You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
Coronaplague Roundup
2020-03-23


Merkel Quarantined After Contact with Doctor Infected by Coronavirus
[BREITBART] Germany’s Angela Merkel
...chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as Mom. Now they make faces at her for inundating the country with Moslem colonists...
has gone self-quarantined in her home after contact with a doctor infected by the Wuhan 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...
Steffen Seibert, a front man for Merkel’s government ‐ at present a so-called "grand coalition" between her notionally centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the left-wing Social Democrats; roughly equivalent to a Tory-Labour or Republican-Democrat joint administration ‐ told news hounds that a doctor who administered a pneumococcal vaccine to the Chancellor on Friday had subsequently tested positive for the Chinese virus.

Consequently, the 65-year-old politician has been quarantined, apparently voluntarily, where she will continue to work while receiving regular tests, according to CNBC.


Rand Paul tests positive for coronavirus
[Daily Mail, Where America Gets Its News] Republican from Kentucky becomes first U.S. senator to be infected and reveals he didn't have any symptoms


Seven-month-old boy becomes youngest in the U.S. to test positive for Chinese Plague
Mom shares pictures of her sick boy in hospital and slams experts who said children aren't at risk
[Daily Mail, Where America Gets Its News]
  • Courtney Watts Doster got her son Emmett tested Monday and results Tuesday returned a positive result

  • The seven-month-old has pneumonia, the most severe form of the virus

  • Doster's mother was unknowingly carrying the virus before they knew Emmett had it and was in contact with the child

  • Medical experts were unsure whether Emmett could be tested the same way as adults

  • 'We were told that this virus wasn't affecting small children so "no need to worry"! How wrong were they?!' she posted on Facebook

  • Emmett is doing better but she worries he could take a turn for the worse

  • She has urged people to stay home and not take their kids on play dates


S.Korea reports 98 more COVID-19 cases, 8,897 in total
[XINHUANET] South Korea reported 98 more cases of the COVID-19 compared to 24 hours ago as of midnight Sunday local time, raising the total number of infections to 8,897.

The newly confirmed cases fell below 100 again, after recording 147 on Saturday. The figure moved above or below 100 for the past week.

Two more deaths were confirmed, lifting the corpse count to 104. The total fatality rate came in at 1.17 percent.

A total of 297 more patients were discharged from quarantine after making full recovery, pulling up the combined number to 2,909. The number of recoveries kept surpassing new infections.


Number of coronavirus cases in Spain rises to 28,572
[XinHoa] Close to 400 new deaths were registered on Sunday, bringing the total death toll to 1,720. Meanwhile, 2,575 people have recovered from the disease. The health ministry also confirmed that 3,475 health workers have been infected by the coronavirus.

Canadian doctor turns one ventilator into nine with some 'evil genius' DIY mechanics - winning fans, including Elon Musk

It’s Barack Obama's Fault There’s a Shortage of N95 Respirator Masks
[PJMedia] Back in 2005, the Bush administration published the “National Strategy for Pandemic Influenza.” The strategy called for plans to distribute medical supplies from the national stockpile and to assist state and local efforts to handle an outbreak, but last month, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told Congress that the national stockpile of N95 respirator masks was 12 million—a mere fraction of the 1.7 billion masks government scientists estimated back in 2015 would be needed in the event of a severe flu outbreak.

Buried several paragraphs deep in the aforementioned Bloomberg story we find out that “after the H1N1 influenza outbreak in 2009, which triggered a nationwide shortage of masks and caused a 2- to 3-year backlog orders for the N95 variety, the stockpile distributed about three-quarters of its inventory and didn’t build back the supply.”

Change in U.S. law will make millions more masks available to doctors and nurses, White House says
[JewishWorldReview] New legislation signed Wednesday provides manufacturers of N95 face masks protection against lawsuits when selling certain masks to healthcare workers, Pence said. That will free producers including 3M and Honeywell to sell tens of millions more masks per month to hospitals, Pence said, helping alleviate alarming shortages that have surfaced in recent weeks amid the coronavirus crisis.

