Coronavirus - worldwide breaking news, discussion, stats, updates and more

[Maltin]

I think one thing to bear in mind with all this talk of Germany is that they are further behind on the timeline. By my calculations, they are on about day 19 of deaths compared to the UK on about day 26.

Germany are currently on 5.4 deaths per million. At the same stage, the other major European countries had:

Spain 48.3
Italy 10.5
UK 5.0
France 3.9

The Imperial College article that Elbows posted last night was interesting and one thing that it added to my data was the dates of interventions by the state.

According to their dates, based on days since the first deaths reported, Germany were the earliest to implement social distancing measures (after about 3 days of deaths) and a lockdown after 11 days.

Interestingly, Spain too apparently introduced their lockdown after 11 days, however, they had a death rate of 2.9 deaths per million compared to Germany at 0.6 at the same time. Eight days since Germany's lockdown, deaths have increased 8.7 times compared to 16.7 in Spain.

The Imperial article groups the UK with Germany as acting early but the UK introduced their lockdown the same time as Italy after around 20 days of deaths, with the UK being on 6.3 deaths per million compared to Italy's 13.8 at the same time.

For the data at the point where the UK are at currently (after first recorded death), the deaths per million are:

Spain 156
Italy 42
UK 21
France 20

 

[FabricLiveBaby!]

Poland are tightening up the lockdown measures as of midnight tonight.

New rules:

Only go out one at a time, that includes family members. Everyone needs to keep at least 2m apart. (rules don't apply for small children or if you are a carer)
Shops are only allowed to have 3 x as many people in the shop as till points.

Sucks.


Reckon this is on the back of a big jump in deaths and photos circulating of people going to a market somewhere up north.

Generally everyone's been very good. And our day on day figures have been dropping for some time.

I've done this visual of the timeline (snipped from Wiki and added my own annotations). You can see that 2 weeks after the first case there was a drop in transmission rate. Tallies up with what I witnessed that people were jittery as soon as the first case was announced. These are the official figures so it's all we've got to go on. Poland currently doing 4000 tests per day, which is kinda crap but everyone's in that boat. We only have 30 labs in the whole of Poland who can do it. Needless to say no one knows the actual number but it's useful for seeing trends, anyway.

You can see Polish response was very aggressive like much of the Visegrad group.

Not going out for a walk with my husband is going to suck so bad, even tho we live together.

Anyway there are presidential elections supposedly going ahead on May 10th which basically everyone thinks should be cancelled , but they won't do it.

1) it's good politically for them if they can pull it off
2) if they cancel May 10th elections they're basically saying lock down will continue until then, which would probably cause louts of unrest.

Enjoy the visual!

 

[weltweit]

Bosch develops rapid Covid-19 test

Engineers at Bosch Healthcare Solutions in Germany have developed a point of care Covid-19 test that is claimed to deliver a reliable result in under 2.5 hours.
..
It is claimed that the test, which has been developed in collaboration with Northern Ireland medical technology firm Randox Laboratories, could prove a key tool in curbing the spread of the virus. “Bosch’s rapid COVID-19 test will help contain the spread of the pandemic and break the chain of transmission more quickly,” said Bosch CEO Dr Volkmar Denner.

Designed to be used at the point of care, the test potentially eliminates the need to transport samples and could enable infected individuals to be identified and isolated immediately. It is also able to simultaneously diagnose nine other respiratory diseases including influenza A and B, thereby saving doctors the additional time needed for further tests.

from Bosch develops rapid Covid-19 test | The Engineer

 

[weltweit]

Spanish lockdown for all but limited essential workers.

 

[weltweit]

Trump claims a million Americans have been tested.

 

[teqniq]

INSTEX successfully concludes first transaction

The E3 confirm that INSTEX has successfully concluded its first transaction, facilitating the export of medical goods from Europe to Iran.

www.gov.uk

France, Germany and the United Kingdom (the E3) confirm that INSTEX has successfully concluded its first transaction, facilitating the export of medical goods from Europe to Iran. These goods are now in Iran.

