It looks like the numbers in Brazil are not as bad as they could be because the virus has largely been associated with relatively wealthy areas - communities where people travel internationally or are in contact with international travellers (in particular, tourist destinations). When the virus gets into the higher density slums the numbers will go through the roof very quickly.
The virus has hit at least some of the favelas. Criminal gangs and activists have been managing isolation in some of the favelas. It is possible that the infection rate will explode there and it is also possible that numbers are under-reported.
My main point was that the US infection rate should be a hell of a lot lower than it is given the wealth and the resources it has. Same could be said for the UK, of course.
I think the R number is above 1 all over Brazil. There is a suspicion about under reporting in the poorer areas but that will probably not become clear until the excess deaths figures occur. The points about relative wealth and resources are well taken; none of which discounts Bolsano's appalling leadership.
I'm feeling quite smug that the official estimate of infections (UK) is just under 8,000 / day... very much in line with my back-of-an-envelope working out above. They would have used multiple sophisticated models to work out that number.
The bad news is that appears to be plateauing rather than continuing to fall. Not totally surprising but it's a further extension of the epidemic tail. This seems to be also evident in the last few days mortality data. This is bad for two reasons. The obviously one being that more people are getting sick and dying than might otherwise be the case. The second is that 8000 infections per day is way beyond our tracking and tracing program at the mo. What worries me is that theoretically and empirically a lost week here can be enough to lose control again.
It's very much a case where if you look at the downside of waiting a week longer than you need to, it's actually quite small* but the costs of waiting a week less than you need to could be catastrophic.
Worried Alien. Moronic government. (Probably reverse those two)
AFZ
*the economic costs of waiting a week would more than be made up for by the increased activity later as you can further relax things much quicker (the exponential growth thing again). I don't want to overlook the social and especially mental health costs of a continued lockdown here. (Including me). There will be a measurable mortality from the lockdown itself. However, get this wrong and you need another lockdown so the arguments for opening things up before you are reasonably sure it's time are so completely outweighed by the arguments against - IMV. This is especially true if your track and trace capacity is not where it needs to be.
*the economic costs of waiting a week would more than be made up for by the increased activity later as you can further relax things much quicker (the exponential growth thing again). I don't want to overlook the social and especially mental health costs of a continued lockdown here.
Furthermore if people are worried about the possibility of catching the illness and then their behavior changes in a way that going to get the economy going again anyway, a point made very well by Adam Tooze.
*the economic costs of waiting a week would more than be made up for by the increased activity later as you can further relax things much quicker (the exponential growth thing again). I don't want to overlook the social and especially mental health costs of a continued lockdown here.
Furthermore if people are worried about the possibility of catching the illness and then their behavior changes in a way that going to get the economy going again anyway, a point made very well by Adam Tooze.
*in a way that isn't going to get the economy going again.
I'm sure that's right. It's a confidence game now. A game with potentially deadly outcomes.
Speaking of which, I really don't like the look of the State by State R numbers across the pond. Far too many very close to 1 or above 1. And the pattern looks worse than two weeks ago.
One of the problems with opening schools, etc., is that there is no way of assessing the effect on virus spread, except waiting several weeks, since local testing is inadequate. Sorry, repeating alien really.
Re Brazil. More new cases yesterday than USA. More deaths yesterday than USA. A lot less tests than USA. Things are very bad there. And getting worse by the day.
I'm sure that's right. It's a confidence game now. A game with potentially deadly outcomes.
Speaking of which, I really don't like the look of the State by State R numbers across the pond. Far too many very close to 1 or above 1. And the pattern looks worse than two weeks ago.
Washington State's hot spot is Yakima County. Today, Washington State had 399 cases. 279 came from Yakima. Yakima has large meatpacking, and fruit processing industries there. Most of the world's hops are also grown there. Most of the workers are Mexican immigrants and they have little protection as it is. Federal and state health authorities are working in the county to reduce the Rt, but the Feds are only issuing "guidelines." However, Gov. Inslee has said he will issue mandatory requirements shortly
List of countries with at least 10,000 known COVID-19 cases.
