The Covid-19 Thread: News, Preparation Tips, Etc

Laela

Sidestepping the "lynch mob"
Hmmm...

Harvard scientist predicts coronavirus will infect up to 70 percent of humanity
Tim O'Donnell
The Week•February 24, 2020



Harvard University epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch is predicting the coronavirus "will ultimately not be containable" and, within a year, will infect somewhere between 40 and 70 percent of humanity, The Atlantic reports. But don't be too alarmed. Many of those people, Lipsitch clarifies, won't have severe illnesses or even show symptoms at all, which is already the case for many people who have tested positive for the virus.

That's precisely why he doesn't think the virus can be stopped. Viruses like SARS, MERS, and the avian flu were eventually contained in part because they were more intense and had a higher fatality rate. In other words, if you were infected by the virus that caused SARS, chances were you weren't out and about. But because the current coronavirus, known as COVID-19, can be asymptomatic, or at least very mild, there's a better chance people will likely go about their day as normal. The down side, though, is that it becomes harder to trace and prevent. In that sense it's similar to the flu, which can also be deadly, but often passes without the infected person seeking medical care.

The Atlantic reports Lipsitch is definitely not alone in his prediction. There's an emerging consensus that the outbreak will eventually morph into a new seasonal disease, which, per The Atlantic, could one day turn "cold and flu season" into "cold and flu and COVID-19 season." Read more at The Atlantic.
 

Black Ambrosia

Well-Known Member
Shadowy Church Is at Center of Coronavirus Outbreak in South Korea
By Choe Sang-Hun

Feb. 21, 2020
As the country’s infection numbers soar, most cases have been connected to the Shincheonji Church of Jesus, which mainstream churches consider a cult.


Spraying disinfectant in front of the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in Daegu, South Korea, on Thursday.Kim Jun-Beom/Yonhap, via Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea — At meetings of the secretive Shincheonji Church of Jesus, worshipers sit packed together on the floor, forbidden to wear glasses — or face masks. They come to church even when sick, former members say. After services, they split up into groups for Bible study, or to go out into the streets and proselytize.

After the first coronavirus infection was reported among its members, they were told to lie about being followers, though the church later said that was not its policy.

Now, health officials are zeroing in on the church’s practices as they seek to contain South Korea’s alarming coronavirus outbreak, in which members of Shincheonji, along with their relatives and others who got the virus from them, account for more than half of the confirmed infections. On Saturday, the number of cases in the country soared to 346 — second only to mainland China, if the outbreak on the Diamond Princess cruise ship is excluded from Japan’s count.

More than 1,250 other church members have reported potential symptoms, health officials said, raising the possibility that the nation’s caseload could soon skyrocket further. In response, the government is shutting down thousands of day-care facilities, nursing homes and community centers, even banning the outdoor political rallies that are a feature of life in downtown Seoul.

As of Saturday, more than 700 members of Shincheonji, which mainstream South Korean churches consider a cult, still could not be reached, according to health officials, who were frantically hoping to screen them for signs of infection.

“Shincheonji members know of their bad image and they usually hide their affiliation from nonchurch members, even from their parents,” said Hwang Eui-jong, a pastor who has researched the church. “No wonder many of them are unreachable. They must be huddled together somewhere, praying that this will eventually go away.”

The snowballing outbreak among the church’s followers is testing South Korea’s health care system, which successfully tamed a deadly outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome in 2015. Experts on South Korean religious sects and former members of the church said its practices made its members unusually vulnerable to contagious diseases.

“Unlike other churches, Shincheonji makes its members sit on the floor tightly together during services, in neat, militarylike ranks and files,” said Lee Ho-yeon, who left the church in 2015. “We were not supposed to have anything on our faces, like glasses or masks. We were trained to sing our hymns loudly.”

“We were taught not to be afraid of illness,” Ms. Lee said. “We were taught not to care about such worldly things like jobs, ambition or passion. Everything was focused on proselytizing, even when we were sick.”

