Denmark lockdown is being lifted.

[Sparko]

So? Those quarantines were meant to, and did, eliminate the virus in those countries. Your claim that "Quarantines were never meant to eliminate the Chicom coronavirus" is incorrect, because some of them were.

Unfortunately the UK government, which could have done the same as Iceland, New Zealand and Taiwan, did not respond quickly enough.

I don't know about Taiwan, but Iceland and New Zealand are WAY more sparsely populated than the UK is. It's not fair to compare them to densely populated countries like the UK and then try to hold the UK accountable.

[EvoUK]

I don't know about Taiwan, but Iceland and New Zealand are WAY more sparsely populated than the UK is. It's not fair to compare them to densely populated countries like the UK and then try to hold the UK accountable.

I saw someone collect the following a few days ago, to help illustrate:

linklink

Now PM, he skips not one but FIVE COBRA meetings about the threat of Coronavirus beginning to emerge from Wuhan linklinklink

Mid February, as the crisis worsens in parts of Asia and spreads to Europe, he goes on holiday. It is still unclear who paid for the trip. link

On his return, he makes a sombre announcement that loved ones may die. Credible reports suggest that Cummings is happy to let that happen. link

By now, the NHS is warning of supply shortages. It seems that much of the national stockpile has become outdated due to failure to rotate stock. link

As some schools voluntarily close due to cases if infection, heads criticise vague and inconsistent guidance linklink

By now there is widespread clamour to cancel sporting events and begin locking down, as Italy and Spain see huge rises in cases. But Cheltenham goes ahead, citing Johnson as an example. linklink

As infections begin to rise in the UK, there is absolutely no program for testing or tracing as recommended by WHO. linklink

By March 17th the UK stands almost alone in Europe in failing to close schools. Belarus was the only other country to have no mandatory closures. linklink

Macron threatens to close the French border unless the UK takes stronger action against the spread of the virus. link

By the end of March it becomes clear that the UK passed up multiple opportunities to join PPE and ventilator procurement schemes, instead asking Tory donors like Dyson to help. linklinklink

A phenomenal 750,000 people have registered with the NHS Volunteer Responder team, yet have been woefully under-used with less than 20,000 tasks assigned link

By now there is more confusion around testing: all key workers are told they can get a test but only a few thousand tests are made available. link

Johnson refers to a target of 250,000 tests per day. Matt Hancock clarifies this will be 100,000 people tested per day by the end of April. link

On May 1st the government announces it has indeed hit its 100,000 target. It quickly emerges that figures have been manipulated to artificially reach this. link

By now the death toll is among the highest in the world by any measure. The government continues to miss its daily testing target. linklinklinklinklink

Police forces begin to express alarm that the unclear messaging will make their job virtually impossible. link

Johnson indicates, finally, that arrivals to the UK will be quarantined. However this will not commence until June and there are many exemptions. link

On Sunday evening, Johnson delivers a rambling speech which sets out a potential roadmap but otherwise provides little clarity. link

Employees are urged to return to work where possible, avoiding public transport. Unions express dismay at the lack of clear guidance for employers, due mid-week. linklink

By Monday morning, Dominic Raab is doing media interviews trying to clarify the new regulations and ends up repeatedly contradicting Johnson on matters like exercise. linklink

There's a reason why the UK is faring nearly as bad as the US internationally in responding to this virus, and simply being 'densely populated' doesn't cover it, unfortunately.

[Starlight]

There's a reason why the UK is faring nearly as bad as the US internationally in responding to this virus, and simply being 'densely populated' doesn't cover it, unfortunately.

The whole 'densely populated' excuse is delusional anyway. Really dense cities and countries like Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea, have done really well.

Comparing deaths with density around the world...

DensityCovid2.jpg
(might need to click on the image to make it big enough to read)

...reveals absolutely no trend. Density doesn't have any effect on outcomes. Zilch. Nada.

The 'dense areas do worse' is just a delusional excuse made up by US right-wingers to try and pretend to themselves Trump's not the world's most useless leader and that there was nothing he could do to stop it, and that NYC did badly because it was big rather than simply being hit first because it was a travel hub, and that the virus isn't coming for them and their less-dense more-rural areas next.

[rogue06]

The whole 'densely populated' excuse is delusional anyway. Really dense cities and countries like Hong Kong, Singapore, and South Korea, have done really well.

Comparing deaths with density around the world...

[ATTACH=CONFIG]44723[/ATTACH]
(might need to click on the image to make it big enough to read)

...reveals absolutely no trend. Density doesn't have any effect on outcomes. Zilch. Nada.

