International COVID-19 Megathread

[Middle-aged Europe]

German health minister Jens Spahn has declared the lockdown a success and that the current situation is "increasingly controllable". According to Germany's equivalent to the CDC - the Robert Koch Institute - the virus currently has a basic reproduction number of 0.7 in Germany.

As far as I am concerned, I've got news that - subject to contrary decisions the government may take over the next two weeks - my semi-mandatory "work from home" rule will be discontinued starting May 4.

[Tender Branson]

Friday morning update (comparison to Thursday morning):

All positive cases: 14.566 (+107, +0.7%)

Patients hospitalized: 909 (-58) - of which:
Patients in ICU: 227 (-11)

Deaths: 431 (+21)

Recoveries: 9.704 (+718)

Tests conducted: 162.816

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

More than twice as many recovered cases than active cases right now:

There are now 4.431 active cases (-632), 9.704 recoveries (+718) and 431 dead (+21).

[Tender Branson]

The situation in the healthcare system will now gradually return back to normal, the Green Health Minister Rudolf Anschober said today.

Meaning that the sinking hospitalisations will result in regularly scheduled surgeries again.

Previously, non-acute surgeries were postponed to make space for more Corona patients.

Also, schools will likely open again in early to mid-May ...

[FrancoAgo]

Did France have a uptick in testing? https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ has a huge surge in cases today.

France's new case numbers tend to have the issue of randomly dramatically spiking and dropping. I don't have any idea why that is, maybe one of our French users can explain that.

I honestly don't know what the worldometers numbers are.
On the French official website (https://www.gouvernement.fr/info-coronavirus/carte-et-donnees) you see 108,847 confirmed cases (up 2,641 yesterday) and 31,925 suspected cases in nursing homes (up 4,661 yesterday due to new nursing homes reporting). So not anywhere near 25,000 new cases or 165,000 cases.

this is the worldometers source
https://www.santepubliquefrance.fr/maladies-et-traumatismes/maladies-et-infections-respiratoires/infection-a-coronavirus/articles/infection-au-nouveau-coronavirus-sars-cov-2-covid-19-france-et-monde#block-242818

[Tirnam]

Did France have a uptick in testing? https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ has a huge surge in cases today.

France's new case numbers tend to have the issue of randomly dramatically spiking and dropping. I don't have any idea why that is, maybe one of our French users can explain that.

I honestly don't know what the worldometers numbers are.
On the French official website (https://www.gouvernement.fr/info-coronavirus/carte-et-donnees) you see 108,847 confirmed cases (up 2,641 yesterday) and 31,925 suspected cases in nursing homes (up 4,661 yesterday due to new nursing homes reporting). So not anywhere near 25,000 new cases or 165,000 cases.

this is the worldometers source
https://www.santepubliquefrance.fr/maladies-et-traumatismes/maladies-et-infections-respiratoires/infection-a-coronavirus/articles/infection-au-nouveau-coronavirus-sars-cov-2-covid-19-france-et-monde#block-242818

Oh, I see. They add 108,847 confirmed cases and 56,180 cases (confirmed or suspected) in nursing homes. But the government website explains that among the 56,180 cases in nursing homes you have 18,967 confirmed cases that are already included in the total number of confirmed cases.

[Meclazine for Israel]

If France is falling behind on reporting new cases, they will be well behind on reporting recoveries along with Italy, Spain and the UK.

It really was a situation no one prepared for apart from Asian countries with experience from SARS.

[Tender Branson]

Just came back earlier from a 40km bike tour.

An incredible amount of people were on the bike lanes in the afternoon !

Young moms and kids, some fathers, middle-aged and several old people too.

Austrians are turning into real fitness people right now. Probably they are aiming for 2 Gold medals at the 2021 Summer (!) Olympics ...

Also: the weather today and all week was great, construction trucks were on the way constantly, construction crews were on the way, people stuck at home were working on their homes and kids played outside.

If I didn’t go into a shop with a mask on as well today for some groceries, one could have thought it was a normal day ...

[Middle-aged Europe]

Michael Kretschmar's (CDU) Saxony becomes the first German state to introduce mandatory face-mask wearing in public transports and shops (although a scarf is also sufficient). The state also allows religious services again, but they remain limited to 15 people.

Somewhat ironically, the Left Party-governed state of Thuringia was quick to join Saxony in allowing religious services again, but with a more generous restriction of 30 people in closed buildings and 50 people in the open.

[CumbrianLefty]

Now looking increasingly clear that deaths in the UK have peaked and reached the "plateau" stage.

[DINGO Joe]

According to the BBC updates, even though Ecuador has only reported 403 death officially, the country's largest province, Guayas, has reported 6700 deaths in the first two weeks of April vs 1000 in the same period last year.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-52319956

[CumbrianLefty]

According to the BBC updates, even though Ecuador has only reported 403 death officially, the country's largest province, Guayas, has reported 6700 deaths in the first two weeks of April vs 1000 in the same period last year.

https://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-52319956

Which maybe makes them a contender for the "who is coping with the virus worst?" thread.

[PSOL]

The fact that there has to be planes full of Romanian agricultural workers to pick British fruit is kind of sad. What exactly would the strategy be if that wasn’t an option?

