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

Black Ambrosia

Well-Known Member
Someone I know who is a bus driver driver in NY is still working even though someone in his household obviously has the virus. The person has most of the symptoms including loss of taste and GI problems and he is still driving the bus everyday then going home.
GI problems are a symptom? Diarrhea?
 

meka72

Well-Known Member
Couple hosts anniversary party following CDC recommendations, husband contracts COVID-19 | abc13.com

"That was our mistake. We thought we were okay because we had less than 10 people. But no, don't have anyone in your house."






HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- "All we literally did that day was a fist bump, and he was gone," said Kim Gagne.

A fist bump was the last simple touch between a husband and wife of 27 years. Kim Gagne thought her husband, Emilian White, would just get checked out and get tested for the virus but she says, "It went from 0 to 100 quickly."

He had to be rolled away as soon as possible.

"I didn't know what was happening," she said via Facetime.

She hasn't seen him since Tuesday and has only talked to him by phone. Now, she and their children are in quarantine at home.

These past few days have been unimaginable as she wonders when and if she will see Emilian again.

"He's getting better, but, when they took him for a scan, the minute they took the oxygen off, it becomes very difficult to breathe," she said.

This past Friday they were celebrating their anniversary by having a small dinner with a couple friends. Then, over the weekend is when he started feeling ill.

He had a fever. Gagne says you just don't know who's sick and doesn't know it.

"We had people over and that was our mistake. We thought we were okay because we had less than 10 people. But no, don't have anyone in your house," she said.

It's a double-whammy for Gagne because her elderly mother is in a senior living home and she has not been able to see her in person either.

"It's crazy but we are all in this together," she said.
 

meka72

Well-Known Member
Rumor, Disparity and Distrust: Why Black Americans Face an Uphill Battle Against COVID-19
March 25, 2020, at 1:31 p.m.

After testing positive for COVID-19, superstar actor Idris Elba, who's built a career playing tough, streetwise characters like Baltimore gangster Stringer Bell, went online to set the record straight: Your skin color, he warned, won't protect you from the coronavirus.

[ MAP: Coronavirus Cases, Deaths by County ]

"Black people, please, please, please understand that coronavirus, you can get it," Elba said, trying to quash a rumor swirling through cyberspace. "There are so many stupid, ridiculous conspiracy theories about black people not being able to get it. That's dumb, stupid. All right? That is the quickest way to get more black people killed."

Some U.S. physicians and researchers who study the intersection of race and health are joining Elba in sounding the alarm: The highly contagious and potentially deadly virus sweeping across the country is going to hit hard in the black community. And the reasons will reach beyond dangerous rumor-mongering and racially based misinformation.

The documented health disparities between racial groups in the U.S. – including higher rates of chronic diseases and lower access to health care among blacks compared with whites – make some African Americans more vulnerable to COVID-19, experts warn.

At the same time, more insidious problems, such as hidden biases white doctors have toward black patients, and black Americans' historical mistrust of the medical system, could exacerbate an already bad situation, accelerating transmission of the virus in struggling communities.

[ READ: Sound the Alarm for Vulnerable Communities ]

"I expect the COVID-19 pandemic to impact African Americans to a greater extent than other more socially advantaged groups," says Dr. Lisa Cooper, an internist and social epidemiologist with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "This is because as a group, African Americans in the U.S. have higher rates of poverty, housing and food insecurity, unemployment or underemployment, and chronic medical conditions, and disabilities."

Meanwhile, as cases in the U.S. continue to mount – surpassing 55,000 and topping 800 deaths as of Wednesday, according to a Johns Hopkins University COVID-19 tracker – some doctors are calling on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization to release data that could indicate whether the nationwide shortage of coronavirus tests is leaving black communities further behind. Current CDC testing data does not include a demographic breakdown.

In the U.S., "there are great discrepancies in not only the diagnosis but the treatment that African Americans and other minorities are afforded," Dr. Ebony Hilton, an associate professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine at the University of Virginia, told Buzzfeed News. "So I want to make sure that in this pandemic, that black and brown people are treated in the same way and that these tests are made available in the same pattern as for white people."

The concern that black communities presently hampered by health inequities could be devastated by the coronavirus is rooted in decades of research as well as the nation's checkered racial history.

African Americans suffer from higher rates of conditions like asthma, obesity, diabetes and kidney disease – problems that experts say could make COVID-19 more damaging if they get it.

African Americans "also have less access to health insurance and paid sick leave, and poorer access to quality health care," Cooper notes. Research indicates African Americans are more likely than whites to rely on hospital emergency rooms for primary care – departments that soon may be overwhelmed with anticipated surges of COVID-19 patients.

What's more, because many black Americans hold hourly, low-wage jobs, "fear of lost wages or loss of employment may lead African Americans and other vulnerable Americans to try to work when they are ill, contributing to further spread of the disease within their communities," Cooper says.

Melody Goodman, associate dean for research at the New York University School of Global Public Health, says the potential impact will go beyond sick leave and time off.

"It is projected that post-coronavirus unemployment rates may hit 20%. Which groups are most likely to lose their jobs?" says Goodman, who also teaches biostatistics at NYU.

[ MORE: Why Coronavirus Could Be Catastrophic for Developing World ]

The country, she says, also "still has a high degree of residential segregation by race, ethnicity and socioeconomic status. That means many African Americans live in communities with subpar social determinants of health, including struggling education systems, scarce access to healthy food and a dearth of places to safely get outside and exercise or enjoy nature.

Such problems stand to be magnified in light of the coronavirus crisis, which Goodman says already "is demonstrating our country's lack of investment in public health and the fundamental public health infrastructure."

"If supermarkets and pharmacies are the only places to stay open, what happens if your community doesn't have either one of these businesses?" she asks. "What happens to the people with chronic conditions who are already living check to check? Can they really afford to stock up on food and medication? For people in households where toilet tissue was already a major household expense, what happens when the prices go up because there is limited supply? How do you socially distance, self-isolate or even quarantine if you live in a house with several other people?"

Then there's the social and cultural divide between African Americans and the predominantly white medical system. Researchers have found that some white doctors have a subconscious bias against black patients, likely fueling poor health outcomes and persistent racial disparities.

Cooper says African Americans' historic mistrust of the health system – fomented in part by the notorious Tuskegee experiment, the secret harvesting of cellsfrom cancer patient Henrietta Lacks and segregated, unequal medical treatmentduring the Jim Crow era – can lead them to avoid seeking care, even though they may need it to avoid spreading the virus or becoming seriously ill.

The mistrust, Cooper says, can lead some to "ignore the advice of public health professionals who recommend practices such as social distancing and self-quarantining behaviors, thus worsening the impact of the epidemic on our community."

Also exacerbating the situation: a lack of minority doctors, says Gail Christopher, executive director of the National Collaborative for Health Equity.

As the crisis grinds on, front-line physicians "are having to decide who gets treated and who doesn't," Christopher says. "That's where the shadow of racial hierarchy and racial bias can come into play. Their decisions will be influenced by the shadow that we all live with, but we don't have the systems in place" to combat it.

That, she says, "adds to the vulnerability" of black communities.

Still, Cooper says the only thing scientists truly know is how easily the virus is transmitted; there's limited data about COVID-19, as well as huge knowledge gaps about whether it affects black patients differently and how high the transmission rates are in black communities.

That lack of information – coupled with the federal government's stumbling, inconsistent response to the crisis – has created conditions ripe for misinformation, fueling the transmission of race-based rumors like the one Elba confronted.

"It's not unusual for myths and misinformation to be associated with a health crisis, particularly a pandemic, particularly one that didn't start here," Cooper says. And "it's not unusual for these myths to take on racial overtones," especially with a new virus that can be unpredictable.

Cooper, Christopher, Goodman and others agree that the coronavirus outbreak will expose the racial fault lines in the U.S. health care system, but it could also present an opportunity to bridge the gaps. They say the federal government should focus at least part of its massive relief and economic stimulus efforts on shoring up community health care systems, tackling generational disparities between African Americans and whites, and clearly communicating the dangers of the virus to the black community. Notably, the Trump administration this week said it had awarded $100 million to health centers across the country to help them cope with COVID-19.

The messaging, meanwhile, "should take into consideration the specific concerns and fears that may be prevalent in the community," Cooper says. "The communication should be frequent, clear, transparent and credible. The messages should convey empathy and respect for the wisdom and experience that exists within these communities. Specific falsehoods should be corrected."

And the virus should be a reminder, Christopher says: Public health touches every aspect of government policy.

