Coronavirus: EU health ministers meet as deaths mount -- live updates

[nitpicker]

https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-eu-health-ministers-meet-as-deaths-mount-live-updates/a-52362168

Coronavirus: EU health ministers meet as deaths mount — live updates

11:54 Japan has reported the first coronavirus death within its borders.

A woman in her 80s living in Kanagawa prefecture near Tokyo has died, Health Minister Katsunobu Kato confirmed.

Cruise ship Diamond Princess am Daikoku Pier Cruise Terminal in Yokohama (Reuters/K. Kyung-Hoon)

11:40 Outside of China, the largest cluster of coronavirus cases is on a cruise ship quarantined in a port off of Japan. 218 people on board have tested positive for the virus. Passengers and crew are likely to be held on board until February 19 at the earliest.

11:23 In other cruise ship news, the cruise ship MS Westerdam has docked in Cambodia after it was denied the right to dock in Thailand, Japan, Taiwan, Guam and the Philippines over fears that its nearly 1,500 passengers and 800 crew are carrying coronavirus. Thus far, no one on board has tested positive for the infection.

10:36 Experts were not surprised by China revising up the number of reported cases of coronavirus, virologist Professor Martin Stürmer of the IMD Laboratory for Interdisciplinary Medicine in Frankfurt has said in an interview with DW.

"We had already suspected their numbers to be too low," he said. "We had expected a higher number of cases based on our experience with other respiratory diseases. Of course now the higher number of cases in China suggests there may be higher numbers worldwide."

"We first thought it would peak around now," he said, when asked about when the outbreak would peak. "But we should now expect a peak at least two weeks from now."

10:31 German Health Minister Jens Spahn warned that the outbreak could lead to a shortage of medicine in Europe, where many of the chemicals used in pharmaceutical products are produced.

10:20 Organizers of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics have once again said they have no intention of cancelling or postponing the Olympic games.

"I would like to make it clear again that we are not considering a cancellation or postponement of the games. Let me make that clear," organizing committee president Yoshiro Mori said to top IOC officials gathered in Tokyo on Thursday.

The games are set to open in July, with the Olympic torch relay to begin in Tokyo next month.

10:15 The chief of the Communisty Party in Hubei province, where the outbreak started, has been stripped of his post. Jian Chaoliang is seemingly the highest-ranking official to have been ousted over the local government's reaction to the outbreak. He will be replaced by the former mayor of Shanghai, who is a protegé of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

10:03 German Health Minister Jens Spahn has said that it "doesn't make sense" for Germany to impose coronavirus-related travel restrictions. Speaking at an extraordinary meeting of EU health ministers in Brussels on Thursday, Spahn said that because of the EU's open-border policies, a national decision wouldn't be effective.

It is important that the bloc make such decisions together, he said.
(snip)

[PA Democrat]

1. "President" Trump is too busy carrying out his revenge campaign to take action

to protect Americans.

[dewsgirl]

2. Thank you for the link, bookmarking. I'm always looking

for good info, in Coronavirus.

[Squinch]

4. Dewsgirl, here's the Johns Hopkins tracker. Lots of info:

https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

[dewsgirl]

6. Thank you.

[Silver1]

10. And this one ...

Scientists talking ... https://mobile.twitter.com/i/lists/1220869298631200769

[Lefta Dissenter]

11. Oh, thanks for that one!

I hadn’t seen that before. I’m not much of a Twitterer, but I can fumble my way around on it.

[Silver1]

12. I don't have a twitter account ...

but it doesn"t matter as you can still link to articles. I've found the newest news is there first.

[Lefta Dissenter]

13. I've had a twitter account for years!

And my tweet count is all the way up to 22

[dewsgirl]

15. Thank you, I'm a bit of a breaking news junkie, Twitter really is

the fastest for breaking news. The problem I'm having, with politics I find it very easy to differentiate real and fake news. This is harder, different countries have different agendas, I admittedly have very little knowledge of.
Good info, coming out of unverified sources, fake news coming out of verified sources, it's all very overwhelming.

[Squinch]

3. Big jump on the Johns Hopkins number for tracked cases

last night. Went from 45000 to 60000.

The cases outside China seem to be doubling every 6 days. That puts us into the millions of cases outside China by April.

[dewsgirl]

7. Hubei province reported 15,000 new cases last night, it was

pedictably at around 3,000 per day and the deaths doubled from the previous day.
They changed the way they were testing, the nuclei test was giving false negatives in 50-70 percent of cases on the first test. So now they are using CT scans, I believe.

[Squinch]

9. Holy cow! False negatives, all walking around in the world.

[dewsgirl]

14. They accidentally released one in San Diego, I believe.😳

This is all deeply.... terrifying, unsettling, alarming, actually words haven't been invented for situation rapidly unfolding at the moment.

[Squinch]

16. I agree. Lots of people saying, "Nothing to see here, not as bad as the flu," etc.

But the numbers are showing they are dead wrong. Pardon the pun.

[dewsgirl]

17. I learned the other day, guess what the newspaper's said in

1919, before the Spanish Flu got a foothold? You got it, they compared it to the flu.
You don't lock down over 400,000,000 people because of the flu. I've been following very closely, it looks very, very bad. I watched Contagion yesterday, for the first time since I watched it in the theatre. This has the potential to be worse, I certainly hope not of course.

[Act_of_Reparation]

18. What's your metric?

Lethality? Virulence? Pathogenicity? Transmissibility?

There were 22 million cases of flu in the most recent season alone. Wuhan isn't remotely close to making that kind of international impact.

[Squinch]

19. "Nothing to see here!"

[Act_of_Reparation]

20. I didn't say there was nothing to see.

I'm asking you to clarify why you think Wuhan is worse than the flu.

[Squinch]

21. I've been through this conversation before with other

eminently sensible armchair epidemiologists. No matter what I have said they have pointed out how the flu was just lots worse and there is nothing to see here.

So forgive me if I don't go down that bunny hole with you.

[Act_of_Reparation]

22. Are you a professional epidemiologist?

[Squinch]

23. Have a lovely day!

[Act_of_Reparation]

24. I see.

Well. Enjoy your freakout, I guess. Don't forget to wash your hands.

[spinbaby]

5. it's incredibly contagious

Yes, there are only a few cases outside of China, but a month ago, there were only a few cases in China. This is an easily-spread virus with a long incubation period, so it’s likely already spread in areas we don’t know yet.

[dewsgirl]

8. I believe, it certainly is.