Day 93: Karma is a Bat

In today's numbers, the world has 3.54 million infected, with 247,000 deaths. Spain is approaching 250,000 cases, Italy has topped 210,000 cases, and the UK has attained 4th place with 186,000 cases. Russia is on the move with 134,000 cases, including over 10,000 in the past day. Brazil's burning rainforest approach to the virus has now pushed them past China to 97,000 cases, right on the heels of Iran.

The US is nearing 1.2 million cases, with over 68,000 dead. Worldometers is now breaking New Jersey and a few other states down by county, but not Massachusetts even though our data is available. (We are up 3% again today.)

On the karma front, China's policy of inveigle the world, infect the world doesn't seem to be paying off, with a crippled export industry showing "no sign of recovery." Also, a pair of honeymooners who somehow made their way to Hawaii have been jailed after violating the 14-day quarantine for out-of-state visitors by leaving their hotel room to get pizza. You can read the state's press release, "From the honeymoon suite to cell block", here, and the blow-by-blow of their violations here. Hawaii is ranked #47 out of the 50 states with only 620 cases, and they seem to intend to keep it that way.

PlagueBlog was never a fan of the L vs. S strain theory, and yet another paper is out debunking it: No evidence for distinct types in the evolution of SARS-CoV-2.

Day 58: Ash Lines and Riots

Today's numbers are down; Sunday seems to be the state lab's day of rest, and we'll surely get another Monday leap. Massachusetts now has 4955 cases, up 698 (16%) from yesterday, with 4 new deaths (all of persons over 70). Middlesex has retaken the lead with 981 cases as opposed to Suffolk County's 940. Essex has pulled ahead of Norfolk, 570–548. Quest tested 2,000 more people, while the state lab tested 2.

In Maryland, a man was arrested for inadequate social distancing outdoors. People seem to be smuggling video out of New York hospitals to the New York Times. If you want to know when your state will reach Peak New York, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington has projections for peak hospital demand (including how many hospital and ICU beds your state actually has). Just select your state from the dropdown to read 'em and weep.

There's also a new kid on the case-counting block, covidly.com, which makes nice graphs but doesn't seem to be updating in real time. Over on worldometers, the pandemic has already hit 718,000 cases with well over 33,000 deaths. Italy is nearing 100,000 cases. Spain is close to pulling ahead of China in cases, and is second only to Italy in deaths, if you believe China's numbers.

PlagueBlog's faith in China's numbers, if it existed at all, would be shaken from news out of Wuhan of thousands of people queueing up at funeral homes for urns of their relative's ashes. Urn counts have been estimated at 45,000, far in excess of the nation's official death toll of 3,300. Pictures and video of the ash lines posted to social media have been censored.

The Sun also reported rioting when residents of Hubei discovered their quarantine wasn't as over as they thought it was: they're still not allowed to travel around China.

P.S. After Cuomo threatened to sue, Rhode Island extended tourist hunting season to all out-of-staters. Those Massachusetts folks with houses straddling the state line should exercise caution when entering their living rooms.

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 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 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 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.

Mmm-mmm Melamine, Part MII

In the wake of the latest incident of melamine-contaminated milk in China, the Epoch Times reports that wealthy Chinese are now growing their own vegetables to ensure food safety.

In recent years, Chinese people have fought hard but ineffectively against poor food safety standards. There are simply too many tainted foods, from raw food products to cooking oil and food utensils. Waste oil, toxic chopsticks, and toxic lunch boxes can still be cleaned up, but there are three sources of poisoning which are most difficult to handle.

The three areas are: pesticides, food "additives" like melamine, and pollution.

Mmm-mmm Melamine, Part MI

Via ProMED-mail: melamine has once again been detected in milk products in China. AsiaNews reports that the scandal has widened to six dairy companies, one of which was still in operation as of Friday.

China has also banned independent reporting of the scandal and jailed a food-safety activist:

Zhao Lianhai is a 37 year old former government employee from Beijing, who was recently arrested and charged with provoking social disorder.
His son was one of 300,000 kids poisoned by contaminated milk across China.
Mr Zhao used to work for the country's food quality and safety authority, so he started a website advising parents of affected children and campaigned to take responsible companies to court.

In other melamine news, on Friday a federal court sentenced the Chinese-American couple for importing the melamine-tainted wheat gluten from the 2007 pet-food scandal.

