International COVID-19 Megathread

[Middle-aged Europe]

In popular culture, Steven Soderbergh's (somewhat average) pandemic thriller Contagion from 2011 has a late resurgence on iTunes:

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2020/jan/30/what-can-we-learn-about-coronavirus-from-watching-contagion

[Middle-aged Europe]

According to German-language Zeit Online liveblog:

More than 130 confirmed infections so far in the outbreak in northern Italy, the bulk of them (89) in the region of Lombardy. Several affected villages have been quarantined. Carnival of Venice has been cancelled.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Update on Italy: 152 infections, 3 deaths

[Middle-aged Europe]

After two train passengers from Italy were suspected of being infected, Austria has suspended all rail traffic with Italy.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Italy update: 209 infections, six deaths.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Italy update: 288 infections, 7 fatalities.

First reported cases of the virus in southern Italy, Austria, Croatia, Switzerland, and mainlaind Spain. In addition, an entire hotel on the Spanish island of Tenerife has been quarantined after an Italian tourist had been tested positive.

Iran: Deputy health minister Iraj Harirchi has been infected with the Coronavirus and is now under quarantine.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Italy: 322 infections, 11 fatalities

[Middle-aged Europe]

Silly hysteria IMO.

The lethal rate is only 2% of those infected and the vast majority is old people above 80 ...

2% means it is something like 20 times more lethal than the flu.  2% of a lot of people is a lot of people.

Also a significant number of those infected require medical attention, often for a long period of time, perhaps something like 10%.  No country in the world has the capacity to treat that many people effectively, let alone in addition to non-coronavirus related illnesses.

Harvard epidemiology professor Marc Lipsitch estimates that 40% to 70% of the world's population could get infected by the Coronavirus within a year. At a population of 7.7 billion people and a fatality rate of 2% this would mean a death toll of 60 to 110 million people worldwide.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/02/covid-vaccine/607000/

In raw numbers this would be about in the range of the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918, although back then there were of course fewer people living on the planet overall (a little under two billion) which would make the Coronavirus actually less severe than the Spanish flu.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Italy: 378 infections, 12 fatalities

It seems to be stabilizing a bit there. The numbers are still growing but not at the same rate than in the previous days.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Update: One more case in Germany. This time in Baden-Württemberg (my state). Apparantly a 25 year old man who recently traveled to Italy.

^^ It's spreading in Germany now too. The aformentioned case in Baden-Württemberg has infected his girlfriend and his girlfriend's father. The father happens to be a doctor at a hospital and had contact to other doctors over the last days.

Yesterday, there was also another case reported in Northrhine-Westphalia. That one has already infected his wife too, a kindergarten teacher. The kids from the kindergarten and their parents have been quarantined.

Therefore the total of reported infections in Germany has risen from 14 to 19 in a day.

[Middle-aged Europe]

In the last couple of hours there have been two additional cases in Germany, one of them a soldier from the Executive Transport Wing of the German Air Force. This brings us to 21 infections, I think.

This will probably continue to spread for now and additional infections are to be expected. All seven cases that have been reported since yesterday were from the western and southwestern states of Baden-Württemberg, Northrhine-Westphalia, and Rhineland-Palatinate.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The total number of reported cases in Germany is now at 27.
13 of them in the last 48 hours, all located in the southern/western regions of the country.

Italy: 455 infections, but the good news is that there have been no new fatalities.

[Middle-aged Europe]

I think we're now at 46 total reported cases in Germany, 32 of them in the last two days. A that rate we're gonna overtake the United States very soon.

[Middle-aged Europe]

A spokesperson of the German health ministry has said that the number of confirmed infections has risen to 60. The infections have now also spread to the states of Hesse and Hamburg.

There's an ongoing debate whether Berlin should cancel this year's ITB, the world's largest tourism trade fair, which is supposed to start next week.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Stupid hysteria.

Let the virus run its course.

Even at a 1% mortality rate it's still ten times as deadly as your regular flu. I would agree that buying your local supermarket empty right now might be an overreaction. On the other hand, I would also regard a bit callous to say: let the old people die because that's what Darwin intended and I'm not old myself so it doesn't concern me anyway. I mean when a wave of the normal flu gets around we don't "let it run its course" either. We what we do then is to recommend that sick, pregnant and old people get a vaccination and everybody else is supposed to wash their hands. And this is ten times as worse as the flu so you souldn't exactly wonder if the measures taken against it are also ten times as severe.

Will you personally die from the Coronavirus? Probably not.
Are the measures taken by the goverment(s) an overreaction? Same answer as above.

