CDC is preparing for the 'likely' spread of coronavirus in the US, officials say

[left-of-center2012]

Source: USA Today

Health experts sounded the alarm Friday over the worldwide threat of the coronavirus, with officials warning of its "likely" community spread in the United States and the World Health Organization cautioning that "the window of opportunity is narrowing" for containing the outbreak worldwide.

The COVID-19 coronavirus, which erupted in China in December, has killed 2,250 people and sickened almost 76,800 worldwide, the majority of cases in mainland China.

Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters Friday that U.S. health officials are preparing for the coronavirus to become a pandemic.

She said the CDC is working with state and local health departments “to ready our public health workforce to respond to local cases.” These measures include collaboration with supply chain partners, hospitals, pharmacies and manufacturers to determine what medical supplies are needed. She said the “day may come” here where we have to shut down schools and businesses like China has done.

Read more: https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2020/02/21/coronavirus-who-contain-outbreak-iran-deaths-south-korea-cases/4829278002/

[dewsgirl]

1. Yes, of course. There are people out there rationalizing

all sorts of crazy theories, for example, only Asians can catch it. Also this is America, it can't happen here. It's a virus, it doesn't care if you are rich or poor, nor what country you are a citizen of.

[Leghorn21]

2. Hey girl - just ran into this

COSTA MESA (CBSLA) – Costa Mesa is trying to block as many as 70 confirmed coronavirus patients from being transferred to the city.

Federal court papers filed Friday state that the federal government plans to transfer the patients from Travis Air Force Base near Sacramento to the former Fairview Development Center on Sunday. Last night officials began hearing of the plan by the Department of Health and Human Services and the CDC to move between 30 and 76 patients to the state-owned land.

Some of the patients are from the Diamond Princess cruise ship from which more than 300 U.S. citizens were removed Monday.

City leaders say that the injunction was filed in an effort to protect Costa Mesa residents.

https://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2020/02/21/costa-mesa-coronavirus/amp/?__twitter_impression=true



I thought there were a total like 34 cases in the whole of US?
Maybe somebody’s - confuses

[dewsgirl]

15. Hey, hi.

Some states are using HIPPA laws to avoid confirming cases. Did you see the scariest graph ever?

Link to tweet

?s=20

[Leghorn21]

20. GULP

[dewsgirl]

18. I came across this after I replied to your post, I've known they were hiding

cases, this looks like they are admitting it a bit.

Also earlier today, I believe they admitted 6,000 were being supervised in a couple states.

[Leghorn21]

21. Thank you, I had seen yesterday (on DU) that 726 people were being supervised in WA, and that

got my *attention* - uhhhh, but 6,000, no, haven’t heard a peep about such a number

Sure not surprised, but I thought the numbers might creep upwards a little less dramatically...but watching Korea and Iran cases??: repeat: no surprise

[dewsgirl]

25. Sorry, I don't have a better source, when it comes to this it's

very hard to find poper sourcing. I have seen this several times over the past day. I keep seeing 6,000 CA and 600 NY.

Link to tweet

?s=20

[DENVERPOPS]

39. Makes you wonder

Why seemingly they have such huge numbers going to California.........Did Trump and the Republican Party have any reason to order that particular State? They were on a military base, isolated from any major population, and now they? chose Costa Mesa to house them? Right in the middle of millions of citizens.......

It could just be that they? didn't want them on a U.S. Government owned facility where the feds would be responsible for the costs, versus shoving them off on some small local government (CostaMesa) to deal with the tons of costs of dealing with the patients??????

This definitely deserves a giant: WTF........

I still think that all the patients and potential patients should be housed at Mar a Lagoon.........

[dewsgirl]

42. Rumors that there are many in Florida and NY and a few

other states, where they are using HIPPA laws to keep the cases from the public.

[DENVERPOPS]

45. Most of us don't know what to believe

Where are all the immigrants and their kids being warehoused? We haven't a clue how many, where they are, and how they are being treated.

I can only assume that we will know little of what is going on with this lurking pandemic. The CDC has been screaming their heads off at the top of their lungs, just how horrific this could be. And Trump, with all his non scientific minions, just blow them off.......

[dewsgirl]

46. When they brought the passengers back from Japan, from the

Princess Diamond, 14 passengers tested positive. I am assuming they got the results that day, the CDC wanted a plan in place, so they thought it best for them not to travel on the plane with the others, the State Department overruled them and they came back anyway. Trump is trying to claim he wasn't aware of this.🤔 I don't doubt for one second that he knew.
Yes, it is all very confusing and overwhelming. I am following the story very closely and it feels as though we have been propelled into a dystopian movie.

