Day 29: Notable Deaths

The first US death is rumored, in Washington State. PlagueBlog has also not confirmed the rumored death of an Iranian MP.

Day 28: Poetic Justice

Poetic justice continues mowing down Iranian officials; reported cases now include (Ms.) Massoumeh Ebtekar, women's affairs, and Mojtaba Zolnour, national security and foreign affairs. Both are self-quarantined. For the country as a whole, the case count stands at 388 with 34 deaths.

Italy stands at 655 cases with 17 deaths, and has infected most of Europe at this point. More disturbingly, an Italian citizen in Nigeria has fallen ill, for that country's first case. The case was caught early on the patient's return to Nigeria, so the other 205 million Nigerians may be safe for the moment. Switzerland has banned large public events.

Germ Boat #2's case count does not include passengers falling ill after evac so remains steady at 705, but does include passenger deaths in Japanese hospitals, which have risen to 6. In other Japanese news, the governor of Hokkaido (a prefecture including the northernmost large island of Japan as well as some smaller islands) has declared a state of emergency over the local case count (54).

South Korea is now at 2,337 cases with 13 deaths. China continues to claim recovery with only 327 new cases.

Day 27: The Bats Come Home Again

Topping the coronavirus news is our 60th case, a patient at UC Davis medical center in Sacramento, with no known links to travelers. The San Francisco Chronicle reports the patient was apparently transferred there from somewhere in Solano County, California while already intubated. The CDC initially refused to test the patient due to their lack of contacts, and still hopes to find the missing link to China. Several health care workers are under voluntary quarantine.

CoronaChan never sleeps, and there are plenty of other developments to report. Reuters reports Japan will closed all primary and secondary schools for the month of March. With 505 cases yesterday, South Korea has taken over China in daily reported cases (though what is actually going on with China's numbers is unclear) and has hit 1766 cases as of this blogging. The virus is also spreading among the South Korean military, though the case count among the US forces permanently encamped there remains at 2.

The case count for Germ Ship #2, the Diamond Princess, has risen to 705 with 4 deaths.

Italy's count has gone up to 528 cases with 14 deaths. The rumored 50 Iranian deaths have still not shown up in their case counts, which currently stand at 275 cases with 26 deaths. Ilna news reports the sad passing of a 23-year-old women's soccer player from Qom.

Day 26: Coronival

Brazil has confirmed the first Latin American coronavirus case, ex Italy (which now has over 450 cases). South Korea is at 1,261 cases. US cases have gone up by about 15 (rather unspecified) travelers and their contacts; President Trump is attempting to throw fistfuls of money at the problem.

Iran's project to infect the entire Middle East proceeds apace, and their deputy health minister has tested positive.

Day 25: Just Saying No to Bats

The Daily Mail reports that China is turning its wildlife-eating ban permanent. PlagueBlog can only hope that it sticks. China also seems to have stopped reporting case numbers, making the worldwide stats rather inaccurate.

Day 24: Iran Makes China Look Good

Iran continues to make China look open and responsible; most Middle Eastern cases have already been traced back to Iran, and the AP reports on some fudgy numbers:

A staggering 50 people have died in the Iranian city of Qom from the new coronavirus this month, a lawmaker was quoted as saying on Monday, even as the Health Ministry insisted only 12 deaths have been recorded nationwide.

The new death toll reported by the Qom representative, Ahmad Amirabadi Farahani, is significantly higher than the 47 total cases of infections state TV had reported just hours earlier. Iran’s health ministry now says total infections have risen to 61, but a spokesman said deaths remained at 12.

Still, questions of transparency are being raised as the number of deaths compared to the number of confirmed infections from the virus is higher in Iran than in any other country, including China and South Korea, where the outbreak is far more widespread.

Rumor has it that the Qom representative then left the parliament feeling ill and the staff sterilized his chair.

It's tough to top that one, but the WHO is trying; Reuters reports they no longer use the classification "pandemic". In other words, no pandemic for you!

In less laughable news, Italy reports 38 new cases, for a total of 223 cases with 7 deaths. (Some reports have 229 with 6 deaths.) South Korea is at 833 cases with 8 deaths.

In Germ Boat #2 news, a third passenger of the Diamond Princess died yesterday (an 80-year-old Japanese man), and the case count has risen to 691, apparently due at least in part to ongoing testing of the largely Filipino crew, though some ex-plague-ship cases that have been popping up post-evac may also have been counted.

