But the global daily death rate has been declining for a couple of weeks. That may have more to do with decline in the major epicentres in Europe and the USA than any general trend. But it made me wonder.
How trustworthy is the reporting of deaths? I doubt very much that Russia is accurately reporting deaths. And I'd bet the rent there are jurisdictions in the US that aren't reporting accurately. I imagine some countries just can't report all the deaths. And I'll bet we won't know the true toll for quite some time after it's all over.
It's a like for like thing, Ruth. I think there is under-reporting in a lot of places but I doubt whether the national standards (or lack of them) have changed. Perhaps I should have said the worldometer totals (based on the same sources throughout) show a decline in the numbers of daily deaths. What you can see clearly is significant decline in the epicentres of Europe and the US but also significant upticks in Brazil, Russia, Mexico. But the net effect in the worldometer figures is down about 1 to 1.5K per day.
Worldometer link. You can see the uptick in daily new cases and the downturn in daily deaths quite clearly in the graphs. There's always been doubt about how well they represent the real picture. But so far as deaths are concerned, in the end it will be the excess deaths, country by country, which will provide the most accurate figures we can get at. We'll have to wait a while for those. And in totalitarian regimes, it's a safe bet that they will also get "adjusted" if regarded as in conflict with the political narrative.
In fairness, it seems necessary to allow people time to obtain or fashion the necessary coverings, before penalizing them for not having them.
What I want to know is whether it has to be purpose made, or whether I could use a Niqab, a veil, a knights helmet, or a bandana ?
It needs to be a face covering, any fabric that covers nose and mouth. That would include a bandana, a scarf, Niqab etc. Home made is fine. It would still be best if it was something other than equipment better used by medical or care professionals (so that commuters on trains aren't using limited supplies of top grade PPE).
Bananas are for putting in your ear; either to keep the elephants away (traditional), or for ensuring your PhD has novelty. But now that's been published on the internet, you'll need to find a new vegetable.
I'm a little bit bemused by the case of Alok Sharma. Surely -- assuming track and trace is in operation -- he'd have self isolated and self reported yesterday, and all the MPs he met would now be self-isolating and getting tested too ?
They wouldn't be waiting on his test results to work out whether or not they should be self-isolating and getting tested?
But, Parliament exists in a separate universe where the rules that the rest of us live with don't apply. Presumably there's an expectation that the virus also behaves differently there.
Guardian reporting that the test and trace system is not expected to be fully operational till September.
It's a like for like thing, Ruth. I think there is under-reporting in a lot of places but I doubt whether the national standards (or lack of them) have changed. Perhaps I should have said the worldometer totals (based on the same sources throughout) show a decline in the numbers of daily deaths. What you can see clearly is significant decline in the epicentres of Europe and the US but also significant upticks in Brazil, Russia, Mexico. But the net effect in the worldometer figures is down about 1 to 1.5K per day.
Worldometer also shows an increase in the daily numbers of new cases worldwide.
National standards probably haven't changed, but in the U.S. adherence to them varies from state to state and has varied over time. Plus there's just screwing up. In my city they just revised upwards the reports on the numbers of hospitalizations from April 6 to yesterday. Over that period the numbers originally reported were on average 25% lower than the new numbers. This is in a city that's taking this pretty seriously, where leaders are getting some pressure to re-open but nothing outrageous. No, it's not deaths, but the hospitalization numbers are an important metric when they're deciding how much we can re-open. You'd think they could count them accurately, but no.
So I have to wonder if the numbers coming out of Brazil, Russia, India, Peru, Turkey, Iran, et al. are any good. The numbers in the industrialized west other than the US are probably pretty good -- the rest of the world, including the US? I'm skeptical.
But, Parliament exists in a separate universe where the rules that the rest of us live with don't apply. Presumably there's an expectation that the virus also behaves differently there.
Ah, the English equivalent of our "Inside The Beltway" syndrome. The Beltway is a ring road that encircles Washington, DC. So when Congress critters lose track of the outside world and what we're going through, they've got the syndrome.
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-three of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #4, between Russia and Spain.
Armenia and Bolivia have joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
You're right to be sceptical. Any conclusions we draw from the raw figures probably need to be taken with a large pinch of salt.
So far as Brazil at least is concerned, the huge figures do suggest some organised collection of data. And of course they fly in the face of minimising by their President so they don't look to be politically massaged.
