For WHOm the Bell Tolls - Covid-19 #11

[Winterfell is Burning]

I live in Rio, and those are the numbers we have- of course, the number of infected is likely far greater, since there's not enough tests- I know someone that had pretty much all the symptoms, but when went to get tested, was told they're only testing if you're having problems breathing, or another very intense symptom.

[Fury Resurrected]

5 hours ago, Zorral said:

Some of them still have it, you betcha.

But generally when it comes to a lot of currently domestic breeds of most animals I wouldn't want to put them up against their traditional prey and enemies.

Ye olde collie guardian of flocks and herds in Scotland way back when could and did go up against wolves -- that deep, thick, multi-layered ruff was its armor against a wolf's great weapon, its jaws and teeth.  But your average show collies of these days, probably not.

Just like all these very popular pushed in faces of show breed cats -- they can hardly breathe now, much less able to intake enough oxygen to catch a mouse, or even eat it with their drastically foreshortened jaws.

I have two Persians right now, and while I don’t think we should be breeding these abominations and Fernando needs to travel to Illinois for a novel face surgery for his brachycephaly, I can say with total confidence both of these fluffy goblins can kill. I just got off a telemedicine call with my vet about an abscess that my domestic shorthair has on his foot from getting bitten by one of the Persians. Cats have been messed with by humans much less than dogs, and they are different as they are obligate carnivores and solitary hunters.

[Ran]

UK boarders, any information on where I can find coronavirus statistics (new cases, deaths) over time just for London? Preferably with handy charts, not just spread sheets.

[Heartofice]

11 minutes ago, Ran said:

UK boarders, any information on where I can find coronavirus statistics (new cases, deaths) over time just for London? Preferably with handy charts, not just spread sheets.

The ONS website shows deaths and cases by region, but I've only seen monthly reports, not seen london split out over time. But worth checking there.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending3april2020#deaths-by-region

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Winterfell is Burning said:

I live in Rio, and those are the numbers we have- of course, the number of infected is likely far greater, since there's not enough tests- I know someone that had pretty much all the symptoms, but when went to get tested, was told they're only testing if you're having problems breathing, or another very intense symptom.

If you live in Rio, think about the favelas.

[Kalbear]

7 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

If you live in Rio, think about the favelas.

Oddly those are apparently doing not hideously bad, because gangs are being very strict about enforcing social distancing and supplying things as needed. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Oddly those are apparently doing not hideously bad, because gangs are being very strict about enforcing social distancing and supplying things as needed. 

It's possible that's true, but I also doubt they are stopping the spread much. I know what I saw during my travels in SA, and there's no way to stop this once it gets into the slums, and I doubt the governments would even track it. I'm not even sure how they would.

Or just to throw it to another part of the world, Bangladesh. How could you control a widespread outbreak there? I think we are seeing some more promising results than expected, but I'm still highly skeptical that a lot of places have been reporting honest numbers, assuming they're testing much at all. 

[Zorral]

Doesn't seem the US is doing any better testing than most places and a lot worse than most too.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Zorral said:

Doesn't seem the US is doing any better testing than most places and a lot worse than most too.

The US is doing significantly worse than most places, given its actual population, the resources devoted to it and the promises made. 

This is especially true given the size of the outbreak. 

I'm happy to say that at least Inslee in WA is being sane about this and saying that opening back up requires more testing capacity first and foremost. But I am terrified about what the rest of the country is going to do.

[Bonnot OG]

Trump is such a worthless piece of shit as are the rest of the GOP that are going to kill more people to better their stock portfolios. Their cult will eat it up as we’ve seen:

 

this shit isn’t gonna stop anytime soon here in the us because of these chuds 

[Werthead]

The US and Brazil seem to be the two countries which are really having major problems (Bolsonaro's behaviour is totally unhinged), and at least in the US you now have the majority of state governors behaving sensibly. My concern is that the US seems to be primed for multiple outbreaks if Trump manages to get the lockdowns lifted early, and that could trigger other outbreaks across the world (apparently 50,000 people arrived in Britain from overseas this week - which is insane in itself - and many of them came from America with no tests or checks at the airports).

[Bonnot OG]

13 minutes ago, Werthead said:

The US and Brazil seem to be the two countries which are really having major problems (Bolsonaro's behaviour is totally unhinged), and at least in the US you now have the majority of state governors behaving sensibly. My concern is that the US seems to be primed for multiple outbreaks if Trump manages to get the lockdowns lifted early, and that could trigger other outbreaks across the world (apparently 50,000 people arrived in Britain from overseas this week - which is insane in itself - and many of them came from America with no tests or checks at the airports).

It’s going to happen. 

[Winterfell is Burning]

Bolsonaro is actually more unhinged than Trump at this current moment. 

Should be said in Brazil most of the governors are performing well , and part of the reason Bolsonaro is losing it is seeing that some potential rivals in 2022 were getting good press out of it by just being sane and taking the measures most experts are recommending.

That said, number of tests per person here is even lower than in the US.

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, Werthead said:

The US and Brazil seem to be the two countries which are really having major problems (Bolsonaro's behaviour is totally unhinged), and at least in the US you now have the majority of state governors behaving sensibly. My concern is that the US seems to be primed for multiple outbreaks if Trump manages to get the lockdowns lifted early, and that could trigger other outbreaks across the world (apparently 50,000 people arrived in Britain from overseas this week - which is insane in itself - and many of them came from America with no tests or checks at the airports).

