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Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health, told the USA TODAY editorial board and reporters Monday that the original idea to keep people safely quarantined on the ship wasn't unreasonable. Yet where the entire story falls on its face is that even with the quarantine process on the ship, virus transmission still occurred. One can only hope that there are proper precaution pathways in place to prevent transmission now that at least 13 infected cruise passengers are now on US soil.
"The quarantine process failed," Fauci said. "I'd like to sugarcoat it and try to be diplomatic about it, but it failed. People were getting infected on that ship. Something went awry in the process of the quarantining on that ship. I don't know what it was, but a lot of people got infected on that ship."
What
might have gotten awry is that the virus is airborne and spread via the air conditioning system. But before we get banned from another social network, we will wait for someone "more credible" to make that claim.
Unfortunately, since the Diamond Princess was the single biggest incubator of coronavirus cases outside of Wuhan, and since nobody still seems to have a full grasp on how to contain the infection, we have a nagging feeling that this breach of quarantine will come back to haunt the US.
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Separately, Holland America said that 255 passengers and 747 crew members remained on the MS Westerdam, which docked in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, Friday, after being turned away from ports in Japan, Thailand and Guam. One female American passenger tested positive for coronavirus at a Malaysian hospital over the weekend. She remains stable, and her travel companion tested negative, the cruise line said.
It was unclear if quarantine on that cruise ship had also been broken, as the cruise line stated that at least some passengers had been transported to a local hotel: the cruise line said Cambodian health officials tested those on board Monday, a process expected to last several more days.
"Guests at a hotel in Phnom Penh have all completed the COVID-19 screening," the cruise line said. "Results are being returned when completed, with the first batch of 406 all being negative. Cleared guests may travel home, and arrangements are being made for those guests. Guests in both locations are being very well cared for, including assisting with any medications needed."
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Finally, some good news: in keeping with its daily attempts to minimize the threat from the coronavirus pandemic, JPMorgan's inhouse
virologist insurance strategist, MW Kim, said that even as attention shifts to cases outside of China, "at this stage, we see the virus contagion risk remaining relatively small, considering hospital capacity and strong local efforts to minimize the outbreak." Yet even here, the bank sounded decidedly unsure of its cheerful prediction (this is the same bank whose credibility was shattered last week when China unexpectedly hiked the total number of cases by 15,000 in one day, crushing JPMorgan's "epidemiological model"), to wit:
Mapping the virus spread scenario outside China. Our epidemiology model forecasts the virus outbreak in mainland China. However, we are observing early signs of community spread, as local infected toll without travel history to China is growing in Singapore, Japan, South Korea, and a few European countries. We intend to add mini-epidemic scenarios for each country once the infected toll exceeds the 100-200 level (depending on population/density).
The following table from JPM lists the number of international cases, excluding the 454 infected on the Diamond Princess, and excluding the 60 cases reported in Hong Kong. Expect the numbers to surge as more thorough testing reveals just how extensively the virus has spread.