Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Barrister]

Thought it'd be worth having a look at how test positivity is given that everywhere in Europe has ramped up their testing (chose a few countries of Languish interest - plus Czech Republic because it seems the worst hit this time). It looks really bad everywhere - a few places look like they're heading to similar levels as in the first wave, which suggests that the number of cases is probably just overwhelming the test capacity now:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/positive-rate-daily-smoothed?tab=chart&time=earliest..latest&country=BEL~CZE~FRA~DEU~HUN~NLD~ESP~GBR~AUT~POL

Czechs have a 30% positivity rate?  That's pretty fucking bad...

[Sheilbh]

Czechs have a 30% positivity rate?  That's pretty fucking bad...

Yeah. We're reaching similar hospital admissions levels as when we last went into lockdown. I feel like the next national lockdown even if it's a "circuit breaker" is on its way. On the other hand it does look like it's falling in the North-East, where local councils I think implemented some strict measures but never actually ended up in Tier 2. That took 6 weeks. But we're not yet seeing any decline in the other hotspots.

I think a lot at the minute about that Imperial modelling paper and this chart - of these we were aiming for orange but realised we'd still breach surge capacity so went for green:


Their other option was periodic lockdowns - I think just regularly shutting down every time cases start climbing, but that has other huge costs:

[mongers]

'Confirmed rumours' are that the UK as a whole will enter a national lock-down of some form next week.

The Johnson cabinet has bowed to the scientific advice, has/will talk with the leaders of the other devolved administrations and will announce it this Monday with implementation of measures starting on Wednesday for four weeks.

[Sheilbh]

'Confirmed rumours' are that the UK as a whole will enter a national lock-down of some form next week.

The Johnson cabinet has bowed to the scientific advice, has/will talk with the leaders of the other devolved administrations and will announce it this Monday with implementation of measures starting on Wednesday for four weeks.

England, surely?

Wales is already in week 2 of lockdown. I think Northern Ireland's locked down too. Scotland hasn't locked down yet and I've not seen any plans for a full lockdown there in the Scottish press.

The thing in the latest SAGE release that admissions and deaths in this wave are at the top of "reasonable worst case scenario" is really concerning.

Edit:

Czechs have a 30% positivity rate?  That's pretty fucking bad...

Not all countries provide this data and I think it's maybe not as up to date as others - but the hospital admissions rate in the Czech Republic is very, very high right now:
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/weekly-hospital-admissions-covid-per-million?tab=chart&stackMode=absolute&time=2020-03-09..latest

[Tamas]

So to recap: many advisors called for strict measures to nip the surge in the bud. The government continued to resist this despite a clearly worsening situation not just at home but in Europe. They fiddled around until it got so bad the scientists warned worst case scenarios will be surpassed.

It's end of March all over again.

[Syt]

So to recap: many advisors called for strict measures to nip the surge in the bud. The government continued to resist this despite a clearly worsening situation not just at home but in Europe. They fiddled around until it got so bad the scientists warned worst case scenarios will be surpassed.

Austria is doing the same this time.

[Sheilbh]

So to recap: many advisors called for strict measures to nip the surge in the bud. The government continued to resist this despite a clearly worsening situation not just at home but in Europe. They fiddled around until it got so bad the scientists warned worst case scenarios will be surpassed.

It's end of March all over again.

Although from what I read a month ago Johnson, Hancock and Cummings wanted a "circuit-breaker" lockdown but were outvoted at cabinet - so we went for the Tier system (which even at Tier 3 may not be effective).

[Tamas]

I am sceptical about how much actual voting is going on in that cabinet. Johnson/Cummings didn't fill it with disgraced nobodies to give them an equal say

[Richard Hakluyt]

I think the key figure in any dissension would be Sunak; if he is onboard with Johnson then things will go through on the nod.

[Sheilbh]

I think the key figure in any dissension would be Sunak; if he is onboard with Johnson then things will go through on the nod.

Agreed.

I am sceptical about how much actual voting is going on in that cabinet. Johnson/Cummings didn't fill it with disgraced nobodies to give them an equal say

We've gone through all the cycles of a PM in a very short space of time - they're too strong and over-centralising decisions, right round to they don't have a grip and are just acting as "chairman" of the cabinet rather than decision-maker.

Edit: And I thought we should have had a circuit-breaker earlier. But I feel they must be seeing something alarming in the other data, because at the minute - and it's early days - the case numbers (and postitivity rate) appear to be flattening.

Alternately - they want to do lockdown in November to try and avoid the risk of doing it in December.