We had 1 M Canadians arrive from around the world back in March, about 1/3rd from the US, 1/3rd from Europe and the rest from every country imaginable. The ones who came back from the US are on the top of the list for infections, next the ones from the UK, next ones from cruises (most would have gone through the US) and then Mexico. If those 700 people in Ontario infected 3 people and those people infected 3 people, you have all the reported cases in the province. And those people infected many more, people who are not counted because they weren’t tested and confirmed.

eta: I mean contact tracing of the earliest infected. About half the cases have been traced. Only 5 came home from China, all from Wuhan I think. Cases 1, 2 and 3, in fact. At this point, 13.2% of cases were travel cases, 393 from the US, 124 the UK, 72 from cruises, 68 from Mexico, 48 from Spain. 70 countries altogether and 4 other provinces.

[The Anti-Targ]

13 hours ago, Heartofice said:

Even in somewhere like New Zealand I don’t see how you can prevent the disease being brought back into the country at a later date. You won’t ever be able to check every single person and item coming into the country. You can’t just identify travellers from certain areas because it’s already too widespread.

What I should have said is functionally eradicate until there is a vaccine (still crossing fingers that it's possible to develop a vaccine). What I mean by functionally eradicated is that with some diseases you can still say a country is free from the disease even if you continue to have a low background of cases. IN New Zealand's case we have an example in the animal health space with bovine Tb. We meet the international criteria for country freedom even though we get handfuls of cases in cattle and deer each year, and wild possums will continue to be a reservoir of disease for years to come. 

New Zealand may be able to eliminate the disease domestically, and to keep it that way while the disease is in free circulation in most of the world the border will need to remain pretty much closed and all arrivals will need to be qurantined for at least 2 weeks. The exception may be if countries have credible "immunity certificates" that can't easily be forged. Of course Boris will be able to visit any time, once he's well enough to travel; but he shouldn't because he has a country to run. We'd probably wave Tom Hanks across the border too, so long as he's learned the proper application of vegemite to toast.

8 new cases today, 2 new deaths. Things are going pretty much as I predicted with death rate going up and daily cases going down and hitting single digits going into the 4th week. The good thing is that the 8 new cases is associated with the 2nd highest number of tests in a single day, which gives us confidence that 8 is close to the real number of new cases. Number of active cases is less than 600. Some people are starting to bleat about the economy, but I think if we keep doing it tough and the govt makes sure people can keep paying their bills and buying food for another month we might well have this thing beat.

I will be able to buy drive thru KFC next week though, as we move from level 4 to level 3, which will be a nice treat. One opposition politician said level 3 is level 4 with KFC, and if she meant that to be a criticism of govt policy it didn't land with me, because I am totally fine with that situation.

What I am not fine with is the situation in developing countries where testing rates remain very low at less than 1,000 per million population. I hope I'm wrong, but I think the cost in lives and general health in many of these countries is going to be staggering. They are not tracking down the disease to be able to effectively control it, and many / most lack the health care infrastructure to deal with high numbers of people with severe symptoms.

China sent medical (and lab) teams to Italy to help out a month or so back. As wealthy countries start to get a handle on things we should be sending medical and lab teams to developing countries to help out.

Some developing countries do seem to be doing OK. My sister has a friend in Uganda, and while the economic impact is pretty bad (he lost his job in Kampala, then lost his job back in his home village, then had to sell his cell phone to by food for the family) he said there is no real sign the disease is spreading significantly. Uganda closed its borders pretty early on, which probably helped quite a bit. I'm not sure I believe the official number of 55 cases, but it sounds like their cases/million could still be very low.

[JoannaL]

9 hours ago, Werthead said:

The US and Brazil seem to be the two countries which are really having major problems (Bolsonaro's behaviour is totally unhinged), and at least in the US you now have the majority of state governors behaving sensibly. My concern is that the US seems to be primed for multiple outbreaks if Trump manages to get the lockdowns lifted early, and that could trigger other outbreaks across the world (apparently 50,000 people arrived in Britain from overseas this week - which is insane in itself - and many of them came from America with no tests or checks at the airports).

Do you not have compulsory quarantine for anyone who comes from outside? As far as I know the EU forbad all foreign arrivals. And if you are a citizen returning, you have to go into self-isolation for two weeks upon return. Even between the countries there are similar regulations in place. In Germany for example you can cross the border if you have a good reason (for example if you live in a border region and go to work in a diffretn country), but the moment you stay for a night somewhere else you have to go in the two week self-isolation.

[Jeor]

The USA is going to have to rely on state governors' sanity and some key market conditions to keep things safe. So long as domestic air travel is very limited (reportedly many of the major airlines are slashing their domestic routes to virtually nil) then that will help. One of the problems with keeping the lid on in the US is that there's so much domestic travel for business and whatnot, but the hibernated economy should mean businesses and airlines tighten the spigots, cutting off one avenue for a second wave exploding nation-wide.

[JoannaL]

5 minutes ago, Jeor said:

The USA is going to have to rely on state governors' sanity and some key market conditions to keep things safe. So long as domestic air travel is very limited (reportedly many of the major airlines are slashing their domestic routes to virtually nil) then that will help. One of the problems with keeping the lid on in the US is that there's so much domestic travel for business and whatnot, but the hibernated economy should mean businesses and airlines tighten the spigots, cutting off one avenue for a second wave exploding nation-wide.

Is it theoretically possible to close the borders between US-states?

[Jeor]

4 minutes ago, JoannaL said:

Is it theoretically possible to close the borders between US-states?

An American boarder would probably know better, I'm guessing governors might be able to close their own borders, but a nationally coordinated plan would be more or less impossible.

 

[ljkeane]

Looking at the US it's notable how much worse it is in New York/New Jersey than all the other States. There are some other areas where it isn't great but it doesn't seem to be on the path to spiralling out of control like it has in New York anywhere else at the moment. I'd assumed that New York was just a little ahead of other places being a major international travel hub and we'd see other cities in similar straits but that doesn't seem to be the case at the moment. Sort of good news I suppose.