Coronavirus (COVID-19) Pandemic

[K]

[stui magpie]

[Morrigu]

Well I’m quite enjoying sitting out on the back deck on a Sunday morning with my coffee not having to listen to the same bloody songs praising Him!

Keep them closed

[Wokko]

https://disrn.com/news/city-of-shenzhen-bans-eating-cats-and-dogs-first-in-china-to-do-so?fbclid=IwAR2vv-2C5QkuU5fv1fSaSbyoRzjzOMWMXh8y6VHoktvps50lpVoST-Ncc7c

[Pies4shaw]

27: A 75-year-old man who had been a passenger on the Ovation of the Seas cruise ship died in Wollongong Hospital.

28: A foreign man in his 60s with COVID-19 from the MV Artania cruise ship has died in a Western Australian hospital.

[K]

"In the first sign that efforts to "flatten the curve" are beginning to consolidate, the federal government on Friday evening released data showing Australia had gone from a daily infection rate of 25-30 per cent two weeks ago to under 10 per cent in recent days.

Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt said it was "still early" and Australians still faced a "marathon ahead of us not a sprint".
...

Chief Medical Officer Brendan Murphy said the true number of coronavirus cases was likely to be "five or 10 times higher" than the global figure of 1 million cases recorded on Friday.

He said in Australia it appeared the number of cases coming from cruise ships and those returning home were now under control. "The issue that worries all of us are these community transmissions," he said."

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/australian-coronavirus-infection-rate-halves-curve-flattens-20200403-p54gth.html

[K]

Professor Tony Blakely, epidemiologist and public health medicine specialist at the University of Melbourne:

"Globally, it looks like – with our ANZAC mates across the ditch – we are advantaged by being at the bottom of the world with a slightly longer time to respond. Without wanting to cheer too early, the daily case notifications out of the state furthest down the path – NSW – are encouraging. The number of locally acquired cases are not increasing (much) in the past week.

If those cases start to track up, and double quicker than every eight days or so, the rest of this opinion article should be dispatched to wrap fish 'n' chips or deleted from your digital files.
...

We have three choices.

First, we can go for the moonshot of elimination (and hunker down until there is a vaccine). The chance of this working is now low, but I am reluctant to take it off the table just yet.

Second, we can continue to squash the curve as we are now. If we do so, we will avoid tens of thousands of deaths – but we have to stay in this state of near-lockdown for as long as it takes to get a vaccine. ... let's assume it will take at least 18 months...
...

The third option is to prepare meticulously for allowing the pandemic to wash through society over a period of six or so months. ...

All of these measures I estimate would lower the mortality by about 75 per cent, compared with just "letting it rip". Perhaps about 30,000 deaths. Which is still awful. But it needs to be kept in perspective: year in, year out, the tobacco epidemic kills 20,000 Australians (at younger ages than COVID-19 on average); and, as stated, the economic consequences of squashing the curve kill people as well.
...

Australia is truly the lucky country right now – which blesses us or curses us depending on your view to have this opportunity for decision-making on a scale not seen since World War II. Moreover, it may even "tool us up" as a civil society for improving our decision-making regarding climate change (which will still be there when we get to the other side)."

https://www.theage.com.au/national/now-the-lucky-country-must-decide-what-is-our-least-worst-option-on-covid-19-20200403-p54gq8.html

[K]

British love for National Health Service could make or break Boris Johnson

"The cult of the National Health Service has been key to so many political fortunes over the decades, but no leader has weaponised it more than Boris Johnson after years of austerity measures implemented by his Conservative Party. ...
...

Meanwhile, the government is relying on that regard for the NHS to keep the country united and, crucially, deflect from criticism that the heath system has been starved of the money it needs.
...

"What's really noticeable in the UK is not so much that our funding is out of line, but that our physical capacity is much lower," said Anita Charlesworth, director of research at the Health Foundation. "We run our system really hot."

Healthcare spending has grown just 1.3 per cent a year in real terms since 2009-10. That compares with annual growth of 6 per cent in the preceding 13 years. When it comes to beds, many countries have scaled back as medical care advances, but Britain has cut more than most. That meant more than nine out of 10 beds were occupied before the coronavirus, according to Charlesworth. The number of doctors, nurses and MRI scanners also is below the average of a group of European countries.
...

Medical staffers have had to isolate with members of their family because they can't get checked. Only 5000 out of 1.3 million NHS employees have been tested so far. By the end of April, the government aims to process 100,000 tests a day.

The signs from elsewhere in Europe make alarming reading. Italy was forced to call in emergency help from Medecins Sans Frontieres, the group more known for working in Middle East war zones or dealing with Ebola in Africa. Spain has come under fire as hospitals became so overwhelmed that staff members were forced to choose who to let die.

But in Britain, the impact could have far greater potential political ramifications that go beyond the pandemic. Indeed, one former Conservative chancellor of the Exchequer famously quipped that the NHS was the closest thing the English have to a religion.
...

"As a direct result of COVID-19, people with other conditions are really going to suffer," said Raine.
...

The government called on recently retired doctors to rejoin the medical workforce. Letters were sent to more than 15,000 of them in England and Wales with reportedly more than 500 doctors signing up to return to the NHS in a variety of roles in the first 48 hours. Medical students in the final year are also being enabled to practise."

