Tracking the COVID-19-Virus in Germany, the USA, Italy and other hot spots in the world

https://thorax.bmj.com/content/early/2020/05/27/thoraxjnl-2020-215091

There is a treasure-trove of information in the document-link above, every person in PF really should read it, and psssst.... learn to read a little between the lines, too.

On a somewhat smaller cruise ship that left Argentina on a planned 3-week cruise off of the Antarctic Peninsular, people started to get sick.

This was the cruise-route:



When circa 8 people started to get sick and were showing what could be C19 symptoms, quick-tests were then delivered to the ship and those 8 who took the quick-test tested negative. The authorities, however, refused to allow the ship to dock anywhere without a complete and thorough testing of the everyone on board. Because of a possible outbreak, the people on board this cruise ship never got the chance to disembark anywhere else and had no contact with any other human beings except the ones already on that ship since it left harbor. This of course excludes the sick one who were later care-flighted off the ship to go to an ICU.

So, then the entire ship was tested; on the 20th day of the cruise, listed in the document as April 2, 2020, via a combination of the nasal swab test and the RT-PCR test. Out of a total of 217 people on board (128 passengers, 95 crew), 128 people (59%) tested positive through the tests, INCLUDING ALL EIGHT WHO HAD JUST TESTED NEGATIVE USING THE QUICK TEST. The document does not give an infected breakdown by crew/passenger complement, so that 128 surely does not mean that it was all 128 passengers.

That's bad enough. Worse is that 104 (81%) of those 128 who were positive were competely asymptomatic and had no idea whatsoever that they had contracted C19.
This means that 48% of the entire ship (those who were neg and those who were pos, all together) was asymptomatic and had one not tested, most of those people would never have known. Also, according to the document, not a single person on that cruise had contact with to travelled to any country in Asia in the last months.

The mortality on this ship was, fortunately, very low. Only 1 person died and a total of 4 had to be intubated and put on a ventilator.

Even more importantly, the document claims that this is a the first complete stem-to-stern study of the entire complement of a cruise ship during a cruise that happened entirely during the C19 crisis. The cruise ship took off from Uruguay in Mid-March 2020, after the WHO had classified C19 as a pandemic. Everyone who was on board was pre-screened and temperature checked before the ship took sail. But they did not do C19 tests on the day the ship left harbor.

The document also lists specfic cases of those who got very sick and had to be airlifted off the ship to a hospital in Montevideo. A number of younger people without comorbidities were mentioned, but also older people who did have at least one comorbidity.

Now, between the lines: unusual to have such a huge crew for such a relatively small group of passengers. For the normal price of a cruise, that is certainly not profitable. Therefore, the logical assumption (since the name of the ship was deliberately not given) is that this was a cruise for very rich people - an exclusive cruise. Also, there were hospitals closer to where the ship originally stopped than in Montevideo, and yet, those people were care-flighted to Montevideo, which is the capitol city of Uruguay and also the 9th richest city on the continent. So, my gut tells me that we are talking about an exlusive passenger-list and a very well paid crew.

Now, why in the name of G-d a cruise would have deliberately taken off during a pandemic, there I haven't a bloody idea. Perhaps specifically because rich people are going to do what they are going to do and basta, but either way, this has offered us some very helpful information.

Serological studies of NY are saying that around 20% of the population that did not take tests already has the antibodies, meaning, that well over 1 million NYers in the Big Apple were asymptomatic. On board this one cruise ship, it was 48%. If it should end up being that having built-up the antibodies does offer protection against a re-infection, perhaps it would be better were we to find out that 48% of NYC is asymptomatic right now.

Either way, the study proves that feeling good and showing no symptoms is, in the age of COVID-19, absolutely meaningless. Which is exactly why we all should wear good quality masks, wash our hands, not touch our faces, maintain a physical distance and avoid big crowds.

The conclusion of the document is especially enlightening:

Number 4 can only mean that there were couples living together in small cabins, breathing on each other, probably having sex like bunnies, and yet, one of the two tested pos while the other tested neg. I am quite sure that that is what is meant by "discordant".

Take a good read of the document. Fascinating stuff.

 

Dude, you need to read about Arthur Dent and the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.....

 

Two things stich out to me on that cruise. Mid March and Australians.
Aspen, Mid March and a Australian group.

 

It's definitely enlightening, but as towards the asymptomatic crowd we're learning more and more new things about the virus. It's already been speculated by some, but what if this virus has HIV-like qualities, where the virus can be 'dormant' for a time, then reactivate? Remdivisir, one of the medicines the medical community wanted to try(and has shown some effectiveness) was a HIV-purposed medication.

If this bug acts like a dormant-reactive virus, then it'll be quite the bugger that'll never be defeated. We'd need to develop something like the recent hiv medicines that make it so that "the virus is so low that it's undetected." I also hear that when the virus is that low(for hiv), it becomes difficult to transmit to you know.

I think that sort of medicine would be greatly needed for us to at least halt the spread of the virus.

 

Indeed, my young friend, I have the feeling that we have yet much to learn about this virus. This thing is not over with. Not by a longshot.

 

There is no such thing as a factual backlog. When tested, if you got it, you are quarantined to protect those who not infected. Because you have become a public danger.

It's a difficult job to understand if a daily death-rate is indicative of continued cases of Covid-19 or not. If in the "hot-spot" of the northeast, maybe yes. But the number of deaths elsewhere could be diminishing as they appear to be nationwide.

