Author: BlackMask Financial

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Italy struggles to contain coronavirus outbreak as cases spread south

https://youtu.be/VFfOif7k1to

Italy’s coronavirus outbreak spread south on Tuesday to Tuscany and Sicily, as the civil protection agency reported a surge in the number of infected people and Rome convened emergency talks. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte has blamed poor management in a hospital in the country’s north for the outbreak, which has caused seven deaths in Italy so far and infected the largest number of people in Europe. Tuscany reported its first two cases, including one in the tourist destination of Florence, while Sicily recorded one: a tourist from the worst-hit Lombardy region, where 212 people have tested positive. The Liguria region, known as the Italian Riviera, also reported its first case, but cautioned that the definitive result for the 70-year old still needed to come from Italy’s infectious diseases institute. Health ministers from neighbouring countries were to meet in Rome as the number of confirmed infections jumped to 283, with over 50 new cases reported since Monday. News of the spike in cases came as a team from the World Health Organization in Rome said Italy had taken appropriate measures to curb the virus’s spread, with the focus on halting further person-to-person transmission. “The measures taken by the Italian government or the regional governments have been pretty strong and most likely should help in containing this virus as good as possible,” WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said. Lindmeier noted that based on current data, in the majority of cases – four out of every five – people experience mild or no symptoms. On Tuesday, several neighbouring countries reported their first confirmed infections. Croatia confirmed the first case in the Balkans region after a young man who recently returned from Italy – which lies across the Adriatic from Croatia – was found to have become infected. Switzerland reported its first confirmed case in the Italian-speaking Ticino canton, while Austria also saw its first two cases confirmed on Tuesday in the Tyrol province, which borders Italy. Austrian officials said one of the two patients was from Lombardy, but it was not yet clear how the person had contracted the virus. Meanwhile in the Canary Islands, hundreds of people were confined to their rooms in a Tenerife hotel after an Italian tourist was hospitalised with suspected coronavirus, health officials said. While no neighbouring country has closed its borders with Italy, several governments have announced additional measures for incoming travellers, in particular from the two northern regions of Lombardy and Veneto. They range from medical screening to special gates at airports and recommendations to self-isolate. Conte insisted however that Italy’s health protocols were “among the most rigorous” and warned it would be “unfair” for other countries to attempt to limit the movement of Italians, saying, “we wouldn’t be able to accept that.” He said it was safe for Italians to travel, both for them and for others. Wide-ranging measures to halt the spread of the virus have affected tens of millions of people in the north of Italy, with schools closed and cultural and sporting events cancelled. Several upcoming football matches in Italian Serie A and the Europa League will be played behind closed doors and production of the latest “Mission: Impossible” film starring Tom Cruise in Venice has also been stopped. The main centre of infection in Italy has been the town of Codogno, a town of some 15,000 people around 60 kilometres (35 miles) to the south of Milan. Codogno and several other towns in northern Italy have been put under isolation. A 38-year-old man, dubbed “Patient One” by Italian media, was admitted to hospital last Wednesday in Codogno, and it is thought a large number of the cases in the worst-hit region of Lombardy can be traced back to him. His heavily pregnant wife, several doctors, staff and patients at the hospital are thought to have caught the virus from him. Elsewhere in the country officials have also been recommending precautionary measures, even in areas without known infections. To avoid physical contact, bishops in the southern Calabria region have asked their worshippers not to make the sign of peace during mass, media reported. All seven of those who have died so far in Italy were either elderly or had pre-existing medical conditions.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, REUTERS)

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For the U.S., it’s not if but when, federal officials say.

The U.S. should prepare for community transmission of the COVID-19 coronavirus, CDC officials said on Tuesday.

