Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

Can anyone provide an update of this graph from the FT?

1 Attachment

I doubt it. Just some temporary difficulties, they'll be back at it afterwards... it's not a 'bubble', it's an actually profitable business that works by bypassing a lot of legislation, same as Uber etc. The thing that will make a difference is not Coronavirus, but governments making an effort to enforce existing laws.

Found it here
https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest

They've made it free now, which is good.

My wife is 39 weeks today. Fun time eh?

They have also recently added a cities/regions chart below it. New York and Madrid looking very bad. London is in the same state at this stage as Wuhan and Lombardia although it is maybe on a slightly slower trajectory right now (having started worse). Lombardia still bad more than 2 weeks "later" than us.

I mean normally I'd say no but Boris Johnson is in charge so...

Those charts are a bit visually misleading I think. Look at the scale on the right hand side, if that hadn't been exponential (right word?) those lines would've looked a lot grimmer

It's done to make comparisons intuitive and simpler. Not to mislead. Comparing exponential lines over time is not great.

I take your point but it’s used for a reason. I’d imagine FT readership would generally understand logarithmic format.

The UCL page has plots on linear scales. The logarithmic scale makes it easier to compare doubling rates.

Gotcha, thanks for pointing it out! I'm not great with charts, but makes much more sense now

What does 8.5 days off set mean ? And why are cases growing so slowly in Sweden?

Home birth

If you use twitter the author is worth following, answers questions and also takes on board feedback and makes adjustments
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch?lang=en

I know others have answered but the author gives his reasons here as he gets that question every time he posts a new one:
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1237748598051409921

.

why are cases growing so slowly in Sweden?

Government has cut back on testing, from what I understand?

I’ve made the decision not to work but told it’s unpaid, there’s no guarantee if/how this magical 80% will be paid and the company can’t float wages til it comes through. I’m not working as it’s the right thing to do.

If I name and shame it really wouldn’t go well for me. My boss is a law unto himself so lawyering up is pointless.
I actually have a great deal of respect for the man but we’re talking mafiso fear/respect type situation here.

Very difficult situation and I can relate. I'm a freelance chippie for a company that last week was not taking this seriously enough. Tool maintenance guy lived with two vulnerable parents, and people were eating and drinking coffee at their benches, not washing hands, used mugs everywhere etc. It was only the intervention of a mid-level site manager refusing to work that nudged the company to shut down. Money and closing contracts has been prioritised over safety and public good.

I was seriously considering contacting my MP, knowing it would mean I couldn;t work for the company again, relieved I didn't have to make that choice. Sadly it might take someone close to them to get sick or even worse for them to take this seriously.

Thanks @TW and @Acliff

I guess the main question would be 'are brokers obliged to tell lenders if you confide in them that your concern is perceived affordability' or is it moot and the case that there'll be checks even if you elect to stay with the lender (in our case Clydesdale).

So, if I voiced these concerns to current broker and said I'd prefer to stay with Clydesdale to avoid affordability checks are they obligated to tell that to Clydesdale regardless of whether I elect to proceed with them?

Was reading (in a fugue state last night) about modified affordability assessment which seemed like a silver lining (on paper at least I would fit the bill - not missed a payment / not looking to borrow more / just looking to not get forced onto a duff deal as we've had a lower income than when we applied. (We intentionally had a year or two of higher incomes to help our application but always wanted to return to lower figures to spend more time with kiddo).

And why are cases growing so slowly in Sweden?

Like mentioned before, afaik Sweden has cut down on testing as they consider the data from it to be of low value. Reading between the lines in the press we've also had a spike in cases from a few Stockholm suburbs with a large Somali population where the news hasn't come through properly due to language barriers.

So if we're only measuring the outbreak from hospital cases we've had a spike from an isolated area that doesn't match the rest of the population, hence why the curve has slowed down a bit.

I'd imagine our curve could be a bit flatter as well as we're a sparsely populated country and fairly anti-social even in the best of times. Compare this to Italy where you have a coffee at a bar on your way to work every morning and also gather several generations on a weekly basis. Good traits normally, not so much now.

Obligatory not that this ^ is just my personal take on it, it's not properly researched etc etc

The main problem with the FT chart is not the chart design - it’s the very good chance that the underlying data is crazy fuzzy

Thanks for the link!

Like mentioned before, afaik Sweden has cut down on testing as they consider the data from it to be of low value.

Is there an actual reasoning to this? I mean, I tend to be 'data driven' anyway, so I'd always rather know than not know, but how is it a bad thing to find the positive cases out there?

Unless they've basically resigned to the fact it'll spread through the whole population anyway, and just hope that for the reasons you mentioned it'll be slow enough to be fine overall... herd immunity style.

Don't know. It's just my take on things from what I've gathered in the news

Think you're right in that they're working on the assumption that we'll all get it, it's just a matter of slowing down the spread enough so the curve is more of a hill rather than a spike

I read yesterday that they're about to take a random sample from the population to see how far along on the curve we are.

Also saw some data modelled charts yesterday where they've gone through Sweden area for area and based on current data calculated how hard the hospitals will be hit. According to their calculations it should be manageable. But how they know that without large scale testing I don't know