GREEN BAY, Wis. (WBAY) - State officials say the total number of people who have tested positive for COVID-19 has increased to 34 as of Sunday afternoon.
One person has since recovered, which means the state is currently dealing with 33 active cases.
BREAKDOWN BY COUNTY (ACTIVE CASES)
FOND DU LAC COUNTY - 11 casesMILWAUKEE COUNTY - 7 casesDANE COUNTY - 6 casesSHEBOYGAN COUNTY - 3 casesWAUKESHA COUNTY - 3 casesPIERCE COUNTY - 1 caseRACINE COUNTY - 1 caseWINNEBAGO COUNTY - 1 case
VISIT wbay.com/coronavirus for complete local, national and international coverage of the outbreak.
Both Fond du Lac and Milwaukee Counties saw an increase of positive test results from Saturday. The Wood County Health Department confirmed Sunday night that it has one positive coronavirus case.
Officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will be in Fond du Lac County this week to help track the spread of the virus.
Fond du Lac County Health Department, Health Officer Kim Mueller says all five people who tested positive have been notified.
Four people had traveled on the Egyptian River Cruise. Mueller said the other case was from domestic travel to Wisconsin.
Fond du Lac County has set up a hotline for coronavirus questions. Call 1-844-225-0147.
CLICK HERE to track the outbreak in Wisconsin.
THE SPREAD AND PREVENTION
Older people and those with underlying health conditions (heart disease, diabetes, lung disease) are considered at high risk, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. People with those conditions should take the proper precautions.
COVID-19 is spread when an infected person coughs or sneezes.
"The virus is found in droplets from the throat and nose. When someone coughs or sneezes, other people near them can breathe in those droplets. The virus can also spread when someone touches an object with the virus on it. If that person touches their mouth, face, or eyes the virus can make them sick," says the Wisconsin Department of Health Services.
Symptoms include fever, cough, and shortness of breath. CLICK HERE for more information on symptoms. Emergency signs include pain and pressure in the chest, confusion and bluish lips or face.
Do not go to the emergency room or clinic looking for a test at this time. Prevea Health President/CEO Dr. Ashok Rai urges people to call their health care professional.
"At this point when it comes to testing in the state of Wisconsin, we are still limited in what we're able to do. So we're asking people not just to come into the emergency department, not to drive up to our individual clinics and ask for a test. You won't get one," says Dr. Rai.
"When you call us, or use our virtual platform and go through the screening, it's a pretty tight set of questions. And there are certain people that yes, need to be tested. We will tell you where to go, when to get there and the procedures to go through to get tested. But if you just drive up to our sites today, we're literally begging you not to. Health care needs to remain focused right now."
The CDC believes symptoms may appear between two and 14 days after contact with an infected person.
DHS recommends taking these steps to help stop the spread of the virus:
--Frequent and thorough handwashing with soap and water.--Covering coughs and sneezes.--Avoiding touching your face.--Staying home when sick.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is recommending everyone in the United States avoid large events and mass gatherings for at least eight weeks.
The virus originated in Wuhan, China. The spread started in December 2019.
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In December 2019, a new coronavirus appeared in Wuhan, China. It has since infected thousands across the globe, and the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic, which refers to how far its spread.
The new coronavirus causes a disease called COVID-19, with symptoms such as fever, cough, and difficulty breathing. It can be deadly, particularly in people over the age of 60 or with underlying health conditions.
In response, US tech companies have canceled events and ramped up efforts to avoid spreading misinformation. Scientists have tried to figure out exactly how the virus works, in the hopes that we can eventually develop medicine. And many people are staying at home to try to slow down the pace at which the disease goes through the population.
Weve rounded up our reporting on the virus, the illness it causes, things you can do to protect yourself, and the way the tech sector has been affected here.
The COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic of early 2020 as all such outbreaks do generated conspiracy theories that the virus was man-made, and even possibly deliberately released onto a defenseless population. The following examples provide just a small sampling of theories that followed in the wake of the diseases spread:
Obama sold the virus to Chinese president Xi Jinping during his administration, as Jinping wanted to experiment with it. Obama would have HAD to know about it, as he would have had to sign the paperwork allowing such a lethal virus to leave the USA.
One popular social media post of mid-March 2020 played on such conspiracy theories by purporting to show a railroad tank car with the designation COVID-19 stenciled on its side, as if it were carrying a load of the disease-causing virus:
In the U.S., railroad cars bear reporting marks assigned by the Association of American Railroads which consist of two to four letters followed by a number of up to six digits and indicate ownership of the car, as shown in the following example:
Clearly, COVID-19 is not a designation that conforms to any legitimate reporting mark, nor to any other standard form of marking or identification one would expect to find on a railroad tank car:
And of course, if some entity were actually engaged in a conspiratorial, furtive spreading of a disease-causing virus, theyd be storing it in special containers packed in unmarked crates and loaded onto ordinary boxcars, not transporting it via plainly labeled tank cars.
Most obviously, a tank car labeled COVID-19 makes no sense, as COVID-19 is not a term that identifies a virus or any other physical thing that can be carried. COVID-19 is the name of the coronavirus disease caused by a particular virus, so a tank car marked to display that it was carrying COVID-19 would be akin to a package bearing a label indicating that it contained DIABETES. In furtherance of an alleged conspiracy to spread the COVID-19 illness, the tank car would carrying not COVID-19 but the virus known as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2 for short.
