International COVID-19 Megathread

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

https://mobile.twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1242762567413571587

[parochial boy]

Switzerland now recording the highest number of cases per capita in the world (but far more testing per capita than France/Spain/Italy so the stats are obviously misleading).

Big controversy here yesterday as it was revealed that both France and Germany have blocked big orders of face masks from China as both countries are blocking all medical exports, apparently including goods in transit. Amazingly, it was the EU that actually came to the rescue, telling Merkel and Macron to sort themselves out and stop bullying landlocked neighbours.

In a rare and unique development, Switzerland even appears to be coming out of this relatively well. While almost every other country in the world has banned medical exports, Switzerland hasn't. Switzerland also conveniently has one of the world's leading producers of artifical respirators - and despite public pressure to follow the Germans and others and ban exports, they are still, rather impressively, prioritising deliveries to Italy even while Switzerland is increasingly worried about a potential shortage of its own.  

[Meclazine for Israel]

Whilst the NSW Government were hassling people at Bondi Beach having a swim on a hot day, they were not checking the passengers getting off a Cruise Ship in the city.

https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-25/ruby-princess-coronavirus-someone-needs-to-take-responsibility/12086834

140 Corona Virus positive cases were set free into society.

Perth now has three Cruise Ship off our coast not allowed to dock.

Some of the ships have confirmed cases on board.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Whilst the NSW Government were hassling people at Bondi Beach having a swim on a hot day, they were not checking the passengers getting off a Cruise Ship in the city.

https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-25/ruby-princess-coronavirus-someone-needs-to-take-responsibility/12086834

140 Corona Virus positive cases were set free into society.

Perth now has three Cruise Ship off our coast not allowed to dock.

Some of the ships have confirmed cases on board.

...

You've got to be s**ting me.

[President Johnson]

News from Germany: The Bundestag today voted for 156 billion € bailout and stimulus package across all party lines. Especially smaller and medium sized businesses can receive immediate cash to avoid bankruptcies. Already last week, short-time working benefits were extended. That basically allows companies to reduce work hours in case there is less workload. The government then pays 60% of the subsequent (net) paycut (67% for parents) directly to employees.

Furthermore, out of over 30,000 ongoing infections, about 1,000 of them are in critical condition, a total of 4,000 are hospitalized at this point. According to RKI daily briefing, over 5,000 have recovered. Experts estimate Germany will have 70,000 by the end of this week and that unreported number could be ten times higher (700,000). It's still remarkable we have about 150 deaths at this point, while Italy loses 600+ a day.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Some charts for Italy.

National totals:


National totals, log scale:


Deaths
ICU
Other Hospitalized
Isolated Home
Cured

Total cases by region per million inhabitants, log scale:


Deaths by region per million inhabitants, log scale:

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Impressive work, Antonio. Those log scales show definite cause for hope.

[parochial boy]

Is there, um, some explanation of what exactly is going on with the London underground? It's hard not to come to the conclusion that Sadiq Khan is seriously fücking up here, given the now daily update of horrifying pictures of overcrowded tube trains.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Impressive work, Antonio. Those log scales show definite cause for hope.

Thanks. I'd say so as well. We've moved from exponential growth to linear growth, which was the necessary first step - now we have to wait and see if the linear trend starts flattening.

Some more data to see the trend. Overall, compared to 03/21 (the last day of exponential growth), the total number of cases in Italy has increased by 38.8%. The growth rate was 26.8% in Lombardy, 49.9% in Emilia-Romagna, 39.5% in Veneto, 60.6% in Piemonte, 50.3% in other Northern regions, 46.4% in Central regions, and 57.2% in the South and Isles.

By comparison, the growth in cases for the previous 4 days had been 70% in Italy as a whole, 57.3% in Lombardy, 70.6% in Emilia-Romagna, 70.7% in Veneto, 97.8% in Piemonte, 98.7% in other Northern regions, 80.2% in Central regions, and 109.5% in the South and Isles.

So Lombardy is dragging the entire rest of the country down (which is great news considering how overrun it is), but the growth rate is slowing down everywhere. It's still scarily fast in the South, since the epidemic spread later there, but by comparison, Emilia-Romagna reached the infection rate that the South reached on 03/21 on 03/05. In the 4 days prior, the growth rate had been 144.9%, and in the 4 days following it had been 98.6%. So it looks like the lockdown should prevent a repeat of what happened North of the Appennines. Of course, all these numbers are a function of testing capacity, and there's reason to believe it might be lagging especially in Southern regions. But oh well, that's the best data we have.

