Concussion Protocols

Concussion protocols, truly, the stakes are high
Punch drunk, the injury that sparks a debate
Undoubtedly every player would want to continue
A grand stage it may be, but impaired judgment is the danger

Stunned, weary and dazed after the clash of heads
A misguided notion, this business of grin and bear it
To stand in judgment, weighing the shelf life of a human being
Out of a sense of obligation, the point is not to indulge machismo

When caution comes up against commerce, there's a world of trouble
Conflicting imperatives at work, the reluctance is understandable
Surely though, it's best to take the decision out of their hands
The mind may will it it wants, but the body is the ultimate arbiter

Concussion Protocol, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Concussion by Delvon Lamarr Organ Trio
• Punch Drunk by Sade
• Struck by You by The Bar-Kays
• Warriors don't cry by Beres Hammond
• Sit Down and Hurt Awhile by Denise LaSalle
• Blow to the Head by Abram Wilson
• Hard Knock Life by Jay-Z
• You can't stop the prophet by Jeru the Damaja
• Stop in the name of love by The Supremes
• Carry On by Jean Knight
• Caution by Maxi Priest
• Hard Knocks by Joe Cocker
• We Carry On by Portishead
• Hard Knocks by Elvis Presley

After: Punch-Drunk Slugnuts: Violence and the Vernacular History of Disease by Stephen Casper


File under: health, standards, best practices, concussion, brain, biology, sports, policy, culture, observation, perception, poetry, toli

Writing log: December 18, 2022

Sensor Calibration

The problem is often couched as one of recognition
The difficulty, as it were, of sensor calibration
For if you can't measure a signal as a matter of first principle
If you can't detect accurately, you might as well be invisible

The auto-focus systems in cameras that can't detect those darker than blue
The pulse oximeters giving false hope - the all clear, to those with a darker hue
Training data, darker skin tones - unusual, light exposure
Biometrics, facial recognition, fingerprint sensors

Architectures of participation and control
Resigned to playing the tenuous outsider role
In this rigged game of life (and death) with ever changing rules
Arbitrary boundaries, when lines are drawn, borders can be cruel

For those excluded from the system, then, a matter of quiet advocacy
A liberation struggle of sorts, forever teaching others how to see
File under the banner of cultural sensitivity in technology
Sensor calibration and relief from the burden of invisibility

Sensor Calibration, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note, fodder for sensitive souls (spotify version)

• Sensitivity by Ralph Tresvant
• You Can't Miss What You Can't Measure by Clarence Carter
• My Sensitivity (Gets in the Way) by Luther Vandross
• You Can't Miss What You Can't Measure by Funkadelic
• We People Who are Darker than Blue by Curtis Mayfield
• Skin I'm In by Cameo
• Choice of Colors by The Impressions

See previously Cultural Sensitivity in Technology and Empire State of Mind

File under: technology, culture, observation, perception, history, race, localization, photography, health, design, software, hardware, sensors, best practices, exclusion, participation, poetry, Observers are worried, toli

Writing log: September 21, 2022

Not in the System

It's not going through; her look, understanding
She sees it all the time, the denials, the rejections
Could I see your insurance card again?
Yes... Please. So I can double check again
Would you happen to have an updated card?
This one might be revoked… possibly
At least that's… at least that's what they're telling me
Yes, uh-huh, it was rejected by the system

Yes sir, I entered everything
Check, perhaps, a summary of your benefits
Sometimes there's... there's a ... discrepancy
A field, yes... one field... once a field is missing...
You know, these things... these things happen
You may want to check with them
But it's not in the system

If you want to continue at this time
You'll have to pay out of pocket
And file a later claim for reimbursement
If you were in the system it would be automatic
But the choice is yours, do you still want the shot?
Or you can try again when you're in the system

...

She'd seen it all before, it was written
A veritable shell game, this healthcare system
Some make profits, the rest of us are victims
One day, one day, you'll have a seat at the table
One day, one day perhaps, you'll be in the system

Not in the System, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note on the reggae side of things (spotify version)

• Babylon System by Bob Marley & the Wailers
• The System by Zion Albert
• Babylon System by Linval Thompson
• The System by Michigan & Smiley
• You are in my System by The System
  Counter-programming some synth pop-funk to switch things up. Don't disturb this groove.
• The System Dub by Zion I Kings

I didn't get my flu shot that day, I was not in the system.

See previously: Default Deny

File under: insurance, USA, health, shell game, culture, observation, perception, strategy, bureaucracy, friction, economics, poetry, Observers are worried, toli

Writing log: September 20, 2022

Breakthrough

It was quite uncanny, the mailman had pulled up in his truck at the curbside
I walked out, for want of a change, to pick up the day's mail
The neighbor must have had the same idea. We walked in parallel
There were head nods but, that morning, we skipped the usual pleasantries
For we were both wearing N-95 masks, the ones you use in extremis
The ones that, by design, require some effort to take off
It didn't need to be said, the same visitor had breached our walls
A quick glance at each other, solidarity and a touch of recognition
Stoic and grim-faced, we turned and walked back in our houses

...

They call it a breakthrough, a breach of your body's fortified defenses
For the weapons on hand were finely targeted at the ancestral strain
And new variants, equipped with modified spikes, could maneuver around
What with waning effectiveness, the natural decay of protection would obtain
It was said that the severity and intensity of the attack would be reduced
Because of the multiple layers that, once activated, would come into play
Generalists, those memory cells that would serve to root out the scourge
Even when the antibody specialists, those shock troops were overwhelmed
Vaccines were engineered in record time, in many ways it was a miracle
To guard against severe disease and death, for that we must be thankful
Still, so many bought the promise of a panacea in a fit of wishful thinking
That they ignored all other measures leaving us prone to breakthrough infections

...

Did I give it to you? Will I die?
Heartbreaking that his first thought was whether he'd infected you
No need for guilt, young man, you'll pull through
It's nobody's fault but mine, my son
Went against my better judgment, it was a lapse
We tried to keep you safe but, at length, we missed
The gods would dispose of human vanity
We are challenged and the future may be perilous
But we trust also that the gods have mercy
So I'm going to snuggle up and give you a hug
But, first things first, let's find us some masks

Breakthrough, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note. (spotify version)

• There it is by James Brown
• Here it is! by Alan Toussaint
• There it is by Shalamar
• Overcome by Tricky
• Nobody's fault but mine by Nina Simone
• There it is by Barry White
• Breakthrough by JazzyFatNastees
• There it is by Tyrone Davis

After Omicron BA.2.75 (Centaurus)

This note is part of a series: In a covidious time

File under: coronavirus, pandemic, disease, culture, observation, health, perception, life, covidious, poetry, toli

Writing log. June 21, 2022

Body and Soul

Human bodies can take a lot of physical stress,
Whether it is heat, cold, pain, or starvation.
Our surviving ancestors - those that handled it best,
Were accustomed to life at the extremes and deprivation

The gods would present challenges beyond mere deprival
For the health of the body is but one element of survival
The one paradoxical stressor
   that leaves the soul completely unmanned is solitude
A shadow's burden weighs on the psyche,
   isolation is the ultimate test of fortitude

Solitude has its uses, however,
   for such is the Gordian knot of human life
Many acts of creation require momentary detachment,
   if not a splinter of ice
A little dissonance and social distancing
   to garner an oblique perspective
To see things in proper true light,
   artistic impulse is the prime objective

...

Fellowship, a comfort suite is to be found in community and connection
Skin to skin, the merest touch can revitalize one's condition
Out-of-body, the journey to a far region of the mind has its own costs
Sensation, soul insurance assuages the spirit's rhythm of loss

Body and Soul, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note. Twenty odd takes on Body and Soul, one of my favorite standards. Coleman Hawkins's solo is the definitive statement while Billie Holiday has lead the approach to vocal treatments. This is the kind of music that makes you promptly pay your soul insurance premiums.

This note is part of a series: In a covidious time

File under: culture, observation, social, perception, comfort, solitude, health, poetry, covidious, toli

Writing log: November 10, 2021

Milestone

It had been creeping up on me quite gradually
But the irrefutable sign that made it official was the diary entry
(To be precise, the Google calendar reminder, more formally)
That read, in black and white, on the little screen:
"Schedule colonoscopy"

I guess this was a watershed, call it a milestone
There was no mistaking what I read on my phone
The doctor's recommendation that one inspect my nether zone
Lest, like the dearly departed actor, you know
The one who starred as Black Panther,
I succumb to preventable misfortune

I suppose the statistics for those of my race in America
Must have been suitably ominous when it came to colon cancer
For the public health officials to have advanced by a number of years
Their recommendation for check ups to avoid a trail of tears

Demography and mortality statistics being what they are
For those, quoth the soul singer, darker than blue in America
I celebrate daily the small things, and that I have made it thus far
With loving family, relative wealth, and unscathed in police encounters

I still wear my mask of civility and bottle up my outrage
Except on the occasional lyric verse that I apply on these blank pages
But here, I count my blessings even as I must acknowledge
The bleedingly obvious: that I have become middle aged

Milestones, a playlist

A soundtrack for this coming of age (spotify version)

• Milestones by Miles Davis
• Milestones by Bill Evans
• Milestones by Dexter Gordon
• Sign O' The Times by Prince
• Afraid by Amel Larrieux
• Check Yo Self by Ice Cube & Das EFX)
• It's Going Down by Ralph Tresvant
• Milestones by Miles Davis

...

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

File under: humour, life, aging, culture, race, health, observation, perception, black, USA, public health, Small Things, Observers are worried, toli

Writing log: May 3, 2021

Strays

Her sweatshirt read "Have more empathy"
That was the detail that struck you so vividly
As you bent and swerved to dodge the incoming blow
Perhaps, you thought, what you reap is what you sow

Next was her earlier comment, "Some of us have got principles".
It was fascinating to be in the presence of this feral dynamo
Who in England would, no doubt, be subject to an ASBO.
Fury might have been her middle name, hers was formidable.

...

She was carrying an umbrella although it wasn't raining,
Nor, indeed, was it sunny. Mask and anorak even in the hot weather.
Shifty, she made to hide behind the tree as you were approaching
Swerving as she did, she twirled her umbrella.
The Wife moved automatically to the other side, the other trail
She could tell that something was awry with the woman. She looked frail.

You were undaunted and continued walking towards her.
Eventually - there were a few false starts here and there,
She peeked out from beyond the tree and started walking.
You gave her a head nod as you passed - acknowledging.
She raised the umbrella then asked in a loud voice,
"Did you get your check?", clear even over the background noise

Hmmm. Was she really worried about Uncle Joe's stimulus check?
Actually no, you had too much income to qualify for it.
"No", you muttered. Yours was a privileged situation
"I didn't either." She took it as confirmation
That those of our skin tone were being duly denied
A seat at the table, leaving much to be decried.

You decided not to explain your good fortune
For who knew how she would take it in her agitation,
You moved on, quickly grabbing The Seven Year Old, tightly held
You told him "Always be respectful of the strays of the world."

