15 ms·

U.S. Identifies First Coronavirus Case Without Outbreak Ties

128 points by siftrics 7y ago

neonate 7y ago
https://archive.md/LI2XJ https://archive.md/LI2XJ
- briandear 7y ago
  Why do you always post archive links? Isn’t that a copyright violation?
  - i_am_nomad 7y ago
    Be quiet.
  - DecoPerson 7y ago
    Telling someone where to find drugs is not illegal (in the US — unless you’re compensated). I imagine it’s the same for copyrighted material?
kenneth 7y ago
As someone living in Hong Kong, it kind of blows my mind how little attention Americans have given this situation. All but a few Americans have their head in the sand on this, and the markets have not at all priced in the all but certain long term impact of this. I've personally broken my long-time rule of no trading public markets and opened a Robinhood account to hedge against this. So far this week I'm up 5x on those hedges. Markets are starting to realize, but I don't think we're even close to having fully priced in the impact of this. Everybody remembers the 2008 recession. A subset of people during that recession made a killing. The Big Short was a great book (and movie) about this. This is probably the first new opportunity to be a "big shorter."
- bcrosby95 7y ago
  > A subset of people during that recession made a killing. And a lot of people lost a lot of money trying to time that. It wasn't if, but when. People were talking about the mortgage driven bubble for years by the time 2008 rolled around.
- SubiculumCode 7y ago
  Everyone I know is worried about it.
- wyxuan 7y ago
  Good time to load up on gold and us dollars. I think coronavirus will be the catalyst to end the business cycle and blow the top off some of the major fiscal problems that have popped up.
  - marton78 7y ago
    ... and then you want to buy dollars? FYI gold and dollars are usually inversely correlated.
    - sfj 7y ago
      So are gold and stocks, yet they both went down on Tuesday. The market is very strange nowadays.
- 01100011 7y ago
  I'd love to agree with you, but I keep being reminded that 'the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.' Sure, I'm nearly certain this is going to give us 2-4 quarters of negative growth, worldwide, but I don't know when the market is actually going to price that in.
  - i_am_nomad 7y ago
    Morgan Stanley already is betting on a return to positive growth sometime in late Q2. I won’t bet against them.
sciinfo 7y ago
Here are estimates from MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College: => Estimated fatality ratio for infections 1% (including those who with mild cases and don't go to see doctors) => Estimated Case Fatality Rate (CFR) for travellers outside mainland China (mix severe & milder cases) 1%-5% => Estimated CFR for detected cases in Hubei (severe cases) 18% The last line (18%) applies when the outbreak becomes prevalent in an area and overwhelm hospital capacity. No country has sufficient ventilators, ECMO machines, and medical staff if infections become widespread since about 20% of infections requires hospitalization. People who need medical care from other causes would suffer from resource shortages as well. If not contained, dozens of cities around the world may become Hubei! Marc Lipsitch, Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard, believes that it might infect 40-70% of population (excl. kids) without effective control measures. His articles here: https://twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/1232504457377861632 https://twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/1232504457377861632 -- Reference: Report 4 here: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/news--wuhan-coronavirus/ https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-ana... From Report 6: "we estimated that about two thirds of COVID-19 cases exported from mainland China have remained undetected worldwide, potentially resulting in multiple chains of as yet undetected human-to-human transmission outside mainland China." For concise interviews with experts and other info: Follow their Twitter at @MRC_Outbreak https://twitter.com/MRC_Outbreak https://twitter.com/MRC_Outbreak
- sciinfo 7y ago
  For people thinking it is just like SARS, MERS, or Swine Flu, check out these graphs: https://ncov.r6.no/ https://ncov.r6.no/
  - bamboozled 7y ago
    According to one of those graphs it has a 50% fatality rate? Seems a little surprising.
    - tree3 7y ago
      No, the graphs that have both solid and dashed lines have two separate vertical axis on the left and right.
nl 7y ago
