COVID-19

Discussions about serious topics, for serious people
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Bird on a Fire
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Bird on a Fire » Sat Jan 23, 2021 6:50 pm

I just re-read the first four pages. Lots of interesting info posted (shout out mikeh), as well as really good questions (e.g. lpm spotting a main problem with R the first time encountering it). A good reminder of why we scrute.

I don't think many of us expected this thread to reach 200+ pages.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:25 pm

shpalman wrote:
Sat Jan 23, 2021 11:50 am
If I understand correctly, what happened was asymptomatic positives, who are automatically considered no longer positive after 21 days as long as they don't develop symptoms, were being considered as infected i.e. would have needed negative tests to have been considered no longer positive. This caused the number of current positives to look a lot higher than it should have done.
This seems to be a relatively clean version of the pasted Reuters report:

Italy's Lombardy spars with government over virus data mishap
Health Minister Roberto Speranza said on Saturday Lombardy had initially submitted wrong data, messing up calculations by Italy's higher health council.

Lombardy's administration, led by the right-wing League party which has come under fire for its handling of the pandemic, hit back at Rome.

"They wanted us to say it was our mistake, but it wasn't. I'll never agree to saying there has been a mistake in the data we sent," Governor Attilio Fontana told a press conference.
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shpalman
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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Sat Jan 23, 2021 9:32 pm

Outbreak at DVLA
More than 500 cases have been recorded at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency’s offices in Swansea, where employees claim people with symptoms were encouraged to return to work while vulnerable workers have had requests to work from home turned down.
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OffTheRock
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Re: COVID-19

Post by OffTheRock » Sat Jan 23, 2021 10:01 pm

shpalman wrote:
Sat Jan 23, 2021 9:32 pm
Outbreak at DVLA
More than 500 cases have been recorded at the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency’s offices in Swansea, where employees claim people with symptoms were encouraged to return to work while vulnerable workers have had requests to work from home turned down.
We've still not really grasped this whole pandemic/infectious disease thing in the UK, have we?

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jimbob
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Re: COVID-19

Post by jimbob » Sat Jan 23, 2021 10:32 pm

I don't know what to think. Christopher Snowden has been in a Twitter thread with several of us and Ivor Cummins' loonies. And he's been posting stuff like this

https://twitter.com/cjsnowdon/status/13 ... 55040?s=20

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He's in a Tufton Street Think Tank (the IEA)
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sTeamTraen
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Re: COVID-19

Post by sTeamTraen » Sun Jan 24, 2021 12:14 am

jimbob wrote:
Sat Jan 23, 2021 10:32 pm
He's in a Tufton Street Think Tank (the IEA)
Not everyone in libertarian land is a moron on every topic.
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jimbob
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Re: COVID-19

Post by jimbob » Sun Jan 24, 2021 12:34 am

sTeamTraen wrote:
Sun Jan 24, 2021 12:14 am
jimbob wrote:
Sat Jan 23, 2021 10:32 pm
He's in a Tufton Street Think Tank (the IEA)
Not everyone in libertarian land is a moron on every topic.
True
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lpm
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Re: COVID-19

Post by lpm » Sun Jan 24, 2021 10:41 am

Stupid Country A:

Lets cases rise to 60,000 per day start Jan
Lockdown too loose at approx R=0.9 level = cases halve approx every month
Cases at end Feb: 15,000
Cases at end March: 7,500

Stupid Country B:

Lets cases rise to 60,000 per day start Jan
Lockdown bit loose at approx R=0.8 level = cases halve approx every 2 weeks
Cases at end Feb: 4,000
Cases at end March: 1,000

Stupid Country C:

Lets cases rise to 60,000 per day start Jan
Lockdown about OK at approx R=0.7 level = cases halve approx every week
Cases at end Feb: 500
Cases at end March: 30

The UK is currently Stupid Country B. With schools partially shut and the new variant, our lockdown level equates to around R=0.8 and halving every 2 weeks. This contrasts to April 2020 when a slightly stricter lockdown and the old variant was delivering R=0.7 or even R=0.6. This is going to be a slower grinding down of case numbers - but it's working. Loosening any restrictions or the return to full school opening must not be done until cases are back below 1,000, which implies after the Easter holidays. (In 2020 we started unlocking late May, when cases were around the 2,000 mark, testing was improving and test & trace looked promising.)

The goal should be to pressure the govt to delay unlocking as long as possible in March. Let's face it, they'll be reckless and want to start opening pubs and betting shops at the start of March. Delaying them even to mid March would be a victory.
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sTeamTraen
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Re: COVID-19

Post by sTeamTraen » Sun Jan 24, 2021 12:21 pm

There's a really good (seriously, you will gasp in places) interview here with Germany's most prominent ("face of the pandemic") virologist. The tone of the translation is very earnest, but you can lighten it by imagining them speaking with very light, modern German accents.

One of the reasons I think it's really good is that he raises a point that I mentioned (here or on Twitter) a few weeks ago:
Christian Drosten wrote:Once the elderly and maybe part of the risk groups have been vaccinated, there will be immense economic, social, political and perhaps also legal pressure to end the corona measures. And then, huge numbers of people will become infected within just a short amount of time, more than we can even imagine at the moment. We won't have 20,000 or 30,000 new cases a day, but up to 100,000 in a worst-case scenario. It will, of course, be primarily younger people who are less likely than older people to have severe symptoms, but when a huge number of younger people get infected, then the intensive care units will fill up anyway and a lot of people will die. Just that it will be younger people. We can cushion this terrible scenario somewhat by pushing the numbers way down now.
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Sciolus
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Sciolus » Sun Jan 24, 2021 1:40 pm

...and the more virus there is swilling around, the more mutations there will be, and the greater the risk that some of them will be yet more infectious, more resistant to vaccines, or more virulent (especially in the young).

