COVID-19 — Coronavirus

[Bazzmand Show]

We don't know how Germany are calculating deaths to be honest.

 

[jay_mcfc]

Almost 4000 doctors/nurses infected in Spain apparently. I think the UK is around 400. Keeping those numbers down will be very important.

 

[chesterbells]

I’m beginning to think there’s different strains maybe?

Yes, I wonder that too. We have various strains with the cold and flu every year don’t we too. It might also explain why some people are reporting sore throats/coughs or headaches but then no fever, for example??

 

[oman0115]

Morgan did say several times during the interview that he thinks Hancock does want tougher measures, this anger was directed at Bojo - but Hancock happened to be the one being interviewed.

good luck getting Boris Johnson having an interview like that, he’s more likely to go for a friendly chat with schofield and his side kick, nodding a long like a pair of Churchill dogs

 

[davek1808]

Exhausted

Are you're symptoms still the same?

 

[kaz7]

'high risk' for all deliveries to your door surely then? Not the opinion of the BBC TV expert Chris Smith at the week end - he said that virus is highly unlikely to survive the journey

better let the experts know the results then

Depends if it is in cardboard or plastic,they seem to be the things it clings to but also the delivery mans hands,some are wearing gloves but that doesn't matter,i think anything that comes in,even papers and the post needs to be treated the same way,people isolating are going to be getting deliveries,it is better to be safe than sorry

 

[chesterbells]

We don't know how Germany are calculating deaths to be honest.

But would it be that different from other countries in Europe?
overall I take the number of cases with a pinch of salt, because there’s hardly any actual testing going in outside hospitals is there, so I’ve just been watching the death toll, and I’d assume the Germans, just like everyone else, would be testing for cv at or before the point of death.

 

[kaz7]

Are you're symptoms still the same?

still coughing and feel a bit breathless on exertion,it is difficult to know what illness is causing what now,really we need someone who is usually fit and h as had it to get a proper idea on how long the actual virus takes to get over

 

[jay_mcfc]

We don't know how Germany are calculating deaths to be honest.

It will be interesting at the end of the year to look at each of the major country's registered covid-19 deaths, deaths in total and compare them with previous years stats. There might be discrepancies in how they recorded deaths by covid-19 v underlying issues v natural causes.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Depends if it is in cardboard or plastic,they seem to be the things it clings to but also the delivery mans hands,some are wearing gloves but that doesn't matter,i think anything that comes in,even papers and the post needs to be treated the same way,people isolating are going to be getting deliveries,it is better to be safe than sorry

My wife and I have instigated a system whereby we only open the post weekly. After a few days there is no danger of any virus being on the mail and is there anything so important that it cannot wait a week? It's only bills anyway.

@Vic said he leaves the shopping in the boot of the car for a couple of days (the ambient stuff, obviously). Seems like a good idea to me.

 

[Manc Born & Bred]

The reasons underlying the German & Swiss case fatality rates don't seem to have been explained yet - they have an older population than Italy and others and have not introduced such stringent lockdown measures.

Italy has the oldest population in Europe - 23% are over 65. Germany and Switzerland do not have older populations.

 

[Ban-jani]

Yes, I wonder that too. We have various strains with the cold and flu every year don’t we too. It might also explain why some people are reporting sore throats/coughs or headaches but then no fever, for example??

Just found out the Mrs’s 30 year old cousin was in hospital for 3 days with this Coronavirus. She’s fit (both definitions lol) and healthy.

There’s no way she was in hospital for 3 days in an ICU when people twice her age aren’t.

Not with the same thing.

 

[BosnianBlue]

I may be wrong but for the last couple of weeks I’ve thought the weekend figures might be less than comprehensive. Perhaps they’re a bit slower in updating them?

might be. it's not easy to catch everything up and these sites are probably short staffed

 

[Summerbuzz]

Once again, on the Germany thing;

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/22/germany-low-coronavirus-mortality-rate-puzzles-experts

Germany’s relatively low mortality rate continues to intrigue experts as Covid-19 spreads across Europe, with some questioning the methodology behind its data gathering while others argue the country’s high testing rates allow a more accurate approximation of the threat posed by the novel coronavirus.

While the pandemic has hit Germany with full force, with Johns Hopkins University noting 22,364 confirmed infections by Sunday morning, only 84 people are so far reported to have died.

This means Germany currently has the lowest mortality rate of the 10 countries most severely hit by the pandemic: 0.3% compared with 9% in Italy and 4.6% in the UK.

The contrast with Italy is especially surprising because the two countries have the highest percentage of citizens aged 65 or over in Europe. If anything, the Bloomberg Global Health Index would suggest Italians have a healthier lifestyle than Germans.

German politicians and senior health officials have been reluctant to comment on the low mortality rate while the situation is developing so rapidly. Lothar Wieler, the president of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the government’s central public health body, has said he does not expect there to be a significant difference in mortality rates between Italy and Germany in the long run.

“It’s too early to say whether Germany is better medically prepared for the Covid-19 pandemic than other countries,” said Marylyn Addo, who heads the infectiology department at Hamburg’s University Medical Centre.

One likely explanation for the discrepancy in figures, Addo suggested, was that while northern Italy’s hospitals are being overrun with new patients, Germany’s are not yet at full capacity and have had more time to clear beds, stock up on equipment and redistribute personnel.

“One advantage Germany has is that we started doing professional contact tracing when the first cases were reported,” Addo said. “It bought us some time to prepare our clinics for the coming storm.”

Crucially, Germany started testing people even with milder symptoms relatively early on, meaning the total number of confirmed cases may give a more accurate picture of the virus’s spread than in other states.

While Germany has not tested its citizens at the same high rate practised in South Korea, guidelines have been in place for more than a month for people to be tested even if they have early-stage symptoms but have either had contact with an infected person or recently visited a “high-risk area” such as Lombardy in Italy or Wuhan in China.

The age profile of those affected in the first few weeks has also been younger than in other countries, many of them fit and healthy people returning from skiing resorts in Austria or Italy, which would also help explain the low mortality rate.

“I assume that many young Italians are or were infected without ever being detected,” Christian Drosten, a virologist at Berlin’s Charité hospital, told the newspaper Die Zeit. “This also explains the virus’s supposedly higher mortality rate there.”

Drosten, who has been advising the German health ministry, has also warned that Germany’s mortality rate is likely to rise in the coming weeks as high-risk areas become harder to identify and testing capacity becomes stretched.

“It will appear that the virus has become more dangerous, but this will be a statistical artefact, a distortion. It will simply reflect what’s already starting to happen: we’re missing more and more infections.”

The methodology behind Germany’s data gathering could also play into the discrepancy between Italian and German figures.

If a patient is tested positive for Covid-19 in Germany, the doctor will notify the local health authority, which will then digitally transfer the data to the Robert Koch Institute. The lag in this process explains why the RKI’s daily figures have been consistently lower than those from Johns Hopkins University, which updates its data tables more frequently. By 10am on Sunday morning, for example, the RKI only notes 55 fatalities in Germany.

Unlike in Italy, there is currently no widespread postmortem testing for the novel coronavirus in Germany. The RKI says those who were not tested for Covid-19 in their lifetime but are suspected to have been infected with the virus “can” be tested after death, but in Germany’s decentralised health system this is not yet a routine practice.

As a result, it is theoretically possible that there could be people who may have died in their homes before being tested and who do not show up in the statistics.

Practising medical specialists such as Addo do not believe this number of unreported cases to be statistically significant. “I have yet to see any data that would suggest a large number of untested corona-related deaths that don’t show up in the statistics,” she said.

“Clinics dealing with respiratory illnesses have been on high alert about the virus for weeks, so I would be very surprised if there was a significant figure of uncharted deaths.”

The RKI’s official mortality figures include both people who have died of the virus as well as those infected and with underlying health problems, where the precise cause of death could not be determined.

 

[Chippy_boy]

Italy has the oldest population in Europe - 23% are over 65. Germany and Switzerland do not have older populations.

I think you may be mistaken there.

https://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/median-age/

Germany 47.1 years 46 years 48.2 years
Italy 45.5 years 44.4 years 46.5 years
United Kingdom 40.5 years 39.3 years 41.7 years

Admittedly these are crude and probably over-simplified, but there is not way the relative ages of the populations could account for such a dramatic difference in death rates.

 

[hilts]

My wife and I have instigated a system whereby we only open the post weekly. After a few days there is no danger of any virus being on the mail and is there anything so important that it cannot wait a week? It's only bills anyway.

@Vic said he leaves the shopping in the boot of the car for a couple of days (the ambient stuff, obviously). Seems like a good idea to me.

You don't happen to have his address And make of car to hand do You?

 

[smudgedj]

I have a question. Is someone with diabetes at higher risk from coronavirus? My mom has diabetes and she is 51. Although she has not caught anything, I am still worried about her.

Yes. Brazil has just ordered all Drs with diabetes to go home.

 

[jay_mcfc]

23 Italian doctors have died now. I really hope the UK is protecting those retired doctors and nurses than have returned recently.

 

[kaz7]

Zimbabwe's health minister has confirmed the country's first death from the coronavirus


The number of confirmed cases in the Netherlands has risen by 545 to 4,749.

Dutch health authorities also said there have been 34 new deaths

Eight more UK deaths

Four more people have died in Scotland and four more in Wales today, the health bodies for the two countries announced.

That brings the UK total to 289.

The number of coronavirus cases in South Africa jumped to 402 on Monday - an increase of 128 from the day before.

It now has more than any other African country, jumping ahead of Egypt which has 372 cases

Singapore has confirmed a rise of 54 cases of coronavirus to 509, with two deaths


Swiss health authorities have said the number of coronavirus cases in the country has risen to 8,060 from the 7,014 reported on Sunday.

Authorities added that 66 more people have died after testing positive for the illness in Switzerland


Etc,it is nearly everywhere

 

[PannickAtTheDisco]

I have a question. Is someone with diabetes at higher risk from coronavirus? My mom has diabetes and she is 51. Although she has not caught anything, I am still worried about her.

yes.