United States - 1,768,461 (1,166,406 / 498,725 / 103,330)
Brazil - 438,812 (218,867 / 193,181 / 26,764)
Russia - 379,051 (223,916 / 150,993 / 4,142)
Spain - 284,986 (60,909 / 196,958 / 27,119) 12.1%
United Kingdom - 269,127 (230,946 / 344 / 37,837)
Italy - 231,732 (47,986 / 150,604 / 33,142) 18.0%
France - 186,238 (90,385 / 67,191 / 28,662)
Germany - 182,452 (10,682 / 163,200 / 8,570) 5.0%
India - 165,799 (89,982 / 71,106 / 4,711)
Turkey - 160,979 (32,149 / 124,369 / 4,461) 3.5%
Iran - 143,849 (23,234 / 112,988 / 7,627) 6.3%
Peru - 141,779 (78,238 / 59,442 / 4,099)
Canada - 88,512 (34,795 / 46,840 / 6,877)
Chile - 86,943 (49,903 / 36,150 / 890)
China - 82,995 (70 / 78,291 / 4,634) 5.6%
Mexico - 81,400 (15,718 / 56,638 / 9,044) 13.8%
Saudi Arabia - 80,185 (25,191 / 54,553 / 441) 0.8%
Pakistan - 61,227 (39,736 / 20,231 / 1,260)
Belgium - 57,849 (32,889 / 15,572 / 9,388)
Qatar - 50,914 (35,482 / 15,399 / 33)
Netherlands - 45,950 (39,797 / 250 / 5,903)
Bangladesh - 40,321 (31,337 / 8,425 / 559)
Belarus - 39,858 (22,979 / 16,660 / 219)
Ecuador - 38,471 (16,733 / 18,425 / 3,313)
Sweden - 35,727 (26,490 / 4,971 / 4,266)
Singapore - 33,249 (14,932 / 18,294 / 23)
United Arab Emirates - 32,532 (15,589 / 16,685 / 258)
Portugal - 31,596 (11,590 / 18,637 / 1,369)
Switzerland - 30,796 (577 / 28,300 / 1,919) 6.4%
South Africa - 27,403 (12,456 / 14,370 / 577)
Colombia - 25,366 (17,879 / 6,665 / 822)
Ireland - 24,841 (1,113 / 22,089 / 1,639) 6.9%
Indonesia - 24,538 (16,802 / 6,240 / 1,496)
Kuwait - 24,112 (15,229 / 8,698 / 185)
Poland - 22,825 (11,227 / 10,560 / 1,038)
Ukraine - 22,382 (13,274 / 8,439 / 669)
Egypt - 20,793 (14,589 / 5,359 / 845)
Romania - 18,791 (4,927 / 12,629 / 1,235) 8.9%
Israel - 16,872 (1,909 / 14,679 / 284) 1.9%
Japan - 16,683 (1,669 / 14,147 / 867) 5.8%
Austria - 16,628 (674 / 15,286 / 668) 4.2%
Dominican Republic - 16,068 (6,631 / 8,952 / 485)
Philippines - 15,588 (11,069 / 3,598 / 921)
Argentina - 14,702 (9,577 / 4,617 / 508)
Afghanistan - 13,036 (11,592 / 1,209 / 235)
Panama - 12,131 (4,432 / 7,379 / 320)
Denmark - 11,512 (764 / 10,180 / 568) 5.3%
South Korea - 11,402 (770 / 10,363 / 269) 2.5%
Serbia - 11,300 (4,621 / 6,438 / 241)
Bahrain - 10,052 (4,618 / 5,419 / 15)
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries thirty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and Iran.
Bahrain has joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
Re Brazil. More new cases yesterday than USA. More deaths yesterday than USA. A lot less tests than USA. Things are very bad there. And getting worse by the day.
If American states were treated as individual countries thirty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and Iran.
Today it was announced that NZ has 1 active case of COVID 19.
Of course it's not all over. The testing continues. An app for Smart phones is being trialled and as life becomes freer and more New
Zealanders return from overseas this could change (all returnees have a compulsory 14 day quarantine).
Nevertheless it does give me some hope, but my fingers are still firmly crossed.
Re Brazil. More new cases yesterday than USA. More deaths yesterday than USA. A lot less tests than USA. Things are very bad there. And getting worse by the day.
If American states were treated as individual countries thirty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and Iran.
