SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

[Nogbadthebad]

As an aside, a couple of my parent's friends died the last few days.

Married couple in their 80's, she died on Sunday, he went yesterday. Didn't really know them myself, but its got my mum even more scared now. That was near Derby, died at the hospital that last doctor who died worked at.

 

[lsd]

The figures are particularly bad here in my part of Wales (worst figures in the country) but all I see is people behaving well & staying indoors - streets are deserted.

I don't think those Stereophonics concerts helped . Likewise with Cheltenham going on i wonder how much they have effected the spread

 

[Adisa]

Over 40% of new tests are positive. That just tells me we aren't testing nearly enough people.

 

[SirAF]

Aye, done a cracking job so far, especially with the testing.
The next steps after lockdown will be very interesting to see.

Absolutely!

 

[antsmithmk]

Cheltenham took place between 10/03/2020 and 13/03/2020, that is three weeks ago. Symptoms, we're told, take from five to fourteen days. So would the Cheltenham cases not be hitting us now?

It's the people that were infected then that subsequently infected others, who then infected others. Easily traced back over 4 to 5 weeks.

 

[Nogbadthebad]

Over 40% of new tests are positive. That just tells me we aren't testing nearly enough people.

They are only testing people sick enough to be admitted to hospital for treatment. It renders any conclusions we may want to draw from the numbers utterly irrelevant.

We have no idea how it is spread, nor it's presence in the wider population.

 

[Infra-red]

Cheltenham took place between 10/03/2020 and 13/03/2020, that is three weeks ago. Symptoms, we're told, take from five to fourteen days. So would the Cheltenham cases not be hitting us now?

If you assume two weeks incubation, plus another week or so of illness before people generally require hospitalisation, then we are probably not yet seeing the full cost of that week or so of stupidity prior to the lockdown (if you can call this a lockdown).

It's the people that were infected then that subsequently infected others, who then infected others. Easily traced back over 4 to 5 weeks.

This, too.

 

[Sandikan]

Unless you're homeless with no relatives (which is very rare in china), your family would be bound to at least ask how are you doing in the hospital, if you're deceased the government would release the names (data, initials, etc). I don't think it's possible for China to detain the names, if they erase it out of thin air people would start questioning what happens with their loved ones.

Say you're my uncle, you're hospitalized, I sure as hell would check up on you. If you die and the government decides you're one of the names they won't divulge then you can be sure I will raise the issue.

China isn't north korea, there are reporters there from all over the world. There are expats, there are other nation's ambassadors, tourist, attache, etc. If there are foul play we'd be hearing more concrete accusations from many other nations.

Wuhan has like 10-12M? people? If the number is much higher say 2x or 3x the official reports, there's no way that city would hold, the contagion spreadings would be 3x-4x. China released 100k positives, if you suspect there will be more people sick than hospitals, chaos would ensue, long ques outside hospital, people dying etc. And so far that hasn't happened or we would have known.

This is a country that covered up both the initial outbreak, and the severity of it. They clamped down on that doctor who attempted to whistleblow. This is a country who heavily control what goes out, no facebook etc.

Other countries have their hands full trying to sort out their own emergencies right now, but I dare say in due course there will be major accusations made , and not just from the likes of Trump.

 

[JPRouve]

As an aside, a couple of my parent's friends died the last few days.

Married couple in their 80's, she died on Sunday, he went yesterday. Didn't really know them myself, but its got my mum even more scared now. That was near Derby, died at the hospital that last doctor who died worked at.

I'm sorry for your parents, at that age they generally don't have many close friends and losing them suddenly is particularly painful.

 

[dwd]

What stats are you looking for?

Recoveries and those in a serious/critical condition. Just seems like we aren't bothering releasing that information like other countries are, unless I'm missing something?

 

[Arruda]

When did Portugal impose full lockdown?

Never (I think only Italy did in Europe?), but we have restricted a lot of things, were among the first to close schools, etc. Thursday March 13th was the last time I went out "feeling free", most people were home on the 14th and many businesses shut voluntarily before the government imposed it on the following weekend.

We are allowed to walk pets, exercise, shopping, etc, but the social pressure is such that barely no one does it for 10 days or more.

So, half lockdown for 18 days, and its effectiveness rising continuously.

 

[Hansa]

Norway seem to be coping fine so far:

Two causes for concern, though: It seems almost impossible to keep it out of nursing homes, where the residents will slowly, but surely, succumb to the virus. Secondly, there seems to be an impatience among certain people with strong voices, calling for this, that and the other to be re-opened after Easter. The body count just isn't large enough for them. There's still a long way to go before we can claim success, but so far, so good.

