Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

[johnhemming]

e.g. ridiculous assertions of lockdowns in the UK always being just too late to affect anything? Eh?

Because there is evidence it is reasonable to be certain about this. In any event although the further restrictions (lockdowns) won't change the peak they may accelerate the decline).

[johnhemming]

In any event we don't really care about asymptomatic infections.

Is it March 2020 again?

Surely we care enormously about asymptomatic infections because they transmit infection unknowingly.

We only care about the asymptomatic infections to the extent that they create symptomatic infection. Hence we don't really care about them as long as they do not create symptomatic infection. Hence we can monitor symptomatic infection to determine the size of the problem and if the ratio shifts that does not matter.

[88V8]

I think it is deeply unhelpful of the BBC in their article to say vitamin D "helps to keep bones, teeth and muscles healthy" .
Vitamin D is being sent out because there is good evidence that low vitamin D levels compromise the immune system's ability to fight off SARS-CoV-2.

I heard that on the wireless this morning, and yes it did seem daft.

I have emailed WATO asking them to correct the statement.

V8

[spasmodicus]

In the USA nearly all commercially produced pasteurized milk is fortified with 100 international units of Vitamin D per 8-ounce cup. Judging by the covid death rate in the USA, this amount is too small to have had any obvious effect on immune response/ resistance to the virus. It seems that Sweden also decided to fortify its milk. The political wrangles that resulted from this are explained here
https://www.nutraingredients.com/Article/2016/08/04/100-of-milk-in-Sweden-to-be-fortified-with-vitamin-D

One can only imagine the uproar that would result from any suggestion of doing this in the UK. judging by anti vax stories and historical controversy about flouridization of water supplies etc.

The percentage of the covid vulnerable that would actually bother to take vit D tablets even if they were dished out for free is another question.

S

[johnhemming]

100iu is so little d3 you might as well not bother. I normally take 3,000iu a day. People have been known to take doses of 500,000 on a one off loading basis.

Our health service recommend 400 iu and Germany 800. I do think this is too little, but I don't think it should be made compulsory.

It is possible to overdose on Vitamin D, but it takes a lot.

This case
https://www.webmd.com/vitamins-and-supp ... disastrous

Involved about 10,000 per day. However, he was also sunbathing. My view is that if people are sunbathing (with adequate exposure to UVB) they should not need to supplement vitamin d. However, it will always vary from person to person.

[johnhemming]

I am too late to edit the above post, but wanted to add this (I had to go out to sort out a family issue):

This is an interesting study
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6158375/

Later observations of VDT came from the United States, where hypervitaminosis D in eight patients was associated with drinking vitamin D–fortified milk. An analysis of the milk produced at a local dairy revealed excessive vitamin D fortification of up to 232,565 IU per quart instead of the standard 400 IU per quart (14). As a result of that incident, local government agencies around the world prohibited the fortification of milk and alerted physicians to the potential of VDT—a concern that persists to this day

VDT - vitamin D toxicity.

Those findings were consistent with the observation by Ekwaru et al. (17) that Canadian adults who ingested up to 20,000 IU of vitamin D3 per day had a significant increase of 25(OH)D concentrations, up to 60 ng/ml (150 nmol/l), but without any evidence of toxicity.

[zico]

Given that "we are where we are" I actually think the government has (finally!) made some good decisions about controlling the pandemic. The tiers are comparatively simple and make sense (obviously London would never be put into Tier 3 whatever the evidence, because the great and good want to go out to nice restaurants) and government has dropped its previous cunning plan of causing delays by endless haggling with various cities about exactly what measures would be done locally and falling out over £5m differences in negotiations.

The "5 Christmas days to kill granny" is obviously not supported by SAGE and will inevitably lead to more deaths, but the media has got everyone worked up about Christmas being a uniquely sacred occasion to hug grandparents and get money and gifts from them (which can't possibly be done any other time of year), so it would be difficult for government to go against the flow, and (more importantly as far as they're concerned, they'd lose popularity).

However, it may not be as bad as SAGE expects, because families will know that if they have a big family get-together across all the generations, any of them subsquently getting Covid will have got it from their get-together. So it wouldn't be a case of their actions affecting people they don't know, but their immediate family being the ones at risk. Maybe people won't be so blase about extra deaths being a small price to pay for socialing when it comes to potentially causing deaths of their loved ones. Also, it's a much more ethically acceptable choice if people say "we're so keen on exercising our freedoms we're willing to risk disease and death in our family" because there is less knock-on effect for strangers who chose not to take those risks.

I'd really like to see the government pushing the idea of an alternative date to Christmas, perhaps early February, which is a pretty miserable time of year anyway, by which time (assuming vaccination competence) could be a time when all our most vulnerable citizens have received the vaccine. This would also help to reduce potential overcrowding on public transport and in shops before and around Christmas. We could call it the "Freedom Festival", "Bounce Back Britain" or somesuch.

