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Dutch Government Adopts ‘Mandatory Quarantine’ For Everyone Exposed To COVID-19: Live Updates

Dutch Government Adopts ‘Mandatory Quarantine’ For Everyone Exposed To COVID-19: Live Updates

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4 years ago

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Dutch Government Adopts 'Mandatory Quarantine' For Everyone Exposed To COVID-19: Live Updates Tyler Durden Tue, 08/11/2020 - 13:51

Summary:

  • Dutch impose mandatory quarantines on those 'exposed' to COVID
  • Arizona reports latest cases
  • Hawaii, South Dakota and Virgin Islands added to tri-state qurantine list
  • Nursing home cases on the rise in the US
  • Florida reports record COVID deaths
  • Cases in children have increased 137%, CNN says
  • Goldman weighs in on US outbreak
  • Auckland back on lockdown as first cluster of covid cases discovered in 102 days
  • Russia approves world's first COVID vaccine
  • Global COVID total tops 20 million

* * *

Update (1345ET): The Netherlands, after a startling rebound in new cases, has ordered that all people exposed to COVID be ordered to quarantine for 2 weeks, or face legal repercussions.

  • DUTCH GOVERNMENT TO ORDER FORCED QUARANTINE FOR PEOPLE EXPOSED TO CORONAVIRUS -NOS

The decision comes amid a record-setting heat wave hammering the country, and just hours after one of the biggest cocaine busts in the country's history.

* * *

Update (1215ET): Arizona reported 1,213 new cases of the virus on Tuesday, while deaths bounced back to 45. The state's total case count climbed to 188,737 and 4,199 deaths.

ICU capacity declined again to 79%.

* * *

Update (1110ET): The tri-state area has reportedly added two more states and a territory to its COVID quarantine list, bringing the total number to roughly 34 (32 states and 2 territories), as four states were also removed.

  • N.Y. ADDS HAWAII, S. DAKOTA, V. ISLANDS TO QUARANTINE LIST

Here's the complete updated list:

  • Alabama
  • Arkansas
  • Arizona
  • California
  • Florida
  • Georgia
  • Hawaii
  • Idaho
  • Illinois
  • Indiana
  • Iowa
  • Kansas
  • Kentucky
  • Louisiana
  • Maryland
  • Minnesota
  • Mississippi
  • Missouri
  • Montana
  • Nebraska
  • Nevada
  • North Carolina
  • North Dakota
  • Oklahoma
  • Puerto Rico
  • South Carolina
  • South Dakota
  • Tennessee
  • Texas
  • Utah
  • Virginia
  • Virgin Islands
  • Washington
  • Wisconsin

The mandatory quarantine order applies to any person that arrives from a state with a positive test rate higher than 10 per 100,000 residents over a seven-day rolling average, or a state with a 10% or higher positivity rate over a seven-day rolling average.

* * *

Update (1100ET): Just minutes after we warned about a rise in cases at nursing homes, which are populated with the most vulnerable COVID patients, Florida's case count bounced back on Tuesday (yesterday's was the lowest since June) with the state reporting more than 5,000 new cases and a record 276 deaths.

* * *

Update (1055ET): In a horrifying report from the American Health Care Association and National Center for Assisted Living, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in US nursing homes is rising again after a steady drop in June.

"As we feared and have been warning government leaders over the past couple months, the spike in COVID cases in the general population across the U.S. has led to increased cases in nursing homes," Mark Parkinson, president and CEO of the AHCA/NCAL, said.

According to a summary of the report from CNN, it relied on data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which in conjunction with the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention compiles weekly statistics from nursing homes, to try and gauge infection trends nationwide.

These numbers show COVID-19 cases in nursing homes, and they rose to 8,628 for the week of July 19, from a low of 5,468 for the week of June 21, just a month earlier.

* * *

Update (1030ET): In Florida, the total number of cases in children 17 and under rose from 16,797 on July 9 to 39,735 on Aug. 9, an increase of 137%, as mainstream media outlets tout a surge in COVID cases among children as part of their agenda to try and keep schools shut.

However, across the country, the total number of COVID-19 cases among children rose from 179,990 on July 9 to more than 380,000 on Aug. 6, an increase of about 90%, according to a report published Monday by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children's Hospital Association.

Of course, testing of children between March and June was virtually non-existent beyond those showing symptoms since schools were shuttered.

While testing rates in Florida and Texas have fallen since the peak in Sun Belt cases, New York's rate of testing has increased, and cases have still declined, Gov Cuomo bragged.

