Category: Health & Medicine

Novel Coronavirus(2019-nCoV)
Situation Report – 20

SITUATION IN NUMBERS
total and new cases in last 24 hours
Globally
37 558 confirmed (2676 new)
China
37 251 confirmed (2657 new)
6188 severe (87 new)
812 deaths (89 new)
Outside of China
307 confirmed (19 new)
24 countries
1 death

Clinical Characteristics of 138 Hospitalized Patients With 2019 Novel Coronavirus–Infected Pneumonia in Wuhan, China

Key Points

Question  What are the clinical characteristics of hospitalized patients with 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)–infected pneumonia (NCIP) in Wuhan, China?

Findings  In this single-center case series involving 138 patients with NCIP, 26% of patients required admission to the intensive care unit and 4.3% died. Presumed human-to-human hospital-associated transmission of 2019-nCoV was suspected in 41% of patients.

Meaning  In this case series in Wuhan, China, NCIP was frequently associated with presumed hospital-related transmission, 26% of patients required intensive care unit treatment, and mortality was 4.3%.

Abstract

Importance  In December 2019, novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)–infected pneumonia (NCIP) occurred in Wuhan, China. The number of cases has increased rapidly but information on the clinical characteristics of affected patients is limited.

Objective  To describe the epidemiological and clinical characteristics of NCIP.

Design, Setting, and Participants  Retrospective, single-center case series of the 138 consecutive hospitalized patients with confirmed NCIP at Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University in Wuhan, China, from January 1 to January 28, 2020; final date of follow-up was February 3, 2020.

Exposures  Documented NCIP.

Main Outcomes and Measures  Epidemiological, demographic, clinical, laboratory, radiological, and treatment data were collected and analyzed. Outcomes of critically ill patients and noncritically ill patients were compared. Presumed hospital-related transmission was suspected if a cluster of health professionals or hospitalized patients in the same wards became infected and a possible source of infection could be tracked.

Results  Of 138 hospitalized patients with NCIP, the median age was 56 years (interquartile range, 42-68; range, 22-92 years) and 75 (54.3%) were men. Hospital-associated transmission was suspected as the presumed mechanism of infection for affected health professionals (40 [29%]) and hospitalized patients (17 [12.3%]). Common symptoms included fever (136 [98.6%]), fatigue (96 [69.6%]), and dry cough (82 [59.4%]). Lymphopenia (lymphocyte count, 0.8 × 10⁹/L [interquartile range {IQR}, 0.6-1.1]) occurred in 97 patients (70.3%), prolonged prothrombin time (13.0 seconds [IQR, 12.3-13.7]) in 80 patients (58%), and elevated lactate dehydrogenase (261 U/L [IQR, 182-403]) in 55 patients (39.9%). Chest computed tomographic scans showed bilateral patchy shadows or ground glass opacity in the lungs of all patients. Most patients received antiviral therapy (oseltamivir, 124 [89.9%]), and many received antibacterial therapy (moxifloxacin, 89 [64.4%]; ceftriaxone, 34 [24.6%]; azithromycin, 25 [18.1%]) and glucocorticoid therapy (62 [44.9%]). Thirty-six patients (26.1%) were transferred to the intensive care unit (ICU) because of complications, including acute respiratory distress syndrome (22 [61.1%]), arrhythmia (16 [44.4%]), and shock (11 [30.6%]). The median time from first symptom to dyspnea was 5.0 days, to hospital admission was 7.0 days, and to ARDS was 8.0 days. Patients treated in the ICU (n = 36), compared with patients not treated in the ICU (n = 102), were older (median age, 66 years vs 51 years), were more likely to have underlying comorbidities (26 [72.2%] vs 38 [37.3%]), and were more likely to have dyspnea (23 [63.9%] vs 20 [19.6%]), and anorexia (24 [66.7%] vs 31 [30.4%]). Of the 36 cases in the ICU, 4 (11.1%) received high-flow oxygen therapy, 15 (41.7%) received noninvasive ventilation, and 17 (47.2%) received invasive ventilation (4 were switched to extracorporeal membrane oxygenation). As of February 3, 47 patients (34.1%) were discharged and 6 died (overall mortality, 4.3%), but the remaining patients are still hospitalized. Among those discharged alive (n = 47), the median hospital stay was 10 days (IQR, 7.0-14.0).

