Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

Fascinating interview with the Swedish epidemiologist leading their response:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/w3cszc1s

[The Larch]

Italy will be opened for tourists on June 3rd as per current plan.

I thought it was only for domestic tourism. Will they open borders as well? I was not aware of that.

[Sheilbh]

Italy will be opened for tourists on June 3rd as per current plan.

I thought it was only for domestic tourism. Will they open borders as well? I was not aware of that.

For Europe at least.

[Syt]

So far, Austria requires 2 week quarantine when returning from Italy. No indication whether this might change any time soon.

[Duque de Bragança]

Even for Alto Adige/Südtirol?

[Syt]

Well, yeah. It's Italy.

[celedhring]

Well, yeah. It's Italy.

Traitor! 

[Syt]

I'm not Austrian, so can't be a traitor.

[Duque de Bragança]

Piefke shows his true colors. 

[Legbiter]

I think it's peaked in the North as well, but it looks from the hospitalisation and R estimates that it's declining a lot more slowly:


And that is mainly the North-East and Yorkshire. The North-West is about average, but there's some really weird mini-outbreaks I've read about there such as bits of Cumbria of all places

The R is very fat-tailed, that is highly variable and very often linked to superspreaders. Here for instance one infected guy put 260 people into quarantine because of his moderately active social life. We'll learn to manage that effectively in the next few months. I suspect the biggest dangers of a flareup are indoor entertainment avenues where alcohol is served and infected family and staff in retirement homes. Especially I'm thinking the good old fashioned pub crawl might become the modern plague pit.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah on the R number the FT did a good graphic of the two leading models in the UK (but there are others):

Cambridge/PHE is based on mobility data, lockdown measures and data on compliance; LSHTM is based on case numbers.

One other point is that I'm seeing lots of experts pushing back against even these regional R numbers and, in fact, the idea of individual super-spreaders. Instead they are pointing out that even within a region there will be huge variation of R between areas and also between environments - for example the difference between the community number in an area and within a care home (interestingly this also seems to have been an issue in Sweden - the interview with their public health guy basically said the reason they have such high death numbers is that they didn't manage to protect the care home environment well enough).

But also they're saying that it's less individual super-spreaders that we need to worry about than super-spreader locations. There's been some really interesting stuff in Japan where the main vectors are households, dining and transport. The key factors seem to be conversations, in poorly ventilated, enclosed, crowded spaces). Similarly there's been a study of transmission from, I think, a gym and basically high intensity classes were far higher risk than low intensity classes (which makes sense given how much we'll breath out more). I'm also beginning to wonder if there's a bit of a blessing in the UK not really having AC given that example, I think from Washington, of someone basically infecting everyone in line of the AC unit they were sat near but no-one else in the restaurant. But their basic point is the characteristic of super-spreaders isn't normally to do with an individual's behaviour, it's to do with the locations they visit which is possibly more helpful for policy/easing lockdowns?

As I say it all makes me feel we can probably start to be more relaxed about outdoor mixing. (Or in other words the beer garden crawl is on! )

[Legbiter]

But also they're saying that it's less individual super-spreaders that we need to worry about than super-spreader locations. There's been some really interesting stuff in Japan where the main vectors are households, dining and transport. The key factors seem to be conversations, in poorly ventilated, enclosed, crowded spaces). Similarly there's been a study of transmission from, I think, a gym and basically high intensity classes were far higher risk than low intensity classes (which makes sense given how much we'll breath out more). I'm also beginning to wonder if there's a bit of a blessing in the UK not really having AC given that example, I think from Washington, of someone basically infecting everyone in line of the AC unit they were sat near but no-one else in the restaurant. But their basic point is the characteristic of super-spreaders isn't normally to do with an individual's behaviour, it's to do with the locations they visit which is possibly more helpful for policy/easing lockdowns?

As I say it all makes me feel we can probably start to be more relaxed about outdoor mixing. (Or in other words the beer garden crawl is on!

Yeah move it outdoors as much as possible. 

[Syt]

Austria's education minister Fassmann on the radio: "It was important to me to open schools as soon as possible to prevent a significant loss of human capital."

[Legbiter]

Public swimming pools here had a midnight opening yesterday. They're a huge part of local social life, especially among the elderly.

[The Brain]

So, they can get wet after midnight?