Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

Honestly, anyone whose opinion of America has changed in the past three months wasn't paying attention before.

I think it is different - see this Tom McTague piece.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/06/america-image-power-trump/613228/

It is hard to escape the feeling that this is a uniquely humiliating moment for America. As citizens of the world the United States created, we are accustomed to listening to those who loathe America, admire America, and fear America (sometimes all at the same time). But feeling pity for America? That one is new, even if the schadenfreude is painfully myopic. If it's the aesthetic that matters, the U.S. today simply doesn't look like the country that the rest of us should aspire to, envy, or replicate.

[Josephus]

Looks like Disney won't open its parks in mid July as planned.

[Duque de Bragança]

French opinion was probably already pretty low.

It would be at best a tie, 3 vs 3. 
Unlike the awful 0-0 tie at the last World Cup in Russia.

[crazy canuck]

We are now moving to our phase three which mainly means travel within the Province and visitors from the rest of Canada are welcome.  Hopefully something will be worked out with Europe, Australia and NZ soonish.

[alfred russel]

Honestly, anyone whose opinion of America has changed in the past three months wasn't paying attention before.

I think it is different - see this Tom McTague piece.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/06/america-image-power-trump/613228/

It is hard to escape the feeling that this is a uniquely humiliating moment for America. As citizens of the world the United States created, we are accustomed to listening to those who loathe America, admire America, and fear America (sometimes all at the same time). But feeling pity for America? That one is new, even if the schadenfreude is painfully myopic. If it's the aesthetic that matters, the U.S. today simply doesn't look like the country that the rest of us should aspire to, envy, or replicate.

The Atlantic? The publication that ran an article "Georgia's Experiment in Human Sacrifice" when Georgia opened most businesses on April 24, but here we are more than 2 months on and Georgia is still below the national average in deaths / capita and not far off from our model responders in Canada?

Trump is an obvious walking disaster zone, but the US coronavirus impact hasn't been worse than Europe,and besides, I remember this article being written during Katrina.

[Sheilbh]

So you are writing off the Atlantic forever now?

It's actually more about the confluence of coronavirus and BLM protests and Trump - it's an interesting piece which seems well-sourced from the perspectives of European leaders. Tom McTague is very good - I think he's been one of the best writers on Brexit in recent years. I also think it captures the weird bothness of the world's relationship with America.

It depends how you define Europe, I suppose.

I mean you like deaths per million and on that metric the US has done worse than Europe. The EU has a population of about 450 million, and has had about 130,000 deaths. The US has 330 million, and is at about 125,000 deaths. Even if you include the UK, I think Europe would still have a lower rate of deaths. Obviously there are differences - Europe doesn't have a federal government and health is explicitly a member state competency so Europe is more institutionally constrained than the US in terms of a shared response.

Also it looks like Europe will see fewer deaths in the future will see more (slight caveat to this is that testing rates vary quite widely in Europe - but I think that's also the case at the state level):

[Admiral Yi]

The Atlantic? The publication that ran an article "Georgia's Experiment in Human Sacrifice" when Georgia opened most businesses on April 24, but here we are more than 2 months on and Georgia is still below the national average in deaths / capita and not far off from our model responders in Canada?

Trump is an obvious walking disaster zone, but the US coronavirus impact hasn't been worse than Europe,and besides, I remember this article being written during Katrina.

They didn't say what the result of the experiment would be. 

[crazy canuck]

Considering that you are attributing the difference to the health care systems and at will employment, why do you think that the rest of Canada is so bad?

For Ontario we have really crappy old age care. From may but I assume still relevant https://torontosun.com/news/provincial/ontario-deaths-from-covid-19-concentrated-in-those-above-80

just a little more than 200 deaths from the coronavirus across the province had occurred outside of long-term care facilities or retirement homes.

On Wednesday, the province reported 1,429 deaths from COVID-19. Of those deaths, 152 had occurred in retirement homes and 1,074 in long-term care facilities. That leaves just 203 in the wider community between the end of January when the first cases appeared and May 6 when these numbers were reported.

New study confirms the problem in Ontario and Quebec was nursing homes and poor regulation in those provinces

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-new-data-show-canada-ranks-among-worlds-worst-for-ltc-deaths/

But it was actually Ontario and Quebec's failure to enact safeguards for seniors' facilities at the outset of the crisis – such as broad testing, mandatory use of personal protective equipment and the isolation of infected residents – that seemed to doom the sector, the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) found.

"Those countries that layered on more mandatory prevention measures [in long-term care], along with their stay-at-home orders and their closure of public places, have done better," said Tracy Johnson, CIHI's director of health systems analysis and emerging issues. "They've had fewer COVID-19 infections and fewer deaths in long-term care."

So that explains the difference with BC as we acted quickly to do that.

[The Minsky Moment]

The results are still out.  The southern states are betting that if the virus is allowed to spread uncontrollably in the under 50 population, transmission to older and more vulnerable people can still be constrained. Whether that is true remains to be seen.

