Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[ayrmad]

1 hour ago, pandarilla said:

I noticed similar on the bbc Scotland website - some unclear reporting.

I was checking the daily totals page for a while as i liked the graphs, especially relating to hospital cases across the country.

Last night it had disappeared, and the Scottish live page was replaced by the British page. Its back today, but completely different.

Details and consistency matter at this time, and there's a lot of poor reporting.
 

It's not poor reporting, it's deliberate confusion. 

[Todd_is_God]

2 hours ago, parsforlife said:

Should we expect non-essential workers to pay a higher proportion of tax in future? 

I've no problem with paying a little more in tax, providing big earners and companies are actively pursued to pay the tax they should as well.

I imagine most people would feel the same.

Edited April 22, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[Todd_is_God]

1 hour ago, Thereisalight.. said:

I know, I just think if someone dies and it isn’t purely due to Coronavirus then it shouldn’t be counted in the death figures 

In Scotland you don't even need to be tested. If it is thought that its likely to be a cause you will be added to the statistics.

Pretty much anyone who dies in a care home, for example, where there has been a positive case of covid-19 will more than likely be included in the death total

[Tutankhamen]

10 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

In Scotland you don't even need to be tested. If it is thought that its likely to be a cause you will be added to the statistics.

Pretty much anyone who dies in a care home, for example, where there has been a positive case of covid-19 will more than likely be included in the death total

Care home is the new Poor House

[parsforlife]

17 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

I've no problem with paying a little more in tax, providing big earners and companies are actively pursued to pay the tax they should as well.

I imagine most people would feel the same.

I agree but that would have been my attitude before.

Its more of a question now if there should be a clear distinction between essential and non-essential roles.  Rather than a the normal political debate over how high taxes should be and who should be paying. 

[The OP]

27 minutes ago, Todd_is_God said:

In Scotland you don't even need to be tested. If it is thought that its likely to be a cause you will be added to the statistics.

Pretty much anyone who dies in a care home, for example, where there has been a positive case of covid-19 will more than likely be included in the death total

I don’t think that’s true. There was lots of noise even last Tuesday about care home residents not being tested in the UK and not being included in the death figures. They seemed to start testing them last week because we were told my grandfather had it on Wednesday, were told he was expected to die imminently on Thursday and he was dead by Friday. My understanding is that if he died on the Monday they wouldn’t have added him to the stats.

ETA - is your position now that, not only is the FT article about under counting wrong, but the excess deaths are entirely down to people not attending the hospital with other ailments and the actual corona deaths are fewer than reported, despite the dramatic spike in mortality compared to this time last year?

Edited April 22, 2020 by The OP

[craigkillie]

7 minutes ago, parsforlife said:

I agree but that would have been my attitude before.

Its more of a question now if there should be a clear distinction between essential and non-essential roles.  Rather than a the normal political debate over how high taxes should be and who should be paying. 

It doesn't make any sense to permanently define jobs as "essential" and "non-essential" - these distinctions are specific to the current situation. It exists in order to (theoretically) ensure that the only people working right now are the people whose job is necessary to deal with coronavirus (either through providing medical or other care, providing food etc). However, there are plenty of people who are classed as "non-essential" right now whose jobs are in fact necessary in an ordinary society.

[The OP]

Over the same period, the number of deaths in Scottish hospitals from all causes has risen by 29%, but has rocketed by 146% in care homes.

The accumulated total for care home deaths doubled last week, from 240 on April 12 to 537 on April 19.
 

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18396761.coronavirus-scotland-third-deaths-now-care-homes/

@Todd_is_God thoughts? Stupid old duffers too feart to go to hospital? Deliberate over exaggeration of the overall numbers dead to make coronavirus seem worse for reasons yet to be revealed?

[8MileBU]

This has maybe already been asked and answered, but stuff trawling through this monster thread to check. 

Does anyone else find themselves getting annoyed with the daily reporting of cases/deaths being just the figures and wish they’d add some simplicity?

I ask because over the last couple of weeks, my daughter’s got into the habit of asking ‘Is that more or less than yesterday?’ when the daily government  briefing comes on tv. 

I now find them giving the figures fucking annoying because I now wish they’d give the figures but add ‘That’s a rise/fall in cases and deaths’ from yesterday.

Edited April 23, 2020 by 8MileBU

[Ludo*1]

My missus and mother both work in different care homes and it's been really quite frightening the way the residents have been treated. One old guy suffers from a lung condition and as a result has lost one lung and struggles to breath at times with fits of coughing. He needed to go to hospital as there was an emergency with him (Completely unrelated to this). Initially the hospital were refusing to take him and then when they did they put him into the Covid ward due to his cough. He's since back in the care home but obviously as you'd expect needed to be quarantined. The lack of testing available made a stressful experience 100x worse and more difficult for everyone involved here.

Staff absences have skyrocketed and most care homes aren't willing to take on agency staff/send staff to other struggling care homes when need be. Everyone is doing the best they can but it just seems like a catastrophe waiting to happen.

[Thane of Cawdor]

1 hour ago, Lofarl said:

All of us in 2021.

Seems unlikely that the Onanists will get to that stage. This is an example of a fatberg that sewer workers must confront as a result of our passion for grease:

Think of the horrors they will encounter at the end of a never ending, national wankathon. They will undoubtedly refer to it as a sperm whale:

 

 

 

[Todd_is_God]

33 minutes ago, The OP said:

I don’t think that’s true. 

It is true. See below.

17 minutes ago, The OP said:

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/18396761.coronavirus-scotland-third-deaths-now-care-homes/

@Todd_is_God thoughts? Stupid old duffers too feart to go to hospital? Deliberate over exaggeration of the overall numbers dead to make coronavirus seem worse for reasons yet to be revealed?

