Watching the News

[Barman]

Well I may be his biggest critic but could we really expect him to dishonestly say nothing and get slaughtered later when he'd had sight of this:

4. There have been several independent analyses of SGTF and non-SGTF cases
identified through Pillar 2 testing linked to the PHE COVID-19 deaths line list:
a. LSHTM: reported that the relative hazard of death within 28 days of test for
VOC-infected individuals compared to non-VOC was 1.35 (95%CI 1.08-1.68).
b. Imperial College London: mean ratio of CFR for VOC-infected individuals
compared to non-VOC was 1.36 (95%CI 1.18-1.56) by a case-control
weighting method, 1.29 (95%CI 1.07-1.54) by a standardised CFR method.
c. University of Exeter: mortality hazard ratio for VOC-infected individuals
compared to non-VOC was 1.91 (1.35 - 2.71).
d. These analyses were all adjusted in various ways for age, location, time and
other variables.
5. An updated PHE matched cohort analysis has reported a death risk ratio for VOCinfected individuals compared to non-VOC of 1.65 (95%CI 1.21-2.25)

VOC =  Variant of Concern

I'm amazed that after a year of this shit anybody could continue to believe it and support it...

[Steve]

Well I believe those 90,000+ deaths, ~38,000 patients jamming up the NHS, 3,900 of them on ventilators and since all those indicators were exponentially increasing at ~ 25% per week before lockdown 3.0 and we've now got them peaking I suggest it's fair to say the economy would have been well fucked if we'd just carried on as if it was just like flu. 

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
 
 

[Barman]

Well I believe those 90,000+ deaths, ~38,000 patients jamming up the NHS, 3,900 of them on ventilators and since all those indicators were exponentially increasing at ~ 25% per week before lockdown 3.0 and we've now got them peaking I suggest it's fair to say the economy would have been well fucked if we'd just carried on as if it was just like flu. 

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
 
 

Of course, you are welcome to believe the shite... 

The rest of us, not so much... 

[Steve]

Which figures don't you believe?

[Uncle Mort]

75% of Covid deaths were over 75 years old, not exactly economically active. Callous but true. The country could have carried on fairly normally without a lockdown. Maybe more money could have been pumped into the NHS, certainly nowhere near as much as the lockdowns cost.

 

[Steve]

75% of Covid deaths were over 75 years old, not exactly economically active. Callous but true. The country could have carried on fairly normally without a lockdown. Maybe more money could have been pumped into the NHS, certainly nowhere near as much as the lockdowns cost.

While yes it does sound callous it's what we all do at least anecdotally and to be brutal the NHS has to do when it uses so called Quality Adjusted Life Years to make difficult decisions.  A 75 year olds life right isn't valued as much as a 20 year olds. 
 
Throwing money at the NHS might have some benefit but you can't train up intensive care staff that quickly and a shortage of such is a big issue.  Even then with the best attention and drugs a lot of patients are going to take up beds for weeks and some people will die.
 
It'd be great if we could just isolate 75 year olds and there'd be no more problem.  But we have so many multi generational households and as it happens, an awful lot of under 60s getting badly ill. 
 
I'd still like to know what figures are being disputed and understand why.  On the figures we do have and they seem to check out, the Jan 3rd position was seriously alarming.  We could easily been seeing 5,000+ 2,000+ deaths a day and the NHS collapsing by now and even worse week by week.  If that happened we would have societal panic, people plain refusing to go to work and a far bigger economic impact.

[Barman]

75% of Covid deaths were over 75 years old, not exactly economically active. Callous but true. The country could have carried on fairly normally without a lockdown. Maybe more money could have been pumped into the NHS, certainly nowhere near as much as the lockdowns cost.

While yes it does sound callous it's what we all do at least anecdotally and to be brutal the NHS has to do when it uses so called Quality Adjusted Life Years to make difficult decisions.  A 75 year olds life right isn't valued as much as a 20 year olds. 
 
Throwing money at the NHS might have some benefit but you can't train up intensive care staff that quickly and a shortage of such is a big issue.  Even then with the best attention and drugs a lot of patients are going to take up beds for weeks and some people will die.
 
It'd be great if we could just isolate 75 year olds and there'd be no more problem.  But we have so many multi generational households and as it happens, an awful lot of under 60s getting badly ill. 
 
I'd still like to know what figures are being disputed and understand why.  On the figures we do have and they seem to check out, the Jan 3rd position was seriously alarming.  We could easily been seeing 5,000+ deaths a day and the NHS collapsing by now and even worse week by week.  If that happened we would have societal panic, people plain refusing to go to work and a far bigger economic impact.

As a matter of interest, do you still claim the IFR is 6%...?

...or do you now accept it is <1%...?

