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

We will be almost completely out of lockdown on the 6th of June. From next Friday we will no longer have to wear face masks outside (only in shops), starting next Friday they will reopen all cinemas and theatres at half capacity and will lift any restrictions on the number of people in bars and restaurants, gyms and swimming pools will be open and all hotels will operate normally (now they have to close restaurants and any leisure areas). Live concerts and events can take place with maximum 150 in attendance.

So denial might have been a bit of an extreme take...
Lockdowns will not stop in the next two months. They likely won’t stop at all until vaccine is there. I know people are still in denial about this but this is how it will likely play out.
 
He’s right too. I’ve snapped right out of my non evidence-based daydreams about the virus magically losing all its power after listening to the podcast I linked to higher up.

I’m also moving away from the “herd immunity” crap to thinking the best strategy, by far, is total eradication. All other scenarios are a massive burden for society, for my family and yes, for the economy over the next several years.

If we could extend and deepen the lockdown for another few months we could get rid of the virus completely. Then have life back to exactly the way it was before (except for the way we manage people coming in/out of the country) by autumn. Wouldn’t that be a great goal to shoot for?

Social distancing is a huge pain in the arse for everyone. Without eradication it’s here to stay, possibly forever. With eradication of the virus we can do away with it completely. No-brainer, right?

You were my ray of sunshine and hope in this thread, now I think we are all doomed :(
 
Funny you say that as i saw this the other day.


That’s cherry picking numbers. The trend lines are holding and the last data in will often be low. Hell, the same guy retweeted this:


You could also look at this state by state, though again take all numbers with some hesitation: Reuters
 
I know it's obvious and it was bound to happen but I am dreading the fallout of this. The job losses etc.

A friend of mine works in the government and said the thing will be an absolute shitshow and if you have a job over the next couple years then you're one of the lucky few

I imagine all industries will be hit but certain ones significantly more
 
He’s right too. I’ve snapped right out of my non evidence-based daydreams about the virus magically losing all its power after listening to the podcast I linked to higher up.

I’m also moving away from the “herd immunity” crap to thinking the best strategy, by far, is total eradication. All other scenarios are a massive burden for society, for my family and yes, for the economy over the next several years.

If we could extend and deepen the lockdown for another few months we could get rid of the virus completely. Then have life back to exactly the way it was before (except for the way we manage people coming in/out of the country) by autumn. Wouldn’t that be a great goal to shoot for?

Social distancing is a huge pain in the arse for everyone. Without eradication it’s here to stay, possibly forever. With eradication of the virus we can do away with it completely. No-brainer, right?

I concur. AU and NZ are close to being able to open up travel between the 2 countries. If only we can stamp the bloody thing out. We only have a handful of new infections but until we have a few weeks of zero community transmission it won't happen.
 
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When does everyone think we'll be able to see someone outside of our household within 2 metres? Ie grandparents, partners etc. 2m could be 200m when you want a hug/shag. I'm hoping it's part of the June 15th proposed change but they aren't announcing it until then as people would just start it tomorrow if they did.
 
I don't think it's died out but i equally don't think relaxing restrictions gradually equals walking straight into a second wave, early evidence seems to agree.

Early evidence isn't very meaningful as you are heading into summer and there are still significant restrictions. Compulsory quarantine might help stem the tide a bit.
 
When did you start opening up and what have your stats been like since?

We started early May by opening shopping centers, continued May 18 by opening bars and restaurants with limited capacity. Cases have been at around 300-400 per day since early April, no decline or incline since. Some days it’s just over 400, most days it will be between 350 and 400. Our highest death toll was on April 24 with 40 but for the last three weeks anywhere between 10 and 20 a day. What’s weird is that there was nobody on the streets in March and cases were doubling every few days. Everyone has been out doing their own stuff in May yet there have been no increases.
 
Really? Have you told anyone? If only they knew we could stop all this pesky economic damage and not bother developing a costly vaccine.
You know what I mean, it’s not over but it’s clearly on its way out. Number of deaths, and other measures, are less than half of what they were and the virus is getting to the stage where it’s unsustainable. Most of the transmission seems to be in places like hospitals, care homes and prisons and your chances of getting it sunbathing on Bournemouth beach are minimal. The lockdown is being gradually lifted and the main problem now is that the government did too good a job in scaring people into staying at home.
 
We started early May by opening shopping centers, continued May 18 by opening bars and restaurants with limited capacity. Cases have been at around 300-400 per day since early April, no decline or incline since. Some days it’s just over 400, most days it will be between 350 and 400. Our highest death toll was on April 24 with 40 but for the last three weeks anywhere between 10 and 20 a day. What’s weird is that there was nobody on the streets in March and cases were doubling every few days. Everyone has been out doing their own stuff in May yet there have been no increases.

