COVID-19

[Bird on a Fire]

I did indeed. I wonder what I would rate as a retiree in my 60s?

We know Cummings allegedly regarded pensioners as expendable so possibly the answer is 0.

Sorry, but that's the way the world works. On any coldly rational perspective, young people are worth more than old people. Healthcare is, must be, always has been, and always will be, rationed. As Phil Hammond points out in Private Eye, NICE sets a cost-effectiveness threshold for treatment of £25,000 per QALY. If you haven't got many QALYs left, no-one's going to spend money to treat you. That's reality.

If the lockdown costs 5% of a year's GDP (likely to be an underestimate), then I calculate we need to save 6 million QALYs. If everyone in the UK gets it with a 1% chance of death, then each death averted needs to give 10 QALYs. It's not at all clear that the lockdown is coldly cost-effective.

Not disputed. But we're not talking about who gets treatment; I've never been in any doubt that if I were hospitalised with covid19 I would not be a priority for treatment.

What we're talking about here was the frantic BTL attempts to make the actual death toll seem smaller than it actually is.

Which, I think it bears repeating, are not just heartless but also incredibly stupid, as the death toll reported in the article in question was deaths in excess of baseline anyway - i.e., people who "would have died anyway" are already excluded.

[Gfamily]

An interesting approach by a hospital, to use sleep apnoea assistance devices as low cost alternatives to CPAP. Claims that it provides an early intervention that reduces the need for full ventilation later.

Usual caveats apply. but interesting.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavi ... li=BBoPWjQ

[dyqik]

Have we hit peak stupid from Donald Trump?

Following a briefing from someone who told him that UV and disinfectant (bleach and IPA (Not the beer)) are good at killing the virus he actually suggested either getting UV inside the body or injecting disinfectant as potential cures...

I had just read that m'self, and couldn't decide which quote to high-light, it's a friday special.
Peak stupid? Maybe the start of a l-o-n-g gentle arc.

This was only Thursday though. His Friday special will be tonight.

[Sciolus]

Not disputed. But we're not talking about who gets treatment; I've never been in any doubt that if I were hospitalised with covid19 I would not be a priority for treatment.

What we're talking about here was the frantic BTL attempts to make the actual death toll seem smaller than it actually is.

Ah right. Yes, that's pretty sh.t in several different ways.

[bmforre]

... His Friday special will be tonight.

Governor Cuomo's sister in law or something have inspiring ideas that he could try?
Bathing in Clorox can help with a lot:

... I added 1/2 cup of Clorox to my bathwater to combat the radiation and metals in my system and oxygenate it ...

As gynecologist Jennifer Gunter put it:

@DrJenGunter
I still don’t understand how this isn’t parody. I just can’t even.

Should fit well with other Donald utterances that Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung today calls "naked nonsense".*
The highly regarded paper further comments that this must raise questions about the sanity of the US president.

* German original: "blanker Unsinn".

[bob sterman]

An interesting approach by a hospital, to use sleep apnoea assistance devices as low cost alternatives to CPAP. Claims that it provides an early intervention that reduces the need for full ventilation later.

Usual caveats apply. but interesting.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavi ... li=BBoPWjQ

CPAP is being used pretty widely around the country. Some newspapers have claimed Boris had CPAP.

[Gfamily]

An interesting approach by a hospital, to use sleep apnoea assistance devices as low cost alternatives to CPAP. Claims that it provides an early intervention that reduces the need for full ventilation later.

Usual caveats apply. but interesting.

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/coronavi ... li=BBoPWjQ

CPAP is being used pretty widely around the country. Some newspapers have claimed Boris had CPAP.

Yes, the difference here is using a lower cost home/clinic apnoea device rather than a ICU grade CPAP machine

[AMS]

Have we hit peak stupid from Donald Trump?

Following a briefing from someone who told him that UV and disinfectant (bleach and IPA (Not the beer)) are good at killing the virus he actually suggested either getting UV inside the body or injecting disinfectant as potential cures...

No. It turns out we had not hit peak stupid.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... oronavirus

Trump did not specify where the idea of using disinfectant as a possible remedy for Covid-19 came from, and the source for his notion remains obscure. But the Guardian has learned that peddlers of chlorine dioxide – industrial bleach – have been making direct approaches to the White House in recent days.

Grenon styles himself as “archbishop” of Genesis II – a Florida-based outfit that claims to be a church but which in fact is the largest producer and distributor of chlorine dioxide bleach as a “miracle cure” in the US. He brands the chemical as MMS, “miracle mineral solution”, and claims fraudulently that it can cure 99% of all illnesses including cancer, malaria, HIV/Aids as well as autism.

Since the start of the pandemic, Genesis II has been marketing MMS as a cure to coronavirus. It advises users, including children, to mix three to six drops of bleach in water and drink it.

[AMS]

I mean, apart from the near full house on health scam woo bingo, it's a manufacturer of industrial bleach that claims to be a church?

[Gfamily]

I mean, apart from the near full house on health scam woo bingo, it's a manufacturer of industrial bleach that claims to be a church?

... next to godliness

[Squeak]

Ah. So it is MMS! I'd been wondering since I first read the report.

We need to send in that young Welsh guy who did some campaigning on MMS years ago. Maybe he could explain to the president why it's such a crap idea

Edit for swypoes.

[jdc]

Ah. So it is MMS! I'd been wondering since I first read the report.

We need to send in that young Welsh guy who did some campaigning on MMS years ago. Maybe he could explain to the president why it's such a crap idea

Edit for swypoes.

Saw a post from Rhys earlier mentioning the bleach thing. I should really congratulate him on becoming relevant again.

[Squeak]

Ah. So it is MMS! I'd been wondering since I first read the report.

We need to send in that young Welsh guy who did some campaigning on MMS years ago. Maybe he could explain to the president why it's such a crap idea

Edit for swypoes.

Saw a post from Rhys earlier mentioning the bleach thing. I should really congratulate him on becoming relevant again.

Rhys! That's him! My early morning brain kept throwing the name Rhys at me and then I thought maybe it was just following a Welshist shortcut. And I couldn't search the archives to check.

I hope he's doing well, whatever he's up to these days.

[Grumble]

I mean, apart from the near full house on health scam woo bingo, it's a manufacturer of industrial bleach that claims to be a church?

Neat way of avoiding prosecution for making health claims in US law. The SGU have commented on this before.

[FredM]

Most of this has been discussed already but this BMJ editorial, written from a US perspective, is a useful summary.

[Little waster]

Ah. So it is MMS! I'd been wondering since I first read the report.

We need to send in that young Welsh guy who did some campaigning on MMS years ago. Maybe he could explain to the president why it's such a crap idea

Edit for swypoes.

Saw a post from Rhys earlier mentioning the bleach thing. I should really congratulate him on becoming relevant again.

Rhys! That's him! My early morning brain kept throwing the name Rhys at me and then I thought maybe it was just following a Welshist shortcut. And I couldn't search the archives to check.

I hope he's doing well, whatever he's up to these days.

You could always check Wikipedia...

[Woodchopper]

From here: https://twitter.com/henryjameslau/statu ... 8430101518

More in the thread

[Woodchopper]

Ouch, 813 hospital deaths announced today. Add on care homes etc and it'll still be well over 1000 per day.

We've crossed the 20 000 hospital deaths threshold. I wonder how long it'll take to get to 30 000.

[Stranger Mouse]

Randy Rainbow to cheer you up

https://twitter.com/randyrainbow/status ... 59975?s=21

[Martin Y]

Randy Rainbow to cheer you up

https://twitter.com/randyrainbow/status ... 59975?s=21

That was the right medicine.

[shpalman]

Ouch, 813 hospital deaths announced today. Add on care homes etc and it'll still be well over 1000 per day.

We've crossed the 20 000 hospital deaths threshold. I wonder how long it'll take to get to 30 000.

Italy hasn't reached 30 000, deaths per day here (about 400-500 during the past week) have been gradually decreasing for about a month.

But I think the UK's deaths per day will come down more slowly.

dpd.png (9.77 KiB) Viewed 4884 times

I've been reading that Belgium's relatively high numbers of deaths are because suspected covid-related deaths at home, or in care homes, are also counted. But the population can be compared to that of Lombardy and they still have about half the number of deaths which Lombardy has had, and I know Lombardy isn't counting deaths for which there wasn't a positive test. (Lombardy has a sixth of the population of Italy but half the covids.)

a graph

[Woodchopper]

Estimating the burden of SARS-CoV-2 in France

France has been heavily affected by the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic and went into lockdown on the 17th March 2020. Using models applied to hospital and death data, we estimate the impact of the lockdown and current population immunity. We find 2.6% of infected individuals are hospitalized and 0.53% die, ranging from 0.001% in those <20y to 8.3% in those >80y. Across all ages, men are more likely to be hospitalized, enter intensive care, and die than women. The lockdown reduced the reproductive number from 3.3 to 0.5 (84% reduction). By 11 May, when interventions are scheduled to be eased, we project 3.7 million (range: 2.3-6.7) people, 5.7% of the population, will have been infected. Population immunity appears insufficient to avoid a second wave if all control measures are released at the end of the lockdown

https://hal-pasteur.archives-ouvertes.f ... r-02548181

[Stranger Mouse]

A while back in an interview when asked who he would want to play him in a movie Dr Fauci joked Brad Pitt

This weekend https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status ... 54240?s=21

[PeteB]

As if patients in care homes are taken to hospital. Or even count towards the statistics. (Some care homes in Italy are now under criminal investigation.)

It's not so much that - it is hospitals have been trying to free up beds

e.g. “Hundreds of older people have been discharged from hospital in recent weeks to relieve pressure on our NHS"

Together with people cross infecting care homes

Hospitals releasing patients to care homes

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... ements.pdf

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... e_Home.pdf

[shpalman]

"we're listening to the scientists"

"which ones?"

"it's a secret"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... s-outbreak

Don't worry I'm sure it's not totally corrupt
https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/stat ... 51104?s=09

I don't think Brad Pitt will be playing any of them.