COVID-19

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sheldrake
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Re: COVID-19

Post by sheldrake » Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:24 am

I dont think anybody here genuinely believes this austerity handwaving is good science.

Return to the norma of 2009 does not represent calamity in any rational analysis.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by OffTheRock » Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:24 am

bagpuss wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 6:43 am
Back to the +ve LFT / - ve PCR again, looks like it's definitely a lab issue. This article only mentions one testing site but the woman from Berks talking on the Today programme just now was basically saying it was a lab issue while carefully only talking about that one testing site because that's her area of responsibility while labs aren't. Sounds like there'll be confirmation of the lab issue later today.

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-tes ... s-12434220
And here’s the confirmation. I’m not quite clear from this whether those 43,000 who may have a false negative also includes people that didn’t take an LFT and get a positive first. Presumably as well as the asymptomatic LFT takekers and the people who are symptomatic and take an LFT ‘just to see’ there are also people following the current guidelines not to take an LFT and just get a PCR. And those people are just wandering around with ‘the worst cold in the world’ having been told they don’t have covid.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:27 am

OffTheRock wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:24 am
bagpuss wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 6:43 am
Back to the +ve LFT / - ve PCR again, looks like it's definitely a lab issue. This article only mentions one testing site but the woman from Berks talking on the Today programme just now was basically saying it was a lab issue while carefully only talking about that one testing site because that's her area of responsibility while labs aren't. Sounds like there'll be confirmation of the lab issue later today.

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-tes ... s-12434220
And here’s the confirmation. I’m not quite clear from this whether those 43,000 who may have a false negative also includes people that didn’t take an LFT and get a positive first. Presumably as well as the asymptomatic LFT takekers and the people who are symptomatic and take an LFT ‘just to see’ there are also people following the current guidelines not to take an LFT and just get a PCR. And those people are just wandering around with ‘the worst cold in the world’ having been told they don’t have covid.
Also The Guardian. Oh well, that's only equivalent to one day's worth of cases.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:38 am

sheldrake wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:24 am
I dont think anybody here genuinely believes this austerity handwaving is good science.
The austerity stuff is a bit of a diversion, we just noticed the death rate stopped decreasing around 2010.
sheldrake wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:24 am
Return to the norma of 2009 does not represent calamity in any rational analysis.
If you look at it as ~10% more people dying in 2020 than in any of the recent previous years, that's one thing.

Image

But if you look at it as the death rate peaking at about double the baseline during certain weeks in April 2020 and January 2021 (comparing both to previous years and to other weeks in 2020, although there's usually a flu season peak in winter anyway, which you can see in the baseline data) right after the peaks in covid cases, well, those are people dying of covid, with covid, and otherwise because of covid (because they couldn't get medical attention for whatever reason). But don't blame the lockdown for that, blame the virus, and blame the lockdowns being late. In the first case you were only two weeks behind Italy rather than four, and in the second case, well done, you saved Christmas.

"Luckily" my dad was taken ill in August 2020 and died in November, from something which there really wasn't much that could have been done about it; there weren't really any issues related to covid which made that any worse than it otherwise would have been. A few months either way and it could have been very different.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by OffTheRock » Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:50 am

shpalman wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:27 am
OffTheRock wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:24 am
bagpuss wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 6:43 am
Back to the +ve LFT / - ve PCR again, looks like it's definitely a lab issue. This article only mentions one testing site but the woman from Berks talking on the Today programme just now was basically saying it was a lab issue while carefully only talking about that one testing site because that's her area of responsibility while labs aren't. Sounds like there'll be confirmation of the lab issue later today.

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-tes ... s-12434220
And here’s the confirmation. I’m not quite clear from this whether those 43,000 who may have a false negative also includes people that didn’t take an LFT and get a positive first. Presumably as well as the asymptomatic LFT takekers and the people who are symptomatic and take an LFT ‘just to see’ there are also people following the current guidelines not to take an LFT and just get a PCR. And those people are just wandering around with ‘the worst cold in the world’ having been told they don’t have covid.
Also The Guardian. Oh well, that's only equivalent to one day's worth of cases.
Probably not even that. Monday’s already up to 48,000 by specimen date and there’s likely more to be added to that. And that’s without however many people tested negative but were actually positive.

