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COVID-19 Stuff Here

Up the Guts

Steve Williams (59)
Interesting read on Sweden's Covid-19 strategy:

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/he...f-the-world-engaging-in-a-reckless-experiment

Key element for mine is the total transparency: as the article says, if Tegnell & the people advising him have got it horribly, mass-fatality wrong it'll happen in plain sight & the public can take matters into their own hands if they choose.
Yep, and something else they are doing I referred to earlier in the thread is publishing whether someone died with COVID but of another cause which may reduce deaths by two-thirds.
 

The_Brown_Hornet

John Eales (66)
It's an interesting strategy from the Swedes and I guess we won't know who was right in all of this for another month or two. I do admire their pragmatism though.
 

tragic

John Solomon (38)
Sweden’s death rate is around 6%. Which means they have a significant volume of cases circulating in the community undiagnosed.
I’m not sure why they think they will be any different to anywhere else in the world that hasn’t embraced isolation measures early. How many more case studies do they need.
Maybe behind closed doors they have decided to put their economic future ahead or their mortality rates.
But the public rhetoric that their modelling suggests their health care system will cope without social isolation has not been borne out in any community anywhere in the world.
 

cyclopath

George Smith (75)
Staff member
Somewhat encouraging. But, there were 21 deaths Australia-wide in March and now seven in the first three days of April. Not good.
With such small numbers, not a statistical "significance". There is going to be a lag with increasing cases (as we had fairly recently) and mortality from those - so as case numbers flatten, ones who have been in acute care may die. The overall Aus mortality from known cases is still around 0.5%, so 10% of the overall world-wide mortality rate (which is skewed upwards for reasons discussed previously).
 

tragic

John Solomon (38)
Yep, and something else they are doing I referred to earlier in the thread is publishing whether someone died with COVID but of another cause which may reduce deaths by two-thirds.

I still don’t understand your point here. That’s standard practice everywhere in the world, including Australia.
People will still die from heart attacks, strokes, cancer, car accidents etc. That won’t change. There were more that 60000 heart attacks per year in Australia prior to the pandemic.
There is currently a 99% chance you won’t die of COVID in Australia if you test positive so it is appropriate to record it as a comorbidity rather than the cause of death in these circumstances. Unless the patient was critically ill from COVID at the time of death and that call is at the discretion of the treating doctor not some higher authority.
 

Up the Guts

Steve Williams (59)
I still don’t understand your point here. That’s standard practice everywhere in the world, including Australia.
People will still die from heart attacks, strokes, cancer, car accidents etc. That won’t change. There were more that 60000 heart attacks per year in Australia prior to the pandemic.
There is currently a 99% chance you won’t die of COVID in Australia if you test positive so it is appropriate to record it as a comorbidity rather than the cause of death in these circumstances. Unless the patient was critically ill from COVID at the time of death and that call is at the discretion of the treating doctor not some higher authority.


From the BBC:

But what if they had an underlying condition, such as asthma, which was exacerbated by Covid-19? Or what if the patient died from something seemingly less related to Covid-19, which is a respiratory disease – such as, say, a brain aneurysm? Which condition should be considered the cause of death?

Even within a country, official statistics can vary according to what you count. In the UK, for example, the Department of Health and Social Care releases daily updates on how many people who tested positive for Covid-19 died that day. This includes any patient who tested positive for Covid-19 but who might have died from another condition (for example, terminal cancer). But the UK’s Office for National Statistics counts all deaths as Covid-19 where Covid-19 was mentioned on the death certificate, regardless of whether they were tested or if it was merely a suspected case of Covid-19. Adding to the complexity of trying to understand the death rates is that the two are out of sync, since the ONS way of counting can only happen after a death certificate has been issued, so takes longer.


Full article:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/...O8Yi4V236054JX3nlO_GFzpjauhYgUVumfSVxJxxsiZeg
 

Pfitzy

George Gregan (70)
Now getting out to about 8-day case doubling scenario. Would expect that to drop to 10 in the next week of things keep running at this rate.
 

tragic

John Solomon (38)

I didn’t know that the UK was doing that - if anything that will artificially increase their death rates due to the reasons I outlined above. Many deaths will be unrelated.
I think most clinicians involved in treating COVID would list it as the primary cause of death on the certificate in anyone dying from respiratory failure with the underlying respiratory illness (asthma, emphysema etc) as a comorbidity. In practice it would actually be quite difficult to separate the two.
Same would apply if they died of organ failure or cardiac arrest in the setting of a severe COVID illness. COVID would be listed as the primary cause of death on the certificate.
I would argue Sweden’s approach of recording what is on the death certificate (if that is what they are doing) is probably the most accurate as it takes into account what the treating clinician actually thought was the primary cause of death.
 

Up the Guts

Steve Williams (59)
I didn’t know that the UK was doing that - if anything that will artificially increase their death rates due to the reasons I outlined above. Many deaths will be unrelated.
I think most clinicians involved in treating COVID would list it as the primary cause of death on the certificate in anyone dying from respiratory failure with the underlying respiratory illness (asthma, emphysema etc) as a comorbidity. In practice it would actually be quite difficult to separate the two.
Same would apply if they died of organ failure or cardiac arrest in the setting of a severe COVID illness. COVID would be listed as the primary cause of death on the certificate.
I would argue Sweden’s approach of recording what is on the death certificate (if that is what they are doing) is probably the most accurate as it takes into account what the treating clinician actually thought was the primary cause of death.
Completely agree RE Sweden's approach being the best.

