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

[Indeliblelink]

Delayed stats this week for all cause death across some European countries. A rise starting to show up in quite a few countries now.

 

[little_legs]

 

[The39thStep]

Additional measures in Portugal over Easter under The State of Emergency

Limitation on movement during the Easter period


Citizens cannot travel outside the municipality of usual residence between 00:00 on April 9th and 12:00 on April 13th, “except for health reasons or other reasons of imperative urgency”.

(The restriction does not apply to health professionals and other workers from health and social care institutions, civil protection agents, security forces and services, military and civilian personnel from the Armed Forces, inspectors from the Food and Economic Security Authority, holders of political offices, magistrates and leaders of the social partners, "provided that in the exercise of functions, as well as the performance of admitted professional activities").

- Workers must circulate with "a declaration from the employer that certifies that they are in the performance of their professional activities".

- The circulation between the portions of the municipalities where there is a healthy territorial discontinuity is limited.

- Between 00:00 on April 9 and 24:00 on April 13, commercial passenger flights are not allowed to arrive at national airports, except for emergency landings, humanitarian flights or for repatriation purposes.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Sounds like the USA is considering mandating mask wearing in public at a federal level. UK might well follow suit, especially if the WHO changes its advice, but how are we supposed to get masks? when even the NHS was having trouble getting enough.

I haven't seen any sources suggesting that it be mandatory. Previously, they've said, as part of the general guidelines, that there's no need for a mask. The reports I've heard are suggesting that adding "wear a mask" to the guidelines. I wish they would. Around here, they look at you like you're being insulting by wearing a mask. At least if the guidelines suggested it, it probably wouldn't be considered rude any more.

 

[Yossarian]

I haven't seen any sources suggesting that it be mandatory. Previously, they've said, as part of the general guidelines, that there's no need for a mask. The reports I've heard are suggesting that adding "wear a mask" to the guidelines. I wish they would. Around here, they look at you like you're being insulting by wearing a mask. At least if the guidelines suggested it, it probably wouldn't be considered rude any more.

Yep - I think one of the reasons some East Asian countries have managed to control their outbreaks is because there is peer pressure on everybody to wear masks, including infected people who might not have done otherwise. It seems to be the total opposite in the West, where people who really should be wearing masks may not do so for fear of being shunned or targeted.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Yep - I think one of the reasons some East Asian countries have managed to control their outbreaks is because there is peer pressure on everybody to wear masks, including infected people who might not have done otherwise. It seems to be the total opposite in the West, where people who really should be wearing masks may not do so for fear of being shunned or targeted.

I live in an immigrant transition neighborhood. I've been shopping at the Asian grocery stores near me because everyone there wears a mask and its socially appropriate to do so. (The food is better, anyway.) You can even find masks and gloves still on the shelves.

 

[SheilaNaGig]

How do you mean SheilaNaGig, about the nature of their society?

I outlined some of my thoughts about this earlier on this thread.

Hang on...

 

[SheilaNaGig]

How do you mean SheilaNaGig, about the nature of their society?

Here you go:

It’s possible but unlikely. Trump will be given a pass by his fans at the election because he’s working so hard to preserve the economy/their personal wealth and the pandemic is foreign/not his fault/couldn’t be predicted. Added to this the bonkers end-times hard core Xians who see him as an agent of their god: this “plague” will confirm their belief that it’s all panning out as they predict, so strengthen their support of Trump.

But also, it’s hard for anyone who’s not witnessed it first hand to understand how thoroughly and intractably the right hate the disenfranchised. I don’t just mean they’re politically averse, I mean they have a deeply emotional sense of fear and disgust for anyone who hasn’t successfully climbed aboard the American Dream bandwagon. Even those who are themselves poor and disenfranchised are utterly opposed to anyone who doesn’t demonstrate their adherence to the story. These adherants are going to become very much more entrenched and defensive of their myth in the coming months. They will defend their own creation story identify (pioneering, independent, self-sufficient, loyal to family and nationhood (define “nation” as applicable) ) ahead of any other factor.

They will see this catastrophe as inevitable, a reckoning, a test of the fittest, an opportunity for cleansing society. They will shrug at the horror, tuck in and circle their wagons around their own and arm themselves against anyone else.

The sane and kind are in the minority in America. And it is a kind of madness, this stubborn blind inability to connect with the suffering of anyone outsider heir own experience. It’s what’s made them so successful around the world, but it’s the secret hollow in the heart of their culture.

Nothing will make them more caring, because that necessitates the dismantling of their self identity.

Well, it might happen if their self identify is destroyed by this pandemic, but then we’d be witnessing some kind of social apocalypse.

Wait... Isn’t that where I started ....? And round we go.






I'm deeply concerned about this.

I have friends and family all over America, including New York City and NY state. Fortunately a lot of them have been ignoring Trump's hubris and voluntarily locking down for weeks.

This is going to be such a shit show. Millions of invisible disenfranchised unsupported destitute people, many of them with opiate addictions and serious comorbities, no kind of supple widespread public health care system. People will be using brute force and guns to try to access help and to defend their own homes and properties.

