WW3 Europe front. UPDATE page 532 -February 2024, the decisive month

BTW, Belgian virologist together with several other experts like Erika Vlieghe (who is chief Infectious Diseases as the University Clinic in Antwerp) were kicked out from the special advisory panel because they were too critical of the, in their opinion, too relaxed treatment of the pandemic by the authorities.

I believe Minister of Health Maggie De Block (who is an MD herself) was pushing for them to be expelled. She was quoted saying virologists should not meddle with the politicians' jobs.

Sorry, getting old...

"BTW, Belgian virologist together with several other"

"Belgian virologist Marc Van Ranst...."

Here in Canada many of our schools are only paying lip service to masks and social distancing.
There is no real enforcement of the mask policy during school hours for students and teachers who refuse to wear them or wear them wrong.
The only thing that seems mandatory is that there are teachers at the exits making sure that as the students leave the school every one is wearing a mask. After all day of breathing on each other they must keep up appearances.
As well, the schools are largely not enforcing any kind of social distancing, children reportedly are still within normal desk distance, the kids have been back at school since Tuesday last week. The teachers and the school boards are pretending that they are doing everything but they are not as then they would have to sacrifice funding. Increasing social distancing and limiting students can only decrease student hours.
IF the per student hours threshold is crossed they lose money and rather than risk their paychecks they will just risk you. Nice.
Lockdowns are just around the corner I am sure and I doubt that they will be announced.
Everything will be fine and we will be called crazy until the very hour we are told to go home because of the emergency that is OUR fault.

RW is a regular poster on the big COVID thread. He's also known as Wordsworth. He's convinced (among other things) that Spain has peaked in it's current surge.

Of course he's entitled to his opinions, and we (over there) do read and consider what he has to say. Historically, however, he has underestimated this virus, and been too hopeful in his conculsions, in MY opinion. Anyone is welcome to read what he has to say -- he posts a lot on that thread.

I spend a lot of time on that thread, and my observation is that most of the regulars are not quick to buy into his conclusions, though we do have discussions about them.

Honestly, I think it's best to take in all reasonable opinions (which means, for me, ignoring the virus deniers completely -- but considering the opinions of anyone who has put real research into understanding this) and form one's own conclusions. I simply commented on him in response to an earlier comment in this thread about his "trolling." I actually don't see it as trolling, personally... I just think he's overly optimistic more often than not, and interprets data in ways that tend to support his conclusions, though they not necessarily support the reality of what is going on. That's my opinion, which you are welcome to take or leave as you please.

I just want RW's nick, thanks.

Can you also post a link to "the big COVID thread"?

Thanks.

Personally, I think physical school reopening is a disaster in the making -- and I'm a teacher (at a university.) Had we not gone digital through the spring, I would actually probably have taken a leave of absence -- I wouldn't want to risk my own health, nor the health of my students ... and I could not, in good conscience, participate in classroom education. There is a LOT of pressure on schools to reopen... and if teachers choose not to go back, they might not qualify for unemployment, since the leave was voluntary (meaning, their job existed.)

I am blessed to work for a university that was sane enough to go digital fairly early in the fall semester, and we remain digital at least through spring. Honestly, digital teaching is a drag ... it's a lot more work for us than classroom teaching, and it's hard for the students, who are cranky and are more difficult to manage than usual ... but most of my colleagues are giving it our all, and trying to make the best experience possible for our students. The best students are embracing that, and also trying to contribute to a new way of learning and interacting.

In the US, if you leave your job or are laid off, chances are that you also lose your healthcare -- and most teachers (being very poorly paid all around) don't have much or any savings. We live paycheck to paycheck, and we couldn't begin to afford COBRA (continuation of healthcare, which is paid out of pocket; COBRA is incredibly expensive. (About the same as my monthly rent.) At least in CA, we could qualify for MediCal, if unemployed, so we wouldn't be left entirely without healthcare ... but it's a difficult system to navigate, and the coverage is minimal. It also takes a while to get enrolled in it, and involves a lot of paperwork.

The greed is not at the teacher level, nearly anywhere. It's higher up, with the administration. Yes, it's hard teaching digitally -- but I think most of us (who are not virus deniers) are willing to make the additional effort to do that, rather than risk our lives, the lives of our students, and the lives of anyone with whom we come in contact. In the SF Bay Area, almost all of us live with housemates, as it is impossible to live alone on a teacher's salary. Even with 3 housemates, and rent control from 2008, it's a struggle for me to make ends meet. So, we risk exposing our entire households if we return to work -- and this is how a pandemic can really get a foothold in a population.

Hope that sheds some light from the teacher side of things....

The giant COVID thread is here: Thread: Covid19/2021-22 OMICRON/ VIRUS "IHU" FRANCE:P13310/NEWEST VIRUS: "NEOCOV" HIGH INFECTION RATE+1 IN 3 DIE !?! P13315 (Page 10793)

Yes It made a record here yet again. Each day brings new surprises. Sobering estimate you’ve given there! I’m thinking just by the end of the week they will have to address it somehow, at least to save face to the public. Because looking back at the graph and numbers, they shut the whole place down for what is in comparison to today’s figures nothing. Now everything is open and it’s many many times worse. Very contradictory response, if you were to just take it at face value. This also bolsters the notion that the shut downs were a prep for other reasons, yet to be seen.

Before schools shut first. I wonder if they’ll do this again? Because nurseries stayed open a time after this, as they are part of the backbone of the economy allowing the parents to go out and work. If the nurseries are locked down, so then are many parents. Very pivotal period we are seeing here imo.

New peaks in Czechia, Ukraine and France: COVID-19 daily bulletin

[link to newseu.cgtn.com (secure)]

Thank you dp for the sweaden view.

Keep up the good work.

BNO Newsroom
@BNODesk
·
20m
NEW: France reports 10,593 new cases of coronavirus, biggest one-day increase on record

[link to www.bbc.co.uk (secure)]

Wack a mole continues - how is this going to help ??

Coronavirus: New restrictions in north-east England.

The new measures include:
Meeting people outside your household or support bubble in private homes and gardens is banned (exemptions include attending a birth, visiting someone who is dying, work, education, registered childcare, emergency or care, moving house or child contact arrangements).
People are advised not to socialise outside their household in public venues.
Residents should only use public transport for essential purposes, such as going to school or work.
Pubs, restaurants, cafes to be table service only and all leisure venues must shut at 22:00.
Holidays are permitted but only with members of your household or support bubble.
People should not spectate at any grassroots sport or play sport in the restricted areas.
Schools, colleges and universities remain open.
Travel outside the area is permitted but visiting another home or garden is not.
Care homes are closed to non-essential visitors except in end-of-life circumstances.
There are no local changes to funerals, weddings or religious ceremonies.

Last Edited by ParamedicUK on 09/17/2020 02:12 PM

This kind of inadequate measures is insane from any point of view, yet they expect them to miraculously work. Beats me. But then I think again that the idea is to let it run wild and wait to people beg on their knees for the lockdowns.

Lockdown by the backdoor I think they called it in the media today. Basically introduce so many rules that we’ll be in lockdown without having to announce lockdown.
Crazy rules. Meeting your family at their home or garden is banned but you are ‘advised’ not to go to a pub and mix with strangers.

DR,

Your analysis has been a great guiding light for us and wanted to thank you.

As for a boots on the ground reporting from So. Cal. Some disturbing trends are happening behind the scenes that in a few weeks we might see another upswing in cases.

Lots of activities in some open pubs and restaurants, sports bar. As people are enjoying the return of football (American). We are seeing people attending public places in some belligerent counties.

Churches are also conducting services and ignoring social distancing.

Only saving grace for us is that most schools are online. However, kids ports like travelling baseball is happening.

Human behavior will always be the x factor in containing this virus.

https://twitter.com/_/status/1306683551086268417

Posted in the main thread but very interesting.

The UK is currently at 3-4K cases a day.

To get to the peak hospitalisations we had before we are going to have to be in the 30-50K cases a day range!

Will that happen DR ? Maybe.

Hospitalisation is the only figure that really means anything ?



Last Edited by ParamedicUK on 09/17/2020 05:01 PM

We got you beat---45k for US today
Looks like our bbq weekend is catching up again.

Hospitalization starting to creep back up too.

I’d say that will easily happen judging by the growth in seeing here.

New record again for czech 3123 cases.

Last Edited by Gamechanger 2.0 on 09/18/2020 03:03 AM

UPDATES FROM ITALY - Ministry Of Health report Aug 31 / Sep 6


Some key points of the report:

An increase in the new cases reported in Italy for the sixth consecutive week is confirmed, with a cumulative incidence (ISS flow data) in the last 14 days (period 24/8-6/9) of 27.89 per 100,000 inhabitants.

In the period August 20 - September 2, 2020 the Rt calculated on symptomatic cases is equal to 1.14

Compared to the previous two weeks of monitoring (from August 17 to 30, 2020), there has been an increase in the occupancy rate of dedicated beds, in both the medical and intensive care areas in almost all Regions. At national level, the employment rate in the medical area has increased from 1 to 2%, while the employment rate in intensive care has increased from 2% to 3%, with values above 5% for some regions.

During the week of monitoring, a total of 2280 active outbreaks was reported, of which 691 were new outbreaks


[full report, in English]:
[link to www.salute.gov.it]

Last Edited by Leonero on 09/18/2020 03:16 AM

Doesn't work this way, at least for the U.K.

Hospitalizations reflect the reality, official case count doesn't. Cannot extrapolate the hospitalization based on official case count.


If the official case count is X, and hospitalizations are Y, there will never going to be formula that can be used to project how many hospitalizations will be if the number of cases reaches a certain number.


The reasons why such formula can't exist are :

1.A person can be detected as a positive case, after contact tracing, but before the onset of the symptoms. He will be a case in day 1 (the detection day) and MIGHT be hospitalized in day 6, if he have symptoms grave enough to be hospitalized. Or he might not have them, and there is no hospitalization.

2.There will always be a number of people (and a significant one) that will want to fight the disease at home. Some of them will go to the hospital 1-2 days later, if their symptoms deteriorate, but some will manage to beat it at home. A part of this people won't even be tested, another part will be tested 2,3,4 days later, when they get to a hospital, some are tested days before they get sick.

3.The U.K. (and not only) are having a massive backlog of tests, that aren't processed yet. This leads to discrepancies between cases and hospitalizations, both in time and quantity. There is a high chance that the ratio of hospitalizations now is rising, even if the cases are lower...because of the backlogs. Case count can be delayed...a hospitalization cannot be delayed.



It is entirely possible that the U.K. hospitalizations to reach a critical bed occupancy with an consistent (10-14 days streak) official case count of 6k / day for the U.K.


Do not forget that the official case count is probably 6 to 10 times lower (for the U.K.) then the real number of infected, and since hospitalizations reflect reality, the official case count is irrelevant.


For a statistician or a modeler, it is relevant, but we are using a ton of other methods to try and determine the numbers that we think are real.

Last Edited by Recollector on 09/19/2020 05:35 AM

Sorry to hear that. It was expected to see this rise, because Czechia had a very low infection rate by May, probably around 1%. It didn't grew more in the summer, but people got their guard down, and most are hoaxers or think this is just a cold, hence, their reaction was "it's not a big deal".


Reopening the schools on September 1st, which coincided with more people coming back to work from vacations, and reopening of various categories of avenues with less restrictions, led to this spikes.


What we see in Czechia is this combinations of factors, and this is reflected in massive spikes. It's not a constant rise, not even an exponential rise. It is probable that we see an out of control epidemic in Czechia now.


It is a 4.5 times increase since September 1st, a 6.3 times increase from the peak in the spring, and a 17.3 times increase since 60 days ago.



We will have to wait until the end of this month, to see if these spikes are just an initial push (due to all those factors I have mentioned, colliding in a short period of time), and it will continue with a growth that is specific to an R0 of 2.2, or we will see more spikes in the next week (spikes of 5k, 7k, or more) which will clearly show that Czechia has lost control of the epidemic and will have to lock-down in early October.

Italy managed to keep it under control, and they will continue to do it for next week as well.


But, Italy, from what I know, reopened the schools on 14th.


So, expect a solid rise in cases starting around September 25th.

The lack of any resolute measures in Czechia probably stems from the fact that there are supposed to be regional elections on 2 and 3 October, in which the prime minister's party is supposed to win. So I guess that is the major factor why they were and still are so so reluctant to inform the public transparently about what is going on and what will happen. Poor leadership.

The virus circulating in Italy is still the old one (the one from March, with a positivity rate of 1-2%)

The virus that is invading western and Central Europe is the American one (with a rate of 10%)

Perhaps Italy has gained some immunity against the new virus thanks to the severity of the previous outbreak

You just quoted 4K yesterday, then I saw the latest figures. At this rate it will meet that forecast easily. One of the rules is you must wear a mask in the stair wells of apartments, haven’t seen anyone do this even. It highlights the attitude toward this. Same as with many people, they won’t acknowledge the danger until it’s knocking on their door so to speak. Whereby family or friends get it.

I edited my Last post as I done some math on the figures myself, it’s not my strong point. I thought I messed it up, so deleted it. Actually it was right. Seems we are on par with Spain already. I guess a lot of their figures overall are including the results of the first wave, such as how many people per 100,000 have it. Well as there was no first wave here, all our numbers have been accumulated recently, which makes it more alarming.

Also many people work in Germany, it seems like a few border towns have had spikes either from workers, or visitors from there. I’m hoping it closes ASAP because then that gives me reason to get the kid out of nursery. Each day I’m keenly checking these figures. As you say it’s nearing a situation which is growing out of control. That’s only going to be accentuated, as these figures represent what was caught a few weeks ago.

But didn't the "American" one originate in Italy? Predominantly blowing up in New York due to high travel between the US and Italy (NY has a large Italian population).

Yes, that's why new york has a low number of cases

New York is the exact proof of what I'm saying. Like Italy it has been severely hit in March and now despite the outbreaks in other US states has very few cases

I suppose the 'American one'has originated in Mexico or Central America

Bump

Jazzz did an amazing piece of work.