China Coronavirus

[GetOverTheBar]

In retrospect, it's not impossible, if you don't know exactly what you are looking for

Consider the one European place we know got completely caught out - Lombardy in Italy.

They literally had overflowing hospitals dedicated almost entirely to treating COVID (or other absolute emergencies).

That happened in Feb/March.

How could that not have happened anywhere else across Europe if it was freely roaming in November/December?

How do we know that there wasn't a spate of deaths in France / Spain...wherever pre Xmas which would have been put down to common cold / nature / pneumonia, all recorded separately of course no alarm bells would ring. But, you can only join the dots looking back.

It's all speculation. We simply don't know what the wards were like in other countries because it wouldn't have been news worthy for probably what would have been put down to a variety of reasons.

The more evidence that is gathered retrospectively though the better - if this coronavirus is conclusively proven to have been in existence longer than common thought, it changes absolutely everything.

[RadioGAAGAA]

Trump will have a coronary (if not from hydroxychloroquine) if he finds out this thing originated in France and not Chiy Na.

no it will just be cast off as fake news.
Trump is never wrong. The American equivalent of Kim Jong Un, he's every bit as dangerous.

FREEDOM FRIES are back in fashion these days.

[APM]

I wonder about the test.  Rumours of lots numbers of false positives and false negatives reported.  Apparently, shouldn't be used to test people not showing symptoms and isn't as reliable after 6 days since the onset of symptoms.  However, the approach of the UKG is to test as many people of possible with no real testing strategy, just to be seen to be testing. 

Is this the same test that is being used in Europe and beyond?

[GetOverTheBar]

748 Tests in the Premier League, 6 players/staff over 3 clubs involved have tested positive

That's actually quite promising?

[Smurfy123]

Was thinking the deaths in December and January could have been put down as normal flu. The big numbers we see are obviously higher than normal but looking at the overall picture not massive. I for one was shocked that 450 die every day from cancer in the uk. Shocked I was but it's normal
That's good news for the Premier league to have only had 6 cases. Germany I think had 20

[RadioGAAGAA]

In retrospect, it's not impossible, if you don't know exactly what you are looking for

Consider the one European place we know got completely caught out - Lombardy in Italy.

They literally had overflowing hospitals dedicated almost entirely to treating COVID (or other absolute emergencies).

That happened in Feb/March.

How could that not have happened anywhere else across Europe if it was freely roaming in November/December?

Lombardy's hospital crisis was largely self inflicted.

Lombardy, one Europe's wealthiest and most productive areas, has been disproportionately hit by Covid-19. As of March 26, it held the grim record of nearly 35,000 novel coronavirus cases and 5,000 deaths in a population of 10 million. Veneto, by contrast, fared significantly better, with 7,000 cases and 287 deaths in a population of 5 million, despite experiencing sustained community spread early on.

The trajectories of these two regions have been shaped by a multitude of factors outside the control of policymakers, including Lombardy's greater population density and higher number of cases when the crisis erupted. But it's becoming increasingly apparent that different public health choices made early in the cycle of the pandemic also had an impact.


...

Following the guidance from public health authorities in the central government, Lombardy opted instead for a more conservative approach to testing. On a per capita basis, it has so far conducted half of the tests conducted in Veneto and had a much stronger focus only on symptomatic cases — and has so far made limited investments in proactive tracing, home care and monitoring, and protection of health care workers.

The set of policies enacted in Veneto are thought to have considerably reduced the burden on hospitals and minimized the risk of Covid-19 spreading in medical facilities, a problem that has greatly impacted hospitals in Lombardy.

https://hbr.org/2020/03/lessons-from-italys-response-to-coronavirus

You miss my point.

If EVERYWHERE else was not aware of its presence, they wouldn't even have been focussing on symptomatic cases. Which would have been even worse.

[GJL]

Trump will have a coronary

Hopefully.

[johnnycool]

In retrospect, it's not impossible, if you don't know exactly what you are looking for

Consider the one European place we know got completely caught out - Lombardy in Italy.

They literally had overflowing hospitals dedicated almost entirely to treating COVID (or other absolute emergencies).

That happened in Feb/March.

How could that not have happened anywhere else across Europe if it was freely roaming in November/December?

Lombardy's hospital crisis was largely self inflicted.

Lombardy, one Europe's wealthiest and most productive areas, has been disproportionately hit by Covid-19. As of March 26, it held the grim record of nearly 35,000 novel coronavirus cases and 5,000 deaths in a population of 10 million. Veneto, by contrast, fared significantly better, with 7,000 cases and 287 deaths in a population of 5 million, despite experiencing sustained community spread early on.

