Up to 150 million Americans could get coronavirus: US projection

[beijingwalker]

Up to 150 million Americans could get coronavirus: US projection

13 Mar 2020 05:19AM(Updated: 13 Mar 2020 08:30AM)

WASHINGTON: Between 70 and 150 million people in the United States could eventually be infected with the novel coronavirus, according to a projection shared with Congress, a lawmaker said on Thursday (Mar 12).

Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib made the remarks during a hearing of the House of Representatives with members of the president's coronavirus task force, confirming earlier reports by US media outlets including Axios and NBC News.

"Congress's attending physician told the Senate that he expects between 70 to 150 million people to eventually contract the coronavirus in the United States," Tlaib said.

Axios had reported that doctor Brian Monahan conveyed the projection to Senate senior staff on Tuesday, telling them they should prepare for the worst and offering advice on how to remain healthy.

The upper end of the projection is about 46 per cent of the US population of 327 million people. By comparison German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned this week that up to 70 per cent of her country's population could get the virus.

Asked by Tlaib whether he believed the projection was accurate, Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), told the hearing: "We really need to be careful with those kinds of predictions because that's based on a model."

He added that "all models are as good as the assumptions that you put into the model" and that with containment and mitigation the upper end of the projection could be avoided.

About 80 per cent of coronavirus cases are mild, and the overall mortality rate is around 1 per cent, according to the latest estimate provided by Fauci to Congress on Wednesday.

At the low end of the projection this would mean about 700,000 deaths. At the high end it would mean 1.5 million deaths.

Heart disease was the leading cause of death for Americans in 2018, with just over 650,000 deaths in 2018. The flu and pneumonia caused around 60,000 deaths.

As of Friday, there has been more than 1,600 cases and 40 deaths in the US, according to a tracker maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

Risk from coronavirus starts to increase for people who are over 60 and is heightened more for those over 80, as well as for people with conditions like diabetes, heart disease or lung disease, or whose immune systems are compromised.

Fauci noted that a 2014 model by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) projected the African Ebola outbreak could affect more than a million people. But this was eventually not the case and the final number was under 30,000.

'FAILING' ON ACCESS TO TESTS

Fauci also responded to a query about people having difficulty getting access to tests, for which US authorities have come under severe criticism.

"The system is not really geared to what we need right now, what you are asking for. That is a failing," said Fauci. "Let's admit it."

"The idea of anybody getting it easily, the way people in other countries are doing it, we're not set up for that. Do I think we should be? Yes, but we're not."

Vice President Mike Pence, the White House's pointman for the crisis, claimed earlier this week that "a million tests are in the field" and four million would be going out soon.

But the CDC's director Robert Redfield said that the kits were not operational because there was a shortage of substances that activated them, called re-agents, and they also required more nasal swabs and trained staff.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/new...-could-get-coronavirus-us-projection-12533620

 

[beijingwalker]

Top US health official says coronavirus testing system is ‘failing,’ cases now confirmed in 44 states

PUBLISHED THU, MAR 12 202011:40 AM EDTUPDATED THU, MAR 12 20201:24 PM EDT

KEY POINTS

• A top U.S. health official said the country is “not really geared” to conduct the amount of testing for the coronavirus that will be required as the virus continues to spread across the nation.
• There are now 44 states, as well as Washington D.C., with confirmed cases of COVID-19.
• The virus has infected more than 1,300 people and has killed at least 38 in the U.S.

Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, speaks as U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, right, listens during a news conference in the briefing room of the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, March 2, 2020.
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

A top U.S. official said the nation cannot process coronavirus tests as quickly, easily or in the same volume as other countries — even as the virus spreads to 44 states — and that’s “a failing.”

“The system is not really geared to what we need right now, what you are asking for. That is a failing,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the House Oversight and Reform Committee on Thursday at a hearing on the nation’s preparedness for the outbreak.


“The idea of anybody getting it easily the way people in other countries are doing it, we’re not set up for that. Do I think we should be? Yes. But we’re not,” Fauci testified.

The virus has now spread across 44 states and Washington, D.C., Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, announced during the hearing.

The CDC has the capacity to process between 300 and 350 tests a day, Redfield said. He said other systems that can process thousands of specimens are coming online with private labs LabCorp and Quest. Public health labs just aren’t set up to process a high volume of tests quickly, Redfield and Fauci both testified.

