Covid-19 #15 : It Ain't Over Until It's Over

[Clueless Northman]

22 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Saw this unreferenced comment in an article. Interesting if true, as some people think most deaths are in people who would be predicted to die within about a year.

 

23 hours ago, Zorral said:

They don't want to talk about airborne transmission because that is going to make people afraid," he said. There's also an element of worry that if people think the virus is airborne, they'll stop doing other things they need to do to prevent transmission.

By now, it should be obvious that both of these claims - that deaths are very sick people that were going to die anyway and that Covid is definitely not airborne - were made by the sociopaths that don't give a damn about people's lifes and worry only about their bank accounts. To put it simply, by the fucking criminal assholes who rule us and don't want people to panic not because they would "stop doing other things to prevent transmission" but because the normal reactions of people would be to shun some of the economic activities they want to see go unimpaired, as everything was ok, because people knowing the truth would endanger their precious "economic recovery". Well, fuck them. They're going to destroy their fucking precious economy even more by doing so badly their job and by choosing half-assed measures to end the lockdown.

 

12 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

Another article with academics claiming that SARS-COV-2 has been around for longer than first thought and did not necessarily (probably did not) originate in China.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/07/05/covid-19-may-not-have-originated-china-elsewhere-emerged-asia/

Frankly seems ludicrous. It's not terrorist sleeping cells, it's a virus. It doesn'g lie dormant across half the world just to awaken at the same time everywhere to hit us. That a dormant virus was activated somewhere and then spread the world over might be credible, but I'd consider this whole thing as bullshit. Actually, I'd wonder if any news rag or any "research centre" coming up with something so blatantly ridiculous should be taken seriously at all.

 

11 hours ago, Filippa Eilhart said:

It's definitely been suggested it may likely be a yearly vaccine similar to flu.

Yearly vaccine would be required if that jerk of a virus mutates fast. We probably don't have enough people infected to see how quick it'd be if a huge numbers of humans were infected - like with the flu. So far, this is a risk, but plenty of other viruses have long-term immunities, and a few others grant a limited immunity, including one for their wider group (say, a degree of resistance and faster reaction against the entire range of coronaviruses).

 

4 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

There are similar cases with more or less success: Paraguay, Cuba, Costa Rica, Thailand, Mongolia, Vietnam and probably many others. It shows you that it is possible to maintain a level of control over the pandemic without destroying society. It shows you that failure to contain this can be laid at hands of governments, international organizations and society in general. 

This is massively important and should be reported again, and again, and again across Western countries. Our governments trying to convince us they've done their best and can't do wrong, and NO ONE could've seen it coming and could've done a better job than they've done, are lying criminals. They basically left us to die. Heck, there's a lot of 3rd world dictators that have been accused of "killing their own people" who didn't kill that many of their citizens in just a few months, yet have been overthrown, sanctioned, jailed or shipped to The Hague for less than what some current leaders did - willingly leaving tens of thousands of their countrymen to die just to protect the economic interests of their buddies. When all this is over, I hope a lot of them end up in the dock and serve time at high-security prisons, because they surely don't deserve more than this.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

13 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

950 Deaths in the USA today. The last time there was over 900 deaths in a day was 11 June, which more or less corresponds to 20 days after daily case numbers started to drop. Today's spike corresponds to more or less 20 days after daily case numbers started rising again.

It will be surprising if this number is only a one off spike. More likely is that daily death count will go over 1000 and stay there for quite a while.

So much for things getting better in the summer months.....

[The Anti-Targ]

In a few days, the USA will officially pass 1% of the population as confirmed cases of COVID-19. We know it is already probably close to 10% so the 1% mark is meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but still 1% of the population having tested positive for the virus is pretty grim.

[Guest]

27 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

950 Deaths in the USA today. The last time there was over 900 deaths in a day was 11 June, which more or less corresponds to 20 days after daily case numbers started to drop. Today's spike corresponds to more or less 20 days after daily case numbers started rising again.

It will be surprising if this number is only a one off spike. More likely is that daily death count will go over 1000 and stay there for quite a while.

I wasn't going to say anything yet, as there is the possibility that this could be a one-off (Arizona reported over 100 deaths today, but at least some of those are certainly due to reporting backlog from the 4th of July holiday), but it's been fairly apparent that after dropping precipitously in early and mid-June, the death rate has started to level off at the same time that cases and hospitalizations are rising. The death toll can't be too far behind.

It does seem like there is a certain amount of permissible economic activity that allows cases, hospitalizations, and deaths to be manageable by not having hospitals being overwhelmed, but it is just as certain that the amount of activity in the U.S. is far beyond that point of equilibrium. Cases here today spiked 47% above the previous high water point, which was only set last week I believe.