[Tender Branson]

Seen today in front of a Hofer supermarket:



Not sure what stuff the cat was going to buy, but at least the social distance of 2 meters was upheld by the animal ... (probably not wearing a mask though).

[PSOL]

A breath of fresh air

[Mike88]

Portugal update: Lowest increase of new cases in a month, 0,96% increase.

Total cases: 19,022 (+181)
Deaths: 657 (+28)
Recoveries: 519 (+26)
Patients in ICU: 222 (-7)
Patients hospitalized: 1,284 (-18)

234,207 tests conducted since March 1st

[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.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Updated Italy charts.

National totals:


National totals, log scale:


Deaths
ICU
Other Hospitalized
Isolated Home
Cured

Total cases by region per million inhabitants, log scale:


Deaths by region per million inhabitants, log scale:


And here's a new, and perhaps more telling metric: deaths+hospitalizations per million inhabitants, log scale:



As you can see, from the first two charts as well as the last one, the total of patients who died or are still hospitalized (both ICU and otherwise) has flattened out in the past couple weeks, and actually just started going down(the peak was on 04/15). In other words, there are not more people leaving hospitals every day with a clean bill of health than new patients being admitted. If you add to that the death toll (which sadly continues to be very high, since it's a lagging indicator), the pressure on the healthcare system is rapidly decreasing. From a peak of 33K hospitalized on 04/04, we are now down to 28.6K, a 13.3% drop.

The number of people with mild symptoms who are quarantined home continues to increase at a rapid rate, but it seems to be a function of increased testing. There have been 337k in the past 7 days, compared to 287K in the prior 7 days and 226K in those still prior. The fact that these people have mild symptoms and don't need hospitalization explains why they weren't detected until recently, when testing capacity was amped up. It's worth noting that these mild-symptom positives are not tested again, so many of them are probably already cured of the virus but don't figure in the statistics.

[Meclazine for Israel]

OK,

Latest numbers from Europe and USA.

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

UK



UK 17 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 83,172 – April 21
Recoveries added to curve – 15,000


France



France 17 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 59,955 – April 10
Recoveries added to curve – 44,500

France has altered it's data for the previous 2-3 weeks in an attempt to smooth out lumpy data. I have added in 45,000 recoveries which brings down France dramatically in total compared to its European counterparts. This is one of the most inconsistent datasets of any country now. The response may have been good at the expense of data-reporting quality. Anyone's guess is as good as mine when it comes to France.


Germany



Germany 17 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 66,264 – April 6
Recoveries added to curve – 10,300


Spain



Spain 17 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 76,689 – April 7
Recoveries added to curve – 18,500


Italy



Italy 17 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 68,528 – March 30
Recoveries added to curve – 73,400


USA



USA 17 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 513,571 – April 21
Recoveries added to curve – 133,000

USA should start showing signs of lowering in Active Cases around April 22.


Growth Curve

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



Growth curves have been smoothed with 3 point averaging.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Updated Italy charts.
 From a peak of 33K hospitalized on 04/04, we are now down to 28.6K, a 13.3% drop.

Antonio, what is the source of your data/graphs?

Are you plotting this yourself, or taking it off another site/source?

[Meclazine for Israel]

Australian Active Cases dropping with almost 90% predictability.

Same with South Korea. The countries with low infection rates have much better quality data.

This may sound obvious, but it does highlight the lack of ability to control a pandemic of greater proportion in places like Italy, Spain and the UK. If you cannot test and report both new cases and recoveries, then clearly, you cannot track, trace and follow the pandemic.

[Antonio the Sixth]

Updated Italy charts.
 From a peak of 33K hospitalized on 04/04, we are now down to 28.6K, a 13.3% drop.

Antonio, what is the source of your data/graphs?

Are you plotting this yourself, or taking it off another site/source?

The data is official government statistics (specifically from Protezione Civile, basically the Italian FEMA). The charts were plotted by me, yeah.

[Tender Branson]

Quarantine - Day 30:

[Tender Branson]

The number of people hospitalized or in ICU is dropping like a rock now:

https://www.ots.at/presseaussendung/OTS_20200418_OTS0012/aktuelle-zahlen-zum-corona-virus

+12 deaths yesterday.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Updated Italy charts.
 From a peak of 33K hospitalized on 04/04, we are now down to 28.6K, a 13.3% drop.

Antonio, what is the source of your data/graphs?

Are you plotting this yourself, or taking it off another site/source?

The data is official government statistics (specifically from Protezione Civile, basically the Italian FEMA). The charts were plotted by me, yeah.

The hospitalizations are interesting as they are not reported elsewhere.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Projections coming out of Africa are not looking very encouraging:

https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2020-04-18/coronavirus-updates-china-transparency-uk-vaccine-taskforce/12160440#Africa

".without mitigation etc etc....the study calculated over 1.2 billion Africans would be infected and 3.3 million would die this year. Africa has a total population of around 1.3 billion."

Africa is extremely under-prepared for this.

The main issue is lack of reporting. You are just not going to see any meaningful numbers like that generated by first world medical infrastructure.