they're still not getting it
Fri Mar 27 13:05:00 EDT 2020
Country after country are discovering people sick with COVID-19 and imposing lockdowns. Why aren't they getting it? By the time people know they are sick they have been infected for weeks. And they have probably been infecting others. When you start to see people sick, the virus is already spreading through your population.
Every country needs to be testing, needed to be testing weeks ago. If they had few infections, they could isolate those people, and focus continued testing to find more infected people. If they had more infections, they could - and should - start locking down before a lot of people are getting sick. The sooner you prevent contacts and transmission, the lower your peak(s). You have to explain to your populace why you're inconveniencing them before there's a visible problem, but educating them is part of your job. (And maybe not possible if you have an established reputation for not knowing (or willfully dismissing) the facts.)
And once you already have a lot of infected people, blocking your borders doesn't have as much effect as you would hope; you already have a lot of infected people, inside your borders, spreading the virus.
Is every U.S. state going to go through this, not learning anything from the states slammed before them? You have infected people. Already. Now! You haven't seen them because you're not testing. If you you think it can't be as bad in your state because you have fewer people than California or New York, keep in mind that you also have fewer nurses and doctors and clinics and hospital beds. You will be just as overwhelmed. Perhaps worse. You need to be testing now, and restricting people's physical contacts. When you start seeing people coughing it's too late.
Saturday 18:31
The USA is now the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. The announced virus epicenter is, over and over, a matter of where we have data for. I'm not going to be surprised if Russia emerges later, and India is certainly a contender too. (And as a fraction of population, rather than total numbers, I think a lot of smaller countries are going to do worse than the US. Not that we're doing well, but there are a lot of countries with minimal health-care resources.)
NYC is the focus, but Chicago, Detroit, and New Orleans aren't doing well either. Tourism? Poverty? Uninsured populations? (And medical care is going to be another tsunami as the people who have lost their jobs lose their medical insurance.)Uninsured U.S. cancer patient with COVID-19 says $35K hospital bill might bankrupt her
Getting tested for COVID-19 took 3 trips to the ER, resulting in a $35,112 US ($50,022 Cdn) bill. She has permanent lung and heart damage. Delays in treatment (because there was no positive diagnosis (because she couldn't get a test (because she had not travelled abroad))) didn't help.
"I'm a public health nurse and social worker...."
But she's uninsured. The people opposed to universal health care must be telling themselves that some people are not worth having health care. Are they going to tell us that nurses and social workers don't merit health care?
Life Death goes on: Heard on the radio: The corona virus is being detected in Africa. (It was only a matter of time.) Like Ebola, some people don't believe it's real, or believe it's part of a conspiracy.Coronavirus Response In Middle East, Africa, Latin America:
So Kenya just reported its first death from COVID-19 this past week. ....
... last night, we had our first curfew here. .... it was complete chaos. Security forces fired tear gas, and they beat people trying to get on a ferry in Mombasa. Here in Nairobi, police whipped people who were out after curfew. ....
And people here ... can't afford to stay home from work. Some won't eat if they do. One human rights advocate ... says ... "We have a restless population and a reckless security service."
... there are tens of thousands of refugees from Somalia and elsewhere who live in camps in Kenya now.
... in eastern DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo], they're just coming off this terrible Ebola outbreak.
... since the beginning of 2019, Congo has been battling this huge measles outbreak, and that has killed more than 6,000 people. And I should remind you there is a vaccine for measles.
Heard on the radio:(Trump toady) Bolsonaro in Brazil (3500 confirmed cases) is still clueless - saying Brazilians are immune, and the virus is not a big deal; isolate just people over 60. He says Brazil's death numbers (approaching 100) are manipulated by his political rivals. He's opposed by medical experts, but it's a political fight.
And Bolsonaro, like Trump, has supporters who aren't influenced by science or news reports that don't fit their world-view.
Also today, Trump Considers Quarantining East Coast Cities: Trump announced that he was considering blocking traffic out of (and into?) New York City (and state?), and possibly New Jersey and Connecticut also? But he had not had discussions with the mayors or governors involved? Does he just blurt out his half-formed thoughts whenever he's in front of news cameras? And he wonders why the stock markets tanked.... (Well, the markets had plenty of reasons to go nuts. But when the rumors come from the President himself....)
Saturday 23:03
Heard on the radio: Floridians are lashing boats together to hold parties.
What is it that people are not getting? A 5th of Florida's population are over 65.
