Covid 19 virus

[Siwastaja]

Needless to say, enforcing the actions by the police/military are only needed because of these groups of people. This is why the Finnish strategy, "we only give suggestions and trust people follow them" is a catastrophe.

I don't know a lot about Finland, but a bit about nordic countries in general, and I would have expected people there to be a lot more well behaved than this. But maybe it's just a small fraction of all people (but in that case, that would not be as significant a problem as it is?) Or maybe the Finnish are just obnoxious? Or something.

Finns are likely to protest somewhat less than what Italians did at the beginning, but many do protest here, like everywhere. So the difference isn't an order of magnitude thing, I think we are quite average here when it comes to being selfish at the expense of others. I think you need to look at certain Asian cultures to see a big difference in this behavior. Though, this being said, even these countries (and they especially!) rely on actually enforcing the rules by the fear of actual sanctions, even if they "might" not need it. Funny thing, isn't it?

"Losing face" is a big thing in some Asian cultures, and it works to some extent here, as well. But this can go both ways; at the early phase of this kind of epidemic, certain social bubbles form, and one of them is the "lallallaa overreaction, I don't want to show I'm scared, not overreacting, lallallaa". So in order not to lose face, you need to pretend living like usual. I think this happens everywhere in Europe to some non-meaningless extent, including Finland; just wittnessed today a few middle-aged guys at a store loudly protesting how stupid this overreaction is because "we have only one dead" (the correct number at that time was 3, as corrected by the cashier, and currently is 5). These people existing is the reason why we need to enforce the rules.

Actually we had some opinion poll numbers how the people here see the actions of the government. I forgot the source, but they were approximately like this: 45% thinks they underreact, 45% thinks they react in the correct proportion at the correct time; 10% thinks they overreact. It's this 10% of people who are dangerous as is and need to be actually enforced with sanctions. 0.1% wouldn't matter; 10% does.

[not1xor1]

@not1xor1: I don't know how much we can trust the published figures, but currently Italy has one of the highest death rate (deaths/total cases) with about 10%. This is gigantic.

yes... the reason is yet unclear...probably a combination of:
- being several weeks ahead in the pandemic,
- overcrowded hospitals in some parts of the country,
- using a different criteria for attributing deaths to COVID-19,
- missing lots of positive cases,
- bad air quality,
- old age,
- lacking of D vitamin (just read about that a couple of hours ago), etc.

BTW I just noticed that both Spain and France have alarming high rates too

[SiliconWizard]

Actually we had some opinion poll numbers how the people here see the actions of the government. I forgot the source, but they were approximately like this: 45% thinks they underreact, 45% thinks they react in the correct proportion at the correct time; 10% thinks they overreact. It's this 10% of people who are dangerous as is and need to be actually enforced with sanctions. 0.1% wouldn't matter; 10% does.

Ok I see...

Now with (from what I've just seen) 958 cases and 5 deaths, things don't look that bad for Finland so far. Don't get me wrong, I'm not underestimating this, and I agree anything should be done to keep this under control, but from figures alone, I can at least slightly understand why some people there would still think it's relatively "mild".

[TheNewLab]

at over 1400 postings in this topic in only a short number of days..

I guess I may share what Reuters came up with more detailed numbers. Some are estimates, Others are in my mind humorous, yet good.

I have not tallied what the sum of Reuters numbers are. Anyone else may do that.

The biggest concern are enough beds in hospitals, adequate resuscitators, adequate PPE for health care works. YT search "Italy" filter "this week" or "this month" You will find a number of videos from Italian healthcare workers.

Here are the Reuters numbers:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-bill-contents-idUSKBN21D2CQ

In a way I want to say "just chill out" However, Some fear may be healthy. most of what is suggested is good hygiene. Others, are simple to practice, except, er, uh..Not touching your face. That's the most difficult.

I feel, focusing on facts are best, as it is the unknown creates the greatest fear.

[Nusa]

@not1xor1: I don't know how much we can trust the published figures, but currently Italy has one of the highest death rate (deaths/total cases) with about 10%. This is gigantic.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries   now has a deaths/1M pop column in their charts, saving you from doing the math. Italy and Spain are way ahead of everyone else by that measure.

