Disclaimer: I am not an expert. I believe in science, and its conclusions. All I wanted to know is if there's enough data points to plot a long-term trend.
The reason the UK locked down was to "protect the NHS". The lockdown worked - dramatically, spread was cut to almost zero overnight, the extra hospitals that were built weren't needed.
Right, but the point is: Australia etc. are in winter. Right now. We have that data; there's more to the world than just the top half.
(Incidentally, COVID precautions appear to be working well on flu, too. https://www.wsj.com/articles/covid-19-measures-have-all-but-...)
Sydney's temperature tomorrow is a high of 17, low of 10.
Glasgow's temperature tomorrow is a high of 19, low of 10.
It's plenty chilly in southern Chile.
NZ - Christchurch 12C, Wellington 15C, Aukland 16C.
South Africa, Cape Town high of 19, Joburg high of 18, similar to Glasgow in Summer.
South America? Yes it's chilly in Southern Chilie. There's barely anybody living there. Same in Argentina - Ushuaia has a population of 130k and a high of 6C today. Arkangel is 3 times the size and has an average high of -9C in winter. Fairbanks population about 100k and high of -17 in the winter.
The population south of Viedma, Neuquén and Valdivia (highs today of around 13) is well under 3 million, with towns mostly less than 100k.
Santiago's high today is 33. BA has a high of 15. That's not the same as a northern winter.
Compare with Beijing, population 20 million, average highs of 2C in winter. Chicago, 1C, 9 million. Moscow -4C, 12 million.
Comparing a Southern winter with a Northern winter is disingenuous - it's milder, there's far fewer people, and far smaller cities with far lower density.
Instead, the replication of rhinovirus depends on if the air temperature in the nasal cavity is above or below 33-35C[1]. The winter in most temperate regions gets low enough to trigger that.
[1] https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/01/02/1411030112
The key point is this: Australia's winters get cool enough to have a distinct cold/flu season every year.
Seems clear it's not heat related though - In Europe when people socially distanced there were few cases. As people are more blasé about it cases start to tick back up.
So it has died down, but that’s due to the measures we have enforced. The fact that localised spikes are happening I think proves that it’s not “run its course”.
However high density mass transit in cities is still empty on the most part (there's always exceptions) - most "knowledge workers" (the ones that cram into cities on overcrowded peak trains every day) are remaining at home. Those working in factories, warehouses and shops tend to drive there, so there's less opportunity to spread. Johnson is trying to get people back to offices to save share prices of Starbucks and Pret. I get the feeling it's that, combined with fewer people out at pubs, that's keeping it at bay.
We've expected to see increases ever since the VE Day conga lines, the Bournemouth Beaches, the BLM protests, and the pubs reopening, and on the whole we haven't seen it. I certainly don't think it's run it's course, but aside from local outbreaks which seem linked to poor factory conditions (the meat packing industry especially seems vulnerable), Leicester sweat shops) it does seem to be rumbling on without the exponential growth we saw in March.
I expect the winter being worse for the countries that weren't hit that hard in the summer.
I can't figure out who the target audience is for - the people who have written off COVID also seem to have written off the WHO, and those who haven't see that there's still a major ongoing problem.
I don't know if its seasonal or not yet although I could see experts could start making predictions already. To me though it is not one big wave. Watching the numbers in the USA and other countries it appears that as restrictions are lifted cases rise. When they rise we add restrictions and they go down at a much slower rate. Its many smaller waves.
And based upon your assessment, you'd seem to agree with her point - "It’s going to be one big wave. It’s going to go up and down a bit. The best thing is to flatten it and turn it into just something lapping at your feet"
"many smaller waves" does not seem relevant to understanding the virus and in fact is what they are warning against. Where I live, if you dig down, "waves" appear to be simple thing, super spreader events at essential businesses and churches.
> WHO officials have been at pains to avoid describing a resurgence of COVID-19 cases like those in Hong Kong as “waves” as this suggests the virus is behaving in ways beyond human control, when in fact concerted action can slow its spread.
(It is seasonal in the sense that the R0 is higher in the winter when people are cooped together, but once you've got sufficient exposure in the community a second wave won't happen regardless)
Citation, please. Any credible sources that I could find say that protection correlation with SARS is not clearly established and antibody levels to SARS fall off between 2-3 years after infection.
> there won’t be a second wave of any significance
There will or will not be but certainly not for the reasons you mention. Unlike flu and older coronaviruses, SARS-Cov-2 R_t seems to be driven exclusively by containment measures, not by seasonality, at least not at the present.
> once you've got sufficient exposure in the community a second wave won't happen regardless
We are nowhere near the "sufficient exposure" and it is already the most impactful pandemic in the last 100 years.
It was T-cell immunity, not humoral immunity like with antibodies. Absence of antibodies != absence of immunity.
And here's the citation: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2550-z
For, Pro, Against, Anti, WHO, CDC, vaccine, masks, orders... etc etc etc... I’ve been thinking this same thing since March. I’m absolutely fine being cautious and doing the right thing, but I think everyone pretends “the science is settled” on these things and it changes weekly - and it should because a lot of it is new - but now that’s used as a weapon by everyone invoked. Kinda sick of it.
It should be totally OK to say “we don’t know, so we won’t guess”.
The problem with that is that policy changing every week is not something that western populations can deal with, so policy changes have to be dampened somewhat.
The WHO saying it’s one big wave, is a guess though.
It spread through Winter 2019, Spring 2020, and is spreading during Summer 2020 when trying to “re-open.”
Pretty sure measurable science to support the idea exists. Oh sure that trend may change, but come on, RIGHT NOW it’s literally showing no signs of fading away if we “live normally.”
Why do you need 18 more months of plotting data to decide on what’s literally happening right before your eyes?
The modeling from IMHE claims that in March the number of daily new infections were above 250K whereas today are about 120K.
https://covid19.healthdata.org/united-states-of-america
see the tab called Infections and Testing
It just that we were measuring a lot many more people now. But it is true that in June there were fewer cases than today, but by far the most cases were in the Winter.
How else would be in the situation where 10% of population is already seropostive and at least as many don't develop antibodies since their symptoms are mild, thus we are probably over 20% of people having had the disease.
Yeah, but the IHME model is also extremely bad. It consists almost entirely of fitting a Gaussian to the number of cases over time. It’s mathematically impossible in their model for the case count to not go down.
Instead of 10s of millions on ventilators, and millions dead it’s millions on ventilators and hundreds of thousands dead?
Statistics are great for science but awful for social policy.
For the same reason that you don’t want someone deciding what religion you should regurgitate. You could end up in the wrong cohort someday.
I'm no scientist but that was the end of Winter and there were very few people with it at the time.
Isn't it possible that it is indeed seasonal and it's now in its "weak phase"?
Politicians are load balancing the healthcare system, not the infection rates.
That doesn’t mean the virus got weaker. Rates go up as soon as distance is removed? Doesn’t seem like the virus wants to slow down as a matter of its “real” physical properties