Coronavirus Thread

[st albans fox]

17 minutes ago, Legend_in_blue said:

It started with Ferguson and his 500k figures based on three flights out of Wuhan.  That was in part the reasoning behind the initial lockdown in March 2020.

Was the initial lockdown wrong in your opinion ?? 

[I am Rod Hull]

19 hours ago, Babylon said:

I did boots over the weekend, woman in front of me the queue at 11am took the last box.  Off to try Oadby in a mo. 

If it was so important you would have got there a tad earlier...

Edited 4 January 2022 by I am Rod Hull

[z-layrex]

2 hours ago, Farrington fox said:

I am vaxed. 2 AZ’s. I just don’t want mRNA. 

You are at risk, trust the experts and get your booster.

[dsr-burnley]

3 hours ago, st albans fox said:

We’ve come quite a way over 21 months 

a lot of oxygen treatments (eg cpap) which mean intubation is more of a last resort and many who become v ill in hospital are suffering other organ issues rather than their lungs failing 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This lack of increase in patients on ventilators is not just a function of progress in the last 21 months.  On 13th December, 3 weeks ago, UK cases took off for Mars, going from 50k per day to 90k more or less overnight and continuing to rise from there.  Number of patients in ventilation (England only, because the other nations are slower with their figures) was 795 on 13th December, 777 today.  The omicron surge has made literally no difference to the total numbers on ventilation, and it can only be because omicron patients do not need ventilation anything like as much as delta patients.

[dsr-burnley]

3 hours ago, shade said:

technically it's the 2nd round of boosters, think of it as a football game, we've had the first half and the second half, we're in the first half of extra time, about to go in to the second half of extra time. I'm confusing myself.

 

I'm worried about penalties.  Five in each arm?  

[leicsmac]

It would appear that we have broken the back of the latest wave over here in Korea, too. Cases and critical hospitalisations both dropping. And the signs from Omicron continue to look good.

 

I also hope that this might be a wake-up call for humanity regarding natural crises and the necessity of a unified response to them depending on how severe they are...but judging by the content of this thread as a microcosm of society I might be disappointed there.

 

 

[leicsmac]

Also, did some overnight discussion get nuked? Interested.

[Babylon]

7 hours ago, Otis said:

https://amp-theguardian-com.cdn.ampproject.org/v/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/18/uk-scientists-curbs-covid-infections-omicron-deaths-restrictions-sage?amp_js_v=a6&amp_gsa=1&usqp=mq331AQKKAFQArABIIACAw%3D%3D#aoh=16412392926421&amp_ct=1641239606911&referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com&amp_tf=From %1%24s&ampshare=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2F2021%2Fdec%2F18%2Fuk-scientists-curbs-covid-infections-omicron-deaths-restrictions-sage

 

The scale of the threat posed by the Omicron variant was laid bare by government scientists last night as they warned that there are now hundreds of thousands of infections every day. That daily number could reach between 600,000 and 2 million by the end of the month if new restrictions are not brought in immediately.

The government’s SPI-M-O group of scientists, which reports to the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage), also warned that, based on their modelling, hospitalisations could peak between 3,000 and 10,000 a day and deaths at between 600 and 6,000 a day.

 

Sigh… one again, for the people who just keep on ignoring this. They produce a range of projections, these numbers are from the high projections and not the low projections. They didn’t make the newspaper report that range of data.

 

Their optimistic projection in terms of deaths is pretty much inline with what’s currently happening. 

[Babylon]

9 hours ago, Farrington fox said:

It’s a month old but hadn’t seen this, though I had read about it from other sources. And speaking as someone who has had cardio vascular issues is the reason I won’t be taking an mRNA booster. 

 

Again, early studies showed a 6 x increase in chance of myocarditis in young people from Covid itself, than the chance you get it from a vaccine.

 

Of course, with Omicron becoming dominant and looking far weaker, soon it gets to the point where all the data that has gone before is pretty irrelevant to the conversation for the moment. And new studies need doing and decisions making based on where we are now, as the risk reward calculations change.

