Naked Science Forum
Life Sciences => Cells, Microbes & Viruses => Topic started by: Edwina Lee on 08/03/2020 02:22:08
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This topic is for tracking and understanding the COVID-19 corona virus statistics.
Here are the best statistics sources I have found:-
[1] https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports
[2] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ (daily updated global statistics: WHO based)
[3] https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus (stresses on statistical interpretation: US based)
[4] http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/covid19/ (lag time for each country graphs: WHO based)
[5] http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/news/TrackingtheEpidemic.htm (statistics of every day in China: [overloading])
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It would be nice to be able see statistical graphs for every country on the web, especially the ones that are expected to explode in numbers. Please post a URL on here and give brief explanation when you find a regularly updated source. Thanks.
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Good idea, although the references you've posted above are the ones I currently look at myself.
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Quite significant delay in WHO's situation reports. CNN and WorldoMeters.com are reporting > 100,000 confirmed cases by Friday night 2020-03-27, but WHO report 67 is still on 68,334 cases.
https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/28/politics/what-matters-march-27/index.html
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Who is to blame for panicking the politicians into taking such over to top measures as an economic lockdown which is causing huge hardship to the poor and exploding unemployment; which will lead to rampant inflation while it lasts.
Enough is enough, overreacting to Health and Safety caution has landed us in a total mess. Let God decide who is to live and who is to die and not statisticians, medical opinions, scare mongering about insufficient ventilators or other human risks.
You are alive now but at risk of dying at any time; so it is up to you to be responsible for keeping yourself safe and those around you. This means keeping yourself normally at least a meter or 2 from other people where possible when you go out to work or shopping. This is in fact good advise whether there is a virus around or not in my opinion.
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Healthcare experts stay away from talking about the practicalities of having the disease, and stay in safe territory of arguments using death rate. Politicians have more considerations to take into account.
Trump's main concern is to beat China by economics & lies, & the tactic of doubt crafted by his brilliant strategist Steve Bannon. So he wants to belittle the infected & the deaths, hide the statistics by not testing & not collecting adequately, and carry on the normal economy. Without testing, deaths can be ascribed to seasonal flu, for example. If he lose this election, he is toast, and he'll be subject to all kinds of threats currently shielded by presidential power, previleges & cronyism. Johnson will become an unwilling pawn drifting in a storm that he has no control.
The serious practicalities of the disease is that it is very infectious and re-infection is very common and easy.
A healthy person can acquire resistance to it, then lose the resistance in a short while. When he is weak say after over work or exposed to severe weather, then suddenly, he can be infected and can deteriorate rapidly to acquire the full blown infection. Just look at how many nurses and doctors get seriously infected, and many died as a result. Doctors & nurses are generally strong and careful.
Tell me. Can a company really survive with so much serious infections about?
In the time a population eventually acquire herd resistance (if it ever happens), it will be 2 years or more, while the millions of bodies are piled high for cremation & burial. How will politicians survive? They would have to blame someone, something to deflect blame from their own incompetence and murderous agenda.
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Clever politicians who are QCs can usually run rings round investigating committees that seem to be run by armatures
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Have a look at the stats https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Scare statistics but what it omits to mention is that EVERYONE is going to be infected in the end and out of around 75 million infected people in Italy 14,000 have die leaving 74,986,000 still alive but 76,000 in hospital which is the real problem. Government should not do a nanny state lockdown; just advise the public it is in their own interest to avoid physical contact and particularly those with existing illness as you cannot necessarily be admitted to hospital if they fall ill. Older people will probably self isolate. WE WANT % FACTS NOT PANICS Sorry to shout but its important.
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The long term consequences of the virus is not known. If the long term consequences is serious, then no nation can afford to have majority or the whole population infected. Thus, it is a risk which must be avoided.
People's life time habits are not going to change to fight an enemy they can't see. This is why the state must assert its influence& power to save its population.
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Look at the cruise ship Diamond Princess as a reference point. The ship has about 2500 passengers and 1000 crew. By now all of these passengers will probably been infected but only 700 odd have fallen ill. We can assume the remainder had a mild dose of the virus and survived it.
So the virus will on average cause illness in 712/3500*100=20% of the population of which the stats say 11 died. Thus the virus will kill about 3 people per 1,000 most of them elderly.
Note panic lockdowns will not affect the numbers who die but only extend the period over which they become infected thus relieving the health service beds fitted with ventilators.
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Johns Hopkins Uni is publishing a database updated daily which can be cut & pasted into Excel
https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19/tree/master/csse_covid_19_data/csse_covid_19_time_series
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Yes, these stats are good and show that most of Europe and UK peaked 3 days ago. So although the USA will have other peaks as their large cities peak the rest of Europe can start to relax internally and get back to work but avoiding personal contact where possible and remaining within their local area if possible. To avoid foreigners bringing in the virus, a strict procedure of border health checks should be introduced where suspected people are immediately sent to isolation first aid area but normal passengers are issued with 2 masks dated and a packet of sanitized wipes for which they sign agreeing to self isolate for 14 days and instructed to always wear the mask and wipe anything they touch outside their home isolate area
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Second thoughts on the health officers check on arriving passengers at airport or docks is that each passenger should be issued with 2 masks [dated], a pair of rubber gloves and 2 tiny flannelette sanitized baby wipes. The health officer should insist that the mask, gloves are put on immediately and baby wipe used to wipe the pen and his counter. He shall inform the person that these items cannot be removed until they reach their permanent self-isolating room/mobile home. On the way home; any public door handle, water tap, safety rail etc must be wiped after they have touched it.
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Those covid-19 statistics are only good at telling us in a sketchy way how well individual countries are coping with the infection.
Based on that, we can guess which countries are safe to be, when they are likely to relax their distancing measures.
As for how serious is covid-19 if we let it loose, this MSNBC video illustrates it very well:-
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The video is OK for routine low risk work but we are in a fight for our rights to live a normal life. We cant waste time testing vaccines??? The government must work for the good of the people; not try and be safe dont blame me attitude!! They are meant to be leaders and issue an edict that pharmacy companies can call on fully informed retired medical profession volunteers to test its latest vaccine and not fear legal prosecution.
Children must be allowed back to school as they are at minimum risk anyway but keep a save distance apart where possible and the same should apply to manufacturing, shop and office/warehouse workers. Those staff that need to serve customers directly should be provided with windows with voice boxes [ like banks] and gloves to prevent physical contact immediately. The NHS staff that contact the virus should be given absolute priority to the use of hospital ventilators if they catch the virus but no panic releasing of other NHS staff other than those who touched them unprotected physically during their work at the hospital.
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acsinuk, the WHO considers that no country is in a position to get back to complete normality at this moment.
We still do not know much about this virus, so we can't make plans to recover based on assumptions which may be invalid.
Too much is at stake for the whole world or a large country to make the wrong move, so we just need to lock down to slow the speed of infection so that hospitals can cope, and hopefully establish important facts which may help us return to normality by adaptation or via vaccines or via medical treatments.
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Hi Edwina, Take a look at https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ and look at the births today and compare with the deaths today. If this were a serious pandemic we would surely see that deaths outnumbered births but they do not!!!!!.
WHO should immediately revise their definition of a pandemic and tie it to the stats not panic everyone unnecessarily. Had they looked at the Diamond Princess stats they could have predicted what would happen and these were available before the UK locked down.
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You are enaged in 1-dimensional thinking. It isn't just about death rate.
Consider these aspects:-
[1] Can an economy get back to normal when you have piles of dead bodies in every town and city. People don't spend and produce much when they are saddled by mourning of so many friends and relatives dying;
[2] The virus has nasty long term effects which we still do not understand; Can society cope with so many people in bad long term health?
[3] Can you feel safe when you know that 1 in 5 in the office has the virus and you might seccomb to it much like you succumb to a common cold whenever you get tired, cold, or old?
I am sure people can think of a long list of probems we have no answers for, and we don't yet know how we should deal with the practicalities.
We are far from being able to get back to where we were before. Years away is my best guess!
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The virus will kill about 3 people per 1,000 and 90% of those will be elderly or have chronic problems. So of the people of working age and children it will kill 3 in 10,000 people. So politicians should do what is for the common good and get back to normal by getting the kids back to school, allow marriages funerals and allow people to use their common sense regarding social distancing but leave it to God to decided who will live and who will die.
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The reason why the death rate is so small is that the infection rate has been controlled so that it does not grow exponentially anymore. Once the serious cases exceed hospital capacity to treat them, then death rate goes right up because untreated serious cases end up dying. That would be about 2.5%.
You are also assuming that herd immunity will be achieved. We never got herd immunity from the black plague, small pox, ebola, malaria for example.
We don't know much about the side effects of covid-19, but we are trying to discovering who gets ill and who don't, . . . This may eventually tell us how best to deal with covid-19.
But now, we simply cannot ignore covid-19.
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So what will happen next in UK. We have to get back to work to save the economy. But to protect the people that must travel to work the government has advised the wearing of masks and maintain social distancing. But we know that rush hour trains are always crowded so employers should stagger working hours or better still introduce shift work. Early shift 7am to 2pm [no lunch break] and 1pm to 8pm [ no lunch break]. For employees that adopt this timetable and produce off-peak travelling expense receipts a reduction in income tax can be claimable. This should half the rush hour traffic on trains if implemented by city stores, shops.
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This topic is for tracking and understanding the COVID-19 corona virus statistics.
Here are the best statistics sources I have found:-
[1] https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports
[2] https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ (daily updated global statistics: WHO based)
[3] https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus (stresses on statistical interpretation: US based)
[4] http://nrg.cs.ucl.ac.uk/mjh/covid19/ (lag time for each country graphs: WHO based)
[5] http://weekly.chinacdc.cn/news/TrackingtheEpidemic.htm (statistics of every day in China: [overloading])
Have you tried: coronavirus.1point3acres.com
It is written by Chinese-Americans and their stats are based on published news articles.
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The stats show UK as over the peak by a very long way. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ Even with Leicester still locked down we have survived the worst. In some countries probably deaths in care homes and of the over 70's are recorded as naturally of old age as any slight infection would have been fatal anyway.
We need to be positive about the future and push our economy forward for the common good of everyone particularly our children. Next winter a new flu virus will be discovered and there is obviously no cure for it available. So government should advise the NHS that we understand they don't have a vaccine but they should just do their best to contain it and not panic.
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The stats show UK as over the peak by a very long way. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ Even with Leicester still locked down we have survived the worst. In some countries probably deaths in care homes and of the over 70's are recorded as naturally of old age as any slight infection would have been fatal anyway.
We need to be positive about the future and push our economy forward for the common good of everyone particularly our children. Next winter a new flu virus will be discovered and there is obviously no cure for it available. So government should advise the NHS that we understand they don't have a vaccine but they should just do their best to contain it and not panic.
You still do not understand how serious covid-19 infection is. A serious infection can happen to young healthy people and the rate of transmission is rapid without the use of face masks in dangerous situations. Therefore, with the lack of credible leadership in the US & UK, they still haven't managed a safe gradual re-opening. The US leadership is just hopeless!
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The stats show UK as over the peak
Correction: over a peak. There is nothing in the aetiology of COVID infection to prevent it all blowing up again or just hanging around for ever.
I saw no panic in the NHS, only on the faces of ignorant, incompetent and arrogant politicians who have no idea what to do when President Cummings is too busy appointing fascists to the Cabinet Office to wave his magic willy.
Apropos the original question, https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales carries all the data you need. Best to ignore the "COVID" lines which are simply best guesses, but as the tables are Excel files you can subtract the 5-year average from each weekly total to get the weekly excess deaths. This shows around 50,000 deaths this year to date that are almost certainly attributable to government inaction and deliberate human sacrifices to The Economy. There will be more, as currently being demonstrated in Texas and Florida.
As with all other sacrifices to mythical gods, it was a complete waste of lives, time and money.
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All covid19 restrictions should now be lifted, as we are definitely over the peak and must not live our lives in fear. The government should advise everyone to use their common sense and avoid close contact with strangers and wear a mask if they feel uncomfortable. When the next flu virus hits us we must not allow Health and Safety experts to panic our government, just maintain a stiff upper lip and say to NHS staff; God will decide who lives and who dies, just do your best, and thank you all so very much.
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There is no god. There is a highly infective virus with 5 - 6% fatality and only one vector in the UK - homo "sapiens".
The NHS surely has better things to do than to watch the inevitable deaths and treat the longterm morbidities of those avoidably infected by others.
The time to lift internal restrictions is when we have no new infections for 2 weeks and effective quarantine for incomers. Viruses do not surrender - they have to be eliminated.
Strong positive action prevented Ebola from becoming endemic in the UK. COVID is a bit more subtle in its approach but can be eliminated if taken seriously.
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The stats show that in UK only 1 in 10,000 healthy people of under retirement age will die of Covid 19 see https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ for details.
Governments should do what is for the common good and not be panicked by H&S expert predictions of Dooms Day for the NHS or indeed fear of the second coming.
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The stats show that in UK only 1 in 10,000 healthy people of under retirement age will die of Covid 19 see
That would be the correct statistic to use for decision making if everybody in the UK was healthy and below retirement age. (Though nearly 10,000 dead people would still be an issue).
However there are lots of sick and retired people in the UK and, odd as you may find it, the government has to look after their interests too.
Or are you advocating a "Logan's run" scenario?
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All covid19 restrictions should now be lifted, as we are definitely over the FIRST peak
Fixed it for you.
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Fortunately this has nothing to do with "H&S experts" but very simple science. The vector for COVID is other people. There is no evidence of immunity from first infection. There is demonstrable 20% morbidity requiring hospitalisation, and around 5% excess mortality has been found where there is comprehensive postmortem testing.
So if everyone mingles with everyone else, we will end up with 5% fewer people, massively overloaded hospitals (NHS acute planning and funding is for about 1 - 2%, not 10 - 20%, of the population to be in hospital at any time) and a workforce 30% depleted by ongoing symptoms (principally the sequelae of cerebral hypoxia, and limited lung capacity) following "recovery".
Never mind the damage done to the lives and hopes of those of us who have worked for our long and healthy retirement, or our families and friends. Humans are of no consequence to government*. But the longterm damage to the Holy Economy and Blessed Bank Profits will be cataclysmic, and you really don't want to upset Mr Cummings by letting that happen, do you?
COVID, like Ebola, is entirely preventable and eradicable in the UK, but it would require positive government action based on science, not politics or short-term economics, to achieve this.
Meanwhile my shares in diagnostic and treatment technologies are rocketing, so please sit next to strangers and breathe deeply. Next week, I'm looking at designs for a continuous-flow crematorium.
*"One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic." Josef Stalin.
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Russia has a vaccine and we have vaccines which all need to be tested and verified as effective and not causing side effect problems. This pandemic is an emergency particularly for the over 80's, right..
Now if you are over 80 and get a positive covid19 response or have been near to an infected person; then insist on being given one of the experimental vaccines immediately, as this will :-
1] give you an extra chance of surviving and
2] build up a guinea pig database which could result in early release of the vaccine without going through thousands of volunteers.
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Russia has a vaccine and we have vaccines which all need to be tested and verified as effective and not causing side effect problems. This pandemic is an emergency particularly for the over 80's, right..
Now if you are over 80 and get a positive covid19 response or have been near to an infected person; then insist on being given one of the experimental vaccines immediately, as this will :-
1] give you an extra chance of surviving and
2] build up a guinea pig database which could result in early release of the vaccine without going through thousands of volunteers.
You may be startled to discover that policies on vaccine testing have been in place for decades and are unlikely to be changed on the advice of someone whose grasp of the situation is so poor that they say things like this.
All covid19 restrictions should now be lifted, as we are definitely over the peak
The parachute has slowed down my fall to just a few m/s, so I should now take it off.
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It could be argued that the pandemic is more of a problem for younger people. Aged 80+, your healthy life expectancy is on a knife edge and most of us will be generally less mobile, vigorous and productive than we were at 40. COVID loads the dice a bit, but is avoidable unless you are already terminally dependent on others.
Those who contract COVID in their middle years, however, tend to suffer a sudden and sharp decline in quality of life, life expectancy, productivity and career prospects. And the longterm damage can be significant.
Aged 75, semi retired and able to work from home, I've found the last 6 months relaxing and profitable. Slightly annoyed to have the holiday of a lifetime cancelled, but for the last 25 years every holiday was the holiday of a lifetime, so no great loss, and if I pop my clogs tomorrow I won't have many complaints.
Compare this with a kid who has just spent 6 months studying in chaos at home and then had his entire career wrecked by an incompetent A level grading system. Or a worker who has been furloughed for the last umpteen months and is now unemployed and unemployable. Or a businessman with debts to pay and no workers to man his depreciating machinery. You don't even need to get COVID to suffer from it for the rest of your life.
The worldwide pandemic may never be over, but the UK epidemic could have been avoided by swift action. It still could be, though I gather that Imperial College now think the number of carriers has been underestimated by a possible factor of 10.
Suppose a trial vaccine produces a severe but temporary inflammatory response. If we give it to 80-year-olds it will probably kill half of them, and several of the others will die from other causes in the next 6 months, so it won't be licensed: dangerous and not proven effective. But if you had given it to teenagers you would have found 100% survival and conferred lifetime immunity on the next generation! That's why we always start "preventive" trials with healthy 20 - 40 year-old males. That's quite different form "curative" trials where you start with a small but diverse group for acute toxicity and dose tolerance, and include actual patients as early as possible.
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Thanks Alan, I am also over 75 and at risk but would certainly like to help youngsters and the economy normalise.
If an over 80 were to be informed tomorrow that they have been SATNAVed as being near to a virus carrier and asked to self isolate then they should demand the option to guinea pig a vaccine of their choice and sign a written guarantee not to sue anyone if complications arise or even death. If that request for a vaccine were refused and they died; then they should instruct their will executor to sue whoever refused to supply the vaccine. The Russians have probably pirated the best one.
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Thanks Alan, I am also over 75 and at risk but would certainly like to help youngsters and the economy normalise.
If an over 80 were to be informed tomorrow that they have been SATNAVed as being near to a virus carrier and asked to self isolate then they should demand the option to guinea pig a vaccine of their choice and sign a written guarantee not to sue anyone if complications arise or even death. If that request for a vaccine were refused and they died; then they should instruct their will executor to sue whoever refused to supply the vaccine. The Russians have probably pirated the best one.
YOu seem to have missed an important aspect of (most) vaccines.
Your plan needs a time machine.
When the system realises that you have been in contact with a person with the virus, it needs to go back in time a week or two so that you can get the vaccination early enough that you have established immunity when you come into contact.
Without the time-travel bit, you probably aren't helping them much.
Of course, if you can do the time travel, you... oh never mind- there are plenty of sci fi stories about paradoxes.
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And of course if you have been infected, you will either die or, more probably, survive with permanent damage to your body, brain, career, or all of the above, but better immunity than any vaccine can offer you.
The important and utterly damning statistics are about the lasting physical, mental and economic damage to the survivors and the yet-to-be-infected, all of which could have been prevented by swift and positive government action.
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I noticed through www.worldometers.info that in the USA, the daily infection cases, & daily death cases have been vastly revised down for the last few days. hmmmmm
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I noticed through www.worldometers.info that in the USA, the daily infection cases, & daily death cases have been vastly revised down for the last few days. hmmmmm
The UK govt recently did the same- with no justification.
They decided that anyone who took longer than 28 days to die didn't die of covid.
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Do you know of any hospitalisation figures, given that there are places going into lockdown because of increaced positive tests, this is whilst testing is increaced and the government are urging anyone with a cough to get tested, i wonder whether ithis lockdown is an over reaction.
Also do you have any figures of flu jab recipients and hospitalisations?
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Prevention is better than cure. The only preventive measure is lockdown. If applied fully for 4 weeks and followed up with 100% quarantine at all borders, it can eliminate COVID from any given area.
Problem is that it is mildly inconvenient, requires competent government and properly organised public services, and has no short-term product, so it is politically unacceptable and we must all live in fear of a thoroughly nasty and extremely inconvenient endemic, for ever. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/22/covid-19-around-forever-former-uk-chief-scientific-adviser-mark-walport-vaccine (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/22/covid-19-around-forever-former-uk-chief-scientific-adviser-mark-walport-vaccine)
Meanwhile there are signs of official competence existing outside of Korea and New Zealand:
The head of Israel's coronavirus task force has asked [Ukraine President] Zelenskiy to ban an annual pilgrimage in which Hasidic Jews visit the central Ukrainian town of Uman, over concerns the site may become a virus hotspot.
Perhaps it was democracy, or the electoral college system, that wiped out the dinosaurs.
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I'm not sure where Donald Trump is getting his statistics, but his report on the death of New Zealand was greatly exaggerated.
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Wasn't he the idiot who said "If Stephen Hawking were British, he'd be dead?" Well, he was right, eventually. And who knows, the tectonic plates may well shift again, with the disappearance of New Zealand.
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the tectonic plates may well shift again, with the disappearance of New Zealand
We in Australia call New Zealand "the Shaky Isles"...
Fortunately for New Zealanders, a large part of the fault line that runs the length of the south island tends to slip along the fault-line, rather than directly subducting the entire country under the Australian plate. IIRC, the east and west sides of the fault line are misaligned horizontally by about 800km.
