Category: Covid-19

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WIVB) The number of COVID-19 cases in Erie County has risen by four, now reaching a total of 11.

Two of the women who tested positive are in their 50s. One is currently isolated at home, while the other is hospitalized.

The other two new cases were contracted by men one in his 30s, and another in his 40s. Both recently traveled out of state.

Anyone who was at any of the following locations at the listed times should monitor themselves for symptoms of COVID-19 (fever, coughing, shortness of breath). Symptoms may appear 2-14 days after exposure.

Some recently traveled downstate, others outside of New York, and at least one recently came back from Italy. We know that at least some of them live in Buffalo, Clarence, Grand Island, Amherst, Elma and Orchard Park.

One of them works at Tops corporate headquarters in Williamsville. After last working on March 9, they are now quarantined at home. That employee had no contact with any supermarkets or warehouses.

A worker at the M&T Plaza in Buffalo is another one of the people confirmed to have coronavirus. M&T says the employee recently traveled out of state, and began experiencing flu-like symptoms before electing to self-quarantine. The worker was described as a non-customer facing colleague.

Outside of Erie County, two cases have been confirmed in Allegany County, and another has been confirmed in Wyoming County.

During a conference on Tuesday afternoon, Poloncarz said the county currently has less than five days worth of blood ready for those who need it.

Because of that, Poloncarz encouraged people to donate if possible.

More here:

Number of COVID-19 cases in Erie County rises to 11, new case confirmed in Wyoming County - WIVB.com - News 4

With the United States now facing its own serious coronavirus outbreak, its natural to wonder whether youll get the respiratory illness and what you can do about it. As of March 16, more than 3,900 cases and dozens of deaths have been reported in the US, according to the New York Timess tracker. But due to a lack of widespread testing, its likely the outbreak is much bigger.

One respected modeler, Trevor Bedford, a computational biologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, says there may already be around 20,000 cases in the US. Marty Makary, a professor of medicine at Johns Hopkins University, told Yahoo Finance that the number of current infections could be between 50,000 and 500,000. Were about to experience the worst public health epidemic since polio, Makary said.

As further evidence of widespread unreported cases, Marc Lipsitch, director of the Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, pointed out on Twitter to the CDCs National Influenza Surveillance Report, which regularly tracks symptoms similar to those of Covid-19. He noted that symptoms such as fever, coughs, and sore throats are trending up, while confirmed flu cases are going down.

As the coronavirus spreads, its become a nationwide crisis that could severely strain our health care system. The elderly and chronically ill are particularly susceptible to severe Covid-19 illness, and tens or hundreds of thousands of them could require hospitalization in the coming weeks and months. So we need to take collective measures now to protect ourselves and others. Heres what you need to know:

There are a lot of acronyms floating around, so first, just know that the SARS-CoV-2 virus (the coronavirus) causes the disease Covid-19. The virus is most commonly spread by close contact with infected people who are within 6 feet of each other. When they cough or sneeze, they send droplets into the air, where they can land in the mouths or noses of people who are nearby, or possibly get inhaled into the lungs. Droplets containing the virus can also land on surfaces and objects where the virus can survive for some time.

According to a preprint paper (a study that hasnt yet been peer-reviewed) from researchers at the National Institutes of Health, Princeton, and UCLA who studied the novel coronavirus in a lab, it can survive for up to 24 hours on cardboard and for up to two or three days on plastic and stainless steel. (Another study suggests it can stay infectious for up to nine days.)

The danger of infection here is touching one of these surfaces and then touching your eyes, nose, or mouth. The CDC, however, says that this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.

Some diseases, like measles, can also be transmitted through aerosols, meaning that when someone coughs, tiny droplets filled with virus linger in the air, sometimes for hours, where others can breathe them in. Currently, theres limited evidence of the coronavirus being transmitted this way, but its worth noting. One preprint found the virus in aerosol form in hospitals in Wuhan, and others agree that there is a higher risk of doctors and nurses being infected through aerosols. Theres also growing evidence of fecal-oral transmission, meaning you can ingest the virus shed in feces through inadequate hand-washing or contaminated food and water.

The good news is that transmission can be prevented. Good personal hygiene and social distancing can be very effective. Im not one of those people who normally goes crazy about hand-washing, says Megan Murray, an infectious disease specialist and professor of global health at the Harvard School of Public Health. Now I really am, because that will help reduce [the] virus on your hands.

Washing your hands frequently and carefully for at least 20 seconds is better than using hand sanitizer because it actually destroys the chemical structure of the virus. Any old soap will break the viruss outer coating, and you dont need special antibacterial soap. If soap and water arent available, use hand sanitizer with 60 percent alcohol (no, this doesnt include Titos vodka).

New research suggests that people may be most infectious early in the disease (and even before symptoms start), meaning that as soon as you start to feel ill, its important to self-isolate. You dont need to be coughing to be contagious; the linked preprint suggests that somewhere between 48 and 66 percent of 91 people in a cluster in Singapore were infected by someone without symptoms.

This makes taking precautions now like canceling your travel plans and social gatherings even more important. The effectiveness of widespread travel bans, especially when community transmission is already occurring, is being hotly debated, but in general, minimizing social contact is the best method of prevention.

Avoid handshakes or hugs with people whove been out and about, and whenever possible, stay at least 6 feet away from others. This includes minimizing or avoiding play dates, sleepovers, shared meals, going out to eat, and visits friends and family members homes.

Also important to know is that according to one study from China, around 25 percent of all cases may originate in people who have no symptoms another reason social-distancing measures are so important.

The most common symptoms of Covid-19 are a fever, seen in almost 90 percent of patients, as well as a dry cough and shortness of breath. A study of 71 patients in China also suggests that a significant portion of coronavirus patients experience diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting, sometimes before respiratory symptoms begin. The World Health Organization (WHO) says these symptoms typically come on gradually.

Around 80 percent of Covid-19 cases are reportedly mild, but as James Hamblin of the Atlantic noted, that word can be misleading:

As the World Health Organization adviser Bruce Aylward clarified last week, a mild case of COVID-19 is not equivalent to a mild cold. Expect it to be much worse: fever and coughing, sometimes pneumoniaanything short of requiring oxygen. Severe cases require supplemental oxygen, sometimes via a breathing tube and a ventilator. Critical cases involve respiratory failure or multi-organ failure.

The incubation period before symptoms appear ranges from two to 14 days, but the median is 5.1 days. If youve been around someone who has a confirmed diagnosis of Covid-19 or displays its symptoms, the most responsible thing to do is to self-quarantine for two weeks.

Yes, you do.

The reason is that social distancing works best if everyone young and old, healthy and infirm practices it. No one has immunity, and everyone can get sick and spread the virus to others.

The more young and healthy people are sick at the same time, the more old people will be sick, and the more pressure there will be on the health care system, Emily Landon, an infectious disease specialist and hospital epidemiologist at the University of Chicago Medical Center, told Voxs Eliza Barclay and Dylan Scott.

Without protective measures, one person on average infects 2.5 others, and cases will spread exponentially. That means hospitals and medical staff will quickly become overwhelmed. At least 5 percent of Covid-19 patients may need intensive care, and many require hospitalization for weeks.

Even if youre not at a statistically higher risk of dying from Covid-19, its important to flatten the curve and adopt social-distancing measures immediately to prevent the most deaths.

Also, just being young and healthy is not a guarantee of mild illness. The epicenter of New Jerseys outbreak of Covid-19, Holy Name Medical Center, had 11 confirmed Covid-19 cases on March 14, six of which were in the ICU, with ages ranging from 28 to 48.