“We expect to see community spread [of COVID-19] in this country. It’s not a question of ‘if’ anymore,” said Nancy Messonnier, MD, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, on a media call. Currently, the U.S. has 14 COVID-19 cases that are travel-associated or in close contacts of travelers, and 43 cases from citizens brought home from the Diamond Princess cruise ship and Wuhan, China. But she cited the “rapidly evolving and expanding” situation, including the explosion of sustained person-to-person community spread in a variety of countries, including South Korea, Italy, Iran, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, and Singapore. As the world inches closer to worldwide spread, and the final criterion of a pandemic, Messonnier acknowledged the previous strategy of containing the disease at the borders may no longer be enough to stop it. The strategy would then shift from a containment strategy to mitigation, she said. In the vein of “when, not if” the U.S. will experience community spread, she advised people to ask whether their providers have telemedicine capability, and said parents should consider “what to do about childcare” if schools are closed. Messonnier outlined community mitigation guidelines, based on those outlined for pandemic influenza a decade ago. These non-pharmaceutical interventions include personal practices, including covering coughs and washing hands, as well as community and environmental measures such as surface cleaning. Community measures are the most dire, and include social distancing, or limiting contact in face-to-face settings, employing such options as closing schools, telework or teleschool for children, and recommending that cities potentially “modify, postpone, or cancel mass gatherings.” This included a special advisory for the healthcare system: triaging patients, conducting patient visits via telemedicine, and delaying elective surgeries. Obviously, this would be based on the outbreak’s severity and breadth, but CDC called on a variety of industries, including the healthcare, education, and business sectors, to start preparing now because when the virus hits the community, it hits quite rapidly. “The disruption to everyday life may be severe, but these are things we need to start  thinking about right now,” Messonnier noted.She added that 12 state and local health departments currently have the diagnostic test for COVID-19, but the tests still come to CDC for confirmation. She anticipated commercial laboratories would be coming online with their own tests, as it becomes “more and more important clinicians have a full toolkit.” “We are working as fast as we can, and we understand the frustration of our partners within the healthcare sector,” Messonnier said. While the case definition of COVID-19 is still travel-associated, Messonnier said that may change based on information in other countries and when they had new information about case definitions, they would “publicize it broadly.”

She ended with the caveat that she’s not sure if community spread of COVID-19 will be mild or severe, but told a reporter it was better to be overprepared than underprepared.

“People are concerned about the situation. I would say rightfully so,” Messonnier said. “I’m concerned about the situation. CDC is concerned about the situation.” Nick Note: Listen to me they are clueless. prepare while this window of opportunity is still open. Stock up and prepare now.

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Trump claims coronavirus is ‘going to go away’ despite mounting concerns

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump on Tuesday predicted the coronavirus is “going to go away” despite warnings from Democrats that his White House is asleep amid cresting fears in Washington that the outbreak could spark a pandemic. The President maintained his sunny optimism about the virus that is showing signs of spreading around the world from its Chinese epicenter and is already having a huge impact on global commerce.   “I think that’s a problem that’s going to go away,” Trump said during a trip to India, expressing confidence that the epidemic will not seriously harm the global economy. But behind the scenes the President is less calm, and he is expressing frustration at some of the ways his administration is responding to the outbreak, sources familiar with the conversations told CNN. His mood reflects a growing realization among Trump’s staff that the coronavirus is going to pose a greater challenge than previously understood.

After weeks of telling Americans that China has a lid on the situation, the President will return from India amid growing concern in Washington over the virus and partisan criticism of his attitude.
A panicked 1,000-point Wall Street sell-off, a building world supply-chain crunch and a looming hit to global growth together could pose peril for Trump by slowing the strong economy he plans to ride to reelection. But even more worryingly, the virus is spreading to Europe and the Middle East in a way that has experts warning it could soon become a full-blown pandemic. In such a scenario, the US could not expect to escape from a wave of infections and Trump would face a test of his leadership and capacity to bring a jumpy nation together. Trump acknowledged Monday’s Wall Street plunge, but noted futures were higher ahead of Tuesday’s market open in the United States and he said that his administration was putting “a lot of talent, brainpower” behind tackling the virus.
The President ticked though administration efforts to contain the virus, claiming the US had “essentially closed the borders.” “We’re watching very carefully,” Trump said. “We’re fortunate so far and we think it’s going to remain that way.”
But Democrats are now sounding the alarm, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer charging Monday that the President is “asleep at the wheel” as the threat builds. A serious outbreak in the US could put a health system already facing a tough flu season under severe pressure, posing an organizational challenge for an administration that habitually stokes chaos and sends mixed messages.

