COVID-19

[Bird on a Fire]

Sunday Times article was a good read. Can I share the paywall-dodging article link on FB or would that get me into trouble?

People share links like that all the time. The absolute worst that can happen is somebody reports your post and it gets taken down, but even that is vanishingly unlikely.

[Woodchopper]

Sunday Times article was a good read. Can I share the paywall-dodging article link on FB or would that get me into trouble?

Yes, there's nothing against doing that in the forum rules. Good to also post a link to the original article. The mods can delete the link if its a problem.

[purplehaze]

TBH here I bought the Sunday Times today.

However, I still think that article should not have been behind a paywall.

I will take photos of the said article for posterity and then upload.

[mediocrity511]

Meanwhile, en España.

94252871_971754019888850_7144408952770396160_o.jpg

I have family in Madrid. My cousin got in trouble for riding his bike to the shop, because it is doing a sport not just transporting yourself there

[Opti]

Meanwhile, en España.

94252871_971754019888850_7144408952770396160_o.jpg

I have family in Madrid. My cousin got in trouble for riding his bike to the shop, because it is doing a sport not just transporting yourself there

Yep, that's what pwoper (sic) lockdown is like. But the figures speak eloquently. Sorry for your cuz.

[Bird on a Fire]

Meanwhile, en España.

94252871_971754019888850_7144408952770396160_o.jpg

I have family in Madrid. My cousin got in trouble for riding his bike to the shop, because it is doing a sport not just transporting yourself there

Yep, that's what pwoper (sic) lockdown is like. But the figures speak eloquently. Sorry for your cuz.

So how are people who don't have cars supposed to get around?

[Opti]

Speaking personally, we have a Supermercado 2.5km away. I couldn't walk there and back with shopping, but ddb could. But she'd have to do it every other day. And have 'papers' and prolly get stopped every time. It's not easy here. But numbers.

[badger]

Meanwhile, en España.

94252871_971754019888850_7144408952770396160_o.jpg

Wow. El Plod not hanging about.

Wonder how differently they would've handled this incident:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... nt-funeral
I don't buy the police line here.

[Bird on a Fire]

Meanwhile, en España.

94252871_971754019888850_7144408952770396160_o.jpg

Wow. El Plod not hanging about.

Wonder how differently they would've handled this incident:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... nt-funeral
I don't buy the police line here.

There's something about "17-year-old father-of-three killed at 150-strong funeral containing lots of dangerous motorcycle riding" that has enough unusual elements I feel that there must be more to it than the rather bland guardian article.

I don't mean that any circumstances would explain away such a tragedy. More that the police reaction suggests that the deceased was a fairly distinctive person in the community, and that therefore the whole situation was handled differently to the textbook.

[badger]

Meanwhile, en España.

94252871_971754019888850_7144408952770396160_o.jpg

Wow. El Plod not hanging about.

Wonder how differently they would've handled this incident:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... nt-funeral
I don't buy the police line here.

There's something about "17-year-old father-of-three killed at 150-strong funeral containing lots of dangerous motorcycle riding" that has enough unusual elements I feel that there must be more to it than the rather bland guardian article.

I don't mean that any circumstances would explain away such a tragedy. More that the police reaction suggests that the deceased was a fairly distinctive person in the community, and that therefore the whole situation was handled differently to the textbook.

It's discrimination, and the police aren't doing their job. They knew about it the night before and, it seems, got scared (or paid off). Meanwhile thousands of others can't attend the funerals of their loved ones (because they're not deemed "close family members", with or without motorbikes).

It's not about textbook, it's about coronavirus. If there's one time they can't be accused of being heavy handed in these circumstances, it's now. But I guess they'd rather snoop on supermarket shoppers.

A kid dies and no one makes a fuss about what the f.ck the other 149 were doing there.

Maybe they all kept 2m apart and social distancing rules and funeral guidance were perfectly observed throughout (except for the bit about close family members only, obvs)?

