Guest essay by Eric Worrall
CDC efforts to contain the Chinese Corona Virus in the USA have focussed on identifying chains of infection and isolating everyone who might have come in contact with infected people. But a case of Chinese Corona Virus infection has appeared in California, without an obvious chain of infection, prompting fears the virus may be spreading undetected in the community.
CDC Confirms Possible First Instance of COVID-19 Community Transmission in California
Date: February 26, 2020
Number: NR20-006
Contact: Corey Egel | 916.440.7259 | CDPHpress@cdph.ca.govSACRAMENTO – The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention today confirmed a possible first case of person-to-person transmission of COVID-19 in California in the general public. The individual is a resident of Solano County and is receiving medical care in Sacramento County. The individual had no known exposure to the virus through travel or close contact with a known infected individual.
California has a strong health care system and public health infrastructure. California has prepared for the potential spread of diseases, such as H1N1, in the past and is prepared and actively responding to the potential community spread of COVID-19. Contact tracing in this case has already begun.
The health risk from novel coronavirus to the general public remains low at this time. While COVID-19 has a high transmission rate, it has a low mortality rate. From the international data we have, of those who have tested positive for COVID-19, approximately 80 percent do not exhibit symptoms that would require hospitalization. There have been no confirmed deaths related to COVID-19 in the United States to date. California is carefully assessing the situation as it evolves.
“Keeping Californians safe and healthy is our number one priority,” said Dr. Sonia Angell, Director of the California Department of Public Health and State Public Health Officer. “This has been an evolving situation, which California has been monitoring and responding to since COVID-19 cases first emerged in China last year. This is a new virus, and while we are still learning about it, there is a lot we already know. We have been anticipating the potential for such a case in the U.S., and given our close familial, social and business relationships with China, it is not unexpected that the first case in the U.S. would be in California. That’s why California has been working closely with federal and local partners, including health care providers and hospitals, since the outbreak was first reported in China — and we are already responding.”
As in any public health emergency, the Department of Public Health’s Emergency Operations Center has been actively coordinating response efforts across the state and preparing for possible community transmission. California continues to prepare and respond in coordination with federal and local partners.
This would be the first known instance of person-to-person transmission in the general public in the United States. Previously known instances of person-to-person transmission in the United States include one instance in Chicago, Illinois, and one in San Benito County, California. Both cases were after close, prolonged interaction with a family member who returned from Wuhan, China and had tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by novel coronavirus. As of today, including this case, California has had 7 travel-related cases, one close contact case, and now one community transmission.
As with any virus, especially during the flu season, the Health Department reminds you there are a number of steps you can take to protect your health and those around you:
- Washing hands with soap and water.
- Avoiding touching eyes, nose or mouth with unwashed hands.
- Avoiding close contact with people who are sick are all ways to reduce the risk of infection with a number of different viruses.
- Staying away from work, school or other people if you become sick with respiratory symptoms like fever and cough.
The California Department of Public Health will not be providing additional information about this patient due to patient confidentiality. For more information about novel coronavirus, please visit the CDPH website.
Source: https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OPA/Pages/NR20-006.aspx
How do you prepare for a virus?
The most important thing is not to panic. Panic is useful if you need an extra burst of speed to escape a hungry lion, but it messes up your ability to think clearly. Panic does not help you think your way to safety.
At the same time, don’t ignore this.
My personal response has been to buy a few extra tins of food, stock up with a month worth of non-perishable food. Almost exactly the same precautions I take when my district is threatened by floods and storms.
Make sure that if you have to lock your front door for a few weeks, you won’t go hungry. And don’t run out of toilet paper, like we almost did in 2013 when we were cut off by floods.
What else should we do? Personally I’m continuing to go about my normal life. Because bills still have to be paid, and life goes on.
