Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[celedhring]

We are having an outbreak in several meatpacking plants in rural Catalonia. Those places are certainly high infection risks.

[The Larch]

In the latest twist, Cummings today mentioned the fact that he'd been thinking about pandemic preparedness as an issue for a long time and had even written about coronaviruses and SARS before. He had written a blog about pandemics before he joined government, around this time last year (https://dominiccummings.com/2019/03/04/the-most-secure-bio-labs-routinely-make-errors-that-could-cause-a-global-pandemic-are-about-to-re-start-experiments-on-pathogens-engineered-to-make-them-mammalian-airborne-transmissible/). But the specific references to coronaviruses was added in March this year and he added the reference to SARS on 14 April when he returned from Durham.

Extraordinary

He made a change to his blog which would take about 10 minutes to discover and then referenced it in a nationally televised press conference to point everyone to that blog

We have, at the very least, another day's worth of press coverage about this story

Telling people to check his blog? That's so 00s. 

[The Larch]

We are having an outbreak in several meatpacking plants in rural Catalonia. Those places are certainly high infection risks.

Btw, slightly tangential point, but I read recently that lots of pig megafarms all over Spain (of which I believe there are lots in rural Catalonia, mainly Lleida) are in dire straits because of a huge descent on exports to China. Has that been reported over there?

[celedhring]

We are having an outbreak in several meatpacking plants in rural Catalonia. Those places are certainly high infection risks.

Btw, slightly tangential point, but I read recently that lots of pig megafarms all over Spain (of which I believe there are lots in rural Catalonia, mainly Lleida) are in dire straits because of a huge descent on exports to China. Has that been reported over there?

Yes. All the extra protection measures have increased their costs, too, while prices are falling due to curtailed exports:

https://www.3tres3.com/cotizaciones-de-porcino/espana-lleida_2/

[Sheilbh]

A junior minister's now resigned over Cummings and I'm not convinced the angry emals Tory MPs will be receiving have somehow abated. God they've fucked this up - it would take a heart of stone not to laugh.

Edit: Key line in his resignation letter which is tough to argue with:

I have constituents who didn't get to say goodbye to loved ones; families who could not mourn together; people who didn't visit sick relatives because they followed guidance of the government. I cannot in good faith tell them they were all wrong and one senior adviser to the government was right.

Edit: Still not seen any new polling on Cummings specifically. But:

Net Approval of how Boris Johnson has handled Coronavirus:

25th March: +44%
25th April: +26%
25th May: -1%

I can't think of as big a collapse in support/approval. It reminds me of maybe Gordon Brown in 2007 from coming across as competent, "not flash, just Gordon" to a bit of a joke between the September floods, terrorism etc and December (admittedly I think there was a period early on when the Johnson cabinet had net approval which, I think, had only happened twice - briefly - in the past 20 years, we're not quite as angry with all our governments as the French but we're not far off).

Obviously the Tories still have four years and a big majority but, if we're in some way "past" coronavirus, then I wouldn't be surprised if they knife Johnson after the Brexit transition. Let him carry the can while the party moves on.

Edit: Also I hadn't seen it until just now, but three of the behavioural scientists advising the government have been commenting on this and said they think Johnson and Cummings' conduct undoes a lot of the good work getting people to change their behaviour and comply. Several of the modellers have also said they worry this will have an impact on compliance, moving us from their "high compliance" models to their lower compliance models. Striking that several of the scientific advisors feel a need to comment on this.

Edit: I'm not sure the press conference went as planned:

Interestingly there's a bit of polarisation but not much. Most Leave and Remain voters think he should go, even Tory voters are split 50/50 with everyone else being far more in favour of him quitting. And apparently MPs are receiving thousands of messages from constituents, not just the usual suspects and there's not a "form letter" doing the round. People are writing personal letters/emails explaining what's happened in their lives and the changes they've made and are very unhappy.

[The Larch]

Study Suggests Almost Half of Twitter Accounts Urging to Reopen America Are Bots

Over the past month, there has been a huge influx on Twitter users urging for local and federal governments to reopen America despite concerns over the coronavirus pandemic. In a new study conducted by Carnegie Mellon University researchers, it has been suggested that almost half of those accounts pushing to reopen the economy are actually bots.

In a report published last week, researchers deduced that 62 percent of the 1,000 most influential retweeters on the platform also appeared to be bots. As Business Insider points out, the usual level of bot involvement on social media when it comes to U.S. politics is somewhere between 10 to 20 percent. The possible bots were identified using artificial intelligence processes, which analyzed the frequency of tweets, number of followers, and apparent location. When these accounts tweet more often than usual, or appear in one country one tweet and then another hours later, it's highly likely the account is a bot.