Anyway, it's stuff like this which makes me wonder whether some harder rules (eg what defines a "close family member") and policing will be necessary.

[mediocrity511]

Meanwhile, en España.

94252871_971754019888850_7144408952770396160_o.jpg

Wow. El Plod not hanging about.

Wonder how differently they would've handled this incident:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... nt-funeral
I don't buy the police line here.

There's something about "17-year-old father-of-three killed at 150-strong funeral containing lots of dangerous motorcycle riding" that has enough unusual elements I feel that there must be more to it than the rather bland guardian article.

I don't mean that any circumstances would explain away such a tragedy. More that the police reaction suggests that the deceased was a fairly distinctive person in the community, and that therefore the whole situation was handled differently to the textbook.

I think it's more that the deceased was from a fairly distinctive community known for their large funerals and a challenging relationship between them and the police. Badly handled by the police, but they seem to swing from extremes of telling all pubs to shut down before funerals or turning a blind eye to problems entirely.

[Woodchopper]

We used estimates of seasonality, immunity, and cross-immunity for betacoronaviruses OC43 and HKU1 from time series data from the USA to inform a model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission. We projected that recurrent wintertime outbreaks of SARS-CoV-2 will probably occur after the initial, most severe pandemic wave. Absent other interventions, a key metric for the success of social distancing is whether critical care capacities are exceeded. To avoid this, prolonged or intermittent social distancing may be necessary into 2022. Additional interventions, including expanded critical care capacity and an effective therapeutic, would improve the success of intermittent distancing and hasten the acquisition of herd immunity. Longitudinal serological studies are urgently needed to determine the extent and duration of immunity to SARS-CoV-2. Even in the event of apparent elimination, SARS-CoV-2 surveillance should be maintained since a resurgence in contagion could be possible as late as 2024.

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/ ... ce.abb5793

[lpm]

UK deaths now coming down the curve.

Peaked for about a week of around 800-900 per day (daily highest was 980).

Now should averaging around 500 a day for this week, hopefully down to 200-300 in the last few days of April.

May will be interesting. How will the flat lowlands play out, ahead of the potential second wave? A few months at 20 per day is very different to 100 per day. And a base level of 200 a day would be pretty grim.

[Woodchopper]

UK deaths now coming down the curve.

Peaked for about a week of around 800-900 per day (daily highest was 980).

Now should averaging around 500 a day for this week, hopefully down to 200-300 in the last few days of April.

May will be interesting. How will the flat lowlands play out, ahead of the potential second wave? A few months at 20 per day is very different to 100 per day. And a base level of 200 a day would be pretty grim.

I agree that the UK appears to be over the peak. Hospitalizations show that as well as deaths. But in previous weeks there has been a weekend undercount. So Tuesday may be higher.

[individualmember]

Meanwhile, en España.

94252871_971754019888850_7144408952770396160_o.jpg

I have family in Madrid. My cousin got in trouble for riding his bike to the shop, because it is doing a sport not just transporting yourself there

I have a sister in law in Madrid. My brother (her husband) is stuck in the UK so she’s isolated and depressed. And she’s originally from Taiwan so no family nearby either.

[shpalman]

Today in Italy there are fewer actively infected cases than there were yesterday*. (The numbers are always lower on a Monday, because there's less data coming in over the weekend I assume.)

There were 2256 new cases and 1822 cases which are considered cured of the covids, based on 41483 swabs. The number of cases being cured* is increasing (I don't want to use the word "recovered" because in Italian "ricoverato" means "taken to hospital"). The number of deaths was 454, deaths per day is only decreasing slowly.

In addition we also got a figure of 943,151 for the number of people swabbed (as compared to the number of swabs taken, of 1,398,024). There have been 181,228 total positives.

So, Italy currently has 108,237 positives, and since the UK doesn't seem to be giving figures for the number of cases which are "cured" (the last official number I've seen was 135 nearly a month ago, does anyone have a newer one?) the UK has more current positives than Italy has.