No contradiction there. Croesos' accurate comments are based on cumulative totals, mine on current trends. The daily new cases rate and the daily death rate in New York are about 1500 and 100 respectively, far below those daily rates in Brazil. New York is definitely coming down the curve, Brazil rapidly ascending the curve.
The cumulative figures may very well have something to say, in the end, about the relative incompetencies of respective governments in handling this pandemic. We're a long way from knowing those final outcomes.
Per TV news just now: 1 in 4 Americans have filed for unemployment. (US ABC network, "World News Now".)'
Of course, that doesn't mean they'll actually get it. For that matter, doesn't mean they've managed to fully do it. The online application process has been massively chaotic, and the system way overloaded, and people can't apply often can't apply at all, or don't hear back, etc. So there may be tons of other people who need to apply, too.
Plus lots of people don't qualify, due to self-employment, gig/temp work, etc. And, in the past, when I was on unemployment insurance (called "UI" here in California), the amount you got depended on how much you'd made in several quarters of the last few years. So sometimes, you had to wait until the oldest quarters dropped off, and newer quarters kicked in, else you'd get less money.
Never mind Reagan instituting income tax on UI--which *came from* tax that was *already paid* in your name.
Apparently one of the members of the government scientific advice committee has said we are easing the lock down too early because 8000 infections per day is still too high and a track and trace systems are not ready yet.
It's possible we're both wrong but it does make me think I'm on the right track (here and here).
Apparently one of the members of the government scientific advice committee has said we are easing the lock down too early because 8000 infections per day is still too high and a track and trace systems are not ready yet.
It's possible we're both wrong but it does make me think I'm on the right track (here and here).
Re Brazil. More new cases yesterday than USA. More deaths yesterday than USA. A lot less tests than USA. Things are very bad there. And getting worse by the day.
If American states were treated as individual countries thirty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and Iran.
No contradiction there. Croesos' accurate comments are based on cumulative totals, mine on current trends. The daily new cases rate and the daily death rate in New York are about 1500 and 100 respectively, far below those daily rates in Brazil. New York is definitely coming down the curve, Brazil rapidly ascending the curve.
The cumulative figures may very well have something to say, in the end, about the relative incompetencies of respective governments in handling this pandemic. We're a long way from knowing those final outcomes.
You miss the point. The US should at no point have ever been ahead of Brazil. That it is points to the gross mishandling of the whole thing. In fairness, they are not the only ones that have mucked it up, but of the countries that have the resources to manage it, the US stands out for not doing so. The UK gives a close run by having a lower infection rate, but a higher death rate.* Neither country should be where they are in the standings, regardless of whether they are overtaken later. It is a disgrace that we are.
*Though, given the uneven nature in which states report their dead, this is just a guess
How does pointing out how shitty things are currently in Brazil represent some kind of minimising of how shitty they have been and still are in the USA? Or the UK. Or what a poor job the respective governments have done? That's hardly a point I've missed.
I'm fairly sure the point is to take a slap at the USA. Okay, fine, we've deserved it. But it seems a bit declasse to be kicking people when they're down.
I can't say I personally feel criticized if someone criticizes my country's handling of coronavirus. Seems a pretty reasonable comment that with all our resources we could have done a far better job if the right people had wanted to or if citizens had insisted.
Dare we, though, weigh these losses against the damage our ever-expanding presence and works wreak upon the rest of earthly creation?
To put it another way, part of the problem of climate change is that there are too many humans, and here we have a virus that can drastically reduce the number of humans. So If we’re serious about climate change being an issue, why are we trying to stop it?
How does pointing out how shitty things are currently in Brazil represent some kind of minimising of how shitty they have been and still are in the USA? Or the UK.
Because the narrative from some quarters has thus far been “the US and UK have the worst covid response in the whole world, which means we should get rid of Trump/Johnson at the earliest opportunity”. Now that it’s looking like we won’t be the worst at all, that narrative has been blunted and can’t be used as effectively to try to remove Trump/Johnson.
IOW, some people need the UK and US to be seen as the worst-run countries in the world because it suits their political agenda for that to be so.
I can't say I personally feel criticized if someone criticizes my country's handling of coronavirus. Seems a pretty reasonable comment that with all our resources we could have done a far better job if the right people had wanted to or if citizens had insisted.