I think it is wrong to plan just on national numbers, and the "regional state" numbers should do well to indicate whether the plague is continuing or diminishing. The national total of daily numbers of plague-deaths indicates an answer. Which looks distinctly like this nationally: It is diminishing! Howzat? Here's how:
*Go to here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/coronavirus-us-cases.html
*Go down to daily tracking-graphics titled, "New reported cases by day in the United States" and "New reported deaths by day in the United States"
*Note that the projection line is diminishing in both graphics!

That is the good news. And frankly, all that really counts.

What matters most as deaths decline is what most Americans are asking themselves. "So, what's next?".

This is what:
*We wont be over this madness until very late in the year, and in November we are approaching national presidential election-time.
*Will this plague have affected Donald Dork's ability to get reelected? Almost certainly. The guy has lost his glamour.
*So, what does the country want? How will people vote?
*Good question?!?

Any guesses supported by some reasoning ... ?

 

112 of the passengers were Australian and New Zealanders. That’s interesting.

 

Your point is what? Only healthy people under 40 count? We should kill off old people so you can cut your taxes?

You should know that without the old folks, this guy...



... wouldn't be the Lardbutt-in-Chief.

 

Lard-ass has too much on his plate to worry about the virus. We have Twitter fact checking him and Joe Scarborough a suspected murderer walking free. Is it November yet?

 

Today I had a clown come in without face mask, so I kindly asked him to put a face mask on. He refused, so I kindly asked him to leave, he refused and got loud, so I told him to get the $##@^%$&*^ out of my store.
He pulled this out of his back pack

I was almighty impressed, so to speak and went for the phone, he left, yelling I would here from his lawyer.
I told him to make sure his lawyer would spell my name right.
https://www.ada.gov/covid-19_flyer_alert.html

groeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoeoehllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

 

In a reminder that time always marches forward, there have already been +1,189 daily deaths in the USA today from COVID-19.

Also, the USA is now over 103,000 total deaths (103,296). Just two days ago, the USA broke the 100,000 barrier.

 

Oh, he was one of those whacked out ******* you had to suffer. Yes, they are a Sondertier, nööööö.... sorry for your twilight zone episode.
Word is that those ugly red hats cause so much pressure on the brain, people start experience some real damage, some real HIPAA damage.

Gröööööööööööööhl......

 

What those dumbficks do not understand. Employers a constantly up-dated by their State Health Department, if they make an effort to create a account. Every morning I get my e-mail and fraud alerts are at the present the majority of advices. Including the ADA fraud alert.
You gote love those fickers, they are entertaining in a certain way, to what amount they go to not put on a face mask. Just a simple piece of cloth, a courtesy, like that simple thank you, which puts a smile on a face.
Always found that strange, too.

 

I do not think it is pressure, I think the Holeraum Versieglung is cracking, which causes problems with the vacuum, which will eventually cause a implosion. They have just 1 brain cell more than a cow, so they do not shiit in the house.

Its HIPPO damage, kicked

 

IOW, nowhere near enough for 'herd immunity'.

 

There is no longer any excuse, when the poorest nations in Europe now have the least cases. When Thailand and Vietnam do (vastly) better than Sweden and America. When one Middle Eastern nation has a handful of dead, while their neighbour has thousands.

History will no doubt view this time as the reckoning of complacent nations .. those which imagined themselves immortal. Those which thought their power lay in their wealth, rather than their people and culture.

 

Returning to restaurants should be lowest on the list. Far too risky. Better to meet those friends/family in an uncrowded park, with picnic foods. That's what we do. We don't need manufactured entertainment/public buildings to connect with people.

 

There are equally densely populated places in other countries, which have nothing like the same death rate. There's something else going on in the American Northeast. It's highly likely there's a general health problem, coupled with very poor compliance with protocols. Why the latter would be so, when the former is a reality .. is the mystery. If I lived in a vulnerable community, there's no way on earth I'd refuse to comply with protocols.

 

The nursing home issue, it's a real thing. They literally put COVID-positive patients inside nursing homes and then were like 'cya' and when that was exposed, first they tried(and failed) to blame the President but of recent Cuomo finally retracted his order, I hope other States soon follow.

And more over, I hope to actually do an investigation on what the governors knew and when they knew it(especially on the mid-atlantic) with that stupid order.

 

Indeed not. The South has a growing number of new infections in state after state. How bad will it get? I think we're going to find out directly.

 

We have nursing homes, prisons, meat packing plants and now churches.

 

The information I'm seeing says many many people outside of nursing homes were infected. That's what I'm focused on .. that community transmission. Clusters (nursing homes etc) are far more easily contained and traced etc.

Community transmission is always the most worrying front. And in this case, there was loads of it, in a community with poor general health. That means the general public are spreading it around, DESPITE being so much more at risk.

 

Not an encouraging sign. Positives are up for the second day in a row.


Another pretty big spike in Georgia.

Florida - Okay.

 

It was staff. It's always staff .. whether cruise ships or nursing homes (interestingly, both industries have a preponderance of staff from one particular SE Asian nation). While I'm not suggesting anything untoward about those people, there could be a cultural issue regarding general hygiene.

Meantime, yeah .. a cruise taking off in the middle of a pandemic is bloody insane. Hope they're sued to the eyeballs.

 

In SW Utah the deaths are almost nil. Beaver County has no cases. Fillmore in Mill, ward County has had four cases.

I think the combination of the high desert's aridity, wind, and sunshine affects infection rates.

As the country opens more, the rates will go up. It would seem unlikely that they would not.