Coronavirus: COVID-19

[Alan Phipps]

A possibly reassuring tool (or not) but I think that number of confirmed infections per locality would be more indicative. At least it would be a rough measure of the level of risk you might have been taking by say having been to the local superstore or having been on a local bus.

[birdtable]

I find also that I am in an area where only one death has occurred ,,, The statement regarding death certificates is very grey and open to manipulation in either way
"The ONS says a death is added into its data if "coronavirus was the underlying cause or was mentioned on the death certificate as a contributory factor"
Do we get Hospital infections, patient neglect, poor surgery as examples that are worth mentioning on a death certificate as an underlying or contributory factor.

[RegisterMe]

Do we get Hospital infections, patient neglect, poor surgery as examples that are worth mentioning on a death certificate as an underlying or contributory factor.

Yes we do.

[birdtable]

I now know of 2 cases in dispute over Covid 19 .. One cancer the other a road traffic accident, both tested negative for covid on admission but on Death Certificate (died in hospital) Covid 19 was the cause/contributory ... My faith in NHS as an honest broker is not very high....If you want a career in NHS then you keep your mouth shut tight.

[red assassin]

I now know of 2 cases in dispute over Covid 19 .. One cancer the other a road traffic accident, both tested negative for covid on admission but on Death Certificate (died in hospital) Covid 19 was the cause/contributory ... My faith in NHS as an honest broker is not very high....If you want a career in NHS then you keep your mouth shut tight.

https://www.ft.com/content/6bd88b7d-338 ... 5c6fac846c
Excess death figures suggest that coronavirus related deaths are significantly underreported, not overreported.

[RegisterMe]

If you've got the time to read this initial 52 page report by Lawrence Freedman, Emeritus Professor of War Studies at King's College London, about the UK's response to COVID-19, I can't recommend it too highly. Needless to say, at 52 pages, it's a little difficult to provide a tldr.

https://www.iiss.org/blogs/survival-blo ... d-covid-19

[exogenesis]

Surprisingly low current infection rate in the UK,
i.e. people who actually currently have the virus from swab testing of 11,000 people :

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52662066

"One in 400 people in England has coronavirus, tests suggest ...
one in 400 in a country the size of England equates to 150,000 people."

But rather worryingly (if you have diabetes) :

"more than one in four (26%) patients who died with Covid-19 in hospitals in England since 31 March had diabetes."

[Vertigo 7]

They could take Trump's approach.

When you test, you have a case. When you test, you find something is wrong with people. If we didn’t do any testing we would have very few cases.

- Donald "Stable Genius" Trump

So if you don't test for it, it never happened!

[Gavrushka]

I live in NE England, and we're reporting 170 times as many new cases as London. - Partly due to the fact we're later to the curve, but I'd imagine it's more due to the fact we're (generalisation) idiots who 'don't trust the Tories.' - We have the highest R rate in the country too.

Sky News Article.

[pjknibbs]

We have the highest R rate in the country too.

Importantly, though, the R rate is still less than 1, even in the north-east, which means the virus will eventually peter out there.

[Gavrushka]

@pjknibbs - maybe not, according to breaking news from SAGE. - I'm witnessing stupidity from neighbours here in the NE, but recognise the possible climb to one is due to nursing homes.

SAGE fear R rate is back up to one

[RegisterMe]

So there was this chap in front of me in the queue in Sainsburys yesterday.

Disposable gloves? Check.
Carefully disinfected and wiped down his trolley handle bars? Check.
N95 mask? Check.
Big **** off beard? Check.

Bloody idiot? Check.

[Mightysword]

As a Vietnamese I naturally follow the situation of my native country since the beginning. But with international media largely focus on other countries in the region, info regarding Vietnam in English has been rare and few in between, so I didn't talk much about it 'cause I wouldn't be able to cite a source. But now it seem info are getting on the English source, I'll cite one such article here:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-52628283

To put it in perspective:

- With 98mil people, Vietnam has about 30% of the US population.
- It is about 1/30 of the size of the US.
- It border China, and also has it as the main trading partner.

As of today report regarding Covid-19:

- Less than 300 confirm cases.
- No death.
- Only a handful community transmission.

