Coronavirus - worldwide spread and control

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News from Australia: The state of Victoria, which had a resurgence in cases around 6 weeks ago (with daily case numbers peaking in the 700s for a population of just 6 million), seems to be starting to get control of the outbreak, with only 171 new cases yesterday.

It will be interesting to see if they can reach virtual elimination. It was a big resurgence, that at its peak, exceeded the daily case incidence in the UK per head of population (although testing rates were much higher than int he UK, so in real terms perhaps not that much worse). But they locked down hard.
 
Snow Leopard said:
Yes, it is tricky if the lockdown/social distancing/economic factors are reducing deaths due to other reasons like traffic reduced collisions as you mention. There is no "control" lockdown, that we can see what impact lockdowns have on deaths in the absence of an endemic virus...
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Yes, I think they are. I know for a fact that New Zealand had a dramatic decline in the number of concussions and traumatic brain injuries in the first half of this year. These accident-related neurological events are dealt with by a centralised accident compensation commission, so its fairly easy to extract nationwide statistics.
 
Woolie said:
Yes, I think they are. I know for a fact that New Zealand had a dramatic decline in the number of concussions and traumatic brain injuries in the first half of this year. These accident-related neurological events are dealt with by a centralised accident compensation commission, so its fairly easy to extract nationwide statistics.
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That is a very interesting point. So in time it should be possible to some extent to recalculate the total excess deaths due to both Covid and collapse of health care systems in a way that is not confounded by beneficial effects of lockdown. Presumably one can also make use of data from countries where lockdown was minimal like Sweden - although I think that analysis needs to stick to evidence for behavioural change whether related to regulations or voluntary policy. People started behaving differently in the UK about a month before they were required to and many continue to do so despite loosening of controls.
 
Coronavirus: Missing school is worse than virus for children - Whitty
Children are more likely to be harmed by not returning to school next month than if they catch coronavirus, the UK's chief medical adviser says.

Prof Chris Whitty said "the chances of children dying from Covid-19 are incredibly small" - but missing lessons "damages children in the long run".

Millions of pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland are due to return to school within weeks.

Prof Whitty also said Covid-19 would be a challenge for at least nine months.

He said it was unlikely there would be a vaccine in 2020 but there was a "reasonable chance" of a successful jab being ready for the following winter in 2021-22.
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https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-53875410

Still the short sighted focus on "if it doesn't kill you then it's fine" approach. And never mind, of course, the teachers and parents who will catch it, the additional deaths are worth it, obviously.
 
So if I was a BAME parent ( or any parent ) with diabetes/asthma/cardiovascular issues I should wave my child off without worry.
Schools have always been great incubators - where is the plan B, or at least some form of online learning for those families with high risk? There are even providers out there that specialize in it....
Given that not all children who needed them ever received a laptop this is beyond a bad joke.
 
mango said:
I'm seeing a lot of comments on social media saying things like "the pandemic is over in Sweden". That is false. It is definitely not over.

The numbers are increasing again/still in some parts of the country, even before the school year has begun, even before people have returned to work after their summer holidays and travels.
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Absolutely stunning!

New Zealand: 9 confirmed new cases today. Lockdown for worst affected area, masks on public transport, contact tracing in all public venues, spacing in bars, restaurants, borders closed.

Australia: 109 new cases. Tight lockdown for worst affected state, all international borders and some interstate borders closed.

Sweden: 250 new cases - its over!
 
mango said:
I'm seeing a lot of comments on social media saying things like "the pandemic is over in Sweden". That is false. It is definitely not over.

The numbers are increasing again/still in some parts of the country, even before the school year has begun, even before people have returned to work after their summer holidays and travels.
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It is curious that a similar number of new cases per million is leading to Aussies freaking out about a "second wave", but a similar number in Sweden is considered "pandemic is over"!?!
 
My brother in law and family live in Sweden . Initially they thought that the herd immunity approach made sense ( as though it was a cold) .
Life has been more normal in that schools and nurseries have been kept open ( both their children are under 10) , and shops, transport continued . They have kept their interactions with friends limited to a couple of families, and relatives limited to immediate family.

They both worked from home and my sister in law will continue to do this until Christmas. My brother in law has now to be in the office one week out of two ( 3 days one week, 2 days the next ) . He will travel by car rather than take public transport but this is not sustainable long term.

He is worried about his job as there have been many redundancies.
She is now covering the bases for parts of 3 other people's work as they have been made redundant.

Herd immunity is not so popular now, especially as they are realistic about vaccine potential and timescale.

Her mum was ill suspected COVID and is taking a long time to recover. Not ill enough for hospitalization , but very ill at home.
She has never been tested, so is not amongst the figures , I suspect that there are many in a similar situation .
 
Woolie said:
Absolutely stunning!

New Zealand: 9 confirmed new cases today. Lockdown for worst affected area, masks on public transport, contact tracing in all public venues, spacing in bars, restaurants, borders closed.

Australia: 109 new cases. Tight lockdown for worst affected state, all international borders and some interstate borders closed.

Sweden: 250 new cases - its over!
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UK, "hold my warm beer": 1,041 new cases - go to work but stay apart; go to the pub or eat out but don't socialise with too many people; go abroad on holiday but only to certain places and we might suddenly declare those places as off limits and require you to quarantine when you get back; send your kids to school but don't worry, our dodgy stats don't show that many kids dying from it. In short, our guidelines are a complete mess.
 
chrisb said:
I thought that was a very strange statement. They are harms of different categories. How is a meaningful comparison to be made?
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I think it is really necessary to have data here. But as it seems, data are strangely not en vogue (I am still missing any assessments on the (stronger) lockdowns and their effectivity).

Jonathan Edwards said:
It looks as if reopening schools in Berlin is not going well either.
It is about a week before UK schools are due to re-open...
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So, what does "well" mean?
 
Andy said:
UK, "hold my warm beer": 1,041 new cases - go to work but stay apart; go to the pub or eat out but don't socialise with too many people; go abroad on holiday but only to certain places and we might suddenly declare those places as off limits and require you to quarantine when you get back; send your kids to school but don't worry, our dodgy stats don't show that many kids dying from it. In short, our guidelines are a complete mess.
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And that’s just the official cases. I think ONS shows numbers are holding steady at around 4,000 new cases a day. (28,000 new cases a week).
 
All the above examples of absurdity are eclipsed by Florida, which celebrated yesterday having *only* 2,974 new cases and 51 deaths. These numbers only count residents, ignoring any tourists who fall ill and die here. Note that this was on a Sunday, when people hesitate to fall ill or die. (Okay, maybe it is the people who record these numbers who take the day off.) Even on such a cherry-picked day, we were showing over 13 cases per 100,000 per day.
Added: while I was typing we got Monday's numbers, 2,258 new cases and 72 deaths. We won't get back to the weekly average until Wednesday. (Everyone knows about work on Mondays.)

Many of you will recall Orlando's day of infamy when a gunman killed 49 and wounded 53 at the Pulse nightclub. The state is still exceeding that toll every day due to COVID-19. Beyond the idea that these are all old, sick people nobody cares about, we now have a victim only 6 years old. Some 600 children have been hospitalized with COVID-19.

Note: Florida has a population of 21.5 million, roughly twice that of Sweden, or over 3 times Victoria, Australia. You can multiply their numbers accordingly for comparison.

Meanwhile, we are reopening schools, and already have signs of problems there. It also appears that state sources are slow to acknowledge outbreaks in schools and are citing laws about privacy to support this. Previous appeals to privacy were used to avoid releasing data from nursing homes. The state has also been slow to release data on prisons, which now appear to be hot spots. News organizations ultimately forced release of data, sometimes through lawsuits, but the state was able to delay bad news while the pandemic grew.

I'm going to try to link this story about an alternative to the state dashboard on the subject of outbreaks in schools. I was able to access this without logging in, but let me know if you hit a paywall.
 
anciendaze said:
All the above examples of absurdity are eclipsed by Florida, which celebrated yesterday having *only* 2,974 new cases and 51 deaths. These numbers only count residents, ignoring any tourists who fall ill and die here. Note that this was on a Sunday, when people hesitate to fall ill or die. (Okay, maybe it is the people who record these numbers who take the day off.) Even on such a cherry-picked day, we were showing over 13 cases per 100,000 per day.
Added: while I was typing we got Monday's numbers, 2,258 new cases and 72 deaths. We won't get back to the weekly average until Wednesday. (Everyone knows about work on Mondays.)

Many of you will recall Orlando's day of infamy when a gunman killed 49 and wounded 53 at the Pulse nightclub. The state is still exceeding that toll every day due to COVID-19. Beyond the idea that these are all old, sick people nobody cares about, we now have a victim only 6 years old. Some 600 children have been hospitalized with COVID-19..
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I'm suitably chastisted by the comparison, @anciendaze. So sorry to hear what's happening there. Awful as it is to recount, I really appreciate hearing these reports from someone who lives there.
 
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