Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Iormlund]

The Chinese government seems to be weathering the economic impacts from all external signs with the worst hopefully behind them

Why is the worst behind them?

I don't want to be rude, but why do you think they are weathering the economic impacts? All evidence is to the contrary. Goldman Sachs just estimated that they will be -9% GDP growth for the quarter.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-goldman/goldman-cuts-first-quarter-gdp-estimate-for-china-sees-9-contraction-vs-2-5-earlier-idUSKBN2140PL

They are a higher growth economy than western developed countries - I'd expect us to be worse (not in Q1 because they are ahead of the curve on the disease outbreak, but as time progresses).

I don't think they have the worst behind them, but they do have a couple pretty big advantages over the West:

• They can very quickly implement very extreme measures.
• They are huge. If the Chinese can indeed return to semi-normalcy they have the size to carry on. Not as before, since the rest of the world would be in tatters, but still much better than us.
• They stopped the spread when a relatively small part of their country was affected. Hubei and other critical areas number 60 million people, but Lombardy is the economic heart of Italy.

[Legbiter]

Second, as Sheilbh stated, they are likely to have to restart the lockdown for future outbreaks. Only a trivial portion of their population has been infected and become immune--they are as susceptible to outbreaks as everyone else, and no one has developed a successful means to avoid infection outbreaks.

No.

They'll get small outbreaks that are contained with regular methods. If you stringently quarantine almost the entire nation, the virus will spread a bit within households but after a month, it's extinct. No precise jockeying of some extremely dubious and naive spreadsheet required. No absurd fantasies about acquiring herd immunity while not crashing the entire social fabric needed. Just straightforward, effective medieval techniques.

[Valmy]

We'll see. If the state controlled mouthpieces of a totalitarian regime say things praising itself it must all be true.

I like your edit to add in a bit of lip.   

Yeah - take the official stats with a large grain of salt.  Still, there's only so much that can be hidden from public and international view, particularly in the tier one and two cities.  But if Wuhan and northern Italian-style shit were going down in those areas, that would be pretty clear by now. 

I was just explaining what I meant

[Camerus]

The Chinese government seems to be weathering the economic impacts from all external signs with the worst hopefully behind them

Why is the worst behind them?

The "worst [is] hopefully behind them" because Wuhan reported only 1 new infection today, with only 21 new infections overall, with 20 of those coming from people coming from abroad.  They have already put in place a robust program to quarantine new arrivals (as well as existing citizens) and the results are showing in the statistics.

https://nationalpost.com/news/world/china-reports-21-new-cases-with-all-but-one-travel-related-prompts-crackdown-on-infected-travellers

I don't want to be rude, but why do you think they are weathering the economic impacts? All evidence is to the contrary. Goldman Sachs just estimated that they will be -9% GDP growth for the quarter.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-economy-goldman/goldman-cuts-first-quarter-gdp-estimate-for-china-sees-9-contraction-vs-2-5-earlier-idUSKBN2140PL

They are a higher growth economy than western developed countries - I'd expect us to be worse (not in Q1 because they are ahead of the curve on the disease outbreak, but as time progresses).

From the same article:

With the numbers of new infections dwindling in China, Xinhua news agency reported that a first batch of medical workers who had travelled to Hubei province to assist with the crisis had departed on March 17 morning.

The economic outlook was also brightening, with state planning officials saying China's economy would return to normal in the second quarter as factories reopened, businesses resumed trading and consumers started spending again.

"Over 90 percent of large-scale industrial companies in regions outside of Hubei have resumed production, and resumption rates for places including Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shanghai are close to 100 percent," Meng Wei, spokeswoman of the state planner told a news briefing on March 17.

First, 9% GDP contraction is catastrophic.

Second, as Sheilbh stated, they are likely to have to restart the lockdown for future outbreaks. Only a trivial portion of their population has been infected and become immune--they are as susceptible to outbreaks as everyone else, and no one has developed a successful means to avoid infection outbreaks.

9% GDP contraction is terrible (for comparison the Great Depression in the US was 30%), but the point is that there is good reason to *hope* the worst of the contraction and work stoppage is behind them.

Yes, I am hopeful rather than stating a fact as we have no idea what will happen next.  But it's not an idle or merely wishful hope either - but rather one based on current statistics and what can be observed as going on in the ground in the places most susceptible to public and international view (tier one and two cities).

