Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Tamas]

You're allowed outside as a household - and in terms of shopping surely it's better to go as a group rather than multiple trips to pick out your Easter egg?

First of all, I love the kind of issues British tyranny is raising, while in Hungary they have instituted governance by decree indefinitely.

But on this topic - it might not matter for the household if 1 or 6 of them enter a store to buy Easter eggs, but for other customers it matters a LOT. That's 6 times as many potential carriers of the virus to dodge and keep away from. Or in fact, six times as many people you try to stay away from to avoid potentially passing the virus on to them.

[The Minsky Moment]

Lord Sumption The real problem is that when human societies lose their freedom, it's not usually because tyrants have taken it away. It's usually because people willingly surrender their freedom in return for protection against some external threat. And the threat is usually a real threat but usually exaggerated. That's what I fear we are seeing now. The pressure on politicians has come from the public. They want action. They don't pause to ask whether the action will work. They don't ask themselves whether the cost will be worth paying. They want action anyway. And anyone who has studied history will recognise here the classic symptoms of collective hysteria. Hysteria is infectious. We are working ourselves up into a lather in which we exaggerate the threat and stop asking ourselves whether the cure may be worse than the disease.

The only hysteria I can see is overblown statements like this.  The impetus for the restrictions isn't coming from a panicked populace clamoring for a bonfire of jogging vanities, it's coming from epidemiological experts emphasizing the need to slow the tempo of a disease. The fact that someone receives a 30 quid fine for a house party doesn't make Britain into a "police state".

[Sheilbh]

But on this topic - it might not matter for the household if 1 or 6 of them enter a store to buy Easter eggs, but for other customers it matters a LOT. That's 6 times as many potential carriers of the virus to dodge and keep away from. Or in fact, six times as many people you try to stay away from to avoid potentially passing the virus on to them.

Yeah I get that. But let's say it's kids going to pick out their Easter eggs and that household has coronavirus. Surely it's better for those six people to go once for a time limited period, rather than six individual trips over the course of the day infecting different groups of people in the shop at different times?

[mongers]

One not so good stat from the government daily briefing, the number of corona-virus patients today, Monday is 9,000, exactly double what it was on Friday.

Is that right? I thought he said the numbers were stable and not accelerating over the last few days - so there's been 1,000 admissions a day which is tough but the rate has been stable?

It was on the front end of last night's Channel 4 news.

edit:
just watching the following piece and the interview Sir Simon Stevens(?) of NHS England and he talks of there being over 9,000 coronavirus admissions in England. The 4,500 isn't mentioned, but I can't see them making that glaring a journalist error?

[Admiral Yi]

Yeah I get that. But let's say it's kids going to pick out their Easter eggs and that household has coronavirus. Surely it's better for those six people to go once for a time limited period, rather than six individual trips over the course of the day infecting different groups of people in the shop at different times?

Jesus Christ, seriously?  It's the goddamn Plague man.  Whatever fucking egg dad comes back with is the one you get.

[Tamas]

Yeah I get that. But let's say it's kids going to pick out their Easter eggs and that household has coronavirus. Surely it's better for those six people to go once for a time limited period, rather than six individual trips over the course of the day infecting different groups of people in the shop at different times?

Jesus Christ, seriously?  It's the goddamn Plague man.  Whatever fucking egg dad comes back with is the one you get.

Exactly.

[celedhring]

First of all, I love the kind of issues British tyranny is raising, while in Hungary they have instituted governance by decree indefinitely.

And here I thought that the "Anarchy in the UK" meme was caricature. 

[Sheilbh]

Interesting piece:

Worst-hit German district to become coronavirus 'laboratory'
Study will follow 1,000 people in Heinsberg to create plan for how to deal with virus
Kate Connolly in Berlin
Tue 31 Mar 2020 13.11 BST
Last modified on Tue 31 Mar 2020 13.58 BST

German scientists have announced what they described as a first-of-its-kind study into how coronavirus spreads and how it can be contained, using the country's worst-hit district as a real-life laboratory.

The virus has spread more widely among the 250,000 residents of Heinsberg – a district in North Rhine-Westphalia bordering the Netherlands – than anywhere else in Germany, with 1,281 confirmed infections and 34 deaths. More than 550 people have recovered from the illness so far. The advance of the virus in Heinsberg, nicknamed "Germany's Wuhan" after the Chinese city where the global pandemic emerged, is between two to two and a half weeks ahead of the rest of the country.

Over the coming weeks the district will be used by leading virologists and a team of 40 medical students as a sort of laboratory for studying the virus. The "Covid-19 case cluster study", launched on Tuesday morning, will follow 1,000 people who have been chosen because they are representative of the German population as a whole.

The results will be used to create a blueprint for how Germany might deal with the virus over the next few years, said Prof Hendrik Streeck, the head virologist at the University of Bonn.

"This is a big chance for the whole of Germany," Streeck told a meeting of parliamentarians that was streamed live on television. "We'll be gathering information and practical tips as to how to deal with Covid-19 and how we can achieve further containment of it, without our lives having to come to a standstill over a period of years."

The study's results will potentially have implications for other countries.