 

[SirAF]

Two causes for concern, though: It seems almost impossible to keep it out of nursing homes, where the residents will slowly, but surely, succumb to the virus. Secondly, there seems to be an impatience among certain people with strong voices, calling for this, that and the other to be re-opened after Easter. The body count just isn't large enough for them. There's still a long way to go before we can claim success, but so far, so good.

Definitely agree about that. Those voices should realise that the body count is so low because of the action that has been taken.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Never (I think only Italy did in Europe?), but we have restricted a lot of things, were among the first to close schools, etc. Thursday March 13th was the last time I went out "feeling free", most people were home on the 14th and many businesses shut voluntarily before the government imposed it on the following weekend.

We are allowed to walk pets, exercise, shopping, etc, but the social pressure is such that barely no one does it for 10 days or more.

So, half lockdown for 18 days, and its effectiveness rising continuously.

So how long are you guys expecting that to continue? The half lockdown?

 

[noodlehair]

Following on from what we were discussing yesterday @noodlehair, I get the distinct impression that a huge number of posters on here actively want the Swedish model to fail.
That’s absolutely nuts, surely we should all want to see that common sense social distancing, protecting your elderly and excellent sick leave changes (14 paid with no sick note) can work.
If Sweden’s model doesn’t work, we’re fecked.

I think people just panic and at the route of it want some assurance that what they are doing isn't the wrong thing.

You are right that it makes no sense to want it to fail. It offers a solution to everyone else. There's also no evidence as yet that it would fail. There's a lot of modelling to suggest it's a more sensible approach, and literally no basis other than guess work to say the opposite.

Modelling and educated predicting in itself isn't particularly strong evidence but in the absence of anything else it seems a better idea than randomly doing extreme things out of panic.

Our government are making me very nervous that we're making this 10x worse than it needs to be. A lot of the social distancing measures at supermarkets etc. Are Ill though out and actually seem counter productive when put into practice. Having people gather in a queue outside the shop in the cold and then bottle necking them into 1 entrance 10 at a time...I'm lost as to what this achieves.

 

[Arruda]

So how long are you guys expecting that to continue? The half lockdown?

I don't know, I wouldn't expect it to be rolled back before June. Our system is already struggling and to me it doesn't make sense to roll back measures until our NHS is back to a minimum level of normality.

EDIT: I also expect lockdown measures to be increased in the next few days here, most signs point towards that.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

I think people just panic and at the route of it want some assurance that what they are doing isn't the wrong thing.

You are right that it makes no sense to want it to fail. It offers a solution to everyone else. There's also no evidence as yet that it would fail. There's a lot of modelling to suggest it's a more sensible approach, and literally no basis other than guess work to say the opposite.

Modelling and educated predicting in itself isn't particularly strong evidence but in the absence of anything else it seems a better idea than randomly doing extreme things out of panic.

Our government are making me very nervous that we're making this 10x worse than it needs to be. A lot of the social distancing measures at supermarkets etc. Are Ill though out and actually seem counter productive when put into practice. Having people gather in a queue outside the shop in the cold and then bottle necking them into 1 entrance 10 at a time...I'm lost as to what this achieves.

And unless you want this to keep coming back with a bang, you surely need measures that the majority of the population can keep up for months on end. If you can keep schools and as many businesses as possible open whilst social distancing and the other measures are in place, whilst not overwhelming the health service, surely that has to be your goal? It’s something you can keep up for 10 months if need be.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

I don't know, I wouldn't expect it to be rolled back before June. Our system is already struggling and to me it doesn't make sense to roll back measures until our NHS is back to a minimum level of normality.

EDIT: I also expect lockdown measures to be increased in the next few days here, most signs point towards that.

Then after June?

That’s my biggest question and head scratcher. Shutdown again 6 weeks later?

The plan here is to have steady numbers going into ICU and if we can keep that up we will, if those numbers/curve starts to rise rapidly, then we’ll go even stricter.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Following on from what we were discussing yesterday @noodlehair, I get the distinct impression that a huge number of posters on here actively want the Swedish model to fail.
That’s absolutely nuts, surely we should all want to see that common sense social distancing, protecting your elderly and excellent sick leave changes (14 paid with no sick note) can work.
If Sweden’s model doesn’t work, we’re fecked.

That last sentence doesn’t make sense at all. I mean, we’re all fecked regardless but there’s a good chance that Sweden’s approach will leave Sweden more fecked than other countries that made more of an effort with their NPIs.

It’s all about buying time. Time to beef up hospitals, get the necessary PPE for doctors, learn more about the best way to manage sick patients, ramp up testing, limit spread in the community etc etc.

Taking radical social distancing measures early on causes a lot of short term economic pain but could save thousands and thousands of lives if it gives us breathing space to handle the epidemic a bit better. So there’s much more to this than “Sweden’s approach, or we’re all fecked”.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Then after June?

