International COVID-19 Megathread

[Tender Branson]

As of 4pm today:

Almost 5k cases (4.992 to be exact), of which some 200 are hospitalized, of which 20 are in intensive care units.

Unless the number of deaths here jump significantly over the next days/weeks, I’m not going to post more updates on cases because they will jump anyway as the testing capacity increases.

Women are catching up a bit with infected men, now representing 45% of infected (43% in previous days).

[Middle-aged Europe]

So at which point will the human (not just the economic toll) of the lockdown become too much to bear? I mean there are all kinds of repercussions for mental health issues that 20-30% unemployment brings with it. It is rather worrying that there are so few voices that question the approach that has been chosen.

I'm under the impression that this increasingly discussed in the media since maybe yesterday or so. Today I saw a Tagesspiegel interview with a medical doctor (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan_Willich) who essentially argued that poverty und unemployment are some of the main factors contributing to early deaths in our society and current measures could end up being a zero-sum game if we're not careful and keep the lockdown going too long.

[afleitch]

I think the long term plan will probably be to ease the restrictions to a point allowing the economy to start to recover once the rate of infection starts to slow but effectively place the vulnerable (who are overwhelmingly economically inactive) in a state of almost permanent lockdown until there is a vaccine. The steps being taken now are being taken to not overwhelm healthcare systems completely. Unfortunately if the virus is something that has high rates of re-infection or becomes annual then I suspect the most physically vulnerable will be quarantined until there is a vaccine.

It is horrific to force this on people. It is less horrific than the virus decimating that group and that uncomfortable balance will have to be struck.

[CumbrianLefty]

UK deaths up by 87 today, ouch. So much for that recent "plateau".

[Silent Hunter]

These of course are sadly people who have already contracted it; any measures will take time to have an impact.

[Tender Branson]

95% of people in Austria are not violating the lockdown rules.

But still, there have been hundreds of charges filed against people so far - who were met by police patrols in groups or for reasons not related to job/supermarket/doctor/bank/pharmacy or simple walks outside.

Therefore, the Austrian government will raise the penalties for such abuses from 2.100€ to 10 packages of toilet paper.

[Lord Halifax]

I think the long term plan will probably be to ease the restrictions to a point allowing the economy to start to recover once the rate of infection starts to slow but effectively place the vulnerable (who are overwhelmingly economically inactive) in a state of almost permanent lockdown until there is a vaccine. The steps being taken now are being taken to not overwhelm healthcare systems completely. Unfortunately if the virus is something that has high rates of re-infection or becomes annual then I suspect the most physically vulnerable will be quarantined until there is a vaccine.

It is horrific to force this on people. It is less horrific than the virus decimating that group and that uncomfortable balance will have to be struck.

I disagree. If you only have a few years left to live being held in quarantine for most of that time is much worse than dying of Corona. Maybe you can quarantine younger people from high risk groups (after all if they on average have 30-40 years left to live you'll "only" be robbing them of maybe 2.5-3% of their remaining life-span), but doing it to people simply because they're old is extremely cruel.

[afleitch]

I think the long term plan will probably be to ease the restrictions to a point allowing the economy to start to recover once the rate of infection starts to slow but effectively place the vulnerable (who are overwhelmingly economically inactive) in a state of almost permanent lockdown until there is a vaccine. The steps being taken now are being taken to not overwhelm healthcare systems completely. Unfortunately if the virus is something that has high rates of re-infection or becomes annual then I suspect the most physically vulnerable will be quarantined until there is a vaccine.

It is horrific to force this on people. It is less horrific than the virus decimating that group and that uncomfortable balance will have to be struck.

I disagree. If you only have a few years left to live being held in quarantine for most of that time is much worse than dying of Corona. Maybe you can quarantine younger people from high risk groups (after all if they on average have 30-40 years left to live you'll "only" be robbing them of maybe 2.5-3% of their remaining life-span), but doing it to people simply because they're old is extremely cruel.

How would that logistically work. Give free mobility to those high risk groups (who can often have limited or need assisted mobility anyway) but quarantine everyone else? Can you explain?

[President Johnson]

So at which point will the human (not just the economic toll) of the lockdown become too much to bear? I mean there are all kinds of repercussions for mental health issues that 20-30% unemployment brings with it. It is rather worrying that there are so few voices that question the approach that has been chosen.

In 3-4 weeks, govts all over the world will have to reassess the situation. Sooner or later, restrictions must be lifted for the sake of the economy alone. Not to mention other problems in society that come from permanent lockdowns. Otherwise, there will be bankruptcies en masse and skyrocketing unemployment. I still have some hope by looking at South Korea as some sort of model, but we should be prepared for the worst. I'm afraid the numbers of infected people will start climbing again once we return the normalcy. This is probably the worst societal crisis of our lifetimes that causes an unimaginable moral dilemma. I'm afraid in a few weeks we as a society and the politicians will have to decide whether continue to go down an economic super-cliff with disastrous consequences, worse than the 2009 recession, or we try to isolate only seniors and chronically ill and try to get some mass immunity among healthy people under the age of ~60-65.

The major problem as we speak is a complete lack of immunity across the board against this new virus. And there are just 2 ways to achieve that mass immunity: Vaccine or recovered people. Since vaccine won't be available for at least 9 months (maybe 12-14 months, and the vulnerable people need to be "locked up" for that amount of time), we might actually to go with the latter. Not because we like it, but because the alternative is so horrendous.

That's what I've been saying for some days now and discussed with a number of people in private. All the lockdowns achieve is delaying the problem for a few weeks. Then we will face the same bad choice again: Keep everything shut down and basically ruin the economy, or try to shield the most vulnerable and let it run through for herd immunity. Neither is a particular good thing, but the long-term impact of an economic collapse and increased depression/mental problems could be even greater.

[Tirnam]

1,100 deaths in France, up 240 from yesterday.
By the way this is only the deaths in hospitals. In recent days we have learned that some retirement homes have had a significant number of deaths probably from Covid-19.

[Lord Halifax]

I think the long term plan will probably be to ease the restrictions to a point allowing the economy to start to recover once the rate of infection starts to slow but effectively place the vulnerable (who are overwhelmingly economically inactive) in a state of almost permanent lockdown until there is a vaccine. The steps being taken now are being taken to not overwhelm healthcare systems completely. Unfortunately if the virus is something that has high rates of re-infection or becomes annual then I suspect the most physically vulnerable will be quarantined until there is a vaccine.

It is horrific to force this on people. It is less horrific than the virus decimating that group and that uncomfortable balance will have to be struck.

I disagree. If you only have a few years left to live being held in quarantine for most of that time is much worse than dying of Corona. Maybe you can quarantine younger people from high risk groups (after all if they on average have 30-40 years left to live you'll "only" be robbing them of maybe 2.5-3% of their remaining life-span), but doing it to people simply because they're old is extremely cruel.

How would that logistically work. Give free mobility to those high risk groups (who can often have limited or need assisted mobility anyway) but quarantine everyone else? Can you explain?

Quarantine young and middle aged people from high risk groups (respiratory diseases etc.) and let those who are "close to death" do what they want at their own risk (no access to treatment if they get the virus).

Ftr I would prefer no one was quarantined beyond two months, I don't believe it's something the state should be able to force people to do for longer than a few months, if the pandemic drags out beyond that the right to freedom of movement should trump disease prevention and we'll just have to accept some people can't get treated.

[Tender Branson]

The state prosecution has opened an investigation into the Ischgl ski resort in Tyrol for a potential cover-up of a Corona case:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-52007104

Apparently, a hotel owner was aware of a sick employee at the end of February already - but decided to hide it from the authorities (despite the epidemic law clearly saying that any transmittable disease that becomes known must be forwarded to the authorities).

Greed and €€€ bills ! It’s more important than the health of people.

This could open the door for lawsuits against the hotel owner later on, the ski resort and probably to a lesser degree the state of Tyrol or even the Republic of Austria.

Many ski tourists from Scandinavia got infected at that resort.

[Former President tack50]

For what's worth China seems that it will be lifting tomorrow the lockdown on Hubei province (but not the city of Wuhan where it all started).

Hubei was locked down on the 23rd of January, so if China is the example to follow, we are looking at roughly 2 months of lockdown, probably a bit more since it seems China was more effective at stopping it than Europe or the US.

As for the economic consequences, China's outbreak was very regional and localized so we can't extrapolate much from it. Still, from what I can tell before Covid China was expected to grow by about 5-6%, while now projections have China on the 2-3% range. That means that a regional and localized outbreak caused a GDP drop of roughly 3% if projections are right.

If this 3% drop extrapolated to Western countries (this measure will vastly underestimate the economic impact considering no western country has a regional outbreak, they are all national), some growth numbers for 2020 would be:

USA: -1%
Canada: -1.5%

EU-27: -1.5%
Germany: -2%
France: -2%
Italy: -3%
Spain: -1.5%
Poland: +0.5%

More likely these numbers underestimate the impact by a couple percentage points. So I would expect recessions on the order of 3-4% for most Western countries. This should be roughly comparable to the Great Recession of 2008 if I am not mistaken.

These numbers are also yearly for 2020, which means that numbers like say "Q2 GDP drops by 25%!" will be followed by equally as shocking headlines of "Q3 GDP rises by 15%!"

[Tender Branson]

The number of registered unemployed has tripled (!) in my district over the past week.

Up from 1.600 to 4.800 now.

Or from 3% unemployment rate to 9%.

The 200% increase is the 3rd highest among all districts in Austria, only 2 districts in Tyrol had higher increases.

Because the ski season has ended much earlier and all hotels are closed of course.

https://www.sn.at/salzburg/wirtschaft/pinzgau-binnen-einer-woche-hat-sich-arbeitslosigkeit-verdreifacht-85320838

[ilikeverin]

So at which point will the human (not just the economic toll) of the lockdown become too much to bear? I mean there are all kinds of repercussions for mental health issues that 20-30% unemployment brings with it. It is rather worrying that there are so few voices that question the approach that has been chosen.

In 3-4 weeks, govts all over the world will have to reassess the situation. Sooner or later, restrictions must be lifted for the sake of the economy alone. Not to mention other problems in society that come from permanent lockdowns. Otherwise, there will be bankruptcies en masse and skyrocketing unemployment. I still have some hope by looking at South Korea as some sort of model, but we should be prepared for the worst. I'm afraid the numbers of infected people will start climbing again once we return the normalcy. This is probably the worst societal crisis of our lifetimes that causes an unimaginable moral dilemma. I'm afraid in a few weeks we as a society and the politicians will have to decide whether continue to go down an economic super-cliff with disastrous consequences, worse than the 2009 recession, or we try to isolate only seniors and chronically ill and try to get some mass immunity among healthy people under the age of ~60-65.

The major problem as we speak is a complete lack of immunity across the board against this new virus. And there are just 2 ways to achieve that mass immunity: Vaccine or recovered people. Since vaccine won't be available for at least 9 months (maybe 12-14 months, and the vulnerable people need to be "locked up" for that amount of time), we might actually to go with the latter. Not because we like it, but because the alternative is so horrendous.

That's what I've been saying for some days now and discussed with a number of people in private. All the lockdowns achieve is delaying the problem for a few weeks. Then we will face the same bad choice again: Keep everything shut down and basically ruin the economy, or try to shield the most vulnerable and let it run through for herd immunity. Neither is a particular good thing, but the long-term impact of an economic collapse and increased depression/mental problems could be even greater.

I think it can't be underestimated that the part that I bolded is a very good thing. Even a few weeks is a few more ventilators, a few more abilities to test different drugs before it gets bad for everyone, a few more ways that we improvise masks, a few more opportunities to motivate out-of-work folks who give back some way or another, a few more weeks of determining policies and seeing what red tape we can cut and guessing and trying all sorts of different improvisations that buy us more lives back. I generally agree that it's "just buying time", but in this case, time is a very, very good thing to have more of.

[afleitch]

Some talk tonight of a potential proposal of a 'National Government' in the UK in the event of a prolonged or staggered crisis.

[Mike88]

Some talk tonight of a potential proposal of a 'National Government' in the UK in the event of a prolonged or staggered crisis.

The same idea has also been talked about here in Portugal, a PS+PSD government, but it's still unlikely.

If Keir Starmer wins the Labour leadership, perhaps relations between Labour and the Tories could be easier.

[President Johnson]

So at which point will the human (not just the economic toll) of the lockdown become too much to bear? I mean there are all kinds of repercussions for mental health issues that 20-30% unemployment brings with it. It is rather worrying that there are so few voices that question the approach that has been chosen.

In 3-4 weeks, govts all over the world will have to reassess the situation. Sooner or later, restrictions must be lifted for the sake of the economy alone. Not to mention other problems in society that come from permanent lockdowns. Otherwise, there will be bankruptcies en masse and skyrocketing unemployment. I still have some hope by looking at South Korea as some sort of model, but we should be prepared for the worst. I'm afraid the numbers of infected people will start climbing again once we return the normalcy. This is probably the worst societal crisis of our lifetimes that causes an unimaginable moral dilemma. I'm afraid in a few weeks we as a society and the politicians will have to decide whether continue to go down an economic super-cliff with disastrous consequences, worse than the 2009 recession, or we try to isolate only seniors and chronically ill and try to get some mass immunity among healthy people under the age of ~60-65.