Mmm-mmm Cadmium, Part I

Via ProMED-mail: the Associated Press found cadmium in children's jewelry imported to the US from China. The LA Times reports:

For China's low-cost jewelry makers, it was an open trade secret: The metal cadmium is shiny, strong and malleable at low temperatures, regardless of its health hazards. And it's cheap.
Despite the risks, manufacturers in factories ringing this city on China's east coast say their top priority is profit. So offering cut-rate goods often means using lower quality materials, including cadmium, which is known to cause cancer.
"Business is business, and it's all up to our client," said He Huihua, manager of the Suiyuan Jewelry Shop at International Trade City in Yiwu[...]
Asked what he thought about the health risks associated with cadmium and other toxic metals, He said: "I can't be overly concerned about that."

PlagueBlog recommends a trade embargo.

Mmm-mmm Melamine, Part M

Via ProMED-mail: another melamine scandal has broken in China, once again belatedly, and once again involving tainted milk. The Wall Street Journal reports that the two-month investigation of Shanghai Panda Dairy Company began almost a year ago.

Shanghai Panda, one of the nation's smaller dairies, was among 22 companies originally implicated in the 2008 scandal and was briefly shut by quality inspectors.
Now, among the allegations against the company are that instead of destroying its melamine-tainted product that had been recalled in 2008, Shanghai Panda reconstituted the milk into new products.

Lovely.

Mattel Exempted Itself from Lead Testing

Via Purple Pawn: The LA Times reported late last month that Mattel had lobbied itself out of third-party lead testing of its products.

"It's really ironic that the company that was a principal source of the problem" is now getting favorable treatment from the government, said Michael Green, executive director of the Center for Environmental Health in Oakland.
Mattel is getting a competitive advantage, Green said, because smaller companies must pay independent labs to do the tests. Testing costs can run from several hundred dollars to many thousands.

Plague in China

Via an unnamed source: the BBC reported last week on the rising plague death toll in China.

A BBC correspondent in Beijing, Michael Bristow, says that unlike in the past the authorities are being very open about this outbreak.
Local officials in north-western China have told the BBC that the situation is under control, and that schools and offices are open as usual.
But to prevent the plague spreading, the authorities have sealed off Ziketan.

Today the WHO reported on the situation, which seems to be under control:

According to the epidemiological investigation, the source of this outbreak was a wild marmot, which had contact with the dog of the index case. Ziketan is in an area of natural plague bacteria circulation amongst animals and at the present time it is the active season for plague transmission amongst animals. No drug resistance of the bacterium has been found so far and the 3 death cases have been attributed largely to delayed treatment.

Goo-Goo Melamine, Part VII

Via What to Eat: the New York Times reports that China now estimates the infant melamine scandal at about 300,000 cases with 6 dead. The previous estimate was 50,000 cases with 4 dead.

The Ministry of Health issued a statement saying that 860 babies who drank tainted milk were still hospitalized with kidney or urinary-tract problems; 154 of those were described as being in serious condition. “Most of the sickened children received outpatient treatment only for small amounts of sand-like kidney stones found in their urinary systems, while a part of the patients had to be hospitalized for the illness,” the ministry said.

Goo-Goo Melamine, Part VI

Via ProMED-mail: the AFP reports that the FDA has issued a wider-ranging import alert for melamine-tainted Chinese "protein-containing products." This AP report provides more details:

Under the directive, FDA inspectors at U.S. ports of entry will detain foods from China made with milk and certain ingredients derived from milk. Importers must pay to have their products tested by an independent laboratory that meets FDA standards. Only products found to be melamine-free will be allowed into the country.
The order also applies to pet foods and some bulk protein products, the focus of a melamine recall in 2007.
Essentially, the FDA action shifts the burden of proof to Chinese companies, which must now supply evidence that their products are safe. Most consumers should not be affected, since major U.S. food manufacturers get their milk ingredients here.

Goo-goo Melamine, Part V

Although China claims its milk is no longer contaminated with melamine, the scandal continues to spread. Melamine-contaminated products have been found in Siberia, Germany, the Netherlands, Canada, and even Utah. The FDA has produced a safety/risk assessment for melamine. While unable to set a level for infants, they did provide one for adults:

In food products other than infant formula, the FDA concludes that levels of melamine and melamine-related compounds below 2.5 parts per million (ppm) do not raise concerns.

The BBC reports that several animals in a Chinese zoo near Shanghai were fed the contaminated milk powder for over a year:

Concerned keepers sent the animals for a check up after hearing about the milk contamination and have now stopped feeding with Sanlu milk.
The orang-utans and the lion are the only animals to have developed kidney stones and are being treated for the condition.
Officials at the Beijing Zoo and zoos in the other major cities of Shanghai, Guangzhou and Xian said they had no cases of animals sickened from milk powder, the Associated Press reported.

Goo-goo Melamine, Part IV

Via ProMED-mail: Radio New Zealand reports that the melamine crisis in China has spread to 53,000 infants, 13,000 of whom are hospitalized. Rumors reach back to December 2007, and the UN wants an explanation:

The World Health Organisation has asked the Chinese authorities to explain why it took months for the tainted milk scandal to be made public.
The UN children's agency UNICEF has asked Chinese authorities to launch a full investigation into the matter.

