COVID-19/Coronavirus Information and Support Thread (see OP for useful links)

[DG_Silva]

I haven't panic bought anything at all. However, since the full lockdown, I thought it sensible to do a proper shop (I usually buy one meal at a time) & I ended up getting four bags of shopping this morning. I have to say that everyone was quite calm, there was a subdued atmosphere, & everyone was behaving very well despite the restrictions. I was queuing outside a chemist with a load of other people waiting for it to open & there were no problems with people pushing in or getting stressed etc. They were only allowing four people in at a time & everyone was cooperating. It was nice to see people chilled & doing what had been asked of them. There was plenty of food on the shelves too, which was a surprise as I usually go round there late when it's empty, & I got most of what I needed.

It only goes to show what we've been saying all along - the idiots are no good at acting on their own, they need to be told (and stamped on by the jackboots) what to do. It's obvious though that Londoners can still only see to the end of their nose and completely ignore the safety and needs of other people.

 

[PeterJB]

The Prince of Wales has the virus.

 

[Dennisch]

That's odd. I would have thought that a bloodline chosen by God himself would mean something.

 

[andrea]

Wasn't expecting that.

 

[baldgye]

Lancet editor says UK failed to heed early warnings
Pallab Ghosh
Science correspondent, BBC News

The editor of prominent medical journal The Lancet has told UK MPs that the government’s scientific advisers failed to take into account early warnings of the seriousness of the epidemic in China.

Dr Richard Horton told the Science Select Committee that this led to them adopting a “pedestrian approach” in preparing for the epidemic.
Dr Horton said papers from Chinese researchers published in the Lancet at the beginning of the year showed that the NHS was likely to be overwhelmed by cases. He said February was a “missed opportunity” to buy protective equipment and increase NHS capacity.
The government’s chief scientific and medical officers say they have drawn on advice from leading experts around the world – including from China.

One of the government’s leading advisers, Professor Neil Ferguson, said his modelling indicated that the NHS should be able to cope with the surge if people followed current government advice.

 

[Barra333]

Lancet editor says UK failed to heed early warnings
Pallab Ghosh
Science correspondent, BBC News

The editor of prominent medical journal The Lancet has told UK MPs that the government’s scientific advisers failed to take into account early warnings of the seriousness of the epidemic in China.

Dr Richard Horton told the Science Select Committee that this led to them adopting a “pedestrian approach” in preparing for the epidemic.
Dr Horton said papers from Chinese researchers published in the Lancet at the beginning of the year showed that the NHS was likely to be overwhelmed by cases. He said February was a “missed opportunity” to buy protective equipment and increase NHS capacity.
The government’s chief scientific and medical officers say they have drawn on advice from leading experts around the world – including from China.

One of the government’s leading advisers, Professor Neil Ferguson, said his modelling indicated that the NHS should be able to cope with the surge if people followed current government advice.

Is that the same guy that gave people crap for panicking while the virus was still mostly in China?

 

[VBR]

It only goes to show what we've been saying all along - the idiots are no good at acting on their own, they need to be told (and stamped on by the jackboots) what to do. It's obvious though that Londoners can still only see to the end of their nose and completely ignore the safety and needs of other people.

As I said, that's not been my experience where I live. I think all the idiots (& they're not just Londoners) who were panic buying early on are stocked up & staying at home, which leaves all us normal folk free to calmly buy what we need as & when we need it. Even when panic buying was at its height, I never saw any ugly scenes in my town.

 

[Danoff]

Funny that. It's more than you've offered for these. Maybe you have sources for these being correct if we begin lifting the restrictions on April 20th, or whatever other date suits you.

I showed just a few pages ago based on @Touring Mars's article how younger people make up only 18% of hospitalizations in Spanish data. I'm proposing that we send those people back to work and school a month from now, and you think this is somehow beyond belief.

Uh, no. We've taken measures to avoid a drastic upward spike in cases, but we are still on a rise.

If you're referring to TB's gif, that's what can happen if everyone works together. Unless there's another chart on a back page.

I didn't say we weren't on the rise. I said we were flattening the curve. We are, necessarily. Every case that we have now, during all of the measures in place (lockdowns, school closures, distancing, etc.) necessarily flattens the curve.

Did you honestly think that I was under the impression that numbers are going down?

Doesn't at all address the fact (you actually deleted it) that we have states who are downright ignoring the severity at hand by simply claiming they can't become China. No, they'll just become Italy instead. Or Florida citing they're not going to lockdown b/c when New York locked down, people fled to Florida for quarantine. As if that's a suitable argument for keeping beaches open.

Wait what? What did I delete? Who did I say can't become China. When did I support Florida (like ever, on any subject)? You've lost me.

