What Happened with the Covid-19 Crisis This Weekend by Daisy Luther for The Organic Prepper
The Covid-19 crisis increased rather dramatically over the weekend. Here’s a quick report with links to update you on the weekend’s information.
Where the coronavirus has spread
Over the weekend there was a sharp uptick in cases outside of mainland China. Here’s a graph from Johns Hopkins that illustrates the climb.
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The latest tallies outside of China are:
- South Korea: 833
- Italy: 215
- Japan: 154
- Singapore: 89
- Hong Kong: 79
- Iran: 61
- Thailand: 35
- United States: 35
- Taiwan: 30
- Australia: 22
- Malaysia: 22
- Germany: 16
- Vietnam: 16
- UAE: 13
- UK: 13
- France: 12
- Macau: 10
691 people are listed as “other” locations, which I assume are on cruise ships, etc. The following countries have between 1-9 active cases: Canada, Phillippines, India, Russia, Spain, Lebanon, Nepal, Cambodia, Israel, Belgium, Finland, Sweden, Egypt, and Sri Lanka. Here’s the source for this information.
The weekend in questionable numbers
Literally nobody believes the numbers coming from China, so all the data there that could have helped slow or even halt the spread of the virus is lost, at least to the Western world.
In the United States, there’s a puzzling event that brings our own numbers into questions. Health officials had chosen Fairview Developmental Center in Costa Mesa, California, a facility that had been previously used to house disabled adults, to house “50 infected individuals” that had been rescued from the ill-fated Diamond Princess cruise ship.
Interestingly, the US only reports 35 cases spread across the nation, so either they simply expect 50 people to be infected or they know they’re infected and haven’t added the numbers to the official tally. The city of Costa Mesa, incidentally, has fought back and refused to allow their building to be used to house the quarantine. This refusal was backed up in federal over the weekend, at least temporarily. (source) In related news, a facility in Calhoun County, Alabama also resisted federal efforts to bring quarantine passengers there. (source)
Iran’s numbers are also in question, as the official number of confirmed cases is 61 with a death toll of 12, but an Iranian lawmaker claims that the death toll there is up to 50 victims. (source) Either people there are dying at a far, far higher rate, or there are a lot more cases than we know about in Iran.
The Global Times, a Chinese outlet, said as of last night that there were “now 1,200 cases in 26 countries along with 8 deaths.” But when you gather information from multiple sources, it appears these numbers are exceptionally optimistic if not outright wrong.
Italy locks down 10 towns.
One of the biggest stories of the weekend was a cluster outbreak in Northern Italy that caused local officials to lock down 10 towns in the region.
In the area of Milan and Lombardy, everything is shutting down: schools, universities, restaurants, movie theaters, concerts, and public gatherings. Residents have been asked to stay home. The Carnival celebration in Veneto has also been canceled. About 50,000 people are affected by the lockdown. (source)
It has spread pretty fast in Italy and an early report explained what had happened. However, when I went back to that report later, the explanation had been removed. I didn’t take a screenshot but I had copied and pasted a quote. I’ll share that here.
