Even taking the published figures (which we all know to be a gross underestimate) the global increase in cases is perfectly exponential.

The official global figure for confirmed cases will be over a million in a matter of days.

For Heaven's Sake!!!

What a ridiculous response from you, but completely expected.

What is the matter with you?

Nothing racist in pointing out who are the main culprits in the trade in pangolins, poached ivory, rhino horn and the like.

There is more excuse in Africa with its endemic poverty and illiteracy.

UN Report:

https://www.un.org/en/chronicle/article/will-china-say-no-wildlife-trade

"Killing elephants for their ivory, slaughtering tigers for their pelts and bones, and fatally hacking the horns off rhinos have reached epidemic proportions in recent years.

Unfortunately, the bloody trail leads to Asia, particularly China and Viet Nam, where the demand and price for products from endangered species have sky-rocketed, propelled by fast-growing economies, an increase in purchasing power, the rising demand for rare animal parts to be used as ingredients in tonics, as “status symbols,” or investments, and the availability and accessibility of these products in the marketplace.

Although these endangered species are protected by international and domestic laws banning the trade in their parts and derivatives, loopholes and exceptions are actively created and exploited by those who benefit from commercial trade in wildlife.

While the State Council of China banned the buying, sale and use of tiger bone more than twenty years ago, large industrial tiger farms have emerged in the country with the sole purpose of farming tigers for the trade in their parts and products. Under pressure from commercial interest in these “tiger farms,” wildlife authorities issued licenses for wineries and taxidermists, giving their tacit approval for the commercial trade in tiger bone tonic wine and tiger pelts used for home décor.

..."

Isn't the problem more with 'wet markets' and the resultant living of humans in close proximity to such animals, than actually hunting an consuming them?

https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-chinese-wet-market-photos-2020-1?r=US&IR=T

This being a weather forum, I think that's what they call a perfect storm MM.

Looks like we'll be just above France and just below Italy after today's figures are included:

Can't be many left in the region. Will the numbers fall as the base figure is lower?

Just been told the following by a Danish friend:

Test bottlenecks are slowing down the rate of testing across Europe.

The bottlenecks are because you need huge machines and reagents for RNA separation

The producers cannot keep up of course.

These machines did not always exist.

Do you know what people did before?

They boiled it as an egg, in the exact same way as an egg.

Boiling kills all proteins in the samples and leaves only the RNA.

The RNA is what you wish to test anyways

So all tests are 2 steps

Step 1 : Huge machine to separate RNA

Step 2 : which is the easy and fast bit, is the actual test

The bottleneck is step 1

But the Danish scientists have an old researcher who remembered the old methods

So he put two of the younger to redevelop it

He guessed 95 degrees in 5 minutes, turns out its 98 in 5 minutes

It is 97,5% accurate

Where the chemical is of course near 100%

But they are not using the low tech solution, because they have only learned to use a machine to separate the RNA.

Total duration for a test using the boiling method is 1½ to 2 hours all included, so it is much faster and cheaper too.

Could test in the millions after the initial investment in the basic methodology.

Current worldwide data as of 15:35

• 559,165 - Total cases so far 


• 405,030 - Active cases


• 383,942 - Mild Condition


• 128,781 - Patients have recovered


• 25,354 - Patients have died


• 21,088 - Serious or Critical

New York State

• 7,377 new cases


• 134 new deaths


• 6,481 in hospital


• 1,583 in ICU

The epidemic seems to be hitting New York and California disproportionately hard. Will there be many blue voters left by the end? Maybe that’s his plan. 

The bin men and women got a round of applause when they came round today. Unfortunately the message went out late so a lot of us on the street missed it. I expect next week there will be more participation. 

Looks like an admission they are not including deaths at home, or indeed in care homes and other facilities. https://t.co/FKhtTVvryN

— Peter Jukes (@peterjukes) March 27, 2020

919 deaths in Italy. I think they need to initiate a Wuhan like lock down in their hotspots. Easier said than done.

And that was a monumental mistake which I believe could come back to haunt the Johnson government in the long term.

It wasn't just this country which IMO was too slow to wake up to the danger posed by Covid-19 and take appropriate action a couple of months ago. My own feeling is that most of the world away from Asia probably took the view that because is started in the far east, it would only affect the countries in that region and would leave the rest of the world largely untouched. That was where us, Europe and other countries including the USA went wrong.

Looks highly likely that we will reach 1000 deaths tomorrow in total 

Italy past 24-hours

• 5,959 new cases


• 919 new deaths

Total

• 86,498 cases


• 9,134 deaths.

And with their rate, the Italians may reach 1,000 reported in 1 day.

We can all say "told you so" after the event, but it doesn't make you right.