International COVID-19 Megathread

[Omega21]

Scientists investigate possible positive effects of nicotine. It is being assumed that nicotine somehow (clinging onto the receptors the virus needs) has a positive shielding effect against the virus. 

https://m.oe24.at/coronavirus/Coronavirus-Wissenschafter-vermuten-positive-Wirkung-von-Nikotin/427320386

Obviously testing will be done with patches, not cigarettes.

The reason for the theory is that so far smokers have 80% lower infection rates than the General population.

Study paid for by tobacco company?

Don't think so. Only thing it could lead to is a surge in nicotine patch sales.

Either way I'm hoping it's true if all it takes is for people to receive some nicotine for a lower chance of infection..

Cigarettes make you more vulnerable if infected, so no one in their right mind would start smoking just because of this.

Either way, still better than the bleach IV/UV therapy you guys a re planning over there 😉

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

is it possible to isolate the specific element of nicotine that might be causing this effect in order to create some new product of utility in helping against corona?

[Omega21]

is it possible to isolate the specific element of nicotine that might be causing this effect in order to create some new product of utility in helping against corona?

I assume so, but it may be too much work and too little time...

Nicotine in itself is not that bad, so if their theory is true the benefits most definitely outweigh the risks.

Many other drugs being tested can have life threatening side effects, so this would be a big, relatively safe step towards at least protecting health professionals from getting infected.

A bit more in depth in English

http://www.rfi.fr/en/science-and-technology/20200423-french-researchers-suggest-nicotine-could-protect-against-covid-19

The same phenomenon was seen in China as well, with smokers having significantly lower rates of infection.

In France, the phenomenon was even more pronounced, with smokers being up to 80% less affected.

[Tender Branson]

Hmm ...

A brand-new release by STATISTICS Austria 🇦🇹 today shows that there could be significantly more deaths due to Coronavirus than reported by the government.

http://www.statistik.at/web_en/press/122945.html

Here’s why:

The government (health ministry/interior ministry) track daily deaths of people infected with Coronavirus in hospitals and nursing homes ONLY.

Statistics Austria on the other hand has basically live data on deaths from every Austrian town on a weekly basis - using the central population register.

Weekly deaths showed no statistical anomalies until March 16 (when infections spiked up and the curfew was introduced).

In the 3 weeks after March 16 (to April 5th), weekly deaths in all Austrian towns increased by more than 10% compared with the same weekly average during 2016-2019 !

Between March 16 and April 5th, the government announced around 200 COVID deaths in hospitals and nursing homes, but the data from Statistics Austria had deaths in all of Austria increasing by 580 compared to the same period in 2016-2019 ...

This could mean 2 things:

* an underreporting of COVID deaths happening at home, rather than at the hospital/nursing home

* a statistical anomaly: nobody knows the cause of death of those surplus deaths, so there could simply be more deaths because of other illnesses at home

STATISTICS Austria has released nationwide death statistics for the week April 6-12:

1.762

That is 14.3% higher than the average (1.542) for the comparable weeks in 2016-19.

It's 220 deaths more.

The Health Ministry reported 125 official COVID-deaths in that week.

Here is a chart I made, showing the latest weekly deaths vs. the weekly deaths for 2019, 2018, 2017 and 2016 in the first 15 calendar weeks of the year:

(right-click for big version)



As you can see, the numbers from calendar week 1, 2020 to calendar week 8, 2020 are already final.

From week 9-12, they are almost final with some small additions of deaths.

Weeks 13, 14 and 15 are preliminary and based on 90-95% of submissions from all towns in Austria. Statistics Austria has estimated the remaining 5-10% to the weekly totals until final numbers are submitted by the towns. This always takes a few weeks.

In the 4 weeks since the lockdown on March 16, there were a toal of 7.159 deaths in Austria vs. an average of 6.323 in the years 2016-19.

That's an increase of 13.3% compared to the 4-year average.

There was also a high increase in week 5/2020 already, when Coronavirus was no issue.

