corona virus alerts - Latest cruising Information for vessels/locations/rules

[GordMay]

All 50 US states, as well as the U.S. Virgin islands, the Northern Mariana Islands, Washington, D.C., Guam, and Puerto Rico have received a federal disaster declaration.
The Department of Homeland Security and its Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) administer disaster assistance and emergency management in the U.S. Under the Stafford Act, state governors initiate requests for disaster assistance. If the President finds that a major disaster or emergency exists, FEMA activates Federal funding programs to assist in the response and recovery effort. This search includes some related disaster assistance programs administered by other Federal agencies, such as the Small Business Administration, Farm Service Agency, and Commodity Credit Corporation.
➥ https://www.federalregister.gov/disa...ons-assistance
➥ https://www.fmcsa.dot.gov/emergency/...ating-covid-19

[Sand crab]

Originally Posted by Sand crab

There are 632,878 cases in the US with 27,850 deaths.
The world has 2,047,731 cases with 133,354 deaths


Does anybody care about the stats or should I stop?

I got a mixed response on continuing so I am.
The US has 686,991 cases with 36,721 deaths
NYC has over a third of those deaths.


The world has 2,224,426 cases with 153,177 deaths.

[transmitterdan]

Originally Posted by Sand crab

I got a mixed response on continuing so I am.
The US has 686,991 cases with 36,721 deaths
NYC has over a third of those deaths.


The world has 2,224,426 cases with 153,177 deaths.

Have you seen the studies from China and the US that suggest the actual number of infected persons is somewhere between 5 and 10 times the confirmed case number?

It would be nice if the media, who love bigger numbers, would report the suspected cumulative number of infections worldwide is thought to be 10-25 million. That is likely more accurate than 2+ million confirmed cases suggest.

I wonder why no major media outlet has jumped on that bandwagon?

[transmitterdan]

Here is another report that says they think the infection rate could be 50 times higher than the confirmed cases recorded.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/hea...?ocid=msedgntp

[delmarrey]

Wuhan has finally fessed up to at least 50% more cases then reported.

I don’t know how they can keep track now with as many as are showing. In third world outskirts and jungle areas may have many more that are not known. It could be wiping out whole villages in the Amazon forest, Africa & etc.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by delmarrey

Wuhan has finally fessed up to at least 50% more cases then reported.

I don’t know how they can keep track now with as many as are showing. In third world outskirts and jungle areas may have many more that are not known. It could be wiping out whole villages in the Amazon forest, Africa & etc.

I don't think there is anything sus about the chinese numbers.
Probably the same as the UK where only hospital deaths are counted... deaths at home and in aged care aren't ... at present...

[rbk]

Originally Posted by El Pinguino

I don't think there is anything sus about the chinese numbers.
Probably the same as the UK where only hospital deaths are counted... deaths at home and in aged care aren't ... at present...

Agreed. New York just updated their numbers as well. It may take a year or more for the majority of deaths to be accounted for.

[Discovery 15797]

Originally Posted by rbk

Agreed. New York just updated their numbers as well. It may take a year or more for the majority of deaths to be accounted for.

Unfortunately, when states willfully provide inaccurate or data that is suspect it makes things much harder for an accurate accounting and leads us back into extrapolating guesses rather than interpolating estimates.

[Waveguide]

Originally Posted by TigerPaws

Solution GPS/Cell Jamming. Easy and cheap.

Cheaper yet -- wrap your phone in aluminum foil. Instant Faraday cage.

Please don't try jamming unless you think you look good in orange and would like several years of "free rent." The fines can also cost a bit more than a sheet of aluminum foil.

[Montanan]

Here's what it sounds like when a Covid-19 contact tracer calls to tell you that you might have been exposed to the coronavirus

hbrueck@businessinsider.com (Hilary Brueck)
Business InsiderApril 17, 2020

https://www.yahoo.com/news/heres-sou...173800752.html

What does it sound like when a disease detective comes calling, telling you that you might have caught someone else's COVID-19 infection, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus?

"Hello, Hilary. My name is Daniel. I work at the Vermont Department of Health. Do you have about five to 10 minutes that we could talk? Is now a good time?"

This is how Daniel Daltry, a public health contact tracer and program chief at Vermont's health department, starts a lot of his contact tracing phone calls these days.