[DGuller]

The Atlantic? The publication that ran an article "Georgia's Experiment in Human Sacrifice" when Georgia opened most businesses on April 24, but here we are more than 2 months on and Georgia is still below the national average in deaths / capita and not far off from our model responders in Canada?

I don't think the number look damning bad for Georgia just yet, but I think you're not right to use absolute death numbers to judge policy.  I do think that the rate of change view is more relevant in this case, as long as you're careful to avoid situations such as "Mongolia has a stronger economy than the US, their GDP grows at 8% while ours grows at 3%". 

The reason why in this case first derivative view makes more sense is that once the first derivative in cases goes up, there are really only two outcomes:  loss of control over the disease, or lockdown.  The first derivative doesn't go down on its own until you get to a catastrophic situation.  Therefore, if either loss of control or a lockdown happens, we can safely call it as a failure of policy.

[crazy canuck]

Honestly, anyone whose opinion of America has changed in the past three months wasn't paying attention before.

I think it is different - see this Tom McTague piece.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2020/06/america-image-power-trump/613228/

It is hard to escape the feeling that this is a uniquely humiliating moment for America. As citizens of the world the United States created, we are accustomed to listening to those who loathe America, admire America, and fear America (sometimes all at the same time). But feeling pity for America? That one is new, even if the schadenfreude is painfully myopic. If it's the aesthetic that matters, the U.S. today simply doesn't look like the country that the rest of us should aspire to, envy, or replicate.

The Atlantic? The publication that ran an article "Georgia's Experiment in Human Sacrifice" when Georgia opened most businesses on April 24, but here we are more than 2 months on and Georgia is still below the national average in deaths / capita and not far off from our model responders in Canada?

Trump is an obvious walking disaster zone, but the US coronavirus impact hasn't been worse than Europe,and besides, I remember this article being written during Katrina.

AF stop with the nonsense of using Canada as a whole as a paragon comparator.  Quebec has done very poorly.  Compare Georgia with not Quebec and see how it looks.

[DGuller]

The Atlantic? The publication that ran an article "Georgia's Experiment in Human Sacrifice" when Georgia opened most businesses on April 24, but here we are more than 2 months on and Georgia is still below the national average in deaths / capita and not far off from our model responders in Canada?

I don't think the number look damning bad for Georgia just yet, but I think you're not right to use absolute death numbers to judge policy.  I do think that the rate of change view is more relevant in this case, as long as you're careful to avoid situations such as "Mongolia has a stronger economy than the US, their GDP grows at 8% while ours grows at 3%". 

The reason why in this case first derivative view makes more sense is that once the first derivative in cases goes up, there are really only two outcomes:  loss of control over the disease, or lockdown.  The first derivative doesn't go down on its own until you get to a catastrophic situation.  Therefore, if either loss of control or a lockdown happens, we can safely call it as a failure of policy.

Oh, crap, should've checked my numbers before I posted this.  I download the public dataset every day, and do my own rate of change calculations by state.  This just in:  Georgia is now looking damnning bad.

[Tamas]

For those of you who don't want to read through the last 10-25 pages, I'll sumarise it for you:

Dorsey: The numbers don't look that bad, there should not have been strict measures
Everyone else: Yes they do look pretty bad, look here.
Dorsey: No they don't. I have found one that doesn't, see.
Everyone else: Yes but on average it's bad and its getting worse.
Dorsey: No
Everyone else: Yes, look, more numbers
Dorse: No those numbers I disapprove
Everyone else: Yes, look, more numbers


etc. etc.

[Admiral Yi]

For those of you who don't want to read through the last 10-25 pages, I'll sumarise it for you:

Dorsey: The numbers don't look that bad, there should not have been strict measures
Everyone else: Yes they do look pretty bad, look here.
Dorsey: No they don't. I have found one that doesn't, see.
Everyone else: Yes but on average it's bad and its getting worse.
Dorsey: No
Everyone else: Yes, look, more numbers
Dorse: No those numbers I disapprove
Everyone else: Yes, look, more numbers


etc. etc.

This is not a good summary.

[DGuller]

For those of you who don't want to read through the last 10-25 pages, I'll sumarise it for you:

Dorsey: The numbers don't look that bad, there should not have been strict measures
Everyone else: Yes they do look pretty bad, look here.
Dorsey: No they don't. I have found one that doesn't, see.
Everyone else: Yes but on average it's bad and its getting worse.
Dorsey: No
Everyone else: Yes, look, more numbers
Dorse: No those numbers I disapprove
Everyone else: Yes, look, more numbers


etc. etc.

I think you're vastly overselling the intellectual rigor of the Dorsey harassers in this thread.  He was right about the numbers until fairly recently, the numbers were slow to turn bad for those who hoped to see the situation deteriorate.  Now finally they are doing what they were predicted to do, just way behind schedule.  The problem with the Dorsey harassment faction is that they too knew what the outcome was before the numbers knew, but unfortunately the numbers were tortured before they were ready.