INSTEX aims to provide a sustainable, long-term solution for legitimate trade between Europe and Iran as part of the continued efforts to preserve the JCPOA.

Now the first transaction is complete, INSTEX and its Iranian counterpart STFI will work on more transactions and enhancing the mechanism.

If it causes Trump and his ilk to blow a fuse, all the better. Caveat: I have absolutely no time whatsoever for the theocracy, but this is about people.

 

[bimble]

Situation in India is just terrifying. Makes me feel despair more than the news from anywhere else. This short bbc vid gives an overview of the disastrous consequences of modi’s overnight lockdown attempt but doesn’t even go into the issue of wider poverty and food insecurity and police brutality that’s coming to poor people all over the country along with / before the virus itself.

 

[teqniq]

Fuck. That's a potenial catastrophe right there.

 

[cupid_stunt]

It's going to be dreadful on the Indian subcontinent, as well as Africa, and much of South America.

 

[weltweit]

Situation in India is just terrifying. Makes me feel despair more than the news from anywhere else. This short bbc vid gives an overview of the disastrous consequences of modi’s overnight lockdown attempt but doesn’t even go into the issue of wider poverty and food insecurity and police brutality that’s coming to poor people all over the country along with / before the virus itself.

Liked for your posting it, not for the content.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I think one thing to bear in mind with all this talk of Germany is that they are further behind on the timeline. By my calculations, they are on about day 19 of deaths compared to the UK on about day 26.

Germany are currently on 5.4 deaths per million. At the same stage, the other major European countries had:

Spain 48.3
Italy 10.5
UK 5.0
France 3.9

The Imperial College article that Elbows posted last night was interesting and one thing that it added to my data was the dates of interventions by the state.

According to their dates, based on days since the first deaths reported, Germany were the earliest to implement social distancing measures (after about 3 days of deaths) and a lockdown after 11 days.

Interestingly, Spain too apparently introduced their lockdown after 11 days, however, they had a death rate of 2.9 deaths per million compared to Germany at 0.6 at the same time. Eight days since Germany's lockdown, deaths have increased 8.7 times compared to 16.7 in Spain.

The Imperial article groups the UK with Germany as acting early but the UK introduced their lockdown the same time as Italy after around 20 days of deaths, with the UK being on 6.3 deaths per million compared to Italy's 13.8 at the same time.

For the data at the point where the UK are at currently (after first recorded death), the deaths per million are:

Spain 156
Italy 42
UK 21
France 20

Belgium and the Netherlands are also flying under the radar a little bit I think because the figures on the various counters are not adjusted for population size, so they don't stand out. The Benelux region is tracking with France more or less at the moment. Although there, as elsewhere, the curves do appear to be flattening. Time since lockdown does appear to be the biggest factor in that - and the better the state you were in as you entered lockdown, the better your subsequent outcomes. Spain was already in a terrible state, switching from complacency to panic almost overnight. Germany on the other hand was far more well prepared.

 

[teqniq]

It's going to be dreadful on the Indian subcontinent, as well as Africa, and much of South America.

Read this yesterday. not good.

In Zimbabwe, 'you win coronavirus or you win starvation'

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) — “We are already ruined. What more harm can coronavirus do?" Irene Kampira asked as she sorted secondhand clothes at a bustling market in a poor suburb of Zimbabwe's capital, Harare.

apnews.com

 

[editor]

The FT seems to be providing good coverage of this crisis:

Risk of death from other causes In the UK, about 150,000 people die every year between January and March. To date, the vast majority of those who have died from Covid-19 in Britain have been aged 70 or older or had serious pre-existing health conditions. What is not clear is how many of those deaths would have occurred anyway if the patients had not contracted Covid-19.

