More than 83,000 cases of the COVID-19 disease have now been confirmed in 53 countries.
A tour guide in Japan who was recently released from hospital after recovering from the coronavirus has tested positive again.
The Osaka woman, in her 40s, was working on a bus with tourists from the Chinese epicenter city of Wuhan when she was confirmed to be infected with the illness on Jan. 29, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).
The bus driver also was diagnosed with the deadly disease.
The woman was discharged from the hospital on Feb. 1 and tested negative for the virus five days later, though she still had a cough that went away a week later.
But on Feb. 21, she returned to the doctor because of a sore throat and chest pain — and tested positive again on Wednesday, according to AFP.
An official in Osaka said the case is the first of a person testing positive for COVID-19 in Japan after apparently being cleared of it.
Cases of second positive tests have already been reported in China, according to Reuters.
“Once you have the infection, it could remain dormant and with minimal symptoms, and then you can get an exacerbation if it finds its way into the lungs,” Professor Philip Tierno of the New York University School of Medicine told Reuters.
He said much remains unknown about COVID-19.
“I’m not certain that this is not bi-phasic, like anthrax,” he said, meaning the illness might recur after appearing to go away.
A DOG OWNED BY A COVID-19 PATIENT IN HONG KONG HAS TESTED 'LOW-POSITIVE' FOR THE VIRUS.
The pet dog of a coronavirus patient in Hong Kong was found to have a “low level” of the deadly virus, the autonomous region’s government said Friday.
The dog’s oral and nasal cavities were tested Wednesday, with the results showing a “weak positive” to the new coronavirus, known as COVID-19.
Health officials are not sure if the dog, which is not exhibiting any symptoms, is actually infected or just carrying the virus in its mouth and nose from “environmental contamination.”
The dog has been quarantined in an animal shelter that is holding no other animals.
More tests will be administered on the dog, which will remain in quarantine until the results come back negative.
Dogs, cats and other mammals owned as pets by confirmed COVID-19 patients in Hong Kong must now undergo a mandatory 14-day quarantine.
STILL SPREADING
Nine new countries announced their first cases of COVID-19 yesterday, which has increased the total number of countries infected to 48.
[NOTE: ADD FIVE MORE: THE NETHERLANDS, LITHUANIA, ALGERIA AND NIGERIA EACH REPORTED ONE CASE YESTERDAY. MEXICO ANNOUNCED FIRST CASE THERE TODAY. THERE ARE NOW 53 COUNTRIES INVOLVED.]
Eight of the nine countries—Norway, Georgia, Denmark, North Macedonia, Brazil, Romania, Estonia and Greece—reported one confirmed case, while Pakistan reported two.
Kuwait reported 43 new cases, all of them tied to Iran.
Seyyed Hadi Khosroshahi, a prominent Iranian cleric and the Islamic Republic's first ambassador to Vatican City, died Thursday of the novel coronavirus at the age of 81.
Masoumeh Ebtekar, Vice President of Iran for Women and Family Affairs, announced Thursday that she has contracted the virus.
Dozens of cases involving people who recently visited Iran have popped up in recent days in Bahrain, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Oman, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Pakistan, Georgia and Kuwait.
Even more troubling, infections were found in patients in Germany and the United States who had no known risk factors, like having traveled to an affected area, suggesting that the virus could be spreading undetected in communities.
The first U.S. case of coronavirus infection in a patient with no known risk factors — travel to a hot zone or contact with another person known to be infected — emerged this week near Travis Air Force Base in Texas.
“That would suggest there are other undetected cases out there, and we have already started some low-grade transmission,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt University.
In the United States, thousands of people who had been at risk of exposure to the virus were under quarantine — most voluntary — and federal officials issued new warnings about the potential spread of the disease, including the possibility that schools here in the U.S.could be forced to close.
U.S. federal officials warned this week that a coronavirus outbreak could force schools to close for a long period.
The U.S. announcement caught educators and parents off guard, leaving them asking how to manage such a crisis.
Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, suggested that a temporary system of “internet-based tele-schooling” could replace traditional schools.
But most schools have no experience in providing online instruction on a large scale, and American families have uneven access to computers and broadband internet.
Parents would be forced to juggle their own work responsibilities with what could amount to “a vast, unplanned experiment in mass home-schooling,” said Kevin Carey, vice president for education policy at 'New America'.
Would confirmed cases in workplaces also close businesses?
China, Mongolia and Japan have closed their schools for at least a month.
Iran canceled Friday prayers in major cities and ordered schools and universities closed until March 21.
Saudi Arabia barred pilgrims from its holiest sites.
