International COVID-19 Megathread

[T'Chenka]

https://youtu.be/r5yAHW44BSA

Merkel's address to Germany was IMO pretty good. Better than Trudeau usualy does and definitely better than Trump.

[T'Chenka]

coterie meeting

I didn't know this word and had to look it up, and initially I thought you tried to write "covfefe meeting" but had a typo.

[T'Chenka]

Alert: A malicious website pretending to be the live map for Coronavirus COVID-19 Global Cases by Johns Hopkins University is circulating on the internet waiting for unwitting internet users to visit the website (corona-virus-map[dot]com). Visiting the website infects the user with the AZORult trojan, an information stealing program which can exfiltrate a variety of sensitive data. It is likely being spread via infected email attachments, malicious online advertisements, and social engineering.

[T'Chenka]

coterie meeting

I didn't know this word and had to look it up, and initially I thought you tried to write "covfefe meeting" but had a typo.

Not sure if that's a good translation for the Spanish word ''tertulia''

I just googled it. There's no word in English except for "coterie" that I found, but I've never heard anybody use the word "coterie" in my life. Uncommon word.

We would say...

Book/poetry/world news    club/group/meeting/gathering

[T'Chenka]

So at which point will the human (not just the economic toll) of the lockdown become too much to bear? I mean there are all kinds of repercussions for mental health issues that 20-30% unemployment brings with it. It is rather worrying that there are so few voices that question the approach that has been chosen.

In 3-4 weeks, govts all over the world will have to reassess the situation. Sooner or later, restrictions must be lifted for the sake of the economy alone. Not to mention other problems in society that come from permanent lockdowns. Otherwise, there will be bankruptcies en masse and skyrocketing unemployment. I still have some hope by looking at South Korea as some sort of model, but we should be prepared for the worst. I'm afraid the numbers of infected people will start climbing again once we return the normalcy. This is probably the worst societal crisis of our lifetimes that causes an unimaginable moral dilemma. I'm afraid in a few weeks we as a society and the politicians will have to decide whether continue to go down an economic super-cliff with disastrous consequences, worse than the 2009 recession, or we try to isolate only seniors and chronically ill and try to get some mass immunity among healthy people under the age of ~60-65.

The major problem as we speak is a complete lack of immunity across the board against this new virus. And there are just 2 ways to achieve that mass immunity: Vaccine or recovered people. Since vaccine won't be available for at least 9 months (maybe 12-14 months, and the vulnerable people need to be "locked up" for that amount of time), we might actually to go with the latter. Not because we like it, but because the alternative is so horrendous.

If that happens, societies / government should actively seek ways to unite 100% verufied antibody recovered health workers and care givers with the isolated elderly people.

[T'Chenka]

First up today.

A continuation of trends previously monitored in the growth in "Active Cases" with Germany really flattening the curve over the last two days. Italy would appear to be past the the worst of it in terms of growth. Germany and Italy are appear to be slowing in line with expectation. Spain will be interesting to watch over the next week.

Just my opinion - whatever it's worth to you - but this graph here that you keep posting updates of as time goes on would be more interesting and possibly informative if it adjusted for population, for example using "daily growth in active cases of per million citizens" instead of "daily growth in active cases".

[T'Chenka]

Austria - 9:30am update:

11.348 positive cases (yesterday 9:30am: 10.923, +3.9%)
  1.074 hospitalized (1.057, +17) - of which:
     245 in ICUs (227, +18)
     168 dead (158, +10)

  2.022 recovered (1.749, +273)

98.343 tests performed

These infection and death numbers are VERY comparable with Canada's numbers at the moment. We don't have as much data on hospitalizations and ICU but I would imagine it's around the same.

You guys are locked down right? Our (center-left) Prime Minister said last night "we're not quite there yet" on MANDATORY stay at home orders. We're "supposed to" be home but many don't care. Our province's (right wing) premier said very recently that a mandatory lock down is "the last thing we want to do".

If Austria minimizes deaths better than Canada from this point on where our numbers are almost identical, we will know that our leaders allowed those extra people to die.

[T'Chenka]

These infection and death numbers are VERY comparable with Canada's numbers at the moment. We don't have as much data on hospitalizations and ICU but I would imagine it's around the same.

You guys are locked down right? Our (center-left) Prime Minister said last night "we're not quite there yet" on MANDATORY stay at home orders. We're "supposed to" be home but many don't care. Our province's (right wing) premier said very recently that a mandatory lock down is "the last thing we want to do".

If Austria minimizes deaths better than Canada from this point on where our numbers are almost identical, we will know that our leaders allowed those extra people to die.

