Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Sheilbh]

One other promising piece of news in UK - 15,000 hospitalisations so far which was at 9,000 I think on Monday - so it is still tracking at around 1,000 admissions a day. And apparently some good news on hospitalisation data - can't find chart because the government's done it's classic talk through a powerpoint while not showing the slides trick But I think he said hospitalisations are starting to fall in London and the Midlands which is good.

EDit: Found the chart (top one) and I must have misheard in the Midlands:

[alfred russel]

Are you offering a wager on people's death?

Absolutely.

And you could be one of the people dying. So could I.

I'm betting that people will live, but Tim is predicting death. 

[Josquius]

My aunt has a friend whose husband caught corona it seems. Around 70 years old and not in the best of health.
He was hospitalised and on oxygen, but has now been discharged and is in isolation at home.  Even when the stats are against you there's still a chance.

And here is the crux of the issue. So today we have 279,000 cases. We probably have a multiple of that, but lets be optimistic and say we really have 279,000. We lock down for 3 months, and miraculously go back to a minimal number of cases that we had a few weeks ago. We reopen the restaurants, etc. What keeps us from being right back here in a few weeks? What is the end game other than locking down until there is a vaccine in 12-18 months, that we will miraculously be able to provide to everyone in the country/world?

This won't be the same 279,000 cases for months to come.
Best to deal with millions cases over the span of months than all at once.

[Sheilbh]

We're not going to know May 4th deaths on May 4th. Excess mortality data in the US isn't published in real time nationally. Based on our experience in Italy, Spain, and France many people die at home or in nursing homes who never got a test or who were positive but weren't counted because they didn't die in hospital.

Yeah. In the UK we have hospitalised deaths, then registered deaths (in the community) which is higher. I think at the end of this we'll have to look at what the excess mortality data was, like the way Soviet historians have to before we have any idea of the real effect.

[Admiral Yi]

What is the end game other than locking down until there is a vaccine in 12-18 months, that we will miraculously be able to provide to everyone in the country/world?

The middle game is easing off the brake when new cases/admissions/deaths slow to a trickle, and jamming it back on when/if you get a local re-outbreak.

[Sheilbh]

Someone raised the 5G conspiracy nonsense at the briefing and it was appropriately laid into by Gove and the head of NHS England: "nonsense, dangerous nonsense"; "complete and utter rubbish [...] worst kind of fake news".

I feel this really does need the BBC to cover it.

Edit: Oh apparently Professor Neil Ferguson thinks the UK will peak in 7-10 days.

[mongers]

I'm willing to accept China's numbers until I see evidence to the contrary.  We trust numbers from Korea, HK, Singapore, etc., and they've all had much better curves than Europe and NA.  China's containment was ruthless.

I broadly agree with you and Fate.

Plus the reputable WHO team that spent time there in February were happy with all of the access and data they were given.

[Sheilbh]

I'm willing to accept China's numbers until I see evidence to the contrary.  We trust numbers from Korea, HK, Singapore, etc., and they've all had much better curves than Europe and NA.  China's containment was ruthless.

I broadly agree with you and Fate.

Plus the reputable WHO team that spent time there in February were happy with all of the access and data they were given.

Is it the same reputable WHO team that hang up on interviews if asked about how Taiwan's managing the pandemic so well, or that were confirming in January that there was no evidence of person-to-person transmission in China?

As I say I find it really odd that they're re-imposing lockdowns despite no change in the data. And I query how trustworthy the WHO is when dealing with information from major member states.

[Zanza]

Some statistics on conducted Corona tests in Germany from our public health institute.

Until 15th March: 215.320 tests -> 4.8% positive
16th-22nd March: 348.619 tests -> 6.8% positive
23rd-29th March: 354.521 tests -> 8.7% positive

Test capacity is now >500k/week, but they are now running out of chemical substances, which will slow them down.

The figures do apparently not include all tests in Germany, only those reported to the institute. And not all negative tests are reported apparently. The figures also apparently do not contain some of the figures from university hospitals.

[Sheilbh]

Has/when did Germany lockdown? Are they restricting to actually focus the testing strategy?

Just wondering because I feel like you'd expect those numbers to go down

[mongers]

Some statistics on conducted Corona tests in Germany from our public health institute.

