CV19 - Cure worse than the disease? (Vol 10)

[MikeT66]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

I recall a documentary years ago about how people have survived catastrophes. Zeebrugge and a few other incidents were featured, along with tales of survivors and input from psychologists. The conclusion was that in panic situations many people retract into themselves and stop processing information - the only information they can process was direct instructions from an authority figure, ie. they wait to be told what to do. Even when the Herald Of Free Enterprise was tipping over and going under, some people waited for someone to tell them what to do. For the survivors, something more primal kicked in, and it was a case of 'survival at all costs', leading to many suffering from PTSD from their single-minded actions.

Although the last year doesn't compare with a sudden unexpected disaster, I see similarities in the way people process the information at hand and what they do with it.

[Jordan210]

Alucidnation said:

Seems Whitty isn't convinced and has basically said there will be another surge, which makes sense i guess.


"Prof Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, tells the Commons Science and Technology Select Committee that all the modelling shows there will be another surge of the virus despite the vaccination programme."

Yet Nightingale hospitals are being closed as no longer needed.

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-nhs-nightingal...

[djc206]

ant1973 said:

But that is pretty much inevitable given:-

1. The vaccine is not 100% effective.
2. Not everyone will take the vaccine.
3. We are opening up society at a point where not everyone has had the vaccine and indeed well below the threshold for herd immunity (assuming it can ever be established).

How can this possibly be news!? None of this is the unknown. The unknown is how sausage fingers will react to rising cases....

Well for starters he could redefine case to actually mean something and only count instances where symptoms requiring medical intervention are confirmed with a positive test. The case number is becoming increasingly irrelevant so we really need to stop publicising it. The only numbers we should care about are the number being hospitalised because of covid and then the number dying, both of which are falling dramatically.

[bodhi]

Looking at the media this morning, I'd be tempted to suggest we've cured COVID. All that was needed, was two millionaires who live in a gated community in Santa Barbara to have coffee with their billionaire neighbour and have a moan about the in laws.

Even Eric Feigl-Ding has stopped tweeting scary emojis (WORRYING) and is going on about the dangers of the Royal Family.

Think we're getting there folks.

[RSbandit]

bern said:

Imagine if the English had imposed it on them? I'm sure there would have been some kickback then!

It's similar to over here, I'm convinced if magic grandpa had tried to implement half the policies these s have there would have been riots. Nationalising people's wages for a start would have been seen as an evil commie coup rather than cuddly uncle Boris looking after us all.

It's truly lamentable how petrified and compliant my compatriots have been...as bad as things have been here it's another level over there...and vaccine rollout has been a shambles. Ireland could have said we'll procure them ourselves but the govt and political leaders there always want to be seen to be good little EU lap dogs and that's what you get...EU solidarity gets put ahead of the welfare of your citizens. Denmark and Austria broke rank last week on the vaccines but too little too late unfortunately.

[Goates]

Alucidnation said:

Seems Whitty isn't convinced and has basically said there will be another surge, which makes sense i guess.


"Prof Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, tells the Commons Science and Technology Select Committee that all the modelling shows there will be another surge of the virus despite the vaccination programme."

Think it might be useful if he explained what was considered "a surge" or what they model will surge. Cases only or deaths/hospitalisations, any increase in the following can be defined as "a surge" when you don't define the criteria of what constitues "a surge"... Also, we have gone from not being shown the models, being shown the models and these being criticised, to again not being shown the models, if you are going to go around talking about "the models" at least tells us how they have been derived/who has completed them or even perhaps just show us them...

Edited by Goates on Tuesday 9th March 11:38

[danllama]

To this day I find it laughable that a positive test = a case. Ridiculous.

And yes surge is a deliberately scary word IMO.

[ant1973]

djc206 said:

ant1973 said:

But that is pretty much inevitable given:-

1. The vaccine is not 100% effective.
2. Not everyone will take the vaccine.
3. We are opening up society at a point where not everyone has had the vaccine and indeed well below the threshold for herd immunity (assuming it can ever be established).

How can this possibly be news!? None of this is the unknown. The unknown is how sausage fingers will react to rising cases....

Well for starters he could redefine case to actually mean something and only count instances where symptoms requiring medical intervention are confirmed with a positive test. The case number is becoming increasingly irrelevant so we really need to stop publicising it. The only numbers we should care about are the number being hospitalised because of covid and then the number dying, both of which are falling dramatically.

I don't disagree but I only really look at excess death as the barometer for likely impact of covid. I think that it's undeniably had a substantial effect in the last 12 months. For the "god's waiting room" argument to be correct, we should see a decline in excess deaths to below the average this year.

