Coronavirus News: Good, Bad, and Ugly -- Updated March 7-9, 2020

March 7-9, 2020 Update:  Italy extended its COVID-19 quarantine to the entire country.  William Feuer at cnbc.com wrote "People throughout the country of 60 million should not travel other than for work and emergencies, Conte said. He added that all public gatherings will be banned and sporting events suspended. The decision was made to protect the most vulnerable people in the country, he said, and the measures will take effect Tuesday and last until April 3."

This follows yesterday's BBC.COM report "Coronavirus: Northern Italy quarantines 16 million people," and shows how fast conditions may change. BBC.COM later noted "Anyone who breaks the quarantine rules could be jailed for three months." 

Anya Kamenetz at npr.org reported "More Than 20 Colleges Cancel In-Person Classes In Response To Coronavirus." She wrote "The colleges enroll a total of more than 200,000 students, and include Columbia University, Princeton University, Rice University, Stanford University, Hofstra University and the University of Southern California, plus the University of Washington and a clutch of community colleges in Washington state."

Italy has a population of 60,489,383 according to worldometers.info and its previous quarantine of 16 million covered 26.45% of its population. The USA has 331,002,651, and 26.45% of that would be 87,550,201, or everyone from the Rockies to the Pacific Ocean, plus we would still need to quarantine an extra 10.48 million. 

At Olympic Climate Action blog Hot Off the Wire I found this letter of suggestions from former UCSD Professor of Pathology and MD James Robb, "one of the first molecular virologists in the world to work on coronaviruses (the 1970s)."  It was confirmed by snopes.com to be a real letter. 

March 9, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Chief Medical Correspondent at CNN.com, wrote "The largest case studies out of China indicate that around 80% of those infected with the coronavirus had symptoms of a bad cold and are expected to recover. Another 14% became severely ill, and 5% percent became critically ill. People in their 70s and 80s were most likely to become severely or critically ill and pre-existing conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, lung disease and hypertension also increased the risk." In the article Dr. Gupta explained why CNN.com is using the term "pandemic."

 At npr.org Avie Schneider's article "Dow Dives More Than 2,000 Points; Steep Market Slide Triggered Trading Halt" explained "Stock indexes tumbled so fast Monday that trading on the New York Stock Exchange was halted temporarily for the first time since October 1997. The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 2,013 points as fears grew over the economic impact of the coronavirus epidemic . [ . . . . par break] It was the worst day for the market since 2008, during the financial crisis."

When I began this post, I wrote about "Good, Bad, and Ugly" COVID-19 news below.

Good:
Overall mortality rate so far may be much lower than 3.4 % reported by Los Angeles Times. Tess Riski and Nigel Jaquiss at wweek.com wrote "considering that many may have been infected who didn't know it or who experienced mild symptoms, experts are starting to think that rate could be much lower. [ . . . . ] 'The vast majority of people infected with COVID-19 will have a mild disease,' said Dr. Dean Sidelinger of the Oregon Health Authority."

Bad:
The site axios.com cited Bill Gates noting "it can kill healthy adults in addition to elderly people with existing health problems" and "The average infected person spreads the disease to two or three others — an exponential rate of increase. There is also strong evidence that it can be transmitted by people who are just mildly ill."

Aimee Green at The Oregonian/OregonLive cited "A massive study by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention [that] surveyed nearly 45,000 cases in the country as of Feb. 11. [ . . . . ] 15% of people 80 years and older who were infected ultimately died. The death rate was 8% for people in their 70s, 3.6% in their 60s, 1.3% in their 50s and 0.4% or lower for people 49 and younger. [ . . . . ] It found that the mortality rate was zero for children in their first decade of life, and 0.1% for people 19 and younger."

Ugly:
Gates, in the above axios.com article notes this is "a lot like the once-in-a-century pathogen" even though he adds it's too early to say. Gates cautioned "we should assume it will be [bad] until we know otherwise." Gates explains here what a "once-in-a-century pathogen" could do.

Fiona Harvey at The Guardian reported March 2, 2020, "Vital Cop26 climate talks could be derailed by coronavirus." She wrote "China would be distracted from the talks, predicted Paul Bledsoe, a former climate adviser in Bill Clinton’s White House and a strategic adviser to the Progressive Policy Institute in the US." Bledsoe said "Should coronavirus become a full-scale pandemic, holding anything like a traditional Cop might quickly become impossible.”