That’s my biggest question and head scratcher. Shutdown again 6 weeks later?

The plan here is to have steady numbers going into ICU and if we can keep that up we will, if those numbers/curve starts to rise rapidly, then we’ll go even stricter.

IMO we’re heading into 12 to 18 months (possibly longer?) of intermittent lock-downs. Periods of relative normality, followed by periods where everything shuts down again. It’s going to be the new normal for quite some time, unfortunately.

Trying to let herd immunity take its natural will kill hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people. No government will allow (or be allowed) that happen.

 

[Utdstar01]

As an aside, a couple of my parent's friends died the last few days.

Married couple in their 80's, she died on Sunday, he went yesterday. Didn't really know them myself, but its got my mum even more scared now. That was near Derby, died at the hospital that last doctor who died worked at.

My mums work friend's father in law died the other day. They were from Derby. Visited Benidorm a few weeks preceding this, around february I believe so potentially brought it back from there.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

there’s a good chance that Sweden’s approach will leave Sweden more fecked than other countries that made more of an effort with their NPIs.

Is there any evidence for that anywhere though Pogue?
I mean, we’re beefing up hospitals and buikding massive field hospitals every single day, not just chilling around doing ziltch and hoping it’ll be fine.
Will locking down now help Ireland to build more ICU units and field hospitals than Sweden? I don’t think so.
Will locking down now for four weeks stop Ireland getting the rate infection after lockdown is over, once again I don’t think so.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

IMO we’re heading into 12 to 18 months (possibly longer?) of intermittent lock-downs. Periods of relative normality, followed by periods where everything shuts down again. It’s going to be the new normal for quite some time, unfortunately.

I think that’s fair to say, and I’m also fairly certain as I repeated many times, that if the health ministry in Sweden sees the ICU curve take a scary upward turn for some days, I fully expect stricter measures to come in and even full lockdown if need be.
My argument has only ever been that if you can keep your health service going, whilst NOT locking down then surely that’s the best solution?

 

[jojojo]

Recoveries and those in a serious/critical condition. Just seems like we aren't bothering releasing that information like other countries are, unless I'm missing something?

We've got a very low "recovery" rate - I think partly because we aren't retesting for a series of three covid negative results and that was the early "recovered" standard. That number hasn't been updated in the public stats since the 22nd. But yeah, I think we're slow giving hospital admissions/discharges and critical/ICU numbers. That was (according to someone I spoke to a couple of weeks ago) supposed to be part of a bigger public release of information that included deaths, ages, locations and comorbidities etc - but the big package fell foul of data protection.

I agree, it shouldn't have taken them this long to release raw total hospital data though - none of that would be personally identifiable.

 

[SteveJ]

Trump lobs Boris under the bus:

The US president, Donald Trump, has said the UK’s early approach to tackling the coronavirus outbreak would have been “very catastrophic” if Boris Johnson had not decided to change tack.

Trump suggested the prime minister had looked to “ride out” the virus in an approach that would have caused “a lot of death”.

The criticism appeared to be a reference to the UK government initially following a plan for so-called “herd immunity”.

 

[Arruda]

My argument has only ever been that if you can keep your health service going, whilst NOT locking down then surely that’s the best solution?

Of course it is. But how can you guarantee that? All evidence points in the opposite direction, that it's impossible.

I think there may be some merit to the idea that Sweden's "natural" social distance is helpful, but I think its being completed wasted.
That "natural" social distancing is nowhere near to the artificial social distancing that has been imposed in other countries.

 

[Jippy]

Was that in Cardiff? In that case, not near to me.

Did you have those goats colonising town near you?

 

[vodrake]

Trump lobs Boris under the bus:

The "special relationship" is the first thing to go when you've got a whole heap of deflecting blame from yourself to do

 

[RedSky]

The "special relationship" is the first thing to go when you've got a whole heap of deflecting blame from yourself to do

It's cool, we've got lots of friends in the EU to fall back on...

 

[The Firestarter]

*facepalm*

 

[SteveJ]

Did you have those goats colonising town near you?

No, mate - I live in one of the area's more boring towns.

 

[Regulus Arcturus Black]

Of course it is. But how can you guarantee that? All evidence points in the opposite direction.

No, the evidence here doesn’t.. and when/if it does, stricter measures will no doubt be brought in.

This isn’t me saying about the evidence by the way, I have absolutely no idea about this stuff, I’m just repeating what the experts here say every single day in the press conference.

Right now it’s still stable and we are building up, we’re fortunate unlike Italy and Spain that we (I mean everywhere else in Europe here) are way ahead due to what happened there. Tonnes of recruitment, thousands of recently retired staff brought back, SAS Cabin crew being trained as hospital helpers, ICU units added daily, massive field hospitals already built etc etc etc.

