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

Classical Mechanic said:
Fair point indeed. It would leave a lot of people unemployed too though.
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Yes, not nice for the people that contribute towards that demand reduction by dying, either! I’m talking specifically about the strain on the sector, which was already creaking.
The reality with these private care homes though, is that when go, the council steps in to pick up the care
 
Massive Spanner said:
https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0503/1136306-coronavirus-world/

I really struggle to get our approach here in Ireland right now. How can these countries which were so worse hit than us be opening so much over the next few weeks yet we will be opening feck all until late June/July?
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I wouldn’t be too hasty. I’ll be amazed if some countries or regions don’t reopen too soon and have a second wave possibly equalling or even surpassing the first. Judging success overall cannot possibly be done until at least after the next winter.
 
Revan said:
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Does anyone have a good guess why Western European countries have been doing so much worse than Eastern European countries? Especially considering that they have a significantly better medical system.

Also, it is surprising to see the massive difference between Latvia and Lithuania/Estonia, as is that between Slovenia and Czech Republic.
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I'd say a simple answer regarding western Europe and western countries in general which also applies to South Korea that has been crowing and congratulating itself in its media on the supposed 'end of western superiority' - look at countries that allow multi-citizenship and so have many who live/stay in/visit their birth country, travelling back and forth, have significant numbers of residents who are not citizens but have the right to live, work and study there, and are highly attractive to visitors. The western European and western countries in a nutshell.

Eastern Europe does not match the same demographic/social/economic profiles although there is some tourism but not on the scale of western Europe. Population mobility in terms of the right to live in another country is the key factor. I've lived in South Korea and it is an incredibly restrictive country regarding working visas and permanent residency. It also lacks the variety and regional/urban differences that Japan has and so has never been and never will be as attractive to visitors as Japan.

Hence it could tackle its COVID-19 problem very effectively. Had Japan not been the designated Olympic host for 2020, it could have and would have shut out non Japanese and non residents much earlier. I am not excusing the recklessness which the authorities have shown in this pandemic. The virus was here earlier and instead of looking forward to some normalisation Japan is now going into the second month of its State of Emergency.

The socio-economic price is revealing itself and the different levels of govt have been neglectful of the financial and emotional health of ordinary people. To give you an idea - recently it was annnounced that all people in Japan that had an established residency including foreigners and so we should as we pay a shedload of taxes here, would be given a hardship payment of 100,000 yen which is about 1,000 Oz dollars.

It is supposed to be paid via bank account through our local government system but surprise, surprise in Tokyo many ward offices are saying they don't know when they can do it because it's too hard to organise etc. These privileged numpties need a good arse kicking and more. All they have to do is send a form to every household for those who aren't eligible to lodge claims online because they don't have an official identity card. They can do that for everything when they feel like it. Seems like they don't want to use our taxes to help us and I can tell you, with the current problems of many who are not working the money will cover just about one month of rent or rent and maybe a water bill.
 
@Revan, you aren't looking closely enough, I don't really like these maps because they don't give you an accurate or useful image. The answer is what London, Paris(Iles-De-France), Milan(Lombardia), Madrid or Barcelona have in common? I could add New York and it is even more obvious. It's not entire countries that have been hit but wealthy, densely populated and very international regions. They also all have in common that public transportation is key for all of them.
 
Confusing tweet typo. Should read "NOT" suitable for oral administration.
 
How exactly do we work out death figures in this country? Reports before of 327 died in English hospitals today, yet briefing says 315 died in total across all settings in the UK today?
So whats the genuine figures here? I'm extremely confused as to how it's worked out
 
Massive Spanner said:
https://www.rte.ie/news/coronavirus/2020/0503/1136306-coronavirus-world/

I really struggle to get our approach here in Ireland right now. How can these countries which were so worse hit than us be opening so much over the next few weeks yet we will be opening feck all until late June/July?
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https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52103747

There's a chart in that piece comparing different European countries in terms of when they implemented different measures relative to their first reported case. It shows that Ireland was later than over half the other countries to record its first case, spent longer in the "national recommendation" stage than most countries and was later reaching the point where lockdown was triggered than most countries. Based on that alone I would have been surprised if we weren't later coming out of lockdown too.

