Coronavirus Pandemic (COVID-19) (SARS-CoV-2) [2020]

Entropy said:
The pressure to ”get things back to normal” is immense.
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Yeah, people don't want to survive the pandemic only to face a potential situation of Government services falling apart due to lack of jobs due to a failing economy leading to businesses closing down and thus lack of revenue for the Government.

That in turn in turn leads to potential fears of impacted food production and distribution raising the spectre of starvation. Of course, that assumes you still have a job and can afford food. And help from social services and charities might not exist if there aren't enough businesses to provide revenue for the Government (for social services) or charities.

And, of course, if jobs are lacking then the potential for an explosion in the homeless population would put a strain on social services and charities which again might not exist or be underfunded due to the lack of revenue for the Government or disposable income for people to donate to charities...all because there are a lack of businesses providing jobs to people which generates revenue for the Government.

It's why it's a bit of a balancing act of how long can lockdowns be maintained before social constructs and systems start to fall apart due to lack of funding because there are a lack of businesses generating jobs and revenue for the Government.

Too soon and the death toll would be unacceptable. Too long and the long term impact on people, governments and society might lead to a worse situation and potentially more deaths as a byproduct of lockdowns going on for too long.

Regards,
SB
 
Mariner said:
In comparison South Korea apparently have up to 1,000 contact tracers working at a given time.
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Yes, but when the number of positives were countable on both hands, and all the test results from those in close contact were negative, why would you assume more people were needed?

We get a first positive. You then need to contact trace who they met, so you find a load of close relatives, work colleagues, people who stayed in the same hospital, and they all test negative. Doesn't that point to low contagiousness and little need for massive tracing of everyone? Now if 50% of those traced were positive, then you'd think there was a need to reach a far wider audience, but all the closest contacts are negative, sense and reason says spread of the disease isn't a problem.

Doesn't fill me with confidence as to how we'll be exiting the lockdown in due course.
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I don't have that much confidence, but that's not because of how the disease was initially handled. It was handled logically and sensibly. The disease just happened to not follow the pattern of other diseases (as far as our knowledge of epidemiology goes). There was a report, a think from the Guardian, describing the decision making process, and despite trying to weight it as 'look how dumb and wrong the government was, you see that the course of action was perfectly sane. Assuming normal spread and traceability, and given the low rate of positive tests, it looked like an easily containable disease.

At some point we'll maybe find out what actually happened, but no-one should be being blamed for incompetency or somesuch for getting it wrong. Nothing that seems obvious to people now was predictable at the beginning of February.
 
Not sure if it was mentioned already here, but for those thinking of loosening the limitations, Singapore handled corona really well, they had only around 1000 cases or so and apparently no new infections. Then they relaxed the limitations and in just few days from that there's a new wave going around and the total was up to 3700 3 days ago already
(yes, relaxed, not removed)
 
Shifty Geezer said:
t's not impossible. Lock down for two months and the virus will burn out. On the day of lockdown, there'll be a number of people infected going through incubation. That's some three weeks. Then they're symptomatic and getting recorded in the stats. Two weeks later, all those cases are ended leaving none left to infect anyone new. Add in a few more weeks for the disease to burn out because the lockdown isn't perfect, and you've got Wuhan. Follow up with extremely thorough containment.
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this is all true and I agree if these were the only place where the virus was but like I have been saying a long time, ppl had already long left wuhan for other provinces & countries (thats why its here in catalonia), i.e. it was basically everywhere before they imposed the lockdown in wuhan, all these asymptomatic ppl spreading it amongst the population elsewhere in china and the world.