[0xdeadbeef]

I guess it's somewhat futile to compare numbers or even ratios of different countries since it's unclear how many people are tested and how many infected/dead are actually reported.
Today the number of 410k totally tested was published in Germany, but at the same time our leading Corona expert claimed that 500k people would be tested per week while the number of a maximum of 160k tests per week was claimed only some days ago and now a number of up to 360k tests per week being possible was given by the public health insurance organization.
Anyway, the number of tested is very high in Germany, while I would assume it's rather low in countries like Iran. Actually, if I understand the numbers of the CDC correctly, even in the USA only around 100k tests were performed up to now. And of course it's highly questionable if illiberal states publish reliable numbers.

[maginnovision]

What is an illiberal state?

[0xdeadbeef]

Guess that depends on your point of view. In my humble opinion, e.g. Russia would fall into this category among many other countries where there is no free press or independent jurisdiction.

[Howardlong]

@not1xor1: I don't know how much we can trust the published figures, but currently Italy has one of the highest death rate (deaths/total cases) with about 10%. This is gigantic.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries   now has a deaths/1M pop column in their charts, saving you from doing the math. Italy and Spain are way ahead of everyone else by that measure.

Not sure I'd fancy my chances in San Marino at the moment tbh.

[nctnico]

Is there anywhere that shows data day to day country by country?

Wikipedia has a dedicated page (article?) per country where you can typically find daily graphs and number of infections per region / county.

[not1xor1]

I guess it's somewhat futile to compare numbers or even ratios of different countries since it's unclear how many people are tested and how many infected/dead are actually reported.
Today the number of 410k totally tested was published in Germany, but at the same time our leading Corona expert claimed that 500k people would be tested per week while the number of a maximum of 160k tests per week was claimed only some days ago and now a number of up to 360k tests per week being possible was given by the public health insurance organization.
Anyway, the number of tested is very high in Germany, while I would assume it's rather low in countries like Iran. Actually, if I understand the numbers of the CDC correctly, even in the USA only around 100k tests were performed up to now. And of course it's highly questionable if illiberal states publish reliable numbers.

do not forget that tests are meaningless in the sense that people negative now might get infected 5 minutes later and that some people like health care staff have to be tested multiple times

so far in Italy 361,060 tests have been performed

[Simon]

I'm just thinking that ignoring differences in methods if you compare increase rates assuming they don't suddenly change the method like china did you can see how each country is doing relatively with the rate of increase in cases.

[paulca]

@not1xor1: I don't know how much we can trust the published figures, but currently Italy has one of the highest death rate (deaths/total cases) with about 10%. This is gigantic.

In the UK it currently seems as though most people die from it.

Look at "Closed Cases"
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

[maginnovision]

@not1xor1: I don't know how much we can trust the published figures, but currently Italy has one of the highest death rate (deaths/total cases) with about 10%. This is gigantic.

In the UK it currently seems as though most people die from it.

Look at "Closed Cases"
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

Haha, I'm sure that's skewed. If 81% is the mortality rate for the UK they might as well figure out which country is going to be expanding.

[iMo]

That 81% is from "Cases which had an outcome"

[Nusa]

@not1xor1: I don't know how much we can trust the published figures, but currently Italy has one of the highest death rate (deaths/total cases) with about 10%. This is gigantic.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries   now has a deaths/1M pop column in their charts, saving you from doing the math. Italy and Spain are way ahead of everyone else by that measure.

Not sure I'd fancy my chances in San Marino at the moment tbh.

The San Marino numbers aren't hugely significant due to the small sample size of only 21 deaths among a total population of 33400. So far as the virus transmission is concerned prior to quarantine, it's a town-sized state literally surrounded by Italy and is suffering a similar fate.

[thinkfat]

@not1xor1: I don't know how much we can trust the published figures, but currently Italy has one of the highest death rate (deaths/total cases) with about 10%. This is gigantic.

In the UK it currently seems as though most people die from it.

Look at "Closed Cases"
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/uk/

That looks similar to the pattern Italy has shown. No test coverage in the general public, only people who feel really sick go to the hospital and get tested, many of them part of a high-risk group, who are now dying quickly. Wasn't the plan to protect granny and granddaddy first and foremost?.

