3 weeks ago Germany seemed to be on the same path as the UK with cases rising to above 2k a day. Now they have less than 1k again with 20% crowds to be let back in for the football. Anyone know what they are doing that the UK isn’t? Supposedly the UK is testing more than them in relation to population though that’s according to the Government who tend to sort of umm...lie a lot.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
Electing competent people to prominent positions of power maybe.
That’s a VERY good question. One thing I do know about Germany and covid is that there’s huge regional variation, in terms of how they deal with covid and how badly they’re affected. A bit like a mini version of the US. So the answer to your question is likely to be complicated.
Not sure we do anything special here. I can only speak about everyday life from my perspective: Masks are mandatory in pretty much all shops and public transport and compliance is very high. Pretty much all shops have stations with disinfectants. There are still capacity limits enforced in some areas. Many people still work from home, if they can. Large events are mostly canceled and clubs are largely closed. That's it from my perspective and acknowledging that there are some regional differences. Is it really that much different in other countries?
Outside of the public environment, what are the German's attitudes to mixing within households? Ie. visiting private homes?
According to the government, most of the UK current case increase is being put down to transmission within peoples homes rather than public places. This is the only difference I could see as a difference between the German numbers and the UK ones.
Cases back up to over 1k per day in Belgium, and unlike in July now it's spread over the whole country instead of a few infected cities. Seems like it'll come and go in these waves during all of autumn and probably winter too.
Deaths and hospitalizations are staying very low compared to March-May though, probably because we're testing more and because more of the persons infected are below 60. Don't have a clue whether that's a good sign or not, because if they don't take additional measures, sooner or later it's gonna spread to the 60+ population too and we're back to where we started.
Deaths and hospitalizations are staying very low compared to March-May though, probably because we're testing more and because more of the persons infected are below 60. Don't have a clue whether that's a good sign or not, because if they don't take additional measures, sooner or later it's gonna spread to the 60+ population too and we're back to where we started.
It isn’t scientifically valid. There’s a thread on some of the scientific problems with it here:
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I also read that the “research institute” that released it was headed by Steve Bannon until his arrest.
Essentially it’s more conspiracy fodder. I’m sure plenty will still believe it though, some people just want to believe it was engineered in a lab. It can also be tricky to distinguish pseudoscience from science if you don’t have a background in it.
I always think with these pseudoscientific “studies”, if the authors believe them why don’t they submit them to proper scientific journals? They could become scientific supertars with their well evidenced studies that showed something that shocked the world.
From the "Rule of Law Society" led by one Steve Bannon. Wow, wonder why that lacks credibility.
I don’t have the background to discern the validity of her claims. I personally never bought the man made theory.
But I just thought it would have sparked a bit of a discussion is all. Unless it’s already been discussed before and I missed it.
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Steve Bannon, the Trump advisor?
Yeah was all over Twitter so definitely deserves a mention!
The very same. There’s a strong political agenda to portray the “Chinese virus” as man-made.
What you’ve described is exactly what we’re doing in the UK. They’ve now added the rule of 6 to combat the increased cases which means no indoor social gatherings of more than 6 people as the data was supposedly showing house parties as a key driver for transmission. It must be that your test, track and trace programme is much better than ours or your population is more adherent to mask wearing/social distancing rules. Doesn’t seem to be a general policy thing.
If anybody is struggling to get tests on government website try at 12pm, 6pm, 8pm
I thought it was website rumours about a new "batch" released at those times but I stayed logged on and refreshed around 6 pm and managed to get a test yesterday evening (tested negative), the irony was that the walk in test centre was completely empty apart from myself and the test volunteers for my allocated half hour slot to come in and get tested.
I thought it was website rumours about a new "batch" released at those times but I stayed logged on and refreshed around 6 pm and managed to get a test yesterday evening (tested negative), the irony was that the walk in test centre was completely empty apart from myself and the test volunteers for my allocated half hour slot to come in and get tested.
I'm not aware that everyone is tested. I'm wondering if he came from somewhere on Italy's red list?
I wonder if it’s pub culture? Other European countries do have bars but meeting up every weekend to get pissed out of their minds isn’t as integral to their social lives as it is for people in the UK (and Ireland) And getting massively pissed is an absolute disaster for social distancing.
True. Although I wouldn't say France had that particular culture, neither Spain or Portugal really (Brits abroad aside)?
