International COVID-19 Megathread

[Pulaski]

Encouraging signs in Australia: it seems the curve might be showing signs of flattening just a little bit:
(https://theconversation.com/government-says-australias-coronavirus-curve-may-be-flattening-134997)

These results coming in are still before NSW announced stage 2 restrictions, and we just announced stage 3 last night.

Every day we don't see explosions in new cases is positive - it's another day we have to prepare our hospitals for increased capacity and research gets closer to providing tangible results to aid us in the fight.

As of right now, it also seems like around 1% of confirmed cases are needing ICU care, with a death rate of approx. 0.4%.

Our high testing rate also means we probably have a much higher number of cases confirmed as a percentage of total cases - around 41%, according to one model (https://benflips.shinyapps.io/nCovForecast/)

I'm optimistic about Australia's chances.

[Pulaski]

Most of the news coming out of Australia at the moment is positive.

The growth rate of new cases continues to trend downward, and today the federal government effectively nationalised private hospitals to increase capacity of emergency and ICU services:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-31/coronavirus-agreement-to-keep-private-hospitals-open/12106496

Experts are, for the moment, confident we will have enough ventilators to meet demand:

https://theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/mar/31/experts-confident-australia-will-have-enough-ventilators-to-meet-coronavirus-demand

And some modelling suggests that we may be able to push the peak back into late 2020:

https://www.sbs.com.au/news/coronavirus-may-not-peak-until-november-in-nsw-new-modelling-shows

(Note the last article refers to ICU demand potentially being 1349% of capacity - but that's pre-pandemic capacity. Experts believe we now have the ability to immediately increase capacity to 4400, and our target is 7500 ventilated intensive care beds by the end of April. Right now, every good or semi-good day we have is another crucial day to prepare).

[Pulaski]

Case study on stats from https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/


Australia

This country is an island. 25% of cases from Cruise Ships. 25% of cases from the USA. 25% of cases from Europe. Surprisingly few from China due to an early travel ban.

12% of all cases in Australia are from one Cruise Ship, the Ruby Princess, which the NSW Government said did not present a 'risk' if patients are allowed to disembark. And disembark they did. Their numbers have increased 5 fold since walking off the ship unchecked.

Apart from that, Australia has enjoyed very constrained growth in Corona-virus due to isolation procedures from overseas travellers returning to Australia.

Again, with key dates:

• 1. March 1 - Start of reported case graph at 25
• 2. March 24 - Highest Growth
• 3. April 5 - Predicted Peak of "Active Cases' based on predicted Growth reduction to zero (green line)

So unless we get another outbreak with the German Cruise Ship scenario, we should peak at the end of the first week in April.

Federal and state governments here are more worried now about the increase in community transmission, but they're still in double or very low triple figures each day. I'd be more worried about the high number of cruise ships with infected passengers still sitting in Australia's waters.

Regardless, the pattern still seems to be holding for Australia at this present time: steady numbers and more opportunity to prepare for the surge. We just might get lucky here.

[Pulaski]

For the moment, things seem to be under control in Australia. The number of new cases is steadily falling each day, and given our high testing rates, that should be close to the truth. (https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-current-situation-and-case-numbers)

Not only that, but I'm predicting that either today or tomorrow, for the first time we should see official recovered numbers outpace new cases. Our recovered numbers are severely underreported given that NSW (our largest state with more than double the cases of anywhere else) doesn't report recovered numbers at all, and only Victoria (our second-largest state) reports them daily. (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-03-17/coronavirus-cases-data-reveals-how-covid-19-spreads-in-australia/12060704)

Regardless of these limitations, we already saw recoveries almost equal new cases just the other day, and new cases have dropped dramatically since then. When we get new recovery numbers, they're likely to significantly outnumber new cases (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/australia/).

Of course, like every other country in the world, how we deal with this long-term is anyone's guess. Modelling is suggesting that even if we stay locked down for 3 months, we'll see a huge uptick once we open things back up (https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-03/coronavirus-data-modelling-covid19-stay-home/12114978). We just have to hope that reliable antibody testing can be rolled out quickly, to determine who is safe to go back to work. But as of right now, Australia is doing very well.

[Pulaski]

The number of new cases is steadily falling each day, and given our high testing rates, that should be close to the truth.

Maybe next week, we will see zero growth, but we need to see a big increase in recoveries above the current rate to get there tomorrow.



Australian Active Cases

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

April 2nd saw 266 new cases reported, with 240 recoveries. Since then, new cases have dropped too. We haven't received any new recovery stats since then but that's largely due to the reporting issue; if you look at the second-to-last graph, you see that you usually have one or two days of no recoveries followed by big spikes. The spikes are getting bigger as more people recover; the next spike should be larger than the number of new cases on that particular day. Obviously these numbers are going to bounce around for a while and our overall growth rate will take a little longer to reach zero, but our first day where recoveries officially outnumber new cases is very likely to be in the next couple of days.

P.S. is that your own vintage guitars store?

[Pulaski]

Quite an update here in Australia - the government is now estimating over 2000 people have already recovered, putting active case numbers at 3372. Very encouraging signs that we might be able to navigate through the first peak, and give ourselves time and options: https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2020/04/coronavirus-covid-19-at-a-glance-coronavirus-covid-19-at-a-glance-infographic_0.pdf

[Pulaski]

Quite an update here in Australia - the government is now estimating over 2000 people have already recovered, putting active case numbers at 3372. Very encouraging signs that we might be able to navigate through the first peak, and give ourselves time and options: https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2020/04/coronavirus-covid-19-at-a-glance-coronavirus-covid-19-at-a-glance-infographic_0.pdf

Good spot. My graphs to my Facebook friends are going to look flash tomorrow once those numbers are incorporated. They have been freaking out because of the severely low quality of media during the lockdown.

I want the lockdowns to end so my TV stops showing ads with selfie home videos from B grade TV celebrities singing "Oh What a Wonderful World" and others telling us "We are all in this together".

To rub salt in the wounds, we then have C grade TV celebrities pretending to love it with fake smiles.

Make it stop.

Australian TV outside the ABC is 95% C and D-grade celebrities showing how untalented they are at singing, dancing, cooking, presenting etc. Trash-grade reality TV wall-to-wall. I avoid it whenever possible.

[Pulaski]

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.

The rest of the world should really demand that China pay compensation for this pandemic.

Honestly at this point China deserves to become an international pariah for this. Their inaction and downright deception will probably cost more lives than all of America's imperialist wars in the past 50 years.

(Of course, isolating nations doesn't work, so I'm not suggesting the world does it, but it's definitely tempting)

[Pulaski]

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.

The rest of the world should really demand that China pay compensation for this pandemic.

Honestly at this point China deserves to become an international pariah for this. Their inaction and downright deception will probably cost more lives than all of America's imperialist wars in the past 50 years.

(Of course, isolating nations doesn't work, so I'm not suggesting the world does it, but it's definitely tempting)

Biden winning will be great for China.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenrapoza/2019/08/27/joe-biden-is-probably-the-only-man-who-can-save-china-in-202o/#12632bb53826

Frankly any article written before the outbreak is not worth a whole lot to me anymore. Things are gonna change substantially and we have no idea how the chips are gonna fall.

[Pulaski]

Australia apparently recorded its first day of new cases being below 100 in three weeks. Of course, Easter Long Weekend is upon us, so those numbers may travel up again.

In NSW, our Arts Minister has been ordered back to Sydney, presumably to be sacked, after having been found to be staying in his holiday home in the Central Coast: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-09/nsw-coronavirus-infections-continue-to-drop/12134626

I have a lot of sympathy with him, actually; he apparently went up there weeks ago, before the latest restrictions were put in place. Surely they'd want him to stay put for now?

[Pulaski]

My partner, a healthcare worker, has had a persistent cough the past couple of days. She’s off to get swabbed as I type this.

The good news that if it is COVID, I’ve likely been infected myself for the past couple of days at least, and as of today I have absolutely no symptoms. Fingers crossed.

[Pulaski]

My partner, a healthcare worker, has had a persistent cough the past couple of days. She’s off to get swabbed as I type this.

The good news that if it is COVID, I’ve likely been infected myself for the past couple of days at least, and as of today I have absolutely no symptoms. Fingers crossed.

Negative. We can go outside for the first time in 48 hours.

[Pulaski]

World's leading tennis player is an anti-vaxxer: "Personally I am opposed to vaccination and I wouldn't want to be forced by someone to take a vaccine in order to be able to travel".

https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1252194068035182594

Well tough titties Novak, looks like you won't break Federer's record after all.

[Pulaski]

Less than 2000 active cases in Australia now, according to figures. We've been unbelievably lucky here so far.

[Pulaski]

Less than 2000 active cases in Australia now, according to figures. We've been unbelievably lucky here so far.

It seems that right wingers in Oz have less of the ideological hostility to state action that some of their Anglosphere counterparts in the UK and US do, and this helped them take effective action quicker?

I'm not so sure about that, at least federally. Our prime minister Scott Morrison (my local MP) announced a ban on non-essential mass gatherings in March, but announced at the same conference that he'd still be attending the rugby on the weekend before the restrictions came into place. We also had the Ruby Princess Debacle, which seems to have been a colossal failure of various bodies to communicate or take responsibility.

Luckily, like the US, our state governments retain ability to take a large amount of action themselves, but unlike the US, no state government here is run by the hard right. Interstate travel has been banned, and with how large our states are, wasn't exactly easy in the first place.

I think our ban on travel to and from China came quite early in our spread, which made a huge difference. Public transport, at least in Sydney, is not nearly as widely used as in London, and we have relatively low population density even in our cities - suburban sprawl maybe not a bad thing in this case. Our testing regime, one of the best in the world, must have made a big difference too.

[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.

[Pulaski]

Experts believe we now have the ability to immediately increase capacity to 4400, and our target is 7500 ventilated intensive care beds by the end of April.

We were planning for 7500 ventilated intensive care beds by the end of April. We've ended up needing a maximum of about 40 so far.

Several of our states and territories have had no new cases for a number of days. The ACT declared itself to have 0 active cases yesterday.

"The lucky country" doesn't even begin to describe it.

[Pulaski]

The big question mark hanging over Sweden’s strategy is whether or not being infect confers long-term immunity - they believe it conferred at least medium-term immunity in most SARS recoveries, but they don’t have nearly enough evidence on it with COVID-19.

[Pulaski]

GAME CHANGER: Dexamethasone can save lives of people seriously ill with coronavirus, is cheap and widely available.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53061281