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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:18 pm

Well, he does argue for a "Zero-COVID" strategy, instead of the idea that you could somehow run with an "acceptable" number of deaths.
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jimbob
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Re: COVID-19

Post by jimbob » Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:23 pm

Sciolus wrote:
Sun Jan 24, 2021 1:40 pm
...and the more virus there is swilling around, the more mutations there will be, and the greater the risk that some of them will be yet more infectious, more resistant to vaccines, or more virulent (especially in the young).
Also think what happens in the (few) people who have chronic Covid for months.

The virus is in rough equilibrium with their immune system, so there's a far larger selective pressure for mutations that improve the performance of the virus against the immune system in a way that isn't present where the virus is present for far less time, either because it's overwhelmed the patient, or because the patient has eliminated it.
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Brightonian
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Brightonian » Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:23 pm

New Zealand detects first case of community transmission in two months

After tour a of Europe, a Kiwi returned to NZ, spent two weeks in a quarantine hotel, tested negative and then released. Subsequently she felt ill and tested positive.

One hopes she simply somehow caught it in the quarantine hotel and wasn't harbouring the virus, and testing negative, for two weeks.

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jimbob
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Re: COVID-19

Post by jimbob » Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:24 pm

shpalman wrote:
Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:18 pm
Well, he does argue for a "Zero-COVID" strategy, instead of the idea that you could somehow run with an "acceptable" number of deaths.
Good. It's like thinking that you can have an acceptably small wildfire in the middle of a drought.
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Sciolus
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Sciolus » Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:27 pm

I wasn't disagreeing with Drosten, just adding to what he said.

ETA and what lpm said.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by OffTheRock » Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:31 pm

https://guernseypress.com/news/2021/01/ ... community/

So after testing hundreds of people yesterday, 4 community cases is now 6. With an additional 25 cases who are known contacts of the original 4. Lockdown rules will be the same as last March for clarity because people are used to them and know what they are. Financial support is being sorted out for people who can’t work under the lockdown rules with additional support for anybody who isn’t covered by that for some reason.

Boris could do with learning a few lessons about managing a pandemic.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by jimbob » Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:31 pm

Here's my visualisation of the ONS weekly deaths data for each 2-year period

Image
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sTeamTraen
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Re: COVID-19

Post by sTeamTraen » Sun Jan 24, 2021 9:33 pm

Something something hammer something something nail

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Trinucleus
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Trinucleus » Sun Jan 24, 2021 10:50 pm

Don't fancy that in a drive through test centre

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Re: COVID-19

Post by Woodchopper » Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:16 pm


OffTheRock
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Re: COVID-19

Post by OffTheRock » Mon Jan 25, 2021 11:54 pm

OffTheRock wrote:
Sun Jan 24, 2021 2:31 pm
https://guernseypress.com/news/2021/01/ ... community/

So after testing hundreds of people yesterday, 4 community cases is now 6. With an additional 25 cases who are known contacts of the original 4. Lockdown rules will be the same as last March for clarity because people are used to them and know what they are. Financial support is being sorted out for people who can’t work under the lockdown rules with additional support for anybody who isn’t covered by that for some reason.

Boris could do with learning a few lessons about managing a pandemic.
Now 48 cases. If this turn out to be the UK variant and they can find out how it has managed to spread it could potentially tell us a bit about transmission and what doesn't prevent spread. Assuming it's not caused by someone ignoring the quarantine laws.

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jimbob
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Re: COVID-19

Post by jimbob » Tue Jan 26, 2021 12:23 pm

My latest version of the ONS data - running from wk10-wk9

Image
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lpm
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Re: COVID-19

Post by lpm » 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.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by FlammableFlower » Tue Jan 26, 2021 12:40 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.
Definitely. Comparison of the rise and falls of different causes of death.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Tue Jan 26, 2021 1:17 pm

shpalman wrote:
Sat Jan 23, 2021 8:25 pm
shpalman wrote:
Sat Jan 23, 2021 11:50 am
If I understand correctly, what happened was asymptomatic positives, who are automatically considered no longer positive after 21 days as long as they don't develop symptoms, were being considered as infected i.e. would have needed negative tests to have been considered no longer positive. This caused the number of current positives to look a lot higher than it should have done.
This seems to be a relatively clean version of the pasted Reuters report:

Italy's Lombardy spars with government over virus data mishap
Health Minister Roberto Speranza said on Saturday Lombardy had initially submitted wrong data, messing up calculations by Italy's higher health council.

Lombardy's administration, led by the right-wing League party which has come under fire for its handling of the pandemic, hit back at Rome.

"They wanted us to say it was our mistake, but it wasn't. I'll never agree to saying there has been a mistake in the data we sent," Governor Attilio Fontana told a press conference.
Fontana got a present from the opposition party to help him with the covid numbers
Fontana_pallottoliere-2-2.jpg
Fontana_pallottoliere-2-2.jpg (56.59 KiB) Viewed 2873 times
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