Completely reasonable. We have fucked up in a spectacular way, and we continue to fuck up. We're re-opening too fast in a lot of places, including here in California, and without the capacity to trace the contacts of new cases. We could very well never have a second wave because we're still in the first one -- it's just going to be one at least year-and-a-half-long nightmare, or longer.
But the "wow, things are bad in the US" posts are making me nuts. Yeah, we know - we live here.
Because the narrative from some quarters has thus far been “the US and UK have the worst covid response in the whole world, which means we should get rid of Trump/Johnson at the earliest opportunity”. Now that it’s looking like we won’t be the worst at all, that narrative has been blunted and can’t be used as effectively to try to remove Trump/Johnson.
As I said earlier, stupidity is not a zero-sum game. I could almost feel sorry for Boris Johnson being included in that paragraph - as poor as his response to the epidemic has been, not even he manages to climb the foothills of the idiocy that is Donald Trump.
But the fact that Bolsonaro is an idiot does not in any way detract from the Trumpine stupidity. We have an adequate supply of more or less sensible leaders to use as a benchmark.
Dare we, though, weigh these losses against the damage our ever-expanding presence and works wreak upon the rest of earthly creation?
To put it another way, part of the problem of climate change is that there are too many humans, and here we have a virus that can drastically reduce the number of humans. So If we’re serious about climate change being an issue, why are we trying to stop it?
Because mass death is a Bad Thing just like ecological disaster is a Bad Thing.
It is frustration. People are dying that shouldn't be. It is not an excuse in a poor country, it is even less of one in a rich one.
I’d agree, if it weren’t for the fact that the US and UK became rich at least in part because they didn’t spend large sums of money on protecting the poor and vulnerable. Quite the reverse, in fact. The virus response is a continuation of that previous approach, not a new failure.
I can't speak for the US, but in the UK much of our wealth was built up at the same time as we made massive investments in the NHS and welfare system to protect the poor and vulnerable (from the 1950s through to the first decade of this century). Though it's taken a hit over the passed decade from reduced investment in both health and welfare, and the whole of public services, slowing recovery from the 2008 crash.
I can't say I personally feel criticized if someone criticizes my country's handling of coronavirus. Seems a pretty reasonable comment that with all our resources we could have done a far better job if the right people had wanted to or if citizens had insisted.
Completely reasonable. We have fucked up in a spectacular way, and we continue to fuck up. We're re-opening too fast in a lot of places, including here in California, and without the capacity to trace the contacts of new cases. We could very well never have a second wave because we're still in the first one -- it's just going to be one at least year-and-a-half-long nightmare, or longer.
But the "wow, things are bad in the US" posts are making me nuts. Yeah, we know - we live here.
Yes. I avoided saying anything until the third repetition, but everybody's got a breaking point.
The latest reports say Covid 19 was already community spreading in the US in January, long before the 45 administration took note of it. This is the biggest reason why it exploded so forcefully in the US.
Washington State Gov. Inslee has now moved from a strict stay at home order to a more dynamic, county by county phases. As long as the county has not had any more than 25 new cases per 100,000 people in the past two weeks, they can apply to go into phase 2. Some of the counties already in phase two can begin to apply to go into phase 3 by the 3rd of June. My county should be eligible to apply for phase 3 by 10 June. One big stipulation, though is as businesses open up, all employees will be required to wear cloth facemasks until phase 4.
List of countries with at least 10,000 known COVID-19 cases.
