Coronavirus

[pilowsky]

Almost immediately after I started playing duplicate bridge in February 2019 (I had to give up fun at 17 to go to University so I learned a little Bridge in the common room) it became obvious that it is really a video game. The use of dirty torn paper cards in plastic slippers and antiquated bridgemates with chalkboard lessons from people that don't understand computers is impossible for me to comprehend. Even when I didn't know what a transfer was and everyone in the Club laughed at me (with good reason) it astonished me - and still does that they are so excited by paper cards when it can all be done safely and so much better on cheap laptops with real-time results. Baffling really. Hopefully, one good thing that emerges from this terrible crisis is a reconfiguration of Bridge. I for one will not be returning to a Bridge Club at least if they insist on the old format.

[Trinidad]

Almost immediately after I started playing duplicate bridge in February 2019 (I had to give up fun at 17 to go to University so I learned a little Bridge in the common room) it became obvious that it is really a video game. The use of dirty torn paper cards in plastic slippers and antiquated bridgemates with chalkboard lessons from people that don't understand computers is impossible for me to comprehend. Even when I didn't know what a transfer was and everyone in the Club laughed at me (with good reason) it astonished me - and still does that they are so excited by paper cards when it can all be done safely and so much better on cheap laptops with real-time results. Baffling really. Hopefully, one good thing that emerges from this terrible crisis is a reconfiguration of Bridge. I for one will not be returning to a Bridge Club at least if they insist on the old format.

Some people like to meet people too. Bridge is a social game. You do not merely play with opponents, you talk, drink and (sometimes) eat with them too. People meet there life partners at the table. It is hard to do that on BBO.

 

In addition to the social aspect there are aspects to the game that make face to face bridge a different game.

• 
   
  
• Table presence is key in successful face to face bridge. It is fairly worthless in internetbridge.
  
• You can focus exclusively on bridge and you can rely on it that the other players are doing that too. (If they don't you can see that.)
  
• You can explain your system ... and make sure that the opponents understand it too. Explaining a system is tedious in internetbridge. Most people don't type as fast as they speak and there is no non-verbal communication. It happens often in internetbridge that people explain something but the opponents don't understand the explanation. In face to face bridge you can see whether an explanation is understood.
  

 

I am very grateful to BBO, but internetbridge is no subsitute for the real thing.

 

Rik

[pilowsky]

As I say, "If they insist on the old format". It's time for a revolution in the way Bridge is played.

[y66]

From David Roberts at NYT:

 

How dangerous is it to live in New York City during this pandemic? How much safer is it in other places? Is the risk of dying from Covid-19 comparable to driving to work every day, skydiving or being a soldier in a war?

 

We are awash in statistics about Covid-19: number of deaths, fatality rates, contagion rates. But what does this all mean in terms of personal risk?

 

In 2011, another invisible danger, radiation, sowed fear and confusion in Japan, where I served as the U.S. Ambassador’s science adviser after the nuclear meltdown at Fukushima Daiichi. Then, as now, the news was full of scary numbers. And then, as now, there wasn’t nearly enough context for people to make sense of them, much less act upon them.

 

Fortunately, there are tools for assessing risk that can help us put the daily torrent of numbers in perspective. I found the best way to communicate the level of risk was to put it in terms that allowed easier comparison to other, more familiar, risks. One could then talk, for instance, about how dangerous living in a contaminated city was compared to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.

 

A useful way to understand risks is by comparing them with what is called a “micromort,” which measures a one-in-a-million chance of dying. Note that we are considering only fatality risks here, not the risk of growing sick from coronavirus, or morbidity. The micromort allows one to easily compare the risk of dying from skydiving, for example (7 micromorts per jump), or going under general anesthesia in the United States (5 micromorts), to that of giving birth in the United States (210 micromorts).

 

The average American endures about one micromort of risk per day, or one in a million chance of dying, from nonnatural causes, such as being electrocuted, dying in a car wreck or being struck by an asteroid (the list is long).

 

Let’s apply this concept to Covid-19.

 

Using data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, New York City experienced approximately 24,000 excess deaths from March 15 to May 9, when the pandemic was peaking. That’s 24,000 more deaths than would have normally occurred during the same time period in previous years, without this pandemic. This statistic is considered a more accurate estimate of the overall mortality risk related to Covid-19 than using the reported number of deaths resulting from confirmed cases, since it captures indirect deaths associated with Covid-19 (because of an overwhelmed health care system, for example) as well as the deaths caused by the virus itself.

