[News] Coronavirus

A place to discuss the now-global coronavirus outbreak.

Cases have doubled here in 5 days. Todays number was equivalent to ~50.000 cases in US.
Our government today, finally announced that you must wear mask in public places (although only indoor) like in shopping centers (already was required in public transportation). Took a long time.

On the other hand, I got a mail today, where my workplace said that work from home (which started again a month ago), is ending November 9. That is really irresponsible imo. Not happy about it at all. When everything we do, could be done 100% from home.
I seriously hope they understand the message the national government was sending today.
I guess I shouldn't complain, when compared to all the people who can't work from home at all, and have been going to work in risky environments the whole year. Still feels unnecessary though.

And it is an open office, just to make it more stupid.

Good luck and stay safe Shadout!

Another thing found interesting today was, I dont know if l other countries have looked at this previously, but ever since the pandemic began there have been a bunch of right-wing crazies around the world saying that corona deaths are over-counted and a lot of them probably died by other causes (such as falling out of windows in Russia...). The Danish CDC have gone through cases of corona related deaths in Denmark, and found that at least 95% died with symptoms indicating the virus was the direct cause. And then a lot of the remaining likely were also related to the virus even if the symptoms wasnt there. Like, not dying due to breathing/lung issues, but the virus weakening a person that was already ill etc. (which should obviously still count).

And France had 41.000 new cases yesterday... which roughly translates to over 200.000 cases in US size population. Damn. Things are going badly.

Fauci saying the WH Corona virus task force meets weekly and Trump hasn’t attended in months.

It’s basically “We’ve tried absolutely nothing and we are all out of ideas”.

TheGameguru wrote:

Fauci saying the WH Corona virus task force meets weekly and Trump hasn’t attended in months.

It’s basically “We’ve tried absolutely nothing and we are all out of ideas”.

This is not surprising, incredibly depressing, disheartening, and frustrating.

We know what needs to be done and it isn’t hard. Yet a significant portion of the population doesn’t give a f*ck.

TheGameguru wrote:

Fauci saying the WH Corona virus task force meets weekly and Trump hasn’t attended in months.

It’s basically “We’ve tried absolutely nothing and we are all out of ideas”.

I feel for the task force. I am sure they came up with many ideas and plans, but if the person making the decisions thinks bleach enemas are a good idea, your just pissing into the wind.

JC wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

Fauci saying the WH Corona virus task force meets weekly and Trump hasn’t attended in months.

It’s basically “We’ve tried absolutely nothing and we are all out of ideas”.

This is not surprising, incredibly depressing, disheartening, and frustrating.

We know what needs to be done and it isn’t hard. Yet a significant portion of the population doesn’t give a f*ck.

What I'm really wondering about is why it's suddenly going so badly in Europe. I've thought of them as the models for how to properly cope with an epidemic, but things are getting bad enough over there that the US isn't looking quite so inept anymore.

One thought that occurs: perhaps the split sovereignty in Europe is causing the same kind of havoc on coordinated response that our individual state programs are doing over here?

Alternate thought: maybe people are just getting tired of being careful all the time?

I think it is we got things under control fairly well in the spring, it nearly disappeared in many countries over the summer. People have stopped caring, because things were fine. We didn't have to be careful a few months ago, as mentioned earlier, we also stopped working from home etc. Danish primary schools have been open since april basically. Even in Italy they opened up schools at some point, and nothing happened at first.

Then numbers started to rise again in september, but most governments only slowly increased restrictions, seemingly hoping it would be more controllable this time around, maybe believing people would know how to behave, without placing real restrictions. But mostly, not wanting to shut down anything again, due to the economic impact of course - that part is the same as the US I would expect.
Leading to where we are now, where some countries are making those heavy shutdowns again, but way way later into the daily case numbers, than they did last time. Like, when Denmark shut down in march we were were at 175-250 daily cases (granted, with much less testing). Today we hit 850 daily cases for the first time, and yet, we are not really shutting down, merely telling people to wear masks.

So, I would say, the European countries know what to do, and are probably also willing to do it (as we see with the shutdowns in France etc.), everyone have just became way too confident in our ability to handle it, resulting in way too slow response to the increasing cases that have happened over the last month.

Look at France, the virus was basically gone over the summer.
https://www.worldometers.info/corona...

The result might be the same as in US in the end, but for somewhat different reasons. As in, less about denying the problem for political reasons. Well, except in UK where Boris Johnson was basically Mini-Trump.

The total shutdowns are used to lock down where the virus is, so that the contact tracing teams can get ahead of the contagion and get a "firebreak" around it. That's not needed when individual quarantines and contact tracing are ahead of the game. (see: New Zealand.)

Are the European governments failing at contact tracing? Are they not taking it seriously? If they don't have good contact tracing, shutdowns won't help. (cf. United States.)

Malor wrote:

What I'm really wondering about is why it's suddenly going so badly in Europe. I've thought of them as the models for how to properly cope with an epidemic, but things are getting bad enough over there that the US isn't looking quite so inept anymore.

One thought that occurs: perhaps the split sovereignty in Europe is causing the same kind of havoc on coordinated response that our individual state programs are doing over here?

Alternate thought: maybe people are just getting tired of being careful all the time?

I think it is more likely that we are at a point of no return and it is inevitable that this virus will spread and spikes will happen. We can criticize government policies but no government will be able to outright stop this. We can mitigate and slow the spread but other then worldwide quarantine (which is impossible) this virus will spread and be seasonal. I am more hopeful for the development of therapeutics over a vaccine since a vaccine is most likely temporary, and with everyone focusing on this hopefully we will develop some.

So the place I grew up is genuinely filled with some of the most ignorant people in this country. It’s why I left. They’re making headlines for all the wrong reasons right now.

St. Luke's Magic Valley stops admitting children as hospital fills due to COVID-19

Health district moves 6 counties into critical red category as virus spreads

“Twin Falls County Commissioner Brent Reinke, who represents the county on the health district board, said that hearing from hospital leaders Wednesday made it “difficult” to maintain his anti-mask position “because of the challenges and passion from Dr. Kern and those at the board meeting.” But he remained steadfast in his opposition to restrictive measures.”

————

“She also said that a mask mandate wouldn’t do much good.

“To put a Band-Aid on a gaping wound isn’t going to help,” she said, adding that if Twin Falls implemented a mandate everyone would just take their business to neighboring communities to avoid the restrictions.”

Oh lovely....

The Americas are at risk of polio outbreak due to disruptions by the pandemic

The pandemic has stressed immunization and surveillance systems designed to catch and respond to vaccine-preventable diseases, according to PAHO.
"Although as a region we have defeated polio once before, if we allow vaccination coverage rates to fall and become too low, we will be at risk for polio circulation in our communities once again," said PAHO Director Carissa Etienne.

“Twin Falls County Commissioner Brent Reinke found it hard to maintain his anti-mask stance after hearing specifically from experts who were directly dealing with the issue and understood it substantially better than he did, but he soldiered through, bravely sticking to his stupid-guns.”

Good grief.

Chumpy_McChump wrote:

“Twin Falls County Commissioner Brent Reinke found it hard to maintain his anti-mask stance after hearing specifically from experts who were directly dealing with the issue and understood it substantially better than he did, but he soldiered through, bravely sticking to his stupid-guns.”

Good grief.

Yeah. The ignorance is strong there. And the complete inability to empathize with other people and really consider how their actions might affect others. Thankfully most of my close family left that sh*thole.

Holy wow, Idaho's seven day positivity rate is over 30%!

That's likely because there isn't enough testing there coupled with widespread of the virus so if they get more tests I expect that number to come down slightly, but because folks think more testing = more positives I doubt they'll get more testing. Stupid.

Malor wrote:

Are the European governments failing at contact tracing? Are they not taking it seriously? If they don't have good contact tracing, shutdowns won't help. (cf. United States.)

I dont think contact tracing is possible on a large scale. It can help, but you cant find all contacts. Afaik, the virus is especially spreading among young people now (which is also part of why death rate is much lower), who have had a large amount of contacts.
I assume we do the same as in US, like when someone at a school is tested positive, the class or the whole school is shut down and tested. My nephew had to be tested, and stay home, last week, due to someone at his football team being tested positive. That happens in US too, right?
But you cant find all contacts. Nor find everyone who are infected. Often when you do find them, the mass spread event has already happened.
Denmark is one of the countries who have tested the most in the world (currently about 4.8 million tests in a population of 5.7 million), and afaik, everyone who have been tested positive, gets a phone call, from contact tracing personel. But it wont catch everyone, or even close to everyone, early enough to stop mass spread events. Only pre-emptive "shutdowns"/restrictions will do that.

I doubt it was the contact tracing that lowered our numbers in the summer. It was just good behavior, schools/jobs closing down for vacations, and well, the effect of summer (weather, people being outdoors) itself. Main difference to the US seem to have been the good behavior I guess. Which has now changed.

But I dont know what a France is doing (or not doing) when it comes to contact tracing.

kazar wrote:

I think it is more likely that we are at a point of no return and it is inevitable that this virus will spread and spikes will happen. We can criticize government policies but no government will be able to outright stop this. We can mitigate and slow the spread but other then worldwide quarantine (which is impossible) this virus will spread and be seasonal.

I dont think you can criticize governments much for the spikes happening. But you can criticize them for being slow to lower the spikes again. Europe being hit again in the autumn, was unavoidable. That is what the experts seem to say too. But being hit this hard in some countries, was probably not unavoidable.

I just got back from the grocery store and saw a total of 4 people wearing masks not covering their noses. I agree with the viewpoint that we're screwed.

A large subset of people just aren't willing to do what needs to be done. A significant amount of blame can be placed on leaders for not creating and executing on plans or even actively undermining them. And there's still a large percentage of blame that goes on individuals who, for some reason I will never understand, refuse to wear a mask.

Even if states were able to go into draconian measures, people have been so conditioned at this point to argue that their rights are being infringed on. There's no concept of the greater good anymore.

Malor wrote:

Are the European governments failing at contact tracing? Are they not taking it seriously? If they don't have good contact tracing, shutdowns won't help. (cf. United States.)

Since it's relevant, I'm just going to repost what I wrote in the Coping with Coronavirus thread:

Robear wrote:

Is there some sort of weariness causing this effect? Or is it right-wing politics? What happened?

It was mostly expected, but the rate at which it came roaring back and the high rate of infection has surprised most.
Summer vacation/tourism was the initial main driver of the second wave it seems, but also lots of private events (house parties, weddings, etc) once restrictions were loosened. For a long time contact tracing and quaratining was able to keep up, but a few weeks ago the first regions in Germany reached a tipping point where tracing was no longer sufficiently working. I read that during the lockdown in the spring, the health departments would have to notify an average of 5-8 contacts per infection. Now they have to notify about 80 people.

The first German county - Berchtesgadener Land - went into lockdown two days ago because of the high numbers. It's an alpine tourism mecca.

Another factor is - and I hate to admit that Trump is right on something, but he is in a way here - increased testing. It is continuously emphasized that the current infection numbers are not comparable with those during the first wave in spring because there is now 3-4x as much testing going on.

So far the death rate has still been low, but a major factor has been that most infections have been younger people. There are now warnings that older populations are beginning to see increased infection rates again...

With the colder months upon us, things aren't looking too optimistic atm. People will move increasingly indoors and ventilate rooms less. The dry heated air is apparently great for virus spread.

About 3 weeks ago, Angela Merkel said 19,200 infections a day by Christmas weren't unrealistic. She was accused by a notable percentage of media/people of trying to panic people. At that point we were around 3-4000/day. Yesterday we were at 11,287.

Compared to almost all other European countries, Germany is still doing ok overall. Average infection rate (7 day average) was about 53 / 100,000 two days ago. Our neighbor, the Czech Republic, was at 585 / 100,000 and just went into lockdown.
It doesn't surprise me tbh. We visited Český Krumlov in August when the numbers were in double digits per day. The place (UNESCO world heritage site) was packed in spite of covid. I would guess 1 person out of 2,000 wore a mask. Other areas of the country were a central European party hotspot this summer.

garion333 wrote:

Did they allow Oktoberfests to take place?

Nope.

AUs_TBirD wrote:

Another factor is - and I hate to admit that Trump is right on something, but he is in a way here - increased testing. It is continuously emphasized that the current infection numbers are not comparable with those during the first wave in spring because there is now 3-4x as much testing going on.

Yeah, it is not completely wrong, but the people who are against restrictions also tend to exaggerates it a lot. It is not like 10x the amount of testing leads to 10x the amount of positive cases. The people who got tested in the spring was the people most likely to have the virus. These days a lot of people with low exposure risk get tested too. So 10x the testing might lead to 2x the amount of positive cases or similar (made up number, I'm sure someone have more real numbers on that).

Thank you for the excellent replies.

AUs_TBirD wrote:

I read that during the lockdown in the spring, the health departments would have to notify an average of 5-8 contacts per infection. Now they have to notify about 80 people.

That strikes me as a pretty good argument that the restrictions have been loosened too much. That's way way too many average contacts. It also means that people will get 'warning fatigue', because they'll get so many.

Yeah. I think it is about the removal of restrictions primarily. The only thing, other than mass gatherings of course (still not allowed to place 50 thousand people in a stadium etc. :D) that has really been somewhat closed down in Denmark since June or so, have been bars, nigthclubs, and even then, they were allowed to open until 2AM... (with all kinds of restrictions on distancing etc. of course). Which means young people at those places might have been in contact with hundreds of others.
Sadly, even now that bars have been restricted further, the young have continued with private parties, which is just crazy. You can find stupid people in all countries, and it can be pretty hard for police to stop these parties, unless we make really draconic police state restrictions.

I think lowering the restrictions in June-August was fine (at the time I thought it was too fast... but it turned out it was not). It is unviable to keep the restrictions up, when the virus is nearly gone. That will exactly lead to people getting tired and annoyed of it, which might lead to later restrictions being less effective.
However, you have to be really fast upping the restrictions again, at the first sign of a new wave. That didn't seem to happen.

garion333 wrote:

Holy wow, Idaho's seven day positivity rate is over 30%!

