Army had arrived in Wuhan. However it did not
confirm if they would be working in the new hospital once it has been
built.” (J)
“Some infectious disease experts are warning that it may no
longer be feasible to contain the new coronavirus circulating in China. Failure
to stop it there could see the virus spread in a sustained way around the world
and even perhaps join the ranks of respiratory viruses that regularly infect
people.
“The more we learn about it, the greater the possibility is
that transmission will not be able to be controlled with public health
measures,” said Dr. Allison McGeer, a Toronto-based infectious disease
specialist who contracted SARS in 2003 and who helped Saudi Arabia control
several hospital-based outbreaks of MERS.
If that’s the case, she said, “we’re living with a new human
virus, and we’re going to find out if it will spread around the globe.” McGeer
cautioned that because the true severity of the outbreak isn’t yet known, it’s
impossible to predict what the impact of that spread would be, though she noted
it would likely pose significant challenges to health care facilities.
The pessimistic assessment comes from both researchers
studying the dynamics of the outbreak—the rate at which cases are rising in and
emerging from China—and infectious diseases experts who are parsing the first
published studies describing cases to see if public health tools such as
isolation and quarantine could as effective in this outbreak as they were in
the 2003 SARS epidemic…
China’s health minister, Ma Xiaowei, warned Sunday that the
virus seems to be becoming more transmissible and the country—which has taken
unprecedentedly draconian steps to control the virus—was entering a “crucial
stage.”..
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of National Center for
Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, said the agency knows transmission of the virus within the United
States may be on the horizon.
“We’re leaning far forward. And we have been every step of
the way with an aggressive stance to everything we can do in the U.S.,” she
told STAT. “And yet those of us who have been around long enough know that
everything we do might not be enough to stop this from spreading in the U.S.”
To date, at least 14 countries and territories outside of
mainland China have reported nearly 60 cases. There have been no reports yet of
unchecked spreading from those imported cases to others…
“If it’s not
contained shortly, I think we are looking at a pandemic,” Bedford said, though
he cautioned that it’s impossible to know at this point how severe that type of
event would be…
“I’m not making a
prediction that it’s going to happen,” Inglesby said, though he noted the
mathematical modeling, the statements from Chinese authorities, and the sharply
rising infection numbers make a case for this possible outcome. “I think just
based on those pieces of limited information, it’s important for us to begin
some planning around the possibility that this won’t be contained.”” (K)
“Laurie Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer,
told Yahoo Finance that despite swelling panic over the spread of coronavirus,
people should be “realistic” about the infection and the protections they
employ against it.
“One of the smart ways to approach thinking about ‘how do
you protect yourself,’ is to ask, well, when somebody here in the office has a
common cold, and they’re sneezing all over the place, how do you make yourself
not get the cold?” asked Garrett, the author of “The Coming Plague,” a book
about emerging deadly diseases.
“Social distancing; that’s step number one. Keep your
distance from other people” in order to avoid contracting or spreading an infection,
Garrett told “The Final Round.” Cleanliness and personal hygiene is also of
utmost concern, she added.
“For yourself, think of your hands as your number one
problem: anything you touch that’s a common surface,” the author said,
explaining that the same principle governs why people are discouraged from
sharing utensils or cups.
“Here, in New York City, we think about the subways, we
think about how we move around in the city; the answer, if you’re nervous, is
wear gloves. Then take your gloves and wash them at night,” Garrett said. “If
it’s socially required to shake hands, wash your hands afterwards.”…
Garrett said that “…unlike SARS, which only is contagious
when you have a fever, this one seems to be contagious when you don’t even know
that you’ve been infected, and the incubation time is much longer.”
While SARS only took three to five days to incubate, the
coronavirus “is going out ten days. That means that, potentially, individuals
are contagious to others for ten days, without knowing it, traveling about and
doing whatever they do with their daily life and infecting so many other
people.”
The author also argued that official numbers are “grossly
underestimating” the true toll of infections.
“They have a lag time in testing people; they don’t have
enough test kits; they have lines around the block, in Wuhan, of people trying
to get tested,” says Garrett. “It’s wholly backed up.”” (L)
“A flight carrying about 200 American evacuees landed
Wednesday at a US military base in Southern California after leaving the
epicenter of the deadly coronavirus outbreak in China.
The flight — operated by Kalitta Air out of Ypsilanti
Township, Michigan — was seen taxiing down the runway shortly after 8 a.m. (11
a.m. ET). Several law enforcement vehicles greeted it on the tarmac, their
lights flashing…
The US Defense Department will work with the US Department
of Health and Human Services, which includes the CDC, to provide housing and,
if any individuals are ill, care at a local civilian hospital, Defense
Department spokeswoman Alyssa Fara said.
In Alaska, officials conducted two health screenings after
prior screenings in China. The CDC cleared all passengers to continue on to
California, Alaska officials said.
Passengers were screened in an isolated area of the Anchorage
airport’s north terminal, which handles international flights, and had no
impact on general travel, airport manager Jim Szczesniak said.
The CDC will work with airport officials to clean the
terminal, and there are no international flights scheduled at the airport until
May, he said…
Precautions were taken to separate the crew on the plane’s
upper level from the passengers on the plane’s lower level, she said, and the
crew did not disembark in China.
“These individuals will be screened before they take off;
monitored during the duration of the flight by medical personnel on board;
screened again on landing to refuel in Anchorage, Alaska; monitored on the last
leg of the flight by medical personnel on board; evaluated upon arrival at
March Air Reserve Base … and then monitored for symptoms post-arrival,” the CDC
said.
The passengers may be forced to stay in isolation between
three days and two weeks, an official said.
Priority was given to US citizens at risk
The passengers include US diplomats and their families. The
State Department said US citizens could board on a reimbursable basis if space
was available.
While there are about 1,000 Americans living in Wuhan,
priority was given to US citizens who are “most at risk for contracting
coronavirus” if they stay in the city, the State Department said.” (M)
“How would you describe the rate of spread?
Honestly, we don’t know, and part of the reason that it’s
continuing at this point in time is because testing is just becoming available.
So, while we’re seeing a big bolus [large number] of diagnosed cases, we don’t
yet know when they were actually infected.
What we’re waiting for from the World Health Organization is
the “epi curve,” which is the graph that shows, by date, the number of new
cases and the date of onset of their symptoms. It may be that we’ve been seeing
200 cases a day over 10 days, or it may be that we saw 3 cases, and then we saw
15 and then we saw 100 and then we saw 500 and now a thousand.
We just don’t understand yet whether the case count is due
to accelerating spread, or is that just kind of an artificial understanding
because of the way the tests are being deployed and the diagnoses are coming
in…
How should health officials communicate with the public?
In any frightening new situation, trust is the most
important thing. And when you don’t have all of the facts and you’re not sure
about what’s going on, maintaining your credibility and your trust are of
paramount importance. If you’re going to try to influence what people do or how
they decide to manage themselves in a situation like this, you have a lot
better chance of helping them decide to do the right thing if they trust you.
So that means first and foremost, telling them the truth.
Tell them what you know is going on, tell them what you wish you knew but
don’t. Then it’s important to tell them what you’re doing to get answers and,
above all, that you promise that when you have new information, you will share
it in a timely manner.
If you can keep that cadence going in an outbreak, people
will trust you because you do what you say, and they will come to rely upon you
as a credible source of updated information.” “(N)
Here are my main takeaways from that experience for ordinary
people on the ground:
1. Wash your hands frequently.
2. Don’t go to the office when you are sick. Don’t send your
kids to school or day care when they are ill, either.
Notice I didn’t say anything about masks. Having a mask with
you as a precaution makes sense if you are in the midst of an outbreak, as I
was when out reporting in the field during those months. But wearing it
constantly is another matter. I donned a mask when visiting hospitals where
SARS patients had been housed. I wore it in the markets where wild animals that
were the suspected source of the outbreak were being butchered, blood droplets
flying. I wore it in crowded enclosed spaces that I couldn’t avoid, like
airplanes and trains, as I traveled to cities involved in the outbreak, like
Guangzhou and Hong Kong. You never know if the guy coughing and sneezing two
rows ahead of you is ill or just has an allergy.
But outdoors, infections don’t spread well through the air.
Those photos of people walking down streets in China wearing masks are dramatic
but uninformed. And remember if a mask has, perchance, intercepted viruses that
would have otherwise ended up in your body, then the mask is contaminated. So,
in theory, to be protected maybe you should use a new one for each outing.
The simple masks are better than nothing, but not all that
effective, since they don’t seal well. For anyone tempted to go out and buy the
gold standard, N95 respirators, note that they are uncomfortable. Breathing is
more work. It’s hard to talk to people. On one long flight at the height of the
outbreak, on which my few fellow passengers were mostly epidemiologists trying
to solve the SARS puzzle, many of us (including me) wore our masks for the
first couple of hours on the flight. Then the food and beverage carts
came.” (O)
“The spread of a fast-moving virus outside of China is of
“grave concern” and has prompted the World Health Organization to reconvene an
emergency meeting this week to decide whether it’s become a global health
emergency, WHO officials said Wednesday.
The coronavirus has spread to a handful of people through human-to-human
contact outside of China, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO’s health
emergencies program, said at a news conference at the organization’s Geneva
headquarters Wednesday.
“These developments in terms of the evolution of the outbreak
and further development of transmission, these are of grave concern and has
spurred countries into action,” Ryan said, adding that he just returned from
China on Wednesday. “What we know at this stage, this is still obviously a very
active outbreak and information is being updated and changing by the hour.””
(P)
B.B. S. POLLAK HOSPITAL (FORMER) – JERSEY CITY NJ,
https://livingnewdeal.org/projects/old-bs-pollak-hospital-jersey-city-nj/
C.New coronavirus ‘not spreading’ in the US, CDC says, by
Erin Schumaker,
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/coronavirus-spreading-us-cdc/story?id=68560892
D.Health experts call for calm as coronavirus cases rise, by
Holly Ellyatt, https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/28/coronavirus-health-experts-urge-calm-over-virus.html
E.New York Braces for Coronavirus: ‘It’s Inevitable’, by
Joseph Goldstein and Jeffrey E. Singer,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/27/nyregion/new-york-city-coronavirus.html
F.New York colleges on coronavirus alert as classes begin,
by Melissa Klein,
https://nypost.com/2020/01/25/new-york-colleges-on-coronavirus-alert-as-classes-begin/
G.Response To 1st Coronavirus Case In Washington State Draws
On Lessons From Measles, by WILL STONE,
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/01/28/800248710/response-to-1st-coronavirus-case-in-washington-state-draws-on-lessons-from-measl
H.After coronavirus false alarm, see how one N.J. hospital
is preparing for the real thing, by Spencer Kent
https://www.nj.com/healthfit/2020/01/after-coronavirus-false-alarm-nj-emergency-rooms-ramp-up-protocols.html
I.Wuhan virus: China building 1,000-bed hospital over the
weekend to treat coronavirus patients,
https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/east-asia/china-building-1000-bed-hospital-over-the-weekend-to-treat-coronavirus
J.Coronavirus: How can China build a hospital so quickly?,
by Sophie Williams, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51245156
K.Experts Warn of Possible Sustained Global, by Helen Branswell,
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-warn-of-possible-sustained-global-spread-of-new-coronavirus/
L.Author: Protect yourself against coronavirus infection
with one simple step, by Olivia Balsamo,
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/how-to-protect-yourself-against-coronavirus-152101500.html
M.US evacuees from China land at California military base as
coronavirus outbreak grows, by Eliott C. McLaughlin and Faith Karimi,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/01/29/health/us-coronavirus-evacuation-wednesday/index.htmlBeginning
to look ‘pretty intense’:
N.Former CDC head who led U.S. SARS response speaks about
coronavirus, by Erika Edwards,
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/beginning-look-pretty-intense-former-cdc-head-who-led-u-n1124531
O.How to Avoid the Coronavirus? Wash Your Hands, by
Elisabeth Rosenthal,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/opinion/coronavirus-prevention-tips.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
P.WHO officials say coronavirus spread outside of China is
of ‘grave concern’, Berkeley Lovelace Jr.,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/29/who-officials-say-coronavirus-spread-outside-of-china-is-of-grave-concern.html
(The old B.S. Pollak Hospital, part of the old Jersey City
Medical Center, was constructed with federal funds during the Great Depression.
The building is now privately owned.
“The Pollak Hospital facility was formerly the site of a
three-story building constructed in 1918 for the Jersey City School for
Crippled Children. It was taken over as the Infectious Disease Hospital and in
1934 received a loan of $2,996,000 by the Reconstruction Finance Corporation
for a new county tuberculosis hospital. The 250-bed facility was eventually
named for Dr. B.S. Pollak and became noted for the treatment of chest diseases.
When completed in 1936, the 22-floor hospital, at 320 feet, was the tallest
building in Jersey City until 1989 with the construction of Exchange Place
Center at 490 feet.”) (B)
PART 3. February 3, 2020. “The Wuhan
coronavirus spreading from China is now likely to become a pandemic that circles
the globe…”..Trump appeared to downplay concerns about the flu-like virus
…We’re gonna see what happens, but we did shut it down..” (D)
“The Wuhan coronavirus spreading from China is now likely to
become a pandemic that circles the globe…”..Trump appeared to downplay concerns
about the flu-like virus …We’re gonna see what happens, but we did shut it
down..” (D)
The prospect is daunting. A pandemic — an ongoing epidemic
on two or more continents — may well have global consequences, despite the
extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now imposed by China and
other countries, including the United States.
Scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus
is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much damage a pandemic might cause.
But there is growing consensus that the pathogen is readily transmitted between
humans.
The Wuhan coronavirus is spreading more like influenza,
which is highly transmissible, than like its slow-moving viral cousins, SARS
and MERS, scientists have found.
“It’s very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is
going to be a pandemic,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
“But will it be catastrophic? I don’t know.”
In the last three weeks, the number of lab-confirmed cases
has soared from about 50 in China to more than 17,000 in at least 23 countries;
there have been more than 360 deaths.
But various epidemiological models estimate that the real
number of cases is 100,000 or even more. While that expansion is not as rapid
as that of flu or measles, it is an enormous leap beyond what virologists saw
when SARS and MERS emerged.” (A)
“The World Health Organization declared a global health
emergency on Thursday as the coronavirus outbreak spread well beyond China,
where it emerged last month.
The move reversed the organization’s decision just a week
ago to hold off such a declaration. Since then, there have been thousands of
new cases in China and clear evidence of human-to-human transmission in several
other countries, including the United States.
All of which warranted a reconsideration by the W.H.O.’s
emergency committee, officials said.
The declaration “is not a vote of no confidence in China,”
said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the W.H.O.’s director-general. “On the
contrary, the W.H.O. continues to have confidence in China’s capacity to
control the outbreak.”
The declaration comes now, he said, because of fears that
the coronavirus may reach countries with weak health care systems, where it
could run amok, potentially infecting millions of people and killing
thousands.” (B)
“The Donald Trump administration declared the coronavirus
outbreak to be a public health emergency in the United States on Friday,
setting quarantines of Americans who have recently been to certain parts of
China.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention officials said it
was the first quarantine order issued by the federal government in over 50
years. Marty Cetron, director of CDC’s Division of Global Migration and
Quarantine, said the last time a quarantine was used was in the 1960s for
smallpox…
U.S. citizens who have been in China’s Hubei province during
the past 14 days and are returning to the U.S. States will undergo health
screenings and be monitored during mandatory quarantines of up to 14 days,
officials said.
Azar also announced a temporary suspension of entry into the
United States of foreign nationals who pose a risk for the transmission of the
coronavirus.
As a precaution, any U.S. citizen who has been anywhere else
in mainland China beyond Hubei province will be screened when they return for
evidence of coronavirus symptoms. They will also be subject to self-quarantines
of up to 14 days and monitored by local health officials.
All flights from China to the U.S. will be funneled to one
of seven airports that are designated ports of entry: New York, San Francisco,
Seattle, Honolulu, Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta.” (C)
“The United States has taken decisive action to protect
Americans from the threat of a fast-moving coronavirus while offering help to
China, President Donald Trump said on Sunday, but a key adviser said Beijing
had not accepted the offers of assistance.
Trump appeared to downplay concerns about the flu-like virus
that has killed more than 300 people in China and spread to more than two dozen
countries, telling Fox television in an interview, “We’re gonna see what
happens, but we did shut it down, yes.” (D)
“People showing no symptoms appear to be able to spread the
novel coronavirus that has caused an outbreak in China and led world health
authorities to declare a global emergency, researchers reported Thursday in the
New England Journal of Medicine. If confirmed, the finding will make it much
harder to contain the virus.
The case described — from Germany — could help resolve one
of the major unknowns about the virus, which as of Thursday night had infected
nearly 9,700 people in China and killed 213. About 100 more infections have
been reported in 18 other countries, but no deaths.
Some viruses, including SARS, which is another coronavirus,
can only be passed when a person is showing symptoms. Others, like the flu, can
be spread a day or two before the onset of symptoms. If people are contagious
before they become sick, they can be unknowingly spreading the virus as they go
shopping or to work or to the movies. Trying to snuff out the virus in that
case is a much more difficult task.
What’s also concerning is that the spread from an
asymptomatic person appeared to lead to two generations of cases, meaning the
person who contracted the virus then passed it on to others.” (E)
“Close to 10,000 people have contracted the new coronavirus
that originated in Wuhan, China—more cases than SARS in 2003. So far, 213
people have died. The preliminary fatality rate for 2019-nCoV hovers around
3%—which is low, but still concerning because of the number of cases
accumulating.
But that fatality rate is likely to be higher in older
adults. Unofficial open-source data from researchers based in the UK and China
show that out of 41 deaths, 39 were in people over 50. Bloomberg reports
similar figures. While that’s not unexpected, it indicates the need for
effective therapies targeted at this population. And as the proportion of
adults over 50 continues to increase globally, future pandemics could be
deadlier than they’ve been in the past…
There are two reasons older adults are more susceptible to
infections. First, seniors are more likely to have other chronic health
conditions, like diabetes or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, that make
it harder for their bodies to cope with damage caused by a new pathogen. Every
year, the majority of flu deaths are seen in people 65 or older.
Second, the immune system changes with age—particularly in
its ability to respond to coronaviruses. Unlike the flu virus, which does most
of the damage to your body on its own, most of the symptoms from coronavirus
infections actually come from the body’s immune response, Menachery says.
Although he and his lab team are still characterizing these reactions, it seems
like coronaviruses encourage older immune systems to kick in with extra
inflammation, which can have a cascading effect.” (F)
“Two more Americans, a husband and wife, were confirmed to
have the coronavirus late Sunday in the second person-to-person transmission in
the U.S. and the 10th and 11th cases in the country, respectively.
The husband, from San Benito County, California, recently
traveled to Wuhan, China, the center of the virus’ outbreak, and apparently
passed the disease to his wife, who did not go to China. Both 57, neither has
been hospitalized, but they have also not left their home.
The couple’s diagnosis brings the total number of positive
cases in the United States to 11. The ninth case in the country, in Santa Clara
County, California, was announced Sunday afternoon. The other human-to-human
transmission was also between a husband and wife and was announced last week in
Illinois.” (G)
“Stopping the spread of a rapidly emerging disease takes
masterful medical detective work, including tracing the people who have been
infected and figuring out their web of contacts, steps that are vital to
understanding how it’s being transmitted. US public health officials are
following those trails to quickly detect new cases of the Wuhan coronavirus,
including the report on Thursday of a sixth US infection—the husband of a woman
who became ill after traveling from China back home to Chicago—which was
followed by a seventh, in California, on Friday.
Yet there’s a potential wildcard, a deviation that throws
off the most careful calculations. For reasons that are still unclear, some
people, known as super-spreaders, transmit disease much more readily than
others, and to many more people. Like an infectious grenade, they can set off a
sudden cluster of illnesses. “These super-spreader events are very unique and
fall out of the world of averages,” says Michael Osterholm, an infectious
disease expert and director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and
Policy at the University of Minnesota. Yet super-spreading can shape the
trajectory of an outbreak in unexpected ways, making it more difficult to
control. Instead of infecting just a few people who are close to them, a
super-spreader may inadvertently infect dozens—who go on to spread the disease
elsewhere.” (H)
“Can wearing a medical face mask protect you against the new
coronavirus? It’s a question many people, including pet owners who are putting
canine face masks on their dogs, are asking.
If it’s a regular surgical face mask, the answer is “no,”
Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious-disease specialist at Vanderbilt
University in Tennessee, told Live Science.
A more specialized mask, known as an N95 respirator, can
protect against the new coronavirus, also called 2019-nCoV. The respirator is
thicker than a surgical mask, but Schaffner doesn’t recommend it for public
use, at least not at this point.” (I)
“New York City health officials announced on Saturday that a
patient at Bellevue Hospital Center might have the new coronavirus and that
samples were being sent to the federal authorities for laboratory testing. If
confirmed, it would be the first known instance of the virus in New York City.
Based on the patient’s symptoms and travel history from
China, city officials were taking the potential case seriously. This was the
first time city officials had sent a sample to the Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention for testing.
Another reason the health authorities suspect it might be
the new coronavirus: They had tested the patient for influenza and other common
illnesses, and those tests came back negative, health officials said.
They said they did not expect to receive results from the
C.D.C. for 36 to 48 hours, or possibly longer.
“An individual with a travel history to China felt unwell
and sought help from a medical provider who promptly contacted the Health
Department,” the health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, said in a statement.”
(J)
“China completed building on Sunday a massive, makeshift
hospital in Wuhan that will serve as the frontline in battling the coronavirus
epidemic, according to a report.
Huoshenshan Hospital was built in less than two weeks to
treat patients at the epicenter of the virus that has killed more than 300
people, BBC reported.
The hospital, which has 1,000 beds, started construction
Jan. 23 and will begin admitting patients on Monday, according to Chinese state
media China Global Television Network.
Around 40 million people tuned into livestreams of the
construction on YouTube and Periscope, while workers rushed to complete one of
two hospitals that will specialize in treating the virus.
Chinese officials are still working to build the second
emergency hospital, Leishenshan Hospital, which is expected to open Wednesday
around 25 miles away from the newest site, CGTN reported.” (K)
“The 195 Americans who flew from China to California were
first told they must clear medical tests that could take 72 hours or many days.
Now they are all being quarantined for two weeks…
This makeshift community on a military base in Riverside,
Calif., is made up of evacuees from Wuhan, the city in China that is the
epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. The 195 people, including diplomats,
infants, a football player and a theme-park designer, are among Americans who
have managed to leave Wuhan since a quarantine was imposed.
Now they find themselves stuck in place in the United
States. The federal government on Friday imposed a 14-day quarantine,
retroactive to when the plane left Wuhan. The patients were initially told they
had to wait at least 72 hours for medical testing to be completed.” (L)
“The BlueDot algorithm scours news reports and airline
ticketing data to predict the spread of diseases like those linked to the flu
outbreak in China.
On January 9, the World Health Organization notified the
public of a flu-like outbreak in China: a cluster of pneumonia cases had been
reported in Wuhan, possibly from vendors’ exposure to live animals at the
Huanan Seafood Market. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had
gotten the word out a few days earlier, on January 6. But a Canadian health
monitoring platform had beaten them both to the punch, sending word of the
outbreak to its customers on December 31.
BlueDot uses an AI-driven algorithm that scours
foreign-language news reports, animal and plant disease networks, and official
proclamations to give its clients advance warning to avoid danger zones like
Wuhan.
