When my GP tested me for SARS-COV2 last week, she also told me that there were about about a dozen active Covid-19 cases in the entire region of Hannover, which is home to more than a million people. So the likelihood of running into one of them and getting infected is very small.
Restrictions on daily life have almost completely been rolled back. Masks are still mandatory during shopping and on public transport, but that’s that. Kindergarten is open to all children again, although at the one our kids go to, they separate the groups so that children from different groups don’t mix like they otherwise do.
Notably, two weeks after they allowed all children in again, our family got the first common cold since February (both wife and I tested negative for Covid-19, so we can be very sure it was just a common cold).
Silvaire wrote:
People who want to avoid getting infected may in some areas have to use their brains
The problem with that argument is that it’s not up to you. That is the massive difference between Covid-19 and, say, racing a mountain bike down a trail. In the case of the latter, you crash – you die or are paraplegic. Your call, your fate, no worries. Unfortunately, that’s not the case with Covid-19. This disease doesn’t let you choose – it makes the choice for you. Wearing a mask doesn’t protect you all that much – it protects others, because you don’t know if you’re infectious or not. Call it altruism if you want, but if this is practiced by a majority it will then also protect you and in the end beat the virus. Framing this debate as one about personal freedom misses the point.
The answer is to stay home and limit your exposure if you don’t want to get infected, it’s up to you. Pizza Hut delivers. Somebody wanting to restrict the freedom of others and kill the economy that supports us all so they can make less effort to remain individually safer is the flip side to the ‘we’re all in this together’ argument. Otherwise, for those like me who are e.g. ‘essential workers’, sometimes you have to take small personal risks for the greater good. I go to work every day and it doesn’t bother me a bit.
In the end, I think the enduring issue for the US in this situation is the unprecedented removal of personal freedoms without legal process, the long term the precedent set on that issue will be more important than all the deaths combined. It’s a harsh thing to say, but factually this will not make a big impact to population. We all know that.
The wave Is moving moving west, like European people did historically. An interesting parallel. The Pacific Ocean will be the end of the line, as it was for Europeans.
As an aside, I looked up statistics for infection rate by town or area in my County. The total cumulative rate is closely correlated with income level – better areas have almost invariably lower rate, urban areas being the very notable exception although in truth the rate is pretty low everywhere. I have yet to meet anybody who has had coronavirus, but that said I won’t be going to Smell A any time soon, part of my efforts to keep that the case.
Silvaire wrote:
Please read what I wrote, carefully, and comprehend.
Haven’t you be the one who claimed “I would rather follow my own advise”? So please do!
If you look at death rates you need to compare infection numbers until about 4 weeks ago with current death rates, as there is a time lag between infection and death. In a case like Texas, where infection numbers are still rapidly growing it is complete nonsense to divide deaths until today by infections until today and then compare that with another country where the number of new infections basically dropped to zero for 6 weeks now…
In general: It’s kind of “funny” that people from regions where the disease is obviously completely out of control in this thread want to explain people from where it’s pretty controlled how to control the disease.
Peter wrote:
It would seem the 43 patients were selected from a hospital, hopefully randomly, but it’s not clear on a speed-read of the PDF.
It’s not that bad! The study reports on cases that were collected from basically all major UK hospitals during a 6 week period. So it doesn’t say anything about the likelyhood of neural complications but specifically searched for such cases to review the nature (and potential treatment options).
It’s not a surprise that SARS-CoV2 can have neurological implications as we know from MERS that this can happen in rare cases.
Silvaire wrote:
The answer is to stay home and limit your exposure if you don’t want to get infected, it’s up to you.
Or your employer, or your wallet/bank account balance if you are self employed – and that is the problem for vast majority of normal, not so well-off people. Its amoral to say: “I can hide in my walled garden/estate and be safe, just don’t even think about reducing my freedoms. If you can’t do it? Well, tough luck.”
I do agree that the governments could and should do it better regarding the human rights in covid era. But this virus does not care about the human rights, and in order to defeat it, one has to tackle the problem rationally, based on science, not based on (regardless off how nice) ideology.
It’s not a surprise that SARS-CoV2 can have neurological implications as we know from MERS that this can happen in rare cases.
It seems to be a lot more common with this one, however. Not easy to find numbers though. And they don’t yet seem to know what predisposes one to develop these.
One of the difficulties with reporting and analysis, already mentioned earlier, is the “PC factor” e.g. a patient who is 1.75m, weighs 150kg, and has no known health issues (well, apart from finding it difficult to walk further than to his car) is reported as having no known health issues. And similarly other known factors go unreported in the mainstream media.
esteban wrote:
I do agree that the governments could and should do it better regarding the human rights in covid era. But this virus does not care about the human rights,
Exactly. An analogy would be if your country was attacked by an invisible vicious alien “overlord” who had no other goal than to do rampage and kill. Each individual wouldn’t stand a chance, but could hide only to wake up to a broken society. Handle it right in unison, no problem. Doing this right, and the number of deaths won’t even make a dent in the statistics, and life is back to (semi) normal withing weeks, completely normal within a month or two.
There is a time for everything. Now is the time to beat the virus, and it requires everybody to participate.
Peter wrote:
It seems to be a lot more common with this one, however. Not easy to find numbers though. And they don’t yet seem to know what predisposes one to develop these.
I wouldn’t say that at this point in time: The cases discussed in the paper are all they could find in the 6 high weeks of the infection in the UK. If you compare these 46 cases with the number of fatalities in the same timeframe, it is still a really rare complication.
Up until now, the prevalence of neurological manifestations seems to be in the ballpark of such symptoms in any viral infections (e.g. compare with H1N1: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3559119/ ).
It’s not fun, but looks like nothing to worry too much about…
Silvaire wrote:
The death rate per million population for Texas and Germany is today
Today, a point in time, which is not in itself particularly interesting. What is more interesting is the derivative of this number. Unfortunately, as I said, I do not share your optimism because the rate of change is trending significantly upwards for Texas. A lot of people I care about live there. “Not interested in further discussion” does sound rather like a denial of the reality. Most of the people I know do not have the option of self-isolating if they want to eat and keep a roof over their head, they have no option but be exposed to those carrying the disease. I can only hope they all are asymptomatic when they catch it, unfortunately, the reality is not likely to be so benign.