The article above give a pretty good outline of what was done to get that result, but I'll add some more.

- As soon as someone in an apartment complex is deemed to be at risk, the whole things are locked down.
- If you're someone deemed at risk, the police will come knock on your door, give you 5min to grab some clothes and ferry you to what the local call "quarantine islands". Non-comply is not an option.
- You're provided a room, 3 meals a day and that's it. No exception, I have seen celebrities tweeting image of themselves in these quarantine facilities.

In fact, for us Southerners some of these measures gave us flashback on the (oppression) measures done in the aftermath of the civil war.

And the economy cost were expected to be big to. I read a (local) report in early April that if the situation remained unchanged for another months, 75% of the small and mid-size businesses would fail (the Vietnam economy relies more on small private enterprises like those rather than large co-oporation), due to raw material running out (close border with China) and plummet in global demand, but the country was pretty much unfazed about it. To quote my uncle who run a few fabric manufacture there: "yeah it's bad, but what can you do?" which is ... a pretty typical attitude in these situation in our culture. Fast forward a month later, as the article stated the country is re-opening.

I read a new report last week that due to the effort of combating COVID-19 is more successful than expect, the country will try to restart earlier. The economy forcast now is "we will still grown, just not as much", I think the grow forecast is adjust down by 50%, but at least not expect to shrink. And I hope it will be true.

[RegisterMe]

@Mightysword, I don't think you've ever said, before, that you were Vietnamese (or American of Vietnamese heritage, or whatever), but my first guess, a long time ago, was right . Anyway, more to the point, yes, I've read a number of pieces saying that Vietnam has had "a good epidemic".

Vietnam, Taiwan, and any other country that has successfully responded to covid-19 deserves respect, and there may be lessons to be learned for all. But as per the "huh, you're taking firearms to protest being told to stay home to stay safe?" discussion, countries are different, and people are different.

"Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose"

(and that's not meant to reference Vietnam's, or France's for that matter, past btw).

[Vertigo 7]

@Mightysword, I don't think you've ever said, before, that you were Vietnamese (or American of Vietnamese heritage, or whatever), but my first guess, a long time ago, was right . Anyway, more to the point, yes, I've read a number of pieces saying that Vietnam has had "a good epidemic".

Vietnam, Taiwan, and any other country that has successfully responded to covid-19 deserves respect, and there may be lessons to be learned for all. But as per the "huh, you're taking firearms to protest being told to stay home to stay safe?" discussion, countries are different, and people are different.

"Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose"

(and that's not meant to reference Vietnam's, or France's for that matter, past btw).

Studies have been showing the US is lagging behind other developed nations in education for years. I would be more than willing to bet there's a direct correlation with poor education and armed protesters.

[Masterbagger]

So there was this chap in front of me in the queue in Sainsburys yesterday.

Disposable gloves? Check.
Carefully disinfected and wiped down his trolley handle bars? Check.
N95 mask? Check.
Big **** off beard? Check.

Bloody idiot? Check.

Beardophobe! I'm going to be glad when the mask lunacy dies down. I see a few people wearing them in public and in odd places like inside their cars while they drive. Not many gloves any more. There are stickers on the floors of the grocery trying to make the aisles one way but they are universally ignored. There sure isn't social distancing for the urinals in the men's room when a lot of us have to piss. I am just glad that the facilities of these modern decades have improved to individual stations instead of the communal piss troughs that the Astrodome had. I'm not shy but that was gross even back then.

It's actually very rare for me to speak with anyone during work but today I did. Maybe the social isolation is affecting people who would normally not speak to a tool swinger. An older lady asked me about how the bat flu was affecting business and I learned that back in mid March she and her husband both got sick but couldn't get a test done and stayed home until they were over it. This is the same time that I took time off with a mild fever. It's not scientific or anything but I think maybe bat flu was more wide spread than anyone ever guessed what with the people spreading it likely not having any indicators that they were. I have zero desire to get tested for the presence of bat flu now but I would very much like to see if I have already had it to satisfy curiousity. I think if it we had some data and could estimate how many people already had the bat flu and got over it there would be less fear. Probably not likely to happen when the current political atmosphere is deliberately keeping fear alive.

[Mightysword]

@Mightysword, I don't think you've ever said, before, that you were Vietnamese (or American of Vietnamese heritage, or whatever), but my first guess, a long time ago, was right . Anyway, more to the point, yes, I've read a number of pieces saying that Vietnam has had "a good epidemic".

I think I mentioned it a couple times, especially back when I mentioned the 'boat people' during the immigrant debate. But yeah it's not something I mentioned all the time. After all there are only 4 communist countries remaining in the world, and the way I talk think it's fairly obvious I'm not from China or N.Korea.

Vietnam, Taiwan, and any other country that has successfully responded to covid-19 deserves respect, and there may be lessons to be learned for all. But as per the "huh, you're taking firearms to protest being told to stay home to stay safe?" discussion, countries are different, and people are different.

Don't get me wrong, it wasn't meant to gloat, or say that's the only way it should be. There are 2 sides to everything, others may see it as a "different method" to take, for me it's more like "the price to pay". Vietnam ain't HongKong, but the government has been suppressing dissident for years, sometime quite violently, and this success will certainly empower them. But still, as someone who still have quite a large extended family back there, I can only feel glad they all made it through and the action taken were right. Asian culture is simply more used to repression in general. Even among countries that Westerners tend to see as "beacon of Eastern democracy" like South Korean, Taiwan ...etc... the level of repression taken as the norm there in those countries would make even a moderate American feel very uncomfortable.

I won't say it's something to be proud off, putting up with that, but in the face of a crisis like this, it helps.

[RegisterMe]

@Mightysword - I read no gloating at all into what you wrote. And I don't think (see previous posts by me, for example) that anybody would dispute that there are social, economic, and political costs associated with attending to covid-19.

What the balance is? How they shake out? In a democracy we get some say, retrospectively. That might be part of the cost.

[RegisterMe]

So there was this chap in front of me in the queue in Sainsburys yesterday.

Disposable gloves? Check.
Carefully disinfected and wiped down his trolley handle bars? Check.
N95 mask? Check.
Big **** off beard? Check.

Bloody idiot? Check.

Beardophobe! I'm going to be glad when the mask lunacy dies down. I see a few people wearing them in public and in odd places like inside their cars while they drive. Not many gloves any more. There are stickers on the floors of the grocery trying to make the aisles one way but they are universally ignored. There sure isn't social distancing for the urinals in the men's room when a lot of us have to piss. I am just glad that the facilities of these modern decades have improved to individual stations instead of the communal piss troughs that the Astrodome had. I'm not shy but that was gross even back then.

It's actually very rare for me to speak with anyone during work but today I did. Maybe the social isolation is affecting people who would normally not speak to a tool swinger. An older lady asked me about how the bat flu was affecting business and I learned that back in mid March she and her husband both got sick but couldn't get a test done and stayed home until they were over it. This is the same time that I took time off with a mild fever. It's not scientific or anything but I think maybe bat flu was more wide spread than anyone ever guessed what with the people spreading it likely not having any indicators that they were. I have zero desire to get tested for the presence of bat flu now but I would very much like to see if I have already had it to satisfy curiousity. I think if it we had some data and could estimate how many people already had the bat flu and got over it there would be less fear. Probably not likely to happen when the current political atmosphere is deliberately keeping fear alive.

The data exists. It's available to you. It's also in the hands of your government.

[Mightysword]

What the balance is? How they shake out? In a democracy we get some say, retrospectively. That might be part of the cost.

And you're right, that balance is part of the cost. That's why in the past I kept arguing I don't put much fault on Western government responses (not just the US, but European as well). The way I see it, I don't think they had a choice but to take incremental steps. It's easier to levy criticism in hindsight that those steps were too little too late, but I think the fact people are protesting about the measures (after already fully aware the scale, scope, and severity of the pandemic) would give us a very good guess what would happened if strict - Asian-style measure were enforced right at the beginning even before the population at large perceive it as a threat. (My guess: it wouldn't be pretty).

Countries like Vietnam probably said "to hell with balance, all in, we're taking no chance!". Everything in moderation, including being moderated (think that came from Guild War 2).