COVID-19 Coronavirus Update 28 Feb to 1 March

COVID-19 Coronavirus Update 28 Feb to 1st March

The global total for COVID-19 positive cases is (at time of typing 9.30GMT 01/03/20)

World cases 86980 / Loss of life 2979
Outside mainland China cases 7156 / Loss of life 109

The UK currently has 23 positive cases of COVID-19.

New UK cases since last update are:
1 UK case in Northern Ireland. Another traveller from Northern Italy - an adult who travelled from Dublin airport to Belfast.
2 more travellers from Italy
2 more cases in England - both travelled from Iran.
1st case in Wales - travelled to Northern Italy.
3 new patients in Berkshire, Hertfordshire and Gloucestershire. All 3 cases were imported from Italy and Asia.

Rep.of Ireland has it's first case, someone from the East side who travelled to Italy.

Final Luxury Cruise News:

The UK has lost it's first COVID-19 patient, a former passenger on the Diamond Princess. Another former passenger has also died, increasing the loss of life to 6. There are 705 passengers who tested positive for COVID-19 while on board, 10 are recovered. My best wishes that the rest of you are home safely before long.

The UK

An announcement this morning tells us the UK War Room is being dusted off and an updated Action Plan will be with us later this week.

NHS England has assured us of their preparedness - whilst only having 15 beds which are suitable for the worst cases (not actually enough to cope with seasonal flu). They assure us this capacity can be increased to 28 easily, and still seem to believe another country is going to sell us artificial breathing equipment right now. Best of luck with that one.

The Chief Medical Officer has said in future all new UK cases will now be given at 2pm in the daily report, and will be those confirmed before 9am that morning. The UK's COVID-19 daily report is online here and also posted to social media at 2pm.

The Rest Of The World:

In Vatican City the Pope is has been ill for the last 4 days. In his last public engagement he was clearly unwell and suffering with a bad cough. This is disturbing a lot of people.

Senior Iranian officials who have so far tested positive for Coronavirus include:
Iranian Vice President for Women and Family Affairs, Masoumeh Ebtekar
Iran's Deputy Health Minister, Iraj Harirchi (head of gvt task force to contain the outbreak)
Mujtaba Zunnour, head of National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee
Iran's first ambassador to the Vatican, Hadi Khosroshahi, who succumbed to COVID-19 in Qom on 27 February.

South Korea’s central committee on COVID-19 said 99 out of 102 patients from the psychiatric department of a hospital have all contracted coronavirus, and acounted for 7 of the deceased patients.

An Iranian clinic in Bandar Abbas has been burnt to the ground by protesters who believed 10 COVID-19 patients from another city had been brought there for treatment. Sadly when COVID-19 does reach Bandar Abbas, they won't have a clinic. This is what panic does to people - DON'T BE LIKE BANDAR ABBAS.

Hokkaido in northern Japan has declared a 'state of emergency' due to the coronavirus and urged people to stay at home this weekend. Japan is one of the few places who have openly expressed worry that they won't cope. I admire them for their honesty.

A Chinese press conference with expert Zhong Nan-Shan took place on Thursday and here are some main takeaways:
He is confident that China can have basic control over the outbreak by the end of April.
He says they still do not know the exact origin of the virus.
He suggests that other countries look at what China has done as an example of containment.
Each patient seems to pass COVID-19 to 2 to 3 others.
It is really important to remember that this is not the flu.
The mortality rate of patients with serious symptoms is 9 times that of other patients.
China might import SARSCoV2 from other countries.

If China had taken strict measures to prevent an outbreak, the number of patients could have dropped dramatically.
See the whole thread here translated thanks to journalist William Yang.

Reports from China claim to have found COVID-19 in the tears of a patient.

The autopsy of the first patient to succumb shows that the pathological specialties of SARS_CoV_2 are very similar to SARS and MERS, but that the level of pulmonary fibrosis is not as serious as SARS.

The Dow Jones crashed, wiping trillions off US markets. Call me a cynic but if money people were in charge of calling this a Pandemic or testing people to find out how many had coronavirus,, they wouldn't do it until the last second in order to protect assets as long as possible.

On 27th, when the US had still officially had only tested 456 people, Donald Trump held a press conference where he basically said it's all fine, it's like flu, it isn't loose in the US, we hardly have any cases, and other things he made up. His supporters then took to social media to blame the Democrats for scaremongering.

Testing began in the US on Friday. The first confirmed US loss of life from COVID-19 was diagnosed mere hours after the first tests were carried out. The patient is from the Seattle area. US total cases is currently 69. In his press conference yesterday Trump was very keen to show how concerned he was, but misgendered the victim. It was a male in his 50's who had died, and not "a wonderful woman" as Trump stated.

The US may very swiftly regret not sample testing earlier as two people at a LifeCare nursing facility in Kirkland, Washington, were diagnosed with the virus. More than 50 other residents and staff at the facility have shown symptoms of a respiratory illness. Tests of the residents are ongoing.

Trump held an emergency press conference to reassure people it was all fine and there's no evidence to suggest COVID-19 is spreading undetected around the US. They are barring travellers from Iran and have a Level 4 warning against travel from parts of Italy and South Korea.

