Very serious situation' unfolding in Europe, WHO warns, as cases rise dramatically

[Mainecat]

Wear your fuckin mask....

Very serious situation' unfolding in Europe, WHO warns, as cases rise dramatically

https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/09/17/coronavirus-latest-europe-jittery-as-cases-rise-and-lockdowns-return.html 
 

KEY POINTS 
* There are growing concerns in Europe at what is being seen as an alarming rise in coronavirus cases. 
* The number of new daily infections has reached record highs in some countries. 
* Targeted lockdowns and restrictions are returning across the continent. 


... 'The pandemic is not over' 

The increases in the number of reported infections has, in part, been attributed to more sophisticated and active testing regimes in Europe, but the ECDC said Wednesday that "although increased testing contributes to better awareness of all ongoing transmission, it is not the only reason for the increase of Covid-19 cases." It linked the rise to the relaxation of physical distancing and other preventive measures. 

"As schools reopen and more indoor activities are held, the increase of cases comes as a reminder that the pandemic is not over," the ECDC warned, as it reminded the public to continue basic measures to prevent the spread of the virus, including hand washing, face masks and self-isolation when feeling ill. 

There are concerns that healthcare systems could be overwhelmed as winter nears and the ECDC noted that, as flu season approaches, the preparedness of healthcare systems across Europe is "vital." 

"This includes essential services, primary care facilities and hospitals ensuring appropriate surge capacity plans in case of a high demand for the care of patients with respiratory distress," it said. 

[Rod]

Oh geez you can’t stop it like science has been saying all along?

 

and top doctors are saying that it’s useless for people with no symptoms to wear a mask. 

 

man the left is anti science 

[Angry ginger]

nothing one does will stop this.  It's been shown as every country/state treats it different and regardless their is no magic bullet.  At that point return to normal and deal with the fallout.  If your at risk protect yourself from contact otherwise if you get it you get it.  

 

 

 

[BOHICA]

Sweden is in Europe and they don’t wear masks and are going about life normally with great results compared to the rest of Europe.

[Angry ginger]

6 minutes ago, BOHICA said:

Sweden is in Europe and they don’t wear masks and are going about life normally with great results compared to the rest of Europe.

their results are not great.  Non ones results are great and that is OK. 

 

we didn't stop the world for other viruses there is no reason we are on month 6 of shutdowns for this one even if it more invasive.   2 weeks to flatten the curve is now going to be 8 months till the elections over.  

 

 

[Rod]

9 minutes ago, BOHICA said:

Sweden is in Europe and they don’t wear masks and are going about life normally with great results compared to the rest of Europe.

Sweden chose science over feelings. And it paid off. They’re just life as normal while we’re still trying to stop the inevitable like a bunch of morons 

 

[frenchy]

11 minutes ago, Angry ginger said:

nothing one does will stop this.  It's been shown as every country/state treats it different and regardless their is no magic bullet.  At that point return to normal and deal with the fallout.  If your at risk protect yourself from contact otherwise if you get it you get it.  

I tend to agree. Masks may slow or delay things, but it's a stop gap measure at best. 

At some point individuals need to take responsibility for themselves. The nanny state 'please help me government' isn't working. 

[frenchy]

2 minutes ago, ACE said:

Sweden chose science over feelings. And it paid off. They’re just life as normal while we’re still trying to stop the inevitable like a bunch of morons 

that's not true. Sweden promoted voluntary social distancing vs government mandated and for the most part swedes did most of the same things that were required elsewhere on their own. 

[ArcticCrusher]

13 minutes ago, Angry ginger said:

nothing one does will stop this.  It's been shown as every country/state treats it different and regardless their is no magic bullet.  At that point return to normal and deal with the fallout.  If your at risk protect yourself from contact otherwise if you get it you get it.  

 

 

 

The numbers are spiking back up everywhere regardless of mask protocols.  Keep the elderly isolated and those with low immune and keep businesses going as usual.

The owner of the place I went to lunch for yesterday does not think he will survive much longer. 

[Rod]

3 minutes ago, frenchy said:

that's not true. Sweden promoted voluntary social distancing vs government mandated and for the most part swedes did most of the same things that were required elsewhere on their own. 

