International COVID-19 Megathread

[NewYorkExpress]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-zealand-eradicates-coronavirus-at-least-for-now-prime-minister-jacinda-ardern/

New Zealand appears to have completely eradicated the coronavirus — at least for now — after health officials said Monday the last known infected person had recovered. The announcement was greeted with joy around the country and means the nation of 5 million people will be among the first to welcome throngs of fans back into sports stadiums, embrace crowded concerts and remove seating restrictions from flights.

It's been 17 days since the last new case was reported, during which time an additional 40,000 people have been tested, bringing the total number tested to about 300,000. Monday marked the first time since late February there have been no active cases.

[Mike88]

Asymptomatic spread of coronavirus is 'very rare', WHO says

The spread of Covid-19 by someone who is not showing symptoms appears to be rare, Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization's technical lead for coronavirus response and head of the emerging diseases and zoonoses unit, said during a media briefing in Geneva on Monday.

"From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual," Van Kerkhove said on Monday.

"We have a number of reports from countries who are doing very detailed contact tracing. They're following asymptomatic cases, they're following contacts and they're not finding secondary transmission onward. It is very rare -- and much of that is not published in the literature," she said. "We are constantly looking at this data and we're trying to get more information from countries to truly answer this question. It still appears to be rare that an asymptomatic individual actually transmits onward."

(...)

I don't even know what to say about this... Quite an irresponsible statement from the WHO.

[Silent Hunter]

They're distinguishing between asymptomatic (never shows symptoms) and pre-symptomatic (will later show symptoms). An important distinction.

[Mike88]

They're distinguishing between asymptomatic (never shows symptoms) and pre-symptomatic (will later show symptoms). An important distinction.

Even so, it creats confusion and could hurt, even more, people' support for recommended behaviors, not to mention some leaders.

[CumbrianLefty]

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/new-zealand-eradicates-coronavirus-at-least-for-now-prime-minister-jacinda-ardern/

New Zealand appears to have completely eradicated the coronavirus — at least for now — after health officials said Monday the last known infected person had recovered. The announcement was greeted with joy around the country and means the nation of 5 million people will be among the first to welcome throngs of fans back into sports stadiums, embrace crowded concerts and remove seating restrictions from flights.

It's been 17 days since the last new case was reported, during which time an additional 40,000 people have been tested, bringing the total number tested to about 300,000. Monday marked the first time since late February there have been no active cases.

In some ways, this was actually the easy part - if NZ manages to avoid the dreaded "second wave" then they will have done well indeed.

[Silent Hunter]

Hungary has ended border controls on all its Schengen borders. Slovenia is also allowing Hungarians, Austrians and Slovenes to cross into the country at any point they like; other citizens will still need to use border crossings for the time being.

[Tender Branson]

No new case here in Salzburg state since 12 days ...

Only 2 active cases left, so they should recover in the next days because they are not in hospital.

Salzburg would then join New Zealand and be declared "Corona-free".

https://www.salzburg.gv.at/themen/gesundheit/corona-virus

Austria-wide, the number of deaths has remained at 672 for the past 5 days now.

[President Johnson]

Hungary has ended border controls on all its Schengen borders. Slovenia is also allowing Hungarians, Austrians and Slovenes to cross into the country at any point they like; other citizens will still need to use border crossings for the time being.

Germans have already been allowed to get in last week.

Spain now also moving in this direction. This sparked some controversy German tourists may get in for vacation before Spaniards themselves can vacate in their own country.

[palandio]

Two rather interesting articles on the effects of social distancing and lockdowns:

There is an increasing number of similar articles which try to statistically infer about the effects of measures. While I appreciate their effort in this complicated subject and they often bring up some valid points, none of them has really convinced me.

Particularly the "How many deaths have been avoided?" relies on naive SIR or SEIR models.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2405-7_reference.pdf - on Europe

It speaks for the intellectual honesty of the authors that they make the following disclaimer:

"Our model relies on fixed estimates of some epidemiological parameters such as the infection fatality rate, does not include importation or subnational variation and assumes that changes in the reproduction number are an immediate response to interventions rather than gradual changes in behavior."

