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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
swill453
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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340214

Postby swill453 » September 14th, 2020, 3:22 pm

vrdiver wrote:
Bouleversee wrote:Well, I am over 74 and I really don't understand why it should stop at that age, not that I remember getting any before I reached 74. What is the rationale behind that other than they want you to drop off the perch at that point? I didn't have much wrong with me before then other than accidental damage and I think that what is wrong with me now could probably have been avoided with simple blood tests. Prevention is a heck of a lot cheaper than cure, which may not be available if found too late.

I'd love to be able to answer that, but have no logical answer other than the one you imply (i.e. cost saving over life quality and/or quantity). I need to try my own GP's approach to this, as I'm in the right age bracket (previously employee health insurance covered similar tests); just a case of waiting for the Covid-19 situation to dissipate first, as I can't imagine this being a priority in normal times, let alone currently :(

I suppose statistically the older you get the more likely it is that they'll find something wrong if they go looking for it. But also statistically there's a fair chance that some hidden condition isn't actually going to harm or kill you (because something else gets you first, to be blunt!).

So on balance the quality of life might be reduced if they start some invasive treatment, rather than not looking for a condition in the first place.

And of course they save money by not doing it too.

Scott.

dealtn
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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340216

Postby dealtn » September 14th, 2020, 3:26 pm

johnhemming wrote:
dealtn wrote:According to this there have been only 25,428 hospital admissions in England due to Covid.

This currently says 114,523.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/healthc ... me=England


it seems my dataset splits Covid in hospital into 2 classes. Those admitted with it and those diagnosed with it (when in hospital). I was only quoting the former. This adds another 88,765, almost the same as yours. Thank you.

It doesn't alter the point though that 10% of (hospital admitted) sufferers have long-Covid, and that being 60,000, aren't compatible. Indeed given the number that died on hospital from that 114,000 an estimate of 60,000 is closer to 100% than it is 10%.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340240

Postby Bouleversee » September 14th, 2020, 4:52 pm

swill453 wrote:
vrdiver wrote:
Bouleversee wrote:Well, I am over 74 and I really don't understand why it should stop at that age, not that I remember getting any before I reached 74. What is the rationale behind that other than they want you to drop off the perch at that point? I didn't have much wrong with me before then other than accidental damage and I think that what is wrong with me now could probably have been avoided with simple blood tests. Prevention is a heck of a lot cheaper than cure, which may not be available if found too late.

I'd love to be able to answer that, but have no logical answer other than the one you imply (i.e. cost saving over life quality and/or quantity). I need to try my own GP's approach to this, as I'm in the right age bracket (previously employee health insurance covered similar tests); just a case of waiting for the Covid-19 situation to dissipate first, as I can't imagine this being a priority in normal times, let alone currently :(

I suppose statistically the older you get the more likely it is that they'll find something wrong if they go looking for it. But also statistically there's a fair chance that some hidden condition isn't actually going to harm or kill you (because something else gets you first, to be blunt!).

So on balance the quality of life might be reduced if they start some invasive treatment, rather than not looking for a condition in the first place.

And of course they save money by not doing it too.

Scott.


I'll buy the last sentence but not the rest. You might, for instance, be edging towards type 2 diabetes through a raised cholesterol level which could be brought back to normal with a better diet, as in the case of my ex=cleaner) or be at risk of one of umpteen other conditions which can be alleviated with minimal cost and no invasive treatment, resulting in better quality of life, longer lifespan and less work and expense for the NHS. Just dishing out info. by email increasing awareness of what one needs to do as one gets older could achieve a lot. I didn't know, for instance, that one does not absorb Vit D (which is essential for a healthy immune system) so readily as one gets older, or how important exercise is for the imnune system as well. It would be interesting to know how many of the increasing number of centenarians have private medical insurance and regular check-ups.

redsturgeon
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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340265

Postby redsturgeon » September 14th, 2020, 6:25 pm

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... ntine.html

Latest article from Tomas Pueyo ...long but interesting.

John

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340269

Postby johnhemming » September 14th, 2020, 6:57 pm

He (Tomas Pueyo) makes the mistake of thinking that following lockdown the virus comes in via visitors rather than from the community. He also ignores evidence (Sweden) that does not fit his analysis.

Whoever does the UK's coronavirus website has had problems with Microsoft Azure, but some how the next three days figures have crept into the website so that it has data to 12th September.

Although hospital admissions have gone up they are currently on a plateau. To be fair to the government the North West has gone up, but the Midlands has not. Admissions are running at around the rate in July.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340288

Postby Mike4 » September 14th, 2020, 8:56 pm

redsturgeon wrote:https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/09/14/opinion/politics/coronavirus-close-borders-travel-quarantine.html

Latest article from Tomas Pueyo ...long but interesting.

John


A phenomenally detailed version of what Dr Campbell points out. "The virus didn't get here by walking, it came in an aeroplane."

Closing borders is basic step No 1 in the Gold Standard for pandemic handling. "Halt inbound infections".This was figured out over 100 years ago and totally ignored by our stupid government.

Image

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340289

Postby johnhemming » September 14th, 2020, 9:01 pm

Mike4 wrote:Closing borders is basic step No 1 in the Gold Standard for pandemic handling. "Halt inbound infections".This was figured out over 100 years ago and totally ignored by our stupid government.

So stop all international travel for ever?

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340293

Postby redsturgeon » September 14th, 2020, 9:12 pm

johnhemming wrote:
Mike4 wrote:Closing borders is basic step No 1 in the Gold Standard for pandemic handling. "Halt inbound infections".This was figured out over 100 years ago and totally ignored by our stupid government.

So stop all international travel for ever?

Did anyone say that?

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340295

Postby Mike4 » September 14th, 2020, 9:15 pm

johnhemming wrote:
Mike4 wrote:Closing borders is basic step No 1 in the Gold Standard for pandemic handling. "Halt inbound infections".This was figured out over 100 years ago and totally ignored by our stupid government.

So stop all international travel for ever?


Well not for ever, but until the epidemic subsides.

But broadly speaking yes, you want to stop the virus entering your country, obviously yes stop all incoming travellers. It's obvious, and has been known for centuries.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... 665-plague

redsturgeon
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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340342

Postby redsturgeon » September 15th, 2020, 8:02 am

Mike4 wrote:
johnhemming wrote:
Mike4 wrote:Closing borders is basic step No 1 in the Gold Standard for pandemic handling. "Halt inbound infections".This was figured out over 100 years ago and totally ignored by our stupid government.

So stop all international travel for ever?


Well not for ever, but until the epidemic subsides.

But broadly speaking yes, you want to stop the virus entering your country, obviously yes stop all incoming travellers. It's obvious, and has been known for centuries.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... 665-plague


Yes, of course but we know that is not realistic in this interconnected world. This week, my wife is in Madeira, my daughter in Greece and my son in the US! My other son and girlfriend have just come back from her home in Denmark via a week in the Algarve!

Is there any country who is doing it better than we are in this country though?

Pueyo goes through the options, there is a spectrum from total shut down to completely open travel.

In the UK we seem to be in one of the worst possible places with this. Rules and regulations that change frequently and with little warning (just enough to provide time to panic and for the wealthy to avoid some of the impact). No real sense that the rules are being policed. Disharmony between the devolved nations that serves to make a mockery of the whole thing.

Taiwan, South Korea and New Zealand, among others seem to have a better handle on things.

The USA seems even worse than the UK, my son flew in a few weeks ago, ostensibly to 14 days of isolation but in practice nobody cared.

The USA with its different states applying different rules should prove an interesting case study in future, although with pretty much no restriction on interstate travel the picture will remain a hotch potch.

It may even be that Trump will be seen as a visionary in years to come for his rallies providing the ideal incubators for herd immunity when all the vaccine research failed...stranger things have happened.

John

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340348

Postby johnhemming » September 15th, 2020, 8:34 am

There will be different susceptibility rates between countries which need to be taken into account when doing assessments.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340383

Postby sg31 » September 15th, 2020, 11:02 am

dealtn wrote:
scotia wrote:Admissions figures are a poor indication of the growing infection rate.


That might be true, but they are probably a better indicator of likely fatality numbers. So, it depends on what you deem important to measure.

Rising "cases" might in fact be a good measure, and predictor of lower overall deaths, and a speedier "end" to the pandemic. As you point out it depends on who those cases consist of.

One of the best outcomes would be if everyone that won't be medically affected by it were to catch it at the earliest opportunity, spreading amongst themselves, whilst everyone who would suffer medically was kept safe and isolated. Clearly difficult to achieve in practice (or for any politician to claim as an aim). A slow spread that ultimately gets to all the vulnerable, particularly during the regular flu season when immune systems might be naturally low, could be a worse outcome.

That's before even considering what the preferred outcome would be economically, and importantly all the other "non-Covid" medical problems society is suffering from as a result of the priorities given to Covid health.


Intersesting suggestion but are you sure...

That catching it gives immunity from future infection other than for the short term.

That those who have had the infection can't become carriers if they are infected again even if they are 'immune ' themselves.

I've been waiting for research papers on both issues but haven't seen any so far. I'd be interested in reading them if you can post links

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340389

Postby dealtn » September 15th, 2020, 11:13 am

sg31 wrote:
dealtn wrote:
scotia wrote:Admissions figures are a poor indication of the growing infection rate.


That might be true, but they are probably a better indicator of likely fatality numbers. So, it depends on what you deem important to measure.

Rising "cases" might in fact be a good measure, and predictor of lower overall deaths, and a speedier "end" to the pandemic. As you point out it depends on who those cases consist of.

One of the best outcomes would be if everyone that won't be medically affected by it were to catch it at the earliest opportunity, spreading amongst themselves, whilst everyone who would suffer medically was kept safe and isolated. Clearly difficult to achieve in practice (or for any politician to claim as an aim). A slow spread that ultimately gets to all the vulnerable, particularly during the regular flu season when immune systems might be naturally low, could be a worse outcome.

That's before even considering what the preferred outcome would be economically, and importantly all the other "non-Covid" medical problems society is suffering from as a result of the priorities given to Covid health.


Intersesting suggestion but are you sure...

That catching it gives immunity from future infection other than for the short term.

That those who have had the infection can't become carriers if they are infected again even if they are 'immune ' themselves.

I've been waiting for research papers on both issues but haven't seen any so far. I'd be interested in reading them if you can post links


No I'm not sure, and I don't think anyone is, but I too would like to see research.

I think it probable (but only as a layman's opinion). The virus has been around for over 6 months, and I've not seen multiple stories of people "having it twice" etc. which I am sure the media would be looking out for. So it suggests, at least, that such possibilities are low in probability.

I don't think I am alone in thinking, that absent an effective vaccine, it is likely that the vast majority will be exposed to it at some point so, at least some of the focus should be on managing the exposure, not just limiting it. If you can shield the vulnerable for a short, not too inconvenient time (a month?) whilst allowing (encouraging?) the non-vulnerable to spread amongst themselves the virus, then the net result will be a shorter pandemic, less economic cost, and possible less mortality.

In practice I can't see any medical expert, and certainly not a politician, advocating such an approach, even if the vulnerable/non-vulnerable distinction was "self-selecting".

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340503

Postby 88V8 » September 15th, 2020, 8:18 pm

Twice as likely to catch it if one visits a restaurant
https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/c ... 5-92456261
If one wishes to pour cold water, it was a relatively small study.

Come the winter, I think indoor dining will be a problem, no good kidding oneself otherwise. Same applies to hosting events at home, except perhaps in a well ventilated room with a working fireplace, a feature no longer found in the average British home.

V8

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340508

Postby Bouleversee » September 15th, 2020, 8:55 pm

I'm told that none of the staff in my local restaurants wear masks even when serving meals.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340633

Postby dealtn » September 16th, 2020, 1:11 pm

88V8 wrote:Twice as likely to catch it if one visits a restaurant
https://newatlas.com/health-wellbeing/c ... 5-92456261
If one wishes to pour cold water, it was a relatively small study.



Beware statistics.

Lets say they found 314 people who displayed Coronavirus symptoms. Half had the virus, half didn't. They then deduced that those that had the virus were twice as likely to have "dined out". So lets say 157 had the virus, and of these 157 were twice as likely to have been to a restaurant as the 157 that had symptoms but didn't have the virus.

What does that mean we have learnt? Without knowing the numbers in the population, and the number of restaurant visits, not enough to draw conclusions.

What percentage of people have displayed signs of Coronavirus in the community, 2%? Lets assume there are 157,000 people and 10% of them went to restaurants in the last 14 days (and only once). So 15,700 restaurant visits. You would still need to know of the 157 virus carriers how they became infected, and what proportion were from the restaurant. Lets make an assumption that 10% of virus infections came from a restaurant. Seems high to me, but possible.

So 16 of the 157 caught in a restaurant 141 elsewhere. So that's potentially a 1 in a 1,000 chance of getting the virus from a restaurant visit.

Does that sound risky? Given a restaurant visit occurs every 14 days that's an average of 38 years of going to dine out to catch the virus. I wonder what else might happen to the average person in 38 years? Of course, for most people even catching the virus is a "non-event". Maybe 1% die of it? So eating out has a 1 in 3,800 years chance of dying.

Maybe someone can discover what the real numbers are and whether we conclude eating out is indeed risky, and where on the scale of riskiness it sits compared to other activities.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340903

Postby simoan » September 17th, 2020, 12:15 pm

There was an interesting interview with Prof. Sarah Gilbert, head of the team developing the Oxford vaccine, on R4's "The Life Scientific" this week. It was less biographical than usual for the program and more focused on discussing the Covid-19 vaccine effort. Worth a listen IMHO:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000mj18

All the best, Si

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340906

Postby Bouleversee » September 17th, 2020, 12:19 pm

I always listen to that prog. and I agree it was worth a listen.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340928

Postby langley59 » September 17th, 2020, 1:43 pm

I just listened to it and thought it was no more than gushing praise for the work done so far with no challenging questions. I would have liked to hear discussion of the side effects sufferered by the participant which caused the trial to be paused (I understand from other sources that it caused inflammation of the spinal cord...sounds pretty serious). I would have also have liked to hear discussion about the reported thousands of people severely affected by neurological issues after receiving the Swine flu vaccine a decade ago and how that will be avoided with this vaccine.

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Re: Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

#340935

Postby simoan » September 17th, 2020, 1:55 pm

langley59 wrote:I just listened to it and thought it was no more than gushing praise for the work done so far with no challenging questions.

Obviously, you don't normally listen to the program then. It's a biographical program about the life and work of a particular scientist, hence the title, "The Life Scientific". The biographical content was kept to a minimum given the nature of Prof. Gilbert most recent work. I didn't feel it was gushing at all although that is the usual tone you'd expect when you get one scientist talking to another. As such I like the program and often listen to it. Sorry it wasn't the John Humphreys type grilling you were hoping for... not that that approach to an interview ever really achieved much.

Si


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