The JHU CSSE app seems to be struggling under the load of cases today, so I've added another source of COVID-19 numbers the sidebar, BNO News.

P.S. A 900-point plunge in Dow futures has been attributed to coronavirus fears.

P.P.S. The worldwide case count has exceeded 80,000.

Day 23: Italy Takes the Lead

The AP reports that "coronavirus infections in Italy are now the largest outbreak outside Asia" (which isn't saying much) with 132 cases. More notably, Carnevale has been cancelled in Venice and schools shut down in Lombardy. As mentioned yesterday, these case remain untraced:

Authorities expressed frustration they haven’t been able to track down the source of the virus spread in the north, which surfaced last week when an Italian man in Codogno in his late 30s became critically ill.

“The health officials haven’t been yet able to pinpoint patient zero,” Angelo Borrelli, head of the national Civil Protection agency, told reporters in Rome.

At first, it was widely presumed that the man was infected by an Italian friend he dined with and who recently returned from his job, based in Shanghai. When the friend tested negative for the virus, attention turned to several Chinese people who live in town and who frequent the same cafe visited by the stricken man. But Lombardy Gov. Attilio Fontana told reporters all of those Chinese residents have tested negative, too.

Back in Asia, South Korea has firmed up its lead with 602 cases, while two young Chinese doctors have died in the past 24 hours. Reports continue to circulate about relapses; the South China Morning Post reports new quarantine restrictions for recovered patients:

The authorities in Wuhan on Saturday introduced 14 days’ mandatory quarantine for recovered coronavirus patients, after some discharged patients again tested positive.

From Saturday, all patients who had recovered and been discharged had to be sent to designated places for two weeks of quarantine and medical observation, the city’s coronavirus treatment and control command centre said on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter.

P.S. Bloomberg reports on the potential significance of the fecal-oral route.

P.P.S. Iran has increased to 43 cases and 8 deaths. Several neighboring states have closed the border, and the government is already making noise about reducing New Year travel. (Nowruz, the Zoroastrian New Year, falls on the vernal equinox.)

Day 22: Untraceable Clusters

There are now 556 cases in South Korea and 79 in Italy. The AP reports on untraceable clusters in Singapore and Iran as well.

Business Insider has a nice writeup about asymptomatic spread in China.

Day 21: Oh, Shi'ite

While the official count remains at 5, Reuters reports two more deaths and 13 more cases in Iran, for a total of 18 cases and four deaths. Coronavirus has spread from the Shi'ite "Vatican" of Qom to Tehran and several other cities. Reuters also reports an exported case from Iran is Lebanon's first case. Another exported case has appeared in British Columbia (Canada).

P.S. I forgot to mention the spike of 100 new cases in South Korea, which is now at 204 confirmed. Also, Israel has confirmed a case off the Diamond Princess. (It was otherwise a quiet day for Germ Boat #2.)

Day 20: China Still Closed

Reuters reports that the closure of schools and non-essential businesses in Hubei has been extended from the original deadline of tomorrow to March 11th. Also, South Korea shoots up by 53 new cases to a total of 104, and has delayed school opening in Daegu. Iran has added 3 more confirmed cases.

In general the confirmed case counts seem to be falling, but this seems to be more an artifact of changed reporting standards in China than any real peak to the pandemic.

In a mixed day for Germ Boat #2, the Diamond Princess count went up only 13 cases to 634, but two of the infected passengers have now died.

P.S. China has hit 75,000 cases.

Day 19: Bigger and Germier

The numbers hit over 75,000 cases, 2,000 deaths, and 15,000 recovered today. A new country has reported cases, Iran with 2 confirmed cases in Qom and apparently more suspected. South Korea reports 20 more cases in one day, most related to a super-spreader at a church, for a total of 51. Japan's count for the day is at 10 and still climbing. I've seen some reports that today's count includes an Okinawa taxi driver who drove passengers from Germ Boat #2 (the Diamond Princess) at their previous port of call (Naha), but this particular case seems to have been confirmed last week. It remains unclear whether the passengers infected the driver or vice versa.

Germ Boat #2 has 79 more cases, bringing the total to 621. The Irish Examiner reports that, in addition to his SARS-CoV-2 infection and Type II diabetes, Germ Boat celebrity David Abel also suffers from early-onset dementia (which, along with an initial diagnosis by a Japanese-speaking doctor, explains some confusion in the reporting of his case). But the food tweeter tweets on about the ongoing evacuations.