 

[Jippy]

No, mate - I live in one of the area's more boring towns.

Shame, they were one of the few bright spots in the news of the last couple of days.

 

[11101]

We've got a very low "recovery" rate - I think partly because we aren't retesting for a series of three covid negative results and that was the early "recovered" standard. That number hasn't been updated in the public stats since the 22nd. But yeah, I think we're slow giving hospital admissions/discharges and critical/ICU numbers. That was (according to someone I spoke to a couple of weeks ago) supposed to be part of a bigger public release of information that included deaths, ages, locations and comorbidities etc - but the big package fell foul of data protection.

I agree, it shouldn't have taken them this long to release raw total hospital data though - none of that would be personally identifiable.

Recoveries are an odd one as there is no standard definition of what a recovery is. Considering the size of the outbreak and the timeline, China should have the most, followed by Italy and Iran. I'm not sure how Spain and Germany are up there above everybody bar China considering they both only really got going 2 weeks ago. Are they just desperate to clear people out of the hospitals?

 

[Utdstar01]

Trump lobs Boris under the bus:

And what Trump was doing was any better?

 

[Rajma]

4.5k cases from 9k tests yesterday. We must have one of the highest positive cases to tests ratios in the world. We really need to step up testing. There's clearly way to many people who have it, but don't get tested and then carry on with their lives passing it onto others.

The US has passed a million tests in like 3 weeks whilst we're still hovering 10k tests a day.

Feck, that’s an insane ratio, we have been doing between 1.5-2k tests per day for a week or so here in Lithuania which on average resulted in 30-40 new cases.

 

[redshaw]

Some bad numbers for UK.

Italy/Spain numbers didn't feel too far away once we crossed 1k, which was just 4 days ago.

Remdesivir is being trialed in the UK today, hopefully some good can come out of it.

 

[Balu]

Recoveries are an odd one as there is no standard definition of what a recovery is. Considering the size of the outbreak and the timeline, China should have the most, followed by Italy and Iran. I'm not sure how Spain and Germany are up there above everybody bar China considering they both only really got going 2 weeks ago. Are they just desperate to clear people out of the hospitals?

There's no official number for recovered patients in Germany, most parts of the country don't track it all. The about 16000 recovered is just a vague estimation done by the Robert-Koch-Institut and compleltely meaningless. I doubt it's much different in other countries. The importance of that stat will change and will become a huge part once we start loosening the restrictions, but for now better ignore it.

I hope we'll start testing a representative sample of the people in heavier affected cities soon, both for the active virus and for antibodiest. That would give us an idea of how quickly communities/regions actually develop herd immunity and what percentage you could count as recovered. That would tell us a lot more than what we know now. As far as I know they try to do this in Ischgl in Austria, so hopefully we know soon more to what degree a hotspot with only 1600 people has already achieved herd immunity.

 

[Arruda]

No, the evidence here doesn’t.. and when/if it does, stricter measures will no doubt be brought in.

This isn’t me saying about the evidence by the way, I have absolutely no idea about this stuff, I’m just repeating what the experts here say every single day in the press conference.

You are completely dismissing the chance that your experts are completely wrong in interpreting things, which is probably why your points can come across as a bit strange.

You don't need to be defensive about your opinion, even if you're just conveying someone else's opinion. I'm sure the vast majority in here want to have a serious discussion, and I would question the morals of anyone looking for an "I told you so" angle in something as tragic as this.

The reason I post so much about this is due to concern and utter incomprehension.

 

[UncleBob]

No, the evidence here doesn’t.. and when/if it does, stricter measures will no doubt be brought in.

This isn’t me saying about the evidence by the way, I have absolutely no idea about this stuff, I’m just repeating what the experts here say every single day in the press conference.

Right now it’s still stable and we are building up, we’re fortunate unlike Italy and Spain that we (I mean everywhere else in Europe here) are way ahead due to what happened there. Tonnes of recruitment, thousands of recently retired staff brought back, SAS Cabin crew being trained as hospital helpers, ICU units added daily, massive field hospitals already built etc etc etc.

The capacity in Stockhom isn't exactly promising, and It's somewhat funny that Anders Tegnell, a few days earlier, is happy to confirm that the numbers are looking good, only for him to explain today, after a large increase in number of deaths, that the new numbers aren't bad because they are numbers for the entire week that they didn't have earlier due to the workload.. He's essentially saying that they don't have an overview of the situation, so it'll be interesting to see the numbers on friday..

Your major outbreak so far is in Stockholm, which isn't promising news either given that you're looking for quick herd immunity, and you've already hit 6 times as many dead as in Norway while you have about 4 times as many in critical condition.