International COVID-19 Megathread

[afleitch]

Kier Starmer rightfully asking the UK not to give a timetable as such, but a 'what opens first' outline.

[CumbrianLefty]

Kier Starmer rightfully asking the UK not to give a timetable as such, but a 'what opens first' outline.

Sorry (no, genuinely I am) but its K-E-I-R!!

(and you're a Scot too!)

[The Lord Marbury]

For those of you who may be interested, here's a Q&A with Sweden's chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell in English:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wo10IIMHYXk&t

[President Johnson]

Update from Germany: Merkel and heads of the states have agreed to extend the contact ban to May 4. However, stores under 800 square meters will be reopened on April 20 (next Monday). Book stores and car dealers will be opened as well. Barber shops will reopen on May 4 under "increased hygiene standards".

Face masks in public are not required per se, but recommended for public transportation. Furthermore, schools will be reopened in part, starting with higher classes.

Big events such as concerts are banned until August 31 so far.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Update from Germany: Merkel and heads of the states have agreed to extend the contact ban to May 4. However, stores under 800 square meters will be reopened on April 20 (next Monday). Book stores and car dealers will be opened as well. Barber shops will reopen on May 4 under "increased hygiene standards".

Face masks in public are not required per se, but recommended for public transportation. Furthermore, schools will be reopened in part, starting with higher classes.

Big events such as concerts are banned until August 31 so far.

The school re-openings are scheduled for May 4 too.

Like bookstores and car dealers, bicycle dealers are exempted from the 800 square meters restriction for businesses and can reopen irrespective of their size.

What's also allowed to reopen now are libraries and archives.

The ban on large public events (probably) means that soccer games will be resumed, but without any spectators in the stadiums until at least next fall.

Religious services remain banned (except via livestream) - this was met with immediate criticism from the chairman of the German (Catholic) Bishops' Conference, and he and other religious leaders plan to meet with the Interior Ministry on Friday to discuss loosening of restrictions in that area.

[CumbrianLefty]

UK deaths and cases seem to have (thankfully) reached a plateau.

(though there may still be a post-holidays "bump" in the next day or two)

[parochial boy]

Looks like an exit plan has been prepared for Switzerland too, that will be formalised tomorrow:

 - Hairdressers, Physiotherapists, Garden Centres and DIY stores can open on the 27th April, providing they respect existing social distancing measures. Hospitals will start elective surgeries again

 - "partial schools re-openings" as well as markets and other shops on the 11th of May

 - libraries, museums and zoos should be allowed to re-open on the 8th of June.

There is still no planned date for the return of large public events, or when restaurants/bars can reopen, which could mean the summer festival season is stone dead.

[urutzizu]

Apparently Taiwan's response was so quick because the deputy head of their CDC, Luo Yi-jun, is a regular at what is basically Taiwanese 4chan, where people were freaking out about COVID-19 before almost anyone else even heard about it:

Deputy Director Luo Yi-jun stumbled upon the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission’s 30 December notices on the notorious online forum PTT in the early hours of 31 December.

Here is the original PTT post, with screenshots from the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, but also the warnings that it might be a kind of SARS by Dr Li Wenliang and Dr Liu Wen in their WeChat groups. https://www.ptt.cc/bbs/gossiping/M.1577730263.A.177.html

The rest of the world may have not heard their warnings, but Li Wenliang and Liu Wen seem to have played a role in saving many Taiwanese lives.

Full story in Chinese: https://www.cna.com.tw/news/firstnews/202004150342.aspx?

[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.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Latest Active Case Growth data.



Latest growth in line with expectations.

Spain has issues with data reporting. Their New Cases and Recoveries are strangely proportional on the same day. But these two datasets should be two weeks apart.

England does not report recoveries at all anymore. Italy is way underneath on recoveries as well.

The German and US datasets looks pretty clean.

[Tender Branson]

Controversy about the re-opening of the economy and society:

Since Tuesday, small shops under 400m² are open again. Sports regulations are going to be relaxed.

But not all are happy.

Bigger shop owners and restaurants also want their businesses opened again, citing the priinciple of equality. Some have filed court cases.

Why should all home improvement stores (regardless of space) be open, but not bigger shops selling electronic articles like computers ?

Also, sports (such as football training) will be allowed again. The Austrian Football Association has given the Go ahead for the Bundesliga, the 2. Bundesliga and the Cup games. But all lower level games were cancelled, also the Women's Football League. Which is creating a big outcry.

[FrancoAgo]

News: Bergamo municipality estimated deaths for Covid-19 as ~0.5% of population

[Tender Branson]

Yesterday: 17 deaths.

Hospitalisations dropped by a lot, from around 1.020 people to 960.

ICU patients increased slightly by a few people, but remains steady at around 240.

Austria has an ICU capacity of 3.000-4.000 people.

The number of recovered is now 9.000 - while the active cases have dropped to 5.000

[Middle-aged Europe]

Jair Bolsonaro has fired his health minister Luiz Mandetta.

Reason: Mandetta did too good a job in fighting coronavirus.

Well, strictly speaking Bolsonaro is a prominent member of the "coronavirus is no worse than the flu, we can take unproven anti-malaria meds against it" faction, while Mandetta belongs to the "this is serious, we need more social distancing" camp. Ultimately, this was also the resason for the dismissal. I guess Brazil is proper f***ked as a country  now, kind like a Italy of the southern hemisphere but with a Trump at the helm instead of Conte.

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

For all the SWEDEN APOCALYPSE takes circulating in the world media for the past two weeks, deaths per day has actually fallen sharply from last week:

[palandio]

For all the SWEDEN APOCALYPSE takes circulating in the world media for the past two weeks, deaths per day has actually fallen sharply from last week:

I remain cautious, but if the trend in Sweden continues it should make a lot of people think.

[FrancoAgo]

For all the SWEDEN APOCALYPSE takes circulating in the world media for the past two weeks, deaths per day has actually fallen sharply from last week:

this is different from worldometers data, today report 130 deaths this are not few for a 10 millions people country

[Clarko95 📚💰📈]

For all the SWEDEN APOCALYPSE takes circulating in the world media for the past two weeks, deaths per day has actually fallen sharply from last week:

this is different from worldometers data, today report 130 deaths this are not few for a 10 millions people country

You are probably referring to this graph, right?


The difference is that the above graph is deaths by reporting date, while the official Health Authority graph that I posted is based on the actual date of death

The numbers are adjusted as investigations are completed and reported.

[FrancoAgo]

The difference is that the above graph is deaths by reporting date, while the official Health Authority graph that I posted is based on the actual date of death

The numbers are adjusted as investigations are completed and reported.

yes,

thanks for the explain

[seb_pard]

For all the SWEDEN APOCALYPSE takes circulating in the world media for the past two weeks, deaths per day has actually fallen sharply from last week:

this is different from worldometers data, today report 130 deaths this are not few for a 10 millions people country

You are probably referring to this graph, right?


The difference is that the above graph is deaths by reporting date, while the official Health Authority graph that I posted is based on the actual date of death

The numbers are adjusted as investigations are completed and reported.

Is the info delivered by the government up to date? And also, could the graph change in the future once you add people with underlying diseases right?

[seb_pard]

By underlying diseases, I mean people with that tested positive after death

[anthonyjg]

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

[ON Progressive]

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.

[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.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

China decided to report 1290 new deaths.