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  1. This is what I hope so too. Hope they can all return safe and sound. I also believe strong antibodu among young people will help here.
  2. Thank you very much for your updates.
  3. Sorry I feel so sad for them. The coach is also not given a chance to go for the complete tests. I feel so sad for him now. How bad is this now?
  4. I understand what you are saying. It is too dangerous in England now with virus spreading rapidly over there. Unsure whether players can book flights to go back home or not? That is also another issue.
  5. Hope all the China players are all safe and sound and free from the virus. We must declare virus free. So far only those badminton players from South Korea, Japan, Chinese Taipei and Malaysia have managed to go for the test and confirmed they are negative and not infected with the virus. The whole Indonesian team is not given any check up despite the coach himself is already positive with the virus. This is dangerous right?
  6. @Vic Liu Do you think the mass spreading of Coronavirus at the All England tournament that is held recently is getting more and more severe now? How about the China badminton players? Have they gone for the test? All safe and sound?
  7. Alright I have used Google Translate to translate the news. Somehow according to the translated version it says only the coach is being tested and going for treatment. No testx conducted for the other coaches and other players in the same team. Don't you think that this is serious? I mean all the coaches and players should have also been given the test to be safe right? What caused the rest of the other coaches and players not given the test? Why is the reaction so slow here? If you read the translated news above, it also mentioned that the coach who is infected with the virus is also not given the test yet and is still awaiting for the swab test to be done. Can you believe this? I just cannot believe how slow is the reaction to check the people infected with the virus. So dangerous right?
  8. https://www.antaranews.com/berita/1378234/pelatih-kepala-tunggal-putra-hendry-saputra-berstatus-pdp-covid-19 The above is the original article. Here is the translation I get using Google Translate. Someone can correct the mistakes for me here. PP PBSI announces PBSI Pelitas National Singles Head Coach, Hendry Saputra, with the status of Patient Under Control (PDP) COVID-19. Hendry felt the symptoms of Covid-19 on the seventh day of independent isolation at the Cipayung Pelatnas after returning from the All England 2020 in Birmingham, England. PPSI Secretary General PP, Achmad Budiharto, said PBSI had taken action according to the procedure in the form of isolating all people who had direct contact with Hendry Saputra starting from filing complaints about his declining health condition. In addition, the Cipayung Pelatnas is now completely closed and there is no flow in and out. The PBSI doctor's team's observation of the All England team was also increasingly intense. The independent isolation period for the All England team was extended until early April to prevent the spread of the corona virus. "At the moment Hendry Saputra is declared as a PDP and still has to take a series of COVID-19 tests. We have received a report from a team of doctors that Hendry is waiting for a swab test to ascertain whether COVID-19 is positive or not," Budiharto told Badmintonindonesia.org. "The initial symptoms conveyed by Coach Hendry felt fever, weakness, nausea, and food could not enter. After a CT scan, there were many spots on the left lung, while Coach Hendry had no previous history of lung disease. To ascertain whether COVID had contracted "We have to do a swab test. This is what we are still waiting for," said dr. Octaviani, one of the PBSI doctor team members. PBSI will also report the case to BWF (Badminton World Federation) through the PBSI PPUBid International Relations Head, Bambang Roedyanto. "That's right, we will report it to BWF today, because Hendry Saputra is one of the team members who went to All England. At present PBSI is also continuing to try to reduce the potential of the spread of Covid that is endemic in Indonesia, one of which is the policy to close access to national training, "said Budiharto. Budiharto said the trainers who did not live in the Cipayung Pelatnas dormitory had also been instructed not to come to the Cipayung Pelatnas until this weekend. Meanwhile, the Head of the Development and Achievement Division of PBSI, Susy Susanti, stated that the training sessions at the national training center were adjusted to the current conditions. "To this day the practice continues but adjusts to the athlete's health condition, just to keep up the performance or to be active and free. The training schedule is also set so that it is not the same, we also encourage athletes to keep their distance from each other," Susy explained. Following the PDP case in Pelatnas Cipayung, PP PBSI was visited by East Jakarta Sudinkes yesterday and received guidance on how to recognize the symptoms and the first treatment of patients suspected of being COVID-19. Sudinkes also recorded who made contact with PDP and what actions should be taken. (*)
  9. Alright thanks. Alright. I will just post the original article here then. Lets see who can translate the article to English.
