Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

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Jonathan Edwards said:
Somebody made the comment that the first alternative SAGE video had rather too much of Friston speculating. I find the others very on target (Costello, Pollock, Desai, et.).
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Yes, that was me. @FMMM1 I had pretty much the same thoughts as you about prof Karl Friston, as you can see here from my earlier post: https://www.s4me.info/threads/coronavirus-worldwide-spread-and-control.13287/page-143#post-258121

I’ve posted links to the other independent sage videos in my post just above. I think the other press conferences do get better and more time is given over to the other scientists in Independent Sage.
 
Posting with a touch of "survivor's guilt" (or whatever the correct term is for being able to feel safe when so many of you are feeling anything but).
NZ has done it!!! We've won the first battle: virus gone :emoji_fingers_crossed::emoji_fingers_crossed::emoji_fingers_crossed:

Remaining domestic lockdown restrictions will be lifted at midnight. Borders further tightened with every entry now being tested twice during their 14 day isolation period.
Ministry of Health media release in full:

Today the Ministry of Health is very pleased to report no active cases of COVID-19 in New Zealand.

The Ministry has been notified by Auckland Regional Public Health that its remaining case has been symptom free for 48 hours and is regarded as recovered. The person has now been released from isolation.

Their case had been linked to the St Margaret’s Hospital & Rest Home cluster in Auckland.

“This is really good news for the person concerned, and it’s also something the rest of New Zealand can take heart from,” says Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield.

“Having no active cases for the first time since February 28 is certainly a significant mark in our journey but as we’ve previously said, ongoing vigilance against COVID-19 will continue to be essential."

In this instance the individual was listed earlier on as a probable case but was removed when they tested negative for COVID-19. Then at a later date when they again became unwell, they tested positive. They were then included in the national tally as a confirmed case.

Further analysis confirmed that they did not have a COVID-19 infection the first time around and our reporting now reflects that more accurately. The data table on the Ministry website has changed to reflect the date they were confirmed as being infected.

It is now 17 days since the last new case was reported in New Zealand.

Our total number of confirmed cases remains at 1154, which is the number we report to the World Health Organization.

Our combined total of confirmed and probable cases remains at 1504.

The number of recovered cases is now 1,482.

There are no additional deaths to report.

There is no one in New Zealand receiving hospital-level care for COVID-19.

Yesterday our laboratories completed 800 tests, bringing the total number of tests completed to date to 294,848 - lower testing volumes are regularly observed over weekends.

We are keeping our testing approach under constant review. New Zealanders can be assured that our capacity remains high and that testing at the border and in our communities will continue to be an essential part of our COVID-19 elimination strategy.

We want to encourage and remind everyone that if they have any respiratory symptoms, they should seek advice from Healthline, their GP or after-hours clinic about getting tested. Testing is free.

Eight significant clusters have closed, this is unchanged from yesterday.

A cluster is considered to be closed when there have been no new cases for two incubation periods (i.e. 28 days) from the date when all cases have completed isolation.
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Ravn said:
Posting with a touch of "survivor's guilt" (or whatever the correct term is for being able to feel safe when so many of you are feeling anything but).
NZ has done it!!! We've won the first battle: virus gone :emoji_fingers_crossed::emoji_fingers_crossed::emoji_fingers_crossed:

Remaining domestic lockdown restrictions will be lifted at midnight. Borders further tightened with every entry now being tested twice during their 14 day isolation period.
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This is so amazing! Your PM knew what needed to be done, and has done it! And good to see that they are going to be even stricter with arrivals, just to be absolutely sure that the population will be safe. I am very, very envious right now.

On a related note, the U.K. govt recently announced that they would be quarantining arrivals for 14 days, but be making exceptions for many people including people coming to work here for fruit picking, road haulage, road transport, air crew, shuttle staff, “essential“ workers, emergency workers, workers with special or technical skills, farm worker, someone who lives in the U.K. but works Abroad or someone who works in the U.K. but lives abroad..:And more: https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle...el-restrictions-coronavirus-explained-2876652

so... basically a LOT of people then?

