Coronavirus: Continuing Vigilance

[213374U]

Ah. An optimist, I see.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

I guess, I just it's likely the statists will decide their is a point when health is less important than profits and seek to reopen, which is already happening where I live. When that happens in bongistan we can hope at the cuckold takes revenge on the doctor.

[213374U]

So city officials can now suspend the Constitution as they please.

But at least you won't die from corona, right?

[ComradeYellow]

80,000 dead in the U.S. so far.  Rugged individualism at its finest.

Sweden, however, didn't initiate any kind of lockdown and their numbers are respectable so I don't know what the deal is.  I guess Swedes are better at Freedom(!) than Americans?

[213374U]

Sweden's numbers aren't really "respectable". They have 314 deaths per 100k, way higher than any of her neighbors. Meanwhile the US has 233. We have 561. Italy 499. China... 3 (three).

It's a complete crapshoot. Someone will make sense of it at some point, maybe.

Edited May 9, 2020 by 213374U

[Azdeus]

13 minutes ago, 213374U said:

Sweden's numbers aren't really "respectable". They have 314 deaths per 100k, way higher than any of her neighbors. Meanwhile the US has 233. We have 561. Italy 499. China... 3 (three).

It's a complete crapshoot. Someone will make sense of it at some point, maybe.

Thank you for saving me that effort.

Please, have some Daily Show to relax.

 

[ComradeYellow]

11 minutes ago, 213374U said:

Sweden's numbers aren't really "respectable". They have 314 deaths per 100k, way higher than any of her neighbors. Meanwhile the US has 233. We have 561. Italy 499. China... 3 (three).

It's a complete crapshoot. Someone will make sense of it at some point, maybe.

Westerners are claiming that China hiding her true numbers though.

According to the staunch Western idealist, China created the virus in a lab, intentionally spread it across the globe, and is doing everything they can to mitigate the reality of crisis in their country, including falsifying numbers.

Edited May 9, 2020 by ComradeMaster

[Zoraptor]

China is definitely hiding their real numbers; it's a totalitarian information control dystopia- albeit with some leaks, and which was literally welding up buildings to enforce lockdown- and that's what they do. They also definitely spread it across the world, and if it wasn't a deliberate policy it was so willfully stupid and abjectly moronic a decision as to make no difference to it being deliberate. You can't shut down domestic travel because of the risk but allow international travel- with threats and complaints against people imposing restrictions, even- then claim it was not your fault and you didn't know. Of course it's your fault, and of course you knew; you shut down domestic travel because of the risk after all.

And while there's zero evidence at all that it was man made or manipulated the coincidence of it originating in the same city as China's big research facility into coronaviruses is certainly a striking one. That being used by Orange Man to deflect criticism doesn't make it any less of a striking and suspicious coincidence. It just isn't proven (and the default position from history is natural transmission/ transfer, not in/ ex lab, so it has to be proven or at least have more evidence provided than coincidence), and given China is an information control dystopia is extremely unlikely ever to be proven.

Edited May 9, 2020 by Zoraptor

[ComradeYellow]

See what I mean?  You would conclude that China is the 7th layer of Hell after reading that post, I guess we should give up all of our electronics and commodities because yellow man bad.  We are definitely heading towards dangerous levels of aggressive nativism and anti-communism which is basically fascism.

[injurai]

What if the real treasure was all the -isms we coined along the way?

[213374U]

3 hours ago, Azdeus said:

Please, have some Daily Show to relax.

Yeah, I had seen a piece about that with a few highlights, but not the interview itself. Thankfully Tegnell was smart enough to point out that this just isn't going away.

[Gorgon]

Well we had three corona deaths yesterday and i believe those numbers.  So we are relaxing many restrictions. *waves tiny danish flag*

 

That would be tree total, and a population of 6 million.

 

If the deaths per 100k are cumulative though ? still, pretty good. 

[213374U]

2 hours ago, Gorgon said:

If the deaths per 100k are cumulative though ? still, pretty good. 

Johns Hopkins says 529 total, so ~9 per 100k.

Purely looking at the numbers though, lifting restrictions is not warranted. Look at what DK's curve looks like compared to places where it's considered to be contained. There's just no containing it in Europe anymore, so whatever the reasons are for "unlockdown" (wtf) they sure aren't epidemiological. Or maybe Imperial's black box "stochastic" model has decided it's time, who knows at this point.

Anyway, either I brain farted yesterday or the figures have massively changed, but the US have many more cases per 100k than Sweden (some 402 vs 260).

Edited May 10, 2020 by 213374U
muh margins

[Azdeus]

29 minutes ago, 213374U said:

Johns Hopkins says 529 total, so ~9 per 100k.

Purely looking at the numbers though, lifting restrictions is not warranted. Look at what DK's curve looks like compared to places where it's considered to be contained. There's just no containing it in Europe anymore, so whatever the reasons are for "unlockdown" (wtf) they sure aren't epidemiological. Or maybe Imperial's black box "stochastic" model has decided it's time, who knows at this point.

Anyway, either I brain farted yesterday or the figures have massively changed, but the US have many more cases per 100k than Sweden (some 402 vs 260).

Weren't we talking about deaths yesterday? We're still sitting at 320 deaths per Million. I might fail at maths, but I think the US is at 240?

[213374U]

Yeah, you're right. Not sure why I jumped to cases today. Brain fart indeed.

[Zoraptor]

2 hours ago, 213374U said:

Johns Hopkins says 529 total, so ~9 per 100k.

Purely looking at the numbers though, lifting restrictions is not warranted. Look at what DK's curve looks like compared to places where it's considered to be contained. There's just no containing it in Europe anymore, so whatever the reasons are for "unlockdown" (wtf) they sure aren't epidemiological. Or maybe Imperial's black box "stochastic" model has decided it's time, who knows at this point.

The whole thing is very much ad hoc, but it is a novel virus. The justification is however epidemiological, and is (more or less) based on what is achievable as opposed to what people might like to be achievable.

Epidemiologists as with every specialist group tend to use jargon which may not play well with common definitions. This CDC page has a pretty good definition and examples near the top. Epidemiologically speaking the asian countries used as a comparison are at- or very very close to- 'Elimination' rather than 'Control'; ie instead of managing the incidence effectively over the whole population they're able to jump on it case by case as they would with something like measles. Denmark cannot do that yet, and it would likely take a lot of extra time- probably 6 to 8 weeks- to get to that status. At the time they started lifting restrictions had an R of 0.7, ie the average covid19 patient infected 0.7 people, and it is still in controlled territory now at ~0.9. The approach in most places is very much about trying to manage the infection rate against the other factors that are important.

On a more meta level the good/ effective response from some countries tends to be due to geography more than anything, with a healthy dollop of culture/ experience too. If you're an island or have very easily controlled land borders (Taiwan, RoK, NZ, Australia etc) you have a massive innate advantage, if you had experience with SARS1 you have a big advantage because a lot of the behaviours learned there were maintained and it acted towards preparation. Unfortunately the vast majority of Europe has neither of those factors working for it and indeed have some of the most open borders with each other. The ultimate reason why Denmark will only be able to use a Control strategy is simply that there are too many infections already, and there is no realistic way to stop ones coming in from outside. Once that is accepted relaxing some controls- while keeping R<1- is the orthodox strategy.

[BruceVC]

On 5/10/2020 at 3:12 AM, ComradeMaster said:

See what I mean?  You would conclude that China is the 7th layer of Hell after reading that post, I guess we should give up all of our electronics and commodities because yellow man bad.  We are definitely heading towards dangerous levels of aggressive nativism and anti-communism which is basically fascism.

No Zoras post is accurate and reasonable 

Two things can be true at the same time, Trump is playing politics and trying to create a distraction  around how effective he was  in the beginning of the virus spread in USA 

China controls information and continues to do this about almost every topic, including the true nature of the virus in there own country . Sorry Comrade but you cannot look to China as the next world leader, its not going to happen 

[Volourn]

Are people still defending the Chinese gov't? The same government who **** on a doctor for  speaking the truth who then 'mysteriously' got the virus afterwards and die. And, now, China is pretending they see him as some sort of heroic martyr even though they branded him  a traitor? That China? The Chinese gov't answers to nobody lest of all the Chinese citizens.

[Gorgon]

9 hours ago, 213374U said:

Johns Hopkins says 529 total, so ~9 per 100k.

Purely looking at the numbers though, lifting restrictions is not warranted. Look at what DK's curve looks like compared to places where it's considered to be contained. There's just no containing it in Europe anymore, so whatever the reasons are for "unlockdown" (wtf) they sure aren't epidemiological. Or maybe Imperial's black box "stochastic" model has decided it's time, who knows at this point.

Anyway, either I brain farted yesterday or the figures have massively changed, but the US have many more cases per 100k than Sweden (some 402 vs 260).

Yeah, you really want to keep the rate of increase low, and that curve is only low because of the restrictions. 

[BruceVC]

3 hours ago, Volourn said:

Are people still defending the Chinese gov't? The same government who **** on a doctor for  speaking the truth who then 'mysteriously' got the virus afterwards and die. And, now, China is pretending they see him as some sort of heroic martyr even though they branded him  a traitor? That China? The Chinese gov't answers to nobody lest of all the Chinese citizens.

