Washington State Reports 15th Coronavirus Death In US, Apple Asks Employees To Work From Home: Live Updates
by Tyler Durden
ZeroHedge.com
Fri, 03/06/2020
Summary:
15th US death reported in WA.
CDC has tested fewer than 2,000 Americans, Atlantic reports
15 more patients from Kirkland nursing home hospitalized
Germany reports 90 new cases to 534
U. of Washington will move all classes online for rest of semester
McDonald’s cancels franchisee convention
Iraqi officials report third death
LatAm airline employee confirmed as Peru’s first coronavirus case
Houston area confirms 6th case
Italy reports another 678 cases
Gap closes NYC office
New York cases climb to 33
Baggage handler at Heathrow tests positive
Madrid closes old folks homes
5 schools close in PA.
Trump visit to CDC is back on
WHO: “false hope” that virus will disappear when summer arrives
WHO: We don’t know mortality rate
Kudlow: “Buy stocks”
2nd death in UK, cases hit 163; France reports 2 new deaths bringing total to 9
French total cases hits 577
Egypt reports 12 cases aboard cruise ship on the Nile
2,733 asked to voluntarily quarantine in NYC
Trump scraps trip to CDC
Switzerland, the Netherlands report 1st deaths
Slovakia only country in Europe without coronavirus
Russia accuses Italy of spreading virus
Singapore reports 13 new cases, largest one-day jump since outbreak began
US case total: 234
South Korea, Japan feud over virus
Microsoft, Adidas, Lockheed say at least 1 employee has contracted virus
China claims it can have vaccine ready by April
Pompeo says China withheld information, leaving US “behind the curve”
* * *
Update (1510ET): Washington State has reported the country’s 15th coronavirus death. In other news, Apple has reportedly asked the 12,000 employees at is Cupertino HQ to work from home amid the outbreak.
Outside the US, Colombia has just confirmed its first case of the virus, breaking the news less than an hour after the first case was confirmed in Peru.
* * *
Update (1500ET): MasterCard has confirmed that an employee in its Sao Paolo office has tested positive.
Update (1445ET): As American officials tout their efforts to secure 1 million masks by the end of the day, a task that we had previously reported they were falling far behind on, the Atlantic is reporting that only 1,895 Americans have been tested so far. Roughly 10% of those have tested positive.
Here’s more from the Atlantic, which billed the lack of tests as the biggest piece of evidence that the Trump Administration is botching the effort.
“The CDC got this right with H1N1 and Zika, and produced huge quantities of test kits that went around the country,” Thomas Frieden, the director of the CDC from 2009 to 2017, told us. “I don’t know what went wrong this time.”
Through interviews with dozens of public-health officials and a survey of local data from across the country, The Atlantic could only verify that 1,895 people have been tested for the coronavirus in the United States, about 10 percent of whom have tested positive. And while the American capacity to test for the coronavirus has ramped up significantly over the past few days, local officials can still test only several thousand people a day, not the tens or hundreds of thousands indicated by the White House’s promises.
Through interviews with dozens of public-health officials and a survey of local data from across the country, The Atlantic could only verify that 1,895 people have been tested for the coronavirus in the United States, about 10 percent of whom have tested positive. And while the American capacity to test for the coronavirus has ramped up significantly over the past few days, local officials can still test only several thousand people a day, not the tens or hundreds of thousands indicated by the White House’s promises.
To arrive at our estimate, we contacted the public-health departments of all 50 states and the District of Columbia. We gathered data on websites, and we corresponded with dozens of state officials. All 50 states and D.C. have made some information available, though the quality and timeliness of the data varied widely. Some states have only committed to releasing their numbers once or three times a week. Most are focused on the number of confirmed cases; only a few have publicized the number of people they are capable of testing.
This follows a decision by the CDC to stop publishing data about the number of tests administered, a decision that has angered many experts. It’s let to a patchwork of state reports making data that much more difficult to gather. While South Korea tested more than 10,000 people a day from the beginning of the outbreak, across the US, officials can only administer a few hundreds tests a day.
Meanwhile, up in Washington State, health officials in King County, the epicenter of the outbreak, revealed that another 15 patients from a the nursing home in Kirkland have been sent to a hospital. Every patient and staffer at the facility is in the process of being tested. At least eight of the 14 deaths in the US have been Kirkland residents, the NYT reported in a story about the situation at the nursing home.
A team of 30 federal officials will arrive on Saturday to help with the situation at the home, state officials said.
Meanwhile, Iraqi officials reported the third death in the country in the region of Karbala, along with eight new cases.
STOCK UP THEN SELF-ISOLATE