The themes of this update will be on issues of COVID-19 spread, World Headlines, border closings, the CDC news conference, developments with fomite spread, how American Public Health institutions build a liablity law suit proof diagnostic test and how that limits tests for community spread and a new recommended COVID-19 sites, social media and videos section.
Top line, There are currently 80,420 confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide, including 2,710 fatalities as of the 24 February 2020 at 5:24 p.m. ET time hack on the BNO News corona virus tracking site (https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-cases/) There are 39 nations including China plus three “Chinese special administrative regions” (Macao, Hong Kong and Taiwan) that have reported COVID-19 infections. China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, Singapore, Italy, Iran and R.O.K. all appear to have local, or endemic, spread of the disease. Italy has spawned further spread in Spain proper, it’s Canary Islands possession, Austria, Germany, and possibly Croatia. And now Brazil in South America and Algeria reporting a case signals North West Africa have added two new regions to the Pandemic spread list. The virus has spread from Asia to Europe, North America, Australia and Africa.
All of the above meets the pre-COVID-19 WHO standard for a “Pandemic” that requiring endemic spread in multiple nations in multiple WHO regions. However, the WHO just decided that it was time to retire the term “Pandemic” because…something…[insert reasons here]. The WHO statement for doing so was a master piece of unintelligible double talk that boils down to “Lets not scare the “Normies” and set off more “Run, Hide & Hoard” panics like seized Italy, ROK and Singapore in the last few days. Meanwhile the WHO is cheering-on China’s “Hospice-Prison system for the infected” Quarantine as a “Model” in aiding China’s restarting the World economy.
World Headline Summary
o WHO warns the rest of the world “is not ready for the virus to spread…”
o CDC warns Americans “should prepare for possible community spread” of virus.
o San Francisco Mayor declares state of emergency
o Later, CDC says pandemic not a question of it, but when
o Brazil may have South America’s first coronavirus case
o Germany confirms 2nd case on Tuesday, brings total to 17
o Italy cases spike to 322; deaths hit 10
o Japan’s Shiseido tells 8k employees to work from home
o Trump Economic Advisor Kudlow tries to jawbone stock markets higher
o HHS Sec. Azar warns US lacks stockpiles of masks
o Italy Hotel in Lockdown After First Coronavirus Case in Liguria
o Algeria confirms 1st case
o First case in Switzerland
o Kuwait halts all flights to Singapore and Japan
o Iran confirms 95 cases, 15 deaths
o First case in Austria
o Spain reports 7 cases in under 24 hours, including in Madrid, Canary Islands, Barcelona
o Iran Deputy Health Minister infected with Covid-19
Pandemic Border Closures
Turkey, Iraq, Kuwait, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Georgia, Armenia, and UAE blocked border crossings by Iranians.
Russia, North Korea and Vietnam are blocking border crossings from China
Austria and Switzerlan are blocking border crossings from Italy.
El Salvador on Tuesday announced it would prevent entry of people from Italy and South Korea.