[Ms. Toad]

23. There are 35 confirmed -

and an unspecified number more that are presumptively positive (tested positive once, but they are being retested).

[left-of-center2012]

3. In one of my non-DU forums ...

Someone posted that the virus began because most of Asia doesn't use modern medicine,
but only use herbs and teas to treat disease.

[Warpy]

10. Western medicine is respected there but priced out for a lot of people

which, if the virus is traced back to pangolins, is how this whole thing got started. Pangolin scales are used as "dragon scales" in old medicinal recipes.

A friend there on another forum says you can't buy disinfectant for love or money, everything from bleach to Dettol to alcohol has vanished from store shelves. I suggested vodka, letting it sit on surfaces for a few minutes before wiping them down should do the trick, there's enough alcohol in it, so it's better than nothing.

Now South Korea is the hot spot. I'd say the chance of keeping this contained is nil.

[dewsgirl]

17. It's beginning to look very grave, we couldn't have

worse leadership, for something like this. When it was confirmed 14 of those on the plane, from the Diamond Princess had the virus, the CDC said they shouldn't be brought back, Trump over ruled them.

[gab13by13]

28. Didn't Trump also cut millions of dollars from the CDC?

He probably is "saving money" to build his fence.
I just checked, Trump's budget proposes a 16% cut to the CDC.

[dewsgirl]

31. I believe it is much higher than that.

[Igel]

38. Perhaps.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10142436402

People like it both ways. "How dare he overrule them!" outrage. "How dare he even expect to be told, it's none of this business!" outrage.

[Leghorn21]

4. This really should be on the front of the front page news, but - it's not.

I dunno

[Sherman A1]

29. Agreed

It most certainly should be.

[left-of-center2012]

5. Think of this ...

She said the “day may come” here where we have to shut down schools and businesses like China has done.

[yaesu]

6. we have already had schools close locally this month due to sickness (non covid). nt

[yaesu]

7. There are 2 things concerning to me about todays news, first S Korea going into shutdown mode &

now the news they we will likely follow. The Virus is now tracking at a higher mortality rate than what is has been for the past several weeks which is also a concern.

[Coventina]

8. I noticed the number of US cases has jumped to 35. n/t

[left-of-center2012]

9. Someone posted recently "It's no worse than the flu"

How does it compare?
People die from the flu.

[Coventina]

11. This virus makes people sick for a very long time.

It starts off mild, then gradually gets worse, then often goes into pneumonia.
That's when the people die.

Flu hits fast and hard, and it can attack the cardiac muscle, and can go into pneumonia.
When people die of the flu it's usually pretty quick due to the cardiac or pneumonia complications.

This corona virus is tricky, because it can take up to two weeks to begin to have symptoms, and the whole time you are spreading it.
Then, with mild symptoms, you can still function and continue to infect people before you get really ill.

It's a very scary virus, and a lot is still unknown.

[left-of-center2012]

12. "When people die of the flu it's usually pretty quick due"

Yep. A few years ago a friend of mine got the flu and was dead in 3 or 4 days.

[Coventina]

13. My father in law (an anti-vaxxer) didn't get his flu shot.

He got the flu just before Christmas.

He almost died, due to the virus attacking his heart.

2 & 1/2 months later, and his heart is only working at 30%.

He's lucky he's not dead.

[alittlelark]

16. That is what I have been trying to tell ppl makes this DIFFERENT

I got Swine Flu in N Ca in 2009 - always had been incredibly healthy, but got double lung pneumonia 3-4 days after contracting the bug in a hospital while at my sons optometrist appt.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic
Pneumonia is not a 'bad cold' - I cannot believe you can get that sick and still survive. I had no external help, and the pain was insane. I have not gotten a 'bug' before or since - but that was likely the worst month of my life.
I went thru it by myself - ex-hubby had no interest in helping me.

[crimycarny]

24. The flu is actually worse

What is scary about coronavirus is not it’s lethality but it’s contagiousness. It is spread easier than the flu. Those who have died have overwhelmingly been in China, older people with underlying health conditions. Unlike the flu, children seem to be spared (thankfully). I’m not trying to minimize the deaths that have occurred, but it does seem to be amongst people with underlying respiratory conditions.

All of that being said, this is the time for authorities to figure out the best way to contain such a contagious virus. SARS was far more deadly, even worse than SARS was MERS (both coronaviruses), but thankfully SARS and MERS weren’t nearly as contagious. Combine the death rate of MERS (35%) with the contagiousness of this new coronavirus (death rate ~ 2%) and you’ve got a reason to panic. That is why I hope they learn something about containment from this coronavirus outbreak. THAT is what scares me.

