COVID-19 Daily Update (3/2)
A daily update on the emerging coronavirus ("COVID-19") from a US perspective.
Global situation by the numbers
[Infections (Daily Increase) (%) ] [Fatalities (Daily increase) (%) ] [CFR %]
East Asia
🇨🇳Mainland China — 80,026 (+202) — 2,912 — 3.6% [CDC Level 3]
🇰🇷South Korea — 4,212 (+476) (12.7%) — 22 — 0.52% [CDC Level 3]
🇯🇵Japan — 961 — 12 — 1.24% [CDC Level 2]
🇭🇰Hong Kong— 98 — 2 — 2.04% [CDC Level 1]
🇸🇬Singapore — 106 — 0 — 0%
🇹🇼Taiwan — 40 — 1 — 2.5%
🇲🇴Macau — 10 — 0 — 0%
Southeast Asia / Australasia
🇹🇭Thailand — 42 — 1 — 2.38%
🇲🇾Malaysia — 29 (+4) (16%) — 0 — 0%
🇦🇺Australia — 29 — 1 — 3.44%
🇻🇳Vietnam — 16 — 0 — 0%
🇵🇭Philippines — 3 — 1 — 0%
🇮🇩Indonesia — 2 — 0 — 0%
🇰🇭Cambodia — 1 — 0 — 0%
🇳🇿New Zealand —1 — 0 — 0%
South Asia
🇮🇳India — 3 — 0 — 0%
🇳🇵Nepal — 1 — 0 — 0%
🇱🇰Sri Lanka — 1 — 0 — 0%
Middle East
🇮🇷Iran — 978 — 54 — 5.5% [CDC Level 3]
🇰🇼Kuwait — 45— 0 — 0%
🇧🇭Bahrain — 47 — 0 — 0%
🇦🇪United Arab Emirates — 21 — 0 — 0%
🇮🇶Iraq — 19 — 0 — 0%
🇮🇱Israel — 10 — 0 — 0%
🇱🇧Lebanon — 10 — 0 — 0%
🇴🇲Oman — 6 — 0 — 0%
🇵🇰Pakistan — 4 — 0 — 0%
🇦🇿Azerbaijan — 3 — 0 — 0%
🇦🇫Afghanistan — 1 — 0 — 0%
Europe
🇮🇹Italy — 1,694 (50%) — 34 (+5) (17.2%) — 2.0% [CDC Level 3]
🇫🇷France — 130 (+30) (30%) — 2 — 1.5%
🇩🇪Germany — 130 — 0 — 0%
🇪🇸Spain — 84 — 0 — 0%
🇬🇧UK — 36 — 0 — 0%
🇸🇪Sweden — 14 — 0 — 0%
🇨🇭Switzerland — 27 — 0 — 0%
🇳🇴Norway — 19 — 0 — 0%
🇭🇷Croatia — 7 — 0 — 0%
🇬🇷Greece — 7 — 0 — 0%
🇦🇹Austria — 14 — 0 — 0%
🇷🇴Romania — 3 — 0 — 0%
🇫🇮Finland — 6 — 0 — 0%
🇷🇺Russia — 2 — 0 — 0%
🇧🇪Belgium — 2 — 0 — 0%
🇬🇪Georgia — 3 — 0 — 0%
🇩🇰Denmark — 4 — 0 — 0%
🇳🇱Netherlands — 10 — 0 — 0%
🇸🇲San Marino — 8 — 0 — 0%
🇮🇸Iceland — 3 — 0 — 0%
🇲🇰North Macedonia — 1 — 0 — 0%
🇪🇪Estonia — 1 — 0 — 0%
🇧🇾Belarus — 1 — 0 — 0%
🇱🇹Lithuania — 1 — 0 — 0%
🇨🇿Czech Republic — 1 — 0 — 0%
Africa
🇩🇿Algeria — 3 — 0 — 0%
🇪🇬Egypt — 2 — 0 — 0%
🇳🇬Nigeria — 1 — 0 — 0%
North America
🇨🇦Canada — 24 — 0 — 0%
🇲🇽Mexico — 5 — 0 — 0%
South America / Caribbean
🇧🇷Brazil — 2 — 0 — 0%
🇩🇴Dominican Republic — 1 — 0 — 0%
US situation by the numbers
🇺🇸United States — 88 — 2 — 2.27%
State-by-state breakdown:
California - 33 (+5)
Nebraska - 13
Texas - 11
Washington - 7 (+10)
Illinois - 3 (+1)
Florida - 2 (+2)
New York - 1 (+1)
Wisconsin - 1
Utah - 1
Massachusetts - 1
Rhode Island - 2 (+2)
Arizona - 1
Oregon - 2 (+1)
**Presumptive positive - pending confirmation by CDC lab test.
Latest developments in US
Twenty-three U.S. cases were announced on Saturday and Sunday, including the country’s first two deaths, both in Washington State.
