Meanwhile, in Sweden...

[Liamo]

But the virus is here to stay ... eventually it will most likely spread through Denmark, Norway and Finland too.

I agree there's a good chance this virus will be with us for some time yet - but that doesn't necessarily mean it will spread more widely in future through countries that had a stricter form of lockdown.

With widespread, assiduous and effective testing, contact tracing and isolation policies, any new cases can be kept to a minimum, as the example of South Korea with both the earlier MERS outbreak and the current SARS-CoV-2 outbreak, shows.

 

[borolad259]

The countries that have done well to limit infections have bought themselves some time, that's for sure. But it is only delaying the spread of the virus in that popualtion ... unless an effective vaccine is found quickly. In which case, win win. Otherwise it only takes one super-spreading event to kick things off again. Being an optimist by nature, I hope a vaccine is found this year.

 

[bear66]

Taiwan is the only country that has totally got this right. Over 22 milion in one of the most populated countries in the world (most of the land area is inhabitable). 400 cases and 6 deaths with China a major air link. By law they had to have masks ready for this before it happened. They went into action on 4 January and no lockdown - 126 actions including every shop and restaurant having hand wash facilities and every one happy to wear a mask. We all had a much information as they did to fully suppress this virus from the beginning.

There are other good examples but I hope we all learn from Taiwan to stop any future epidemic of this nature happening again.

 

[Alvez_48]

They have done superbly but Vietnam, Taiwan, south korea, Japan all have very different physiological / genetic make up compared to Europeans are in a completely different part of the world and have completely different diets..

They have also taken different approaches but good science would note that this does not prove nor disprove causation or correlation.

You don't like good science though @bear66 you prefer the Ferguson approach

 

[bear66]

They have done superbly but Vietnam, Taiwan, south korea, Japan all have very different physiological / genetic make up compared to Europeans are in a completely different part of the world and have completely different diets..

They have also taken different approaches but good science would note that this does not prove nor disprove causation or correlation.

You don't like good science though @bear66 you prefer the Ferguson approach

So what science says physiology, genes, diet or living in a different part of the world has any causal effect on this virus?

 

[borolad259]

Not sure about genes, but a clear correlation has been shown between vitamin D deficiency and covid morality, which may be diet related, but is just as likely to be cultural. For instance Italy and Spain are countries where low vitamin D is endemic, especially among the elderly. It may also partially account for poor outcomes in the BAME population. It is correlation of course, not necessarily causation.

 

[Liamo]

I haven't seen any medical studies that link regional physiology or diets to increased resistance or susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infections. Do you have links to any that do?

I have seen a paper that suggested differences in the level of expression of the ACE2 receptor (which plays a large part in how people get infected) between different ethnic groups within Asia but not between Asians and other ethnic groups and as yet, it's unclear exactly how ACE2 levels relate to susceptibility or outcome.

 

[bear66]

Not sure about genes, but a clear correlation has been shown between vitamin D deficiency and covid morality, which may be diet related, but is just as likely to be cultural. For instance Italy and Spain are countries where low vitamin D is endemic, especially among the elderly. It may also partially account for poor outcomes in the BAME population. It is correlation of course, not necessarily causation.

Vitamin D is interesting. Most information is anecdotal. Have you got any links to actual research?

 

[borolad259]

Vitamin D is interesting. Most information is anecdotal. Have you got any links to actual research?

Yes, will post later. There is some in the Bit D thread but there have been new studies this week.

 

[Liamo]

Here's one study:

The role of vitamin D in the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 infection and mortality

 

[otto62]

Australian figures would indicate a 1% death rate is a reasonable estimate. We're pretty confident we've got almost everybody. Strong track and trace process, social isolation and other requirements enforced with $1,000 fines, two weeks proscribed self isolation for people moving between states (with police checks), two weeks isolation under guard in specific hotels for international arrivals.

Current death rate is 1.55% (97 total deaths / 6,232 total recoveries plus deaths).
Of the 697 unresolved currently identified cases, 19 are in ICU. If 10 of those end up as fatalities that's 1.46%, which is comparable.

There would be some unidentified cases in the community, however to get the mortality rate down from 1.5% to 1% would mean another 3,500 unidentified cases. That's 50% more unidentified cases. With the very high level of testing we've been doing, plus our isolation measures, plus our closed borders, I don't believe that's possible. But even if it was, that would still only bring the death rate down to 1%.

 

[hopesoboro]

Australian figures would indicate a 1% death rate is a reasonable estimate. We're pretty confident we've got almost everybody. Strong track and trace process, social isolation and other requirements enforced with $1,000 fines, two weeks proscribed self isolation for people moving between states (with police checks), two weeks isolation under guard in specific hotels for international arrivals.

Current death rate is 1.55% (97 total deaths / 6,232 total recoveries plus deaths).
Of the 697 unresolved currently identified cases, 19 are in ICU. If 10 of those end up as fatalities that's 1.46%, which is comparable.

There would be some unidentified cases in the community, however to get the mortality rate down from 1.5% to 1% would mean another 3,500 unidentified cases. That's 50% more unidentified cases. With the very high level of testing we've been doing, plus our isolation measures, plus our closed borders, I don't believe that's possible. But even if it was, that would still only bring the death rate down to 1%.

All these figures bemuse me but if you're saying Oz has 97 deaths then they must be performing fantastically well!

 

[Alvez_48]

Australian figures would indicate a 1% death rate is a reasonable estimate. We're pretty confident we've got almost everybody. Strong track and trace process, social isolation and other requirements enforced with $1,000 fines, two weeks proscribed self isolation for people moving between states (with police checks), two weeks isolation under guard in specific hotels for international arrivals.

Current death rate is 1.55% (97 total deaths / 6,232 total recoveries plus deaths).
Of the 697 unresolved currently identified cases, 19 are in ICU. If 10 of those end up as fatalities that's 1.46%, which is comparable.

There would be some unidentified cases in the community, however to get the mortality rate down from 1.5% to 1% would mean another 3,500 unidentified cases. That's 50% more unidentified cases. With the very high level of testing we've been doing, plus our isolation measures, plus our closed borders, I don't believe that's possible. But even if it was, that would still only bring the death rate down to 1%.

Lol so full of ****. Death rate is between 0.1-0.3%

And before you ask there's loads of studies that show that now. They've been linked to extensively.

 

[Alvez_48]

So what science says physiology, genes, diet or living in a different part of the world has any causal effect on this virus?

I'm not saying there is... I mean borolad has already pointed out some initial findings which you as per usual don't address.

I'm saying we don't know, you claim that we do know.

 

[otto62]

All these figures bemuse me but if you're saying Oz has 97 deaths then they must be performing fantastically well!

Yes, Oz has 97 deaths.
25 million people. 97 deaths so far. 7,000 cases, and we're disappointed to be back up to about 20 new cases a day.

 

[otto62]

Lol so full of ****. Death rate is between 0.1-0.3%

And before you ask there's loads of studies that show that now. They've been linked to extensively.

Well, I guess you would know sh*t when you see it, you post so much of it.

If you go down the "I can't be ars*d to do social distancing or stop having parties just so some 70 year old geezers get to live" model and just infect 10% of the country, then maybe the death rate does drop to 0.3%. I just don't think that's worth the extra 30,000 deaths.

 

[Alvez_48]

Well, I guess you would know sh*t when you see it, you post so much of it.

If you go down the "I can't be ars*d to do social distancing or stop having parties just so some 70 year old geezers get to live" model and just infect 10% of the country, then maybe the death rate does drop to 0.3%. I just don't think that's worth the extra 30,000 deaths.

No it's the if you do serological testing and start accounting for all of the mild and asymptomatic cases route where it drops to 0.1-0.3%.

 

[otto62]

No it's the if you do serological testing and start accounting for all of the mild and asymptomatic cases route where it drops to 0.1-0.3%.

So you're suggesting that Australia actually has another 70,000 asymptomatic cases, despite having opened up our testing to tens of thousands of people without symptoms and only identifying a handful of undetected cases? Hmmm. I think not.

Just checked our data, we'll have tested 100,000 people without symptoms by 11 May. It will take a few days for the final results to come thorugh. But no spike so far with this extended testing.

 

[Redwurzel]

If people think 600 CV19 deaths a day is a figure we can live with - in comparison in WW2 we lost about 350 a day (forces and civilians). Our current figures are shocking to me, but obviously not to a lot of our media with Happy Monday headlines. I would rather have some more fear and anxiety if it reduced deaths.

There seems to be different interpretations what is death rate on here.

The death rate to me is death per total population not death amongst the infected.

It is believed my many experts to natural death rate for CV19 is in the range of 0.045% to 0.06% if we just let the virus spread or say 40,000 in the UK, but if this true something has gone wrong in the UK as we have passed 40,000 deaths already (if deaths from CV19 in all locations is included from the start of virus) and we have had lock down measures. It appears we are on course for at least 60,000 deaths and we have drifted into partial herd immunity.

My feeling is that the UK authorities and some of the public have been too slack compared with countries who have kept their figures very low. Why can some countries many to issue free face masks while the UK has been unable to? Why do planes land in the UK full of passengers who then disperse immediately without checks while in most other countries this does not happen. Why did it take 19 days to go into lock down after the first death. Why were we so unprepared?

 

[dooderooni]

So if we all get it then 60,000 to 180,000 UK deaths.
Given that it is a very infectious disease then we're already halfway to the 'best case scenario' based on your chosen figures Alvez and we still have no idea how many people have actually had it.