[Ms. Toad]

26. Death rate is currently about 15 time that of the flu

Likely to be more like 20x or higher. (But we're talking 2% to 11% - likely settling in the 3-4% range)

BUT - it is not currently as widespread. As long as it remained contained the number of deaths should be lower.

[crimycarny]

40. Death rate in certain individuals

According to doctors dealing with this if you are healthy you are unlikely to die from this new coronavirus. The flu is much less discriminate, young children, elderly, even young and healthy people die from flu. That doesn’t minimize the importance of those who are dying from coronavirus and doesn’t mean we just take a big sigh of relief and move on. But we need to LEARN from this, develop better methods of containment, because the next time the virus will be much more deadly and if we don’t focus on the right things (quick and effective containment) we’ll be in very bad shape.

[Ms. Toad]

44. No. The death rate I quoted is overall,

calculated in a manner that assumes that death is instantaneous the day you contract it (meaning it understimates the death rate - since the average time from contracting the virus to dying is 14 days. Using deaths today and the # infected 14 days ago, the death rate is much higher).

The death rate of 3.1%(currently 24 x higher than the flu) will have component populations that are both lower than the average death rate - and higher than the average death rate.

If you calculate death rate from start to resolution of people admitted to the hospital, one small study put it at 4.3%, a second small study put it at 15%.

There's a fairly dramatic jump between 40-49 and 50-59 (from a death rate of .4% to 1.3%), it triples again to the next decile, and doubles each decile after that to 14.8% for 80 or older.

But even the 10-39 year olds die at a higher rate than the flu (.2, as opposed to .13 for the average seasonal flu).

[crimycarny]

47. Death rates largely in China

Where many people who are dying don't have access to good medical care, are smokers, and deaths remain to be much higher in older patients. Too many factors to make generalizations about death rates from coronavirus. For example they are now saying that many may be infected with coronavirus and experience no symptoms at all. So if you have 60K reported cases, how many unreported cases to you have?

Way too early to determine the real death rate.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-deaths/data-suggests-virus-infections-under-reported-exaggerating-fatality-rate-idUSKBN1ZZ1AH

[Ms. Toad]

48. That is the same issue you have with the flu -

Every seasonal flu includes lots of people who have mild flu cases that are not reported. So it's apples to apples. Full statistics are not reported for either the flu or COVID19, and there isn't any particular reason to believe a higher proportion of COVID19 cases are being omitted than those of influenza.

In other word all death rates are based on reported cases, so it is appropriate to compare the two.

I agree that it is way too early to determine the real death rate with any kind of precision. That said, the estimate of 1% is lower than any other estimate I have seen. Most people who are experienced in estimating death rates suggest it will settle out between 2 and 4%

[progressoid]

14. We still have a functioning CDC?

Color me surprised.

[gab13by13]

30. Pretty sure I read where Trump cut millions of dollars from the CDC.

[BootinUp]

19. Trump will handle it, he's the greatest there ever was or

Will be.

[splat]

22. When is it expected to become widespread here? n/t

[Ms. Toad]

27. No one knows.

They seem to be doing a good job containing it so far - the vast majority of the cases were from travelers to china or on the cruise ship. A handful more family members of someone infected. I have not yet heard of random infections from general interaction with the public. (That's when it will become widespread. It is highy contagious, so if it starts circulating it will likely grow exponentially)

[gab13by13]

33. If we did have a problem,

would Trump allow us citizens to know? I mean it would be a negative for his Kabuki theater.

[Mike 03]

32. KICK

[beachbumbob]

34. Coronavirus is killing what are to be considered "healthy" people,

What many are missing with the coronavirus outbreak and this season's flu virus is the indication that Coronavirus is killing what are to be considered "healthy" people, unlike the typical seasonal influenza which kills those in the "at risk" demographics of the very young and the very old. The information from China still sketchy and no doubt is being held back by them as well.

What set the Spanish Flu apart from the influenza was the fact it killed healthy individuals at a higher rate than those in "at risk" categories at the time.

[crimycarny]

41. Good article on who is most vulnerable

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51214864#share-tools

[CountAllVotes]

35. Case in northern Calif.

In Humboldt county a case was on the news a couple of days ago.

Little info. re: this!

& recommend !!

[spinbaby]

36. We're missing a lot because we're not testing

A 38-year-old Italian man went to the ER several times, but wasn’t tested early on because he hadn’t been to China. Meanwhile he spread it in the ER and in the bar he frequented.

[Coventina]

37. There's a major outbreak in Italy, now. n/t

[MRDAWG]

43. And Trump is cutting the CDC budget***

Yikes!