CORONA Main Coronavirus thread

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
(fair use applies)

Coronavirus infects 1,716 medical staff as China reports 5,090 new cases
Owen Churchill , Gigi Choy , Wendy Wu
Published: 7:58am, 14 Feb, 2020 | Updated: 2:45pm, 14 Feb, 2020
  • Antibodies in the blood of recovered patients can kill the virus, Chinese researchers say
  • Total mainland cases now at more than 63,851 and deaths at 1,380
China has reported 5,090 new cases of coronavirus infections on Thursday, bringing the total number in mainland China to 63,851.

The National Health Commission said 121 new deaths were reported, making the death toll on the mainland 1,380. The commission removed 108 deaths from the Hubei numbers because they had been counted twice.

Hubei province, the epicentre of the outbreak, reported a further 4,823 cases of the diseases. It was the 10th straight day that the number of daily new confirmed cases in the country fell, excluding Hubei.

The figures were the second daily batch to be released since the roll-out of expanded diagnostic criteria, under which a diagnosis based on an analysis of symptoms is considered a confirmed case. The new diagnostic criteria are only being used in Hubei.

More than 1,700 medical staff infected in China

The National Health Commission for the first time revealed that 1,716 medical workers are infected with the coronavirus.

Zeng Yixin, deputy director of the commission, said in a press conference on Friday that the number of medical workers infected as of Tuesday was 3.8 per cent of the total infections on mainland China. Of those, 1,502 are from Hubei province, and 1,102 from Wuhan.

Six medical workers had died from the coronavirus as of Tuesday, Zeng said.

Plasma from recovered patients used in virus fight

China National Biotec Group announced on Thursday evening that virus-neutralising antibodies had been detected in the plasma of patients who have recovered from Covid-19, and experiments have proven they can effectively kill the virus, according to a Beijing News report on Friday.

The company said it had successfully prepared the plasma for clinical treatment after strict blood biological safety testing, virus inactivation and antiviral activity testing. The plasma had been used to treat 11 patients in critical condition, with significant results, it said.

The first phase of the treatment was carried out on three critically ill patients in Wuhan on February 8 and the plasma is currently being used to treat more than 10 critically ill patients.

Clinical tests showed that, after 12 to 24 hours of treatment, the main inflammatory indicators in the laboratory decreased significantly, the proportion of lymphocytes increased, key indicators such as blood oxygen saturation and viral load improved, and clinical signs and symptoms improved significantly.

“The plasma product to treat the novel coronavirus is made from plasma loaded with antibodies donated by recovered patients. It went through virus inactivation and was tested against virus-neutralising antibodies and multiple pathogenic microorganisms,” the company said, according to the report.

Boosting confidence overseas

China’s foreign minister Wang Yi said China’s economy would rebound strongly once the Covid-19 outbreak was controlled and consumption resumed.

Wang said at a press conference in Berlin with his German counterpart Heiko Maas on Thursday that the virus’ effect on China’s economy was temporary and the country would strive to minimise its impact.

“I believe, once the epidemic is over, the depressed consumption demand will be unleased quickly, and the economic momentum will have a resilient rebound,” he said.

He also called for worldwide joint efforts to contain the virus, adding that China had effectively prevented the virus from spreading to other countries.

White House official: US ‘disappointed’

The United States feels let down by a lack of transparency from China over the crisis, a senior White House official said on Thursday, contradicting President Donald Trump’s confidence in Beijing.

“We are a little disappointed that we haven’t been invited in and we’re a little disappointed in the lack of transparency coming from the Chinese,” Larry Kudlow, director of the National Economic Council, told reporters.

Trump on Thursday again praised his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for his government’s response to the outbreak but Kudlow said unanswered questions were mounting and there was no sign of the promised cooperation.

“President Xi assured President Trump that China was on it and there would be openness, they would accept our help,” he added.

“We’re more than willing to work with the UN (and) WHO on this and they won’t let us. I don’t know what their motives are. I do know that apparently more and more people are suffering over there.”

“Is the Politburo really being honest with us?” he asked, referring to communist China’s top leadership body.

The United States Centres for Diseases Control said on Thursday it expected more coronavirus cases in the country in the days ahead as health officials announced a 15th confirmed infection – this one in an evacuee from China under quarantine in Texas.

Change in protocol leads to dramatic numbers spike

The inclusion of clinical diagnoses in the official count led to a dramatic spike in confirmed cases and deaths, appearing to confirm suspicions that the true number of cases far eclipsed the official figures of the past few weeks. The official data had been constrained by the availability of diagnostic tests.

Around two thirds of the new cases reported on Friday were clinically diagnosed.

The new monitoring protocol coincides with a purge of top party officials in Hubei, where local authorities have become a target of nationwide public fury over the government’s response to the outbreak.

Wuhan, Hubei’s capital and the site of the seafood and meat market where the contagion is thought to have broken out, reported more than 3,900 new cases and 88 more deaths on Friday.

The coronavirus has infected more than 65,200 people worldwide and spread to two dozen countries. To date, three people outside mainland China have died from the disease, in Hong Kong, the Philippines and Japan.
 

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
(fair use applies)

Hunt on for 'patient zero' who spread coronavirus globally from Singapore
February 13, 2020 / 6:33 AM / Updated 7 hours ago
John Geddie, Sangmi Cha, Kate Holton

SINGAPORE/SEOUL/LONDON (Reuters) - As lion dancers snaked between conference room tables laden with plastic bottles, pens, notebooks and laptops, some staff from British gas analytics firm Servomex snapped photos of the performance meant to bring good luck and fortune.

But the January sales meeting in a luxury Singapore hotel was far from auspicious.

Someone seated in the room, or in the vicinity of the hotel that is renowned for its central location and a racy nightclub in the basement, was about to take coronavirus global.

Three weeks later, global health authorities are still scrambling to work out who carried the disease into the mundane meeting of a firm selling gas meters, which then spread to five countries from South Korea to Spain, infecting over a dozen people.

