COVID-19 Pandemic World Updates

Ecuador's death rate soars as fears grow over scale of coronavirus crisis
Mortalities in one province leap from 3,000 to 11,000 in six weeks, with health and mortuary services overwhelmed

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Makeshift hearses carry coffins containing the remains of people believed to have died from coronavirus to a cemetery in Guayaquil.

New data suggests that Ecuador’s coronavirus toll may be much higher than previously indicated, after figures revealed a massive jump in deaths in the province at the centre of the country’s devastating outbreak.

Since the beginning of March six weeks ago, 10,939 people have died in Guayas province, which includes Ecuador’s largest city, Guayaquil, according to figures released late on Thursday.

The region would usually see about 3,000 deaths in a six-week period, with the new figures suggesting that the local death rate has almost quadrupled.

In Ecuador as a whole, coronavirus has been confirmed as the cause of only 421 deaths, and is suspected in a further 675, but interior minister María Paula Romo said the true number was probably much higher.

“The number of deaths is totally out of the ordinary,” she told the Guardian.

Ecuador has been one of worst-affected countries in Latin America, overwhelming medical and mortuary services in Guayaquil, where grieving families have been forced to live alongside corpses of loved ones or abandon them in the street.

“We’ve wanted to be open about the statistics for deaths to show a more complete panorama,” Romo said, adding that the full statistics would explain “why the funeral services and cemeteries simply could not cope in recent days in Guayaquil and Guayas”.

The crisis in Ecuador’s commercial capital has become a warning to Latin America, where many countries have poor health services and high inequality.

Last week, authorities in Guayaquil started handing out thousands of cardboard coffins and created a helpline for families who need corpses to be removed from their homes.

Nearly 70% of Ecuador’s coronavirus cases have been concentrated in Guayas province, which had 5,777 of the national total of 8,450 cases on Friday.

Authorities said nearly 30,000 coronavirus tests had been administered in the country. There are plans to increase capacity to 1,400 tests a day.

However, some regional authorities say the death toll will continue to rise. Andrés Guschmer, a Guayaquil councillor who has been leading the fight against the virus in the city, has predicted the number of people infected will exceed 35,000.
 
Photos form Plovdiv, Bulgaria where police fined a lot of people today for venturing outside during the lockdown not wearing a mask in public or simply idling in the park.

 
Florida Opens Some Beaches On Day Of Biggest Coronavirus Case Increase
Some Floridians flocked to the Jacksonville, Neptune and Atlantic beaches on Friday after Governor Ron DeSantis—amid sustained criticism for his handling of the pandemic—gave some local mayors permission to open up their shores on the same day the state recorded its highest surge in new coronavirus cases.

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My take on this: Florida has no income tax they rely exclusively on tourism and sales tax
They are looking at total bankruptcy
 
Record daily jump of Covid-19 cases in Russia

The Covid-19 death toll in Russia has risen to 313, as the country recorded a record daily jump in confirmed infections.
The number of coronavirus-related deaths rose by 40 overnight, with authorities reporting 4,785 new cases over the past 24 hours, bringing the total number to 36,793.
Moscow, which became the centre of Russia’s coronavirus outbreak and was also the first region in the country to introduce a lockdown, recorded 2,649 new cases and 21 new deaths, the Russian coronavirus crisis response centre said.
Infections began rising sharply this month, although the country had reported far fewer infections than many western European nations in the outbreak’s early stages, Reuters reported.
However, like some other nations, health authorities in Russia are not carrying out mass testing. Private testing results in Moscow among people without symptoms suggest the virus has penetrated more deeply into its population than official data shows.
Elsewhere, Indonesia has reported 15 new Covid-19 deaths, taking the total to 535, as well as 325 new confirmed infections. It takes the total number of infections in the country, the world’s fourth most populous with a quarter of a billion people, to 6,248.
A study by the London-based Centre for Mathematical Modelling of Infectious Diseases released last month estimated that as few as 2% of Indonesia’s coronavirus infections have been reported.
On Friday, Indonesia surpassed the Philippines to become the country with the highest number of infections in south-east Asia. It has the most number of deaths in Asia outside of China.

The BBC news at lunchtime showed a queue of ambulances on a main road into Moscow that looked a mile long, seemingly all waiting to get into a hospital.
 
The daily update has started on the BBC. Whilst the number of daily deaths in hospital is still increasing, and every death is a tragedy for the bereaved family, it seems that the number of new infections has at last started to plateau. A long way to go but every journey starts with a single step. Hopefully this will need to a reduction of deaths in a few days.
But ultimately the solution must be a vaccine.
 
And an Oxford University team has just started trials of a vaccine, they are hoping they may be able to get it into production by this September. If it sails through its efficacy and safety trials of course.
 
SARS-CoV-2 damages kidneys and hearts as well as lungs, US doctors find - Clinicians around the world have seen evidence Covid-19 is also causing heart inflammation, acute kidney disease, neurological malfunction, blood clots, intestinal damage and liver problems.

 
Some medical researchers have posed that since humans have no immunity to covid-19 all parts of the body are vulnerable.
 