Speed matters during an outbreak, and tight-lipped Chinese
officials do not have a good track record of sharing information about
diseases, air pollution, or natural disasters. But public health officials at
WHO and the CDC have to rely on these very same health officials for their own
disease monitoring. So maybe an AI can get there faster. “We know that
governments may not be relied upon to provide information in a timely fashion,”
says Kamran Khan, BlueDot’s founder and CEO. “We can pick up news of possible
outbreaks, little murmurs or forums or blogs of indications of some kind of
unusual events going on.” (M)
““The outbreak is probably a lot bigger than one the public
health officials have confirmation of,” says James Lawler, an infectious
disease specialist at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, who treated
quarantined Ebola patients in 2017 and 2018. “Just using a back-of-the-envelope
calculation on how many travelers there are from China in a given week, and
percentage than might have been affected, it’s a lot.”
An area containing eight cities and 35 million people have
now been quarantined in China, The New York Times reported Friday, while The
Wall Street Journal reports that hospitals in the epicenter of Wuhan are
turning away patients and medical supplies such as masks and sanitizers have
run out.
Lawler and others say that the coronavirus outbreak will continue
to spread as travelers from China to other nations exhibit symptoms of
infection. He says we still don’t know how many people will get sick, and how
many of those will die before the outbreak recedes.
To stop the spread of disease, public health officials will
need to tell the truth and tell it quickly. But in the meantime, it might be
worth deputizing an AI-driven epidemiologist.” (N)
As the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread across
China, a flurry of early research is drawing a clearer picture of how the
pathogen behaves and the key factors that will determine whether it can be
contained.
How contagious is the virus?
It seems moderately infectious, similar to SARS.
How deadly is the virus?
It’s hard to know yet. But the fatality rate is probably
less than 3 percent, much less than SARS.
How long does it take to show symptoms?
Possibly between 2 to 14 days, allowing the illness to go
undetected.
How much have infected people traveled?
The virus spread quickly because it started in a transportation
hub.
How effective will the response be?” (O)
“The World Health Organization has declared the growing
coronavirus outbreak in China to be a global health emergency. It’s a
recognition that the outbreak — now with nearly 10,000 cases — may continue to
spread beyond China, and that the nations of the world should lend their
assistance and be prepared.
Just a month ago, this virus, called 2019-nCoV, was unknown
to science. Now, health officials are working furiously to understand it,
trying to prevent a pandemic (a larger global spread of an infection).
These are still early days. Critical questions about the
virus — namely how it spreads, and how deadly it is — remain to be firmly
answered. But it’s not too soon to wonder: How does this outbreak end?
Right now, infectious disease experts are outlining three
broad scenarios for the future of this outbreak. Keep in mind there’s a lot of
uncertainty about how this will unfold.
1) The spread of the virus gets under control through public
health interventions
This is the best-case scenario, and essentially what
happened with the SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) outbreak in 2003…
2) The virus burns itself out after it infects all or most
of the people most susceptible to it
Disease outbreaks are a bit like fires. The virus is the
flame. Susceptible people are the fuel. Eventually, a fire burns itself out if
it runs out of kindling. A virus outbreak will end when it stops finding
susceptible people to infect.
3) Coronavirus becomes yet another common virus
There’s a third scenario about how this outbreak ends. That
it doesn’t.
This has happened before. In 2009, a new strain of the H1N1
flu virus encircled the globe in a pandemic. But, “after a while it became a
part of our normal repertoire of what might come up each flu season,” Mina
says.” (P)
“Each new crisis follows a familiar playbook, as scientists,
epidemiologists, health-care workers, and politicians race to characterize and
contain the new threat. Each epidemic is also different, and each is a mirror
that reflects the society it affects. In the new coronavirus, we see a world
that is more connected than ever by international travel, but that has also
succumbed to growing isolationism and xenophobia. We see a time when scientific
research and the demand for news, the spread of misinformation and the spread
of a virus, all happen at a relentless, blistering pace. The new crisis is very
much the kind of epidemic we should expect, given the state of the world in
2020. “It’s almost as if the content is the same but the amplitude is
different,” Bhadelia said. “There’s just a greater frenzy, and is that a
function of the disease, or a function of the changed world? It’s unclear.”
And there will be a next epidemic. A new disease was always
going to rear its head to test the world’s mettle, and more almost certainly
will in the future. As I argued in 2018, the world isn’t ready. There has
assuredly been progress—vaccines can be produced faster, global cooperation is
tighter, basic research is nimbler—but supply chains are stretched,
misinformation is rife, and investments in preparedness always fall into
neglect once panic subsides. “Every year, things get more and more connected,”
Inglesby says. “Epidemics like this show that all of it can be relatively quickly
put at risk.” (Q)
A.Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic,
Experts Say, by Donald G. McNeil Jr.,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/health/coronavirus-pandemic-china.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
B.W.H.O. Declares Global Emergency as Wuhan Coronavirus
Spreads, by Sui-Lee Wee, Donald G. McNeil Jr. and Javier C. Hernández,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/health/coronavirus-world-health-organization.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
C.Trump administration declares coronavirus emergency,
orders first quarantine in 50 years, by David Jackson,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/01/31/coronavirus-donald-trump-declares-public-health-emergency/4625299002/
D.Trump says U.S. has ‘shut down’ coronavirus threat; China
shuns U.S. help, by Doina Chiacu, Andrea Shalal,
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-usa/trump-says-us-has-shut-down-coronavirus-threat-china-shuns-us-help-idUSKBN1ZW0OJ
E.Study documents first case of coronavirus spread by a
person showing no symptoms, by Andrew Joseph/
https://www.statnews.com/2020/01/30/first-documented-case-of-coronavirus-spread-by-person-showing-no-symptoms/
F.Coronaviruses hit seniors the hardest, by Katherine Ellen
Foley,
https://qz.com/1794241/seniors-seem-to-have-the-highest-risk-of-dying-from-coronavirus/
G.2nd person-to-person transmission of coronavirus reported
in US; 1st death confirmed outside China, by Christina Carrega,
https://abcnews.go.com/International/1st-coronavirus-related-death-china-reported/story?id=68707431
H.Wuhan Coronavirus ‘Super-Spreaders’ Could Be Wildcards, by
MICHELE COHEN MARILL,
https://www.wired.com/story/wuhan-coronavirus-super-spreaders-could-be-wildcards/
I.Can wearing a face mask protect you from the new
coronavirus?, by Laura Geggel, https://www.livescience.com/face-mask-new-coronavirus.html
J.New York City Eyes First Suspected Case of Coronavirus, by
Joseph Goldstein,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/01/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-city.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
K.China completes emergency coronavirus hospital in just
days, by Jackie Salo,
https://nypost.com/2020/02/02/china-completes-emergency-coronavirus-hospital-in-just-days/
L.Inside the California Military Base a Coronavirus Evacuee
Tried to Flee, by Miriam Jordan, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/30/us/coronavirus-americans-evacuate.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
M.An AI Epidemiologist Sent the First Warnings of the Wuhan
Virus, by ERIC NIILER,
https://www.wired.com/story/ai-epidemiologist-wuhan-public-health-warnings/
N.An AI Epidemiologist Sent the First Warnings of the Wuhan
Virus, by ERIC NIILER,
https://www.wired.com/story/ai-epidemiologist-wuhan-public-health-warnings/
O.How Bad Will the Coronavirus Outbreak Get? Here Are 6 Key
Factors, by Knvul Sheikh, Derek Watkins, Jin Wu and Mika Gröndah,
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/world/asia/china-coronavirus-contain.html
P.Coronavirus: How does this outbreak end?, by Brian
Resnick,
https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2020/1/31/21115109/coronavirus-outbreak-end-sars-comparison
PART 4. February 9,
2020. “A study published Friday in JAMA found that 41% of the first 138
patients diagnosed at one hospital in Wuhan, China, were presumed to be
infected in that hospital.…
“A study published Friday in JAMA found that
41% of the first 138 patients diagnosed at one hospital in Wuhan, China, were
presumed to be infected in that hospital.….
“Five health care workers at
Good Samaritan Hospital in San Jose were exposed to the new coronavirus while
treating a patient there and have been sent home and told to remain isolated
until Feb. 11, according to Santa Clara County public health officials…
The workers are being kept at
home “to protect the public’s health and limit any potential spread of the
virus,” Santa Clara County public health officials said in a statement.” (A)
“During SARS, patients were sent
to nine hospitals all over Hong Kong so that no one hospital had to bear the
full burden of the outbreak. Despite this effort to spread the load, the
outbreak overwhelmed the city’s health-care system. The Tuen Mun public
hospital in the northwest of the city was one of the treatment facilities. The
toll on the hospital was steep. Staff had to work long hours with the threat of
a deadly virus looming over them. Non-emergency patients were turned away.
Entire wards were turned into isolation zones. And the first of many casualties
among health-care workers in Hong Kong occurred at Tuen Mun on April 26, 2003…
During SARS much of the spread
was happening in hospitals. Once that became clear, public health officials put
in place rigid infection control measures in medical settings; the outbreaks in
Hong Kong, China, Toronto and elsewhere were brought under control. Cowling
says transmission of this new coronavirus is quite different from SARS…
Public health officials don’t
yet know what it will take to stop the new Wuhan coronavirus, but Seto says
fanatically enforcing hand washing — at home and in hospitals — will probably
be one of the keys.” (B)
“Most transmission appears
to be occurring in the community,” he says. “We’ve seen a small
number of infections of health-care workers, but nothing like SARS where one
third of the cases were health-care workers. For the new coronavirus it’s a
much smaller fraction in hospitals, and probably most transmission occurring in
the general community. And that’s much, much more difficult for public health
measures to deal with.”
Infectious disease specialists
and scientists say the new coronavirus that’s shuttering companies across
mainland China may be more contagious than current data shows.
Emerging in Wuhan, China, about
a month ago, the virus has spread from about 300 people as of Jan. 21 to close
to 21,000 and killed more than 420 — with the number of new cases growing by
the thousands every day.
“The rapid acceleration of cases
is of concern,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health
Organization’s emergencies program, said at a news conference last week before
the agency declared a global health emergency.
Chinese scientists worry the
respiratory illness, which world health officials say likely came from a fish
market, has mutated to adapt to its new human hosts far more quickly than SARS.
Data on the virus is changing by the day, and some infectious disease
specialists say it will take weeks before they can see just how contagious it
is. What they’re seeing so far is concerning and leading U.S. and international
scientists to believe the virus is more contagious than the current data shows,
according to interviews with epidemiologists, scientists and infectious disease
specialists.” (C)
“The Wuhan coronavirus spreading
from China is now likely to become a pandemic that circles the globe, according
to many of the world’s leading infectious disease experts.
The prospect is daunting. A
pandemic — an ongoing epidemic on two or more continents — may well have global
consequences, despite the extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now
imposed by China and other countries, including the United States.
Scientists do not yet know how
lethal the new coronavirus is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much
damage a pandemic might cause. But there is growing consensus that the pathogen
is readily transmitted between humans.
The Wuhan coronavirus is
spreading more like influenza, which is highly transmissible, than like its
slow-moving viral cousins, SARS and MERS, scientists have found.
“It’s very, very transmissible,
and it almost certainly is going to be a pandemic,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci,
director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.” (D)
“When the H1N1 flu began
spreading a decade ago, U.S. hospitals were flooded with patients. The
pandemic, which was declared over in 2010, left nearly 275,000 hospitalized, as
health officials fretted whether they would have enough beds, enough medical
supplies, or enough protective gear…
Hospitals across the country are
convening near-daily meetings to check in on their emergency preparedness
plans. And they’ve called all hands on deck. Nearly everyone — from physicians
and nurses to public affairs representatives and the employees responsible for
ordering supplies and keeping the hospital clean — is involved in making sure a
hospital’s existing emergency plans are up to date.
“But as we project outward with the potential
for this to be a much longer situation, one of the things that we’re actively
working on is projecting the long-term needs for our health care system,” Dr.
Nancy Messonnier, director of Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters on
Wednesday…
Much of that work revolves
around hospitals planning for what Biddinger called the “four S’s” of a surge
in patients amid an outbreak: supplies, staff, space, and the system that
governs all of them.
They need to review their
inventory of supplies, including ventilators, oxygen tanks, and the respirator
masks that health workers might need to wear to care for infected patients.
They need to plan for how to protect other patients in the hospital,
particularly those with weak immune systems. They need to review screening
procedures and the proper way to put on protective gear. And they need to
educate everyone — from the front desk employees in the ER to the workers who
take out the trash in patient rooms — in those protocols.” (E)
“Given the unknowns about
2019-nCoV, in the coming days and weeks, we’re in for some twists and turns.
For now, many experts believe this outbreak could get a lot worse: burdening
the Chinese health system, spreading in poorer countries with weaker health
systems, and sickening and killing thousands more people along the way.
Alternatively, it could get much better, with new cases and deaths steadily
dropping. Here are the key factors that will determine which way it goes.
4 ways this outbreak could take
a turn for the worse
1) China can’t contain the new
coronavirus
2) The new coronavirus spreads
in countries with weak health systems
3) The virus is actually
deadlier than it seems right now
4 things that could unfold that
would prevent a pandemic
1) China contains the virus
2) Local clusters of the disease
in other countries don’t grow
3) The virus can’t spread in
poorer countries with hotter climates
4) We learn the virus is not as
deadly as it seems (F)
“Princess Cruises late Tuesday
said nine passengers and a crew member on one of its ships in Japan had tested
positive for the new coronavirus from China, prompting local authorities to
order a multiweek quarantine of the vessel.
The Santa Clarita,
California-based line said more than 2,600 passengers and 1,044 crew on the
Diamond Princess would remain quarantined on the ship for at least 14 days.
The 10 people who have tested
positive for the virus are being taken off the ship, which is in the harbor of
Yokohama, Japan — the port for Tokyo. They’ll be transferred to local
hospitals…
Early Wednesday, another cruise
vessel arriving in a major Asian port was quarantined until passengers could
undergo screening for coronavirus. The quarantine of the 3,376-passenger World
Dream, in Hong Kong, was ordered after three passengers from a previous sailing
tested positive for the virus. World Dream is operated by Dream Cruises, an
Asia-based cruise company that caters to Asian travelers.//
Princess said Diamond Princess
would head out to sea to perform normal marine operations including, but not
limited to, the production of fresh water and ballast operations, before
returning to Yokohama and docking at the city’s port. Food and other supplies
needed for the extended quarantine of the vessel will be brought onboard.
Passengers have been confined to
their cabins for the duration of the quarantine, and many shipboard services
have been shut down. Food is being delivered to cabins at regular intervals.
Passengers have access to complimentary internet and telephone service to stay
in contact with their families and other loved ones.” (G)
“A southern New Jersey military
installation is on a list of potential coronavirus quarantine locations should
the need arise.
The Department of Health and
Human Services has requested the support of the Department of Defense to
provide space if primary and secondary facilities become full.
The Department of Defense
identified 11 locations near major airports, including Joint Base
McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, which spans through portions of Burlington and Ocean
counties, according to a news release issued Thursday.
The military involvement would
be limited to providing housing support for up to 20 people as they undergo a
period of quarantined observation, the Department of Defense release said.
Military personnel will not be in direct contact with quarantined people and
will minimize contact with personnel supporting the evacuees, officials said…
There are currently 12 confirmed
cases in the United States, CNN reported Thursday. The news network report said
that “planeloads” of Americans fleeing the outbreak in China are arriving at military
bases across the United States.” (H)
“Current efforts to contain the
coronavirus differ in many ways from those inflicted on lepers in the past
century. Americans who may have been exposed to the virus in China are
quarantined for 14 days and are not sentenced to life in isolation. The medical
treatment is significantly improved and the chances of recovery are good.
However, the corona virus is far more contagious than leprosy, against which
95% of people are naturally immune. Precautions are certainly useful.
But this recent outbreak raises
questions similar to the health authorities that struggled with decades ago.
Are quarantine and isolation the most effective way to contain a disease? Do
you hesitate to identify yourself as a potential victim?
“It fails because people are
headed for the hills,” said Wendy Parmet, a professor of health law at
Northeastern University, Rob Stein from the NPR. “People don’t call and look
for medical care … and medical care providers are afraid to treat patients because
they don’t want to be quarantined.”
There are other questions as
well.
Will the US decision to close
its borders for foreigners who have recently visited China do more harm than
good? The World Health Organization believes that such travel bans may and
warns of panic and anxiety measures.
Perhaps more importantly, how
are those who are believed to be potential carriers of the virus treated by
those around them? NPR’s Maria Godoy reports that some Asian Americans are
already experiencing a setback. A student was told to leave a cafe and “take
the corona virus with her.”” (I)
“The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention has shipped the diagnostic test for the novel coronavirus to
more than 100 public health labs nationwide, allowing states to test for
coronavirus cases themselves and receive results quicker.
Why it matters: The FDA bypassed
usual regulatory channels to distribute the test under an Emergency Use
Authorization, which has been used in life-threatening situations like MERS,
Ebola and the Zika virus.
Before, specimens from all over
the country had to be shipped to Atlanta to have their suspected cases
validated.
“This continues to be an
evolving situation and the ability to distribute this diagnostic test to
qualified labs is a critical step forward in protecting the public
health,” FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said.” (J)
“CDC created this interim
guidance to provide US public health authorities and other partners with a
framework for assessing and managing risk of potential exposures to 2019-nCoV
and implementing public health actions based on a person’s risk level and
clinical presentation. Public health actions may include active monitoring or
supervision of self-monitoring by public health authorities, or the application
of movement restrictions, including isolation and quarantine, when needed to
prevent the possible spread of 2019-nCoV in US communities. The recommendations
in this guidance apply to US-bound travelers and people located in the United
States who may have been exposed to 2019-nCoV. CDC acknowledges that state and
local jurisdictions may make risk management decisions that differ from those
recommended here. However, a harmonized national approach will facilitate
smooth coordination and minimize confusion. The guidance may be updated based
on the evolving circumstances of the outbreak.” (K)
“Infection control procedures
including administrative rules and engineering controls, environmental hygiene,
correct work practices, and appropriate use of personal protective equipment
(PPE) are all necessary to prevent infections from spreading during healthcare
delivery. Prompt detection and effective triage and isolation of potentially
infectious patients are essential to prevent unnecessary exposures among
patients, healthcare personnel, and visitors at the facility. All healthcare
facilities must ensure that their personnel are correctly trained and capable
of implementing infection control procedures; individual healthcare personnel
should ensure they understand and can adhere to infection control requirements.
This guidance is based on the
currently limited information available about 2019-nCoV related to disease
severity, transmission efficiency, and shedding duration. This cautious
approach will be refined and updated as more information becomes available and
as response needs change in the United States. This guidance is applicable to
all U.S. healthcare settings. This guidance is not intended for non-healthcare
settings (e.g., schools) OR to persons outside of healthcare settings. For
recommendations regarding clinical management, air or ground medical transport,
or laboratory settings, refer to the main CDC 2019-nCoV website.” (L)
“Whether it’s an influx of
coronavirus carriers or another Superstorm Sandy, a new nonprofit report finds
New Jersey is in a relatively good position to handle the next public health
emergency.
An annual survey released
Wednesday by The Trust for America’s Health shows that New Jersey is among a
top tier of 17 states considered to have the best health care and emergency
response systems, along with the training and capacity to protect residents
against communicable diseases, natural disasters and other calamities.
Officials at the Trust — a
national research and advocacy group focused on public health and injury
prevention — said the Garden State has ranked in the top third of states for
the last several years, a significant improvement from 2013, when it came in as
one of the seven lowest-scoring states.” (M)
“Gov. Phil Murphy on Monday launched
a task force to make sure New Jersey is prepared for any threat from the
surging coronavirus.
Murphy also noted that Newark
Liberty International Airport is one of 11 major U.S. airports that receive
flights from China requiring enhanced screening for the virus.
There are no confirmed cases of
coronavirus in New Jersey, but Murphy said it’s “critical” the state has
“strong preparedness protocols in place.”
“By establishing the Coronavirus
Task Force, we are bringing together experts across state agencies, health
officials, and federal partners to ensure that we are working collaboratively
to protect the health and safety of all New Jerseyans,” the governor
added.
According to an executive order
Murphy signed Monday, the task force will coordinate all state efforts to
“prepare for and respond to the public health hazard posed” by
coronavirus.
The task force is chaired by
state Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli and will include members of the
state’s human services, law and public safety, education, and homeland security
departments, as well as the State Police.” (N)
““I have to emphasize that the
risk right now, certainly to the United States but definitely to the residents
of New Jersey, is still low,” said state health commissioner Judith Persichilli,
whom Murphy named as the chair of a new Coronavirus Task Force…
Authorities also said that
Newark Liberty International Airport is one of 11 airports in the nation where
flights from China will be allowed to land, and passengers on those flights will
be screened and, if necessary, quarantined.
“We’ve been very proactive, we
have teams in place ready to go,” Persichilli said. “There will be screening at
the Newark Airport. We are prepared to handle quarantine of any person that
comes in.”
Also represented on the task
force are the State Police, the Office of Homeland Security, the attorney
general and the Department of Education. The group will coordinate with
hospitals and other health care facilities as well as federal authorities and
the Port Authority, which runs Newark Airport.
Also Monday, Princeton
University has told students who recently returned from China to
“self-quarantine” for 14 days from the time they were last in China, a step the
university said was being taken as a precaution. The number of students
affected by the order is more than 100, according to various news reports.
The precaution matches a general
advisory issued for travelers by state public health officials.
“If you’ve traveled to China and
return from that travel, we would urge residents to monitor their symptoms for
14 days,” said Dr. Lisa McHugh, program coordinator for infectious disease
epidemiology for the state health department. “If you develop symptoms, again
we would urge you to contact your health care provider, and we’ll work through
them to determine if the individual should be tested at the Centers for Disease
Control.”” (O)
“China on Thursday finished
building a second new hospital to isolate and treat patients of a virus that
has killed more than 560 people and continues to spread, disrupting travel and
people’s lives and fueling economic fears.
A first group of patients was
expected to start testing a new antiviral drug, as China also moved people with
milder symptoms into makeshift hospitals at sports centers, exhibition halls
and other public spaces.
Other treatment centers had
tight rows of simple cots lining cavernous rooms where patients with milder
symptoms would be cared for. And Wuhan had another 132 quarantine sites with
more than 12,500 beds, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.” (P)
“United States citizen died from
the coronavirus in Wuhan, China, American officials said on Saturday. It was
the first known American death from the illness, and was likely to add to
diplomatic friction over Beijing’s response to the epidemic.” (Q)
“A study published Friday in the
medical journal JAMA found that 41% of the first 138 patients diagnosed at one
hospital in Wuhan, China, were presumed to be infected in that hospital.
This is big news. In plain
English, it means that nearly half of the initial infections in this hospital
appear to have been spread within the hospital itself. This is called
nosocomial transmission. (Doctors use big words to hide bad things: Nosocomial
means caught it in the hospital.)
What’s more, most spread doesn’t
appear to have been the result of a so-called “super-spreader event,”
in which a single patient transmits infection to many other people. In these
events, a procedure such as bronchoscopy — where a doctor inserts a tube into
the patient’s lungs — can result in many infections.
