Coronavirus cases are rising in Germany again just days after it relaxed its national lockdown

[applegrove]

Coronavirus cases are rising in Germany again just days after it relaxed its national lockdown

Adam Bienkov at Business Insider

https://www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-cases-in-germany-rise-after-lockdown-restrictions-end-2020-5

"SNIP......


Coronavirus cases have begun to rise in Germany again just days after the country's national lockdown was loosened.

Chancellor Angela Merkel announced on Wednesday that schools and shops would re-open.

However, the number of cases is beginning to rise again, according to the latest official data.

The reproduction rate for the virus has risen to an estimated R-value of 1.1, risking exponential growth.

Merkel has pledged to reimpose lockdown restrictions if the virus makes a comeback

......SNIP"

[Igel]

1. That. And this.

The RKI cautioned that it was too soon to draw conclusions but said the number of new infections "would need to be watched very closely in the coming days".

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-05-german-virus-infections-spurs.html

Both are accurate. Leaving out either skews the inferencing.

The difficulty is that the R0 increase isn't based on anything general, but a few large incidents. R0 is a measure of community spread and assumes something fairly average is being measured.

Once gave a quiz. Next day I told the class that the average grade was 50. Students moaned. Then I said the standard deviation was 50. And the kids getting As in statistics cracked up laughing. Lots of 0s and 10s, lots of 90s and 100s. No actual 50. Heck, nothing from 20-80. The mean was completely meaningless. Some averages are like that.

Then there's

There are several reasons to handle these figures with caution. The R number is an estimate that deliberately ignores lag-prone data from the last three days and backdates known cases to their likely day of infection, around a week earlier.

Rising R numbers over the weekend therefore do not indicate how the spread of the virus developed following this week’s lockdown relaxation, though it could account for a new mood in the country following the first step of relaxation on 20 April.

The RKI itself urged caution on the latest R number – since new infections in Germany have dropped to relatively low figures, it said, the estimate was more prone to statistical fluctuations.

Other mathematicians analysing the spread of the pandemic also believe they are witnessing a new dynamic, however. “There are signs that the reproduction number is going back up again,” said Prof Thomas Hotz of Technische Universität Ilmenau, which has used a differently weighted model. Hotz added: “And if you see how people have started acting in the big cities, it doesn’t completely surprise me.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/10/fears-rise-in-germany-over-second-wave-of-coronavirus-infections

[applegrove]

2. The science is beyond me. I trust Germany though. nt

[TreasonousBastard]

3. If it takes 2 weeks for it to take hold, what is significant about a surge 2 days after loosening?

[applegrove]

4. That it was still climbing and not flattening the curve when they started

opening up. Means all the models need to be adjusted. And maybe the opening.

[JI7]

5. And that is a place where they have made a national effort to try to deal with this