Strays, a playlist

A soundtrack to this note (spotify version)

• Strays of the World by Prince
• Danger by Erykah Badu
• Misfit Blues by Duke Ellington
• Astray by Bilal
• Danger by Amel Larrieux
• Fury by Prince
• Shy by Prince

  Looks like we're gonna take the long way home tonight

See previously: The Old Man Who Lives in the Park

Illustrations: Kukua Akumanyi

This note is part of a series: In a covidious time

File under: life, homeless, culture, observation, off kilter, health, mental health, perception, poverty, USA, poetry, covidious, Observers are worried, toli

Writing log: April 30, 2021

Listen

I have to say, ear doctors are the most unsympathetic lot
Awful people, they only prescribe a little rest and, maybe, time off
So quick to put you on a course of oral antibiotics
  and send you on your way
Uh-huh, yes the ear is inflamed, you've had your two minutes,
   the exit is that way

They have no bedside manner to speak of,
  it rather seems like a badge of honor
They never alleviate your dismay, it feels like they're ignoring your trauma
For if you find yourself needing an ear specialist,
  you're already in a world of trouble
You should know very well that it's now down to prayer,
  that's how the cookie crumbles

The pain is right there, your sinuses are going haywire,
  and you are going insane
It's way too close for comfort,
   there's no deadening the aural assault on your brain
Perhaps the infection is viral or your tympanum took a knock
Or maybe it's bacterial but you're still dealing with the aftershocks

Off kilter you're destabilized, you've just about lost your bearings
That's when you realize that you've well and truly lost your hearing
The doctor crinkles, or snaps their fingers right next to your ear
You didn't even flinch, the sound was lost, it plain disappeared

A Temporary Inconvenience

For a quite alarming number of times,
  I've woken up over the past decade
Having lost the hearing in one ear
  (the ear in question seems to alternate)
I've been told, in my case, that it's a matter of physiognomy:
The combination of poor drainage of my sinusoidal cavities
(Their perversely shaped contours apparently don't help things),
Small ears, and a latter-day propensity for prodigious production
Of earwax. These episodes of partial deafness have typically lasted
From as little as two hours to a few days - always longer than forecasted

The current assault on my middle ear, however, at ten days and counting,
Is pushing beyond the realm of temporary inconvenience
   - tensions are mounting
It's not just that I haven't been able to listen properly
  to the new José James album
Left to hearing his golden voice in muffled mono quite abases the glorious production
The sound, as if coming from a locked trunk
  packed with ancient manuscripts
Hurriedly buried in a desert backyard in Timbuktu
  - under Sharia law, that is,
Is painful enough, it's that, as the days drag on, I'm beginning
To contemplate what might possibly happen if modern medicine
And my body's defenses don't resolve things successfully.
The reality is that deafness will be my friend
As the saying goes, no condition is permanent
So I stew, and let that thought sink in wistfully

Incidentally, the album is rather ominously titled No Beginning, No End.
Perhaps it's in that vein that I listened blithely (with my good ear)
To a doctor cheerily informing me
  that my hearing will "probably come back", (when?)
And "most likely after a couple of weeks", (sigh, at least it wasn't a year)
Those hedging qualifiers were what I held on to - I was strangely elated,
Rather than the alarmingly lengthy time horizon she also contemplated.
I write, however, not to bemoan my lot because,
  obviously, things could be worse:
I count my aural blessings
  that I'm not yet appointed to end up in a hearse

The surprising thing,
   once you get over the bewilderment of sinusoidal oppression
And hearing loss, is that one is able to carry on living a quite full life.
Moreover, there's nothing like a temporary disability
  to make you rethink things;
People don't think enough these days, they move to action and half-step
I'm rather inclined to take the glass half-full notion to being half-deaf,
Heck, if you choose, strategically,
  where to sit in a hypothetical office encounter,
You'd avoid having to hear much that annoys you
   - and others would be none the wiser.
And ear splitting cries of babies,
   to take another example of occupational hazards,
Can easily become mere pantomimes, even hot air.
   You get to focus on what really matters.

Hear

Listen, aural sensations are so very hard to give up
Count your blessings even when they're spouting claptrap
For sounds, even the most benighted,
  are truly a wondrous gift from the gods
Beyond their initial purpose of equipping most of us to defy nature's odds
To hear a baby's first cries, or to be lost in a lover's sighs
Think to your desert island necessaries,
   the music that heartens the soul
Visions may be first on my list,
   but the sound of When Doves Cry never gets old
Equanimous is my middle name,
  I trust that all will be resolved in due course
As a Ghanaian, I don't subscribe to the modern theory of buyer's remorse

Listen, a playlist

A soulful playlist underlined by the delightful sounds of José James. Try to catch him live if you ever can. He is the truth. Enjoy. (spotify version)

• Do You Feel by José James
• Listen Hear by Maxwell
• No Beginning No End by José James
• I Can Listen by Omar
• Come to My Door by José James and Emily King
• Listen Here by The RH Factor
• Trouble by José James
• Listen Here by Lewis Taylor
• Heaven on the Ground by José James
• The Listening by Little Brother

See previously

• Touch
• Taste
• Visions
• A Temporary Inconvenience

...

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

File under: sound, sensory, perception, life, health, pain, humour, culture, observation, hearing, Observers are worried, Buyer's Remorse, poetry, toli

Writing log: April 14, 2021

Visions

Retinal hemorrhage, that was the diagnosis
If you ask me, I was on my way to psychosis
I just wanted to scratch my eye out to remove this damn floater
And to be rid of the piercing pain, it was akin to an electric motor
Spinning out of control, and tearing right through that eye socket
Without regard for all those plans and things I had on my docket
It was all I could do to not scream, "This is killing me, cease and desist"
I'm quite used to ellipses but this blind spot was rather an eclipse

The soul was duly darkened even as my vision was threatened
The pain was altogether unbearable and no relief beckoned
I must say, I couldn't suffer fools during that interlude, I was rather uptight
It's quite hard to keep it light when you literally can no longer see the light
I was curt and incredibly frank
   during those six months of blinding regress
When the obviously-misnamed, eye-opening affliction
   was my daily business
But there was no comfort to be had, I'd been told, just apply eye drops
Take frequent breaks, rest, the body will heal and, in time, it will stop

"You have an incredible tolerance for pain,
   why didn't you call me earlier?"
Now you tell me, I mentioned that I was in pain,
   and you ignored me, Doctor
I've been religiously applying those drops
   that you said I could buy over the counter
Do you really mean to tell me now
   that I might have gotten some relief much earlier?
"Well yes, there are any number of interventions
   that I could have prescribed.
Well, all is good now, you've made a lot of progress, that can't be denied.
We'll just take a look at things, keep using those eye drops on demand."
He quickly bade me goodbye, and I left his retinal consultancy stunned

Dear friends and family, it is a matter of some regret
That I belatedly explain why my conduct was so circumspect
True, during that time I was in considerable pain and rather upset
And, as I've explained, an unwitting victim of a doctor's neglect
It's cold comfort, however, and understanding will never quite offset
The feelings hurt and perhaps the frayed tempers
   that came with the mindset
But look, it was the loss of my sight, after all, what do you expect?

Visions, a playlist

By definition a Visions playlist should simply be Stevie Wonder's incomparable album, Innervisions, first on my desert island list. However I'm trying to broaden my perspective so I offer this musical look at things (spotify version)

• Visions by Stevie Wonder
• Look What we'd Have by Tevin Campbell
• Vision of Love by Mariah Carey
• Don't Look Any Further by Dennis Edwards and Seidah Garrett
• Vision by Hucci
• Night Vision by Pieces of a Dream
• Looking for your Love by Adrianna Evans
• Astral Vision by Paul Hardcastle
• Fix Up Look Sharp by Dizzee Rascal
• My Vision by Agora Rhythm
• Brighten My Vision by Burning Spear
• My Vision by Seal
• Jade Visions by Bill Evans
• Visions by Prince

See previous sensory processes

• Touch
• Taste

...

Timing is everything
Observers are worried

File under: vision, blindness, pain, medicine, health, eye, sight, humour, sensory, culture, observation, perception, malpractice, Buyer's Remorse, regret, Observers are worried, poetry, toli

Writing log: April 14, 2021

The Traveling Salesman

The traveling salesman problem is long studied in computer science
But now it's epidemiology that's behind the headlines
His mission was selling products that make you healthier
But sadly his tainted breath made him a superspreader

The virus keeps causing sheer pandemonium
By changing humanity's curriculum
Asymptomatic transmission is a tough problem to solve, on its face
In retrospect, they searched for close contacts to track and trace

Remember, the postman always rings twice
Opening your door is a roll of the dice
Wear a mask, it's your duty of care
The moral of the story: buyer beware


After: Covid-19 'superspreader' in northeast China linked to 102 infections

The Traveling Salesman, a playlist

A soundtrack for this note (spotify version)

• Travelin' Girl by Dwele
  The live versions are essential, that tour where the horns were featured made this essential.
• Traveling Miles by Cassandra Wilson
• Buyer Beware by Jorrel & Bekka
• Beware by Punjabi MC ft. Jay-Z
  I'm quite partial to the original version, Beware of the Boys featuring Twista, but no one has ever won an argument over commerce where Jay-Z was involved

See previously:

• The Prince and The Honey
• The Prime Minister's Coinage

This folktale is part of a series: In a covidious time

File under: humour, poetry, public health, satire, disease, folktale, coronavirus, pandemic, covidious, culture, observation, covidious, toli

The Shape of Dread

I wrote of The New Epicenter on New Year's Day 2021
In terror of what might befall my family in England
The onset of my sister's covidious symptoms
Came four days after she received her first dose
Of the AstraZeneca vaccine in February
Too late, in other words. 'Tis quite the pity

Up close and personal now, but unemotional, this nurse,
About the implications of this biological curse
"An occupational hazard", she quipped, of her profession,
She'd lost the race despite all of her precautions
Now it's up to medicine, luck, and her immune system
To face up to the struggle against the new variant

I can't describe the shape of my panic and dread
When she disclosed her condition. A shot to the head.
Oh no! My sister. And what about the boys?
Mother Nature, damn her, has dealt us this wild card.
Fear and worry were instantly etched in my heart.
Instead of sharing with her those light words and laughter
All I could offer across the ocean were thoughts and prayers.

Still, my heart also harbors a splinter of ice,
And I've stuck to my publishing schedule, with all that implies
All the while praying, as the days go on, and hoping against hope
That the macabre prophecy - I even mentioned a kind of hearse -
That I mooted in those stanzas of lyric verse
Wouldn't end up being a sort of obituary for my loved ones.
I've been sitting, paralyzed in fear for weeks now, a broken man.
I would gladly tear up these words, if only I could
To return to a different world but I realize that it would be no good.
Try as I can, to cut the Gordian knot of guilt and apply the knife
I'm also mindful that irony is the key register of African life.

The Shape of Dread, a playlist

A soundtrack to leaven this ongoing horrow show (spotify version)

• Not To Worry by Abbey Lincoln
• Livin' in Fear by The Bagdads
• Worries by Robert Glasper (feat. Dwele)
• The Moment I Feared by Slick Rick
• You Scared the Lovin' Outta Me by Funkadelic
• Running in Fear From Imaginary Assailants by Charlie Hunter
• The Moment I Feared by Tricky
  The whole Angels with Dirty Faces album is a harrowing soundscape, Tricky's remake of Slick Rick's cautionary tale is the very sound of dread.
• No Worries by Robert Glasper

See previously: The New Epicenter

This note is part of a series: In a covidious time.

File under: culture, observation, dread, worry, family, life, health, England, disaster, coronavirus, pandemic, poetry, covidious, fear, guilt, irony, personal, Creative Process, Observers are worried, toli

Top Public Health Interventions

A list of the top public health interventions in history...