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Here is a useful 2018 white paper on the projected uses of 60 GHz WiFi:
https://www.commscope.com/globalassets/digizuite/1819-opportunities-with-wifi-with-60-ghz.pdf
re: “Here is a useful 2018 white paper on the projected uses of 60 GHz WiFi”
If you thought WiFi (2.4 GHz, 5.8 GHz) was problematic WRT to ‘propagation’ in a home environment (through walls, furniture), you ain’t seen nothing yet until you get to 60 GHz. Expect ‘Access Points’ to be in every room like ceiling light fixtures.
With a poorly performing Ipod Touch (ver 4) on WiFi I can get a over a block with an unobstructed ‘free-space’ path (access point on the chimney and the iPod Touch down the street) but inside the house trouble is had while in a back bedroom when the Access Point is in the living room … it’s all about obstructions and loss-in-the-path due to (sheetrock) walls and furniture, furnishings at uWave frequencies …
And here is some 60 GHz hardware:
https://ca.news.yahoo.com/fujikura-start-shipping-evaluation-sample-060000810.html
Did you notice, Marty, that that is a module meant for inclusion in something else?
Did you also note the output power? +40 dBm EIRP … that’s 10 Watts EIRP. You would not want that sitting on a coffee table staring back at you at eye level …
Intended uses: The module can be used in communications networks embedded in backhaul equipment, access points (AP), customer premises equipment (CPE), V2X equipment, etc
I could see a pair or better yet 4 units being used in a high ceiling warehouse; Four units would be needed on account of each unit has a fixed 90 degree wide antenna built-in.
This is pretty much how 60 GHz devices are going to be constructed, too. Unitized rx and tx circuitry married/integrated to/into their respective antennas OR the ‘phased array’ antenna or MIMO array that’s used on account of the criticality (necessity to control dimensions) of 60GHz circuits, and the high losses one would see if using any kind of ‘coax’ (coaxial) cable
For those who lack any idea about how quickly this nice little guy develops, here is a page inside of a site presented weeks ago by Wim Röst:
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries
The page is continuously updated.
Not the amount of new deaths is what matters here every day, but the amount of
– new cases (e.g. 500 per day in South Korea)
– new countries that our friend silently entered.
Panic?
I am over 70 years old and I know from experience that always those suddenly panic, who previously viewed others arrogantly, who actually only wanted to inform, and claimed that they would react in panic.
Rgds
J.-P. D.
It’s pretty irrelevant how quickly Corona-chan does her magic; the only thing that really matters is the mortality she causes.
icisil
“…the only thing that really matters is the mortality she causes.”
Wrong.
A disease with high mortality rate but low R0 is by dimensions less dangerous than one with lower mortality and high R0.
SARS couldn’t expand much because it killed its victims long before they could infect other people.
Every 10-year old child would understand that.
J.-P. D.
You’re just playing a stupid numbers game. What would most people rather be exposed to: a highly fatal contagion with a low R0, or a mild contagion with a high R0?
Even a 10-year-old child would say the latter.
icisil,
Once nCoV gets any amount of traction in a country, the only thing that matters will be the public perception. Followed closely by how governments react to quell public panic.
Its probably likely that the chances of becoming a fatality due to the virus are in the millions to one against league ? So likely not quite as high as winning a national lottery, but consider just how many lay their money down in lotteries every week. 🙂
It matters another way too.
If thousands in every state have it at once, beds and equipment will run out.
The same numbers of people but over a longer span of time will allow better care for each.
Video –
“CORONAVIRUS CRISIS:
Steven Mosher and Stefan Molyneux of Freedomain”
Regarding the ability to respond to the Virus, and the USA being ranked number one in the world ?
I would suggest its been many decades since the CDC and similar in the US have had to respond to health dangers. All the big killers were beaten in the ‘West’ many years ago.
Thought about in those terms, and maybe thinking that pandemic in the West was probably rated on the same level if likelihood as invasion by hostile space aliens, then it could be that the capacity to respond of Any country in the west is very much less than hoped.
