Coronavirus

[Liberty]

Not supporting Putin's decision here, which s probably more driven by the propaganda value and his domestic political needs.

 

I do hope the planning for the next pandemic considers questions like the following. I certainly haven't seen them discussed anywhere.

 

If this virus had an IFR of 50% (Ebola like) with huge infectiousness, and you offered me a vaccine which had a 1% side-effect of death. I would be sorely tempted to take that "side-effect" risk as the lesser of two evils.

 

The current IFR is much lower, making that vaccine much less tempting. I would want way more safety and effectiveness, but not sure how much more. Surely not at the usual standards where things take 10 years. So how much less can one settle for as an individual or as a country?

 

We can come up with scenarios where it may make sense, but in the current real-world situation, the choice isn't between a phase 1 untested vaccine and no vaccine. It's to wait a little longer, and in the meantime, do the things that we know work to crush the number of infections and maintain it low, like most countries have done. That's the better path.

[Liberty]

 

Reported coronavirus deaths yesterday:

• France: 0

• United Kingdom: 0

• Canada: 4

• Germany: 6

• Italy: 6

• United States: 1,450

[StubbleJumper]

 

Reported coronavirus deaths yesterday:

• France: 0

• United Kingdom: 0

• Canada: 4

• Germany: 6

• Italy: 6

• United States: 1,450

 

 

Maybe you should strike France off your list of "good" countries (Spain too, for that matter).  Daily new cases in France have tripled over the past month, and over 2k per day were reported on each of the Aug 7, 8 and 9th. France has about 20% as many people as the US, so that would be roughly equivalent to the US reporting 10-12k new cases per day (better than the US, but still not good). 

 

I just cancelled a flight for tomorrow that I scheduled for a vacation in France that I had planned.  If France has one more doubling of new cases over the coming weeks, they'll be right back where they were in late-March and early-April.  I cannot accept the risk that border control measures and population movement controls would be re-imposed during my vacation.  It's fascinating how quickly they shifted from having everything reasonably under control in early-July to having the beginnings of a mess on their hands in mid-August.

 

 

SJ

[Liberty]

 

Reported coronavirus deaths yesterday:

• France: 0

• United Kingdom: 0

• Canada: 4

• Germany: 6

• Italy: 6

• United States: 1,450

 

 

Maybe you should strike France off your list of "good" countries (Spain too, for that matter).  Daily new cases in France have tripled over the past month, and over 2k per day were reported on each of the Aug 7, 8 and 9th. France has about 20% as many people as the US, so that would be roughly equivalent to the US reporting 10-12k new cases per day (better than the US, but still not good). 

 

I just cancelled a flight for tomorrow that I scheduled for a vacation in France that I had planned.  If France has one more doubling of new cases over the coming weeks, they'll be right back where they were in late-March and early-April.  I cannot accept the risk that border control measures and population movement controls would be re-imposed during my vacation.  It's fascinating how quickly they shifted from having everything reasonably under control in early-July to having the beginnings of a mess on their hands in mid-August.

 

 

SJ

 

I don't have a "good countries" list, and didn't say anything specific about France, I'm just reporting death figures. The rest, you read into it.

[StubbleJumper]

 

Reported coronavirus deaths yesterday:

• France: 0

• United Kingdom: 0

• Canada: 4

• Germany: 6

• Italy: 6

• United States: 1,450

 

 

Maybe you should strike France off your list of "good" countries (Spain too, for that matter).  Daily new cases in France have tripled over the past month, and over 2k per day were reported on each of the Aug 7, 8 and 9th. France has about 20% as many people as the US, so that would be roughly equivalent to the US reporting 10-12k new cases per day (better than the US, but still not good). 

 

I just cancelled a flight for tomorrow that I scheduled for a vacation in France that I had planned.  If France has one more doubling of new cases over the coming weeks, they'll be right back where they were in late-March and early-April.  I cannot accept the risk that border control measures and population movement controls would be re-imposed during my vacation.  It's fascinating how quickly they shifted from having everything reasonably under control in early-July to having the beginnings of a mess on their hands in mid-August.

 

 

SJ

 

I don't have a "good countries" list, and didn't say anything specific about France, I'm just reporting death figures. The rest, you read into it.

 

 

Yes, I must have read something into your post.  For some strange reason, I thought that you had assembled a list of "good" countries in an effort to contrast them with the "bad" country.  I guess your message was not clear to me, but you could always take this opportunity to articulate the insight that you had wished to share by portraying those specific countries.