[rfsteel]

djc206 said:

Well for starters he could redefine case to actually mean something and only count instances where symptoms requiring medical intervention are confirmed with a positive test. The case number is becoming increasingly irrelevant so we really need to stop publicising it. The only numbers we should care about are the number being hospitalised because of covid and then the number dying, both of which are falling dramatically.

This got me thinking, if case numbers are irrelevant due to the @1m tests a day being conducted, isn't cases positivity the way to go, number cases / number cases ?

Taking the data from https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ for Cases by date reported & Virus tests conducted and was able to plot the following;

[gareth_r]

Goates said:

Alucidnation said:

Seems Whitty isn't convinced and has basically said there will be another surge, which makes sense i guess.

"Prof Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, tells the Commons Science and Technology Select Committee that all the modelling shows there will be another surge of the virus despite the vaccination programme."

Think it might be useful if he explained what was considered "a surge" or what they model will surge. Cases only or deaths/hospitalisations, any increase in the following can be defined as "a surge" when you don't define the criteria of what constitues "a surge"... Also, we have gone from not being shown the models, being shown the models and these being criticised, to again not being shown the models, if you are going to go around talking about "the models" at least tells us how they have been derived/who has completed them or even perhaps just show us them...

Vallance and Whitty must have realised that "following the science" is code for "making science the scapegoat", surely?

It looks like they want to ensure that they are always seen as more cautious than Johnson and Hancock.

[danllama]

LBC can't help themselves but I did enjoy this first comment

[Garvin]

ant1973 said:

Alucidnation said:

Jordan210 said:

With cases tumbling. 25m+ vaccines and the weather getting better. You would really think we should be opening up and getting the economy back on track.


Hopefully the rumours that sturgeon might be speeding up Scotland. Might put a boot up Boris

Seems Whitty isn't convinced and has basically said there will be another surge, which makes sense i guess.


"Prof Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, tells the Commons Science and Technology Select Committee that all the modelling shows there will be another surge of the virus despite the vaccination programme."

But that is pretty much inevitable given:-

1. The vaccine is not 100% effective.
2. Not everyone will take the vaccine.
3. We are opening up society at a point where not everyone has had the vaccine and indeed well below the threshold for herd immunity (assuming it can ever be established).

How can this possibly be news!? None of this is the unknown. The unknown is how sausage fingers will react to rising cases....

Rising cases . . . . . . so what? The virus isn’t going to be eradicated so there are always going to be surges in the cases just like flu. We are rapidly moving from a pandemic to a casedemic where, if we are not careful, we will be locking down every year from now on because of the surge in cases not because of deaths. We live with flu deaths and we will have to live with flu + covid deaths at a level . . . . . . . . or give up hope of a normal life ever again.

The answer must surely be to up the capacity of the NHS to cope with the new level of flu + covid and get on with things. With the vaccine having been rolled out to all those likely to be hospitalised by end April and the normal reduction in cases over the summer such that the majority of the population will be vaccinated by the next winter onset of cases it makes no sense to me not to lift all restrictions in the next few weeks and certainly by mid-April at the very latest. Unless the vaccine doesn’t really work!!,

[EddieSteadyGo]

rfsteel said:

This got me thinking, if case numbers are irrelevant due to the @1m tests a day being conducted, isn't cases positivity the way to go, number cases / number cases ?

Taking the data from https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ for Cases by date reported & Virus tests conducted and was able to plot the following;

It is a bit hard to read the scale on your graph, but I agree positivity rates is an important measure, but I would say we should look at PCR positivity rates (to minimise the distortion mass testing acheives).

[Twinfan]

Garvin said:

Rising cases . . . . . . so what? The virus isn’t going to be eradicated so there are always going to be surges in the cases just like flu. We are rapidly moving from a pandemic to a casedemic where, if we are not careful, we will be locking down every year from now on because of the surge in cases not because of deaths. We live with flu deaths and we will have to live with flu + covid deaths at a level . . . . . . . . or give up hope of a normal life ever again.

The answer must surely be to up the capacity of the NHS to cope with the new level of flu + covid and get on with things. With the vaccine having been rolled out to all those likely to be hospitalised by end April and the normal reduction in cases over the summer such that the majority of the population will be vaccinated by the next winter onset of cases it makes no sense to me not to lift all restrictions in the next few weeks and certainly by mid-April at the very latest. Unless the vaccine doesn’t really work!!,

It seems more and more people seem to be cottoning on to this. Will the media though? We need pressure to start rising against the Government to speed up the unlock, although the Whitty/Valance show today appear to be trying to counter this view

[Alucidnation]

ant1973 said:

Alucidnation said:

Jordan210 said:

With cases tumbling. 25m+ vaccines and the weather getting better. You would really think we should be opening up and getting the economy back on track.


Hopefully the rumours that sturgeon might be speeding up Scotland. Might put a boot up Boris

Seems Whitty isn't convinced and has basically said there will be another surge, which makes sense i guess.