Globally I tend to look at the graphs, estimate weekly averages and draw mental trend lines. The main reason for that is that numbers always seem to be lower at weekends, tick up from Tuesday to Friday.
But yesterday's figures were very bad and impacted those averages. You might be right about global death rates. And things look like they might be spiralling out of control in Brazil (if they haven't already). Brazil is now the global epicentre. At least for the time being.
Others may be interested. This is clearly only a partial picture but we are on pretty safe ground in arguing that the current global totals, awful as they are, underestimate significantly the true casualty rate.
I find myself forced to the conclusion that the UK Government's bungling in response to the Coronavirus crisis, which has gone beyond what can be ascribed to incompetence, must be part of a devilish (Cummings-inspired?) plan to reduce the proportion of 'useless mouths' in the population in the siege conditions which seem likely to overtake us once Brexit becomes effective. But perhaps, Hosts, this post would sit better in Hell.
There is certainly a right wing view that the economy should take precedence over saving lives. How far this spreads in the government and the Tory party, I don't know. Just check out Toby Young, Peter Hitchens, spiked online, etc.
I find myself forced to the conclusion that the UK Government's bungling in response to the Coronavirus crisis, which has gone beyond what can be ascribed to incompetence, must be part of a devilish (Cummings-inspired?) plan to reduce the proportion of 'useless mouths' in the population in the siege conditions which seem likely to overtake us once Brexit becomes effective. But perhaps, Hosts, this post would sit better in Hell.
As a Host, I'm happy about that as a post here, Eirenist.
As a Shipmate I think it not a binary issue. Its a genuine question of balance (I do get some of my one-liners from Moody Blues album titles). Looking back on the UK government reaction in March I think the criticism "too litttle too late" is justified. I put my own hands up as an observer and say I didn't catch on immediately either. When we look back at the tentative emergence from lockdown, we MAY conclude "more haste less speed".
But I think the lockdown itself may be costing lives as well, through pockets of extreme economic hardship, through delays in other urgent medical treatment, through increasing violence as a result of confinement. The short, medium, and longer term economic consequences of global lockdowns are looking increasingly severe, with the greatest threat to those who are poor already.
It is a question of balance. There is no ideal solution here. Governments all over the world are trying to strike some kind of balance between risks to the economy and health risks to the vulnerable, in the knowledge that those risks also overlap.
There's a story in today's Observer (link) reporting that health chiefs are pleading with the Government to stop easing lock down until track and trace is properly in place among other measures to ensure a second wave can be managed. Various stories over the last few days have suggested track and trace won't be fully in place until September (link), plus the Government has delayed involving local authorities and GPs effectively, making the implementation unnecessarily more complicated and endangering lives - link to Guardian Opinion piece from 3 June. Setting up private companies with unqualified callers with a list to work through when there are local systems with local knowledge already in place is counter-intuitive.
This long article from May 31 (link) discusses how the health service and local services have been dismantled over the last decade in the UK, leaving us exposed and less able to deal with a pandemic.
Apparently the UK's emergency no-deal Brexit emergency stock of pharmaceuticals has been exhausted, and cannot be speedinly restocked, home-based production facilities having been closed down and 'outsourced'. Shows the idiocy of 910 Brexit and (2) of allowing the bean-counters to control industrial policy.
I'm sure they do it on purpose, but that photo of Bolsonaro is suitably frightening. 30 years ago (and more) when someone like him started to appoint generals to the government - as has now happened in the form of their latest health minister - people started to disappear. Doctors are speaking out. I am afraid for them, to a much greater degree than I am afraid for those who speak out against Trump.
Globally, yesterday was the worst day so far for new cases. And despite government obstruction, collated data is still coming out of Brazil. Showing the worst ever day for new cases, the second worst day for deaths.
The UK is not nearly out of the wood. And the US continues a flat profile of about 20K new cases a day, and 800 to 1,000 daily deaths. For the great majority of States, the R number is either over 1 or very close to 1. And that's been the situation for weeks.
On the basis of current trends, there are emerging forecasts of 200K deaths in the US by mid September. A CNN commentator observed the danger of a 'sad but so what' reaction. A price to be paid for getting back to work?
The risks and the pain seem set to continue in many places throughout the world.
I get confused by all the figures flying around, but the UK's apparent death toll of getting on for 41000 is quite appalling.
