Emergence of a Deadly Coronavirus

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Interview with a virologist on COVID-19

Currently in the USA the death rate of confirmed cases is at 2.72% in order to reach 200,000 deaths they pedicted you will need 7,354,000 confirmed cases if the death rate holds. From March 25th to April 4 caaes have gone from 83.8k cases to 311.5k cases how feasible is it that 7 million people out if 330 million will get confirmed as having the virus. The death rate has gone up it was holding at 1.5% for a while.

The coronavirus death rate currently in most countries is just a measure of how many people are being tested, because the number of cases detected goes up when test numbers go up.

The death rate goes up whenever testing slows and goes down when testing speeds up.

Governments could very easily put a stop to the panic if they tested significantly more people. The death rate would quickly dive to flu, or less than flu, levels.

But some countries seem reluctant to test people other than those already showing flu-like acute respiratory disease symptoms, in whom severe/critical illness followed by death is most probable ...

A top health official warned Saturday that the U.S. could see a dramatic increase in coronavirus deaths during the next week in hard-hit areas such as New York, Detroit and Louisiana.

Data show that several hundred people per day could die in New York alone in the next six or seven days, said Dr. Deborah Birx, coordinator of the White House coronavirus task force. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo estimated as many as 700 a day when the peak hits, she said.

Speaking of New York, Detroit and Louisiana, Birx said, “They are predicting in those three hotspots, all of them hitting together in the next six to seven days."

Birx said places like Pennsylvania, Colorado and Washington, D.C., also are a concern because they are "starting to go on that upside" of the coronavirus mortality curve.

“This is the moment to not be going to the grocery store, not going to the pharmacy, but doing everything you can to keep your family and your friends safe,” she said.

France reported its deadliest day from the coronavirus amid tentative signs that the pandemic may be easing in Spain and Italy.

The health ministry in Paris reported 588 hospital deaths, the most yet, bringing the figure to 5,091 since the beginning of the outbreak. In contrast, new infections slowed and fatalities declined in Spain for the first time in four days, as infections stabilized in Italy. Together, the three countries account for more than half the deaths worldwide in the pandemic.

Austria could become one of the first in the region to loosen restrictions that have shut down much of public life. Chancellor Sebastian Kurz’s government will review data and consider a plan in coming days to gradually restart the economy, the Austrian leader told parliament in Vienna on Friday.

“Let’s not jump to conclusions because there are some positive signals,” Kurz said. “I can promise you, if the numbers support it, we’ll do what we can to return to normality step by step.”

Despite the pockets of improvement, governments have little leeway to unwind lockdowns that have devasted the region’s economy. IHS Markit said its monthly measure of services and manufacturing in the euro area points to an annualized contraction of about 10%. With new business, confidence and employment all down, there is “worse inevitably to come in the near future,” it said.

Signs emerged that squabbling national leaders are coalescing around an aid package. Euro-area finance ministers are set to agree on a coronavirus aid package of 500 billion euros ($540 billion) next week, the group’s leader, Portugal’s Mario Centeno told Sueddeutsche Zeitung.

Germany is planning to set up an extra 300 billion-euro aid program to help small- and medium-sized companies, and Switzerland doubled the amount of state credit guarantees for businesses to 40 billion francs ($41 billion).

In another positive development, German Chancellor Angela Merkel left her precautionary quarantine. After ending 12 days in voluntary self-isolation in Berlin, Merkel will continue to observe social-distancing standards, government spokesman Steffen Seibert told reporters.

The chancellor, who this week prolonged a nationwide lockdown until April 19, addressed the public Friday from the chancellery for the first time since the quarantine, making a plea to stay home and avoid social contact through the Easter holiday.

Even though a slight slowing of the spread of the disease offers “some hope,” she said it was far too early to set a target date for easing restrictions.

I would suspect a nation like Australia could easily manufacture enough to supply their entire nation within a weeks time by volunteers provided they can obtain the materials needed.

That may be true but most people are not blooming idiots.

Every essential worker in NYC is wearing a mask. Every store employee from what I’ve seen.

At least 3/4s of people in the streets are wearing masks.

I can never understand the logic of someone genetically engineering a virus to kill people. Why would you want to extinguish the human race? I think this is an elitist phantasy. Somehow they think they might kill off the masses but then they would be the ones that survive. "Murphy's law" always says otherwise.

I remember reading about a great famine that struck the Middle East several hundred years ago. There were many wealthy families that had a multitude of servants. The families let their servants go and fend for themselves. Months later when they entered the houses of these wealthy families, they found the occupants all dead. Yet there was food in their pantries. The problem was that these individuals had never cooked a meal in their lives, they did not know how to cook and as a result, they starved to death.

Former NFL kicker Tom Dempsey, who played in the NFL despite being born without toes on his kicking foot and made a record 63-yard field goal, died late Saturday while struggling with complications from the new coronavirus, his daughter said. He was 73 years old.

The Times-Picayune/The New Orleans Advocate first reported Dempsey's death. Ashley Dempsey said Sunday that her father, who has resided in an assisted living home for several years after being diagnosed with dementia, tested positive for the coronavirus a little more than a week ago.

The Orleans Parish coroner has yet to release an official cause of death.

Dempsey’s game-winning field goal against Detroit on Nov. 8, 1970, stood as an NFL record for 43 years until the Broncos’ Matt Prater broke it with a 64-yarder in Denver in 2013.

Dempsey spent 11 seasons in the NFL: His first two seasons were with New Orleans (1969-70), the next four with Philadelphia, then two with the Los Angeles Rams, one with the Houston Oilers and the final two with Buffalo. He retired after the 1979 season.

Marianne Faithfull has been hospitalised in London with coronavirus.

The singer, who became famous during the “swinging London” scene of the 1960s and has had a respected (and occasionally troubled) career since, is said to be stable and responding to treatment, according to her representatives.

Her friend, the performer Penny Arcade, told Rolling Stone Faithfull had self-isolated following a cold, and then checked herself into hospital last Monday, where she tested positive for Covid-19. She has since contracted pneumonia.

Faithfull, who is 73, has had various health issues in the past. She suffered from anorexia during a spell of homelessness in central London in the early 1970s, when she was also addicted to heroin. In 2006, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent successful surgery. In 2007, she announced she had hepatitis C, diagnosed 12 years previously. She also has arthritis, and has had other joint issues, including a hip injury which became infected after surgery and forced her to cancel a 2015 tour.

Apart from a decade-long fallow period following her 1960s breakthrough, she has steadily released music throughout her life. Her most recent album was 2018’s Negative Capability, described as “a masterly meditation on ageing and death” in a five-star Observer review.

Are you talking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Fam ... nt_Lebanon