Corona / Covid-19 Virus - General Discussion (politics go to the Off Topic / Politics thread)

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Switzerland is over R<1 by a margin (1.8 or so) and up to 150 new cases per day from 20 two weeks ago and I expect so are most other places too.

But in the “1st wave” in March the daily cases were in the region of 1’000 to 1’500 . 150 a day is but a fraction of this.

Off_Field wrote:

But in the “1st wave” in March the daily cases were in the region of 1’000 to 1’500 . 150 a day is but a fraction of this.

Well it also started out with this kind of figures before it exploded.

Looks like they are ready to now do some things right, masks in public transport, they are shutting down clubs (or clubs shut themselves down once they noticed how dangerous it really is) and quarantine for risk countries.

https://www.bag.admin.ch/bag/en/home/krankheiten/ausbrueche-epidemien-pandemien/aktuelle-ausbrueche-epidemien/novel-cov/empfehlungen/empfehlungen-fuer-reisende.html#919563751

Countries from which you need to perform a 14 days quarantine starting Monday July 6th in GErman, sorry.

Liste der Staaten und Gebiete mit erhöhtem Ansteckungsrisiko
Argentinien
Armenien
Aserbaidschan
Bahrain
Belarus
Bolivien
Brasilien
Cabo Verde
Chile
Dominikanische Republik
Honduras
Irak
Israel
Katar
Kolumbien
Kosovo
Kuwait
Moldova
Nordmazedonien
Oman
Panama
Peru
Russland
Saudi-Arabien
Schweden
Serbien
Südafrika
Turks- und Caicos-Inseln
Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika

Yes I saw that. I almost went to Gotland last weekend, which would have meant that retroactively I would have had to quarantine myself or risk a fine of 10’000 CHF. I love this kind of BS regulation, since Gotland has almost no cases and they could at least tell you in advance before forcing you into quarantine for two weeks. Well I didn’t go in the end so problem solved. But I expect this list to change and then you’re playing quarantine bingo.

55 active cases on the whole island:
https://coronalevel.com/Sweden/Gotland/

With a very small number of infected, the infamous “R” is widely meaningless. In general, talking of “R” only makes sense if one averages it over at least two (better 3-4) generations of infections – so in the case of Covid over at least 10 days or so.

But it’s similar to publics obsession with “exponential growth”: You can’t have exponential growth if you don’t view at it over several generations of infected.

On the “second wave” idea: If we look at the numbers and define that “a wave” should have daily infection rates in the ballpark of at least 50% of the first wave (which is pretty low as we have radically expanded testing in most countries), we generally do not see a second wave:

• US is still in the first wave – daily numbers never went down by 50%
• So is Brazil, India, South Africa, etc.
• France, Spain, Germany, etc. are still in the “post wave low” and there is little evidence that something like a first wave is starting
• Switzerland has had 2 bad days (and perhaps even more to come) but we must also not forget that in the wave we saw more than 1300 new confirmed cases per day
• 10x as much as currently
• Israel might be the only country globally where we really see a second wave

Malibuflyer wrote:

Switzerland has had 2 bad days (and perhaps even more to come) but we must also not forget that in the wave we saw more than 1300 new confirmed cases per day

We have had more than that, a steadily rising number of new infections per day. Several of the experts who proved worth their council in the first wave are now quite alarmed.

The reasons seem to be clear however:

• A large part of the newly infected are clearly attributable to the reopening of night clubs, primarily around Zurich but also elsewhere.
• Quite a few people have been partying in Serbia and brought it back. Looks like certain tennis stars are not the only ones infected in Serbia.
• People have reported irresponsible behaviour on public transport. I can vouch for that as I’ve seen the same thing at Zurich airport upon my departure. One superspreader there could have infected the whole pax load of that flight.

As a result they now mandate masks on public transport plus the said quarantine for people coming back from certain countries.

In Bulgaria we have seen a steadily high number in Sofia, plus several local nests where outbreaks are attributable to companies or churches e.t.c. We are also in the 150 region of new infections per day. The closest shot we had in the region I am currently was in the local market town where the whole staff of a restaurant was found infected before they opened for the summer. A very lucky close shave.

I have now come to the view that all lockdowns have been pointless, as they were done.

This is because the virus spread varies dramatically according to population density (as the primary factor), and according to other factors such as ethnic vulnerability (which itself correlates with factors such as living and eating in large family groups, high density living in poor areas, etc).

The problem is that every govt was running like crazy to do something, anything, to stop this thing. Especially after the videos coming out of Italian hospitals.

Now, the second time around, nobody will perform the final act of destroying their economy, so a nationwide lockdown won’t happen again. They will do what they should have done in the first place: localised measures.

The challenge is political and it is a really hot potato. The areas which will get locked down are largely predictable, but nobody can talk about it because it is ultra sensitive, especially right now, with the BLM backdrop. They will end up locking down poor areas… but they can’t do that so they have to do whole cities so that nobody can make the obvious inference and beat up the politicians with it.

It will be the same all over Europe, because population behaviour correlates with the same things everywhere.

Here in the UK the govt has really messed up the published numbers for the more localised reporting. I think it was driven by local test facility empire building, and “GDPR” concerns since a postcode could identify a single house in some cases. Nowadays everybody is going crazy over “GDPR this” and “GDPR that” and screwing public health in the process is seen as acceptable. They should release infections down to postcode level.

I think the reason the infections have tailed off now at a fairly constant level

is simply because this level corresponds to the spreading by people who never socially distanced and who aren’t going to – either due to the jobs they do (delivery drivers, etc) or because they never bothered anyway.

I’ve just done one of the £90 “NHS authorised” antibody tests. Over a video link; that gets around the govt ban on sale of the tests. No antibodies:

Mooney_Driver wrote:

Countries from which you need to perform a 14 days quarantine starting Monday July 6th in GErman, sorry.
Schweden

In dangerous Sweden, all relevant indicators – daily deaths, daily ICU admissions, daily new cases requiring medical care have been steadily declining since mid-April. We do not see any signs of a second wave.

The only indicator that has increased recently is the number of cases not requiring medical care, and that is only because Sweden has been ramping up testing a lot the last month. Before that basically only medical staff and patients were tested.

I’m curious how you do an antibody test over a video link…? Or any other medical test for that matter.

They watch you do it, with a webcam pointing at it all. They send you a URL which activates the webcam, somehow.

Oddly enough, the other two bands do appear the following morning, but they are outside the 6hr permitted window. That ended 2am so obviously I was not around to check Weak band on IGM and a weaker one on IGG.

The sale of these test kits seems to be tightly restricted all around the place, based on what I have heard; not just the UK.

Airborne_Again wrote:

all relevant indicators – daily deaths, daily ICU admissions, daily new cases requiring medical care

Interesting! Where can one find data on that? Just asking because the broadly available data on daily new confirmed infections shows a completely different trend (constant on high level in April and May and even increasing since June)

(Edit: Ok – Found it – interesting indeed)