Will We Stand The Corona Test of Time? - Covid #7

[Werthead]

7 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Prince Phillip isn’t in great health, but it’s worth remembering that there is no age group for which death from Covid-19 is probable. The Queen hasn’t had that many issues as far as I remember, I bet she’d kick this one.

There was a 103-year-old woman in Wuhan who kicked the virus's backside.

[Loge]

55 minutes ago, Arakan said:

Same issue with the official German numbers published by the Robert Koch Institut. Always at least 24h behind or even longer. Reporting structures in federal countries seem to be a special nightmare. It really is better just to look at the cumulative figures over a certain period (3-5 days).

It‘s annoying because reliable data of case development is so important right now to see if the political measures are working or not. And every day counts. Delay a certain action for 3 or 6 days and you might end up with a factor 2x or 4x of the total number of infected. The power of exponential growth. 

Well, according to its web site the RKI reports verified cases only, and they get their figures from the gesundheitsämter, which takes some time. They don't get complete figures on weekends either, so it takes till Tuesday before they have got correct figures. Not sure where other sources, like the Johns Hopkins University get their figures from. 

I wonder what's up with Switzerland. They have just overtaken South Korea. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

54 minutes ago, Spockydog said:

Tom Hanks must die!

Your little island is about to get a hot injection of freedom.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

29 minutes ago, Werthead said:

There was a 103-year-old woman in Wuhan who kicked the virus's backside.

Considering my lessons on Japanese-Chinese interactions during WW2, she's seen far worse.

[mcbigski]

41 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Prince Phillip isn’t in great health, but it’s worth remembering that there is no age group for which death from Covid-19 is probable. The Queen hasn’t had that many issues as far as I remember, I bet she’d kick this one.

If regular quinine is at all helpful, she should do fine.  Bess likes her G&T, I hear.

[Fragile Bird]

7 minutes ago, mcbigski said:

If regular quinine is at all helpful, she should do fine.  Bess likes her G&T, I hear.

Actually, it’s Dubonnet and gin that she drinks.

32 minutes ago, Loge said:

 

I wonder what's up with Switzerland. They have just overtaken South Korea. 

Trying to preserve it’s reputation for neutrality, Switzerland kept it’s borders open. Bad move, in retrospect. Switzerland’s southern border is with the worst hot spot of Italy.

[Ran]

Apparently early results from the first clinical trial on chloroquine in China found no difference from giving placebo. In vitro vs. in vivo strikes again. Still, no reason to quit your gin and tonic if that's your poison of choice.

[Arakan]

42 minutes ago, Loge said:

Well, according to its web site the RKI reports verified cases only, and they get their figures from the gesundheitsämter, which takes some time. They don't get complete figures on weekends either, so it takes till Tuesday before they have got correct figures. Not sure where other sources, like the Johns Hopkins University get their figures from. 

I wonder what's up with Switzerland. They have just overtaken South Korea. 

JHU gets their figures directly from the local hospitals, local authorities IIRC. Whatever is published etc. also the clinical confirmed cases (which 99.99% will be laboratory confirmed, the figures RKI is publishing). 
Reporting structure is nightmare. Laboratories to local hospitals to local CDCs to central RKI. All this without common database system which would make things much easier. But ok, for a cumulative analysis it’s ok though not for trying to read sth into daily developments. 

[HexMachina]

I may just be watching the wrong news sources but have we had much info regarding Russian response to the outbreak? It's a country I would have expected to hear about what measures were taken at least but don't recall anything, though obviously it's difficult to keep up to date with all the news on this

[Arakan]

24 minutes ago, HelenaExMachina said:

I may just be watching the wrong news sources but have we had much info regarding Russian response to the outbreak? It's a country I would have expected to hear about what measures were taken at least but don't recall anything, though obviously it's difficult to keep up to date with all the news on this

Russia acted silently but decisively. The borders to China were closed in January. Screening of visitors from the West early on. Mandatory self-isolation for suspected cases under the threat of severe punishment if self-isolation is broken (5 years prison in Sibiria). Borders to Belorussia closed. IIRC self-quarantine for arrivals from other countries. Of course they do underreport figures. To be expected but they acted swiftly, silently and hard. I expected nothing less to be honest. The Russian authorities esp. MVD is quite paranoid. In this case, it helped. Furthermore the MVD has quite good contact tracing capabilities and it is said (whether true I don’t know) they early on started systematic mass testing (something up to 150k as of beginning of March). This will be regarded as the biggest single failing of all major Western countries. Systematic mass testing early on. Particularly the Italians and Spaniards blew it here. I mean significant testing didn’t start in both countries until the people were already dying in the hundreds. 
 

