Just to cheer everyone up...
Coronavirus: Winter plans revealed in leaked Sage report
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53954492
Coronavirus: Winter plans revealed in leaked Sage report
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53954492
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
Massive anti corona demonstration today in Berlin. Expected numbers range from 20.000 to over a million.
The people of the demonstration are a mixxed group of casual people, Qanons, 'conspiracy theorists', right wingers and many more. They seemingly also demand a 'peace treaty' for Germany.
The demonstration had been banned by Berlins senat on wednesday but the ban was lifted yesterday by the higher court.
The people of the demonstration are a mixxed group of casual people, Qanons, 'conspiracy theorists', right wingers and many more. They seemingly also demand a 'peace treaty' for Germany.
The demonstration had been banned by Berlins senat on wednesday but the ban was lifted yesterday by the higher court.
Between 20k and a million? That is a huge stretch. I imagine what it will be is about 20-30k but with all the conspiracy freaks claiming there was ‘close to a million’. They organized something similar in Warsaw recently and even though our society is obsessed with conspiracies, only about 5k turned up. Looking at those people, all the anti-vax movements and such makes part of me regret this virus isn’t just capable of sweeping all of them off Earth. I never realized there were so many narcissistic morons around me before this pandemic. Literally all they care about is being ‘exceptional’ and ‘enlightened’ when they lack basic education to support any of their claims.
I wondered how much of it was holiday-makers. We've had a massive influx of tourists all through August, it's Italian holiday month and many people come back to their home towns. Our village is 2000 feet above sea level, so the heat's also a bit less oppressive than in the cities.
There are loads of Dutch and German folk here still, too. There's a big public carpark here and I was just able to find a space - normally, there's a handful of cars there. Loads of young people around, which isn't the norm either.
I’m in Cagliari now and though I had never been here before, we’ve been traveling to popular nearby beaches for the last 3 days and all looked quite empty compared to what I would have expected in a popular Summer destination in August. Maybe it’s because Sardinia is an island, there are fewer flights and people may be concerned about not being able to return if restrictions come back.
Well, in the previous demonstration on 01.08. media claimed there have been only 17-20k people. Pictures and videos over the internet looked more like at least ten times more.
Maybe. I see people are even traveling from Poland to Berlin (to call off the pandemic) to attend that so there might be a good number of idiots there.
Any idea why it seems that the UK folks are particularly wary about going back? There was an idea put forward by government-friendly media early on that the messaging campaign seemed too severe, and people got "too scared". It seemed ludicrous at the time given the more serious measures and messaging in various neighbours. I can't believe that has any semblance of truth even now but I can't think what would cause such a huge difference.
@JPRouve do you have any idea why people would be more keen to go back in France? Does it sound true to you that 3/4 of office workers have already gone back?
I don't know but many people need money and many jobs can't be done from home. And I would say that things went back to normal with the small difference that people are wearing masks, so 3/4 seems realistic.
Sardinia’s had a couple of large outbreaks recently, hasn’t it? One in a nightclub.
UK 12 deaths and 1108 cases
Apologies in advance, might be stupid question but with the mortality showing 28 days within positive test, if someone were to pass away from Covid after 35 days and on death certificate it said Covid-19, would this be counted in the daily stats?
Not included.
Wow, shocking and scary. I’m guessing the ONS statistics/deaths above yearly average is the better indicator then on a weekly/monthly basis?
Still feel we should be breaking down the US stats into States, doesn’t quite make sense using the entire country to really understand or compare how the pandemic is developing.
I argued that when the US media was creaming itself about Sweden having 40% more deaths per capita (ridiculous journalism) and I’ll still argue it now when the US is set to pass Sweden in deaths per capita by Thursday this week.
Comparing deaths per million overall by State is more useful I think, especially as the EU countries listed have all had their first wave whereas only some US states have had theirs (New York, Massachusetts, New Jersey etc), some are currently experiencing their first wave (hence more deaths right now), and many are still yet to see their first real wave.
Yes. ONS stats also count number with Covid on death certificate. Statistically, the 60 day cut off tends to give best agreement with the ONS numbers.
Absoutely. Same goes everywhere:
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/07/15/tracking-covid-19-excess-deaths-across-countries
It is scary, but as a counter balance, there are a lot of people in the numbers who may have died over the next few weeks/months, where Covid has dealt the final blow.
The people who I know who have unfortunately passed were both in that subsection of people who were very sick to begin with.
Well absolutely, can add that 4000 of the 5800 deaths in Sweden had a 0.5 - 2 year life expectancy. We know that as 2 years is the care home life expectancy here, in Stockholm region it’s just 1.5 years.
When people are taken into care homes here it really is just a ticking timer
Excess deaths will be key to that though and it’s likely why many places like Sweden and UK are currently seeing decreased mortality.
