Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

Started by Syt, January 18, 2020, 09:36:09 AM

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merithyn

Quote from: Sheilbh on October 27, 2020, 05:14:03 PM
Who at the Oregon Health Authority thought it would be a good idea to do an update on covid and celebrating Halloween safely in costume :blink: :bleeding: :lol:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPn6fT6BrcQ&feature=emb_title

Keeping Portland weird....
Yesterday, upon the stair,
I met a man who wasn't there
He wasn't there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away...

Syt

Well, at least she didn't dress as the Grim Reaper or something.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

celedhring

Colleague of mine showed up at a zoom meeting today dressed up as Pennywise.

She's really odd, but good odd.  :lol:

Tamas

It is giving me quite a deja vu to read France and Germany locking down, British scientist warning of surging infections, and the British government saying all is fine the way it is.

The Larch

Just read in a regional paper that a joint Spanish-Swiss research has found that the current 2nd wave in many European countries is mostly caused by a mutation of the original virus, which has been called 20a.eu1, that first appeared in Spain in June, and has since then spread to many other countries.

From the scientific paper (not yet peer reviewed):

QuoteEmergence and spread of a SARS-CoV-2 variant through Europe in the summer of 2020

Abstract

A variant of SARS-CoV-2 emerged in early summer 2020, presumably in Spain, and has since spread to multiple European countries. The variant was first observed in Spain in June and has been at frequencies above 40% since July. Outside of Spain, the frequency of this variant has increased from very low values prior to 15th July to 40-70% in Switzerland, Ireland, and the United Kingdom in September. It is also prevalent in Norway, Latvia, the Netherlands, and France. Little can be said about other European countries because few recent sequences are available. Sequences in this cluster (20A.EU1) differ from ancestral sequences at 6 or more positions, including the mutation A222V in the spike protein and A220V in the nucleoprotein. We show that this variant was exported from Spain to other European countries multiple times and that much of the diversity of this cluster in Spain is observed across Europe. It is currently unclear whether this variant is spreading because of a transmission advantage of the virus or whether high incidence in Spain followed by dissemination through tourists is sufficient to explain the rapid rise in multiple countries.

Syt

Quote from: Syt on October 24, 2020, 06:35:12 AM
Austrian numbers of new cases the last two weeks:
896 (11th Oct)
979
1028
1346
1552
1163
1747
1672
1121
1524
1958
2435
2571
3614 (today) :blink:

Part of that is apparently due to contact tracing and testing more persons. The state of Vorarlberg (neighboring Switzerland) has to limit contact tracing at this point because they don't have the resources to keep up. :ph34r:

Vienna's number of active cases has increased from 4500 to 6500 since the beginning of the month.

4453 today. :(
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

Sheilbh

Quote from: Tamas on October 29, 2020, 06:57:54 AM
It is giving me quite a deja vu to read France and Germany locking down, British scientist warning of surging infections, and the British government saying all is fine the way it is.
Maybe. There are possible differences this time though. So the UK had stricter rules (according to that Oxford group who are doing the "stringency index" - https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/research/research-projects/coronavirus-government-response-tracker) than France, Germany and Spain going into this wave. We never relaxed quite as much.

And, though it's still very early days and this may change, the UK is at the moment on a less steep trajectory than other countries (especially Germany who are on a very steep trajectory - which may be why they're taking quite strict measures now). Again it's early but from the ONS survey information and measuring cases against previous weeks there are some signs this wave may have peaked or is peaking in certain areas (though in other areas it's still growing at the same pace).

I'm hoping we can get it under control in Europe - it's worth noting that Israel which was very successful in containing the first wave, had a really bad second wave but have now managed to get that under control so it is do-able.
Let's bomb Russia!

mongers

It's appalling that this virus doesn't respect the Xmas and holiday spirit; I doubt it'll even agree to a ceasefire for family get togethers on Christmas day. :mad:
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

Zanza

Quote from: Sheilbh on October 29, 2020, 08:05:40 AM
And, though it's still very early days and this may change, the UK is at the moment on a less steep trajectory than other countries (especially Germany who are on a very steep trajectory - which may be why they're taking quite strict measures now). Again it's early but from the ONS survey information and measuring cases against previous weeks there are some signs this wave may have peaked or is peaking in certain areas (though in other areas it's still growing at the same pace).
Where do you get the impression that Germany has a particularly steep trajectory? Seems similar to UK and less than France.




QuoteI'm hoping we can get it under control in Europe - it's worth noting that Israel which was very successful in containing the first wave, had a really bad second wave but have now managed to get that under control so it is do-able.



Australia as well.

Syt

Continuing the tradition from March, the government held a press conference today to announce that there will be a press conference on Saturday.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

Sheilbh

#11170
It's difficult to know with the UK because of the data collection fuck up that meant one day our numbers jumped by 15,000 new cases.  I can't remember who but I saw someone did a chart showing the cases after you cross 50 per million. On that Germany, Belgium, Czech Republic, Italy, Poland and the Netherlands were all on a steep trajectory - Germany was way behind the others and the journalist commented that Germany was acting earlier than other countries, but this could be because they were on a steep trajectory this time. France, Spain and to a lesser extent the UK and Ireland had a shallower trajectory to start with and the new cases really started to increase after a few weeks.

And the more important measure is % of tests coming pack positive - and on that Germany's still doing very well.

Edit: In other positive news I saw that the vaccine trials have been showing results across age groups which is obviously very important given how much higher the risk is for the elderly. The government Chief Scientific Advisor is still saying it'll probably be spring next year before a vaccine is ready. I assume it'll be a bit like flu vaccines now and the focus by the NHS will be on getting this to the elderly, immune-suppressed and NHS workers if it does get approved.
Let's bomb Russia!

Syt

A "fun" anecdote from Germany - yesterday two weeks ago, Merkel and the heads of the German states met. Merkel pushed for harsher measures to curb the spread, but there was much dilly-dallying from the states, and in the end Merkel basically threw up her hands in frustration and said, "Well, this all isn't enough - we'll be sitting here again for the same discussion in two weeks time." Which they did. And enacted more measures.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

Syt

Quote from: Syt on October 29, 2020, 07:40:09 AM
Quote from: Syt on October 24, 2020, 06:35:12 AM
Austrian numbers of new cases the last two weeks:
896 (11th Oct)
979
1028
1346
1552
1163
1747
1672
1121
1524
1958
2435
2571
3614 (today) :blink:

Part of that is apparently due to contact tracing and testing more persons. The state of Vorarlberg (neighboring Switzerland) has to limit contact tracing at this point because they don't have the resources to keep up. :ph34r:

Vienna's number of active cases has increased from 4500 to 6500 since the beginning of the month.

4453 today. :(

5627. I guess we're officially off the rails now.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

Syt

Martin Ho, owner of a number of restaurants and clubs in Vienna, and close personal friend of Chancellor Kurz already announced yesterday that he will close his locations from Monday. Cynics see this as sign that his government contacts gave him early warning and that some people are more equal than others with regards to receiving information.

Personally, I think that it's possible, but at the same time, this whole week has been looking like we will be heading for a lockdown which will be announced in tomorrow's press conference.

Some posters on news sites wonder aloud that it's awfully convenient that the numbers are so rapidly rising towards the levels the government loudly worried about and see a plot to inflate the numbers and force a second (unnecessary) lockdown. They're unclear on why the government would do that.
I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.
—Stephen Jay Gould

Proud owner of 42 Zoupa Points.

Sheilbh

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
Let's bomb Russia!