Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[The Brain]

It seems like in Jersey City the mandate came in to limit the number of people in the stores, because I see all the stores now with lines of people in front of it.  I get the thought process, but I have a suspicion it may prove to be counterproductive.  What this measure winds up doing is extending the amount of time people spend outside.  In theory they should spend that increased amount of time outside at proper social distance, as opposed to a shorter amount of time at occasionally improper social distance, but I think it hurts more than it helps.  My solution was to drive to another town where a thing didn't exist, and wear a mask.

Hmm, turns out that's a New Jersey law, starting today.  I guess my Plan B store didn't get the memo.

Will you report them?

[Razgovory]

A local restaurateur died this week from the virus.

[Sheilbh]

So in general I don't really think the UK was an outlier or exceptional in any particular way. My view is we had an average European response, on similar timescales and are seeing similar results. The exceptional/interesting countries in Europe are Germany and Sweden (and maybe Greece).

But one really odd point is that we have more deaths today than I think happened in Italy or Spain. Unlike those countries we still have capacity in the ICUs and ventilators, and no single area has been hit quite as hard (I think London's still under Lombardia, Catalonia and Madrid). I hope one thing we learn after this is why our fatalities were so high and comparatively widely distributed.

Edit: Incidentally I saw an extraordinary chart of NY average deaths v deaths in the past month which is astronomical. What's striking is that only about 40% of those have been attributed to covid. It's not clear if the rest is other conditions not getting treatment, undiagnosed covid or what. But as I say I think at the end of this the only way we'll understand the impact is if we look at "expected deaths" like Soviet historians.

[Sheilbh]

A local restaurateur died this week from the virus.

God - sorry to hear it's hitting close to you

[Razgovory]

The county and the state are not really very good at keeping records of coronavirus deaths, so I've just been checking the obits.  I'm getting the distinct impression that virus is more widespread than we have been led to believe.

[celedhring]

So in general I don't really think the UK was an outlier or exceptional in any particular way. My view is we had an average European response, on similar timescales and are seeing similar results. The exceptional/interesting countries in Europe are Germany and Sweden (and maybe Greece).

But one really odd point is that we have more deaths today than I think happened in Italy or Spain. Unlike those countries we still have capacity in the ICUs and ventilators, and no single area has been hit quite as hard (I think London's still under Lombardia, Catalonia and Madrid). I hope one thing we learn after this is why our fatalities were so high and comparatively widely distributed.

Edit: Incidentally I saw an extraordinary chart of NY average deaths v deaths in the past month which is astronomical. What's striking is that only about 40% of those have been attributed to covid. It's not clear if the rest is other conditions not getting treatment, undiagnosed covid or what. But as I say I think at the end of this the only way we'll understand the impact is if we look at "expected deaths" like Soviet historians.

Over here there's a concern that people are holding on going to the ER way too long out of fear of getting the virus, and this will cause a spike in "common" deaths to go alongside Covid.

[Sheilbh]

Over here there's a concern that people are holding on going to the ER way too long out of fear of getting the virus, and this will cause a spike in "common" deaths to go alongside Covid.

I feel like that might be a worry here. The authorities seem to be repeating a lot that if you have a normal health emergency like a heart attack, the hospitals/A&Es are still open and you should call 999.

Edit: Found the very alarming NYC chart - I imagine they're not alone in this sort of experience:

[Syt]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/world/europe/austria-power-plants-coronavirus-isolation.html

NYT article about the 53 power plant employees who volunteered to go into full isolation to - literally - keep the lights on in Vienna.

[celedhring]

So the archbishop of Granada broke quarantine and opened the Cathedral for Good Friday mass. It was shut down by the police (by all accounts, without any kind of fuss), around 20 people attended. 

[mongers]

One oddity of this crisis, I'd always assumed the one Languishite most likely to perish in a national disaster would be Timmay, what with living so close to North Korea 

Turns out he's in one of the very safety places of earth from this virus 

It's the rest of us that need to worry and be careful.

[Tamas]

So in general I don't really think the UK was an outlier or exceptional in any particular way. My view is we had an average European response, on similar timescales and are seeing similar results. The exceptional/interesting countries in Europe are Germany and Sweden (and maybe Greece).

But one really odd point is that we have more deaths today than I think happened in Italy or Spain. Unlike those countries we still have capacity in the ICUs and ventilators, and no single area has been hit quite as hard (I think London's still under Lombardia, Catalonia and Madrid). I hope one thing we learn after this is why our fatalities were so high and comparatively widely distributed.

Edit: Incidentally I saw an extraordinary chart of NY average deaths v deaths in the past month which is astronomical. What's striking is that only about 40% of those have been attributed to covid. It's not clear if the rest is other conditions not getting treatment, undiagnosed covid or what. But as I say I think at the end of this the only way we'll understand the impact is if we look at "expected deaths" like Soviet historians.

If we had weeks of forward warning neither Italy nor Spain really had (not even France), yet we end up following their trajectory, doesn't that mean we messed up a bit?

[mongers]

So in general I don't really think the UK was an outlier or exceptional in any particular way. My view is we had an average European response, on similar timescales and are seeing similar results. The exceptional/interesting countries in Europe are Germany and Sweden (and maybe Greece).

But one really odd point is that we have more deaths today than I think happened in Italy or Spain. Unlike those countries we still have capacity in the ICUs and ventilators, and no single area has been hit quite as hard (I think London's still under Lombardia, Catalonia and Madrid). I hope one thing we learn after this is why our fatalities were so high and comparatively widely distributed.

Edit: Incidentally I saw an extraordinary chart of NY average deaths v deaths in the past month which is astronomical. What's striking is that only about 40% of those have been attributed to covid. It's not clear if the rest is other conditions not getting treatment, undiagnosed covid or what. But as I say I think at the end of this the only way we'll understand the impact is if we look at "expected deaths" like Soviet historians.

If we had weeks of forward warning neither Italy nor Spain really had (not even France), yet we end up following their trajectory, doesn't that mean we messed up a bit?

What did Johnson say, that we were 3-4 weeks behind Italy, but we've not enacted measures as constricting as any of those countries and are possibly going to over shoot their death tolls due to those squandered days.

[mongers]

More on the care home situation in Britain:

Deaths soar at Britain's care homes as COVID-19 stalks elderly

Thousands of care homes across Britain were locked down last month to stop COVID-19 from spreading among their frail and elderly residents. For Jamshad Ali, 87, it came anyway.

Article here:
http://feeds.reuters.com/~r/Reuters/worldNews/~3/YpTGlxXQZ1w/deaths-soar-at-britains-care-homes-as-covid-19-stalks-elderly-idUSKCN21S1XA

[Sheilbh]

If we had weeks of forward warning neither Italy nor Spain really had (not even France), yet we end up following their trajectory, doesn't that mean we messed up a bit?

Sure but I mean we didn't quite have weeks of forward warning - we were a couple of weeks after Italy, but Spain reached their third death three days before we did, France was six days before us (and three days before Spain). Everything changed very quickly in the first couple of weeks of March.

But I struggle to see how the UK messed up much if it did roughly the same things as most other countries in roughly the same time period. What I think is interesting is why do we have more deaths without ever breaching surge capacity and what did Germany do that worked better? Because those two do seem to be different - and I suspect they won't get examined much because everyone loves the NHS especially now, but I think our healthcare system is part of it.

And the other big question for me is why we didn't speak to South Korean and Taiwanese experts to ask what they did?

[Sheilbh]

What did Johnson say, that we were 3-4 weeks behind Italy, but we've not enacted measures as constricting as any of those countries and are possibly going to over shoot their death tolls due to those squandered days.

As I say - our approach was pretty standard - I think there's a bit of British exceptionalism in some of this:


The big question I still have is around why I don't think we engaged at all, as far as I can see with South Korea or Taiwan. The Taiwanese representative in the UK actually said they tried to engage but didn't really hear back

Edit: As it is I think we'll spend our time after this arguing about "herd immunity" and why the British went a very different way and wasn't like other European countries in their approach. Which I think is the wrong thing we need to look at - but I think it does probably avoid querying the NHS which is at least part of the difference I think with Germany.