COVID-19

[Squeak]

The 7-day averages for Australia are looking concerning:

Data from https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publicati ... -worldwide

Australia ECDC 20200708.PNG

Yup. And for the first time, we're seeing lots of those numbers coming from community transmission, rather than returning travellers and their close contacts.

Melbourne's gone back into stage 3 lockdown for the next six weeks and there's been a rather badly managed lock-in of three public housing towers while they test all the residents. Hopefully it's enough.

[Grumble]

Œstrogen looks like it might protect against Covid-19. Could be an explanation as to why women have been less severely affected than men, an effect that disappears after menopause.

[Bird on a Fire]

No economic gains from failing to lockdown, according to an analysis of Sweden's economy and its neighbours' - but a much higher death toll.

https://theweek.com/speedreads/924238/s ... omic-gains

[jimbob]

No economic gains from failing to lockdown, according to an analysis of Sweden's economy and its neighbours' - but a much higher death toll.

https://theweek.com/speedreads/924238/s ... omic-gains

Thanks for that BOAF, I've added that to my pinned tweet.

Here's what the timeline of increasing and decreasing lockdown restrictions in Israel looks like with the 7-day average cases and deaths

My 7-day average is 3 days each side of the stated date, so it isn't lagging, unlike the rolling average in Excel.
Data from https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publicati ... -worldwide

Eca1nzAX0AARfxO.png (26.22 KiB) Viewed 4725 times

[Little waster]

Baffling view of the government's handling of the pandemic from the Red Wall.

Tl;dr version.

Dave is a first-time voter for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party.

"It's been a difficult few months with leopards eating everyone's faces so I feel vindicated in voting for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party, thank god I didn't vote for the Snuggling With Tiny Kittens Party just imagine how many faces might have been eaten by the kittens! I welcome today's news from the Minister for Leopards, I believe his announcement of borrowing £3bn in order to smear everyone's faces with gravy and then release ravenous leopards into the streets is exactly what we need at this time."

Old Bob is a lifelong Snuggling With Tiny Kittens Party voter who voted for the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party for the first time because of his concern that Ocelotville has too many aardvarks. Ocelotville is 97% ocelot but two aardvarks and a spiny anteater have moved there in the last 5 years.

"I know the PC police might arrest me for saying this but aardvarks are obviously behind all these cases of leopards eating people's faces and only the Leopards Eating People's Faces Party is willing to stand up and say this. I'm hoping their policy of hiding leopards in the cupboards of people's houses will make the aardvarks think twice of coming over here and stealing all our nurses' jobs. OK people might say the leopards have eaten 40,000 nurses in the last 6 months but I reckon that's a good thing as we will no longer need to provide healthcare for those 40,000 dead nurses. What I don't understand is why we can't just recruit more nurses? I mean we used to get loads from Aardvarkonia but they have ceased coming over for some reason, it's probably the fault of the Snuggling With Tiny Kittens Party"

[PeteB]

Nadine Dorries
#StayAlert
@NadineDorries

Being looked at, but no one knew.
I’ve never met anyone, ever who had the flu or a head old who told me they were asymptomatic.
Asymptomatic transmission is another arrow in #COVID19 ‘s quiver which has made this virus so difficult to deal with.

See one of our Health Ministers is on the ball

[Little waster]

I'm sure a lot of you have received the same email from the Cabinet Office to the "Hold a Public Inquiry into the handling of the Covid-19 crisis" petition (only 21,000 signatures currently)

The response to a new virus inherently involves a continuous process of learning, adapting and responding. Government regularly publishes data that underpins its decision making on GOV.UK.

COVID-19 is the biggest challenge the UK, together with nations around the world, has faced in decades. The Government, the NHS, the public and private sectors, and many more, have been working day and night in the fight against the virus.

The Government has been clear from the outset that its approach has been guided by science and the Government continues to rely on and consult the latest scientific developments in order to make decisions. Government Ministers, including the Prime Minister, have pointed to this during their press conferences setting out the response and approach to date. The Government has also been working with, and consulting widely with, businesses and organisations throughout the pandemic and continues to receive expert science advice from SAGE, the Chief Medical Officer and the Chief Scientific Adviser.

The Government is committed to transparency and on a regular basis publishes data that underpins its decision making, this can be found at https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus. The Government will continue to share documents with Parliament and the public when it is appropriate to do so.

The fact that this is a new virus means a key feature of the response, from the start, has inherently been a continuous and active process of learning, reviewing, adapting and responding as we discover more about how the virus works in light of the latest science and available data. Relevant information about the role of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE), including its role in the response, can be found here: https://www.gov.uk/government/groups/sc ... 9-response

There will be opportunities to look back, analyse and reflect on all aspects of COVID-19. However, at this critical phase, the focus of the Government continues to be on responding to the pandemic.

Cabinet Office

Which looks like a spectacular case of point missing.

We are not asking for the government to tell us what a wonderful job they are doing, we are not even asking for them them to down tools and justify their decisions in the here-and-now, all we are asking is for a future inquiry into why it became such an obvious f.cking omni-shambles so it doesn't happen again.

[Millennie Al]

all we are asking is for a future inquiry into why it became such an obvious f.cking omni-shambles so it doesn't happen again.

Considering that the answer is going to be that it was caused by incompetence by those at the top and that to prevent it happening again such people should not be let anywhere near positions of power, why do you expect those at the top would do anything other than oppose this at every step?

[Woodchopper]

all we are asking is for a future inquiry into why it became such an obvious f.cking omni-shambles so it doesn't happen again.

Considering that the answer is going to be that it was caused by incompetence by those at the top and that to prevent it happening again such people should not be let anywhere near positions of power, why do you expect those at the top would do anything other than oppose this at every step?

They will. The inquiry won’t happen until Starmer is Prime Minister or it looks like 40 or so Tories will rebel if one doesn’t happen. Fastest way to get an inquiry will be to start looking at lists of Tory marginal seats.

[lpm]

(A) Second wavers that show a "almost down to zero then heading back up to previous peak" chart:

Israel
Serbia

Plus:
Australia (one area only)
Japan (starting second wave?)
Hong Kong?

(B) Second wavers with a similar shape, but the first wave was tiny:

Croatia
Slovakia

(C) Second wavers with a similar shape, but stayed far too high in the trough after defeating the first wave:

Florida

(D) Big first wavers with no sign of second waving

Italy

Obviously (D) is what England and Scotland should be hoping for, but it's still not clear why it should be the case. England risks being a (C) - never got the trough low enough - while Scotland could be a (A), a lovely run of near zeros only to head back up a couple of months later. In particular, reopening of indoor spaces like pubs and gyms in England might be expensive.

Looks like a good weather forecast for the coming few weeks, which seems to encourage outdoor picnics, beer gardens, BBQs etc. Evidence suggests beach cramming and mass protests had very little impact, so hopefully July and August will see the UK have a continental pavement cafe sort of vibe. But when summer is over and the rain comes back?

[lpm]

If the Balkans + Bulgaria, Romania, Czech etc was a single country, it would look pretty alarming. Individual countries have tiny numbers (compared to a UK or big country perspective) but they are all heading upwards.

If I had time I'd invent a country called Yugoslavia covering the Balkans and chart its numbers - would be a grim picture. Total of 1,100 cases per day at the moment for "Yugoslavia", which is higher than the UK. Not sure what the testing quality is like and whether like the UK they are flattered by under-testing

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/dail ... VN~MNE~MKD

Add in Bulgaria and Romania and it's even worse.

[shpalman]

(A) Second wavers that show a "almost down to zero then heading back up to previous peak" chart:

Israel
Serbia

Here are people in Serbia protesting for their democratic right to catch a deadly virus: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... s-protests

(D) Big first wavers with no sign of second waving

Italy

Obviously (D) is what England and Scotland should be hoping for, but it's still not clear why it should be the case...

Masks are still mandatory while out in the open in Lombardy, at least until Wednesday. (Running at about 100 cases per day, about half of Italy's total.)

