The Virus - Are You Affected?

[Toni]

And that is assuming it can even work. We don't know that: we don't know that surviving an infection (almost) universally grants longterm immunity. Sure, it's a very reasonable assumption given what we know about similar viruses

I am not an immunologist... but I thought that coronoviruses generally don't confer long-term immunity...which is one of the barriers to a cure for the common cold? IIRC, common cold is predominantly comprised of coronaviruses and rhinoviruses.

The reason that we are not immune from colds is because the cold viruses (human rhinovirus) mutate frequently. So do influenza viruses which is why we need annual flu shots and because there are so many different kinds of influenza viruses circulating, it is impossible to predict with 100% accuracy which will be prevalent during any annual flu season.

It isn't known if this will be true of the corona virus causing the current pandemic but as Jokodo points out, other corona viruses seem to cause a immune response that lasts for a few years, at least.

 

[Tammuz]

From 10/5 Denmark raises the number of people that can gether to 500. Which is the same number as Sweden has. Yay. I can't wait for the border to open again. I have lovers in Sweden I haven't met for over two months now

I am pretty sure I remember that Sweden eventually lowered it to 50.

The Swedish outlier approach has been getting quite a bit of attention in the foreign media. Has Denmark shifted views regarding that? From what I recall Norway is quite outraged that Sweden doesn't impose stricter measures.

 

[Angry Floof]

From 10/5 Denmark raises the number of people that can gether to 500. Which is the same number as Sweden has. Yay. I can't wait for the border to open again. I have lovers in Sweden I haven't met for over two months now

I am pretty sure I remember that Sweden eventually lowered it to 50.

The Swedish outlier approach has been getting quite a bit of attention in the foreign media. Has Denmark shifted views regarding that? From what I recall Norway is quite outraged that Sweden doesn't impose stricter measures.

Sweden is now seeing ten times the number of COVID deaths of their neighboring countries.

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-sweden-and-norway-handled-coronavirus-differently-2020-4

 

[Keith&Co.]

I noticed something weird. Yesterday.
That's not when i noticed it, but what i noticed.

When we patrolled on the subs, there was this weird effect after we dove. It was like reality was put on hold. Days inside the boat were an unrelieved monotony. Similar meals at the usual tables, sane watches, same conversations, with the same people.
We used to refer to things that happened the day we left port as 'yesterday.' Even a couple months into patrol. Or someone would mention a movie he saw at the mall 'last week.' And we would nod, knowing he meant (unmentioned 45 days) and a week ago.

I have caught myself thinking of pre-lockdown in the same manner. Something i said to my boss 'last week,' or the meeting 'three days ago.' Ignoring the actual calendar duration since.
And, of course, i USED this manner in a Skype meeting, to refer to when we accomplished something in the office.
So, some coworkers think i'm going senile. Still....

 

[Politesse]

I noticed something weird. Yesterday.
That's not when i noticed it, but what i noticed.

When we patrolled on the subs, there was this weird effect after we dove. It was like reality was put on hold. Days inside the boat were an unrelieved monotony. Similar meals at the usual tables, sane watches, same conversations, with the same people.
We used to refer to things that happened the day we left port as 'yesterday.' Even a couple months into patrol. Or someone would mention a movie he saw at the mall 'last week.' And we would nod, knowing he meant (unmentioned 45 days) and a week ago.

I have caught myself thinking of pre-lockdown in the same manner. Something i said to my boss 'last week,' or the meeting 'three days ago.' Ignoring the actual calendar duration since.
And, of course, i USED this manner in a Skype meeting, to refer to when we accomplished something in the office.
So, some coworkers think i'm going senile. Still....

I have noticed that all plane flights longer than 5 hours or so feel about the same to me whether it's seven or eleven, due to a similar telescoping perceptive effect from monotony

 

[Emily Lake]

I noticed something weird. Yesterday.
That's not when i noticed it, but what i noticed.

When we patrolled on the subs, there was this weird effect after we dove. It was like reality was put on hold. Days inside the boat were an unrelieved monotony. Similar meals at the usual tables, sane watches, same conversations, with the same people.
We used to refer to things that happened the day we left port as 'yesterday.' Even a couple months into patrol. Or someone would mention a movie he saw at the mall 'last week.' And we would nod, knowing he meant (unmentioned 45 days) and a week ago.

