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

Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Arruda was though, not you.

And I’m not putting them aside, they are an extremely important part of the figures of course And some thing that needs to be considered a mass failure in the countries they get hit hardest there.

Something that is not surprising and what is completely forgotten here when people try to discuss Sweden strategy is that Gothenburg which has a population similar to Dublin Lisbon Copenhagen Oslo has a very low death rate.

Why is that the case if the Swedish strategy is so wrong? Is it not just the case that more populated cities like Stockholm end up more fecked because they were already on the ”pretty fecked” path once Italy kicked off.

Or can anyone explain to me why Gothenburg, a city of 590,000 has had it so well considering Sweden’s non lockdown strategy is so poor?
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Put it this way man. There's definitely some posters on here, nobody I'm specifically thinking of, but still, who WANT Sweden to fail.

Because if Sweden succeeds they've been talking shit for weeks and it'll make them wonder what exactly we've all been doing indoors for weeks on end. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying Sweden are going to succeed here - I hope to feck you do. But there are definitely people who want Sweden to fail and suffer 'like the rest of us'.
 
Arruda said:
I described nothing of that sort. That's your own imagination. I'm talking about the military doing police work, because police are already stretched and will need far more rotation than usual due to quarantines.

And, if western societies ever reach an extreme boiling point, it will most likely be responded to with oppression, not anarchy.
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Sounds lovely, boss.
 
massi83 said:
Thanks, but I think that still only shows how many cases, not the deaths. I can see Bergamo has 10.391 cases, but not death number.
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This is talking about the month of March, it was published on 1 April:
What the official figures don’t say. They don’t say that in March 2020 more than 5.400 people have died in Bergamo province, 4.500 of which due to coronavirus. Six times more than the previous year. Of only 2.060 of them, the «official» certified deaths caused by Covid-19 in the local hospitals (data as at yesterday), we know everything: age, gender, pre-existing conditions. We do not know anything about the other 2.500. Many of them are old people, who died at home or in assisted residential homes. In spite of the unmistakable symptoms, as recorded by physicians and relatives, they were never tested for the disease. On their death certificate you can just read: interstitial pneumonia.
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https://www.ecodibergamo.it/stories...s-in-one-month-in-the-province-of_1347414_11/
 
FootballHQ said:
Isn't there some promising talk on the ebola drug. There certainly needs to be a sticky plaster for the summer months just to give us all a bit of respite so hopefully it remains effective when the treatment groups gets scaled up.
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Yea Remdesivir. They found it improved people two thirds of the time.

There was no control group though so we dont know if that was pure luck.
 
Alabaster Codify7 said:
Put it this way man. There's definitely some posters on here, nobody I'm specifically thinking of, but still, who WANT Sweden to fail.

Because if Sweden succeeds they've been talking shit for weeks and it'll make them wonder what exactly we've all been doing indoors for weeks on end. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying Sweden are going to succeed here - I hope to feck you do. But there are definitely people who want Sweden to fail and suffer 'like the rest of us'.
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The narrative for some (not all) has certainly changed from “Sweden is the next Italy/Spain, they are fecked” to something a little more intangible so early into a pandemic.
And still no one can give me an answer as to why such big cities in Sweden like Gothenburg are doing so well if this strategy is so doomed to fail.
The optimist in me says that Gothenburg is a shining example that we can keep schools open, that we can maintain natural social distance and good hygiene, and that we can keep this curve extremely flat.
 
Balljy said:
I read that too where we were very close, especially to a SARs vaccine until it became not necessary any more. SARs had a very high mortality rate (I believe > 10%) so would have been considered ultra dangerous at the time.

One thing I can't get my head around with this though is the coronavirus strains which cause the common cold. There must be a ton of money sitting there where people would happily pay to vaccinate themselves from the 2 weeks of illness per year, but the companies don't seem interested. There surely can't be any reason that a vaccine is not possible for certain coronavirus strains?

The reasoning that it's because there's so many strains also seems weird as that is exactly what they do with flu every year by developing a new one to hit the newer strains.
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With the common cold there are too many strains, 200 or more. They're always circulating and when you get one it doesn't really give you any immunity against it or any other strain. With Covid19 there are only a handful if that.

The flu has less strains to begin with, only 10 or 20 of them cause the majority of infections, and they don't all circulate at once.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
The narrative for some (not all) has certainly changed from “Sweden is the next Italy/Spain, they are fecked” to something a little more intangible so early into a pandemic.
And still no one can give me an answer as to why such big cities in Sweden like Gothenburg are doing so well if this strategy is so doomed to fail.
The optimist in me says that Gothenburg is a shining example that we can keep schools open, that we can maintain natural social distance and good hygiene, and that we can keep this curve extremely flat.
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I can't give you a definitive answer but Toulouse which is about the same size is doing as well. My guess is simply that both cities are far enough from the source of the epidemy(within each country) and luckily avoided regional clusters. A particularly weird thing is Montpellier, there is a cluster 20km away(Maugio-Lunel) but nothing in the city, somehow it didn't spread efficiently.

Edit: And I forgot to mention that Nice avoided a cluster too despite its proximity and links with northern Italy.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
The narrative for some (not all) has certainly changed from “Sweden is the next Italy/Spain, they are fecked” to something a little more intangible so early into a pandemic.
And still no one can give me an answer as to why such big cities in Sweden like Gothenburg are doing so well if this strategy is so doomed to fail.
The optimist in me says that Gothenburg is a shining example that we can keep schools open, that we can maintain natural social distance and good hygiene, and that we can keep this curve extremely flat.
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Gothenburg's numbers are rising. Depends at what rate they continue to increase. But I do think it is possible to keep it at managable leves with schools and restaurants open. With things you mention and masks and better testing and tracing and mobile apps. But still unsure myself.
 
Foxbatt said:
Dwazza where in Canada are you? How is the situation there?
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I live in Toronto, in the province of Ontario. Canada's largest city (2.5 million) and most populous province (14.5 million). We are trying our best but have almost 500 new cases today and 43 new dead (Over 4k active cases and over 300 dead). Many of our dead are elderly folks who live in care homes and every day there are more stories of dozens of deaths being reported by these institutions. The whole country is loked down, some provinces perhaps more than others. In Ontario only essential business are allowed to be open but some critics say the list is pretty generous.
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
The narrative for some (not all) has certainly changed from “Sweden is the next Italy/Spain, they are fecked” to something a little more intangible so early into a pandemic.
And still no one can give me an answer as to why such big cities in Sweden like Gothenburg are doing so well if this strategy is so doomed to fail.
The optimist in me says that Gothenburg is a shining example that we can keep schools open, that we can maintain natural social distance and good hygiene, and that we can keep this curve extremely flat.
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A lot of people find it incredibly hard and uncomfortable to question their own beliefs.

Vast majority of us believe that our governments' are doing the right thing by imposing lockdown, more or less.

Therefore if Sweden succeeds with lockdown, it'll force people into the uncomfortable position of having to question what exactly what we've been forced to do by our governments. People feel scared of confronting something like that, for various reasons.

There's something in the tone of some posts on here that oozes spite and a sense of 'can't wait to tell you you were wrong' rather than 'your country really needs to listen, here'.
 
Alabaster Codify7 said:
A lot of people find it incredibly hard and uncomfortable to question their own beliefs.

Vast majority of us believe that our governments' are doing the right thing by imposing lockdown, more or less.

Therefore if Sweden succeeds with lockdown, it'll force people into the uncomfortable position of having to question what exactly what we've been forced to do by our governments. People feel scared of confronting something like that, for various reasons.

There's something in the tone of some posts on here that oozes spite and a sense of 'can't wait to tell you you were wrong' rather than 'your country really needs to listen, here'.
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What works for Sweden isn't certain to work for any other country. Think @Regulus Arcturus Black himself has been saying this.

Your post suggests you'd rather not have lockdowns in your own country and you're piggybacking.
 
Regarding Gothenburg's low numbers compared to Stockholm is combination of coincidence and timing (I presume).
I'm guessing it's coincident that Stockholm got hit worse than Gothenburg initially, but after the situation unfolded in Stockholm more restrictions were put in place which has had a good effect in other places in Sweden (timing).
Sad to see the swedish numbers go up again today after relatively low numbers last 3 days...

Oh and Gothenburg is much smaller than Copenhagen in population. Copenhagen = Stockholm...
 
MDFC Manager said:
What works for Sweden isn't certain to work for any other country. Think @Regulus Arcturus Black himself has been saying this.
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Hell it might turn out that what works for Gothenburg doesn’t work for Stockholm!

I don’t think that’s the case as I think it’s just likely that Stockholm had so much more of the virus circulating in mid-March, just like they did in Belgium and that lockdown wouldn’t have had any massive difference compared to the measures Stockholm put in so far.

I also think that both Stockholm and Belgian will level off with the current restrictions, the fact that ICU in Stockholm has been around the 200 mark for three weeks now makes me feel quite confident of that.
 
You would think the two year timeline is optimistic on the vaccine development and roll out time, but also pessimistic on any other advancements that might be achieved in the meantime. Improvements in treatments, testing, capacities of healthcare systems, even just the general understanding of the virus, etc. can all expedite the abolishment of some measures.

I also think humans are generally decent at pulling solutions out of their arse when the pressure is on, so I somewhat hopeful.
 