The 'dense areas do worse' is just a delusional excuse made up by US right-wingers to try and pretend to themselves Trump's not the world's most useless leader and that there was nothing he could do to stop it, and that NYC did badly because it was big rather than simply being hit first because it was a travel hub, and that the virus isn't coming for them and their less-dense more-rural areas next.

The whole densely packed explanation is the standard defense of why New York did such a miserable job handling the Chicom coronavirus.

[Starlight]

I don't know about Taiwan, but Iceland and New Zealand are WAY more sparsely populated than the UK is. It's not fair to compare them to densely populated countries like the UK and then try to hold the UK accountable.

Density appears to have zero effect on outcomes, as per my above post. Dense countries have done well or badly at rates equal to sparse countries.

Also, in most countries, most people live in cities. The average density of the country is almost totally irrelevant because it doesn't actually tell you if the people are clustered together or equally distributed across the country.

In NZ they are very much clustered together in cities, not distributed evenly. The percentage of population who live in urban areas is higher in NZ (~87%), than the UK (~83%) or the US (82%) or Canada (82%). New Zealand having large areas of uninhabitable mountains, does not give us any extra ability to eliminate a virus, despite lowering the average population density by their existence.

[Starlight]

The whole densely packed explanation is the standard defense of why New York did such a miserable job handling the Chicom coronavirus.

The fact that density has no effect around the world, as seen in the graph I posted comparing the densities of countries their death rates, and the fact that very dense cities like Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul and Tokyo have done very well for themselves, shows it's a nutty excuse.


p.s. The first hit I get when I google on the topic of New York City and Covid and Density is a NYT article today...


The second google hit is on a Forbes article today arguing the same thing, and the following hits are from blog posts last month from Scientific American and the World Bank pointing out the same thing.

[JimL]

The fact that density has no effect around the world, as seen in the graph I posted comparing the densities of countries their death rates, and the fact that very dense cities like Hong Kong, Singapore, Seoul and Tokyo have done very well for themselves, shows it's a nutty excuse.


p.s. The first hit I get when I google on the topic of New York City and Covid and Density is a NYT article today...

NYT: It’s a mistake to blame density for the spread of the coronavirus:

...everything we know so far about the coronavirus tells us that blaming density for disease is misguided.

...Manhattan, the borough with the highest population density, was not the hardest hit. Deaths are concentrated in the less dense, more diverse outer boroughs...

Then there is the rest of the world. While the coronavirus first exploded in Wuhan, a city of 11 million, many “hyperdense” cities in Asia have been able to contain their outbreaks. The virus appeared in Singapore (5.6 million residents), Seoul (9.8 million), Hong Kong (7.5 million) and Tokyo (9.3 million), cities close in size to New York, but with much lower recorded deaths.

California and Hawaii, for example, have high population density — but not the highest Covid-19 mortality rates of the states. Albany, Ga., with a population under 80,000, has among the highest case rates in the United States

The second google hit is on a Forbes article today arguing the same thing, and the following hits are from blog posts last month from Scientific American and the World Bank pointing out the same thing.

That sounded a bit counter-intuitive to me star, so I looked it up as well and found that it may depend upon how you are defining density. Internal or external. The density that most matters is internal density, places where people are closely crowded together, like churches, clubs, offices meat packing plants etc etc. and then they go home and spread it to family members etc. But external density doesn't seem to matter as much.

But I would tend to think that there is more internal density in a place like NYC than in rural Kansa say, so I would think that would make New Yorkers a bit more susceptible to the virus all things considered.

http://www.theconversation.com/as-co...density-137790

[Starlight]

The density that most matters is internal density, places where people are closely crowded together, like churches... I would tend to think that there is more internal density in a place like NYC than in rural Kansas say

You think New Yorkers go to church more than people from Kansas?

[Leonhard]

Um...?
[ATTACH=CONFIG]44691[/ATTACH]
[ATTACH=CONFIG]44692[/ATTACH]

The first is from China, and should be treated with great suspicion. The second shows that there's still new confirmed cases, and then there's all the shadow cases. Until there's herd immunity, or a vaccine, you won't have solution. If a vaccine that comes out in late 2021 is your solution, then you might be facing a complete economic breakdown which is worse than the results.

In the experience of Denmark and Sweden, precautionary measures and social distancing is enough to reduce spread significantly. There's great uncertainty is how bad the outcome is of course, but in our experience it will do us more good than harm to begin opening now.

The universal assumption in my country, which I have never heard anyone here suggest might be flawed (hence am a bit baffled by your exact opposite assumptions), is that we will eliminate it entirely.