• Sewer pipes (Mesopotamia 4000 BC)
• Soap (for washing hands circa 2800 BC)
• Emperor Shennong of China mandating drinking boiled tea (2737 BC)
• Mosquito nets (from Cleopatra's time through present)
• Vaccination (Jenner 1796, Pasteur 1880)
• Pasteurization (Pasteur 1864)
• Antibiotics (pace Fleming's penicillin 1928 onward)
• Existence of unions (1827 onward)
• Child labor laws (starting with the Cotton Factories Regulation Act of 1819 in England to present)
• Birth control pills (Djerassi 1951, and Pincus and Rock producing Enovid, the first birth control pill approved in 1957)
• Tobacco control (1952 to present, from the 1964 US Surgeon General report through the Tobacco Control Act of 2009)
• Seat belts (1955 to present, the crucial milestone was 1966 with the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act in the USA)
• Occupational safety regulations (kicked into high gear in the US with Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970)
• Water fluoridation (widespread after 1945)
• Iodized salt (1924 onward)
• Ban on use of lead in gasoline (regulation starting 1973 - banned in US with Clean Air act in 1996)
• Antiretrovirals, especially in African countries to manage HIV (1996 onward)
• Board certification for doctors (1917 onward)
• FDA approval for food and medicine (onset with Food and Drug Act in USA 1906, effective after 1938's Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act )
• Helmets (although a 1600 BC invention, their public health application came in sports after 1896 for American football and transportation circa 1914 with the motorcycle helmet)
• Gun control (in most countries almost immediately after its invention circa 1000 AD with Yemen and the USA as modern day outliers)
• Alcohol control (an ongoing and uneasy spectrum of regulations even to the extent of prohibition with religion even weighing in)
• Oral rehydration therapy (1940s, popularized with ORS sachets especially after the refugees successfully treated during cholera epidemic of cholera after the Bangladeshi Liberation War)
• Facial masks and shields (briefly after the influenza pandemic of 1918, in East Asia after the SARS pandemic of 2003, in China, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Mongolia, Japan and the Czech Republic memorably immediately after the start of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 pandemic January-April 2020, and the rest of the world circa March - June 2020, with notable American exceptionalism - in most enlightened states in the US. The N95 respiratory mask, conceived in 1992, remains a milestone although cloth masks have long had their uses. Whither my Texas neighbors you may ask? The neighbor who was overheard just a month ago, after The Grand Reopening of Texas, shouting "There is no virus" remains under the relentless grip of the Positivity of The Governors even after their July 2020 pivot. My best guess is that it will take 9 months, or perhaps personal experience, for the aversion to evidence and public health to penetrate consciousness. On the other hand, norms can change quickly, as evidenced in other countries, but I won't hold out hope for the year 2020 in the USA at large, I think it's a Vision 2021 project despite the rising body count)

This became a collaborative list with crucial additions from friends and The Wife, whose pointed comment about the birth control pill prompted me to add It's a Man's Man's Man's World by James Brown to the playlist I was conjuring for this list. Indeed oral contraceptives have probably positively affected the greatest numbers of humans lives outside of soap and sewers.

A twitter follower also challenged me that it was Emperor Shennong's courtiers, not the Emperor himself, who mandated boiling tea - that the Emperor just preferred his tea boiled. This again speaks to the Princpal-Agent relationship, and posits that there is a difference between the wishes of the Emperor and those surrounding him. The suggestion is that "Who will boil me this tea?" is the antecedent to "Who will rid me of this meddlesome priest?". I dodged the question as is my wont because, in any case, it was fortuitous that boiling water, with its side effect of killing germs and other beastly organisms, became an integral part of humanity's public health arsenal.

There was some controversy about my inclusion of child labor and the existence of unions, enough that I was even moved to play Devil's advocate

Think about it, would we have Dickens without child labour? What paradise have we lost when the youth of Bangladesh, or Ghana are no longer doing shifts in the textile factory, or planting yams and pineapples in the hills of Aburi? Our modern day Oliver Twists and Little Annie's no longer have the hard knock life, coddled as they are with this modernity, they have school not farms, and they are constantly demanding fondleslabs of mobile entertainment.

Of course, it was facetious to posit a world without Dickens, there was more than enough outrage in 19th century England and the world for Charles Dickens to get novelistic material. The little street urchins and cannon fodder for the worst excesses of capitalism might make the headlines but the the vast majority of capitalism's operation is a mundane grind, a rigged shell game on a tilted playing field - pick your metaphor. Call them the underlying conditions and risk factors that favour capital over labour. The notion of "the weekend", far from being divinely prescribed as days of rest, was in actuality a hard fought victory of labor and trade unions, as were occupational safety regulations. Social welfare and the advances in communal living have had considerable impact beyond the economic sphere and have public health effects.

Looking over the list, the human species has gotten away with much faulty biology and superstition. I suppose that belief in unseen things is what makes the Gospel of Germs such a hard sell that it requires constant marketing and reinforcement. Hilaire Belloc would satirize late 19th century popular conceptions of The Microbe in The Bad Child's Book of Beasts and More Beasts (For Worse Children). Things are not much changed in 2020 than in 1897.

The Microbe is so very small
You cannot make him out at all,
But many sanguine people hope
To see him through a microscope.
His jointed tongue that lies beneath
A hundred curious rows of teeth;
His seven tufted tails with lots
Of lovely pink and purple spots.

On each of which a pattern stands,
Composed of forty separate bands;
His eyebrows of a tender green;
All these have never yet been seen -
But Scientist, who ought to know,
Assure us that they must be so...
Oh! let us never, never doubt
What nobody is sure about.

It is interesting that the tiny clumps of viral RNA that are driving our current covidious predicament fit much the same description.

The inverse list is also interesting, and we have a great candidate in Thomas Midgley for the most catastrophic intervention. Midgley invented both leaded petrol, and the CFCs (chlorinated fluorocarbon) used in refrigerators. The collateral damage, and body count, of these two inventions are world historic. Still, knowledge about their effects on the environment was not well known in his lifetime, unlike the inventors of gunpowder or the nuclear bomb. Midgley didn't have an Alfred Nobel come-to-Jesus moment and continued tinkering until his death.

I think we have real time candidates for the negative list either with neglect or by wilful policy decision making. It's slightly morbid to follow the implications of that thought because it gets to valuing abstraction over of flesh and blood. What is the value of a human life? And who gets to coldly decide that on the golf course or hastily fortified bunker?

Back to Basics

Covid-19 is a funny disease as my doctor uncles and aunts put it. It's forcing humanity to go back to basics and causing us all to change our way of life. If you take a look at the coronavirus superspreading timeline, you quickly get a sense of the activities that are now to be avoided, they involve crowds, and places with poor ventilation and sanitation, and where we sing or chant. We basically shouldn't touch or breathe on each other. And these are hard lessons to teach and follow, as I've found even after months of self isolation. The 7 and 9 year olds in my household are not the only ones that need constant reminders about the best practices for survival, frequently washing hands is not obvious despite our best efforts to make it a habit. It's hard to be a good neighbor when you can't do small talk and even conversations over the fence are fraught and wary episodes.

All communal gatherings have the potential for risky distribution of disease even as they might give comfort and social and economic utility. Paradoxically, we need to draw on social living for comfort and resilience, yet in our present, it is social distancing and enforced absence and the foregoing of our rituals and traditions that is our best chance of survival.

We are all in this together and it pays to learn the lessons of The Mosquito Principle, for these clumps of viral RNA, like our close and longstanding companions, mosquitos, don't discriminate. While we wait for a vaccine or effective treatment for Covid-19, our mantra has got to be: stay home if at all possible, maintain social distancing, and wash hands with soap frequently, wear masks when outside and perhaps even indoors when there is poor ventilation or if in the company of others beyond one's core living unit.

Optional: pray.

For faith healing is always an option; epidemiologists will forever be fighting a rearguard action against the placebo effect of faith. The other alternative is the very human hope that you will be saved, a deus ex machina is always a possibility - vaccines do get developed. Indeed this wishful thinking is firmly embedded in American mythology and culture.

And yesterday was the day of our cinema heroes
Riding to the rescue at the last possible moment
The day of the man in the white hat or the man on the white horse
Or, the man who always came to save America at the last moment

Someone always came to save America at the last moment
Especially in B-movies

— B-movie by Gil Scott-Heron

In lieu of herd immunity, researchers at the Center for Disease Control (CDC), or perhaps the Surgeon General, would do well to issue the following public warning:

Nostalgia can be a fatal disease.

Observers are worried

A Public Health Playlist

As always, a soundtrack for this note. (spotify version)

• Doctor Soul by Foster McElroy
• It's a Man's Man's World by James Brown
• Superstition by Stevie Wonder
• Faith by George Michael

Suffice to say that I prefer public health interventions to faith healing, as always there is the fine print: your mileage may vary

File under: public health, disease, lists, sanitation, best practices, history, medicine, strategy, culture, human factors, biology, health, regulation, observation, perception, coronavirus, pandemic, Observers are worried, toli

Coronavirus Superspreading Events - A Timeline

A running list, non-exhaustive obviously, that I've been keeping of novel coronavirus superspreading events (loosely construed). I like keeping lists, it serves to while away the time in this covidious era. Moreover, I've been wondering what the later histories will label as the most catastrophic in this ongoing shambles beyond say Mister Johnson's herd immunity regime of delay, deny and dither in Her Majesty's land, and the US federal and (certain) state governments' response to the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, between January and the present, or perhaps it might be Bolsonaro's bungling in Brazil that will trump even The Donald's dereliction of duty.

• Timeline

There is lot of modeling (a good summary) that suggests that it is superspreader events that have made the novel coronavirus and Covid-19 so lethal. Understanding them may help develop strategies for mitigating the risk. The Wife is a historian of medicine, her most popular classes are on the global history of disease and the like; I suppose then that I've contracted the fever of her social disease.

Taking a look at the timeline, we see what one would expect: religious events, funerals, sports (football as secular religion), conferences, the meeting circuit, parties, bars and clubs - the Dionysian impulse in essence (e.g. spring break), and comfort suites like choirs and our buffets where we get and share food. The more painful involve traditions from which we normally draw comfort. Those are unfortunate but humanity can always adjust our rituals, the human species is nothing if not adaptable. The more worrying, jarring, senseless, and yes, unforgivable, involve routine activities that are our daily normal. Deaths in these cases were eminently preventable and should have been avoided. Those involve workplaces, public transportation and what we've come to term essential work in places that we gather at with poor ventilation, sanitation or with inadequate social distancing.

Daily life should not endanger one's person, and it is intolerable that this has been the case, and with such unrelenting numbers. Going to work at a call center in Seoul, rising from your bunkbeds early to farm in Tennesee, being a migrant worker building Singapore's skyscrapers may embody a constrained normalcy, but it is normalcy nevertheless. Neither should living out your twilight years in a nursing home in Trenton, New Jersey, or a care home in Sussex in England, working on the assembly line at a company like my employer, let alone serving your time in America's prison industrial complex, or similar, packing meat at a Smithfield or Tyson agribusiness joint.

Or, to take a case close to my heart, my Uncle Mike, finding a bed at length at a rehab facility in Boris Johnson's austerity-ravaged NHS in London to recover from your stroke after months of recovery in a hospital should not be a death sentence. Your sanctuary should not become your morgue. And I see you there Mister Johnson, and you, Master Hancock, and you too Young David Cameron, you there hiding in the corner. I see all of you with your bluster, and I am keeping the receipts for your conduct. These receipts are measured in excess deaths, to use your preferred terminology, words that are intended to obscure. I am watching; indeed, the whole world is watching.