Conclusions and Relevance  In this single-center case series of 138 hospitalized patients with confirmed NCIP in Wuhan, China, presumed hospital-related transmission of 2019-nCoV was suspected in 41% of patients, 26% of patients received ICU care, and mortality was 4.3%.

2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in the U.S.

Updated February 7, 2020

CDC is closely monitoring an outbreak of respiratory illness caused by a novel (new) coronavirus named 2019-nCoV. The outbreak first started in Wuhan, China, but cases have been identified in a growing number of other international locations, including the United States. This page will be updated regularly on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays.

People Under Investigation (PUI) in the United States*†

People under Investigation (PUI) in the United States

Positive	12
Negative	225
Pending§	100
Total	337

Coronavirus Cases On Japan Cruise Ship Treble To 61

I first heard of this on Monday when the count was 10, including 2 U.S. citizens out of 428 aboard. Yesterday, it was 20, including 8 U.S. citizens.
Something new every day…………

Another 41 people on a cruise ship quarantined off Japan have the new coronavirus, the country’s health minister said Friday, confirming more on board will now be tested for the illness……..

Japanese authorities have said the ship’s quarantine may last until February 19, with passengers required to stay inside their cabins in a bid to prevent new infections.

Novel Coronavirus(2019-nCoV)
Situation Report – 17

SITUATION IN NUMBERS
total and new cases in last 24 hours
Globally
28 276 confirmed (3722 new)
China
28 060 confirmed (3697 new)
3859 severe (640 new)
564 deaths (73 new)
Outside of China
216 confirmed (25 new)
24 countries
1 death

Li Wenliang: Coronavirus kills Chinese whistleblower doctor

A Chinese doctor who tried to issue the first warnings about the deadly coronavirus outbreak has died, the hospital treating him has said.

Li Wenliang contracted the virus while working at Wuhan Central Hospital.

He had sent out a warning to fellow medics on 30 December but police told him to stop “making false comments”.

There had been contradictory reports about his death, but the People’s Daily now says he died at 02:58 on Friday (18:58 GMT Thursday).

The virus has killed 636 people and infected 31,161 in mainland China, the National Health Commission’s latest figures show.

The death toll includes 73 new deaths reported on Thursday…….

What is Li Wenliang’s story?

Dr Li, an ophthalmologist, posted his story on Weibo from a hospital bed a month after sending out his initial warning.

He had noticed seven cases of a virus that he thought looked like Sars – the virus that led to a global epidemic in 2003.

On 30 December he sent a message to fellow doctors in a chat group warning them to wear protective clothing to avoid infection.

Four days later he was summoned to the Public Security Bureau where he was told to sign a letter. In the letter he was accused of “making false comments” that had “severely disturbed the social order”.

He was one of eight people who police said were being investigated for “spreading rumours” Local authorities later apologised to Dr Li.

Pentagon designates a 5th US military base for Chinese coronavirus evacuees

The Pentagon is using Camp Ashland in Nebraska to quarantine up 75 individuals possibly infected with the coronavirus, the Defense Department announced Wednesday.

Americans evacuated overseas in need of quarantine will be flown to a remote spot at Eppley Airfield in Omaha as soon as Thursday, according to Defense Secretary Mark Esper, and will be transported to the camp.

“DOD personnel will not be in direct contact with the evacuees and will minimize contact with personnel supporting the evacuees,” the announcement read. “Should routine monitoring of the evacuees identify ill individuals, [the DepartmentHealth and Human Services] HHS has procedures in place to transport them to a local civilian medical facility. HHS will also ensure that no evacuated personnel are transferred to any DOD installation if they are infected or ill.”

Nebraska National Guard officials have prepared three buildings with 85 beds at the camp, and Guard officials said evacuees won’t be interacting with guardsmen or employees there.

The HHS also said that planes will arrive at bases in California and Texas. All passengers will be screened for symptoms and are subject to 14 days of mandatory quarantine. It typically takes about two weeks before seeing symptoms of the coronavirus, which part of the reason it has spread so fast.

Novel Coronavirus(2019-nCoV)
Situation Report – 15

• No new countries reported cases of 2019-nCoV in the 24 hours since the previous situation report.

SITUATION IN NUMBERS
total and new cases in last 24 hours
Globally
20630 confirmed (3241 new)
China
20471 confirmed (3235 new)
2788 severe (492 new)
425 deaths (64 new)
Outside of China
159 confirmed (6 new)
23 countries
1 death

No change in the U.S.

2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in the U.S.

Health officials confirm 6 cases of novel coronavirus in California

SACRAMENTO, Calif – According to the California Department of Public Health, they have confirmed a new case of novel coronavirus 2019 in Santa Clara County on Sunday.

In addition, two more cases have been confirmed in San Benito County, bringing California’s number of confirmed cases to six. This information is confirmed by the Santa Clara County Public Health Department, the San Benito County Public Health Department and the U. S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention laboratory.

hose sickened are husband and wife, and both are 57 years of age. One spouse traveled to China and one who did not. This marks the first instance of close household person-to-person transmission of novel coronavirus in California. There is no evidence of person-to-person transmission in the general public in California.

Currently, the California Department of Public Health confirms a total of six cases of novel coronavirus in California: two people in Santa Clara County, two people in San Benito County, one person in Los Angeles County and one person in Orange County have tested positive for novel coronavirus 2019.

This brings the U.S. total to 11.

Coronavirus: scientists identify possible new mode of transmission in human faeces

Not surprising as the virus that causes polio uses the same vector. I guess we’ll have to write off San Francisco now.

Novel Coronavirus(2019-nCoV)
Situation Report – 12

SITUATION IN NUMBERS
total and new cases in last 24 hours
Globally
11953 confirmed (2128 new)
China
11821 confirmed (2102 new)
1795 severe (268 new)
259 deaths (46 new)
Outside of China
132 confirmed (26 new)
23 countries (4 new)

Notable Epidemiological Events Reported in the Last 24 Hours

In France, for the first time outside China, a healthcare worker was diagnosed as being ill with 2019-nCoV acute respiratory disease.
The health worker treated two patients who were later identified as probable cases.
The first instance of third-generation human-to-human transmission outside China has been identified, in an individual who was exposed to a confirmed case from the cluster in Bavaria, Germany.
For the first time, a case was exported from a country other than China: a patient was identified in South Korea following their exposure in Japan to a confirmed case.
In the last 24 hours, additional instances of human-to-human transmission outside China were reported:
in Japan, a tour guide who is part of the same cluster of Japanese cases who had contact with tourists from Wuhan;
in Germany, a case that is part of the cluster in Bavaria;
and in Thailand, a taxi driver who had no travel history to China.

Epidemiological link to Hubei Province
The outbreak of 2019-nCoV is still largely centered around Hubei Province.
In China, 60.5% of all cases since the start of the outbreak have been reported from Hubei Province. The remaining 39.5% of cases have been reported from 33 provinces, regions and cities. After Hubei Province, the second largest number of cases has been reported from Zhejiang Province (599 cases).
Of the 132 cases identified outside China, 14 were due to secondary transmission outside China. Of the remaining cases, travel history is available for 101 of them: all 101 had travelled to China in the 14 days before illness onset. Of the 81 for whom the exact destination in China was known, all had travelled to Hubei province.