They could really do with issuing some urgent advice to schools given that lots of schools in those areas now have loads of symptomatic cases that had been cleared by PCR. The half arsed isolate if you get a positive LFT and are a close contact only really works if the person you were a close contact with knows they have covid.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by OffTheRock » Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:59 am

https://mobile.twitter.com/DamienSBS/st ... 0648496130

I’m sure this will come as a surprise to nobody. Presumably another of Hancock’s mates we gave a shitload of money to.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by sheldrake » Fri Oct 15, 2021 9:08 am

shpalman wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 8:38 am
If you look at it as ~10% more people dying in 2020 than in any of the recent previous years, that's one thing.

Image

But if you look at it as the death rate peaking at about double the baseline during certain weeks in April 2020 and January 2021 (comparing both to previous years and to other weeks in 2020, although there's usually a flu season peak in winter anyway, which you can see in the baseline data) right after the peaks in covid cases, well, those are people dying of covid, with covid, and otherwise because of covid (because they couldn't get medical attention for whatever reason). But don't blame the lockdown for that, blame the virus, and blame the lockdowns being late. In the first case you were only two weeks behind Italy rather than four, and in the second case, well done, you saved Christmas.
My point is that the level of mortality we saw is only that which we all considered normal in 2009, it's not that I'm blaming lockdown for that, it's that I'm questioning the proportionality of the response.
"Luckily" my dad was taken ill in August 2020 and died in November, from something which there really wasn't much that could have been done about it; there weren't really any issues related to covid which made that any worse than it otherwise would have been. A few months either way and it could have been very different.
I'm sorry for your loss.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by bob sterman » Fri Oct 15, 2021 10:53 am

sheldrake wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 9:08 am
My point is that the level of mortality we saw is only that which we all considered normal in 2009, it's not that I'm blaming lockdown for that, it's that I'm questioning the proportionality of the response.
The fact that excess deaths were superimposed upon a general long term trend of improvements for other causes of mortality does not make the "uptick" "tiny".

So what if 80 years in 2009 were dying more frequently from heart attacks? Many 80 year olds in 2020 loaded up with stents and statins may have had more years of life to expect ahead of them - until COVID got them.

Imagine if some other cause (e.g. asteroid strike on a town with an elderly age profile) had caused a spike in excess deaths like we saw in the first wave. We wouldn't say "oh well it's no worse than 2009 really"...

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Re: COVID-19

Post by wilsontown » Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:34 am

These excess death figures we are arguing about occurred when we actually did something about the problem, even if belatedly. The figures could have been even worse.
"All models are wrong but some are useful" - George Box

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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:36 am

wilsontown wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:34 am
These excess death figures we are arguing about occurred when we actually did something about the problem, even if belatedly. The figures could have been even worse.
"MaYbE dOIng SoMEThiNG ABoUt iT MaDE it worse."
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Re: COVID-19

Post by sheldrake » Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:57 am

wilsontown wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:34 am
These excess death figures we are arguing about occurred when we actually did something about the problem, even if belatedly. The figures could have been even worse.
I don't think we have good evidence for that, given what we saw from Sweden and Belarus and US states that didn't lock down.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by sheldrake » Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:59 am

bob sterman wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 10:53 am


Imagine if some other cause (e.g. asteroid strike on a town with an elderly age profile) had caused a spike in excess deaths like we saw in the first wave. We wouldn't say "oh well it's no worse than 2009 really"...
Do you see how the apparent dramatic nature of the deaths obscures the real comparative risk? My contention is that media coverage has caused the same kind of skewed perception here.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:07 pm

sheldrake wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:57 am
wilsontown wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:34 am
These excess death figures we are arguing about occurred when we actually did something about the problem, even if belatedly. The figures could have been even worse.
I don't think we have good evidence for that, given what we saw from Sweden and Belarus and US states that didn't lock down.
Stop saying Sweden
coronavirus-data-explorer.png
coronavirus-data-explorer.png (618.68 KiB) Viewed 2167 times
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Re: COVID-19

Post by sheldrake » Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:41 pm

Sweden ended up with fewer deaths per million than lots of countries that did aggressive lockdowns despite being more urbanised than the UK. I’ll mention Sweden as much as I like

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Re: COVID-19

Post by lpm » Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:48 pm

sheldrake wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:41 pm
Sweden ended up with fewer deaths per million than lots of countries that did aggressive lockdowns despite being more urbanised than the UK. I’ll mention Sweden as much as I like and completely ignore that Sweden locked down and redefine what lockdown means and pretend lockdown worsened the stress on the NHS and glide past any posts with conflicting information.
The internet appears to have deleted part of your post, so I added it back in for you.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by sheldrake » Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:49 pm

Sweden did not lock down. It is widely cited as a country that did not lock down. ‘No more than 8 in a group at the restaurant’ is not lockdown by most people’s definition. The kind of measures we are comparing it to involved police forces hassling people walking in the countryside too far from their house.

