Initial estimates were that we'll eventually see several million deaths in the USA. Looks like we're on track thus far?
COVID-19 news, the real statistics and daily update!
- Thread starter IRIS
- Start date
1. Wuhan the epicenter of the original outbreak is a long way from Beijing.
2. We have to remember something, China is a very different place than Canada. When the outbreak started, things were chaotic on the ground. China is a big country, and the people do not exactly trust the government. And of course, the government does not know what to do about the people either. In the first week of January it was getting out of control. And no knew what was going on. Not the people, not the government. On Jan 23, with 17 deaths and 537 people infected in Wuhan, a mass quarantine was ordered on Wuhan and over the course of the next few days the entire area, encompassing 160 million people.
The point is this, how China is different from Canada, this was a war time mobilization. People really thought this was a bio-war attack by the Americans on China. Therefore, quarantine everything, and mobilize. These were orders, as this was a "war" against a virus. Maybe it was a virus or maybe it was the Americans. Chinese people don't trust the Communist Party, but they definitely do not trust the damn Americans 1000x times more. Since it was Chinese New Year, and everyone was home anyways with the country shut down for a week, the order stay at home and mobilize internal security measures were easy to do, as if there was real war happening. That part was really impressive. The entire country mobilized to a wartime footing in 2 to 4 days. Imagine that the next time there is a confrontation with the Indians on the Himalayas or the Americans in the Taiwan Strait or South China Sea.
Canada will not mobilize to a wartime footing in 2 to 4 days.
3. Once everyone is in place, sitting at home, the contract tracing becomes easier for the government to isolate those infected. What was the most important part of the contract tracing and the spread of the Covid-19 they found it tends to infect entire families. Read a story somewhere that a family of 4 got infect and 3 of them died. So we have to expect, with this type of control and mobilization, everyone is accounted for. The sick cannot spread it because everyone at home now with 2 a day temperature checks from the authorities.
We have to note the differences here between Wuhan and the rest of China, the former under a very strict quarantine only now being lifted, while the latter was under a strict quarantine of 2-3 weeks. The rest of China was given a 2-3 week quarantine after Wuhan was quarantined at 17 deaths and 537 Covid-19 cases. The chances of 537 cases of infecting 1.4 billion would have been pretty low if the epicenter was quarantined indefinitely and the rest of the country was quarantined the incubation period of 14 days and people where subjected to constant temperature checking.
The sealing off of Wuhan was complete. The military ensured no one got in or out, except with a special permit.
4. The Chinese government used big data, the AI, to track people's cell phone and their itinerary. If someone passed by a neighourhood that had an outbreak, the government will tell that person you need a temperature check. The New York Times reported a lot about this.
Other than point 1 where Beijing and Ontario are both a long way away from Wuhan, points 2 3 & 4 are not available to us.
So we sit in the dark in mother's basement hoping that no one finds us, including the coronavirus.
:ambivalence:
China numbers are fake!
Go to video 7:56
Just look at the death total vs urns from funeral home.
So therefore China must saved face, In order to do that that China “is in the midst of its most intensive propaganda operation in living memory, in trying to project its success in dealing with the virus,” Peter Tsang, the director of the China Institute at the London University School of Oriental and African Studies, told Hong Kong's South China Morning Post.
“There is now an imperative for the statistics to be low, and now we have statistics that serve the political imperative.”
More Evidence China Is Lying; Number Of Urns More Than Double Reported Coronavirus Deaths
China has been caught lying once again about coronavirus figures - with the latest evidence coming from ground-zero in Wuhan, where according to official CCP data just 50,006 people were infected with COVID-19, and 2,535 dying of the virus.
Yet, Chinese investigative outlet Caixin revealed that when mortuaries opened back up this week, photos revealed a far greater number of urns than reported deaths. In one, a truck loaded with 2,500 urns can be seen arriving to the Hankou Mortuary. According to the report, the driver said he had delivered the same amount the previous day.
In another photo, seven 500-urn stacks can be seen inside the mortuary, adding up to 3,500 deaths.