Experts say finding this so-called “patient zero” is critical for tracing all those potentially exposed to infection and containing the outbreak, but as time passes, the harder it becomes.

“We do feel uncomfortable obviously when we diagnose a patient with the illness and we can’t work out where it came from...the containment activities are less effective,” said Dale Fisher, chair of the Global Outbreak Alert and Response Network coordinated by the World Health Organisation.

Authorities initially hinted at Chinese delegates, which included someone from Wuhan - the Chinese city at the epicentre of the virus that has killed over 1,350 people. But a Servomex spokesperson told Reuters its Chinese delegates had not tested positive.

Fisher and other experts have compared the Singapore meeting to another so-called “super-spreading” incident at a Hong Kong hotel in 2003 where a sick Chinese doctor spread Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome around the world.

The WHO has opened an investigation into the Singapore incident, but said its “way too early” to tell if it is a super-spreading event.

SCARY AND SOBERING

It was more than a week after the meeting - which according to a company e-mail included Servomex’s leadership team and global sales staff - that the first case surfaced in Malaysia.

The incubation period for the disease is up to 14 days and people may be able to infect others before symptoms appear.

The firm said it immediately adopted “extensive measures” to contain the virus and protect employees and the wider community. Those included self-isolation for all 109 attendees, of whom 94 were from overseas and had left Singapore.

But the virus kept spreading.

Two South Korean delegates fell sick after sharing a buffet meal with the Malaysian, who also passed the infection to his sister and mother-in-law. Three of the firm’s Singapore attendees also tested positive.

Then cases started appearing in Europe.

An infected British delegate had headed from the conference to a French ski resort, where another five people fell ill. Another linked case then emerged in Spain, and when the Briton returned to his home town in the south of England the virus spread further.

“It feels really scary that one minute it’s a story in China... and then the next minute it is literally on our doorstep,” said Natalie Brown, whose children went to the same school as the British carrier. The school said in a letter that two people at the school had been isolated.

“It’s scary and sobering how quickly it seems to have spread,” said Brown.

TIME RUNNING OUT

Back in Singapore, authorities were battling to keep track of new cases of local transmissions, many unlinked to previous cases.

Management at the hotel - the Grand Hyatt Singapore - said they had cleaned extensively and were monitoring staff and guests for infection but did not know “how, where or when” conference attendees were infected. The lion dancers, who posted photos of the event on Facebook, said they were virus free.

“Everyone assumes it was a delegate but it could have been a cleaner, it could have been a waiter,” said Paul Tambyah, an infectious diseases expert at National University Singapore. He added it was “very important” to find “patient zero” to establish other possible “chains of transmission”.

But time may be running out.

Singapore health ministry’s Kenneth Mak said the government will continue to try and identify the initial carrier until the outbreak ends, but as days pass it will get harder.

“We might never be able to tell who that first patient is,” Mak said.

Meanwhile, the fallout from the conference continues to sow trepidation weeks after the event and thousands of miles away.

Reuters visited Servomex’s offices in the suburbs of South Korea’s capital, Seoul. It was closed and dark inside, and a building guard told Reuters employees were working from home.

A notice posted by building management stated a coronavirus patient had entered the complex, while several young women could be overheard in a nearby elevator discussing whether it had been used by the infected person.

“Do you think the patient would have gotten on this elevator or the other one?” one said.
 

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
(fair use applies)

Tired Wuhan doctors risk infection without proper protective gear
Feb 13, 2020, 5:00 am SGT

BEIJING • Doctors on the front line of China's coronavirus outbreak are facing a daunting task: Treat an increasing number of infected patients and risk getting infected themselves due to a drastic shortage of masks and other protec-tive equipment.

Tired medical workers at understaffed facilities have had to deal with thousands of new cases a week in Wuhan - the city at the epicentre of the outbreak that first emerged late last year.

Many doctors have had to see patients without proper masks or protective body suits, resorting to re-using the same equipment when they should be changed regularly.

One doctor at a community clinic in Wuhan said he and at least 16 colleagues were showing symptoms similar to Covid-19, including lung infection and coughing.

"As doctors, we do not want to work while being a source of infection," he said, requesting anony-mity for fear of reprisals.

But "right now, there is no one to replace you", the doctor explained, adding that all medical staff without fever are expected to work.

The risks that medical staff face were highlighted last Friday after Wuhan's whistle-blower doctor Li Wenliang succumbed to the virus more than a month after he first raised the alarm about a new virus that resembles the severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) virus in the city.

Wuhan Deputy Mayor Hu Yabo said last Friday that the city faced a daily shortage of 56,000 N95 masks and 41,000 protective suits.

Medical staff in protective suits will "wear diapers, reduce how much water they drink, and reduce how many times they use the bathroom", said Ms Jiao Yahui, an official with China's National Health Commission.

A doctor at a major Wuhan hospital, who requested anonymity, said: "Even if we receive more masks, the number of patients increases even faster."

Doctors have been forced to wear makeshift hazmat suits, which are inadequate protection against the virus, said Ms Xu Yuan, a 34-year-old in the United States who donated US$5,000 (S$7,000) in protective equipment to former classmates working at Wuhan hospitals.

"As soon as he put it on, (the suit) cracked because it was too small for him," she said, describing a friend in Wuhan who was asked to wear the same hazmat suit for five days.

Handling the daily deluge of new cases takes another kind of toll, said the doctor at the large hospital in Wuhan.

"They are exhausted," she said.

One of her colleagues, for instance, works at a clinic that receives 400 patients within eight hours.

Many are dealing with patients "who die very quickly, whom they have not managed to save", she said. "They have a lot of pressure."
 

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
(fair use applies)

Coronavirus: dim sum off the menu as Guangzhou bans eating in restaurants
He Huifeng , Guo Rui , Phoebe Zhang
Published: 8:06pm, 13 Feb, 2020 | Updated: 8:06pm, 13 Feb, 2020
  • Elderly resident says he can’t recall this happening in his city before, not even during the Cultural Revolution
  • Outbreak is expected to deal a heavy blow to businesses, especially smaller eateries, with some already forced to close
The 73-year-old has spent his entire life in the southern city, where gathering for dim sum is an important weekly family ritual.

