Covid 19 CRISIS

How do you end the pandemic? Yell at the virus!

 
Missouri is still only shelter-in-place in certain cities and counties. But it seems to be slowing the spread.

Today's numbers: 903 cases (+65) / 12 deaths (+2)

Unless some serious actions were put in place some two weeks ago to stop the spread, there is absolutely no possibility that the virus is slowing down that fast. The 100 case difference is probably due to how many tests are done, how the cases are calculated, how they are found or any other natural variability.

The most probable are many tests were done in the first days and had a surplus of positive cases because none had been found earlier (positive scenario) or not enough tests have been done yesterday so the number does not reflect reality (negative case).

Either way, the numbers rarely change much in a single day.
 
Can you please keep your "who is to blame" (China!)/"who will save us" (the free market!) grandstanding to the political section @LeVeL ?
When someone makes a post seemingly suggesting that China has been nothing but honest and noble in this, I'm going to respond. Likewise when someone (same person actually) makes a post about "bad" companies, I'm going to balance it by posting about "good" companies. Why? Because a) apparently we need a reminder that we can't trust the Chinese govt, and b) because the companies that are genuinely helping out in these dark times should be recognized.
 
1) China has not been honest, in the least. They have made errors upon errors and probably kept both the numbers of infected people and the number of deats lower than they really are.

HOWEVER, China's situation was as clear as day when they imposed the Wuhan quarantine, on January 23rd. That was when it was CLEAR that sh*t was hitting the fan, and everyone else should have prepared accordingly.

Unfortunately, almost none did it, becasue they were afraid of losing their economy, an economy COMPLETELY UNPREPARED for such a situation. They all kept clinging to a sunk cost, and now we are all paying much more than needed.

2) Yes, companies ARE ALSO bad, in this. This pandemic has shown the MASSIVE shortcomings of the current (probably past, at this point) world economic and social systems, by hitting its weakest parts. The companies who are helping now (many of them genuinely) are the same companies that helped the situation get to this point of unpreparedness, so they are not going out of their way: this is part of the Enterprise Risk. You are not going to get filthy rich without risking anything, are you?

Many countries made similar mistakes:

a)Worshipping money and the rich
b)Maximizing short-term profit and reducing the resilience of the system to unexpected problems
c)Thinking that, somehow, everything could be solved through money
d)Losing sight of all real values that were not "wealth" and giving power to incompetent, unprepared, short-sighted people
e)favouring short-sighted, selfish, avid mindsets in people

But I think Oliver said it better, and although he is speaking of the US, most of what is said can be applied to anyone) (if you don't want to watch it full, which I recommend nonetheless, start at 17:15)


As this seemed to granting wealth and more wealth, now its shortcomings are hurting everyone.

3)Other countries

China was by no mean good or honest, but it's not like everyone else is saint.
Most countries are downplaying their deaths (Germany, France, Iran?) or their active cases (China, Russia, UK, Iran?), or both.
Many countries don't have many cases simply because they aren't testing people.

Link (in spanish) (nobody is counting deaths in the same way, and nobody is doing correctly)

4)The situation in Italy

Italy is counting the deaths more or less correctly OUTSIDE LOMBARDY. Lombardy's healthcare system is overwhelmed: people there, in the epicenter of the outbreak, often dies in their homes because the beds in the hospitals are only for the really really severe cases, so many severe but not life-threatening (still) cases are left home, and when their condition worsen, there aren't enough resources to get them to hospital. This is particularly true with older people. Also, people not getting hospitalized in Lombardy are not tested, so those deaths are not counted towards Covid-19 figures.

Link (in italian) (the number of dead people for Covid-19 in Lombardy are not reliable)

Lombardy is the stronghold of the right-wing parties, is the richest region in Italy, it has had a right-wing Governor in the last 20 years and is the most capitalistic one. In Italy, most of the healthcare system is competence of the Regional authorities. Yet, failure after failure after failure, mostly due to the fear of the economic damages, have led the region to shut down late, to count the cases incorrectly, to fall down the mess it is in now. In their favour, we must not forget they were the first ones to face the flying sh*t (unlike other Presidents in the Western World...).

Outside Lombardy, the healthcare system is able to provide treatment, even if only the seriously symptomatic ones are tested and treated. This means, many cases go unreported.

Disregarding the official figures, and given the number of deaths (40% of the total is outside Lombardy, 4000), and using a standard 2% as the death rate where the healthcare system function properly, Italy (except Lombardy) has something like 200.000 cases, half of them between the four regions bordering Lombardy (Emilia Romagna, Piemonte, Veneto, Trentino-Alto Adige).

Lombardy, alone, counted 6.500 deaths, which could indicate anything between 100.000 and 300.000 cases.

This means that Italy has between 300.000 and 600.000 cases.