Sunday 00:03
Heard on the radio: Now we have the first U.S. infant death from COVID-19 (Illinois).
First U.S. federal-prison convict death, a man serving a 27-year sentence in Louisiana.
(California prisons are operating at over 130% capacity.)
BBC: The Inquiry: Coronavirus: What can the world learn from South Korea? 26 Mar 2020What did Korea do right? Prepare. Test. Trace. Isolate.
Universal health care.
When there were the first reports of a new contagious disease came out of China, they set up 100 new testing labs within 17 days, before there were any cases in Korea.
They were testing 15,000 people/day, and getting results within 24 hours.
Feb 17 was patient #31, the first identified that had not been abroad - part of the religious group. Community spread.
50 drive-through test centers, texting back results within 12 hours.
They were tracing people's movements from their cellphones and credit cards, so they could identify possible contacts with friends, associates, and strangers (e.g. using a taxi after someone infected).
The decisions were made by scientists, not politicians. There were no conflicting messages. People trusted the information they were getting from the government. The centralized state made decisions quickly for the entire nation. Compliance rates were high.
With widespread testing and fast results, they did not need to lock down the workforce (and performing arts, and schools), crippling the economy.
Taiwan tied together data from the health-care and immigration/travel systems. When you went for health care, your doctor already knew whether and where you had been out of the country, and staff knew whether they needed protective equipment.
Taiwan paid the salaries of people in quarantine. And fined people heavily for violating quarantine.
BBC: The Inquiry: Why did the USA fail in its initial coronavirus response? 19 Mar 2020No testing. Bureaucracy. Federal vs State authorities.
US CDC test was not approved until 2 weeks after the first US case was detected. Different organizations were not cooperating effectively. And the test didn't work. In comparison, South Korea was testing 10,000/day. (The WHO test was ready a week before the CDC test.) COVID-19 had been spreading for weeks in the US before it was detected.
Lessons learned from Ebola were not applied. (2 nurses infected in Dallas; survived, but patient died.) The response team that would have applied inter-departmental control/cooperation was dismantled by Trump administration.
Hospital training protocols, protective-equipment supplies, pathology-handling facilities had all been cut back.
Lost key personnel.
Consistent and coordinated messaging from the government has been lacking. (The messages haven't been factually correct, either.)"We have it totally under control."
"It will go away. Just stay calm."
"This is the new hoax. .... We won early. We're doing great."
"Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. We, they're there. They have the tests. And the tests are beautiful."
The US health-care system:27 million have no insurance coverage.
Some people will not get tested because they fear the bills.
People will put off care until their condition deteriorates severely, and be more expensive to treat.
About 80% of insured people have deductibles; the average deductible is about $1,600.
25% don't have sick leave (mostly retail or food services).
No capacity to handle a demand surge.
Sunday 14:03
Heard on the radio: Detroit has historically disconnected water service for delinquent bills. Michigan wants everyone re-connected so people can wash their hands. (Again, everything we're considering should have been done weeks ago, because the virus was already in the community.)
Coronavirus incubation is more than 14 days for some people. So some people may become contagious after they're released from quarantine. It was longer for 10% in China.
WHO says isolation for 14 days after the symptoms are gone.
CDC says isolation for 3 days after symptoms are gone.
Monday 00:09Louisiana church defies COVID-19 order, holds Sunday services
Services at Life Tabernacle Church in the suburb of Baton Rouge, La., are continuing despite the governor's order banning large gatherings to fight the spread of the coronavirus. On Sunday, 1,265 attended morning services at the church....
"We're free people. We're not going to be intimidated. We're not going to cower," the Rev. [Tony] Spell said from the pulpit of Life Tabernacle Church in a suburb of Baton Rouge. "We're not breaking any laws."
The 60-year-old church has continued to use its fleet of two dozen buses to bring hundreds of congregants to services three times a week from five surrounding parishes*, including congregants from mobile home parks and public housing in low-income neighborhoods.
Across Louisiana, the coronavirus has infected more than 3,500 people and led to 151 deaths as of Sunday, with one of the highest per-capita death rates in the country down the interstate in New Orleans.
Trump realizes that his hopes to return to normal by Easter (April 12) were unrealistic. Travel and group gatherings should be curtailed through April. (I think that's still unrealistic. Party boats and faith dismissing science won't help....)
*Louisiana is divided into "parishes" instead of counties. These are governmental jurisdictions. (Another US oddbit for my international readers.)
