The UK has bumped up their Covid-19 death count, now including elderly care home deaths. Their Wednesday death total is 4,419, bringing their total up to 26.097, more than Spain and just 1,600 fewer than Italy.
And the US has now topped 60,000 deaths with no sign of the rate abating, currently running at about 15,000 per week. A previously suggested 100k death toll still looks possible.
BBC: UK deaths pass 26,000 as figures include care home cases
The number of people who have died with coronavirus in the UK has passed 26,000, as official figures include deaths in the community, such as in care homes, for the first time.
The foreign secretary said this did not represent “a sudden surge”, as the figure includes deaths since 2 March.
Dominic Raab also warned the UK was at a “dangerous moment”, saying that the peak of the virus had not passed.
The total only includes people who died after testing positive for coronavirus.
Boris Johnson had warned that the toll in the UK could be the worst in Europe, and it’s not far off that now.
The US now has more official Covid deaths than their Vietnam war death toll of 58,220: U.S. coronavirus deaths now surpass fatalities in the Vietnam War
The toll on the US economy also looks a bit grim: Coronavirus savages U.S. economy in first quarter; bigger hit still to come
The U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter at its sharpest pace since the Great Recession as stringent measures to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus almost shut down the country, ending the longest expansion in the nation’s history.
The drop in gross domestic product (GDP) reported by the Commerce Department on Wednesday reflected a plunge in economic activity in the last two weeks of March, which saw millions of Americans seeking unemployment benefits. The rapid decline in GDP reinforced analysts’ predictions that the economy was already in a deep recession and left economists bracing for a record slump in output in the second quarter.
Gross domestic product declined at a 4.8% annualized rate last quarter, weighed down by a collapse in spending on healthcare as dentists’ offices closed and hospitals delayed elective surgeries and non-emergency visits to focus on patients suffering from COVID-19, the potentially lethal respiratory illness caused by the virus.
That was the steepest pace of contraction in GDP since the fourth quarter of 2008. Households also drastically cut back on purchases of motor vehicles, furniture, clothing and footwear. Receipts for transportation, hotel accommodation and restaurant services also plunged.
Marketwatch: Trump White House vows to double coronavirus testing in May in push to reopen the economy
Looking ahead, Trump again predicted the U.S. would make a strong recovery in the second half of the year even as the economy verges on the biggest contraction in growth since the Great Depression almost 100 years ago.
Most economists think the U.S. in due for a deep recession from which it will take a few years to recover.
While Germany has a remarkably low death toll (currently 6,376) compared to Italy, UK, Spain and France their economy also faces major problems – Germany braces for ‘worst recession’ in post-war history
German gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to shrink by a record 6.3 percent as demand for exports plummets and lockdown restrictions weigh on domestic consumption, Economy Minister Peter Altmaier said in Berlin.
“We will experience the worst recession in the history of the federal republic” founded in 1949, Altmaier said.
This year’s forecast drop in GDP is worse than during the global financial crisis in 2009, when Germany’s economy contracted by more than five percent.
If the government’s projection is confirmed, 2020 will mark the biggest contraction since federal statistics authority Destatis began keeping records in 1970.
The government offered a glimmer of hope however, predicting that the economy would bounce back in 2021 and grow by 5.2 percent as the virus impact wanes and businesses reopen.
I wouldn’t be too confident about next year predictions. It is likely to be a tough year or two for both health and economic reasons.
Your NZ 
David
/ 30th April 2020And on some better news Remdesivir (Trump promoted) is effective after 5 days use rather than 10, other trials are still pending but looks like the NIH might be about to push it for FDA quick approval for Covid.
The Chinese said their trial was unsuccessful while they were trying to patent it, then when caught said they couldnt find enough participants.
