Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[tommye]

Coronavirus: Liverpool v Atletico Madrid virus link an 'interesting hypothesis'

A government adviser says speculation over a possible link between coronavirus cases in Liverpool and the club's Champions League match with Atletico Madrid last month is an "interesting hypothesis".

www.bbc.co.uk

Coronavirus: Liverpool v Atletico Madrid virus link an 'interesting hypothesis

Speculation over a possible link between coronavirus cases in Liverpool and the club's Champions League match with Atletico Madrid last month is an "interesting hypothesis", a scientific adviser to the UK government has said.

Some coronavirus deaths in Liverpool have been blamed on the 11 March match at Anfield,which was attended by more than 52,000 people, including 3,000 from Madrid, where a partial lockdown was already in force.

While there is no confirmed link between the match and any coronavirus cases, the government's deputy chief scientific adviser, Angela McLean, said it warranted further investigation.

"It will be very interesting to see in the future, when all the science is done, what relationship there is between the viruses that have circulated in Liverpool and the viruses that have circulated in Spain," she said at the UK government's daily coronavirus news briefing on Monday.

Liverpool city council's director of public health Matthew Ashton previously told the Guardian the match should have been called off, while the mayor of Madrid, Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida, said over the weekend that it was a "mistake" to allow thousands of Atletico fans to attend.

"It didn't make any sense that 3,000 Atletico fans could travel to Anfield at that time," Martinez-Almedia told Spanish radio station Onda Cero.

Latest figures show that 246 people have died with coronavirus in Liverpool's NHS hospitals.

Madrid, meanwhile, is one of Europe's worst affected cities. Spain has the second-highest number of confirmed infection cases in the world, behind the US, figures from Johns Hopkins University say.

The country's death toll climbed close to 21,000 on Monday.

 

[tommye]

I'd just like to add that Michael Shields was in bed the whole time.

 

[LinekersLegs]

J

Im not sure for the US but for the UK there was the initial Oxford model, here:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.24.20042291v1.full.pdf

And here:

Oxford Model: Coronavirus May Have Already Infected Half of U.K. Population

If the hypothetical model is proven by antibody testing, it would mean minuscule hospitalization rates for coronavirus cases in the country.

nymag.com

Which suggests it was circulating in the UK community undected/ mistook for other respitory illness since Jan at the latest.

Professor Carl Heneghan suggests the peak of hospitalisations was early or mid March:

UK's coronavirus crisis peaked BEFORE lockdown, says top experts

Oxford University professor Carl Heneghan claims data shows infections halved after March 16. He hailed Sweden for 'holding its nerve' and not giving in to hasty scientific advice.

www.dailymail.co.uk

Incase you can't be bothered scrolling through the Mail article:

“The peak of deaths occurred on April 8, and if you understand that then you work biackwards to find the peak of infections. That would be 21 days before then, right before the point of lockdown.”


Data shows the rate of Britons with upper respiratory tract infections dropped from 20 per 100,000 people on March 15 to around 12 per 100,000 just six days later.

The figures do not relate solely to coronavirus but may be a good indicator because so few people were being tested for the deadly infection.

View attachment 84066

Add the above to research suggesting that anywhere from 50-80% of cases are asymptomatic. Here:

Covid-19: four fifths of cases are asymptomatic, China figures indicate

New evidence has emerged from China indicating that the large majority of coronavirus infections do not result in symptoms. Chinese authorities began publishing daily figures on 1 April on the number of new coronavirus cases that are asymptomatic, with the first day’s figures suggesting that...

www.bmj.com

And research from the Diamond Princess Ship suggested that even up to 60% of 70-79 year olds remain symtom free also. Here:

Field Briefing: Diamond Princess COVID-19 Cases

A cruise ship, named the Diamond Princess, had travel that originated in Yokohama on 20 January and included stops in Japan (Kagoshima), Hong Kong, Vietnam, Taiwan and Japan(Okinawa), before arriving back in Yokohama on 3 February. During this time, a passenger who disembarked on 25 January in...

www.niid.go.jp

Looking at Sweden without a lockdown also suggests a higher level of immunity and of infected with mild/ asymptomatic cases imo. That could change of course. Here:

Stockholm will reach 'herd immunity' within weeks

Claim comes amid bitter debate over success of Sweden's relaxed approach

www.telegraph.co.uk

Imo, looking at the numbers/ trend and looking at the research and articles I've read so far this virus has been circulating for a while.

The Oxford model it was just that, a model, its accuracy only as good as the assumptions it was built upon. As they say in the report “We focus on model solutions which take into consideration previous estimates of critical epidemiological parameters such as the basic reproduction number (R ), probability of death in the vulnerable fraction of the population, infectious period and 0 time from infection to death, with the intention of exploring the sensitivity of the system to the actual fraction of the population vulnerable to severe disease and death.”

However they also made the following assumption again as stated in their report “Our overall approach rests on the assumption that only a very small proportion of the population is at risk of hospitalisable illness.”. If I understand it correctly their mortality rate seemed to be close to seasonal flu rates of 0.1% (between 0.12 and 0.16 if I’m correctly reading their model) which is how they arrived at such a wide estimated spread within the population.

That is a perfectly valid scientific hypothesis in the absence of data but we have since got data that directly contradicts that this disease is equivalent in hospilazation/fatality rates to seasonal flu.

Just take New York state which has 20 million residents. With a flu-like mortality of ~0.1% would be 20,000 deaths if the entire state’s population was infected (Oxford was only estimating around 70%) However currently close to 19,000 fatalities are being attributed to coronavirus and the outbreak is sadly not even over so it seems very unlikely that the mortality rate, let alone the hospitalization rate, is multiples higher than seasonal flu.

United States Coronavirus: 788,831 Cases and 42,271 Deaths - Worldometer

United States Coronavirus update with statistics and graphs: total and new cases, deaths per day, mortality and recovery rates, current active cases, recoveries, trends and timeline.

www.worldometers.info

Their tests of pregnant women came back with about 15% infected
https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-in-pregnant-woman-high-nyc.html and it was even less in blood donations from Washington state irrc.

A high spread within the population is also not backed by any of the serology tests done to date - Germany has done some of the best testing in Europe and even in one of their hardest hit towns they are only getting figures of 15%

With Broad, Random Tests for Antibodies, Germany Seeks Path Out of Lockdown

It was the first large Western democracy to contain the spread of the coronavirus and is now the first to methodically go about reopening its economy. Others are watching.

www.nytimes.com

In Gangelt, a small town of about 12,000 in northwest Germany, tests of a first group of 500 residents found that 14 percent had antibodies to the virus. Another 2 percent tested positive for the coronavirus, raising hopes that about 15 percent of the local population may already have some degree of immunity. “The process toward reaching herd immunity has begun,” Prof. Hendrik Streeck, director of the Institute of Virology at the University Hospital Bonn, who is leading the study, said in an interim report. And even if 15 percent of Gangelt has some degree of immunity, levels of immunity are almost certain to be lower elsewhere in the country.

Similarly in the Italian of Vos, whilst mentioning the high rate of asymptotic cases and their impact on infections, only found infection in between 1 and 2% of those tested.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.17.20053157v1
On the 21st of February 2020 a resident of the municipality of Vo, a small town near Padua, died of pneumonia due to SARS-CoV-2 infection. This was the first COVID-19 death detected in Italy since the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 in the Chinese city of Wuhan, Hubei province. In response, the regional authorities imposed the lockdown of the whole municipality for 14 days. We collected information on the demography, clinical presentation, hospitalization, contact network and presence of SARS-CoV-2 infection in nasopharyngeal swabs for 85.9% and 71.5% of the population of Vo at two consecutive time points.

On the first survey, which was conducted around the time the town lockdown started, we found a prevalence of infection of 2.6% (95% confidence interval (CI) 2.1-3.3%). On the second survey, which was conducted at the end of the lockdown, we found a prevalence of 1.2% (95% CI 0.8-1.8%).

Notably, 43.2% (95% CI 32.2-54.7%) of the confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections detected across the two surveys were asymptomatic

.
As far as I'm aware Sweden has yet to release any results of serology tests - their "herd immunity" again seems to come from models rather than observed results. I also haven't seen any reports on what percentage of their molecular tests (which in many countries are just given for those that turn up at hospital with bad symptoms) are coming back positive. The UK is high at 32% but that is still well below what Oxford modeled.


We'll know more when there is better testing, of both types, but based on evidence I've seen to date I'd be surprised if more than 10% of UK population have gone through the virus although would be delighted to be wrong.

 

[Jebus_lives]

I see China are saying that the virus actually came from the USA....

”A war of words between the United States and China over coronavirus intensified on Monday after the Chinese embassy in France suggested the outbreak actually started in the US.”......

Certain people will be all over this....

Has anyone considered that the Americans, CIA, engineered the virus, then released in the market in Wuhan, knowing that there is a biolab in Wuhan and that China would be blamed for it; so that they can sue China for the $1t and overthrow the Communist Government there and undermine the WHO to benefit big pharma?

Called it!

 

[Jebus_lives]

Put the tribal stuff aside for a minute. Why, on gods earth, would anyone be so stupid to tell such a lie, without even bothering to get the order placed until the next day. It’s not like anyone would snitch, leak or otherwise let the cat out of the bag is it.......

Why would a Government that have maintained power by lying and misleading, led by a man who lying is as natural as breathing, lie about something?

 

[Death]

Putting stuff very high on the Scoville scale on your fingers is an extreme measure to get yourself into the habit of not touching your face etc but it’s an idea.

 

[LinekersLegs]

The barrel is probably worth more than the oil at this point

 

[blulouie]

Putting stuff very high on the Scoville scale on your fingers is an extreme measure to get yourself into the habit of not touching your face etc but it’s an idea.

Dip your fingers in a bucket of chit , you'll never touch your face again.

 

[Death]

Dip your fingers in a bucket of chit , you'll never touch your face again.

Mate speak for yourself. You’d have to call me Death Brown Face McGee

 

[Deleted member 48881]

 

[mill]

honestly don’t know what to say about this. words fail me. wonder if it will get sufficient coverage.

 

[Walken]

If there is truth in this I'd say its a new low but it is actually in line with how they ran their election campaign

 

[mill]

If there is truth in this I'd say its a new low but it is actually in line with how they ran their election campaign

I mean yes. But on the other hand this one would directly contribute to deaths at a genocidal level.

 

[Rook]

Coronavirus: Liverpool v Atletico Madrid virus link an 'interesting hypothesis'

A government adviser says speculation over a possible link between coronavirus cases in Liverpool and the club's Champions League match with Atletico Madrid last month is an "interesting hypothesis".

www.bbc.co.uk

"It didn't make any sense that 3,000 Atletico fans could travel to Anfield at that time," Martinez-Almedia told Spanish radio station Onda Cero.

I won't say the match shouldn't have been played but it didn't make sense that any fans were in the stands.

 

[marnie]

honestly don’t know what to say about this. words fail me. wonder if it will get sufficient coverage.

If true.That is ffin grim.A new low in mankind.