Beyond that, deciding when we progress to different stages is partly based on both our ICU capacity and testing capacity. Assuming other countries are basing their decisions on the same factors, everyone would naturally have different timetables anyway, even if they were in sync.
 
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JPRouve said:
@Revan, you aren't looking closely enough, I don't really like these maps because they don't give you an accurate or useful image. The answer is what London, Paris(Iles-De-France), Milan(Lombardia), Madrid or Barcelona have in common? I could add New York and it is even more obvious. It's not entire countries that have been hit but wealthy, densely populated and very international regions. They also all have in common that public transportation is key for all of them.
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I'm not sure any overarching analysis explains the patterns well without accounting for a large dose of misfortune and timing.

Singapore is a wealthy, densely populated and very international region but took a very different course. On its own you can put that down to a different response, but there's lots of places you could look to that don't fit into a simple pattern. The city of Lisbon is more densely populated than Madrid and has a lot of international tourists (63rd most visited city in the world in 2018 compared to e.g. Madrid in 47th) yet it suffered a far smaller impact than most regions in Spain. Rome has more visitors than Milan and while it's not as densely populated, it's still one of the most densely populated cities in Europe and yet Lombardy had 7x as many cases per capita, or more than 12x as many cases overall.

The places that have been worst hit have tended to be those that saw a rapid spread in a short amount of time in a small area, and if that spread among the older population it quickly became overwhelming. There are some factors that accelerated the spread in hotspots but there are lots of places that had the same characteristics that haven't been as badly hit simply because they didn't have the misfortune of becoming a hotspot in the first place, from what I can tell.
 
JPRouve said:
@Revan, you aren't looking closely enough, I don't really like these maps because they don't give you an accurate or useful image. The answer is what London, Paris(Iles-De-France), Milan(Lombardia), Madrid or Barcelona have in common? I could add New York and it is even more obvious. It's not entire countries that have been hit but wealthy, densely populated and very international regions. They also all have in common that public transportation is key for all of them.
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Spot on.

UK hospital deaths per 1m inhabitants is 243. For London it's 583. For the UK minus London, it's 190. I'm sure it's a similar story in France.

By way of comparison, Ireland is at 170. That's not too far behind. And that doesn't even take into consideration the Home Counties and commuter belt being adversely affected by their close ties to the capital.

All told, the UK is doing about as well as anybody else outside of its one alpha-plus-plus city.

The country's economic success is built on all its transport links being routed to a single huge central hub. Ironically, so is its struggle with Covid-19.
 
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Brownie85 said:
How exactly do we work out death figures in this country? Reports before of 327 died in English hospitals today, yet briefing says 315 died in total across all settings in the UK today?
So whats the genuine figures here? I'm extremely confused as to how it's worked out
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Just a different timeframe. Those after the cutoff will be in tomorrow.
 
redshaw said:
Just a different timeframe. Those after the cutoff will be in tomorrow.
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Aaaah i get you. I understand weekends are always lower, but i just didn't understand the differences between the two figures today.
Thanks for clearing that up for me!
 
sullydnl said:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52103747

There's a chart in that piece comparing different European countries in terms of when they implemented different measures relative to their first reported case. It shows that Ireland was later than over half the other countries to record its first case, spent longer in the "national recommendation" stage than most countries and was later reaching the point where lockdown was triggered than most countries. Based on that alone I would have been surprised if we weren't later coming out of lockdown too.

Beyond that, deciding when we progress to different stages is partly based on both our ICU capacity and testing capacity. Assuming other countries are basing their decisions on the same factors, everyone would naturally have different timetables anyway, even if they were in sync.
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isn't daily cases, ICU beds used, that r0 thing more important than when a country went into lockdown, though? It seems we've done a good job here in ireland, with a far less stressed health system than many other countries, higher testing per capita etc, yet we're implementing a much longer level of restrictions than them?

I don't see much of a difference in that chart between us and the countries mentioned in the article, bar the worst hit like Italy and Spain. Austria, Norway, Portugal, Poland etc. - all have very similar lockdown lengths to us. I know each country is unique but I do think we are being a bit ridiculous with our timeline. Our economy is going to be in tatters. Most small business owners I know say they won't survive until the phase they're able to reopen. How does that many any sense?
 
Brwned said:
I'm not sure any overarching analysis explains the patterns well without accounting for a large dose of misfortune and timing.

