COVID-19 Coronavirus Containment Efforts

[PeroK]

Chile, Peru and Brazil see rapidly increasing case counts, daily new cases are still going up. Here is a comparison.
Brazil at 2/3 the US population now has more new confirmed cases than the US, and per capita it reached the peak of the US numbers without signs of slowing down. And all that despite concerns that they still don't take testing seriously, or that favelas are simply ignored in the government response (Portuguese article).

Potentially the global pandemic is just starting. It's largely under control in all the major western countries, except the UK and US. Places like India, Pakistan & Bangladesh (combined population of about 2 billion) have been successful at controlling it so far, but they can't stay locked down forever. The cases are increasing exponentially in all three countries.

Last week there were 110,000 new cases per day worldwide, which is higher than it's ever been.

 

[bhobba]

The anger over what happened to Mr. Floyd is so great, and rightfully so, that it overcomes fear of getting sick or concern of spreading the illness to family and friends.

I did see a video where police sent out to control a riot took off their riot gear and turned it into a peaceful march lead by the police. Everyone regardless of race and/or country was appalled at what they saw - that is not why we have police - they should be a positive force for societal cohesion.

Thanks
Bill

 

[kyphysics]

The anger over what happened to Mr. Floyd is so great, and rightfully so, that it overcomes fear of getting sick or concern of spreading the illness to family and friends. Perhaps pent-up frustrations over Covid-19 added fuel to that. But will it spark a huge second wave? I doubt it. The virus appears to be weakening. These are mostly young healthy people and they are constantly moving around even in big crowds. That should limit exposure to random people. Of course scientists should monitor this situation and see what really happens.

What evidence do you have the virus is weakening? I'm assuming you mean the virus' current strands are weaker than the earlier ones, no? Or, did you mean the curve has been weakening (meaning flattening)?

I think the positives from the protests, such as overwhelming mask wearing (I think 90-95% of people wore them from what I saw in photos) and often a lot of "moving around" are countered by other factors, such as:

-massive numbers of people
-lots of yelling and chanting
-very tight quarters
-incidents that undoubtedly involved police arrest or physical confrontation, where lots of contact involved could have spread the virus. Going to jail is a way to spread/get the virus more easily I'm guessing.

Yes, the protesters were young and likely won't get sick, but they could be going home and back to their jobs at the grocery store, the cell phone stores, a restaurant, etc. and spreading it to customers and older people.

 

[russ_watters]

I just learned that it takes the Philippine government an average of 13 days to do Contact Tracing. I find it a bit slow. What is the advisable number of days to find all exposed individuals?

0 would be optimal.

[edit] Ok, I'm not totally following the graphic you posted on a separate post, but it includes additional processes beyond contact tracing. What is possible/optimal is a roughly zero elapsed time between completion of a test (or decision a person is worth tracing) and completion of contact tracing.

Note that the delay until testing only applies to a first case in a tree. For all others in the tree, the duration of the entire process can be negative depending on where you start counting (they are traced prior to becoming infectious) and the contact tracing itself zero. And it becomes predictive.

 

[anorlunda]

Please everyone. COVID touches on many side issues. In this thread let's stay more narrowly focused on the topic as stated in the title.

 

[bob012345]

Please everyone. COVID touches on many side issues. In this thread let's stay more narrowly focused on the topic as stated in the title.

Is discussing what to do about the massive nationwide riots as related to their pandemic implications just a side issue and not focusing on containment?

 

[russ_watters]

Is discussing what to do about the massive nationwide riots as related to their pandemic implications just a side issue and not focusing on containment?

There is nothing to do about the riots as pertains to COVID-19.

 

[anorlunda]

Is discussing what to do about the massive nationwide riots as related to their pandemic implications just a side issue and not focusing on containment?

IMO a side issue. Although it impacts "covid-19-coronavirus-containment-efforts" it is not a containment effort. We could just as easily get diverted by how alcohol contributes to lax social distancing. There's plenty to talk about within the narrower focus.

 

[bob012345]

There is nothing to do about the riots as pertains to COVID-19.

I completely disagree but we don't have to discuss it.

 

[bob012345]

0...

What evidence do you have the virus is weakening? I'm assuming you mean the virus' current strands are weaker than the earlier ones, no? Or, did you mean the curve has been weakening (meaning flattening)?

I mean the former. The claim was made by an Italian doctor but is still controversial.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8376105/Is-Covid-19-really-potent.html
https://orthospinenews.com/2020/05/...ations-may-be-weakening-this-is-virology-101/

 

[russ_watters]

I completely disagree but we don't have to discuss it.

I mean, you can pm me or another moderator if you think there is a relevant perspective worth discussing and I/we will consider it.

 

[bob012345]

I mean, you can pm me or another moderator if you think there is a relevant perspective worth discussing and I/we will consider it.

I'm happy to move on. Thanks though.

 

[mfb]

Last week there were 110,000 new cases per day worldwide, which is higher than it's ever been.

Averaged over the week from May 24 to May 31: 20,000 in the US, 20,000 in Brazil, 9000 in Russia, 7000 in India, 5000 in Peru, 4000 in Chile, 3000 in Mexico, 1800-2300 each in the UK, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bangladesh. 800-1400 each in South Africa, Colombia, Turkey, Egypt, Canada, Belarus, France, Kuwait, both of these groups are sorted in descending order.
Notable low new case counts in countries with over 10,000 confirmed cases: China (+0.008%/day); Switzerland (+0.06%/day); Austria, Ireland, Italy (+0.2%/day); Israel, Germany, Japan, Spain (+0.25%/day)

 

[kadiot]

That diagram helped. I see the point. Tracing must begin before testing. That makes testing secondary in importance. A negative test terminates tracing, not a positive test starts tracing.

Contact tracing is evolving. Because we know asymptomatic close contacts may test negative early on, the decision to isolate are made on a clinical and case to case basis. Quarantine and isolation can be test-informed, but should start even before tests are back especially if there is a high probability of infection.

 

[PeroK]

Averaged over the week from May 24 to May 31: 20,000 in the US, 20,000 in Brazil, 9000 in Russia, 7000 in India, 5000 in Peru, 4000 in Chile, 3000 in Mexico, 1800-2300 each in the UK, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Bangladesh. 800-1400 each in South Africa, Colombia, Turkey, Egypt, Canada, Belarus, France, Kuwait, both of these groups are sorted in descending order.
Notable low new case counts in countries with over 10,000 confirmed cases: China (+0.008%/day); Switzerland (+0.06%/day); Austria, Ireland, Italy (+0.2%/day); Israel, Germany, Japan, Spain (+0.25%/day)

France had one or two anomalous days this week, which may have been some back counting of cases. Their average was 300-400 cases per day for the previous fortnight. They had about 20,000 new cases in the whole of May. Here's a weekly summary of average cases per day:

Cases	USA	UK	Spain	Italy	France	Germany	Russia	Brazil	India	Iran
07-Apr​	30,839​	4,299​	6,574​	4,256​	6,722​	5,122​	737​	1,188​	565​	2,569​
14-Apr​	30,390​	5,519​	4,588​	3,843​	4,439​	3,507​	1,944​	1,604​	877​	1,755​
21-Apr​	28,897​	5,024​	4,303​	3,067​	3,325​	2,320​	4,523​	2,545​	1,228​	1,418​
28-Apr​	30,219​	4,586​	3,993​	2,650​	1,769​	1,637​	5,814​	4,260​	1,606​	1,112​
05-May​	28,838​	4,835​	2,633​	1,644​	663​	1,014​	8,830​	5,974​	2,582​	1,055​
12-May​	24,429​	4,496​	2,708​	1,172​	1,096​	881​	10,982​	8,984​	3,556​	1,542​
19-May​	23,135​	3,194​	1,326​	783​	413​	665​	9,671​	13,469​	4,598​	1,977​
26-May​	22,099​	2,344​	701​	551​	305​	494​	8,914​	17,211​	6,331​	2,130​

 

[PeroK]

Here is an example of the strictly enforced UK COVID-19 containment efforts:

 

[kadiot]

Here is an example of the strictly enforced UK COVID-19 containment efforts:

View attachment 263995

"In all three questions, the evidence appears to support the measures. For example, on average, staying 1 meter away from other people appears to reduce your chance of catching Covid-19 by 80%. Wearing a mask or face covering appears to reduce your risk by up to 85%. And wearing goggles or a face shield seems to reduce it by up to 78%."

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/06/01/...KnCp2_tiwjuRGf9F7U01Po4UtfIY2GTgOL2NB1PUayjgo

 

[russ_watters]

Here is an example of the strictly enforced UK COVID-19 containment efforts:

View attachment 263995

I don't understand peoples' fixation with the beach as a potential hotspot. There's not much more inhospitable a place to virus transmission than a beach, and people really do work hard to social distance on a beach.

A buddy of mine who lives in Huntington Beach, Ca complains about this constantly, but I have a suspicion it's really a cover for the parking situation.

 

[Vanadium 50]

Here's another of the hated Sweden-Denmark comparisons. I added UK and Germany for fun.

This is the 7-day running average of fatalities, normalized to the peak and (this is new) plotted against the days since the peak.

My conclusions:

1. The curves are closer to each other than I guessed before making the plot.
2. Our pariah nation, Sweden, is presently doing better than Norway, Germany and the UK. It's getting harder and harder to say "Every life matters! We need to get off the blue curve!"
3. Our pariah nation, Sweden, is not doing hugely better than Norway, Germany and the UK. It sums to 4%. or 179 people. I'm willing to believe that this is a downward fluctuation, and maybe the true value is not -4% but really +1 or +2% but not much more than that.
4. The upward part of the curve has some interesting features.

 

[Vanadium 50]

I don't understand peoples' fixation with the beach as a potential hotspot.

Or a swimming pool. Dousing onesself with chlorine seems like a good thing.

 

[DrClaude]

Here's another of the hated Sweden-Denmark comparison. I added UK and Germany for fun.

View attachment 264000

This is the 7-day running average of fatalities, normalized to the peak and (this is new) plotted against the days since the peak.

My conclusions:

1. The curves are closer to each other than I guessed before making the plot.
2. Our pariah nation, Sweden, is presently doing better than Norway, Germany and the UK. It's getting harder and harder to say "Every life matters! We need to get off the blue curve!"
3. Our pariah nation, Sweden, is not doing hugely better than Norway, Germany and the UK. It sums to 4%. or 179 people. I'm willing to believe that this is a downward fluctuation, and maybe the true value is not -4% but really +1 or +2% but not much more than that.
4. The upward part of the curve has some interesting features.

Considering the percentage of people with antibodies in Stockholm (7.3%), it really does seem that the distancing measures taken in Sweden were sufficient. The high number of death is probably a mixture of bad management of the situation with respect to the elderly and bad luck.

 

[Vanadium 50]

U.S. week/weekend of protests that have turned chaotic (sometimes with people not wearing masks in these crowds (including a reporter I saw) might lead to a COVID-19 spike.

Nonsense.

Because math.

The fraction protesting is about 10^-4. I estimate this from news reports that say "hundreds" for local protests and "tens of thousands" in total. The case fatality rate is a few 10^-4 for that age group (predominantly young), so we'll say 10^-8 in total (not all exposed become infected, and not all who are infected become cases). So if everyone protesting is infected -obviously an upper limit - that's 3 additional deaths: a 0.003% increase to the US total. Probably closer to 0.001%. (And less than the 9 killed directly in the rioting)

The protests during a medical pandemic that's killed over 100,000 seems immoral to me.

I don't wish to be lectured on morality by Mr. "Kill Off the Weak". I suspect I am not alone.

 

[Vanadium 50]

The high number of death is probably a mixture of bad management of the situation with respect to the elderly and bad luck.

Whatever the source is, policies after the peak cannot possibly affect the size of the peak.

I thought earlier someone say the US and UK were out of control, but I can't find it. The UK seems to be on the same curve as everyone else. The US is a special case, because it's a big place. New York state has 6% of the population but a quarter of the fatalities. Two-thirds of the cases are in New York City, which has 40% of the population. Sure, NYC is out of control, but the vast majority of the country is not.

 

[bob012345]

Here is an example of the strictly enforced UK COVID-19 containment efforts:

View attachment 263995

I'm not convinced this situation is so bad. People are spaced away from non relatives/friends and they don't spend a lot of time in close contact with strangers as well as being outside as opposed to a confined space. As I understand it, it takes several minutes of sustained exposed to an infected person to get infected.

 

[Ygggdrasil]

Here's the COVID-19 fatality data (downloaded from the ECDC) plotting the 7-day moving average of fatalities per 1M population for Sweden, Denmark, Germany, UK and US.

In terms of deaths per capita, the UK is clearly much worse than the other countries, while the US and Sweden have similar deaths per capita. As noted, the dynamics of the curves are fairly similar between the countries despite differences in government-imposed social distancing interventions. This observation could reflect research suggesting that (at least in the US), social distancing occurred well before governors began implementing stay at home orders, and that individuals' actions/reactions to public health advisories have been more important than strict imposition of stay at home orders by governments.

I'd agree with others that the relative sizes of the peaks likely do not reflect differences in the social distancing policies imposed by the countries, but instead may just reflect the number of unidentified cases present in each country prior to people beginning to socially distance. The number of unidentified cases likely has contributions from factors that governments can't easily control (e.g. the volume of travel from areas with transmission of the virus, population density, climate) as well as factors that reflect differences in governments' responses (e.g. testing and contract tracing in countries like Singapore, Germany and South Korea could have kept the number of unidentified cases low, whereas the lack of these capabilities in the US early in the outbreak could have contributed to higher numbers of unidentified cases).

The absolute number of cases is important as governments begin to exit from stay at home orders because we'll need to rely on contact tracing to limit the spread of new infections, and a large number of cases can overwhelm public health agencies' ability to trace contacts and isolate infectious individuals. However, the Sweden data do suggest that limited social distancing measures that keep businesses and schools open can keep the spread of the virus contained (e.g. R < 1).

 

[anorlunda]

As I understand it, it takes several minutes of sustained exposed to an infected person to get infected.

We see that quoted quite often. I've seen 15 minutes as the needed time.

But when I'm out in the grocery store, I assume that all the other people are infected. Therefore, it should be 15 minutes exposure to any collection of people taken one or more at a time, rather than 15 minutes exposure to the same person.

I also believe that talking has a lot to do with it, and the presumption is that people within 6 feet for 15 minutes are talking with each other. Passing other people in the aisles doesn't count as much if they are not talking. When I see a woman in the store yelling at her kids, I stay 30 feet away.

 

[PeroK]

I thought earlier someone say the US and UK were out of control, but I can't find it. The UK seems to be on the same curve as everyone else.

The UK was on the same curve as the other European countries, but we stepped out of lockdown earlier: in the sense that we were at least two weeks behind the other countries when we eased restrictions. The UK has more new cases than Italy, Spain, France and Germany combined. The question is whether we can continue on that downward curve, given the apparent laxity of our lockdown regime. Only time will tell, but the fact remains that we (unlike the others) did not continue with lockdown until we got the numbers right down.

The USA is, of course, about six times larger than the major European countries. Taking that into account, the numbers are still way higher. For example, in the week-ending May 26th, the USA had 22,000 new cases per day, compared to about 2,000 per day in total across Italy, France, Spain and Germany (that's 500 new cases per day per country). The UK had 2,350 new cases per day that week.

The point is clear that the major European countries have got the numbers down, whereas the UK and USA have certainly not done that yet.

 

[bob012345]

We see that quoted quite often. I've seen 15 minutes as the needed time.

But when I'm out in the grocery store, I assume that all the other people are infected. Therefore, it should be 15 minutes exposure to any collection of people taken one or more at a time, rather than 15 minutes exposure to the same person.

I also believe that talking has a lot to do with it, and the presumption is that people within 6 feet for 15 minutes are talking with each other. Passing other people in the aisles doesn't count as much if they are not talking. When I see a woman in the store yelling at her kids, I stay 30 feet away.

When I shop I'm probably getting less than one minute of total exposure within six feet of anyone. Maybe only 30 seconds worth. One caveat is if the virus is hanging around thick in the air but then I shop very early in the morning and the store has not been open too long and is basically empty. This is probably overkill but when I get home, I spray the bottoms of my shoes with a diluted bleach solution so as not to track potential contamination into the house.

 

[Vanadium 50]

The UK was on the same curve as the other European countries, but we stepped out of lockdown earlier

Compare with Sweden, they never locked down.

The USA is, of course, about six times larger than the major European countries. Taking that into account, the numbers are still way higher.

But much of this is coming from a single city. The rates are 60x lower elsewhere.

 

[PeroK]

But much of this is coming from a single city. The rates are 60x lower elsewhere.

This is simply not the case. The numbers are coming in from all over the USA. E.g. just today:

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

Florida +617
Maryland +848
Virginia +841
Indiana +407
Minnesota +300
Arizona +1127

And, in total over 6,000 new cases today already, without any figures yet from the hardest hit states like NY. By contrast:

Germany (population 80 million): +168.
Italy (population 60 million): +318.

 

[Vanadium 50]

This is simply not the case. The numbers are coming in from all over the USA. E.g. just today:

Florida +617

Florida is about the same size as New York state. FL deaths are at 2400. New York state is at 24,000.

 

[Jarvis323]

I don't understand peoples' fixation with the beach as a potential hotspot. There's not much more inhospitable a place to virus transmission than a beach, and people really do work hard to social distance on a beach.

A buddy of mine who lives in Huntington Beach, Ca complains about this constantly, but I have a suspicion it's really a cover for the parking situation.

This has frustrated me. The beaches near me that I've grown up going to are never packed with people. There are hundreds of miles of rural coastline. Often when I would go to the beach, there would be nobody, or only one or two people. Social distance is usually something like 150 feet. The cool breeze also quickly diffuses particles into the air. It is one of the least transmissible environments.

This is what they look like in terms of crowds:

Anyway, these coastlines still have been closed. Recently they opened some up, but with the caveats that you must live within 50 miles, you can only go in the morning or evening, and parking anywhere is illegal. But these beaches are basically not safely accessible without driving. Unless you have someone to drop you off, or you happen to have beach front property, you really still can't go.

It's frustrating, along with the blanket closures of outdoor recreational area's, especially when we're all taking much larger risks regularly shopping for food and doing other things. And not really that much is shut down, the skate shop is open, car dealerships are open, department stores are open, hardware stores are open, cannabis shops are open, coffee shops are open, and liquor stores are open.

Still I understand the motivation to close these beaches down and ban other safe outdoor recreation. It's really to curb travel. They don't want people coming in from other areas and bringing the virus there.

 

[russ_watters]

This has frustrated me. The beaches near me that I've grown up going to are never packed with people. There is some 500 miles of rural coastline. Often when I would go to the beach, there would be nobody, or only one or two people. Social distance is usually something like 150 feet. The cool breeze also quickly diffuses particles into the air. It is one of the least transmissible environments.

This is what they look like in terms of crowds:

The pictures we see that anger people and the media and some politicians call a problem are like this one:

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/apr/27/california-beaches-coronavirus-orange-county

There could be a thousand people (guess) in this photo ( ). But a thousand people over a (guess) length of a quarter mile and width of 100 yds is roughly 400 square feet per person or an average of 20'x20' per person! If you consider that most pare probably family units or small groups of friends in 2s, 3s, 5s, etc., the spacing is multiplied. This isn't a photo of violating guidelines, it's a photo showing excellent social distancing.

...and then there's the wind.

 

[mathwonk]

Now we are talking my kind of prevention (math themed face masks); maybe I could start up a mask service with Riemann Roch formulas on them:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/780362...her+face+mask&ref=sr_gallery-1-24&bes=1&col=1

 

[bob012345]

Now we are talking my kind of prevention (math themed face masks); maybe I could start up a mask service with Riemann Roch formulas on them:

https://www.etsy.com/listing/780362...her+face+mask&ref=sr_gallery-1-24&bes=1&col=1

What rating do you think they have?