The trajectories of these two regions have been shaped by a multitude of factors outside the control of policymakers, including Lombardy's greater population density and higher number of cases when the crisis erupted. But it's becoming increasingly apparent that different public health choices made early in the cycle of the pandemic also had an impact.


...

Following the guidance from public health authorities in the central government, Lombardy opted instead for a more conservative approach to testing. On a per capita basis, it has so far conducted half of the tests conducted in Veneto and had a much stronger focus only on symptomatic cases — and has so far made limited investments in proactive tracing, home care and monitoring, and protection of health care workers.

The set of policies enacted in Veneto are thought to have considerably reduced the burden on hospitals and minimized the risk of Covid-19 spreading in medical facilities, a problem that has greatly impacted hospitals in Lombardy.

https://hbr.org/2020/03/lessons-from-italys-response-to-coronavirus

Boris and Dom learned lots from Italy.

They learned to clear the decks of the elderly and put them into Care homes untested and then issue directives that those with CV-19 symptoms in the Care sector were to stay there and receive palliative care at the best.

Hey presto, the NHS wasn't overrun, success in their books.

Oh, and only count the hospital deaths until people catch on.

Oh, and stop doing country comparisons until we look really bad.

Oh, see that R factor thing, stop talking about it when it goes above 1.

[RadioGAAGAA]

How do we know that there wasn't a spate of deaths in France / Spain...wherever pre Xmas which would have been put down to common cold / nature / pneumonia, all recorded separately of course no alarm bells would ring. But, you can only join the dots looking back.

That would have been raised straight off the bat in Feb when it "first" arrived in Europe.

Look here, sample study from Nembro, Lombardy:

https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m1835



I cannot emphasis enough - it doesn't tie up that the strain we know now was definitely in Europe in November.


Or here:

https://www.cattaneo.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Colombo-Impicciatore-Covid-09_eng.pdf

Fig 1 - you are looking at anywhere between a 30 and 140% increase in death rate compared to 5 year average running 21st Feb to 21st March.

[five points]

Boris and Dom learned lots from Italy.

They learned to clear the decks of the elderly and put them into Care homes untested and then issue directives that those with CV-19 symptoms in the Care sector were to stay there and receive palliative care at the best.

Hey presto, the NHS wasn't overrun, success in their books.

Same things happened in the Republic.

[johnnycool]

Boris and Dom learned lots from Italy.

They learned to clear the decks of the elderly and put them into Care homes untested and then issue directives that those with CV-19 symptoms in the Care sector were to stay there and receive palliative care at the best.

Hey presto, the NHS wasn't overrun, success in their books.

Same things happened in the Republic.

Well then Leo and Co need called out on it just the same way.

[Smurfy123]

Would it now be possible that the north of Ireland move quicker than the south now? Just the 20 new cases in the north today things are looking promising and they seem to be on top of things. Or maybe they will work the All island approach as both are now running at the same pace.

[Captain Obvious]

Would it now be possible that the north of Ireland move quicker than the south now? Just the 20 new cases in the north today things are looking promising and they seem to be on top of things. Or maybe they will work the All island approach as both are now running at the same pace.

The North are still way behind on testing. Less tests = less cases.

[RadioGAAGAA]

Would it now be possible that the north of Ireland move quicker than the south now? Just the 20 new cases in the north today things are looking promising and they seem to be on top of things. Or maybe they will work the All island approach as both are now running at the same pace.

I think they need to start sharing (assuming they've the wit to try and gather it) information on how they suspect these new cases emerged.

Were other family members carriers?
Were they only out of the house to shop?
Were they out working?
etc
etc

20 new cases is low enough for the authorities to start saturation testing in every potential contact around them. If they can "capture" the virus in those people before it progresses to day 8 or whatever, then it'd stop the spread from them.

A few weeks of that and it really would getting to the point they could look at significant relaxation of restrictions.

Problem is I suppose - the asymptomatic carriers - where do they fit into all this.

[RadioGAAGAA]

It has been put to me elsewhere, that with a case mortality rate of ~1% and 60,000 UK deaths, that is 6 million people exposed, or around 10% of UK population.

Big assumption on case mortality. But that assumption works both ways. If its a real mortality of 0.5%, then its maybe 20% exposure. If its 2% mortality, 5% exposure.


Anti-body tests on sample sets of the population might go a long way to indicating what real mortality is.