Countries, territories or areas with reported confirmed cases of 2019-nCoV. Data as of 1 February 2020
WHO Regional Office Country/Territory/Area Confirmed Cases
Western Pacific
China* 11821
Japan 17
Republic of Korea 12
Viet Nam 6
Singapore 16
Australia 12
Malaysia 8
Cambodia 1
Philippines 1
South-East Asia Thailand 19
Nepal 1
Sri Lanka 1
India 1

Region of the Americas
United States of America 7
Canada 4

European Region
France 6
Finland 1
Germany 7
Italy 2
Russian Federation 2
Spain 1
Sweden 1
United Kingdom 2

Eastern Mediterranean
United Arab Emirates 4

Total Confirmed cases Total 11953

Coronavirus spread now a global emergency declares World Health Organization

Statement from the Press Secretary Regarding the President’s Coronavirus Task Force

China counts 170 virus deaths, new countries find infections

BEIJING (AP) — China counted 170 deaths from a new virus Thursday and more countries reported infections, including some spread locally, as foreign evacuees from China’s worst-hit region returned home to medical observation and even isolation.

India and the Philippines reported their first cases, in a traveler and a student who had both been in Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the new type of coronavirus first surfaced in December. South Korea confirmed a case that was locally spread, in a man who had contact with a patient diagnosed earlier.

Locally spread cases outside China have been a worrying concern among global health officials, as potential signs of the virus spreading more easily and the difficulty of containing it. The World Health Organization is reconvening experts on Thursday to assess whether the outbreak should be declared a global emergency.

The new virus has now infected more people in China than were sickened there during the 2002-2003 outbreak of SARS, another type of coronavirus.

Thursday’s figures for mainland China cover the previous 24 hours and represent an increase of 38 deaths and 1,737 cases for a total of 7,711. Of the new deaths, 37 were in Hubei province, of which Wuhan is the capital, and one was in the southwestern province of Sichuan.

Three of Japan’s confirmed cases were among a group of evacuees who returned on a government-chartered flight from Wuhan on Wednesday. Japan’s foreign ministry said a second flight carrying 210 Japanese evacuees landed Thursday at Tokyo’s Haneda airport. Reports said nine of those aboard the flight showed signs of cough and fever.

India’s health ministry said a student in Kerala state who had been studying in Wuhan was confirmed to have the virus after returning home during the Lunar New Year break. Philippine health officials say a woman who traveled to the country from Wuhan via Hong Kong had tested positive.

Vietnam, meanwhile, confirmed three new cases on Thursday— all people returned from Wuhan — bringing its total to five. The patients, who are receiving treatment in Hanoi and Thanh Hoa provinces, are all in stable condition, Do Xuan Tuyen, deputy minister of health, said in a statement.

The United States evacuated 195 Americans from Wuhan who are being tested and monitored at a Southern California military base. A statement from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing said additional evacuation flights were being planned for Monday or surrounding days.

Two hundred Americans to face quarantine in California

Some 200 US citizens are due to be quarantined in California after arriving from Wuhan, China amid the coronavirus oubreak.

The passengers, mostly diplomats, were evacuated via a chartered flight that landed on US soil on Wednesday.

They will be quarantined for at least 72 hours, but could be kept isolated for up to two weeks if they have any symptoms, officials said.

The flight landed at a US air base near Riverside, California.

Earlier, the flight stopped in Anchorage, Alaska, to refuel while the 201 were given an initial screen for symptoms. None exhibited any signs of the coronavirus, according to the state’s chief medical officer. Five cases of coronavirus have been confirmed in the US as of Tuesday.

The Department of State, which chartered the flight, said places aboard were offered to government workers, with unfilled seats sold to US citizens on a “reimbursable basis”, though it was unclear if the agency was offering to pay back the reported $1,000 per ticket cost.

It was originally scheduled to land at the civilian Ontario International Airport, some 30 miles (48km) from Los Angeles, but was diverted to the March Air Reserve military base.

The Ontario airport had prepared for the arrival of the chartered flight on Tuesday by setting up showers, bathrooms and beds in a hangar. The decision to move the flight to the air base came that evening.

