Covid-19 pandemic

[Balderdasha]

The biggest country to carry out a similar number of tests is the United Arab Emirates. It has a population of nearly ten million people, and has conducted over 16.6 million tests. Over 1.67 tests per person.

It doesn't necessarily mean every citizen has been tested. There might be some individuals being tested multiple times and some who haven't been tested at all. But it's still impressive.

[Balderdasha]

Europe has just reached 17 million confirmed cases, the first continent to do so. Or the equivalent of nearly the entire population of the Netherlands.

[Balderdasha]

Worldwide, with nearly 62,700,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19, it's the equivalent of everyone in Italy having been infected.

[Balderdasha]

So, the UK's second lockdown is partially working. It was announced on 31st October, impemented on November 5th. New daily cases peaked on November 12th and have been dropping fairly steadily ever since. We've gone from a seven day average of new cases being over 25,000 new cases per day, to currently about 15,000 cases per day.

But, due to the lag between onset of symptoms and death, daily new deaths are only just starting to peak. The highest recent daily death toll was on November 25th. The seven day moving average for deaths has not yet peaked, reaching around 500 deaths per day.

The UK is one of the only countries that doesn't publish active cases, but based on information from various hospitals, I would guess that this hasn't peaked yet either.

And this lockdown is supposed to end in three days time. Daily new cases and deaths are still higher than when we ended the first lockdown and we're going into winter, not summer. I know that there's this new tiered approach, which effectively means lots of areas are staying in full lockdown, but I'm not convinced we should be easing off at all. The numbers will go straight back up again for January and February.

[jdsx]

So, the UK's second lockdown is partially working.

'England's second lockdown...' Just sayin, like. (smiley thing)

[S. aureus]

Unsurprisingly Thanksgiving has skewed the daily numbers here.
433 new cases in San Mateo County yesterday, eclipsing the previous high of 227 set on Tuesday. The good part is that this is essentially three days worth of new cases, as only 8 were listed over the prior 2 days. The bad part is that the 7 day average was also at an all time high yesterday at 135/day (or 18/100k people/day). The state finally moved us back up to the "purple" tier yesterday, which is the most restrictive here. That decision to move us down into orange not so long ago when cases were already climbing really hasn't aged well.

[San Bernardhinault]

Yeah. Massachusetts had zero cases reported on Thanksgiving from zero tests. Which means all the data's a little fucked.

[Balderdasha]

Turkey has exceeded 600,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 and reported 13,558 deaths.

[Balderdasha]

Friend's daughter was sent home on Friday because 2 children in her class had tested positive for Covid-19. Over the weekend that number has increased to 13 children, out of a class of 29, testing positive.

[Gangster Octopus]

How close to your children is that?

[Balderdasha]

Oh miles away. This is a schoolfriend of mine who's based in Yorkshire.

[Patrick Thistle]

The proper way to stop this is to ensure people get decent sick pay (as well as the necessary cultural changes in the workplace.)

There will always be some twats who think they are so fucking integral to the business they have to go in. They're usually the ones who trot out bullshit about how once you're sneezing you're not infectious any more.

[Janik]

Yes, these are exactly the people who need a rude awakening about how integral to the business they actually are. And how their importance is only marginally (if at all!) higher than the other who they might infect and reduce the productivity of. That their being in whilst ill is a net loss to the business overall.
Being publicly told to "fuck off now you utter idiot" in front of everyone by senior management ought to pop such bubbles well enough.

[Janik]

Zero hours contracts and no sick pay are an altogether different issue, of course. That needs a financial hit on the companies running that way so it is not worth their while. Say some legislation stating that if a courier who is a contractor visits a site, the people she is contracting for are 100% liable for anything she might spread and any business interruption costs that might cause.

[Balderdasha]

The current UK death toll of 58,245 is now higher than the populations of Gravesend, Kent or Bebington, Merseyside.

[Balderdasha]

The current USA death toll of 273,077 is higher than the population of Toledo, Ohio.

[Balderdasha]

Switzerland has now reported more deaths than China, 4,650 versus 4,634, and over 318,000 cases.

[Diable Rouge]

The Welsh First Minister has announced that pubs and restaurants will be barred from serving alcohol from Friday, the former will have to close at 6 p.m, while the latter can only serve takeaways afterwards.

[Patrick Thistle]

That may have something to do with the late night street-fights in Cardiff on consecutive weekends.

[Diable Rouge]

Lewis Hamilton is the current highest profile sufferer.

[Balderdasha]

Russia is the tenth country to exceed 40,000 deaths from Covid-19.

[Balderdasha]

The current UK death toll of 58,448 is now higher than the population of Littlehampton, West Sussex.

[Balderdasha]

Five countries have now had more than 5% of their population test positive for Covid-19: Andorra, Montenegro, Luxembourg, French Polynesia and Bahrain. Andorra is the outlier, with 8.7% of the population having tested positive. This is partly due to widespread testing, with more than two tests having been carried out per member of population.

[Balderdasha]

Pakistan has exceeded 400,000 cases and 8,000 deaths.

[Balderdasha]

Mongolia has only just exceeded 800 cases, how many cases China had at the start of this thread, and so far has not reported any deaths.