 

Converting this to micromort language, an individual living in New York City has experienced roughly 50 additional micromorts of risk per day because of Covid-19. That means you were roughly twice as likely to die as you would have been if you were serving in the U.S. armed forces in Afghanistan throughout 2010, a particularly deadly year.

 

The quality of data varies from state and state, and continues to be updated. But for comparison, using the C.D.C. data, Michigan had approximately 6,200 excess deaths during this same time period. That is roughly the same risk of dying as driving a motorcycle 44 miles every day (11 micromorts per day). Living in Maryland during this time would be roughly as risky as doing one skydiving jump a day for that duration (7 micromorts per jump).

 

Now, if you’re infected with the virus, your odds of dying jump dramatically. Estimates of the fatality rate vary as doctors continue to learn more about this virus and how to care for people sickened by it, but let’s assume it is 1 percent for sake of this discussion. That translates into 10,000 micromorts. That risk is comparable to your chances of dying on a climb in the Himalayas if you go above 26,000 feet, where the tallest peaks, such as Everest and K2, stand (using climbing data taken between 1990 and 2006).

 

But that risk estimate is for the entire population, with an average age of 38. If you happen to be older, the fatality rate can be as much as 10 times higher, which is just slightly less than flying four Royal Air Force bombing missions over Germany during World War II.

 

The acceptability of risk depends, of course, on one’s own attitudes and proclivity to take risks, and whether one has a choice in the matter. Unlike skydiving or hang-gliding, in which the risk is limited to the person making the leap, with Covid-19 the actions of the individual change the risk levels of everyone in the community.

 

So while there are many thrill seekers who happily jump out of planes, they might think twice about forcing their frail grandmothers, or their neighbors, to jump with them.

David Roberts (@DRobertsNYC), a former academic physicist, served as the U.S. Ambassador’s science adviser in Tokyo during the post-Fukushima recovery. Micromort examples came from “The Norm Chronicles” by Michael Blastland and David Spiegelhalter (2014).

[cherdano]

I don't think that there is a lot of difference between a restaurant and a bridge club.

 

I just think it's wrong to treat them the same.

 

- In a restaurant, you don't go from table to table to sit with everyone for 15 minutes. And you don't typically spend 3 hours there.

 

- The 1.5m or 2m are just a guideline where the odds of infections drop, but it's still very possible.

 

- Recently more and more studies point to the direction that most infections happen in superspreading events, where one (!) person infects many others. Bridge club seem to fit the profile of such events perfectly.

 

- Until there is a vaccine, we have to do a lot of trade-offs of reducing transmission versus economic harm. The economic harm of closing a bridge club is much much lower than the economic harm of closing a restaurant with a similar number of customers, or a similar risk of transmission.

 

 

 

But in any case, if there are bridge clubs opening, I hope they have adequate ventilation - a lot of the superspreading events seem to come through aerosols carrying the virus, which accumulate in the air unless there is constant air exchange (with outside air coming in, not just air circulating through an air conditioning system).

 

In contrast, recent studies downgrade the frequency of transmission through smear etc., so may be passing on the boards from table to table is not quite as dangerous as we thought earlier.

[pilowsky]

Bridge clubs are a very long way from restaurants, bars and gyms. If you want a realistic comparison, think of retirement villages. or the dining room in a nursing home. The expert that runs the club that I started playing at talked about the "rule of 160". Meaning that if the combined age of your opposition exceeded that number then you were in big trouble. Many of the people that I partnered were in their 70's, 80's and 90's. Most of us have multiple medical disorders ranging from heart transplant, obesity, deep vein thrombosis, asthma, hypertension, cancer and a whole lot more besides. At 61 I was considered a callow youth. Back in March when I rang clubs and suggested that it might be a good idea to close I was told that clients at risk would stay away of there own accord! I could not believe that both of the club managers that I spoke to (although one I knew to be a Donald Trump supporter) did not realise that almost all bridge players fell into the high-risk category. The only club in Australia that has continued successfully and without interruption is the Adelaide-based online ABF club Stepbridge which has its server in the Netherlands. It is almost certainly the largest bridge club in Australia at present.

