Coronavirus Outbreak

kuririn said:

Well, the good news is that children have a very low morbidity rate. So maybe in a generation or two as they have their own children and pass on the antibodies we may see a sharp decline in the seriousness of the threat. Assuming this virus doesn't quickly mutate like the flu.
The bad news is that with all this discussion I've contracted VC: Virtual Coronavirus.
Clean your screens and wash your eyes promptly.
You have been warned.

Click to expand...

Yes, with ten year old twins, the numbers are reassuring.

Now I just need to avoid it, 54, type 1 diabetic for 30 years, well controlled, but need to lose thirty pounds, hypertensive and a strong family history of heart disease.

On the positive side, it is a strong motivator to get serious about a diet!

mpitfield said:

On the positive side, it is a strong motivator to get serious about a diet!

Click to expand...

Stay safe, buddy.

Miami’s Spring Break Is Set to Proceed Despite Virus Concerns
3 Mar 2020

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...k-igens-set-to-proceed-despite-virus-concerns

Spring breakers with plans in South Florida over the coming weeks can breathe a sigh of relief for now at least, with the mayor of Miami-Dade County saying that the show will go on.

“We’re not canceling any major events in Miami-Dade County, such as Ultra,” Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez tweeted on Tuesday, referencing the three-day electronic music festival that brought almost 170,000 attendees from 105 countries to Miami last year.

Gimenez, who’s following guidance from Florida’s Surgeon General [because, technically, Florida doesn't have a major COVID-19 problem because no one has been testing in a major way to find it until this week - W] said the county is mostly worried about the health of older residents when it comes to the coronavirus outbreak.

Ultra is set to kick of this year in downtown Miami on March 20 at Bayfront Park.

So, they're allowing 170,000 saliva and other bodily fluid swapping kids from the US and 105 other countries into the area because they're "worried about the health of older residents," those kids all mixing together and then returning to the very many places from whence they came. M-O-N-E-Y is what they're worried about of course. They'll gamble with the chance that the kids will spread SARS-CoV-2 everywhere, including Dade County. By March 20, that situation may change depending upon results now that testing is actually getting started.

https://twitter.com/MayorGimenez/status/1234890184375832577

Mayor Carlos A. Gimenez
@MayorGimenez

Miami-Dade County is mostly concerned with our elderly population when it comes to coronavirus, including nursing homes and senior community centers. That’s why Deputy Mayor Maurice Kemp is focusing on how protocols can best be used to stop its spread among individuals.

CDC teleconference from 3 Mar 2020:

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/t0303-COVID-19-update.html

Just the testing scandal parts of that teleconference:

Our first question comes from Carolyn Johnson with the Washington Post. Your line is open:

Thanks for taking my question. There’s been a lot of criticism from epidemiologists about the narrow criteria for testing and how that might have been linked to the limited availability to test due to the problems with the test. Can you just speak to that issue? What was the cause of the limited criteria? Do you now regret not expanding it earlier since the minute they start testing they’re finding cases?

[The reason for the ridiculously restrictive requirements for testing was defective test kits causing too few test kits to be available via official channels AND freaking REGULATORY obstacles to using test kits from private US labs OR the test kits other countries were already using successfully in VAST quantities! - W]

Dr. Messonnier: CDC’s criteria for patients under investigation has always started with the importance of astute clinicians who are making judgments about what their patients are likely to have. So we’ve always allowed those patients to be part of the testing criteria. But what we really need to focus on now is where we are today. There is spread across many countries across the world and spreading communities in the United States. We need to be focused on what we’re doing today to identify patients who are ill, make sure that they’re getting appropriately treated and tested and make sure that we’re protecting our communities by keeping — by keeping yourselves and each other safe.

Our next question comes from Sheila Kaplan. Your line is open:

Can you please tell us what the contaminant was that was found in the original CDC test kits?

Messonnier: So i think you’re talking about a report in AXIOS that attributed some issues with the CDC test kits to a contaminant. What I can say about that is contamination is one possible explanation but there are others. And I can’t really comment on what is an ongoing investigation. Our focus is on moving forward. That is on making sure that the test kits we are sending out now are well done and making sure that our state and local health department partners have access to the full resources of CDC to diagnose cases.

