Corona Virus

[Oldschool]

I thought that the projection was for 15k by the end of the month?

That would delay the peak by a week at most.

[JB1973]

How is the general mood over there and how is the view of how the powers that be are handling it?

The mood seems a total split over here your either in camp a) it's the end of the world camp, but everything you can and lock the door or camp b) carry on as normal and there is nothing to worry about

The schools are being shut from this Friday and looks like all the pubs will be closed from next Monday

The supermarkets are being stripped bare by panic buyers and loads of businesses especially the leisure industry are either shutting down or laying off people left right and centre

Unless businesses are helped either by the government or by Thousands will end up unemployed and run the risk of ending up homeless.

The UK Government are promising a lot but so far delivering very little, I take very little solace in the thought of Boris being the man in charge at such a tumultuous time in our history

[Twist]

This reasonably matches the Italian experience in the town of Vo I think (3k tests for 2.4% positive cases) but probably indicates there's more infected out there than we know. According to this thread most people tested were asymptomatic and at worst experienced little more than a mild cough.

https://twitter.com/andreamatranga/stat ... 77760?s=20

This has been jumped on by the "just a flu" crowd but there's no vacine for this yet and the flu has never overwhelmed the Italian health service like this in basically a month. Somewhat worringly there's an 18% false negative rate for testing.

Also - I find it hard to believe that anyone could have influenza and not show any symptoms

A friend is involved in managing the croke park test facility and has told me that most cases are very mild.

For COVID you mean? Yeah, that’s far more believable. I’ve had flu twice though and there’s really no missing it!

[kermischocolate]

Media reporting first death in Scotland was a French rugby fan over for the 6 nations game.

[FLIP]

Media reporting first death in Scotland was a French rugby fan over for the 6 nations game.

He also had an aggressive form of cancer.

[Ruckedtobits]

There will probably be many societal changes as a consequence of this pandemic. One of the more significant may be a re-adjustment of the place in society of those who provide our social services. Healthcare workers (other than Medical Consultants & Doctors), teachers, guards, food producers and shopkeepers should move back up in the esteem of the general population to the status that they enjoyed in the Ireland of the post-war and pre-Celtic Tiger era.

The providers of our 'soft social services' have been generally degraded over decades, both in terms of their remuneration and their status, within our society. Part of this was caused by a diminution of their importance in our daily lives. But some of their loss of status was a direct function of the aggressive and forceful representative bodies which promoted their interests i.e. Trade Unions & Representative Bodies e.g. Nurses Union, IMO and Teacher Trade Unions.

All of these people, originally considered to be in vocational professions, are really valued in a society when it is emerging from poverty, or from a very major societal challenge - historically TB, or extreme poverty, or educational ignorance, but now a pandemic.

Six months from now, when I hope we are emerging from this pandemic, I believe that our society will have re-evaluated fundamental values quite widely from some of the norms with which we entered 2020. Two very significant crises within a period of a dozen years will have provided the opportunity and incentive for the people of Ireland to reassess the fundamental values of the society in which we live and how inter-related are our various lives within that society.

[blockhead]

The Eurovision is cancelled. Not just postponed but cancelled!
JAYSUS!!!

Seriously though, with a TV audience of circa 200M it's a big deal. Certainly bigger than say the Superbowl who just about scrape around 100M.
For reference, UCL is about 300M and the last World Cup Final (France v Croatia) was about 1.1Billion.

[Oldschoolsocks]

https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2020/03 ... emergency/

Is there anything that can be said for another mass?

[paddyor]

On the asymptomatic thing, does that include raised temperature which is.
The problem, in part and understandable, is that if I ring up my GP and tell him that I think I have CV19, what exactly is he going to do.
1. Ask me a serious of questions regarding my "symptoms".
2. To be on the safe side get me tested
OR
2a. Isolate yourself for the a period and then do the test.

If someone thinks that they have CV19 follow the prescribed isolation period, is there a readily available test/tests to tell you've had the CV and are no longer infectious.

AFAIK, they're still rationing testing(30K kits to be delivered tomorrow) so I think they'll ask about symptons and then consider the risk before deciding to get tested. But if they tested 7k people( alot of them will be healthcare and people in close rpoximity with a sniffle or cough) then the bar probably isnt that high.

To date 42% cases are travel related, 22% associated with community transmission, 17% are as a result of local transmission and 20% remain under investigation.

Local transmission means friends and family of those who travelled. Community transmission means they can't connect it to either the 42% who travelled or the local transmission of 17%. So what might have happened is someone else got it was asymptomatic and passed it on while never really developing any real symptoms that prompted them to call the doctor.

The Diamond princess(Cruise ship) stats are particularly interesting.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

As I understand it, that's a "normal" demographic distribution with perfect conditions for health care and no rationing of ventilators etc. It's CFR is about 1%. It's had everything like people who didn't really get sick.

[Oldschool]

Some info on CV19 mortality rate, it's good (better) news.
https://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2020-0 ... entre.html

[suisse]

The numbers coming from Europe every day are frightening. What happens for me is; i wake up and my phone is littered with push notifications from the IT, BBC and Guardian. I try to avoid all those now, and the rolling news updates. I instead check the worldometers site to get the actual numbers from each country. Yellow is for plus cases. These days, I see around a half dozen European countries posting quadruple digit daily increases. UK, Netherlands and Austria are next. When I take a screenshot, Ireland now features on page 1. There are 19 European countries in my screenshot. Korea, once the worst affected place outside of China, is being rapidly overtaken. It'll be out of the top 10 very soon for cases and to me, it would seem like every European country with over 5 million people will overtake us. I have no idea why.

I then carry on with my day. We get an update here at 10am and there's a bit of news. 3 people are dying per day but there isn't a lot more said. Then I go to bed and it happens again. Disaster notifications in Europe. This is going to last for months and months. People talking about watching sport? It's gonna be a very very very long time before that happens. They're now talking about early May at the very earliest here. That's 2.5 months since all sports were suspended. And May is an optimistic estimate.

[Oldschool]

The numbers coming from Europe every day are frightening. What happens for me is; i wake up and my phone is littered with push notifications from the IT, BBC and Guardian. I try to avoid all those now, and the rolling news updates. I instead check the worldometers site to get the actual numbers from each country. Yellow is for plus cases. These days, I see around a half dozen European countries posting quadruple digit daily increases. UK, Netherlands and Austria are next. When I take a screenshot, Ireland now features on page 1. There are 19 European countries in my screenshot. Korea, once the worst affected place outside of China, is being rapidly overtaken. It'll be out of the top 10 very soon for cases and to me, it would seem like every European country with over 5 million people will overtake us. I have no idea why.

I then carry on with my day. We get an update here at 10am and there's a bit of news. 3 people are dying per day but there isn't a lot more said. Then I go to bed and it happens again. Disaster notifications in Europe. This is going to last for months and months. People talking about watching sport? It's gonna be a very very very long time before that happens. They're now talking about early May at the very earliest here. That's 2.5 months since all sports were suspended. And May is an optimistic estimate.

Getting a handle on the actual, as against detected, number of cases seems to be a problem and from there to then extrapolate into the future.
Sampling theory is well established.
For example statisticians can predict, fairly accurately, the outcomes of general elections from a very small sample, approx 1100.
Perhaps it's time to apply the same approach to CV19.
Even once a week would be worthwhile.
Daily test results could also (probably are) be used but they are skewed, some filtering and comparison with random sampling would make them more valuable.
Another advantage of random sampling would be to indicate if actions like closing pubs is having any effect or how much of an effect.
SK and China could do the rest of the world a huge service by doing some random sampling, this would give a much better indication as to the actual infection %.
It's said that 90% of the herd has to have been infected to get herd protection.
If China opens for business again and there is no herd protection then the virus will return.

[Oldschool]

BBC raising the point about an exit strategy.
It's a good time to talk about that very topic.
What are the criteria for an exit strategy.
1. It must be sustainable.
2. Minimize damage to the economy.
3. Minimize the number of deaths.
For it to be sustainable, herd immunity is necessary, ie 90% of the population have to have it.
To minimize the damage to the economy the 90% figure has to be reached asap.
To minimize the number of deaths there has to be a secondary peak in cases.
A secondary peak approach (we're kind of already on this path) requires that the 80% of the population that are at low risk be allowed get on with their lives while the 20% at risk cocoon themselves.
When the 80% approach herd immunity ie 80 * .9 =72% then the remaining 20% can be exposed with the really high risk cocooned until the second phase is over.
Easy no but unless we achieve herd immunity asap then more people will die than should.
The above is counterintuitive and is only possible because of the way the CV19 seems to be so age specific.

[Oldschoolsocks]

Personally, I’m all for waiting to see what the WHO says, what happens in South Korea, how Italy plays out and how fast a vaccine is developed and whether it keeps pace with the evolution of the virus (do virus’s evolve??)

I’m also not convinced that there is a consensus that there will be a second peak, again after all of the fake news spread on social media I feel there’s no real option but to listen to the WHO and the givernmint.

[Oldschool]

Personally, I’m all for waiting to see what the WHO says, what happens in South Korea, how Italy plays out and how fast a vaccine is developed and whether it keeps pace with the evolution of the virus (do virus’s evolve??)

I’m also not convinced that there is a consensus that there will be a second peak, again after all of the fake news spread on social media I feel there’s no real option but to listen to the WHO and the givernmint.

