Coronavirus - those in China, and general discussion

[Flickserve]

9 hours ago, 889 said:

Ditto Hong Kong, where there was a spike of reported cases Thursday, and most are in their 20's and 30's.

yeah. Going to be more. The ones that came back last week are not staying indoors and still going out when having symptoms.

 

Kids coming back asymptomatic are being taken out for dinner by their parents. 
 

the dangerous ones are those who can afford to travel. 
 

38 minutes ago, imron said:

Personally I prefer looking at the cumulative version of the graph. 

I like having both!

[Jan Finster]

The logic of some people in Germany: "Let´s go out now and meet, because soon we will be under lockdown..."

(@Roddy: please add the "banging head against a wall emoji" to the emojis)

 

 

 

Thanks Imron

[imron]

It’s always been there 

[889]

"Going to be more. The ones that came back last week are not staying indoors and still going out when having symptoms. Kids coming back asymptomatic are being taken out for dinner by their parents."

 

A record high of 48 new cases in Hong Kong today. If this continues, pressure will start to build for a general stay-home order for everyone. With California doing it and London on the way, it's becoming the accepted way to deal with the next stage of the epidemic.

 

And of course the crisis is offering the media an opportunity to bash Johnson and Trump, and they're going at with gusto, sometimes subtly and sometimes not.

 

"Of Course Trump Deserves Blame for the Coronavirus Crisis"

 

"Johnson as Churchill? History really does repeat as farce"

 

[Jan Finster]

Is there a good reason why the infection rates are so much lower in the UK compared to France, Germany, Italy and Spain?

 

Brexit?

Are they just lagging behind?

...?

[Lu]

33 minutes ago, Jan Finster said:

Is there a good reason why the infection rates are so much lower in the UK compared to France, Germany, Italy and Spain?

It seems to me how much testing is done has a lot of influence on the numbers. South Korea seems to test absolutely everyone -> lots of cases.

 

Meant to ask this for a while: Does anyone know why South Korea has enough tests that are fast enough to test absolutely everyone, while in the Netherlands testing takes days and in many countries there are not enough tests? Has Korea used them all up? What do they know/do that 'we' don't, and why don't 'we' do it?

 

And I wish we know now what we will know in ten or twenty years, when droves of researchers from absolutely every field will have had many a field day on everything that is happening now. Reading history is a lot more interesting than living through it.

[Ruben von Zwack]

My state Bavaria is just announcing a curfew. Fine for breaching it € 25,000.
I appreaciate the concrete measures they are issuing at the same time. Small businesses can pause rent and obligations, receive up to 30,000 in cash (not a loan but support), and there will be a sell-stop for Bavarian companies (tech, medical, etc.), to protect them from being snatched up by foreign investors when our economy will now undoubtly tank hard.

[ChTTay]

Speaking of tests, This article In the guardian was fairly interesting and helps hit home the importance of testing. 
 

Know a couple of people in quarantine in Beijing and their hotels are quite nice. They can use Sherpas delivery (main “Western” food delivery service). They are satisfied. They also said the staff at quarantine were incredible supportive and friendly.

Edit: staff at exhibition centre, I have no idea about hotel staff 

[mkmyers45]

3 hours ago, Lu said:

Does anyone know why South Korea has enough tests that are fast enough to test absolutely everyone, while in the Netherlands testing takes days and in many countries there are not enough tests? Has Korea used them all up? What do they know/do that 'we' don't, and why don't 'we' do it?

 

South Korea started making tests and planning pretty early due to the bad experience they had with MERS. They had high level disease prevention protocols which they just activated to battle COVID-19.  see here for more information: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51836898 

 

Worrying to see the CFR climbing in South Korea in-spite of their widespread testing capabilities 

[roddy]

4 hours ago, Jan Finster said:

Is there a good reason why the infection rates are so much lower in the UK compared to France, Germany, Italy and Spain?

I think we're just X weeks behind - although I'm not sure how are measures compare, perhaps we'll do better overall, perhaps worse. 

[Tomsima]

Regarding the uk, it seems like most people are still going about business as usual when and wherever possible, but seen a lot more serious looking facemasks popping up in public in the last few days. All I can say is, the way the gov so expertly dealt with our two week imposed quarantine makes me feel like there is a lot of comprehensive decision making going on behind the scenes that the media isn't reporting on. Hopefully the strategy that is used is effective and more importantly that everyone is supportive of it.

[roddy]

Definitely not business as usual up here in Edinburgh - the roads are dead, pubs and cafes are closed, or virtually empty, everyone I know who can work from home is already doing so. Gym's closed. Rail and bus services are being stripped back. Etc. 

[Lu]

35 minutes ago, mkmyers45 said:

South Korea started making tests and planning pretty early due to the bad experience they had with MERS. They had high level disease prevention protocols which they just activated to battle COVID-19.  see here for more information: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-51836898 

Thanks! So basically the answer is: they are producing lots of tests and they have a lot of people working really hard on processing these tests.

My next question would be: why can't other countries get their hands on those large amounts of tests? Can't Korea sell them? But I guess like so many things in this crisis, the answer is of no real use to me personally, so I might as well just let the question sit. Glad to hear that Korea seems to have it largely under control, with lots of tests and a vigilant populace.

[Flickserve]

5 hours ago, Jan Finster said:

Is there a good reason why the infection rates are so much lower in the UK compared to France, Germany, Italy and Spain?

 

- Lack of testing

 

- One factor is how many groups went to North Italy for holidays. Possibly fewer UK groups went.

[杰.克]

The UK is no longer testing, unless you enter hospital as far as im aware?

 

That really is shambolic. 

[大块头]

Things have been shut down here at the university. The labs have been closed, all classes have been migrated online, and the undergrad students have been sent home. I'm lucky: all my research involves sitting at home fiddling on the computer anyways so my PhD work hasn't been affected.

 

Graduate students who do research in the campus laboratories are in limbo, however. Unless they have results they can write about there is almost nothing for them to do all day. The ESL class I was teaching at the local senior center has been cancelled, so I posted a message to the campus WeChat group looking for an language exchange partner. A dozen bored Chinese graduate students replied before the day was out!

 

@Shelley, you mentioned a while ago that you live in a university town with a lot of Chinese international students but you've never approached any of them because you thought they might be weirded out. I didn't reply then, but I sometimes think about how far off the mark you were! If anything it would make some bored homesick student's day to help someone their parents' age or older learn Chinese. You could probably spend all day practicing with them if you wanted to.

[Shelley]

5 minutes ago, 大块头 said:

You could probably spend all day practicing with them if you wanted to.

 

Yes you are probably right but that is now definitely not going to happen. They are wandering around the empty shop with their masks on looking like bewildered rabbits caught in the headlights.

Sad really. 

I will make the effort to talk to any that are left when we get back to normal down the the road. 

[Flickserve]

16 hours ago, 889 said:

record high of 48 new cases in Hong Kong today. If this continues, pressure will start to build for a general stay-home order for everyone. With California doing it and London on the way, it's becoming the accepted way to deal with the next stage of the epidemic.

The next two weeks will be crucial. It’s the ones who arrived before the quarantine order that are dangerous. 
 

this article is pretty accurate. It even states one guy will not wear a mask! Why can’t he just respect the culture in HK and wear one? Does it really hurt so much?

 

https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/hong-kong-economy/article/3076202/hong-kong-nightlife-hub-lan-kwai-fong-hit

 

I have two stories that are not reported.

 

There is an expatriate medical group who had explicitly stated staff should not wear masks partly because not recommended by WHO and also because it would scare the visitors (personally it’s scarier to see a health care professional not wearing a mask but there you go) . This company policy, written by a medic, made quite a few staff nervous. Earlier this week, they had a doctor return from Florida - guess what...he got the virus. Luckily, he hadn’t seen any patients. I asked what the company was doing this week. Their frontline staff have started wearing masks. The boss has not prevented them from wearing masks but also not come out with a statement either. 
 

 

The second is a local HK lad. Went to Europe, came back and stayed in a hotel. Went to the hospital but not admitted. He went around sports centres for two days. Our sports centres have only just opened with limited facilities and badminton (a very popular sport) is basically available with some limitations. He teaches badminton and helped out a kids class. Now he’s been confirmed positive and the sports centres he had visited have been shut. He has been severely criticised on social media as being selfish. Badminton  coaches have been severely hit in income with sports centres being closed and now their pain is prolonged. Also all the badminton parents are pretty nervous as well. I am on the whatsapp group. 
 

Personal anecdote. Last week, my kid asked to go to a 16th birthday party. I asked how many attending. She said ten of them. My first reaction was “no way” but thought saying that out loud straight away might cause a reverse reaction. I asked her to check if everybody attending had been in Hong Kong for two weeks. She checked and one friend has flown back from Australia - my kid immediately said to her friends she can’t go. Ultimately, the party didn’t go ahead because the restaurant changed policy and said no large group bookings. Me, I am glad to have such a sensible kid. 
 

For us, we say, meeting expats are a risk factor. Avoid contact with people back from abroad within the last two weeks. Avoid wealthier people because they are the ones with children coming back from overseas. 

[Shelley]

28 minutes ago, Flickserve said:

Avoid contact with people back from abroad within the last two weeks

 

I have a friend who went on month long holiday to Australia 3 weeks ago, has no idea what he is coming back to in the UK, completely blinkered and is just determined to have his holiday. Travelling all over Australia in ignorant bliss.

He is one person who is not coming anywhere near me for months. He has a Trumpian view on why the virus is so bad - its the media's fault, specifically Murdock.

Really hope he has to spend 14 days in quarantine in a cheap hotel with no room service. 

[889]

"It’s the ones who arrived before the quarantine order that are dangerous."

 

It's the ones being home quarantined with family members who are dangerous. Arrivals are being quarantined at home, but the family members they live with -- in small packed Hong Kong flats -- remain free to circulate in the community. It just isn't going to work. Especially as anecdotal evidence continues to accumulate pointing to close contact as the key transmission route.

 

If new cases reach 100/day in the next week, I suspect some sort of closure is going to be imposed on the city as whole. It's just a question whether it is, at the start, a strong or weakish closure.

 

New York State has just ordered a moderately strong closure, with the governor warning it's a matter of months, not weeks.