News COVID-19 pandemic

[Urwumpe]

OK, now its official, Volkswagen will stop most of their production in Germany Europe from Saturday on and send the workers home. Might be a bit late, but not too late.

 

[tl8]

OK, now its official, Volkswagen will stop most of their production in Germany Europe from Saturday on and send the workers home. Might be a bit late, but not too late.

It is not easy to have a 100 tonne metal press in your backyard...

 

[Urwumpe]

The German Robert-Koch-Institute, our federal disease control agency, has raised their risk estimate for the German population due to COVID-19 to the highest level "hoch/high". For the past weeks, it was estimated as "mäßig/moderate".

Reason for the change in their assessment is the rapidly climbing number of known cases in Germany.

(Possibly because the popular skiing location of Ischgl in Austria was not closed soon enough, with many European people having caught the infection there. Many new cases can be linked to this oversight.)

 

[Notebook]

11:21
Iran temporarily releases 85,000 prisoners
The number of prisoners released temporarily in Iran as the country grapples with the coronavirus outbreak has now reached 85,000, a judiciary spokesman said.
“So far, some 85,000 prisoners have been released ... Also in the jails we have taken precautionary measures to confront the outbreak,” Gholamhossein Esmaili told the Reuters news agency.
Political prisoners were among those freed.
He did not say when those released would have to return to prison.
A total of 853 people have died and 14,991 have been confirmed infected across the country.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-51921683

I don't see the logic in this. Wouldn't it be easier to test the prison population and treat them from there?

 

[4throck]

It's probably to avoid riots, specially from family members that are on the outside.
Another example of the disruptive effect of this virus.

 

[Notebook]

Could be, I wonder how many will come back to jail?

 

[4throck]

Today's update here: 448 cases, +117 than yesterday...


A good global dashboard:
https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/685d0ace521648f8a5beeeee1b9125cd

 

[Linguofreak]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-51921683

I don't see the logic in this. Wouldn't it be easier to test the prison population and treat them from there?

I think the idea is that crowding (common in prisons in general) and poor sanitary conditions (common under such regimes) will cause prisons to serve as a breeding ground, so releasing minor offenders will prevent prison outbreaks that then flash over to the outside population through the guards.

Of course, if you're too late doing it, you'll breed a lot of cases, then scatter them into the outside population.

 

[Notebook]

Quite.
From that regime its not likely to be humanitarian.

Nice animated bar-graph:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-51235105

 

[Urwumpe]

Interesting discovery: Today is day 48 of the infection in Germany.

And surprisingly it is almost precisely following the scheme of a fictional virus called "Modi-SARS" which was used in 2013 to check the civil protection mechanisms in Germany for such a fictional scenario. Even the reactions of the politics are exactly following the playbook. Measures like established in Germany today had been simulated against the fictive virus and had been effective there when used between day 48 and day 408.

https://www.bbk.bund.de/SharedDocs/..._Schmelzhochwasser.pdf?__blob=publicationFile

(The scenario is described in appendix 4 / "Anhang 4")

Yes, that means a dire outlook, if the scenario takes place as simulated. We will have 6 million infected then at the first peak in Germany after 300 days, with 10% Lethality, and that with current measures.

Without such measures, it will be 19 million infected (about 25% of the population) at the first peak after just 170 days. And similar scales in other countries.

Big difference though, while the Modi-SARS virus causes similar symptoms as today and has many abilities in common with it, the model diverges from reality at one important aspect: The people are only contagious when they already show symptoms after a latency phase of 3 days, that is not the case today - the latency phase is much shorter and the symptoms arrive later. And also, the simulated virus was a bit more aggressive in that contagious phase, assuming a threefold increase in new infections every 3 days, today it is slightly less than that. People had been expected to be cured or dead after 19 days, that is also comparable to today, but a tiny bit shorter.

Using German numbers alone, we had a short phase of numbers tripling every three days initially, when new infected people entered Germany and many new hotspots had been created. But on the long term, the numbers "only" double every 3 days.

 

[Marijn]

What does the paper say about seasonal effects?

 

[Urwumpe]

What does the paper say about seasonal effects?

None assumed. It will follow waves of infections, assuming mutated versions of the virus appearing after 300 days and starting the infections all over again.

 

[Sunhillow]

John Hopkins University created a worldwide map, which seems to be updated rather frequently:
https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

It shows higher numbers than the german Robert Koch Institute, but in case of Portugal less than 4throck's number.

Urwumpe, the paper you pointed to wakes me worry a bit. 300 days from day zero till peak! As if it weren't bad enough now! Let's hope the chinese numbers are at least half-decent, they are roughly on day 60 after the first reports, and the curve already has flattened.

 

[Marijn]

None assumed..

And what does it say about herd immunity?

Our PM announced yesterday that this is the national strategy. The number of persons who lost their life almost doubled today from 24 to 43.

 

[Urwumpe]

And what does it say about herd immunity?

That is why there will be a peak after 300 days - before it all starts again for a new virus. After 300 days, there will still be many people left, who never contracted the new virus.

 

[Linguofreak]

Yes, that means a dire outlook, if the scenario takes place as simulated. We will have 6 million infected then at the first peak in Germany after 300 days, with 10% Lethality, and that with current measures.

Without such measures, it will be 19 million infected (about 25% of the population) at the first peak after just 170 days. And similar scales in other countries.

That sounds slower growing and deadlier than what we're seeing: in China the outbreak seems to have run its course in 90 days or so (depending on what you count as the start), with about 3% fatalities.

 

[Urwumpe]

That sounds slower growing and deadlier than what we're seeing: in China the outbreak seems to have run its course in 90 days or so (depending on what you count as the start), with about 3% fatalities.

Except that it isn't over yet in China.

 

[4throck]

It shows higher numbers than the german Robert Koch Institute, but in case of Portugal less than 4throck's number.

I guess they haven't updated today's official number, since it was out by noon.

---------- Post added at 14:29 ---------- Previous post was at 14:27 ----------

And surprisingly it is almost precisely following the scheme of a fictional virus called "Modi-SARS" which was used in 2013 to check the civil protection mechanisms in Germany for such a fictional scenario.

Very interesting. Not surprising, if the scenario was realistic to begin with.

 

[jedidia]

Sooo... If I got that study right, we might be looking forward to a year or more of standstill? That would be very concerning...

 

[4throck]

Not necessarily, there are ways life can return to normal.

If there's a permanent increase in health system capacity, the infection becomes manageable.
Perhaps new work health and safety rules will help. For example, cleanup of shared work tools.

All this requires more people, but can also absorb those that are now becoming unemployed....