Coronavirus outbreak

[roubaixtuesday]

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Does anyone know what happened on 14 March in Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and Estona? @steveindenmark? @roubaixtuesday? Anyone else?

I ask because when clicking around on https://www.datacat.cc/covid/ I found that those five nations were following a similar trajectory of number of cases to the Italy/France curve (doubles every three days) up to that date, then all of them seem to change to a slightly lower trajectory on that date. Germany did not change course, nor did Italy or France. Spain does worse throughout.

View attachment 512417

I've not shown the UK or the other Baltic-bordering countries on that plot because we were earlier in our outbreaks than the threshold I've used.

Could it be significant or am I finding patterns emerging from random noise by looking too hard?

I wouldn't read anything too much into case numbers, depends on testing strategy and availability.

Just personal views, I'm no expert.

 

[mjr]

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I wouldn't read anything too much into case numbers, depends on testing strategy and availability.

Just personal views, I'm no expert.

When I'm back at a big screen, I'll check deaths but I think it was similar but for fewer countries because some hadn't had enough deaths to show a change on a graph around that date.

 

[RecordAceFromNew]

How many CV19 deaths are of people who sadly would have died anyway. Could well be many are terminally unwell and that was put down of the cause of death.

It is a good question. It is impossible for an exact answer to be given, but you will find an assessment here.

One thing that worries me, is how quick the daily fatality rate can fall if and when it reaches the peak. For China, the number who died after fatalities per day peaked was roughly the same as before. My concern, is since we are talking about relaxing restrictions already, and our lockdown is nothing as stringent as China's, both of which will likely cause the tail of our (and certainly USA's) curve as shown below ending up being longer, and falling off slower, which mean increased death toll.

Notes:

1. In case it is difficult to understand, the area under each curve represents the total number who died, although it is important to remember the curves are plotted on a log, not linear, scale, so area assessment must also be considered likewise.

2. The figures used for plotting the above are from 7 day rolling averages, which I think means the curves are smoothed with a lag of 3 days (hence you won't see the US figure exceeding 1000, although it has done so already). The reason why it is necessary to use rolling averages is because otherwise the curves would look very jagged, as demonstrated here.

3. With the health warning that it is based purely on the respective trajectories of the curves, because UK's is both higher and rising steeper, our final death toll is likely to be higher than Italy's.

 

[pawl]

Just a thought, how about next Thursday at 8pm we all step out of our doorways to boo our disapproval of this government's non handling of the situation and its decade of attack on the NHS and other public services.

Let's get this idea some traction and put the focus back where it should be.

Back in 1981 I was a student nurse working on a surgical ward I came on duty at 2 pmThe ward sister and my self worked til10 pm as no cover was available Under staffing has always been a problem.We were flat out for the whole shift

In am not trying to compare the current situation with back then I for one will not consider standing on the door step booing But will be clapping my old colleagues and every body else that is going above the call of duty.

 

[Julia9054]

Youngest son - final year music student - has just got a job as a hospital porter at the new coronavirus Nightingale hospital in Harrogate. Starts Monday. Scary times.

 

[Pale Rider]

Just a thought, how about next Thursday at 8pm we all step out of our doorways to boo our disapproval of this government's non handling of the situation and its decade of attack on the NHS and other public services.

Let's get this idea some traction and put the focus back where it should be.

Aye, nothing like a few thousand deaths to score cheap political points.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Youngest son - final year music student - has just got a job as a hospital porter at the new coronavirus Nightingale hospital in Harrogate. Starts Monday. Scary times.

Same name as London one? Would have thought it’d have a different name to avoid confusion.

 

[Julia9054]

Same name as London one? Would have thought it’d have a different name to avoid confusion.

Dunno about that there London. They have converted the Harrogate conference centre.

 

[Salty seadog]

Aye, nothing like a few thousand deaths to score cheap political points.

Just maybe it's about sending a message of disappointment and disapproval. As another member pointed out maybe better done on a different day to seperate the messages.

Get real, this lots response is a disgrace.
We have had a good few weeks advance to sort out our response and what have we got.

Like to hear your thoughts @Pale Rider.

 

[Rusty Nails]

Same name as London one? Would have thought it’d have a different name to avoid confusion.

I doubt the ambulance drivers, patients or nurses will get confused between Harrogate and London.

Many hospitals currently have the same name

 

[mjr]

They're only calling them Nightingale Hospitals to stop UK broadcasters calling them field hospitals like the foreign broadcasters do.

 

[Pale Rider]

Just maybe it's about sending a message of disappointment and disapproval. As another member pointed out maybe better done on a different day to seperate the messages.