  10. Do you happen to know Indonesian language? Do you think you can help to translate the article?
  11. Yes you are right. The latest news just arrived today. An Indonesian badminton coach is now down with the Coronavirus after the All England tournament which is held in Birmingham, England the previous week. He only knew he got the virus today after his test result came out positive. Oh no.
  12. Hope so too. Hope it will disappear as soon as possible.
  13. Question now is when will the virus disappear? When will it go off? Tokyo 2020 Olympics already confirmed to be postponed due to the virus.
  14. You are right about it. Well in the midst of these there is a joker around in US to poke fun and make jokes as well. The leader of America. So funny.
  15. And this is what Donald Trump had to say about the virus. I think he is really a joker. Ha ha. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/19/coronavirus-outbreak-trump-blames-china-for-virus-again.html Trump blames China for coronavirus pandemic: ‘The world is paying a very big price for what they did’ President Donald Trump doubled down on blaming China for the coronavirus pandemic. “It could have been stopped right where it came from, China,” Trump said at a White House news conference. Trump has repeatedly called the coronavirus the “Chinese virus,” and been criticized for doing so, both by Chinese officials, and by others, including former Vice President Joe Biden. Trump has said that term is “not racist at all.” President Donald Trump emphatically blamed China for the coronavirus pandemic Thursday, and again made a point of using the term “Chinese virus.” “The world is paying a very big price for that they did,” Trump said, referring to his claim that Chinese officials did not fully share information sooner about the coronavirus outbreak after it began in China. “It could have been stopped right where it came from, China,” Trump said at a White House news conference. He argued that American officials would have been able to act faster if China’s government had fully shared information about the outbreak, which began around the city of Wuhan. “It would have been much better if we had known about this a number of months earlier,” the president said. Asked if there would be repercussions for China given his view of how that country handled the outbreak, Trump said, “I don’t want to comment on that right now.” Two months ago, Trump praised China’s response to the coronavirus, saying that country “has been working very hard” to contain the virus, and writing in a tweet that, “the United states greatly appreciates their efforts and transparency.” But in recent days, Trump has repeatedly called the coronavirus the “Chinese virus,” and did so again at the beginning of his news conference. Photos of the sheet of paper containing remarks that Trump read from at the beginning of the event reveal that someone with handwriting similar to Trump’s had crossed out the word “Corona,” and wrote the word “Chinese” above it. The word “Virus” appeared right after that word. Trump’s habit of saying “Chinese virus” has drawn strong criticism from Chinese officials and from a number of U.S. politicians, including former Vice President Joe Biden, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination. During a news conference Wednesday, Trump defended his use of that term, saying it was “not racist at all.” “Because it comes from China,” Trump said when asked Wednesday why he continued using the term. “That’s why.” “I want to be accurate.” Biden’s campaign responded to Trump’s press conference Thursday with a statement saying, “Trump Lies After Spending Months Downplaying Coronavirus and Ignoring Scientists and Experts Who Sounded the Alarm.” “Donald Trump is attempting, yet again, to hide his record of failure on combating the coronavirus, using today’s press briefing to attempt to erase his months of ignoring medical experts who were sounding the alarm — saying: ‘If people would have known about it, could have been stopped in place, it could have been stopped where it came from, China,’ ” the Biden campaign said. “The reality is, he did know about it and experts spent months trying to prompt Trump into action as he downplayed the growing threat of the virus and praised the Chinese government’s bungled early response — at a time when Vice President Biden warned him not to take their word about the disease,” the campaign said. “Now, as this crisis explodes on his watch, Trump is desperately lashing out to try to cover up his incompetence and mismanagement. China on Thursday for the first time since the outbreak began reported no new domestic cases of the coronavirus. Asked if he believed that report, Trump said, ’I hope it’s true.” Flanked by members of the Coronavirus Task Force, U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a news briefing on the latest development of the coronavirus outbreak in the U.S. in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House March 19, 2020 in Washington, DC. “But who knows?” Trump said. “I hope it’s true.” During an interview Wednesday on CNBC’s “Fast Money,” Hayman Capital Management founder Kyle Bass said that referring to the virus as the “Wuhan flu” or other terms noting its Chinese origin is warranted because of a long-standing practice of popularly naming pandemics after their perceived point of origin, such as the Spanish flu and West Nile virus. “If we start naming diseases after numbers, we’re never going to remember what kind of disease it is,” Bass said. Bass: I’m not going to call ‘Chinese virus’ what China’s communist govt. wants me to He said the Chinese government has “propagandized” by asking people to refer to the current outbreak as COVID-19 or coronavirus. “We can call it whatever we want to call it. I’m not going to call it what the Chinese government wants me to call it,” Bass said. Earlier Wednesday, when asked about Trump calling the coronavirus the Chinese virus, Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of World Health Organization’s emergencies program, said, “Viruses no know borders and they don’t care about your ethnicity, the color of your skin or how much money you have in the bank.” “So it’s really important we be careful in the language we use lest it lead to the profiling of individuals associated with the virus,” Ryan said.
