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-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Coronavirus roundup: Global death toll 7,813; nearly 190,000 infected
2020-03-18
Global coronavirus death toll at 7,813; nearly 190,000 infected
[IsraelTimes] The number of novel coronavirus
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
 cases globally stood at 189,680 with 7,813 deaths, across 146 countries and territories at 1700 GMT Tuesday, according to a tally compiled by AFP from official sources.

Since 1700 GMT on Monday there were 806 new deaths reported and 14,159 new cases globally.

The tallies, using data collected by AFP offices from national authorities and information from the World Health Organization (WHO), take into account the fact that criteria for counting victims and coronavirus screening practices vary from country to country.

The countries with the most new deaths in the past 24-hour period are Italia (345), Spain (182) and Iran
...a theocratic Shiite state divided among the Medes, the Persians, and the (Arab) Elamites. Formerly a fairly civilized nation ruled by a Shah, it became a victim of Islamic revolution in 1979. The nation is today noted for spontaneously taking over other countries' embassies, maintaining whorehouses run by clergymen, involvement in international drug trafficking, and financing sock puppet militias to extend the regime's influence. The word Iran is a cognate form of Aryan. The abbreviation IRGC is the same idea as Stürmabteilung (or SA). The term Supreme Guide is a the modern version form of either Duce or Führer or maybe both. They hate Jews Zionists Jews. Their economy is based on the production of oil and vitriol...
(135).

China ‐ excluding Hong Kong and Macau ‐ where the outbreak emerged in late December, has to date declared 80,881 cases, including 3,226 deaths, with 68,869 people recovered. The country declared 21 new cases and 13 new fatalities since Monday.

Belgium imposes general coronavirus lockdown until April 5
[IsraelTimes] Belgians must stay at home from midday on Wednesday until at least April 5 in case they spread the coronavirus further, Prime Minister Sophie Wilmes says on Tuesday. The only residents allowed out will be those heading for medical attention, solo exercise or work in some businesses deemed essential such as food markets and pharmacies, she says.

People with blood type A might be more susceptible to coronavirus, study finds
[NYPOST] People with blood type A might be more vulnerable to the coronavirus
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
, while those with type O blood could be more resistant, according to a new preliminary study from China.
Researchers studying COVID-19 in its outbreak epicenter, Wuhan, and the city of Shenzhen found the proportion of Type-A patients both infected and killed by the disease to be "significantly" higher than those with the same blood type in the general public.

Type O patients, meanwhile, made up a smaller proportion of both those infected and killed by the virus.

"People of blood group A might need particularly strengthened personal protection to reduce the chance of infection," wrote the researchers at the Centre for Evidence-Based and Translational Medicine based out of Wuhan.

Though the team, led by Wang Xinghuan, couched the study as "preliminary," with more work needed to be done to develop concrete findings.

Related:
Coronavirus: 2020-03-16 Coronavirus: EU to suspend all non-essential foreign arrivals to halt pandemic spread
Coronavirus: 2020-03-16 Iran goes from threatening ‘isolation from world of Islam’ to requesting India’s help to fight Coronavirus
Coronavirus: 2020-03-16 Good morning

Coronavirus bailout to cost more than $1 trillion, Mnuchin says
[NYPOST] A stimulus package to save the US economy from the ravages of the coronavirus
...the twenty first century equivalent of bubonic plague, only instead of killing off a third of the population of Europe it kills 3.4 percent of those who notice they have it. It seems to be fond of the elderly, especially Iranian politicians and holy men...
 is expected to soar beyond $1 trillion, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said Tuesday.

The bailout will include direct checks to Americans facing financial hardship, which is expected to cost $250 billion, as well as loans for small businesses and entire industries facing the brunt of the economic downturn.

"I know there’s been some rumors of the number. It is a big number," Mnuchin said after a luncheon with Republican senators on Capitol Hill.

"This is a very unique situation for this economy. We’ve put a proposal on the table that would inject a trillion dollars into the economy that is on top of the $300 billion from the IRS
...the Internal Revenue Service; that office of the United States government that collects taxes and persecutes the regime's political enemies...
 deferrals," he said.

At least $50 billion would be directed to the airline industry which has been devastated by travel restrictions in place around the globe.

The Senate has committed to staying in Washington until the stimulus package is passed and is preparing to sit through the weekend as the rest of the country goes into lock-down.

Comparatively, the bank bailout after the 2008 Great Recession, known as TARP, cost $700 million.

