Covid-19 Pandemic

[Der Zeitgeist]

Useful graphic to understand the problem countries are facing now.

 

Edited March 6, 2020 by Der Zeitgeist

[Der Zeitgeist]

And something else that might be important in the coming weeks: Most and least common symptoms of COVID-19.

 

Getting ill with runny nose? Most likely not COVID.

 

[Harold Jones]

It's arrived (or more likely finally been noticed) here in Colorado. One case was diagnosed in the county I live in. I'll have to swing by the store tomorrow and see if all the TP and water have been bought up.

[Stargrunt6]

yep got 3 in my county here in Georgia. Good thing I stay at home.

[Der Zeitgeist]

My town has five confirmed cases so far, all in stable condition, and about two dozen people in mandatory home isolation that are still negative. All of them are recent returns from Skiing vacations in Italy.

 

Germany overall has close to 700 confirmed cases overall, with zero fatalities so far. Statistically speaking, we should have had a number of deaths already (assuming a case fatality rate of somewhere around 0.5 to 1%), which suggests that the overall testing system is catching cases pretty well so far.

 

Currently, these numbers seem to be the best way to judge how well a country manages to keep track of the domestic epidemic situation. If you have tons of cases but very few deaths, you're still in an early stage and keeping track of the cases pretty well. If your case fatality rate however is much higher, something like 5%+, like in Italy or the US, you can assume that there's something wrong with your testing procedures or capacities, and you're missing a large part of the infected population leading to these wildly inflated case fatality rates.

[Ssnake]

"Stable" is not a condition.

 

 

 

 

 

 

It needs to be mentioned from time to time.

[Skywalkre]

Two interesting tidbits from reddit yesterday. In a discussion about the seemingly drastic number of deaths in Italy someone highlighted how pretty much all of them were elderly with health issues. Apparently Italy as a nation is on average fairly old, something like 8 years older on average compared to the US. Couple this to the very close nature of the citizens (I saw something about how they were putting out PSAs to stop hugging and kissing each other so much) and it helps explains the death total.

 

The other one was odd considering what I thought I had heard was going on here in the States. A reporter came back through NYC after reporting from the worst spots in Italy... and not one time coming through customs was anything asked about where she had been or any measure taken to see how she was doing. I was under the impression such measures were now common everywhere... guess not.

[Nobu]

Customs/TSA has had enough time to establish a screening and even a 2 day testing protocol for incoming travelers from hotspots by now.

 

I would not be surprised if neither agency wanted to take on the responsibility.

[DB]

Useful graphic to understand the problem countries are facing now.

 

A good, clear graphic.

 

The UK response officially was described yesterday as having moved from "contain" to "delay", so they're hoping to follow the blue path now.

[Ssnake]

A reporter came back through NYC after reporting from the worst spots in Italy... and not one time coming through customs was anything asked about where she had been or any measure taken to see how she was doing. I was under the impression such measures were now common everywhere... guess not.

 

After my 7 hour layover in Hong Kong I was prepared to be quarantained in London, but it was just the usual laser gun to the head, and off you go. Maybe because I didn't go through border control since I was headed for Germany, so, someone else's problem. Maybe because Hong Kong doesn't count as mainland China, anyway. And to the German border control, I was coming from London, so there wasn't even a laser gun pointed at anyone from the plane. I understand that the governments don't weant to rock the boat of the economy too much but there's no way how that's going to contain the virus, or prevent a pandemic.

And of course, South Tyrol is another major hub of virus distribution because, Italy, and non-stop after ski parties. Big surprise, that.

[BansheeOne]

My town has five confirmed cases so far, all in stable condition, and about two dozen people in mandatory home isolation that are still negative. All of them are recent returns from Skiing vacations in Italy.

 

Germany overall has close to 700 confirmed cases overall, with zero fatalities so far. Statistically speaking, we should have had a number of deaths already (assuming a case fatality rate of somewhere around 0.5 to 1%), which suggests that the overall testing system is catching cases pretty well so far.

