Episode 459 – All Week Battery Life – 4/30/20

2 thoughts on “Episode 459 – All Week Battery Life – 4/30/20”

1. Hello for sunny Adelaide, South Australia. Safest place in the world apparently… Been interesting here. We had the toilet paper rampage early on and then it got really quiet. Riding or driving to work was strange, like Xmas morning strange. Government has kicked in a little for businesses and unemployed. We get sick/personal leave allowances here (10-12 days a year) so companies sort out where required. food stores, hardware stores, fuel stations, schools, have been open but we’re starting to see that things are comming back to normal and the traffic and people walking past the office has really increased. Stay safe everyone, wishing you all the best.

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2. Norway here. Shutdown started when we reached around 100 confirmed cases on March 12th, which was the last day I went into work. So coming up on 7 weeks of home-office.

   As soon as the shutdown was enacted, healthcare workers were prohibited from traveling and reimbursed for any planned trips, to ensure we would not have any existing resources unavailable should the outbreak turn out to be really bad. In addition, medical students were encouraged to report for work, and their pay would not count toward income-maximums for government student loans or scholarships.

   Visits to medical facilities without prior appointment, and visits to care homes were completely banned. All businesses with close contact were shut down on literally 4 hours notice, i.e. hairdressers, tattoo parlors, massage parlors, gyms etc. Restaurants that served buffets and bars without food service were also closed down immediately, but the rules for social distancing meant that within the first week, all the restaurants were takeout/delivery only. Overnight stays outside your registered municipality were prohibited to avoid mass travel to cabins (we have one cabin per ten people in this country).

   Furloughed employees and affected businesses are getting relief. Business relief is open, as in everyone can view and search the complete list of how much they have received and what that was based on. The impact is severe still, unemployment nationwide has doubled, in part due to the oil-price crash as we are still a heavily petroleum-based economy.

   The shutdown was severe, but so far it appears that things went pretty well.

   By April 6th we had an R number around 0.7, and for the past week there have been very few deaths (0-4 per day) with our total deaths being 210. We count deaths outside hospitals, test deceased persons for the virus post-mortem without prior diagnosis etc. so the number is fairly solid. Our ventilator capacity peaked at around 1/7th of what was available.

   Based on the results after a month, the government announced that the shutdown would be gradually loosened in stages.

   On April 20th, kindergartens reopened with limited hours and capacity, to allow more people to work effectively from their offices or homes. On April 27th, schools reopened grades 1 through 4 with he same aim.

   We are still only two weeks into the gradual reopening, so too early to tell, but we are not seeing an increase in cases. And we are testing a lot of people now.

   Testing was intense at the beginning of the shutdown, with some days nearing 10k per day, which for a country of 5 million is very high. The goal was to figure out the scale of the problem quickly. A couple of weeks in, testing was reduced to those with severe symptoms only. But this has since ramped back up, with some cities now having walk-in testing facilities.

   I was able to get tested at home within 4 hours of talking to my doctor on the phone. A team showed up on my doorstep and gave me the test (which was negative, as notified within 2 days, and free of cost).

   A contact tracing app has rolled out, and all municipalities have been told to be ready to test *everyone* with symptoms within the second week of May. The aim is to have a test capacity around 3-500k per week by summer.

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