The outbreak has struck hardest at Shincheonji’s church in Daegu, a city of about 2.5 million in the country’s southeast, where a 61-year-old woman known as Patient No. 31 is believed to be a link between many of the cases. The restrictions on public gatherings have been implemented more forcefully in Daegu than elsewhere in the country.

Patient No. 31 checked into a small Daegu hospital on Feb. 7, after a minor traffic accident. The next day, she complained of a sore throat. The day after that — a Sunday — she attended a Shincheonji church service, health officials say.

She developed a fever the next day, one that lingered, and she stayed in the hospital. Still, she slipped out the following Sunday to go to church again. At least 1,000 Shincheonji members attended one of those two Sunday services, officials said.

At least twice, doctors recommended that the woman transfer to a bigger hospital to be tested for the coronavirus, but she refused, health officials said. She insisted that she had not visited China in recent months, nor had she met anyone known to have the virus.

Finally, on Monday, she felt sick enough to check into a government-run clinic for a coronavirus test. On Tuesday, she was confirmed to be infected.

“Her behavior is not surprising to people familiar with the church,” said Chung Yun-seok, an expert on religious cults who runs the website Christian Portal News. “To them, getting sick is a sin because it prevents them from doing God’s work.”

The church dismissed criticism of its practices on Friday, calling it “slandering based on the prejudices among the established churches.” It said its members sat close together on the floor because local authorities would not give it permits to build bigger churches.

Health officials were still trying to figure out how Patient No. 31 contracted the disease. Mr. Hwang noted that the church had been proselytizing among ethnic Koreans in northeastern China, many of whom it invited to South Korea.

Jung Eun-kyeong, director of the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the authorities were investigating reports that Shincheonji had operations in Hubei, the Chinese province that includes Wuhan, where the virus emerged. The South Korean news agency Newsis reported on Friday that Shincheonji had opened a church in Wuhan last year, and that references to it had been removed from the church’s website. Church officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

South Korean officials learned that Patient No. 31 had visited Cheongdo, a county near Daegu, in early February. As of Saturday, 108 patients and medical staff at a Cheongdo hospital had tested positive for the coronavirus; two of them died this week.

Cheongdo is the birthplace of Lee Man-hee, the 88-year-old self-styled messiah who founded Shincheonji, and followers regularly go on pilgrimages there and do volunteer work. Church members are also believed to have attended the funeral of Mr. Lee’s brother in Cheongdo in early February.

On Friday, Newsis quoted Patient No. 31 as saying that she had not visited the hospital or attended the funeral, but that she had used a public bathhouse while in Cheongdo.

“We need a thorough investigation of the people who attended the church services and the funeral,” President Moon Jae-in said on Friday while presiding over an emergency meeting on the outbreak.

After the case of Patient No. 31 was first reported, social media messages went out to Shincheonji members telling them to continue their evangelical work in small groups. The messages also told members that if officials asked, they should deny that they belonged to the church or went to its services.

But the church later said those messages did not reflect its official policy, and that it had disciplined the person who sent them out.

On Friday, Mr. Lee urged his members to “follow the government’s instructions,” asking them to avoid gatherings and take their proselytizing online.

“This disease outbreak is the work of the devil, which is hellbent on stopping the rapid growth of the Shincheonji,” he said in a message to his followers.

South Korea has long been fertile ground for unorthodox religious groups, some of which have amassed enormous wealth and influence. After an overloaded ferry sank in 2014, killing more than 300 people, South Koreans were shocked to learn that the ferry company was controlled by a religious leader who had been shunned as a heretic by mainstream churches.

Shincheonji claims 150,000 members and has 12 congregations in South Korea. It also has many smaller operations, which present themselves as cafes or churches of other denominations and are used for proselytizing, said Mr. Chung.

Shincheonji has long been criticized for its aggressive evangelical work. Many mainstream churches post signs warning undercover Shincheonji missionaries not to try to infiltrate their congregations.

Members of Shincheonji have recently targeted young South Koreans, offering them free tarot readings, personality tests and foreign-language classes, according to Mr. Hwang.