If you have one or more symptoms of the new coronavirus, call your doctor. If you are older or have underlying medical conditions, its even more important to call your doctor, even if you have only mild symptoms, according to the CDC. Before you go to your doctors office, Murray says you should call ahead so that medical staff can wear the appropriate protective gear and be ready to help take care of you without exposing others. Many health care facilities are requesting that you wear a mask if you have symptoms and are going in for testing.

Your doctor will determine whether you should be tested; if a test is ordered, you can expect a nasopharyngeal swab, where a tiny Q-tip is put up your nose a few inches not a fun procedure, but it doesnt hurt. Its then sent to a lab and put through a process called a polymerase chain reaction, which detects specific genetic material within the virus. How long it takes to get results back varies, but in the US, its currently taking a few days.

If youre concerned about the cost of getting tested which Rep. Katie Porter (D-CA) estimated at $1,331 the CDC recently committed to covering the cost of testing for all Americans regardless of insurance status, although when and how that will be implemented is yet to be announced. Currently, 1,000 insurers have waived treatment fees, and some cities and states like New York have said they will waive cost sharing for tests. This is important because if [insurers] dont cover treatment, you have to expect fewer people will go to get tested, says Jennifer Flynn, who runs health care campaigns for the Center for Popular Democracy.

Many people who know theyve been exposed are currently having difficulty actually getting tested. Flynn says her colleague developed similar symptoms after sharing a cab with CPAC participants, a conference in DC where multiple people fell sick from Covid-19.

Thats true even in Covid-19 hot spots. Helen Teixeria, a resident of Redmond, a suburb of Seattle, one of the nations outbreak epicenters, says she woke up last week with a tight chest, fever, and a dry cough.

First, she called the King County hotline and was told to call her primary care provider. Her doctor told her to go to the emergency room, where the hospital didnt follow standard isolation protocol and medical staff did not wear basic protective gear. Teixeria said she was unable to get a Covid-19 test because they were being tightly rationed for high-risk and hospitalized patients. Nor was she allowed to get a two-view chest X-ray so that I didnt contaminate the X-ray room, she says. A sympathetic nurse eventually slipped her off-the-record information on a private clinic where she might be able to get a Covid-19 test next week.

After you call your doctor, stay home, says Tom Frieden, former director of the CDC. It sounds like overly simple advice, but its the best thing you can do. Next, you should self-isolate, including staying away from anyone you live with.

If youre not in one of the CDCs high-risk categories, trying to see your doctor may actually expose you further. The single place youre most likely to encounter people with coronavirus is the hospital, so thats the last place you want to be if youre afraid of getting infected, Murray says. And if, in your quest to get tested, you go to multiple health care centers, youll be exposing health care workers in each location.

If you think you might have Covid-19 and frankly, even if you dont, so that you avoid possibly spreading it before you have symptoms avoid all public areas. This means dont go to school or work, and try to avoid taking public transportation, including ride-hailing services like Uber, Lyfts, and taxis. If you dont have adequate supplies at home, consider asking friends or family to make a delivery to your door rather than going out yourself. Dont let friends come visit while youre recuperating; instead, stay connected by phone or online.

If youre worried about quarantining in a home where you dont feel safe, 24/7 help is available from the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Call 1-800-799-7233 or text LOVEIS to 22522.

Self-care [for coronavirus] is very similar to other upper respiratory infections, says Elisa Choi, an infectious disease and internal medicine specialist in the Boston area. Over-the-counter medications, like cough suppressants, can help minimize coughing episodes, and expectorants can help you cough stuff up.

Pain relievers and fever reducers like acetaminophen (brand name Tylenol) and ibuprofen (Advil) can help treat muscle aches and reduce fevers.

Although Frances health minister warned that anti-inflammatories like ibuprofen and cortisone could aggravate the illness, other scientists are skeptical.

There are multiple assumptions that are made with that hypothesis that cant be made without being tested, Angela Rasmussen, a research scientist at Columbia Universitys Center for Infection and Immunity, told Vox. To my knowledge theres no evidence that ibuprofen makes [Covid-19] worse.

Choi also urges using common sense to manage symptoms. If youre feeling congestion, you can try taking a hot shower or steam, she says. Sleep and water are always good advice. The CDC says that drinking enough water every day is generally good for your overall health.

Choi and other medical professionals warn against circulating misinformation about home remedies, such as whats happening with an email erroneously claiming to be from Stanford. These remedies include holding your breath without coughing and keeping your mouth moist. Many of these treatments are unproven, and some can be dangerous. (For example, you can overdose on zinc.)

This is really a time to stick with the facts, Choi says. Stay away from things that are being promoted for sale without a known background. She recommends always checking with your doctor if you have questions about the veracity of a particular source. The CDC and WHO, as well as your local and state public health departments, are good sources of updated, verified information.

Choi says that suspected or confirmed Covid-19 patients should stay in their own room and (ideally) not share a bathroom.

They should try to stay as far away as possible from anyone else in the household, and at least 6 feet, she added. If you do share a bathroom, avoid being in the room at the same time as anyone else. The WHO found that most of the transmission in China was between family members.

If the sick person feels up to it, ideally they should be the one to disinfect the bathroom after they use it. If your living situation doesnt allow you to isolate yourself from others in your home, tell your doctor and/or health department.

The CDC has a complete guide to disinfecting commonly touched surfaces like counters, tabletops, doorknobs, bathroom fixtures, toilets, phones, keyboards, tablets, and bedside tables, and it recommends doing so every day. You can use one of the approved products or make your own, like adding four teaspoons of bleach to a quart of water. The CDC also recommends wearing gloves when touching possibly infected items, like used clothing or bedding, as well as when disinfecting commonly used surfaces. When youve finished, throw the gloves directly in the garbage and then wash your hands.

Choi suggests washing your hands frequently to protect others in your household, and covering your nose and mouth when you cough or sneeze with a tissue that you throw directly into the garbage. If youre feeling ill, dont share cups, utensils, dish or bath towels, toothpaste, bedding or anything else with anyone. The coronavirus can stick around on surfaces for several days.

Choi recommends closely monitoring your symptoms. Its less about a number and more about the progression, she says. Generally, a low-grade fever is considered less than 100.4, but older people are generally less likely to mount a fever response. The main thing to watch for is symptoms getting worse. For example, if you initially have a mild cough but start to have prolonged bouts, or if coughing becomes painful, she recommends calling your doctor again.

The CDC says that you should seek medical attention immediately if you have difficulty breathing or shortness of breath, persistent pain or chest pressure, an onset of confusion or the inability to stay awake, and bluish lips or face. If you do decide to go to the hospital, make sure to call ahead so the hospital can prepare to admit you without exposing others. If you already have a mask at home, this would be a good time to wear it; if you dont, please dont go buy one. There is a severe shortage, and medical staff need them.

Know that if you do go to the hospital, there is currently no treatment for Covid-19. Remdesivir, an antiviral drug, is in clinical trials, but right now, doctors are limited to providing supportive care such as supplemental oxygen.

While theres still a lot we dont know, Murray says that you should self-isolate for at least 14 days after your initial symptoms. (There have been a few reports of patients shedding viruses for up to 28 days, but those appear to be outliers.) This means avoiding contact with everyone. (Read Voxs guide to self-isolation here.)

For her part, Choi recommends minimizing all contact until your doctor or a public health department tells you that you are no longer contagious.

Measures for pandemic control can be stressful, Choi says, especially for people who may have challenges with being isolated. This feeling may get worse over the next few weeks, as current social-distancing measures are likely to be extended. Such measures can also cause financial hardship and stress for people who cant work from home or wont get paid if they dont go to work.

