News COVID-19 pandemic

[Notebook]

Summary
Australia says it had only 12 new cases of the virus in the past day - with just one coming from an "unknown source"

More than 2.4 million people have downloaded a tracking app as the country seeks to move into a new phase

The UK is to hold a one minute silence for key workers who have died with Covid-19
BBC investigation finds that key protective health equipment was not in UK stockpile, despite warnings

New Zealand is now in a less severe phase of lockdown, with some non-essential activity able to resume

US President Donald Trump once again censured China's handling of the virus, saying: "We are not happy with China"

Nigeria will also begin a gradual easing of virus lockdowns in certain areas from 4 May

Global virus cases pass 3 million, with more than 200,000 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins University

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52450742

 

[4throck]

The gastronomy...

Yes, small business are always hard hit and have no support.

Personally I'm more worried about education. Universal mandatory education was one of civilization's greatest achievements. It's really important for integration into society...
Here there are many businesses around education, not only private schools but also "explanations" - private tutoring for the subject you have some difficulty with. No support for them at all...

"Gewerbeverband"

Guild ?

 

[Urwumpe]

Guild ?

Trade association is the correct translation there. The kind of guild you look for would be called "Zunft" in German, not "Gilde" as you might expect.



Gilde: Made of merchants, mercenaries or religious groups

Zunft: Made of craftsman

 

[Notebook]

Summary
The US has confirmed one million virus cases, making up almost a third of the total global tally

With more than 58,000 deaths, more Americans have died with Covid-19 than died in the Vietnam War

China's parliament will meet again next month, a sign officials believe the virus is under control there

The US Congress has abandoned plans to return to Washington next week after lawmakers revolted

President Trump has ordered meat processing plants, which have become virus hotspots, to remain open

All staff and residents of UK care homes will be tested for the virus whether or not they have symptoms

France will make face masks compulsory on schools and public transport when it begins easing the lockdown

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52466471

 

[jedidia]

Yes, small business are always hard hit and have no support.

That is usually not so for switzerland, actually. Here, small and middle-sized business are literally the backbone of the economy. Taken together they form two thirds of the labour market. There are many special regulations and benefits for this kind of business, which is why there is a legal definition for it: To qualify, a company must have no more than 250 employees. So we have quite reliable statistics about them, and the government is taking the segment very seriously.
Support has generally been good during the pandemic.
I really consider this a blunder by the government, and I'm pretty sure they are being chewed out as I write.

Guild ?

Nah, a guild (or Zunft, as Urwumpe pointed out) is an older and rather "interesting" institution that was part trade association, part union, part tax office and part mafia... :lol:

 

[Urwumpe]

Nah, a guild (or Zunft, as Urwumpe pointed out) is an older and rather "interesting" institution that was part trade association, part union, part tax office and part mafia... :lol:

And was so successful, that its legacy still lives on in the EU... The "Meisterbrief" is not only mandatory for operating a company in certain branches in Germany (not sure about Switzerland, but I suspect it is the same there), it is also an accepted certificate of education in the EU...

 

[Notebook]

We had "City and Guilds" qualifications for trade jobs when I left school.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_and_Guilds_of_London_Institute

Still going.

 

[jedidia]

not sure about Switzerland, but I suspect it is the same there

It's not mandatory if you want to open a company, only if you want to train apprentices.
It is a valid certificate of qualification, though, just as the "Fähigkeitszeugnis", which is the modern equivalent to what once was the Gesellenbrief (i.e. completion of an apprenticeship under a certified master).

 

[Notebook]

After seeing some 3D printed masks, I was inspired to make a simple one that could clip onto the brim of a baseball cap. It turned out to be a very lightweight transparent barrier that can prevent spray from reaching your face and prevent your spray from getting on someone else.
The 3D printed frame simply clamps a photocopier transparency in a curved shape and clips it to the brim of a hat. You can also wear a filter style mask under it, if you need more protection.

https://www.element14.com/community...vS0hwQ3pwNDYzRnVtRWNUUFhhbVdmSWVNSUJ4cklzVSJ9

 

[Notebook]

Summary

Lockdowns in response to the pandemic will see global emissions fall by a record 8%, the International Energy Agency says

IEA head Fatih Birol tells Reuters: “Given the number of deaths and the economic trauma... this historic decline in global emissions is absolutely nothing to cheer”

South Korea recorded no new domestically transmitted cases of Covid-19 on Wednesday - four new cases were all imported

UK minister suggests testing target of 100,000 tests a day will be missed
UK PM Boris Johnson set to lead Cabinet for the first time since recovering from the virus

There is "clear-cut" evidence that a drug called Remdesivir can help people recover, say US officials
The US economy had its most severe contraction in more than a decade in the first quarter of the year

India says millions of people stranded by a nationwide lockdown can now return to their home states

War-torn Yemen records its first two coronavirus deaths, amid warnings it is ill-prepared for widespread infection

There have been more than 3.1 million confirmed cases worldwide and a quarter of a million deaths of people with Covid-19

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52481788

 

[Urwumpe]

Also, after Irrfan Khan yesterday, another famous Indian actor, Rishi Kapoor, has been reported dead, this time to COVID-19-like symptoms.

Khan died due to complications after a colon infection, possibly relating to his NET cancer, that he made public last year.

 

[Notebook]

Capt. Tom Moore was going to try to raise a few hundred pounds for NHS charities by walking around his care-home 100 times before his 100th birthday.

He seems to have become a bit of a national icon and has raised £30 million in donations last time I looked.

And he gets a Spifire+Hurrricane flyby!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-england-52441937

 

[Notebook]

Is this what President Trump had in mind?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52471208

 

[jedidia]

Is this what President Trump had in mind?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52471208

The idea would certainly be worthy of his mental prowess, but that just goes to show that he's not the only stupid politician around.
They might as well just have paved those beaches over, the damage would probably be less... :blink:

 

[mahdavi3d]

http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/covid19/

{...}

Daily Increases, Peaked Countries: Italy, Lombardy, Austria, Taiwan, South Korea, China, Australia, France, Spain, Norway, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Thailand, New Zealand, Iceland, Denmark, Germany, UK

Graph updated: 1 May 2020, 02:45 BST
Commentary updated: 21 Apr 2020, 02:43 BST
The graph shows daily increase in confirmed cases per million inhabitants, plotted on a log scale, against time. A Holt-Winters moving average filter with constants α=0.5 and β=0.5 has been applied to smooth the curves as differences are very noisy. This is a moderate amount of smoothing and it imposes a about a days lag, but it does extract trends fairly well. The curves are not offset, today is Day 0 for all curves.
On this graph I show some of the earlier countries that peaked, and I have aligned the day they peaked at day 0. Although the logscale makes it hard to see how far cases have declined, it allows us to see both the height of the peaks and the time taken to decline on the same graph.
It doesn't really make sense to show Chinese cases per million inhabitants, when 82% of the cases were in Hubei province. I have therefore used the Hubei population as the China population when calculating cases per million inhabitants. Really all I care about on this graph is the shape of the curve.
It is notable that China and Korea rose faster to their peaks and declined faster from their peaks than western countries.
Italy's peak appears to be rather broad. In part this may be due to a large increase in testing just after the time of the peak, which might give the impression cases are not falling as fast as they really are.


----------------------------------------


Western Europe Daily Increases: Italy, France, USA, UK, UK, Netherlands, Germany, Spain, Belgium, Portugal, Ireland

Graph updated: 1 May 2020, 02:27 BST
Commentary updated: 15 Apr 2020, 04:01 BST
The graph shows daily increase in confirmed cases per million inhabitants, plotted on a log scale, against time. A Holt-Winters moving average filter with constants α=0.5 and β=0.5 has been applied to smooth the curves as differences are very noisy. This is a moderate amount of smoothing and it imposes a about a days lag, but it does extract trends fairly well. The curves are not offset, today is Day 0 for all curves.
Generally, trends are easier to see on a cumulative plot, as changes are inherently more noisy. However, this view is better to see whether a country has peaked or not.
Confirmed cases in Spain, Germany and France have all peaked. It is not yet completely clear if they have peaked in the Netherlands, Belgium, Portugal and the UK, though all look like they may have peaked.
The UK is now reporting two sets of statistics. The first includes all confirmed cases, including a new testing programme for healthcare workers and families. These counts were not previously included in the data. The second count, so called "pillar 1" statistics covers hospitalized patients, and is generally comparible over time, even if it does not include all confirmed cases. The UK looks to have peaked on April 5th based on pillar 1 data, though the full confirmed cases count does not show this peak due to the change in testing methodology.
Ireland is showing a large increase in cases four days ago. If I understand correctly, this is due to the inclusion in the statistics of a batch of much older test results which had been sent to Germany for testing, and does not represent a real sudden increase in infections. Taking this into account, it looks like Ireland may also be peaking.
The US is not technically in Western Europe, but I've added it here to aid comparison.
The very rapid increase rate in the US appears to have tailed off, but I suspect it has some way to go before peaking. As the epidemic is at different stages in different states, the US curve is less likely to show a sharp peak when it does occur. The last two weeks of the US curve show strong similarities to the equivalent phase of the Italian curve.


----------------------------------------


Daily Increases, Peaked Countries: Argentina, Australia, Austria, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Iran, Italy, Italy, Lithuania, Lombardy, Luxembourg, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, Philippines, Slovenia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, UK

Graph updated: 1 May 2020, 02:41 BST
Commentary updated: 15 Apr 2020, 03:13 BST
The graph shows daily increase in confirmed cases normalized so the peaks of different countries are all the same height, plotted on a linear scale against time. A Holt-Winters moving average filter with constants α=0.5 and β=0.5 has been applied to smooth the curves as differences are very noisy. This is a moderate amount of smoothing and extracts trends fairly well without smoothing large peaks.
This linear-scale graph shows better than the log-scale graphs how rapidly (or otherwise) cases drop off after the peak. I've aligned all the peaks together, and normalized the daily increases so the day of maximum increase (after moderate smoothing) has value 1. Where a country had more than one peak within 90% of the same height, I've aligned by the first one, as I'm interested in what happens once the number of daily confirmed cases stops increasing.
Where a country essentially had a single outbreak, such as in China or South Korea, once the outbreak is tackled effectively, the cases can largely die back down within ten days of the peak. But few countries manage to achieve this, and double or triple peaks are common. There are likely to be a number of reasons for this ranging from multiple outbreaks within a country peaking at different times to mitigation measures not being completely effective.


----------------------------------------


Daily Increases, Successful Countries: Australia, Austria, China, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand

Graph updated: 1 May 2020, 02:34 BST
Commentary updated: 27 Apr 2020, 04:10 BST
The graph shows daily increase in confirmed cases normalized so the peaks of different countries are all the same height, plotted on a linear scale against time. A Holt-Winters moving average filter with constants α=0.5 and β=0.5 has been applied to smooth the curves as differences are very noisy. This is a moderate amount of smoothing and extracts trends fairly well without smoothing large peaks.
The countries shown on this graph have managed to decrease new cases to less than 20% of their peak and keep them down.
This graph is normalized to the peak, and it is likely to be easier to reduce by 80% if the peak was lower. Nevertheless, to achieve a reduction of 80% requires measures that are effective at keeping the replication rate down for a sustained amount of time.
Greece suffered an increase of 156 cases that pushed it out of the 20% region. Of those 156, 150 cases, all asymptomatic, were related to the refugee facility in Kranidi, with 148 occuring within the refugees.
Taiwan shows an increase of 22 cases on April 18th. 21 out of 22 of these cases are navy personel on a ship who contracted Covid-19 abroad.

{...}

 

[jedidia]

A nerdy video by CGP grey on the importance of maintaining a daily structure while in lockdown:

 

[Notebook]

Summary

Adults in Spain are being allowed to exercise outside for the first time in seven weeks

Thousands register interest in taking part in a UK trial to see if blood plasma from survivors can help those in hospital

The US Food and Drug Administration gives emergency approval for the experimental antiviral drug remdesivir
A nursing home in New York has reported 98 deaths linked to coronavirus

Austria is allowing thousands of shops to reopen, as well as hairdressers and beauty salons

UK government says the target of 100,000 daily coronavirus tests has been met - but critics say the numbers are misleading

The lockdown has seen a huge fall in murders in El Salvador, one of the world's most violent countries

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-52512663

 

[Urwumpe]

NATO is preparing an operations plan for a second COVID-19 wave. This is mostly due to the fact, that a general pandemic contingency plan for the NATO will take longer to develop and NAC is insisting on being prepared for this, after many NATO soldiers caught COVID-19 during exercises in eastern Europe.

https://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausl...swelle-a-6d7ac3e1-7d77-42fb-bbbd-d4b6771b563f

 

[tl8]

So most Australian states have now had multiple days in a row with no new cases. We now also have a 15 point plan for the relaxation of restrictions. 11 have been satisfied.

The remaining 4:

• More PPE (gown & gloves)
• 2 items relating to policy and resources for detection and managing localised flareups
• A good percentage take up of the tracking app

It is probable that international travel will remain banned, although travel to NZ can probably happen (I have also heard Singapore mentioned).

Mass gatherings are still in limbo although there is a big difference between the footy on a cold July night and a music festival in the middle of January.

 

[Urwumpe]

The Euromomo data is a bit misleading sometimes - the yellow prediction for the unreported cases does currently not fit well to the real data. The prediction always talks about dropping mortality for the past days, in reality, it keeps on climbing.