International COVID-19 Megathread

[parochial boy]

Credit where credit is due to Merkel and Macron yesterday - a €500 billion fund that the EU itself will borrow; and actual transfers, not loans  to the countries in need. It's still insufficient, full of holes, still has loads of the details to be threshed out, and the little weasel word of "reforms" appears attached to the funding. And its going to have a lot of trouble getting past Kurz/Rutte and the Visegrad group (who of course, never benefit from EU fuding ever do they?) - but even so, it's a little step that could be the start of something, and that's enough to be optimistic about.

[Meclazine for Israel]

It's been two weeks since Italy began reopening (and today the second phase of the process has begun), so we should start getting a sense of whether the measures are working. Let's take a look.

Good graphs Antonio.

[Velasco]

Credit where credit is due to Merkel and Macron yesterday - a €500 billion fund that the EU itself will borrow; and actual transfers, not loans  to the countries in need. It's still insufficient, full of holes, still has loads of the details to be threshed out, and the little weasel word of "reforms" appears attached to the funding. And its going to have a lot of trouble getting past Kurz/Rutte and the Visegrad group (who of course, never benefit from EU fuding ever do they?) - but even so, it's a little step that could be the start of something, and that's enough to be optimistic about.

It's a step in the right direction and it's also great news, considering that it's not realistic to expect miracles from Europe. The opposition from the ''frugal'' dudes and the Visegrad group will be tough, indeed. But on the other hand there's no way to save Europe and move forward without confronting its enemies

[Tender Branson]

Very positive development here ...

It seems the recent infection clusters in and around Vienna are isolated successfully and daily new infections now hover around a low 20-60 per day.

1 death reported yesterday, but 250 newly recovered - which pushed down active cases to around 800.

Less than 40 people are in an ICU.

Hotels and tourism will re-start next week (Friday), which is one of the last steps to a full re-opening.

Also, my company will end the short-work program with May and everyone will work full-time again in June ...

[Del Tachi]

https://twitter.com/Nordic_News/status/1263029276309413890

From the notoriously red state of Denmark (I hear they make Georgia look like Venezuela)

[Tender Branson]

Salzburg (state) had only 12 active cases left as of today.

Down from 27 a week ago.

[Tender Branson]

China Cover-up ?

More athletes claim they contracted COVID-19 at October Military World Games in Wuhan

More athletes have revealed that they fell ill during the Military World Games in October when the Chinese city of Wuhan hosted the event months before the COVID-19 outbreak.

Taking place in October, the allegations came two months before the first identification of COVID-19 by China.

Close to 10,000 competitors competed at the Games from over 100 countries during the nine-day event.

Speaking to the Mail on Sunday, German volleyball player Jacqueline Brock alleged that she got COVID-19 despite no cases being reported until December.

She said: "After a few days, some athletes from my team got ill, I got sick in the last two days.

"I have never felt so sick, either it was a very bad cold or COVID-19, I think it was COVID-19."

https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1094347/world-military-games-illness-covid-19

[urutzizu]

When China was pushing the USA virus theory on Weibo, the Media and even Zhao Lijian for a few days back in early march, before they retreated because of the international pushback, the main foundation of it was the actually the allegation that the US Military used the Games to deploy the Virus in China. Basically the the American Athletes were almost laughably bad and were allegedly behaving suspiciously, so the speculation was that they were actually doing biowarfare while there. There was also ostensibly a correlation with Countries that are severely affected, also having quite a large number of participants. At the time the theory did not go very far, mostly due to the lack of any other corroboration, but the reports here and by the french athletes also about a Covid outbreak during the Games, has given it renewed focus in China. I think when the Chinese government does its internal investigation into the outbreak, they will publicize heavily the focus on this.

[Tender Branson]

All retirement home residents + workers have been tested here in Salzburg state (incl. my sister, who’s a nurse at one of these retirement homes).

Results: zero positive cases in the latest test round.

The 11 retirement homes that had positive cases in April had no cases this time ...

https://salzburg.orf.at/stories/3049654

[Tender Branson]

The 3rd major prevalence study in Austria will start next week, involving 3.500 households.

It will once again try to estimate the „shadow“ rate of infections in the population relative to the official number of cases and how many already have antibodies.

