Coronavirus may force Americans to avoid crowds and cancel cruises, health official warns

[webfact]

Coronavirus may force Americans to avoid crowds and cancel cruises, health official warns

By Susan Cornwell and Nathan Layne

 

A group of people carrying medical scrubs arrive at the Life Care Center of Kirkland, a long-term care facility linked to several confirmed coronavirus cases, in Kirkland, Washington, U.S. March 8, 2020. REUTERS/Lindsey Wasson

 

WASHINGTON/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Americans, especially those who are vulnerable, may need to stop attending big gatherings as the coronavirus spreads through U.S. communities, a top health official said on Sunday, as investors braced for another volatile week in financial markets.

 

Anthony Fauci, the head of the infectious diseases unit at the National Institutes of Health, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that after initial missteps distributing tests, there should be 400,000 more tests available by Monday and 4 million by the end of the week.

 

In the United States, 19 people have died out of about 450 reported cases of coronavirus, which originated in China last year and causes the sometimes deadly respiratory illness COVID-19. The outbreak has killed more than 3,600 globally.

 

More than half of the 50 U.S. states have reported cases, including the first cases in Virginia and Connecticut on Sunday. As the outbreak spreads, daily life has been increasingly disrupted, with concerts and conferences canceled and universities telling students to stay home and take classes online.

 

New York state reported 16 new cases of the Coronavirus on Sunday, and the governor of Washington state said he was considering mandatory measures to help curb the spread of an illness that has killed 19 people in the U.S. This report produced by Zachary Goelman.

 

To contain the outbreak in China, the government quarantined millions of people for weeks. Italy has announced similar measures, locking down 16 million people in the north of the country.

 

As recently as Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would continue to hold his political rallies, which sometimes draw up to 20,000 people.

 

The Democrats competing to challenge him in the Nov. 3 presidential election, U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders and former Vice President Joe Biden, have not canceled any campaign events so far.

 

Germany, which has nearly 1,000 cases, on Sunday urged the cancellation of all events with more than 1,000 people.

 

Fauci said authorities in the United States may also need to consider steps to keep people out of crowded places if the virus continued to spread.

 

Still, he downplayed the likelihood of the type of large-scale quarantines put in place in China and Italy, while saying nothing could be ruled out.

 

"I don't imagine that the degree of the draconian nature of what the Chinese did would ever be either feasible, applicable, doable or whatever you want to call it in the United States," he said in an interview on CBS' "60 Minutes" that will air on Sunday night. "But the idea of social distancing, I mean, obviously, that's something that will be seriously considered."

 

He urged those most at risk to limit travel.

 

"If you're a person with an underlying condition and you are particularly an elderly person with an underlying condition you need to think twice about getting on a plane, on a long trip, and not only think twice, just don't get on a cruise ship," Fauci said on "Meet the Press."

 

U.S. Surgeon General Jerome Adams told CNN cases would rise, adding that the average age of death for people with the virus was 80, and the average age of those needing medical attention was 60.

 

"Unfortunately, you are going to see more deaths, but that doesn’t mean that we should panic,” he said. Communities need to “prepare for more cases so we can prevent more deaths,” Adams said.

 

In financial markets, talk about recessions and bear markets was growing as investors try to assess how badly the outbreak will damage global growth.

 

Many strategists have turned more pessimistic in recent days and are anticipating further market drops and a possible end to the longest economic expansion in U.S. history.

 

CRUISE SHIP CRISIS

The hardest hit place in the United States has been a nursing home in a suburb of Seattle and Washington state is considering mandatory measures such as banning large gatherings but not necessarily imposing massive quarantines, the governor said.

 

The cruise ship Grand Princess, barred from returning to San Francisco last week due to a coronavirus outbreak on board, will send its 2,400 passengers to at least four quarantine centers. The crew of 1,100 will be quarantined and treated on board the ship.

 

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said the number of cases in New York is now 105 and he expects that to rise as testing expands.

