Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[mongers]

Who better to insure hospitals are well supplied than someone with a degree in PPE?

Good one Eddie.

[celedhring]

Meh, it's not like our government has been particularly stellar. But lockdowns are hard to fuck up. They're a blunt instrument but quite effective.

[Duque de Bragança]

Meanwhile, at a British protest ...

The Prisoner:

tainted!

[grumbler]

Meanwhile, at a British protest ...

(snip)

The Prisoner:

tainted!

Luckily, the guy fucked up the quote from The Prisoner.  Thus, no taint! 

[Duque de Bragança]

Meanwhile, at a British protest ...

(snip)

The Prisoner:

tainted!

Luckily, the guy fucked up the quote from The Prisoner.  Thus, no taint! 

[crazy canuck]

Interesting. Is it the same in Italy? Just because that's the country in Europe where I'm always most surprised and dazzled by the variety of uniforms

The stunning traffic cop in high heels and a fitted uniform showing her physical attributes effectively.  I wondered why there weren't more car accidents in Rome.

[celedhring]

All hope is lost.

Madagascar has registered its first coronavirus death.

[Duque de Bragança]

Nope, there is still Antarctica.

[Sheilbh]

UK figures are really odd. Transmission is falling very slowly, although apparently they have increased testing a lot so it's hard to judge. Still, that's a hefty deaths figure after 2 months of lockdown.

The increased testing is important in terms of cases. A month ago we were doing around 15-25,000 tests a day and getting about 4-5,000 positives. Last week we were doing around 80,000 tests a day and now we're up to over 100,000 a day, the positives are still around 3,000. I think tests have only been useful for any sort of comparison in the last 2 or 3 weeks, because until then we just weren't doing enough. The numbers are starting to fall now and there's probably enough tests to think that has some meaning.

In terms of the death figure if you put us into the FT's comparison we're still just about tracking Italy at this point in their lockdown. Spain, I think, had a faster decline and France had a very quick drop too. I don't know what causes the difference.

And the statisticians and scientists were talking about this in their evidence to Parliament about a week ago. The transmission rate has increased in closed environments like care homes and hospitals in recent weeks.
But it's lower in the community.

Part of this is regional differences - and I have no idea what's causing them and I think it's weird. So London's R is estimated to be around 0.4-0.6, the lowest in the country and, similarly, hospital admissions and deaths have fallend fastest and furthest in London. Maybe it's because we've moved from a community and hospital epidemic when London was a hotspot as London lots of community and hospitals, lots of public transport, lots of multi-generation families (so elderly more likely to go to hospital) and is dense, to a care home and hospital epidemic and London is younger than average and, I imagine, has fewer care homes than other bits of the country. Although interestingly the next lowest R is estimated in the Midlands which was also an early hotspot so part of it could be that those areas have a higher level of immunity or are just sort of further ahead in the curve. I don't know why but the early hotspots are now coldspots for transmission.

But I don't think anyone really knows why, there's lots of theories. At the minute the R could be above 1 in Scotland and possibly Northern Ireland, it's around 0.9 in Wales and in England it's apparently still close to 1 in the North-East and Yorkshire, and the South-West. My suspicion is that it's probably something to do with demographics and local dynamics in healthcare and social care, but with generally relatively low community transmission everywhere.

The solution is probably more local responsibility for lockdown measures - at the minute it's devlolved so, as I've said before, whenever anyone in London talks about lockdown they are only talking about England which still seems to surprise people. But they are talking for all of England which I think is maybe too blunt a measure. It seems to me like London and the Midlands are probably in a position to start thinking about changes to lockdown, the East, South-East and North-West are all below the "all-England R" too.

[Sheilbh]

Incidentally on lockdown, Italy's plans seem punchy

May 18
Most shops reopen
Bars cafes restaurants reopen
Museums reopen
Travel free within region
Allowed to meet friends

May 25
Gyms, sports centers reopen

June 3
Nationwide travel, arrivals from eu resume

June 15
Cinemas, theaters reopen
Day camps for kids

According to Conte it is a calculated risk.

Also really interesting stories on the African response - in part because they have public health teams that deal with infectious diseases quite often, many states seem to be responding pretty well. So in three weeks Ethiopia, for example, had completed a door-to-door survey of Addis documenting symptoms and travel histories, and testing anyone who was symptomatic or at risk. Similar public health measures in other African countries. One thing I wonder about (just seeing the epidemiologists and public health experts duke it out on my Twitter) is whether in the West we've been too led by epidemiologists and not enough by public health specialists.

[Maladict]

Incidentally on lockdown, Italy's plans seem punchy

It seems incredibly rash. I guess keeping tourists out for summer will finish the country off, but I doubt very many will go.

[celedhring]

Incidentally on lockdown, Italy's plans seem punchy

It seems incredibly rash. I guess keeping tourists out for summer will finish the country off, but I doubt very many will go.

We're having reports of hotels being fully booked for July/August on expectation of lockdown lifting. So I'm not sure...

[Sheilbh]

I would go on holiday  

[celedhring]

UK figures are really odd. Transmission is falling very slowly, although apparently they have increased testing a lot so it's hard to judge. Still, that's a hefty deaths figure after 2 months of lockdown.

The increased testing is important in terms of cases. A month ago we were doing around 15-25,000 tests a day and getting about 4-5,000 positives. Last week we were doing around 80,000 tests a day and now we're up to over 100,000 a day, the positives are still around 3,000. I think tests have only been useful for any sort of comparison in the last 2 or 3 weeks, because until then we just weren't doing enough. The numbers are starting to fall now and there's probably enough tests to think that has some meaning.

In terms of the death figure if you put us into the FT's comparison we're still just about tracking Italy at this point in their lockdown. Spain, I think, had a faster decline and France had a very quick drop too. I don't know what causes the difference.

Our mobility fell faster and harder than Italy's - the lockdown worked very well here. I consider the lockdown a failure of policy rather than a policy itself, but at least it did the job. Dunno about France, but their outbreak seemed pretty localized geographically, this might have played a part?

Regarding transmission rates, you'd be at something like 3% positivity rate? (3,000 positives on 100,000 tests). FWIW, we began descalation on 2%.

[Duque de Bragança]

Our mobility fell faster and harder than Italy's - the lockdown worked very well here. I consider the lockdown a failure of policy rather than a policy itself, but at least it did the job. Dunno about France, but their outbreak seemed pretty localized geographically, this might have played a part?

Regarding transmission rates, you'd be at something like 3% positivity rate? (3,000 positives on 100,000 tests). FWIW, we began descalation on 2%.

While lockdown may be officially over ; North, East and Île-de-France are still in the red zone regarding the epidemic so there are still restrictions. Parks and gardens still closed, but not forests for instance. Cinemas won't reopen for a while. Schools have started to reopen as well.

In the green zone, beaches have reopened.

PS: some clusters have appeared though, even in the green zones.