[OFF TOPIC] Coronavirus Pandemic

rybak · March 29, 2020

Update from :POL New 224 cases and 4 new deaths (1862/22). I believe that tomorrow we will broke 2000 cases....

phelps · March 29, 2020

1 hour ago, hckosice said:

And now something also for romantic souls.

Weddings are allowed only at local offices and under strict conditions with minimal participation and without guests.

also in Italy weddings are allowed with basically only the man in charge (priest or city council official, depending on the people's choice), the witnesses and of course the 2 (un)lucky newlyweds...

phelps · March 29, 2020

by the way, today's numbers confirm the trend of the last few days...new daily cases are increasing quite slowly than the last weeks...

only negative note (especially for me), today Milan was the black sheep of the Nation, with the most new cases and deaths among our cities/provinces... :cry:

Olympian1010 · March 30, 2020

up and down · March 30, 2020

Interesting article posted online about how some countries are slow to react towards Coronavirus.

http://theconversation.com/without-major-intervention-indonesia-could-have-71-000-covid-19-cases-by-aprils-end-134239

Spoiler

Transmission of COVID-19 in Indonesia, a country with more than a quarter-billion people, may increase exponentially if the government makes no immediate effort to reduce the spread.

Using exponential function analysis, we estimate – with data gathered since March 2 and assuming the doubling times are similar as Iran’s and Italy’s – that at the end of April 2020, there may be 11,000-71,000 COVID-19 cases in Indonesia.

Indonesia might hit those numbers if the country’s handling of the coronavirus outbreak doesn’t change. Currently, there is scarce information on the location of infected patients, the number of tests carried out and areas to avoid. There is still a lack of awareness and compliance among the public about social distancing measures. There is also a lack of sanctions against self-quarantine violations.

President Joko Widodo announced Indonesia’s first two COVID-19 cases on March 2. In the following days, the number of new cases has continued to increase rapidly. As of March 27, the total number of cases nationwide is 1046, it increased 523 times from the first day cases were announced. And there is still a high possibility of undetected infections in the community.

The Indonesian government has put in a disaster emergency plan for COVID-19 outbreak up to May 29, 2020. Since March 20 the first rapid tests has been conducted in South Jakarta and the government has converted four apartment towers of the Kemayoran Athletes Village in Jakarta as a new emergency hospital to handle COVID-19 patients.

Campaign for social distancing also continues. However, many still criticise the scale and effectiveness of these initiatives.

It’s important to note that at the end of April, the Islamic fasting month Ramadan starts. During this time, Muslims, that make up the majority of Indonesia’s population, commonly hold many activities together that involve close contact, such as breaking the fast in the evening and the following congregational prayer at mosques.

In late May, Eid al-Fitr holidays will mark the end of Ramadan. Nearly 15 million people usually leave Jakarta during this time to travel to West Java, Central Java, East Java and other provinces to celebrate the Islamic holiday.

Indonesia should learn from the mass meeting over 40,000 families ahead of the Lunar New Year in the Baibuting District, Wuhan, China on January 18. The meeting is thought to be the initial medium of the mass spread of the disease throughout mainland China, which then spread into 198 countries and territories.

A terrifying exponential growth
Theoretically, interventions such as limiting social gatherings, mass testing and isolation of positive cases should slow the number of new cases down.

Without these strict restrictions, the growth in the number of COVID-19 patients will be exponential. This means that for every similar period, the number of patients multiplies by the number of patients before.

For example, if the number of patients increases by two every day, each patient transmits to two people per day. So, the number of patients on the first day to the 7th day would be: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32 and 64.

In this first week, medical staff would still be able to handle the number of patients they need to treat. But if the doubling continues, at the end of the second week, the number of patients will be 8,192. By the end of the third week, it will pass the one million mark.

By the end of the fourth week, the number will break past 10 million and be at 13,421,728.

This rate of increase is dynamic, depending on the period analysed and interventions conducted to slow the spread of the virus.

To prevent the health system from being overwhelmed with patients, the doubling must be stopped as soon as possible, at the beginning of the outbreak, when the number of patients is still small.

The four phases of the outbreak
In general, an infectious disease outbreak has four periods: the delay phase, the exponential phase, the static phase and the decline phase.

The delay phase

The delay phase is the initial phase when there are only a few people coming to medical facilities with complaints.