They will remain mandatory while in shops etc.

Last I heard Johnson was thinking about at looking at considering whether to say something about implementing a similar policy, several months late like all his other "decisions".* (Around here people started wearing masks even before it became a rule.)

Even Trump has started wearing one, having previously said "I just don't see it." Maybe he was wearing it over the wrong bit of his face.

It's possible to go out for dinner or drinks in the evening as long as you can sit outside, and the weather here is currently perfect for that.

There's still time for a second wave to get going.

* - ETA to put "decisions" in quotes; he'll probably tell people they should wear masks while neither making them available nor implementing any penalty for not doing so.

The UK's plan to avoid a second wave is to fix the country's obesity problem in the next few months or alternatively, Brexit-induced food shortages and starvation are now a feature not a bug.

[jimbob]

(A) Second wavers that show a "almost down to zero then heading back up to previous peak" chart:

Israel
Serbia

Plus:
Australia (one area only)
Japan (starting second wave?)
Hong Kong?

(B) Second wavers with a similar shape, but the first wave was tiny:

Croatia
Slovakia

(C) Second wavers with a similar shape, but stayed far too high in the trough after defeating the first wave:

Florida

(D) Big first wavers with no sign of second waving

Italy

Obviously (D) is what England and Scotland should be hoping for, but it's still not clear why it should be the case. England risks being a (C) - never got the trough low enough - while Scotland could be a (A), a lovely run of near zeros only to head back up a couple of months later. In particular, reopening of indoor spaces like pubs and gyms in England might be expensive.

Looks like a good weather forecast for the coming few weeks, which seems to encourage outdoor picnics, beer gardens, BBQs etc. Evidence suggests beach cramming and mass protests had very little impact, so hopefully July and August will see the UK have a continental pavement cafe sort of vibe. But when summer is over and the rain comes back?

My brother lives in Wales and told me about a TV interview with the owner of the meat-processing plant in North Wales that had one of the outbreaks.

Apparently they hadn't tried for much protection. The other thing that was noticeable from this discussion is that the plant has two areas, a warm area where the slaughtering takes place and a cool area for processing the meat. All the infections were in the cool area.

As someone upthread said, it's almost as though conditions designed to preserve organic material are good for allowing the virus to persist.

[shpalman]

Masks are still mandatory while out in the open in Lombardy, at least until Wednesday. (Running at about 100 cases per day, about half of Italy's total.)

They will remain mandatory while in shops etc.

Last I heard Johnson was thinking about at looking at considering whether to say something about implementing a similar policy, several months late like all his other "decisions".* (Around here people started wearing masks even before it became a rule.)

Even Trump has started wearing one, having previously said "I just don't see it." Maybe he was wearing it over the wrong bit of his face.

* - ETA to put "decisions" in quotes; he'll probably tell people they should wear masks while neither making them available nor implementing any penalty for not doing so.

Wearing face coverings in shops will not become mandatory in England, Michael Gove has suggested, sparking confusion over plans to stem the spread of coronavirus as the country emerges from lockdown.

They really have a strong limitation in their mental capacity to simultaneously retain multiple pieces of information in working memory for rational decision making don't they?

[jimbob]

Masks are still mandatory while out in the open in Lombardy, at least until Wednesday. (Running at about 100 cases per day, about half of Italy's total.)

They will remain mandatory while in shops etc.

Last I heard Johnson was thinking about at looking at considering whether to say something about implementing a similar policy, several months late like all his other "decisions".* (Around here people started wearing masks even before it became a rule.)

Even Trump has started wearing one, having previously said "I just don't see it." Maybe he was wearing it over the wrong bit of his face.

* - ETA to put "decisions" in quotes; he'll probably tell people they should wear masks while neither making them available nor implementing any penalty for not doing so.

Wearing face coverings in shops will not become mandatory in England, Michael Gove has suggested, sparking confusion over plans to stem the spread of coronavirus as the country emerges from lockdown.

They really have a strong limitation in their mental capacity to simultaneously retain multiple pieces of information in working memory for rational decision making don't they?