Sadly the whole approach would not have worked without the following scientific hack:

"For all countries, interventions are assumed to have the same relative impact on R_t and are informed by mortality data across all countries. The only exception is that we use partial pooling to introduce country-specific effects of the effectiveness of the last intervention in a country, which is usually the lockdown."

The exception being Sweden where the last intervention was "public events banned" and where there was no intervention categorized as "lockdown". (The definition of "lockdown" is of course unclear from the beginning.)

Again it speaks for the intellectual honesty of the authors that they didn't exclude Sweden from their study altogether. But to me it renders moot the whole point of the article.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2404-8_reference.pdf - on a more international scale

Differently from the first article the authors don't even bother with pooling which means that interventions that do have a very significant effect in some countries, don't have an effect in other countries at all, which is accepted without further discussion.

Again the article acknoledges a similar problem like the first article:

"It is also possible that changing public knowledge during the period of our study affects our results. If individuals alter behavior in response to new information unrelated to anti-contagion policies, such as seeking out online resources, this could alter the growth rate of infections and thus affect our estimates. If increasing availability of information reduces infection growth rates, it would cause us to overstate the effectiveness of anti-contagion policies. We note, however, that if public knowledge is increasing in response to policy actions, such as through news reports, then it should be considered a pathway through which policies alter infection growth, not a form of bias. Investigating these potential effects is beyond the scope of this analysis, but it is an important topic for future investigations."

Ok, yes, but wasn't that the whole point? What is explained by "hard" measures and what is by public knowledge or increased awareness?

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Hungary has ended border controls on all its Schengen borders.

Some relaxation, but of course Orban's little Enabling Act will remain as long as it's "necessary".

[Silent Hunter]

He says that should end on 20 June. We shall see.

[Tender Branson]

There was 1 infection in Salzburg state yesterday or today, but another recovered.

So, the number of active cases remains at 2 ...

https://www.salzburg.gv.at/themen/gesundheit/corona-virus

In Carinthia, the recently infected persons have recovered again and there’s just 1 active case left in the state. And only 3 left in Burgenland.

In fact, 6/9 Austrian states have less than 12 active cases left each.

Only Upper Austria has 27, Lower Austria some 80 and Vienna almost 300.

[NewYorkExpress]

https://nypost.com/2020/06/10/burundis-pierre-nkurunziza-may-have-died-from-covid-19/

Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza has died after a suspected bout with the coronavirus — which would make him the first world leader to succumb to the pandemic, according to a report.

The government announced Tuesday that 55-year-old Nkurunziza had died from a heart attack, but opposition sources say the cause of death was COVID-19, according to the Telegraph.

I suppose it's a good thing Burundi will be swearing in a new President in a few weeks, Evariste Ndayishimye...but Nkurunziza is still the first world leader to die from COVID-19 apparently.

[Tender Branson]

We are now averaging about 30 new cases per day for the past 10 days and an average of 35 recoveries.

Active cases have dropped below 400 today for the first time, with a big 22 recovery dump in Vienna.

If the trend continues, there could be less than 100 active cases in about 2 months.

There are virtually no deaths because of COVID anymore.

[Silent Hunter]

https://nypost.com/2020/06/10/burundis-pierre-nkurunziza-may-have-died-from-covid-19/

Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza has died after a suspected bout with the coronavirus — which would make him the first world leader to succumb to the pandemic, according to a report.

The government announced Tuesday that 55-year-old Nkurunziza had died from a heart attack, but opposition sources say the cause of death was COVID-19, according to the Telegraph.

I suppose it's a good thing Burundi will be swearing in a new President in a few weeks, Evariste Ndayishimye...but Nkurunziza is still the first world leader to die from COVID-19 apparently.

For comparison purposes, here is the list of notable "Spanish flu" deaths:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Spanish_flu_cases

That claimed the first PM of independent South Africa and the President-elect of Brazil.

[Tender Branson]

Tough race between Carinthia, Salzburg and Burgenland to be declared the first COVID-free states.

As of today, Carinthia only had 1 active infected person left, Salzburg 2 and Burgenland 3.

But Burgenland's last infection was more than 10 days ago, Carinthia's last new case was between June 2-3 and Salzburg's last new cases was just a few days ago.

So, Carinthia and Burgenland definitely have the better cards.

Styria, were the F1 races will be held in a few weeks, is also down to just 4 active cases.