And mass testing is NOT a primary question of money but preparation. No one in the West was sufficiently prepared. 
 

Germany for example. 
base testing capacity February: 12k/day

testing:

09.-15.03 5k/day 

16.03- 22.03 15k/day 

since 23.03 25k/day. 
 

Now it’s ok but we blew it in the first two March weeks. No excuses possible. Simple underestimating of the transmissibility of the virus. 

[Consigliere]

The number of cases in South Africa has gone up to 709. There are currently no deaths reported, 4 recovered as of two days ago and two in ICU as of yesterday. 

There are also reports that a man has been arrested and charged with attempted murder after ignoring his doctor's instruction to self isolate. Apparently he continued running his salon business as well as attended religious gatherings. The health department are busy tracking down those he came in contact with. He is currently in hospital under quarantine. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Have yet to see a patient here this week. It's getting creepy. 

[Arakan]

I know that we are still in the phase of fighting the pandemic but I fear for the following economic disaster. Basically worldwide. It will be very hard. 2008/09 really is nothing in comparison. 
 

Spain and Italy both make roughly 10% of their GDP with international tourism, 140 and 190 billion EUR respectively. Gone. At least for 2020. The damage on the manufacturing sector, banking sector not even included. Greece? Same issue. Tourism gone. There is now way in hell that the EU can financially catch this economic fallout. No way. And anyway every country will be hit severely. I fear for the Union. And who knows what the ramifications will be in the US. 
 

I told my friends a few days ago, all this will result in some form of „Kriegswirtschaft“ (war economy) over the next 2/3 years. It’s unbelievable how stupid Trump and his fellows are to expect to go back to BAU come May. I don’t see it. Of course we will bounce back but it will be very difficult. And the cries to go back to some form of 17th/18th century mercantilism sure doesn’t help. Let’s see. 

[rotting sea cow]

47 minutes ago, Arakan said:

Russia acted silently but decisively. The borders to China were closed in January. Screening of visitors from the West early on. Mandatory self-isolation for suspected cases under the threat of severe punishment if self-isolation is broken (5 years prison in Sibiria). Borders to Belorussia closed. IIRC self-quarantine for arrivals from other countries. Of course they do underreport figures. To be expected but they acted swiftly, silently and hard. I expected nothing less to be honest. The Russian authorities esp. MVD is quite paranoid. In this case, it helped. Furthermore the MVD has quite good contact tracing capabilities and it is said (whether true I don’t know) they early on started systematic mass testing (something up to 150k as of beginning of March). This will be regarded as the biggest single failing of all major Western countries. Systematic mass testing early on. Particularly the Italians and Spaniards blew it here. I mean significant testing didn’t start in both countries until the people were already dying in the hundreds. 
 

And mass testing is NOT a primary question of money but preparation. No one in the West was sufficiently prepared. 
 

Germany for example. 
base testing capacity February: 12k/day

testing:

09.-15.03 5k/day 

16.03- 22.03 15k/day 

since 23.03 25k/day. 
 

Now it’s ok but we blew it in the first two March weeks. No excuses possible. Simple underestimating of the transmissibility of the virus. 

Thanks for the interesting info. One day the world will look back and judge who acted correctly and who didn't.

Btw. Do you know whether there is a lockdown, etc in Russia?

[Werthead]

The UK will apparently have a home testing kit for the virus available "within days." Allegedly it can detect antibodies so will identify recovered cases who didn't know they'd had the virus.

Interesting if accurate, but it sounds a bit too good to be true.

[Zorral]

5 hours ago, RhaenysBee said:

I must say I think this is something Europe should have imposed two weeks ago for a month.

That is the action that goes in the stage of catastrophes called "Response", which is the second stage in dealing with a catastrophe. Which we here in the US should have imposed weeks ago here.  Didn't.  Because ...

the first stage of dealing with catastrophe, is "Preparation."  Instead Jim Jones deliberately wrecked any preparation for such an event at all local and federal levels. Without effective Prep and Response, there can be no stage three of "Mitigation," or stage four of "Recovery."  The US is going to be the greatest catastrophe on the globe.

https://katz.substack.com/p/the-coronavirus-disaster-hasnt-happened?

 

Quote

 

If those trends hold—and there is little reason to think they won’t—the U.S. chapter of the COVID-19 epidemic will be worse than any other in the world. Sheri Fink reported nearly two weeks ago that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that, without assertive measures, 160 million to 214 million people in the United States could be infected. A team of epidemiologists at Imperial College London has estimated that as many as 2.2 million Americans could die.

