Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

[lunarainbows]

According to worldometers, Brazil had around 13,000 new cases on May 25. What is Brazil’s strategy - is it herd immunity?

 

[JemPD]

Interesting. Though of course these are bacterial colonies, so may not represent how good a mask is at stopping viral particles. Still it does demonstrate the point rather well.

I wonder what the results would look like on repeating the exercise with a petri dish held to the side (ie where a cloth mask might vent out)?

yess i'd be most interested to see that too! Also for just breathing & talking.

Judging by the hordes of people milling around yesterday everyone thinks it is all over.

I just cant fathom it. Even my carer who was very vigilant at the beginning said to me that I needed to stop being so frightened now.... She's still wearing a cloth mask in supermarket & a proper one in my home, & doing hand washing, but is just overall much less alert to possible touching of her own things & then touching something I might touch etc. Everyone I "meet" just seems much more relaxed about it in general. I just don't understand it, as far as I can see nothing whatever has changed in terms of infection risk. Just because we haven't got several hundred people dying anymore they think it's mostly over now. Is it me? Am I wrong to be being just as vigilant now as I was a month ago?

 

[Barry]

Surprised not to have heard anything about this (perhaps the Dominic Cummings thing has driven everything else off the UK news):

Sikora seems always seems to have something convenient to say for the establishment.
I cannot see that models are of any use. What will happen will depend entirely on how people behave, and that looks to be significantly more up in the air the last week. There may not be a second wave in the sense that we are still in the first wave and it will just flip upwards again. If airports open I suspect it will take off like a jump jet.
I wonder if Sikora stops to ask himself whether his tweets are helpful or not. Judging by the hordes of people milling around yesterday everyone thinks it is all over.

Sikora didn't seem to mention this bit:

"There are many models that predict many probabilities such as a punctual regrowth or a major wave, but this last possibility is increasingly being ruled out. We are much better prepared in all areas'', said the Spanish doctor.

[my bold]

This is the point surely, the de-escalation (or not) of the virus is very much down to how prepared people are to keep the R number down. From a Spanish perspective then maybe that looks likely, but I'm far from convinced from a British perspective. Unless the virus itself has become far less virulent, and/or we are far closer to herd immunity than we realise, then it could all go horribly wrong again presumably.

 

[lunarainbows]

yess i'd be most interested to see that too! Also for just breathing & talking.


I just cant fathom it. Even my carer who was very vigilant at the beginning said to me that I needed to stop being so frightened now.... She's still wearing a cloth mask in supermarket & a proper one in my home, & doing hand washing, but is just overall much less alert to possible touching of her own things & then touching something I might touch etc. Everyone I "meet" just seems much more relaxed about it in general. I just don't understand it, as far as I can see nothing whatever has changed in terms of infection risk. Just because we haven't got several hundred people dying anymore they think it's mostly over now. Is it me? Am I wrong to be being just as vigilant now as I was a month ago?

The number of cases has come down, as we are having less people dying. But I think it’s fine to be vigilant, I certainly am still, just as much as I was before, and so is my mum and partner even though he lives in a different household.

We don’t even know what our local risk is because we don’t have local data. All we have to go on, is the number of hospital deaths, and the number of new cases in the area we live in. But my town has like 400,000 people in it and lots of people going in and out.

Number of deaths lag by at least 2.5 - 3 weeks from being exposed to coronavirus so we have no idea what’s going on right now.

Number of new cases in the town also may not reflect what’s happening right now. We don’t actually know if everyone who needs tests is getting them. Also due to issues with testing & results turnaround (from articles I posted before on this thread), and, false negative rates of 30%. Moreover none of them are being traced so we don’t know where exactly the infection is at any one time, where the clusters are or how many true cases there are (asymptomatic, mild cases, not getting tested for other reasons). I don’t see why people are thinking everything is ok now.

 

[rvallee]

If this is validated and reliable, it could provide a breakthrough in monitoring outbreaks. Probably expensive but certainly less so than even periodic lockdowns.

 

[Sly Saint]

Surprised not to have heard anything about this (perhaps the Dominic Cummings thing has driven everything else off the UK news):

and yet
05/25/2020 08:49 pm ET Updated 2 hours ago
WHO Warns Of ‘Second Peak’ In Coronavirus Infections If Restrictions Lifted Too Soon
“We cannot make assumptions that just because the disease is on the way down now it is going to keep going down.”

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/who-...qxqR8UaWVYwi9LwL28zhaWvZC3oKpO8L&guccounter=2

 

[JemPD]

precisely @lunarainbows I just cant quite fathom why people seem to think that its getting less risky by the week.

 

[rvallee]

precisely @lunarainbows I just cant quite fathom why people seem to think that its getting less risky by the week.

