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Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

The home for all non-political Coronavirus (Covid-19) discussions on The Lemon Fool
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This is the home for all non-political Coronavirus (Covid-19) discussions on The Lemon Fool
XFool
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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#443362

Postby XFool » September 18th, 2021, 5:56 pm

Bouleversee wrote:X-fool said:

"I have recently concluded that, in general, possession of a strong ideological belief system is pretty well guaranteed to lower a person's IQ by at least 99 points."

Not the other way round?

No, definitely not!

Though I am not entirely clear exactly what you mean, it feels a mite ambiguous.

Do you mean:

The absence of a strong ideological belief system... (will) lower a person's IQ by at least 99 points?

Or

The possession of a strong ideological belief system... (will) raise a person's IQ by at least 99 points?

Or

Is this an IQ test? Or ideological belief system test?

In which case, I appear to have failed...

XFool
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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#443363

Postby XFool » September 18th, 2021, 6:00 pm

Bouleversee wrote:I had my 2nd Pfizer jab in March and am due to have a flu jab on 6 October at my local Lloyds pharmacy, at their invitation. Although pretty ancient and clinically highly vulnerable, I have heard nothing from the practice or NHS about a booster. I never hear from them about flu jabs either and have to paddle my own canoe. Whether Lloyds offers the Pfizer booster remains to be seen.

Strange. I was invited via my GP, by text, to have a flu vaccine. I had it last Saturday. So far no message wrt COVID booster appointment, but this is expected as I am not the first in line.

Are you registered with your GP for text messages?

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#443368

Postby tjh290633 » September 18th, 2021, 6:08 pm

XFool wrote:Strange. I was invited via my GP, by text, to have a flu vaccine. I had it last Saturday. So far no message wrt COVID booster appointment, but this is expected as I am not the first in line.

Are you registered with your GP for text messages?

I had a similar message from my GP on Thursday, with a link that goes nowhere. Also Email about Covid Booster jabs, both basically saying: Don't call us, we will call you.

TJH

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#443369

Postby pje16 » September 18th, 2021, 6:08 pm

I got offered the flu jab by my pharmacy - they happen to be next door to my doctors but are separate businesses
My 2nd job was in April so hoping I hear something form either of them next month

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#443406

Postby Bouleversee » September 18th, 2021, 9:21 pm

XFool wrote:
Bouleversee wrote:X-fool said:

"I have recently concluded that, in general, possession of a strong ideological belief system is pretty well guaranteed to lower a person's IQ by at least 99 points."

Not the other way round?

No, definitely not!

Though I am not entirely clear exactly what you mean, it feels a mite ambiguous.

Do you mean:

The absence of a strong ideological belief system... (will) lower a person's IQ by at least 99 points?

Or

The possession of a strong ideological belief system... (will) raise a person's IQ by at least 99 points?

Or

Is this an IQ test? Or ideological belief system test?

In which case, I appear to have failed...


I was merely suggesting that perhaps a lower IQ results in a strong (and possibly misguided) ideological belief system rather than the latter resulting in the former. (I don't see how a belief could lower one's IQ. End of.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#443409

Postby Bouleversee » September 18th, 2021, 9:24 pm

XFool wrote:
Bouleversee wrote:I had my 2nd Pfizer jab in March and am due to have a flu jab on 6 October at my local Lloyds pharmacy, at their invitation. Although pretty ancient and clinically highly vulnerable, I have heard nothing from the practice or NHS about a booster. I never hear from them about flu jabs either and have to paddle my own canoe. Whether Lloyds offers the Pfizer booster remains to be seen.

Strange. I was invited via my GP, by text, to have a flu vaccine. I had it last Saturday. So far no message wrt COVID booster appointment, but this is expected as I am not the first in line.

Are you registered with your GP for text messages?


No. I don't use a mobile and don't text (far too slow for me). They have my email address but seem reluctant to use that. Can't understand why but past caring.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#443532

Postby vrdiver » September 19th, 2021, 11:44 am

For a while now, we've been aware that the link between cases and deaths has been broken, or at least changing too fast to make historic numbers useful predictors of future trends. Many of us have started to rely on hospitalisation data as a better indicator of how this pandemic is progressing, at least in the UK.

