CV19 - Cure worse than the disease? (Vol 3)
Discussion
Elysium said:
The words in bold are not in the paper.
The caveats describe the limitations of the papers findings, which are that masks can be effective if they are constructed in a suitable way and used properly.
That does not mean that face coverings made from old socks will be effective.
If the author stating that people should wear masks, then the evidence for that is not clear as it is not in their own paper. Unfortunately, this seems to be a case where personal beliefs and preconceptions are driving 'science' toward a political objective.
The fact that the report does not consider the negative health and social consequences of mask wearing shows that we are not learning the lessons of lockdown. Swinging public health measures MUST consider the total impact they will create - positive and negative.
Is the evidence very strong on he negative impact of clothe community masks? Japan etc have been wearing them for years, for flu etc. The caveats describe the limitations of the papers findings, which are that masks can be effective if they are constructed in a suitable way and used properly.
That does not mean that face coverings made from old socks will be effective.
If the author stating that people should wear masks, then the evidence for that is not clear as it is not in their own paper. Unfortunately, this seems to be a case where personal beliefs and preconceptions are driving 'science' toward a political objective.
The fact that the report does not consider the negative health and social consequences of mask wearing shows that we are not learning the lessons of lockdown. Swinging public health measures MUST consider the total impact they will create - positive and negative.
Elysium said:
bodhi said:
Elysium, think there is one for you here - remember the Uni of Cambridge study you posted seeing a high correlation between severity of the last two flu seasons and the countries' outcomes with COVID? The Daily Mail (yes, yes I know) have picked it up:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8497185/B...
Thrown in things like Climate, Population Density and overall health, I do wonder if the die had already been cast when the epidemic hit in March, and whichever way, the UK was going to get battered. Just a shame we pivoted from our initial correct strategy to a far more destructive and lethal one, based on lots of shrieking from the media.
Thanks for sharing that. I went straight to the comments section first to see if people were reacting angrily to the suggestion, but I think it is fairly balanced.https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8497185/B...
Thrown in things like Climate, Population Density and overall health, I do wonder if the die had already been cast when the epidemic hit in March, and whichever way, the UK was going to get battered. Just a shame we pivoted from our initial correct strategy to a far more destructive and lethal one, based on lots of shrieking from the media.
For instance I almost had a pleasant visit to Tesco last night - no arrows, no marshalls, no-one jumping out of the way, a few smiles from passers by and lots of very British "No, after you". I found the same in the pubs on Saturday, everyone was just happy to be out again and to have more people to talk to.
Throw in the Sausage and Egg McMuffin I had this morning and it almost feels vaguely normal out there.
sambucket said:
Elysium said:
The words in bold are not in the paper.
The caveats describe the limitations of the papers findings, which are that masks can be effective if they are constructed in a suitable way and used properly.
That does not mean that face coverings made from old socks will be effective.
If the author stating that people should wear masks, then the evidence for that is not clear as it is not in their own paper. Unfortunately, this seems to be a case where personal beliefs and preconceptions are driving 'science' toward a political objective.
The fact that the report does not consider the negative health and social consequences of mask wearing shows that we are not learning the lessons of lockdown. Swinging public health measures MUST consider the total impact they will create - positive and negative.
Is the evidence very strong on he negative impact of clothe community masks? Japan etc have been wearing them for years, for flu etc. The caveats describe the limitations of the papers findings, which are that masks can be effective if they are constructed in a suitable way and used properly.
That does not mean that face coverings made from old socks will be effective.
If the author stating that people should wear masks, then the evidence for that is not clear as it is not in their own paper. Unfortunately, this seems to be a case where personal beliefs and preconceptions are driving 'science' toward a political objective.
The fact that the report does not consider the negative health and social consequences of mask wearing shows that we are not learning the lessons of lockdown. Swinging public health measures MUST consider the total impact they will create - positive and negative.