The north Island is formed by volcanic eruption of material that was previously subducted beneath the Australian plate, so it didn't permanently disappear.
I think New Zealand is hoping for another ice age - their country is surrounded by a large areas of shallow sea, which would greatly increase their land area if/when there is another ice age.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geology_of_New_Zealand#Modern_tectonic_setting_and_earthquakes
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The more people we test the higher the R rate will rise as most people have already suffered a covid 19 cold and shaken it off but of course test positive.. So it is nonsense to assume the virus is reappearing; as all it is is showing is that we have obtained herd immunity. Why not stop testing and get back to normal. After all, if we do not count the deaths of the over 80's who could expire even from a common cold then the death rate due to covid 19 drops from 41,000 by 80% to just 8,000 which in 66 million people is no problem for NHS as they will be left in the old folks homes.
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The more people we test the higher the R rate will rise
R is the typical number of people who get infected by a person.
It has nothing to do with testing.
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Not sure if we've mentioned it before in this thread, but Stalin said "One death is a tragedy. A million deaths is a statistic."
Now acsin tells us that 53,000 = 41,000 = 8,000 if you (a) ignore the obvious and (b) correct for his personal inconvenience, and all that stuff about intensive care and ventilators is a wicked fabrication - the NHS can carry on as normal. Best of all, we can ignore the slow, agonising death of anyone who has actually paid his taxes in the hope of receiving acute medical care at the time of need, and "get back to normal" so that The Holy Economy (i.e. bankers, estate agents and other parasites) can extort money from the workers.
The virus is not "reappearing". It never went away. What is happening around the world is that, as soon as the declared infection or death rate decreases, stupid people are putting themselves and others at risk by increasing R and thus allowing it to multiply. For any given virus, R is a function of human behavior. This virus can only be eradicated by reducing R to zero for about 4 weeks and securing the boundaries of the cleared area with an effective quarantine. Easy enough to do in the British Isles, but it requires a government with brains and balls, so it won't happen in the life of this parliament.
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By trying to find a vaccine for Covid 19 only? why not find a vaccine for a common cold at the same time? both are viruses that are similarly resistant to anti-biotics . The NHS cannot cure a common cold so why not make everyone self isolate until they can?. Doctors may be wizards at surgery but something as simple a cold is really scary for the NHS; as it may cause pneumonia and death.
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as it may cause pneumonia and death.
It may.
But it's a whole lot less likely to than Covid.
It's as if, every time you post, you find another point to miss.
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something as simple a cold is really scary for the NHS
Not to my recollection, but I only worked for the NHS for about 12 years. What really scared us, even 30 years ago, was governmental incompetence. The common cold is an economic burden and a social nuisance, but not nearly as dangerous as a government run by an unelected moron.
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By trying to find a vaccine for Covid 19 only? why not find a vaccine for a common cold at the same time? both are viruses that are similarly resistant to anti-biotics . The NHS cannot cure a common cold so why not make everyone self isolate until they can?. Doctors may be wizards at surgery but something as simple a cold is really scary for the NHS; as it may cause pneumonia and death.
To put the common corona virus rhinovirus cold in perspective and corona, 20,000 people died from flu some years ago and that was with vaccines. Colds do cause pneumonia etc but not nearly at the same rate as influenza without vaccines. The cold has herd immunity to it to and many people who are vunerable will have some earlier immunity to it.
The thing with the corona is that the the new virus means the body does not start combatting the virus and the viral load builds up.
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By trying to find a vaccine for Covid 19 only? why not find a vaccine for a common cold at the same time? both are viruses that are similarly resistant to anti-biotics .
A vaccine will only reduce R by the fraction of the population vaccinated, and only for as long as the vaccine is effective.
Viruses are not affected by antibiotics.
Until we have 100% uptake of a 100% effective vaccine, people will continue to contract COVID through contact with other people. Hopes and promises are not vaccines.
So the only effective means of control and eradication is 100% lockdown for 4 weeks, followed by absolute quarantine for all arriving passengers who cannot prove that they have spent the last 4 weeks in a COVID-free environment.
Since the UK effectively closes for 2 weeks from 23 December, it would be entirely sensible to declare a 4 week lockdown now, if the number of new cases exceeds, say, 1 per week at the beginning of November. Having 4 months to prepare for an extension of what is normally a 2 week holiday, there should be no panic buying or riots, and even this absurd excuse for a government could surely give enough of your money to its friends and family (it's called "contracting out to the private sector") to ensure some continuity of essential services.
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why not find a vaccine for a common cold at the same time?
Because the common cold is not a virus.
The common cold is a swarm of over 200 different viruses that surround us humans and live in humans (and sometimes our pets), and have periodic outbreaks when our herd immunity falls, or one of them mutates enough to be unrecognizable. We have several outbreaks every year (more of them in winter).
Around 4 of these 200+ are coronaviruses.
You can see the immense effort put into a vaccine for 1 sometimes-lethal corononavirus.
- Now multiply that by 4 to cover 4 rarely-lethal coronaviruses.
- Now multiply that by 50 or so to cover 200+ rarely-lethal other types of virus
- The combined resources of the world's pharmaceutical companies is not enough to cure the common cold
The COVID-19 vaccine(s), if/when they are approved will have a carefully measured dose, sufficient to trigger a resistance to serious COVID disease, but not enough to trigger a severe immune reaction to the vaccine in the majority of the population.
- But some vaccines may still not be enough to prevent a person getting infecting and shedding a serious amount of virus that could affect others (apparently, the Oxford vaccine is in this category).
- Now dilute that carefully-measured dose of COVID-19 vaccine by 200 to insert vaccines to 200 other "common cold" viruses, and you will have an ineffective vaccine against COVID-19 (and probably ineffective against the other 200 too).
It is enough of an achievement that we can start distributing an effective vaccine against COVID-19 in the next 12 months.
The real bonus will not be vaccines against the common cold, but in development of techniques to produce and test vaccines against the real killers - diseases that have been endemic in some parts of the world for centuries, but which never got much attention because they didn't infect people in the wealthiest nations.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_cold
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neglected_tropical_diseases
The other bonuses may be in the areas of:
- A better public understanding of the scientific method: Some members of the public may understand the difference between "peer reviewed" and a politician making up something during a press conference
- A better understanding that a placebo-controlled study (where there is a 50% chance you will get the medication) is actually more beneficial for the population than an uncontrolled study (where everyone gets an untried medication), and nobody is any wiser at the end.
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I think it was Philip K Dick who wrote a short story about curing the common cold. His thesis was that the human nose is inherently as sensitive as that of a dog, but the continuing presence of such viruses gives mammals an attenuating layer of mucus. The magic vaccine eliminated the entire spectrum of coronaviruses, leading to extraordinary changes in human behavior due to acute sensitivity to pheromones, and information overload making cats, dogs and pigs completely insane.
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why not find a vaccine for a common cold at the same time?
The common cold is a swarm of over 200 viruses that surround us humans and live in humans (and sometimes our pets), and have periodic outbreaks when our herd immunity falls, or one of them mutates enough to be unrecognizable. We have several outbreaks every year (more of them in winter).
Around 4 of these 200+ are coronaviruses.
You can see the immense effort put into a vaccine for 1 sometimes-lethal corononavirus.
- Now multiply that by 4 to cover 4 rarely-lethal coronaviruses.
- Now multiply that by 50 or so to cover 200+ rarely-lethal other types of virus
- The combined resources of the world's pharmaceutical companies is not enough to cure the common cold
I too thought that the reason they did not develop a vaccine was the mutation, by the time you have manufacture it its useless, this is why we continue to be reinfected with colds. A problem in the corona vaccine.
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I too thought that the reason they did not develop a vaccine was the mutation, by the time you have manufacture it its useless, this is why we continue to be reinfected with colds. A problem in the corona vaccine.
I thought that the risks & discomfort associated with a cold vaccine would exceed the consequences of having a cold.
This is sufficient to make a cold vaccine unjustifiable.
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why not find a vaccine for a common cold at the same time?
The common cold is a swarm of over 200 viruses that surround us humans and live in humans (and sometimes our pets), and have periodic outbreaks when our herd immunity falls, or one of them mutates enough to be unrecognizable. We have several outbreaks every year (more of them in winter).
Around 4 of these 200+ are coronaviruses.
You can see the immense effort put into a vaccine for 1 sometimes-lethal corononavirus.
- Now multiply that by 4 to cover 4 rarely-lethal coronaviruses.
- Now multiply that by 50 or so to cover 200+ rarely-lethal other types of virus
- The combined resources of the world's pharmaceutical companies is not enough to cure the common cold
I too thought that the reason they did not develop a vaccine was the mutation, by the time you have manufacture it its useless, this is why we continue to be reinfected with colds. A problem in the corona vaccine.
Did you understand the point Evan made?
Even if they didn't mutate, you would need about 200 vaccinations.
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Interesting aside on the matter of a COVID vaccine. The object of a vaccine is to provoke an immune response. The problem with COVID is that it is the immune response, not the disease itself, that is usually disabling or fatal. So it is entirely possible that a vaccine that appears to be safe in Phase 1 (young healthy volunteers) trials will actually kill people when administered to the at-risk population.
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What are the best links for up to date COVID-19 statistics?
Apparently, the US CDC has quietly downplayed their recommendation for anyone with symptoms to get tested, and also the recommendation for 14-day quarantine for travelers.
- Rumors are rife that this was due to pressure from the White House, leading up to the US presidential election in early November
- Dr Fauci says he is concerned about this change
If they are trying to make the figures look good by reducing testing (something Trump has promoted for some time), it is likely to boomerang - 2 months of reduced testing and reduced quarantine is likely to lead to increased community spread and increased hospital occupancy. And nothing makes dramatic news like patients being turned away from overloaded hospitals, or pictures of patients filling the hallways...
See: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/fauci-says-he-has-some-concern-about-change-covid-19-n1238208
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If they are trying to make the figures look good by reducing testing
You can't fatten a pig by weighing it, so why bother with testing? It only creates numbers.
The USA abolished common sense 4 years ago, and is about to ratify that decision.
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A cynic might say that the timing of this decision appears to be arranged so that Dr Fauci was unavailable to participate in the committee. I get the impression that he is a guy who speaks his mind politely, and is likely to influence others.
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I too thought that the reason they did not develop a vaccine was the mutation, by the time you have manufacture it its useless, this is why we continue to be reinfected with colds. A problem in the corona vaccine.
I thought that the risks & discomfort associated with a cold vaccine would exceed the consequences of having a cold.
This is sufficient to make a cold vaccine unjustifiable.
There are vaccines and vaccines arnt there, but just think how many workdays are lost due simple colds. Conversley, think how we would have been annhialated by this corona if we relied on vaccines
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Losing a workday from a cold (as evan has pointed out, there is no such thing as a "simple" cold) is an annoyance. The longterm debilitation of COVID is a tragedy. Life is more than economics.
There are indeed vaccines and vaccines, but my Reply #57 above explains why in the case of COVID, a "safe, effective" vaccine may do more harm than good.
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If we find a vaccine to cure the common cold then I think covid 19 will also be eliminated.
Funnily enough, I always used to get a cold every year for the first 70 years of my life but for the last 3 years at least I have been having the flu injections and had occasional sniffles but not a proper old fashioned cold. Maybe the 2 are tied together. What about you??
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for the last 3 years at least ... not a proper old fashioned cold
Most of the "common cold" symptoms do not come from the virus itself, but from your body's immune response to the virus.
- Despite the wide variety of viruses that make up the common cold, the symptoms are similar, because they all come from the same human immune system.
The fact that you haven't had any cold symptoms may reflect a change in environment: Perhaps you are now more isolated from circulating viruses?
Or, more likely, it may reflect the fact that as we get older, our immune response is not as active, producing fewer symptoms.
That means that as we get older, the virus is more likely to run amok, and cause more severe disease, and perhaps death.
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Vaccines generally don't cure, they prevent.
40 years of clinical research ended ignominiously with the closure of the Common Cold Research Unit, just as molecular virology became an effective research tool. Compare this with the speed of development of smallpox vaccination in 1774 and poliomyeletis vaccine (1948 - 52) and you may get the impression that the common cold is a lot more difficult to characterise and prevent.
The quickest way to develop a COVID vaccine is to develop a COVID vaccine. However as I pointed out in reply #57 above this may not be a Good Thing, and given the 70 years that elapsed between announcing a worldwide vaccination program for smallpox and its elimination, and the growing stupidity of antivax campaigns, it probably won't be effective in an acceptable timespan.
National quarantine can be instituted immediately and is demonstrably effective.
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If we find a vaccine to cure the common cold then I think covid 19 will also be eliminated.
Setting aside the error about vaccines curing things...
Nobody who understand immunology thinks that.
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If we find a vaccine to cure the common cold then I think covid 19 will also be eliminated.
Funnily enough, I always used to get a cold every year for the first 70 years of my life but for the last 3 years at least I have been having the flu injections and had occasional sniffles but not a proper old fashioned cold. Maybe the 2 are tied together. What about you??
Usually when im rundown, so that probably means you worked to hard all your life. Strenuous activity is known to lower the immune response, so being as your over 70 now i imagine your on permanent holiday break geting lots of R&R so you may be the most protected you have ever been, as long as your body is ok you are probably in great shape.
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We all understand that the common cold mutates each year and that it is a virus. So if covid 19 and common cold are similar then we must expect both to mutate but not panic and lockdown when it does.
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We all understand that the common cold mutates each year and that it is a virus.
You clearly do not understand.
The "common cold" is a name we give to illness caused by any of about 200 viruses, some of which are coronaviruses, (most are rhinoviruses).
Broadly speaking none of them is lethal.
Covid19 is quite often lethal.
So if covid 19 and common cold are similar t
They are not.
How did you not recognise that?
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A mouse and a rhinoceros are both mammals, so there is no need to panic if you are charged by an angry rhino. Just tell your cat to kill it, and carry on as normal.
Philosophy is not science. Bad philosophy isn't even philosophy.
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We all understand that the common cold mutates each year and that it is a virus. So if covid 19 and common cold are similar then we must expect both to mutate but not panic and lockdown when it does.
Flu mutates, thats why 90 percent of pregnant mothers in 1918 1920 who where infected for the first time with spanish flu died. But i do agree, it was pretty clear that pregnant women where not dying by the droves in wuhan, if we react like we are at present everytime corona mutates we would surely come to a halt as a species.
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it was pretty clear that pregnant women where not dying by the droves in wuhan
A recent meta-analysis suggests that there is a slightly elevated risk of premature birth due to COVID-19.
Apart from premature birth, the usual COVID-19 risks apply, and disease is more severe in women with other chronic problems like diabetes or obesity.
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it was pretty clear that pregnant women where not dying by the droves in wuhan
A recent meta-analysis suggests that there is a slightly elevated risk of premature birth due to COVID-19.
Apart from premature birth, the usual COVID-19 risks apply, and disease is more severe in women with other chronic problems like diabetes or obesity.
What would be interesting as a comarison to Spanish flu would be to see figures from people who live sterilised lives away from dirt filth etc versus those with lots of contact with corona like viruses, school teachers being the ones that pick up every cold under the sun. The people who had russian flu in the 19th century are thought to have had resistance to spanish flu
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The population of Wuhan clearly had more exposure to COVID than anyone else, and died just as frequently as those exposed subsequently.
Workers in meat processing plants are not exposed to "dirt,filth etc", particularly in Europe where very strict legal standards of hygiene apply. They seem to be remarkably prone to COVID outbreaks. The key, I think, is in the permanently moist atmosphere.
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The population of Wuhan clearly had more exposure to COVID than anyone else
The Naked Scientists podcast this week spoke to a number of experts about the origins of the novel corona virus.
- Naturally, with limited evidence from the early months of the pandemic, there was a wide range of ideas
- One researcher tracing the family tree of the coronovirus suggested that the "ancestral" viral strain in humans appeared to come from another province, farther south than Wuhan. He suggests that the virus may already have been adapted to humans by the time it reached Wuhan, and started spreading through the fish market.
- Another speaker commented that for previous viruses, people living in close contact with local bats were found to have antibodies to bat viruses, indicating that they had been previously exposed to the virus, but without human-to-human transmission, it wouldn't become an epidemic or pandemic.
Perhaps the UN investigation team can find some more details, assuming that a cover-up hasn't been in full swing for the past 8 months...
See: https://www.thenakedscientists.com/podcasts/naked-scientists-podcast/where-did-covid-come
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Thanks Evan_Au. Interesting podcasts.
I don't know if the WHO's investigators can settle the political slurrs, as Trump has been slurring China and the WHO right from the beginning, claiming that China has to pay for the pandemic. Clearly, if the WHO's team comes up with nothing to 'convict' China, then Trump's political move would be to keep promoting the global attack on China and the WHO.
We have seen it all before with Bush's invasion of Iraq.
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Forgetting the politics but the real problem is testing. If the testing takes more than an hour even a day then it is not worth doing. Why, because the person who was tested is still in contact with his/her family bubble who are all wondering around the shops and at work when they may be infectious. Testing should be scrapped totally unless the results are available within an hour. A total waste of time and leading only to misleading results!
Look at Sweden, they never locked down just advised the population of the necessity to wash hands mask up and avoid large indoor gatherings. They had a high level of deaths in first month but now no second spike as herd immunity has been achieved by allowing everyone to mix carefully. We do not need draconian measures to be foisted on us by vigilantism.
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Forgetting the politics but the real problem is testing. If the testing takes more than an hour even a day then it is not worth doing. Why, because the person who was tested is still in contact with his/her family bubble who are all wondering around the shops and at work when they may be infectious.
The grown -ups came up with a system where you didn't go wandering around until after you got the test result saying you were clear.
Granted that it's one of Boris Johnson's pipedreams, but the testing time isn't the real problem.
Look at Sweden, they never locked down
OK, let's look at Sweden.
https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3031
"Sweden does not have a herd immunity strategy,"
"Sweden does not have a single approach to covid-19; its response is a mixture of policies at national, regional, and local levels and in sectors outside of the health system such as public transportation."
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Sweden is twice the size of the UK, with one sixth of the population, and, oddly, whilst the tourist or business visitor won't notice the difference, has far less of a "native" hospitality industry: years of very steep alcohol taxes and VAT on restaurant food, and a history of extreme poverty until the 1940s, have produced a very different social tradition among people who seem in other respects to be very like Brits. So with one twelfth of the population density and no great urge (particularly among adults and the elderly) to cram into sweaty pubs and curry houses at every opportunity, most exhaled viruses died of boredom before reaching a new host.
I suspect there was also less governmental encouragement to infect retirement homes, and a century of dreadful, numbing, conformist socialism meant that hospitals were well equipped with fresh and effective PPE.
Income tax is among the highest in the world. You get what you pay for.
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Sweden is twice the size of the UK, with one sixth of the population, and, oddly, whilst the tourist or business visitor won't notice the difference, has far less of a "native" hospitality industry: years of very steep alcohol taxes and BVAT on restaurant food, and a history of extreme poverty until the 1940s, have produced a very different social tradition among people who seem in other respects to be very like Brits. So with one twelfth of the population density and no great urge (particularly among adults and the elderly) to cram into sweaty pubs and curry houses at every opportunity, most exhaled viruses died of boredom before reaching a new host.
I suspect there was also less governmental encouragement to infect retirement homes, and a century of dreadful, numbing, conformist socialism meant that hospitals were well equipped with fresh and effective PPE.
Income tax is among the highest in the world. You get what you pay for.
Yet the usa has pulled a similar trick ? Cases down again, non of the exponential rise in deaths ! A century of anti socialist policies too. India is also doing well considering its population is twice the size of europes yet landmass smaller and pakistan has moved on.
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Yet the usa has pulled a similar trick ?
"similar"?
The highest death toll in the world.
Highest case rate in the developed world.
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Excess deaths UK this year to date: about 1 per 1000 population - clear leaders in the western league, thanks to the brilliant professional management of the not-short-sighted President Cummings and Mr Punch.
Excess deaths USA to date: about 0.62 per 1000. Not bad, considering the ridiculously low US population density and, as in 1916 and 1942, they started late. I'm sure the USA will, as usual, catch up and surpass anything Europe can manage. Sacking the head of CDC was a good start, but Der Fuhrer needs more people to attend his Rallies.
Anyway, way better than backward, socialist Sweden that has only managed to kill 0.33 extra per thousand this year, despite having twice the population density of the USA. Rank amateurs.
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Excess deaths USA to date: about 0.62 per 1000. Not bad, considering the ridiculously low US population density and, as in 1916 and 1942, they started late. I'm sure the USA will, as usual, catch up and surpass anything Europe can manage. Sacking the head of CDC was a good start, but Der Fuhrer needs more people to attend his Rallies.
Anyway, way better than backward, socialist Sweden that has only managed to kill 0.33 extra per thousand this year, despite having twice the population density of the USA. Rank amateurs.
This still ranks better than the 0.78 per 1000 the uk suffered in the 201718 flu season.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortalityinenglandandwales/2017to2018provisionaland2016to2017final
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Sweden does not have a herd immunity strategy
“And you’ll develop — you’ll develop herd — like a herd mentality,”
See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/09/16/problem-with-trumps-herd-mentality-line-isnt-verbal-flub-its-mass-death/
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This still ranks better than the 0.78 per 1000 the uk suffered in the 201718 flu season.