(Bloomberg)

[Jezza]

Latest numbers

Confirmed (Deaths) - Recoveries

USA = 245,636 (6,098) - 10,411
Spain = 117,710 (10,935) - 30,513
Italy = 115,495 (13,974) - 18,278
Germany = 85,873 (1,129) - 22,943
China = 81,623 (3,322) - 76,577
France = 59,105 (4,503) - 12,428
Iran = 53,183 (3,294) - 17,935
UK = 38,168 (3,605) - 135
Switzerland = 19,303 (573) - 4,846
Turkey = 18,135 (356) - 415
...........................................................
Australia = 5,362 (28] - 649

1,030,892 confirmed cases
54,088 deaths
216,562 recoveries

Australia:
- Confirmed cases = 5,362
---- New South Wales = 2,389
---- Victoria = 1,085
---- Queensland = 873
---- Western Australia = 422
---- South Australia = 396
---- ACT = 91
---- Tasmania = 80
---- NT = 26
- Deaths = 28
- Recoveries = 649
- Case fatality rate = 0.52%

Active Cases = 760,290
- USA = 229,127
- Italy = 83,243
- Spain = 76,262
- Germany = 61,801
- France = 42,174
- UK = 34,428
- Iran = 31,954
- Turkey = 17,364
- Netherlands = 13,986
- Switzerland = 13,884
............................................
- Australia = 4,685

[Jezza]

AUSTRALIA

Date = Confirmed Cases (New Cases) = Percentage of new cases

27/03/2020 = 3,180 (369) = 13%
28/03/2020 = 3,640 (460) = 14%
29/03/2020 = 3,985 (345) = 9%
30/03/2020 = 4,250 (265) = 7%
31/03/2020 = 4,561 (311) = 7%
1/04/2020 = 4,864 (303) = 7%
2/04/2020 = 5,136 (272) = 6%
3/04/2020 = 5,362 (226) = 4%

649 recovered, 28 deaths.

Cases on track to double every 9 days now.

411 cases of community transmission nationwide.

VICTORIA

Date = Confirmed Cases (New Cases) = Percentage of new cases

27/03/2020 = 574 (54) = 10%
28/03/2020 = 685 (111) = 19%
29/03/2020 = 769 (84) = 12%
30/03/2020 = 821 (52) = 7%
31/03/2020 = 917 (96) = 12%
1/04/2020 = 968 (51) = 6%
2/04/2020 = 1,036 (68] = 7%
3/04/2020 = 1,085 (49) = 5%

476 recovered, 7 deaths.

Cases doubling every 8 days in Victoria.

62 cases of community transmission in Victoria.

[K]

https://www.health.gov.au/news/health-alerts/novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov-health-alert/coronavirus-covid-19-current-situation-and-case-numbers


[We've seen enough of these updates to be sure now that the last light blue bar should be ignored. Why do they even bother putting it in when it's obviously partial?

But if you look at the previous version, https://magpies.net/nick/bb/viewtopic.php?p=1957259#1957259 , you can see that their own numbers for new cases in past days is also changing, so don't take the exact heights of the bars too seriously.]

[K]

[It looks like the 20-29-year-old female group spiked some time recently.]

[K]

Is an 'immunity certificate' the way to get out of coronavirus lockdown?

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/03/health/immunity-passport-coronavirus-lockdown-intl/index.html

"In the UK, Health Secretary Matt Hancock ... suggested that Britons who've had the virus might be issued with a certificate, which has already been dubbed an immunity passport.

"We are looking at an immunity certificate, how people who've had the disease, have got the antibodies and therefore have immunity, can show that and get back as much as possible to normal life," he said. On the BBC later, he said it could take the form of a wristband.

... "It's too early in the science of the immunity that comes from having had the disease" to take any firm decisions now, Hancock said.

Potential challenges include finding a reliable test to determine who has antibodies for the coronavirus, establishing the level of immunity conferred by previous infection and how long it lasts, and the capacity of overstretched health systems to carry out reliable, widespread antibody tests in the general population.
...

One big downside, however, is the potential for people to act fraudulently. "Could people pretend they were immune when they weren't because they needed to go out and earn money?" Hunter asked.
...

"If you are basing it on home tests, how does whoever signs your 'passport' know that you have actually read it right?" said Hunter. "How do they know that you have tested properly, read it properly, and the result is accurate? If you go somewhere else, how do they know that you are who you say you are and that you haven't swapped with someone who looks like you on your driving license?"

Another more serious issue, he said, is whether people might deliberately seek to get infected in order to -- hopefully -- recover and go back to work. "If that happens, that might undermine a lot of what we are trying to do with social distancing."
...

As Hancock told Britons, "The number one thing people can do to get out of this as fast as possible is to stay at home.""

[Pies4shaw]

In a new low for human reason, telecommunications maintenance workers are apparently being abused in the UK by people who think COVID-19 is caused by the rollout of 5G.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/apr/03/broadband-engineers-threatened-due-to-5g-coronavirus-conspiracies

[stui magpie]

^At least there is the most tenuous of links in Britain, as they have contracted Huwawei to provide tech to the roll out.

The number of false claims made about the 5G network is quite remarkable, as is the fact that the people who believe them seem otherwise capable of functioning as an adult human when they're clearly as dumb as a bag of door knobs