Mega-Thread: Coronavirus Pandemic

[Deja Thoris]

Keep telling yourself that if you need to.
Meanwhile, let me celebrate having jumped the shark.

Are you wilfully misinterpreting it to troll or just that ignorant? Enquiring minds want to know.

[Tuor]

Meanwhile our Southern and Northern neighbours are looking to reopen restaurants, bars, cafe's and so on again. Let's hope the virus is not lurking somewhere or else we'll be in same situation we were in back in March. Or maybe i am far too cynical and people are more aware compared to back then and so outbreaks won't spread as quickly.

Over here, restaurants and cafes will open next 18 of May. The list of requirements is huge. I've read some of those rules for restaurants and they include stuff like, lotation reduced by 50%, 2 people per table, those 2 people need to be from same family, the exception goes for chieldren. And the list of restrictions keeps going on.

I haven't read any rules for cafes yet.

[Shadowferal]

Some NJ Beaches are opening today...
And the governor said flat out, he expects to open all of them by Memorial Day.

[PhaelixWW]

Keep telling yourself that if you need to.
Meanwhile, let me celebrate having jumped the shark.

Jesus, I don't think you understand what that idiom even means.

I mean, if you want to celebrate your own embarrassing irrelevance, then you do you.

But let's roll the tape, shall we?

You said:

Observable mortality increase for 0-64 demographic lasted 4 weeks and is pretty much back to normal already

And yet, it wasn't "back to normal", like you claimed. As I said, the chart did not properly account for unreported data, which has since pushed that 15-64 bracket from 1% of peak excess in week 16 (reported in week 17) to 56% of the peak excess (reported in week 19).

During those 4 weeks it peaked at 10% increase in the worst week, with the average being ~4-5% over 4 weeks

And you couldn't even read a graph, because the excess death peak for the 15-64 bracket was +30% higher than the baseline, and lasted for two weeks. The increase for the graph of all ages was +60%, and also lasted two weeks.

Suggestion: isolate the 65+, rest does Sweden and everybody is happy.

Yeah... about that.

95% of the COVID-19 deaths in Sweden are ages 60+.

How's that working out for them so far, do you think?

[Forogil]

You think it odd that a retired educator has connections at the school district level who might know about trends throughout the country? I don't think that's unlikely at all, especially not in a country the size of Sweden.

Having some connections - possible.
Having better information than anyone else, including the press, plainly ridiculous.

However, instead of trying to dig up the information myself at that time, I just waited a few days and then found:
https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artike...rtikel=7467424
The headline says "Many kids staying home", but that means 14-15% (double the normal - I find the normal rate disturbingly high) down from a peak of 25% in the hardest hit region; not 30%-40%. Some of the kids are also legitimately home with symptoms - for covid-19 or the common cold.

Unfortunately there are indications that many of kids staying home are from socio-economically disadvantaged backgrounds and in general school closures are really problematic for them: https://www.economist.com/internatio...ens-inequality (obviously even worse in e.g. Africa).

It's a matter of perspective. Most places have taken extreme measures and a yet a lack of cooperation has lowered their effectiveness. Sweden has taken what people view as non-extreme measures, but most people are actually doing more than what's being required.

And yet the death toll in Sweden is still much, much higher than their nearby analogues.

So far, but we don't know how the year will end, especially as Denmark, Norway, and Finland are easing restrictions.
And some countries have similar number of deaths as Sweden - despite lockdowns.

I'm also very unsure if the idea of lifting restrictions and then re-imposing, as planned in some countries will actually work.

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Wich one?
Sars-Cov?
Mers-Cov?
Sars-Cov-2?

Good point, and we can add coronavirus 229E to the list.

The disease it causes is called "the common cold" (it's not the only virus causing it).

That's why "coronavirus" is misleading, and Sars-Cov-2 or covid-19 are clearer.

[Zan15]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/08/polit...rus/index.html

President Trump confirmed that Katie Miller tested positive for the virus and noted she has been in contact with the Vice President



should be interesting if they put their money where their mouth is and pence self quarantines for 14 days.....


but my guess is he won't, adding more support to the growing crowds of the ignorant who want to dismiss all mitigation efforts.

[Forogil]

This is their prediction versus actual for the US:


You can see the prediction is already way off, so this is garbage. They're using way too narrow bell curves for their predictions.

The IHME predictions for Italy are even worse. The model is pure garbage, but it's made in the US and had happy numbers for the US so it was used in the US.

During the last month Italy's daily death number have approximately gone down to half, IHME predicted that it would be down to half after a week and currently be down to single digits (the reality is three digits).

The latest Imperial College model at least has some relation with reality with an actual SIR-model (and thus much slower decline), and estimates the impact from different restrictions - instead of blindly assuming that they are all equally important.

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As a side note, how they open schools exposes exactly how much the government gives a shit about the welfare of its citizens.

Opening up elementary schools first means your government only values you as an economic cog, and needs you to get back to work, and your kids to school, and if either of you get sick or die, it's worth that price.

Elementary school kids have poor understanding of social distancing and can't easily handle sitting the entire day at a desk 6 feet from anyone else, wearing a mask the whole day, eating at that desk, not getting recess, etc. Sending them back to school greatly heightens their exposure to the virus, and strongly increases the chance that virus will then transfer back to their parents.

There are strong indications that kids aren't spreading this virus that much and thus that school closures are fairly ineffective in reducing R0 for this virus (perhaps 0.05 reduction in R0).

And more importantly https://www.economist.com/internatio...ens-inequality

Closures will hurt the youngest schoolchildren most.

[Cynep]

This... I don't even...

That's a very sociopathic way of thinking..

And it's not thousands. Soon it won't even be tens of thousands; it will be hundreds of thousands.


The two situations aren't even close to analogous. You've made no serious effort to justify why you think they are.

People can avoid being poor, but can't avoid death. Therefore for me "a very sociopathic way of thinking" is the opposite of yours, apparently: denying millions ability to visit their loved ones, and dooming some other millions to poverty, just to prolong some lives - they still won't live forever, they'll just remain sick longer - that's sociopathic for me.

So, maybe it's "agree to disagree" territory, but how many livelihoods are you willing to destroy per one Covid death prevented? Maybe all working people should, to use a relevant meme, learn to code and work from home? How many working people are you willing to throw out to the streets due to unemployment in order for people in retirement homes to live longer? I'm all for saving lives as long as you don't destroy even more lives in the process.

And none of that has anything to do with the effects of a pandemic.

It has everything to to with overzealous countermeasures against a pandemic. Do it right, like in a video about Czech Republic I linked a few days ago, and all is well. Do it wrong, and you create a catastrophe far worse than mere 0.3% dead.

I'm sorry, just what do you think the conditions are like in Detroit?

Worse than Donetsk if we don't compare money only, a place not worth living in:

Detroit has been described by some as a ghost town.[45][46]

Detroit's murder rate was 53 per 100,000 in 2012, ten times that of New York City.[68]

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It sure as hell is problematic for the 3k and anyone who cares about them.

By that logic, 9/11 was "hardly problematic".

That same proportion would mean 102k dead in the US. Should we think that that is "hardly problematic"?

I agree with the quote but will repeat myself: we should prevent as many Covid deaths as possible without creating problems worse than Covid deaths.

- - - Updated - - -

Sweden
# of cases - 25 265
# of deaths - 3 175

Portugal
# of cases - 27 268
# of deaths - 1 114

You're leaving out another statistic:
Sweden # of tests - 148 500
Portugal # of tests - 501,718

If Sweden tested as much as Portugal, case numbers would've been much higher in Sweden.

[Forogil]

An interesting point about excess mortality for 15-64 in Europe is that it is mostly a matter of a few countries:
https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ (select age group manually)
Primarily England - far above the rest - followed by Spain, France, Belgium - and then some countries that barely have "a substantial increase", and some that don't show any excess at all.

[xenogear3]

Seems a good Friday.
Only 21k new case and 1300 death.
Much less than yesterday.

China only has one new case.
He is an American spy

[Deja Thoris]

Seems a good Friday.
Only 21k new case and 1300 death.
Much less than yesterday.

Only 2/3 of the way through the day on the East Coast and 10.5 hours to go on the west coast. Bit of a premature call, no?

[breadisfunny]

Seems a good Friday.
Only 21k new case and 1300 death.
Much less than yesterday.

China only has one new case.
He is an American spy

you do realize the day isn't over? and only 70%ish of the u.s. states have reported in so far?
also china's numbers are clearly bullshit at this point.

[Poopymonster]

you do realize the day isn't over? and only 70%ish of the u.s. states have reported in so far?
also china's numbers are clearly bullshit at this point.

We can agree Florida's numbers, or lack there of, will be bullshit skewing it too.

[Forogil]

And some depressing news from India:
11 dead when plant was badly re-opened after lockdown, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52569636
16 migrants that were walking home due to lockdown were killed by a train https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-52586898

There are officially almost 2k dead due to covid-19, allegedly the national lockdown started on 24 March, and extended to at least to 17 May (I don't know why plant was re-opened), and the new daily cases are still increasing (doubling perhaps every fortnight, so except real problems within 6 months).

[Granyala]

It sure as hell is problematic for the 3k and anyone who cares about them.
By that logic, 9/11 was "hardly problematic".

I was referring to any kind of serious/nation crippling impact and to be perfectly frank: No, 9/11 was not problematic in that regard at all.
USA kept on trucking and your govt. got to pass a lot of crap they couldn't have, because suddenly people were afraid.
No I don't believe the conspiracies surrounding 9/11 but I do believe that your politicians used the event to maximum effect to further their and your nations agenda.

Yes, events like these are always tragic from individual perspectives, absolutely.
On a nation wide scale, 3K dead hardly make blip on Swedens radar.

I know it's sociopathic to think this way but considering the panic everyone made about the issue, I'd expect A LOT worse things to happen in Sweden than 3 thousand dead folks. Maybe Turor is right and they heavily fake their numbers. Or maybe the big thing is yet to come.

[Forogil]

Except the number of deaths doesn't match the number of cases, compare it with a similar population and with similar number of cases, lets say, Portugal.
Sweden
# of cases - 25 265
# of deaths - 3 175

Portugal
# of cases - 27 268
# of deaths - 1 114

The only reasonable explanation would actually fit their already declared herd imunity strategy, there is already a lot of people that has already been infected.

Obviously, as the number of cases are heavily underestimated in basically every country (so both Portugal and Sweden have more cases), but by various factors.

In some cases the number of deaths are also underestimated (Italy, Spain, France - and even more in Jakarta) - but Sweden and Belgium seems to have fairly correct numbers, https://www.economist.com/graphic-de...ross-countries
Portugal wasn't included in those comparisons.

[PhaelixWW]

Having some connections - possible.
Having better information than anyone else, including the press, plainly ridiculous.

How could it be "plainly ridiculous" when there wasn't any press contradicting what she said? You certainly did provide any proof at the time.

However, instead of trying to dig up the information myself at that time, I just waited a few days and then found:
https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artike...rtikel=7467424
The headline says "Many kids staying home", but that means 14-15% (double the normal - I find the normal rate disturbingly high) down from a peak of 25% in the hardest hit region; not 30%-40%.

Oh, please.

Her column was dated April 28th, which puts it just after the peak of deaths in Sweden. So she was clearly referencing the rates at the peak and also clearly couldn't possibly be referencing the lower rates as of the Radio Sweden report from 2 days ago. 25% in Stockholm isn't as far removed from 30-40% nationwide as you're attempting to imply, either. It's quite possible that both of those stats were accurate. It's also possible that one or the other isn't accurate, but we don't exactly have full data to clearly tell us which, because the press wasn't really covering it.

Good point, and we can add coronavirus 229E to the list.

The disease it causes is called "the common cold" (it's not the only virus causing it).

If you're going to do that, then you should add coronaviruses NL63, OC43, and HKU1 to the list as well.

[Gorsameth]

Interesting article about the supposed flattening that the US is showing that falls apart when you looks deeper into it.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...sultPosition=1

[fwc577]

Breaking News!

Today at a Press Conference. Donald Trump has said the Corona Virus is just going to disappear. When pressed on it, he said he got his information from doctors. When asked about the timeline for it to just disappear, he said, "frankly, it could be before the fall or it could be after the fall."

Thanks Donald, that's really helpful.

[Forogil]

How could it be "plainly ridiculous" when there wasn't any press contradicting what she said? You certainly did provide any proof at the time.

The press did contradict her story, by not reporting on it.
Thinking that 30% of school children were at home nationwide for weeks without being major news is plain ridiculous.

I don't see the benefit of spending more time on debunking that ridiculous nonsense, as I'm sure that there will be actual statistics at some point proving the point in more detail.

Her column was dated April 28th, which puts it just after the peak of deaths in Sweden. So she was clearly referencing the rates at the peak and also clearly couldn't possibly be referencing the lower rates as of the Radio Sweden report from 2 days ago. 25% in Stockholm isn't as far removed from 30-40% nationwide as you're attempting to imply, either.

Stockholm is the worst hit area for covid-19 in Sweden as far as I can tell (similarly as NY in the US), and thus likely also leading in terms of kids being home - and not close to the national average.

Other reports put the peak absence numbers some weeks before Easter (corresponding to a rapid increase in the number of cases) and almost back to normal the week after Easter, April 13-17, which is more than a week before her column.

If you're going to do that, then you should add coronaviruses NL63, OC43, and HKU1 to the list as well.

The primary point was to show that some coronaviruses can be harmless and common, as the common cold, and that was already made without adding OC43.