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Coronavirus: Risk of spread upgraded to highest level


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The WHO has raised the risk but data shows there is not yet a global pandemic

 

The World Health Organization (WHO) has upgraded the global risk of the coronavirus outbreak to "very high" - its top level of risk assessment.

 

But the UN body said there was still a chance of containing the virus if its chain of transmission were broken.

 

WHO head Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also stressed that fear and misinformation were the biggest challenges to overcome.

 

More than 50 countries have now reported cases of coronavirus.

 

And sources within Iran's healthcare system told BBC Persian that, as of Thursday evening, at least 210 people had died from the virus. This is more than six times higher than the official government figure.

 

At a press conference in Geneva, Dr Tedros said that most cases could still be traced, and there was no evidence of the virus "spreading freely in communities".

His colleague, Dr Mike Ryan, head of the WHO's Emergency Health Programme, said that the risk level was intended to serve as a "reality check" for governments, since healthcare systems were still unprepared.

 

"You have a duty to your citizens, you have a duty to the world to be ready," said Dr Ryan.

 

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WHO head Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said fear was still the biggest challenge

What are the latest developments?

  • Globally, more than 80,000 people have been infected. About 2,800 have died - the vast majority in China's Hubei province. China confirmed another 327 cases - the lowest daily increase for a month - along with 44 deaths
  • Switzerland suspended all events with more than 1,000 participants until 15 March, including the Geneva International Motor Show
  • Iceland, Nigeria, Mexico, New Zealand, Belarus and the Netherlands all reported their first cases
  • The first British death from Covid-19 was announced - a passenger on the Diamond Princess cruise ship docked in Japan
  • Fear about the virus has continued to hit global markets. Shares have shed almost 13% of their value this week on London's FTSE, wiping £210bn ($267bn) from the value of companies on the index

What else did the WHO say?

Dr Ryan also stressed that current data information does not suggest the virus has become a global pandemic. "If we say there's a pandemic of coronavirus, we're essentially accepting that every human on the planet will be exposed," he said.

 

"The data does not support that as yet and China has clearly shown that that's not necessarily the natural outcome of this event if we take action."

 

< Watch the video at the Source >

 

Dr Tedros reiterated that the spread had the potential to become a pandemic, but cautioned against unnecessary panic.

 

"Our greatest enemy right now is not the virus itself, it's fear, rumours and stigma," he said.

 

The WHO has said proper containment, with the help of an "all government, all society approach" will help slow down rates of infection, break chains of infection and take pressure off healthcare systems around the world.

What should I do to minimise the risk?

Public health advice is to cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or sleeve when you cough or sneeze, throw away tissues immediately after use and wash your hands frequently.

 

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It is also advised to avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth with unclean hands and avoid close contact with people who are unwell.

 

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Wake up, get ready —

WHO raises global coronavirus alert as US faceplants

There are now four possible community-spread cases of COVID-19 in the US.

A pedestrian wearing a protective mask stands on Mission Street in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020. California is monitoring 8,400 people for signs of the virus after they traveled to Asia.
Enlarge / A pedestrian wearing a protective mask stands on Mission Street in San Francisco, California, on Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020. California is monitoring 8,400 people for signs of the virus after they traveled to Asia.

With the dizzying international spread of the novel coronavirus, the World Health Organization Friday announced that the global threat of COVID-19 has increased. The risk of spread and risk of impact has now risen from “high” to “very high” on a global scale, according to the organization’s latest assessments.

 

Between Thursday and Friday, five additional countries identified their first cases—Belarus, Lithuania, Netherlands, New Zealand, and Nigeria—and large outbreaks in Italy (888 cases) and Iran (388 cases) continue to export cases. So far, at least 24 cases in 14 countries link back to Italy and at least 97 cases in 11 countries link back to Iran, WHO reported Friday.

 

Worldwide, there are more than 85,400 cases and 2,924 deaths, with 53 countries reporting cases in addition to China, as of Saturday morning. While China still has over 90 percent of those cases, the daily case counts outside of China are now exceeding those within.

 

On Friday, China reported 331 new cases, while there were 1,027 cases reported elsewhere, according the WHO’s latest situation report. The largest outbreak outside of China is currently in South Korea, which has reported 3,150 cases. Italy has the second-largest cluster of cases, followed by the outbreak aboard the Diamond Princess, which has now reached 705 cases.

 

The continued spread and rising case counts outside China are “clearly of concern,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said Friday in a media briefing.

Wake up

Yet, while that spread ratchets up risk, he and his fellow experts at WHO also saw reason to be hopeful: most of the cases cropping up in new places can be clearly linked back to known contacts and clusters of cases—such as those from Italy and Iran.

 

“We do not see evidence as yet that the virus is spreading freely in communities,” the director-general, who goes by Dr. Tedros, said Friday. “As long as that’s the case, we still have a chance of containing this virus—if robust action is taken to detect cases early, isolate and care for patients, and trace contacts.”

 

And there’s clear evidence that containment can work. In addition to China’s dramatic decline in cases over this month, eight countries with identified cases have gone two weeks without reporting new cases, Dr. Tedros said. And, as of the time of publication Saturday, 15 of the 53 countries with cases were reporting only one new case. Another 19 countries with cases tallied 10 or fewer.

 

Moreover, Dr. Tedros made a point of putting the global cases in perspective: there are 6,000 or so cases among the more than 6 billion people outside of China.

 

This virus is serious and dangerous, but it can be contained, Dr. Tedros emphasized.

 

In fact, the move to increase the threat level should get that very point across, Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director of WHO’s Health Emergencies Program, said in the briefing.