Years of bloated recruiting to what will have been seen as a well paid easy number, resulting in the majority of staff being what one would expect from government workers, may well be a more realistic picture ?
This is a useful link
https://www.aseanbriefing.com/news/coronavirus-asia-asean-live-updates-by-country/
Michael Carter
Indeed, very detailed listings, thx
J.-P. D.
My advise to the world…… wash your smart phones!
What good is washing your hands if afterwards you hold a phone that you had handled prior to washing??
Same for the other things we frequently touch:
Steering wheels
gearshifts
Door knobs
light switches
knobs on cabinets and drawers
flush levers on toilets
Eyeglasses
Keys
Plastic gloves, bleach and a rag…. everybody needs to be a germaphobe for awhile!
Excuse me the only person that touches my Steering wheels and gearshifts is me. Side note in about two three month here in Arizona those two items will be sterile during the day, they get hot enough to blister your skin. Same is true for door knobs in the sun.
Mark
I just got back from the supermarket. Pushed around a cart that had previously been pushed by hundreds of other shoppers.
Then I grabbed my keys, the latch on my car’s door, gripped the shifter and steering wheel.
These are some of the very mundane, overlooked ways a virus can spread.
****
Yeah, maybe not such a big deal where it’s hot outside. We are not all so lucky.
Handles in buses, metros, trains
The menus in the restaurants: you wash your hands after exiting the toilets, but after choosing your meal?
https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/1582826488-israeli-scientists-say-weeks-away-from-coronavirus-vaccine
I guess I can’t post links
https: // www. i24news.tv/en/news/israel/1582826488-israeli-scientists-say-weeks-away-from-coronavirus-vaccine
Israeli scientists say they are within weeks of a vaccine for the corona virus
The CEO of MIGAL, David Zigdon, said in a press conference that “given the urgent global need for a human Coronavirus vaccine, we are doing everything we can to accelerate development. Our goal is to produce the vaccine during the next 8-10 weeks, and to achieve safety approval in 90 days.”
Yes and we know people should rush for such untested drugs because…
Precedents?
In the following days it will cool down in California.
3 new cases in the United States: [source] [source] [source]
– 1 in Washington State: a 18-year-old student from Jackson High School in Mill Creek with no travel history to an outbreak area who on Feb. 24 had body aches, chills and a headache. After feeling better, he returned to school, before test results came out on Feb. 28. The school will be closed for a few days of deep disinfecting.
– 1 in Washington State: a woman in her 50s with confirmed travel to Daegu, South Korea.
– 1 in Oregon [source]
1 new case in Canada (Ontario): a man in his 80s with a travel history to Egypt
The woman who was in Korea has now died. She is not one of the new cases.
Update from WHO
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf
Given the widespread reports of horrific treatment of anyone known or even suspected of being infected, there is reason to wonder if people are simply not showing up at clinics or hospitals unless and until they are gravely ill.
Also, welding people’s doors shut seems very likely to keep people from spreading a contagion.
But what happens in other places where this will not be done, or in China when these restrictions are relaxed or discontinued?
The WHO report may be more of a political document than anything else.
Personally, I am gonna take news from anyplace with restrictions on freedom with a grain of salt.
I will do the same with reports in the MSM.
One think I am sure of…if every disease and epidemic in the world got this kind of coverage, everyone would be in a permanent state of panic.
Few things are as scary as flesh eating strep or hemorrhagic fevers, but we rarely hear about the ongoing Ebola epidemic in the Congo, or about any of the over 1200 (3-4 every day!) cases of flesh eating streptococcus aureus infections in the US alone, every year.
Reading though the literature on infectious diseases at any given time is enough to make anyone wonder how it is everyone is not sick with all manner of deadly ailments at any given time.
Just scroll through this one publication for a while to know what I mean:
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/subscriptions
some good news
https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf
Could you possibly give a short summary of what good news you are referring to?