“My wife and I … are used to having dim sum, tea and Cantonese dishes at the local restaurants every week. From memory, this [type of ban] has never happened in Guangzhou before – not even during the Cultural Revolution,” He said, referring to the decade of social and political upheaval from 1966, when food was in short supply.

The ban took effect at 9pm on Wednesday and is part of measures to contain the outbreak of the virus, which causes a disease officially known as Covid-19, and is believed to have started in Wuhan in December. The pneumonia-like illness has so far killed more than 1,300 people and infected over 59,000

Guangzhou is home to more than 15 million people and a busy trading port, and has been known as China’s most open city since the 1600s. For locals, going to restaurants for yum cha, or “drinking tea”, and dining on dim sum is an important part of the city’s history and culture – a tradition that has been carried through many generations.

“Even in the ‘three years of natural disasters’ [from 1959 to 1961, when China was in the grip of a famine] I remember there were still restaurants open,” He said. “I was really shocked [by the ban]. I guess the epidemic situation must be severe, otherwise Guangzhou definitely wouldn’t introduce this measure.”

Many people in Guangzhou and across the country went back to work on Monday after an extended Lunar New Year break – another measure to try to stop the virus from spreading – with the government keen for businesses to return to normal operations.

The ban on dining in applies to restaurants, but employees can continue to have meals at their company canteens. And while residents can still get takeaways from restaurants, they have been encouraged to do this online, and have their meals delivered, rather than collecting their orders.

Group gatherings have also been banned in the city, and according to Nanfang Daily, some 126 banquets that would have involved more than 90,000 people have been cancelled by authorities already. The authorities did not say how long the measures would be in place.

Guangzhou is not the only city in Guangdong province to bring in a ban on dining in restaurants – Futian district in Shenzhen, Xiangzhou in Zhuhai, Foshan and Zhongshan have all taken the same step.
Beijingers gradually return to work as China’s fight against deadly coronavirus continues

In Guangzhou, while residents try to adapt, businesses are expecting to take a hit. One of the city’s top hotels said the virus outbreak could have a severe impact on the industry.

“Now we will focus on promoting takeaways for local customers. They can order our meals through apps providing online takeaway ordering services,” said Fion Liang, director of sales and marketing at The Garden Hotel. “As for guests staying in the hotel, we will deliver meals to their rooms.”

She said the outbreak did not have a big impact on the hotel’s business in January, because the situation only became severe at the end of the month.

“The impact was definitely much bigger in February. If the epidemic continues to be severe throughout February, the occupancy rate of our rooms will be in the single digits this month,” Liang said. “[Most] hotels in Guangzhou are in the same situation.”

The outbreak is expected to deal a heavy blow to restaurants in the city, especially smaller eateries, and some have already been forced to close. June Zhao, the owner of dumpling restaurant Xi Xi, decided to shut down on Wednesday – the day the eat-in ban was announced.

Prospects had been good for the restaurant – it also sold books and alcohol in the evenings, and its trendy decor drew a young crowd.

“We had just started making money last winter and we were looking forward to earning more over the Lunar New Year holiday. But then the coronavirus came, our turnover fell to several hundred yuan a day, and we lost hope,” she said. “The new ban makes this situation worse – takeaway is not a good choice for dumplings, especially in winter. The losses will continue if we stay open.”

The ban has also interrupted daily routines. Freelance cameraman Cony Yu, 28, usually spends some of his working day at cafes, but that is no longer possible. “[Now] I don’t have a comfortable place to sit aside from my home – even the parks have all been closed,” Yu said.

In the southern tech hub of Shenzhen, dining in has also been banned in central Futian district. Zhu Hao, a financial analyst based in the district, has been working from home for a week and ordering takeaway food every day. But he has to collect it from the gate at his residential compound, where security staff check the temperature of anyone entering or leaving.

He is losing patience with the restrictions. “I want to eat out. I want beef hotpot, coconut chicken, Korean barbecue and seafood,” he said.

In other Shenzhen districts, many restaurants and shopping centres have been temporarily closed or can only provide takeaway meals – including fast food chains such as McDonald’s and Starbucks.

Other places have strict rules for customers. At a bread shop, customers must register their ID and phone numbers and have their temperatures checked before they can enter. And for now, all hotpot restaurants have been closed.
 

Heliobas Disciple

TB Fanatic
(fair use applies)

Two of China’s biggest cities given power to seize private property to help stop spread of coronavirus
Phoebe Zhang
Published: 3:29pm, 12 Feb, 2020 | Updated: 2:17pm, 13 Feb, 2020

  • Shenzhen and Guangzhou introduce laws to requisition buildings and equipment to curb spread of disease
  • Guangdong province, which has been the worst affected area outside Hubei, also passes legislation to ban wildlife trade, which has been linked to the outbreak
Guangzhou and Shenzhen, two of southern China’s biggest cities, have been given the authority to requisition private property to help fight the spread of the deadly new coronavirus.

Meanwhile, the provincial legislature of Guangdong, where the two cities are located, also passed a bill to ban all trade in wildlife, which has been linked to a number of outbreaks of disease.

The southern province, a major economic powerhouse, has the highest number of confirmed cases in the country outside Hubei, the epicentre of the outbreak, reaching 1,177 confirmed cases by Monday.

Most of the cases are concentrated in the two cities, with 375 confirmed cases in Shenzhen, which neighbours Hong Kong, and 317 in Guangzhou, the provincial capital.

Last week Chinese President Xi Jinping told all levels of governments to fight the outbreak in a “law-based, scientific and orderly manner”.

Municipal legislatures in the two cities met early on Tuesday and approved similar bills with provisions to mobilise governments, companies and individuals to fight the virus, which has so far killed more than a thousand people and infected more than 40,000.

The Shenzhen and Guangzhou bills grant city and district governments the authority to requisition houses, public venues and vehicles from individuals or companies, and to order business to produce items needed to control the disease.

The provision also required the governments to issue official requisition documents to the property owners, and return the items or compensate owners in accordance with the law.

China introduced a national law to protect private property rights in 2007, a move which was seen as a key milestone of the country’s reform and opening up programme that began in the 1980s.

But the Property Law also included a clause that states property belonging to companies and individuals can be requisitioned by the government in cases of emergency, but the owners should be compensated or have it returned after use.

As hospitals run out of space and medical supplies and medical staff come under increasing stress, local governments have been looking for spaces to isolate patients in the hope of stopping the disease spreading.

Local governments around the country have been preparing fallback plans after seeing how Wuhan’s system struggled to cope amid shortages of medical supplies and hospital space, and have been looking to follow the cities lead by turning dormitories and gym into temporary wards that can take in patients with mild symptoms.

Other areas covered in the new laws include powers to quarantine and treat suspected cases and their close contacts, close down public venues and events and give business permission to return to work.

The police have been given the power to force people into quarantine and provide information to local disease control centres.

The Guangdong provincial legislature’s bill does not explicitly grant the authorities power to requisition property, but does enable lower level authorities to introduce temporary measures covering quarantine, transport and commerce.

The provincial law also requires local governments and communities to strengthen management and check-ups, register and closely monitor individuals and report any abnormalities, strictly ban trade and consumption of wild game, and punish acts that prevent diagnosis and treatment by medical professionals.
 

Hfcomms

EN66iq
picked from here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.02.07.20021154v1.full.pdf

This is a PDF file, I have just picked some glaring (to me) facts to C & P

Title: The Novel Coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, is Highly Contagious and More Infectious Than Initially Estimated

Authors: Steven Sanche1,2,† , Yen Ting Lin3,† , Chonggang Xu4 , Ethan Romero-Severson1 , Nick Hengartner1 , Ruian Ke1,* Affiliations: 1T-6 Theoretical Biology and Biophysics, Theoretical Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM87544, USA. 2T-CNLS Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos National Laboratory, NM87544, USA. 3CCS-3 Information Sciences Group, Computer, Computational and Statistical Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA 4EES-14 Earth Systems Observations Group, Earth and Environmental Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico 87545, USA

Abstract
The novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) is a recently emerged human pathogen that has spread widely since January 2020. Initially, the basic reproductive number, R0, was estimated to be 2.2 to 2.7. Here we provide a new estimate of this quantity. We collected extensive individual case reports and estimated key epidemiology parameters, including the incubation period. Integrating these estimates and high-resolution real-time human travel and infection data with mathematical models, we estimated that the number of infected individuals during early epidemic double every 2.4 days, and the R0 value is likely to be between 4.7 and 6.6. We further show that quarantine and contact tracing of symptomatic individuals alone may not be effective and early, strong control measures are needed to stop transmission of the virus.

Dr. Chris Martenson picked up on this report in his video last night. He basically said the virus was unstoppable with that kind of a R0. You can slow it down but you can’t stop it. It’s going to burn its way through the population like it or not.
 

Green Co.

Administrator
_______________
Plasma from recovered patients used in virus fight

China National Biotec Group announced on Thursday evening that virus-neutralising antibodies had been detected in the plasma of patients who have recovered from Covid-19, and experiments have proven they can effectively kill the virus, according to a Beijing News report on Friday.

The company said it had successfully prepared the plasma for clinical treatment after strict blood biological safety testing, virus inactivation and antiviral activity testing. The plasma had been used to treat 11 patients in critical condition, with significant results, it said.

The first phase of the treatment was carried out on three critically ill patients in Wuhan on February 8 and the plasma is currently being used to treat more than 10 critically ill patients.

Clinical tests showed that, after 12 to 24 hours of treatment, the main inflammatory indicators in the laboratory decreased significantly, the proportion of lymphocytes increased, key indicators such as blood oxygen saturation and viral load improved, and clinical signs and symptoms improved significantly.

“The plasma product to treat the novel coronavirus is made from plasma loaded with antibodies donated by recovered patients. It went through virus inactivation and was tested against virus-neutralising antibodies and multiple pathogenic microorganisms,” the company said, according to the report.

This sounds promising, hopefully showing re-infection is not as easy as we thought, if the antibodies are in the blood of recovered people.
 

pops88

Girls with Guns Member
Re: Banana Bag

I was 5 pages behind so responding because I remembered and it hasn't been answered-

It might help as a stop-gap / rescue measure to get someone to the hospital. It wouldn't be realistic for any kind of long term use.
 
Re: Banana Bag

I was 5 pages behind so responding because I remembered and it hasn't been answered-

It might help as a stop-gap / rescue measure to get someone to the hospital. It wouldn't be realistic for any kind of long term use.
If someone could invent a bicycle-powered bellows pump type of thingy, you could ventilate someone a lot longer than you could squeeze a bag.
 

rafter

Since 1999
From a member PM:


The Federal DMAT (Disaster Medical Assistance Team) is being deployed to Miramar Air Station in San Diego to facilitate the treatment and care of COVID-19 patients. These portable hospitals will treat on scene instead of transferring the patients to area hospitals. Make of that what you will, but it appears that there may be more cases requiring a higher level of care than just routine 'monitoring'.

Interesting... wonder if this has anything to do with all of it???



Emergency alert tests due today for Plant 42
  • VALLEY PRESS STAFF REPORT
  • 21 hrs ago

PALMDALE — Edwards Air Force Base officials are alerting the public to planned tests of an emergency alert system at Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale on Friday.
The system, known as “Giant Voice,” is an outdoor warning siren system used to broadcast alerts, voice signals, music and tones during national, state, regional and local emergencies.
A similar system is in place at Edwards AFB, base officials said.
The testing will occur intermittently between 8 a.m. and 3 p.m. Friday, officials said.

