COVID-19

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bolo
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Re: COVID-19

Post by bolo » Wed Jul 22, 2020 2:47 pm

Millennie Al wrote:
Wed Jul 22, 2020 2:08 am
bolo wrote:
Mon Jul 20, 2020 5:22 pm
Not everyone has a reliable fast internet connection.

The increase in telework and telemedicine because of Covid has really highlighted the issue of unequal access to broadband.
So for call centres you employ those who do have a suitable internet connection. There are millions of unemployed people currently. It is rather perverse to give jobs to people who will have to risk the health of themselves and others, rather than give the jobs to the people suitably equipped.
Yes, but then if you don't have access to a good internet connection, you don't have access to these jobs. Or as someone once wrote, for whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance: but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.

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bolo
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Re: COVID-19

Post by bolo » Wed Jul 22, 2020 2:55 pm

Promoting more equal access to broadband internet is not the same as making broadband internet free to all, including those who already have it and are perfectly capable of paying for it.

In the US, at least,.the issue is largely the nonavailability of good service in rural areas, and to a lesser extent, other low income areas. There are subsidies to providers to build out in these areas. The subsidies are not always effective, and there are a bunch of complexities, but I don't think public money would be well spent paying for the 100 megabit fiber connection that I already have.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by lpm » Wed Jul 22, 2020 3:16 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Jul 22, 2020 1:36 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Mon Jul 20, 2020 8:47 pm
bolo wrote:
Mon Jul 20, 2020 5:22 pm
The increase in telework and telemedicine because of Covid has really highlighted the issue of unequal access to broadband.
Coming back to this point, the issue was highlighted in the UK at the last election, with the Labour manifesto proposing to improve broadband connections nationally and provide them to everyone free of charge, as a key public service.

Almost everyone here dismissed the idea as a stupid fantasy.
Wrong. Both parties proposed faster broadband. Labour proposed nationalised and free broadband. The Tory proposal was a more realistic way to improve broadband.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by jimbob » Wed Jul 22, 2020 4:14 pm

raven wrote:
Tue Jul 21, 2020 10:12 pm
Woodchopper wrote:
Sat Jul 18, 2020 5:42 pm
If true the numbers will overestimate Covid deaths, but probably not by very much. I doubt that there will be many who, say, recovered from Covid in April and died of something else in July. A methodological complication will be the long term effects of some Covid infections.
And conversely, I would've thought limiting it to deaths within 28 days of a test would underestimate to some extent, if only slightly. I've seen about half a dozen reports of folks that were in hospital for longer than a month.
Looks to be significant numbers:

https://twitter.com/DreJoanneLiu/status ... 34304?s=20
Dre Joanne Liu
@DreJoanneLiu
60 days after onset of covid19 “none of the patients had fever or any signs or symptoms of acute illness, many still reported fatigue (53%), dyspnoea (43%), joint pain (27%), and chest pain (22%).Two fifths of patients reported a worsened quality of life.”
Covid-19: What do we know about “long covid”?
As recognition grows that many patients have long lasting effects, Elisabeth Mahase examines the evidence and the response “Long covid” is a term being used to describe illness in people who have...
bmj.com
https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m2815

Also - given the way the epidemic has played out in the UK, we know there has been significant undercounting - just looking at the ONS excess deaths, which itself is probably an underestimate as other infections would also have been suppressed, but the longer-term issues with lockdown would be unlikely to manifest within 3-weeks.

Image
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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Wed Jul 22, 2020 4:36 pm

jimbob wrote:
Wed Jul 22, 2020 4:14 pm
Image
Why is this plotted as a difference and not as the absolute number of deaths? Removing the baseline death rate is basically throwing away useful information. I appreciate it makes it slightly easier to compare with declared covid deaths but there are other ways to deal with that.

Either the "normal" number of deaths is a lot smaller than the covid spike, which is important news, or the covid spike is small relative to the normal death rate, which is also important news (and is true in some countries, just not the UK).
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Re: COVID-19

Post by jimbob » Wed Jul 22, 2020 4:50 pm

shpalman wrote:
Wed Jul 22, 2020 4:36 pm
jimbob wrote:
Wed Jul 22, 2020 4:14 pm
Image
Why is this plotted as a difference and not as the absolute number of deaths? Removing the baseline death rate is basically throwing away useful information. I appreciate it makes it slightly easier to compare with declared covid deaths but there are other ways to deal with that.