"If this doesn't illustrate the meaning of 'social determinants of health,' nothing does," she says. "We see the economic consequences, we see the consequences in terms of access to quality care, access to healthy food. This is such a laboratory in terms of ' health in all policies.'"

https://www.usnews.com/news/healthi...face-an-uphill-battle-against-the-coronavirus
 

Jmartjrmd

Well-Known Member
Years ago hospitals put into place this rule that if you didn't get the flu vaccine you had to wear a mast at all times during flu season to protect patients from you spreading flu to them.
Even before that rule there were protocols put into place for contact, droplet, airborn and other precautions that outline the PPE you were required to wear.
fast forward to pandemic 2020 and poorly prepared US hospital systems and suddenly it is ok to go without these same protections that would have gotten you in trouble for not following before. Now for a virus that is 10x more deadly than the flu now it's ok to not have PPE or not be able to provide your own
I read a lot of comments saying that's what she signed up for.
But people with disabilities get accommodations everyday.
At the end of the day most hospitals only see nurses as a number. If you dont stand up for your own wellbeing the hospital sure as heck won't.
She did what was best for her and I applaud her for that.
It seems like they were floating her from her regular assigned floor and that maybe she had discussed this prior.
I know they make exceptions on a case by case basis even when there is not a pandemic going on. but I wont judge her as we only have one side.

On another note a doctor in WA was fired for speaking out on the ridiculousness of working without PPE.
 

Jmartjrmd

Well-Known Member
I cant sleep.

Welp some people gotta learn the hard way. First toliet licker..now this girl.

NEWS

Tennessee woman gets coronavirus after bragging about not social distancing
By Jackie Salo

March 26, 2020 | 4:05pm | Updated





A 21-year-old Tennessee woman who bragged on social media about not taking the coronavirus outbreak seriously has been diagnosed with the deadly illness, according to a report.

Ireland Tate joked about not following instructions to stay home and practice social distancing amid the pandemic just days before she fell sick, news station WZTV reported.

In a social media video, the Nashville resident told her followers that she’s “aware that we’re supposed to be self-quarantining and social distancing” to “keep everyone safe” — but that she wasn’t worried.

“Cool. I get it. I just don’t think that I’m going to get the virus,” Tate said in the video.


But just days later, Tate found herself suffering from symptoms associated with the dangerous bug and tested positive.

“It feels like someone is sitting on my chest at all times,” she said. “It’s really hard to breathe. I’ve coughed until my throat has bled.”

Tate said she likely got the virus from a pal in her group of friends and she’s now warning other young people to stay home.

“While it may not be affecting you, you could be affecting someone’s grandma or grandpa or aunt or uncle or sister,” Tate told the outlet.
 

Jmartjrmd

Well-Known Member
They reversed the no support person for labor and delivery patients

New York hospitals now required to allow partners in maternity wards
By Eileen AJ Connelly

March 28, 2020 | 7:02pm | Updated



Getty Images/Tetra images RF
New York State ordered all hospitals to allow partners in delivery rooms Saturday, bypassing visitation rules enacted by some private hospitals that forced women to go into maternity wards alone.

“In no hospital in New York will a woman be forced to be alone when she gives birth,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo tweeted Saturday afternoon. “Not now, not ever.”
 

ThirdEyeBeauty

Well-Known Member
Couple hosts anniversary party following CDC recommendations, husband contracts COVID-19 | abc13.com

"That was our mistake. We thought we were okay because we had less than 10 people. But no, don't have anyone in your house."






HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- "All we literally did that day was a fist bump, and he was gone," said Kim Gagne.

A fist bump was the last simple touch between a husband and wife of 27 years. Kim Gagne thought her husband, Emilian White, would just get checked out and get tested for the virus but she says, "It went from 0 to 100 quickly."

He had to be rolled away as soon as possible.

"I didn't know what was happening," she said via Facetime.

She hasn't seen him since Tuesday and has only talked to him by phone. Now, she and their children are in quarantine at home.

These past few days have been unimaginable as she wonders when and if she will see Emilian again.

"He's getting better, but, when they took him for a scan, the minute they took the oxygen off, it becomes very difficult to breathe," she said.

This past Friday they were celebrating their anniversary by having a small dinner with a couple friends. Then, over the weekend is when he started feeling ill.

He had a fever. Gagne says you just don't know who's sick and doesn't know it.