All in all, this image is a mildly amusing digital manipulation, but nothing more.
RALEIGH, NC (WITN) - According to state health officials, a case of COVID-19 has been confirmed in Wilson County.
There are now 33 cases of the coronavirus in North Carolina. That includes confirmed cases in Craven, Onslow, Wilson, and Wayne counties here in Eastern Carolina.
No deaths related to the illness have been reported in our state.
PREVIOUS STORY
An update Sunday morning to the NCDHHS website places the new number of COVID-19 cases in North Carolina at 32, up from 26 on Saturday.
14 of those cases are in Wake County and 4 are in Mecklenburg County.
No deaths from the virus have been reported in our state.
PREVIOUS STORY
Harnett County officials have reported a second coronavirus case in the county.
The state lab confirmed the positive rest on Saturday.
Officials say the patient is currently at home in isolation.
Johnston County officials also say they have received confirmation of a second positive COVID-19 case from the state lab.
"This is not unexpected since this case is associated with our initial case as they reside in the same household," said Johnston County Health Director Dr. Marilyn Pearson. "It's likely that more individuals will test presumptively positive for the virus."
The county says they are currently creating a timeline of where the case went, and when.
The patient is currently in isolation at home.
Earlier on Saturday, Wake County Public Health officials announced their 11th positive test result in the county. Officials said the patient remains at home in isolation.
"We are evaluating every case that comes and focusing on contact tracing to reduce the risk of exposure to the community," Wake County Medical Director Dr. Kim McDonald said. "By establishing a detailed timeline, we can trace their movements and better understand who was within six feet of the individual for more than 10 minutes, which we consider to be close contact," McDonald added.
North Carolina now has 26 people who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
Hong Kong Has Largely Survived COVID-19. Can New York and The US Do It Too? BuzzFeed News
Misinformation, confusion and conspiracies make it difficult to know how to confront the coronavirus that has caused illness in more than 100,000 people worldwide and spread to nearly half the states in the U.S. Distinguishing reality from myths and hypotheses provides guidance to decrease the risks to ourselves and others; ignorance, on the other hand, causes panic.
This is how it started
In early December an individual from rural China arrived in Wuhan, the largest city in Hubei province. The traveler had been infected with a coronavirus that normally infects bats, a virus we now call SARS-CoV-2 which causes COVID-19. The virus, which somehow jumped from the bat species to humans (perhaps through an unknown intermediate species), typically causes a relatively mild disease in humans. The hypothesis that the virus was created in a laboratory is a myth.
The virus mutated
In Wuhan, the virus mutated as RNA viruses do and became capable of transmission between humans. It has spread rapidly, originating from a group of closely related, more aggressive viruses called the L virus. While most young, healthy patients have mild symptoms, some have an aggressive course of the disease.
The L virus seems to target and kill the cells that line the tiny air sacs, or alveoli. (Alveoli allow the exchange of oxygen to take place in the deepest parts of the lung; when they are damaged, oxygen cannot reach the blood.)
Initially infected individuals show no symptoms
Patients with fever and a cough started going to Wuhans hospitals because they could not breathe; they were put on respirators in intensive care units (ICUs) but soon overwhelmed the ICU space.
On Jan. 23, the Chinese government quarantined the entire city, but it was too late an estimated 5 million people had left the city to celebrate the Chinese New Year, while others left when it became known that the city would be locked down. Five million is way too many; the infection could no longer be contained.
Following international air travel, we can track the viruss subsequent spread.
A higher viral load and capacity to infect others occurs about two days before infected individuals develop symptoms, so symptom-screening does not prevent them from boarding airplanes. (Screening is based on checking body temperature, which remains normal in the early stages of infection.) Not only can infected individuals spread the virus once they reach their destinations but they can infect fellow passengers. Thus far, air travelers appear to be the major spreaders of the virus internationally.
The lady from Shanghai
One of these travelers, a Chinese woman from Shanghai, flew into Germany on Jan. 22 and, while there, infected a 33-year-old German man. SARS-CoV-2 was now in Europe.
From Germany or China, in a possibly independent event, SARS-CoV-2 also reached probably via air travel northern Italy, where the first case of COVID-19 was diagnosed on Feb. 22. The incidence of infection there has doubled every 2.5 days.
Hospitals overwhelmed
As of March 11th, 1,028 patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 were in ICUs in northern Italy, saturating nearly all ICU beds. Assuming that the number continues to double every 2.5 days, patients will have to be transferred to other regions in Italy, increasing the risk of further spreading the disease.
The capacity of ICUs is limited, in every country. Once capacity is reached, the number of acutely ill patients becomes a health catastrophe, because new patients cannot be properly treated; doctors may have to decide who gets into ICUs, thus increasing the chances of their survival, and who doesnt a difficult decision.
Elective surgeries cannot be performed
An additional problem is that serious elective surgeries cardiac, brain or many cancer surgeries, etc. can only be performed if ICU space is available. Thus, once ICU beds are at saturation, all elective surgeries must stop; that causes additional deaths, indirectly caused by the viral epidemic, in patients with other diseases who cannot be properly treated. This happened in Wuhan a few weeks ago and may happen in Italy now. Elective surgeries are how hospitals make money; if hospitals cancel elective surgeries for a protracted time, governments will have to step in with extra money to protect them from bankruptcy.
