[tomtom]

assuming 1% mortality rate ~ 5 million have had it...

[Oldmanmatt]

Of course, the early cases simply weren’t infectious...

Don’t be so bloody silly, of course it’s important. Just because it doesn’t fit your chosen narrative (at the risk of sounding like Pete, you are stuck in a certain groove).

If this has been spreading for a month longer than was first assumed (in both Europe and China, since there are reports of unusual cases of pneumonia there from November) then it will be significant. Or are you simply accusing the French of lying?

Spread to vulnerable populations (those prone to severe symptoms) is  random. The possibility of an infection spreading for some time, without hitting a susceptible host, is more than a remote chance. Just as it’s entirely possible that here in the UK, we have as yet unidentified early casualties, who were simply described as pneumonia or otherwise (given we now know of some other, diverse, symptoms and complications).

Early diagnosis was primarily based around travel history and contact tracing. The French example, shows the shortcomings of that. And somewhat proves (or adds significant circumstantial evidence for) the last paragraph.

To be clearer, symptomatic patients had already been tested, symptomatic staff were off work so the 9/10% positives were all asymptomatic at the time of the test.

The setting is a tertiary cancer hospital, i.e. it has in patients. They have a Covid positive ward but this testing has shown that there are staff and patients on the non Covid wards that are Covid positive, so will be shedding virus to currently Covid negative patients.

The world is a highly connected place so since it was present in China then I'm not surprised there were earlier cases in Europe. The particular French case had no contacts other than his wife (they checked).

In hospitals testing has been good so you would expect people to be tested where local cases have cropped up before  the staff show symptoms. So yes that also means I don't think anything like 9/10  remain asymptomatic with C19 from any mass of evidence.

My argument is not a 'narrative' as the disease infomation simply points with very high probability to particular characteristics that mean a mass world spread in December is highly unlikely, unless the virus subsequently mutated to become more infectious/dangerous.  If we assume it has been around longer with an exponencial growth giving many asymptomatic cases and the mortality a tenth lower than currently thought ( 0.05% or below) then the per capita mortality  rates would be expected to self limit at 500 per million (unless there are a lot of interconnected unknowns, like no immunity from having it and/or a big correlation of mortailty vs dose). NY is already at 1270 per million and they don't think everyone has had it. Also those countries who were successful with track and trace don't fit an older, more slowly spreading less lethal C19.

Dude.

His wife is likely the asymptomatic person who gave him the infection.

Did she find it in a Christmas cracker? Was it a seasonal Immaculate infection?

He, despite having no obvious travel connections or contact, proved symptomatic. Symptomatic is either the small majority, or a minority, state for those infected.
Either way, his infection can logically be assumed to indicate a larger number of infected people.
We know that it is sufficiently infectious to create exponential growth.

It was here and spreading, before anybody in authority realised. 

You consistently push an antigovernment narrative, that assumes all current negative outcomes, result from initial inaction from that government.
However, it seems pretty clear, that mother nature was merrily spreading her seeds of joy.
 It absolutely affects the government culpability narrative. These infections long preceded even the WHO “Emergency” line, let alone the “Pandemic” categorisation.

No, I dislike Boris and his crew of muppets, intensely and the things they do and decisions they make now, scrutinise away.
But frankly, the first blush, the initial response? It’s hard to really see that they could have done very much better.
If you need an explanation  for the dither and u-turn, blame the WHO. They were reluctant to hit the Pandemic button, after the criticism for hitting it too soon in the past and it was out of the bag before the Chinese lockdown.
The world, busy as always, thought it a local problem. They quietly thanked their respective deities that China was an authoritarian state and tutted at quarantine hotels collapsing, whilst assuming it was largely contained and they could concentrate on their favourite political sound bites and pet peeves.

Dig out, blaming the government for not being prepared for a pandemic. However, I see little to indicate any other political party, or even any other world government, would have responded better (and plenty “cough” USA “cough”) who didn’t.

Before you leap in with “but NZ”!
Defence in depth, buddy.

Pete is absolutely on the money.

They had more time to see it coming and fewer entry points and, ultimately, luck.
 Because they could have copped an early spreader, much as it seems several European countries and the US did, which would have made their tale somewhat different.

Also, not fitting the stats, just means “no or dead end early infection” and does not preclude earlier infection elsewhere.

The French guy had it.

In December.

So did his children.

There was, categorically, infection earlier than previously thought.