Many people are experiencing cognitive dissonance about the ongoing normality of their daily lives, or, conversely, experiencing very rapid change. Be kind to yourself and others if you are struggling. Whether youre afraid of getting sick or reacting to uncertainty, financial hardship, or a lack of information, anxiety is a natural response and you are not alone.

If you have preexisting mental health conditions, be aware that this may trigger new or worsening symptoms. (The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration has a 24/7 Disaster Distress Helpline, reachable at 1-800-985-5990. It also has an app with additional resources.)

No matter how stressed you feel, its crucial not to scapegoat others. This virus is not transmitted by or infecting any particular group. Ive experienced anti-Asian racism myself, says Choi, and its disrespectful, hateful, and not grounded in facts.

Know that the situation is not hopeless; collectively changing behavior can go a long way toward controlling the spread of this disease. China has now closed all of its temporary hospitals as its case numbers continue to decline. But the social and economic repercussions of this pandemic may continue for months, so prepare yourself mentally for a long haul.

Do the small things that are in your control, like giving yourself a break from the news put down Twitter and maintaining normal routines as much as possible. If youre at home with family or roommates, find ways to give each other space. Be creative about finding ways to exercise; YouTube videos are a great resource, if you cant get outside. Talk to your loved ones about what you and they need to stay happy and healthy.

Japan and China have both reported multiple cases of people testing positive after initially recovering. Its unclear if these were relapses or new infections. In four medical professionals in Wuhan, a test detected the viruss genetic material up to 13 days after they stopped having symptoms, but finding genetic material doesnt necessarily mean you can still infect others.

Once youve gotten sick, you might have some immunity, says Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine of the Baylor College of Medicine, but really the jurys still out. We dont know, it depends on your antibody response, he says. (A new, encouraging preprint showed that in some monkeys, reinfection of Covid-19 does not occur.)

Hotez suggests that recovered patients do seem to produce antibodies. He pointed to a new paper on the possibility of using blood from recovered patients as a treatment, or even a preventive measure for first responders.

Still, recovered patients may also experience lasting effects; doctors in Hong Kong said that some recovered patients had a 20 to 30 percent drop in lung capacity. Another alarming preprint suggests some patients may have permanent kidney damage.

What about building herd immunity?

The UK government on Friday announced a strategy of allowing the virus to spread to build herd immunity, although it since walked it back and is recommending self-isolation. For herd immunity to control Covid-19, more than 60 percent of the population will need to get the disease. The logic is that extreme lockdowns now wont stop the virus from returning in the future, when those measures are loosened.

The problem is that many people may succumb to the disease in the meantime, and that by not attempting to control the spread, hospitals and medical systems will be overwhelmed. Achieving herd immunity in the UK would require more than 47 million Britons to be infected, which could mean around hundreds of thousands would die. Immunity might also not last long enough to help, as with the flu, where new strains emerge each year. Relying on herd immunity also conflicts with WHO policy. Anthony Costello, a pediatrician and former WHO director, tweeted, Is it ethical to adopt a policy that threatens immediate casualties on the basis of an uncertain future benefit?

There are two likely ways this pandemic will end now that the virus is so widespread: 1) So many people will get it that well develop a natural herd immunity, a term that is used to describe people getting a disease and becoming immune as a result, or 2) well make and widely produce an affordable vaccine. It is very unlikely that well see a big decline in Covid-19 cases solely due to the weather getting warmer. Plenty of places where there is currently warm weather, like Singapore and Australia, have Covid-19 cases.

There are no easy answers. We have to recognize that were gonna start seeing a fair number of hospital admissions, especially ICU admissions, Hotez says, and we have to ask the hard questions about what treatment we can do now. Developing a vaccine will take many months at best, which is why in the meantime, changing your behavior is so important.

Ultimately, this is a new disease, so while were trying to make new predictions about risk, all bets are off, says Choi. Were learning as everything is evolving actively in real time.

Lois Parshley is a freelance investigative journalist and the 2019-2020 Snedden chair of journalism at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Find her on Twitter @loisparshley.

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Coronavirus tips and symptoms: What everyone should know about getting the new coronavirus - Vox.com

A good thing to do during the global outbreak of a deadly virus is to test people who think they may have it. Beyond providing important information to people affected by the disease, large-scale testing allows authorities to map the spread of the disease and respond accordingly. Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong all worked rapidly after the initial COVID-19 outbreak to identify carriers of the disease, and the work contributed to a successful containment strategy. In the United States, by contrast, testing rolled out with fatal slowness. On Monday, as the stock market crashed and San Francisco banned all non-essential travel for residents, a simple question how do I get tested for COVID-19? remains difficult to answer.

On Friday, President Donald Trump held a press conference in which he announced that Google was coming to the rescue. The company was building a website to help people understand whether they should seek a test for the coronavirus, Trump said, and added that Google had committed a staggering 1,700 engineers to the project.

Among the people this was news to were the employees of Google, who were unaware that they were working on such a project. It turned out that a more modest effort was under way by Verily, the life sciences company that, like Google, also sits under the Alphabet corporate umbrella. Dieter Bohn broke the news at The Verge:

Google is not working with the US government in building a nationwide website to help people determine whether and how to get a novel coronavirus test, despite what President Donald Trump said in the course of issuing an emergency declaration for the coronavirus pandemic. Instead, a much smaller trial website made by another division of Alphabet, Googles parent company, is going up. It will only be able to direct people to testing facilities in the Bay Area. [...]

Carolyn Wang, communications lead for Verily, told The Verge that the triage website was initially only going to be made available to health care workers instead of the general public. Now that it has been announced the way it was, however, anybody will be able to visit it, she said. But the tool will only be able to direct people to pilot sites for testing in the Bay Area, though Wang says Verily hopes to expand it beyond California over time.

The website, he said, would be available on Monday.

It has long since stopped being unusual to hear the president lie during a moment of crisis. (At Vanity Fair, Gabriel Sherman reported that his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, was the one over-selling Googles effort behind the scenes.) Whatever the case, this was a particularly high-stakes bit of news to get wrong, in the sense that the president had essentially charged a corporation with building out a significant component of the nations coronavirus testing infrastructure. And it came just before more Americans would be ordered to stay inside their homes unless absolutely necessary and as more high-profile reports of celebrity cases of the disease trickle in. (Get well, Idris Elba! Thats an order!)

But then a funny thing happened: Google decided to go ahead and build the website anyway. In fact, its building two websites! And they both already are actually built, at least partially, and one of them did launch on Monday morning, as just as Trump said it would. I liked Ina Frieds concise summary in Axios:

Google was blindsided by Trumps Friday announcement of such a project. The company is now working on two different tracks: ramping up a small pilot project that partially resembles what Trump spoke of Friday but had much more modest scope, while also scrambling to launch an entirely new, less personalized nationwide information portal about the virus.

That nationwide information portal sounds relatively modest. According to Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai in a Sunday blog post, the site will contain best practices on prevention, links to authoritative information from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and helpful tips and tools from Google for individuals, teachers and businesses. The site, which was expected to launch late Monday, will be updated regularly with new information, Pichai said. (Its delayed.)

Its the Verily effort, which Trump had pitched as a kind of national triage system, that commanded more attention. The good news is that Verilys effort has launched you can find it at this link. But as Bohn notes in another story for The Verge, its not at all like Trump described:

Verilys website is very limited in scope: its only available to people in the Bay Area of California and its more of a pilot program than a public health utility.