United States - 1,793,530 (1,169,419 / 519,569 / 104,542)
Brazil - 468,338 (247,213 / 193,181 / 27,944)
Russia - 387,623 (223,992 / 159,257 / 4,374)
Spain - 285,644 (61,565 / 196,958 / 27,121) 12.1%
United Kingdom - 271,222 (232,717 / 344 / 38,161)
Italy - 232,248 (46,175 / 152,844 / 33,229) 17.9%
France - 186,835 (90,318 / 67,803 / 28,714)
Germany - 183,019 (10,325 / 164,100 / 8,594) 5.0%
India - 173,763 (86,156 / 82,627 / 4,980)
Turkey - 162,120 (31,668 / 125,963 / 4,489) 3.4%
Peru - 148,285 (81,264 / 62,791 / 4,230)
Iran - 146,668 (24,060 / 114,931 / 7,677) 6.3%
Chile - 90,638 (51,096 / 38,598 / 944)
Canada - 89,418 (34,921 / 47,518 / 6,979)
Mexico - 84,627 (15,602 / 59,610 / 9,415) 13.6%
China - 82,999 (63 / 78,302 / 4,634) 5.6%
Saudi Arabia - 81,766 (24,295 / 57,013 / 458) 0.8%
Pakistan - 66,457 (40,931 / 24,131 / 1,395)
Belgium - 58,061 (32,949 / 15,682 / 9,430)
Qatar - 52,907 (32,267 / 20,604 / 36)
Netherlands - 46,126 (39,945 / 250 / 5,931)
Bangladesh - 42,844 (33,247 / 9,015 / 582)
Belarus - 40,764 (23,150 / 17,390 / 224)
Ecuador - 38,571 (16,047 / 19,190 / 3,334)
Sweden - 36,476 (27,155 / 4,971 / 4,350)
Singapore - 33,860 (14,206 / 19,631 / 23)
United Arab Emirates - 33,170 (15,813 / 17,097 / 260)
Portugal - 31,946 (11,652 / 18,911 / 1,383)
Switzerland - 30,828 (609 / 28,300 / 1,919) 6.4%
South Africa - 29,240 (13,536 / 15,093 / 611)
Colombia - 26,688 (18,922 / 6,913 / 853)
Indonesia - 25,216 (17,204 / 6,492 / 1,520)
Kuwait - 25,184 (15,717 / 9,273 / 194)
Ireland - 24,876 (1,142 / 22,089 / 1,645) 6.9%
Poland - 23,155 (11,412 / 10,692 / 1,051)
Ukraine - 22,811 (13,198 / 8,934 / 679)
Egypt - 22,082 (15,692 / 5,511 / 879)
Romania - 18,982 (4,905 / 12,829 / 1,248) 8.9%
Israel - 16,987 (1,927 / 14,776 / 284) 1.9%
Japan - 16,719 (1,591 / 14,254 / 874) 5.8%
Austria - 16,655 (640 / 15,347 / 668) 4.2%
Philippines - 16,634 (11,972 / 3,720 / 942)
Dominican Republic - 16,531 (6,777 / 9,266 / 488)
Argentina - 15,419 (10,111 / 4,788 / 520)
Afghanistan - 13,659 (12,154 / 1,259 / 246)
Panama - 12,531 (4,665 / 7,540 / 326)
Denmark - 11,593 (785 / 10,240 / 568) 5.3%
South Korea - 11,441 (774 / 10,398 / 269) 2.5%
Serbia - 11,354 (4,588 / 6,524 / 242)
Bahrain - 10,449 (4,734 / 5,700 / 15)
Kazakhstan - 10,382 (5,288 / 5,057 / 37)
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries thirty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #4, between Russia and Spain. New Jersey would be between Turkey and Peru.
Kazakhstan has joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
Bounce is already here in Washington State. Our daily diagnoses/reports, taken as a 5-day rolling average, has increased steadily for the last 9 days, after having gone more or less steadily down (with a blip or two) for 18 days.
According to a source, Melania Trump warned the president during their trip to India in February to take the virus response seriously. “He totally blew her off,” the source said. Melania later told people that Trump “only hears what he wants to hear and surrounds himself with yes-people and family,” the source added.
Whether or not the purpose of Melania's of Melania's warning was the election, everyone's health, or both, she reportedly tried to wake him up, and he wouldn't listen.
The UK government has shut the online Parliament, but the speaker confirms that only 50 people will be allowed in the Chamber as before - so MPs won't be 'returning to work' as per Rees-Mogg, and this shuts out those who were able to participate. PHE have advised that voting via division is still unsafe - so no alternative method of voting has been put in place before getting rid of online voting.
Meanwhile a number of members of SAGE have warned that the lockdown is being eased too early and the indications are that the infection rate is at the cusp of returning to epidemic levels.
Compared with 2 weeks ago, too many State R numbers seem to be heading in the wrong direction.
And the current street protests seem likely to generate further clusters.
