What's happening in the rest of the world now?

[DaughterOfEvilReindeer]

As numbers continue to rise our media is of course focussed on the UK and I've lost track of what is happening in other countries. Are they all experiencing a rise in cases? How are they being managed?

Swedish friend in Stockholm tells me that Christmas Eve (their big day) gatherings are limited to 8, but with her, who’d otherwise be on her own, it’s going to be 9. Normally it’d be about 15.

It is mad with the mask wearing. Everywhere outside too even if you are say washing your car outside your house or out walking the dog and everyone is social distancing anyway.

Yet, we can have a gathering of 10 at home!

I'm close to the border of the TRNC. We would normally cross the border regularly but haven't been for a year or so. Can't really cross the border without tests both sides. I think their figures are not great but they have fewer restrictions than we do.

Things not particularly good in south Ontario. Cases rising.

Yes @bluetongue it is still far from normal in Melbourne. We still have to wear masks indoors in public places. It has been 8 months and has become so habitual that I found myself reaching for my mask to walk into my home office. .
I feel almost naked now that a mask is not required in the street, and miss making the occasional snarky face behind my mask that nobody can see.

HallFloor

Half We're just into summer. It's not flu time really.
Yes exactly, it's great that things are going so well and long may it last, but things were looking up here too until we got into the Autumn

We were nowhere near the situation in Australia, even during the summer. There has not been 1 day in the Uk with no new cases. Australia & NZ have controlled & eradicated community spread - we have not come close to that.
The flu season/weather is not the problem, our lax handling of it is.

Italy.

Well into second wave.

Regions are divided into colours which are assigned according to criteria such as health service infrastructure, R rate etc.

Schools are closed from age 12 upwards but nurseries, primary and first year of middle school are open. Parents have the choice to send kids in or beam them in via Meet. School attendance online is via live lessons which are obligatory.

Schools will reopen after Christmas at 75% capacity minumim so there'll be classes doing one week in one week Meet, split classes etc (like Sept/Oct)

Mask wearing obligatory outside and in shops. Depending on zone colour restaurants, bars etc can be open until 6pm, open only for takeaway, or open as usual.

There'll be a curfew over Christmas and from 20/12 no travel between regions. 25/26 no travel between towns. Also NY eve. 24/12 curfew 10pm.

I’d be interested to know vaccine timelines in rest of the World? U.K. rolling out now and I think EU will follow in Jan. China and Russia are rolling out too I think.
What about Japan, Australia and New Zealand? When do you anticipate mass vaccine roll outs? Have you bought the Pfizer vaccine? Or the Chinese one?
I read the Australian trials , uni of queensland have been abandoned and GSK in the U.K. saying delays and delays in the AstraZeneca maybe too.

Stokholm County in Sweden has 99% of its icu beds occupied according to an article I was reading. Health service is calling out for help. It's not good.

In Cyprus I think I read the government will make an announcement regarding the roll out of the vaccine within the next week or so and the programme will begin in the New year.

They rekon frontline medical workers will be first and it will be free to citizens. I also read they think we might be one of the first countries to let the UK in if people are vaccinated.

Interesting to see the Aussies describing the SA restrictions as 'minor'

OK it was a for a short firebreak time, but to us whinging poms it would be described as full lockdown slightly stricter than out lockdown 1!!

www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/nov/18/adelaide-lockdown-south-australia-covid-19-restrictions-rules-coronavirus-explained-what-you-need-to-know

@mrshoho

Stokholm County in Sweden has 99% of its icu beds occupied according to an article I was reading. Health service is calling out for help. It's not good.

Sweden is imposing restriction, as the laissez faire approach is too dangerous and having too great an impact

Belgium here. Pretty bad.
We can see one person outside our household.
People living alone can see 2 people.
Curfew from midnight to 5 am, although in most of the country it has been expended and is 10pm to 6am.
On 24th December in the evening (which is when Christmas is celebrated here), curfew from midnight to 6am. Not allowed to see any people on top of the one person mentioned above.
No easing of restrictions for New Year, curfew or contact-wise. Sale and use of fireworks is forbidden.
These rules are in place until 15 January.
It's pretty grim.
We're not even putting any decorations up. There's no point. It's so bloody depressing

Belgium ctd
Shops are open but no cinemas, theatres etc
No hairdressers or beauty salons

Ireland here. We are out of a similar lockdown to the U.K. and have the second lowest incidence of cases in the EU. Averaging between 250-350 cases a day so not as low as we had hoped but given schools stayed open I think we were never going to get down to the levels seen after 1st lockdown when everything shut.

Our number in intensive care are going up though which is worrying and pretty much everyone I know is going home to parents etc as normal for Christmas but not seeing friends so could lead to big increase in Jan or might not be too bad if people avoid friends and keep circle smaller.

[quote GlacindaTheTroll]Interesting to see the Aussies describing the SA restrictions as 'minor'

OK it was a for a short firebreak time, but to us whinging poms it would be described as full lockdown slightly stricter than out lockdown 1!!

www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/nov/18/adelaide-lockdown-south-australia-covid-19-restrictions-rules-coronavirus-explained-what-you-need-to-know[/quote]
Yes that reaction in SA was crazy to a couple of cases in a pizza shop and the guy involved had not told the truth anyway. I wouldn’t describe that as minor restrictions. That would be lockdown on steroids here and most people here would not accept it.
Although it was lifted pretty quickly when the truth came out.

