Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Agelastus]

Apparently the government here have been surprised how much people have followed the rules, there's been more compliance than was assumed in a lot of the models scientists are working with.

This is still the country where queue jumping (or simply not queuing correctly) will get you death glares, but normally nothing more (in case one accidentally breaks the law); I'm surprised at their surprise.

[Threviel]

Sweden 12, Denmark 13. Sign of things to come.

Doesn't Norway get to play?

Those low Swedish numbers are a result of Easter, expect an uptick of a few hundred on Tuesday. The latest velocity based on real data is about 45 dead each day.

Norway is interesting actually, Norway and Sweden do statistics kind of the same way, so numbers should be directly comparable. Sweden has 91 (In reality perhaps 100) dead per million, Denmark 49 and Norway 24. Finland has 11 for comparison.

My explanation is that the three other countries squashed the sombrero too hard and that all four countries will eventually, over time, have comparable death rates. Swedish health care is not close to being overwhelmed yet.

Another explanation is that Sweden is needlessly risking lives by not doing what everyone else is doing. Numbers right now point to this being the case and if, say, a vaccine came tomorrow it would have been so.

A third explanation is that other countries are just not as good at keeping track of its citizens as Sweden. Norway puts an end to that argument.

[Threviel]

And the fourth explanation is that the Swedish government are secret worshippers of Nurgle and they are heralding in the grim dark future of mankind. This fringe theory is mostly put forward by members of different foras on the internet.

[Zanza]

Man, it's seems to early for you guys to be easing up on lock down.

We can only afford our healthcare efforts when the economy is actually generating output. It is time to think about how to handle the virus without a full scale lockdown. There must be a middle way of hygiene measures, testing, contact tracing, social distancing and still being able to work and shop with acceptable risk for vulnerable groups and the general healthcare system.

[MadImmortalMan]

South Korea's method seems like a better approach than this lockdown stuff. Most of us will probably shift to something more resembling that once we get organized enough.

[mongers]

South Korea's method seems like a better approach than this lockdown stuff. Most of us will probably shift to something more resembling that if once we get organized enough.

I'm sceptical that some Western states will be able to do that.

[Josquius]

South Korea's method seems like a better approach than this lockdown stuff. Most of us will probably shift to something more resembling that once we get organized enough.

The trouble is we don't have quite the same laws about government monitoring, the same level of mobile ubiquousness, and the same group think culture.
They're definitely doing best and I'd be nice to copy them but I'm skeptical how well it would work.

[Sheilbh]

Man, it's seems to early for you guys to be easing up on lock down.

We can only afford our healthcare efforts when the economy is actually generating output. It is time to think about how to handle the virus without a full scale lockdown. There must be a middle way of hygiene measures, testing, contact tracing, social distancing and still being able to work and shop with acceptable risk for vulnerable groups and the general healthcare system.

I agree and ultimately the solution is a form of herd immunity - either through vaccine or the Swedish approach.

From the people I follow on Twitter there's an interesting divide that someone else commented on. The options that I see being discussed are basically one form or other of: Sweden plus extra healthcare capacity (the Nightingales etc), so most people still voluntarily socially isolate and socially distance but the lockdown is lifted except for the vulnerable; or South Korea plus which is a fairly illiberal of testing, tracing, tracking and enforcing quarantine. There seems to be a divide with the epidemiologists preferring Sweden plus, while the public health experts seem to favour South Korea plus.

In Europe I don't think we would be able to go for a pure version of either of these in most countries - but I think we'll end up trying to merge it and take the best points of both so there'll be some test and trace, some apps, some monitoring and quarantine measures plus other stuff like mask wearing. I query if that'll be enough, but I feel like that's where we'll end up as it's not 100% at the kind of cold end of things where you are accepting a number of deaths and isolating the most vulnerable while the rest of society carries on, or at the other potentially authoritarian data based, bio-surveillance approach.

But within that I imagine there'll be periodic lockdowns if it looks like there's an outbreak emerging that could breach healthcare capacity.

[Caliga]

HIV and Hepatitis B are two viral examples of this phenomenon. Your body will create tons of circulating antibodies to portions of the virus but none of them are effective in neutralization.

Because they mutate too quickly?

[Sheilbh]

Incidentally on the UK, I've no idea how useful our figures are over the long weekend.

But the slides today do seem to suggest that the hospitalisation numbers are plateauing (slide 2); no details of ICU admissions in the last few days:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/879130/COVID-19_Press_Conference_Slides_-_13_04_2020__8_.pdf

The big question for me is still the huge discrepancy in ICU numbers in the UK (and we have capacity) v deaths. It's totally out of sync with other countries. I wonder if the clinical guidance that I posted about earlier is actually more aggressive than other countries so people who could survive aren't being admitted to ICU here?

[Legbiter]

Here we're at 10 new cases, 9 were already in quarantine. My guys all go to school tomorrow on a staggered schedule. We'll begin to open up but with social distancing. We've mostly killed it off for now.

[Duque de Bragança]

So Jupiter has spoken...

Lockdown extended to May 11th. Schools, universities to reopen progressively. 
Normal work to resume tentatively on May 11th due also to improvement in testings by this date.

Bars and restaurants to stay closed.
No public events as in festivals till mid-July at least.

Borders closed with non-European countries as in no flights to and from those destinations I reckon.

[celedhring]

Man, it's seems to early for you guys to be easing up on lock down.

We can only afford our healthcare efforts when the economy is actually generating output. It is time to think about how to handle the virus without a full scale lockdown. There must be a middle way of hygiene measures, testing, contact tracing, social distancing and still being able to work and shop with acceptable risk for vulnerable groups and the general healthcare system.

I agree and ultimately the solution is a form of herd immunity - either through vaccine or the Swedish approach.

From the people I follow on Twitter there's an interesting divide that someone else commented on. The options that I see being discussed are basically one form or other of: Sweden plus extra healthcare capacity (the Nightingales etc), so most people still voluntarily socially isolate and socially distance but the lockdown is lifted except for the vulnerable; or South Korea plus which is a fairly illiberal of testing, tracing, tracking and enforcing quarantine. There seems to be a divide with the epidemiologists preferring Sweden plus, while the public health experts seem to favour South Korea plus.

In Europe I don't think we would be able to go for a pure version of either of these in most countries - but I think we'll end up trying to merge it and take the best points of both so there'll be some test and trace, some apps, some monitoring and quarantine measures plus other stuff like mask wearing. I query if that'll be enough, but I feel like that's where we'll end up as it's not 100% at the kind of cold end of things where you are accepting a number of deaths and isolating the most vulnerable while the rest of society carries on, or at the other potentially authoritarian data based, bio-surveillance approach.

But within that I imagine there'll be periodic lockdowns if it looks like there's an outbreak emerging that could breach healthcare capacity.

Sweden plus still leaves us with 100,000+ dead in our respective countries, no matter how prepared our health care systems might be, unless a treatment appears in the coming months. Not feasible. I think we (collectively) will try go South Korea (and probably half-ass it) and pray for an effective treatment in the autumn.

[Syt]

[Fate]

HIV and Hepatitis B are two viral examples of this phenomenon. Your body will create tons of circulating antibodies to portions of the virus but none of them are effective in neutralization.

Because they mutate too quickly?

Not because of mutations. The immune system just fails to ever mount a neutralizing response (even though lots of antibodies are made) and those viruses have adapted to evade our immune systems. It's not the norm for viruses. No reason to suspect that COVID-19 behaves like that until we have strong evidence to the contrary. We never saw a similar phenomenon in SARS or MERS. I doubt people will be chronicly infected with COVID and infectious forever like with HIV or HepB.