Coronavirus: Food Supplies Part 1

A number of articles are popping up on the news about striking fast food, grocery store, and Instacart workers. There are stories about farmers having to dump milk, fruits and vegetables due to a lack of demand from hotels, restaurants and theme parks. There are also other news articles that paint a very scary immediate and potential future picture.

Food Banks:

Due to all the layoffs in America, food banks are seeing a surge in demand. CNN writes:

Millions of people newly unemployed mean food banks, food pantries and soup kitchens are seeing a flood of new clients appearing at their doors, just as supplies are dwindling because of growing demand from consumers stuck at home.

Food banks are reporting a 40% increase in demand, on average, said Katie Fitzgerald, chief operating office at Feeding America, a network of 200 food banks and 60,000 food pantries and meal programs nationwide. Some say they are seeing double to quadruple the number of people asking for help.

Coronavirus: Ecuador Deaths Far Greater than Reported? Definitely.

In early April, I took a look at Ecuador via this LA Times article:

Over the last few days, several were wrapped in plastic and left on the streets. Others have lain unclaimed in hospitals and clinics that have been overwhelmed by infections. The city morgue is full.

The majority of the dead are believed to be victims of the virus, but nobody can say for sure how many. There has been little testing.

The country has confirmed 2,700 infections and 93 deaths — 60 of them in Guayaquil and its immediate surroundings. But municipal officials there said they have recovered at least 400 bodies in recent days.

Coronavirus: UV Light Causes Twitter/Youtube/New York Times to go after a publicly traded company.

Update: Twitter re-instated the account for AYTU Bioscience, but based on the CEO's tweets, Youtube hasn't done the same yet. Davey Alba also once again asked for an interview, which implies she had no reason to ask Youtube to remove the video.

Original Post:

Perhaps lost in all the discussion around President Trump's Thursday comment about looking into injecting disinfectant into our bodies was that in the same quote he also talked about ultraviolet being used on the body.

Zerohedge just a little while ago had a post about how Twitter suspended the account of AYTU Bioscience that is looking into this exact idea. Youtube also deleted the video this corporation had posted.

Now, admittedly, this company as of Friday close was a penny stock trading at $1.40 (who knows what will happen Monday morning) so the research they do probably doesn't have the best track record. Yet, it is interesting that a publicly traded company would get suspended from social media. The last time I looked, the company was still suspended from Twitter and their video was still off Youtube (though others had re-posted it).

Coronavirus: World Health Organization (WHO)

When President Trump went after the World Health Organization (WHO), I was surprised to see on Twitter all these individuals coming to the support of the organization. Maybe I've been watching too many Peak Prosperity videos where a definite negative tone is given of the organization. WHO is an organization that back in January said that there was no evidence of human to human transmission . They didn't declare the virus a pandemic until Wednesday, March 11th. And then there's this interview about coronavirus and Taiwan that has gone viral, which really gives the impression that WHO is in bed with China. The initial tweet about human to human transmission might be forgiven as this tweet was made on January 14th, but the other two can't be forgiven especially since so many critics of President Trump are going after him for his February 26th statement where he stated: And again, when you have 15 people, and the 15 within a couple of days is going to be down to close to zero, that's a pretty good job we've done.

Venezuela: Going Wuhan

I wrote about Venezuela a couple weeks back. At the time, there were only 119 cases. I am writing this on Thursday, April 16, and according to Worldometers there are now only 204 cases. Is that believable? Probably not. Though their reporting doesn't appear to be realistic, especially when compared to their neighbors (Colombia/Brazil), the country is taking serious measures.

Venezuela going Wuhan

Reuters writes about measures that appear influenced by China:

Venezuela’s government is employing harsher measures in one of Caracas’ largest barrios to ensure residents comply with a coronavirus quarantine, as many poor Venezuelans continue to head outside in search of scarce food and water.

Coronavirus: Is Africa the next hot spot?

If anyone looks at Worldometers tracking or any other site's tracking of coronavirus, you know that you have to scroll far down the list before you come across an African country. The first countries you come across are South Africa and Egypt. On the face of things, you might think that Africa might be spared from this pandemic. Al Jazeera unfortunately reports that this just won't be the case -- based on currently modeling, of course:

Coronavirus cases in Africa could surge from just thousands now to 10 million within three to six months, according to provisional modelling, a regional World Health Organization (WHO) official said.

. . . Separately, new research said Africa could see 300,000 deaths from the coronavirus even under the best-case scenario, according to modeling by the Imperial College London.

Under the worst-case scenario with no interventions against the virus, Africa could see 3.3 million deaths and 1.2 billion infections, the report by the UN Economic Commission for Africa said.

Coronavirus: Brazil

Coronavirus didn't hit South America officially until February 27th. The first case was in Brazil. Per Worldometer, there were a little over 83,000 cases worldwide at that time. As of April 12th, the cases in Brazil increased to over 22,000 (the most in South America) with just 63,000 tests given. That's over 1/3 of the tests resulting in positive results.  Of the top 20 countries with most COVID-19 cases, they've done by far the fewest number of tests per million at just 296. The country with the next fewest tests is Iran at 3,136 tests per million. Just based on that info, one should probably assume there are way more cases in the country.

Brazil isn't just known for having the most cases in South America. President Bolsonaro has also drawn criticism due to his approach to the virus. The Guardian had this to say:

Bolsonaro is one of just four world leaders still downplaying the threat of coronavirus to public health, alongside the authoritarian presidents of Nicaragua, Belarus and Turkmenistan.

Over Easter, Brazil’s far-right leader repeatedly sniffed at his own health ministry’s distancing recommendations by going out for doughnuts, glad-handing fans and proclaiming: “No one will hinder my right to come and go.”

Coronavirus: Sweden Update

Sweden has gotten a lot of attention in the press recently regarding coronavirus/COVID-19. They are one of the few countries that have taken a softer approach than the vast majority of countries. Other countries that I would argue are following Sweden's approach is Brazil and Iran. I put up a blog post on Sweden on April 2nd. Per Worldometer, Sweden had 308 deaths at the time and 5,568 cases. This will post on April 14th, but I'm doing most of the writing on April 9th. As of April 9th, there were 793 deaths and 9,141 cases. So in 7 days, the number of deaths have more than doubled. Sweden is also 20th for most reported cases while they rank 91st on the country population ranking (10 million). Admittedly, a country like India may actually have far more cases than Sweden, but the testing isn't all that good. I could see Sweden staying in the Top 20 for a little bit longer as they could easily pass South Korea and Israel by the time I post this blog.

Bloomberg wrote a piece about Sweden on April 4th:

There are signs that the death rate in Sweden is growing faster than elsewhere in Scandinavia, raising pressure on the government to abandon its controversial hands-off approach in tackling Covid-19 . . . But after a week of sobering data, [Prime Minister Lofven] now seems to be striking a darker tone. In an interview published on Saturday by Dagens Nyheter, he warned that Sweden may be facing “thousands” of coronavirus deaths, and said the crisis is likely to drag on for months rather than weeks. Meanwhile, criticism from across the political spectrum forced his Social Democrat-led government to back down on a proposal to bypass parliament when implementing sterner measures to fight the virus, according to local media reports on Sunday.

. . . Visits to retirement homes for the elderly are banned, and Lofven has made clear stricter instructions may follow. But it remains a far cry from measures taken elsewhere. In neighboring Denmark, citizens face hefty fines and even prison sentences for breaking new coronavirus laws. Controversially, the government has also made it easier to expel immigrants as part of the freshly minted legislation. 

Coronavirus: Haiti

Back on March 20, France 24 wrote that Haiti reported their first 2 cases of COVID-19.

President Jovenel Moise announced Haiti's first two cases of novel coronavirus on Thursday as his government adopted extraordinary measures to contain its spread.

"We have found the two first cases of coronavirus in our national territory," Moise said during an address televised on state media.

Immediately, the country implement a curfew, banned gathers of greater than 10 people, closed boarders and schools. That is an immediate action over just two cases.

Coronavirus: Low Numbers Infected, Don't Believe It

Why are there so few cases in Africa? That's a misleading question as I'm not going to discuss Africa, but I did run across two articles in the Los Angeles Times that looks in discrepancies between what one might find in various trackers and what actually might be happening on the ground.

This LA Times looks into Ecuador. I'm writing this article on Thursday, April 2nd. At the time, Worldometer had the number of cases in Ecuador at 3,163 and the total deaths at 120. The article specifically looks at the port city of Guayaquil, which has a population of 2.8 million.

Sweden: Coronavirus

When it comes to coronavirus, Sweden is taking a different path than most nations. The nation has put some restrictions in place, but not as many as other countries. In a way, you could say they're approaching this similar to how Brazil is currently dealing with this (and as the New York Times article below mentions, The Netherlands). And also similar to the approach the UK took for a handful of days before reversing course.

The New York Times wrote on March 29th about what is going on in Sweden:

While Denmark and Norway closed their borders, restaurants and ski slopes and told all students to stay home this month, Sweden shut only its high schools and colleges, kept its preschools, grade schools, pubs, restaurants and borders open — and put no limits on the slopes.

. . . The state epidemiologist, Anders Tegnell, said in an interview that Sweden’s strategy is based on science and boiled down to this: “We are trying to slow the spread enough so that we can deal with the patients coming in.”

Sweden’s approach appeals to the public’s self-restraint and sense of responsibility, Mr. Tegnell said. “That’s the way we work in Sweden. Our whole system for communicable disease control is based on voluntary action. The immunization system is completely voluntary and there is 98 percent coverage,” he explained. 

Venezuela: Coronavirus

Venezuela has been hit hard both by US economic sanctions and their dependence on oil revenue. And now comes coronavirus. Though Venezuela unlikely has the ability to determine the potential severity there is obvious concern in the country.

I don't usually think about CNN when I write these blog posts, but I found a really good article up on the site:

On the streets of Caracas, tension is palpable. The government has put the military in charge of enforcing the national shutdown. Soldiers can be seen setting up armed checkpoints and taking over petrol stations to ration fuel.

In public hospitals, where resources are already thin, the feeling is that of calm before the storm. "The expectation for Venezuela is truly a terrifying scenario," says physician Dr. Christian Ramos, of health insurance provider Universitas.

"If that is what is happening to Italy, with all the resources they have, imagine what could happen here," he says.