Looking at things combined for ease of comparison......

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average?country=NOR+SWE+USA+FIN+GBR

Changed my mind. An easy one to delete.

 

Edited April 23, 20206 yr by Reader

1 hour ago, Reader said:

Noel

Do not be deceived. The lack of a lockdown in Sweden did not mean that the people just carried on as normal. The government, rightly or wrongly, decided to give them the facts and let them decide for themselves, the UK government made the decisions and enforced them upon on us. Because we are British, we mainly do as we are told, although we do have our collection of idiots as well, they tend to be relatively few in number.

 

Most of the posts I see here assume every nation and every area within a nation is the same.  That's generally true for places like the UK and Italy and most of Europe.

We have humid coastal areas, high mountain and plateau areas that are fairly dry, and we have vast deserts with very low humidity and 300+ days of sunshine a year. 

Looking at a map of the affected areas you see places like New York and the eastern seaboard with a lot of cases and places like Montana, Wyoming and SE New Mexico with areas of very few cases.  Even in New Mexico the geography and demographics between NWNM and SE NM are very different.

I am acting in accordance with the dangers I see on the ground where I live.

Noel 

45 minutes ago, birdguy said:

We have humid coastal areas, high mountain and plateau areas that are fairly dry, and we have vast deserts with very low humidity and 300+ days of sunshine a year. 

Looking at a map of the affected areas you see places like New York and the eastern seaboard with a lot of cases and places like Montana, Wyoming and SE New Mexico with areas of very few cases.  Even in New Mexico the geography and demographics between NWNM and SE NM are very different.

Demographics (especially population density) can play a big role, but the geographic factors may not be telling you what you think.  The big concentrations on the coasts may have more to do with the fact that those are ports of entry, and when the virus arrives from overseas, those are the first places it'll turn up.  It would take more time to get inland.

It's not yet clear whether higher temperatures will limit the spread.  Low humidity actually increases the risk of contagion because those aersolized droplets from a sneeze or cough linger in the air longer - humidity would wash them out.  It's one of the reasons that flu season happens during the winter - the air is drier.

Here's some recent speculation about what summer might mean, or not mean: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/09/830297538/scientists-try-to-figure-out-if-summer-will-slow-the-spread-of-covid-19

Here's a skeptical take about the impact of warm weather: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/04/experts-covid-19-pandemic-unlikely-ebb-weather-warms

It does make sense to keep an eye on the local state of the pandemic.

I think I read this book. Isn't this about the point in the plot where the survivors start to mutate ?

 Sue

Edited April 23, 20206 yr by Penzoil3

This afternoon I had to accompany my brother who is in a long term care facility to the cancer clinic.

Most people do not enunciate clearly and when wearing a mask become difficult to understand.  Especially if they speak with a foreign accent.  A number of times I had to keep asking both a nurse and the doctor to repeat themselves.

The receptionists in the waiting room wear masks, but lower them below their chin to talk to patients.  Doesn't that defeat the whole purpose of masks?

While all of the medical staff were wearing masks less than half of the patients in the waiting room were wearing them.  When my brother got out of the nursing home van the driver (whop was not wearing a mask) handed him one to wear inside the clinic.  He told me most patients in the clinic don't wear masks and they are free to roam about the facility at will.

Noel

Edited April 23, 20206 yr by birdguy

Sue, I mutated a long time ago.  That's why I can be such an ** at times without it bothering me.  But then I came from the Gamma Quadrant before coming to Roswell.

Noel

Interesting animation,

at Day 520, where will we end compared to Mers, Ebola, Cholera the Swine Flu... ?

https://imgur.com/a/Si6BEgf

 

Edit: we are talking about 2 June 2021, not 2020

Edited April 23, 20206 yr by Nedo68

1 hour ago, Nedo68 said:

Interesting animation,

Nice visual comparison.

Here is a good map of the US by county showing cases of COVID-19 per 100,000, .and highlighting the "Hot Spots" Like any data there are limitations which are mentioned. Scroll down to Confirmed cases per 100K residents, by county.  Will be interesting to follow as states and counties grapple with re-opening.

Some recent reports are indicating that the virus was spreading almost completely undetected across a number of cities long before testing showed there was a problem. I believe the NYT is reporting that story, will be interesting to know the time and origin of this pandemic. 

Martin

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-us-maps-and-cases/

Edited April 23, 20206 yr by MartinRex007

Wanted to step back onto some dangerous ground but try to do it in a safe way.  MODS: if you think I haven't succeeded, then zap this post.

Since the question of how and when to reopen is top of mind here in the U.S. and elsewhere, it's generating a lot of commentary.  So I thought that, without advocating anything, I'd just post a couple of links to some of what's out there - all in the interests of more informed conversations, even if some (most? all?) of those conversations can't happen here.