Only one third of which were due to respiratory disease. The rest were simply the expected consequence of austerity - the smack of firm government.
The really interesting spikes in the graph are a genuine millennium bug in 1999 - 2000 and week 30 (end of July) 2009 with a huge number of reported cases but very few deaths:
23 July – The Government launches the National Pandemic Flu Service across England, a website and phoneline allowing people who think they have the pandemic H1N1/09 virus to bypass the NHS to obtain antiviral drugs. The website crashes within hours of its launch due to the overwhelming demand.
Yes, it's deja vu all over again, according to Matt Hancock, Jacob Rees-Mogg, and other puppets.
But despite its handicaps of low population density, very little intercity commuting, and a sort-of-elected president, the US misgovernment is making a sterling effort to catch up with British idiocy.
You have misused "better than". The game is to kill as many people as possible by doing nothing that might be construed as actual government. If you can bankrupt the Treasury and cause mass unemployment at the same time, you get extra points.
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This still ranks better than the 0.78 per 1000 the uk suffered in the 201718 flu season.
Only one third of which were due to respiratory disease. The rest were simply the expected consequence of austerity - the smack of firm government.
I see you are crying havoc and letting slip the dogs of war in an effort to attain credible deniability over the facts again. They where "Exess deaths" as yourself likes to brandish as a standard.
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No, I'm simply quoting from the paper you cited. Always read the small print. Or in this case the bullets listed as "main points".
Also note that their definition of excess winter deaths (admittedly buried in Paragraph 3 Things you need to know....") is Dec-Mar deaths minus the average of preceding Aug-Nov and the following Apr-Jly. This is quite different from (and much more spectacular than) the current calculation of excess deaths being deaths Jan-Sept minus the average of Jan-Sept for the previous 5 years.
Medical statistics are a minefield, and even a simple flag like "excess deaths" can lead you into a swamp!
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Excess deaths USA to date: about 0.62 per 1000. Not bad, considering the ridiculously low US population density and, as in 1916 and 1942, they started late. I'm sure the USA will, as usual, catch up and surpass anything Europe can manage. Sacking the head of CDC was a good start, but Der Fuhrer needs more people to attend his Rallies.
Excess deaths USA to date: about 0.62 per 1000. Not bad, considering the ridiculously low US population density and, as in 1916 and 1942, they started late. I'm sure the USA will, as usual, catch up and surpass anything Europe can manage. Sacking the head of CDC was a good start, but Der Fuhrer needs more people to attend his Rallies.
Anyway, way better than backward, socialist Sweden that has only managed to kill 0.33 extra per thousand this year, despite having twice the population density of the USA. Rank amateurs.
This still ranks better than the 0.78 per 1000 the uk suffered in the 201718 flu season.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/excesswintermortalityinenglandandwales/2017to2018provisionaland2016to2017final
No, I'm simply quoting from the paper you cited. Always read the small print. Or in this case the bullets listed as "main points".
Also note that their definition of excess winter deaths (admittedly buried in Paragraph 3 Things you need to know....") is Dec-Mar deaths minus the average of preceding Aug-Nov and the following Apr-Jly. This is quite different from (and much more spectacular than) the current calculation of excess deaths being deaths Jan-Sept minus the average of Jan-Sept for the previous 5 years.
Medical statistics are a minefield, and even a simple flag like "excess deaths" can lead you into a swamp!
Yes you are contradicting yourself, as when necessity dictates you to hide your face from the facts, for whatever reason drives you. Quite a clear and distinct deviation from ration logic and reason. Fin.
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The problem is that we need to attain herd immunity as quickly as possible. We need to be bold and positive about the future but accept that more people will get sick until a vaccine is available.
Think ahead, what will happen if the virus mutates and we have Covid20 to content with?? Obviously the same experts will instantly panic again, with predictions of doom to the ministry of health!!
But surely the government will not be hood winked again by announcing damaging draconian lock-downs that totally wreck our lives and the economy.
No, No; just let the virus do its worst and if the new Nightingale ICU's ever get filled up; then is the time the government will need to intervene by possibly instructing NHS to only accept none retired patients. To protect the young should be their first priority which is for the common good of our country for sure. .
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Obviously the same experts will instantly panic again,
The experts didn't panic; they left that to politicians.
The politicians, in response, started to talk about herd immunity.
ut surely the government will not be hood winked again
How did you come to the conclusion that trying to stop people dying is "hoodwinking" the government?
draconian lock-downs that totally wreck our lives and the economy.
Most people's lives, though gravely disrupted are not "wrecked".
And even those who really feel their lives are "wrecked" probably mainly think it's better than "ended".
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We need to ...... accept that more people will get sick until a vaccine is available.
Why, when the disease is entirely preventable (don't expose yourself to it) and eradicable (isolate everyone who has been exposed, until they recover)?
We have no herd immunity to bubonic plague, ebola, smallpox, typhoid, or a thousand other nasties. But very few cases. The only problem with COVID is the asymptomatic and infective incubation period, whch requires a bit more caution but can be entirely resolved with a proper national quarantine.
And for what it's worth, many of those who get symptoms but don't actually die seem to have their lives pretty thoroughly damaged if not wrecked by persistent symptoms.
To protect the young should be their first priority which is for the common good of our country for sure.
Except that (a) the young seem relatively unharmed by COVID (b) the old have spent their lives paying for health care, so surely have the moral right to receive it (c) we can make useless babies in 9 months, but it takes more than 70 years to acquire a lifetime's wisdom and experience (d) "our country" is a patch of land that is indifferent to the fate of its inhabitants- it is "our people" that we should concern ourselves about. Sadly, we have a government that puts "the economy" above all else.
And even if "the economy" is worth saving, it is driven by the old, not the young!
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Sadly, we have a government that puts "the economy" above all else.
Just for the record, they have screwed that up too.
It may be a trick to hide some of the economic damage from Brexit, or it might be the same lack of competence that drove Brexit in the first place.
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There was a news item last night that indicated that Cambridge university were experimenting with a magnetic resonance imaging scanner which could identify which cells were being invaded or restricted by any new vaccine thus accelerating the testing process without using human guinea pigs. Seems like a real improvement on the cumbersome human testing with placebo's to me.
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Interestingly, that 's how MRI began - as an in vitro examination of cancer cells.
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My point is, we must prove a vaccine fast or thousands more people will die every day we wait..
But, do not use young people as guinea pigs to prove the vaccine; use over 80's to test all new drugs on a voluntary basis.
Lots of retired medical people would only be too pleased to be able to help prove a vaccine works quickly for their grandchildren's sakes.
What is the point of you living for ever if your descendants die first??
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There are two problems and we don't know which one we need to solve.
We get 10,000 students and vaccinate half of them. In the vaccinated group, none dies from covid.
In the unvaccinated group none dies from covid- because , this disease seldom kills people in that age group.
We get 10,000 octogenarians and vaccinate half of them.
Some die from various things, some die from covid.
If we are lucky, fewer of the vaccinated ones die from covid.
If we are very lucky, fewer of the vaccinated ones die in total.
Great; we have a vaccine that we can then use more generally.
However, the only evidence that we have, does not actually support its use in any group other than octogenarians.
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All drug tests must be "on a voluntary basis".
Problem is that simply vaccinating a bunch of elderly folk who are unlikely to contract a disease (because they don't roister around in crowds or use public transport in the rush hour) won't prove effectiveness, and if they are already past their sell-by date, it won't demonstrate longterm or even medium term safety.
Intentional "challenge" tests are just permissible but since the elderly are already known to be at highest risk from COVID, you'd have a problem getting ethical approval for such a cohort. If you can identify a healthy cohort that is unlikely to die or suffer serious complications from a COVID infection, you might consider infecting them with known active virus to determine the effectiveness of your vaccine. This pretty much limits you to the usual suspects: 18 - 40 year-olds are known to develop symptoms, rarely die from them, and can give informed consent, so you could usefully track their viral load to determine effectiveness.
Against this, the real world incidence of COVID infection is significant and any vaccine will have to be produced and distributed in vast quantities at negligible cost (the economy having already been destroyed by politics and incompetence), so you may as well go straight for a large-scale epidemiological trial against placebo once you have established safety.
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What is the point of you living for ever if your descendants die first??
It happens. My mother-in-law has buried two daughters, but has no intention of dying in the foreseeable future.
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President Trump has taken a couple of new vaccines and if he is allowed to why aren't we????
We live in a state of fear, with leaders who just cruise along trying to please health and safety officials but not thinking about the common good of the rest and younger population.
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President Trump has taken a couple of new vaccines
too late.
And, since he took two there's no way to know which (if either) worked.
We live in a state of fear, with leaders who just cruise along trying to please health and safety officials their own bank balances but not thinking about the common good of the rest and younger population.
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President Trump has taken a couple of new vaccines and if he is allowed to why aren't we????
because they obviously don't work. You can, however, volunteer for a clinical trial if you feel lucky.
We live in a state of fear, with leaders who just cruise along trying to please health and safety officials but not thinking about the common good of the rest and younger population.
Sadly, politicians (not "leaders", please - we are talking about puppets with no leadership qualities) are trying to please the idiots who might vote for them, and their fellow shareholders and prospective employers, by ignoring the qualified and experienced officials charged with protecting the common good.
Your fear is entirely justified. A dangerous virus is on the loose, encouraged to spread by an incompetent government.
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Here's an interesting stat for you.
What do these countries/ territories have in common?
Comoros
Sao Tome and Principe
Djibouti
San Marino
Saint Pierre Miquelon
Liechtenstein
Antigua and Barbuda
Barbados
Dominica
Papua New Guinea
Mongolia
British Virgin Islands
Isle of Man
Cambodia
Cayman Islands
Bermuda
Seychelles
Fiji
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Brunei
Laos
Western Sahara
Solomon Islands
They are all currently reporting fewer covid cases than the White house.
(Based on worldometer and some story I read on line)
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This is quite interesting,
Newcastle and nothumbria uni's have around 2000 cases between them in about a week.
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-more-than-1-000-students-at-newcastle-university-have-tested-positive-over-the-past-week-12099193
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According to the Metro there are 1,003 cases at Newcastle university of the 28,000 students and 6,000 staff. Let us wait for the 2 weeks quarantine to finish and then re-assess the situation.
Looking at the Diamond Princess ship example to predict the result; out of the 34,000 we should have 20% catch the virus like 6,800 people who become infected and about 100 should die. If that does not happen then we have already reached a percentage herd immunity. I.E if only 10 die then we are 90% herd immune.
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According to the Metro there are 1,003 cases at Newcastle university of the 28,000 students and 6,000 staff. Let us wait for the 2 weeks quarantine to finish and then re-assess the situation.
Looking at the Diamond Princess ship example to predict the result; out of the 34,000 we should have 20% catch the virus like 6,800 people who become infected and about 100 should die. If that does not happen then we have already reached a percentage herd immunity. I.E if only 10 die then we are 90% herd immune.
Ever been on a cruise ship?
Ever been in a university hall of residence?
Ever noticed that, roughly speaking, one lot are the grandparents of the other?
Ever pondered how that might make a difference to your assessment of immunity to a disease noted for disproportionately affecting the elderly?
Ever, in general, stopped to think before you post?
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Absence of death is not evidence of immunity. Unlike colds and common winter flu, the disease is long-term disabling for many of those it does not kill. There is no evidence of even short-term immunity to COVID.
Cruise ships provide a good example of what should be done: central, professionally controlled food and housekeeping, with small family groups isolatable in comfortable, selfcontained, airconditioned rooms. Pretty much like an isolation hospital, yet still resulting in 20% infection rates. Not many student residences come up to that standard.
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On 9th October I wrote this " According to the Metro there are 1,003 cases at Newcastle university of the 28,000 students and 6,000 staff. Let us wait for the 2 weeks quarantine to finish and then re-assess the situation.
Looking at the Diamond Princess ship example to predict the result; out of the 34,000 we should have 20% catch the virus like 6,800 people who become infected and about 100 should die. If that does not happen then we have already reached a percentage herd immunity. I.E if only 10 die then we are 90% herd immune."
So we have reached a high level of herd immunity and all lockdowns in these previously high R areas should be relaxed immediately.
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One US university did some computer modeling to discover the expected rates of infection.
- When they resumed classes, infection rates soared far above the predictions.
It turned out that students did not behave as predicted in the computer model - they didn't like masks and they didn't stop partying.
- Maybe the computer guys should have consulted the psychology department?
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Thanks Evan
But my point is that Covirus 19 is not the killer we are being told that is it?
If 90% of the students test positive and none die then I consider that they are at least 99% herd immune. Testing really is a total waste of time and money.
The only place testing would be acceptable would be at airports and docks where 100% temperature test; as standard procedure be made. Anyone having a temperature is marched to an onsite mobile lab so the result is known immediately. If they are OK let them proceed. If they are Covid19 positive them free ambulance them to their 14 day isolation home/hotel and inform the police to check on them.
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Testing really is a total waste of time and money.
Unless, you want to gain information like
If 90% of the students test positive and none die then I consider that they are at least 99% herd immune.
Though, actually, that's not what herd immunity is about.But my point is that Covirus 19 is not the killer we are being told that is it?
We are being told it has killed tens of thousands in the UK.
It has killed tens of thousands in the UK
It is the killer we are being told that it is.
Next time you are going to post something, please just have a look through it and ask yourself "What contradictions are BC going to point out here?"
Then either sort them out, or don't post it.
That will save us both time.
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Looking at the Diamond Princess ship example to predict the result; out of the 34,000 we should have 20% catch the virus like 6,800 people who become infected and about 100 should die. If that does not happen then we have already reached a percentage herd immunity.
No. A cruise ship is a perfect environment for effective lockdown since all the passengers can be confined to individual or family cabins with separate ventilation systems and the crew have complete control of feeding, cleaning, etc. Even more to the point, in international waters the captain has absolute authority over everyone and everything through an unquestioned hierarchy of trained and proven competent officers.
Despite this, 20% of the passengers and 15% of the crew were infected and 14 passengers died.
The questions everyone should answer before advocating a loosening of quarantine are
(a) which member of your immediate family would you like to be hospitalised?
(b) which member of your extended family (uncles, aunts, nephews, nieces and in-laws) would you like to die?
If not yours, why mine?
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But my point is that Covirus 19 is not the killer we are being told that is it?
The numbers haven't changed much. Around 20% of positives end up in hospital and around 20% of those, die. There has been some thinning out in the UK thanks to the early government intervention of infecting the most vulnerable in care homes, and there is some evidence that aggressive therapy can achieve recovery without full mechanical ventilation, but whilst you might regard 4% fatalities of other people's relatives as acceptable, few people welcome the temporary incapacity and longterm disability associated with an entirely preventable disease.
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The only place testing would be acceptable would be at airports and docks where 100% temperature test; as standard procedure be made.
The unique problem with COVID is the infectivity of asymptomatic carriers. Having a COVID-related fever means that you have probably been spreading the bug for at least 5 days. Not having a fever means that you may have been spreading the bug for less than 5 days.
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Anyone having a temperature is marched to...
I presume that's the tautological sense of "having a temperature"- anyone with a temperature above absolute zero.
If you mean the colloquial sense of having a fever then...
How hot does that mean?
Normal temperature is 35.3-37.7°C *
So, where do you put the "cut off"? If you choose the middle of the range then you will pointlessly delay roughly half the passengers, but also let half the infected passengers through.
SIs that actually helpful?
What's the point of testing the people who have an elevated temperature- because they have a cold or toothache or, have been running to catch a plane (or their onward connection)?
Why don't you want to test the people who have covid but, for one reason or another (maybe aspirin), don't have an elevated temperature?
If you actually have an
onsite mobile lab so the result is known immediately.
why not test everyone?
Sure, ithe delay will piss them off, but that's the way it goes; we are trying to quench a pandemic..
Incidentally, if the lab is on site, it doesn't need to be mobile. Hardly matters, it will be a box with a "Staff wanted" sign on it.
*
https://www.bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j5468
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There are two ways of achieving herd immunity
1. Vaccinate at least 80% of the herd with a proven effective vaccine and prevent potential carriers entering the herd.
2. Kill all those who would die from the disease, before they reproduce.
1. We don't have a proven effective vaccine for COVID19, and whilst 80% seems to work OK for childhood diseases, we don't know whether it is a large enough fraction to effectively contain COVID, and we don't have established immigration controls to prevent asymptomatic carriers from the third world (particularly the USA) entering the country.
2. All we know about the humans most vulnerable to COVID is that most of them have already reproduced.
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Sweden is looking interesting, even though there are cases the mortality rate is persistently low. It may be a change in how they report deaths but if not they have worked a minor miracle considering that deaths have not been in double figures since mid July and the UK and other countries still have a higher overall mortality rate
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
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Sweden is interesting for many reasons, not the least being a very low population density outside of Stockholm (where the figures are consistent with outer London) - about 10% of the UK population, occupying twice the area of the UK. Also a history of public trust in and compliance with a competent government.
At its peak, the weekly excess death rate in Sweden matched that of the UK but the peak was shorter and the second wave seems not to have hit just yet - oddly, the present overall death rate is below the 5-year average!
Worldometers is not a reliable source for comparisons as it quotes "COVID deaths", the statistics of which are not much better than a guess. But all governments publish excess death stats, which are a matter of fact.
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Sweden is interesting for many reasons, not the least being a very low population density outside of Stockholm (where the figures are consistent with outer London) - about 10% of the UK population, occupying twice the area of the UK. Also a history of public trust in and compliance with a competent government.
At its peak, the weekly excess death rate in Sweden matched that of the UK but the peak was shorter and the second wave seems not to have hit just yet - oddly, the present overall death rate is below the 5-year average!
Worldometers is not a reliable source for comparisons as it quotes "COVID deaths", the statistics of which are not much better than a guess. But all governments publish excess death stats, which are a matter of fact.
No world ometers uses the government data, that is clear misrepresentation. Plus the 2nd wave has hit, just not deaths, incase you where not aware of that.
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in international waters the captain has absolute authority over everyone and everything through an unquestioned hierarchy of trained and proven competent officers.
I believe it was the Japanese port authorities who forced the Diamond Princess into quarantine. That is when social distancing was enforced. Before that, the crew of the ship were purely focused on everyone having the time of their life, without a worry in the world.
Apparently, on the Ruby Princess (which docked in Sydney with COVID passengers onboard):
- The medical officer strongly suspected that passengers had COVID-19 (she arranged for the ship to be met by ambulances with full PPE, for 2 ill passengers; she knew they didn't have influenza, as she could test for flu onboard)
- But the other passengers report that there was no warning to them about risks of disease or social distancing
- So the remaining passengers disembarked with no medical checks or warnings; a number were later diagnosed with COVID-19, after having spread out in a radius >1,000km from Sydney.
As someone who has enjoyed a number of cruises, I have received a flood of emails advertising cruises when obviously none would be sailing anytime soon.
- But recently, I saw one with quite a different tone, actually talking about precautions they would be taking to minimize the chance of an outbreak
- For example, a move away from buffet dining to more restaurant-style dining, and encouraging use of masks
- Personally, I would enjoy another cruise, but not until after I've been vaccinated, and a reasonable fraction of other passengers have, too
- I suspect that for the next few years, cruises will have a slightly more somber tone, with regular reminders about masks and more intrusive health precautions than just hand-washing at the restaurant.
Here is the health advice from one cruise line (other vendors are available). Unlike their usual nemesis (Norovirus), asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 is a real problem for health plans like this.
See: https://www.princess.com/plan/cruise-with-confidence/cruise-health/
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No world ometers uses the government data, that is clear misrepresentation.
Read the small print. They use government data for "deaths from COVID", which, as I have pointed out before, is fairly meaningless since most victims die from common diseases like pneumonia that they cannot shake off because their cardiac and respiratory systems are compromised by the reaction to COVID.
Death is fairly unequivocal, and excess deaths during an epidemic likewise, but "deaths from COVID" is not a reliable statistic.
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Sweden is looking interesting, even though there are cases the mortality rate is persistently low. It may be a change in how they report deaths but if not they have worked a minor miracle considering that deaths have not been in double figures since mid July and the UK and other countries still have a higher overall mortality rate
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
Sweden has a sparse, well educated, caring population. So when the herd immunity strategy at the beginning began to look wrong, they changed strategy, and the population trusted and followed the guidance of authority, which is basically very simple.
Not so with many other countries. So they suffered and are about to suffer a really bad winter ahead.
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No world ometers uses the government data, that is clear misrepresentation.
Read the small print. They use government data for "deaths from COVID", which, as I have pointed out before, is fairly meaningless since most victims die from common diseases like pneumonia that they cannot shake off because their cardiac and respiratory systems are compromised by the reaction to COVID.
Death is fairly unequivocal, and excess deaths during an epidemic likewise, but "deaths from COVID" is not a reliable statistic.
No Alan I AM arguing the point they use government data, you, if you remember where arguing the point that they make it all up. Worldometers is not a reliable source for comparisons as it quotes "COVID deaths", the statistics of which are not much better than a guess. But all governments publish excess death stats, which are a matter of fact.
