That is really high for Norway, which has generally been one of the world leaders in keeping Covid rates low.
It was almost exactly a year ago (while I was a visiting researcher there) that the university first closed, with the same lack of notice.
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Iâm not by any means the biggest statistics geek on the BBS, but this, to me, is meaningful.
Large confidence intervals is like the data is waving giant red flags at us. When it comes to life-and-death decisions, a large confidence interval between 6 ft and 3 ft distancing isnât telling us to choose one or the other. Itâs telling us not to have in-person school at all.
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Meanwhile, in Sweden:
https://www.thelocal.se/20210315/can-swedish-schools-send-students-home-for-wearing-face-masks/
Oops, no onebox. Last week the British International School Stockholm sent a student home for wearing a facemask. Ironically, that school had a big Covid outbreak a month ago.
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If memory serves, this freaked me out about the first round of back-to-school studies, but maybe it was something else?
Ah, no, that was, ironically, a supposedly concerning study about the AstraZenica vaccine:
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Holy shit. Just holy shit.
Also from the article (the mother of the student):
âI was fuming,â she said. âI am deeply shocked by these measures and find it unacceptable. It should be a matter of choice. I donât think one should be prevented from wearing a mask.â
Still not there. WTF is going on in Sweden?
I just took the (currently-attending-in-person-school) kid to the dentist. When told to remove his mask when alone in the room with me and the double-mask-including-an-N95-wearing hygienist, he hesitated. Iâm not sure he wonât wear the mask to school next year.
Oh yeah, and there was an antimasker with âasthmaâ when I came back to the lobby. My son learned a new word, thanks to him.
/stream of consciousness covid post
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Ironically, the mother of the student is from Switzerland, which is having its own issues with face coverings.
One thing I noticed early in the pandemic is that not only in Sweden, but also in Norway and Denmark, people living in those countries from other parts of the world generally had a sense of the virus more in keeping with their home countries. In Oslo last year if I encountered someone on the street wearing a mask it either meant that they had been in contact with someone who had tested positive or it meant that they were a fellow American. In Sweden at the same time they did approval polling of Tegnellâs policies and while an overwhelming majority of Swedes supported them, an even higher majority of people from the US and from other parts of Europe opposed them.
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Well, in the words of the anti masker referenced above, âThe whole worldâs gone stupidâ
And to answer my question:
Oh.
(Compared to the US since thatâs where Iâm at and it puts it in a frame of reference I understand.) Guys, weâve got the fix for this. 2 more months and weâve literally done the impossible. Donât be the last guy to suffer through this. And good god, donât make it a race to beat the last guy to the suffering.
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Hereâs another one for you (part of Europe* only):
I keep staring at it, and it makes no sense to me. The Norwegian spike at this time last year was because of ski trips (ditto rest of Northern Europe), but as far as I can tell that hasnât been happening this year. France has been totally locked down, and look at that increase. And how is Spain going against the run of play?
Here on Oahu weâve been averaging under 30 daily cases per million, which is really good, but I look at those European curves, note that weâre not taking any stronger precautions than they are, and worry about the potential for a massive increase.
(I edited this from âEurope onlyâ to âwestern Europe onlyâ when I noticed all of central and eastern Europe was missing, then to âpart of Europeâ when I noticed that Greece was missing. It is from a Norwegian source, I donât know how they chose their countries.)
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My entirely uninformed guess is that itâs down to fatigue. Weâre opening up (in Washington state). People are going out locally (Iâm on the pretty red east side, right against the Idaho border). And Iâve talked to several people that went out in Idaho before Washington started opening up. (All communication occurs outside, I barely go in buildings that arenât my house any more)
In places that had it bad at some point, people know people that had it and died, or have long covid, or at suffered for 2 weeks with the worst flu ever. Here, I know people who had it and âno big dealâ (one was a 20 something woman who hadnât tasted food in 3 weeks. Thatâs not a big deal?) but I know no one personally that had a rough go of it. So, meh, right?
In your graph, Italyâs high - but their awful outbreak was confined to one region in the north. Is this more broad based? Spainâs earlier spike was pretty wide spread, so in general, people are more cautious? It doesnât take much to bend the curve one way or the other. My theory canât account for Sweden.
Going into summer, itâll be easier, so fingers crossed. Really all I got.
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Kellner said other major vaccine manufacturers have ongoing or planned trials, starting with teenagers, and then moving down. This one from Moderna combines the two youngest age groups. The company is already testing its vaccine on teens.
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Iâve tried to watch a few TV shows that were filmed in France last fall. Not sure if the messaging to the public has changed, but what I saw was disturbing. It was scary, and confirmed some of the attitudes expressed by acquaintances who live there.
The host of the show was pointing out areas of interest to tourists and visiting with multiple people in the region. When they were walking along the streets, everyone in the group wore masks. Whenever they went inside, they took them off and were not distancing. I watched her shopping in boutiques, meeting with people who prepared regional dishes in their kitchens, and interviewing people sitting at outdoor cafés (some with masks, most without). Maybe the host, crew, and cooks had all been tested. However, I doubt that was true of the other shoppers wandering in the boutiques or the folks sitting in cafés and along the piers. Based on this, I am not surprised at their numbers now.
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Sail away, sail way, sail awayâŠ
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Thanks for that earworm.
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Isnât Greece part of Eastern Europe? Itâs between the former Yugoslavia and Turkey
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I go by the UN classification (WEOG), which I think bears the same relation to geography as the London underground map.
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is it possible that some of it is just noise?
i mean is there really a huge difference between 300 and 350 cases per million in france over a monthâs time?
in the graph the things that stand out are portugalâs drop, and austria and italyâs rise - but even those donât seem like gigantic changes. maybe they might be in the context of a few months, but that graph doesnât give that much range.
im not saying people shouldnât take notice, but maybe itâs reasonable to see some churn in a pandemic that has community spread and not ascribe too much to relatively short term swings
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I think the Spanish data suffers from inconsistent reporting. Clearly no reporting on weekends, then no data from 02 March to 09 March.
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Over a week or so it could be statistical variation or measurement/reporting error (like not reporting from nursing homes), but over a month it starts to look like a genuine rate increase.
In Norway theyâre taking the threefold increase in the rate seriously. When this happened last year it wasnât an artifact.
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For their sake I hope youâre wrong! I like downward slopes.
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