BBC News reports (in Chinese) on a postulated Patient Zero in his seventies who lived near the suspect wet market, but was already ill and did not actually visit the market before becoming sick(er) around December 1st.

P.S. Reuters reports that the two Iranian patients have already died.

Day 18: The Germ Boat Dives Deeper

The Diamond Princess (Germ Boat #2) has jumped another 88 cases, to 542 cases. The food tweeter seems to be tweeting on, but another celebrity passenger, David Abel, and his wife have tested positive. The Daily Mail reports that the airlift has been cut short and a hundred Germ Boat Americans still in Japan will need to remain their for their quarantine period (an additional 14 days).

P.S. The COVID-19 death toll has now exceeded 2,000.

Interlude: What Killed the Wampanoag

This is an accidental interlude in the coronavirus news inspired by Taki Magazine columnist David Cole, who has paused his extremely spicy politico-disease commentary (e.g., Crazy Rich Asians Will Kill Us All) to reflect on the far older epidemiological mystery of what killed the natives of New England four centuries ago now. Cole cites a Slate article making seasonal hay of the story circa Thanksgiving 2012:

The Pilgrim leader William Bradford was already aware of the death toll from “Indean fever.” His scouts had ventured inland and noted “sculs and bones were found in many places lying still above ground, where their houses and dwellings had been; a very sad spectackle to behould.” It’s estimated as many as nine out of 10 coastal Indians were killed in the epidemic between 1616 and 1619.

What killed so many people so quickly? The symptoms were a yellowing of the skin, pain and cramping, and profuse bleeding, especially from the nose. A recent analysis concludes the culprit was a disease called leptospirosis, caused by leptospira bacteria. Spread by rat urine.

That "recent analysis" had been published in the CDC's monthly journal in February of 2010; it postulates "incremental, episodic, and continuous" exposure to leptospirosis introduced by Old World Rattus rattus as the most likely source of the deadly epidemic. PlagueBlog regrets having overlooked the theory at the time, but 2010 was a busy year of crazy Asians killing one another with melamine, and the mainstream press also seems to have missed it.

In defense of the natives contra Cole, PlagueBlog notes that though they eschewed hard-soled shoes, they did bathe far more than the invaders; this otherwise laudable practice was just as likely to give them a cryptic disease invisibly imported into their "sweet brook" as was their semi-shoelessness. It was a lose-lose situation, and not an appropriate metaphor for dangerous modern-day African or Asian superstitions.

Day 17: The Germ Boats Take Flight

The New York Post reports 99 new cases aboard Germ Boat #2, the Diamond Princess, for a total of 454. The jump seems to be due to testing of asymptomatic passengers for the sake of evacuation; some American cases were confirmed during the evac flight(s). (The food tweeter remained aboard and tweets on.)

The AP reports more details about Germ Boat #4, the MS Westerdam:

News over the weekend that an 83-year-old American woman who was on the ship and flew from Cambodia to Malaysia was found to be carrying the virus froze further movement of the passengers and crew of the MS Westerdam. Some are now in hotels in Cambodia’s capital, Phnom Penh, while others are still aboard the ship.

The American woman was among several hundred passengers who were flown out of Cambodia on Friday and Saturday. According to authorities in Malaysia, 143 continued their flights home from that country, while the woman and her 84-year-old husband, who was diagnosed with pneumonia, remained behind for treatment.

P.S. People's Daily (China) reports the death of Liu Zhiming, director of Wuhan Wuchang Hospital and the first hospital director to die of COVID-19.

Day 16: The Germ Boats Strike Again

CNN reports that the US is planning to evacuate passengers from Germ Boat #2, the Diamond Princess. The current case count is 356, perhaps because at least one "quarantine worker” was infected, not to mention that

[...] some 1,000 crew on board the ship had not been kept in quarantine, eating meals together with masks off and working side by side.

Also, the Washington Post reports that an 83-year-old American off the MS Westerdam who flew to Malaysia after disembarking and being cleared in Cambodia has now been diagnosed, calling into question the entire now-dispersed passenger complement of Germ Boat #4.

P.S. The confirmed case count has now exceeded 71,000.

Day 14: Nosocomial Infections Day

Via Xinhua: China has reported a COVID-19 case count of 1716 among health care workers, including six deaths so far.

Kyodo News reports a farmer has tested positive for COVID-19 in Wakayama Prefecture (Japan). He had visited the hospital where the surgeon who was confirmed infected yesterday practiced; however, he had symptoms before he visited the hospital. The surgeon himself still has no known Chinese contacts, and another doctor and patient there have also come down with pneumonia and are being screened.

