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

[zahir]

This looks alarming (read the thread) - aiming for herd immunity by allowing children to get infected.

 

[SpookyFrank]

This looks alarming (read the thread) - aiming for herd immunity by allowing children to get infected.

I'm not certain the UK's approach is so wildly different tbh. Although incompetence rather than ideology is still the more likely explanation.

 

[Thora]

I agree, basically the same as we have here. Although there is a token effort to send children with some symptoms home, the government are also encouraging children with "colds" to attend school.

 

[elbows]

Meanwhile they are finally shutting bars and restaurants in Marseille, well from Saturday onwards.

Covid-19: France to shut bars and restaurants in hard-hit Marseille

France will order bars and restaurants shut in Marseille and restrict their opening hours in other cities including Paris as part of efforts to stem a continuing rise in the daily number of infections,…

www.france24.com

 

[Graymalkin]

Here in Ontario, the infection rate is climbing. It makes sense because of the schools opening.

Testing has become a nightmare, with parents starting to line up at 3 am and still taking hours before they get to the beginning of the queue.
In the rural areas, you can only be seen if you have an appointment and you can only arrive 15 minutes before your appointment.
This in not the case in the urban areas - ya gotta line up.

Last week, my niece, rural, had to have here kids tested because one of them coughed in class and had a fever.
Had them tested on Friday, Monday she was told the tests were inconclusive and she had to redo the tests.
Did they give her an appointment time? NO!!!
45 minutes on hold, she got the appointment for Thursday.

In response to these horror stories, the provincial government is now allowing the pharmacies to test.

Full list of Ontario pharmacies now offering COVID-19 tests

Up to 60 pharmacies across Ontario will be offering COVID-19 testing as of Friday. Here is a full list:

toronto.ctvnews.ca

None are within an hours drive, which is good.

I don't want to go into the store to get my meds, and have to worry if the person ahead of me wants testing.

A friend of mine in Ottawa is facing the same problem with their daughter. Its another massive bungle and it bet the province will be paying for it in the coming weeks. I'm sure you've seen the lineup in kingston. 5-7 hours for a city of 120k.

 

[spring-peeper]

A friend of mine in Ottawa is facing the same problem with their daughter. Its another massive bungle and it bet the province will be paying for it in the coming weeks. I'm sure you've seen the lineup in kingston. 5-7 hours for a city of 120k.

Wow!!! @ Kingston. a friend works at the college. I should reach out to her.

I put most of the blame of the testing hassles squarely on the premiere, Doug Ford.
He should have seen this coming!!!

A couple of days ago, I saw an article from BC. They had a test that the students could gargle, and the sample could be tested within a short time.
This could be a gamechanger for the schools. but I have no idea of the cost.

 

[frogwoman]

Israel breaks daily coronavirus infections record with 9,200 new cases

***

www.haaretz.com

Not listened to it yet but there is a podcast linked here about covid unravelling Bibi's leadership.

Israel's outbreak is rapidly spreading out of control, 11k new cases were recorded yesterday

 

[editor]

This is interesting

'Close to 100% accuracy': Helsinki airport uses sniffer dogs to detect Covid

Researchers running Helsinki pilot scheme say dogs can identify virus in seconds

www.theguardian.com

 

[two sheds]

Do they sneeze on a positive?

 

[Supine]

Do they sneeze on a positive?

At least they're not snitching on people with a bit of weed in their pocket.

 

[emanymton]

This is interesting

'Close to 100% accuracy': Helsinki airport uses sniffer dogs to detect Covid

Researchers running Helsinki pilot scheme say dogs can identify virus in seconds

www.theguardian.com

After collecting their luggage, arriving international passengers are asked to dab their skin with a wipe. In a separate booth, the beaker containing the wipe is then placed next to others containing different control scents – and the dog starts sniffing.

So you don't even get to meet the dog?

 

[weltweit]

Pretty amazing if the dogs have a good hit rate.

And if they do I wonder if a sensor can simulate that .. assuming we don't have enough dogs to go round?

 

[kabbes]

Pretty amazing if the dogs have a good hit rate.

And if they do I wonder if a sensor can simulate that .. assuming we don't have enough dogs to go round?

Probably not. There are many things dogs can sniff out where we have no clue what it is they’re sniffing. The tech of a dog’s nose is light years ahead of anything we can replicate.

 

[elbows]

I havent had time to read this yet but it sounds interesting:

To facilitate cross-country learning, this Health Policy paper uses an adapted framework to examine the approaches taken by nine high-income countries and regions that have started to ease COVID-19 restrictions: five in the Asia Pacific region (ie, Hong Kong [Special Administrative Region], Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, and South Korea) and four in Europe (ie, Germany, Norway, Spain, and the UK). This comparative analysis presents important lessons to be learnt from the experiences of these countries and regions. Although the future of the virus is unknown at present, countries should continue to share their experiences, shield populations who are at risk, and suppress transmission to save lives.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32007-9/fulltext

 

[elbows]

I'm only skimming it at the moment but there is this:

With few exceptions, such as Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Scotland, and South Korea, political leaders have struggled to secure public trust and thus support for continued lifestyle changes. More generally, countries with female leaders have done better at securing public confidence and adherence to new measures than have countries with male leaders.
17 In England, controversy surrounding a trip made during lockdown by a close adviser to the prime minister has substantially undermined public confidence in the government and support for the measures that it was taking.

 

[elbows]

And:

Germany's experience shows the benefits of investing in the health system for the future. Before the COVID-19 outbreak, the country already had 34 critical care beds per 100 000 inhabitants, compared with 9·7 in Spain and 5·2 in Japan (appendix p 18).
Thus, Germany's intensive care units were well under capacity even during the peak of the outbreak, unlike many other European counterparts that had to adapt other wards and spaces within hospitals to accommodate critically ill patients with COVID-19. With the exception of Germany, all countries also adopted triage systems (although some were unofficial) in which only patients with severe disease would be treated at designated hospitals, whereas patients with mild disease would be monitored at makeshift community facilities or at home.

