Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

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Jonathan Edwards said:
I suspect that the current approach will continue until European and American governments see places like China and New Zealand roaring back into economic growth having blocked all air traffic - except to other countries that have eliminated the virus. Only then will the UK and the US ee how far behind the economic curve they are - going off in the wrong direction.
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I am not sure the USA will ever get its act together.

Even if New York or wherever has things under control, it will be at the mercy of other states. I think Florida will be a big problem, they were slow to act and my understanding is they think they can control it themselves.

It will be next to impossible to have a cohesive response.
 
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The Faroe Islands have apparently tested a higher percent of the population than anywhere else! (10% of the 60000 population) then they are doing track and quarantine with 184 people having tested positive.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ist-hailed-faroe-islands-lack-covid-19-deaths
The success of the Faroese approach is said by local politicians to be largely a result of the foresight of the veterinary scientist Debes Christiansen, the head of department at the National Reference Laboratory for Fish and Animal Diseases in the capital, Tórshavn.

Christiansen had warned the government of the self-governing territory within the Kingdom of Denmark as early as January of the need to prepare for the possible spread of the disease from China.

His laboratory, which was primarily geared to test salmon for viral infection, was adapted and he purchased the extra ingredients required to test humans. There has been mass testing for virus among salmon farmed in Faroese waters since an outbreak of salmon anaemia virus in 2001 ravaged the species. Of the archipelago’s total export value, 90% is accounted for by fish and half of that is salmon.

...
Christiansen said his facility could do up to 1,000 tests a day if required and the research assistants were available He said the latest batch of test samples on Tuesday had been negative.
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BurnA said:
It will be next to impossible to have a cohesive response. They value their freedom so much they may not recognise the choice between freedom and survival.
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I sense that too. But from my calculations the situation with collapse of health care resources can still get about ten times worse than now. The crucial problem will be all the people who have fought off the virus but with no kidneys left or not much brain left. The medical insurance system may collapse. Italy seemed bad, but things can be very much worse. Getting things sorted may need a new government but I won't get into politics.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
The medical insurance system may collapse.
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The secondary consequences are potentially very, very bad. So many without insurance is also bad. I am very worried for my American friends for many reasons right now.

PS I think its been discussed that the already high cost of having medical insurance is about to be massively increased, some have touted a 40% increase in cost of insurance. I think it might be even more, but I hope it does not happen.
 
alex3619 said:
Few antibodies to the first infection imply less immunity than expected to subsequent infections. Not good. This might also impact vaccine effectiveness. I hope this research is not completely right.
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I know very little.

Yes, higher levels of antibody in older people (who had a more severe illness), and lower levels in younger people (who had very minor illness), perhaps indicates a generally weaker immune response in young people.

Maybe when they figure out why younger people are generally less likely to be affected, then this will all make sense. Perhaps the virus can't, in general, infect their cells to the same degree.

Seems that this virus has some peculiar characteristics.
 
I've been following the number of total predicted deaths in the US using the model at https://covid19.healthdata.org/projections. [This is probably the foremost model that's being used in the US.]


On Sunday (4/5) the total predicted deaths from Covid-19 in the US was 93,531.

On Monday (4/6) it was 81,766.

Today (4/8) it was 60,415, having dropped by 35% since Sunday.


[Note: These are not daily deaths, but the total deaths predicted for the course of the epidemic in the US.]



 
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Easter holidays in Sweden is traditionally a time for families and friends to gather, to throw big dinner parties, to visit extended family in other parts of the country, to go on skiing trips in the mountains, for students to travel back to their hometowns and visit their parents or travel somewhere fun together with their friends etc. In short, loads of big social gatherings and lots of travel across the country.

As you know, Sweden is not in lockdown and still doesn't have any particularly strict rules about travel, social distancing etc. Some people take the government's advice seriously, but lots and lots of people seem to still be going about their life as usual, including for example hanging out at crowded cafés etc.

I live in a currently less affected part of the country. Judging from discussions in local Facebook groups, the "homecomers" and tourists have already started arriving a few days ago, mingling in the supermarkets, catching up with old friends and acquaintances at restaurants etc. Many of these visitors are from Stockholm and other severly affected areas.

The former Swedish state epidemiologist Giesecke said in an interview yesterday that he would expect the high numbers of infected people and deaths in the most severely affected parts of the country, such as Stockholm, will soon (in about 2 weeks or so) also happen in other parts of the country that are currently less affected.

:cry::cry::cry:
 
Barry said:
Seems like the Kiwis' government-appointed experts are better than most other countries' government-appointed experts. And I imagine to be handling it this well the NZ government must actually be heeding and acting on the advice of said experts. Maybe the NZ experts are appointed because of ... well ... their expertise.
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I think our govt has done well, but to be fair, we had the benefit of time - we were able to learn from what was already happening in the Northern hemisphere, so we already knew the likely consequences of inaction much better.