The incubation period for coronavirus is 1 to 24 days. This incubation period provides an opportunity for the virus to multiply and spread from one person to another.

Some people who have COVID-19 do not show symptoms. Without testing, they may not realise they are carriers of the virus.

In this phase, most health authorities and the community tend to be ignorant and in some cases in denial of a looming problem.

South Korea, for example, reported its first case on January 20, 2020. Four weeks later, the number of new cases only reached 30. On February 18, a COVID-19 confirmed patient attended a routine religious event at a church which was also attended by many other people. Two days after that, the number of cases exploded to 346.

There was a delay phase of four weeks during which health authorities were only tracing contacts of positive cases and not putting in place drastic interventions. After that, there was an exponential growth of cases. As of March 18, almost four weeks after the exponential phase began, South Korea reported 8,413 cases and 81 deaths.

The exponential phase

A protracted delay in detecting infections is usually followed by an explosion of cases. In this phase, health authorities and most people only just begin to realise the danger.

They start to panic and immediately act to control the situation. Unfortunately, health services are already being overwhelmed.

Italy is an example of a more severe exponential growth rate. The country reported its first case at the end of January 2020. Then it started to report some positive cases from Italian citizens returning from China.

But suddenly, on February 20 (three weeks after the first case), an Italian citizen who had reportedly never travelled to China or had contact with anyone who came from Asia, tested positive, confirming local transmission has started.

Since then, cases have exploded and followed an exponential growth pattern. About six weeks after the first case, at March 18, the SARS-CoV-2 virus had infected 31,506 people and caused more than 2,500 deaths.

Iran is an example of exponential growth rates higher than Italy’s and in a shorter period. The first case in Iran was found and reported more slowly compared to Italy and South Korea, on February 19, 2020.

Elections and political pressure there delayed the examination of infected patients. The government punished those spreading rumours about the outbreak, like what the Wuhan local government did in early January 2020.

In less than two weeks, the Iranian Ministry of Health reported 593 cases and the number continues to rise. Only one month since the first case, on March 18 in Iran, there were almost 16,200 cases and 988 deaths.

The static phase

In this phase, cases have increased to a point from which they start to decrease. And the addition of new cases is no longer as fast as in the exponential phase. New cases still appear, but the number is relatively stable.

Several factors may cause a decrease in this phase. First, the infection growth decreases due to interventions that reduce transmission. Second, the community has developed immunity and is resistant to the infection. Third, there is a reduction in people vulnerable to infection (in other words, many people have died).

The decline phase

The last phase is when the infection rate shows a negative trend, and the number of new cases is on a downward trend (period of decline).

The length of the period of each phase is difficult to predict. But certainly, the exponential phase will happen soon after the delay phase.

How about the doubling time in Indonesia?

The site of Our World in Data calculates the rate of growth of new cases for various countries.

For South Korea, the number of new cases doubles every 13 days. Iran and Italy are worse, doubling every seven and five days respectively. China, in March, doubled its cases every 33 days.

Indonesia’s doubling time is two days. In other words, the number of Indonesian cases will double every two days. If we refer to this figure, it is estimated that by the end of March 2020, Indonesia will report more than 20,000 cases.

This is a very large number and can paralyse the Indonesian health system.

But let’s assume the doubling time of Indonesia is the same as Iran (seven days) or Italy (five days), then we get a picture of cases piling up in April.

Assuming exponential growth similar to Iran and Italy, then at the end of March, Indonesia will report between 600-1,000 cases and by the end of April, there will be between 11,000-71,000 coronavirus cases.

We should note that the reported cases are people who came to a medical facility on their own. These people come after recognising symptoms resembling COVID-19 or people tracked from contact tracing of previous positive patients.

We still don’t know how many people who have COVID-19 have not, or do not want to, come for testing because almost three weeks after first case detected there is no mass testing as in South Korea and Italy.

Massive COVID-19 rapid testing with 125,000 COVID-19 antibody-based rapid testing kits is starting this week in the several cities and regencies of coronavirus hot spot of Jakarta, West Java and Banten provinces focusing on vulnerable groups including medical workers.

