International COVID-19 Megathread

[Silent Hunter]

As a side note to this, Netflix has the German TV series Charité available on it. The first series features one Robert Koch, who gives his name to the German government agency that is monitoring Covid-19.

He is also a demonstration of what can happen when you don't properly test a cure.

[Silent Hunter]

341 new cases for Germany yesterday - the Sunday before it was 249.

[Silent Hunter]

What's going on in North Rhine-Westphalia?

[Silent Hunter]

The increases in Belgium seem to be very much focussed in Antwerp, which appears to have largely escaped the peak in March/April.

[Silent Hunter]

Luxembourg has just been taken off the UK "no quarantine list".

[Silent Hunter]

Population density plays a big role, I'd imagine.

[Silent Hunter]

The thing is that any measures put in place won't impact the stats for over a week or more.

[Silent Hunter]

Randomly in the last month -

Switzerland ca 3'700 cases and 16 deaths - less than 0.5% mortality
Germany ca 13'700 cases and 165 deaths - less than 0.5% mortality
France ca 22'200 cases and 430 deaths - around 2% mortality
Italy ca 7'100 cases and 370 deaths - around 5% mortality
UK ca 19'900 cases and and 2'300 deaths - 11.5% mortality

Britain claims to be doing more testing than any of the other countries, and yet somehow the virus is 20 times deadlier there?

Care homes, quite possibly.

[Silent Hunter]

That you can quickly end up with herd immunity if you're willing to have a lot of deaths in one go?

[Silent Hunter]

If you lift the lockdown too quickly, the virus comes straight back.

[Silent Hunter]

I was planning a trip to Bavaria before all this started too...

[Silent Hunter]

You were doing so well too.

[Silent Hunter]

Austria is back on the UK's quarantine list, along with Croatia, while Portugal is off it.

[Silent Hunter]

There seems to be strong evidence of a more infectious but less deadly mutation (known as D614G) of the virus out there.

[Silent Hunter]

France has gotten that bad? Wow.

[Silent Hunter]

Deaths do seem to be right down almost everywhere. More effective treatments are certainly a major reason for that, but maybe the virus is also mutating and becoming milder?

Also a 'harvesting effect'. The most vulnerable have already had it and either survived or died.

[Silent Hunter]

You will see a rise in hospital admissions first of course. We're not seeing that in the UK.

UK Coronavirus official data

[Silent Hunter]

Commercial landlords do employ a lot of people in maintaining their buildings and many small inner-city businesses are dependent on office workers, especially in the food business.

I've been going into the office twice a week at the moment and it's definitely more pleasant than sitting at home all day.

[Silent Hunter]

He's referring to a pre-Norman King of England who, legend has it, either tried to stop the tide coming in or was demonstrating that he couldn't.

The story

[Silent Hunter]

It is more Asian than the Scottish average, with major concentrations in some wards, but not hugely so.

Demography of Glasgow

One Scottish author's most violent Glaswegian is a petite South Asian woman...

[Silent Hunter]

Do they live in multigenerational households?

[Silent Hunter]

A thought that immediately occurred to me is that the "don't kill your granny" message can lead to an immediate response from many people in the 20-39 category of "she's already dead".

[Silent Hunter]

At the end of the day, this is a disease with a IFR rate of probably 0.5% and falling. We need to find a healthy balance in our response, lest we end up killing more than we save through economic and social damage, not mention delaying other healthcare procedures.

[Silent Hunter]

A lot of people didn't exactly follow it anyway.

[Silent Hunter]

So, we're expected to hit the mark of 1 million deaths very soon? Good lord...

I was expecting that; bearing in mind "Hong Kong flu" of 1968-70 killed up to four million in a world with half the population.