Just wait until school starts.

* * *

Update (0920ET): Here's an excerpt from Goldman's latest daily COVID research, which again affirmed that case numbers in the US continue to decline: "The number of new confirmed coronavirus cases has been declining nationally over the past few weeks, but case levels remain elevated in much of the country. The positive test rate has ticked down from its peak in July."

"But looking at additional testing data clouds the picture somewhat. The US is now performing fewer coronavirus tests nationwide compared to a couple weeks ago, with Florida and Texas contributing much of this decline. In these states and a few others, cases rose to very high levels in the summer virus resurgence and have now fallen sharply. But over the past few weeks as cases declined so did the number of tests conducted, leaving the positive test rate very elevated."

* * *

They really thought they had it licked.

After surmounting what was at worst an extremely mild outbreak, New Zealand declared "victory" over the coronavirus two months ago, only to see a mild spike two weeks later.

Since the very beginning, New Zealand's COVID-19 response effort, led by progressive prime minister Jacinda Ardern, was infused with the pinch of "compassionate" social justice, as the island nation focused on using it as an opportunity to look into how to recalibrate society to make more time for leisure by adopting a 4-day work-week.

But in its desperation to establish New Zealand as a liberal (and polar) antithesis to President Trump's America, Ardern made what now looks to be one critical error: She lifted practically all of the country's COVID travel restrictions after her sweeping "victory" declaration.

That, and slowly allowing businesses to reopen, has apparently helped give the virus all it needs for another flareup which, however comparatively minor to what's going on just next door in Victoria, Australia, has forced Ardern to order a new lockdown, just as doubts about the efficacy of such lockdowns are growing.

New Zealand announced on Tuesday it would shut down Auckland, its largest city (though not the capital), after four new cases of the virus were confirmed in the city, the first sign of new domestic spread after 102 days without any domestic COVID cases.

NZ's Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield said the four confirmed cases were all within one family living in South Auckland. One patient is in their 50s. The family had no history of international travel. Family members have been tested and contact tracing - which might actually prove pretty effective with such a small body of the infected - is being carried out.

News of the cases sent panic across the country with media reporting people rushing to supermarkets to stack up, and businesses preparing to shut.

Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said Auckland would return to a "level 3 restriction" beginning at noon local time on Wednesday as a "precautionary approach," which would mean people should stay away from work and school, and gatherings or more than 10 people would again be restricted. Though, with so few cases, even these economically-constricting decisions might be overkill.

Though fortunately, these restriction would be applied for three days until Friday, which she said would be enough time to assess the situation, gather information and make sure there's enough widespread contact tracing.

Meanwhile, the world finally crossed a major COVID-19 threshold last night: 20 million confirmed cases, according to JHU. As we reported last night.

As expected, Johns Hopkins has just confirmed that the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases worldwide has surpassed 20 million since the start of the pandemic. Of those, more than 700,000 have died.

It comes just days after the US, the world's biggest outbreak, topped 5 million, and Brazil, the No. 2, topped 3 million.

Aside from this, perhaps the biggest COVID-related news of the day is coming out of Russia, where Vladimir Putin just hailed the approval of the country's - and the world's - first COVID-19 vaccine to be approved by a regulator.

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Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate…

Published

11 hours ago

on

March 9, 2024

By

Low Iron Levels In Blood Could Trigger Long COVID: Study

Authored by Amie Dahnke via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

People with inadequate iron levels in their blood due to a COVID-19 infection could be at greater risk of long COVID.

(Shutterstock)

A new study indicates that problems with iron levels in the bloodstream likely trigger chronic inflammation and other conditions associated with the post-COVID phenomenon. The findings, published on March 1 in Nature Immunology, could offer new ways to treat or prevent the condition.

Long COVID Patients Have Low Iron Levels

Researchers at the University of Cambridge pinpointed low iron as a potential link to long-COVID symptoms thanks to a study they initiated shortly after the start of the pandemic. They recruited people who tested positive for the virus to provide blood samples for analysis over a year, which allowed the researchers to look for post-infection changes in the blood. The researchers looked at 214 samples and found that 45 percent of patients reported symptoms of long COVID that lasted between three and 10 months.

In analyzing the blood samples, the research team noticed that people experiencing long COVID had low iron levels, contributing to anemia and low red blood cell production, just two weeks after they were diagnosed with COVID-19. This was true for patients regardless of age, sex, or the initial severity of their infection.

