7 Major Coronavirus Developments — Brown Prof. Flagged China's False Numbers in Feb — April 17, 2020
GoLocalProv News Team
7 Major Coronavirus Developments — Brown Prof. Flagged China's False Numbers in Feb — April 17, 2020
More than 1,200 deaths and 325 cases were added to Chinese count.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTIn February, Brown University Professor Katherine Mason told GoLocal LIVE, "It's pretty clear anyone who has followed China and public health will be quite suspicious of the numbers” being reported.
Mason is the author of "Infectious Change: Reinventing Chinese Public Health After an Epidemic," which was based on fieldwork she conducted in southeastern China following the 2003 SARS epidemic.
“To even count right now -- so in Wuhan, anyone who is not in very, very dire straits is being turned away, so you’re only really counting those severe cases, so I think probably the true number of cases is a lot higher,” she said in February. “The true number of deaths is probably [only] somewhat higher, but I think those two things are probably not proportionate to each other.”
WATCH: Former RI Director of Health Dr. Michael Fine on GoLocal LIVE at 12 PM on Friday
“I think the problem with that is people have an overinflated sense of just how powerful the central government is in the areas of public health,” said Mason. “So certainly they’re showing their power now in the terms of their ability to enact mass quarantines and shut down the whole country basically — which is not something we could ever do here."
"However, they don’t have a lot of control over the production and sharing of information at the local level. China is so big, frankly, that it’s not really possible for them to know what’s happening all the time everywhere as much as people might think that they can," she said.
Issues with Reporting — and Transparency
“So they very much rely on local health officials to perform the surveillance and then report it back up through the system they had developed precisely in response to SARS. The problem is there are a lot of disincentives at the local level for doing that and from my point of view, quite predictably the local officials did not do that,” said Mason.
She spoke to the growing outrage over the death of whistleblower Li Wenliang, who was reprimanded by the Chinese government for alerting the public to the potential crisis — before he died this week of the new coronavirus.
“The reason he got in a lot of trouble for that is that it is illegal to report on novel viruses directly to the public — it’s actually a state secret finding out that there is a new virus. It is officially considered a state secret in China. So what that means is you are supposed to report to your supervisor, who’s then supposed to report it up, and then at the provincial or central level that’s where they will decide whether to release the information to the public,” said Mason.
“He went public without following procedure and that’s why he got in quite a bit of hot water with authorities. Now they had to back down because of popular opinion about this, but now that he has passed I think it’s going to be very interesting to see what happens because people are extremely angry and upset.”
READ 7 Major Coronavirus Developments BELOW
7 Major Coronavirus Developments — April 17, 2020
Death Rate Data
Scientists are struggling to interpret the data to determine how deadly the coronavirus is.
In an age of big data, electronic health records, and all the rest, the numbers are now directional at best.
Determining what percentage of those infected by the coronavirus will die is a key question for epidemiologists, but an elusive one during the pandemic...determining just how deadly the new coronavirus will be is a key question facing epidemiologists, who expect resurgent waves of infection that could last into 2022.
As the virus spread across the world in late February and March, the projection circulated by infectious disease experts of how many infected people would die seemed plenty dire: around 1 percent, or 10 times the rate of a typical flu.
But according to various unofficial Covid-19 trackers that calculate the death rate by dividing total deaths by the number of known cases, about 6.4 percent of people infected with the virus have now died worldwide.
PHOTO: Swampyank Wikipedia CC
President Trump Releases Guidelines for Reopening America
President Donald Trump released his phased plan on Thursday to guide states to begin to reopen work, schools and leisure activities.
The “Opening Up American Again” guidelines outline a series of steps for the states.
Trump told governors on a conference call on Thursday that “you’re gonna call your shots,” saying the guidelines were a recommendation.
Gilead Spark Wall Street
Dow futures are rallying on Friday morning on reports that Gilead coronavirus drug treats severe symptoms.
As of 7:00 AM on Friday, Dow futures surged up 780 points, or 3.3 percent, hours before the open.
Numbers
3,838 Cases in Rhode Island
32,181Cases in Massachusetts
105 Deaths in RI
1,245 Deaths in Massachusetts
675,640 Cases in the United States
34,522 Deaths in the United States
2,178,149 Global Cases
145,329 Global Deaths
546,743 Global Recoveries
Is Coronavirus Becoming Leading Cause of Death in America?
In normal years, the three leading causes of death in the United States are heart disease, cancer, and accidental injuries.
In 2017, Heart Disease recorded:
Deaths: 647,457
Percentage of total deaths: 23.5%
Now, some scientists believe the coronavirus could match those numbers.
"COVID-19 killed more people from April 6 to April 12 than any other cause of death except heart disease typically does in a normal April week," reported the Washington Post.
Record Deaths
The number of reported deaths in the U.S. was a record 4,591 in 24 hours on Thursday.
GoLocal LIVE on Friday, April 17, 2020
10:30 AM - Rebecca Couto da Silva from Bolzano, Italy
12:00 PM - Dr. Michael Fine
12:30 PM - Robert Whitcomb
1:00 PM - Governor Gina Raimondo Briefing
EDITOR'S NOTE: Raimondo does not allow Rhode Islanders to hear reporters' questions. Nearly all governors across the country and the White House allow reporters to ask questions directly and for the public to hear the questions and the responses.
