Another problem with the Covid response? Denial

(ALEX HOGAN/STAT)

There have been well-documented problems with the response in the U.S. and other countries to the coronavirus pandemic: a failure to prepare, testing debacles, and opposition to physical distancing. But as STAT’s Helen Branswell writes, “a subtler, less-recognized factor contributed to the wasting of precious weeks in January and February, when preparations to try to stop the virus should have kicked immediately into high gear." Read Helen’s piece on how the “magical thinking” — or, in another word, “denial” — that occurred as the outbreak was centered in China set the world behind.
 
Other pandemic news:

• The Trump administration announced Sunday that nursing homes with Covid-19 cases would now be required to notify residents, their families, and the CDC. 
• As the world debates if and how wet markets should operate, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the director-general of the WHO, said Friday that the markets — which sell meat and produce, but often also have wild game — “are an important source of affordable food and livelihood for millions of people.” But given that some 70% of new human viruses spill over from animals, he said that the markets should only operate “on the condition that they conform to stringent food safety and hygiene standards.”
• The NIH has started a public-private partnership with 16 drug companies to coordinate work on Covid-19 drugs and vaccines.
• French doctors reported a rare case of "necrotizing pneumonia" in a patient with Covid-19.