Europe is epicentre of coronavirus pandemic - WHO

[DavisH]

19 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Travel bans don't work. 

Ask Italy. 

It progressed to local transmission before they shut the place down. It became unstoppable at that point. Plus they have  large aging population and in their cold season too. The NZ Prime Minister has done basically done the same thing....after 6 cases. 

[BeltAndRoad]

9 hours ago, Crazy Alex said:

I love this line:

 

"Europe has now become the epicentre of the pandemic with more reported cases and deaths than the rest of world combined apart from China," he said in Geneva.

 

So other than the actual epicenter, China, Europe is the epicenter. And you people wonder why think WHO is a clown organization? Seriously?

You are 100% correct, a clown organization with a clown as director general.  Founded by communists and ran by marxist incompetents.  You can be sure about one thing though, no expense is spared when these parasites get their tax payer contributions.

[candide]

27 minutes ago, DavisH said:

It progressed to local transmission before they shut the place down. It became unstoppable at that point. Plus they have  large aging population and in their cold season too. The NZ Prime Minister has done basically done the same thing....after 6 cases. 

On top of it, they can thank Berlusconi who significantly cut funding for public hospitals. As a result, they are undersized and lacking modern equipment.

[Brigand]

Ted-dross is an apologist and stooge for China. He has repeatedly regurgitated their nonsense and lies to appease them. He should be fired.

[Traubert]

6 hours ago, candide said:

On top of it, they can thank Berlusconi who significantly cut funding for public hospitals. As a result, they are undersized and lacking modern equipment.

I know a lot of Italians who would take great exception to that.

 

Oh, hospitals. A fan golo!! ????

[observer90210]

The italians and their country has always been in a corrupt and careless mess (sorry to my italian friends). italy's negligence strongly contributed to spread the infection all over Europe.

[JHolmesJr]

3 hours ago, DannyCarlton said:

Isn't the UK in Europe? No, probably not in Donald's mental atlas.

Rage against Trump has clouded your capacity for intelligent response.

Reconsider.

Edited March 14, 2020 by JHolmesJr

[URMySunshine]

In the face of the worst global pandemic in a century every country on earth is following the only strategy that has so far shown to work. That from Hubei.

Meanwhile we have devised our own unique strategy based on a hypothetical mathematical model created by a dozen or so academics. I thought we had had enough of experts ?

Looks like the Express is turning on Boris,

 

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1255170/coronavirus-uk-covid-19-italy-latest-update-boris-johnson-herd-immunity-Tomas-Pueyo

 

Edited March 14, 2020 by URMySunshine

[Forethat]

In light of the Italian crisis, is it worth mentioning that not one single effort has so far been made by ANY of the EU-members to assist Italy with medical equipment or personnel?

 

Another striking example of the expensive uselessness of the EU. I seriously hope Italy tell the EU to take their little federalistic elitist dullard congregation and shove it.

Edited March 14, 2020 by Forethat

[URMySunshine]

8 minutes ago, Forethat said:

In light of the Italian crisis, is it worth mentioning that not one single effort has so far been made from ANY of the EU-members to assist Italy with medical equipment or personnel?

 

Another striking example of the expensive uselessness of the EU. I seriously hope Italy tell the EU to take their little federalistic elitist dullard congregation and shove it.

China is sending stuff and experts though. We could so with a bit of that esp so we are buying Huawei despite Donald ranting angrily at Boris and shutting down flights from the Uk. Boris get on the phone now and call in a favour. 

 

https://www.politico.eu/article/italys-foreign-minister-hails-chinese-caronavirus-aid/

Edited March 14, 2020 by URMySunshine

[Forethat]

Just now, URMySunshine said:

China is sending stuff and experts though. 

Well, that tells the whole story...bless them.

[daveAustin]

Europe is keen on reporting is what it's all about. Meanwhile, what's happening in China and India with that vast mass of people? SEA also ominously hush hush. It is so under-reported here (thighland). 

[mauGR1]

5 hours ago, observer90210 said:

The italians and their country has always been in a corrupt and careless mess (sorry to my italian friends). italy's negligence strongly contributed to spread the infection all over Europe.

Well, unless you blame Italians for creating the virus, the virus came from somewhere else, and it's Italy who is paying the higher price in this debacle. (for now).

Pointing the finger at Italy is incorrect, just to say it politely

[cmarshall]

17 hours ago, AussieBob18 said:

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed this? The left wingers are all 'the world is ending' and the right wingers are all 'calm down it will all be OK'.  Not all on each side are saying the same of course - but I think there is something in that. 

 

IMO - calm down and relax - take precautions and follow the advice - the world is not ending - yet.  And I think it will take 2-3 months before we truly know which way it will go.  IMO  the world is over-panicing.  But what if they are right?

 

The left-wingers are better educated and so understand the concept of exponential growth.  The right-wingers are stuck at "hopes and prayers."

[cmarshall]

20 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Well, unless you blame Italians for creating the virus, the virus came from somewhere else, and it's Italy who is paying the higher price in this debacle. (for now).

