COVID-19

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lpm
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Re: COVID-19

Post by lpm » Tue Jan 26, 2021 4:49 pm

100,000 official deaths.

What an achievement.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by TimW » Tue Jan 26, 2021 5:08 pm

I expect Boris is about to resign.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by Little waster » Tue Jan 26, 2021 5:29 pm

lpm wrote:
Tue Jan 26, 2021 4:49 pm
100,000 official deaths.

What an achievement.
World-beating! They said it couldn't be done but with the right man in charge we can achieve anything.

See Remoaners we've been out the EU less than a month and we are already topping all sorts of global rankings tables.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by TimW » Tue Jan 26, 2021 5:30 pm

Can't believe I got that wrong.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by Turdly » Tue Jan 26, 2021 6:32 pm

TimW wrote:
Tue Jan 26, 2021 5:30 pm
Can't believe I got that wrong.
As much as I think Boris should resign and allow someone competent to take over:
i) it'll be portrayed (quite rightly) as him passing the buck to someone else so it'll make him look worse. Realistically, he doesn't give a sh.t that 100,000 have died as he is hoping the vaccine rollout will mean people will look back and see him as Brave Sir Boris who saw of that foreign virus* with GREAT BRITISH pluck, and that those people died honourably so that we could survive thanks to our GREAT BRITISH vaccine.
ii) which of the shower of sh.t that is our government is going to improve on the catastrofuck led by the bumblefuck in chief?

*they'll forget the UK variant
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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Tue Jan 26, 2021 6:37 pm

Boris Johnson has insisted his government “did everything we could” to limit coronavirus deaths

"Country with higher death rate than any other insists death rate couldn't be lower."

* - I can't actually be arsed to calculate the number of deaths in terms of % of population and compare it to every other country.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Turdly » Tue Jan 26, 2021 6:45 pm

shpalman wrote:
Tue Jan 26, 2021 6:37 pm
Boris Johnson has insisted his government “did everything we could” to limit coronavirus deaths

"Country with higher death rate than any other insists death rate couldn't be lower."

* - I can't actually be arsed to calculate the number of deaths in terms of % of population and compare it to every other country.

According to Worldometer we have the 5th highest deaths per million population. Remove Gibraltar and San Marino which don't really count as they are skewed by small populations and we are 3rd behind Belgium and Slovenia.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Tue Jan 26, 2021 6:55 pm

Turdly wrote:
Tue Jan 26, 2021 6:45 pm
shpalman wrote:
Tue Jan 26, 2021 6:37 pm
Boris Johnson has insisted his government “did everything we could” to limit coronavirus deaths

"Country with higher death rate than any other insists death rate couldn't be lower."

* - I can't actually be arsed to calculate the number of deaths in terms of % of population and compare it to every other country.

According to Worldometer we have the 5th highest deaths per million population. Remove Gibraltar and San Marino which don't really count as they are skewed by small populations and we are 3rd behind Belgium and Slovenia.
Thanks.

Although as I regularly point out, if Lombardy were a separate country it would be way ahead in first place, at 2662 deaths per million.

I also note that the region is governed by those racist populist right-wing morons, the Lega. Thank f.ck Salvini isn't in charge in Rome.

San Marino is embedded in Emilia-Romagna which is at 2079 so it's actually doing better than that.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by jimbob » Tue Jan 26, 2021 6:59 pm

lpm wrote:
Tue Jan 26, 2021 12:28 pm
Non-Covids are definitely below average. At some point there will need to be a lives saved from disappearence of flu analysis.
Indeed and it's pretty complex, norovirus infections are also down a lot.

I've now just looked at the 8 weeks either side of wk01 to try to remove the wk53 effect

Image

This is now comparing wk53 with most wks 52, which is also probably wrong.

Basically, I think the best simple analysis is to use the cumulative totals and compare those
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Re: COVID-19

Post by TimW » Tue Jan 26, 2021 9:14 pm

But on the other hand,
Boris said in parliament and Hansard wrote:Yesterday, on the advice of the four chief medical officers, the UK’s Covid alert level was raised from 3 to 4, the second most serious stage, meaning that transmission is high or rising exponentially.

So this is the moment when we must act. If we can curb the number of daily infections, and reduce the Reproduction rate to one, then we can save lives, protect the NHS, and the most vulnerable, and shelter the economy from the far sterner and more costly measures that would inevitably become necessary later.

So we are acting on the principle that a stitch in time saves nine. The Government will introduce new restrictions in England, carefully judged to achieve the maximum reduction in the R number with the minimum damage to lives and livelihoods.

