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

[elbows]

Coronavirus Update (Live): 1,138,646 Cases and 61,142 Deaths from COVID-19 Virus Outbreak - Worldometer for days UK serious case has stuck at 163, new cases have risen, deaths has risen but serious cases sticks at 163 Is it the size of our ICU capacity?

They dont have enough data to make that figure meaningful for the UK.

For example, we are now getting number of hospitalised cases for England and Scotland, but they are often numbers mentioned in press conferences rather than published with the main numbers, in the case of England the numbers are being used in slides at the downing street briefings.

Worldometer probably isnt using those (they are a recent thing) but Scotland have also mentioned in daily briefings how many people are in intensive care there. The figure given for this on April 2nd was 162, so it is reasonable to think this was the number being used by Worldometer for their serious cases UK figure. The official Scottish figure then went up to 176 the next day.

 

[D]

Latest rules in Turkey, as of last night:
Over 65s and under 20s are not allowed out.
All major cities are locked down -nobody in, nobody out. Intercity buses, trains and flights have been stopped.

It's required to wear a mask when you're in a crowded place like a supermarket/chemist/on public transport.

Is there a system of food delivery set up for seniors and immune compromised folks? And are all health care providers over 60 barred from working? (I'll do some googling, but I'm just so curious about how this is actually working in other countries, since we have nothing like this in the US).

We also have this unfuckingbelievable bullshit:

"With the coronavirus outbreak creating an unprecedented demand for medical supplies and equipment, New York state has paid 20 cents for gloves that normally cost less than a nickel and as much as $7.50 each for masks, about 15 times the usual price. It’s paid up to $2,795 for infusion pumps, more than twice the regular rate. And $248,841 for a portable X-ray machine that typically sells for $30,000 to $80,000."

"With little guidance from the Trump administration, competition among states, cities, hospitals and federal agencies is contributing to the staggering bill for fighting the pandemic, which New York has estimated will cost it $15 billion in spending and lost revenue. The bidding wars are also raising concerns that facilities with shallow pockets, like rural health clinics, won’t be able to obtain vital supplies."

In Desperation, New York State Pays Up To 15 Times The Normal Prices For Medical Equipment

State data shows that New York is paying enormous markups for vital supplies, including almost $250,000 for an X-ray machine. Laws against price gouging usually don’t apply.

www.huffpost.com

 

[D]

Also, the College of Staten Island, which is part of the CUNY (City University of NY) system has been turned into a hospital. All universities have gone online, but many students may not have computer access or wifi at home and/or they may be sharing the computer with their entire family. They may also not have access to physical space in their home conducive to learning. Obviously, people will make the best of this. But every aspect of the deep systemic injustices and infrastructural failures of this country are fully exposed and totally unraveling. And while the NYC Dept of Education promised a tablet or laptop to every student, many students are still waiting on the arrival of those laptops and, of course, neighbors are doing what they can to make sure personal devices get to students whenever possible.

In some positive news, it has been announced that the Dept of Education is now distributing 3 meals a day to ANYONE of ANY age at 400 sites across the city. No ID or registration required, which means undocumented NYers have potential access to these services. Of course, many of these announcements have been made; but that doesn't always mean that they are actually happening or that the systems are in place for successful execution.

 

[miss direct]

Is there a system of food delivery set up for seniors and immune compromised folks? And are all health care providers over 60 barred from working? (I'll do some googling, but I'm just so curious about how this is actually working in other countries, since we have nothing like this in the US).

Well, this is a very family centred society, so most older people have family supporting them with food and general needs. Secondly, most apartment blocks here have a caretaker - most of these men are now making food deliveries to residents. Here in Istanbul you can get anything delivered. There is a council led scheme sending out food boxes to those who don't have any support. I asked my upstairs neighbour if they needed anything and she said they're fine, their son brings whatever they need.

As for older workers, I'm not sure. Retirement age is pretty young here so I'd be surprised if there were workers in the health service aged over 60.

 

[Boru]

And still large public gatherings continue.. this makes isolation and containment of infections nearly impossible..

Car park closed after 'thousands' risk their lives and others by flocking to Cassiobury Park

Cassiobury Park car park has been closed after “thousands” of people risked their lives and others by choosing to flout government Covid-19…

www.harrowtimes.co.uk

 

[cupid_stunt]

And still large public gatherings continue.. this makes isolation and containment of infections nearly impossible..