Putting people in quarantine
These are the reasons we put people in quarantine. Not to stop the epidemic, because it cannot be stopped; too many are infected around the world, and people keep traveling, further spreading the disease. Instead, the goal of quarantine is largely to reduce the speed at which the epidemic spreads, in order not to saturate ICU beds.
Let us look at some numbers
About 80 percent of infected people have mild flu-like disease and require no treatment; 20 percent develop severe symptoms and, of those, about 5 percent are sick enough to be placed in ICUs. So far in Italy, 30 percent of patients placed in ICUs have died, contrasted to 50 percent in Wuhan. No specific therapy has proven to be more effective, but clinical trials are ongoing and there is hope that U.S. pharmaceutical companies will develop more effective drugs before years end. As for a vaccine, it will take more than one year to be ready for production and mass vaccination.
People at greater risk
This infection is much more aggressive for certain groups. Few people under age 30 have died, compared to less than 1 percent of those younger than 50, about 4 to 5 percent of those between 50 and 70, and about 20 percent of those older than 70. Cancer patients probably because of immunosuppressive therapies and patients with cardiac disease, hypertension, or diabetes are at higher risk of dying.
Testing
Testing has been uneven. The published rate of infection in different countries is largely influenced by the number of tests performed. For example, in northern Italy and South Korea, thousands have been tested and many found positive. In contrast, until last week, nobody had been tested in most U.S. states or in other countries. This is similar to what would happen if we removed all thermometers and then declared that no one has a fever.
Limited testing only postpones recognition of the problem and, when we are forced to confront it because ICUs are at capacity, the problem is difficult to deal with, which is what happened in Italy that is now experiencing a crisis. Only by extensive testing and implementing quarantine measures for those who test positive, like they are doing in South Korea similar to those implemented in China, after officials there acknowledged an epidemic was occurring (and which is now experiencing a decline in cases) can we contain and delay the speed of the epidemic so that it becomes manageable.
Precautions we can take
Routine medical meetings planned in the coming months in the U.S. and abroad are now canceled; while doctors may appreciate the risks more acutely than most people, others may want to follow their example.We should avoid attending conferences or public gatherings where we are in close contact in enclosed spaces six people were infected attending a funeral, for example.
Importantly, we should avoid traveling unless absolutely necessary. Many U.S. companies are allowing employees to work from home, which will help contain the epidemic; precautions similar to those to prevent flu, such as washing hands frequently, also reduces the risk of coronavirus infection. And, hopefully, by summer, the epidemic may wind down and the disease may be more manageable as effective drugs are identified.
Michele Carbone, M.D., Ph.D., is a pathologist, cancer researcher and molecular geneticist and performed a three-year fellowship in the Viral Pathogenesis Section at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is the William & Ellen Melohn Chair in Cancer Biology and director of thoracic oncology at the University of Hawaii Cancer Center, and a professor of pathology at the John A. Burns School of Medicine, Honolulu.
Enrico Bucci, Ph.D., is an adjunct professor at the Sbarro Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Medicine, Temple University, Philadelphia.
The coronavirus outbreak has decimated the sporting schedule and left major doubts over some of 2020's biggest events.
A range of sports have had to take action to prevent the spread of the virus, with postponements hitting the Premier League and EFL until early April and all football in Scotland postponed with immediate effect.
The Allianz Leagues, Guinness Six Nations, London Marathon and Formula One have also been affected, as has golf after The Masters was postponed.
With Euro 2020 and the Olympics on the horizon, we take a sport-by-sport look at the impact of the coronavirus.
GAELIC GAMES
- Games, training and team gatherings across all codes are on hold until 29 March.
- Limerick have suspended all club games fixed for the month of April.
SOCCER
- The Premier League was suspended until April 4 and the EFL until April 3 at the earliest.
- All Scottish football was suspended with immediate effect and the Irish Football Association suspended the current season in Northern Ireland until at least April 4. The Football Association of Ireland announced all football activity under its jurisdiction was suspended until March 29.
- England's two friendlies later this month at Wembley, the Women's Super League and FA Women's Championship were also postponed by the FA. Wales' international matches with Austria and the United States at the end of March were also called off.
- UEFA announced all Champions League and Europa League fixtures scheduled for next week were postponed, as well as the quarter-final draws for both competitions. UEFA called an emergency meeting for Tuesday to discuss the rest of the season and whether Euro 2020 can go ahead as scheduled.
- FIFA relaxed rules on clubs having to release players for forthcoming international fixtures and also recommended that "all international matches previously scheduled to take place in March and April should now be postponed until such time that they can take place in a safe and secure environment".
- Arsenal head coach Mikel Arteta and Chelsea winger Callum Hudson-Odoi tested positive for coronavirus.
- Everton's entire first-team squad and coaching staff undertook a period of self-isolation after a first-team player reported symptoms consistent with coronavirus while three Leicester players showed symptoms and were kept away from the rest of the squad.
- Bournemouth announced five of their employees, including goalkeeper Artur Boruc, were self-isolating having displayed symptoms consistent with the virus.
- Half of the Vanarama National League was postponed, despite the league insisting that it would be played as normal. Games between Harrogate and Solihull Moors, Boreham Wood - who share facilities with Arsenal - and Torquay, Barrow and Wrexham, Woking and Dagenham, Bromley and Chorley and Yeovil and Barnet were postponed along with five games in the National League North, though the South division went ahead unaffected.
