No Shit Sherlock

I don't worry so much if the numbers given are correct. You know any time there are politics involved, there is untruth. I am concerned for our health. I am willing to "go hermit" for as long as need be. My pension keeps coming. Most small businesses are about a month from bankruptcy most of the time anyhow. ...J.D.

 

I have been holding my fire somewhat but the increasingly authoritarian ravings of too many nominally democratic governments (led by BoJo and his eponymous Health SOS (Hancock)) are starting to get my goat.

I am already p*****d off with the incessant repetition of climate change drivel about ‘records’ (mostly so modern as to be meaningless in a geological timescale or just since we’ve had satellite imagery) and how things can only get worse. It’s like being inside an episode of Thunderbirds!

Now, as General Patton once observed, ‘If everyone in the room is thinking the same thing then someone ain’t thinking.’ Try this:


You don’t need a PhD to understand and 15 mins is quite long enough BUT it casts a completely different light on events and contrasts observed reality with fantastical models and crazy amateur hour where politicians have assumed responsibility for something they neither control nor understand. I suspect plenty of clinicians - as opposed to the behavioural psychologists, mathematicians and super-forecasters beloved of management speak cliche Dominic Cummings - might secretly be starting to come to similar conclusions.

Time will tell but wouldn’t it be wonderful?

 

In my opinion models are invariably useless fictions based on assumptions (crap in crap out), and sometimes driven by a presupposed agenda. Actual historic data over long time periods is a far more accurate basis for future planning and actions, and that is definitely true with regards both Covid and Climate Change.

Especially with climate change, I can't believe the gullibility of those that believe the current narrative of human induced catastrophic climate change, when there is millions of years worth of historical data to prove otherwise. And then there is Bill Gates ... I'm not talking about his dodgy insidious vacination programs , but the lunacy of wanting to polute the atmosphere with dust particles to combat "climate change", when what we are experiencing is just a natual climatic cycle, and the biggest threat to human life on earth is in fact global cooling not warming.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/science...es-dust-stratosphere-stop-global-warming.html

Both Covid and climate change seem to be bringing about unnecessary massive over reactions that are doing more harm than good IMO.

 

Models are only useful to the extent that they faithfully replicate the system being studied...... but fall apart when the ‘system’ turns out to be chaotic......like climate and human behaviour neither of which are fully understood. It takes a certain vanity to turn partial knowledge into understanding, never mind real insight.

 

Models are only useful to the extent that they faithfully replicate the system being studied...... but fall apart when the ‘system’ turns out to be chaotic......like climate and human behaviour neither of which are fully understood. It takes a certain vanity to turn partial knowledge into understanding, never mind real insight.

 

I give up looking at media crappage on 'Number of cases has increased'. Number of cases is meaningless without stating the qualifying reference points. So, does 'Number of cases has increased' mean (a) Those that have self diagnosed an exhibited symptoms have increased today by, say, 3500 or (b) Out of, say, 10,000 people tested, 3,500 people have tested positive today or (c) Some other qualifying mechansim? Quoting 'Number of cases has increased' without the necessary qualifying statements is only so much horseshit in the same way that to say 'My speakers are 112dB' is horseshit.

 

Completely agree. The BBC had a twin peak graph this lunchtime with old and new and growing cases......except the first peak was mostly symptomatic hospital admissions and the second is from testing where about 80% are asymptomatic. Oranges and apples.

 

I can see the Headlines now... Irish youtuber uses statistics to prove pubs should be open longer!

 

But, joking aside, did it make you think? And did you look him up? He has form for confounding accepted wisdom. I have no scientific basis to back any particular view but I have long believed in ‘the gross error check’...... is there a significant discrepancy between what you see and what you are being told? Sometimes you can be so close to something that you lose all perspective.
My final dictum is that the two classes of people whose strength of opinion is inversely proportional to their knowledge of the subject are politicians and journalists. The less they know, the more they BS.....and assume expertise and experience they patently lack.