 

Obviously it’s an incredibly fast moving scenario, giving them a nigh on impossible task to get everything right.

[leicsmac]

11 minutes ago, Babylon said:

Again, early studies showed a 6 x increase in chance of myocarditis in young people from Covid itself, than the chance you get it from a vaccine.

 

Of course, with Omicron becoming dominant and looking far weaker, soon it gets to the point where all the data that has gone before is pretty irrelevant to the conversation for the moment. And new studies need doing and decisions making based on where we are now, as the risk reward calculations change.

 

Obviously it’s an incredibly fast moving scenario, giving them a nigh on impossible task to get everything right.

I've said it before; if people want (the appearance of) perfection from those who claim to understand the world, perhaps they should consider organised religion rather than science.

[shade]

2 hours ago, leicsmac said:

I've said it before; if people want (the appearance of) perfection from those who claim to understand the world, perhaps they should consider organised religion rather than science.

When the data scientists are modelling only worst case scenarios and the organisation that carried out Pfizer's tests are apparently incompetent (or worse) and that company making one of the jabs has been fined 75 times in the last 20 years (a total of $10 billion), I think it's fair enough that people should at the very least question things?

Edited 4 January 2022 by shade

[leicsmac]

23 minutes ago, shade said:

When the data scientists are modelling only worst case scenarios and the organisation that carried out Pfizer's tests are apparently incompetent (or worse) and that company making one of the jabs has been fined 75 times in the last 20 years (a total of $10 billion), I think it's fair enough that people should at the very least question things?

With respect, we've been over this.

 

Question the particular players, absolutely.

Question the method that polices them without offering a better method in return? Nah, I'm sorry, but I think that's hollow.

 

NB. The Scientists involved were not just modelling worst case scenarios.

[shade]

2 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

With respect, we've been over this.

 

Question the particular players, absolutely.

Question the method that polices them without offering a better method in return? Nah, I'm sorry, but I think that's hollow.

 

NB. The Scientists involved were not just modelling worst case scenarios.

That's akin to saying you can't criticise capitalism without offering an alternative. Just because I can't, doesn't mean criticism is immediately invalid. I'm sure you're aware how a lot of the science is funded, find what we want you to find or else. 

[Otis]

3 hours ago, Babylon said:

Sigh… one again, for the people who just keep on ignoring this. They produce a range of projections, these numbers are from the high projections and not the low projections. They didn’t make the newspaper report that range of data.

 

Their optimistic projection in terms of deaths is pretty much inline with what’s currently happening. 

Out of interest can you share the optimistic projections?

[st albans fox]

23 minutes ago, Otis said:

Out of interest can you share the optimistic projections?

The behavioural scientists have them locked away …..

 

flippant, yes but you should get the point

….

 

They’ll be somewhere ……

[Babylon]

21 minutes ago, Otis said:

Out of interest can you share the optimistic projections?

It was something like 19,500 - 28,700 deaths between 1st December and 30th April. It's on the web if you google it. (There are so many links I really can't be bothered to search again, sorry!)

 

Which sounds a lot, but it's only in line with what was happening at the time (if not less) 19,500 death / 151 days = 129 deaths a day. 

[leicsmac]

47 minutes ago, shade said:

That's akin to saying you can't criticise capitalism without offering an alternative. Just because I can't, doesn't mean criticism is immediately invalid. I'm sure you're aware how a lot of the science is funded, find what we want you to find or else. 

... and those "funded" findings are, again, consistently debunked by peer review.

 

Criticism without alternative isn't immediately invalid, but it does make the critic sound hollow when the don't suggest improvements to a system they criticise.

[Zear0]

54 minutes ago, Otis said:

Out of interest can you share the optimistic projections?