The suggestion that, from an infectious disease perspective, Bridge is a safe game for the geriatric population in its current format is ludicrous. It is not. Slippers of cards are passed from table to table where people with unknown sanitary habits touch them with their bare hands. You have no idea at all about what sort of potentially lethal viruses given the right host is being passed around. If you were hosting a dinner party at home, would you pass the cutlery around along with the food? There is a reason that many diseases are spread by the faecal-oral route. It is the same reason why nobody likes to eat from the buffet on a cruise ship.

When I suggest that Bridge clubs should modernise, what I mean is they should get rid of the paper cards. You can still sit around at tables and scowl at opponents if that floats your boat - although why it would makes no sense to me. But even simple computer technology will allow for a safe game to be played in a social environment.

What exactly is it that you think that you gain from FTF? A flickering eyelash? A millisecond pause? It won't help, the king will still be wherever the king is. The TD's will have a much easier life as well.

[kenberg]

Bridge clubs are different from restaurants. As a starting point, that seems clear enough. One thing that they have in common is that they are both optional. In Maryland, after 5PM tomorrow, I will be able to go to a restaurant for outdoor seating, provided they meet certain guidelines. I have no plans to do so. I cant go to the Baltimore Bridge Club to play, but they have an online game on BBO tomorrow and I will be playing in that. Yes I could play for free on BBO, but I know the owners of the club, I hope they survive, I wish to support them, and, when I played last week (they just started the online games last week) it was nice to "see" others who play there.

 

 

Yes I like seeing people in person, but for the foreseeable future I will not be going to bridge clubs. And probably not restaurants.

 

My point is that changes will be forced. People, many of us, are wary. For reasons of age and such, I am pretty well convinced that if I get Covid then we can start planning the funeral. But younger people will also be wary. First, being young is not a guarantee you will survive. More important, a young adult with young children can very well calculate that while he/she would be more likely to survive than I would, the consequences of it going wrong would be more severe.

 

So change will be forced. Authorities will balance dangers and economics, but I will still choose. So will everyone.

 

Here is a positive side effect. I recall driving to hear a talk once, getting caught up in the usual godawful traffic we have around here, and deciding that nothing the speaker could say would be worth it. I turned around and headed home. Today I might listen to a zoom talk at

https://www-math.umd...conference.html

The talks are recorded so I can choose my time.

 

I like people, I like being with people, meaning actually with them. I'm somewhere in the vast middle ground of the introvert/extrovert spectrum. But caution seems right. When I was young, I (mostly) conquered my acrophobia by climbing everything in sight. That no longer seems very intelligent.

[Trinidad]

I don't know what face to face bridge club you have played in, but at a normal duplicate bridge club people keep their cards. Other players do not touch them during the play of the hand. Under normal circumstances, those boards pass to another table to be played 15-30 minutes later. Only then new players are touching those cards.

 

However, if you duplicate the board sets, so that every table has their own cards, the cards will be quarantained for a week before they are touched by a new player. According to the studies I have seen, the virus cannot survive on a surface for that long.

 

So, the cards and bidding boxes do not need to be the problem.

 

I do agree with Cherdano that sitting 1.5 m away from someone for half an hour and then sitting 1.5 m away from someone else for half an hour is a bigger problem. However, this is also what is happening in restaurants. In a typical restaurant, there will be four tables closest to mine. If all guests stay the same amount of time, all four tables will have "refreshed" before I leave the place. That is equivalent to four rounds of bridge.

 

In the Netherlands, the restaurants will open on Monday June 1st. That is three months before the start of the bridge season. Gyms and saunas are likely opening on July 1st. Of course, we do not simply say that we will open bridge clubs on September 1st. But we will have plenty of time to see what the effect of the opening of restaurants and gyms is on the spread of Covid-19 before the bridge season would start. If these events do not lead to a surge in Covid-19 cases, I think that opening bridge clubs on September 1st (3, resp. 2 months later) will be reasonable. And if they do lead to a surge in Covid-19, we should not even think of opening bridge clubs.