Alas, our so-called *government* (well, the English bit, anyway) seems bent on getting everything possible up-and-running, even when those who know about these things say it simply isn't safe yet.
How many more unnecessary deaths do we have to suffer?
Someone I know who is high up in critical care locally reckons that we may end up with more excess deaths because people haven't sought treatment, or have been kept in care homes, than from Covid-19 directly. Certainly the stroke admissions at our local hospital have dropped dramatically, when they are normally fairly consistent.
Yes, and that's why I used the word apparent - it's going to be hard to tell in the long run, but I hear from other sources that attendance at A&Es across the country generally has dropped way below what might usually be expected.
For the great majority of States, the R number is either over 1 or very close to 1. And that's been the situation for weeks.
According to this graph only 17 states are above 1.0 and a few of them just bearly (1.01-1.03)
I have been following this graph for a while. Last week Washington State was very much above 1.0. Now we are just below it, so--for now--we are going in the right direction. As I have mentioned before, Yakima County has been our spoiler with cases as high as 178+. Yesterday, it was down to 83. Hopefully, they have turned a corner.
The biggest issue is what will happen with the infection rate in the next couple of weeks because of all the protests.
Yes, and that's why I used the word apparent - it's going to be hard to tell in the long run, but I hear from other sources that attendance at A&Es across the country generally has dropped way below what might usually be expected.
Hopefully a large proportion of that fall off is people not getting pissed in the pub on Friday night, rather than strokes and heart attacks etc not getting emergency treatment.
I know from bitter experience how often 'emergency' ambulance cases turn out not to be so at all, but just a request for a lift home...
OTOH, we used to find quite a few stroke/MI patients (mostly, but not exclusively, elderly) leaving things until they were in dire straits, simply because they 'didn't want to bother us'...
Yes, and that's why I used the word apparent - it's going to be hard to tell in the long run, but I hear from other sources that attendance at A&Es across the country generally has dropped way below what might usually be expected.
Hopefully a large proportion of that fall off is people not getting pissed in the pub on Friday night, rather than strokes and heart attacks etc not getting emergency treatment.
I think the realistic expectation is that multiple factors play into it. However, given that both heart attacks and strokes can feel milder than they are, it is easy to see people weighing the discomfort with the risk of infection and choosing to endure the discomfort and then dying as a result.
Yes, and that's why I used the word apparent - it's going to be hard to tell in the long run, but I hear from other sources that attendance at A&Es across the country generally has dropped way below what might usually be expected.
Hopefully a large proportion of that fall off is people not getting pissed in the pub on Friday night, rather than strokes and heart attacks etc not getting emergency treatment.
There's also the mildly confounding possibility that SOME folks who were going to have ordinary heart attacks/strokes/etc have had them brought on slightly earlier in connection with COVID, and so wind up in the COVID stats after all.
Yes I use the same graph and reckon that an R number of 0.9 and above (I think that's 35 States presently) will be an indicator of at best very slow improvement. Which is borne out by the flat nationwide trajectory for new cases and deaths.
And the effect of the protest gatherings will be beginning hitting the new case numbers now. With about three hours to go before the worldometer 24 hour clock changes there have been over 20,000 new cases and about 900 deaths in the USA.
Flat at best describes the current trends. The epidemic is far from over.
Yes I use the same graph and reckon that an R number of 0.9 and above (I think that's 35 States presently) will be an indicator of at best very slow improvement. Which is borne out by the flat nationwide trajectory for new cases and deaths.
And the effect of the protest gatherings will be beginning hitting the new case numbers now. With about three hours to go before the worldometer 24 hour clock changes there have been over 20,000 new cases and about 900 deaths in the USA.
Flat at best describes the current trends. The epidemic is far from over.
Whenever the Rt is below 1.0, it is not spreading exponentially. But I agree, the pandemic is not over. Washington is above 1.0 again, but again most of the cases being reported are coming from Yakima and King Counties. Many Washington Counties have not have had significant new cases for over two weeks. Just as my county was approved to go to phase III, low and behold six individuals from one family that went to a single event not in the county over Memorial Weekend. Drat!
Random clusters Gramps49, The nature of this infection in a nutshell. All it takes is an index case and close proximity. People who think it's over and relax.
It's human nature to want this to be over quickly. But wanting that and helping that are two different things. Wishing for the best is going to kill people and keep on killing people.