Speaking at a parliamentary hearing last week, Professor Neil Ferguson, director of the MRC Centre for Global Infectious Disease Analysis at Imperial College London, said it was not yet clear how many “excess deaths” caused by coronavirus there would be in the UK. However, he said the proportion of Covid-19 victims who would have died anyway could be “as many as half or two-thirds”.

The mystery of the true coronavirus death rate

Without comprehensive testing and more precision over the cause of fatalities global comparisons should be treated with caution

www.ft.com

 

[littlebabyjesus]

The FT seems to be providing good coverage of this crisis:

The mystery of the true coronavirus death rate

Without comprehensive testing and more precision over the cause of fatalities global comparisons should be treated with caution

www.ft.com

What does 'would have died anyway' mean in this instance, though? Would have died there and then anyway or a few months later anyway? Smacks of Cummingsesque thinking - they were on their last legs anyway.

Impossible thus far to draw any conclusions about excess deaths because the numbers are still too small compared to the expected daily death rate. Still within the boundaries of natural variation. Let's hope we never find out!

I'm calling bollocks on that anyway. We are seeing in Italy how a cluster of infection in a care home can run riot. It's taking out the most vulnerable, but that's not the same as 'would have died anyway' unless they would have died anyway there and then. We all die anyway.

Anyway.

 

[elbows]

As well as the question of what proportion would have died anyway, there is the question of when they would have died. This is important because in addition to those who fairly ask the question, there are the shits who wish to downplay the impact because they have an agenda. If they wish to remove those people from the total, the least they can do is estimate how much lost lifetime we are still talking about with these cases.

Plus there is the underreporting of deaths, I have no current way to know how many people in care homes etc have passed away without going to hospital or being tested. Some sense of that will be gained, after some additional delays, via ONS weekly reports.

 

[editor]

Plus there is the underreporting of deaths, I have no current way to know how many people in care homes etc have passed away without going to hospital or being tested. Some sense of that will be gained, after some additional delays, via ONS weekly reports.

I'm fearful of the full figure. I suspect it's going to a lot, lot higher.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

As well as the question of what proportion would have died anyway, there is the question of when they would have died. This is important because in addition to those who fairly ask the question, there are the shits who wish to downplay the impact because they have an agenda. If they wish to remove those people from the total, the least they can do is estimate how much lost lifetime we are still talking about with these cases.

Plus there is the underreporting of deaths, I have no current way to know how many people in care homes etc have passed away without going to hospital or being tested. Some sense of that will be gained, after some additional delays, via ONS weekly reports.

Unless they can say with confidence that the person would have died there and then (or at most within days) anyway, they should stay on the total because any estimate of likely death beyond that without the c19 aggravating factor is just that, an estimate, and something that can be wildly wrong.

 

[editor]

All heart in Vegas

Las Vegas parking lot turned into 'homeless shelter' with social distancing markers

City says parking lot marked to distance residents from each other was best option after virus forced another shelter to close

www.theguardian.com

 

[brogdale]

All heart in Vegas

Las Vegas parking lot turned into 'homeless shelter' with social distancing markers

City says parking lot marked to distance residents from each other was best option after virus forced another shelter to close

www.theguardian.com

Whilst every single hotel room in Vegas lies empty.

 

[teqniq]

Only in America.

 

[elbows]

Worst-hit German district to become coronavirus ‘laboratory’

Study will follow 1,000 people in Heinsberg to create blueprint for how to deal with virus

www.theguardian.com

The scientists will go into 500 households, as well as kindergartens and hospitals, to study how the infection is spread. They will look at every aspect ofeveryday life, from the extent to which children pass it on to adults, how it is spread within families – from mobile phones to door handles, to cups and TV remote controls – to whether pets can spread it, and whether it is transferred via certain types of food. “If there are ways of preventing the illness from spreading in our environment, we want to know what they are, with the goal of finding out how we can freely move about in the environment together,” Streeck said.

