Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[The Brain]

Sweden has stopped testing unless you are in the risk zone or if you are working in health services, that is presumably why the curve is flattening.

The reasoning is that this disease is treated just like any other comparable disease with regards to testing. Its effects are known and there is really no point in testing healthy youngsters, you are supposed to be at home regardless of whether you are sick of corona or something else, knowing it's corona makes no practical difference.

Thank you.

[Iormlund]

I'd trust the Chinese numbers way more than the Iran numbers. Signapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan all implemented similar strategies and are more transparent normally, so no reason to believe there's some hidden under-reported outbreak in China killing thousands.

Chinese numbers are probably off for the first few weeks. They had a pretty big test kit shortage once the bug took off. At one time they tried to adjust by classifying those diagnosed clinically but not tested. The actual trend probably looks more like a half bell than the linear numbers they were able to report.

[crazy canuck]

Apparently they want a definition of "non-essential", which to me seems kind of common sense.

Only tangentially related, but I have become convinced during my time teaching, that what we are having is a crisis in our capacity for judgment. Not the in being able to deploy opinions, nor following procedures to get to an output, but rather assessing appropriateness.

There is a lot to be said for this. 

[Zanza]

I cannot find numbers on tests conducted in Germany.

Yeah - it's a slightly annoying gap in the global numbers in terms of big-ish countries. I assume it's because health isn't federal?

Also, Brits - consider signing up for this:
https://www.flusurvey.net/

Obviously more testing is needed but this was apparently really helpful in the 2009/10 flu epidemic by allowing Public Health England to monitor self-reported symptoms

I found numbers for tests in Germany now: "more than 100.000 tests in outpatient clinics in the last week, up from 35.000 tests the week before" which does not include hospitals, so the real number is higher.

Source is state television referring to public health insurance (which pays the tests) https://www.ard-text.de/mobil/152 at 10:52am

[Threviel]

Sweden has stopped testing unless you are in the risk zone or if you are working in health services, that is presumably why the curve is flattening.

The reasoning is that this disease is treated just like any other comparable disease with regards to testing. Its effects are known and there is really no point in testing healthy youngsters, you are supposed to be at home regardless of whether you are sick of corona or something else, knowing it's corona makes no practical difference.

Thank you.

I actually found a source https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/contentassets/5893ab8dca1f4b3f87ee19a29724a44b/provtagningsindikation-ncov.pdf

[alfred russel]

Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and South Korea, possibly Japan all look very successful. Their governments and societies had experience, equipment, processes, organizations and societal discipline from SARS, MERS etc, which our Western societies and governments lack. They seem capable of lifting restrictions and still fight the virus. I think we are capable of learning that in the next few weeks as well.

I don't get why you say that...Japan, South Korea, and Japan have all gotten the rate of new infections under control through severe measures. But there are still new cases every day. If the measures they have taken are not responsible for reducing the rate of infection, then what is? And if they are those measures, then why would you assume they could keep things under control while lifting restrictions?

[OttoVonBismarck]

Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and South Korea, possibly Japan all look very successful. Their governments and societies had experience, equipment, processes, organizations and societal discipline from SARS, MERS etc, which our Western societies and governments lack. They seem capable of lifting restrictions and still fight the virus. I think we are capable of learning that in the next few weeks as well.

I think possibly even bigger than the government aspect in those countries vs the West is the societal one. Most people I know kinda mocked the Asians for wearing masks and shit during SARS, but what was happening is their societies were learning "outbreak behaviors" of social distancing. I've seen most restaurants and bars here still fully packed until local governments started force-closing them. Those of us really hooked into the internet were concerned, but a ton of the regular people out in society in America weren't changing their behaviors at all until the end of last week--the big government moves of force closing so many businesses, shutting all the schools, I think finally hammered home in a way that people reacted to, that this was serious.

[Sheilbh]

I found numbers for tests in Germany now: "more than 100.000 tests in outpatient clinics in the last week, up from 35.000 tests the week before" which does not include hospitals, so the real number is higher.

Source is state television referring to public health insurance (which pays the tests) https://www.ard-text.de/mobil/152 at 10:52am

So rough back of a fag packet calculations on the outpatient clinics only and that's at a South Korean rate of processing tests in the last week, overall per capita probably only behind Italy in reasonable-sized European countries. So we will probably learn a lot from Germany - although if the infections are still tilted towards young active people who've been skiing it might look more like South Korea in general.