The big problem when Covid19 hits the US won't be the number of deaths (although of course there will tragically be many). It will be the number of medical bankruptcies. Also it'll be interesting to see how much more contagious it will be in a country where people avoid hospitals because of the cost.
- Pfhreak 7y ago
  This is my big concern too. The bills are going to be massive, people are going to avoid the doctor because they don't have the financial means to pay. Everyone will be at increased risk because we've failed to have the decency to put together even basic universal health care in this country.
- hurrdurr2 7y ago
  It will be very very bad. There is little to none surge capacity at US hospitals.
- fg6hr 7y ago
  That's exactly why people will ignore the symptoms till they fall dead. This virus will be an interesting lesson for both China and America: China will learn the cost of being too authoritarian, since people there are afraid to seek help, and America will learn the cost of greed, since people here are afraid to well.. seek help, but for financial reasons.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  This is 100% true, not sure why you're being downvoted. I imagine this will be the leading cause for the spread in the US. We like to on the image that we're first world, but that's only in regards to our professions and their education and training. Once you get into the details of the rest of the system we are anything but that. The healthcare system is merely another profit generating tool in this capitalism-above-all nation.
  - briandear 7y ago
    And would you rather be in a Chinese hospital or an American one? And, before you answer, you might want to have visited a regular Chinese hospital first. In China, you would be safer far away from a hospital.
prepend 7y ago
> It took four days for the patient to be tested for the coronavirus by the CDC, according to the letter, because the patient didn’t fit the initial criteria of a likely patient. The CDC confirmed the diagnosis on Wednesday, according to the report. This is what’s scary to me as that means the patient probably wasn’t isolated with daily healthcare. Does this mean everyone who came in contact with them during that time is self monitoring for symptoms for some large number of days?
- ak39 7y ago
  The short answer is yes. The virus is communicable during the incubation window period when the patient is still asymptomatic.
- hurrdurr2 7y ago
  https://www.davisenterprise.com/local-news/newly-diagnosed-coronavirus-patient-being-treated-at-uc-davis-medical-center/ https://www.davisenterprise.com/local-news/newly-diagnosed-c... They isolated some patient care personnel as a precaution. However since they suspected the patient had covid19 they took strong protective measures already.
  - cycrutchfield 7y ago
    Prior to Sunday they only used droplet precautions when interacting with the patient. After Sunday they switched to airborne precautions. Anybody that interacted with the patient prior to Sunday should absolutely be quarantined.
    - hurrdurr2 7y ago
      I couldn't believe that the CDC refused to test the patient. I mean they had been intubated for a week! CDC needlessly put medical personnel in harms way by setting extremely stringent testing criteria.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
echelon 7y ago
Edit: I'm not sure why I'm being downvoted. I think this is worth sharing and discussing. I've been watching this a bit too closely and am probably becoming an alarmist, but I find the smartphone video footage of this outbreak both fascinating and worrying. I've compiled a list of unverified videos from Reddit, TikTok, and Twitter. They're not journalistic, so take things with a grain of salt, but at the same time I think it's worth synthesizing into your understanding of this virus. WARNING: these can be graphic or disturbing. Nurse in Iran reports eight deaths. Deaths of a twenty year old with no prior health issues and two thirty year olds. Deaths are sudden and unexpected: https://twitter.com/AlinejadMasih/status/1232779487647031302?s=19 https://twitter.com/AlinejadMasih/status/1232779487647031302... Multiple children (around age 8) being wrapped into the same body bag by doctors wearing masks. https://youtu.be/sImeSvSS_60 https://youtu.be/sImeSvSS_60 Mobile crematoriums: https://twitter.com/JoeB14ck/status/1230040837255380993 https://twitter.com/JoeB14ck/status/1230040837255380993 Reports of elderly infected in Wuhan being stuffed into body bags for cremation while still alive. Please be aware that this is from NTD, a news organization that is the mouthpiece of the Falun Gong, a religious group persecuted by China, which is an absolutely biased source: https://youtu.be/YpeNO8PSuyY?t=5m39s