Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[ayrmad]

34 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

There are less excess deaths currently during this epidemic than in at least 2 bad flu seasons in the last 40 odd years. You can read about them in the article i posted earlier.

You are 'locked away' because of a combination of panic over a new virus that little was understood about, and nonsense models from the likes of Neil Ferguson.

This virus hardly had time to build up a head of steam before we went into lockdown, I don't need to read what Ferguson wrote, I'm capable of looking at numbers and deciding it's not worth the risk to myself, another 2 or 3 weeks without lockdown and people like myself would have been overlooked for ICU over younger and or healthier individuals(quite rightly IMO). 

[Wee Willie]

2 hours ago, Todd_is_God said:

Im assuming given you are not young you've managed your first point pretty well until now.

As for your second point, yes it would seem luck was on your side just three years ago

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/11/30/winter-deaths-hit-highest-level-40-years-experts-blame-ineffective/

The fact you weren't aware of that shows the role the media have played in whipping up fear over a virus we know more about now than 4 months ago.

I'm 77 with underlying health issues so I guess I have managed pretty well.

Of course I stopped smoking in 2012 so that must have helped.

I clicked on your link and when I saw this:

There were an estimated 50,100 excess winter deaths in England and Wales in 2017/18

I quickly skimmed over the rest cos I bide in Scotland.

2 hours ago, Jacksgranda said:

Same in our household. So the flu vaccine is 100% effective according to our representative sample...

I agree but see above.

[Billy Jean King]

There are 50000 excess deaths March to May than average, just confirmed by Westminster or are the govt now intentionally trying to ramp up death numbers just to emphasize their negligence ? Safe to say if they are willing to publish such a figure it's probably accurate or below the actual. What on earth is the point of pulling two specific years out of for a comparison never mind two which you specifically state were skewed by a bad flu season ? You can only compare excess deaths to an average to be realistic. You appear to be going more full on denier with every day that passes.

There are less excess deaths currently during this epidemic than in at least 2 bad flu seasons in the last 40 odd years. You can read about them in the article i posted earlier.

You are 'locked away' because of a combination of panic over a new virus that little was understood about, and nonsense models from the likes of Neil Ferguson.

 

[bendan]

59 minutes ago, renton said:

R depends on both. It's a probability function that is at least in part a product of both physical ease of transmission and the number of infections within a population. Physically easy transmission on a small scale creates new vectors which drives up the R value as there is an increased probability of infection due to the larger number of vectors available.

Likewise, R didnt plummet to below one just because of lockdown alone. Even with social distancing there is a non zero probability of transmission to create new vectors. The less vectors in the population the less likely that transmission becomes. Driving the transmission rate down is therefore both a function of physical distance and number of cases.

It'd be easier to control a disease in a group of 10 people where only 1 person is infected in a common environment with no social distancing than in a group where 7 out of ten in the same environment are infected - simply because the vastly greater viral load in the group in the second case increases the probability of a minimum amount of that virus reaching the uninfected persons. TTI is pretty much useless in the latter case because if you dont have prior information that 7 people are already infected, you have no means of tracing the virus backwards indeed, it's pretty pointless once most people have it, if one of the 3 uninfected catches it. You just run into a lot of infections and no means of protecting the 3 poor uninfected. 

So the R number will fall as existing vectors, given a degree of social distancing, become uninfectious via either immune system response, or death. That reduces the probability of any other person coming into contact with the virus. The less cases in a population, the less the R value is.

LSHTM define R0 as: "The basic reproduction number, or R0, is the average number of secondary infections arising
from a typical single infection in a completely susceptible population"

https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2020/reproduction-number-covid-19-could-be-below-one-uk-lockdown

You're defining it as something else.

Clearly, if 7 out of 10 are currently infected it would be too late for TTI, but those 7 cases could only infect a total of 3 between them, so R0 would be falling rapidly towards zero. The Scottish government estimate each current infection is leading to between 0.7 and 1.0 new infections ('hovering around 1),  down from about 3 before lockdown (when the WHO said test and trace).

If we can identify currently infected people (by more testing) and trace their contacts (much easier in our current lockdown than otherwise) we can better isolate those people and reduce the reproduction number.

 

[madwullie]

58 minutes ago, beefybake said:

Well, the 'guidance' now is to wear masks in certain circumstances.

Just to recap somewhat....

On 12 th March, the government decided against tracking and tracing. They'd been asleep

at the wheel, and it was too late for that.  In addition, there ideology had spent years chipping away at, and privatising

public services, so there were no resources immediately available to them anyway.

Me ? As soon as the lockdown was announced, I looked at what I had.