I think it's fine for your country to pursue your own solutions as best you can.

A lot of people will die.

The question is what is the best outcome that does the most good. Is it worth it to spend significantly more than 10 million dollars per person saved for instance? We can kill a country to save an old man. There has to be a balance in the end, and here the great uncertainty in the models will mean we're going to see different approaches.

If you're confident that the disease spreads very quickly and has a high kill rate, then I support your current actions. A continuing lockdown is reasonable if that is the case. In Denmark we believe it as an RO factor of about 2 and a kill rate less than 1% (perhaps as low as 0.1% if we do targetted protection of the elderly, obese or those who are medically frail). Using those numbers, the National Serum Institute of Denmark showed that it would better for us to open gradually, as we are now.

I'm looking forward to the analysis that will be done of the different actions and conditions countries had to find out what actions worked best. COVID-19, as pandemics go, is mild. This isn't the Spanish Flu or the Bubonic Plague. It'll allow us to study this dispassionately after it is over. I'm sure there's lessons to be learned when we can tell which strategies worked best.

[JimL]

You think New Yorkers go to church more than people from Kansas?

I can't say with certainty that there is more crowding together in big citys than in rural areas, but it would be my guess that there is. There is certainly more people and so more churches, more bars, more restaraunts etc etc.. It isn't like people don't go to church in NYC. That's not to say that's the only reason for the heavly populated urban areas of the northeast to have been hit so badly. As you pointed out, other urban areas around the world are as just as crowded and have better been able to contain the outbreak, but I think the crowding is probably a factor. The onus is on the federal government, the NIH, the CDC and the messaging and readiness of the Trump administration which failed to act early on, and failed to alert the country as to the seriousness of what was coming.

[JimL]

The first is from China, and should be treated with great suspicion. The second shows that there's still new confirmed cases, and then there's all the shadow cases. Until there's herd immunity, or a vaccine, you won't have solution. If a vaccine that comes out in late 2021 is your solution, then you might be facing a complete economic breakdown which is worse than the results.

In the experience of Denmark and Sweden, precautionary measures and social distancing is enough to reduce spread significantly. There's great uncertainty is how bad the outcome is of course, but in our experience it will do us more good than harm to begin opening now.



I think it's fine for your country to pursue your own solutions as best you can.



The question is what is the best outcome that does the most good. Is it worth it to spend significantly more than 10 million dollars per person saved for instance? We can kill a country to save an old man. There has to be a balance in the end, and here the great uncertainty in the models will mean we're going to see different approaches.

If you're confident that the disease spreads very quickly and has a high kill rate, then I support your current actions. A continuing lockdown is reasonable if that is the case. In Denmark we believe it as an RO factor of about 2 and a kill rate less than 1% (perhaps as low as 0.1% if we do targetted protection of the elderly, obese or those who are medically frail). Using those numbers, the National Serum Institute of Denmark showed that it would better for us to open gradually, as we are now.

I'm looking forward to the analysis that will be done of the different actions and conditions countries had to find out what actions worked best. COVID-19, as pandemics go, is mild. This isn't the Spanish Flu or the Bubonic Plague. It'll allow us to study this dispassionately after it is over. I'm sure there's lessons to be learned when we can tell which strategies worked best.

You can't compare the Spanish Flu or past pandemics to present ones. The death rates were so high in the past because we didn't have the tools or the understanding as to how to deal with them at that time. We didn't have medications, vaccines, we didn't establish protective rules of conduct. We didn't even understand what viruses were at the time.

[Cow Poke]

You can't compare the Spanish Flu or past pandemics to present ones. The death rates were so high in the past because we didn't have the tools or the understanding as to how to deal with them at that time. We didn't have medications, vaccines, we didn't establish protective rules of conduct. We didn't even understand what viruses were at the time.

Not to mention the fact that the spread of information and education was quite limited back then, as well.

[JimL]

Not to mention the fact that the spread of information and education was quite limited back then, as well.

True.

[Starlight]

There is certainly more people and so more churches, more bars, more restaraunts etc etc..

But the issue isn't whether there are more churches or more bars total, it's how densely people physically crowd together in the churches, bars, restaurants etc that exist.

[JimL]

But the issue isn't whether there are more churches or more bars total, it's how densely people physically crowd together in the churches, bars, restaurants etc that exist.

Well true, but I think because there are so many more people in urban areas than there are in rural areas, then too, there are more churches, bars, restaurants etc. for them to flock to. Probably more densely populated housing as well.