And even so, there is so much opposition to this plan. They’re not even opposing the exceptions (as would have been sensible), they’re opposing the actual quarantine itself! It’s coming from so many quarters, from the airline industries, from the opposition party; their own party and even questioning from some scientists (maybe more understandable as they were on SAGE and seems like they weren’t consulted). But still..



I don’t understand why so many of these people are opposed to this. We should have had quarantine all along. At the very least we are having it now. If anything; it is *far too* lax still.. so many people can still come In continuously with no quarantine at all and easily start new transmission chains. Very, very stressful living in England.
 
Also,



I wonder if Scotland will have to start considering some kind of border control with England given that Scotland has very few cases compared to england now and Nicola Sturgeon is following the elimination strategy whereas Boris Johnson just.. isn’t? Otherwise how will they stop infections coming in from England?
 
I am interested in the drop off in numbers just this week. It was looking as if the UK was different from most European countries in that the epidemic had been reduced but no more than by half. That suggested that lockdown might not be rigorous enough. But now there is a hint that numbers may fall like other countries.

I wonder if what we are looking at inUYK, Spain and Italy is that if you channel cases into geneoalhospitals with inadequate PPE you get a wave largely due to hospitals accelerating spread to the community and care homes. Once you get some control of that the virus actually dies out of its own accord because inmost situations it does not spread that easily. If lockdown in terms of airport usage and gatherings had come in three weeks earlier there mightn't have been much of a wave at all.

But I see two situations likely to get the whole thing going again. One is large or close social gatherings like the church and the nightclubs in Korea, and the football matches. The other is airports and aeroplanes. Maybe the downturn in the curves is as much as anything just people not congregating and smearing virus allover airports and aeroplanes. So quarantine for fliers seems to me a no brainer. Maybe other eco-no-mic activities could have been saved if we simply shutdown flying at the start. The extraordinary thing is that the airline CEOs seem to have no understanding that the way to get back in business is to have no flights for another three months at least.
 
Article in Nature today by Flaxman et al, Imperial College London:
Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on COVID-19 in Europe
Abstract
Following the emergence of a novel coronavirus1 (SARS-CoV-2) and its spread outside of China, Europe has experienced large epidemics. In response, many European countries have implemented unprecedented non-pharmaceutical interventions such as closure of schools and national lockdowns.

We study the impact of major interventions across 11 European countries for the period from the start of COVID-19 until the 4th of May 2020 when lockdowns started to be lifted.

Our model calculates backwards from observed deaths to estimate transmission that occurred several weeks prior, allowing for the time lag between infection and death. We use partial pooling of information between countries with both individual and shared effects on the reproduction number. Pooling allows more information to be used, helps overcome data idiosyncrasies, and enables more timely estimates.

Our model relies on fixed estimates of some epidemiological parameters such as the infection fatality rate, does not include importation or subnational variation and assumes that changes in the reproduction number are an immediate response to interventions rather than gradual changes in behavior. Amidst the ongoing pandemic, we rely on death data that is incomplete, with systematic biases in reporting, and subject to future consolidation.

We estimate that, for all the countries we consider, current interventions have been sufficient to drive the reproduction number Rt below 1 (probability Rt< 1.0 is 99.9%) and achieve epidemic control. We estimate that, across all 11 countries, between 12 and 15 million individuals have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 up to 4th May, representing between 3.2% and 4.0% of the population.

Our results show that major non-pharmaceutical interventions and lockdown in particular have had a large effect on reducing transmission. Continued intervention should be considered to keep transmission of SARS-CoV-2 under control.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/06/...irus-masks.html#click=https://t.co/yGfn8cZ7P8

Is the Secret to Japan’s Virus Success Right in Front of Its Face?

About masks

““Japan, I think a lot of people agree, kind of did everything wrong, with poor social distancing, karaoke bars still open and public transit packed near the zone where the worst outbreaks were happening,” Jeremy Howard, a researcher at the University of San Francisco who has studied the use of masks, said of the country’s early response. “But the one thing that Japan did right was masks.”