Dont you find it weird up until a few days ago the vast majority of the new cases only happened in the wuhan region(*) sure they had the most cases there to start with but they were also in the most strict lockdown, hence they should not be getting the major growth in new cases, the other non lockdown parts of china, even though they had infected ppl, did not show these new cases. Yet the other countries with infected ppl did show new cases , We have now100,000s in the west now, even with lockdowns in some countries (unlike china)

(*)i.e. the chinese government are pushing the narrative, its only in this one region, and then later it changed to only people from overseas :oops:
 
DuckThor Evil said:
But the deaths are very regional in some of these places. It took a long time for the Chinese to figure out what's happening, it started in Wuhan and spread to the world from there, but in China outside of Wuhan, not much happening, also in Italy the damage has spread, but is heavily focused in the Lombardi area. If it has spread everywhere the death rates should be similar per population across other cities as well.
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Im in catalonia/spain heres the latest numbers per million, sure more dense in the middle (first hotspot was madrid) but you can see its already very uniform, give it another couple of weeks and it will be very much so
COVID-19_outbreak_Spain_per_capita_map.svg
 
zed said:
this is all true and I agree if these were the only place where the virus was but like I have been saying a long time, ppl had already long left wuhan for other provinces & countries (thats why its here in catalonia), i.e. it was basically everywhere before they imposed the lockdown in wuhan, all these asymptomatic ppl spreading it amongst the population elsewhere in china and the world.
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So why did the deaths only appear after the Wuhan lockdown? If it was everywhere, we should have had an increase in hospital occurrence of flu-like symptoms from a mystery illness.

Dont you find it weird...
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I find a lot about this disease weird. ;) But I can't see any cohesive explanation yet. Best I can see, there's more then one strain. Just like there's Influenza A, B and C, if there's SARS-CoV2 A and SARS-CoV2 B, with B being less deadly, and B not coming up so much in PCR tests, I think this can be explained. Perhaps Covd19 B was the first strain, slowly spreading around the world giving us all the symptoms we've experienced. Then it mutated into A and caused some serious diseases. Everyone starts tracking A unaware of B. Meanwhile, B is a few weeks ahead of A in terms of infection spread, at 15% growth per day, making it 20x more prevalent if 3 weeks ahead, or 60x if four weeks ahead. Figures illustrative only. so we'd have a case where yes, there are 10x or more as many people with the antibodies, and also only a small proportion testing for Covid19, because they are two different strains.

this would only work if the hypothetical B strain doesn't test positive in the PCR test for the A strain.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
So why did the deaths only appear after the Wuhan lockdown? If it was everywhere, we should have had an increase in hospital occurrence of flu-like symptoms from a mystery illness.
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In China? well I have very little faith in them to be transparent and truthful. Its also difficult, to ascertain if ppl died from it. eg in Spain the first death was end of feburary, but it was only a couple of weeks later they found out the first death was actually 13 feb (from someone who had returned from nepal (*))

I find a lot about this disease weird. ;) But I can't see any cohesive explanation yet. Best I can see, there's more then one strain. Just like there's Influenza A, B and C, if there's SARS-CoV2 A and SARS-CoV2 B, with B being less deadly, and B not coming up so much in PCR tests, I think this can be explained. Perhaps Covd19 B was the first strain, slowly spreading around the world giving us all the symptoms we've experienced. Then it mutated into A and caused some serious diseases. Everyone starts tracking A unaware of B. Meanwhile, B is a few weeks ahead of A in terms of infection spread, at 15% growth per day, making it 20x more prevalent if 3 weeks ahead, or 60x if four weeks ahead. Figures illustrative only. so we'd have a case where yes, there are 10x or more as many people with the antibodies, and also only a small proportion testing for Covid19, because they are two different strains. is would only work if the hypothetical B strain doesn't test positive in the PCR test for the A strain.
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I was listening to the latest podcast from sceptics guide to the universe yesterday, and they were saying on the west coast the strain of covid (originated from ppl from asia), seems to be not as fatal as the one on the west coast (new york) which tended to originate from ppl from Europe

(*)Wow just looked up Nepal as of today (let alone early feb) has only 31 cases of covid as of 19th april, (roll eyes) man that guy was so unlucky to get infected there.
 
Currently people testing positive (or presumptive positive) are sent home to infect their families. Where is the outrage? There should be other options so that families will be safe. Every community, state and country, should have a "Safe Family" program.

I have been asked to clarify the consequences:

Research has shown that 80% of COVID-19 infections occur within the family setting. Returning infected people to their homes endangers these people's families. 1/2

And a failure to strictly isolate infected people makes even the strictest limits on movement less effective and last longer than necessary. This comes at a great cost in terms of both human lives and economic well-being. 2/2

Until others act: (1) rent separate housing (airbnb with separate entrance is best) to allow infected and healthy family members to inhabit separate spaces. If not affordable: 2) turn off central HVAC, open windows use HEPA purifiers, use masks and see assets-global.website-files.com/5e62f57a6f9734…​


https://twitter.com/x/status/1251652647721021440
 
Ohio's numbers today, Confirmed: 11602 (up from 10222 ), Hospitalized: 2565 (up from 2519 ), and Deaths: 471 (up from 451 ).
CDC Expanded Cases and Deaths: 310 (up from 283 ), 18 (same as yesterday )
Confirmed Cuyahoga County: 1466 (Up from 1425 ).

Percentage increase: 13.50%, 1.83%, 4.43%
Raw increase: 1380, 46, 20

Last Sunday and Monday Ohio was in 5.x% confirmed case increases, on Saturday they were 12.x% increase, now its Sunday and they are at the 13.5% increase.

It seems like Marion county had not reported any numbers at all and finally turned some in. I'm hoping that is the impact on the percentage increase in numbers and not because people no longer care about infecting others or who might die.

Marion had 401 existing cases on 04/15, then reported 1358 more from 04/16, and 71 more from 04/17 and 4 more from 04/18 to be at 1834 total.

upload_2020-4-19_14-12-48.png

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BRiT said:
Currently people testing positive (or presumptive positive) are sent home to infect their families. Where is the outrage? There should be other options so that families will be safe. Every community, state and country, should have a "Safe Family" program.

I have been asked to clarify the consequences:

Research has shown that 80% of COVID-19 infections occur within the family setting. Returning infected people to their homes endangers these people's families. 1/2

And a failure to strictly isolate infected people makes even the strictest limits on movement less effective and last longer than necessary. This comes at a great cost in terms of both human lives and economic well-being. 2/2

Until others act: (1) rent separate housing (airbnb with separate entrance is best) to allow infected and healthy family members to inhabit separate spaces. If not affordable: 2) turn off central HVAC, open windows use HEPA purifiers, use masks and see assets-global.website-files.com/5e62f57a6f9734…​


https://twitter.com/x/status/1251652647721021440
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Why should there be an outrage? If one of a family living in the same house is positive, it's extremely likely everyone else in the family is already too.
Pretty much only exceptions would be people returning home from traveling alone and test positive, then sending home would be bad, but that's about it.
 
2019 Novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19) for Dallas County Texas
https://www.dallascounty.org/departments/dchhs/2019-novel-coronavirus.php
https://www.dallascounty.org/departments/dchhs/2019-novel-coronavirus.php
April 19, 2020 - 2,428 confirmed cases - 60 deaths

2,428 confirmed cases up 104 over yesterday and no new deaths
those 104 new cases represent a 4.5% increase over the last day

Increases (by percent) over the last 24 days:
21.0%, 19.6%, 11.1%, 12.5%, 14.9%, 15.8%, 13.7%,
10.8%, 10.2%, 9.6%, 3.9%, 9.2%, 5.0%, 8.2%,
7.3%, 7.0%, 4.8%, 3.8%, 5.0%, 5.8%, 4.0%,
6.0%, 6.1% and now 4.5%

Increases (by count) over the last 24 days:
+64, +72, +49, +61, +82, +100, +100,
+90, +94, +97, +43, +106, +63, +108,
+105, +107, +79, +65, +89, +109, +80,
+124, +134 and now +104