There is some evidence that mask wearing can be medically damaging, particularly for certain individuals. I have not seen any research on the sociological consequences of mass mask wearing for an indefinite period. That is because, like lockdown, this is an unprecedented experiment.
I think it is OK for the authors of the study you shared to apply a narrow focus to the possible benefits of wearing masks. However, it is wrong of Prof Mills to state that the evidence shows that people 'should' wear masks without considering the consequences.
We make decisions emotionally and rationalise them later. Mask advocates have formed their views based on emotion, because they instinctively feel that masks must achieve something and anything is better than nothing. They are now trying to find evidence to rationalise that decision, so they can convince themselves that it was more that gut feel.
I think statement by Prof Mills that you quoted strongly suggests she is in that camp.
Edited by Elysium on Thursday 9th July 13:56
sambucket said:
Is the evidence very strong on he negative impact of clothe community masks? Japan etc have been wearing them for years, for flu etc.
People in Asia who are have the flu or cold wear a mask as a courtesy to other people to reduce the risk of infecting them. However, we are telling those people to stay at home and self isolate.Whether we want to allow people who are sick to continue to interact with other healthy people because they are wearing a mask is a separate point. Personally I would say no - they should stay at home whilst they have symptoms.
As to the need for masks, you can see from Sweden and the data from Stockholm I posted earlier, modest social distancing measures reduce the R value to below 1. We don't need a theoretical model or an experimental paper - we can see the actual evidence in real world examples.
If we want to keep the virus suppressed to very low levels, that is all we need to do.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8505037/B...
other highly esteemed sources are available, obviously.
And to further extend the point that we don't need additional mask measures, non-essential shops opened on the 15th June, and yet the ONS are saying they estimate the prevalence in England of people infected has reduced to just 1 in 3,900 individuals between 22 June and 5 July 2020
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunit...
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunit...
EddieSteadyGo said:
If airborne transmission was a serious risk, the R rate in countries like Sweden would never have reduced below 1 (as they only ever implemented modest social distancing measures and restricted large groups).
So when we discuss masks, we need to understand the problem we are trying to fix i.e. what measures are required to prevent/limit the spread of the virus? If the virus can be suppressed using more modest measures, and so we can keep R<1, what is the need to use more extreme methods like wide-scale wearing of masks?
We can look at Stockholm as a case study of a city which has a similar population density to London (and where primary and secondary schools have remained open throughout, most businesses have remained open as well as bars/restaurants, albeit with social distancing).
We can see by looking at the death rates for Stockholm there has been a consistent decline. A rate of decline which is in fact very similar to that which we have seen in the UK.....
Looking at the trend line we can deduce their R rate has been circa 0.8-0.9 since the introduction of their measures (when infections peaked in late March).
So the data from Sweden and Stockholm shows R stays below 1 with modest social distancing measures which is sufficient to suppress the virus to very low levels. There is no need to go further unless there is a different objective.
I entirely agree. This is Sweden and UK fatalities per million population. I don't think you could align the rate of decline any more closely if you tried. So when we discuss masks, we need to understand the problem we are trying to fix i.e. what measures are required to prevent/limit the spread of the virus? If the virus can be suppressed using more modest measures, and so we can keep R<1, what is the need to use more extreme methods like wide-scale wearing of masks?
We can look at Stockholm as a case study of a city which has a similar population density to London (and where primary and secondary schools have remained open throughout, most businesses have remained open as well as bars/restaurants, albeit with social distancing).
We can see by looking at the death rates for Stockholm there has been a consistent decline. A rate of decline which is in fact very similar to that which we have seen in the UK.....
Looking at the trend line we can deduce their R rate has been circa 0.8-0.9 since the introduction of their measures (when infections peaked in late March).
So the data from Sweden and Stockholm shows R stays below 1 with modest social distancing measures which is sufficient to suppress the virus to very low levels. There is no need to go further unless there is a different objective.
