Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Zanza]

How the 2000 billion in the US are distributed:

[Sheilbh]

Health Secretary Matt Hancock has also tested positive. Both him and Johnson are working from home, so we avoid the Raab Ascendancy for now

One of the reasons I do wonder about the real level of infection and the number of asymptomatic cases is the number of MPs etc who've got it. At one point I think over 10% of the French Assemblee had it. While they are probably more at risk because they're in London or Paris a lot and, pre-crisis, met lots of people with lots of glad-handing - it still feels like a very large number of people if the overall rate of infection is quite low

[Fate]

In Italy it does look worrying for the south. Particularly troubling there is as well as the worse hospitals they also have a far more touchy culture, are big on knowing everyone in the village and checking in on the elderly etc...

Found this site the other day to track the data. Shame it can't break down on a provincial level. I've been watching it to see when Italy peaks, if was due in a few days.
I wonder whether they'll be able to open the north and keep the south quarantined a bit longer. I guess it'll be fair since lombardy started earlier.


https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/italy/

I found this to be the best Italian data analysis website. Breaks things down to a fairly granular level. Wish we could get data for the US like this on a national level but our system is balkanized.
https://covid19.intelworks.io/

[alfred russel]

And those activities ARE reckless and stupid because they are absolutely unnecessary, and help sustain the peak period of the pandemic.

What makes you think that we are anywhere near the peak period of the pandemic? The UK is at 578 deaths and 11,658 cases. Assume all of them were in the last week.

If you think we are going to get to 6 million cases, and this is the peak we will maintain, it will take 10 years.

It is better if we consider the death side of the equation. If we get to 6 million cases and there is a 1% death rate, there will be 60,000 deaths, and at this rate we will only have 2 years of this.

There really are only some version of three alternatives (that could be mixed to a degree). This is overblown, we are no where near the peak and things will get far worse, or we are in this for an extremely long time.

[Tamas]

And those activities ARE reckless and stupid because they are absolutely unnecessary, and help sustain the peak period of the pandemic.

What makes you think that we are anywhere near the peak period of the pandemic? The UK is at 578 deaths and 11,658 cases. Assume all of them were in the last week.

If you think we are going to get to 6 million cases, and this is the peak we will maintain, it will take 10 years.

It is better if we consider the death side of the equation. If we get to 6 million cases and there is a 1% death rate, there will be 60,000 deaths, and at this rate we will only have 2 years of this.

There really are only some version of three alternatives (that could be mixed to a degree). This is overblown, we are no where near the peak and things will get far worse, or we are in this for an extremely long time.

Listen mate, just go and waltz about the world to your heart's desires. Your country is fucked enough that your sorry ass won't make a difference, and you are way too hardcore for the virus to hurt you.

[crazy canuck]

https://twitter.com/deadder/status/1243524743246090240?s=21

[Josquius]

And those activities ARE reckless and stupid because they are absolutely unnecessary, and help sustain the peak period of the pandemic.

What makes you think that we are anywhere near the peak period of the pandemic? The UK is at 578 deaths and 11,658 cases. Assume all of them were in the last week.

If you think we are going to get to 6 million cases, and this is the peak we will maintain, it will take 10 years.

It is better if we consider the death side of the equation. If we get to 6 million cases and there is a 1% death rate, there will be 60,000 deaths, and at this rate we will only have 2 years of this.

There really are only some version of three alternatives (that could be mixed to a degree). This is overblown, we are no where near the peak and things will get far worse, or we are in this for an extremely long time.

Italy's numbers have been stuttering for a few days. The secondary infection in the south starting up today has disrupted this, otherwise they looked set to start to decline in a few days.
The UK is a bit behind them though was able to learn from their experience a little.

[mongers]

How unfortunate.

Yeah - though I'm not suprised given how badly Westminsiter has been setting an example of social distancing

Until recently the press briefings were utterly ridiculous; all those globetrotting well-connected people sitting right next to each other...........terrible example to set apart from anything else.

I feel like my whole life has been a preparation for this moment. 

[Iormlund]

There really are only some version of three alternatives (that could be mixed to a degree). This is overblown, we are no where near the peak and things will get far worse, or we are in this for an extremely long time.

Delaying a few months has advantages. Even if the vaccine takes a year, we can conceivably validate other treatments in less time (eg. antibody therapy). These could significantly lessen the load on the healthcare system.

[alfred russel]

Listen mate, just go and waltz about the world to your heart's desires. Your country is fucked enough that your sorry ass won't make a difference, and you are way too hardcore for the virus to hurt you.