"Is anyone around that you wouldn't want to be speaking in front of?" he asks me. "Can I take just five minutes of your time, maybe?"

"Sure," I reply.

Daltry's working quickly, and as a contact tracer, his task is two-fold.

"I work here at the Vermont Department of Health and I get a chance to interview people, talk with people that have just been diagnosed with COVID," he says. "After talking with those individuals about what they've experienced, I help them to think about who might be most at-risk for contracting this, because they've come in contact with them. During this conversation that I had, you were identified potentially as somebody that has been put at risk for having been exposed to COVID."

There's a long pause on the line, as Daltry waits for me to process what's just been said. It can be scary, shocking, or confusing to be on the receiving end of his call.

I feel my heart racing.

"I want to come up for air at that moment, because I've just put a lot of information on their plate," he says. "I have to be responsive, I have to try to feel or empathize with what it is they might be feeling. And I don't have a 'catch feeling' to have. I've got to be open and present to each and every individual that I serve, because everyone's gonna have their own reaction."

Contact tracers work quickly to notify people that they might've been exposed to COVID-19
Daltry says the opening three minutes of the call are "make or break time" to connect with a contact. Usually, things go well.

"I don't want to say too much, I don't want to say too little, but I also want to get to the top agenda item while I have their chance," he says.

Time is of the essence, because the first 48 hours after an infected person develops symptoms are crucial for halting the spread of the virus, preventing more people from getting sick by putting any potentially exposed contacts (like me) in quarantine, preventing me from infecting even more people in the community.

Daltry says because of this time crunch, once a patient is identified as COVID-19 positive, anyone who they've had sustained contact with in the two days before they developed symptoms and got tested should be notified immediately by contact tracers, that same day. Sometimes, an infected person's contacts number in the dozens, and notifying everyone becomes a massive undertaking, requiring multiple tracers on the phone.

If a contact is already feeling ill, especially if they're older or medically high risk, Daltry would recommend they go get tested swiftly.

On our call, I say I'm feeling alright, and we wrap up the chat. If this were a real life scenario in Vermont, however, I'd now be one of the 30 people being "monitored" for COVID-19, and would be asked to stay home, isolate, and monitor myself for symptoms for 14 days, starting the countdown from when I last had contact with the now-sick person. (In places with widespread disease transmission, this kind of tracing work isn't as useful, because everyone could reasonably assume they might've been exposed to the virus, and everyone is already being urged to stay home and isolate themselves.)

"Hilary, the information that I've given to you today, it's in relation to your risk of potentially contracting [COVID]," Daltry says, readying to end the call.

"At this point, I wouldn't tell you that you now have to go out and tell anyone that you might ... we don't know if you've had this. You and I had a little bit of a chance to talk about your symptoms. Right now, you are not feeling anything, and hopefully you're going to continue not to feel anything, but until you either have symptoms that are suggestive of, or until you have a positive test, I would not encourage you to go around in telling people that you have it."

[Montanan]

WHO unsure antibodies protect against COVID, little sign of herd immunity
ReutersApril 17, 2020,

https://www.yahoo.com/news/unsure-an...174606736.html

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Health Organization is not sure whether the presence of antibodies in blood gives full protection against reinfection with the new coronavirus, Mike Ryan, the WHO's top emergencies expert, told a briefing on Friday.

Ryan also said that even if antibodies were effective there was little sign that large numbers of people had developed them and were beginning to offer so-called "herd immunity" to the broader population.

"A lot of preliminary information coming to us right now would suggest quite a low percentage of population have seroconverted (to produce antibodies)," he said.

"The expectation that ... the majority in society may have developed antibodies, the general evidence is pointing against that, so it may not solve the problem of governments."

[Montanan]

While the world is focused on containing the new coronavirus, we could lose our fight against other infectious diseases, some that were on their way to being eradicated
salarshani@businessinsider.com (Sarah Al-Arshani)
Business InsiderApril 17, 2020,

https://www.yahoo.com/news/while-wor...004943242.html

Efforts to eliminate or control the spread of infectious diseases like tuberculosis, measles, malaria, polio, HIV/AIDS, among others, may be thwarted as the world focuses on the coronavirus pandemic.

The issue is global, from African countries struggling to get necessary vaccines to countries like South Korea that have robust healthcare systems, according to the Associated Press.