[CumbrianLefty]

Italy *may* be over the worst, I hope so.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Sweden, along with South Korea, show that total lockdown is not absolutely necessary. There is a Third Way But this is made possible by some factors:

Another factor is that Sweden has a unique way of dealing with foreigners and their adverse biological agents:

Midsommar

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Vnghdsjmd0

The 4 stages of life based on Swedish culture include:

• 0-18 yrs: Childhood;
• 18-36 yrs: Pilgrimage;
• 36-54: Work;
• 54-72: Village Elder.

When I get to 54, I am moving to the the stage of "Village Idiot".

Given mandatory eradication of the elderly from the population reservoir after 72, this will certainly help your approach.

As for the other approaches that the Swedish employ:



I am sure people are very aware of the consequences of non-conformance in Sweden.

 

[Meclazine for Israel]

Impressive work, Antonio. Those log scales show definite cause for hope.

Thanks. I'd say so as well. We've moved from exponential growth to linear growth, which was the necessary first step - now we have to wait and see if the linear trend starts flattening.

Yes indeed. The growth is slowing in Italy, and will just follow a bell-like curve as we saw in South Korea, and China before that. New York will eventually show the same pattern.



What is encouraging is that once you pass the steepest part of the curve on the left side, things start to slow up fairly rapidly as you make the final ascent towards the top of the curve.



Out of the 4 stages of a positively skewed bell distribution graph for the Corona-virus:

(1) Accelerating Growth;
(2) Decelerating Growth;
(3) Accelerating Decay;
(4) Decelerating Decay;

The second phase will be the fastest.

And that is exactly what appears to be happening in Italy with a decrease in growth as Antonio correctly discovered. This has been the case 4 days in succession.



Think of the growth curve as the first derivative of the Active Case graph.

Hence, Peak growth in Italy in Active Cases was 21 March 2020.

If this bell curve has a distribution period of say, 2-3 months, then we should be heading towards the top of the curve around the first to second week of April when the growth in Active Cases (New Cases minus Recoveries) will equal zero.

Then the downward slope to freedom for the Italian people.

[Helsinkian]

In Finland, the government will isolate Uusimaa, the most populous region (which includes Helsinki), from the rest of the country. Most of the confirmed Corona cases have been in Uusimaa.

[Lechasseur]

The Scientific Council has advised the French government that the lockdown here has to last at least 6 weeks.

It's purely advisory, but the government will most likely take its advice.

[Tender Branson]

The big jump in cases reported in Austria after the weekend had to do with a different counting method in Tyrol:

Until the weekend, the Austrian health ministry counted only those tested with a primary residence in Tyrol, but the state of Tyrol counted all people tested in the state no matter which residence (also tourists).

The Austrian health ministry took over Tyrol's counting method (= all tested in the state).

Anyway, 6.001 cases as of today 9am and 42 deaths. The increase is slowing again and is reaching single-digit increases.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Is there, um, some explanation of what exactly is going on with the London underground? It's hard not to come to the conclusion that Sadiq Khan is seriously fücking up here, given the now daily update of horrifying pictures of overcrowded tube trains.

They're not able to run normal service frequency because of the number of staff off sick or self-isolating, which means that the trains that are running are more crowded. Passenger numbers have fallen, but not by enough. Some of this is about people going to work who shouldn't be, but a lot of it is about there being large numbers of key workers and them being particularly likely to commute by public transport in London.

[Tender Branson]

The Conserva-Green government has announced an agreement with the energy industry that all households will be provided energy, gas and water in the coming months - even if bills cannot and won't be paid.

Besides, there will be no evictions of people that cannot pay their rent.

https://orf.at/stories/3159443

[Tender Branson]

99% chance the following animal has spread the virus on to humans:

image link

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-52048195

[Mike88]

Update on Portugal: 3,544 cases so far, 60 deaths and 43 full recoveries. However, the numbers of people admitted to hospital fell to 191, from 276 yesterday, and 61 people are in the ICU.

[CumbrianLefty]

UK to switch to morning updates on cases/death numbers, which likely means nothing official today.

[Tender Branson]

Austria:

Registered unemployed at the Labour Market Service at the end of February: 334.000

Net increase of registered unemployed since March 15*: +163.200

* March 15 was the day before the severe measures such as the lockdown was introduced and all restaurants, hotels and tourism resorts closed.

+49% unemployed in 10 days. That is in line with the latest US jobless filings.

[parochial boy]

900 new cases here today. Dropping below the 1'000 mark for the first time in 8 days, and slow pattern of declining numbers since last Friday. Both the OFSP and a few epidemiologists have expressed some cautious optimism that we might be around the peak right now - but it's much too early to be sure. Probably there's a massive surge tomorrow or something.

[Silent Hunter]

You'll likely get a lot of fluctuations in case numbers at this point; statistics tend to be like that.

[Lechasseur]

365 people died of the virus in France today, including a 16 year old girl.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Boris Johnson has just tested positive for coronavirus.