According to one of the study co-authors, the removal of iron from the bloodstream is a natural process and defense mechanism of the body.

But it can jeopardize a person’s recovery.

“When the body has an infection, it responds by removing iron from the bloodstream. This protects us from potentially lethal bacteria that capture the iron in the bloodstream and grow rapidly. It’s an evolutionary response that redistributes iron in the body, and the blood plasma becomes an iron desert,” University of Oxford professor Hal Drakesmith said in a press release. “However, if this goes on for a long time, there is less iron for red blood cells, so oxygen is transported less efficiently affecting metabolism and energy production, and for white blood cells, which need iron to work properly. The protective mechanism ends up becoming a problem.”

The research team believes that consistently low iron levels could explain why individuals with long COVID continue to experience fatigue and difficulty exercising. As such, the researchers suggested iron supplementation to help regulate and prevent the often debilitating symptoms associated with long COVID.

“It isn’t necessarily the case that individuals don’t have enough iron in their body, it’s just that it’s trapped in the wrong place,” Aimee Hanson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Cambridge who worked on the study, said in the press release. “What we need is a way to remobilize the iron and pull it back into the bloodstream, where it becomes more useful to the red blood cells.”

The research team pointed out that iron supplementation isn’t always straightforward. Achieving the right level of iron varies from person to person. Too much iron can cause stomach issues, ranging from constipation, nausea, and abdominal pain to gastritis and gastric lesions.

1 in 5 Still Affected by Long COVID

COVID-19 has affected nearly 40 percent of Americans, with one in five of those still suffering from symptoms of long COVID, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Long COVID is marked by health issues that continue at least four weeks after an individual was initially diagnosed with COVID-19. Symptoms can last for days, weeks, months, or years and may include fatigue, cough or chest pain, headache, brain fog, depression or anxiety, digestive issues, and joint or muscle pain.

Tyler Durden Sat, 03/09/2024 - 12:50

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Walmart joins Costco in sharing key pricing news

The massive retailers have both shared information that some retailers keep very close to the vest.

Published

13 hours ago

on

March 9, 2024

By

As we head toward a presidential election, the presumed candidates for both parties will look for issues that rally undecided voters. 

The economy will be a key issue, with Democrats pointing to job creation and lowering prices while Republicans will cite the layoffs at Big Tech companies, high housing prices, and of course, sticky inflation.

The covid pandemic created a perfect storm for inflation and higher prices. It became harder to get many items because people getting sick slowed down, or even stopped, production at some factories.

Related: Popular mall retailer shuts down abruptly after bankruptcy filing

It was also a period where demand increased while shipping, trucking and delivery systems were all strained or thrown out of whack. The combination led to product shortages and higher prices.

You might have gone to the grocery store and not been able to buy your favorite paper towel brand or find toilet paper at all. That happened partly because of the supply chain and partly due to increased demand, but at the end of the day, it led to higher prices, which some consumers blamed on President Joe Biden's administration.

Biden, of course, was blamed for the price increases, but as inflation has dropped and grocery prices have fallen, few companies have been up front about it. That's probably not a political choice in most cases. Instead, some companies have chosen to lower prices more slowly than they raised them.

However, two major retailers, Walmart (WMT) and Costco, have been very honest about inflation. Walmart Chief Executive Doug McMillon's most recent comments validate what Biden's administration has been saying about the state of the economy. And they contrast with the economic picture being painted by Republicans who support their presumptive nominee, Donald Trump.

Walmart has seen inflation drop in many key areas.

Image source: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Walmart sees lower prices

McMillon does not talk about lower prices to make a political statement. He's communicating with customers and potential customers through the analysts who cover the company's quarterly-earnings calls.

During Walmart's fiscal-fourth-quarter-earnings call, McMillon was clear that prices are going down.

"I'm excited about the omnichannel net promoter score trends the team is driving. Across countries, we continue to see a customer that's resilient but looking for value. As always, we're working hard to deliver that for them, including through our rollbacks on food pricing in Walmart U.S. Those were up significantly in Q4 versus last year, following a big increase in Q3," he said.

He was specific about where the chain has seen prices go down.

"Our general merchandise prices are lower than a year ago and even two years ago in some categories, which means our customers are finding value in areas like apparel and hard lines," he said. "In food, prices are lower than a year ago in places like eggs, apples, and deli snacks, but higher in other places like asparagus and blackberries."

McMillon said that in other areas prices were still up but have been falling.

