Week of April 13: COVID-19 info, facts & updates

[tailrustedtealeaf]

Liqour stores in my state will be offering curbside pickup. We sell wine and beer at my grocery store and it has been rather swamped. A good number of people standing in line to come in to the store are only here for alcohol, so I hope this alleviate some of the stress it puts on our cashiers and front end staff.
Masks will become mandatory at 8 Pm tonight. Interesting time, glad to hear I can breathe easy for the first 3 hours of my shift tonight (I'm in a box anyway, not interacting with customers).
We are over 30000 cases.

[Beth3346]

Cases in my county north of Austin have stayed flat for a while. I'm not sure if its real or if there is a lack of testing. Governor Abbot is pushing for a gradual reopening by executive order. I think it's a terrible idea and will continue to stay home as much as I can.

I work from home so as long as I am at this job I don't have to go into an office. I do understand that working from home is a luxury that most don't have.

There were protests at the capital yesterday. I'm not sure how many people there were but from what I've read most of the protests in the US have been relatively small. The protest here in Texas was organized by a very fringe group. It also took place after the governor announced plans to gradually reopen anyway so i'm not really seeing the point.

I do understand that people are frustrated and afraid about the economic free fall that we're seeing. But from everything i've read and listened to it's not as if we can have mass deaths and a thriving economy.

I'm very worried that there will be a second wave in the fall. I'm also worried that because social distancing is working and maybe even the warm weather is helping people will think it was all overblown and be even more reluctant to take precautions in the fall if there is a second wave. We went out yesterday to pick up take-out from the drive thru and there were a lot of people out. The Academy parking lot had a lot of cars. I feel like people are already letting down their guard.

I'm also very concerned about voting in the fall if there is a second wave. In order to vote by mail in Texas you need to have an excuse. I hope they work out something before November.

[banditpony]

Our numbers spiked because in some prisons they are testing everyone regardless of if they are showing symptoms. So thats a +2,400 bump up.

One prison has more than 1,800+ cases so far for prisoners (75% of the population). No deaths yet..

I guess the good thing is though is hospitalizations are trending down. We'll see if that rings true for tomorrow, and numbers tend to be lower on weekends.

[Pokeyonekenobie]

There was an article on my weather.com app that said they had tested almost 400 people at a Boston homeless shelter and found that 146 of them tested positive for COVID-19 without having any symptoms.  I wonder if we'll see them start to show symptoms or if they truly are asymptomatic and if there is a connection on a DNA level that might reveal who would be at the most risk for having the worst symptoms.

[Taffeta]

On the DNA, one of our big DNA database organisations is working on something like that, because apparently there are minor differences in people's DNA which can make an immune system uniquely vulnerable to just one microbe (or strong to it), and that's something they want to look into.

Plasma tests, vaccine trials due to begin this week.

We still have some concerning PPE issues. And talk is that lockdown will not be removed for a while (they said 3 months at the start, that looks likely) but may have some modifications mid-May depending on how things go in other countries now loosening things up. We are a bit behind most of our European neighbours on this so I imagine they'll be watching closely what happens in Spain, Italy, Germany, Denmark etc. (Oh the irony).

But the immediate case/death stats were way down again today. More than usually down on a weekend. Good sign? Maybe. We'll see. The general feel from the science people is that we're at/moving through the peak/over it but that we can't let up yet because we're not done. Scotland's cases often spike on a Tuesday/Wednesday because of lab backlog.

My wider county area has now recorded a total of 66 deaths across all its hospitals and one residential facility.

The UK have put a lot of homeless people into hotels donated for the purpose by various chains across the country, to try and protect them and prevent spread (and charities hope they might be able to make interventions for/with those people as a result of that).

I am kinda relieved that most of the footage of US protests here has been of people in cars protesting. I mean the right to protest is really important, but so is public health - protesting from cars is better than in person atm. Also some stats we got here suggested 81% of Americans support the lockdown measures. Trump hasn't helped with some of his statements though. I'm glad our election was last December, as it means that there's literally no point in political posturing since no polls are going to happen nationally for 5 years. We're stuck with the Tories but at least we know what we have.