Oldham said:
Regarding Gothenburg's low numbers compared to Stockholm is combination of coincidence and timing (I presume).
I'm guessing it's coincident that Stockholm got hit worse than Gothenburg initially, but after the situation unfolded in Stockholm more restrictions were put in place which has had a good effect in other places in Sweden (timing).
Sad to see the swedish numbers go up again today after relatively low numbers last 3 days...

Oh and Gothenburg is much smaller than Copenhagen in population. Copenhagen = Stockholm...
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Sweden’s numbers didn’t jump up today,
it’s been quite consistent for a week now, it’s just the weekend thing catching up now, seems to be the case with many countries.

Will be a rather large number again tomorrow which will also then get allocated into the correct days if you look at the Swedish health site.

CPH = 790k
GOT = 600k
STHLM = 974k
 
Regulus Arcturus Black said:
Hell it might turn out that what works for Gothenburg doesn’t work for Stockholm!

I don’t think that’s the case as I think it’s just likely that Stockholm had so much more of the virus circulating in mid-March, just like they did in Belgium and that lockdown wouldn’t have had any massive difference compared to the measures Stockholm put in so far.

I also think that both Stockholm and Belgian will level off with the current restrictions, the fact that ICU in Stockholm has been around the 200 mark for three weeks now makes me feel quite confident of that.
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Second paragraph is just wishful thinking. It also ignored all available evidence.

Irrespective of the number of cases that originally enter a country from abroad, lockdown will 100% slow the spread of the virus from those initial cases. So an early lockdown in Stockholm would absolutely have saved lives. That shouldn’t even be up for debate. The only unknown here is whether the decision not to lock down might have saved lives due to the reduction in economic hardship. And whether those potential saved lives outnumber those killed by the virus.

I suspect not but it’s almost impossible to prove, one way or another.
 


778 is still a bad total for one day.

But for a Tuesday, it's not as big a jump as the last few weeks. If we can keep in this sort of range for the next few days, I think we can talk about the UK having reached and passed its peak.
 
nimic said:
According to google, Västra Götalands län alone has practically the same amount of deaths as Finland. It's clearly not a disaster like Stockholm, but the Swedish numbers are still higher than neighbouring countries even accounting for that.
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Yeah but feck me how many of those deaths were in Oslo and how many of those deaths were in Helsinki? The vast majority right? You can’t compare it to the whole of another country.
 
At least when this is over i won't have to see a constant barrage of facts about Swedens population density :annoyed:

In other news our neighbours have seemingly decided it's a good idea to have a load of children around.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Second paragraph is just wishful thinking. It also ignored all available evidence.

Irrespective of the number of cases that originally enter a country from abroad, lockdown will 100% slow the spread of the virus from those initial cases. So an early lockdown in Stockholm would absolutely have saved lives. That shouldn’t even be up for debate. The only unknown here is whether the decision not to lock down might have saved lives due to the reduction in economic hardship. And whether those potential saved lives outnumber those killed by the virus.

I suspect not but it’s almost impossible to prove, one way or another.
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Now think catching the virus to time of death, what is the timeline on that on average? That’s why I wrote so far in bold underline.
 
Bestie07 said:
It really does look like Remdesivir is the best hope we have at the moment. Initial reports are very promising. Do we know how quickly can the production be scaled up for this provided the randomised trials go well?
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Dont know man. I just hope to god the randomized trials go well.

Mixed reports coming out about hydroxychloroquine and some other medication combination.

But yea Remdesivir looks our best hope at the moment.
 
Dante said:


778 is still a bad total for one day.

But for a Tuesday, it's not as big a jump as the last few weeks. If we can keep in this sort of range for the next few days, I think we can talk about the UK having reached and passed its peak.
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Got to remember too, Monday was a Bank Holiday so again, weekend staff pretty much. Tomorrow will be the crucial numbers
 
Bestie07 said:
It really does look like Remdesivir is the best hope we have at the moment. Initial reports are very promising. Do we know how quickly can the production be scaled up for this provided the randomised trials go well?
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That shouldn't be a problem if the trials go well I'd imagine with a global concerted effort to mass produce and a pharma company with dollar signs in their eyes.
It's the most promising in my opinion, will find out end of May/early June I'd imagine what results are going to be given the trials underway for patients with moderate COVID 19 (its got 2400 participants estimated so good sample size to extrapolate from). Probably results and findings earlier if overwhelmingly positive or clinically significant.
https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04292899
 
Dante said:


778 is still a bad total for one day.

