Day 32: Don't Lick the Shrine

The official case count is now over 92,000 cases. While Italy has exceeded 2,000 cases and South Korea 5,000, Iran (2,336) continues to be the most infectious, with almost as many new cases per day (835 today) as South Korea and the only significant death rate (11 today) outside of China (33 today). Notable figures in society continue to fall ill; the head of emergency services is now a confirmed case, and Mohammad Mirmohammadi, member of the Expediency Council and advisor to Khamenei, reportedly died of COVID-19 yesterday. The situation in Iran may have something to do with the government's failure to keep people from licking shrines—or, more likely, the very fact that they needed to tell people not to lick shrines in the first place. PlagueBlog also recommends you don't lick the shrine.

Back on the home front, Boston.com reports some more details about the first Rhode Island case, a school administrator. The second official case is one of the students from that trip to Italy. The article mentions that another chaperone is a suspected case; this suspected case may be Massachusetts' second case, a 27-year-old Cohasset woman who was on the same school trip. Whether a Massachusetts school was involved is still unclear.

Two cases have been confirmed in New York state. The first, a 39-year-old NYC health care worker, was ex Iran, but the second one is suspected local, untraced transmission to a Westchester County man in his 50's over whom not one but two local schools have already closed. Governor Kemp of Georgia reported two confirmed cases there ex Italy.

An unspecified foreigner in his 30's is the 706th case confirmed (yesterday) aboard the Diamond Princess. It's apparently a crew member, not the food blogger, who has escaped confinement (though not Japan) and is still food blogging while waiting to be readmitted to the US.

In non-humanitarian news, a stowaway cat at the port of Chennai is facing deportation over coronavirus fears. PETA India is concerned about its fate if returned to China and has offered to adopt it out.

Cancellations: The Louvre apparently remained closed today, though whether solely through worker action or now officially is unclear. The Japanese government is planning to cancel the annual Fukushima Memorial. The Chicago Tribune reports a major local trade show cancellation as well as other cancellations and postponements across the country. Twitter, Facebook, and Intel have pulled out of the SXSW conference in Austin.

P.S. The AP reports three new deaths in Washington State. Two seem to be posthumous confirmation of deaths from last week, and the third may be yet another nursing home resident from the Life Care Center of Kirkland, WA.

P.P.S. There's a second case in New Hampshire, a close contact of the first patient, though apparently not a result of the first patient breaking quarantine on Friday to attend a social event.