International COVID-19 Megathread

[Silent Hunter]

Bars and clubs, I can understand. Restaurants less so.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

Why? Restaurants are the places where way to many strangers meet. Though, I don't know, if people will be OK with that.

10 person limit for private groups; 15 for things like sports clubs/public spaces; restaurants and bars are seated only and close at 11pm; clubs are shut and the outdoor masks are basically in crowded spaces where you can't otherwise keep your distances. They seemed to be going with the logic that similarish rules in May still held the R at under zero - and even the first lockdown was much less harsh than it was elsewhere. The weirdest new rule is that they figured, seeing as Switzerland basically has the highest number of infections as anywhere, that there was no point in having "risk countries" and so it is now possible to come to Switzerland without having to quarantine at all from basically anywhere in the world. Apart from some really bad ones like Armenia or the Hauts-de-France.

Going somewhat off topic though, an funny cultural comparison is between the Swiss Federal council announcing the measures at a low-key press conference; with about 10 civil servants and scientists joining in; Alain Berset pulling out his dry one liners and everyone getting barked at by journalists - versus Macron's ego-trip pomp and circumstance discours from the Élysée like he is the king or something.

Hands off Jupiter! He's only Liberal I respect. He is going to unyoke Europe from USA, break UK, throw Turkey from NATO, liberalise Islam and bring back Russia. Mark my words!

[Silent Hunter]

You don't spend as long in a restaurant as in a bar and sometimes families or individuals will go there. Also, you sit a lot further apart.

[President Johnson]

You don't spend as long in a restaurant as in a bar and sometimes families or individuals will go there. Also, you sit a lot further apart.

Agreed. All indoor restaurants I have been to since spring also have empty tables in between and you're required to wear a mask once your leave your table. Personell is also wearing masks. Restaurants don't drive infections up. Now nightclubs and bars are a different story.

I'll most likely make a couple of orders at local restaurants or pick my meal up to support them, even though I enjoy cooking too. I'm working from home and can afford to do so, including extra tips.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

You don't spend as long in a restaurant as in a bar and sometimes families or individuals will go there. Also, you sit a lot further apart.

Obviously, bars are much worse. But they stil seems quite dangerous to me.

It's indoors.
A lot people go in and out during eating.
People don't have masks and talk and laugh, sometimes pretty loudly.
Infeasible to control if rules are followed.

R depends linearly on # of contacts. Even if the contacts are only semi-closed or/and indirect, you have a lot of them while in restaurants.

[urutzizu]

I think it's mainly a reaction because during the first shutdown decision (16 March) they left Restaurants open whilst closing practically everything else including retail (copied from a similar decision in Austria) and you ended up with anger that people were gathering in restaurants, whilst everyone was being told to stay home, so many States saw themselves forced to unilaterally shut them over the next few days. But I agree that it goes too far.


The situation in France is truly unfortunate. It seems that the Government believed that the second wave of the Virus was itself not an actual threat at all, but only the public had to be shown that the Government was doing something to reassure them. For this reason they deliberately only announced measures which sounded comprehensive and strict, but were actually completely useless and did not disrupt either social contacts or economic activity. So they went from ruling out a national confinement under all circumstances, to when cases started rising to mandating Masks outdoors, then on Sep 11 when daily cases surpassed 10000, not only unexpectedly rejecting new measures also cutting the quarantine time, then when things started getting bad in the hospitals they announced that they were closing bars in many cities, but in reality this only affected a very small percentage of establishments that served alcohol exclusively (and the rest continued operating happily). Then when the situation was getting really bad and daily cases surpassing 30000 a day, Macron announced his big bad nightly curfew in the big Cities and a few days later it was extended to practically the entire country. It seems that only this week they really actually recognized the gravity of the Situation in the ICU's and now because of waiting too long had to enforce much stricter measures that are going to be disastrous for the french economy which is one of the hardest hit in Europe already. Luckily Germany was hit later so we could learn (and of course has more sensible people ruling us.)

[Meclazine for Israel]

Will be interesting to watch the death numbers in Sweden this winter.

They may have some advantages in their approach.

Maybe their population is too small to compare to the US and larger European countries.

[Middle-aged Europe]

We seem to be developing a political split in Germany with CDU, SPD, and Greens generelly being the pro-lockdown parties and FDP, Left, and AfD being the anti-lockdown parties. As opposed to March/April were it was more like CDU/SPD/Greens/FDP/Left vs. AfD.

For instance, it's possible that yesterday's decisions will be watered down a bit again today in the state of Berlin, because the Left Party in Berlin - which is governing in a coalition with SPD and Greens here - is unhappy about the contents of the resolution.

[Tender Branson]

4.300 new cases here yesterday, or in Germany-terms ca. 40.000 new ones (they had ca. 16.000 new ones yesterday).

Germany is ca. 1-2 weeks behind us in the case development.

I think Kurz will watch what Merkel does now and will then do the same ...

November would be a pretty good month to go fully Israel with another large-scale lockdown to bring down the numbers signifcantly.

Germans could then come again to Austria between December-April and save our winter tourism season somewhat.

[Tender Branson]

Kurz & Co. just said in a press statement that under current exponential growth, the healthcare system would reach capacity in 2-3 weeks.

It is therefore likely that Austria will also impose a new „lockdown light“ from Monday onwards - starting at the same time as Germany.

The measures are probably announced on Saturday.

[Vaccinated Russian Bear]

[Samof94]

Norway and Finland look like they are barely holding on. In Canada, Quebec and Manitoba are heading towards more Covid.

[Tender Branson]

Switzerland would also be brown.

NOR/SWE/FIN and Greece are just lagging behind.

As you can see, they also have their highly affected areas already, so this is just a matter of time until they are fully brown.

[Mike88]

Portugal situation:

Today was the worst day in new cases, deaths and hospitalizations since the beginning of the pandemic:

Total cases: 137,272 (+4,656)
Active cases: 57,355 (+2,869)
Deaths: 2,468 (+40)
Recoveries: 77,449 (+1,747)
Patients in ICU: 275 (+6)
Patients hospitalized: 1,927 (+93)

The NHS is already asking private hospitals to help in the hospitalization of new patients. In the North region, some private hospitals are already receiving Covid patients from public hospitals.

The PM also met, today, with party leaders, business and unions leader to draw a unified message and strategy for the next phase of the pandemic. The government proposed a nationwide confinement but this was rejected by all, especially business and unions leaders. Party leaders say that the country cannot support another lockdown like in March/April. PAN said to the press, the PM is considering a two week lockdown in early December to "save Christmas", but that the government still has many doubts.

The government will met tomorrow, Saturday, to decide new measures that will probably be announced during the day.

[Silent Hunter]

Cannot support as in cannot afford?

[Mike88]

Cannot support as in cannot afford?

Yes. Typo confusion. Sorry.

[GenerationTerrorist]

Well, looking from what will be in our Papers tomorrow, it seems as if we will be heading into a 4 week national lockdown from Wednesday, to be announced on Monday afternoon.

[Silent Hunter]

Well, looking from what will be in our Papers tomorrow, it seems as if we will be heading into a 4 week national lockdown from Wednesday, to be announced on Monday afternoon.

Let's hope it actually works then.

[parochial boy]

One thing I don't really get is announcing these arbitrary end dates. Like, one thing we can take away from last time is that they never actually wound up being relaxed when originally planned. At least the authorities here are honest enough to admit that they don't know how long it will take, and that the measures will stay open ended for as long as necessary.

Ahaha, wonderful that they even went out of their way to include Liechtenstein, whose numbers are reported by Switzerland - but carefully make sure to keep Switzerland itself greyed out

[CumbrianLefty]

It is less than two months since many of the government's captive papers in the UK had front page banner headlines that basically said "GET BACK TO THE OFFICE NOW, SKIVERS".

Just putting that out there.

[Alcibiades]

One thing I don't really get is announcing these arbitrary end dates. Like, one thing we can take away from last time is that they never actually wound up being relaxed when originally planned. At least the authorities here are honest enough to admit that they don't know how long it will take, and that the measures will stay open ended for as long as necessary.