Singapore is a wealthy, densely populated and very international region but took a very different course. On its own you can put that down to a different response, but there's lots of places you could look to that don't fit into a simple pattern. The city of Lisbon is more densely populated than Madrid and has a lot of international tourists (63rd most visited city in the world in 2018 compared to e.g. Madrid in 47th) yet it suffered a far smaller impact than most regions in Spain. Rome has more visitors than Milan and while it's not as densely populated, it's still one of the most densely populated cities in Europe and yet Lombardy had 7x as many cases per capita, or more than 12x as many cases overall.

The places that have been worst hit have tended to be those that saw a rapid spread in a short amount of time in a small area, and if that spread among the older population it quickly became overwhelming. There are some factors that accelerated the spread in hotspots but there are lots of places that had the same characteristics that haven't been as badly hit simply because they didn't have the misfortune of becoming a hotspot in the first place, from what I can tell.
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Of course misfortune and timing matters but even then the points that I made affect both of these things, being a large dense international city will increase the chances that the virus enters the city's walls and when it's inside density, populaiton and public transport traffic will allow the virus to spread quickier and in larger pool. If you compare Milan and Rome subway ridership, Milan has a higher traffic, from a business standpoint Milan is also Italy's heart and is more connected to the rest of Europe, it has three times Rome's density and they roughly have the same population.
If you compare Western European countries to Eastern European countries, you have to look at which places have actually been hit hard, it's easy to see why they have been hit before lockdowns and why it spreaded that quickly in their areas. It's not entire countries that have been affected or are doing badly.

Now your general point about misfortune and timing is relevant if we use Mulhouse as an example, it's a particular international event that caused their cluster, that's misfortune and bad timing but for the majority of cases, they were simply in the most vulnerable areas, which doesn't mean that similar cities in other countries will necessarily be affected, Moscow being an example.
 
Massive Spanner said:
isn't daily cases, ICU beds used, that r0 thing more important than when a country went into lockdown, though? It seems we've done a good job here in ireland, with a far less stressed health system than many other countries, higher testing per capita etc, yet we're implementing a much longer level of restrictions than them?

I don't see much of a difference in that chart between us and the countries mentioned in the article, bar the worst hit like Italy and Spain. Austria, Norway, Portugal, Poland etc. - all have very similar lockdown lengths to us. I know each country is unique but I do think we are being a bit ridiculous with our timeline. Our economy is going to be in tatters.
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Quite probably but that's way beyond my ability to accurately compare as it involves so many different factors and variables. So my stupid basic brain is assuming that, on average, if you're later going into lockdown then you'll probably be later coming out too. Not because you've done better/worse but simply because other countries have had a few weeks head start on you.

I'd also imagine it depends on where different cases are within a country. For example half our cases our in Dublin alone, so it might be that while the stats in general are good the stats for that one particular region are holding everywhere else back. Or we're wary of it rapidly increasing there. It also seems we essentially had two separate peaks, one in the population at large and one later in nursing homes. It might be that the latter peak is delaying things, as we're still in the process of blanket testing all nursing homes. Plus while our testing is good, we're still not at target capacity yet. We're supposed to be hitting a capacity of 12k tests per day next week but the target is 15k. Maybe we want more progress there first in light of earlier testing hiccups. I dunno, there's a lot to consider and there only really has to be one problem area to slow everything down.

Regardless, I'd have thought that the natural inclination of FG (our most Tory-like party) is to put heavy focus on the economy, so if they're going down this route then I'd guess they have some reason for it. Whereas if they were pushing a more economy-focused timeline I might worry that it was more of an ideological choice.
 
Massive Spanner said:
isn't daily cases, ICU beds used, that r0 thing more important than when a country went into lockdown, though? It seems we've done a good job here in ireland, with a far less stressed health system than many other countries, higher testing per capita etc, yet we're implementing a much longer level of restrictions than them?

