Covid-19 virus update, 10 April

My spreadsheet from figures at Worldometer 

Good Friday! Yet marching to another grim milestone, 2 million cases and 100,000 deaths. And countries are around the world are tightening lockdowns. HK Total = 974. New = 13. One new case in DB, Case 971, F 55, Headland Drive, Imported.

ADDED: a few months ago our Royal HK Yacht Club announced that the annual China Sea Race to the Philippines, which would have taken off today, and which we have done many times in our Xena, was cancelled. At the time I remember thinking we have months to go, seems rather premature. But now? I can’t imagine it going ahead, all the crews, crowded in small boats, all the preparations, all the scrutineerimg, all the people together. We just can’t imagine that now. What seemed premature then is unimaginable now. 

Here in Discovery Bay, adults, kids, dogs, joggers, bike riders, picnickers, out in our park, no one ratting on neighbours, no police hassling people out for “unapproved shopping” trips or any of the other snitching nonsense that’s going on in other heavy lockdown countries. But our figures are better than most. 100% of people, including me, wear masks.*

I saw a guy in BBC, 38 yo, Covid survivor, talk of his ventilator experience. Sounded really horrible. After it was removed, he couldn’t talk for days, his throat was so painful. And I saw somewhere that a high number, something like 80%, iirc, don’t survive the ventilator experience. UPDATE: David Lat describes the experience on a ventilator in New York.

Writing this, listening to “David Barr — Detective” Ep 1, on BBC Radio 4 plus. A show first aired in 1980. The accents  and cadences are different even just forty years ago.”Can Detective Sergeant Dave Brook drive a wedge between two notorious crime families?”  Ep Finished (he’s still trying the wedgie),  Now a story of Seasonal apple pickers. Retirees. “Reach, pick, reach, pick, reach, pick…apples in bucket… you get in the zone…”. The retirees are remarkably cheerful. And they’re better workers than young ones. Who in any case the farmers can’t find. Fun story.  They make fifty quid a day. First aired in 2011. Carefree days … Finished. And now Heather Couper, “Cosmic Consciousness” looks at ancient Chinese cosmology and its contributions to modern astronomy. Good ol’ BBC Radio 4+. I listen on this very iPad. Works really well.

Boris out of intensive care. Will anyone ask: was he treated with Hydrochloroquine? As NIH starts trials of HCQ
And New York faces ‘silent explosion’. Where upwards of 90% of deaths have preexisting conditions. (Podcast).
Alex Lo spot on Scientific consensus vs politicised criticism. There’s an insane epidemic of China bashing to deflect criticism
Bill Gates makes more Covid-19 predictions. Good news and bad news. Remember Bill predicted a virus pandemic in 2015. He reckons: vaccine unlikely until late 2021.  But return to work and school by May.
Meantime: Ian inkster, East Asian countries have an edge in fighting the virus?
ADDED: my comment on that article at the website:

About the comparative death rates Inkster highlights: Eastern countries have done a lot more *testing* than the four western countries he quotes. That alone means their death *rates* are lower. Also, he does not include Germany, where there *has* been more testing and the death rate is below even East Asia, at 1.8%.  Deliberately ignored? Hmm?
So I don’t accept his central point that “deaths to total infections serves as a proxy for efficiency…”. It serves as proxy for the author’s confirmation bias. 

*Re masks:

Wearing masks in public has been ingrained in Hongkongers’ collective psyche since the deadly severe acute respiratory syndrome epidemic of 2003, and experts now believe the habit helped the city of 7.4 million keep its Covid-19 numbers down to 845, with four deaths as of Friday [3 April]