OT: Corona virus

[Ian R]

Oz graph

[Ian R]

What the above graph does not tell you is that according to worldometers, 2,813 persons in Australia have recovered from a positive infection.

That is, nearly 50% have recovered,leaving only 3,189 active cases. Of those,87 are in a serious or critical condition, and there have been "only" 50 deaths.

[RangerJoe]

New Zealand isn’t just flattening the curve. It’s squashing it.
April 7, 2020 at 5:31 a.m. CDT

It has been less than two weeks since New Zealand imposed a coronavirus lockdown so strict that swimming at the beach and hunting in bushland were banned. They’re not essential activities, plus we have been told not to do anything that could divert emergency services’ resources.
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It took only 10 days for signs that the approach here — “elimination” rather than the “containment” goal of the United States and other Western countries — is working.

The number of new cases has fallen for two consecutive days, despite a huge increase in testing, with 54 confirmed or probable cases reported Tuesday. That means the number of people who have recovered, 65, exceeds the number of daily infections.
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After peaking at 89 on April 2, the daily number of new cases ticked down to 67 on Monday and 54 on Tuesday. The vast majority of cases can be linked to international travel, making contact tracing relatively easy, and many are consolidated into identifiable clusters.

Because there is little evidence of community transmission, New Zealand does not have huge numbers of people overwhelming hospitals. Only one person, an elderly woman with existing health problems, has died.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/as ... ket-newtab

[RangerJoe]

California counties scrambling to find ventilators as Newsom sends 500 to other states fighting coronavirus

https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... vin-newsom

[RangerJoe]

The hospital went through 6 months of supplies in one week:

A small Georgia hospital battles one of the nation’s most intense coronavirus outbreaks

Far from the big coastal hubs of Seattle, Los Angeles and New York, this hospital in the remote southwest Georgia city of Albany — more than 35 miles from an interstate highway and 180 miles from a major international airport — is struggling to treat a community afflicted with one of the most intense coronavirus rates in the nation.

With 973 cases in Dougherty County, about one in 90 residents of this poor, predominantly black community has tested positive for COVID-19 — significantly more than the one in 1,450 residents Los Angeles County. Already, 56 people have died, about 75% of whom are African American, according to Michael Fowler, the county coroner.
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No one suspected COVID-19 when a man from the Atlanta area arrived at Phoebe Putney’s emergency room Feb. 29 complaining of shortness of breath.

The man, who was 67 years old, had chronic lung disease and had not traveled to China or the West Coast.

He had come to Albany to attend a funeral for Andrew Jerome Mitchell, a retired janitor. After more than 100 people gathered at Albany’s Martin Luther King Memorial Chapel for the service, many then crammed into Mitchell’s small three-bedroom home for a potluck meal of fried chicken, greens and cornbread.

We hugged, we talked, we cried together,” said Alice Wise Bell, the daughter of Mitchell’s longtime partner, Emell Murray. “We didn’t think anything of it.”

Before she went to bed, Murray started feeling chills. The next day, Bell rushed her mother, who is diabetic and has high blood pressure, to the hospital with a fever of 103. Staff told her they suspected a urinary tract infection.

Before long, a cascade of sick people — including Bell’s aunt and cousin — trickled in to the emergency room.

By the time hospital and local officials realized the deadly virus was in the community, it had already spread from the funeral home to churches, the county courthouse and the hospital.

Sheriff’s deputies, teachers and caregivers to the elderly were among those who tested positive for the virus, along with more than 60 hospital employees.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/st ... -outbreaks

[Ian R]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

New Zealand isn’t just flattening the curve. It’s squashing it.

This does not surprise me, nor that similar restrictions here are having a similar result.

[CaptBeefheart]

OK, gents, I've got your feel good story of the day: S. Korea reports fewest virus cases since late Feb.

SEOUL, April 9 (Yonhap) -- South Korea on Thursday reported its fewest additional cases of the new coronavirus since late February, as the country is implementing an extended social distancing drive to fight against the virus pandemic.

The 39 new cases, detected Wednesday and down from 53 a day ago, brought the nation's total infections to 10,423, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).