Either the "normal" number of deaths is a lot smaller than the covid spike, which is important news, or the covid spike is small relative to the normal death rate, which is also important news (and is true in some countries, just not the UK).
Because of the question it was attempting to answer. If you are looking for deaths due to COVID-19 and any evidence of lockdown suppressing other deaths, you really need to look at the deltas.

I should have included the thread, but this shows the deaths per week from Week-31, 1999 up to the two Fridays before the date of the tweet:

https://twitter.com/ParkinJim/status/12 ... 40224?s=20

Image

Basically it's part of a thread from here:

https://twitter.com/ParkinJim/status/12 ... 5778314240
If you see the claim that this is no worse than the 1999-2000 winter flu*, with a graph like this, it's rubbish even by its own logic. I've used the same ONS data they claim, and time-shifted the peaks & 2020 is worse. Also note the effect of winter.
*The worst in >40 years
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Re: COVID-19

Post by raven » Wed Jul 22, 2020 5:09 pm

jimbob wrote:
Wed Jul 22, 2020 4:14 pm
Looks to be significant numbers:
Of what, exactly? People suffering long-term morbidity post-Covid? Yes, I've seen reports of that too - but morbidity isn't mortality. I mean, the cost in on-going pain, fatigue and lung scarring is a terrible one but those don't necessarily affect the death count one way or the other.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear there's some increased risk of things like stroke over a longer period than 28 days though, given the vascular symptoms being reported.

And I totally agree with you, the ONS data makes it clear the UK is undercounting.

The ONS put out a report here looking at the excess deaths that aren't from Covid, if you're interested. ETA quick rough-and-ready summary: too early to draw firm conclusions, but it suggests some of the excess deaths listed as Alzheimers/'frailty' might be undiagnosed Covid; and some listed as asthma and as diabetes could be either undiagnosed Covid or people avoiding hospital & missing out on treatment.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by jimbob » Wed Jul 22, 2020 5:46 pm

raven wrote:
Wed Jul 22, 2020 5:09 pm
jimbob wrote:
Wed Jul 22, 2020 4:14 pm
Looks to be significant numbers:
Of what, exactly? People suffering long-term morbidity post-Covid? Yes, I've seen reports of that too - but morbidity isn't mortality. I mean, the cost in on-going pain, fatigue and lung scarring is a terrible one but those don't necessarily affect the death count one way or the other.

I wouldn't be surprised to hear there's some increased risk of things like stroke over a longer period than 28 days though, given the vascular symptoms being reported.

And I totally agree with you, the ONS data makes it clear the UK is undercounting.

The ONS put out a report here looking at the excess deaths that aren't from Covid, if you're interested. ETA quick rough-and-ready summary: too early to draw firm conclusions, but it suggests some of the excess deaths listed as Alzheimers/'frailty' might be undiagnosed Covid; and some listed as asthma and as diabetes could be either undiagnosed Covid or people avoiding hospital & missing out on treatment.
True, and thanks. My point is that morbidity must be an influence in mortality. Elsewhere, medics have been saying that long tail covid isn't a post-viral effect, but an ongoing evidence of infection.
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Re: COVID-19

Post by lpm » Thu Jul 23, 2020 12:14 pm

Some Australian study:
On average, #COVID19 was associated with 14 years of life lost (YLL) for males, and 11 years for females in Australia.

This is larger than most of the major causes of death, including heart disease. CV19 is associated with substantial premature mortality.
https://twitter.com/DrZoeHyde/status/12 ... 9191858178
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Re: COVID-19

Post by PeteB » Thu Jul 23, 2020 12:57 pm

5 year average is a very conservative counterfactual, especially against the background of decreasing mortality rates year on year

see here

"Since 2001, mortality rates have generally been decreasing. However, following the early 2010s, we have seen a significant slowdown in mortality improvements, with ASMRs in recent years declining at a slower rate than before 2010 (Figure 1).
Despite this slowdown, mortality rates for both males and females significantly decreased in 2019. There were 1,079.4 deaths per 100,000 males (3.7% lower than in 2018) and 798.9 deaths per 100,000 females (4.7% lower than in 2018). "

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Re: COVID-19

Post by PeteB » Thu Jul 23, 2020 12:59 pm

lpm wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 12:14 pm
Some Australian study:
On average, #COVID19 was associated with 14 years of life lost (YLL) for males, and 11 years for females in Australia.