Moon Yoo-ja, 60, who spent years trying to “rescue” her daughter from the church, accused Shincheonji of ruining many families.

“Once they fall into the trap of the church, they often abandon school and jobs,” Ms. Moon said. “Some housewives packed up and joined the church, abandoning their husbands and children.”

Hwang Gui-hag, editor in chief of the Seoul-based Law Times, which specializes in religious news, cautioned against focusing too much on Shincheonji’s practices, some of which he said could be found in other South Korean churches.

“This is essentially not a religious issue, but a medical and health issue,” Mr. Hwang said. “If we pay too much attention to religion, we miss the point. How would you explain the huge outbreak in Wuhan, China, which is not really caused by any church?”
 

Chicoro

5 Year Shea Anniversary: Started Dec 16th, 2016!
@5:43 minute in video:
from the book by Dean Koontz, The Eyes of Darkness: This book is about a biological weapon that was created.

"In around 2020, a severe pneumonia like illness will spread throughout the globe, attacking the lungs and bronchial tubes and resisting all known treatments. Almost more baffling than the illness itself, it will suddenly vanish, as quickly as it arrived, attack again 10 years later and disappear completely."

Page 333 or 355 (I can't see the page number.)

"[...] It was around then that a Chinese scientist named Li Chen defected to the United States, carrying a diskette record of China's most important and dangerous new biological weapon in a decade. They call the stuff 'Wuhan-400' because it was developed at their RDNA labs, outside the city of Wuhan, and it was the 400-th viable strain of man made microorganisms created at the research center.

Wuhan-400 is a perfect weapon." [...]

( I don't have this particular book.)



No, Dean Koontz did not predict coronavirus in 1981 thriller novel
https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/no-dea...-coronavirus-in-1981-thriller-novel-1.4822194

TORONTO -- A passage from author Dean Koontz’s 1981 fictional novel “The Eyes of Darkness” has gone viral for purportedly predicting the real-world outbreak of the novel coronavirus.

Segments of the novel have been shared widely on social media over the last week, showing eerie similarities between the COVID-19 virus and the book’s fictional outbreak called “Wuhan-400.”

“They call the stuff Wuhan-400 because it was developed at their RDNA labs outside of the city of Wuhan,” reads a passage from the book, which can be seen on Amazon’s preview of the paperback edition of the novel published in December 2008.


Full coverage CTVNews.ca/Coronavirus

No, Dean Koontz did not predict coronavirus in 1981 thriller novel

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Canadians are Googling coronavirus more than anyone else in the world: report

Man quarantined for 14 days on military base warns new evacuees: 'It's not fun'

IATA: Virus may slash US$29 billion from airlines' revenue

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COVID-19 cases rise in South Korea, China as outbreak spreads

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While the novel includes mention of Wuhan, China, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak, the book’s fictionalized outbreak is far from reality.

For starters, the “Wuhan-400” virus from the novel is a human-made biological weapon. The coronavirus is not, despite online rumours suggesting the new virus was created in a lab early on in the outbreak.

Fact-checking website Snopes points out that in the novel, the “Wuhan-400” virus had a 100 per cent fatality rate, whereas the current coronavirus fatality rate sits at about two per cent.

The fact-checking website also notes that while the 2008 publication of the book mentions Wuhan, other iterations of the book used a different name for the fictional weapon.

“When we searched a 1981 edition of this book available via Google Books we found no references to “Wuhan.” In that edition, this biological weapon is called “Gorki-400” after the Russian city where it was created,” reads the Snopes investigation.

“We’re not entirely sure when or why this change occurred. From what we can tell, the biological weapon was originally called ‘Gorki-400’ when this book was published in 1981. But by 2008, the name had been changed to ‘Wuhan-400.’”

CTVNews.ca has contacted the publisher for comment on the matter.
 
Last edited:

MamaBear2012

Well-Known Member
Health Officials Warn Americans To Start Planning For Spread Of Coronavirus In U.S.
February 25, 20202:24 PM ET

ROB STEIN


TwitterFacebook


A woman, who declined to give her name, wears a mask in New York out of concern for the newly emerged coronavirus.

Mark Lennihan/AP
Federal health officials issued a blunt message Tuesday: Americans need to start preparing now for the possibility that more aggressive, disruptive measures might be needed to stop the spread of the new coronavirus in the U.S.

The strongly worded warning came in response to outbreaks of the virus outside China, including in Iran, Japan, South Korea and Italy, which officials say have raised the likelihood of outbreaks occurring stateside.

"It's not so much a question of if this will happen anymore, but more really a question of when it will happen — and how many people in this country will have severe illness," Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told reporters during a briefing.

The Coronavirus Outbreak
What you should know

Subscribe to Goats and Soda's newsletter for a weekly update on the outbreak.

While aggressive measures such as travel restrictions and the first federal quarantine in a half century have probably slowed the arrival of the coronavirus in the U.S., Messonnier said even more intrusive steps likely will be needed.

"We are asking the American public to work with us to prepare with the expectation that this could be bad," Messonnier said.

"I had a conversation with my family over breakfast this morning. And I told my children that while I didn't think that they were at risk right now, we, as a family, need to be preparing for significant disruption of our lives," she said.

Those measures could include school closings, workplace shutdowns and canceling large gatherings and public events, she warned.

"I understand this whole situation may seem overwhelming and that disruption to everyday life may be severe, but these are things that people need to start thinking about now," Messonnier said.

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GOATS AND SODA
Face Masks: What Doctors Say About Their Role In Containing Coronavirus

So Americans need to do things like start making plans to care for their children should schools and day care centers close, she said. They should talk to their employers about how they could work from home. And they should find out if there might be a way to get medical care remotely, such as through telemedicine, Messonnier said.

She stressed that the current risk remains low. Almost all the cases that have occurred in the United States have been among travelers who got infected overseas.

In addition, there's always the chance that the coronavirus could begin to subside as the spring and summer arrive.

But because there are so many unknowns, state and local officials and average Americans need to be prepared, she said.

"I continue to hope that in the end we'll look back and feel like we were overprepared. But that is a better place to be in than being underprepared," Messonnier said.
 

Black Ambrosia

Well-Known Member
Netflix, Zoom, And Clorox Shares Rise While Markets Swing Wildly Amid Coronavirus Fears

Topline: As global markets continued to reel on Wednesday, losing half a percentage point after the CDC warned that Americans should brace for major disruptions caused by the spreading coronavirus, these three stocks are bucking the bearish trend and could be headed for major gains if the global outbreak continues to worsen.

Zoom: The videoconference software maker, which offers a suite of products designed to make remote work easier, gained 5% this week, ending the trading day on Wednesday at a share price of $106.88, a new all-time high.

Investors will be watching Zoom carefully in the lead-up to its earnings report early next month to see if the company’s management will address any boost it may have seen as a result of the coronavirus threat.

Netflix: After falling with the rest of the market on Tuesday, the streaming giant made a major comeback Wednesday morning, rising 4.8% to a price of $377.59 per share and holding relatively steady.

Year to date, Netflix has seen its stock grow by more than 15%; it’s been bolstered by significant gains in international subscribers.

Clorox: Shares of this consumer staple, which makes personal care products and trashbags in addition to bleaches and cleaners, have jumped 2% to $168 since the close of markets last week.

Clorox could see a boost as retailers stock up on products around coronavirus threats; CFO Kevin Jacobsen told investors earlier this month that the company is “taking up inventory levels to be prepared for the potential increase in demand for some of our bleach products.”

Big number: The Dow has lost more than 2,000 points, or 7%, over the last three trading days and the S&P 500 has fallen 7% from last week’s record high as investor fears over the global health crisis finally come to light in the market.

Key background: As the U.S. braces for what the CDC has warned will be a major public health event, businesses around the world are already feeling the crunch. Airline travel has taken a major hit, as have hotels and the entertainment industry in Asia. In a research note, UBS chief investment officer Mark Haefele suggested that investors looking to ride out the sell-off should consider “stay-at-home stocks—in sectors like e-commerce, gaming, and food delivery—which we would expect to see increased demand in case of quarantine measures.”

