All things Chinese CoronaVirus

[jhu72]

Totally unclear whether this is a good or a bad thing. We will see. It shows a certain degree of desperation.

[RedFromMI]

So a Seattle Flu Study group has sequenced the case reported on Friday from Snohomish County, WA. (I am getting this from my twitter feed).

They posted the sequence publicly to gisaid.org. The case is evolutionary (descended) from the first Washington state case reported on January 19. According to the group, this suggests what is called "cryptic" transmission in Washington state for the past 6 weeks. Cryptic transmission means that the transmission is undetected, probably in this case because actual testing was highly limited to only those possible cases with travel/contact associations with China until just a couple of days ago.

The genome match is statistically significant, but not high enough to completely exclude chance agreement, so the team is waiting for a case or two more from that area to match sequences again. If that happens (matching), the likely situation is that there are a few hundred current infections at this time in that local area.

[jhu72]

Chinese resistance to their government growing over COVID-19?

[MDlaxfan76]

Chinese resistance to their government growing over COVID-19?

It's a new generation.
First time in their lives they've had serious reason to question their government's degree of social control.

[jhu72]

So a Seattle Flu Study group has sequenced the case reported on Friday from Snohomish County, WA. (I am getting this from my twitter feed).

They posted the sequence publicly to gisaid.org. The case is evolutionary (descended) from the first Washington state case reported on January 19. According to the group, this suggests what is called "cryptic" transmission in Washington state for the past 6 weeks. Cryptic transmission means that the transmission is undetected, probably in this case because actual testing was highly limited to only those possible cases with travel/contact associations with China until just a couple of days ago.

The genome match is statistically significant, but not high enough to completely exclude chance agreement, so the team is waiting for a case or two more from that area to match sequences again. If that happens (matching), the likely situation is that there are a few hundred current infections at this time in that local area.

It seems to me, given the testing situation in the US, there is a lot more COVID-19 running around in the US than anyone is letting on / guessing. Probably masquerading as a mild cold. Just a suspicion. If this is the case, why has it been so deadly in China, seeming less so here? I have a suspicion we are in for a wild ride, with surprising behavior of this bug. Can this thing go underground / seemingly dormant like the Spanish flu only to pop up in a deadly outbreak months later? More questions than answers. Maybe it is highly temperature sensitive. All just too soon to tell.

[youthathletics]

So a Seattle Flu Study group has sequenced the case reported on Friday from Snohomish County, WA. (I am getting this from my twitter feed).

They posted the sequence publicly to gisaid.org. The case is evolutionary (descended) from the first Washington state case reported on January 19. According to the group, this suggests what is called "cryptic" transmission in Washington state for the past 6 weeks. Cryptic transmission means that the transmission is undetected, probably in this case because actual testing was highly limited to only those possible cases with travel/contact associations with China until just a couple of days ago.

The genome match is statistically significant, but not high enough to completely exclude chance agreement, so the team is waiting for a case or two more from that area to match sequences again. If that happens (matching), the likely situation is that there are a few hundred current infections at this time in that local area.

The writers of The Simpsons, called it back in 1993...the 'Osaka Flu'.

[jhu72]

A review of the coronavirus week.

[Brooklyn]

the genius that is tRUMP:

[jhu72]

A really useful site for tracking the spread of COVID-19 with a concise summary of events worldwide.

US is now reporting 72 cases and a single death.

[Trinity]

A case in Rhode Island. Had been in Italy in February.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/coronaviru ... 1583080456

[6ftstick]

A really useful site for tracking the spread of COVID-19 with a concise summary of events worldwide.

US is now reporting 72 cases and a single death.

Really!

CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 32 million flu illnesses, 310,000 hospitalizations and 18,000 deaths from flu.

From flu.

Should the NYTimes suggest it be called Trumpfluenza.

[Typical Lax Dad]

A really useful site for tracking the spread of COVID-19 with a concise summary of events worldwide.

US is now reporting 72 cases and a single death.

Really!

CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 32 million flu illnesses, 310,000 hospitalizations and 18,000 deaths from flu.

From flu.

Should the NYTimes suggest it be called Trumpfluenza.

How did the flu impact the global economy? You have any clients that shut down their supply chain over the flu?

[MDlaxfan76]

One hypothesis on why the death rate is so high in China from this virus, versus here (so far) is that those dying in China are disproportionately older men, who are already respiratory compromised. Chinese men in particular are heavy smokers, much higher rate than here in US.

This includes upper income, mobile Chinese, whereas, we have a much reduced smoking prevalence with mobile Americans.

If you want to get political, thank folks like Mike Bloomberg who pushed so hard on smoking policies, workplace and public spaces, like restaurants etc.

[6ftstick]

A really useful site for tracking the spread of COVID-19 with a concise summary of events worldwide.