The scientists will go into 500 households, as well as kindergartens and hospitals, to study how the infection is spread. They will look at every aspect ofeveryday life, from the extent to which children pass it on to adults, how it is spread within families – from mobile phones to door handles, to cups and TV remote controls – to whether pets can spread it, and whether it is transferred via certain types of food. "If there are ways of preventing the illness from spreading in our environment, we want to know what they are, with the goal of finding out how we can freely move about in the environment together," Streeck said.

"On the basis of our findings we'll be able to make recommendations, which politicians can use to guide their decision-making," Streeck said. "It could be that the measures currently in place are fine, and we say: 'Don't reduce them.' But I don't expect that, I expect the opposite, that we will be able to come up with a range of proposals as to how the curfews can be reduced."

By testing the immunity to Covid-19 of the study's participants, the scientists will also be able to establish what the estimated number of undetected cases might be nationwide. The first results are expected to be made public next week, though the entire gathering of evidence will take several weeks and its analysis is likely to be carried out over months and years.

Streeck said he was unaware of any other studies of its kind being carried out in other hotspots, such as Wuhan in China, Ischgl in Austria, Bergamo in Italy or Alsace in France. He was surprised that the government's advisers on public health matters had not come up with the idea already, "because after all, containment is of national interest", he said.

He said he hoped the study would help decision-makers in the "ethical dilemma" of establishing a balance between maintaining livelihoods and managing the death rate.

My suspicion is that the end of this we will have a new normal of everyone wearing masks and self-isolating when ill, but restrictions are otherwise lessened if not totally lifted.

[Richard Hakluyt]

We will need proper sick pay for all workers if self-isolation is going to be a fixture.

[Josquius]

This idea that country walking is some sort of middle class preserve is simply not true of Lancashire and Yorkshire (at least). There was a strong mass movement to gain access to the countryside a 100 or so years back; Northern cities and towns, massively polluted back in the day, are surrounded by hills and moorland. The most famous incident was the Kinder Scout mass trespass back in 1932 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_trespass_of_Kinder_Scout .

hmm, I would say though, you'll be surprised how many you come across in the rougher parts Newcastle who never get out of the city and freak out at the sight of a cow.

[Richard Hakluyt]

This idea that country walking is some sort of middle class preserve is simply not true of Lancashire and Yorkshire (at least). There was a strong mass movement to gain access to the countryside a 100 or so years back; Northern cities and towns, massively polluted back in the day, are surrounded by hills and moorland. The most famous incident was the Kinder Scout mass trespass back in 1932 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_trespass_of_Kinder_Scout .

hmm, I would say though, you'll be surprised how many you come across in the rougher parts Newcastle who never get out of the city and freak out at the sight of a cow.

And yet there are cows on the Town Moor 

I guess some people are just hopeless.

[Josquius]

And yet there are cows on the Town Moor 

I guess some people are just hopeless.

Haha true, I'd forgot about those. I guess not many have reason to get up that way, I certainly don't now I'm no longer a student.

Speaking to a guy who is heavily involved with homeless issues in the city.... he says even getting someone from the West/East end to move to the other is impossible in Newcastle. It is truly amazing how sheltered some can be.

[Sheilbh]

This idea that country walking is some sort of middle class preserve is simply not true of Lancashire and Yorkshire (at least). There was a strong mass movement to gain access to the countryside a 100 or so years back; Northern cities and towns, massively polluted back in the day, are surrounded by hills and moorland. The most famous incident was the Kinder Scout mass trespass back in 1932 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_trespass_of_Kinder_Scout .

hmm, I would say though, you'll be surprised how many you come across in the rougher parts Newcastle who never get out of the city and freak out at the sight of a cow.

And yet there are cows on the Town Moor 

I guess some people are just hopeless.

I think it depends a bit. Unrelated but I am kind of obsessed with the goats taking over Llandudno at the minute. Especially because I feel like goats are going to be the most difficult animal to force out of a town after this is all over.

[mongers]

This idea that country walking is some sort of middle class preserve is simply not true of Lancashire and Yorkshire (at least). There was a strong mass movement to gain access to the countryside a 100 or so years back; Northern cities and towns, massively polluted back in the day, are surrounded by hills and moorland. The most famous incident was the Kinder Scout mass trespass back in 1932 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_trespass_of_Kinder_Scout .

hmm, I would say though, you'll be surprised how many you come across in the rougher parts Newcastle who never get out of the city and freak out at the sight of a cow.

And yet there are cows on the Town Moor 

I guess some people are just hopeless.

Coincidentally, last night I got waylaid by a herd of cattle on the road, had to pick my way through them, nice creatures and probably living it up as much as beef cattle can in this country. 

[alfred russel]

I think it does not bode well that after a mere week of the lockdown there is already a societal pushback against the police, that's also gaining traction. This ridiculous middle class rebellion against tyranny will be wielded as a flag by the mob in a month when they have had enough of no parties and football matches.

I don't think the mob for football matches will be middle class. I don't think the fear of unrest in southern Italy is that middle managers working from home are going to take to the streets.

I was posting that the rules were too harsh and too arbitrary to be sustainable a week ago and getting a ton of backlash--you said I was being an "edgelord." Yet here we are.

It is one thing to tell people to lock down for a week or two. But if you want to have this sustained for more than a month the rules need to be balanced against avoiding disrupting normal life to the extent possible. How a walk in the lake district will spread covid 19 i have no clue.