South Korea recorded around 50 or fewer daily new cases for a fourth day in a row, a sharp drop from the Feb. 29 peak of 909 new cases. But health authorities remain on high alert over cluster infections at churches and hospitals, as well as new cases coming from overseas.

The nation's death toll from the coronavirus, which emerged in China late last year, rose by four to 204, according to the KCDC. In total, 6,973 people in South Korea have recovered from the virus.

We still have zero deaths from this in Seoul, a city of 11 million people.

Anyway, all this without government-mandated shutdowns, except schools and the Seoul mayor recently shutting down large clubs and room salons for 10 days. [What's a "room salon?" A friend told me it's a place where you pay a gal to sing with you, whisper sweet-nothings in your ear and pour you watered-down whiskey, all in a room fitting 6-30 people.] Clearly the Korean Room Salon Association hasn't been on the ball in offering freebies to government officials.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Cheers,
CB

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Wuffer

ORIGINAL: obvert

Everyone continues to ask what Germany is doing well to keep deaths down.

While many of the overarching strategies have been discussed, like extensive testing, case tracking and isolation early, early-on lower age case rates, keeping the vulnerable as safe as possible, and their high numbers of ICU beds (although those will likely come more into play at a later stage).

The more I think about the more I believe it's a cultural thing and a lot of luck.

First, there is the habit of annoying everyone with absurdly high standards, which in the end you can't meet yourself. /s

Germans distance themselves socially far more than francone or Romanic cultures, the normal distance between conversations is at least an arm's length, rather two. When talking to southern Italians, we like to take a step back, whereupon the other one takes another step forward - I have often observed how people wandered across the room during a heated dialogue.

You don't find hugs or kisses in the > 50 years old generation, we were just about to introduce this into our behaviour.

Compare this with Switzerland: the number of cases in the Italian-speaking Kanton (Tessin) is significant higher than in the German-speaking world, the French part is in between.
https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:C ... canton.svg

Regarding the numbers of tests, they were not that much available in the beginning, so the more important work was tracking down e.v.e.r.y. single case and isolating all contact persons - at some point they were 3-5 or more people quarantined for every confirmed case.

I have to think this system of monitoring is quite important to treating cases as they go severe rather than after they're quite far along. The earlier you catch the bad stage the more of the severe cases don't go into ICU units and ventilators.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: RangerJoe

The hospital went through 6 months of supplies in one week:

A small Georgia hospital battles one of the nation’s most intense coronavirus outbreaks

Far from the big coastal hubs of Seattle, Los Angeles and New York, this hospital in the remote southwest Georgia city of Albany — more than 35 miles from an interstate highway and 180 miles from a major international airport — is struggling to treat a community afflicted with one of the most intense coronavirus rates in the nation.

With 973 cases in Dougherty County, about one in 90 residents of this poor, predominantly black community has tested positive for COVID-19 — significantly more than the one in 1,450 residents Los Angeles County. Already, 56 people have died, about 75% of whom are African American, according to Michael Fowler, the county coroner.
.
.
.
No one suspected COVID-19 when a man from the Atlanta area arrived at Phoebe Putney’s emergency room Feb. 29 complaining of shortness of breath.

The man, who was 67 years old, had chronic lung disease and had not traveled to China or the West Coast.

He had come to Albany to attend a funeral for Andrew Jerome Mitchell, a retired janitor. After more than 100 people gathered at Albany’s Martin Luther King Memorial Chapel for the service, many then crammed into Mitchell’s small three-bedroom home for a potluck meal of fried chicken, greens and cornbread.

We hugged, we talked, we cried together,” said Alice Wise Bell, the daughter of Mitchell’s longtime partner, Emell Murray. “We didn’t think anything of it.”

Before she went to bed, Murray started feeling chills. The next day, Bell rushed her mother, who is diabetic and has high blood pressure, to the hospital with a fever of 103. Staff told her they suspected a urinary tract infection.

Before long, a cascade of sick people — including Bell’s aunt and cousin — trickled in to the emergency room.