Crucial quote: “What’s unique about this downturn is its catalyst is not one that’s driven by financials, it’s driven by fear and anxiety,” says financial advisor Gregory Sarian, CEO of Sarian Strategic Partners. Sarian also notes that given the market’s relatively steady performance over the last 15 months, characterized by reliable growth in tech stocks like Google and Amazon, many investors may have been lulled into a “false sense of security” in advance of this week’s sell-off.

Tangent: Pharmaceutical stocks like Gilead Sciences, which began a clinical trial of an experimental coronavirus treatment this week, and Novavax, which reported “progress” in its own efforts to develop a vaccine, were also in the spotlight on Wednesday. The $94-billion (market cap) Gilead jumped 6.5%, and Novavax, which has a market cap of just under $300 million, saw a 15% boost.
 

Black Ambrosia

Well-Known Member
The Coronavirus Is Starting to Hit the U.S. Military

A 23-year-old U.S. soldier stationed in South Korea has become the first member of the U.S. military to become infected with coronavirus as the outbreak continues to escalate around the world.

The soldier, based at Camp Carroll near Daegu, is currently in self-quarantine at his off-base residence, the U.S. military said in a statement. It also revealed that the soldier had visited two other bases — Camp Walker and Camp Carroll — in recent days, and officials are now “conducting contact tracing to determine whether any others may have been exposed.”

The news of the infection comes a day after Americans said a military spouse in South Korea had contracted the virus.

This is a setback, it’s true, there’s no getting around that. But it’s not the end of the war,” Col. Edward Ballanco, commander of the U.S. Army Garrison Daegu, told troops in a video message. “We are very well equipped to fight this thing off.”

The U.S. military, which has 28,500 soldiers stationed in South Korea, has shut down amenities like bowling alleys and movie theaters on four American bases to limit the spread of the virus. The outbreak has also prompted the U.S. and South Korean military to scale back planned joint exercises.

Twenty members of the South Korean military have been confirmed as infected, with almost 10,000 troops in quarantine.

The scaled-back exercises mean the U.S. could “lose ground in being able to quickly conduct future operations in a coordinated and highly synchronized manner with South Korea against North Korea in the event of a crisis,” one official told CNN.

The soldier’s confirmed infection was one of almost 300 new cases reported in South Korea on Wednesday, bringing the total to over 1,200. There have been 12 deaths reported so far.

But, the number of confirmed infections in South Korea is likely to jump dramatically in the coming days, as medical officials begin testing about 210,000 followers of the Shincheonji religious sect, which is at the epicenter of South Korea’s outbreak.

While infection rates and death tolls in China have slowed, the virus is continuing to spread around the globe.

Like South Korea, Iran and Italy are grappling with significant outbreaks. Iran’s authorities confirmed at least 139 cases and 19 deaths. That’s far above the 1 percent to 2 percent fatality rate seen elsewhere, and public health experts fear that there are thousands of infections undetected in the country.

Despite the high death date, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said Wednesday that he would not quarantine cities to stop the spread of the virus.

In Italy, at least 357 people have been infected and 11 have died. The prime minister has called for calm, but infections are now being reported across the country, far from the epicenter in the Lombardy region in the north of the country.

And other countries continue to report their first cases, including Algeria, Croatia, mainland Spain, and Switzerland in the last 24 hours.
 

Layluh

Well-Known Member
There's definitely something they're not telling us. My man keeps telling me that the cdc sent out faulty detection kits which is why there are so few cases. Italys tests actually worked which is eighty there number is so high.

Apparently they've been scrambling to send out functioning tests. I have a feeling once they perform this new test that our numbers will skyrocket which is why theyre suddenly preparing us by telling us its going to get much worse.