Now that the US will finally start testing for COVID-19 might be the time to mention Russia so far claims to have had only 2 cases, both recovered. Population 145m.

COVID-19 will be absolutely disastrous in countries without medical infrastructure to cope, so sub-saharan African nations are at great risk. So far there is 1 case in Lagos, Nigeria, which has been imported from Milan, Italy.

North Korea appears to be taking the hardest line in it's efforts to prevent COVID-19 taking hold. Including executions for people breaking quarantine.

We have the first patient who has definitely caught the virus while working in Milan for fashion week. Italy has exported Coronavirus to around 20 countries in the past 10 days, beating Iran, who only managed 11 countries, but a staggering 97 cases.

The WHO:

In a press conference the other day official word from the WHO chief is that it would be a "fatal mistake" for any country to assume it would not be hit by the coronavirus. In Friday's WHO press conference Dr Tedros was more grave, and raised the threat to the entire world to Very High, but said "we aren't seeing community spread". I am not certain what his definition of community spread is, but it doesn't match mine. He then went on to suggest people who are higher risk may want to avoid busy communal areas - a move that wouldn't be necessary if community spread wasn't happening.

Later in the conference they were asked again about 'Pandemic' and claimed everyone on Earth had to be exposed. By their own official definition (seasonal epidemics are excluded) "A pandemic is defined as “an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people”.

Some good news about treatments; "More than 20 vaccines are in development globally, and several therapeutics are in clinical trials. "We expect the first results in a few weeks."

The WHO are investigating the case of a dog who has apparently tested positive for COVID-19 in Japan. Further animal testing will take place.

Some important facts from the WHO China Mission report:
1. Children aged 18 and under only account for 2.4% of all reported cases (and still to my knowledge no child under 10 has died).
2. We don't know what role children play in transmission.
3. Many health workers were infected at home, not at work.
4. Mortality increases with age.

Whole World / Medical Updates:

70% of patients have a dry cough
90% have a temperature
80% will have mild symptoms
A runny nose is not a symptom of coronavirus.

Airborne nitrogen dioxide levels over China have plummeted according to NASA - the reduction of pollution is a result of limiting traffic use and industry during the lockdowns which have occurred since Jan 23rd.

The quickest vaccine off the blocks may be ready to begin it's human testing as early as April. This will take around 9 months+ if successful, meaning it could be ready by the end of the year - keep following any quarantine and other instructions to slow down the spread of COVID-19 as much as possible.

Several cases have now been confirmed where patients have tested positive, negative and then positive again. Some are becoming genuinely ill for a second time. It is too early to tell why this is happening, but it could be a number of reasons, including reinfection or resurgence - when the virus never actually leaves, your body just gets a temporary win. Either way, it's not good news.

When COVID-19 was first recognised some people mentioned that Asian people have more ACE2 receptors in their lungs than non-Asian, and COVID-19 does target ACE2 receptors, so Asian people may be more likely to suffer the effects of the virus. This theory seems to be causing rumours again on Twitter, but the figures so far have nothing to support it in any way.

The number of cases reported in Hubei Province, China has taken an upswing. We did anticipate this as lockdowns were relaxed and people returned to work, but it's worrying nonetheless.

At time of typing Italy has 1128 confirmed cases and 29 losses of life to the novel Coronavirus.

South Korea has 3526 confirmed cases and 17 souls lost.

Iran has 593 with 43 lost, the worst mortality rate by far.
It implies Iran has many more undiagnosed cases.

When countries release coronavirus updates:
- Italy: 12 p.m. ET 5pm GMT
- China: 7 p.m. ET 12 midnight GMT
- South Korea: 8 p.m. ET 1am GMT
- Mexico: 10 p.m. ET 3am GMT
- South Korea: 3 a.m. ET 8am GMT
- Iran: Around 3-6 a.m. ET 8-11 GMT
- UK: 9am ET 2pm GMT

There are claims the CDC had a bit of a wipe of their website overnight 27th Feb. It's certainly had some changes. Pertinent to remember the CDC is a US government funded agency.

Denmark, Estonia, Lithuania, Netherlands, Nigeria, Iceland, Rep.of Ireland, Luxembourg and Mexico are among the many countries declaring their first case in the last 72 hours. COVID-19 is now known to be present in Chinese Mainland, Diamond Princess Cruise Ship and around 60 countries.

I try and keep these updates as light as possible, but every number is a person. A human being who is scared of the dark, or hates peas, or loves the feel of sand on their toes. People.

You can find the previous COVID-19 update 24-26 Feb here

The next COVID-19 Update 1st to 3rd March is here. 

Sources:

BNO News
https://t.co/uPQ8op07qp
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf
https://twitter.com/smp5719/status/1233081506609999872?s=19
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/feb/27/coronavirus-england-only-has-15-beds-for-worst-respiratory-cases
https://t.co/ULAFIVDt30
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/
https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/7/11-088815/en/
https://time.com/5790545/first-covid-19-vaccine/
https://twitter.com/sciencecohen/status/1233897269037916161?s=19
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-29/washington-state-is-investigating-potential-outbreak-at-facility