- Juventus defender Daniele Rugani tested positive, as did Fiorentina striker Patrick Cutrone, on loan from Wolves, and team-mate German Pezzella and club physio Stefano Danielli.
- Ezequiel Garay became the first LaLiga player to announce that he has tested positive for coronavirus, with Valencia later confirming five positive tests among players and staff.
- Real Madrid players were told to go into quarantine after a member of the club's basketball team tested positive. LaLiga suspended "at least the next two rounds of matches" as a result of the quarantine in place at Real.
- Barcelona suspended all first-team activity after taking advice from their medical staff.
- All domestic sporting action in Italy - including Serie A matches - was suspended until April 3.
- Ligue 1 and Ligue 2, the top two divisions in France, are suspended until further notice.
- The German Football League confirmed games in the top two divisions had been cancelled from this weekend and will recommend a continued suspension until April 2.
- Major League Soccer announced the suspension of matches for 30 days with immediate effect.
- The South American (CONMEBOL) World Cup qualifiers scheduled for March 23-31 were postponed to a later date.
OLYMPICS AND PARALYMPICS
- The International Olympic Committee remains fully committed to staging the Tokyo 2020 Games as scheduled this summer, despite Japan's Olympic minister Seiko Hashimoto suggesting it could be postponed until later in the year.
- The British Olympic Association still plans to send a delegation of around 55 people to Tokyo this month for a "detailed operational recce".
- The Greek leg of the Olympic Torch Relay was cancelled the day after the first flame-lighting ceremony since 1984 to take place without spectators.
RUGBY UNION
- The Six Nations game between Wales and Scotland in Cardiff scheduled for Saturday was postponed on Friday, joining the games between France and Ireland and Italy against England.
- Following the postponement of the Gallagher Premiership Rugby Cup final between Sale and Harlequins, the Premiership is set to be suspended, with officials meeting on Monday to discuss the immediate future of the competition. They are expected to pre-empt government advice and cancel the season until further notice.
- The Guinness PRO14 was suspended indefinitely.
- Sunday's Premiership Rugby Cup final between Sale and Harlequins was originally given the go-ahead on Friday, only to be postponed following an individual on staff developing symptoms consistent with coronavirus.
- The Super Rugby season was suspended after the decision of the New Zealand government to quarantine people entering the country for 14 days.
- Rugby Australia closed its Sydney headquarters for an "intensive clean" after two members of its Australian Sevens program showed signs and symptoms associated with coronavirus.
MOTORSPORT
- The season-opening Australian Grand Prix was called off along with the races in Bahrain, Vietnam, China and Holland. Formula One hopes to start the season at the end of May.
- McLaren had already withdrawn from the Australian race earlier on Thursday after a member of staff tested positive for the illness. It is understood the team member reported symptoms associated with the virus in the Albert Park paddock on Wednesday morning.
- Formula E temporarily suspended its season.
- Nascar postponed its race events in Atlanta (March 15) and Miami (March 22).
MOTORCYCLING
- The opening four races of the MotoGP season in Qatar, Thailand, the United States and Argentina were called off. The Qatar race was cancelled, while the other three have been moved to later in the season, which is now due to get under way in Spain on May 3.
GOLF
- The Masters at Augusta, traditionally regarded as the sport's blue riband event, became the first golf major to be postponed.
- The Players Championship was cancelled along with all PGA Tour events for the next three weeks.
- Five European Tour tournaments have been postponed. Next week's Hero Indian Open and August's Czech Masters have joined this week's Kenya Open and April's Maybank Championship and China Open in being called off.
- The Ladies European Tour's Aramco Saudi Ladies International was postponed with a view to it being rescheduled later in the year.
CRICKET
- England's Test series against Sri Lanka was postponed with the touring players returning home.
- The start of the Indian Premier League was postponed from March 29 to April 15 as a precautionary measure.
- The annual Champion County match, regarded as the curtain-raiser to the domestic season, due to be played between the MCC and Essex between March 24-27 at Galle was called off, as was the MCC World Cricket Committee meeting in Colombo scheduled for March 28 and 29.
- Surrey, Lancashire, Worcestershire, Hampshire, Essex, Glamorgan, Gloucestershire, Kent, Yorkshire and Somerset have cancelled or decided to return early from pre-season trips.
- The final two one-day internationals between India and South Africa will be rescheduled following an agreement between the countries' governing bodies, while the remaining two ODIs between Australia and New Zealand were called off.
- Australia Women's limited-overs tour of South Africa, consisting of three ODIs and as many T20s and due to start on March 22, will not take place.
BASKETBALL
- The NBA season was suspended "until further notice" after Utah Jazz player Rudy Gobert (above) tested positive for coronavirus.
CYCLING
- The Giro d'Italia, cycling's first Grand Tour of the season which was due to start on May 9 in Budapest, was postponed. The Strade Bianchi, Tirreno-Adriatico, Milan-San Remo and the Giro di Sicilia races in Italy have been called off.
- Fears of two cases of coronavirus at the UAE Tour saw the race cancelled with two stages left.
- Team INEOS are among a host of teams who withdrew from all racing until the Volta a Catalunya on March 23.
- Cycling's Women's Tour, the UK's WorldTour stage race, was postponed almost three months before it was scheduled to begin in Oxfordshire on June 8.
- On Sunday, the UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale) announced the suspension of its calendar until at least April 3.