Next question, please.

Our next question comes from John Bonnefield with CNN. Your line is open:

Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Can you explain to us why CDC isn’t somehow aggregating the testing that’s being done by public health labs to provide a national figure for the number of tests that are being conducted and on the number of PUIs? Right now, what I’m inferring is there’s not going to be any kind of national figure and that’s very different than what we have been seeing from places like South Korea where they’ve been routinely updating on a national level? Are you not asking public health labs to communicate this information to you or is there really no way for us to expect a national figure at all?

[Note that he's asking about the number of TESTS that are being done, not just the number of cases found which is what her answer is about. As I said on 3 Mar 2020, I noticed that the CDC had removed the "Number Tested" data from their data page once the media finally caught on that the reason so few cases were being found was because of a huge shortage of test kits - we weren't finding cases because we couldn't look for them, probably resulting in much more spread than might have happened if we had functional test kits.

This is actually a HUGE scandal because as bioweapons defense microbiologist Steven Hatfill and epidemiologists have said, nipping these potential epidemics in the bud ASAP while there are still very small numbers of cases is essential. If they aren't, you end up like Italy and Korea are right now... and we're even later than them with widespread testing.

Mar 4, 2020:

Italy
- 587 new cases today
- 3,089 cases in total
- 1,346 hospitalized
- 295 in intensive care
- 276 recovered
- 107 deaths

South Korea
- 809 new cases today
- 5,621 cases in total
- 32 deaths

That's why Dr. Messonnier evades every question about the delay in getting out the test kits.]

Dr. Messonnier: I’m sorry and I’m really glad you asked that question so I can correct that misunderstanding. Of course we will be aggregating data on a daily basis and will have daily case counts up on our website. What I meant to comment on is that sometimes our numbers come up on our website by noon but when there’s a case that’s reported from a state at 5:00, we don’t go back and reupdate our numbers. It waits until the next day. We update your numbers everyday. We are certainly going to be aggregating national numbers. We are certainly going to be providing a national and state specific picture of what’s going on, but sometimes you all in the media are covering individual cases that are being reported that aren’t on our counts yet because we’re, again, we’re updating them only once a day. It’s just otherwise really difficult to continue to update the numbers when basically cases are getting confirmed and reported all night long. So, definitely going to be providing national data and state level data. But if you see, for example, a news report from the state that’s coming out in half an hour, we’re not going to go back and reupdate the numbers that came up on CDC’s website at noon. Does that help? Okay. I’m hoping that helps.

Our final question comes from Mike Stobbe with the Associated Press. Your line is open:

Hi. Thank you for taking my call. Many things I want to ask but I’ll just ask two. In reference to your response to Sheila Kaplan’s question, I take it from your response that there’s an investigation going on and that you haven’t established what the problem was with the reagent in the kits. Is that what you’re saying? Or do you know what the problem was?

And the second question, if I may, as you know over the weekend researchers at Fred Huchinson Cancer Center in the University of Washington said they had done a study that had suggested that the virus was circulating for weeks in Washington and perhaps that was related to the lack of availability of tests or the testing criteria it suggests that the spread of the virus may have been worse because of some of the policies or availability of test kits that were in place based on federal decisions. So, could you speak to that? Thank you.

Dr. Messonnier: Sure. So, in reference to the first question, you know, clearly it’s a priority at CDC and every level of our organization to make sure that our state and local health department, public health labs have access to the best tools possible. And our focus right now is moving forward to make sure that the test kits that they’re getting from us meet the high quality standards that we and FDA hold ourselves to and we are very confident in the kits that are being sent out now. There will be time in the future, I think, to look back and think about what we — what happened when, but our focus today is on — is how we’re moving forward.

The second question is, is a really intense question. Researchers in Seattle were looking at the genetic sequencing of the strains that have been in Seattle and having an interesting hypothesis of how transmission might have worked. What I would say is that it’s really interesting finding and interesting research. There are alternate hypothesis for the same finding, for example, the sequences of the most recent strains coming out of Seattle actually also I understand match strains that were identified from later in the outbreak from China. So I think this is another place where I’m happy to see so much research going on, but I still think that it’s in the hypothesis phase and we’ll need to wait for more data to come in to really fully understand how valid that hypothesis is and how to interpret it. I’m really happy that researchers all around the country and all around the world are doing this kind of work because we’re clearly going to learn a lot from it.

