Coronavirus COVID-19 Thread

NaffNaffBobFace

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UK numbers for today the 25th of April:

Total confirmed cases now 148377 with 4913 new, total deaths now 20,319 with 813 new.

Chartorama25-04-20.jpg


Near the beginning of the UK's Pandemic response (after the two weeks where they said they would only enact measures "at the right time" going straight to "If we don't do anything now we are Italy in three weeks") they said "if we can get away with 20,000 dead we will have done well". Alas, today we pass that number. We can only keep on doing our best, we'll get there in the end.

Another change in the way they have decided to crunch the numbers means there is a jump in tests having been carried out by over 50k. This is not a true representation of how many were done yesterday, it's just a representation of how many have been done historically, but as they were added to the total today it looks like 73,614 were performed yesterday, whereas the true number was less than half that at 28k.

1587841678535.png


We are planning to have 100,000 tests a day by 30th of April so in less than a week the chart should be running that high anyway.
 
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NaffNaffBobFace

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This is a good conversation that reflects how I feel about how the media covers the virus and Trump. His ego was mentioned in this thread earlier and this kinda brings up the point that the news is playing into that. While they have tunnel vision on Trump and anything that they can use to attack him (which I mean is understandable, call him out on his failures), I don't see them covering the faults elsewhere (relatively) in the government and I find that its IMPOSSIBLE that things are going perfect outside of "Trumps response", and so much so that they don't require investigative journalism. Theres more to our government and this crisis than just Trump.


I understand he has personal dislike of reporters. Totally do, having come from a celebrity background I'm sure he's had many run ins with them prior to his term in office that may well have soured his personal impression of them, and then during his term in office to this point he must have had a whole lot of inspection. (I have not watched the video I can't have sound on at the moment sorry).

However that is his personal beef. It was not Americas problem. Until now.

Presenting false information to the public during a pandemic in an attempt to make reporters look stupid... Some citizens in the UK were/are going out and setting fire to mobile phone masts in an effort to take out 5G in the belief it is 5G making people sick, tampering with a national communications network while others try to put together and execute a response to this crisis. It doesn't matter what their reasoning for damaging the mobile phone network was/is, the practical upshot was it effected a part of the network covering one of the new field hospitals which amounts to sabotage. It doesn't matter if the POTUS statement was made in pursuit of his personal vendetta against the media and it doesn't matter if that vendetta is justified or not, making false statements to the nation during the response to an international health crisis is sabotage of that response, weather it was an intentional consequence or not.

Either his explanation of sarcasm was legit and he intentionally mislead during that briefing, or it's misdirection away from having made a genuine mistake but which is in itself is a monumental error in misdirection judgement: It's like setting fire to your crotch to take attention away from having got a bad haircut.

You have a good point that there are flaws and failures elsewhere too, however those need to be addressed as well as, not instead of.

I can't really link it here or anything, but if you get the time, go on twitter and search for "food bank". Thats something I've been looking at this morning. All I can say is damn. Just lines and lines of people in pictures / videos, articles about lack of funding and people visiting the foodbank for the first time in their lives among other things. This isn't going away anytime soon. The people laid off may not go back to work for a long while. It makes me sad.
A tragedy indeed, even if a cure was discovered tomorrow and COVID-19 eradicated by the end of the month I don't think the world will go back to the way it was before. Lessons will have to be learned and precautions put in place for the next time, not just medical but also social and economic.
 
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Rear_Intruder

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Not Condoning or Condemning folk. I think Lockdown stopped this week.
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I have been travelling the country legally for work reasons. For the first two weeks, there was little sign of traffic or people. Starting on Monday this week traffic increased significantly, minor roads full of family's on cycles, construction sites reopened, some parks with groups enjoying themselves, gangs of motorcyclist out for the day, many small shops are open, you can buy pretty much anything that you want including cars, clothes and jewellery. Those of you staying at home should know that many people have decided on the Swedish model without in some cases knowing it themselves. I have spoken to several people I have met. It is a low level peaceful civil disobedience. The government can keep shops, pubs and hairdressers shut by legislation. However once the general public turns against it, as I think they are. It will be a very British version of 1920's Chicago but Al Capone will be a really nice guy running an illegal barbers shop and doing nail treatments on the side. On a positive note most are obeying a two meter rule in a very polite way. As I said at the top I am not condoning anything, is just what I have seen. The only police action I noticed was a roadblock off the M4 near Merthyr Tydfil. (they waved me past) Although if you are in white van wearing a high viz vest you get away with anything
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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Not Condoning or Condemning folk. I think Lockdown stopped this week.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have been travelling the country legally for work reasons. For the first two weeks, there was little sign of traffic or people. Starting on Monday this week traffic increased significantly, minor roads full of family's on cycles, construction sites reopened, some parks with groups enjoying themselves, gangs of motorcyclist out for the day, many small shops are open, you can buy pretty much anything that you want including cars, clothes and jewellery. Those of you staying at home should know that many people have decided on the Swedish model without in some cases knowing it themselves. I have spoken to several people I have met. It is a low level peaceful civil disobedience. The government can keep shops, pubs and hairdressers shut by legislation. However once the general public turns against it, as I think they are. It will be a very British version of 1920's Chicago but Al Capone will be a really nice guy running an illegal barbers shop and doing nail treatments on the side. On a positive note most are obeying a two meter rule in a very polite way. As I said at the top I am not condoning anything, is just what I have seen. The only police action I noticed was a roadblock off the M4 near Merthyr Tydfil. (they waved me past) Although if you are in white van wearing a high viz vest you get away with anything
And, I suppose, this is how the West was lost.
 