Even if worst-case scenarios don’t come to pass, Trump’s so far blasé approach to the virus, assuring Americans that Chinese President Xi Jinping is on top of the epidemic, does not seem sustainable for much longer.
The President has also confidently predicted that warming spring weather could snuff out coronavirus, despite no evidence that is the case.
Yet as disquiet mounted by the hour in Washington, Trump was still not showing much concern late Monday about a virus that has infected more than 80,000 people and killed at least 2,704 worldwide and has now popped up in South Korea, Iran, Italy, Afghanistan, Kuwait and elsewhere.
During a visit to India, the President sent a tweet suggesting all was well, and predicted the stock market would bounce back.
“The coronavirus is very much under control in the USA. We are in contact with everyone and all relevant countries. CDC & World Health have been working hard and very smart. Stock Market starting to look very good to me!” Trump tweeted. In a sign of increasing urgency, the administration gave senators a classified briefing on Tuesday morning about coronavirus contingency plans. Officials from the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Homeland Security, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and the State Department took part. Lawmakers leaving the briefing Tuesday said that officials told them that a vaccine is at least one year to 18 months away.
“The vaccine for the Coronavirus is moving more rapidly than any vaccine we have already tried to approve — but it will take a year or 18 months,” said retiring Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander, who chairs the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.  Schumer had slammed Trump earlier Monday, saying the President was not taking the situation sufficiently seriously.
“All of the warning lights are flashing bright red. We are staring down a potential pandemic and the administration has no plan,” the New York Democrat warned.
“The Trump administration has been asleep at the wheel. President Trump, good morning, there is a pandemic of coronavirus. Where are you?”
After the administration’s funding request was unveiled, Schumer criticized it as “too little, too late. Nick Note:  You cold not ask for a worse leader. Trump is in denial. The Coronavirus will hit the US hard and their will be pandemonium.  You have no Leadership. YOU MUST TAKE MATTERS INTO YOUR OWN HANDS.
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China’s car sales plunge 92% due to coronavirus

BEIJING — Retail sales of passenger cars in China crumbled 92% on an annual basis in the first 16 days of February, according to China Passenger Car Association (CPCA), as the coronavirus outbreak slammed the brakes on businesses across the country. China’s passenger vehicle sales recorded 4,909 units in the first 16 days, down from 59,930 vehicles in the same period a year earlier, data from CPCA showed, the first major figures to demonstrate just how hard the epidemic is hitting the world’s biggest auto market.

“Very few dealerships opened in the first weeks of February, and they have had very little customer traffic,” it said.

Mainland China recorded 889 new confirmed cases of coronavirus infection on Thursday. The death toll also rose by 118 to 2,236, mostly in the Hubei provincial capital of Wuhan where the outbreak began, and which remains under virtual lockdown. China’s auto market is likely to see sales slide more than 10% in the first half of the year due to the coronavirus epidemic, and around 5% for the whole year, provided the epidemic is effectively contained before April, the country’s top auto industry body, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM), told Reuters last week. To stabilize the market, where more than 25 million vehicles were sold last year, China’s commerce ministry said it will introduce more measures to boost auto consumption. Chinese automaker Geely has launched a service for customers to buy cars online and get them delivered directly to their homes, in a bid to drum up sales as the coronavirus outbreak prompts buyers to stay away from showrooms. Other carmakers like Tesla, BMW and Mercedes-Benz have also started to promote products heavily online in recent weeks as the health crisis escalated and authorities warned people to stay away from public places. Consumers can order and customize their cars on Geely’s website, it said in a statement. It will also offer test drives where potential consumers will be able to arrange a drive starting from their home address in coordination with local dealerships.