  16. This looks so pitiful. Such close distance indeed.
  17. This news sounded more serious. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/23/life-after-lockdown-has-china-really-beaten-coronavirus Life after lockdown: has China really beaten coronavirus? Residents and analysts doubt the near-zero transmission rate as restrictions are eased According to official statistics, China has defeated the coronavirus. Over the last five days, health authorities have reported only one new locally transmitted case of Covid-19 – a patient in Guangdong province infected by someone travelling from abroad. In Wuhan, the centre of the outbreak and the country’s worst-hit area, officials on Monday reported a fifth day without new cases. The figures are a sharp drop from just a month ago when recording a daily increase of fewer than 2,000 new infections was a milestone. Authorities have begun easing Wuhan’s two-month lockdown while cities across the country are following orders to “fully restore” production and resume normal life. But as the country returns to work, residents and analysts doubt the near-zero community transmission rate, worrying that leaders have prioritised restarting the economy over decisively containing the virus. While public health experts, as well as citizens, say the situation in China has improved dramatically – the result of aggressive testing, quarantines and social distancing – many doubt the numbers are as good as officials have reported. “I am really worried that there are still many asymptomatic infected people inside Wuhan. As soon as everyone goes back to work, everyone will be infected,” said Wang, 26, who lives in the city. Another resident added: “I don’t believe [the numbers]. This epidemic will not disappear so easily.” “Any rational person would doubt these figures,” one internet user wrote in response to an essay posted by a volunteer in Wuhan questioning the statistics. Workers at Dongfeng Honda in Wuhan eat lunch while maintaining a safe distance. FacebookTwitterPinterest Staff at Dongfeng Honda in Wuhan eat lunch – while maintaining a safe distance – after returning to work. Photograph: Barcroft Media/Barcroft Media via Getty Images According to a report on Monday by RTHK, Hong Kong’s public broadcaster, residents said hospitals in Wuhan had refused to test patients who showed symptoms. Kyodo News in Japan reported at the weekend that a local doctor said the number of cases had been manipulated before President Xi Jinping’s visit earlier this month, prompting the beginning of “a mass release of infected patients”. Allegations of new infections in Wuhan have persisted on social media to such an extent that authorities issued a detailed statement over the weekend debunking them. Some of the concerns about China’s reporting stem from how Beijing classifies patients. While the World Health Organization and South Korea consider anyone who has tested positive for the virus as a confirmed case, China does not include asymptomatic infections in its final tally. Late on Monday night, Wuhan’s health commission published a Q&A explaining how asymptomatic cases are dealt with. On why such cases are not included as confirmed cases, the commission said that patients were quarantined for 14 days and if they began to show symptoms they would be designated as confirmed and that data would be published. “A small number of asymptomatic infections may progress to becoming confirmed cases, but the vast majority [of patients] will heal by themselves,” it said. Critics also question why recovered patients who retest as positive are not counted. Data from quarantine centres in Wuhan showed that the possibility of recovered patients testing positive again was between 5% and 10%, according to the state-run Global Times. Officials in Hubei have said those patients would not be recorded as new confirmed cases because they had been counted previously. Authorities said they had not witnessed people-to-people transmission in asymptomatic cases. However, an unnamed official at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention told the Chinese magazine Caixin: “It cannot be determined whether transmission has been completely cut off in Wuhan.” The official said there were still “a few or dozen symptomatic people every day”. Documents seen by the South China Morning Post reportedly showed more than 43,000 people had tested positive for Covid-19 by the end of February but did not show symptoms. They have not been included in the official number of infections of more than 80,000. Initial efforts to suppress information about the virus and continued censorship of public debate throughout the crisis have also added to mistrust of the numbers. “With the cover-up in December and