I want to stress that this is by no means a return to the full lockdown of March. We are not issuing a general instruction to stay at home.

We will ensure that schools, colleges and universities stay open – because nothing is more important than the education, health and well-being of our young people.

We will ensure that businesses can stay open in a Covid-compliant way. However, we must take action to suppress the disease.
Possibly could have concentrated a bit more on reducing deaths, then.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by Martin Y » Tue Jan 26, 2021 9:27 pm

Turdly wrote:
Tue Jan 26, 2021 6:45 pm
shpalman wrote:
Tue Jan 26, 2021 6:37 pm
Boris Johnson has insisted his government “did everything we could” to limit coronavirus deaths

"Country with higher death rate than any other insists death rate couldn't be lower."

* - I can't actually be arsed to calculate the number of deaths in terms of % of population and compare it to every other country.

According to Worldometer we have the 5th highest deaths per million population. Remove Gibraltar and San Marino which don't really count as they are skewed by small populations and we are 3rd behind Belgium and Slovenia.
I suppose Gibraltar is also Boris's lookout. Surely no other world leader has two territories in the top 5. World-beating.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by tom p » Wed Jan 27, 2021 8:24 am

shpalman wrote:
Tue Jan 26, 2021 6:37 pm
Boris Johnson has insisted his government “did everything we could” to limit coronavirus deaths

"Country with higher death rate than any other insists death rate couldn't be lower."

* - I can't actually be arsed to calculate the number of deaths in terms of % of population and compare it to every other country.
If the UK (67.8 million, 100k dead) had the same death rate as Germany (83.8 million, 50k dead), then the number of dead in the UK would be ~40k.
Johnson's incompetence has killed 60,000 people. In ~9 months.
In the 8 months of the blitz, just 40k people died.
Johnson thinks he's Churchill. Before he came to power I thought he'd be more like Goebbels. It turns out that he's one and a half Görings

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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Wed Jan 27, 2021 9:18 am

In the continuing argument between the Lombardy region and the ISS over who's fault it is that the calculation of the Rt came out too high and therefore put Lombardy into a Red Zone, the ISS has published a timeline in which the ISS notes that since the 29th of May it has been reporting back to Lombardy that there was something anomalous in the data: "asymptomatic" cases being reported along with the date of the onset of their symptoms, for example.

They kept saying "the algorithm we use to calculate Rt is on our website so anyone can check" but really only someone in the administration of the region can check, since the published data doesn't distinguish what kind of positives they are for example. All I could find was this FAQ with a very unwieldy url which is listed on the (second page of the) list here.

(You can find their weekly powerpoint reports; there's a page for their epidemiology)
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Re: COVID-19

Post by lpm » Wed Jan 27, 2021 10:10 am

tom p wrote:
Wed Jan 27, 2021 8:24 am
shpalman wrote:
Tue Jan 26, 2021 6:37 pm
Boris Johnson has insisted his government “did everything we could” to limit coronavirus deaths

"Country with higher death rate than any other insists death rate couldn't be lower."

* - I can't actually be arsed to calculate the number of deaths in terms of % of population and compare it to every other country.
If the UK (67.8 million, 100k dead) had the same death rate as Germany (83.8 million, 50k dead), then the number of dead in the UK would be ~40k.
Johnson's incompetence has killed 60,000 people. In ~9 months.
In the 8 months of the blitz, just 40k people died.
Johnson thinks he's Churchill. Before he came to power I thought he'd be more like Goebbels. It turns out that he's one and a half Görings
Wrong.

The UK cannot be expected to match Germany. Our pandemic performance has to judged against specific conditions in the UK.

- For the past 10 years in the name of austerity the UK has trashed its public health infrastructure
- For the past 10 years in the name of austerity the UK has under invested in the NHS despite the ageing population
- For the past 10 years in the name of austerity the UK has pursued a policy of long waiting lists and rationing of NHS care, deliberately attempting to run at 0% spare capacity
- For the past 10 years in the name of austerity the UK has cut statutory sick pay to among the lowest in Europe
- For the past 10 years in the name of fake economics the UK has driven desperation into the lives of the poor, forcing them to live on insufficient benefits in inadequate housing
- For the past 10 years in the name of fake economics the UK has reduced job security for the low paid, forcing them to go out an earn an hourly wage even if ill or supposed to be isolating
- For the past 10 years in the name of appeasing newspaper owners and rich supporters the UK has pursued policies of no regulation, no rules for the elites and no accountability for government ministers

Johnson and the Conservative government never had a hope of matching Germany and the other civilised countries.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by JQH » Wed Jan 27, 2021 1:52 pm

lpm wrote:
Wed Jan 27, 2021 10:10 am
tom p wrote:
Wed Jan 27, 2021 8:24 am
shpalman wrote:
Tue Jan 26, 2021 6:37 pm
Boris Johnson has insisted his government “did everything we could” to limit coronavirus deaths

"Country with higher death rate than any other insists death rate couldn't be lower."