"We're seeing up to two times as much bot activity as we'd predicted based on previous natural disasters, crises and elections," said Kathleen Carley, professor at the School of Computer Science's Institute for Software Research and director of the Center for Computational Analysis of Social and Organizational Systems. She added that the increase of bot activity could be down to people having more time on their hands, but there's plenty of other potential reasons, too. "Because it's global, it's being used by various countries and interest groups as an opportunity to meet political agendas."

Of the tweets that reference "reopening America," 66 percent had come from accounts that had possibly used bots to spread their tweets, while 34 percent of tweets were from bots. "When we see a whole bunch of tweets at the same time or back to back, it's like they're timed," Carley added. "We also look for use of the same exact hashtag, or messaging that appears to be copied and pasted from one bot to the next."

While a significant amount of these tweets focus on the economical impacts of such a lockdown, it was noted that a lot of them reference conspiracy theories. "Conspiracy theories increase polarization in groups. It's what many misinformation campaigns aim to do," she said. "People have real concerns about health and the economy, and people are preying on that to create divides. ... Increased polarization will have a variety of real-world consequences, and play out in things like voting behavior and hostility towards ethnic groups."

As of right now, the researchers did not determine the origins of the bot activity on Twitter. Notably, research has previously suggested that foreign nations utilized bots in the 2016 elections, but right now it's unclear if these "reopen America" tweets from bots are a similar situation.

[Legbiter]

Edit: Also I hadn't seen it until just now, but three of the behavioural scientists advising the government have been commenting on this and said they think Johnson and Cummings' conduct undoes a lot of the good work getting people to change their behaviour and comply. Several of the modellers have also said they worry this will have an impact on compliance, moving us from their "high compliance" models to their lower compliance models. Striking that several of the scientific advisors feel a need to comment on this

Yeah lockdowns end when the public collectively decides they do. Hard lockdowns are just to buy time to set up testing and tracing. I just hope we don't get a severe second wave in early June. We'll know by then.

[Tamas]

Edit: Also I hadn't seen it until just now, but three of the behavioural scientists advising the government have been commenting on this and said they think Johnson and Cummings' conduct undoes a lot of the good work getting people to change their behaviour and comply. Several of the modellers have also said they worry this will have an impact on compliance, moving us from their "high compliance" models to their lower compliance models. Striking that several of the scientific advisors feel a need to comment on this

Yeah lockdowns end when the public collectively decides they do. Hard lockdowns are just to buy time to set up testing and tracing. I just hope we don't get a severe second wave in early June. We'll know by then.

Yeah, I think discipline was waning even before this. There are some horrific pictures of overcrowding at places the Brits call beaches.

[celedhring]

Edit: Also I hadn't seen it until just now, but three of the behavioural scientists advising the government have been commenting on this and said they think Johnson and Cummings' conduct undoes a lot of the good work getting people to change their behaviour and comply. Several of the modellers have also said they worry this will have an impact on compliance, moving us from their "high compliance" models to their lower compliance models. Striking that several of the scientific advisors feel a need to comment on this

Yeah lockdowns end when the public collectively decides they do. Hard lockdowns are just to buy time to set up testing and tracing. I just hope we don't get a severe second wave in early June. We'll know by then.

Yeah, I think discipline was waning even before this. There are some horrific pictures of overcrowding at places the Brits call beaches.

[Josquius]

I think a lot of the troll accounts defending Cummings are only fuelling the rage against him. One of the most common defences you see is about him having an autistic child and doing what any parent would do in trying to get his kid to safety...
Except of course for all those people with kids, some autistic, who've had to deal with corona and didn't break the lockdown.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah, I think discipline was waning even before this. There are some horrific pictures of overcrowding at places the Brits call beaches.

Aside from the change.org petition I'm starting to revoke your citizenship for this comment, you need to get out of the South-East for the good British beaches. The ones near London are generally awful but the rest of the country has great beaches!


Also this has happened every weekend since Mother's Day. People on social media take zoomed-in pictures from odd angles of how crowded x place is (invariably filled with ordinary people who don't have three houses plus woodland on their property), panicked expectations of an imminent second wave, followed by data showing there was no substantial change in people's behaviour and then no second wave.

It's almost as if social media content just likes to be outraged and judge other people (especially the wrong type of person having fun).

[crazy canuck]

People around here are beginning to act like the all clear has been sounded.  It will be interesting to see if the virus is still here.

[Sheilbh]

Interesting titbit from friend in the NHS, after all the reports of smokers being less likely to get coronavirus.

Apparently there's talk of looking at a trial of nicotine replacement treatments as a potential preventive measure

[Tamas]

  The countryside in general is just gorgeous in this country. My snarkiness was more about the climate I guess. It gets to 25 degrees Celsius and people invade the beaches as if this is proper summer.

Still, this is not lockdown, though:

[Tamas]

Interesting titbit from friend in the NHS, after all the reports of smokers being less likely to get coronavirus.

Apparently there's talk of looking at a trial of nicotine replacement treatments as a potential preventive measure

My uneducated guess is that a fucked up half-dead lung is no fertile soil for the virus.