Day 60: Even the Queen

PlagueBlog is saddened to report the death of the Spanish Royal Princess Maria Teresa de Borbón-Parma, aged 86. Having started on FaceBook, the news took some time to reach us.

USA Today reported yesterday that the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is projecting an unemployment rate of 32.1% for the second quarter. Bodies are piling up at morgues in Iraq due to fears about burying them. Japan is planning to extend its entry ban to countries including China, South Korea, the US, the UK, and most of Europe.

On the mask front, CNN reports that the WHO has dug in in their recommendation against masks. People don't seem to be listening, though; more of the unqualified masses in the streets (and more specifically, the supermarkets) seem to wearing them every day.

Rhode Island was apparently not the first spicy island state to declare open season on tourists. El Pais reports that police in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an Indian territory, ejected at least thirty foreign tourists at gunpoint earlier this month, shipping them all to the airport on the main island where they were forced to buy plane tickets to the mainland (while being sprayed with window cleaner). The tourists now appear to be holed up in an abandoned embassy building in Chennai, because the locals there beat one of them up when he emerged.

The New York Times reports on a super-spreading event in Georgia similar to our ill-thought-out Biogen conference. Reuters reports on a super-spreading event in France that puts all of ours to shame:

The prayer meeting kicked off the biggest cluster of COVID-19 in France - one of northern Europe’s hardest-hit countries - to date, local government said. Around 2,500 confirmed cases have been linked to it. Worshippers at the church have unwittingly taken the disease caused by the virus home to the West African state of Burkina Faso, to the Mediterranean island of Corsica, to Guyana in Latin America, to Switzerland, to a French nuclear power plant, and into the workshops of one of Europe’s biggest automakers.

And last but never least, the plague ships: Tasmania's second death is directly linked to Germ Boat #13, the Ruby Princess. According to The Guardian, the ill-fated (and ill-docked) cruise ship transported 440 cases to Sydney, which represents 10% of Australia's total case count, and 5 of its 19 deaths.

In a move the NSW health minister later admitted was a mistake, 2,700 passengers were allowed to disembark without checks from NSW Health on 19 March, with many boarding flights interstate. Another boatload of passengers did the same on 8 March.

Since we're on the topic, DutchNews reports a Dutch national was the fourth to die aboard Germ Boat #18, the MS Zaandam (Holland America), which has been at sea for a two-week tour out of Buenos Aires since March 7th. Eight people have tested positive but about 200 are showing symptoms. After the Zaandam was refused docking at its original destination in Chile as well as in other South American nations, it spent some time anchored off Panama, where it transferred some healthy passengers to Germ Boat #19, the MS Rotterdam (so designated because, despite being apparently uninfected, it is as much of a pariah as #18 and is now also its travelling companion).

Panama reversed its initial decision and let both ships through the canal "for humanitarian reasons" on Sunday. The plague ships are now chugging towards Florida, though the governor has expressed his disinterest in allowing foreigners to be "dumped" in his state.

P.S. The Hill reports that the CDC may buck the WHO and encourage Americans to wear masks.

P.P.S. Today's Massachusetts numbers are up 868 (15%) to 6620. There were 33 more deaths, though, for a total of 89. Deaths are now broken out by decade (only one was under 60), county, hospitalization status, and pre-existing conditions (yes or no). Quest performed another 2,200 tests while the state did 20 (and also somehow went down one positive over yesterday). Suffolk County has pulled ahead of Middlesex again.

It's unclear how many of today's seven deaths in Hampden County are due to the "stunning breakdown of public health protocol" at the Holyoke Soldiers Home; the Boston Globe reports a death count of 13 with 17 cases among living residents and staff and more tests pending.

[Health and Human Services Secretary Mary Lou] Sudders said state officials are still trying to confirm important details, including precisely when the residents died, when they were tested for COVID-19, and who in their families were informed. She said the deaths were not reported to state officials.