@bluetongue, masks are only mandatory in healthcare settings in SA and that’s being lifted from Monday for pharmacies. Even when we had that lockdown they were strongly recommended but not mandatory.

@GlacindaTheTroll I think us in SA referring to restrictions as minor really mean it. Bar the day and a half we were not allowed out, there’s not been much upheaval.
Even with the cap on numbers in places the only thing that has directly affected me is having to wait outside my kids martial arts lessons, which should be lifted from Monday.

I think we accepted the firebreak lockdown because up until then Nicola Spurior and her team had done a great job containing it. We also seen how quickly Melbourne’s second wave escalated so didn’t want to it to happen here. We are now back to 0 active cases in SA.

** OverTheRainbow88
That’s interesting about the smoking.

I’ve walked passed smokers and occasionally wondered if I should try and avoid breathing in the smoke that’s been exhaled

At one point there was a theory that nicotine reduced the severity of symptoms and may even offer protection against catching it. I'm guessing that was debunked.**

There were quite a few articles on it weren’t there.

Anecdotally, I’m the only smoker in my family of 6 and I was the only one who didn’t catch CV when it ran rampant within our household. Despite us all being quite cramped in together and isolating for together for two weeks!

Not that I’m advocating it of course .

@HallFloor

I.e. Australia hasn't faced a second flu season yet

We had our flu season during your summer. Victoria was experiencing a Covid outbreak during the winter which they responded to with a strict lockdown. But the rest of Australia not only didn’t have a Covid outbreak but we also didn’t have the flu season that we would normally have. We had a drop in deaths in aged care because nobody got the flu, let alone Covid. The reason was the restrictions we lived under, not travelling and enforced quarantine for the limited number of arrivals that we allowed in.

We won’t be opening up to travel or allowing our citizens to holiday overseas until late 2021. So even when we hit our next flu season mid next year there shouldn’t be any virus in the population because we’re not giving it a chance to get established in the first place.

@sashagabadon

I’d be interested to know vaccine timelines in rest of the World? U.K. rolling out now and I think EU will follow in Jan. China and Russia are rolling out too I think. What about Japan, Australia and New Zealand? When do you anticipate mass vaccine roll outs? Have you bought the Pfizer vaccine? Or the Chinese one? I read the Australian trials , uni of queensland have been abandoned and GSK in the U.K. saying delays and delays in the AstraZeneca maybe too.

In NZ here. We’ve purchased the Pfizer one initially, I think it’s due here in March. I imagine anyone working at the border, health and older people will be first in line.

We’ve also purchased 5 million doses of the Janssen vaccine, which I think will be available middle of next year subject to trials.

NZ and Australia are also working with Pacific Island countries to make sure they have access to vaccines.

I guess the main difference here is that with the vaccine we will be able to slowly re-open builders to quarantine travel - not necessarily to control spread which is a more urgent need in other countries.

They’ve also upgraded our track and trace app today so that it includes an option for blue tooth tracking.

Melbourne's lockdown from July to November was brutal as a pp said. Effective as we have had no cases for 40 days but really tough. Also hard to be treated as pariahs by other parts of Australia. Am so proud of how we all got through it.
Apparently almost noone died of flu due to high uptake of flu shots and all the social distancing.

Oh yeah, we barely had a flu season in NZ too.

@sashagabadon
This is what came out today after they stopped proceeding with the Qld vaccine in Aus.

“Morrison said that as part of Australia’s strategy, we are now increasing the order for Astrazeneca vaccine, which will be manufactured here in Melbourne, to 53.8 million, enough to cover our entire population, and increasing the Novavax vaccine doses from 40 million to 51 million, which will also be enough doses enough to cover our entire population.

Last week he did mention March as a possible time to start rolling out the vaccines, but that is obviously subject to change

@mrsnec

Cyprus here. You have to wear masks everywhere.

DH got stopped the other day because you even have to wear one when other people from the same household are in the car with you. He was doing the school run.

From today were almost in lockdown again until Dec 31st. Some shops still open, my DC still at school but all hospitality industry venues, shopping Malls and sports venues etc are closed.

Cyprus were pretty strict about tourists having to have negative tests etc weren't they? Wonder what went wrong there.

[quote Takethereigns]@sashagabadon
This is what came out today after they stopped proceeding with the Qld vaccine in Aus.

“Morrison said that as part of Australia’s strategy, we are now increasing the order for Astrazeneca vaccine, which will be manufactured here in Melbourne, to 53.8 million, enough to cover our entire population, and increasing the Novavax vaccine doses from 40 million to 51 million, which will also be enough doses enough to cover our entire population.

Last week he did mention March as a possible time to start rolling out the vaccines, but that is obviously subject to change[/quote]
Thanks for info. Sounds like the AstraZeneca/ Oxford one will really be so important for a lot of the world. U.K. hasn’t approved it yet here though but hopefully they will soon. I heard on radio earlier they were looking to do trials mixing the Oxford vaccine with the Sputnik Russian vaccine to se if that produces better results. Looking for volunteers in U.K. now. Be interesting one to watch!

Yes Cyprus was very strict with tourists and people travelling in and out in general. I don't think that was our problem. We had big clusters in sports teams and food processing plants then they started testing on a bigger scale and we're at our biggest numbers ever.

I watch a lot of the UK media and I get a bit annoyed at the slating of the government there. Loads of other countries got it wrong too imho.