Not necessarily disagreeing with you but simply suggesting that the scenario I've suggested be examined.
The "authorities have a lot more info than the ordinary citizen and way better tools but it doesn't mean that they don't have blind spots.
I haven't yet seen a set of curves that describes what I'm talking about and I find that surprising.
The experts can do that stuff and they can put numbers on likely mortalities too.
The problem is that the experts don't have to sell it to joe Public.
The collateral damage is the economy and having gone through 10 years of austerity and all that entails we don't want to go there again.
The damage has started, more borrowing on the way and any fiscal space bunged.
BTW our government etc have probably got it right to date, time was needed to get ducks in a row etc.
The wheels are in motion, the next decisions are the make or break ones.

[Oldschoolsocks]

Personally, I’m all for waiting to see what the WHO says, what happens in South Korea, how Italy plays out and how fast a vaccine is developed and whether it keeps pace with the evolution of the virus (do virus’s evolve??)

I’m also not convinced that there is a consensus that there will be a second peak, again after all of the fake news spread on social media I feel there’s no real option but to listen to the WHO and the givernmint.

Not necessarily disagreeing with you but simply suggesting that the scenario I've suggested be examined.
The "authorities have a lot more info than the ordinary citizen and way better tools but it doesn't mean that they don't have blind spots.
I haven't yet seen a curve that describes what I'm talking about and I find that surprising.
The experts can do that stuff and they can put numbers on likely mortalities too.
The problem is that the experts don't have to sell it to joe Public.
The collateral damage is the economy and having gone through 10 years of austerity and all that entails we don't want to go there again.
The damage has started, more borrowing on the way and any fiscal space bunged.

Yeah, I think there’ll have to be a priority call alright at some stage, but it’s waaay to early for me to even think about it.

For me it’s all about the day to day until we can get a view of the cadence of this thing.

[Oldschool]

Personally, I’m all for waiting to see what the WHO says, what happens in South Korea, how Italy plays out and how fast a vaccine is developed and whether it keeps pace with the evolution of the virus (do virus’s evolve??)

I’m also not convinced that there is a consensus that there will be a second peak, again after all of the fake news spread on social media I feel there’s no real option but to listen to the WHO and the givernmint.

Not necessarily disagreeing with you but simply suggesting that the scenario I've suggested be examined.
The "authorities have a lot more info than the ordinary citizen and way better tools but it doesn't mean that they don't have blind spots.
I haven't yet seen a curve that describes what I'm talking about and I find that surprising.
The experts can do that stuff and they can put numbers on likely mortalities too.
The problem is that the experts don't have to sell it to joe Public.
The collateral damage is the economy and having gone through 10 years of austerity and all that entails we don't want to go there again.
The damage has started, more borrowing on the way and any fiscal space bunged.

Yeah, I think there’ll have to be a priority call alright at some stage, but it’s waaay to early for me to even think about it.

For me it’s all about the day to day until we can get a view of the cadence of this thing.

It isn't way too early or day to day, this is a strategic decision that needs to be made, probably in the next week.
The one thing we don't have is a lot of time. kicking the can down the road isn't an option.

[The Doc]

How is the general mood over there and how is the view of how the powers that be are handling it?

The mood seems a total split over here your either in camp a) it's the end of the world camp, but everything you can and lock the door or camp b) carry on as normal and there is nothing to worry about

The schools are being shut from this Friday and looks like all the pubs will be closed from next Monday

The supermarkets are being stripped bare by panic buyers and loads of businesses especially the leisure industry are either shutting down or laying off people left right and centre

Unless businesses are helped either by the government or by Thousands will end up unemployed and run the risk of ending up homeless.

The UK Government are promising a lot but so far delivering very little, I take very little solace in the thought of Boris being the man in charge at such a tumultuous time in our history

People are taking it seriously. Major concern is the health system becoming overwhelmed when a wave hits.

Interesting data (which I hadn't thought of) - Ireland has 3 deaths up to yesterday from a population of approx. 5 million. UK has approx. 180 from a population of 60 something million. That's a rate about 4 times ours - I'm not sure I understand why the tone is so blasé in UK reporting.

[The Doc]

... the evolution of the virus (do virus’s evolve??)

They do - but I believe they tend to evolve to less malign forms generally (it's not really in a virus' interest to kill the host)

[suisse]

I'm one of those people who believes.... This is something we deal with for 12 months at least. Sports will not be replayed or finished. Social distancing will continue throughout the summer and into Autumn at least. There is no more rugby until 2021. There is no football. There are going to be mass redundancies all over the world. A vaccine is 12-18 months away and how long until it is available to the mass population? Experts are saying it could take our bodies over 2 years to become immune naturally. What happens if people are reinfected in large numbers? They've recently discovered it can stay airborne for 1.1 hours before it stops being a threat.

Obviously I hope I'm very wrong. Disgustingly wrong. But I can't find anything positive or promising to look towards. Declining numbers in South Korea and effective containment in Taiwan. Good. But South Korea is one decent cluster explosion in Seoul from total disaster.