Car park closed after 'thousands' risk their lives and others by flocking to Cassiobury Park

Cassiobury Park car park has been closed after “thousands” of people risked their lives and others by choosing to flout government Covid-19…

www.harrowtimes.co.uk

This is the 'worldwide' thread, please keep posts like this to the UK thread.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Encouraging numbers coming out of Switzerland. They're on lockdown until at least 19 April, but may be in a position to make some sort of change by then. New cases on their way down for a couple of weeks now and new deaths now also, tentatively, should have peaked. Crucially they appear to have hit maximum active cases. Switzerland currently testing 6,000 people per day. That's the equivalent of about 50,000 per day here, so five times the rate, and up there with Germany. Also, like Germany, a very decentralised state. Patterns are emerging...

They have this in place now. Could be the future

In order to prevent and slow down the spread of the virus as much as possible, those known to be affected have been isolated.

Anyone who has been in close contact with a sick person, i.e. less than two metres away for more than 15 minutes, must also remain in quarantine for two weeks.

Coronavirus: the situation in Switzerland

This, combined with a vigorous testing regime, appears to be helping to produce results and vastly reduce the death rate.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Fuck, sobering stuff about the real death rates. Including everyone - those who died at home from c19 and those who died because they couldn't get treatment for other things - the real death tolls could be as much as four times the official ones. This from Italy:

L’Eco di Bergamo, a newspaper, has obtained data from 82 localities in Italy’s Bergamo province. In March these places had 2,420 more deaths than in March 2019. Just 1,140, less than half of the increase, were attributed to covid-19. “The data is the tip of the iceberg,” Giorgio Gori, the mayor of Bergamo’s capital, told L’Eco. “Too many victims are not included in the reports because they die at home.”

Covid-19’s death toll appears higher than official figures suggest

 

[elbows]

Encouraging numbers coming out of Switzerland. They're on lockdown until at least 19 April, but may be in a position to make some sort of change by then. New cases on their way down for a couple of weeks now and new deaths now also, tentatively, should have peaked. Crucially they appear to have hit maximum active cases. Switzerland currently testing 6,000 people per day. That's the equivalent of about 50,000 per day here, so five times the rate, and up there with Germany. Also, like Germany, a very decentralised state. Patterns are emerging...

I still dont understand how you reach these conclusions. I will be absolutely astonished if they relax things as early as April 19th.

ZURICH, April 3 (Reuters) - Switzerland is in a delicate but stable situation regarding the spread of the new coronavirus, Health Minister Alain Berset said on Friday as the country’s death toll continued to rise.

“Hospitalisations continue to go up but not all beds are taken,” Berset told a news conference in Bern.

“We have not yet reached the peak for infections or for hospitalisations. Now more than ever we have to continue this marathon.”

Switzerland in delicate but stable condition on coronavirus - minister

Switzerland is in a delicate but stable situation regarding the spread of the new coronavirus, Health Minister Alain Berset said on Friday as the country's death toll continued to rise.

www.reuters.com

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I still dont understand how you reach these conclusions. I will be absolutely astonished if they relax things as early as April 19th.

Switzerland in delicate but stable condition on coronavirus - minister

Switzerland is in a delicate but stable situation regarding the spread of the new coronavirus, Health Minister Alain Berset said on Friday as the country's death toll continued to rise.

www.reuters.com

I reach these conclusions by looking at the figures. New cases peaked two weeks ago - can say that with a cautious confidence. And new deaths may be peaking now, as expected if new cases peaked two weeks ago. Active cases may be peaking now at around 14,000-odd. These are tentative, but not baseless, conclusions, and the level of testing in Switzerland makes their figures likely to be more meaningful than most.

 

[elbows]

I reach these conclusions by looking at the figures. New cases peaked two weeks ago - can say that with a cautious confidence. And new deaths may be peaking now, as expected if new cases peaked two weeks ago. Active cases may be peaking now at around 14,000-odd. These are tentative, but not baseless, conclusions, and the level of testing in Switzerland makes their figures likely to be more meaningful than most.

Figures for new cases per day are not a reliable guide to current rate of new infections. Because they arent a true story about infections, they are a mix of that but also a story of testing regime and capacity and specifics. Even a country like Switzerland with relatively impressive number of tests has not managed to get a system in place that could deliver an accurate picture with that measure alone. And there are regional variations and bottlenecks.

I dont know what measures exactly the authorities there use, but I'm sure other indicators are involved and that why on Friday they said they had not reached the peak for infections. You should take that into account. I'm going to have a look around and see if there is any hospital data for Switzerland that will add to a different part of the picture.

Also as epidemics progress, I would invite anyone who is interested in particular countries and has theories about what stage they are at and how well they are doing, to try and dig deeper. Specifically, I recommend starting to look at data for different regions of that country, if available, rather than just the country as a whole. Because epidemics will vary in scale and timing based on locality, and there is no reason for us to limit our sense of reality by only looking at countries as wholes. If you want to spot positive trends at the earliest opportunity, you may also have more luck by studying regional data, otherwise its possible to miss the peak of epidemics in a region because another region is heading in the opposite direction at the same time.

 

[elbows]

Whole load of Switzerland data here, per canton, including hospitalisations and ICU stuff.

ArcGIS Dashboards

ArcGIS Dashboards

ddrobotec.maps.arcgis.com

It will take me some time to spot anything in this data, and I havent yet determined how easy it will be for me to plot changes of it over time. I'm not sure how interested in Switzerland in particular I am, so I might not be the person for that job anyway.

 

[elbows]

Also note it includes links to its sources, I clicked on the one for Geneva and got all manner of interesting charts over time in their official update:

https://www.ge.ch/document/covid-19-situation-epidemiologique-geneve/telecharger

Sadly the data is not presented in the same way everywhere else, the amount of detail and visual presentations seems to vary a lot between cantons.

 

[Mation]

The UK is later in locking down on entertainment, but comparable. I wonder if the parks thing, though, is because we have more/bigger parks here?

This may very well not generalise, but London has more and larger parks compared to, say, Paris. It's possible to go out to the park and still do social distancing here in London, whereas it might not be elsewhere.

 

[weltweit]

US hospitals come under increasing strain

In the US hospitals across the country are coming under increasing strain. In Louisiana, the death toll is mounting and there are concerns that the state could run out of hospital beds. New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has ordered the National Guard to seize and redistribute any ventilators and personal protective equipment from facilities in the state. Florida has issued a stay-at-home order – over the past week cases in the state have been growing by hundreds daily.

Read more: Coronavirus latest: US hospitals come under increasing strain

from 03/04/2020 Coronavirus latest: US hospitals come under increasing strain

 

[weltweit]

More

New York City hospitals and morgues overwhelmed

A doctor in New York City has described the situation in hospitals as “apocalyptic, complete chaos.” They said, “We just aren’t able to offer people a proper standard of care – like sitting and talking to them about their treatment – and it’s getting worse day by day.” Some of the morgues in the city are already filled to capacity.

US unemployment claims hit new record

A record 6.6 million US citizens applied for unemployment benefits last week, reflecting thehuge impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the economy. The job losses have mostly affected people who work in retail, restaurants, travel, hotels and leisure industries. The previous weekly unemployment record was set a week earlier, at 3.3 million. State services across the US have been overwhelmed with the large numbers of people filing for benefits.

 

[elbows]

My cautious approach to interpreting data means that I will not usually be the sort of person who will alert people to any positive news early. But I can report on what other countries are saying, and Spain is now newsworthy on this front:

Coronavirus: Spain 'close to passing peak' as deaths fall again

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has extended lockdown measures in the country until 25 April.

www.bbc.co.uk

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez says the country is "close to passing the peak of infections" as the number of coronavirus deaths fell for the second day in a row.

Mr Sánchez also extended lockdown measures until 25 April, saying the restrictions were "saving lives".

The toll of 809 deaths in one day is the lowest in Spain for a week.

They also offer some clues about what a new normal may be like in the next phase:

Meanwhile, officials are trying to get masks for all citizens as part of plans to eventually ease restrictions.

Face masks are currently almost impossible to get hold of in Spain. The government had previously said they served little purpose outside hospitals.

However, views on wearing masks appear to be shifting in Western countries, with US health authorities on Friday recommending their use in public. Austria, the Czech Republic, Israel and Turkey have also mandated the use of masks in various public places.

Addressing the nation, Mr Sánchez said extending the lockdown for two weeks was necessary to give the health service time to recover.

"These are the most difficult days of our lives," he said.

Once the number of new infections was under control a "progressive return to a new normal" would get under way to rebuild the economy, he said. New hygiene, detection and tracing measures would be in place.

 

[weltweit]

Nations with Mandatory TB Vaccines Show Fewer Coronavirus Deaths

New study finds a correlation, but clinical trials are still in progress

The preliminary study posted on medRxiv, a site for unpublished medical research, finds a correlation between countries that require citizens to get the bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine and those showing fewer number of confirmed cases and deaths from Covid-19. Though only a correlation, clinicians in at least six countries are running trials that involve giving frontline health workers and elderly people the BCG vaccine to see whether it can indeed provide some level of protection against the new coronavirus.