This adds up to more than double the amount of reported deaths in the region - for which grieving family members waited in line for as long as five hours to collect, according to Shanghaiist.
Urns are reportedly being distributed at a rate of 500 a day at the mortuary until the Tomb Sweeping Day holiday, which falls on April 4 this year.
Wuhan has seven other mortuaries. If they are all sticking to the same schedule, this adds up to more than 40,000 urns being distributed in the city over the next 10 days.
When reporters at Bloomberg made calls to the funeral homes
https://time.com/5811222/wuhan-coronavirus-death-toll/
to check on the number of urns waiting to be collected, the mortuaries said that they either did not have that data or were not authorized to disclose it. -Shanghaiist
Given the constant, provable lies, does anyone believe that China has actually contained COVID-19?
And of course, as former White House press secretary Sean Spicer pointed out implicitly, don't expect the mainstream media to question anything...
Besides they all know the truth...(but must resist)
China has been caught lying once again about coronavirus figures - with the latest evidence coming from ground-zero in Wuhan, where according to official CCP data just 50,006 people were infected with COVID-19, and 2,535 dying of the virus.
Yet, Chinese investigative outlet Caixin revealed that when mortuaries opened back up this week, photos revealed a far greater number of urns than reported deaths. In one, a truck loaded with 2,500 urns can be seen arriving to the Hankou Mortuary. According to the report, the driver said he had delivered the same amount the previous day.
In another photo, seven 500-urn stacks can be seen inside the mortuary, adding up to 3,500 deaths.
This adds up to more than double the amount of reported deaths in the region - for which grieving family members waited in line for as long as five hours to collect, according to Shanghaiist.
Urns are reportedly being distributed at a rate of 500 a day at the mortuary until the Tomb Sweeping Day holiday, which falls on April 4 this year.
Wuhan has seven other mortuaries. If they are all sticking to the same schedule, this adds up to more than 40,000 urns being distributed in the city over the next 10 days.
When reporters at Bloomberg made calls to the funeral homes
https://time.com/5811222/wuhan-coronavirus-death-toll/
to check on the number of urns waiting to be collected, the mortuaries said that they either did not have that data or were not authorized to disclose it. -Shanghaiist
Given the constant, provable lies, does anyone believe that China has actually contained COVID-19?
And of course, as former White House press secretary Sean Spicer pointed out implicitly, don't expect the mainstream media to question anything...
Besides they all know the truth...(but must resist)
For those who aren't inclined to take the CCP at their word, however, ample evidence exists to prove that China is lying - about both the number of dead and the ongoing situation.
Jennifer Zeng 曾錚
@jenniferatntd
Mar 20
https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd/s...-no-new-infections-contradicts-reality-ground
Latest figures released by China Mobile show that they have lost 8.116 million users in Jan and Feb. Where are these users now? Switched to other carriers? Or, they couldn't carry their phone to the nether world?
Chinese report at: https://bit.ly/2QxDobi
#CCPVirus #COVID2019
China lying when China says there is no new cases China.
In a video posted to social media on March 19, a Chinese citizen shows the Wuhan Union Hospital, one of 46 designated facilities to treat COVID-19, and the queue in front of it. “Look, Look! People are lining up in front of the fever clinic at Wuhan Union Hospital,” the person says. The Epoch Times confirmed the footage was filmed at the hospital.
https://youtu.be/WFL9Wqk-5Sk
Jennifer Zeng 曾錚
@jenniferatntd
No new #CCPVirus cases in #Wuhan?
https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd/status/1241006465558732801
This notice to residents says there is one confirmed case at Golden Elegant Garden on Mar 17. Patient felt unwell on Mar 15, went to Xinhua Hospital on Mar 16. Test came back on Mar 17 as positive. #COVID2019 #Coronavirus #CoronavirusOutbreak
Jennifer Zeng 曾錚
@jenniferatntd
Mar 20
https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd/s...-no-new-infections-contradicts-reality-ground
Latest figures released by China Mobile show that they have lost 8.116 million users in Jan and Feb. Where are these users now? Switched to other carriers? Or, they couldn't carry their phone to the nether world?
