Who Pays the Coronaman? - Covid #8

[Ran]

9 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

The Sweden approach also relies heavily on individuals acting responsibly and mostly voluntarily adhering the social distancing and social isolation that is being mandated in a lot of countries. Some countries with a high sense of social responsibility among residents will have a high rate of compliance with recommended actions among individuals and organisations. Countries with a less well developed sense of social responsibility would perform extremely poorly in controlling the disease if the Sweden approach was transplanted there.

Absolutely. I think Sweden is not saying everyone should act exactly the same. The health authorities are saying that they think some countries took political decisions not supported by science. A major point that has been emphasized of late is that Sweden are not the ones being experimental -- these nationwide lock downs have never been before, and indeed were probably not considered feasible until China shut down a province with 115 million inhabitants and showed that, well, it is (if you're an authoritarian state capable of enforcing draconian protocols, anyways).

In Italy, the mayor of Palermo cites increasing unrest over the effects of their lockdown, claiming (perhaps hyperbolically) that a Mafia-led revolt could take place against the strictures that have been imposed. You're going to be hearing a lot more of this stuff as countries go on complete lockdown for many weeks more.

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So part of my concern about media appearing to suggest the Sweden approach is more sensible than approaches in other countries is that what might work (still unproven) in Sweden will not work elsewhere.

I will say that New Zealand seems an ideal place to try an approach targeted to letting the disease run its course in a managed way that does not overload the health care system because of how low your country's density is. But perhaps culturally-speaking it is not feasible. And the fact is that so long as you do not have much community transmission, the challenge of contact tracing and quaranting is easier. Again, New Zealand's an island, international travel is way down, screening can be done... though I guess that'll hurt the tourism industry, but eh, this year's a lost cause anyways.

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And in that context I think this comment that I read in an article is particularly irresponsible because it is criticising other government's decisions in a very offhand manner

Well, it is largely without question that at least some countries in Europe really have been making decisions based on political determinations rather than scientific ones. Both the Danish and Norwegian health authorities, the actual civil servants with all their relevant experience, were opposed to the border and school closures that their governments imposed, and have indicated as much (basically saying it wasn't their decision). I can't speak for Germany or some of the other countries, and certainly not New Zealand... but again, complete national lockdown is the historical outlier, not the norm.

 

[DaveSumm]

1 hour ago, Which Tyler said:

It's been a daily update for at least 2 weeks now, always worth linking again:

https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest

Wow, they’ve got all the graphs. Great site.

[Cridefea]

48 minutes ago, Ran said:

Again, not too useful. Sweden had its first case registered on January 31st, New Zealand had its first on February 28th

I don't think we can talk about dates, for any country, since the virus was probably in Europe undetected since at least january....

[Ran]

2 minutes ago, Cridefea said:

I don't think we can talk about dates, for any country, since the virus was probably in Europe undetected since at least january....

Very probably true. But it makes it hard to make too much of New Zealand only just having its first death when it has been relatively sheltered for weeks compared to other nations. This is also why a lot of the charts out there, like FT's, try to even up benchmarks by starting from "10th death" or "100th" case to give at least some sense of similarity.

[Cridefea]

28 minutes ago, Ran said:

Very probably true. But it makes it hard to make too much of New Zealand only just having its first death when it has been relatively sheltered for weeks compared to other nations. This is also why a lot of the charts out there, like FT's, try to even up benchmarks by starting from "10th death" or "100th" case to give at least some sense of similarity.

Yes probably  New Zeland is not comparable because of what you said in your previous post, but we need to be careful about any chart right now, probably is too early to understand what's better and what's worse based on those charts. See China and its number of deceased.

1 hour ago, Ran said:

Well, it is largely without question that at least some countries in Europe really have been making decisions based on political determinations rather than scientific ones

I can't speak for other countries, but here it was quite the opposite. I don't know what media said outside Italy, did they say otherwise?

[Paxter]

47 minutes ago, Ran said:

Very probably true. But it makes it hard to make too much of New Zealand only just having its first death when it has been relatively sheltered for weeks compared to other nations. This is also why a lot of the charts out there, like FT's, try to even up benchmarks by starting from "10th death" or "100th" case to give at least some sense of similarity.