https://youtu.be/YpeNO8PSuyY?t=5m39s (at 5:39) Another NTD report that claims China's death toll is being grossly under reported. An investigator supposedly calls a funeral home employee and enquiries about their daily volume. The employee finally relents (15m20s mark) and reports that their funeral home processed 127 in a single day. There are over 10 such funeral homes in Wuhan running 24/7. https://youtu.be/-KFxCqV1fPQ?t=15m20s https://youtu.be/-KFxCqV1fPQ?t=15m20s Forced quarantines: https://youtu.be/nNeTWX7WgwA https://youtu.be/nNeTWX7WgwA https://youtu.be/CDePjw3w0xg https://youtu.be/CDePjw3w0xg Welding families inside their homes regardless of the fire risk: https://twitter.com/Terrence_STR/status/1226535217055313921 https://twitter.com/Terrence_STR/status/1226535217055313921 Those locked in Wuhan screaming at night. (Media says these are "chants of solidarity".) https://youtu.be/opFCAWZHpzg https://youtu.be/opFCAWZHpzg I'm personally a little worried as I'm not sure why these measures would be taken over flu or a disease that only impacts the elderly (as macabre as that sounds). I've seen other videos I can't find the links to right now: - Chinese police patrolling the street with rifles that look like they're "hunting" for anyone not obeying the quarantine. - Prisoners(?) tied into a lengthy chain gang and being escorted by masked guards. - Lots of videos of people suddenly falling over dead in public. Chinese videos mostly, but also videos from Iran. - Dead bodies lining the streets covered in sheets as the videographer drives by. This one was possibly debunked as homeless people asleep. - Death rattle videos. These are tragic and horrifying.
testfoobar 7y ago
Reading the Washington Post article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/northern-californian-tests-positive-for-coronavirus-in-first-us-case-with-no-link-to-foreign-travel/2020/02/26/b2088840-58fb-11ea-9000-f3cffee23036_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/northern-californian-t... "There are indications that other hospitals could be involved in the case. Kris Concepcion, fire chief and acting public information officer in Vacaville, Calif., said county officials had issued a directive not to transport any new patients to two local hospitals — NorthBay VacaValley Hospital in Vacaville and NorthBay Medical Center in nearby Fairfield. Concepcion declined to say why those orders had been given." Are these hospitals open now?
SubiculumCode 7y ago
Having this patient at my place of work does not worry me at all. Not one bit. Time to use some of my vacation days. Note: I'm not a medical practitioner, I am a research scientist and can do my work remotely. I admire and applaud the doctors and nurse who are there, and UC Davis has some of the best.
nullc 7y ago
I'm confused about the Coronavirus mortality figures. The published numbers appear to be computed as deaths/cases. But cases is growing exponentially and deaths take time. If you use deaths/(deaths+recoveries) you get a much higher figure, but presumably recoveries take longer than deaths.
- ALittleLight 7y ago
  Another confounding factor is that you're more likely to identify severe cases and mild cases are less likely to get tested and confirmed.
- axaxs 7y ago
  This absolutely isn't accurate. The website promoting this garbage is dangerous. Nobody knows the total infected, nor the real fatality rate. But pay attention to how many on the cruise liners have died. 14% is a joke. My completely off the cuff, uneducated guess would be closer to 3%.
  - javitury 7y ago
    3% fatality rate with appropriate (if not the best available) medical attention and resources
  - EForEndeavour 7y ago
    I would expect a dismissal of a website as inaccurate garbage to be supported by a better counter-argument than a "completely off the cuff, uneducated guess."
  - nullc 7y ago
    What website are you referring to? My comment was driven by my own experience with process estimation, though other commenters have pointed out that it's also supported by research on SARS: https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/162/5/479/82647 https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/162/5/479/82647
- wcoenen 7y ago
  > If you use deaths/(deaths+recoveries) you get a much higher figure You also have to take into account that mild cases are probably never detected and counted. So you are calculating the fraction of deaths among severe cases, not among all cases.
deniscepko2 7y ago
I kinda foresee this spreading in US the worst, people who work in low paid jobs like McDonalds (which requires lots of people contact) rarely take sick days there as far as i remember.