"They are available now," Pence said when asked when the extra masks would hit the market.

The change means Minnesota-based 3M will now be free to sell 420 million masks a year to the U.S. healthcare sector, Pence said. And Honeywell of Charlotte, North Carolina, will soon boost N95 mask output in the U.S. by an additional 120 million masks per year, Pence said.

Gaza reports first two COVID-19 cases
[XINHUANET]

Number of confirmed COVID-19 cases reaches 534 in Pakistan
[XINHUANET]

Domino's hiring 10,000 employees amid coronavirus demand surge
[Fox Business]






Coronavirus: Emirates to cut wages
[MIDDLEEASTMONITOR] Emirates, one of the world’s biggest international airlines, will ground its entire passenger fleet this week and cut staff wages by as much as half because 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...
and its impact on travel demand, Rooters report.

The state-owned Dubai carrier had already announced the suspension of nearly 70% of its network, asked staff to go on unpaid leave and frozen recruitment as the industry faces one of its biggest ever challenges.

"As a global network airline, we find ourselves in a situation where we cannot viably operate passenger services until countries reopen their borders and travel confidence returns," Emirates Chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed al-Maktoum said in a statement.







Governor Cuomo slams 'arrogant and insensitive' New Yorkers for going outside
[DailyMail] ...warns 80% of the state will be infected and orders FOUR hospitals for 1,000 coronavirus patients to be built inside the Javits Center

US airlines warn of 'draconian' measures and widespread layoffs
[DailyMail]...if Congress fails to help save the airline industry and support its 750,000 employees
Posted by:Fred

#10  This could be a good addition to the roundup on a daily basis:

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/coronavirus/
Posted by: M. Murcek   2020-03-23 20:21  

#9  2 mask tidbits for your consideration: Friday the French gov’t commandeered all the masks and gowns from all French manufacturers. unknown if reimbursement was coming.
In Seattle, Target had shelves of n95 masks displayed; some body in the gov’t saw them and the state now owns them. some reports say donated, some say commandeered. social comments are shaming target.

Posted by: USN, Ret.   2020-03-23 12:53  

#8  NY to begin quinine tests on real patients

https://dailycaller.com/2020/03/22/chloroquine-hydroxychloroquine-trials-coronavirus/
Posted by: lord garth   2020-03-23 12:23  

#7  ^Could be. Or could be they have a new flare up and need an excuse.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2020-03-23 11:45  

#6  When mutations come home to roost.

Beijing's leading doctor warns of a NEW coronavirus outbreak in China after the country reported its first case of someone 'catching the illness from a person returning from abroad'
Posted by: Skidmark   2020-03-23 11:42  

#5  In Israel we've a premature baby with coronavirus
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2020-03-23 09:50  

#4  Too bad about the little kid.
Posted by: Skidmark   2020-03-23 09:43  

#3  I have finally realized that the USA report on a day's Wu situation really isn't complete until about 9am the next morning.

Assuming it is now a complete report, the USA situation is a bit different that what I had expected.

As expected, the number of cases went way up, by about 12k to 33.5k. This was expected because of the increased testing (probably more than 50k people were tested).

What I hadn't expected was the big increase in deaths which went up by 117 to 419. The percentage increase in deaths was thus slightly greater than the increase in cases. This reversed the trend of the previous two weeks. I think this is due to a number of deaths in NY from an infection incident about a week ago.
Posted by: lord garth   2020-03-23 09:05  

#2  Coronavirus is not the only deadly disease
Posted by: g(r)omgoru   2020-03-23 03:04  

#1  some of the situations that deserve to be studied are:

Czech Republic: about 1500 infections, one death
Iceland: about 600 infections, no deaths
Israel: about 1000 infections, one death

I was able to determine that Iceland has already run something like 100,000 tests so the reported infections might actually be false positives
Posted by: lord garth   2020-03-23 00:15  

00:00