Jolly_Green_Giant

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And, I suppose, this is how the West was lost.
I think we all predicted this months ago. People just won't stay home. Bombs arent dropping in their neighborhood. They don't see tons of dead bodies on TV, and when they do see the graves and hear the death toll it just falls on deaf ears. After years of sensationalism and opinion news, its hard for people to take anything seriously because it seems the entire populous now has the attention span of a ferret on meth. Lots of people are looking at NY like #ohnothatsucks and want to just go about their day. I think I've mentioned this before, but most of America could absolutely care less about the rest of the world, its almost as if other countries don't exist and I'm dead serious about that. They never have to interact with you got dang foreigners and seeing the tragedy unfold around the world really doesn't mean much. A lot of people protested the Iraq war, but at some point bombing the middle east was normalized as millions died by our hands. As of today in my county, we have 400 confirmed cases, 18 deaths and 119 hospitalizations. Were the second largest county in Florida and a lot of people are either living in poverty or are too old to give a fuck about anything.

COVID-19 is this nebulous threat that has no direct affect on people who don't have it. Try explaining to the people who are at the food banks, who literally can no longer pay their bills or feed themselves that they have to social distance and lose their job for the greater good. They won't do it. I honestly wouldn't do it if I was in that position. You give me the choice of sacrificing my life for the good of all or saying fuck it and doing anything I can to get a job to feed / shelter myself and my family, you better believe I'm choosing the later. I'd rather die with the virus than starve with no hope for a future. Im not sure who all of you have been in the position of losing everything and being on the streets, but those that have might be able to sympathize. Ive read parts of the gulag archipelago, people are fucking monsters when it comes to survival. I won't pretend like I'd be any different and I can understand those who feel the same.

There's so much at play here, so much people don't see, and so many assumptions.

Also its really nice outside, I just cleaned the gutters out and got some nice sun. Its been about 95 ish the last couple days. Humidity was around 90% this morning. I hope theyre right about heat and humidity killing the virus.


however those need to be addressed as well as, not instead of.

I 110% agree. I'm not trying to go full "LEAVE BRITTANY ALONE!" with Trump, Im just trying to find a middle ground in this because we all know damn well that theres so much more going on worth looking into other than the daily briefings from the white house. I would be exhausted and bitter If I were riding the fuck trump train. Theres more to the world than HIS actions, but he absolutely loves the attention. There's no such thing as bad press. I feel the press should be asking better questions though. You've had 4 years to figure out how to talk to trump but the more you can spin on him the better your ratings are. I need numbers, I need the lack of food and funding at the food banks addressed. I absolutely need the tensions between us and china addressed, the tensions between us Iran and Russia addressed. I need the readiness of our military addressed if the navy is willing to publicly state that were bringing ships out of service because of this (the art of war says, when you are strong, you must make your enemy think you are weak, Its the only reason I can think of for broadcasting this to the world). I need to know if theyre worried about civil unrest. I need to know what kind of programs they are considering other than stimulus checks to help people out, or what they are going to do on top of that, not just "were giving loans to small businesses to keep people employed. I need them to demand more cabinet members to get up there to answer questions. I need them to get more interviews from the house and senate members, and not just "what do you think about trump saying X, or how he addressed X". I need them to do a better job with investigative journalism and dig into the important shit and stop being lazy. I almost hope joe biden wins just so we can watch the media kiss his ass and start reporting on the more important stuff. I am seriously tired of trump trump trump trump trump.

Maybe your leaders in other countries have more power in your government, but people forget that our government has 3 branches, none more powerful than the other, however the news may make it seem. Maybe the movies and TV have built this Idea of what a president should be, or maybe they don't care about the actions of the president but just how he presents himself like with Obama. IMO the president isn't some godly world leader, our constitution supersedes him and the interpretation of the constitution lies with our judicial branch. Since I could comprehend what politics are all about its always the same bullshit. Lies, deceit, false promises and placing a need for power and money over the lives of those they are supposed to serve. It will never change. You don't get into these positions without those goals in mind. They wouldn't let you get that far up the ladder if you weren't going full on Machiavelli. Deception is the #1 rule of war and it crosses over into politics. From what ive gathered on the googles, "The Art of War" and "The Prince" are on Trumps reading list. Those are 2 books that will absolutely help you understand politics more than you realize because they are about strategy and the state.

Were a country of 50 states, with the governors holding the ultimate authority. Trump is not king. Why isn't congress getting their ass ripped more? Why do I see all the negative reporting on republicans? Some will say "well the republicans are the only ones fucking up". I feel that stance is absolutely naive to hold. I want and am trying to find BALANCE. I want and am trying to find the truth.

My thoughts are a bit broken here, but I think it gets my point across.
 
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Radegast74

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With some states starting to re-open now (like Georgia) it will be interesting to see what the outcomes will be. I'm concerned about a premature "rush to claim success" when based on the transmission and disease characteristics of the virus, we really need a minimum of two weeks of data (and three weeks would be better) to judge whether this was a succes/good idea, or not.

As an explanation, take a look at the graph of the Louisiana cases (graph below). Why is Louisiana one of the top states for COVID-19 cases? This graph is from 4/25, and shows that they met the threshold of 1 case per 1m residents 45 days ago...which would be on March 11. What was going on around that time? The only explanation people can think of is Mardi Gras, which was February 25th*, which is a huge social gathering. This is in line with the characteristics of the asymptomatic transmission, where people can have the virus and not show or feel symptoms for 5 - 7 days, and then feel ill for another 5 - 7 days and either get better, or get worse and then subsequently need hospitalization (and then need another 5 - 7 days, or longer(!) in hospital to either recover, or die). So if you are counting cases, you need at least 14 days, and if you are counting deaths, you need at least 21 days.


Screen Shot 2020-04-26 at 6.27.57 AM.png


*that is the actual date of "Fat Tuesday" in actuality, the weekend before is a whole other set of parties, parades, and social gatherings.
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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UK numbers for today Sunday 26th of April:

Confirmed cases now 152,840 with 4,463 new, confirmed dead 20,732 with 413 new. Worth remembering these are weekend numbers which had been previously stated to be unreliable.

Chartorama26-04-20.jpg
 

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Following the trend of other countries, my country decided on easing restrictions probably next week. Most ppl weren't giving two shits about it anyways... It seems like the tactic was to stock up on ventilators and other necessary equipment, empty as many hospital beds as possible, and let the races begin!
I wonder what the numbers will show in 2 weeks. Will it be much worse, or show no difference. Both are possible unknowns at this point. With the high numbers of ppl don't adhering to the rules and with the asymptomatic cases being an unknown percentage, anything is possible.
It might turn out that tons of ppl have it already and the lockdown made no difference and it only made things worse by ruining the economy. We won't know until much later.
Last time I was out to see the dentist, when I parked my car a homeless guy walked up to me asking for change. This is pretty normal around here. I had nothing on me apart from my card, so I couldn't give any. Anyways, he said that he was a cook at the local shelter, but due to the restrictions the place was shut down and he had no job and no money to buy food. Asked how long this b.s. will last, I said a month at least. He walked of muttering to himself about the government being assholes... and I count agree more!
Our smart guys on top absolutely forgot (or more likely don't give a shit) about what these restrictions would mean for the homeless, but they did spend the time and got the money to turn one of our main avenues that goes across the city into a fucking bike lane! Cos pandering to the green elite is so fucking important when you got 60.000 ppl applying for welfare instead of the usual 200-500 a month!
 

