The big Coronavirus thread

nickice

tailwindhome said:

Interesting from Germany how they tracked down in meticulous detail the first cases.

Some other interesting points around the difficults of track and trace in a country where they literally had the Stasi

Worth noting their death rate of 1.9%, given the volume of testing and the absence of deaths due to not receiving ICU, that's a good base figure for policy decisions

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/it-was-the-saltshaker-how-germany-meticulously-traced-its-coronavirus-outbreak/

There was something in the Telegraph where German scientists conducted antibody tests and concluded the death rate was something like 0.4%

rick_chasey

kingstonian said:

Where does the stat of Germany doing 500,000 tests a day come from? Genuinely interested as it doesn't seem to correlate to the Worldometers site that shows 1.7m tests in total having been conducted.

That article TWH linked to.

The difference between Germany and Italy is partly statistical: Germany’s rate seems so much lower because it has tested widely. Germany has carried out more than 1.3 million tests, according to the Robert Koch Institute. It is now carrying out up to 500,000 tests a week, Drosten said. Italy has conducted more than 807,000 tests since Feb. 21, according to its Civil Protection Agency. With a few local exceptions, Italy only tests people taken to hospital with clear and severe symptoms.

I got it wrong - it's 500,000 per week, not day!!

kingstonian

rick_chasey said:

kingstonian said:

Where does the stat of Germany doing 500,000 tests a day come from? Genuinely interested as it doesn't seem to correlate to the Worldometers site that shows 1.7m tests in total having been conducted.

That article TWH linked to.

The difference between Germany and Italy is partly statistical: Germany’s rate seems so much lower because it has tested widely. Germany has carried out more than 1.3 million tests, according to the Robert Koch Institute. It is now carrying out up to 500,000 tests a week, Drosten said. Italy has conducted more than 807,000 tests since Feb. 21, according to its Civil Protection Agency. With a few local exceptions, Italy only tests people taken to hospital with clear and severe symptoms.

I got it wrong - it's 500,000 per week, not day!!

Ah, got it - thanks for clarifying. Makes sense that it is a weekly stat.

surrey_commuter

rick_chasey said:

Stevo_666 said:

rick_chasey said:

FT reporting UK isn't even at its capacity of 19000 tests per day two weeks before it is supposed to be doing 100,000 tests a day.

Apparently some of the challenge challenge is the logistics around the 'flow of specimens' , getting them to the right facilities and getting the results back. Apparently that is slightly more critical over here compared to say Germany because Germany has more, smaller, labs so the logistics are more local whereas the UK operates a more centralised model (as you would expect with a centralised health-care system).

Though Germany is at 500,000 tests a day.

In a population of 83m, that means Germany is testing approx. 0.6% of the population a day. Or the whole population once every 5-6 months. Do we think that this enough to keep track of the virus given the rate of spread?

Depends right?

In my mind it is all about infection rate vs testing rate, but what do I know.

If you are keeping new infections below the testing rate in my mind it is easier to track and isolate without having to shut the whole caboodle down.

Prof of something or other on the radio reckons the extensive testing in Germany allowed them to get ahead of the virus. ie they knew how it was spreading so they could evolve their response

kingstongraham

Their stat for week ending April 4th was an average of 116,655 per day. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52234061

rick_chasey

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

Stevo_666 said:

rick_chasey said:

FT reporting UK isn't even at its capacity of 19000 tests per day two weeks before it is supposed to be doing 100,000 tests a day.

Apparently some of the challenge challenge is the logistics around the 'flow of specimens' , getting them to the right facilities and getting the results back. Apparently that is slightly more critical over here compared to say Germany because Germany has more, smaller, labs so the logistics are more local whereas the UK operates a more centralised model (as you would expect with a centralised health-care system).

Though Germany is at 500,000 tests a day.

In a population of 83m, that means Germany is testing approx. 0.6% of the population a day. Or the whole population once every 5-6 months. Do we think that this enough to keep track of the virus given the rate of spread?

Depends right?

In my mind it is all about infection rate vs testing rate, but what do I know.

If you are keeping new infections below the testing rate in my mind it is easier to track and isolate without having to shut the whole caboodle down.

Prof of something or other on the radio reckons the extensive testing in Germany allowed them to get ahead of the virus. ie they knew how it was spreading so they could evolve their response

That would make sense.

tailwindhome

nickice said:

tailwindhome said:

Interesting from Germany how they tracked down in meticulous detail the first cases.

Some other interesting points around the difficults of track and trace in a country where they literally had the Stasi

Worth noting their death rate of 1.9%, given the volume of testing and the absence of deaths due to not receiving ICU, that's a good base figure for policy decisions

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/it-was-the-saltshaker-how-germany-meticulously-traced-its-coronavirus-outbreak/

There was something in the Telegraph where German scientists conducted antibody tests and concluded the death rate was something like 0.4%

That would be this

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/covid-antibody-test-in-german-town-shows-15-per-cent-infection-rate-0-4pc-death-rate

tailwindhome

Some Irish data as at midnight Monday

pangolin

tailwindhome said:

Some Irish data as at midnight Monday

That over 65 data is sobering isn't it. 91% chance of death? And less than 40% got to go to ICU.

Edit: What am I not understanding on that table.
Number of cases over 65 who got Covid - 2520
Number who died - 397
% that died - 91%. Eh?

mrfpb

rick_chasey said:

kingstonian said:

Where does the stat of Germany doing 500,000 tests a day come from? Genuinely interested as it doesn't seem to correlate to the Worldometers site that shows 1.7m tests in total having been conducted.

That article TWH linked to.

The difference between Germany and Italy is partly statistical: Germany’s rate seems so much lower because it has tested widely. Germany has carried out more than 1.3 million tests, according to the Robert Koch Institute. It is now carrying out up to 500,000 tests a week, Drosten said. Italy has conducted more than 807,000 tests since Feb. 21, according to its Civil Protection Agency. With a few local exceptions, Italy only tests people taken to hospital with clear and severe symptoms.

I got it wrong - it's 500,000 per week, not day!!

That quote makes it look like that Italy's testing regime is narrower than the UK's. I can think of a few people I know who have been tested (some more than once) that don't meet that criteria. Do Italy not test staff?

surrey_commuter

pangolin said:

tailwindhome said:

Some Irish data as at midnight Monday

That over 65 data is sobering isn't it. 91% chance of death? And less than 40% got to go to ICU.

Edit: What am I not understanding on that table.
Number of cases over 65 who got Covid - 2520
Number who died - 397
% that died - 91%. Eh?

That took a few scratches of the head - 91% of deaths were 65+

surrey_commuter

tailwindhome said:

Some Irish data as at midnight Monday

Presumably the UK will be releasing similar charts with “Don’t know” “Don’t care” written across them

morstar

pangolin said:

tailwindhome said:

Some Irish data as at midnight Monday

That over 65 data is sobering isn't it. 91% chance of death? And less than 40% got to go to ICU.

Edit: What am I not understanding on that table.
Number of cases over 65 who got Covid - 2520
Number who died - 397
% that died - 91%. Eh?

Yep, just read the tables in exactly the same way. Thought process went from bloody hell to eh?

morstar

surrey_commuter said:

pangolin said:

tailwindhome said:

Some Irish data as at midnight Monday

That over 65 data is sobering isn't it. 91% chance of death? And less than 40% got to go to ICU.

Edit: What am I not understanding on that table.
Number of cases over 65 who got Covid - 2520
Number who died - 397
% that died - 91%. Eh?

That took a few scratches of the head - 91% of deaths were 65+

OK, makes sense. Thanks.

Weird way to lay out the table.

pangolin

Oooh. Gotcha. Thanks!

Stevo_666

rick_chasey said:

kingstonian said:

Where does the stat of Germany doing 500,000 tests a day come from? Genuinely interested as it doesn't seem to correlate to the Worldometers site that shows 1.7m tests in total having been conducted.

That article TWH linked to.

The difference between Germany and Italy is partly statistical: Germany’s rate seems so much lower because it has tested widely. Germany has carried out more than 1.3 million tests, according to the Robert Koch Institute. It is now carrying out up to 500,000 tests a week, Drosten said. Italy has conducted more than 807,000 tests since Feb. 21, according to its Civil Protection Agency. With a few local exceptions, Italy only tests people taken to hospital with clear and severe symptoms.

I got it wrong - it's 500,000 per week, not day!!

OK, so that makes it 0.086% of the population daily, or the whole German population once every 3.5 years.

My point here is that if Germany is top of the class on testing, even for Germany this shows the practical issues with a test, track and trace strategy. In the end it isn't an exit strategy, just part of managing the on-going situation and helping to slow the spread.

The only true exit strategies in my mind are a vaccine or herd immunity. If we don't get the first in time, then we will get the second by default.

I would see that some level of social distancing will need to be maintained even after certain restrictions are relaxed (I also mentioned up thread that the isolation of the old and vulnerable may need to stay). Clearly this is by no means a full solution, but I'm not pretending to know all the answers.

Longshot

Stevo_666 said:

The only true exit strategies in my mind are a vaccine or herd immunity. If we don't get the first in time, then we will get the second by default.

I would see that some level of social distancing will need to be maintained even after certain restrictions are relaxed (I also mentioned up thread that the isolation of the old and vulnerable may need to stay). Clearly this is by no means a full solution, but I'm not pretending to know all the answers.

This is right I think. I cannot see any way we get testing done comprehensively enough for this to provide a true picture. Therefore we'll need to take some measured risk but not with the highly vulnerable.

rick_chasey

Longshot said:

Stevo_666 said:

The only true exit strategies in my mind are a vaccine or herd immunity. If we don't get the first in time, then we will get the second by default.

I would see that some level of social distancing will need to be maintained even after certain restrictions are relaxed (I also mentioned up thread that the isolation of the old and vulnerable may need to stay). Clearly this is by no means a full solution, but I'm not pretending to know all the answers.

This is right I think. I cannot see any way we get testing done comprehensively enough for this to provide a true picture. Therefore we'll need to take some measured risk but not with the highly vulnerable.

How do you know what the risk is if you are not testing?

Stevo_666

Longshot said:

Stevo_666 said:

The only true exit strategies in my mind are a vaccine or herd immunity. If we don't get the first in time, then we will get the second by default.

I would see that some level of social distancing will need to be maintained even after certain restrictions are relaxed (I also mentioned up thread that the isolation of the old and vulnerable may need to stay). Clearly this is by no means a full solution, but I'm not pretending to know all the answers.

This is right I think. I cannot see any way we get testing done comprehensively enough for this to provide a true picture. Therefore we'll need to take some measured risk but not with the highly vulnerable.

I do see that the likes of us (i.e. not old and/or vulnerable) will have to take some degree of risk going forward. We can't all keep living under a rock until a vaccine is available.

The other point here is that keeping that set of people isolated will do relatively less economic damage give the proportion of them that will be economically inactive. So in that case the medical/health aims are not running contrary to the economic aims.

tailwindhome

Stevo_666 said:

OK, so that makes it 0.086% of the population daily, or the whole German population once every 3.5 years.

My point here is that if Germany is top of the class on testing, even for Germany this shows the practical issues with a test, track and trace strategy. In the end it isn't an exit strategy, just part of managing the on-going situation and helping to slow the spread.

The only true exit strategies in my mind are a vaccine or herd immunity. If we don't get the first in time, then we will get the second by default.

I would see that some level of social distancing will need to be maintained even after certain restrictions are relaxed (I also mentioned up thread that the isolation of the old and vulnerable may need to stay). Clearly this is by no means a full solution, but I'm not pretending to know all the answers.

The question then is I suppose what's the best way to deploy 500,000 tests a week?

Stevo_666

tailwindhome said:

Stevo_666 said:

OK, so that makes it 0.086% of the population daily, or the whole German population once every 3.5 years.

My point here is that if Germany is top of the class on testing, even for Germany this shows the practical issues with a test, track and trace strategy. In the end it isn't an exit strategy, just part of managing the on-going situation and helping to slow the spread.

The only true exit strategies in my mind are a vaccine or herd immunity. If we don't get the first in time, then we will get the second by default.

I would see that some level of social distancing will need to be maintained even after certain restrictions are relaxed (I also mentioned up thread that the isolation of the old and vulnerable may need to stay). Clearly this is by no means a full solution, but I'm not pretending to know all the answers.

The question then is I suppose what's the best way to deploy 500,000 tests a week?

True, good question. Which I think need to be considered together with other mitigating actions, some of which may have a bearing on the deployment.

surrey_commuter

rick_chasey said:

Longshot said:

Stevo_666 said:

The only true exit strategies in my mind are a vaccine or herd immunity. If we don't get the first in time, then we will get the second by default.

I would see that some level of social distancing will need to be maintained even after certain restrictions are relaxed (I also mentioned up thread that the isolation of the old and vulnerable may need to stay). Clearly this is by no means a full solution, but I'm not pretending to know all the answers.

This is right I think. I cannot see any way we get testing done comprehensively enough for this to provide a true picture. Therefore we'll need to take some measured risk but not with the highly vulnerable.

How do you know what the risk is if you are not testing?

There is a direct correlation between how quickly you can ease lockdown and quality of the data.

We don’t even know how many people are dysfunctional it so how can we measure the impact of easement measures

Jeremy.89

Stevo_666 said:

Longshot said:

Stevo_666 said:

The only true exit strategies in my mind are a vaccine or herd immunity. If we don't get the first in time, then we will get the second by default.

I would see that some level of social distancing will need to be maintained even after certain restrictions are relaxed (I also mentioned up thread that the isolation of the old and vulnerable may need to stay). Clearly this is by no means a full solution, but I'm not pretending to know all the answers.

This is right I think. I cannot see any way we get testing done comprehensively enough for this to provide a true picture. Therefore we'll need to take some measured risk but not with the highly vulnerable.

I do see that the likes of us (i.e. not old and/or vulnerable) will have to take some degree of risk going forward. We can't all keep living under a rock until a vaccine is available.

The other point here is that keeping that set of people isolated will do relatively less economic damage give the proportion of them that will be economically inactive. So in that case the medical/health aims are not running contrary to the economic aims.

My hope is that through the German track and trace efforts, we'll get a better understanding on what counts as risky. At the moment I've seen guidance that says you should leave any deliveries 24 hours, as the virus can survive on cardboard for that long. But then other guidance seems to suggest that getting infected through that mechanism is pretty unlikely.

I do find I'm going from relatively chipper to dismayed very quickly with regards to all this.

Jeremy.89

surrey_commuter said:

rick_chasey said:

Longshot said:

Stevo_666 said:

The only true exit strategies in my mind are a vaccine or herd immunity. If we don't get the first in time, then we will get the second by default.

I would see that some level of social distancing will need to be maintained even after certain restrictions are relaxed (I also mentioned up thread that the isolation of the old and vulnerable may need to stay). Clearly this is by no means a full solution, but I'm not pretending to know all the answers.

This is right I think. I cannot see any way we get testing done comprehensively enough for this to provide a true picture. Therefore we'll need to take some measured risk but not with the highly vulnerable.

How do you know what the risk is if you are not testing?

There is a direct correlation between how quickly you can ease lockdown and quality of the data.

We don’t even know how many people are dysfunctional it so how can we measure the impact of easement measures

For the moment there's going to have to be a lot of statistical inferences.

Stevo_666

rick_chasey said:

Longshot said:

Stevo_666 said:

The only true exit strategies in my mind are a vaccine or herd immunity. If we don't get the first in time, then we will get the second by default.

I would see that some level of social distancing will need to be maintained even after certain restrictions are relaxed (I also mentioned up thread that the isolation of the old and vulnerable may need to stay). Clearly this is by no means a full solution, but I'm not pretending to know all the answers.

This is right I think. I cannot see any way we get testing done comprehensively enough for this to provide a true picture. Therefore we'll need to take some measured risk but not with the highly vulnerable.

How do you know what the risk is if you are not testing?

My point above is that nobody is testing anywhere near enough - and probably won't be able to before a vaccine comes along. Given how quickly this spreads, my crude estimates tells me that tests would need to be measured in millions a week in countries the size of Germany, UK etc to be able to assess properly (especially where lockdown is lifted to some degree to help the economy)

The vaccine timing is the key to all of this.

rjsterry

Stevo_666 said:

Longshot said:

Stevo_666 said:

The only true exit strategies in my mind are a vaccine or herd immunity. If we don't get the first in time, then we will get the second by default.

I would see that some level of social distancing will need to be maintained even after certain restrictions are relaxed (I also mentioned up thread that the isolation of the old and vulnerable may need to stay). Clearly this is by no means a full solution, but I'm not pretending to know all the answers.

This is right I think. I cannot see any way we get testing done comprehensively enough for this to provide a true picture. Therefore we'll need to take some measured risk but not with the highly vulnerable.

I do see that the likes of us (i.e. not old and/or vulnerable) will have to take some degree of risk going forward. We can't all keep living under a rock until a vaccine is available.

The other point here is that keeping that set of people isolated will do relatively less economic damage give the proportion of them that will be economically inactive. So in that case the medical/health aims are not running contrary to the economic aims.

I think I saw somewhere yesterday that someone had worked out that isolating a carefully targeted 10% (those testing positive and those at increased risk, presumably) was as effective in slowing the spread as isolating a randomly selected 50% of the population. The point being that an economy can function with 10% out of action but not 50%. At the moment we are doing the latter and need to move to the former.

surrey_commuter

Jeremy.89 said:

Stevo_666 said:

Longshot said:

Stevo_666 said:

The only true exit strategies in my mind are a vaccine or herd immunity. If we don't get the first in time, then we will get the second by default.

I would see that some level of social distancing will need to be maintained even after certain restrictions are relaxed (I also mentioned up thread that the isolation of the old and vulnerable may need to stay). Clearly this is by no means a full solution, but I'm not pretending to know all the answers.

This is right I think. I cannot see any way we get testing done comprehensively enough for this to provide a true picture. Therefore we'll need to take some measured risk but not with the highly vulnerable.

I do see that the likes of us (i.e. not old and/or vulnerable) will have to take some degree of risk going forward. We can't all keep living under a rock until a vaccine is available.

The other point here is that keeping that set of people isolated will do relatively less economic damage give the proportion of them that will be economically inactive. So in that case the medical/health aims are not running contrary to the economic aims.

My hope is that through the German track and trace efforts, we'll get a better understanding on what counts as risky. At the moment I've seen guidance that says you should leave any deliveries 24 hours, as the virus can survive on cardboard for that long. But then other guidance seems to suggest that getting infected through that mechanism is pretty unlikely.

I do find I'm going from relatively chipper to dismayed very quickly with regards to all this.

An interesting strategy to do nothing and copy the Germans and arguably better than our current one of refusing to learn from other countries experiences

pangolin

rjsterry said:

Stevo_666 said:

Longshot said:

Stevo_666 said:

The only true exit strategies in my mind are a vaccine or herd immunity. If we don't get the first in time, then we will get the second by default.

I would see that some level of social distancing will need to be maintained even after certain restrictions are relaxed (I also mentioned up thread that the isolation of the old and vulnerable may need to stay). Clearly this is by no means a full solution, but I'm not pretending to know all the answers.

This is right I think. I cannot see any way we get testing done comprehensively enough for this to provide a true picture. Therefore we'll need to take some measured risk but not with the highly vulnerable.

I do see that the likes of us (i.e. not old and/or vulnerable) will have to take some degree of risk going forward. We can't all keep living under a rock until a vaccine is available.

The other point here is that keeping that set of people isolated will do relatively less economic damage give the proportion of them that will be economically inactive. So in that case the medical/health aims are not running contrary to the economic aims.

I think I saw somewhere yesterday that someone had worked out that isolating a carefully targeted 10% (those testing positive and those at increased risk, presumably) was as effective in slowing the spread as isolating a randomly selected 50% of the population. The point being that an economy can function with 10% out of action but not 50%. At the moment we are doing the latter and need to move to the former.

Tough luck if you're in that 10% and say, at school or early on in your career. 90% of the country carries on and you're stuck in limbo. Not disagreeing with you mind.

morstar

Stevo_666 said:

rick_chasey said:

Longshot said:

Stevo_666 said:

The only true exit strategies in my mind are a vaccine or herd immunity. If we don't get the first in time, then we will get the second by default.

I would see that some level of social distancing will need to be maintained even after certain restrictions are relaxed (I also mentioned up thread that the isolation of the old and vulnerable may need to stay). Clearly this is by no means a full solution, but I'm not pretending to know all the answers.

This is right I think. I cannot see any way we get testing done comprehensively enough for this to provide a true picture. Therefore we'll need to take some measured risk but not with the highly vulnerable.

How do you know what the risk is if you are not testing?

My point above is that nobody is testing anywhere near enough - and probably won't be able to before a vaccine comes along. Given how quickly this spreads, my crude estimates tells me that tests would need to be measured in millions a week in countries the size of Germany, UK etc to be able to assess properly (especially where lockdown is lifted to some degree to help the economy)

The vaccine timing is the key to all of this.

Well put.
Arguably the best solution is for all countries to put their combined efforts into 100% testing of a single nation in its entirety to fully understand what is happening.

Lots of countries with ad hoc testing does little to provide a full picture. Similar to the 9 ladies not making a baby in 1 month analogy.

Even then you have to accept the genetic element remains an unknown but that would give more realistic data.

Germany’s 4 x UK is hardly the panacea of comprehensive data.

kingstonian

I'd be interested to understand how many of the 500,000 tests a week are multiple tests of the same person e.g. if someone is in hospital suffering with C-19 are they being tested each and every day, or just once.