Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Monoriu]

The Prince of Wales has recovered

[mongers]

Denmark seems to be faring somewhat better than initially predicted. Daily growth in hospital admissions (so new one minus discharges) has been pretty steady for the past week  between 30 and 50 per day, gradually reducing the percentage increase day by day. Overall the curve is looking very linear, with no tendency towards exponential growth so far and we are well under capacity for the time being. ICU and ventilator proportions of the overall admissions number have been increasing slightly, but mostly follow the same trend.

PM will give a press conference later today. It will be interesting to see what they signal. We are officially meant to go back to normal on April 14th...

Maybe the drier conditions from the northerly winds and the increased sunshine is having some effect? 

Perhaps the virus will have a bit of it's own flu season?

[Josquius]

Doing the rounds on facebook these days is a post commemorating the first 3 doctors to have died of Corona in the UK.
Interesting all of middle eastern descent.
Makes me wonder about this genetic component to how serious corona gets.
It hasn't really taken off in the middle east and India yet...bodes poorly if they are susceptible.

[Legbiter]

New York is looking bad.

[mongers]

A useful graphic:



source, this bbc article:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-51235105

[Admiral Yi]

Took me a while to figure out, but yeah good graphic.

Stay away from the dark!  Go towards the light!

[Iormlund]

Apparently births and deaths are collected on a weekly basis normally.

We have a service that monitors excess deaths. This is the last report. Though they note at the end that some regions are suffering delays in their reporting, mainly the hardest hit by the pandemic.

[alfred russel]

Supposedly Fauci is projecting 100k-200k dead in the US.

https://apnews.com/64ac08d62c3621f2b888785e02c7f6b1

Assuming that is the range, and all western countries are roughly in line, the political implications will be interesting. The CDC estimates that flu deaths in a bad year are just over 60k.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/index.html

On the one hand you will have people arguing that the entire response has been disproportionate, and also people arguing that the government responses saved us from a catastrophe. Though contradictory, I expect Trump would make both arguments and his base would eat it up.

There will be other ways to criticize the government--the response was not as effective as it could have been, and more costly than needed as we weren't prepared. I guess these would be the Democrats' answer.

[Legbiter]

Yeah the response here was at first amateur hour. There will be a reckoning after the worst is over but right now it's all hands on deck. Local political yapping is on an indefinite break. Otherwise we're just running around the battlefield bayoneting our own side. There'll be time for it later but not right now.

[Tamas]

Re. masks and their use, Orban in Hungary just straight out said the only reason they are not mandatory for citizens is that there aren't enough masks.

[Maladict]

Hard times for burglars?

They just made off with a Van Gogh here, so I'm not feeling too sorry for them.

[Maladict]

Meanwhile in Belarus, Lukashenko joins a hockey game in a packed stadium. There might still be a silver lining.

[Legbiter]

Smart.

Germans could soon be issued "immunity certificates" that would allow them to leave the country's coronavirus lockdown earlier than the rest of the population if they test positive for antibodies to the virus.

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-germany-covid-19-immunity-certificates-testing-social-distancing-lockdown-2020-3?r=US&IR=T

[Fate]

Saw a few epidemiologists on Twitter note that in about 10 days the rate in growth of new cases in the USA may outstrip our increasing ability to test, which could create a false sense of "flattening the curve."

[Barrister]

Smart.

Germans could soon be issued "immunity certificates" that would allow them to leave the country's coronavirus lockdown earlier than the rest of the population if they test positive for antibodies to the virus.

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-germany-covid-19-immunity-certificates-testing-social-distancing-lockdown-2020-3?r=US&IR=T

Couldn't that lead to a perverse incentive of young people trying to get infected?