It is not yet known what specific sounds will be part of the tests, whether it is sirens, voice commands or other means of alerting people at the facility.
No action will be required during the tests.
It is not yet known how far the Giant Voice sound will travel, so base officials wanted to alert the general public to the planned testing so that they are aware should they hear any of the tests of the emergency system.
Air Force Plant 42 is a government-owned facility under the supervision of Edwards Air Force Base and home to several defense companies, including Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin.
 

marsh

On TB every waking moment

Coronavirus Outbreak Exposes China’s Monopoly on U.S. Drug, Medical Supplies

16,680
TOPSHOT - This photo taken on January 26, 2020 shows workers producing facemasks at a factory in Yangzhou in China's eastern Jiangsu province, to support the supply of medical materials during a deadly virus outbreak which began in Wuhan. - At least 81 people have died since the new strain …
STR/AFP via Getty ImagesREBECCA MANSOUR13 Feb 20202953
14:28

The coronavirus outbreak has exposed the United States’ dangerous dependence on China for pharmaceutical and medical supplies, including an estimated 97 percent of all antibiotics and 80 percent of the active pharmaceutical ingredients needed to produce drugs in the United States.

The economic repercussions of the coronavirus reveal the dangers of allowing one country to have a near monopoly on global manufacturing, David Dayen explains in an article at the American Prospect:
China is a source of not only finished goods, but also of input parts and raw materials. A substantial number of the materials needed for defense and electronic systems come from China, and that nation is “the single or sole supplier for a number of specialty chemicals,” according to a recent Defense Department report. Rare earth minerals, which are critical to electronics, are largely mined in China. As a result, Chinese disruptions don’t just hit Chinese manufacturing, they hit everyone’s. Automakers have already had to slow or shut down factories globally due to supply shortages.
Perhaps the biggest concern is over medical supplies. China produces and exports a large amount of pharmaceuticals to the U.S., including 97 percent of all antibiotics and 80 percent of the active ingredients used to make drugs here. Penicillin, ibuprofen, and aspirin largely come from China. Last month, the medical supply firm Cardinal Health recalled 2.9 million surgical gowns “cross contaminated” at a plant in China; the blood pressure drug valsartan also saw shortages recently, thanks to tainted active ingredients at one Chinese plant. The combination of supply chain disruptions and increased demand at hospitals if coronavirus spreads to the U.S. could prove devastating.
In a dark irony, most of the world’s face masks—now ubiquitous in China as a precaution—are made in China and Taiwan, and even for those made elsewhere, some component parts are Chinese-sourced. Shortages have led China to declare the masks a “strategic resource,” reserving them for medical workers. U.S. hospitals are “critically low” on respiratory masks, according to medical-supply middlemen. Lack of protective gear could increase vulnerability to the virus, and the one place on earth suffering from production shutdowns is the one place where most of the protective gear originates [emphasis added].
In testimony yesterday before the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, Scott Gottlieb, a physician and the former Food and Drug Administration commissioner in the Trump administration, explained in detail the extent of the U.S. pharmaceutical industry’s dependence on China:
About 40 percent of generic drugs sold in the U.S. have only a single manufacturer. A significant supply chain disruption could cause shortages for some of many of these products.
Last year, manufacturing of intermediate or finished goods in China, as well as pharmaceutical source material, accounted for 95 percent of U.S. imports of ibuprofen, 91 percent of U.S. imports of hydrocortisone, 70 percent of U.S. imports of acetaminophen, 40 to 45 percent of U.S. imports of penicillin, and 40 percent of U.S. imports of heparin, according to the Commerce Department. In total, 80 percent of the U.S. supply of antibiotics are made in China.
While much of the fill finishing work (the actual formulation of finished drug capsules and tablets) is done outside China (and often in India) the starting and intermediate chemicals are often sourced in China. Moreover, the U.S. generic drug industry can no longer produce certain critical medicines such as penicillin and doxycycline without these chemical components.
According to a report from the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission, China’s chemical industry, which accounts for 40 percent of global chemical industry revenue, provides a large number of ingredients for drug products. It’s these source materials — where in many cases China is the exclusive source of the chemical ingredients used for the manufacture of a drug product — that create choke points in the global supply chain for critical medicines.
Moreover, when it comes to starting material for the manufacture of pharmaceutical ingredients, a lot of this production is centered in China’s Hubei Provence, the epicenter of coronavirus. Most drug makers have a one to three-months of inventory of drug ingredients on hand. But these supplies are already being drawn down. Among big [active pharmaceutical ingredient] makers in Wuhan are Wuhan Shiji Pharmaceutical, Chemwerth, Hubei Biocause, Wuhan Calmland Pharmaceuticals. [emphasis added]
Gottlieb notes that “80 percent of the U.S. supply of antibiotics are made in China.” The sourcing of this estimate is explained in greater detail in section three of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s 2019 report to Congress, titled “ Growing U.S. Reliance on China’s Biotech and Pharmaceutical Products.”

The report notes that China is “the world’s largest producer of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). The United States is heavily dependent on drugs that are either sourced from China or include APIs sourced from China.” The report further explains that although India is the world’s leading supplier of generic drugs, India gets 80 percent of its active pharmaceutical ingredients directly from China. The United States also imports 80 percent of its APIs from overseas (primarily from India and China) and “a substantial portion” of its generic drugs “either directly from China or from third countries like India that use APIs sourced from China.”
In other words, almost all pharmaceutical roads lead to China.

Furthermore, the report notes that China’s dominance of the chemical industry and global manufacturing of active pharmaceutical ingredients means that “the world is becoming increasingly dependent on China as the single source for life-saving drugs.”

“The U.S. generic drug industry can no longer produce certain critical medicines such as penicillin and doxycycline, and the APIs needed to make these antibiotics are sourced from China,” the report states.