Mum spoke to her friend/former pupil in Yokohama today. She likes to phone Mum to practice her English. She's very worried about the lack of proper full lockdown in Japan at the moment. I've also been in email contact with another former language student/friend of my mother's who looked out for me when I was over there on fieldwork, and he's said the same (he's in Kyoto) - that it's a state of national emergency but not an order that people must stay home. Pretty worried about them and the safety of another family friend living in Kusatsu right now.

[Ponyfan]

Latest numbers from my county were just released. 445 cases, 36 deaths, 124 recovered.

There was a small protest in my city from small business owners over the weekend. They stayed in cars though.  Officially my city’s stay at home order is supposed to end next week but we are still being encouraged to stay at home and wear facial coverings when going out. 

Walmart and Target announced today that they will require employees to wear facial coverings. Covid has been found in at least  2 meat processing plants in the US.


@Taffeta I hope your friends in Japan stay safe.


Ponyfan

[Taffeta]

Thanks Ponyfan. Mum was on the phone to the one in Yokohama yesterday, got an email from her today with all the roses (English roses of course!) that she's bought, several of which have names local to this area (where she and her family lived for four or five years when Mum was her English teacher). So far they seem to be doing okay but she can't see either of her kids as they are in different prefectures.

UK Update
 
Each week they release other death data relating to COVID, and this is a bit grim, but it is also a bit of light at the end of the tunnel as NHS England has catalogued deaths by date of death, rather than by date it was added to the stats, and it suggests a peak somewhere around the 9th April.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52361519

Similar graphs on tests and testing data also suggest that's the case, with the most cases being reported around 10th April. This also corroborate the KCL app data that suggests mild cases across the UK have dropped by about 70% during lockdown.

Probably those figures are mostly for England but since lockdown was coordinated, it's probably not that far different for the other nations as well. The suggestion is that London may have peaked even earlier than that.

I don't want to talk about people's deaths as being good news. It's not good news. It's horrific even thinking about it. But if the peak is past then maybe fewer people will have to die. And that, in a situation like this, can only be good news.

Of course, it's not over yet. But it's a ray of hope. There are still around 17000 people in hospital with COVID, which is far below NHS capacity (even in ICU) but...still far too many people.

Other news - Boris is starting to get back involved with govt stuff again.

[Barnacle_lady]

Yesterday there was the press conference was waiting for and here are the highlights

- As predicted all events are off until 1st of September
- Restaurants, cinemas, gyms etc got extended until May 20
- Children until 18 years are allowed to go to school/daycare on parttime base. And are allowed to sport again as long they keep the 1,5 metres distance

You can imagine not everyone is happy with this. Especially those who have a plan where they can keep people to the required distance.

[Artemesia's Garden]

Yesterday there was the press conference was waiting for and here are the highlights

- As predicted all events are off until 1st of September
- Restaurants, cinemas, gyms etc got extended until May 20
- Children until 18 years are allowed to go to school/daycare on parttime base. And are allowed to sport again as long they keep the 1,5 metres distance

You can imagine not everyone is happy with this. Especially those who have a plan where they can keep people to the required distance.

So some busineses feel they have have good measures in place so they are unhappy that they still have to remain closed. interesting. I think most people who still go into work feel they are at risk all the time because the measures are almost impossible to enforce. Some people just don't seem to 'get it' and break the rules as I discovred at the supermarket.

Thank you Taffeta for the updates. One news story that caught my eye yesterday is that there is concern that if the UK public are advised to start wearing face masks in public it might 'take away' essential PPE from the NHS staff. I happen to have 4 FP3 masks in the house for doing DIY and have been rotating them when I go out, to begin with I started doing this because I was pregnant. I had to ignore some rude looks from people which I don't understand. These masks have now all been worn at least once and left on a windowsill for a week in between wearings to dry out and decontaminate. Since I have them I'd like to continue wearing them to protect myself and others however I feel as though due to this news story I might get judged even more. I might have to make some home-made ones.

[SpacePinto]

Thank you Taffeta for the updates. One news story that caught my eye yesterday is that there is concern that if the UK public are advised to start wearing face masks in public it might 'take away' essential PPE from the NHS staff. I happen to have 4 FP3 masks in the house for doing DIY and have been rotating them when I go out, to begin with I started doing this because I was pregnant. I had to ignore some rude looks from people which I don't understand. These masks have now all been worn at least once and left on a windowsill for a week in between wearings to dry out and decontaminate. Since I have them I'd like to continue wearing them to protect myself and others however I feel as though due to this news story I might get judged even more. I might have to make some home-made ones.

Regular people don't need to wear FPP2/FPP3 masks, these are mostly to protect those who are often around sick (like medical personnel), simple reusable surgical masks made of cotton are enough and they are very cheap and easy to make. Sure, they are not very good for protecting you from catching the virus, but they are pretty good at preventing the sick from spreading it around by blocking most of air exhaled/cought up, so if everyone has to wear them outside, the sick don't infect others around them or the food in supermarkets etc. that much. Just look at Czechia, the government made it mandatory to wear face masks in public a month ago and now the country has one of the flattest curves in Europe before even reaching five digits.

[Barnacle_lady]

Up here I am used to the mostly Asian tourists that wear face masks. So now nobody looks weird if we are obliged to wear them.

[Taffeta]

I am waiting for clear indication from our govt about masks since I am unlikely to anywhere except casual walk for exercise in largely ruralish area for the next six or eight weeks and I hope that'll be enough time for them to get it figured out. I have told Mum it might be a requirement, she's not very keen. Lockdown may or may not ease in May but it won't for us because of my mother's vulnerability status, so I'm happy to wait and see what happens. Where we are people are all social distancing and helping each other out quite a lot (and clapping for the NHS on a Thursday) so the mask thing isn't really a big issue right now. There's at least 10 metres between most people most days. The people with dogs are the worst as they don't pay attention to other people or their dogs, but there's still enough space to keep a wide berth and a lot of people are spending time in their gardens anyway.

I am like Artie, I have some masks from my time in Japan which I brought back to use when cleaning at home. I had the same thought about being judged on wearing something that looks more 'masky' so I am thinking about what to do and probably will try and make or source a homemade one if we have to go into mask territory. I will keep the three remaining Japanese masks for cleaning at home.

I'm not a scientist but given the places that this spreads most vociferously involve people being in close contact for more than just a brief second, and can be spread asymptomatically, it does seem as though people can breathe the virus out and that there is an argument for wearing masks to protect other people. But masks also can cause panic attacks, and breathing problems in some people, and there's still the risk of people touching them, taking them off or on while out, not washing/disposing of them properly and thinking that wearing a mask means you can go right up to someone else. I think those things need to be addressed too if masks become a thing here.

It is interesting that now PHE and NHS England are updating the proper death graph now as well as giving us the daily stats. As this goes on, the more small details we get to flesh out the bigger picture.

But today's stats, both the fatalities reported today and cases reported today continue to gradually go down.

Also, to cheer everyone up, here's a cute story from the BBC about why not to let your toddler near your phone.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-england-london-52379814/toddler-racks-up-eye-watering-20-deliveroo-onions-bill

[Ponyfan]

Numbers in my county were just updated.  We 470 cases, 138 recovered and 39 deaths. Our numbers are going to go up though as the news announced today there’s been 2 cases at a third nursing home and a construction worker has also tested positive.

Wearing a mask makes me feel self conscious. I feel like everyone is staring at me even though a lot of other people are wearing them too. That being said, I do wear a mask when I need to go out even though it becomes uncomfortable for me due to respiratory issues. 

In my city we are strongly encouraged to wear some kind of facial covering in public so we will not spread the virus even if we are not showing symptoms because several confirmed cases were asymptomatic.

@Taffeta thanks for posting that story about the onions. I needed something to smile about today.


Ponyfan

[Taffeta]

Today's more lighthearted anecdote:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-52395609

Today's UK stats -still going down, Hancock reckons the UK testing thing is gonna meet his target for the end of the month, he's announced a bunch more plans today. Also that antibody tests are being reviewed (we've rejected a lot apparently for having low accuracy % so who knows if that will happen any time soon).

Trying to keep my mother corralled is very stressful.

[Beth3346]

Today's more lighthearted anecdote:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-52395609

What a sweet story