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Coronavirus Update: New Jersey’s first death confirmed
[NYPOST] New Jersey logged its first coronavirus death, Gov. Phil Murphy announced, according to news reports.

The governor said the victim was a man in his 60s from Bergen County who had a history of traveling between New Jersey and New York, and was admitted to Hackensack University Medical Center on March 6, WPIX reported.

"We are sad to report the first death in a case of COVID-19 in New Jersey," Murphy said in a statement. "Our prayers are with the family during this difficult time. We remain vigilant to doing all we can ‐ across all levels of government ‐ to protect the people of New Jersey."

The man’s death is the Northeastern US’s first from the epidemic ‐ and brings the number of coronavirus deaths in the nation to 27, US News & World Report said Tuesday.
CDC head: Public labs need more staff, equipment to handle coronavirus surge
[NYPOST] The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told lawmakers Tuesday there’s not enough staff and equipment in state and local labs — as he revealed that around 4,900 Americans have been tested for coronavirus through public labs.

“The truth is we’ve not invested, we’ve underinvested in the public health labs,” Dr. Robert Redfield told lawmakers on Capitol Hill, CNN reported.

His comments came Tuesday during a House Appropriations Committee hearing to approve the agency’s 2021 budget.

Redfield added that there’s no “surge capacity” in local labs, as the number of coronavirus cases in the country climbed past 700.

“There’s not enough equipment, there’s not enough people, there’s not enough internal capacity, there’s no surge capacity,” Redfield said.

Redfield said 4,856 people had been tested for the virus as of Monday in public labs, but that figure doesn’t include tests completed by clinical or private labs.
Seattle nursing home at center of coronavirus outbreak doesn't have testing kits
[NYPOST] The Seattle nursing home that became the US epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak doesn’t have the kits it needs to test 65 employees with symptoms of the deadly bug, a front man for the facility said.

Those staff members ‐ representing more than a third of the Life Care Center’s 180 employees ‐ are out sick with coronavirus-type symptoms while a federal strike team of doctors and nurses is tending to the 53 patients remaining in the center.

Thirteen of the 27 known coronavirus deaths in the US are connected to the facility in the Seattle suburb of Kirkland.

"We would like more kits to test employees," Life Care Center front man Tim Killian told news hounds Monday, adding that he did not know why the nursing home is lacking the kits. "We’ve been asking the various government agencies that have been supplying us with test kits."

Twenty-six of 120 patients living at the center as of Feb. 19 have since died ‐ with 13 of the 15 autopsies already conducted confirming coronavirus as the cause, Life Care officials said Monday.
Coronavirus hospital ward staffed by robots opens in Wuhan to protect medics
[NYPOST] A coronavirus hospital ward staffed by robots to protect medics from the deadly bug has opened in Wuhan.

The program, launched on Saturday at the Wuchang field hospital, will see the 5G-powered bots carry out tasks including taking patients’ temperature, delivering meals, and disinfecting the facility. It will also enable doctors read patients’ vitals remotely, reducing their exposure to the virus.

Over 3,000 medics have been infected across the Hubei Province since the coronavirus first began in capital Wuhan in mid-December. The virus, which has been traced to a food market in the city, has now infected more than 80,000 people in mainland China and more than 113,000 worldwide.

The Chinese government has faced criticism for initially trying to cover up the virus, but later locked down more than ten cities and built numerous quarantine facilities as part of efforts to contain it. The project at Wuchang hospital resulted from a collaboration between Hubei officials and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

New research finds coronavirus symptoms take five days to appear

[IsraelTimes] New research finds that coronavirus symptoms take an average of five days to develop in those who have contracted the disease. The study was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine by Justin Lessler, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,

The research also finds that if an individual has not gotten sick 12 days after making contact with someone who has the virus, it is safe to assume that he or she did not contract it. The study therefore concludes that the 14-day quarantine rule being broadly instituted in Israel is a wise tactic.

Utah hospital installs purified air medical tents outside to screen patients for coronavirus without risking spread of deadly virus


Posted by: Fred 2020-03-11
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=565638