Washington State risks seeing explosion in coronavirus cases without dramatic action, new analysis says
3 Mar 2020

https://www.statnews.com/2020/03/03...us-without-dramatic-action-new-analysis-says/

The coronavirus outbreak in the Seattle area is at a critical juncture and could see explosive growth in cases much like Wuhan, China, if public officials don’t take immediate, forceful measures, according to a new analysis of genetic data.

The author of the analysis, a computational biologist named Trevor Bedford, said there are likely already at least 500 to 600 cases of Covid-19 in the greater Seattle area. He urged health authorities and the public to immediately begin adopting non-pharmaceutical interventions — imposing “social distancing” measures, telling the sick to isolate themselves, and limiting attendance at large gatherings.

“Now would be the time to act,” Bedford, who is at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, told STAT.

The genetic sequences of patients in the Seattle-King County region suggest the virus has been circulating there since about mid-January, when the first U.S. patient — a man who returned from Wuhan — was diagnosed, Bedford wrote in the analysis, published online.

https://bedford.io/blog/ncov-cryptic-transmission/

The spread of the virus has gone undetected in part because many infected people experience only mild infections that could be confused for a cold or the flu, and in part because of stumbles in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s effort to develop test kits for state and local public health laboratories, which has meant very little testing has been done in the country until the past few days.

“I think it’s unequivocal that there is widespread community transmission in Seattle and they have to take decisive action now,” said Scarpino, who uses mathematical and computational models of infectious diseases transmission to inform public health policy.

Washington State health authorities announced late Friday that they have found a case of Covid-19 in a teenager from Snohomish County, north of Seattle. The teen had not traveled outside the country and had no known contact with a confirmed Covid-19 patient, meaning this was likely a case of community transmission of the virus. This was the first such case for Washington State and one of the first four or five detected in the country.

The case was actually found by the Seattle Flu Study. Bedford, a co-investigator, normally works on influenza but has been one of the key players trying to assess what is happening with the new virus by studying genetic sequences from around the world.

Frustrated by the lack of testing resulting from the problem with the CDC-developed kit, the Seattle Flu Study began using an in-house developed test to look for Covid-19 in samples from people who had flu-like symptoms but who had tested negative for flu. That work — permissible because it was research — uncovered the Snohomish County teenager.

Analysis of the genetic sequence of the virus from the teenager showed it was so closely related to that of Washington State’s first case that Bedford believes the teen was infected as part of a chain of transmission that started with the first case. That would mean the virus has been circulating in the northern part of the state for about six weeks.

Some question Bedford’s analysis. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said it is possible that another traveler who came from Wuhan later started the chain that infected the Snohomish County teen.

While Scarpino agreed that is a possibility, he insisted that from a public health point of view, it makes little difference.

The window of opportunity “may be already shut. But we have to assume we’ve got some time left,” Scarpino said. “But that means, like yesterday, we have to start seriously testing, putting infection control policies in place, ensuring we have plans for what we’re going to do with homeless or marginalized populations.”

Scarpino urged hospitals in the Seattle area to assume anyone coming in with acute respiratory infections is infected with Covid-19 and isolate them to protect other patients and health workers.

Here we go again with the human petri dishes that are cruise ships? This better be handled better than the Diamond Princess catastrophe in Japan.

Update (1325ET - 4 Mar 2020): The US CDC has investigated "small clusters" of coronavirus cases linked to previous journey of the Grand Princess cruise ship. The 'Grand Princess' cruise ship is skipping a planned stop in Mexico and will return to SF on Thursday. All passengers who have been aboard the ship since Feb. 21 have been asked to stay in their rooms.

Placer County officials said the critically ill [now dead - W] patient was likely exposed to the virus while on a Grand Princess cruise ship that traveled from San Francisco to Mexico between Feb. 11 and Feb. 22. Another case linked to the cruise ship was reported by Sonoma County health officials earlier.

So, it's possible that CA's first virus-linked death caught the virus aboard the Grand Princess.