More or less, yeah:

You are only allowed to leave the house for A) unavoidable system-critical work (but some construction sites are still open, as are some other businesses). Or B) for grocery shopping (now with mandatory mask-wearing !). Or C) if you want to take short walks (but with a 2 meter distance to other persons and alone, unless you are walking with the person in your own household, partner, kids). Or D) if you need to help relatives in need, such as delivering their groceries to their front door.

Violations observed by police patrols result in fines of several thousand Euros.

(Tyrol state and some cities in the West have a total lockdown, with police stops at every entry and exit. Zell am See has it since Wednesday midnight. You can only leave your town with a paper permit from the police and enter back with that permit, only for work or medical reasons.)

We need that here.

We hate to admit it, but we're a lot like America up here. Sure, we are more like Europe than compared with the USA, but we are still too American in our cultural attitudes in some situations (like this one).

[T'Chenka]

Canada taking a queue from Italy. Heartwarming.

https://youtu.be/hJW6kEmkHbY
From 1:25 in the video onwards.

[T'Chenka]

In the latest episode of "China hoodwinking Europe", the millions of respirators Finland ordered from China at a cost many times that compared to normal times have proven to be inadequate for hospital use.

Absurd details have begun to surface regarding this episode. Finland's National Emergency Supply Agency, which is supposed to ensure that there is a sufficient national stockpile of important stuff in the event of crisis, did not directly order the masks, but instead contracted two Finnish individuals to get them from China.

The problem is that those two individuals are shady. One is a former payday-lender with unpaid debts; the other is a Finnish woman running a "beauty business" in Estonia who has been convicted of financial crimes.

The agency agreed to pay five million euros to both in exchange for them supplying the surgical masks and respirators. The payday-lender received the payment (for the shipment that recently arrived containing supplies unsuited for hospital use). The woman with the "beauty business" did not receive her payment: her Estonian bank froze her account because the bank flagged the transaction as possible moneylaundering.

Now the woman is claiming that the payday-lender improperly got the deal she was supposed to get. The payday-lender had a stone thrown through his window and is claiming that the woman contracted the Finnish chapter of Hells Angels to collect the five million from him (the Hells Angels denied this in a tweet).

Now the director of the National Emergency Supply Agency has been forced to resign for failing to properly vet the people used to acquire the supplies.

Perkele...

This could have all been avoided if Finnsh government practiced proper anti-pandemic health measures such as raking the forests, et cetera.

[T'Chenka]

My very small apartment building has only 6 units, amd one of those is for storage. Out of the 4 that aren't storage, last night one had a veruy small social gathering, one may or may not have had a guest over, and the third apartment had a guest over that then proceeded to visit the fourth apartment.

Canada is more culturally American than I ever cared to admit. Our stupidity and narcissism is unacceptably high
 Our prime minister needs to go on TV, out hus political career second and his country first, and tel these traitors in no uncertain terms that they will stop or they will be forced to stop. We haven't even flattened our curve yet.

[T'Chenka]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/11/south-korea-struggles-to-contain-new-outbreak-amid-anti-lgbt-backlash

'Authorities in South Korea are struggling to contain a new coronavirus outbreak linked to the capital’s nightclub district as a backlash against the country’s gay community increases, prompting fears LGBT people will fail to get tested out of fear of being outed.'

'After Kookmin Ilbo, a local media outlet with links to an evangelical church, reported that businesses visited by an infected man over the long weekend were gay clubs, many other South Korean media followed suit, revealing not only the identity of clientele but also some of their ages and the names of their workplaces.'

Oooh, this is pretty spicy.

[T'Chenka]

https://globalnews.ca/news/6938258/justin-trudeau-coronavirus-china-questions/

Well that shows you’re doing SOMETHING

FF move by Trudeau. Show that you are displeased with China and won't kiss their butt, but also don't go on a huge unhinged twitter rants about it at 3AM.

[T'Chenka]

Chile health system is nearing collapse.

New infections are out of control in the capital and the government finally declared quarantine for all the Greater Santiago area, after 27k cases. It previously had tried with "dynamic" and short quarantines just for certain areas, which predictably failed given that the borders between the districts of Santiago are very arbitrary.

Laboratories are running out of the reactive needed for the tests, and Santiago intensive care units are at almost 90% capacity. Today some patients had to be moved to Concepción, a city 500 km south of Santiago. The situation is very dire.

God bless and good luck. This is terrible.

[T'Chenka]

Not sure if it deserves it's own thread (yet):

New H1N1-G4 ("G4 virus / G4 swine flu") with pandemic potential happening in China.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/06/30/asia/china-swine-flu-pandemic-intl-hnk-scli-scn/index.html

[T'Chenka]

I do wonder where the last Zero Covid holdout will be.

International Space Station

[T'Chenka]

https://twitter.com/ZekeJMiller/status/1495383320401698821

I can see why they're making it no longer illegal, but hopefully the government is doing something to tell people "just because it isn't illegal doesn't mean it isn't strongly recommended".