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Buddy Bradley
Pantheistic solipsist
“There Was A Pandemic?” What Life Is Like In Countries Without COVID
COVID infections are low to nonexistent in several countries, where life looks practically normal. Some people even occasionally forget there’s a pandemic going on.
I guess we win the "Stupidest Island Nation On The Planet" award in 2020, then...
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
To answer that...“There Was A Pandemic?” What Life Is Like In Countries Without COVID
COVID infections are low to nonexistent in several countries, where life looks practically normal. Some people even occasionally forget there’s a pandemic going on.www.buzzfeednews.com
I guess we win the "Stupidest Island Nation On The Planet" award in 2020, then...
(Admittedly not an island, but Mexico and Canada are doing way better so it's as if they are)
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
^^^ Ah funny, I was literally just starting to write a little update on the situation in Germany. (Actually wrote that in response to someone posting the Merkel video a page or so back, now coming back to complete the post.)
Not looking rosy. Cases seem to have stabilised during their light lockdown, so for a few weeks now, at around 20000 a day, with deaths of around 400-600 a day.
Once again, it seems to have been pretty much Angela Merkel singlehandedly who got the emergency brake in place when cases were rising exponentially in October, otherwise the situation would look more dire still.
I find it all so fascinating, you could fill volumes with the cultural, political and societal differences here in the UK and in Germany and how they have helped and hindered. (I guess about any countries, but these are the ones I have the most insight in.)
Unlike at the beginning, when all the good old-fashioned German thoroughness seemed to help the response to the pandemic, over time the picture has shifted a bit for me.
Digitalisation - Germany is wayyyyyy behind the UK (with new tech, from brick mobiles to tablets to smartphones, I always noticed that Germany were much later adopters, and it's also so noticeable how nearly every business from megacorporation to any self-employed person in the UK has got a good web presence; in Germany you often find a rudimentary entry on some sort of online "yellow pages" and that's it)
So a lot of businesses are not well set up for WFH and seemingly slow to adapt this year, and therefore a lot of unnecessary business contacts going on.
Same goes for schools. AND local health departments: Praised at the beginning of the pandemic for the good local set-ups, they are now overwhelmed as they are sat waiting by their fax machines...
Efficacy of the Covid-App hampered by (excessive?) data protection concerns.
The level of debate and scrutiny that I missed somewhat in discussions and the political process here, seems also to be potentially slowing down German responsiveness by the so crucial few days in implementing measures. Federalisation maybe not really helping in this respect either.
Testing - It amused me somewhat to follow the debates in the last few months in G, if people could possibly administer a covid-test themselves; a study was being done if teachers were able to do their own antigen tests. And it literally only just seems to have been decided that these antigen tests do not have to be carried out by medical personel only. I was kinda horrified when the whole self-testing thing started here in the UK, and it was just like "there you are, have a go" (with question marks over how reliably these could be carried out by a home user) - but six months on I am thinking Germany is leaning too far the other way. You gotta be a little bit pragmatic about it...
Also wonder if there is still maybe a little bit of the "prevention-paradox" hangover to the effect that some people in Germany, having escaped a horrific first wave, are slow to take it seriously now that the second wave has arrived.
Last but not least, in the last couple of weeks I have heard more and more praise for some of the studies that are being carried out in the UK, in particular the ONS survey and the REACT 1 study. This collaboration between public health and universities and the funding it has apparently received in recent years is now the envy of Germany, and questions are being asked why Germany doesn't have a similar set-up!
Not looking rosy. Cases seem to have stabilised during their light lockdown, so for a few weeks now, at around 20000 a day, with deaths of around 400-600 a day.
Once again, it seems to have been pretty much Angela Merkel singlehandedly who got the emergency brake in place when cases were rising exponentially in October, otherwise the situation would look more dire still.
I find it all so fascinating, you could fill volumes with the cultural, political and societal differences here in the UK and in Germany and how they have helped and hindered. (I guess about any countries, but these are the ones I have the most insight in.)
Unlike at the beginning, when all the good old-fashioned German thoroughness seemed to help the response to the pandemic, over time the picture has shifted a bit for me.
Digitalisation - Germany is wayyyyyy behind the UK (with new tech, from brick mobiles to tablets to smartphones, I always noticed that Germany were much later adopters, and it's also so noticeable how nearly every business from megacorporation to any self-employed person in the UK has got a good web presence; in Germany you often find a rudimentary entry on some sort of online "yellow pages" and that's it)
So a lot of businesses are not well set up for WFH and seemingly slow to adapt this year, and therefore a lot of unnecessary business contacts going on.
Same goes for schools. AND local health departments: Praised at the beginning of the pandemic for the good local set-ups, they are now overwhelmed as they are sat waiting by their fax machines...
Efficacy of the Covid-App hampered by (excessive?) data protection concerns.
The level of debate and scrutiny that I missed somewhat in discussions and the political process here, seems also to be potentially slowing down German responsiveness by the so crucial few days in implementing measures. Federalisation maybe not really helping in this respect either.
Testing - It amused me somewhat to follow the debates in the last few months in G, if people could possibly administer a covid-test themselves; a study was being done if teachers were able to do their own antigen tests. And it literally only just seems to have been decided that these antigen tests do not have to be carried out by medical personel only. I was kinda horrified when the whole self-testing thing started here in the UK, and it was just like "there you are, have a go" (with question marks over how reliably these could be carried out by a home user) - but six months on I am thinking Germany is leaning too far the other way. You gotta be a little bit pragmatic about it...
Also wonder if there is still maybe a little bit of the "prevention-paradox" hangover to the effect that some people in Germany, having escaped a horrific first wave, are slow to take it seriously now that the second wave has arrived.
Last but not least, in the last couple of weeks I have heard more and more praise for some of the studies that are being carried out in the UK, in particular the ONS survey and the REACT 1 study. This collaboration between public health and universities and the funding it has apparently received in recent years is now the envy of Germany, and questions are being asked why Germany doesn't have a similar set-up!
elbows
Well-Known Member
Yeah Germany this time is more like a worse version of what I thought might happen there with the first wave, but didnt. Presumably the success the first time round was a combination of factors that meant their timing ended up much better, that they managed by luck or effort to keep infections out of certain vulnerable settings early on and then benefited from lockdown 1 happening before some tipping points in infections had been reached in the sort of widespread way we saw in the UK. This time around conditions and their measures have been insufficient, have not been enough to prevent deaths from keeping rising, and have only been enough to make the death rise look more like a linear rise than a classic exponential curve type of rise. And thats still an achievement that takes much effort, but its not enough.
Meanwhile in France, where their original timetable for relaxing things after lockdown 2 was more cautious, and in my opinion more appropriate than the UKs, they have decided that things have not reduced enough to enable them to stick to the original best-case version of that relaxation timetable.
Covid-19: France moves to night-time curfew from 15 December
A stay-at-home rule will still end on 15 December, but the new curfew will begin - and include New Year's Eve.
www.bbc.co.uk
elbows
Well-Known Member
I've always been sorry that I couldnt add Germany to the sort of number of Covid-19 hospital patients charts that I use to compare other large European countries, because I dont have that data. But thanks to something I believe someone posted here in recent weeks, I do at least have a source for number of intensive care patients there.
www.intensivregister.de
I will post the latest version of my UK, Spain, France, Italy hospital graph soon.
DIVI Intensivregister
www.intensivregister.de
I will post the latest version of my UK, Spain, France, Italy hospital graph soon.
zora -- that was a really fascinating post 
@
You've prompted me to ask my friends in Hamburg** how things and them are getting on ... will defintely do this before Xmas.
(and I really should, because that chart above from elbows looks bad ...
)
**one a Hamburg German, her husband (my mate, originally from Brighton!) adopted!
@You've prompted me to ask my friends in Hamburg** how things and them are getting on ... will defintely do this before Xmas.
(and I really should, because that chart above from elbows looks bad ...
)**one a Hamburg German, her husband (my mate, originally from Brighton!) adopted!
elbows
Well-Known Member
And I know this is the world thread, but since people may be curious about the UK curve shape recently in that graph I just posted, here is the national makeup of that. For the hospital picture by English region, I already post that to the UK thread, usually several times a week eg most recently #26,627
Pingety Pong
Well-Known Member
My mum lives in a small village in Germany. For most of the summer things were more or less back to normal apart from her having to wear a mask inside shops. Then suddenly the numbers exploded and last month, she lost four of her neighbours to Covid within three weeks. That's like a third of her small street all dead. So yes, things seem to have gone downhill pretty rapidly.
Yossarian
⏭️
Mexico's not doing any better than the US, possibly slightly worse if anything.
Canada's not doing brilliantly but generally better than the disaster to the south, though it's not always that clear-cut - the death rate in Quebec is twice what it is over the border in Vermont and Maine, while Ontario's is slightly higher than Oregon's.
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Chairman Meow
Perth, WA
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
Thanks, that's really interesting. Have chatted about the response in Germany with someone that lives there and someone from the UK that has spent lots of time there and we had some of the same conclusions.
The culture around health is quite different there, our experience was that it's very professionalized, in terms of people do very little without the advice of a doctor, even to the point of buying OTC painkillers etc. A friend of mine recounted an experience of taking some paracetomol while living in a shared house there and people were shocked she'd just do that without talking to a doctor. There's also a massive alternative (quack) health scene isn't there? Notably they've had quite large anti-vax and anti-lockdown demos that have partly come out of that.
spring-peeper
Well-Known Member
Alberta, Canada just clued into the fact that the virus is a threat.
They went from no mask to massive restrictions, and the premiere is now declaring it a war on the virus. (paraphrase)
They decided to make ads to help their people understand the virus.
It is supposedly aimed at the younger portion of their population.
On a personal level, my district has just increased their restrictions.
Only 10 at an inside gathering.
I was only expecting 9 at Christmas....so, it is all good.
They went from no mask to massive restrictions, and the premiere is now declaring it a war on the virus. (paraphrase)
They decided to make ads to help their people understand the virus.
It is supposedly aimed at the younger portion of their population.
On a personal level, my district has just increased their restrictions.
Only 10 at an inside gathering.
I was only expecting 9 at Christmas....so, it is all good.
elbows
Well-Known Member
The grim reality never put the anti-lockdown imaginary Sweden wankers off from using a fake version of Sweden in their propaganda. So sadly despite the second wave deaths in Sweden, I think the lack of quacking about Sweden is mostly due to timing cycles. The anti-lockdown wankers tend to seek and receive attention when there is a buildup to new national restrictions being decided upon and announced, its part of the politics applicable most to a phase we have moved beyond several times so far. But yes, I suppose it is possible that Swedens star has faded even in the anti-lockdown wankers minds, I just couldnt bet on it since there is much else in reality that they find easy to ignore.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Germany decided to go much further, regardless of Christmas.
Coronavirus: Germany to go into lockdown over Christmas
The authorities have been struggling to control a growing number of infections and deaths.
www.bbc.co.uk
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
There was a London GP on BBC news TV channel this morning at about 8am who went on about lockdown not working. She wasn't questioned at all about her suggested alternative. She was against mass testing in schools as well, as she reckons it does more harm than good. Again, not questioned on it. FFS.
Cloo
Approved by toads
Interesting report from Zoe project suggests that truly asymptomatic Covid may be rarer than has generally been believed so far There’s more to COVID-19 than the three ‘classic’ symptoms. Here’s what else to look out for
There are times when the BBC's interpretation of 'balance' is to interview nutcases and scarcely challenge them at all. Really pisses me off
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
Heard this too because it can take several days between testing positive and symptoms to show up, there is also a difference between asymptomatic and 'subclinical' with someone just feeling a bit tired one day or something.
I've also heard that even asymptomatic infections can increase the risk of stuff like heart attacks and blood clots
protesting this got me threatened with a tazer, battered, and handcuffed for 2 hours so tightly my left thumb still doesn’t have any feeling in it.
it’s a fucking ash tray you selfish bastards, just cos some 80 year old who doesn’t receive enough pension money cleans it up at 4am everyday, to top up their income, doesn’t mean you should be doing that
let us know if you find my North Face security pouch with passport and 2 grand in it, please
Yossarian
⏭️
They'd probably get more people to take the warnings seriously if their ads showed a COVID patient in their 30s or 40s being intubated - I don't know why COVID ads from governments seem to be pulling their punches a little while cigarette packets are required to show graphic photos of diseased eyeballs etc.
miss direct
misfungled
Four day lockdown over New Year in Turkey. 9pm NYE till 5am on the 4th.