World ometers are a guess was your stance, where as government data is a fact. That was your stance, please do not switch to mine
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Sweden is looking interesting, even though there are cases the mortality rate is persistently low. It may be a change in how they report deaths but if not they have worked a minor miracle considering that deaths have not been in double figures since mid July and the UK and other countries still have a higher overall mortality rate
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
Sweden has a sparse, well educated, caring population. So when the herd immunity strategy at the beginning began to look wrong, they changed strategy, and the population trusted and followed the guidance of authority, which is basically very simple.
Not so with many other countries. So they suffered and are about to suffer a really bad winter ahead.
Yes but they are not recommending masks and the pubs and clubs are open along with universities and schools, yet they are doing far better, certainly better than the poster child Chech Republic.
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World ometers are a guess was your stance, where as government data is a fact. That was your stance, please do not switch to mine
Please read the small print, and think.
The worldometers link you gave quotes "coronavirus cases" and "coronavirus deaths".
Nobody knows how many cases there are because nobody is doing 100% daily testing and many cases are asymptomatic so the patient does not present for testing. So for "cases" read "known diagnosed cases".
Most people who die with COVID do not die from it, but from common bacterial infectoins that they cannot fight because their cardiovascular or pulmonary system is compromised by COVID, so "COVID deaths" is a matter of opinion. Not sure what hey do in Sweden, but in the UK the official stats only list deaths within 28 days of a COVID diagnosis, whereas the actual death of COVID-infected patients tends to occur some time later, so the earlier you get diagnosed, the less likely you are to become a statistic!
Anyway the interesting figures from Sweden will appear in the next 4 - 6 weeks. With daily cases now around 1500, we can expect a few excess deaths by the end of November. And the gross figure of 5.1% fatality shows that the Swedes do not have a magic treatment.
Nor are they much better at prevention than the Brits. Scaled up to the same population, they would have had 39,650 deaths to date, compared with the UK 45,400, and given the much smaller population density of Sweden, you could argue that they are actually doing rather badly.
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World ometers are a guess was your stance, where as government data is a fact. That was your stance, please do not switch to mine
Please read the small print, and think.
The worldometers link you gave quotes "coronavirus cases" and "coronavirus deaths".
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No, as reported by governments, not made up as you suggest. Please do not knowingly misrepresent the site nor divert from the point you are contravening the facts and counterarguing your own point.
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"As reported by governments" and "scientific fact" are very different things. I have not suggested any of the statistics was "made up" but you really need to read and understand the small print before reaching any conclusions about them. The details appear to be honest, and they indicate exactly what I have pointed out many times before:
Currently, the only valid measure of control of COVID is seasonally adjusted excess deaths.
The gross fatality rate from known COVID infection in Sweden is no different from anywhere else.
Adjusting for population density (since the only vector for COVID is other people), Sweden is doing no better than the UK at controlling the spread of the disease.
I haven't doubted any of the figures, but simply drawn obvious conclusions from exactly what the Swedish government has told us in its own words.
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Worldometers is not a reliable source for comparisons as it quotes "COVID deaths", the statistics of which are not much better than a guess. But all governments publish excess death stats, which are a matter of fact.
"As reported by governments" and "scientific fact" are very different things. I have not suggested any of the statistics was "made up" but you really need to read and understand the small print before reaching any conclusions about them.
You must be taking the piss!
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No. I'm taking the reports at face value.
Government reports of "COVID deaths" depend on what politicians have deemed to be COVID deaths, multiplied by the probability that a certifying doctor will record it as such rather than his professionally diagnosed cause of death (which is usually pneumonia or cardiovascular failure exacerbated by an inflammatory response to COVID).
In the UK, for instance, the political definition is a death within 28 days of a positive COVID test, so the earlier you test for it, the less likely you are to record it as a "COVID death" even if it was the only cause of death. This has the advantage of proving that "early tests save lives", even if they don't!
Excess deaths is an absolutely robust statistic, and is not a happy one, anywhere.
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No. I'm taking the reports at face value.
Government reports of "COVID deaths" depend on what politicians have deemed to be COVID deaths, multiplied by the probability that a certifying doctor will record it as such rather than his professionally diagnosed cause of death (which is usually pneumonia or cardiovascular failure exacerbated by an inflammatory response to COVID).
In the UK, for instance, the political definition is a death within 28 days of a positive COVID test, so the earlier you test for it, the less likely you are to record it as a "COVID death" even if it was the only cause of death. This has the advantage of proving that "early tests save lives", even if they don't!
Excess deaths is an absolutely robust statistic, and is not a happy one, anywhere.
Worldometers is not a reliable source for comparisons as it quotes "COVID deaths", the statistics of which are not much better than a guess. But all governments publish excess death stats, which are a matter of fact.
"As reported by governments" and "scientific fact" are very different things. I have not suggested any of the statistics was "made up" but you really need to read and understand the small print before reaching any conclusions about them.
You must be taking the piss!
You are taking the piss, you post contradictory points, then you post the post above this one.
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Hi,
gov.uk for covid-19 updates in the uk or the office for national statistics website for in depth covid data.
You can also now use the test and trace app to see what tier level your area is in.
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The rules of what counts as a death and what does not are very complicated; they are not that accurate but they are the best information we have about the virus.
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There's not much doubt about what counts as a death. If Joe Bloggs can't phone the office to complain about the mistake, he's dead enough to remain on the register.
There is however very little certainty about cause of death. Even where pathologists have the time and inclination to carry out a postmortem, in the absence of obvious trauma they record an opinion, not a fact. That opinion is heavily influenced by medical fashion and in the case of COVID, by political definition.
The only credible statistic of the current pandemic is seasonally adjusted excess deaths. Indeed it is the only figure that matters.
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Excess deaths is an absolutely robust statistic, and is not a happy one, anywhere.
. But all governments publish excess death stats, which are a matter of fact.
You are taking the piss, you post contradictory points, then you post the post above this one.
I don't see any contradiction.
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you post contradictory points,
I didn't see a contradiction.
Could you point it out please?
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Excess deaths is an absolutely robust statistic, and is not a happy one, anywhere.
. But all governments publish excess death stats, which are a matter of fact.
You are taking the piss, you post contradictory points, then you post the post above this one.
I see contradiction
Im glad you agree that you are a piss taker.
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Excess deaths is an absolutely robust statistic, and is not a happy one, anywhere.
. But all governments publish excess death stats, which are a matter of fact.
You are taking the piss, you post contradictory points, then you post the post above this one.
I see contradiction
Im glad you agree that you are a piss taker.
Alan,
What do you think he's going to be if/ when he grows up?
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Hey guys,
I am not going to read the last posts in detail but you need to calm down a bit. I know scientists love a bit of Argie-barge sometimes but this is getting a little out of hand.
STAY CALM, DON’T COMPLAIN, SAVE LIVES...
From Salik Imran(a student in secondary school).
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There are a lot of quotes there :o...
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Alan,
What do you think he's going to be if/ when he grows up?
Leader of the Conservative Party? President of the European Union? Unless he was born in the USA, in which case God Help America.
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Are you talking about me? 8)
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Are you talking about me? 8)
I was talking about Petrochemicals who, as you pointed out, needs to grow up a bit.
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Oh, sorry. I got mixed up with the names petrochemicals and boredchemist. I can’t believe that as chemistry is my favourite of all science subjects.
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Stay calm, certainly, but failure to complain can be fatal. Especially nowadays.
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Sometimes, bit not when when you are arguing about useless things.
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Alan,
What do you think he's going to be if/ when he grows up?
Leader of the Conservative Party? President of the European Union? Unless he was born in the USA, in which case God Help America.
How far will you push this personal attack? perhaps to criminal, regicide etc? It has nothing to do with anything that should be on this site.
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Regicide, eh? Never thought of you as a king.
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People are dying this moment! It is a fact so don’t argue about stances and whatever. Try to dave those lives bu following the rules.
The point at issue here is "which rules?" It's a very serious question.
There is a fairly common misconception that the impact of COVID has been significantly less in Sweden than the UK or elsewhere in Europe, despite or even because of far less stringent quarantine rules. As I have been careful to point out, using only the Swedish government's published statistics, they really aren't doing at all well.
With a similar population and population density, New Zealand has recorded 25 COVID deaths to date, compared with 5,938 in Sweden. Common sense suggests that the New Zealand model works rather better and should be emulated by anyone seriously wanting to control and eradicate the disease.
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Regicide, eh? Never thought of you as a king.
Psychologically that sounds worrying as 1st you are considering that I am the victim that doesn't tally with your earlier post of what I will become, not what others will do to me, signifying that you seek to victimise me. Secondly thats also a veiled threat of murder.
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Or exactly the opposite. If I don't think of you as a king, any thoughts of regicide would be irrelevant.
Nor do I see the possibility of your rising to high political office as a threat to your safety, only that of others. For example, the US government has now killed more US citizens in 9 months through COVID than the Wehrmacht and the Imperial Japanese Navy managed in 3 years, and there's a high probability that the President will be re-elected because of it.
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Or exactly the opposite. If I don't think of you as a king, any thoughts of regicide would be irrelevant.
Nor do I see the possibility of your rising to high political office as a threat to your safety, only that of others. For example, the US government has now killed more US citizens in 9 months through COVID than the Wehrmacht and the Imperial Japanese Navy managed in 3 years, and there's a high probability that the President will be re-elected because of it.
Into your rat hole Alan I see.
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The problem is that the health expert advise is protecting the elderly but sacrificing those of a younger age that desperately need an operation. Just how stupid is that?
The over 80's should not be allowed into hospital if they contact Covid19 but referred to a nursing home for oxygen treatment. This will protect the NHS from the elderly clogging ICU beds and allow surgeons to get on and operate on those under 65's that really need surgery and are being left to die at home.
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The over 80's should not be allowed into hospital if they contact Covid19 but referred to a nursing home for oxygen treatment.
....where they can decline and die unnecessarily whilst infecting the staff, other residents, and their families, as previously demonstrated. The difference between an acute hospital and a nursing home is in its ability to contain and treat infectious disease.
Remember that the elderly have paid for their NHS treatment. Anyone under the age of 40 (a) has taken more from the state than he has contributed to it and (b) is more likely to survive and recover without needing intensive care than those financially entitled to it.
Hard health economics says that today's acute trauma is tomorrow's bedblocking geriatric. How do we treat racehorses with broken legs, or diseased chickens? Healing the sick is a waste of money - they just come back for more.
Interestingly, the seasonally adjusted excess death rate in the UK was actually negative during the summer. The gutter press made plenty of headlines about more people dying at home, but the place of death is at worst irrelevant and at best, preferable at home, and it seems that delayed elective treatment may actually be good for you.
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Quote "Hard health economics says that today's acute trauma is tomorrow's bedblocking geriatric. How do we treat racehorses with broken legs, or diseased chickens? Healing the sick is a waste of money - they just come back for more."
So New Zealand has just voted in euthanasia in a referendum as it helps the chronically sick bow out without suffering further. I know of many 90+ers who are incontinent and look forward to death and resurrection.
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I know of many 90+ers who are incontinent and look forward to death and resurrection.
What about the ones whose bladders and bowels still work? (it seems an odd thing to focus on but...)
There's all the difference in the world between allowing the death of those who are gravely ill, in pain or whatever with no chance of improvement and letting otherwise fit healthy people die because you couldn't be bothered to wear a mask to do your shopping.
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So New Zealand has just voted in euthanasia in a referendum as it helps the chronically sick bow out without suffering further.
I'm all in favor of euthanasia, but at a time and by the means of my choosing, not yours. And no resurrection, please - once is enough.
New Zealand seems to be the most (possibly only) civilised country on earth.
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I suppose all this inconvenience can stop immediately we get a vaccine but what happens if covid19 mutates to 20. Surely we are not going to repeat this lockdown procedure next time??
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No need to wait for a mutation.
Current evidence is that the halflife of COVID antibodies is a couple of months, so the vaccine won't eliminate the virus but just make it a bit less dangerous for medical staff to treat victims.
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No need to wait for a mutation.
Current evidence is that the halflife of COVID antibodies is a couple of months, so the vaccine won't eliminate the virus but just make it a bit less dangerous for medical staff to treat victims.
Six months and counting according to today's papers
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So it is just like a common flu virus and we idiots have over reacted to panicking medical experts. The NHS needs to be put on a war footing and told to get on with their job and stop scare mongering.
Hopefully, the house of Lords will oppose and delay the lockdown implementation by insisting on suitable amendments to allow normal fit people to continue their lives without fear.
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Nothing to do with the NHS, but much to do with HM Registrars of Births Marriages and Deaths.
Apparently they are a bunch of lefties who keep lying about the number of people reported dead, except in the summer when they all go on holiday and the reported death rate decreases to the normal level.
And all those scroungers who would rather go to a food bank than work, or try to claim benefits because they had a mild dose of flu and now can't breathe or think.
Source: Donald Trump in tomorrow's Daily Mail.
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No need to wait for a mutation.
Current evidence is that the halflife of COVID antibodies is a couple of months, so the vaccine won't eliminate the virus but just make it a bit less dangerous for medical staff to treat victims.
Six months and counting according to today's papers
Read the small print
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54696873 "Immunity is waning quite rapidly, we're only three months after our first [round of tests] and we're already showing a 26% decline in antibodies," said Prof Helen Ward, one of the researchers.
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No need to wait for a mutation.
Current evidence is that the halflife of COVID antibodies is a couple of months, so the vaccine won't eliminate the virus but just make it a bit less dangerous for medical staff to treat victims.
Six months and counting according to today's papers
Read the small print
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54696873 "Immunity is waning quite rapidly, we're only three months after our first [round of tests] and we're already showing a 26% decline in antibodies," said Prof Helen Ward, one of the researchers.
Rat hole. Today's papers I said yesterday. T cell b cell antibodies etc.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/02/t-cell-covid-immunity-present-in-adults-six-months-after-first-infection
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Rat hole. Today's papers I said yesterday. T cell b cell antibodies etc
Do you understand that if there were lots 6 months ago, and they had a half life of a couple of months, there would still be some... but here's the important bit; there might not be enough.?
Did you consider that before you posted?
If so, how did you address the fact?
The reality is that nobody actually knows how long an given level of immunity persists in any given subset of the population.
But the best we can do is hope.
Even if we only do as good a job as we do with the flu that will be a great step forward.
It drops the infection rate among those vaccinated by about 60%
That, on its own, is enough to take an R value from 1.5 to less than 1.
So, it would be enough to wipe out the virus with the same sort of restrictions that we currently have, rather than the more stringent lockdown.
That's the point; it doesn't need to be perfect.
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If I were a teenager or of working age; I would seriously consider that the draconian measures introduced against normal healthy people is a totally over the top reaction to what turns out to be similar to a normal flu type virus. We all know that if we are sick or have a temperature we should stay at home in bed till be get better just as your parents taught you..
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We all know that if we are sick or have a temperature we should stay at home in bed
What the F*** use is that when the symptoms, if they show at all, are two days after you are infectious?
Are you actually an idiot, or are you posting these nonsense posts as an exercise in trolling?
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similar to a normal flu type virus
It's pretty much the same size and shape, but the similarity ends there. Charlie Chaplin was born on the same day as Adolf Hitler, and looked very much like him. You choose.
As anybody who knows anything about COVID (even the Daily Mail, for God's sake!) will tell you, it is unique in being infectious but asymptomatic in many people, dangerous for 20%, and deadly for 5% of those who are infected. Think of a million Typhoid Marys wandering the streets.
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Since you can't tell if you have the virus, the only socially responsible thing to do is act as if you do have it.
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If I were a teenager or of working age; I would seriously consider that the draconian measures introduced against normal healthy people is a totally over the top reaction to what turns out to be similar to a normal flu type virus. We all know that if we are sick or have a temperature we should stay at home in bed till be get better just as your parents taught you..
There are 3 differences between this virus and a standard year flu virus
1 is that no one has had a chance to build immunity to this viruz
2 we haven't a vaccine for the vunerable
3 this virus is considerably less dangerous than a flu virus
For a simular comparison between flu and this virus look at 1918 Spanish flu, that was a new 'novel' virus, it had no vaccine and it was influenza . Look at the differences in Sweden between 1918 and 2020. Couple to this that a large portion of the populace is sustained by herd immunity and vaccines every year against the flu virus thus meaning a large group of people are vulnerable compared to 1918 when life expectancy was beneath the age of 65 you get the idea of quite how bad the 1918 flu was in comparison.
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a 2007 analysis of medical journals from the period of the pandemic found that the viral infection [Spanish flu] was no more aggressive than previous influenza strains. Instead, malnourishment, overcrowded medical camps and hospitals, and poor hygiene, all exacerbated by the recent war, promoted bacterial superinfection. This superinfection killed most of the victims, typically after a somewhat prolonged death bed.
Also aided by the fact that the principal sources were in military camps in the USA, France, Germany and the UK, where the news was suppressed by the wartime censors.
Always read the small print.
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a 2007 analysis of medical journals from the period of the pandemic found that the viral infection [Spanish flu] was no more aggressive than previous influenza strains. Instead, malnourishment, overcrowded medical camps and hospitals, and poor hygiene, all exacerbated by the recent war, promoted bacterial superinfection. This superinfection killed most of the victims, typically after a somewhat prolonged death bed.
Also aided by the fact that the principal sources were in military camps in the USA, France, Germany and the UK, where the news was suppressed by the wartime censors.
Always read the small print.
No it was not. Spanish flu didn't start in europe, but was called Spanish flu because of media restrictions due to the war, Spain was not in the war hence Spain was the first publicly acknowledged area. We haven't a war now yet flu still spreads
Plus your quote is crap. Pregnant women who I doubt where anywhere near the war in the USA received a near death sentence.
And I've just realised the always read the small print may me referring to the ""stem the tide of ignorance" that is your moniker? You should stop using that if you are spreading disinformation, especially if you will ot even try, such as seen in your post 162 in this thread. All you had to do was search "today's papers corona immunity", but you didn't, you just posted crap that bolstered your position. Literally, search "corona immunity" , click on the news. I suggest changing it to
"Alan calvert pushing my own opinion despite of the facts at the expense of truth, misleading the ignorant. And something about Hitler"
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So you can read Wikipedia. That's a start, at least.
The newspapers carry all sorts of interpretations of the immunity study, apparently depending on the political color of the owners. But the scientific evidence is of an exponential decrease, as expected, pointed out n this discussion, and evident from the graph published in the Daily Mail. This is entirely normal and the reason why we need booster shots for various immunisations, the problem with COVID being that the half life of COVID immunity is inconveniently short and we don't have a booster.
A little less hysteria would be welcome.
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So you can read Wikipedia. That's a start, at least.
The newspapers carry all sorts of interpretations of the immunity study, apparently depending on the political color of the owners. But the scientific evidence is of an exponential decrease, as expected, pointed out n this discussion, and evident from the graph published in the Daily Mail. This is entirely normal and the reason why we need booster shots for various immunisations, the problem with COVID being that the half life of COVID immunity is inconveniently short and we don't have a booster.
A little less hysteria would be welcome.
There was not a Hitler mentioned in that post Alan, Well done you.
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My only comment is that we were told about this vaccine in March so why the delay. 40,000 people have die in UK just because the testing was following some legalistic H&S procedure!!!! We, according to Boris are at war with the virus and so to reduce the casualties in wartime you need immediate action. When the next virus hits let us fight it faster, much, much faster.
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just because the testing was following some legalistic H&S procedure!!!!
Yeah. damned busybodies keeping people alive.
We, according to Boris are at war with the virus and so to reduce the casualties in wartime you need immediate action.
You can enormously increase the casualty rate in war by taking immediate action- before you do reconnaissance.
When the next virus hits let us fight it faster, much, much faster.
Yes.
And the best actual weapon we have at the moment (and the only weapon with a new virus) is lockdown/ quarantine.
I'm glad you are now on board with that.
what took you so long?
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why the delay. 40,000 people have die in UK just because the testing was following some legalistic H&S procedure!!!!
It comes back to the Hippocratic goal of "Do No Harm". You don't want to make a patient worse than they were.
If you take New Zealand, with practically no cases of coronavirus circulating in community.
- The death rate may be 1 person every 2 months
- But all these New Zealanders want to get a vaccine so they can travel to Fiji, Australia, the USA or the UK (or to survive when their neighbour comes back from those destinations).
- So if we deploy a vaccine that has a 0.1% fatality rate (ie much less than Coronavirus), you end up with 4,000 deaths in a population of 4,000,000.
- If this were the USA, the manufacturer would then have 4,000 lawsuits each claiming $1 billion for loss of income and extreme emotional distress.
- Since it is New Zealand, it would probably mean that the government would get voted out at the next election due to forcing the population to take a "dangerous" vaccine.
So the safety bar is set very high for a drug that you give to a healthy person (eg a vaccine). You don't want to make them worse than they are now, even though it might prevent them getting sick in the future.
- If you are in the USA, with new cases exceeding 100,000 per day, you may want to accept a greater risk from the vaccine to avoid a greater risk from the coronavirus
- But the extremely litigious nature of the US legal system means that pharmaceutical companies can't take that risk (despite all the waivers you sign before taking the vaccine).
- No government wants to be seen to harm their people
....unless you are Donald Trump, who thinks it will just go away by itself (which is perhaps why he closed the White House office charged with pandemic readiness)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/nsc-pandemic-office-trump-closed/2020/03/13/a70de09c-6491-11ea-acca-80c22bbee96f_story.html
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some legalistic H&S procedure
Here's the choice. You can avoid catching a disease, or be injected with a product that might infect you lethally, might possibly prevent you catching the disease if you were to expose yourself to it, or might do nothing at all.