Monday 23:05Florida Megachurch Pastor Arrested After Defying Order Not To Hold Gatherings
If Most Of Your Coronavirus Tests Come Back Positive, You're Not Testing Enough. March 30, 2020 • The World Health Organization says that a high percentage of positive tests means that local health authorities are focusing on obvious cases and not getting a clear picture of epidemic's scope.
Quebec couple fleeing COVID-19 'endangered' Yukon First Nation, chief says
A Quebec couple, apparently fearing the spread of COVID-19, travelled thousands of kilometres across the country to find haven in a remote northern Yukon community - only to be sent packing a couple of days later by police.
... the couple drove from Quebec to Whitehorse, then hopped a plane to Old Crow, Yukon's northernmost community and accessible only by air. Tizya-Tramm said the couple arrived, with their bags, intending to look for work in the community of about 250 people.
"They dreamt about it, pointed at a map, jumped in their car, and now they're in the Yukon. They had no idea where they were going or necessarily what they were doing. They were actually quite frightened."
There was no work for the couple in Old Crow, and housing is tight even for locals, said Tizya-Tramm, "let alone random people getting off of the plane."
As of Monday, Yukon has five confirmed cases of COVID-19. The territory declared a state of emergency on Friday. Yukon has not closed its borders amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but people arriving in the territory are told they must self-isolate for 14 days on arrival.
Yukon RCMP said they were tipped off on Saturday by a local emergency management officer (EMO) in Old Crow, about the couple's arrival. A statement from RCMP says police were asked to "assist in ensuring their departure" on Sunday.
"They actually endangered our community and themselves. Our small community does not have the capacity to deal with a very robust outbreak," he said, adding that there is no doctor in the community.
"Unfortunately, they didn't get to experience the hospitality that we're usually known for but, really, this is already unprecedented times."
Yukon's chief medical officer said Monday the couple would not be prosecuted, as they did not contravene any official orders.
Fauci anticipates another US coronavirus outbreak in the fall
The nation's top infectious disease expert said Monday that he anticipates the US will endure another coronavirus outbreak in the fall - but by then he said, the country will be better equipped to fight the illness.
"In fact, I would anticipate that that would actually happen because of the degree of transmissibility."
"Things are going to be very, very different. Our ability to go out and be able to test, identify, isolate, and contact trace, will be orders of magnitude better than what it was just a couple of months ago."
Fauci also said that treatments for the virus would hopefully be ready for use.
Tuesday 20:49NEW ORLEANS - A Louisiana pastor charged with six misdemeanors for holding church services in violation of a ban put in place to control the coronavirus said Tuesday that he would continue to ignore the ban because God told him to.
Pastor Tony Spell was issued a summons Tuesday for holding services at the Life Tabernacle church in the city of Central in violation of an order from Gov. John Bel Edwards prohibiting gatherings of more than 10 people, said East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore. Each violation carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $500 fine. "The whole situation just puts everyone at risk. We ask everyone to abide by the governor's order."
Spell, reached by telephone Tuesday, confirmed he was read his rights and fingerprinted - but the summons wasn't deterring him. Another service was scheduled Tuesday night that he said was expected to draw hundreds.
WASHINGTON - A senior military general says the Pentagon has not yet delivered any of the 2,000 ventilators it offered to the Department of Health and Human Services two weeks ago because HHS has asked it to wait while the agency determines where the devices should go.
Lt. Gen. Giovanni Tuck, the Pentagon's top logistics official, said in an interview with a small group of reporters Tuesday that the military arranged for an initial batch of 1,000 ventilators to be delivered, but HHS asked it to wait.
Tuck also told reporters that of the 5 million respirator masks the Defense Department offered to provide to HHS as personal protective equipment for health care workers and others, about 1.5 million have been sent. He said another 500,000 are due to be shipped this week. The rest will be delivered when HHS asks for them, he added.
KIGALI, Rwanda - The African nation that once declared it was coronavirus-free because it had "put God first" has confirmed its first two cases.
Wednesday 00:13Heard on the radio (BBC): A man in his back yard in South Africa was shot for being outside.
Coronavirus: The unusual ways countries are managing lockdowns
1) Panama: From Wednesday, men and women will be able to leave their homes for only two hours at a time, and on different days. No-one will be allowed to go out on Sundays.
2) Colombia: In some towns people are allowed outside based on the last digit of their national ID number. Nearby Bolivia is proposing a similar approach.
Serbia, Belarus, and Sweden were also mentioned.