I have caught myself thinking of pre-lockdown in the same manner. Something i said to my boss 'last week,' or the meeting 'three days ago.' Ignoring the actual calendar duration since.
And, of course, i USED this manner in a Skype meeting, to refer to when we accomplished something in the office.
So, some coworkers think i'm going senile. Still....

Mental discontinuity?

 

[bilby]

I noticed something weird. Yesterday.
That's not when i noticed it, but what i noticed.

When we patrolled on the subs, there was this weird effect after we dove. It was like reality was put on hold. Days inside the boat were an unrelieved monotony. Similar meals at the usual tables, sane watches, same conversations, with the same people.
We used to refer to things that happened the day we left port as 'yesterday.' Even a couple months into patrol. Or someone would mention a movie he saw at the mall 'last week.' And we would nod, knowing he meant (unmentioned 45 days) and a week ago.

I have caught myself thinking of pre-lockdown in the same manner. Something i said to my boss 'last week,' or the meeting 'three days ago.' Ignoring the actual calendar duration since.
And, of course, i USED this manner in a Skype meeting, to refer to when we accomplished something in the office.
So, some coworkers think i'm going senile. Still....

I have noticed that all plane flights longer than 5 hours or so feel about the same to me whether it's seven or eleven, due to a similar telescoping perceptive effect from monotony

As an Australian with family in the UK, I find the idea that eleven hours is a long flight laughable.

Eleven hours is the point when you realise that you feel like you've been on the plane forever - but that you're only a third of the way there.

 

[Politesse]

I noticed something weird. Yesterday.
That's not when i noticed it, but what i noticed.

When we patrolled on the subs, there was this weird effect after we dove. It was like reality was put on hold. Days inside the boat were an unrelieved monotony. Similar meals at the usual tables, sane watches, same conversations, with the same people.
We used to refer to things that happened the day we left port as 'yesterday.' Even a couple months into patrol. Or someone would mention a movie he saw at the mall 'last week.' And we would nod, knowing he meant (unmentioned 45 days) and a week ago.

I have caught myself thinking of pre-lockdown in the same manner. Something i said to my boss 'last week,' or the meeting 'three days ago.' Ignoring the actual calendar duration since.
And, of course, i USED this manner in a Skype meeting, to refer to when we accomplished something in the office.
So, some coworkers think i'm going senile. Still....

I have noticed that all plane flights longer than 5 hours or so feel about the same to me whether it's seven or eleven, due to a similar telescoping perceptive effect from monotony

As an Australian with family in the UK, I find the idea that eleven hours is a long flight laughable.

Eleven hours is the point when you realise that you feel like you've been on the plane forever - but that you're only a third of the way there.

There are no thirty-three hour flights.

 

[crazyfingers]

I think my longest flight was boston ma to tokyo. We had bad headwinds and was close to 14 hours iirc. Glad i had the miles to upgrade to business class. Doing that coach i could not.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Mental discontinuity?

yeah, there's just nothing to distinguish any event. Nothing ever changes.

 

[bilby]

As an Australian with family in the UK, I find the idea that eleven hours is a long flight laughable.

Eleven hours is the point when you realise that you feel like you've been on the plane forever - but that you're only a third of the way there.

There are no thirty-three hour flights.

No, but there are plenty of sixteen hour flights with connections to ten hour flights, and a six hour layover between. Transit lounges are not notably more fun or comfortable than long haul aircraft, and you can't leave unless you want to go through passport control (twice).

 

[Politesse]

As an Australian with family in the UK, I find the idea that eleven hours is a long flight laughable.

Eleven hours is the point when you realise that you feel like you've been on the plane forever - but that you're only a third of the way there.

There are no thirty-three hour flights.

No, but there are plenty of sixteen hour flights with connections to ten hour flights, and a six hour layover between. Transit lounges are not notably more fun or comfortable than long haul aircraft, and you can't leave unless you want to go through passport control (twice).