 

[McLaren]

I didn't say we weren't on the rise. I said we were flattening the curve. We are, necessarily. Every case that we have now, during all of the measures in place (lockdowns, school closures, distancing, etc.) necessarily flattens the curve.

Where are we flattening in the chart I showed? It’s too early to see if the new closures we just put in place are doing anything; right now, we are still rising.

Wait what? What did I delete? Who did I say can't become China. When did I support Florida (like ever, on any subject)? You've lost me.

You deleted an entire bottom half of my post about states NOT adhering to any lockdown which can easily undo the attempt to ease the spread.

 

[Touring Mars]

It's a very difficult call - although young people only make up less than a fifth of hospitalisations, we could still be looking at anything from 5-15% of young people who get the virus ending up in hospital at a time where care might not be available.

But yeh, flattening the curve is the best case scenario - short of eradication, which is possible but would be very costly and unlikely to work in the long term.

I reckon it is too early to say that the US has flattened the curve... Italy, on the other hand, may have turned a corner... but they locked down over 2 weeks ago.

 

[Famine]

Where are we flattening in the chart I showed?

Flatten the curve doesn't refer to that, but to the efforts to reduce the peak while prolonging the period - in order to minimise the effects on healthcare systems (and the economy) by reducing the maximum impact by spreading it over more time.

The chart showing the doubling rate of deaths (or even of cases) isn't directly relevant to that - you can still have an increasing death rate while "flattening the curve". It just needs to be less than it would have been, which is pretty tough to say.

 

[Touring Mars]

My understanding of 'flattening the curve' is a sustained drop in the daily growth rate of new cases.

For example, the daily growth rate of infections without intervention is anywhere between 20 and 50%, with a global average somewhere around 33%, and Italy (where the virus is now most widespread) had a daily growth rate averaging at around 25% (which means a doubling rate of 3 days).

Italy is now looking at 8% growth in new cases day on day, and has seen a sustained drop in that growth rate for several days now... you can see from the timeline in the Wiki page (a great reference for all countries, by the way) that the curve is indeed flattening... but it takes several days for that trend to become apparent.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Italy

 

[Woodybobs]

I showed just a few pages ago based on @Touring Mars's article how younger people make up only 18% of hospitalizations in Spanish data.

That's not evidence that the hospital's wouldn't fill with people who have returned to their normal lives.

I'm proposing that we send those people back to work and school a month from now, and you think this is somehow beyond belief.

Why are you lying? You know I said we don't need to set a date for a month from now and stick to it. This is because we don't yet know enough to be sure we can stick to a date, so there's no benefit to making that choice. My position is clear. Next time you need reminding what it is, I suggest reading my posts.

I said we were flattening the curve

We flattened the curve already,

 

[mustafur]

So there is now two different strains emerging, one which is of the original Virus is less severe and less infectious and another that is more infectious and has a strong possibilty of effecting the person who got the original strain.

I would say the herd immunity method may be flawed at this stage.

 

[Biggles]

It's a very difficult call - although young people only make up less than a fifth of hospitalisations, we could still be looking at anything from 5-15% of young people who get the virus ending up in hospital at a time where care might not be available.

But yeh, flattening the curve is the best case scenario - short of eradication, which is possible but would be very costly and unlikely to work in the long term.

I reckon it is too early to say that the US has flattened the curve... Italy, on the other hand, may have turned a corner... but they locked down over 2 weeks ago.

Every jurisdiction in the world has reacted too late/too little. It's easy to blame the Chinese - clearly their response in the early stages was inadequate & informed by their authoritarian mindset. The responses in other countries has been inadequate & informed more by a laissez-faire mindset. They have had the advantage of advanced warning but all of them, except possibly South Korea & Japan & Taiwan, have squandered that advantage.

The US is the most laissez-faire of all of them & has the additional disadvantage of having a self-centred idiot as the head of government continually sending out mixed messages about the virus. I have a feeling the Trump supporting areas of the country, which are protected to some degree by being less densely populated, will drag out the epidemic well beyond the time frame being suggested.

 

[Joey D]

EDIT @Joey D That's fine and I understand your point of view. What you're saying I think is you believe we should accept higher deaths from Covid because the alternative would be worse due to impact of actions and deaths from other causes (hardship etc). I disagree personally that the alternative would be worse, but then I dont have access to the knowledge to "prove" this either way.

I guess governments will be weighing this up all the time, and there will probably be studies trying to predict the different possible outcomes. The figures I have mentioned previously come from 2 University College of London studies by the way.

I do think there will be a second wave, or even a third, before any vaccine or cure. And there may be a time when we have to take the lesser of two evils and not lockdown a new wave.

I REALLY don't envy the people having to make all these decisions. No-one has been in that position in most of Europe since the war. And I am grateful for that.

I don't think we will ever know the actual cost of the 2008 financial meltdown, but one study claims there were 260,000 additional cancer deaths due to it. Another study attributes a rise of 17% in cardiovascular deaths. Suicides were also up drastically as well, although I've seen numbers that indicate anywhere from a 4% to 10% increase.

The thing about financial collapse in terms of overall health is that it's long term effects, not short term ones, so realizing the true numbers will be difficult. But if people lose their jobs, then they lose their ability to get proper healthcare. The stress of losing money, a home, retirement, the ability to do things that bring you pleasure, etc. also increases heart problems, mental health related issues, addiction, and so on. While COVID-19 is certainly serious, in the grand scheme of things it's relatively minor. Across the board, we have 440,000 confirmed cases and probably a presumed 4-5 million if the number is 10 times higher. Death are around 20,000 globally. The increase to stress-related diseases will probably several magnitudes over that.

 

[Famine]

My understanding of 'flattening the curve' is a sustained drop in the daily growth rate of new cases.

That's the mathematical version - where the growth rate slows and total cases begin to plateau. The soundbite version refers to this:

The version without any measures like preventing mass gatherings, reducing movement, and introducing quarantines sees a much higher peak simultaneous case count which can overwhelm healthcare provision, while the version with preventative measures sees the same number of total cases but spread over a much longer time and with a lower peak of simultaneous cases which healthcare providers can cope with.


What they mean is "flattening the bell curve of simultaneous active cases over time", but that doesn't fit into pamphlets.

 

[Danoff]

You deleted an entire bottom half of my post about states NOT adhering to any lockdown which can easily undo the attempt to ease the spread.

I thought I addressed that with Colorado as an example.

That's not evidence that the hospital's wouldn't fill with people who have returned to their normal lives.

Of course I didn't say that. I didn't say that people should return to their normal lives, I didn't say hospitals wouldn't fill with them, and I didn't imply that all people should do it. I said that we need a date where healthy people can return to work (not normal lives) and school (still not normal lives). And that the demographics of that make up much less hospitalization (note that it doesn't say hospitals won't be filled with them).

Why don't you try reading my posts?

Why are you lying? You know I said we don't need to set a date for a month from now and stick to it. This is because we don't yet know enough to be sure we can stick to a date, so there's no benefit to making that choice. My position is clear. Next time you need reminding what it is, I suggest reading my posts.

Oh wow... how about you read what I wrote?

 

[eran0004]

Social distancing? In Sweden we have been training for this scenario for a long time.

 

[Danoff]

@Woodybobs, @McLaren

Every person that we treat during a time period where we mitigate the spread of COVID-19 flattens the curve. That is what it means to "flatten the curve". It means spreading out the number of patients that happen at once. So if we're mitigating (and we clearly are in many areas in the US today), then we are flattening the curve. If, for example, we have 20 COVID-19 patients at a hospital today when we would have had 30 if we'd just gone about business as usual, we have flattened the curve by effectively delaying those 10 people.

I'm not sure where the misunderstanding is about what it means to flatten the curve, so I'm just guessing at what needs to be said here, but flattening the curve does not mean that people will be spared from getting it. It's just time-shifting people into getting it more gradually. We flatten the curve with every single delayed case. If you move the bell curve to the right by smearing out some of the patients from it, the peak goes down.

If you purely move the bell curve to the right (ie: by delaying day 1 of the infection) you have not flattened it. You need to be treating some people, and delaying some people.

Also, I do not understand the pushback to setting a date to ease back on restrictions. I do understand that we don't know the future, but we need to forecast. Throwing our hands up and saying "we don't know" is costing lives. We can guess, and we need to.

I'm not advocating much here. I'm advocating that we set a date that we think will be after the hospital overflow bump, and use that date to start taking small measures, like opening schools. Will this cause faster spread? Yes, absolutely. Kids will share it with their parents. But the demographics of that group is not particularly hospital prone. And the benefits of re-opening schools is absolutely massive when it comes to unemployment and business closure. Vulnerable people need to continue to isolate.

After that, maybe another week, we need to re-open restaurants. Again, vulnerable people need to continue to isolate.

If we do not do this, and by "this" I mean forecast when these events will happen with a believable target date, we will lose businesses, and it will cost lives.

 

[Woodybobs]

I didn't say hospitals wouldn't fill with them

But that's one of the main reasons for lock-down. If the hospitals can't cope it would be irresponsible to relax it. If we get to this arbitrary date that we have to stick to and it's judged that the health service would be placed under too much strain then we won't be able to stick to it. Therefore we should't set it yet.

I didn't imply that all people should do it.

I didn't suggest you did.

Oh wow... how about you read what I wrote?

I've addressed everything you've said and I haven't misrepresented your position.

 

[Danoff]

But that's one of the main reasons for lock-down. If the hospitals can't cope it would be irresponsible to relax it. If we get to this arbitrary date that we have to stick to and it's judged that the health service would be placed under too much strain then we won't be able to stick to it. Therefore we should't set it yet.

It's like you're not reading what I'm writing. You're reading what you want to argue against.

Clearly it would be an option to adjust it at that time. But doing so would once again result in economic strife, and a loss of misallocated resources. Yes, it's not off the table to miss the target date, but it would be paid for heavily. Probably still not as heavily as we're paying for just not having an end in sight. People are hearing August (the president said that). Some people are saying 12 months, others are saying 18 months. Restaurant owners (and other business owners) are not just going to bleed money for a year. They'll close up. They'll find out that they could have stayed open if they'd just held on a little longer, but entirely too late.

If your health services are still overwhelmed on the date you have set to start reducing measures, what do you do then?

You consider whether or not you have to take another major economic gut punch.

I've addressed everything you've said and I haven't misrepresented your position.

Then please explain what I am lying about.

 

[ImaRobot]

How is it that the New York City metro area accounts for nearly half our COVID-19 cases? I mean I get it's a massive city/metro area, but looking at LA it's barely a fraction of NYC's cases.

Reliance on public transportation may be the big difference between NYC and LA.

While I assume that NYC relies more on public transportation than LA does, LA does also have a pretty large public transportation set up going in and out of the city/county. In the heart of downtown there is a good amount of metrorails/subways as well as many, many bus stops littered all over the city.

If anything, I'd imagine that it boils down to NYC having a much denser public population constantly walking around. Unless there's some sort of big event in L.A, you can usually walk around a good while without interacting with too many people.

 

[Dotini]

That's odd. I would have thought that a bloodline chosen by God himself would mean something.

Is the prince actually O negative?

 

[DesertPenguin]

While I assume that NYC relies more on public transportation than LA does, LA does also have a pretty large public transportation set up going in and out of the city/county. In the heart of downtown there is a good amount of metrorails/subways as well as many, many bus stops littered all over the city.

If anything, I'd imagine that it boils down to NYC having a much denser public population constantly walking around. Unless there's some sort of big event in L.A, you can usually walk around a good while without interacting with too many people.

I think NYC is a bigger tourist destination than LA so there's an even bigger influx of that moving around

 

[Woodybobs]

We flattened the curve already,

I'm not sure where the misunderstanding is about what it means to flatten the curve

I'd say ambiguity in that phrase. In this case flattening the curve is considered a process to an end goal. If we don't reach the target we will not have flattened the curve. Of course delaying the spread is flattening the curve but the curve won't be considered flattened until we have reached a level deemed acceptable.

Then please explain what I am lying about.

@Woodybobs, and to a lesser extent you, are suggesting that there is one objective here, one target to be achieved

I'm proposing that we send those people back to work and school a month from now, and you think this is somehow beyond belief.

I've been quite clear a number of times. If we can't stick to a date we shouldn't set one. That doesn't prevent us from returning to some kind of normality at any time. We already have targets. Just because we've been told this could go on for over a year doesn't mean it will. It's a worst case scenario after we find out that we are unable to flatten the curve. At the moment we're still trying to flatten the curve. We don't know how long it will take (we're learning as we go) or, if it happens, who will be allowed to get back to work immediately. it's a moving situation that will reward flexibility. Setting a date to stick to only works if we stick to it, and as you have acknowledged there are scenarios where we would be better off not sticking to it.

 

[novcze]

Social distancing? In Sweden we have been training for this scenario for a long time.

apparently that's not enough https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...sian-roulette-covid-19-strategy-herd-immunity

 

[eran0004]

apparently that's not enough https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...sian-roulette-covid-19-strategy-herd-immunity

That’s not what the article says. It says that some fear that it may not be enough.

 

[Rallywagon]

That's a bit misleading, the couple took a fish tank cleaner that has the same chemical compound, chloroquine, in it. The big difference is that the formulation of the medication and the fish tank cleaner is vastly different. This is pretty common too, there are things in some medications that would straight up kill you if you took them one way and save your life if you took them another.

Sounds like this is a case of stupid people being stupid.

It's only misleading if you don't read it. Says in the article they used fish tank cleaner.

 

[ROAD_DOGG33J]

It's only misleading if you don't read it. Says in the article they used fish tank cleaner.

That would account for most people that see the headline.