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Fed’s Mester: Does not ‘at this time’ support cutting interest rates to spur a faster return of inflation to 2% goal

Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank President Loretta Mester said on Monday that the US economy should continue to perform well this year and monetary policy is currently well-positioned. “The economy has been performing well and I expect that to continue,” Mester said in prepared remarks to the National Association for Business Economics conference in Washington. She did, however, note that she has incorporated the potential impact of the coronavirus as a downside risk to her forecast this year, which is for U.S. economic growth around 2%, solid job market gains and low and stable inflation The US stock markets have hit a three-week low on worries the spread of the coronavirus to multiple countries outside China which could pose an escalating threat to global growth. Fed comments are welcomed as investors look for clarity.  “At this point, it is difficult to assess the magnitude of the economic effects, but this new source of uncertainty is something I will be carefully monitoring,” Mester said. “That echoed other Fed policymakers, who have so far stuck to the line that it is still too early to predict the economic impact on the US economy of the virus, while showing cautious optimism any effects would be temporary enough not to warrant a change in the path of monetary policy. Those hopes may not last. European shares suffered their biggest drop since mid-2016 on Monday and oil plunged almost 5% on the news of a jump in coronavirus cases in Italy, South Korea, Japan and Iran,” Reuters News warned.

 

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Dow closes down 1,000 points as coronavirus fears slam Wall Street

All three major indices plummeted Monday as fears grew that the epidemic would begin to choke supply chains worldwide.

The challenge investors face is that no one knows how long this epidemic will last, or how dangerous it ultimately will be to populations. Wall Street was rocked in a volatile trading session on Monday that ended with the Dow Jones Industrial Average closing down 1,031 points — the worst day in two years for the blue-chip index, as fears increased over the global economic shock of coronavirus.

The market selloff came amid a significant uptick in reported cases of the disease in Europe, pushing investors to ditch stocks and buy up safe haven assets such as gold, which hit a seven-year high. While the virus has already stalled the travel industry, shuttered factories in several countries, and slammed luxury goods retailers, casino operators, and tech companies, Monday’s market reaction represented concern that stricter methods to control the spread of the virus would further throttle supply chains. The disease has already choked Chinese production, bringing the world’s second-largest economy to a standstill. After the outbreak spread to parts of northern Italy, there was concern that Milan, the country’s financial epicenter, could also be hard hit. The Borsa Italiana, Italy’s stock exchange, slid by 6 percent, its worst day in almost four years. Monday’s selloff came as South Korea raised the country’s coronavirus alert to its highest level and Italy saw 130 new cases of the disease. While the World Health Organization stopped short of calling the outbreak a pandemic, it did note on Monday that the virus has “unlimited potential.” Scientists say the new virus, dubbed COVID-19, is both more easily transmitted and less deadly than the SARS epidemic, but much still remains unknown. As a result, Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, said, “Markets are now slaves to the news flow.”

Investor reaction to the wider spread of coronavirus led to a volume of trading so heavy that some clients even had difficulty accessing their accounts, CNBC reported.

“Due to higher-than-usual volumes, some clients may have experienced delays in accessing some online features as the market opened but our systems are fine and up and running,” Schwab Public Relations told CNBC. Fidelity, the largest online broker, said, “Some clients are experiencing technical issues and we are working as quickly as possible to resolve.” The rate at which the virus was spreading in China appears to be slowing. An announcement of 409 new cases Monday was the fifth day in a row that the number of new daily cases had fallen below 1,000. Outside of China, though, a spate of outbreaks presented fresh cause for concern. “The spike in infections in South Korea, mostly concentrated in the congregation of a single church, a surge in cases in Italy, and news of an outbreak in Iran, where the health care system is of uncertain quality and the government is secretive, has triggered fears that China’s aggressive quarantining efforts won’t keep the virus from spreading globally,” Shepherdson wrote in a client note.  “Global growth is likely to be impacted in a meaningful way due to fears of the coronavirus,” Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for the Independent Advisor Alliance, said  The challenge investors face is that no one knows how long this epidemic will last, nor how dangerous it ultimately will be to populations. “Stock markets around the world are beginning to price in what bond markets have been telling us for weeks,” Zaccarelli said. “Bond yields have continued to move lower, despite the fact that stocks quickly shrugged off the coronavirus risks last month,” he said, adding that this indicated that the stock market’s initial resilience was unlikely to last. Nigel Green, CEO and founder of the deVere Group, predicted that markets could fall by as much as 10 percent — a possibility he said most investors are not yet pricing into valuations. “Many investors remain complacent about the far-reaching impact of coronavirus, which is continuing to spread — and a faster pace. This will inevitably hit financial markets,” he said. “In general terms, stocks have hardly been deterred by the coronavirus outbreak. This complacency is concerning.” Green added that the virus was emerging at a time when many key global economies were already vulnerable. “Coronavirus has struck at a time when major economies, including Japan, Germany, India and Hong Kong are facing a downturn due to other factors such as the U.S.-China trade dispute and political protesters, which could hit the world economy,” he said. “This threat to global growth is real and should not be ignored,” Zaccarelli said, but he added that — provided the United States stays out of recession — the virus impact will be unlikely to hurt the retirement goals of long-term investors. “We will move past this challenge, and the economic expansion will continue in 2020,” he said.

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Untill their is a Cure You need to use these medicines

Latest coronavirus drug research indicates that based on early results from clinical trials by Chinese researchers, Chloroquine Phosphate, an antimalarial drug, has a certain curative effects on the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19).


China National Center for Biotechnology Development deputy head Dr Sun Yanrong said that chloroquine, an anti-malarial medication, was selected after several screening rounds of thousands of existing drugs.

The drug is undergoing clinical trials in more than ten hospitals in Beijing, Guangdong province, and Hunan province. Dr Su said that chloroquine phosphate, which has been used for more than 70 years, was selected from based on earlier studies.
Considering that it is already an approved drug, it can easily be approved for repurposing to treat the coronavirus if further research trials show its efficacy without any side effects. Coronavirus infected patients treated with chloroquine demonstrated a better drop in fever, improvement of lung CT images, and required a shorter time to recover compared to parallel groups. The percentage of patients with negative viral nucleic acid tests after treatment was also higher with the anti-malarial drug. Chloroquine has so far showed no obvious serious adverse reactions in the more than 100 participants in the trials. Data from the drug’s studies showed ‘certain curative effect’ with ‘fairly good efficacy’. The China National Center for Biotechnology Development head Dr Zhang Xinmin said that chloroquine is one of the three drugs that have a promising profile against the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus that causes the Covid-19 disease. The remaining two drugs are anti-flu medicine favipiravir  and Gilead’s investigational anti-viral candidate remdesivir. Favipiravir is currently in a 70-patient trial in Shenzhen, Guangdong province, while remdesivir is under evaluation at more than ten medical institutions in Wuhan. The Chinese medical experts have “unanimously” suggested that the drug chloroquine be included in the next version of the treatment guidelines and applied in wider clinical trials as soon as possible. Past research involving vitro experiments showed that it can block virus infections by changing the acidity and basicity value inside the cell and interfering receptors of the SARS coronavirus. The drug also demonstrates immune-modulating activity, which may enhance its antiviral effect in vivo and is widely distributed in the whole body, including the lungs, after oral administration. However many medical researchers, pharmaceutical experts and virologist are warning that while vaccine and drug research is being conducted, careful attention should be paid to watch for coronavirus evolution  in patients for the emergence of novel mutations, as certain mutations could render all efforts futile.
 Nick Note: Sources on the ground tell me these medicines are GREATLY improving PATIENT outcomes….. These medicines are regarded as safe and are in wide distribution. So go see your medical professional and get a prescription. I have taken all these medicines and Tami flue for years. they are antivirals and they work for me. I REPEAT WELL PLACED SOURCES SAY THEY ARE HELPING…… NOT NOT CURING. BUT UNTIL THEIR IS A CURE YOU HAVE THESE ANTIVIRALS…….