January we really cannot trust the numbers from the Chinese government without more credible and solid evidence to verify,” said Ho-fung Hung, a professor in political economy at Johns Hopkins University. Others say it is a balancing act for the leadership. Since the beginning of this month, leaders in Beijing, including Xi, have emphasised the need to meet economic and development targets, in a year where the Chinese economy was already expected to struggle. A taskforce has been touring the country to make sure local authorities, bound by competing demands of restarting production but preventing new infections, are following orders. “Now the leadership has put a very heavy emphasis on resuming economic activity,” said Victor Shih, a politics professor at the University of California, San Diego. “One way to resume economic activity without panic is to cover up cases while still doing the government’s best to trace and contain them,” he said. “There is a risk it will lead to another outbreak but for now that seems like a risk the government is willing to take.” Still, sceptics of the positive statistics also acknowledge the difficulty of continuing the restrictions. Many citizens have lost months of income while others are tired of putting their lives on hold. One internet user wrote: “Why bother with data! Wuhan’s lockdown for so long is irrational in itself. People need to live!” Wang said: “The wheels of returning to work have begun turning and there is no way to stop them. All we can do is protect ourselves and not drop our guard.”
  18. Interesting news found online. Sounds quite serious. https://www.thailandmedical.news/news/breaking-news-china-continues-to-hide-real-coronavirus-epidemic-figures-still-new-exposure-by-cai-xin-global-online-media BREAKING NEWS! China Continues To Hide Real Coronavirus Epidemic Figures Still. New Exposure By Cai Xin Global Online Media While most individuals and media has been busy with the coronavirus breakouts in the rest of the world, China is furthering it cover up and PR game of with the plan to make “the epidemic seemingly gone” by end of March 2020 by daily reporting of lower deaths and infected cases. (Note there is foreign or international body allowed to audit this figures in China and even WHO does not have a ground team in China. In their recent mission to China, they were only permitted data and access to sites as allowed by China, they did not get to view all sites in ground zero at Wuhan nor the rest of Hubei or even visit provinces like Zhejiang, Henan, Hunan, Chongjing etc.) In the last 7 days alone, China has been reporting low figures of deaths and infections that are being accepted by WHO, John Hopkins Coronavirus Dashboard, and the western media despite daily rising figures that are emerging from its own audit of deaths and infections in prisons, nursing and aged homes, field hospitals etc (none of these figures have been added in the daily figures for the last 9 days to be precise). China authorities today reported today only 202 new coronavirus cases and 42 deaths in the last 24 hours and many international media have covered it without questioning. These figures were not the nationwide figures! These were only figures from Hubei province! In just Zhejiang province, more than 239 new coronavirus cases were detected and 6 deaths were reported in the last 24 hours. We have yet to even add all other data from the other provinces in China. (talk about reporting fake news and misinformation!) One Chinese doctor upset about the how the government is still concealing the seriousness of the epidemic has asked all media to do and audit to check all provincial offices and the state registries of deaths. An anomaly he warned that would be observed and picked up immediately is that in the last two months till now, there is a massive amounts of deaths termed as ‘causes unknown’ as that is the protocol that hospitals have been instructed to abide by whenever deaths are not yet tested or in some cases even tested. But even more significant is a proper investigative reporting piece done by CaiXin Global news and its team of excellent editors and reporters that featured a piece today to show how China has again changed it manner of daily coronavirus reporting by omitting out asymptomatic cases despite testing positive for the coronavirus via nucleic testing and in some cases by CT scans. It also interesting that the amount of asymptomatic individuals throughout China is greatly increasing, raising lots of concerns and also fears.
  19. Sorry for the late reply. Anyway lack of testing is happening worldwide so WHO said it is indeed worrying. In India some people even tried to run away when being told to quarantine. Really not helping either.