"Dry grocery and consumables categories like paper goods and cleaning supplies are up mid-single digits versus last year and high teens versus two years ago. Private-brand penetration is up in many of the countries where we operate, including the United States," he said.

Costco sees almost no inflation impact

McMillon avoided the word inflation in his comments. Costco  (COST)  Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti, who steps down on March 15, has been very transparent on the topic.

The CFO commented on inflation during his company's fiscal-first-quarter-earnings call.

"Most recently, in the last fourth-quarter discussion, we had estimated that year-over-year inflation was in the 1% to 2% range. Our estimate for the quarter just ended, that inflation was in the 0% to 1% range," he said.

Galanti made clear that inflation (and even deflation) varied by category.

"A bigger deflation in some big and bulky items like furniture sets due to lower freight costs year over year, as well as on things like domestics, bulky lower-priced items, again, where the freight cost is significant. Some deflationary items were as much as 20% to 30% and, again, mostly freight-related," he added.

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Walmart has really good news for shoppers (and Joe Biden)

The giant retailer joins Costco in making a statement that has political overtones, even if that’s not the intent.

Published

14 hours ago

on

March 9, 2024

By

As we head toward a presidential election, the presumed candidates for both parties will look for issues that rally undecided voters. 

The economy will be a key issue, with Democrats pointing to job creation and lowering prices while Republicans will cite the layoffs at Big Tech companies, high housing prices, and of course, sticky inflation.

The covid pandemic created a perfect storm for inflation and higher prices. It became harder to get many items because people getting sick slowed down, or even stopped, production at some factories.

Related: Popular mall retailer shuts down abruptly after bankruptcy filing

It was also a period where demand increased while shipping, trucking and delivery systems were all strained or thrown out of whack. The combination led to product shortages and higher prices.

You might have gone to the grocery store and not been able to buy your favorite paper towel brand or find toilet paper at all. That happened partly because of the supply chain and partly due to increased demand, but at the end of the day, it led to higher prices, which some consumers blamed on President Joe Biden's administration.

Biden, of course, was blamed for the price increases, but as inflation has dropped and grocery prices have fallen, few companies have been up front about it. That's probably not a political choice in most cases. Instead, some companies have chosen to lower prices more slowly than they raised them.

However, two major retailers, Walmart (WMT) and Costco, have been very honest about inflation. Walmart Chief Executive Doug McMillon's most recent comments validate what Biden's administration has been saying about the state of the economy. And they contrast with the economic picture being painted by Republicans who support their presumptive nominee, Donald Trump.

Walmart has seen inflation drop in many key areas.

Image source: Joe Raedle/Getty Images

Walmart sees lower prices

McMillon does not talk about lower prices to make a political statement. He's communicating with customers and potential customers through the analysts who cover the company's quarterly-earnings calls.

During Walmart's fiscal-fourth-quarter-earnings call, McMillon was clear that prices are going down.

"I'm excited about the omnichannel net promoter score trends the team is driving. Across countries, we continue to see a customer that's resilient but looking for value. As always, we're working hard to deliver that for them, including through our rollbacks on food pricing in Walmart U.S. Those were up significantly in Q4 versus last year, following a big increase in Q3," he said.

He was specific about where the chain has seen prices go down.

"Our general merchandise prices are lower than a year ago and even two years ago in some categories, which means our customers are finding value in areas like apparel and hard lines," he said. "In food, prices are lower than a year ago in places like eggs, apples, and deli snacks, but higher in other places like asparagus and blackberries."

McMillon said that in other areas prices were still up but have been falling.

"Dry grocery and consumables categories like paper goods and cleaning supplies are up mid-single digits versus last year and high teens versus two years ago. Private-brand penetration is up in many of the countries where we operate, including the United States," he said.

Costco sees almost no inflation impact

McMillon avoided the word inflation in his comments. Costco  (COST)  Chief Financial Officer Richard Galanti, who steps down on March 15, has been very transparent on the topic.

The CFO commented on inflation during his company's fiscal-first-quarter-earnings call.

"Most recently, in the last fourth-quarter discussion, we had estimated that year-over-year inflation was in the 1% to 2% range. Our estimate for the quarter just ended, that inflation was in the 0% to 1% range," he said.

Galanti made clear that inflation (and even deflation) varied by category.

"A bigger deflation in some big and bulky items like furniture sets due to lower freight costs year over year, as well as on things like domestics, bulky lower-priced items, again, where the freight cost is significant. Some deflationary items were as much as 20% to 30% and, again, mostly freight-related," he added.

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