Democracy Dies in Darkness
Health
A faulty CDC coronavirus test delays monitoring of disease’s spread
Experts fear the small number of U.S. covid-19 cases reflects limited testing rather than a lack of infections

This electron microscope image shows a lab-cultured coronavirus in yellow, emerging from the surface of cells colored blue and pink. (National Institutes of Health/AP)
By Carolyn Y. Johnson, Laurie McGinley and Lena H. Sun
February 25, 2020 at 1:00 PM EST
Problems with a government-created coronavirus test have limited the United States’ capacity to rapidly increase testing, just as the outbreak has entered a worrisome new phase in countries worldwide. Experts are increasingly concerned that the small number of U.S. cases may be a reflection of limited testing, not of the virus’s spread.

While South Korea has run more than 35,000 coronavirus tests, the United States has tested only 426 people, not including people who returned on evacuation flights. Only about a dozen state and local laboratories can now run tests outside of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta because the CDC kits sent out nationwide earlier this month included a faulty component.

U.S. guidelines recommend testing for a very narrow group of people — those who display respiratory symptoms and have recently traveled to China or had close contact with an infected person.




( and /The Washington Post)
But many public health experts think that in light of evidence that the disease has taken root and spread in Iran, Italy, Singapore and South Korea, it’s time to broaden testing in the United States. Infectious disease experts fear that aside from the 14 cases picked up by public health surveillance, there may be other undetected cases mixed in with those of colds and flu. What scares experts the most is that the virus is beginning to spread in countries outside China, but no one knows whether that’s the case in the United States, because they aren’t checking.

“Coronavirus testing kits have not been widely distributed to our hospitals and public health labs. Those without these kits must send samples all the way to Atlanta, rather than testing them on site, wasting precious time as the virus spreads,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.).

In a congressional hearing Tuesday, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) pressed Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar on whether the CDC test was faulty. He denied that the test did not work.


But in a news briefing that was going on about the same time, Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said that she was “frustrated” about problems with the test kits and that the CDC hoped to send out a new version to state and local health departments soon.

“I think we are close,” she said. She said that the agency is working as fast as possible on the tests, but that the priority is making sure they are accurate.

Currently, she said, a dozen state and local health departments can do the testing, although positive results need to be confirmed by the CDC. She also said she hoped that tests from commercial labs would soon come online.

Messonnier said the agency was weighing widening its testing protocols to include people traveling to the United States from countries beyond mainland China, considering the rapid spread of the virus in other places in recent days.


The nation’s public health laboratories, exasperated by the malfunctioning tests in the face of a global public health emergency, have taken the unusual step of appealing to the Food and Drug Administration for permission to develop and use their own tests. In Hawaii, authorities are so alarmed about the lack of testing ability that they requested permission from the CDC to use tests from Japan. A medical director at a hospital laboratory in Boston is developing an in-house test, but is frustrated that his laboratory won’t be able to use it without going through an onerous and time-consuming review process, even if demand surges.

“This is an extraordinary request, but this is an extraordinary time,” said Scott Becker, the chief executive of the Association of Public Health Laboratories, which is asking the FDA for permission to allow the laboratories to create and implement their own laboratory-developed tests.

At one hospital in the Mid-Atlantic region, a patient who recently returned from Singapore, which has 90 cases, was admitted to the hospital with mild upper respiratory symptoms, according to a hospital official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to protect the patient’s privacy. The patient tested negative for flu. Because of underlying medical conditions, the person was at higher risk for severe illness if this was a coronavirus infection.


Even though clinicians suspected coronavirus, and treated the person for it and placed the patient in isolation, the patient was not tested.

“If this person had returned from mainland China, they would have been tested for coronavirus,” the official said. The patient recovered and was discharged to their home.

Testing also affects other aspects of care.

People with confirmed cases can enroll in clinical trials for therapeutics. For patients who need more intense care in a facility with a biocontainment unit, that facility can receive reimbursement from the federal government for care, the official said.

