Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Syt]

We're still hitting 100+ deaths almost every day.

[The Brain]

The highest we've had so far this wave is 54, and currently I guess something like 30.

[Syt]

Also, Chancellor Kurz said at a press conference that Austria was doing well after the lockdown, but that people from abroad, and foreigners who visited their home countries and came back brought the virus back.

There's literally no evidence for that, and experts blame a primarily a careless populace for the spike in numbers.

[jimmy olsen]

US had 2,831 according to worldmeter. The worst day yet.
Getting ever closer to the elusive full 9/11

Hospitalizations have crossed 100k according to CNN

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/12/02/health/us-coronavirus-wednesday/index.html

Exactly 5,500 have died in the US of Covid in the first two days of December. That's equal to 85,250 over the full month if it keeps that pace.

[Syt]

Austria had on average 73 deaths per day since 1st November (2337 total). In relation to population that would be 2700 *every day* in the US over the last 32 days, or 86,000+ total. It's hardly mentioned in the news, though.

[Sheilbh]

648 deaths reported today, highest since mid-May.

We seem to regularly hitting 500-600+ deaths recorded. 

Yeah

This time the NHS (deaths with a postive test) and ONS (including deaths with no test) figures have been more or less the same so at least we can be reasonably sure the figures accurate, because there's a lot more testing.

I also had a look at a number of European countries - especially because this wave seems to have been really big in CEE who got away with it the first time and it's pretty grim. Also it just feels like because there is enough testing now there's more focus on the case numbers rather than the mortality. The Czech Republic has been really badly hit, it looks like they've had almost as many deaths (per capita) in this wave as France has had in both:
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&country=GBR~ESP~ITA~BEL~FRA~DEU~NLD~CZE~HUN~POL~AUT&region=World&deathsMetric=true&interval=total&hideControls=true&perCapita=true&smoothing=0&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc

[DGuller]

This is rather wild, but the Catalan Health Department has today said that they have yet to have a flu test come out positive this season. Doesn't mean nobody has caught the flu, because there isn't that much flu testing being done, but it's still pretty remarkable.

Makes sense to me.  Flu is less contagious than Covid, so measures that may be only somewhat effective against Covid can completely extinguish flu before it starts.  Flu epidemics rely a lot on people treating it as just a flu.

[Tamas]

Hungary also keeps beating daily death records, up to 182 yesterday.

Also read that in the first week of November, overall excess deaths in the country were up 40% compared to normal, but the number of excess deaths was only about half of the official covid death figures for that week, so either the numbers are heavily fudged or people who should be going to hospitals are staying away out of fear and/or people in hospital not getting proper care due to them being overloaded.

[Syt]

Hungary also keeps beating daily death records, up to 182 yesterday.

Also read that in the first week of November, overall excess deaths in the country were up 40% compared to normal, but the number of excess deaths was only about half of the official covid death figures for that week, so either the numbers are heavily fudged or people who should be going to hospitals are staying away out of fear and/or people in hospital not getting proper care due to them being overloaded.

Statistik Austria has announced that the death rate in mid-November was the highest in 42 years (Russian flue in Feb 1978, apparently?). Excess mortality is about 36% above average for the period (6.5% over for the whole year so far).

[Sheilbh]

Hungary also keeps beating daily death records, up to 182 yesterday.

Also read that in the first week of November, overall excess deaths in the country were up 40% compared to normal, but the number of excess deaths was only about half of the official covid death figures for that week, so either the numbers are heavily fudged or people who should be going to hospitals are staying away out of fear and/or people in hospital not getting proper care due to them being overloaded.

In terms of excess deaths this chart is interesting - and Poland and Bulgaria look really worrying:


Also looking at the Our World in Data on positives as a share of tests and Hungary's is alarming. It's over 30% and climbing so I just think there's probably a lot of cases being missed because there's not enough capacity:
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer?zoomToSelection=true&country=GBR~ESP~ITA~BEL~FRA~NLD~CZE~HUN~POL~AUT&region=World&positiveTestRate=true&interval=smoothed&hideControls=true&perCapita=true&smoothing=7&pickerMetric=location&pickerSort=asc

[celedhring]

The high variance in expected deaths for many Eastern European countries is interesting (Luxemburg I presume is because they're supersmall).

[Sheilbh]

The high variance in expected deaths for many Eastern European countries is interesting (Luxemburg I presume is because they're supersmall).

Also I imagine Luxembourg is swayed by loads of youngish working age people who work in the banks etc there but don't really move there permanently. I could be wrong but I suspect they've probably got one of the higher rates of working people to old people.

[Syt]

The high variance in expected deaths for many Eastern European countries is interesting (Luxemburg I presume is because they're supersmall).

Also I imagine Luxembourg is swayed by loads of youngish working age people who work in the banks etc there but don't really move there permanently. I could be wrong but I suspect they've probably got one of the higher rates of working people to old people.

I'd suspect a similar situation to Switzerland - work for the higher salary/lower taxes, but live in a cheaper neighboring place.

[Sheilbh]

Okay - US politicians are far out-doing UK figures in not following the rules. I've followed the scandal of the San Francisco mayor and California government telling people to stay home and then going to private parties at high-end restaurants. But, my favourite is the mayor of Austin who posted a video on Facebook in early November:

He was telling people to stay at home if they can and it's not the time to relax. The video was posted from a timeshare in Cabo which he'd travelled to in a private jet with 8 close family members and friends. The day before he'd hosted his daughter's wedding at a hotel with multiple guests.

Apparently he didn't break any of the legal orders, though I'd argue this was maybe not in the spirit of those orders when he's encouraging us plebs to sacrifice and not relax

[garbon]

UK political set too busy having private, small-scale dinner parties, traveling while infected but not feeling ill and going for eye exams.