The Lemon Fool

redsturgeon wrote:
The "official" government daily figures are off by around a factor of 6 or 7 times. The ONS figures are more accurate but have a delay built in, the Zoe figures correspond quite closely to the ONS figures and are available on a daily basis.

Unfortunately the Zoe figures don't give the numbers that the government would like to see...I'd hate to think that's why they have been defunded.

Well it looks to me as though this is exactly the reason for the defunding.

The official line that covid is done with and becoming endemic, we have to 'learn to live with it', the cancellation of all non-pharmacological interventions, the withdrawal of free testing for the masses, and the signal sent by 2,000 of our nobility having good ol' sing-song in Westminster Abbey on Tuesday are all pulling in the same direction, yet that naughty Zoë study is telling everyone the opposite. Why would our politicians not de-fund it?

The Zoe study is becoming about more than just Covid
Real people logging real symptoms is providing them with information about the human body
https://covid.joinzoe.com/wider-health-studies

pje16 wrote:The Zoe study is becoming about more than just Covid
Real people logging real symptoms is providing them with information about the human body
https://covid.joinzoe.com/wider-health-studies

Off topic for this thread really. I'll start a new thread.

Itsallaguess wrote:

redsturgeon wrote:
Also the those using the government figures might be falsely led to believe that covid is in decline, which it is not.

Hopefully it will be in a couple of weeks though.

In fact those using the "official" daily numbers to make important decisions might actually find those numbers worse than meaningless.

So my earlier posts discussing the Government figures showing COVID cases peaking are 'meaningless', but the Zoe figures you're happy to use suggest to you that they might decline 'in a couple of weeks'...

I'm not quite sure there's too much to be arguing about in there John, unless you've simply got a natural inclination to vociferously dismiss anything this Government puts out about this issue....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

You say the government figures show the cases peaking.

I say that other figures show cases still rising but I believe we will see the peak soon.

If that is agreement then yes we agree.

John

Mike4 wrote:
The official line that covid is done

No it isn't.

It certainly isn't over, I don't care what anyone says against that
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-60913637
and
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-60872687

dealtn wrote:

Mike4 wrote:
The official line that covid is done

No it isn't.

Yes it is.

It's behind you

Mike4 wrote:

dealtn wrote:

Mike4 wrote:
The official line that covid is done

No it isn't.

Yes it is.

Where can you see that official line? Who has said it?

I am not aware of any Government spokesman that is denying the existence of Covid, indeed most reports are confirming cases are at or close to their peak. It is not over, and that is the official line.

dealtn wrote:

Mike4 wrote:

dealtn wrote:

Mike4 wrote:
The official line that covid is done

No it isn't.

Yes it is.

Where can you see that official line? Who has said it?

I am not aware of any Government spokesman that is denying the existence of Covid, indeed most reports are confirming cases are at or close to their peak. It is not over, and that is the official line.

I think this might be one of those cases where semantic literalism is getting in the way of comprehension.

I don't think it's unusual that "done" could be used to mean "finished with respect to impacting our lives" which does appear to align with the UK govt. position (rolling back testing, no isolation, no restrictions, etc)
- not that "done" means a state of COVID denial (though I can see how one might also consider that the position of the hand shaker general )

If you want to look at govt statements which could mean the official position on COVID is "it's done" look for use of the past tense
or reference to "moving on" etc

-sd

servodude wrote:

dealtn wrote:

Mike4 wrote:

dealtn wrote:

Mike4 wrote:
The official line that covid is done

No it isn't.

Yes it is.

Where can you see that official line? Who has said it?

I am not aware of any Government spokesman that is denying the existence of Covid, indeed most reports are confirming cases are at or close to their peak. It is not over, and that is the official line.

I think this might be one of those cases where semantic literalism is getting in the way of comprehension.

Hear, hear!

But then it often seems, with disagreements on BBs, the people concerned can't even agree on what they are disagreeing about.

dealtn wrote:

Mike4 wrote:

dealtn wrote:

Mike4 wrote:
The official line that covid is done

No it isn't.

Yes it is.

Where can you see that official line? Who has said it?

I am not aware of any Government spokesman that is denying the existence of Covid, indeed most reports are confirming cases are at or close to their peak. It is not over, and that is the official line.

Absolutely, and flu isn't over either.

Deaths within 28 days of a positive test have been around 30% higher than deaths with Covid on the death certificate based upon 7-day averages. Data cited by the government as incomplete are not included.


My graph. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. : https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3/


Julian F. G. W.

Some interesting numbers coming out of a recent World Health Organisations report on excess-deaths -



Source - https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/swedens-death-rate-among-lowest-europe-despite-avoiding-strict/

For the UK, it looks like a poor earlier outcome has been offset overall by a much improved situation following early roll-out and high take-up of our vaccine programme.

