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Off Topic Thread 4.0

Zzippy

Thread continued from here

The usual rules apply. Non-rugby talk here. Consider this a social place, but like a pub, things like religion and politics can be divisive, so don't say things here you wouldn't say to someone's face in the pub. Sober

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pickarooney

Squidgy Black wrote: »

My aul lad decided about 5 years ago to do something similar with our small back garden, pave over the whole lot of it to save himself the hassle.

Except he decided to consult my ma, which lead to Indian sand stone being put down. Which turns out needs about as much maintenance as grass, because it stains and goes green if not thoroughly powerwashed weekly, and has to be resealed and grouted fairly regularly.

Green stone sounds like the perfect compromise

Podge_irl

Buer wrote: »

Some don ludicrous amounts of lycra, purchase a bike worth more than my car and go out for 50km bike rides irritating every driver for miles. Some hit the golf course.

50km is more of a warm up...

Rigor Mortis

Buer wrote: »

Some don ludicrous amounts of lycra, purchase a bike worth more than my car and go out for 50km bike rides irritating every driver for miles. Some hit the golf course.

Scuba is the way to go. Neoprene is even less flattering than lycra. We've seen less of the sea than the moon. The peace is like nothing you will ever experience.

Rigor Mortis

I know a few on here were talking about struggling a little in the last few weeks. The indo has a story about research carried out by a number of the universities which suggests that about a quarter of us are experiencing depression or depression like symptoms at the moment.

Panda Killa

Rigor Mortis wrote: »

I know a few on here were talking about struggling a little in the last few weeks. The indo has a story about research carried out by a number of the universities which suggests that about a quarter of us are experiencing depression or depression like symptoms at the moment.

I would say a quarter is a very conservative figure tbh

Buer

Honestly, we're lucky that the weather is incredibly good at the moment of that figure could be significantly higher.

swiwi_

Switzerland relaxing its restrictions as from 27th April

mfceiling

Buer wrote: »

Honestly, we're lucky that the weather is incredibly good at the moment of that figure could be significantly higher.

Genuinely believe the weather is taking the pìss now at this stage.

Bazzo

swiwi_ wrote: »

Switzerland relaxing its restrictions as from 27th April

Any details? Will everybody be going back to work or certain professions?

Squidgy Black

Bazzo wrote: »

Any details? Will everybody be going back to work or certain professions?

Think it's mostly just services like hairdressers and physio's for now, they've a '3 stage exit plan' which would be schools a few weeks after that, and then other retail businesses following it.

Germany seems to have the most aggressive plan in place for reopening retail and schools next month

Zzippy

Squidgy Black wrote: »

.

Germany seems to have the most aggressive plan in place for reopening retail and schools next month

Denmark reopened schools yesterday. Spain reopened construction and some manufacturing this week also.

swiwi_

Bazzo wrote: »

Any details? Will everybody be going back to work or certain professions?

In stages. Initially it’s hospitals back to normal, small entreprises like hairdressers etc. Schools 2 weeks after that. Everything else in June.

TBH hairdressers is a big relief.

Neil3030

I'm hearing noises CA will reopen schools in "the fall", summer classes in all Universities will be online. They're not looking to be out of this any time soon.

hahashake

hahashake wrote: »

On that note, the numbers in Belgium and the Netherlands are shocking per capita. I know it's not apples and apples but imagine their numbers with the population of the UK or USA. Easy to ignore with bigger total numbers coming out of Italy and Spain but cases and deaths per head of population are similar (more so for Belgium).

Following on from this, Belgium now has the 3rd highest deaths per capita, behind San Marino and Andorra (both sub 100k population).

I've seen numbers saying up to 50% of people are asymptomatic - with the bias towards testing those with symptoms, I'd imagine the number is much higher. Which has upsides and downsides, upside being perhaps many people are already unknowingly immune (at least to the current strain).

Neil3030

I'm still to be convinced that looking at either mortality or cases on a per-capita basis is particularly helpful.

Small, densely populated countries will always look terrible with this statistic, regardless of the quality of their testing / response.

Meanwhile large, loosely populated countries will always look great.

Would you rather be in Switzerland (148 deaths per 1m population) or the USA (101 deaths per 1m population) right now?

aloooof

hahashake wrote: »

Following on from this, Belgium now has the 3rd highest deaths per capita, behind San Marino and Andorra (both sub 100k population).

I've seen numbers saying up to 50% of people are asymptomatic - with the bias towards testing those with symptoms, I'd imagine the number is much higher. Which has upsides and downsides, upside being perhaps many people are already unknowingly immune (at least to the current strain).

There was a study in the Netherlands today where they tested blood donors for antibodies, which suggested 3% of the donors had them.

It's overly simplistic, but if 3% of the entire 17m population are immune, that would be ~500k people, in a country that is reporting 28k cases. That's really encouraging.

Bazzo

Neil3030 wrote: »

I'm still to be convinced that looking at either mortality or cases on a per-capita basis is particularly helpful.

Small, densely populated countries will always look terrible with this statistic, regardless of the quality of their testing / response.

Meanwhile large, loosely populated countries will always look great.

Would you rather be in Switzerland (148 deaths per 1m population) or the USA (101 deaths per 1m population) right now?

That's not necessarily true. Singapore & South Korea.

Neil3030

Bazzo wrote: »

That's not necessarily true. Singapore & South Korea.

True, but these countries have additional factors that are likely explaining way more variance in their data; the former is a benign dictatorship that sits on the equator (30C all year round), the latter has a single land border that nobody ever crosses and far more experience in responding to nearby outbreaks.

Like I said, I remain to be convinced that normalizing "per-capita" is helpful. WHO, JHU, CDC,.. none of them seem to focus on it too much.

swiwi_

Podge_irl

Neil3030 wrote: »

Would you rather be in Switzerland (148 deaths per 1m population) or the USA (101 deaths per 1m population) right now?

7 years down the road and I'm still not sure I want to be Switzerland

swiwi_

Podge_irl wrote: »

7 years down the road and I'm still not sure I want to be Switzerland

Yip you sound Swiss now alright, no decisive decisions, everything nice and down the middle of the road. Welcome to the club.

stephen_n

swiwi_ wrote: »

Looking at the CV figures, I’m not convinced Ireland is really doing any better than the UK TBH. Just saying.

The UK’s death toll is nearly two and a half times ours per capita. That’s not including their care home deaths. So I’m not sure why you think that?

swiwi_

stephen_n wrote: »

The UK’s death toll is nearly two and a half times ours per capita. That’s not including their care home deaths. So I’m not sure why you think that?

Cos I’m just lazy and looked at the graphs. Both countries just going up and up and up. TBH I’m sure Ireland IS doing better but maybe not significantly better.

I’m actually surprised how fast Switzerland’s graph is heading down given the situation in neighbouring Italy and France. One thing about the Swiss: if you put out a decree it’s by and large strictly followed by the populace, especially in the German part. Unlike the French who love a good bit of rebellion, strikes, general mayhem.

[Deleted User]

The WHO seem to be happier with the direction the outbreak is going in Europe but indicated they are still concerned about trends in the UK.

Our hospital admissions are starting to decline which I hope indicates we're at or just over the peak.

stephen_n

swiwi_ wrote: »

Cos I’m just lazy and looked at the graphs. Both countries just going up and up and up. TBH I’m sure Ireland IS doing better but maybe not significantly better.

I’m actually surprised how fast Switzerland’s graph is heading down given the situation in neighbouring Italy and France. One thing about the Swiss: if you put out a decree it’s by and large strictly followed by the populace, especially in the German part. Unlike the French who love a good bit of rebellion, strikes, general mayhem.

By the sounds of things, we messed up with the care homes. Not sure the UK has hit its peak yet or if their official figures are even remotely close to their real total. I’d say it will be long time after this is all over, before we get a proper picture of which countries handled it better.

prawnsambo

Deleted User wrote: »

The WHO seem to be happier with the direction the outbreak is going in Europe but indicated they are still concerned about trends in the UK.

Our hospital admissions are starting to decline which I hope indicates we're at or just over the peak.

At the time of the lockdown and for a week after, we were averaging bang on the 33% curve for new infections. Last weekend, we were averaging 25%. That's based on our first confirmed case being on March 1st.

Former Former

stephen_n wrote: »

The UK’s death toll is nearly two and a half times ours per capita. That’s not including their care home deaths. So I’m not sure why you think that?

Yeah, the UK is significantly underestimating their death toll. If we excluded our care homes, our deaths would fall by 30 or 40%.

I don't know if we're doing anything better than the UK, but we were certainly quicker to realize the gravity of the situation.

thomond2006

This Keelings story is a headscratcher.

Neil3030

Hospital admissions are also a not entirely clean stat of improvement.

Early on, hospitals would bring in anyone struggling to breath, and tube them up if they started showing low blood oxygen levels.

They soon realised this would clobber them in terms of available beds and ventilators.

So they've now started sending more and more people home with a pulse oximeter (really cheap little doodad you can clip on your finger), telling them to lie on their stomach and monitor their blood oxygen levels, and come back in if things get really bad.

This eased the pressure on hospital beds, but the tradeoff is that it is absolutely causing more people to die at home, which is not counted in the official data in many countries.

prawnsambo

Another way of looking at it is to extrapolate a 33% curve based on the first case being reported on the 1st March. By now, the total number of cases would be 66k. :eek: