International COVID-19 Megathread

[Middle-aged Europe]

Release of the next James Bond film gets pushed back from April to November due to coronovirus outbreak:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/mar/04/james-bond-no-time-to-die-november

[Lumine]

First case in Chile yesterday, now the second (a doctor and his wife, who went to Singapur on their vacations). Some mayors are already overreacting and suspending classes, so I'm looking forward to the calm and measured public response...

[Tender Branson]

29 cases here, with half of them in Vienna.

3 cases here in Salzburg (the isolated young couple not far away from me) and 1 German tourist from Cologne at a hotel in Untertauern.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is it true that the weather getting warmer would help?

That's the case with most respiratory viruses (inc. those from this 'family') for various reasons, but as this is a new virus you can't be sure quite how much so.

[Mike88]

Is it true that the weather getting warmer would help?

That's the case with most respiratory viruses (inc. those from this 'family') for various reasons, but as this is a new virus you can't be sure quite how much so.

Well, next week temperatures are expected to rose well above 20ºC (68ºF), and in some places almost 30ºC (86ºF) in almost all of the country. We'll see how that impacts the virus in Portugal. At the meanwhile, the number of cases rose to 5 in Portugal.

[parochial boy]

On that notes it's possible that the slower spread in Hong Kong and Singapore relative to the colder climates in Europe, North America or Japan and Korea is a positive sign. Although, it's also likely the case that both countries having experienced the SARS crisis just means they were better prepared for something like this.

[Tintrlvr]

On that notes it's possible that the slower spread in Hong Kong and Singapore relative to the colder climates in Europe, North America or Japan and Korea is a positive sign. Although, it's also likely the case that both countries having experienced the SARS crisis just means they were better prepared for something like this.

There isn't really any difference in spread between northern and southern China, though, even though the temperatures are hugely different. Guangdong is one of the larger nodes outside of Wuhan.

[parochial boy]

On that notes it's possible that the slower spread in Hong Kong and Singapore relative to the colder climates in Europe, North America or Japan and Korea is a positive sign. Although, it's also likely the case that both countries having experienced the SARS crisis just means they were better prepared for something like this.

There isn't really any difference in spread between northern and southern China, though, even though the temperatures are hugely different. Guangdong is one of the larger nodes outside of Wuhan.

Guangdong is the single largest destination for migrants leaving Hubei (and is the most populous privince), which would have been exacerbated by the peak of the crisis in China coming around the time of the New Year migration. So in that respect you probably would have expected to see a lot of cases there.

And by the time you get to even Zhejiang, you already have fairly cool winters.

[urutzizu]

On that notes it's possible that the slower spread in Hong Kong and Singapore relative to the colder climates in Europe, North America or Japan and Korea is a positive sign. Although, it's also likely the case that both countries having experienced the SARS crisis just means they were better prepared for something like this.

I am not quite convinced that that Is the main reasons though. It should be noted that almost all E.Asian countries acted very fast and very decisively in the initial phase to contain the Virus. Shutting Borders, banning public gatherings, public heath emergencies, Heat scanners in Metros, Suspending Schools, complete disruptions to public life almost...I mean these things happened almost Immediately in Taiwan, Macau/HK, Vietnam, Singapore, Malaysia, Mongolia, SG etc. when cases were in low double digits, and the numbers of infected seem to have more or less been contained there now. The two exceptions were South Korea and Japan, who acted far later and were affected far more harshly (South Korea has Improved, but Japans handling is still a complete disaster. They do not even have a central disease control agency).
France, Germany, Spain are in 200+, Italy in its Thousands and nothing of the like has happened. Life is pretty much going on as usual. I literally saw the first person with a face mask today. Even in Italy the measures are rather limited Geographically, and only happening very recently (perhaps why it was able to fester undetected for so long). I wonder If this is perhaps partially down to a cultural difference with Europe, with (South)East Asia being far more weary of Pandemics, perhaps a side effect of living in more densely populated areas, or a greater acceptance of social control or something like that.
I do agree that the SARS Aftershock definitely contributed too, and (the lack of anything like it) is probably one reason why the Japanese have acted so incompetently. What I genuinely dont understand is South Koreas screw-up. They had this kind of thing before, like the MERS outbreak, and their culture is actually quite in tune with this kind of fear of out of control Pandemics (take Movies like "The Flu" as example of this). Just Blaming the Cult doesn't quite cut it for me here.

[Storebought]

South Korea's efforts were hampered by the members of an apocalyptic death cult -- but I agree with your assessment that Europe and N America will see far more (per capita) infections because a "quarantine" mentality hasn't been adopted by the population unlike in the SARS (and Dengue) afflicted countries.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Belgium: 23 cases.

We had 1 three days ago.