This is larger than most of the major causes of death, including heart disease. CV19 is associated with substantial premature mortality.
https://twitter.com/DrZoeHyde/status/12 ... 9191858178
Yes -IIRC on that BBC radio 4 more or less episode it was saying that the average life expectancy for a 80 year old with several co-morbidities was 10 more years

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Re: COVID-19

Post by Little waster » Thu Jul 23, 2020 6:25 pm

45% of Republican voters are unconcerned that they may unwittingly spread COVID-19 to others.

That’s down from 58% from the previous survey. What thoroughly marvellous people!
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Woodchopper » Sat Jul 25, 2020 9:45 am

SARS-CoV-2 outbreak in German meat processing plant: Transmissions took place over long distances in air-conditioned working areas
https://www.helmholtz-hzi.de/en/news-events/news/view/

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Re: COVID-19

Post by Woodchopper » Sat Jul 25, 2020 9:50 am


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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Sat Jul 25, 2020 5:31 pm

Attilio Fontana, the Lega-affiliated governor of Lombardy is under investigation for having directly bought €513,000 worth of those medical gown things from a company 90% owned (via some Swiss shenanigans) by his brother-in-law Andrea Dini (and which Attilio's wife, Andrea's sister Roberta, owns 10%) without going through a public procurement process which they then said was a donation not a purchase. Actually that bit is old news. New news is that Attilio tried to send a €250,000 bank transfer to the company from Switzerland which got blocked under procedures against money laundering. His own lawyer explained it as Attilio feeling bad about having to convert the €513,000 purchase into a donation to avoid the conflict of interest and trying to pay his brother-in-law back to some extent.

(Of the 75,000 gowns ordered only 50,000 arrived anyway, with Dini trying in vain to sell the other 25,000 to other clinics.)

Weird how it's always the corrupt right-wing racists* saying covid was not much worse than a normal 'flu right before there are disastrous outbreaks in the regions they govern.

(The Lega used to be Lega Nord and they were racist against people from the south of Italy, now they're just the Lega they're racist against African and Eastern European immigrants. And they owe the Italian people €48 million.)
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Re: COVID-19

Post by jimbob » Mon Jul 27, 2020 6:20 pm

Long thread

https://twitter.com/VirusesImmunity/sta ... 6188286982 about an interesting preprint.
Prof. Akiko Iwasaki
@VirusesImmunity
Very excited to share this work by the heroic team -
@carolilucas
Pat Wong
@sneakyvirus

@tiago21bio
et al on “Longitudinal analyses reveal immunological misfiring in severe COVID-19”. A thread on our findings. #COVID19 #Pathogenesis (1/n)
Longitudinal analyses reveal immunological misfiring in severe COVID-19
nature.com
2:47 PM · Jul 27, 2020·Twitter for Mac
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2588-y
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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Mon Jul 27, 2020 6:34 pm

raven wrote:
Mon Jul 13, 2020 6:52 pm
Surely what's wrong with this sentence:
Some will have developed antibodies without knowing they had the disease, while others will have a natural immunity because they’ve already successfully fought off other coronaviruses, such as the common cold.
is that it makes it sound as if anyone who's had a cold will also be immune Covid-19.

But the 'common cold' is not one thing. It's a mild upper respiratory infection, caused by many, many viruses. Maybe something like ~15% of colds are coronaviruses, so most colds are unlikely to confer any immunity to Covid.
Woodchopper wrote:
Sat Jul 25, 2020 9:50 am
Pre-existing antibodies from other corona viruses

Paper: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 4.095414v2

Explainer: https://twitter.com/bealelab/status/128 ... 17856?s=20
There, you see?
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Re: COVID-19

Post by raven » Tue Jul 28, 2020 12:03 am

Yes, that's vaguely promising, isn't it.