Second fatality reported in Washington state. Public health leaders in King County, Wash., said a man in his 70s with underlying health conditions died on Saturday at EvergreenHealth hospital in Kirkland. This is the same facility where officials identified the nation’s first coronavirus death — a man in his 50s with underlying health conditions. Officials also announced three other confirmed coronavirus cases in the county, all at EvergreenHealth. Also on Sunday, the county had previously reported two other patients, unrelated to the nursing facility, who were in critical condition (both men in their 60s) at hospitals in Renton and Seattle. Washington State has declared a state of emergency.
First case reported in New York City (Manhattan). Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Sunday confirmed New York State’s first case of the coronavirus, saying that a woman contracted the virus while traveling in Iran and is now in New York isolated in her home. “There is no cause for surprise—this was expected,” the governor said in a statement. “I said from the beginning it was a matter of when, not if, there would be a positive case of novel coronavirus in New York.” The Governor called for the state’s legislature to pass an emergency spending bill of $40 million.
Two people tested positive for the virus in Florida. Florida’s governor disclosed late Sunday that two people had become the first in his state to test “presumptively positive” for COVID-19 and ordered his top health officer to declare a statewide public health emergency. The cases are in the counties of Manatee and Hillsborough. The Hillsborough patient had a history of travel to Italy while the Manatee patient had no known history of international travel.
Additional FL numbers: 8 pending test results; 15 negative results; 184 being monitored for risk of having been exposed to the virus
Two cases reported in Rhode Island. Two people who returned to Rhode Island from a trip to Europe tested positive for the new coronavirus disease, and a third person from the trip is undergoing tests, health officials said. A man in his 40s contracted the virus after traveling to Italy in mid-February. Hours later, the state Department of Health released another statement saying that a teenage girl from the trip had tested positive for COVID-19, and a third person, a woman in her 30s, is undergoing tests.
Two health care workers (HCWs) test positive for COVID-19 in California. Two health care workers in the San Francisco Bay Area tested positive for the coronavirus after they were exposed to a patient now being treated for the virus at a hospital in Sacramento, the authorities said on Sunday. The workers were isolated in their homes.
In Silicon Valley, shoppers raided grocery stores to stockpile food. Santa Clara County, the heart of Silicon Valley, recorded the state’s second community transmission coronavirus case Friday afternoon, prompting fears that the virus would spread quickly in the suburban area. Three other people in the county were diagnosed with the illness on Sunday, bringing the county’s total to seven, the most of any county in California.
On Saturday, a person tested '“presumptive positive” for COVID-19 in Cook County, Illinois. According to a statement by the Illinois DOH, public health officials are working to identify and actively monitor individuals who were in contact with the patient in an effort to reduce the risk of additional transmission. The state of Illinois will request CDC deploy a team to Illinois to support these efforts.
COVID-19 has likely been spreading for weeks in the US. Researchers who have examined the genomes of two coronavirus infections in Washington State say the similarities between the cases suggest that the virus may have been spreading in the state for weeks (up to six weeks by one estimate). If the virus has been spreading undetected in Washington since mid-January, that could mean that anywhere from 150 to 1,500 people may have it, with about 300 to 500 people the most likely range.
Trump admin response
Travel advisories updated for “high-risk” countries. The CDC upped its travel alerts for Italy and Iran to the highest level, Level 3, which means avoid all non-essential travel. The State Department also increased its warning advising Americans not to travel to certain regions of Italy and South Korea affected by the virus. During a press conference, Trump hinted he was considering expanding travel restrictions, including a potential closure of the U.S.-Mexico border.
HHS Secretary Azar: We need to “treat the American people like adults”. “It’s very important that we treat the American people like adults and explain to them that we don't know where this will go, that we will see more cases, that we will see continued community spreading in the United States, as we're seeing around the world,” Azar said on ABC’s “This Week.” Vice President Mike Pence acknowledged the United States has lagged behind other countries in the manufacturing and distribution of coronavirus testing kits.
Testing capability in US
HHS to investigate initial testing flaws. HHS acknowledged that it had opened an investigation into why the diagnostic tests first released by the CDC were flawed, a problem that public health experts say impeded detection of the virus. HHS is convening a team of scientists from outside the CDC to investigate the test development and its flaws, according to an HHS spokesperson.
National testing capabilities have only been available for about six weeks, and in Washington, health personnel have only had the ability to test locally for a few days. Vice President Pence, named by the president to be the point-person overseeing the government’s response, said more than 15,000 virus testing kits had been released over the weekend. The administration is working with a commercial provider to distribute 50,000 more, Pence said. Several states have begun their own testing, including Washington state, Oregon and Illinois. Azar said more than 3,600 people already have been tested for coronavirus and the capability exists to test 75,000 people.