Also, it seems very likely that today, Brazil will overtake the UK as the country with the second highest recorded death total. It seems very likely that in both countries the current totals are significantly below the real ones.
It's human nature to want this to be over quickly. But wanting that and helping that are two different things. Wishing for the best is going to kill people and keep on killing people.
Yes. Positive thinking and optimism are all very well. But, when infectious diseases are around, realistic thinking is much more helpful - and life saving.
I just hope we can test and trace - and respond appropriately - enough to keep beating that R number down.
I'm also thinking about the implications for this undoubtedly big tent thread in the light of the latest Admin guidelines. Suggest you all do the same and feel free to set up further spin off threads. I'll stand by to use the split thread facility to help. Feel free to follow the current line of conversation here if that suits you.
Best worst case scenario. Worst: no vaccine or 40% effective like the flu, at best, Xmas 2021, but it's more infectious and effectively more lethal. So. Let the low risk go free. Quarantine the rest. In fifty years we're all dead anyway. Like varicella - chickenpox, expose kids to it, as before '95. As they age, they won't be at risk. If immunity is conferred. As it isn't with flu...
Best worst case scenario. Worst: no vaccine or 40% effective like the flu, at best, Xmas 2021, but it's more infectious and effectively more lethal. So. Let the low risk go free. Quarantine the rest. In fifty years we're all dead anyway. Like varicella - chickenpox, expose kids to it, as before '95. As they age, they won't be at risk. If immunity is conferred. As it isn't with flu...
... Best.
You can't reliably quarantine everyone who is vulnerable unless you're keeping the spread of the virus under control in the wider community because many of those people have family and/or need caring for, and the carers have families / need to go shopping / travel by bus / whatever. It's simply not a viable strategy unless you like the idea of half a million dead and doctors killing themselves because they can't handle the utter disaster you've meted out.
Hopefully a large proportion of that fall off is people not getting pissed in the pub on Friday night, rather than strokes and heart attacks etc not getting emergency treatment.
There's also the mildly confounding possibility that SOME folks who were going to have ordinary heart attacks/strokes/etc have had them brought on slightly earlier in connection with COVID, and so wind up in the COVID stats after all.
Well, if you take the very long view, everyone who dies of COVID-19 was going to die later of something else anyway.
Best worst case scenario. Worst: no vaccine or 40% effective like the flu, at best, Xmas 2021, but it's more infectious and effectively more lethal. So. Let the low risk go free. Quarantine the rest. In fifty years we're all dead anyway. Like varicella - chickenpox, expose kids to it, as before '95. As they age, they won't be at risk. If immunity is conferred. As it isn't with flu...
... Best.
You can't reliably quarantine everyone who is vulnerable unless you're keeping the spread of the virus under control in the wider community because many of those people have family and/or need caring for, and the carers have families / need to go shopping / travel by bus / whatever. It's simply not a viable strategy unless you like the idea of half a million dead and doctors killing themselves because they can't handle the utter disaster you've meted out.
I love it of course.
So what's your economic strategy for the next 18 months until the palliative vaccine and thereafter?
Best worst case scenario. Worst: no vaccine or 40% effective like the flu, at best, Xmas 2021, but it's more infectious and effectively more lethal. So. Let the low risk go free. Quarantine the rest. In fifty years we're all dead anyway. Like varicella - chickenpox, expose kids to it, as before '95. As they age, they won't be at risk. If immunity is conferred. As it isn't with flu...
... Best.
You can't reliably quarantine everyone who is vulnerable unless you're keeping the spread of the virus under control in the wider community because many of those people have family and/or need caring for, and the carers have families / need to go shopping / travel by bus / whatever. It's simply not a viable strategy unless you like the idea of half a million dead and doctors killing themselves because they can't handle the utter disaster you've meted out.
I love it of course.
So what's your economic strategy for the next 18 months until the palliative vaccine and thereafter?
Lockdown until case numbers are low enough for track and trace to work and the system is working properly. That's what NZ, South Korea, Australia are doing. Scotland might manage it but we'd need to fortify the border because England is well on the way to a second wave.
Hopefully a large proportion of that fall off is people not getting pissed in the pub on Friday night, rather than strokes and heart attacks etc not getting emergency treatment.
There's also the mildly confounding possibility that SOME folks who were going to have ordinary heart attacks/strokes/etc have had them brought on slightly earlier in connection with COVID, and so wind up in the COVID stats after all.