TENNIS
- The high-profile BNP Paribas Open at Indian Wells, where the likes of Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic were due to compete, was called off.
- The ATP announced a six-week suspension of the men's professional tennis tour due to "escalating health and safety issues".
- The Miami Open tennis tournament, due to start on March 23, was cancelled after a ban on mass gatherings in Miami-Dade County.
- The Volvo Car Open in Charleston (April 4-12) was also been called off. Next month's Fed Cup finals in Budapest and Fed Cup play-offs, due to be held in eight different locations, were postponed, while China's Xi'an Open (April 13-19) and Kunming Open (April 27-May 3) were cancelled.
RACING
- Racing in Ireland and the UK is closed to the public until the end of March.
ATHLETICS
- The London Marathon was postponed. The 40th edition of the race, due to take place on 26 April, will be held on 4 October. British Athletics will stage an Olympic trial at a closed location in April.
- The Manchester Marathon, due to take place on 5 April with 26,000 runners, was postponed with a new date to be set in due course.
- The Paris Marathon, which was due to take place on April 5, was postponed until 18 October and the Rome Marathon, scheduled for March 29, as well as the Boston Marathon, slated for April 20, were cancelled.
- The World Indoor Championships, which had been due to take place in Nanjing in China this month, were rearranged for March 2021.
- The International Triathlon Union moved the 2020 ITU Paratriathlon World Championships, planned for 2 May, from Milan to Montreal. It later announced that all activities would be suspended until April 30.
RUGBY LEAGUE
- The Betfred Super League match between Catalans Dragons and Leeds in Perpignan on Saturday was postponed after one of the Rhinos' players was put into self-isolation after showing symptoms of coronavirus.
- The Coral Challenge Cup fixture between York City Knights and Rochdale Hornets was switched to the Millennium Stadium in Featherstone after York City cancelled the availability of Bootham Crescent.
BOXING
- TheOlympic qualifiers in London will be behind closed doors from Monday.
- Top Rank announced the postponement of its shows at Madison Square Garden on March 14 and 17. Belfast featherweight Michael Conlan's bout against Colombian fighter Belmar Preciado at the Hulu Theater on St Patrick's Day has therefore been scrapped.
- All events scheduled for March in Japan were cancelled.
SNOOKER
- The 1m China Open, scheduled to start in Beijing at the end of March, was cancelled. The Gibraltar Open was played behind closed doors, with some players forced to referee their own games. Judd Trump took the title.
ICE SKATING
- The World Short Track Speed Skating Championships, scheduled for March 13-15, were called off. The World Figure Skating Championships in Quebec, planned for March 16-22, were also cancelled.
JUDO
- The International Judo Federation cancelled all Olympic qualification events on the calendar until April 30.
DARTS
- The Professional Darts Corporation cancelled the Premier League double-header in Rotterdam, the European Darts Grand Prix in Sindelfingen and the European Darts Open in Leverkusen, which were all scheduled for later this month, plus next month's German Darts Grand Prix in Munich.
ICE HOCKEY
PUTRAJAYA: Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin will deliver a special announcement tonight on measures being undertaken by the government to prevent the escalation of the Covid-19 outbreak in the country.
Muhyiddin said the address will follow a special meeting he will chair, which will be attended by all ministers and representatives of agencies, in which the spiralling pandemic will be discussed.
(The Covid-19 outbreak) will now be under the National Security Council.
We will discuss the measures that need to be taken to manage this crisis, which we view very seriously, since (Covid-19) has entered its second wave.
We will be on air tonight to explain to the nation how we are going to manage this. I will announce (the measures) today, so (it is) quite big news. Just bear with me, he told reporters after chairing the first Economic Action Council meeting here, today.
Asked if the government is considering declaring a lockdown, Muhyiddin replied: Just wait (until tonight).
GENEVA and Washington, D.C. A new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Solidarity Response Fund will raise money from a wide range of donors to support the work of the World Health Organization (WHO) and partners to help countries respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The fund, the first-of-its-kind, enables private individuals, corporations and institutions anywhere in the world to come together to directly contribute to global response efforts, and has been created by the United Nations Foundation and the Swiss Philanthropy Foundation, together with WHO.
We are at a critical point in the global response to COVID-19 we need everyone to get involved in this massive effort to keep the world safe, said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. We are immensely grateful to the UN Foundation and the Swiss Philanthropy Foundation for coming forward to help us set up this fund. A lot of people and institutions have been saying they want to contribute to the fight against the novel coronavirus. Now they can.
The fund launches with major support already lined up, including from Facebook and Google who have instituted a matching scheme for funds raised through their platforms, while individual donors are also supporting the fund through www.COVID19ResponseFund.org.
We cant ignore the fact that this is a truly global problem one that requires truly global solutions, said Elizabeth Cousens, UN Foundation President and CEO. The case for global cooperation could not be clearer communities everywhere are affected, and people want to contribute. This new fund will create space for people everywhere, together, to fight this virus.
Funds will go towards actions outlined in the COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan to enable all countries particularly those most vulnerable and at-risk, and with the weakest health systems to prepare for and respond to the COVID-19 crisis including rapidly detecting cases, stopping transmission of the virus, and caring for those affected.