Resources could run out as they are being used to battle the coronavirus
John Nkengasong, head of the Africa Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told the AP that hospitals are so overwhelmed with coronavirus that they're redirecting medical staff, running short on supplies, and suspending health services.

Tolbert Nyenswah, a research associate at Johns Hopkins University, told Business Insider that hospitals on the continent lack personal protective equipment for medical staff. If a worker gets sick, the facility is likely to close, leaving an entire community of people who rely on it for care and medications at risk.

Nkengasong added the biggest concern is that resources used for other diseases would be repurposed for coronavirus or run out.

In Liberia, over 10,000 people died from other preventable diseases during the Ebola crisis
Business Insider previously reported that in China, people with other illnesses were struggling to get care as the country imposed a serious lockdown and sent healthcare workers from across the country to Wuhan to fight the outbreak.

"There are other things that are catastrophic for the population," Nyenswah told Business Insider.

Nyenswah, who previously served in Liberia's health ministry, where he battled the country's 2014-2016 Ebola crisis, spoke on how over 10,000 people died from three other preventable diseases during that outbreak because they were unable to get care.

He predicts the current coronavirus pandemic will have a much more significant death toll from other diseases.

"All the cases of death will be triple or quadruple or even ten times the COVID deaths," Nyenswah said.

He explained that millions of kids could miss out on vital vaccines that they get in childhood due to delays, leaving them vulnerable to infections from things like yellow fever, measles, and polio, especially in Africa, Asia, and southeast Asia. Others could die from diseases like HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis if their healthcare facilities where they access those necessary medications and treatments close.

"This will have longtime consequences for decades to come," Nyenswah said,

Lockdowns can keep people from life-saving medications
Rashid Ansumana, a Sierra Leone health expert who studied the Ebola outbreak, told the AP that the impact of the coronavirus's "will definitely be higher."

The Wall Street Journal also reported that people were already feeling the impact of the pandemic. Wan Ruyi, a college student with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, told WSJ she was unable to access necessary care because of the lockdown at the time, many people were unable to get refills on life-saving medications.

Emily Ricotta, a research fellow at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, previously told Business Insider that it's not uncommon to see these sorts of shortages in care for people dealing with other illnesses in times of outbreaks. When the focus is on containing an outbreak, there are fewer resources available to deal with other conditions.

"When an outbreak starts, the first response is containment," Ricotta said.

Marc Biot, director of operations for Doctors Without Borders, told the AP health providers are working to give people who have hepatitis C, HIV and Tuberculosis months worth of medicine.

"Countries that are on track to eradicate diseases like polio and measles, they may be compromised"
However, on a global level, the AP reports that struggles to get necessary vaccines where they're needed most could mean entire segments of populations could miss out on vital protection from viruses that were on their way to being eradicated.

The vaccine alliance GAVI said 13.5 million people are at risk of contracting measles, polio, and human papillomavirus. The organization also said there were 21 countries mainly in African facing shortages of vaccines because of borders closing and limited airplanes operating. Additionally, 14 "vaccination campaigns for diseases like polio and measles have been postponed."

"Countries that are on track to eradicate diseases like polio and measles, they may be compromised," Nyenswah said.

Biot told the AP that lockdowns have also made it hard to transport supplies such as necessary medication, protective gear, and oxygen.

The Congo is already dealing with new Ebola and measles outbreaks that have caused more than 6,000 deaths, according to the AP.

According to the New York Times, 100 million kids could be at risk for measles due to halted vaccine programs. There are already dealies to measles vaccines in 24 countries and concern that over 117 million children in 37 countries could miss out on the necessary immunization, The Measles & Rubella Initiative.

Door-to-door vaccinations from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation recommended were suspended, Jay Wenger, who heads polio eradication efforts told the AP.

"It is a necessary move to reduce the risk of increasing transmission of COVID-19," Wenger told the AP.

India has seen a delay in diagnosing tuberculosis patients amid lockdowns that prevent people from accessing healthcare clinics. The country has around one-third of the global tuberculosis cases.

Health inspectors in Sri Lanka that typically work to destroy mosquito breeding sites in homes have been working on tracking coronavirus cases. The country saw an increase in the mosquito-born disease like dengue fever last year, according to the AP.

Despite the need to address and limit the spread of the coronavirus, Nkengasong told the AP there still needs to be an immediate focus on addressing all the other illnesses that could run rampant and cause more deaths.