And:

In the first 15 weeks of 2020, there were 26.310 deaths. This is only very slightly above the 4-year average of 2016-19 and much lower than in 2018 and 2017 for example.

[Tender Branson]

Bottom line:

In the 4 weeks since the lockdown in Austria, March 16 - April 12, there were 836 deaths more compared to the 2016-19 average in those weeks.

The Health Ministry has only announced 365 official COVID-deaths in hospitals and nursing homes during these 4 weeks.

Draw your own conclusions what the cause of death was for the other 471 people ...

[Omega21]

Bottom line:

In the 4 weeks since the lockdown in Austria, March 16 - April 12, there were 836 deaths more compared to the 2016-19 average in those weeks.

The Health Ministry has only announced 365 official COVID-deaths in hospitals and nursing homes during these 4 weeks.

Draw your own conclusions what the cause of death was for the other 471 people ...

5g network and microchips they inject into us.

[FrancoAgo]

[

Just for attention
In Italy before to the end of February actually deaths were lower that expected, from the very late February numbers go up.

Today in the news was reported time from the infection to death is 4 to 6 weeks

[CumbrianLefty]

Still seem to be an underlying figure of 600-700 deaths a day in the UK.

Needs to go quite a bit lower for a major easing of lockdown to be viable, I would say.

[Mike88]

Bottom line:

In the 4 weeks since the lockdown in Austria, March 16 - April 12, there were 836 deaths more compared to the 2016-19 average in those weeks.

The Health Ministry has only announced 365 official COVID-deaths in hospitals and nursing homes during these 4 weeks.

Draw your own conclusions what the cause of death was for the other 471 people ...

In Portugal the same situation occurred. Between 23 March and 20 April, the number of deaths was above the average of the last 10 years, reaching 421 deaths on a single day on April 4th. Since that day, the numbers have dropped, with occasional ups and downs, but it seems to be stabilizing in the average of the last 10 years. More info here: https://evm.min-saude.pt/#shiny-tab-dashboard

The number of deaths for the above 65 years old was well above average during this period, while the number of deaths of those bellow 65 years old reached an all time low:

https://twitter.com/alexandreafonso/status/1251804121671368705

[Meclazine for Israel]

OK,

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

UK



UK 24 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 84,996 – April 23
Recoveries added to curve – 40,000

UK has blown out with an increase in new cases causing the peak to move to the right.


France



France 24 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 59,955 – April 11
Recoveries added to curve – 59,500

France on the way down now.


Germany



Germany 24 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 66,264 – April 6
Recoveries added to curve – 14,400

Since April 19, the number of recoveries added has steadily decreased reflecting an increase in reporting this data-set by the Germans.


Spain



Spain 24 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 78,610 – April 9
Recoveries added to curve – 58,000

Spain has had a small increase in the last two days.


Italy



Italy 24 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 68,528 – March 30
Recoveries added to curve – 90,000

Italy following the curve downward.


USA



USA 24 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 458,503 – April 21
Recoveries added to curve – 325,000

USA on it's way down although the latest numbers in the last two days have lessened the downward slope considerably. It will now take longer for the number of Active Cases to reach 10% of the maximum. June 10-15 would be the predicted date now.


Growth Curve

When all the growth curves in Active Cases are plotted together, we get:



All growth curves have been smoothed with 3 point averaging.

For Australia, our current mortality rate is 1.18% of those who tested positive. So if 75% of people exposed are asymptomatic or simply non-symptomatic and were not tested, then our real mortality rate would be 0.3%. Australia only tested people with lung symptoms.

Clearly in colder climates were people are more condensed in their living arrangements, this number would be higher. New York, Milan, Wuhan etc.

Just looking through two months of scientific research and a couple of things are clear:

• We still don't know the exposure levels - that will hopefully come from serological testing which is underway in the USA with Dr Birx focusing on elderly care homes.
• We still don't know the risk of death once someone contracts the disease. The variability in patient response to the virus make this very difficult.