 

"What we are really trying to do here is avoid the massive disruption of closing everything down for two weeks the way China did, the way Italy is doing," he said.

 

Cuomo said a lawyer from Westchester County who is believed to be at the center of the outbreak there had attended a number of large gatherings, contributing to the roughly 70 people in Westchester who have tested positive.

 

"It's these large gatherings where you can expose a number of people in a very short period of time and then it's like dominoes, right, then the tree continues to expand with branches."

 

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell in Washington and Nathan Layne in New York; Additional reporting by Barbara Goldberg in New York; Writing by Lisa Shumaker; Editing by Tim Ahmann, Sonya Hepinstall and Daniel Wallis)

 

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2020-03-09

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[Tug]

Lots of conventions canceled allready and to put it mildly it would be prudent not to book a cruise lol

[Ventenio]

i want the names of all the IDIOTS who bought tickets for a cruise in the last month!!!!  i'm sure there are idiots today buying tickets.  

 

who are these morons???????????????????

[geriatrickid]

US State Department dropped this today;

U.S. citizens, especially with underlying conditions, should not travel by cruise ship. #CDC notes increased risk of #COVID19 on cruises. Many countries have implemented screening procedures, denied port entry rights to ships and prevented disembarking. https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-travel/before-you-go/travelers-with-special-considerations/cruise-ship-passengers.html?fbclid=IwAR23mRlu4-382HLuSM8i0KWQBSaZ4heDniggmxR3kBR6e2EgWiKr6B0EseM …

 

Last Friday, at the daily update, Canada’s chief public health officer advised Canadians to avoid cruises and to self-monitor for 14 days if they are arriving home from any kind of travel due to the coronavirus.

 

So far, i don't see any other specific mentions. however, as cruise ships are one of the biggest case generators for Canada and the USA, it is understandable that they both would   recommend against them.  One has to be a real idiot to take a cruise  in the next 90 days.

 

 

 

 

[Phuketshrew]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

A group of people carrying medical scrubs arrive at the Life Care Center of Kirkland

None of them wearing protective gear?

[Emdog]

"As recently as Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump said he would continue to hold his political rallies, which sometimes draw up to 20,000 people."

Silver lining to outbreak, after a fashion. "In theory, maybe a miracle will happen"

[OneMoreFarang]

4 hours ago, Ventenio said:

i want the names of all the IDIOTS who bought tickets for a cruise in the last month!!!!  i'm sure there are idiots today buying tickets.  

 

who are these morons???????????????????

The article is about Americans. That kind of answers your question.

[OneMoreFarang]

Will the USA also stop sending lots of soldiers to lots of countries all over the world?

Now that would be really good news.

Ami to home - and stay home!

[digibum]

4 hours ago, Tug said:

and to put it mildly it would be prudent not to book a cruise lol

Good advice, Corona Virus or not.  :-)

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The bungling of the CV outbreak by the U.S. current administration, starting with the president, is on par with the prior scandal over the government's ineptitude of responding to Hurricane Katrina that inundated New Orleans in 2005 and caused more than 1200 deaths.

 

Anyone not blind could see the China virus was eventually going to land in the U.S., and the country had plenty of advance warning time to prepare. But instead, Trump dawdled and downplayed the whole crisis, accusing the media of exaggerating it to cause him political damage.

 

And while that was going on, the CDC blocked U.S. university and state public health labs from being able to develop or do their own CV testing, while at the same time finally sending out the lone CDC approved CV test that turned out to be faulty.  The effective result of all that has been for the past month, scores of sick and dying Americans seeking CV tests that they couldn't obtain.

 

Then Trump sends a CV funding request bill to Congress seeking about $2.5 billion to pay for what the Trump admin thinks is going to be required, but Congress at that point ends up passing a CV bill that's involved more than 3 times as much money, some $8.3 billion USD.

 

More Americans are going to be sickened, more Americans are going to die, the damage to the economy is going to be worse, etc etc all because Trump didn't want to acknowledge that any really bad thing could happen to the country under his (lack of) leadership that might imperil his re-election prospects.

