Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[The Brain]

Germany will move to a more localized approach. If one of its 401 administrative districts has more than 50 new infections per 100000 population within the last seven days, it will be locked down again. The test capacity in Germany was increased so that we can test about 120.000 person per day now and our healthcare system was not overburdened by the first wave.

Everything will be opened again in stages now considering hygiene rules, but each federal state has its own pace.

Sounds sensible. Ish.
Though I do wonder how it'd work for those living near borders. I live on the fringe of one borough, its streets flow into the neighbouring borough and its easy to miss the boundary, it isn't even marked on some streets. The nearest town centre to me is across that border. What if my job was there too?
It'll be hard to manage in cases like this.
I think a bigger scale might work better, logically grouping districts to follow people's typical travel patterns and urban area borders.

What would be the problem exactly?

[Sheilbh]

Meanwhile looks like there may be some shifting in lockdown announced on Sunday (and a new slogan). This seems too early to me, but the early measures are basically to allow sunbathing in parks and outdoor businesses to re-open with social distancing (e.g. garden centres) and gatherings if social distancing is observed. So I am a little uncomfortable with any easing at this stage, but these seem like relatively low risk changes that could help people, especially without outdoor space, more easily deal with lockdown.

What's really annoying is the UK government continues with their usual comms strategy which is bad. So the newspapers were briefed overnight by Downing Street sources about their plans - but they'll be announced on Sunday. This is particularly in contrast with the Scottish government which announced their plans publicly in a press conference last week and said they were for consultation and feedback before lockdown would be eased. The UK government is carrrying on it's standard political briefing approach which I still think is crazily inappropriate. It's like they're trying to pre-empt the virus's briefing

[Sheilbh]

Interesting ONS report on disproportionate BAME deaths:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/coronavirusrelateddeathsbyethnicgroupenglandandwales/2march2020to10april2020

Basically even after you adjust for age, socio-economic factors and self-reported existing health conditions or disabilities black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi men and women are still far more likely to die from covid-19:



My understanding is that the socio-economic factors include adjusting for geography, so it should account for a higher proportion of BAME individuals living higher density areas which should account for any density effect as well. But these figures are doubled once you include socio-economic factors, so they account for about half the risk to BAME individuals.

I'm not sure if it also covers employment - so I think the NHS has more BAME employees than average which would be a big risk factor. The other big gap, which is difficult for statisticians to identify, is inequality of treatment in the NHS - I've seen a couple of reports locally of black women dying after calling an ambulance and not being taken to hospital.

[Josquius]

What would be the problem exactly?

East Strausberg is fully open with business as normal, people going to pubs and doing what they want. West Strausberg is under full lockdown with nobody allowed to leave home, all businesses closed, etc...
As a West Strausberger the temptation will be huge for me to just walk down the street and across the border to have a drink.

(and after typing this I see my fictional district is a real place. Doh)

Germany will move to a more localized approach. If one of its 401 administrative districts has more than 50 new infections per 100000 population within the last seven days, it will be locked down again. The test capacity in Germany was increased so that we can test about 120.000 person per day now and our healthcare system was not overburdened by the first wave.

Everything will be opened again in stages now considering hygiene rules, but each federal state has its own pace.

Sounds sensible. Ish.
Though I do wonder how it'd work for those living near borders. I live on the fringe of one borough, its streets flow into the neighbouring borough and its easy to miss the boundary, it isn't even marked on some streets. The nearest town centre to me is across that border. What if my job was there too?
It'll be hard to manage in cases like this.
I think a bigger scale might work better, logically grouping districts to follow people's typical travel patterns and urban area borders.

There are districts with 153 cases per 10000 persons in Germany and other districts with 3 cases per 10000 persons. You cannot treat these the same.

If they have a urbanised 10km border with each other with thousands people living in one and working in the other? You really should.

[garbon]

Interesting ONS report on disproportionate BAME deaths:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/articles/coronavirusrelateddeathsbyethnicgroupenglandandwales/2march2020to10april2020

Basically even after you adjust for age, socio-economic factors and self-reported existing health conditions or disabilities black, Pakistani and Bangladeshi men and women are still far more likely to die from covid-19

Welp.