It's also been 16 days since Trump's rally here, so I suspect we are getting ready to reap that whirlwind.

[The Anti-Targ]

What the hell is wrong with people? Today it was reported that a person "escaped" from their isolation hotel and went to a supermarket to buy some stuff, then they returned to the hotel. Probably thinking they could sneak out and sneak back in. That was Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning they got the test result back for their day 3 SARS-COV-2 test and it was positive. So for an hour or so this person was the only person in the country roaming around freely with the virus, potentially infecting other people and contaminating the supermarket he went to. Hotel security and the police were not able to find this person while they were out. If they hadn't come back to the hotel of their own accord who knows how long they might have been able to wander around before being apprehended.

I know for most people here this is like, what's the big deal? We've got people dying every day from this. And you would be right, New Zealand is in a very fortunate position for our biggest worry with this disease being one person  out and about for a short period of time. But we really don't want the virus coming back in due to the irresponsible and selfish behaviour of one or two people. I guess this is the COVID version of "first world problems", but it is still a problem.

I guess at some point hotel management and security are going to have to stop trusting that hotel guests will do the right thing and will have to start treating people in isolation like inmates.

[AndrewJ]

Speaking of "what the hell is wrong with people?" Have you heard the speculation re what instigated the second wave in Melbourne-Australia?

Australia was pretty much at zero community cases a couple of weeks ago and the only new cases were recent arrivals who were in hotel quarantine. Until one security guard at a Melbourne hotel had sex with one of the quarantined detainees and then went off to his second job as an Uber driver, ferrying people all around Melbourne. And now Melbourne is at 191 cases a day.

[The Anti-Targ]

I had heard that report about a sharing of body fluid between a security guard and a guest. I do hope it ends up just being an urban legend. Or has it actually been credibly confirmed.

Of course on the day of the sexual liaison he wouldn't be infectious to his Uber passengers, but after a couple of days then the spread would be on.

[RhaenysBee]

11 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

You hear so gloomy. I also have my days. There are still good news around. You may want to read the story how a developing country is defeating this pandemic without a lockdown

https://theconversation.com/uruguay-quietly-beats-coronavirus-distinguishing-itself-from-its-south-american-neighbors-yet-again-140037

There are similar cases with more or less success: Paraguay, Cuba, Costa Rica, Thailand, Mongolia, Vietnam and probably many others. It shows you that it is possible to maintain a level of control over the pandemic without destroying society. It shows you that failure to contain this can be laid at hands of governments, international organizations and society in general. 

We know already many things about this disease. We know that superspreading events drive the evolution of the pandemic. We know that children are less affected by the disease and neither are vectors of transmission. We know that masks are probably very effective. We know that contact tracing is a must. We know a lot about risk factors which can be used for targeted interventions. We know that despite associated statistical risks there is a wide variation in symptoms and severity across the population. It is not necessarily a death sentence for the elderly. 

My current gloominess isn’t really Covid related, but it’s true that I haven’t been optimistic about it for some time, and I must say opening a news app (any news app, local or international, or even just social media) hardly helps that. 

You are however, perfectly right, there are positive things and they should be talked about and reported. Thanks for sharing them! 

[AndrewJ]

3 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I had heard that report about a sharing of body fluid between a security guard and a guest. I do hope it ends up just being an urban legend. Or has it actually been credibly confirmed.

 

Officially, a security guard "breached protocol". When asked to comment on reports that the guard had "intimate relations" with a guest, they declined to do so. So yeah... rumour and speculation at this stage.

[DireWolfSpirit]

This has got to be a terrible period for folks that are single against their wishes.

[Jeor]

9 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

950 Deaths in the USA today. The last time there was over 900 deaths in a day was 11 June, which more or less corresponds to 20 days after daily case numbers started to drop. Today's spike corresponds to more or less 20 days after daily case numbers started rising again.

It will be surprising if this number is only a one off spike. More likely is that daily death count will go over 1000 and stay there for quite a while.

Yes, I think this is the beginning of the death count rising again. I take it that the cases are generally much younger people, and now hospitals have a better idea of how to treat it and have some tools to use (remdesivir). But the fact that these case counts are much higher than the previous peak will probably balance it out. So many needless deaths.

[Gorn]

 In my part of the world, Serbia's president / elected dictator Vucic has fucked up the CoViD-19 response to a previously unprecedented level.

When the disease first appeared in Serbia, the response was heavy-handed (curfews, lockdowns, closure of travel), but apparently successful. Then, about one month before the scheduled parliamentary elections, victory over CoViD was declared, every single restriction was suddenly lifted, and testing was scaled back. We're talking about crowded stadiums and nightclubs, with people being encouraged to live normally, with no mask or spacing enforcement of even recommendation.