By the time hospital and local officials realized the deadly virus was in the community, it had already spread from the funeral home to churches, the county courthouse and the hospital.

Sheriff’s deputies, teachers and caregivers to the elderly were among those who tested positive for the virus, along with more than 60 hospital employees.

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/st ... -outbreaks

This looks pretty bad. It is compounded by this; Black and Brown Americans are being more severely hit by this virus and dying at much higher rates in many areas of the country, including this community in Georgia. This has a lot to do with income disparity, lack of insurance, jobs that force them into the community at higher rates.

Not only are black Americans less likely to be insured and able to afford treatment (so often less likely to seek it out), but they are more likely to have underlying medical conditions such as asthma, diabetes, high blood pressure and heart disease that could put them at higher risk for severe illness. There is also the effect of higher rates of poverty on diet and habits, leading to higher rates of comorbidities in black populations.

They are 60% more likely than white Americans to be diagnosed with diabetes and 40% more likely to have high blood pressure, according to the U.S. government.

“This virus is treading a glide path that unfortunately our society has paved through structural racism and poverty,” said Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a former director of the Detroit Health Department. “It is finding its way into our most vulnerable communities, who in our country tend to be disproportionately black and brown.”

The problem is compounded by the fact that many of the most vulnerable people work in service jobs that increase their risk of being exposed to the virus. Fewer than 20% of black workers are able to work from home compared with about one-third of their white counterparts, according to data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

[Encircled]

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

The situation in the UK is a bit odd. Just going off the numbers today's reported deaths are higher than all but the worst single days in Italy and Spain. But we have not seen the kind of scary reports of hospitals being overwhelmed that came from Lombardy/Madrid. There is of course the possibility that the coverage is being managed to an extent by the government. But in these times of Twitter etc I'd suggest it is pretty difficult to 'gag' those on the front line. If we'd been overwhelmed I think we'd know about it.

More likely, my speculation would be two possible (not mutually exclusive) explanations. One would be that our classification of deaths is less stringent than Italy/Spain. So a similar number of 'Coronavirus deaths' would not be representing an equivalent stress on health services on the ground. The other possibility is that Italy and Spain had their cases confined to much more localised regions (Lombardy/Madrid/Barcalona) whereas the UK - which is even more densely populated than the European average (England is twice as densely populated as Italy and 4 times more densely populated than Spain and indeed the USA) has had cases and deaths - and the strain on health services these represent - spread across the country. That would tally with the FT graphs which suggest that whilst things are bad in London they are not anywhere near as bad as they were in equivalent regions in Spain/Italy.

They are plenty of questions for the government to answer on what it did to close down the country and whether it was fast enough, but the NHS effectively doubled its ICU capacity in that period.

Thats something that is pretty impressive, and is probably the only reason we haven't been overwhelmed.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: Encircled

ORIGINAL: Sammy5IsAlive

The situation in the UK is a bit odd. Just going off the numbers today's reported deaths are higher than all but the worst single days in Italy and Spain. But we have not seen the kind of scary reports of hospitals being overwhelmed that came from Lombardy/Madrid. There is of course the possibility that the coverage is being managed to an extent by the government. But in these times of Twitter etc I'd suggest it is pretty difficult to 'gag' those on the front line. If we'd been overwhelmed I think we'd know about it.

More likely, my speculation would be two possible (not mutually exclusive) explanations. One would be that our classification of deaths is less stringent than Italy/Spain. So a similar number of 'Coronavirus deaths' would not be representing an equivalent stress on health services on the ground. The other possibility is that Italy and Spain had their cases confined to much more localised regions (Lombardy/Madrid/Barcalona) whereas the UK - which is even more densely populated than the European average (England is twice as densely populated as Italy and 4 times more densely populated than Spain and indeed the USA) has had cases and deaths - and the strain on health services these represent - spread across the country. That would tally with the FT graphs which suggest that whilst things are bad in London they are not anywhere near as bad as they were in equivalent regions in Spain/Italy.

They are plenty of questions for the government to answer on what it did to close down the country and whether it was fast enough, but the NHS effectively doubled its ICU capacity in that period.

