fransknorge

Yes I do because it says nothing of the sort. And cases in Bergamo are rising:

the810

The article literally says: "Bergamo and other provinces in Lombardy that were hit early on in the pandemic, including Lodi, where Italy�s first locally transmitted case was detected in February, are recording among the lowest daily rates in the region."

fransknorge

And ? This is unrelated to the point. They are less hit but cases are rising, despite very high infection, and officials are worried as per the screen capture above. Nothing to do with what you wrote "likely due to herd immunity".

the810

The point is that locations which had more significant first wave are doing much better during the second wave (perhaps except Spain). The situation in Lombardy proves it.

Of course, that does not mean there won't be any second wave in those places at all, but it should be on a smaller scale. Sweden is a similar case - it has an increase but it's slower than in other countries, so they actually keep dropping in the order of countries by new cases per capita (few weeks ago they've been 20th worst, now they're around 25th place).

The_Bouncer

...and there appears to be no correlation whatsoever with the strength of "preventative measures" taken. The only correlation I can see is a negative correlation with the strength of the first wave, which itself had a negative correlation with the strength of the previous winter's flu season - i.e. many places that had a severe winter flu had a mild first wave and many places that had a severe first wave are having a milder second wave. I believe this is simply down to a levelling out of all cause mortality - i.e. places where many vulnerable elderly people had already succumbed to flu didn't have as many potential victims of covid.

So if covid risk is the main concern for someone when choosing a winter getaway, then it may be a reasonable strategy to choose somewhere that had a severe first wave. Personally, I would say do what makes you happy. If that is protecting yourself from the virus, do it. If that is sitting in your apartment and virtue signalling on Facebook, do it. If that is finding the place with the most freedom and decent weather, do it. Everybody has choices.

yvrcnx

We are currently in Malta, just arrived yesterday, and are quite impressed with the measures taken. Having spent the previous 3 weeks in Germany, I have to say that Maltese people seem to be much more disciplined with regards to taking precautions, at least from what we have seen so far from walking around St. Julian and Sliema area.

Everyone is wearing a mask inside and outside on the streets.

The hotel we are staying in is serving food after it is chosen by guests during breakfast and in general it is taking precautions which make us feel very comfortable and safe.
While we felt very safe wherever we went in Germany, Malta seems to be taking it a little further.

Entry is easy if coming from a 'Green' country and while we printed out 2 different forms from the visitMalta website, only one form was collected from the airline at boarding time.

Upon arriving in Malta, temperatures were taken by just walking through a designated channel.

Weather here is currrently nice and warm, though we had a storm come through last night with a lot of rain, thunder and lightning. People are still swimming in the ocean as the water this time of year is still 'warm'.

If anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask.
We will be spending 8 days here, including 2 nights in Gozo.

Just to add; we are not into nightlife, bars etc. but restaurants, cafes are open and experience is as usual, at least from what I could experience so far.
Restaurants are supposed to close at 11pm with last order taken at 10pm.

invisible

Well.... really depends where one lives...

I�d say everyone has choices limited by local regulations.

In some places you can�t even leave the country, in others- you can leave but good luck coming back...

fransknorge

Sure, this is why Manaus. Ile de France, Bayern, Milan, NorthRhineWestphalia have no resurgence....
This is completely incorrect and so far, except for Sweden as of today (cases are rising but not death rates yet) areas with high incidence in March-April are taking hard hit today.

There is a clear correlation between measures taken, deaths and economical hits. Your theory flu/first/second wave is mumbo jumbo not supported by facts.

The_Bouncer

There is some debate about this.

https://www.thelocal.se/20200918/can...irus-mortality

Also check out the University of Cambridge study on it.

The_Bouncer

This is true, but most people in Europe at least still have the freedom to leave their country of residence - although I believe Wales has now followed Australia and North Korea in effectively banning its people from leaving.

the810

Then there is Slovakia, which does allow people to leave but only between 1:00 and 4:59 in the morning

the810

That graph doesn't say anything about meassures taken. Look at Spain, France, Italy, Belgium and other places with extreme restrictions in place (Belgium is currently the worst in Europe, by the way).

fransknorge

Of course it does: stronger measures followed by competent management (test-trace-isolate) are correlated with lower deaths.

the810

No, they are not. Look at countries I mentioned above. Your graph has no axis that would reflect meassures that were implemented, it compares deaths with economic impact, so it can hardly be a proof of whether strict meassures work or not.

The opposite is true. If we look at number of new cases in the last 14 days, countries with focus on few basic meassures (e.g. distancing) are doing better than countries with severe restrictions.

GUWonder

Actually, they do. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to chart out and appreciate the meaning of the regression line for the provided scatterplot. And if anything, the scatterplot put up by fransknorge is actually sort of useful for figuring out where to go (or not go) -- if you're allowed in -- during the winter in this year of a pandemic.

It would be interesting to see how that scatterplot overlays with a scatterplot for changes in hotel's average nightly rates by country during this pandemic period. That might be useful to land some travel bargains or other acquisitions for an even more extreme discount.