I don't see much of a difference in that chart between us and the countries mentioned in the article, bar the worst hit like Italy and Spain. Austria, Norway, Portugal, Poland etc. - all have very similar lockdown lengths to us. I know each country is unique but I do think we are being a bit ridiculous with our timeline. Our economy is going to be in tatters. Most small business owners I know say they won't survive until the phase they're able to reopen. How does that many any sense?
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sullydnl said:
Quite probably but that's way beyond my ability to accurately compare as it involves so many different factors and variables. So my stupid basic brain is assuming that, on average, if you're later going into lockdown then you'll probably be later coming out too. Not because you've done better/worse but simply because other countries have had a few weeks head start on you.

I'd also imagine it depends on where different cases are within a country. For example half our cases our in Dublin alone, so it might be that while the stats in general are good the stats for that one particular region are holding everywhere else back. Or we're wary of it rapidly increasing there. It also seems we essentially had two separate peaks, one in the population at large and one later in nursing homes. It might be that the latter peak is delaying things, as we're still in the process of blanket testing all nursing homes. Plus while our testing is good, we're still not at target capacity yet. We're supposed to be hitting a capacity of 12k tests per day next week but the target is 15k. Maybe we want more progress there first in light of earlier testing hiccups. I dunno, there's a lot to consider and there only really has to be one problem area to slow everything down.

Regardless, I'd have thought that the natural inclination of FG (our most Tory-like party) is to put heavy focus on the economy, so if they're going down this route then I'd guess they have some reason for it. Whereas if they were pushing a more economy-focused timeline I might worry that it was more of an ideological choice.
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I think a lot of it has to do with ICU beds per capita. Ireland (and the UK) are a long way down the European league tables on this metric, so have a much smaller margin for error. Having young patients dying for want of a ventilator would be unforgivable in a relatively wealthy country like Ireland, so the government are desperate to avoid that possibility.

Critical-beds-in-europe.png


EDIT: Jaysus. Check out Sweden! They really are walking a tight-rope.
 
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Pogue Mahone said:
I think a lot of it has to do with ICU beds per capita. Ireland (and the UK) are a long way down the European league tables on this metric, so have a much smaller margin for error. Having young patients dying for want of a ventilator would be unforgivable in a relatively wealthy country like Ireland, so the government are desperate to avoid that possibility.

EDIT: Jaysus. Check out Sweden! They really are walking a tight-rope.
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It seems strange looking at some of the countries listed and how far ahead of the likes of Sweden, Holland and wealthy Norway they are. I don't know who has compiled the table and whether they are actually comparing like for like when it comes to what constitutes an ICU bed. Although my thoughts may well be just based on national prejudice of course, that's something it can be hard to escape from.
 
711 said:
It seems strange looking at some of the countries listed and how far ahead of the likes of Sweden, Holland and wealthy Norway they are. I don't know who has compiled the table and whether they are actually comparing like for like when it comes to what constitutes an ICU bed. Although my thoughts may well be just based on national prejudice of course, that's something it can be hard to escape from.
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Yeah, a lot of those rankings are counter-intuitive. Could be differences in how critical care beds are defined?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Yeah, a lot of those rankings are counter-intuitive. Could be differences in how critical care beds are defined?
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Tell me if I'm wrong but some countries differentiate reanimations beds and ICU beds(France is an example) while I have seen mentioned that some countries don't make that distinction in the stats?
 
TMDaines said:
I wouldn’t be too hasty. I’ll be amazed if some countries or regions don’t reopen too soon and have a second wave possibly equalling or even surpassing the first. Judging success overall cannot possibly be done until at least after the next winter.
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Yea this is what Osterholm has been saying. A second wave is a certainty.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I think a lot of it has to do with ICU beds per capita. Ireland (and the UK) are a long way down the European league tables on this metric, so have a much smaller margin for error. Having young patients dying for want of a ventilator would be unforgivable in a relatively wealthy country like Ireland, so the government are desperate to avoid that possibility.

Critical-beds-in-europe.png


EDIT: Jaysus. Check out Sweden! They really are walking a tight-rope.
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They have doubled the ICU since 10th March @Pogue Mahone, not including the currently unused field hospItals.

https://www.socialstyrelsen.se/coronavirus-covid-19/socialstyrelsens-roll-och-uppdrag/

526 at start of March, 1096 now. That’s 10.71 per 100,000 capita of population.