  20. The world is not doing enough of test. This is what WHO had to say about the number of patients being tested for the virus. India's poor testing rate may have masked coronavirus cases The WHO urges countries to test more people to curb the pandemic, but India has not expanded testing so far. As of Wednesday 151 Indians were infected with coronavirus, not 276 as the previous version of the story said. A total of 276 Indians have tested positive for the virus overseas. Indian authorities have said they will not expand coronavirus testing, as most affected nations are doing, despite criticism that limited testing could leave COVID-19 cases undetected in the world's second-most populous country. The World Health Organization (WHO) has urged countries to test as widely as possible to curb the pandemic, but India has only been testing those who have travelled from affected countries or come in contact with a confirmed case and shown symptoms after two weeks of quarantine. On Tuesday, it added healthcare workers with symptoms who are treating patients with severe respiratory illnesses. India is conducting only about 90 tests a day, despite having the capacity for as many as 8,000. So far, 11,500 people have been tested, according to The Associated Press. WHO guidance 'premature' Officials have said the WHO guidance didn't apply in India because the spread of the disease has been less severe than elsewhere. Balaram Bharghava, who heads the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), the country's top medical research body, said the guidance was "premature" for India, where community transmission has not yet been detected. "Therefore, it creates more fear, more paranoia and more hype," he said. Last week, a British citizen who approached a public hospital in New Delhi for coronavirus test was told she was not eligible under India's testing criteria and turned away. The woman, who requested anonymity fearing business consequences for her employer, said she told hospital officials that she may have had contact with an infected person in her hospitality sector job, but could not be sure. After trying and failing to be tested a second time, she left India this week for France, where her family lives and where President Emmanuel Macron had announced extreme measures to curb the coronavirus. Indian authorities have justified their restrictions as a way to keep a deluge of people from demanding tests that would cost the government money it needs to combat other diseases such as tuberculosis, malnutrition and HIV/AIDs. ICMR said there was no need to expand such testing. However, authorities said they're preparing for community spread by bolstering their lab testing infrastructure. India has 52 coronavirus testing centres. As a result of the narrow testing criteria, sick people with potential exposure to the coronavirus are being sent home, and some experts fear that India's caseload could be much higher than government statistics indicate. Bharghava, the ICMR chief, said virus infections in India can still be traced back to people who travelled into the country from affected locales and that testing protocols would be revised if community transmission is detected. Coronavirus cases in India rose to 151 on Wednesday, a day after a third person, a 64-year-old man, died in the western state of Maharashtra. A total of 276 Indians have tested positive for coronavirus overseas to date, an Indian government minister said on Wednesday. The vast majority, 255, tested positive in Iran, with others in the United Arab Emirates, Italy, Kuwait, Sri Lanka, Rwanda and Hong Kong, V Muraleedharan, minister of state for external affairs, said in Parliament. The South Asian nation has closed most schools and entertainment facilities, including cinemas. Authorities say most of the infections have been "imported" - linked to foreign travel or direct contact with someone who caught the disease abroad. India has suspended all incoming tourists and will bar non-Indian passengers on flights from the European Union, the European Free Trade Association, Turkey and the United Kingdom from Wednesday. Travellers coming from or transiting through the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman and Kuwait are required to undergo a 14-day quarantine when they arrive in India, the government announced on Monday. Arrivals from China, Italy, Iran, South Korea, France, Spain and Germany are already subject to similar restrictions, while most border points with neighbouring Bangladesh and Myanmar have been shut. Undetected spread But concerns of undetected communal spread are growing. "Given the pattern of disease in other places, and given our low level of testing, then I do think that community transmission is happening, " said Dr Gagandeep Kang, director of the Translational Health Science and Technology Institute. WHO said that, while self-initiated isolation by people with mild symptoms remains the most important community intervention, testing of all suspected cases, symptomatic contacts of probable and confirmed cases, would still