Although some patients (elderly, sick) are at a greater risk, there is currently no way to predict whether a patient will have a severe immunological response or otherwise to the virus.

So that means we have the following possibilities from infection into a person:

(a) People with no symptoms;
(b) People dying from viral pneumonia;
(c) People suffering sever immune response shock;
(d) People recovering fully;

But no way to predict which category you will go into. Most interestingly and worrying for medical professionals is that we have people walking around with no symptoms having no idea that they are infecting people with the virus.

So there is a lot we still do not know about the actual virus itself, and for that, we need to gather more data. Without the data which governs the risk of death, we simply cannot measure the risk against lives against the cost of closing the economies of the world.

For example, 150 million people in East Africa are under threat of starvation. If Governments close the economies of the world, that number could increase to 350 million people if food relief is not made available by the Western World. That is, one of the effects of closing the worlds' economies could be introducing a further 200 Million people in Africa to a life without food stability.

[Tender Branson]

Only 6 more deaths yesterday.

~2.500 active positive cases vs. 12.500 recovered.

People in hospitals and ICU still dropping like a rock.

https://www.ots.at/pressemappe/54/bundesministerium-fuer-inneres

[CumbrianLefty]

UK now over 20k hospital deaths alone

[Tender Branson]

Not sure why Austria is not flying in more patients from Italy, France or Spain to treat them here.

Maybe it’s complicated logistically or Kurz and Co. don’t want to „import“ new threats.

Currently, Austria has transported about 50 patients from Italy and France into the country already to treat them and several have already been cured and sent home.

But considering we have 3.500 ICU beds available, of which only 150 are currently used for Coronavirus patients, we could certainly do more and treat more EU patients ...

[Tirnam]

Not sure why Austria is not flying in more patients from Italy, France or Spain to treat them here.

Maybe it’s complicated logistically or Kurz and Co. don’t want to „import“ new threats.

Currently, Austria has transported about 50 patients from Italy and France into the country already to treat them and several have already been cured and sent home.

But considering we have 3.500 ICU beds available, of which only 150 are currently used for Coronavirus patients, we could certainly do more and treat more EU patients ...

Probably that we don't need to do it anymore. For example in France we have right now 10,000 beds with ventilators and 4,700 COVID-19 patients on ventilators (down from a peak at 7,000).

It seems that in France the peak of deaths happened on April, 1st. 2,724 people died that day (compared to 1,700 in a normal day).
Between March,1st and April,13 93,839 people have died, it was 75,130 deaths in 2019, 83,108 in 2018.

It seems that the spread of the epidemic has been contained in France with 23 départements reporting fewer deaths than last year (mainly in the south-west of France).

[Tender Branson]

Interesting finding:

There have been 40% fewer reported heart attacks in the past month here.

https://www.wienerzeitung.at/nachrichten/politik/oesterreich/2056882-Raetseln-um-40-Prozent-weniger-Herzinfarkte.html

The reason might not necessarily be that 40% fewer than usual occurred, but that people did not seek hospital treatment so they would not get infected with Coronavirus. Which is bizarre, because a heart attack is more lethal or equally lethal.

Other explanations include that there were fewer heart attacks, due to less stress at work etc.

The same could be observed in Spain or Lombardy (70% drop) and also for strokes.

On the other hand: young Coronavirus patients (under 40) are mostly dying from heart attacks and strokes, much higher than usual.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/24/strokes-coronavirus-young-patients

[Antonio the Sixth]

Happy Italian Liberation Day! And on this note, here are some charts to show that we're hopefully on our way to liberation from this f**king virus.

National totals:


National totals, log scale:


Deaths
ICU
Other Hospitalized
Isolated Home
Cured

And since they have clearly plateaued now, I'm switching to a linear scale to depict hospitalizations+deaths figures by region:


I think the charts speak for themselves at this point. Even the total number of active cases+deaths have started declining, meaning more new people are recovering than are getting sick. It's still a high plateau, and it will take a while to start coming down, but if we don't f**k up Phase 2, the worst might be behind us.