Globally, yesterday was the worst day for new cases during the entire pandemic; over 125 thousand, with 30 thousand from Brazil and 25 thousand from the USA. The 30 thousand from Brazil needs to be weighed against the facts that Brazil's population is only about 2/3rds of the USA, and they are doing significantly less testing as a percentage of the population than the USA. Daily death rates are down for the time being to about 5K, which seems connected to the substantial decline in deaths in previous epicentres (Europe, New York, New Jersey). Nothing in the current trends suggests the daily death rate will stay down.
Compared with 2 weeks ago, too many State R numbers seem to be heading in the wrong direction.
And the current street protests seem likely to generate further clusters.
Globally, yesterday was the worst day for new cases during the entire pandemic; over 125 thousand, with 30 thousand from Brazil and 25 thousand from the USA. The 30 thousand from Brazil needs to be weighed against the facts that Brazil's population is only about 2/3rds of the USA, and they are doing significantly less testing as a percentage of the population than the USA. Daily death rates are down for the time being to about 5K, which seems connected to the substantial decline in deaths in previous epicentres (Europe, New York, New Jersey). Nothing in the current trends suggests the daily death rate will stay down.
That's an awesome website. Thank you for posting the link.
The UK government has shut the online Parliament, but the speaker confirms that only 50 people will be allowed in the Chamber as before - so MPs won't be 'returning to work' as per Rees-Mogg, and this shuts out those who were able to participate. PHE have advised that voting via division is still unsafe - so no alternative method of voting has been put in place before getting rid of online voting.
Wot the ACTUAL FUCK
So we now have a Parliament that can neither vote nor debate.
Slava Tsar Boris! Even the Romanovs never thought of that one.
[ETA: How is this not major news? When I Google 'Parliament recall', the only relevant news results are from Kent Online, the (West Midlands) Express and Star, and Labour List.]
Someone - perhaps @Gramps49 - was asking about fits for R(t) for US states. I came across this, which looks half-way reasonable at a glance, but I have made no attempt to validate it. They make their code and data available, so it's checkable...
Leorning Cniht found it, mousethief (p 85), and I think it's helpful too.
Someone - perhaps @Gramps49 - was asking about fits for R(t) for US states. I came across this, which looks half-way reasonable at a glance, but I have made no attempt to validate it. They make their code and data available, so it's checkable...
Leorning Cniht found it, mousethief (p 85), and I think it's helpful too.
[ETA: How is this not major news? When I Google 'Parliament recall', the only relevant news results are from Kent Online, the (West Midlands) Express and Star, and Labour List.]
I'm assuming it's because politics stories are generally covered as a Punch and Judy style affair and in this case the opposition hasn't made a stink of it -- I assume this is the same reason there's relatively little coverage on opposition to the lockdown apart from stories of the 'Labour grandee thinks teachers unions are wimps' form.
The UK government has shut the online Parliament, but the speaker confirms that only 50 people will be allowed in the Chamber as before - so MPs won't be 'returning to work' as per Rees-Mogg, and this shuts out those who were able to participate. PHE have advised that voting via division is still unsafe - so no alternative method of voting has been put in place before getting rid of online voting.
Wot the ACTUAL FUCK
So we now have a Parliament that can neither vote nor debate.
Slava Tsar Boris! Even the Romanovs never thought of that one.
[ETA: How is this not major news? When I Google 'Parliament recall', the only relevant news results are from Kent Online, the (West Midlands) Express and Star, and Labour List.]
Washington State's hot spot is Yakima County. Out of 276 new cases yesterday, 122 came from Yakima. (44% of total). The estimate is about 5% of all Yakima residents have had coronavirus.
Comments
My main point was that the US infection rate should be a hell of a lot lower than it is given the wealth and the resources it has. Same could be said for the UK, of course.
Sadly, leadership is not a zero sum game, and other countries having stupid leaders doesn't ameliorate the stupidity of our own.
The bad news is that appears to be plateauing rather than continuing to fall. Not totally surprising but it's a further extension of the epidemic tail. This seems to be also evident in the last few days mortality data. This is bad for two reasons. The obviously one being that more people are getting sick and dying than might otherwise be the case. The second is that 8000 infections per day is way beyond our tracking and tracing program at the mo. What worries me is that theoretically and empirically a lost week here can be enough to lose control again.
It's very much a case where if you look at the downside of waiting a week longer than you need to, it's actually quite small* but the costs of waiting a week less than you need to could be catastrophic.
Worried Alien. Moronic government. (Probably reverse those two)
AFZ
*the economic costs of waiting a week would more than be made up for by the increased activity later as you can further relax things much quicker (the exponential growth thing again). I don't want to overlook the social and especially mental health costs of a continued lockdown here. (Including me). There will be a measurable mortality from the lockdown itself. However, get this wrong and you need another lockdown so the arguments for opening things up before you are reasonably sure it's time are so completely outweighed by the arguments against - IMV. This is especially true if your track and trace capacity is not where it needs to be.
Furthermore if people are worried about the possibility of catching the illness and then their behavior changes in a way that going to get the economy going again anyway, a point made very well by Adam Tooze.
*in a way that isn't going to get the economy going again.
Speaking of which, I really don't like the look of the State by State R numbers across the pond. Far too many very close to 1 or above 1. And the pattern looks worse than two weeks ago.
The loss of human lives is staggering, and the waves of human grieve and suffering attendant on these losses incalculable.
Dare we, though, weigh these losses against the damage our ever-expanding presence and works wreak upon the rest of earthly creation?
Washington State's hot spot is Yakima County. Today, Washington State had 399 cases. 279 came from Yakima. Yakima has large meatpacking, and fruit processing industries there. Most of the world's hops are also grown there. Most of the workers are Mexican immigrants and they have little protection as it is. Federal and state health authorities are working in the county to reduce the Rt, but the Feds are only issuing "guidelines." However, Gov. Inslee has said he will issue mandatory requirements shortly
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries thirty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #2, between "everywhere in the U.S. except New York" (#1) and Spain (#3). New Jersey would be between Turkey and Iran.
Bahrain has joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
Does one cancel out the other?
Of course it's not all over. The testing continues. An app for Smart phones is being trialled and as life becomes freer and more New
Zealanders return from overseas this could change (all returnees have a compulsory 14 day quarantine).
Nevertheless it does give me some hope, but my fingers are still firmly crossed.
No contradiction there. Croesos' accurate comments are based on cumulative totals, mine on current trends. The daily new cases rate and the daily death rate in New York are about 1500 and 100 respectively, far below those daily rates in Brazil. New York is definitely coming down the curve, Brazil rapidly ascending the curve.
The cumulative figures may very well have something to say, in the end, about the relative incompetencies of respective governments in handling this pandemic. We're a long way from knowing those final outcomes.
Of course, that doesn't mean they'll actually get it. For that matter, doesn't mean they've managed to fully do it. The online application process has been massively chaotic, and the system way overloaded, and people can't apply often can't apply at all, or don't hear back, etc. So there may be tons of other people who need to apply, too.
Plus lots of people don't qualify, due to self-employment, gig/temp work, etc. And, in the past, when I was on unemployment insurance (called "UI" here in California), the amount you got depended on how much you'd made in several quarters of the last few years. So sometimes, you had to wait until the oldest quarters dropped off, and newer quarters kicked in, else you'd get less money.
Never mind Reagan instituting income tax on UI--which *came from* tax that was *already paid* in your name.
.grrrrrrr.
It's possible we're both wrong but it does make me think I'm on the right track (here and here).
AFZ
A point also seemingly conceded by the government.
*Though, given the uneven nature in which states report their dead, this is just a guess
Wait until 'Happy Monday' for your BBQ - dear God, have mercy.
To put it another way, part of the problem of climate change is that there are too many humans, and here we have a virus that can drastically reduce the number of humans. So If we’re serious about climate change being an issue, why are we trying to stop it?
Because the narrative from some quarters has thus far been “the US and UK have the worst covid response in the whole world, which means we should get rid of Trump/Johnson at the earliest opportunity”. Now that it’s looking like we won’t be the worst at all, that narrative has been blunted and can’t be used as effectively to try to remove Trump/Johnson.
IOW, some people need the UK and US to be seen as the worst-run countries in the world because it suits their political agenda for that to be so.
Completely reasonable. We have fucked up in a spectacular way, and we continue to fuck up. We're re-opening too fast in a lot of places, including here in California, and without the capacity to trace the contacts of new cases. We could very well never have a second wave because we're still in the first one -- it's just going to be one at least year-and-a-half-long nightmare, or longer.
But the "wow, things are bad in the US" posts are making me nuts. Yeah, we know - we live here.
As I said earlier, stupidity is not a zero-sum game. I could almost feel sorry for Boris Johnson being included in that paragraph - as poor as his response to the epidemic has been, not even he manages to climb the foothills of the idiocy that is Donald Trump.
But the fact that Bolsonaro is an idiot does not in any way detract from the Trumpine stupidity. We have an adequate supply of more or less sensible leaders to use as a benchmark.
Because mass death is a Bad Thing just like ecological disaster is a Bad Thing.
My enemy's enemy is not necessarily my friend.
I’d agree, if it weren’t for the fact that the US and UK became rich at least in part because they didn’t spend large sums of money on protecting the poor and vulnerable. Quite the reverse, in fact. The virus response is a continuation of that previous approach, not a new failure.
Yes. I avoided saying anything until the third repetition, but everybody's got a breaking point.
Politicians should shut up
Listen to science
(a haiku)
Washington State Gov. Inslee has now moved from a strict stay at home order to a more dynamic, county by county phases. As long as the county has not had any more than 25 new cases per 100,000 people in the past two weeks, they can apply to go into phase 2. Some of the counties already in phase two can begin to apply to go into phase 3 by the 3rd of June. My county should be eligible to apply for phase 3 by 10 June. One big stipulation, though is as businesses open up, all employees will be required to wear cloth facemasks until phase 4.
The listings are in the format:
X. Country - [# of known cases] ([active] / [recovered] / [dead]) [%fatality rate]
Fatality rates are only listed for countries where the number of resolved cases (recovered + dead) exceeds the number of known active cases by a ratio of at least 2:1.
Italics indicate authoritarian countries whose official statistics are suspect. Other country's statistics are suspect if their testing regimes are substandard.
If American states were treated as individual countries thirty of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #4, between Russia and Spain. New Jersey would be between Turkey and Peru.
Kazakhstan has joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
Bounce is already here in Washington State. Our daily diagnoses/reports, taken as a 5-day rolling average, has increased steadily for the last 9 days, after having gone more or less steadily down (with a blip or two) for 18 days.
Thx.
Whether or not the purpose of Melania's of Melania's warning was the election, everyone's health, or both, she reportedly tried to wake him up, and he wouldn't listen.
If he had...
Meanwhile a number of members of SAGE have warned that the lockdown is being eased too early and the indications are that the infection rate is at the cusp of returning to epidemic levels.
It begins to look like it.
Compared with 2 weeks ago, too many State R numbers seem to be heading in the wrong direction.
And the current street protests seem likely to generate further clusters.
Globally, yesterday was the worst day for new cases during the entire pandemic; over 125 thousand, with 30 thousand from Brazil and 25 thousand from the USA. The 30 thousand from Brazil needs to be weighed against the facts that Brazil's population is only about 2/3rds of the USA, and they are doing significantly less testing as a percentage of the population than the USA. Daily death rates are down for the time being to about 5K, which seems connected to the substantial decline in deaths in previous epicentres (Europe, New York, New Jersey). Nothing in the current trends suggests the daily death rate will stay down.
That's an awesome website. Thank you for posting the link.
Wot the ACTUAL FUCK
So we now have a Parliament that can neither vote nor debate.
Slava Tsar Boris! Even the Romanovs never thought of that one.
[ETA: How is this not major news? When I Google 'Parliament recall', the only relevant news results are from Kent Online, the (West Midlands) Express and Star, and Labour List.]
Leorning Cniht found it, mousethief (p 85), and I think it's helpful too.
Thank you, @Leorning Cniht.
I'm assuming it's because politics stories are generally covered as a Punch and Judy style affair and in this case the opposition hasn't made a stink of it -- I assume this is the same reason there's relatively little coverage on opposition to the lockdown apart from stories of the 'Labour grandee thinks teachers unions are wimps' form.
The Guardian covered it on 28 May - as Jacob Rees Mogg accused of bungling plans for Commons return (link)
I'm suspicious of anonymously sourced articles that seem as if they're designed to make one or more of their subjects look good.