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/1134452.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]
Country after country are discovering people sick with COVID-19 and imposing lockdowns. Why aren't they getting it? By the time people know they are sick they have been infected for weeks. And they have probably been infecting others. When you start to see people sick, the virus is already spreading through your population.
Every country needs to be testing, needed to be testing weeks ago. If they had few infections, they could isolate those people, and focus continued testing to find more infected people. If they had more infections, they could - and should - start locking down before a lot of people are getting sick. The sooner you prevent contacts and transmission, the lower your peak(s). You have to explain to your populace why you're inconveniencing them before there's a visible problem, but educating them is part of your job. (And maybe not possible if you have an established reputation for not knowing (or willfully dismissing) the facts.)
And once you already have a lot of infected people, blocking your borders doesn't have as much effect as you would hope; you already have a lot of infected people, inside your borders, spreading the virus.
Is every U.S. state going to go through this, not learning anything from the states slammed before them? You have infected people. Already. Now! You haven't seen them because you're not testing. If you you think it can't be as bad in your state because you have fewer people than California or New York, keep in mind that you also have fewer nurses and doctors and clinics and hospital beds. You will be just as overwhelmed. Perhaps worse. You need to be testing now, and restricting people's physical contacts. When you start seeing people coughing it's too late.
Saturday 18:31
The USA is now the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak. The announced virus epicenter is, over and over, a matter of where we have data for. I'm not going to be surprised if Russia emerges later, and India is certainly a contender too. (And as a fraction of population, rather than total numbers, I think a lot of smaller countries are going to do worse than the US. Not that we're doing well, but there are a lot of countries with minimal health-care resources.)
NYC is the focus, but Chicago, Detroit, and New Orleans aren't doing well either. Tourism? Poverty? Uninsured populations? (And medical care is going to be another tsunami as the people who have lost their jobs lose their medical insurance.)Uninsured U.S. cancer patient with COVID-19 says $35K hospital bill might bankrupt her
Getting tested for COVID-19 took 3 trips to the ER, resulting in a $35,112 US ($50,022 Cdn) bill. She has permanent lung and heart damage. Delays in treatment (because there was no positive diagnosis (because she couldn't get a test (because she had not travelled abroad))) didn't help.
"I'm a public health nurse and social worker...."
But she's uninsured. The people opposed to universal health care must be telling themselves that some people are not worth having health care. Are they going to tell us that nurses and social workers don't merit health care?
Life Death goes on: Heard on the radio: The corona virus is being detected in Africa. (It was only a matter of time.) Like Ebola, some people don't believe it's real, or believe it's part of a conspiracy.Coronavirus Response In Middle East, Africa, Latin America:
So Kenya just reported its first death from COVID-19 this past week. ....
... last night, we had our first curfew here. .... it was complete chaos. Security forces fired tear gas, and they beat people trying to get on a ferry in Mombasa. Here in Nairobi, police whipped people who were out after curfew. ....
And people here ... can't afford to stay home from work. Some won't eat if they do. One human rights advocate ... says ... "We have a restless population and a reckless security service."
... there are tens of thousands of refugees from Somalia and elsewhere who live in camps in Kenya now.
... in eastern DRC [Democratic Republic of Congo], they're just coming off this terrible Ebola outbreak.
... since the beginning of 2019, Congo has been battling this huge measles outbreak, and that has killed more than 6,000 people. And I should remind you there is a vaccine for measles.
Heard on the radio:(Trump toady) Bolsonaro in Brazil (3500 confirmed cases) is still clueless - saying Brazilians are immune, and the virus is not a big deal; isolate just people over 60. He says Brazil's death numbers (approaching 100) are manipulated by his political rivals. He's opposed by medical experts, but it's a political fight.
And Bolsonaro, like Trump, has supporters who aren't influenced by science or news reports that don't fit their world-view.
Also today, Trump Considers Quarantining East Coast Cities: Trump announced that he was considering blocking traffic out of (and into?) New York City (and state?), and possibly New Jersey and Connecticut also? But he had not had discussions with the mayors or governors involved? Does he just blurt out his half-formed thoughts whenever he's in front of news cameras? And he wonders why the stock markets tanked.... (Well, the markets had plenty of reasons to go nuts. But when the rumors come from the President himself....)
Saturday 23:03
Heard on the radio: Floridians are lashing boats together to hold parties.
What is it that people are not getting? A 5th of Florida's population are over 65.
Sunday 00:03
Heard on the radio: Now we have the first U.S. infant death from COVID-19 (Illinois).
