COVID-19 — Coronavirus

[Healdplace]

Four new South Wales areas around Cardiff put into new local lockdown. Hospital admissions climbing and care homes cases escalating there too.

Northern Ireland also reporting a higher % of new cases than England and new tighter restrictions are being planned.

As I noted yesterday on my updates N Ireland passed 1000 in the weekly case numbers total which a couple of months ago was not even at 100. So pro rata they have had a faster rise there.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

Do you realise mate that the UK’s population density is about 12 times that of Sweden. Sweden’s is comparable with New Zealand btw. Sweden has a population of 10mil. New Zealand has a population of 5mil and we have have 60 odd million Brits.

I think Italy is an interesting comparison if they are now doing much better. Germany has had a working approach to track and trace throughout.

Herd immunity needs a vaccine that works well enough to protect a significant chunk of the population from the virus.

Comparing countries on landmass divided by population is far too simplistic. The vast majority of Swedens population is concentrated in the south and east. The majority of the country is very sparsely populated.

swedish population density map - Google Search

www.google.com

 

[Healdplace]

N Ireland;s latest figures on age ranges of new % tests is better news as of the 977 up to yesterday 114 were over 60 -which is only about 12%. It was up as high as 15% not long ago.

The graphs shown at the London briefing earlier were suggesting rising numbers were now occurring across the older age groups.

 

[Tim of the Oak]

Comparing countries on landmass divided by population is far too simplistic. The vast majority of Swedens population is concentrated in the south and east. The majority of the country is very sparsely populated.

swedish population density map - Google Search

www.google.com

True and that’s not a lot different to the South Island of New Zealand. Sweden’s infection rate might be lower than Denmark’s at the moment but the Swedes have been hit harder by Covid than neighbouring Countries

Topic: Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the Nordics

Find the most up-to-date statistics about the coronavirus (COVID-19) in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden

www.statista.com

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

Do you realise mate that the UK’s population density is about 12 times that of Sweden. Sweden’s is comparable with New Zealand btw. Sweden has a population of 10mil. New Zealand has a population of 5mil and we have have 60 odd million Brits.

I think Italy is an interesting comparison if they are now doing much better. Germany has had a working approach to track and trace throughout.

Herd immunity needs a vaccine that works well enough to protect a significant chunk of the population from the virus.

I can also add that New Zealand is probably the most isolated western country in the world. LHR alone had 15 times more international flights than all of NZ. Plus there are no ferries to NZ. It always was in a very unique place to isolate itself from this virus and has done so very sucessully. Compariaons between NZ and any other country in the world has to be taken with a large pinch of salt.

 

[bobmcfc]

when you see the numbers it’s hard to imagine we aren’t heading for another lockdown. I think he layed the foundation for it today

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

True and that’s not a lot different to the South Island of New Zealand. Sweden’s infection rate might be lower than Denmark’s at the moment but the Swedes have been hit harder by Covid than neighbouring Countries

Topic: Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the Nordics

Find the most up-to-date statistics about the coronavirus (COVID-19) in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden

www.statista.com

not disputing that sweden was really hard hit, just wondering why its doing so well now. its clearly isnt just down to population density otherwise they wouldnt have been hit so hard in the first place. Something else is happening that we need to understand as Heald has stated.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

when you see the numbers it’s hard to imagine we aren’t heading for another lockdown. I think he layed the foundation for it today

catastrophic for the economy if thats the case.

 

[inbetween]

Sweden is a fascinating case. I have friends there and visited myself so love the culture. It is very different from the UK.

What I do find very interesting is that the curve of the disease since March to now has a lot of similarity in Sweden to the one in Leicester - a city I have mentioned in here before because it is a case I don't see experts discussing despite it having a Sweden like path amidst a nation that didnt.

Though its numbers were higher so the climb more obvious than in Sweden it was very atypical of cities in the UK. The Manchester grph is very different from Leicester.

Why are no scientists noticing this I wonder? There might well be an obvious reason I am missing. But it looks as if they built slowly like Sweden without the April peak the rest of the UK did. Then climb right up to late June. Then Sweden carried on falling with no big restrictions and Leicester was put into lockdown and fell slowly for a bit and is not having as big a problem now but is higher than it was but not as high as it got in late June. Just like Sweden.

I really do not know why nobody is asking these questions as they must mean something.

Look at the curves for Manchester and Leicester on the Gov.UK site (if Iknew how to put them on here I would but I am not tech savvy sorry). THis is a bit like the UK v Sweden in microcosm apart from the last few weeks.

We should be asking why?

People are trying to find correlations between different places but it's impossible to compare towns let alone countries. Just as an example, it seems to be a fact that the virus seemingly affects different ethnicities very differently. If those ethnicities aren't present in an area then you will get different results.

Sweden in comparison has a very different testing policy, a different way of declaring COVID deaths, a different population density, a different population/age mix, different ethnicities and a different way of handling positive cases etc.

It is impossible to say any country is doing better and so we should do things differently by copying. Even the most local areas (villages) in a perfect world would need to handle the virus spread differently. For example, an area containing universities will likely see far more asymptomatic or mild cases compared to other areas because demographics change.

This whole thing is not like trying to compare who out of city and united are better at football, it's like trying to compare who out of city or wigan warriors rugby team are better at baseball.

 

[BlueHammer85]

catastrophic for the economy if thats the case.

I can’t imagine how the oil industry will cope with this