My hobby is messing around with cars, so I had some disposable gloves that mechanics use. Typically these

cost £5 at most, for a box of 50 pairs. I also had a couple of face masks that I use, with protective glasses, when

I'm scraping around under a car. 

So  I had some kit , and wore them for shopping right from the get go.

Couple of weeks in, time to get some more. 

With health workers crying out for PPE, where to find some ?

Only place I could see was eBay.  

Ordered a pack of 10 masks from an eBay seller that seemed to have better feedback rating than others.

That's the light blue coloured ones that you see around. Price £11.45. 

8 days later the gloves arrived. Package fitted in 'Large Letter' envelope,

so postage relatively small.  The 'real' price' of these masks in normal circumstances, retail, I'd guestimate to be about £2, £3 max.

The first one I tried , the elastic earband separated from the main mask as I put it on.

Gloves....   The best I could find on eBay was a box of 50 pairs.  £11.99.

Gloves arrived within 3 or 4 days. Quality OK.  I go for Nitrile gloves, non allergenic.

 

My question is...., if guidance now is to wear masks, are we supposed to buy everything

from eBay profiteers ?    Where are we supposed to obtain the things ?

They are expecting you to make your own from an old t shirt. There's a guide somewhere on a govt website. 

[Thereisalight..]

Furlough at 80% until Oct is both good and bad news, good in the sense that people aren’t going to be made unemployed, but bad because there’s obviously still sectors that won’t be back until at least then including mine (events industry). What else is likely not to be back until Oct? 

[madwullie]

Also you can get semi decent ones off etsy. They just need to be a cloth covering iirc, doesn't need to be medical grade or anything 

[Billy Jean King]

It's only 80% if your employer agrees to contribute to bring it up to that amount, govt will not be paying 80% beyond July.

Furlough at 80% until Oct is both good and bad news, good in the sense that people aren’t going to be made unemployed, but bad because there’s obviously still sectors that won’t be back until at least then including mine (events industry). What else is likely not to be back until Oct? 

[Todd_is_God]

25 minutes ago, Billy Jean King said:

There are 50000 excess deaths March to May than average, just confirmed by Westminster or are the govt now intentionally trying to ramp up death numbers just to emphasize their negligence ? Safe to say if they are willing to publish such a figure it's probably accurate or below the actual.

Well no, it's impossible to hide excess deaths as all deaths are recorded.

50,000 excess deaths in the UK is broadly similar to the 50,100 excess deaths in England and Wales alone from the last 'bad flu' outbreak in 2016/17 which, despite us having effective flu vaccines already developed, and concentrating it's deaths on an extremely similar demographic as Covid-19, raised not a peep, nevermind a several months long shutdown of the economy and severe restrictions on what people can and cannot do.

Edited May 12, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[ayrmad]

7 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Well no, it's impossible to hide excess deaths as all deaths are recorded.

50,000 excess deaths in the UK is broadly similar to the 50,100 excess deaths in England and Wales alone from the last 'bad flu' outbreak in 2016/17 which, despite us having effective flu vaccines already developed, and concentrating it's deaths on an extremely similar demographic as Covid-19 raised not a peep, nevermind a several months long shutdown of the economy and severe restrictions on what people can and cannot do.

How many weeks was that 50000 spread over? 

How many excess deaths would have happened in week 20 or so with no lockdown, a lot more than the worst week in any of those flu outbreaks you mention by a long chalk. 

I know next to nowt about all this but I know you're starting to look stupid. 

Edited May 12, 2020 by ayrmad

[pandarilla]

Also you can get semi decent ones off etsy. They just need to be a cloth covering iirc, doesn't need to be medical grade or anything 

I thought scarfs would be more sensible. Anything that covers the noise and mouth will help reduce any droplets.

[renton]

9 minutes ago, bendan said:

LSHTM define R0 as: "The basic reproduction number, or R0, is the average number of secondary infections arising
from a typical single infection in a completely susceptible population"

https://www.lshtm.ac.uk/newsevents/news/2020/reproduction-number-covid-19-could-be-below-one-uk-lockdown

You're defining it as something else.

Clearly, if 7 out of 10 are currently infected it would be too late for TTI, but those 7 cases could only infect a total of 3 between them, so R0 would be falling rapidly towards zero. The Scottish government estimate each current infection is leading to between 0.7 and 1.0 new infections ('hovering around 1),  down from about 3 before lockdown (when the WHO said test and trace).

If we can identify currently infected people (by more testing) and trace their contacts (much easier in our current lockdown than otherwise) we can better isolate those people and reduce the reproduction number.

