Coronavirus 2: the Flattening

[EnglishEdward]

Been tracking the grim reaper news on the Worldometer.

It seems UK and Italy are level pegging on per M capita (542) yesterday and (544) today.

Also been looking at population density, wondering why Netherlands doing much
better than Belgium albeit the former being more densely populated.

 

[Hrothbern]

Also been looking at population density, wondering why Netherlands doing much
better than Belgium albeit the former being more densely populated.

Nobody dares to talk about that in the Netherlands.


The Dutch municipalities near the border hope that Belgium will open their borders again for high priority crossborder social visits (Since WW2 there was no real border and because of intermarrying extended family members live random on both sides).

In talkings between governments on the summer holiday period the formal position of the Belgium government is that the Netherlands should have the same restrictive actions as Belgium.
The Dutch government refrains from any comment and also the newsmedia keep it low profile (so far).

Apparently it does not matter for Belgium what percentage of the population is infected in Belgium or the Netherlands.
Only the red tape prescriptive procedures count.

At the start of the outbreak in both Belgium and the Netherlands, imo greatly worsened by not forbidding Carnaval by both countries, there was, because of the almost non-existent border situation, huge vocal criticism from Belgian politicians on the relaxed actions of the Netherlands (like keeping also all non-food shops etc open). Good thing Belgium did not border Sweden.
The Dutch government refrained also at that moment from any comment. Hoping to de-escalate emotions by keeping low profile.

For sure behind door bilateral negotiations take currently place. "Ze doen het op z'n egeltjes" as we say here (they do "it" like two hedgehogs)

 

[Bamspeedy]

Been tracking the grim reaper news on the Worldometer.

It seems UK and Italy are level pegging on per M capita (542) yesterday and (544) today.

Also been looking at population density, wondering why Netherlands doing much
better than Belgium albeit the former being more densely populated.

Belgium is highest on the list in deaths per million because they are counting deaths that others are not. Many were not counting deaths in nursing homes and most were not counting 'probable' cases (had flu-like symptoms but wasn't tested). Belgium was counting both.
Eventually some started counting nursing home and, rarely, probable cases (resulting in a large spike the day it was reported), but sounds like Belgium was counting all the cases from the beginning.

Only 7.8% of 'coronavirus deaths' in Belgium have actually been tested to prove they died from the virus.

https://www.politico.eu/article/why-is-belgiums-death-toll-so-high/

Deaths is a better measure than cases, but even death stats can be abused/misleading, intentionally or not. Excess mortality seems the best way to compare....if the country isn't Best Korea or authoritarian enough to make even those figures unreliable or not trustworthy.

 

[red_elk]

Moscow government released preliminary results of mass randomized testing on antibodies.
50 thousands people were tested since May 15, 12.5% results were positive.

Earlier, "InVitro", a network of private labs, published similar results - 14% out of 40,000.
USA and Western Europe should have higher percentage as they are on more advanced stage of pandemics.

 

[Azem.Ocram]

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/26/world/elderly-care-homes-coronavirus-intl/index.html

Whether because of a cold calculation or mere incompetence, the elderly in nursing homes were sacrificed in hopes of saving as many workers as possible. After losing my great grandmother after not visiting her for over a year, I already made up my mind not to let any of my remaining loved ones end up in a nursing home, not even a luxurious one ran out of a private home in a nice neighborhood (which is where Great Grandma Alice was). Seeing the infection and mortality rate in nursing homes cements my opinion.

 

[Hrothbern]

Belgium is highest on the list in deaths per million because they are counting deaths that others are not. Many were not counting deaths in nursing homes and most were not counting 'probable' cases (had flu-like symptoms but wasn't tested). Belgium was counting both.
Eventually some started counting nursing home and, rarely, probable cases (resulting in a large spike the day it was reported), but sounds like Belgium was counting all the cases from the beginning.

Only 7.8% of 'coronavirus deaths' in Belgium have actually been tested to prove they died from the virus.

https://www.politico.eu/article/why-is-belgiums-death-toll-so-high/

Deaths is a better measure than cases, but even death stats can be abused/misleading, intentionally or not. Excess mortality seems the best way to compare....if the country isn't Best Korea or authoritarian enough to make even those figures unreliable or not trustworthy.

Belgium is indeed better in reporting more relevant deaths in its Corona statistics as also shown by JHU.
BUT
that is a qualitative argument to compare to other countries.
And easily misleading !