Show me the statistics 

[Rod]

6 minutes ago, frenchy said:

I tend to agree. Masks may slow or delay things, but it's a stop gap measure at best. 

At some point individuals need to take responsibility for themselves. The nanny state 'please help me government' isn't working. 

If you recall the point was never to stop the virus, only slow it so it didn’t overwhelm the healthcare system. Which it’s not, so no further measures are needed. 

[frenchy]

2 minutes ago, ACE said:

Show me the statistics 

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2251615-is-swedens-coronavirus-strategy-a-cautionary-tale-or-a-success-story/

Is Sweden's coronavirus strategy a cautionary tale or a success story?

HEALTH 13 August 2020

By Michael Le Page

Sweden was one of the few European countries not to impose a compulsory lockdown. Its unusual strategy for tackling the coronavirus outbreak has been both hailed as a success and condemned as a failure. So which is it?

Those who regard the strategy as a success claim it reduced the economic impact, but it isn’t clear that it did. What is clear is that so far Sweden has had a more protracted outbreak with far more deaths per capita than its neighbours.

While it is sometimes implied that Sweden didn’t have a lockdown, it did. It was just largely voluntary, with only a few legal measures such as a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people.

“Voluntary restrictions work as well as legal ones,” says the architect of Sweden’s strategy, chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell.

This appears to be true, in Sweden at least. The measures did work nearly as well in getting people to change their behaviour. Adam Sheridan at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, for instance, has used data from a bank to compare spending patterns up to April in Sweden and Denmark. Denmark introduced a compulsory lockdown on 11 March, one of the first in Europe.

Sheridan found that spending – an indicator of behaviour as well as economic activity – fell by nearly as much in Sweden as in Denmark: 25 per cent compared with 29 per cent.

Similarly, data from the Citymapper phone app, which helps people plan their travel routes, suggests that travel in Stockholm fell to 40 per cent of the normal level. “That’s a substantial reduction,” says Martin McKee at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, whose team did the analysis. However, there were even bigger falls in other major European cities during compulsory lockdowns, to 20 per cent on average.

So there was a substantial voluntary lockdown in Sweden – yet it wasn’t nearly as effective in reducing the spread of the coronavirus as the compulsory lockdowns in neighbouring Denmark and Norway. Cases and deaths rose faster in Sweden and have been slower to decline.

Sweden has about 8200 confirmed cases per million people as of 12 August, compared with 1780 in Norway and 2560 in Denmark. (For the UK it is 4600 and the US 15,400.)

Sweden has had 57 deaths per 100,000, compared with five in Norway and 11 in Denmark. (For the UK it is 70 and the US 50.)

Sheridan’s analysis suggests that young people – whose spending makes little contribution to the overall economy – were least likely to change their behaviour and might have undermined the voluntary lockdown. Among people aged between 18 and 29, spending dropped far less in Sweden than in Denmark.

Tegnell, meanwhile, says the high death rate in Sweden was related to the failure to prevent infections in care homes. Matters have now been improved, he says. Half of Sweden’s deaths were in care homes up to mid-May.

What about the economy? “This has never been done to save the economy. It’s been done to save public health,” says Tegnell. And that means public health in a broad sense, he adds, not just the coronavirus.

That said, Sheridan’s spending comparison suggest that the economic impact was only slightly reduced by not imposing a more effective compulsory lockdown. “It’s very little in economic costs for saving a larger number of lives,” he says.

What’s more, recent data released by another bank suggests that spending in Denmark has recovered faster than in Sweden, says Sheridan.

Others have claimed that Sweden suffered less of an economic decline on the basis of initial estimates of GDP for the second quarter of 2020. Sweden’s fell by 8.6 per cent, less than the estimated average of 11.9 per cent for the European Union as a whole.

However, those making such claims fail to point out that several countries that did impose compulsory lockdowns did as well or better. GDP fell 8.4 per cent in the Czech Republic, for instance, and just 5.1 per cent in Lithuania, the lowest in the EU.

What’s more, many of the countries that fared worst, including the UK, Spain and Italy, rely heavily on tourism, unlike Sweden. A more telling comparison would be with Norway and Denmark, but these figures aren’t available yet.

What all the researchers agree on is that it isn’t over yet. There might be second waves in Denmark and Norway that Sweden avoids because so many people there have already been infected, although it is too soon to compare figures, not least because it is the summer holidays in Sweden during which time the country all but shuts down anyway. Comparisons are further complicated by the fact that Sweden hasn’t relaxed its approach at all, unlike the other countries.

Achieving herd immunity was one of Tegnell’s original aims – but antibody surveys suggest only about 20 per cent of people in Stockholm have been infected, similar to levels in London and New York. That is far short of near the 70 per cent level estimated to be needed.

[frenchy]

Sweden's Premier Soccer League is currently playing in front of empty stadiums with the season almost over. Come October 1st they will allow 500 people max into stadiums intended to seat 20K plus.

To say it's 'life as normal' is flat out false. 

[Tinker]

2 minutes ago, frenchy said:

Sweden's Premier Soccer League is currently playing in front of empty stadiums with the season almost over. Come October 1st they will allow 500 people max into stadiums intended to seat 20K plus.

To say it's 'life as normal' is flat out false. 

Borders are closed, 5 deaths yesterday.

[Angry ginger]

1 minute ago, ArcticCrusher said:

The numbers are spiking back up everywhere regardless of mask protocols.  Keep the elderly isolated and those with low immune and keep businesses going as usual.

The owner of the place I went to lunch for yesterday does not think he will survive much longer. 

I have no issue requiring masks in stores continuing,  its not a huge inconvenience. 

I  would bet well over 60% of the businesses that closed "temporarily" will never return and we are going to continue to lose more and more now that summer is over.   Locally we got lucky with a warm dry summer allowing the restaurants to work at close to 100% capacity between their indoor and outdoor seating but now they need to survive winter. 

We require businesses to provide a YTD P&L and 2 months current business bank statements to support their income.  And some are right back to doing OK like hairdressers but the restaurant guy are struggling bad as are the small retail stores with no foot traffic.    

[ArcticCrusher]

4 minutes ago, Angry ginger said:

I have no issue requiring masks in stores continuing,  its not a huge inconvenience. 

I  would bet well over 60% of the businesses that closed "temporarily" will never return and we are going to continue to lose more and more now that summer is over.   Locally we got lucky with a warm dry summer allowing the restaurants to work at close to 100% capacity between their indoor and outdoor seating but now they need to survive winter. 

We require businesses to provide a YTD P&L and 2 months current business bank statements to support their income.  And some are right back to doing OK like hairdressers but the restaurant guy are struggling bad as are the small retail stores with no foot traffic.    

I will continue to wear one as well knowing full that it only provides marginal protection.

 

[Anler]

Trump said yesterday that a vaccine will be out within a couple months but before the end of the year. 

[Mainecat]

37 minutes ago, Angry ginger said:

nothing one does will stop this.  It's been shown as every country/state treats it different and regardless their is no magic bullet.  At that point return to normal and deal with the fallout.  If your at risk protect yourself from contact otherwise if you get it you get it.  

 

 

 

Herd immunity?

[Angry ginger]

2 minutes ago, Mainecat said:

Herd immunity?

very hard to infect enough that herd immunity through natural spread will solve this. We prob should introduce the virus like Cuomo did in NY nursing homes to cull the weak and seed the immunity.  

 

 

[racer254]

26 minutes ago, ACE said:

If you recall the point was never to stop the virus, only slow it so it didn’t overwhelm the healthcare system. Which it’s not, so no further measures are needed. 

Why is it that everyone seems to forget this little fact?

[Rod]

24 minutes ago, frenchy said:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2251615-is-swedens-coronavirus-strategy-a-cautionary-tale-or-a-success-story/

Is Sweden's coronavirus strategy a cautionary tale or a success story?

HEALTH 13 August 2020

By Michael Le Page

Sweden was one of the few European countries not to impose a compulsory lockdown. Its unusual strategy for tackling the coronavirus outbreak has been both hailed as a success and condemned as a failure. So which is it?

Those who regard the strategy as a success claim it reduced the economic impact, but it isn’t clear that it did. What is clear is that so far Sweden has had a more protracted outbreak with far more deaths per capita than its neighbours.