China achieved this dominance in the pharmaceutical industry by the same methods it employed to dominate the steel industry – through anti-competitive trade practices that dumped cheap state-subsidized products on foreign markets to drive competitors out of business.
The report states:
Rosemary Gibson, senior advisor at the Hastings Center and author of China RX, noted in her testimony before the Commission that the United States is losing its ability to produce generic drugs because Chinese drug companies dumped low-price products into the global market, which in turn pushed U.S., European, and Indian producers out of the generic drug manufacturing business. According to Ms. Gibson, China is seeking to disrupt, dominate, and displace U.S. pharmaceutical and other medical companies, and in doing so limit the United States’ ability to produce its own medicines, including critical antibiotics such as penicillin and even generic aspirin. She believes the United States could see its generic drug industry made uncompetitive within five to ten years due to the Chinese government’s policies (including subsidies and export incentives) that allow Chinese pharmaceutical firms to undercut prices and drive U.S. firms out of business. [emphasis added]
Ironically, China’s success in monopolizing the U.S. drug market with these anti-competitive trade practices was reportedly cited by President Trump’s former economic adviser Gary Cohn as an argument against Trump’s efforts to fight back against China’s trade violations.
In his book Fear: Trump in the White House, Bob Woodward describes a heated discussion among Trump administration officials about the repercussions of a trade war with China. Cohn, who disagreed with the president’s decision to impose tariff’s on Beijing, reportedly invoked a Commerce Department study showing that 97 percent of all U.S. antibiotics come from China. “‘If you’re the Chinese and you want to really just destroy us, just stop sending us antibiotics,’ he said.”

Globalist critics like Cohn of Trump’s trade policies “fretted that turbulence from the Trump administration’s tariffs would have catastrophic results on the global economy,” Curtis Ellis wrote last week in an op-ed for Breitbart News. These critics were proven wrong.
However, the virus itself will cause economic disruptions because it “has exposed the frailty of global supply chains and the fallacy of the management theory calling for intercontinental supply chains and just-in-time inventory management,” Ellis writes.

Or, to put it another way, the tariffs did not hurt the U.S. economy, but the current virus outbreak in China could due to the very problem that the tariffs were enacted, in part, to address. In this sense, the virus has vindicated the Trump’s administration’s tough trade stance and affirmed the necessity of moving the world’s supply chains out of China. If anything, Trump’s tariffs may have actually made the U.S. economy somewhat more resilient because they encouraged companies to begin the process of moving production out of China.

But this vindication will be of little consolation to Trump if the virus’s ripple effects hurt the economy during an election year. The political repercussions could be significant for a president who has touted the strong economy as a major selling point for his re-election.
Economists are already expecting the virus to have a major impact on China’s economy. Breitbart News’s John Carney reports that HSBC “lowered its estimate for the first quarter growth from an annualized rate of 5.8 percent to 4.1 percent” for China. “The bank’s estimate for full year growth was lowered by half a percentage point from 5.8 percent to 5.3 percent.”
As for the global economic impact, Dayen quotes Washington University in St. Louis professor Panos Kouvelis who estimates $300 to $400 billion in supply chain damage over a period of up to two years.

“That’s actually manageable as a share of the global economy,” Dayen writes. “But as new cases pop up in Singapore, an important financial hub, and as the head of the World Health Organization warns that we could be seeing only the ‘tip of the iceberg,’ those numbers could already be out of date.”

Those numbers may indeed be overly optimistic. In his testimony before the Senate yesterday, Gottlieb warned of the potential for the coronavirus epidemic to become a full pandemic–and maybe even endemic–now that it has spread to Singapore, Hong Kong, and Japan. “It could take a new position as a more sinister member of the seasonal pathogens that circulate each year and infect humans,” he said, noting that “the next month is critical.”

“We must prepare for the prospect that the virus evaded our border protections and was already introduced into the U.S. in late December or early January — when it first appears to have become epidemic in China’s Hubei province. Those index cases could have seeded community spread, and eventually, outbreaks could emerge in America,” Gottlieb stated.
Whatever the economic impacts of the coronavirus, the current dependence on an authoritarian communist regime for vital necessities is an indictment of globalist neoliberal economic policies that have endangered U.S. national security and long-term prosperity.

“[T]he economic threats to locating so much of the global supply chain in one part of the world were eminently predictable,” writes Dayen. “Neoliberal dogma about ‘comparative advantage’ and a concomitant preference for mass outsourcing put the world on a tenuous path.”
There is a growing consensus among populists on the right and left about the need to address the neoliberal trade and economic policies that gave China a monopoly on the world’s supply chains.

Gottlieb urged Congress to empower the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) “to look not only at the supply of finished products but to also identify circumstances where key components may have only a single source across an entire category of products.”
Matt Stoller, author of Goliath: The 100-Year War Between Monopoly Power and Democracy, writes that Gottlieb is essentially asking for the FDA “to have the authority to uncover hidden monopolies.”

“The Federal Trade Commission already has this research authority, it just doesn’t use it very often,” Stoller explains. “And the United States Trade Representative has information on our dependencies on China, because when they threatened tariffs large numbers of companies came to them during a notice and comment period whining about how such dependencies would hurt their business. So we have some information about the scale of the problem. Just not enough.”

“The strongest reason to address monopolies isn’t because monopolies are unjust, but because they are dangerous,” Stoller notes. “And we may be about to find out just how dangerous they are.”

If nothing else, the coronavirus offers business and government leaders another reason to continue the process of decoupling the U.S. economy from China. And it also offers a warning for those who seek to simply relocate production to another developing country in order to exploit cheap labor and lax regulations. All of these short-term money-saving decisions come with long-term risk.

“If there’s a silver lining, it’s that this threat could inspire more diversification of supply chains,” Dayen writes. “The race to the bottom in manufacturing clearly has a cost, and countries must learn that self-preservation demands maintaining some semblance of an industrial base. The U.S.-China trade war did lead to some companies moving their work out of China, but only to cheaper countries where multinationals will likely conglomerate, to build economies of scale. We know the dangers inherent in that. Rebuilding domestic manufacturing is not just a question of jobs; it’s a question of safety.”
 

twobarkingdogs

Veteran Member
And while residents can still get takeaways from restaurants, they have been encouraged to do this online, and have their meals delivered, rather than collecting their orders.

So I have seen this suggestion mentioned several places on having items delivered. Common sense tells me that having a person going from home to home making deliveries is not the safest way to prevent the spread of the disease.