Human communal life is a contact sport. Social beasts that we are, we crave connection and community. Striving simians not far removed from the savanna, we groom each other with touch and with song. Faulty biology is a thing. The gospel of public health competes in the marketplace of ideas and often loses. Human perception of risk and probability is also at play. Anyway, less speculation, let's go the timeline...

— June 2 2020

• Coronavirus Superspreading Events - A Timeline

Date	Event
January 19 2020	The Thousands Households Chinese New Year Banquet More than 40,000 participants attended the potluck banquet held in Wuhan, China
January 19 2020	Bus ride in Ningbo China An asymptomatic woman who had recently been to Wuhan took a bus with 66 other passengers to a worship event at a Buddhist temple The first outbreak started on January 19 among 293 lay Buddhists attending an outdoor, worship event held in a temple in Ningbo city of Zhejiang province. The index and source patient was a 64-year old female lay Buddhist. This patient and 66 other passengers took a bus to the event. A second similar bus carried 59 passengers to the same event. Both buses had an air conditioning system on a re-circulating mode (vents below the windows), four openable windows (two on each side), and neither had an attached toilet.
January 20 2020	Diamond Princess cruise ship leaves Yokohama Japan
January 20 2020	Shopping mall in Wenzhou China 34 people were infected after worker on 7th floor contracted covid-19
December 2019 - March 2020	The European Strains Travel from and within Europe preceded the first coronavirus cases in at least 93 countries across all five continents, accounting for more than half of the world’s index cases. Travel from Italy alone preceded index cases in at least 46 countries, compared to 27 countries associated with travel from China.
February 6 and February 16 2020	Patient 31's church services in Daegu South Korea She mingled in crowds of 9,300, had direct contact with 1200
February 15 2020	Zumba workshop in gym in in Cheonan, South Korea a workshop for Zumba fitness instructors 15. Of the 27 instructors in attendance, eight eventually tested positive. 112 cases tied to the cluster.
February 18-23 2020	Weeklong Prayer Meeting Mulhouse, France Five days of worship that set a virus time bomb in France The prayer meeting kicked off the biggest cluster of COVID-19 in France - one of northern Europe’s hardest-hit countries - to date, local government said. Around 2,500 confirmed cases have been linked to it. Worshippers at the church have unwittingly taken the disease caused by the virus home to the West African state of Burkina Faso, to the Mediterranean island of Corsica, to Guyana in Latin America, to Switzerland, to a French nuclear power plant, and into the workshops of one of Europe’s biggest automakers.
February 18-26 2020	Life Care Center nursing home Kirkland, Washington USA
February 19 2020	Atalanta - Valencia Champion League match 40,000 supporters I believe this match is the prime candidate for Ground Zero of the pandemic. Italy and Spain paid an especially heavy price in its aftermath, but all of Europe was affected.
February 25 2020	Mardi Gras in New Orleans
February 26–28 2020	Biogen conference Boston The official count of those sickened — 99, including employees and their contacts, according to the Massachusetts Department of Public Health — includes only those who live in that state. The true number across the United States is certainly higher. The first two cases in Indiana were Biogen executives. So was the first known case in Tennessee, and six of the earliest cases in North Carolina. [Update August 25 2020] Biogen conference likely led to 20,000 COVID-19 cases in Boston area, researchers say An international meeting of Biogen leaders at a Boston hotel in February led to roughly 20,000 cases of COVID-19 in four Massachusetts counties by early May, far more than the 99 previously identified, according to three scientists involved in a new study. [Update December 11 2020] 300,000 coronavirus cases traced to Boston biotech conference in February. As many as 300,000 coronavirus cases across the United States can be traced to a two-day conference in Boston attended by 175 biotech executives in February, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science. A virus carrying one mutation -- a small genetic change they've flagged as C2416T -- was apparently carried to the conference by a single person, and ended up infecting 245,000 people. A subset of the viral strain with a mutation known as G26233T ended up in 88,000 of these cases.
February 26 - 27 2020	Edinburgh Nike conference outbreak Coronavirus: Earlier Scottish lockdown 'could have prevented 2,000 deaths'
Feb 27 to March 1 2020	The Sham Alam mosque event in Malaysia 500 infections, numerous countries affected
February 29 2020	A funeral in Albany, Georgia
March 4 2020	Ischgl ski resort Austria At least four countries have now reported links to Ischgl, showing how the tiny village, home to no more than 1,600 permanent residents, became a major vector in spreading Covid-19. Alongside Denmark and Iceland, Germany has traced about 300 cases back to Ischgl, more than 80 of them in Hamburg and 200 in the small city of Aalen, Some 40% of residents in the Tyrolean skiing resort that has been described as a possible “ground zero” for the pandemic in Europe have developed Covid-19 antibodies, scientists have found. Scientists from the university of Innsbruck tested 80% of the population of Ischgl, a popular Austrian skiing destination from which tourists have been confirmed to have carried the virus to Germany, Britain, Denmark, Iceland, Belgium, the Netherlands, and even Brazil and Israel. Of 1,259 adults and 214 children tested, 42.5% had developed antibodies for the virus.
March 7 2020	60th birthday party in Stockholm, Sweden Ground Zero of the Swedish outbreaks, 70 of 100 guests got sick
March 7 2020	Four Bars, a wedding and a temple in Hong Kong The largest cluster comprised 106 cases and was traced back to a collection of four bars across Hong Kong. The first cases associated with this ‘bar and band’ cluster were reported for two customers who reported exposure to a bar in Lan Kwai Fong on 7 March (onset 11 March) before two staff members from the same bar fell ill on 10 and 11 March... Transmission to the other three bars is suspected to have occurred via a number of musicians who performed at the four venues. This single outbreak accounted for 10.2% (106/1,038) of all cases in Hong Kong during the study period, regardless of source, and 32.5% of all locally acquired SARS-CoV2 infections. The second-largest cluster comprised a total of 22 cases and was linked to two SSEs at a wedding... The third-largest cluster totaled 19 cases and was associated with attendance at a local temple
March 8 2020	Amsterdam Mixed Choir performance 102 out of 130 singers
March 8 2020	Coronavirus Disease Outbreak in Call Center, South Korea 97 confirmed case-patients most working on the same 11th floor out of 1,143 tested
March 10 2020	WaterAid's Water and Climate event, London, UK Event attended by Prince Charles (pictured coughing into his hand) and Prince Albert likely infected the mayor of Maputo, Mozambique and Burkina Faso's water and sanitation minister who would take the virus to their countries.. The celebrity quotient is high with this one, Canadian Premier's Justin Trudeau's wife, Idris Elba... The president of the University of Texas in Austin's wife...
March 10-13 2020	Cheltenham Festival UK The annual event was attended by 250,000 people before the Government enforced social distancing measures... According to Government data there have been 972 cases of coronavirus in Gloucesteshire and 181 deaths.
March 11 2020	Liverpool v Atlético Madrid Champion's League The Reds hosted Atletico at Anfield on 11 March in front of 52,000 fans including 3,000 from Madrid, which was already under partial lockdown.
March 13-18 2020	Spring breakers at Florida beaches "If I get corona, I get corona..."
March 15 2020	The lines at US airports the day Trump's European travel ban came into effect... One final viral infusion: Trump’s move to block travel from Europe triggered chaos and a surge of passengers from the outbreak’s center
March 15 2020	Friendship Baptist Church gathering of 7 black Baptist congregations in Everettville, North Central West Virginia
March 16-23 2020	UT Austin students Spring Break Cabo Beach Mexico
March 10 2020	Choir practice Skagit County, Washington 53 of the 61 contracted the coronavirus High SARS-CoV-2 Attack Rate Following Exposure at a Choir Practice — Skagit County, Washington
March 18-21 2020	Bondi beach recalcitrants in Australia
March 18 2020	Bangladeshi mass prayer meeting 10,000 Muslims had gathered in Raipur town to pray "healing verses" from the Koran. But some eyewitnesses told the BBC the figure was closer to 30,000.
March 21 2020	Senegalese protests after that iman was arrested
March 21-28 2020	Jerry Falwell's Liberty University in Lynchburg opening after spring break
March - April 15 2020	Smithfied pork factory Sioux City Missouri Pork Plant Workers Say They Can’t Cover Mouths to Cough A lawsuit filed against a Smithfield Foods plant claims it has created a public nuisance by failing to protect workers from coronavirus infection.
March - April 2020	Federal prisons USA Over 70 percent of tested inmates in federal prisons have COVID-19
March - April 2020	Supermarkets in Cape Town, South Africa major hot spots emerged in two supermarkets and a pharmaceutical factory that supercharged the virus’s spread. The hot spots in Tygerberg and Khayelitsha were probably driven by the lockdown’s closure of spaza shops, akin to corner stores, that in turn drove many people to crowded supermarkets.
April 1-15 2020	Coronavirus at Iowa Tyson plant infected 1,031 workers, county says — far more than state or company acknowledges
April 2 2020	71 infected with coronavirus at Sacramento church. USA Congregation tells county ‘leave us alone’ In Sacramento County last month, 71 people connected to a single church were later infected with the coronavirus.
April 16 2020	'Liberation' protests in Michigan, Kentucky, Ohio and Texas USA
April 17 2020	Governor of Khartoum refusing to cancel Friday prayers Sudan
April 19 2020	100,000 attended the funeral of popular preacher Jubayer Ahmad Ansari Bangladesh
April 28 2020	Hasidic funeral draws 2,500 Mourners (New York, USA)
April - May 1 2020	Trousdale Turner prison Tennesee - 1349 infected
April - May 1 2020	Tyson Foods Logansport plant 890 employees Indiana USA
April - May 1 2020	JBS Pork Plant Nobles County Minnesota pork processing 866 cases USA
April - May 1 2020	Triumph Foods St Josephs Missouri 300 cases USA
April - May 1 2020	Dakota City Nebraska meat plants and 669 worker infected Tyson plant Sioux City USA
April 27 2020	Fish processing factory, Tema, Ghana (533 workers) 533 souls infected at fish processing factory at Tema Ghana (out of 1100 workers at the plant) Note: this might be community spread in Tema instead of the original claim of a single person being the super spreader
April 29 2020	Ohio prisons (1,976 prisoners) USA Marion has one of the largest coronavirus prison outbreaks in the country, with nearly 80 percent of inmates, or about 1,976, testing positive for COVID-19, according to prison officials.
April 29 2020	Nearly 70 dead in ‘horrific’ outbreak at veterans home in Massachusetts (USA) Sixty-eight veteran residents who tested positive for the virus have died, officials said Tuesday, and it’s not known whether another person who died had COVID-19. Another 82 residents and 81 employees have tested positive.
April 30 2020	Bar hopping in Seoul, Korea Seoul closes down bars and clubs in wake of new coronavirus cluster A 29-year-old South Korean man who didn’t know he had the virus went barhopping on April 30, after the country loosened restrictions. He and a friend went to five bars and clubs in Seoul. To date, 187 positive cases have been tied to this night on the town, including 93 people who visited the same nightspots as the pair. Note that South Korean authorities had to test 35,000 people linked to club coronavirus cluster. It was a gay bar hence some patrons gave fake names to preserve anonymity.
April - May 2020	ICE detention facilities (all over US) (1,400+ detainees) USA ICE keeps transferring detainees around the country, leading to COVID-19 outbreaks Detainee transfers have led to COVID-19 outbreaks in facilities in at least 5 states. Despite limited testing, over 1,400 detainees have tested positive... ICE's largest outbreak is currently at Otay Mesa Detention Center in San Diego, Calif., where nearly 160 people have tested positive.
April - May 2020	Island prison in Los Angeles, CA (600+ inmates) USA Some 600 inmates at FCI Terminal Island, roughly 57 percent of the total inmate population, have tested positive for the coronavirus,
May 1-7 2020	Coronavirus outbreak closes German meat-packing plant The localized spike in cases comes after a test Thursday of 200 employees at the Westfleisch meat processing plant revealed 151 were positive for COVID-19. Coronavirus highlights scandalous conditions in Germany's meat industry Foreign workers are forced to endure inhumane living conditions so that we can eat cheap meat.
April - May 2020	Lousiana prison Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel USA Most women in 1 Louisiana prison dorm have COVID-19 He said 39 women fell ill with the disease caused by the novel coronavirus so the rest of the women housed at Hunt — 155 who did not have symptoms — were also tested. Of those who did not have symptoms, 117 were infected
May 10 2020	Mother's Day church service California USA A person who was Covid-19 positive attended a church service and exposed 180 people, officials say
May 10 2020	Church service Hanau Germany Coronavirus cluster traced to German church
May 1-12 2020	Missouri hairstylist USA A hairstylist worked while symptomatic and exposed 91 people to coronavirus
May 1-17 2020	Markets in Peru Coronavirus outbreak 'Hubs of infection': how Covid-19 spread through Latin America's markets
May 23 2020	High school swim party in Arkansas USA
May 21 2020	570 Workers Test Positive For Coronavirus At North Carolina Poultry Plant USA
May 23 2020	Market in Java, Indonesia a major market in Central Java was shut due to a COVID-19 outbreak.
May 23 2020	Coronavirus in South Africa: Outbreak closes Mponeng gold mine Operations at the world's deepest gold mine, in South Africa, have been halted after 164 cases of coronavirus were detected there. It had been operating at 50% capacity but some workers have reportedly raised concerns about their safety. Most of those who tested positive were not showing any symptoms.
May 23 2020	Memorial Day pool party in Missouri Partygoer at Lake of the Ozarks pool party tests positive for COVID-19, potentially exposing hundreds
May 25 2020	Hundreds test positive at meatpacking plant in Brazil Brazilian meatpacker BRF said in a statement that nearly 340 people, or 6.6 per cent of workers, at its Concordia plant in Santa Catarina state had tested positive for the virus.
May 25 2020	Coronavirus outbreaks hits Farmer John, 8 other plants in Vernon The largest outbreak occurred at the Smithfield Foods-owned Farmer John plant — producer of the beloved Dodger Dog — where 153 of 1,837 employees tested positive for COVID-19 between March and May. Between five and 24 employees at each of the facilities tested positive, county data show, although it wasn’t clear when those numbers were last updated. By the county’s standards, an outbreak has occurred when five or more workers have contracted the novel coronavirus.
May 20-29 2020	Coupang distribution warehouse.city of Bucheon, Itaewon South Korea According to Yonhap News, some 266 cases have been traced to the Itaewon cluster.