This would be a concern, but not
nearly as much as what appears to have happened: Many health care workers and
many patients got infected in many parts of the hospital. What’s more, since there’s
a broad spectrum of infection and only patients who were sick were tested, it’s
quite likely that there was even more transmission in the hospital.
So, like SARS and MERS — other
coronaviruses — before it, the Wuhan coronavirus is spreading in hospitals.”
(R)
“The World Health Organization’s
director-general cautioned Saturday that transmission of the new coronavirus
outside of China may increase and countries should prepare for that
possibility.
“It’s slow now, but it may accelerate,” Tedros
Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a press conference in Geneva. “So while it’s
still slow there is a window of opportunity that we should use to the maximum
in order to have a better outcome, and further decrease the progress and stop
it.”
Tedros’s warning came after
health authorities in Singapore announced they had diagnosed the infection in a
man with no travel history to China and no known link to other cases in
Singapore…
Infectious diseases expert
Michael Osterholm warned that it is unwise to conclude that just because the
world hasn’t yet seen outbreaks in other countries they won’t happen. It takes
several generations of transmission — an imported case passed on to two others,
who then infect two others and so on — before an outbreak takes off, he said.”
“What we’re watching is the
public health community trying to catch up to the speed of the virus,” said
Osterholm, who is the director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for
Infectious Diseases Research and Policy.” (S)
“With an intense flu season in
full swing, hundreds of thousands of coughing and feverish patients have
already overwhelmed emergency rooms around the United States. Now, hospitals
are bracing for the potential spread of coronavirus that could bring another
surge of patients.
So far, only a dozen people in
the United States have become infected with the novel coronavirus, but an
outbreak could severely strain the nation’s hospitals.
“We’re talking about the
possibility of a double flu pandemic,” where a second wave starts before the
first is over, said Dr. Eric Toner, a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins
Center for Health Security.
Public health experts are also
closely watching reserves of vital medical supplies and medications, many of
which are made in China. Some hospitals in the United States are already
“critically low” on respirator masks, according to Premier Inc., which secures
medical supplies and equipment on behalf of hospitals and health systems. And
China is the dominant supplier of the raw ingredients needed for penicillin,
ibuprofen and even aspirin — drugs taken daily by millions of Americans and
dispensed routinely to hospital patients.
“All the hospitals are taxed
with a large flu season and other bugs,” said Dr. Mark Jarrett, the chief
quality officer for Northwell Health, which operates 23 hospitals across Long
Island and elsewhere in New York. About 400 patients are coming to its
emergency rooms each day with flulike symptoms.
“Everybody is at maximum
capacity,” Dr. Jarrett said…
“Many of us are holding our
breath to see the downstream effect on pharmaceuticals and other medical
supplies because of this outbreak in China,” said Dr. Paul Biddinger, who helps
oversee emergency preparedness for Partners Healthcare, the Boston hospital
group that includes Massachusetts General.
Experts like Dr. Toner say
supplies could easily become depleted, especially at smaller hospitals that
tend to have less inventory of basic items like masks, gowns and gloves.
Hospitals have long struggled with shortages of injectable medications and
staples like saline. In 2017, Hurricane Maria knocked out power to several
pharmaceutical factories in Puerto Rico, leading to a shortage of saline bags…
Because the nature of the virus
is still unknown, public health officials said it’s unclear what future
challenges hospitals will face if the coronavirus spreads into an epidemic in
the United States. While the current government guidelines call for patients to
be treated in specialized isolation rooms, experts say it is unlikely that
there will be enough isolation rooms at individual facilities.” (T)
“The number of deaths from novel
coronavirus in mainland China increased to 811 Sunday, health officials with
China’s National Health Commission said.
This exceeds the number of
deaths reported from the SARS outbreak in 2003, which killed 774 people,
according to the World Health Organization.
Outside of China, two people
died from the disease in the last two week, one in the Philippines and one in
Hong Kong, bringing total number of global deaths to at least 813.
As of Sunday, more than 37,198
confirmed cases have been reported on mainland China…
Six more people aboard a cruise
ship quarantined in Japan have tested positive for novel coronavirus, bringing
the total on the Diamond Princess to 70, Japan’s health ministry said Sunday.
The ministry said one of the six
confirmed cases is a woman in her 70s who has Hong Kong residency, but is also
a U.S. citizen. That brings the total number of American passengers who were
confirmed to have the virus to 14.” (U)
“Four passengers on Friday were
taken to a hospital after their cruise ship arrived in New Jersey for
evaluation of coronavirus..
The CDC has confirmed just 12
cases in the United States, mostly in California; there have been no cases in
New Jersey or New York
Four passengers traveling on a
cruise ship that returned to New Jersey have tested negative for the new virus
that has sickened tens of thousands in mainland China and killed more than 800.
Governor Phil Murphy said all
passengers tested negative and “New Jersey currently has no confirmed
cases of novel coronavirus and the risk to residents remains low.” (V)
(A) Five San Jose hospital workers sent home after exposure to
coronavirus, by Deanne Fitzmauric
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Five-San-Jose-hospital-workers-sent-home-after-15030563.phpe,
(B) How Hong Kong Beat SARS: Lessons Learned, by Jason
Beaubien, https://www.kcrw.com/news/shows/npr/npr-story/802701836
(C) Wuhan Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic,
Experts Say, by Donald G. McNeil Jr.,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/04/researchers-say-the-coronavirus-may-be-more-contagious-than-current-data-shows.html
(D) Researchers say the coronavirus may be more contagious than
current data shows, by Berkeley Lovelace, Jr., https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/04/researchers-say-the-coronavirus-may-be-more-contagious-than-current-data-shows.html
(E) ‘We need everyone for this’: U.S. hospitals harnessing
resources to brace for any spike in coronavirus cases, by MEGAN THIELKING,
https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/07/hospitals-harnessing-resources-brace-spike-coronavirus-
(F) What happens next in the coronavirus outbreak? We mapped 8
scenarios, by Julia Belluz,
https://www.vox.com/2020/2/5/21122758/coronavirus-outcomes-pandemic-travel-china-map
(G) Nearly 4,000 people quarantined on cruise ship for 14 days
after coronavirus confirmed onboard, by Gene Sloan,
https://thepointsguy.com/news/coronavirus-princess-cruise-ship-quarantine/
(H) N.J. military base is among potential coronavirus
quarantine locations, by Justin Auciello,
https://whyy.org/articles/n-j-military-base-is-among-potential-coronavirus-quarantine-locations/
(I) Will Corona Virus Quarantines Help or Harm? A look back at
leprosy, by Gwen Olson, https://mashviral.com/will-corona-virus-quarantines-help-or-harm-a-look-back-at-leprosy-shots/
(J) FDA allows states to test for coronavirus for faster
results, by Marisa Fernandez,
https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-state-testing-fda-approval-831a1a2a-4a80-47fa-a88b-983a81756bc3.html
(K) Interim US Guidance for Risk Assessment and Public Health
Management of Persons with Potential 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)
Exposure in Travel-associated or Community Settings,
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/risk-assessment.html
(L) Interim Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations
for Patients with Confirmed 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) or Persons Under
Investigation for 2019-nCoV in Healthcare Settings,
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/infection-control.html
(M) How Ready Is NJ to Handle Public Health Emergencies? The
Latest Results, by LILO H. STAINTON,
https://www.njspotlight.com/2020/02/how-ready-is-nj-to-handle-public-health-emergencies-the-latest-results/
(N) Gov. Murphy launches task force to protect N.J. from coronavirus,
by Brent Johnson,
https://www.nj.com/politics/2020/02/gov-murphy-launches-task-force-to-protect-nj-from-coronavirus.html
(O) Murphy Sets Up Coronavirus Task Force, State Health
Officials Say Risk in NJ ‘Is Still Low’, by Joanna Gagis, https://www.njspotlight.com/2020/02/murphy-sets-up-coronavirus-task-force-state-health-officials-say-risk-in-nj-is-still-low/
(P) China finishes second new hospital built for coronavirus
patients, https://www.foxnews.com/health/china-opens-new-hospitals-coronavirus-patients
(Q) First American Dies of Coronavirus, Raising Questions About
U.S. Response, by Raymond Zhong and Edward Wong,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/08/world/asia/china-coronavirus-american-dead.html?partner=msn
(R) New study an eye-opener on how coronavirus is spreading and
how little we know, by Dr. Tom Frieden,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/08/health/coronavirus-hospital-infections-frieden/index.html
(S) WHO cautions that transmission of the new coronavirus
outside of China could increase, by HELEN BRANSWELL,
https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/08/who-cautions-coronavirus-transmission-could-increase-beyond-china/
(T) Hospitals are currently making preparations for a possible
outbreak of the new coronavirus, by Reed Abelson and Katie Thomas,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/07/health/hospitals-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
(U) Coronavirus updates: 14 Americans aboard quarantined cruise
ship now confirmed to have coronavirus,
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/new-coronavirus-updates-number-confirmed-cases-drops-disease-s-epicenter-n1133141
PART 5. CORONAVIRUS. “In
short, shoe-leather public health and basic medical care—not miracle drugs—are
generally what stop outbreaks of emerging infections..”
“Nearly six weeks after China
announced the coronavirus outbreak, there’s still a surprising amount we don’t
know about this newly discovered disease. But one thing is becoming clear:
China’s silence in the earliest days of the crisis may have made it worse.
Chinese authorities delayed
informing the world about the severity of a deadly disease spreading within the
country’s borders — even trying to muzzle whistleblowers, like the late Dr. Li
Wenliang. Now hailed as a national hero, Li was forced on January 3 by police
to sign a letter saying he spread “untrue speech” for warning colleagues about
the virus that eventually took his life.
With more than 40,500 people
infected and 910 deaths, China’s missteps early on seem increasingly fateful.
The fact that the international community has not acknowledged those missteps
is also consequential…
But the reality is this: China’s
mishandling and the ensuing silence from the international community is
emblematic of how the global system governing the international response to
pandemics fails to work, half a dozen global health experts told Vox.
Though we have global health
laws — in particular, the International Health Regulations, or IHR — meant to
guide countries dealing with outbreaks, they’re not actually enforceable. “You
can’t penalize [countries that] don’t follow it,” said Devi Sridhar, the chair
in global public health at the University of Edinburgh. Instead, the
international community has to rely on “soft law and norms” — or “disease
diplomacy.”..
The revised IHR asks countries
to build out their disease surveillance capacities and report public health
crises immediately. It also asks nations not yet affected by a new pathogen to
avoid punishing those that are through travel and trade restrictions. “These
revisions were all about trying to get countries to sacrifice their short-term
interests for the long-term well-being of all countries,” said Sridhar…
“The IHR operates on mutual trust largely, and
it is a mutual trust,” said Eccleston-Turner. “That mutual trust has been
eroded over a number of outbreaks where member states have ignored the
recommendations from WHO.”” (A)
“Human intervention, or lack
thereof, may also have been a factor. More than half a dozen doctors first
discussed the threat of a potential coronavirus outbreak in early December only
to be silenced by the local Communist Party, according to some critics of the
government.
Yaxue Cao, founder and editor of
the political pressure group ChinaChange.org, said a Wuhan doctor posted in a
WeChat group to say there were seven cases of SARS connected to the seafood
market. He was then scolded by the party disciplinary office, and forced to
retract that, Cao said.
“From the same report, we
learned that Wuhan health authorities were having overnight meetings about the
new ‘SARS’ at end of December,” Cao posted on Jan. 27. “Earlier today. the
Wuhan mayor said he was not ‘authorized’ to publicize the epidemic until Jan.
20.”…
The spread was likely helped by
China’s Lunar New Year holiday last month. Wuhan mayor Zhou Xianwang said 5
million people had left the city before travel restrictions were imposed ahead
of the Chinese New Year.
“People unfamiliar with China
have trouble understanding the immense travel phenomenon that occurs during
Lunar New Year, when, over a one-month period, some 3 billion people are on the
move, many returning to their home towns and regions but others vacationing,”
Tanner Brown, a Beijing-based journalist, wrote for MarketWatch last month.
“Peak travel occurs this week.”..
People also may not know they’re
carrying the virus. Symptoms of common human coronaviruses include a runny nose,
headache, cough, sore throat, fever and a general feeling of being unwell,
according to the CDC. Symptoms of the new coronavirus can include fever, cough
and shortness of breath…
But it was weeks since the virus
was first discovered before flights were curtailed, and the global travel
industry is ideal for many viruses to travel long distances.
In an attempt to remain
competitive, airlines have decreased their turnaround times in recent years.
Many budget airlines have reduced turnaround times to 25 minutes by removing
the seat pockets. Other airlines have managed to have long-haul turnaround
times of 90 minutes. Not only do planes get a new plane load of passengers,
they often get a completely different crew.
Deep cleans are not always possible
during such turnarounds. Charles Gerba, a microbiologist at the University of
Arizona, recommends using hand sanitizers or disinfectant wipes, particularly
when traveling and/or at the office, where people may be reluctant to stay home
if they’re sick.” (B)
“China’s new coronavirus may
peter out. Or it might join the flu on the roster of the world’s winter
illnesses — a bug that will be routinely vaccinated against. Or it might become
a global pandemic, killing millions of people.
Experts don’t have enough
information to predict which of these very different scenarios will come to
pass. So for now, they are cautious.
“The issue is, we don’t know.
And any sort of prediction would be ill-advised,” said the director of National
Institute of Allergy And Infectious Disease, Anthony Fauci, at a Friday
briefing by the presidential task force on coronavirus. “You really do prepare
for the worst possible scenario.”
Scenario 1: The virus stays
mostly in China
WHO officials this week still
expressed hope that the Chinese government will largely contain the coronavirus
through unprecedented travel restrictions and quarantine in Hubei province and
elsewhere that most closely resemble martial law enacted over tens of millions
of people. The quarantines began two weeks ago, and the coronavirus is thought
to have an incubation period of up to 14 days, which is leading to questions
about how well the measures have worked, especially after China locked down
Guangzhou City, population 14 million, just this Friday…
Scenario 2: Another seasonal flu
If the coronavirus does manage
to spread widely outside of China, it isn’t necessarily catastrophic. It could
turn out to have seasonal behavior, flaring up in winter like the flu. That
pattern has been seen in at least two of the common coronaviruses that affect
people. If that’s the case for this new one, said Fauci, “when you start
getting into the spring weather of April, May, and June, it almost certainly
would start to turn around.”
On the downside, that means it
would just come back next winter. That happened with the 1918 Spanish flu
pandemic that hit the world in two seasonal waves.
Still, the extra time wouldn’t
hurt, allowing for clinical trials to test the effectiveness of antiviral drugs
used on an emergency basis in the outbreak. China has started two randomized
clinical trials of a promising drug called remdesivir, overseen by respiratory
disease expert Cao Bin at Beijing’s China–Japan Friendship Hospital. (One of
the 12 US patients with the coronavirus tried the drug and recovered a day
later.)..
Scenario 3: Deadly global
pandemic
Then there’s the worst-case
scenario: The relatively few cases popping up in dozens of countries flare up
worldwide in the coming months with deadly consequences. It happened in 1957,
when a flu pandemic killed 1.1 million people worldwide, and again in 1968,
when another flu strain killed about 1 million people….
…That means the new coronavirus
might have already skirted containment efforts and might be worse than reported
in Hubei province, where some news reports have come of elderly people dying
without ever being tested by hospitals. China’s nationwide travel ban, and
reports of one province offering a $140 bounty to people who turn in recent
arrivals from Wuhan, said Fisman, “are not things you do when you are winning
against an outbreak.”…
The one caution about all
predictions early in past outbreaks is that they don’t tend to match up with
the outcome,” said Fisman, acknowledging his own expectations have worsened as
the outbreak has continued. “We still don’t know a lot.”(C)
“As it continues to spread
around the world, bringing panic with it, scientists are striving to develop
ways of fighting this previously unknown threat. Sophisticated computer
modelling is being used to track and predict its transmission, while
virologists are attempting to engineer a vaccine. Others are seeking drug
treatments that can help those who fall ill with the infection.
But this is not the first
coronavirus scientists have encountered, and defeating them is harder than you
might think. Even after decades of trying, coronaviruses are formidable foes…
In order to get a reliable model
of how the disease spreads, Donnelly says, there are a few things we need to
know about the virus. First, how long someone might be infected by it before
developing symptoms. This is called the incubation period. Second, we need to
know how long someone with the virus remains infectious for, and in cases where
patients do not recover, how quickly the virus can cause death. “That helps us
estimate the case fatality rate,” says Donnelly.
Super spreaders shed far larger
numbers of the virus particles than other patients, increasing the chance they
will infect someone else
Another important factor is the
reproduction number, which is how many other people someone with the disease
will infect. Donnelly and her colleagues have estimated the new coronavirus to
have a reproduction number of about 2.6. “If that number is greater than one,
then you expect there to be an outbreak,” she says….
Even if it can be diagnosed
quickly, finding an effective treatment for a virus like this is famously
difficult…
The speed at which coronaviruses
mutate and so change their characteristics makes them hard to vaccinate
against. Vaccines tend to train the immune system to target a particular
feature, such as a protein structure on the shell of the virus. But by
continually altering its appearance, our immune systems find it hard to
recognise different infections. It is partly why the common cold has been so
difficult to develop a vaccine against…
But it is still an open question
as to whether a treatment or a vaccine will be found within a matter of months
or if it will take years. Until then, says Donnelly, all that can be done is to
continue to monitor the virus and try to stop it spreading.” (D)
“What do we most need to know
next? For epidemiologists who track infectious diseases, the most pressing
concerns are how to estimate the lethality of the disease and who is
susceptible; getting detailed information on how it spreads; and evaluating the
success of control measures so far.
No. 1 is the “clinical iceberg”
question: How much of it is hidden below the surface? Because the outbreak is
still evolving, we can’t yet see the totality of those infected. Out of view is
some proportion of mildly infected people, with minor symptoms or no symptoms,
who no one knows are infected…
In 2003, during the early days
of the SARS outbreak, the medical community got the math wrong. At first, we
believed that case fatality hovered between 2 percent and 3 percent. It took
two pages of longhand algebra, written in Oxford, England, coded into a
computer in London and then applied to data from Hong Kong, to get it right.
The actual case fatality for Hong Kong was staggering: 17 percent…
Knowing the number of people
likely to die, or who get seriously sick or have zero symptoms, will help
health authorities determine the strength of the response required. They can
better estimate how many isolation beds, heart-lung machines and medicines,
among other things, are needed…
Along with getting a grasp on
the level of severity is figuring out susceptibility, or who is most at risk
for infection. The data so far indicates that this would include older adults,
the obese and people with underlying medical conditions. There are few reports
of children becoming infected. But are they not showing symptoms, or are they
immune? And could they infect others as silent carriers?..
Returning to the big picture, we
must also refine what we know about how the new coronavirus is passed between
people. Even as the outbreak appears to keep escalating, we believe the rapid —
sometimes necessarily draconian — response of governments and health
authorities has made a dent in transmission. In another recent study, we
estimated how many people could get infected if there were no drastic public
health interventions. Our goal with this report was to sound the alarm over
what could be, so that it wouldn’t be…
The goal is to stay at least a
couple of steps ahead of the epidemic curve. Scientists must prepare health
authorities to catch any subsequent waves of infections and prepare for the
possibility that this particular virus could reappear seasonally — and maybe
one day it could be only as bad as the common cold.
I’ve seen record-breaking
outbreaks before and witnessed the world rally. If we all play our roles and
remain on guard, then chances are we will defeat the new coronavirus, too…” (E)
“Even as U.S. authorities have
taken the drastic steps of quarantining residents returning from China and
temporarily banning foreign visitors who recently traveled to affected Chinese
regions, they have urged the vast majority of U.S. residents to go about their
regular activities.
But there are exceptions. People
who returned from China on or after Feb. 3 have been formally quarantined or
asked to stay home. And behind the scenes, local public health officials have
launched painstaking efforts to reach “close contacts” of people with confirmed
cases of the virus, dubbed 2019-nCoV, asking them to self-quarantine and submit
to ongoing monitoring.
So what exactly is a ‘close
contact’?..
For the new coronavirus,
guidelines from the federal U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
define “close contact” as anyone who has been within 6 feet of a person
infected with the virus for a “prolonged period of time,” as well as those who
have had direct contact with the infected person’s secretions. These guidelines
are then interpreted by local public health departments…
In the US, health officials
continue to stress low risk of coronavirus..
There is some case-by-case
decision-making in assessing risk, Rudman said. Whether a health professional
was wearing gloves, a mask or other protective equipment, and what kind of
interaction they had with the patient, all factor in.
And because they work with
people who are sick and may be at higher risk from infection, health care
workers may be asked to take more extreme precautions. Santa Clara County’s
public health department asked at least five people to go on two weeks of paid
leave after a man who visited the hospital where they worked later tested
positive for the virus.
Earlier cases were not so
straightforward. One factor that has made the investigations particularly
challenging is confusion over whether the virus can be spread by an infected
person who is not showing symptoms. Health departments say that, given the
uncertainty, they are taking a cautious approach and looking for any contacts
going back three days before symptoms started. “Fortunately, we have so few
cases, so we can do that,” Rudman said.
Rudman declined to say how many
people are being monitored in Santa Clara but noted that having so few cases
has meant she and her colleagues have had time to be methodical about who might
be at risk. She hopes that will provide comfort to others in the community.”
(F)
“A new report into the range of
symptoms experienced by coronavirus patients suggests that around one in 10
suffer from diarrhea and nausea for a few days before developing breathing
difficulties, leading to suggestions that the pathogen may be transmitted via
feces. While this route of transmission has not been confirmed, the new data
does raise the possibility that doctors may have missed some key early warning
signs by focusing only on cases involving respiratory symptoms.
It has already been established
that the virus is primarily passed on by droplets in an infected person’s
cough, and the new study – which features in the Journal of the American
Medical Association (JAMA) – found that the majority of coronavirus patients at
a hospital in Wuhan, China, suffered from symptoms such as fever, muscle pain,
and shortness of breath at the onset of the illness.
However, of the 138 patients
observed by the study authors, 14 initially presented with diarrhea or nausea,
developing more classic coronavirus symptoms a day or two later. According to
Chinese media reports, doctors found traces of viral nucleic acids in the stool
of patients who exhibited these atypical digestive symptoms.
The first US patient to be
diagnosed with coronavirus is also said to have experienced diarrhea for a few
days, and the virus was also found to be present in his feces.
While this doesn’t mean that
fecal matter is responsible for the spread of the illness, it does provide
evidence for another similarity between coronavirus and SARS, to which it is
related. Back in 2003, hundreds of people in a Hong Kong housing estate became
infected with SARS thanks to a plume of warm air emanating from a bathroom that
had been used by an infected person…
Significantly, 41 percent of
patients in the study became infected in hospital, with both healthcare workers
and patients who had been hospitalized for other reasons catching coronavirus.
Regardless of the transmission route, therefore, it seems that hospitals are a
potential breeding ground for the virus, suggesting that improved hygiene may
be necessary to prevent its spread.” (G)
“The coronavirus epidemic could
grip about two-thirds of the world’s population if the deadly bug is not
controlled, a top public health official said — as another expert predicted
that cases in China could peak this month and fade away by April.
Professor Gabriel Leung, chair
of public health medicine at Hong Kong University, told the Guardian he was
examining the implications of the World Health Organization’s Monday warning
that cases of coronavirus spreading outside China are the “tip of the iceberg.”
