United States
More than 11,000 new cases in the US today, which is on track to overtake Italy tonight.
I’m afraid that the name “Wuhan virus” is not set in stone, and historians might remember it as “the Western Flu” (last century’s Spanish Flu didn’t originate in Spain either).
Apple sourced 10 millions masks for the US and millions of masks for Europe – beating the work of many governments. Yes, Apple is huge, bla bla, but also: procurement is a core competency of most manufacturing companies. Perhaps it would be a good idea if governments issued Purchase Orders for PPEs to companies with excellent supply chains rather than trying to procure them directly. Also: “Michigan is missing 225k surgical masks and no one knows why” (link).
New York
As Noah Smith noted, “New York continues to have: almost half the total coronavirus cases in the U.S. (30.8k out of 63.7k) a ridiculously high positive rate on testing (>40%), suggesting there are a lot more undiscovered cases in the state.”
Italy, evidence of under-reporting of deaths
In Bergamo, people are dying at 14 times the rate of a normal year. In the 8th-16th of March period, 330 deaths in 2020 vs 23 in the same period in 2019.
In Coccaglio (Brescia), 5 people died of COVID but 24 more died in a residence, none tested. 36 people died between the 1st & 24th March, compared to a yearly average of 75 (link, via @Franceskamarel).
There is a growing list of such anecdotal evidence: I compiled it here.
Italy, deciding to play on hard mode for no reason
Lombardy's governor: "we can test 5k people a day, to test all 10 million citizens it would take 4-5 years." Clearly failing to understand that supply chains can be expanded.
Also, Lombardy's governor "we're looking for face masks everywhere in the world."
A few lines below, in the same newspaper: in Puglia region, manufacturers volunteer to produce face masks, they're waiting for the Ministry of Health to authorize.
Spain
Spanish military finds dead bodies and seniors completely abandoned in care homes (link, via Stephen Pimentel).
Spanish armed forces asked NATO for humanitarian assistance (link, via Ben Hunt).
The “quick test kits” bought by the Spanish government from a Chinese company have a sensibility of only 30%, instead of the expected 80% (link in Spanish).
Also, this:
France
The death tally is much higher than reported by official numbers (Reuters, link). “We only know the data provided by hospitals. The increase in the official data is already major, but the absolute numbers would no doubt be effectively much higher if we aggregated what is happening in retirement homes as well as the people who die at home or who are not counted.”
If any French reader wants to check the number of deaths in March regardless of cause in cities badly hit by the virus and compare them with the same period in 2019, please let me know the results.
United Kingdom
A new 4000 beds hospital is being built inside an exhibition center outside of London (link).
India
India banned the exports of hydroxychloroquine (link).
Good social distancing (via Milan Vaishnav)
Belgium
In 2017-18, Belgium destroyed millions of masks from the national stockpile, without purchasing new ones (link in French). They were expired.
Medical masks have an expiry date of around 3 years, but they maintain some degree of effectiveness even after it. Some Singaporean families still use masks from SARS times (2003). This is bureaucracy at its worst – yes, masks lose some effectiveness over time, but if you’re not going to buy new ones, you should keep the old ones.
Consequences
First, this chart, showing the pyramid of consequences, left without those who have symptoms mild enough to call the hospital, right with it.
(red = ICU, orange = hospitalized, yellow = domestic isolation, green = recovered)
I like the chart, but let’s not forget that, as described in today’s paragraph about Italy, there are also people who die from the coronavirus which do not show up in the official statistics because they never get tested.
And let’s also forget that not everyone who recovers is as healthy as he or she was before contracting the virus:
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About me: I’m Luca Dellanna, the author of 5 books.