WHO and its partners are seeking financing for protective equipment for frontline health workers; to equip diagnostic laboratories; improve surveillance and data collection; establish and maintain intensive care units; strengthen supply chains; accelerate research and development of vaccines and therapeutics; and take other critical steps to scale up the public health response to the pandemic.
The COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund is hosted by two foundations, the UN Foundation (registered in the United States) and the Swiss Philanthropy Foundation (registered in Switzerland). Both foundations have established relationships with the World Health Organization, allowing for efficient transfer of financial resources to enable COVID-19 response efforts.
Apart from giving online at www.COVID19ResponseFund.org, the UN Foundation can also receive donations via check or wire from around the world by contacting COVID19Fund@unfoundation.org.
All donations made to the United Nations Foundation and Swiss Philanthropy Foundation are tax-deductible to the extent allowable by the law, where applicable (U.S. and Switzerland).Additionally, Swiss Philanthropy Foundation has partnered with Transnational Giving Europe to extend tax benefit to certain additional European countries where applicable.
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More:
COVID-19 Strategic Preparedness and Response Plan
Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak information
About the United Nations Foundation
The UN Foundation brings together the ideas, people, and resources the United Nations needs to drive global progress and tackle urgent problems. Our hallmark is to collaborate for lasting change and innovate to address humanitys greatest challenges. With an insiders knowledge and outsiders flexibility, we stay agile to get things done. Learn more at: www.unfoundation.org.
People seeking help for pandemic influenza in Brazil in July 2009, when cold weather boosted the spread of the disease.
By Jon CohenMar. 13, 2020 , 7:41 PM
On a December afternoon, 13 days before the winter solstice, six men and women checked into the Surrey Clinical Research Facility, part of the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom. After having their noses swabbed to check for 16 different respiratory viruses, they walked into their own temperature-regulated rooms and, for 24 hours, each person stayed in a semirecumbent position in dim light. Nurses placed a cannula into a vein of each persons arm, allowing easy sampling of blood that flowed through a tube to portals in the wall. The six subjects could press buzzers for bathroom breaks, where the stool and urine were collected, but otherwise, they were alone in the near-dark.
None of these people were sick. And although the shortest day of the year was approaching, their ritual had nothing to do with pagan rites, Yuletide traditions, or the annual hippie gathering at nearby Stonehenge to celebrate the rebirth of the Sun. Instead, they were paid volunteers in a study led by infectious disease ecologist Micaela Martinez of Columbia University to investigate a phenomenon recognized 2500 years ago by Hippocrates and Thucydides: Many infectious diseases are more common during specific seasons. Its a very old question, but its not very well studied, Martinez says.
Its also a question that has suddenly become more pressing because of the emergence of COVID-19. With SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease, now infecting more than 135,000 around the globe, some hope it might mimic influenza and abate as summer arrives in temperate regions of the Northern Hemisphere, where about half of the worlds population lives. U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed that hope repeatedly. Theres a theory that, in April, when it gets warmhistorically, that has been able to kill the virus, Trump said on 14 February. But whats known about other diseases doesnt offer much support for the idea that COVID-19 will suddenly disappear over the next few weeks.
Different diseases have different patterns. Some peak in early or late winter, others in spring, summer, or fall. Some diseases have different seasonal peaks depending on latitude. And many have no seasonal cycle at all. So no one knows whether SARS-CoV-2 will change its behavior come spring. I would caution over-interpreting that hypothesis, Nancy Messonnier, the point person for COVID-19 at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a press conference on 12 February. If the seasons do affect SARS-CoV-2, it also could defy that pattern in this first year and keep spreading, because humanity has not had a chance to build immunity to it.
Even for well-known seasonal diseases, its not clear why they wax and wane during the calendar year. Its an absolute swine of a field, says Andrew Loudon, a chronobiologist at the University of Manchester. Investigating a hypothesis over several seasons can take 2 or 3 years. Postdocs can only get one experiment done and it can be a career killer, Loudon says. The field is also plagued by confounding variables. All kinds of things are seasonal, like Christmas shopping, says epidemiologist Scott Dowell, who heads vaccine development and surveillance at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and in 2001 wrote a widely cited perspective that inspired Martinezs current study. And its easy to be misled by spurious correlations, Dowell says.
Despite the obstacles, researchers are testing a multitude of theories. Many focus on the relationships between the pathogen, the environment, and human behavior. Influenza, for example, might do better in winter because of factors such as humidity, temperature, people being closer together, or changes in diets and vitamin D levels. Martinez is studying another theory, which Dowells paper posited but didnt test: The human immune system may change with the seasons, becoming more resistant or more susceptible to different infections based on how much light our bodies experience.
Beyond the urgent question of what to expect with COVID-19, knowing what limits or promotes infectious diseases during particular times of year could point to new ways to prevent or treat them. Understanding seasonality could also inform disease surveillance, predictions, and the timing of vaccination campaigns. If we knew what suppressed influenza to summertime levels, that would be a lot more effective than any of the flu vaccines we have, Dowell says.
At least 68 infectious diseases are seasonal, according to a 2018 paper by Micaela Martinez of Columbia University. But theyre not in sync, and seasonality varies by location. In this graphic, based on U.S. federal and state health records, each bubble represents the percentage of annual cases that occurred in each month. (The data are old because many diseases declinedin some cases to zeroafter introduction of vaccines.)
