Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Tamas]

128 cases in total in the UK, so just 7 new since yesterday.

One of the 4 confirmed cases in Hungary is a 69 years old Brit, he was often travelling between Milan and a Hungarian city. Now he is stuck in a Hungarian hospital with a novel new infection, so, I wouldn't bet on his survival, the poor sod.

[Tamas]

A place a few miles from where I work has been closed until further notice because somebody from there has been tested positive. 

[celedhring]

So, we are at 365. Largest single day increase with 105 cases in the last 24 hours. Largest outbreaks are in Madrid (100+) and the Basque Country (50). It looks like there are around 4000 people in isolation.

FWIW it looks like about 95% of the tests performed are negatives.

[Tamas]

Actually I was wrong there has been 47 new cases the last 24 hours, including two British Airways flight crews.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah, UK is up to 163 including two BA baggage handlers

Government's holding talks with the supermarket chains about contingency plans over food supply. I remember reading about this maybe a week ago and the supermarkets were basically drawing up plans to reduce the complexity of their supply chains, with the intention of ensuring supply of "core" products but there'd be less choice.

Edit: Yeah the UK stats always include the tests and the number of negatives, so today's update:

As of 7am on 6 March 2020, 20,338 people have been tested in the UK, of which 20,175 were confirmed negative and 163 were confirmed as positive. One patient who tested positive for Covid-19 has died.

[Legbiter]

So, we are at 365. Largest single day increase with 105 cases in the last 24 hours. Largest outbreaks are in Madrid (100+) and the Basque Country (50). It looks like there are around 4000 people in isolation.

FWIW it looks like about 95% of the tests performed are negatives.

Yeah most are negatives here as well because they're often people who've come into contact with a confirmed case and are in precautionary quarantine.

[Tamas]

Trump just reiterated his lack of worry about the spread of the novel illness in the US, reports Joanna Walters on our US politics liveblog.

Perhaps problematic, though is that, to many, he's coming across as casually dismissive and posturing, not measured, and reassuringly presidential.

"You have to be calm," he said, at the White House this morning before departing to tour the tornado damage in Tennessee and just after signing an $8.3 billion emergency spending bill to deal with the virus.

"It will go away," he said. "We have very low numbers [of confirmed cases] compared to many countries throughout the world, our numbers are lower than almost anyone...deaths, is it 11?" It is.

"In terms of cases, it's very very few because we have been very strong at the borders."

He also said he thinks the financial markets will "really bounce back" from the see-sawing of recent days over concerns that the virus is spreading and on governments' abilities to contain it.

"This came unexpectedly, it came out of China, we closed it down, we stopped it, it was a very early shut down," he added.

How many days until he starts lamenting that if his wall have been built there would be no cases in the country?

Apart from his contribution to the US mismanaging this, I am sort of happy he thinks he can bullshit his way out of an epidemic the same way he can from a real estate deal.

[Josephus]

I'm updating my deadpool pics to include me. 

[Legbiter]

2 cases of person-to-person infection confirmed here today so that genie is out of the bottle. Quarantining those coming from obvious foreign hotspots at best delayed general transmission by maybe a week. They should just bite the bullet and cancel schools and mass gatherings now instead of always waiting for some WHO-defined milestone. Reducing connectivity by 30% upfront might even have an asymmetric payoff in a multiplicative process like this.

[Sheilbh]

Apart from his contribution to the US mismanaging this, I am sort of happy he thinks he can bullshit his way out of an epidemic the same way he can from a real estate deal.

I feel like at some point this sort-of Frank Drebin response will clash with Trump's germaphobia in a big way

[Barrister]

1st case discovered in Alberta.  Calgary woman was on the cruise ship off California before it was quarantined.

[katmai]

Up to 14 deaths here in Washington State.

[FunkMonk]

Three cases have been confirmed just across the border in Maryland. It's been an honor posting with you all.   

I'm in Maryland near DC. I'll be joining you at GWU Hospital when the time comes. 

[Maximus]

I'm across the bridge. I'll be fine: it's practically a different planet.

[Maladict]

First death today, as well as confirmed infections at several schools (none of them will be closing).