That's likely because there isn't enough testing there coupled with widespread of the virus so if they get more tests I expect that number to come down slightly, but because folks think more testing = more positives I doubt they'll get more testing. Stupid.

Yeah guys, it is REAL scary here. I get dirty looks when I wear a mask in public. About 3 weeks ago I saw a weird foot parade with about 20 co-ed twenty-somethings marching down the sidewalk in bullet-proof vests waving American and blue line flags. My gorge and tears rose simultaneously. The death cult vibe here is strong.

Edit: I am in Canyon County where we HAD the highest per capita rate, recently overtaken by tiny Madison County.

Next level stupidity

‘Mom code’: Parents reportedly avoid testing kids to keep Utah COVID-19 numbers artificially low

Meanwhile Utah hits a new record of cases 2 days in a row—over 1500, and then over 2000 yesterday

At this point, containment is not a realistic outcome. It really is about trying to slow spread as much as possible. Best case is that we get some sort of effective vaccination in the near future, or at least a reasonably effective treatment regimen for those who become seriously ill. Worst case is that we simply slow stuff enough that our medical system doesn't collapse.

The way the pandemic has become a political issue has been discussed to death and not worth rehashing, but I think the reality is that trying to force people to wear masks simply isn't working. Much as we know that giving facts to someone with an entrenched opinion is likely to backfire and make them double down on their position, so we've found that trying to order people to wear masks is causing a similarly unreasonable backlash.

I wonder if the authorities had somehow marketed mask-wearing as a "just the decent thing to do" without the shaming or condemnation, they might ironically have seen less resistance. It's hard to scream "my rights!" when someone is simply suggesting that it would be best to wear a mask, but acknowledging their freedom not to do so. Perhaps counter-intuitive, but I suspect it might have been more effective in getting the desired outcome of more mask wearing.

but I think the reality is that trying to force people to wear masks simply isn't working

Except very few places in the US are "forcing" people to wear masks. Even the places that are have spotty enforcement. So the US has not really tried to enforce it.

karmajay wrote:
but I think the reality is that trying to force people to wear masks simply isn't working

Except very few places in the US are "forcing" people to wear masks. Even the places that are have spotty enforcement. So the US has not really tried to enforce it.

Define enforcement? Would a store only letting people in be considered enforcement?

Coldstream wrote:

I wonder if the authorities had somehow marketed mask-wearing as a "just the decent thing to do" without the shaming or condemnation, they might ironically have seen less resistance. It's hard to scream "my rights!" when someone is simply suggesting that it would be best to wear a mask, but acknowledging their freedom not to do so. Perhaps counter-intuitive, but I suspect it might have been more effective in getting the desired outcome of more mask wearing.

If authorities had started in on mask wearing before the medical system was in danger of being overwhelmed, that kind of gentle persuasion might have worked better. It's the kind of passive voice directive that's needed to make men in particular compliant.

Unfortunately, the situation is dire enough that we simply don't have time to softball pitch it so that a stubborn minority doesn't dig in their heels. The mandates aren't great and aren't as effective, but the country is largely out of options.

kazar wrote:
karmajay wrote:
but I think the reality is that trying to force people to wear masks simply isn't working

Except very few places in the US are "forcing" people to wear masks. Even the places that are have spotty enforcement. So the US has not really tried to enforce it.

Define enforcement? Would a store only letting people in be considered enforcement?

I hate the idea that as a society we can't do hard things anymore.

I wanna scream at people, especially Boomers about Rationing during WWII. Their parents were the Greatest Generation, not just because their fathers fought in the war, but because their mothers, older siblings, grand parents and men who couldn't fight in the war, came together in common purpose and sacrificed for the greater good. And all of that after enduring the Great Depression and in many instances, their own trauma from the WWI and the Spanish Flu.

Fauci and other epidemiologist have told us what to do.

Shut down bars and restaurants and similar places for as long as necessary but subsidize everything that has to shutter.

Apply pressure and massive fines on any corporation/business that can not effectively enforce their own mask requirements. Make the fines large enough and see how quickly every convenience store in America can get one of those face scanners that won't unlock sliding doors unless it sees a mask.

Enact the god damn Defense Production Act to make enough N95 and PPE for our health care and senior care systems AND for ever man woman and child in the country for the length of the pandemic.

And most importantly, figure out someway to put money into the hands of at least the essential workers so that they stay home if they are sick.

Are these things hard and expensive? Maybe. A little bit. But as a Nation we have done harder and spent more during other times.

Nothing is going to happen until after January 20th.

BadKen wrote:

Nothing is going to happen until after January 20th.

What year?