[Syt]

Ethnic minorities in the US are also significantly more affected by COVID-19:

https://www.apmresearchlab.org/covid/deaths-by-race

[The Larch]

Germany will move to a more localized approach. If one of its 401 administrative districts has more than 50 new infections per 100000 population within the last seven days, it will be locked down again. The test capacity in Germany was increased so that we can test about 120.000 person per day now and our healthcare system was not overburdened by the first wave.

Everything will be opened again in stages now considering hygiene rules, but each federal state has its own pace.

Sounds sensible. Ish.
Though I do wonder how it'd work for those living near borders. I live on the fringe of one borough, its streets flow into the neighbouring borough and its easy to miss the boundary, it isn't even marked on some streets. The nearest town centre to me is across that border. What if my job was there too?
It'll be hard to manage in cases like this.
I think a bigger scale might work better, logically grouping districts to follow people's typical travel patterns and urban area borders.

There are districts with 153 cases per 10000 persons in Germany and other districts with 3 cases per 10000 persons. You cannot treat these the same.

I guess it's a similar system to what Spain is doing, in which different regions might leave the lockdown at different rates depending on the situation. Is it all or nothing (ie, a region with few or no cases goes straight to life as usual) or somehow phased?

Over here autonomous communities have proposed which of their regions (either whole provinces or divided by sanitary regions) are suitable to go into the next phase, and almost every one asked to be moved from Phase 0 (current situation) to Phase 1 (initial easing of measures), except for Catalonia, which has only requested that 3 out of its 9 sanitary regions move forward, Andalucía (3 of its sanitary regions would be left out) and Castilla León (only a handful of rural sanitary areas would move forward). Controversialy, Madrid has requested so as well (apparently based on the perceived urgency to repone their economy), while still being the region with the highest amount of cases, and nobody was expecting it to be amongst this group of early Phase 1 regions. Now the central government has to decide which ones get a green light and which ones should stay.

[Legbiter]

Meanwhile looks like there may be some shifting in lockdown announced on Sunday (and a new slogan). This seems too early to me, but the early measures are basically to allow sunbathing in parks and outdoor businesses to re-open with social distancing (e.g. garden centres) and gatherings if social distancing is observed. So I am a little uncomfortable with any easing at this stage, but these seem like relatively low risk changes that could help people, especially without outdoor space, more easily deal with lockdown.

Yeah people would be much likelier to catch the virus on public transport en route to the park. The virus has problems spreading in well ventilated areas. It's the closed indoor setting with stale air like offices, elevators, etc that are a concern.

[Legbiter]

Ethnic minorities in the US are also significantly more affected by COVID-19:

https://www.apmresearchlab.org/covid/deaths-by-race

King's College London is doing a massive twin study in the UK on the underlying genetics with regard to this virus.

A team led by Prof Tim Spector, head of twin research and genetic epidemiology at King's College London, has reported that Covid-19 symptoms appear to be 50% genetic. But Spector said more work is needed to understand which genes are involved and what difference they make to the course of the disease. "We don't know if there are genes linked to the receptors or genes linked to how the infection presents," he said.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/05/genetics-in-focus-after-coronavirus-deaths-of-siblings-and-twins

[mongers]

Meanwhile looks like there may be some shifting in lockdown announced on Sunday (and a new slogan). This seems too early to me, but the early measures are basically to allow sunbathing in parks and outdoor businesses to re-open with social distancing (e.g. garden centres) and gatherings if social distancing is observed. So I am a little uncomfortable with any easing at this stage, but these seem like relatively low risk changes that could help people, especially without outdoor space, more easily deal with lockdown.

What's really annoying is the UK government continues with their usual comms strategy which is bad. So the newspapers were briefed overnight by Downing Street sources about their plans - but they'll be announced on Sunday. This is particularly in contrast with the Scottish government which announced their plans publicly in a press conference last week and said they were for consultation and feedback before lockdown would be eased. The UK government is carrrying on it's standard political briefing approach which I still think is crazily inappropriate. It's like they're trying to pre-empt the virus's briefing

Perhaps some of this is making policy by focus group or opinion polls, the tail wagging the dog?