I do think that there is some utility to announcing an end date; it means people are less likely to break the rules if they have an end goal, reducing ‘Covid fatigue’.

[parochial boy]

One thing I don't really get is announcing these arbitrary end dates. Like, one thing we can take away from last time is that they never actually wound up being relaxed when originally planned. At least the authorities here are honest enough to admit that they don't know how long it will take, and that the measures will stay open ended for as long as necessary.

I do think that there is some utility to announcing an end date; it means people are less likely to break the rules if they have an end goal, reducing ‘Covid fatigue’.

Dunno, personally I'd rather have the authorities treat me as if I was an adult with the ability to understand that things are complicated, rather than promising a clearly fictional end date.

We had no end date set the first time round and people followed the rules because they trusted the government. I think that is probably a more important factor, and announcing an end date that winds up meaningless seems a pretty good way to break that trust.

[Alcibiades]

One thing I don't really get is announcing these arbitrary end dates. Like, one thing we can take away from last time is that they never actually wound up being relaxed when originally planned. At least the authorities here are honest enough to admit that they don't know how long it will take, and that the measures will stay open ended for as long as necessary.

I do think that there is some utility to announcing an end date; it means people are less likely to break the rules if they have an end goal, reducing ‘Covid fatigue’.

Dunno, personally I'd rather have the authorities treat me as if I was an adult with the ability to understand that things are complicated, rather than promising a clearly fictional end date.

We had no end date set the first time round and people followed the rules because they trusted the government. I think that is probably a more important factor, and announcing an end date that winds up meaningless seems a pretty good way to break that trust.

Whether you are an adult or not, having a potentially unlimited restriction on many enjoyable things is pretty depressing. The point is, we could lockdown for as long as we want to if the goal was simply in and of itself suppressing the virus until other means are available, but in the UK’s case, it is to stop the current surge and have a semblance of a normal festive season. People ought not to trust their government on an indefinite lockdown, but can when the aim is clear.

[Silent Hunter]

People no longer trust the government in the UK.

[parochial boy]

One thing I don't really get is announcing these arbitrary end dates. Like, one thing we can take away from last time is that they never actually wound up being relaxed when originally planned. At least the authorities here are honest enough to admit that they don't know how long it will take, and that the measures will stay open ended for as long as necessary.

I do think that there is some utility to announcing an end date; it means people are less likely to break the rules if they have an end goal, reducing ‘Covid fatigue’.

Dunno, personally I'd rather have the authorities treat me as if I was an adult with the ability to understand that things are complicated, rather than promising a clearly fictional end date.

We had no end date set the first time round and people followed the rules because they trusted the government. I think that is probably a more important factor, and announcing an end date that winds up meaningless seems a pretty good way to break that trust.

Wether you are an adult or not, having a potentially unlimited restriction on many enjoyable things is pretty depressing. The point is, we could lockdown for as long as we want to if the goal was simply in and of itself suppressing the virus until other means are available, but in the UK’s case, it is to stop the current surge and have a semblance of a normal festive season. People ought not to trust their government on an indefinite lockdown, but can when the aim is clear.

Except that it's basically make believe isn't it? We know how long it took for the lockdowns to work the first time round, starting from a similar starting point, and it wasn't 2-4 weeks. So what do you do in the UK and in France when you get to late Novermber and the case numbers and hospitalisations are plateauing, or only just starting to decline? Relax the restrictions knowing full well you are setting yourselves up for a disaster by New Year? Or keep them in place having failed to fulfil the promise you made?

This is one of the sides of neoliberalism that I am glad has not made it over the channel to be honest. Needing to set arbitrary targets for everything, because everything must be definable and measurable in order to assess whether it has been a success or not. "Competition" at every level of society, and obviously its become such a norm that its impregnated how people think about everything - and they apparently even need some target to be pulled out of thin air to even ensure that they behave properly.

Perhaps, I'm putting this out there, the problem is not that the people don't trust the government, it's that the government doesn't trust the British people? It's not surprising then, that people won't act trustworthily, if you treat them from the outset as if they can't.