It's the fastest one our unsupported and overstressed testing system is capable of.
I believe the long testing times are to some extent a product of a much overdue priority system, where tests required for say urgent hospital care the next day are being routed above those for symptomatic individuals with no known contacts. We clearly need way more tests, but, we also need to be smarter as we deploy the tests we have.
18 days is ridiculous though. At the 14 day mark they should just throw it out and send you a "test not complete" notification.
Won't get paid doing that.
It literally doesn't matter. They are already running tests as fast as they can, throwing out old tests does not impact the number of tests, all it does is take a 'slot' which could otherwise have been used for a newer test which would have value. Without use of pool testing, they can't get the machines to process more samples than they are at the moment (until they get more machines, which they will), so they make the same amount of money throwing out an old test as running it.
It's the fastest one our unsupported and overstressed testing system is capable of.
I believe the long testing times are to some extent a product of a much overdue priority system, where tests required for say urgent hospital care the next day are being routed above those for symptomatic individuals with no known contacts. We clearly need way more tests, but, we also need to be smarter as we deploy the tests we have.
18 days is ridiculous though. At the 14 day mark they should just throw it out and send you a "test not complete" notification.
Won't get paid doing that.
It literally doesn't matter. They are already running tests as fast as they can, throwing out old tests does not impact the number of tests, all it does is take a 'slot' which could otherwise have been used for a newer test which would have value. Without use of pool testing, they can't get the machines to process more samples than they are at the moment (until they get more machines, which they will), so they make the same amount of money throwing out an old test as running it.
Yeah but then either the company that sold the test has to refund the customer, or else the customer is out the money. And if there's a chance your test could be thrown out due to being too old, and you're out the money, are you even going to bother getting tested? And if you're a company that sells tests, and there's a chance you'll be out the sales for the test if it expires, are you going to try to sell tests?
Finding out that you had Covid a few weeks ago absolutely does have value, since it expands your options on how you can interact with vulnerable people and could help with treatment of any lingering side effects.
Following up on Vietnam, it looks like they're confirming the strain that surfaced in Vietnam is significantly more infectious than the current pandemic strain.
The country reported 34 infections on Sunday, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases to 620. The death toll rose by two to five, the Health Ministry said in a statement.
Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said the strain of the virus detected in the new outbreak is a more contagious one.
He said with the new strain, each infected person may infect about 5-6 people compared to 1.8-2.2 people in the previous period.
Authorities have taken a series of “unprecedented measures” to fight the outbreak in Danang, including the mobilisation of several hundred military school students to help with contact tracing and collecting test samples, the government said in its statement.
Following up on Vietnam, it looks like they're confirming the strain that surfaced in Vietnam is significantly more infectious than the current pandemic strain.
The country reported 34 infections on Sunday, bringing the total number of coronavirus cases to 620. The death toll rose by two to five, the Health Ministry said in a statement.
Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said the strain of the virus detected in the new outbreak is a more contagious one.
He said with the new strain, each infected person may infect about 5-6 people compared to 1.8-2.2 people in the previous period.
Authorities have taken a series of “unprecedented measures” to fight the outbreak in Danang, including the mobilisation of several hundred military school students to help with contact tracing and collecting test samples, the government said in its statement.
There is not any actual evidence in the linked articles that the virus has become more infectious in vietnam due to any changes to the virus.
...
While the strain is new in Vietnam, it has been seen before in Bangladesh, Britain, and Ireland, according to Vietnamese scientists.
This is very likely just the D614 vs G614 thing again. There is some slight evidence that the D vs G change may have made the virus more infectious, the dominant strain (by main genetic markers etc, theres no actual clear evidence that there are multiple strains of Covid19, just genetic markers which allow reconstruction of case histories) in the UK and Irish outbreaks is the dominant worldwide 'strain' and has been for many months.
If you look at the path of the flare up in Vietnam, its behaved just like all the other flare ups in places which previously had very low case numbers. Some small level of transmission was present, people got very confident that all was well, headed to the bars and got completely back to 'normal', infected hundreds, and these people turned up in hospitals over the next week or two, having infected others.
Just spitballing here, but if that point mutation is what came from Europe to the US, odds are it either made its way there finally, or arose again independently.
Just spitballing here, but if that point mutation is what came from Europe to the US, odds are it either made its way there finally, or arose again independently.
The odds are that either they had the mutation all along, and that they just didn't find it in their first outbreak (not every case had its genome sequenced) and it was just bubbling in the background producing a chain of asymptomatic or low sevwrity cases which didnt infect more than 1 or 2 people until there was a large spreading event, or the reinfection came from airline or ships crew carrying the worldwide dominant strain.
Odds that it is a re-emergence of the virus from an unlikely background chain, of infections and it immediately picked up an interesting mutation seems slight.
But again, its not that important. The virus has been very infectious since day 1, and it is still very infectious today. The change if there is any between the two mutations is not enough to change the character of the disease. Diamond princess happened with the 'original' strain. So did south Korea. Conversely, Italy and other nations in Europe (and the US to a pathetic extent) have not seen absurdly explosive case growth after their initial peaks even with loosened restrictions and the 'new' one.
What we do know is that the virus is 'unpredictable' in its transmission. Most people infect noone, and a small fraction account for the overwhelming majority of infections, so its nigh on impossible to easily predict the R0 with a small number of cases.
I like how "everywhere" for Japan is ~1500 cases a day in a country with a population of 120 million.
Yeah, I think most rational Americans would consider ~4000 cases per day nationally a massive fucking relief at this point.
And anyone wants to argue that the US is 'different' because of population density (the usual dumbfuck argument when comparisons are made) can feel free to take a remedial maths course cause they f'n need it.
I like how "everywhere" for Japan is ~1500 cases a day in a country with a population of 120 million.
It's quite literally impossible to compare most places to the US. A "failure" is probably a few infections per hundred thousand daily, but the US is around 20 / 100k
I like how "everywhere" for Japan is ~1500 cases a day in a country with a population of 120 million.
Yeah, I think most rational Americans would consider ~4000 cases per day nationally a massive fucking relief at this point.
And anyone wants to argue that the US is 'different' because of population density (the usual dumbfuck argument when comparisons are made) can feel free to take a remedial maths course cause they f'n need it.
Florida reported almost 5000 cases yesterday. We are screwed.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Bad news: 210 new cases in the CR on Monday, 31 in Prague.
Good news: They're talking about making masks mandatory (and not just in the metro, which is the current situation) again.
Bad news: They want to wait until the August heat to pass before doing so.
The Frogurt is also cursed.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
I like how "everywhere" for Japan is ~1500 cases a day in a country with a population of 120 million.
Yeah, I think most rational Americans would consider ~4000 cases per day nationally a massive fucking relief at this point.
And anyone wants to argue that the US is 'different' because of population density (the usual dumbfuck argument when comparisons are made) can feel free to take a remedial maths course cause they f'n need it.
The US is different because of population density and demographics. Our population is considerably younger and our population density is significantly lower. An equally diligent response would have been vastly more effective here than in Japan. So, a fair comparison to say, “We are doing as well as them” would be about 2000 cases a day across the entire country, with 95% of those cases in a few major cities.
I like how "everywhere" for Japan is ~1500 cases a day in a country with a population of 120 million.
Yeah, I think most rational Americans would consider ~4000 cases per day nationally a massive fucking relief at this point.
And anyone wants to argue that the US is 'different' because of population density (the usual dumbfuck argument when comparisons are made) can feel free to take a remedial maths course cause they f'n need it.
The US is different because of population density and demographics. Our population is considerably younger and our population density is significantly lower. An equally diligent response would have been vastly more effective here than in Japan. So, a fair comparison to say, “We are doing as well as them” would be about 2000 cases a day across the entire country, with 95% of those cases in a few major cities.
Oh, it absolutely is different. The argument usually made though, is that's the reason for cases/deaths being substantially higher when compared to cases per million.
As you point out, the density difference actually makes an actual comparison that factors in those differences much worse.
Basically, people looking to handwave explain away why the US numbers are so significantly worse than a lot of other places, because *reasons*.
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ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
Not the discussion thread.