Thankfully, lots of animals and a few brave volunteers got involved in a legalistic H&S procedure, but you want the government to inject your wife and children with this untested magic potion because the only way to protect you is to inject everyone else. And you don't care how much time, effort and your tax money we spend on it if it doesn't work or kills half the population - what matters is ACTION, not outcome..
That's not how most people think.
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If 50000 people have passed away due to corona as an estimate 25000 cases of excess mortality have occoured catagoricaly not due to corona. Probably due to lack of treatment, [ Invalid Attachment ]
(https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2F&hash=3cd4f4119996b42d10f5ed9eb0e8d712)
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What is the basis of your estimate? It's a bit suspicious because it matches the COVID curve so closely: early death due to delayed treatment is likely to lag a couple of weeks behind the cause of the delay.
Remember that deaths registered as COVID is always an underestimate as COVID is not usually a killer by itself, and in times of crisis, nobody is going to carry out postmortems on non-suspicious deaths, particularly if the corpse may be infected.
There are arguments that accidental deaths -principally road accidents - have decreased during periods of lockdown. These statistics should be fairly easy to find, and your graph suggests this - it is certainly the case in Sweden that in a few weeks with very few reported COVID deaths, the overall death rate fell below expectation. Problem is that they are likely to increase again if folk go back to work in cars and on bikes instead of using public transport.
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If 50000 people have passed away due to corona as an estimate 25000 cases of excess mortality have occoured catagoricaly not due to corona.
Show your working.
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What is the basis of your estimate? It's a bit suspicious because it matches the COVID curve so closely: early death due to delayed treatment is likely to lag a couple of weeks behind the cause of the delay.
The graph is from the ONS, the basis being pressure on services, no heart treatments, no stroke treatments ambulance tie ups due to hospital allocation of staff. As serious corona cases decline so treatments for heart attacks increace I suspect that this 50 percent of the corona toll is likely to increase over the next few years. I think the opening up of the nightingales would segment the infected away from services for treatments listed above. I am inclined to believe that the ons and doctors would not be registering mortalities without due consideration.
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I repeat My only comment is that we were told about this vaccine in March so why the delay. 40,000 people have die in UK just because the testing was following some legalistic H&S procedure!!!!
Of course the vaccine must be checked out but not by young volunteers as lawyers can pretend they were denied the opportunity of becoming the next US president. Volunteers should all be 80+ years and healthy and make a written statement in front of a doctor and a relative that they wish to volunteer to test the vaccine. |No problem of lawyers trying to claim lost opportunities as they are one foot in the grave anyway and we should all thank them so much for risking their lives for the common good of everyone.
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You seem to have muddled up the ideas of lawyers and morality.
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I repeat My only comment is that we were told about this vaccine in March so why the delay. 40,000 people have die in UK just because the testing was following some legalistic H&S procedure!!!!
Of course the vaccine must be checked out but not by young volunteers as lawyers can pretend they were denied the opportunity of becoming the next US president. Volunteers should all be 80+ years and healthy and make a written statement in front of a doctor and a relative that they wish to volunteer to test the vaccine. |No problem of lawyers trying to claim lost opportunities as they are one foot in the grave anyway and we should all thank them so much for risking their lives for the common good of everyone.
Dignitas
Thalodomide
Inject bleach(don't)
20000 died from flu with a vaccine a few years ago.
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the testing was following some legalistic H&S procedure!!!!
With this "legalistic testing procedure", Pfizer claims 90% effectiveness and good safety
- but the detailed figures are not released yet - all we know is that around 90 people in the test group fell ill with COVID-19. That implies that only 10% of them were in the vaccine group (50% would have received vaccine, and 50% received placebo).
- Today the Russians came out and said that their vaccine is 92% effective. We haven't seen their detailed figures either, but maybe they just didn't bother rounding off to the nearest 10%?
This vaccine work is ground-breaking for both its speed and effectiveness - the US FDA was willing to approve any vaccine with > 50% effectiveness!
- And they have relaxed some of the usual legalistic rules - for example allowing combined Phase 2/Phase 3 trials, and there are live-virus challenges occurring in humans.
I understand that there has never been a successful vaccine against a corona virus in humans (there was one in animals). There were some candidate vaccines tested against the original SARS, but apparently the vaccine made the disease worse in patients. That is why very careful vaccine testing is necessary.
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Acsin:
we were told about this vaccine in March
Who we, and what exactly were you told?
By mid-March the RNA sequence had been decoded and several laboratories began to investigate the possibility of producing a safe, stable, effective and persistent vaccine that could be manufactured in quantity and delivered in a form for immediate injection. Knowing this would be a long process, other laboratories and hospitals were tasked with investigating methods of prevention and possible treatment with existing pharmaceuticals, in the hope to limit the spread and impact in conjunction with effective track, trace and quarantine.
My own research ethics committee and others were approached with a view to fast-tracking clinical trials of various treatments and vaccines once safety had been established. Government incompetence ensured that the disease was not contained and no effective treatments were found.
Once you have a vaccine that seems to be safe in animals, you need to establish safety and tolerable dose in fit human volunteers. Since the normal course of the disease is around 30 days, we are now around 60 days from discovery and hopefully have produced some antibodies without killing anyone (which is something of a "back to the drawing board" outcome).
Now you need to trial the vaccine against placebo, because we know that there is evidence of spontaneous recovery or even inherent resistance to infection. Problem is that 20% of those infected require hospitalisation, so a direct challenge with live virus is not immediately an ethical "go". So we need to release a lot of volunteers into the community, half with placebo, and study their infection rate. But by the beginning of June we only had about 100,000 confirmed infective cases and most of them were playing by the rules and quarantining, so the probability of one of your trial volunteers contacting a spreader by chance, was very small indeed, thus making the statistical analysis of the trial a real needle-in-haystack job
In other words, even if we'd had the ultimate magic bullet in a test tube at the beginning of March, nobody would have known if it was worth manufacturing until some time in September. And then the real work begins.
How stable is it? You can't release a commercial batch without a use-by date.
How resilient is it? You have to have realistic packaging and storage specifications
How consistent is it? You have to produce 70,000,000 identical shots
And how long does the immunity last? 70,000,000 repeat shots every month will cripple the economy because everyone will be involved in making, distributing, dispensing, or queuing up for the next shot.
Frankly, it's a bloody miracle that anyone has made a proven 90% effective vaccine in 11 months from the first UK case, particularly as HM Govt spent the first 3 months pretending it wasn't a problem. Now "all we have to do" is to get it into production, find some way of dispensing it, and kill the lawyers (because someone is bound to complain).
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Would it not be better for the government to acknowledge the NHS has a problem and advise them to do their best [ as they are doing] and accept that there is no permanent solution at present. By all means we should wear a mask in public areas, keep our distance and wash hands thoroughly but no draconian measures should be used. Just rely on peoples common sense.
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Just rely on peoples common sense.
LOL
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acknowledge the NHS has a problem and advise them to do their best
The problem faced by the NHS is, as always, caused by government advice, which is never welcomed by professionals.
Fortunately it seems that the government is stepping down (he was seen leaving 10 Downing Street today with a cardboard box ) and there is a possibility that someone with functioning neurones will be operating the Prime Minister in future. The mystery is what the other 649 Members of Parliament are paid for.
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They are all on furlough taking an early break waiting for Boris to ban Christmas totally. Latest draconian measure is everyone is to stay in bed for 10 days and not allowed any food or drink. If that does not work then we could try to ban breathing???
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If that strategy is tested on politicians, I'm all in favor of it. They have after volunteered (indeed fought) to represent us, so who better for the Phase 1 trial?
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Yes, latest expert who developed the vaccine is that if everyone is vaccinated it will be effective stall covid19 by summer provided it does not mutate. Even if it does not mutate; we may need refresher jabs quite regularly.
Trying to conquer this virus reminds me of king Canute sitting on the beach and ordering the sea not to come in. Some cold/flu viruses cannot be controlled by mankind yet and must be just accepted as natural without panic reactions.
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Trying to conquer this virus reminds me of king Canute sitting on the beach and ordering the sea not to come in.
I take it that you do not know the actual story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Canute_and_the_tide
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Some cold/flu viruses cannot be controlled by mankind yet and must be just accepted as natural without panic reactions.
This, you consummate idiot, is not a cold/ flu virus.
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if everyone is vaccinated it will be effective
Good heavens! Who would have thought it?
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Yes, latest expert who developed the vaccine is that if everyone is vaccinated it will be effective stall covid19 by summer provided it does not mutate. Even if it does not mutate; we may need refresher jabs quite regularly.
Trying to conquer this virus reminds me of king Canute sitting on the beach and ordering the sea not to come in. Some cold/flu viruses cannot be controlled by mankind yet and must be just accepted as natural without panic reactions.
Once everyone over 60 or vunerable is vaccinated they will let it go. Something like 10 15 million doses
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But next year, another million people will be over 60, half of those vaccinated will probably have lost their immunity, and the number of people infected will have risen from 0.2% to at least 20% of the population if they "let it go".
You can't negotiate a ceasefire with a virus.
Fortunately an unnamed minor civil servant seems to be less stupid than some of the contributors to this discussion, and has budgeted for 70,000,000 doses in the first round.
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must be just accepted as natural without panic reactions.
Gradual suffocation and death is not a panic reaction. Blustering and bullshitting about "herd immunity" and "worldbeating systems" in front of the TV cameras, is.
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But next year, another million people will be over 60, half of those vaccinated will probably have lost their immunity,
this point means
Fortunately an unnamed minor civil servant seems to be less stupid than some of the contributors to this discussion, and has budgeted for 70,000,000 doses in the first round.
Will have other other priorities than 20 to 30 year olds who don't really mind if they get syphilis or chlamydia. This vaccine from pffitzzer requires at least 2 doses, more than likely 4 to be sure, so there go your 70M doses
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This, you consummate idiot, is not a cold/ flu virus.
Let's keep things civil.
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This, you consummate idiot, is not a cold/ flu virus.
Let's keep things civil.
Corona virus is not a cold virus, a novel one at that? Or where you on about pneumonia?
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20 to 30 year olds who don't really mind if they get syphilis or chlamydia.
Funnily enough, most of them do. The difference is that these diseases are transmitted by (mainly voluntary) close contact in the pursuit of pleasure or business, are mostly symptomatic, and are treatable, so youngsters turn up at STD clinics with a reasonable hope of recovery and sound advice.
COVID can be received by sitting on the same bus as a complete stranger with no symptoms, and is not treatable.
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Corona virus is not a cold virus, a novel one at that? Or where you on about pneumonia?
Unlikely, as pneumonia is not a viral disease.
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Corona virus is not a cold virus, a novel one at that? Or where you on about pneumonia?
Unlikely, as pneumonia is not a viral disease.
It has been noted that bacterial pneumonia immunisation can help with corona virus
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20 to 30 year olds who don't really mind if they get syphilis or chlamydia.
Funnily enough, most of them do. The difference is that these diseases are transmitted by (mainly voluntary) close contact in the pursuit of pleasure or business, are mostly symptomatic, and are treatable, so youngsters turn up at STD clinics with a reasonable hope of recovery and sound advice.
COVID can be received by sitting on the same bus as a complete stranger with no symptoms, and is not treatable.
Well they care less than the pursuit of biological procreation, but more than corona virus. But I can hardly see the unnamed civil servant going out of his way for them.
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Corona virus is not a cold virus
Well spotted.
You may be confused by the fact that some colds are caused by coronaviruses.
But what I said was "This virus...".
The Covid 19 virus is obviously not a cold virus, because colds are infections that annoy you but (virtually) never kill.
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The Covid 19 virus is obviously not a cold virus, because colds are infections that annoy you but (virtually) never kill.
I wonder whether some of the "common cold" viruses started off the same way?
When Europeans traveled to far shores, they carried a number of infections that were considered routine - mild childhood diseases.
- But when they reached a population that had no childhood exposure, they caused large numbers of deaths.
- Perhaps some susceptible genetic variants had been wiped out in European populations centuries before, but were still present in this distant population?
- Those who survived the initial onslaught appear to have developed immunity (and just had to survive a variety of other forms of disadvantage)
This is roughly where we are now, exposed to a new pathogen in the form of SARS-COV2.
- Children are infected, but symptoms seem to be mild
- Older people and people with chronic diseases are dying more often, but we have no obvious way of identifying who will get severe disease and who will get milder disease.
- Various studies into genetic pathways and susceptibility are starting to yield some results, but it's still early days...
There is still a bit of an attitude persisting in Western countries today that deaths in distant countries aren't worth worrying about...
- But deaths in my country are worrying (eg see Zika, where concern peaked as it spread northward through central America, and then dissipated, leaving some vaccine developments half-finished)
- Vaccines developed for this SARS-COV2 have benefited from recent vaccine developments.
- The Pfizer mRNA vaccine no doubt benefited from investment by the Gates foundation in RNA vaccines, looking for a way to quickly address neglected tropical diseases
- Other efforts have benefited from partial research into Zika vaccines, and an Ebola vaccine
I think that these novel zoonotic diseases may be a repeat of what the West did to populations around the world.
- But now we have the scientific expertise, enough disposable income and an incentive to do something about it.
- As it is a pandemic, the solution and vaccine(s) must be shared with the whole world, or disease breakouts will spread rapidly, with international travel operating in stop/start mode
So, as the current younger generation grows up, will it just become another mild "common cold"?
- Or will the children become more susceptible as they get older, and need ongoing vaccination programs (perhaps because susceptible genetic variants will still exist in the population?).
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But I can hardly see the unnamed civil servant going out of his way for them.
As a previously unnamed civil servant, civil defence adviser and minor cog in the NHS, I can assure you that it was our job to look after everyone. Even the politicians who caused the mess in the first place.
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colds are infections that annoy you but (virtually) never kill.
The secret of successful parasitism is not to kill your host before it has nurtured and dispersed your offspring. The common cold does this very well, with high infectivity and low lethality, and winter flu is learning the ropes.
COVID has taken a new tack of being infective before symptoms develop, so it is indifferent to the later fate of its victims. Whilst it was given a significant temporary boost by the UK government deliberately placing infective patients in unprotected nursing homes (officially a war crime) the real target spreaders and preferred hosts are of course the young and middle-aged, for many of whom it is indeed only a minor irritant. The dead and permanently disabled are tolerable collateral damage.
Never underestimate the intelligence, or ignore the motive, of your enemy.
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But I can hardly see the unnamed civil servant going out of his way for them.
As a previously unnamed civil servant, civil defence adviser and minor cog in the NHS, I can assure you that it was our job to look after everyone. Even the politicians who caused the mess in the first place.
Well its just a good job that the medical professionals understand triage. They will vaccinate the vulnerable as in flu. How long will it take to vaccinate 65 million people rather than 15, and how long the non vulnerable wait (they are not waiting at present)
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Assume half the army and reserves are called up, and each squaddie vaccinates one person every 5 minutes for 8 hours a day. That's a lot slower than your average military medic, but civilians don't always cooperate.
That's a potential for 4,800,000 shots every day, so it could be done in a bit over 2 weeks.
If you can use powderject technology it can be done in a week.
If the government or PHE get involved, forget it.
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Assume half the army and reserves are called up, and each squaddie vaccinates one person every 5 minutes for 8 hours a day. That's a lot slower than your average military medic, but civilians don't always cooperate.
That's a potential for 4,800,000 shots every day, so it could be done in a bit over 2 weeks.
If you can use powderject technology it can be done in a week.
If the government or PHE get involved, forget it.
yeah, it'll be done by, err,,,, next week
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Assume half the army and reserves are called up
There was an interview on this week's Naked Scientists podcast - apparently Slovakia did a mass testing of the whole country, with the help of the army.
I think I would be more trusting of your average infantry man armed with a cotton-covered swab than armed with a sharp needle...
Perhaps if you equipped them with an injector gun, that would be more in line with their training - "ready, aim, fire" - and they can hardly miss at point blank range!
- And they could probably get through patients faster than 1 every 5 minutes
The limiting bottleneck would probably be doing the paperwork
- So maybe they need to scan in your drivers license (or other identification) to remove the paperwork bottleneck
- And print out a certificate on the spot, showing:
- An image of your license
- the time, date and place you got vaccinated
- which vaccine was used
- Whether this was the first or second inoculation (where appropriate)
There is still the potential for allergic reactions.
- My pharmacist can only schedule one flu vaccination every 15 minutes, because he asks you to sit down for 10 minutes where he can watch you, to see if you faint, puff up or have trouble breathing.
- It's hard to watch 15 people at once if you have to keep 1.5 meters separation between everyone!
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I think I would be more trusting of your average infantry man armed with a cotton-covered swab than armed with a sharp needle...
AFAIK basic training still includes the use of knives and bayonets, so sticking things into people is part of the job.
ID is a problem in the UK where there is no statutory requirement for it, and your name is, legally, "what your friends call you" but it doesn't really matter anyway. You can write out your own barcoded certificate while you are waiting, and have it copied and stamped when you are done - maybe with a photo?
Our happy soldier can service "voting booth" stations in turn and tell you to wait after the jab until his mate stamps your card and releases you, say 10 minutes later. Local clinics are already using transparent shields between the chairs in waiting rooms so one nurse can easily supervise a few dozen chairs.
Problem is that this needs planning, resources and commitment, three military terms that politicians do not understand.
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You do not need to record the jab as it is up to each person to get him or herself vaccinated and their dependants.. SCRAP ALL PAPERWOK and get on with the job of vaccinating everyone and give each person a certificate to fill in beforehand with their name, address postcode, phone/Email address on the certificate/form then medic/nurse will, jab, datestamp/address centre on the form which the recipient must keep in their possession until the pandemic is declared ended and masks are off.
If police find someone without a mask in a public place; they should insist on seeing their vaccination cert immediately and if none then take them to nearest vaccination centre so they and everyone else will be safe.
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My point exactly - you fill in your form before getting the jab.
Not sure if a PAPERWOK would be much use anyway. You can boil water in a paper kettle but the poor conductivity of dry paper won't allow you to stir-fry. And sooner or later somebody would call the immunisation certificate a JABBERWOK, thus locating HM government's worldbeating program firmly in the Looking-glass Wonderland its ministers inhabit.
[Note for US readers - it's a quotation from a text you may know better as Malice in Blunderland]
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Thanks Alan, The quicker we get the vaccine the better. We can then declare herd immunity within manufacturing time even by Christmas if Zenica can manage it.
We knew the Oxford vaccine would probably work in March, if government had authorised its use on volunteers in nursing home then, seen the results in 14 days, authorised it immediately, then the whole lockdown nonsense could have been avoided.
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Not the morons in government but experts in the civil service and ethics committees, who fast-tracked every possible test, treatment and vaccine as quickly as possible. I was there.
You can't "see the results in 14 days" if you haven't got a reasonable approximation to a finished product, and it's probably a good idea to prove that it won't kill a mouse or a pig before dosing a thousand human volunteers.
The only contribution made by UK politicians was to pretend it wasn't a problem, turn it into a political football instead of solving it, and refuse to let competent laboratories do any testing.
Now we have proof of efficacy, it is still going to take some months to produce any of the vaccines in significant quantity, and then wait for the politicians to screw up its distribution. The real fun will begin in February when today's absurd political decision to put Christmas before common sense turns into the Third Wave of fatalities. Laws should be made for wise men, for the guidance of others, not by idiots for the illusory pleasure of other idiots. Hopefully there will be enough emergency service personnel and health professionals left in the new year to clear up the mess.
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The government has forgotten we are fighting a war and therefore we need to take instant action to vaccinate everyone immediately because we know that masks and lockdowns just do not work. Even if a few people do die of unexpected complications it will be less than the virus is at present killing anyway and certainly in the long term it is for the common good of the nation to get moving again
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Agreed. Immediate vaccination of the entire UK population is a desirable objective. So let's do a tactical logistics plan and SITREP.
What we need is a magic money tree; an oven-ready factory; unlimited supplies of raw materials; a thousand refrigerated trucks; ten thousand clinical refrigerators; instant paramedic training of all military personnel; enough car parking and disabled taxis to get everyone to our instantly constructed vaccination centers; software that works; enough police officers to control the traffic and stop the riots; and a few nurses who aren't already dead or working overtime, to supervise the field operation.
What we actually have is a bunch of idiots who think their political popularity is more important than your survival.
What we did have was a rapidly declining case rate in the last two weeks, due to the masks and lockdowns that you say don't work.
What we can expect is a peak of around 100,000 cases per day by mid-January, followed by another 40,000 deaths before Easter.
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Is it ethical for the west to usurp all doses of vaccine whilst vulnerable people in the developing world succumb? A moral not scientific point.
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It's worth looking at the map on https://worldcoronastatistics.com/ . The majority of countries with more than a few thousand cases are definitely in the "developed" world (with the obvious exception of the USA, with 12.6 million confirmed cases and still in the Stone Age until mid-January). India, with only 9.2 million cases among 3 times the population of the USA, is likely to be one of the major manufacturers of vaccine, as is Brazil. It's definitely a first-world disease (except in Australia, New Zealand, Norway, Finland and Iceland, where they have competent governments)
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Italy spain UK and Belgium are still above the USA Sweden in the ratios despite stance. I wonder why.
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Because their infection curves are ahead of the less-densely-populated countries. From the point of view of the virus there will be a correlation between population density and per capita infection, and a lag of up to 8 weeks between infection and death. If all these variables are taken into account, the difference between countries can only be ascribed to the preventive measures taken and enforced.
Worldometer has a neat graph of total cases at day N where N = 0 on the first day to exceed 100 cases. This provides a sensible comparator of preventive effectiveness once the disease has actually reached the country. On day 250, 1.9% of the UK population was infected, compared with 3.6% of the US population, 2.8% of Brazil, and 1.7% of Sweden.
My interpretation is that all these countries score fairly equally in terms of governmental incompetence apart from the USA where the president seems to be actively encouraging the spread of the disease in the face of negligible population density. Compared with Singapore, with less than 1% infected in a much higher population density and much closer to the source, or New Zealand at 0.04%, the West is doing abysmally.
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And yet Spain and France with such a low population density doing badly, but Germeny with the high population doing so well. France has a comparable population to America. Russia with a low population density doing so very very badly and China with the high population density doing so very badly. India with the high population density doing better than Amurica. The argument doesn't stand, you are cherry picking.
America is comparable to Western Europe in age, wealth density and response plan (left by Obama), yet we are doing worse than them? I notice trump failed entirely to mention this in his own defence to the media's and the Democrats harranging of him, almost like he threw the election.
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The numbers are all suspect as it appears that wherever the test rate is high then the death rate is high and only by comparing with the past years will the true rate appear, as most people will survive a covid19 attack as they get herd immunity.
But level 3 lockdowns should only be considered if 90% of the Nightingale ward beds are occupied. Level 1 should be introduced when 25% of Nightingales are used and level 2 at 50% in my opinion. This means that everyone should be extra careful to mask and space to stop their local community being effected by these lockdowns by mostly staying at home.
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But level 3 lockdowns should only be considered if 90% of the Nightingale ward beds are occupied.
Are you actually an idiot, or just pretending?
The point of a lockdown is to reduce the rate of spread of the disease.
If it is so high that 90% (or even 50%) of the nightingale beds are full (and that's ignoring the question of staffing them) then the following week the wards will very probably be over 100% full.
The whole point is to avoid filling the wards.
So waiting until the wards are full is one of the few decisions that is obviously wrong.
"everyone should be extra careful to mask and space to stop their local community being effected by these lockdowns by mostly staying at home.
"
So, people should lock themselves down (staying at home etc) to avoid a lockdown...
Seriously, while it's amusing in a way to watch you channeling the spirit of Grandpa Simpson, there's a risk that someone might take your ideas seriously. Please stop doing it.
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France has a comparable population to America.
if you think 65 = 300, maybe.
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America is comparable to Western Europe in age, wealth density and response plan (left by Obama), yet we are doing worse than them?
Only if you think that 1.9% of the UK, or 1.7% of the entire European population being infected is "worse" than 3.6%.
But don't let the facts get in the way of a healthy prejudice. Der Fuhrer Trumpf clearly won the presidential election because he maketh the sun to rise. On your planet, at least.
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I notice trump failed entirely to mention this in his own defence
You noticed that Trump didn't say "I have really handled the pandemic badly- so much so that we are leading the Western world in cases per capita*" in his defence.
Were you talking about an insanity defence?
* except Belgium for some reason...
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, as most people will survive a covid19 attack as they get herd immunity.
Individuals do not get herd immunity, they confer immunity on the herd by dying or surviving.
A herd is considered immune when at least 80% of the survivors have been infected. At that stage the herd is likely to reproduce at a sufficient rate to offset the fatality rate of the residual endemic. In the case of COVID the figure may turn out to be over 90% due to the high infectivity of asymptomatic carriers.
At present we are below 2%,but we could approach herd immunity in the next 2 years if you are prepared to slaughter anyone with symptoms. It works for cattle, after all.
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France has a comparable population to America.
if you think 65 = 300, maybe.
He may be thinking in terms of demographics.
In which case, looking at this dfata
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_age_structure
he thinks that
the USA with 18.9% "kids", 65.7% "adults" and 15.4% "elderly"
is the same as
18.2%, 62.2% 19.7%
He's still wrong, but less catastrophically.
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So, people should lock themselves down (staying at home etc) to avoid a lockdown...
Reminds me of the glory days of Civil Defence. I attended a wonderful "transition to war" seminar where the local chief constable explained his orders for the two weeks before the balloon went up. Essentially, to release all minor criminals (i.e. everyone from shoplifters to murderers) and imprison those on his list of potential fifth columnists. Apparently, Vietnam changed the rules of conflict, so "bombing the village to save it" was added to the playbook, and turning the UK into a police state to prevent it becoming a police state was part of our government's policy.
At the time I was simultaneously chairman of the local Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and county scientific adviser to Civil Defence. The other scientific adviser, a Polish war hero and industrial chemist, asked who was on the list of dangerous undesirables. "Left-wingers and anyone with a foreign name" was the straight-faced reply. The audience burst into hysterical laughter.
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He may be thinking in terms of demographics.
Or, taking regard of the original context of the phrase, population density
France: 123/km2
USA: 34/km2
Near enough for a politician, perhaps.
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He may be thinking in terms of demographics.
Or, taking regard of the original context of the phrase, population density
France: 123/km2
USA: 34/km2
Near enough for a politician, perhaps.
This is pedantic I think, considering the USA has large deserts hot and cold sparcely populated colder northern regions. If only I had been specific you could have jumped all over it. In the areas that are easily habitable , the polulation is very similar to the arrangement of France. We have been over this with swedish population density versus area of dwelling have we not? As I remember I won and you said sorry to being a big girly man and I granted you a magnanimous parden?
Taking the original comment, why is sweeden so much better than uk
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The point is lockdown is a failure, a totally failed protocol that is not working. The NHS advisors are not Gods but are pretending to be; by pushing politicians into over the top draconian restrictions of our human rights of free choice. We are not idiots If we feel at risk then we can choose to self isolate. By all means mask up, and space out by consideration for our neighbours but do not forcefully close shops or entertainment/hospitality venues. It is physiologically damaging to us and economic suicide
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I don't feel in the least psychologically damaged.
Half the problem is that "we", i.e. everyone else, are idiots. Whenever restrictions are eased, more people get infected.
The other half of the problem is that "they" (Mr Johnson's puppeteers) are ignorant cowards who dare not admit that a partial lockdown just delays the inevitable. You can't negotiate with a virus. Had the Powers that Be taken properly draconian measures in March, the UK would be free from COVID by now, with maybe half a dozen deaths, a few hundred survivors, and no restrictions on anything. But politicians cannot apologise or reverse their policies for fear of ridicule.
The administrative idiocy of dividing two small islands into seven countries simply multiplies the idiocy by breeding free-range politicians instead of eliminating that scourge.
The scientific advice has been absolutely consistent. There is no cure and no prevention other than quarantine.
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The point is lockdown is a failure, a totally failed protocol that is not working.
Except, as revealed on tonight's news, that it is. Or was. Having reduced R to below 1, They are now going to take the lid off again so we can all get sick in time for Santa.
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The point is lockdown is a failure
Except that, shortly after they bring it in, the number of cases starts to fall.
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But level 3 lockdowns should only be considered if 90% of the Nightingale ward beds are occupied. Level 1 should be introduced when 25% of Nightingales are used and level 2 at 50% in my opinion.
The point is lockdown is a failure, a totally failed protocol that is not working.
It is physiologically damaging to us and economic suicide
Funny thing is... that's also the description of a plague.
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As I remember I won
.... when I pointed out that 1.7% of the Swedish population was infected. I think we have the next Republican presidential candidate.
Incidentally the numbers have risen in the last 10 days such that the UK now has 2.2% infected, Sweden 2.1%. Full marks for catching up so quickly, despite having a far lower population density.
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Because their infection curves are ahead of the less-densely-populated countries. From the point of view of the virus there will be a correlation between population density and per capita infection, and a lag of up to 8 weeks between infection and death. If all these variables are taken into account, the difference between countries can only be ascribed to the preventive measures taken and enforced.
My interpretation is that all these countries score fairly equally in terms of governmental incompetence apart from the USA .
But America with its president is doing not as badly as many others(worse than Sweden I accept)?As I remember I won
.... when I pointed out that 1.7% of the Swedish population was infected. I think we have the next Republican presidential candidate.
Incidentally the numbers have risen in the last 10 days such that the UK now has 2.2% infected, Sweden 2.1%. Full marks for catching up so quickly, despite having a far lower population density.
Again coming back to the original point, why is Russia and france with a low population density doing so badly, yet Germany doing so well
?
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Taking the original comment, why is sweeden so much better than uk
It's much harder to spell, for a start.
As I remember I won and you said sorry to being a big girly man and I granted you a magnanimous parden?
I somehow think I'd remember that.
Can you provide a link?
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German statistics are intriguing. "Confirmed new cases" shows a consistent weekly cycle, peaking at the weekend, for the entire year, which makes one think that something odd is happening here. Despite whatever it is, they have already reached 1.2% infection, and the envelope trend is pretty much the same shape as elsewhere in Europe. They are certainly being very strict about testing and quarantine for international air passengers.
I pointed out the myth of low population density in France back in reply # 234 above: it is 3 times the US value but only 2.2% infected compared with 3.6% in the USA. The daily stats are anomalous with a huge peak at the beginning of November, tailing off during the month when everyone else was increasing.
Russian envelope looks pretty much standard with a summer trough and smooth increase through the autumn, but with a total of only 1.5% of the population infected you'd be hard put to say they are "doing badly". We look forward to welcoming more tourists visiting the world famous Salisbury Cathedral with its 123 meter spire. If you can believe anything that comes out of Russia, that is.
Fact is you can either do it properly (as in Australasia and the Far East) or choose to do nothing (some US states), with absolutely predictable results. Or you can faff about with partial measures and destroy everything over a longer period.
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I pointed out the myth of low population density in France back in reply # 234 above: it is 3 times the US value but only 2.2% infected compared with 3.6% in the USA. The daily stats are anomalous with a huge peak at the beginning of November, tailing off during the month when everyone else was increasing.
France 40000 cases a day, USA 150000 cases a day but population 4.66. times larger. Trump isn't doing too bad. As I pointed out in sweeden and the USA there are large swathes of the country with little population and transience, alaska itself accounts for a large percentage of the landmass.
(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/59/Alaska_area_compared_to_conterminous_US.svg/1600px-Alaska_area_compared_to_conterminous_US.svg.png)
As said, we have been here before, I cited Canada as low population density but high corona, you admitted the error and said I was benevolent. France and the USA are not pushed for land. But then again maybe its trumps super evil sandwiching Canada between the contiguous states and alaska? The majority of the population in the US live in an area meaning they are pretty much like France in their transience. The uk however has a far more concentrated population around the major centres.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/7052/united-states-population-density
The entire North American continent is more likened to europe, yet Europe has far more cases?
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"Confirmed new cases" shows a consistent weekly cycle, peaking at the weekend, for the entire year, which makes one think that something odd is happening here.
Cases are counted by people. Not all those people work at weekends.
So a pattern that varies over the week isn't odd.
A peak at the weekend is.
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Trump isn't doing too bad.
How bad is "too bad"?
The USA has the highest rate of cases per million of any developed country apart from Belgium.
The USA has the largest number of cases in the world.
It is beating China and India in spite of their relative poverty and much higher populations.
By what objective measure is Trump doing well?
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Once again I have to remind you of the difference in timebases and the variability of daily statistics. Because the first significant outbreak occurred at different times in different countries, you need to look at graphs that start on Day 0 being the first day that exceeded 100 cases. This means that the US data is always several days behind any European statistics. However let's look at what Worldometer has to say about the raw data for recent days.
The French curve reached a really anomalous daily peak of almost 87,000 cases on 7 November but was down to 12,450 on Friday 27th on a decreasing curve, when the USA registered 194,300. Divide by 4.66 and you end up with 3.7 times the French daily per capita total, on a steadily increasing curve with no anomalies.
Yes, Trump is doing brilliantly. He has established a firm base of disease with no short-term anomalies and is doing everything possible to encourage a total collapse of the public health system he has been steadily demolishing over the last 4 years. This is the man who boasted that he had organised the most secure and incorruptible presidential election ever, and is now complaining that it was corrupt and insecure. His concept of success is of course measured in bankruptcies, weaselling out of basic infantry training and defrauding the students of a bogus university. By Republican standards he will be judged a genius if he manages to start a futile war in the next 6 weeks, but having already killed over 250,000 Americans in less than a year with COVID he will probably make his mark in history by exceeding the 292,000 US WWII combat deaths in a quarter of the time and far less Federal expenditure.
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France 40000 cases a day, USA 150000 cases a day but population 4.66. times larger
Yes, but the real figures are different
164000 vs 12459
So roughly 3 times the per capita rate.
Did you not think someone would check?
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/france/
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The French curve reached a really anomalous daily peak of almost 87,000 cases on 7 November but was down to 12,450 on Friday 27th on a decreasing curve, when the USA registered 194,300. Divide by 4.66 and you end up with 3.7 times the French daily per capita total, on a steadily increasing curve with no anomalies.
4.66* 50,000 (which was the peak over 7 days) is about 233,000 thus us's 200000 is beneath it, plus the US are levelling off. Spain also not as good. I will concede that the US is not quite as populated in the areas that are developed but I also hold to the point of trump not being any worse nor better. It is a response to a virus plan that the west all had and it shows. As I have said I wondered why trump did not make this point before during the election, I think perhaps he had had his fill of being the commander in Chief, and only narrowly ducked this bullet.
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The outcome depends on many factors- population density, the weather, demographics etc.
But what Trump is unquestionably responsible for is lying about the virus a lot.
The coronavirus would weaken “when we get into April, in the warmer weather—that has a very negative effect on that, and that type of a virus.”
The outbreak would be temporary: “It’s going to disappear. One day, it’s like a miracle—it will disappear.”
If the economic shutdown continues, deaths by suicide “definitely would be in far greater numbers than the numbers that we’re talking about” for COVID-19 deaths.
"Coronavirus numbers are looking MUCH better, going down almost everywhere,” and cases are “coming way down.”
The pandemic is “fading away. It’s going to fade away.”
The pandemic is “getting under control.”
“99%” of COVID-19 cases are “totally harmless.”
“We now have the lowest Fatality (Mortality) Rate in the World.”
Mexico is partly to blame for COVID-19 surges in the Southwest.
Children are “virtually immune” to COVID-19.
The U.S. has “among the lowest case-fatality rates of any major country anywhere in the world.”
Trump “launched the largest national mobilization since World War II” against COVID-19, and America “developed, from scratch, the largest and most advanced testing system in the world.”
Trump celebrated a gain of 9 million jobs as “a record in the history of our country” and said that the United States had experienced “the smallest economic contraction of any major Western nation.”
America is “rounding the corner” and “rounding the final turn” of the pandemic.
The media is overblowing fears about the virus ahead of Election Day.
"What happens is, you get better” after being sick with COVID-19. “That's what happens: You get better.”
“You get better and then you’re immune.”
A CDC study shows that “85 percent of the people wearing masks catch” the virus.
“The Obama administration made a decision on testing that turned out to be very detrimental to what we’re doing,” Trump said.
The Obama White House’s response to the H1N1 pandemic was “a full scale disaster, with thousands dying, and nothing meaningful done to fix the testing problem, until now.”
The Trump White House “inherited” a “broken,” “bad,” and “obsolete” test for the coronavirus.
The Obama administration left Trump “bare” and “empty” shelves of medical supplies in the national strategic stockpile.
Referring to criticism of his administration’s response, Trump tweeted: “Compare that to the Obama/Sleepy Joe disaster known as H1N1 Swine Flu. Poor marks ... didn’t have a clue!”
Trump later attacked “Joe Biden’s handling of the H1N1 Swine Flu.”
“Anybody that needs a test, gets a test. We—they’re there. They have the tests. And the tests are beautiful” and “If somebody wants to be tested right now, they’ll be able to be tested.”
In an Oval Office address, Trump said that private-health-insurance companies had “agreed to waive all co-payments for coronavirus treatments, extend insurance coverage to these treatments, and to prevent surprise medical billing.”
Google engineers are building a website to help Americans determine whether they need testing for the coronavirus and to direct them to their nearest testing site.
The United States has outpaced South Korea’s COVID-19 testing: “We’re going up proportionally very rapidly,” Trump said during a Fox News town hall.
America has “developed a testing capacity unmatched and unrivaled anywhere in the world, and it’s not even close.”
The United States has conducted more testing “than all other countries together!”
"Cases are going up in the U.S. because we are testing far more than any other country.”
“The Cases are up because TESTING is way up”
The United States would suspend “all travel from Europe, except the United Kingdom, for the next 30 days,” Trump announced in an Oval Office address.
" In the same address, Trump said the travel restrictions would “not only apply to the tremendous amount of trade and cargo but various other things as we get approval.”
All U.S. citizens arriving from Europe would be subject to medical screening, COVID-19 testing, and quarantine if necessary. “If an American is coming back, or anybody is coming back, we’re testing,” Trump said. “We have a tremendous testing setup where people coming in have to be tested … We’re not putting them on planes if it shows positive, but if they do come here, we’re quarantining.”
“We stopped all of Europe” with a travel ban. “We started with certain parts of Italy, and then all of Italy. Then we saw Spain. Then I said, ‘Stop Europe; let’s stop Europe. We have to stop them from coming here.’”
“Everybody thought I was wrong” about implementing restrictions on travelers from China, and “most people felt they should not close it down—that we shouldn’t close down to China.”
The Trump administration’s travel restrictions on China were a “ban” that closed up the “entire” United States and “kept China out.”
“I’ve always known this is a real—this is a pandemic. I felt it was a pandemic long before it was called a pandemic … I’ve always viewed it as very serious.”
This kind of pandemic “was something nobody thought could happen … Nobody would have ever thought a thing like this could have happened.”
Pharmaceutical companies are going “to have vaccines, I think, relatively soon.”
At a press briefing with his coronavirus task force, Trump said the FDA had approved the antimalarial drug chloroquine to treat COVID-19. “Normally the FDA would take a long time to approve something like that, and it’s—it was approved very, very quickly and it’s now approved by prescription,” he said
Trump was being “sarcastic” when he suggested in a briefing on April 23 that his medical experts should research the use of powerful light and injected disinfectants to treat COVID-19.
The coronavirus is “going to go away without a vaccine … and we’re not going to see it again, hopefully, after a period of time.”
Taking hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 is safe and effective. “I happen to be a believer in hydroxy. I used it. I had no problem. I happen to be a believer,” Trump said on one occasion. “It doesn’t hurt people,” he commented on another.
“One bad” study from the Department of Veterans Affairs that found no benefit among veterans who took hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 was run by “people that aren’t big Trump fans.” The study “was a Trump-enemy statement.”
Many frontline doctors and workers are taking hydroxychloroquine to prevent COVID-19.
A coronavirus vaccine could be ready by Election Day.
“We’re weeks away from a vaccine,” Trump said at the first debate.
Trump twice said during a task-force briefing that he had invoked the Defense Production Act, a Korean War–era law that enables the federal government to order private industry to produce certain items and materials for national use. He also said the federal government was already using its authority under the law: “We have a lot of people working very hard to do ventilators and various other things.”
Automobile companies that have volunteered to manufacture medical equipment, such as ventilators, are “making them right now.”
Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York passed on an opportunity to purchase 16,000 ventilators at a low cost in 2015, Trump said during the Fox News town hall.
Trump also repeated a claim from the Gateway Pundit article that Cuomo’s office established “death panels” and “lotteries” as part of the state’s pandemic response.
Trump “didn’t say” that governors do not need all the medical equipment they are requesting from the federal government. And he “didn’t say” that governors should be more appreciative of the help.
Hospitals are reporting an artificially inflated need for masks and equipment, items that might be “going out the back door,” Trump said on two separate days. He also said he was not talking about hoarding: “I think maybe it’s worse than hoarding.”
Asked about his past praise of China and its transparency, Trump said that he hadn’t “talk[ed] about China’s transparency.”
The WHO ignored “credible reports” of the coronavirus’s spread in Wuhan, the Chinese city that first reported the new virus, including those published in The Lancet medical journal in December.
Taiwanese officials had warned the WHO about human-to-human transmission of a new virus by December 31.
In mid-January, the WHO said the coronavirus could not be transmitted between humans.
The claim: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged people to attend “parties” and a parade in San Francisco’s Chinatown to “show that this thing doesn’t exist.”
Pelosi was “dancing in the streets of Chinatown, trying to say, ‘It’s okay to come to the United States. It’s fine. It’s wonderful. Come on in. Bring your infection with you,’” Trump said in May.
Joe Biden wants an economic shutdown: “He wants to shut down this country, and I want to keep it open,” Trump claimed at the first presidential debate.
Biden wants to “delay the vaccine.”
Biden called Trump “xenophobic” after the president announced travel restrictions on China in January.
Protesters who gathered in a handful of states over the weekend to oppose social distancing were “doing social distancing” themselves and “were all six feet apart.”