Here's the statement from the company to guests:

Dear Princess Guest:

I wish to advise you that today we have been notified by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that they are investigating a small cluster of COVID-19 (coronavirus) cases in Northern California connected to our previous Grand Princess voyage that sailed roundtrip San Francisco [to Mexico - W] from February 11 to February 21. We are working closely with our CDC partners and are following their recommendations.

For those guests who sailed with us on our previous voyage and may have been exposed, in an abundance of caution, the CDC requires you to remain in your stateroom until you have been contacted and cleared by our medical staff. A member of our medical team will be calling you between the hours of 8:00 AM and 11:00 AM this morning. You may order room service while you wait for the medical screening to be completed, and we apologize for any inconvenience.

This and the Super Tuesday political results were probably behind the markets' rise today. I expect roller coaster moves for a long time.:

Canada Shock And Awe: BOC Unexpectedly Cuts By 50bps, Most Since Crisis; "Ready To Adjust Further"
4 Mar 2020

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/c...y-cuts-50bps-most-crisis-ready-adjust-further

With Wall Street consensus expecting nothing from the Bank of Canada today, and even money markets were at best hoping for a modest easing, moments ago the Bank of Canada "pulled a Fed" when it shocked traders after cutting rates by an unexpected 50bps, from 1.75% to 1.25% (with expectations for an unchanged print), citing the COVID-19 virus as "a material negative shock to the Canadian and global outlooks," and as a result "monetary and fiscal authorities are responding."

The 50bps rate cut was the biggest since the financial crisis.

Travel Sector Amid Slump In Flight Bookings
4 Mar 2020

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/travel-retail-sector-plunges-great-crisis-amid-slump-air-travel

Airlines have canceled more than 200,000 flights as Covid-19 nears pandemic status. Retail outlets at airports across the world have reported a significant drop in foot traffic, resulting in a collapse in sales at duty-free shops.

The Wall Street Journal notes a plunge in global travelers, particularly ones from China, has led to a steep decline of internationalist tourists at major airports. The result, so far, has been devastating, said the Moodie Davitt Report, a travel retail-intelligence service provider, who warned the airport retail industry at major Asian hubs had plunged 60-70% since the virus outbreak began.

"This is the greatest crisis the travel retail sector has faced, worse than [severe acute respiratory syndrome], the two Gulf wars or various financial crises," the report said. "That's largely driven by the fact that the Chinese traveler has become the epicenter of the sector over recent years and many retailers are worryingly reliant on them."

Airports in Singapore and Thailand began to offer rent relief in February to retail outlets for the next 6-12 months. Officials at Hong Kong's airport provided $205 million in assistance for industries directly or indirectly affected by declining air travel.

Geolocation data firm Advan Research said Los Angeles International Airport foot traffic declined 20% YoY in February, a similar decline of 15% YoY was seen in San Francisco's airport over the same month.

New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport's Terminal 1 retail outlets have recorded a halving of sales in the last month, mostly because flights from the terminal are destined for Asia, and the US government has placed flight restrictions to China.

"Now we're making $1,000 to $2,000 a day, compared to $4,000 on regular days and $8,000 on exceptionally good days," said one airport retail operator at JFK.

Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, a retail operator with stores at Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York airports, told The Journal that lower foot traffic has been visible since the virus outbreak.

"Unless the crisis persists beyond six months, I think many tenants will stay put and wait this out," said Manny Steiner, founder of real-estate consulting firm Steiner Placemaking Advisory.

David Rennie
@DSORennie - Beijing bureau chief and author of "Chaguan" column at The Economist, before that Washington, London, Brussels, Washington, Beijing, Sydney.
3 Mar 2020

https://twitter.com/DSORennie/status/1235018236241928193

Meeting family member at Beijing airport. Intl arrivals empty. Am told inspectors in hazmat suits taking passengers off the plane two at a time, they’ve been parked at the arrival gate for an hour now. They are serious about not letting virus take hold in Beijing.

Winston said:

We need to be focused on what we’re doing today

Click to expand...

Winston said:

Our focus is on moving forward.

Click to expand...

Winston said:

And our focus right now is moving forward to make sure that

Click to expand...

Dr. Messonier is evading every question with the "what's past is past, we need to move forward" line, thereby dismissing accountability for the screw-ups.
Sounds like some department heads I've worked under.

There was 2 deaths reported in California yesterday due to the virus. A state of emergency has been declared. Where is Winston's daily wall of text? Was he one of those two?

I was invited to fly my Square Rocket for the high power demo at the TARC national finals this May. What are the chances that the TARC finals will be cancelled? Normally there are about 3000 people. I spoke with Trip Barber last week but didn't ask about the possibility of cancellation.

Nathan said:

I was invited to fly my Square Rocket for the high power demo at the TARC national finals this May. What are the chances that the TARC finals will be cancelled? Normally there are about 3000 people. I spoke with Trip Barber last week but didn't ask about the possibility of cancellation.

Click to expand...

I would guess that it's far too soon to even guess what anyone will do about an even scheduled for May. In conversations at work, we haven't even seen reason to delay things scheduled for next month, although we *are* watching current events as they develop and are considering options. I'm certain that Trip and others are being similarly diligent.

kuririn said:

Dr. Messonier is evading every question with the "what's past is past, we need to move forward" line, thereby dismissing accountability for the screw-ups.
Sounds like some department heads I've worked under.

Click to expand...

Yup, that's exactly what caused me to key into her evasion. They know damned well how incredibly HUGE this screw-up was since once a virus like this gets going it can so easily overwhelm our medical system.

Here's what SHOULD have been ordered by someone, anyone in a position to do so the INSTANT after it became clear LONG AGO even in publicly available news, let alone what could probably have been KNOWN even before via our national (so called) intel capabilities, that this was virtually certain to turn into what it is turning into:

"Get us some damned test kits NOW! I don't care where they come from or who we have to pay to license them, just get them. None of this "NOT INVENTED HERE" or "AGAINST REGULATIONS" crap, get them NOW because if we don't put out the still tiny brush fires very early on, it is hopeless and it will overload our medical system."

That opportunity has passed. I just heard an MD expert on infectious diseases from St. John's hospital in LA say that we are most likely seeing the sprinkles from an oncoming hurricane. Our 80% consumer driven economy will also take a hit which can lead to cascading failures.

For instance, Facebook just shut down its HQ in Seattle due to an infected worker. Now, with what they do, they can work from home.

Facebook shuts down its Seattle headquarters after employee tests positive for coronavirus - and staff are urged to work from home for the next month
5 Mar 2020

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...rs-contractor-tests-positive-coronavirus.html

What happens to Amazon ordering when their giant warehouse and packing centers experience this which they almost certainly will? Can't do that from home...

Also:

Update (1220ET - 5 Mar 2020): As more workers are being told to work from home and more schools, events and businesses close around the world, Seattle has just closed 26 schools for two weeks.

Hmmmmm... what just happened here and will continue through June. Primaries. Rallies through to November.

And, of course, large sporting events, concerts, movies, etc.

Voting in the time of coronavirus
The Iranian regime risks exacerbating the outbreak of covid-19
As the virus spreads, Iran’s ability to handle the crisis is in doubt
24 Feb 2020

https://www.economist.com/middle-ea...e-risks-exacerbating-the-outbreak-of-covid-19

The transmission rate, death rate, and hospitalization rate for the SARS-CoV-2 virus are not precisely known, but in every study each of those factors are considerably higher than the common seasonal flu types against which we also have a vaccine cocktail and some herd immunity. Now, consider that against the graphic below and you can see how our medical system could easily become overwhelmed:



https://www.zerohedge.com/geopoliti...nd-reports-1st-death-global-coronavirus-cases