Gonzalo Otazu, assistant professor at the New York Institute of Technology and lead author of the study, started working on the analysis after noticing the low number of cases in Japan. The country had reported some of the earliest confirmed cases of coronavirus outside of China and it hadn’t instituted lockdown measures like so many other countries have done.

from 02/04/2020 Nations with Mandatory TB Vaccines Show Fewer Coronavirus Deaths

 

[weltweit]

To add

Among high-income countries showing large number of Covid-19 cases, the U.S. and Italy recommend BCG vaccines but only for people who might be at risk, whereas Germany, Spain, France and the U.K. used to have BCG vaccine policies but ended them years to decades ago. China, where the pandemic began, has a BCG vaccine policy but it wasn’t adhered to very well before 1976, Otazu said. Countries including Japan and South Korea, which have managed to control the disease, have universal BCG vaccine policies.

Early days, but interesting I hope.

 

[weltweit]

from Why Covid-19 has spread so fast in the US

 

[little_legs]

The most powerful country in the history of the world y'all:

 

[weltweit]

Texas City Mandates People Wear Masks in Public or Face $1,000 Fines

Should you wear a mask during the coronavirus pandemic? The city of Laredo, Texas, has decided that yes, you do. And if you don’t wear one, they could fine you.

The city’s emergency mandate, which went into effect on April 2, states that every person over the age of five must wear “some form of covering over their nose and mouth” when using public transportation, taxis, ride shares, pumping gas or when inside a building open to the public. That face covering can include a homemade mask, scarf, bandana or handkerchief. The penalty for violating the order is a Class C misdemeanor, punishable by a fine up to $1,000.

from 04/04/2020 Texas City Mandates People Wear Masks in Public or Face $1,000 Fines

 

[Supine]

from Why Covid-19 has spread so fast in the US

View attachment 204981

I haven't read the article but can't see the value of this graph. When analysing data you need to be clear about cause and affect. I don't see that conducting tests relates to number of cases. Maybe number of detected cases but so what.

 

[weltweit]

I haven't read the article but can't see the value of this graph. When analysing data you need to be clear about cause and affect. I don't see that conducting tests relates to number of cases. Maybe number of detected cases but so what.

My understanding of that chart is that it shows the more you test the more cases you find. That is just confirmed cases, not hospitalisations or deaths. So for example UK hasn't done much testing and who would have guessed it we haven't found many cases etc ..

I think it does need an idea of the numbers of fatalities in mind while looking at it. So for example we know Italy has had many deaths - and they have been doing quite a lot of testing and finding lots of cases. However UK & USA also now have plenty of deaths yet they haven't been testing much and appear to have just a few cases ..

I suppose a three dimensional chart including fatalities might have been more useful, but perhaps not have looked so pretty ?

 

[Nine Bob Note]

I've reluctantly ordered a mask off eBay, but I won't be wearing it until the day these armchair surgeon-generals make it law

 

[zahir]

It looks like the Faroe Islands may be having some success.

 

[weltweit]

WHO Press conference from 03/04/2020

 

[zahir]

More on the Faroe Islands outbreak.

The significant salmon farming on the islands requires test equipment to check for Salmon isavirus, which was repurposed in 2009 against the Pandemic H1N1/09 virus. The equipment was adapted to test for COVID-19, and ready by February 2020 to test 600 per day instead of waiting days for samples to be sent to Denmark for testing.[3] The usual epidemic strategy of testing and tracking disease cases has been abandoned in most countries because their health care system has been overwhelmed. The Faroe Islands is seen as an exception due to its large testing capacity relative to its population size; a miniature laboratory with lessons on how to handle the disease.

COVID-19 pandemic in the Faroe Islands - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Before getting into the numbers, a few notes about precautions taken there since March 12: no more than 100 people were allowed to be in a place at a time, a maximum of 10 people could be on a bus, social isolation required if you tested positive as well as quarantine for anyone you’ve been in contact with, anyone coming from overseas had to home quarantine themselves, strict restrictions on hospital and elderly care facility visitations, schools closed, and work-from-home orders where possible. Testing started in late February and they didn’t have the problem that many other places had due to a limited number of tests (ahem, USA) because an expert on the Faroe Islands had developed testing there starting in January so that they wouldn’t have to rely on Denmark for the tests. The first confirmed case came on March 4 and the second on March 6.

Faroe Islands: 4000+ Tested For Coronavirus, 173 Infected, 1 Hospitalized, 0 Deaths - CleanTechnica

As I've lamented before, we have poor data — very poor data — on the coronavirus and resulting COVID-19 disease that is wreaking havoc on our world. The Faroe Islands, though, appear to have some good data. Let's have a look.

cleantechnica.com

Up to date data on this official site.

