When do you think virus-related disruptions will end?

[Searcaigh]

Does it look like GIGO? If yes, Malaysia government has been providing garbage data

I also question the data provided by some governments in the region where I live. While some are going all out to maximise testing others appear to not be doing very much. We've had pretty strict lock-downs in UAE and a few countries and I'm sure that has been effective to some degree.

Personally as yet I haven't been tested, however following a senior management meeting in our company yesterday, it has been proposed that before a partial return to the office, all staff will be tested using an antibody test.

If negative for the antibody test (i.e. no exposure to Covid-19) a PCR test for the virus will be done, and if this test is negative, the person will be retested on a weekly basis until it is recognised that the country is no longer a risk for Covid-19.

Positive result by PCR of course will mean the person will be quarantined or hospitalised depending on their clinical condition.

We've had many staff working at our plants and HQ in Spain test positive with one death, but the numbers remain in double figures only. Of our US staff, numbers are in double figures with no deaths reported, and in all of our ROW offices, including ME, China and SE Asia, we have no positive cases reported yet. Our total staff >24,000.

I believe the company I work for was very quick to react to this pandemic as the senior management recognised early on what was happening, and we closed our offices at the beginning of March with everyone working from home except those at our production plants. We are a medical company and closely involved with this pandemic.

The countries in the Middle East, in particular the Gulf closed their borders by mid-March, and I have not seen any plans for re-opening yet, although rumour has it that Emirates plan to re-start passenger flights by mid-July. However, there will have to be agreements made between countries to accept passengers from other countries before these flights will resume.

Given that Dubai is a major hub for travel between several continents, this is going to be very challenging not only for the airline, but also for the staff who work there (Duty Free, lounges, etc.), and I'm not sure how comfortable I will be entering a giant metal tube, with a hundred or so strangers from who knows where, for several hours.

 

[Mod63]

I believe there are insufficient tests available in almost all western countries. The supply cannot keep up with demand.

Definately no longer true for Germany, were up to 890k tests are now possible each week (with sufficient testing material on stock) and tests peaked at 470k last week.

 

[BRT]

Of course we are in the second wave. the first wave was purely in China, and was already ending when the second wave started here in Italy, South Korea and Iran. Many other waves will follow. Have you seen the model developed by the Imperial College in London? This is not a stupid data-driven mathematical model (based on a theoretical formula and ignoring the real phenomena), this is a true epidemiological model, which predicts the necessity of a long alternance of lock-downs and openings:
https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/im...-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf
View attachment 583657
However, also this model has an high uncertainty, as the authors write clearly, and the behaviour of this specific epidemic seems quite anomalous and difficult to predict even with the better epidemiological models.
Hence the question "When do you think virus-related disruptions will end?" is actually very difficult to answer, we are yet in a field of almost pure speculation. I think that a reasonable model can be trusted only when it will demonstrate capable of predicting the complete up and down of both the first and the second wave, then we can thrust it for the following waves (hopefully smaller at each peak). What is particularly difficult to predict is the effect of each single distancing measure, and how they will interact.
Just an example: starting on the next Monday 4th May, Italy will re-open a number of production plants and factories. But not schools or kindergardens. In families where both parents work, they will need to have someone taking care of their children, and in many case it will be a job for the grandparents. This way, the elderly people, those most at risk for the virus, will be in strict contact with children, which are the most powerful symptom-less transmitters.
This will certainly cause a second wave of infections, but currently epidemiological models seems to show that this is not as bad as also reopening schools...

Does Italy have the resources to shut the economy down most of the time for the next 2 years?

 

[BRT]

I also question the data provided by some governments in the region where I live. While some are going all out to maximise testing others appear to not be doing very much. We've had pretty strict lock-downs in UAE and a few countries and I'm sure that has been effective to some degree.

Personally as yet I haven't been tested, however following a senior management meeting in our company yesterday, it has been proposed that before a partial return to the office, all staff will be tested using an antibody test.

If negative for the antibody test (i.e. no exposure to Covid-19) a PCR test for the virus will be done, and if this test is negative, the person will be retested on a weekly basis until it is recognised that the country is no longer a risk for Covid-19.

Positive result by PCR of course will mean the person will be quarantined or hospitalised depending on their clinical condition.

We've had many staff working at our plants and HQ in Spain test positive with one death, but the numbers remain in double figures only. Of our US staff, numbers are in double figures with no deaths reported, and in all of our ROW offices, including ME, China and SE Asia, we have no positive cases reported yet. Our total staff >24,000.

I believe the company I work for was very quick to react to this pandemic as the senior management recognised early on what was happening, and we closed our offices at the beginning of March with everyone working from home except those at our production plants. We are a medical company and closely involved with this pandemic.

The countries in the Middle East, in particular the Gulf closed their borders by mid-March, and I have not seen any plans for re-opening yet, although rumour has it that Emirates plan to re-start passenger flights by mid-July. However, there will have to be agreements made between countries to accept passengers from other countries before these flights will resume.

Given that Dubai is a major hub for travel between several continents, this is going to be very challenging not only for the airline, but also for the staff who work there (Duty Free, lounges, etc.), and I'm not sure how comfortable I will be entering a giant metal tube, with a hundred or so strangers from who knows where, for several hours.

3-6 million tests a week?

 

[Angelo Farina]

The testing plan described by @Sarcaigh is what would be required everywhere, for the whole population. This means a capability of repeating the test (immunologic or PCR) on every citizen once per week.
Even Germany, which is, together with South Korea, among the countries better equipped of testing capabilities, is far from this testing capability. If it is true that they can make 890k tests per week, this covers only 1% of Germany's population, which means testing everyone every 100 weeks...

 

[Angelo Farina]

Does Italy have the resources to shut the economy down most of the time for the next 2 years?

The problem is not Italy, the problem is everywhere. Italy simply started 2 weeks before other countries, but the epidemic patterns are more or less the same everywhere.
It is useful for other countries to see if the measures taken here are working or not for avoiding the same errors (we made many errors in the first weeks, underestimating the problem and continuing with large aggregations such as sport events, etc.).
I really hope that our errors are not repeated everywhere, both delaying the lock-down, or not managing properly the reopening.
I am not so much worried of the economic impact of the lockdown, I am much more worried of the economic impact of an uncontrolled pandemic, which would make it impossible to restart.
If all the world collapses, our capability of selling luxury goods, food and wine, sport cars, clothes and shoes, artwork, and all the nice thing which sustain Italian economy (included tourism, of course) will be cancelled for decades...

 

[Umuntu]

Definately no longer true for Germany, were up to 890k tests are now possible each week (with sufficient testing material on stock) and tests peaked at 470k last week.

It seems like Germany has been in the same position as the rest of Europe and is quickly ramping up its production of tests.

Now the challenge is to ramp up the testing infrastructure to catch up with the testing capacity ...

 

[Mod63]

It seems like Germany has been in the same position as the rest of Europe and is quickly ramping up its production of tests.
Now the challenge is to ramp up the testing infrastructure to catch up with the testing capacity ...

Not even that, at most testing stations the number of "customers" has dropped. RKI has just relaxed the guidelines on who to test to widen the net and most states in Germany start routine testing of care workers and their charges as well medical personell and patientes, even if there is no indication that they might be infected.
Personally I think that at the end of May we will be in a position to switch the focus from mitigation back to containment. Fingers crossed.

 

[Searcaigh]

It seems like Germany has been in the same position as the rest of Europe and is quickly ramping up its production of tests.

And don't forget that the tests used in the EU need to carry a CE mark, (and not the CE mark on the tests coming from China - China Export), just as the tests done in the US must be FDA approved.

There are many tests manufactured in other countries that carry neither a CE mark nor are FDA approved, (both approvals take time), and China is leading the pack.

Saudi Arabia signs $265m China deal to ramp up Covid-19 testing

 

[Dan]

The countries in the Middle East, in particular the Gulf closed their borders by mid-March, and I have not seen any plans for re-opening yet, although rumour has it that Emirates plan to re-start passenger flights by mid-July. However, there will have to be agreements made between countries to accept passengers from other countries before these flights will resume.

Just got email from United CCO (Chief Customer Officer) mentioning their new normal operation will be having empty middle seat, requiring all flight attendant to wear mask, and in early May, making masks available to their customers. These measures are in addition to their "state of the art" sanitation procedures like cleaning their aircraft with their electrostatic sprayers, and extra precautions like taking their employees' temperatures before they start work.