As of 10:00 am April 19, 2020, Dallas County Health and Human Services is reporting 104 additional positive cases of 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19), bringing the total case count in Dallas County to 2,428. Of the 60 total deaths reported to date, over a third (38%) have been associated with long-term care facilities. Of cases requiring hospitalization, most have been either over 60 years of age or have had at least one known high-risk chronic health condition. Diabetes has been an underlying high-risk health condition reported in about a third of all hospitalized patients with COVID-19.
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A report in the Sunday Times today (paywalled) indicates that the UK government basically messed up massively. Our notoriously lazy Prime Minister missed 5 COBRA meetings (less exiting than it may sound - the name comes from Cabinet Office Briefing Room) about Covid-19 which began in January. Johnson didn't make it to one of them until early March.

Added to that, the modelling they followed from the start was for an influenza epidemic so herd immunity was intended from the off and a lack of planning to ensure adequate quantities of PPE (not to mention no implementation of existing pandemic protocols) and you end up with the cluster fuck we're seeing. In February we sent PPE to China to help them out, even though we didn't have adequate stocks ourselves and have to order most of our PPE from Chinese companies!

I certainly hope that there's a reckoning for the incompetence once this is eventually done.
 
BRiT said:
It seems like Marion county had not reported any numbers at all and finally turned some in. I'm hoping that is the impact on the percentage increase in numbers and not because people no longer care about infecting others or who might die.

Marion had 401 existing cases on 04/15, then reported 1358 more from 04/16, and 71 more from 04/17 and 4 more from 04/18 to be at 1834 total.

View attachment 3790

View attachment 3788
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So just found out a bit more on WTF was going on. Marion county has a major COVID-19 supercluster in their correctional facilities.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/19/us/ohio-inmates-coronavirus/index.html

Mass testing is ongoing at the three facilities housing the prisoners: The Marion Correctional Institution, Pickaway Correctional Institution and Franklin Medical Center. Prison officials are isolating inmates and using sanitation crews to disinfect common areas, said spokeswoman JoEllen Smith of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

So far, Marion has had 1,057 positive cases, Pickaway 202 and Franklin 101. Inmates who test positive are separated from the general public, Smith said Saturday.
...
New inmates are being held in one area for a minimum of five weeks after they arrive so that they can be monitored for symptoms and separated from the existing population, according to Smith.

Officials decided to test all inmates and staff at the facilities starting Thursday, and results have been coming back in stages, said spokeswoman Melanie Amato of the Ohio Department of Health. She said 103 staff members also tested positive at Marion. One of those staff members died, and no additional details were immediately available on the death.
​
 
Mariner said:
A report in the Sunday Times today (paywalled) indicates that the UK government basically messed up massively. Our notoriously lazy Prime Minister missed 5 COBRA meetings (less exiting than it may sound - the name comes from Cabinet Office Briefing Room) about Covid-19 which began in January. Johnson didn't make it to one of them until early March.

Added to that, the modelling they followed from the start was for an influenza epidemic
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One covering the same info has already been linked. The meetings from January were missed because Boris was focussed on Brexit and the virus wasn't showing itself to be a massive problem outside of China at that point. The model they used was based on the expectation of known diseases. How the hell could you expect anyone to correctly guess this virus's unique behaviour?!

I certainly hope that there's a reckoning for the incompetence once this is eventually done.
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I hope there's a fair hearing and lessons are learned including an outraged public looking for scape-goats to come to understand how impossible it was to plan for this epidemic because it doesn't operate like other diseases. Heck, the article pointed out previous illnesses like H1N1 where the government bought up loads of vaccines, only for them to not be needed. If they had bought in loads of resources for an epidemic that never happened, you or someone else would be calling them incompetent for wasting tax-payers money.

Incompetency is knowing the right thing to do and failing miserably. In this case, no-one knew the right thing to do. Hell, we still don't, because we can't get a handle on how the disease spreads and who's at risk. We don't even know if lockdown helps - we're watching Asia to see if the disease flairs up or can be contained. So no-one should be blamed for getting things wrong when no-one bar a psychic could know what needed to be done.
 
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