Get real, this lots response is a disgrace.
We have had a good few weeks advance to sort out our response and what have we got.

Like to hear your thoughts @Pale Rider.

Presumably, by attack on the NHS you mean more money should have been spent on it during the last 10 years.

Had that been done it would have been of very little benefit in treating Corona because it would have, quite properly, been spent on patient care at the time.

It's impossible to prepare in any detail for an extraordinary event.

If, after Corona, we make sure we have plenty of ventilators to hand, it's guaranteed the next emergency won't need them, but some other gadget.

Having kept public spending under control does at least mean we can raise the money to pay for Corona measures.

As regards the response, I doubt any other politician else could do any better.

Boris and Hancock are figureheads to a degree, articulating the views of the scientists.

The response largely comes down to their expertise, which most people rate highly.

Hindsight tells us some measures could have been taken earlier, but I haven't seen a coherent argument against the measures themselves.

 

[Wobblers]

Dead right ….opps it is the last known cause that killed you, dying of cancer – car accident = accidental death.
These high figures “could” be a lot lower.

It just beggars belief that, even with the ghastly news coming in every day from Italy and Spain, and over own rapidly escalating deaths, many of whom are in their 60s, 50s, 40s - or even younger! - that we still people trying to pretend that CV-19 is a non-issue. Do you really think that those two nurses who died in their 30s were already at death's door?

I believe that you suffer from emphysema, yes? That puts you in one of the highest risk categories, unfortunately. Do you understand that this lockdown is specifically aimed at reducing the risk of people in vulnerable categories such as yourself of getting this disease?

 

[Ming the Merciless]

While older people are more likely to die if they contract coronavirus, evidence continues to show that younger people are also being severely impacted.

Dr David Hepburn, ICU consultant at Newport’s Royal Gwent hospital in south Wales, has said all the patients there are under-50.

Speaking to Channel 4 News, he said:

The pattern of illness that we’ve seen in Gwent, and I can’t speak for anywhere else, is much younger patients than we were expecting. When the reports started coming out of Wuhan, we were led to believe that this was something that was particularly dangerous for the more elderly patients but I would say all the patients we’ve got an intensive care are in their 50s or younger at the moment.
Our youngest patient is in her early 20s. And there are, you know, there are patients who are very well, you know, a chap who’s a fitness professional but you know there are a lot of patients who are not, do not have any pre-existing medical conditions. They’re not diabetic or anything like that.
We’ve got 16 ventilated patients in the intensive care unit at the minute, which has led us to completely run out of space. So we’ve taken over theatre recovery, and we’ve got a further eight there. I think by the end of today, we will fill recovery. So that’ll bring us up to 25 patients.
And then we have another area prepared, which is the old high dependency unit and coronary care that we’ve taken over as well. We can fit a further 22 patients in that area. The way things are going at the minute, the rate of growth and the amount of admissions that we’re seeing, I would say we will fill that by the end of the week, probably.

 

[Wobblers]

Presumably, by attack on the NHS you mean more money should have been spent on it during the last 10 years.

Had that been done it would have been of very little benefit in treating Corona because it would have, quite properly, been spent on patient care at the time.

It's impossible to prepare in any detail for an extraordinary event.

If, after Corona, we make sure we have plenty of ventilators to hand, it's guaranteed the next emergency won't need them, but some other gadget.

Having kept public spending under control does at least mean we can raise the money to pay for Corona measures.

As regards the response, I doubt any other politician else could do any better.

Boris and Hancock are figureheads to a degree, articulating the views of the scientists.

The response largely comes down to their expertise, which most people rate highly.

Hindsight tells us some measures could have been taken earlier, but I haven't seen a coherent argument against the measures themselves.

The shortage in respirators we're experiencing was predicted in the aftermath of an exercise simulating a flu epidemic (which had characteristics rather similar to CV-19) back in 2016. Nothing was done to address this rather critical failing. Johnson has been in government for most of that time, so he certainly does not get a free pass.

The utter debacle over testing in this country mirrors the chaos in the Johnson government. The ability to rapidly test large numbers of people is absolutely crucial in containing this outbreak (which is why myself, RecordAceFromNew and marinyork have banged on about it at such lengths). Without testing, we cannot get those infected into quarantine, nor track, test and quarantine those they've been in contact with. Not merely does this mean that this economically destructive lockdown will have to continue much longer than it would otherwise, but once restrictions are relaxed, it will most likely be followed by a resurgence in infections. The blame for this lies squarely with Johnson and Hancock.

We will all suffer the consequences of the failure of the Johnson government to get to grips with this epidemic for many years to come. Well, apart from those who sadly die.

(Edited to add link)