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Yes ONS have covid deaths data. Deaths are now at normal levels but ONS do provide covid deaths and suspected covid deaths
Scotland, Wales have been counting just 28 days this whole time. England have only recently moved to 28 days.
I think it's in part to avoid situations were a death goes down as Covid purely because you have it in your system or worse, had it in the past.
For context, under the previous reporting system you could have had Covid in January/February, fell into the crocodile pit in the zoo in June and you would have still technically died of Covid19.
Okay. South Carolina, a state of 5 million people, had 1250 new cases and 42 new deaths yesterday.
That’s not too bad on first wave, how many deaths in total in SC?
Appreciate this but as some other posters have already mentioned before, how many of these deaths actually occur.
Although every death is tragic, how many freak deaths are there? With less cars on the motorway (I think), surely less road traffic accidents/fatalities. Then on the other hand there is thr argument that people aren’t seeking medical attention when something serious happens to them.
How are these numbers being balanced out, I appreciate it’s an incredibly difficult job to do but as we are in unprecedented times surely they would’ve had a task force dedicated to just this, so they got the numbers right within a minimal margin of error?
Following up on death certificates, new guidelines on what should or shouldn’t be listed as a Covid-19 death etc should be the bare minimum in the ‘new’ way of recording deaths related to Covid-19.
Most likely repeating what other posters have said but I’m just amazed at how we still don’t seem to be doing alot of basic things right. It’s pretty sad and is giving a false sense of security to alot of people. I’m not saying go out and do what you want but maybe people would stay a but more vigiliant if true numbers were being posted.
So about 510-520 per million, similar to many places in Europe as cases come down from peak.
Except we aren’t near past a peak yet. We are still knocking out positive test rates of 20%+ per day.
And thet reasons are a) we don't immunise enough with influenza, b) flu strains are sufficiently different to require different inclusions in the annual vaccine and we anticipate wrong sometimes, c) we don't have a current vaccine for a human coronavirus because it wasn't cost effective to produce one (although SARS is about to get one). Coronaviruses do not functionally mutate very fast at all in general. If we do a mass vaccination we may speed that up but that is always a risk of vaccination and the benefit of the vaccination has to date always vastly outweighed the mutation risk.
That is normal. Antibodies fall off but that doesn't mean T-Cells don't can't react quickly in the future. Obviously, this is partly unknown but SARS infection and recovery (and soon a vaccine) seems to produce immunity in excess of 3 years and probably longer.
So few that it should be a source of hope and not a sign that a vaccine won't work.
I'm not sure that current talk about strains means what we might think. It only becomes a concern if there is a virus out there so different that a vaccine won't work and I don't think this is the case to date from what I have read.
That just isn't the case. We can't know for sure but antibodies reducing over a few months doesn't mean you would need a new vaccination every few months.
They have. They should have locked down harder, earlier and longer amongst other things e.g. shut borders or made government enforced quarantine compulsory etc. The deaths most countries seem to be happy to accept is quite shocking.
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Super difficult to achieve this quickly given the volume of deaths.
As the death rate is so low now, the numbers to look at now to get a sense of security or lack of security (depending on how you look at things) is the case rate and hospital admissions.
I don’t really know. We arrived last Wednesday and are returning to Kraków tomorrow so it’s basically just a long weekend. Today was far more crowded everywhere, we failed to get a bed at two beaches and ended up returning close to hotel to get any space near water.
Ah shit, ok. Not so good.
Deaths are part of life, no-one is “accepting” anything.
After bigging up the Aussie response only to end up with this Victoria situation regardless should have taught you a bit about the inevitability of it all. There’s no guarantee that longer, harder lockdowns would have done anything in the long run other than cripple economies, cause mental health issues, prevented millions in poor countries getting foods or vaccines etc.
It came from one market & swept over the World in months, it got back into NZ and no-one knows how the feck it managed it.
Stop talking like there was a simple one-stop solution to this.
Coronavirus: Why are deaths falling as cases rise?
Are the government and media overdoing coronavirus? Is it time to move on and get back to normal life?
Fergus Walsh. Medical editor @BBCFergusWalsh
Are the government and media overdoing coronavirus? Is it time to move on and get back to normal life?
Fergus Walsh. Medical editor @BBCFergusWalsh
Tweet
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Lots of countries are getting better at handling the virus as we learn more about it so death rates hopefully will keep falling. Its a slow burner though. Looking forward to being able to visit other countries again with relative freedom in the not too distant future, maybe a year or 2? Fingers crossed.
Not at all. It taught us that we opened up too fast, plus a few lessons about managing quarantine and old age care.
Even with the Victoria outbreak Australia still only has 10% of the deaths of Sweden with twice the population.
And NZ are almost certain that the single cluster resulted from someone in quarantine. They don't know which person but it certainly wasn't circulating in NZ for 100 days undetected or it wouldn't have been a single identifiable cluster. The only other person not in the single cluster caught it from someone in quarantine for certain. They also only had 2 new infections (of known source as well) yesterday and lockdown ends tommorrow. Victoria dipped under 100 new infections for the first time in ages yesterday so lock-downs do work. Luckily for NZ and AU we are nearly out of winter which must help to some degree.