It's pretty bizarre that, as you originally said, physicians record what they believe to be the cause of death on the death certificate but then this is ignored by national databases. I know in Italy they record deaths in the same way but an institute in Rome was going back over the death certificates to examine the final cause of death and the prevalence of underlying conditions. Hopefully, if large discrepancies are found we get the national data amended.
 

waiopehu oldboy

Stirling Mortlock (74)
NZ's count now 950 (& still just one fatality): was 514 on 29 March so we appear to be doubling at 6-7 days which is encouraging, albeit it's only 37 days since our first confirmed case so probably too soon to be buying in the bubbly but if we can keep that going for the next week or so I think we may see some relaxation of the lockdown. Jacinda said a week ago that Monday would be a key date in terms of whether lockdown is extended or partially lifted, personally I'm expecting it to be pushed out another week or two until the curve starts flat-lining.

EDIT: 127 listed as "recovered", 10 hospitalised & 1 in ICU.
 

waiopehu oldboy

Stirling Mortlock (74)
Feel-good story of the week:

"5yo Kiwi girl with cancer flooded with support from German town after parents put up resident trapped in NZ"

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-...er-parents-put-up-resident-trapped-in-nz.html

IMG_0949.JPG


TLDR: Eva, a 5yo from CheeChee is in hospital in Auckland; Eva's mum hears about Jens, a German tourist stuck in CheeChee with nowhere to stay& let's him live in their empty house; Jens tells his hometown newspaper what's happened; peeps from his hometown donate to Eva's givealittle page. All it needs to be perfect is for Eva to get well & get to meet Jens. Not a dry eye in the house, I reckon.
 

cyclopath

George Smith (75)
Staff member
Feel-good story of the week:

"5yo Kiwi girl with cancer flooded with support from German town after parents put up resident trapped in NZ"

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-...er-parents-put-up-resident-trapped-in-nz.html

View attachment 11383

TLDR: Eva, a 5yo from CheeChee is in hospital in Auckland; Eva's mum hears about Jens, a German tourist stuck in CheeChee with nowhere to stay& let's him live in their empty house; Jens tells his hometown newspaper what's happened; peeps from his hometown donate to Eva's givealittle page. All it needs to be perfect is for Eva to get well & get to meet Jens. Not a dry eye in the house, I reckon.
Nice. All round.
 

Aurelius

Ted Thorn (20)
You'd fucking hope so - it's now illegal to sit in your car to enjoy a view or eat a kebab alone on a bench. Better be some payoff.


Fingers crossed, the time will soon come when our governments can start thinking about when and how to ease up these restrictions.

For instance, allowing restaurants and cafes to re-open at half capacity, easing up on the regulations about inviting people to your home, etc. Obviously the large public gathering and travel bans will have to be in place for a while, but I sense that the people in charge are starting to think we've got this virus on the run.*

* Or crawl. You know what I mean.
 

waiopehu oldboy

Stirling Mortlock (74)
You'd fucking hope so - it's now illegal to sit in your car to enjoy a view or eat a kebab alone on a bench. Better be some payoff.

To be fair the kebab guy I assume you're referring to had twice been told to go home & stay home earlier in the day.

https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/worl...n-on-self-isolation-rule-breakers-in-nsw.html

Meanwhile idiots over these ways are still going surfing (& boating) at various locations around the country, obviously not giving a shit that if they get into difficulty some poor sod(s) have to come out of isolation to save their selfish arse. Or maybe we just let a few drown, To Encourage The Others.

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/he...-to-ride-the-waves-despite-new-lockdown-rules
 

WorkingClassRugger

David Codey (61)
Fingers crossed, the time will soon come when our governments can start thinking about when and how to ease up these restrictions.

For instance, allowing restaurants and cafes to re-open at half capacity, easing up on the regulations about inviting people to your home, etc. Obviously the large public gathering and travel bans will have to be in place for a while, but I sense that the people in charge are starting to think we've got this virus on the run.*

* Or crawl. You know what I mean.


The question what effect would our traditional flu season have in maintaining the virus's lifecycle and whether it will drive further growth well beyond the current levels.
 

tragic

John Solomon (38)
Fingers crossed, the time will soon come when our governments can start thinking about when and how to ease up these restrictions.

For instance, allowing restaurants and cafes to re-open at half capacity, easing up on the regulations about inviting people to your home, etc. Obviously the large public gathering and travel bans will have to be in place for a while, but I sense that the people in charge are starting to think we've got this virus on the run.*


* Or crawl. You know what I mean.

Based on the government modelling and the excellent monash modelling posted here by DCt (Which are much the same by the looks of it) it seems we are about to enter the suppression phase. 1st day today with <3% growth.
Unfortunately the same modelling, which has been spot on so far, suggests cases will skyrocket if the current measures are relaxed.
So I wouldn’t hold your breath waiting for that relaxation. Scomos been pretty consistent in saying 6 months.
Schools maybe and a few minor tweaks aimed to improve overall community psyche.
Pubs,cafes and restaurants will probably be the last to come back
 

Dctarget

John Eales (66)
NSW Police launch criminal investigation into the operators of Ruby Princess after the death of 10 passengers.
 
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