Off Topic Covid 19 restrictions have done one

so they are slagging off the prediction that if combined with winter flu there would be 119k deaths and say there are only 54k

we are nowhere near winter yet?

plus it says fewer beds are in use.
isnt that because most operations have been postponed in order to keep people out of hospitals?

my wifes ward and the one opposite were designated covid wards last weekend and the weekend before.

its true the second spike (caused in hull largely by unfit male smokers in their 50's having one last night out before lockdown and not social distancing) has now peaked. but winter is not yet upon us.

 

"The Ides of March are come",
"Aye, Caesar; but not gone."

 

Funny, all the photos in the HDM seemed to show people in their 20s and 40s hugging each other and embracing, let alone practising any social distancing or mask wearing, and posing whilst making stupid hand gestures as though had done something brilliant, not just come out of a pub having achieve nothing, with hardly an over 50s in sight.

 

Are you referring to the mail article?
Thats not now I understand the article, the difference in deaths was against the government / prof whitty medium case assessment. (90% below that)
The low occupancy of beds refers to ICU beds, way below the normal 5 year average for this time of year (the fact we haven’t reach full winter is irrelevant - it’s a like for like comparison)

 

No, I just meant that if this was going to be some sort of "clever ploy" to keep us all inside for some unknown reason (barring the actual reason), then it wouldn't be as poorly conceived and executed as whatever they call this.

Scientists just tell people what the problem is, it's the government's job to implement a solution.

 

So, in effect, if we relax things over Christmas, we would have to impose yet another lockdown to mop up the rise in infections? Can we not just stay locked down until we know that the virus has gotten to a ridiculously low point and a vaccine has been rolled out to vulnerable people?

Why do we keep taking these breaks with the restrictions, it's not as though the virus is going to do one for a few days while people see their loved ones. The irony is that the elderly who would be alone at Christmas are the very people this lockdown is trying to protect, so by lowering it you're putting those people at risk.

 

The christmas thing is pretty much just the reality that people would ignore the restrictions, so this gives the illusion that the authorities are still in charge and benevolently giving us permission to do what most would anyway.

 

Exactly this - they keep that veneer of control & authority

 

"It pointed out that Government predictions on the number of the potential deaths from the virus were wildly inaccurate. In a July report commissioned by Chief Medical Officer Sir Patrick Vallance, scientists predicted that there could be 119,000 fatalities if a second wave coincided with a peak of winter flu – but the actual figure has so far turned out to be less than half of that."

Winter Flu season runs from December to March (BUPA), so if the figure is less than half (54,286) and we haven't even reached the beginning of the season, coupled with a relaxation in rules, 119,000 isn't really an unachievable figure. But then it also depends on how bad the flu season really is, we might be really lucky and get a light one.

"Carol McGiffin, of ITV’s Loose Women tweeted: ‘How? Exactly? No it IS NOT a global pandemic. That part is over. It has nothing at all to do with ‘keeping people safe and saving lives’ and you know it?!!!’."

She couldn't be more wrong. A pandemic is defined as a disease that has broken out over a wide geographical area. As of today, here is a map of all active cases of Covid-19 (JHU):



Looks pretty global to me.

The bed diagram is also misleading. The figure on the left gives a four year average (with the grey bar), while the figure on the right is November 2020. ONE MONTH out of ONE YEAR.

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So how can you use a four year average to compare to a single day? Even if you take the data at face value, that suggests that while the numbers are lower (not significantly lower, by the way), they're still approaching 80% occupancy in some areas with flu season still to come (not to mention the weather getting colder).

I'm not really seeing anything sensationalist about these figures, but I don't think it's a good idea to be putting out a huge article that claims with some self-veracity "this isn't as bad as we all think." The end game is obviously to decry the lockdown because people think it's unfair and put pressure on the government to reverse it. Probably not a very good idea if we want people to survive. And I mean all people, not just healthy ones.

 

COVID-19 is not a pandemic. It is a syndemic. The syndemic nature of the threat we face means that a more nuanced approach is needed if we are to protect the health of our communities. The Lancet Sept 2020

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/...syndemic,medical anthropologist, in the 1990s.

 

Is that a true?

 

This is what I was referring to yesterday. It's the interpretation of the facts; there's nothing wrong with questioning stuff, but he has written that matter-of-factly. He hasn't written it as an op-ed, he's written that as a statement. And that's where the misleading nature of media journalism stems from.

 

Covid is a pandemic. The reason for the larger amount of deaths is syndemic. Syndemics are caused by multiple contagions or factors overlapping at the same time.

 

I toyed with posting that to save someone the bother.

I suspect that they would call it constructive discussion. It tends to be how progress is made.

 

The bed thing is a circular argument - if they used one particular day they would be criticised for not comparing the exact like for like - weather etc etc

Using the monthly average over FIVE years is statistically valid.

We can argue over means all day - the reality is ICU are quieter than the norm, this is not the spin pushed out by whitty et al

 

Are they? I can tell you that SPIRE has been offered a contract to take on Covid patients, not sure that would be happening if everything was alright.

I'm not a fan of Witty, but I trust the things he says because he is, at the end of the day, a scientist. It's interesting that none of the people decrying that article are actually scientists themselves, they're media personalities. One of them is Matt Le Tissier for heaven's sake.

 

Hmm, trusting someone because they are a scientist is fine, but it does require people to preselect their scientists.

I tried to link rather than post the clip from Professor Tim Spector as the point is that not all scientists agree, rather than the specifics of what he's saying, but this site software presented the video anyway..

It needs a full and open discussion, rather than the deplatforming that seems to be going on at times.

 

Hey everyone look over here, we're arguing if it should be called a pandemic a syndemic or something else.