© EPA-EFE
Iranians wearing face masks walk in Tehran on February 24.
Iran's Health Ministry says the number of reported deaths linked to a rapidly spreading coronavirus outbreak in the country has
increased by four to 19.
Ministry spokesman Kianush Dschahanpurat said on February 26 that a total of 139 people --
an increase of 44 from the previous day -- have tested positive for the virus in various parts of the country.
Jahanpour urged Iranians to avoid "nonessential travel," particularly to hard-hit areas of Iran.
He said 15 of the new COVID-19 cases surfaced in Qom Province; nine in Gilan; four in Tehran; three in Khuzestan; two each in Sistan and Baluchistan, Kohgiluyeh and Boyer-Ahmad, and Fars; and one each in Markazi, Kermanshah, Ardebil, Mazandaran, Lorestan, Semnan, and Hormozgan.
Meanwhile, President Hassan Rohani acknowledged that
it may take "one, two, or three weeks" to get control of the virus in Iran, which has posted the highest death toll from the virus outside of China.
There was no plan to quarantine any district or city, Rohani said, according to a transcript posted on the Iranian presidency's website.
Comment: A suspected case in a
Canary Islands hotel with 1000 tourists caused its lockdown. An Italian doctor who recently stayed there tested positive for the virus. Cases in Italy surged from 222 to 283 yesterday. An
Austrian high school was also locked down after fears a teacher - who had just returned from northern Italy - had the virus.
Bahrain has ordered all schools and kindergartens to be shut down for two weeks after nine new cases were confirmed, bringing the total in Bahrain up to 17. All new cases in Bahrain were individuals who had arrived from Iran.
If the virus isn't brought under control in the next three months, the IOC may
cancel the Olympic Games in Tokyo scheduled for the end of July. Meanwhile, the American CDC is warning Americans to prepare:
"It's not so much a question of if this will happen any more, but rather more a question of exactly when this will happen and how many people in this country will have severe illness," Dr. Nancy Messonnier, head of the CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said during a conference call with reporters on Tuesday.
"We are asking the American public to prepare for the expectation that this might be bad," she added. "Disruption to everyday life might be severe."
Americans need to be prepared for schools and workplaces closing, and even elective medical procedures getting delayed, as the US healthcare system ramps up efforts to contain and control the spread of the virus in the coming weeks.
The CDC is operating "as if we are going to see community spread in the near term," Messonnier said. So far, the CDC has tested a total of 426 people and found 14 cases of COVID-19, twelve of which were travelers returning from China, and two were direct transmissions.
The US government is implementing an "aggressive containment strategy" and instituting extensive travel advisories, but this will get more difficult as the virus spreads in countries beyond China.
Messonnier explained that COVID-19 has fulfilled two out of three criteria to become considered a pandemic — causing illness that has resulted in death and sustained direct transmission — and is "moving closer" to the third, worldwide spread.
With any hope, the signs of a slow-down in new cases in China will be replicated in countries just starting to see cases. Everyone is not out of the woods yet, but it looks like the chances of runaway, exponential spread of the virus is low at this point. Until that happens, however, it's better safe than sorry. Also, a new
WHO report speculates that two thirds of cases may have gone unreported:
A new report from a WHO infectious disease modeling team based at Imperial College London is estimating about two-thirds of Covid-19 cases worldwide have gone undetected. The analysis suggests the global spread of the novel coronavirus is significantly greater than the current volume of confirmed cases.
"We are starting to see more cases reported from countries and regions outside mainland China with no known travel history or link to Wuhan City," explains Natsuko Imai, one of the authors on the new report.
...
As of February 23, 2020, there are over 78,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, the vast majority of which are concentrated in China. Prior studies have suggested most cases present with mild symptoms. Only a small minority of confirmed cases seem to progress into serious pneumonia-like disease, leading some researchers to suggest the virus may have spread wider than current numbers indicate.
...
The report concludes it is very likely a number of undetected chains of transmission have begun in many countries across the globe. Director-General of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus affirmed this growing concern during a recent WHO briefing.
...
While the difference between an epidemic and a pandemic may be a somewhat semantic one, based on the geographic spread of the disease, Nuzzo suggests the terminology does fundamentally affect how we deal with the virus on a local level.
"I am of the belief ... that we are in the early stages of a pandemic," said Nuzzo. "I think it's important for us to ... talk openly about whether containment of an epidemic is possible, or whether we are exacerbating pandemic spread, because my worry is we're diverting resources from the community level."
See also:
Comment: See also: