News COVID-19 pandemic

[Quick_Nick]

Arizona cases are exploding.
ICU beds filling, ventilator use and intubations per day rising to new highs.

Statewide lockdown measures ended May 15 without any phasing.
We've been sitting at #48 in testing.

This is looking bad even without the coming effect of protests and gatherings.

For a brief time ahead of the reopening, researchers at the two major universities in the state were ordered to pause their work on COVID-19 modeling and had access cut off to some data.

 

[Artlav]

Makes me worry what's up next here in Moscow.
We aren't anywhere near the end of it, but most of the restrictions have been lifted yesterday against doctor recommendations. Numbers have been jumping down suspiciously too.
Looks like the plan is to make a show of normality at all costs before the voting on July 1st.

 

[Urwumpe]

Numbers are slightly climbing up here, was spiking already at R=1.1 on Tuesday, but the seven-day fit is still at R=0.86

We have a small outbreak in a hospital in Dortmund, but otherwise there is little new happening so far.

A contact tracing app should be available this week, German IT experts already made a review of its open-source code for mobile client and server and had been quite favorable of it, especially that it was implemented by SAP and T-Systems in such a short time while also conforming to all standards and best practices. They did not see any privacy violations in the current implementation, but they expect little effect if only few people are using the app.

https://github.com/corona-warn-app

Some BBC about the differences between German app and UK App:

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52650576

 

[tl8]

Numbers are slightly climbing up here, was spiking already at R=1.1 on Tuesday, but the seven-day fit is still at R=0.86

We have a small outbreak in a hospital in Dortmund, but otherwise there is little new happening so far.

A contact tracing app should be available this week, German IT experts already made a review of its open-source code for mobile client and server and had been quite favorable of it, especially that it was implemented by SAP and T-Systems in such a short time while also conforming to all standards and best practices. They did not see any privacy violations in the current implementation, but they expect little effect if only few people are using the app.

https://github.com/corona-warn-app

Some BBC about the differences between German app and UK App:

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52650576

We have around 5 million downloads out of 25 million people. So far the app has not picked up any contacts that the manual contact tracing didn't find.


That said, we have the first case that went to the protests so that is an interesting line of data.

 

[Urwumpe]

The German R for the past seven days is now up to 1.04. Hardly surprising that it exceeds one, but still better than expected. It climbs slower than feared.

 

[romanasul]

I understand that the European Union are planning to allow international arrivals from July 1?

 

[MaxBuzz]

Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital (of Paris) conducted research according to whom people with smoking patches are less likely to get sick COVID-19

 

[Mister Kite]

Yeah, but when you do get sick, it's going to be worse.

 

[Notebook]

Coronavirus: Five ways shopping will be different from now on

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53005123

 

[C3PO]

Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital (of Paris) conducted research according to whom people with smoking patches are less likely to get sick COVID-19

Most COVID-19 fatalities are patients with compromised respiratory system. How many of them would be smokers?

Statistics is a tool, NOT a solution! :facepalm:

 

[Urwumpe]

Looks like the contact tracing application in Germany had a good start today, after some delays, already over one 1 million installations in less than 24 hours.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=de.rki.coronawarnapp&hl=de

 

[kuddel]

plus around 400.000 Apple downloads[1]

[1] Source wikipedia

 

[Notebook]

Some good news:

A cheap and widely available drug can help save the lives of patients seriously ill with coronavirus.
The low-dose steroid treatment dexamethasone is a major breakthrough in the fight against the deadly virus, UK experts say.
The drug is part of the world's biggest trial testing existing treatments to see if they also work for coronavirus.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53061281

 

[Urwumpe]

The official number of downloads of the Corona Warn App, according to the government after 24 hours: 6,453,606 installations.

1/10 of Whatsapp in Germany, and about 1/10 what would be considered a optimal spread.

A pretty good start.

 

[kuddel]

...there are still some relevant numbers of Android devices that do not fulfill the minimal specification (Version 6), which might unfortunately result in "lower than possible" numbers[1]:

9.0 (Pie)|37.1% 8.0-8.1 (Oreo)|21.9% 7.0-7.1 (Nougat)|13.1% 6.0 (Marshmallow)|10.7% 5.0-5.1 (Lollipop)|8.5% 4.4 (KitKat)|3.7% 10 (Android 10)|3.4% 4.1-4.3 (Jelly Bean)|1.3% 2.3 (Gingerbread)|0.2% 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)|0.2% 3.0-3.2 (Honeycomb)|0.0%

13.9% (of Android users) are currently unsupported.
For Apple I guess the numbers are somewhat equal.

However "down-porting" the App to be usable without specific OS-Support (BTLE in background specifically) is hard.

Side-Note: These numbers are rough, as having Android 6 alone is not enough - Android 6 with BTLE support is required...

[1] Source: Connect

 

[Urwumpe]

Generally you can say: Any smartphone older than 2015 is too old for the protocol.

 

[jedidia]

I have never owned a single cellphone that would have been younger than five years by the time I acquired it... :shifty:

 

[Thunder Chicken]

Some good news:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53061281

Not such a major breakthrough. Dexamethasone and other steroids are commonly used for control of inflammatory conditions and pneumonias. It's far from a cure, but some people respond well to it and it enables some to recover that would otherwise succumb to pneumonia.

It's a "major breakthrough" because someone in the media found out that it was a treatment, and needed to generate the clicks. It's not a new game-changer, but a weapon in the existing arsenal.

 

[Notebook]

I never said it was any of that, just good news.

 

[Thunder Chicken]

I never said it was any of that, just good news.

Yes, it is; but it has been good news since the 1960s.

Its use may be promoted more in standard of care for COVID-19, but most medical professionals in respiratory care are already aware of it and are utilizing it when appropriate.

The concern is that people will read these headlines and go "Oh, no worries, they have a pill for that!" and forget that we're still in a predicament where the surest way of saving lives is to prevent the spread.

For all of the good that these drugs and treatments can deliver, we need to remember that a large number of people infected will die despite the best standard of care currently available.

I'm not trying to dampen your hopes and enthusiasm, but I worry that many people are desperate for all of this to be over and are using anything to justify their return to normalcy, even if it is wrong.