 

Yes, and I like to be made to think... but I need to watch it again and check some “facts”
As I recall, the “curve” was still on the rise when lockdown was brought in to “flatten it”... in other words to try to make it more like the seasonal flu’s we are more used to... he does iirc point out that the COVID U.K. curve is narrower but taller equalling similar death rates over the time scale... but I don’t recall him saying is how that affects the actual shop floor operations of a working hospital (which is one of my specific concerns) The high peak correlated with my experience of a hospital full of acutely sick people and all other services except emergency and cancer being sidelined.

 

The Government are conducting a public consultation regarding the Covid vacine, specfically related to the reduced licencing procedures, and the removal of liability.

Myself I think this is a potential nightmare if:

1. We are forced or pressured in to taking a vacine, or discriminated against if not vacinated
2. The vacine has not completed the usual safety checks and trials
3. No one can be held accountable if things go wrong

You may agree or disagree, but now you have the opportunity to voice your opinion to the Government...

https://consultations.dhsc.gov.uk/5...w3bifkQRBNc9is-ZSyG6n7c5y27nsTCbV45GWJLas6kZ0

 

I don’t begin to contest your observed reality but.....

Look at it this way. We don’t actually know the penetration of the virus when the pandemic first struck. The testing regime is still playing catch up. IF, has been suggested, there is a natural Coronavirus immunity in about 80% of the population then it may well be that the majority of the susceptible 20% has largely been hit.

Increased testing (however flawed) is now throwing up many positives from asymptomatic people who may be either infected or shedding dead virus. We don’t really know. What is apparent is that current rates of apparent infection are not generating anything like the same levels of hospitalisation that we first saw (improved treatment notwithstanding). Only 1% of recent recorded deaths (Office of National Stats today) are Covid related. Explain.......

And of course politicians are obsessed with all the downsides of the responsibility they have assumed and their lack of control.....but the first wave has already broken without real proof a second will even come. They need to be precautionary but is it as lethal as it initially presented? Time alone will tell.

 

The interesting thing will be to see if the extended lockdown & Mask use affects the seasonal flu humps... I’m glad I’m not a government official trying to wade through the mire of what is right for a country. You have advisors to help guide you... but the auditors reviewing actions have so much more information and data insight to show up your decisions after those decisions are made

 

I can see it now. At first, vaccine is voluntary, then mandatory with no penalty, then mandatory and you must prove you've had it to buy food and keep your job.

 

This is worth a watch, and makes you think...

 

So here’s an interesting response to the Ivor Cummings video from earlier in this thread...

 

Well looky who re-tweeted the Cummins video.....

Carl Heneghan https://www.ox.ac.uk/news-and-events/find-an-expert/professor-carl-heneghan

Meanwhile Dominic’s activism has been infected by Stuart Fillingham’s Mogadon manner!

I don’t profess to know but the official narrative is fraying.

 

I could only get just over 4 minutes in, as it seems to me that this guy is attributing statements and conclusions to the original that are not being made

This is data from the ONS...

This apears to show that Covid-19 was only responsible for more deaths than influenza and pneumonia during a period of two months between 27th March and 29th May, it also shows that total number of deaths only rose above the 5 year average between that period also, and for most of the year the death rate has been below the 5 year average. In addition it shows that since June influenza and pneumonia has been killing more people than Covid-19. This data would seem to support much of the general message that is trying to be presented in the original video.

 

Another interesting article... not directly related to the above discussion, but a little bit sort of is
for those disinclined to read the full text, I’ll leave the closing statement here...

Our comprehensive systematic review provides the best available information on three simple and common interventions to combat the immediate threat of COVID-19, while new evidence on pharmacological treatments, vaccines, and other personal protective strategies is being generated. Physical distancing of at least 1 m is strongly associated with protection, but distances of up to 2 m might be more effective. Although direct evidence is limited, the optimum use of face masks, in particular N95 or similar respirators in health-care settings and 12–16-layer cotton or surgical masks in the community, could depend on contextual factors; action is needed at all levels to address the paucity of better evidence. Eye protection might provide additional benefits. Globally collaborative and well conducted studies, including randomised trials, of different personal protective strategies are needed regardless of the challenges, but this systematic appraisal of currently best available evidence could be considered to inform interim guidance.


https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31142-9/fulltext