After his party won the election with 75% of seats (most of the opposition boycotted), some independent journalists found out that the government was hiding as many as two thirds of CoViD deaths - there were more than six hundred hospital deaths of coronavirus-positive patients at the time, but only about two hundred entered the statistics.

More importantly, pretending that the virus was gone and hiding the truth eventually ended up with the sadly expected results - the hospital system is collapsing under the strain, a huge number of people are dying or in critical condition - no-one knows how many, since no-one believes the government numbers anymore. Then Vucic suddenly makes another U-turn, and announces that the capital city will be under curfew for the entire weekend, from Friday afternoon until Monday morning, with no-one allowed to leave their homes. The result?

 

[Luzifer's right hand]

23 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

Threaten them with a new lockdown and people will comply soon enough.

I think the only threat that is working is that they are closing child care facilities again. This hurts a lot of people. 

[Werthead]

On 7/6/2020 at 10:14 PM, Luzifer's right hand said:

In the state of Austria I live in we are now back to masks in shops and restaurants. Most people I know seem incredible hostile to the idea. 

It was a big mistake that our goverment caved in to the pressure of the anti-mask crowd I think. Mask discipline was really good but I fear that people will not accept it the 2nd time now that most people seem to believe that the federal goverment overreacted. 

Popular tourist destinations closing borders again might wake people up. 

One of the reporters attending the Austrian Grand Prix (in Spielberg, Styria) reported wearing his mask into a petrol station and reported that he got a very hostile response, which he was quite taken aback by.

[Fragile Bird]

8 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

What the hell is wrong with people? Today it was reported that a person "escaped" from their isolation hotel and went to a supermarket to buy some stuff, then they returned to the hotel. Probably thinking they could sneak out and sneak back in. That was Tuesday night. On Wednesday morning they got the test result back for their day 3 SARS-COV-2 test and it was positive.  <snip>

 

7 hours ago, AndrewJ said:

Speaking of "what the hell is wrong with people?" Have you heard the speculation re what instigated the second wave in Melbourne-Australia? <snip>

We had a similar case here in Canada, but fortunately like in NZ it got caught fairly quickly. Someone returning from the US landed in Toronto and then caught their connecting flight to Nova Scotia. He would have been told to self-quarantine for 14 days. Instead he met with a friend from PEI. The little province of PEI hasn’t had a case in 2 months. The guy’s girlfriend works in a nursing home. She wore PPE and didn’t deal with patients, and self-isolated as soon as she felt ill. All three tested positive. All the residents and workers at the home had to be tested, all negative, but they’ll have to be tested again to confirm.

I don’t know how many people have been tested in Nova Scotia, but everyone on the flights have been warned to watch for symptoms. The 4 Maritime provinces have gone into a shared bubble, meaning residents can cross the borders without needing to quarantine, because their numbers are so low, no cases in weeks or only one or two.

Harry Potter comes to mind here - you must be vigilant!

[rotting sea cow]

8 hours ago, The Anti-Targ said:

I guess at some point hotel management and security are going to have to stop trusting that hotel guests will do the right thing and will have to start treating people in isolation like inmates.

 

7 hours ago, AndrewJ said:

Speaking of "what the hell is wrong with people?" Have you heard the speculation re what instigated the second wave in Melbourne-Australia?

Australia was pretty much at zero community cases a couple of weeks ago and the only new cases were recent arrivals who were in hotel quarantine. Until one security guard at a Melbourne hotel had sex with one of the quarantined detainees and then went off to his second job as an Uber driver, ferrying people all around Melbourne. And now Melbourne is at 191 cases a day.

 

Well, yesterday I saw a twitter thread about the situation in Australian hotels (aka sanitary residences, aka quarantine prisons). Material to facepalm.

 

 

[rotting sea cow]

2 hours ago, Gorn said:

 In my part of the world, Serbia's president / elected dictator Vucic has fucked up the CoViD-19 response to a previously unprecedented level.

When the disease first appeared in Serbia, the response was heavy-handed (curfews, lockdowns, closure of travel), but apparently successful. Then, about one month before the scheduled parliamentary elections, victory over CoViD was declared, every single restriction was suddenly lifted, and testing was scaled back. We're talking about crowded stadiums and nightclubs, with people being encouraged to live normally, with no mask or spacing enforcement of even recommendation.

After his party won the election with 75% of seats (most of the opposition boycotted), some independent journalists found out that the government was hiding as many as two thirds of CoViD deaths - there were more than six hundred hospital deaths of coronavirus-positive patients at the time, but only about two hundred entered the statistics.

More importantly, pretending that the virus was gone and hiding the truth eventually ended up with the sadly expected results - the hospital system is collapsing under the strain, a huge number of people are dying or in critical condition - no-one knows how many, since no-one believes the government numbers anymore. Then Vucic suddenly makes another U-turn, and announces that the capital city will be under curfew for the entire weekend, from Friday afternoon until Monday morning, with no-one allowed to leave their homes. The result?

 

I woke up this morning and saw it in the news. I wondered what was all about, so thanks for your reporting.

[rotting sea cow]

11 hours ago, Clueless Northman said:

This is massively important and should be reported again, and again, and again across Western countries. Our governments trying to convince us they've done their best and can't do wrong, and NO ONE could've seen it coming and could've done a better job than they've done, are lying criminals. They basically left us to die. Heck, there's a lot of 3rd world dictators that have been accused of "killing their own people" who didn't kill that many of their citizens in just a few months, yet have been overthrown, sanctioned, jailed or shipped to The Hague for less than what some current leaders did - willingly leaving tens of thousands of their countrymen to die just to protect the economic interests of their buddies. When all this is over, I hope a lot of them end up in the dock and serve time at high-security prisons, because they surely don't deserve more than this.

I should have added Japan and Taiwan to the list of the countries which have managed this things quite well. It must again be highlighted that they have done so WITHOUT lockdowns or quarantines or with light versions of it. How? Just by reacting early, just by taking things seriously, just by being responsible. The countries that have managed the pandemic well are diverse in terms of developing status and political systems. Same with the countries that have done things badly.

Sure, things are not over and many of these countries might see a wave sooner or later. But every month they have delayed it is a month gained in the understanding of the disease. These countries have managed to keep working with more or less disruption as expected in these situations, but they haven't suffered like those countries that refused to take early measures and had to go in full lockdown because there were no alternatives left.

In conclusion, by being responsible, these countries were able to save lives and their economies at the same time.

 

[The Anti-Targ]

35 minutes ago, rotting sea cow said:

I should have added Japan and Taiwan to the list of the countries which have managed this things quite well. It must again be highlighted that they have done so WITHOUT lockdowns or quarantines or with light versions of it. How? Just by reacting early, just by taking things seriously, just by being responsible. The countries that have managed the pandemic well are diverse in terms of developing status and political systems. Same with the countries that have done things badly.

Sure, things are not over and many of these countries might see a wave sooner or later. But every month they have delayed it is a month gained in the understanding of the disease. These countries have managed to keep working with more or less disruption as expected in these situations, but they haven't suffered like those countries that refused to take early measures and had to go in full lockdown because there were no alternatives left.

In conclusion, by being responsible, these countries were able to save lives and their economies at the same time.

 

I don't know about saving economies exactly. I don't think any country's economy comes out of this unscathed regardless of the small impact of the virus directly. Best that can be said is limiting the depth of recession.

The "only" problem our economy faces right now is having zero foreign tourism and zero international students. The problem is tourism is the largest single "export" sector for our economy and international students are a substantial and vital source of revenue for our universities (because of decades of govt underfunding), and students spend a decent amount in the local economy too. So despite being totally virus free within the freely circulating population our economy is in recession. Our exports of goods (mostly food and timber) are doing very well - timber not so much. The international dairy price (our biggest food export sector) went up quite a bit in the last round of dairy auctions, Our pet food exports actually grew in volume and value throughout the whole of 2020 so far. But that is not enough to compensate the the billions lost from tourism and international students. Hobbiton must be doing it real tough right now.

At least we have the Avatar crew here and filming. So there's that I guess.

[Loge]

1 hour ago, rotting sea cow said:

I should have added Japan and Taiwan to the list of the countries which have managed this things quite well. It must again be highlighted that they have done so WITHOUT lockdowns or quarantines or with light versions of it. How? Just by reacting early, just by taking things seriously, just by being responsible. The countries that have managed the pandemic well are diverse in terms of developing status and political systems. Same with the countries that have done things badly.

Sure, things are not over and many of these countries might see a wave sooner or later. But every month they have delayed it is a month gained in the understanding of the disease. These countries have managed to keep working with more or less disruption as expected in these situations, but they haven't suffered like those countries that refused to take early measures and had to go in full lockdown because there were no alternatives left.

In conclusion, by being responsible, these countries were able to save lives and their economies at the same time.

 

People in those countries are a lot more disciplined than in the West. In Europe and North America you can't trust people to follow the government's recommendations, and you'd better not make rules you aren't ready to enforce. Western countries haven't seen a pandemic or restrictions of personal freedom like the ones we saw under the lockdown since WW2 either, so there is some excuse for governments to have been hesitant. That said, they should  have been planning for it since at least late January. But then it was just a Chinese problem...