The Chinese finally grant permission: Coronavirus confirmed as pandemic by World Health Organization

Related: 77 of 165 Bahrain citizens evacuated from Iran test positive.

I’m sick today (yeah, no) and not much in the mood for sherpa blogging, but here are a few more updates. Things are rolling fast now. Most are links to tweets.

NYC St.Patricks Day Parade cancelled for first time in 285 years.

“Congress’ in-house doctor told Capitol Hill staffers at a close-door meeting this week that he expects 70-150 million people in the U.S. — roughly 1/3 of the country — to contract #COVID19”

Two CBS News employees test positive in New York.

Schools across the US closing.

The US and Europe follow the track set by Italy.

Noooo… Italy 🇮🇹 #COVID19 case count re-accelerating upwards once again. +2300 already halfway thru today. Pray for Italy. Pray for the world.
And here at home… Nearly 160 inmates at the Saskatoon Correctional Centre (SCC) are under quarantine after one offender said he had previously come into contact with someone with COVID-19.

Hope he’s lying. I think I’m done for today.

Grab a coffee, it’s worth your while.

Michael Osterholm is an internationally recognized expert in infectious disease epidemiology.

Related: Workers return to the job in China.

Update: I said a week ago Iran is a shitshow.

Lancet;

Governments will not be able to minimise both deaths from coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the economic impact of viral spread. Keeping mortality as low as possible will be the highest priority for individuals; hence governments must put in place measures to ameliorate the inevitable economic downturn. In our view, COVID-19 has developed into a pandemic, with small chains of transmission in many countries and large chains resulting in extensive spread in a few countries, such as Italy, Iran, South Korea, and Japan.
 
Most countries are likely to have spread of COVID-19, at least in the early stages, before any mitigation measures have an impact.

Related: To close, or not to close? In short, we face a variant of the old medical adage that in the early stage, diseases are easy to treat but hard to diagnose, while in the later stages they are easy to diagnose but hard to treat.

2/ This is the English translation of a post of another ICU physician in Bergamo, Dr. Daniele Macchini. Read until the end "After much thought about whether and what to write about what is happening to us, I felt that silence was not responsible.

— Silvia Stringhini (@silviast9) March 9, 2020

Thread.

The Hill;

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) said Sunday that he shook hands with a man now confirmed to be infected with the novel form of coronavirus during a recent interaction at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
 
In a news release Sunday evening, Cruz said that based on medical advice he had received, he did not believe there was any current risk of him developing the disease, which has already infected more than 100,000 people globally.
 
“Last night, I was informed that 10 days ago at CPAC I briefly interacted with an individual who is currently symptomatic and has tested positive for COVID-19. That interaction consisted of a brief conversation and a handshake,” Cruz said.

GOP Rep. Paul Gosar (Arizona) has also self-quarantined. While the name of the infected participant hasn’t been released officially, it’s started to circulate that it’s a Dr. Alan Berger, a Jewish dentist who was involved in the Cruz campaign in 2016. He’s been hospitalized.

More here from Raheem Kassam, co host of Steve Bannon’s @WarRoom2020 podcast.. He’s not happy.

America just held a nationwide IQ test. Did you notice it?

Everyone who has said about coronavirus that, “It’s just the flu,” failed the IQ test. As did those who claim discussing coronavirus is “spreading panic.”
 
They are engaging in what Scott Adams calls Loserthink.[…]
 
You will almost certainly not die from the coronavirus.
 
If the coronavirus contagion and death rates are accurate, between one and three million Americans could die.
 
When you have a low risk of a pandemic with a death count exceeding the total number of Americans who died in World War II, you take precautions.
 
Reasonable minds can differ as to what those precautions are.
 
But if you’re not thinking about coronavirus in terms of fat tail risk, you’re not even allowed to be part of the conversation.

Related: Italy moves to Wuhan inspired quarantine status.

True story.#coronavirus #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/rr9BSszwZn

— Darren of Plymouth 🇬🇧 (@DarrenPlymouth) March 6, 2020

It’s not all bad news.

Former Iranian ambassador to Syria and a hostage-taker of U.S. diplomats, Hossein Sheikholeslam, died Thursday from a Covid19 infection, local news outlets report.
 
An advisor to the Islamic Republic Foreign Minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, 68-year-old Sheikholeslam was one of the leaders of the so-called “Muslim Student Followers of Imam’s Line,” who took 52 U.S. diplomats hostage, on November 4, 1979, and released them after 444 days.

18/ Lombardy's welfare minister: "every day we get 200 new people to the ER in critical conditions, which means every day we need to find 200 more hospital beds. […] the virus is spreading at an exceptional speed, faster than our predictions and than the data we got from China." pic.twitter.com/yge69JU2cK

— Luca Dellanna (@DellAnnaLuca) March 6, 2020

I have a friend in Italy undergoing cancer treatment that’s unavailable here. From a Facebook post earlier today;

“Yeah, I’m not trying to spread hysteria here but I’m in Italy so I’m seeing this first hand. I was booked to have an operation yesterday for my cancer, it was booked months in advance. I went in, saw the tents outside of the hospital for coronavirus patients, went to meet one of my doctors and she took me to the oncology department which was also the very last ward not being used for coronavirus patients. I wait for 7 hours, then am told that they will not be preforming the surgery this week and they are unsure when they will have any time or space for me.
 
Too long didnt read? They shut down the fourth building of the hospital of oncology to make beds for coronavirus patients while a doctor in tears told me I would not be getting the life extending operation I booked.
 
Not trying to be melodramatic but honestly a little sick of people posting memes and telling themselves its nothing to be afraid of. It is effectively capable of shutting down the healthcare systems. Be prepared, especially my American friends.”

And therein lies the biggest risk — it’s not “just the flu”. Health care workers can be vaccinated for the flu. When a high percentage of the people taking care of patients become infected just as the demand on the system surges? See above.

Meanwhile in DiverstyStrongistan… Over weeks of daily crossings, this is the first time 🇨🇦 agents asked health questions.

Most of our data has been supplied by unreliable China and Iran. What is the case fatality rate elsewhere?

The word is “admitted”. Chinese controlled WHO says…coronavirus death rate is 3.4% globally, higher than previously thought.

Diversity is our strength! Travellers from Iran report NO SCREENING at Toronto’s Pearson Airport