Those countries that were hit early didn't have that luxury.
 
mango said:
ots and lots of people seem to still be going about their life as usual, including for example hanging out at crowded cafés etc.

I live in a currently less affected part of the country. Judging from discussions in local Facebook groups, the "homecomers" and tourists have already started arriving a few days ago, mingling in the supermarkets, catching up with old friends and acquaintances at restaurants etc. Many of these visitors are from Stockholm and other severly affected areas.
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:(:banghead: This is total madness!!
 
FMMM1 said:
I know very little.

Yes, higher levels of antibody in older people (who had a more severe illness), and lower levels in younger people (who had very minor illness), perhaps indicates a generally weaker immune response in young people.

Maybe when they figure out why younger people are generally less likely to be affected, then this will all make sense. Perhaps the virus can't, in general, infect their cells to the same degree.

Seems that this virus has some peculiar characteristics.
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Maybe the innate immunesystem works less well in the eldery.

When the innate system can defeat it the adaptive system is less important.

When first line defense works well enough the second line defense has less to do.
 
Woolie said:
I think our govt has done well, but to be fair, we had the benefit of time - we were able to learn from what was already happening in the Northern hemisphere, so we already knew the likely consequences of inaction much better.

Those countries that were hit early didn't have that luxury.
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From what I can see you have a government run by someone with common sense and humility.
We had the luxury. In early February it was perfectly obvious to my wife and I what was going to happen, from the news from China. We could not believe our eyes when arriving at Heathrow we were expected to mingle with thousands of people arriving from China in long densely packed queues. Even a month later people reported airports taking no interest in where they had arrived from.
 
The cluster effect: how social gatherings were rocket fuel for coronavirus

Holding hands, kissing, sharing drinks from the same glass all helped spread the virus

On 15 February, a merry crowd wearing clown wigs and jester hats gathered in the town hall of Gangelt, a small western German municipality nestled by the Dutch border, to ring in the peak of the carnival season.

Beer and wine flowed aplenty as approximately 350 adults in fancy dress locked arms on long wooden benches and swayed to the rhythm of music provided by a live band.

During an interval in the programme, guests got up to mingle with friends and relatives at other tables, greeting each other as Rhineland tradition commands, with a Bützchen, or peck on the cheek.
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https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...l-gatherings-were-rocket-fuel-for-coronavirus
 
I happened to see the live presentation of first results from German study in Gangelt/Heinsberg, an area highly affected.
"Covid-19-Cluster-Study", Streeck and others.

So far 509 persons from the half of the sample households have been examined for the study. It took ten days.

acute infected - PCR test - 2%
immunity - antibody test - 14%
case fatality - 0.37%
mortality - 0.06%

So according to this study so far, 0,37% of the infected people have died, and 0.06% of the population have died from or with the virus. 14% of the population in Gangelt/Heinsberg have been infected (or still are, respectively), and 2% are indeed acute infected.

The 14% are the lowest estimation from different methods (Streeck didn´t give the other numbers).

As Heinsberg is an area with a lot of cases, where it was difficult to act timely, these numbers might compare to the UK and US (the later probably having higher percentages).
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
From what I can see you have a government run by someone with common sense and humility.
We had the luxury. In early February it was perfectly obvious to my wife and I what was going to happen, from the news from China. We could not believe our eyes when arriving at Heathrow we were expected to mingle with thousands of people arriving from China in long densely packed queues. Even a month later people reported airports taking no interest in where they had arrived from.
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Yes the deputy chief medical officer for England, Dr Jenny Harries, came up with a gem --- WHO advice could be ignored by the UK as we have a very well developed and advanced health care system.
One virus to another --- don't fancy his post -- UK, they have an advanced health care system!
 
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-52219930?__twitter_impression=true

Coronavirus: Passport Office staff told to go back to work

Staff working for Her Majesty's Passport Office believe their lives are being put at risk because of demands that they return to work.

Many have been asked to go back next week, despite the ongoing coronavirus crisis, the BBC has learned.

On Tuesday, staff were told by a Home Office scientific adviser 80% of people would get Covid-19 in the end and "we can't hide away from it forever".
 
W.H.O. Official: "May have to enter homes and remove family members!"

in most parts of the world due to lockdown most of the transmission that's actually happening in many countries now is happening in the house hold at family level in some sense transmision has been taken of the streets and pushed back into family units now we need to go and look in families to find those people who may be sick and remove them and isolate them in a safe and dignified manner

Michael Ryan WHO

Edit: transcript inserted in place of previous video whilst I search more concise video that shows only the quote above direct from the horses mouth.

Edit 2: Video below

 
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