I know I've completed a UK government originated survey with very detailed questions about how different lock-down options and changes would go down with the person questioned.

[Legbiter]

I know I've completed a UK government originated survey with very detailed questions about how different lock-down options and changes would go down with the person questioned.

What irks me the most about the various strict lockdowns is how ineffective they seem to be in protecting those most vulnerable. It's still tearing through retirement homes.

[Sheilbh]

Perhaps some of this is making policy by focus group or opinion polls, the tail wagging the dog?

I know I've completed a UK government originated survey with very detailed questions about how different lock-down options and changes would go down with the person questioned.

Maybe. I know the ONS are collecting data on how people feel during lockdown, but I also wonder if that's to feed into the behavioural analysis. Because in part the impact of any change to lockdown will actually depend on how people behave. So there may be something that on paper looks like a small change but everyone would do it or vice versa.

Similarly I hope it's used to inform (and change the communications strategy) because part of it will be persuading people to do certain things again - eg primary schools which I think will and should re-open given all the various bits of evidence about children (especially young children). This is why I'm really dubious about the lives v economy dichotomy. I think people's behaviour has changed (and was changing before lockdown was enforced). You won't get the economy back until people feel safe.

Incidentally very interesting evidence going on with the statisticians and modellers in Parliament at the minute

What irks me the most about the various strict lockdowns is how ineffective they seem to be in protecting those most vulnerable. It's still tearing through retirement homes.

Yeah - it basically needs to be kept out of care homes because if it gets in there's very little to stop it. Here, as I say, I think one of the biggest mistakes was discharging people from hospitals into care homes without testing them.

But the really striking things is we have a lot of care home deaths, from my understanding only 30% of care homes have actually had any cases, so all of those deaths are only in a part of the sector. If it gets in these disease is just unbelievably brutal. I think it's been similar in Italy where I saw the biggest care home in Italy (who also chose not to use certain PPE) has had over 300 deaths.

One point made in the evidence at the minute is that the community epidemic is probably really down in most areas - the R is now focused in enclosed settings, primarily hospitals and care homes.

[mongers]

I know I've completed a UK government originated survey with very detailed questions about how different lock-down options and changes would go down with the person questioned.

What irks me the most about the various strict lockdowns is how ineffective they seem to be in protecting those most vulnerable. It's still tearing through retirement homes.

Indeed, but I think some better tactics would have helped, not moving hospital patients back into home, especially as they weren't tested. Or making sure agency staff didn't move from one home to another to another and so acts as vectors for the virus.

In the UK currently the care home death rate is approaching 1% of residents per week, even if that's 'only' 0.5% it's still dreadful.

At the start of the crisis there were 440,000 elderly and vulnerable in UK care homes, will they be decimated or worse?

[Tamas]

Meanwhile looks like there may be some shifting in lockdown announced on Sunday (and a new slogan). This seems too early to me, but the early measures are basically to allow sunbathing in parks and outdoor businesses to re-open with social distancing (e.g. garden centres) and gatherings if social distancing is observed. So I am a little uncomfortable with any easing at this stage, but these seem like relatively low risk changes that could help people, especially without outdoor space, more easily deal with lockdown.

What's really annoying is the UK government continues with their usual comms strategy which is bad. So the newspapers were briefed overnight by Downing Street sources about their plans - but they'll be announced on Sunday. This is particularly in contrast with the Scottish government which announced their plans publicly in a press conference last week and said they were for consultation and feedback before lockdown would be eased. The UK government is carrrying on it's standard political briefing approach which I still think is crazily inappropriate. It's like they're trying to pre-empt the virus's briefing

Perhaps some of this is making policy by focus group or opinion polls, the tail wagging the dog?

I know I've completed a UK government originated survey with very detailed questions about how different lock-down options and changes would go down with the person questioned.

Tabloids being helpful as usual:

[Sheilbh]

Tabloids being helpful as usual:

Depends where you/which government they're supporting