The CDC announced a week and a half ago that it would add pilot coronavirus testing to its flu surveillance network in five cities, a step toward expanded testing of people with respiratory symptoms who didn’t have other obvious risk factors. Specimens that test negative for flu will be tested for coronavirus. But that expanded testing has been delayed because of an unspecified problem with one of the compounds used in the CDC test. About half of state labs got inconclusive results when using the compound, so the CDC said it would make a new version and redistribute it.


To public health experts, the delays — and lack of transparency about what, exactly, is wrong with the test — are extremely concerning.

“We have over 700 flights every month between Hawaii and Japan or South Korea,” where the virus is spreading in the community, said Hawaii Lt. Gov. Josh Green (D), who is also an emergency physician. It’s unlikely that the CDC would allow state labs to accept a test from another nation, he said, but “this is an exceptional circumstance.”

In a letter to the FDA, the Association of Public Health Laboratories, which represents state and local laboratories, asked the agency to use “enforcement discretion” to allow the laboratories to create and use their own laboratory-developed tests.

“While we appreciate the many efforts underway at CDC to provide a diagnostic assay to our member labs … this has proven challenging and we find ourselves in a situation that requires a quicker local response,” said the letter, which was co-signed by Becker. “We are now many weeks into the response with still no diagnostic or surveillance test available outside of CDC for the vast majority of our member laboratories.”


Because a public health emergency has been declared, certified hospital laboratories that usually have the ability to internally develop and validate their own tests can’t use them without applying for an “emergency use authorization,” a major barrier to deploying the test.

“I think a lot of people, myself included, think it’s very likely this virus might be circulating at low levels in the United States right now. We can’t know for sure because we haven’t seen it,” said Michael Mina, associate medical director of clinical microbiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He said the optimal testing scenario for flu is a 30-minute turnaround on a test, but right now, shipping samples to Atlanta to test for coronavirus means a 48-hour wait.

“A lot of hospitals are trying to do something similar, which is get a test up and running on an instrument, get it validated in-house,” Mina said. “I think all of us are coming to the same realization that we can’t do anything as long as this remains under the control of CDC and state labs.”


Marion Koopmans, a virologist at the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands, which has performed a few hundred tests on behalf of more than a dozen countries, said that developing a test for a new pathogen is complicated and involves refinement and a back-and-forth between researchers who are constantly learning from one another.

“That is typical for a new disease outbreak. No one actually knows how this works, so you really have to build these assays on the fly,” Koopmans said.

But as the United States struggled to ramp up its capacity, the coronavirus test was added to the sentinel flu surveillance system in the Netherlands two weeks ago. The test was recently rolled out to 12 high-performing molecular diagnostic laboratories in the Netherlands so that they can be ready to scale up if demand increases.


Part of the problem in the still-struggling United States is the tension between regulations intended to ensure a high-quality standard for tests and the need to roll out diagnostic capabilities very quickly. No test is perfect, and with high stakes for missing or misidentifying a case, public health officials want to make sure that tests are as accurate as possible and are validated by labs that run them. But the slowness may also reflect years of underinvestment in public health infrastructure — and a bias toward developing treatments that may seem more appealing to the public.

“The public health system is not sufficiently built to surge very rapidly,” said Luciana Borio, the former director of Medical and Biodefense Preparedness Policy at the National Security Council and now a vice president at In-Q-Tel, a strategic investor that supports the U.S. intelligence community. “Over the years, when given limited dollars, we applied it toward vaccines and therapeutics, more so than diagnostic tests. I think there’s this idea: The diagnostic test is not going to save my life. But the fact is they underpin so much of the response and deserve a lot more attention.”

Read More:

The biggest questions about the new coronavirus and what we know so far

Inside a lab where scientists are working urgently to fight the coronavirus outbreak

Most coronavirus cases are mild, complicating the response


What you need to know about coronavirus
Updated February 26, 2020
The latest: President Trump announced that Vice President Pence will be in charge of coronavirus response and attempted to reassure the public amid worries about a growing health crisis. Here’s how to prepare for coronavirus in the U.S. (Step 1: Don’t panic).

Coronaviruses are a large family of viruses whose effects range from causing the common cold to triggering much more serious diseases, such as severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS. Here are the biggest questions surrounding the virus.