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Why is Sweden highlighted in red - who added the coloration to the WHO statistics? Is it supposed to suggest that they (Sweden) handled the outbreak in some optimal manner - and hence is at the bottom of the list? But the missing comparison for Sweden are the results in similar countries with similar international exposure. I.E. Denmark, Norway and Finland. Clearly they are lower than Sweden. If shown present, it might have avoided some erroneous conclusions.
Ah - looking at the source, its the Daily Telegraph. That explains all.

scotia wrote:Why is Sweden highlighted in red - who added the coloration to the WHO statistics? Is it supposed to suggest that they (Sweden) handled the outbreak in some optimal manner - and hence is at the bottom of the list? But the missing comparison for Sweden are the results in similar countries with similar international exposure. I.E. Denmark, Norway and Finland. Clearly they are lower than Sweden. If shown present, it might have avoided some erroneous conclusions.
Ah - looking at the source, its the Daily Telegraph. That explains all.

There was another "report" a while back that looked at the effect of measures taken that started by discounting anywhere that took measures quickly.
I'd ask why they bother but it's all too clear

scotia wrote:
Why is Sweden highlighted in red - who added the coloration to the WHO statistics?

The article was primarily looking to discuss Sweden's ranking in that 'excess deaths' table, where they had much better outcomes for that metric even though they had much looser social restrictions to most other countries.

That wasn't the primary reason for me wanting to show the table though, because I thought one of the other most interesting aspects was that it showed the UK as having better outcomes for that metric than the US, Italy, Germany, and Spain...

Reading these Covid-related boards over the past couple of years, no-one could be blamed for coming away thinking that the UK had a uniquely bad outcome from the pandemic, and the above WHO excess-deaths table shows that to not be the case when compared to the US and some of our large European neighbours...

I very much suspect that we'd have heard a lot more about the above ranking on these boards if the UK had been higher up on it...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

My problem with the Daily Telegraph data is that they have (in the past) strongly supported the Swedish approach to Covid control, and their Red colouration, and missing out the other Nordic countries is yet another example.
As an ancient scientist, if I were seeking to evaluate different approaches to Covid control, I would be looking for similar countries in size, geographical position, population and social organisation - and hope that I could find a matching pair which have used widely different control techniques. And luckily we have this in the Nordic countries. Sweden has used a much more relaxed approach to control, compared to Denmark, Finland and Norway.
Looking at the Cumulative Deaths quoted on the WHO Covid-19 Dashboard we have
Sweden 18824
Denmark 6218
Finland 4150
Norway 3006
And using population numbers
Sweden 10.4M
Denmark 5.8M
Finland 5.5M
Norway 5.3M
The Cumulative Deaths per 1 million population are
Sweden 1810
Denmark 1072
Finland 754
Norway 567
Denmark, and to some extent Finland have the disadvantage of closely sharing borders with high Covid-Rate countries.
So possibly the Sweden-Norway comparison is the most relevant. But which ever comparison with Sweden is used, it is clear that the Swedish approach to control is far from being the optimum.
I would appreciate anyone checking my figures.

scotia wrote:My problem with the Daily Telegraph data is that they have (in the past) strongly supported the Swedish approach to Covid control, and their Red colouration, and missing out the other Nordic countries is yet another example.
As an ancient scientist, if I were seeking to evaluate different approaches to Covid control, I would be looking for similar countries in size, geographical position, population and social organisation - and hope that I could find a matching pair which have used widely different control techniques. And luckily we have this in the Nordic countries. Sweden has used a much more relaxed approach to control, compared to Denmark, Finland and Norway.
Looking at the Cumulative Deaths quoted on the WHO Covid-19 Dashboard we have
Sweden 18824
Denmark 6218
Finland 4150
Norway 3006
And using population numbers
Sweden 10.4M
Denmark 5.8M
Finland 5.5M
Norway 5.3M
The Cumulative Deaths per 1 million population are
Sweden 1810
Denmark 1072
Finland 754
Norway 567
Denmark, and to some extent Finland have the disadvantage of closely sharing borders with high Covid-Rate countries.
So possibly the Sweden-Norway comparison is the most relevant. But which ever comparison with Sweden is used, it is clear that the Swedish approach to control is far from being the optimum.
I would appreciate anyone checking my figures.

Who is claiming it is optimum? You make valid points but all of those countries are better than average.

Without the sidetrack of (unnecessarily?) colouring Sweden red, the bigger story from the data, at least from the perspective of the UK, is that the UK is close to the Global average, despite a number of factors such as (effectively) sharing borders with high covid countries, and being one of the largest international travel hubs. It beats a number of other European countries that many who only followed the mainstream media would be surprised at.

When you hear so much of the reporting and criticism of the UK and its leaders around our Covid responses you might be surprised at the truth of how the country performed.

dealtn wrote:
Who is claiming it is optimum? You make valid points but all of those countries are better than average.

The Daily Telegraph headline - in a large bold font is

Sweden’s Covid death rate among lowest in Europe, despite avoiding strict lockdowns

And they highlight Sweden in Red, and they fail to include any of the other Nordic countries - which are all substantially lower than Sweden. Why did they pick on Sweden - look at the word

despite

They are once again plugging their long discredited story that Sweden got it right and chose the optimum response to Covid.
And back to the numbers - has anyone checked my figures? I have used https://covid19.who.int/table for the Cumulative deaths. My numbers are significantly larger than those in the bar chart displayed by the Daily Telegraph. On checking a few entries I seem to have the same rank order - but my numbers are larger by about a factor of three (its difficult to read numbers exactly from the Daily Telegraph Bar Chart). Does anyone know the source of the Daily Telegraph Bar Chart?