No one really likes a link to a long report.
If you have read it, you could say a few sentences as to why or where in the report the good news is.
“President Donald Trump said the woman who died was a medically high-risk patient in her mid-50s. He said more cases are expected but if you are healthy, you will “go through a process and you will be fine.”
The president assured Americans that “whatever the circumstances, we are prepared.”
The death comes the morning after Washington officials announced two new coronavirus cases in King County.
On Friday night, Washington health officials announced a King County woman and a SnohomishCounty teenager contracted Covid-19, the Seattle Times reported. While the woman had recently returned from a trip to South Korea, the teenager, a high school student, had not traveled to any coronavirus-affected countries, nor had he had close contact with any known infected patient, officials stated.
“It’s concerning that this individual did not travel, since this individual acquired it in the community,” Washington state health officer Dr. Kathy Lofy told reporters during a news conference on Friday. “We really believe now that the risk is increasing.”
Officials said the two cases are “presumptive positive” as they are awaiting officials test results from the CDC.
The teenager attends Henry M. Jackson High School in Snohomish County. He became ill on Monday with a fever, body aches, and a headache, officials reported. He subsequently visited two local clinics for treatment and evaluation.
He reportedly returned to school on Friday morning as he was feeling better. However, when positive test results were confirmed, he went home before attending any classes. Officials report that a handful of students who had contact with the student are being isolated for 14 days in their homes.
The high school will be closed on Monday in order for a thorough disinfecting.”
https://www.breitbart.com/border/2020/02/29/1st-coronavirus-death-in-u-s-confirmed-in-washington-state/
How many people did that teenager contact while he was highly infectious?
Each of those people, even the ones quarantined, may now be infected, and each is no doubt spreading it to others, even if quarantined. After all, they are not welded into an isolation chamber, and the kid was days past being sick, which means days past being contagious, when anyone became aware. Everyone he contacted in those clinics, including people in the waiting rooms, while travelling, etc, may now be infected and none will know it for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.
And then of course, is the question of how a high school teenager got it?
Wherever/whoever he got it from must be spreading it to others, and some of them are spreading it as well.
This teenager apparently fought it off quickly…he felt ill on Monday (so he was already infectious a day or more prior to that most likely), went to several clinics, got tested at at least one of them, and was back to school Friday because he was feeling much better…so apparently he was only very sick for a day or three.
Only then did the test results come back positive and he was taken out of school, a handful of his close contacts in the school were identified and have now been quarantined, and the school is being closed for disinfection. AFAIK, the situation with fomites is still a mysery…no one knows if and how readily anyone can be or has been infected from virus on surfaces.
Just pondering the particulars of how many people this kid might possibly have infected makes it obvious why the cat is out of the bag on this one, and the poop is not gonna get shoved back into that puppy, to mix two of my favorite metaphors.
BTW…reportedly, a dog has now been confirmed to have the infection.
And it may well be the case that the disease is contagious via the fecal route, which by itself can sustain infection rates for many diseases.
But if it turns out to be the case, and this is a big if, that the disease can be spread via air, surfaces, and is present in feces in amounts high enough to be contagious…that would be one explanation for a high contagiousness rate.
Flushing a toilet releases a huge amount of aerosols from the bowl of the toilet into the air. It is almost certainly the case that anyone who flushes a toilet is covered in a fine mist of particles from the bowl, and anyone in or entering that room will likely be breathing those particles as well for who knows how long.
Now, I am theorizing here…I have not heard anyone else talking about toilet aerosols…but it would explain a lot…like how one person can have spread something to a bunch of people at a resort, but not to other people he apparently had much closer contact with.
And this now makes four cases in three West Coast states that have the disease and no one knows how they got it and therefore whoever spread it to them is presumably still spreading it.
The case of the teenager also highlights that young people are not dying from the illness, but can and do become infected and thus are certainly able to spread it.