Racial-justice protests and demonstrations fueled a surge in coronavirus cases.
You can find the citations and details here
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/11/trumps-lies-about-coronavirus/608647/
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Why would anyone defend the record of this liar?
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You could ask 70,000,000 idiots and their electoral colleges.
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the US are levelling off.
Not according to US government statistics. But why believe them when you can invent something different?
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You could ask 70,000,000 idiots and their electoral colleges.
Well, I'm asking the ones here. What odds are you giving for a reply?
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the US are levelling off.
Not according to US government statistics. But why believe them when you can invent something different?
OK Alan you win, they are declining, but I was saying levelling off due to the fact that they probably are suffering a fluctuation as is seen, but over the 7 days they are not increasing any more. Trump done good.
[ Invalid Attachment ]
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Trump done good.
Trump has done nothing but sulk, tweet and golf since he lost the election (and claim responsibility for good things to which he contributed nothing).
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Trump done good.
Trump has done nothing but sulk, tweet and golf since he lost the election (and claim responsibility for good things to which he contributed nothing).
Sorry Evan, I was relating it to the corona virus in the USA in comparison to the other Western countries despite the fact that they have not entered lockdown and panicked, rather than the US election or his handicap. I will add that future mental health and serious disease deaths will also more likely to have a lower impact than Europe.
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Trump was trying his best to keep the USA productive and moving. The big lie was made by the World Health Organisation who declared that 5% of the worlds population would die of Covid 19 which caused a pandemic panic.. But look at the stats https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/?ISCI=030202.
There it is only 63 million deaths in a world population of 7,830 million or less than 0.8% not even 1%. Normal flu would be more damaging than that. Forget about lockdowns and issue the vaccine immediately please.
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Trump done good.
What did he "do"?
What measures did he put in place (and when) to actually curb the spread of the disease?
Essentially none of his actions did anything to control the spread of the virus.
Trump was trying his best to keep the USA productive and moving.
And... he failed.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-53574953
That 32% drop in GDP is worse than most countries.
For example, the corresponding drop in the UK is about 17% and the figure for Europe is about 7%.
More importantly, what is the point of a buoyant economy if you can't use it to keep people alive?
How did money become a priority over people?
There it is only 63 million deaths in a world population of 7,830 million or less than 0.8% not even 1%. Normal flu would be more damaging than that.
Do you actually believe that?
Did you expect us to?
Annual flu deaths across the world are typically 0.3 to 0.7 million.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6815659/
So covid is about a hundred times worse.
You lied about him protecting the economy, you lied about him doing a good job, you lied about the lethality of the disease.
The big lie was made by the World Health Organisation who declared that 5% of the worlds population would die of Covid 19
They never said that.
Now, remind me what you were saying about a big lie?
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over the 7 days they are not increasing any more. Trump done good.
Over the last 7 days, Trump done nothing*. If anything, by staying at home and sulking instead of appearing at Nuremberg re-runs since the absurd Four Seasons Show, he has probably reduced the infection rate among his knuckledraggers.somewhat.
He was absolutely correct in saying that more tests lead to more confirmed cases. Folk began their annual Thanksgiving migration on 22 November and maximum crossinfection began on the 26th, so watch the graph next week when they start turning up at test centers with symptoms.
*apart, that is, from infecting most of his immediate staff.
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issue the vaccine immediately please.
Which vaccine? None has yet been made in much more than laboratory quantities. Not that it will affect you as you have volunteered our age cohort to Die for the President.
5% of the worlds population would die of Covid 19
is absolutely true if it is allowed to spread unchecked and infect everybody. The earliest studies from Wuhan suggested 4 - 6% fatality.
Let's look at published UK data. If we suppose the average time from diagnosis to death is about 20 days, then we can compare 60,000 excess mortality to 13 November (the latest PHE data) with the cumulative total 831,000 of infections to 23 October, which gives us 7.2% fatality. If you restrict yourself to the 58,000 deaths actually listed as COVID, it comes down to 7%, still within a reasonable error band of the Wuhan/WHO prediction but now with many more properly diagnosed and accounted cases.
By your logic, since hardly anyone dies from gunshot wounds in the UK, everyone should run about shooting at each other (to maintain the gun trade, of course. Birmingham is a world centre for fine weapons.) and the idea that guns are dangerous is a lie.
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vaccine immediately please.
It will only be possible to produce test and distribute a vaccine efficiently because of the coordination by the WHO.
Trump cut their funding.
Trump is slowing down the development of a vaccine.
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How did money become a priority over people?
You some kinda goddam atheist commie traitor? Jesus wants you to support the banks at all times. God Help America.
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I repeat my fifth post on this topic posted last March which is still valid......
Who is to blame for panicking the politicians into taking such over to top measures as an economic lockdown which is causing huge hardship to the poor and exploding unemployment; which will lead to rampant inflation while it lasts.
Enough is enough, overreacting to Health and Safety caution has landed us in a total mess. Let God decide who is to live and who is to die and not statisticians, medical opinions, scare mongering about insufficient ventilators or other human risks.
You are alive now but at risk of dying at any time; so it is up to you to be responsible for keeping yourself safe and those around you. This means keeping yourself normally at least a meter or 2 from other people where possible when you go out to work or shopping. This is in fact good advise whether there is a virus around or not in my opinion.
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It was underreaction that caused the problem. Those governments that imposed immediate internal quarantine and rigid entry requirements have been able to recover to a semblance of normality very quickly. The disease is now endemic in the UK and will take at least another year of faffing about before the politicians admit defeat with 10 - 20% of the population infected.
The only cause of panic among politicians is whether they will ever get directorships in banking and venture capital now that they have buggered the economy instead of each other.
I'm quite happy for God to decide who is to die, as long as He begins his selection among His own salesmen. And thank you for giving up your right to treatment.
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Here's an idea. Yes, let's take personal responsibility. Money where your mouth is.
Let anyone who is in favor of reducing restrictions from a given date, commit to personally contributing to a fund sufficient to pay £50,000 compensation to the estate of anyone who dies from COVID more than 20 days after that date. Civilians expressing such ideas must back them with one share. Politicians and anyone appearing on television to advocate early reduction must take 10 shares for a debate, and MPs must take an additional 20 shares for a vote.
If the economic benefits outweigh the disadvantages, it's a small price to pay for getting what you want, and everyone will be grateful.
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Let God decide who is to live and who is to die
Either He will or He won't, depending on whether He exists or not.
Who is to blame for panicking the politicians into taking such over to top measures as an economic lockdown which is causing huge hardship to the poor and exploding unemployment;
You already lied about the WHO.
Why would we take your view on it seriously?
Enough is enough, overreacting to Health and Safety caution has landed us in a total mess.
New Zealand reacted even more strongly, and they are not in the mess.
So it is perfectly clear from the actual evidence that we did not "overreact".
Boris did too little too late.
You are alive now but at risk of dying at any time; so it is up to you to be responsible for keeping yourself safe and those around you.
YEs.
That's what lockdown is about.
You seem to be the sort of person who doesn't understand why we have laws about seat belts.
Too many people were not good at taking responsibility.
Often they claimed that some deity was responsible- which is a grown up way of saying "someone else did it but they have run away".
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Here's an idea. Yes, let's take personal responsibility. Money where your mouth is.
Let anyone who is in favor of reducing restrictions from a given date, commit to personally contributing to a fund sufficient to pay £50,000 compensation to the estate of anyone who dies from COVID more than 20 days after that date. Civilians expressing such ideas must back them with one share. Politicians and anyone appearing on television to advocate early reduction must take 10 shares for a debate, and MPs must take an additional 20 shares for a vote.
If the economic benefits outweigh the disadvantages, it's a small price to pay for getting what you want, and everyone will be grateful.
issue the vaccine immediately please.
Which vaccine? None has yet been made in much more than laboratory quantities. Not that it will affect you as you have volunteered our age cohort to Die for the President.
Let's look at published UK data. If we suppose the average time from diagnosis to death is about 20 days, then we can compare 60,000 excess mortality to 13 November (the latest PHE data) with the cumulative total 831,000 of infections to 23 October, which gives us 7.2% fatality. If you restrict yourself to the 58,000 deaths actually listed as COVID, it comes down to 7%, still within a reasonable error band of the Wuhan/WHO prediction but now with many more properly diagnosed and accounted cases.
So far Alan I have personally heard of 1 person pass with corona, versus 2 heart problems, one of which was around 50, both who found going to the doctors limited by lockdown, plus I personally know of one other who was not given cancer treatment and is now not well. I do not know of mental health impact, it is unlikely to show quite this early, plus with the economic impat it may take years to show full impact on the populace.Let anyone who is in favor of reducing restrictions from a given date, commit to personally contributing to a fund sufficient to pay £50,000 compensation to the estate of anyone who dies from COVID more than 20 days after that date.
By your logic you owe £ 100,000.
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So far Alan I have personally heard of 1 person pass with corona,
Covid isn't finished yet, is it?
By your logic you owe £ 100,000.
... You might want to expand on that idea a bit.
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By your logic you owe £ 100,000.
To whom, and why? I have been asking for full national quarantine since the first case arrived in the UK in January. That would have limited the COVID death toll to about 6 if it had been implemented immediately. We are now certain to exceed 60,000 by the end of this week.
I have just noticed a real oddity in the UK "cumulative deaths" graph. Between 9 and 12 August, 5,200 people were resurrected from the grave! Halleluja! Or is someone fiddling the stats?
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By your logic you owe £ 100,000.
To whom, and why? I have been asking for full national quarantine since the first case arrived in the UK in January. That would have limited the COVID death toll to about 6 if it had been implemented immediately. We are now certain to exceed 60,000 by the end of this week.
I have just noticed a real oddity in the UK "cumulative deaths" graph. Between 9 and 12 August, 5,200 people were resurrected from the grave! Halleluja! Or is someone fiddling the stats?
Due to the full lockdowns being mandatory (Britain France Italy etc) and Sweden. It is working in Sweden Alan. Your plan to ban death is not working. Corona fatigue, mental health, poor economic prospects, lack of treatment for other diseases is all adding up, Sweden will not suffer as much.
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None of the countries you mention has had a full lockdown and proper quarantine on travellers. In the UK you can avoid opticians' fees by driving to Barnard Castle, and at the beginning of the first wave some 200,000 people were encouraged to visit the Cheltenham Festival.
Sweden now has 2.4% of the population infected, same as the UK. New Zealand, 0.04%. Australia 0.1%. Check facts before offering opinions.
All the stuff that is "adding up" is doing so because Boris and his fans have not taken the problem seriously. I'm suggesting a means by which they might be encouraged to spend their money rather than mine on a "solution" of their own devising.
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Your plan to ban death is not working.
How could you know?
Nobody implemented it.
The places that did something similar to what Alan is suggesting- China NZ etc, have largely eliminated the virus and are almost back to "normal".
On the other hand we had a dithering idiot "making decisions".
https://www.standard.co.uk/showbiz/celebrity-news/video-matt-lucas-mocks-boris-johnson-coronavirus-speech-a4436796.html
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Sweden now has 2.4% of the population infected, same as the UK. New Zealand, 0.04%. Australia 0.1%. Check facts before offering opinions.
Countries with a far better track and trace, health care provision and social control still can't seem to nail it. Please chek fac befouw opinyn.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/japan/
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/south-korea/
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China recorded about 80,000 cases (0.0055%) in March. By the end of November the total had risen to 86500 - 0.0059%. That suggests very effective control is possible. The infection rate in Japan is about one twentieth that of the UK, around 0.11%, suggesting that even in a dense population with considerable freedom of movement (the seasonal trend is very similar to the UK) you can control the spread of the virus.
But you have to do it, not piss about scoring political points between England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic, Great Britain, Ireland, the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man, all with separate and partially overlapping administrations but a common language and culture, for chrissake. These islands are only accessible via a limited number of very sophisticated air and sea ports, have (or at least had until recently) the most modern public health laboratories anywhere, and unlike the USA a history of fairly effective policing by consent, so there is no excuse for importing the disease, and as the Far Eastern countries have shown, a short, strict quarantine works so there is no excuse for allowing it to spread.
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China recorded about 80,000 cases (0.0055%) in March. By the end of November the total had risen to 86500 - 0.0059%. That suggests very effective control is possible. The infection rate in Japan is about one twentieth that of the UK, around 0.11%, suggesting that even in a dense population with considerable freedom of movement (the seasonal trend is very similar to the UK) you can control the spread of the virus.
But Awan, dthu poynmt is dat auswawia ha acheve wha souf kowea cudnt? You sem tu no answer. Perhaps there is a more obvious explanation. Maybe Hitler?
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Alfa charlie to station calling. English, please. Over.
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If any numerate persons are interested, South Korea now has 0.07% of the population infected, same order as Australia and New Zealand, and one hundredth of the UK death toll among a population of similar size and density to ours.
In view of this data, the UK government response must be seen as not merely shameful and incompetent but criminally negligent or intentionally harmful. The failure of the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Adviser to contradict Cummings' Puppet on numerous live television events suggests complicity to the point of malfeasance.
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If any numerate persons are interested, South Korea now has 0.07% of the population infected, same order as Australia and New Zealand, and one hundredth of the UK death toll among a population of similar size and density to ours.
In view of this data, the UK government response must be seen as not merely shameful and incompetent but criminally negligent or intentionally harmful. The failure of the Chief Medical Officer and Chief Scientific Adviser to contradict Cummings' Puppet on numerous live television events suggests complicity to the point of malfeasance.
can't seem to nail it.
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Now, Boris must get the vaccine approved by the medical regulators immediately as they are doing in America. Not just when the medical boards' next monthly meeting occurs. This is a national emergency no fiddle fuddling about by a load of medical H&S gurus please.
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Must he, indeed? Haven't we seen enough evidence of the harm done by policy-led evidence-making? It reached the stage in August when Public Health England, having abandoned all scientific credibility, actually took pride in redefining "death"!
Just for once, let the competent scientists decide whether the benefit/risk ratio is favourable, and keep "worldbeating moonshot" idiocies out of sight now that the Poison Dwarf has left Downing Street. Speaking as an occasional "medical H&S guru" I'm pleased to say that my colleagues have saved an awful lot of lives by using science instead of backing the first horse with more than two legs.
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Public Health England, having abandoned all scientific credibility, actually took pride in redefining "death"!
I was interested to see that in Victoria, Australia, there have been no new cases of community spread for 31 days (and counting).
- However, there was 1 death this week (December) - a 70-year old woman who caught COVID-19 around July 2020
- Apparently, the definition of COVID death in Australia is "did not recover since the COVID infection".
See: https://www.9news.com.au/national/coronavirus-victoria-update-31-consecutive-days-no-covid19-cases-one-new-death-latest-numbers-dhhs/aea4664a-aa81-4488-9d8e-6753fcd7fa87
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Now, Boris must get the vaccine approved by the medical regulators immediately as they are doing in America. Not just when the medical boards' next monthly meeting occurs. This is a national emergency no fiddle fuddling about by a load of medical H&S gurus please.
It looks like they didn't need your "advice" because the relevant bunch of "medical H&S gurus" are more organised than Boris.
Mind you, I have seen primary school kids that meet that criterion...
Interestingly, the politicians tried to score political points by lying about it.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/dec/02/hancock-brexit-helped-uk-to-speedy-approval-of-covid-vaccine
Note to Brexiteers; you won: you can stop lying about it now.
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Can someone please clarify what "Emergency Use Authorization" means (and does it mean something different in the case of a COVID vaccine)?
I see that a pharmaceutical company has received "Emergency Use Authorization" for their vaccine, based on the early Phase 3 trial results.
- In the past I have heard this term used to authorize use of a medication in individual patients for whom all other therapies have failed, and who appears about to die
- Or does it mean we are in the middle of a pandemic emergency, and we have no really effective therapies?
- Or does it just refer to a fast-track approval process for a medication that hasn't yet been through a full review?
One of the things about vaccines is that by the time the patient is showing symptoms of severe COVID-19, it too late to give them the vaccine, because it takes a week or two to develop an immunity; they are likely to die before they receive the second dose.
What is the next type of approval, what does it authorize, and how long will it take to receive this approval?
PS: I imagine that answering the last question may require liberal use of crystal balls...
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Well done Boris and the approvals board, a triumph in all respects. It is lucky we were not in the EU as UK can approve without waiting for EU approval. Grab as much first batch vaccine that you can as when Europe realises they have been gazumped by us they will quickly approve and restrict all supplies to German, France, Italy and Spain as first priority. i.e No exports.
Anyway, by that time ? a week , the UK's Zeneca vaccine can be approved and we are free for Christmas.
Priorities for NHS staff first I think but over 80's should be asked whether they would rather prefer to donate their free vaccination to the person who visit them regularly, instead of themselves.
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Well done Boris
It was nothing to do with Boris.
Grab as much first batch vaccine that you can as when Europe realises they have been gazumped by us they will quickly approve and restrict all supplies to German, France, Italy and Spain as first priority. i.e No exports.
That would be illegal on a number of fronts.
You seem to forget; it's the pro brexit side that breaks the law.
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Well done Boris and the approvals board, a triumph in all respects.
2020, a _ _ _ _ _ _ _ in all respects.
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Well done Boris
His government has just announced a pay cut for the MHRA staff.
That's the only contribution he has made to the process.
It is lucky we were not in the EU as UK can approve without waiting for EU approval.
It was approved under EU law.
Have you not heard- we are still in transition.
The legislation which allowed us to fast track it is EU law.
You just repeated the same stupid lie that Hancock told.
The real effect of Brexit will be in a month's time when we are trying to get supplies but all the ports are clogged up because we left the EU.
It's a mechanism for brexit to kill people, and yet you are somehow convinced brexit is a good thing.
Are you really trolling, or were you too dim to understand?
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- Or does it mean we are in the middle of a pandemic emergency, and we have no really effective therapies?
I don't know the legal definition; but that is our current situation.
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As I understand it the EUA is a step up from the "named patient" exemption that allows experimental or off-label treatment of drugs and devices that do not have applicable market approval.
Named patient use requires individual benefit/risk analysis and informed consent. It can be "last ditch" medicine but can be used for early experimentation where it is theoretically better than the standard treatment.
The EUA presumes an acceptable level of benefit/risk ratio for a restricted cohort of patients, in this case predominantly the over-75s, with generic information as would be supplied with an openly marketed product. So I'm expecting to receive general information on effects, side effects and contraindications uncovered by Phase 2 trials, and an invitation to receive a commercial vaccine with little if any personalised investigation and counselling.
Hearty cheers for the medical H&S gurus that acsin despises.
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Today's Coronapod from Nature discusses Emergency Use Authorizations.
Apparently, the US FDA gave an EUA to Trump's favorite Hydroxychloroquine (which they later withdrew).
- This time, the FDA is insisting on being transparent about their approvals (while being as fast as possible)...
Listen: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03418-7
In contrast, Australia (currently with very low infection rates) is not planning to rush into vaccine rollout. They will watch and learn from the experiences in UK & USA, with mass vaccinations in Australia expected to start around March 2021.
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We are late on getting the Emergency Use Authorization. It should have been granted as soon as the second wave of infections became evident. Use first on NHS staff and on the over 75's in care homes is an ideal way of proving the vaccine works and will highlight any side effects quickly or within 10 days or so.
Next patients to receive the vaccine should be volunteers in highest areas of infection until the R rate is driven below 1; mostly in northern counties plus Kent. More general vaccinating .of general public can wait until level 1. Should airline passengers be allowed to buy vaccinations to get the world moving again quickly do you think??
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You can't get an EUA unless (a) you are a loudmouthed idiot PUS who has sacked anyone who knows anything in CDC or FDA or (b) you have demonstrated the safety and efficacy of your product to MHRA.
The "second wave of infections" was entirely predictable and preventable. It began before any vaccine trial results were announced.
Proof of efficacy and preliminary sideffects are already documented.
There is no point in applying for an EUA until you can provably manufacture and deliver your product to an acceptable quality level in the required quantities - the authorisation applies at the point of sale.
The R rate depends entirely on human behavior until you have vaccinated over 50% of the population at random. That is too big a sample to be considered ethical for a Phase 2 trial.
The vaccine requires a second shot a couple of weeks later to become effective . You could require airline passengers to produce a certificate of full vaccination, as for yellow fever, but to do so would reduce the number of airline passengers for several months until your catchment population have all been vaccinated. A vaccine is not a cure for existing infection, nor is it certain whether it prevents anyone from becoming an asymptomatic carrier.
Decisive action is not the same as hysterical reaction.
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It should have been granted as soon as the second wave of infections became evident.
Seriously; no, it should have been granted once we knew that the vaccine was reasonably safe and effective.
You don't decide on one thing- the vaccine- based on the behaviour of another thing- the virus (or, indeed, the covidiots).
To have done what you suggest would have been anti-scientific.
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We needed the EUA in April. This is a national emergency not a scientific long term endurance test. Every day we were procrastinate over H&S risk and nicety issues people were dying. Thank goodness common sense has prevailed at last.
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An EUA is a licence to place a real product on the open market. You can't get an EUA for a product that doesn't exist and doesn't have a prospective manufacturer. Try submitting a portfolio for fairydust made by unborn leprechauns.
And if backward countries had adopted sensible quarantine instead of idiotic politics in January, we wouldn't need the vaccine now.