 

“This is a reality check for every government on the planet: Wake up. Get ready. This virus may be on its way and you need to be ready. You have a duty to your citizens, you have a duty to the world, to be ready, and I think that’s what this alert says. It says we can avoid the worst of this, but our level of concern is at its highest.”

Not ready

Such readiness to avoid the worst has, unfortunately, not been on display in the United States, so far.

 

As of Saturday morning, the United States has reported four COVID-19 cases that may represent instances of community spread. That is, the four people may have picked up the infection from people in their own community as the virus spread undetected through the general public. In all four cases, the infected people had no known exposure through travel and had no contact with a person known to be infected.

 

It’s an alarming sign that the US—despite its prominence on the world stage and the time it has had to prepare—is failing to detect and contain the virus.

 

Among the four cases, two are in California, one is in Oregon, and another is in Washington state. Three of the cases (excluding one in California) are considered presumptive for now, meaning that health authorities in the individual states have tested the patients and found them positive, but final confirmation from CDC testing is pending.

 

The cases, if all are confirmed, bring the country’s tally to at least 66. Of those, 44 are in passengers repatriated from the Diamond Princess, and three are in people repatriated from Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began in December.

 

Thirteen cases appear to be travel-related, and two additional cases were contracted from person-to-person spread in the US from a known travel-related case.

 

The four remaining cases were possibly community spread. One of those cases—a California woman who lives in Solano County—was announced earlier this week. The news cycle was still reeling from it when, late on Friday, news broke of the other three cases.

Testing, testing

The Solano County woman’s case is particularly worrying because it highlights several weaknesses in the country’s COVID-19 preparedness. The woman reportedly checked into a local hospital with flu-like symptoms February 15. The patient was initially suspected of having COVID-19. But the woman wasn’t tested until February 25, largely due to a low availability of testing and federal recommendations that testing focus on people with known exposures (and she had no known exposure). Between that time, her condition deteriorated, and she was intubated and put on a ventilator.

 

The first clear weakness is the low availability of testing, which has mainly been done in labs run by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The agency has sent testing kits to states, but some states reported problems with their kits. The CDC has been trying to work out an unspecified glitch in the kits, but the process has been slow. So far, the CDC has reported testing 459 people, which is just a fraction of the number of people that have been tested in other countries.

 

“This has not gone as smoothly as we would have liked,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a press briefing Friday. She reported that the CDC has come up with a workaround that will allow states to increase testing.

Increased testing capacity is critical for identifying new cases and preventing further spread of the virus within the US, particularly with the possibility of community spread—and the community in which the first case was identified points to another weakness.

Suspicious spread

The first case of potential community spread occurred in Solano County, California, which just happens to be were hundreds of repatriated citizens—at high risk of carrying the virus—have been quarantined. Repatriated citizens began arriving at Travis Air Force Base, located in Solano, at the beginning of February, a week or two before the woman developed symptoms. The potential community spread near where high-risk groups of people have been housed raises the possibility that the quarantine failed.

 

That concern was reinforced by news of a whistleblower allegation that the Department of Health and Human Services sent untrained personnel without proper protective gear to handle those high-risk repatriated citizens. If true, HHS put employees at risk of contracting the virus and then spreading it to their families and communities.

 

According to the whistleblower’s complaint, 13 unprepared employees were sent to Travis Air Force Base in Solano between February 2 and February 7, when planes loaded with repatriated citizens were arriving. The complaint alleges the employees were not tested for coronavirus afterward and returned to their normal offices and duties, with some taking commercial flights back to their stations in various, unspecified parts of the country.

 

The CDC did not respond to questions from Ars regarding the potential that the quarantine at Travis Air Force Base failed.

 

The three other, potentially community-spread cases appear to be unconnected to the Solano woman, according to The Washington Post. One case is in a 65-year-old woman from Santa Clara County, California. The case in Oregon was in a person from Washington County who had spent time in an elementary school near Portland. That school has now been closed for cleaning. The case in Washington state is in a high school student from Snohomish County, just north of Seattle. That student’s school has also been closed, and students with known contact are being isolated at home for 14 days.

 

The cases are an alarming sign that the US has failed its duty to be ready and has already lost control of the virus.

Communication breakdown

Last, reports this week raised concern of yet another weakness in the country’s preparedness—that information about the virus and the situation in the United States may be being censored by the Trump administration. According to a report Friday in The New York Times, all statements and appearances from federal officials regarding the coronavirus—including, it seems, those from CDC officials—must now be filtered through the office of Vice President Mike Pence, who President Trump appointed Wednesday to lead the coronavirus response.

 

The move has reportedly buttoned up leading experts, notably Dr. Anthony Fauci, one of the country’s foremost experts on viruses and infectious disease and the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease. According to the Times, Dr. Fauci has told colleagues that the White House instructed him not to say anything else without clearance.

 

Likewise, in the CDC’s briefing Friday, Dr. Messonnier’s comments sounded more carefully vetted than normal and included a conspicuous reference to President Trump. It marked the first time the CDC had referenced the president in a briefing on COVID-19 cases, according to transcripts of the briefings.

 

“As always, President Trump’s and our number-one priority is the health and safety of the American people,” Dr. Messonnier said in her opening remarks Friday.

 

The CDC declined to a request to comment from Ars on the reported censorship.

 

According to CDC’s archive of transcripts, Dr. Messonnier had only mentioned the word “trump” on one other occasion, on February 3, when she said, “And certainly, what I’ve seen in situations like this, science should trump everything else.”

 

 

Source: WHO raises global coronavirus alert as US faceplants (Ars Technica)  

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