 

https://time.com/5797636/trump-botched-coronavirus-response/

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-coronavirus-response-squandered-time/2020/03/07/5c47d3d0-5fcb-11ea-9055-5fa12981bbbf_story.html

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/06/coronavirus-testing-failure-123166

 

Quote

James Lawler, a global-health expert at the University of Nebraska Medical Center’s Global Center for Health Security, where some coronavirus evacuees are being treated and the possible course of the epidemic is being modeled, said the government’s failures have been so extensive that when asked what went wrong, he parried, “What went right?”

 

Edited March 9, 2020 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[JHolmesJr]

1 hour ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

The bungling of the CV outbreak by the U.S. current administration, starting with the president, is on par with the prior scandal over the government's ineptitude of responding to Hurricane Katrina that inundated New Orleans in 2005 and caused more than 1200 deaths.

 

Anyone not blind could see the China virus was eventually going to land in the U.S., and the country had plenty of advance warning time to prepare. But instead, Trump dawdled and downplayed the whole crisis, accusing the media of exaggerating it to cause him political damage.

 

And while that was going on, the CDC blocked U.S. university and state public health labs from being able to develop or do their own CV testing, while at the same time finally sending out the lone CDC approved CV test that turned out to be faulty.  The effective result of all that has been for the past month, scores of sick and dying Americans seeking CV tests that they couldn't obtain.

 

Then Trump sends a CV funding request bill to Congress seeking about $2.5 billion to pay for what the Trump admin thinks is going to be required, but Congress at that point ends up passing a CV bill that's involved more than 3 times as much money, some $8.3 billion USD.

 

More Americans are going to be sickened, more Americans are going to die, the damage to the economy is going to be worse, etc etc all because Trump didn't want to acknowledge that any really bad thing could happen to the country under his (lack of) leadership that might imperil his re-election prospects.

 

 

Did CNN's Jeff Zucker personally dictate that nonsense to you?

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

13 minutes ago, JHolmesJr said:

 

Did CNN's Jeff Zucker personally dictate that nonsense to you?

 

What you call nonsense is what scores of public health officials and experts around the U.S. are saying about the botched U.S. response at the federal level thus far... as amply illustrated by the multiple news reports from multiple sources I included in my post.  And I could have included plenty more from all variety of sources.

 

For me personally, I would have the exact same opinion of the U.S. federal response thus far regardless of who the current president is or what political party they belong to.  But in this case, it just happens to be Trump, who made matters even worse because he as always wrongly thinks he knows better about all things than the actual experts in the subject at hand. Dangerous ignorance at its worst.

 

Edited March 9, 2020 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[zydeco]

This is the sort of man who is the president of the US. He wanted to leave passengers stranded on a cruise ship so the infection numbers would remain lower for the US and not effect him politically. This Youtube video is from the The Guardian.  

Quote

The US president has said he would rather have people remain onboard a cruise ship, which was denied entry to San Francisco over coronavirus concerns. Trump conceded on Friday that he would let others decide whether to allow the passengers to leave the Grand Princess, where 35 people have reported flu-like symptoms. Trump appeared to explicitly acknowledge his political concerns about the outbreak, saying: 'I don’t need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn’t our fault'

 

[Sujo]

7 minutes ago, JHolmesJr said:

 

Did CNN's Jeff Zucker personally dictate that nonsense to you?

Try facts. The govt has known about the virus and its issues for 3 months. In feb trump declared it was contained.

 

Now after that was proven another lie there are still not enough test kits. The govt rejected kits from WHO, yet it still has very few. Hawaii is considering buying them from japan.

 

Just what is this govt doing. What have they been doing for 3 months. Except spreading fake news that health professionals have to keep correcting.

 

The incompetence is astonishing. Im sure they will blame obama from some made up incorrect lie yet again.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

KIRO TV in Washington State has been doing a good job on reporting on the local Kirkland nursing home outbreak there, one of the first and worst CV outbreaks in the U.S. that's also linked to most of the U.S. CV fatalities thus far.