May 28 2020	Farm in Tennessee USA Every Single Worker Has Covid at One U.S. Farm on Eve of Harvest One farm in Tennessee distributed Covid-19 tests to all of its workers after an employee came down with the virus. It turned out that every single one of its roughly 200 employees had been infected.
May 28 2020	Gloucester County farm USA In New Jersey, more than 50 workers had the virus at a farm in Gloucester County, adding to nearly 60 who fell ill in neighboring Salem County
May 30 2020	Coal mine in Poland Out of 221 new infection cases reported by Saturday morning, 178 were identified in the Silesia mining region in southern Poland, which so far has showed the highest number of coronavirus infections as coal companies are still receiving the results of large-scale coronavirus tests conducted on mine workers.
May 28 2020	Belgian Prince Joachim tests positive after lockdown party Spain Prince Joachim, 28, travelled from Belgium to Spain for an internship on 26 May, the palace said. Two days later, he went to a party in the southern city of Córdoba, before testing positive for Covid-19. Spanish reports suggest the prince, a nephew of Belgium's King Philippe, was among 27 people at the party. For fun see King Leopold Haunts Congo Again
May 20 - June 1 2020	Schools in Jerusalem, Israel Israel has told almost 10,000 students and teachers to quarantine at home as it struggles to stem an outbreak of coronavirus in schools three weeks after reopening its economy... at least 220 students and teachers were confirmed to have been infected in the past few days, including more than 150 from a single school in an upscale Jerusalem neighbourhood.
May 30 2020	North Texas family shaken after 18 relatives test positive for COVID-19 following surprise birthday party one family is shouldering a health crisis that they never expected to face. That crisis, all began on May 30 when just a single relative, unknowingly infected with COVID-19, interacted with seven family members at a surprise birthday party. Those seven family members then contracted and spread the virus to 10 other relatives. Now, Ron Barbosa is keeping track of 18 people in his family who have tested positive for COVID-19.
June 3 2020	Adama Traoré protests, France In Paris, the authorities barred gatherings in front of the U.S. Embassy, but thousands protested there anyway in the late afternoon, as well as near the Eiffel Tower, echoing a protest on Wednesday that drew nearly 20,000 people to remember Adama Traoré, a Frenchman who died in police custody in 2016.
May 25 2020 - present	George Floyd protests, Anytown USA
May - June 6 2020	Iranian wedding party fuelled new COVID-19 surge, President Rouhani says A wedding party contributed to a new surge in coronavirus infections in Iran, President Hassan Rouhani said on Saturday but insisted the country had no option but to keep its economy open despite warnings of a second wave of the epidemic. Iran, which has been gradually relaxing its lockdown since mid-April, has reported a sharp rise of new daily infections in recent days. Thursday’s toll of 3,574 new cases was the highest since February, when the outbreak was first reported.
June 13 2020	Fresh cluster prompts partial Beijing lockdown (China) Eleven residential estates in south Beijing have been locked down due to a fresh cluster of coronavirus cases linked to a nearby meat market, local officials said on Saturday. Forty-five out of 517 samples so far collected from merchants and employees at the Xinfadi meat market have tested positive for the virus, according to the People's Daily. A second market, which provides 90% of the city's fruits and vegetables, was also shut after a cluster of four new Covid-19 cases was traced back to the site. Nine nearby schools and kindergartens have told to close next week. [Update June 30 2020] China puts 500,000 in lockdown as coronavirus cases rise again The current outbreak was first detected in mid-June and has been traced back to Beijing's sprawling Xinfadi wholesale food market, which supplies much of the city's fresh produce, sparking concerns over the safety of the food supply chain. Nearly a third of the cases so far have been linked to one beef and mutton section in the market, where workers are being made to quarantine for a month, city
June 16 2020	Oregon’s biggest coronavirus outbreak yet is linked to Union County church, state officials confirm (USA) At least 236 coronavirus cases have been linked to an outbreak at Lighthouse United Pentecostal Church in Union County’s Island City, a small town near La Grande... The outbreak accounts for 47% of the 462 cases reported statewide since Monday... public health officials were just beginning the process of contact tracing to track how far the virus might have spread throughout Island City and La Grande. The city of La Grande holds more than half the county’s population of 27,000 people.
June 17 2020	Hundreds of abattoir workers test positive in Germany More than 650 people have tested positive for the virus at the meat processing plant in Gütersloh, in the north-west of the country. Operations at the site have been suspended since Wednesday afternoon. Over 1,000 workers have been tested so far, with thousands of others still awaiting testing. This is not the first time a meat processing plant has found itself at the centre of a coronavirus outbreak. Last month, Germany agreed a proposal banning the use of temporary workers at abattoirs following a spate of infections in Münster and Coesfeld, North Rhine-Westphalia. The issue has brought a renewed focus on the poor working conditions in the sector, with some of the meat workers in previous outbreaks reported to have been living in shared accommodation. [Update: June 23 2020] Coronavirus: German outbreak sparks fresh local lockdowns German authorities in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia have reimposed lockdown restrictions in two districts after a spike in cases, with more than half a million people affected. One area is home to a meatpacking plant where more than 1,500 workers have tested positive. On Tuesday morning, Mr Laschet described the outbreak linked to the Tönnies meatpacking plant, south-west of the city of Gütersloh, as the "biggest infection incident" in the country. [Update June 29 2020] Germany: Gütersloh slaughterhouse infections spread to community Over the past seven days, 75 cases were found in the wider population with no connection to the abattoir. By Friday evening, 2,203 coronavirus infections were recorded in the Gütersloh district, most of whom worked in the meat plant or were associated with it. The outbreak has led to a state decree that all employees in the meat industry must be tested for the coronavirus at least twice a week starting in July.
June 18 2020	Welsh chicken factory closes for two weeks over Covid-19 in staff Wales Fifty-eight coronavirus cases confirmed among workers at 2 Sisters facility on Anglesey. The UK’s main supplier of supermarket chicken has shut one of its factories for two weeks after an outbreak of coronavirus among the plant’s staff... United welcomed the move to close the Anglesey facility and predicted similar problems could arise throughout the meat processing sector.
June 18 2020	60 confirmed COVID-19 cases at Luling nursing home facility Wales A nursing home facility in Luling Texas has 60 confirmed COVID-19 cases out of 150 residents and staff that were tested, according to the Caldwell County Office of Emergency Management.
June 26 2020	Seasonal Fruit Pickers at apartment complex illegally occupied by hundreds of migrant workers in Naples Italy more than 40 people living at the abandoned buildings in Mondragone, 45 km from Naples, had tested positive for COVID-19, and warned the entire town could be quarantined if the outbreak proves widespread. Many of those living at the complex are Bulgarians working as seasonal fruit pickers in the fields around the town.
June 17-27 2020	Overnight Camp Georgia outbreak at an overnight camp in Georgia infects at least 260 campers and staff. - 51% of positives were between 6-10 years old - 44% 11-17 yo - Camp required a test less than 12 days before arriving and attempted "pods" - Masks required for staff but NOT campers Out of 597 campers and staff, 344 were tested and 76% of those tests were positive - 26% of the positives reported no symptoms
June 28 2020	Patrons are asked to self-quarantine after about 85 people who visited a Michigan bar get Covid-19 (USA) The Health Department is asking patrons who visited Harper's Restaurant & Brew Pub between June 12 and June 20 to self-quarantine, and report cases of Covid-19.... The bar opted to close down temporarily to install air purifiers and to eliminate lines, a post says on its Facebook page.
June 29 2020	Leicester coronavirus outbreak started in food processing sites & spread through clothes factories as 10% test positive (England) Leicester was today put into the UK's first local lockdown after a worrying spike saw 866 new cases recorded in just two weeks. The shocking numbers mean that the city accounts for 10 per cent of all coronavirus cases in the UK. And it is understood that the outbreak originated in food processing sites - with Leicester particularly hit due to its high number of garment and sewing factories. Both the Samworth Brothers sandwich firm and Ethically Sourced Products clothes factory have been named as sites of minor outbreaks.
June 30 2020	Bihar: Groom dead, 95 guests who attended wedding test positive for coronavirus in Patna (India) In what could be a case of mass spreading of Covid-19, as many as 95 guests who attended a wedding in Patna on June 15 have tested positive. The groom, who was symptomatic, had died two days after the wedding.
May - June 30 2020	San Quentin prison outbreak affect 1313 inmates (California, USA) “The inmates had tested negative for the disease before they were moved to San Quentin,” Kelso said. “But many of those tests were 2-3 weeks old — far too old to be an indicator for the absence of the virus.” Once the inmates arrived at San Quentin, they were tested again. “San Quentin is in crisis,” he said. “Upon retesting at San Quentin, 25 out of the 125 inmates tested positive and San Quentin almost immediately fell behind the virus.” As of Wednesday morning, there were 1,313 confirmed active COVID-19 cases among the inmates housed at the prison. Of those at least 40 have been transferred out of the prison under heavy security to local hospitals for treatment, filling up critical care and ICU beds.
July 2 2020	one 'super spreader' could be responsible for Melbourne spike in cases Australia Victoria has announced 66 new cases of Covid-19 as the state’s health minister revealed Melbourne’s wave of new cases could potentially be traced back to a single “super spreader” of the virus. “On Tuesday, I received a briefing of a genomic sequencing report that seemed to suggest that there seems to be a single source of infection for many of the cases that have gone across the northern and western suburbs of Melbourne,” the minister, Jenny Mikakos, said on Friday. “It appears to be even potentially a super spreader that has caused this upsurge in cases.” Australia Thought it tamed the beast. It didn't It spread in part because of the sharing of a cigarette lighter among security guards working at a hotel where returning international travelers are being quarantined. It later circulated in low-income neighborhoods in the Melbourne area with sizable migrant populations, including inside a supermarket distribution center. [Update July 9 2020] Coronavirus in Australia: Melbourne begins new shutdown Australia's second-largest city has begun a second lockdown in response to a spike in new coronavirus infections. Melbourne's five million residents will be barred from leaving home for six weeks, except for essential reasons. Police say they are setting up a "ring of steel" around the city, with "checkpoints anytime and anywhere" to enforce the measures.
July 3 2020	Revelers flock to Myrtle Beach and the Virus Follows Them Home South Carolina USA A popular spring break and summertime destination on the South Carolina coast is linked to clusters of coronavirus cases among teenagers and young adults in several states. Around 400 teenagers from Loudoun County, Va., trekked in June to the Grand Strand, as this stretch of the South Carolina coast is known, to experience the region’s reputation for teenage debauchery... More than 100 of the Loudoun County teenagers have since tested positive, and public health officials think the number will keep rising.
July 3 2020	Frat house outbreak leaves 93 infected with coronavirus at University of Washington A coronavirus outbreak at the University of Washington’s off-campus frat houses has left at least 93 students sickened with the illness, the school announced Friday. Eighty-nine of the infected students at the Seattle school live on Greek Row, while the other four came into close contact with frat house residents.
July 9 2020	Coronavirus sweeps summer camp, infects 82 campers, counselors and staff in Missouri “At the time of this release 82 campers, counselors and staff have tested positive for Covid-19. All 82 positive cases were from the Kanakuk K-2 camp in Lampe. Many of these cases returned to their place of residence and then tested positive.”
July 9 2020	Churches were eager to reopen, now they are a major source of coronavirus cases In Texas, about 50 people contracted the virus after a pastor told congregants they could once again hug one another... In Texas, Pastor Ron Arbaugh said his church, the Calvary Chapel of San Antonio, had followed "the letter of the law" and tried to practice social distancing since it was allowed to reopen in May. But now, about 50 congregants and staff members - including the pastor and his wife - have tested positive for the coronavirus. Mr Arbaugh said all the cases had been mild so far. He said he does not know how the virus spread in the church or who brought it in, but that he now regrets announcing after several weeks of resumed services that congregants could hug one another again. "In retrospect, I would have said: Just maintain that distance," he said.
July 12 2020	200 farm workers quarantined in Herefordshire outbreak About 200 workers at a vegetable farm and packing business supplying Sainsbury’s, Asda, M&S and Aldi have been ordered to isolate on the property after an outbreak of coronavirus. At least 73 of the workers at AS Green & Co, based in Herefordshire, have tested positive for Covid-19, and more are awaiting results. All of the farm’s workforce has been told to isolate in mobile homes used by pickers and packers during harvest season. The group was being treated as an “extended bubble” to reduce the risk of the outbreak spreading outside the farm, an official said
July 13 2020	US military bases in Okinawa hit by Covid-19 as outbreak worsens The Okinawa prefectural governor's office said 94 cases of Covid-19 have been diagnosed among the personnel at the US Marines Corps' Air Station Futenma, Camp Hansen and Camp Kinza as of Monday afternoon. Coronavirus Outbreak at U.S. Bases in Japan Roils an Uneasy Relationship The Marines reported 94 new cases on Okinawa, an island that had seen just 148 other infections. Local officials say the military is not doing enough. Denny Tamaki, the governor of Okinawa, said he was shocked by the number of infections and said it was “extremely regrettable” that so many cases had emerged among American troops and affiliated personnel in less than a week. Excluding the American cases, Okinawa has recorded just 148 infections since February... The United States military in South Korea also announced on Monday that 11 troops had tested positive upon arrival from the United States.
July 13 2020	Nearly 1,000 U.S. immigration detention center employees test positive for coronavirus More than 930 employees of private contractors running U.S. immigration detention centers have tested positive for the novel coronavirus
