Coronavirus outbreak

[mjr]

If they are using BT then some phones have a larger BT range than others - will therefore get more alerts than others
.*BT = Bluetooth

Does Bluetooth being discoverable still drastically shorten the battery life on phones?

Similarly, if an app uses wifi as part of its location-identifying, range variation will bring challenges: I've had phones that were fine as far as the main road, whereas others barely stay connected throughout the house.

 

[tom73]

One area of the daily briefing positive test figure chart that no one really want's to talk about or ask a question on.
The blue bars maybe failing but the orange bit (health care workers and families) is going up. Which is starting to be a concerning pattern.

 

[kingrollo]

Does Bluetooth being discoverable still drastically shorten the battery life on phones?

Similarly, if an app uses wifi as part of its location-identifying, range variation will bring challenges: I've had phones that were fine as far as the main road, whereas others barely stay connected throughout the house.

The app is just a feelgood factor.

"Boss I'm not coming in today someone who walked passed me yesterday has gone down with a cold "

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Does Bluetooth being discoverable still drastically shorten the battery life on phones?

Similarly, if an app uses wifi as part of its location-identifying, range variation will bring challenges: I've had phones that were fine as far as the main road, whereas others barely stay connected throughout the house.

Bluetooth has minimal impact on battery life. You’ll barely notice. The app won’t be using location. It will just check for other devices (running the app) within range. Any that are in range for more than 15 mins will be tagged in case the owner later comes up as infected.

 

[PK99]

New Zealand, by contrast, has been highly effective and has a prepared level of alerts which can be expected to be stepped through.

https://covid19.govt.nz/alert-system/covid-19-alert-system/

New Zealand and New Zealanders are well versed in the concept of Bio-Security - protection of The NZ habitat and Farming industry by stringent border checks backed by swingeing fines for even minor accidental breaches at borders is high on their collective agenda. It is not surprising they were able to get their Covid-19 act together very quickly and effectively.

Early on there were reports of a Backpacker (IIIRC a 20ish Asain lady) arriving and being visited at her hostel the day after her arrival, by the immigration/health authority to check on her 2-week isolation plans, she had non and did not plan to. She was put on the next plane out of New Zealand

 

[PK99]

I still don't get how they calculate R0 from hospital deaths - without contact tracing....

By plugging the number series they have into Pandemic Mathematical models.

Here is a basic Primer:

https://theconversation.com/how-to-model-a-pandemic-134187

 

[marinyork]

More than a bit of evidence! And I'm sorry but it probably could be far worse than a third...

One of the reasons why Belgium's death rate looks so much worse than its neighbours on comparison sites is that the response there is led by seconded experts like Drs Emmanuel André and Marc Van Ranst - not politicians directly like here - and they have been including care home cases and deaths in the toll ASAP, much faster than the UK's week-plus lag. A few days ago, it was reported that over 60% of cases are linked to care homes, although some of those are of course transferred to hospitals as they deterioriate - and probably more than ever now the army are assisting in 10 care homes and they've started to roll out "massive" testing in them.

In case we doubted what politicians would do differently and aren't willing to look at what That Hancock is doing here, Health Minister Maggie de Block suggested that Belgium should change its counting method to be basically in line with others. The independent expert response was impressively scathing: "you don't lower the temperature by changing the thermometer" was the stinging rebuke by Geoffrey Pleyers of UCLouvain. So I don't think they'll change.

Belgian media has even started talking up that other countries will have to adopt "Belgian counting" if they want to have any hope of controlling this pandemic. Maybe the UK will finally change and speed up its fossilised essentially-mid-1800s system where we have 5 days to register a death outside hospital and something like 80 to complete all the reports, and pretty much any funeral director will probably have tales of doctors "identifying" the wrong corpse days later and errors like that.

I'm aware it could be a lot higher than a third. The proportion a number of countries seem to be at is half. It's worth noting that the Daily Mail went with a figure of about third (and other evidence to support that) and was called sensationalist front paging and the counter reaction to this and discussion around that figure that hit back was, oh not it's not, that's a lower estimate.

The UK as I've said before I'm not so fussed if hospital deaths are initially counted differently, more that they are counted at all accurately with a slight lag. They don't appear to be. There was all the discussion in the UK about death certificates underrecording as doctors wanted to be cautious having not seen the patients and so on. That's the system. It's also the care home system.

 

[marinyork]

I didn't say the app would be useful !