Most experts believe that each
person infected can go on to transmit coronavirus to about 2.5 other people —
creating an “attack rate” of 60 to 80 percent, Leung told the paper.
“Sixty percent of the world’s
population is an awfully big number,” he said.
Even with a general fatality
rate as low as 1 percent — a possibility once milder cases are taken into
account — there could still be a massive global death toll, he added.
Meanwhile, experts are
attempting to map out the likely course of the illness, Leung told the
Guardian.
“Is 60 to 80 percent of the
world’s population going to get infected?” he said. “Maybe not. Maybe this will
come in waves. Maybe the virus is going to attenuate its lethality because it
certainly doesn’t help it if it kills everybody in its path, because it will
get killed as well.”
Health officials are also attempting
to determine whether restrictions put in place in Wuhan — the epicenter of the
outbreak — as well as other cities, have made a positive impact.
“Have these massive public
health interventions, social distancing, and mobility restrictions worked in
China?” Leung asked. “If so, how can we roll them out, or is it not possible?”
“(H)
“The disease caused by the new
coronavirus that’s sickened more than 42,000 people in China now has an
official name: COVID-19. It stands for the coronavirus disease that was
discovered in 2019.
The World Health Organization
announced the name Tuesday, saying it was careful to find a name without
stigma.
“We had to find a name that
did not refer to a geographical location, an animal, or an individual or group
of people,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a call
with reporters.” (I)
“Time will tell if the new
coronavirus ends up being less or more dangerous than the flu; we don’t fully
know yet how bad it is. Usually, the diseases that stick around tend to become
less lethal. Only live hosts can continue to make more viruses. Influenza is
also pretty devious in how it mutates its surface molecules from year to year
to evade immune system detection. If 2019-nCoV is not able to do that, people’s
immunity to it could gradually improve.
But therein lies the paradox.
The outcome that has public health officials really concerned is that 2019-nCoV
will turn into something like a disease that we have a tough time making you
worry about right now.
Every year physicians and public
health officials try to get you to immunize yourselves against the flu, and far
too many of you don’t. We beg you to practice proper precautions and hygiene —
and, still, tens of thousands of people die, and too few worry enough.
Governments and employers could
help by making it easier for sick people to stay home from work. Many Americans
without paid sick leave go to work despite feeling ill, and many of those work
at restaurants, schools and hospitals, where disease is easily spread.
The most significant defense the
United States has to prevent pandemics is a solid public health infrastructure.
The public has to trust it. The system also needs to be properly prepared and
have the resources to handle a widespread infection. (The system is currently
stretched thin and underfunded.) It’s critical to make sure there are enough
medical supplies available, as well as necessities like food, to get a
community through an outbreak.” (J)
“The Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention is preparing for the coronavirus, named COVID-19, to “take a
foothold in the U.S.,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National
Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters. “At some
point, we are likely to see community spread in the U.S. or in other
countries,” said Messonnier. “This will trigger a change in our response
strategy.” (K)
“An apartment building in Hong
Kong, its units linked by pipes. A department store in the eastern Chinese city
of Tianjin, where more than 11,000 shoppers and employees mingled. A ski chalet
in France, home base for a group of British citizens on vacation.
These sites, scattered around
the world, have become linked by a grim commonality: They are places where
pockets of new coronavirus cases have emerged in recent days, raising fears
about the virus’s ability to spread quickly and far beyond its origins in
central China.” (L)
“Right now scientists are trying
to accomplish something that was inconceivable a decade ago: create a vaccine
against a previously unknown virus rapidly enough to help end an outbreak of
that virus. In this case, they’re trying to stop the spread of the new
coronavirus that has already infected tens of thousands of people, mainly in
China, and given rise to a respiratory condition now known as COVID-19.
Typically, making a new vaccine
takes a decade or longer. But new genetic technologies and new strategies make
researchers optimistic that they can shorten that timetable to months, and
possibly weeks — and have a tool by the fall that can slow the spread of
infection.” (M)
“As the new coronavirus
continued to spread unabated within the city of Wuhan, China, government
officials last week imposed draconian measures.
Workers in protective gear were
instructed to go to every home in the city, removing infected residents to
immense isolation wards built hastily in a sports stadium, an exhibition center
and a building complex…
Many experts are skeptical that
isolating thousands of patients in shelters can stanch the spread of the
coronavirus. There are more than 40,000 cases in China now, in every province,
although the wide majority are in Hubei Province.
“This is a bit like closing the
barn door after the horses are already out,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an
infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in
Nashville…
Wuhan’s makeshift shelters may
yet become breeding grounds for infection, especially if patients are not
properly screened, Dr. Markel and other experts said.
The patients already are in a weakened
state, and facilities like these make it easy for viruses and bacteria to
travel — not just the coronavirus, but also any of the dozens of pathogens that
may thrive when people gather in tight quarters.
“Whenever we put people in
facilities together, even during a hurricane, we are concerned about them
getting infectious diseases,” said Nicole A. Errett, a researcher at the
University of Washington who is a co-director of the Collaborative on Extreme
Event Resilience.” (N)
“CMS sent a memo to state survey
agency directors urging them to double down on compliance with basic infection
control practices.
The memo includes information
and links to resources to combat the illness caused by the novel coronavirus.
It also states that healthcare staff and surveyors, including federal, state
and local contractors are expected to adhere to standard infection control
practices, such as CDC recommendations on standard hand hygiene practices.
In 2020 surveys, CMS and
accrediting organization acute care surveyors will be especially alert to hand
hygiene practices, including the use of alcohol-based hand rub/hand sanitizer,
the preferred method of hand hygiene in clinical settings, the memo says.
“We know that adherence to
basic infection control and prevention practices such as hand hygiene can help
reduce the risk of infectious disease spread in all healthcare settings,”
the memo reads.” (O)
“Successful outbreak control
works like this: Patients report their symptoms to health-care workers. Those
health-care workers then report unusual cases to local public-health officials
who investigate the illness. Those officials may isolate ailing patients,
identify others with whom they have come into contact, and monitor those
individuals. The results of these investigations are reported to government
officials, who communicate reliable information about the outbreak and its
causes to the public and the press. That information enables those who are not
sick to take measures, such as hand washing and avoiding crowds, to prevent
themselves from getting infected and spreading the outbreak. The promise of
reliable information and competent, supportive medical care convinces others
who are suffering symptoms to come forward so that new cases are identified,
tracked, and treated. This cycle continues until the virus stops infecting new
people, the people already infected get well or perish, and the outbreak burns
out.
In short, shoe-leather public
health and basic medical care—not miracle drugs—are generally what stop
outbreaks of emerging infections like severe-acute respiratory syndrome and the
Ebola virus. However, in many countries without responsive governments, open
press, and rudimentary health-care systems, controlling an infection becomes
much harder. Officials in repressive societies are more apt to rely on
counterproductive censorship and quarantine measures that unduly interfere with
citizens’ rights and spread distrust.” (P)
“Further increasing the danger
of outbreaks and epidemics is another by-product of better health: complacency.
In 2013, less than 0.5 percent of international health aid was devoted to
preventing infectious-disease outbreaks, and the portion of the World Health
Organization budget funded by dues from 194 member countries had dwindled to
less than the budget of the New York City Department of Health. Starved of
funds, the international system intended to control outbreaks like Ebola failed
miserably in West Africa.
After that episode, the Obama
administration established a White House–based directorate to respond to
outbreaks and dedicated $1 billion to help poor countries build the basic
capabilities to prevent, detect, and respond to pandemic threats. The Trump
administration has assisted in the international response to Ebola in Congo and
offered China help in the current coronavirus crisis, but it also dismantled
the White House directorate on pandemic preparedness and urged that U.S.
funding for global health security return to pre-2014 levels.” (Q)
(A) The tricky business of disease diplomacy, by Julia Bellu,
https://www.vox.com/2020/2/10/21124881/coronavirus-outbreak-china-li-wenliang-world-health-organization
(B) As coronavirus infections exceed 37,000, here’s how it
spread so rapidly, by QUENTIN FOTTRELL, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/how-the-mysterious-coronavirus-from-china-has-spread-so-quickly-2020-01-21
(C) Three Scenarios For The Coronavirus, by Dan Vergano,
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/danvergano/coronavirus-spread-flu-pandemic
(D) In just a couple of months the new coronavirus that emerged
from the Chinese city of Wuhan has spread around the world, sparking a race to
find treatments and vaccines against it, by Abigail Beall,
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200210-coronavirus-finding-a-cure-to-fight-the-symptoms
(E) The Urgent Questions Scientists Are Asking About
Coronavirus, by Gabriel Leung,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/opinion/coronavirus-china-research.html?referringSource=articleShare
(F) US health officials are seeking ‘close contacts’ of
coronavirus. Here’s what that means, Anna Maria Barry,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/02/10/us-health-officials-seek-coronavirus-close-contacts-what-means/4714247002/
(G) Coronavirus May Be Transmitted Via Poop As Well As Coughing,
Scientists Suggest, by Ben Taub,
https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/coronavirus-may-transmitted-via-poop-well-coughing-scientists-suggest/
(H) Expert warns coronavirus could infect 60% of world’s
population, by Amanda Woods, https://nypost.com/2020/02/11/expert-warns-coronavirus-could-infect-60-of-worlds-population/
(I) Coronavirus gets official name from WHO: COVID-19, by
Erika Edwards,
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/coronavirus-gets-official-name-who-covid-19-n1134756
(J) Lessons That Go Beyond the Coronavirus Outbreak, by Aaron
E. Carroll,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/10/upshot/coronavirus-risk-prevention-advice.html?referringSource=articleShare
(K) CDC prepares for community outbreaks in US,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/12/coronavirus-latest-updates.html
(L) A Store, a Chalet, an Unsealed Pipe: Coronavirus Hot Spots
Flare Far From Wuhan, by Viviann Wang, Austin Ramzy and Megan Specia, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/world/asia/china-coronavirus-clusters.html?referringSource=articleShare
(M) Timetable For A Vaccine Against The New Coronavirus? Maybe
This Fall, by JOE PALCA,
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/02/12/804628081/timetable-for-a-vaccine-against-the-new-coronavirus-maybe-this-fall
(N) Huge Shelters for Coronavirus Patients Pose New Risks,
Experts Fear, by Roni Caryn Rabin,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/health/coronavirus-quarantine.html?referringSource=articleShare
(O) Don’t slip on infection control basics amid coronavirus
outbreak, CMS warns, by Anuja Vaidya,
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/quality/don-t-slip-on-infection-control-basics-amid-coronavirus-outbreak-cms-warns.html
(P) Coronavirus likely now ‘gathering steam’, by Alvin Powell,
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/02/harvard-expert-says-coronavirus-likely-just-gathering-steam/
(Q) Coronavirus Is Spreading Because Humans Are Healthier, by
Thomas J. Bollyky, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/02/coronavirus-spreading-because-humans-are-healthier/606448/
POST 6. February 17,
2020. Coronovirus. “Amid assurances that the (ocean liner) Westerdam was
disease free, hundreds of people disembarked in Cambodia…” “ One was later found
to be infected”…. “Over 1,000… passengers were in…transit home”…. “This could
be a turning point””
“Confronting a viral epidemic
with a scant supply of protective equipment, more than 1,700 Chinese medical
workers have already been infected, and six have died.
In the hospital where Yu Yajie
works, nurses, doctors and other medical professionals fighting the new
coronavirus have also been fighting dire shortages. They have used tape to
patch up battered protective masks, repeatedly reused goggles meant for
one-time use, and wrapped their shoes in plastic bags for lack of specialized
coverings.
Ms. Yu is now lying at home,
feverish and fearful that she has been infected with the virus. She and other
employees at the hospital said a lack of protective wear had left medical
workers like her vulnerable in Wuhan, the central Chinese city at the heart of
the epidemic that has engulfed this region.
“There are risks — there simply
aren’t enough resources,” Ms. Yu, an administrator at Wuhan Central Hospital,
said in a brief telephone interview, adding that she was too weak to speak at
length.
Chinese medical workers at the
forefront of the fight against the coronavirus epidemic are often becoming its
victims, partly because of government missteps and logistical hurdles.
After the virus emerged in Wuhan
late last year, city leaders played down its risks, so doctors didn’t take
precautions…
On Friday, the Chinese
government for the first time disclosed the toll the outbreak was taking on
hospital employees: 1,716 medical workers had contracted the virus, including
1,502 in Wuhan, and six had died.” (A)
“Officials are also looking to
see whether the medical workers were exposed to the virus unknowingly within a
clinical environment and whether they were wearing protective equipment at the
time, Ryan said. “There are a whole lot of factors we need to look at, and we
will be doing that with Chinese authorities.”…
Dr. Sylvie Briand, head of WHO’s
Global Infectious Hazard Preparedness division, told reporters that the health
workers may have been fatigued at the time they were infected and weren’t
taking proper protective measures because they were too tired. China has sent
medical professionals from several regions to support those workers, she said….
WHO is asking suppliers of
protective gear to prioritize sending the equipment to regions most affected by
the virus.
Last week, WHO said it sent
medical supplies such as masks, gloves, gowns and diagnostic tests around the
world. It is discouraging stockpiling of protective gear, saying the limited
number of items need to be saved for regions most affected by the virus. The
price of protective gear has increased, while availability has decreased, WHO
officials said…
On Thursday, world health
officials said they were scrambling to determine just how widespread the new
coronavirus is as Chinese authorities reported a surge in new cases after
changing how they count confirmed infections.
“How big is the iceberg?” Ryan
said. “We do know, and we all accept, that there is transmission occurring at
some level in communities. We’ve all seen those clusters, we’ve all seen those
super spreading events.” (B)
“A sudden spike in new
coronavirus cases in China this week shocked researchers. But the huge bump in
numbers isn’t a sign that the epidemic is worsening, say researchers, it is
instead the result of authorities changing how cases are confirmed.
On 12 February, Hubei province
reported nearly 15,000 new cases of COVID-19, the disease caused by the
coronavirus, representing a 33% jump in total infections worldwide in a single
day. Total infections in China now number around 64,000, with more than 1,300
deaths.
But most of the Hubei cases —
about 13,000 — are the result of a new policy in the province that means
physicians can diagnose suspected cases of COVID-19 on the basis of chest
images, rather than having to wait for genetic tests to confirm the presence of
the virus, which can take days.
The policy is in response to
pleas from clinicians who are overwhelmed by patients with respiratory
diseases, and don’t have time to wait for lab results, says Wu Zunyou, chief
epidemiologist at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, who
helped design and implementing the new policy. “The clinicians in Hubei made a
very strong request to modify the criteria because of their heavy work load,”
he says. Now they can care for people more quickly and ensure they are properly
isolated to protect others, says Wu. “We need to save lives.”
The policy makes sense from a
medical point of view, says Michael Mina, an infectious-disease immunologist
and epidemiologist at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston,
Massachusetts. “Triaging based on symptomatic evaluation and physical exam is
the bed rock of hospital-based and clinical triage,” he says.” (C)
“Hospitals in Wuhan, China — the
largest city in Hubei Province and the center of the epidemic — have struggled
to diagnose infections with scarce and complicated tests that detect the
virus’s genetic signature directly. Other countries, too, have had such issues.
Instead, officials in Hubei now
seem to be including infections diagnosed by using lung scans of symptomatic
patients. This shortcut will help get more patients into needed care,
provincial officials said. Adding them to the count could make it easier for
the authorities to decide how to allocate resources and assess treatment
options.
But the change also shows the
enormous number of people in Hubei who are sick and have not been counted in
the outbreak’s official tally. It also raises the question whether the
province, already struggling, is equipped to deal with the new patients.
The few experts to learn of the
new numbers on Wednesday night were startled. Lung scans are an imperfect means
to diagnose patients. Even patients with ordinary seasonal flu may develop
pneumonia visible on a lung scan.” (D)
“Even before today’s news,
experts complained that epidemiological information from China has been
incomplete, threatening containment efforts.
The new coronavirus is highly
transmissible and will be difficult to squelch. A single infected
“super-spreader” can infect dozens of others. Outbreaks can seem to recede,
only to rebound in short order, as the weather or conditions change.
Recent clusters of coronavirus
cases suggest the new coronavirus not only spreads quickly, but also in ways
that are not entirely understood.
In Hong Kong, people living 10
floors apart were infected, and an unsealed pipe was blamed. A British citizen
apparently infected 10 people, including some at a ski chalet, before he even
knew he was sick.
In Tianjin, China, at least 33
of 102 confirmed patients had a connection of some sort with a large department
store.
“This outbreak could still go in
any direction,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director general of the World
Health Organization, said on Wednesday.
A change in diagnosis may make
it still harder to track the virus, said Dr. Peter Rabinowitz, co-director of
the University of Washington MetaCenter for Pandemic Preparedness and Global
Health Security.” (E)
“The head of the U.S. Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention said the new coronavirus, which has killed
nearly 1,400 people and is still spreading in China, could be around for at
least another year. The outbreak has affected almost 50,000 people worldwide.
There are 15 confirmed cases in the U.S. but none are said to be suffering
serious symptoms.
The agency is setting up five
labs around the U.S. where people with flu-like symptoms can be tested for
coronavirus if their flu results are negative. The virus, dubbed COVID-19, has
spread to more than two dozen countries.
The CDC is ramping up its own
response to the epidemic by setting up five labs around the U.S. where people
with flu-like symptoms can now be tested for coronavirus if their flu results
are negative. This comes as scientists around the world race to develop a
vaccine.” (F)
“Another U.S. case of infection
with the novel coronavirus was confirmed Thursday, bringing the total number of
domestic cases to 15. Around the world, cases have reached nearly 60,000 to
date.
But if something changes and
large numbers of people get infected in the U.S., is the country’s health
system prepared to cope with a surge of patients with this virus, or any future
pathogen?
“Surge capacity in the
health care system is something that we think a lot about and prepare for in
the U.S., and not specifically to coronavirus per se, but for a whole host of
events that could occur in the United States,” says Jonathan Greene,
director of emergency management and medical operations at the Department of
Health and Human Services…
“No one is ready for a
worst case-scenario for a really bad, lethal, fast-moving pandemic,” says
bioterrorism and biosafety expert Dr. Tara O’Toole, former undersecretary for science
and technology at the Department of Homeland Security and now at In-Q-Tel, a
nonprofit strategic investment firm that supports U.S. national security.
For instance, O’Toole thinks
that hospitals would have a very hard time handling a lot of critically ill
patients who need to be in isolation. “That’s why we want to make sure
that the people we’re putting in hospitals and keeping isolated are really the
ones who need that kind of care,” she says…
What’s needed is a strategic
approach to rapidly deal with an epidemic, says O’Toole, but “we don’t
have a strategy and we haven’t built the infrastructure” to do so….
On the other hand, HHS official
Greene argues that the nation’s health care system is better prepared than it
has been in the past. “We’ve gone through outbreaks of other diseases,
other coronaviruses, SARS and MERS,” he says. And each one of those
experiences has helped the system develop “tactics, capabilities, training
and education to be able to deal with whatever comes down the road. This is
just one more in a long history of disease outbreaks that we’re being asked to
tackle.”
The strategic national
stockpile, says Greene, holds “millions of face masks, and supplies of
respirators, gloves and surgical gowns that could potentially be deployed if
state and local supplies are diminished during this current outbreak.”
Greene says that HHS is working with the health care sector and the supply
chain to ensure that any disruptions that may occur or shortages are
“short-lived and that the right amount of material can be provided”
as soon as possible.” (G)
“Dr. Craig Spencer was the first
patient in New York diagnosed with Ebola in 2014. After that experience, he
wrote, “When we look back on this epidemic, I hope we’ll recognize that fear
caused our initial hesitance to respond — and caused us to respond poorly when
we finally did.” In terms of New York, what has changed since then?
Our overall preparedness in
maintaining our readiness — that’s a key phrase we use — has exponentially
increased since 2014 because we’re constantly collaborating, coordinating, and
communicating at all levels — local, state, national, and even international.
We’ve been given funding on a national scale to prepare for Ebola and special
pathogens. It wasn’t just specifically for viral hemorrhagic fevers like Ebola;
it gave us funding to prepare for coronavirus disease, for MERS, for SARS, the
full gamut. From that funding we were able to do more drills, exercises,
collaborative public health. The unfortunate part is that funding was only for
five years, and it actually expires in a matter of months — in 2020. So this
entire infrastructure that we’ve built across the nation is going to get
dismantled in a couple of months, which is mind-boggling knowing we’re in a
potential pandemic situation and we’re letting our guard down.
The other thing we’ve also done
is, we want to make sure we’re giving patients the opportunity to tell us what
they have. Before, it was you come in, come to the front desk, and they ask,
“What are you here for.” By that time it’s basically too late. Because you’ve
come in through the door, there are probably 50 people waiting in the waiting
area, if you’re coming in with something respiratory and you’re coughing and
sneezing, you’ve probably infected a number of folks around there. One of the
strategies we’ve implemented is something very basic: respiratory stations,
which basically have simple masks, hand sanitizer, a tissue, and a sign that
says, “Do you have a fever? Do you have a cough? Do you have a rash? Yes?
Please take a mask. If a mask is not there use a tissue and sanitize your
hands.” And it tells you, “If you have travel history let us know immediately.”
So now we’re letting patients self-identify. It helps expedite that triage
process. Before this outbreak and the Ebola outbreak in 2014, we only had those
stands during seasonal flu time, and once seasonal flu was done we would take
out that stand. Now we know these infectious diseases are all around us, so
it’s all season long…
What are you most concerned
about right now sitting here? What’s going to keep you up tonight?
Based on everything that we’ve
been seeing, reading, looking at what’s happening in China, it doesn’t seem
like this virus is containable. It’s not the fault of the government itself or
China itself, it’s the nature of the virus. You just can’t stop a respiratory
virus, especially a respiratory one in nature where it’s the sheer form of
breathing and having droplets develop — you just can’t control it. It’s one of
those things we know we can’t contain, so we need to continue to prepare very
aggressively for it. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. What’s keeping me up
at night is knowing that these cases are going to continue to occur, and that’s
what the CDC has stated, that we’re going to see an increased number of cases.
We need to make sure that we’re able to identify every single one. It just
takes one person coming into one of our facilities to start an outbreak.” (H)
““On December 27, Syra Madad
published an op-ed in the Washington Post co-written with Ronald A. Klain. The
piece warned lawmakers that vital funding needed to prepare hospitals for
infectious-disease outbreaks would expire in May. “We do not know when the next
dangerous pathogen will arrive in our country,” it read, “but we do know that
it will happen — sooner or later.” Four days after the article was published,
on December 31, the government in Wuhan, China, reported to the World Health
Organization that it was treating dozens of patients for pneumonia of unknown
cause.
That was the beginning of a busy
January for Madad. As the senior director for the systemwide special-pathogens
program for NYC Health and Hospitals, it was her job to prepare the city’s 11
hospitals for an outbreak. Madad also happened to be the star of Pandemic, a
six part docuseries that premiered on Netflix on January 22 — a week after she
gave birth to her third child…
We want more time to continue
our trainings, so we can continue to prepare our front lines for the inevitable
surge of cases that we may potentially see. We may not get a whole lot of cases
or we may get a number of cases, but either way it’s best for us to prepare for
the worst-case scenario. If we have a surge of cases present, we’re looking at
it from a 4S standpoint or the emergency-management approach: staffing, stuff,
space, and system. Based on those four high-level domains, we’re looking at how
we can bulk up staffing. Because the No. 1 asset in the health-care system is
our people, and without our people we can’t take care of patients. Do we get
volunteers involved? Do we look at our memorandum of agreements with other
agencies to bulk up our staffing? Things like that. (I)
“Doctors in five U.S. cities
will begin testing patients with flu-like symptoms for the new coronavirus, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday.