[sdm]

Random anecdote:
Just went to one of the international supermarkets quite close to us. A very different experience from going to Sainsbury's, Tesco or Aldi! No control over numbers, staff and shoppers didn't really give a fuck about distancing. Makes you wonder if this, and/or the underlying attitude, partly accounts for the disproportionate impact on BAME groups? (Probably 80%+ of staff/shoppers seemed to be BAME)

The area I live in is very ethnically diverse. There are clear differences in how the lockdown has been observed in different ethnic communities. You would be surprised at how little generalisation there is in the below:

The Chinese and Vietnamese stores/eateries introduced strict measures or closed before people had even begun stockpiling loo roll. Masks everywhere, one way systems rigidly observed and people going out of their way to stay as far apart as possible.

The South East Asian businesses operate on similar measures to Tesco. Masks are fairly common and there is some attempt to distance but with a sizable minority not bothering.

The African and middle Eastern businesses generally have a sign on the door and may restrict the total number of people allowed inside, there's quite a lot of mask wearing but there is little evidence of anyone observing distancing inside.

There is no lockdown in the Eastern European population. It is business as usual and has been all along. The shops are just as busy as ever and still double up as a community meeting place. Away from businesses, social gatherings never ceased.

[Oldmanmatt]

Random anecdote:
Just went to one of the international supermarkets quite close to us. A very different experience from going to Sainsbury's, Tesco or Aldi! No control over numbers, staff and shoppers didn't really give a fuck about distancing. Makes you wonder if this, and/or the underlying attitude, partly accounts for the disproportionate impact on BAME groups? (Probably 80%+ of staff/shoppers seemed to be BAME)

The area I live in is very ethnically diverse. There are clear differences in how the lockdown has been observed in different ethnic communities. You would be surprised at how little generalisation there is in the below:

The Chinese and Vietnamese stores/eateries introduced strict measures or closed before people had even begun stockpiling loo roll. Masks everywhere, one way systems rigidly observed and people going out of their way to stay as far apart as possible.

The South East Asian businesses operate on similar measures to Tesco. Masks are fairly common and there is some attempt to distance but with a sizable minority not bothering.

The African and middle Eastern businesses generally have a sign on the door and may restrict the total number of people allowed inside, there's quite a lot of mask wearing but there is little evidence of anyone observing distancing inside.

There is no lockdown in the Eastern European population. It is business as usual and has been all along. The shops are just as busy as ever and still double up as a community meeting place. Away from businesses, social gatherings never ceased.

My Romanian in-laws, seem to do very little aside from share FB posts claiming it’s all a hoax, if older than 30 and quite the opposite (with a fair number of “all people in Romania over 30 are twats” posts) if under 30.
Mother-in-law, who lives in Italy (Lecco) thinks her countrymen are deluded wankers.

[abarro81]

Mother-in-law, who lives in Italy (Lecco) thinks her countrymen are deluded wankers.

The Italians or the under 30s Romanians or the over 30s Romanians? Or maybe she's a kindred spirit and like me she thinks everyone is a deluded wanker 

[Offwidth]

Dude.

His wife is likely the asymptomatic person who gave him the infection.

Did she find it in a Christmas cracker? Was it a seasonal Immaculate infection?

He, despite having no obvious travel connections or contact, proved symptomatic. Symptomatic is either the small majority, or a minority, state for those infected.
Either way, his infection can logically be assumed to indicate a larger number of infected people.
We know that it is sufficiently infectious to create exponential growth.

It was here and spreading, before anybody in authority realised. 

You consistently push an antigovernment narrative, that assumes all current negative outcomes, result from initial inaction from that government.
However, it seems pretty clear, that mother nature was merrily spreading her seeds of joy.
 It absolutely affects the government culpability narrative. These infections long preceded even the WHO “Emergency” line, let alone the “Pandemic” categorisation.

No, I dislike Boris and his crew of muppets, intensely and the things they do and decisions they make now, scrutinise away.
But frankly, the first blush, the initial response? It’s hard to really see that they could have done very much better.
If you need an explanation  for the dither and u-turn, blame the WHO. They were reluctant to hit the Pandemic button, after the criticism for hitting it too soon in the past and it was out of the bag before the Chinese lockdown.
The world, busy as always, thought it a local problem. They quietly thanked their respective deities that China was an authoritarian state and tutted at quarantine hotels collapsing, whilst assuming it was largely contained and they could concentrate on their favourite political sound bites and pet peeves.

Dig out, blaming the government for not being prepared for a pandemic. However, I see little to indicate any other political party, or even any other world government, would have responded better (and plenty “cough” USA “cough”) who didn’t.

Before you leap in with “but NZ”!
Defence in depth, buddy.

Pete is absolutely on the money.