Japanese leaders eventually urged karaoke bars and other businesses to close and cajoled employees into teleworking. Schools were closed at the beginning of March — far earlier than most countries — and large cultural and sports events were canceled. None of these restrictions were mandatory.

But one of Japan’s most visible responses has been near-universal mask wearing, seen here as a responsible thing to do to protect oneself and others, and as a small price to pay to be able to resume some semblance of normalcy.

Japan’s experience with masks goes back hundreds of years....”
 
lunarainbows said:
I don’t understand why so many of these people are opposed to this.
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I do. It's largely because it's coming up to peak tourism season etc. and they are desperate to get their businesses up and running again, and being forced to quarantine for two weeks upon arrival is going to be a major disincentive to people coming in from abroad. From the virus point of view, it's the right thing to do, but not from the economic POV - conflict between the two rearing its ugly head again :(
 
News from New Zealand: no new cases for 19 days in a row now. We have dropped to Alert level 1, which mainly focuses on border control (and we're encouraged to keep note of where we go and who we see, just in case an infected person slips through the net). Otherwise, life in all domains has gone back to normal.

Still, it remains to be seen whether we can keep Covid completely at bay just by border control, in a way that doesn't entirely cut us off from the rest of the world.
 
Wits_End said:
From the virus point of view, it's the right thing to do, but not from the economic POV
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I disagree. Quarantine is absolutely the right thing from the business point of view. Business is now thriving in China and New Zealand where controls were tough. If the airlines had vountarily shut down in February they would now be back in business having lost a shorter period of revenue the they already have. The CEOs are just behaving like spoilt children not looking after their own things.
 
Here's an unusually balanced discussion of policy responses in europe :

Sweden’s lockdown paradox

Policymakers shouldn’t focus on differences in restrictions but on common causes of death.

..."policymakers should pay closer attention to an area of the COVID-19 response where most countries have clearly failed.

Despite taking dramatically different approaches over the decision to lockdown, Sweden and Belgium have both seen their nursing home populations ravaged by the disease. Indeed, a similar story has played out in most other European nations."
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https://www.politico.eu/article/sweden-coronavirus-lockdown-paradox/
 
I posted this on the thread about shielding, but thought it may interest a wider number of members than that particular thread is aimed at:

I was listening to Alexis Conrad on the radio on the weekend and he has written about his concerns with the track and trace programme potential to be used by fraudsters to glean personal data from members of the public that aren't vigilant to this possibility.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/nhs-track-and-trace-scams
 
lunarainbows said:
This is so amazing! Your PM knew what needed to be done, and has done it! And good to see that they are going to be even stricter with arrivals, just to be absolutely sure that the population will be safe. I am very, very envious right now.

On a related note, the U.K. govt recently announced that they would be quarantining arrivals for 14 days, but be making exceptions for many people including people coming to work here for fruit picking, road haulage, road transport, air crew, shuttle staff, “essential“ workers, emergency workers, workers with special or technical skills, farm worker, someone who lives in the U.K. but works Abroad or someone who works in the U.K. but lives abroad..:And more: https://inews.co.uk/inews-lifestyle...el-restrictions-coronavirus-explained-2876652

so... basically a LOT of people then?

And even so, there is so much opposition to this plan. They’re not even opposing the exceptions (as would have been sensible), they’re opposing the actual quarantine itself! It’s coming from so many quarters, from the airline industries, from the opposition party; their own party and even questioning from some scientists (maybe more understandable as they were on SAGE and seems like they weren’t consulted). But still..



I don’t understand why so many of these people are opposed to this. We should have had quarantine all along. At the very least we are having it now. If anything; it is *far too* lax still.. so many people can still come In continuously with no quarantine at all and easily start new transmission chains. Very, very stressful living in England.
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Am I understanding that right? The Labour Party are opposing quarantine for arrivals? Seriously??
 