The coronavirus test will only
be given to patients who test negative for the flu. So far, the testing
protocol will be implemented in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco
and Seattle, though more cities will be added.
It’s a sign that the U.S. is
broadening its surveillance of the illness.
This is just the starting
point,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for
Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during a press briefing Friday.
“We plan to expand to more sites in the coming weeks.”
Messonnier said the increased
testing is part of an effort to determine whether the virus is spreading in
communities across the U.S. “The results would be an early warning signal
to trigger a change in our response strategy,” she said.” (J)
“As an outbreak of a novel
coronavirus has swept through Hubei province, China, the US Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention has been preparing for its worst case scenario — a widespread
outbreak of illnesses in the United States.
“Right now we’re in an
aggressive containment mode,” CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield told CNN’s
Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta in an interview on Thursday.
“We don’t know a lot about
this virus,” he said. “This virus is probably with us beyond this
season, beyond this year, and I think eventually the virus will find a foothold
and we will get community-based transmission.”
As of Thursday, there have been
15 cases of the novel coronavirus confirmed in seven states: eight in
California; two in Illinois; and one in Arizona, Washington, Massachusetts,
Wisconsin and Texas.
While more research is needed to
fully understand the virus, Redfield told Gupta that the CDC has focused on surveillance
to track cases and containment strategies to slow possible progression of the
virus in the United States. Slowing progression gives more time for researchers
to work on developing and testing a vaccine and antiviral drugs for this novel
coronavirus. Currently, there is no known cure for the virus.
“The containment phase is
really to give us more time. This virus will become a community virus at some
point in time, this year or next year,” Redfield said. “We don’t have
any evidence that this coronavirus is really embedded in the community at this
time, but with that said, we want to intensify our surveillance so that we’re
basing those conclusions based on data.”
The containment strategy refers
to efforts to prevent widespread transmission of the coronavirus in the United
States, including having people with confirmed cases stay in isolation and
placing restrictions on travel between affected areas in the world. Such
containment measures were used widely during the SARS global outbreak of 2003,
during which 8,098 people worldwide became sick and of those, 774 died,
according to the CDC…
“What I’ve learned in the
last two weeks is that the spectrum of this illness is much broader than was
originally presented. There’s much more asymptomatic illness,” Redfield
said. “A number of the confirmed cases that we confirmed actually just
presented with a little sore throat.””
(K)
“When 195 Americans, including
diplomats, were evacuated from Wuhan, China, last month, they were tested for
the coronavirus on arrival at a California military base. Health officials
swabbed the throats and noses of everyone in the group — the first to be
evacuated from Wuhan — and they were relieved when all of their tests came back
negative.
But as more government-arranged
flights evacuated Americans from China in the days that followed, the federal
health authorities adopted a new protocol: Only people who showed symptoms of
illness during a 14-day quarantine period would be tested. For some among the
more than 600 people who are still waiting to be cleared to go home from
military bases in three states, the new rule has left them worried — and angry.
Some are pleading with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to test
them for the coronavirus.
“We are not asking for skateboards
or toys,” said Jacob Wilson, 33, one of more than 30 people in quarantine on a
base in San Diego who signed a petition this week calling for tests. “We are
asking to get tested and make sure we are not passing anything to other
people.” (L)
The concerns come as three
people in quarantine on bases in San Diego and San Antonio, Texas, tested
positive for the virus, which has killed more than a thousand people in China
but so far has been found to have infected only 15 people in the United States.
In San Diego, where 232 people
are waiting out a government-mandated two-week quarantine, some evacuees said
they worried that they and their children had spent days mingling with people —
in an eating area, on a playground and in a laundry room — and would like to
know for sure whether or not they have the virus.
Fifteen cases of the coronavirus
have been confirmed in the United States, including a 35-year-old man in
Washington State, a couple in their 60s in Chicago and eight people in
California.
One of the people evacuated from
Wuhan last week to San Diego had coronavirus but was discharged because of a
labeling error.
Some evacuees are wondering why
they aren’t being tested on bases…
“We believe testing everyone at
the facility would help identify potential suspects as early as possible, so
the appropriate treatment could be put in place,” the evacuees wrote in the
petition, which they called a “suggestion letter” and shared with one another
over WeChat, a Chinese instant-messaging app.
The C.D.C., however, has
declined to test every evacuee. Officials said that such tests are less
accurate before people show symptoms, so a negative early result could be
misleading rather than helpful. The agency tested everyone on the first
evacuation flight, the officials said, because they were learning about the
virus and because doing so allowed them to collect more data about it. Since
then, they said, they have determined that swabbing hundreds of seemingly
healthy people is not useful.
“Every test has a limit of
detection,” said Dr. Joseph Bresee, a deputy incident manager for the C.D.C.’s
response to the coronavirus. “Early on, the test may or may not be able to pick
it up.”
Almost everyone who gets sick
from the virus will show symptoms within 14 days of exposure, often early
within that window, Dr. Bresee said. Evacuees on military bases are having
their temperature checked at least twice a day and are asked to alert health
officials if they feel sick or if their temperature rises.
Dr. Bresee said that he
empathized with evacuees who want definitive answers about whether they are
healthy.
“They’re concerned, they’re
nervous, and they want to be assured of their safety,” he said, adding that the
cost of testing was not a factor in the decision not to test everyone. “We don’t
think testing would be helpful, and if we did, we would test them.”” ..
“At the San Diego base, Marine
Corps Air Station Miramar, Mr. Wilson and others said that people had to leave
their rooms to get breakfast, lunch and dinner from a small room, which is also
where their temperatures were taken. People rummaged through boxes of fruit and
snacks with their bare hands, he said, and they stood shoulder to shoulder in
line waiting to check their temperatures despite being told to stay six feet
away from one another.
After the petition was
circulated, health officials agreed as of Thursday to deliver meals and take
temperatures at the room doors of evacuees who preferred it that way.
“The reality is, it’s impossible
for us to keep any distace from each other,” said Mr. Wilson, a tech
entrepreneur in Wuhan. He and others also said officials had not required
evacuees to wear masks.
Earlier in the week, a labeling
error led the authorities to return an ill woman to the base from a San Diego
hospital, though a test later showed that she had the coronavirus. The mistake
raised new worries among some evacuees. The C.D.C. had erroneously informed the
hospital that the woman had tested negative for the virus when, in fact, her
samples had not been tested. Health officials have tried to calm concerns,
saying the woman had been isolated from other evacuees before returning to the
hospital.
Dr. Bresee said that health
officials were learning more about the virus each day, but that there were no
plans to change testing procedures for the hundreds in quarantine.
“As we learn more, we may
pivot,” he said. “It doesn’t mean we were wrong once and are right now, it just
means we’re learning.”” (M)
“To combat the spread of the
coronavirus, Chinese officials are using a combination of technology and
policing to track movements of citizens who may have visited Hubei Province.
Mobile phone owners in China get
their service from one of three state-run telecommunications firms, which this
week introduced a feature for subscribers to send text messages to a hotline
that generates a list of provinces they have recently visited.
That has created a new way for
the authorities to see where citizens have traveled.
At a high-speed rail station in
the eastern city of Yiwu on Tuesday, officials in hazmat suits demanded that
passengers send the text messages and then show their location information to
the authorities before being permitted to leave the station. Those who had
passed through Hubei were unlikely to be allowed entry.
Other cities were taking similar
measures.
Companies in China generally shy
away from sharing location data with the local authorities, over fears it could
be leaked or sold. And there were some signs that the companies were
uncomfortable with the new rule.
China Mobile cautioned that the
data should be used cautiously, because it indicates where the phone has been,
not its owner. It also doesn’t differentiate between people who briefly passed
through a province and those who spent significant time there. (N)
“Coronavirus Test Kits Sent to
States Are Flawed, C.D.C. Says
Some tests distributed by the
agency deliver “inconclusive” readings. The C.D.C. will need to ship new
ingredients, further delaying results.
Some of the coronavirus testing
kits sent to state laboratories around the country have flaws and do not work
properly, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday.
The kits were meant to enable
states to conduct their own testing and have results faster than they would by
shipping samples to the C.D.C. in Atlanta. But the failure of the kits means
that states that encountered problems with the test should not use it, and
would still have to depend on the C.D.C.’s central lab, which could cause
several days’ delay in getting results.
“Obviously, a state wouldn’t
want to be doing this test and using it to make clinical decisions if it isn’t
working as well, as perfectly, at the state as it is at C.D.C.,” Dr. Nancy
Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases,
said at a news conference on Wednesday.
The C.D.C. recommends testing
for some people who have symptoms like fever, cough or shortness of breath, and
who, within the past 14 days, have traveled to China or have been in close
contact with a patient known to be infected with the coronavirus. Doctors with
patients in that category are supposed to consult their state health department
about whether the patients should be tested for the virus…
Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, director of
the infectious diseases division at the University of Alabama at Birmingham,
said accurate diagnostic tests were invaluable.
“The test is the only way you
can definitely know you have the infection,” Dr. Marrazzo said. “You absolutely
need it for case counting. It allows you to know who’s infected. You can treat
those people, if a treatment is available, and you can isolate them.”..
The C.D.C. does not recommend
testing for people who may have been exposed to the virus but have no symptoms.
Even if they are infected, if they are still in the incubation period there may
not be enough virus in their bodies for the test to detect.
The inability to detect very
early infections is one reason for keeping planeloads of people from Wuhan in
quarantine instead of just testing them and letting them go if the results are
negative. A person could test negative and still be infected.
For the same reason, health
authorities say there is no benefit to testing symptom-free people on cruise
ships.
Because there is an unknown
window of time between when a person becomes infected and when the test can
find the virus, health officials have determined that a quarantine of two weeks
— believed to be the incubation period of the illness — is the best way to make
sure that people who may be infected do not transmit the virus to others.
Tests for other infectious
diseases can also fail to detect some cases. A panel of tests used to screen
for respiratory viruses when pneumonia is suspected can give negative results
even if a patient is infected, Dr. Marrazzo said. So can rapid tests for flu
and strep throat. Blood tests for H.I.V. can miss the diagnosis in people who
were recently infected.”
“There is no perfect test for
pretty much any infectious disease I can think of,” Dr. Marrazzo said. (O)
“The Diamond Princess cruise
ship docked at Yokohama, Japan, on Friday. More than 200 coronavirus cases have
been confirmed on the ship since it was quarantined last week.
The Diamond Princess cruise ship
docked at Yokohama, Japan, on Friday. More than 200 coronavirus cases have been
confirmed on the ship since it was quarantined last week.Credit…Jae C.
Hong/Associated Press
The United States will evacuate
Americans from the cruise ship that has been quarantined for more than a week
in Japan because of coronavirus infections on board, the United States Embassy
in Tokyo told Americans aboard the ship on Saturday.
American passengers and crew
members were told in an email from the embassy that a chartered flight would
arrive on Sunday for those who wanted to return to the United States.
The ship, the Diamond Princess,
was placed under quarantine at the city of Yokohama early last week with about
3,700 passengers and crew members aboard, after a man who had disembarked in
Hong Kong tested positive for the coronavirus. Since then, at least 218 cases
have been confirmed aboard the ship.
There are about 400 Americans
aboard, and at least 40 who were infected with the virus have been taken off
the ship for treatment.
Americans will be subject to a
14-day federal quarantine and will be housed at two existing quarantine sites,
in California and Texas, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in
a statement on Saturday.” (P)
“Errors by a hospital in San
Diego and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention led to a woman with
the novel coronavirus being sent back to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar
instead of isolation at the hospital, according to a health official familiar
with the situation.
The woman was among Americans in
federal quarantine at the base, and is the first US evacuee from China known to
be infected with the novel coronavirus.
She flew to the base on February
5 on a US Department of State flight evacuating Americans from Wuhan, China.
The next day, she started experiencing symptoms of the novel coronavirus and
was taken to UC San Diego Health. Three other people exhibiting symptoms were
also transported to the hospital.
The hospital sent their
specimens to a CDC lab in Atlanta for testing. According to the source, three
of the four specimens were incorrectly labeled upon arrival and so they were
not tested. The CDC lab did not realize the specimens were from the Miramar
patients.
When no results were reported
back, CDC staffers mistakenly gave UC San Diego Health the results of other patients
who tested negative. That mistake led to the Miramar patients being transferred
back to the base Sunday afternoon.
After they arrived back at the
base, the mistake was discovered and the tests were run on the three Miramar
patients.
The results for the woman came
back positive, and she was transported back to UC San Diego Health on Monday
morning, where she remains in isolation. The woman has had a very mild illness,
according to the source, with no fever and a slight cough…
In a response Tuesday, the CDC
said: “At all times, appropriate infection control precautions were taken
around all of the persons quarantined at Miramar, including these three
patients. From now on, a CDC laboratory staff member will form part of CDC
quarantine field teams to ensure that specimens are correctly labeled/CLIA
compliant to avoid delays in testing.””
During a press conference on
Tuesday, Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the CDC, said
“there was a little bit of a mix-up there” around the testing for the
Miramar patient, but would not elaborate.” (Q)
“San Diego leaders declared a
local emergency and public health emergency for seven days over the novel
coronavirus, giving officials access to resources to address the virus.
CDC and county health officials
cautioned that the declarations did not mean residents faced an increased risk
of the virus.
Under the declarations, the
county will be able to seek mutual aid, potentially be reimbursed for their
response, and ensure resources to first responders and hospitals, stock pile
medical supplies and gain access to hospital beds, and state and federal
emergency funds if necessary.
“This action does not
signify an increase in the risk to the residents in San Diego County to
coronavirus,” Supervisor Nathan Fletcher told the media. “This is a
step that positions us best to confront the challenges of this virus, this
action best equips us to be in the strongest position to coordinate efforts,
ensure access to available supplies, and best protect public health.”…
So far, San Diego has two
confirmed cases of coronavirus. Those patients are under isolation at UC San
Diego Medical Center.
According to Eric McDonald,
medical director of the County’s Epidemiology and Immunization Branch, San
Diego cases include:
Seven people are under
investigation. Five of them have tested negative and two have tested positive;
Four non-San Diego residents who
traveled to the region (but not Wuhan, China) monitored: Two tested negative
and two have results still pending; Monitored 171 people returning from China
with no symptoms: 48 have been cleared after self quarantine, 123 people are
still being monitored. None are under investigation;
Thirteen San Diegans were on
flights next to people confirmed for coronavirus. Eight people have been cleared
after two weeks, four people are still self-quarantined, and one person was a
person under investigation who has since tested negative.
MCAS Miramar has hosted two
flights of passengers being evacuated from the coronavirus zone in Wuhan,
China. Those passengers have been staying at the base under a 14-day
quarantine. Once that quarantine ends next week, low to medium risk individuals
will be asked to self-quarantine at home.” (R)
“Hundreds left a cruise ship in
Cambodia. Then one tested positive for the coronavirus.
An American woman who
disembarked from a cruise ship in Cambodia last week has tested positive twice
for the coronavirus since flying on to Malaysia, officials in that country said
on Sunday.
Cambodia allowed the ship, the
Westerdam, to dock after five other ports
turned it away over concerns about the coronavirus.
Officials said more than
140 passengers from the ship had flown
from Cambodia to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital. All but the American woman
and her husband had been allowed to continue to their destinations, including
airports in the United States, the Netherlands and Australia. (S)
“A man who visited Hawaii was
confirmed to have coronavirus when he returned home to Japan, Hawaii officials
said Friday.
Health officials were tracking
down details about his travel in the Aloha State, including his flight
information and people with whom he had close contact.
The U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention notified Hawaii about the man having the illness known
as COVID-19 on Friday morning, Hawaii Health Director Bruce Anderson said.
The man was in Hawaii Jan. 28 to
Feb. 7. He first visited the island of Maui, where he had no symptoms, Anderson
said. He was on Oahu, the state’s most populated island, Feb. 3-7. While on
Oahu, he had cold-like symptoms, but no fever, Anderson said.
He developed more serious
symptoms when he returned to Japan, where he was tested and found to be
positive for the illness, Anderson. He did not seek medical care in Hawaii,
Anderson said.
Because of when his symptoms
began, officials believe he became infected in Japan or while in transit to
Hawaii, said state epidemiologist Dr. Sarah Park.” (T)
“The cruise ship had been
shunned at port after port for fear it might carry the coronavirus, but when
the Westerdam arrived in Cambodia on Thursday, the prime minister greeted its
passengers with flowers.
Amid assurances that the ship
was disease free, hundreds of elated passengers disembarked. Some went
sightseeing, visiting beaches and restaurants and getting massages. Others
traveled on to destinations around the world.
One, however, did not make it
much farther than the thermal scanners at the Kuala Lumpur airport in Malaysia.
The passenger, an American, was stopped on Saturday, and later tested positive
for the coronavirus.
On Sunday, with passengers
already headed for destinations on at least three continents, health officials
were scrambling to determine how a big a problem they now have — and how to
stop it from getting bigger.
“We anticipated glitches, but I
have to tell you I didn’t anticipate one of this magnitude,” said Dr. William
Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University Medical
Center.
With more than a thousand
passengers from the Westerdam headed for home, Dr. Schaffner said, it may be
harder than ever to keep the coronavirus outbreak contained to China.
“This could be a turning point,”
he said.
It is unclear how well the
passengers were screened before they were allowed off the ship. But the best
approach to containing a broader spread of the virus from the Westerdam would
be to track down all of the passengers and quarantine them for two weeks,
experts said…
More than 140 passengers from
the ship flew to Malaysia, and all but the American woman who tested positive
and her husband were eventually allowed to continue on to their destinations,
including the United States, the Netherlands and Australia, officials said.
Over 1,000 other passengers took charter flights to Phnom Penh, the capital of
Cambodia, and were in various stages of transit home, the cruise line said….
The global fight against the
coronavirus is complicated by the fact that different countries may have
different levels of disease surveillance and prevention measures. While the
World Health Organization provides guidance, it is up to each country to
enforce these standards, including whether to quarantine people who may have
been exposed or to stop them from traveling.” (U)
(A) China’s Doctors, Fighting the Coronavirus, Beg for Masks,
Chris Buckley, Sui-Lee Wee and Amy Qin,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/14/world/asia/china-coronavirus-doctors.html
(B) WHO is investigating 1,716 health workers in China infected
with coronavirus, by Berkeley Lovelace Jr.,
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/14/who-and-china-investigate-1716-health-workers-infected-with-coronavirus.html
(C) Coronavirus latest: Chinese cases spike after changes to
diagnosis method, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00154-w
(D) Coronavirus Cases Seemed to Be Leveling Off. Not Anymore,
by Roni Caryn Rabin,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/coronavirus-cases-china.html?referringSource=articleShare
(E) A worker cleans the floor of a temporary ward for patients
with coronavirus in Wuhan, China, by Roni Caryn Rabin,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/coronavirus-cases-china.html?referringSource=articleShare
(F) Coronavirus death toll mounts in China as U.S. braces for
long fight, by CARTER EVANS,
https://www.cbsnews.com/live-updates/coronavirus-china-outbreak-death-toll-infections-cruise-ship-latest-updates-2020-02-14/
(G) Would The U.S. Health System Be Ready For A Surge In
Coronavirus Cases?, by PATTI NEIGHMOND,
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/02/13/799534865/would-the-u-s-health-system-be-ready-for-a-surge-in-coronavirus-cases
(H) Is NYC Prepared for Coronavirus?, by James D. Walsh,
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/02/coronavirus-is-new-york-city-prepared-for-its-arrival.html
(J) Doctor Who Survived Ebola Says He Was Unfairly Cast as a
Hazard and a Hero, by Anemona Hartocollis,
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/26/nyregion/craig-spencer-new-york-ebola-doctor-speaks-out.html
(K) 5 U.S. cities to start testing patients with flu-like
symptoms for coronavirus, by Erika Edwards,
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/5-u-s-cities-start-testing-patients-flu-symptoms-coronavirus-n1136941
(L) CDC director: Novel coronavirus ‘is probably with us
beyond this season, beyond this year’, by Jacqueline Howard,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/13/health/coronavirus-cdc-robert-redfield-gupta-intv/index.html
(M) Some Wuhan Evacuees Ask Why They Aren’t Being Tested for the
Coronavirus, by Miriam Jordan and Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/us/coronavirus-quarantine-tests.html?referringSource=articleShare
(N) China Is Tracking Travelers From Hubei,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
(O) Coronavirus Test Kits Sent to States Are Flawed, C.D.C.
Says, by Denise Grady, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/12/health/coronavirus-test-kits-cdc.html
(P) The U.S. says it will evacuate Americans from the cruise
ship quarantined off Japan,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/15/world/asia/coronavirus-china-live-updates.html#link-4c91f3a8
(Q) “CDC and hospital errors led to US coronavirus patient being
sent back to military base, health official says, by Elizabeth Cohen and Jon
Passantino,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/10/health/evacuee-wuhan-coronavirus-mistakenly-released/index.html
(R) San Diego declares two emergencies over coronavirus to free
up resources, by Mark Saunders,
https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/san-diego-declares-two-emergencies-over-coronavirus-to-free-up-resources
(S) Hundreds left a cruise ship in Cambodia. Then one tested
positive for the coronavirus, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/16/world/asia/china-coronavirus.html?referringSource=articleShare
(T) Japanese man who visited Hawaii confirmed with coronavirus.
by JENNIFER SINCO KELLEHER,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/15/world/asia/coronavirus-china-live-updates.html#link-4c91f3a8
(U) Coronavirus Infection Found After Cruise Ship Passengers
Disperse, by Richard C. Paddock, Sui-Lee Wee and Roni Caryn Rabin,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/16/world/asia/coronavirus-cruise-americans.html?referringSource=articleShare
PART 7. CORONAVIRUS. February 20, 2020. With SARS
preparedness underway in NJ LibertyHealth/ Jersey City Medical Center, where I
was President, proposed that our 100 bed community hospital with all
single-bedded rooms, be immediately transformed into an EMERGENCY SARS
ISOLATION Hospital.
The Hospital was in a small town at the intersection of many
major highways. It could be easily secured since it had no immediately
contiguous neighbors. It had a helicopter pad. Its patients could be easily
transferred. And it could be managed by the Public Health Service or military
medicine if necessary.
It didn’t happen!
In 2014, I suggested several anchor principles for Ebola
preparedness in New Jersey, as hospitals of all sizes and scope “marketed”
their Ebola readiness, only to learn that it took well over 20/ 25 full time
staff to care for one Ebola patient (and 50 in Dallas!).
These recommendations included that every hospital that
certified its Emergency Room as ready for Ebola be subject to at least three
separate drills using a standardized format, and then be subject to random
“secret shopper” inspections;
that anyone with a confirmed or suspected Ebola diagnosis be
immediately transferred to a regional center hospital designated by national
standardized criteria which could demonstrate that it has sufficient nursing
staff “volunteers” to care for a least five patients round the clock;
and that isolation hospitals be readied for instant
activation, whether a closed hospital prepared for Ebola now and standing by,
or a “virtual” hospital ready-to-go in military fashion.