Thats something that is pretty impressive, and is probably the only reason we haven't been overwhelmed.

Hopefully the production of ventilators now online keeps pace with the creation of beds. The piece missing now is case monitoring. If the NHS can set up a system to monitor cases at home, we could avoid a lot of those getting so serious that intervention can't help them once they do actually get into a hospital situation.

[obvert]

Here is the FT case chart now. This seems to be the best indicator that there is flattening in various curves, which don't show as sharply in the trailing stat of mortality.

Both the US and UK are going up but heading toward a flattened trajectory now. Germany, France, Austria and Iran seem on a downward trend now joining Italy and Spain. Japan heading up again after their stay-open strategy seems to have failed while S. Korea still keeps the dance going and is open.

[obvert]

ORIGINAL: CaptBeefheart

OK, gents, I've got your feel good story of the day: S. Korea reports fewest virus cases since late Feb.

SEOUL, April 9 (Yonhap) -- South Korea on Thursday reported its fewest additional cases of the new coronavirus since late February, as the country is implementing an extended social distancing drive to fight against the virus pandemic.

The 39 new cases, detected Wednesday and down from 53 a day ago, brought the nation's total infections to 10,423, according to the Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC).

South Korea recorded around 50 or fewer daily new cases for a fourth day in a row, a sharp drop from the Feb. 29 peak of 909 new cases. But health authorities remain on high alert over cluster infections at churches and hospitals, as well as new cases coming from overseas.

The nation's death toll from the coronavirus, which emerged in China late last year, rose by four to 204, according to the KCDC. In total, 6,973 people in South Korea have recovered from the virus.

We still have zero deaths from this in Seoul, a city of 11 million people.

Anyway, all this without government-mandated shutdowns, except schools and the Seoul mayor recently shutting down large clubs and room salons for 10 days. [What's a "room salon?" A friend told me it's a place where you pay a gal to sing with you, whisper sweet-nothings in your ear and pour you watered-down whiskey, all in a room fitting 6-30 people.] Clearly the Korean Room Salon Association hasn't been on the ball in offering freebies to government officials.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming.

Cheers,
CB

All good news! Thanks.

If you find any more information about the prevalence of non-standard treatments for patients with severe cases in South Korea it would be interesting to see. I know there have been a number of studies and trials on various drugs like Remdesivir, but also the study on Sea Buckthorn Berries and L. Gasseri probiotics lessening severity of cases and other interesting stuff. Let us know if you run into anything about effective treatments in the local press.

[obvert]

One of the difficulties in finding reliable data from China is that local officials in Wuhan and surrounding have been afraid to pass on the real numbers.

A common trend in NY Times articles I appreciate is that not only do they show publishing date prominently, but they show dates of update for many articles so you can know they're somewhat current still.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/02/us/p ... china.html

American intelligence agencies have concluded that the Chinese government itself does not know the extent of the virus and is as blind as the rest of the world. Midlevel bureaucrats in the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, and elsewhere in China have been lying about infection rates, testing and death counts, fearful that if they report numbers that are too high they will be punished, lose their position or worse, current and former intelligence officials said.

Bureaucratic misreporting is a chronic problem for any government, but it has grown worse in China as the Communist leadership has taken a more authoritarian turn in recent years under Mr. Xi.

No complete picture of the virus exists anywhere because of factors beyond government suppression, including testing shortages, varying measurement standards and asymptomatic infections that could account for up to one in four coronavirus cases. Iran has obfuscated its struggles with the pandemic. Italy’s death count of more than 13,000, the most worldwide, leaves out people who died outside hospitals.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: obvert

Midlevel bureaucrats in the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, and elsewhere in China have been lying about infection rates, testing and death counts, fearful that if they report numbers that are too high they will be punished, lose their position or worse, current and former intelligence officials said.

warspite1

Echoes of Chernobyl.....[:(]

[Wuffer]

Big pool of coronavirus cases going undetected, German researchers say

Widespread testing and isolation of infected people ‘needed to stop renewed outbreak’
About 6 per cent of cases identified worldwide, study estimates

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society ... esearchers

(The scientists) calculated the detection rate using an estimate of the infiection fatality rate published on The Lancet Infectious Diseases site on March 30. The authors of the Lancet study estimated that 0.66 per cent of people who became infected died."

"South Korea had the highest detection rate at almost 50 per cent while the US was 1.5 per cent. Turkey had the lowest detection rate at 0.12 per cent. On average, the detection rate globally might only be 6 per cent, they said.

Vollmer and Bommer concluded that the actual number of infections worldwide could be in the tens of millions.
The paper estimated Germany’s detection rate at 16 per cent, and France at 3 per cent.

That's good and bad news; while confirming the very high number of asymtomatic cases (compare Iceland, the Faroers etc.) this meant it will near impossible to contain this beast world wide. OTOH life could start again soon in hard hit places like Lombardia. ...
With celebrating St.patrick and canival the public voice has already decided the way.

In the end, the most decisive factor could be... as always... your nutrition.
McDonald's & co, meat for the price of dog food, plactic bottles of Coke - your choice.

[JohnDillworth]

It's starting to look like Sars-Covid-19 got to NYC from Europe, not China, and was circulating for weeks before anyone knew about it. Apparently it's genetics change over time and are trackable. The paper is awaiting peer review but come form a geneticists at Mt Sinai Hospital.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/science/new-york-coronavirus-cases-europe-genomes.html


We made mistakes for sure, but we thought we had 2 weeks only to find it has been here for a month.

[Wuffer]

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: obvert

Midlevel bureaucrats in the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, and elsewhere in China have been lying about infection rates, testing and death counts, fearful that if they report numbers that are too high they will be punished, lose their position or worse, current and former intelligence officials said.

warspite1

Echoes of Chernobyl.....[:(]

It's the same everywhere.
You could easily add 5-10% the German numbers. As you asked and me being curious too, I spoke to some former co-students who are now chiefs doctors and professors in hospitals and they confirmed that strokes or heart attacks often not counted as CoVid even if the patients were infected. That might be different in other parts of Germany, but much bigger numbers would be impossible to hide. I think it's general accepted in medicine, would be surprised if other countries would be much different.

It's completely meaningless at the moment anyway. We will know better in a year when comparising the overall death rates with the data of previous years.

[Wuffer]

ORIGINAL: JohnDillworth

It's starting to look like Sars-Covid-19 got to NYC from Europe, not China, and was circulating for weeks before anyone knew about it. Apparently it's genetics change over time and are trackable. The paper is awaiting peer review but come form a geneticists at Mt Sinai Hospital.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/science/new-york-coronavirus-cases-europe-genomes.html


We made mistakes for sure, but we thought we had 2 weeks only to find it has been here for a month.

What a surprise.
People switch planes... Italy thought too they were safe after banning direct flights from China while everyone travels via Munich, which made tracking and tracing near impossible. No they call it the Munich germ. This was exactly the prognosis of some software engineers who simulated the World wide intercon travel. Swallow a packet of ibuprofen for the fever and continue Business as usual.

I remember a paper from a Chinese genetic researcher, wo suggested that all cases outside China (at that time Europe a d US) could be leveled down to some 30 (!) different individuel spreaders...

That said, good luck to you all! Stay healthy, please. Wish we could help.
And keep a diary, this should never forgetten.

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Wuffer

ORIGINAL: warspite1

ORIGINAL: obvert

Midlevel bureaucrats in the city of Wuhan, where the virus originated, and elsewhere in China have been lying about infection rates, testing and death counts, fearful that if they report numbers that are too high they will be punished, lose their position or worse, current and former intelligence officials said.

warspite1

Echoes of Chernobyl.....[:(]

It's the same everywhere.

warspite1

Well I may be wrong but while yes, there is probably a knee-jerk reaction in all of us to 'hide' our mistakes, there are mistakes and there are mistakes. And I'm not counting the type of example you gave where there happen to be differences in the ways of reporting (but for no sinister reason). I am talking about Chernobyl and (by all accounts) now Wuhan, where there were major potentially game-changing problems.