New Jersey confirms first presumptive case
Seattle closes 26 schools
Pentagon tracking 12 possible COVID-19 cases
NYC reports 2 more cases, raising total to 4 - neither patient has a connection to travel nor any of the other local individuals diagnosed with COVID-19
Italy postpones referendum vote
WHO's Tedros: "Now's the time to pull out the stops" [it was along time ago you incompetent twit - W]
Tennessee confirms case
Nevada confirms first case
New Delhi closes primary schools
EU officials weigh pushing retired health-care workers back into service to combat virus
Italy to ask EU for permission to raise budget deficit as lawmakers approve €7.5 billion euros
Beijing tells residents not to share food
30-year-old Chinese man dies in Wuhan 5 days after hospital discharge
CA authorities tell 'Grand Princess' cruise ship not to return to port until everyone is tested
Global case total passes 95k
Lebanon sees cases double to 31
France reports 2 more deaths
EY sends 1,500 Madrid employees home after staffer catches virus
Switzerland reports 1st death
South Africa confirms 1st case
UK chief medical officer confirms 'human-to-human' infections are happening in UK
UK case total hits 115
Google, Apple, Netflix cancel events
HSBC sends research department and part of London trading floor home
Facebook contract infected in Seattle
Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Netflix cancel events and/or ask employees to work from home
Netherlands cases double to 82
Spain cases climb 40, 1 new death
Belgium reports 27 new cases bringing total to 50
Germany adds 87 cases bringing total to 349

WHO's Dr. Tedros said Thursday during the NGOs daily presser that now is the time to "pull out all the stops" to combat the virus - which is ironic, considering the agency won't officially label the outbreak a 'pandemic', even though experts in the US have told the Washington Post and other media orgs that it is undoubtedly a pandemic. They also added that there's "no evidence" the virus has been spread from a human to a dog, despite earlier reports.

EU officials are reportedly considering pressing retired health-care workers back into service as a 'response' to the virus. Hopefully, the elderly nurses and doctors aren't left to catch the virus and die.

China managed to stop [NO, they didn't STOP the virus any more than they can STOP the common flu - I'd bet money that it will reappear as soon as everyone comes out and goes back to work, just not as bad as in Wuhan. However, Wuhan is where the by far most dangerous strain (see next post) of it most likely came from, so that most lethal strain has plastered itself all over their country to a far greater extent than any other. - W] the virus only by restricting the movements of roughly half its population. Democracies like the US unfortunately don't have that power.

Coronavirus has evolved into two major lineages and it is possible to be infected with both, a new study shows
5 Mar 2020

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science...as-mutated-aggressive-disease-say-scientists/

Coronavirus has mutated into two strains, one which appears to be far more aggressive, scientists have said, in a discovery which could hinder attempts to develop a vaccine.

Researchers at Peking University's School of Life Sciences and the Institut Pasteur of Shanghai, discovered the virus has evolved into two major lineages - dubbed ‘L’ and ‘S’ types.

The older ‘S-type’ appears to be milder and less infectious, while the ‘L-type’ which emerged later, spreads quickly and currently accounts for around 70 percent of cases.

Genetic analysis of a man in the US who tested positive on January 21, also showed it is possible to be infected with both types.

The finding comes just days after government health experts warned that the virus could hit Britain in ‘multiple waves’, and led to fears that some vaccines might not work on mutated strains.

On the origin and continuing evolution of SARS-CoV-2
National Science Review
Published: 03 March 2020

https://academic.oup.com/nsr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/nsr/nwaa036/5775463

Abstract excerpt:

Population genetic analyses of 103 SARS-CoV-2 genomes indicated that these viruses evolved into two major types (designated L and S), that are well defined by two different SNPs that show nearly complete linkage across the viral strains sequenced to date. Although the L type (∼70%) is more prevalent than the S type (∼30%), the S type was found to be the ancestral version. Whereas the L type was more prevalent in the early stages of the outbreak in Wuhan, the frequency of the L type decreased after early January 2020. Human intervention may have placed more severe selective pressure on the L type, which might be more aggressive and spread more quickly. On the other hand, the S type, which is evolutionarily older and less aggressive, might have increased in relative frequency due to relatively weaker selective pressure.

KILTED COWBOY said:

Click to expand...

Actually more appropriate.

Exponential growth curve although only just now testing for cases outside China can be a large component of this.

Medical screener at LAX airport tests positive for coronavirus
The person was among screeners who are assigned to the airport's in-transit lounge and also "support jetway screening on direct flights from China."
4 Mar 2020

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/heal...x-airport-tests-positive-coronavirus-n1149986

WASHINGTON — A medical professional who conducted passenger screenings at Los Angeles International Airport tested positive for the coronavirus late Tuesday , according to the Department of Homeland Security and an internal email obtained by NBC News.