The major problem as we speak is a complete lack of immunity across the board against this new virus. And there are just 2 ways to achieve that mass immunity: Vaccine or recovered people. Since vaccine won't be available for at least 9 months (maybe 12-14 months, and the vulnerable people need to be "locked up" for that amount of time), we might actually to go with the latter. Not because we like it, but because the alternative is so horrendous.

That's what I've been saying for some days now and discussed with a number of people in private. All the lockdowns achieve is delaying the problem for a few weeks. Then we will face the same bad choice again: Keep everything shut down and basically ruin the economy, or try to shield the most vulnerable and let it run through for herd immunity. Neither is a particular good thing, but the long-term impact of an economic collapse and increased depression/mental problems could be even greater.

I think it can't be underestimated that the part that I bolded is a very good thing. Even a few weeks is a few more ventilators, a few more abilities to test different drugs before it gets bad for everyone, a few more ways that we improvise masks, a few more opportunities to motivate out-of-work folks who give back some way or another, a few more weeks of determining policies and seeing what red tape we can cut and guessing and trying all sorts of different improvisations that buy us more lives back. I generally agree that it's "just buying time", but in this case, time is a very, very good thing to have more of.

I'm absolutely in favor to keep the restrictions throughout April if necessary. Maybe I'm wrong and the virus can be contained in one fashion or the other. All I'm saying is that a lockdown is not sustainable for a longer period of time. For social and especially economic reasons. What governments should do now is gather a number of experts with different backgrounds (doctors, virologists, economists, union representatives, law enforcement etc.) and develop a strategy beyond the lockdown period.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Reading some editorials from German newspapers this evening I must come to the conclusion that the debate on the length and ultimate purpose of the shutdown is certainly picking up momentum. There are questions asked like:

1. What's the exit strategy?
2. Up to which point will the benefits of a shutdown still outweigh the costs?
3. Does the shutdown erode democracy and the rule of law?

[#TheShadowyAbyss]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/news.sky.com/story/amp/coronavirus-elderly-people-found-dead-and-abandoned-at-care-homes-in-spain-11962804

Spanish troops brought in to help tackle the spread of the coronavirus outbreak have discovered elderly people "dead and abandoned" at their retirement homes, according to the country's defence minister.

Some elderly residents were "completely left to fend for themselves, or even dead, in their beds", Margarita Robles told Spanish TV channel Telecinco when discussing the COVID-19 crisis.

She did not say what had caused the deaths, how many people the soldiers found or where they were discovered, but she said authorities would use the full force of the law to punish those responsible.

[Silent Hunter]

This situation is bringing out the best in some and the worst in others.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

https://www.svt.se/datajournalistik/corona-i-intensivvarden/

SVT has an interactive site with daily updated numbers about ICU admittance.

The site is in Swedish but Google Translate Chrome extension works just fine on it.

Basically the average time from infection to ICU admittance is roughly 9 days, which would put today's numbers as infected around March 16th, which is roughly when everything started shutting down en masse. It's not perfect, but we could potentially see the number of critical cases peaking and stabilizing within the next week.

So we'll see if this strategy is going to work or not.

[rob in cal]

  Anyone have an idea of what countries are using the tighter German method of counting deaths (less likely to count a death as from the virus if they had underlying conditions) and what countries are leaning more toward what I believe is the Italian method of counting far more deaths as from the virus (looser criterion of what makes for a covid death).

[Tender Branson]

Kurz announced last night his intention of a daily testing capacity of 15.000 starting next week (via thorough lab testing).

He'd also like to introduce (the more unreliable) quick tests soon, where hundreds of thousands can be tested (experts have warned against it).

Anyway, with the way things are going here, we'll have to figure out what to do in 1 or 2 months: maybe get the companies back on track, let the young do the job and keep the olds protected in their apartments for the next half year. Otherwise, the economy crashes.

[Pericles]

New Zealand is going into a 4-week lockdown tonight. We are relatively early in the outbreak, with just over 200 cases and no deaths so far. Most of those cases have also been from overseas arrivals too. However, a few have been from community transmission. I think the government has made the right move to try and contain it early, and I hope we've gone early enough. It seems that Jacinda Ardern is trying to follow the approach taken in countries like Singapore and Taiwan, rather than let things escalate as they are in Europe. So far I'm impressed with her handling of this crisis, she comes across as a calm and responsible leader.