Still around 400-500 people are dying every day, but it was expected that that number would be the last to go down.

[Mike88]

Portugal update: (26 April)

Total cases: 23,864 (+472)
Deaths: 903 (+23)
Recoveries: 1,329 (+57)
Patients in ICU: 182 (-4)
Patients hospitalized: 1,005 (-35)

330,512 tests conducted since March 1st.

The health minister also announced that people infected with the virus recovering at home will only need one test, rather than the actual two, to be declared as recovered.

[Pulaski]

Australia is set to dip below 1000 active cases in the next day or two. The last time we were below 1000 was March 20th. Such great news.

[Tender Branson]

Yesterday, Austria again had "just" 6 deaths.

That's the lowest 2-day number in more than a month.

There are now almost 13.000 recovered vs. 2.000 active cases.

And today saw only 58 new cases, despite 8.000 tests per day.

[CumbrianLefty]

UK deaths less than half yesterday's high figure - the truth is likely in between.

[ON Progressive]

Ontario update:
Total cases: 14432 (+437, lowest since April 13)
Deaths: 835 (+24)
Recovered: 8000 (+491)
Patients in ICU: 252 (+7)
Patients in hospitals: 938 (+13)

To my knowledge, this is the first time recoveries have outnumbered new cases in the province since they changed the criteria for recoveries.

[PSOL]

Well, Iran’s response has continued to be a disaster, from prematurely opening up Tehran to letting people pray in the mosque  in areas supposedly free of coronavirus.

[Meclazine for Israel]

OK,

Some new interesting updates from data on Worldometers. Europe definitely heading into the clear as June approaches. Russia, India and Saudi Arabia heading hard into the growth curve.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

UK



UK 26 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 84,996 – April 23
Recoveries added to curve – 51,500

UK has been hit hard by the virus.


France



France 26 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 59,955 – April 11
Recoveries added to curve – 66,700

France continues to decrease.


Germany



Germany 26 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 66,264 – April 6
Recoveries added to curve – 16,400

Probably the most accurate data to model, Germany have had very few inconsistencies in their reporting of data, and this follows the predicted curve very closely. The most organised data reporting during all aspects of the pandemic.


Spain



Spain 26 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 78,610 – April 9
Recoveries added to curve – 41,400

Spain just dropped 20,000 recoveries on the Active Case dataset, so I have reduced "Added Recoveries" from 60K down to 40k. It makes no scientific sense to look at the Active Cases without an accurate recovery estimate as seen here:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/

Australia have been reporting recoveries the same way, and Italy have reported virtually no recoveries relative to their case numbers.


Italy



Italy 26 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 68,528 – March 30
Recoveries added to curve – 92,000

Italy should be good to go in June based on these numbers. They will soon report a high volume of recoveries in big lumps.


USA



USA 26 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 494,087 – April 24
Recoveries added to curve – 322,000

USA on it's way down with a lumpy ride. An expected rise in cases from increased testing will most likely not impact on the curve as recoveries that will arrive from New York and New Jersey in the next week or so.


Growth Curve

When all the growth curves in Active Cases are plotted together, we get:



All growth curves have been smoothed with 3 point averaging.

Things appear to be quietening down nicely. A couple of eyes needed on USA in the next week to see the impact of increased testing.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

snip

The UK really stands out here, in that its curve is among the flattest of all the nations. (in the active case growth chart at the very end of your post)

[Meclazine for Israel]

snip

The UK really stands out here, in that its curve is among the flattest of all the nations. (in the active case growth chart at the very end of your post)

You are right. You have spotted something there. They were a lot flatter going into the curve in terms of growth, and a lot flatter coming out.

The key component which flattens the curve (slowing the spread) is 'social distancing' and 'personal hygiene'. So maybe the UK populous should be congratulated. I simply don't live there, so cannot say what is going on.

Isolation and removal of cases like South Korea lowers the peak and spread.