In fact, its even more limited than that: in order to qualify you must be 18 years of age or older, be able to speak English, and be a US resident. It very much looks like the program a Verily spokesperson described to us on the phone on Friday and not the expansive triage system that the Trump administration promised.

The initial question on Verilys site asks Are you currently experiencing severe cough, shortness of breath, fever, or other concerning symptoms? If you answer yes, you are told that the program is not the right fit and to seek medical attention.

That last part seems counterintuitive people who are sick cant be tested? But Verily says it is not equipped to treat seriously ill people. In any case, within a few hours, Verilys pilot program was at capacity. And venture capitalists were on Twitter musing about building rapid testing kids. (Help them if you can!)

What to make of all this? One thought Ive had lately is that we are seeing a shift in trust. In December, when we interviewed people for the second Verge Tech Survey, we found that trust was generally on the decline particularly for social networks. But now we find ourselves in a time, as Ben Smith put it in the New York Times on Sunday, when Facebook is more trustworthy than the president. Social networks have gotten better at amplifying urgent updates and authoritative experts:

After four years in which social media has been viewed as an antisocial force, the crisis is revealing something surprising, and a bit retro: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and others can actually deliver on their old promise to democratize information and organize communities, and on their newer promise to drain the toxic information swamp.

Moreover. as Ive noted in this space a couple of times, the tech giants have performed admirably in the past few weeks. Among other things, they have stepped up their fight against misinformation and begun paying more attention to what their algorithms are amplifying.

And, as Google showed over the weekend, theyre also springing into action. Trump may have forced Googles hand, but I still expect the company to ramp up both of its new websites considerably in the coming days and weeks. Others are taking even bolder action Amazon, for example, announced plans to hire a staggering 100,000 workers to help keep up with the surge in demand for deliveries, and said it would give warehouse and delivery workers a raise of $2 an hour.

In incredibly fraught times the most anxious Ive ever known these are meaningful steps forward. None of it is a replacement for a competent government, and the hardest days are surely ahead. But at the moment tech giants have an incredible chance to give back to the country they were born in. And it has been heartening to see some of them take it.

Today in news that could affect public perception of the big tech platforms.

Trending up: Facebook launched a matching fund to encourage people to donate money to fight the coronavirus pandemic. The company has committed a total of $20 million to fight the outbreak.

Trending up: Apple is donating $15 million to help treat coronavirus patients and ease the economic impact of the pandemic. Its also matching employee coronavirus donations two-to-one.

Trending up: Salesforce is donating $1 million to the UCSF coronavirus response fund and another $500,000 to the CDD emergency response fund. Its also matching employee donations.

Trending up: Amazon plans to hire an additional 100,000 employees in the United States as millions of people turn to online deliveries in the wake of the new coronavirus. Finally, a good public-relations effort from Amazon!

Trending up: Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma is donating 500,000 coronavirus testing kits and one million protective face masks to the United States. The Chinese billionaire already pledged 2 million protective masks to European countries as well.

Trending up: AT&T, Comcast and Verizon joined dozens of telecom providers in agreeing not to shut off the phone or internet service of subscribers who cant pay their bills due to the novel coronavirus.

Trending sideways: Facebook is cracking down on coronavirus hoaxes in English, but misinformation continues to go viral in other languages.

Heres the latest in the United States:

The spread of the disease in the United States is more in line with Italy and Iran than Singapore and Hong Kong. We also continue to test people at a lower rate than other developed countries. (Dylan Scott and Rani Molla / Vox)

The United States doesnt have enough ventilators or ICU beds if theres a significant surge in new coronavirus cases. As in Italy, the health system could well be overwhelmed in coming weeks. (Aaron E. Carroll / The New York Times)

The stock market plunged 3,000 points on Monday as fears over the novel coronavirus spread. The sell-off triggered the so-called circuit breaker for the third time in two weeks. It was the stock markets second-worst day ever. (Taylor Telford and Thomas Heath / The Washington Post)

Hundreds of thousands of federal workers and congressional staff may soon be asked to work remotely as the coronavirus spreads. The move would make sensitive government data more vulnerable to attack. Itll also probably slow down all those investigations into big tech! (Joseph Marks and Lisa Rein / The Washington Post)

Georgia delayed its presidential primary due to the novel coronavirus. It will now be held on May 19th. Louisiana also rescheduled its April 4th primary to June 20th. (Zach Montellaro / Politico)

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine is recommending the states primaries be postponed until June to protect voters from the coronavirus pandemic. The primaries are supposed to take place on Tuesday. (Zach Montellaro and Alice Ollstein / Politico)

Stanford Medicine is doing drive-through coronavirus testing for patients whove been referred by their medical providers. Each appointment takes only a few minutes. (Stanford Medicine)

President Trump follows 47 accounts on Twitter. Heres what theyre saying about the coronavirus pandemic, from this is Chinas fault to The President is doing a great job. (Jordan Muller / Politico)

When news of the coronavirus started to spread, this man bought 17,700 bottles of hand sanitizer, planning to resell from for a profit on Amazon. Then, the company cracked down on price gauging. After he faced an avalanche of criticism, the man promised to donate his hoard. (Jack Nicas / The New York Times)

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread across the United States, some technologists are suggesting using smartphone data to track transmissions. But American views on privacy and government surveillance may make that a non-starter. (Will Knight / Wired)

The coronavirus pandemic is going to put a massive strain on Amazon Prime, experts say. Its a logistical nightmare during the best of times. But supply chain issues, increased demand, and the potential of a warehouse outbreak are all making things worse. Good time to hire 100,000 people and give them a raise! (Lauren Kaori Gurley / Vice)

Heres what happened when nearly one million tech workers in Silicon Valley were asked to work from home. Scenes from our surreal new way of life. (Rob Copeland and Tripp Mickle / The Wall Street Journal)

Heres how its changing the culture:

Amid social distancing, people are mobilizing on coronavirus Facebook groups. Some groups focus on emergency preparedness, while others share news about the virus. (Arielle Pardes / Wired)

Coronavirus has brought on the dawn of the virtual happy hour, as friends and co-workers gather on Zoom and Google Hangouts to chat after hours. This is all I do after work now. (Abram Brown / Forbes)

The pandemic has also brought about the age of the virtual dinner party. Im doing my first one on Thursday! (Zo Bernard and Nick Bastone / The Information)

Theaters are already struggling to compete with new streaming services. Now theyre facing the prospect of no audiences or new fils due to the spread of the coronavirus. (Brooks Barnes and Nicole Sperling / The New York Times)

The Centers for Disease Control said any funeral with more than 50 people should be canceled and moved to livestream. Its part of the organizations recommendations for limiting the spread of the coronavirus. (Eleanor Cummins / Vice)

On the misinformation front:

A rumor about Trump issuing a national quarantine and forcing people to stay in their homes is going viral. Its spreading primarily through text messages, and always purports to be coming from someone with a direct line to the White House. Its a hoax, so stop forwarding it. (Zoe Schiffer / The Verge)

Instagram is removing augmented reality filters that claim to be able to diagnose or treat coronavirus. The company will also start hiding coronavirus-themed augmented reality effects from search results. (Karissa Bell / Engadget)

YouTube is leaning more heavily on AI to flag and remove inappropriate content in an effort to crack down on coronavirus misinformation. Because it doesnt want contract content moderators to come into the office, Google is turning the job over to machine learning. This could go very badly. (YouTube)

On the conference front:

Evan Spiegel asked all Snap employees to work from home and postponed the companys planned partner summit due to the coronavirus pandemic. The April 2nd event for Snapchat developers, advertisers, and creators had already been moved to an online-only presentation. Now its being postponed altogether.

Microsofts Build developer conference is also going to be held online. The software giant was planning on holding its annual developer conference in Seattle from May 19th to May 21st. (Tom Warren / The Verge)

Major esports events from games like CSGO, Overwatch, PUBG, League of Legends, and Dota 2 have been disrupted as the coronavirus outbreak continues to spread across the globe. (Aron Garst / The Verge)

Apple announced that the 2020 Worldwide Developers Conference will be held online due to the ongoing spread of the novel coronavirus. The event will take place sometime in June. (Jay Peters / The Verge)

Y Combinators W20 Demo Day is going to be online only. The accelerator also said that while it still plans to host a summer program, some portion of it may happen online.

Heres what companies are doing:

This is what Silicon Valley tech leaders are worried about with the novel coronavirus. (Lauren Hepler / Protocol)

Microsoft launched a new interactive Bing map to provide information on the spread of COVID-19. The map shows the amount of cases on a per country basis. It also surfaces links to relevant news stories. Unfortunately, the stories being promoted arent always the most timely or useful. (Jon Porter / The Verge)

Zoom is giving K-12 students its videoconferencing tools for free. The move follows schools across the country shutting down due to the novel coronavirus. (Alex Konrad / Forbes)

As people around the world hunker down to limit the spread of the coronavirus, internet usage is surging. So far, there havent been any major outages. The internet was designed to survive a nuclear blast, said one expert. (Alex Kantrowitz / BuzzFeed)

Heres the latest outside the United States:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu authorized the countrys internal security agency to tap into a secret trove of cellphone data to retrace the movements of people who have the coronavirus. The information would also allow the government to identify those who should be quarantined because theyve crossed paths with coronavirus carriers. (David M. Halbfinger, Isabel Kershner and Ronen Bergman / The New York Times)

China is silencing people who are criticizing the governments response to coronavirus online, by dragging them in for questioning and forcing them to loyalty pledges. The enforcers are known as the internet police. (Paul Mozur / The New York Times)

Stuff to occupy you online during the quarantine.

Heres a list of video games you should play while youre stuck inside avoiding the coronavirus.

Pokmon Go wont make you leave the house for the time being.

The meditation app Headspace is giving all US healthcare workers free access to Headspace Plus through 2020. And its making a variety of anti-anxiety content free for all.

Balance is offering a free one-year subscription of its meditation app to anyone who wants it.

Say hello to online drinking, an activity that recently got a new name in Japan: on-nomi. Its the latest craze among self-isolated middle-aged women in the country. Im following their lead!

The Metropolitan Opera is streaming operas for free in the wake of the novel coronavirus. The digital concerts will be hosted nightly. (Chris Murphy / Vulture)

Joe Bidens first virtual town hall was a technical nightmare. The campaign has had to get creative due to the coronavirus pandemic, but so far its not going smoothly. Heres Makena Kelly at The Verge:

The Zoom call was plagued with technical problems from the beginning. First, it began over three hours late. Once Biden did start speaking, his staff had to restart his entire speech because there was no audio, fading his campaign logo in and back out again to signify that they were redoing the address. As he started reading off his prepared remarks again, Bidens audio was suddenly painful to hear and impossible to understand, at least until they replaced whatever mic he was using with a smartphone.

After his opening address was finished as unintelligible as it was staff opened the call up to questions. Mr. Bidens speech was garbled the entire time, the first questioner said before being cut off.

The coronavirus pandemic has forced Joe Biden, Bernie Sanders and President Trump to focus on digital campaigning. Getting voters attention in this new environment will likely be difficult and expensive. (Misyrlena Egkolfopoulou / Bloomberg)

Karlie Klosss father is helping Jared Kushner with the Trump Administrations coronavirus response. His strategy involved crowd sourcing recommendations from physicians in a Facebook group. Excuse me what? (Anita Kumar / Politico)

An acquisition spree by Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft gobbled up many of the most promising artificial intelligence startups. The trend is one regulators are looking into as they investigate whether Big Tech companies have become too powerful. (Dina Bass and Joshua Brustein / Bloomberg)

Antitrust authorities in France ordered Apple to pay a $1.23 billion fine for anti-competitive behavior. They said the company was guilty of creating cartels within its distribution network and abusing the economic dependence of its outside resellers. Apple said it plans to appeal. (Silvia Amaro / CNBC)

Voatz, a mobile voting app thats already been used in several elections in the United States, is filled with critical security flaws. The company also publicly refuted an MIT report that found flaws in the app even after it received confirmation that it was accurate. (Emanuel Maiberg, Jason Koebler and Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai / Vice)

TikTok told moderators to suppress posts by people deemed too ugly or poor for the platform. The rigid and disturbing rules were part of the companys growth strategy. Sam Biddle, Paulo Victor Ribeiro and Tatiana Dias at The Intercept have the story:

Today, The Intercept and The Intercept Brasil are publishing two internal TikTok moderation documents, recreated with only minor redactions, below. One lays out bans for ideologically undesirable content in livestreams, and another describes algorithmic punishments for unattractive and impoverished users. The documents appear to have been originally drafted in Chinese and later at times awkwardly translated into English for use in TikToks global offices. TikTok is owned by ByteDance, a Beijing-headquartered company that operates a suite of popular sites and social apps, a sort of Chinese analog to Facebook. ByteDance, founded in 2012, has come under scrutiny by the U.S. government over its ties to the Chinese Communist Party and numerous reports that the apps censorship tactics mirror those of Beijing; Sens. Chuck Schumer and Josh Hawley have both worked to limit TikToks use by government personnel, arguing that it presents a risk to national security.

TikTok announced its going to stop using China-based moderators to monitor overseas content. The work will now be shifted to people outside of China, as part of the companys efforts to quell concerns about Chinese ownership.

TikTok got a record 113 million App Store and Google Play downloads in February, making it the apps best month ever for both installs and revenue. (SensorTower)

The most followed person on TikTok is 17-year-old Loren Gray. Now shes trying to turn her viral fame into a mainstream music career. (Kat Tenbarge / Business Insider)

Jack Dorseys efforts to make conversations on Twitter more civil have stalled, according to researchers working with the company. Two years ago, the CEO committed to increasing the collective health, openness, and civility of public conversation on the platform, but the project has been slow getting off the ground. (Deepa Seetharaman / The Wall Street Journal)

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg said no one knows how big the impact of coronavirus will be on the marketing industry. We know that we can keep paying our employees, paying our contractors, we know we can keep the lights on, she added. (Salvador Rodriguez / CNBC)

USA TODAY announced that it is joining Facebooks third-party fact-checking program. The media organization will help review, rate and verify news on Facebook and Instagram to help prevent the spread of misinformation. (USA TODAY)

Kenneth Chenault will be leaving Facebooks board of directors following disagreements with Mark Zuckerberg over the companys governance and political policies. The news adds to significant turnover on the companys board. (Jeff Horwitz and Deepa Seetharaman / The Wall Street Journal)

Snap announced that Kelly Coffey, CEO of City National Bank, has been appointed to the companys board of directors.

Zoom has bigger plans than just being your go-to video chat tool or the place you host coronavirus dinner parties. It wants to reimagine the office as as a virtual space. (David Pierce / Protocol)

USC students are training to become social media influencers. The school offers an Influencer Relations class within the school of communications and an on-campus social media influencing club called Reach. (Kalhan Rosenblatt / NBC)

ISIS warns terrorists to avoid Europe until coronavirus passes

I pride myself on never saying not the Onion, but this story is just truly, truly not the Onion:

ISIS has warned its terror organization to stay clear of Europe until coronavirus is under control. [...]

Terrorists serving the Islamic State are also reminded to wash their hands and cover their mouths when yawning and sneezing. The warning reportedly included a full page info-graphic teaching ISIS members how to avoid spreading the pandemic.

Goodnight!

Send us tips, comments, questions, and your favorite ways to spend time in your house! casey@theverge.com and zoe@theverge.com.

See the original post here:

Tech giants are getting creative to manage the COVID-19 crisis - The Verge

In late February, Julie Eaker, a physician assistant and supervisor at a small, rural, tribal community health clinic in Siskiyou County, California, had a patient who had a possible exposure to Covid-19. It wasnt direct: They had been exposed to a person, and that person had been in direct contact with a confirmed Covid-19 case. Eakers patient was developing an upper respiratory infection too, and she wanted to ease their peace of mind and protect the community by getting them tested for Covid-19.

To this day, the patient still hasnt been tested for the illness. And its not because Eaker didnt try. The story she describes is Kafkaesque.

First, Eaker called her local health department and was told her patient didnt qualify for testing since they hadnt traveled to China, per the guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at the time. After the CDC relaxed its testing criteria, the patient was still sick, so Eaker called again. I didnt receive a phone call back, she says.

The patient thought they had pneumonia and asked to be tested for peace of mind. Finally, last week, after Eaker ordered some test kits herself from a private lab, she got a call back. The health department told me I was not allowed to use those test kits that I ordered without their permission!

Eaker was horrified. So she called the CDC to confirm if the local health department was correct. I did not get through, she says. I spent hours and hours and hours on hold. So I thought I would just call the White House and talk to Vice President Pence, who is in charge of the coronavirus task force.

She didnt get Pence, but a White House switchboard operator told her to call the CDC.

Somebody has got to help us, she says, exasperated. Were out here on the front lines trying to take care of people.

Meanwhile, the commercial tests the clinic ordered still havent arrived. And Eaker wonders if Covid-19 has been spreading in her community of 3,000 people. Siskiyou County might not have big sports arenas or universities where disease can infect masses. But it has multigenerational family homes where viruses can quickly infect a whole family, and a health clinic thats already at capacity due to the flu.

Accurate testing is critical to stopping an outbreak: When one person gets a confirmed diagnosis, they can be put in isolation where they wont spread the disease further. Then their contacts can be identified and put into quarantine so they dont spread the virus if theyve become infected, too. Thats particularly important for a virus like this one, which seems able to spread before people show symptoms, or when their symptoms are mild.

Ever since the first case of Covid-19 was detected in the US on January 20, the governments blunders in creating and distributing diagnostic testing have greatly handicapped our response to the growing pandemic. Eakers story is not unique: Reports suggest providers everywhere are struggling to help their patients, while receiving frustrating guidance from authorities.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal governments top infectious disease scientist, called the testing situation a failing at a congressional hearing on Thursday.

The idea of anybody getting it easily the way people in other countries are doing it were not set up for that, he said. Do I think we should be? Yes. But were not.

While the testing situation in America is getting better private industry has stepped up to fill in the slow rollout of tests from the CDC, and the Cleveland Clinic announced it has developed a new rapid test that gives results in eight hours, rather than taking days problems remain. The number of tests that can be performed per day is still limited and varies by testing facility. Part of that is due to a shortage of key chemicals needed to run the tests. Its becoming increasingly clear that too-stringent testing guidelines early in the outbreak stymied researchers in knowing if Covid-19 was spreading in the US.

There was clear lack of foresight, Nathan Grubaugh, an epidemiologist at the Yale School of Public Health, says. We were very slow to roll out testing capacity to individual places wherever that came from, it was a very bad strategy.

Part of the confusion here is that there are different figures floating around for the number of tests that have been done. As private labs take up the slack from public health facilities, theres no centralized database of numbers.

I think that we could have probably controlled this, if we had effective testing, Angela Rasmussen, a Columbia University virologist, says.

We havent. In an investigation led by the Atlantic, a research team reported that a little more than 7,000 Covid-19 tests were performed as of March 11 putting the US far behind other developed countries. (The Atlantics investigation is in partnership with independent researchers, and US testing counts are now being updated daily by the Covid Tracking Project.)

South Korea, for example, has tested more than 140,000 people and has even set up drive-though testing stations for people to access. So far, the Trump administrations promises to increase testing have fallen flat.

Test kits have been in short supply though thats changing.

The numbers here are a bit confusing, too. As of March 7, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn said the CDC has sent out enough test kits to test 75,000 people (far fewer than the million promised by the Trump administration). But those are just the tests sent to public health labs. An additional 1.1 million tests (produced by private industry) have been sent out to non-public commercial and academic labs, according to Hahn. In all, he estimated 850,000 Americans are able to be tested.

But capacity to test is still lagging. Part of that is due to a shortage of key chemicals needed to run the tests. Currently, according to the American Enterprise Institute, 16,030 Covid-19 tests can be processed in the US a day, up from 7,840 a few days ago. (South Korea has been able to run 10,000 tests per day since February.)

Some labs have much higher capacity than others. Even the corporate diagnostic companies like Quest and LabCorp only have the capacity to run 1,000 and 1,500 tests a day, respectively. Your ability to get tested may depend on where you live, the lab your physician uses, and the judgment of your doctor.

Theres no one reason the testing effort has been so slow. There seem to be bureaucratic, scientific, and economic drivers for the debacle.

Heres where the trouble started. The CDC started sending out test kits to laboratories the first week of February, a month after China announced the outbreak. But the health agency quickly encountered a problem.

Some labs reported to the CDC that some of the test kits were delivering inconclusive results during verification. Its believed that one of the chemicals used to conduct the test was not working properly and needed to be remanufactured.

Im very puzzled by whats happened. The CDC did a really good job with H1N1 and Zika in exactly this thing: sending out huge quantities of test kits very rapidly to every state in the US and more than 100 countries around the world, Tom Frieden, who led the CDC under President Barack Obama, told Vox. The world came to rely on the CDC.

The tests are conducted via mouth or throat swabs, through the testing of mucus that has been coughed up or fluid from a patients trachea. Theyre designed to identify the viruss specific genetic signature, and results have to be shipped to labs, where they take a day to process.

Also, at first, the testing was bottlenecked. Most states had to send their samples to the CDC until March 2, and so, to the frustration of state health officials, precious time was lost shipping materials to Atlanta in those critical first few weeks. Whats more, each test required lengthy phone calls with the CDC, Rachel Levine, who leads the Pennsylvania health department, told Vox.

As of February 25, only 12 labs across the country in just five states had the ability to test. The first case of Covid-19 detected in the US originally did not meet the criteria for testing, as the New York Times explains. Perhaps that had deadly consequences: The outbreak in Washington state appears to be part of a transmission chain related to that first discovered case. When the CDC refused testing for that case, the Seattle Flu Study, a research group, performed one on its own.

Now that states can perform their own tests, they are able to turn them around in a matter of hours. Its a much more efficient mechanism, Levine said, but it took a long time for that to happen.

In Seattle, currently the US city with the most Covid-19 cases, local researchers were so exasperated by the CDCs initial faulty test that they came up with their own, as Stats Helen Branswell reported:

Frustrated by the lack of testing resulting from the problem with the CDC-developed kit, the Seattle Flu Study began using an in-house developed test to look for Covid-19 in samples from people who had flu-like symptoms but who had tested negative for flu.