Mapping the spread of the new coronavirus: More than 30 countries have reported at least one case of novel coronavirus since it originated in Wuhan, China.

How does the coronavirus make people sick, and why does it kill some of them? When people die of the coronavirus, it’s not just the virus that kills them — it’s their own immune system.

What do you want to know about coronavirus? Let us know here.

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Carolyn Y. Johnson
Carolyn Johnson is a science reporter. She previously covered the business of health and the affordability of health care to consumers. Follow
Laurie McGinley
Laurie McGinley covers health and medicine for The Washington Post. She focuses on the Food and Drug Administration as well as cancer research and treatment. She was previously The Post's health, science and environment editor. Follow
Lena Sun
Lena H. Sun is a national reporter for The Washington Post covering health with a special focus on public health and infectious disease. A longtime reporter at The Post, she has covered the Metro transit system, immigration, education and was a Beijing bureau chief. Follow

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vevster

Well-Known Member
I was concerned before, but now I'm really getting scared about the spread of this virus. I work at a popular hotel, and have contact with a good number of people on a daily basis. Is the N95 mask the best, most preventative mask out there? Can I order them online? What brands are good?
There is more in the podcast I just posted, but the virus is spread by COUGHS and surfaces. Wash your hands often and don't touch your face. Watch handles.....
 

UmSumayyah

Well-Known Member
I was concerned before, but now I'm really getting scared about the spread of this virus. I work at a popular hotel, and have contact with a good number of people on a daily basis. Is the N95 mask the best, most preventative mask out there? Can I order them online? What brands are good?

Clorox wipe handles, knobs, phones, desk surfaces etc.

You may want to take low doses of C and elderberry as a preventative.

Eat well and rest. The healthy are apparently at low risk of serious effects.
 

Ms. Tarabotti

Well-Known Member
I keep hearing that most masks will not protect you from this virus, they just protect others from you spreading your germs when you sneeze or cough. The N95 mask seems to work better but it has to be fitted correctly which is something that I doubt most people know how to do. And don't a lot of people in China wear face masks because of the bad air quality over there? Still hundreds of people managed to become infected.

America still has a little time before this becomes an epidemic in this country so individual preparation should start now. Start getting food and medical supplies together as you would for in case there was a winter storm, hurricane, or tornado (or whatever weather phenomenon is local to your part of the world). You probably won't be evacuated anywhere but quarantined in your residence so get an amount that can comfortably fit in your residence. Deliveries might be disrupted so you need to plan accordingly ( eat/drink just enough to get through the day, rationing so your food supply can last longer). If you have children/elderly adults in your family, look into ways that you can provide for their needs. Get your financial and other records in order and keep some cash on hand in case the banks are shut down. Treat this as an emergency situation that may or may not happen, Hope for the best but prepare for the worst.
 

ScorpioBeauty09

Well-Known Member
I think the fear about coronavirus is worse than the actual condition. The CDC said they do not recommend people with no symptoms wear face masks to prevent spread. Rather face masks should be worn by people with symptoms or those who come in contact with people who may be sick, like doctors, nurses or in-home caregivers. People need to wash their hands, carry alcohol-based sanitizer with them (I always do), stay home if they are sick, make sure surfaces are wiped clean, sneeze into your elbow.

Most of the people who die from this are elderly, I mean over 80 and/or they have some other chronic disease. The big concern is the global economy. There's an article on the Guardian saying this could cause a recession greater than in 2008. We are already years overdue for one. We never really recovered from that so another recession would make things much worse.
 

Jmartjrmd

Well-Known Member
If they call for a quarantine I will have food for the family.

If food supply lines are disrupted due to sick farmers, truckers and warehouse employees we still eat.

If lines are fine then no problem, rice and beans last for years.
Yes girl. My camp is going this weekend to stock up on water and food. Gotta get my meds refilled too.

And thank God my sister and my nursing friends work in the hospital they lifted a supply of n95 masks for me before the hospital starts stashing them away.
 
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