International COVID-19 Megathread

[CumbrianLefty]

Even if the Swedish approach "works" - and their deaths are currently climbing - that doesn't mean it would be easily transferable to other, different, countries. Sweden is Sweden.

[CumbrianLefty]

Quite impressively done, really

[CumbrianLefty]

Some polling from Switzerland:

How much do you trust the following?

 - The Swiss Federal Council - 79% trust
 - The (Swiss) media - 63% trust
 - The WHO - 50% trust
 - The Italian government - 40% trust
 - The EU - 37% trust
 - China - 14% trust
 - The USA - 8% trust

So, here at least, massive disaster for the reputations of both China and the USA

US lower than China surely has to smart a bit!

[CumbrianLefty]

As the Berlin Police reports, there has been a sharp increase in illegal street races since the shutdown began. Last year, there had been 400 such prosecutions. Last month, there have been 100. Which probably can attributed to a) the streets being a whole lot emptier and b) bars, clubs, gyms and other venues street racers may otherwise have been frequented being closed (as are professional soccer games). Who knew that a pandemic would turn the city into a cross between The Fast and the Furious and Mad Max :
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/berlin/corona-raser-nutzen-leere-strassen-zahl-der-illegalen-autorennen-in-berlin-nimmt-drastisch-zu/25794944.html

Meanwhile, anti-lockdown protests have taken place today in the city of Stuttgart with up to 5,000 people attending. For some reason, Stuttgart has become the center of the German anti-lockdown movement alongside Berlin. Well, at least they're not carrying assault rifles...

Interesting how the protests have taken off, at least relatively speaking, in some countries.

In the supposedly "liberty loving" UK the few such events have had derisory attendances thus far.

[CumbrianLefty]

Only 24 new cases until 3pm today.

And the 2nd day in a row with only 2 deaths.

Austria has been one of the more successful countries in combating this on any measure.

[CumbrianLefty]

Some fun and games in the UK yesterday, as reported in the "Boris Johnson" thread.

Less funny is that we now "officially" have the highest death toll outside the US.

(even with all the usual caveats that apply to the above)

[CumbrianLefty]

UK virus related deaths now officially above 30k.

[CumbrianLefty]

Nearly 600 deaths, again, announced in the UK yesterday.

Those screaming, almost unhinged headlines about "MONDAY MEANS FREEDOM!!!!!!" in the right wing press a few days ago look even more stupid now than they did at the time.

[CumbrianLefty]

Almost universal agreement that the "new" government messaging is nonsensical.

"Stay Alert" - meaning what exactly? "Control The Virus" - how do you even "control" a virus FFS??

Seriously, who came up with this utter cack?

[CumbrianLefty]

Most people in this country asking this morning "WTF is the government doing??".

[CumbrianLefty]

Now being estimated that the "real" UK virus death toll may have gone over 60k.

[CumbrianLefty]

Labour have major reputational issues these days.

The UK polling was taken a week or more ago, certainly before the recent chaotic developments.

YouGov's latest polling has Johnson's net approval rating edging below Starmer's.

[CumbrianLefty]

Until recently, most people undoubtedly thought the government were making at least a decent fist of things after a bad start. The sympathy factor after Johnson's brush with death will have surely bolstered his personal ratings as well. I would be hesitant about making broader generalisations about "national characteristics" on the back of polling figures at present tbh.

(plus there are some countries - Denmark and Ireland to name just two - where the public's approval ratings of their governments during this crisis have actually outstripped the UK)

[CumbrianLefty]

Fewer than 500 total virus related deaths in the UK today, the lowest *weekday* figure since the end of March. On the face of it encouraging, the question now is if the government's recent confused and/or reckless actions bring along some sort of "second wave" in a few weeks.

[CumbrianLefty]

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.

Another terrible right-populist leader reaping the whirlwind.

[CumbrianLefty]

UK virus deaths have slowed from their peak, but even "official" figures (an underestimate, as is likely the case everywhere) are going to hit 35k in the next few days.

Not great.

[CumbrianLefty]

UK virus deaths have slowed from their peak, but even "official" figures (an underestimate, as is likely the case everywhere) are going to hit 35k in the next few days.

Not great.

Jump upwards of over 500 virus deaths today (high by recent standards) takes us above that total.

[CumbrianLefty]

Premier League football provisionally set to restart in England come the middle of next month.

[CumbrianLefty]

Looks likely that many if not most English schools won't be reopening on Monday, contrary to what the government wants. If so, it will add to the impression of growing disarray in their handling of things.

[CumbrianLefty]

Just when you think 2020 can't get anymore worse.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/29/monkeys-steal-covid-19-test-samples-health-worker-india

https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1266335781775380480?s=20

Not for the first time with this, the sort of stuff you expect in Hollywood films but not so much reality.

[CumbrianLefty]

BoJo promised the UK a few weeks ago that we would have a "world beating" virus tracking/tracing system in place by today. Has to be said, its presence is not immediately obvious.

[CumbrianLefty]

Thread on how the Spanish Government artificially lowers it's death count through absurd reporting criteria.

https://mobile.twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1268450736398098433

Surprised our government hasn't tried pulling this one yet tbh.

[CumbrianLefty]

Yeah the Spanish response to coronavirus has been an absolute disaster marked by chaos, rectification after rectification and what not.

It is certainly a candidate for top 5 worst response worldwide in my opinion

As bad as UK/US/Brazil?

[CumbrianLefty]

Well we now have his on record comment to the Italian PM, pre-lockdown, that he indeed wanted "herd immunity". So maybe I am less inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt on this. The same markedly arrogant sense of British exceptionalism that drove Brexit is undoubtedly a factor too.

[CumbrianLefty]

And a lot of that is surely down to the insouciant attitude ("take it on the chin") that the PM and other leading figures in the government showed towards this originally.