The P word
The COVID-19 viral disease that has swept into at least 114 countries and killed more than 4,000 people is now officially a pandemic, the World Health Organization announced Wednesday.
“This is the first pandemic caused by coronavirus,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
As he announced the ratcheting up of a health emergency to its highest level, Tedros also said there is hope that COVID-19 can still be curtailed. And he urged countries to act now to stop the disease.
“WHO has been in full response mode since we were notified of the first cases,” Tedros said. “And we have called every day for countries to take urgent and aggressive action. We have rung the alarm bell loud and clear.”
Eight countries — including the U.S. — are now each reporting more than 1,000 cases of COVID-19, caused by the virus that has infected roughly 120,000 people worldwide.
Bumpy ride ahead.
I wish it was just bumpy, but I fear we’ll have over a million deaths now in the U.S. What a colossal failure of leadership when it’s most needed.
Washington governor Jay Inslee has announced a ban on unnecessary gatherings of 250+ people – social, entertainment, and such – in three counties: King, Snohomish, and Pierce. This ban will remain in place until the end of the month.
I would it were that simple. The story of the heroic Chinese doctor Ai Fen and the Chinese bureaucracy’s pathetic attempts at covering the whole issue up at the start INSTEAD of publicising and warning, should go down in medical history and be taught to all medical students and those contemplating any sort of official career. Heads should roll; but the proper ones won’t. If push comes to shove, some minor bureaucrat will be thrown to the wolves; by the real and culpable villains of this murder story (literally) will come out the other side unscathed. Just watch.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/11/coronavirus-wuhan-doctor-ai-fen-speaks-out-against-authorities
JA, the death toll will never reach that high (officially). You’d actually have to be testing and counting potential and actual cases and that isn’t happening and I doubt the USA’s fragmented health system (which cares little for societies underprivileged) will ever gear up to get on top of such a process. Especially since Trump and his sycophants in both government and media are still desperately trying to downplay this. FFS…
https://twitter.com/MattGertz/status/1237718882695208960?s=20
It has really taken off in Norway. Just today, the number of confirmed cases has gone up 50%, from 400 to 600. We now rank 4th among the world’s countries in cases per million inhabitants! This shows it is not necessary to have a denialist government in order to get hit hard, though I assume it “helps”.
Most cases have been people coming back from winter vacations in Austria and northern Italy, but lately, a number of cases have appeared with no clear source of infection, which is really worrisome. I’ll be working mostly from home for a while now. I am fortunate to be able to do so.
41 cases in my home province of Ontario, just over a hundred across Canada. So far most are still related to travel abroad. It’s like watching a wave break in slow motion. I’m sure it will end up in my city (London), but not sure when. A person with one of the earliest Canadian cases had passed through here without any further infections before going into quarantine in Toronto. We’ve got lots of food if we have to self isolate (or hole up).
Kevin Drum at Mother Jones provided a great chart showing the number of cases in various countries. It suggests that the US will surpass all other countries in a few weeks. We’re number one, rah.
https://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2020/03/will-the-us-become-italy-in-a-couple-of-weeks/
Correction: the graph in the article I posted shows COVID-19 cases as a percentage of population (not totally cases), and that is the metric for which the US is predicted to take the “lead” in a few weeks.