New York. Testing for the novel coronavirus will now be possible at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene Public Health Laboratory in Manhattan and at a state-run laboratory in Albany, according to a new policy issued Saturday by the Food and Drug Administration.
Florida. Three Florida Department of Health labs are now able to test for the new coronavirus, cutting wait times significantly for results, state officials had announced Saturday. The Florida health officials said in an email that labs in Tampa, Jacksonville and Miami can conduct the tests, which previously had to be sent to federal labs. They said that would mean results should be available 24 to 48 hours afterward — instead of within days.
What doctors / scientists / PH officials are saying
Tracing contacts becomes priority #1. “Speed is critical. Speed is absolutely critical. Every country that is receiving their first cases needs to act robustly and aggressively. … Look for this virus,” said Maria Van Kerkhove, head of the emerging diseases and zoonoses unit for the World Health Organization’s global infectious hazard preparedness team, in an interview with STAT. “That would be having the case pull out their personal calendar, going through their phone,” Burnsed said. “They might even have to go through their social media feed to see where they were tagged and what they did, to kind of jog their memory.”
How other governments are responding
UN steps up COVID-19 aid to countries with fragile health systems. The United Nations said Sunday it is releasing $15 million from an emergency fund to help countries with fragile health systems contain the virus. “We must act now to stop this virus from putting more lives at risk,” U.N. humanitarian chief Mark Lowcock said. The aid “has the potential to save the lives of millions of vulnerable people.”
Italy. Under quarantine orders the government imposed on 11 towns a week ago, only supermarkets and pharmacies have been allowed to open in the so-called “red zone.” Italian medical authorities insisted that the transmission rate should be significantly slowed before schools in impacted regions like Lombardy could resume classes.
Switzerland. Italy’s neighbor, Switzerland, Friday banned all public events involving more than 1,000 people until March 15, including the annual Geneva International Motor Show.
Europe braces for impact. The European Center for Disease Prevention and Control put the risk of case clusters like Italy’s cropping up in other countries at “moderate to high.” If that happens, the infected stricken areas can expect a significant impact, “especially if hospitals were affected and a large number of healthcare workers had to be isolated,” the health agency said.
South Korea. South Korea has moved to close all of its school for the next three weeks (i.e., until March 23).
US economic impact
Stocks rebounded in Asian markets while US treasure prices rose. Stocks rose in Asia on Monday as investors made bets that the world’s governments and central banks would step in to help a global economy slammed by the coronavirus outbreak. But US Treasury prices rose, driving yields lower, in a sign of growing worry in the financial world. Yields on the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond fell to 1.08 percent. The selling has left markets as precarious as they’ve been since stocks started climbing in March 2009 after the financial crisis.
People hoarding goods in panic-buying. Unease over the possibility of a serious outbreak of the new coronavirus in the U.S. mounted palpably over the weekend, prompting many consumers to rush for supplies in much the same way they would if preparing for a major hurricane. At a Home Depot Inc. store in the Chicago area, employees said face masks were barely making it onto the shelves before being snatched up. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has urged the public not to use masks unless told to do so by a doctor.
Global economic impact
US issues additional travel advisories for areas affected by the virus. US officials advised Americans against traveling to the two northern Italian regions with growing caseloads, among them Lombardy, which includes Milan. Major American airlines began suspending flights to Milan. American Airlines will waive fees for changing all flights over the next two weeks. Tourism accounts for 13% of the economy in Italy, with its art museums, archaeological sites and architectural treasures. More than 5.6 million Americans visit Italy every year, representing 9% of foreign tourists.
Italy. With its long stagnant economy, the country risks a recession the longer the quarantines and other containment measures drag on factory production, tourism and other industries. Lombardy and Veneto are key industrial and agricultural areas, and include tourist popular cities such as Venice and Milan.
Oil prices continue to tumble. The benchmark for U.S. crude oil fell 16% during the week, settling Friday at $44.76 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, dropped 14% for the week to its lowest levels since July 2017, closing Friday at $50.52 a barrel. Meanwhile, shares of Exxon Mobil tumbled to $49.82 on Thursday, reaching a 15-year low, before rebounding more than 3% on Friday.
Japanese manufacturer to shift from making electronic displays to masks. Electronics maker Sharp Corp. said Monday it will start making surgical masks, which are in high demand because of the virus outbreak, using a plant in central Japan that usually makes displays. Sharp said mask production at its Mie Prefecture plant will start by the end of this month, at 150,000 masks a day, rising to 500,000 a day.