Nikkei reports a general pattern of Japanese cases that have not been traced back to China yet, including Japan's first death, an 80-year-old Kanagawa Prefecture woman, her son-in-law who is also infected, a confirmed case in Chiba Prefecture, and the Tokyo taxi driver who, despite rumors to the contrary, did not recall transporting any foreign passengers.

On the lighter side, CNN reports on a crafty Russian woman who escaped quarantine in St. Petersburg by short-circuiting the lock on her hospital room. She had tested negative several times and her 14-day quarantine period was up, so it's unclear why she felt the need to break out, or why the government feels the need to prosecute her.

P.S. The Straits Times reports that an anaesthesiologist is Singapore's first healthcare worker to be diagnosed with COVID-19:

The day before he had a fever, the general anaesthesiologist was working in an operating theatre and was feeling perfectly well.

Day 13: Germ Boat #5

The AIDA Cruises ship AIDAvita, under an Italian flag but owned by a German company and apparently full of Germans, started out of Bali on January 17th, but has been denied docking at its next Vietnamese port. (This is the fifth cruise ship to appear in the epidemic news.)

Stories about the AIDAvita tend to also report that Germ Boat #4, the MS Westerdam, expected to dock in Thailand when last PlagueBlog reported on it, actually docked in Preah Sihanouk, Cambodia today.

Reuters reports that Singapore is still looking for their "patient zero" who brought COVID-19 to a conference there, eventually infecting Malaysia and Europe.

Reuters also reports a confirmed case in a Tokyo taxi driver in his 70's, as well as a doctor in central Japan. On the bright side, Japan intends to start letting elderly and interior passengers of Germ Boat #2, the Diamond Princess, come ashore beginning tomorrow to complete their quarantine on dry land.

A second evacuee case has been confirmed in San Diego, bringing the US total to 14.

P.S. A third evacuee case has been confirmed at Lackland AFB in Texas, bringing the US total to 15.

Day 12: One Bad Bug, Two Bad Names

PlagueBlog apologizes for misreporting the naming of SARS-CoV-2 as COVID-19. In fact, the virus is now officially named SARS-CoV-2, and the disease it causes is now officially named COVID-19. PlagueBlog prefers the Internet's names (#RatBatVirus and Wuhan Disease), but you can't win them all.

In a surprise move, and despite rumors that China would no longer be reporting asymptomatic confirmed cases, Hubei has reported almost 15,000 new cases, pushing the world total over 60,000.

CNN explains the details of the strange focus on dry traps as a COVID-19 vector in Hong Kong, although the reason some Hong Kong residents hack their own toilet pipes remains unexplained.

P.S. On the bright side, there are now over 6,000 recovered.

P.P.S. In Japan, where it's tomorrow (Thursday) already, Forbes reports that the Germ Boat case count has jumped again to 218. Yet the food tweeter tweets on.

Day 11: The First and Fourth Germ Boats

For those playing the home game, the first germ boat was the World Dream, on a five-day cruise starting January 19th from Guangzhou to Vietnam to Hong Kong. Eventually eight cases were identified from this cruise, and as a consequence a later batch of tourists have been quarantined off Hong Kong out of concern that the crew may have been infected. Those 3,600 passengers were just released on Sunday, despite not having completed fourteen days of quarantine (because the crew were cleared).

The second germ boat is the Diamond Princess, quarantined for an ever-restarting 14 days off Yokohama, where the food tweeter tweets on.

The third germ boat was the Anthem of the Seas out of Bayonne, NJ, which had no actual cases.

The fourth germ boat is the Holland America ship the MS Westerdam, originally meant to dock in Yokohama on Valentine's Day (this coming Friday).

According to passengers on board, they’ve been denied at “every port” since leaving Hong Kong in early February.

Fox reports that, fortunately for them, Thailand has agreed to let them dock in Laem Chabang on Thursday.

PlagueBlog prefers the term "germ boat", though, in deference to common parlance, germ boat posts have been tagged "plague ships".

In other coronavirus news, a lucky thirteenth case has been confirmed in the US: an evacuee in San Diego who, despite testing positive, was initially released by the CDC into the wild quarantine quarters, but has since been returned to hospital.

