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In the UK, the Office for National Statistics has issued its second weekly report on deaths in England and Wales where the death certificate mentions Covid-19 as a factor. The report includes an analysis by a senior statistician...

It was reported that Johnson was tested negative for Coronavirus before his discharge from hospital. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/coronavirus-boris-johnson-takes-time-off-after-testing-negative-vssgm7229 It emerged today that Mr Johnson tested negative for Covid-19 before he left St...

There was an article in yesterday's Daily Telegraph in the UK (11 April) by the paper's China correspondent, Sophia Yan, who recently visited Wuhan. The article is paywalled, but I screencapped a couple of pages: Of course, this is 'anecdotal', but consistent with some previous reports.

To add to my previous comment, there is a relevant discussion by Stephen Hawking in a somewhat obscure and unexpected place. The logician Kurt Gödel (incidentally a close friend of Einstein at Princeton) wrote a few papers on General Relativity. These are included in the OUP collected edition...

Coincidentally, I've been thinking about writing a post (or several posts) about the question: are the Ptolemaic (geocentric) and Copernican (heliocentric) systems of the universe equally valid, in view of General Relativity? Short answer: no. Long answer: maybe later. Einstein and other...

In the UK there are also reports of disproportionate impact on some ethnic groups. Anecdotally, it has been suggested that elderly South Asians (i.e. mainly people of Indian, Pakistani, and Bangladeshi origins) are more likely to be infected because they often live with younger generations of...

The Office for National Statistics in the UK has just released its latest weekly bulletin on death registrations, for the week up to 27 March, including a discussion of COVID-19 cases...

For people trying to follow and compare international statistics, I note that the latest daily update from the UK Department of Heath includes a note explaining what is and isn't covered by the death figures. As noted previously, with a few exceptions they cover only people dying in hospital...

The 'Bill' is already law, as the Coronavirus Act 2020. The Bill was introduced to Parliament on 19 March and received the Royal Assent (the final stage in the process) on 25 March. As pointed out in the guidance notes, different parts of the Act may be brought into effect at different times...

Rory: The figures from Austria are also interesting. 'Daily new cases' seem to have peaked within about 3 weeks of the first reported case. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/austria/ I don't know what the Austrians were doing at this time, but it may be that they succeeded...

I was puzzled by this question myself a month or so ago. Intuitively it seemed (to me, anyway) that if the sun rises in the east and goes down in the west, it cannot follow a straight line path throughout the day: it must either have an angular change of direction in the centre, or more likely...

I have noticed several media reports on this subject, but refrained from commenting here as the media concerned (Fox News, Daily Mail, Voice of America, etc) might not be considered reliable. I don't think Time magazine is quite such a dubious source, so I will give a link to an article here...

Well, thanks for that! I'm not surprised, though. Even when hypertension is brought under control, it often does some irreversible damage before it is diagnosed. Also, whatever physical or physiological conditions underlie the hypertension may persist despite the treatment. And there is even...

Diabetes and hypertension (high blood pressure) are both common, in most countries, and the prevalence increases with age. In the whole adult population, the proportion is over 10% for diabetes and over 20% for hypertension, and therefore higher than this for the older age groups. (With...

Mendel: According to the Japanese/Bloomberg press article: I don't know if this is correct, I am just reporting it. On both occasions, if the article is correct, the WHO wanted to send a team to the most relevant area (Guangdong in 2003, Hubei/Wuhan now) and on both occasions the request...

Your experience appears to conflict with this Japanese press report, by a Bloomberg reporter, which says that China has refused to allow experts from the WHO to visit Hubei and Wuhan: The article also states that China similarly refused or delayed co-operation in the 2003 SARS epidemic, and...

I agree the evidence, by itself, is not strong enough for accusations, but it should at least raise suspicions. My concern is that we should not put too much weight on the official Chinese data in making epidemiological predictions, let alone policy. Yet that is precisely what some people seem...

Looking at that remarkable curve for Hubei (China) in post #101 above, I think we should note that even inside China doubts have been publicly expressed about the official figures. Today's UK Sunday Times (sorry, paywalled), page 19, reports that [Mod add]...

Thanks. That's very helpful. I didn't know the word 'Meldeweg', so I didn't notice the relevance of that question.

I previously raised a question as to why the COVID-19 death rate in Germany (deaths as a proportion of infections) is so low compared to that in other large European countries (France, Italy, Spain, UK). I wondered whether the German authorities are using a narrower definition of COVID-related...