The moral and responsible thing to do it try to minimise death and harm (lets not forget the huge ongoing health challenges many suffer who "recover") until there is a vaccine. Which will be fairly soon by the looks of it.
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The worry is that the Northern Hemisphere is either still in the 1st wave or is heading for a second with infections already rising in most places even before we hit autumn or winter.
Treatment is improving but survivors are still often suffering bad long term symptoms. We really need a vaccine.
And US apparently had its first case of reinfection
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/nevada-lab-confirms-1st-coronavirus-reinfection-us/story?id=72691353
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/nevada-lab-confirms-1st-coronavirus-reinfection-us/story?id=72691353
Not at the cost of turning countries into Venezuela, which is what you appear to be advocating.
Explain to me how you expected countries with already struggling economies like Italy and Spain to shut down earlier, harder, longer?
Your entire outlook on this seems to be “hide away until science gets us out of the shit”, with no thoughts on the damage you will do to the rest of society. That’s why you’ve convinced yourself that an effective vaccine is imminent. What if a vaccine isn’t ready until Jan 2022?
Do you realise how many lives could be ruined be a great depression and the inevitable hyper inflation? Do you realise the gap in inequality?
Do you think Venezuela seems a cool place to live right now?
Have you seen the studies by UNICEF of the damage that has already been done to school children, especially the poorer ones?
And you’d risk all of this with no guarantee that the virus won’t be back with a vengeance anyhow, just like it did in Victoria.
It’s like you’ve learned absolutely nothing since March, despite everything that has happened. Lockdowns cause a great deal of harm, anyone with a slight understanding of economics knew they were only a very short term nuclear option to get cases down. And even eradicating the virus and keeping strict borders (impossible in Europe for example, the US too between states) as shown in NZ, gives you absolutely no guarantees.
I shouldn’t need to mention that Germany’s great depression eventually cost almost 100 million lives, but I can give you just one very real example of what a ruined economy can do in current times... Venezuela’s plunge into an economic crisis and the collapse of its health care system appear to have taken a toll on newborns. The country’s infant mortality rate has increased by 40% since 2008.
So forgive me Wibs, when I don’t agree that the only thing that matters for the foreseeable future is keeping Covid-19 deaths down. I’d have thought by now most people would/should have come around to this realisation. Countries have locked down way harder than Australia to still end up with plenty of deaths.
The moral and responsible thing to do is to try minimise death and harm through a balanced approach that considers the health and well-being of ALL of society.
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So they could open up earlier at least internally. You speak like these contries have now ripped the band aid off and everything will be fine. A second wave already seems on it's way with further lock downs likely so going in and out of restrictions is a terrible idea but it is likley going to be needed.
As for full lock-down. That isn't going to happen now anywhere apart from possibly AU, NZ and a few small nations if needed. It should have happened early in the year but we are led by donkeys.
Venuzuela? Really?
Until we know we can't get a vaccine the moral thing to do is to lock down. Of course there are consequences but we aren't headed for 20's style depression and the impacts of lockdown are far less than the impacts of not locking down unless a millions lives (likely to be far higher by the time we get a vaccine) being lost is ignored.
And yes. Poorer people will be worst hit but government action can minimise this. It is a matter of accepting the lesser impact for the greater good. BTW dead people's lives are over, not ruined. Many around them may be ruined of course.
Nothing has guarantees but Victoria is back under control due to a lockdown. And still Australia has a death rate 10% that of Sweden, a country of half the population.
The same with NZ - 2 infections both of known source today. 2. Both countries are going to recover faster than elsewhere once the vaccine arrives which is very likely in late 2020 or early 2021. Not certain but likely.
And yes. I'd 100% risk the small risk of no vaccine against the certainty of mass death. Even if it turned out that a vaccine isn't possible it is is still the morally correct decision.
I am a teacher (well was until fairly recently) so I known the value of education and remote teaching will impact poorer kids more. But the alarmist talk of putting kids back by years is rubbish. And the same politicians peddling this don't give a feck about public education anyway.
NZ have had a handful of cases and the country barring Auckland is open. And Auckland opens again tomorrow. Victoria has controlled the outbreak. How? Lock-down. They work. Then the economy recovers and kids go to school and sport starts again.
That is a straw man argument. it isn't going to happen and if it did it certainly wouldn't be because of lock-downs.
Australia didn't lock down hard enough. NZ did and got great results. Most countries partially locked down but didn't stop flights, didn't close borders, didn't enforce quarantine etc etc - so no wonder they didn't work well.
A bit like plugging only 8 out of 10 holes in the bottom of a boat and then claiming fixing holes is pointless when the ship sinks.
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