Northern Europe during Pandemic -- Summers 2020 & 2021 & onwards

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by dannc

One of the virus websites that is widely quoted, even by me, has predicted many times the end of the pandemic. I stopped reading the website months ago because the pandemic was not ending and not likely too anytime soon.

Cattle having the virus might not be that crazy of an idea. China went on a killing spree of dogs when the virus was found in dogs. Surprising to me, but the Netherlands has, or it might be a had at this point, mink farms. The mink farms were being phased in a few years, and yes, the minks are for fur. Anyway, the minks had the virus and they passed the virus to people. Course, ya have to think that people first gave the virus to the mink. Anywho, the NL government ordered the minks to be killed. At first, it seemed like they only went after mink on infected farms, but then it looked like they were going after all of the mink farms.

Later,
Dan

And that was done just becouse the opportunity made it possible. Even if all the minks in the world were infected with Covid19 they could infect only the people working with them, which is excactly the same people who infected the minks in the first place.
Meanwhile the border between Finland and Norway is pretty much closed again despite the bordering communities on both sides of the border have practically no cases but workers from Poland come straight here with infections. Now isolated but been in contact with dozens of people before that. Waiting for tests results is still taking too much time, that is days..

[dannc]

Originally Posted by TeddyDiver

And that was done just becouse the opportunity made it possible. Even if all the minks in the world were infected with Covid19 they could infect only the people working with them, which is excactly the same people who infected the minks in the first place.
Meanwhile the border between Finland and Norway is pretty much closed again despite the bordering communities on both sides of the border have practically no cases but workers from Poland come straight here with infections. Now isolated but been in contact with dozens of people before that. Waiting for tests results is still taking too much time, that is days..

Yep. The virus starting spreading in the south of NL due to Carnival taking place as the virus arrived. If I remember right, the mink farms were also all in the south, and the southern part of NL was the hardest hit by the virus. At least initially.

Later,
Dan

[Dockhead]

This is horrendous:





It's increasing so fast that now we start to look at doubling rates, like in the spring:


From better to worse:


Finland [declining] [but for how long?]


Estonia 24 days



Sweden 15 days


Latvia 14 days


Germany 8 days (!)


Norway 7 days


Yikes! We are in another exponential growth phase. Batten the hatches!


Denmark had an bad outbreak in September, which had come right back down again. But now the infection rate has exceeded the earlier peak.


Finland still doing well but that is surely just a matter of time.



Germany just announced they are closing restaurants and bars for a month:


https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/10...ocal-lockdowns


France to announce something shortly.

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

This is horrendous:


Attachment 226029


It's increasing so fast that now we start to look at doubling rates, like in the spring:


From better to worse:


Finland [declining] [but for how long?]


Estonia 24 days



Sweden 15 days


Latvia 14 days


Germany 8 days (!)


Norway 7 days


Yikes! We are in another exponential growth phase. Batten the hatches!


Denmark had an bad outbreak in September, which had come right back down again. But now the infection rate has exceeded the earlier peak.


Finland still doing well but that is surely just a matter of time.



Germany just announced they are closing restaurants and bars for a month:


https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/10...ocal-lockdowns


France to announce something shortly.

One thing to consider about finns. This is a group of finns waiting for bus before Covid19

[WTRacer]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

This is horrendous:


Attachment 226029


It's increasing so fast that now we start to look at doubling rates, like in the spring:


From better to worse:


Finland [declining] [but for how long?]


Estonia 24 days



Sweden 15 days


Latvia 14 days


Germany 8 days (!)


Norway 7 days


Yikes! We are in another exponential growth phase. Batten the hatches!


Denmark had an bad outbreak in September, which had come right back down again. But now the infection rate has exceeded the earlier peak.


Finland still doing well but that is surely just a matter of time.



Germany just announced they are closing restaurants and bars for a month:


https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/10...ocal-lockdowns


France to announce something shortly.

I'm not so sure it's horrendous and here is why:


The headline/title of that graph is misleading. It states "Daily new confirmed cases" when that is certainly not evidenced. PCR testing has significant issues and when did the medical community decide that confirmed diagnosis of any condition should be based solely on the result of a test? It is particularly concerning when one hears of positive test results for people who were scheduled a test, subsequently unable to attend and then get their 'positive' result through a few days later-I'm aware of multiple cases where this happened. (England)


Anyway, I think we're in for a fairly rough winter as actual cases are increasing along with resultant hospitalisations and deaths but I expect it to be significantly less worse than March/April. Time will tell.


A couple of things that might be of interest, Dr Gupta is doing an AMA on Reddit on Friday. Secondly, whilst this is UK specific I wondered if it may interest you as I seem to recall you are in the legal profession.
Lord Sumption recently gave a lecture to Cambridge law students and I found it hugely interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amDv...ature=youtu.be

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by TeddyDiver

One thing to consider about finns. This is a group of finns waiting for bus before Covid19

Natural social-distancers!

[capn_billl]

Originally Posted by dannc

One of the virus websites that is widely quoted, even by me, has predicted many times the end of the pandemic. I stopped reading the website months ago because the pandemic was not ending and not likely too anytime soon.

