There have been plenty of reports that President Trump is a bit of germaphobe (who also has a fear of being poisoned).
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The following is an absolutely fascinating report from TPM Reader AK on the COVID-19 clampdown in Shanghai. We get so many great accounts from TPM Readers, always with different dimensions and different kinds of information depending on the kind of news story over so many years. This one is particularly rich. But I’m reminded how great an asset and value this is to the TPM community and our ability to bring you the news.
The great global pandemic of the modern age is the 1918 “Spanish flu” pandemic. More than a quarter of the world’s population is estimated to have contracted the disease and tens of millions died. In recent weeks, many have pointed to it as a model for how bad COVID-19 could get. The case fatality ratio of the Spanish flu is estimated to have been between 2% and 3% of those infected. That’s roughly comparable to mortality in the epidemic in Wuhan, China.
This seems to be the best and really only source of information I’ve seen with detailed and frequently updated data on the rate of COVID-19 testing and infections broken down by states within the United States. This is the breakdown by states. This is the daily cumulative update. In each case you have total tests, positives, negatives and pending. In a better world, the CDC or some other government agency would be publishing this information. But that’s not happening.
A few more points about why this is a reliable source.
Importantly this is from Monday, March 2nd. A lot has happened over the last five days. But TPM Reader RW reports that he was not screened at all when returning from Milan, Italy, which is the epicenter of the outbreak in Italy …
As the COVID-19 crisis unfolds one of its unique dynamics is the surge of new medical studies being rushed into print because of the extenuating circumstances of a global pandemic. To be crystal clear, these are studies produced using expert, scientific methodologies and conducted by credentialed epidemiologists and clinicians. But many have relatively small sample sizes and they’re being performed – many in China – under crisis conditions. So they don’t necessarily ‘prove’ things even in the limited way that larger, more organized studies can. But they’re giving us key information.
Let me point your attention to a few of them.
I mentioned on Thursday talking with readers who have had difficulty convincing older relatives to take basic social distancing precautions because they’ve heard on Fox News that the threat is being hyped for political purposes. Now Ipsos/Reuters has released a poll which shows a significant though not overwhelming difference between the self-reported precautions by Democrats and Republicans.
An interchange from the President’s visit yesterday to the CDC in which he said he was resisting allowing that cruise ship off San Francisco to disembark passengers since it would inflate the numbers of infections in the US and that those “weren’t our fault.” The people on board the ship are overwhelmingly American citizens.
Trump on decision whether to let Americans off cruise ship: "I would rather, because I like the numbers being where they are, I don't need to have the numbers double because of one ship that wasn't our fault." pic.twitter.com/jYnXjlaAqt
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 7, 2020
I am always very cautious about drawing conclusions based even on a significant number of reader reports. But having reviewed numerous accounts and combined those with many more from other published accounts, the following is clear: a substantial number of people are seeking medical care for respiratory illnesses (usually not severe) and being presumptively diagnosed with COVID-19 but sent home to take care of themselves and not being recorded in any registry or being contact-traced in any way.