The person last worked screening air travelers for illness on Feb. 21, DHS said in a statement, which also said the medical professional had worn the proper protective gear while working. The internal email described the person as a "contract medical screener" for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The email also said "these screeners are predominantly assigned to the CDC in-transit lounge and a few support jetway screening on direct flights from China."

In its statement, DHS said: "Late last night, DHS headquarters was alerted to a situation where one of our contracted medical professionals conducting screenings at LAX international airport had tested positive for COVID-19, also known as the coronavirus. This individual is currently under self-quarantine at home with mild symptoms and under medical supervision. Their immediate family is also under home quarantine."

According to DHS, the person began to exhibit cold-like symptoms Saturday and visited a primary care doctor Sunday [With a surgeon's mask on which would be advised to avoid infecting people in the GP's lobby? How about the GP and medical assistants who saw him? Are they in quarantine now and therefore taken out of action and effectively useless? See how many incredibly important follow-up questions remain unanswered? - W]. The person was tested for COVID-19, which came back positive Tuesday.

The person's last shift at LAX was Feb. 21, more than a week before the appearance of symptoms. According to the internal email, the screener worked at LAX from Feb. 14 to 21 and became symptomatic on Feb. 29.

"DHS is happy to report that this individual was highly trained and did everything right both on the job and when they began to feel sick," DHS said. "We are told the individual wore all the correct protective equipment and took necessary protections on the job."

LOL! That's supposed to calm people down? He did everything right, was wearing PPE, but still got infected in an airport while screening passengers. Another unanswered question: did HE personally detect anyone who was symptomatic? If not, even the person or persons who gave it to him slipped by. Of course, this serves the purpose of CYA for the DHS, right? You're going to be seeing a lot of that as big bureaucracies bungle things as they usually do.

-----------

And the only reason the many people with ties to the lawyer were actually caught as described in the following article is BECAUSE they have ties to the lawyer. Now, how about everyone THEY had unknown, untraceable contact with in public?

The friend of the lawyer who drove him to the hospital is infected as is the friend's wife and two kids.

11 in NY Have New Virus, Many With Ties to Afflicted Lawyer
Nine people in the same New York City suburb have been diagnosed with COVID-19, bringing the number of confirmed cases in the state to 11
4 Mar 2020

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-st...ents-son-is-nys-3rd-confirmed-case-of-disease

Not just for nukes...

Researchers enlist Summit supercomputer to combat coronavirus

I hope the computer doesn't get a virus...

Easy to say, harder than hell to do:https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/d...e-touching-their-faces/ar-BB10MFZs?li=BBnb7Kz

Here is a nice heat map of the current status of the virus:

https://www.mapbox.cn/coronavirusmap/#1.8/0/126.9

Well worth bookmarking at the moment, IMHO.

Winston said:

A fixation on TP for some reason:

Panic TP Buying at Urban Honolulu Costco
Feb 27, 2020



Brooklyn Costco, 29 Feb 2020, 9 AM:

Seattle Costco, 29 Feb 2020:

They picked exactly the wrong time for a sale:

Click to expand...

Have you ever shopped at Costco? It's ALWAYS like that...

And when our local Walgreens runs one of those sales, they always run out too. Nothing new or sensational about that...

cerving said:

Have you ever shopped at Costco? It's ALWAYS like that...

And when our local Walgreens runs one of those sales, they always run out too. Nothing new or sensational about that...

Click to expand...

Here in Hawaii, whenever there is even a remote possibility that ocean shipping might stop (such as a dock-workers strike) Hawaiians know to stock up on TP. If commerce supply-lines are hindered due to virus transmission concerns, we still need TP. Ever tried to wipe clean with a lava rock...? Stock-up, boys, stock-up.

kevindcornwell said:

Here in Hawaii, whenever there is even a remote possibility that ocean shipping might stop (such as a dock-workers strike) Hawaiians know to stock up on TP. If commerce supply-lines are hindered due to virus transmission concerns, we still need TP. Ever tried to wipe clean with a lava rock...? Stock-up, boys, stock-up.

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All you need are three shells.