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U.S. stock futures CRASH on growing concern of CORONAVIRUS economic impact

Dow futures drop about 700 points

U.S. stock market futures sank Monday as the spread of coronavirus raised worries that global economic growth could take a hit. Authorities in northern Italy canceled some public events, including Venice’s Carnival, in an effort to reduce the spread of the virus. Italian officials said Sunday they have 152 confirmed cases, the most in any country outside Asia. European stock markets fell sharply at the open, with the FTSE MIB Italy index I945, -4.10%  slumping over 4%. South Korea reported 70 more cases and Iran said the death toll from the city of Qom is 50.

On Saturday, the International Monetary Fund warned the virus outbreak could reduce global economic growth by 0.1% this year, and drag China’s annual growth 0.4 percentage points lower than January estimates.

“The world economy is facing a clear slowdown and this slowdown might be reinforced by the so-called coronavirus,” French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said at a G-20 finance meeting in Saudi Arabia, according to the Associated Press. But U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said Sunday that it was still too early to tell how the outbreak will affect the global economy. “I think we’re going to need another three or four weeks to see how the virus reacts, until we really have good statistical data,” he told CNBC.

Still, the global spread of the virus in patients with no links to China suggests “things are about to get extremely problematic, and market conditions could get exponentially worse this week,” Stephen Innes, chief market strategist with AxiTrader, wrote in a note Sunday.

More than 760 people in South Korea have been infected, with most of the diagnoses coming in the past few days. Under the new alert level, the government has the authority to order schools to be closed, stop public transportation and to cut off flights to and from South Korea. China’s President Xi Jinping on Sunday noted the outbreak news was “grim,” but said measures must be taken to get China’s economy going again, including reopening factories in low-risk areas. Experts forecast as much as a 1% reduction in China’s economic output this quarter due to strict quarantines that shuttered businesses and factories. Nick Note: Remember me? i am the guy as those assholes on Wall Street rallied the market told you to sell the shit out of it. Now they are having their ZEN moment and the stock market is crashing. Like i kep telling you make sure the expert you hire is truly a expert and can see the future….
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Goldman Sachs warns of stock market correction

London Goldman Sachs is worried that leaves investors vulnerable to surprises. The investment bank told clients this week that a near-term correction, in which the market slides at least 10% from a recent peak, “is looking much more probable.” The thinking: Equity markets look “increasingly exposed” to disappointing earnings growth due to the new coronavirus outbreak, Goldman warns.The number of companies that have lowered their guidance on profits for the first quarter is still in line with past years. But Apple’s surprise update this week that it wouldn’t hit its revenue target has put investors on edge. Goldman Sachs (GS) notes that the global economy is expected to keep growing, and the United States is, too, despite the country already having experienced its longest economic expansion in 150 years. That creates a supportive environment for stocks. But the bank is concerned that earnings expectations could still be too rosy, especially given the exposure of global companies to the Chinese economy. Apple (AAPL), it observes, has been “an important driver” of better-than-expected earnings results. Big Tech companies — Facebook (FB), Amazon (AMZN), Apple, Microsoft (MSFT) and Google (GOOG) — beat earnings expectations by 20% on average last quarter, compared with 4% for the average S&P 500 company. “Any weakness to these and other companies would likely push earnings estimates lower,” wrote Peter Oppenheimer, the firm’s chief global equity strategist. Additionally, depressed bond yields have made stocks look more attractive by comparison. Oppenheimer points to Germany’s DAX, which has also hit an all-time high as the yield on the country’s benchmark 10-year bond remains in negative territory. That raises the stakes for corporate earnings as well, he argues. Nick note: Your damn right a ha a ha “correction” is comming …………. Try wipeout.

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Coronavirus Tests Are Not Accurate

New cases of the novel coronavirus continue to increase worldwide and a Global Pandemic is near according to the World Health Organization (WHO). That includes 72,528 cases in China and 804 cases in 25 countries outside of China.

