The figures are particularly bad here in my part of Wales (worst figures in the country) but all I see is people behaving well & staying indoors - streets are deserted.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
That sounds about right. Worth remembering, Italy is still not at peak. They've halted the exponential growth in cases, but there's still a linear increase of about 4.5k cases per day. The total number of active cases is still increasing though slower than it was.
There is lag everywhere. That's exactly the point, Portugal was one of the earliest countries in Europe to impose measures, my argument is that that difference may be beginning to show in a comparison with a country like Sweden. If Sweden makes a U-turn in its policies, then you'll be looking at a 2-3 week lag until you see positive results.
Yep. Mask discipline is required otherwise it's pointless and uncomfortable.
When did Portugal impose full lockdown @Arruda ?
What did Portugal do different to Sweden 2-3 weeks ago?
And how long do you expect lockdown to last in Portugal? What happens after that?
Sorry mate, loads of questions I know but I want to understand what the experts in Portugal see differently to the experts here.
Sadly here, there is one area hit way harder than most and it’s the Järva area in Stockholm, an area with lots of immigrant families living in tight communities and in large family groups
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Norway seem to be coping fine so far:
https://www.newsinenglish.no/2020/04/01/updates-here-as-corona-rages-on/
https://www.newsinenglish.no/2020/04/01/updates-here-as-corona-rages-on/
Indeed. The dickheads who were cramming themselves into pubs, concerts and the Cheltenham Festival a couple of weeks ago, won't even be hitting the hospitals yet. This will sadly get much, much worse, before it gets better.
Someone's tweet to a company:
*facepalm*
I can't believe the number of people on here that I previously had assumed to be geopolitical / European law experts are actually experts in infectious diseases.
Aye, done a cracking job so far, especially with the testing.
The next steps after lockdown will be very interesting to see.
4.5k cases from 9k tests yesterday. We must have one of the highest positive cases to tests ratios in the world. We really need to step up testing. There's clearly way to many people who have it, but don't get tested and then carry on with their lives passing it onto others.
The US has passed a million tests in like 3 weeks whilst we're still hovering 10k tests a day.
The US has passed a million tests in like 3 weeks whilst we're still hovering 10k tests a day.
Are they former Luis Suarez fans?
Anyone else pissed off with the way we (UK) are reporting the statistics?
Cheltenham took place between 10/03/2020 and 13/03/2020, that is three weeks ago. Symptoms, we're told, take from five to fourteen days. So would the Cheltenham cases not be hitting us now?
Anywhere near that stereophonics gig?
As obscure as it seems, gatherings like that can distribute the virus across a community really quickly.
I'd take a bet if you could track cheltenham attendees, they, their work colleagues and families will feature heavily in current statistics.
What stats are you looking for?
Was that in Cardiff? In that case, not near to me.
As an aside, a couple of my parent's friends died the last few days.
Married couple in their 80's, she died on Sunday, he went yesterday. Didn't really know them myself, but its got my mum even more scared now. That was near Derby, died at the hospital that last doctor who died worked at.
Married couple in their 80's, she died on Sunday, he went yesterday. Didn't really know them myself, but its got my mum even more scared now. That was near Derby, died at the hospital that last doctor who died worked at.
I don't think those Stereophonics concerts helped . Likewise with Cheltenham going on i wonder how much they have effected the spread
Over 40% of new tests are positive. That just tells me we aren't testing nearly enough people.
Absolutely!
It's the people that were infected then that subsequently infected others, who then infected others. Easily traced back over 4 to 5 weeks.
They are only testing people sick enough to be admitted to hospital for treatment. It renders any conclusions we may want to draw from the numbers utterly irrelevant.
We have no idea how it is spread, nor it's presence in the wider population.
If you assume two weeks incubation, plus another week or so of illness before people generally require hospitalisation, then we are probably not yet seeing the full cost of that week or so of stupidity prior to the lockdown (if you can call this a lockdown).
This, too.
This is a country that covered up both the initial outbreak, and the severity of it. They clamped down on that doctor who attempted to whistleblow. This is a country who heavily control what goes out, no facebook etc.
Other countries have their hands full trying to sort out their own emergencies right now, but I dare say in due course there will be major accusations made , and not just from the likes of Trump.
I'm sorry for your parents, at that age they generally don't have many close friends and losing them suddenly is particularly painful.
