Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Monoriu]

If you are positive but don't feel it...isn't this the best case scenario?

[mongers]

After another 'slow' Monday, the UK is again back to recording daily deaths in the 400-600 range; and yet we continue to relax the lockdown. 

What do you think would be an appropriate death toll at which to begin easing the lock down?  Honest question.

In terms of the US, that rate would equate to 2,000-3,000 a day, given that what would you decide on?

[Legbiter]

If you are positive but don't feel it...isn't this the best case scenario?

They're testing whether I've had the virus and recovered, not if I'm currently sick with it. There's not been a single new case in about a week now. But yeah it'd be cool if it turned out I'd had it and was subsequently immune.

[katmai]

Alaska will be officially reopened back to normal on Friday. The city of Anchorage is on own timetable but with the first two phases it followed state by just a few days.

[jimmy olsen]

No, I don't think so

https://twitter.com/ddale8/status/1262843618483732480

Trump says the US having the most confirmed cases in the world is a "badge of honor": "When we have a lot of cases, I don't look at that as a bad thing, I look at that as, in a certain respect, as being a good thing. Because it means our testing is much better."

[Admiral Yi]

In terms of the US, that rate would equate to 2,000-3,000 a day, given that what would you decide on?

In UK terms that would be 400-600, what would you decide on? 

I dunno, which is why I asked. 

[jimmy olsen]

[Sheilbh]

After another 'slow' Monday, the UK is again back to recording daily deaths in the 400-600 range; and yet we continue to relax the lockdown. 

But this is just the weekend effect and the DHSC number is when deaths are reported. The daily deaths by date they occurred are around 300 (150-ish in hospitals and the same in care homes), which may be too high to change but I thought there was no change to lockdown until June. So the changes won't happen for another 10 days.

Edit: Also, very interesting chart in the US. It seems like one of the biggest differences between the North-East and the rest is whether the virus got into care home:


Edit: FT have updated their excess mortality trackers - Peru is very alarming. They've also done the regional city outbreaks and there are several Latin American cities with very severe outbreaks:

[jimmy olsen]

Some of those states are under counting nursing home deaths. Florida comes most prominent to mind.

[Eddie Teach]

Some of those states are under counting nursing home deaths. Florida comes most prominent to mind.

They aren't listed.

[Sheilbh]

Really good article on the app debate and the increasingly challenging gate-keeping/police-deciding role of Apple and Google when governments start developing digital tools:
https://www.politico.eu/article/google-apple-coronavirus-app-privacy-uk-france-germany/

Edit: Also useful international comparison by MIT:
https://public.flourish.studio/visualisation/2241702/

[Legbiter]

Really good article on the app debate and the increasingly challenging gate-keeping/police-deciding role of Apple and Google when governments start developing digital tools:
https://www.politico.eu/article/google-apple-coronavirus-app-privacy-uk-france-germany/

The local app here has not been that crucial as first imagined. At best it's been a somewhat helpful memory refresher (where were you on Monday 2 weeks ago) but it's been ancillary to the main contact tracing work. Even with generally widespread compliance only about 40% of the population has downloaded it.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah I think the test-run in the Isle of Wight has had 65% take-up (of the 65% people with Androis or iOS phones - the Isle of Wight has a particularly elderly population ), so around 40% overall. But, from what I understand that's considered about the expected level by the modellers (55% take-up is the "best case scenario").

But it'll be interesting to see how much it is an important part of countries' response in practice.

What strikes me about that article is both an anonymous German source and a French minister that there are big issues with two big American tech companies basically deciding public policy based on their internal protocols. This is important now in the context of covid-19, but is a bigger philosophical and political issue as governments move more services to digital and apps (such as the general other work NHSX does). As one of the French regulators note - Apple and Google may be taking the right position but there's no process for independent judicial review or decisions by independent authorities.

[Tamas]

What strikes me about that article is both an anonymous German source and a French minister that there are big issues with two big American tech companies basically deciding public policy based on their internal protocols. This is important now in the context of covid-19, but is a bigger philosophical and political issue as governments move more services to digital and apps (such as the general other work NHSX does). As one of the French regulators note - Apple and Google may be taking the right position but there's no process for independent judicial review or decisions by independent authorities.

This is interesting and worrying, but also I am afraid perfectly realistic. Deploying apps and such is probably something Apple and Google would have to change globally if at all, considering the size of their userbase and the potential problems, doing this on the whims of France and Germany would be at least as bad morally as not doing it.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah. I think it is challenging - they provide the operating system and marketplace and so can, reasonably, set their own minimum security and privacy standards etc. But as governments use digital tools to deliver services there are going to be issues if their policy objective clashes with decisions made by Google and Apple. So I sympathise with the UK, French and (until late April) German position that they wanted an app that could be used for informing individuals they need to self isolate and allow authorities to see local outbreaks for resource allocation etc. And I get the frustration that this has been made more difficult because Google and Apple won't cooperate. (The cynical part of me would also note that on a centralised system the information would be held and used by the public health authority, on a decentralised system it would be distributed, I think by Apple and Google. They would no doubt argue that they'd just be a dumb pipe and not actually able to see any information....)

On the other hand from a corporate perspective it's difficult to see a way of saying "well we'll be flexible for Germany and France and the UK" that won't be used against Google and Apple by, say, China and Iran. Or for European governments to enforce standards on them if they operate in Europe, but not expect authoritarian regimes to do the same Flipside is, I don't think they helped China develop their covid app, but it is available on their platforms and, you know, they no doubt have to comply with US security agencies wanting information. So maybe Europe is actually just playing too nice on this.

As I say it's particularly extreme now because this is part of a pandemic response, but I think especially after this experience there will be more desire by governments to use digital tools to interact with citizens and deliver services. There is a tension between the tech companies making internal and design choices that ultimately dictate the range of public policy options available. The difference is (in Europe) governments are elected and subject to judges and regulators etc, while these companies are ultimately just a monopoly.