Thanks for the update! My father in law just retired to Panama. He's in a more rural area and has been preparing for social distancing his whole life so I'm not too worried about him, but its good to hear whats going on.

Panama is one of the coolest places I've been. I normally spend about a four hour layover there every year on the way to South America. There's a great Jimmy Buffet restaurant in the airport. The thing that struck me the most about Panama City is the skyline. You'd think you were flying into Manhattan.

Here is an update from Panama.

Just to recap if you haven't read other posts in this thread, I've lived here about 20 years so very familiar with the country. Population is about 4 million, about a third of that living in the capitol (Panama City). Tropical climate, high eighties to low nineties, about 80% humidity year round. Stable democratic government, currency is the U.S. dollar due to Canal Treaty. Good infrastructure and decent healthcare system that is a mix of private/social. Hospital beds per capita not much less than U.S. Has been a popular destination for retirees from the U.S. who are looking for tropical landing spot, because of all that I've mentioned above plus pretty easy to get by here even if don't speak Spanish. Not a 'First World' level country but much better than what someone from the States might think if has never visited.

Panama reported its first confirmed case of COVID-19 on March 8th. Each evening, the Ministry of Health here gives an updated report with number cases, deaths, hospitalizations, and ICU beds. My understanding is Panama has been testing quite a bit, and recently the Gorgas Medical Research Institute here announced they are now capable of manufacturing their own COVID tests so Panama no longer has to totally rely on importing those into the country.

Cumulative Total Cases
Day 1 (March 8th): 1 (+1)
Day 2: 8 (+7) Closed all schools/cancelled sports/banned events over 50 people
Day 3: 14 (+6)
Day 4: 27 (+13)
Day 5: 36 (+9) International borders closed
Day 6: 43 (+7)
Day 7: 55 (+12)
Day 8: 69 (+14)
Day 9: 86 (+17) Curfew implemented (9pm to 5 am)
Day 10: 109 (+23)
Day 11: 137 (+28)
Day 12: 200 (+63) All non-essential businesses closed
Day 13: 245 (+45)
Day 14: 313 (+68)
Day 15: 345 (+32)
Day 16: 443 (+98) Curfew extended (5pm to 5am)
Day 17: 558 (+115) Full lockdown implemented, can only be outside home to get food/supplies
Day 18: 674 (+116)
Day 19: 786 (+112)
Day 20: 901(+115)
Day 21: 989(+88)
Day 22 (Yesterday): 1075 (+86)

As of today, there have been 27 deaths, 19 of those deaths in the past 5 days. As of last night there were currently 41 people in ICU.

From what I can tell, it looks like Panama's quick and aggressive social distancing actions have stabilized the spread. From the data above, you can see that as of about 5-6 days ago, the number of new cases seems to be linear (roughly fixed amount each day) and the new cases curve 'flattened'.

Panama's Ministry of Health is stating that they expect the 'peak' of the load on the health care systems to now occur over the next 2 weeks. The general expectation of people I know here, as of now, is that we'll probably remain in the 'lock down' state through most or all of April, but hopefully in about another month will have ridden through this and the government will be able to then start easing a bit off the lockdown and let businesses re-open and so forth, though no doubt still with strong social distancing rules and vigilance, and I'm guessing we won't see them be able to consider reopening international borders, out of fear of importing new cases, for quite a lot longer, depending on how things are playing out in Europe, the U.S., Mexico, the rest of Latin America, etc.

How are things going in Panama?

And do you work? If so, what industry?

DeWrecking Crew said:

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Exactly...telling everyone to stay inside in the temperature range that the virus lives the longest seems counterintuitive. If infected shouldn't we be sitting outside by a fire pit, 6 feet away from each other, drinking 70% moonshine?

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Yes! I thought I was taught flu season is related to populations confined primarily indoors during the ugly outdoor weather pattern over the colder months. Once people circulate and spend more time outdoors viral spread dissipates

plain_o_llama said:

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How are things going in Panama?