be needed. "We need to be geared to respond to the evolving situation with the aim to stop transmission of COVID-19 at the earliest to minimise the impact. ... We need to act now," said Dr Poonam Khetrapal Singh, the WHO's director for the region. More than 400 million of India's 1.3 billion people live in crowded cities, many without regular access to clean water, conditions that could allow the disease to spread rapidly. "Community spread is very likely. But the only way to know for sure is through more expansive testing," said Dr Anant Bhan, a global health researcher in Bhopal, India. The virus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever and cough, for most people, but severe illness is more likely in the elderly and people with existing health problems. India has a lower proportion of elderly than other countries, but its healthcare facilities are limited and already struggle to accommodate the large number of patients with other diseases. "This, along with our high population density, can be our great challenge," public health researcher Oommen Kurian told the Associated Press. India has been reluctant to expand testing, not wanting to trigger panic and overwhelm hospitals, but also because of the cost: While the tests are free for patients, they cost the government about 5,000 rupees ($67) each. In an already stretched and underfunded public healthcare system, money spent on the coronavirus leaves less for other public health problems. India spends only 3.7 percent of its total budget on health. The coronavirus may also be spreading in India because health officials have struggled to maintain quarantines, with people fleeing from isolation wards, complaining of filthy conditions. In Maharashtra, five people, one of whom had tested negative and the rest who were awaiting test results, walked out of an isolation ward last Saturday. Hindu residents wearing protective masks perform prayers for the protection against coronavirus disease (COVID-19), outside a temple, in Ahmedabad, India, The coronavirus may also be spreading in India because health officials have struggled to maintain quarantines. Enforcing containment India has implemented a 19th-century epidemic law that empowers public officials to enforce more rigorous containment measures and impose penalties and punishments for escapes. Lav Agarwal, a health ministry official, said authorities "often don't get enough support from people". Similarly, in neighbouring Sri Lanka, the government has ordered about 170 passengers who evaded airport screening after returning from several affected countries to report to police or face financial penalties and possible imprisonment. Aditya Bhatnagar, an Indian university student who was studying in Spain, described unsanitary conditions at an isolation ward where he and 50 others passengers on a flight from Barcelona have been kept since landing in New Delhi on Monday. Bhatnagar said the rooms, each holding about eight people, lacked basic hygiene features such as clean bedsheets and bathrooms. He told the AP that the group, awaiting their COVID-19 test results, was not provided with masks or sanitiser. "I don't think these measures would be enough to contain the pandemic," Bhatnagar, the ICMR chief, said, adding that some passengers had opted to move from the wards and into private hotels, paying 4,000 rupees ($55) a night to self-isolate for at least 14 days.
  21. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/21/us/west-virginia-coronavirus-patient-one-test/index.html There are many lessons that we can learn from the above story. 1. People like to hear zero case. No case for Coronavirus is the best. 2. Even the state leader all wanted zero cases. No case means good news. 3. Lack of testing kid or totally no testing kid available makes it even harder to trace Coronavirus patient. 4. Human natura attitude, no one bothers about the virus. Lets enjoy our life while it still last. 5. See this guy and this lady do not even know where they got the virus from. They just got it. 6. So is the above case just a coincidence? No it is not. 7. No case does not mean good news. It goes to prove lack of testing and lack of testing that will really harm the citizens life. 8. WHO said it before many times all the countries around the whole world must be ready to face the pandemic. Think about this? There are so many poor countries in Asia who cannot even have mass testing. So far WHO acknowledge that only a few countries in Asia such as China, South Korea, Japan, Singapore and Malaysia have the ability to to mass testing to detect the virus early. 9. So what will happen to those poor countries world wide as mentioned by WHO who are too poor to even buy enough test kids to get their citizens tested? What will happen to all of them. Answer is obvious. More people dying due to Coronavirus but the cases will go on undetected and unreported. 10. This stody taught us a great lesson. We cannot treat Coronavirus lightly and close case thinking that nothing happen. This will not help to curb the wide spread of the virus.