* - I can't actually be arsed to calculate the number of deaths in terms of % of population and compare it to every other country.
If the UK (67.8 million, 100k dead) had the same death rate as Germany (83.8 million, 50k dead), then the number of dead in the UK would be ~40k.
Johnson's incompetence has killed 60,000 people. In ~9 months.
In the 8 months of the blitz, just 40k people died.
Johnson thinks he's Churchill. Before he came to power I thought he'd be more like Goebbels. It turns out that he's one and a half Görings
Wrong.

The UK cannot be expected to match Germany. Our pandemic performance has to judged against specific conditions in the UK.

- For the past 10 years in the name of austerity the UK has trashed its public health infrastructure
- For the past 10 years in the name of austerity the UK has under invested in the NHS despite the ageing population
- For the past 10 years in the name of austerity the UK has pursued a policy of long waiting lists and rationing of NHS care, deliberately attempting to run at 0% spare capacity
- For the past 10 years in the name of austerity the UK has cut statutory sick pay to among the lowest in Europe
- For the past 10 years in the name of fake economics the UK has driven desperation into the lives of the poor, forcing them to live on insufficient benefits in inadequate housing
- For the past 10 years in the name of fake economics the UK has reduced job security for the low paid, forcing them to go out an earn an hourly wage even if ill or supposed to be isolating
- For the past 10 years in the name of appeasing newspaper owners and rich supporters the UK has pursued policies of no regulation, no rules for the elites and no accountability for government ministers

Johnson and the Conservative government never had a hope of matching Germany and the other civilised countries.
Given that Johnson was in Parliament for a chunk of that timeand indeed in Government for some of it, that's on him too.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by jimbob » Wed Jan 27, 2021 2:43 pm

https://twitter.com/jneill/status/13542 ... 49601?s=20

Video showing tweets by the usual suspect Covid deniers about the lack of a second wave (Stat O Guy was the one who made the fake graph for the Daily Mail)

Overlaid with the situation at the time. Every beep is 100 deaths.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Bird on a Fire » Wed Jan 27, 2021 2:48 pm

JQH wrote:
Wed Jan 27, 2021 1:52 pm
lpm wrote:
Wed Jan 27, 2021 10:10 am
tom p wrote:
Wed Jan 27, 2021 8:24 am


If the UK (67.8 million, 100k dead) had the same death rate as Germany (83.8 million, 50k dead), then the number of dead in the UK would be ~40k.
Johnson's incompetence has killed 60,000 people. In ~9 months.
In the 8 months of the blitz, just 40k people died.
Johnson thinks he's Churchill. Before he came to power I thought he'd be more like Goebbels. It turns out that he's one and a half Görings
Wrong.

The UK cannot be expected to match Germany. Our pandemic performance has to judged against specific conditions in the UK.

- For the past 10 years in the name of austerity the UK has trashed its public health infrastructure
- For the past 10 years in the name of austerity the UK has under invested in the NHS despite the ageing population
- For the past 10 years in the name of austerity the UK has pursued a policy of long waiting lists and rationing of NHS care, deliberately attempting to run at 0% spare capacity
- For the past 10 years in the name of austerity the UK has cut statutory sick pay to among the lowest in Europe
- For the past 10 years in the name of fake economics the UK has driven desperation into the lives of the poor, forcing them to live on insufficient benefits in inadequate housing
- For the past 10 years in the name of fake economics the UK has reduced job security for the low paid, forcing them to go out an earn an hourly wage even if ill or supposed to be isolating
- For the past 10 years in the name of appeasing newspaper owners and rich supporters the UK has pursued policies of no regulation, no rules for the elites and no accountability for government ministers

Johnson and the Conservative government never had a hope of matching Germany and the other civilised countries.
Given that Johnson was in Parliament for a chunk of that timeand indeed in Government for some of it, that's on him too.
More importantly, knowing what the conditions in the NHS were like, Johnson could have pursued policies that minimised transmission and thus cases and thus hospitalisations and thus deaths.

Instead of his "I've just been in a pub full of coronavirus patients and let me tell you I shook hands with absolutely everybody" jobs-first eatouttohelpthevirusout shtick.