[CumbrianLefty]

https://nypost.com/2020/06/10/burundis-pierre-nkurunziza-may-have-died-from-covid-19/

Burundi’s President Pierre Nkurunziza has died after a suspected bout with the coronavirus — which would make him the first world leader to succumb to the pandemic, according to a report.

The government announced Tuesday that 55-year-old Nkurunziza had died from a heart attack, but opposition sources say the cause of death was COVID-19, according to the Telegraph.

I suppose it's a good thing Burundi will be swearing in a new President in a few weeks, Evariste Ndayishimye...but Nkurunziza is still the first world leader to die from COVID-19 apparently.

Those reports were just saying he "may" have done, unless there has been actual confirmation since?

[Helsinkian]

Finland is opening its borders to Nordic and Baltic countries -- with the exception of Sweden, due to the high case numbers there.

[kaoras]

Chile registered a double record of new cases (+6754) and deaths (+222) and passed France in the number of infections.
And still doesn't look like we have reached the peak!

[Tender Branson]

Amélie de Montchalin, the French Secretary of State for European Affairs, has thanked Salzburg for successfully treating several French COVID patients in the past months.

https://salzburg.orf.at/stories/3052936

[Tender Branson]

My district (ca. 90.000 people) is now officially COVID-free, the state announced:

https://service.salzburg.gv.at/lkorrj/detail?nachrid=63557

The remaining 2 active cases are in the Tennengau and Flachgau districts.

[Mike88]

Portugal update:

Total cases: 36,463 (+283)
Active cases: 12,513(+38)
Deaths: 1,512 (+7)
Recoveries: 22,438 (+238)
Patients in ICU: 77 (+4)
Patients hospitalized: 428 (-12)

Almost a 1,000,000 tests conducted since March 1st.

The media is reporting, in the last few days, that Portugal is diverging from the rest of Europe in terms of the reduction of cases. According to the media, in the last 15 days, Portugal was the 2nd country in the EU with the most new cases of Covid per million inhabitants, only behind Sweden, and the number of ICU patients and hospitalized patients also grew.

[Tender Branson]

Portugal update:

Total cases: 36,463 (+283)
Active cases: 12,513(+38)
Deaths: 1,512 (+7)
Recoveries: 22,438 (+238)
Patients in ICU: 77 (+4)
Patients hospitalized: 428 (-12)

Almost a 1,000,000 tests conducted since March 1st.

The media is reporting, in the last few days, that Portugal is diverging from the rest of Europe in terms of the reduction of cases. According to the media, in the last 15 days, Portugal was the 2nd country in the EU with the most new cases of Covid per million inhabitants, only behind Sweden, and the number of ICU patients and hospitalized patients also grew.

I already wondered why Austria announced it will open borders/travel to most European countries without any restrictions starting June 16th - but Portugal was not among them.

[Mike88]

Portugal update:

Total cases: 36,463 (+283)
Active cases: 12,513(+38)
Deaths: 1,512 (+7)
Recoveries: 22,438 (+238)
Patients in ICU: 77 (+4)
Patients hospitalized: 428 (-12)

Almost a 1,000,000 tests conducted since March 1st.

The media is reporting, in the last few days, that Portugal is diverging from the rest of Europe in terms of the reduction of cases. According to the media, in the last 15 days, Portugal was the 2nd country in the EU with the most new cases of Covid per million inhabitants, only behind Sweden, and the number of ICU patients and hospitalized patients also grew.

I already wondered why Austria announced it will open borders/travel to most European countries without any restrictions starting June 16th - but Portugal was not among them.

That was also reported in Portugal and created discomfort in the government and in us all a bit, but, I don't think anyone could blame them now. The situation in Lisbon isn't good and the whole story of the "Portuguese miracle" went down the drain. In 10 days, or so, the rhetoric changed in Portugal.

[PSOL]

Brazil has overtaken Britain’s place as the country with the second highest death toll 

Brazil has overtaken Britain as the country with the world’s second-highest Covid-19 death toll after a further 843 deaths pushed its total to 41,901.

The tally was published on Friday night by a coalition of news outlets which has been compiling independent statistics since Brazil’s health ministry was accused of seeking to conceal the full figures last week.