Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

[Itsallaguess]

I'm just going to leave this here -



Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[redsturgeon]

Then I give you evidence from the BRI, you say maybe the North is bad after all.

Still don't think a National lockdown is the only way to stop this now?

What I try to do when I post the hospital admissions is to give an idea as to the relative trends in NHS regions. Obviously the North already had the most admissions and that has not changed, but relative to my previous post it is not.

I have some real difficulty working out what the obsession is with having the same approach to the virus across England and at the same time have it as severe as possible.

The situation does vary across the country. Whatever approach people have there is a solid argument to respond to the situation in each area. Frankly that should be on smaller areas than NHS regions. We only have access to the data at the NHS regional level.

So would you suggest local lockdown and forbidding travel out of or into locked down regions/towns?

The big issue with local measures is the constant travel in and out of high risk areas.

John

[XFool]

How?

It is quite possible to be careful about who people in vulnerable categories has contact with. Many people are doing that anyway. It may need more cash available in care homes to manage the carers to ensure that they don't infect people.

But surely all the vulnerable people and groups are not simply those in care homes? They are also distributed throughout the general community. That was implicit in my query.

[XFool]

I'm just going to leave this here -



Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Did I ever tell you about 'my' car, and it's 'optional' brakes? ("Is my car safe?")

[tjh290633]

So would you suggest local lockdown and forbidding travel out of or into locked down regions/towns?

The big issue with local measures is the constant travel in and out of high risk areas.

John

The Welsh have just done that with their border with England. For those outside high risk areas, it is relatively easy to avoid entering them. Keeping the others inside their area is more of a problem.

I recall back in the days when Wales had its pubs closed on Sundays, there was a steady stream of coaches heading over the border to English pubs on Sunday evening. On the other hand, because Wales closed half an hour later during the week, we often made a foray into Wales (Monmouthshire then, actually) to take advantage. It only took 10 minutes to get to Monmouth.

TJH

[johnhemming]

So would you suggest local lockdown and forbidding travel out of or into locked down regions/towns?

The big issue with local measures is the constant travel in and out of high risk areas.

The virus is already spread all over the country. It is not people moving in and out of high risk areas that spread it. It is spreading within areas.

[Itsallaguess]

It may be that the government are currently working 3 days behind on hospital admissions, but the last figure was 1279 for 26/10 up from 1186.

This includes quite a big jump unusually in London from 118 to 155.

Perhaps London hasn't achieved herd-immunity then, and it really was just playing catch-up from a lower-base all along...

Covid-19 is now spreading fastest in the capital, according to the latest official estimates, raising fears of a Tier 3 London lockdown.

The ‘R rate’ — the rate of spread of infection — has catapulted to a best estimate of 2.9 in London, the highest rate in the country.

Figures released today by the Department of Health and Social Care, compiled by Imperial College London and Ipsos Mori, showed the virus was growing exponentially in the week to 25 October.

It means each infected person is estimated to transmit the virus to almost three other Londoners.

However, the prevalence of coronavirus in the capital still remains lower than in other regions such as Lancashire, Manchester, Liverpool and West Yorkshire, with less than one per cent of the capital’s population infected.

The authors of the report warned: “The epidemic is now increasing most rapidly in the Midlands and South.“

“Patterns of growth rate and the age distribution of cases in the South now are similar to those observed in northern regions during the prior two rounds of this study,” they said.

https://www.cityam.com/coronavirus-london-r-rate-catapults-to-highest-in-the-country/

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[johnhemming]

Perhaps London hasn't achieved herd-immunity then, and it really was just playing catch-up from a lower-base all along...

The Herd Immunity Threshold varies depending upon how infectious the virus is. As a seasonal virus it is now more infectious than in May earlier this year.

[Itsallaguess]

Perhaps London hasn't achieved herd-immunity then, and it really was just playing catch-up from a lower-base all along...

The Herd Immunity Threshold varies depending upon how infectious the virus is. As a seasonal virus it is now more infectious than in May earlier this year.

Well I suppose a highly localised, ultra short-life, time-and-weather-limited period of herd-immunity is going to be a very difficult situation to prove ever existed in the first place then...

What with all the other 'noise' going on...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[zico]

You seem to have refined the art of delegating what you think to a wide range of mainly government appointed experts. Perhaps Lootman should also be appointed by the government. Maybe he is?

Let's hope not!

You can be rude about the abilities of others here if you wish. But I asked a serious question about your claim to know which experts are "right" and all you have done is duck, dismiss and deflect. So again, what qualifies you to know better than most here which experts are right and which are wrong? Otherwise the point that John, I and others have made still stands.

One way we can find out about which experts are "right" and which are "wrong" is to look at their track record on Covid. For example, take Karol Sikora, a cancer specialist, who has received enormous media coverage for his positive approach. Here's a piece from him, dated 2nd September, giving his expert views about how the increasing number of infections won't lead onto a high number of deaths. It's now 8 weeks on, and he's clearly been wrong, assuming 300+ deaths/day is considered a high number.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/arti ... IKORA.html

Here's an earlier one from June 2020 - paywall, but you can see the headline "Karol Sikora says Covid-19 deaths may be less than half of what have been recorded" partly because "they would have died soon anyway". We know that excess deaths are 50% greater than what's been recorded under the definition of "Dying within 28 days of positive test".
So he's wrong again.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/0 ... -recorded/

So far, experts can be classed broadly into "optimistic" and "pessimistic" camps. Since the pandemic first hit, the pessimists's predictions have been far closer to the truth than those of the optimists.

In general, it seems to me that the more optimistic people claiming to be experts have untested theories about how the virus might be not so bad in the future, whereas the more pessimistic people claiming to be experts use actual evidence rather than theories. The optimists also tend to play fast and loose with logic and statistics (which is my area of expertise).
For all our sakes, I wish the optimists were more accurate, but sadly they aren't.

[zico]

A worrying report from SAGE (produced at end-July), published by Spectator today, which has a reasonable worst-case scenario of 85,000 Covid deaths this winter.
(Note - this is a scenario, not a prediction)

The scenario assumed that it would be end-December until we saw 300 deaths/day. We're clearly currently in a worse situation than this "reasonable worst-case scenario".

The scenario modelled incidence continuing as per current trends until the end of July 2020, with all non-household contacts assumed to be constant with current levels. Incidence is then assumed to double once by the end of August 2020, and double again during the first two weeks of September. At this point, social contacts are reduced that reduce R to approximately 1, keeping infection levels steady until the end of October. Two-week doubling times return throughout November (i.e. incidence quadruples through November), after which policy measures are put in place to reduce non-household contacts to half of their normal pre-March 2020 lockdown levels, while all schools contacts are assumed to be maintained. These measures are sustained until the end of March 2021.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/cla ... e-scenario

[johnhemming]

assuming 300+ deaths/day is considered a high number.

You need to look at the date of death rather than the reporting date. Otherwise you end up with deaths being reported on a weekly cycle.

CEBM run a tracker against the original case projection from SAGE (here it is)
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/tracking- ... -19-cases/

[johnhemming]

(Note - this is a scenario, not a prediction)

What use is it then?

[zico]

(Note - this is a scenario, not a prediction)

What use is it then?

Scenarios are useful to give estimates of what happens for a range of possibilities. The idea is that decision-makers use scenarios to make decisions to get better outcomes than those in the scenarios.

I didn't fully understand the graph about daily infections and the lags, but it seems that maybe 50,000 infections didn't happen by mid-month. Vallance said 2 things on 21st September - firstly it was possible there could be 50,000 infections per day by mid-October, and secondly, this would lead to 200+ daily deaths a month after that. We're currently at 300 daily deaths, so if anything he was too optimistic about that.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54234084

[Bouleversee]

I think it is likely that some immunity will survive in a percentage of people but others will be susceptible to recurrence, much the same as other coronaviruses.

I have not seen any research papers which say that other coronaviruses have a material amount of reinfection. If you could give me a link to that I would be grateful.

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opin ... nity-67832

John

Very interesting and the following extract suggests that my question (not disingenuous claim) was not entirely stupid:

"It’s not clear whether SARS-CoV-2 will follow the same pattern as these more familiar coronaviruses—but if it does, then the idea that allowing the virus to spread in order to achieve herd immunity wouldn’t be a successful strategy."

I must get around to subscribing to The Scientist.

[Lootman]

Let's hope not!

You can be rude about the abilities of others here if you wish. But I asked a serious question about your claim to know which experts are "right" and all you have done is duck, dismiss and deflect. So again, what qualifies you to know better than most here which experts are right and which are wrong? Otherwise the point that John, I and others have made still stands.

One way we can find out about which experts are "right" and which are "wrong" is to look at their track record on Covid. For example, take Karol Sikora, a cancer specialist, who has received enormous media coverage for his positive approach. Here's a piece from him, dated 2nd September, giving his expert views about how the increasing number of infections won't lead onto a high number of deaths. It's now 8 weeks on, and he's clearly been wrong, assuming 300+ deaths/day is considered a high number.

I think that is an entirely reasonable approach to testing the validity of expert predictions. You listen to them, you hold off on judgements, and then you see who ended up being right or wrong.

Sadly the person I addressed that question to offered no such analysis, but rather just assured us that he could tell us who are the valid experts by comparing their views to "reality", which really doesn't help the discussion.

It seems odd that someone so wed to experts and their data is so reluctant to provide any data in support of his alleged superior powers of discernment,

[XFool]

(Note - this is a scenario, not a prediction)

What use is it then?

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/scenario

scenario
(sɪnɛərioʊ )
Word forms: scenarios
COUNTABLE NOUN
If you talk about a likely or possible scenario, you are talking about the way in which a situation may develop.

[johnhemming]

We're currently at 300 daily deaths, so if anything he was too optimistic about that.

This shows you the difficulty with daily deaths.

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/deaths

If you click on "data" you see the deaths by date of date (which is updated in retrospect).

As you will see by date of death there are around 200 deaths per day. Either way is a lot of tragic situations, but when looking at scenarios etc we need to know what we are talking about.

[XFool]

I think that is an entirely reasonable approach to testing the validity of expert predictions. You listen to them, you hold off on judgements, and then you see who ended up being right or wrong.

Sadly the person I addressed that question to offered no such analysis, but rather just assured us that he could tell us who are the valid experts by comparing their views to "reality", which really doesn't help the discussion.

I take it you see no difficulty there?

It seems odd that someone so wed to experts and their data is so reluctant to provide any data in support of his alleged superior powers of discernment

I won't bother commenting on your usual strawman type point.

[Lootman]

I think that is an entirely reasonable approach to testing the validity of expert predictions. You listen to them, you hold off on judgements, and then you see who ended up being right or wrong.

Sadly the person I addressed that question to offered no such analysis, but rather just assured us that he could tell us who are the valid experts by comparing their views to "reality", which really doesn't help the discussion.

I take it you see no difficulty there?

It seems odd that someone so wed to experts and their data is so reluctant to provide any data in support of his alleged superior powers of discernment

I won't bother commenting on your usual strawman type point.

That would be fine if you had actually demonstrated that your predictions were correct. But you did not.

That is not a strawman. It is a request for you to back up your claims. Zico showed you the way and opened the door for you here. What are you waiting for?