 

 

SJ

[Spekulatius]

Many countries have flare ups in Europe. France, Spain, Germany and the UK have all flare ups, as has Israel. Israel got problems once they opened schools I think.

[Liberty]

Yes, I must have read something into your post.  For some strange reason, I thought that you had assembled a list of "good" countries in an effort to contrast them with the "bad" country.  I guess your message was not clear to me, but you could always take this opportunity to articulate the insight that you had wished to share by portraying those specific countries.

 

 

SJ

 

It's the almost-G7 countries. I didn't make the list. I think it shows a pretty stark difference in success in containing the epidemic, don't you? I think I saw that the US had more daily deaths right now than Germany had daily cases (Germany is smaller, but still has 80 million people).

 

You may not be able to vacation in France, but if I had a choice between vacationing in France or in Florida right now, I know where I'd go.

[Liberty]

The country recorded an average of 52,875 new cases every day over the last seven days, down 19% from 65,285 new cases per day on July 28.

 

However, Covid-19 testing has declined as well, falling from an average of about 814,000 tests per day two weeks ago to about 716,000, a 12% decline, over the same two-week period.

 

In Texas, new Covid-19 cases have fallen by 10% over the last two weeks, but testing is down by 53% over the same time.

 

"testing shortages in key states and other gaps in Covid-19 data call into question the accuracy of those numbers and whether the outbreak in the U.S. is really improving or whether cases are simply going undiagnosed, epidemiologists say."

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/08/12/accuracy-of-us-coronavirus-data-thrown-into-question-as-decline-in-testing-skews-drop-in-new-cases.html

 

This many months into it and still can't get testing together... Maybe a certain someone had his wish of "slow the testing down, please".

[StubbleJumper]

Yes, I must have read something into your post.  For some strange reason, I thought that you had assembled a list of "good" countries in an effort to contrast them with the "bad" country.  I guess your message was not clear to me, but you could always take this opportunity to articulate the insight that you had wished to share by portraying those specific countries.

 

 

SJ

 

It's the almost-G7 countries. I didn't make the list. I think it shows a pretty stark difference in success in containing the epidemic, don't you? I think I saw that the US had more daily deaths right now than Germany had daily cases (Germany is smaller, but still has 80 million people).

 

You may not be able to vacation in France, but if I had a choice between vacationing in France or in Florida right now, I know where I'd go.

 

 

Certainly there have been different approaches and different outcomes so far from one country to another.  Europe had an aggressive outbreak and then countries like Italy, France and Spain locked down for 9 or 10 weeks to get things under control.  Looking at the daily numbers, I question whether France and Spain won't be back in that exact situation by mid-September.  Italy's numbers are bit better, but they are trending up too.  So, will it be another 10 week lock-down from mid-September to mid-November across a large swath of Europe?  It does call into question the sustainability of some of the management strategies if it ultimately ends up being a situation where they lock down for 10 weeks, open up for 16 weeks and then lock down for another prolonged period.  If I had to guess, I'd say that we'll see a less agressive set of measures and a greater tolerance for the spread of the virus in Europe (time will tell). 

 

FWIW, my concern about vacationing in France is not about the risk of actually contracting covid.  The larger concern is the risk of travel restrictions being imposed by other countries (the UK has already put in place measures against travellers from Spain), and the risk that the French could once again impose restrictions on travelling within the country (during their lock-down, the French imposed the use of a sort of self-signed ausweis for their citizens when they needed to leave their home for any reason).  In short, there is a small-ish risk that it could become very difficult to find a flight home.  In contrast, I would have no such concerns about getting home from Florida, but the risk of catching covid is likely considerably higher.

 

 

SJ

[clutch]

Update on New Zealand:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/new-zealand-coronavirus-1.5684541

 

Personally, I found this situation absurd... Many experts are now saying the vaccine will not be the silver bullet and Fauci saying it might be only 50% effective. This means that even with the vaccine available, New Zealand would have to introduce level 3 lockdowns every time there are new cases... because there will be. Obviously at some point they will have to relax their draconian approach...

[Spekulatius]

Yes, I must have read something into your post.  For some strange reason, I thought that you had assembled a list of "good" countries in an effort to contrast them with the "bad" country.  I guess your message was not clear to me, but you could always take this opportunity to articulate the insight that you had wished to share by portraying those specific countries.