He knew the UK didn't have German-quality healthcare so should have pursued more aggressive lockdown tactics than Germany.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by jimbob » Wed Jan 27, 2021 3:27 pm

er, wasn't that LPM's point?
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Re: COVID-19

Post by tom p » Wed Jan 27, 2021 4:12 pm

jimbob wrote:
Wed Jan 27, 2021 3:27 pm
er, wasn't that LPM's point?
No.
Her point (presumably meant to be funny, since it's lpm) was that the UK couldn't have been expected to match Germany's death rate because of the last 10 years of cuntiness. Birdy is correct that better anti-transmission measures, rather than endless active pro-transmission measures in spring and summer, would actually have made a massive difference and were therefore even more necessary.
He could have done them easily. He has a big majority, had large personal popularity, and had an opposition that would have supported him on any strict lockdown measures to prevent the spread. His dithering, incompetence & blithering idiocy caused this. He had a chance to avoid killing 100,000 people and he failed.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by Bird on a Fire » Wed Jan 27, 2021 4:48 pm

Yes. I mean, Portugal for example has a hugely 'stretched' public health service, including IIRC the fewest intensive care beds in Europe. But they managed to be largely unscathed during the first wave through a series of strict restrictions.

Then they relaxed over the summer, and only did partial, fiddly UK-style restrictions in the autumn, plus a couple of relaxations for Christmas and New Years, and now we find ourselves with a weekly death rate per capita above that of the UK.

It turns out that if you stop people going into bars, restaurants, shops and each other's houses they can't infect each other; if you let them, they do. This public health stuff is easy.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by KAJ » Wed Jan 27, 2021 9:12 pm

Anyone know why today's coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths has "Deaths within 28 days of positive test by date of death" not for UK, but only for "By nation", and that is missing Wales?

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Re: COVID-19

Post by sTeamTraen » Wed Jan 27, 2021 9:35 pm

Martin Y wrote:
Tue Jan 26, 2021 9:27 pm
I suppose Gibraltar is also Boris's lookout. Surely no other world leader has two territories in the top 5. World-beating.
I usually download the Johns Hopkins data which includes Gibraltar under GBR and some of the Dutch Caribbean (it's complicated) under NLD. So their numbers are never quite the same as ECDC for the UK and Netherlands.

That said, there is a case to be made that devolved governments in the UK have their share of responsibility. I see people pointing out that Scotland is in a slightly less sh.t situation than England on cases and deaths, but they tend to omit Wales, and England is also doing better on vaccine rollout. So you can tell the stories you like.

FWIW I think most countries have done about as well or badly as one might expect, given their healthcare infrastructure and population factors like obesity. Of course it helps to be run by Merkel or Macron rather than Johnson or Orban, but their effect is marginal compared to the effect of the virus when people don't stay the f.ck at home.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by lpm » Wed Jan 27, 2021 9:52 pm

My point, if I had one, is the UK's failure runs far deeper than one bad year with a particularly bad Prime Minister.

The country had rotted from within. It hasn't a hope of succeeding in a pandemic or with Brexit or in holding the union together, and that's not just because of Johnson - it's also what Johnson is a symptom of.

In the UK, and particularly England, we need to stop expecting even mediocre outcomes. Johnson and incompetent government is now a feature, not a temporary bug.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Little waster » Wed Jan 27, 2021 11:56 pm

lpm wrote:
Wed Jan 27, 2021 9:52 pm
My point, if I had one, is the UK's failure runs far deeper than one bad year with a particularly bad Prime Minister.

The country had rotted from within. It hasn't a hope of succeeding in a pandemic or with Brexit or in holding the union together, and that's not just because of Johnson - it's also what Johnson is a symptom of.

In the UK, and particularly England, we need to stop expecting even mediocre outcomes. Johnson and incompetent government is now a feature, not a temporary bug.
I don't understand how we've got in this plight. I mean like the US* we've had over 40 years of glorious Thatcherism, it's been TINA all the way!

Have we considered trying MOAR Thatcherism? That has to be worth a shot.


*I've not being paying attention recently but I assume the Americans have COVID licked and their public infrastructure is the envy of the world, or at least just needs an Infrastructure Week or two to sort out.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Bird on a Fire » Thu Jan 28, 2021 1:00 am

If the United Kingdom had adopted South Korean-style controls in response to the coronavirus pandemic, it would have saved about 65,000 lives through October 2020 and averted its worst economic decline in more than three centuries, according to a new study that modeled the countries’ coronavirus policies.

The authors argued that their paper, which is forthcoming in the February 2021 issue of the Journal of Public Economics, demonstrates that there is not a tradeoff between gross domestic product and public health. Rather, the two are inextricably linked.
https://academictimes.com/south-korean- ... ves-in-uk/
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