First U.S. federal-prison convict death, a man serving a 27-year sentence in Louisiana.
(California prisons are operating at over 130% capacity.)
BBC: The Inquiry: Coronavirus: What can the world learn from South Korea? 26 Mar 2020What did Korea do right? Prepare. Test. Trace. Isolate.
Universal health care.
When there were the first reports of a new contagious disease came out of China, they set up 100 new testing labs within 17 days, before there were any cases in Korea.
They were testing 15,000 people/day, and getting results within 24 hours.
Feb 17 was patient #31, the first identified that had not been abroad - part of the religious group. Community spread.
50 drive-through test centers, texting back results within 12 hours.
They were tracing people's movements from their cellphones and credit cards, so they could identify possible contacts with friends, associates, and strangers (e.g. using a taxi after someone infected).
The decisions were made by scientists, not politicians. There were no conflicting messages. People trusted the information they were getting from the government. The centralized state made decisions quickly for the entire nation. Compliance rates were high.
With widespread testing and fast results, they did not need to lock down the workforce (and performing arts, and schools), crippling the economy.
Taiwan tied together data from the health-care and immigration/travel systems. When you went for health care, your doctor already knew whether and where you had been out of the country, and staff knew whether they needed protective equipment.
Taiwan paid the salaries of people in quarantine. And fined people heavily for violating quarantine.
BBC: The Inquiry: Why did the USA fail in its initial coronavirus response? 19 Mar 2020No testing. Bureaucracy. Federal vs State authorities.
US CDC test was not approved until 2 weeks after the first US case was detected. Different organizations were not cooperating effectively. And the test didn't work. In comparison, South Korea was testing 10,000/day. (The WHO test was ready a week before the CDC test.) COVID-19 had been spreading for weeks in the US before it was detected.
Lessons learned from Ebola were not applied. (2 nurses infected in Dallas; survived, but patient died.) The response team that would have applied inter-departmental control/cooperation was dismantled by Trump administration.
Hospital training protocols, protective-equipment supplies, pathology-handling facilities had all been cut back.
Lost key personnel.
Consistent and coordinated messaging from the government has been lacking. (The messages haven't been factually correct, either.)"We have it totally under control."
"It will go away. Just stay calm."
"This is the new hoax. .... We won early. We're doing great."
"Anybody right now, and yesterday, anybody that needs a test gets a test. We, they're there. They have the tests. And the tests are beautiful."
The US health-care system:27 million have no insurance coverage.
Some people will not get tested because they fear the bills.
People will put off care until their condition deteriorates severely, and be more expensive to treat.
About 80% of insured people have deductibles; the average deductible is about $1,600.
25% don't have sick leave (mostly retail or food services).
No capacity to handle a demand surge.
Sunday 14:03
Heard on the radio: Detroit has historically disconnected water service for delinquent bills. Michigan wants everyone re-connected so people can wash their hands. (Again, everything we're considering should have been done weeks ago, because the virus was already in the community.)
Coronavirus incubation is more than 14 days for some people. So some people may become contagious after they're released from quarantine. It was longer for 10% in China.
WHO says isolation for 14 days after the symptoms are gone.
CDC says isolation for 3 days after symptoms are gone.
Monday 00:09Louisiana church defies COVID-19 order, holds Sunday services
Services at Life Tabernacle Church in the suburb of Baton Rouge, La., are continuing despite the governor's order banning large gatherings to fight the spread of the coronavirus. On Sunday, 1,265 attended morning services at the church....
"We're free people. We're not going to be intimidated. We're not going to cower," the Rev. [Tony] Spell said from the pulpit of Life Tabernacle Church in a suburb of Baton Rouge. "We're not breaking any laws."
The 60-year-old church has continued to use its fleet of two dozen buses to bring hundreds of congregants to services three times a week from five surrounding parishes*, including congregants from mobile home parks and public housing in low-income neighborhoods.
Across Louisiana, the coronavirus has infected more than 3,500 people and led to 151 deaths as of Sunday, with one of the highest per-capita death rates in the country down the interstate in New Orleans.
Trump realizes that his hopes to return to normal by Easter (April 12) were unrealistic. Travel and group gatherings should be curtailed through April. (I think that's still unrealistic. Party boats and faith dismissing science won't help....)
*Louisiana is divided into "parishes" instead of counties. These are governmental jurisdictions. (Another US oddbit for my international readers.)
