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Coronavirus - the new strain XVII

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gavreid

Pretty Words...
It's the hospitals admissions and subsequent lag to deaths which interest me. If they stabilise to an 'acceptable' number... I don't think you stop folk being 'infected' or testing positive, as its not that kind of virus that can be fully eradicated - but what do I know.

What's remarkable is the degree of agreement between the Warwick and the IC modelling.
 
It's the hospitals admissions and subsequent lag to deaths which interest me. If they stabilise to an 'acceptable' number... I don't think you stop folk being 'infected' or testing positive, as its not that kind of virus that can be fully eradicated - but what do I know.

Very hard to imagine how it can be eradicated, I know it's a popular idea with the left but I've never seen any of them spell out how to do it. I suppose you'd have to get incidence right down to zero (everywhere? how?) and you'd have to keep it down (authoritarian liberticide measures? What happens if a case crops up?)
 
Yes you’d expect a rise with schools going back and then further lockdown easing planned for mid-April.

And you'd also expect cases to start to fall in Spring and Summer, just because respiratory viruses seem to behave like that.
 
And you'd also expect cases to start to fall in Spring and Summer, just because respiratory viruses seem to behave like that.
Yes you would expect that.The Easter holidays should help with the kids being off also.

The modelling Chris Whitty alluded to seemed to suggest differently to this though and we could still see 30,000 more deaths.
 
The point is Apple and Google did most of the heavy lifting, but the Tory government was too arrogant, stupid or corrupt to initially go with that and wasted £bns of our money in some ridiculous alternative defined by the clueless Dido Harding and the tax-siphoning Serco. They should have started with the globally available iOS and Android infrastructure and used existing local and national NHS and social work networks to trace rather than, in typical Tory fashion, duplicating state functionality via their mates. I don’t know the exact tax/borrowing figure they have squandered on this white elephant, but it is very clearly tens of £bns over budget and looks to have been remarkably ineffective so far. It is a textbook example of Tory ‘privatise the profits, nationalise the losses’ strategy. If we had any credible opposition the Tories would lose the next election on this alone.
To be fair, you need staff to do the track & trace. About 25,000 have been employed, I don’t think it is right to say Apple have done most of the heavy lifting. It could not be done with existing NHS staff just as the nightingale hospitals could not be magically staffed with nurses.

I am all for criticism of this govt but let’s not make out that such major infrastructure projects can be done on the cheap. Also, there are wide figures being bandied around, is it £22bn or £37bn, are these figures actual spend or what they are they what it is expected to cost based upon being used on an ongoing basis?

The big error for me was not engaging with local PH leaders at the outset & getting them to buy into the scheme & have input. However, it will have needed substantial investment whatever the format.
 
Yes you would expect that.The Easter holidays should help with the kids being off also.

The modelling Chris Whitty alluded to seemed to suggest differently to this though and we could still see 30,000 more deaths.

Yes but in Autumn and Winter if indeed there is a seasonal effect. That's part of the reason why I said that we're being softened up now for another neo-lockdown at the end of the year. That being said, 30K is flu levels, so maybe we'll just take it on the chin like we do with influenza.
 
Yes but in Autumn and Winter if indeed there is a seasonal effect. That's part of the reason why I said that we're being softened up now for another neo-lockdown at the end of the year. That being said, 30K is flu levels, so maybe we'll just take it on the chin like we do with influenza.
Yes true and we’ll have to see. Will be interesting to see if there was to be another lockdown during the autumn/winter or some form of restrictions such as mask wearing and a bit of social distancing.

Like many I’m sure, I do hope this is the last lockdown and the vaccine programme should ensure that’s the case.
 
That being said, 30K is flu levels, so maybe we'll just take it on the chin like we do with influenza.

That has to be about the best case scenario, doesn't it? I mean, nobody was jumping around demanding we get annual flu deaths down to zero before Covid appeared.
 
That has to be about the best case scenario, doesn't it? I mean, nobody was jumping around demanding we get annual flu deaths down to zero before Covid appeared.

They have been very serious about reducing flu deaths though. All kids up to year 7 are offered the vaccine at school (they being the big spreaders) as well as all older folks and those at risk (the same group as from covid)
 
They have been very serious about reducing flu deaths though. All kids up to year 7 are offered the vaccine at school (they being the big spreaders) as well as all older folks and those at risk (the same group as from covid)

That's because they didn't want a flu epidemic at the same time as a covid catastrophe! 30K Covid deaths and 30K flu deaths may be absorbable.
 
They have been very serious about reducing flu deaths though. All kids up to year 7 are offered the vaccine at school (they being the big spreaders) as well as all older folks and those at risk (the same group as from covid)

Whatever it ends up being, the goal realistically cannot be zero can it? So somewhere along the way somebody is going to have to put on their man pants and tell everybody where the goal posts are regarding allowable Covid deaths going forward.
 
Whatever it ends up being, the goal realistically cannot be zero can it? So somewhere along the way somebody is going to have to put on their man pants and tell everybody where the goal posts are regarding allowable Covid deaths going forward.

It won't be zero, no. But that isn't the same as saying as low as possible.
 
Yes true and we’ll have to see. Will be interesting to see if there was to be another lockdown during the autumn/winter or some form of restrictions such as mask wearing and a bit of social distancing.

Like many I’m sure, I do hope this is the last lockdown and the vaccine programme should ensure that’s the case.

I'm sure I heard on TV briefings that mask wearing and social distancing will be the last thing to be done away with, if at all, as it's an easy, cheap, and effective way of stopping/slowing down the transmitting of the virus.
 
AZ vaccine causes blood clots?

Denmark pauses AstraZeneca vaccines to investigate reports after death:

https://www.theguardian.com/society...ca-vaccines-to-investigate-blood-clot-reports
The body text, if someone reads it and not just the headline, is well written. It points out that the incidence of blood clots in vaccine recipients is no different from the incidence in the general population. So there's no obvious smoking gun.

The problem I see is that we appear to be doing the science in a very public context.

That's understandable in the circumstances. However, investigations to establish whether the incidence of blood clots is just normal random correlation; or whether there is some causation involved are normally conducted in smaller circles, where expert consensus can be carefully established based on the data. Reporting scientific investigations in public via newspapers may fuel unnecessary anxiety and antipathy to vaccination.
 
The problem I see is that we appear to be doing the science in a very public context.

That's understandable in the circumstances. However, investigations to establish whether the incidence of blood clots is just normal random correlation; or whether there is some causation involved are normally conducted in smaller circles, where expert consensus can be carefully established based on the data. Reporting scientific investigations in public via newspapers may fuel unnecessary anxiety and antipathy to vaccination.

Agreed. In some cases very sensationalist reporting, and not helping either...
 
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