SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-...anies-urges-public-to-stay-home-idUSKBN20V0PK

“Coronavirus has been in Germany since Wednesday last week. Our priority now is to slow its spread. The slower the virus spreads, the better the healthcare system can cope.” Health Minister Jens Spahn said on Sunday adding “Consider also what in your daily life is so important that you can’t do without it for the next three months, whether that’s an evening clubbing, a family birthday or a club meeting”
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Revan said:
In addition, the number of fatalities will be much higher if the Health system is overwhelmed, there aren’t enough beds, not enough doctors and nurses, not enough medicine, there aren’t enough oxygen masks and so on. It could easily be the difference between 0.5% mortality rate, and 3% mortality rate, which could be the difference between tens of millions of people dying or not.

The most important part now is to slow down the spread of the disease, even if eventually the accumulated number of affected people is the same.
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Agreed. I just hope our government are focusing on this and not just economic stimulus packages.
 
I'll leave a post from Reddit, which they do daily, on r/medicine (it's far different than r/coronavirus). Find it a good opinionated (but well sourced) summary, integrated with Economic and political news, decent for someone who wants to get up to date with developments of today and how they shape into the grander scheme of things in the opinions of some of the medical community.

Monday, March 9th
All the vampires, walkin' through the valley
It's been 70 days since the WHO were first notified about this novel coronavirus, and things are only moving quicker and quicker.
  • Let's start with Italy, where overwhelmed hospital systems have led to the first major regional quarantine in Europe. Italy, taking a leaf out of eventually (partially) successful measures enacted in China, has ordered the lockdown of the country's weathy, propserous northern region of Lombardy and some surrounding provinces. An estimated 16 million people are affected by this, though much like in China, enforcement of the quarantine was preceded by an exodus as people fled the 'red zone', which seriously hampered the effectiveness of containment:
Thousands of people rushed to flee Northern Italy after plans by the government for a 16-million-person quarantine were leaked to the media ahead of time. The measure does not totally restrict movement within the areas, but it means places like schools, museums, and theaters are closed, events like weddings and funerals are suspended, and bars and restaurants must keep customers a minimum distance apart. People can enter or leave the affected area only for emergencies, with the possibility of jail time for those who break the rules.
The Italian newspaper Il Tempo reported that the draft plan's leaking prompted thousands of people to "leave Lombardy in a hurry before the rules were approved." Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte called the leak "unacceptable" on Sunday, The Guardian reported. "This news created uncertainty, insecurity, and confusion, and we cannot tolerate this," he said. People fleeing prompted other cities and regions to check passengers arriving from the north, The Guardian reported. And Puglia, a region in Southern Italy, is requiring anyone who arrives from the north to quarantine themselves.
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  • The necessity of such a large quarantine in Italy, a wealthy, democratic European country, has focused attention on the likelihood of similar measures becoming necessary in other Western/European countries. Public sentiment could largely compartmentalise the unprecedented, huge Chinese lockdown as something thought only possible or probable in an autocratic Asian country. Suddenly, this fragile expectation has been abruptly shattered and the general public is starting to appreciate that this might be necessary for them, too, in their own countries before too long. In Italy, we're seeing a number of unfortunate incidents sparked by fear of coronavirus - particularly in prisons, where feelings of cramped helplessness may be amplified:
In a separate development, six people died in a prison riot in the city of Modena, following protests at the new restrictions, local media report. There were also riots at several other prisons in northern Italy. In Modena, officials say prisoners set fire to a cell block after they were told that visits would be suspended. It is thought that at least two of the dead lost their lives to drug overdoses after they raided the prison hospital for the heroin substitute methadone.
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Mick in Harlow told Nick Ferrari that he's "been saving stuff for the past eight weeks" in preparation for a nationwide quarantine or general shortage of products in supermarkets. "We've got enough stuff for six months" he revealed to Nick. Nick suggested that the caller was stockpiling as a result of a widespread concern over coronavirus. "You've got to take steps" Mick insisted. He blamed his distrust of the government's method of tackling coronavirus and his own general health as factors in his preparation. Mick shared a general anger with the government, especially through revelations that British airports are still taking in flights from Italy "how do you suppose to stop the spread of this when you're not monitoring the people coming into the country?" Nick pointed out that because Mick is showing clear concern for the coronavirus outbreak, he can be found guilty of panic buying. The 70 year old caller ensured Nick that "this isn't panic buying" because his stash "has built up over the past eight weeks".
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It's an easy rebuttal to point to experts and studies that conclude that travel restrictions make little to no difference to the spread of this or other similar outbreaks, but recent political events and now this crisis all show that trust in 'experts' is no match for the sentiment of the man down the pub.
  • Russia and Saudi Arabia are engaging in a price war; Russia had balked at the Saudi plan for OPEC to reduce production to support crude prices during this outbreak as demand has plummeted, and Riyadh responded with a 180 degree turn - sharply increasing production and driving down prices.
Analysts have questioned the wisdom of Saudi Arabia’s approach. Its economy is not immune to a price crash, even if it believes it can win market share from its rivals. The price crash came at a difficult time for US shale. While production has soared over the past decade, leapfrogging that of Russia and Saudi Arabia, the industry has burnt through borrowed cash, alienating investors. That has left it vulnerable to a drop in prices. The huge oil price fall since the start of the year has thrown any remaining expansion plans into doubt.
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At the time of writing, Brent crude had fallen as low as $31/barrel, having fallen over the last two months from a recent peak of $68 at the end of last year.
  • Markets are reacting to the extreme volatility with their own panic; a trader friend of mine had predicted that "today is gonna be a disaster" and he's right. The FTSE has tanked over 8% and trading on the S&P 500 was briefly halted for 15 minutes through automatic circuit breakers after it fell 7% in the first few minutes of trading. The VIX, a surrogate measure of market uncertainty/volatility, has hit its highest point since the peak of the 2008 financial crisis. A recession is looming and this may be the Minsky Moment.
“This is a meltdown, this is an absolute meltdown,” says Michael Baker, who is leading the sales team at spread-betting firm ETX Capital.
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  • I've been talking about cruise ships for a little while, and now governments and passengers are coming around to the idea that they're a terrible idea. I understand the cutthroat pricing is hard to resist right now, but they're just such a bad industry generally and particularly in a pandemic.
  • Good read about the 1918 pandemic in the context of the upcoming Boston St Patrick's Day Parade. Indeed, Ireland has just canceled its own St Patrick's Day Parade and other large gatherings are being scratched too worldwide.
  • The possibility of school closures is generating ripples beyond the obvious, underscoring the societal difficulties that containment interventions may cause.
We're at a stage now where it has become apparent - not just to those following these threads/epidemiologists/virologists - that this outbreak is serious and will affect society and health globally. The public is crying out for clear, unambiguous, reliable information and we're not getting that from most of our leadership. China, at great civil/political/economic cost and through methods that we will probably ultimately deem reprehensible, tried what was probably the best possible attempt at containment and whilst that wasn't successful, it bought many weeks of forewarning, preparation, and research. However, at the local/trust/hospital level, it feels very much like we've squandered that and we have PPE shortages, unclear policies, capacity issues, and diagnostic bottlenecks. War is an appropriate analogy, says Dr Richard Hatchett, the CEO of CEPI, but instead we've got partisan distractions and misinformation.

Good night everyone. Stay healthy, calm and attentive.
 
I note both Ireland's Chief Medical Officer and Taoiseach echoing remarks made by UK officials in regards to the risks attached to implementing measures too early. Namely that population fatigue will inevitably result in reduced compliance, so measures have to be timed correctly for maximum benefit. Presumably with a particular eye on when the virus is likely to peak elsewhere.

Reading through other bits and pieces of different studies, my main take away is that modelling for the most effective way of tackling the virus is complicated as shit. So much seems to depend on timing (early but not too early), the relative ability to detect cases promptly and weighing up the various negative consequences of each measure amongst a host of other factors.

With all that in mind, it's probably right to be sceptical of anyone who offers glib opinions on what governments should be doing unless they can also offer a thorough and realistic assessment of the costs (in terms of economy, resources and inherent flaws) of each measure.
 
Dwazza Gunnar Solskjær said:
Among other measures, the company I work for has cancelled all business travel by plane today.
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A client of the company I worked for (I left two weeks ago) already started doing that four weeks ago. We (UK based) were due to fly out to Boston to meet them but it was cancelled, super proactive.
 
sullydnl said:
I note both Ireland's Chief Medical Officer and Taoiseach echoing remarks made by UK officials in regards to the risks attached to implementing measures too early. Namely that population fatigue will inevitably result in reduced compliance, so measures have to be timed correctly for maximum benefit. Presumably with a particular eye on when the virus is likely to peak elsewhere.

Reading through other bits and pieces of different studies, my main take away is that modelling for the most effective way of tackling the virus is complicated as shit. So much seems to depend on timing (early but not too early), the relative ability to detect cases promptly and weighing up the various negative consequences of each measure amongst a host of other factors.

With all that in mind, it's probably right to be sceptical of anyone who offers glib opinions on what governments should be doing unless they can also offer a thorough and realistic assessment of the costs (in terms of economy, resources and inherent flaws) of each measure.
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Is that the real reason though or they don't want to cause too much damage to the economy until it's too late?
 
LInkash said:
A client of the company I worked for (I left two weeks ago) already started doing that four weeks ago. We (UK based) were due to fly out to Boston to meet them but it was cancelled, super proactive.
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We're in Canada with a grand total of 72 cases. It speaks more to how much this is blowing up elsewhere.
 
The first death in my city recorded. Women in her sixties.

It is getting near :S
 
Not a nice guy, but it is important that he made this piece, considering that a lot of people in this country get all their news from Fox.

 
Revan said:
Not a nice guy, but it is important that he made this piece, considering that a lot of people in this country get all their news from Fox.

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Its so frustrating in a way that Tucker Carlson has those rare moments like this where he actually appears to be a good journalist - only to then turn around and be a complete paid for douche of a mouth piece again for the other 99% of the time.
 
Redplane said:
Its so frustrating in a way that Tucker Carlson has those rare moments like this where he actually appears to be a good journalist - only to then turn around and be a complete paid for douche of a mouth piece again for the other 99% of the time.
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He's clearly a very intelligent man (he totally destroys many of his left-wing visitors in his show), and when he wants, he totally nails it. The problem though is that he is also an agenda-driven twat, which makes most of his shows crap.
 
Redplane said:
Its so frustrating in a way that Tucker Carlson has those rare moments like this where he actually appears to be a good journalist - only to then turn around and be a complete paid for douche of a mouth piece again for the other 99% of the time.
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That comment section though...

tB7XQB0.png
 
I've stayed home today after 3 days of mild symptoms (no fever - a sore throat and wheezing). But I'm asthmatic, and this could just be my allergies/asthma acting up.
I have an annual meeting in April and am worried about staying home too much, I won't make progress towards that.
 
17 Van der Gouw said:
That comment section though...

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Holy shit those comments are cancer.
I love all the people calling for Trump to build antibiotics factories etc. Or to stop buying Chinese good and only buy American. As if either would accomplish anything. We truly are in stupid times.

@berbatrick sorry to hear you've been feeling bad. I know it may seem like resting too much is a thing but a day "too much" is better than a day too little. Take care of yourself.
 
MaxiPaxi said:
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That Hospital is literally 2 miles from me. He is in good care though as it’s a great facility. They just shut down my daughters University in NYC (20,000 kids)until the end of march. It’s starting to get real in the nyc area.
 
When the health secretary says "the scientific advise is clear: acting too early creates its own risks," what's he talking about?
 
2cents said:
I’m useless with maths and stats, but something about the way this guy has produced these estimations seems a bit off. Still though if they’re in any way close, Iran is completely fecked. I’d be interested to hear what someone with a better instinct for the numbers thinks of this:



(also read the thread)
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He's simply extrapolating the numbers to check whether everything is statistically sound (shock, horror it isn't). He's saying if Iran has as many cases as they've let on in the entire country, what are the chances that so many from the parliament has the virus (minuscule). There's nothing wrong with this as such, however, there are a bunch of assumptions that go into a calculation like that. Most importantly he has to assume that the concentration of the virus is uniform across the country (which it isn't, there's bound to be an epicentre where you have the highest concentration to start with and it then tails off radially from there (that's my rough, first order approximation)). You also have to assume that everyone is equally likely to get the virus. Again, that's not true as someone who is very outgoing and interact with a lot of different groups of people are more likely to get it.
Then you have the fact that the low official numbers might be due to a low testing capacity/poor testing quality as opposed to the government withholding information. That said, it does look unlikely that they would have that many cases in parliament compared to the cases outside of it, going by official numbers.
 
Grinner said:
What should you be taking if you have symptoms? Does anything help at all?
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Please dont take medical advice from the internet , if you have the symptoms get checked . The virus goes for the lungs really fast .
 



Since this video came out, 48hrs ago; Italy went from 3 cases just two weeks ago to 3,000 when the guy was interviewed, and as of yesterday, its over 10,000 cases.
 
sullydnl said:
I note both Ireland's Chief Medical Officer and Taoiseach echoing remarks made by UK officials in regards to the risks attached to implementing measures too early. Namely that population fatigue will inevitably result in reduced compliance, so measures have to be timed correctly for maximum benefit. Presumably with a particular eye on when the virus is likely to peak elsewhere.

Reading through other bits and pieces of different studies, my main take away is that modelling for the most effective way of tackling the virus is complicated as shit. So much seems to depend on timing (early but not too early), the relative ability to detect cases promptly and weighing up the various negative consequences of each measure amongst a host of other factors.

With all that in mind, it's probably right to be sceptical of anyone who offers glib opinions on what governments should be doing unless they can also offer a thorough and realistic assessment of the costs (in terms of economy, resources and inherent flaws) of each measure.
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I think they are just worried about an economy already weakened by Brexit.
 
Does anyone have a good reason for 'why Italy'? Does it involve them having a big number of cruise ship operators? Italians being touchy feely? Would be interesting to know.
 
Vidic_In_Moscow said:
Does anyone have a good reason for 'why Italy'? Does it involve them having a big number of cruise ship operators? Italians being touchy feely? Would be interesting to know.
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I think the consensus is that they have a large Chinese population which accelerated the import of the virus from Wuhan, they also got it earlier so are further ahead and the death rate is down to their aged population.
 
Just occurred to me that the Cheltenham races are on this week?! I would’ve thought that would be a prime candidate for being cancelled.
 
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