 

Rik

[Cyberyeti]

I don't know what face to face bridge club you have played in, but at a normal duplicate bridge club people keep their cards. Other players do not touch them during the play of the hand. Under normal circumstances, those boards pass to another table to be played 15-30 minutes later. Only then new players are touching those cards.

 

However, if you duplicate the board sets, so that every table has their own cards, the cards will be quarantained for a week before they are touched by a new player. According to the studies I have seen, the virus cannot survive on a surface for that long.

 

So, the cards and bidding boxes do not need to be the problem.

 

 

You need a hell of a lot of set of boards if your bridge club plays several days a week.

[Trinidad]

You need a hell of a lot of set of boards if your bridge club plays several days a week.

That is what you would need in a barometer tournament. In some parts of the world, they are very popular.

 

In a team event, it is not uncommon to have a set of boards per match. That is one set per 2 tables. Given that the amount of tables will be reduced to about 30% of what we would normally have (because of the distance requirement) I am pretty sure that our bridge club will have sufficient sets of boards.

 

The guy who runs the duplication equipment will have to spend more time duplicating, though. In our case, he is bridge crazy enough to do that.

 

And in the Netherlands, 99 % of the clubs meet once a week. (People do have other things in live too.)

 

Rik

[Cyberyeti]

That is what you would need in a barometer tournament. In some parts of the world, they are very popular.

 

In a team event, it is not uncommon to have a set of boards per match. That is one set per 2 tables. Given that the amount of tables will be reduced to about 30% of what we would normally have (because of the distance requirement) I am pretty sure that our bridge club will have sufficient sets of boards.

 

The guy who runs the duplication equipment will have to spend more time duplicating, though. In our case, he is bridge crazy enough to do that.

 

And in the Netherlands, 99 % of the clubs meet once a week. (People do have other things in live too.)

 

Rik

 

I was thinking of places like the young chelsea which in my day used to meet every day, sometimes with afternoon AND evening sessions. There are also situations here where clubs share a venue and boards. Most of our local clubs don't hold barometer evenings and only have at most 4 sets of boards I believe.

[Trinidad]

I was talking about the situation in the Netherlands, where society is opening up.

 

Other than the student bridgeclub that I started my bridge career in (maximum number of members: 16), I don't think that I have ever played in a bridge club that had only 4 sets of boards. I have more boards at home.

 

Rik

[Trinidad]

Update for the Netherlands:

 

I (and all other members of the Dutch bridge league NBB) just got an email from the bridge league that the government has decided that from July 1st bridgeclubs are allowed to open again. This is under the provision that there is no increase in Covid-19, leading up to that date. Local authorities will have to approve the venues and the measures taken to see if they meet the criteria. Bridge clubs are encouraged to talk with local authorities before investing in plexiglass, etc.

 

Transfer of the virus through bridge playing materials has been studied at the University of Rotterdam: The risk is considered small, but not zero.

 

I think that in practice this means that bridge will start again in the new season that starts September 1st, unless...

 

Rik

[pilowsky]

Here is something that may be of interest. It has to do with the lived experience of people in pandemics. It was originally a Masters thesis by a Vanderbilt (the guy that keeps giving to Bridge players!) English student. "THE 1918 INFLUENZA PANDEMIC IN LITERATURE AND MEMORY" by Caroline Hovanec It concerns literature written at the time of the influenza pandemics between 1918 and 1935. The thesis was written before this current pandemic. It makes a fascinating read. I think it was then published in the journal 'Literature and Medicine' 29:1 Spring 2011. as "Of Bodies, Families, and Communities: Refiguring the 1918 Influenza Pandemic" Here is a link. https://muse.jhu.edu/article/449360/pdf It refers to some excellent works of contemporary fiction. She makes the point that despite the pandemic being a much more significant cause of death, it is not the stand out feature in contemporary consciousness. I suspect that a bullet is easier to comprehend than a virus. I found it an outstanding piece of work.

[y66]

From The Economist:

 

America has passed a grim milestone: 100,000 deaths from a novel coronavirus that began to spread half a year and half a world away. Many Americans think their president has handled the epidemic disastrously, that their country has been hit uniquely hard and that there is a simple causal relationship between the two. The 100,000, which does not include excess deaths mistakenly attributed to other causes, is higher than any other country’s. It has routinely been compared with the 60,000 American casualties in the Vietnam war. A Trump Death Clock in Times Square purports to show how many lives the president’s ineptitude has cost: as we went to press it stood at 60,262. Yet this widespread conviction that America has failed because of Donald Trump is not supported by the numbers. Or, at least, not yet.