While it is sometimes implied that Sweden didn’t have a lockdown, it did. It was just largely voluntary, with only a few legal measures such as a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people.

“Voluntary restrictions work as well as legal ones,” says the architect of Sweden’s strategy, chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell.

This appears to be true, in Sweden at least. The measures did work nearly as well in getting people to change their behaviour. Adam Sheridan at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, for instance, has used data from a bank to compare spending patterns up to April in Sweden and Denmark. Denmark introduced a compulsory lockdown on 11 March, one of the first in Europe.

Sheridan found that spending – an indicator of behaviour as well as economic activity – fell by nearly as much in Sweden as in Denmark: 25 per cent compared with 29 per cent.

Similarly, data from the Citymapper phone app, which helps people plan their travel routes, suggests that travel in Stockholm fell to 40 per cent of the normal level. “That’s a substantial reduction,” says Martin McKee at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, whose team did the analysis. However, there were even bigger falls in other major European cities during compulsory lockdowns, to 20 per cent on average.

So there was a substantial voluntary lockdown in Sweden – yet it wasn’t nearly as effective in reducing the spread of the coronavirus as the compulsory lockdowns in neighbouring Denmark and Norway. Cases and deaths rose faster in Sweden and have been slower to decline.

Sweden has about 8200 confirmed cases per million people as of 12 August, compared with 1780 in Norway and 2560 in Denmark. (For the UK it is 4600 and the US 15,400.)

Sweden has had 57 deaths per 100,000, compared with five in Norway and 11 in Denmark. (For the UK it is 70 and the US 50.)

Sheridan’s analysis suggests that young people – whose spending makes little contribution to the overall economy – were least likely to change their behaviour and might have undermined the voluntary lockdown. Among people aged between 18 and 29, spending dropped far less in Sweden than in Denmark.

Tegnell, meanwhile, says the high death rate in Sweden was related to the failure to prevent infections in care homes. Matters have now been improved, he says. Half of Sweden’s deaths were in care homes up to mid-May.

What about the economy? “This has never been done to save the economy. It’s been done to save public health,” says Tegnell. And that means public health in a broad sense, he adds, not just the coronavirus.

That said, Sheridan’s spending comparison suggest that the economic impact was only slightly reduced by not imposing a more effective compulsory lockdown. “It’s very little in economic costs for saving a larger number of lives,” he says.

What’s more, recent data released by another bank suggests that spending in Denmark has recovered faster than in Sweden, says Sheridan.

Others have claimed that Sweden suffered less of an economic decline on the basis of initial estimates of GDP for the second quarter of 2020. Sweden’s fell by 8.6 per cent, less than the estimated average of 11.9 per cent for the European Union as a whole.

However, those making such claims fail to point out that several countries that did impose compulsory lockdowns did as well or better. GDP fell 8.4 per cent in the Czech Republic, for instance, and just 5.1 per cent in Lithuania, the lowest in the EU.

What’s more, many of the countries that fared worst, including the UK, Spain and Italy, rely heavily on tourism, unlike Sweden. A more telling comparison would be with Norway and Denmark, but these figures aren’t available yet.

What all the researchers agree on is that it isn’t over yet. There might be second waves in Denmark and Norway that Sweden avoids because so many people there have already been infected, although it is too soon to compare figures, not least because it is the summer holidays in Sweden during which time the country all but shuts down anyway. Comparisons are further complicated by the fact that Sweden hasn’t relaxed its approach at all, unlike the other countries.

Achieving herd immunity was one of Tegnell’s original aims – but antibody surveys suggest only about 20 per cent of people in Stockholm have been infected, similar to levels in London and New York. That is far short of near the 70 per cent level estimated to be needed.

So no statistics 

[ArcticCrusher]

12 minutes ago, Anler said:

Trump said yesterday that a vaccine will be out within a couple months but before the end of the year. 

Maga vaccine.

[frenchy]

4 minutes ago, ACE said:

So no statistics 

they are highlighted  

[Kev144]

Just now, frenchy said:

they are highlighted  

You should know by now you have to spoon feed him. 

[Highmark]

With increased testing will come increased positive results.   The focus should be on hospitalization and mortality of those without "pre-existing" conditions.   Neither of these are occurring at significant rates.