A couple of thoughts.
I wonder if it is a shame (in the UK and maybe elsewhere) if better local stats. were produced? I sense that we are becoming complacent, the more so, as is true in many cases, when you dont hear of any cases in your area. Very occasional i hear from people who say; “did you know xyz down the road was diagnosed with COVID last week”. All of a sudden it seems very real, and people realise again the virus still very much exists in much communities. In the UK we have post codes and my guess is when you are diagnosed with COVID you will be asked for your address. It would be easy to produce gradular data at this level and, I suspect, would be very useful. I suspect the data already exists to identify hot spots, it is just not in the public domain.
My other thought is the end game. We hear very little about how this may play out. There is some interesting reading in Scientific Amercia and elsewhere about the way it probably does play out, but I think this should be discussed to a greater extent in the public domain. I understand that the news is not good, (short of a vaccine or effectrive treatment) because the best guess is it will be with us in a very meaningful way for at least the next two years or so. In short we have to learn to live with it, and things will not return to normal all that quickly, and nor will we be out of the woods in terms of flair ups. It is a sobering end game, but probably the closest predcition to reality, as opposed to the idea that it just dies out in the next few months, which seems, sadly, very much less likely.
Rwy20 wrote:
In other words, 1.4 % to 2.2 % of these tests may come back false positive. If you test one care home with 100 inhabitants, you have a high chance of seeing one positive.
That would normally be a good reason to confirm a positive test result with a confirmatory 2nd test. Dont you think?
The other day the WHO came out with a statement that asymptomatic infected people are very unlikely to spread the Virus.
WHAT???
The next day the WHO came out with a clarification, that there is no scientific evidence that their prior statement was true.
WHAT???
These people are about as accurate as the weatherman and just about as accountable; which means Zero Accountability!
The WHO is a joke.
It would be easy to produce gradular data at this level and, I suspect, would be very useful. I suspect the data already exists to identify hot spots, it is just not in the public domain.
Yes; very frustrating. A govt policy I am sure, almost everywhere. Only the low end rags like the Daily Trash manage sometimes to dig out some dirt like a load of people got infected at some event…
My other thought is the end game. We hear very little about how this may play out.
I think everybody is hoping it will fizzle out when it gets below a certain level. Might take a while… there are plenty of people still spreading it, evidently effectively.
I suspect what will happen is when the daily deaths fall below about 50 and stay there, the media will lose interest. If the mob topples over the statue of Cecil Rhodes they will lose interest around the 75 level. For that bloodthirsty pirate Lord Nelson in Trafalgar Square, about 150, and we are close to that now, but he’s too high up.
Peter wrote:
I think everybody is hoping it will fizzle out when it gets below a certain level. Might take a while… there are plenty of people still spreading it, evidently effectively.
Yes, arent we just, and I hope so.
I suspect the reality may be different this time around. Even if we reduce our case load significantly, there are too many hot spots elsewhere in the world which will inevitably find there way here as soon as we allow any normality to return to commercial traffic. Maybe, just maybe, with effective trace and track the lid can be kept on hot spots and we just accept there will be a background level of COVID cases and deaths. Two to three years seems to be the best guestimate for the case load to significantly fall in the world generally as it runs through the population and becomes part of the background virus pool.
Peter wrote:
I think everybody is hoping it will fizzle out when it gets below a certain level. Might take a while… there are plenty of people still spreading it, evidently effectively.
I think what is happening now is that as the infection rate drops dramatically in overpopulated urban hotspots, it spreads slowly out over the landscape. In the end there will be a low but measurable issue everywhere, with brush fires popping up here and there. At that point travel restrictions make no sense, people will try not to get infected no matter where they are, and life goes on without so much drama. In the end, either nature will give up its thinning of the human herd or humans will beat nature back with a technical solution.
Report in yesterday’s rags of Bergamo, Italy, having 45-50% with antibodies. London must be coming up to that also because it was 20% weeks ago.
On a related note, what is striking is how many pilots have simply vanished from the forum when this started. I think there is a clear relationship between people flying and people posting. Plus, as posted above, many people read EuroGA only at work.
I haven’t missed a day flying, nor a day in the office since March and don’t plan to do so.
Fuji_Abound wrote:
My other thought is the end game. We hear very little about how this may play out. There is some interesting reading in Scientific Amercia and elsewhere about the way it probably does play out, but I think this should be discussed to a greater extent in the public domain. I understand that the news is not good, (short of a vaccine or effectrive treatment) because the best guess is it will be with us in a very meaningful way for at least the next two years or so. In short we have to learn to live with it, and things will not return to normal all that quickly, and nor will we be out of the woods in terms of flair ups. It is a sobering end game, but probably the closest predcition to reality, as opposed to the idea that it just dies out in the next few months, which seems, sadly, very much less likely.
Yes, there is zero reason to assume this pandemic will be over anytime soon. For that you will need widespread immunity or vaccination.
In some countries, which never got it under control, the worst is yet to come. In the western world, the US will certainly see a further increase in infections and deaths.
But here too, there are some early warning signs of a second wave. New infections are increasing for the first time in almost two months. Hasty relaxation of lockdown measures without proper evaluation of each step was ultimately destined to lead to a resurgence in new infections.
Our hospital has meanwhile removed all of the new ICU beds we improvised in March and is back to operating normally, at full surgical capacity. Visitors to patients are also allowed again for the first time in months, also their number is limited and their identity is recorded.
MedEwok wrote:
In the western world, the US will certainly see a further increase in infections and deaths.
No indications of that are present in the data, assuming you mean an increase in the daily rates, not the increase in totals that occurs every time a single new infection or death occurs. The press does play that silly word game and I’m sure headlines doing so are effective in boosting their numbers, even as the trends continue gradually downward. The US is following Europe in the downward trend, a result of Europeans having been widely infected early and subsequently infecting US cities later.
My wife’s family in Germany are still hoping to visit us in the US later this summer, but will need the travel restrictions on US tourism lifted to do so. As it happens, their local area and ours have about the same situation with respect to Coronavirus and if I understand it correctly their airline flights have never been cancelled. I just looked up their flight numbers of FlightAware and it looks like daily service has been cut back to every two days.
If you look on a statewide level on Worldometer, some places that were previously relatively spared such as California/Arizona, seem to be seeing many more cases. Arizona is running out of intensive care beds.
Locally (I am based in rural UK) we are seeing something of a resurgence as well. My brother is a doctor on a COVID ward and he lost his job when the ward was due to be mothballed, then was rehired within hours.