128 points by siftrics 7y ago

neonate 7y ago

https://archive.md/LI2XJ https://archive.md/LI2XJ

briandear 7y ago
Why do you always post archive links? Isn’t that a copyright violation?
- i_am_nomad 7y ago
  Be quiet.
- DecoPerson 7y ago
  Telling someone where to find drugs is not illegal (in the US — unless you’re compensated). I imagine it’s the same for copyrighted material?

kenneth 7y ago

As someone living in Hong Kong, it kind of blows my mind how little attention Americans have given this situation. All but a few Americans have their head in the sand on this, and the markets have not at all priced in the all but certain long term impact of this. I've personally broken my long-time rule of no trading public markets and opened a Robinhood account to hedge against this. So far this week I'm up 5x on those hedges. Markets are starting to realize, but I don't think we're even close to having fully priced in the impact of this. Everybody remembers the 2008 recession. A subset of people during that recession made a killing. The Big Short was a great book (and movie) about this. This is probably the first new opportunity to be a "big shorter."

bcrosby95 7y ago
> A subset of people during that recession made a killing. And a lot of people lost a lot of money trying to time that. It wasn't if, but when. People were talking about the mortgage driven bubble for years by the time 2008 rolled around.
SubiculumCode 7y ago
Everyone I know is worried about it.
wyxuan 7y ago
Good time to load up on gold and us dollars. I think coronavirus will be the catalyst to end the business cycle and blow the top off some of the major fiscal problems that have popped up.
- marton78 7y ago
  ... and then you want to buy dollars? FYI gold and dollars are usually inversely correlated.
  - sfj 7y ago
    So are gold and stocks, yet they both went down on Tuesday. The market is very strange nowadays.
01100011 7y ago
I'd love to agree with you, but I keep being reminded that 'the market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent.' Sure, I'm nearly certain this is going to give us 2-4 quarters of negative growth, worldwide, but I don't know when the market is actually going to price that in.
- i_am_nomad 7y ago
  Morgan Stanley already is betting on a return to positive growth sometime in late Q2. I won’t bet against them.

sciinfo 7y ago

Here are estimates from MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College: => Estimated fatality ratio for infections 1% (including those who with mild cases and don't go to see doctors) => Estimated Case Fatality Rate (CFR) for travellers outside mainland China (mix severe & milder cases) 1%-5% => Estimated CFR for detected cases in Hubei (severe cases) 18% The last line (18%) applies when the outbreak becomes prevalent in an area and overwhelm hospital capacity. No country has sufficient ventilators, ECMO machines, and medical staff if infections become widespread since about 20% of infections requires hospitalization. People who need medical care from other causes would suffer from resource shortages as well. If not contained, dozens of cities around the world may become Hubei! Marc Lipsitch, Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard, believes that it might infect 40-70% of population (excl. kids) without effective control measures. His articles here: https://twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/1232504457377861632 https://twitter.com/mlipsitch/status/1232504457377861632 -- Reference: Report 4 here: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/news--wuhan-coronavirus/ https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-ana... From Report 6: "we estimated that about two thirds of COVID-19 cases exported from mainland China have remained undetected worldwide, potentially resulting in multiple chains of as yet undetected human-to-human transmission outside mainland China." For concise interviews with experts and other info: Follow their Twitter at @MRC_Outbreak https://twitter.com/MRC_Outbreak https://twitter.com/MRC_Outbreak

sciinfo 7y ago
For people thinking it is just like SARS, MERS, or Swine Flu, check out these graphs: https://ncov.r6.no/ https://ncov.r6.no/
- bamboozled 7y ago
  According to one of those graphs it has a 50% fatality rate? Seems a little surprising.
  - tree3 7y ago
    No, the graphs that have both solid and dashed lines have two separate vertical axis on the left and right.

nl 7y ago

The big problem when Covid19 hits the US won't be the number of deaths (although of course there will tragically be many). It will be the number of medical bankruptcies. Also it'll be interesting to see how much more contagious it will be in a country where people avoid hospitals because of the cost.