“The system right now as it exists of doing a much broader capability of determining what the penetrance is in society is, right now, isn’t operational at all for us,” Fauci said, adding that the CDC is currently trying to set up broader testing in six cities. Instead of waiting for people to ask for a test, they will test all patients who have flu symptoms for coronavirus to try to estimate how much of the U.S. population has the virus.

On Tuesday, Redfield testified at a separate House budget hearing that a lack of funding has hampered the federal government’s response to the outbreak. The CDC’s tests were initially marred due to quality control issues, which delayed tests for Americans who thought they were infected and prompted some states like New York to seek emergency approval to use their own kits.


New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday he asked 28 state labs to “get up, get running and start moving forward” with coronavirus testing after he criticized the CDC and the FDA for being unprepared to test in the quantities necessary.

“The truth is we’ve under-invested in the public health labs,” Redfield said. “There’s not enough equipment, there’s not enough people, there’s not enough internal capacity, there’s no search capacity.”

The number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. has reached more than 1,300, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, and at least 38 people have died from the virus. Globally, there are more than 127,000 confirmed cases and at least 4,717 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/12/top...ys-coronavirus-testing-system-is-failing.html

 

[dbc]

I got a text message from HRSA today saying there are three clinics in my neighborhood offering free COVID 19 tests. I thought we didn’t have test kits? I thought the US was not testing anyone? I thought test cost 3,000$ @Hamartia Antidote

 

[beijingwalker]

I got a text message from HRSA today saying there are three clinics in my neighborhood offering free COVID 19 tests. I thought we didn’t have test kits? I thought the US was not testing anyone? I thought test cost 3,000$ @Hamartia Antidote

Sick People Across the U.S. Say They Are Being Denied the Coronavirus Test
In a health care system that is already difficult to navigate, some patients describe Kafkaesque quests for tests.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/us/coronavirus-testing-challenges.html

 

[dbc]

Sick People Across the U.S. Say They Are Being Denied the Coronavirus Test
In a health care system that is already difficult to navigate, some patients describe Kafkaesque quests for tests.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/12/us/coronavirus-testing-challenges.html

The text may be a hoax, I will call the clinic tomorrow.

 

[Ghareeb_Da_Baal]

I got a text message from HRSA today saying there are three clinics in my neighborhood offering free COVID 19 tests. I thought we didn’t have test kits? I thought the US was not testing anyone? I thought test cost 3,000$ @Hamartia Antidote

let me know if you get info for Dallas area.

 

[beijingwalker]

Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson Have Coronavirus
The couple, currently filming Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis Presley movie in Australia, say that they’ve tested positive for COVID-19.
BY ANTHONY BREZNICAN

MARCH 12, 2020

Daniel Radcliffe doesn’t have coronavirus—but Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson do. The couple announced Wednesday that they have contracted COVID-19.

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

In signature Hanks fashion, he tried to keep things positive.


“Well, now. What to do next? The Medical Officials have protocols that must be followed. We Hanks’ will be tested, observed, and isolated for as long as public health and safety requires. Not much more to it than a one-day-at-a-time approach, no?”


He added that the couple will “keep the world posted and updated,” signing off with “Take care of yourselves!”

The post was accompanied by a snapshot of a rubber gloves in a hazardous materials trash bin. There was no indication on whether Hanks and Wilson have been hospitalized or sent to quarantine in their own quarters.

It’s the first case of a Hollywood star coming down with the COVID-19 virus, which has killed more than 4,616 people around the world and infected 126,000, according to Johns Hopkins University, which is tracking the outbreak.

Two-time Oscar winner Hanks posted about their illness on his Instagram account, saying that he and Wilson began to feel ill while in Australia, where Hanks is playing manager Col. Tom Parker in director Baz Luhrmann’s movie about Elvis Presley.

“Hello, folks. Rita and I are down here in Australia. We felt a bit tired, like we had colds, and some body aches. Rita had some chills that came and went. Slight fevers too. To play things right, as is needed in the world right now, we were tested for the Coronavirus, and were found to be positive,” the actor wrote.

https://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2020/03/tom-hanks-coronavirus

Hope them get well soon, really like his movies.

 

[Menthol]

If famous people get sick...

You can already imagine how widespread the virus is.

 

[dbc]

let me know if you get info for Dallas area.

Confirmed, saw a local news report its available in my county to anyone experiencing symptoms.
I don't know about Dallas you will have to inquire locally.