 

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/when-will-it-be-over-an-introduction-to-viral-reproduction-numbers-r0-and-re/

Based on that definition: 

The denser the population, the more people are susceptible, and the more infective the virus, the larger R₀ will be for a given virus; the faster the rate of removal of infected individuals, by recovery or death, the smaller R₀ will be

That suggests that the removal rate of infected individuals matters. So as number of vectors in the population decrease, so should the R0 value. However I will concede that my interpretation is closer to Re:

R_e is affected by the number of people with the infection and the number of susceptibles with whom infected people are in contact. People’s behaviour (e.g. social distancing) can also affect R_e.

The number of susceptibles falls as people die or become immunized by exposure. The sooner people recover or die, the smaller the value of R_e will be at any given time

It also says however, that:

Unfortunately, the symbol R₀ is often used in publications when R_e is meant. This can be confusing

So either way I would contend that the R value being quoted will drop further with the removal rate of vectors via recovery or death. Which goes back to the original point: TTI is effective only when the R value, effective R value if you like, is small enough to allow for efficient tracking and isolation given finite, practical resources. There is certainly an argument that ScotGov should have built up capacity through January and February and that it should not have given up on TTI when it did.  The best argument in hindsight was nothing to do with TTI at all: a short, sharp severe lockdown before a single death occured like New Zealand wouldve been better. 

Nevertheless TTI will be useful now, only once the wave has broken and the lockdown has done its work. In that case I am comfortable with the timelines set out thus far. There is little point doing it before June.

[Todd_is_God]

7 minutes ago, ayrmad said:

How many weeks was that 50000 spread over? 

How many excess deaths would have happened in week 20 or so with no lockdown, a lot more than the worst week in any of those flu outbreaks you mention by a long chalk. 

December to March, like every other year.

There is no evidence that implementing the lockdown here, when they did, had any real effect on limiting deaths (Just as there isn't any to say that it didn't tbf).

Flattening a curve might make the peak smaller, but doesn't automatically make the area under it any less.

It is perfectly acceptable to say that the loss of life is tragic, and that the lockdown was (and is) ineffective.

Edited May 12, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[Honest_Man#1]

4 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

December to March, like every other year.

There is no evidence that implementing the lockdown here, when they did, had any real effect on limiting deaths (Just as there isn't any to say that it didn't tbf).

Flattening a curve might make the peak smaller, but doesn't automatically make the area under it any less.

It is perfectly acceptable to say that the loss of life is tragic, and that the lockdown was (and is) ineffective.

Are you seriously suggesting that if we had not gone into lockdown then excess deaths would be the same as they are now?

12 minutes ago, ayrmad said:

How many weeks was that 50000 spread over? 

How many excess deaths would have happened in week 20 or so with no lockdown, a lot more than the worst week in any of those flu outbreaks you mention by a long chalk. 

I know next to nowt about all this but I know you're starting to look stupid. 

Starting to?

[SlipperyP]

17 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Well no, it's impossible to hide excess deaths as all deaths are recorded.

50,000 excess deaths in the UK is broadly similar to the 50,100 excess deaths in England and Wales alone from the last 'bad flu' outbreak in 2016/17 which, despite us having effective flu vaccines already developed, and concentrating it's deaths on an extremely similar demographic as Covid-19, raised not a peep, nevermind a several months long shutdown of the economy and severe restrictions on what people can and cannot do.

How many NHS staff died during the 'bad flu' outbreak? Hope you have these figures.  If not shut the f**k up.

[Todd_is_God]

Just now, Honest_Man#1 said:

Are you seriously suggesting that if we had not gone into lockdown then excess deaths would be the same as they are now?

Yes

[Todd_is_God]

4 minutes ago, SlipperyP said:

How many NHS staff died during the 'bad flu' outbreak? Hope you have these figures.  If not shut the f**k up.

Do you?

I don't know why that's specifically important.

The failure of the government to ensure NHS staff are supplied with adequate PPE is not reason alone for a lockdown

[EvilScotsman]

5 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

Yes

There's one massive difference which I think you're overlooking - if you've got the flu, you don't go round and hug your granny.

[Todd_is_God]

Just now, EvilScotsman said:

There's one massive difference which I think you're overlooking - if you've got the flu, you don't go round and hug your granny.

If i had covid-19 i wouldn't go and hug her either...

Up to 75% of flu cases are asymptomatic, btw, before you talk about not knowing you have it.

[madwullie]

Flu is nowhere near as contagious as this is. This has spread about while there is a lockdown on. That we're even still talking about this in May is utterly bizarre