Chinese report at: https://bit.ly/2QxDobi
#CCPVirus #COVID2019
China lying when China says there is no new cases China.
In a video posted to social media on March 19, a Chinese citizen shows the Wuhan Union Hospital, one of 46 designated facilities to treat COVID-19, and the queue in front of it. “Look, Look! People are lining up in front of the fever clinic at Wuhan Union Hospital,” the person says. The Epoch Times confirmed the footage was filmed at the hospital.
https://youtu.be/WFL9Wqk-5Sk
Jennifer Zeng 曾錚
@jenniferatntd
No new #CCPVirus cases in #Wuhan?
https://twitter.com/jenniferatntd/status/1241006465558732801
This notice to residents says there is one confirmed case at Golden Elegant Garden on Mar 17. Patient felt unwell on Mar 15, went to Xinhua Hospital on Mar 16. Test came back on Mar 17 as positive. #COVID2019 #Coronavirus #CoronavirusOutbreak
As the outbreak was ongoing, many viewed China’s official numbers with skepticism amid multiple revisions to the way in which cases were counted, accusing Chinese authorities of attempting to downplay the already extreme severity of the epidemic.
Considering what has happened in other countries around the world, in retrospect, China’s numbers now look even more suspect. The United States has recently surpassed China in number of reported coronavirus cases while both Italy and Spain have reported more deaths.
For its part, China has touted its aggressive quarantine measures, community action, and medical resources to explain how it managed to weather the coronavirus storm. Life is now starting to return back to normal in the country.
Considering what has happened in other countries around the world, in retrospect, China’s numbers now look even more suspect. The United States has recently surpassed China in number of reported coronavirus cases while both Italy and Spain have reported more deaths.
For its part, China has touted its aggressive quarantine measures, community action, and medical resources to explain how it managed to weather the coronavirus storm. Life is now starting to return back to normal in the country.
Why The World's Doing A Double-Take On China's No-New-Infections Claim
China’s announcement this month of nearly a week of no new infections in Wuhan, the hard-hit city where the coronavirus pandemic originated, was both hope-inspiring -- and hard to believe.
Medical professionals said the draconian set of policies imposed by the Chinese government – including widespread testing, isolation of all infected people and anyone they came in contact with – are proven methods for limiting contagion. Other countries, South Korea and Taiwan, for example, have followed similar courses, and they have also reported steep declines in new infections, though neither says it has achieved no new local infections, as China claims.
A Taiwan network reported that one hospital was under pressure from the central government not to admit patients so it could report no new cases.
What we don't know is the degree to which they're being transparent and the degree to which they're following up on existing infections,” Don Goldmann, a professor of immunology, infectious diseases, and epidemiology at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, said in a phone interview.
Dr. Goldmann said Chinese scientists have been extremely transparent about what they've discovered about the coronavirus so far; they have shared information on the genetics and sequencing of the virus and details of autopsies, clinical care and outcomes, he said. They've also shared fatality rates among different age groups.
So I'm not sure why they would make this up,” he said, “especially since risking another wave of this would not be in their interests or in the interests of their leadership.”
Still, skepticism about China's no-new-local-infections claim is widespread, including, at least according to the anecdotal evidence, inside China. The doubt is fueled both by China's Communist Party's long history of propaganda and by the obvious benefits of changing the focus from the government’s initial efforts to suppress information about the coronavirus to its supposedly glorious victory over the disease crippling much of the world.
“A propaganda spokesman's job is the turn messy facts into a clean narrative,” Andrew J. Nathan, professor of political science at Columbia University and a leading China expert, said in an email.
“China is trying to bury the embarrassment of the Covid-19 cover-up in a happy story of triumph over the virus.
But it feels like overreaching to say that transmission has completely stopped,” Nathan continued.
“It seems that the message is political, not epidemiological.”