P.S. The WHO has finally named the virus "COVID-19". While we understand that "Please stop eating the bats already, folks" was not an option, PlagueBlog maintains that "Wuhan coronavirus" could hardly do Wuhan's reputation or China's face any additional damage at this point. You'd have to go with something like "Wenliang coronavirus" to manage that.

P.P.S. COVID-19 celebrated its new name with a record 45,000 cases, as well as an additional 39 cases on the Germ Boat (for a total of 174 cases, but the food tweeter tweets on).

Day 10: Not Our Brighton

The Argus reports that a medical center in Brighton, England has closed due to a GP being confirmed to have coronavirus. He was apparently part of the ski cluster and caught it in France, despite being from the same part of England as the postulated super-spreader from Hove. The claim is that the GP only went in to work at the medical center for one day, during which he did paperwork and saw no patients.

The pangolin theory has reached Nature.

Caixin Global reported Saturday that the nucleic acid test (NAT) for coronavirus has a high false negative rate. (NAT is the cheaper, more convenient test.)

In a Wednesday interview with state broadcaster CCTV, Wang Chen, an expert in critical diseases and director of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, said one characteristic of the virus was that "not all of those infected by it return positive NATs."

"Even patients who definitely have the disease only come back positive 30%-50% of the time," Wang said.

[...]

A doctor in the imaging department of another major Wuhan hospital, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Caixin said that previously some patients whose CT scans clearly showed signs of viral infection but whose NATs tested negative were "released" back into their communities due to a shortage of hospital berths.

Genetic testing is more accurate but more expensive and not available everywhere. This has led to some changes in the official diagnostic criteria:

In response to calls from medical professionals on the frontlines of the epidemic, the NHC on Tuesday relaxed the clinical criteria for reporting suspected coronavirus cases, with extra leeway granted to people in Hubei. Outside the stricken province, medical professionals should now suspect coronavirus infection in patients with radiographic evidence of pneumonia, fever, and/or breathing problems, and a low-to-normal white blood cell count or a low lymphocyte count. Within Hubei, only 2 of the 3 criteria are required.

P.S. Later in the day, cases exceeded 43,000, deaths exceeded 1,000, and confirmed cases aboard the Germ Boat rose to 135, among them 10 crew (though the food tweeter tweets on).

Day 9: The Real Numbers

Via ProMED-mail: In the Swiss Medical Weekly, researchers estimate the real case and fatality numbers based on various possible rates of misreporting, underreporting, and overreporting (of both cases and deaths). While a good overview of the possible sources of error, the math itself seems less useful.

The five British cases in the French ski chalet were infected by a sixth Brit who brought the disease back from Singapore, another case of country-to-country-to-country transmission of Wuhan coronavirus.

The Washington Post reports that "lawyer and citizen journalist" Chen Qiushi who had been reporting on the epidemic from Wuhan has been missing since Thursday. The Chinese government claims to have him in quarantine, where PlagueBlog hopes he will receive better care than Li Wenliang.

Citizens of Hong Kong are encouraged to keep their drain traps wet and put down the toilet seat before flushing, as well as to practice more obvious hygienic precautions. PlagueBlog hopes they will take the advice to avoid wet markets to heart.

The South China Morning Post also reports that a 7-year-old Hong Kong boy has been diagnosed with an "imported" case of H9 (subtype unspecified) bird flu (emphasis added):

According to the centre's preliminary investigations, the patient had visited his grandparents' home in Shenzhen at the incubation stage of his viral infection. Although the family kept poultry in their house, the boy had not come into direct contact with the birds. His family members have not reported any symptoms.

P.S. Cases exceeded 40,000 by the end of the day, and cases aboard the quarantined cruise ship reached 70 (though the food tweeter tweets on). Cases in Singapore reached 40 and the French chalet ex-Singapore cluster also continues to grow.

Day 8: Death Toll Exceeds SARS

The death toll from novel coronavirus exceeded that of SARS (774) earlier today and as of this typing stands at 813. Also, a Chinese-American man died in Wuhan earlier this week but the news only broke today. The case count is at 37,525.

Aboard the Germ Boat, three new cases have been reported in the Japanese press but haven't been added to the official Others numbers yet. Li Wenliang's death yesterday continues to spark controversy.

The rumored unusual susceptibility of East Asian males to Wuhan coronavirus (which seems to be what the cool kids are calling it) and SARS actually does have a scientific explanation, the ACE2 virus receptor.

Day 7: The Germ Boat Enters International Waters

I reported the sharp jump in Japanese cases yesterday, but today Japan dropped back down to 25 patients, while the 61 unfortunate cruise ship passengers off Yokohama became their own category, Others, in the coronavirus app.

If you prefer your news in video form, the US Department of Health held a press conference today.

P.S. USA Today reports that a third suspected germ ship, Royal Caribbean's Anthem of the Seas out of Bayonne, NJ, has been cleared of any infection.

P.P.S. RIP Li Wenliang.

Day 6: 30,000 and Rising

As of this typing, the confirmed case count is 31,472, with 638 deaths and 1,551 recovered. Japan's count has shot up to 86.

Day 5: In the Gray Zone

According to the WHO (via CNN), the ongoing coronavirus epidemic is not a pandemic:

"We are not in a pandemic," Dr. Sylvie Briand, director of the World Health Organization's Infectious Hazards Management Department said in a press conference on Tuesday, explaining that the virus is currently considered to be an epidemic with multiple locations.

"We will try to extinguish the transmission in each of these," she said, adding that the agency believes this "can be done with containment measures currently in place."

Not everyone agrees, however:

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease in the United States, believes we could be heading toward a pandemic.

"My bottom line is the way this is continuing to evolve every day, it looks like it's heading towards what we would call a pandemic," Fauci said.

But Fauci also said the term itself comes down to semantics -- it "means different things to different people," and that we're in a "gray zone."

One important bit of daily evolution is how the disease made its way through Singapore into Malaysia (via MalayMail) last month:

A Malaysian man has tested positive for the Wuhan virus, the first local to date, said Health Minister Datuk Seri Dzulkefly Ahmad at a press conference today.

Dzulkefly said the man travelled to Singapore from January 16 to 23 to attend a meeting which had several foreign delegates, including from China.

“He returned to Malaysia on January 23, and on January 29, he received treatment at a private hospital because of fever and cough.

P.S. The United Press reports a twelfth US case in Wisconsin (ex China).

P.P.S. Reuters reports that ten more passengers aboard the Diamond Princess, the cruise ship currently quarantined off Yokohama, have tested positive for novel coronavirus.

Day 4: The Germ Boats

Remember when norovirus was the biggest risk of taking a cruise? Well, now it's novel coronavirus. The South China Morning Post reports that 4000 passengers on a five-day cruise from Guangzhou to Vietnam to Hong Kong may have been exposed. Three cases are already known (though only one is officially confirmed) and two more are suspected.

“There was a clear risk of cross-contagion on board the cruise ship,” said the doctor, who declined to be named as they are not authorised to speak to the media. But the doctor said she decided to disclose the information out of concern that thousands of passengers from the same cruise were at large, even though it has not been confirmed that there was an outbreak on board.

P.S. The suspected NYC case is still not confirmed. You can keep an eye out for it at the live Johns Hopkins CSSE site (or the mobile version).

P.P.S. Another cruise ship story broke later in the day: Princess Cruises quarantines 3,700 on the Diamond Princess out of Yokohama, Japan after ten passengers tested positive.

The company confirmed to CNBC that one of the passengers who tested positive for the coronavirus is from the United States. The others are two passengers from Australia, three from Japan and three from Hong Kong and one Filipino crew member.

The company said it will continue to provide guests with complimentary internet and phone service. The ship will go out to sea to “perform normal marine operations,” the company said, such as “the production of fresh water and ballast operations before proceeding alongside in Yokohama where food, provisions, and other supplies will be brought onboard.”

Boston Day 2 (NYC Day 1)

According to MSN (via ProMED), our Boston patient has recovered and is voluntarily quarantined at home. Oh, and there's a suspected case in NYC.

Yesterday r/askscience on Reddit had an AMA (ask me anything) "about the novel coronavirus". (I'm hoping the WHO comes out with a handier name than 2019-nCoV soon.) In that haystack I found links to nice infographics at the New York Times.

The bats come home to roost

One of many rumors about novel coronavirus involves bats as snacks. Various vaguely described birds and "wild animals" from the epicentric "seafood" market have tested positive, though others have cleared the market of guilt on account of earlier patients who hadn't been there.

But my bigger concern right now is the nascent epidemic's sudden appearance just down the road:

A man in his 20s has the first case of coronavirus in Massachusetts, the Boston Public Health Commission announced Saturday. The man attends UMass Boston and lives in the city. He returned from Wuhan, China on Jan. 28 through Logan Airport.

He is being isolated at his home, which is not a dorm, and health officials say he is doing well.