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
In the absence of a national testing strategy for the novel coronavirus pandemic, six governors have formed a first-of-its-kind purchasing compact they hope will pressure companies that make rapid-detection tests to quickly ramp up production.
The governors, three Republicans and three Democrats, say other states and cities may join them and that talks have already begun with one of the two companies approved by the FDA to sell point-of-care antigen tests that can detect the virus in less than 30 minutes.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) negotiated the deal during the final days of his tenure as chair of the National Governors Association, and his office said the Rockfeller Foundation is willing to act as the financing entity if needed.
Each state — Virginia, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan and Ohio, in addition to Maryland — would request 500,000 tests, for a total of 3 million tests that could be deployed to address outbreaks.
Having access to that many rapid tests would reduce the need for states to rely on traditional testing infrastructure, which primarily involves private labs that have been beset by long delays.
“With severe shortages and delays in testing and the federal administration attempting to cut funding for testing, the states are banding together to acquire millions of faster tests to help save lives and slow the spread of COVID-19,” Hogan said in a statement. “We will be working to bring additional states, cities, and local governments on board as this initiative moves forward.”
Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D), a physician by training, said in a statement that the states involved in the compact are leading America’s national response to COVID-19.”
When there are vacuums of power others sometimes try to fill it.
In moment of actual learning, a national government realizes that any nation which opens bars pretty much always sees cases rise and decides to keep their pubs closed.
-> Ireland makes decision to keep bars closed.
"That is cool" - Abraham Lincoln
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
there are currently 24 active cases in NZ, all in managed isolation.
it has been 96 days since the last locally generated case.
Parliament has passed legislation to begin charging people for the isolation stays.
If you go on a business trip overseas and then return to NZ, you can be charged
If you are returning for a period of less than 90 days, you can be charged.
It sounds like the charge is going to be around about $3k for the stay.
daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
290 new cases for yesterday, 51 in Prague. Grandfather Nurgle loves us.
Prague's mayor, a pirate who should know better, wants to blah blah blah but without shutting down the city economy. Which is stupid on multiple levels as we've all seen by now. Mandatory masks won't kill the economy, and while further steps would be needed to get this back under control, there is a choice between some controlled level of shutting things down now, or a full lockdown in a week or two when it's fully rampaging everywhere.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
there are currently 24 active cases in NZ, all in managed isolation.
it has been 96 days since the last locally generated case.
Parliament has passed legislation to begin charging people for the isolation stays.
If you go on a business trip overseas and then return to NZ, you can be charged
If you are returning for a period of less than 90 days, you can be charged.
It sounds like the charge is going to be around about $3k for the stay.
Wait, New Zealand is letting people come and go? I can see, understand and agree with the moral obligation to allow citizens to return from overseas, but, letting people go on business trips? There's no business anyone can possibly do overseas which would return enough value to risk the countries disease free status. If there's even like, a 0.01% chance this would lead to the disease becoming established in New Zealand then the economic benefits of allowing business travel cannot possibly be worth it.
Or is this just a sorta control law to say, "If and when we do allow some travel, perhaps to say, Taiwan and other nations with the disease under strong control, when you come back you need to pay for your own quarantine"
there are currently 24 active cases in NZ, all in managed isolation.
it has been 96 days since the last locally generated case.
Parliament has passed legislation to begin charging people for the isolation stays.
If you go on a business trip overseas and then return to NZ, you can be charged
If you are returning for a period of less than 90 days, you can be charged.
It sounds like the charge is going to be around about $3k for the stay.
Wait, New Zealand is letting people come and go? I can see, understand and agree with the moral obligation to allow citizens to return from overseas, but, letting people go on business trips? There's no business anyone can possibly do overseas which would return enough value to risk the countries disease free status. If there's even like, a 0.01% chance this would lead to the disease becoming established in New Zealand then the economic benefits of allowing business travel cannot possibly be worth it.
Or is this just a sorta control law to say, "If and when we do allow some travel, perhaps to say, Taiwan and other nations with the disease under strong control, when you come back you need to pay for your own quarantine"
NZ has a mandatory 2 week quarantine to enter the country. They are changing it so people entering the country have to foot the quarantine bill.
