International COVID-19 Megathread

[Antonio the Sixth]

Italy is beginning to reopen today, so it's a good time to take stock of how the lockdown worked out and what the situation is as we brace ourselves for a likely second wave.

National totals, linear scale (cropping the cured patients off the chart to show the more important patterns):


National totals, log scale:


Deaths
ICU
Other Hospitalized
Isolated Home
Cured

Hospitalizations+deaths figures by region, linear scale:


The drop in hospitalizations+deaths has kind of leveled off since the beginning of the month, but overall the levels are still considerably lower than they were at their peak. The number of patients in ICU, in particular, is back to its levels from the earliest days of the lockdown. That doesn't exactly allay my fears about how the reopening is going to go, but it means that the epidemic was at least under control up to today. The South and Center especially have gotten off easy if the patterns don't change.

[Meclazine for Israel]

There was a COVID-19 case in France in December after retesting samples.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-france/after-retesting-samples-french-hospital-discovers-covid-19-case-from-december-idUSKBN22G20L

Does this change the source of the Italian case zero?

[Tender Branson]

Yesterday, no official COVID-death was registered in Austria for the 1st time in 1.5 months.

[Tender Branson]

Yesterday, no official COVID-death was registered in Austria for the 1st time in 1.5 months.

Plus:

The state of Carinthia has not seen a new infection for a week now.

Carinthia is shaping up as THE destination for summer tourism this year, as foreign tourists stay home and Austrians will hit the numerous lakes in the state.

#PatrioticTourism2020

[Tender Branson]

Peter Kolba (ex-List Pilz politician and head of the Consumer Protection Association) says that his organisation has received 5.380 complaints from all over the world so far regarding infections at the Ischgl ski resort in Tyrol.

Most persons (65%) have filed a complaint from Germany, but also from the US and elsewhere.

25 deaths can be linked to Ischgl as a result from infections spreading to all over Europe and the World.



https://www.ots.at/presseaussendung/OTS_20200505_OTS0025/vsvkolba-neue-zahlen-von-ischgl-opfern

This will have nasty consequences for the ski resort and Tyrol, because Iceland already warned Ischgl in detail on March 5 about how Icelandic skiers returned from Tyrol infected. They named several hotels as hotspots of infection (one hotel even had 7 Icelanders coming back infected).

The Ischgl ski resort did not much at the time other than screening for fever symtpoms and kept hotels, gondolas and apres ski bars open for another 2 weeks ...

They could pay a lot of compensation as a result now. The state of Tyrol has already agreed to set up an independent expert commission on the matter.

[Tender Branson]

The picture above is an abomination anyway:

30.000 people on a 2.500 meter high glacier for a concert !

And not only that: some ski resorts even perform terra-forming on glaciers 3.000 meter high:



WWF Factsheet (English)

WWF Article



Austrian ski resorts clearly show the excesses of capitalism and it's good that they are now brought down from their high horse and finally face the consequences of this bullsh*t.

[Tender Branson]

Austrian Interior Ministry:

Road accident deaths have dropped by around 10% in the first 4 months of 2020 compared with 2019 and 20% compared with 2018.

[Tender Branson]

The (1. and 2.) German Bundesliga has tested over 1.700 players, coaches, physiotherapists etc. in preparation for the season re-start.

10 tests came back positive.

https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000117273907/zehn-corona-faelle-bei-erster-testrunde-in-deutscher-liga

[Helsinkian]

Typical Finnish bureaucracy: while several European countries have mandated the use of masks in public, the Finnish government has decided to order an investigation into whether masks are beneficial. It will take two months, and no advice will be given to the public on masks before its completion.

Almost no one is wearing masks here currently. I've worn them in public transport, but it's kinda hard to be the only one wearing a mask.

[Amanda Huggenkiss]

Typical Finnish bureaucracy: while several European countries have mandated the use of masks in public, the Finnish government has decided to order an investigation into whether masks are beneficial. It will take two months, and no advice will be given to the public on masks before its completion.

Almost no one is wearing masks here currently. I've worn them in public transport, but it's kinda hard to be the only one wearing a mask.

As a German, it's nice to see that we for once are not the one with the stupidest bureaucratic measures.

[Meclazine for Israel]

Typical Finnish bureaucracy: while several European countries have mandated the use of masks in public, the Finnish government has decided to order an investigation into whether masks are beneficial. It will take two months, and no advice will be given to the public on masks before its completion.

Almost no one is wearing masks here currently. I've worn them in public transport, but it's kinda hard to be the only one wearing a mask.

As a German, it's nice to see that we for once are not the one with the stupidest bureaucratic measures.