That is not responsive to what I was posting -- which was about whether we are in peak period.

But to your point that I am being an edgelord--it seems that there are a lot of younger people that are personally scared of the virus and I'm not sure if that is because of media frenzy or ignorance of their own mortality.

I'm 41. I suspect the bulk of us are approximately the same age.

https://www.ssa.gov/oact/STATS/table4c6.html

You can see by age and gender the likelihood of death in any given year. For me it is 0.253%. I certainly don't work up in fear of death. That is probably equivalent of my death risk if I get coronavirus. So if I get coronavirus, I have double risk of my 42nd year. Or roughly equivalent to my risk when I turn 50 (I don't plan to go through life scared when I hit 50 either).

Yes I know that we can still be vectors for older people. But the point is that we shouldn't be scared for ourselves - and it seems a lot of people are.

[Sheilbh]

Yes I know that we can still be vectors for older people. But the point is that we shouldn't be scared for ourselves - and it seems a lot of people are.

Yeah. I agree - but I think there's been a lot of messaging by governments about the risk to young people recently because lots of people assumed that "lower risk" meant "no risk" which is wrong. I also understand that the Italians include things like diabetes and hypertension as pre-existing conditions which a lot more younger people have in other, less healthy, countries like the UK and the US. So we may be higher risk and see more and younger deaths in the UK.

But I don't view this period as being about reducing the risk to me (I have a slight immune system issue but am not, apparently, vulnerable), it's more about me doing all I can to reduce the risk I pose to others. It's that line from the epidemiologist - behave as if you knew you had it, what would you do to stop infecting people in society and in your community.

UK testing is approaching 10,000 (just shy of 9,000 today) So now up to 25,000 and the overall aim of 250,000 a day once the serological tests come online.

Increase of about 25% in case numbers. They've changed the way they're releasing information about deaths so this is the first "day" we have that is recorded this way, but there have been another 181 fatalities which I think is a large increase in the rate but this may just be part of the change to reporting.

As the medical experts have said it looks like we are entering the very fast increase stage of the curve (especially in London and, by the looks of it, the West Midlands and Glasgow).

Edit: Incidentally the gender gap is interesting - it's more dangerous for men and at this stage no-one really knows why. There were some thoughts that it might be to do with smoking, but apparently that's probably not enough of an explanation and this has been observed in all countries' information.

Edit: And 62 of the deaths in London, which is significantly more than any previous day

[derspiess]

My buddy in Houston has a lot of foreign workers in his office.  All of them are convinced they will be detained by the police or military if they leave their houses, saying that's how it would work in their home countries.

[Maladict]

Latest numbers (not cumulative).
Blue: number of cases
Red: Hospital admissions
Black: Deaths

[HisMajestyBOB]

Virginia's latest numbers show both a continued increase in number tested and an increase in the % positive of those tested, but a decrease in the % positive who are hospitalized. Death rate of those hospitalized is 20%, but based only on 14 deaths and the percentage has been pretty swingy the last few days.

[Sheilbh]

In grim news:

A temporary mortuary is to be opened at Birmingham Airport in preparation for a predicted rise in the number of fatalities from coronavirus in the region.

Work has begun on the site, which will initially be able to hold 1,500 bodies, although it will be expanded to hold more.

West Midlands Police said it anticipated that the mortuary could ultimately accommodate all deaths in the region, with regular mortuaries likely to close to staff the facility.

Senior Birmingham Coroner Louise Hunt said:
We understand that it is a very difficult time for everyone and we will do all that we can to make sure bereaved families understand what is happening to their loved ones and to release them for funeral as soon as we can.

On Wednesday, the West Midlands saw another surge in coronavirus-related deaths after emerging as a hotspot for transmissions of the virus.

Of the 115 new deaths reported across the country in yesterday's update, 40 were recorded in the West Midlands.

The total number of deaths across the Midlands is 112. Eighteen of the people who died had been treated by the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust.

Assistant Chief Constable Vanessa Jardine from West Midlands Police chairs the Strategic Co-ordination Group (SCG) which oversees the multi-agency response:
The SCG - made up of key agencies across West Midlands and Warwickshire - convenes every day to manage the multi-agency response to coronavirus.

This is a major incident but by bringing all public sector agencies and partners together we are able to better deal with this challenge together and work jointly at a critical time of need.

The new NHS Nightingale hospital in the Excel centre also has two morgues. Apparently the government has another 8-10 sites identified to build similar temporary hospitals but there's a bit of a tension between letting people know that reassures them and letting them know which will cause them to panic.