The switch was made for logistical reasons, Curt Hagman, a San Bernardino county official said.

Yeah, the logistic idiocy of housing these people in a ‘hurry-up’ barracks at a public airport instead of flying them direct to a military base with the attendant security already in place.

WHO Has Admitted an Error in Its Assessment of Wuhan Coronavirus Risk.

The World Health Organization, which has sometimes been criticised for its handling of past disease outbreaks, admitted an error on Monday in its risk assessment of China’s deadly virus.

The Geneva-based UN agency said in a situation report late Sunday that the risk was “very high in China, high at the regional level and high at the global level.”

In a footnote, the WHO explained that it had stated “incorrectly” in its previous reports on Thursday, Friday and Saturday that the global risk was “moderate”.

The correction of the global risk assessment does not mean that an international health emergency has been declared.

The WHO on Thursday stopped short of declaring the novel coronavirus a public health emergency of international concern – a rare designation used only for the worst outbreaks that would trigger more concerted global action.

The virus, which was first identified in the city of Wuhan in China on December 31, has since infected more than 2,700 people worldwide, including a few cases identified in over a dozen other countries.

Eighty-one people have died – all of them in China.

A ‘sizeable’ mistake

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who is visiting China this week to discuss ways of containing the outbreak, came under intense questioning from reporters on Thursday over his decision not to declare the emergency.

Some reporters asked whether the decision was politicised.

At the briefing at WHO headquarters, however, Tedros had said that the designation could be changed at any moment and that the global risk from the outbreak was “high”.

“This is an emergency in China but it has not yet become a global health emergency. It may yet become one,” he said.

“WHO’s risk assessment is that the outbreak is a very high risk in China, and a high risk regionally and globally.”

Germany and Japan Report First Coronavirus Cases in People Who Haven’t Visited China.

Germany, Japan, and Taiwan have all reported the first cases of a new SARS-like virus in people who haven’t recently visited China. The announcements, made on Tuesday, come as the number of confirmed cases of 2019-nCoV worldwide reached 4,587 and the death toll hit 106.

The first person to contract the virus in Germany reportedly got it from a “Chinese colleague” while the two were attending a work training session in the state of Bavaria one week ago, according to German state media outlet DW. The 33-year-old patient, who’s from the town of Starnberg, roughly 18 miles from Munich, was infected by a woman who had been in Wuhan recently to visit her parents. The man, an employee of car parts supplier Webasto, is in a “medically good state,” reports DW.

In Japan, a man in his 60s has also contracted the new coronavirus, according to Japanese news outlet NHK. The unnamed man has not recently traveled to China, but reportedly works as a tour bus driver and came in contact with tourists from Wuhan, the epicenter of the virus outbreak, at least twice this month.

The Japanese patient lives in Nara prefecture in western Japan and first developed symptoms on January 14 and was hospitalized on January 25, according to the Strait Times. The man’s condition has not been released.

Taiwan, which has eight confirmed cases of the virus, also reported its first case of human-to-human transmission outside of China. The patient is a man in his 50s was infected by his wife who had recently been working in China. The man is in stable condition, according to a new report from Reuters. Taiwan has placed restrictions on people traveling from China and now bans the export of facemasks as it tries to control the spread of the new virus…………

J&J Scientific Officer ‘Pretty Confident’ They Can Create Coronavirus Vaccine as Outbreak Widens

Johnson & Johnson’s chief scientific officer, Dr. Paul Stoffels, told CNBC on Monday that he believes the drugmaker can create a vaccine in the coming months to fight against the fast-spreading coronavirus.

But he said it could take up to a year to bring it to market.

“We have dozens of scientists working on this so we’re pretty confident we can get something made that will work and stay active for the longer term,” said Stoffels, also vice chairman of the executive committee, in a “Squawk Box” interview.

“We’ll see in the next few weeks how this goes,” he added. Stoffels confirmed the company started working on a coronavirus vaccine two weeks ago.