Some commentators in my country are making even worse statements, there are people suggesting " the Chinese have done a fantastic job at addressing the virus spread and the reopening of there economy " !!!

You cannot base real data and outcomes from China in any accurate way because as mentioned many times China controls all information and very little they say is corroborated by any foreign institution

But in defense of China, I must add this, they not saying " follow us, we have the  solutions "  ...they seem to be saying, when they do comment, is " we all need to work together to address the virus spread and  impact to the global community " 

 

[Volourn]

They may say it but are full of ****. 

[Azdeus]

9 hours ago, BruceVC said:

Some commentators in my country are making even worse statements, there are people suggesting " the Chinese have done a fantastic job at addressing the virus spread and the reopening of there economy " !!!

You cannot base real data and outcomes from China in any accurate way because as mentioned many times China controls all information and very little they say is corroborated by any foreign institution

But in defense of China, I must add this, they not saying " follow us, we have the  solutions "  ...they seem to be saying, when they do comment, is " we all need to work together to address the virus spread and  impact to the global community " 

 

Would that possibly be the same person that advocated Garlic for treating HIV?

[213374U]

16 hours ago, Zoraptor said:

The whole thing is very much ad hoc, but it is a novel virus. The justification is however epidemiological, and is (more or less) based on what is achievable as opposed to what people might like to be achievable.

[...]

The ultimate reason why Denmark will only be able to use a Control strategy is simply that there are too many infections already, and there is no realistic way to stop ones coming in from outside. Once that is accepted relaxing some controls- while keeping R<1- is the orthodox strategy.

Yes that's in line with what I've read elsewhere as well. What I said before was in the context of the apparent narrative shift going on -- from "flattening the curve" i.e. preventing an uncontrolled spread from overwhelming healthcare capacity a month ago, to "defeating" corona so as to be able to go back to normal ASAP, now. The former is reasonable and (probably) sustainable. The latter isn't at this point, and the notion that it is is counterproductive and possibly harmful as it's being used as an excuse to abrogate rights. R0 is already back to >1 in Germany, as models, unexplainable "stochastic" and otherwise, predicted once NPIs cease.

I have serious doubts that it's feasible to keep inner borders closed in the EU indefinitely, either. And without that, it's going to be hard for DK to keep numbers low, considering there's a fat chance that RoK-levels of case and contact tracing will be applied here.

Thanks for the link, it's always useful to have a grasp on the lingo.

[Zoraptor]

That narrative shift is just politics, Trump's consistently botched everything in the US response and still goes on about victory and the like. Got to make the sacrifices feel like they mean something, and the reality that there will be potentially hundreds of deaths per week, week after week, even in 'victory' and after lock down isn't one any politician is going to want to admit outright.

But, that is what the oft repeated 'flatten the curve' means in practical terms. Fewer overall deaths because the health system doesn't get overwhelmed, but still a lot of deaths spread out over a longer period. That's not really a palatable sale for a politician to make though, it's a far more sellable proposition to talk as if victory means that the virus will wave the white flag and run off back to pangolins or whatever.

[Elerond]

Our epidemiologists can be divided to two main schools of thought

One is those who think Swedish strategy is better, even though they death toll is too high, as they don't think that vaccine comes early enough to prevent second wave of infections, so they think its impact would be lesser if more people would  be sick now, instead of autumn or next winter when flu comes back to season. Of course this also includes thinking that all or at least most of the restrictions are lifted before autumn all over the world, as otherwise flu season will be much less impactful

And another is those who think that we should add more restrictions now in order to eliminate current epidemic fully in order to be able to move test, track and guarantee strategy, until vaccine comes out.

And of course our government's strategy is from middle of these two, so lifting restrictions and moving to test, track and guarantee strategy and see what happens then.

Currently it seem that any of these strategies will not bring result that people hope. As anti-body tests in our worst infected area showed that less than 1% (when supporters of first strategy believed that it would at least to be 10%) of population has had covid-19 as people have been free to be Finnish and avoid all human contacts to max (like for example about 60% of Finnish workforce has moved to do their jobs remote). So there is no hope to get population to have covid before feared second wave without crashing healthcare system. It looks that eliminating covid-19 cases temporally will happen during summer, but with lifting travel restrictions it does not look like that we can keep up with testing, with current capacity of 10k test per day, so test, track and guarantee seems to be doomed to miss people which will most likely mean that feared second wave will happen.  Development of vaccines for covid seem to  progress faster than predicted and we will most likely see at autumn vaccines that at least lessen the effect of covid-19 if not prevent it. Although even best case it is probably late next year until there is enough vaccines produced to start mass vaccinations all over the world.