Also there was a need to minimize Ebola patients walking
into an ER unannounced, and suggested a statewide 800 number be established so
patients can call ahead and be transported by a prepared ambulance team and
taken to a regional center.
The Federal government, later than sooner, did exclusively
designate three national bio containment facilities hospitals as Ebola Centers.
In 2016 I suggested that similar organizing principles were
urgently need to be established for tiered Zika hospital preparedness by
designating Zika Regional Referral Centers. More specifically:
1. There should not be an automatic default to just
designating Ebola Centers as ZRRCs, although there is likely to be significant
overlap.
2. Zika Centers should be academic medical centers with
respected, comprehensive infectious disease diagnostic/ treatment and research
capabilities, and rigorous infection control programs. They should also offer
robust, comprehensive perinatology, neonatology, and pediatric neurology
services, with the most sophisticated imaging capabilities (and Zika-related
“reading” expertise).
3. National leadership in clinical trials.
4. A track record of successful, large scale clinical Rapid
Response.
5. Organizational wherewithal to address intensive resource
absorption.
6. Start preliminary planning for Zika care out of the
initial designated ZRRCs.
7. Zika protocols will be templates for are other mosquito
borne diseases lurking on the horizon, such as Chikungunya, MERS, and Dengue.
“The Wuhan coronavirus spreading from China is now likely to
become a pandemic that circles the globe, according to many of the world’s
leading infectious disease experts.
The prospect is daunting. A pandemic — an ongoing epidemic
on two or more continents — may well have global consequences, despite the
extraordinary travel restrictions and quarantines now imposed by China and
other countries, including the United States.
Scientists do not yet know how lethal the new coronavirus
is, however, so there is uncertainty about how much damage a pandemic might
cause. But there is growing consensus that the pathogen is readily transmitted
between humans.
The Wuhan coronavirus is spreading more like influenza,
which is highly transmissible, than like its slow-moving viral cousins, SARS
and MERS, scientists have found.
“It’s very, very transmissible, and it almost certainly is
going to be a pandemic,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National
Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. But will it be catastrophic? I
don’t know.”…
At the moment, it seems unlikely that the virus will spread
widely in countries with vigorous, alert public health systems, said Dr.
William Schaffner, a preventive medicine specialist at Vanderbilt University
Medical Center.
“Every doctor in the U.S. has this top of mind,” he said.
“Any patient with fever or respiratory problems will get two questions. ‘Have
you been to China? Have you had contact with anyone who has?’ If the answer is
yes, they’ll be put in isolation right away.”..
But even if an outbreak fades in June, there could be a
second wave in the fall, as has occurred in every major flu pandemic, including
those that began in 1918 and 2009….
“In God we trust,” Dr. Schaffner said. “All others must
provide data.”” (A)
“A comprehensive study of more than 72,000 confirmed and
suspected cases of the novel coronavirus by Chinese scientists has revealed new
information about the deadly infection which has brought much of the country to
a halt.
Carried out by a group of experts at the Chinese Center for
Disease Control and Prevention and published in the Chinese Journal of
Epidemiology on Monday, the study is the largest and most comprehensive
examination of coronavirus cases so far.
It found that the novel coronavirus is more contagious than
the related viruses which cause SARS and MERS. While the resulting disease,
Covid-19, is not as fatal on a case-by-case basis, its greater spread has
already led to more deaths than its related coronaviruses.” (B)
“Numbers have a certain mystique: They seem precise, exact,
sometimes even beyond doubt. But outside the field of pure mathematics, this
reputation rarely is deserved. And when it comes to the coronavirus epidemic,
buying into that can be downright dangerous….
Constant on-the-nose reporting, however much it seems to
serve transparency, has limitations, too.
It’s a short-term, and shortsighted, approach that’s
difficult to resist, especially when people are afraid and the authorities are
taking draconian actions. It’s only natural to compare and contrast whatever
hard facts are available. And yet it’s especially dangerous to do that
precisely because people are so anxious, and fear can trick the mind.
A view from a loftier perch — a month’s, or even just a
week’s, perspective — would, and will, produce far more reliable information.”
(C)
“One of the enduring images of the current coronavirus
outbreak is a space-age looking thermometer pointed at an airplane passenger.
Eleven airports in the United States are using these
temperature checks as part of expanded screening for novel coronavirus, and
those measures might seem reassuring. If someone doesn’t have a fever, it seems
like they’re fine — right?..
Earlier this month, British researchers published a study
showing that temperature checks will fail to detect a coronavirus infection
nearly half the time….
Since mid-January, the US Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention has been employing temperature checks at selected airports, at first
on people flying in from Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the outbreak, and now
on all passengers who’ve been anywhere in mainland China in the past 14 days.
The temperature checks are part of an overall screening
effort that includes giving passengers cards telling them to watch out for
fever, cough and trouble breathing, all symptoms of the novel coronavirus
disease, also called COVID-19.
“Finding sick people who are at risk for COVID-19,
alerting asymptomatic travelers who may develop COVID-19 symptoms after
arrival, and rapidly responding to any suspect COVID-19 illness, we can most
effectively protect the health and safety of the American public,” said
Dr. Martin Cetron, director of CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine.
Some experts say it’s that card — a simple card listing
symptoms in English and Chinese — that holds the key to detecting coronavirus
infection — not a thermometer.” (D)
“On Wednesday, the initial 14-day quarantine aboard a
coronavirus-stricken cruise ship docked in Yokohama, Japan, officially ended.
But the grueling saga seems far from for over for the ship’s 3,711 passengers
and crew…
Japanese health officials are facing international criticism
for their handling of the quarantine on the ship, the Diamond Princess. The
quarantine was intended to curb the spread of disease by keeping people aboard,
isolated from each other and from the public on land. But as cases mounted over
the two weeks, it became clear that the control efforts only enabled the new
coronavirus to spread. In fact, the 621 cases include at least three Japanese
health officials, who were there to support the quarantine efforts but ended up
becoming infected themselves….
Just before Dr. Hopland and his wife planned to board an evacuation
plane chartered by the US State Department on Sunday, test results came back
indicating his wife had contracted the virus. She was moved to a local
hospital, and Dr. Hopland remains on the ship in an extended quarantine.
The chartered flights, meanwhile, repatriated over 300 other
American cruise ship passengers, 14 of whom tested positive for the virus en
route to the US.
“I was surprised I was negative because I knew the virus had
swept through this boat like wildfire,” Dr. Hopland told the Journal. “My
analogy is they put us in a petri dish to get infected.” (E)
“Nebraska’s specialized medical care has handled Ebola. Now
it’s taking on the novel coronavirus
“They’re in the chicken soup stage right now,”
Rupp said. “It’s really just watching them and giving them supportive care
that you would probably get at home from a loving provider.”
The US Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness
Response asked UNMC early Monday morning to take in a total of 13 patients who
had either tested positive, or had a high likelihood of testing positive, for
the novel coronavirus.
The patients had been on a cruise ship docked off the cost
of Japan for two weeks. The center said it was prepared.
“We’re having them under surveillance in quarantine
until we know that they are not a danger to the public,” Rupp said, adding
that most units have an exercise bike or a treadmill as well as a TV and WiFi
so they’re able to communicate…
UNMC was commissioned by the US Centers for Disease Control
and Prevention in 2005 to create the biocontainment unit where one patient
currently is. The rest of the patients are in a separate federal quarantine
center on the campus, that UNMC built through a private-public partnership.
In 2014, UNMC successfully treated three patients with
Ebola, and the medical facility has the capacity to manage other highly
infectious diseases like SARS, monkeypox and multidrug-resistant tuberculosis.”
(F)
“In addition to the biocontainment unit, the hospital’s
campus has the only federal quarantine unit in the country.
“We do a huge amount of research in these areas,” said Dr.
Jeffrey P. Gold, chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical Center,
citing work on infectious diseases and research on countermeasures to weapons
of mass destruction.
“What — heaven forbid
— happens if an employee or staff member gets exposed to one of these agents,
or even worse than that, gets infected, where are you going to put them? You
can’t just call up a local hospital and say, ‘I’ve got somebody who has anthrax,
make up a bed,’” he said. “You need facilities that can do everything from air
and water handling to the complexities of waste disposal.”” (G)
“The Center for Disease Control does not recognize surgical
masks as a means of protection from viruses. Health professionals use N95
respirators that are formed tightly around the nose and mouth. Dr. Seery says
N95s are expensive and not practical for the public.
“Surgical masks aren’t bad. If you’re stuck in
something like a plane, I don’t think it’s going to do you much good,” Dr.
Seery says. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop all the air that you breathe in
around the mask, but if you’re out and about in a community that has the flu,
for example, it might reduce your chances of coming into contact with that flu
virus while walking through someone’s sneeze cloud.”” (H)
“The director of a Chinese hospital at the epicenter of the
coronavirus outbreak became one of its victims Tuesday despite
“all-out” efforts to save his life, Chinese health officials said…
Liu Zhiming, president of Wuhan Wuchang Hospital in Hubei
province, died of coronavirus-related pneumonia, China Daily reported. The
hospital, one of the seven designated for the epidemic in Wuhan, treated
thousands of people a day…
“Unfortunately he became infected and passed away at
10:54 Tuesday morning after all-out efforts to save him failed,” the commission
said.” (I)
“An Oregon comedian who had been stranded on a Holland
America cruise ship in Cambodia due to COVID-19 virus concerns managed to get a
flight back home by breaking quarantine in a hotel where ship’s passengers were
being held pending test results…
“There was no official ‘you can’t leave’ (at the hotel)
but if you tried to go out the front door with your luggage, security would
stop you,” King said. “But if you went out with your backpack and you
were sightseeing, not a problem.”..
He says he chose to fly back on his own on a more
full-service airline, even purchasing a full-price, upgraded ticket as not to
raise suspicion that he was trying to quickly leave the country at the last
minute as cheaply as possible.
King said he sailed through the airports on his three
connecting flights, only being asked if he had been to China, and had a rental
car reserved in Seattle to get home to Eugene if he couldn’t fly from here.
King said somebody asked him if it was “kind of selfish
to self deport?” He said while the results of his virus test weren’t back,
he’s confident he’s OK since he has not shown any symptoms, nor fever, and says
he had been essentially in quarantine for 14 days.” (J)
“In one school district, families are pulling their kids out
of school. In others, students show up in face masks.
Educators in another Southern California community agreed to
suspend an exchange program to keep visiting Chinese students out of
quarantine.
School districts across the U.S., particularly those with
large Asian American populations, have scrambled to respond to the outbreak of
the coronavirus, which has killed more than 1,500 people and sickened tens of
thousands more, almost all in China.
At least 15 cases have been confirmed in the U.S., mostly in
California, home to about one-third of the nation’s Chinese immigrants.
The districts find themselves in uncharted territory as they
apply new federal travel rules to their student bodies. And in some cases,
administrators are making decisions to address parental fears – not actual
disease – with no official guidance. They’re weighing whether to allow students
to work from home, even if they haven’t traveled abroad recently, or let them
wear face masks in class.
Balancing these requests against broader public health needs
often leads to different conclusions.
“We’re just doing our best to comply” as the rules and
outbreak evolve, said Jenny Owen, spokesperson for the Duarte Unified School
District, about 20 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles. About 6% of the
district’s students identify as Asian…
To prevent the virus’s spread in the U.S., the federal
government has issued rules for returning travelers: U.S. citizens and legal
permanent residents who visited the epicenter of the outbreak in China, Hubei
province, in the previous 14 days must undergo a mandatory two-week quarantine
at a government-run facility. Those who visited other parts of China must stay
home and “self-quarantine” for two weeks.
The policies began Feb. 2, and as a result, an exchange
program that brought children from China to Duarte schools has been temporarily
halted to prevent the students from being quarantined, Owen said.
State public health departments are using the federal rules
to draft guidelines for school districts.
The policies made a “night and day” difference in clearing
up confusion, especially for families who had recently traveled from China and
were wondering whether to send their kids to school, said Don Austin,
superintendent of the nearly 12,000-student Palo Alto Unified School District
in the Bay Area, where about 36% of students identify as Asian.
“When I first heard of the concept of self-quarantine, my
first instinct was, this could be problematic if we’re alone on that and trying
to create some of these policies and practices on the fly,” he said.
But school districts and local health departments still have
to make quick decisions in cases that fall outside federal guidelines.” (K)
“As the U.S. responds to a growing threat of the 2019 novel
coronavirus, CMS and other organizations are clarifying how to code for testing
and treatment of the disease.
Six things to know:
1. CMS created a new Healthcare Common Procedure Coding
System code for providers and labs testing patients for SARS-CoV-2, or severe
acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.
2. Providers can use the HCPCS code U0001 to test patients
for coronavirus using the CDC’s 2019 novel coronavirus real-time RT-PCR
Diagnostic Test Panel.
3. Medicare’s claims processing system will start accepting
the code April 1 for dates of services Feb. 4 onward.
4. Audrey Howard, senior outsource services consultant with
3M Health Information Systems, reviewed in a blog post the current ICD-10-CM
codes providers could use to code for the virus.
5. For classifying coronavirus not associated with SARS,
providers could use:
Pneumonia due to coronavirus: J12.89 and B97.29
Sepsis due to coronavirus: A41.89 and B97.29
Other infection caused by coronavirus: B34.2
Contact with and (suspected) exposure to other viral
communicable diseases: Z20.828
6. For classifying the SARS-associated coronavirus,
providers could use:
Pneumonia due to SARS-associated coronavirus: J12.81
Sepsis due to SARS-associated coronavirus: A41.89 and
B97.21” (L)
“Staff at NYU Langone Health in New York City has designated
the new virus as a “level 1” priority.
“A big part of this level is communication,” said Dr.
Jennifer Lighter, hospital epidemiologist there.
“We are trying to communicate to NYU staff and patients in
our medical center how to best protect themselves from the flu or COVID-19,”
Lighter said. “That’s just general info like basic hand hygiene, sneezing into
the end of your elbow and practicing safe distance from someone who is sick.”
NYU is also preparing for a level 2 or 3 scenario, she
added, where there is transmission in the city and it begins to impact hospital
operations. The health-care system has implemented a conservation plan and
medical supplies, especially respirator masks, are only given to staff as
needed, she said.
“If a team needed more, they would have to be
infection-prevention approved or manager approved before someone would get
more,” she said, adding staff is already feeling the brunt of the flu season.
The hospital is also recommending patients with more mild
symptoms to stay at home, she said. The hospital has been ramping up its
virtual urgent care, including training doctors and purchasing more iPads and other
machines. “If you’re shortness of breath, obviously, please come in,” Lighter
said.” (M)
(A) Wuhan
Coronavirus Looks Increasingly Like a Pandemic, Experts Say, by Donald G.
McNeil Jr., https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/02/health/coronavirus-pandemic-china.html?referringSource=articleShare
(B) Chinese
CDC study finds Covid-19 virus to be more contagious than SARS or MERS, by
James Griffiths and Nectar Gan,
https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/health-news/chinese-cdc-study-finds-covid-19-virus-to-be-more-contagious-than-sars-or-mers/ar-BB108Z9X
(C) Constant
on-the-nose reporting, however much it seems to serve transparency, has
limitations, too, by John Allen Paulos,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/opinion/coronavirus-china-numbers.html
(D) No US
coronavirus cases were caught by airport temperature checks. Here’s what has
worked, by Elizabeth Cohen and John Bonifield,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/19/health/coronavirus-airport-temperature-checks/index.html
(E) Americans
on coronavirus cruise ship barred from US after failed quarantine, by BETH
MOLE,
https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/02/americans-on-coronavirus-cruise-ship-barred-from-us-after-failed-quarantine/
(F) Nebraska
doctors are providing coronavirus patients with chicken soup and Tylenol, by
Amir Vera and Nick Watt,
https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/18/health/nebraska-coronavirus-unmc-chicken-soup/index.html
(G) First
Ebola, Now Coronavirus. Why an Omaha Hospital Gets the Toughest Cases, by Sarah
Mervosh, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/us/coronavirus-omaha-nebraska-medical-center.html
(H) Do
surgical masks protect against illness?, by Kristen Boxman, https://www.kwch.com/content/news/Do-surgical-masks-protect-against-illness-567967131.html
(I) Coronavirus
20 times more lethal than the flu? Death toll passes 2,000, by John Bacon,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/02/18/wuhan-china-coronavirus-hospital-director-dies-covid/4792597002/
(J) Hotel
getaway: Oregon comedian quarantined amid cruise ship virus sneaks flight to
Seattle,
https://komonews.com/news/local/man-stranded-on-coronavirus-infected-cruise-ship-arrives-at-sea-tac-airport
(K) School
districts grapple with coronavirus quarantines, face masks and fear, by Anna
Almendrala,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/02/17/coronavirus-forces-schools-grapple-quarantines-masks-and-fear/4775522002/
(L) Coding
for coronavirus: 6 things to know, by Morgan Haefner,
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/coding-for-coronavirus-6-things-to-know.html
(M) Hospitals
across the US prepare for coronavirus outbreak to become global pandemic, by
Berkeley Lovelace Jr., https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/19/hospitals-across-the-us-prepare-for-coronavirus-outbreak-to-become-global-pandemic.html
PART 8. CORONAVIRUS. “…every country’s top priority
should be to protect its health care workers. This is partly to ensure that
hospitals themselves do not become sites where the coronavirus is spread more
than it is contained.”
“Why this looks like the beginning of a pandemic
These outbreaks outside of China, along with the latest
science on Covid-19, suggest we may soon see a rapid rise in infections — both
in China and in more countries around the world. Here’s why.
1) The virus is very contagious and some people seem to be
able to infect others before they know they’re sick: Researchers currently believe
one infected person generally infects two to three others, which would make the
new coronavirus more contagious than other coronaviruses, like SARS and MERS.
“TRYING TO STOP INFLUENZA-LIKE TRANSMISSION IS LIKE TRYING
TO STOP THE WIND. IT’S VIRTUALLY IMPOSSIBLE.”…
2) Countries are still mostly looking for the disease in
people who’ve traveled from China: The main method of screening in many
countries is still testing passengers coming from China, or from Hubei province
only. But as we’ve seen, spread is happening beyond those people. And other
cases may be undetected…
3) With flu season ongoing, it can take time to identify
cases and outbreaks: “The challenge with this illness is that the clinical
symptoms resemble other viral illnesses, like flu,” said Inglesby. So people
with the flu, and doctors examining them, may not even be thinking of Covid-19
yet, especially in people who haven’t traveled to China.
4) China may also see another surge in cases soon as travel
restrictions are gradually lifted: The country has taken extraordinarily
draconian measures to stop this virus, quarantining millions, and shutting down
transit and travel. But the business community is growing increasingly
frustrated with the restrictions, and is pressuring government officials to
ease some of the restrictions…
5) Many countries are only now getting testing up and
running: Even the US — with one of the most highly-resourced health systems in
the world — doesn’t have adequate diagnostic capacity right now:
Reminder: As of today (Feb 23), the US remains extremely
limited in #COVID19 testing. Only 3 of ~100 public health labs have @CDC test
kits working and CDC is not sharing what went wrong with the kits. How to know
if COVID19 is spreading here if we are not looking for it.
6) Some people may have abdominal pain before respiratory
symptoms — and that’s not something health officials are screening for: This
coronavirus is still very new, and we don’t know its entire spectrum of illness
yet, but we’re learning the disease may sometimes surface in surprising ways.
Though it’s a respiratory infection, a recent JAMA article found some have
abdominal symptoms such as discomfort first. This means “we may not be
detecting cases that do not present in the classic way with fever and respiratory
symptoms,” said William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at Vanderbilt
University….
We need to prepare for a pandemic…
For now, countries need to move from trying to contain the
virus to mitigating its harm — reducing the spread, and caring for the very
sick, said Jennifer Nuzzo, an infectious disease expert and senior scholar at
the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. “It is beyond time,” she added.”
(A)
“On Tuesday, Feb. 18, no coronavirus cases had been reported
in Iran. On Sunday, the government announced 43 cases and eight deaths. Some
152 cases (and at least three deaths) were confirmed in Italy on Sunday, up
from three cases on Thursday. The number of infected people in South Korea
jumped to 763 (and six deaths) in just days.
As of Monday, Covid-19 was detected in at least 29
countries. In nations with few or no reported cases so far, particularly in
South America and Africa, the absence of evidence shouldn’t be interpreted as
evidence of absence. More likely, it reflects lack of testing.
Is the Covid-19 outbreak now a pandemic, whether or not the
World Health Organization calls it that yet? If so, what’s next?
In a world ill-prepared for a potentially life-threatening,
easily transmitted disease like Covid-19, the most effective way to mitigate
the pandemic’s impact is to focus on supporting health care systems that
already are overburdened…
This is the main reason every country’s top priority should
be to protect its health care workers.
The United States and other countries in the Northern
Hemisphere already are in the throes of a moderately severe flu season. Their
inventories of protective equipment used by doctors, nurses and emergency
medical workers — N-95 respirator masks, gloves, eye protection, disposable suits
— are running low. These limited supplies must go to health care workers first,
rather than the public. This is partly to ensure that hospitals themselves do
not become sites where the coronavirus is spread more than it is contained: If
infected health care workers die in large numbers, entire societies may be
shaken to the point of panic.
Governments should also conduct Covid-19 preparedness drills
in local hospitals and expand hospitals’ temporary capacity, for example, by
setting up emergency tents in parking lots, as is already happening in some
places in the United States. To minimize the strain on overstressed acute-care
hospitals, supportive nursing care might have to be provided, in makeshift
facilities and patients’ homes, as was done during severe pandemics in the
past, such as the Great Influenza of 1918-19…
Ensuring all of this means facing the hard facts of this
unfolding pandemic — and that requires thorough, transparent disclosures to the
public. Past experiences, with the anthrax-laced letters in 2001 and the 2014
Ebola outbreak, suggest that people react more rationally and show greater
resilience to a full-blown crisis if they are prepared intellectually and
emotionally for it.” (B)
“The number of coronavirus cases in South Korea has soared
to about 602, according to The New York Times. More than half of those cases
involve members of, or those somehow linked to, the religious sect, the
Shincheonji Church of Jesus, where a so-called superspreader infected at least
37 people last week.
A so-called superspreader infected at least 37 people at her
church with the new coronavirus, and dozens of additional worshippers are also
showing symptoms of the disease, called COVID-19, according to news reports.
The 61-year-old woman attends the Shincheonji Church of
Jesus the Temple of the Tabernacle of the Testimony in Daegu, South Korea,
according to the international news outlet AFP. The city, located in the
southern part of the country, is home to about 2.5 million people. The woman,
called “Patient 31” by Korea’s Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention, developed a fever on Feb. 10 and attended four church services
before being diagnosed with COVID-19. ..
Authorities described the outbreak as a
“super-spreading event,” as the lone woman transmitted the infection
to an unusually high number of people, according to Reuters. Current estimates
suggest that a single person with the novel coronavirus spreads the infection
to about 2.2 additional people, on average. The surge of infection at the
church brings the total number of confirmed cases in South Korea to 104; one
death associated with the virus has occurred in the country so far.” (C)
“Rain was falling on the night of Jan. 18, so the windows of
the Tokyo party boat were shut. Inside were about 90 guests of a local taxi
association who were celebrating the new year as the vessel floated down the
Sumida River. Also on board, unbeknown to them, was a coronavirus capable of
spreading ferociously.
