Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Razgovory]

The governor of Missouri will be opening up the state fairly soon.  There will be a protest of by our local militia scum to make sure he understands that his job is to obey the President.

[Syt]

Read up a bit about Gov. Kemp. Seems like a charming person and totally honest politician. 

[Sheilbh]

ONS statistics on the weekly figures in the UK up to April 10 (which seems roughly when this peaked) show it had the highest number of deaths in modern records


And in the past four weeks care home deaths have doubled (hospitals are up by about 75% and private homes up by about 50%).

[Syt]

Munich has canceled the Oktoberfest.

[Tamas]

And in the past four weeks care home deaths have doubled (hospitals are up by about 75% and private homes up by about 50%)

I guess these won't be part of the Covid-19 statistics, but it can be assumed it is not a coincidence.

[Tamas]

Never mind, they do indicate they believe 15% of Covid-19 deaths are outside hospitals.

[Josquius]

Sheilbhs graph seems fine. I've certainly seen elsewhere though that the number of deaths so far is way above the general total for a year and the official corona numbers don't add up for this.

[Sheilbh]

And in the past four weeks care home deaths have doubled (hospitals are up by about 75% and private homes up by about 50%)

I guess these won't be part of the Covid-19 statistics, but it can be assumed it is not a coincidence.

These are the covid-19 statistics from the Office of National Statistics on their covid-19 hub. This include all death certificates that mention covid (which is up to the doctor), but there's a lag so they only go up to 10 April. They update every week with various other indicators - one of the interesting ones is that there's also an increase in deaths for other respiratory conditions (which I suspect are probably linked to covid-19) and heart attacks. I've not heard anything about covid-19 causing or exacerbating heart issues so I wonder if that's why they keep hammering home that people should still call 999 and go into hospital if they have heart attack or stroke symptoms, so they're sort of indirectly caused by it.

The ones that get updated daily are the NHS England statistics which are people who died in hospital by date. The one that gets announced every day is how many of those deaths have been reported in the last day (so families notified).

Edit: Okay so the week up to 10 April saw 8,000 more deaths than the 5 year average (which is about 10,000 a week). Of these 6,200 record covid-19 on the death certificate, so there are 1,800 excess "other deaths" (this is a decline from about 2,400 "other" excess deaths from the previous week). It's still not clear how many of these are probably just non-diagnosed covid-19 and how many indirect (people not going to hospital, not getting treated etc).

But over the three releases from the ONS, the final figures are about 40% higher than the hospitalised data released by the government. This chart from the Economist also gives an indication of how badly this hit London (and other regions) - over half the deaths in this period have been linked to covid-19

[Agelastus]

Tyr comes across as the left wing equivalent of a right-wing conspiracy nut when he's talking about political actors he doesn't like.

Oh the irony.

:shakes head: Not even going to bother going there.

[Syt]

Austria to reopen restaurants May 15th. Details to follow next week.

Schools also to ramp up from May 15th.

[mongers]

Tyr comes across as the left wing equivalent of a right-wing conspiracy nut when he's talking about political actors he doesn't like.

Oh the irony.

:shakes head: Not even going to bother going there.

But you have.

Also Angy what's the point of starting up or emphasising a personality conflict on the forum at a time like this; a time when some or many of us might need this place a little more, both as a distraction and for some support?

[mongers]

It turns out one of the ways of 'flattening the curve' and not overwhelming hospitals is not admitting many people to hospital in the first place, instead seeing them die in care homes and at home.

Hence we've seen hospitals at under capacity and the temporary hospitals being only partially used, wouldn't it have been better to admit more of the elderly/infirm for a chance of some medical intervention?

Instead the admissions to hospitals has been turned into a metric with an arbitrary positive and negative daily news conference graphic assigned to it.

[Malthus]

An interesting comparison.  Massachusetts on Sunday had 1,705 new cases and a total of 38,077 with 146 new deaths for a total number of deaths of 1,706.  That number is striking because it is almost exactly the number of deaths in all of Canada just recently reported by the CBC of 1,709.  Canada has a total of a little over 36,000 cases.

Man Massachusetts sucks and could learn from Canada.

But you know that Florida has just 823 deaths, despite a population of 21.3 million? They have 38.3 deaths per million, versus 45.3 for Canada. Florida is way more densely populated as well. Maybe Canada should take some tips from Florida. Actually, 31 of the 50 states have death rates below Canada's...if you want to learn how to control things maybe you should look at the approaches south of the border that are putting your country's to shame.

As it turns out, one thing Canada can learn from Florida is that being hot and humid is better than being cold and dry. Ironically, the only way Canada can effectively do that is to accelerate global warming ... 

As it turns out, hot and humid places may well have the advantage, for the same reasons colds and flu is seasonal. This advantage is not of course absolute, lots of hot and humid places have been hit as well, but *all things being equal* (meaning the same measures are taken and the same factors operate) hot and humid places are likely to do better. Which may help to explain why Florida is better off than, say, New York, Coronavirus-wise. Even if everything else were equal between these two states, that's what you would expect; on average and in general, the North should fare worse than the south.

Of course, that cannot explain why Canada is, on average, better off than the US. If all else were equal, the reverse ought to be the case, as on average Canada is colder than the US.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200323-coronavirus-will-hot-weather-kill-covid-19

[Agelastus]

But you have.

Also Angy what's the point of starting up or emphasising a personality conflict on the forum at a time like this; a time when some or many of us might need this place a little more, both as a distraction and for some support?

Well, while acknowledging that you are usually a rational and informed poster who I just happen to disagree with, see below as to a good example as to why I finally lost my temper and decided to be un-British -

It turns out one of the ways of 'flattening the curve' and not overwhelming hospitals is not admitting many people to hospital in the first place, instead seeing them die in care homes and at home.

Hence we've seen hospitals at under capacity and the temporary hospitals being only partially used, wouldn't it have been better to admit more of the elderly/infirm for a chance of some medical intervention?

Instead the admissions to hospitals has been turned into a metric with an arbitrary positive and negative daily news conference graphic assigned to it.

Hospital admissions from Care Homes are a matter for local GPs IIRC; the NHS has not been turning people away which is what you are implying in (I hope to only be) a careless fashion.

And sadly the most vulnerable in said care-homes are also the least likely ones to benefit from admission to the hospital as they would not be eligible for an ICU place (a category my mother falls under.) Even with ICU capacity they would not be given access to it.

As for people dying at home that's probably related to something Sheilbh's said previously; that the government is having to tell people that you can still go to A&E etc. with emergencies in the current situation. Too many people either don't think it will be too serious or don't want to bother the NHS in case it turns out to be nothing. Very British but also not very bright at the moment.

[alfred russel]

Okay, so the stupidity of Southern Governors generally. Not sure what the relative populations of these southern states and Canada have to do with anything - I thought the point was that these actions somehow prove that the original lockdown measures were excessive.

Looks to me that these Governors are taking a huge chance, which will likely end badly.

Malthus, I realize that you were not a participant in this area, but weeks ago I was arguing that the lockdown was being too stringently applied and some of the less logical aspects were going to result in a blacklash that undermined the entire enterprise. The word I kept using was "sustainable" as we are going to be here for the long haul. One person called me an edgelord, another told me to be a big boy and do as I was told. Yet here we are--just 3 weeks after a lockdown order--with gyms, nail salons, massage parlors, etc. in wave 1 opening on Friday, with the rest (except bars and nightclubs on Monday).

I just mentioned relative populations because I assumed some non US posters would not really know the differences between states--Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana for instance are tiny even combined.