0 cases 

[brucey]

12 hours ago, Sol thewall Bamba said:

 

8 hours ago, dsr-burnley said:

This lack of increase in patients on ventilators is not just a function of progress in the last 21 months.  On 13th December, 3 weeks ago, UK cases took off for Mars, going from 50k per day to 90k more or less overnight and continuing to rise from there.  Number of patients in ventilation (England only, because the other nations are slower with their figures) was 795 on 13th December, 777 today.  The omicron surge has made literally no difference to the total numbers on ventilation, and it can only be because omicron patients do not need ventilation anything like as much as delta patients.

Are the graphs not just as likely to be a result of immunity? Given that vaccination is meant to reduce severity of disease, rather than prevent it. So it would make sense that with greater population immunity (with either vaccination or infection), more people are peaking at needing oxygen/basic hospitalisation at their worst, rather than needing ventilation/ICU. 

[Stivo]

32 minutes ago, Otis said:

Out of interest can you share the optimistic projections?

https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/reports/omicron_england/report_11_dec_2021.pdf

 

chart b in figure 2 is an optimistic example.  It projects a peak case load somewhere around 400k cases a day ( they don’t state in the text so you have to eyeball the graph)  and peak admissions of 2410 a day in January.

 

We detected 218k cases on 29th December by specimen date, and assuming that we detect 50% of cases then actual cases were around 400k.  Admissions are at 1900 up 50% on the week but that may be slightly raised due to new year reporting and there also seem more incidental cases at the moment.

 

The specific criticism made was that the model assumes omicron has the same severity for hospitalisations as delta. That was perhaps not completely unreasonable in early January (anecdotal evidence for it being milder only at that point)  but is now known not to be the case and is very good news.  It seems to be in the same ballpark  severity as the original wuhan variant, whereas delta was much worse.

 

The spectator twitter dialog is worth reading.  The guy from the modellers is basically trying to say that you don’t need a mathematician to tell ministers that if omicron turns out to hospitalise people at half the rate of delta then there will be half the hospitalisations of a graph that assumes its the same.  

 

 

 

[st albans fox]

14 minutes ago, Stivo said:

https://cmmid.github.io/topics/covid19/reports/omicron_england/report_11_dec_2021.pdf

 

The spectator twitter dialog is worth reading.  The guy from the modellers is basically trying to say that you don’t need a mathematician to tell ministers that if omicron turns out to hospitalise people at half the rate of delta then there will be half the hospitalisations of a graph that assumes its the same.  

 

 

Might I suggest that boris’ reported lightbulb moment when he realised precisely what a customs union is says different …….

[dsr-burnley]

50 minutes ago, Babylon said:

It was something like 19,500 - 28,700 deaths between 1st December and 30th April. It's on the web if you google it. (There are so many links I really can't be bothered to search again, sorry!)

 

Which sounds a lot, but it's only in line with what was happening at the time (if not less) 19,500 death / 151 days = 129 deaths a day. 

Bear in mind that if 4% of people have tested positive in the last month (as they have - 2.6m out of 67m) then purely by law of averages, 4% of deaths ought to be of people who had covid in the last month.  That's 65-70 per day.  I don't know if these projections were including people who die of other causes and covid was irrelevant, or if they were counting just the covid-connected deaths.

[Babylon]

4 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

Bear in mind that if 4% of people have tested positive in the last month (as they have - 2.6m out of 67m) then purely by law of averages, 4% of deaths ought to be of people who had covid in the last month.  That's 65-70 per day.  I don't know if these projections were including people who die of other causes and covid was irrelevant, or if they were counting just the covid-connected deaths.

I think it's purely covid, ie. The stats that get released each day. 

[Stivo]

12 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

Might I suggest that boris’ reported lightbulb moment when he realised precisely what a customs union is says different …….

😂

 

[Farrington fox]

Does anyone know if they've  started giving people Molnupiravir at home yet?

 

Last month Javid was saying this would be a game changer in avoiding Hospitalisations. With this Country being amoung the first to licence its use, You'd hope they would be.