Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Tamas]

I just noticed there are hardly any bird flying around.  Paranoid? 

Yes. They are very loud around here.

[Grey Fox]

I have more of every animals, more birds, more squirrels, more ducks, more bunnys. Even saw a raccoon come up of hibernation.

[Habbaku]

Less joggers as far as I can tell.

[Maladict]

An interesting study was done in Heinsberg, the county with the early big outbreak in Germany. About 500 persons from one village were tested now for antibodies, about 15% were infected when they only expected about 5%. Mortality is a mere 0.37%.

Based on this and several other considerations, they'll start discussing in the week after Easter to reduce the restrictions from the lockdown. I think it is time for that discussion now and we need to have it publicly. I hope it's not one of those Merkel 'alternativlos' (without alternative) things that aren't well explained and just done by the government.

And I just heard again anecdotal evidence from German hospitals, which are apparently mostly empty. A doctor who lives in my house for example told me that they created 40 new places to ventilate people and only two of those are currently taken. I guess the peak is still coming in Germany, but for now it seems manageable for the health system. I have heard the same story from other places in Germany from other doctors as well the last few days.


Two more figures: more than 10,000 empty beds in ICU in Germany according to our health minister and more than 50k of the infected are already healthy again.

It's almost like Germans are a higher breed.

But seriously, well done Germany. Even taking in patients from others countries in the run-up to your own peak.

[Duque de Bragança]

Since yesterday Wednesday 10.00, joggers are in theory banned from 10 to 19 hours in Paris. At last!

Less joggers as far as I can tell.

There are only 10,000 joggers in Paris, or only 10,000 of them have restrictions on their jogging? 

Neither, it's a time stamp.

Maybe.

Stop playing dumb you two.

[mongers]

I just noticed there are hardly any bird flying around.  Paranoid? 

Yes. They are very loud around here.

Yes, they're certainly in fine voice here also. 

[Duque de Bragança]

I just noticed there are hardly any bird flying around.  Paranoid? 

Yes. They are very loud around here.

Yes, they're certainly in fine voice here also. 

I'd rather have birds singing than idiots opening the windows and shouting on the phone.

[mongers]

I just noticed there are hardly any bird flying around.  Paranoid? 

Yes. They are very loud around here.

Yes, they're certainly in fine voice here also. 

I'd rather have birds singing than idiots opening the windows and shouting on the phone.

Yes there's an echo of the bird song heard during the trench warfare in WW!, but this time the only people on the front-line are nurses, doctors, carers, supermarket workers and emergency services.

[Maladict]

Half of a dementia care home got wiped out in Rotterdam over the last two weeks.

[mongers]

Half of a dementia care home got wiped out in Rotterdam over the last two weeks.

This virus seems like the perfect storm for those vulnerable and elderly in care homes.

It's why I don't believe the models project of predicted dead, those seem more like a strategic overview, whereas what happens in care homes is a consequence of the tactics used in the battle.

So the UK governments optimistic estimate is around 20,000 dead, yet I don't think they've looked at car homes in detail.

In the UK there are about 400,000 in those care/nursing homes, I could see 10% or more of those dying because:

All care homes aren't fully isolated as it's down to local authorities, companies and managers.
The care workers typically have very inadequate PPE and are near the end of the queue for getting it, so more of them get, are absent, possibly die and also more likely to pass it on to their patients.
And due to the existing shortage of carers, 'bank' workers are used to fill in the gaps, meaning people are regularly moving between different care home and significantly increasing the risk of transmissions

[Sheilbh]

Also there's care in the home where workers will move between multiple households between the day.

It's a huge area/risk given the population and that story in Rotterdam is awful

In other risky populations some prisons are now having to be decanted into single cell occupancy due to the spread of the virus there (also, I imagine, due to staff either self-isolating or household isolating).

UK hospitalised deaths at 881 today, which is lower and a slightly lower rate of 12%. Hopefully that is the start of a trend

On the leading indicators it looks like the curve is definitely flattening in hospital admissions and ICU occupancy which is very good news.

[Caliga]

Also there's care in the home where workers will move between multiple households between the day.

That's what my previous employer did.  Glad I don't work for them at the moment.

[Barrister]

29 deaths in Alberta.  Almost half of them were from a single elderly care home in Calgary.

Certainly there's the possibility of huge spread in such institutions.  On the other hand though since you have a population that doesn't really go out anywhere, and a staff that has some training on cleanliness, if we get on top of it there's no reason to think we shouldn't be able to keep Covid out completely.

I think it's telling that while the one facility has had a huge outbreak, there have been no similar spreads in any of the dozens and dozens of care home throughout the province.

[Maximus]

My sister is a home care nurse. She developed symptoms last week and has been in isolation. Just got notification that she tested negative though.

[Fate]

Not trying to stoke panic but the false negative rate of nasal swab PCR test is pretty high because of human error in the nasopharyngeal swab portion which isn't easy to do properly, especially with all of these poorly/newly trained people doing it. The PCR/lab portion of the test is highly accurate if the sample was collected properly.

If I had clinical symptoms of COVID-19, lived in an area with known community transmission, worked in a high risk place like a nursing home, and had one negative nasal swab test then I'd still act as if I had it until I was asymptomatic.