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here. Scottish figures include care homes.

Covid-19 is a highly contageous disease which kills a lot of old people with underlying health conditions.

Care homes are highly concentrated with that exact demographic.

That a high proportion of deaths occur in care homes is obviously sad, but it's not overly surprising.

Edited April 23, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[8MileBU]

2 hours ago, Herman Hessian said:

good call - i reckon a swift bit of grappling over her aft-end, smartly coming about and luffing up her spanker would soon see her going down with all hands etc etc...

Good grief.

[The OP]

Just now, Todd_is_God said:

It is true. See below.

I'm not sure what point you are trying to make here. Scottish figures include care homes.

Covid-19 is a highly contageous disease which kills a lot of old people with underlying health conditions.

Care homes are highly concentrated with that exact demographic.

That a high proportion of deaths occur in care homes is obviously sad, but it's not overly surprising.

The point I'm making is that you are continually talking pish trying to downplay this for some weird reason. You are coming across as the new Jeremiah Cole. I suspect you always have been a watered down version but were less noticeable when he was around. 

Do you have an explanation for the 146% spike in overall care home deaths in this period which makes sense in light of your criticisms of the treatment of suspected cases as cases or your suspicion that the spike in deaths is caused by the fear of corona? Or are you just going to deflect by posting truisms and irrelevant quotes?

Finally, do you think it worthwhile to have pathologists carrying out hundreds more post-mortems in a time of substantial increase in deaths and a requirement for greater social distancing to reduce the number of deaths?

[parsforlife]

30 minutes ago, craigkillie said:

It doesn't make any sense to permanently define jobs as "essential" and "non-essential" - these distinctions are specific to the current situation. It exists in order to (theoretically) ensure that the only people working right now are the people whose job is necessary to deal with coronavirus (either through providing medical or other care, providing food etc). However, there are plenty of people who are classed as "non-essential" right now whose jobs are in fact necessary in an ordinary society.

I’m not sure there’s that many not working now that we would strictly need.  Surely the roles we need are those that keep the country going in times of crisis?  The vast majority not working now aren’t in necessary roles, anything we can just stop using/doing for weeks/months can’t be that important.

[craigkillie]

Just now, parsforlife said:

I’m not sure there’s that many not working now that we would strictly need.  Surely the roles we need are those that keep the country going in times of crisis?  The vast majority not working now aren’t in necessary roles, anything we can just stop using/doing for weeks/months can’t be that important.

This is only true if you think that the lives that people are living right now are anything resembling normality, which they aren't. People can reasonably stop doing some of these things for a short while, but it's not feasible to do without a lot of jobs in the longer-term. You're also being very specific to this crisis, but if we had a different type of crisis (eg earthquake, flooding, plague of killer bees, war) then different people would be important.

Stuff like building and maintaining houses, roads, railways etc is important to a country, but that has mainly stopped temporarily because it's not important right now. Even other trades like electricians, plumbers, joiners etc are mainly not working right now, but that doesn't mean we don't really need them. Lots of secondary health care workers (eg speech therapists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, social workers) have massively scaled back what they are doing, but they are still necessary in a normally functioning society. We've basically stopped educating people in schools, colleges and universities, but I'm pretty sure that would still be considered pretty important. I'm sure there are loads of other examples but these were just off the top of my head.

 

[Todd_is_God]

29 minutes ago, The OP said:

The point I'm making is that you are continually talking pish trying to downplay this for some weird reason. You are coming across as the new Jeremiah Cole. I suspect you always have been a watered down version but were less noticeable when he was around. 

Do you have an explanation for the 146% spike in overall care home deaths in this period which makes sense in light of your criticisms of the treatment of suspected cases as cases or your suspicion that the spike in deaths is caused by the fear of corona? Or are you just going to deflect by posting truisms and irrelevant quotes?

Finally, do you think it worthwhile to have pathologists carrying out hundreds more post-mortems in a time of substantial increase in deaths and a requirement for greater social distancing to reduce the number of deaths?

I'm not downplaying anything. I would prefer accurate figures achieved through greater, widespread testing. If they are higher than is currently being reported then it's important to know that, but not with estimates based on models or assumptions.

Is answering "I don't think that's true" by showing you a quote from an article you provided that it is irrelevant? I made a comment, you decided to point out it was incorrect. It's not.

You're picking and chosing which figures you want to fight about. Earlier a link was posted to an article which stated there were about 24,000 excess all causes deaths which were being presented as all being caused directly by covid-19. I suggested this was unlikely to be the case, and more likely to be indirectly caused by covid-19. Counting indirect deaths does not help track the progression or regression of an epidemic. Do you not agree?

Do I have an explanation for your example? Im this case Covid-19 is a fair assumption. 

I've said many times how I think we should proceed to reduce the number of deaths, whilst at the same time get the economy moving again. Shield those most likely to suffer serious or fatal infections for now, and allow young, healthy people to return to a sense of normality.

Edited April 23, 2020 by Todd_is_God

[Theroadlesstravelled]

Germany, Spain and Italy are lifting part of their lockdowns next month. Probably the UK won’t be that far behind.

 

[madwullie]

Is everyone whose death listed as flu in a normal season tested to see if flu killed them? ie only laboratory confirmed cases? If flu is a contributory factor in a normal season is it listed as the cause or not. 

I'm no expert, but I would be extremely unsurprised to find out that what is happening with covid is what is happens with flu, and that it's standard practice. 

[ICTJohnboy]

I'm fairly comfortable and prepared to accept the information coming from the Scottish Gov/t. Certainly more so than the woolly crap that comes from the likes of Hancock, Raab, etc, who are clearly so much more concerned with blowing their own trumpets, and telling the world what a fucking great job they're doing.