Korona í Føroyum

Kunning og seinastu tøl um korona í Føroyum

corona.fo

Twenty years ago, the Faroese salmon industry was ravaged by an influenza, the ‘ISA-virus’, which wiped out about 90 percent of its salmon. In response, an infrastructure for testing was introduced that included a laboratory and equipment. Debes Christiansen, a geneticist at the Faroese Food Authority, had the idea in January to utilise these facilities for coronavirus testing purposes, and they have proven to be directly transferrable 20 years later. As a result, according to figures from the National Board of Health, about 8.3 percent of the Faroese population have been tested, making it the highest per capita for testing in the world. In Denmark, approximately 0.4 percent have been tested. Some 173 people have tested positive for COVID-19 in the Faroe Islands, and so far no Faroese have died from the infection – thanks in part to rapid detection and containment.

The Copenhagen Post

The Copenhagen Post – your Danish Connection

cphpost.dk

In the Faroe Islands, citizens who report even mild symptoms of coronavirus are tested. Many other countries report a lack of testing capacity, but this is not the case in the Faroe Islands. At all three hospitals, the Faroese health services offer a “drive-in test” for citizens who report symptoms of COVID-19.

Pál Weihe, who is a Faroese professor and expert in public health, welcomes the great testing possibilities in the Faroe Islands. “We continue to contain the virus and believe it’s important to know as accurately as possible who and how many are infected so that we can quarantine and stop the spreading”, he says. In the Faroe Islands, the health authorities track every single corona case and every person that has been in contact with an infected person. The experience of a previous virus outbreak helps. ”

The secret to the Faroe Islands’ large number of corona tests

www.tmf-dialogue.net

 

[weltweit]

Developing antibody tests for SARS-CoV-2

Laboratories and diagnostic companies are racing to produce antibody tests, a key part of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Anna Petherick reports.
..
there is a palpable hurry to limit economic damage, to get people back to work, and to reopen borders—and those whose immunity can be demonstrated should be able to return to work, without risk. Some regulators, such as the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA), have already chosen to relax normal assessment criteria.
..

“At the moment we are only estimating the number of people who have been infected. No one in the world has measured that properly yet”, says Martin Hibberd, professor of emerging infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, UK. “We think that children are infective but asymptomatic, for example, but we don’t know enough about this—and that information matters for decisions about whether to close schools.”
..

Antibody tests are different because they require some knowledge of the proteins that form the viral coat—specifically, those proteins to which the immune system responds, triggering the production of antibodies that flag or neutralise the virus. Those sections of the viral protein coat must then be produced in the laboratory, using cell lines, for inclusion in an immunoassay (eg, ELISA) that detects whether antibodies are present. Such immunoassays will form the basis of home testing kits for people who think they have had COVID-19.
..

“All viral proteins will elicit antibody responses to some extent”, says Berend-Jan Bosch, a coronavirus specialist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. “But the spike protein is the main antigen that elicits neutralising antibodies, as this protein is the sole protein on the viral surface that is responsible for entry into the host cell.”
..

Which part of the spike protein to use is less obvious, however. A team at New York's Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai (NY, USA), has published details of antibody tests that use either the whole spike protein, modified slightly to improve its stability during mass production in cell lines, or only the receptor-binding domain. Others, such as Peng Zhou, who leads the bat virus infection and immunity group at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China, and was part of the team that sequenced SARS-CoV-2's genetic code in January, have used the nucleocapsid protein and the spike protein. Zhou's antibody test is one of at least ten antibody tests that have already been deployed in hospitals across China.

That is probably enough to post, it is a long article, if you find it of interest I suggest visiting the page.

from 04/04/2020 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)30788-1/fulltext

 

[weltweit]

Facemask shortage and the novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak: Reflections on public health measures

Facemask wearing with proper hand hygiene is considered an effective measure to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission, but facemask wearing has become a social concern due to the global facemask shortage. China is the major facemask producer in the world, contributing to 50% of global production. However, a universal facemask wearing policy would put an enormous burden on the facemask supply.
..

Findings
Regardless of different universal facemask wearing policy scenarios, facemask shortage would occur but eventually end during our prediction period (from 20 Jan 2020 to 30 Jun 2020). The duration of the facemask shortage described in the scenarios of a country-wide universal facemask wearing policy, a universal facemask wearing policy in the epicentre, and no universal facemask wearing policy were 132, seven, and four days, respectively. During the prediction period, the largest daily facemask shortages were predicted to be 589·5, 49·3, and 37·5 million in each of the three scenarios, respectively. In any scenario, an N95 mask shortage was predicted to occur on 24 January 2020 with a daily facemask shortage of 2·2 million.

Recommend reading the full text

from 02/04/2020 https://www.thelancet.com/journals/eclinm/article/PIIS2589-5370(20)30073-0/fulltext