COVID-19 depressing news

Noted this morning:

Singapore reported 528 new COVID-19 cases as of noon on Tuesday (Apr 28), bringing the national total to 14,951.

The vast majority of the new cases are work permit holders residing in foreign worker dormitories, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said in its preliminary update.

In a later update, MOH said there were 10 cases in the community, of which seven were Singapore citizens or permanent residents; there were also two work pass holders and one visit pass holder who were infected.

And also on the CNA website:

Rome:  Deaths from the COVID-19 epidemic in Italy climbed by 382 on Tuesday (Apr 28), against 333 the day before, the Civil Protection Agency said, while the total of people infected since the start of the outbreak topped 200,000.

The daily tally of new infections stood at 2,091, higher than the 1,739 recorded on Monday.

Over in Indonesia, no one really knows what is going on, it seems:

The actual number of COVID-19 deaths in Indonesia may be substantially higher than officially reported as several regions have recorded hundreds of fatalities among patients under surveillance (PDPs), who are suspected of having contracted the highly contagious coronavirus.

Patients under surveillance refer to people with COVID-19 symptoms who have not been confirmed as having the disease, meaning that they are waiting either to be tested or for their test results to come back.

The central government's daily count of fatalities, at 773 as of Tuesday, does not include all PDPs who have died.

No one seems to understand why the UK has done so badly, too.  Now they are worried about kids getting a dangerous condition possibly related to the virus:

More than a dozen children have fallen ill with a new and potentially fatal combination of symptoms apparently linked to Covid-19, including a sore stomach and heart problems.

The children affected appear to have been struck by a form of toxic shock syndrome. All have been left so seriously unwell that they have had to be treated in intensive care.

At least one has received extra corporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) treatment, which is used when someone’s life is at risk because they can no longer breathe for themselves.

NHS bosses are so concerned that they have written to doctors alerting them to the emergence of these cases and asked them to urgently refer any children with similar symptoms to hospital.

On the upside:  it's good to live in Australia, which does not seem to be getting the international attention it deserves for having apparently taken effective action that looks likely to all but eliminate it.

Update:   why are Iranians so prone to the spread of crank rumours?:

TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — The false belief that toxic methanol cures the coronavirus has seen over 700 people killed in Iran, an official said Monday.

That represents a higher death toll than so far released by the Iranian Health Ministry.

An adviser to the ministry, Hossein Hassanian, said that the difference in death tallies is because some alcohol poisoning victims died outside of hospital.

“Some 200 people died outside of hospitals”, Hassanian told The Associated Press.

Alcohol poisoning has skyrocketed by ten times over in Iran in the past year, according to a government report released earlier in April, amid the coronavirus pandemic.