Hydroxycholoroquine is being funded for yet more trials and the VA “trial” which showed higher mortality rates has been slammed for being absolute crap. Just because Trump says something doesnt mean its right or wrong as we pass 1000 days of him, trying to undermine a prospective therapeutic because of that should have folk looking in the mirror and ask themselves some searching questions.
Blazer
/ 30th April 2020If you fire enough rounds you can sometimes manage to hit…the target…David.
Pink David
/ 30th April 2020“If you fire enough rounds you can sometimes manage to hit…the target…David.”
Yes. This is why gatling guns are awesome.
Blazer
/ 30th April 2020make sure you point them in the right direction…though Pink David!
Duker
/ 30th April 2020Every non peer reviewed report gets slammed for being ‘absolute crap’, especially the ones you like. Remember the dish of the day last week , those seroprevalence trials out of California
Infobesity is term now being used, with people like David gorging on ‘fast trials’ which like most medical stuff proves to be nothing in the end.
David
/ 30th April 2020Have a look at Gileads web page and take a look at the shares, all the trial has said as I said was that the drug is effective in 5 days rather having to do 10 days which is great news.
The rest is anecdotal but seems to be quite pleasing and while you may think that is terrible news I think its very hopeful, I am an optimistic person.
Duker
/ 30th April 2020Wasnt you that was blowing the Trumpet for the israelic company…are testing their vaccine/anti viral on Israelis yet ?
Any good news is great , but 5 days instead of 10 days is just statistical jiggery. Every patient is different and reactions will vary . getting 5 days earlier is mostly nonsense.
Drug companies having been playing the ‘effective’ game for decades where trials that are going no where are pulled and their favoured researchers know whos paying for this.
You seem to be sucked into the ‘miracles’ version of every press release, TV1 is always a mug for that here as well.
Duker
/ 30th April 2020Is anybody doing placebo trials yet…. because of urgency they were avoiding that step, which might be worthwhile if there was a standout treatment possible , instead they are back to juggling the statistics as is common for marginal treatments. Placebo on its own is surprisingly effective thats why comparing it is necessary and its mirror image nocebo where the patient has bad expectations and that can worsen symptoms
artcroft
/ 30th April 2020I hear The Joseph Mengele University in the US is running trials on injecting bleach directly into the lungs of covid sufferers. Results have been described as pleasing with high fatalities.
Trump has tweeted that we “may have a final solution” at hand.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th April 2020Why bleach? Surely alcohol is the traditional preferred disinfectant for internal use?
Pink David
/ 30th April 2020“I hear The Joseph Mengele University in the US is running trials on injecting bleach directly into the lungs of covid sufferers.”
Why do you ingest bleach with your drinking water?
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th April 2020Three trials with confusing results:
https://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN22B3BS
David
/ 30th April 2020The Trump administration has just dropped 483 million into the Moderna vaccine trial as it gets ready to start phase 2 trials so perhaps some good signs there.
Oxford University’s vaccine has worked a treat in monkeys and they are still pretty excited and talking September. J and J and Pfizer are talking Christmas for a vaccine and GSK are talking Christmas 2021.
Pink David
/ 30th April 2020“Oxford University’s vaccine has worked a treat in monkeys and they are still pretty excited and talking September. J and J and Pfizer are talking Christmas for a vaccine and GSK are talking Christmas 2021.”
Almost all new drugs fail at stage 3 trials. Having been involved in this process previously, anyone making these claims is extremely reckless. Given there have been decades of research into a vaccine for coronavirus’s with very little success it is quite hard to see how people feel confident enough to make these predictions on timescales that have never been seen before.
I wonder if the goal here is placebo.
David
/ 30th April 2020I think the difference here is most of the work has been underway since Sars and its more adjusting an existing potential vaccine for Covid so not starting from square one.
The Oxford one is an Rna based vaccine without any virus in it and is suppose to pre alert the immune system. Totally new approach.
I am forever the optimist.
Duker
/ 30th April 2020Not ‘most of the work’ ..just a few steps . There isnt even a single way the proposed vaccines work , from memory there might be 5 or 6 unrelated approaches. ( Thats where the similarity to previous viruses helps) Maybe even slightly different methods for the same immune response?
Its way over my head but happy to think the best minds and labs are working on it…even while what the Sars-CoV-2 virus does to people has unknowns
duperez
/ 30th April 2020I like it when Trump says the stats of other countries are false and create a false impression.
We can rely on him for the true picture. On anything.
Dennis Horne
/ 30th April 2020Trumpers’ singalong with accompaniment by The Windbags led by Alan:
https://www.livescience.com/singing-gorillas-uganda-pbs.html
Pete George
/ 30th April 2020Please no personal insinuations, insults or attacks.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th April 2020Oh dear. Dennis bears a grudge, poor fellow. Beware of a crash pilot aping a gorrilla.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th April 2020At least he gives you plenty to choose from, dups. Some people are never grateful.
Duker
/ 30th April 2020https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8270245/Japanese-island-hit-second-wave-coronavirus-ending-lockdown-early.html
As predicted by many, lifting lockdowns early – as promoted by Bridges here- leads to a second wave
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th April 2020You’ve put that up before and it is irrelevant rubbish. The problem was uncontrolled internal migration.
Blazer
/ 30th April 2020I put it up before actually.
You put it down to not having a stringent lockdown now!
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th April 2020Rubbish. I put it down to uncontrolled internal migration irrelevant here.
Duker
/ 30th April 2020And NZ doesnt have a lot of internal travel.?…I hear we have ferries across Cook St even. With flights reduced people will still go by car
In Jan 2020 Air NZ had 750,000 domestic passengers for a single month .
Thats a holiday month but thats still 24,000 PER DAY flying.
“In a bid to prevent a further escalation of the pandemic, on April 7 Prime Minister Shinzo Abe declared a month long state of emergency for Tokyo, Chiba, Kanagawa and Saitama, Osaka, Hyogo and Fukuoka.”
Fancy people travelling around places like Tokyo and Chiba ( thats the metro area)
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th April 2020Irrelevant. The issue was uncontrolled internal travel from areas in which the virus was not under control. That is not our situation.
Duker
/ 30th April 2020No one else is saying that , as far as I can find.
Each time you seem to hedge a bit more on your speculation, I imagine not giving a source at all is because its the alt-right news network
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th April 2020There was a clue for you in the article you linked:
The local government had assessed the impact immigration would have on the spread of coronavirus on the island but had not taken into account domestic migration.
And:
Further fueling it, people from other parts of Japan saw that Hokkaido had relaxed restrictions and began travelling there. Some were university students in big cities, who returned home to Hokkaido when classes were cancelled in April, says Nagase. Others were employees of large companies that typically start new job rotations at that time of year; when the state of emergency was lifted, businesses sent a fresh crop of workers from Tokyo and Osaka to Hokkaido.
That likely seeded even more infections and soon the second outbreak was in full bloom. By April 9—exactly three weeks after the lockdown was lifted—there was a record number of new cases: 18 in one day. “Officials thought about people coming from overseas but never considered that domestic migration could bring the virus back,” said Hironori Sasada, professor of Japanese politics at Hokkaido University.
https://time.com/5826918/hokkaido-coronavirus-lockdown/
Pink David
/ 30th April 2020“As predicted by many, lifting lockdowns early – as promoted by Bridges here- leads to a second wave”
The justification for a lockdown was to reduce the impact on the healthcare system. A second wave was baked in to the design. Is your plan now to stay locked down indefinitely?
What does early mean here? The lockdowns were planned for, what, 4 weeks, now they are all taking longer for reasons that are not at all clear. Lets face it, no one initiating a lockdown had any idea how to end it. That has led to this fuzzy semi-lockdown for months/years. That was not in the advertising.
Blazer
/ 30th April 2020‘ That was not in the advertising.’…truth in advertising!…what next…bol.
Duker
/ 30th April 2020And in Germany , they MAY have to do the same
“Germany has been widely praised for its response to the disease, with high levels of testing and relatively low death numbers.
But since Angela Merkel announced a relaxation of lockdown measures the reproduction rate of the virus – known as R – has risen towards one again. That means it is at risk of resuming rapid growth.
Chancellor Merkel has said publicly and she has made clear that they might need a second lockdown in Germany if the infection rate continues to rise.'” Daily Mail
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th April 2020They’ve got to do a better job of identifying what works and what is unnecessary or ineffective. There seems evidence both outdoor and child to adult transmissions are rare if ever occurring. Likewise the 2m rule is ineffective indoors with shared air and unnecessary outdoors.
They also need to clarify what medications if any enhance vulnerability to the virus and what can be done about that.
Duker
/ 30th April 2020Shared air – toilets . Doesnt mean filtered ducted AC is the issue. Any office even with window ventilation only has people in shared spaces and for a prolonged period
The 2m problem when its observed in the breach is issue. Locally Ive seen a second hand appliance shop owner with people inside his shop and hes quite close to them . Ive seen a roofing company staff unpacking a container in the usual way and not considering distance at all.
Its like speed limits they work, but because they are often ignored doesnt mean the basic premise isnt true.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th April 2020I’d far rather be close to someone near an open window with a draught passing through than 2m away in an enclosed room either with recirculated air or no ventilation.
Duker
/ 30th April 2020mask !
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th April 2020Except for surgical masks, they merely stop coarse outgoing infectious matter, not fine incoming or outgoing.
Conspiratoor
/ 30th April 2020PG, can you please provide a link to an official source for the number of Covid deaths claimed above. Cheers,c
Pete George
/ 30th April 2020https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ seem to have an accurate a collection of data as anyone.
If you go in to any country for more details they also provide their sources, in New Zealand’s case from our official Health site.
Similar numbers here but slightly slower to update: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html
Conspiratoor
/ 30th April 2020I’m not convinced a ‘worldometer’ is a reliable source. The US Center for Disease Control and Prevention collates this data across the country and has the provisional figure at 33,513 to the current week. The number at any point can only be provisional given it takes time for the data to be received and coded by the NVSS.
Curiously the total number of deaths from pneumonia for the same period have just topped 60,000
https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-Death-Counts-for-Coronavirus-Disease-C/hc4f-j6nb/data
Pete George
/ 30th April 2020Worldometer lists all their US sources per state: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
If CDC takes time to collate their data they will be quite out of date. Worldometer and JHU passed 33k deaths in the US two weeks ago.
I’ve seen Worldometer update NZ totals within an hour of them being posted online.
Pete George
/ 30th April 2020And JHU data which is often quoted by media also details their sources (which included Worldometer), and go into more detail here: https://systems.jhu.edu/research/public-health/ncov/
Duker
/ 30th April 2020CDC also has a page of US deaths as reported by states for 29th
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html
57,505
a lot more than 33k !
Duker
/ 30th April 2020Look for it yourself if you want to dispute it….really the nerve of some people who expect others to do their research.
PG puts a lot of effort in his summary’s almost allways based on very reliable sources and you want ‘official ‘ sources?
Pink David
/ 30th April 2020“The toll on the US economy also looks a bit grim: Coronavirus savages U.S. economy in first quarter; bigger hit still to come”
Coronavirus has done no such thing. This is the result of the reaction to Coronavirus, not the virus.
Blazer
/ 30th April 2020whats the difference…in reality?
Pink David
/ 30th April 2020Tens of millions of unemployed, hundreds of thousands of extra lives lost, perhaps millions, and a generation that will be much poorer in worse health.
Stay home, kill people.
Blazer
/ 30th April 2020well at least you are in Australia not NZ,and you say they are doing it better=you should be happy that you are not in NZ.
with or without C19 financial mayhem was guaranteed.
Pink David
/ 30th April 2020“you should be happy that you are not in NZ.”
I most certainly am.
Blazer
/ 30th April 2020we all..win..then.
Duker
/ 30th April 2020“hundreds of thousands of extra lives lost,”
Albsolute fabrication… do you think everyone waiting on elective surgery always makes it to theatre?
NZ is still doing urgent surgery and lots of patients are just checkups for chronic conditions.
Suddenly you notice poeple dying ..but only when it suits and then ‘imagining them’
Pink David
/ 30th April 2020Have a read. You might learn something.
That Which is Seen, and That Which is Not Seen
Frédéric Bastiat
http://bastiat.org/en/twisatwins.html
Duker
/ 30th April 2020Plenty of cranks saying all sorts of stuff on the alt-right networks you are plugged into.
We had some nutters earlier this week on about Kochs postulates and why Sars-CoV-2 doesnt exist. It was a prison psychiatrist who was their expert and Kochs Postutates were formulated before viruses were discovered and suited 1880s lab techniques.
The hand washing, social distancing and rush for flu vaccine will probably save 100s lives from the coming flu season in NZ.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th April 2020A triumph of hope over experience, PD.
Pink David
/ 30th April 2020The wind has changed. The WHO praising the Swedish approach….A country run by grown ups.
https://nypost.com/2020/04/29/who-lauds-sweden-as-model-for-resisting-coronavirus-lockdown/?utm_source=twitter_sitebuttons&utm_medium=site%20buttons&utm_campaign=site%20buttons
And now the BBC actually trying to provide context for the impact of Covid19. I might need to sit down, this is an excellent piece by Nick Triggle.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-51979654
Blazer
/ 30th April 2020here’s a takeaway…
‘There were two main findings. Firstly, the virus was the cause of the majority of deaths, not other factors.
But secondly, nine in 10 did have pre-existing illnesses, such as heart disease and respiratory problems that put them at heightened risk of death anyway.’
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th April 2020Unanswered question at present is whether the heightened susceptibility to the virus was due to the underlying condition or medication being taken for it.
artcroft
/ 30th April 2020Most interesting is this quote:
Sweden’s approach has been criticized by 2,300 academics who penned a letter last month calling for the government to reconsider its loose restrictions, Agence Frances-Press reported.
“We must establish control over the situation, we cannot head into a situation where we get complete chaos. No one has tried this route, so why should we test it first in Sweden, without informed consent?” said Cecilia Soderberg-Naucler, a professor at the Karolinska Institute.
Well NZ went into lockdown without informed consent as well, because, as media kept reminding us, this was unprecedented. Therefore everyone from expert to nincompoop was uninformed. Maybe Swedens grand high epidemiologist was just the smarter cookie.
Pink David
/ 30th April 2020That is not true. What Sweden did was straight out of the pandemic response plan. It’s been used before for flu’s and has some reasonably well established guidelines.
The drive to a total lockdown is completely new and have no basis in science.
“We’re not testing enough, we’re not tracking, we’re not isolating enough – we have let the virus loose,” said Prof Cecilia Söderberg-Nauclér, a virus immunology researcher at the Karolinska Institute. “They are leading us to catastrophe.”
It does not look like Sweden has seen the catastrophe of Ms Söderberg-Nauclér’s imagination.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th April 2020Where did NZ get it’s lockdown blueprint from? Has that ever been established?
Pink David
/ 30th April 2020China.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th April 2020Do you have a reference?
Duker
/ 30th April 2020“Where did NZ get it’s lockdown blueprint from”
1919 here in NZ , many epidemics over the years since. probably readjusted for the Sars and Swine or Bird flu epidemics
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th April 2020Reference or b.s?
Pink David
/ 30th April 2020“1919 here in NZ ”
In 1919 did all business shutdown?
Were people asked to stay at home?
Was all international travel stopped?
Were you allowed to go fishing?
Did police start roadblocks to check why people were traveling?
Pete George
/ 30th April 2020A very different situation but a lot of travel coincided with the Spanish flu pandemic. It struck here from October to December 1918, spreading rapidly at the end of WW1 as soldiers returned to countries around the world.
Nearly 8% of the Auckland population died. About 9,000 New Zealanders died. The population of the country was about 1 million.
So with limited initial information there was good reason to be very concerned about Covid-19.
https://nzhistory.govt.nz/culture/influenza-pandemic-1918
https://thespinoff.co.nz/society/04-04-2020/the-lessons-new-zealand-learned-from-spanish-flu/
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th April 2020Not disputing earlier pandemics were serious, just whether the extreme lockdown NZ implemented came from those or, much more likely, somewhere else. Could well have been Wuhan or South Korea.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th April 2020I see others are starting to ask the same questions, but not yet our useless media:
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2020/04/reddell_on_transparency.html
NOEL
/ 30th April 2020Son rang from Canberra today. Said Australia had flattened the curve and was perplexed with our measures.
Said that we also have flattened the curve but the object is flat lining now.
Reminded him that GST, petrol deregulation, power deregulation etc were all modeled out of MSD which is why we got them before Australia.
Only difference now is it’s MoH not MSD.
Been a guinea pig for so long it doesn’t really mean much.
Duker
/ 30th April 2020GST was introduced in Europe as VAT long before we had it( France 58) I think its a fantasy to think MSD were modelling power deregulation etc. That would be the Treasury ‘boffins’ who did that sort of stuff.
As for Australia…see how they are going in a month, Countries like them are sometimes hitting a second wave.
Pink David
/ 30th April 2020Pink David
/ 30th April 2020You would think someone in a political office would be aware of the linkage of Jews and spreading disease in a historical context.
How long before he rolls out the insecticide?
artcroft
/ 30th April 2020Don’t give Trump ideas.
Pink David
/ 30th April 2020Fascinating. Trump is the most pro-Jewish president in history. Why do so many seem to still need to project their own anti-semitism onto him?
It’s democrats shutting the synagogue’s and churches
It’s democrats treating worshipers with arrest if they dare follow their religion
It’s democrats aligning these religions with being the spreaders of disease
Yet you throw Trump in the ring for what reason?
Blazer
/ 30th April 2020because his admin is a…circus…haven’t you noticed?
Gezza
/ 30th April 2020That’s clearly not what he meant. Trump seriously suggested injecting disease sufferers with disinfectant & putting lights inside them or some such momentously ignorant blithering, did he not? Why would he not next hit on the idea of insecticide or x- rays or soda pop if he misunderstood any discussion where those were mentioned.
There’s no rational filter between Trump’s brain & his mouth.
Alan Wilkinson
/ 30th April 2020I actually saw that clip on the news. It didn’t show any context and he later said he was answering a question. But he was obviously just shooting the breeze for unknown reasons. You would only have taken it seriously in order to have a go at him. Doing that of course puts it on continuous replay on Lefty media and some of its suckers swallow nonsense whole – or maybe decide to use it to get rid of their husband.
Gezza
/ 30th April 2020Go and find the longer actual briefing. The context will be in that. The tv news can’t be expected to show the whole embarrassing show of Trump’s ramblings at these things & then chop up up & string together the bits and pieces that sometimes might actually approach some kind of rational link.
And you can’t get the full hilarity of his comments by reading the official White House transcripts.
Garn. Man up Al. Observe the evidence completely, on full display. As a scientist it’s something bizarre watching you try to cherry pick only the evidence that fits your Trump hypotheses & willfully exclude all the observational evidence that demolishes it.
Treat It as a free comedy show. As long as one doesn’t overdo watching them, they’s funny. They sometimes get as near to Monty Pythonesque as one could ever imagine.