  22. The most horrible news ever. So sad but the truth hurts a lot. This story means a lot to what does a zero Coronavirus case means the lies behind the actiual number of cases. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/21/us/west-virginia-coronavirus-patient-one-test/index.html How one woman fought to get her husband tested while her state was applauded for having no coronavirus Carolyn Vigil was lying in bed next to her husband when she first saw the meme. It noted West Virginia had no reported cases of coronavirus, and jokingly pleaded for its people to hang on. She remembers it so well because it's the day her husband James began to feel sick in their Shepherdstown home in the West Virginia panhandle. Her husband was sick from Covid-19. But her "coronavirus-free" state wasn't set up to test him. He would become the state's Patient #1. They didn't know it then, of course, nor did anyone else. But in the following days they felt like that they were the only people in the state who wanted to find out. From medical professionals who simply had no information to health administrators in the same boat, all the way up to the President saying the state was doing a good job for having no cases. And all the while, Patient #1 -- James Vigil -- was there for the testing. That evening, James had gone straight to bed when he'd gotten home from work. He'd had a bad headache, his sinuses bothering him and achy. Carolyn heard him wheeze, and while she knew he had asthma, it hadn't been an issue in a long time. "I reached over and he was hot, I mean hot to the touch," Carolyn tells CNN. "I took his temperature and it was 104." That's when she knew something wasn't right, and likely the memes about West Virginia not having coronavirus -- as all the other states began to record cases -- weren't either. "I'm pretty sure the guy I'm lying next to has it," she remembers thinking. That night would begin a wife's quest to find out if her husband James, 53, had coronavirus. CNN could not verify the full account due to privacy laws that prevent health officials from disclosing details about patients. Carolyn's journey is one story behind how and why West Virginia had no reported cases for so long. The quest for a test There are two things to know about Carolyn Vigil to understand how she went about her mission: She was once a statistician, and she's spent years getting care for one of her sons, who is disabled. She's persistent and experienced at whacking through health care red tape and confusion. Her statistician brain kicked in early in March when she watched the number of purportedly coronavirus-free states dwindle to just a few, then narrow to just her home state. "Any time there's an anomaly, I think, 'There's a reason for that,'" she says. "What's the hidden story? Why are there no cases? Is it underreporting? Is it testing?" It made no sense to her for West Virginia -- with its health and wealth gaps, plus its high rate of smokers -- to be impervious to a virus that hits the respiratory system. But it was a fleeting thought until there was James, wheezing, and his high temperature, climbing. Carolyn gave him medicine for his fever and tried to keep him hydrated. Answers to your top coronavirus questions, every day Then she went online to research coronavirus resources and testing information so she could be armed the next morning when she would call to get James care. The first hotline she called using a number from an official notification didn't work. Her second call was to the state's health department. Carolyn answered a series of triage questions, including about coughs and a fever. She answered yes to them all and was told James should probably be screened and that Carolyn should call their doctor. The doctor's receptionist told her "you absolutely cannot come here." And she was given a hotline number. The same number she had called for the state health department that had sent her to call their doctor. It was her first dead end. A friend suggested they go to the emergency room, and Carolyn loaded James into the car. Aware that James could be contagious -- and she could be, too -- Carolyn left him in the car as she walked in. She kept her distance from staff as she asked for help. "The receptionist said, 'You know, I don't think we're equipped to handle this,'" Carolyn recalls. She insisted that her husband needed medical care, so the receptionist went to get a nurse. I said, 'I'm going to stand here in your lobby until someone of authority can get him help or tell me where to get help for him' Carolyn Vigil, recalling how she got attention in the emergency room "The nurse came out with a 1-800 number on a sticky note and said, 'We can't screen you or your husband. We can't treat you. You need to call this hotline number,'" Carolyn says. "And I was like, no, that was the original number. I'm not starting there again." It was another dead end, and Carolyn began to realize perhaps there wasn't a proper plan in place in West Virginia. "We were, like, on the frontier of working through it," Carolyn explains. "The hotline number, I think it was maybe the only thing they'd ironed out in the protocols at this point," she says. "I don't think they had a process established for what if we have a high-risk candidate, how are they going to get tested?" Carolyn refused to leave the emergency room. She was acutely aware not only of James' current symptoms but also his asthma and the fact that he has a compromised lung from a snowboarding accident. "I said, 'I'm going to stand here in your lobby until someone of authority can get him help or tell me where to get help for him,'" Carolyn recalls. Security guards came, she says, but eventually, so did the head nurse. She agreed to talk to Carolyn, but only in the parking lot in case Carolyn was also contagious. "She was kind of trying to direct me to the 800 number as well. And I said, 'Can you just look at him through the rolled-up window? He's right over there in the car. I want you to see how sick he is because I think if you see how sick he is, you're not going to turn us away,'" Carolyn says. After asking many of the same triage questions, the senior nurse agreed James should be examined. He was taken in through a back entrance and put in a special room. The doctor wanted to rule