This is true. Though before COVID-19, I used to enjoy people-watching in airports, a somewhat more dubious entertainment in the confined space of a plane.

 

[DrZoidberg]

From 10/5 Denmark raises the number of people that can gether to 500. Which is the same number as Sweden has. Yay. I can't wait for the border to open again. I have lovers in Sweden I haven't met for over two months now

I am pretty sure I remember that Sweden eventually lowered it to 50.

The Swedish outlier approach has been getting quite a bit of attention in the foreign media. Has Denmark shifted views regarding that? From what I recall Norway is quite outraged that Sweden doesn't impose stricter measures.

Sweden is now seeing ten times the number of COVID deaths of their neighboring countries.

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-sweden-and-norway-handled-coronavirus-differently-2020-4

Yes, and they've come much further in the herd immunity strategy. What counts isn't the number of dead now. It's the number of dead once this virus has passed through and we're at the end of the pandemic. Denmark and Norway slammed the breaks down, and as a result we have like 1% cleared and immune, while Sweden is somewhere between 10 and 30%. At the end of this the Danish and Swedish numbers should match. The main difference will be that the Swedish economy will be in a better shape.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I don't understand China's strategy. Either they're trying to stop is completely, which means that for all eternity they'll have to have a closed border. Or they're just lying about the numbers of dead. Which is what I think is happening.

Anybody have a theory?

 

[Jokodo]

Sweden is now seeing ten times the number of COVID deaths of their neighboring countries.

https://www.businessinsider.com/how-sweden-and-norway-handled-coronavirus-differently-2020-4

Yes, and they've come much further in the herd immunity strategy. What counts isn't the number of dead now. It's the number of dead once this virus has passed through and we're at the end of the pandemic. Denmark and Norway slammed the breaks down, and as a result we have like 1% cleared and immune, while Sweden is somewhere between 10 and 30%.

Can you show your math please?

Sweden now has almost exactly 3 times Denmark's number of aggregated recorded deaths per million inhabitants. Assuming the actual death rate is similar in both countries, this would seem to imply that Sweden has had 3 times the rate of people ever infected. Let's say 5 times given that deaths lag infections and the rate of infections is heading downward in Denmark but not in Sweden. On the other hand, you yourself have claimed that Sweden's deaths are inflate by an initial failure to keep nursing homes' residents safe, so that might cancel out the higher rate of ongoing infections. By the laws of multiplication and division, if it's true that Denmark has 1% "cleared", Sweden cannot have more than 3-5%. If, on the other hand, the 10-30% figure for Sweden is correct, Denmark should have between 2-10%.

It seems the only way to reconcile your claim with basic math is to claim that either Danes are innately much more fragile (i.e. the real age-corrected case fatality rate including undetected/asymptomatic cases in Denmark is something like 2-5 times higher than in Sweden), or that Sweden massively underreports deaths, again by a factor between 2 and 5 times the recorded deaths. Which one is it you're proposing?

This study estimates that 3.1% of Sweden's and 1.1% of Denmark's population had been infected as of March 28. Looking at both countries' trends since would suggest that the figures may be close to 2% of Danes and 6-8% of Swedes now, but certainly not 30% of Swedes.

Yes, given current numbers, it will be over faster in Sweden than in Denmark - but still not within the year in Sweden, most likely sometime around mit-2021. By which time a vaccine may very well have become available.

At the end of this the Danish and Swedish numbers should match. The main difference will be that the Swedish economy will be in a better shape.

Unless a halfway successful treatment is found within the next year, or years really - anytime before Denmark reaches natural herd immunity. In that case, the Swedes that have died as collateral damage to Sweden's strategy will remain dead, while the Danes yet to die if we assume they'll eventually have to achieve natural herd immunity will be alive and kicking, and have a good chance of remaining so.

 

[Jokodo]

I don't understand China's strategy. Either they're trying to stop is completely, which means that for all eternity they'll have to have a closed border.

It doesn't mean that at all. It just means to close the border until a vaccine or effective treatment is found, which may (or may not) be the case long before Sweden reaches natural herd immunity.

Or they're just lying about the numbers of dead. Which is what I think is happening.

