Covid-19 pandemic

[Nocturnal Submission]

Zero deaths in Wales. 30 new cases. I wonder if we are getting more confirmed mild cases, or whether we are going to see some deaths down the track here.

Mainly the former, I suspect. With increased testing levels in the community, there are going to a lot more positive results from the sort of cases that weren't being picked up a few months ago because the symptoms weren't so obvious or serious. There's possibly a change in the demographic too, with more younger and less older people contracting the virus as complacency affects the former and mitigating actions protect the latter.

All speculation of my part, though.

[Nefertiti2]

the evictions in the US begin

https://twitter.com/KatyODonnell_/status/1286803704000241664?s=20

[Balderdasha]

16 million cases globally. The last million took 4 days again.

[Gangster Octopus]

Woo hoo, the rate of acceleration is flattening out slightly...

[Sporting]

Suppose just for the best that we have no plans to travel just yet:

https://english.elpais.com/spanish_n...rom-spain.html

[Moonlight Shadow]

Suppose just for the best that we have no plans to travel just yet:

https://english.elpais.com/spanish_n...rom-spain.html

My in-laws had a trip to Spain cancelled back in the spring, they rebooked for mid-August...bad luck

[Sporting]

I wonder how cruise ships will be affected (thinking of a poster here).

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

It's looking very unlikely we'll be seeing you in Valencia in October - even if MSC still run the cruise, they won't be able to fly Brits out to it against Foreign Office advice, as we wouldn't be able to get the necessary travel insurance (and the cruise company won't let you board without that).

Can't help thinking it's no coincidence that Spain's second wave has come two weeks after the first wave of Brits on the piss.

[Sporting]

No, the opening up of discos here and people relaxing after lockdown has contributed as well. People are just idiots.

[Balderdasha]

North America has reached 5 million+ confirmed cases of Covid-19.

[Sporting]

Everyone who refuses to wear a mask where it's mandatory: fuck you. Disco-goers who aren't wearing masks: fuck you. Older people here who think it's somehow okay again to touch you as a greeting: fuck you. Trump, Bolsonaro etc: fuck you. Politicians who think schools should be fully open: fuck you. Etc.

This is not funny. You are putting our lives and health at risk and you are also screwing things up on an economic basis. If a lockdown occurs again not all of us can easily work from home, if at all. And who goes to the pubs, the hairdressers, the sports events, the museums? Sometimes, completely against my principles, I pander for a period of benevolent dictatorship.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

It really irritates me how mathematically illiterate much of the media is in its international coronavirus reporting. One, fairly typical, example from (IIRC) the BBC website, described India as "the third-worst affected country" in the world, evidently based on the moronic choice of "total cases" as an appropriate ranking metric for "worst affected". How bloody stupid is that? I mean, leaving aside the relative uselessness of official case numbers compared to deaths (given that deaths are more important and also vulnerable to understatement on a much smaller proportionate scale than cases, which reflect testing as much as actual incidence), there is the rather fundamental point about using per capita numbers rather than absolutes. As of today, India barely scrapes into the top 100 worst affected on a per-capita basis, whether cases or deaths are in point.

The "worst" affected 3 countries, by to my mind the key stat of per capita deaths, are [edit- *currently*] San Marino, Belgium and the UK. Of course, countries follow divergent practices in counting COVID deaths, so it wouldn't surprise me if, in reality, the UK was behind only tiny San Marino, not (as appears from official numbers) behind Belgium too.

[Capybara]

It really irritates me how mathematically illiterate much of the media is

All you need to say really. And it's something that will persist as long as it is acceptable for, for example, radio presenters to say things like 'I'm not very good at maths' in a jokey way. Innumeracy isn't a joke. They wouldn't say they are not very good at reading and comprehension. Time and again I'll read a newspaper article with figures in it for a second time because I don't think I've really understood it the first time, before realising that the reason I haven't understood it, is because the person writing it hasn't either.

[ursus arctos]

Current top ten lists from the last two days, the pandemic has been especially lethal in the UK

https://twitter.com/kagrox/status/1287214043439210496

https://twitter.com/kagrox/status/1287213339802771462

[San Bernardhinault]

Early on in the pandemic the "total number of cases" was as meaningful as per capita because the epidemiologists were just looking at the exponential progression and whether it was slowing. It's worthless for "worst affected country" though.

And, of course, all comparisons are basically worthless because of differences in testing and reporting, and differences in what standards are used to determine if a death is covid related.

[Balderdasha]

The total number of Covid-19 deaths worldwide (649,456) now exceeds the population of Macao (649,335, estimated 2020 population according to Wikipedia).

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

San Marino's works out to about 200 cases in total. A bit of a local spike maybe but given they've probably tested all of their 10,000 residents, hardly worrh calling them out.

[elguapo4]

I'm surprised that nobody has mentioned North Korea's first confirmed case. Allegedly it's a defector to the South, who crossed back into the North after being questioned over a rape allegation. As experts have said, the border with China is relatively porous, with plenty of smuggling going on, so it's unlikely that they haven't had any cases up to now.

[Sporting]

It has been mentioned here in the last country with a case thread.

[Patrick Thistle]

1 death reported in Wales today.

[elguapo4]

0 deaths and 12 new cases in Ireland today.

[Amor de Cosmos]

This pattern is being repeated in a significant number of states.

Indoor bars are a real problem.

https://twitter.com/jake_zuckerman/status/1287011596036907008

Also across Canada. Not so much indoor bars. Mostly beach parties, boat parties and bush parties around here. From near zero, new cases here in BC are reaching daily numbers not seen since March. If the curve doesn't begin to flatten soon, the province is going to have to institute penalties.

[Patrick Thistle]

There's a danger that if Covid mutates into something really dangerous for under-30s that we could lose a lot of people very quickly.

[Janik]

Which is what happened with Spanish 'flu. It was the second and third waves where the young, fit and healthy seemed more vulnerable than the usual at-risk groups. But then, that is really unusual and there is no particular reason to think it will occur with this. Or indeed would happen with seasonal 'flu or any of the other endemic infectious diseases, which would also have the same consequence of wiping out lots of young people very fast.

[ursus arctos]

I didn't think that was the result of a mutation, though.

Wasn't the 18-19 flu more lethal to the young from the very beginning because that cohort had not been exposed to similar viruses in the 19th century?

The CDC says

Mortality was high in people younger than 5 years old, 20-40 years old, and 65 years and older. The high mortality in healthy people, including those in the 20-40 year age group, was a unique feature of this pandemic.