{"id":5328,"date":"2020-02-27T17:32:07","date_gmt":"2020-02-27T17:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adhc.lib.ua.edu\/pandemicbook\/?page_id=5328"},"modified":"2022-02-22T18:11:50","modified_gmt":"2022-02-22T18:11:50","slug":"02-27","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/adhc.lib.ua.edu\/pandemicbook\/02-27\/","title":{"rendered":"02-27"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Thursday, February 27<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tUS Cases 17
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Feb 27: The Dow Jones Industrial Average and S&P each fall by 4.4 percent<\/a><\/span>. A whistleblower files a complaint<\/a> <\/span>saying the Department of HHS “improperly deployed” more than a dozen workers without proper virus-prevention training or gear to receive the first Americans evacuated from Wuhan, China. Vice President Mike Pence presides over his first meeting<\/a><\/span> as leader of President Trump’s coronavirus task force. HHS Secretary Alex Azar tells lawmakers that it\u2019s unlikely that large numbers of Americans will need to be hospitalized. \u201cThe immediate risk to the public remains low<\/a>,<\/span>\u201d says HHS Secretary Alex Azar in testimony before the House Committee on Ways and Means. Senator Burr informs a private luncheon that the coronavirus is \u201cmuch more aggressive\u201d than the United States has seen in recent history and is probably \u201cmore akin to the 1918 pandemic.\u201d \u201cThere\u2019s one thing that I can tell you about this: It is much more aggressive in its transmission than anything that we have seen in recent history,\u201d Senator Burr informs the private luncheon<\/a>. <\/span>President Trump calls Azar to complain<\/a><\/span> that CDC Director Nancy Messonnier\u2019s warnings about the outbreak are scaring the stock markets. The president threatens<\/a> <\/span>to fire Messonnier. The Washington Post\u2019s reporting<\/a><\/span> at the time that President Trump was cautioning aides not to make public forecasts of the virus that might unsettle the market.*<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\tFrom the Cutting Room Floor...\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Do you remember, a month ago, when a dozen workers from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF, which is a division of HHS), greeted hundreds of evacuees from Wuhan, China at the March Air Reserve Base near Riverside, California, with its open expanse and swaying palm trees? Another dozen met with more evacuees at Travis Air Force in Solano County, California. I worried for them then, it turns out with good reason. Though other HHS workers wore full hazmat gear, a significant number of the ACF workers had little to no protective equipment, though they were interacting with potentially infected people. Early this month, a whistleblower inside ACF complained about the oversight. HHS Secretary Alex Azar\u2019s office responded by reassigning the whistleblower. They told her that they would fire her if she didn\u2019t accept the reassignment. In her complaint, the whistleblower adds that ACF workers were allowed to leave quarantine after these unprotected interactions with evacuees from Wuhan and even went on commercial flights to other parts of the United States.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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–Memories\u00a0of\u00a0Sharon Sanders\u00a0about the first public\u00a0word\u00a0of a new virus in China. Sharon Sanders is the\u00a0director of flutrackers.com,\u00a0January 25, 2020, shared on February 27, 2020.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>

\u00a0<\/span>Typically, every night I make one last check on the site to be sure everything is running smoothly. On the night of December 30<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>at 11:40 pm I glanced and saw a new post made by a long time but infrequent poster, \u201cpenguinsix\u201d. I knew that he had been living for some years in Hong Kong but had recently returned to the United States. What he posted on\u00a0FluTrackers\u00a0was a media report from a Hong Kong newspaper describing an outbreak of acute respiratory disease in 27 people who all had contact to an open market in Wuhan city.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0This immediately got my attention because\u00a0penguinsix\u00a0still had family in Hong Kong and I knew he could effectively evaluate the media reports originating from there. I did a quick search using Chinese language sources and saw that the English media report in Hong Kong was backed up by two major China government sponsored media. I called Michael Coston who authors the Avian Flu Diary blog at that late hour because we have an agreement to call each other if a very significant item comes across our desk. In 14\u00a0years\u00a0I have never called him late at night.\u00a0<\/span> [read_more id=”1″ more=”Read more” less=”Read less”]<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0What was significant about those media reports was their mere existence. Nothing gets through the China internet firewall unless the government approves. For a single outbreak of any disease involving 27 humans that was being widely broadcast meant something serious was going on. I have been tracking diseases in China since 2006 and I\u00a0can not\u00a0remember any initial human outbreaks that large. For instance, in the H7N9 avian flu epidemic the announcements of China\u2019s human cases were in the range of 1-4 persons per event.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