Some reports have chipped away at least at China's most extreme claim of success. On the very days when the national health authority was announcing that there were no new local infections, social media accounts in China were circulating photographs of “urgent notices” put up in residential areas announcing new cases and warning people to stay home.
EBC News, a Taiwan cable news network, broadcast two such photographs dated March 20, which is two days after China reported there were no new local Wuhan infections. One of the notices, after announcing the new cases, read: “Do not go out, or gather, wash your hands, be careful, hold on, hold on, and hold on some more.”
EBC also broadcast video of a hospital in Wuhan that it says was taken on March 19 and provided by a local Wuhan journalist. The video shows a reception area crowded with people, some of them on gurneys with IV drips, and health care workers in full protective gear, white suits, face masks and goggles.
According to the Taiwan commentators, the reporter had accompanied a friend who was seeking care for his sick mother, but the hospital, while allowing patients to stay in the waiting area, was refusing to admit any of them. When the reporter asked the reason, a health worker at the hospital told him the hospital was under pressure from the central government to report no new cases.
There's no question that since Beijing began implementing strict quarantine measures to fight the virus, the Chinese propaganda machine has been in full gear, praising the Communist Party and its paramount leader, Xi Jinping, for directing an effective response to the epidemic and presenting itself as a model for the rest of the world. The overall message is that, as always, when things get tough, the Communist Party and its leaders, and only they, can be counted on for national salvation.
From the flood rescue effort in 1998 to the SARS epidemic in 2003 and the earthquake relief work in 2008,” the People's Daily, the party's official organ, said early in March, as China began reporting a drop in new coronavirus infections, “these great struggles one after the other have taught us that the Chinese Communist Party is the backbone of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation.”
In recent days, the Chinese media have gone beyond praise of the country's leaders to depicting a world grateful to China for its leadership in the fight against the disease. It has also been expressing fury at President Trump for calling the disease the “Chinese virus” and it has lent credence to the unfounded conspiracy theory that the virus actually originated not in a market in Wuhan, but in an American military germ warfare lab.
China selflessly extends helping hand to countries around the world in global battle against Covid-19,” read one recent headline in the English-language People's Daily Online. The article showed pictures of a group of Chinese health care workers at a hospital in Italy giving the thumbs up. Another recent headline: “Foreign Politicians Thank China for Support Amid Epidemic.”
The barrage of good news propaganda has, moreover, been accompanied by what the human rights group Reporters Without Borders is calling China's relentless crackdown on all independent news outlets that might mar the official narrative. ~~>https://rsf.org/en/news/coronavirus-information-heroes-china-silenced
This repression originated early in January when Li Wenliang, the doctor who first reported the existence of the virus, was taken into custody by the local Public Security Bureau and only released when he signed a confession admitting to “spreading false rumors.”
Dr. Li soon died of the very disease whose existence was being denied by China's authoritie, and his martyrdom forced the authorities to admit that they had behaved incorrectly in his case.
But the effort at information control has continued nonetheless. At least three citizen journalists who put out videos and reports on the dismal, crowded conditions in Wuhan’s hospitals have disappeared. Among them was Fang Bin, a businessman in Wuhan who was able to video-record his own arrest by Chinese police, posing as medical workers at his apartment. Fang was released for a time, but he soon put out a video in which he clearly anticipated his ability to act as an independent source of information in Wuhan wouldn't last long.
“I'm afraid,” he said.
“Before me there's the virus. And behind me, the legal and administrative apparatus of the Chinese state.”
There have been other apparent arrests, or at least unexplained disappearances, including that of Ren Zhiqiang, a wealthy property developer who circulated an article in which he criticized Xi for his handling of the crisis. Earlier this month, according to Reporters Without Borders, an issue of the magazine Ren Wu was pulled from the newsstands after publishing an interview with a prominent Wuhan doctor criticizing the government for censoring doctors.
Now, with China's recent expulsion of reporters from The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, the country's effort to gain total control of the coronavirus narrative would seem to be almost complete.]
China “is in the midst of its most intensive propaganda operation in living memory, in trying to project its success in dealing with the virus,” Peter Tsang, the director of the China Institute at the London University School of Oriental and African Studies, told Hong Kong's South China Morning Post.
“There is now an imperative for the statistics to be low, and now we have statistics that serve the political imperative.”
So, what is the true picture? That is not an easy question to answer, but the available evidence would seem to support the conclusion that, while the no-new-infections claim may be more propaganda than literal result, China has, as Dr. Goldmann said, almost certainly succeeded in substantially slowing down the spread of the virus.
Still, several things are missing from the official narrative that might be useful to other countries seeking to reduce the virus’s spread. These include whether the actions taken to track down infected people and force them into total quarantine could be duplicated in democratic countries. Taiwan's EBC television network a couple of weeks ago broadcast video of a street brawl between local residents and police, the residents evidently furious they were unable even to obtain food and shouting, “We've been abandoned.” No images of that sort are likely to be shown on Chinese Central TV.
And then there's the risk mentioned by Dr. Goldmann that a new flare up of the virus would harm the credibility of the authorities. But one commentator on Taiwan television speculated that, if there is a new surge of infections, the propaganda machine will put the blame on the United States and Europe, saying the new infections were the result of their failure to follow the Chinese example.
China’s announcement this month of nearly a week of no new infections in Wuhan, the hard-hit city where the coronavirus pandemic originated, was both hope-inspiring -- and hard to believe.
Medical professionals said the draconian set of policies imposed by the Chinese government – including widespread testing, isolation of all infected people and anyone they came in contact with – are proven methods for limiting contagion. Other countries, South Korea and Taiwan, for example, have followed similar courses, and they have also reported steep declines in new infections, though neither says it has achieved no new local infections, as China claims.
A Taiwan network reported that one hospital was under pressure from the central government not to admit patients so it could report no new cases.
What we don't know is the degree to which they're being transparent and the degree to which they're following up on existing infections,” Don Goldmann, a professor of immunology, infectious diseases, and epidemiology at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, said in a phone interview.
Dr. Goldmann said Chinese scientists have been extremely transparent about what they've discovered about the coronavirus so far; they have shared information on the genetics and sequencing of the virus and details of autopsies, clinical care and outcomes, he said. They've also shared fatality rates among different age groups.
So I'm not sure why they would make this up,” he said, “especially since risking another wave of this would not be in their interests or in the interests of their leadership.”
Still, skepticism about China's no-new-local-infections claim is widespread, including, at least according to the anecdotal evidence, inside China. The doubt is fueled both by China's Communist Party's long history of propaganda and by the obvious benefits of changing the focus from the government’s initial efforts to suppress information about the coronavirus to its supposedly glorious victory over the disease crippling much of the world.
“A propaganda spokesman's job is the turn messy facts into a clean narrative,” Andrew J. Nathan, professor of political science at Columbia University and a leading China expert, said in an email.
“China is trying to bury the embarrassment of the Covid-19 cover-up in a happy story of triumph over the virus.
But it feels like overreaching to say that transmission has completely stopped,” Nathan continued.
“It seems that the message is political, not epidemiological.”
Some reports have chipped away at least at China's most extreme claim of success. On the very days when the national health authority was announcing that there were no new local infections, social media accounts in China were circulating photographs of “urgent notices” put up in residential areas announcing new cases and warning people to stay home.
EBC News, a Taiwan cable news network, broadcast two such photographs dated March 20, which is two days after China reported there were no new local Wuhan infections. One of the notices, after announcing the new cases, read: “Do not go out, or gather, wash your hands, be careful, hold on, hold on, and hold on some more.”
EBC also broadcast video of a hospital in Wuhan that it says was taken on March 19 and provided by a local Wuhan journalist. The video shows a reception area crowded with people, some of them on gurneys with IV drips, and health care workers in full protective gear, white suits, face masks and goggles.
According to the Taiwan commentators, the reporter had accompanied a friend who was seeking care for his sick mother, but the hospital, while allowing patients to stay in the waiting area, was refusing to admit any of them. When the reporter asked the reason, a health worker at the hospital told him the hospital was under pressure from the central government to report no new cases.
There's no question that since Beijing began implementing strict quarantine measures to fight the virus, the Chinese propaganda machine has been in full gear, praising the Communist Party and its paramount leader, Xi Jinping, for directing an effective response to the epidemic and presenting itself as a model for the rest of the world. The overall message is that, as always, when things get tough, the Communist Party and its leaders, and only they, can be counted on for national salvation.
From the flood rescue effort in 1998 to the SARS epidemic in 2003 and the earthquake relief work in 2008,” the People's Daily, the party's official organ, said early in March, as China began reporting a drop in new coronavirus infections, “these great struggles one after the other have taught us that the Chinese Communist Party is the backbone of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation.”
In recent days, the Chinese media have gone beyond praise of the country's leaders to depicting a world grateful to China for its leadership in the fight against the disease. It has also been expressing fury at President Trump for calling the disease the “Chinese virus” and it has lent credence to the unfounded conspiracy theory that the virus actually originated not in a market in Wuhan, but in an American military germ warfare lab.
China selflessly extends helping hand to countries around the world in global battle against Covid-19,” read one recent headline in the English-language People's Daily Online. The article showed pictures of a group of Chinese health care workers at a hospital in Italy giving the thumbs up. Another recent headline: “Foreign Politicians Thank China for Support Amid Epidemic.”
The barrage of good news propaganda has, moreover, been accompanied by what the human rights group Reporters Without Borders is calling China's relentless crackdown on all independent news outlets that might mar the official narrative. ~~>https://rsf.org/en/news/coronavirus-information-heroes-china-silenced
This repression originated early in January when Li Wenliang, the doctor who first reported the existence of the virus, was taken into custody by the local Public Security Bureau and only released when he signed a confession admitting to “spreading false rumors.”
Dr. Li soon died of the very disease whose existence was being denied by China's authoritie, and his martyrdom forced the authorities to admit that they had behaved incorrectly in his case.
But the effort at information control has continued nonetheless. At least three citizen journalists who put out videos and reports on the dismal, crowded conditions in Wuhan’s hospitals have disappeared. Among them was Fang Bin, a businessman in Wuhan who was able to video-record his own arrest by Chinese police, posing as medical workers at his apartment. Fang was released for a time, but he soon put out a video in which he clearly anticipated his ability to act as an independent source of information in Wuhan wouldn't last long.
“I'm afraid,” he said.
“Before me there's the virus. And behind me, the legal and administrative apparatus of the Chinese state.”
There have been other apparent arrests, or at least unexplained disappearances, including that of Ren Zhiqiang, a wealthy property developer who circulated an article in which he criticized Xi for his handling of the crisis. Earlier this month, according to Reporters Without Borders, an issue of the magazine Ren Wu was pulled from the newsstands after publishing an interview with a prominent Wuhan doctor criticizing the government for censoring doctors.
Now, with China's recent expulsion of reporters from The New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal, the country's effort to gain total control of the coronavirus narrative would seem to be almost complete.]
China “is in the midst of its most intensive propaganda operation in living memory, in trying to project its success in dealing with the virus,” Peter Tsang, the director of the China Institute at the London University School of Oriental and African Studies, told Hong Kong's South China Morning Post.
“There is now an imperative for the statistics to be low, and now we have statistics that serve the political imperative.”
So, what is the true picture? That is not an easy question to answer, but the available evidence would seem to support the conclusion that, while the no-new-infections claim may be more propaganda than literal result, China has, as Dr. Goldmann said, almost certainly succeeded in substantially slowing down the spread of the virus.
Still, several things are missing from the official narrative that might be useful to other countries seeking to reduce the virus’s spread. These include whether the actions taken to track down infected people and force them into total quarantine could be duplicated in democratic countries. Taiwan's EBC television network a couple of weeks ago broadcast video of a street brawl between local residents and police, the residents evidently furious they were unable even to obtain food and shouting, “We've been abandoned.” No images of that sort are likely to be shown on Chinese Central TV.