In other news, these guys have estimated when each region is likely (at the soonest) to see its last new case:

last-case-by-region-20200420.png (85.65 KiB) Viewed 3527 times

[shpalman]

Interesting to note, by the way, that the regions in the south show what happens if you lock down before it's already way too late.

They were subjected to the national lockdown back when the issue was mainly a Lombardy one.

They are data towards what the UK could have been like if it would have locked down at the same time that Italy did, rather than waiting to be in more or less the same situation as Italy was in before locking down.

Those regions will be able to loosen up sooner, and more, compared to Lombardy.

So much for the idea of not locking down too early so that people won't get bored of it.

[Little waster]

Another day another Daily Beyond-the-Pale article on how marvellously Sweden is doing without any sort of lockdown whatsoever.

Meanwhile in the real world, Sweden continues to keep high schools, universities etc. closed, bans large gatherings, confines the elderly and strongly urges people to self-isolate.

And it’s death rate is an order of magnitude higher than its neighbours and rising while theirs levels off, despite being hit with the virus at the same time.

https://www.euronews.com/2020/04/12/is- ... gy-working

[Woodchopper]

Here's the revised UK Covid hospital mortality data by date of death (rather than when the death was reported).

Corona day of death.jpg (96.36 KiB) Viewed 3423 times

There is a clear peak on 8 April, which was just over two weeks after the UK shutdown on 23 March (and as mentioned by lpm, there was an unofficial shutdown the week before).

We can assume that the curve would have kept increasing otherwise.

[Grumble]

Here's the revised UK Covid hospital mortality data by date of death (rather than when the death was reported).
Corona day of death.jpg

There is a clear peak on 8 April, which was just over two weeks after the UK shutdown on 23 March (and as mentioned by lpm, there was an unofficial shutdown the week before).

We can assume that the curve would have kept increasing otherwise.

How far back do we have to go before the data are reliable? I assume the last few days aren’t.

[JQH]

I'd like to see more "excess deaths" above the 5 year average data. Give us a better idea of the actual numbers dying of this.

[raven]

... and since the UK doesn't seem to be giving figures for the number of cases which are "cured" (the last official number I've seen was 135 nearly a month ago, does anyone have a newer one?)

The John Hopkins site was quoting something like 225 for a while (I noticed because it had been stuck on 135 for so long), but now it's saying no data.

@Woodchopper -- Where did you get figures for just England?

I was following the PHE dashboard, but they've shut that down and replaced it with https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/, where it looks like the UK as a whole peaked on the 10th.

Now they've switched to reporting by date of death or sample, I've been assuming the last 2-3 day's figures are unreliable.

(I shouldn't look at that right before bed though. Oxfordshire's got 1200+ cases. Yikes.)

[Bird on a Fire]

I'd like to see more "excess deaths" above the 5 year average data. Give us a better idea of the actual numbers dying of this.

Yes, this. In a country with hardly any testing, where a lot of cases are kept out of hospital, any data depending on testing and hospital admissions are difficult to trust.

[Millennie Al]

Anyway, it's stuff like this which makes me wonder whether some harder rules (eg what defines a "close family member") and policing will be necessary.

Be careful what you wish for. If the current rules are not enforced against some people, adding more rules is no guarantee that the new ones will be enforced any more than the old ones. But you can be sure that that new rules will be enforced against you.

[Woodchopper]

... and since the UK doesn't seem to be giving figures for the number of cases which are "cured" (the last official number I've seen was 135 nearly a month ago, does anyone have a newer one?)

@Woodchopper -- Where did you get figures for just England?

I was following the PHE dashboard, but they've shut that down and replaced it with https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/, where it looks like the UK as a whole peaked on the 10th.

Now they've switched to reporting by date of death or sample, I've been assuming the last 2-3 day's figures are unreliable.

They are from here: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/s ... ly-deaths/