Yeah this kind of benchmarking has helped me a lot. For example, I feel comfortable concluding that Germany is having more luck/better response in dealing with the virus than its European counterparts. The evidence is that, two weeks after its 10th death, Germany is experiencing a daily fatalities growth rate of around 25%. At the same stage, Italy and Spain had growth rates in the mid 30s. 

Without seeing that analysis, I was wondering whether Germany would have the same trajectory as its neighbours. 

[Lollygag]

It's going around Ohio that DeWine had to go public with an appeal to get FDA approval for a mask decontamination system because Trump initially blocked it as he's upset that DeWine isn't playing along and has been upstaging him and stealing his spotlight. Locals think things might get ugly between the two.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/03/29/ohio-dewine-trump-administration-mask-ruling-154378

https://www.cleveland.com/open/2020/03/gov-mike-dewine-blasts-fda-decision-limiting-use-of-new-mask-cleaning-technology-as-reckless.html

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DeWine had touted the new technology, developed by Battelle, at a Saturday news conference, saying his administration was pushing the FDA to approve its use in Ohio and three areas hit hard by COVID-19 -- Seattle, New York and Washington D.C.

Battelle leaders said their technology could sterilize up to 160,000 respirator masks for re-use per day in Ohio alone. The firm said Saturday “the first completed system is in transit and will be placed at an undisclosed location in the New York metropolitan area to address that city’s critical shortage of PPE [personal protective equipment] needed by healthcare workers and first responders.”

But the FDA only granted Battelle permission to clean masks at its Columbus headquarters, and only 10,000 per day. The FDA’s limited approval allows for the masks to be sanitized and re-used up to 20 times.

...

After his briefing, DeWine tweeted that he’d spoken with New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, about his conversations with the president and the FDA.

I talked with @NYGovCuomo a short time ago to update him on @Battelle's sterilization technology and our progress with @US_FDA. He was happy to hear that this critical N95 sterilization could soon be happening for frontline workers in NY. We'll update everyone when we hear more.

— Governor Mike DeWine (@GovMikeDeWine) March 29, 2020

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

Unreal. I just walked my dog down the middle of a road in Minneapolis. I barely saw anyone. Seems like things are going smoothly. 

[DireWolfSpirit]

Northeast Wisconsin here, we were all disappointed to get our counties first confirmed case this week. The communities are doing a great job obeying the social distancing and safer at home guidelines from what I've been able to observe.

Parents are over in lower Michigan and the situation over there has me more concerned. Luckily they are taking every precaution and realizing the gravity of the times.

Gas was at $1.67 a gallon and sliding lower every other day it seems. Was no shortages for my normal groceries, although several signs with limits of how many you could purchase for things like the T.P., beans, tomato sauce, eggs, etc.

Biggest source of discomfort for my presently has been the loss of my swimming facilities, so I feel grateful so far, yet concerned that the worst is slowly coming.

[Mladen]

I have to admire the Balkan's politicians' undying ability to politicize everything. Between the snide remarks made towards EU and praises of brotherly (!?!?!?!) love from China, I have to admit Serbian president takes the cake. You think Trump is bad. Oh, boy, you have seen nothing. In a manner of one week (between February, 27th and March, 6th), Serbian president went from laughing to the idea of "going to shopping in Milan" and begging people to be responsible. Oh, yes, coronavirus has locked us all in our houses and almost every day, our President is kind enough to provide a world-class entertainment. Personal favorite was his idea that we will have graveyard "from Belgrade to Cacak" (roughly 300 km) if we allow senior citizens to go out for an hour each day.

That said, sadly, Serbian people have not been the most obedient in making sure the quarantine is respected. I am afraid of the consequences as the numbers are getting higher and higher.... And given the overall health of Serbian population (leading lists of pulmonary, cardio and renal  diseases in Europe), I am afraid to even think what may happen.