Some have questioned the accuracy of the statistics released by the Chinese government regarding the reported number of cases and deaths due to the outbreak. Now there are concerns about the accuracy of the laboratory tests used to confirm diagnoses. Reports suggest some people test negative up to six times even though they are infected with the virus, according to the BBC and Chinese media. Such was the case with Dr. Li Wenliang, the ophthalmologist who first identified the outbreak and was reprimanded by Chinese authorities when he tried to warn others. Dr. Wenliang developed a cough and fever after unknowingly treating an infected patient. He was hospitalized, testing negative for coronavirus several times before eventually receiving a positive result. On Jan. 30 the doctor posted: “Today nucleic acid testing came back with a positive result, the dust has settled, finally diagnosed,” according to the BBC. Dr. Wenliang passed away on February 7 in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak.

False-negative test results, where patients are told they do not have a condition when they actually do, cause several problems. Patients may be turned away from hospitals and medical facilities when they require care. They may infect others at home, work, school, or in the community. Patients’ conditions may also worsen without treatment.

When faced with a highly infectious, potentially deadly pathogen, even a small number of false negatives can have a potentially serious and widespread impact on the larger population Doctors use a laboratory test called RT-PCR to diagnose severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19 illness. RT-PCR detects and amplifies genetic material of interest. MedicineNet author Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD notes that “RT-PCR has been used to measure viral load with HIV and may also be used with other RNA viruses such as measles and mumps.” However, RT-PCR tests for the novel coronavirus are not perfect and not always accurate. A recent study in the journal Radiology examined medical records from 167 patients with COVID-19 from Hunan province in China. Researchers found that five patients out of 167 — 3% of the study group — who had chest CT scan features suggestive of COVID-19 initially tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 infection by RT-PCR. The patients were isolated and all eventually were confirmed through repeated swab tests to have the infection False negatives comprised just 3% of the patient population in this study. However, failure to detect a small number of cases of the potentially deadly viral infection may have wide-ranging effects for patients and others who may become infected. The study authors note that RT-PCR tests may produce false negatives due to laboratory error or insufficient amount of viral material collected from the patient. Samples that are stored or handled improperly also result in false negatives. Tests may result in false negatives if the patient is tested too early in the course of infection and there is insufficient amount of virus to be detected. Improper sampling may result in a false negative. Another potential problem with test kits: Faulty reagents. The CDC recently admitted test kits they distributed resulted in inconsistent results due to a problematic reagent required for the test. They are now manufacturing the reagents using stricter quality control measures. In the middle of cold and flu season, it is possible that some people who are being tested for coronavirus do not actually have the infection. Symptoms like cough and fever are nonspecific and may occur with many conditions other than COVID-19. In addition to the possibility of false negatives, authors of the Radiology study note that lab testing for SARS-CoV-2 is time-consuming and that test kits may be in short supply due to the rising number of infections. So, what’s the solution? Doctors in Hubei recently started diagnosing COVID-19 clinically based on patients’ symptoms and lung imaging. These cases are reflected in the global tally of infected individuals. Clinically-diagnosed cases account for the approximately 15,000 new cases reported by China last week.

 

Professor Hunter calls for consistency in case definitions. That is what is needed to get an accurate picture of the extent of the outbreak and the true number of those who have been infected or died. Accurate numbers also help determine the potential danger for the rest of the world. Insufficient test kits, inaccurate test kits, changing definitions of what constitutes a confirmed case of COVID-19, and overdiagnosis and misdiagnosis of the illness make it difficult to determine the real number of those affected. Accurate diagnosis is necessary so that hospitals and resources are allocated to real cases.  COVID-19 causes flu-like symptoms that worsen to fever, coughing, and shortness of breath. “Complications may include high fever, severe cough, difficulty breathing, pneumonia, organ failure, and death,” he states. “People may prevent or lower the risk of this viral infection by good hygiene, avoiding contact with infected people, not going into an outbreak area, and by leaving an outbreak zone,” Dr. Davis concludes.