Wall Street recorded a record one-day fall as U.S. officials called for more people to be tested and suggested closing schools.
The largest study of the virus to date, published by China’s Center for Disease Control and Prevention, concluded that 81 percent of the 44,000 cases confirmed in China by mid-February were mild — defined by the study’s author’s as involving little or no pneumonia.
However, by Thursday, of the 78,487 confirmed cases in China, 32,495, or 41 percent, had been discharged from the hospital, according to China’s National Health Commission.
About 8,300 patients were in serious condition. More than 2,700 people had died, giving an overall mortality rate of 2.3 percent, far higher than the seasonal flu’s rate of about 0.1 percent.
The number of mild cases creates its own complications.
Those with few or no symptoms may not know they have contracted the virus, or may misidentify it as a cold.
They may then continue their daily lives, coming into close contact with others and spreading the virus without anyone knowing.
U.S. RESPONDERS NOT PROPERLY TRAINED
A whistleblower who works for HHS (Health and Human Services) has stated that HHS workers sent to receive the first U.S. citizens evacuated from Wuhan, China were "not properly trained or equipped to operate in a public health emergency situation," adding that they were "improperly deployed."
Because of this, the whistleblower alleges that the staffers could have been exposed to the coronavirus as they had face-to-face contact with the passengers in an airplane hangar and adequate steps had not been taken to ensure their safety.
"Appropriate steps were not taken to quarantine, monitor, or test [the workers] during their deployment and upon their return home,"reads a redacted 24-page copy of the complaint provided to the Washington Post. The complaint was filed on Wednesday with the Office of the Special Counsel, an independent federal watchdog agency.
Her complaint said that roughly 14 employees from her ACF (Administration for Children and Families) department were sent to receive passengers arriving into the March Air Force base and an additional 13 to the Travis Air Force base, both in California. Those American Wuhan evacuees, who were deemed at high risk to contract the disease, were then quarantined on California and Texas military bases.
ONE GOOD THING MAY COME OF THE OUTBREAK IN CHINA: THEY'RE TAKING DOGS AND CATS OFF THE MENUS.
The Yulin Dog Meat Festival sees organizers routinely skin, boil, hang, and cut the limbs off of dogs while they are still alive.
The "festival" began in 2010 and occurs every year on the first day of the summer solstice. Those who partake believe that eating dog meat cools the body in the summer months.
Each year in China, over 10 million dogs and four million cats are reportedly killed for their meat. Most of these dogs are domestic pets, stolen from families, or strays taken from the streets and sent to notorious slaughter houses.
Most slaughter operations have closed in the past two months because of restrictions on moving dogs across provincial borders.
China’s top legislative committee on Monday also passed new legislation to ban all trade and consumption of wild animals.
Beijing is yet to revise its wild animal protection law, but the passage of the proposal was “essential” and “urgent” in helping the country win its war against the epidemic, wrote state newspaper People’s Daily.
The exact source of the novel coronavirus, known as COVID-19, remains unconfirmed.
Scientists speculate that it originated in bats, snakes, pangolins, or some other animal.
WHEN THIS NEWS OF THE VIRUS BEGINNING IN ANIMALS CONSUMED IN CHINA FIRST MADE HEADLINES, SOME THREW THEIR PETS FROM HIGH-RISE TOWERS AND WINDOWS TO THEIR DEATH.
THE GOVERNMENT BEGAN BEATING STRAYS TO DEATH ON THE STREETS AND BURYING ROUNDED-UP STRAYS ALIVE, SAYS A PETITION TO END THE KILLINGS.
MAYBE THE INHUMANITY OF SO MANY IN CHINA (JAPAN AND MANY MIDDLE EASTERN AND AFRICAN NATIONS) WHO "RITUALLY" TORTURE, MAIM, BLIND, DRAIN OF BLOOD WHILE ALIVE, CRUSH WHILE ALIVE, DISMEMBER AND EAT ALIVE OR COOK ALIVE SO MANY ANIMALS SENSELESSLY HAS CAUGHT UP TO THOSE WHO ARE INHUMANE?
THAT THEIR UNFOUNDED SUPERSTITIONS AND ABJECT, UNBRIDLED CRUELTY MAY HAVE CAUSED THE REST OF THE WORLD TO ENDURE A PANDEMIC SHOULD BE PUNISHABLE BY INTERNATIONAL LAW.
NO NATION'S FOOD FETISHES SHOULD ENDANGER THE ENTIRE PLANET!
ALL LIFE HAS VALUE FAR BEYOND ANY CULTURE'S SADISTIC FOOD CRAVINGS.
//WW
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