US is now reporting 72 cases and a single death.

Really!

CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 32 million flu illnesses, 310,000 hospitalizations and 18,000 deaths from flu.

From flu.

Should the NYTimes suggest it be called Trumpfluenza.

How did the flu impact the global economy? You have any clients that shut down their supply chain over the flu?

Shut down over panic and fear.

Who knows what's actually happening in China or WHY?

The comparison was for US cases.

[RedFromMI]

From an expert in govermental affairs (teaches at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service) on Twitter:

Jeremy Klonyndyk

Now seems highly likely that there has been undetected community transmission ongoing in parts of the upper West Coast for weeks, at least.

How did we end up with major surveillance failure on par with Italy and Iran?

Let's talk about how that happens.

This may get spun as a technical failure (e.g. flaws in the test kits).

It's not. It's an interconnected communications, strategy, process, and execution failure, reflecting a serious breakdown of crisis mgmt.

Direct line from that failure to sick people in a nursing home.

Recall how, in the run-up to the Iraq war, the White House signaled preferred policy outcome so heavily that it skewed the analysis and advice it received.

Can see similar alignment b/w preferences Trump and his team were signaling, and strategic posture of his crisis managers.

Trump wanted to calm markets, avoid threats to his re-elex, and keep the disease out of the country.

He and his team made those preferences very clear. And got angry at those who deviated.

(WaPo has an infuriating tick-tock on all this out today: https://t.co/UfqRy6odDm)

That inevitably colored - both overtly and subtly - the strategic emphasis of the crisis task force.

They operated from presumptions that containment was possible, the risk to the US was low, and transmission was not happening here yet. Repeated those things like a mantra.

And those assumptions set the frame for the testing failures.

The key question is not "why didn't CDC's test kits work?"

It's "why were flawed CDC test kits allowed to bottleneck all US testing capacity when alternatives were available?"

https://t.co/cEb4P0wzAU

And to be clear, alternatives were available. China has managed to test hundreds of thousands. @WHO has sent working test kits to 50+ countries. South Korea is doing drive-through testing clinics, for goodness' sake.

https://t.co/p0YfLci8mI

And to be equally clear, experts outside the administration - including Trump's former FDA commissioner - have been clamoring for weeks about the need to ramp up testing. He and Lu Borio wrote this nearly a month ago:

https://t.co/4G0NME3AjN

Adding to the debacle, the bottlenecks on test kits meant that CDC kept the case definition artificially narrow - tied to China - even as cases were expanding globally (and, we now realize, domestically as well).

https://t.co/xg40TK7yqt

The result of that definition, as @JenniferNuzzo and others have eloquently argued, was that we were blind to community spread - because CDC had defined suspect cases so narrowly as to exclude that possibility.

Can't see them, so can't test them, so blind to what's happening.

Now - why would policymakers let that happen?

Well, if you assume that community transmission *is* ongoing (as most experts outside USG did), then this looks like a real problem.

But if you assume it's *not* happening, as the Task Force did, this all looks much less urgent.

Major administrative f**kup from the current administration...

[Typical Lax Dad]

A really useful site for tracking the spread of COVID-19 with a concise summary of events worldwide.

US is now reporting 72 cases and a single death.

Really!

CDC estimates that so far this season there have been at least 32 million flu illnesses, 310,000 hospitalizations and 18,000 deaths from flu.

From flu.

Should the NYTimes suggest it be called Trumpfluenza.

How did the flu impact the global economy? You have any clients that shut down their supply chain over the flu?

Shut down over panic and fear.

Who knows what's actually happening in China or WHY?

The comparison was for US cases.

Talk to your fortune 1000 clients and find out what they think.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/perso ... e-zone/amp

[jhu72]

From an expert in govermental affairs (teaches at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service) on Twitter:

Jeremy Klonyndyk

Now seems highly likely that there has been undetected community transmission ongoing in parts of the upper West Coast for weeks, at least.

How did we end up with major surveillance failure on par with Italy and Iran?

Let's talk about how that happens.

This may get spun as a technical failure (e.g. flaws in the test kits).

It's not. It's an interconnected communications, strategy, process, and execution failure, reflecting a serious breakdown of crisis mgmt.

Direct line from that failure to sick people in a nursing home.

Recall how, in the run-up to the Iraq war, the White House signaled preferred policy outcome so heavily that it skewed the analysis and advice it received.

Can see similar alignment b/w preferences Trump and his team were signaling, and strategic posture of his crisis managers.

Trump wanted to calm markets, avoid threats to his re-elex, and keep the disease out of the country.

He and his team made those preferences very clear. And got angry at those who deviated.

(WaPo has an infuriating tick-tock on all this out today: https://t.co/UfqRy6odDm)

That inevitably colored - both overtly and subtly - the strategic emphasis of the crisis task force.