And as you say this comparing should be done on all deaths, on the excess mortalities.

This comparing is being done continuously... National Statistics are public info of both countries... but perhaps Politico has no reporters who can read Dutch or Flemish, or have such reporters who do not bother to do so or have reporters who do not bother to use Google Translate, or has no proper editing crew.

Fact is that Belgium and the Netherlands have roughly the same absolute amount of excess deaths, but Belgium has around 11 million and the Netherland around 17 million people. => Belgium has a roughly 50% higher death rate.per million.

Here below a graph used by a quality Belgium Newspaper, De Tijd (the Belgian Financial Times), explaining the whole story to its Belgian readers.
https://multimedia.tijd.be/oversterfte/

To the left the total Dutch deaths per week, to the right the total Belgian deaths per week. The black line the expected mortality without Corona. The red area the confirmed Corona deaths. The X-axis the week numbers.

 

[Arwon]

Yeah those two excess death charts look pretty similar really, and quite precisely make the point about thorough Belgian record keeping.

This is something where per capita analysis has never really meant a lot for figuring out how bad things are. Viral outbreaks are localised and go 1, 2, 4, 8 16 et(or whatever progression) regardless of the size of the host population and political boundaries. It's not like they're uniformly spread across the entire national territory in each case - for example it looks like it's been worse in Brussels than Antewerp.

 

[Zelig]

Moscow government released preliminary results of mass randomized testing on antibodies.
50 thousands people were tested since May 15, 12.5% results were positive.

Earlier, "InVitro", a network of private labs, published similar results - 14% out of 40,000.
USA and Western Europe should have higher percentage as they are on more advanced stage of pandemics.

They mostly don't.

The results of a Spanish study on Covid-19 immunity have a scary takeaway

 

[Hrothbern]

Yeah those two excess death charts look pretty similar really, and quite precisely make the point about thorough Belgian record keeping.

This is something where per capita analysis has never really meant a lot for figuring out how bad things are. Viral outbreaks are localised and go 1, 2, 4, 8 16 et(or whatever progression) regardless of the size of the host population and political boundaries. It's not like they're uniformly spread across the entire national territory in each case - for example it looks like it's been worse in Brussels than Antewerp.

"This is something where per capita analysis has never really meant a lot for figuring out how bad things are"

It will however become important when social distancing is reduced too soon too much (especially mass events and distance travelling) when Covid infected people, meanwhile spread out over the country, infect the country everywhere at the same period.
If Dashboards do not detect that in time (like with test-trace), and test-trace is not at capacity to surpress the outbreak, and you get 2 weeks or so 1,2,4,8 everywhere, you get a widespread second wave, more proportional to the total amount of people.

Here an overview of the second waves of the 1918-1920 Spanish Flu, the first 24 weeks in the US cities, starting around autumn.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/...-curve-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-coronavirus/

 

[Bamspeedy]

This comparing is being done continuously... National Statistics are public info of both countries... but perhaps Politico has no reporters who can read Dutch or Flemish, or have such reporters who do not bother to do so or have reporters who do not bother to use Google Translate.

There are many other articles from other sources such as BBC which basically say the same thing (Belgium counts the deaths differently than other countries, thus leads to higher results). 'Transparent' in the article insinuate to you countries were hiding data? No, that's not what it meant. Analysis of the numbers is open to everyone. How those numbers are gathered is what's different.

Help me understand the graph.

Chart using Per capita deaths or total deaths? Since lines and total bar lengths are similar to both countries despite different population size, this appears to me to mean it is per capita.

Edit: ok, if total bar length is total deaths and is same I could see why that means Belgium has more because of small population, but then why is the black line the same? Normall both countries have 2500 deaths per week, despite difference in pop size?

Black line is expected deaths from all causes.
Entire bar is actual deaths from all causes.
Red area is what has been officially listed as coronavirus deaths.
The grey area between the black line and the red area would seem to be deaths that have not been counted as coronavirus (under-reported coronavirus deaths). (Red area below the line can indicate over-stating the number of deaths from coronavirus, unless there is other reasons for the expected deaths to be lower than normal (less traffic accidents from less driving for example)

Belgium has, if anything, reported more deaths than they should have. Netherlands death count should be 40-50% higher (at least in weeks 13-15 it should have doubled!, they got pretty accurate in the last 2 weeks).