July 7-23 2020	Babylon club Cordoba Spain After already enjoying a long night of graduation celebrations, a throng of young people poured into the Babylon discothèque at 5 a.m. to continue partying in the southern Spanish city of Córdoba. Two weeks later, 91 people linked to the Babylon’s 400 identified partygoers have tested positive for the coronavirus and the regional authorities are still struggling to trace all those who entered the club that night, or who later came into contact with them. In Córdoba, there are conflicting accounts of what happened in the Babylon club, which was restricted to 40 percent of its 500-person capacity to allow social distancing. Regional officials say they have identified about 400 people who went to the club that night, though its management has insisted that no more than 140 were inside at any one moment. The club is now closed while an investigation continues.
July 15 and 16 2020	Australia Church Choir singing The case-patient had sung from a choir loft, elevated 3.5 m above the congregation, which he entered before and left after the service. He denied touching objects in the church or mixing with the general congregation.... We detected 12 secondary case-patients among 508 service attendees, SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing was performed for the primary case-patient and 10 secondary case-patients (6). These case-patients formed a single genomic cluster... Airbone transmission.
July 27 2020	Party at Surf City, New Jersey (USA) 17 Jersey Shore lifeguards test positive for coronavirus after partying. 17 lifeguards, all of whom had “attended a party in Surf City,” had tested positive for COVID-19.
July 27 2020	After a party, 17 anesthesiologist residents at UF hospital system diagnosed with COVID At least 17 anesthesiologist residents and a fellow at one of the premier university hospital systems in Florida contracted COVID-19 earlier this month after attending a private party together, according to hospital insiders and internal documents. The outbreak at University of Florida Health occurred after a party at a private home, according to people familiar with the situation.
July 27 2020	Alabama Baptist Church Revival More than 40 people were infected with the coronavirus after attending a multi-day revival event at a north Alabama Baptist church, according to the congregation’s pastor. “The whole church has got it, just about,” Pastor Daryl Ross of Warrior Creek Missionary Baptist church in Marshall county told AI.com. The pastor said churchgoers, including himself, tested positive after a series of religious services featuring a guest pastor over several days last week.
July 29 2020	Parties in Rhode Island So a Department of Health team conducted an in-depth analysis of 4,000 positive cases, looking for commonalities that would explain the increase, and one conclusion became clear: “We are partying too much,” Raimondo said. “Social gatherings are too large, and folks aren’t wearing their masks.” She said health officials traced new cases to a house party with more than 50 people who weren’t wearing masks, a large birthday party in a backyard, a large birthday party in a restaurant, a baby shower, a pool party, and a sports banquet. The analysis found seven to 10 positive cases for each of those parties, she said.
July 30 2020	Meatworks and coronavirus: The 'domino effect' from Victoria's abattoirs pushing COVID-19 case numbers higher Victoria's meat processing businesses are on the nose again; they have been linked to almost 300 cases of coronavirus in the state, with the industry responsible for more cases than any other outside the aged care and education sectors. As of Saturday, there were 80 cases linked to Somerville Retail Services (SRS) in Tottenham, which provides packaged meat for Coles Supermarkets. There were 45 linked to the Australian Lamb Company in the south-west Victorian town of Colac, and at least 62 connected to JBS Australia in Brooklyn and at least five cases at Ingham's poultry processing facility in Thomastown. The cases came after 111 infections connected to Cedar Meats, which was the largest cluster in Victoria until earlier this month. Much has changed in the past four decades, including an increasingly casualised workforce. Many workers in the industry had no choice but to show up for shifts even if they had symptoms,
August 3 2020	MS Roald Amundsen Norweigian Cruise Ship Thirty-six crew and four guests on a Norwegian cruise ship have tested positive for Covid-19, the cruise company says. All 158 crew members from the MS Roald Amundsen have been tested after four staff became ill and were found to have the disease on Friday, according to a statement released Saturday by Hurtigruten, the owner of the ship. The MS Roald Amundsen had two expeditions to the Arctic, one on July 17 with 209 guests, and another on July 24 with 178 guests on board. Coronavirus outbreak hits Norway cruise ship that stopped at dozens of ports: "We have made mistakes" A Norwegian cruise ship line halted all trips and apologized Monday for procedural errors after an outbreak of coronavirus on one ship infected at least 5 passengers and 36 crew. Health authorities fear the ship could have infected dozens of towns and villages along Norway's western coast. The 41 people on the MS Roald Amundsen who tested positive have been admitted to the University Hospital of North Norway in Tromsoe, north of the Arctic Circle, where the ship currently is docked.
August 7 2020	Coronavirus outbreak at Houston-area nursing home kills 17 residents A novel coronavirus outbreak at a Missouri City nursing home, outside of Houston, has killed 17 residents, according to data from state officials. The city also reported that the facility has 24 infected staff members and the nursing home reported 11 currently infected residents who are in stable condition. “This harrowing development speaks to the severity of this pandemic and how everyone needs to take it even more seriously,” said Missouri City Mayor Yolanda Ford of the outbreak. The news comes as Texas officials said Thursday that limited visitation at nursing homes and assisted-living centers can resume, ending a months-long ban to prevent spread of coronavirus among some of the most vulnerable Texans.
August 8 2020	Starbucks in Paju Korea After a woman with the coronavirus visited a Starbucks cafe north of Seoul this month, more than two dozen patrons tested positive days later. But the four face mask-wearing employees escaped infection. The Aug. 8 outbreak in the South Korean city of Paju is another example of how rapidly the SARS-CoV-2 virus can spread in confined, indoor spaces -- as well as ways to minimize transmission. With health authorities around the world still debating the evidence around face masks, the 27-person cluster linked to the air-conditioned coffee outlet adds more support for their mandatory use to help limit the spread of the COVID-19-causing virus.
May - August 12 2020	San Quentin’s coronavirus outbreak shows why ‘herd immunity’ could mean disaster But the disastrous situation unfolding at San Quentin State Prison over the last two months has become the latest of several cautionary tales that show how any effort to achieve herd immunity before a vaccine is available would come with enormous costs in terms of illness and death. COVID-19 spread unchecked across California’s oldest prison in ways that stunned public health experts, despite efforts to control the disease. As of Monday, there had been more than 2,200 cases and 25 deaths, among a population of more than 3,260 people. On Sunday, a guard became one of the latest to die.
August 1-14 2020	Strip club in Toronto Canada As many as 550 people may have been exposed to the coronavirus at a downtown strip club after an employee tested positive for the virus. The potential exposure took place just days after the Brass Rail Tavern, one of the city’s best-known strip clubs, was allowed to re-open. The employee worked four shifts in early August, the city said in a statement, without detailing the capacity in which the employee worked. Public health experts, however, questioned how many patrons would have handed over legitimate contact information. “You know how long it’s going to take them to chase down 550 guys, half of which probably gave fake ID or information,” Andrew Morris, a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Toronto told the Associated Press. Toronto health officials suggested their initial investigation found the club to be lacking when it came to following the required protocols, which include distancing between staff and customers and the use of a plexiglass shield when this is not possible.
August 5 - 21 2020	Sarang Jeil Church in Seoul South Korea In the past week, the outbreak has forced the church to shut down, and its congregants to isolate themselves at home. The infections among church members and their contacts have spiked to 676 cases The outbreak pushed South Korea’s daily caseload to 288 on Thursday, the seventh straight day of triple-digit jumps, which shattered hopes that the country had managed to blunt the epidemic sooner than most nations. It marked the biggest cluster of infections in South Korea since an outbreak in the Shincheonji Church of Jesus in the central city of Daegu in February and March was tied to 5,200 patients.
August 7 2020	Wedding Reception in Maine USA A coronavirus outbreak linked to a wedding in Maine has led to one death and 52 COVID-19 cases, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said Saturday. About 65 people attended a wedding reception at Big Moose Inn in Millinocket on Aug. 7, the Maine CDC said, flouting the state's 50-person limit on indoor gatherings. Officials initially identified 24 people who tested positive for COVID-19 after the wedding, 18 of whom were attendees, and six who had come into contact with guests. The number of positive cases linked to the wedding has since increased, and the person who died Friday was one of the patients who did not attend the wedding,
August 7-16 2020	80th annual Sturgis motorcycle rally South Dakota Department of Transportation officials tracked more than 462,000 vehicles entering Sturgis during the rally... one of the largest mass gatherings since the start of the pandemic. At least seven Covid-19 cases in Nebraska's Panhandle region have been tied to the rally... Minnesota also confirmed 15 cases of Covid-19 connected with the rally, South Dakota state health officials announced Thursday that a person who worked at a tattoo shop in Sturgis had tested positive for the virus and could have possibly exposed people during the event last week. Revved by Sturgis Rally, COVID-19 infections move fast, far Health departments in four states, including South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska and Wyoming, have reported a total of 81 cases among people who attended the rally. South Dakota health officials said Monday they had received reports of infections from residents of two other states — North Dakota and Washington. The Department of Health also issued public warnings of possible COVID-19 exposure at five businesses popular with bikers, saying it didn't know how many people could have been exposed.
August 27 2020	Billionaire nightclub Sardinia Italy Italy contacting visitors to Sardinian nightclub after Covid-19 cluster More than 60 cases are linked to Billionaire, owned by former F1 boss Flavio Briatore Italian health authorities are tracing visitors to the former Formula One team boss Flavio Briatore’s Sardinian nightclub amid fears of a coronavirus cluster after more than 60 confirmed cases were linked to the venue. Billionaire, on Sardinia’s Emerald Coast, has hosted thousands of guests in August, including hundreds of Italian and international VIPs. Silvio Berlusconi tests positive for Covid-19 after Sardinia visit Former Italian prime minister recently met Flavio Briatore, who owned nightclub at heart of coronavirus cluster
Summer 2020	A large national outbreak of COVID-19 linked to air travel, Ireland Fifty-nine laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 from six of the eight different health regions (Regions A–H) throughout the Republic of Ireland were linked to an international flight into Ireland in summer 2020 (Figure 1). An outbreak case was defined as positive PCR for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) (naso-pharyngeal swab) in either a passenger or a contact of a passenger. Thirteen cases were passengers on the same flight to Ireland, each having transferred via a large international airport, flying into Europe from three different continents
September 11 2020	Scores of Senegalese troops test positive for Covid-19 in The Gambia The Senegalese army says about 100 of its soldiers from the peacekeeping mission in The Gambia have tested positive for coronavirus. The military contingent composed of 600 soldiers was returning home.
September 25 2020	Sweet 16 'super-spreader' party in New York leads to 37 coronavirus cases, $12,000 fine USA The birthday bash was held on Sept. 25 at the Miller Place Inn on Long Island — about 65 miles east of Manhattan — and drew 81 people... That party was in violation of emergency state health codes that limit gatherings to 50 people or 50 percent of room capacity, whichever is a smaller number. Partygoers also failed to wear masks and maintain social distance, according to Bellone. The 37 people linked to the event who tested positive consist of 28 students and nine adults.
September 26 2020	Virus’s unseen hot zone: The American farm The Department of Agricultural Economics at Purdue University, in collaboration with Microsoft, estimates 128,000 farmworkers nationwide have tested positive for the coronavirus, as of Sept. 24. But Jayson Lusk, a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue, says their dashboard could be a dramatic undercount as it does not include part-time and temporary workers. By comparison, 42,988 meatpacking workers have tested positive for the novel coronavirus in 498 meat plants as of Sept. 24
September 26 - October 1 2020	White House Cluster (40 and counting) USA Between the celebration of the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court to the first Presidential debate. The President, the First Lady, their son, Hope Hicks, the chair of the Republican National Committe, the president of Notre Dame university, campaign manager, two Republican senators, 3 White House reporters, Kellyanne Conway, 11 people who helped set up the debate, Labor Secretary Scalia's wife... 40 and counting
September 28 to October 4 2020	Spinco Gym class (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) A spin studio that public health officials say followed all Covid-19 protocols is now reporting 61 positive cases of Covid-19, and as many as 100 staff, clients and family members may have been exposed.
October 13 2020	Bethel Redding College, Faith Healing Church School, California USA Shasta County health officials had confirmed 274 positive coronavirus cases at the school, which has a student body of more than 1,600 people. With 159 new cases reported over the weekend — and another 95 on Monday — Shasta County is on the verge of being moved into Tier 4 in the state’s four-tiered regulatory system, indicating “widespread” transmission risk.
October 17 2020	Wedding in Suffolk County New York USA Wedding and Birthday Party Infect 56, Leaving Nearly 300 in Quarantine Ninety-one people attended the wedding, on Oct. 17, officials said. Thirty people, including 27 guests, two employees and an outside vendor, later tested positive for the virus, and 156 people wound up under quarantine, officials said.
October 20 2020	Nursing Home in Kansas USA All 62 residents at the privately owned Andbe Home in Norton have tested positive for the virus... Ten people living at a Kansas nursing home have died after an outbreak of Covid-19 infected every resident... Some staff members have also tested positive, and the rest are being tested