But for a Tuesday, it's not as big a jump as the last few weeks. If we can keep in this sort of range for the next few days, I think we can talk about the UK having reached and passed its peak.
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I'm a bit pessimistic there because it's a 'weird Tuesday' isnt it, because of the Bank Holiday weekend. I'm almost expecting Wed/Thurs to be this week's Tuesday if that makes any sense. Fingers crossed though - I'm sure some pretty clued up people pointed at the 17th of April being our peak so we are probably around it now.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
The only unknown here is whether the decision not to lock down might have saved lives due to the reduction in economic hardship.
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Have you ever looked into that specifically? I ask that because it seems so many people take for granted that recessions cost lives (myself included, until very recently) whereas it seems the issue is a lot more complex than that. It's certainly true for very poor countries where famine is already an issue, but when it comes to wealthier countries the issue becomes a lot complex. For a bit on this (what actually made me question that hypothesis) there's this study and others. Food for thought.

Life and death during the Great Depression

https://www.pnas.org/content/106/41/17290

Abstract

Recent events highlight the importance of examining the impact of economic downturns on population health. The Great Depression of the 1930s was the most important economic downturn in the U.S. in the twentieth century. We used historical life expectancy and mortality data to examine associations of economic growth with population health for the period 1920–1940. We conducted descriptive analyses of trends and examined associations between annual changes in health indicators and annual changes in economic activity using correlations and regression models. Population health did not decline and indeed generally improved during the 4 years of the Great Depression, 1930–1933, with mortality decreasing for almost all ages, and life expectancy increasing by several years in males, females, whites, and nonwhites. For most age groups, mortality tended to peak during years of strong economic expansion (such as 1923, 1926, 1929, and 1936–1937). In contrast, the recessions of 1921, 1930–1933, and 1938 coincided with declines in mortality and gains in life expectancy. The only exception was suicide mortality which increased during the Great Depression, but accounted for less than 2% of deaths. Correlation and regression analyses confirmed a significant negative effect of economic expansions on health gains. The evolution of population health during the years 1920–1940 confirms the counterintuitive hypothesis that, as in other historical periods and market economies, population health tends to evolve better during recessions than in expansions.
 
Dante said:


778 is still a bad total for one day.

But for a Tuesday, it's not as big a jump as the last few weeks. If we can keep in this sort of range for the next few days, I think we can talk about the UK having reached and passed its peak.
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I think people are aware that Easter will have distorted the figures some what.

I have a bad feeling that the figures we'll see this week will be horrendous.

Fasten your seatbelts.
 
11101 said:
With the common cold there are too many strains, 200 or more. They're always circulating and when you get one it doesn't really give you any immunity against it or any other strain. With Covid19 there are only a handful if that.

The flu has less strains to begin with, only 10 or 20 of them cause the majority of infections, and they don't all circulate at once.
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Cheers, makes sense.
 
Alabaster Codify7 said:
Put it this way man. There's definitely some posters on here, nobody I'm specifically thinking of, but still, who WANT Sweden to fail.

Because if Sweden succeeds they've been talking shit for weeks and it'll make them wonder what exactly we've all been doing indoors for weeks on end. Now, don't get me wrong, I am not saying Sweden are going to succeed here - I hope to feck you do. But there are definitely people who want Sweden to fail and suffer 'like the rest of us'.
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It doesn’t actually even make sense, I do wonder if it’s a case of now people in here just don’t like Regulus’ ’ways’ which I sort of get because he did become massively annoying in the Ole threads come to think of it.

But yeah if it’s not that then I’m confused as to why Sweden are supposedly getting it so wrong? .. based on the timeline of the general thread consensus and logical thinking.

- everyone was in agreement that the lockdown cannot last longer than a few months and that after full lockdown we needed to have measured social distancing.

Isn’t this exactly what Sweden are already doing? They’ve just skipped the full lockdown. Maybe they’ll do it later who knows? It’s not as if they’re in Belarus mode and casually acting as if nothing is happening.

- everyone said the full lockdown was to prevent health services being overrun and to get more testing measures/equipment .
Sweden’s is currently not being over run.

I struggle to see the point in comparing their current death numbers to nearby countries in full lockdown unless it gets completely ridiculous (Italy). At some point these countries will stop the lockdown and go into Sweden’s current partial lockdown and when that happens more people are unfortunately going to die than when these countries were in full lockdown. Correct?

The UK had to go into full immediate lockdown because our services would have been bent over if we didn’t. The countries are not even comparable when you consider our capital has about eight times as many millions in it as Sweden’s. Were a lot higher risk, not only because of the many more people but were a much more unhealthier nation.

There’s been a lot of talk that the lockdowns will be partially on and off for the foreseeable future. If that is the case why is it so imperative Sweden do it now? Why does everyone’s timeline have to be the same?

Yeah the Sweden debate has basically taken over the thread. It’s got to the point where it doesn’t even seem as if the debate is for the right reasons and the arguments are not even making sense or they’re moving goalposts and that’s from both sides.
 
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