Recoveries and those in a serious/critical condition. Just seems like we aren't bothering releasing that information like other countries are, unless I'm missing something?
Never (I think only Italy did in Europe?), but we have restricted a lot of things, were among the first to close schools, etc. Thursday March 13th was the last time I went out "feeling free", most people were home on the 14th and many businesses shut voluntarily before the government imposed it on the following weekend.
We are allowed to walk pets, exercise, shopping, etc, but the social pressure is such that barely no one does it for 10 days or more.
So, half lockdown for 18 days, and its effectiveness rising continuously.
Two causes for concern, though: It seems almost impossible to keep it out of nursing homes, where the residents will slowly, but surely, succumb to the virus. Secondly, there seems to be an impatience among certain people with strong voices, calling for this, that and the other to be re-opened after Easter. The body count just isn't large enough for them. There's still a long way to go before we can claim success, but so far, so good.
Definitely agree about that. Those voices should realise that the body count is so low because of the action that has been taken.
So how long are you guys expecting that to continue? The half lockdown?
I think people just panic and at the route of it want some assurance that what they are doing isn't the wrong thing.
You are right that it makes no sense to want it to fail. It offers a solution to everyone else. There's also no evidence as yet that it would fail. There's a lot of modelling to suggest it's a more sensible approach, and literally no basis other than guess work to say the opposite.
Modelling and educated predicting in itself isn't particularly strong evidence but in the absence of anything else it seems a better idea than randomly doing extreme things out of panic.
Our government are making me very nervous that we're making this 10x worse than it needs to be. A lot of the social distancing measures at supermarkets etc. Are Ill though out and actually seem counter productive when put into practice. Having people gather in a queue outside the shop in the cold and then bottle necking them into 1 entrance 10 at a time...I'm lost as to what this achieves.
I don't know, I wouldn't expect it to be rolled back before June. Our system is already struggling and to me it doesn't make sense to roll back measures until our NHS is back to a minimum level of normality.
EDIT: I also expect lockdown measures to be increased in the next few days here, most signs point towards that.
And unless you want this to keep coming back with a bang, you surely need measures that the majority of the population can keep up for months on end. If you can keep schools and as many businesses as possible open whilst social distancing and the other measures are in place, whilst not overwhelming the health service, surely that has to be your goal? It’s something you can keep up for 10 months if need be.
Then after June?
That’s my biggest question and head scratcher. Shutdown again 6 weeks later?
The plan here is to have steady numbers going into ICU and if we can keep that up we will, if those numbers/curve starts to rise rapidly, then we’ll go even stricter.
That last sentence doesn’t make sense at all. I mean, we’re all fecked regardless but there’s a good chance that Sweden’s approach will leave Sweden more fecked than other countries that made more of an effort with their NPIs.
It’s all about buying time. Time to beef up hospitals, get the necessary PPE for doctors, learn more about the best way to manage sick patients, ramp up testing, limit spread in the community etc etc.
Taking radical social distancing measures early on causes a lot of short term economic pain but could save thousands and thousands of lives if it gives us breathing space to handle the epidemic a bit better. So there’s much more to this than “Sweden’s approach, or we’re all fecked”.
IMO we’re heading into 12 to 18 months (possibly longer?) of intermittent lock-downs. Periods of relative normality, followed by periods where everything shuts down again. It’s going to be the new normal for quite some time, unfortunately.
Trying to let herd immunity take its natural will kill hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people. No government will allow (or be allowed) that happen.
My mums work friend's father in law died the other day. They were from Derby. Visited Benidorm a few weeks preceding this, around february I believe so potentially brought it back from there.
Is there any evidence for that anywhere though Pogue?
I mean, we’re beefing up hospitals and buikding massive field hospitals every single day, not just chilling around doing ziltch and hoping it’ll be fine.
Will locking down now help Ireland to build more ICU units and field hospitals than Sweden? I don’t think so.
Will locking down now for four weeks stop Ireland getting the rate infection after lockdown is over, once again I don’t think so.
I think that’s fair to say, and I’m also fairly certain as I repeated many times, that if the health ministry in Sweden sees the ICU curve take a scary upward turn for some days, I fully expect stricter measures to come in and even full lockdown if need be.
My argument has only ever been that if you can keep your health service going, whilst NOT locking down then surely that’s the best solution?