.@DrMikeRyan updating on new #COVID19 numbers now: Says China added 1,820 lab confirmed cases, bringing total to 46,550 cases. In addition, he says China reported 13,332 clinically confirmed cases in Hubei province (those "relate to a period going back over days and weeks”)
@DrMikeRyan This is the spike everyone has been talking about today. It’s due to changes of reporting, @DrMikeRyan confirms: “In Hubei province only, a trained medical professional can now classify a suspected case of #COVID19 as a clinically-confirmed case on the basis of chest imaging”.
@DrMikeRyan Outside China, there are 447 cases from 24 countries, 2 deaths (Japan in addition to the death in Singapore). Largest #COVID19 cluster outside China is the one on #PrincessDiamond with 218 cases.
@DrMikeRyan To be 100% clear: 13,332 newly confirmed #COVID19 cases in Hubei province seem to be suspect cases going back some time that were not lab-confirmed and have been reclassified as confirmed on strength of chest imaging. Rest of china and world: lab confirmation still required.
@DrMikeRyan One of the demands coming from frontline workers is for better diagnostics, says @DrMikeRyan: "better diagnostics diagnostics that can be used in the front line in emergency rooms, so we can make quicker decisions, and certainly that's an immediate need."
@DrMikeRyan Also work needed on drug testing for #COVID19, he says. Trials in China need to be expanded and similar trial protocols used in other countries like Japan and Singapore, "so we can pool data around the drugs that are being tried and tested."
@DrMikeRyan .@DrMikeRyan “You can imagine being a frontline clinician at the moment, knowing which drug works, would be a magical gift at this point, not only for families but for, for those doctors and nurses treating them."
@DrMikeRyan Also mentions the crucial question: How big is the iceberg? “We all accept that there is transmission occurring at some level in communities. We've seen those clusters, we've seen those super spreading events. Question is, how much is happening outside of what we see.” #COVID19
@DrMikeRyan Also mentions the need for serology. “That will allow us to test populations to determine how many people in the population have been infected over time, that will allow us to have a much better sense of how big this epidemic would eventually get.” #COVID19
@DrMikeRyan Important from @DrMikeRyan: In places incl. Singapore, China and Hong Kong, 1000s of samples of people who aren't suspected of having #COVID19 being tested as part of normal winter respiratory disease surveillance. “At the moment, we're just not seeing COVID activity in these."
@DrMikeRyan “That would give an indication that the iceberg may not be that great. That's not a guarantee. But this idea that this iceberg is absolutely massive and in some way we're only detecting one or two or 5 percent, this is all based on modeling” #COVID19
@DrMikeRyan I also asked him about virus name #SARSCov2 which risks sending the wrong message, since #COVID19 is very different disease from SARS. He said: ”It's technical name that I suppose people in labs are very comfortable with ... It's not about relating the virus to the world."
@DrMikeRyan .@DrMikeRyan: "The taxonomy is there to name a virus for virologists, and the name we have is the name of the virus for us and people who are dealing with this and communities around the world.” So yeah, @WHO clearly won’t be using #SARSCoV2.
@DrMikeRyan @WHO Maybe best piece of news from this @WHO presser: Of all the cases outside China, “we can only find 8 cases that are not linked in some way to one of the identified transmission chains. And that doesn't mean that there aren't other chains. But that's what we're seeing.” #COVID19