"Prof Chris Whitty, England's chief medical officer, tells the Commons Science and Technology Select Committee that all the modelling shows there will be another surge of the virus despite the vaccination programme."

But that is pretty much inevitable given:-

1. The vaccine is not 100% effective.
2. Not everyone will take the vaccine.
3. We are opening up society at a point where not everyone has had the vaccine and indeed well below the threshold for herd immunity (assuming it can ever be established).

How can this possibly be news!? None of this is the unknown. The unknown is how sausage fingers will react to rising cases....

I suspect he is probably trying to reinforce the fact that just because numbers are falling, and a vaccine is being rolled out at a vast rate, it still ain't over yet by a long way.

[alangla]

Twinfan said:

It seems more and more people seem to be cottoning on to this. Will the media though? We need pressure to start rising against the Government to speed up the unlock, although the Whitty/Valance show today appear to be trying to counter this view

It'll be interesting to see what Sturgeon comes out with this afternoon. Several areas of mainland Scotland are now at infection levels that would be tier zero under the old bandings, tier 1 under the new - even urban plague pits like Glasgow would be in tier 2 under the old bandings. Looking at the detailed data that's been published, it looks like several authorities have got very concentrated outbreaks with very little across the rest of their areas. Surely the justification for national restrictions has long gone?

[redrabbit]

To be fair, as well as noting a further surge, Whitty has also stated that zero covid is not an option, that we don't lockdown for flu deaths, and that govt/society needs to decide what acceptable mortality will look like. No idea if he's stated that clearly before, but puts his other observations in context.

[Ntv]

ant1973 said:

djc206 said:

ant1973 said:

But that is pretty much inevitable given:-

1. The vaccine is not 100% effective.
2. Not everyone will take the vaccine.
3. We are opening up society at a point where not everyone has had the vaccine and indeed well below the threshold for herd immunity (assuming it can ever be established).

How can this possibly be news!? None of this is the unknown. The unknown is how sausage fingers will react to rising cases....

Well for starters he could redefine case to actually mean something and only count instances where symptoms requiring medical intervention are confirmed with a positive test. The case number is becoming increasingly irrelevant so we really need to stop publicising it. The only numbers we should care about are the number being hospitalised because of covid and then the number dying, both of which are falling dramatically.

I don't disagree but I only really look at excess death as the barometer for likely impact of covid. I think that it's undeniably had a substantial effect in the last 12 months. For the "god's waiting room" argument to be correct, we should see a decline in excess deaths to below the average this year.

There's a lot going on in why people are dying though.

Have more people been lonely and depressed? Yes. Does that increase or decrease longevity in older people? Decrease.

Have more people lost a spouse through / with / from / of / to COVID? Yes. Does that increase or decrease longevity in older people? Decrease.

Dis-entangling deaths that "would have happened absent a pandemic" from the others is not easy ...

[Ntv]

Twinfan said:

Garvin said:

Rising cases . . . . . . so what? The virus isn’t going to be eradicated so there are always going to be surges in the cases just like flu. We are rapidly moving from a pandemic to a casedemic where, if we are not careful, we will be locking down every year from now on because of the surge in cases not because of deaths. We live with flu deaths and we will have to live with flu + covid deaths at a level . . . . . . . . or give up hope of a normal life ever again.

The answer must surely be to up the capacity of the NHS to cope with the new level of flu + covid and get on with things. With the vaccine having been rolled out to all those likely to be hospitalised by end April and the normal reduction in cases over the summer such that the majority of the population will be vaccinated by the next winter onset of cases it makes no sense to me not to lift all restrictions in the next few weeks and certainly by mid-April at the very latest. Unless the vaccine doesn’t really work!!,

It seems more and more people seem to be cottoning on to this. Will the media though? We need pressure to start rising against the Government to speed up the unlock, although the Whitty/Valance show today appear to be trying to counter this view

The truth of course is that all the "protect the NHS" ... "NHS will be overwhelmed and the sky will fall in" guff was largely about controlling the population.

That explains why, despite such grave concerns about surges and fourth waves, the N'gales are being closed, and more to the point, why there is no public debate on bolstering NHS flexibility and pandemic capacity.

[Steve vRS]

alangla said:

It'll be interesting to see what Sturgeon comes out with this afternoon. Several areas of mainland Scotland are now at infection levels that would be tier zero under the old bandings, tier 1 under the new - even urban plague pits like Glasgow would be in tier 2 under the old bandings. Looking at the detailed data that's been published, it looks like several authorities have got very concentrated outbreaks with very little across the rest of their areas. Surely the justification for national restrictions has long gone?

She will not move quicker than England. I’d put a large wager on it but would be happy to be proved wrong.