[Johannes]

Dear members,

a lot of uncertainty seems to be the result of the mere fact, that we still do not have exact information about the virus and its symptoms.

Some studies suggest, that many infected don’t seem to show any symptoms at all:

“Two thirds of all people who tested positive for sars-CoV-2 in Vienna were asymptomatic – i.e. had no signs of fever, cough or sore throat. This high percentage cannot yet be explained exactly.” source: https://science.orf.at/stories/3200970/

Other studies suggest that simple sunlight will rapidly inactivate it completely within seconds. (https://www.coronavirustoday.com/natural-sunlight-rapidly-inactivates-sars-cov-2-coronavirus-surfaces)

This, of course, will result in more rejection of precautionary measures or questioning the entire lockdown.

Do you have any ideas on how to approach this?

[Sandra]

Dear Johannes and colleagues,

It is truly a challenge to convince the population about isolation in case of being positive and asymptomatic or being a contact of a positive. Undoubtedly, especially in more disfavored areas, it has to be accompanied by the deployment of certain labor and social policies so that these people do not lose their jobs or their scarce economic resources. Otherwise, it will not be possible to ensure that quarantine is respected without using harsher confinements.

Are your contries developing any kind of policies to help in this cases?

Best regards,

[John]

Hey Sandra,

This is not necessarily a “big policy”, but in Austria they are trying to establish some kind of guidance-system, based on traffic lights (“Corona ampel” -Corona-traffic light).

It is supposed to be a tool for a uniform, coordinated, and transparent approach by the authorities. It informs the Austrian population about the risk in a certain region and also about the possible measures that are taken. Red meaning high risk, yellow meaning moderate clusters, green only few cases.

The government states that “Depending on the epidemic situation, the Corona traffic light enables measures to be taken for all social and economic sectors. These measures can then apply to the entire federal territory, individual federal states or districts.”

.. this is at least some kind of approach to gain control over the situation and to be more prepared than last time, not much, but kinda interesting?

If you are interested in details (and can understand German), here is the official website:

https://www.sozialministerium.at/Informationen-zum-Coronavirus/Coronavirus—Haeufig-gestellte-Fragen/FAQ–Corona-Ampel.html

[Sandra]

Thanks John!

As I can see, Austria has already implemented some “COVID Laws” right? That’s very helpful, because without those specific laws we’re having a lot of problems with regional and national competencies, and everytime a region tries to come up with some new regulations most of them are stopped because they’re against individual rights… And this is happening because no law has yet been enacted to ensure the containment measures of the covid.

This Corona traffic light is actually a good approach also for people, is easy to understand.

[Alexander]

Dear Sandra, dear John, thank you for your contributions and interesting discussion. Recently EU has published some guidelines and recommendations aiming at more unified response to COVID-19 by the member states including public health. The information can be retrieved on the website of EUR-Lex: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/content/news/Covid19.html

[Maria]

Hi all, from a social point of view, a traffic light is basically a good means of calming people down. However, if it is orange, yellow or red now, it is not really clear what I have to do as a mother or as an older person. And there is still no clear assistance here, which could cause unrest in the population.

[Johannes]

Hey Maria,

you are right – it is still quite a confusing situation. I would see the corona traffic light like many other measures: a preliminary step, which may not have been thought through completely. After all, this situation is in many ways completely new to all of us (civilians, professionals, organisations..) – so we still have to figure out what we can do better.

For now, I think it is a nice idea with potential – in the long run, something better might come along.

Stay safe!

[John]

If understand correctly, the European Union is now considering quite a similar system like Austrias Corona “traffic light” with different color coding:

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/statement_20_1871

… that’s an interesting development, right?

I am curious how it will differ from the Austrian one.

[Joachim]

Good afternoon all, here is the Covid-19 worldwide situation dashboard, now also optimized for mobile devices: https://qap.ecdc.europa.eu/public/extensions/COVID-19/COVID-19-mobile.html#global-overview-tab