 

The official death rate in America is about the same as in the European Union—which also has excess deaths, but has less erratic leaders and universal health care. Overall, America has fared a bit worse than Switzerland and a bit better than the Netherlands, neither of which is a failed state. New York has been hit about as hard as Lombardy in northern Italy; California acted early and is currently similar to Germany; so far, rural states have, like central Europe, been spared the worst. This reflects two things, both of which will matter now that America is reopening before it has the virus fully under control.

 

The first is that covid-19, when it first hit, displayed an indifference to presidents and their plans. Around the world it has killed in large, dense and connected cities like New York, London and Paris, and where people are crammed together, including care homes, slaughterhouses and prisons. In some countries, including America, testing was snarled up in red tape.

 

Having seen what was happening in China, Mr Trump could have acted sooner—as Taiwan, Singapore and Vietnam did. He has failed to do things ordinarily expected of an American president in a crisis, such as giving clear government advice or co-ordinating a federal response. Instead, he has touted quack remedies and spent the days when America passed its sombre milestone spreading suspicion of the voting system and accusing a television host of committing a murder that never happened. All this is reprehensible and it may have been costly. Yet, tempting as it is to conclude that the president’s failures bear most of the blame for covid-19’s spread through America, the reality is more complicated (see Briefing).

 

That leads to the second feature of the country’s response to covid-19. The virus was always going to be hard on a population with high levels of poverty, obesity and diseases such as diabetes, especially among minorities (see Lexington). But, to a remarkable degree, other layers of government have adapted around the hole where the president should have been. The federal system has limited the damage, thanks to its decentralised decision-making. Lockdowns vary by state, city and county. California responded as soon as it saw cases. In the north-east governors largely ignored the White House and got on with coping with the disease, earning the Republican governors of Maryland and Massachusetts the president’s enmity, but high approval ratings. In Florida, though the governor was reluctant to impose a lockdown, county officials went ahead and did so anyway.

 

Contrary to demands for nationwide rules, this is a strength not a weakness, and will become more so as the pandemic runs its course. In the best-organised states, which have built up testing capacity, it helps ensure that flare-ups can be spotted quickly and rules adjusted accordingly. Because each region is different, that is more efficient than a nationwide approach.

 

One way democracies can deal with the virus is to draw on reserves of trust. People must behave in ways that protect fellow citizens whom they have never met, even if they themselves are feeling fine. Americans trust their local officials far more than the president or the federal government. And when it comes to public health those local officials have real power. Without this balancing feature, America might today look like Brazil, where a president with a similar love of hydroxychloroquine and distaste for face masks is wreaking havoc (see article).

 

If the public-health response in the United States so far matches Europe’s, its economic response to the virus may turn out better. True, the unemployment rate in America is 15%, double that in the eu. Yet in Europe most governments are protecting jobs that may no longer exist once lockdowns end rather than focusing help on the unemployed as America’s has. The eu is probably delaying a painful adjustment. Congress, not known for passing consequential legislation with big bipartisan majorities, agreed on a vastly bigger fiscal stimulus than in the financial crisis a decade ago. With a Democrat in the White House and a Republican-controlled Senate, America might not have mustered a response that was either so rapid or so large.

 

America still has a hard road ahead. Were daily fatalities to remain at today’s level, which is being celebrated as a sign that the pandemic is waning, another 100,000 people would die by the end of the year. To prevent that, America needs to work with the system it has, trusting local politicians to balance the risks of reopening against the cost of lockdowns.

 

In the next months the infrastructure built during the lockdown must prove itself. Because the virus has yet to decline in some states, it may flare up in new places, which will then need targeted lockdowns. The capacity to test, vital to spotting clusters of infection, has increased, but is still lacking in some places. Almost all the states lack the contact tracers needed to work out who needs testing and quarantining. When it considers how to withdraw fiscal support, Congress should remember this.

 

That America and Europe have fared similarly in the pandemic does not absolve Mr Trump. This is the first international crisis since 1945 in which America has not only spurned global leadership but, by cutting funds to the World Health Organisation, actively undermined a co-ordinated international response. That matters, as does Mr Trump’s inability to cleave to a consistent message or to speak to the country in words that do not enrage half of the population. Yet four years after Mr Trump was elected, the time to be surprised by his behaviour has long gone. Luckily, he has mattered less than most Americans think.

[pilowsky]

Just for info, here is an advisory from the Australian government about 10 minutes ago. It's interesting (to me) that despite the lack of any effective treatment or vaccine and the continuing trickle of cases since the first wave, as the country is now rapidly reopening. As an aside, I wonder how DT would cope on the Forum given his recent stoush with Twitter .

[awm]

From The Economist:

 

I think the reading that this is going similarly in the US and Europe is a bit misleading. To compare a few countries:

 

US Cases per million: 5,489 Deaths per million: 319 Active Cases: 1,176,025 Peak Active Cases: 1,176,025

Italy Cases per million: 3,848 Deaths per million: 551 Active Cases: 43,691 Peak Active Cases: 108,257

Spain Cases per million: 6,124 Deaths per million: 580 Active Cases: 62,225 Peak Active Cases: 100,106

Germany Cases per million: 2,188 Deaths per million: 103 Active Cases: 9,794 Peak Active Cases: 72,865

 

It's true that Italy and Spain look worse than the US in terms of deaths per million (Germany is quite a bit better). If you look at Europe as a whole the overall counts look broadly similar to the US.

 

But if you compare the active cases to the peak active cases, you can see that in all three European countries (and in fact most European countries) the disease has passed its peak. These countries see relatively few additional cases per day and arguably have the virus under control. The US is at its peak now and is reopening businesses! This is a very dangerous place to be.

[pilowsky]

I think the critical point is that as far as medical management goes, there isn't any. The same problem was faced back in 1918. Doctors were called to see patients but could offer very little of substance. Reading the stories about the pandemic then is quite an eerie experience (see post above). Exactly the same social problems were faced because of a lack of scientific and medical expertise. Without effective treatment or an effective vaccine, only palliation (ventilation and similar support) is available. Currently, Social distancing IS the vaccine. What the graph in the image shows is that the number of cases has fallen because of social distancing. Not because of effective treatment. If people rush to return to mingle together then the problem will return. Just as it did with influenza. This stuff is not new. Displaying numbers in different formats will not change this. The other huge problem is that an enormous proportion of the population seem to believe that the virus will go away by magic, with prayer. I do not fall into this group, but I enough people do to destroy our chance to keep the disease suppressed until an effective way of managing it can be devised.

I have absolutely no idea why I am writing this on a Bridge forum. I suppose it's so that somebody will improve my spelling and grammar! I suspect that I have just about reached an equilibrium point where I am about as good a Bridge player as Trump is a President. That would be ~40%. On average. Not very edifying.

[FelicityR]

Nigel's forum header, "Coronavirus. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it" is succinctly defined in this easy-to-read and short article from USA Today by a Distinguished Professor of The History of Medicine.

 

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/05/31/lessons-1918-flu-coronavirus-social-distancing-historian-column/5283023002/

[y66]

I think the reading that this is going similarly in the US and Europe is a bit misleading. To compare a few countries:

 

US Cases per million: 5,489 Deaths per million: 319 Active Cases: 1,176,025 Peak Active Cases: 1,176,025

Italy Cases per million: 3,848 Deaths per million: 551 Active Cases: 43,691 Peak Active Cases: 108,257

Spain Cases per million: 6,124 Deaths per million: 580 Active Cases: 62,225 Peak Active Cases: 100,106

Germany Cases per million: 2,188 Deaths per million: 103 Active Cases: 9,794 Peak Active Cases: 72,865

 

It's true that Italy and Spain look worse than the US in terms of deaths per million (Germany is quite a bit better). If you look at Europe as a whole the overall counts look broadly similar to the US.

 

But if you compare the active cases to the peak active cases, you can see that in all three European countries (and in fact most European countries) the disease has passed its peak. These countries see relatively few additional cases per day and arguably have the virus under control. The US is at its peak now and is reopening businesses! This is a very dangerous place to be.

Perhaps more than a bit misleading for the reason you gave. The MIT COVID Analytics Team's current projected deaths per million population for July 15th and relative to Germany = 1.0 are:

 

Germany 112 1.0

Switzerland 229 2.0

Canada 295 2.6

Netherlands 354 3.1

US 395 3.5

Sweden 552 4.9

UK 642 5.7

[Zelandakh]

Fwiw, I just checked my email. It was on Wednesday March 11 that I cancelled plans to play at the club on Friday March 13.

 

Here is the message I sent to my partner:

 

 

My partner agreed.

 

My point is that ordinary people were starting to understand the dangers, so it is reasonable to expect that those with political responsibility, having substantial staff and advice, could have moved at least a bit sooner.

Ordinary people were "starting to understand the dangers" on March 11^th?!! Wow! Here is a copy of an email I sent to my line manager on February 28^th:-

--

As you may have heard there has now been a confirmed case of Coronavirus in Erlangen. It seems clear that it is only a matter of time before it reaches Nuremberg, and probably rather sooner than later. Has <the company name> produced some reaction to this? What is the current state of play for employees, particularly those of us that need to use public transport? At what point do we have the right to say that the risks are too high to travel? The last communication specifying China and Italy seems to be hopelessly behind the curve on this so a more current assessment taking account of the current risk-assessment would be appreciated.

--

 

I think the risks were already more than clear in the middle of February for anyone that has either some knowledge of mathematics or a sense of history. The question was merely which countries would be able to contain it and avoid the full effects. Anyone who thinks that the US does not have experts that were advising the POTUS about this many weeks before it took hold there (and almost certainly already in January) is naive in the extreme.

[hrothgar]

 

I think the risks were already more than clear in the middle of February for anyone that has either some knowledge of mathematics or a sense of history. The question was merely which countries would be able to contain it and avoid the full effects. Anyone who thinks that the US does not have experts that were advising the POTUS about this many weeks before it took hold there (and almost certainly already in January) is naive in the extreme.

 

FWIW, Akamai instituted lockdown procedures and WFH orders in late February

The other large tech companies did the same.

 

The information was available to make the right decisions

[kenberg]

Ordinary people were "starting to understand the dangers" on March 11^th?!! Wow! Here is a copy of an email I sent to my line manager on February 28^th:-

--

As you may have heard there has now been a confirmed case of Coronavirus in Erlangen. It seems clear that it is only a matter of time before it reaches Nuremberg, and probably rather sooner than later. Has <the company name> produced some reaction to this? What is the current state of play for employees, particularly those of us that need to use public transport? At what point do we have the right to say that the risks are too high to travel? The last communication specifying China and Italy seems to be hopelessly behind the curve on this so a more current assessment taking account of the current risk-assessment would be appreciated.

--

 

I think the risks were already more than clear in the middle of February for anyone that has either some knowledge of mathematics or a sense of history. The question was merely which countries would be able to contain it and avoid the full effects. Anyone who thinks that the US does not have experts that were advising the POTUS about this many weeks before it took hold there (and almost certainly already in January) is naive in the extreme.

 

Yes, I am more than willing to admit I was a bit slow. I had been thinking about it, but not for all that long. The club where I play was still open, my partner's response to my suggestion that we stop was something like "Whichever you prefer", so I was not alone in being slow on the uptake.

It's a data point, what I was thinking when.

I have made various choices at various times in my life. Sometimes I realized later I was lucky, sometimes I think I was ahead of the curve. True of everyone, or almost so.

In this case I would rate myself slow but not ridiculously slow. Not as bad as playing someone for the Q after he has already shown out of the suit.

[shyams]

Coronavirus: [uK] Contact-tracing head quizzed [by UK Parliament Health Committee] over test accuracy

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52906909

 

...the swab tests carried out can deliver false negative results - suggesting someone does not have coronavirus when they are actually positive. During her evidence session at the select committee, Baroness Harding [the Head of Test & Trace service in England] said estimates of the proportion of tests that gave false negative results ranged between "two and 20-odd per cent.

 

She said the issue of why those with a negative result were not retested was "a medical/science question", adding "my job to take Sage and chief medical officers' guidance".

[Winstonm]

The Swedish model fails:

 

The man responsible for Sweden’s unique anti-lockdown coronavirus strategy has admitted that too many people have died and the country should have done more to prevent the spread of the disease.