Thanks. That’s a lot of cases over a long period of time. How are your hospitals coping? Are they managing to get much non-covid stuff done?
 
You know what I mean, it’s not over but it’s clearly on its way out. Number of deaths, and other measures, are less than half of what they were and the virus is getting to the stage where it’s unsustainable. Most of the transmission seems to be in places like hospitals, care homes and prisons and your chances of getting it sunbathing on Bournemouth beach are minimal. The lockdown is being gradually lifted and the main problem now is that the government did too good a job in scaring people into staying at home.

It really isn't on it's way out. It is just when the next wave comes and how much we reduce it's peak with behavioral and other changes. I'll be really surprised if we get to Christmas without a second wave.
 
Thanks. That’s a lot of cases over a long period of time. How are your hospitals coping? Are they managing to get much non-covid stuff done?

They are fine. There were issues early on but now we have dedicated hospitals for covid-19 cases, other hospitals are operating normally. To be fair these numbers are low enough that most hospitals are not really getting too many new cases per day, and most cases are in Silesia so the rest of country is much less busy. And even in Silesia there seem to be many empty beds.
 
It's been almost 4 weeks since Italy was allowed back outside and 2 weeks since most businesses were allowed to repoen, and still no rise in cases. The only thing that hasn't resumed is lots of people being allowed to cram indoors. Maybe this is all we need to avoid to kill the virus off.


What is also interesting is that Italy is beginning to add the random serological tests to the new case numbers and in the area they are doing it it is doubling the figures.
 
We started early May by opening shopping centers, continued May 18 by opening bars and restaurants with limited capacity. Cases have been at around 300-400 per day since early April, no decline or incline since. Some days it’s just over 400, most days it will be between 350 and 400. Our highest death toll was on April 24 with 40 but for the last three weeks anywhere between 10 and 20 a day. What’s weird is that there was nobody on the streets in March and cases were doubling every few days. Everyone has been out doing their own stuff in May yet there have been no increases.

That's very similar to Germany. Bars and restaurants have been open for two to three weeks now depending on the state (and with almost full capacity) and there hasn't been an increase in numbers. They keep declining and are also at around 300-400 at the moment. Only ~8000 active cases remain and the R number is at ~0.7 currently. Also the country's biggest outdoor cinema festival will be taking place from June until August, limited to 1000 seats (from 2500).
 
Bunch of cnuts with an agenda. Some might be genuinely idiots. There's no "hidden science" in there, just stupid opinions.

You are too nice. So much utter bullshit in there.
 
It's been almost 4 weeks since Italy was allowed back outside and 2 weeks since most businesses were allowed to repoen, and still no rise in cases. The only thing that hasn't resumed is lots of people being allowed to cram indoors. Maybe this is all we need to avoid to kill the virus off.


What is also interesting is that Italy is beginning to add the random serological tests to the new case numbers and in the area they are doing it it is doubling the figures.

Weather getting warmer and people have still altered their behaviour. Unless we get a vaccine there will be a second wave. It is just when and how bad.
 
The main sign of a government having done a good job will be them getting accused of over-reacting once we have a vaccine.
 
Weather getting warmer and people have still altered their behaviour. Unless we get a vaccine there will be a second wave. It is just when and how bad.
Is it too early to conclude that warm weather weakens the virus? Certainly the circumstantial evidence is there.
 
You know what I mean, it’s not over but it’s clearly on its way out. Number of deaths, and other measures, are less than half of what they were and the virus is getting to the stage where it’s unsustainable. Most of the transmission seems to be in places like hospitals, care homes and prisons and your chances of getting it sunbathing on Bournemouth beach are minimal. The lockdown is being gradually lifted and the main problem now is that the government did too good a job in scaring people into staying at home.

It's not on it's way out, it's just under control but that's not a permanent immovable state.

Our behaviour is the variable here and whilst it's positive that lesser controls seem to work in containing it that doesn't mean back to normal. It also doesn't mean that it won't remain at low levels before exploding again at some point.

You could be right of course and I'm not trying to say you're definitely wrong but reading such messages is concerning as it indicates a wider sense that we can all relax.
 
Is it too early to conclude that warm weather weakens the virus? Certainly the circumstantial evidence is there.

There is no evidence that I have seen that informs us how SARS-CoV-2 behaves in response to weather conditions. However, It is likely that most of the "winter" effect on viral infections in general is down to us being more snotty and sneeze in cold weather combined with factors like us living inside more in winter, closing more windows, packing inside pubs instead of using pub gardens etc etc etc. If we also relax regulations and get more casual about social distancing then there is a good chance we will see a second wave in October/November IMO.
 

