Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Grey Fox]

Should have stolen some from her cart.

[Tamas]

I mean, seriously... Let's assume she has a household of 4 who use one roll per person per week which is just about impossible. That is still 2 months worth of toilet paper.

[Syt]

If you didn't think things were serious before ...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-09/irish-set-for-st-patrick-s-day-decision-as-virus-hits-bookings

"Ireland May Cancel St. Patrick's Day"

Austria has 112 confirmed cases, about a third of of them in Vienna, and another third in the surrounding state of Lower Austria. No fatalities yet.

Tourism reports a 60% drop in bookings.

[Sheilbh]

46 new cases in the UK, now up to 319. In other words the steady uptick continues.

To a layman like me, such an almost mathematical steady increase seems counter-intuitive. Surely the more people have it already the more additional cases should appear? Or is containment still working?

Yeah. Especially as the PM and First Minister's spokesmen are saying they expect a significant outbreak. It still feels slow.

For what it's worth the UK medical and science officers have said that basically with the measures they're proposing to take they expect the largest escalation of case numbers in April, followed by a peak in May/June.

[Richard Hakluyt]

There might be advantages to having a peak in the summer; rather than locking everything down right now, relaxing after a while then getting a peak next autumn or winter 

Maybe a bit 

[Sheilbh]

I don't think it's :tinhat: at all.

I think it's explicitly the aim of the government medical advisers. Their reasoning is there's fewer other pressures on the NHS in summer, but also there is the possibility that there's something environmental/seasonal about the coronavirus, like flu (I'm struck by how few cases seem to be coming up in equatorial/southern hemisphere countries so far and wonder about that).

But I also think this is why I keep seeing the comments about not closing schools makes sense, if kids are generally quite resistant - unless there's a specific reason to shut down the school it feels like it's more likely to be sort of pandemic theatre than effective. Surely the focus should be on public gatherings with lots of middle-aged and older people: workplaces, religious ceremonies/events, football games etc.

[Tamas]

Where can the daily regional numbers be found? I remember they showed very very low numbers per city, like 4 max. Which doesn't make much sense to me unless a lot of cases fly under the radar.

[Richard Hakluyt]

If they close the schools then lots of kids will be looked after by their grandparents, ie the most vulnerable group. It makes sense to me that, unless a school turns into a total plague pit, keep it open.

[Tamas]

I don't think it's :tinhat: at all.

I think it's explicitly the aim of the government medical advisers. Their reasoning is there's fewer other pressures on the NHS in summer, but also there is the possibility that there's something environmental/seasonal about the coronavirus, like flu (I'm struck by how few cases seem to be coming up in equatorial/southern hemisphere countries so far and wonder about that).

But I also think this is why I keep seeing the comments about not closing schools makes sense, if kids are generally quite resistant - unless there's a specific reason to shut down the school it feels like it's more likely to be sort of pandemic theatre than effective. Surely the focus should be on public gatherings with lots of middle-aged and older people: workplaces, religious ceremonies/events, football games etc.

But the kids have families they can bring the virus home to.

I am ok with trusting the British experts on this, but the level of lockdown (the lack of it) in lights of what's going on in Italy, Germany, France, and perhaps Spain, makes me think we are a bit passive and plan to react and mitigate damage as opposed to prevent. Or put more maliciously, we are willing to write off losses in an effort to keep the economy going.

[celedhring]

We are up to 999 cases, 25 deceased. 68 patients on ICU beds. Madrid region concentrates 50% of cases and the hospital serving the area with the largest cluster (Valdemoro) has been forced to divert patients to other institutions.

It seems reasonably contained in other regions except Basque Country/Rioja and Madrid, where it's exploding.

[Sheilbh]

On kids and schools I am full of admiration for the kids of Hubei province because their teachers designed an app to assign work at home and carry on teaching. The children of Hubei submitted so many one star reviews that the app has been taken down

I am ok with trusting the British experts on this, but the level of lockdown (the lack of it) in lights of what's going on in Italy, Germany, France, and perhaps Spain, makes me think we are a bit passive and plan to react and mitigate damage as opposed to prevent. Or put more maliciously, we are willing to write off losses in an effort to keep the economy going.

Yeah I agree I feel like there's not been enough movement from contain to delay. It certainly doesn't feel like we're doing too much.

My point is just that the UK experts and UK policy is explicitly about pushing this into the summer. I wonder if that was the same for Italy, Germany and France but because of a few super-spreaders or events like that funeral it became necessary to speed up their response? And if the same will happen here because I think we will start to see big numbers (but the plan is that those will come in April - so we can judge how well it's going against that I suppose).

If they close the schools then lots of kids will be looked after by their grandparents, ie the most vulnerable group. It makes sense to me that, unless a school turns into a total plague pit, keep it open.

Yeah. It feels to me like better advice would be - don't take your kids to see their elderly/older relatives - rather than shutting down shcools without a direct connection.

I suppose my view would be it makes more sense to focus on gatherings that could transmit the illness to vulnerable people, than less vulnerable demographics.

Where can the daily regional numbers be found? I remember they showed very very low numbers per city, like 4 max. Which doesn't make much sense to me unless a lot of cases fly under the radar.

Here, as of yesterday:
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-number-of-cases-in-england/coronavirus-covid-19-number-of-cases-in-england

I think there were a few higher than 4 last time. The hubs seem to be Devon, Hertfordshire, Hampshire and Surrey. I can't think of a connection except they're all areas I'd expect to have a slightly older more affluent population?

[Sheilbh]

It seems reasonably contained in other regions except Basque Country/Rioja and Madrid, where it's exploding.

Any idea why?

[Maladict]

On kids and schools I am full of admiration for the kids of Hubei province because their teachers designed an app to assign work at home and carry on teaching. The children of Hubei submitted so many one star reviews that the app has been taken down

That's awesome 

[celedhring]

It seems reasonably contained in other regions except Basque Country/Rioja and Madrid, where it's exploding.

Any idea why?

Regarding Madrid, my guess is that once the virus broke out, it's hard to contain it in a metro area with 7 million people moving around. The initial outbreak was tied to a religious group that created many infections.

La Rioja had a large transmission event involving a funeral, and there's talk that some infected have broken quarantine

[Tamas]

I am ok with trusting the British experts on this, but the level of lockdown (the lack of it) in lights of what's going on in Italy, Germany, France, and perhaps Spain, makes me think we are a bit passive and plan to react and mitigate damage as opposed to prevent. Or put more maliciously, we are willing to write off losses in an effort to keep the economy going.

Yeah I agree I feel like there's not been enough movement from contain to delay. It certainly doesn't feel like we're doing too much.

My point is just that the UK experts and UK policy is explicitly about pushing this into the summer. I wonder if that was the same for Italy, Germany and France but because of a few super-spreaders or events like that funeral it became necessary to speed up their response? And if the same will happen here because I think we will start to see big numbers (but the plan is that those will come in April - so we can judge how well it's going against that I suppose).

Thanks for the link!

Case in point for the above: the St. Patrick's Day parade in Dublin has been cancelled. That's a much smaller country with IIRC less infections than us. Either they are overreacting, or we are under-reacting.