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We are still locked down pretty hard here.

Here is a good site for all data in Panama, including daily numbers/graphs of how many hospitalized and in ICU.

https://datastudio.google.com/reporting/1MEhX6TrZjhZhT8Lws5MGSRBRA4B6FOSQ/page/bNGIB

It is in Spanish but probably not too hard for most folks to understand even if do not know much Spanish, with perhaps a google of a word or two to get the English translation.

Aust Ag said:

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And do you work? If so, what industry?

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Is this to me? Yeah, I work. Software industry kind of stuff.

It will be interesting to see how the virus survives in the desert Southwest during high summer: West Texas, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah-Nevada Great Basin area and Southern California. These areas will have high 90s-100s with arid conditions consistently.

Article about Ecuador in the BBC suggests they are having problems in their tropical regions (assuming I have my geography correct.)

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-52324218

The government said 6,700 people died in Guayas province in the first two weeks of April, far more than the usual 1,000 deaths there in the same period.

Guayas is home to Guayaquil - the nation's largest city and the part of the country worst-hit by Covid-19

If this is really true then I wouldn't expect outside temperature to matter much. Amount of sunlight may help slow spread outside but according to this it may have survived nearly up to the boiling point in some tests.

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/coronavirus-can-survive-prolonged-exposure-to-high-temperatures-study-625118

Quote:

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When heated to 60 C for an hour, however, the virus stayed on the latter and even replicated at the prolonged high temperature, indicating that the virus, even after the regular disinfection process in a lab, may still linger.

When disinfected at 92 C, the virus is seemingly successfully wiped out, but because its RNA gets damaged in the process, the sensitivity of the check is harmed.

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shertown04 said:

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If this is really true then I wouldn't expect outside temperature to matter much. Amount of sunlight may help slow spread outside but according to this it may have survived nearly up to the boiling point in some tests.

https://www.jpost.com/health-science/coronavirus-can-survive-prolonged-exposure-to-high-temperatures-study-625118

Quote:

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When heated to 60 C for an hour, however, the virus stayed on the latter and even replicated at the prolonged high temperature, indicating that the virus, even after the regular disinfection process in a lab, may still linger.

When disinfected at 92 C, the virus is seemingly successfully wiped out, but because its RNA gets damaged in the process, the sensitivity of the check is harmed.

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I may have it wrong but I don't think the suggestion is that the heat itself is going to directly kill the virus. The two explanations I've heard for summer helping is 1) particles that people sneeze or cough may move differently and spread less in warm, wet air than in cool, dry air; and 2) behavior patterns change so people are less crammed together indoors compared to when it's cold.

GE, That is my understanding also.

What people are pointing at is the fact that a number of common respiratory viruses including the influenza strains, RSV, and other coronaviruses display seasonality (at least in non-tropical areas). Why that happens is not settled science.

This article discusses some of the theories related to Influenza. For some reason I'm amused that guinea pigs were used as "guinea pigs." That research was only done in 2007.
https://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-01/fyi-why-winter-flu-season/
Additional research points to absolute humidity as a key variable.

Here is a study published this month that suggests that 4 common circulating coronaviruses have a similar seasonality:

https://www.contagionlive.com/news/4-known-human-coronaviruses-are-highly-seasonal-study-finds

and the study

"Coronavirus occurrence and transmission over 8 years in the HIVE cohort of households in Michigan"
https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/doi/10.1093/infdis/jiaa161/5815743

With all that, the experts seem to hedge because the seasonality of the disease from these viruses is not totally understood. Moreover, these existing viruses are circulating in populations with some existing immunity. Maybe that is significant and the novelty of SARS-CoV-2 changes things. Or this virus is different in some other way.

Late yesterday Panama announced extending the airport closure for another 30 days, until at least May 22.

The situation in Guayaquil is scaring the piss outta those countries.