The one person in the US who has died was a woman who had recently returned from Korea, and she was mid-50s and described as a “high risk” patient…but still.
Only mid 50s. Well enough for international travel. Dead.
Like to know more about that particular case…but HEPA laws are still in effect. Medical authorities are not free to publish details about a person, AFAIK.
Bioaerosols!
Hah!
IOW…whatever is in that water is all over the room and all over whoever is in the room and all up in the breathe of anyone who goes in the room for some amount of time.
My guess is those high pressure toilets in public places are a very much more effective source of aerosol plumes.
I can tell you this…I will be ever less likely to be using any public restrooms going forward.
Will people be going in them more so they can wash hands like instructed?
Not me…wash hands at home or in the car.
Have a stack of fresh hand towels in the car.
https://aricjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13756-018-0301-9
“Particle concentrations measured before and after the flush were found to be significantly different (0.3–10 μm). Bioaerosol concentrations when flushing fecal waste were found to be significantly greater than background concentrations (p-value = 0.005). However, the bioaerosol concentrations were not different across time (p-value = 0.977) or distance (p-value = 0.911) from the toilet, suggesting that aerosols generated may remain for longer than 30 min post flush. Toilets produce aerosol particles when flushed, with the majority of the particles being 0.3 μm in diameter. The particles aerosolized include microorganisms remaining from previous use or from fecal wastes. Differences in bioaerosol concentrations across conditions also suggest that toilet flushing is a source of bioaerosols that may result in transmission of pathogenic microorganisms.”
This would ‘splain a lot.
Here is an interesting thought. Looking at a site which shows rates of infections and deaths per nation. Iran has an abnormally high death rate versus infections. The other day their death rate was 10%. Today it is still high at 8%. However guess what is not see in Iran’s stats? There are no serious/critical numbers like in every other nation on the list. That suggests to me that Iran is killing their serious/critical patients. … https://www.worldometers.in…
Part to the first comment, Further evidence that Iran is killing their serious/critical patients, Japan has 241 cases, 5 dead, and 20 serious/critical. The total of 25 dead/critical equals 11% compared to 10% for Iran yesterday.
France has 100 total, 2 dead, 8 critical for 10% total. South Korea has 3526, 17 dead, 10 critical, still less than 1%, interesting. Singapore 102 cases, 7 critical for almost 10%.
Hong Kong 95 cases, 2 dead, 6 critical for almost 9%. So why doesn’t Iran with over 7% dead have any critical patients?
Now to straighten out my funny math above. I copied it from my Disqus comment, and then saw the errors, too late to change it here.
Here are the current numbers which explain how I came to conclude the original comment.
South Korea…21 dead…10 critical…total 3736 = about 0.8%
Italy …41 dead …140 critical… total 1701 = about 9.5%
Iran …54 dead …………………… total 978 = about 18%
Diamond Princess .. 7 dead …36 critical …total 705 = about 16.5%
Japan …6 dead …………..19 critical …total 256 = about 10%
France …2 dead ………9 critical …..total 130 = about 12%
Hong Kong ..2 dead ….6 critical …….total 100 = …..8%
Singapore 0 dead … 7 critical ……..total 106 = about 7%
Spain …0 dead …..3 critical ………total 84 = about 3%
China ..2912 dead …7365 ……………total 80,024 = about 14%
So why are there no serious/critical patients in Iran?
Iran should equal 5.5%. Mind still fuzzy from not sleeping right for a few days.
In the category of cold, hard reality, and NSFW –
From https://regiehammblog.wordpress.com/2020/02/27/birth-of-a-virus/
“Regie’s Blog – BIRTH OF A VIRUS”
As I watched my neighbor put her dog’s poop in a single-use plastic baggy, I thought about split pants in China.
