Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

This should be standard management of a spreading infection. It was used in the TB outbreak my daughter got involved in. The strain was traced across the school using molecular biology. I am actually slightly surprised that the TB doctors have not been raising issues about tracing more - presumably they are not in a position to comment on policy.

 

From the BBC website:

"Coronavirus in Scotland: Who is dying and where?
The Scottish government has changed the way it reports coronavirus deaths in Scotland.

The daily figures from Health Protection Scotland will still be published, but additional figures from the National Records of Scotland (NRS) will now be released every Wednesday.

These new figures include all cases where Covid-19 is mentioned on a death certificate, even if the patient was not in hospital and had not been tested - and even if the virus was just one of a number of factors."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-52214177

Link to National Records of Scotland, pdf for week 14 gives the further details,

https://www.nrscotland.gov.uk/covid19stats

 

The model also gives a range of predicted deaths. For instance, when it predicted 1308 deaths in the UK on Friday (4/10) it gave a range of 537 to 2782. [I'll admit that's a fairly wide range.]

I noticed that the real numbers haven't been updated since 4/9. Maybe they don't get raw data on the weekend.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...ing-hardest-modern-equivalent-victorian-slums

Cramped living conditions may be accelerating UK spread of coronavirus

Analysis by the New Policy Institute shows that even after allowing for the much higher infection rates in London, the top five most-crowded areas in the country have seen 70% more coronavirus cases than the five least-crowded, where better-off homeowners are likely to live in larger homes with spare bedrooms and more than one bathroom.

Coronavirus hotspots such as London, which has 16,011 cases, and Birmingham, which has 1,604 cases, both have pockets of extreme overcrowding. Just over 11% of homes in the capital and 9% of homes in Birmingham are classed as overcrowded – the two highest rates in the UK.

Professor Gabriel Scally, president of epidemiology at the Royal Society of Medicine, said he was enormously concerned that the virus was spreading through overcrowded housing because it passed easily between people living in close proximity and sharing facilities such as toilets and kitchens. “Houses in multiple occupation must be in the same category as care homes because of the sheer press of people,” he said. “I have no doubt that these kinds of overcrowded conditions are tremendously potent in spreading the virus.”

 

The figure for overcrowded homes is likely to be much higher in reality (by most people's understanding of the term). My council house would officially only be considered to be overcrowded after the living room has been used by 2 adults as an 'additional bedroom'. That would leave only the kitchen and the bathroom as 'non-bedrooms'! This is the principle applied to all social housing accommodation (whereas having just one free bedroom means the house is under-occupied).

https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/repairs/check_if_your_home_is_overcrowded_by_law

 

Funny how none of those behaviourists are interested in how living in such crowded & cramped environments affect people's mental health.

 

Well, I learned something new today! Thanks @Adrian for that cartoon explanation.

 

and of course actually having a mobile phone

 

These apps are a lovely idea, they really are.

I'm still not signing up to them. I have zero trust in the privacy.

I have a very low online presence and yet I have had various apps recommended & forwarded to me from all angles. It's getting very annoying.

This isn't aimed at you @Adrian - liked the cartoon post explanation - just in general.

 

Is the U.K. definitely going to be getting a tracking app? I remember an article about that - but were they just exploring that or is it definitely getting rolled out to everyone?

 

I hope this is not a reporting glitch, but good news in Australia.

After plateauing for most of a week, new cases plummeted yesterday to a level not seen since the start of the pandemic. I do think it will spike suddenly for a bit, as we are taking in maybe 100 cases from cruise ships - I am not sure when this will happen though, I did not follow up on the story.

 

Rosalyn J. Moran et al. Estimating required ‘lockdown’ cycles before immunity to SARS-CoV-2: Model-based analyses of susceptible population sizes, ‘S0’, in seven European countries including the UK and Ireland: https://www.fil.ion.ucl.ac.uk/spm/covid-19/Moran_arXiv_2020.pdf

https://twitter.com/user/status/1249305829351796738

I'd recommend reading all of Anthony Costello's summary of the paper by clicking on the Twitter thread above - 23 posts in all.

He concludes:
https://twitter.com/user/status/1249305866056204289

https://twitter.com/user/status/1249305872033034240

https://twitter.com/user/status/1249305879863857152

https://twitter.com/user/status/1249305885530341376

 

Best wait for a few days after Easter, as testing numbers might be down over the long weekend too. Will see

 

Yes, the number of tests tends to drop over the weekends here. The long weekend has seen even less testing: https://www.covidlive.com.au/

 

Testing rates have dropped to around 25% over the weekend, so take these figures with a heavy dose of skepticism.