NaffNaffBobFace

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Following the trend of other countries, my country decided on easing restrictions probably next week. Most ppl weren't giving two shits about it anyways... It seems like the tactic was to stock up on ventilators and other necessary equipment, empty as many hospital beds as possible, and let the races begin!
I wonder what the numbers will show in 2 weeks. Will it be much worse, or show no difference. Both are possible unknowns at this point. With the high numbers of ppl don't adhering to the rules and with the asymptomatic cases being an unknown percentage, anything is possible.
It might turn out that tons of ppl have it already and the lockdown made no difference and it only made things worse by ruining the economy. We won't know until much later.
Last time I was out to see the dentist, when I parked my car a homeless guy walked up to me asking for change. This is pretty normal around here. I had nothing on me apart from my card, so I couldn't give any. Anyways, he said that he was a cook at the local shelter, but due to the restrictions the place was shut down and he had no job and no money to buy food. Asked how long this b.s. will last, I said a month at least. He walked of muttering to himself about the government being assholes... and I count agree more!
Our smart guys on top absolutely forgot (or more likely don't give a shit) about what these restrictions would mean for the homeless, but they did spend the time and got the money to turn one of our main avenues that goes across the city into a fucking bike lane! Cos pandering to the green elite is so fucking important when you got 60.000 ppl applying for welfare instead of the usual 200-500 a month!
I count myself very fortunate my country installed a worker retention scheme and utilised the spare hotel capacity to house homeless people while the lockdown is in place. For all the cray-cray herd immunity theories there have been some genuine strokes of genius.

Don't know if they were originally UK policy or if they were seen and borrowed from elsewhere but I am beyond glad they are in place.
 

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I count myself very fortunate my country installed a worker retention scheme and utilised the spare hotel capacity to house homeless people while the lockdown is in place. For all the cray-cray herd immunity theories there have been some genuine strokes of genius.

Don't know if they were originally UK policy or if they were seen and borrowed from elsewhere but I am beyond glad they are in place.
I’m feeling like we’re in the best place to be through all of this - financial support, wage support, loans deferred, and no urgency to reopen before we know we can keep a lid on things.

The next few weeks will be instructive for those of us not in countries rushing to get back to business as usual.
 

Radegast74

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I count myself very fortunate my country installed a worker retention scheme and utilised the spare hotel capacity to house homeless people while the lockdown is in place. For all the cray-cray herd immunity theories there have been some genuine strokes of genius.

Don't know if they were originally UK policy or if they were seen and borrowed from elsewhere but I am beyond glad they are in place.
I’m feeling like we’re in the best place to be through all of this - financial support, wage support, loans deferred, and no urgency to reopen before we know we can keep a lid on things.

The next few weeks will be instructive for those of us not in countries rushing to get back to business as usual.
yeah, yeah, yeah, next thing you all will be also bragging about your socialized medicine & free health care if you do get sick.

Well, I'll have you know that everything in America is better, even if you do have to pay for it!
 

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NaffNaffBobFace

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(Article on Motel living)
I hope they have come up with a solution for that it's no way to live in the 21st century.

In contrast, the UK has done this partly to shelter the homeless from Corona and partly to lock off the homeless population as a transmission source. It doesn't look to have been implemented 100% yet, but its way better than nothing:


 
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Radegast74

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Incredible news for New Zealand:

That is a good article! I dug up this article, as I wanted to find out more about NZ's response...it is from April 10 (author byline: Michael Baker and Nick Wilson are professors at the University of Otago’s Department of Public Health in Wellington), and goes into a bit more detail, but essentially tells the same story: instead of waiting and implementing restrictions slowly or piecemeal, NZ basically "front-loaded" severe restrictions early, and their Prime Minister showed a lot of leadership in taking this option.

I thought this quote was illustrative:
What are the alternatives?
A major driver of the New Zealand decision to pursue elimination was the increasing evidence that this was the least bad option. A turning point for some of us was reading the report on the WHO Mission to China showing that, in contrast to influenza, this disease was more like Sars and could be eliminated even after community transmission had been established. We also observed the relative success of a number of Asian jurisdictions in containing the Covid-19 pandemic, notably Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong.

In western countries it was also becoming apparent that the mitigation strategy of “flattening the curve” was failing, as health services were being overwhelmed across Europe. Increasingly, these countries were switching to a suppression strategy, which would reduce cases to manageable levels but at the likely cost of a prolonged lock-down while waiting for an effective vaccine or antivirals.
 

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That is a good article! I dug up this article, as I wanted to find out more about NZ's response...it is from April 10 (author byline: Michael Baker and Nick Wilson are professors at the University of Otago’s Department of Public Health in Wellington), and goes into a bit more detail, but essentially tells the same story: instead of waiting and implementing restrictions slowly or piecemeal, NZ basically "front-loaded" severe restrictions early, and their Prime Minister showed a lot of leadership in taking this option.

I thought this quote was illustrative:
NZ got it right.

Severe restrictions straightaway instead of half assed measures that only prolong the ordeal. I applaud them and PM Arden's leadership.
 
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