And then there's the risk mentioned by Dr. Goldmann that a new flare up of the virus would harm the credibility of the authorities. But one commentator on Taiwan television speculated that, if there is a new surge of infections, the propaganda machine will put the blame on the United States and Europe, saying the new infections were the result of their failure to follow the Chinese example.
Well over a month ago I suggested bombing Wuhan or burning all men, women, and children in Wuhan to death with flamethrowers to stop covid in its tracks. It would have been horrifying but it would have saved the world from the virus. I was told that I was crazy. Now, millions worldwide will die. The lesser of two evils is no longer an option.
Not feasible it would had started a nuclear war ( Worlds War III) . Billions would have die instead.
I will repeat this $&#% crazy!!
Unfortunately millions worldwide will die especially the 3rd countries will be hit the hardest with their poor hospital care.
Just looking at the swine flu death counts prove you are wrong.
I agree there will be a flood of babies. And will be shortages of condom too.
Yup life will continue, but our way life before maybe change forever!!
Here' s a site offering a more broader picture of what's happening: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Abbott Labs Unveils COVID-19 "Gamechanger": Portable Test Can Detect Virus In Under 5 Minutes
One week after the FDA granted emergency approval to a point-of-care test purporting to produce results in under 45 minutes, the agency has granted "emergency use authorization" to Abbott Labs so the company can bring to market a rapid-response test for COVID-19 that can tell if somebody is infected in under five minutes, and is portable enough to be used in practically any health-care setting.
The medical-device maker plans to supply 50,000 tests a day beginning April 1, said John Frels, vice president of research and development at Abbott Diagnostics. The molecular test scans samples for fragments of the coronavirus genome, which can quickly be detected when present at high levels. An even more thorough search to definitively rule out an infection can take up to 13 minutes, BBG reports.
However, the FDA has only authorized the test for use in "authorized laboratories and patient care settings", mostly hospitals and approved public and private labs that are already running tests.
The company described the test as a "gamechanger."
"This is really going to provide a tremendous opportunity for front-line caregivers, those having to diagnose a lot of infections, to close the gap with our testing," Frels said. "A clinic will be able to turn that result around quickly, while the patient is waiting."
Here's how the test works, according to Bloomberg:
The technology builds on Illinois-based Abbott’s ID Now platform, the most common point-of-care test currently available in the U.S., with more than 18,000 units spread across the country. It is widely used to detect influenza, strep throat and respiratory syncytial virus, a common bug that causes cold-like symptoms.
The test starts with taking a swab from the nose or the back of the throat, then mixing it with a chemical solution that breaks open the virus and releases its RNA. The mixture is inserted into an ID Now system, a small box weighing just under 7 pounds that has the technology to identify and amplify select sequences of the coronavirus genome and ignore contamination from other viruses.
The equipment can be set up almost anywhere, but the company is working with its customers and the Trump administration to ensure the first cartridges used to perform the tests are sent to where they are most needed. They are targeting hospital emergency rooms, urgent-care clinics and doctors’ offices.
Last week, Abbott’s m2000 RealTime system got U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for use in hospitals and molecular laboratories to diagnose the infection. That system can churn through more tests on a daily basis, up to 1 million a week, but it takes longer to get the results. Abbott plans to provide at least 5 million tests a month between the two systems.
Thank you. Everything I see being shown is all about total infected and death total. I never see anything about the people that have recovered. I guess that doesn’t sell advertising.
Always thinking, eh Phil? LOL
I think they should forbid sex for people who don't co-habit.
211 new cases in Ontario. At this rate cases are doubling every 4 days:
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada...se-ship-zaandam-can-transit-panama-canal.html
How long do you think it will take before Trudeau shuts down the entire country, or Ford shuts down Ontario??
(and by shutting down I mean like they have in Italy/Spain right now)
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada...se-ship-zaandam-can-transit-panama-canal.html
How long do you think it will take before Trudeau shuts down the entire country, or Ford shuts down Ontario??
(and by shutting down I mean like they have in Italy/Spain right now)