"We had people over and that was our mistake. We thought we were okay because we had less than 10 people. But no, don't have anyone in your house," she said.

It's a double-whammy for Gagne because her elderly mother is in a senior living home and she has not been able to see her in person either.

"It's crazy but we are all in this together," she said.
Of those 10 people someone happened to be positive for the coronavirus? With that type of statistics, I suspect most of us are already positive or will be very soon.
 

chocolat79

Well-Known Member
Of those 10 people someone happened to be positive for the coronavirus? With that type of statistics, I suspect most of us are already positive or will be very soon.
Probably. That's the thing people aren't getting... you can be an asymptomatic carrier and spread it to someone else who will be symptomatic. I feel like it would be like explaining what wind feels like to someone who's never experienced it.

That's why testing is so important amongst everyone, especially healthcare workers.
 

Chicoro

5 Year Shea Anniversary: Started Dec 16th, 2016!
Can anyone answer this question: why did the US reject the WHO tests?

I mean, money is one obviously, because this is the US. But now, we have a bunch of people making tests that aren't the same, as far as consistency.

I personally do not know why the US rejected the WHO tests.


But I do know the tests from WHO were above 100 US dollars per kit. The tests being ordered by Los Angeles County from South Korea, 20,000 initially and then 100,000 per week going forward, cost around 67 US dollars each. Which is about 1/3 the price of the WHO tests.

Also, Dr. Fauci mentioned in his conversation with Steph Curry, that the tests have moved into the commercial sector and away from organizations whose expertise is disease and health, such as that of the CDC and WHO.

Commercial sectors are experts in the production and distribution of goods and products, with those products being the test kits, in this instance. Thus, if that is the case, it is an 'open' capitalistic market with different providers, resulting in the production and distribution of test products that are not necessarily compatible with one another and tests kits which may not be consistent with one another. I think as long as the tests use the same process to get the desired results, that is what the government may consider to be the most important.
 
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Chicoro

5 Year Shea Anniversary: Started Dec 16th, 2016!
Dr. Fauci states in this video that countries located in the southern hemisphere of the world that are starting to go into their winter, are starting to now have an increase of the presence of the virus in their populations. For that reason, he is advocating that there will likely be a second wave of this virus during the winter time in the United States.

A vaccine cannot be ready within months at this point in time. The work on the vaccine is not useless or throw-away, though. Thus, the vaccine is being developed not to address the cases happening right now, but those cases that may emerge in the Winter 2020.



Note: (The below information is not stated in the above video. I read it but did not document the source.)

The Influenza Pandemic started in Spring 1918, which is considered the first wave. The second wave was the most virulent and started in the Fall of 1918. The third wave was the mildest ending in 2019.
 
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Chicoro

5 Year Shea Anniversary: Started Dec 16th, 2016!
The importance of knowing history, tracking it and documenting it correctly.

Why Was The Spanish Flu Called The Spanish Flu?-
The Spanish Flu did not originate in Spain, though news coverage of it did. During World War I, Spain was a neutral country with a free media that covered the outbreak from the start, first reporting on it in Madrid in late May of 1918. Meanwhile, Allied countries and the Central Powers had wartime censors who covered up news of the flu to keep morale high. Because Spanish news sources were the only ones reporting on the flu, many believed it originated there (the Spanish, meanwhile, believed the virus came from France and called it the “French Flu.”)

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-i/1918-flu-pandemic

This epitomizes the reason why it is very important to document and record information. It is important to know your history. Sometimes the official narrative may not be the truth. Thus, your records, documentation and knowledge of what has transpired may become the only record of the truth. Hence, the reason why it is so important for us to continue to update this thread, for now.
 
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OhTall1

Well-Known Member
This story is sad but
This past Friday they were celebrating their anniversary by having a small dinner with a couple friends. Then, over the weekend is when he started feeling ill.

We've been talking about social distancing and staying 6 feet away from each other for at least three weeks at this point. How was that supposed to work for a small dinner party?

Couple hosts anniversary party following CDC recommendations, husband contracts COVID-19 | abc13.com

"That was our mistake. We thought we were okay because we had less than 10 people. But no, don't have anyone in your house."






HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- "All we literally did that day was a fist bump, and he was gone," said Kim Gagne.

A fist bump was the last simple touch between a husband and wife of 27 years. Kim Gagne thought her husband, Emilian White, would just get checked out and get tested for the virus but she says, "It went from 0 to 100 quickly."

He had to be rolled away as soon as possible.

"I didn't know what was happening," she said via Facetime.

She hasn't seen him since Tuesday and has only talked to him by phone. Now, she and their children are in quarantine at home.

These past few days have been unimaginable as she wonders when and if she will see Emilian again.

"He's getting better, but, when they took him for a scan, the minute they took the oxygen off, it becomes very difficult to breathe," she said.

This past Friday they were celebrating their anniversary by having a small dinner with a couple friends. Then, over the weekend is when he started feeling ill.

He had a fever. Gagne says you just don't know who's sick and doesn't know it.

"We had people over and that was our mistake. We thought we were okay because we had less than 10 people. But no, don't have anyone in your house," she said.

It's a double-whammy for Gagne because her elderly mother is in a senior living home and she has not been able to see her in person either.

"It's crazy but we are all in this together," she said.
 

Chicoro

5 Year Shea Anniversary: Started Dec 16th, 2016!
Cuba Sends 52 Doctors to Spain to Help them Battle Through the Coronavirus Crisis
By
Laura Taylor
-
26 March 2020 @ 13:53
0



A few days ago, Cuban doctors arrived in Italy in a bid to help them battle the crisis caused by the coronavirus, soon a delegation from Cuba’s medical brigade will also arrive to Spain to help confront the current medical crisis it is facing.

Initially created and led by Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, more commonly known as Che Guevara, these medical brigades are loyal to the concept of international labour. Since their launch, these brigades have been known to assist during medical emergencies in countries like Haiti, Pakistan, and the African continent during the Ebola epidemic. Now amidst the pandemic caused by Covid-19, the Cuban doctors are on their way to assist Italy and Spain.

Despite the anti-communist propaganda spouted by capitalism to discredit Cuba’s economic model and despite the economic blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States, this country’s health model has been categorised by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as an ideal world model.

The health crisis produced by Covid-19 is already revealing many cracks in the neoliberal capitalist model, which pursues economic interest over social policies. Thanks to the fact that Spain boasts of a public health system, it has been able to face this crisis, although it is heavily struggling due to the drastic cuts in the health department by the conservative PP government over the last decade.

Spain may be struggling to cope with this virus but when you compare this circumstance with a country, like the United States, which has a fully privatised health system, the situation does not seem as dire. In New York City alone, the number of people infected with the coronavirus has already reached the same level as in Spain, in only a matter of days.

https://www.euroweeklynews.com/2020...p-them-battle-through-the-coronavirus-crisis/
 

Everything Zen

Well-Known Member
All I can say is come through Abbott :yep:

It received emergency FDA approval so knowing them- they’re already refining the assays sensitivity for detection and accuracy and probably working on a competitor antibody screening test as well.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bl...-minute-covid-19-test-for-use-almost-anywhere

Abbott Launches 5-Minute Virus Test for Use Almost Anywhere
By
Michelle Fay Cortez
March 27, 2020, 7:21 PM EDTUpdated on March 28, 2020, 8:28 AM EDT

Abbott virus detection machine Source: Abbott Laboratories


The medical-device maker plans to supply 50,000 tests a day starting April 1, said John Frels, vice president of research and development at Abbott Diagnostics. The molecular test looks for fragments of the coronavirus genome, which can quickly be detected when present at high levels. A thorough search to definitively rule out an infection can take up to 13 minutes, he said.

Abbott has received emergency use authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration “for use by authorized laboratories and patient care settings,” the company said on Friday.

The U.S. has struggled to supply enough tests to detect the virus, even as the outbreak threatens to overwhelm hospitals in New York, California, Washington and other regions. After initially restricting testing to high-risk people, and problems with a test designed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. regulators have rushed out diagnostics made by the world’s leading commercial-testing companies.


“This is really going to provide a tremendous opportunity for front-line caregivers, those having to diagnose a lot of infections, to close the gap with our testing,” Frels said. “A clinic will be able to turn that result around quickly, while the patient is waiting.”


Abbott virus detection machine

Source: Abbott Laboratories

The technology builds on Illinois-based Abbott’s ID Now platform, the most common point-of-care test currently available in the U.S., with more than 18,000 units spread across the country. It is widely used to detect influenza, strep throat and respiratory syncytial virus, a common bug that causes cold-like symptoms.