It did just that. A driver in his 70s soon fell ill with
fever; he later tested positive. The same day as his diagnosis, his
mother-in-law died; she also was infected. Officials then discovered that 10
others from the boat were, too, including an employee who had served passengers
from Wuhan, China. Still more who did not attend the party caught the virus
after coming into contact with those who did.
As public health officials look for clues to one of the
biggest uncertainties about the new coronavirus epidemic — whether it will
eventually expand rapidly beyond its center in China — they are closely
studying clusters of cases that have emerged recently in Japan.
The issue has taken on more urgency as passengers have begun
walking off a contaminated cruise ship in Yokohama where 634 people have tested
positive for the virus and two later died. Experts fear that some who were
cleared to leave an onboard quarantine could later test positive, spreading
infections on land in the same way that the party boat has done.
Alarmed officials are rushing to learn more about how the
virus is transmitted, including how many of those infected experience mild
symptoms or none at all, and whether it can be spread by people who are
symptom-free.” (D)
“Most of the Americans who were being monitored at the
University of Nebraska Medical Center for coronavirus after evacuating a cruise
ship in Japan tested positive for the virus, the hospital says.
UNMC said in a statement Thursday that the US Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention verified the Nebraska Public Health Lab results
showing that 11 of the 13 patients have the novel coronavirus. The other two
evacuees who were taken to the Omaha hospital tested negative, the statement
said.
Bert Kelly, a CDC spokesman, told CNN that the agency has
verified the results, bringing the total of confirmed cases in the United
States to 26.
The hospital had said some of the patients had tested
positive in Japan but some “came with a lack of clarity of what their test
results were,” Shelly Schwedhelm told CNN. Schwedhelm is the UNMC/Nebraska
Medical Executive Director of Emergency Management and Biopreparedness who has
clinical oversight of the quarantine and biocontainment units.
Nine of the patients had tested positive for the virus in
Japan and were positive again after being rested in the United States, another
CDC spokesman, Joe Smith, told CNN on Friday.” (E)
“Preventing the spread of infectious disease is the essence
of public health work, but the scale of efforts by state and local health
departments across the country to contain the virus known as COVID-19, experts
said, has rarely been seen. Since early February, thousands of people returning
to the United States from mainland China, the center of the outbreak, have been
asked to isolate themselves at home for 14 days…
Local health officials check in daily by email, phone or
text. They arrange tests for people who come down with symptoms, and in some
cases, groceries and isolated housing. There is no centralized tally in the
United States of people being monitored or asked to remain in isolation, and
they are scattered across the nation’s nearly 3,000 local health jurisdictions.
People arriving from mainland China are added each day,
while those who have completed 14-day “self-quarantine” periods are released
from oversight. In California alone, the department of public health has been
monitoring more than 6,700 returning travelers from China, while health
officials in Washington State have tracked about 800, and officials in Illinois
more than 200.
At least 34 cases have been confirmed in the U.S. and more
infections are expected…
“All hands on deck
are being pulled into this,’’ said Dr. Marcus Plescia, the chief medical
officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials, a
nonprofit organization that represents public health agencies across the
country. “If it really blows up, at some point, it could overwhelm state and
local health departments.”…
In Washington, where the first coronavirus patient in the
United States was confirmed on Jan. 21, health officials tracked down and
monitored 69 individuals with whom the man had come in contact, including work
colleagues, health workers and other patients present in a clinic he visited
when he first felt sick. Still, there have been issues. One person the man had
been in contact with and who had developed symptoms of illness flew on a plane
to Wisconsin during the 14-day period when she was supposed to be isolated at
home.
“There is no way,
with something this large, that you can make it seal-proof,’’ said Dr. Wiesman,
who has started twice-weekly conference calls with the chief health officers in
every state and territory to share tips and seek advice on how to manage the
shifting challenges of the coronavirus response. While enforcing total
compliance with isolation orders may not be possible, Dr. Wiesman said, “We
have to try for 80 to 85 percent, and hopefully that will work.’’
Federal authorities are in charge of setting guidelines to
manage the danger, such as deciding how much risk a returning traveler poses
and who should be tested for the coronavirus. But the day-to-day work putting
those policies in place and tracking thousands of people falls to the vast,
decentralized network of local health departments across the country.
Travelers’ data, culled from federal customs officials, is passed on to state
health agencies, who farm out lists of people returning from China to local
health departments.” (F)
Health experts sounded the alarm Friday over the worldwide
threat of the coronavirus, with officials “warning of its “likely”
community spread in the United States and the World Health Organization
cautioning that “the window of opportunity is narrowing” for
containing the outbreak worldwide.
The COVID-19 coronavirus, which erupted in China in
December, has killed at least 2,360 people and sickened at least 77,900
worldwide, the majority of cases in mainland China.
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center
for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters Friday that U.S.
health officials are preparing for the coronavirus to become a pandemic.
“We’re not seeing community spread here in the United
States, yet, but it’s very possible, even likely, that it may eventually
happen,” she said. “Our goal continues to be slowing the introduction of the virus
into the U.S. This buys us more time to prepare communities for more cases and
possibly sustained spread.”
She said the CDC is working with state and local health
departments “to ready our public health workforce to respond to local cases.”
These measures include collaboration with supply chain partners, hospitals,
pharmacies and manufacturers to determine what medical supplies are needed.
She said the “day may come” here where we have to shut down
schools and businesses like China has done.” (G)
“In the U.S., the number of confirmed cases rose to at least
34, as a number of evacuated individuals from the Diamond Princess cruise ship
have tested positive.
Several other Americans who were on board the ship have been
diagnosed and hospitalized in Japan, according to the CDC. As of Friday
afternoon, there were no plans to evacuate those patients. The U.S. Department
of State said it will not rescue other Americans who choose to go on cruises in
Asia.
“Such repatriation flights do not reflect our standard practice,
and should not be relied upon as an option for U.S. citizens,” Ian
Brownlee, an executive within the Department of State, said during a media
briefing Friday.
On its website, the department has warned Americans to
reconsider any planned cruises to or within Asia, saying such trips “may
be impacted by travel restrictions affecting their itineraries or ability to
disembark, or may be subject to quarantine procedures implemented by the local
authorities.
How countries are able to contain the virus and prevent it
from sustained person-to-person transmission will be important in determining
the “ultimate end game” of the virus, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of
the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NBC News.
“If infection control gets out of control in many of
these countries throughout the world, then it’s going to be very difficult to
prevent cases from then going, by travel, to all parts of the world,”
Fauci said. “That’s how a pandemic starts.”
As part of a team of international scientists led by the
World Health Organization, the National Institutes of Health and the CDC have
staff members in China, observing containment and infection control efforts.
They’re scheduled to travel into the epicenter of the outbreak, Wuhan, on Saturday.
“We still believe we can contain the virus,” WHO
Director-General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday during a media
briefing. “But the window of opportunity is narrowing.”” (H)
“About 150 prescription drugs — including antibiotics,
generics and some branded drugs without alternatives — are at risk of shortage
if the coronavirus outbreak in China worsens, according to two sources familiar
with a list of at-risk drugs compiled by the Food and Drug Administration.
Why it matters: China is a huge supplier of the ingredients
used to make drugs that are sold in the U.S. If the virus decreases China’s
production capability, Americans who rely on the drugs made from these
ingredients could be in trouble.
What they’re saying: The FDA declined to comment on the
list, but said in a statement that it’s “keenly aware that the outbreak
could impact the medical product supply chain,” and has devoted additional
resources toward identifying potential vulnerabilities to U.S. medical products
stemming specifically from the outbreak.
The agency has been in contact with hundreds of drug and
medical device manufacturers, and it’s also coordinating with global regulators
like the European Medicines Agency.
It pointed out that there aren’t any vaccines, gene
therapies or blood derivatives licensed by the FDA that are manufactured in
China, although raw materials for many products do come from China and other
southeastern Asian countries. The agency is in contact with biologics
manufacturers to monitor supply concerns.
“If a potential shortage or disruption of medical
products is identified by the FDA, we will use all available tools to react
swiftly and mitigate the impact to U.S. patients and health care
professionals,” said an FDA spokesperson.” (I)
“A group of 46 Congress members sent a letter to the Trump
administration Feb. 20 urging the government not to give exclusive licenses to
any drugmaker that develops a coronavirus vaccine using U.S. taxpayer funds.
The lawmakers expressed concern that if drugmakers are given
excluisve licenses on coronavirus treatments or vaccines, they would raise the
prices and make treatments inaccessible for many people affected by the virus.”
(J)
“As the novel coronavirus, called COVID-19, continues to
spread across the globe, Cleveland’s major hospitals are preparing for
potential cases.
From screening patients for the virus to protecting medical
providers, local health care systems are taking precautions to ensure that if
they do get a case of COVID-19, it doesn’t spread, as it has in China.
“Part of preparedness is thinking ahead,” said Dr. Amy Ray,
medical director of infection prevention at the MetroHealth System…
Early identification of patients who are at risk for
COVID-19 infection is important, Ray said.
MetroHealth staff who schedule urgent appointments in
doctors’ offices are trained to look for patients who are having fever and
cough, or fever and shortness of breath, and have traveled in China or been in
close contact with someone who traveled there, Ray said…
At the Cleveland Clinic, the electronic medical records
vendor turned on a function that automatically prompts those who are checking
in patients or taking calls to ask if patients have traveled to China and are
experiencing symptoms such as cough and fever, said Dr. Tom Fraser, vice
chairman of infectious disease at the Clinic…
At MetroHealth’s main campus in south Tremont area,
officials have set aside a two-bed unit, called the Special Diseases Care Unit,
for possible COVID-19 patients.
The unit has its own blood lab and an anteroom where health
care workers can put on and take off their protective gear. The Infection
Prevention Team is looking for other areas of MetroHealth with
negative-pressure ventilation systems that could be used to care for COVID-19
patients, Ray said.
Portable X-ray and other equipment can be brought to the
isolation rooms to minimize the need to move patients through the hospital,
limiting the danger of transmission to others…
At each hospital system, medical personnel wear protective
gear that covers their nose, mouth and eyes to examine patients suspected of
having COVID-19. That means wearing fitted respirators, a face shield or
goggles, gloves and a gown.
Keeping health care workers protected and healthy is a
priority because they come in contact with so many others, Saade said.
“A big problem in these big epidemics — thankfully, we’re
not there yet — is that you don’t have enough health care workers to help with
people care,” he said…
While it’s ideal to isolate all patients in the hospital, if
there were a COVID-19 outbreak, those with lesser symptoms would need to
self-quarantine at home, Saade said.
“If we have just a few people, we can isolate them,” he
said. “That’s not something that can happen if it’s widespread.”
Fraser said that a lot of the precautions that health
systems are taking for COVID-19 are built on day-to-day infection-prevention
practices.
In the end, it all comes down to the basics, he said.
“Everybody’s seen the Hazmat suits and stuff like that on
TV. But if we don’t wash our hands well between patients, then you can have all
kinds of fancy suits” but not be protected, Frazer said.
“Clean hands going in, and clean hands going out” is the
“fail safe,” he said. “Because not everybody is going to come with a sign that
says ‘I’ve got coronavirus.’ ”
The Clinic emphasizes daily basic infection-prevention
practices, such as hand hygiene and proper cough etiquette.
“Those kind of basics, without those, everything else would
fall apart,” Fraser said.” (K)
Labs in the US will start looking for the new coronavirus
this week (L)
Specialized respirators are key to stopping spread of
coronavirus to medical staff (M)
Flowchart to Identify and Assess 2019 Novel Coronavirus for
the evaluation of patients who may be ill with or who may have been exposed to
2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)
For the evaluation of patients who may be ill with or who
may have been exposed to 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) (N)
Coronavirus: What it does to the body (O)
How the coronavirus can kill people (P)
Coronavirus Disease 2019 Information for Travel
This page includes information about Coronavirus Disease
2019 (COVID-19) for travelers and travel related industries. (Q)
Interim Guidance for Businesses and Employers to Plan and
Respond to Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), February 2020 (R)
(A) “We are at
a turning point”: The coronavirus outbreak is looking more like a pandemic, by
Julia Belluz,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic.html?referringSource=articleShare
(B) Is It a
Pandemic Yet? It’s now clear that the coronavirus epidemic was never going to
be contained. What’s next?, by Michael T. Osterholm and Mark Olshaker,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/opinion/coronavirus-pandemic.html?referringSource=articleShare
(C) Superspreader’
in South Korea infects nearly 40 people with coronavirus, by Nicoletta Lanese,
https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-superspreader-south-korea-church.html
(D) What a
Party in Japan May Tell Us About the Coronavirus’s Spread, by Sui-Lee Wee and
Makiko Inoue,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/20/world/asia/japan-coronavirus-clusters.html?referringSource=articleShare
(E) 11 cruise
ship passengers test positive for coronavirus, Nebraska hospital says, Nicole Chavez, https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/20/health/nebraska-coronavirus-positive-tests/index.html
(F) Local
health officials check in daily by email, phone or text with the thousands of
people returning to the United States from mainland China, where they may have
encountered the virus, by Amy Harmon and Farah Stockman,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/22/us/coronavirus-local-health-response.html?referringSource=articleShare
(G) CDC is
preparing for the ‘likely’ spread of coronavirus in the US, officials say, by
Doug Stanglin, https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/02/21/coronavirus-who-contain-outbreak-iran-deaths-south-korea-cases/4829278002/
(H) U.S. takes
steps to prepare for pandemic as global coronavirus cases rise, by Erika
Edwards, https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/u-s-takes-steps-prepare-pandemic-global-coronavirus-cases-rise-n1140371
(I) Scoop:
Coronavirus threatens shortages of about 150 drugs, by Caitlin Owens,
https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-threatens-drug-shortage-318c9e7b-5d92-4a5e-b992-2478023c6d01.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosam&stream=top
(J) Don’t
allow monopoly of coronavirus drug rights, lawmakers urge Trump, by Maia
Anderson,
https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/pharmacy/don-t-allow-monopoly-of-coronavirus-drug-rights-lawmakers-urge-trump.html
(K) Protecting
patients, health care workers priorities as Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth and
UH prepare for coronavirus, by Ginger Christ,
https://www.cleveland.com/business/2020/02/cleveland-hospitals-prepare-for-potential-novel-coronavirus-cases.html
PART 9. CORONAVIRUS. Responding to a question about the
likelihood of a U.S. outbreak, President Trump said, “I don’t think it’s
inevitable…”It probably will. It possibly will,” he continued.
“It could be at a very small level, or it could be at a larger level.”
“A person in
California who was not exposed to anyone infected with the coronavirus, and had
not traveled to countries in which the virus is circulating, has tested
positive for the infection in what may be the first case of community spread
here in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said
on Wednesday.
“At this point, the patient’s exposure is unknown,” the
C.D.C. statement said. “The case was detected through the U.S. public health
system and picked up by astute clinicians.”
The case was announced shortly after President Trump
concluded a news briefing in which he said that aggressive public health
containment measures and travel entry restrictions had successfully limited the
spread of coronavirus in the United States.
It brings the number of cases in the country to 60,
including the 45 cases among Americans who were repatriated from Wuhan, China —
the epicenter of the outbreak — and the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was
overwhelmed by the virus after it docked in Japan.
Until now, public health officials have been able to trace
all of the infections in the country to a recent trip abroad or a known
patient.
This new case appears to be one of community spread — one in
which the source of infection is unknown. It is possible the patient may have
been exposed to a returning traveler who was infected, the C.D.C. said.” (A)
“The first suspected U.S. case of a patient getting the new
coronavirus through “community spread” – with no history of travel to
affected areas or exposure to someone known to have the COVID-19 illness — was
left undiagnosed for days because a request for testing wasn’t initially
granted, according to officials at UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento,
Calif.
The patient in Northern California is now the 60th confirmed
case of the new coronavirus in the United States. The Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention disclosed the latest case Wednesday evening, as
President Trump assigned Vice President Pence to lead the administration’s
response to the disease.
“This case was detected through the U.S. public health
system — picked up by astute clinicians,” the CDC said in a brief
statement about the new patient.
UC Davis included more details about the case in its own
statement, drawing on an email sent to staff at its medical center. It said the
CDC initially ruled out a test for the coronavirus because the patient’s case
didn’t match its criteria.” (S)
“An American soldier in South Korea has tested positive for
the new coronavirus, the U.S. military said on Wednesday.
The patient, a 23-year-old man, is based in Camp Carroll in
Waegwan, only 12 miles from Daegu, the South Korean city at the center of an outbreak in the country.
The soldier, the first U.S. service member to become
infected, has been quarantined in his off-base residence, the military said.
The soldier visited Camp Walker, a military base in Daegu,
on Monday and visited Camp Carroll from Friday to Tuesday.
South Korean and American “health professionals are actively
conducting contact tracing to determine whether any others may have been
exposed,” the military said.
The military added that it was “implementing all appropriate
control measures to help control the spread of Covid-19 and remains at risk
level ‘high’” for all its 28,500 soldiers stationed in South Korea “as a
prudent measure to protect the force.” “(B)
“Why this looks like the beginning of a pandemic
These outbreaks outside of China, along with the latest
science on Covid-19, suggest we may soon see a rapid rise in infections in more
countries around the world. Here’s why.
1) The virus is very contagious, and some people seem to be
able to infect others before they know they’re sick: Researchers currently
believe one infected person generally infects two to three others, which would
make the new coronavirus more contagious than other coronaviruses, like SARS
and MERS…
2) Countries are still mostly looking for the disease in
people who’ve traveled from China: The main method of screening in many
countries is still testing passengers coming from China or from Hubei province
only. But as we’ve seen, spread is happening beyond those people. And other
cases may be undetected…
3) With flu season ongoing, it can take time to identify
cases and outbreaks: “The challenge with this illness is that the clinical
symptoms resemble other viral illnesses, like flu,” said Inglesby. So people
with the flu, and doctors examining them, may not even be thinking of Covid-19
yet, especially in people who haven’t traveled to China.
4) China’s case toll is falling — but it may see another
surge soon as travel restrictions are gradually lifted: The country has taken
extraordinarily draconian measures to stop this virus, quarantining millions,
and shutting down transit and travel. But the business community is growing
increasingly frustrated with the restrictions and is pressuring government
officials to ease some of them…
5) Many countries are only now getting testing up and
running: Even the US, with one of the most highly resourced health systems in
the world, doesn’t have adequate diagnostic capacity right now..
6) Some people may have abdominal pain before respiratory
symptoms — and that’s not something health officials are screening for: This
coronavirus is still very new, and we don’t know its entire spectrum of illness
yet, but we’re learning the disease may sometimes surface in surprising ways.
Though it’s a respiratory infection, a recent JAMA article found some have
abdominal symptoms such as discomfort first. This means “we may not be
detecting cases that do not present in the classic way with fever and
respiratory symptoms,” said William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert at
Vanderbilt University…” (D)
“Outside China, there are now 2,790 cases in 37
countries, and 44 deaths,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus
said at a briefing in Geneva…
Tedros is urging the international community to have
“hope, courage and confidence” that the new respiratory virus can be
contained, citing 14 countries that haven’t reported a new case in more than a
week.
Worldwide, there are currently 81,191 cases of the novel
coronavirus, according to a dashboard created by the Johns Hopkins Whiting School
of Engineering. That number includes 30,281 cases in which people recovered
from COVID-19.
But Tedros also warned that the situation could get worse,
saying, “At the same time, all countries, whether they have cases or not,
must prepare for a potential pandemic.”..
On a broader scale, the WHO’s Tedros says every country
should make it a top priority to protect workers who are dealing with the
health crisis. And he says agencies should work with communities whose members
are most at risk, “particularly the elderly and people with underlying
health conditions.”
Despite the worrying rise of cases at the international
level, Tedros again rejected calls Wednesday for the WHO to declare a pandemic,
saying it’s not an accurate label for a virus he still views as containable. He
has also recently noted that the virus’s fatality rate outside of Hubei
province is less than 1%.
The WHO declared the coronavirus outbreak a global health
emergency in January, as cases surged in China. The organization now says it believes
the epidemic peaked and plateaued in China between the end of January and the
early February.” (E)
“The World Health Organization (WHO) still avoided using the
word “pandemic” to describe the burgeoning crisis today, instead talking about
“epidemics in different parts of the world.” But many scientists say that
regardless of what it’s called, the window for containment is now almost
certainly shut. “It looks to me like this virus really has escaped from China
and is being transmitted quite widely,” says Christopher Dye, an epidemiologist
at the University of Oxford. “I’m now feeling much more pessimistic that it can
be controlled.” In the United States, “disruption to everyday life might be
severe,” Nancy Messonnier, who leads the coronavirus response for the U.S.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned on 25 February. “We are
asking the American public to work with us to prepare for the expectation that
this is going to be bad.”
Dye and others say it’s time to rethink the public health
response. So far, efforts have focused on containment: slowing the spread of
the virus within China, keeping it from being exported to other countries, and,
when patients do cross borders, aggressively tracing anyone they were in
contact with and quarantining those people for 2 weeks. But if the virus, named
SARS-CoV-2, has gone global, travel restrictions may become less effective than
measures to limit outbreaks and reduce their impact, wherever they are—for
instance, by closing schools, preparing hospitals, or even imposing the kind of
draconian quarantine imposed on huge cities in China.” …
To prepare for what’s coming, hospitals can stockpile
respiratory equipment and add beds. More intensive use of the vaccines against
influenza and pneumococcal infections could help reduce the burden of those
respiratory diseases on the health care system and make it easier to identify
COVID-19 cases, which produce similar symptoms. Governments can issue messages
about the importance of handwashing and staying home if you’re ill.
Whatever the rest of the world does, it’s essential that it
take action soon, Aylward says, and he hopes other countries will learn from
China. “The single biggest lesson is: Speed is everything,” he says. “And you
know what worries me most? Has the rest of the world learned the lesson of
speed?” (F)
“White House National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow
said Tuesday that the U.S. has “contained” the threat of a domestic coronavirus
outbreak, breaking with the warnings of officials from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention.
“We have contained this, I won’t say airtight but pretty
close to airtight,” Kudlow told CNBC’s Kelly Evans on Tuesday afternoon…
Some of his comments stood in contrast to public
pronouncements from CDC officials Tuesday that painted the coronavirus’ health
threat to the U.S. as the most serious it‘s been.
Nancy Messonnier, who heads the National Center for
Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned that American communities need to
prepare now for the possibilities of remote work, teleschooling and other
provisional measures when the disease starts spreading domestically.” (G)
“The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday
warned that it expects the novel coronavirus that has sparked outbreaks around
the world to begin spreading at a community level in the United States, as a
top official said that disruptions to daily life could be “severe.”
“As we’ve seen from recent countries with community spread,
when it has hit those countries, it has moved quite rapidly. We want to make
sure the American public is prepared,” Nancy Messonnier, director of CDC’s
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters.
“As more and more countries experience community spread,
successful containment at our borders becomes harder and harder,” she said.
There have been 14 cases of the virus diagnosed in the U.S.,
all in people who traveled recently to China or their close contacts. Another
39 U.S. residents have been infected in other parts of the world before being
repatriated and quarantined. But CDC officials say the country could soon see
more cases as the virus starts to spread through communities in areas outside
China, including Iran, South Korea, and Italy.
The CDC urged American businesses and families to start
preparing for the possibility of a bigger outbreak. Messonnier said that
parents should ask their children’s schools about plans for closures.