“On the basis of our findings we’ll be able to make recommendations, which politicians can use to guide their decision-making,” Streeck said. “It could be that the measures currently in place are fine, and we say: ‘Don’t reduce them.’ But I don’t expect that, I expect the opposite, that we will be able to come up with a range of proposals as to how the curfews can be reduced.”

By testing the immunity to Covid-19 of the study’s participants, the scientists will also be able to establish what the estimated number of undetected cases might be nationwide. The first results are expected to be made public next week, though the entire gathering of evidence will take several weeks and its analysis is likely to be carried out over months and years.

 

[zahir]

First cases at the Ritsona refugee camp north of Athens. At least conditions there look far better, and less overcrowded, than the island camps.

Refugee woman tested positive on COVID-19 after giving birth - Keep Talking Greece

A refugee woman living in an accommodation camp in Attica has been tested positive on COVID-19. The

www.keeptalkinggreece.com

 

[gentlegreen]

Potholer54 nails it as usual..
Fucking hell - Trump - gawd help us ...
The looks on the people behind him ...
Together they've condemned thousands of their own people to death - and the casual denial of science and the hard work of thousands of experts in an age when we have the technology to be on top of this sort of thing ...

 

[HAL9000]

Risks of covid 19

Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter, Chair of the Winton Centre for Risk and Evidence Communication, puts the risks of Covid-19 into perspective. He found that the proportion of people who get infected by coronavirus, who then go on to die increases with age, and the trend matches almost exactly how our background mortality risk also goes up. Catching the disease could be like packing a year’s worth of risk into a couple of weeks.

BBC World Service - More or Less, Covid-19: The risks

Professor Sir David Spiegelhalter puts the risks of Covid-19 into perspective

www.bbc.co.uk

(should be possible to download the program without needing a bbc account)


I think the summary of the program is that ...

• If the virus was allowed to run riot, then the number of deaths would be similar to the number of deaths seen for the whole year. The summary has this sentence 'Catching the disease could be like packing a year’s worth of risk into a couple of weeks', so the risk of death for most people would be low.
• BUT. If it was allowed to run riot, hospitals would be overwhelmed, hence the need for lock down and social distancing .

 

[extra dry]

Their immune systems aren't as good at responding as women's....bad at listening?

Proberly but I won't listen anyway

 

[HAL9000]

 

[elbows]

Chinese investigation into antibody response and ability of serological tests to be used for things such as finding some cases that were missed by RT-PCR tests, finding some asymptomatic cases etc. Including how long they may have to wait after symptom onset before these sorts of tests will be more certain to give positive results.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.18.20038018v1.full.pdf

 

[bimble]

The virus does not even exist in Turkeministan.

Coronavirus off limits in Turkmenistan | Reporters without borders

The Turkmen authorities are avoiding use of the word “coronavirus” as much as possible in order to deter the spread of information about the pandemic. By doing so, Turkmenistan’s government is putting its citizens in danger, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) says. It's as if it had never existed...

rsf.org

 

[elbows]

AAAS

science.sciencemag.org

The newly emergent human virus SARS-CoV-2 is resulting in high fatality rates and incapacitated health systems. Preventing further transmission is a priority. We analyzed key parameters of epidemic spread to estimate the contribution of different transmission routes and determine requirements for case isolation and contact-tracing needed to stop the epidemic. We conclude that viral spread is too fast to be contained by manual contact tracing, but could be controlled if this process was faster, more efficient and happened at scale. A contact-tracing App which builds a memory of proximity contacts and immediately notifies contacts of positive cases can achieve epidemic control if used by enough people. By targeting recommendations to only those at risk, epidemics could be contained without need for mass quarantines (‘lock-downs’) that are harmful to society. We discuss the ethical requirements for an intervention of this kind.

 

[teqniq]

Exclusive: Captain of aircraft carrier with growing coronavirus outbreak pleads for help from Navy

The captain of a nuclear aircraft carrier docked in Guam with more than 100...

www.sfchronicle.com