February 29, 2020
By Gerry Shih, James McAuley, Miriam Berger and Katie Mettler
More coronavirus infections (click here) were reported from South Korea to France to Qatar on Saturday after health officials in Washington state, Oregon and California on Friday reported a worrying development: new cases among people who have not traveled recently to countries hit hard by the outbreak or come into contact with anyone known to have the disease, which public health officials refer to as community transmission.
The four new cases Friday bring the total number of covid-19 cases detected through the U.S. public health system to 19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Washington state announced late Friday that a high school student in Snohomish County, just north of Seattle, tested positive for the deadly virus and was in home isolation in a suspected community transmission case. State health officials also said a woman in her 50s in King County tested positive after traveling to Daegu, South Korea, the site of a major coronavirus outbreak. She, too, is in home isolation....
How the heck did a high school kid get the darn stuff? There is nothing in Snohomish County. This lousy virus better not be on wind currents either, but, Washington State is east of South Korea and Japan.It is possibly the King County resident that traveled to South Korea. King County is directly south of Snohomish County in Washington State, but, where did the transmission occur?
Washington County isn't even close to either Snohomish or King Counties.
February 17, 2020
By Hannah Yasharoff, Jayme Deerwater, and David Oliver
...One plane carrying American passengers (click here) touched down at Travis Air Force Base in northern California just before 11:30 p.m. Sunday local time. A second flight arrived at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas around 2½ hours later, early Monday.
The California flight had 177 people on it, seven of whom tested positive for coronavirus, Walters said. An additional three people were isolated during the flight for fever. Upon arrival, 171 stayed in Travis while six traveled to Omaha....
The FDA is allowing other labs to carry out the complex testing for Covid-19 in anticipation of a widening exposure to the general public. It is officially called a public health emergency.
2/29/2020
By Sarah Owermohle
The Food and Drug Administration (click here) on Saturday morning laid out how academic labs can use in-house coronavirus tests in hopes of expanding the health care system’s ability to detect the virus.
The guidance would let certain labs develop FDA-authorized tests without relying on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We believe this policy strikes the right balance during this public health emergency,” FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn said in a statement....
This is current as of yesterday, communities need to mobilize for cases of Covid-19. One thing is sure to result as more hospital labs use techniques to diagnosis the virus, there will be some false positives and false negatives. I think we have already seen false negatives with persons originally thought to be negative. That is due to viral load (click here for similar procedure for HIV) most probably. Where a person's immune system can inhibit the virus to grow there will be false negatives. Statistically, these errors will occur. Every person is different which leads to different outcomes. There is a lot no one knows about this virus, including any latent stage. A latent stage would indicate a "carrier" rather than a symptomatic person. I am quite confident the CDC and WHO are looking at everything.
This virus is a puzzle and isn't neatly fitting into any stereotypes of other coronavirus.
...This report summarizes (click here) the aggressive measures (2,3) that CDC, state and local health departments, multiple other federal agencies, and other partners are implementing to slow and try to contain transmission of COVID-19 in the United States. These measures require the identification of cases and contacts of persons with COVID-19 in the United States and the recommended assessment, monitoring, and care of travelers arriving from areas with substantial COVID-19 transmission. Although these measures might not prevent widespread transmission of the virus in the United States, they are being implemented to
1) slow the spread of illness;
2) provide time to better prepare state and local health departments, health care systems, businesses, educational organizations, and the general public in the event that widespread transmission occurs; and
3) better characterize COVID-19 to guide public health recommendations and the development and deployment of medical countermeasures, including diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines. U.S. public health authorities are monitoring the situation closely, and CDC is coordinating efforts with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other global partners. Interim guidance is available at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/index.html. As more is learned about this novel virus and this outbreak, CDC will rapidly incorporate new knowledge into guidance for action by CDC, state and local health departments, health care providers, and communities.
Person-to-person spread of COVID-19 appears to occur mainly by respiratory transmission. How easily the virus is transmitted between persons is currently unclear. Signs and symptoms of COVID-19 include fever, cough, and shortness of breath (4). Based on the incubation period of illness for Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronaviruses, as well as observational data from reports of travel-related COVID-19, CDC estimates that symptoms of COVID-19 occur within 2–14 days after exposure. Preliminary data suggest that older adults and persons with underlying health conditions or compromised immune systems might be at greater risk for severe illness from this virus (5)....
It is what it is.
Tomoyuki Sugano, (click here) starting pitcher of Yomiuri Giants, throws the first pitch during a behind-closed-doors opening game against the Tokyo Yaklut Swallows at Tokyo Dome baseball stadium in Tokyo on Feb. 29, 2020.
2) provide time to better prepare state and local health departments, health care systems, businesses, educational organizations, and the general public in the event that widespread transmission occurs; and
3) better characterize COVID-19 to guide public health recommendations and the development and deployment of medical countermeasures, including diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines. U.S. public health authorities are monitoring the situation closely, and CDC is coordinating efforts with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other global partners. Interim guidance is available at https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/index.html. As more is learned about this novel virus and this outbreak, CDC will rapidly incorporate new knowledge into guidance for action by CDC, state and local health departments, health care providers, and communities.
Person-to-person spread of COVID-19 appears to occur mainly by respiratory transmission. How easily the virus is transmitted between persons is currently unclear. Signs and symptoms of COVID-19 include fever, cough, and shortness of breath (4). Based on the incubation period of illness for Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) coronaviruses, as well as observational data from reports of travel-related COVID-19, CDC estimates that symptoms of COVID-19 occur within 2–14 days after exposure. Preliminary data suggest that older adults and persons with underlying health conditions or compromised immune systems might be at greater risk for severe illness from this virus (5)....
Tomoyuki Sugano, (click here) starting pitcher of Yomiuri Giants, throws the first pitch during a behind-closed-doors opening game against the Tokyo Yaklut Swallows at Tokyo Dome baseball stadium in Tokyo on Feb. 29, 2020.