They had more time to see it coming and fewer entry points and, ultimately, luck.
 Because they could have copped an early spreader, much as it seems several European countries and the US did, which would have made their tale somewhat different.

Also, not fitting the stats, just means “no or dead end early infection” and does not preclude earlier infection elsewhere.

The French guy had it.

In December.

So did his children.

There was, categorically, infection earlier than previously thought.

I agree the infection was very likely here earlier but all the evidence indicates either it didn't spread or the version we have has mutated since then. We got lucky somehow in a way that is not yet explained.

If what you say is true show me where the science says so. Show me where WHO have been proved massively wrong and it is a slower growing, less lethal virus. Everything matches 0.5% mortality, the main spread being due to those infected showing early symptoms, and common growth rates where infections were not isolated (yes including NZ who had 1500 recorded positive tests, the large majority of whom who had symptoms). If what you were saying is true it would have been too late for any country to stop it as infection numbers would have been much larger.

As for our government the detail of their failings I've critised are all public and confirmed. More importantly our excess deaths are way higher than anywhere else in Europe by a large margin and our C19 official deaths will be the highest in Europe in a few days. I'm only blaming them for things they have clearly done wrong.... I've even defended them on the timing of lockdown (as I think SAGE failed due to a flawed set up and some unlucky cock-ups).  I can't remember the last time I didn't publicly criticise a government for doing really stupid shit (including Iraq and PFI under Blair). Government is for the people and must be accountable.

I apologise for the differences in details on the French guy.... just trusted the Guardian article.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/04/french-hospital-discovers-covid-19-case-december-retested

[IanP]

As for our government the detail of their failings I've critised are all public and confirmed. More importantly our excess deaths are way higher than anywhere else in Europe by a large margin and our C19 official deaths will be the highest in Europe in a few days.

We've certainly by any measures not doing well on coronavirus deaths but I do think the Euromomo figures need more explanation/detail.  The graphs for England seem look far worse than anywhere else in Europe (including Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland?) and on quick look I can't find any detail around data feeding into those graphs including how up to date it is. 

The FT now includes excess mortality info:

https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest

This shows England and Wales as doing badly but not necessarily out of sync with other hard hit countries such as Italy, Spain. Belgium.  It also shows latest updates of available data and this all dates back to early/mid April.

I really do think we need to be careful that data is analysed properly, with things changing so quickly it must be difficult to make accurate comparisons with how different countries are doing.  The UK may be doing pretty badly but if it is so much worse that other places it seems strange that we're not seeing stories around hospital, morgues etc be overwhelmed?

I'm not trying to make a judgement either way here, just think caution is required before making conclusions.

[Offwidth]

The data in that FT link does not appear to be up-to date. ONS have released the data in the week ending April 24th now. I also thought the FT excess death stats were all from euromomo so it's best to use the direct link (another benefit is you can manipulate the graph scales and comparisons on that site as well). The main aspects I can see we need to be careful with are:  the extrapolation from April 24th; a large number of deaths will be secondary causes, not due to C19 but due to the NHS not functioning as normal or other factors;  exact direct comparisons on covid 19 need care due to secondary deaths, different age profiles etc.

I thought mortuaries are 'overwhelmed', which is why we keep adding to emergency body storage facility.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/coronavirus-crisis-puts-pressure-on-crematoria-and-morgues-in-uk

[stone]

I'm not sure this matters very much except for conspiracy theorists.  These unusually early cases obviously didn't cause a outbreak unless the virus mutated as the minimum mortality rate seems to still be more than 0.2% and the unfettered infection growth rate (with no social distancing) was similar across the world.

In the meantime the euromomo stats on real data on excess deaths on England versus everyone else in Europe are shocking. People say the 'hidden deaths' would be the same everywhere, they clearly were not.

https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/

I guess it's possible that the virus was rapidly evolving to being more transmissible and perhaps doing so independently both in Europe and China. I'm meaning to have a look at https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.29.069054v1 (done by Sheffield folk ) which looks to be about that sort of thing. So I guess R may have been low early on and then attained R=2.5 after the virus had bedded in to human-human transmission.

[IanP]

The data in that FT link does not appear to be up-to date. ONS have released the data in the week ending April 24th now. I also thought the FT excess death stats were all from euromomo so it's best to use the direct link (another benefit is you can manipulate the graph scales and comparisons on that site as well). The main aspects I can see we need to be careful with are:  the extrapolation from April 24th; a large number of deaths will be secondary causes, not due to C19 but due to the NHS not functioning as normal or other factors;  exact direct comparisons on covid 19 need care due to secondary deaths, different age profiles etc.

