Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

[servodude]

Hospital admissions are misleading, as the admission is often not for Covid-19 but another illness, and many would have caught it in hospital.

It is irrelevant how many hospital admissions are associated with another illness. This fraction should be the same for the vaccinated and unvaccinated, if there is no population sample bias.

So here's the really interesting question... why?

Why post a good deal of inaccurate, ill-considered, misleading posts in the style of a COVID denier at the start of a pandemic? Then totter off for two years before coming back with inaccurate, ill-considered, misleading posts about vaccines?

Why?

-sd

[Mike4]

Hospital admissions are misleading, as the admission is often not for Covid-19 but another illness, and many would have caught it in hospital.

It is irrelevant how many hospital admissions are associated with another illness. This fraction should be the same for the vaccinated and unvaccinated, if there is no population sample bias.

So here's the really interesting question... why?

Why post a good deal of inaccurate, ill-considered, misleading posts in the style of a COVID denier at the start of a pandemic? Then totter off for two years before coming back with inaccurate, ill-considered, misleading posts about vaccines?

Why?

-sd

The most curious thing is this type of denial behaviour is described by Stephen Taylor in his book "The Psychology of Pandemics - Preparing for the Next Global Outbreak of Infectious Disease" published, amazingly, in December 2019.

Along with pretty much everything else that has happened.

[servodude]

Hospital admissions are misleading, as the admission is often not for Covid-19 but another illness, and many would have caught it in hospital.

It is irrelevant how many hospital admissions are associated with another illness. This fraction should be the same for the vaccinated and unvaccinated, if there is no population sample bias.

So here's the really interesting question... why?

Why post a good deal of inaccurate, ill-considered, misleading posts in the style of a COVID denier at the start of a pandemic? Then totter off for two years before coming back with inaccurate, ill-considered, misleading posts about vaccines?

Why?

-sd

The most curious thing is this type of denial behaviour is described by Stephen Taylor in his book "The Psychology of Pandemics - Preparing for the Next Global Outbreak of Infectious Disease" published, amazingly, in December 2019.

Along with pretty much everything else that has happened.

That looks like an interesting recommendation, thanks!

[Bouleversee]

I asked my nephew what had been put on my sister's death certificate and this was the reply: “Frailty of old age pneumonia, Covid 19”.
Well, they tell me she had tested negative for Covid when she was admitted on Nov. 10 and she didn't have pneumonia at that point and they hadn't established what was wrong with her by the time she tested positive for Covid quite recently, so I am not sure how valuable that death certificate info will be for the statistics. No mention of the fact that she had MS which I should have thought might be relevant. However, time to move on.

[ReformedCharacter]

OH had a positive PCR test 3 days ago, having felt off-nominal for a few days. She now looks fairly unwell. At the moment I feel fine but am wondering when I'm likely to become unwell too?

Also, when will it be safe to let OH back inside the house? It's getting a bit cold at night for sleeping in the car.

RC

Just to complete the tale...

OH was fairly unwell for 3 days but is now pretty much recovered. I took LFTs on day 3 and 5 (counting day 0 as the day OH got a positive PCR) both were negative. Around then I noticed a slight headache which lasted 2-3 days but nothing much. On day 8 the headache had disappeared and I was (and still am) feeling normal but tested postive with a LFT.

I feel very grateful for the vaccine developers and for those who have given their time to vaccinate us.

RC

[ElectronicFur]

It is irrelevant how many hospital admissions are associated with another illness. This fraction should be the same for the vaccinated and unvaccinated, if there is no population sample bias.

Incorrect, as the two cohorts will differ in age, sex, etc, so the fractions of other illnesses will be different.

[servodude]

It is irrelevant how many hospital admissions are associated with another illness. This fraction should be the same for the vaccinated and unvaccinated, if there is no population sample bias.

Incorrect, as the two cohorts will differ in age, sex, etc, so the fractions of other illnesses will be different.

That sounds confusing... can you try and explain.

Most would expect that if you chose any age range, even a wide one (say 40 - 80) and split them in to two cohorts of vaccinated and unvaccinated that the composition of those groups would be very similar
There would be much more people in the vaccinated (for most places in the first world) and they would probably have a higher reading level
- but the proportion of men to ladies to other would be roughly the same
- as would the incidence of pre-existing conditions (well for those that didn't depend on a lack of common sense for onset)

perhaps you mean something else?
- sd

[servodude]

Hospital admissions are misleading, as the admission is often not for Covid-19 but another illness, and many would have caught it in hospital.

It is irrelevant how many hospital admissions are associated with another illness. This fraction should be the same for the vaccinated and unvaccinated, if there is no population sample bias.

So here's the really interesting question... why?

Why post a good deal of inaccurate, ill-considered, misleading posts in the style of a COVID denier at the start of a pandemic? Then totter off for two years before coming back with inaccurate, ill-considered, misleading posts about vaccines?

Why?

-sd

The most curious thing is this type of denial behaviour is described by Stephen Taylor in his book "The Psychology of Pandemics - Preparing for the Next Global Outbreak of Infectious Disease" published, amazingly, in December 2019.

Along with pretty much everything else that has happened.

That looks like an interesting recommendation, thanks!

I'm a quarter of the way through it and so far it's been a litany of "damn! so we knew this beforehand?!"

I'll let my face recover from the slaps and get back to it later

- sd

[ElectronicFur]

So here's the really interesting question... why?

Why post a good deal of inaccurate, ill-considered, misleading posts in the style of a COVID denier at the start of a pandemic? Then totter off for two years before coming back with inaccurate, ill-considered, misleading posts about vaccines?

Why?

-sd

I stopped bothering to post here because of the unpleasantness and people like you slandering me. I popped in again thinking the hysteria might have passed, but clearly not, so I won't bother again.

I posted well-considered and factual data. You slander me as a Covid denier, yet I never denied it existed. I stated why I thought the risks were exaggerated, why governments were overreacting, along with the data of why I thought that. And why I thought the harms of restrictions and lockdowns were greater.

The widely accepted actual Infection Fatality Rate of Covid-19, and the average Covid-19 mortality age shows I was correct. Yes the annual mortality rate was high in 2020, but it was the 9th worst out of the last 20 years. Unfortunately the lockdown harms will play out for many years. But some on this board callously ignore and dismiss those harms...

The most curious thing is this type of denial behaviour is described by Stephen Taylor in his book "The Psychology of Pandemics - Preparing for the Next Global Outbreak of Infectious Disease" published, amazingly, in December 2019.

Along with pretty much everything else that has happened.

As planned, psychology and fear of the unknown were successfully used to whip up hysteria and silence any rational debate. This type of overreaction and hysteria when it comes to unknown risks was presciently written by Ulrich Beck in 2007, in his book "World at Risk", about the global nature of risk and politics:

"The political costs of omission are much higher than those of an overreaction. It is not going to be easy in future, therefore, given the state's promise of security and a mass media hungry for catastrophes, to prevent a diabolical power game with the hysteria of non-knowing."

Enjoy your echo-chamber...

[Lootman]

So here's the really interesting question... why?

Why post a good deal of inaccurate, ill-considered, misleading posts in the style of a COVID denier at the start of a pandemic? Then totter off for two years before coming back with inaccurate, ill-considered, misleading posts about vaccines?

Why?

I stopped bothering to post here because of the unpleasantness and people like you slandering me. I popped in again thinking the hysteria might have passed, but clearly not, so I won't bother again.

I posted well-considered and factual data. You slander me as a Covid denier, yet I never denied it existed. I stated why I thought the risks were exaggerated, why governments were overreacting, along with the data of why I thought that. And why I thought the harms of restrictions and lockdowns were greater.

Yes, those who like to spray around terms like "Covid denier" or "anti-vaxxer" to anyone who doesn't over-react to Covid are, without realising it, just as extreme as the true Covid denier.

In much the same way as some countries over-reacted (New Zealand, Taiwan) and some under-reacted (Brazil).

Like you I never denied its existence; only the risk assessment of it by some folks. We are the true moderates in this debate.

[Eboli]

Electronic Fur observed:

I stopped bothering to post here because of the unpleasantness and people like you slandering me.

Fully understand. Me too.

Eb.

[88V8]

Enjoy your echo-chamber...

Alas, most boards on most sites eventually become an echo chamber. Unfortunately, it just seems to be the way t'internet works.

Back to covid.... cessation of measures... seems to me premature and silly and unsupported by the science.
Tim Spector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Spector talking about it this morning on Times Radio at 2:07:30
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio/show/2 ... 2022-02-10. says true case rate is still c200,000 per day.

What do you think? Is this more about Saving Boris?

V8

[tjh290633]

Back to covid.... cessation of measures... seems to me premature and silly and unsupported by the science.
Tim Spector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Spector talking about it this morning on Times Radio at 2:07:30
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio/show/2 ... 2022-02-10. says true case rate is still c200,000 per day.

What do you think? Is this more about Saving Boris?

V8

No, it's seeing the obvious point, that Lockdown measures do not work.

We have to get on with life, despite what the worried well think.

TJH

[redsturgeon]

I think the government has worked out that most of the population are law abiding, unselfish people who will do the best for the good of others, including isolation when ill to stop spreading the virus.

A minority will just do the best for themselves which means that they will not follow rules or self isolate if they have the virus whether or not it is against the law since they think there is little chance of being caught.

Therefore laws on covid achieve little. QED

John

[pje16]

methinks UK Gov did not work that out
The people thought that the sudden turn about, the double of no mask AND go back to work was too soon
so dare I say it... common sense has prevailed

[Julian]

Enjoy your echo-chamber...

Alas, most boards on most sites eventually become an echo chamber. Unfortunately, it just seems to be the way t'internet works.

Back to covid.... cessation of measures... seems to me premature and silly and unsupported by the science.
Tim Spector https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Spector talking about it this morning on Times Radio at 2:07:30
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/radio/show/2 ... 2022-02-10. says true case rate is still c200,000 per day.

What do you think? Is this more about Saving Boris?

V8

Boris's announcement was that he thought they could do this rule relaxation a month earlier than planned so if I'm understanding it correctly it's a tweak on the timing rather than an out-of-the-blue new next step and on that then yes, my personal suspicion is that there is a big political element to this accelerated timescale.

As to what I think about it I need to hear and balance more expert reactions and in light of that my opinion might change but right now I'm somewhat in favour of this move. I've also heard Tim Spector interviewed this morning and at least in the interview that I heard he was focussing very much on real (as opposed to detected) case rates still being very high, in the interview I heard he said around the 200,000 per day mark and maybe even slightly higher. The thing is though that hospitalisations are falling as are the number of Covid-19 patients in mechanical ventilation beds. Frankly if actual case rates are so much higher than the numbers our testing is capturing then it seems even more encouraging news to me that the hospitalisation and mech-vent data are still managing to trend lower.

I feel very confident going about my daily life now but the one issue I see is that the clinically vulnerable need a decent exit from this pandemic as well and removing all of these restrictions will make many of them feel that the outside world is now a more dangerous place if all barriers to the virus are being removed. Short of getting to zero SARS-CoV2 though, which I don't think many experts (if any at all) think is a realistic possibility, the problem of an outside world with SARS-CoV2 still circulating is not going to go away in the foreseeable future. Perhaps the only mitigating factors that can be applied are to (a) get as much immunity in the population as we can so that at least some transmission chains can be broken and (b) get a really good system in place, focussed on the clinically vulnerable, as far as testing is concerned coupled with immediate access to good antivirals when a test comes back positive. Some more government initiatives on good ventilation and air scrubbing for internal spaces would be no bad thing as well. Various government initiatives to insulate homes as part of warding off climate change have come and gone over the years. If future pandemics are considered to be a similar future threat then some initiatives to help shops, hospitality and other public internal spaces reduce virus levels in the air (ventilation, HEPA and other air filtering etc) would seem like a good idea to me and money well spent if it means we wouldn't get the same level of economic and societal disruption the next time around, if there is a next time.

Riding this Omicron wave might even be a useful strategy to diminish the impact of any possible future variants as well if natural Omicron infection, especially when combined with vaccine-induced immunity, ends up generating broader based immunity in the population as a whole that reduces the severity of any future variant. We will have no evidence for or against that until another major variant emerges but it's not a totally unrealistic hope and if a wave of SARS-CoV-2 is going to sweep through the UK to give really widespread infection-induced immunity in the population, which for the vaccinated one would hope would be somewhat akin to yet another booster shot, then I would far rather that happens with Omicron that with some potentially more severe future variant.

- Julian

[Hallucigenia]

the clinically vulnerable need a decent exit from this pandemic as well and removing all of these restrictions will make many of them feel that the outside world is now a more dangerous place if all barriers to the virus are being removed. Short of getting to zero SARS-CoV2 though, which I don't think many experts (if any at all) think is a realistic possibility, the problem of an outside world with SARS-CoV2 still circulating is not going to go away in the foreseeable future. Perhaps the only mitigating factors that can be applied are to (a) get as much immunity in the population as we can so that at least some transmission chains can be broken and (b) get a really good system in place, focussed on the clinically vulnerable, as far as testing is concerned coupled with immediate access to good antivirals when a test comes back positive. Some more government initiatives on good ventilation and air scrubbing for internal spaces would be no bad thing as well. Various government initiatives to insulate homes as part of warding off climate change have come and gone over the years. If future pandemics are considered to be a similar future threat then some initiatives to help shops, hospitality and other public internal spaces reduce virus levels in the air (ventilation, HEPA and other air filtering etc) would seem like a good idea to me and money well spent if it means we wouldn't get the same level of economic and societal disruption the next time around, if there is a next time.

There will be a next time.

+1 to all the above, but one thing I would add is that we really need ongoing protocols for isolate-on-test and sick pay for the 3.7m extremely vulnerable and their carers rather than just ignore them and hope they go away.

Living with Covid does not mean "ignore it and hope it goes away", it means having strategies in place to minimise harm, in the same way that we "live with" the risk from driving cars and eating chicken.

[dealtn]

There will be a next time.

+1 to all the above, but one thing I would add is that we really need ongoing protocols for isolate-on-test and sick pay for the 3.7m extremely vulnerable and their carers rather than just ignore them and hope they go away.

Living with Covid does not mean "ignore it and hope it goes away", it means having strategies in place to minimise harm, in the same way that we "live with" the risk from driving cars and eating chicken.

Where does that 3.7m come from, and what is its definition? Not saying it's necessarily wrong (or that I disagree with the need for ongoing protocols in such cases) but at over 5% of the population it sounds very high.

[Hallucigenia]

Where does that 3.7m come from, and what is its definition? Not saying it's necessarily wrong (or that I disagree with the need for ongoing protocols in such cases) but at over 5% of the population it sounds very high.

The ONS - poke around their site using the searchterm "clinically extremely vulnerable", eg :

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... ble-people

[Mike4]

It strikes me that the early cessation of covid laws is 100% political.

Deaths are creeping down glacially slowly and new infections running at a record levels so nothing has suddenly changed medically. But Johnson badly needed a dead cat to dump on the table at PMQs yesterday, and decided this would do nicely.

No more and no less than that to it, IMO.