 

Currently, these numbers seem to be the best way to judge how well a country manages to keep track of the domestic epidemic situation. If you have tons of cases but very few deaths, you're still in an early stage and keeping track of the cases pretty well. If your case fatality rate however is much higher, something like 5%+, like in Italy or the US, you can assume that there's something wrong with your testing procedures or capacities, and you're missing a large part of the infected population leading to these wildly inflated case fatality rates.

 

Current CFRs in biggest national clusters outside China per Johns Hopkins:

 

South Korea - 44 : 6,767 = 0.65 %

 

Iran - 124 : 4,747 = 2.61 %

 

Italy - 197 : 4,636 = 4.25 %

 

Diamond Princess - 6 : 696 = 0.86 %

 

Germany - 0 : 670 = 0.00 %

 

France - 9 : 653 = 1.38 %

 

Japan - 6 : 420 = 1.43 %

 

Spain - 5 : 401 = 1.25 %

 

US - 14 : 338 = 4.14 %

 

Switzerland - 1 : 214 = 0.47 %

 

UK - 2 : 164 = 1.22 %

 

Singapore - 0 : 130 = 0.00 %

 

Netherlands - 1 : 128 = 0.78 %

 

In Italy and the US, the outbreaks seem to have hit particularly vulnerable populations in hospitals and nursing homes etc. In Germany one case is being reported as critical, a guy who was on immunosuppressiva to prepare for an organ transplant. I think this is still the 47-year-old at the root of the North Rhine-Westphalia cluster who had several hospital appointments prior to being diagnosed and was quickly put on life support. Singapore seems to have successfully contained the spread with no deaths so far despite having been hit early on.

[Der Zeitgeist]

After my 7 hour layover in Hong Kong I was prepared to be quarantained in London, but it was just the usual laser gun to the head, and off you go. Maybe because I didn't go through border control since I was headed for Germany, so, someone else's problem. Maybe because Hong Kong doesn't count as mainland China, anyway. And to the German border control, I was coming from London, so there wasn't even a laser gun pointed at anyone from the plane. I understand that the governments don't weant to rock the boat of the economy too much but there's no way how that's going to contain the virus, or prevent a pandemic.

 

 

Containment was always a long shot in a globalized world. Taiwan was one of the few countries that did pretty well, because they got hit pretty hard with SARS in 2003. After that, they prepared for the next one and built up solid plans and government institutions to go into action as soon as a new Coronavirus would pop up in mainland China.

 

They had mandatory fever check and quarantine protocols in place for anyone coming in from China back in January already, and accordingly, their case numbers are pretty low up to this day.

 

Italy was one of the few European countries that stopped flights from China early on, and they still had so many undetected cases walking around for weeks that they got swamped quickly. I guess it was just bad luck and too many possible connections with business travelers before they shut things down.

 

The US might be a similar case, where travel restrictions with China were emphasized early on and lead to complacency , but it was already too late to prevent cases getting into the country. Plus, the US lost an entire month in detecting cases because of the faulty CDC testing kits that delayed getting a fairly realistic idea about the situation for the past weeks.

 

In the coming weeks, I guess containment from overseas cases will become irrelevant and countries will increasingly have to look inwards to slow down community spread with various social distancing measures, relying on an increasingly vigilant population keeping away from each other and hoping for a hot and dry summer season slowing down infection rates.

[Ssnake]

And today's Ewww award goes to:

 

[Der Zeitgeist]

Also, just for the record, and for everyone still thinking this is "just like the flu" or a hoax to turn around the US election, I'm increasingly certain this will be a massive global disruption much more sweeping than 9/11.

 

One year from now, the world we live in could look very different than today.

[DougRichards]

Also, just for the record, and for everyone still thinking this is "just like the flu" or a hoax to turn around the US election, I'm increasingly certain this will be a massive global disruption much more sweeping than 9/11.

 

One year from now, the world we live in could look very different than today.

Quite possibly you are correct, particularly as the contagion seems to most adversely effect older people, who are more likely to be conservative than the young.

 

In democracies that may mean a noticeable (but small) reduction in votes for conservative politicians.

[BansheeOne]

Well, unlike the flu in that it's new and thorough measures may prevent it from becoming entrenched to create an additional seasonal strain on healthcare systems; and a different world in that everybody gets an education on those measures. However, the threshold to become more than the flu for the current season in Germany (which officially started in the second week of 2020, quite concurrently with COVID-19) is at an estimated 2.6 million cases seeing a doctor, of which ca. 120,000 confirmed by lab tests, and more than 200 deaths.

 

Not to speak of the national 2017/18 season, the worst for 30 years, which saw about nine million cases and 25,000 deaths (CFR ca. 0.28 %). That actually strained the German healthcare system pretty hard (not least because a lot of staff also fell sick), and we definitely don't need another similar sickness on top of that. That doesn't mean that in itself it's not just like the flu though, or will have long-term societal effects (maybe unfortunately).

[Rick]

Also, just for the record, and for everyone still thinking this is "just like the flu" or a hoax to turn around the US election, I'm increasingly certain this will be a massive global disruption much more sweeping than 9/11.

 

One year from now, the world we live in could look very different than today.

No offense implied, I don't believe this will occur.

[Der Zeitgeist]

 

Also, just for the record, and for everyone still thinking this is "just like the flu" or a hoax to turn around the US election, I'm increasingly certain this will be a massive global disruption much more sweeping than 9/11.

 

One year from now, the world we live in could look very different than today.

No offense implied, I don't believe this will occur.

 

 

None taken!

 

Save a bookmark for this thread and my post, I'll be happy to be proven wrong in March 2021.

[RETAC21]

Also, just for the record, and for everyone still thinking this is "just like the flu" or a hoax to turn around the US election, I'm increasingly certain this will be a massive global disruption much more sweeping than 9/11.

 

One year from now, the world we live in could look very different than today.

 

It will be like 9/11, global economy was already shaky, so this is a push in the bad direction, but a summer sets in, the number of cases will diminish and, fi the virus doesn't mutate, it may burn itself out.

[DB]

Behavioural changes may last longer.

 

At least it means that more people are washing their hands after visiting the bathroom, and more thoroughly. (Observational evidence. People are nasty.)

[Panzermann]

Behavioural changes may last longer.

 

At least it means that more people are washing their hands after visiting the bathroom, and more thoroughly. (Observational evidence. People are nasty.)

 

Less handshaking too. Less fingering your face.

 

 

---

 

the WHO approved recipes for disinfectant: https://www.who.int/gpsc/5may/Guide_to_Local_Production.pdf?ua=1

 

 

 

 

hmm I think I have two small bottles of isopropanol here somewhere and a bit of leftover peroxide.

Edited March 7, 2020 by Panzermann

[Harold Jones]

Handshaking and hugging may become a lot less common here, can't say as I would miss either much.

[Panzermann]

Handshaking and hugging may become a lot less common here, can't say as I would miss either much.

 

Hugging has become seriously commponplace around here in the last years. No idea where that came from.

[Jeff]

Two More Senior Iranian Officials Die of Chinese Coronavirus

 

It seems to be really hammering the senior levels of the Iranian government. It would be interesting to see how this impacts their ability to govern but also how would it affect other governments as well. A lot of governing is still face to face lobbying and discussion.

[Ivanhoe]

 

A reporter came back through NYC after reporting from the worst spots in Italy... and not one time coming through customs was anything asked about where she had been or any measure taken to see how she was doing. I was under the impression such measures were now common everywhere... guess not.

 

After my 7 hour layover in Hong Kong I was prepared to be quarantained in London, but it was just the usual laser gun to the head, and off you go. Maybe because I didn't go through border control since I was headed for Germany, so, someone else's problem. Maybe because Hong Kong doesn't count as mainland China, anyway. And to the German border control, I was coming from London, so there wasn't even a laser gun pointed at anyone from the plane. I understand that the governments don't weant to rock the boat of the economy too much but there's no way how that's going to contain the virus, or prevent a pandemic.

And of course, South Tyrol is another major hub of virus distribution because, Italy, and non-stop after ski parties. Big surprise, that.

 

 

What the future has in store for Ssnake;