Trump Disinfectant Fallout, WHO Doubts Idea of "Immunity Passport," Spanish Government Could Ease More Restrictions Beginning May 2
Trump Disinfectant Fallout, WHO Doubts Idea of "Immunity Passport," Spanish Government Could Ease More Restrictions Beginning May 2
Did Sweden Survive Coronavirus Without a Lockdown?
The Butcher’s Bill
2,886,408 confirmed cases worldwide
813,938 recovered worldwide
202,270 deaths worldwide
Data is current as of 3:00 p.m. Pacific time on Saturday, April 25, 2020.
Sources: Johns Hopkins, U.S. data is from the New York Times, Italian data is from the Dipartimento della Protezione Civile, Spanish data is from the Ministerio de Sanidad.
NOTE: Some of the Johns Hopkins data is broken down to the state or provincial level, rather than a figure for the entire country. In these cases, the data is marked in the column as N/A.
To see the full list of data, go to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Research Center. I also recommend checking out the World Health Organization’s COVID-19 Situation Dashboard. Italy’s Department of Civil Protection has its own Italian-centric version of the Johns Hopkins website which you can view here.
Some observations about the numbers from the past 24 hours:
§ The United Kingdom became the fifth country to reach the 20,000 deaths mark.
§ There is a significant drop in number of deaths between the UK and Germany, the country which ranks sixth in the world, but only has 5,846 deaths.
§ The global death toll passed 200,000.
§ Based on the most recent numbers, the United States, Italy, Spain, France and the United Kingdom combined account for 57.3 percent of the world’s cases and 69.1 percent of the dead.
§ According to the Spanish newspaper El País, the death toll in the country has been less than 400 for two consecutive days, and in a rare bit of good news, the country reported more recovered patients today (April 25) than new infections.
§ For additional context, see the latest numbers on how the coronavirus pandemic compares to other events in American history.
Fallout From Trump Disinfectant Comment
The general consensus, even among people within the administration (“I wanted to hide,” one adviser told CNN’s Jim Acosta), is that President Donald Trump made a colossal error with his disinfectant comments on Thursday. The ultimate evidence for this may be the President’s own Twitter account, retweeting a warning from the Centers for Disease Control.
The comment sent public health officials, company executives, and journalists into a scramble to inform the public that they should not ingest these products. It gave the President’s political adversaries another opening to attack him, and it was easily mocked online. (For those of you who don’t get the joke, it’s a parody of the cover for Nirvana’s first album, which is titled Bleach.)
But the consequences aren’t limited to a few jokes and a bad news cycle. Trump’s comment inspired a viral disinformation campaign in Nigeria, where people were getting text messages which read that the U.S. government “approved the use of disinfectants with high alcohol content and anti-microbial properties to treat patients with coronavirus,” or that Donald Trump “has given the go ahead” for disinfectants to be used in treating COVID-19. If you ever needed proof of concept for the famous phrase, “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth is putting on its shoes,” here it is (via The Daily Beast):
Even before local TV stations in Nigeria began to report the highlights of Thursday’s White House press briefing messages claiming that Trump had approved the use of disinfectants had gone viral. Those who were skeptical called physicians to confirm if it was safe to go with the U.S. president’s suggestion.
Meanwhile, the New York Daily News is reporting that there were 30 cases in New York City of possible exposure to disinfectants reported to Poison Control between 9 p.m. on Thursday and 3 p.m. on Friday – an increase from 13 cases during the same period a year ago, according to data obtained by the paper. None of them died. Elsewhere, Maryland’s Emergency Management Agency received more than 100 calls relating to people ingesting disinfectants after the President’s comments.
Fifty Thousand Dead and Counting
Read Susan Glasser’s take on the United States reaching this grim milestone.
Social Distancing and Lockdowns Are Working
The Wall Street Journal ran the numbers and found that – no surprise – projections for hospitalizations and deaths improved the most in states that implemented aggressive stay-at-home orders and other restrictions to contain the spread of the virus. Conversely, states that resisted implementing lockdowns or other measures have their virus peaks projected later.
The story is very heavy on graphics, but well worth looking at.
Bookmark This
The New York Times put together a handy graphic tracking which states are reopening and which are still under shutdown or other restrictions. It’s also worth keeping in mind that many states’ orders are currently set to expire on April 30.
The Coronavirus Dunkirk Moment
Fascinating story by Yahoo News looking at the amateur engineers, designers, and others who are designing and making medical supplies to compensate for supply shortages.
Federal Prosecutors Charge New York Store Owner with Hoarding Tons of Medical Supplies for Resale
What makes this case significant is it would be the first time a violation of the Defense Production Act is cited in a criminal prosecution. Why is this significant? The story points out: “The charges come more than a month after President Donald Trump issued an executive order making it illegal to hoard scarce medical supplies or sell personal protective equipment at inflated prices.” According to court records, the store owner was pretty brazen about it – buying face masks for 7 cents each and then reselling them for $1 a piece, an almost fourteen-fold price hike.
Wall Street Update
Disney Parks Not Expected to Reopen Until 2021
That assessment, coming from Swiss bank UBS, also projects only 50 percent attendance at the parks compared to 2019 levels. At least 43,000 unionized Disney World workers have been furloughed since April 19, though one J.P. Morgan analyst offered a bullish take that Disney’s U.S. parks might open as early as June 1, because that is the earliest date Disney is accepting reservations for. On a related note, Barron’s did an interview with Disney executive chairman Bob Iger about the company’s handling of coronavirus which ran two weeks ago that is worth reading.
Spanish Government Could Ease More Restrictions Beginning on May 2
Spaniards will be allowed to resume individual physical activities, and walks by people living in the same residence beginning on May 2, as long as conditions controlling the spread of the coronavirus remain favorable. Spanish President Pedro Sánchez made the announcement during a televised address on Saturday.
This would be the second set of restrictions to be lifted in the country after 42 days of confinement. Beginning on Sunday (April 26), minors under the age of 14 will be allowed to go out for up to one hour, under the supervision of an adult, with a limit of three children per household and would have to remain within a one kilometer radius.
The Council of Ministers will approve a plan to continue easing restrictions next Tuesday, based on assessments by government experts and recommendations from the World Health Organization. It is expected to last through the month of May and potentially into June.
“This second phase of the transition is as full of risks and dangers as the first. We do not have an infallible manual,” Sánchez said during a televised address.
Did Sweden Survive the COVID-19 Pandemic Without Shutting Down Its Economy?
Sweden’s chief epidemiologist said his country was better prepared for a possible second wave of COVID-19 because it didn’t implement a national lockdown. Anders Tegnell made the comments during an interview with BBC Radio Four. Sweden had the highest death toll among Scandinavian countries and was the only one not to order a lockdown, though Tegnell points out that half of the nation’s casualties were people in retirement homes. “We have a hard time understanding how a lockdown would stop the introduction of disease.”
Sweden did impose several restrictions, including social distancing, banning gatherings larger than 50 people, and a law banning visits to retirement homes. Use of public transportation declined, many people worked from home, and most Swedes chose not to travel during the Easter holiday weekend. But schools and restaurants remained open.
During another interview with CNBC, he estimated that as many as 20 percent of the residents of Stockholm had been infected with the virus had he thinks they may have an immunity level. It’s also worth noting the results of a recent study by Sweden’s public health agency (via Newsweek):
On Tuesday, a study by Sweden's public health agency projected nearly a third of Stockholm will have contracted the virus by early May, claiming the capital may have passed the peak of the outbreak.
According to the study based on data from random testing and cases reported to hospitals, around one third of Stockholm's population of nearly a million will be infected by May 1.
The agency's study suggested the rate of new infections in Stockholm peaked on April 15, while a decline was not yet evident from the data. The study also estimated that for each confirmed case, there were around 999 milder cases not recorded because people did not seek medical help.
Fighting Coronavirus Disinformation in Kenya
Fake news and disinformation about COVID-19 is not limited to Nigeria. Read this Al Jazeera report about the herculean efforts by Kenya Red Cross volunteers and others to educate the public with the facts and, perhaps more importantly, about what isn’t true about the virus. Among the rumors circulating in the country: that the virus only strikes the rich, that black people can’t be infected, that drinking alcohol will provide protection, and calling out remedies being touted online.
The Kenyan government has imposed a series of measures to control the spread of the virus, including suspension of travel in and out of the country, bans on religious and social gatherings, and a nationwide curfew between 7 p.m. and 5 a.m.
WHO Doubts Idea of “Immunity Passport,” Citing Lack of Scientific Evidence
The World Health Organization has called into question the viability of immunity passports and risk-free certificates, according to a scientific brief published on its website. The brief, which only provides guidance, says, “There is currently no evidence that people who have recovered from COVID-19 and have antibodies are protected from a second infection.”
The brief addresses the concept of immunity passports, an idea being pushed by certain governments to issue its citizens who have recovered from coronavirus with a document that would allow them to travel or go back to work, based on the assumption that they are now immune and protected from re-infection. Simply put: the WHO is reminding everyone that a coronavirus survivor might get sick again.
The brief concludes, “At this point in the pandemic, there is not enough evidence about the effectiveness of antibody-mediated immunity to guarantee the accuracy of an ‘immunity passport’ or ‘risk-free certificate.’ People who assume that they are immune to a second infection because they have received a positive test result may ignore public health advice. The use of such certificates may therefore increase the risks of continued transmission. As new evidence becomes available, WHO will update this scientific brief.”
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“What’s true of all the evils in the world is true of plague as well.
It helps men to rise above themselves.”
Albert Camus, The Plague