Interventions to prevent exponential growth
Indonesia has just entered the exponential phase. The government must take immediate action to slow down the doubling of cases, by:

increasing examinations of people at risk in areas where an infected case occurred or areas that have an indication of transmission. Utilise rapid and high detection performance tests to differentiate accurately between infected and non-infected individuals.

provide data on patient location at the sub-district level so the public can take part in examining themselves and avoid contact with these areas

raise public awareness and encourage the community to minimise contact with each other, or social distancing. For example, restrict mobility between contaminated districts or cities, implement strict migration surveillance to individuals returning home from contaminated areas, and apply sanctions to violations on mass gathering ban.

With more intensive use of science and technology and improved coordination between local institutions and also cooperation between organisations at regional and international levels, we believe this pandemic can be controlled.

up and down · March 30, 2020

Another interesting news posted online.

https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/03/13/covid-19-patient-rejected-waited-for-days-for-testing-in-jakarta.html

Spoiler

The family of a COVID-19 patient in Jakarta has said the patient was initially rejected by a hospital and underwent a sluggish screening process before testing positive for the virus.

The patient’s son said that the slow process and poor response from the Jakarta Health Agency and hospitals had left him frustrated.

The son said that the father had a high fever for about two weeks, leading the family to suspect him of having COVID-19, the illness resulting from the novel coronavirus.

The father then went to the intensive care unit (ICU) of Persahabatan Hospital in East Jakarta to get tested.

“He waited for three hours only to be rejected. The hospital said that my father did not need to get tested yet and mentioned some other reasons,” the son told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

The son later called a hotline managed by the Jakarta Health Agency to seek help. The hotline operator promised to contact him in a short time through the Whatsapp messaging app.

The hotline sent a brief message, asking the father to get checked at the Matraman Regional Hospital in East Jakarta.

“I told them that my father showed strong symptoms and was previously rejected by a hospital that had been appointed as a COVID-19 referral center,” the son said.

“I lashed out at them and threatened to make their poor response viral. They eventually agreed to an ambulance. We waited for almost three hours for the ambulance to arrive.”

The ambulance took his father to the Persahabatan Hospital. After taking a blood sample, the hospital discharged his father and asked him to self-quarantine while waiting for the results.

A day later, a health officer came to the father’s home to take a swab sample.

“Two days after that, they informed us that my father had tested positive for the coronavirus, and they took him to be treated at a hospital,” the son, who is now under self-quarantine, said.

There is no clear evidence about how the father was infected but the son suspected the virus had been transmitted by a relative, who is now being treated for severe pneumonia at a hospital.

“While my father was waiting for the test results, I suggested the man’s family get themselves tested. They turned down the suggestion, fearing that if the results turned out to be positive, they would have to leave their work and get treated in an isolation ward for 14 days.”

up and down · March 30, 2020

Key things mentioned in the articles posted online.

1. Slow detection of the virus caused harm.

2. Government knew that the virus existed since January but decided to keep it away from public knowledge to avoid fear.

3. Lots of patients with severe symptoms of Coronavirus not getting the correct treatment. Despite showing symptoms of Coronavirus many patients ar3e turned away and not given any treatment or any test done on them.

4. Sick people had to move from one hospital to another hospital to another clinic to get treatment when they are rejected. This caused the delay in virus detection and caused harm.

5. Poor healthcare and expensive medical bills not helping to fight the virus.

6. High number of deaths recorded on daily basis.

7. Some patients passed away even before they are able to be given treatment at the hospital.

dcro · March 30, 2020

Michael Jackson was smart.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/michael-jackson-back-in-the-face-masks-399358

bestmen · March 30, 2020

China is helping the world while USA steals it
usa is calling the medical staff of the world to join them , for high salary especially who worked vs CoronaV

hckošice · March 30, 2020

Daily Update. 22 new confirmed cases yesterday (1 of them is also our boxer Andrej Csemez - first confirmed positive slovak international level athlete)

So 336 Confirmed Cases in Slovakia (+22 Yesterday)

120 of them Hospitalized, 2 in serious condition 1 of them in critical

Updated Graph

Red - Total amount of confirmed cases Blue - Daily confirmed cases

Spoiler

and todays photogallery

other small shops opened today. For example, textile stores can be open under strict conditions (gloves and masks mandatory, distance required and only a very limited amount of people in the shop at the same time (1 for 25 m² of the shop area)

which resulted in a mass attack of mentioned shops, everyone looking for cotton textile and sewing equipments

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