EddieSteadyGo said:
And to further extend the point that we don't need additional mask measures, non-essential shops opened on the 15th June, and yet the ONS are saying they estimate the prevalence in England of people infected has reduced to just 1 in 3,900 individuals between 22 June and 5 July 2020
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunit...
Thats derived from 8 positive tests out 25,662https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunit...
The confidence interval is really important here as they do not have a definitive metric for false positives / false negatives. So it could easily be lower again.
Elysium said:
EddieSteadyGo said:
If airborne transmission was a serious risk, the R rate in countries like Sweden would never have reduced below 1 (as they only ever implemented modest social distancing measures and restricted large groups).
So when we discuss masks, we need to understand the problem we are trying to fix i.e. what measures are required to prevent/limit the spread of the virus? If the virus can be suppressed using more modest measures, and so we can keep R<1, what is the need to use more extreme methods like wide-scale wearing of masks?
We can look at Stockholm as a case study of a city which has a similar population density to London (and where primary and secondary schools have remained open throughout, most businesses have remained open as well as bars/restaurants, albeit with social distancing).
We can see by looking at the death rates for Stockholm there has been a consistent decline. A rate of decline which is in fact very similar to that which we have seen in the UK.....
Looking at the trend line we can deduce their R rate has been circa 0.8-0.9 since the introduction of their measures (when infections peaked in late March).
So the data from Sweden and Stockholm shows R stays below 1 with modest social distancing measures which is sufficient to suppress the virus to very low levels. There is no need to go further unless there is a different objective.
I entirely agree. This is Sweden and UK fatalities per million population. I don't think you could align the rate of decline any more closely if you tried. So when we discuss masks, we need to understand the problem we are trying to fix i.e. what measures are required to prevent/limit the spread of the virus? If the virus can be suppressed using more modest measures, and so we can keep R<1, what is the need to use more extreme methods like wide-scale wearing of masks?
We can look at Stockholm as a case study of a city which has a similar population density to London (and where primary and secondary schools have remained open throughout, most businesses have remained open as well as bars/restaurants, albeit with social distancing).
We can see by looking at the death rates for Stockholm there has been a consistent decline. A rate of decline which is in fact very similar to that which we have seen in the UK.....
Looking at the trend line we can deduce their R rate has been circa 0.8-0.9 since the introduction of their measures (when infections peaked in late March).
So the data from Sweden and Stockholm shows R stays below 1 with modest social distancing measures which is sufficient to suppress the virus to very low levels. There is no need to go further unless there is a different objective.
The key thing for me is that Sweden thought there was no way to stop the virus. They thought the epidemic would spread until a sufficiently large number of people were infected to give herd immunity (or a vaccine arrived, which they thought was unlikely).
Based on what I knew at the time, I thought this was what would happen.
So their measures weren't designed to achieve R<1. They only wanted to slow the spread to keep hospitalisations within the capacity of their healthcare system.
Fortunately we now have three scenarios, all available with real data.
What happens when you don't have modest social distancing? Very fast spread (see original growth in Stockholm, Lombardy, and London as well as more recent growth in some US states who abandoned social distancing).
What happens keeping schools open, businesses open but implement modest social distancing and limit large groups? R reduces to somewhere between 0.8-0.9
What happens with a full lockdown? R reduces to somewhere between 0.7-0.9
Add in some contact tracing, and you should get it lower than that. We don't need masks as a solution, unless they are answering a different problem.
Elysium said:
EddieSteadyGo said:
And to further extend the point that we don't need additional mask measures, non-essential shops opened on the 15th June, and yet the ONS are saying they estimate the prevalence in England of people infected has reduced to just 1 in 3,900 individuals between 22 June and 5 July 2020
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunit...
Thats derived from 8 positive tests out 25,662https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunit...
The confidence interval is really important here as they do not have a definitive metric for false positives / false negatives. So it could easily be lower again.
I have been looking at the latest ONS analysis for deaths and this chart / data set is really useful:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunit...