[Uncle Mort]

We could easily been seeing 5,000+ deaths a day and the NHS collapsing by now and even worse week by week.  If that happened we would have societal panic, people plain refusing to go to work and a far bigger economic impact.

We could, but that's supposition.

[Steve]

75% of Covid deaths were over 75 years old, not exactly economically active. Callous but true. The country could have carried on fairly normally without a lockdown. Maybe more money could have been pumped into the NHS, certainly nowhere near as much as the lockdowns cost.

While yes it does sound callous it's what we all do at least anecdotally and to be brutal the NHS has to do when it uses so called Quality Adjusted Life Years to make difficult decisions.  A 75 year olds life right isn't valued as much as a 20 year olds. 
 
Throwing money at the NHS might have some benefit but you can't train up intensive care staff that quickly and a shortage of such is a big issue.  Even then with the best attention and drugs a lot of patients are going to take up beds for weeks and some people will die.
 
It'd be great if we could just isolate 75 year olds and there'd be no more problem.  But we have so many multi generational households and as it happens, an awful lot of under 60s getting badly ill. 
 
I'd still like to know what figures are being disputed and understand why.  On the figures we do have and they seem to check out, the Jan 3rd position was seriously alarming.  We could easily been seeing 5,000+ deaths a day and the NHS collapsing by now and even worse week by week.  If that happened we would have societal panic, people plain refusing to go to work and a far bigger economic impact.

As a matter of interest, do you still claim the IFR is 6%...?

...or do you now accept it is <1%...?

I have never claimed it is 6%, I likely pointed out that at that time of known cases with a known outcome 6% were fatal, it is now 3% Worldwide and in the UK it is actually higher which bring into doubt that 1% figure for which there is very little evidence.
 

.
We could, but that's supposition.

But a better founded one that just saying 'the figures are wrong' or 'we don't need lockdown'
 
It really would help if we could start with an understanding of just which of the figured on the gov site are disputed https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

(just please don't quote that quack Brookes)

[Uncle Mort]

The figures aren't disputed, just the methods used to fight Covid. You're throwing up strawmen.

[Steve]

The figures aren't disputed, just the methods used to fight Covid. You're throwing up strawmen.

The methods are debateable at the least on on a gain v pain basis but reply 32 calls the published figures 'shite' and I'm trying to understand why.

[Barman]

I have never claimed it is 6%, I likely pointed out that at that time of known cases with a known outcome 6% were fatal, it is now 3% Worldwide and in the UK it is actually higher which bring into doubt that 1% figure for which there is very little evidence.

Errrrr, yes you did...


And at the time you chose figures that we well out of date... Using the current Worldmeter figures it is ~2%.

And there is plenty of evidence from the WHO and others that the IFR is <1%

[Darwins Selection]

Without getting drawn into the general scrum here, my understanding gleaned from talking with the medical professionals in the family, is that the morbidity rate from Covid is not much higher than the usual, seasonal rate from 'flu and pneumonia.
The problem is that significantly larger numbers require hospitalisation in order to recover, and the resources are unable to cope if the infection rate gets too high.
In 1968, the 'Hong Kong' flu was comparable in its rate of tranmission to Covid, but the pulmonary effects were not quite so severe, meaning most who caught it recovered at home.
Most of the peak load was on local GPs and not hospitals.

[Steve]

I have never claimed it is 6%, I likely pointed out that at that time of known cases with a known outcome 6% were fatal, it is now 3% Worldwide and in the UK it is actually higher which bring into doubt that 1% figure for which there is very little evidence.

Errrrr, yes you did...


And at the time you chose figures that we well out of date... Using the current Worldmeter figures it is ~2%.

And there is plenty of evidence from the WHO and others that the IFR is <1%

No I did not say the IFR was 6%.  And the current World meter figure for known outcomes is 3%   The key unknown as ever is what proportion of cases are actually being detected.
 
Now are we going to be allowed to discuss this topic or will it or I be closed down?

[Barman]

The figures aren't disputed, just the methods used to fight Covid. You're throwing up strawmen.

The methods are debateable at the least on on a gain v pain basis but reply 32 calls the published figures 'shite' and I'm trying to understand why.

Because while the figures may be accurate, they are taken out of context and used as 'Fear Porn' to scare the public into believing there are no options other than to destroy the economy and people's lives.

We hear how many are admitted to hospital but never how many are discharged.
They never mention how many actually catch it in hospital. An 'Covid admission' could be somebody that went in with a broken leg but caught Covid there.
They conflate 'dying with' with 'dying of' Covid.*
They fail to mention the level of bed/ICU occupancy in a normal year...
...and so on...

And then we have the use of 'could' as Uncle pointed out...





* My friend Colin died last week. Rushed into hospital with Renal failure and was given blood transfusions but it was too late.

However, he caught Covid in hospital and was recorded as a Covid death.