In early April, the „shadow“ figure was not all too much higher than the official number of cases in the country and somewhere between 1.4% and 8% of the population had antibodies, with 4.7% being most likely.

https://orf.at/stories/3166557

[Tender Branson]

Another day with no new deaths in Austria.

45 new cases, but recoveries were higher - therefore active cases dropped to ca. 700

5/9 states now have zero ICU patients.

Vienna has seen 18 new hospitalisations though, but 1 less in ICU compared to yesterday.

[Meclazine for Israel]

OK,

Predictive graphs updated for Active Cases in major countries.

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

UK



UK 21 May - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 84,614 – April 24
Recoveries added to curve – 164,500

UK has a severe lack of data reporting, so this is a bit of a guess until they get back to reporting normally. I cannot comment on their medical response, but from a purely scientific perspective of the numbers, their data has clearly had the most issues including inconsistency and error of any country during this pandemia.


France



France 21 May - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 59,955 – April 11
Recoveries added to curve – 79,500

France is very similar to Germany in terms of the scale of cases.


Germany



Germany 21 May - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 66,264 – April 6
Recoveries added to curve – 8,250

Germany looking good and no issues with the data. They have rounded their recoveries now rather than trying to get specific exact numbers.


Spain



Spain 21 May - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 78,610 – April 9
Recoveries added to curve – 31,500

Spain looking good.


Italy



Italy 21 May - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 68,528 – March 30
Recoveries added to curve – 67,200

Italy nearly clear of the virus by the looks. They will be having a fat time soon. First infected, and first clear by these numbers.


USA



USA 21 May - Active Cases
Predicted peak of Active Cases: 494,087 – April 24
Recoveries added to curve – 652,000

USA is starting to find a fairly uniform declining rate in Active Cases. In comparison to previous predictions, it looks like the USA is going to have Active Cases well into June.


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.

[Tender Branson]

Salzburg (state) had only 12 active cases left as of today.

Down from 27 a week ago.

Of the 12 active cases in the state, 4 are in my district:

[Tender Branson]

The virus is almost eradicated here in Salzburg:

Only 9 active cases left in the state, 4 of them in hospital and 5 at home.

[Tender Branson]

The virus is almost eradicated here in Salzburg:

Only 9 active cases left in the state, 4 of them in hospital and 5 at home.

If we are lucky, Salzburg could be the first Austrian state declared Corona-free, ahead of Carinthia.

Carinthia currently has 5 active cases left ...

[Tender Branson]

The virus is almost eradicated here in Salzburg:

Only 9 active cases left in the state, 4 of them in hospital and 5 at home.

If we are lucky, Salzburg could be the first Austrian state declared Corona-free, ahead of Carinthia.

Carinthia currently has 5 active cases left ...

Probably not ...

In today's afternoon updates, Carinthia is down to just 3 active cases (with zero hospitalisations), while Salzburg remains at 9 active cases.

[Tender Branson]

I was finally able to find out why the Green-led Health Ministry and the ÖVP-led Interior Ministry always produce slightly different daily numbers in the morning.

Turns out the Green numbers are slightly off, not the ÖVP ones:

There's an underreporting of cases from Vienna (46), Salzburg (19), Tyrol (6) and Vorarlberg (3) by 74 cases in the Health Ministry reports.

In the Interior Ministry reports, the are accounted for. Which also means the number of active cases is 800 as of today, not 726 as German Wikipedia shows.

The 800 number is actually showing up on the dashboard of the Health Ministry, but their number of all-time positively tested (16.429) is off. It should be 16.503 cases.

https://info.gesundheitsministerium.at/dashboard_Epidem.html?l=en

https://www.ots.at/pressemappe/54/bundesministerium-fuer-inneres

[Mike88]

Portugal update:

Total cases: 30,623 (+152)
Active cases: 11,758 (-9,706)
Deaths: 1,316 (+14)
Recoveries: 17,549 (+9,844)
Patients in ICU: 78 (-2)
Patients hospitalized: 536 (-14)

Almost than 700,000 tests conducted since March 1st

The Lisbon area is now focus of some concern as there seems to be a considerable increase of new infections in that area. The most serious situation is a factory in Azambuja, north of Lisbon, where 90 workers were infected.