In relative terms the UK may get off lightly (at least in the first wave). For developing countries, places under the cosh of war, poverty, abuse of power, it's inevitable that this is going to be harrowing. It seems peculiar and ironically fitting that the most powerful most developed most equipped most advanced yaddah yaddah nation, who has repeatedly and ignorantly stomped all over everything for so long could find themselves in the same kind of deep danger as those nations they've been stomping on.




As an aside, with regards public health care:

Back in 1986 I was travelling around America in my early 20s. I got sick in New Orleans and went to the public hospital. I hold an American passport so I was eligible for basic health care. It was a normal February day, no pandemic or other disaster (although at that time NO had a very high murder rate, there had already been more than 30 murders in the city, so one every day that year). The waiting room was overcrowded, queues down the corridors. I waited for 2 hours to be triaged and another 5 hours to be seen by a doctor, who assessed me, prescribed antibiotics and discharged me in less than 10 minutes. In that 7 hours I saw 2 gunshot wounds coming in, people in respiratory distress struggling and gasping, people in wheelchairs, and someone died in the waiting room. They didn’t even put a curtain around him while he died, they laid him on the floor and held him and then they put a blanket over him and called for a porter with a gurney.

This was the mid eighties and pre-Katrina so hopefully there are much better hospital facilities there now. But small more isolated towns will still have limited facilities. This pandemic is going to be utterly overwhelming for poor America while Amerikka does a better job of taking taking care of itself.

 

[elbows]

The USA seems to have more severe estimates for number of hospitalisations etc. I suspect they have factored their own obesity & other underlying conditions data into things, and came out with numbers that are especially scary as a result.

 

[little_legs]

 

[weltweit]

I outlined some of my thoughts about this earlier on this thread.

Hang on...

I see I read it and liked it an interesting view, and I see some in my own limited experiences.

If one suggests to a Yank that the NHS is a good thing you are met with why should I pay for other people? seems the response I often hear. Or we don't want no socialism as if it is communism.

 

[weltweit]

But I haven't seen the hate from the haves for the have nots, well a little, but I have also seen that in Britain, I can recall a retired Ferrari owner describing another man as a failure because they didn't have such toys.

Which makes me wonder, because really our NHS is a massive government organised and financed health insurance scheme without the profit motive encompassing everyone and paid for by direct taxation. And it makes me wonder what UK attitudes were like towards healthcare before the NHS was established. I think I do recall that quite a lot of doctors were against it - I wonder what the population thought of it?

 

[ice-is-forming]

Are there hot spots in Oz ice-is-forming?

Yes, Sydney and Melbourne. If they hadn't of let passengers off an infectious cruise ship a few weeks ago with out quarantining them the numbers would be much lower. I think maybe a third of the deaths are passengers from that ship

Coronavirus (COVID-19) case numbers and statistics

This page provides updates about the current situation, latest case numbers and related information. It is updated every day by 9 pm AEST and reflects the previous 24 hours.

www.health.gov.au

 

[Treacle Toes]

I can see why this could be helpful but NAH...turn off your locations.

CORONAVIRUS: GOOGLE MAPS DATA RELEASED AS PART OF FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19 https://independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/google-maps-coronavirus-covid-19-data-privacy-security-a9444996.html…

 

[cybershot]

Haven't been paying too much attention to this thread, so apologies if already posted. If you like graphs and being spied on by google via your android phone, then here's some analytics on people's movements down to City/County.

https://www.gstatic.com/covid19/mobility/2020-03-29_GB_Mobility_Report_en.pdf

 

[little_legs]

10% of Americans "not at all" concerned about covid-19

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Don't know if we've had this yet. BMJ reporting new findings from China plus evidence from Italy that the majority of people are asymptomatic. Silly stuff at the end about the lockdowns destroying economies, but it will change things if it proves to be true.

Chinese authorities began publishing daily figures on 1 April on the number of new coronavirus cases that are asymptomatic, with the first day’s figures suggesting that around four in five coronavirus infections caused no illness. Many experts believe that unnoticed, asymptomatic cases of coronavirus infection could be an important source of contagion.

A total of 130 of 166 new infections (78%) identified in the 24 hours to the afternoon of Wednesday 1 April were asymptomatic, said China’s National Health Commission.

blanket testing in a completely isolated village of roughly 3000 people in northern Italy saw the number of people with covid-19 symptoms fall by over 90% within 10 days by isolating people who were symptomatic and those who were asymptomatic.

Covid-19: four fifths of cases are asymptomatic, China figures indicate

They will be reporting daily, so watch this space, I guess.

 

[weltweit]

Don't know if we've had this yet. BMJ reporting new findings from China plus evidence from Italy that the majority of people are asymptomatic. Silly stuff at the end about the lockdowns destroying economies, but it will change things if it proves to be true.
..

I think we knew most cases were mild or not noticeable, if anything I would expect lockdowns being more important, because anyone or most people could be infectious? Sorry perhaps that is what you meant? Also social isolation, I could have it you could have it, we are 2m apart so hopefully both of us are safe?