They operated from presumptions that containment was possible, the risk to the US was low, and transmission was not happening here yet. Repeated those things like a mantra.

And those assumptions set the frame for the testing failures.

The key question is not "why didn't CDC's test kits work?"

It's "why were flawed CDC test kits allowed to bottleneck all US testing capacity when alternatives were available?"

https://t.co/cEb4P0wzAU

And to be clear, alternatives were available. China has managed to test hundreds of thousands. @WHO has sent working test kits to 50+ countries. South Korea is doing drive-through testing clinics, for goodness' sake.

https://t.co/p0YfLci8mI

And to be equally clear, experts outside the administration - including Trump's former FDA commissioner - have been clamoring for weeks about the need to ramp up testing. He and Lu Borio wrote this nearly a month ago:

https://t.co/4G0NME3AjN

Adding to the debacle, the bottlenecks on test kits meant that CDC kept the case definition artificially narrow - tied to China - even as cases were expanding globally (and, we now realize, domestically as well).

https://t.co/xg40TK7yqt

The result of that definition, as @JenniferNuzzo and others have eloquently argued, was that we were blind to community spread - because CDC had defined suspect cases so narrowly as to exclude that possibility.

Can't see them, so can't test them, so blind to what's happening.

Now - why would policymakers let that happen?

Well, if you assume that community transmission *is* ongoing (as most experts outside USG did), then this looks like a real problem.

But if you assume it's *not* happening, as the Task Force did, this all looks much less urgent.

Major administrative f**kup from the current administration...

I am not ready to lay the testing f**kup at Trump's feet just yet, but it is a definite possibility. That is to say, I am not prepared to say it was intentional. I rather think it was organizational incompetence.

[Kismet]

From an expert in govermental affairs (teaches at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service) on Twitter:

Jeremy Klonyndyk

Now seems highly likely that there has been undetected community transmission ongoing in parts of the upper West Coast for weeks, at least.

How did we end up with major surveillance failure on par with Italy and Iran?

Let's talk about how that happens.

This may get spun as a technical failure (e.g. flaws in the test kits).

It's not. It's an interconnected communications, strategy, process, and execution failure, reflecting a serious breakdown of crisis mgmt.

Direct line from that failure to sick people in a nursing home.

Recall how, in the run-up to the Iraq war, the White House signaled preferred policy outcome so heavily that it skewed the analysis and advice it received.

Can see similar alignment b/w preferences Trump and his team were signaling, and strategic posture of his crisis managers.

Trump wanted to calm markets, avoid threats to his re-elex, and keep the disease out of the country.

He and his team made those preferences very clear. And got angry at those who deviated.

(WaPo has an infuriating tick-tock on all this out today: https://t.co/UfqRy6odDm)

That inevitably colored - both overtly and subtly - the strategic emphasis of the crisis task force.

They operated from presumptions that containment was possible, the risk to the US was low, and transmission was not happening here yet. Repeated those things like a mantra.

And those assumptions set the frame for the testing failures.

The key question is not "why didn't CDC's test kits work?"

It's "why were flawed CDC test kits allowed to bottleneck all US testing capacity when alternatives were available?"

https://t.co/cEb4P0wzAU

And to be clear, alternatives were available. China has managed to test hundreds of thousands. @WHO has sent working test kits to 50+ countries. South Korea is doing drive-through testing clinics, for goodness' sake.

https://t.co/p0YfLci8mI

And to be equally clear, experts outside the administration - including Trump's former FDA commissioner - have been clamoring for weeks about the need to ramp up testing. He and Lu Borio wrote this nearly a month ago:

https://t.co/4G0NME3AjN

Adding to the debacle, the bottlenecks on test kits meant that CDC kept the case definition artificially narrow - tied to China - even as cases were expanding globally (and, we now realize, domestically as well).

https://t.co/xg40TK7yqt

The result of that definition, as @JenniferNuzzo and others have eloquently argued, was that we were blind to community spread - because CDC had defined suspect cases so narrowly as to exclude that possibility.

Can't see them, so can't test them, so blind to what's happening.

Now - why would policymakers let that happen?

Well, if you assume that community transmission *is* ongoing (as most experts outside USG did), then this looks like a real problem.

But if you assume it's *not* happening, as the Task Force did, this all looks much less urgent.

Major administrative f**kup from the current administration...

I am not ready to lay the testing f**kup at Trump's feet just yet, but it is a definite possibility. That is to say, I am not prepared to say it was intentional. I rather think it was organizational incompetence.

Then there is this troubling news - excerpt below

https://www.axios.com/cdc-lab-coronavir ... 4c2e2.html

Lab for coronavirus test kits may have been contaminated
Axios
Jonathan Swan, Caitlin Owens

"A top federal scientist sounded the alarm about what he feared was contamination in an Atlanta lab where the government made test kits for the coronavirus, according to sources familiar with the situation in Atlanta.