 

 

SJ

 

It's the almost-G7 countries. I didn't make the list. I think it shows a pretty stark difference in success in containing the epidemic, don't you? I think I saw that the US had more daily deaths right now than Germany had daily cases (Germany is smaller, but still has 80 million people).

 

You may not be able to vacation in France, but if I had a choice between vacationing in France or in Florida right now, I know where I'd go.

 

 

Certainly there have been different approaches and different outcomes so far from one country to another.  Europe had an aggressive outbreak and then countries like Italy, France and Spain locked down for 9 or 10 weeks to get things under control.  Looking at the daily numbers, I question whether France and Spain won't be back in that exact situation by mid-September.  Italy's numbers are bit better, but they are trending up too.  So, will it be another 10 week lock-down from mid-September to mid-November across a large swath of Europe?  It does call into question the sustainability of some of the management strategies if it ultimately ends up being a situation where they lock down for 10 weeks, open up for 16 weeks and then lock down for another prolonged period.  If I had to guess, I'd say that we'll see a less agressive set of measures and a greater tolerance for the spread of the virus in Europe (time will tell). 

 

FWIW, my concern about vacationing in France is not about the risk of actually contracting covid.  The larger concern is the risk of travel restrictions being imposed by other countries (the UK has already put in place measures against travellers from Spain), and the risk that the French could once again impose restrictions on travelling within the country (during their lock-down, the French imposed the use of a sort of self-signed ausweis for their citizens when they needed to leave their home for any reason).  In short, there is a small-ish risk that it could become very difficult to find a flight home.  In contrast, I would have no such concerns about getting home from Florida, but the risk of catching covid is likely considerably higher.

 

 

SJ

 

I definitely wouldn’t travel to Europe right now. I do agree there is a risk of getting stranded or in a lockdown situation. Most of the lockdowns in Europe now are local. Germany has a protocol where this goes county by county based on local infection rates based on a 7 day average, for example.

 

I also think that if you fly in from the US, you need to quarantine for 2 weeks anyways.

 

It is actually similar in the US in some states (VT, Maine) where you need to quarantine based on the local infection rate in your county. Coming from FLA would certainly have to. Whether they enforce it is a different question.

 

With my wife being a nurse, ignoring these regulations is not an option.

[Liberty]

 

***HALF*** of all virus transmission occur before onset of symptoms!

 

Rightwards arrow This is the main reason for masks. Even if you’re healthy, you could be spreading the virus! #COVID19

 

 

 

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.09.20171132v1

 

Also:

[gary17]

It is interesting Sweden's curve is flattening without doing much in terms of aggressive measures like other places.

[StubbleJumper]

It is interesting Sweden's curve is flattening without doing much in terms of aggressive measures like other places.

 

 

Yes, on the subject of Sweden here's an article published yesterday:

 

https://fee.org/articles/bbc-sweden-s-economy-is-doing-way-better-than-the-rest-of-the-eu-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020_FEEDaily

 

 

SJ

[rb]

It is interesting Sweden's curve is flattening without doing much in terms of aggressive measures like other places.

 

 

Yes, on the subject of Sweden here's an article published yesterday:

 

https://fee.org/articles/bbc-sweden-s-economy-is-doing-way-better-than-the-rest-of-the-eu-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020_FEEDaily

 

 

SJ

That's really more of a blog post. And a pretty dishonest one at that.

[StubbleJumper]

It is interesting Sweden's curve is flattening without doing much in terms of aggressive measures like other places.

 

 

Yes, on the subject of Sweden here's an article published yesterday:

 

https://fee.org/articles/bbc-sweden-s-economy-is-doing-way-better-than-the-rest-of-the-eu-during-the-covid-19-pandemic/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2020_FEEDaily

 

 

SJ

That's really more of a blog post. And a pretty dishonest one at that.

 

 

I didn't see any dishonesty about the facts.  What I did see was a focus on the economic side and a glossing over of the number of fatalities, which does constitute an incomplete portrayal of the interim outcomes of the Swedish strategy.  But, incomplete portrayals of the situation in Sweden are not particularly new because most articles that I've seen so far have focused almost entirely on comparing Sweden's fatalities to a selected group of its neighbouring countries, without giving much coverage to the socio-economic benefits of their approach.

 

It will probably be a few more years before it will be possible to provide a fulsome assessments of costs and benefits of the various strategies that countries have adopted.

 

 

SJ

[muscleman]

It is interesting Sweden's curve is flattening without doing much in terms of aggressive measures like other places.

 

Sweden vs rest of the world = Student A who studies one hour per day getting a B in the final exam and student B who studies 14 hours per day getting a B+

 

Joking aside...... Sweden's chart shows that herd immunity is likely achieved. Part of the reason I think NY, NJ, FL, TX, GA have achieved herd immunity as well.

GA's school reopening is the key test bed and if the new daily charts continue to trend down by the end of August, that validates my thesis.

Of course the Trump haters will not agree and want this to drag down the economy as much as possible. NY and NJ will face tremendous pressure to reopen.

 

[Liberty]

You'd think that one obvious thing in a pandemic is to allow voting by mail, as has been done in all past elections, and has been the norm for military voters forever.. But this:

 

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7wk9z/the-post-office-is-deactivating-mail-sorting-machines-ahead-of-the-election

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-admits-he-wants-block-usps-funding-sabotage-mail-voting-2020-8

[John Hjorth]

You'd think that one obvious thing in a pandemic is to allow voting by mail, as has been done in all past elections, and has been the norm for military voters forever.. But this:

 

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7wk9z/the-post-office-is-deactivating-mail-sorting-machines-ahead-of-the-election

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-admits-he-wants-block-usps-funding-sabotage-mail-voting-2020-8

 

Liberty's post triggers me to ask a question: Doesn't a digital public ID exist for US citizens?

[muscleman]

You'd think that one obvious thing in a pandemic is to allow voting by mail, as has been done in all past elections, and has been the norm for military voters forever.. But this:

 

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/n7wk9z/the-post-office-is-deactivating-mail-sorting-machines-ahead-of-the-election

 

https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-admits-he-wants-block-usps-funding-sabotage-mail-voting-2020-8

 

Liberty's post triggers me to ask a question: Doesn't a digital public ID exist for US citizens?

 

it doesn’t because requesting a public ID is discrimination. Can’t the government pay for the cost of the ID and then make the law that Id is required for voting?

[Liberty]

Basic stuff doesn't exist in the US, if they really wanted to improve democracy. Like, election day should be a national holiday. Otherwise, it's a lot harder for poor people who have to work than for wealthy people with more job security and flexible vacation time/etc.

 

Don't get me started on gerrymandering..

 

But anyway, the mail-in stuff was directly related to COVID. The rest is less on-topic, though just as important.

[StubbleJumper]

Basic stuff doesn't exist in the US, if they really wanted to improve democracy. Like, election day should be a national holiday. Otherwise, it's a lot harder for poor people who have to work than for wealthy people with more job security and flexible vacation time/etc.

 

Don't get me started on gerrymandering..

 

But anyway, the mail-in stuff was directly related to COVID. The rest is less on-topic, though just as important.

 

 

Jesus Christ, making election day a national holiday would be a disaster.  There is a reason why Canada used to close the beer parlours on election days, and that was to encourage the working class to actually get out and vote.  Just ensure that people have 4 consecutive hours available to vote during the polling hours, just like what we do in Canada.  Those who are interested will come out to vote, and you can't do much about those who are not interested.

 

 

SJ

[muscleman]

Basic stuff doesn't exist in the US, if they really wanted to improve democracy. Like, election day should be a national holiday. Otherwise, it's a lot harder for poor people who have to work than for wealthy people with more job security and flexible vacation time/etc.

 

Don't get me started on gerrymandering..

 

But anyway, the mail-in stuff was directly related to COVID. The rest is less on-topic, though just as important.

 

Not sure which state you are in. But in WA, there is a legal requirement that employers have to give 3 paid hours on the election day, which should be fair.

 

[clutch]

Basic stuff doesn't exist in the US, if they really wanted to improve democracy. Like, election day should be a national holiday. Otherwise, it's a lot harder for poor people who have to work than for wealthy people with more job security and flexible vacation time/etc.

 

Don't get me started on gerrymandering..

 

But anyway, the mail-in stuff was directly related to COVID. The rest is less on-topic, though just as important.

 

Curious -- are you American?

[RichardGibbons]

GA's school reopening is the key test bed and if the new daily charts continue to trend down by the end of August, that validates my thesis.

 

Maybe, or maybe not. The president is basically saying, "Hey, do less testing" and there is less testing.

 

So, are tests declining because there is less demand for tests because of fewer symptomatic people? Or are tests declining because lives don't matter and it's politically convenient for the number of tests to decline? I'm not sure what the answer is, or if it's even possible to determine the answer.  (e.g. I think it would be hard to detect a bunch of "patriotic" Trump-supporting doctors to stop ordering tests.)