OUCH

[headshot]

I just don’t understand why we aren’t mandating mask indoors.

Surely every little thing we can do to help suppress the virus would be useful. Face coverings are so simple and so cheap, just f.cking do it already.

[jimbob]

I just don’t understand why we aren’t mandating mask indoors.

Surely every little thing we can do to help suppress the virus would be useful. Face coverings are so simple and so cheap, just f.cking do it already.

Exactly, it's a percentage game... lots of minor improvements add up to a significant overall improvement, but there is no single magic bullet

[Bird on a Fire]

Especially as indoors is so clearly worse than outdoors.

It's hypocritical for the Conservatives to oppose the "nanny state" when many of them employ nannies.

[lpm]

I'm fed up with wearing a mask in public places.

Not because of the mask, but because of standing out in the 10% and imagining the 90% are staring at you and thinking you're weird.

Apologies this is a Facebook link. It's so hard not to conform and face the rear.

https://www.facebook.com/officialmattpu ... 841401707/

[headshot]

Seems I was born with a rebellion gene, so I wear my mask with pride.

A friend of mine is making some lovely cloth masks if anyone is interested: www.masksbybean.com

[Brightonian]

I'm fed up with wearing a mask in public places.

Not because of the mask, but because of standing out in the 10% and imagining the 90% are staring at you and thinking you're weird.

Apologies this is a Facebook link. It's so hard not to conform and face the rear.

https://www.facebook.com/officialmattpu ... 841401707/

Yes, I've been normally wearing a face mask for the last month or so when going into any enclosed space. Occasionally I forget, but when I am wearing a mask I get the feeling others instinctively think "Nutter! Avoid!" when they see me. Or it could be that my hair is a bit Worzel Gummidge after over four months without a haircut.

[jimbob]

I'm fed up with wearing a mask in public places.

Not because of the mask, but because of standing out in the 10% and imagining the 90% are staring at you and thinking you're weird.

Apologies this is a Facebook link. It's so hard not to conform and face the rear.

https://www.facebook.com/officialmattpu ... 841401707/

Yes, I've been normally wearing a face mask for the last month or so when going into any enclosed space. Occasionally I forget, but when I am wearing a mask I get the feeling others instinctively think "Nutter! Avoid!" when they see me. Or it could be that my hair is a bit Worzel Gummidge after over four months without a haircut.

I wear a mask whilst shopping because it reminds people that life is not normal.

I'm pretty sure I don't have Covid but that's not really the point. Most people won't have it, but the more who do keep good hygiene - including mask hygiene, the more chance of getting the epidemic under control

[Brightonian]

I'm fed up with wearing a mask in public places.

Not because of the mask, but because of standing out in the 10% and imagining the 90% are staring at you and thinking you're weird.

Apologies this is a Facebook link. It's so hard not to conform and face the rear.

https://www.facebook.com/officialmattpu ... 841401707/

Yes, I've been normally wearing a face mask for the last month or so when going into any enclosed space. Occasionally I forget, but when I am wearing a mask I get the feeling others instinctively think "Nutter! Avoid!" when they see me. Or it could be that my hair is a bit Worzel Gummidge after over four months without a haircut.

I wear a mask whilst shopping because it reminds people that life is not normal.

I'm pretty sure I don't have Covid but that's not really the point. Most people won't have it, but the more who do keep good hygiene - including mask hygiene, the more chance of getting the epidemic under control

I'd meant to say something similar but forgot! My aim is to try to normalise mask-wearing (I'm still taking all sorts of other precautions to avoid catching Covid). Also meant to say that I've noticed (or maybe I'm just imagining it) that many shop workers do seem to appreciate me wearing a mask (even if they themselves aren't wearing one).

[Millennie Al]

when I am wearing a mask I get the feeling others instinctively think "Nutter! Avoid!" when they see me.

Or it could be that others see you are being more careful and want to respect your choice by keeping away from you and only getting near to people who clearly care less.

[Woodchopper]

Good summary of what’s known about Covid
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/f ... le/2768391