The Trump administration has ordered an independent investigation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lab, and manufacturing of the virus test kits has been moved, the sources said.

Why it matters: At the time the administration is under scrutiny for its early preparations for the virus, the potential problems at the lab became a top internal priority for some officials. But the Trump administration did not talk publicly about the Food and Drug Administration’s specific concerns about the Atlanta lab."

[jhu72]

From an expert in govermental affairs (teaches at Georgetown's School of Foreign Service) on Twitter:

Jeremy Klonyndyk

Now seems highly likely that there has been undetected community transmission ongoing in parts of the upper West Coast for weeks, at least.

How did we end up with major surveillance failure on par with Italy and Iran?

Let's talk about how that happens.

This may get spun as a technical failure (e.g. flaws in the test kits).

It's not. It's an interconnected communications, strategy, process, and execution failure, reflecting a serious breakdown of crisis mgmt.

Direct line from that failure to sick people in a nursing home.

Recall how, in the run-up to the Iraq war, the White House signaled preferred policy outcome so heavily that it skewed the analysis and advice it received.

Can see similar alignment b/w preferences Trump and his team were signaling, and strategic posture of his crisis managers.

Trump wanted to calm markets, avoid threats to his re-elex, and keep the disease out of the country.

He and his team made those preferences very clear. And got angry at those who deviated.

(WaPo has an infuriating tick-tock on all this out today: https://t.co/UfqRy6odDm)

That inevitably colored - both overtly and subtly - the strategic emphasis of the crisis task force.

They operated from presumptions that containment was possible, the risk to the US was low, and transmission was not happening here yet. Repeated those things like a mantra.

And those assumptions set the frame for the testing failures.

The key question is not "why didn't CDC's test kits work?"

It's "why were flawed CDC test kits allowed to bottleneck all US testing capacity when alternatives were available?"

https://t.co/cEb4P0wzAU

And to be clear, alternatives were available. China has managed to test hundreds of thousands. @WHO has sent working test kits to 50+ countries. South Korea is doing drive-through testing clinics, for goodness' sake.

https://t.co/p0YfLci8mI

And to be equally clear, experts outside the administration - including Trump's former FDA commissioner - have been clamoring for weeks about the need to ramp up testing. He and Lu Borio wrote this nearly a month ago:

https://t.co/4G0NME3AjN

Adding to the debacle, the bottlenecks on test kits meant that CDC kept the case definition artificially narrow - tied to China - even as cases were expanding globally (and, we now realize, domestically as well).

https://t.co/xg40TK7yqt

The result of that definition, as @JenniferNuzzo and others have eloquently argued, was that we were blind to community spread - because CDC had defined suspect cases so narrowly as to exclude that possibility.

Can't see them, so can't test them, so blind to what's happening.

Now - why would policymakers let that happen?

Well, if you assume that community transmission *is* ongoing (as most experts outside USG did), then this looks like a real problem.

But if you assume it's *not* happening, as the Task Force did, this all looks much less urgent.

Major administrative f**kup from the current administration...

I am not ready to lay the testing f**kup at Trump's feet just yet, but it is a definite possibility. That is to say, I am not prepared to say it was intentional. I rather think it was organizational incompetence.

Then there is this troubling news - excerpt below

https://www.axios.com/cdc-lab-coronavir ... 4c2e2.html

Lab for coronavirus test kits may have been contaminated
Axios
Jonathan Swan, Caitlin Owens

"A top federal scientist sounded the alarm about what he feared was contamination in an Atlanta lab where the government made test kits for the coronavirus, according to sources familiar with the situation in Atlanta.

The Trump administration has ordered an independent investigation of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lab, and manufacturing of the virus test kits has been moved, the sources said.

Why it matters: At the time the administration is under scrutiny for its early preparations for the virus, the potential problems at the lab became a top internal priority for some officials. But the Trump administration did not talk publicly about the Food and Drug Administration’s specific concerns about the Atlanta lab."

This report is highly problematic. It really sounds like the guys in the trenches are playing it straight and the politicians are trying to hide the problems. I would also be concerned that a director level scientist at FDA was the guy that found the problem and solution. This screams staffing problem at both the FDA and CDC if I am understanding the story correctly. Normally FDA scientist don't deal in solving problems for other organizations. Normally FDA scientists are less good than the scientists in the organization they are dealing with.

Normally the FDA's job is to find process problems. Audited organizations find the solutions. Very strange. Very troublesome. This was not a standard audit.

[jhu72]

For Trump supporters who think it is only the media and liberals who see the Trump administration response as f**kedup, see what the State of Alabama thinks.