Until 15th March: 215.320 tests -> 4.8% positive
16th-22nd March: 348.619 tests -> 6.8% positive
23rd-29th March: 354.521 tests -> 8.7% positive

Test capacity is now >500k/week, but they are now running out of chemical substances, which will slow them down.

The figures do apparently not include all tests in Germany, only those reported to the institute. And not all negative tests are reported apparently. The figures also apparently do not contain some of the figures from university hospitals.

Interesting, that's some of the most useful data we've seen in during this pandemic.

Over here, there's been quite a lot of false negatives and I believe other countries too, so doctors are often ignoring the result if in their opinion, the patient has 'obvious' symptoms.

[alfred russel]

An absolute majority of them are in New York and New Jersey. Europe is getting creamed compared to the US. It seems dense urban populations reliant on public transportation are the vulnerable populations (completely the opposite of the crap being peddled about vulnerable rural populations).

This is in spite of the Trumpist governors staying open for spring break or allowing people to go camping. We are doing dramatically better than Europe despite being led by the Orange One.

A one size fits all solution of "lock everything down" does not seem to be indicated. Those bird watchers walking alone in the lake district really aren't contributing to the disease spread.

Is this true though or is it just that Europe got it earlier (and did far worse than East Asia)? I've not seen anything that makes me think the US is handling it better than Europe, it's just a little behind us on the same sort of track - similarly I think New York is probably a little bit ahead of other states (as you'd expect), but again I've not seen anything that makes me think they'll do any better. And the bigger risk in the US seems to be that you have several outbreaks/hotspots so may get waves of peaks from these and as they spread.

The first case in the US was in Washington State and arrived January 15.

The first case in Europe was in France and arrived January 21.

I don't know that it showed up earlier in Europe than the US. You guys just live in really dense urban environments. There are only a handful of old/dense cities in the US, and predictably they are the hotspots of problems.

[Sheilbh]

The first case in the US was in Washington State and arrived January 15.

The first case in Europe was in France and arrived January 21.

I don't know that it showed up earlier in Europe than the US. You guys just live in really dense urban environments. There are only a handful of old/dense cities in the US, and predictably they are the hotspots of problems.

Got it earlier is a bad phrase, because you're right Washington had it first and had an outbreak first (which it managed well - possibly because it wasn't yet trying to compete with all the other states for equipment). With that the US could have got ahead of this and handled it better I think because Trump liked the numbers where they were and because of profound CDC incompetence (I think Trump is distracting from this) on testing that didn't happen so it wasn't contained.

The US has since had several outbreaks after the European ones - New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Florida, California and Louisiana. At the minute they are all on a very steep trajectory, but broadly tracking European regional trends just a few weeks later - with the exception of New York which looks like it'll be the most fatal outbreak.

Obviously density should make a difference and you're right these are broadly the areas that you'd expect to be hit first. It could be that it's contained there, my suspicion is there'll actually just be outbreaks in other states later as time goes one so you'll have multiple peaks. It should be the case that the rural states are hit less hard, but the flipside of that is if they have lower or less devloped ICU capacity it might take a smaller outbreak to breach their capacity.

[Admiral Yi]

My dad just told me the earliest Iowa cases were members of his church, who had gone on a local bank-arranged group trip.  My parents have gone on a number of those bank arranged trips.

I felt like asking when the trip had started, to see if they were dumbasses, but didn't think that was quite appropriate given he's still in ICU.

[DGuller]

What is the end game other than locking down until there is a vaccine in 12-18 months, that we will miraculously be able to provide to everyone in the country/world?

The middle game is easing off the brake when new cases/admissions/deaths slow to a trickle, and jamming it back on when/if you get a local re-outbreak.

I think the end game is us producing enough protective equipment for everyone, so that when you walk into your local Target, the first 10 feet of it would be surgical masks stacked from floor to ceiling.  Then people would be coming back to normal life, with everyone forced by law to wear a mask in public.  I think sufficient protective equipment for everyone coupled with much better general knowledge about limiting the spread of coronavirus would alone keep this manageable enough for life to resume to near normal, until vaccine/cure/better supportive care is discovered.