I did not know what this acute respiratory illness\u00a0was\u00a0but my guess was some strain of avian flu since\u00a0all of\u00a0the known cases were tied to an open market (South China Seafood market) where chickens were probably sold.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0I posted the two Chinese media reports and then also searched our archives for related information. I posted three links to interesting articles from the summer of 2019. I collect articles about China\u2019s disease status to get a hint of what is\u00a0actually going\u00a0on there. Dr. Stefano\u00a0Prandoni\u00a0(tetano) in Italy signed in and made the next post.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0I slept for a couple of hours and then posted announcements by the Taiwan and Hong Kong governments. Another participant (Pathfinder) was able to finally access the Wuhan city internet site and posted their confirming announcement. It specifically stated that there was no apparent human-to-human transmission and that no health care workers were infected. More of our team added posts: alert, Shiloh, Ronan Kelly,\u00a0Treyfish,\u00a0Commonground, Emily, Vibrant62, and\u00a0FrenchieGirl, In the first 24 hours we published about 18 items.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

The next day (January 1) a virologist friend from Australia, Ian Mackay, asked me on skype when did I think this outbreak started and I answered, \u201cTricky\u201d. I then forwarded to him several links of possibly related articles from 2019.\u00a0Also\u00a0on January 1st several doctors were detained in Wuhan for posting about the \u201cmystery pneumonia\u201d cases on the internet. China warned about spreading rumors regarding this outbreak.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0Our team was busy finding everything they could. By the end of the fourth\u00a0day\u00a0it was reported that 25% of the people who were sick needed treatment in the ICU. I was concerned at this point. The South China Seafood market is only a couple of blocks from one of the largest transportation hubs in China.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

Over the next few\u00a0days\u00a0the cases in China increased to 59 and Hong Kong began seeing cases.\u00a0There was a\u00a0run on\u00a0masks.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

On January 6<\/span>th<\/span>\u00a0the US CDC issued a \u201cwatch\u201d on the mystery pneumonia in China. This was highly unusual. In the first week we had over 100 posts on our thread.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

On January 20<\/span>th<\/span>\u00a0it was announced that some health care workers in China were sick. Always a bad sign.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

On January 21st the city of Wuhan was quarantined. This was alarm bell time. China would have never closed a city of 11 million unless the disease was out-of-control. We had made 367 posts on our thread and China was now reporting 440 cases.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0The videos from inside China began to circulate. Some unconscious or dead people laying on the streets and sidewalks. Health care workers in full protective gear. Overrun hospital waiting rooms and corridors. Bodies being stacked in vans outside a hospital.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0Everyone I knew in the disease tracking world was aghast. Despite assurances that this illness may not be human-to-human efficient.\u00a0 It sure looked efficient to most of us. I began to personally prepare for eventual spread inside U.S. Our site began to warn both on the site and on our twitter account. We rearranged\u00a0FluTrackers\u00a0to feature this emerging situation and preparations for it.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0While I kept hoping that somehow the disease could be\u00a0stopped\u00a0I knew it was probably impossible after seeing coordinated street spraying efforts on videos from China. This meant not only was the illness probably highly contagious but had the doubly bad effect of fomite transmission.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau, Vietnam, South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, United States had all reported cases by January 23<\/span>rd<\/span>. Huanggang, a city of 8 million, was newly locked down. W.H.O. declined to declare a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>

\u00a0I kept\u00a0asking myself, \u201cAm I seeing what I think I am seeing?\u201d<\/span> [\/read_more]<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tG, Kashmira and er. \u201cCoronavirus Mortality Rate: How Covid-19 Fatalities Compare to Ebola, SARS and MERS.\u201d Newsweek, February 27, 2020. https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/coronavirus-mortality-rate-covid-19-fatalities-ebola-sars-mers-1489466.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tCoronavirus morality rates\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tKavar Capital Partners. \u201cMarket Update - February 27, 2020,\u201d February 27, 2020. https:\/\/kavarcapital.com\/market-update-february-27-2020\/.\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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