The light blue dotted line is the 5 year average for influenza and pneumonia deaths. The light blue solid line is actual, which trends up at the start of the outbreak and drops well below average as COVID starts to impact.
The numbers are interesting. COVID deaths stand at 49,607 and flu deaths at 45,977, so quite similar. However, average flu deaths are 57,221. This suggests two things to me:
1. The COVID impact is on a similar scale to existing deaths from flu and pneumonia.
2. We are likely to be reporting some flu and pneumonia deaths as COVID and this could account for circa 23% of the total COVID death toll.
The other interesting aspect is the inclusion of average and max / min levels for deaths over the last 5 years. All cause deaths are 19% (54,051) higher than the average, but only 10% (31,590) higher than the maximum. Considering we are dealing with a deadly new pathogen, I don't think this is a terrifying increase.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunit...
The light blue dotted line is the 5 year average for influenza and pneumonia deaths. The light blue solid line is actual, which trends up at the start of the outbreak and drops well below average as COVID starts to impact.
The numbers are interesting. COVID deaths stand at 49,607 and flu deaths at 45,977, so quite similar. However, average flu deaths are 57,221. This suggests two things to me:
1. The COVID impact is on a similar scale to existing deaths from flu and pneumonia.
2. We are likely to be reporting some flu and pneumonia deaths as COVID and this could account for circa 23% of the total COVID death toll.
The other interesting aspect is the inclusion of average and max / min levels for deaths over the last 5 years. All cause deaths are 19% (54,051) higher than the average, but only 10% (31,590) higher than the maximum. Considering we are dealing with a deadly new pathogen, I don't think this is a terrifying increase.
Some really interesting snippets and commentary on lockdowns and NPIs here:
https://twitter.com/boriquagato/status/12809909766...
The Asch Conformity Experiments mentioned would seem to be remarkably similar to the current situation!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_expe...
https://twitter.com/boriquagato/status/12809909766...
The Asch Conformity Experiments mentioned would seem to be remarkably similar to the current situation!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asch_conformity_expe...
pneumothorax said:
Sam
The NHS is twiddling it's thumbs,
Meantime I could post here about people who are going to die as collateral cases each and every night I work.
pneumothorax - The NHS is twiddling it's thumbs,
Meantime I could post here about people who are going to die as collateral cases each and every night I work.
Saw this and wondered if it might be something that struck a chord with you?
https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-access-to-o...
EddieSteadyGo said:
And to further extend the point that we don't need additional mask measures, non-essential shops opened on the 15th June, and yet the ONS are saying they estimate the prevalence in England of people infected has reduced to just 1 in 3,900 individuals between 22 June and 5 July 2020
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunit...
Fantastic https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunit...
So the lifting of restrictions and having BLM protests etc has moved the rate from 1:2200 to 1:3900.
Second wave my arse - that ain't happening any time soon is it?
Elysium said:
The numbers are interesting. COVID deaths stand at 49,607 and flu deaths at 45,977, so quite similar. However, average flu deaths are 57,221. This suggests two things to me:
1. The COVID impact is on a similar scale to existing deaths from flu and pneumonia.
2. We are likely to be reporting some flu and pneumonia deaths as COVID and this could account for circa 23% of the total COVID death toll.
What you're missing is that the flu deaths are lamost certainly lower than average because COVID killed them before flu could.1. The COVID impact is on a similar scale to existing deaths from flu and pneumonia.
2. We are likely to be reporting some flu and pneumonia deaths as COVID and this could account for circa 23% of the total COVID death toll.
Those 49,000 are ones where COVID was noted as the cause of death (together with a positive test). There are an additional 10K deaths where COVID was not given as the cause of death but was mentioned on the death certificate as a factor - some of those will certainly have been pneumonia deaths.
Also, in the early stages of the pandemic, I would not be surprised if some COVID deaths were almost certainly noted as pneumonia, as we weren't testing for it.
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