Pointing the finger at Italy is incorrect, just to say it politely

Actually it's true that the Italians screwed up their response.  The Chinese were caught by surprise in Wuhan and also tried to suppress the news for political reasons.  That gave the virus the jump and it was off to the races.  At that point the only way to contain it was to quarantine the city of Wuhan.  When it nevertheless escaped beyond the city limits they quarantined Hubei Province.  Thereafter however, the Chinese did follow best practices of widespread (and free) testing, isolating positives, and tracking contacts for further testing and isolation.  This worked.  They never had to quarantine a whole city or province again.

 

So, the Italians should have observed all this and set up testing and isolation procedures at scale in Italy.  But they didn't.  So, the virus got the jump again in Lombardy and they had to quarantine 12 million people, but that didn't work and they had to quarantine the whole country.  This outcome is not an inevitable result of the disease, but an indication of the failure of the public health function in Italy.

 

Next up are other countries who have to chosen to adopt similar wishful thinking while failing to put in the place what we know works: Spain, the US, the UK and others probably. 

 

S*it, meet fan.

 

 

[mauGR1]

6 minutes ago, cmarshall said:

Actually it's true that the Italians screwed up their response.  The Chinese were caught by surprise in Wuhan and also tried to suppress the news for political reasons.  That gave the virus the jump and it was off to the races.  At that point the only way to contain it was to quarantine the city of Wuhan.  When it nevertheless escaped beyond the city limits they quarantined Hubei Province.  Thereafter however, the Chinese did follow best practices of widespread (and free) testing, isolating positives, and tracking contacts for further testing and isolation.  This worked.  They never had to quarantine a whole city or province again.

 

So, the Italians should have observed all this and set up testing and isolation procedures at scale in Italy.  But they didn't.  So, the virus got the jump again in Lombardy and they had to quarantine 12 million people, but that didn't work and they had to quarantine the whole country.  This outcome is not an inevitable result of the disease, but an indication of the failure of the public health function in Italy.

 

Next up are other countries who have to chosen to adopt similar wishful thinking while failing to put in the place what we know works: Spain, the US, the UK and others probably. 

 

S*it, meet fan.

 

 

It's still too convenient to point the finger at Italy, even if your simple analysis should be proven to be correct.

As far as i know, we are in "uncharted territory", and there might be some surprise around the corner.

Well, at least you are learning something from the mistakes of Italian public health.

[cmarshall]

15 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

It's still too convenient to point the finger at Italy, even if your simple analysis should be proven to be correct.

As far as i know, we are in "uncharted territory", and there might be some surprise around the corner.

Well, at least you are learning something from the mistakes of Italian public health.

My "simple analysis" was provided by Dr. Bruce Aylward, who is currently leading the coronavirus investigation and who spent two weeks in February in China studying the Chinese analysis and response.  You can find one interview with him here.

 

Experts like Dr. Aylward are charting the territory as we speak and are not as altogether clueless as you might suppose.

 

 

[metisdead]

Off topic trolling posts and replies have been removed. 

[Sametboy2019]

Meanwhile in Thailand people are still picking up ice with their hands and putting them in other people's drinks.

[mauGR1]

5 minutes ago, cmarshall said:

My "simple analysis" was provided by Dr. Bruce Aylward, who is currently leading the coronavirus investigation and who spent two weeks in February in China studying the Chinese analysis and response.  You can find one interview with him here.

 

Experts like Dr. Aylward are charting the territory as we speak and are not as altogether clueless as you might suppose.

"Simple analysis" was not intended to be derogatory. I just disagree with blaming Italy, it's way too simplistic, and offensive to the Italian experts who are fighting an unseen epidemic.

Experts are "charting the uncharted territory", i am ok with that, so don't you agree that it's a bit early to draw conclusions ?

[cmarshall]

6 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

"Simple analysis" was not intended to be derogatory. I just disagree with blaming Italy, it's way too simplistic, and offensive to the Italian experts who are fighting an unseen epidemic.

Experts are "charting the uncharted territory", i am ok with that, so don't you agree that it's a bit early to draw conclusions ?

I agree that it is too early for you to be drawing conclusions, but not for Dr. Aylward and other experts even if there is still a lot that they don't know as he fully admits.

 

Italy screwed up.  The US and UK are even worse, because they had more lead time which they squandered leaving the population more exposed that it had to be.  I don't know whether it's the experts in Italy who failed or the politicians, but in the US, it's definitely a failure of the politicians right up to the President.

 

Watch the interview.

[mauGR1]

24 minutes ago, cmarshall said:

I agree that it is too early for you to be drawing conclusions, but not for Dr. Aylward and other experts even if there is still a lot that they don't know as he fully admits.

 

Watched the interview, let's agree that there's a lot that they don't know, and surely i know much less that that.

There have been news of people getting infected just by sitting in the same bus of an infected person.

There are news circulating about the virus having already mutated, and potentially mutating, but for you it's still fair to say that "Italy screwed up".

