CoVid19 Part XII - 4,604 in ROI (137 deaths) 998 in NI (56 deaths)(04/04) **Read OP**

Tacitus Kilgore wrote: »

Ishgl ski resort was riddled with it, and not acted on fast enough according to some media accounts.

Indeed.
How an Austrian ski paradise became a COVID-19 hotspot:

"On the evening of 7 March, a 36-year-old German was tested positive. He worked as a bartender in a popular après-ski bar, packed with tourists from all over the world every evening"
"15 people from the barkeeper’s circle tested positive"
https://www.euractiv.com/section/cor...orona-hotspot/

tobefrank321 wrote:

But as great as he is, he's not going to crack the vaccine problem any quicker than anyone else.

But you didn't even read what he said before you commented on it.

otnomart wrote: »

Indeed.
How an Austrian ski paradise became a COVID-19 hotspot:

"On the evening of 7 March, a 36-year-old German was tested positive. He worked as a bartender in a popular après-ski bar, packed with tourists from all over the world every evening"
"15 people from the barkeeper’s circle tested positive"
https://www.euractiv.com/section/cor...orona-hotspot/

Also the origin of the first confirmed UK outbreak I believe and a couple of Scandinavian countries who told Austria they might have a problem.

I think they played a game at that resort where they passed marshmellows around using their mouths. Idiots.

Covid 19 has been circulating undetected globally since at least January.

https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1245856634615631872

EDIT: Tweet has now been deleted. It seems that Brazil corrected the initial information, and the case in question died in March, not January.

Concerning a vaccine there are 2 candidates already in Phase 1 clinical trials. The European medicines agency released a press release on Tuesday stating that it will be at least a year before a vaccine is approved and on the market. They also rightly highlighted that getting a vaccine approved is only half of the problem, the other aspect is having enough supply available to meet the considerable demand from all EU countries (and I dare say the US market as well with other rest of world markets to follow).

In my opinion it is most likely that a treatment of symptoms will be available before any vaccine - that is a treatment for COVID-19 patients, for example remdesivir if it works. It is already in Phase 3 and clinical trials should be complete soon as it is only being used for 5 or 10 day dosing regimens.

The only way to move forward is slowly, with travel and work being directed by antibody testing, otherwise without a vaccine in the near future there will likely be a relapse as alluded to by the WHO already.

snoopboggybog wrote: »

USA 0.073% of the population have contacted Coronavirus.
Spain 0.25% of the population have contacted Coronavirus
Ireland 0.08% of the population have contacted Coronavirus.

Now you can't really go by these number due to the countries level of testing etc. It will take at least another month to have a clearer picture of everything.

Ficheall wrote: »

Level of deaths per capita is perhaps a little more reliable, but we're doing worse than the US there too. Better than only 16 countries on that score, actually. And four of those countries have populations of under 50k, and one of 77k.


Hopefully the effect of the lockdown measures will start becoming evident in the death rate next week..

ceadaoin. wrote: »

The US has 7 times the population of Spain. It's hardly shocking. How do the deaths per million compare?

Per million numbers aren't really a valid comparison when we're all still at the beginning of the curve.

If infection doubles every 2.3 days (to make the numbers easy) then after 2.3 days 2 people are infected, after 4.6 days 4 people are infected, after a week 8 people are infected, after two weeks 64 people are infected, after three weeks 512 people are infected, after four weeks 4016 people are infected, etc....

Until the virus starts to run out of new hosts it doesn't matter whether the population is 5 million or 50 million, mitigating circumstances aside, it will follow the same growth pattern.

Population size is relevant to how long it takes for the virus to start running out of new hosts to infect, the final number of people infected and the potential peak infection + hospitalisation rates. All are potentially worse for a larger population.

When the pandemic is over % or per million population comparisons can be used to compare how different regions / countries have been affected and how well they have managed the pandemic.

Medical resources tend to scale linearly with population. With a geometric or exponential growth rate for CoViD-19, the larger the population the larger the potential gap between medical resources and the number of infected people needing hospitalisation or ICU care.

I'm more comfortable to be living in a relatively small, well resourced country that introduced progressive containment / distancing / isolation policies reasonably quickly and as a result has deaths in the low to mid teens a day rather than over 1000 a day.

EDit wrote: »

That’s the death rate with most people in the country shut up in their homes. If we just carried on as normal, the death count would be considerably higher

The people dying obviously contracted it before they were shut into their homes

FVP3 wrote: »

Not in terms of percentages, though. You are ignoring a few things:

1) Herd immunity can build up easier amongst the younger populations which will stop the spread even without intervention.
2) The disasters in Europe were due to the health system collapsing because of the strain of not having enough ICUs. Where the population is younger there is a built in "curve flattening mechanism"
3) Once a developed country has run out of ICUs it is in the same position as a developing country that had few to begin with.

In other words the developed world isn't really that ahead of the game this time.

Developing countries could get away with restricting their old people.

Herd immunity does not work in containing the pandemic until it reaches at least 60% of the population.

No one knows how long it will take to get 60% 'Herd Immunity'.

Months ? Years ?

Rob A. Bank wrote: »

It's a very small jump from using this data derived from Google maps, to use it for tracing cases and contacts.

That is essentially what South Korea have done and they have been successful in containing the pandemic.

Which is more important, privacy or public health and more deaths?

What 'right' to privacy exists once your outside your own property, you are by definition in public.

When one uses social media in any form, part of the contract you always have to agree to includes a clause allowing all your information to be divulged to comply with a legal request from the authorities.

Rob A. Bank wrote: »

Herd immunity does not work in containing the pandemic until it reaches at least 60% of the population.

No one knows how long it will take to get 60% 'Herd Immunity'.

Months ? Years ?

Maybe I'm wrong, but surely even if 20% of the population has immunity it would mean the virus spread would be slower which would reduce pressure on the hospitals?

bilston wrote: »

Maybe I'm wrong, but surely even if 20% of the population has immunity it would mean the virus spread would be slower which would reduce pressure on the hospitals?

Yes, if only a small percentage of that 20% are contagious.
It works the other way if a large percentage are still contagious, there are potentially a lot more opportunities to pass on the virus.