From that FT article:
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Does anyone have a feel for why Peru is quite so high on the chart? I got the impression that they locked down fairly early and that it was quite a tough lockdown.
 
Is it too early to conclude that warm weather weakens the virus? Certainly the circumstantial evidence is there.

Not only it's too early but any conclusion is wrong we greatly altered our behavior at a macro level. We have greatly reduced the amount of movements that we make, airports, ports and train stations are a lot less busy than they normally are, no one organizes events with thousands of people when we used to such events on a daily basis, for the most part people keep their distances, many wear masks and actively try to not contaminate or be contaminated by anything.

On that topic @Pogue Mahone have you seen any stats regarding bronchitis, gastroenteritis and other seasonal infections, I bet that they have all followed Covid-19 in a clear downward trend. If I'm not mistaken April and May tend to be the middle of a few epidemics.
 
From that FT article:
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Does anyone have a feel for why Peru is quite so high on the chart? I got the impression that they locked down fairly early and that it was quite a tough lockdown.
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2020/may/20/peru-coronavirus-lockdown-new-cases

The FT guy also mentioned in his follow up tweets that Peru is also dealing with an outbreak of Dengue Fever, which can hardly help.
Is @Ian Reus still in Peru?
 
Not only it's too early but any conclusion is wrong we greatly altered our behavior at a macro level. We have greatly reduced the amount of movements that we make, airports, ports and train stations are a lot less busy than they normally are, no one organizes events with thousands of people when we used to such events on a daily basis, for the most part people keep their distances, many wear masks and actively try to not contaminate or be contaminated by anything.

On that topic @Pogue Mahone have you seen any stats regarding bronchitis, gastroenteritis and other seasonal infections, I bet that they have all followed Covid-19 in a clear downward trend. If I'm not mistaken April and May tend to be the middle of a few epidemics.

I haven’t seen stats but all my GP friends are saying that the number of “normal” infections they see, day to day, have fallen off a cliff. Although it’s possible that this is mainly driven by people suffering in silence, because they’re scared to visit their doctor.
 
It's been almost 4 weeks since Italy was allowed back outside and 2 weeks since most businesses were allowed to repoen, and still no rise in cases. The only thing that hasn't resumed is lots of people being allowed to cram indoors. Maybe this is all we need to avoid to kill the virus off.

What is also interesting is that Italy is beginning to add the random serological tests to the new case numbers and in the area they are doing it it is doubling the figures.

Unfortunately, I doubt it’s going to kill the virus off. It does look as though it’s enough to stop hospitals getting overwhelmed though. Which is great. My concern is that even the countries quite far out of lockdown have still radically changed their behaviour. And the type of changes that have been made will be harder and harder to sustain and will get pretty much impossible when winter kicks in. Bicycles, long walks and picnics are great fun when it’s sunny but a lot less fun when it’s pissing down.
 
When does everyone think we'll be able to see someone outside of our household within 2 metres? Ie grandparents, partners etc. 2m could be 200m when you want a hug/shag. I'm hoping it's part of the June 15th proposed change but they aren't announcing it until then as people would just start it tomorrow if they did.
Id imagine alot of people are.

Im starting back at work in a year old house converted to an office in which the windows dont even open with about 12 staff in total.

The place has damp throughout and the radiators don't heat on the top floor.

We have to use electric heaters in the winter and fans in summer.

How is this safer for me than going to see my brother or my mum and dad?

Its purely money.
 
It must be really reassuring for those at risk or suffering from the virus to watch government officials promising each day that proactive measures are being implemented 'at world-beating pace' only to find that nothing works and little is available, time and time again...
 
Some colleagues i work with are now having to self isolate as their partners work in a meat processing factory in the North West. Transpires their is a big outbreak their and the letters the partners have been sent home with is to not disclose the outbreak with the media - talk about employment welfare!
 
It must be really reassuring for those at risk or suffering from the virus to watch government officials promising each day that proactive measures are being implemented 'at world-beating pace' only to find that nothing works and little is available, time and time again...

It's been a fecking shambles and continues to be. We are so far behind most other European countries when it comes to testing it's a scandal. Most of the stuff we are putting in place now is only half arsed because we STILL don't have the testing capability that we need.
 
Wouldn't that be easy to determine by seeing how many excess deaths there were in December, Jan and Feb?

Here you can see the data that you are asking for, EUROMOMO monitors mortality in multiple european countries and the graphs allow you to see whether each weeks since 2015 have a mortality excess or not.
 

Amazingly she was also in charge of one of the UK's biggest data breaches when head of TalkTalk and was completely clueless in her response. She's now leading the track and trace development, where personal data concerns are of extreme importance.

You can't satirise this.