Corona Virus

What are we saying here Mr B? A one per cent Annual death rate (roughly) excluding Covid 19 for all causes?

 

Yes, about that. Approx .95% now rising to just over 1.1% beyond 2050

Although what I was really attempting to demonstrate is that at first glance graphs can sometimes look more dramatic than they actually are.

 

Information/Graph overload !

 

The key figures are:

Hospital admissions
ITU cases
Deaths

Those numbers are not ‘exponential’ (I.e. doubling every x days) so much as ‘linear’ - a steady but not steepening increase. Exponential has become a wildly misused buzz word.

Test positives are a whole different story which should lead any rational observer to question the validity of the test and what it reliably tells us about the UK epidemic ..... and therefore the test.

 

Got to agree that the Hospital admissions, ITU cases and Deaths are the key indicators. And yes the more test that you do will highlight more positive cases. But as @littleade has said it is the vunerable amongst us that are hit the hardest and if there are more people with the virus it means that more of the vunerable are at risk.. I just wish that more people would take the threat more seriously. Clearly this has not been the case over recent weeks, so the government will be forced to introduce more restrictions.

 

The one thing that strikes me about the current media frenzy regarding infection rates is that they continue to show graphs against the rates back in March and April. My point is, back in March and April, nobody knew what the infection rates were, it was pure guesswork. All they tested at the time I believe was people going into hospital.

 

No question the vulnerable need protection BUT you assume a still unproven linkage between lockdown and transmission rates. You can socially distance the vulnerable without a total lockdown. The government and its current advisers are fixated on Covid to the exclusion of equal and greater threats to national wellbeing.

 

The longer it takes the majority of the population to become infected and gain immunity, then the longer the vulnerable will be at risk, and the more will unfortunately die. Even if a vacine is available in the near future it is no guarantee (as is already known from flu vacines).

The case made by the three scientists in the video earlier makes a lot of sense to me, which is protect the vulnerable, whilst allowing the young/healthy population to gain herd immunity. And I believe this was going to be the UK governments strategy until the media fear frenzy made it almost impossible, because the media would have crucified them when the death rate started climbing whilst most of other European countries were locking down.

Had the government focused on protecting just the vulnerable from the start, then surely they would have been able to allocate more resource and finance to it, as they would not have had to incur the cost of furlough etc, and the country most likely would have avoided the damage to the economy.

 

Exactly
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/12886627/lord-sumption-government-death-toll-coronavirus-crisis/

 

No, but you are looking through the wrong end of the telescope. Who is being selfish? The young who are largely unaffected? Traders prevented from work, employment, wealth and tax generation?

Furthermore you risk buying into the idea that we do not have a choice. You do understand the government lockdown is legally highly questionable? The Covid and Public Health legislation allows them to shut premises and confine infected individuals. There is no general power to contain the population. Not my opinion but that of a retired Law Lord/Supreme Court Judge.

 

You make some unproven assumptions - not least on the efficacy of lockdowns in halting the spread. Remember it was originally only to delay/flatten the curve ‘to save the NHS’.
If 80+% of the population are not greatly affected is it selfish/self defeating to destroy the economy upon which 100% depend plus the educational/social/amenity etc. of everyone?
And if you think this is all working splendidly here is Sweden over the last 6 yrs. The lower peak of deaths in winter 18/19 left an unusually larger number of people susceptible to respiratory infection when Covid hit .......we were very similar.

You should ask if Government measures are worse than the disease quite as much as criticise your fellow citizens’ zeal for ‘the rules’. The confused message has itself damaged sensible compliance and invited contempt for authority.

Oh and just to confuse you a bit more they are about to blend flu and Covid numbers.

 

Great ......cannot wait for the Flucovid stats...........

 

The two pennies I am waiting to drop are:

That the World Health Organisation opposes lockdowns as a control method (see very recent Andrew Neil interview of David Nabarro on video all over the net.)


That 20% of UK Covid patients - and a far greater proportion of the fatalities- acquired their infection in hospital.

 

I must admit it's becoming clear that lockdowns don't work. I live in a lockdown area and in the two months of that lockdown, infection rates have continued to increase. It's time to change tactics. Protecting the vulnerable and letting everyone else get on with life and work seems a good idea to me. Especially as this virus appears to be very mild in the younger end.

 

But the goalposts have moved. Most of these people are not even ill.

The underlying truth is that most of the fatal infections in March/April/May (I include care home deaths) were acquired in hospital and that remains true today.

So why should we be surprised lockdowns are ineffective and unnecessary? You end up thinking they are a smokescreen for a whole variety of mistakes political and not so scientific. How do you admit error and retain authority/credibility etc?

 

Disagree away! I maybe seem like an obsessive zealot but, as we Scots say, “Ah can smell sh*te!” Too much of the official narrative doesn’t add up.

I merely invite other people to analyse as well as listen. And when you do.......

(By the way you might think Sweden radically different but Malmo, Gothenburg etc., are much like Liverpool or Manchester and the virus likes denser populations - whether they are morons or not!)

 

Your argument about population density actually would work in the UKs favour in achieving herd immunity, because more people should become infected more quickly.

To achieve herd immunity, you would want the majority of (younger and healthy) people to get infected, whilst protecting the vulnerable. Then the majority of the low risk population suffer no or minor symptoms, fight off the virus in a couple of weeks and then they have immunity and are no longer contagious, and hence no longer a threat to the vulnerable population. With herd immunity being achieved the epidemic is beaten, as there are very few people left to infect, hence the virus can no longer spread easily... so fewer people die, both in the short term from the virus itself, and the long term as there is little fall out from lock down and the poverty, depression, lack of treatment for non-Covid illness (cancer etc), that will ensue.

If scientists believe Sweden has achived herd immunity, then had the UK followed the same and orginial strategy, we should have reached herd immunity at least as quick as Sweden if not quicker because of the increased population density.

 

This is rich coming from Andy Burnham https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54492682
This is the penis head mayor of Manchester who a couple of months ago was bragging about how many tip offs GMC had about pubs and restaurants flouting the rules and he/they did cock all about it. He said if they don't behave, he would have to get tough. All hot air and empty threats you tosser !

 

A Labour mayor is never going to support anything that the Tory government do or say. As for the virus, in my mind there are conflicting views all across government and society so it is impossible to make an informed judgment on what should be done to tackle it