Future lock-downs may be required, but presumably would be much easier to manage with the proper vigilance and monitoring in place and thus less likely to result in catastrophic society-wide shutdown.  The Chinese state, which initially horribly mismanaged this to the detriment of the world, has proven pretty competent in managing it once they actually began to focus on it.

Or that's my optimistic take at least. 

[Fate]

It's much easier to contain the inveitable smaller subsequent outbreaks with focused quarantines, contact tracing, survielence testing, etc. once you don't have 3000 new cases a day and hundreds dieing. The worst is going to be the next 3 months. After that we'll have the capacity to test a million of people a day with 2-3 hour turnaround times for results instead of a few thousand tests that take 3-4 days. And the society as a whole will be a hell of a lot more vigilant about new cases.

[Syt]

Der Spiegel has breaking news that the EU governments have decided to deny entry to non-EU citizens, supposedly effective immediately.

Other papers and dpa (German press agency) confirm. Merkel to give press conference shortly.

German police is already rejecting arrivals at airports Frankfurt and Munich.

Clarification: EFTA and UK travelers are still permitted.

[alfred russel]

Second, as Sheilbh stated, they are likely to have to restart the lockdown for future outbreaks. Only a trivial portion of their population has been infected and become immune--they are as susceptible to outbreaks as everyone else, and no one has developed a successful means to avoid infection outbreaks.

No.

They'll get small outbreaks that are contained with regular methods. If you stringently quarantine almost the entire nation, the virus will spread a bit within households but after a month, it's extinct. No precise jockeying of some extremely dubious and naive spreadsheet required. No absurd fantasies about acquiring herd immunity while not crashing the entire social fabric needed. Just straightforward, effective medieval techniques.

Did medieval techniques prove effective even in medieval times?

[Valmy]

Did medieval techniques prove effective even in medieval times?

Milan was pretty effective in stopping the Black Death in the 14th century using them.

[Duque de Bragança]

Did medieval techniques prove effective even in medieval times?

Milan was pretty effective in stopping the Black Death in the 14th century using them.

How the mighty have fallen. 

[Liep]

The Queen just spoke to the nation, a first since the war for the monarchy (besides the yearly new year's speech). Basically she just repeated what the government has said and then told young people to take this seriously. A good speech.

[Valmy]

Did medieval techniques prove effective even in medieval times?

Milan was pretty effective in stopping the Black Death in the 14th century using them.

How the mighty have fallen. 

Milan clearly misses the firm hand of the Visconti.

[Duque de Bragança]

I keep getting news of several Spanish factories turned over to manufacturing health care/protective equipment. It's like a war economy.

This will annoy Duque, but I Macron saying 'we are at war' is the right rhetoric.

He has had a very devoted private theatre teacher for a long while, since high school, nobody can deny it. 
Funny though that the free-marketer Macron has to contemplate nationalisations. 
You missed the part though when he said to preserve the elderly, limit the visits. I still wonder how he does with his granny wife Brigitte. 

http://www.rfi.fr/en/europe/20200307-coronavirus-macron-urges-people-limit-visits-elderly-death-toll-rises

[Valmy]

Macron could hand Duque 1,000 Euros personally and he would still find a way to be annoyed

[Duque de Bragança]

Macron could hand most French people 1,000 Euros personally and he would still find a way to be annoyed

Fixed!

[Sheilbh]

Did medieval techniques prove effective even in medieval times?

And we don't live in a medieval world with medieval travel. As Patrick Vallance pointed out today there's nowhere yet - China will be first - where we've seen what happens after these measures are lifted and society bounces back.

We don't really have examples, yet, of what happens when there's a cross-region relaxation of these measures and we still don't know about the asymptomatic cases who are infecting people but don't have a fever. So a fever is easy to screen in an airport, but surely unless we get the testing down to almost instantaneous then we'll either need one or two day quarantine periods while they confirm if someone has it (asymptomatically) or a risk of infection.

And I think the fatigue risk is real. People will follow this relatively scrupulously now because it's new and it's scary. If we do need adaptive suppression I think people will be following it less well, by round 3 or 4.

Edit: Incidentally London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine are doing a podcast about their work - which people might find interesting including a 40 minute Q&A from listeners:
https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/research/research-action/videos-filmed-lectures-and-podcasts