Stay at home orders did have a massive impact on NHS staffing.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by lpm » Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:06 pm

sheldrake wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:49 pm
Sweden is widely cited as a country that did not lock down.
Yeah, by morons in the anti-lockdown it's-just-flu take-it-on-the-chin echo chamber.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:18 pm

What part of Sweden peaking at a death rate 5 times higher than their nearest neighbours during the first wave makes you think theirs was a winning strategy?
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Re: COVID-19

Post by PeteB » Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:18 pm

sheldrake wrote:
Tue Oct 12, 2021 11:17 am
...Risk from dying from Covid if you catch it unvaccinated seems to range from 0.25% to 0.75% (trimming off outliers at the low end like those from Ioannidis at Stanford around 0.1% and at the high end like early WHO estimates of 1%)....
Image

It depends on the age profile of the population - I would think for the UK 0.75% is right at the bottom of the possible range, but for younger populations more like 0.23%, but as lpm says, if you run out of oxygen that will likely be a lot worse

e.g. https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperi ... ort-34.pdf
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7721859/
https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.c ... 21-11127-7 for Germany

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Re: COVID-19

Post by sheldrake » Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:21 pm

lpm wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:06 pm
sheldrake wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:49 pm
Sweden is widely cited as a country that did not lock down.
Yeah, by morons in the anti-lockdown it's-just-flu take-it-on-the-chin echo chamber.
No LPM, that is not a fair or reasonable characterisation.

You earlier claimed you werent looking at things through a single-minded frame. Are you sure?

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Re: COVID-19

Post by sheldrake » Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:23 pm

shpalman wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:18 pm
What part of Sweden peaking at a death rate 5 times higher than their nearest neighbours during the first wave makes you think theirs was a winning strategy?
That they still ended up with a lower death rate per million than a less urbanised country without empowering their police to restrict peoples basic freedoms.

Keep in mind we’re talking about an illlness that is less dangerous than many other things we routinely live with.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by Woodchopper » Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:23 pm

sheldrake wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:49 pm
Sweden did not lock down. It is widely cited as a country that did not lock down. ‘No more than 8 in a group at the restaurant’ is not lockdown by most people’s definition.
Here's some of the restrictions announced by Sweden on one day in February 2021. They include closure of non-essential government services, working from home unless physical presence was essential, remote teaching, a ban on alcohol sales after 20:00.

Lost more restrictions announces on other days.

Yes, it wasn't as stringent as the UK. But the people who track these things put Sweden in February 2021 as being about average in terms of European lockdown severity. Less stringent than the UK but more than France at that point.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by PeteB » Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:25 pm

PeteB wrote:
Tue Oct 12, 2021 10:08 am
sheldrake wrote:
Tue Oct 12, 2021 10:00 am
...

Similar questions about various US states.
which ones?
sheldrake wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 11:57 am
I don't think we have good evidence for that, given what we saw from Sweden and Belarus and US states that didn't lock down.
which ones?

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Re: COVID-19

Post by sheldrake » Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:32 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 1:23 pm
sheldrake wrote:
Fri Oct 15, 2021 12:49 pm
Sweden did not lock down. It is widely cited as a country that did not lock down. ‘No more than 8 in a group at the restaurant’ is not lockdown by most people’s definition.
Here's some of the restrictions announced by Sweden on one day in February 2021. They include closure of non-essential government services, working from home unless physical presence was essential, remote teaching, a ban on alcohol sales after 20:00.

Lost more restrictions announces on other days.

Yes, it wasn't as stringent as the UK. But the people who track these things put Sweden in February 2021 as being about average in terms of European lockdown severity. Less stringent than the UK but more than France at that point.
Are you aware of the many pages of criticism of sweden for ‘not locking down’ in UK and US media for months through 2020, where unfavourable comparisons to its immediate neighbours were made?

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Re: COVID-19

Post by lpm » Fri Oct 15, 2021 2:03 pm

You are new to all this and think you're dropping fresh pearls of wisdom, when we seen this crap hundreds of times before.

But pretending to think "they didn't lock down enough" means "they didn't lock down at all" is a spectacular low. We require better from our trolls, not this silliness.
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