That testing was vital for Washington, as it led to more clues about how the disease was spreading there. Genetic detective work from Washington suggests the virus has been circulating there for at least six weeks. Modeling suggests there could be 1,110 cases of Covid-19 in the Seattle area.

So theres been human error. But its also important to know that the work of setting up testing for a new virus can be difficult. Laurie Garrett, the science journalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for her reporting on the 1995 Ebola outbreak, said Chinas most-used tests have had false negatives nearly half the time.

Everybody is having trouble with the sensitivity/specificity issues with the coronavirus, Garrett said. But the slow start to testing in America, compounded by the problematic test kits that were first sent out into the field, has set back the US response.

I have no criticisms for the scientists at the CDC who developed the test because sometimes tests just dont work, Rasmussen says. But she does mention its problematic that the CDC has removed data about the number of people tested in the United States from its website, saying it didnt want there to be discrepancies with state testing numbers. In my view, the biggest scandal is that sort of response.

Vice President Mike Pence and other top Trump administration officials have been promising to ramp up the countrys capacity to test for coronavirus, but they have failed to meet their goals.

As Bloomberg reported on March 5, senators were told in a CDC briefing that the Trump administration would not be ready to roll out the 1.5 million kits it had promised by the end of this week. The number would be fewer than 500,000, it appeared.

The Atlantic has provided the best accounting of how many tests have actually been conducted in the United States so far: around 7,000, according to its survey of state health officials and other sources. That puts the US far behind some of its economic peers with much smaller populations:

In South Korea, more than 66,650 people were tested within a week of its first case of community transmission, and it quickly became able to test 10,000 people a day. The United Kingdom, which has only 115 positive cases, has so far tested 18,083 people for the virus.

Making matters worse, some people who have sought tests in the past few weeks, like Eakers patient, have been turned away. And these shortcomings make it harder for the public health community to react to a virus that spreads quickly and easily.

Many people dont really show symptoms of Covid-19, or their symptoms are very mild, but you want them to be tested anyway if there is an opportunity. To do that, doctors need to be able to order the test, which the CDC is only now permitting them to do. Commercial labs only recently started processing the coronavirus test, too, a step health care providers had been urging the administration to take.

The issue is with asymptomatic transmission. You dont know who is infected, and symptoms arent going to help if the patient doesnt have any, Abraar Karan, a Harvard physician, said. A rapid test would help because you can then do mass testing at scale.

Another is the criteria for who qualified to be tested. Originally, that was limited only to people who traveled to China or who had been in close contact with someone known to have Covid-19.

Then the tests expanded to include anyone who traveled to any affected country, as well as people with unexplained flu-like symptoms. Now, anyone with a physicians authorization can be tested for Covid-19 that is, if they can access a test.

Meanwhile, the federal government has decreased some regulatory roadblocks for more testing labs to come online. Labs can now start testing if they are pursuing an emergency authorization to test, and they dont have to wait for the FDA to give them final approval. But some of the materials to run the tests are growing scarce for some labs, according to Stat.

We dont need testing just to diagnose sick people coming into doctors offices and hospitals. We also need testing to do surveillance out in communities. You actually have to go out now in many places in the US and start taking samples from people, Grubaugh says.

Those surveillance studies will help us understand how prevalent milder cases are in populations. And adding those milder cases to data sets will help researchers determine more accurately how deadly this virus is, whom it tends to infect, and how often people spread it before showing symptoms. As testing ramps up, be prepared to hear about a lot more cases of Covid-19 in the US.

As former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb tweeted Thursday, the private labs also need to step up. Only big national clinical labs like LabCorp and Quest can fill the void. A lot rides on them now. ... Only these big national chains have throughput, scale, and ordering systems to fill the void that was created. We look to them now. We need them.

All that information can then be used to better halt the spread of the illness.

Again, without testing, were in the dark. And while were in the dark, the virus can spread. As Rasmussen says, we dont know what the prevalence actually is.

We want to know what your experience has been when it comes to testing for the virus, figuring out travel plans, and staying healthy. Let us know by filling out the survey below (you can also access the Google form here).

Read more:

Covid-19 coronavirus testing in the US has been absurdly sluggish. That puts us at risk. - Vox.com

Global crises often bring surprises for schools. The first world war flagged up the high number of young soldiers who couldnt read or write. In the second world war, middle-class country families despaired when evacuated children showed up malnourished and riven with lice. In the aftermath of both, politicians determined to make life better: focusing schools more on literacy and introducing daily milk and school nurses.

Pandemics, like wars, temporarily change our way of life. Change happens fast. Schools may even have closed by the time you read this. This will be difficult, and if its for a long time and in isolation there are real concerns about safeguarding and loss of learning, but lets not forget schools shut for a six-week period each year and families do cope. What is of long-term concern is what happens even when schools are open.

Official guidance is that everyone should be regularly washing their hands with soap and water while singing Happy Birthday twice. The song may not be official, but it helps children wash for the recommended 20 seconds. But this week the realisation has emerged that one in three schools dont usually have soap and hot water in their bathrooms.

When the news broke that Covid-19 was in the UK and infected numbers were rising, Teacher Tapp, the daily survey app that I co-founded, asked over 6,000 teachers about precautions in their school. An alarming 37% said they did not have hot water and soap available for pupils. Soap is not a legal requirement in washrooms and given schools are struggling for cash, its an easy thing to cut. Hot water access is legally required, but speaking to teachers, it is clear that old plumbing systems are not providing hot water or at least not fast enough to get to the tap before the child has disappeared.

Plus, regulations state that schools need to have just one sink per 30 pupils. Line up every one of those kids, ruthlessly enforce a quick changeover at 20 seconds, and you need at least 10 minutes to get everyones hands clean. Given the average school break is only 20 minutes, that doesnt leave much time for eating, playing, or going to the toilet. Which might explain why almost no secondary schools were actively teaching handwashing even 10 days ago.

On top of that, only one in five teachers said tissues were available for children. Less than a third said their school was offering hand-sanitising facilities: Everyone has run out of sanitiser. We cant source it from anywhere, and we probably couldnt afford it anyway, one senior leader said.

Thankfully, primary children are increasingly washing hands on entry and before leaving school a job thats easier for infant classrooms with their own sink. One friend noted how nice it was to hold her young sons hand on the walk home from school now that his palms were no longer sweaty and grimy.

The coming months will be challenging and the focus will be on the extent to which schools can keep going at all. But once the pandemic has cleared, its worth us remembering that nearly 22 million school days are lost every year to colds. About 40% of children get threadworm, a parasitic infection that causes a distractingly itchy bottom. Both problems are reduced by hand-washing, along with more serious respiratory viruses and tummy bugs.

Other countries, already know this. In Japan, schools are equipped with long wash basins where pupils and teachers wash their hands several times a day. In Nigeria, after the Ebola crisis, handwashing in schools rose by over 60%, with children more likely to take part if their friends were also washing their hands.

The next few months are going to be a hard lesson in patience and acceptance. But, as with the two world wars, it may be that a better future sits on the other side. At the very least it should be one where every child is expected and, crucially, is able, to wash their hands regularly.

Read more:

Covid-19 reveals the alarming truth that many children cant wash their hands at school - The Guardian

WATERBURY The first positive case of COVID-19 in Waterbury was confirmed Monday.

Mayor Neil M. OLeary also declared an emergency Monday, a move that was not motivated by the first confirmation.

The declaration gives OLeary broad powers over employee work assignments and schedules as needed to respond to a particular threat. OLeary said he doesnt foresee the need to exercise that authority in the short term. The declaration is primarily intended to make Waterbury eligible for federal disaster relief funds, as they become available, he said.