Sarah94 said:
Am I understanding that right? The Labour Party are opposing quarantine for arrivals? Seriously??
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They have never used the word “oppose”, but as you can see from the statement below, they have told the govt come up with an “exit strategy” from quarantine before a quarantine is even in place.. citing the transport industry and the economy. It’s also a bit ridiculous as they seem to be saying the govt is only bringing this in as the only option because they failed to do other measures. Yes, the govt did fail to implement other measures, but regardless, of course they need to implement a quarantine policy anyway. (my bolding below):

https://labour.org.uk/press/nick-th...hope-for-industry-tourism-and-holiday-makers/

“The Shadow Home Secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds MP, has written to the Government calling on ministers to bring forward proposals for how the UK can protect public health, while safely easing the 14-day international travel quarantine restrictions.

The measures called for include: a testing strategy to minimise the amount of time people need to spend in quarantine; publication of the full SAGE evidence on the effectiveness of the measures; and urgent confirmation of a sector-specific support package to protect jobs in the most at-risk sectors, such as transport, hospitality and tourism.

Commenting, the Shadow Home Secretary, Nick Thomas-Symonds MP, said:

“The Government’s handling of the issues around arrivals to the UK has lacked urgency and coherence from the start of this crisis; now it’s UK workers and the economy that are set to suffer.

“The policy of 14-day quarantining is being presented as the only option, but the Government has had months to develop a more effective approach that can help protect the public’s health and the health of the economy.

“That is why we are calling for the Government to get to grips with the quarantine confusion and publish proposals to Parliament next week that will provide clarity for industry, tourism and holiday makers.””

Edit: there are some points in their full statement in the link, which I am in agreement with. Quarantine is too late, testing tracing and isolating is not good enough, etc. But the other parts of their statement including what I posted above.. not great.
 
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The quarantine arguments on alludes do seem crazy. AsI understand the UK government rules are that only essential travel is permitted, so quarantine rules are not going to affect tourism because there shouldn't be any anyway.

Looking at the worldometer graphs for cases and deaths I get the strong impression that the exponential decay is moving into a very flat phase. What Mr Hancock and others do not seem to realise is that from an economic standpoint an R value of 0.9 is disaster because it will add months to the period where restrictions are needed in comparison even to 0.8. For business It is crucial to get R down to under 0.5 and preferably even lower. Tourism and hospitality have to wait until it is all over so the argument is even stronger for them.
 
Jonathan Edwards said:
I am interested in the drop off in numbers just this week. It was looking as if the UK was different from most European countries in that the epidemic had been reduced but no more than by half. That suggested that lockdown might not be rigorous enough. But now there is a hint that numbers may fall like other countries.

I wonder if what we are looking at inUYK, Spain and Italy is that if you channel cases into geneoalhospitals with inadequate PPE you get a wave largely due to hospitals accelerating spread to the community and care homes. Once you get some control of that the virus actually dies out of its own accord because inmost situations it does not spread that easily. If lockdown in terms of airport usage and gatherings had come in three weeks earlier there mightn't have been much of a wave at all.

But I see two situations likely to get the whole thing going again. One is large or close social gatherings like the church and the nightclubs in Korea, and the football matches. The other is airports and aeroplanes. Maybe the downturn in the curves is as much as anything just people not congregating and smearing virus allover airports and aeroplanes. So quarantine for fliers seems to me a no brainer. Maybe other eco-no-mic activities could have been saved if we simply shutdown flying at the start. The extraordinary thing is that the airline CEOs seem to have no understanding that the way to get back in business is to have no flights for another three months at least.
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When you say drop off in numbers do you mean new cases?
Because didn’t we just get a study that estimated 17,000 new infections a day that we’ve been talking about on this forum?
In terms of official numbers, there’s still 1741 new infections a day (On 9 June), which is very much higher than any other European country. And according to the Test track isolate report from Independent Sage; only a fraction of the true number of cases are being identified.
 
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