As for right now, Nyenswah recommends an approach that focuses on providing personal protective equipment to healthcare workers across the globe, especially in areas where people rely on facilities remaining open for medications, maintaining routine vaccinations alongside the efforts to stop the spread of the coronavirus.

"The time to advocate for those programs is not when COVID is over. The time is now," Nkengasong told the AP.

Nyenswah said there needs to be one health approach to dealing with infectious and emergent diseases. The One Health approach is a CDC initiative that focuses on a collaborative approach between health, political and environmental organizations on the local, regional, and international levels "with the goal of achieving optimal health outcomes recognizing the interconnection between people, animals, plants, and their shared environment."

Nyenswah explained that humans, animals, and the environment are closely linked, and disease is easier to spread from animals to humans, primarily due to environmental factors like humans pushing further into forested areas and interacting more closely with animals. To address the infectious diseases that can spread as a result, including the current coronavirus pandemic, experts in different fields and at all levels need to understand when and where a virus might emerge.

He said the focus should on "how do we look at the outbreaks and stop them at their source?"

[Montanan]

Coronavirus phone tracking app may become mandatory if not enough Australians volunteer
Rebecca Gredley
AAP
Thursday, 16 April 2020

https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/healt...atory-c-982641

Mobile phone tracking software could be compulsory if not enough Australians voluntarily download the application to help in coronavirus case tracing.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison says at least 40 per cent of the population needs to use the app to make it effective.
“My preference is to give Australians a go at getting it right,” he told Triple M on Friday.
“That’s my plan A and I really want plan A to work.”
Morrison has likened using the tracing app to national service.

“I know this would be something they might not normally do at an ordinary time but this is not an ordinary time,” he said.
“If you download this app you’ll be helping save someone’s life.”
Better contact tracing is one of three main benchmarks the government wants to meet before strict restrictions can be lifted.
The other two are a broader testing regime and a greater capacity to respond to local outbreaks.
Morrison says the app won’t be used by police as evidence to prosecute people for breaching social distancing requirements.
Privacy issues are being worked through before an opt-in app is launched.
The app is being developed based on a Singaporean version, TraceTogether.
It uses Bluetooth to plot people who had spent 15 minutes or more in close proximity to a person with coronavirus.
They then share the records with authorities when asked to be part of a tracing investigation.

[Montanan]

People arriving in the UK from abroad are not being asked to self-isolate because coronavirus is already so prevalent, Matt Hancock has told MPs.

The Health Secretary told the Health & Social Care Committee that the decision was similar to many other countries but is being kept under review.

Hancock was asked by MP Yvette Cooper why there was no guidance asking people travelling into the country to self-isolate as a precaution.

When the COVID-19 pandemic first started, some people returning from infected areas were quarantined for 14 days to protect against the spread of the illness.

Responding to Cooper’s question, the Health Secretary, said: “It is not, I’m advised by the epidemiologists, it is not an epidemiologically significant route of transmission in the UK because the current incidence is high.

“Of course, if we succeed in getting the incidence of transmission lower and much lower, which I hope we will, then you have to ask the question of how to protect the UK from people who have been in a place where that incidence of transmission is much higher.”

Hancock said the decision was “similar to many other countries who are following the science” and would be kept under review, adding: “Many things change fast in this epidemic.”

When pushed by Cooper about publishing the science behind the decision, he replied: “Very happy to ask the chief medical officer to publish the explanation behind the decision that we’re taking, absolutely.”

On March 17 the Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO) advised against all non-essential international travel as part of efforts to limit the spread of the global pandemic.

When the virus first started spreading, 32 British and European evacuees repatriated from a cruise ship were put in quarantine for 14 days after being flown home, despite testing negative to having COVID-19 before they flew back from Japan.

[El Pinguino]

Originally Posted by Montanan

Coronavirus phone tracking app may become mandatory if not enough Australians volunteer
Rebecca Gredley
AAP
Thursday, 16 April 2020
..........

Saturday 18th....
Slomo backtracks yet again...
Scroll down...
'1.59pm
Scott Morrison rules out making virus tracing app mandatory
By Fergus Hunter
Prime Minister Scott Morrison says the coronavirus contact tracing app being developed will not be made mandatory and the government will seek to convince Australians to have their movements logged.'


https://www.theage.com.au/national/v...17-p54kyw.html