Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Zanza]

Our public health authority published data on 41.000 patients now: average age 47, 52% male, 43% fever, 41% cough. Of the 583 dead persons they analysed so far, the average age is 80. The youngest was 28. 5% of the dead below 60, 87% above 70.

The figures for yesterday are very low for Germany, both new positive tests and fatalities. I guess that's some data transmission issue.

[celedhring]

+865 dead (+10%). Fifth day in a row were new dead figure remains in the 800 range. We've plateaued but it's such a long and agonising plateau... The number of new cases requiring intensive care has inched only +5% which is an encouraging number, too.

[Syt]

The masks thing is getting a bit silly.

Originally, wearing masks was supposed to be mandatory in all supermarkets starting today. This has been changed so that supermarkets should start distributing them today to customers, and it will be mandatory from Monday. However, it will remain optional for supermarkets under 400 square meters, which is the vast majority of supermarkets in in my area of the city (I think there's 2 or 3 of that size in walking distance, vs. a dozen or more tiny ones).

The trade association estimates that Austria will need 3-4 million single use masks *per day*. They're supposed to hand them out for free, but are responsible for ordering them, so they are arguing with the government about who should pay for the masks.

Because - weirdly - masks are expected to be scarce, homemade masks will be acceptable, as will be scarves (we will have 21 degrees next week ). There's also conflicting recommendations from university professors. Some say masks need to be disposed as special garbage after each use, at the other end they say it's fine to put them in the stove at 80°C and then reuse them.

Further, only single persons will be let into supermarkets. No families picking out their Easter nests.

Another point of contention is a lot of the green areas in Vienna.

The city of Vienna keeps its parks open so people have somewhere to go. The advice is to not use public transport to go outside the city but rather stick close to where you live. Hence open parks. Police observes if people stick to the rules for keeping their distance.

However, a number of significant open green areas are not run by the city but by the federal government: Schönbrunn gardens, Belvedere, Hofburg, etc. The government refuses to open those, arguing that it would entice people to go there and cluster.

The city argues that this is preferrable than people having to take their walks on sidewalks that are less than 2 meters wide and don't always allow for keeping distance.

[Monoriu]

Well, welcome to my world 

First of all I think the people should buy the masks themselves.  Otherwise they'll just use the free masks for 30 minutes, throw them away and ask for another one.  If people buy the masks themselves, they'll treasure them and say use one per day.  Like we do.  This will cut down on demand. 

Yeah it is a gigantic problem buying the masks.  I see masks from Pakistan, Honduras, Sri Lanka etc on sale in HK.  Even those aren't cheap.  They are like US$0.7 each.  A long term solution is that you guys need to make them locally.

Nobody here worries too much about disposing the masks.  I just treat them like kitchen waste. 

[Legbiter]

A sobering look at the mitigation strategy being used by everyone.

There is a simple truth behind the problems with these modeling conclusions. The duration of containment efforts does not matter, if transmission rates return to normal when they end, and mortality rates have not improved. This is simply because as long as a large majority of the population remains uninfected, lifting containment measures will lead to an epidemic almost as large as would happen without having mitigations in place at all.

This is not to say that there are not good reasons to use mitigations as a delay tactic. For example, we may hope to use the months we buy with containment measures to improve hospital capacity, in the hopes of achieving a reduction in the mortality rate. We might even wish to use these months just to consider our options as a society and formulate a strategy. But mitigations themselves are not saving lives in these scenarios; instead, it is what we do with the time that gives us an opportunity to improve the outcome of the epidemic.

...Nations around the world are staring down a host of terrible options. Business-as-usual means overrun hospitals, and large numbers of preventable deaths. One or two years of suppression measures in wait for a vaccine means a global shutdown whose full ramifications will require input from experts across multiple domains to fully understand. The viability of middle roads, which might attempt to replace suppression efforts with contact tracing while allowing normal social and economic activity, is still debated by experts.


What should be absolutely clear is that hard decisions lie ahead, and that there are no easy answers.

...Regardless of which strategies various governments will eventually turn to in the fight against COVID-19, their success will hinge in large part on the cooperation of the public — maintaining effective suppression on a timescale of years, for example, would require extraordinary levels compliance from citizens. The public should not be misled by presenting false stories of hope to motivate behavior in the short-term. Public health depends on public trust. If we claim now that our models show that 2 months of mitigations will cut deaths by 90%, why will anyone believe us 2 months from now when the story has to change?

https://medium.com/@wpegden/a-call-to-honesty-in-pandemic-modeling-5c156686a64b

TLDR: Tough 2 month mitigation strategy will ultimately not reduce the spread on it's own, merely delay it. The pandemic will cease because of a vaccine or because it has burned through the entire population. Mitigation buys us time to work out a national strategy of survival.

[mongers]

So the Trump pivot on the virus is, 'this could kill a million, 2 million maybe 2.5 million' so allowing for an overshoot above the predicted 100-200k, say the mentioned 250K, Trump declares victory in 3-4 month time saying 'Look if it wasn't for me millions would have died, so I've saved the lives of over 2 million Americans'. 

And his base will lap it up in the run up to the election.

[Legbiter]

So the Trump pivot on the virus is, 'this could kill a million, 2 million maybe 2.5 million' so allowing for an overshoot above the predicted 100-200k, say the mentioned 250K, Trump in declares victory in 3-4 month time saying 'Look if it wasn't for me millions would have died, so I've saved the lives of over 2 million Americans'. 

And his base will lap it up in the run up to the election.

The epidemic just comes roaring back when controls are eased and in 3 weeks you are back where you started. Most people have not yet been infected.

[Admiral Yi]

So the Trump pivot on the virus is, 'this could kill a million, 2 million maybe 2.5 million' so allowing for an overshoot above the predicted 100-200k, say the mentioned 250K, Trump declares victory in 3-4 month time saying 'Look if it wasn't for me millions would have died, so I've saved the lives of over 2 million Americans'. 

And his base will lap it up in the run up to the election.

The base doesn't like sentences with that many commas.

[Tamas]

A sobering look at the mitigation strategy being used by everyone.

There is a simple truth behind the problems with these modeling conclusions. The duration of containment efforts does not matter, if transmission rates return to normal when they end, and mortality rates have not improved. This is simply because as long as a large majority of the population remains uninfected, lifting containment measures will lead to an epidemic almost as large as would happen without having mitigations in place at all.

This is not to say that there are not good reasons to use mitigations as a delay tactic. For example, we may hope to use the months we buy with containment measures to improve hospital capacity, in the hopes of achieving a reduction in the mortality rate. We might even wish to use these months just to consider our options as a society and formulate a strategy. But mitigations themselves are not saving lives in these scenarios; instead, it is what we do with the time that gives us an opportunity to improve the outcome of the epidemic.

...Nations around the world are staring down a host of terrible options. Business-as-usual means overrun hospitals, and large numbers of preventable deaths. One or two years of suppression measures in wait for a vaccine means a global shutdown whose full ramifications will require input from experts across multiple domains to fully understand. The viability of middle roads, which might attempt to replace suppression efforts with contact tracing while allowing normal social and economic activity, is still debated by experts.


What should be absolutely clear is that hard decisions lie ahead, and that there are no easy answers.

...Regardless of which strategies various governments will eventually turn to in the fight against COVID-19, their success will hinge in large part on the cooperation of the public — maintaining effective suppression on a timescale of years, for example, would require extraordinary levels compliance from citizens. The public should not be misled by presenting false stories of hope to motivate behavior in the short-term. Public health depends on public trust. If we claim now that our models show that 2 months of mitigations will cut deaths by 90%, why will anyone believe us 2 months from now when the story has to change?

https://medium.com/@wpegden/a-call-to-honesty-in-pandemic-modeling-5c156686a64b

TLDR: Tough 2 month mitigation strategy will ultimately not reduce the spread on it's own, merely delay it. The pandemic will cease because of a vaccine or because it has burned through the entire population. Mitigation buys us time to work out a national strategy of survival.

Well yeah but as the article also mentions this delay can be crucial in preparing a response / avoiding collapse of local healthchare systems.

[Legbiter]

Yeah, buys us time for wartime production of medical supplies and healthcare training.

[jimmy olsen]

So the Trump pivot on the virus is, 'this could kill a million, 2 million maybe 2.5 million' so allowing for an overshoot above the predicted 100-200k, say the mentioned 250K, Trump declares victory in 3-4 month time saying 'Look if it wasn't for me millions would have died, so I've saved the lives of over 2 million Americans'. 

And his base will lap it up in the run up to the election.

The base doesn't like sentences with that many commas.

Also, his base will among the majority of the dead.

[Legbiter]

So the Trump pivot on the virus is, 'this could kill a million, 2 million maybe 2.5 million' so allowing for an overshoot above the predicted 100-200k, say the mentioned 250K, Trump declares victory in 3-4 month time saying 'Look if it wasn't for me millions would have died, so I've saved the lives of over 2 million Americans'. 

And his base will lap it up in the run up to the election.

The base doesn't like sentences with that many commas.

Yeah but the galaxy brains at the DNC are running a senile vegetable against Trump in the middle of global pandemic. Nobody here is exactly smart & clever in hindsight.

[Richard Hakluyt]

It is amazing, 330 million Americans, many of them talented, but there will be a presidential contest between Trump and Biden 

[Valmy]

So the Trump pivot on the virus is, 'this could kill a million, 2 million maybe 2.5 million' so allowing for an overshoot above the predicted 100-200k, say the mentioned 250K, Trump declares victory in 3-4 month time saying 'Look if it wasn't for me millions would have died, so I've saved the lives of over 2 million Americans'. 

And his base will lap it up in the run up to the election.

The base doesn't like sentences with that many commas.

Yeah but the galaxy brains at the DNC are running a senile vegetable against Trump in the middle of global pandemic. Nobody here is exactly smart & clever in hindsight.

I find this deflection annoying. I mean I have very little faith in Joe, even the Joe from decades ago, but that doesn't excuse any mistakes Donald is making.

[Admiral Yi]

Yeah but the galaxy brains at the DNC are running a senile vegetable

Everyone knows the Bilderberg Meeting chose Biden.