In Montenegro, the government appointed Minister of Agriculture as the Head of National Crisis Center. The country's Minister for Health has a Degree in Economy and by this day, has never worked in hospital or medical sector (I swear I am not making this up!!!) Last few days, Montenegrin society's focus has been the "stolen" respirators (apparently, Montenegro wanted to buy respirators from some Swedish company that has office in Belgrade. Unfortunately, the respirators could not be delivered due to embargo Serbia declared on export of medical equipment. The company informed Montenegrin authorities that respirators can't be delivered and because of that, they have sold them to Serbia.) This case provoked the usual Serbo-Montenegrin tennis match of nationalist insults in which, quite distastefully participated both sides.

So, all is well with political life in Balkan countries. That said, they may be enjoying these days and unlimited power they have but people are seriously going crazy. It's a ticking bomb ready to explode.

[Tears of Lys]

So I'm reading this list of how long C-19 germs live on different surfaces, like elevators buttons 2-3 days; wood 4 days; metal 5 days . . .

and I start to think about things not listed, like paper money or coins.  Unless you use charge cards for any purchases, anytime you pay in cash you handle money, right?

Makes you think.

 

[Rorshach]

8 hours ago, Ran said:

Denmark went full lock down more than two weeks ago, and the effect of the lockdown has so far been nil compared to Sweden's more modest changes when comparing deaths per capita. Norway has done better on that score, but is smaller and even less population dense than Sweden (about comparable with New Zealand, in fact, although Oslo is far more dense than Auckland, and Stockholm even more dense than that).

Worth noting that those pesky Danes live in a tiny country that you can walk around in a day.

 

 

 

Yeah, yeah, joke and all, but it is fascinating how small the coutry is, and what that does to perspective. My sister is married in Århus. Now, having lived in Norway - and Ethiopia - she, like us, thinks that an hour's drive anywhere is more or less walking distance. To a Dane, an hour's drive is faaaaaar (I submit my brother-in-law as an example).

[The Marquis de Leech]

7 hours ago, Makk said:

The economic hit for NZ is going to be nasty though and the taxpayer is going to be paying this off for a long time. At least the starting point was relatively healthy. I'm mainly concerned about what we do after the lock down. Are we going to close off the borders until a vaccine is developed? The self isolating methods we have imposed on overseas travelers have proven to be utterly inadequate and I'm mainly concerned we will be repeating this lock down in another few months.    

Oh, the economic hit to everyone will be brutal, but honestly, the New Zealand Government's (economic) handling of this has been very good.

New Zealand also has the massive advantage that if things really break down, we have food. Or at least meat and dairy. It would not surprise me if the Government is dusting off old Muldoonist ideas about local production (rice in Northland, sugarbeets in South Otago? Sugar is completely imported...).

[Jace, Extat]

Now I'm imagining skinny Peter Jackson in a bunker (made to resemble Bilbo's house of course) dressed like an -insert mental image of a doomsday preper- cultivating his precious supply of sugarcane.

[Luzifer's right hand]

57 minutes ago, Tears of Lys said:

So I'm reading this list of how long C-19 germs live on different surfaces, like elevators buttons 2-3 days; wood 4 days; metal 5 days . . .

and I start to think about things not listed, like paper money or coins.  Unless you use charge cards for any purchases, anytime you pay in cash you handle money, right?

Makes you think.

 

Paying with cards or phones is strongly encouraged here in Austria anyways because it reduces contact between store employees and customers.  They even want to increase the amount you can pay with contactless cards without having to enter you pin code(it is 25 € now). Austria is still a pretty cash heavy country though. 

A plus for the Scandinavian countries I guess.

[The Marquis de Leech]

Just now, Jace, Basilissa said:

Now I'm imagining skinny Peter Jackson in a bunker (made to resemble Bilbo's house of course) dressed like an -insert mental image of a doomsday preper- cultivating his precious supply of sugarcane.

I've occasionally pondered Jacinda ringing up the Cubans, and offering to swap milk powder for sugar and doctors.

[Which Tyler]

https://aatishb.com/covidtrends/

[DMC]

17 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

Now I'm imagining skinny Peter Jackson in a bunker

I totally want to live in Peter Jackson's bunker forever.

[Jace, Extat]

12 minutes ago, DMC said:

I totally want to live in Peter Jackson's bunker forever.

After The Hobbit he seems a bit morose for my taste.

[DMC]

4 minutes ago, Jace, Basilissa said:

After The Hobbit he seems a bit morose for my taste.

Compartmentalize!!!