Wuhan Virus Watch: U.K. PM Boris Johnson Hospitalized
Bronx Zoo tiger tests positive. Australia receives defective masks from China. Germany accuses the US of ‘piracy’ as a stash of American-made masks diverted back to states.
Great Britain’s Prime Minister Boris Johnson has been hospitalized due to coronavirus, for precautionary testing.
Johnson was taken to an unnamed London hospital on Sunday after days of persistent symptoms, during which time he has been self-isolating. Last week No 10 had denied the prime minister was more seriously ill than claimed.
A Downing Street spokesperson said: “On the advice of his doctor, the prime minister has tonight been admitted to hospital for tests. This is a precautionary step, as the prime minister continues to have persistent symptoms of coronavirus 10 days after testing positive for the virus.”
Officials were keen to stress that this was not an emergency admission, and that Johnson will remain in charge of government, and will be in regular touch with colleagues and civil servants.
If his condition worsens Dominic Raab, the foreign secretary and first secretary of state, is the designated minister to take charge.
Once again, Sean Ono Lennon injects some sanity into the coronavirus discussion. Here are his thoughts about the complaints about Johnson’s ability to get tested quickly.
People complaining that @BorisJohnson got tested for Covid ahead of people who are not the Prime Minister. I mean, idunno, seems reasonable for him to cut the line since he’s running the entire fucking country. Just saying.
— Sean Ono Lennon (@seanonolennon) April 5, 2020
Tiger at Bronx Zoo in New York City tests positive for COVID-19
You can add tigers to the list of species that can suffer the effects of a Wuhan Coronavirus infection.
A tiger at New York City’s Bronx Zoo has tested positive for COVID-19, the Wildlife Conservation Society said in a statement Sunday.
The tiger, a 4-year-old female Malayan tiger named Nadia, developed a dry cough and a decrease in appetite. She was tested out of an abundance of caution, and the results were confirmed by the USDA’s National Veterinary Services Laboratory in Iowa, the society said.
Her sister Azul, two Amur tigers and three African lions also showed coronavirus symptoms, but all of the cats, including Nadia, are expected to recover.
None of the zoo’s snow leopards, cheetahs, clouded leopard, Amur leopard, puma or serval are showing any signs of illness.
The zoo said the cats were infected by a person caring for them who was asymptomatically infected with the virus or before that person developed symptoms.
Australia seizes faulty coronavirus protective equipment imported from China
Add Australia to the list of countries that have received less than effective personal protective equipment items from China.
Authorities have begun seizing Chinese-made faulty face masks and other protective clothing that is being exported to Australia to help halt the spread of coronavirus.
The ABC has learnt that in recent weeks, Australian Border Force (ABF) officers have intercepted several deliveries of personal protective equipment (PPE) that have been found to be counterfeit or otherwise faulty.
One law enforcement official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, estimated the ABF had already seized 800,000 masks with a combined value of more than $1.2 million on the Australian market.
“We started seeing this stuff arriving roughly three weeks ago when news of the pandemic was really taking off,” the official told the ABC.
“The dodgy material is coming via air cargo because there is a backlog of sea freight at Australian ports.”
The US accused of ‘piracy’ after mask shipment is diverted from Germany
A German official accused the US of “modern piracy” after a consignment of medical masks intended for German police were reportedly diverted to the states.
Andreas Geisel, the interior minister for Berlin state, described the diversion as “an act of modern piracy” and pressed to the German government to intervene and demand that Washington follows international trade rules. “This is no way to treat trans-Atlantic partners,” Geisel said. “Even in times of global crisis, there should be no Wild West methods.”
…President Trump said on Friday he ordered US companies, including 3M, to stop exporting crucial medical products needed to fight coronavirus under the Korean-War-era Defense Production Act. “We need these items immediately for domestic use,” he said. ‘We have to have them.”
Trump said US authorities had taken custody of nearly 200,000 N95 respirators, 130,000 surgical masks and 600,000 gloves, but did not provide details about where they were seized.
South Korea’s return to normal interrupted by an uptick in coronavirus cases
It is being reported that the number of cases in South Korea is rising again.
The first wave of the coronavirus struck South Korea in mid-February after a “superspreader” from the Shincheonji Church in Daegu, a major city southeast of Seoul, infected worshippers during a service — a single case that infected more than 6,000 people.
Since then, with the swift implementation of nonpharmaceutical initiatives, like refraining from handshakes and diligently wearing masks, South Korea significantly reduced its number of daily cases from a peak of 909 in late February to as low as 76 and 64 in mid-March.
Despite this general decline, 125 new cases were reported last Monday — a slight increase from the previous day, at 78. The new stats also showed a rising death toll.
Local infection clusters have continued to set South Koreans on edge as case numbers fluctuate.
Sweden mulls U-turn on coronavirus restrictions
Sweden is one of the few European countries that has not yet put the country under some kind of coronavirus lockdown. The government is planning on passing emergency powers to change this.
Radio Sweden International reports that the Scandinavian country’s government initially sought the ability to introduce emergency measures, when required, without the approval of parliament. But after fierce opposition, ministers say they’ll now wait for other parties’ approval.
The opposition Moderate Party and the Left Party have demanded that they are allowed to examine and scrutinize any decisions the government makes under the emergency legislation. The government now hopes the new powers will be approved in the coming days.
The measures, which would last for three months, would allow ministers to stop public gatherings, close shops, entertainment venues and limit access to public transport.
