Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[The Minsky Moment]

This is why I don't do predictions.

[Valmy]

Texas +322 dead, Florida +252, Arizona +172, California +114.

National +1,465, Total 155,285

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Their projections for Texas do not look very flat either

[mongers]

Texas +322 dead, Florida +252, Arizona +172, California +114.

National +1,465, Total 155,285

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Their projections for Texas do not look very flat either

How's Arizona getting nearly 200, Lots of elderly ?

But doesn't it have a fairly small population, guess 6-8 million and below average pop density? 

[Valmy]

Arizona has a city with a metro area of over 4 million people and another of 1 million people. So plenty of densely populated areas.

[jimmy olsen]

Texas +322 dead, Florida +252, Arizona +172, California +114.

National +1,465, Total 155,285

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Their projections for Texas do not look very flat either

How's Arizona getting nearly 200, Lots of elderly ?

But doesn't it have a fairly small population, guess 6-8 million and below average pop density?

7.279 million people.  12th oldest state.  Currently has the 14th most death per capita (including D.C.)

[jimmy olsen]

[Tamas]

In a last minute intervention before Eid celebrations Northern England is back on partial lockdown of households banned from meeting indoors. Further restriction easing originally scheduled for tomorrow is also off for at least two weeks.

[Sheilbh]

Devi Sridhar, who's a Global Health Policy Professor at the Unversity of Edinburgh and fairly staunch critic of Johnson, has also been advising Sturgeon on Scotland's policies. Their goal is to eradicate covid like New Zealand aiming for "zerio covid".

This is challenging - especially because Scotland isn't an island, the Scots government briefed that they might close the border with England which was clearly just for domestic consumption, but then very quickly reversed once they realised people in England could hear and were suddenly cancelling their holidays to Scotland because the border might be closed.

But I was just on Der Spiegel looking at the new Man City stuff and Sridhar's did an interview with them - at no point does it mention the death rate. Instead they literally ask "What can Germany learn from Scotland?" Scotland has the third worst deaths per capita in Europe (733), only behind England (767) and Belgium (842)

It's like inviting the Catalan President to advise Europe because they had a marginally less bad crisis than Madrid - I mean interview Welsh or Northern Irish figures if you want to get advice from the more successful nations of the UK (but still less succesful than Germany). I'm having a full - I feel like I'm taking crazy pills moment at the way the Scottish government have managed to convince so many of their own people, English people and serious Europeans that they've had a successful crisis and to the extent anything bad's happened it's not their fault

Admittedly Sridhar appears to have become quite sort of SNP-ish and political about all this in the last few months, which I'm not particularly keen on in someone who is meant to be their to offer scientific advice. She has already had to apologise for calling Scottish unionists "anti-Scottish". I totally get disliking Johnson, but it's possible to do without buying someone else's bill of goods and becoming a cheerleader.

[Sheilbh]

In a last minute intervention before Eid celebrations Northern England is back on partial lockdown of households banned from meeting indoors. Further restriction easing originally scheduled for tomorrow is also off for at least two weeks.

That was a fucking farce - the North of England thing, I didn't know there was any additional easings.

Hancock apparently had a meeting with all the affected council leaders (it's not all of Northern England), then announced it on Twitter to take effect from midnight last night but the DHSC hadn't actually finalised their rules so there was zero clarity. My suspicion is this was another example of politics as usual - he's had a meeting with lots of Labour council leaders, the news would leak so you want to get ahead of it by announcing it straight away. But what's necessary now is clear comms, so it shouldn't have been announced until the detail was finalised and DHSC could answer all the questions from the press/local councils. Also I think if they were going to announce it last night it should have taken effect at noon today, alternately announce it this morning to take effect from midnight tonight.

I don't think you can just spring a policy like that on Twitter with a couple of hours notice

[Tamas]

On Scotland, yeah I am with you. It must be a matter of contrast. You have Johnson and his government kind of blundering about and trying to mask it with catchphrases, and then Sturgeon comes around sounding measured and reasonable compared to those guys. Then of course Scotland does the same thing as England but people's attention span won't last past the first day of the next UK government announcement.

[Tamas]

In a last minute intervention before Eid celebrations Northern England is back on partial lockdown of households banned from meeting indoors. Further restriction easing originally scheduled for tomorrow is also off for at least two weeks.

That was a fucking farce - the North of England thing, I didn't know there was any additional easings.

Hancock apparently had a meeting with all the affected council leaders (it's not all of Northern England), then announced it on Twitter to take effect from midnight last night but the DHSC hadn't actually finalised their rules so there was zero clarity. My suspicion is this was another example of politics as usual - he's had a meeting with lots of Labour council leaders, the news would leak so you want to get ahead of it by announcing it straight away. But what's necessary now is clear comms, so it shouldn't have been announced until the detail was finalised and DHSC could answer all the questions from the press/local councils. Also I think if they were going to announce it last night it should have taken effect at noon today, alternately announce it this morning to take effect from midnight tonight.

I don't think you can just spring a policy like that on Twitter with a couple of hours notice

Yeah, although I guess this is still better than not dearing to impose restrictions because it is a holiday.

Then again, AFAIK there's some "test" of letting people in to some event is still going on today? Was it horse racing? Like 2 thousand people allowed or some shit.

[Sheilbh]

On Scotland, yeah I am with you. It must be a matter of contrast. You have Johnson and his government kind of blundering about and trying to mask it with catchphrases, and then Sturgeon comes around sounding measured and reasonable compared to those guys. Then of course Scotland does the same thing as England but people's attention span won't last past the first day of the next UK government announcement.

Yeah - and I thought to begin with Sridhar was a slight victim of this because I remember her criticising Johnson and then saying how well she thought Sturgeon was doing. And I was baffled, but now she's part of it.

I think it is striking just how much tone and sounding like a serious, professional, pragmatic politician matters to a lot of people even if the results are not significantly different. And if I was Mark Drakeford, First Minister of Wales, I'd be livid because they have a lower death rate but also did far better at protecting care homes than England or Scotland. Under 30% of deaths in Wales were in care homes while in Scotland and England it's around 45-50%.

It probably helps that Drakeford isn't always trying to draw contrasts in the way Sturgeon does for her wider political project, and he always seems quite measured in his comments whenever I see anything by him:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gktB9epo86Q

[Sheilbh]

Then again, AFAIK there's some "test" of letting people in to some event is still going on today? Was it horse racing? Like 2 thousand people allowed or some shit.

That's been cancelled. I think that was meant to take place tomorrow as a test for a sporting event - but I think it was cancelled once they announced they were pushing back any additional easing.

It does look from the ONS survey data that there's an increase taking place:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/31july2020

But still quite low.

Edit: And on comms I actually think the new message/slogan "Wash your hands, cover your face & make space" is pretty good

[Richard Hakluyt]

The timing of the increased restrictions in parts of Northern England is about as bad as it could be for the Muslims. Imagine having Christmas cancelled on Christmas Eve; all your travel and catering plans thrown into deep confusion. Typical Johnson though; ease off the restrictions too early and then have to crackdown again.......pillock.

[The Larch]

Rep. Louie "I shan't wear a mask" Gohmert has tested positive for Covi-19, thinks it might have come from wearing a mask.

https://twitter.com/CharlieGileNBC/status/1288525505881350144?s=20

Just heard from Seth Meyers' show that apparently Gohmert informed his staff about testing positive in person in a closed office. 

So yeah, that "dumbest man in Texas" label might be the right one for him.