...which is hilarious, since you just presented an analysis that implicitly assumes Sweden is lying about their number of dead.

 

[DrZoidberg]

Can you show your math please?

Nobody has those numbers. There's huge error margins. It's an estimate. When researchers talk about it they admit it's still largely speculation. All we can do is extrapolate from what we know. Neither Denmark nor Sweden had maxed out intensive care facilities. Which is what makes the mortality shoot up. Sweden was closer to being maxed out, but had a peak at about 80% and it's stable there now. The two countries have similar cultures (ie people behave in a similar way). From this we can extrapolate that the number of infected will be orthogonal between the countries. I heard from TWIV that a good rule of thumb when calculating this is that there's about 700 infected for every dead. It's a very rough calculation. It's about 270 000 infected Danes. So roughy 4% have had it. 1 355 000 infected Swedes. So 13% have had it. How about those numbers?

March 28 was a very long time ago. Both countries had at that point only just been infected.

 

[Jokodo]

Can you show your math please?

Nobody has those numbers. There's huge error margins. It's an estimate. When researchers talk about it they admit it's still largely speculation. All we can do is extrapolate from what we know. Neither Denmark nor Sweden had maxed out intensive care facilities. Which is what makes the mortality shoot up. Sweden was closer to being maxed out, but had a peak at about 80% and it's stable there now. The two countries have similar cultures (ie people behave in a similar way). From this we can extrapolate that the number of infected will be orthogonal between the countries. I heard from TWIV that a good rule of thumb when calculating this is that there's about 700 infected for every dead. It's a very rough calculation. It's about 270 000 infected Danes. So roughy 4% have had it. 1 355 000 infected Swedes. So 13% have had it. How about those numbers?

They're at least consistent with each other - unlike your earlier 1% vs. 10-30%. My guess would be that both are a bit too high, though.

However the rule of thumb is valid only during the hot phase of exponential growth. When new infections have levelled off or are declining, it no longer is. It's based on the assumption that the true case fatality rate is somewhere between 0.5 and 1.5% and there's a lag of two weeks between infections and deaths. So today's deaths reflect roughly 1% of the infected from two-three weeks ago. Assuming a doubling period of infections of 5-7 days, we can estimate that today's infected are about 6-8 times the number from two-three weeks ago from which today's deaths are recruited. So the factor 700 crucially rests on the assumption that today's infections are much more numerous than the infections from which the deaths are recruited.

I am hoping for Sweden's sake that this rule of thumb is no longer valid, or else it will max out capacity early next week at the latest.

March 28 was a very long time ago. Both countries had at that point only just been infected.

Wrong. Denmark's total (known) cases on March 28 were over one quarter of today's. Considering that they're probably testing more now than then, that there's a lag between the actual infection and showing symptoms/getting tested, and that the rate of new infections is lower now than then, it's reasonable to assume that talking about *all* cases including untested ones, a third to half of the people who ever have been infected in Denmark were infected by March 28. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/denmark/

For Sweden I'm reluctant to make any such estimate since their numbers are effectively made up. I know worker's rights are writ large in Sweden, but don't try telling me corona doesn't work weekends there!

 

[Worldtraveller]

3) Stomp on it hard so that the reproduction rate drops to significantly below 1.0 and the number of active cases is actually declining. Simultaneously expand testing infrastructure. When active cases have dropped to the hundreds (and undetected active cases have become insignificant), open up but with the handbrakes on, i.e. refrain from mass events for pretty much the rest of the year and open up the borders for e.g. family/friend visits with health checks in place but no mass tourism. If you have a very good idea who has it, it is enough to reduce the movements of those who have it. As long as you have no real idea who has it, reducing everyone's movements is the only safe bet.

Trying that would probably cause a civil war here from all the right wing loonies who don't want to be cooped up.

Yeah well, it would be first civil war where the rebels kill themselves, so.....

 

[Worldtraveller]

A Teenager Posted About Her COVID-19 Infection on Instagram. A Deputy Threatened To Arrest Her If She Didn't Delete It.

This story should be shared far and wide. If that sheriff's dept thinks posting her story on IG is disorderly, wait until they become internet famous!