Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

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

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Barrister

Quote from: Sheilbh on October 30, 2020, 10:41:16 AM
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...
Posts here are my own private opinions.  I do not speak for my employer.

Sheilbh

Quote from: Barrister on October 30, 2020, 10:44:20 AM
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:
Let's bomb Russia!

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.
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again"

Sheilbh

#11178
Quote from: mongers on October 30, 2020, 11:16:44 PM
'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:
QuoteCzechs 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
Let's bomb Russia!

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

Quote from: Tamas on October 31, 2020, 02:05:01 AM
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.
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 31, 2020, 02:05:01 AM
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).
Let's bomb Russia!

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

#11184
Quote from: Richard Hakluyt on October 31, 2020, 04:22:07 AM
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.

QuoteI 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.
Let's bomb Russia!

Richard Hakluyt

The government continues to be reactive rather than proactive; this error is made worse due to the time-lags involved in the virus infection and death rates. For example, they contemplate even harsher measures before the tier-3 imposition effects have time to work their way through. However, I think the various tiers the nation is in are in general too soft and will lead to an increase in infections (though a slower percentage increase than recent weeks). Then we have Christmas, which will probably provide a large uptick in infections......we need to get the rate down before then or risk the NHS being unable to cope in January.

I think that lockdown is becoming inevitable and, that being so, the sooner the better.

Tamas

Agreed RH. Doesn't seem to be a way around it and people will absolutely ignore household mixing restrictions during Christmas so it's probably best to lock down now and hope January wont collapse on our heads.

In Hungary the ratio of positive tests is almost 25%, recently there have been 40-50 new deaths per day (population of 9.7 million) and there are more than 4000 people in hospital with covid.

Tamas

Slovakia is doing a national rapid test program where everyone between the ages 10 and 65 gets tested or get striken with the same 10 day quarantine that people testing positive get.

They have as I understand thousands of testing centres and want to crack through it this weekend, altough they have started in the most affected regions a few days ago.

They are using a 15 minutes antibody test that must be the same the British government announced as imminently available country-wide around August but still not using it.

Syt

So looks like the lockdown doesn't start on Monday, but Tuesday midnight.  :huh:
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

We had anti-lockdown riots in Barcelona and Burgos yesterday.



Some 40-50 arrests. Some stores were sacked.