 

The following YouTube version of one of their recent reports a couple days ago focuses on the tragedy of nursing home residents being trapped there while those around them are dying, and at least as of a day or two ago, none of those remaining inside the nursing home had even been tested for CV as yet.  That particular segment begins at about 6:35 min in the video. Nursing homes, BTW, are overseen and regulated by the federal government.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QEGtjquqTA

 

 

 

Also discussed in the first part of the news report is how a day after VP Mike Pence traveled to Wash state to meet with the governor there and deliver some much needed CV aid supplies, and they both held a cordial and entirely non-partisan news conference together, where the Democratic governor was asked by the media to complain about the federal response and he declined to say anything critical on that day, Trump pops up the next day and publicly calls the Wash. governor "a snake." 

 

Trump is simply and absolutely reprehensible. In a time of crisis, a leader's job is to bring people together, focus on the task at hand, set the tone, and get things done to protect the American public -- not to deny and downplay the looming health threat, and not to engage in partisan conspiracy rants and name calling, blaming the news media and his political opponents while the federal response he's responsible for is in shambles.

 

Edited March 9, 2020 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[JHolmesJr]

41 minutes ago, zydeco said:

This is the sort of man who is the president of the US. He wanted to leave passengers stranded on a cruise ship so the infection numbers would remain lower for the US and not effect him politically. 

 

 

He has done the absolute right thing because Japan and Cambodia screwed up the 

cruise ship processing in their respective countries...there are many issues with managing such

a floating incubator.

 

All that rhetoric about him doing it for political reason is a fabrication that you have added

as your opinion....promoted by the anti trump media you are enslaved by.

 

My understanding is that the 21 or so confirmed cases on the US cruse ship will be airlifted out

for treatment and isolation while the rest are tested.  I am sure the general US populace will

sleep better knowing that the passengers on that ship will not be released into gen pop when so little

is known about their condition.

Edited March 9, 2020 by JHolmesJr

[JHolmesJr]

41 minutes ago, Sujo said:

Try facts. The govt has known about the virus and its issues for 3 months. In feb trump declared it was contained.

 

Now after that was proven another lie there are still not enough test kits. The govt rejected kits from WHO, yet it still has very few. Hawaii is considering buying them from japan.

 

Just what is this govt doing. What have they been doing for 3 months. Except spreading fake news that health professionals have to keep correcting.

 

The incompetence is astonishing. Im sure they will blame obama from some made up incorrect lie yet again.

 

This virus has proved that the whole world is "incompetent" at dealing with it.

The only way to conquer spread would be to lock the entire world up at home, close all borders,

cease all trading and business, stop all work, flights, trains, travel, visiting, shopping, walks in the park.... 

everywhere. Right from the day the first case was announced in early January. Can that be done?

 

NO!

 

All windows for prevention have expired....containment is a pipe dream...now mitigation is the only way

forward. Until then, panic needs to be actively discouraged or hospitals will be over run and even medical pros

will be too infected to care for patients. I fully understand why governments need to sound optimistic

because the alternative is too horrific to imagine.

 

So stop with the proselytising....it's tempting to keep bashing Trump because it's an election year.

If it was Biden in the hot seat I bet he would need constant reminding about what the name of the virus

was.....and that his name is Joe.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

12 minutes ago, JHolmesJr said:

 

He has done the absolute right thing because Japan and Cambodia screwed up the 

cruise ship processing in their respective countries...there are many issues with managing such

a floating incubator.

 

All that <deleted> about him doing it for political reason is a fabrication that you have added

as your opinion....promoted by the anti trump media you are enslaved by.

 

My understanding is that the 21 or so confirmed cases on the US cruse ship will be airlifted out

for treatment and isolation while the rest are tested.  I am sure the general US populace will

sleep better knowing that the passengers on that ship will not be released into gen pop when so little

is known about their condition.