Last week, Abbott’s m2000 RealTime system got U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for use in hospitals and molecular laboratories to diagnose the infection. That system can churn through more tests on a daily basis, up to 1 million a week, but it takes longer to get the results. Abbott plans to provide at least 5 million tests a month between the two systems.

Other companies are also rolling out faster testing systems. Henry Schein Inc. on Thursday said its point-of-care antibody test, which looks for evidence that a person’s immune system has already fought off the infection, was available. The blood test can be given at the point of care and delivers results in about 15 minutes, though it can’t be used to definitively diagnose a current infection.


 

sheanu

Well-Known Member
This is a good article from the New York times on how a party spread the virus far and wide:

Party Zero

About 50 guests gathered on March 5 at a home in the stately suburb of Westport, Connecticut, to toast the hostess on her 40th birthday and greet old friends, including one visiting from South Africa. They shared reminiscences, a lavish buffet and, unknown to anyone, the coronavirus.

Then they scattered.

The Westport soirée — Party Zero in southwestern Connecticut and beyond — is a story of how, in the Gilded Age of money, social connectedness and air travel, a pandemic has spread at lightning speed. The partygoers — more than half of whom are now infected — left that evening for Johannesburg, New York City, and other parts of Connecticut and the United States, all seeding infections on the way.

Westport, a town of 28,000 on the Long Island Sound, did not have a single known case of the coronavirus on the day of the party. It had 85 on Monday, up more than 40-fold in 11 days. At a news conference Monday afternoon, Gov. Ned Lamont of Connecticut said that 415 people in the state were infected, up from 327 on Sunday night. Ten people have died. Westport, with less than 1% of the state’s population, now makes up more than one-fifth of its COVID-19 infections with its 85 cases. Fairfield County, where Westport is, has 270 cases, 65% of the total.

Lamont pleaded with federal officials for hospital capacity and protective gear. “I urge them: Don’t think in terms of New York, think in terms of the hot spots,” he said. “And that’s New York City, Westchester County — and Fairfield County.”

Science cannot definitively link those escalating numbers to New York, which now accounts for about half of the coronavirus infections in the United States. But the Westport soirée “may be an example of the kind of thing we call a super-spreading event,” said William Hanage, an associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard, especially since some of the partygoers later attended large social events in the New York metropolitan area.

“Some of the early cases in northern Italy were associated with small towns, and people thought, ‘Oh, it’s just in the small towns.’ But then you suddenly find cases emerging from Milan Fashion Week and spreading internationally,” Hanage said. “Everywhere you think the virus is, it’s ahead of you."

The visitor from Johannesburg — a 43-year-old businessman, according to a report from South Africa — fell ill on his flight home, spreading the virus not only in the country but possibly to fellow passengers. The party guests attended other gatherings. They went to work at jobs throughout the New York metropolitan area. Their children went to school and day care, soccer games and after-school sports.

On the morning of March 8, three days after the party, Julie Endich, one of the guests, woke up in Westport with a fever that spiked to 104 degrees and “pain, tightness and heaviness like someone was standing on my chest,” she later wrote on Facebook. She knew her symptoms suggested COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, but it would be four days before she could get test results confirming that she had it.

At noon that day, town and county health officials convened a coronavirus forum at the Westport Library. About 60 people attended, and many others watched on Facebook. When asked whether people, especially Westport’s many older residents, should follow federal government guidance and avoid large gatherings, officials were sanguine.

“It is not out in our community that we’re aware of yet,” said Mark A.R. Cooper, the director of the Westport Weston Health District. “Give it some thought, but again, your risk is low.”

A moderator next passed the microphone to an older man.

“How many test kits do we have in Westport now?” he asked.

“Zero,” Cooper replied. “None. They’re not available.”

Three days later, on March 11, Cooper got a phone call: A South African businessman who had stopped in Westport for a party had fallen ill on the plane home to Johannesburg.

“I thought it was good old man flu,” the businessman told The Sunday Times in South Africa, speaking anonymously in a March 15 article. Unlike in the United States, where tests remain in short supply and results come slowly, the man was tested and received word in a day. He was positive.

Cooper and his staff of nine dusted off their pandemic response plan and began calling party guests, identified by the Westport hosts. A number of the guests had children. Several hours later, Westport closed its schools and most public buildings. Jim Marpe, the Westport first selectman — the equivalent of a mayor — convened a hasty news conference on the steps of the Westport Town Hall.

“We’ll assess the health of those individuals and try to give them some helpful advice in terms of protecting themselves and family and helping prevent further spread,” Cooper told the crowd.

But, he warned, “The reality is, once it starts to spread in a community, it’s beyond trying to stop it.”

The Health District worked with a private company to conduct drive-through testing for party guests only on March 12. About 38 guests showed up, and more than half their tests came back positive. Endich, after days of rejected attempts, was tested at Stamford Hospital and received her positive result on March 12.

“What we were trying to do was put our arms around it quickly and snuff it out,” Cooper said. “Never did we dream that in a week’s time we were going to be in the middle of an epidemic.”

The number of sick people in Fairfield County then soared. On March 16, Lamont closed restaurants and public buildings statewide. Even in a well-connected, affluent town like Westport, contact tracing quickly overwhelmed health officials. Beyond the 50 attendees, “there were another 120 on our dance list,” some of whom probably were not at the party, Cooper said. One of the party guests later acknowledged attending an event with 420 other people, he said. The officials gave up.

“They think at least 100 times as many people are infected as what the tests are showing,” Arpad Krizsan, who owns a financial advisory firm in Westport and lives in the community, said Saturday. “And everybody goes to the same four shops.”

Worry, rumors and recriminations engulfed the town. Political leaders fielded hundreds of emails and phone calls from residents terrified that their children or vulnerable family members had been exposed. Who threw the party, and who attended? They wanted to know. Rumors flew that some residents were telling health officials they had attended the party so they could obtain a scarce test.

Officials refused to disclose the names of the hosts or any guests, citing federal and state privacy rules. Marpe posted a videotaped statement to the town website on March 20. “The fact of the matter is that this could have been any one of us, and rumor-mongering and vilification of individuals is not who we are as a civil community,” he said.

As the disease spread, many residents kept mum, worried about being ostracized by their neighbors and that their children would be kicked off coveted sports teams or miss school events.

One local woman compared going public with a COVID-19 diagnosis to “having an STD.”

“I don’t think that’s a crazy comparison,” said Will Haskell, the state senator who represents Westport. He has been fielding frantic phone calls from constituents.

Most residents were exercising recommended vigilance, Haskell said, but one call that stuck out to him was from a woman awaiting test results whose entire family had been exposed to the virus. “She wanted to know whether or not to tell her friends and social network,” he said, because she was worried about “social stigma.”

Haskell, who has been delivering his grandparents’ medication to their Westport doorstep and leaving it outside, was incredulous. “This is life or death,” he said in an interview. “Westport really is a cautionary tale of what we’re soon to see.”

The party hosts remain unknown to most, though speculation is rife. Two of the guests, Endich and Cheryl Chutter, an attendee who lives in Stamford, have identified themselves.

Though she said she was “relentless” in demanding a test, Chutter was not diagnosed until March 17. She notified her son’s private school, and “they sent him home in an Uber and closed the school three hours later,” she said. His youth soccer league scrapped the rest of the season for 1,500 players after she informed team leaders that she had stood with other parents cheering on the sidelines before she got sick.

Chutter and Endich both emphasized the kindness of their neighbors, who spontaneously delivered food, water and encouragement. Chutter said health officials called daily to check on her. She is also aware of blaming and efforts to out the party attendees.

“It’s no use pointing fingers,” she said in an interview. “It’s not like you’re going to lock that one person up when there are millions of people in the world who have it. We’re so past that.”

The first partygoer to be diagnosed passed word from Johannesburg to Westport that he had fully recovered and even planned to go for a jog.

“I don’t believe I’m the problem anymore,” he told The Sunday Times. “It seems that the real problem is now the people who are too scared to say anything. The problem is the ignorance of the public.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2020 The New York Times Company
And THIS is why I don't want to meet any wealthy clients in person.
1. I was already leery when I noticed a large percentage of them don't take hand washing seriously (and you have to shake hands at the beginning and end of every meeting)...
2. A lot of them travel more in a month than I do for a year.
3. The majority are Trump supporters who didn't stop thinking this was a democratic hoax until Fox News and the president stopped saying it.

I don't think they would tell us if they got it.
 
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