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lonelyahavaCall me Ahava ~~She/Her~~Move to New ZealandRegistered Userregular
We are getting ready to open up a travel bubble to the Cook Islands, add they are also effectively Covid free.
Kiwis tend to travel a lot, especially overseas for work. There are a lot of folks that I know who are living and working in Australia, Canada, England who are looking at maybe listing their careers and homes due to the recession. They will be wanting to come home.
They're are also people traveling for work, as not everywhere is closed. Or traveling for school as they are international students abroad.
The world hasn't stopped.
And when these people come home, they go into managed isolation facilities (hotels scattered around the country) for two weeks. Until now, those two week stay has been paid for by the government. Now, of your travel and return meets certain conditions, you will need to pay the hotel cost for your quarantine.
I have made peace the with the fact we probably will have community transmission again in NZ before this is over. I got slack about washing my hands frequently and social distancing, so I have got my head back into the game in that respect.
MayabirdPecking at the keyboardRegistered Userregular
Some numbers for the day.
India has just reached 2 million cases. The US has hit 5 million cases.
Excess deaths in Mexico City have been more than 100% (which is to say, more than double) normal for three straight months, with estimated deaths just in Mexico City being already about equal to that of New York City, except that NYC had strict lockdowns and got things somewhat under control within weeks and Mexico City is showing no signs of a slowdown. The official numbers in Mexico are much lower of course because of ludicrous undertesting. Mexico's positivity rate has just reached 76%.
Bad news: 210 new cases in the CR on Monday, 31 in Prague.
Good news: They're talking about making masks mandatory (and not just in the metro, which is the current situation) again.
Bad news: They want to wait until the August heat to pass before doing so.
The Frogurt is also cursed.
(Is the troll cursed?)
RedTide#1907 on Battle.net
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Meanwhile in Australia, our numbers seem to have finally stabilized amid the most hardcore lockdown we've had so far. Japan's numbers are looking like ours were a couple of weeks ago, hopefully they get a lid on it faster than we did. We're now at ~10k cases and ~400 new ones per day, which doesn't sound like much but considering we've only got a populating of 25M...
I don't have any non-Swedish links, but we just hit zero daily deaths for the first time since this crap started.
Wow. Gotta ask, what happened?
Cause Sweden was a relative shitstorm early on. Still currently 8th worse in deaths per million, but nowhere near high enough that the "herd immunity" threshold has been reached.
I don't have any non-Swedish links, but we just hit zero daily deaths for the first time since this crap started.
Wow. Gotta ask, what happened?
Cause Sweden was a relative shitstorm early on. Still currently 8th worse in deaths per million, but nowhere near high enough that the "herd immunity" threshold has been reached.
The swedish outbreak was never really that much worse than many other places in Europe, just worse than its Nordic neighbors. So R was never that high in sweden due to high compliance with the recommended (but not enforced) behavioral standards.
Due to R in sweden probably only being like, 1.x or something once they brought in the first recommendations, either swedes got sick of everyone saying how terrible they were (or got frightened) and started behaving a little better (which lowered R below 1) or R with their behaviour was only like 1.1 or something, so once 10% of people were infected (especially if those people were the most likely to be exposed) then that might be enough to cut R below 1.
Herd immunity threshold is typically presented as an absolute, but its always a function of behavior of the population.
I don't know how things changed, but early on there was a lot of difference in reporting deaths - ie Sweden counted deaths in nursing homes, which made up 75% of deaths for a period, while Finland didn't.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
I don't have any non-Swedish links, but we just hit zero daily deaths for the first time since this crap started.
Wow. Gotta ask, what happened?
Cause Sweden was a relative shitstorm early on. Still currently 8th worse in deaths per million, but nowhere near high enough that the "herd immunity" threshold has been reached.
The swedish outbreak was never really that much worse than many other places in Europe, just worse than its Nordic neighbors. So R was never that high in sweden due to high compliance with the recommended (but not enforced) behavioral standards.
Due to R in sweden probably only being like, 1.x or something once they brought in the first recommendations, either swedes got sick of everyone saying how terrible they were (or got frightened) and started behaving a little better (which lowered R below 1) or R with their behaviour was only like 1.1 or something, so once 10% of people were infected (especially if those people were the most likely to be exposed) then that might be enough to cut R below 1.
