Here’s the OAN reporter at MarALago; his press briefing today was batsht efff’g crazy-dangerous. He can’t be allowed to continue to spread disinformation #COVID19 #trump #PressBriefing

Jeffrey Ghazarian from Glendora, CA, died Thursday morning at a Pasadena hospital after spending 5 days hooked up to a ventilator and battling for his life ... according to his family.

His sister says ... "He suffered a lot and put up a good fight. We will miss our Jeff everyday but we are thankful for all the fun happy memories of the times we had together."

Jeff's timeline regarding his COVID-19 infection is terrifying and should be eye-opening for people of all ages. According to his family, he flew from L.A. to Orlando on March 2 for a work conference, but stayed a few extra days to visit Disney World and Universal theme parks with friends.

We're told on March 7 he developed a cough, and the next day he coughed up blood. He flew back to LAX on March 9 ... and immediately went to the ER, where he also had a high fever.

BERKELY, Mich. (FOX 2) - A 16-month-old toddler is one of the newest cases of coronavirus reported in Michigan. For the Berkley family, the news is especially disheartening because the boy and his parents all have underlying health conditions.

"Stop taking it effing lightly, THIS IS TERRIFYING. This is our worst nightmare & completely terrifying for our household. Stay home. Please please take this seriously. This could be your child, your grandparent, your loved one," read a social media post from the family.

Knowing how dangerous COVID-19 is to people with similar conditions, the family took extra precautions to avoid getting infected. They worked from home and went out in public as little as possible.

It still wasn't enough.

While the family has self-quarantined themselves to avoid spreading the virus further, they do have good news to report. The boy's temperature has returned to normal.

Trevor Bedford
@trvrb
I've been mulling over the
@MRC_Outbreak
modeling report on #COVID19 mitigation and suppression strategies since it was posted on March 16. Although mitigation through social distancing may not solve things I believe we can bring this epidemic under control. 1/19

I've been mulling over the @MRC_Outbreak modeling report on #COVID19 mitigation and suppression strategies since it was posted on March 16. Although mitigation through social distancing may not solve things I believe we can bring this epidemic under control. 1/19

But first, the report. @neil_ferguson, @azraghani and colleagues model COVID-19 epidemic outcomes under different intensities of non-pharmaceutical, aka social distancing, interventions. 2/19

MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis
@MRC_Outbreak
UPDATE: #Coronavirus

➡more intensive interventions now needed in UK to slow down #COVID19 spread, reduce pressure on healthcare & protect those most at risk
➡️careful monitoring required when interventions relaxed

🔰Full report: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/mrc-global-infectious-disease-analysis/news--wuhan-coronavirus/

Different mitigation scenarios that include things like school closures, isolation of symptomatic individuals and quarantine of exposed household members, result in #flatteningthecurve and reducing mortality, but under the author's assumptions still result in an epidemic. 3/19

Given assumed severity of COVID-19 infections, this flattened epidemic is still severe, resulting in over 1 million deaths in the US and >250k deaths in GB, mostly concentrated in those over 60 and with underlying health conditions. 4/19

Alternatively, with stronger social distancing, the epidemic could be brought under control and effectively "suppressed". However, stopping this level of social distancing would result in a fairly rapid rebound as the population would still lack immunity to the virus. 5/19

Managing this level of social distancing required for suppression while still having a functional economy and society would be difficult and it's not at all clear that this could be maintained for the ~18 months until we have a vaccine. 6/19

This is the catch-22 as presented by the report. 7/19
However, I'm not quite that pessimistic. Although I agree that basic mitigation efforts won't stop the epidemic, I have hope that we can solve this thing by doing traditional shoe leather epidemiology of case finding and isolation, but at scale, using modern technology. 8/19

There are two main case-based strategies that I see here, both related, as well as a supporting serological strategy. 9/19

The first strategy revolves around a massive rollout of testing capacity. We believe that a significant proportion of epidemic transmission is due to mild and maybe even asymptomatic infections (science.sciencemag.org/content/early/…). 10/19

We also believe that a significant amount of transmission may occur in the window before symptoms develop (evidence from viral load dynamics
SARS-CoV-2 Viral Load in Upper Respiratory Specimens of Infected Patients | NEJM
Correspondence from The New England Journal of Medicine — SARS-CoV-2 Viral Load in Upper Respiratory Specimens of Infected Patients
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2001737
, evidence from serial intervals ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32145466). 11/19

These transmission routes can be reduced by a huge rollout of testing capacity. If someone can be tested early in their illness before they show symptoms, they could effectively self isolate and reduce onward transmission compared to isolation when symptoms develop. 12/19

This strategy of massive testing has been a cornerstone in South Korea's response (
Coronavirus cases have dropped sharply in South Korea. What’s the secret to its success?
A scary brush with Middle East respiratory syndrome led the country to set up the world’s most expansive testing program for COVID-19
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/coronavirus-cases-have-dropped-sharply-south-korea-whats-secret-its-success

) and we're now seeing their epidemic brought under control without the stringent policies put in place elsewhere. Case counts in South Korea via @covid2019app. 13/19

This rollout of testing could be achieved through at home delivery of swabs with centralized lab-based processing combined with drive-through testing facilities. There are logistics involved in getting a result quickly, but it's really just logistics, which can be solved. 14/19

The second, related, strategy is using cell phone location data combined with data on known positive cases to alert possible exposures to self isolate and get tested. Figure from @ChristoPhraser and colleagues who've considered this in detail. 15/19

This strategy targets testing capacity at most likely cases and serves to detect exposure events early, when isolation is most valuable. This cell phone location based approach is outlined carefully here:
BDI-pathogens/covid-19_instant_tracing
Quantifying dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 transmission suggests that epidemic control and avoidance is feasible through instantaneous digital contact tracing - BDI-pathogens/covid-19_instant_tracing
https://github.com/BDI-pathogens/covid-19_instant_tracing
. 16/19

A third, supporting, strategy: as the epidemic proceeds get serological assays run on as many people as possible to systematically identify individuals who have recovered and are highly likely to possess immunity. 17/19

Individuals who have serological evidence of recovery and are no longer shedding virus can fully return to the workforce and keep society functioning (especially important for those at the clinical front lines). 18/19

Together, I believe these (and other case-based) strategies can bring down the epidemic. This is the Apollo program of our times. Let's get to it. 19/19

Gov. Andy Beshear said during a news conference Wednesday the patient is 8 months old and is from Jefferson County.

He said there are very few cases of patients under age 19.

According to Beshear, the child is doing well. He said the virus doesn't affect kids in the same way the flu does.

As of Wednesday, there are 35 confirmed cases in Kentucky. One of those 35 have died.

First lady Melania Trump will appear in a series of public service announcements to communicate "the most important ways Americans can protect themselves and those most at risk,” the White House says

CBS News
@CBSNews

“If I get corona, I get corona. At the end of the day, I'm not gonna let it stop me from partying”: Spring breakers are still flocking to Miami, despite coronavirus warnings. https://cbsn.ws/33sb67i