Pfhreak 7y ago
This is my big concern too. The bills are going to be massive, people are going to avoid the doctor because they don't have the financial means to pay. Everyone will be at increased risk because we've failed to have the decency to put together even basic universal health care in this country.
hurrdurr2 7y ago
It will be very very bad. There is little to none surge capacity at US hospitals.
fg6hr 7y ago
That's exactly why people will ignore the symptoms till they fall dead. This virus will be an interesting lesson for both China and America: China will learn the cost of being too authoritarian, since people there are afraid to seek help, and America will learn the cost of greed, since people here are afraid to well.. seek help, but for financial reasons.
hanniabu 7y ago
This is 100% true, not sure why you're being downvoted. I imagine this will be the leading cause for the spread in the US. We like to on the image that we're first world, but that's only in regards to our professions and their education and training. Once you get into the details of the rest of the system we are anything but that. The healthcare system is merely another profit generating tool in this capitalism-above-all nation.
- briandear 7y ago
  And would you rather be in a Chinese hospital or an American one? And, before you answer, you might want to have visited a regular Chinese hospital first. In China, you would be safer far away from a hospital.

prepend 7y ago

> It took four days for the patient to be tested for the coronavirus by the CDC, according to the letter, because the patient didn’t fit the initial criteria of a likely patient. The CDC confirmed the diagnosis on Wednesday, according to the report. This is what’s scary to me as that means the patient probably wasn’t isolated with daily healthcare. Does this mean everyone who came in contact with them during that time is self monitoring for symptoms for some large number of days?

ak39 7y ago
The short answer is yes. The virus is communicable during the incubation window period when the patient is still asymptomatic.
hurrdurr2 7y ago
https://www.davisenterprise.com/local-news/newly-diagnosed-coronavirus-patient-being-treated-at-uc-davis-medical-center/ https://www.davisenterprise.com/local-news/newly-diagnosed-c... They isolated some patient care personnel as a precaution. However since they suspected the patient had covid19 they took strong protective measures already.
- cycrutchfield 7y ago
  Prior to Sunday they only used droplet precautions when interacting with the patient. After Sunday they switched to airborne precautions. Anybody that interacted with the patient prior to Sunday should absolutely be quarantined.
  - hurrdurr2 7y ago
    I couldn't believe that the CDC refused to test the patient. I mean they had been intubated for a week! CDC needlessly put medical personnel in harms way by setting extremely stringent testing criteria.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]

echelon 7y ago

Edit: I'm not sure why I'm being downvoted. I think this is worth sharing and discussing. I've been watching this a bit too closely and am probably becoming an alarmist, but I find the smartphone video footage of this outbreak both fascinating and worrying. I've compiled a list of unverified videos from Reddit, TikTok, and Twitter. They're not journalistic, so take things with a grain of salt, but at the same time I think it's worth synthesizing into your understanding of this virus. WARNING: these can be graphic or disturbing. Nurse in Iran reports eight deaths. Deaths of a twenty year old with no prior health issues and two thirty year olds. Deaths are sudden and unexpected: https://twitter.com/AlinejadMasih/status/1232779487647031302?s=19 https://twitter.com/AlinejadMasih/status/1232779487647031302... Multiple children (around age 8) being wrapped into the same body bag by doctors wearing masks. https://youtu.be/sImeSvSS_60 https://youtu.be/sImeSvSS_60 Mobile crematoriums: https://twitter.com/JoeB14ck/status/1230040837255380993 https://twitter.com/JoeB14ck/status/1230040837255380993 Reports of elderly infected in Wuhan being stuffed into body bags for cremation while still alive. Please be aware that this is from NTD, a news organization that is the mouthpiece of the Falun Gong, a religious group persecuted by China, which is an absolutely biased source: https://youtu.be/YpeNO8PSuyY?t=5m39s https://youtu.be/YpeNO8PSuyY?t=5m39s (at 5:39) Another NTD report that claims China's death toll is being grossly under reported. An investigator supposedly calls a funeral home employee and enquiries about their daily volume. The employee finally relents (15m20s mark) and reports that their funeral home processed 127 in a single day. There are over 10 such funeral homes in Wuhan running 24/7. https://youtu.be/-KFxCqV1fPQ?t=15m20s https://youtu.be/-KFxCqV1fPQ?t=15m20s Forced quarantines: https://youtu.be/nNeTWX7WgwA https://youtu.be/nNeTWX7WgwA https://youtu.be/CDePjw3w0xg https://youtu.be/CDePjw3w0xg Welding families inside their homes regardless of the fire risk: https://twitter.com/Terrence_STR/status/1226535217055313921 https://twitter.com/Terrence_STR/status/1226535217055313921 Those locked in Wuhan screaming at night. (Media says these are "chants of solidarity".) https://youtu.be/opFCAWZHpzg https://youtu.be/opFCAWZHpzg I'm personally a little worried as I'm not sure why these measures would be taken over flu or a disease that only impacts the elderly (as macabre as that sounds). I've seen other videos I can't find the links to right now: - Chinese police patrolling the street with rifles that look like they're "hunting" for anyone not obeying the quarantine. - Prisoners(?) tied into a lengthy chain gang and being escorted by masked guards. - Lots of videos of people suddenly falling over dead in public. Chinese videos mostly, but also videos from Iran. - Dead bodies lining the streets covered in sheets as the videographer drives by. This one was possibly debunked as homeless people asleep. - Death rattle videos. These are tragic and horrifying.