Businesses should consider whether they can offer telecommuting options to
their employees, while hospitals might need to look into expanding telehealth
services, she said.
“Disruption to everyday life might be severe,” Messonnier
said, adding that she talked to her children about the issue Tuesday morning.
“While I didn’t think they were at risk right now, we as a family ought to be
preparing for significant disruption to our lives.”
The CDC’s messaging seemed to be at odds with the position
of the World Health Organization, which reiterated Tuesday that countries could
stop transmission chains if they acted swiftly and aggressively…
Messonnier said the CDC is evaluating data on measures that
could be used to stem the spread of the virus, including school closures and
other social distancing strategies, voluntary home quarantines, and surface
cleaning methods. The CDC is using data from past flu outbreaks to study those
strategies, but will tailor its recommendations for the new virus.
In a press briefing Tuesday afternoon, other top health
officials pushed back on the perception that the public needs to take direct
action now to prepare for community spread of the virus. They also doubled down
on the message that the U.S. has successfully contained the spread of the virus
thus far…
Messonnier said the CDC is also in conversation about
whether to change the case definition that triggers a sick patient to be tested
for the virus. Currently, health officials recommend testing only for people
who have respiratory symptoms and have recently traveled to China, or those who
have been in close contact with someone who was infected. But as community
spread picks up in other countries, the case definition could change.” (H)
“President Donald Trump on Wednesday tried to ease growing
fears over the spreading coronavirus, saying at the White House that his
administration has the situation under control and is “ready to
adapt” if the virus spreads.
“Because of all we’ve done, the risk to the American
people remains very low,” Trump said. “We’re ready to adapt and ready
to do whatever we have to as the disease spreads, if it spreads.
“We’re very, very ready for this,” Trump said,
adding that only 15 people had contracted the virus in the U.S. and that all
were expected to recover.
Trump, speaking from the Brady Briefing Room, said he was
putting Vice President Mike Pence in charge of his administration’s response to
the potential pandemic. Trump, however, rejected that he had made Pence a
“czar” for the response to the virus.
Pence, speaking after Trump, reiterated that the
“threat to the American public remains low” and said, “We will
continue to bring the full resources of the federal government … to see to
the health and well-being and to the effective response to the coronavirus in
the United States of America.”
Trump — who this week announced a $2.5 billion plan to help
combat the illness — said at the briefing, “We’re going to spend whatever
is appropriate.”
Following the remarks of Trump and Pence, several senior
officials from the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention spoke — and many didn’t paint quite as rosy a picture.
One NIH official said a potential coronavirus vaccine was still at least a year
away.
The president’s address came amid a tumbling stock market
and grave criticism from Democrats who say his handling of the outbreak has
been inadequate. It also came just a day after the CDC warned that it was only
a matter of time before the illness, known as COVID-19, will spread across
communities in the United States…
Measures to contain the virus in the U.S. so far have
involved restricting travel to and from China — the center of the outbreak —
and isolating identified cases.
Trump on Wednesday called those efforts “some very good
early decisions” and indicated that he would consider restricting travel
to South Korea and other countries “at the right time.”…
Federal health officials added Tuesday that they are
preparing for a potential pandemic. CDC officials said the virus could disrupt
daily lives, including closing schools, forcing people to work from home and
delaying elective medical procedures.
Trump, asked Wednesday whether schools should prepare for a
spread of the virus, replied that “every aspect of our society”
should be prepared. He added that he doesn’t think it would come to that but
that people should be prepared “just in case.”
But he also vacillated at various points during his news
conference between agreeing with and rejecting the stark warnings of a broader
potential outbreak issued by government public health experts.
Responding to a question about the likelihood of a U.S.
outbreak, he said, “I don’t think it’s inevitable.
“It probably will. It possibly will,” he
continued. “It could be at a very small level, or it could be at a larger
level.”
At another point, Trump said, “Nothing is
inevitable.” “ (I)
“Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s health emergencies program,
suggested countries need to be working full bore to be ready to deal with the
virus.
“It is time to prepare. It is time to do everything you
would do in preparing for a pandemic,” he insisted…
Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s health emergencies program,
suggested countries need to be working full bore to be ready to deal with the
virus.
“It is time to prepare. It is time to do everything you
would do in preparing for a pandemic,” he insisted.
Continuing to focus on trying to contain the virus — a goal
many infectious diseases experts are skeptical can be met — buys time, Ryan
said, noting if the illness can be prevented from spreading in Europe until flu
season ends, hospitals won’t face a double blow.
“Even slowing down the virus by a month or six weeks has a
massive positive benefit to the system,’’ he said.
But people need to be realistic about the limits of
containment. “We cannot shut down the world,” Ryan said. “That’s not going to
work.”
Countries should be working on trying to reduce the risk of
imported cases, reduce the risk of spread from cases that get in, and increase
the chance that people who get sick survive the infection. “But I think we have
to be very, very careful in trying to suggest that we could absolutely stop the
virus from spreading from one country to the next,” he said. “I don’t think
that’s possible.”” (J)
“A federal health official warned Tuesday that the deadly
coronavirus could cause “severe” disruptions in the USA as global
experts struggled to fend off the outbreak and avoid a pandemic.
Is it too late?
“Disruption to everyday life may be severe,” Nancy
Messonnier, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s
National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, warned at a news
conference Tuesday. Schools could be closed, mass public gatherings suspended
and businesses forced to have employees work remotely, she said.
Messonnier said the coronavirus has caused sickness and
death and sustained person-to-person transmission. That’s two of the three
factors for a pandemic, she said.
“As community spread is detected in more and more countries,
the world moves closer to meeting the third criteria – worldwide spread of the
new virus,” Messonnier said.
Although the World Health Organization determined Monday
that the term pandemic “did not fit the facts,” experts said it very
soon could…..
Melissa Nolan, a medical doctor and professor of
epidemiology at the University of South Carolina’s Arnold School of Public
Health, cited new clusters in Iran, which faces at least 95 cases and has had
16 deaths, and Italy, which is dealing with 322 cases.
“If we continue to see focalized local transmission in
areas outside of China, the WHO will need to reconvene,” Nolan told USA
TODAY on Tuesday. “We are very close to seeing this virus becoming a
pandemic.”
Nolan said responses to the outbreaks in Iran and Italy
could help health officials in other countries prepare their own medical and
quarantine policies before an outbreak. That is crucial, said Robert Glatter,
an emergency physician at New York’s Lenox Hill Hospital who fears the world is
on the “cusp” of a pandemic.
“Trying to contain a disease which spreads like
influenza, in this case COVID-19, is almost impossible,” he said. “We
are talking about rapid-fire and sustained transmission.”…
Ogbonnaya Omenka, an assistant professor and public health
specialist at Butler University’s College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, said
he understands the concerns. The main implication of declaring a pandemic is
requiring, or at least further urging, national governments to prepare
facilities and health workers to treat a lot of patients, Omenka told USA
TODAY.
“Not only is this costly, it may also trigger
panic,” he warned. “Countries may as well put in place these plans
without the official announcement.”
Tedros stressed that a pandemic declaration would not
eliminate the need for health authorities to continue testing, limiting contact
with the sick and encouraging frequent hand washing – the front-line defense….
Messonnier acknowledged the CDC struck a more urgent tone in
warnings about the virus in the USA. The proliferation of coronavirus in
countries outside China raised the agency’s expectations the virus will spread
here.
“People are concerned about this situation – I would say rightfully so,” Messonnier
said. “But we are putting our concerns to work preparing. Now is the time
for businesses, hospitals, communities, schools and everyday people to begin
preparing as well.”
“It’s not so much a question of if this will happen
anymore but rather more a question of exactly when,” an official said.”
(K)
“When you start to see sustained transmission in other
countries throughout the world, it’s inevitable that it will come to the United
States,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Diseases, told NBC News.
In the U.S., 57 people have been diagnosed with COVID-19,
the illness caused by the new coronavirus. The majority are among repatriated
residents who were passengers of the Diamond Princess cruise ship, docked in
Japan.
The CDC said Americans should prepare for the possibility of
disruptions to their daily lives if the virus were to start spreading in the
U.S. That could include closing schools, working from home and delaying
elective medical procedures.
“We should all be dusting off our pandemic preparedness
plans and rehearse them very quickly,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an
infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University. “The core concept
is social distancing.”
Business leaders, Schaffner said, should start considering
which employees could work from home. Perhaps the time will come, he and other
experts said, to observe religious practices and ceremonies at home, rather than
attend larger community gatherings at places of worship. And families should
start asking themselves how they would handle a week or two at home, without
traveling even short distances for food, medicine or entertainment.” (L)
“Gown, gloves, goggles, mask — deposit in biohazard
container and wash hands for 20 seconds. That’s how to take it off safely.
It’s a drill that’s becoming muscle memory for health care
workers these days as hospitals and medical facilities prepare for the
anticipated spread of the new coronavirus from China. Blanchard wants it to
feel as routine for the Teaneck hospital’s staff as tying their shoes or
fastening a seat belt.
Practice in donning and doffing personal protective
equipment — or PPE, as it is called — has gained new urgency as the United
States braces for a possible surge in infections. Health care workers are on
the front lines…
There has been no community transmission in the United
States, Messonnier said. New Jersey has no cases.
But the near certainty that the virus will arrive — whether
in small, localized outbreaks or as a widespread epidemic — has state and local
health officials and hospital leaders on the alert and concerned.
In New Jersey, a governor’s task force meets weekly and has
updated a preparedness plan. Hospital infection-control practitioners, chief
medical officers and executives met with state health officials earlier this
month. A conference call with 250 hospital executives — the second since the
COVID epidemic began in China — is planned for later this week.
At individual hospitals, staff members are scanning for
updates and new information on the virus, taking inventory of supplies, drawing
up plans and reviewing infection-control procedures. One large system —
RWJBarnabas Health — has a daily meeting of its emergency response team and a
secure communication line systemwide.
“We don’t know who we may encounter in the Emergency
Department,” said Jesson Yeh, an emergency physician at Holy Name who was part
of that hospital’s training this week. “We need to be prepared for any possible
situation, which may include people with viruses like the coronavirus, flu —
Ebola, even.”
“Sometimes we do need a brush-up on how to prepare,” said
Jennifer Temple, an Emergency Department nurse taking Blanchard’s review
program. “Not that we forget. But it’s an emergency room; we want to work so
fast. This is a great way to remind us.”
Health care workers are the front lines of defense against
the coronavirus’s spread as they diagnose and treat the sick. Their close
proximity, exposure to the spray of coughs and sneezes and high touch contact
as they do everything from take temperatures to insert breathing tubes vastly
increases their risk of infection…
For hospitals, that means two things, said Dr. Adam Jarrett,
Holy Name’s chief medical officer: “The first thing we’re doing is reinforcing
the training our staff has.” Then, “we’re making sure we have appropriate
supplies.”
Previous exercises involving government agencies across the
nation “did show us that if we had a pandemic, there were going to be supply
issues,” said Messonnier, of the CDC. “We are now thinking through and working
on those supply issues,” to ensure there’s protection for health care workers.
“There’s absolutely a shortage of masks and gowns,” said
Jarrett, of Holy Name. “There hasn’t been a problem because there haven’t been
any patients yet,” he said. “If there’s a significant outbreak in the tri-state
area, I think there could be.”
CDC guidelines call for workers to wear N95 masks, which are
also used in some construction or industrial settings. They form hard domes
over the mouth and nose, with material like a HEPA filter filtering all air in
and out. Hospitals are carefully controlling their use. Washable gowns might be
used and thrown away, Jarrett said, if there aren’t enough disposable
gowns.
Another concern, depending on how the spread of the virus
evolves, could be high rates of absentees among health care workers and other
essential workers. New Jersey’s earlier pandemic flu preparedness plan, drafted
in the wake of the 2009 swine flu epidemic, told hospitals to prepare for
absences of 30% to 50%.
CDC guidelines say health care institutions should err on
the side of caution when workers may have been exposed to COVID-19 and show
symptoms of fever or illness. They should stay home from work and
self-quarantine, the agency suggested.
Hospitals could manage those shortages by shifting the
workers to concentrate on critical needs, employing temporary agency nurses, or
canceling elective procedures, a spokeswoman for the state Health Department
said.
During Superstorm Sandy, for example, hard-hit facilities
were able to waive standard credentialing procedures to make it faster to bring
in personnel from other areas or out of state. “ (M)
“In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy said preparations are
ramping up. He noted that there are currently no confirmed cases in the state,
but said it was prudent to anticipate that there would be.
“It’s pretty clear from financial markets the past couple of
days, it’s pretty clear when you look at South Korea, Iran, Italy, that this is
not going away anytime soon,” he said.
“We had a whole-of-government meeting this morning in
Newark, just going over, once again, protocols, pre-emptive action — what do we
do if X or Y happens,” he said, during remarks Wednesday at an unrelated news
event at William Paterson University. “We’re doing everything to get out ahead
of this and also be prepared as possible if something hits us.”
Murphy also said Health Commissioner Judith Persichilli on
Wednesday was to convene a conference call with all hospitals in the state
about preparations, noting that the state’s designated center for handling
cases, University Hospital in Newark, “has a capacity of only so much.”.. (N)
“Against a backdrop of educated guesses — the state
epidemiologist predicted it could be like a bad flu season with 500 deaths, but
with no vaccine — Connecticut hospital officials said they have been drilling
for weeks, got practice from the Ebola scare in 2014 and with the flu in 2009
and this year, and are ready for a coronoavirus outbreak if it comes to that.
In anticipation, as the virus spread in China, Hartford
Hospital activated its emergency preparedness plan in early January, involving
more than 300 units of the hospital, Dr. Ajay Kumor, chief medical officer,
said at a news briefing Wednesday afternoon.
Gov. Ned Lamont outlines steps Connecticut has taken to
prepare for coronavirus, urges residents to follow CDC guidelines to prevent
spread of the disease »
For Dr. Mike Ivy of Yale-New Haven Hospital, the process is
worn smooth on his lips: You have flu-like symptoms. You come into the
emergency room. At the registration desk, you’ll be asked if you’ve traveled
abroad to an area with there has been transmission of the virus — China, Iran,
South Korea, Japan, northern Italy.
If the answer is yes, you’d be taken to an isolation room
with negative air pressure, evaluated by a doctor and nurse and tested for
coronavirus. You’ll be admitted if you’re sick enough, sent home if you’re not.
“People can isolate themselves at home so they do not infect
anyone else,” said Ivy, deputy chief medical officer.
If you stay at the hospital, your treatment team will be
wearing gowns, gloves and masks when they come in.
“And then, hopefully, you get better,” Ivy said, “as the
majority of the patients do.”… (N)
“Health organizations in Rhode Island said Tuesday that they
are taking their coronavirus preparedness efforts to a higher level.
The United States said officials are warning Americans to
prepare for the spread of coronavirus in communities across the country.
Doctors with Lifespan said they have created an emergency
task force, so each facility can work together to combat the virus should it
spread into Rhode Island…
The Rhode Island Department of Health said they’ve been
having frequent talks with schools here, too.
A spokesperson for the University of Rhode Island said they
have 50 students and one faculty member in Italy.
“The University remains in frequent contact with its
study-abroad host partners, who have been communicating regularly with the
students about the COVID-19 situation in Italy,” said the spokesperson.
Rhode Island Hospital Disaster Medicine and Emergency
Preparedness Director, Dr. Selim Suner, said a concern is how exactly it’s
spreading.
“We don’t know if it’s airborne yet because those studies
have not been done,” said Suner…
The best preparation he said we know well.
“Hand-washing and keeping a distance from ill people is
the best prevention,” said Suner.” (P)
“Reacting to concerns about the quickening spread of
coronavirus, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Wednesday that the state would set
aside some $40 million to fight the virus, as well as plan for possible
quarantines at homes, hotels and hospitals.
In a briefing in the Capitol, the governor and his health
commissioner, Dr. Howard Zucker, stressed that New York still had no confirmed
cases of the virus, but warned that its spread to the state was inevitable.
The scope of the virus’s spread and the importance of New
York as a center of global commerce and transportation led Mr. Cuomo, a
third-term Democrat, to ask for additional funding for fighting the disease.
“It is highly probable that we will have people in New York
State who test positive,” said Mr. Cuomo, noting that New York City is “the
front door internationally” for many travelers. “No one should be surprised
when we have positive cases.”
In addition to the $40 million from the Legislature, Mr.
Cuomo said he would ask federal authorities permission to test patient samples
in a laboratory in New York, rather than waiting several days for results from
the C.D.C. in Atlanta….
State officials have already been taking precautions against
the disease, asking some 700 recent visitors to China to voluntarily quarantine
themselves, even as Customs and Border Protection agents continue to screen
passengers at area airports. Individuals who have visited mainland China are
judged to be of “medium risk,” according to the State Health Department, though
it said none of those self-isolating individuals had exhibited symptoms of
coronavirus.
In New York City, where officials say seven potential
patients have been tested and cleared, Mayor Bill de Blasio has expressed
confidence that the city is prepared, citing previous scares involving even
more deadly diseases like Ebola in 2014…
“We are in a state of
high vigilance, high readiness, all elements of the city government, to address
this crisis,” he said at a news conference on Wednesday. “We have the greatest
public health capacity of anywhere in this country.”
The city has made 1,200 hospital beds available for anyone
suspected of having coronavirus and has distributed 1.5 million face masks to
health care workers.
But the mayor warned that the city needed help from the
federal government in obtaining more protective gear — at least 300,000 more masks,
he said — and stressed the importance of giving local health departments the
ability to test for the virus on their own.
Other major cities were also taking precautions, including
San Francisco, which declared a local state of emergency on Tuesday, despite no
confirmed cases, saying “the global picture is changing rapidly.”
On Wednesday, officials at the Metropolitan Transportation
Authority said they were working with state and federal health officials to
assess potential contingency plans.
Those measures could include limiting or staggering public
transit ridership, according to a document prepared by City Hall and the New
York City’s Emergency Management Department in 2014 that focused on how the
city might respond to a flu pandemic…
Similarly, state health officials were regularly consulting
with the C.D.C. as well as county officials, and studying federal
recommendations for mitigation in case of a large outbreak, including basic
precautions such as covering one’s face when sneezing or coughing, to more
expansive measures such as school closures and cancellation of public events.
“If you prepare correctly, you’ll have less of an issue when
a situation develops into something that is more problematic,” Mr. Cuomo said.
“The threat you don’t take seriously is the one that becomes serious.” (Q)
“A man in Miami went to the hospital to receive a test for
the coronavirus after developing flu-like symptoms, only to receive the news
that he didn’t have it — and a $3,270 medical bill, the Miami Herald reports.
Why it matters: The man had just returned from a work trip
to China, so took his symptoms more seriously than normal, which is exactly
what public health experts want people to do.
Our thought bubble: The episode would be a great parody of
the health care system, if it wasn’t real.
The man has a short-term health insurance plan, which
usually have skimpy benefits in exchange for lower premiums, and don’t have to
cover pre-existing conditions. The Trump administration has expanded them.
The hospital told the Herald that the patient is only on the
hook for $1,400 based on his insurance, but his insurer told him that first, he
must provide three years of medical records to prove that his flu didn’t relate
to pre-existing conditions.
And more bills are probably coming.” (R)
(A) C.D.C.
Confirms First Possible Community Transmission of Coronavirus in U.S., by Roni
Caryn Rabin, https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/health/coronavirus-cdc-usa.html?referringSource=articleShare
(B) U.S.
Soldier Tests Positive for Virus in South Korea,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/25/world/asia/coronavirus-news.html?referringSource=articleShare
(C) Last 48
hours, https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-latest-developments-8b8990c4-6762-494a-8ee0-5091746bda9b.html
(D) “We are at
a turning point”: The coronavirus outbreak is looking more like a pandemic, by
Julia Belluz
https://www.vox.com/2020/2/23/21149327/coronavirus-pandemic-meaning-italy
(E) Coronavirus:
More New Cases Are Now Reported Outside China Than Inside, by Bill CHAPPELL,
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/02/26/809568686/coronavirus-more-new-cases-are-now-reported-outside-china-than-inside
(F) The
coronavirus seems unstoppable. What should the world do now?, by Jon Cohen, Kai
Kupferschmidt,
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/02/coronavirus-seems-unstoppable-what-should-world-do-now
(G) Kudlow
breaks with CDC on coronavirus: ‘We have contained this’, by ELI OKUN,
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/25/kudlow-white-house-coronavirus-117402
(H) CDC
expects ‘community spread’ of coronavirus, as top official warns disruptions
could be ‘severe’, by MEGAN THIELKING,
https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/25/cdc-expects-community-spread-of-coronavirus-as-top-official-warns-disruptions-could-be-severe/
(I) Trump
says coronavirus risk to Americans ‘very low,’ puts Pence in charge of gov’t
response, by Adam Edelman,
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-coronavirus-risk-americans-very-low-administration-effectively-handling-n1143756
(J) WHO tells
countries to prepare for coronavirus pandemic, but insists it’s too soon to
make that call, by HELEN BRANSWELL,
https://www.statnews.com/2020/02/24/who-tells-countries-prepare-coronavirus-pandemic-too-soon-to-make-call/
(K) Could a
coronavirus pandemic be stopped? US warns of ‘severe’ disruptions, by John
Bacon, Ken Alltucker,
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/02/25/coronavirus-pandemic-can-outbreak-still-be-stopped/4865934002/
(L) CDC warns
Americans of coronavirus outbreak, by Erika Edwards,
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/americans-should-prepare-coronavirus-spread-u-s-cdc-says-n1142556
(M) ‘Not a
question of if … but when’: How NJ hospitals are preparing for coronavirus spread,
by Lindy Washburn,
https://www.northjersey.com/story/news/health/2020/02/25/coronavirus-how-nj-hospitals-preparing-possible-epidemic/4858668002/
(N) Officials
Urge Preparations for Coronavirus in U.S., Noting Global Spread, by DAVID CRUZ,
https://www.njspotlight.com/2020/02/officials-urge-preparations-for-coronavirus-in-u-s-noting-global-spread/
(O) Connecticut
hospitals say they are ready for the coronavirus, but with no vaccine,
‘inevitable’ challenges lie ahead, by Josh Kovner, https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-news-coronavirus-hospitals-emergency-preparation-20200226-rl2mxh7frbb4ja6qdwplual3jm-story.html
(P) Lifespan
creates emergency task force as coronavirus fears heighten,
https://turnto10.com/news/local/lifespan-creates-emergency-task-force-as-coronavirus-fears-heighten
(Q) Coronavirus
in New York: $40 Million to Combat Spread, by Jesse McKinley, Luis
Ferré-Sadurní and Christina Goldbaum,
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/26/nyregion/coronavirus-new-york-cuomo.html?referringSource=articleShare
(S) Diagnosis
Of Coronavirus Patient In California Was Delayed For Days, by Bill Chappell,
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/02/27/809944423/diagnosis-of-coronavirus-patient-in-california-was-delayed-for-days
2/27/20
2/27/20
PREQUELS
“A SEVERE FLU PANDEMIC… could
kill more than 33 million people worldwide in just 250 days.” – “Boy, do we not
have our act together.” — Bill Gates”. (J)
PART 4. CANDIDA AURIS. “..
nursing facilities, and long-term hospitals, are…continuously cycling infected
patients, or those who carry the germ, into hospitals and back again.”