I've been seeing far too many articles talking about a post-pandemic period, not just asking if but basically arguing it's over.

We don't all live in the same information universe. Some people consume nothing but tabloid rags and Facebook memes, if anything at all. Some journalists are exactly as bad at their job as our BPS overlords, sheltered in their personal bubble of privilege and navel-gazing. Most people just don't know what's going on and take bits and pieces here and there to form their opinions. That's not helped by news media generally failing at the task because they are in the infotainment business.

And then of course there are the conspiracists. The magnitude of the problem they represent is not well understood. In normal times they represent a slow rot of civil society. In a time of disaster, they are a threat to our very survival. There are millions of them and they are amplified by a very lucrative industry from which social media like Facebook thrive simply because of the engagement, indifferent to the harm to society they are causing.

 

[Woolie]

My region of Australia (Northern Territory) has just been officially declared free of SARS-CoV-19.

No community transmission for over a month, and no active cases.

Vietnam has also achieved elimination.

New Zealand too. No new cases for most days out of the past 10, and the couple that were identified were either new arrivals - so already in quarantine - or closely linked to a known case (e.g., same household).

And the weather here is COLD. No winter surge for us - not enough cases.

Life here is largely back to normal, although there are still regulations around the number of people allowed into shops, bars restaurants, and a sign-in procedure for both of the latter (its called Alert Level 2, down from 4). And no travel outside of NZ.

The mood is relaxed.

We're hoping to open up Australia-NZ travel soon. But who knows when travel to the rest of the world will happen again. It will require a huge process of testing and isolating.

 

[mango]

Here's some data from Sweden to follow up on my earlier posts on whether loose advice/recommendations are more sustainable over time than stricter lockdown measures enforced by laws etc

The fact that more and more people are ignoring the recommendations are showing up in the statistics now Is this happening in other countries too?

For example, here's an article from a hospital in Göteborg/Gothenburg (Sweden's second largest city):

Chief physician: "The hospitalisations are increasing again - everyone has to take responsibility"

(The dotted line represents the "expected trend".)

In the past 1-2 weeks, the hospital admissions have increased again [...]

- We are seeing a new hump, which is most likely a direct effect of people's behavior in recent weeks. On behalf of the hospital, I really want to urge the public to take the recommendations of the Public Health Authority seriously. Keep a distance, don't hang out in crowded bars, keep your distance in shops and do not move about unnecessarily in the community. And use hand sanitizer and wash your hands frequently, he says.

He also wants to point out that the recommendations apply to everyone:

- The vast majority, 80 percent, of those admitted are below 80 years old. So this does not only apply to the most vulnerable individuals.

https://www.sahlgrenska.se/nyheter/...laggningarna-okar-igen--alla-maste-ta-ansvar/

 

[Adrian]

If this is validated and reliable, it could provide a breakthrough in monitoring outbreaks. Probably expensive but certainly less so than even periodic lockdowns.

@sTeamTraen has raised some stats issues with this paper

 

[spinoza577]

The fact that more and more people are ignoring the recommendations are showing up in the statistics now Is this happening in other countries too?

Here in Germany so far everything stays low, regardless of relaxions.

The states are now acting almost completely at their own will, but I guess no essential differences will be seen.

The spread of the virus is a riddle to me. Maybe in autumn we will see a second wave, and then countries having been hit harder may have an advantage?

(For a comparison, two weeks ago or so, Germany had 7.5 corona deaths per 100.000, and the US had 18.5, Sweden may have had more than 21, eastern EU countries may have been around 0.5 or so.)

 

[Robert 1973]

Free to read article in the FT which confirms Jonathan’s assertion some time back in this thread that the UK is bottom of the league on preventing deaths from Covid.

UK suffers highest death rate from coronavirus | Free to read
FT analysis of data from 19 countries finds Britain hit hardest, ahead of US, Italy, Spain and Belgium:
https://www.ft.com/content/6b4c784e-c259-4ca4-9a82-648ffde71bf0

 

[Mij]

It appears that 75+% of the deaths in Canada were in LTC homes.

 

[lunarainbows]

The fact that more and more people are ignoring the recommendations are showing up in the statistics now Is this happening in other countries too?

For example, here's an article from a hospital in Göteborg/Gothenburg (Sweden's second largest city):

Chief physician: "The hospitalisations are increasing again - everyone has to take responsibility"

(The dotted line represents the "expected trend".)


https://www.sahlgrenska.se/nyheter/...laggningarna-okar-igen--alla-maste-ta-ansvar/

Yes. In the U.K. -
Many more people out and about now. Here we have an added issue that’s arisen in recent days and from news reports, people are using that issue as a reason to go out more.

One hospital has had to close its doors to new patients due to coronavirus.

