Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[The Larch]

Is there a legal definition for mingling? 

[Sheilbh]

There's been a lot of back and forth on legal twitter about this constitutes "mingling". In particular there's been a bit of a row between a human rights barrister has made a huge deal of it because it's imprecise and bad law to have it in a regulation, and is being opposed by a public law professor who says it's a commonly used and understood English word and you can't tie everything down to a very clear, narrow definition (not least because not everyone's a lawyer). I agree with the professor. I think it's very legalist and pedantic to be taking issue with it in this way.

And in fairness the human rights barrister has had issues with basically all of the lockdown measures that have been announced and put into regulations. Which is fair enough because they are enormous violations of all of our human rights - confining us to our homes, limiting who we can meet etc. But I think society as a whole has taken the view that they are legitimate and proportionate to the public health risk. It is weird that I'm sat here thinking it's reasonable for the government to tell me to stay in my flat and not mix with more than six people, but here we are. I think there are actually a few test cases running the High Courts over whether lockdown breached human rights laws.

Edit: Meanwhile seeing more and more reports a lot from MPs giving details about constituent complaints that the testing system has basically broken down. It's not an issue with capacity it's the supply chain that's not working. Which is reassuring just before we head into winter (also I feel like journalists should spend less time tweeting about shooting grouse and more on this ).

[Sheilbh]

Entire Irish cabinet is self-isolating while waiting for the results of the Health Minister's covid test. Such a strange time.

[Barrister]

Edit: Meanwhile seeing more and more reports a lot from MPs giving details about constituent complaints that the testing system has basically broken down. It's not an issue with capacity it's the supply chain that's not working. Which is reassuring just before we head into winter (also I feel like journalists should spend less time tweeting about shooting grouse and more on this ).

Yeah, it's the reagents that have been the limiting factor on testing for quite awhile.

Alberta has (I think) the worst outbreak in Canada right now per capita which is obviously bad, but we've consistently been doing the most tests per capita because, apparently the government did jump on ensuring the reagents and testing material could all be produced locally very early on.

[viper37]

I wonder why even non-fucked-up Western countries can't seem to keep a lid on Covid-19, whereas Asian countries seem to have put it away successfully (unless I'm just not following the news).

Yeah - I mean I think there'll be loads to work out because there are such varying rates of infection and deaths. For example within South-East Asia the Philippines and Indonesia have had quite bad outbreaks, mainland South-East Asian countries like Vietnam and Thailand have contained it far more successfully. Similarly Pakistan has been far more successful than India. In each case I've no idea why. There's loads of possible factors like masks, previous experience with pandemics, public health infrastructure, level of connection with the rest of the world etc.

Unless we look at excess deaths, it is very hard to establish a comparison simply by looking at official numbers.  Even there, many 3rd world countries do not have reliable stats on their death rates.

[Sheilbh]

Unless we look at excess deaths, it is very hard to establish a comparison simply by looking at official numbers.  Even there, many 3rd world countries do not have reliable stats on their death rates.

I believe those are all based on excess deaths and I think from some unofficial sources especially around Jakarta as they had a very bad outbreak.

[garbon]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/15/uk-families-having-to-hack-system-to-get-coronavirus-test

UK families having to 'hack' system to get coronavirus test
Parents tell of using fake postcodes after being turned away by quiet nearby centres

[viper37]

Things are changing.  Things have changed.

As of three weeks ago, when we had basically zero cases, it was mostly business as usual, except for the mask and having more alchohol on my hands than in my stomach.

Lots of people on Facebook (people I know and/or who are from around here) were arguing about the terrible job done by our government, how lockdown was unnecessary.  Viruses always existed and would always exist, the government was inventing deaths to exagerate the protective measures needed.  "I'm not a coward" was among the most frequently heard comments, I think, along with "stop watching LCN" (figure a leftist version of Fox News ).

At our last supper together, my best friends told me how we were evolving toward a dictature.  The brightest of the bunch (far, far more intelligent than I am, but stubborn as a pig and ultra-conservative) was telling me how he wasn't afraid of covid because he had one hell of an immune system.  His boys (both twins are diabetic) were made tough and wouldn't be affected.  All of this was natural selection, just like the animals, and we should just let people die instead of having all these measures on us and it was up to the vulnerable people to protect themselves, not society to protect them.

Now, things have changed.

There's a lot of cases in town.

People don't go out as often as they did. My best friend refuses to get out of his home for another group dinner. No way he's going to be infected like "the kids".  Natural selection is all gone...  Family gathering has been replaced by breakfast at the restaurant.  Another friend is holding a birthday party for her two teens and his requesting of guests to wear a mask.  One of my friend's daughter who kept insisting the virus wasn't as dangerous as the government made it be is extremely scared/nervous because there are cases at her husband's place of work and in her kid's school.

Things change when it hits closer to home...

[Josquius]

Here too things do seem to be gearing up for lockdown round 2.

[Grey Fox]

Don't let Viper fool you, LCN is a right mouth piece.

[viper37]

Don't let Viper fool you, LCN is a right mouth piece.

Let's just say they don't really let facts get in the way of a good story.

[Zoupa]

Things are changing.  Things have changed.

As of three weeks ago, when we had basically zero cases, it was mostly business as usual, except for the mask and having more alchohol on my hands than in my stomach.

Lots of people on Facebook (people I know and/or who are from around here) were arguing about the terrible job done by our government, how lockdown was unnecessary.  Viruses always existed and would always exist, the government was inventing deaths to exagerate the protective measures needed.  "I'm not a coward" was among the most frequently heard comments, I think, along with "stop watching LCN" (figure a leftist version of Fox News ).

At our last supper together, my best friends told me how we were evolving toward a dictature.  The brightest of the bunch (far, far more intelligent than I am, but stubborn as a pig and ultra-conservative) was telling me how he wasn't afraid of covid because he had one hell of an immune system.  His boys (both twins are diabetic) were made tough and wouldn't be affected.  All of this was natural selection, just like the animals, and we should just let people die instead of having all these measures on us and it was up to the vulnerable people to protect themselves, not society to protect them.

Now, things have changed.

There's a lot of cases in town.

People don't go out as often as they did. My best friend refuses to get out of his home for another group dinner. No way he's going to be infected like "the kids".  Natural selection is all gone...  Family gathering has been replaced by breakfast at the restaurant.  Another friend is holding a birthday party for her two teens and his requesting of guests to wear a mask.  One of my friend's daughter who kept insisting the virus wasn't as dangerous as the government made it be is extremely scared/nervous because there are cases at her husband's place of work and in her kid's school.

Things change when it hits closer to home...

Welcome to 6 months ago...

[Sheilbh]

On the volume of tests thing - we're now back

[Tamas]

I still think that the whole young-people-are-dominating thing is (or was a week or two ago) because the disease is far less widespread than March-May, we are just now bothering to test people who are not on their last breaths.

But it does sound like is increasingly finding its way to vulnerable people again, as people have largely stopped caring.

[Syt]

Number of active cases in Vienna jumped from 3100 to 3600 since yesterday.