Well, if you take the very long view, everyone who dies of COVID-19 was going to die later of something else anyway.
When I get round to it, I think I'll also split the thread on the topic of trends. A number of us have shown interest in the numbers, their accuracy and their significance re the global and national trends of the pandemic. So it seems a good idea to draw together posts on that topic.
The novel coronavirus has been mutating. It is an RNA virus and they do mutate more rapidly than a DNA virus. But this should not affect the effectiveness of a vaccine. It will probably mean we might have to get an annual shot, but I good with that.
Here is a story from Healthline about the possible mutations and the effectiveness of a vaccine.
I think I saw that the mutations seem to be getting weaker, not stronger, as it adapts to the human organism.
There are now hundreds of very minor variations on this coronavirus, all of which appear to be functionally identical - with any differences in infection rates or disease severity too small to register. The variations provide useful information about infection routes if they're tested for - eg: if there's a cluster of cases then if they're all the same variant then it's almost certainly one person who's brought it in and tracing those contacts will identify the infected population very rapidly, if there are lots of different variants then that means multiple sources of infection (ie: it's been spreading in the community for a longer time) which will require a more general community wide lockdown to bring under control.
That one or more of those variants has shown subtly different characteristics isn't much of a surprise.
Some African countries have kept CV under control by all of (1) early border closures, (2) good track and trace aided by trust levels within community (3) generally good preparedness and medical emphasis on public health / infectious diseases. See here for a report.
Same true also of Indian state of Kerala.
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-six of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #4, between Russia and India.
Best worst case scenario. Worst: no vaccine or 40% effective like the flu, at best, Xmas 2021, but it's more infectious and effectively more lethal. So. Let the low risk go free. Quarantine the rest. In fifty years we're all dead anyway. Like varicella - chickenpox, expose kids to it, as before '95. As they age, they won't be at risk. If immunity is conferred. As it isn't with flu...
... Best.
You can't reliably quarantine everyone who is vulnerable unless you're keeping the spread of the virus under control in the wider community because many of those people have family and/or need caring for, and the carers have families / need to go shopping / travel by bus / whatever. It's simply not a viable strategy unless you like the idea of half a million dead and doctors killing themselves because they can't handle the utter disaster you've meted out.
I love it of course.
So what's your economic strategy for the next 18 months until the palliative vaccine and thereafter?
Lockdown until case numbers are low enough for track and trace to work and the system is working properly. That's what NZ, South Korea, Australia are doing. Scotland might manage it but we'd need to fortify the border because England is well on the way to a second wave.
Source on English second wave? Track & trace will never work in the UK. To a palliative degree at best. Like my claim on flu shots being 40% effective, which no one questioned, whereas when I made the more general claim - without the 40% - previously, a counter claim that flu shots are predominantly effective was made. The reality may well be better than 40%, as that takes in to account all flu like infections; the shots may be better against flu per se. Palliation - as a metaphor, analogy - or a degree of creeping herd immunity is the best that can be hoped for in the UK with track & trace. Which cannot stop schools and shops and workplaces opening. The economy has already gone back over 15 years.
I think the UK's government's official position is to accept a 2nd wave but hope it's a small one then they'll claim it as a success...
So if it works: Many unnecessary deaths but not a huge number. Economic malaise because the economy won't get going properly again until people feel safe. And if it doesn't; tens of thousands of deaths.
I hope I'm wrong but absent coherent, honest and accurate statements from the government this is the inference I am drawing.
Comments
It's a like for like thing, Ruth. I think there is under-reporting in a lot of places but I doubt whether the national standards (or lack of them) have changed. Perhaps I should have said the worldometer totals (based on the same sources throughout) show a decline in the numbers of daily deaths. What you can see clearly is significant decline in the epicentres of Europe and the US but also significant upticks in Brazil, Russia, Mexico. But the net effect in the worldometer figures is down about 1 to 1.5K per day.
Worldometer link. You can see the uptick in daily new cases and the downturn in daily deaths quite clearly in the graphs. There's always been doubt about how well they represent the real picture. But so far as deaths are concerned, in the end it will be the excess deaths, country by country, which will provide the most accurate figures we can get at. We'll have to wait a while for those. And in totalitarian regimes, it's a safe bet that they will also get "adjusted" if regarded as in conflict with the political narrative.
But not, as one US news station's misprint managed to suggest, a banana. They don't work nearly so well.
