Through the sneaky approach of guessing the URL, PlagueBlog brings you the Massachusetts numbers for St. Patrick's Day before 4:30pm today. We have 21 new cases, for a total of 218: 2 new Biogen cases, 6 new travel cases, 5 new local transmission cases, and 8 new mysteries. Quest has reported 5 new positives, while LabCorp has 116 new negatives and no new positives.
I've been noticing the difference between the state lab positive rate (17% yesterday, 14% today) and the commercial lab one (4% yesterday, 3% today). The LabCorp rate is particularly low at 0.6%. Unfortunately, without a breakdown of where the commercial tests are being done, it's difficult to speculate about why the commercial lab rates are quite so different from each other. The state lab's high rates clearly have to do with its restrictive testing requirements, especially before they were eased up last week.
Elsewhere on the continent, Brazil announced its first death, of a 62-year-old São Paulo man who also had hypertension, diabetes, and an irrelevant prostate condition which O Globo felt the need to explain. His travel history was not provided.
P.S. The South China Morning Post reports that the coronavirus-positive Pomeranian died Monday, after having never shown symptoms, testing negative, and being released from quarantine to return home Saturday. The late Pomeranian first tested positive nineteen days ago (on Day 27 of the Boston count).
The owner has refused an autopsy; not surprisingly, the government that destroyed previous research into the disease seems to also be allowing this vital dog data to be lost. PlagueBlog notes that human beings have also died after testing negative.
P.P.S. West Virginia has joined the club.
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
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