The Germans have been the most organised. You can see it clearly if you look through their data

Australia has had the most success but that was partly luck and getting travel restrictions in early because we copied the US.

Even though we had flights direct from Wuhan in January, most of our virus cases came from Italy and Iran, UK amd USA. And about 4 cruise ships made up about 40% of our cases.

But given we were coming out of summer, the virus never caught on in the hot states with minimal community.

South Australia is 10 days without a case and Western Australia is 6 days without a single new case.

I have a theory that people who live in polluted cities have poorer outcomes.

[palandio]

There was a COVID-19 case in France in December after retesting samples.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-france/after-retesting-samples-french-hospital-discovers-covid-19-case-from-december-idUSKBN22G20L

Does this change the source of the Italian case zero?

Most likely not.

There might have been earlier cases in Italy, but genetic analysis suggests that the Italian case zero that led to the massive outbreak particularly in Northern Italy dates from ca. January 18. Interestingly the Chinese employee that led to the early German (likely contained) outbreak came from Shanghai to Munich on January 19 and the respective branch splits with the Italian branch on ca. January 15. (The dates can only be infered up to plus minus some days.)

[Tender Branson]

According to a study from the Danube University of Krems, depression and anxiety problems have increased more than 4 times in recent weeks in Austria, due to the virus:

Link

[Meclazine for Israel]

OK,

Latest predictions for Active Cases in the major countries.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ (data source)

UK



UK 30 April - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 84,614 – April 24
Recoveries added to curve – 109,000

UK has an alarming stat in that it does not report recoveries. Something about the UK data makes me think they were not prepared medically for this at all. The UK dataset is the hardest to model which generally means it has some bad data.


France



France 1 May - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 59,955 – April 11
Recoveries added to curve – 77,000

France on it's way down the curve.


Germany



Germany 1 May - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 66,264 – April 6
Recoveries added to curve – 11,300

Germany looking really good.


Spain



Spain 1 May - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 78,610 – April 9
Recoveries added to curve – 36,000

Spain may have another slight bump, but nothing major recorded yet.


Italy



Italy 1 May - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 68,528 – March 30
Recoveries added to curve – 90,000

Italy continues to decline.


USA



USA 1 May - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 494,087 – April 24
Recoveries added to curve – 492,000

USA at a point where things could go up or down. At the moment, I don't see any resurgence, but an increase an testing is purported to cause an increase in new cases.


Growth Curve

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



All growth curves have been smoothed with 3 point averaging.

Overall, great news for Europe. UK and USA not out of the clear yet. One of the big success stories now is Sweden with a turnaround over the last fortnight. Notice the media not criticizing Sweden anymore?



One of the real tragedies of the Corona-virus is the false focus of the "media-eye" on things that simply don't make any scientific sense.

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

Did Germany actually report zero covid deaths yesterday?  That’s what worldometers is showing.

[FrancoAgo]

Countries with too low tests, so with higher not reported cases
worldometers data for the 5th May

Ecuador did 80,171 tests of which 39.8% positives
Brazil did 339,552 test of which 33.8% positives
Mexico did 100,041 tests of which 24.9% positives

these are the only countries with over 20K total cases to have a positive rate of over 20%

the next is Iran with 519,543 tests and a 19.2% rate

[urutzizu]

EU Commission GDP forecast 2020:
Eurozone: -7,7%

Greece -9.7%
Italy -9.5%
Spain -9.4%
France -8.2%
Ireland -7.9%
Lithuania -7.9%
Cyprus-7.4%
Belgium -7.2%
Latvia -7%
Slovenia -7%
Estonia -6.9%
Portugal -6.8%
Netherlands -6.8%
Slovakia -6.7%
Germany -6.5%
Finland -6.3%
Malta -5.8%
Austria -5.5%
Luxembourg -5.4%

Non-Euro:
Croatia -9.1%
United Kingdom -8.3%
Bulgaria -7.2%
Hungary -7%
Sweden -6.1%
Romania -6%
Denmark -5.9%
Poland -4.3%

They also predict a fast recovery in 2021. Mostly in line with IMF forecast and expectations, except Germany (better than expected) and UK (worse than expected), which is likely because in those two Virus spread is being contained and Lockdowns are being lifted faster and slower than expected respectively. I would still be cautious about those two projections. Sad for Greece which handled the Virus better than most.

Did Germany actually report zero covid deaths yesterday?  That’s what worldometers is showing.

I think Worldometers is wrong. RKI (German CDC) reported 947 new infections and 165 deaths.

[CumbrianLefty]

Some fun and games in the UK yesterday, as reported in the "Boris Johnson" thread.

Less funny is that we now "officially" have the highest death toll outside the US.

(even with all the usual caveats that apply to the above)

[Tender Branson]

Did Germany actually report zero covid deaths yesterday?  That’s what worldometers is showing.

No, that was Austria.

Today: +2 deaths

[CumbrianLefty]

UK virus related deaths now officially above 30k.

[Mike88]

EU Commission GDP forecast 2020:
Eurozone: -7,7%

Greece -9.7%
Italy -9.5%
Spain -9.4%
France -8.2%
Ireland -7.9%
Lithuania -7.9%
Cyprus-7.4%
Belgium -7.2%
Latvia -7%
Slovenia -7%
Estonia -6.9%
Portugal -6.8%
Netherlands -6.8%
Slovakia -6.7%
Germany -6.5%
Finland -6.3%
Malta -5.8%
Austria -5.5%
Luxembourg -5.4%

Non-Euro:
Croatia -9.1%
United Kingdom -8.3%
Bulgaria -7.2%
Hungary -7%
Sweden -6.1%
Romania -6%
Denmark -5.9%
Poland -4.3%

They also predict a fast recovery in 2021. Mostly in line with IMF forecast and expectations, except Germany (better than expected) and UK (worse than expected), which is likely because in those two Virus spread is being contained and Lockdowns are being lifted faster and slower than expected respectively. I would still be cautious about those two projections. Sad for Greece which handled the Virus better than most.

Did Germany actually report zero covid deaths yesterday?  That’s what worldometers is showing.

I think Worldometers is wrong. RKI (German CDC) reported 947 new infections and 165 deaths.

Portugal's numbers aren't as bad as expected, surprisingly. They're still bad, but still:

GDP 2020: -6.8%
GDP 2021: +5.8%
Debt 2020: 131.5%
Debt 2021: 124.4%
Unemployment 2020: 9.7%
Unemployment 2021: 7.4%
Deficit 2020: -6.5%
Deficit 2021: -1.8%

We'll see how these forecasts play out.

[President Johnson]

Germany has further lifted a number of restrictions after Merkel phoned with state leaders.

- Contact bans remain intact to June 5, but people from two households can now meet in public again. Masks are mandatory in stores and public transportation (no change).

- Kids should come back to school before summer vacation, but not all classes at once. The states will issue own rulings here.

- All stores will reopen, even those >800 square meters. Restaurants will start reopening from mid to late May onward (depending on the state), but with only half the number of guests. Some states already decided to reopen hotels for tourism by late May, but with half occupancy.

- World wide travel warning remains intact to June (this is not a travel ban, but it's pretty difficult to get somewhere anyway). Vacation in Germany is supposed to be possible this summer. The EU has not agreed on something yet, but Greece is pushing to reopen beaches and hotels by July with a limited number of people.

- The German soccer league is set to restart in the second half of May, but with no live audience.

- The ban to visit senior's homes will expire. I think this is a bad decision, considering a large number of deaths are in such facilities.

- Large events such as concerts remain prohibited to at least August 31.

- Interesting, but makes sense: There will be individual regional and specific lockdowns (state, county or municipality) in areas where more than 50 new infections per 100,000 occur within a single week. States and local authorities are required to work out detailled plans for such a scenario.


Numbers as of today:

Total cases: 167,372
Deaths: 6,993
Recovered: ~137,400
Ongoing: 22,979

[Tender Branson]

Today's Austria update:

15.752 cases that were ever tested positive (+68 compared with yesterday)

  1.445 active positive cases (+8)
     609 dead (+1)
13.698 recovered (+59)

360 are hospitalized (-58) ... and down from a peak of 1.300 patients
  92 are in ICUs (-5) ... and down from a peak of 280 patients

The most interesting part is that ca. 90% of the new daily infections are in Vienna and Lower Austria.

The only death yesterday was also in Vienna.

Active positive cases have slightly risen again yesterday, after dropping almost every day now.

Link

[Tirnam]

There was a COVID-19 case in France in December after retesting samples.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-france/after-retesting-samples-french-hospital-discovers-covid-19-case-from-december-idUSKBN22G20L

That case was on December, 27. Now we have an another confirmed case on December, 2 and two suspected cases in mid-November.

[parochial boy]

It's kind of, I wanna say funny, with France that the dividing line between the part of the country coming out of confinement and the part staying in it maps fairly closely to the old St Malo - Geneva line that forms the traditional old divide between clustered villages and open fields (and eventually industrialisation and literacy) against Bocage and isolated settlements (and until the 20th century, rural poverty).

It's probably not as much of a coincidence as it might seem.