testfoobar 7y ago

Reading the Washington Post article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/northern-californian-tests-positive-for-coronavirus-in-first-us-case-with-no-link-to-foreign-travel/2020/02/26/b2088840-58fb-11ea-9000-f3cffee23036_story.html https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/northern-californian-t... "There are indications that other hospitals could be involved in the case. Kris Concepcion, fire chief and acting public information officer in Vacaville, Calif., said county officials had issued a directive not to transport any new patients to two local hospitals — NorthBay VacaValley Hospital in Vacaville and NorthBay Medical Center in nearby Fairfield. Concepcion declined to say why those orders had been given." Are these hospitals open now?

SubiculumCode 7y ago

Having this patient at my place of work does not worry me at all. Not one bit. Time to use some of my vacation days. Note: I'm not a medical practitioner, I am a research scientist and can do my work remotely. I admire and applaud the doctors and nurse who are there, and UC Davis has some of the best.

nullc 7y ago

I'm confused about the Coronavirus mortality figures. The published numbers appear to be computed as deaths/cases. But cases is growing exponentially and deaths take time. If you use deaths/(deaths+recoveries) you get a much higher figure, but presumably recoveries take longer than deaths.

ALittleLight 7y ago
Another confounding factor is that you're more likely to identify severe cases and mild cases are less likely to get tested and confirmed.
axaxs 7y ago
This absolutely isn't accurate. The website promoting this garbage is dangerous. Nobody knows the total infected, nor the real fatality rate. But pay attention to how many on the cruise liners have died. 14% is a joke. My completely off the cuff, uneducated guess would be closer to 3%.
- javitury 7y ago
  3% fatality rate with appropriate (if not the best available) medical attention and resources
- EForEndeavour 7y ago
  I would expect a dismissal of a website as inaccurate garbage to be supported by a better counter-argument than a "completely off the cuff, uneducated guess."
- nullc 7y ago
  What website are you referring to? My comment was driven by my own experience with process estimation, though other commenters have pointed out that it's also supported by research on SARS: https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/162/5/479/82647 https://academic.oup.com/aje/article/162/5/479/82647
wcoenen 7y ago
> If you use deaths/(deaths+recoveries) you get a much higher figure You also have to take into account that mild cases are probably never detected and counted. So you are calculating the fraction of deaths among severe cases, not among all cases.

deniscepko2 7y ago

I kinda foresee this spreading in US the worst, people who work in low paid jobs like McDonalds (which requires lots of people contact) rarely take sick days there as far as i remember.