I disagree with that.

[AussieBob18]

13 hours ago, sirineou said:

All good advice, but the world did end for 5,000 people that otherwise would not have . 

 

Cannot argue with that.  But it is also true that in each month of the year an average of 40,000 people die from flu related causes. This wuhan corona covid-19 virus is new and they are worried it could become a serious pandemic because it is so contagious. Rightly so they have instigated protocols and measures. But the panic is over the top - no toilet rolls in the shops? 

[cmarshall]

55 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Watched the interview, let's agree that there's a lot that they don't know, and surely i know much less that that.

There have been news of people getting infected just by sitting in the same bus of an infected person.

There are news circulating about the virus having already mutated, and potentially mutating, but for you it's still fair to say that "Italy screwed up".

I disagree with that.

Once again, it was Dr. Aylward who said that Italy screwed up, although he was less blunt about it than I.  As he phrased it when asked if Western countries would be compelled to quarantine whole cities Wuhan-style, the point is it should not be necessary to have to take that step if the authorities promptly follow the best practices of the Chinese example.  You don't seem to grasp that this is the essential point of the interview.  By focusing on the supposed mechanisms of transmission as "revealed" in unsubstantiated anecdotes, you miss the big picture.  

 

There is no doubt that corona is highly transmissible, yet by early and extensive testing, isolating positives, and tracing contacts rigorously, it can be contained as the Chinese have demonstrated.  The Italians failed to do that, which is why they have now supassed the South Koreans who did everything right.  Next up are the US, Spain, and the UK who have failed even more conspicuously than the Italians.  The total failure of the American government makes the high-end mortality estimates of up to 17 million more plausible by the day.

Edited March 15, 2020 by cmarshall

[cmarshall]

If you have been following the progress of the disease via the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Dashboard, you may have noticed a disturbing event that has just shown up in the data.

Below is the graph of the count of infected persons since January.  The top orange line is infections in China, while the bottom yellow line represents infections outside of China.  In late January you can see a sudden spike up in infections in China.  I believe that corresponds to the point at which the Chinese government quarantined first Wuhan (Jan 21) and then the entire province of Hubei.  They then put into practice the standard mitigation methods of testing, isolating positives, and tracing contacts throughout the country.  Shortly after that we see in the infection rate flatten out as it works to reduce new cases.

 

Just now we can see a similar, if even larger spike, appear in the outside China data.  That would be Europe and especially Italy, but also Iran who also failed to take the pandemic seriously.  We shall see soon how effectively Western governments are able to mitigate the spread.  My guess is subsequent growth curve will be worse than China's.  The growth curve outside China so far has been faster than China's which is the fault of the leadership in those Western countries for not learning from China.

 

But now, it's clear that now we are off to the races.

 

 

Whole dashboard is here: 

https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6

 

Edited March 15, 2020 by cmarshall

[cmarshall]

Here's another article about Thailand's testing which seems to be focused only on foreigners, not community transmission.  It's a little worrying.

 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-15/thailand-steps-up-monitoring-of-travelers-from-virus-hit-nations?srnd=premium-asia

[metisdead]

An inflammatory post has been removed.

[Bruntoid]

19 hours ago, sirineou said:

All good advice, but the world did end for 5,000 people that otherwise would not have . 

 

This is plain wrong - 5,000 people that had the corona virus have died - that does not mean they died from it. The vast vast majority were old, infirm people in the very late stages of life. 

 

In the U.K. alone 1,500 people die every day - just like these people. 
 

ALL of UK virus related deaths involved people in ‘at risk’ groups PRIOR to this virus which the virus may or may not have escalated. Or played no part whatsoever. 
 

I think their should be ‘panic police’ employed on here to curtail the nonsense! 

Edited March 15, 2020 by Bruntoid

[Bruntoid]

5 hours ago, AussieBob18 said:

Cannot argue with that.  But it is also true that in each month of the year an average of 40,000 people die from flu related causes. This wuhan corona covid-19 virus is new and they are worried it could become a serious pandemic because it is so contagious. Rightly so they have instigated protocols and measures. But the panic is over the top - no toilet rolls in the shops? 

Exactly - when was it announced Covid-19 gives you the runs ??

Edited March 15, 2020 by Bruntoid

[ThaiBunny]

5 minutes ago, Bruntoid said:

This is plain wrong - 5,000 people that had the corona virus have died - that does not mean they died from it. The vast vast majority were old, infirm people in the very late stages of life. 

 

In the U.K. alone 1,500 people die every day - just like these people. 
 

ALL of UK virus related deaths involved people in ‘at risk’ groups PRIOR to this virus which the virus may or may not have escalated. Or played no part whatsoever. 
 

I think their should be ‘panic police’ employed on here to curtail the nonsense! 

You heard it here first - latest conspiracy theory. COVID-19 is a plot by Western governments to cull the numbers of the elderly so as to reduce their welfare costs

Edited March 15, 2020 by ThaiBunny