The N.H.S Is under pressure, hardly surprising given the magnitude of the problems it and other health services face. But so far it has coped and there is no indication that this will change in the foreseeable future. Indeed hospital admissions linked to the virus seem to have reached a peak and are now falling slightly. There may well be issues about procurement of P.P.E but that is down to government rather than the N.H.S. And the heroism of the Doctors, Nurses and Health Workers is amazing, putting themselves at risk to protect the community.
I personally have good reason to be grateful to the N.H.S. Many years I picked up a virus which attacked my heart. I was admitted as an emergency, my chances of survival about 75%. the virus was neutralised although my heart was damaged. I was fitted with a cardiac pacemaker and after a week or so discharged home. I have been able to live a normal life ever since subject to monitoring, ace inhibitors and beta blocker drugs and the occasional new batteryThe cost to me of this wonderful care was nil. And this would have been the same had I been a pauper or a millionaire. Incidentally I am neither.
I genuinely believe that the British health service is amongst the finest in the world and that it is universally free to all at the point of need is something we should all be proud of. Sure it isn’t perfect, it never could be, but it’s not that far short. And that it has coped as well as it has is great.
And when I compare it to the perceived American system where there is a wonderful service for the wealthy who can pay and virtually nothing for those who can’t I am glad to be British. Here the first question is what can we do to help not may I see your insurance or credit card.
Maybe I’ve got it wrong and there will be some indignant responses from elsewhere. But I don’t think either Deaddirty or I need condolences for having the NHS. But Thant’s for thinking of us Meat.
And finally to all, stay safe, stay well.
 
Your post is another proof that just like Americans Britons believe they are finest in the world in every aspect including healthcare. Unfortunately both countries are among the worst affected in the entire world with very high death rate and health systems overwhelmed.

Both the UK and the USA failed to introduce lockdown earlier on when the spread would have been much easier to contain saving thousands of lives and unnecessary suffering. It is ultimately down to both Boris and Trump being at the wrong job at the wrong time.

History will judge them both are highly incompetent and messed up. Otherwise the UK and USA are great nations that have been through a lot and will get out of this even stronger and more united and will remain powerful countries. That is indeed my hope for the whole world. Shame on China for hiding the true scale of the outbreak in the initial stages and for supressing its own doctors from speaking out.

I send my best wishes for good health and quick recovery from this crisis to all our members from the UK and USA.

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Meat. Thanks for your response to my post.
I would initially make the point that the NHS is not part of the government and should not be blamed for the mistakes Johnson made in not locking down earlier. Yes there is a Secretary of state for health but his is a supervisory role and he is not actively involved in th running of the NHS. He is involved in policy decisions only. His responsibilities also extend to Social Care.
I still believe that the NHS has functioned well. I also believe that the model under which it functions is a good one. Sure it would be better if it were better funded but that is a political decision outside its control.
As I previously posted I have good reason to be personally grateful to the NHS. How I would have coped had I been elsewhere I’m not sure. Hopefully I would have had insurance but many cannot afford it and are hung out to dry when things go badly. I’m not sure what sort of system you have in Bulgaria; hopefully it is good, arguably as a former communist state the spending of money on it should not have been a problem but I could well be wrong on that.
I hope when the current pandemic is under control all nations will learn lessons and the NHS may improve. But I hope that the concept of free universal care at the point of use will continue.
I agree with you that Johnson and Trump have been disastrous leaders but we are stuck with him for at least four years unless his party gets rid of him. And Trump may well pull the wool over the voters again. By rejecting Sanders and nominating Biden the Democrats are doing all they can to assist him - okay that is a personal view and may well be disagreed with by those with more knowledge on the subject than I have.
Incidentally it has just been announced that trump and Johnson are going to talk this afternoon. Help
 
Your post is another proof that just like Americans Britons believe they are finest in the world in every aspect including healthcare. Unfortunately both countries are among the worst affected in the entire world with very high death rate and health systems overwhelmed.

Both the UK and the USA failed to introduce lockdown earlier on when the spread would have been much easier to contain saving thousands of lives and unnecessary suffering. It is ultimately down to both Boris and Trump being at the wrong job at the wrong time.

History will judge them both are highly incompetent and messed up. Otherwise the UK and USA are great nations that have been through a lot and will get out of this even stronger and more united and will remain powerful countries. That is indeed my hope for the whole world. Shame on China for hiding the true scale of the outbreak in the initial stages and for supressing its own doctors from speaking out.

I send my best wishes for good health and quick recovery from this crisis to all our members from the UK and USA.

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Agree with most of your post, but no, Meatpie, mot of us do not believe we are the finest in the world at all, never mind in every way. We do have a very good health system though - especially good in terms of easy free access for all, though in some other respects it tends to come behind the best West European systems. Overall I wouldn't argue for any one country's health system being 'the best'.
And our NHS hasn't been overwhelmed - it has been and is under immense pressure, but the bottom line is that pretty well everyone who needed a ventilator has got one, even though it has got perilously close at times.
 
You must really love your country to claim the NHS is not overwhelmed even when both British and US media say otherwise.

And according to the British Medical Association, half of doctors working in high-risk areas still don't have enough protection equipment.

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Still on a more positive side a Covid-19 vaccine being developed at the University of Oxford will be trialled on humans for the first time in 48 hours. :drunk friend:


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