 

Trump wanted to leave them all on the ship, so the outbreak could spread like it did onboard in the case of the Japan ship. Because he didn't want those cases being added to the U.S. total.

 

Instead, more sensible minds other than Trump's prevailed. The crew are going to be quarantined on the ship. And all the passengers are going to be evacuated, with those obviously sick being taken to hospitals, and the rest being taken to federal quarantine sites at several locations around the country.

 

[JHolmesJr]

8 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Trump wanted to leave them all on the ship, so the outbreak could spread like it did onboard in the case of the Japan ship.

 

That is an absurd theory which you have no evidence for.

You also left out my statement saying that the ship is being dealt with responsibly.

Nothing happens without Trumps say-so...stop making it sound like some renegade

good samaritans gave the order to evacuate the ship against trumps orders.

His designated point man the VP has approved the measures being taken.

All is proceeding in as orderly a manner as is possible.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

5 minutes ago, JHolmesJr said:

 

That is an absurd theory which you have no evidence for.

You also left out my statement saying that the ship is being dealt with responsibly.

Nothing happens without Trumps say-so...stop making it sound like some renegade

good samaritans gave the order to evacuate the ship against trumps orders.

His designated point man the VP has approved the measures being taken.

All is proceeding in as orderly a manner as is possible.

 

Trump publicly said he personally wanted to leave the people on the ship, but ended up saying he'd leave it to others to make the decision on what actually happened. What's happening now with the ship is happening despite him, not because of him. And if you actually followed the news, you'd know that.

 

Let Trump's words speak for himself, as posted earlier in this thread:

 

 

 

Edited March 9, 2020 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[JHolmesJr]

2 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

Trump publicly said he personally wanted to leave the people on the ship, but ended up saying he'd leave it to others to make the decision on what actually happened. What's happening now with the ship is happening despite him, not because of him.

I'll say it again....nothing happens without his approval.

If you followed the news you would know that.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The U.S. under Trump, bringing up the rear when it comes to CV testing:

 

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/covid-19-testing/

 

Quote

 

March 2, 2020
Dr. Matt McCarthy, a staff physician at New York-Presbyterian:

“I’m here to tell you, right now, at one of the busiest hospitals in the country, I don’t have [a rapid diagnostic test] at my finger tips.” “I still have to make my case, plead to test people. This is not good. We know that there are 88 cases in the United States. There are going to be hundreds by middle of week. There’s going to be thousands by next week. And this is a testing issue.”

 

“In New York State, the person who tested positive is only the 32nd test we’ve done in this state,” he said. “That is a national scandal. [...] They’re testing 10,000 a day in some countries and we can’t get this off the ground,” McCarthy said. “I’m a practitioner on the firing line, and I don’t have the tools to properly care for patients today.” (Video, CNBC)

 

 

Edited March 9, 2020 by TallGuyJohninBKK

[Eric Loh]

8 minutes ago, JHolmesJr said:

I'll say it again....nothing happens without his approval.

If you followed the news you would know that.

If you listen to the full transcript, Trump didn’t made the decision for the passengers to disembark. He categorically off loaded the responsibility to Mike Pence. 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The WHO had a CV test early on that it distributed to countries around the world for them to use. The U.S. specifically declined to use the WHO test, and instead embarked on its own troubled, lagging campaign to develop its own test that only right now is beginning to be widely deployed for U.S. labs and medical facilities to use for U.S. patients.

 

Quote

 

But neither the CDC nor the coronavirus task force chaired by Vice President Mike Pence would say who made the decision to forgo the WHO test and instead begin a protracted process of producing an American test, one that got delayed by manufacturing problems, possible lab contamination and logistical delays.
 

“Please provide an explanation for why the Covid-19 diagnostic test approved by the World Health Organization was not used,” Sen. Patty Murray, the ranking Democrat on the Senate health committee, who represents the hard-hit state of Washington, asked in a 3½-page letter on the testing fiasco to Pence, Health Secretary Alex Azar, CDC director Robert Redfield, and Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Stephen Hahn.
 