Conservative Republicans balked at the huge package which would further inflate the federal government deficit but said the COVID-19 health crisis was an unprecedented challenge.

Related:
Steven Mnuchin: 2020-03-14 Pelosi announces deal with Trump administration to pass coronavirus emergency legislation
Steven Mnuchin: 2020-02-28 US grants sanctions waiver to ease humanitarian trade to Iran
Steven Mnuchin: 2020-01-18 'I wouldn't go to war with you people. You're all LOSERS!' How Donald Trump insulted the military's most senior officers as 'dopes' prompting Rex Tillerson to call him a 'f***ing moron' is revealed in new book

The Jerusalem Post adds:
The US military is preparing to distribute more then 5 million protective masks and other equipment, according to Reuters. Already, some 1 million are ready and will be given to the military strategic reserves for government redistribution, US Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on Tuesday. US Defense Secretary Mark Esper told a news conference that the Pentagon would also be prepared to distribute up to 2,000 ventilators. He added that the US military's laboratories would additionally be made available to start carrying out coronavirus tests for civilians, increasing US testing capacity.

The Pentagon has also begun mobilizing US Navy hospital ships as part of the US Defense Department's plan to contain the domestic spread of the coronavirus, USNI News reported.

“We’ve already given orders to the Navy… to lean forward in terms of getting them ready to deploy,” Esper said Tuesday, the report stated.
Posted by:trailing wife

#12  Lex

Unfortunately the Diamond Princess isn't a good example, because people didn't stay in quarantine long enough on board to get all infected.

That's the thing with exponential curves. They stay quite flat for a number of days until they explode. Without protective measures, within two months, at least two thirds would have been infected (this is the point when herd immunity kicks in).

You just don't think much of a 30% growth per day when the number goes 10 - 13 - 16 - 20...

The "natural limit to how many people can be infected" (provided that a person who got it and survived can't get infected again) stands at approx. 70%.

Let's also stress the fact that we don't know enough about the virus.

But if we don't flatten the curve now hospitals WILL get overwhelmed and this means not only the number of COVID19 deaths will shoot up, also the number of people who die from other illnesses, as they no longer can be properly attended to.

Posted by: European Conservative   2020-03-18 21:06  

#11   Most of the Americans on the Diamond Princess got the Gilead drug intravenously while on board.

That would change our understanding of the numbers, lord garth.
Posted by: trailing wife   2020-03-18 19:21  

#10  Most of the Americans on the Diamond Princess got the Gilead drug intravenously while on board. all of them got better. Just learned that.
Posted by: lord garth   2020-03-18 18:19  

#9  Points made about the Diamond Princess are very interesting and helpful.
Posted by: Tom   2020-03-18 13:32  

#8  For EC: Reuters Stealth-Edits Debunked Story Claiming Trump Sought ‘Monopoly’ on COVID-19 Vaccine
Posted by: Frank G   2020-03-18 11:31  

#7  Not so, EC. In modern societies there is a natural limit to how many people can be infected. If your logic were correct, that entire cruise ship, the Diamond Princess, would surely have been infected. Even there, in the most ideal transmission conditions imaginable - thousands in closed quarters, sharing single crowded dining area, with central ventilation systems - even there the infection rate only reached twenty percent!

Listen to Nobel Laureate and Stanford Biophysicist Michael Levitt:

Nobel laureate Michael Levitt, an American-British-Israeli biophysicist who teaches structural biology at Stanford University and spends much of his time in Tel Aviv, unexpectedly became a household name in China, offering the public reassurance during the peak of the country’s coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak. Levitt did not discover a treatment or a cure, just did what he does best: crunched the numbers. The statistics led him to the conclusion that, contrary to the grim forecasts being branded about, the spread of the virus will come to a halt.

Coronavirus: Five Reasons for Optimism >>
Don’t Panic, the Sky Won’t Fall, Says Mellanox CEO >>

The calming messages Levitt sent to his friends in China were translated into Chinese and passed from person to person, making him a popular subject for interviews in the Asian nation. His forecasts turned out to be correct: the number of new cases reported each day started to fall as of February 7. A week later, the mortality rate started falling as well.

Levitt received his Nobel prize for chemistry in 2013 for "the development of multiscale models for complex chemical systems." He did not in any way intend to be a prophet foretelling the end of a plague; it happened by accident. His wife Shoshan Brosh is a researcher of Chinese art and a curator for local photographers, meaning the couple splits their time between the U.S., Israel, and China.

