Virus notes: March 24, 2020

 

MERCED (BLJ) --Yesterday, a Sacramento physician told A BLJ editor that starting today, a large Sacramento hospital will cease to provide masks for its surgeons and has stopped doing any elective surgery. UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento continues to do elective surgery. According to news reports from March 20.

“I’ll be clear: There is no reason to cancel elective procedures at this time and doing so would be a disservice to our patients who, for many different reasons, require surgery or other scheduled procedures,” UC Davis Chief Medical Officer Dr. J. Douglas Kirk wrote in an email to employees earlier this week. “We currently have capacity and we have an outstanding supply chain and procurement team, so the UC Davis Medical Center is doing well on supplies, PPE and space utilization.” – Jenny Gold, Kaiser Health News, March 20, 2020

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Today, the wife of a friend broke into his telephone conversation with a BLJ editor and told him to get off the line and quit bringing "negativity" into her home. The ediutor had actually been saying he thought Gov. Newsom was doing a good job. Her husband had just said that people seemed calm enough in the town where they live. But she has had serious health issues for years and is, justifiably, frightened now of the pandemic and does not want word of it to enter her space. A church-going person, last week she was unconcerned and said she felt protected. Thus, through social distancing, the separation of the sheep from the goats has come to pass.

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Yesterday, the Merced daily newspaper had a front page story about the hardship the virus was causing high school athletes who may not be able to display their talents to college recruiters on fields and courts.

Missing was any mention of the two UC Merced students who were waiting for their coronavirus test results last week. The campus is on spring break this week, the test results remain concealed from the public, and it is doubtful that the county public health officer will be able to trace the contacts the students had prior to their infection, if they were infected. In other words, the event has been vanished and all that remains is the vanishment itself, and today's official announcement of several well-regarded graduate programs.

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3-24-20

Al Jazeera 

Italy death toll rises by 743 : Live coronavirus updates

US has third-highest number of confirmed cases globally behind China and Italy as WHO warns it could be next epicentre.

by Kate Mayberry, Ramy Allahoum & Usaid Siddiqui

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/uk-closes-warns-pandemic-accelera...

The death toll in Italy from the coronavirus pandemic rose by 743 in one day to 6,820, reversing a declining trend in fatalities observed over the last two days.

In India, 1.3 billion people will go under "total lockdown" from midnight (18:30 GMT) on Tuesday for 21 days to combat the spread of the contagion.

Spain's deaths surged by 514 in one day, bringing its total to 2,696. It also reported 6,600 new coronavirus cases, raising nationwide infections to 39,673. 

More than 17,100 people have died from COVID-19 worldwide, according to data collected by Johns Hopkins University. Nearly 108,000 of the 414,277 people diagnosed with the disease have recovered.

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