So far, none has been provided.

 

 

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/06/coronavirus-testing-failure-123166

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

The virus and its impacts begin to close in on Trump and his rhetoric:

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/coronavirus-case-at-cpac-brings-outbreak-closer-to-trump-threatening-to-upend-his-routine-amid-reelection-bid/2020/03/08/8e3ba384-6170-11ea-912d-d98032ec8e25_story.html

 

Quote

 

A growing sense of concern and uncertainty about the reach of the novel coronavirus has begun to take hold in the White House, after an attendee at a recent political conference where President Trump spoke tested positive for covid-19, the disease caused by the virus.

...

There is growing tension among Trump administration officials, who now view the rapidly spreading outbreak as a black swan event that could consume the president’s fourth year in office, even as Trump remains reluctant to see much cause for concern, according to White House officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the internal mood.

...

Trump’s outgoing acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, used his remarks at the event to urge Americans to turn off the television, arguing that there was too much coverage of the coronavirus. Other CPAC attendees, including Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) and media host Sean Hannity, have also mocked the level of concern over the virus. Such comments have faded as the virus has spread to more than 30 states, killing at least 21 people.

 

 

[Gervais Bilodeau]

10 hours ago, Ventenio said:

i want the names of all the IDIOTS who bought tickets for a cruise in the last month!!!!  i'm sure there are idiots today buying tickets.  

 

who are these morons???????????????????

IDIOTS is the word that came to my mine too.

[Gervais Bilodeau]

3 hours ago, spidermike007 said:

 

There is no doubt this will affect his approval rating. People will buy lies when it comes to a political agenda, but it does not apply to a health crisis. He is REALLY shooting himself in the foot on this one. Get used to saying President Biden. Goodbye Don Donald. 

 

As of now the US corona caseload has mushroomed to 554 cases, with 13 new cases in the past 24 hours, and 22 dead. Not good. At a 4% fatality rate, the country that pretends to have such good health care, is second only to Italy in the mortality column. Even Iran is managing under 3%. But, then again Iran has test kits. Congress asked for emergency funding 35 days ago, and they were denied. This is a permanent boil on the fact of this administration, and Don Donald in particular. 

16 deaths came from one location...a long term care facility for seniors. Those were caused by protocols not being followed by the staff. Without this, the death rate in USA would be similar to other countries.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

3 minutes ago, Gervais Bilodeau said:

16 deaths came from one location...a long term care facility for seniors. Those were caused by protocols not being followed by the staff. Without this, the death rate in USA would be similar to other countries.

 

I'm not sure about the "protocols" issue you claim, as I don't believe there's been any official findings of how/why the virus spread so devastatingly there at the care center -- other than the obvious that the home is a cluster of older patients with pre-existing health conditions.

 

But one thing I do know for sure -- as residents there began getting sick and then dying, none of the dozens remaining in the home were given tests for CV, in part because of the shortage of tests and in part because of what originally was a very restrictive, China-travel related requirement by the federal government on who was eligible to be tested.

[URMySunshine]

28 minutes ago, TallGuyJohninBKK said:

The virus and its impacts begin to close in on Trump and his rhetoric:

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/coronavirus-case-at-cpac-brings-outbreak-closer-to-trump-threatening-to-upend-his-routine-amid-reelection-bid/2020/03/08/8e3ba384-6170-11ea-912d-d98032ec8e25_story.html

 

 

The Republican power base always knew he was toxic but held their noses when he stole the crown and cheered up the stock market and energised his base with his rallies. Now the market is collapsing and his rallies will be gone soon - support will drain away quicker than a snowman on Pattaya beach. Him doing a runner or it will be a '25er' on him and soonest. Pence for all his faults at least has some dignity in this crisis. 

[Crazy Alex]

Coronavirus may force Americans to avoid crowds and cancel cruises

 

But then again, it may not. For now, it largely depends on how hysterical one is.