When the pandemic broke out, Brosh wrote to friends in China to support them. “When they answered us, describing how complicated their situation was, I decided to take a deeper look at the numbers in the hope of reaching some conclusion,” Levitt explained. “The rate of infection of the virus in the Hubei province increased by 30% each day—that is a scary statistic. I am not an influenza expert but I can analyze numbers and that is exponential growth.” At this rate, the entire world should have been infected within 90 days, he said.

But then, the trend changed. When Levitt started analyzing the data on February 1, Hubei had 1,800 new cases each day and within six days this number reached 4,700, he said. “And then, on February 7, the number of new infections started to drop linearly and did not stop. A week later, the same happened with the number of the deaths. This dramatic change in the curve marked the median point and enabled better prediction of when the pandemic will end. Based on that, I concluded that the situation in all of China will improve within two weeks. And, indeed, now there are very few new infection cases.”

...
The messages his friends translated quickly made waves in China and people wanting to make sure he did indeed write the information attributed to him started contacting Levitt. “That is how I knew I needed to continue,” he said. “I could have said, yes, that’s what I said,’ and left it at that.”
New numbers were being reported every day by various entities, such as the World Health Organization (WHO). Levitt started sending regular reports to his Chinese friends, and their popularity led to interviews on Chinese television, for example on CNN-equivalent CGTN. Based on the diminishing number of infection cases and deaths, he said, the virus will probably disappear from China by the end of March.

Initially, Levitt said, every coronavirus patient in China infected on average 2.2 people a day—spelling exponential growth that can only lead to disaster.... When discussing diseases, it frightens people a lot because they keep hearing about new cases every day. But the fact that the infection rate is slowing down means the end of the pandemic is near.”

There are several reasons for this, according to Levitt. “In exponential growth models, you assume that new people can be infected every day, because you keep meeting new people. But, if you consider your own social circle, you basically meet the same people every day. You can meet new people on public transportation, for example; but even on the bus, after some time most passengers will either be infected or immune.”

Another reason the infection rate has slowed has to do with the physical distance guidelines.

“You don’t hug every person you meet on the street now, and you’ll avoid meeting face to face with someone that has a cold, like we did,” Levitt said. “The more you adhere, the more you can keep infection in check. So, under these circumstances, a carrier will only infect 1.5 people every three days and the rate will keep going down.”
Posted by: Lex   2020-03-18 10:13  

#6  Neither WHO nor CDC has made a statement about people taking quinine yet as a treatment or prophylactic.

Research paper was made public on 13 March. Lots of analysis in past two days and even some new clinical information (generally positive).

and, yes, I bought some tonic water yesterday and had some tonic, cranberry and vodka with supper



Posted by: lord garth   2020-03-18 10:00  

#5   I thought this was a pandemic -- you know, the kind that takes tens of millions of lives.

Not all pandemics are equally virulent, Lex. Wikipedia has an interesting article on the subject here.
Posted by: trailing wife   2020-03-18 08:46  

#4  And the world's leaders are destroying the global economy and potentially ruining a BILLION young people's lives in order to save... a few thousand old folks?

The current economy is based on China producing 90% of everything. This is war to divest from China.
USA can do it, the way you did war materials production in WWII.
Just imagine a bunch of Greta-freaks gathering to protest a new industrial complex and being arrested under the limitations on public gathering rules! In fact, since these are the psychos who want to live forever - they'll, most likely, to protest from home on Twitter.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2020-03-18 05:57  

#3  I think the KungFlu will be hard pressed to get above normal flu
Posted by: Bright Pebbles   2020-03-18 05:41  

#2  "There is no curve imaginable that gets us from 4 to 8 digits within weeks or months-- or even years. "

Lex, the exponential curve is a bitch. With a daily growth rate of 25% (and this is what countries without strict measures are seeing now, you get into millions within a month.
Posted by: European Conservative   2020-03-18 03:59  

#1  Huh? Four digits?!

I thought this was a pandemic -- you know, the kind that takes tens of millions of lives.

Which would be counted with not four but EIGHT DIGITS. There is no curve imaginable that gets us from 4 to 8 digits within weeks or months-- or even years.

And the world's leaders are destroying the global economy and potentially ruining a BILLION young people's lives in order to save... a few thousand old folks?

Has the world gone insane?
Posted by: Lex   2020-03-18 02:57  

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