Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Tamas]

To be fair, his father's wealth has elevated him above rules the masses have to follow his whole life. It must be hard to fathom why that would change when nominally he becomes much more powerful.

[garbon]

Trump won't follow New Jersey quarantine mandate during upcoming trip

(CNN)President Donald Trump will not abide by a new travel advisory in New Jersey requiring a quarantine period for visitors from coronavirus hotspots when he visits his Bedminster golf club this weekend.

"The President of the United States is not a civilian. Anyone who is in close proximity to him, including staff, guests, and press are tested for COVID-19 and confirmed to be negative," White House spokesman Judd Deere said in a statement.

Trump recently traveled to Arizona, one of the states designated by New Jersey as a hotspot requiring quarantine. The governors of New Jersey, Connecticut and New York announced Wednesday that they would require people who'd been to those states to quarantine for 14 days or face fines.

Deere, however, said the White House followed mitigation plans to prevent contagion during the visit to Arizona on Tuesday and that "anyone traveling in support of the President this weekend will be closely monitored for symptoms and tested for COVID and therefore pose little to no risk to the local populations."

In response, New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy told CNN's Erin Burnett on "OutFront" Wednesday evening that "there is a carve out for essential workers, and I think by any definition the President of the United States is an essential worker."

"I think the bigger point here is we want folks to really be responsible in terms of thinking about not just themselves, but their family and their communities," the Democratic governor continued. "And we've beaten this virus down to a pulp in New Jersey with an enormous loss of life. We've been through hell, and we don't want to go through hell again. And that's the spirit that underpins what we're asking folks to do."

Murphy, along with Democratic Govs. Andrew Cuomo of New York and Ned Lamont of Connecticut, said earlier Wednesday the travel advisory applies to anyone coming from a state with a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents over a 7-day rolling average or a state with a 10% or higher positivity rate over a 7-day rolling average.

"We have to make sure the virus doesn't come in on a plane," Cuomo said. "We worked very hard to get the viral transmission rate down, and we don't want to see it go up."

As of Wednesday, the advisory applies to Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Utah and Texas.
The interstate travel restrictions are just another consequence of the federal government's inability to create a robust national public health infrastructure. The lack of nationwide rules and effective supply chains has largely left each state on its own and had the effect of pitting them against each other.

WTF? While he is certainly an essential worker by virtue of his role, that means he's cleared for frivolous things like a golf club visit?

[celedhring]

Barcelona city council has gone and tested additional frozen sewage samples (I know Sheilbh loves this), and found traces of Covid DNA in one sample dating back to March 2019 

Every other pre-2020 sample has tested negative, so I presume there's been an issue when testing that particular one.

[Sheilbh]

Barcelona city council has gone and tested some frozen sewage samples (I know Sheilbh loves this), and found traces of Covid DNA in one sample dating back to March 2019 

Every other pre-2020 sample has tested negative, so I presume there's been an issue when testing that particular one.

This is not the forum reputation I hoped to build....

That's incredible though. Presumably they're re-testing to make sure it wasn't a mistake?

Earliest I've heard in Europe so far was the French guy who was treated for and recovered from pneumonia in December 2019. But they later tested his samples for covid and it was positive. And he had no links to China.

[celedhring]

News just broke, I presume we'll get some more details.

Here's the published article by the researchers, who don't doubt the result. Again, it's trace amounts on 2 out of 5 markers, so I'd certainly take it with a large amount of salt.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.13.20129627v1.full.pdf

[DGuller]

I'll need more than a large amount of salt to take it in.

[Zanza]

There are multiple outbreaks in various places in Germany, typically tied to meatpacking plants, high density social housing or religious gatherings. The case number rose a lot here the last days, with local lockdown in place again for two districts. I hope they can contain it, especially as summer holidays are beginning now and people are restless and travelling again.

[Razgovory]

Texas is moving towards reclosing.  Texans will always do the right thing, after exhausting all other possibilities.

[viper37]

And he had no links to China.

ah, indirectly he had.
His wife was working in a market very near the Charles-de-Gaulle airport and cathering to a lot of travellers who come down from the plane with their suitcases.  She was infected first and transmitted the disease to her husband.  She was never tested though, he symptoms were severe, but not life threatening.

[Legbiter]

First mini-outbreak here for a couple of months. Female footballer tests negative on June 17th upon arriving in country, her boyfriend tests positive abroad a couple of days later, she gets retested and is found to be infected. Had played one match over the weekend in the meantime so 2 whole teams plus all her social contacts, about 300 people will be closely monitored/isolated. This is exactly what the system we have in place is designed to detect and crush.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting observation on second waves - obviously query the stats in Iran - but their cases started to climb again on 1 May. The number of deaths continued to fall/plateau and only started to rise on 25 May. That lines up with what you'd expect in terms of it taking a few weeks from diagnosis to hospitalisation and then, in bad cases, to death.

That's why I think it's probably worth paying attention to the climbing case numbers in the US and certain states particularly. But we're not going to see that in the fatalities for another 3-4 weeks.

[Legbiter]

The council said something like 1/2 million people tried to use or get to to the beaches; so today something approaching one whole percent of the UK population decided to visit Bournemouth.

[PDH]

Man I can hardly wait for this 1st wave to get done.  I think that happens in January some time.

[Legbiter]

Yeah the new numbers coming out of the US look very disturbing.

[PDH]

The US plan to fight with total incompetence, childlike ignorance, and stubborn refusal to accept facts has not paid off so far, but who knows?