I'm well aware that you are very sceptical on apps. The digestion of why the Singapore one has failed is useful for other countries. There's room for a lot of improvement, as with most things coronavirus.

 

[mjr]

As it stands it won't even get past Apple/Google joint trancing App protocol or data protection measures.

The Ada Lovelace institute did rapid review yesterday on contract tracing apps. With a number of key findings
https://www.adalovelaceinstitute.org/our-work/covid-19/covid-19-exit-through-the-app-store/

I'm still reading it in my breaks, but that review looks like a great discussion of the types of apps, the benefits and the potential costs.

And I know it's a typo/autocorrect but I'm loving the idea of a "Apple/Google joint trancing App" - those wacky Californians using their medicinal marijuana to escape the stress of the pandemic, eh?

 

[Rusty Nails]

If it becomes mandatory and the app wasn't audited by people I trust (security researchers, basically), I'd be resuscitating an old phone that I was about to recycle when we got locked down and keeping the government spyware well away from my real phone and its encryption keys. I would probably carry it enough for the spyware to work (in my saddlebag), but I bet enough people would put it on a spare phone they didn't carry except when required that it would unwittingly undermine the system.

For once I'm ahead of the field, not having a smartphone.

 

[mjr]

Some Belgian rtbf news items from today and yesterday: 15-minute visits now allowed to care homes but it looks more like a prison visit with plexiglas and wood walls inside a tent outside the front door, a chaotic end to the school year with schools wondering how many students they can cope with and preserve social distancing if lockdown is relaxed, public transport warning that they won't be able to carry the previous number of students and almost no workers (conspicuous absence of any suggestions of cycling instead but the network in Wallonia is much sparser than in Flanders) plus they've problems like ticket validators (in red) are only at the unusable front doors, conversions of snow cannons into disinfectant cannons, bruised toes/feet may be a very early symptom of the virus, and fisheries are in crisis because fishing is banned and restaurants aren't buying so their holding lakes are now over-full with fishes are growing to sizes they are not allowed to release to watercourses and they've nowhere to put this spring's maturing baby fish.

 

[mjr]

For once I'm ahead of the field, not having a smartphone.

We don't know if you're ahead or behind because we can't track you

 

[kingrollo]

Surprising numbers today (778) - would seem tightening the lockdown is perhaps closer than easing up.

 

[lane]

Monday's figures presumably. Catching up from recording at the weekend which accounts for very low number yesterday? Averaging out still lower than last week's numbers.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Can anyone explain how air pollution can be singled out as an aggravating factor in covid deaths when population density will also be high - and thus a higher viral load - in ''dirty'' areas?

(the quote below is from the Guardian Live)

12:44

Higher air pollution could be linked to increased deaths and cases of coronavirus in England, a preliminary study suggests.
An analysis by the Medical Research Council Toxicology Unit at Cambridge University compared regional data on total Covid-19 cases and deaths, against levels of three major air pollutants.
The study used data from seven regions in England, where a minimum of 2,000 infections and 200 deaths are reported from February to April 8, 2020, and air pollution records from more than 120 sites in 2018 and 2019.
Levels of pollutants nitrogen dioxide and nitrogen oxide, much of which comes from traffic fumes, were highest in London, the Midlands and the North West and lowest in southern regions of England.
Fatalities of people with the coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2, followed the same trend, the study found, suggesting the higher the pollution levels, the greater number of Covid-19 cases and deaths.
Long-term exposure to air pollutants from car exhaust fumes or burning fossil fuels can put people at risk of these health conditions, and can also increase the risk of infection by viruses that affect people’s airways.
Marco Travaglio, a PhD student at the MRC Toxicology Unit, said:

Our results provide the first evidence that SARS-CoV-2 case fatality is associated with increased nitrogen oxide and nitrogen dioxide levels in England.
London, the Midlands and the North West show the largest concentration of these air pollutants, with southern regions displaying the lowest levels in the country, and the number of Covid-19 deaths follows a similar trend.

Dr Miguel Martins, senior author on the study, added:


Our study adds to growing evidence from Northern Italy and the USA that high levels of air pollution are linked to deadlier cases of Covid-19.
This is something we saw during the previous Sars outbreak back in 2003, where long-term exposure to air pollutants had a detrimental effect on the prognosis of Sars patients in China.
This highlights the importance of reducing air pollution for the protection of human health, both in relation to the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond.