Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

A couple of weeks ago I would have agreed with your worries. Back then there was a bit too much reliance on trust regarding self-isolation. A neighbouring rural fire brigade had to be stood down after having to cut a tourist out of his crashed car. He should have been isolating but had chosen not to. Fortunately he tested negative and there were no other call-outs while the crew was stood down. But so infuriating!

Now, however, things seem to have tightened up quite a bit. There are numerous reports of people arriving from overseas with self-isolation plans but officials deeming the plan unconvincing and sending them into quarantine at an airport hotel requisitioned for the purpose. There are also plans to use parked up campervans for quarantine purposes if they run out of hotel rooms near the airport.

Maybe that person with the 5-hour drive had organised friends at the half-way stage to leave out a food parcel for them to pick up without any contact? They must have presented a sensible plan for their travel given that other arrivals weren't allowed to return home because their plans weren't sufficiently thought through.

Overall it seems that while procedures may not be perfect they're getting pretty good now.

 

@Ravn I agree that the quarantine measures have improved. I don't agree though with allowing them to go home to isolate themselves, which just adds more chance of risk of infecting others.

 

I'm actually more worried about the people who haven't been travelling. The travellers arriving back are much more acutely aware that they could be infected and therefore more likely to be careful about not infecting anybody else. But of course, the tighter the quarantine the better, there'll always be one idiot who doesn't care enough to follow the rules. But at least there are ever tightening quarantine restrictions and the authorities know who's supposed to be where and do at least some checks on them. Personally I'd prefer all quarantine to happen in hotels or similar near the airport of arrival and maybe that's going to happen now that arrivals have slowed to a trickle, before it probably wasn't logistically possible.


But I'm really more worried about the number of non-travelling eejits who refuse to accept they could possibly be infected - and be infecting others - and who don't see the harm in hanging out with a few mates. I've been having some (digital) arguments with people who genuinely think that as long as they stay 2m away from other people everyone is safe, they're being responsible, and they can go for a surf or head out into the bush where they won't be meeting anyone - conveniently forgetting the possibility of their car breaking down, them getting smashed by a wave, or lost or injured in the bush. Then it's the likes of my husband who have to go out and rescue them. Which then means he would have to fully isolate from me, and I would have to cope by myself. I think I've "guilted" one or two into staying at home.


This might come in handy for anyone having the same discussions with people who don't understand the meaning of 'stay at home':

Short article with brief video embedded: https://thespinoff.co.nz/covid-19/25-03-2020/siouxsie-wiles-wants-a-word-with-your-parents/
Direct link to video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoH8hJNkXZs

 

This is a video on Facebook (so apologies to those not on there). I LOVE the first bit, but am not convinced by his thought that fist bumps should replace hand shakes:

 

Yes that has been happening but we wouldn't have community spread if quarantine had been quarantine in first place. The virus was brought into the country, it didn't come from within. And so the responsibility was on quarantining those who were coming into the country. Hard job to quarantine so many people arriving. I think it would have been best to stop all flights in until preparation for quarantine were enough to house them away from the rest of the country. We wouldn't be in the position we are now.

 

The film 'Contagion' was on tv; a few parallels with what's happening/happened with current pandemic, particularly in terms of 'creation' of the virus and how it spread. Clearly a lot of people thought it only happened 'in the movies'.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1243656171258548225

 

Brilliant was the technical advisor in contagion - credited with stamping out smallpox , so a well researched film.

 

@Rosie
I agree with what you say the international travellers.

Here in the UK, from what you say, our international restrictions / quarantine etc are many times worse than NZ. At the very beginning, a few months ago, some passengers fro Wuhan were brought in and kept in quarantine together in a building for 14 days. However following that, and even during that time, people have been allowed to travel unrestricted into the country, with no checks at the airport (no thermal checks, no proper info given), just told people to carry on their normal business and only if feeling ill within 14 days of returning from one of these places, to self isolate at home and call 111.

But during that time they could have infected people, especially if they were asymptomatic or mild they wouldn’t have reported. Later that info was changed so that if returning from some specific places (like v specific regions in Italy) you should self isolate as soon as you can. But it was all left up to the people to do it themselves - and they would use public transport to get to their home etc. Anyone could break self isolation and there were no repercussions.

So many people have travelled into the UK every day, from infected regions every week, ever since the outbreak, even throughout the outbreak started in Italy the traffic wasn’t restricted (only when commercial airlines themselves stopped bringing passengers, not at the UK govt’s behest), flights have been coming in from centres of outbreaks in other countries and cities like Spain (Madrid), Iran up until very recently and could be now - I haven’t checked. Apparently the UK govt have opened a hotel next to one of the major airports if people don’t have anywhere to stay, but it’s all voluntary. So basically still as long as flights are running, (although I know many have stopped now), anyone can still come here and make their own way home / to wherever they go, and travel around.

Now the govt stopped testing and tracing people in the community anyway - so if infected people come here no one will be testing them unless they get very very sick they come to hospital with pneumonia. And no one they’ve been in contact with is traced and alerted - so they’ll carry on doing what they’re doing. And so on. And anyway, now the UK is designated as a “highly infected” country according to China, so it’s spreading so much within here as well. It could have been avoided and I have no idea why the UK was so unbelievably lax.

This happened to a journalist:

https://twitter.com/user/status/1236676012982894594


https://www.independent.co.uk/trave...antine-gatwick-heathrow-airport-a9387072.html

 

They showed this on the news yesterday:
Striking video shows 77% drop in UK air traffic compared to last year as coronavirus grounds flights

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/...viation-grounded-uk-coronavirus-a4399956.html

I was actually struck by how many flights are still happening, even though they said they were largely for supplies/freight etc.

 

The insane can now get half price train tickets, provided they travel into London St Pancras and transfer to Kings Cross before going to their destination.

I thought we we supposed to be staying in, or at least out of London, avoiding public transport, and crowded places like erm...Kings Cross and St Pancras?

Supply and demand rules it seems, less travelers so it's clearly the best idea to reduce ticket prices and try and encourage more people to use the trains.

 

The journey that was bookmarked in train line was from Bedford to Newcastle - not a local journey - it's reduced from £160 (for a budget ticket) to £88 - the restriction applied is that people must travel via London (the normal restriction on that ticket is that people must travel via Sheffield).

It is clearly (IMO) the result of computer generated pricing algorithms reacting to the drop in ticket sales of trains that pass through London - it's 'unfortunate' given current circumstances.

 

https://twitter.com/user/status/1243296016780189705

PS: it's not the entire truth as Germany is also well equipped with ventilators and intensive care units but it would be nice if people could resist trying to downplay the problem.

 

I assume auto-correct changed "Ian Lipkin" into "Brilliant"?

 

No it was Larry Brilliant who has been flagging up pandemic risk for years


https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-interview-larry-brilliant-smallpox-epidemiologist/

 

OK, thanks, I didn't know that.

 

Seems like an exaggeration. I'm also not sure if the information is correct. I've found for example this German fact-checker that says that the Robert Koch Institute also counts "patients with underlying diseases who were infected with COVID-19 and for whom it is not clearly possible to determine what ultimately caused the death."
https://www.br.de/nachrichten/amp/d...ie-werden-corona-todesfaelle-gezaehlt,RtnpYVL

I suspect it's simply a coincidence that some European countries have more COVID-19 cases and deaths. How far the virus has spread probably depends on a lot of random factors (one person or event can make things a lot worse) and mortality is largely dependent on the population group where it has spread. In Germany, cases seem to be younger than in Italy, which could explain some of the difference.

I agree that people shouldn't underestimate this. I hear people saying that healthcare in Italy probably isn't as good as here in Belgium. There might be some differences but Lombardy is one of the most affluent regions in Europe. If it could happen there it can pretty much happen anywhere.

I suspect that European countries underestimated COVID-19 in part because the first outbreak started in China and other Asian countries which are not seen as part of the western, 'developed' world. Now it seems that those Asian countries were much more efficient and capable of dealing with this crisis. Perhaps this corona-crisis will later be seen as a historical turning point where the west could no longer pretend to be superior.

I'm hoping that northern European countries aren't underestimating things because most deaths seem to fall in southern European countries such as Italy and Spain.

 

On German news every evening they quote the Johns Hopkins statistics, which come out at around 18:30 daily, just in time for the news. The Robert Koch Institute figures are usually lower, because the JH numbers are compiled from more sources.