Herd immunity threshold is typically presented as an absolute, but its always a function of behavior of the population.
In cases per 100k they’re in third place in Europe. They’ve got about 20% more than Spain and near double Italy on the same stat. They’re doing worse than most countries in Europe, they just happen to be doing ludicrously awful compared to their close neighbors.
There seems to be something unique about the bars and restaurants in Oregon: Unlike those in other states and countries besieged by the coronavirus pandemic, Oregon’s indoor eating and drinking establishments don’t appear to be risky places to catch COVID-19.
“In our data, there is no clear evidence of significant transmission in bars or restaurants,” Oregon state epidemiologist Dean Sidelinger said to members of the media in July when a reporter asked if it was safe to keep bars open.
but
“The fact is, we aren’t really quantifying it,” said Ann Thomas, a senior health advisor at the Oregon Health Authority.
There seems to be something unique about the bars and restaurants in Oregon: Unlike those in other states and countries besieged by the coronavirus pandemic, Oregon’s indoor eating and drinking establishments don’t appear to be risky places to catch COVID-19.
“In our data, there is no clear evidence of significant transmission in bars or restaurants,” Oregon state epidemiologist Dean Sidelinger said to members of the media in July when a reporter asked if it was safe to keep bars open.
but
“The fact is, we aren’t really quantifying it,” said Ann Thomas, a senior health advisor at the Oregon Health Authority.
No evidence because they aren't collecting any.
EDIT: Sorry, missed that this wasn't the discussion thread. Here's an actual image, at least.
Commander Zoom on
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ceresWhen the last moon is cast over the last star of morningAnd the future has past without even a last desperate warningRegistered User, Moderatormod
There seems to be something unique about the bars and restaurants in Oregon: Unlike those in other states and countries besieged by the coronavirus pandemic, Oregon’s indoor eating and drinking establishments don’t appear to be risky places to catch COVID-19.
“In our data, there is no clear evidence of significant transmission in bars or restaurants,” Oregon state epidemiologist Dean Sidelinger said to members of the media in July when a reporter asked if it was safe to keep bars open.
but
“The fact is, we aren’t really quantifying it,” said Ann Thomas, a senior health advisor at the Oregon Health Authority.
No evidence because they aren't collecting any.
3monkeys.jpg
Hey have some content :P
And it seems like all is dying, and would leave the world to mourn
I don't have any non-Swedish links, but we just hit zero daily deaths for the first time since this crap started.
Wow. Gotta ask, what happened?
Cause Sweden was a relative shitstorm early on. Still currently 8th worse in deaths per million, but nowhere near high enough that the "herd immunity" threshold has been reached.
The swedish outbreak was never really that much worse than many other places in Europe, just worse than its Nordic neighbors. So R was never that high in sweden due to high compliance with the recommended (but not enforced) behavioral standards.
Due to R in sweden probably only being like, 1.x or something once they brought in the first recommendations, either swedes got sick of everyone saying how terrible they were (or got frightened) and started behaving a little better (which lowered R below 1) or R with their behaviour was only like 1.1 or something, so once 10% of people were infected (especially if those people were the most likely to be exposed) then that might be enough to cut R below 1.
Herd immunity threshold is typically presented as an absolute, but its always a function of behavior of the population.
In cases per 100k they’re in third place in Europe. They’ve got about 20% more than Spain and near double Italy on the same stat. They’re doing worse than most countries in Europe, they just happen to be doing ludicrously awful compared to their close neighbors.
Man, Sweden is doing shit and no its not just because they count deaths in old folks homes. Pretty much every Nordic Country has checked that. Sweden has a higher infection rate and mortality rate then the rest of the Nordic Countries combined(Iceland excepted).
This is what happens when you decide that Herd Immunity is the end all, be all.
The sky was full of stars, every star an exploding ship. One of ours.
Posts
It literally doesn't matter. They are already running tests as fast as they can, throwing out old tests does not impact the number of tests, all it does is take a 'slot' which could otherwise have been used for a newer test which would have value. Without use of pool testing, they can't get the machines to process more samples than they are at the moment (until they get more machines, which they will), so they make the same amount of money throwing out an old test as running it.
Yeah but then either the company that sold the test has to refund the customer, or else the customer is out the money. And if there's a chance your test could be thrown out due to being too old, and you're out the money, are you even going to bother getting tested? And if you're a company that sells tests, and there's a chance you'll be out the sales for the test if it expires, are you going to try to sell tests?
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-vietnam-idUSKBN24Y0CL
https://www.businessinsider.com/vietnam-coronavirus-spike-new-strain-3-times-more-infectious-2020-8
There is not any actual evidence in the linked articles that the virus has become more infectious in vietnam due to any changes to the virus.
This is very likely just the D614 vs G614 thing again. There is some slight evidence that the D vs G change may have made the virus more infectious, the dominant strain (by main genetic markers etc, theres no actual clear evidence that there are multiple strains of Covid19, just genetic markers which allow reconstruction of case histories) in the UK and Irish outbreaks is the dominant worldwide 'strain' and has been for many months.
If you look at the path of the flare up in Vietnam, its behaved just like all the other flare ups in places which previously had very low case numbers. Some small level of transmission was present, people got very confident that all was well, headed to the bars and got completely back to 'normal', infected hundreds, and these people turned up in hospitals over the next week or two, having infected others.
edit - Here's a good article on the subject.
https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)30817-5.pdf
D vs G might mean something, but, if it did mean something then for pretty much everywhere in the world, that thing already happened.
Oops
I have a soft spot for Japan, and this makes me sad.
The odds are that either they had the mutation all along, and that they just didn't find it in their first outbreak (not every case had its genome sequenced) and it was just bubbling in the background producing a chain of asymptomatic or low sevwrity cases which didnt infect more than 1 or 2 people until there was a large spreading event, or the reinfection came from airline or ships crew carrying the worldwide dominant strain.
Odds that it is a re-emergence of the virus from an unlikely background chain, of infections and it immediately picked up an interesting mutation seems slight.
But again, its not that important. The virus has been very infectious since day 1, and it is still very infectious today. The change if there is any between the two mutations is not enough to change the character of the disease. Diamond princess happened with the 'original' strain. So did south Korea. Conversely, Italy and other nations in Europe (and the US to a pathetic extent) have not seen absurdly explosive case growth after their initial peaks even with loosened restrictions and the 'new' one.
What we do know is that the virus is 'unpredictable' in its transmission. Most people infect noone, and a small fraction account for the overwhelming majority of infections, so its nigh on impossible to easily predict the R0 with a small number of cases.
Yeah, I think most rational Americans would consider ~4000 cases per day nationally a massive fucking relief at this point.
And anyone wants to argue that the US is 'different' because of population density (the usual dumbfuck argument when comparisons are made) can feel free to take a remedial maths course cause they f'n need it.
It's quite literally impossible to compare most places to the US. A "failure" is probably a few infections per hundred thousand daily, but the US is around 20 / 100k
Florida reported almost 5000 cases yesterday. We are screwed.
Good news: They're talking about making masks mandatory (and not just in the metro, which is the current situation) again.
Bad news: They want to wait until the August heat to pass before doing so.
The Frogurt is also cursed.
The US is different because of population density and demographics. Our population is considerably younger and our population density is significantly lower. An equally diligent response would have been vastly more effective here than in Japan. So, a fair comparison to say, “We are doing as well as them” would be about 2000 cases a day across the entire country, with 95% of those cases in a few major cities.
Oh, it absolutely is different. The argument usually made though, is that's the reason for cases/deaths being substantially higher when compared to cases per million.
As you point out, the density difference actually makes an actual comparison that factors in those differences much worse.
Basically, people looking to handwave explain away why the US numbers are so significantly worse than a lot of other places, because *reasons*.
When there are vacuums of power others sometimes try to fill it.
Choose Your Own Chat 1 Choose Your Own Chat 2 Choose Your Own Chat 3
In moment of actual learning, a national government realizes that any nation which opens bars pretty much always sees cases rise and decides to keep their pubs closed.
-> Ireland makes decision to keep bars closed.
there are currently 24 active cases in NZ, all in managed isolation.
it has been 96 days since the last locally generated case.
Parliament has passed legislation to begin charging people for the isolation stays.
If you go on a business trip overseas and then return to NZ, you can be charged
If you are returning for a period of less than 90 days, you can be charged.
It sounds like the charge is going to be around about $3k for the stay.
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
Prague's mayor, a pirate who should know better, wants to blah blah blah but without shutting down the city economy. Which is stupid on multiple levels as we've all seen by now. Mandatory masks won't kill the economy, and while further steps would be needed to get this back under control, there is a choice between some controlled level of shutting things down now, or a full lockdown in a week or two when it's fully rampaging everywhere.
Wait, New Zealand is letting people come and go? I can see, understand and agree with the moral obligation to allow citizens to return from overseas, but, letting people go on business trips? There's no business anyone can possibly do overseas which would return enough value to risk the countries disease free status. If there's even like, a 0.01% chance this would lead to the disease becoming established in New Zealand then the economic benefits of allowing business travel cannot possibly be worth it.
Or is this just a sorta control law to say, "If and when we do allow some travel, perhaps to say, Taiwan and other nations with the disease under strong control, when you come back you need to pay for your own quarantine"
NZ has a mandatory 2 week quarantine to enter the country. They are changing it so people entering the country have to foot the quarantine bill.
Kiwis tend to travel a lot, especially overseas for work. There are a lot of folks that I know who are living and working in Australia, Canada, England who are looking at maybe listing their careers and homes due to the recession. They will be wanting to come home.
They're are also people traveling for work, as not everywhere is closed. Or traveling for school as they are international students abroad.
The world hasn't stopped.
And when these people come home, they go into managed isolation facilities (hotels scattered around the country) for two weeks. Until now, those two week stay has been paid for by the government. Now, of your travel and return meets certain conditions, you will need to pay the hotel cost for your quarantine.
I hope that explains it a bit more for you
Democrats Abroad! || Vote From Abroad
Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better
bit.ly/2XQM1ke
India has just reached 2 million cases. The US has hit 5 million cases.
Excess deaths in Mexico City have been more than 100% (which is to say, more than double) normal for three straight months, with estimated deaths just in Mexico City being already about equal to that of New York City, except that NYC had strict lockdowns and got things somewhat under control within weeks and Mexico City is showing no signs of a slowdown. The official numbers in Mexico are much lower of course because of ludicrous undertesting. Mexico's positivity rate has just reached 76%.
(Is the troll cursed?)
Come Overwatch with meeeee
Wow. Gotta ask, what happened?
Cause Sweden was a relative shitstorm early on. Still currently 8th worse in deaths per million, but nowhere near high enough that the "herd immunity" threshold has been reached.
The swedish outbreak was never really that much worse than many other places in Europe, just worse than its Nordic neighbors. So R was never that high in sweden due to high compliance with the recommended (but not enforced) behavioral standards.
Due to R in sweden probably only being like, 1.x or something once they brought in the first recommendations, either swedes got sick of everyone saying how terrible they were (or got frightened) and started behaving a little better (which lowered R below 1) or R with their behaviour was only like 1.1 or something, so once 10% of people were infected (especially if those people were the most likely to be exposed) then that might be enough to cut R below 1.
Herd immunity threshold is typically presented as an absolute, but its always a function of behavior of the population.
In cases per 100k they’re in third place in Europe. They’ve got about 20% more than Spain and near double Italy on the same stat. They’re doing worse than most countries in Europe, they just happen to be doing ludicrously awful compared to their close neighbors.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1110187/coronavirus-incidence-europe-by-country/
https://www.opb.org/article/2020/08/07/bar-restaurant-coronavirus-safe-oregon/
but
No evidence because they aren't collecting any.
EDIT: Sorry, missed that this wasn't the discussion thread. Here's an actual image, at least.
Hey have some content :P
Man, Sweden is doing shit and no its not just because they count deaths in old folks homes. Pretty much every Nordic Country has checked that. Sweden has a higher infection rate and mortality rate then the rest of the Nordic Countries combined(Iceland excepted).
This is what happens when you decide that Herd Immunity is the end all, be all.