As an example anything being touched at one delivery location like a handrail or even an outdoor delivery table then gets its germs transmitted to the inside of the delivery vehicle and then to all other delivery locations including back to the store or restaurant where the orders were place.

And if your delivery guy gets sick but not yet showing symptoms of the virus he could infect his entire route.

Same with store pickups. If anything gets touched while loading the groceries into a vehicle it then contaminates the entire system.

I'll be honest in that I don't have a solution. Having items delivered most likely is safer then going to the store yourself. But I don't consider it safe

tbd
 

Bensam

Deceased
So I have seen this suggestion mentioned several places on having items delivered. Common sense tells me that having a person going from home to home making deliveries is not the safest way to prevent the spread of the disease.

As an example anything being touched at one delivery location like a handrail or even an outdoor delivery table then gets its germs transmitted to the inside of the delivery vehicle and then to all other delivery locations including back to the store or restaurant where the orders were place.

And if your delivery guy gets sick but not yet showing symptoms of the virus he could infect his entire route.

Same with store pickups. If anything gets touched while loading the groceries into a vehicle it then contaminates the entire system.

I'll be honest in that I don't have a solution. Having items delivered most likely is safer then going to the store yourself. But I don't consider it safe

tbd
It is speculated that one reason the Spanish Flu spread like it did, was from MD’s making house calls like they used to do and therefore facilitating the spread of the disease. Delivery folks would/could be delivering more than food.
 

pops88

Girls with Guns Member
So I have seen this suggestion mentioned several places on having items delivered. Common sense tells me that having a person going from home to home making deliveries is not the safest way to prevent the spread of the disease.

As an example anything being touched at one delivery location like a handrail or even an outdoor delivery table then gets its germs transmitted to the inside of the delivery vehicle and then to all other delivery locations including back to the store or restaurant where the orders were place.

And if your delivery guy gets sick but not yet showing symptoms of the virus he could infect his entire route.

Same with store pickups. If anything gets touched while loading the groceries into a vehicle it then contaminates the entire system.

I'll be honest in that I don't have a solution. Having items delivered most likely is safer then going to the store yourself. But I don't consider it safe

tbd

Years ago I watched a documentary on Youtube about the Spanish Flu. One quote etched in my mind, "When the mailman came to town...." Essentially, no one had been sick until after the mailman had made his rounds in a small town. I wouldn't want deliveries of cooked food, but I'd rather have packages delivered and disinfected than have to go into a store full of people that I can't disinfect. Either option still sucks.
 

Optimus Prime

Senior Member
Years ago I watched a documentary on Youtube about the Spanish Flu. One quote etched in my mind, "When the mailman came to town...." Essentially, no one had been sick until after the mailman had made his rounds in a small town. I wouldn't want deliveries of cooked food, but I'd rather have packages delivered and disinfected than have to go into a store full of people that I can't disinfect. Either option still sucks.
Bezos and his drone army will fill the sky with pre-portioned deliveries to sheeples front door. Under large contract with the guberment, of course
 

SmithJ

Veteran Member
part two
Tracking coronavirus: Map, data and timeline

Timeline (GMT)
14 February

  • 03:25: China’s National Health Commission reports 267 new cases and 5 new deaths on the mainland, excluding Hubei province. Hubei Province deducted 108 prior deaths from the death toll due to double counting (Source)

For the full timeline, click here.
Chart

From the original link:
  • 03:25: “China’s National Health Commission reports 267 new cases and 5 new deaths on the mainland, excluding Hubei province. Hubei Province deducted 108 prior deaths from the death toll due to double counting. “

So basically, now the dead are rising in Wuhan..............
 
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Hfcomms

EN66iq
Diluted bleach and plastic spray bottles are cheap. Source them, make up your solution and start using them on your packages....at least on surfaces your going to touch.
 

jed turtle

a brother in the Lord
Well
I don't understand a thing you [rondaben] write but it sure is nice having you here...
Well, I don’t understand either, but I think I get the gist of it, and it seriously helps me to temper my somewhat skeptical attitude towards the medical profession and reminds me of the numerous times they and their science and technology HAVE saved my life and the lives of those I love and care for.
so, thank you very much everyone who are contributing to this thread and helping us all to educate ourselves about what is one of the most challenging issues of our times!
 
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twobarkingdogs

Veteran Member
Bezos and his drone army will fill the sky with pre-portioned deliveries to sheeples front door. Under large contract with the guberment, of course

It doesn't matter if drones do the last mile delivery. At some point in the supply chain the item or its packaging will have been touched by human hands . And thus everyone downstream from that point is exposed to whatever those human hands are carrying. And that includes the gripping hands of the warehouse robots or the inside of the drone container

And yes as mentioned having food in your pantry and cooking at home prevents a lot of issues. But at some point food fatigue sets in or shortages appear within your supplies and if possible you are going to want to resupply. So how best to do what should be a simple task which could have possible life threatening consequences.

tbd
 

raven

TB Fanatic
Well, it is Friday. The 14th. Valentines Day. And 14 days of incubation since Jan 31st.
coronavirus should be in full bloom and there should be some big announcement of calamity to distract from the impending doom which will probably surface just after markets close for the day.
SNAFU
 

Trivium Pursuit

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Haven't seen any newer info and the old was based on bad data out of china. My bet is that you are gonna see 75% at home, 25% hospitalized, 10-20% of the hospitalized in serious/critica/vent/ECMO. That is just a guess though.
And the pulmonologists and the RT's in the hospitals are going to be BUSY. Nephrologists as well, unfortunately. Criteria for who is worthy for kidney and lung transplants--who gets on the waiting list for an organ--may change. Also, a transplant surgeon can list for a given patient what organs are or are not acceptable.

For example, maybe we don't want a lung from a chain smoker, or that liver from a alcoholic. So I am expecting that although more organs may become available due to this, that you won't want a kidney or lung from someone with novel Corona virus... I'll be starting to train respiratory therapists for the next wave of hospital starting next week, expect to have some interesting discussions.
 