To that number in perspective, that toll would be double the military casualties of every U.S. war in history, and the 1918 influenza epidemic combined.

No one knows what that will be like. Few in this country have seen anything like it before. I survived the deadliest earthquake ever recorded in the Western Hemisphere, in which an estimated 100,000 to 316,000 people died—almost one in ten people in and around Haiti’s capital, Port-au-Prince. It scarred all of us for life. Yet that event was constrained to one small part of one small country. These COVID-19 estimates describe an unimaginable catastrophe across one of the biggest countries in the world in the next few weeks.

Anyone who tells you we will simply shrug off even a fraction as many deaths as a “sacrifice,” as Texas lieutenant governor Dan Patrick and Glenn Beck have said, has no idea what they’re talking about, is a sociopath, or both. Anyone who thinks that coercing millions of people to hasten their own and their loved ones’ deaths will do anything but further destroy the economy is either stupid or has a plan to get rich on the side.

 

 

[Arakan]

23 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

Thanks for the interesting info. One day the world will look back and judge who acted correctly and who didn't.

Btw. Do you know whether there is a lockdown, etc in Russia?

So far no lockdown as far as I am aware but rumors of Moscow to be put under lockdown. Might be just rumors but wouldn’t be surprised to see swift action. 
 

All this talk about herd immunity is utter bollocks and nothing more than the silent acknowledgment of failure. Plagues are not allowed to run its course, they are suppressed and contained. What South Korea is doing. What Singapore is doing. Hongkong, China etc. 

It‘s ridiculous. We still know so little about this virus. Many Experts simply underestimated it. I well remember the press briefings of our CDC (RKI) one month ago: low risk, everything under control. True death rate of that Virus somewhere between 0.4-0.7%, presumably 0.5%. Ridiculous. Back then there still was no clarity who are the risks groups etc. If a danger is unknown you act swiftly and decisively. No hindsight either. We saw the development in China and South Korea and the drastic measures. To visualize: China put a province the size of England and Wales combined with the population of Italy under lockdown. They put a City the size of London under strict quarantine. And they did it when they had 400 confirmed cases. All this happened 23.01.2020. We saw it. China is responsible for the wet markets and the origin of the Virus. WE are responsible for the situation now in our respective countries. 

[Winterfell is Burning]

In the latest "What Bolsonaro did this time?" news, he outdid himself...again. Trump was (correctly) criticized for proposing that isolation should be over by Easter and people should go to chuch then. Well, Bolsonaro wants isolation ended NOW.

That's right, he, in oppositon to the World Health Organization, all specialists, and his own Health minister, wants to end isolation now so the economy can grow again, and is accusing the governors who are taking serious measures of destroying the economy. 

The real issue here is the election in October 2022 (yes, really, he's thinking about that); he's afraid of not only the economy tanking, but the fact that the governors of the two wealthiest Brazlian states, São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro, are getting positive press because of the serious measures they're implementing, and they're both center-right men who are not career politicians and have clear presidential ambitions; while they're not really nice guys by any stretch of imagination, they also don't have a history of saying non-sense like defending torture and the military dictatorship (in fact, the father of São Paulo's governor, João Dória, was a Congressman that went into exile during the dictatorship), so they would have an easier time attracting the votes of the moderates.

The governors and health officials are basically ignoring him, but there's always the risk of him using the federal structure to boycott them.

 

[Werthead]

You'd hope that after their tepid response, Trump and Bolsonaro will be unelectable for life after this.

[Fez]

Depressing story here that I didn't even think about...

Quote

 

When Capt. Nilesh Gandhi’s oil tanker docked in coronavirus-ravaged China early last month, he understood that he would not be able to disembark and fly home as planned. He would have to keep working, at least until Singapore.

But when he arrived there, Singapore had prohibited all crew changes. And when he docks in Sri Lanka next week, the government there will ban him from getting off the ship. Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, his next two stops, forbid crew members from leaving, as well.

He is not alone. An estimated 150,000 crew members with expired work contracts have been forced into continued labor aboard commercial ships worldwide to meet the demands of governments that have closed their borders and yet still want fuel, food and supplies.

“We want to go home,” said Mr. Gandhi, 38, in a phone interview from aboard his ship.

His wife and son expected him home in Mumbai, India, more than a month ago. He said seven others — four Indians and three Filipinos — are similarly stranded on the ship. They are still being paid, but crew members say that, given the choice, they would have gladly declined the money and returned home.