Corona Bingo...

[Grumpmeister]

Nod has suggested "lunch" tomorrow  

But the place serves "substantial meals" 

Manager says they would be better off closed 

He's OK tomorrow as think it's Thursday they shut you down
 
So will Nod be living in your household or bubble now?

 

The Odd Couple, 2020 reboot... 

[Nick]

THat will be in Brighton at Christmas. What can possibly go wrong? 

[Steve]

So now all Nottinghamshire has been put in tier 3 does this mean Locks will be locked?

[Grumpmeister]

THat will be in Brighton at Christmas. What can possibly go wrong? 

So many things that it may need it's own room never mind a thread... 

[Grumpmeister]

I see that SAGE is now stating we need to have another national lockdown here until March because of the sudden rise in cases. I see a significant problem with their logic though. The PCR test for Covid currently in use works by analysing genetic data to look for a match but according to a paper released by the Lancet up to 15% of instances of the common cold are caused by members of the coronavirus family so given that we are in the cold season now I can't help but wonder what the false positive rate is. 


Estimated annual proportion of cases of the common cold by viral cause:

Rhinoviruses 30–50%
Coronaviruses 10–15%
Influenza viruses 5–15%
Respiratory syncytial virus 5%
Parainfluenza viruses 5%
Adenoviruses <5%
Enteroviruses <5%
Metapneumovirus Unknown
Unknown 20–30%

[Steve]

I see that SAGE is now stating we need to have another national lockdown here until March because of the sudden rise in cases. I see a significant problem with their logic though. The PCR test for Covid currently in use works by analysing genetic data to look for a match but according to a paper released by the Lancet up to 15% of instances of the common cold are caused by members of the coronavirus family so given that we are in the cold season now I can't help but wonder what the false positive rate is. 


Estimated annual proportion of cases of the common cold by viral cause:

Rhinoviruses 30–50%
Coronaviruses 10–15%
Influenza viruses 5–15%
Respiratory syncytial virus 5%
Parainfluenza viruses 5%
Adenoviruses <5%
Enteroviruses <5%
Metapneumovirus Unknown
Unknown 20–30%

So?

At most the false positive tests are 4%  Lancet Link
 
Current death rate is 230 a day rising 52% each week with hospital admissions over 1200 a day and rising 25% a week (see  https://coronavirus-staging.data.gov.uk/ ) which rather make that at most 4% irrelevant.  Just do the exponential on those numbers

[apc2010]

Anyone returning from here ..gas to self isolate now ..

[Nick]

What sort of gas?

[apc2010]

What sort of gas?

 

[Grumpmeister]

I see that SAGE is now stating we need to have another national lockdown here until March because of the sudden rise in cases. I see a significant problem with their logic though. The PCR test for Covid currently in use works by analysing genetic data to look for a match but according to a paper released by the Lancet up to 15% of instances of the common cold are caused by members of the coronavirus family so given that we are in the cold season now I can't help but wonder what the false positive rate is. 


Estimated annual proportion of cases of the common cold by viral cause:

Rhinoviruses 30–50%
Coronaviruses 10–15%
Influenza viruses 5–15%
Respiratory syncytial virus 5%
Parainfluenza viruses 5%
Adenoviruses <5%
Enteroviruses <5%
Metapneumovirus Unknown
Unknown 20–30%

So?

At most the false positive tests are 4%  Lancet Link
 
Current death rate is 230 a day rising 52% each week with hospital admissions over 1200 a day and rising 25% a week (see  https://coronavirus-staging.data.gov.uk/ ) which rather make that at most 4% irrelevant.  Just do the exponential on those numbers

Irrelevant numbers? Ok, according to the UK.gov site 308,763 tests were processed on 28th Oct with 23.065 showing positive, that makes 922 false positives at a 4% error rate. If we are processing somewhere between 6500 and 7000 false positives per week. Even in the best case scenario when there are almost as many false positive results as hospitalisations then significant resources being incorrectly allocated that could help bring the death rate down.

If you want to put it completely in context 965,640 people have tested positive to date, so at 4% thats over 38,000 incorrect results that may have drawn resources from where they were actually needed.

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/testing

Now think how many thousands of people across the country end up usually getting a cold over November, December and January. Unless the Covid-19 genome has been completely mapped and an RNA sequence specific to it and not common to the coronavirus family has been found then you are looking at a potentially massive jump in the number of false positives that will be reported over the next few months.   

[Steve]

The point is that at most 1 in 25 tests are false positives so the current stats indication that 'oh fuck we've got a problem' are not dismissable.  So as lockdowns have been the only measure that has reduced hospital and death counts we need them in some form
 
or would you really like to go back to the pre lockdown days when deaths were climbing 4 fold a week and Covid hospital numbers doubling every 8 days
 

[Barman]

The point is that at most 1 in 25 tests are false positives so the current stats indication that 'oh fuck we've got a problem' are not dismissable.  So as lockdowns have been the only measure that has reduced hospital and death counts we need them in some form
 
or would you really like to go back to the pre lockdown days when deaths were climbing 4 fold a week and Covid hospital numbers doubling every 8 days

Lockdowns haven't worked anywhere - if they worked there would be no need for a second lockdown would there...?

See also: Sweden.

[Barman]

Anyone returning from here ..gas to self isolate now ..

I know, Miss A has had to cancel her trip next week for her Dad's funeral... 

[Steve]

The point is that at most 1 in 25 tests are false positives so the current stats indication that 'oh fuck we've got a problem' are not dismissable.  So as lockdowns have been the only measure that has reduced hospital and death counts we need them in some form
 
or would you really like to go back to the pre lockdown days when deaths were climbing 4 fold a week and Covid hospital numbers doubling every 8 days

Lockdowns haven't worked anywhere - if they worked there would be no need for a second lockdown would there...?

See also: Sweden.

How on earth do you figure that

What do you think reversed that exponential spiral of deaths and hospital load we had in March?  It certainly wasn't distribution of Creme Eggs was it
 
And it's not hard to spot the correlation of second wave with the mass easings of lockdown either

[Barman]

The point is that at most 1 in 25 tests are false positives so the current stats indication that 'oh fuck we've got a problem' are not dismissable.  So as lockdowns have been the only measure that has reduced hospital and death counts we need them in some form
 
or would you really like to go back to the pre lockdown days when deaths were climbing 4 fold a week and Covid hospital numbers doubling every 8 days

Lockdowns haven't worked anywhere - if they worked there would be no need for a second lockdown would there...?

See also: Sweden.

How on earth do you figure that

What do you think reversed that exponential spiral of deaths and hospital load we had in March?  It certainly wasn't distribution of Creme Eggs was it
 
And it's not hard to spot the correlation of second wave with the mass easings of lockdown either

If lockdowns worked we wouldn't need more lockdowns. Simples.

Cases were falling before the first Lockdown anyway...

Tell me, how long do you think we should continue these Lockdowns...? Months, years, forever...?