 

[beijingwalker]

Trump’s CDC has only tested 77 people for coronavirus this week
March 12, 2020
By Brad Reed

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has tested only 77 people for coronavirus this week, a startlingly low number that indicates the rate of testing for Americans is actually decreasing even as the virus spreads.

Yahoo News reports that Dr. Stephen Redd, head of the CDC’s Office of Public Health Preparedness, revealed this week that the CDC has tested a total of 1,784 people for the disease. This number represented an increase from Sunday, when the CDC said that it had tested 1,707 people.

What’s more, the report states that there is only one private testing facility up and running at the moment, even though “the administration has repeatedly said that private enterprise would play a critical role in making sure that all Americans who need a coronavirus test receive one.”

Mark Birenbaum of the National Independent Laboratory Association tells Yahoo News that there won’t be another private testing facility open until next week at the earliest, and that there are between seven to ten other private labs that are still being set up.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/03/trumps-cdc-has-only-tested-77-people-for-coronavirus-this-week/

 

[Beast]

It seems coronavirus already exists in US way months ago given the widescale.

 

[beijingwalker]

It seems coronavirus already exists in US way months ago given the widescale.

It's a big dilemma for US now, if they don't test, they'll anger the public more and more, if they test, they may reveal the truth and the facts which they never want the world to know.

 

[beijingwalker]

CDC’s Worst-Case Coronavirus Model: 214 Million Infected, 1.7 Million Dead
By Chas Danner
UPDATED MAR. 13, 2020

A recent CDC projection estimated that the U.S. coronavirus epidemic could infect between 160 million and 214 million people over a period of more than a year — and kill anywhere from 200,000 to 1.7 million people in the country. A top CDC disease modeler presented the estimates to CDC officials and epidemic experts during a conference call last month, the New York Times revealed on Friday. The scenario did not factor in the efforts now underway to address the epidemic, but rather what could happen if no action was taken to slow the spread of of the disease.

Per the Times, the model was one of four presented by CDC disease modeler Matthew Biggerstaff which reflected different assumptions about the nature of the coronavirus and the possible U.S. response. The projections also suggested that a U.S. epidemic could lead to the hospitalization of anywhere from 2.4 million to 21 million people. Depending on the timing, that burden could devastate the U.S. health care system, as U.S. hospitals only have a capacity of roughly 925,000 beds (and less than 100,000 beds for critically ill patients). The Times reported that experts said the U.S. epidemic could last “months or even over a year, with infections concentrated in shorter periods, staggered across time in different communities.” However:

The assumptions fueling those scenarios are mitigated by the fact that cities, states, businesses and individuals are beginning to take steps to slow transmission, even if some are acting less aggressively than others. The C.D.C.-led effort is developing more sophisticated models showing how interventions might decrease the worst-case numbers, though their projections have not been made public. …


The four scenarios have different parameters, which is why the projections range so widely. They variously assume that each person with the coronavirus would infect either two or three people; that the hospitalization rate would be either 3 percent or 12; and that either 1 percent or a quarter of a percent of people experiencing symptoms would die. Those assumptions are based on what is known so far about how the virus has behaved in other contexts, including in China.

The White House Coronavirus Task Force has apparently not been briefed on the findings, a task force spokesperson told the Times. The Hill, which reported a slightly lower maximum number of U.S. cases via the worst-case model (210 million), published a statement from the CDC explaing that such projections are a normal part of the response to an outbreak in order to anticipate and prepare for possible outcomes. A CDC spokesperson also stressed that it remains unclear how the coronavirus outbreak will ultimately play out in the U.S.:

notes, another model produced by the nonprofit Resolve to Save Lives and the Council on Foreign Relations estimated that if half of Americans contract COVID-19, anywhere from 163,500 to 1.6 million people could be killed. The lower number assumes the coronavirus is as deadly as the flu, while the higher number was based on a mortality rate of one percent.

Another recent estimate by Dr. James Lawler, an infectious disease and public health expert at the University of Nebraska Medical Center, projected that 96 million Americans would contract COVID-19, five million of whom would require hospitalization. Lawler’s conservative estimate was that 480,000 Americans would be killed in that scenario.

As of Friday, more than 2,100 coronavirus infections have been discovered across 48 states, and the virus has led to the deaths of at least 48 people. How well the U.S. avoids the various worst-case projections will depend on how well government and public health officials — and businesses and individuals — are able to respond to the outbreak.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/202...oronavirus-model-210m-infected-1-7m-dead.html