Waterbury began preparing for the anticipated arrival of COVID-19 since mid-January. The city formed a broad task force enlisting representatives from police, fire, health, schools and other departments, as well as leaders from the citys two hospitals. The task force has kept the city abreast of the latest developments and advice, as well as established protocols for quarantines, treatment of patients and various scenarios.

It certainly brings it home, OLeary said of the confirmed case. We were expecting it. I am not surprised.

Adam Rinko, the citys emergency management coordinator, said Monday night the citys health department informed him of an infection in the city. He had no details about the individuals age, gender or occupation.

Rinko said the city has been acting on the presumption there were multiple local undetected infections already. And more are expected.

We were ramping up for this, Rinko said. It was kind of inevitable. We were under the impression there were cases here all along.

Related

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First COVID-19 case in Waterbury is confirmed - Waterbury Republican American

As one of the worlds leading institutions in the health sciences, UCSF is deeply committed to providing the most accurate and up-to-date medical information to our patients and to the public at large. To allay some confusion about a document on the COVID-19 pandemic that was attributed to UCSF last week on social media and in the press in many cases carrying our official university logo wed like to provide some background.

The document in question contained notes taken at a private panel discussion on COVID-19 held on March 10, which featured a group of expert speakers from UCSF and the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub. However, UCSF was not a sponsor of this event, and these notes were not reviewed, either for accuracy or for potentially important context, by the participating scientists.

If you are seeking information on the scope of the COVID-19 pandemic, including the best measures to minimize transmission of the novel coronavirus, please consult the many COVID-19 resources available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the California Department of Public Health, and UCSF.

Read more here:

Statement on COVID-19 Panel Discussion Notes That Were Attributed to UCSF - UCSF News Services

Guidanceby topicHealthcareProviders COVID-19 Hotline (800) 722-5725The COVID-19 hotline is a service operated by the healthcare professionals at the KY Poison Control Center who can provide advice and answer questions. Please bepatient as we are handling a high volume of calls and want to give everyone the time they deserve. For general information, please review the website prior to calling the hotline. Guidance is being added as it becomes available.Please note: COVID-19 is a reportable disease in Kentucky

The Kentucky Department for Public Health (KDPH) is responding actively to the COVID-19 situation. Our State Health Operations Center is operating at Level 1, its highest activation level. This respiratory disease was first detected in a Kentucky resident on March 6, 2020.

For the latest information and prevention updates, visit theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention 2019 novel coronavirus site

Healthcare providers, laboratories, and local public health professionals, visit the COVID-19 Healthcare Providers and Laboratory Services sitefor the most current guidance.

Gov. Andy Beshear's Communications Office(news releases, other advisories)

Gov. Andy Beshear's YouTube Channel- all posted news conference videos. You can view livestream events here.

KDPH YouTube Channel- all KDPH-produced video

If you have developed a fever or respiratory symptoms and believe you have had exposure to a known case or traveled to an area with community spread, isolate yourself from others in your home and contact your healthcare provider orlocal health departmentto describe your symptoms and any recent travel before you go to the healthcare facility.

Uncertainty leads to anxiety. Follow these tips to maintain your mental health & reduce anxiety. Please seek professional help if needed. For more information, visit the CDC guidance for managing anxiety and stress.

Community Guidance

Social distancing is key to keeping Kentuckian's safe. It is essential that Kentuckian's participate in the following social distancing activities:

This guidance will continue to change as circumstances warrant.

See the article here:

COVID-19 - Cabinet for Health and Family Services

Last updated 03/15/2020 2:00PM

ASL | Espaol | Ting Vit | () | () | | Burmese | |

Austin-Travis County is reporting residents, people sheltering, and people who are hospitalized here. This data will be updated daily.

The Texas Department of State Health Services is counting the number of positive cases based their claimed residency. To view the case count for Texas, visit Texas DSHS.

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a respiratory illness that is spreading from person to person in parts of the United States. The risk of infection with COVID-19 is higher for people who are close contacts of someone known to have COVID-19, for example healthcare workers, or household members. Other people at higher risk for infection are those who live in or have recently been in an area with an ongoing spread of COVID-19.

The virus spreads mainly between people who are in close contact with one another (within about 6 feet) through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes. It also may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads.

Austin Public Health is closely monitoring the rapidly evolving situation in coordination with the Texas Department of State Health Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and local and regional public health and healthcare agencies. APH has developed a five-phase plan to coordinate COVID-19 response activities. We are currently in Phase 3:

APH has received positive cases of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Austin-Travis County. Currently there are no cases believed to be community spread.

APH has also activated our Department Operations Center to allow for enhanced response coordination, provided symptom monitoring for residents returning to Austin/Travis County from China, and provided prevention messaging to health care professionals, businesses, schools, and the general public. Additionally, the Austin-Travis County Emergency Operations Center (ATCEOC) has been partially activated.Under the partial activation, the ATCEOC has established a planning team and Joint Information System (JIS) that meets daily to discuss any changes and impacts of COVID-19.

An Expert Advisory Panel has been formed consisting of more than a dozen physicians from around the community. They include experts in infectious diseases, pediatrics, emergency medicine and internal medicine, as well as physicians from higher education and public schools. The panel is working on recommendations and guidance regarding mitigation and prevention strategies for mass gatherings.

Modifications to City operations due to COVID-19- March 15, 2020

Gatherings of 250+ People Banned to Help Tackle COVID-19- March 14, 2020

New Advice for Individuals Aware of Contact with COVID-19 Cases - March 14, 2020

Organizers Urged to Cancel Events andRestaurants Mandated to Boost Sanitationto Help Prevent Spread of COVID-19- March 13, 2020

Austin two positive cases of COVID-19 in Austin-Travis County News Conference March 13, 2020

Two presumptive positive cases of COVID-19 in Austin-Travis County March 13, 2020

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The move seems to reflect a clear shift in approach after the state health department set up drive-up test centers in Denver last week. Those pop-up testing sites attracted long times of people waiting in their cars, in some cases for hours, with many not getting tested at all.

I think it does signal the fact that they are taking a more targeted approach to testing, said Glen Mays, an expert in emergency preparedness at the Colorado School of Public Health.

Mays said, with limited testing capabilities still available to the state, having a limited number of pre-selected patients seems like a reasonable response.

Mays said ideally there would be many testing sites, widely dispersed. But thats been hampered by delays in securing enough test kits, especially at the federal level.

I think clearly there's a need to, to figure out a way to ramp up testing considerably in Colorado, he said.

But with just a few sites there's a high likelihood of congestion bottlenecks and absolutely that can, can create harms in and of itself. The potential risk, he said is of creating situations for people to be, essentially, contaminating each other.

The testing also plays a key role in surveillance, giving a window into where in the state coronavirus cases have popped up.

For surveillance purposes, once you have sort of a hotspot, what you do is treat (the patients) symptomatically and assume they are infected with COVID-19. You dont need to test everybody, said May Chu, a clinical professor in epidemiology at the Colorado School of Public Health.

The states National Guard will be deployed in Telluride to assist with the effort.

Barron said as the days go on, officials will likely shift away from emphasizing testing, because the virus is widespread, to mitigation.

In other words, unless people are in high-risk groups, including immune-compromised or those in the health care field, they likely will not get tested because there is no treatment for coronavirus anyway.

The gates are open, everyone is out running, Barron said. Its how do we keep it from going further.

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Expanding Colorado's COVID-19 Testing Capacity Proves Frustrating to Polis, Doctors And The Public - Colorado Public Radio