27 new cases today

total 50

[Middle-aged Europe]

Germany: 358 infections. 175 in NRW, 65 in Baden-Württemberg, and 54 in Bavaria.

[CumbrianLefty]

Number of confirmed UK cases up to 115.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

Hey y'all.  Popping over here from the US COVID-19 thread. 

UK confirms its first COVID-related death:

https://twitter.com/UKCoronavirus/status/1235617951086186498

[President Johnson]

Germany at 482 now, but still zero deaths. I hope it stays that way, but unlikely.

However, a poll was done in Germany and a majority is either not concerned at all (39%) or just somewhat (37%). 17% are concerned and 6% very concerned (Source).

[Tender Branson]

We now have 42 cases, but there's the good news that some of the first cases have already recovered again and can go back to work.

Turns out that the Austrian military hoarded 2 million masks from the bird flu hysteria back then, which nobody ever used - so they were tested and found ok to wear and will now be distributed to hospitals etc. ...

https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000115362107/coronavirus-kalifornien-erklaert-ausnahmezustand

[Mike88]

A ninth case was reported today in Portugal, when there seems to be some issues with the government's handling of the crisis. The media is reporting that the NHS phone line, Linha Saúde 24, didn't respond to 25% of the calls in the most critical day, and doctors also say that their medical phone line is almost always unavailable. This news comes at the same time when the 9th case reported is a teacher that called the NHS line and was told that she should work as normal, after she returned from Italy. Some classes in this teacher' scholl have been quarantined.

Hours after this, the media announced that the government had dismiss the supervisor of the NHS phone line, with the argument that he's mandate ended in December 2019.

[parochial boy]

First fatality in Switzerland today, a 74 year old who had a pre-existing respiratory condition. The government also strengthened the public events ban today; any even with over 150 people must be pre-approved by cantonal authorities before they can take place. Closing the border with Italy is a complete non-option, as a huge number of medical professionals in Ticino are cross-border commuters, so as long as the situation is bad in Italy we'll almost certainly keep on seeing a stream of cases.

A (normally rather clickbaity) Swiss website also interviewed a patient - now recovered but still in quarantine - twice. Once while she was sick and now that she has been released from hospital. I actually found them fairly comforting to read, a far cry from the kind of panic inducing alarmism that most of the media coverage has been.

[America Needs R'hllor]

Israel now requires 14-day quarantines to anyone coming back from the following countries: China, South Korea, Italy, Japan, Thailand, Hong Kong, Macao, Singapore, and the newest additions- Germany, France, Spain, Switzerland and Austria. The latter have been kinda bizarre as the outbreaks there aren't more significant than Israel (16th patient diagnosed today- think about population sizes).

Personally, I have a flight to London in Monday (9.3) and as England reached 115 cases, I'm scared and worried that it'll be inevitably added to the quarantine list. That would mean missing two weeks of work (I can work around it as I accumulated 14 days of sick leave in my two years) and the *first* two weeks of the semester (pretty annoying since these are all new courses). Hopefully it calms down over there but I'm not optimistic.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

wow, 10 new cases in a neighbouring municipilaty of covid-19.... whom one of them is a teacher who went on ski vacation... with his school... they are in quarantaine but the school has notified the children of the school in my neighboring municipality to be alert for symptoms.



red: neighbouring municipilaty with 10 cases
yellow: where i live



74 cases in northernmost province of France as well.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2020/03/05/family-of-eight-test-positive-for-coronavirus/

One of the eight is a primary school teacher, who taught school in recent days.  The pupils’ parents have been informed. The school is not being closed.  The Mayor of Wevelgem says: “The most important thing is that the parents are very alert and immediately contact their GP if they notice anything.  In such cases they should not send their child to school”.

With two additional cases.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Germany: 546 confirmed infections. 302 in North Rhine-Westphalia, 89 in Baden-Württemberg, and 73 in Bavaria, who combined account for 85% of all infections in the country. The odd man out is still Saxony-Anhalt with zero reported infections.

Italy: 3,858 confirmed infections, 148 deaths.

[CumbrianLefty]

Chatter that the UK parliament may soon be dispersed until the autumn because of the virus.

(something that a certain D Cummings would like to see in any case, I suspect)

[super6646]

https://globalnews.ca/news/6638137/alberta-health-presumptive-case-coronavirus/

NOOOOOOO!!!! NOOOOOOO!!!!

Seriously, thanks China for spending those precious weeks imprisoning journalists rather than doing  all about it.

[LAKISYLVANIA]

Belgium: 23 cases.

We had 1 three days ago.

27 new cases today

total 50

59 new cases

Total 109. Most cases in my region. And for the first time People are infecties who were not in Italy or close with People who've been there