[XFool]

I'd really like to see the government pushing the idea of an alternative date to Christmas, perhaps early February, which is a pretty miserable time of year anyway, by which time (assuming vaccination competence) could be a time when all our most vulnerable citizens have received the vaccine. This would also help to reduce potential overcrowding on public transport and in shops before and around Christmas. We could call it the "Freedom Festival", "Bounce Back Britain" or somesuch.

Um... But can't you just see the headlines: "SAGE - The Grinch That Stole Xmas"

Though, if we did drop Christmas as a public holiday, we could substitute with a New Year's celebration instead. Especially if we temporarily reverted to the 'Old Style' calendar we could have it on old Lady Day, now 6th April, and 'Party like it's 1299!'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Day#Non-religious_significance

[zico]

Um... But can't you just see the headlines: "SAGE - The Grinch That Stole Xmas"

Though, if we did drop Christmas as a public holiday, we could substitute with a New Year's celebration instead. Especially if we temporarily reverted to the 'Old Style' calendar we could have it on old Lady Day, now 6th April, and 'Party like it's 1299!'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Day#Non-religious_significance

It wouldn't be in place of Christmas, it would be additional, just as a way to encourage people to defer Christmas in favour of the second holiday.

[Lootman]

Um... But can't you just see the headlines: "SAGE - The Grinch That Stole Xmas"

Though, if we did drop Christmas as a public holiday, we could substitute with a New Year's celebration instead. Especially if we temporarily reverted to the 'Old Style' calendar we could have it on old Lady Day, now 6th April, and 'Party like it's 1299!'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_Day#Non-religious_significance

It wouldn't be in place of Christmas, it would be additional, just as a way to encourage people to defer Christmas in favour of the second holiday.

Which is what the Americans do by splitting what we think of as Christmas between Christmas (gifts, decorations, religion) and Thanksgiving (family, turkey).

So UK Thanksgiving in February? Make it a bank holiday, of course. And not a Thursday.

[zico]

What's wrong with Thursday?

[Lootman]

What's wrong with Thursday?

It's annoying to have to go back to work just for a Friday. Which is why most bank holidays that are not specific to a date are on Mondays.

England has three date-specific holidays: Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year's Day.

The US has two of those plus July 4th, then Thanksgiving is always the 4th Thursday in November, Columbus Day (October 12th) and Veterans' Day (November 11th), although those latter two are not universally observed.

[bungeejumper]

What's wrong with Thursday?

[88V8]

In case you didn't catch it, the first episode of How to Vaccinate the World presented by Time Harford is still available on BBC Sounds
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p08ycnc5 as is the second episode.

Next one 1130h Monday on R4.

Tim Harford, always worth a listen.

V8

[XFool]

Working in the NHS, it doesn't feel like any end to Covid is in sight

The Guardian

The news about a vaccine doesn’t feel real to stressed and exhausted hospital staff, says a consultant

[XFool]

Nearly a third of English hospital trusts exceed first peak of Covid patients

The Guardian

Scientists warn that scrapping or relaxing tier system too quickly could imperil NHS

[Nimrod103]

Nearly a third of English hospital trusts exceed first peak of Covid patients

The Guardian

Scientists warn that scrapping or relaxing tier system too quickly could imperil NHS

But presumably hospitalizations due to flu (and consequent pneumonia) are very low this winter, so far? Nor does it say how hospitalizations compare to a normal winter.
ANd seeing how this 'second' wave of Covid infection is affecting the north and Midlands much worse than the first wave, it is not unexpected that the 'second' wave of hospitalizations should be worse in those areas.
The nheadline is a bit alarmist methinks.

[redsturgeon]

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus- ... rSort=desc

Just been playing around with this data set and it provides a very useful quick and easy way of comparing the profiles of different countries in terms of daily cases per million.

For instance here I have added the UK, USA, Germany and Sweden. Interesting to see the different shapes of the graphs but there are many ways to quickly sort the data.

John

[Eboli]

XFool wrote:

Nearly a third of English hospital trusts exceed first peak of Covid patients

I just don't buy this. Despite the normal cautions over behavioural changes this is certainly not borne out by

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... 20wk47.pdf

The latest bulletin.

PCR testing is well known for predicting pseudo-epidemics by false positive testing (the experience of Swine Flu being one well known example). I would be very interested to know how statisticians would interpret following the LF testing in Liverpool to the earlier date from that city.

Eb

[servodude]

PCR testing is well known for predicting pseudo-epidemics by false positive testing

I'd be very interested in your explanation of the false positive results screwing up the figures in NZ and Australia
- you can use diagrams if it helps
Thanks

-sd