[Deni]

The last patient that died here -> received in the hospital in poor condition, with cancer in terminal stage, no previous symptoms, not isolated, but out
of precaution tested for COVID,  found positive, dies afer an hour and is now counted as COVID victim. I mean, really  ? How many similar cases
are out there?

[maginnovision]

Probably a lot. That's the point, this is REALLY bad for people with other issues.

[Deni]

But the patient HAD NO SYMPTOMS, was just infected (as many of us most likely are, since various flu viruses are all around us) and died from cancer !
3 months ago nobody would count it as a COVID case. Bad data are worse that no data...

[iMo]

Probably a lot. That's the point, this is REALLY bad for people with other issues.

Here is the latest report on Italy Death Cases as of March 24th.
The pre-existing conditions statistics is that "Patologie" and "Numero di patologie".
No need to translate, imho.

[engrguy42]

My latest summary of the WHO March 26 report, hot off the presses. This is for the 8 countries with the most confirmed cases. I also included some info I didn't have before.

Attached chart of deaths to date and new deaths for the US shows deaths to date (884) in yellow, and new deaths each day in dark blue.

- US remains #3 in total confirmed cases to date.

- US remains #6 in total confirmed cases as a % of population.

- US moved up one spot in number of total deaths to date as a % of population (from #8 to #7)

- For the last 4 days US has had a flat rate of approx. 200 new deaths total per day, except for the 24th when it had only 69 (about the same as the 19th thru the 22nd when it was flat with around 40-50 each day).

 

[Cerebus]

But the patient HAD NO SYMPTOMS, was just infected (as many of us most likely are, since various flu viruses are all around us) and died from cancer !
3 months ago nobody would count it as a COVID case. Bad data are worse that no data...

So WHAT does their actual death certificate actually say? Or is this just some third hand news story.

I've seen quite a few death certificates in my time and if someone has some known terminal condition that is always recorded, even when the proximal cause of death was something secondary. e.g something like "Pneumonia as a complication of stage 4 lung cancer".

[thinkfat]

Yes, easily. He's an idiot.

OK, perhpas he is, perhaps he is not - the same applies to all of us. But there was another link which, unfortunately, is pure data - no opinion. As you obviously missed it, here it is again:

http://www.euromomo.eu/index.html

It's "mortality monitor" - organization that collects data about deceased persons for 20+ EU countries once per week and was established for the situation like thise - to detect
abnormal spikes in mortality rate. You can spot sinewave-like curve, where each winter "shakes up" 60+ generation, when the flu season starts. So far, no abnormalities (although data lag 1 week), even
some drop is visible. That's what I would like to understand or to be explained to me. Perhaps Swedes are doing right - running their lives, more or less, as before...?

There will be a statistically visible increase of the mortality soon e.g. in Italy and Spain and Dr. Wodargs house of cards will collapse.

[Sredni]

Coronavirus: Why some countries wear face masks and others don't
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52015486

Emphasis mine

Nobody else needs to wear a mask, and there are several reasons for that.
One is that a mask is not seen as reliable protection, given that current research shows the virus is spread by droplets and contact with contaminated surfaces. So it could protect you, but only in certain situations such as when you're in close quarters with others where someone infected might sneeze or cough near your face. This is why experts say frequent hand washing with soap and water is far more effective.
Removing a mask requires special attention to avoid hand contamination, and it could also breed a false sense of security.

Some argue that ubiquitous mask wearing, as a very visual reminder of the dangers of the virus, could actually act as a "behavioural nudge" to you and others for overall better personal hygiene.

Then, there's the idea that every little bit counts in the war the world is waging against the virus.
"We can't say if face masks are ineffective, but we presume they have some effect because that's the protection we give to healthcare workers," said Benjamin Cowling, an epidemiologist with Hong Kong University.

In countries where mask wearing is not the norm, such as the West, those who do wear masks have been shunned or even attacked. It hasn't helped that many of these mask wearers are Asians.
But those societies that do advocate everyone wearing a mask may have a point and increasingly, experts are now questioning the official WHO advice.

I am a powerful wizard and looking into my cystal ball I can foresee that the number of expert advocating using a mask to the general public will rise logarithmically with the number of masks produced.

Meanwhile, the US is now number one in number of infected - "America first!" remember?
And thanks to governors such as that of Mississippi is trying to do its best to ramp up in the number of deaths, as well: