Indeed.  Nothing in that article makes it sound like he was in a grave condition.

It must be some kind of natural selection trait based on success in threat management: if the neighbouring tribe is rocking up to steal your crops/cattle/slaves/land then if you sit around bickering amongst yourselves about the response the outcome is usually far worse than getting behind the tribal leader - no matter how incompetent they are.

Really? It says he was close to being placed on a ventilator, so his lungs must have been struggling to oxygenate his blood sufficiently and that brings the risk of damage to key organs.

Agree, useful graph. I find this a good site to use as it gives graphs scaled per million population and linear/log scales. That 7 day average graph gives the best signal to me that lock downs may work (or at least have worked in Italy and Spain). Back of fag packet calcs:

• Italy - lockdown start 9th March, 7 day average starts to fall around 3rd April => 25 days to affect 7 day average


• Spain - lockdown start 14th March, 7 day average starts to fall around 4th April => 21 days to affect 7 day average


• UK - lockdown start 23rd March => 7 day average should start falling around 23rd March + 23 days = 14th April if the lockdown is working.

As far as I can tell Italy had its largest number of daily deaths reported on March 28th, Spain on April 3rd which (as expected) is a little before the rolling average starts to fall.

So... putting all that together if the UK is on a similar course we may see a few more days of high deaths but by the end of next week at the worst the daily count should have plateaued and started to fall. In a good scenario it may start to fall a few days earlier.

Huge number of caveats of course - that the lockdown is actually having an effect, that the reported numbers are comparable and so on.

(I am also wondering about population density and whether that is helping the US and particularly Canada. Again it may just be testing coverage though)

Thanks for analysing the graphs; I was trying earlier to gauge the same thing visually. So, somewhere between tomorrow and Thursday (21-25 days).

As you may have read here, the daily reported deaths figures are actually not the previous day's total but include all sorts of catching-up from previous days and even weeks, so the key measure actually needs to be worked out and there's potentially quite a delay before the true position becomes clear.

I think the population density point has been discussed in here a few times.  As I understand it the issue is the number of large population centres and the proportion of people living in them. Canada has several large population centres such as the GTA.  I recall someone once said to me that Canada was in reality 3,000 miles wide but only about 100 miles deep.

I hope all is well in Burlington. My father is now in a care home in Hamilton, which has been under lockdown for several weeks now.

Is the QEW a much quiet road at the moment?

Yep. rallying around the flag is a well-known phenomenon. Regarding sitting around bickering, i think that most people know what the correct response is now, indeed polling evidence actually shows that the public was ahead of the government on this. Anecdotal evidence shows me that people who disagreed with the government response actually got on and changed behaviour while it was the government who sat around unsure what to do! Interestingly last week's Opinium showed that the public thought that the government had been too slow by 63-30% but still gave them a nice big net positive rating. If evidence shows that the government was too slow and this brought very adverse consequences then will the blame turn on them as we recover from covid-19 (i doubt it). Interestingly Kier Starmer got a nice big positive rating (highest by a Labour leader since before the Iraq war) as well so maybe the public are feeling generous towards most leaders/politicians at the moment.

More spinning the narrative that 'fighter' Boris is a national hero and treasure who has looked death in the face and won.

(No doubt to be used by the right-wing nationalists to further their anti-regulation/anti-EU cause, when eyes begin to look at the deadline again)

Yep, most Canadians live within about 100km of the US border.

https://www.vox.com/2016/5/5/11584064/canada-population-map

FWIW, my info is that the peak in the worst affected areas is around this weekend, some of the lesser affected areas may be towards next weekend. Fingers crossed that the number of deaths does start to come down soon!

And the BBC constantly referring to Carrie Symonds and the baby as if its his first love and he was a virgin before he met her

Excellent post and reflects my expectations I posted earlier. I also was wondering about a correlation with population density but on looking it wasn't clear. This is probably because there are micro epicenres within regions and cities. e.g Lombardy, New York, London etc.

These are some which I found interesting all the same. In population per sq. mile.

South Korea        1339

Netherlands         1077

Belgium               974

UK                      710

Germany               603

Italy                      518     

France                  319

Spain                    241

USA                       87

Canada                  10             

Apologies for kind of repeat analysis. I missed Gandalf's above.

It's a fair point  - much of Canada isn't a great deal of use unless you are a Moose or a black fly! Agree there are huge population centers here, and no question there are big housing pressures in the GTA. However... it never feels quite as crowded as the SE of England near London. Went for a walk this evening down to the lake - probably saw 5 other groups of walkers the whole time. So it's relatively easy to stay distant from people. Queues for entering grocery stores are still relatively small. This is the suburbs though - downtown Toronto will be more of a challenge.

Best wishes to your father GtW. It's a worry with elderly relatives - I also have vulnerable relatives in the UK although luckily with family close by.

The QEW is very unused at the moment. In fact it's literally quiet - you can't hear it from our front door when usually you can hear a distant rumble (it's a couple of miles from our house). Given the usual standard of driving on the highways here, it wouldn't surprise me if this is saving lives. There's definitely a few people "hooning" in sports cars and bikes, taking advantage of the open road. So far the police appear to be taking a relaxed approach on this. Assuming there are still restrictions in place by May, the Victoria Day weekend will be the next big test. It is the traditional start of summer and a big time to really get out and about.