Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[alfred russel]

Dorsey, the area under the curve is definitely not the same, sorry.

Dorsey,  there is a direct correlation between number of ICU beds occupied and deaths.

Dorsey, the whole point of the most restrictive approach is to spread out the cases so as not to overwhelm the system. See: Italy.

Dorsey, this has been pointed out and explained a gazillion times, in the media, in scientific papers, on this forum and in this very thread.

What, exactly, do you not understand?

Your chart (copied again below) is not the way things work. If the cases ever go to near zero, it is because there is a vaccine, the disease just went away on its own (such as in the summer), or we reached enough immunity in the population to get there even without a vaccine.

The point being--the procedures that are "flattening the curve" won't get us to zero any faster than doing nothing, and may in fact slow the process down.

I don't understand why you won't acknowledge that.

You can get to zero cases very fast. You can nuke any town/city where somebody tests positive, then nuke the ashes to make sure. That would get you to zero, yes?

Because getting to zero cases fast is a super important thing, not, you know, saving lives.

Keep squirming! You are getting Trumpian in this. 

Yes nuclear weapons could get cases to zero very quickly. If nuking everything was an option in your chart, I agree it would drop cases to zero. However, your chart only had two lines, and those were: 1) With business as usual, and 2) With prevention and precaution efforts.

The relationship between those two lines was ridiculous, and that would not change even if a third scenario of "nuke everything" that flat lined to zero almost right off the bat was added.

[DGuller]

Today was a very nice day in NYC/NJ area, a perfect day to kick off the second wave, and that's what people seemed determined to do.  About half of the people wore masks, and only half of those seemed to understand that masks are supposed to protect mouth and nose, not your Adam's apple or forehead.

[Admiral Yi]

I've been to the driving range three times, this is the first time I saw people wearing masks.  Two people.

[jimmy olsen]

New high in confirmed cases 41k.

2100 dead

[DGuller]

Here is something I learned today:  Dr. Fauci is 79 years old.

[Eddie Teach]

He's old enough to be President!

[Zanza]

So, like Brainy said earlier, two countries, Sweden and Belgium, seems to make a reliable count at this time.

Here are some graphs on excess mortalitiy. Sweden has less gap than others as per these figures. Belgium has a much bigger gap in these figures. Most of them are not available for parts of April though, so it's not yet telling that much:
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/04/16/tracking-covid-19-excess-deaths-across-countries

Germany had no statistically significant excess mortality until mid of March, but they have no newer figures than that (will only have figures end of April until mid April apparently).

[Zoupa]

Dorsey, the area under the curve is definitely not the same, sorry.

Dorsey,  there is a direct correlation between number of ICU beds occupied and deaths.

Dorsey, the whole point of the most restrictive approach is to spread out the cases so as not to overwhelm the system. See: Italy.

Dorsey, this has been pointed out and explained a gazillion times, in the media, in scientific papers, on this forum and in this very thread.

What, exactly, do you not understand?

Your chart (copied again below) is not the way things work. If the cases ever go to near zero, it is because there is a vaccine, the disease just went away on its own (such as in the summer), or we reached enough immunity in the population to get there even without a vaccine.

The point being--the procedures that are "flattening the curve" won't get us to zero any faster than doing nothing, and may in fact slow the process down.

I don't understand why you won't acknowledge that.

You can get to zero cases very fast. You can nuke any town/city where somebody tests positive, then nuke the ashes to make sure. That would get you to zero, yes?

Because getting to zero cases fast is a super important thing, not, you know, saving lives.

Keep squirming! You are getting Trumpian in this. 

Yes nuclear weapons could get cases to zero very quickly. If nuking everything was an option in your chart, I agree it would drop cases to zero. However, your chart only had two lines, and those were: 1) With business as usual, and 2) With prevention and precaution efforts.

The relationship between those two lines was ridiculous, and that would not change even if a third scenario of "nuke everything" that flat lined to zero almost right off the bat was added.

It's just painful to discuss anything with you dude. How dense are you. Jesus Christ.

Good luck out there.

[Zanza]

As per German press, there are considerationsby the respective governments of opening Austria and Croatia for tourists in the summer season. I consider just booking something in Tyrol that can be cancelled at short notice... 

[Tamas]

Thanks Sheilbh for reporting on the NHS picture, its great news if now they don't worry about running out of ICU spaces.

One thing I did not follow for a month was daily new cases, and I had no idea how high it was three weeks ago and still how high it is. Feels uncanny that with this lockdown going on we can have about 4000 new cases a day:

Professor Keith Neal of Nottingham University agreed that the number of patients being taken to hospital with Covid-19 remained far too high. "This daily figure peaked on 5 April with 5,903 cases. This Saturday it stood at 3,583," he added. This latter figure was boosted by an extra 1,330 new cases of infected care and health workers, which brought Saturday's overall total to 4,913.

"It has therefore taken three weeks for numbers of hospitalised Covid-19 patients to decline from a daily total of 5,903 to 3,641."

Professor Paul Hunter, of the University of East Anglia, added: "There is no doubt this rate of decline is disappointing. Certainly it is far too high to consider lifting lockdown restrictions at present. We need to get numbers down to a few hundred new cases a day before we can do that. Such a decline could take months."

It's from here: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/25/boris-johnson-lockdown-dilemma-grim-virus-data

[Sheilbh]

One thing I did not follow for a month was daily new cases, and I had no idea how high it was three weeks ago and still how high it is. Feels uncanny that with this lockdown going on we can have about 4000 new cases a day:

Yeah - but I'm not sure how useful that is given that testing is still relatively low, though it has more than doubled since April 5. Although I'm not sure what is the level of testing where you get comfortable that you are looking at a reasonably useful figure. So the number of positives may be the same, but the number of negatives has increased a lot too.

Looking at the FT's Tracker we're flatlining. But it's striking how slow the fall is in most countries - with the exception of China.

[celedhring]

We fell below 2,000 new daily cases today. First time since the lockdown was initiated. But it's Sunday so...

288 dead too, lowest figure in over a month.

[Syt]

Asrticle about a study linking FOX News coverage with increased spread of Covid-19:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/4/22/21229360/coronavirus-covid-19-fox-news-sean-hannity-misinformation-death

[Legbiter]

One thing I did not follow for a month was daily new cases, and I had no idea how high it was three weeks ago and still how high it is. Feels uncanny that with this lockdown going on we can have about 4000 new cases a day:

Sick people in quarantine infecting their family members. Very common here in the beginning because we're mostly not removing confirmed cases away from the household. Uninfected family members then have to take care of their sick loved ones.

[celedhring]

One thing I did not follow for a month was daily new cases, and I had no idea how high it was three weeks ago and still how high it is. Feels uncanny that with this lockdown going on we can have about 4000 new cases a day:

Sick people in quarantine infecting their family members. Very common here in the beginning because we're mostly not removing confirmed cases away from the household. Uninfected family members then have to take care of their sick loved ones.

Yeah, same-household infections were pointed as one of the main vectors for transmission during lockdown over here.

Plus I think stuff like supermarkets, even with all the safety measures and people wearing masks, are probably ripe for transmission.