[Tender Branson]

Woah

A Vienna Covid-19 lung transplant was successfully performed for the first time in Europe

Gabriele Scherndl May 24, 2020, 2:23 pm

At MedUni Vienna / AKH Vienna, a lung transplant was performed for the first time in Europe on a Covid-19 patient last Monday. Otherwise, the 45-year-old patient could not be saved due to severe lung failure.

"From our point of view, she is doing excellently now, we have no serious problem so far. She is slowly waking up now," said Walter Klepetko, head of the University Clinic for Surgery and head of the Clinical Department for Thoracic Surgery at MedUni Vienna / AKH Vienna, on Sunday talking to the APA. "The organs all work, we are all satisfied. But it will be a long way until we hopefully finally get her out of the hospital."

The most critical phase is over, but something could still happen. "But we are optimistic that we have the cards in our hands again." At MedUni Vienna / AKH Vienna, more than 2,000 lungs have already been transplanted.

According to information from the MedUni Vienna / AKH Vienna, the patient had been in good health without previous illnesses and before the corona infection that occurred eight weeks ago. This ultimately contributed to the positive outcome of the transplant.

Link

[PSOL]

South America a new COVID epicenter, Africa reaches 100,000 cases

Philippines' coronavirus cases surpass 14,000, death toll rises to 868

[President Johnson]

Number of (official) active cases in Germany further goes down:

Infections confirmed: 174,284
Deaths: 7,868
Recovered: 150,300
Active cases: 16,116

The federal government this week also increased benefits for employees with reduced working time and passed a tax-free one-time bonus payment of 1000€ for healthcare workers.

Update, another drop:

Infections confirmed: 176,551
Deaths: 8,003
Recovered: 155,041
Active cases: 13,507

Update, another drop:

Infections confirmed: 180,157
Deaths: 8,283
Recovered: 160,281
Active cases: 11,593

At this point, things are looking good, though there are some minor hotspots regionally. One hotspot had over 100 infections following a chutch visit; another one in a restaurant.

[Silent Hunter]

England is recording roughly 1,000 new cases a day from the testing, something going down slowly over time. We're not out of the woods yet, but there doesn't appear to be any second spike since restrictions were eased on 11 May.

[Tender Branson]

5 of the 9 Austrian states have zero patients in their ICU units left.

And another state, Styria, just 1 and Tyrol 4.

Only Vienna and suburbs (Lower Austria) have more than 10 left each.

Solid development ...

Vienna and Lower Austria are now the „epicenters“ of the virus, but this is all relative: authorities there say that the recent clusters are isolated and under control and that most of the new infections and high number of active cases there are a result of infections of family members of already infected and therefore those who are already under personal quarantine.

[Tender Branson]

Austria plans heavy virus testing of hotel staff to reassure tourists

VIENNA (Reuters) - Austria plans a hefty expansion of its coronavirus testing just to screen hotel staff, in the hope of luring Germans and other tourists this summer and banishing the uncomfortable memory of a massive outbreak at a fashionable ski resort.

Like Germany, Austria introduced a lockdown to stem contagion early in its outbreak, and it has now been gradually easing restrictions for over a month. Shops, restaurants, bars and some museums have reopened and hotels will follow from May 29.

“We will invest a great deal ... to test as many staff as possible who are in contact with guests as often as possible, to prevent them becoming multi-spreaders,” Chancellor Sebastian Kurz told a news conference on Thursday.


Source: Austria Press Agency, Fohringer.

Tourism accounts directly for 8% of Austria’s economic output, or about 15% including related sectors. Neighbouring Germany is the biggest source of foreign visitors, and the shared border will open fully next month.

Austrian Chamber of Commerce chief Harald Mahrer said a consortium of private labs was being assembled to test 65,000 hotel workers a week from July 1. Currently, the Alpine nation tests 6,000 to 8,000 people a day.

Kurz added: “In which country in the world can you go on holiday and say the staff you come into contact with, the waiters, are tested regularly? ... It will be very few countries.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-austria-tourism/austria-plans-heavy-virus-testing-of-hotel-staff-to-reassure-tourists-idUSKBN22X1SA

[Tender Branson]

Only 19 new cases today and 1 death.

Carinthia is down to just 2 active cases.

3 states (Vienna, Lower Austria, Styria) account for 660 of the current 760 active cases.