 

[red_elk]

They mostly don't.

The results of a Spanish study on Covid-19 immunity have a scary takeaway

Weird, I see no reason why Spain would have lower numbers. May be it's due to different tests and methodology.
The Spanish test begun 18 days earlier than Russian, that partially explains the difference.

 

[Bamspeedy]

Weird, I see no reason why Spain would have lower numbers. May be it's due to different tests and methodology.
The Spanish test begun 18 days earlier than Russian, that partially explains the difference.

Was the Russian study focused primarily, or solely on Moscow? If so, Moscow has similar numbers to NYC had 3 weeks ago

https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-new-york-antibody-test-f4fbed78-646f-4b46-90b8-5e8ca75380e4.html

 

[red_elk]

Was the Russian study focused primarily, or solely on Moscow? If so, Moscow has similar numbers to NYC had 3 weeks ago

https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-new-york-antibody-test-f4fbed78-646f-4b46-90b8-5e8ca75380e4.html

Moscow only. NYC and Moscow results correspond well to each other, but Spain supposedly had only 5%.
Perhaps Spanish testing was country-wide unlike Moscow and NY.

 

[Zelig]

Moscow only. NYC and Moscow results correspond well to each other, but Spain supposedly had only 5%.
Perhaps Spanish testing was country-wide unlike Moscow and NY.

If you read my link you don't have to speculate.

 

[red_elk]

If you read my link you don't have to speculate.

Perhaps <that's because> Spanish testing was country-wide unlike Moscow and NY.

 

[Samson]

I'm not aware of any empirical data or even a mechanism where breathing through a mask isn't healthy - it's not like you're breathing into a balloon, you're just breathing through a filter, and masks with unfiltered exhale valves are readily available.

I have been wondering how good those masks with unfiltered exhale valves are? If the point of the mask is to protect everyone else, then surely you do not what the exhaled air unfiltered? I have seen Chinese police on the telly with those valves, and they seem to know what they are doing so I am probably wrong, but it makes no sense to me.

 

[Zelig]

I have been wondering how good those masks with unfiltered exhale valves are? If the point of the mask is to protect everyone else, then surely you do not what the exhaled air unfiltered? I have seen Chinese police on the telly with those valves, and they seem to know what they are doing so I am probably wrong, but it makes no sense to me.

I've wondered that too. I don't know that Chinese police are a great data point, it's plausible they care more about protecting themselves than others.

 

[uppi]

I have been wondering how good those masks with unfiltered exhale valves are? If the point of the mask is to protect everyone else, then surely you do not what the exhaled air unfiltered? I have seen Chinese police on the telly with those valves, and they seem to know what they are doing so I am probably wrong, but it makes no sense to me.

For protecting others, those probably help as much as surgical masks or cotton masks do. You have decent protection against droplets, but the exhaled air is not filtered that much. The protection for the wearer is much better, though.

 

[Takhisis]

The US and many European countries screwing this up is doing a number on pro-democracy causes around the world. I'm sick of seeing people pointing to this as evidence of the failure liberal democracy and of the decadence 'Western values' bring about.

Not that authoritarian leadership is doing particularly well either, but they control the narrative in their territories and this is supplying them with plenty of ammo.

Here we're moving clearly towards authoritarianism. There was a demonstration in a suburb here against the prolonged quarantine and its various highly damaging side-effects; instead of arguing based on medical data the mayor answered ‘we've filmed and identified each and every one of you and we're going to haul you before a court’.
The demonstrators themselves were a mixture of people genuinely worried about losing their jobs and conspiracy theorists who want to bring down 5G communications towers that don't even exist yet… but it's still not the answer to just say ‘unacceptable- to the dungeons!’

 

[Berzerker]

MSNBC crew was down in Florida showing people without masks at the beach as Katy Tur asked the reporter 'dont people (those rubes) care about their safety?' Some guy in a Packers jersey filmed the MSNBC crew and he said half your own crew aint wearing masks including the cameraman. The husband of Michigan governor Whitmer got busted trying to go boating. he told them do you know who I am?

After complaining about closing churches and letting people buy booze and dope, tonight Tucker Carlson defended opening beaches and parks etc by citing how virtually all cases of transmission occurred in doors... Like people crowded into churches. He didn't mention the last sentence.