The plan is always to have approx 30% free, which is the case now. For example Stockholm currently has 189 in ICU for Covid-19, down from a peak of 232.
511 ICU Covid-19 patients for the entire country, down 47 from last week (obviously approx 250 other places used up by non Covid-19 patients).

https://www.svt.se/datajournalistik/corona-i-intensivvarden/

Sweden had a setup to be able to do so very quickly in event of an emergency. Assume many countries on that list have done similar.
 
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Pogue Mahone said:
I think a lot of it has to do with ICU beds per capita. Ireland (and the UK) are a long way down the European league tables on this metric, so have a much smaller margin for error. Having young patients dying for want of a ventilator would be unforgivable in a relatively wealthy country like Ireland, so the government are desperate to avoid that possibility.

Critical-beds-in-europe.png


EDIT: Jaysus. Check out Sweden! They really are walking a tight-rope.
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A fair point although I've seen that graph before and I think it's out of date? Pretty sure we've since gotten more ICUs and especially with the merging of private hospitals too.

I already said a few pages ago that how restrictive we are is damning to our health service, yet I also hear stories that the hospital's are currently half empty and the government's own predictions about how many cases we'd have never remotely came to fruition. With all that in mind, our current roadmap seems insanely restrictive. Why shut down the country for the whole summer? Why not at least do it a little bit quicker than every 3 weeks? Just screams to me like they're trying to cover their arse instead of showing some actual bottle.

If we really do this until August then our economy will be in even more tatters than 2008, probably.
 
With people being more careful and not caught out like before I think the second wave will be less for Europeans. We've not had to experience anything like this and much of the issue was people acting like any other day in the last 40 years during late Jan Feb and March although subways is a real problem like London and NY, maybe issue commuters with KF94 masks like they do in South Korea, most masks in any chemist there are N95 equivalent so lets make them for these people at least. With more possibility of ventilation indoors it could minimize it more too plus hugely ramped up testing, routine testing for workers and hopefully human contact tracing, but I'm really thinking about the winter season, muggy air, less dissipation and drying up time on surfaces, more colds and dripping noses and windows and doors shut. Not sure if it was followed up but I read a report the virus is optimal in 8 degrees temp which is about what Jan to March was.

Regarding vents, UK is said to have had no-one go short of a ventilator and they expanded the ICU count at hospitals. Sweden also can expand when required I'm told from Swedes so the low figure is not that alarming.
 
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Pogue Mahone said:
I think a lot of it has to do with ICU beds per capita. Ireland (and the UK) are a long way down the European league tables on this metric, so have a much smaller margin for error. Having young patients dying for want of a ventilator would be unforgivable in a relatively wealthy country like Ireland, so the government are desperate to avoid that possibility.

Critical-beds-in-europe.png


EDIT: Jaysus. Check out Sweden! They really are walking a tight-rope.
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Just a note regarding that picture. There are definitely differences in what constitutes an ICU bed (intermediary care with CPAP or BiPAP or HFNC +/- arterial lines could be defined as ICU beds but we don't have any of those in our hospital for example, so all those patients end up in 'proper' ICU beds).

That study was published in 2012. In our region, we have (pre-pandemic) 7 ICU spots for 250-300k people, which puts us at 2.3-2.8 beds per 100k people...
 
SalfordRed18 said:
So they changed the rules to meet the target promised which is already farcical, and they still can't hit the target based on the new criteria?

Impressive.
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I am sure that you are right about that.
My experience:
Because my wife has a number of symptoms, I registered for two home test kits.
They arrived last Friday afternoon.

The first thing you have to do is to register them which I did.
We then carried out the necessary test, back of the throat and nasal passages.

You then have to phone a number to arrange for the kits to be collected.
This did not go well because it became clear that the person wasn't really sure what to do. I spent ages on the phone giving repeated information only to be told that I had to phone the next day because I had phoned after 7pm.

Anyway. I phoned up on Saturday morning and was told that it had been arranged for the kits to be collected between 8am and 4pm.
No one came to collect them.

I phoned again this morning to be told that they would definitely be collected between 8 and 4.
Yet again, they were not collected.
When I phoned again, I was told that by now, the tests would be invalid because of the time.
The person apologised and said that this was a pretty common problem.
So I will have to go online again tomorrow and order another 2 test kits.

Now. I fully appreciate that this system is new and will take a bit of time to bed in.
But. If my experience is not uncommon, I have to wonder how many of the claimed tests have actually been completed....
 
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