When my wife and I got off the plane, 18 years ago, to adopt our first daughter, we were taken aback by the split pants. Split pants are (or at least were, back then) pants the children wear that are open in the crotch area. That allows them to … [use your imagination -_Jim]
Either way, I distinctly remember my brand new Nike slip-ons (probably made not far from where I was standing) sloshing into a mix of urine and who knows what else, and continuing to do so for the next three weeks.
As I started feeling the cough coming on, I remember one of the women in our group saying, at one of the airports (as she too, stepped into urine) “The people in this country probably have built up antibodies inside them our bodies have never even thought about.”
Read the rest at the link above.
The best documentary I have seen yet:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycrqXJYf1SU
The Brits appear very quiet over this outbreak – is that the stiff upper lip or what? Maybe the learnt the importance of avoiding bad news panic over 80 yrs ago
Idiots in NZ have stripped the shelves of some major supermarkets in Auckland already. We won’t see the peak of this for another 3 – 4 months I recon. I will protect my family in a rural setting and go out anywhere with no protection to get and do what I gotta do. Catch me if you can you little buggers.
The large cooling on the west coast may be conducive to viruses.
Chinese Coronavirus Coverup
https://nypost.com/2020/02/29/china-officials-knew-of-coronavirus-in-december-ordered-cover-up-report-says/
“virus, the Sunday Times of London reported, citing Chinese business news site Caixin Global.
The researchers alerted Beijing of their findings — and on Jan. 3, received a gag order from China’s National Health Commission, with instructions to destroy the samples.”
it was reported to the WHO on before Jan 3
Ever wondered why the hysterical provax-sphere is almost identical to the pro-ACA sphere?
ACA mandates free coverage of all recommended vaccines! Yet the so called conservatives never objected to that part of the ACA, because, except for the small specifically “populist” crowd, they also are brainwashed provax and in bed with Big Medicine.
niceguy <– ALL THIS from a guy who didn't know a damn thing about the Polio epidemic in the 1950s
What the hell is “polio”, shill?
re: “What the hell is “polio”, shill?”
You’re a complete and total idiot, aren’t you? I mean, you possess an IQ no more than room temperature. When looking up “stupid” in the dictionary – displayed is YOUR picture
as an example. You’re that damn dumb.
You can’t even perform a SIMPLE Google search on the term. If you knew a damn thing about epidemiology, you would know what ‘polio’ was. But no, you’re stupid and actually know nothing at all. You’re an idiot, a moron, and a classic lab-quality case of the “Dunning-Kruger effect”.
polio – https://www.google.com/search?q=polio&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1
Dunning Kruger effect – https://www.google.com/search?q=Dunning-Kruger+syndrome&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&client=firefox-b-1
So you admit you can’t even explain what you mean by “polio”.
I have humiliated you.
You may now hide under a rock.
re: “So you admit you can’t even explain what you mean by “polio”.”
Functionally, you are an idiot, period. Even a link to the term you cannot ‘click’ on. What *is* your problem? Severe mental retardation is one possible answer. Deliberate obstinacy is another. A warped development ‘path’ is another. I think it is this latter factor, and you simply do not know any better, were never ‘taught’ any better.
If you represent the future, we are doomed, because the future is stupid. The movie ‘Idiocracy’ was patterned after you.
I’m done with you.
Stop spamming the discussion, shill.
Asked and answered here; https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/02/23/cut-thru-myths-to-see-facts-about-covid-19/#comment-2926270
whereupon you ran away and hid you insulting little troll.
So you admit you can’t define polio.
Your messages are filth.
I don’t discuss with filth.
Go away. You are dismissed. I win.
re: niceguy: “So you admit you can’t define polio.”
I think I’ve encountered a new level of stupid, I think I’ll call it “compound stupid.” It is stupid layered upon stupid as exemplified in this ‘niceguy’ thing that plagues us …
mods, if you value this site I recommend banning him.
OK big guy.
Why do you deny the explosion of polio following mass vaccination, denier?
What is the evidence the polio vaccine was ever useful, fascistic shill?