Guardian reporting that the test and trace system is not expected to be fully operational till September.
Worldometer also shows an increase in the daily numbers of new cases worldwide.
National standards probably haven't changed, but in the U.S. adherence to them varies from state to state and has varied over time. Plus there's just screwing up. In my city they just revised upwards the reports on the numbers of hospitalizations from April 6 to yesterday. Over that period the numbers originally reported were on average 25% lower than the new numbers. This is in a city that's taking this pretty seriously, where leaders are getting some pressure to re-open but nothing outrageous. No, it's not deaths, but the hospitalization numbers are an important metric when they're deciding how much we can re-open. You'd think they could count them accurately, but no.
So I have to wonder if the numbers coming out of Brazil, Russia, India, Peru, Turkey, Iran, et al. are any good. The numbers in the industrialized west other than the US are probably pretty good -- the rest of the world, including the US? I'm skeptical.
Guardian reporting that the test and trace system is not expected to be fully operational till September.[/quote]
Here in USA our county is great on giving tests, but the labs reading the tests are 3 weeks behind..
Ah, the English equivalent of our "Inside The Beltway" syndrome. The Beltway is a ring road that encircles Washington, DC. So when Congress critters lose track of the outside world and what we're going through, they've got the syndrome.
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-three of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #4, between Russia and Spain.
Armenia and Bolivia have joined the 10,000 case club since the last compilation.
You're right to be sceptical. Any conclusions we draw from the raw figures probably need to be taken with a large pinch of salt.
So far as Brazil at least is concerned, the huge figures do suggest some organised collection of data. And of course they fly in the face of minimising by their President so they don't look to be politically massaged.
Globally I tend to look at the graphs, estimate weekly averages and draw mental trend lines. The main reason for that is that numbers always seem to be lower at weekends, tick up from Tuesday to Friday.
But yesterday's figures were very bad and impacted those averages. You might be right about global death rates. And things look like they might be spiralling out of control in Brazil (if they haven't already). Brazil is now the global epicentre. At least for the time being.
Analysis of the counting problem.
Others may be interested. This is clearly only a partial picture but we are on pretty safe ground in arguing that the current global totals, awful as they are, underestimate significantly the true casualty rate.
As a Host, I'm happy about that as a post here, Eirenist.
As a Shipmate I think it not a binary issue. Its a genuine question of balance (I do get some of my one-liners from Moody Blues album titles). Looking back on the UK government reaction in March I think the criticism "too litttle too late" is justified. I put my own hands up as an observer and say I didn't catch on immediately either. When we look back at the tentative emergence from lockdown, we MAY conclude "more haste less speed".
But I think the lockdown itself may be costing lives as well, through pockets of extreme economic hardship, through delays in other urgent medical treatment, through increasing violence as a result of confinement. The short, medium, and longer term economic consequences of global lockdowns are looking increasingly severe, with the greatest threat to those who are poor already.
It is a question of balance. There is no ideal solution here. Governments all over the world are trying to strike some kind of balance between risks to the economy and health risks to the vulnerable, in the knowledge that those risks also overlap.
This long article from May 31 (link) discusses how the health service and local services have been dismantled over the last decade in the UK, leaving us exposed and less able to deal with a pandemic.
This has, IMHO, already been proven.
And, as if the bloody pandemic wasn't enough, we still have Brex*hit to contend with...
Kyrie eleison.
Her delighted grin brightened up a very chilly, dull, English 'summer' morning...
there is the leadership of Bolsonaro.
Clearly in Bolsonaro's Brazil, 2+2 has become whatever he wants it to be. And that is a space to be watched.
The UK is not nearly out of the wood. And the US continues a flat profile of about 20K new cases a day, and 800 to 1,000 daily deaths. For the great majority of States, the R number is either over 1 or very close to 1. And that's been the situation for weeks.
On the basis of current trends, there are emerging forecasts of 200K deaths in the US by mid September. A CNN commentator observed the danger of a 'sad but so what' reaction. A price to be paid for getting back to work?
The risks and the pain seem set to continue in many places throughout the world.
I get confused by all the figures flying around, but the UK's apparent death toll of getting on for 41000 is quite appalling.
Alas, our so-called *government* (well, the English bit, anyway) seems bent on getting everything possible up-and-running, even when those who know about these things say it simply isn't safe yet.
How many more unnecessary deaths do we have to suffer?