I just read an article in The Atlantic* that points out that hospitalisation data is just as fraught with interpretation issues, as covid becomes more prevalent amongst the general population, more and more patients admitted to hospital will test positive for the visus, regardless of the reason for their admission. The article goes on to suggest that a better measure might be to track patients on oxygen, or with low blood oxygen levels.

The reason for my post is to raise a concern that, as winter approaches and the NHS workload increases for all the usual reasons, I fear we are going to see policy made based on covid prevalence in patients, regardless of symptoms.

Saying the NHS is overwhelmed, but not because of Covid19 may be an inconvenient truth too far?

VRD

* https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/09/covid-hospitalization-numbers-can-be-misleading/620062/

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#443626

Postby 9873210 » September 19th, 2021, 5:14 pm

vrdiver wrote:For a while now, we've been aware that the link between cases and deaths has been broken, or at least changing too fast to make historic numbers useful predictors of future trends. Many of us have started to rely on hospitalisation data as a better indicator of how this pandemic is progressing, at least in the UK.

I just read an article in The Atlantic* that points out that hospitalisation data is just as fraught with interpretation issues, as covid becomes more prevalent amongst the general population, more and more patients admitted to hospital will test positive for the virus, regardless of the reason for their admission. The article goes on to suggest that a better measure might be to track patients on oxygen, or with low blood oxygen levels.

The reason for my post is to raise a concern that, as winter approaches and the NHS workload increases for all the usual reasons, I fear we are going to see policy made based on covid prevalence in patients, regardless of symptoms.

Saying the NHS is overwhelmed, but not because of Covid19 may be an inconvenient truth too far?

VRD

* https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/09/covid-hospitalization-numbers-can-be-misleading/620062/


If you look at the graphs of cases, hospitalization and deaths it is clear that the link between numbers of cases and hospitalization has also been broken. Albeit by factors of 2 rather than the factors of 10 for deaths/cases.

Deaths and hospitalizations are not simply proxies for the progress of the pandemic. They are measures of pain and suffering, things we care about.* Deaths and hospitalizations are a large part of the pandemic. If we are not talking about deaths or hospitalizations it's probably a lesser problem.

Deaths will always be an important metric. Lower deaths are good, not because they are proxy but because fewer people are dying.

Hospitalization is, as you say, an imperfect measure of suffering. Hospitalization, unlike death, is always optional (for somebody, not necessarily the patient) and standards change over time. Hospitalization are also an imperfect measure of efforts to control covid. There may be better metrics for both of these, but hospitalizations remains important.

When deaths and hospitalizations become low and stay low the worst of the pandemic is over. When history is written they are the numbers that will distinguish covid-19 and flu 1919 from Ebola 1994 or Flu 1976.

Policy makers are not historians, they should look forward rather than backward. Policy makers should not be using deaths and hospitalizations as a proxy for the disease. They should be using current and past deaths, hospitalizations, case, (and anything else they can get their hands on) as proxies for future deaths and hospitalizations. When the link between current and future conditions is broken in the right direction it's largely over.

* A sufficiently devious virus might arrange high levels of pain and suffering without deaths or hospitalizations. We would need other metrics. I cannot see how that would be as bad, but that may be simply be a willful suppression of imagination to avoid catatonia.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#443849

Postby pje16 » September 20th, 2021, 2:34 pm

pje16 wrote:

Good news thanks Scott
I've had 4 monthly blood tests after 2nd jab and they have all shown postive for antibodies
5th test was yesterday and am waiting for results, was wondering when that protection would expire
may not have to worry now ;)

Ok 5th test back now - negative for antibodies
So AZ lasted me for 4 months :roll:
WHERE'S MY BOOSTER ?


Calm down it's not due till October

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#443865

Postby Mike4 » September 20th, 2021, 3:49 pm

pje16 wrote:
pje16 wrote:

Good news thanks Scott
I've had 4 monthly blood tests after 2nd jab and they have all shown postive for antibodies
5th test was yesterday and am waiting for results, was wondering when that protection would expire
may not have to worry now ;)

Ok 5th test back now - negative for antibodies
So AZ lasted me for 4 months :roll:
WHERE'S MY BOOSTER ?


Calm down it's not due till October


Antibodies are just one of several (many) mechanisms which comprise one's "immune system".

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#443868

Postby pje16 » September 20th, 2021, 3:57 pm

I do know that, but thanks for the post
I just feel a bit less safe than before I got the result (psychologically)

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#444208

Postby XFool » September 21st, 2021, 5:50 pm

Leothebear wrote:
Moderator Message:
RS Please help to keep things tidy by putting any coronavirus posts on this thread. Nothing political though use CAN for that.



Last post from me for a while.
PC infected with corona virus.

Above is the first post on this thread - dated March 11th, 2020.

As I recall, this thread was a replacement for the original TLF Coronavirus thread. I am quite interested now to have a look back at that original thread. Is it still available anywhere on TLF, or was it completely deleted?

TIA.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#444229

Postby jfgw » September 21st, 2021, 6:43 pm

XFool wrote:As I recall, this thread was a replacement for the original TLF Coronavirus thread. I am quite interested now to have a look back at that original thread. Is it still available anywhere on TLF, or was it completely deleted?

This is the original thread. There were a few Coronavirus threads in different places with the stipulation that additional threads should not be started. "Coronavirus Discussions" was created and the existing threads were moved. This thread has since had a name change (it was "No Politics" rather than "no statistics").

Note the (out-dated) Forum rules:
"This is the home for all non-political Coronavirus (Covid-19) discussions on The Lemon Fool "


Julian F. G. W.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#444270

Postby Clitheroekid » September 21st, 2021, 9:19 pm

There's been much outrage - typified by the likes of Gordon Brown - about how disgraceful it is that over 50's in the UK are to receive booster jabs when many third world countries have very low vax rates, the implication being that our selfishness is condemning millions of poor people to death.

But despite the low vax rates these countries also have extremely low infection and death rates, so I can't really see that they have a desperate need for jabs.

For example, Tanzania has an incredibly low vax rate of 0.57% (and that's just a single jab) but they also have an incredibly low infection rate at just 22 cases per million compared with 110,000 per million in the UK.

Even more extreme, the Democratic Republic of Congo, which must be well up near the top of any definition of a third world country, has an even lower vax rate of 0.13% but has an infection rate of just 608 cases per million - nearly 30 times that of Tanzania, but only 0.5% of that in the UK.

Although the large majority of the poorest countries are in Africa, it's the same in other very poor countries. For example, Yemen, which has a vax rate of 1.06%, has an infection rate of just 286 per million.

No doubt this will be explained away by poor statistical recording in such countries, but even accepting that the records may be inaccurate they're unlikely to be inaccurate by such a massive margin. And if they are indeed wildly inaccurate then on what basis can the people allocating vaxes decide which are the most `deserving' countries?

In any case, the statistics do appear to be borne out by the actuality, as I've not heard of any of these countries having high numbers of deaths. I recall when the pandemic started there was a lot of news about how many African countries had hardly been affected at all and why it might be, but for whatever reason it seems that Covid has affected and continues to affect them far less than it does us.

I also know the argument about vaxing them to stop them catching a new variant and spreading it to us, but the vast majority of people in very poor countries hardly travel outside their home area, let alone to foreign countries.

So it seems to me that simply on a relative risk basis it makes far more sense to vax older people here, who are at demonstrably far higher risk than people in third world countries who appear to be at very little risk of catching it, let alone dying from it, and who would therefore derive little if any benefit from it.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#444271

Postby vagrantbrain » September 21st, 2021, 9:26 pm

Being somewhat facetious, covid disproportionally kills off the old and fat, neither of which are found in high numbers in the third world. You could make a good argument that the elderly and obese western countries have a greater need than most of the developing world.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#444279

Postby Mike4 » September 21st, 2021, 10:31 pm

Clitheroekid wrote:
For example, Tanzania has an incredibly low vax rate of 0.57% (and that's just a single jab) but they also have an incredibly low infection rate at just 22 cases per million compared with 110,000 per million in the UK.


Isn't that just a reflection of a lower rate of testing?

If you test less, your stats will show a lower rate of infection.