Monday 23:05Florida Megachurch Pastor Arrested After Defying Order Not To Hold Gatherings
If Most Of Your Coronavirus Tests Come Back Positive, You're Not Testing Enough. March 30, 2020 • The World Health Organization says that a high percentage of positive tests means that local health authorities are focusing on obvious cases and not getting a clear picture of epidemic's scope.
Quebec couple fleeing COVID-19 'endangered' Yukon First Nation, chief says
A Quebec couple, apparently fearing the spread of COVID-19, travelled thousands of kilometres across the country to find haven in a remote northern Yukon community - only to be sent packing a couple of days later by police.
... the couple drove from Quebec to Whitehorse, then hopped a plane to Old Crow, Yukon's northernmost community and accessible only by air. Tizya-Tramm said the couple arrived, with their bags, intending to look for work in the community of about 250 people.
"They dreamt about it, pointed at a map, jumped in their car, and now they're in the Yukon. They had no idea where they were going or necessarily what they were doing. They were actually quite frightened."
There was no work for the couple in Old Crow, and housing is tight even for locals, said Tizya-Tramm, "let alone random people getting off of the plane."
As of Monday, Yukon has five confirmed cases of COVID-19. The territory declared a state of emergency on Friday. Yukon has not closed its borders amid the COVID-19 pandemic, but people arriving in the territory are told they must self-isolate for 14 days on arrival.
Yukon RCMP said they were tipped off on Saturday by a local emergency management officer (EMO) in Old Crow, about the couple's arrival. A statement from RCMP says police were asked to "assist in ensuring their departure" on Sunday.
"They actually endangered our community and themselves. Our small community does not have the capacity to deal with a very robust outbreak," he said, adding that there is no doctor in the community.
"Unfortunately, they didn't get to experience the hospitality that we're usually known for but, really, this is already unprecedented times."
Yukon's chief medical officer said Monday the couple would not be prosecuted, as they did not contravene any official orders.
Fauci anticipates another US coronavirus outbreak in the fall
The nation's top infectious disease expert said Monday that he anticipates the US will endure another coronavirus outbreak in the fall - but by then he said, the country will be better equipped to fight the illness.
"In fact, I would anticipate that that would actually happen because of the degree of transmissibility."
"Things are going to be very, very different. Our ability to go out and be able to test, identify, isolate, and contact trace, will be orders of magnitude better than what it was just a couple of months ago."
Fauci also said that treatments for the virus would hopefully be ready for use.
Tuesday 20:49NEW ORLEANS - A Louisiana pastor charged with six misdemeanors for holding church services in violation of a ban put in place to control the coronavirus said Tuesday that he would continue to ignore the ban because God told him to.
Pastor Tony Spell was issued a summons Tuesday for holding services at the Life Tabernacle church in the city of Central in violation of an order from Gov. John Bel Edwards prohibiting gatherings of more than 10 people, said East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore. Each violation carries a maximum penalty of six months in jail and a $500 fine. "The whole situation just puts everyone at risk. We ask everyone to abide by the governor's order."
Spell, reached by telephone Tuesday, confirmed he was read his rights and fingerprinted - but the summons wasn't deterring him. Another service was scheduled Tuesday night that he said was expected to draw hundreds.
WASHINGTON - A senior military general says the Pentagon has not yet delivered any of the 2,000 ventilators it offered to the Department of Health and Human Services two weeks ago because HHS has asked it to wait while the agency determines where the devices should go.
Lt. Gen. Giovanni Tuck, the Pentagon's top logistics official, said in an interview with a small group of reporters Tuesday that the military arranged for an initial batch of 1,000 ventilators to be delivered, but HHS asked it to wait.
Tuck also told reporters that of the 5 million respirator masks the Defense Department offered to provide to HHS as personal protective equipment for health care workers and others, about 1.5 million have been sent. He said another 500,000 are due to be shipped this week. The rest will be delivered when HHS asks for them, he added.
KIGALI, Rwanda - The African nation that once declared it was coronavirus-free because it had "put God first" has confirmed its first two cases.
Wednesday 00:13Heard on the radio (BBC): A man in his back yard in South Africa was shot for being outside.
Coronavirus: The unusual ways countries are managing lockdowns
1) Panama: From Wednesday, men and women will be able to leave their homes for only two hours at a time, and on different days. No-one will be allowed to go out on Sundays.
2) Colombia: In some towns people are allowed outside based on the last digit of their national ID number. Nearby Bolivia is proposing a similar approach.
Serbia, Belarus, and Sweden were also mentioned.
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/1134452.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]