We don't know what those antibodies mean for Covid yet though. At the very least reducing the severity of it, I hope. Interesting that they found them in 60% of the children's samples, which they're speculating might explain why children don't get so sick from Covid. But only in 6% of the adult samples though. From this thread:

https://twitter.com/KevinWNg/status/12 ... 6264158213

If I'm reading the graphs right, that's from fewer than 50 children's samples too.I like that they've identified potential sites for a universal coronavirus vaccine to act on though.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by shpalman » Tue Jul 28, 2020 9:24 pm

Screenshot_20200728-232136.png
Screenshot_20200728-232136.png (158.13 KiB) Viewed 4467 times
deaths are running below average because so many people died already
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Bird on a Fire » Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:58 pm

Does that suggest that a lot of the excess mortality was indeed people who "would have died soon anyway", as it's charmingly put sometimes?
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Re: COVID-19

Post by Woodchopper » Wed Jul 29, 2020 3:41 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:58 pm
Does that suggest that a lot of the excess mortality was indeed people who "would have died soon anyway", as it's charmingly put sometimes?
Some of them, if so the numbers are much lower than excess mortality since March. The lockdown may also have reduced overall mortality through things like lower air pollution and to a lesser extent fewer accidents. Though there have been worrying reports of delayed treatment for cancer and other illnesses which may increase mortality later.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by Woodchopper » Wed Jul 29, 2020 3:54 am

Evolutionary origins of the SARS-CoV-2 sarbecovirus lineage responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-0771-4

tldr it’s been circulating among bats for decades.

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Re: COVID-19

Post by PeteB » Wed Jul 29, 2020 7:43 am

PeteB wrote:
Thu Jul 23, 2020 12:57 pm
5 year average is a very conservative counterfactual, especially against the background of decreasing mortality rates year on year

see here

"Since 2001, mortality rates have generally been decreasing. However, following the early 2010s, we have seen a significant slowdown in mortality improvements, with ASMRs in recent years declining at a slower rate than before 2010 (Figure 1).
Despite this slowdown, mortality rates for both males and females significantly decreased in 2019. There were 1,079.4 deaths per 100,000 males (3.7% lower than in 2018) and 798.9 deaths per 100,000 females (4.7% lower than in 2018). "
Would be interesting to compare against 2019 - before C-19 the mortality rate was pretty much following 2019

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Re: COVID-19

Post by Woodchopper » Wed Jul 29, 2020 8:41 am

shpalman wrote:
Mon Jul 27, 2020 6:34 pm
raven wrote:
Mon Jul 13, 2020 6:52 pm
Surely what's wrong with this sentence:
Some will have developed antibodies without knowing they had the disease, while others will have a natural immunity because they’ve already successfully fought off other coronaviruses, such as the common cold.
is that it makes it sound as if anyone who's had a cold will also be immune Covid-19.

But the 'common cold' is not one thing. It's a mild upper respiratory infection, caused by many, many viruses. Maybe something like ~15% of colds are coronaviruses, so most colds are unlikely to confer any immunity to Covid.
Woodchopper wrote:
Sat Jul 25, 2020 9:50 am
Pre-existing antibodies from other corona viruses

Paper: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101 ... 4.095414v2

Explainer: https://twitter.com/bealelab/status/128 ... 17856?s=20
There, you see?
More here: https://directorsblog.nih.gov/2020/07/2 ... -covid-19/

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Re: COVID-19

Post by Woodchopper » Wed Jul 29, 2020 9:43 am

Woodchopper wrote:
Wed Jul 29, 2020 3:41 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Tue Jul 28, 2020 11:58 pm
Does that suggest that a lot of the excess mortality was indeed people who "would have died soon anyway", as it's charmingly put sometimes?
Some of them, if so the numbers are much lower than excess mortality since March. The lockdown may also have reduced overall mortality through things like lower air pollution and to a lesser extent fewer accidents. Though there have been worrying reports of delayed treatment for cancer and other illnesses which may increase mortality later.
On the lockdown reducing non-Covid mortality, this is interesting:
https://syndromictrends.com/metric/pane ... anism/main

Big drop in infections by other respiratory diseases. Not surprising given that they are spread in similar ways to Covid.

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