I know this doesn't suit your agendum though.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#444292

Postby Lootman » September 21st, 2021, 11:22 pm

Mike4 wrote:
Clitheroekid wrote:For example, Tanzania has an incredibly low vax rate of 0.57% (and that's just a single jab) but they also have an incredibly low infection rate at just 22 cases per million compared with 110,000 per million in the UK.

Isn't that just a reflection of a lower rate of testing?

If you test less, your stats will show a lower rate of infection.

I know this doesn't suit your agendum though.

What you omitted to requote was CK's other observation that the death rates from Covid in Tanzania, and various other places like that, are also very low. A factor there is surely the lower life expectancy in places like that, as Vagrantbrain pointed out.

But if those arguments do not suit your "agendum" here (which as far as I can tell is constant scaremongering about Covid) then how about this argument? It is the job of the UK government to spend UK taxpayer money on the healthcare of UK people. We should not be putting UK persons at greater risk in vainglorious attempts to save the world.

Tanzania already gets half a billion in overseas aid each year. That should be enough for them to buy their own vaccines. As usual Gordon is engaging here in what he is wont to do - global grandstanding.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#444298

Postby XFool » September 21st, 2021, 11:44 pm

Lootman wrote:But if those arguments do not suit your "agendum" here (which as far as I can tell is constant scaremongering about Covid) then how about this argument? It is the job of the UK government to spend UK taxpayer money on the healthcare of UK people. We should not be putting UK persons at greater risk in vainglorious attempts to save the world.

Does not your argument overlook the simple fact that COVID-19 is a global pandemic, caused by an infectious viral pathogen. Not something that is simply either "here" or "there", like Big Ben or the Eiffel Tower? - "We are not safe until we are all safe."

But I guess this argument will not suit your "agendum".

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#444301

Postby servodude » September 21st, 2021, 11:54 pm

Mike4 wrote:
Clitheroekid wrote:
For example, Tanzania has an incredibly low vax rate of 0.57% (and that's just a single jab) but they also have an incredibly low infection rate at just 22 cases per million compared with 110,000 per million in the UK.


Isn't that just a reflection of a lower rate of testing?

If you test less, your stats will show a lower rate of infection.

I know this doesn't suit your agendum though.


Tanzania is a particularly interesting outlier to look at, the government there took on a COVID denying policy to rival North Korea
- banning the mention of COVID in hospitals doesn't encourage me to think their stats keeping would pass muster
- I'm not surprised any vaccine programme might be similarly unenthusiastic

There are probably more representative African nations to consider

-sd

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#444320

Postby Clitheroekid » September 22nd, 2021, 2:31 am

servodude wrote:
Mike4 wrote:
Clitheroekid wrote:
For example, Tanzania has an incredibly low vax rate of 0.57% (and that's just a single jab) but they also have an incredibly low infection rate at just 22 cases per million compared with 110,000 per million in the UK.


Isn't that just a reflection of a lower rate of testing?

If you test less, your stats will show a lower rate of infection.

I know this doesn't suit your agendum though.


Tanzania is a particularly interesting outlier to look at, the government there took on a COVID denying policy to rival North Korea
- banning the mention of COVID in hospitals doesn't encourage me to think their stats keeping would pass muster
- I'm not surprised any vaccine programme might be similarly unenthusiastic

There are probably more representative African nations to consider

OK, let's look at some other African countries. And to illustrate the point further let's also look at their death rate compared to the UK:


Are you saying that all these countries are also `outliers' (or just perhaps liars) adopting a North Korean attitude?

Mike4 wrote:
Clitheroekid wrote:
For example, Tanzania has an incredibly low vax rate of 0.57% (and that's just a single jab) but they also have an incredibly low infection rate at just 22 cases per million compared with 110,000 per million in the UK.


Isn't that just a reflection of a lower rate of testing?

If you test less, your stats will show a lower rate of infection.

I know this doesn't suit your agendum though.

It's ironic in the extreme that this argument is now being used by people who rained abuse on Trump last year when he said the more tests you do the more cases you'll discover.

As has been said, the low number of Covid deaths in these countries is evidence that the low recorded rates of infection are accurate - though that's also an inconvenient truth for certain people and certain agendas ...


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