Cattle having the virus might not be that crazy of an idea. China went on a killing spree of dogs when the virus was found in dogs. Surprising to me, but the Netherlands has, or it might be a had at this point, mink farms. The mink farms were being phased in a few years, and yes, the minks are for fur. Anyway, the minks had the virus and they passed the virus to people. Course, ya have to think that people first gave the virus to the mink. Anywho, the NL government ordered the minks to be killed. At first, it seemed like they only went after mink on infected farms, but then it looked like they were going after all of the mink farms.

Later,
Dan

Bats & humans are very different. There are animals that have more similar than bat respiratory genetics. So possible.

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by WTRacer

. . . Secondly, whilst this is UK specific I wondered if it may interest you as I seem to recall you are in the legal profession.
Lord Sumption recently gave a lecture to Cambridge law students and I found it hugely interesting.

"I do not doubt the seriousness of the epidemic, but I believe history will look back on the measures to contain it as a monument of collective hysteria and governmental folly."

I think it's entirely possible that Lord Sumption is right.

[Dockhead]

"The minutes of SAGE [the scientific advisory group to government] record that shortly before the lockdown, the behavioral scientists (in the government’s advisory panel) advised against the use of coercive powers. Citizens should be treated as rational actors, taking decisions for themselves and managing personal risk. Government did not act on that advice. Driven by the public panic and the general demand for action it opted for a course that it believed would make it popular – it chose – coercion."


Lord Sumption in the linked video. For non-Brits -- Lord Sumption is a well known barrister and former Supreme Court judge, also historian.

[Dockhead]

France has just reimposed stay at home orders, banned domestic travel, and closed "non-essential" businesses


However schools remain open and retirement homes remain open to visitors.

[TeddyDiver]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

France has just reimposed stay at home orders, banned domestic travel, and closed "non-essential" businesses


However schools remain open and retirement homes remain open to visitors.

That doesn't make sense at all...

[Dockhead]

A few weeks ago I said "no one is dying". I am sorry to say that this is no longer true:




Still true in Finland, Sweden, Estonia and Denmark, where death rates are near zero, but the death rate is already non-trivial in Latvia, and in France and Poland it's gone through the roof.

Poland is particularly troubling as Poland had one of the lowest infection rates in Europe as late as early September. How fast things thing.

Must be said that we are still far from the death rates of the spring -- peaking at 17 per million per day in France and 12 in the UK. Still, it's not heading in the right direction.

[dannc]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

France has just reimposed stay at home orders, banned domestic travel, and closed "non-essential" businesses

However schools remain open and retirement homes remain open to visitors.

Letting visitors into retirement homes is criminal. It is one of the primary places to protect.

As McAuliffe said, "NUTS!"

Later,
Dan

[Dsanduril]

Originally Posted by dannc

Letting visitors into retirement homes is criminal. It is one of the primary places to protect.

As McAuliffe said, "NUTS!"

Later,
Dan

My wife's uncle is bed-ridden in a home following a stroke, and is also deaf, limiting his ability to interact with many people. The only pleasure he gets in life is visitors. Particularly his nieces and his dog. There's not much left for him, and visitors ease his burden. FaceTime/Zoom just aren't the same. So it's criminal for him to have visitors? Nothing about any of this is a cut-and-dried as people would like to make it out to be.

[dannc]

A friend sent me a JAMA article about the effectiveness of lock downs during the Spanish Flu pandemic

The study only looked at the a portion of the pandemic which caused me to do some more reading.

From https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-commemoration/three-waves.htm.

The Spanish Flu had three waves, with the first starting in March 1918, sound familiar? The second wave peaked in the fall of 1918 and was the time that killed the most people in the US. Hmmmm. The third wave was in the winter and spring of 1919 and ended in the summer of 1919.

So are we in the second wave of this pandemic? It sure seems like it. If so, and if this pandemic follows the Spanish flu, by the time the vaccines are available, it will be too late for the first two waves and the vaccines will only help people in the last wave....

Back to the JAMA article which only looked at a six month/24 week period of the pandemic. The article was about the effectiveness of lock downs, they had to use a fancy dancy phrase, nonpharmaceutical intervention. The lock downs they documented covered 43 US cities where the researchers had good records.

Over that time and in those 43 cities the EDR(Excess Death Rate) per 100,000 was 500. The lowest EDR I saw in the list was 210 in Grand Rapids, MI and the highest was 806 in Pittsburg, PA.

I wonder if the article really lists all of the lock down measures taken because they only mention the closing of schools, saloons(bars), public entertainment venues, sporting events,along with other public gatherings though not all outdoor events were canceled. There were no record closures of drug or grocery stores. There were quarantines of those who were suspected of contact with the sick and isolation of those who were sick.

No mention of closing down of the economy. Just closing places were large number of people would gather. According to the JAVA article, a lock down, apparently limited compared to what is going on in so many places today, enforced throughout the pandemic, is most beneficial. Easing up on the lock down measures can allow the virus to start hitting hard again. Course, the article did not mention, or I did not see, HOW one was to know the virus was "gone" and one could end the lock down.

It would appear that this pandemic is following the Spanish Flu time line. If so, we have another 8-10 months to go.

Later,
Dan