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jed turtle

a brother in the Lord
Dr. Chris Martenson picked up on this report in his video last night. He basically said the virus was unstoppable with that kind of a R0. You can slow it down but you can’t stop it. It’s going to burn its way through the population like it or not.

gives me the thought that there might be an advantage to getting infected amongst the earliest opportunity, when before the hospitals are exhausted of supplies or personnel...
 

Seeker22

Has No Life - Lives on TB
So I have seen this suggestion mentioned several places on having items delivered. Common sense tells me that having a person going from home to home making deliveries is not the safest way to prevent the spread of the disease.

As an example anything being touched at one delivery location like a handrail or even an outdoor delivery table then gets its germs transmitted to the inside of the delivery vehicle and then to all other delivery locations including back to the store or restaurant where the orders were place.

And if your delivery guy gets sick but not yet showing symptoms of the virus he could infect his entire route.

Same with store pickups. If anything gets touched while loading the groceries into a vehicle it then contaminates the entire system.

I'll be honest in that I don't have a solution. Having items delivered most likely is safer then going to the store yourself. But I don't consider it safe

tbd

Many areas that have Meals on Wheels that go around to give food to shut-ins (mostly elderly) is to me a made to order method of spreading the virus. Even some older people I have talked to are resisting the idea of "cluttering up the house" with all the extras needed to survive. That is the go to the cafeklatch/walmart group. Clueless.
 

Jubilee on Earth

Veteran Member
So I have seen this suggestion mentioned several places on having items delivered. Common sense tells me that having a person going from home to home making deliveries is not the safest way to prevent the spread of the disease.

As an example anything being touched at one delivery location like a handrail or even an outdoor delivery table then gets its germs transmitted to the inside of the delivery vehicle and then to all other delivery locations including back to the store or restaurant where the orders were place.

And if your delivery guy gets sick but not yet showing symptoms of the virus he could infect his entire route.

Same with store pickups. If anything gets touched while loading the groceries into a vehicle it then contaminates the entire system.

I'll be honest in that I don't have a solution. Having items delivered most likely is safer then going to the store yourself. But I don't consider it safe

tbd

This obviously isn’t so much a concern for those that live in the country, prep, or cook meals at home. But consider an area like Manhattan, where most people don’t keep even a week’s worth of food in their kitchens, and who eat out or get take-out regularly... or even those around the country who eat fast food or get their Starbucks regularly. If it does start to spread here in the States, I have to imagine that this is the method that’s going to spread the virus the fastest.
 

Border Collie Dad

Flat Earther
The tables below show confirmed cases of coronavirus (2019-nCoV, officially known as SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19) in China and other countries. To see a distribution map and a timeline, scroll down. There are currently 64,438 confirmed cases worldwide, including 1,383 fatalities.

Last update: 13 February 2020 at 10:28 p.m. ET


MAINLAND CHINACasesDeathsNotesLinks
Hubei province
(includes Wuhan)
51,9861,3187,953 serious, 1,685 criticalSource
Other regions11,86562566 serious/criticalSource
TOTAL63,8511,38010,204 serious
6,723 recovered
10,109 suspected

REGIONSCasesDeathsNotesLinks
Hong Kong5314 critical, 2 serious, 1 recoveredSource
Taiwan1801 recoveredSource
Macau1001 recoveredSource
TOTAL8116 serious

INTERNATIONALCasesDeathsNotesLinks
Japan252*15 serious, 4 recoveredSource
Singapore5807 critical, 15 recoveredSource
Thailand3301 serious, 12 recoveredSource
South Korea2807 recoveredSource
Malaysia1903 recoveredSource
Australia1508 recoveredSource
Germany1601 recoveredSource
Vietnam1607 recoveredSource
United States1503 recoveredSource
France1101 serious, 2 recoveredSource
United Kingdom901 recoveredSource
Canada701 recoveredSource
UAE801 serious, 1 recoveredSource
Philippines312 recoveredSource
India301 recoveredSource
Italy302 seriousSource
Russia202 recoveredSource
Spain20Source
Nepal101 recoveredSource
Cambodia101 recoveredSource
Sri Lanka101 recoveredSource
Finland101 recoveredSource
Sweden10Source
Belgium10Source
TOTAL506217 serious/critical
Notes


  • Hubei province, China: The numbers include clinically-diagnosed cases, which means they were not confirmed by laboratory testing.
  • Japan: The total includes 4 asymptomatic cases, which are not included in the government’s official count.
  • Japan: The total includes 218 people from the “Diamond Princess” cruise ship. They are not included in the government’s official count.
  • North Korea: Unconfirmed reports about 1, 5, or 7 cases in North Korea cannot be verified. If cases are confirmed by the North Korean government, they will be added to this list.

And only two deaths worldwide outside of China.

Something still sounds fishy.
 

WalknTrot

Veteran Member
Diluted bleach and plastic spray bottles are cheap. Source them, make up your solution and start using them on your packages....at least on surfaces your going to touch.

Yes. This. The bleach solution "recipe" to use is waaaaaay the hell back on this thread and probably impossible to find, which is why the thread at this point is nearly impossible to be of any value. Do a search - CDC should have it.

At my former employment, before any container from the outside was allowed into the facility "clean" area, it was sprayed down with that very Na hypochlorite sol'n and allowed to AIR DRY. I know it worked. Yes, on porous materials like cardboard, too. I was the lab rat who was tasked with culturing the surfaces to find out.
 
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20Gauge

TB Fanatic
Dr. Chris Martenson picked up on this report in his video last night. He basically said the virus was unstoppable with that kind of a R0. You can slow it down but you can’t stop it. It’s going to burn its way through the population like it or not.

I am beginning to believe the same thing. My only question is why hasn't it taken a better hold in other places.... we are missing something.....
 

20Gauge

TB Fanatic
It is speculated that one reason the Spanish Flu spread like it did, was from MD’s making house calls like they used to do and therefore facilitating the spread of the disease. Delivery folks would/could be delivering more than food.
You mean a side of the China Flu with that dim sum or whatever it is called....
 
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