Goo-Goo Melamine, Part III

Via ProMED-mail: The melamine death toll has risen to 4 Chinese infants (or possibly five, according to The Daily Yomiuri). Melamine has now been found by several countries in imported milk, yoghurt, coffee, and candy. Several African countries have banned Chinese milk.

A Japanese company has recalled some snacks manufactured in China, and the FDA has stepped up inspections:

Leon said the FDA is sampling bulk shipments of milk-derived products from Asia for possible contamination with melamine or other banned ingredients. The products being tested include whole milk powder, whey powder, milk concentrate, lactose, casein protein, and other milk derivatives.

Goo-goo Melamine, Part II

Via ProMED-mail: The New York Times reports that China's latest melamine scandal has spread to 6,244 infants and 22 dairy companies. Xinhua News Agency reports:

The State Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine said it had tested 491 batches of baby milk powder produced by all the 109 companies in the country in a special inspection move.
69 batches from 22 companies nationwide were found containing melamine, a chemical which had tainted Sanlu's baby formula and led to kidney stone illness of more than 1,200 infants across the country.
The number of companies with melamine-tainted milk accounted for 20.18 percent of the total of milk powder companies in China. And the number of tainted batches accounted for 14.05 percent of the total batches tested.
The melamine content in the Sanlu brand reached 2,563 mg per kg, the highest among all the samples. In other samples, the range was from 0.09 mg to 619 mg per kilogram.

Xinhua also reports that 10,000 tons of contaminated formula will be destroyed.

Goo-goo Melamine

Via ProMED-mail: the FDA has issued an advisory against infant formula from China. At least 14 Chinese infants became ill, and powdered formula produced by the dairy concern Sanlu was subsequently found to contain melamine.

In response to reports of contaminated milk-based infant formula manufactured in China, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today is issuing a Health Information Advisory. This is to assure the American public that there is no known threat of contamination in infant formula manufactured by companies that have met the requirements to sell infant formula in the United States. Although no Chinese manufacturers of infant formula have fulfilled the requirements to sell infant formula in the United States, FDA officials are investigating whether or not infant formula manufactured in China is being sold in specialty markets which serve the Asian community.
The FDA is advising caregivers not to feed infant formula manufactured in China to infants. This should be replaced with an appropriate infant formula manufactured in the United States as mentioned below.

The Xinhua News Agency reports that the smoking formula has been removed from the shelves in China:

Hundreds of Carrefour and Wal-Mart stores in China are pulling Sanlu milk powder off shelves.
The withdrawal came after both the health authority and Sanlu confirmed the milk to be contaminated with a toxic chemical.
Dong Yuguo, spokesman for Wal-Mart China, said on Friday the company received notices to stop selling the formula.
Xinhua's reporter did not find Sanlu milk powder on shelves in one of the Wal-Mart stores in the Xuanwu District, Beijing, Friday afternoon. The store staff said the brand was ordered to be withdrawn.
Wal-Mart now has 109 stores in China.

This is hardly the first melamine incident. I have added a melamine label for reader convenience, and am updating the China advisory to: PlagueBlog recommends avoiding any pharmaceuticals, infant formula, food, animal feed, or edible components thereof originating in China. And the inedible components, too.

Heparin Tainting Deliberate

I found this report accidentally in a Parkinson's search, because the CEO of Baxter happens to be one Robert Parkinson. The Chicago Tribune reports that Parkinson called the contamination of its heparin supplies a "deliberate adulteration scheme" by suppliers in China. (PlagueBlog is shocked that such a thing could happen.)

The scale of the scandal over tainted heparin continued to expand. David Strunce, chief executive of Wisconsin-based Scientific Protein, acknowledged that the company has no way of knowing which of 12 different suppliers might have introduced foreign matter into the heparin supply chain. Strunce also claimed Chinese regulators have interfered with his company's efforts to investigate the matter.
The FDA has tallied more than 80 reports of deaths and more than 1,000 adverse events associated with patients in the U.S. who had one or more allergic reactions to heparin products, including those sold by Baxter, since Jan. 1, 2007.

As a result, the Chicago Tribune also reports, Baxter is considering getting out of the heparin business altogether:

The product generates $30 million of Baxter's more than $11 billion in annual sales, and Wall Street analysts asked Parkinson last week whether it was worth the legal risks and liability to remain in the business given that sales are so small.
"We haven't made a decision whether or not we are going to re-enter [the market] with heparin," Parkinson told analysts.

PlagueBlog recommends producing drugs, including their ingredients, domestically.