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The President “ordered US companies, including 3M, to stop exporting crucial medical products needed to fight coronavirus under the Korean-War-era Defense Production Act.”
If that shipment went out to Germany in defiance of American laws, Germany better shut up, or we would have to investigate to find what kind of “incentive” compelled whoever sold them the equipment to do so.
It’s worse than that.
https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/world-policy/article/2020/04/04/trump-3m-clash-face-masks
3M told Mike Pence on a visit that they had 35 million N95 masks in inventory. Last week, just after 3M was granted emergency liability protection from the government, they revealed that none of THOSE masks were available for the US market and so they would be shipping 10 million masks made in China!
https://www.dtnpf.com/agriculture/web/ag/news/world-policy/article/2020/04/04/trump-3m-clash-face-masks
Our international”domestic” companies are still operating as globalists trying to accommodate all of their markets without any sense of loyalty to America. These are the “last capitalists” V. Lenin boasted about, those who will sell him the rope to hang them with.
They should be hanged in public by their gonads. How tone deaf can they be?
BTW, it is important to make a distinction between these face masks versus those for the general public. The N95s are intended for commercial use to protect the wearers from dust and contaminants thus they can also be useful for medical personnel for their own protection. The rest of us wear masks to capture possibly infectious particles we ourselves may be exhaling in order to protect others. I wear a buff around my neck dunked in water when I have to run in hot weather. It can be pulled over my mouth and nose to serve as a bandana too. We don’t need medical quality face masks.
There is a data point that I think is relevant and important but I don’t see anyone talking about it.
What percentage of the infections are asymptomatic or with mild, non life-threatening symptoms?
You have clearly missed my earlier posts, in which I provide the information gathered in Iceland showing those percentages.
Clearly, pointing out someone missed your earlier posts does not help them find the information. If possible, could you supply a link, or links to the source data.
My apologies. I wasn’t at usual spot, so the link that I thought I brought over didn’t take.
We will not be able to get the full picture on asymptomatic people before the antibody tests become widely available. Iceland and cruise ships are the only places where testing on a controlled population was able to be done to identify those with an infection but nos symptoms.
Once the antibody test is available, I am certain that we are going to be surprised at how many people had COVID-19 and didn’t know it.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2020/03/fauci-et-al-in-n-e-journal-of-medicine-covid-19-case-fatality-rate-may-be-considerably-less-than-1/
We’re guessing the reasonable POSSIBILITY that the two of us in this household (Syracuse area) may have been so afflicted early in February. Strange and unexpected symptoms, different enough from seasonal flues(sp?) we were more-accustomed to – and for which we had been inoculated back in the fall. I recovered in a couple of days, my wife took a bit longer. We’re retired – and it was February, after all – so not much genuine disruption in our lives. (Well, maybe a lower-key Valentines Day at home.)
I think it will be very interesting in the year ahead what the medical researchers may find regarding how much sooner this plague was affecting Americans, and to what extent, before the testing protocols became widely used.
” I am certain that we are going to be surprised at how many people had COVID-19 and didn’t know it.”
Strongly agree.
True, I hadn’t seen that, Leslie. Thanks for repeating it.
(Please indulge me adding a tangential personal note: The biggest frustration, homebound-wise, for the two of us here is that we’re unable to visit the three new grandbabies added to the family this year. Being awesome twin boys born in Ithaca the end of February plus the cutest baby girl ever born mid-January in Boston. My last visit in Ithaca was Monday March 16, 3 weeks ago, and now those miniature boys are already twice as old. My own home confinement began the next day, St. Patrick’s Day … which makes it easy to count forward from that Housebound Day #1.)
That’s a poor inference and does not answer my question. I don’t read every article in LI, but I did read about Iceland.
Besides, you can’t extrapolate the results in Iceland to United States, or to any of the other countries heavily affected by the virus.
My question stands.
Why aren’t we paying more attention to those numbers?
Does anyone know how many masks and gloves we will likely need? I haven’t seen anyone who’s been able to put together a number of that yet, but I did see an article on China importing something like two billion masks during their first phase of the pandemic.
I wonder if China basically sucked up the entire world’s supply already, and the rest of us are SOL?
Considering the vast majority of masks, gloves and other essential medical supplies are made in China I’d say we and the rest of the Western world are SOL no matter what.
Well, they can have those ones back with our compliments.
Hi racist shithead. Banned yet?
Way off topic but you would think it would be news that Bank of America’s secure online website has been down for hours today. I am not aware of this ever happening before to a major US bank.
We should not be denying others goods they purchased from us. Americans just produce more of what is needed. It’s Democrats who look at things in terms of limits. There is no reason that we cannot produce masks by the hundreds of billions if needed. If government will give me money I will produce them. I don’t even need to make anything on it. I’ll do it as a service but I need money to buy/build equipment. I owned and ran a manufacturing company for 13 years before China copied my products and dumped them on the market at less than the cost of steel. We should be happy to sell anyone all the masks they want to buy! Dammit. This is America! We don’t recognize the idea of scarcity here.
Hoping for the best for Boris. He’s one of the good guys fighting the good fight.
So now zoo tigers have to wear masks?
I’ll be interested to hear if Boris Johnson was given the hydroxyquinoline / azithromycin combination, and if so, when.
And if not, why?
I think one thing we need to keep uppermost in our minds at all times during this time of strife and dislocation:
China is assho*e.
it will come one day that merkel calls Trump “Hitler” LOL….