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Every day we were procrastinate over H&S risk and nicety issues people were dying.
Did you understand this bit?
Messing up what you stupidly call "H&S risk and nicety issues" kills people.
If you issue a bad vaccine, you kill even more people than the virus.
We only know it is safe because we have tested it.
We could not have known that before, so we could not have issued it before.
You may be suicidal, but that's not the assumption which ethics committees make.
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And if backward countries had adopted sensible quarantine
Notably the UK...
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FYI: Lyrics to 20/20 by George Benson: https://genius.com/George-benson-20-20-lyrics
Chorus:
If I knew back then what I know now
If I understood the what, when, why and how
Now it's clear to me
What I should have done
But hindsight is 20/20 vision
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We needed the EUA in April. This is a national emergency
The only EUA you would have got in the UK would have been for medications like steroids, which have been successfully used in the past to damp down immune system overreactions.
- Now a steroid (eg Dexamethasone) is recommended by WHO as part of "best practice" for severely ill COVID-19 patients.
If you are in the US, you could have got an EUA for Hydoxychloroquine - until the science caught up with the politicians, and it was found to be useless; the EUA was withdrawn.
- Politicians pretending to give medical advice is not a good look
- And in the meantime, there was at least 1 death - someone listened to the politicians and drank fish tank cleaner containing chloroquine
See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/24/coronavirus-chloroquine-poisoning-death/
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FYI: Lyrics to 20/20 by George Benson:
Haven't seen him for years. In fact until he started singing, I wondered why you'd posted an old video of my US business partner. Man, did we have fun in the old days!
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- Politicians pretending to give medical advice is not a good look
- And in the meantime, there was at least 1 death - someone listened to the politicians and drank fish tank cleaner containing chloroquine
See: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/03/24/coronavirus-chloroquine-poisoning-death/
But they give advice to panic the population and make it out to be a world ending pandemic. We have painted our societies into a corner with life extending treatment, not that you should throw among others my parents onto the bonfire, but complete servitude to one smaller area of the populace and the fixation on death is not healthy.
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But they give advice to panic the population
Petrochemicals thinks that the people were panicked.
I think they weren't.
Here is the record of what they actually did. [ Invalid Attachment ]
Do they seem to be in a panic?
The idea that the government was trying to panic people is absurd at every level.
The most obvious problem is that panicky people pay less tax.
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the fixation on death is not healthy.
...said the parachute instructor. "So we won't bother with the packing lesson. Let's just jump out and see who guessed right."
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the fixation on death is not healthy.
...said the parachute instructor. "So we won't bother with the packing lesson. Let's just jump out and see who guessed right."
Or the attention seeking politician forgetting to pull the cord
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In retrospect we can see that if say covid 21 arrives we deal with it immediately. No lockdowns. First develop a reasonable vaccine that survives animal tests quickly, then EUA and offer to the medical volunteers in the over 80's group and not young working age people until it has been proved safe by the retired volunteers. Formal medical approval can wait until later.
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No lockdowns.
Best case: many people die.
Formal medical approval can wait until later.
Worst case : even more people die.
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Life is so simple.
All that is required is a vaccine that can be developed in zero time against a virus you have never seen before, a cohort of idiots who don't care if its effects are worse than the disease, and the capacity to manufacture and distribute it in vast quantities without machinery or raw materials in an ethics-free world.
This can of course be done by backing the winner of a race that hasn't begun (because the runners haven't been named) , with an infinite amount of money.
And it might work, or not. Problem is that if it doesn't work, you have no resources left to do anything else. So it's a good idea to plant your second crop of magic money trees now.
Quarantine works every time and costs nothing if you do it quickly and thoroughly.
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First develop a reasonable vaccine
My mum used to quote Mrs Beeton: "First, catch your rabbit...."
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https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/arrests-outside-harrods-in-london-as-shoppers-return-after-lockdown-5srqx6gkl
The only panic seems to be that Baby Jesus will be crucified if we don't spend enough money before the winter solstice. But what does a few lives matter if it helps to get the Chinese economy working again?
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Well, most younger people are totally fed up and rebelling about being restricted in such draconian ways. But, they should remember to wear their masks in public to protect older people even outside Harrods. They used to sing along with carols.
Some few of the one hundred thousand NHS staff and supporters reacted badly to the vaccine but survived, so it would appear to me that the vaccine is safe and the next batch should be used principally in the high R areas. It is a voluntary vaccination so some people can refuse it, if they would prefer to wait and risk it.
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it would appear to me that the vaccine is safe
That's good to know. Next time we'll do away with animal tests and early phase trials, make up a commercial batch of anything we fancy, vaccinate a million people, and ask your opinion.
As you know what "most younger people" think, you must be a great asset to many industries.
Not sure I understood the bit about "used to sing..." Are you implying that they have stopped doing it, or that they were born knowing the words?
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Well, most younger people
As I understand it, you are at an age where "younger people" means "almost everybody", adn I think you are mistaken in thinking they are all fed up.
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The problem with testing is it misleads statisticians into thinking things are getting worse when in fact they are getting better.. The day we test everyone and find they are all infected is the day we have herd immunity and covid19 is history..
Best to just stop testing and rely on the NHS to use their Nightingale beds up before locking down again.
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The day we find everyone is infected is the day we can look forward to having 13,000,000 patients hospitalised with half destined for permanent disability, and 2,500,000 excess deaths within 3 months.
The remaining 20,000,000 people of working age will be fully occupied nursing or burying the rest.
The Blessed Economy will suffer!
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The day we test everyone and find they are all infected is the day we have herd immunity
No it isn't.
Did you mean we test everyone and we find that they had been infected in the past, but were no longer infected?
That day is pretty unlikely to come.
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The day we find everyone is infected is the day we can look forward to having 13,000,000 patients hospitalised with half destined for permanent disability, and 2,500,000 excess deaths within 3 months.
The remaining 20,000,000 people of working age will be fully occupied nursing or burying the rest.
The Blessed Economy will suffer!
Suicides cancer abuse drug usage mental health antisocial ism poverty heart attacks strokes will do great though. China can produce 300M doses per year, it will be 2026 before the whole populace is protected.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/world-asia-china-55212787
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The peoples with damaged mental health is now exceeding those who are dying fromthe virus. So take the bull by the horns and ease restrictions but prioritise the vaccine injections in the areas with R rates over 1. Simple uncomplicated and obvious.
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The peoples with damaged mental health is now exceeding those who are dying fromthe virus. So take the bull by the horns and ease restrictions but prioritise the vaccine injections in the areas with R rates over 1. Simple uncomplicated and obvious.
" the areas with R rates over 1"
That's most of the UK. You can hardly "prioritise everywhere".
Also, you would need to measure R; you do that by testing.
And here's your view on testing
Best to just stop testing
And also , the point of the restrictions is to reduce R.
So...
So take the bull by the horns and ease restrictions
would lead to R (along with cases and deaths) skyrocketing.
Simple uncomplicated and obvious.
And hopelessly, utterly wrong.
Why do you keep posting this sort of stuff?
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The peoples with damaged mental health is now exceeding those who are dying from the virus.
Citation needed, including severity weighting of reported excess mental illnesses attributed to restrictions..
Death isn't the problem. Corpses are not a drain on the economy and don't infect other people. The problem is the steady rise in cases every time restrictions are relaxed. Just watch the figures over the next few weeks.
The priority vaccinatees are obviously those most likely to suffer serious symptoms. These are the sick and elderly, i.e. the people least likely to infect anyone else.
The R rate is a direct function of human interaction. As long as there is a pool of infection, removing restrictions simply increases R, so it isn't a good indicator of when to derestrict.
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The peoples with damaged mental health is now exceeding those who are dying fromthe virus.
Is this related to living in a country where lots of people are dying needlessly?
That's certainly not good for mental health.
Do you think raising the death rate (as you advocate) will help people's mental health?
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peoples with damaged mental health is now exceeding those who are dying from the virus.
That's comforting to know.
1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem of some kind each year in England
Yes,there's a serious problem. But that figure was from a survey in 2007. I don't think the figure has changed significantly this year.
Best figures I can find suggest a 2% increase in "suicidal thoughts" since 2019, which you need to compare with a 20% increase in death rate.
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It's difficult to assess mental health at the best of times.
A pandemic, where some people are reluctant to visit their doctor (due to understandable concerns of spread of a virus in a"waiting room" makes it a particularly hard thing to track.
There's one outcome that's pretty easy to be sure about.
Suicides are tragic, but fairly accurately counted. Here's what the BMJ has to say about them.
"a reasonably consistent picture is beginning to emerge from high income countries. Reports suggest either no rise in suicide rates (Massachusetts, USA11; Victoria, Australia13; England14) or a fall (Japan,9 Norway15) in the early months of the pandemic. "
from
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4352
Though they also say
Evidence from previous epidemics suggests a short term decrease in suicide can occur initially—possibly linked to a “honeymoon period” or “pulling together” phenomenon.5 Trends in certain groups may be hidden when looking at overall rates, and the National Child Mortality Database has identified a concerning signal that deaths by suicide among under 18s may have increased during the first phase of lockdown in the UK.16
So the picture isn't entirely clear (it never is) but there does not seem to be any clear increase in that indicator of ill health.
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The peoples with damaged mental health is now exceeding those who are dying from the virus.
Citation needed, including severity weighting of reported excess mental illnesses attributed to restrictions..
Death isn't the problem. Corpses are not a drain on the economy and don't infect other people.
Sweeden still isn't being obedient Alan, they are doing it in different ways.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/
But that's those Scandinavians for you. I think really we should invade them. Unfortunately the US is also doing just about as bad as Europe, except Germany listed statistics, and Japan, how do they do it?
If death isn't a problem perhaps we should shoot each other, either in a war or genocide, oh if only there were someone in history who we could look to for an example, where oh where? Can you think of anyone Halan, reputation for efficiency, we could have a New emerge rally. Maybe Rudolph will visit Scotland this Christmas and make us an offer, but santa might be goering off at himler about goballs all again?
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except Germany listed statistics, and Japan, how do they do it?
Germany now seems to have lifted its quarantine restrictions and has overtaken the UK in terms of daily infections.
Japan is likewise showing a strong seasonal rise but at a tenth of European levels .
How do they do it? Well, the only available tactic to date has been quarantine and masks, and all the evidence shows that these work. Problem is that they are too bloody obvious and proven successful - there's no political or economic gain to be made from either.
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If death isn't a problem perhaps we should shoot each other,
Taken in context, Alan's remark about deaths not being the problem compared to the sick might be taken as meaning that we should shoot those severely affected- notably the elderly and infirm. (I doubt that's what he meant, but it sort of could be...).
Funny thing is, that seems to be a policy you nearly agree with.
We have painted our societies into a corner with life extending treatment, not that you should throw among others my parents onto the bonfire, but complete servitude to one smaller area of the populace and the fixation on death is not healthy.
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When the feces is hitting the fan in a big way, you have to do some triage. In the last century it gradually dawned on the military that corpses aren't a problem: the enemy can just step over them. But serious injuries tie up enemy resources and impede progress in the short term, demoralise the reserves and civilians in the medium term, and present a longterm burden on the society you are trying to defeat. In consequence, a lot of development went into sublethal munitions that would simply remove a leg or pepper the victim with shrapnel that would take hours of exquisite surgery to remove before the wounds became infected.
Thus with COVID. 4% lethality is not a lot, particularly if it is biased towards the elderly and infirm. But 20% serious complications arising from an inevitable 100% infection will seriously damage the economy for ever, both directly (by hospitalising the middle-aged) and indirectly (by making the country a no-go area for visitors and a no-leave area for would-be traders and goods).
As of today the UK has infected 2.7% of its citizens and the USA, 3.8%, so there is some way to go, but both governments seem intent on pressing towards 10% by the end of January. My guess is that is the point at which the health sector becomes saturated and any semblance of civilised life will increase R without bound, but burying the dead gets a lot easier when you have to ban religious ceremonies and just chuck them in a pit of lime.
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except Germany listed statistics, and Japan, how do they do it?
Germany now seems to have lifted its quarantine restrictions and has overtaken the UK in terms of daily infections.
Japan is likewise showing a strong seasonal rise but at a tenth of European levels .
How do they do it? Well, the only available tactic to date has been quarantine and masks, and all the evidence shows that these work. Problem is that they are too bloody obvious and proven successful - there's no political or economic gain to be made from either.
Germany has now imposed restrictions again, I never did believe their figures, they are by no means an island. The UK does not show masks to work. The USA is doing just as well led by trump.
Sweden has not collapsed and China will be innoculating people until 2025.
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Sweden has not collapsed
Indeed, the rock is still there, but as of today 3.2% of the Swedish population has been infected with COVID, which is worse then the UK (2.7%) and almost as bad as the USA (3.8%). Not that you have any interest in the facts, of course.
Everybody (except you) knows that masks work. Everybody knows that parachutes work. But everybody knows they only work if you wear them properly and at the right time.
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We had several vaccines ready for testing months ago but governments lacked the courage to insist on testing them on from volunteers of fit elderly in care homes until now; 3 months too late.
Why hasn't the Oxford Zeneca vaccine been Emergency Use Authorised yet. More unnecessary delay!!
Let us stop wasting time on technicalities and get on and do what is for the common good. by vaccinating quickly in level 3 areas.
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Technicalities such as, for instance, stability, reproducibility, efficacy, quality control in quantity production, toxicity, dose tolerability, contraindicated concomitants,..........
Oxford were advertising for healthy volunteers back in March. I assume that you didn't put yourself forward, so what right do you have to expose others en masse to an unknown and potentially lethal risk? Not content with abandoning quarantine and exposing the entire population to a known risk, you now want to take those least likely to be infected (now that the government has given up on its germ warfare policy) and dose them with an unproven witches' brew. Whose side are you on?
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We had several vaccines ready for testing months ago but governments lacked the courage to insist on testing them on from volunteers of fit elderly in care homes until now; 3 months too late.
Why hasn't the Oxford Zeneca vaccine been Emergency Use Authorised yet. More unnecessary delay!!
Let us stop wasting time on technicalities and get on and do what is for the common good. by vaccinating quickly in level 3 areas.
Have you noticed that, every time you make a suggestion, it turns out not to make much sense?
" insist on testing them on from volunteers of fit elderly"
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Captain: "Check doors locked, brakes on, airbrakes closed, flaps 20, trim to climb, instruments set, controls free, cowl flaps open, fuel on and full boost, oil pressures at half power, request departure, advance to full power, release brakes"
"Let us stop wasting time on technicalities and get on and do what is for the common good."
That's why they keep the cockpit door locked.
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Indeed, the rock is still there, but as of today 3.2% of the Swedish population has been infected with COVID, which is worse then the UK (2.7%) and almost as bad as the USA (3.8%). Not that you have any interest in the facts, of course.
27000 versus 31000 per 1M people is not of significance, nor really is sweden 742 deaths per 1M populace versus the UKs 923, but that was my point there is not significant difference(EVEN THOUGH AN EXTRA 30% MORTALITY DOES GRANT FAVOUR TO SWEDENS PHILOSOPY ON MANAGEMENT). One might thing you where being frugal with the truth.
Everybody (except you) knows that masks work. Everybody knows that parachutes work. But everybody knows they only work if you wear them properly and at the right time.
Is it correct that every body (except me) agrees that the non-failure of masks in the UK is down to the fact that the UK populace is using face masks yet this use of face masks is not the use of face masks that is under question but the manner that other face masks are worn mean Alan isn't wrong yet and that they do work in circumstances that remain undescribed by the venerable Member and are certainly not the facemask usage that is under question. Yet sweden is no better.
# lockdown 2023
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27000 versus 31000 per 1M people is not of significance, nor really is sweden 742 deaths per 1M populace versus the UKs 923,
In my book 27 is less than 31, which suggests that despite a much higher population density the UK was doing better that Sweden in restricting infection.
The period between infection and death is between 4 weeks and 6 months, average probably 6 weeks, so in a rapidly changing infection rate you need to look at deaths "down the line". AFAIK there is no difference in treatment anywhere in the civilised world: oxygen followed by ventilation, with dexamethasone or similar anti-inflammatory and whatever treatment is required for secondary infections.
It is absolutely true that the UK government's attempt to rid the country of old people by deliberately infecting their retirement homes would have been a war crime but the overall fatality rate since then seems to have stabilised at around 4 - 5% in all civilised countries.
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27000 versus 31000 per 1M people is not of significance,
the families and friends of 4000 people per million probably disagree.
It's about an 12% change (or 14% if you consider 27 as the baseline).
If that was my pay rise, I'd think it was significant.
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27000 versus 31000 per 1M people is not of significance, nor really is sweden 742 deaths per 1M populace versus the UKs 923,
In my book 27 is less than 31, which suggests that despite a much higher population density the UK was doing better that Sweden in restricting infection.
The period between infection and death is between 4 weeks and 6 months, average probably 6 weeks, so in a rapidly changing infection rate you need to look at deaths "down the line". AFAIK there is no difference in treatment anywhere in the civilised world: oxygen followed by ventilation, with dexamethasone or similar anti-inflammatory and whatever treatment is required for secondary infections.
It is absolutely true that the UK government's attempt to rid the country of old people by deliberately infecting their retirement homes would have been a war crime but the overall fatality rate since then seems to have stabilised at around 4 - 5% in all civilised countries.
Basically your wrong then? But not one Hitler so we are improving a little anyway.
As for population density, we've been there before, remember Canada doing far worse than sweden in those stakes. Sweden 15 percent total more infe tions 30percent total less deathsless. Hmm mfff facts fpffffpppf.
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As has been mentioned several times before, "COVID death"" is an arbitrary political decision, which accounts for the impossible reduction (in August) in total COVID deaths reported for the UK. The inescapable truth is excess deaths, but
https://emanuelkarlsten.se/number-of-deaths-in-sweden-during-the-pandemic-compared-to-previous-years-mortality/
explains why even this statistic is very difficult to interpret in Sweden, which has an anomalous age distribution. You might consider looking at the stats for Belarus where the population anomaly is even more remarkable, if you have a serious interest in the subject.
There are two important numbers to consider. R is a measure of the effectiveness of preventive procedures, but varies so much from day to day that it is difficult to compare between nations. Death rate per infection is a measure of effectiveness of treatment, but again is difficult to compare because the quality and quantity of testing is so variable.
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As has been mentioned several times before, "COVID death"" is an arbitrary political decision, which accounts for the impossible reduction (in August) in total COVID deaths reported for the UK. The inescapable truth is excess deaths, but
https://emanuelkarlsten.se/number-of-deaths-in-sweden-during-the-pandemic-compared-to-previous-years-mortality/
explains why even this statistic is very difficult to interpret in Sweden, which has an anomalous age distribution. You might consider looking at the stats for Belarus where the population anomaly is even more remarkable, if you have a serious interest in the subject.
There are two important numbers to consider. R is a measure of the effectiveness of preventive procedures, but varies so much from day to day that it is difficult to compare between nations. Death rate per infection is a measure of effectiveness of treatment, but again is difficult to compare because the quality and quantity of testing is so variable.
Basically your wrong then.
Face asks do not work. If we are on about the face mask wearing antics of the British public.
Everybody (except you) knows that
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Face masks work very well, and I've noticed around 75% compliance with mask wearing in public generally, and much higher in shops.
Nothing works as well as quarantine, however, but the British government is incapable of making rational decisions so we have to carry on wearing masks.
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Face masks work very well, and I've noticed around 75% compliance with mask wearing in public generally, and much higher in shops.
Nothing works as well as quarantine, however, but the British government is incapable of making rational decisions so we have to carry on wearing masks.
Yet no descernable difference between here and Sweden? Sweden does not have cumpulsory masks.France had masks everywhere, in and outside, yet still went into a second lockdown.
As already stated China estimates it will everyone will be vaccinated by 2025. #lockdown 2023. Everyone benefits I'm sure.
Im sure you could find a problem with how the British wear masks, maybe they've got them over their eyes, maybe someone's pulled a mask over? But who oh who Alan could be doing that?
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I defer to your absolute knowledge of everything and innovative concept of statistics. There is little point in continuing this conversation.
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I defer to your absolute knowledge of everything and innovative concept of statistics. There is little point in continuing this conversation.
Yep, meaning I won Alan,,,,,, Me, I won the argument, whoooooooo, champione champione, me Alan, d'you understand me Alan? I got the point, A number 1 numero uno Petro, not you Alan, me.
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You clearly understand nothing. Least of all, yourself. This isn't a competition, but nevertheless you have lost all dignity and credibility by attempting to turn it into one.
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You clearly understand nothing. Least of all, yourself. This isn't a competition, but nevertheless you have lost all dignity and credibility by attempting to turn it into one.
It's called being magnanamous Alan.
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You clearly understand nothing. Least of all, yourself. This isn't a competition, but nevertheless you have lost all dignity and credibility by attempting to turn it into one.
It's called being magnanamous Alan.
Yes, being magnanimous in defeat.
I have to agree with Alan that you have lost all credibility as a reliable judge of reality in this subject.
Others have tried to point out where you are in error.
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From today's Daily Mail, just in case anyone doubts the science:
Sweden's king has said his country's lockdown-free approach to battling coronavirus has 'failed' and that people have 'suffered tremendously' as a result.