I thought mortuaries are 'overwhelmed', which is why we keep adding to emergency body storage facility.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/coronavirus-crisis-puts-pressure-on-crematoria-and-morgues-in-uk

That's the point really, if FT takes the data from Euromomo can you link to the raw data on the Euromomo site you linked to including dates of data inputs used since its not obvious from their charts at all.

On the morgues issue there's a few news stories about pressure and providing extra capacity e.g.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52346488

But nothing about mortuaries being overwhelmed. 

It may be that we are facing many more deaths overall that other countries and are 'just' managing to deal with those deaths but if its that much worse I'd like see some proper analysis rather than just you (and me!) trying to interpret some charts on the internet.

[stone]

This full Whitty experience was great I thought :- https://www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-and-events/covid-19

[Will Hunt]

Christ. When I saw that URL I thought we were going to be directed to the Neil Graham University, specialising in mail order doctorates on subjects as various as fingerboarding and shitting under routes at Tilberthwaite.

[Offwidth]

That's the point really, if FT takes the data from Euromomo can you link to the raw data on the Euromomo site you linked to including dates of data inputs used since its not obvious from their charts at all.

On the morgues issue there's a few news stories about pressure and providing extra capacity e.g.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-52346488

But nothing about mortuaries being overwhelmed. 

It may be that we are facing many more deaths overall that other countries and are 'just' managing to deal with those deaths but if its that much worse I'd like see some proper analysis rather than just you (and me!) trying to interpret some charts on the internet.

I don't have a link to the raw data but its directly proportional to the per capita excess deaths and we have that data for the UK from the ONS. I was surprised how comparatively small excess deaths were in Italy. They must have hospitalised a much greater proportion of the elderly from care homes. Italy got hit very hard with two weeks less warning in a much smaller population area  with a more elderly population and at flu season. Since their hospitals were overwhelmed the mortality rates will likely have locally soared locally. Italy had all these disadvantages and our excess deaths are already a good bit higher (and we are two weeks of large area under the graph behind them and their infection level is slowing faster due to a harsher lock-down).

ONS data was looked at in detail today on the BBC news so the serious increase in care home deaths in the week ending April 24th and elsewhere not recorded as C19 is clear (only 1/3 of the excess deaths that week are recorded as due to that.). The morgues were not actually especially overwhelmed (why I put it inverted commas) as the state systems have sensibly provided a huge amount of additional cold storage for the bodies: it's a lot easier than new hospitals and some has been 'repurposed' from commercial sources like this one:

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-warehouse-in-glasgow-converted-into-morgue-to-fit-1-700-bodies-11973218

It's something else the UK has got right. In Italy things were probably much worse as the scale of deaths was unexpected.

[tomtom]

Wasn’t sure If the posts about the NHS app were on here - but quite a nice explainer about it - and why the background operation may well be flawed in this article

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/05/uk_coronavirus_app

[Stu Littlefair]

Rubbish isn’t it. I kind of hope take up is woeful so they are forced into plan B.

The privacy issues don’t worry me so much as the effectiveness. I don’t *think* it will work if you’re actively using a different app either.

[Oldmanmatt]

It seems that the strain, now dominant globally, is more infectious than the original:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.29.069054v1.full.pdf


Reported in the LA Times, yesterday:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-05/mutant-coronavirus-has-emerged-more-contagious-than-original?fbclid=IwAR073A2IqUfmKJyJpgCqrTmV_VB-4GzXpIDhlrUBqmrPstO1TZh0S-ZjmD0

[stone]

Rubbish isn’t it. I kind of hope take up is woeful so they are forced into plan B.

The privacy issues don’t worry me so much as the effectiveness. I don’t *think* it will work if you’re actively using a different app either.

Is there any way we could have a citizen led app? So just have clued up do-gooders provide a decent app and the public trust them and cut our shitty government out of the loop. Let the government one get going in parallel and fully engage in it but not wait for it.

Channel 4 news featured a "shoe leather" contact tracing initiative in Sheffield orchestrated by GPs. They said if that were done simultaneously in every street as they are doing it, we would now have blanket contact tracing for the whole nation. That is what they did in China and they did it straight away at the start.

I think where we failed on testing is that we deferred to the government when they said they would sort it and we should wait until they had. On contact tracing they have been even worse. What the hell has been happening for the last two months?

They are still making an utter shambles of testing. At Alderly Park we turned up at 7:30 am to be told the samples hadn't been delivered. A tiny amount were delivered at 9:00, then we were told no more were coming. No one had a clue why or what was going on. They cancelled the following shift. I spent longer driving there and back than pipetting. Many people there are living away from home to work there.