everything else out and tested for a variety of conditions, all of which come back negative. Finally, they swabbed for Covid-19. The Vigils were told to go home and quarantine themselves for five days to wait for the results. Still no answers James and Carolyn hunkered down. Four days after the test, West Virginia was still reporting no confirmed coronavirus cases, though Carolyn felt that was not accurate. That night, she woke in the early hours. She felt hot, touched her face and then checked her temperature. Now she had a fever. The next day, they expected to get the test results, only they never got a call. When it hit midafternoon, she contacted the ER. She was told to call the state lab. According to Carolyn, they said to call the county health department. The county health department told her something that hit her in the gut: They had no record of James being tested. Carolyn reeled off the details of exactly when he was tested, where and by whom. But still she was told there was no record and to try the state health department again. "I'm exasperated, and I decided I'm going to call the governor's office," Carolyn says. They got a caseworker who listened and was courteous, but there were no answers. When the phone did ring, it was the hospital saying James' tests had been lost and he had to get tested again. But they didn't want him back at the hospital, promising instead to find a location and call her back. James' lungs were getting worse, Carolyn says, "and we're back to square one." I have so little faith in getting this resolved. All I really want at this point is a doctor's order so I can take him across state lines to get tested. Carolyn Vigil to a staffer of Sen. Joe Manchin Carolyn decided they should just drive to Virginia. That state had recorded coronavirus cases, so surely there was a better system in place. As she called around to see what she needed, she got a call back from the West Virginia state lab: They had found James' samples. But they've been sitting in the lab for days, Carolyn was told. "They're no longer viable," she recalls hearing. "You have to get tested again." Tears began streaming down her face. She had no answer and no clear path forward. Carolyn had been documenting the issues on Facebook. As she posted the latest update to their saga, a friend reached out with a connection to US Sen. Joe Manchin and said someone from his office would call her. The call came, says Carolyn, who shared all her information and got a promise that they'd get to the bottom of it that day. Track the spread of coronavirus across the globe Carolyn wasn't so sure. She'd heard this before and told them bluntly: "I have so little faith in getting this resolved. All I really want at this point is a doctor's order so I can take him across state lines to get tested." The senator's staffer asked for Carolyn to give them one day. She agreed. But just one. Frustration fuels paranoia The toll on Carolyn's mind is hard to explain. She was beginning to feel a little paranoid, she admits, and her trust in the system was shaken. As she struggled to understand what was taking so long, she turned on the TV, and there was President Donald Trump holding a briefing and talking about her state leader, Gov. Jim Justice. "I'm in the middle of all this and President Trump was giving a press conference complimenting 'big Jim' on how well he's managing the health care in West Virginia and managing the Covid process. And I was like, you have got to be kidding me," Carolyn explains. "It was just all starting to feel surreal," she adds. Justice had closed the schools and declared a state of emergency, but because zero cases had been reported, Carolyn says people in the area were acting like there was no pandemic. The state began posting updates on March 7 about coronavirus tests. By the time James was tested, 31 coronavirus test had been performed in the state, all of which were negative or pending results. "There's a lot of people that were not taking any of this quarantining seriously because there were zero cases, right?" Carolyn says. "We had so many friends just say, 'We're going to bars, it's St. Patrick's Day, you know, let's go to dinner.'" Then the office of the state's top health official called. They asked a lot of questions and promised a quick return call. That call back stunned Carolyn. They told her they had the test results: James had coronavirus. It was what Carolyn suspected. And now it was confirmed. Carolyn was told what she should do and how the state was working on a news release for the governor. There would be an announcement within the hour that West Virginia now had a case of coronavirus. The first case in the last state in the land to report one. The West Virginia department of health says James' test was misplaced by a shipping company. They say James was tested a second time. Carolyn says he was not. Whether James was the first case or whether he was just the first to be confirmed amid testing issues is no longer top of mind for the Vigils. They just want things to be easier for the next patients. And for Carolyn, it has been. She managed to get tested at a drive-through site on Wednesday. And two days later she was called with the result. She's positive, too. Neither Carolyn nor James is well right now. Carolyn is weak, and James had to return to the ER for asthma-related complications, she says. But her spirit at least has been lifted by the massive change she witnessed between James' test and her own. And perhaps coincidentally, the out-of-service number she says was promoted by the state and that she first tried has not been included on updated news releases. It has been replaced by a website. "Within one week's time, testing became more accessible. Drive-through tents have been set up in hotspot regions. The state is closely monitoring now and has a communication strategy in place for results," she says. "I feel like all this was worth it."
  23. You are right there. Australia is also doing a poor job to contain the virus.
  24. As for me I am paying attention to every thing that is happening around the world regarding this virus to better equipped myself with the knowledge. @Olympian1010
  25. Wow so serious in Brazil and Mexico? Not enough testing done?
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