Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

Status
Not open for further replies.
TiredSam said:
On German news every evening they quote the Johns Hopkins statistics, which come out at around 18:30 daily, just in time for the news. The Robert Koch Institute figures are usually lower, because the JH numbers are compiled from more sources.
Click to expand...
That's weird. I thought the WHO and John Hopkins simply summarized what national governments report. I mean; given that this is a crisis situation, the German government should have more reliable information on COVID-19 cases and deaths than some team working from afar at John Hopkins and who's trying to get data from all other countries at the same time. I wonder what sources John Hopkins uses that the German federal government doesn't know of. Although I don't know much more about this, I would trust the data from the RKI more than the data from John Hopkins.
 
I don't know much about it, it was just explained on the news recently, why the Johns Hopkins figures are higher than the Robert Koch figures, and the JH figures are the ones they lead with.

Given the report on ME the Robert Koch institute produced a few years ago, I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them.
 
Amw66 said:
Fifty dedicated #COVID19 centres have sprung up in a matter of days.https://www.channel4.com/news/scotlands-nhs-using-unique-system-to-treat-coronavirus-patients …
Click to expand...

Yes, it is strange that no one is reporting this much. The BBC is making a big thing this morning about NHS England starting to test NHS staff so that they can get back to work if they are negative but Scotland has been using drive through testing stations since last Monday.

My daughter is a nurse in the covid-19 ward. She developed a cough and tightness in her chest so she had to self isolate and not go to work on Thursday. Friday she was tested, by driving to a station and having swabs taken by a technician in protective gear. This morning, Saturday, she was told she was negative - it is her hay fever starting with the spring - and she starts a 12 hour night shift at 7.00 tonight.

We have 3 drive through centres and if you feel you have symptoms you will be sent there to be tested. If you are not well enough to get there a paramedic will come to you.
 
Rosie said:
The problem with quarantine is that you can see leniency given with some flying in from overseas. How did some family members get it when they hadn't flown or been overseas. Quarantine obviously wasn't strict enough.

I may have misheard this but I thought I heard on our 1pm covid19 news update that someone who had flown in had been allowed to drive home on their own to their home to quarantine - a five hour journey - hope they don't decide to stop at a dairy on their way home. What's more is that the rest of us who are in lockdown and told to stay in our local area and who have not travelled overseas but are doing our very best to abide by the rules and here we have a traveller who is at more risk of having covid19 and passing it on to others been given permission to take a long journey by car and police themselves. And here's the reason for my lack of trust.
Click to expand...

Bit like the response to coronavirus --- test, trace.

So if you measure the outcome and then review the policy --- can't trust people to self isolate --- what do the Chinese Government do --- hold you for 14 days?
 
Roy S said:
Chicago, Illinois

Illinois had a reported 32 cases Friday.




The US still doesn't have anywhere near enough testing.
Click to expand...


it is now two weeks later. The crowds were caused by a misunderstood travel ban deadline put out by the White House. It didn't have to happen.

Illinois has been under a stay at home order for a week.

3026 cases have been confirmed and there have been 34 deaths.

The US still has nowhere near adequate testing!
 
Michiel Tack said:
I've found for example this German fact-checker that says that the Robert Koch Institute also counts "patients with underlying diseases who were infected with COVID-19 and for whom it is not clearly possible to determine what ultimately caused the death."
Click to expand...
This did the Italians as well.

That the death rate in Germany is that low, may depend on two parameteres, 1. younger people may be infected, 2. on the quite huge amount of testing which is done, so not only the already obviously sick ones like in Italy are tested, though still only people who are guessed to possibly have the virus.

In Germany it now has been decided that the the decision of who will be tried to be rescued - when the ICU´s will fall short - shall depend on the diseases the patients already have, e.g. cancer. This of course has the implication that in the near future less people will die, and to a certain time one might cancel these deaths out of the relevant statistic.
 