Similarly to Sweden, we have been told here, everyone has a “civic duty”. But Isolation period is voluntary, not mandatory.

Economics editor, Financial Times:



on this topic -
https://theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/may/28/coronavirus-infection-rate-too-high-second-wave

The coronavirus infection rate is still too high. There will probably be a second wave
David Hunter

Edit: and despite R being “close to 1”, PM has announced a further easing of lockdown.

 

[lunarainbows]

Here in Germany so far everything stays low, regardless of relaxions.

The states are now acting almost completely at their own will, but I guess no essential differences will be seen.

The spread of the virus is a riddle to me. Maybe in autumn we will see a second wave, and then countries having been hit harder may have an advantage?

(For a comparison, two weeks ago or so, Germany had 7.5 corona deaths per 100.000, and the US had 18.5, Sweden may have had more than 21, eastern EU countries may have been around 0.5 or so.)

From what I’ve read,
There seem to be a few reasons why Germany’s death rate is relatively low.

-Widespread testing and treatment, very early on: Germany carried out far higher number of tests than other countries such as the U.K., and started that at a much earlier time too. This meant they would have been able to pick up a larger percentage of the cases and stopped it from ever growing too high.

- Medical staff routinely tested, compared to the U.K., where they actually would not test medical staff for a long time, only hospital admissions!

-Germany has a very good tracking system in place that has been in place throughout the crisis, straight away. And, they did not randomly abandon it, like the U.K. did!

-compared to other countries, Germany has an amazing number of intensive care beds per person. (Germany has 34 per 100,000 people, Italy has only 7). So everyone who needs it, can get treated, even “milder” cases perhaps. Whereas here in the U.K. this didn’t happen, only severely ill people were allowed to hospital and many people did slip through the cracks, or died at home, and care homes etc.

-Public health infrastructure is there: allowing them to do localised tracing, local decisions etc. Now also face masks.

- Trust in govt + leadership

Given all this, even when easing lockdown, they already have a good testing and tracing system which has been up and running for a while now, which works well, combined with lower numbers of cases, then add to that the face masks, which puts them in a much better situation than other countries.

These points are covered in this interesting article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/04/world/europe/germany-coronavirus-death-rate.html

 

[Ravn]

The fact that more and more people are ignoring the recommendations are showing up in the statistics now Is this happening in other countries too?

For example, here's an article from a hospital in Göteborg/Gothenburg (Sweden's second largest city):

Chief physician: "The hospitalisations are increasing again - everyone has to take responsibility"

There've been a few interviews here recently with some Swedish health official (can't recall the name) telling us that NZ is doing it all wrong.
This is how "wrong" things are:

There are no new cases of Covid-19 in New Zealand for the seventh day in a row, the Ministry of Health reports.
The total number of confirmed cases remains at 1154.
The combined total of confirmed and probable cases remains at 1504.
There are seven additional recovered cases meaning this total is now 1481. Only one case remains active.
There are no additional deaths to report.
There is no one in New Zealand receiving hospital-level care for Covid-19.
Yesterday, laboratories completed 4,162 tests, bringing the total number of tests completed to date to 275,852.
Updated May 29, 2020 1:03 PM

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national...pdates-from-nz-and-around-the-world-on-29-may

 

[lunarainbows]

BBC Seoul correspondent



Meanwhile in England, 8000 estimated new cases per day (per recent press conference), and we want to open up schools, retail...

 

[Ravn]

Also an interesting approach to overcoming the problems with the accuracy of antibody testing.

Auckland University's senior lecturer in immunology Nikki Moreland said in a country like New Zealand, where the virus was not widespread, there were concerns about false positives which could cause problems.

To combat this, she would use a different test she had developed with colleagues to double check every positive result found by the Abbott test.

That test looks for different antibodies connected to the virus than the Abbott one - allowing a second check of the initial results for accuracy.

More at:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national...check-for-undetected-cases-in-southern-region

 

[mango]

The FT article on [excess] deaths suggests Sweden only marginally above average rate.

Screen print of graphs bow

In the news today:

More dead in covid-19 than the statistics show

The number of deaths in covid-19 in Sweden is probably higher than the 4,220 that have now been registered. To date, there are another 1,000 deaths that are not included in the statistics but constitute so-called excess mortality.

Is it reasonable to believe that most of these 1,000 deaths were caused by covid-19?

- The mortality during the period is likely to reflect the covid pandemic, but we will not know for sure until afterwards what caused the deaths. It is reasonable to believe that they are covid-related, but whether there are people who have died directly in covid-19 or who had the infection but died of other causes we do not know.

https://www.dn.se/nyheter/sverige/fler-doda-i-covid-19-doljs-i-statistiken/