[Stu Littlefair]

It’s been a shambles hasn’t it. At the start of this I imagined there’d be a vast deployment of state resources, but everything has had a “piss up in a brewery” feel about it.

The 750,000 strong army of volunteers hasn’t worked out well either. Most have complained there’s nothing for them to do.

“Neighbourhood watch” contact tracing sounds fraught to me though; the privacy aspects of it are quite subtle. I can’t imagine someone admitting they sneaked out of lockdown to shag their married neighbour to a guy down the road...

[Stu Littlefair]

On the app thing, Google/Apple have committed to only supporting one app per country or US state.

I don’t know if they’d insist that it was state led, but I imagine so. NHSX has said they will change model if they need to so I’m genuinely conflicted about what to do when the app is released.

[Nigel]

It’s been a shambles hasn’t it. At the start of this I imagined there’d be a vast deployment of state resources...

That is what I imagined too. How wrong can you be? Running down state resources, UK manufacturing industries, + lack of leadership in action.

I can’t imagine someone admitting they sneaked out of lockdown to shag their married neighbour to a guy down the road...

It looks like you get a month's grace on that one anyway. Or at least until when some bad news needs a suitable deflection.

[ali k]

It’s been a shambles hasn’t it. At the start of this I imagined there’d be a vast deployment of state resources, but everything has had a “piss up in a brewery” feel about it.

And when we hear all the talk about ”rapidly building a team of 18,000 contact tracers” what they actually mean is outsourcing to a Serco and G4S call centre. While those 750,000 volunteers sit at home waiting for something useful to do.

[Stu Littlefair]

Having looked into it more about it this morning I’m not sure that register article is right; at least about the technicalities of the app working in the background on iOS.

It looks like it ought to be possible based on what Apple publish about their Bluetooth APIs.

[Offwidth]

It seems that the strain, now dominant globally, is more infectious than the original:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.29.069054v1.full.pdf


Reported in the LA Times, yesterday:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-05/mutant-coronavirus-has-emerged-more-contagious-than-original?fbclid=IwAR073A2IqUfmKJyJpgCqrTmV_VB-4GzXpIDhlrUBqmrPstO1TZh0S-ZjmD0

That sounds very likely in mutation terms but it's important to say that the first strain in Wuhan was the same mortality rate and had a low percentage of the assyptomatic and was most infectious for those showing symptoms. The mutations reported in this paper don't explain the case in France (earlier mutations might). This subject is important (and tempting to ignore)  as the reason the conspiracy theorists believe in a longer spread, of a lower mortality rate virus, that is highly assymptomatic, is it would indicate nearly everyone has had it. Hence herd immunity, hence all this government interference and lockdown shit is unnecessary. It's dangerous and supported by no evidence. In my view it's similar to the climate change denial, and popular with the same people.

[Oldmanmatt]

It seems that the strain, now dominant globally, is more infectious than the original:

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.29.069054v1.full.pdf


Reported in the LA Times, yesterday:

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-05-05/mutant-coronavirus-has-emerged-more-contagious-than-original?fbclid=IwAR073A2IqUfmKJyJpgCqrTmV_VB-4GzXpIDhlrUBqmrPstO1TZh0S-ZjmD0

That sounds very likely in mutation terms but it's important to say that the first strain in Wuhan was the same mortality rate and had a low percentage of the assyptomatic and was most infectious for those showing symptoms. The mutations reported in this paper don't explain the case in France (earlier mutations might). This subject is important (and tempting to ignore)  as the reason the conspiracy theorists believe in a longer spread, of a lower mortality rate virus, that is highly assymptomatic, is it would indicate nearly everyone has had it. Hence herd immunity, hence all this government interference and lockdown shit is unnecessary. It's dangerous and supported by no evidence. In my view it's similar to the climate change denial, and popular with the same people.

Right.

I am not fucking advocating the pissing conspiracy theory (which seeks to imply that most people had the disease in November last year). It is now an established fact that the disease was present here, in Europe, a month earlier than first thought.

This is reported widely.

Here, you like the Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/02/coronavirus-took-hold-in-uk-earlier-than-thought-data-reveals

Actually, I’m more angry with you, than indicated above.

You have placed a tinfoil fucking hat on my head based on your own, rather stupid, “temptation to ignore” the reality presented to you. You have the evidence, live with it.

[Offwidth]

I know you are not Matt but the internet is full of such wish fullfillment shit. Its a threat to everyone as such people won't care about following social distancing.