(GRAPHIC) N. Desai/Science; (DATA) Project Tycho
Martinez becameinterested in seasonality when, as an undergraduate at the University of Alaska Southeast, she had a job tagging Arctic ringed seals, doing skin biopsies and tracking their daily and seasonal movements. While working on her Ph.D., her focus on seasonality shifted to polio, a much-feared summer disease before the advent of vaccines. (Outbreaks often led to the closing of swimming pools, which had virtually nothing to do with viral spread.) Polio seasonality in turn made her curious about other diseases. In 2018, she published The calendar of epidemics inPLOS Pathogens, which included a catalog of 68 diseases and their peculiar cycles.
Except in the equatorial regions, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a winter disease, Martinez wrote, but chickenpox favors the spring. Rotavirus peaks in December or January in the U.S. Southwest, but in April and May in the Northeast. Genital herpes surges all over the country in the spring and summer, whereas tetanus favors midsummer; gonorrhea takes off in the summer and fall, and pertussis has a higher incidence from June through October. Syphilis does well in winter in China, but typhoid fever spikes there in July. Hepatitis C peaks in winter in India but in spring or summer in Egypt, China, and Mexico. Dry seasons are linked to Guinea worm disease and Lassa fever in Nigeria and hepatitis A in Brazil.
Seasonality is easiest to understand for diseases spread by insects that thrive during rainy seasons, such as African sleeping sickness, chikungunya, dengue, and river blindness. For most other infections, theres little rhyme or reason to the timing. Whats really amazing to me is that you can find a virus that peaks in almost every month of the year in the same environment in the same location, says Neal Nathanson, an emeritus virologist at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. Thats really crazy if you think about it. To Nathanson, this variation suggests human activitysuch as children returning to school or people huddling indoors in cold weatherdoesnt drive seasonality. Most viruses get transmitted between kids, and under those circumstances, youd expect most of the viruses to be in sync, he says.
Nathanson suspects that, at least for viruses, their viability outside the human body is more important. The genetic material of some viruses is packaged not only in a capsid protein, but also in a membrane called an envelope, which is typically made of lipids. It interacts with host cells during the infection process and helps dodge immune attacks. Viruses with envelopes are more fragile and vulnerable to adverse conditions, Nathanson says, including, for example, summertime heat and dryness.
A 2018 study inScientific Reportssupports the idea. Virologist Sandeep Ramalingam at the University of Edinburgh and his colleagues analyzed the presence and seasonality of nine virusessome enveloped, some notin more than 36,000 respiratory samples taken over 6.5 years from people who sought medical care in their region. Enveloped viruses have a very, very definite seasonality, Ramalingam says.
In a study in New York and New Jersey, Micaela Martinez hopes to find out how artificial lighting affects the immune system.
RSV and human metapneumovirus both have an envelope, like the flu, and peak during the winter months. None of the three are present for more than one-third of the year. Rhinoviruses, the best-known cause of the common cold, lack an envelope andironicallyhave no particular affinity for cold weather:The study found them in respiratory samples on 84.7% of the days of the year and showed that they peak when children return to school from summer and spring holidays. Adenoviruses, another set of cold viruses, also lack an envelope and had a similar pattern, circulating over half the year.
Ramalingams team also studied the relationship between viral abundance and daily weather changes. Influenza and RSV both did best when the change in relative humidity over a 24-hour period was lower than the average (a 25% difference). Theres something about the lipid envelope thats more fragile when the humidity changes sharply, Ramalingam concludes.
Jeffrey Shaman, a climate geophysicist at Columbia, contends that what matters most is absolute humiditythe total amount of water vapor in a given volume of airand not relative humidity, which measures how close the air is to saturation. In a 2010 paper inPLOS Biology, Shaman and epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health reported that drops in absolute humidity better explained the onset of influenza epidemics in the continental United States than relative humidity or temperature. And absolute humidity drops sharply in winter, because cold air holds less water vapor.
Why lower absolute humidity might favor some viruses remains unclear, however. Variables that could affect the viability of the viral membrane could include changes in osmotic pressure, evaporation rates, and pH, Shaman says. Once you get down to the brass tacks of it, we dont have an answer.
Will SARS-CoV-2, which has an envelope, prove fragile in spring and summer, when absolute and relative humidity climb? The most notorious of the other coronavirus diseases, SARS and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), offer no clues. SARS emerged in late 2002 and was driven out of the human population in the summer of 2003 through intensive containment efforts. MERS sporadically jumps from camels to humans and has caused outbreaks in hospitals, but never widespread human-to-human transmission like COVID-19. Neither virus circulated for long enough, on a wide enough scale, for any seasonal cycle to emerge.
If we knew what suppressed influenza to summertime levels, that would be a lot more effective than any of the flu vaccines we have.
Four human coronaviruses that cause colds and other respiratory diseases are more revealing. Three have marked winter seasonality, with few or no detections in the summer, molecular biologist Kate Templeton, also at the University of Edinburgh, concluded in a 2010 analysis of 11,661 respiratory samples collected between 2006 and 2009. These three viruses essentially behave like the flu.
That does not mean COVID-19 will as well. The virus can clearly transmit in warm, humid climates: Singapore has more than 175 cases. Two new papers published on preprint servers this week come to opposite conclusions. One, co-authored by Lipsitch, looked at COVID-19 spread in 19 provinces across China, which ranged from cold and dry to tropical, and found sustained transmission everywhere. The second study concludes that sustainedtransmission appears to occur only in specific bands of the globe that have temperatures between 5C and 11C and 47% to 70% relative humidity.