[The Brain]

Sweden has stopped testing unless you are in the risk zone or if you are working in health services, that is presumably why the curve is flattening.

The reasoning is that this disease is treated just like any other comparable disease with regards to testing. Its effects are known and there is really no point in testing healthy youngsters, you are supposed to be at home regardless of whether you are sick of corona or something else, knowing it's corona makes no practical difference.

Thank you.

I actually found a source https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/contentassets/5893ab8dca1f4b3f87ee19a29724a44b/provtagningsindikation-ncov.pdf

So the present strategy is from the 13th (I guess with some delay in results and/or temporary overlap of strategies). In the coming days/week we should at least get a feel for the trend under this strategy.

[Zoupa]

Sweden has stopped testing unless you are in the risk zone or if you are working in health services, that is presumably why the curve is flattening.

The reasoning is that this disease is treated just like any other comparable disease with regards to testing. Its effects are known and there is really no point in testing healthy youngsters, you are supposed to be at home regardless of whether you are sick of corona or something else, knowing it's corona makes no practical difference.

Quoted for posterity...

[Threviel]

Reading up on it I found this quote from swedish health ministry:

Fram till den 12 mars 2020 gjorde man provtagning och smittspårning av alla misstänkta fall i Sverige som kom resande från riskområden. Från och med den 13 mars 2020 är provtagning prioriterad till två kategorier av personer. Dels personer som är i behov av vård på sjukhus, dels personal inom sjukvård och äldreomsorg med misstänkt covid-19. Det kan betyda att antalet rapporterade fall är lägre från den 13 mars och siffrorna före och efter den förändrade provtagningsrutinen inte är jämförbara.

Meaning that until the 12th of March every suspected case was tested, from the 13th only the risk groups and the health services that are sick. So that's definitely why the Swedish curve goes flat, real number of cases might be in the 2-3000 range and possibly higher.

[Zanza]

Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and South Korea, possibly Japan all look very successful. Their governments and societies had experience, equipment, processes, organizations and societal discipline from SARS, MERS etc, which our Western societies and governments lack. They seem capable of lifting restrictions and still fight the virus. I think we are capable of learning that in the next few weeks as well.

I don't get why you say that...Japan, South Korea, and Japan have all gotten the rate of new infections under control through severe measures. But there are still new cases every day. If the measures they have taken are not responsible for reducing the rate of infection, then what is? And if they are those measures, then why would you assume they could keep things under control while lifting restrictions?

Singapore and Taiwan did not have to shut down public life, they are just extremely vigilant. South Korea had a freak super spreader (patient 31), but their drastic measures were limited to one area, not the whole country. China was drastic, but even at peak had just half the country in quarantine and they are now moving back to normal outside Hubei.

[garbon]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/17/us-government-to-give-citizens-emergency-financial-aid

US government to give citizens emergency financial aid

White House prepares to send direct payments to Americans as part of stimulus package

[Sheilbh]

Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, China and South Korea, possibly Japan all look very successful. Their governments and societies had experience, equipment, processes, organizations and societal discipline from SARS, MERS etc, which our Western societies and governments lack. They seem capable of lifting restrictions and still fight the virus. I think we are capable of learning that in the next few weeks as well.

I don't get why you say that...Japan, South Korea, and Japan have all gotten the rate of new infections under control through severe measures. But there are still new cases every day. If the measures they have taken are not responsible for reducing the rate of infection, then what is? And if they are those measures, then why would you assume they could keep things under control while lifting restrictions?

Singapore and Taiwan did not have to shut down public life, they are just extremely vigilant. South Korea had a freak super spreader (patient 31), but their drastic measures were limited to one area, not the whole country. China was drastic, but even at peak had just half the country in quarantine and they are now moving back to normal outside Hubei.

A lot of my work is around privacy law and the measures taken in South Korea and Singapore especially would be very difficult in Europe. They are very invasive and I don't know if we'd be willing to accept it. Maybe in preference to lockdown.

I don't know so much about Taiwan.

[Admiral Yi]

A lot of my work is around privacy law and the measures taken in South Korea and Singapore especially would be very difficult in Europe. They are very invasive and I don't know if we'd be willing to accept it. Maybe in preference to lockdown.

I don't know so much about Taiwan.

Yeah, don't see how we could do Korean contact tracing here.  It's basically putting a GPS on everyone and broadcasting it to the world.