First up - here's a roundup of what public health officials are thinking about as they consider how to handle a reopening.  Fair warning that a couple of paragraphs (of a long article) analyze and criticize the current U.S. administration. So if you're a supporter of the administration and you object to that, you might want to give it a pass.  I hope you won't, though, because if you're able to read past those things (and also the headline and some of the quotes about other political leaders, some of which you may find bothersome), you'll find that the bulk of the article consists of straightforward interviews with people on the public health side.  What I found interesting about it was that it opens a window into the kinds of things they're looking at and adds a few layers of detail that I found helpful.

IHME at the University of Washington is now publishing an estimate of when they think states can reopen.  It's based on their model and a set of criteria that they discuss in their commentary.  Go here and then scroll down to the second item for the map, a table and a discussion. Note also that the University of Texas has just released a competing model that makes different assumptions and produces different results.  This is their main page.  They might come to different conclusions about reopening, though those aren't discussed explicitly here.  Remember that models often disagree - just like in hurricane forecasting.  They're tools - read the results with that in mind.

The business community has started to chime in about reopening.  The National Association of Manufacturers has issued a plan - if you want to read it, go to this page and click on the link.  And the Business Roundtable, which is the main forum for big-company CEOs, has published these "principles for a safe recovery."

I'm sure more will be forthcoming about all of this, from multiple quarters.  I'll try to post links as I find them - without editorializing.

Hope you find this helpful.

Edited April 23, 20206 yr by Alan_A

The province of Saskatchewan here in Canada is looking to start re-opening on May 4th. Though with a population of 1.2 million spread over 651,900 km2 (251,700 sq mi) and few, if any, direct international connections, it probably isn't comparable to many other regions or countries.

https://www.saskatchewan.ca/government/news-and-media/2020/april/23/reopen-saskatchewan-plan

Cases:

https://www.saskatchewan.ca/government/health-care-administration-and-provider-resources/treatment-procedures-and-guidelines/emerging-public-health-issues/2019-novel-coronavirus/cases-and-risk-of-covid-19-in-saskatchewan

7 hours ago, Murmur said:

England (lockdown) vs Sweden (no lockdown):

 

Deaths _by_ COVID or deaths _with_ COVID?

Yes, I've also read reports that many deaths are being attributed to Covid-19 when they were actually caused by something else.  If this graph is accurate, then clearly the number of non-Covid-19 deaths would not miraculously be cut by 60% for the same time period year over year.

The graph showing deaths per day Sweden vs England is also interesting, as we see the same pattern of the death rate over the same time period in countries with very different responses to the outbreak.  By the way, the number of deaths per day for Sweden is on the right Y-axis, so arguments regarding population differences making this an invalid comparison are moot.  But lets do a little normalization exercise anyway:

Sweden population: 10,000,000, UK population:68,000,000

UK population 6.8 times Sweden population

Sweden # deaths/day on April 10 times 6.8 = 612

UK # deaths/day on April 10 = 700.

Of course this is a simplification and not technically valid, plus there are many other factors to consider when comparing two different countries, but it still points out that the graph shows that the overall death rate pattern is close to the same.

Pretty valid comparison in my book.

Dave

Edited April 23, 20206 yr by dave2013

6 hours ago, SteveFx said:

 

Here is the current graph normalised for case per million showing UK and Sweden - which show the Sweden looks to have a problem...

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-covid-deaths-per-million-7-day-average?country=SWE+GBR

 

 

That's *cases* per million, not *deaths* per million which is what the graph shows.

I think it's expected that with no lockdown at all there will be more cases.

The important data for me is not how many people catch this thing, but how many actually die from it.

Dave

12 minutes ago, goates said:

The province of Saskatchewan here in Canada is looking to start re-opening on May 4th. Though with a population of 1.2 million spread over 651,900 km2 (251,700 sq mi) and few, if any, direct international connections, it probably isn't comparable to many other regions or countries.

about re-opening

I think low population numbers gives you a litte bit more time, but at some point that time runs out and we still have no vaccine,

this video explains very easy what is the ‘R’ value and why this number is so critical to stay below 1:

https://youtu.be/LnQcbAKWkPE?t=1056

 

if you have time i can suggest you to watch the full video, very informative!

Here's something else I wanted to share.  We all (myself included) tend to get abstract in these discussions, and that leads us to glide past the full reality of what we're in.  So here's a corrective.  It's a journal kept by a New York City emergency physician.  He posted it last week to Facebook, but it wasn't shareable to non-Facebook members.  Here's an accessible version that was just published.  Essential reading, I'd say.