Last edited:
Michiel Tack said:
That's weird. I thought the WHO and John Hopkins simply summarized what national governments report. I mean; given that this is a crisis situation, the German government should have more reliable information on COVID-19 cases and deaths than some team working from afar at John Hopkins and who's trying to get data from all other countries at the same time. I wonder what sources John Hopkins uses that the German federal government doesn't know of. Although I don't know much more about this, I would trust the data from the RKI more than the data from John Hopkins.
Click to expand...
The Robert-Koch-Institute said - a bit unclear maybe - that they give the numbers which they get reported by official offices in the different "states" (so to say), and that this may be a slower reporting than the sources the John Hopkins University had made up (I think hospitals and others can report there).
 
spinoza577 said:
2. the quite huge amount of testing which is done, so not only the already obviously sick ones like in Italy, though still only people who are guessed to possibly have the virus.
Click to expand...
Germany has a larger population than Italy but the former has only about 300-400 reported COVID-19 deaths while the latter has 9000. So I think it's not so much about the ratio of how many people are being tested.
 
Last edited:
I don't think the German case fatality rate is accurate but it might not be that wrong either.

When an "abnormal" amount of people is passing very quickly in one area, that can't go unnoticed by other tertiary involved places and parties like morgues, funeral homes, crematories etc. They would be overwhelmed, too and that would be reported on, like it sadly now is in Spain.

Our government keeps on stressing though that we are at the beginning still. Since the ICUs are not overrun yet, people thankfully can be kept alive for a long time, too. Edit: So there might be a long lag still between current numbers and later deaths. That can of course change.

Edit: Regarding ICU beds: Yes, we have a lot of them (around 28.000) but that doesn't help that much because we dont have enough of the highly specialized health care workers to work on these beds and machines. That has been a problem even before Corona.
 
Last edited:
Sarah94 said:
Is it true that the UK death statistics is only counting people whose families gave permission for them to be included in the statistics?

If so, how far out do you think the UK death statistics are? We're currently supposedly at 759 deaths.
Click to expand...
Where did you hear that? Sounds like a rumour to me, but I don't know either way.
 
Michiel Tack said:
Germany has a larger population than Italy but the former has only about 300-400 reported COVID-19 deaths while the latter has 9000. So I don't think it's not so much about the ratio of how many people are being tested.
Click to expand...
The implication is that Germany is far behind Italy.

So basically the situation would be the same, and only differ in time.

But there might be an additional hope for Germany. Because Germany has tested very early on (though still only when Italy had obvious problems) and had isolated the cases, and because it might have been young people who mainly spread the virus, the virus might have spread in a different manner. And maybe, there is already some immunity. Then less people - at least these ones who are not already very ill anyway - would need to be rescued. Admittedly this might not turn out to be true.
 
strategist said:
It sounds like New York is now in a similar situation as Italy. Hospitals filled with covid-19 patients and doctors having to decide to who to keep alive.

And I think this pandemic is going to result in healthcare reforms in the US because of stories like this:

Click to expand...


This kind of story is what we in the UK are led to believe happens in the USA every single day thousands of times per day, no matter what the disease or injury, or who has the health problem.

1) No insurance = no treatment
OR
2) No insurance = treatment + bankruptcy (or at least massive life destroying bills)
OR
3) Insurance companies refusing treatment leads to no treatment and death OR treatment + bankruptcy.

This was why the stories from a few years ago of Americans being told that the "socialist" NHS holds "death panels" to decide who lives and who dies were so bizarre to us. The death panels idea appears to have been made up by US politicians and journalists using a deliberate distortion of what the responsibilities of NICE are.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institute_for_Health_and_Care_Excellence
 
Someone just asked me this and I don't know the answer, especially as I gather the corona virus can survive intact for some time on all sorts of surfaces.

Could birds transport the virus from one bird table to another, and so to people, given people will obviously be touching the bird tables and food matter? The question is whether people should be feeding birds at this time, especially as their own food sources are becoming available at this time?
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top Bottom