The stuff at the end is reminiscent of "herd immunity"..

 

[elbows]

Don't know if we've had this yet. BMJ reporting new findings from China plus evidence from Italy that the majority of people are asymptomatic. Silly stuff at the end about the lockdowns destroying economies, but it will change things if it proves to be true.

Thanks, I hadnt seen that particular article before but the potential implications of this sort of thing are why I have been wanking on about serological surveys for ages, why I decided not to take the WHO's Aylward at face value when he suggested few asymptomatic cases when he spoke around Feb 25th, and why I could not completely refute even the wankiest 'lockdown overreaction' sentiments from sections of the press.

Need more data, hence me going on about the Porton Down surveys once Hancock mentioned them yesterday.

Once enough data is obtained to see more of the real picture, the results could range from completely transformational to not significant enough to change strategy at this stage.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I think we knew most cases were mild or not noticeable, if anything I would expect lockdowns being more important, because anyone or most people could be infectious? Sorry perhaps that is what you meant? Also social isolation, I could have it you could have it, we are 2m apart so hopefully both of us are safe?

This isn't about mild, though, this is people who are entirely oblivious to the fact that they have it, or if they have ended up getting over it, that they ever had it.

If it's true, it means a few things. First, that loads of us have already had it without knowing, and second, yes, people could be infectious/have been infectious without knowing.

In some ways it doesn't change that much. It means the worst-case scenario is less bad. But it still means that the way out of this is to test, test, test.

ETA:

Also, just a note on 'mild'. In all the stats, 'mild' means 'not bad enough to be admitted to hospital'. Many people with 'mild' cases are still feeling absolutely shite.

 

[elbows]

The implications for current and future strategy might come down to quite what proportion have already had it by the time they obtain that picture. If its a very large proportion already then there are implications for future timing and measures, but I'll have to wait and see what experts make of such a scenario if it happens.

Also note that this topic potentially fits with my strong interest in what the other, existing human coronaviruses looked like for humanity when they first arrived on the scene - eg does something that quickly ends up with a healthcare burden not too dissimilar to the common cold, still resemble a bad pandemic when it first arrives on the scene? Or to put a similar concept a different way, does a disease with a low overall mortality rate still cause a scary amount of death when it first arrives if it infects huge numbers of people in a short space of time?

 

[elbows]

I think we knew most cases were mild or not noticeable, if anything I would expect lockdowns being more important, because anyone or most people could be infectious?

On a related note, when anecdotal evidence about asymptomatic infection and infectiousness sporadically popped up in the early stages of this pandemic, there were signs of a reluctance to accept the possibility, or reluctance to accept that it could be happening on a noteworthy scale. I put some of that down to natural biases of decision makers away from anything that complicates the picture in certain ways that have dramatic implications, away from anything that makes it harder to pretend that humans are in control of the situation and that the virus is within the range of our normal parameters and assumptions.

 

[weltweit]

IIRC it was proposed by China at the start that people were infectious before they had symptoms, and that most cases were mild or not noticeable. Or perhaps the not noticeable came more recently?

 

[elbows]

IIRC it was proposed by China at the start that people were infectious before they had symptoms, and that most cases were mild or not noticeable. Or perhaps the not noticeable came more recently?

It was a topic that came up plenty in the first weeks/month, yes. Mostly a combination of anecdotal evidence and existing assumptions about what proportion of mild cases to expect, rather than large volumes of data with which a proper picture could be determined. But later the picture was denied, including by the WHO China team, and thats when talk of such things faded, pending more data. I was expecting the subject to come back sooner than it did, and much of its recent return was model based (eg an Oxford model that we spoke about) or anti-lockdown knobhead opinion based, rather than being based on sufficient data. There are other exceptions to that though, eg this one which was also mentioned here before. Its hard to get carried away with this stuff due to the low numbers involved, which is why I alwys seem to be waiting for more data.

Brussels hospital: 8% of patients are infected without knowing it

www.brusselstimes.com

 

[elbows]

Also the stuff about asymptomatic cases doesnt give me a proper picture unless it includes info about how many of those cases went on to experience symptoms eventually.

 

[two sheds]

Does a single (e.g. antibody) test tell you whether you haven't had it/have got it/have had it but haven't now by the way?

 

[weltweit]

Does a single (e.g. antibody) test tell you whether you haven't had it/have got it/have had it but haven't now by the way?

I think there is the existing swab test which tells you you have it now (or not), and the antibody test - which isn't available yet - which should tell you if you have had it. But as I understand it the antibody tests government have been looking at for mass use haven't yet been approved as effective.

 

[two sheds]

ta

 

[elbows]

I think there is the existing swab test which tells you you have it now (or not), and the antigen test - which isn't available yet - which should tell you if you have had it. But as I understand it the antibody tests government have been looking at for mass use haven't yet been approved as effective.

Close apart from a slight terminology accident - the antigen test is the swab test, looking for current infection.

 

[weltweit]

Close apart from a slight terminology accident - the antigen test is the swab test, looking for current infection.

Thanks … indeed, my mistake