In the final analysis, theres a balancing act between environmental factors and a populations immune system. The other coronaviruses have long been around, so a certain part of the population has immunity, which may help exile those viruses under unfavorable conditions. But thats not true for COVID-19. Even though there might be a big seasonal decline, if enough susceptible people are around, it can counter that and continue for a long time, Martinez says. Lipsitch doesnt think the virus will go poof in April either. Any slowdown is expected to be modest, and not enough to stop transmission on its own, he wrote in a recent blog post.
In Surrey, Martinez is investigating a different factor that might eventually affect COVID-19 incidence. Her subjects have returned to the clinic repeatedlyat the winter and summer solstices and again at the spring and autumn equinoxesso the researchers can evaluate how their immune system and other physiology change over the course of the day and from season to season.
She doesnt expect to show that our immunity is, say, weaker in the winter and stronger in the summer. But by counting different immune system cells, assessing metabolites and cytokines in the blood, deciphering the fecal microbiome, and measuring hormones, Martinezs team hopes to find that the seasons may restructure the immune system, making some types of cells more abundant in certain locales, and others less, in ways that influence our susceptibility to pathogens.
Animal studies support the idea that immunity changes with the seasons. Ornithologist Barbara Hall from the University of Groningen and her colleagues, for example, studied European stonechats, small songbirds that they caught and then bred in captivity. By taking multiple blood samples over the course of 1 year, they found that the birds ramp up their immune systems in the summer, but then tamp them down in the autumn, the time they migrate, presumably because migration is a big drain on their energy.
Melatonin, a hormone primarily secreted at night by the pineal gland, is a major driver of such changes. Melatonin keeps track of the time of day but is also a biological calendar for the seasons, says Randy Nelson, an endocrinologist at the University of West Virginia who specializes in circadian rhythms. When nights are long, more melatonin is released. The cells say, Oh, Im seeing quite a bit of melatonin, I know, its a winter night. In studies of Siberian hamsterswhich, unlike mice, are diurnalNelson and his co-workers have shown that administering melatonin or altering light patterns can change immune responses by up to 40%.
Seasonal changes in humidity, temperature, and other factors may affect the viability of viruses in droplets produced when people sneeze or cough.
The human immune system, too, seems to have an innate circadian rhythm. For instance, a vaccine trial in 276 adults by researchers at the University of Birmingham randomly assigned half to receive an influenza vaccine in the morning and the other half in the afternoon. Participants in the morning group had significantly higher antibody responses to two of the three flu strains in the vaccine, the researchers reported in 2016.
Theres evidence of seasonal variation in the actions of human immune genes as well. In a massive analysis of blood and tissue samples from more than 10,000 people in Europe, the United States, Gambia, and Australia, researchers at the University of Cambridge found some 4000 genes related to immune function that had seasonal expression profiles. In one German cohort, expression in white blood cells of nearly one in four genes in the entire genome differed by the seasons. Genes in the Northern Hemisphere tended to switch on when they were switched off south of the equator, and vice versa.
Just how these massive changes affect the bodys ability to fight pathogens is unclear, however, as immunologist Xaquin Castro Dopico and colleagues explain in a 2015 paper describing the findings. And some changes could be the result of an infection, instead of the cause. The team tried to eliminate people who had acute infections, but of course a seasonal infectious burden likely plays a part, says Dopico, who now is at the Karolinska Institute. And seasonal immunity changes could not explain all the complex variation in seasonality that diseases show. Theyre all out of sync with each other, Nathanson points out. Hes also skeptical that seasonal immune system changes could be large enough to make a difference. It would have to be pretty markedly different.
Martinez, however, says she has found intriguing hints. Early analyses from her Surrey study, which ended collecting data in December 2019, dont reveal anything about seasonality yet, but they do show that specific subsets of white blood cells that play central roles in immune system memory and response are elevated at certain times of day. She hopes to firm up the finding by launching a similar but larger study next year.
Martinez cautions, however, that artificial light may play havoc with the circadian rhythms that have evolved, with unpredictable effects on disease susceptibility. To explore possible impacts, Martinez has a separate study underway, with Helm, in both urban and rural parts of New York and New Jersey. They have installed light sensors on trees and poles and outfitted participants with devices that monitor light exposure and body temperature. The fact that people really are just kind of washing out the rhythms in light exposure can be problematic, she says.
Experiments of naturecould also offer insights into the factors affecting disease seasonality, Dowell suggested in his 2001 paper. People from the Southern and Northern Hemispheres who have adapted to different seasons regularly mix on cruise ships or at conventions, where they are confronted by the same pathogens. Witness the massive COVID-19 outbreak on theDiamond,Princesswhich was docked and quarantined in Yokohama, Japan, for 2 weeks last month: Researchers could potentially analyze whether they were infected at different rates.
Whatever the answers, they might eventually bring important public health benefits, Martinez says. For example, If we know how best to administer vaccines, in terms of what time of year and the best time of day to take advantage of our immune systems, then we can get a lot more bang for our buck, she says.
The global COVID-19 emergency may bring more attention to the research and help speed discoveries, she says. But for now, no one knows whether rising humidity, the lengthening days, or some as-yet-unsuspected seasonal effect will come to the rescueor whether humanity must confront the pandemic without any help from the seasons.
Time will tell.