According to this graph only 17 states are above 1.0 and a few of them just bearly (1.01-1.03)
I have been following this graph for a while. Last week Washington State was very much above 1.0. Now we are just below it, so--for now--we are going in the right direction. As I have mentioned before, Yakima County has been our spoiler with cases as high as 178+. Yesterday, it was down to 83. Hopefully, they have turned a corner.
The biggest issue is what will happen with the infection rate in the next couple of weeks because of all the protests.
I know from bitter experience how often 'emergency' ambulance cases turn out not to be so at all, but just a request for a lift home...
OTOH, we used to find quite a few stroke/MI patients (mostly, but not exclusively, elderly) leaving things until they were in dire straits, simply because they 'didn't want to bother us'...
There's also the mildly confounding possibility that SOME folks who were going to have ordinary heart attacks/strokes/etc have had them brought on slightly earlier in connection with COVID, and so wind up in the COVID stats after all.
Yes I use the same graph and reckon that an R number of 0.9 and above (I think that's 35 States presently) will be an indicator of at best very slow improvement. Which is borne out by the flat nationwide trajectory for new cases and deaths.
And the effect of the protest gatherings will be beginning hitting the new case numbers now. With about three hours to go before the worldometer 24 hour clock changes there have been over 20,000 new cases and about 900 deaths in the USA.
Flat at best describes the current trends. The epidemic is far from over.
Whenever the Rt is below 1.0, it is not spreading exponentially. But I agree, the pandemic is not over. Washington is above 1.0 again, but again most of the cases being reported are coming from Yakima and King Counties. Many Washington Counties have not have had significant new cases for over two weeks. Just as my county was approved to go to phase III, low and behold six individuals from one family that went to a single event not in the county over Memorial Weekend. Drat!
It's human nature to want this to be over quickly. But wanting that and helping that are two different things. Wishing for the best is going to kill people and keep on killing people.
Yes. Positive thinking and optimism are all very well. But, when infectious diseases are around, realistic thinking is much more helpful - and life saving.
I just hope we can test and trace - and respond appropriately - enough to keep beating that R number down.
Barnabas62
Purgatory Host
... Best.
You can't reliably quarantine everyone who is vulnerable unless you're keeping the spread of the virus under control in the wider community because many of those people have family and/or need caring for, and the carers have families / need to go shopping / travel by bus / whatever. It's simply not a viable strategy unless you like the idea of half a million dead and doctors killing themselves because they can't handle the utter disaster you've meted out.
Well, if you take the very long view, everyone who dies of COVID-19 was going to die later of something else anyway.
How low is "low risk"? What's the cut-off? I'm trying to imagine that inspirational speech.
I love it of course.
So what's your economic strategy for the next 18 months until the palliative vaccine and thereafter?
He was impressed by the efficiency of the set up.
Lockdown until case numbers are low enough for track and trace to work and the system is working properly. That's what NZ, South Korea, Australia are doing. Scotland might manage it but we'd need to fortify the border because England is well on the way to a second wave.
Aye. There is no political alternative. As we know risk increases exponentially with age and is strongly correlated with underlying conditions.
B62, Purg Host
Here is a story from Healthline about the possible mutations and the effectiveness of a vaccine.
I think I saw that the mutations seem to be getting weaker, not stronger, as it adapts to the human organism.
That one or more of those variants has shown subtly different characteristics isn't much of a surprise.
Same true also of Indian state of Kerala.
pity USA and UK have none of these.
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-six of them would be on that list. New York would be ranked at #4, between Russia and India.
Source on English second wave? Track & trace will never work in the UK. To a palliative degree at best. Like my claim on flu shots being 40% effective, which no one questioned, whereas when I made the more general claim - without the 40% - previously, a counter claim that flu shots are predominantly effective was made. The reality may well be better than 40%, as that takes in to account all flu like infections; the shots may be better against flu per se. Palliation - as a metaphor, analogy - or a degree of creeping herd immunity is the best that can be hoped for in the UK with track & trace. Which cannot stop schools and shops and workplaces opening. The economy has already gone back over 15 years.
So if it works: Many unnecessary deaths but not a huge number. Economic malaise because the economy won't get going properly again until people feel safe. And if it doesn't; tens of thousands of deaths.
I hope I'm wrong but absent coherent, honest and accurate statements from the government this is the inference I am drawing.
AFZ