Link (in italian) (The real number of infected people could be ten times as bigger than what we see - Borrelli is Head of the Protezione Civile, the Authority tasked of coordinating the fight against the virus)

5) Ok, now take the italian data and project them to the specific reality of your own country. Some of them will have data that approaches reality, some clearly won't.

Apart from the known countries who lie and whose figures are very hard to know, how many cases are detected/unreported depend on the testing and counting protocols and capabilities in each country.
 
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At the risk of being political it seems Dominic Cummings has tested positive and is self isolating.

I wish him a speedy and swift recovery.

Wait I got that wrong. Slow, lingering and painful death is what I meant to say.
 
Sad thing is that BoZo's pet weasel will probably shrug it off while thousands of others suffer as a result of his actions and ineptitude.
 
Sad thing is that BoZo's pet weasel will probably shrug it off while thousands of others suffer as a result of his actions and ineptitude.
Suffer and die, in many more cases than was going to be inevitable. Let’s hope for the best.
 
@SirEdward in which way do you think Germany are "downplaying" the mortality rate? From where I sit I can see little number fudging going on.
 
I don't imagine we will ever see the true numbers from China. And while I don't want to sound like an echo of Trump, if they have downplayed the numbers to the extent many believe, they are hugely culpable in lulling leaders across the world into believing this thing is less virulent and far more easily managed than is actually the case.
 
@SirEdward in which way do you think Germany are "downplaying" the mortality rate? From where I sit I can see little number fudging going on.

It seems Germany is testing enough people, so we might assume the numbers to be low. How low, though?

Japan and South Korea have both shown the deaths being somewhere over 1%: Japan is at 1,4%, South Korea, which is much more interesting in this regard, as they have tested almost all cases, is at 1,6%. The Diamond Princess has shown 1,4%, AND it was on a healthier group of people than the standard population (although they were mostly elderly people).

Germany declares 0,86%.

It is highly suspicious. It does not mean they have cheated, but it probably means that a part of the first deaths, those who were there before the country erupted in new cases and the number of infected was doubling every two days (which ended around 15 days ago), haven't been reported correctly.

I don't imagine we will ever see the true numbers from China. And while I don't want to sound like an echo of Trump, if they have downplayed the numbers to the extent many believe, they are hugely culpable in lulling leaders across the world into believing this thing is less virulent and far more easily managed than is actually the case.

Trump is continuously playing this card becaue he knows it is (at least partly) true.
 
Trump is also culpable because of his overall response to the crisis domestically but also in continually goading and antagonising the Chinese Govt in the months if not years prior to this outbreak.

We basically have a Second Cold War going on right now but instead of it being military/nuclear with the USSR it's economic/political with China.
 
It seems Germany is testing enough people, so we might assume the numbers to be low. How low, though?

Japan and South Korea have both shown the deaths being somewhere over 1%: Japan is at 1,4%, South Korea, which is much more interesting in this regard, as they have tested almost all cases, is at 1,6%. The Diamond Princess has shown 1,4%, AND it was on a healthier group of people than the standard population (although they were mostly elderly people).

Germany declares 0,86%.

It is highly suspicious. It does not mean they have cheated, but it probably means that a part of the first deaths, those who were there before the country erupted in new cases and the number of infected was doubling every two days (which ended around 15 days ago), haven't been reported correctly.
The official answer from our senior medics is that due to the facts that we are relatively early in the pandemic and that most early infections were among younger people (due to the two main early routes of infections being business travel to China and skiing holidays in South Tyrol), we are seeing a statistic anomaly in the low mortality rate. They fear we will "catch up" to South Korea and the like within weeks, if not days. If we do not flatten the curve quick enough, we might see ICUs overwhelmed and move closer to Italy or Spain, even. And 17 people dying of Coronavirus in a single retirement home yesterday seems to prove them right.
 
I am sure people will say I have double-standards and am making this political, but studies with these drugs have been inconclusive at best, this is purely due to twitter pressure from Trump and Elon Musk.

A former French health minister a few days ago advocated that French doctors should be allowed to use it in combination with an antibiotic.

Morocco also advocating for it.

Supplies of the drug are now scarce.
 
If we do not flatten the curve quick enough, we might see ICUs overwhelmed and move closer to Italy or Spain, even.
It is possible (I can't say how probable), but I really hope not.
 
Medtronic Shares Ventilation Design Specifications to Accelerate Efforts to Increase Global Ventilator Production

Medtronic plc (NYSE:MDT), the global leader in medical technology, today announced it is publicly sharing the design specifications for the Puritan Bennett™ 560 (PB 560) to enable participants across industries to evaluate options for rapid ventilator manufacturing to help doctors and patients dealing with COVID-19.
http://newsroom.medtronic.com/news-...esign-specifications-accelerate?sf120003550=1

http://www.medtronic.com/openventilator
 
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