November 1 2020	15 members of north Texas family get COVID-19 after small birthday party her family didn’t believe gathering with family was high-risk and that they’d all grown tired of not seeing each other as regularly as they normally do.
November 7 2020	White house cluster take 2 At least 12 people in President Donald Trump's orbit have tested positive since White House chief of staff Mark Meadows tested positive for COVID-19 More than 130 Secret Service officers are said to be infected with coronavirus or quarantining in wake of Trump’s campaign travel nearly 50 Covid-19 cases among the Trump administration and campaign officials including Donald Trump Jr.
November 7 2020	300-person superspreader wedding in Washington Nursing home staffers attended a 300-person superspreader wedding. Now six residents have died. more than 300 people packed into a wedding near rural Ritzville, Wash., defying state restrictions. Authorities later traced more than a dozen coronavirus cases and two outbreaks to the ceremony — and warned that the fallout would likely get worse. Now, health officials say the wedding also included some guests whose job is caring for among the most vulnerable to coronavirus: nursing-home residents. And at least six residents have now died of covid-19 at two nursing homes where staffers tested positive for the virus after attending the wedding
November 7-8 2020	Youth basketball league, Santa Clara USA A large COVID-19 outbreak in Santa Clara County is being traced back to youth basketball programs, the county announced Friday. The county says the private basketball program for middle and high school-aged players was violating local and state health orders. As of Dec. 11, public health officials identified 77 positive cases related to the outbreak in the county, including 39 youth players, three coaches and 35 additional contacts. The investigation also unveiled 17 additional cases in other counties so far. The county learned that players from affected teams traveled from Santa Clara County to Place County to participate in a tournament on Nov. 7 and Nov. 8. Of the 37 players, 33 of them tested positive for the virus, along with all three coaches from the Santa Clara County based teams.
November 11-14 2020	Naughty in N'awlins swingers convention in New Orleans USA Forty-one people have tested positive for coronavirus after attending a swingers convention in New Orleans, in what officials have called a “super-spreader event”.
November 19 2020	cluster at Hong Kong dance clubs balloons to 80 cases after warning of ‘super-spreader’ event A coronavirus cluster centred on Hong Kong dance clubs has mushroomed into the second-largest outbreak of the pandemic after another 46 people linked to the venues were confirmed as infected, taking the total to 80.... Authorities had earlier warned of a “super-spreading” event linked to the 14 dance clubs located across the city... Billionaire Rosanna Wang Gaw tested positive yesterday, while a dance club she visited in Wan Chai saw five other preliminary positive cases.
November 7-8 2020	Youth basketball league, Santa Clara USA A large COVID-19 outbreak in Santa Clara County is being traced back to youth basketball programs, the county announced Friday. The county says the private basketball program for middle and high school-aged players was violating local and state health orders. As of Dec. 11, public health officials identified 77 positive cases related to the outbreak in the county, including 39 youth players, three coaches and 35 additional contacts. The investigation also unveiled 17 additional cases in other counties so far. The county learned that players from affected teams traveled from Santa Clara County to Place County to participate in a tournament on Nov. 7 and Nov. 8. Of the 37 players, 33 of them tested positive for the virus, along with all three coaches from the Santa Clara County based teams.
December 1 2020	Nursing Homes in State College Pennsylvania Nearly 90% of Centre Crest residents are actively infected with the coronavirus, leaving the Bellefonte facility as a symbol of the unabated spread of COVID-19 in nursing or personal care homes in Centre County. There were 145 active cases among the nursing and rehabilitation center’s 164 residents as of Monday. There are also 46 active cases among the facility’s 283 employees, a rate of about 16%.
December 4-9 2020	High school wrestling tournament Florida USA an unmasked wrestling tournament of 10 participating high schools from 3 counties lead to at least 79 infections and 1 death (38 attendees and 41 contacts). During December 8–9, 13 wrestlers from school A received positive SARS-CoV-2 test results (Figure), including nine who were symptomatic, two who were asymptomatic, and two for whom symptom status at time of specimen collection was unknown.
December 5 2020	Santa visits Belgian care home The outbreak followed a visit on 5 December by volunteers dressed as Saint Nicholas and his helper Zwarte Piet, organised by the nursing home’s management. The white-bearded, red-robed figure of Saint Nicholas, or Sinterklaas, brings gifts to Belgians every 6 December. But within days, residents had displayed symptoms of coronavirus. Twenty six have since died and 85 more have tested positive for coronavirus, along with 40 staff.
December 19 2020	Prison and Nursing Home in South Korea South Korean officials have said that 185 of the country’s record-breaking Saturday tally (1,097) were in a prison. The facility in south-eastern Seoul has reported a major outbreak, with 184 inmates and one employee diagnosed so far, according to a justice ministry official... About 61 people at a nursing home in the city of Cheongju contracted the virus, Yonhap news agency said.
December 19 2020	Wholesale Seafood Market in Bangkok, Thailand The 548 new cases, most of them connected with an outbreak at a wholesale seafood market on the outskirts of Bangkok, come after Thailand had only a small number of infections over the past several months due to strict border and quarantine controls. Health officials said 516 of the new cases, most of them migrant workers from Myanmar, were found in connection with the outbreak at the Klang Koong shrimp market in Samut Sakhon province. All of those infections were linked to a 67-year-old seafood vendor who tested positive for the coronavirus earlier, the director general of the medical sciences department, Opas Karnkawinpong, said in a news conference broadcast to all TV channels on Saturday night. The first case at the market was confirmed on Thursday, followed by 13 more on Friday. “While there is a likelihood of finding more infections in crowded foreign communities around the shrimp market, they are low-risk groups because they are working age and healthy,” Opas said. Most of those who tested positive were asymptomatic.
December 23-28 2020	More than 100 residents have COVID-19 at Escondido nursing home California USA the nursing home earned the distinction of having the largest active outbreak in a skilled nursing facility in San Diego County. As of Wednesday, Escondido Post Acute had 111 residents and 70 healthcare workers who had the novel coronavirus out of a total of 139 residents and 81 staff who had tested positive there since the beginning of the pandemic... there were 48 active outbreaks in skilled nursing facilities, including 16 new ones since last week’s report, bringing the total of novel coronavirus outbreaks to 133.
December 27 2020	COVID-19 outbreak infects 43 staff members at Kaiser Permanente San Jose Medical Center (USA) 43 staff members have tested positive for COVID-19 this week, starting last Sunday, Dec. 27 until yesterday. Additionally, the hospital says a holiday-spirited costume that was air-powered and worn by a staff member who was briefly in the emergency department on Christmas day... the staff member who appeared in the emergency department was only trying to spread holiday cheer.
December 31 2020	145 employees at Washington state Costco test positive for COVID-19 (USA) Health officials said this week that 145 workers have tested positive for COVID-19 at a Costco store near Yakima, but the store remains open while the Yakima Health District investigates.
January 6 2021	Trump's Mob Washington DC USA At least 19 Capitol Police officers either tested positive for the coronavirus or were found through contact tracing to have been exposed since a mob of Trump supporters — most of them not wearing masks — attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, according to three people familiar with the matter. They are the latest additions to a growing tally of people who have been infected since the deadly riot at the Capitol. Seven members of Congress have tested positive since the attack; some House Democrats have pointed to their Republican colleagues who did not wear masks while they were sheltering from rioters and forced into secure hiding for hours.
January 17 2021	Nursing Home in Belgium The UK variant of the coronavirus has killed three residents at a retirement home in northwestern Belgium and infected 111 people including 39 staff members, its director Jurgen Duyck told AFP on Sunday. The cluster represents two-thirds of the residents of the De Groene Verte home in the western Flanders city of Houthulst near the border with France.
January 18 2021	The Traveling Salesman Problem (China) A so-called Covid-19 "superspreader" who traveled around northeastern China has been linked to 102 confirmed infections, according to Chinese officials. The individual, who worked as a salesman promoting health products to the elderly, had traveled from his home province of Heilongjiang to neighboring Jilin province, bringing the virus with him. Authorities claim he unknowingly spread the virus among elderly residents for several days before he was tracked down by health officials as a close contact of a confirmed case.
January 19 2021	Two Rivers Correctional Oregon USA 639 inmates at Two Rivers have tested positive for the virus and 304 cases are active, making the prison the center of the largest COVID outbreak in the state
January 23 2021	A cat's birthday party reportedly leads to 15 people contracting COVID An outbreak that led to 15 people testing positive for COVID-19 has been traced back to a birthday party thrown for a cat. Ten people who attended the feline fiesta contracted the deadly virus, along with 5 friends and family members of the cat’s owner, reported the Daily Mail. The birthday puss did not contract the disease, the outlet noted.
January 8 - 23 2021	COVID-19 variant first seen in U.K. found in Barrie long-term care home 127 residents have tested positive for COVID-19, all but two of the residents at the home. Six residents are currently in hospital. Eighty-four staff members have tested positive for the virus, which Gardner says account for nearly half of the home's staff. Gardner also said there have been 32 deaths at the home, as of Saturday. The outbreak was declared on Jan. 8.
February 8 2021	Nursing home in south of France A 116-year-old nun has recovered from Covid-19 after it swept through a nursing home in the south of France, writes Kim Willsher, the Guardian’s Paris correspondent. Sister Andrée, born Lucile Randon in 1904, tested positive for the coronavirus last month at the Sainte-Catherine Labouré home near Toulon where, despite health safety measures, 81 of the 88 residents contracted the virus and 10 of whom died.
February 27 2021	Namur Prison, Belgium More than 60 prisoners catch Covid. Inmates are to be restricted to their cells in a Belgian prison after more than half of a facility's population tested positive for Covid-19. Quarantine measures have been introduced at Namur prison following the rapid spread of coronavirus among its 132 prisoners. Inmates will not be allowed walks or showers, but will have a hot meal and hygiene products delivered daily. Belgium prisoners quarantined after virus outbreak
March 17 2021	Hong Kong Gym The outbreak, which has grown to 132 cases, began last week in a gym that caters to white-collar workers. Hundreds of close contacts have been rounded up for quarantine, including a large number of children whose schools have turned up cases.
April 4 2021	Plane from New Delhi to Hong Kong 69 passengers on Vistara flight UK6395 from New Delhi to Hong Kong on April 4th have now tested positive for COVID-19. 22 of them tested positive after their Day 12 hotel quarantine test.
April 11 2021	Whistler Ski Resort Canada Canada ski resort linked to largest outbreak of P1 Covid variant outside Brazil Whistler, in British Columbia, has nearly 200 of 877 confirmed cases in the province but officials have only a murky idea of how widely variant has spread... The P1 outbreak has since spread throughout the province and into neighbouring Alberta. It is suspected of infecting 21 players on Vancouver’s professional hockey team, the Canucks.
April 12-17 2021	Kumbh Mela festival India “Pilgrims from all states carried variant viruses and seeded epidemics,” said T Jacob John, a former director of virology at the Indian Council of Medical Research. In the aftermath, Ashish Jha, dean of the School of Public Health at Brown University, said the Kumbh Mela was possibly “the biggest superspreader event in the history of the pandemic”
April 25 2021	Spanish Workplace Cougher A Spanish man with Covid symptoms who coughed on work colleagues and told them “I’m going to give you all the coronavirus” has been charged with intentionally causing injury after allegedly infecting 22 people, Days before the outbreak, the man showed Covid symptoms but refused his colleagues’ suggestions to go home and self-isolate, police said in a statement. After work, and showing no improvement, he went for a PCR test before visiting a gym and returning to work the next day. Though his superiors told him to go home after he allegedly had showed a temperature of 40 degrees C, the man refused. He walked around his workplace, lowering his face mask and coughing on people, saying “I’m going to infect you all with the coronavirus,” according to police. At the end of the day, his PCR test came back positive. His colleagues were then tested, with five returning positive results. They in turn infected family members, including three infants, police said. At the gym the man visited, three people tested positive and also infected family members.
April 2021	People's Church maskless service Oregon USA An Oregon church sued over covid-19 restrictions. Now, an outbreak there has sickened 74 In early April, dozens of maskless churchgoers in northwest Oregon stood onstage singing and clapping inside a packed indoor venue for Easter Sunday service. The Peoples Church, which previously sued the state over coronavirus restrictions, hosted three similar indoor services that day, each lasting a little over an hour. Now, the Oregon Health Authority says that at least 74 people associated with the church have tested positive for the coronavirus — one of the state’s largest workplace outbreaks.... Murray said the church, which has held in-person services throughout the pandemic, intends to continue with in-person ceremonies on Sunday.
May 27 2021	Revival Ekklesia Mission Church Vietnam On Wednesday, three members of a local evangelical sect visited a hospital in Binh Thanh District in Ho Chi Minh City with respiratory conditions. They were isolated and tested, and were positive for COVID-19. Contact tracing and testing found 33 more cases through Thursday night, all linked to the sect (29 members, seven close contacts), with positive cases spread across 16 districts, including a chef at the Sheraton Hotel downtown. 53% of these people have shown COVID-19 symptoms - which is high. The group in question is the Revival Ekklesia Mission, with an address in Go Vap District. According to their Facebook page, the mission is “a Christian charismatic congregation in fervent prayers for Revival and Salvation in Jesus Christ’s name for everyone.”
November 12, 2022	A cruise ship with 800 covid cases docks in Sydney

Note: After the George Floyd protests in Anytown USA (and the Adama Traoré ones in France) where righteous outrage overwhelmed social distancing with chanting crowds and close contact protest, I've been minded to stop tracking these things as we are now settling in for the long haul. Hopefully this can still be of some use beyond an audience of one. I'll keep the linked page updated...

[Update July 19 2020]

I have been keeping my coronavirus superspreading event timeline updated since March. Friends, the world over, send me new links. I learned that folks at the CDC also found it useful although it troubled me that they hadn't their own. The value of a link.

I read in Washington Post that "more than 1,000 suspected clusters have been logged in a database compiled by a coder in the Netherlands". I'm so glad that someone else has taken up the charge, I wish the Post would link or cite that "coder in the Netherlands", that's the web way.

[Update July 26 2020]

Found it. Koen Swinkels had the right idea and published his Covid-19 Superspreading Events Database as a Google Docs spreadsheet.

There's a nice overview and some cool visualizations. It's obviously comprehensive data and bloodless commentary.

I wish I could have Koen's just-the-facts attitude and detached voice at the dismal spectacle, but I simply can't hide the edge of my outrage in my commentary. It's visceral and tinged with grief at those I've lost and those that we are losing daily.

Not to be too morbid also, I've noticed that some of the venues I've published in have succumbed to bit rot. I would never have thought that Yahoo Groups would vanish from the web taking with the archives of any number of communities I've participated in. I do believe in owning my words and have always kept a web site since 1996 although it has moved from host to host (from Channel1 to Mediaone to Roadrunner to Comcast and now to Gandi for my domain and Dreamhost for my hosting - the last two companies I am very happy with and would gladly continue to patronize in perpetuity). Still I also believe in saving lots of copies everywhere. Thinking about what would happen after my death, I've resolved to move most things back onto this blog. That goes for Twitter, Facebook and other media. I think Google will be quite happy to keep Blogger alive and certainly that might be more dependable than expecting my descendants to continue to pay Gandi for my domain and Dreamhost for my web site, if indeed there's anything of value for posterity. I don't begrudge the folk in Mountain View earning nanodollars serving ads around my notes.

[Update September 6 2020]

The die is cast and I'm moving this timeline over to the blog for archiving. Friends continue to send me updates and I update intermittently. I've taken to also sending updates to Koen's collaborative effort.

• Coronavirus Superspreading Events - A Timeline
• Dear Mr Surgeon General Re: Meatpacking Plants
• Top Public Health Interventions
• In A Covidious Time

File under: coronavirus, pandemic, public health, virus, distribution, transmission, propagation, disease, health, biology, modeling, disaster, human factors, social, data, decisions, lists, tradition, toli

Writing log: Initially written May 19, 2020