 

[elbows]

Madrid still a fiasco.

2h ago 12:02

On Friday, the regional government rejected the central government’s calls for a city-wide return to lockdown, instead announcing that another eight areas in the region would be put into the partial lockdown already in force across 37 zones. When the order comes into effect next week, more than a million people in the region will only be allowed to enter and exit their home zones on work, educational, legal or medical grounds.

But, in a parallel press conference, Spain’s health minister urged more drastic action, saying that cities with more than 500 cases per 100,000 people should go into lockdown. As of Thursday evening, the Madrid region had recorded 746.15 cases per 100,000 people over the preceding fortnight.

 

[two sheds]

I havent had time to read this yet but it sounds interesting:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32007-9/fulltext

It would also be productive to examine non-high-income countries given the recent article saying that some quite poor countries have greatly outperformed western ones. I suppose the lessons would be harder to apply though.

 

[elbows]

Yes there are so many differences that it would be hard to do properly, especially because of demographic differences (population age pyramids may be vastly different), but also because the nature of assumptions about what the concrete data actually manages to capture in different places tends to vary, eg different degree of testing capacity, mortality statistics collection etc.

 

[ice-is-forming]

We've still only had 6 deaths in qld and we're out the other side of winter now. Only 5 active cases. Lots of testing, track and trace happening and no new cases for 5 days. I'm feeling very, very grateful and lucky.

 

[AnandLeo]

China rejects Trump accusations on COVID-19

China on Tuesday rejected US President Donald Trump’s accusations on the UN stage that it had “unleashed” coronavirus on the world.

In his own address to the UN General Assembly, Chinese President Xi Jinping told urged UN member-states to avoid “politicization” of the virus, saying: “We humans are battling COVID-19. People of different countries have come together, demonstrating courage, resolve and compassion. The virus will be defeated. Humanity will win this battle.”

Xi added: “We should see each other as members of the same big family, pursue win-win cooperation, and rise above ideological disputes and do not fall into the trap of ‘clash of civilizations’.”

He called COVID-19 the major “test of the governance capacity of countries” and “also a test of the global governance system. We should stay true to multilateralism and safeguard the international system with the UN at its core.”

“China is the largest developing country in the world… A country that is committed to peaceful, open, cooperative and common development. We will never seek hegemony, expansion, or sphere of influence. We have no intention to fight either a Cold War or a hot war with any country,” Xi added.

He said that China will continue to “narrow differences and resolve disputes with others through dialogue and negotiation.”

Rebuffing Trump’s call for China to be held accountable for the pandemic, Zhang Jun, Beijing’s ambassador to the UN, said: “China resolutely rejects the baseless accusations.”

It is not a baseless accusation. China should be held to account for these pandemics emanating from China.

 

[elbows]

Not by cunts who would put it in such a crude way, no.

 

[elbows]

Or to put it another way, there is a very long list of people, institutions, professions, industries, governments, priorities and human ways of life and behaviours that should be held to account by this pandemic.

Various things relating to China are on the list. And disease surveillance & response is on the list. Openness and the timely flow of information is on the list. Hospital funding, capacity and staffing is on the list. Human food/animal industries are on the list. Lab security and the risks of accidents when experimenting with novel viruses is on the list.

 

[elbows]

And dog-whistle cunts who are more interesting in deflecting blame and protecting their business interests and those of their backers than they are in the health of their nation are on the fucking list.

 

[elbows]

And regimes that are only too happy to count the cost of saving face in human lives lost are on the bloody list. Theres more than a few of those around.

 

[Supine]

You should be careful blaming China for all of these outbreaks. The WHO released their flu strain announcement for the 2021 southern season today. As seen they ain't from China...

 

[scifisam]

Which stats show that?

The UK blood-donor ones dont, they are pretty much the opposite of what you suggest:

View attachment 229363
From https://assets.publishing.service.g...COVID19_Surveillance_Report_week_36_FINAL.pdf

I would have thought the results for over 70s would be less reliable, because over 70s are generally banned from giving blood. All blood testing groups are slightly different to the general population because a lot of people aren't eligible to give blood, but for over 70s that's even truer.

 

[elbows]

I would have thought the results for over 70s would be less reliable, because over 70s are generally banned from giving blood. All blood testing groups are slightly different to the general population because a lot of people aren't eligible to give blood, but for over 70s that's even truer.

They couldnt measure that group during lockdown but in more recent times that surveillance document says this:

Population weighted antibody prevalence (unadjusted) estimates in donors aged 70-84 years are included in the most recent data (weeks 31-35) as this age group, who were advised to shield during lockdown, have been able to return to donor clinics since week 26 (Figure 41)

 

[scifisam]

They couldnt measure that group during lockdown but in more recent times that surveillance document says this:

Yes, but even in non-Covid times over 70s are generally banned from donating. Only those who have given a full blood donation in the last two years are eligible. Also the general health exceptions are much more common in that age group. Almost all of them are going to be towards the bottom of that age range, for a start.

 

[elbows]

They have error bars showing the confidence interval, and the number of samples involved. This provides some sense of what they think in terms of reliability of different results, ie an attempt to quantify the sort of thing you are talking about.

Well, they used to have the numbers involved in that earlier report, but the format of the age-based antibody reporting graph has changed, this is the latest one (still has error bars but they can be hard to see clearly):



from https://assets.publishing.service.g...COVID19_Surveillance_Report_week_39_FINAL.pdf

The error bars are longer for the oldest age group but not by enough to erase my original point.