COVID-19 Coronavirus Thread

[Nigel]

A Dane have again won the All England Badminton championship.

Hope it's not too long before we see things like this again:

Viktor Axelsen fulfilled a ‘dream come true’ as he romped to an imperious first Yonex All England title.
The Great Dane was in scintillating form under the Arena Birmingham lights, breezing past No.1 seed Chou Tien-chen 21-13 21-14 to make amends for his defeat against Kento Momota in the final last year.
“This means a lot to me - it is a big, big, big dream come true and it’s up there with all my biggest achievements in my career so far,” he said.
“I’m an emotional guy - if you’re not happy and get cheered up by winning the Yonex All England in front of this amazing crowd, then you’re never going to be.
...

 

[kamkar]

Yeah i know, wayyyy more than 850 or something got this bug in Denmark i am sure, we only test the most sick people and still it is only 1/3 of those that have this nasty bug, the others i assume have a regular flu.

 

[kamkar]

Yep. Badminton are one of those sports you will find a lot of Danish fingerprints on.

 

[Nigel]

Yep. Badminton are one of those sports you will find a lot of Danish fingerprints on.

I never think of it as significant here, although we did invent it. I always wonder why they hold the big event in Birmingham and not at Badminton, but I guess it is probably too big these days.

 

[Nigel]

Here in little old Denmark the very old are not that hit, though the 2 dead are both 80 or more of age.
View attachment 50936
Graph copied from TV2 news station.

20 to 59 seem to be the sweet spot for infected here.

I guess your elderly are more isolated than ours! Ours still seem to be out and about at community events, and are starting to pay for it.

It seems Germany and Austria join the Nordic nations with very low death rates, presumably their age distribution graphs are similar to yours.

You are also dropping down the table of %population infected, presumably because you are managing to keep people fairly well isolated compared to other countries. UK has also dropped down to 28th so efforts to slow it down are still working.

 

[kamkar]

We aim to please

 

[joe384]

Seems to be hundreds of mathematicians, and a few astronomers!
Almost no medical scientists.

I must admit, the letter was only 1 page and doesn't really go into detail. However, last week we didn't know who was on the goverments team and they hadn't provided the "science" that they supposedly did. However I've heard they will be releasing the models soon (if not already done)

 

[joe384]

The biggest problem in Wuhan was that they had no idea of the infection rate or death rate, so they had no choice but to build the field hospitals, and also to slow the infection rate by isolation. Both measures worked, and now their new field hospitals are out of a job, unless they decide to relax the isolation in order to build up herd immunity, in which case the new hospitals will allow them to get there faster.

Why would the numbers suddenly go up? Everyone who had the virus would either be dead or would have got immunity after 3 weeks surely?

There was someone on the news last night saying UK should immediately take drastic isolation measures to cut the infection rate and that herd immunity was a highly dangerous strategy, but what was his alternative? Turned out to be to lock everything down completely until we develop a vaccine. Unfortunately, we don't have coronavirus vaccines for any of the common cold strains despite trying for a century, there is no reason to think we will definitely get an effective one within 10 years, some people are optimistic for one next year, but very often medical research optimism doesn't produce results, how many years have we been working on an HIV vaccine? Realistically, all countries are going to achieve herd immunity, even if they don't try to do so, or if they work against doing so as some currently are, so planning to achieve it the most sensible option. For most countries it also makes sense to properly isolate the elderly and otherwise vulnerable until herd immunity is reached, so far most countries have failed to do so effectively, although it may well explain the very low death rates in Nordic countries. In some countries there have also been problems with younger people, quite likely explained by high smoking rates.

In the press conference I think they said they expected the peak in 18 weeks! That is way too long to leave isolating people.
It sounds like they are changing their minds though...

 

[Dashmellow]

Dr William Hanage, a professor of the evolution and epidemiology of infectious disease at Harvard said, When I heard about Britain’s ‘herd immunity’ coronavirus plan, I thought it was satire.

https://www.theguardian.com/comment...st-britain-herd-immunity-coronavirus-covid-19

"The UK should not be trying to create herd immunity, that will take care of itself. Policy should be directed at slowing the outbreak to a (more) manageable rate. What this looks like is strong social distancing."

 

[Nigel]

Why would the numbers suddenly go up? Everyone who had the virus would either be dead or would have got immunity after 3 weeks surely?

It goes up on an exponential curve, initially very slow, then increasing increasingly fast. 3 weeks doesn't get you very far when it takes maybe 5 days for each generation.

In the press conference I think they said they expected the peak in 18 weeks! That is way too long to leave isolating people.
It sounds like they are changing their minds though...

18 weeks does sound a bit long for the peak, I guess that was if our attempts to delay it for 3 or 4 weeks worked, currently it looks more like we got 1 week, maybe 2, that is why we are down in 28th place for %population infected rather than up with Denmark near the top.

Note that on the herd immunity, it is thought to need 60% to wipe it out, but at 30% it will be finding it much harder to spread and restrictions will be able to be relaxed substantially, except for the vulnerable who will still need to stay isolated. It will only be a few weeks more before we see Italy slowing down due to increasing immunity.

 

[Paul Schmehl]

So, Trump appoints Larry Kudlow and Steve Mnuchin to the coronavirus task force after firing Beth Cameron PhD and her entire staff of highly skilled, long time professionals in this field who were tasked by the Obama administration in 2018 after the Ebola outbreak to deal with exactly the anticipated crisis we are dealing with right now. Larry Kudlow?! Steve Mnuchin?! Are you kidding me? This is the @Paul Schmehl trolly Trumpy retort?

Beth Cameron previously served as the senior director for global health security and biodefense on the White House National Security Council (NSC) staff, where she was instrumental in developing and launching the Global Health Security Agenda and addressed homeland and national security threats surrounding biosecurity and biosafety, biodefense, emerging infectious disease threats, biological select agents and toxins, dual‐use research, and bioterrorism.

Since being fired by the Trump administration she is now Vice President, Global Biological Policy and Programs for the NTI. Too bad for us that Trump now has Larry Kudlow on the case.

So, now instead of the highly qualified career professionals previously tasked and prepared to protect our nation we have Larry Kudlow, Steve Menuchin and Mike Pence in charge of the official White House COVID-19 task force to deal with this pandemic instead?

HEAVEN HELP US!!!

Oh for God's sake. Who is on the task force? Dr. Anthony Fauci. Do you think he's a slouch?

Anthony S. Fauci Biography - family, children, name, wife, son, born, drugs, college, time - Newsmakers Cumulation

How about Ben Carson? Do you think he's a dummy?

Who is Ben Carson? Everything You Need to Know

A behind-the-scene look at the life of Ben Carson.

www.thefamouspeople.com

This is the kind of rhetoric that angers people Trump is a flawed human being, but so is everyone else on the planet, including YOU. And ME. A lot of people are getting sick and tired of the constant needling and nitpicking about everything he does. He's put together a group of experts on infectious disease AND on its economic impacts, and he's tasked them with solving the myriad complex problems that arise from such an event. What would you prefer that he do? Sit back and ignore the crisis?

Trump announces coronavirus task force - Washington Examiner

President Trump announced the formation of a coronavirus task force, which the White House said has met daily since the start of the week.Coordinated through the National Security Council, the group is led by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and includes national security adviser...

www.washingtonexaminer.com

Coordinated through the National Security Council, the group is led by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and includes national security adviser Robert O'Brien, Deputy Secretary of State Stephen Biegun, Department of Homeland Security acting Deputy Secretary Ken Cuccinelli, and Domestic Policy Council Director Joseph Grogan.

Azar worked under President George W. Bush during the SARS crisis and anthrax attack, while Anthony Fauci, a National Institute of Health director specializing in infectious disease, also involved in the response, has managed federal health crisis responses since the 1980s. Infectious disease experts are advising the group.

You act like Beth Cameron is the only person in the entire world qualified enough to handle this outbreak. It's beyond silly.

Vice President Pence bulks up Coronavirus Task Force with medical and economic experts | TechCrunch

On the first day as the new leader of the U.S. government's efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus, Vice President Mike Pence announced a number

techcrunch.com

On the first day as the new leader of the U.S. government’s efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus, Vice President Mike Pence announced a number of new appointments to the government’s Coronavirus Task Force.

The point person for the government (who will be reporting to Vice President Pence) is Deborah Birx, a longtime leader in the U.S. government’s efforts to contain the HIV/AIDS pandemic.
From her position within the State Department as the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator and Special Representative for Global Health Policy, Birx coordinated the Army, Navy and Air Force in their HIV/AIDS efforts and led the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Global HIV/AIDS program.

In addition to Birx, the vice president also appointed to the task force Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, Director of the National Economic Council Larry Kudlow and Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams.

It seems you would prefer that the White House focus entirely on the virus and completely ignore the economic impacts on the nation and the world. If you look at who is on the task force, it's obvious that Trump has included people with expertise in world affairs, US security, economics, and other fields as well as infections disease experts and experts in viral outbreaks. So, he's taking a wholistic approach to an issue that affects a great deal more than public health, and all you can say is HEAVEN HELP US because he didn't include Beth Cameron?

Please stop insulting the intelligence of forum members and stick to the topic at hand.

 

[joe384]

It goes up on an exponential curve, initially very slow, then increasing increasingly fast. 3 weeks doesn't get you very far when it takes maybe 5 days for each generation.

Assuming everyone obeyed the quarantine, wouldn't it die out though? No more people to infect? Even if there were a few cases could they not just do the contact tracing like in the early stages

 

[Paul Schmehl]

For those of you are are interested in this sort of thing, CDC has posted a paper from Singapore of their experiences with the virus.

Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Surveillance and Containment...

First detected in China in late 2019, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission has spread globally. Singapore implemented a multipronged surveillance and containment strategy that...

www.cdc.gov

I thought this was interesting:

Close contacts were defined as having close (within 6.6 ft [2 m]) and prolonged (generally ≥30 minutes) contact with the COVID-19 patient. Contacts at lower risk were persons who had some interactions with the COVID-19 patient for shorter periods of time. Asymptomatic close contacts were placed under compulsory quarantine for 14 days, and contacts at lower risk were placed under active monitoring.

So, the key to getting infected seems to be close, prolonged contact with an infected person. Here in the Dallas area, we had a man who got infected while traveling. When he returned home, he self-quarantined. Now his wife and his kids are all infected. That seems to fit with what the Singaporean authorities are saying.

Because my wife is at extremely high risk, we've decided to forgo trips outside the home. We will either cook what we have or order food to be delivered. Most of the delivery services have already instituted "no contact" delivery protocols. The delivery person will leave the food at the door and ring the doorbell.

I strongly suspect the infectious disease experts are grossly overestimating the impact of the virus. They're not taking into account all the social distancing measures that have already been implemented. Travel has been dramatically reduced. Mass events have been canceled or postponed. People have stocked up in a similar manner to what they do in major weather events, so they can remain indoors. I think these measures will dramatically impact the spread of the virus. And we have never done this before. We didn't do it for the swine flu in 2009, and it killed 12,000+ in the US and about 200,000 worldwide.

2009 Swine-Flu Death Toll 10 Times Higher Than Thought

The swine-flu pandemic of 2009 may have killed 10 times more people than originally estimated, a new global analysis of deaths concludes.

www.livescience.com

 

[Nigel]

Assuming everyone obeyed the quarantine, wouldn't it die out though? No more people to infect? Even if there were a few cases could they not just do the contact tracing like in the early stages

Yes, but the trouble is that it just takes 1 case left somewhere in the world for it to start up again, probably unknown for the first 4 weeks until it is almost uncontrollable again. Maybe China will prove it possible if they carry on with their current course, but it is much more likely that they will suffer repeated outbreaks with each one killing a lot of people and requiring another lockdown, whereas with the herd immunity, you lose more people in achieving it, but then everyone is safe, or maybe like the flu a slightly different form comes back each winter and a small proportion of the population catches it again each year. This virus spreads too fast and too far before detection for quarantine to wipe it out successfully.

 

[Nigel]

So, the key to getting infected seems to be close, prolonged contact with an infected person. Here in the Dallas area, we had a man who got infected while traveling. When he returned home, he self-quarantined. Now his wife and his kids are all infected. That seems to fit with what the Singaporean authorities are saying.

Our government advice has been that if you wash your hands regularly and properly, it requires closer than 2m and 15 minutes to get infected, but I wouldn't want to take that as a guarantee!

It probably only applies to the healthy, if your immune system is not working well then just a small amount of virus may infect you.

 

[Paul Schmehl]

According to the CDC, all 50 states how have testing facilities up and running. The number of tests conducted to date are 3,995 (CDC) and 15,749(public labs).
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/201....gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/testing-in-us.html So, the impact of moving testing from just the CDC to all public labs across the US is a more than three-fold increase in the number of tests conducted.

Oddly, the number of cases detected has decrreased over the past three days.

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the U.S.

View the number of confirmed cases COVID-19 in the United States.

www.cdc.gov

Time will tell if that's an anomaly or a trend.

 

[Nigel]

Oddly, the number of cases detected has decrreased over the past three days.

Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in the U.S.

View the number of confirmed cases COVID-19 in the United States.

www.cdc.gov

Time will tell if that's an anomaly or a trend.

They decrease towards the current day because it takes you several days to analyse the tests and put them on the graph, or maybe it is so that it always looks like your government is successfully protecting you and improving things! Other countries don't produce graphs like that.

Note that the UK is doing 10000 tests per day, and some other countries are doing even more, so your "up and running" is still not a great result and doesn't make your figures equivalent to others in the global tables.

 

[Dashmellow]

Oh for God's sake. Who is on the task force? Dr. Anthony Fauci. Do you think he's a slouch?

Anthony S. Fauci Biography - family, children, name, wife, son, born, drugs, college, time - Newsmakers Cumulation

How about Ben Carson? Do you think he's a dummy?

Who is Ben Carson? Everything You Need to Know

A behind-the-scene look at the life of Ben Carson.

www.thefamouspeople.com

This is the kind of rhetoric that angers people Trump is a flawed human being, but so is everyone else on the planet, including YOU. And ME. A lot of people are getting sick and tired of the constant needling and nitpicking about everything he does. He's put together a group of experts on infectious disease AND on its economic impacts, and he's tasked them with solving the myriad complex problems that arise from such an event. What would prefer that he do? Sit back and ignore the crisis?

Trump announces coronavirus task force - Washington Examiner

President Trump announced the formation of a coronavirus task force, which the White House said has met daily since the start of the week.Coordinated through the National Security Council, the group is led by Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar and includes national security adviser...

www.washingtonexaminer.com

You act like Beth Cameron is the only person in the entire world qualified enough to handle this outbreak. It's beyond silly.

Vice President Pence bulks up Coronavirus Task Force with medical and economic experts | TechCrunch

On the first day as the new leader of the U.S. government's efforts to contain the spread of the coronavirus, Vice President Mike Pence announced a number

techcrunch.com

It seems you would prefer that the White House focus entirely on the virus and completely ignore the economic impacts on the nation and the world. If you look at who is on the task force, it's obvious that Trump has included people with expertise in world affairs, US security, economics, and other fields as well as infections disease experts and experts in viral outbreaks. So, he's taking a wholistic approach to an issue that affects a great deal more than public health, and all you can say is HEAVEN HELP US because he didn't include Beth Cameron?

Please stop insulting the intelligence of forum members and stick to the topic at hand.

I had made a well received suggestion yesterday that we keep partisan politics out of this thread but no, you'd rather rant and troll with posts like this trying to make an elaborate case that the Trump administration is somehow really on the ball and has been from the beginning. The facts suggest otherwise that Trump has been a day late and a dollar short in mounting a vigorous administration plan to deal with this crisis that has been looming for months and that the team of experts he fired two years ago would have been doing from day one. The effort to put together a team to deal with what is happening is commendable but should have been done months ago when the virus crisis was just taking off rather that after we have widespread infections across the country. Of course, unlike most every other developed nation we still have little adequate testing actually in place. It's coming but slowly and should have and could have been in place long ago. In the meantime, we all got to hear Trump on camera for the last two months minimizing and denying what has been going on since January describing it as a "hoax" and talking down the numbers. The internet is literally teeming with memes of some of the idiotic remarks Trump has made since this crisis began.

I ignored your similar post yesterday and I refuse now to get sucked into another link filled troll storm from the likes of you. Only a guy like you would attack a dedicated expert career professional like Beth Cameron because you consider her to be a political rival to Trump and you know that is a gratuitous, provocative attack to indulge in. But that's the way guys like you operate. As for Dr. Fauci, head of the NIAID the Trump administration literally barred him from speaking publicly about the novel coronavirus without approval. It's all about controlling the message not about letting a revered life long professional do his job of informing the public. Fortunately, he's speaking out news Trump doesn't want to hear despite efforts to stifle his efforts to educate the nation about the reality what to expect going forward.

I recall when you first showed up here on this forum you were immediately very divisive and self righteous and now that you're back here it is simply more of the same only with the right wing political spin this time. You clearly fit the cookie cutter mold of guys like you and it gets tiresome pretty damned quickly. If you have nothing worthwhile to contribute here other than your political spin on Trump and his appointees please just go back into your hole.

 

[country_hick]

A solution is unrolled...

 

[joe384]

UK has another Cobra meeting on Tuesday, it is expected they will tell older people to self isolate, they will probably do that and then monitor the number of cases, assuming the NHS is not near capacity.

Panic buying is still happening here, I am not sure if all shops have restrictions but it would be a good idea!