[Middle-aged Europe]

It's just a random flu virus...

That's not true.

While Coronavirus has flu-like symptoms it isn't the flu. They're not even in the same virus family, since influenza viruses all belong in the family of the Orthomyxoviridae, while the Coronovirus is from the family of the Coronaviridae.

... that can be treated by staying home in bed for a week with Aspirin C.

That's at least partially incorrect.

While milder cases of the infection may be treated that way, there are still more severe iterations of the infection. And while you don't necessarily die from these either it still isn't really a fun ride for you. See this recent Guardian article, "‘To hell and back’: my three weeks suffering from coronavirus":

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/feb/29/to-hell-and-back-my-three-weeks-suffering-from-coronavirus

Dr. Li Wenliang, the so-called Coronavirus whistleblower from China, also died from the disease, aged 33.

Old people are dying yes, but they are still much more likely to die by a stroke or heart attack or cancer.

1) Do you have a source or statistic which substantiates the claim that old people are "are still much more likely to die by a stroke or heart attack or cancer"? I'm not regarding that statement as incorrect per se, because I haven't such a statistic at hand right now mself. Considering that you post contained other incorrect information I'm taking it with a grain of salt though.

2) The governments and the WHO may not be able to stop people from dying of a heart attack, but they may able to stop people from dying of the Coronavirus and if they're capable of doing so shouldn't they do it?

3) Old people are not the only ones dying from the Coronavirus. People with preexisting conditions and people with weakened immune systems (which includes hospital employees, like the aforementioned Dr. Li Wenliang) do as well. And if you happen to have real bad luck (granted that's extremely unlikely) you die when neither of these conditions apply to you.

Europeans are now running around in the streets with face masks (!) on.

In Berlin they don't. Maybe in Milan they do. But they Milan isn't the whole of Europe.

The thing about face masks is that most of them don't protect you from infections anyway. If anything, what they do is to keep you from infecting other people.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I think to recall that they're worn in Asia so frequently because in Asian culture it is considered extra-rude or something if you're not super-careful about not infecting other people with illnesses.

[Middle-aged Europe]

There now have been 117 confirmed infections in Germany, making it the country with the sixth-most official cases worldwide, after China, South Korea, Italy, Iran, and Japan. Most infections have appeared in Northrhine-Westphalia, with 66 cases so far.

In an on oddly historically shaped parttern there have been confirmed infections in all founding states of the old West Germany. Completely unaffected so far are Saarland (which didn't join West Germany until 1957), West Berlin (which officially didn't join the Federal Republic until 1990), and the entirety of former East Germany.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Germany has now reached 150 confirmed infections, 86 of them in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. The high number of infections in NRW is largely attributed to the Rhenish Carnival season.

Yesterday, we also had our first case in Berlin: A 22-year-old man who contracted the disease after being visited by his parents from NRW.

Still unaffected are Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Saxony, Saxony-Anhalt, Thuringia, and Saarland.

Fortunately, nobody has died yet of the Coronavirus.


Italy update: 1,696 infections, 34 deaths.

[Middle-aged Europe]

^^ The RKI is essentially the German counterpart to the CDC.

We're now at 162 infections, 90 of them in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Starting with the first Berlin case yesterday evening, it is now spreading in the eastern parts of country: three confirmed infections in Berlin, one in Brandenburg, and one in Saxony.


Italy update: 2,036 infections, 52 deaths.

[Middle-aged Europe]

The Pope was tested negative on the Coronavirus btw. Francis had been seen coughing a lot lately.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Yes, Germany has 202 confirmed infections and no deaths so far. I can only a attribute it thorough testings and quarantines as soons as the current outbreak started. I mean, depending on the outcome of one of these tests it's possible that at least a quarter of the state parliamemt of Thuringia could be quarantined (and subsequently tested) this evening. See the German state election thread in International Politics for that.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Germany: 204 confirmed infections (103 in North Rhine-Westphalia, the other 101 in all remaining states except Saxony-Anhalt).


The Bundesliga is continuing its ongoing season, but clubs have started to instruct players not give autographs or pose with fans for selfies anymore.

In Berlin, an arsonist claimed after his arrest that he's infected with the coronavirus. This lead to a temporary shutdown of the respective police precinct.


Italy: 2,502 confirmed infections, 79 deaths.

[Middle-aged Europe]

Germany: 262 confirmed infections. 115 of them in North Rhine-Westphalia, followed by Baden-Württemberg with 50 and Bavaria with 48. Saxony-Anhalt remains the only unaffected German state.

Italy: 3,089 confirmed infections, 107 deaths.

[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

[Middle-aged Europe]

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