Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[Syt]

The 7 day new cases per 100k numbers for Vienna have gone from 230 to 354 within the last two weeks. I sure am glad we make a mini-lockdown later this week  

[Sheilbh]

London recorded zero covid deaths yesterday for the first time in six months

I know people are being fairly kind to the government in how they've handled the pandemic. And I can broadly agree with that for some of the decision making in the first wave, but the decisions they made over autumn and winter are unforgivable

[mongers]

London recorded zero covid deaths yesterday for the first time in six months

I know people are being fairly kind to the government in how they've handled the pandemic. And I can broadly agree with that for some of the decision making in the first wave, but the decisions they made over autumn and winter are unforgivable

Many people seem to have entirely forgotten the crisis of January and February, iirc 18/19 days in January had death tolls over 1,000 and similar days in early February.

edit:
looked up the UK death toll figures*:

January - 31,363 dead.
February -  16,369 dead.

So and average of over 1,000 dead for each and every day of January.





*Each of those month's had a day when no figures were reported, I assume those missing we added in on following days, also I've not got a total for December, as I wasn't noting them down till the last few days when the 'dailys' were hitting 900+ dead.

[Syt]

Vienna has announced that the lockdown, starting Thursday, will be extended till 11th at least. Neighboring states have yet to follow suit.

The chamber of commerce urged everyone to quickly all go shopping this week, before the lockdown hits.

[viper37]

Gonna make Sheilbh pull his hair out a little bit more 



Barcelona, last evening.

(the idea was that they screened all atendees via antigen test - 6 people out of 5,000 were turned away)

it's an experiment, to see if concerts could be safely held.

What was the band? Medias report "rock concert", but not details.

[Richard Hakluyt]

It is nevertheless the case that the UK is looking less and less like the worst performer. Our early lead in gross governmental incompetence is evaporating. Can Boris manage to cock things up this autumn to keep us in pole position? We will have to wait and see.

[celedhring]

Gonna make Sheilbh pull his hair out a little bit more 



Barcelona, last evening.

(the idea was that they screened all atendees via antigen test - 6 people out of 5,000 were turned away)

it's an experiment, to see if concerts could be safely held.

What was the band? Medias report "rock concert", but not details.

Love of Lesbian, local indie rock band. Target audience is middle class thirty somethings

[Sheilbh]

It is nevertheless the case that the UK is looking less and less like the worst performer. Our early lead in gross governmental incompetence is evaporating. Can Boris manage to cock things up this autumn to keep us in pole position? We will have to wait and see.

I remember in April last year someone writing a piece about whether people would remember and judge their governments on how they handled the crisis or how they got out of the crisis. I wasn't sure at the time and it basically noted that Trump and Johnson were making big bets on vaccines and wondered if, in the end, they paid off whether voters might forget the previous failures.

I think the writer (can't remember who) might well have been onto something in retrospect

[Tamas]

It is nevertheless the case that the UK is looking less and less like the worst performer. Our early lead in gross governmental incompetence is evaporating. Can Boris manage to cock things up this autumn to keep us in pole position? We will have to wait and see.

I remember in April last year someone writing a piece about whether people would remember and judge their governments on how they handled the crisis or how they got out of the crisis. I wasn't sure at the time and it basically noted that Trump and Johnson were making big bets on vaccines and wondered if, in the end, they paid off whether voters might forget the previous failures.

I think the writer (can't remember who) might well have been onto something in retrospect

I would like to request us resisting the temptation to paint the last year of blundering and improvisation as a master plan to bet big on vaccines.

[viper37]

Canada is recommending its provinces to suspend administration of Astrazeneca vaccines to under 55.  Just when were getting 1.5M doses from the US.  Bummer.

[Sheilbh]

I would like to request us resisting the temptation to paint the last year of blundering and improvisation as a master plan to bet big on vaccines.

As I say this article was in April last year

The point I think might have been right is that people will remember the way out of a crisis more than the handling of the crisis - and for Biden he's getting the return on Trump's bet.

[Admiral Yi]

As I say this article was in April last year

The point I think might have been right is that people will remember the way out of a crisis more than the handling of the crisis - and for Biden he's getting the return on Trump's bet.

Operation Warp Speed(tm) is a bit of a political mystery to me.  Why did Trump never brag about it?  Why do Trump supporters never brag about it?  Why did the nation's anti-masker in chief authorize an expensive vaccine research and production program?  Did The Resistance(tm) do it behind his back?  Did Fauci fund it out of secret CDC slush funds?  It's all so apparently contradictory.

[Iormlund]

it's an experiment, to see if concerts could be safely held.

What was the band? Medias report "rock concert", but not details.

It's not an experiment. There'll be no follow-up, no quarantine, no control group. No meaningful data will come out of it.

[Tamas]

Trump had no bloody plan. The vaccines allowed him to handwave every concern or call for action away, and that's it.

[Sheilbh]

Trump had no bloody plan. The vaccines allowed him to handwave every concern or call for action away, and that's it.

Maybe he didn't have a detailed plan - but the people around him who did spent $10 billion on the research into the J&J, Moderna, AZ and Novavax vaccines. From what I can see the only one they got wrong was Sanofi-GSK and the only one they missed was Pfizer.

He may not have had a plan but his decision is a major part of why we have the vaccines we do - same for the large early investment in Oxford by the UK government.

Operation Warp Speed(tm) is a bit of a political mystery to me.  Why did Trump never brag about it?  Why do Trump supporters never brag about it?  Why did the nation's anti-masker in chief authorize an expensive vaccine research and production program?  Did The Resistance(tm) do it behind his back?  Did Fauci fund it out of secret CDC slush funds?  It's all so apparently contradictory.

Trump and his kids have tried to take credit for it but not as much as you'd suspect - this could be wrong but I wonder if part of it is they didn't brand it enough, my suspicion is because it might have failed. But you're right it is weird and I think the third question is part of why it's an issue. For Trump to take credit he'd need to acknowledge that the pandemic was serious but doing that would maybe indict his response, so he always erred on the side of minimising the pandemic which means he can't now take as much credit as you'd expect.

It's a very Trump solution - a bit like infrastructure spending or the wall - a big expensive one off solution to a fairly complex problem. In this case it worked