I do wonder why there hasn't been greater focus on the differences between the initial reactions country by country and case load both initially and currently. Surely if we're investing billions on vaccine development we should likewise be investing a collosal amount on gathering and analysing this data. If we are then firstly why are the population being kept in the dark and secondly why are we seeing wildly different approaches, rules and results? I get that it's still a new virus but still. The UK response now seems as misguided, contradictory and reactionary as it did day 1 which is absurd.
At the start of the pandemic we were regularly told that the timing of a lockdown had to be perfect as compliance for harsh measures was a finite resource. We had social scientists explaining that there was a relationship between harshness and length of measures and compliance and ergo long term results; yet I haven't heard much about that since. Likewise I haven't heard much in several months about the key priority being to avoid overwhelming hospitals (which was never a reality in the end); was this strategy abandoned or was it just politically uncomfortable to discuss?
Maybe I've just not followed/read up enough.
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Hehe.
Ugh, right nothing to see then.
Can't be much to it if a character like that is behind it.
I wonder what test they are using. Rapid antigen? Lamp? Abbot ID now?
We are evaluating a number of point of care rapid tests in Victoria at the moment.
No idea. Whatever test they’re using it’s an odd decision to test someone straight off a flight. I’m generally in favour of rapid tests on an enormous scale as way to get life back a bit closer to normal. I don’t think they work as a screening test coming off a plane though. Not when there’s such a high risk of getting infected in transit and it will take a few days to start shedding virus. And that’s without even getting into the sensitivity of tests with such a fast turnaround.
Might filter out people that have a current high viral load likely to spread in the immediate future. Could then contact everyone on their flight to isolate and get tested. But for sure you will miss some.
Like I said in my earlier post most of these discussions usually end up inconclusive. Unless one day China suddenly becomes completely honest and transparent and admits the virus is manufactured, or everyone suddenly stops speculating and accepts the virus is occurred naturally, no one could reach a certain conclusion. And we know both scenarios will not happen.
I'm a biomedical scientist myself and I agree that the points in Yan's report are circumstantial. She raises some interesting questions but she can't prove China has actually manufactured the virus. On the other hand, no one can prove the virus is naturally occurring either. So basically it always ends up your words against theirs, depending on what you believe.
Yeah, true. Even picking up the majority of cases coming through the airport is probably way more effective than relying on people to self isolate. The most likely to be infected are the least likely to comply.
UK 3991 cases and 20 deaths.
One third of those cases here in the North West. These local outbreaks are spreading outward, and the test, trace and isolate system that was supposed to be playing whack-a-mole with every cluster is failing badly.
Surely your not surprised ?
To me, these rising numbers are utterly predictable. When a country comes out of lockdown and people start interacting together again, then cases will obviously rise. That’s just a virus doing what a virus does. No amount of testing can stop this, unfortunately. Not when we know people can pass it on before they get symptoms (if they ever get symptoms!) You can’t whack invisible moles.
What I don’t get is how any country can turn things round from here. That’s why I was so surprised Germany had reversed the post-lockdown escalation. Has any other country managed this, anywhere in the world?
What I don’t get is how any country can turn things round from here. That’s why I was so surprised Germany had reversed the post-lockdown escalation. Has any other country managed this, anywhere in the world?
3991 cases in UK today, from 3100 yesterday!
Big jump!
Big jump!
So in this week alone the government have broken international law and encouraged citizen's to report others if they see them bump into someone in a park and stop and chat for a few minutes.
The potential second wave is going to be the least of our worries!
The potential second wave is going to be the least of our worries!
1452 in Italy. It seems quite stable, the Italian and UK numbers were similar only a short while ago.
Another good post.
Germany let the regions decide on things don’t they. That could be some of the reason them not being too centralised.
Time for the FT graphs again.
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart...lative=0&logScale=0&perMillion=1&values=cases
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart...lative=0&logScale=0&perMillion=1&values=cases
How are Spain always hammered? Aside from pissed up tourists, what’s different?
What numbers are we talking about here Pogue? What 7 day numbers did they get it reduced from?
Were a lot of the big numbers due to those outbreaks in factories? And therefore bumping the numbers a little bit?
Edit: looking here I don’t see a seven day reverse?
https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart...lative=0&logScale=0&perMillion=1&values=cases
Germany currently on highest 7 day average since April.
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Italy have done quite well then so far, by the looks. Spain France and UK on the other hand following pretty much identical patterns as the first spike, if a little closer together.
So why is Taiwan able to do so well?
Belgium and Germany put Holland on red alert, anyone coming here for 48 hours must isolate. New restrictions coming in on Friday. Thanks to all who fukked this up.