Coronavirus - the new strain X

[matt j]

As this goes on I can see them doing less and less about it, they'll retrospectively point back to their (debatable) initial big effort of total lockdown, furlough scheme and a load of other figures they fancy making up, then they'll just blame everyone for being fat and not following advice. It will slowly be life back to normal, with local hot spots coming and going until there is a vaccine and whatever happens up until then is your own lookout.

You can already feel their underlying boredom with the whole situation, it's starting to feel like a massive chore for them to keep talking about it.

 

[tiggers]

As this goes on I can see them doing less and less about it, they'll retrospectively point back to their (debatable) initial big effort of total lockdown, furlough scheme and a load of other figures they fancy making up, then they'll just blame everyone for being fat and not following advice. It will slowly be life back to normal, with local hot spots coming and going until there is a vaccine and whatever happens up until then is your own lookout.

You can already feel their underlying boredom with the whole situation, it's starting to feel like a massive chore for them to keep talking about it.

If you look at the HYS pages of any BBC news article on it they've managed to convince most of the population it no longer matters and life should just be back to normal. I just wish more of the population would get themselves better informed, of course if they did you can argue we wouldn't have the Tories in government in the first place

 

[tiggers]

Yes, that's right. Under the previous method, if you were run over by a bus but had had a positive test at any time, you were counted in the CV mortality stats. Our method of ascribing "cause" of death is never perfect - but the previous one did overstate the gross figure. That everyone would think the change was a fiddle is predictable (but understandable).

My biggest issue as a mathematician is the lack of consistency in how the figures are amassed even within the home nations. No method is ever going to be perfect, but at least all countries using a similar method would give us some genuine comparisons.

What about the thousands of deaths in care homes which weren't counted as none of the residents were tested, I know of several local ones that were totally devastated?

Yes, agreed which is why the excess deaths isn't a bad indicator to factor in. If it were me I'd look to a European country (similar standard of living to UK) where deaths are more accurately recorded and work out a formula to apply to excess deaths to get a Covid reading and then combine this with the recorded deaths (28 day cut off) in some way to get a more accurate figure.

 

[Brian]

Yes, that's right. Under the previous method, if you were run over by a bus but had had a positive test at any time, you were counted in the CV mortality stats. Our method of ascribing "cause" of death is never perfect - but the previous one did overstate the gross figure.

What about the failure to count corona deaths due to a lack of confirmation from a test? Why not just report excess deaths over the expected normal?

That everyone would think the change was a fiddle is predictable (but understandable).

Sorry to say so, but that’s because they’re tories, Tim. More people did not vote tory than did, I suspect only those who support them believe anything they say and more people don’t support them than do. Those people that don’t support them see them as dangerous and incompetent, imo.

I’d love to be a fly on the wall with these people. I’m sure that behind the scenes they are laughing their socks off at the population as they discuss and agree their next lie and catch-phrase. I mean, do they really believe the stuff they come out with? Nah, I don’t think so.

 

[SteveS1]

Yes, that's right. Under the previous method, if you were run over by a bus but had had a positive test at any time, you were counted in the CV mortality stats. Our method of ascribing "cause" of death is never perfect - but the previous one did overstate the gross figure. That everyone would think the change was a fiddle is predictable (but understandable).

Now if you have a COVID positive test and die a lingering death beyond 28 days, you are not counted. Let's just calculate the odds "going under bus" v "death caused by COVID" in that situation mmmm.

Excess deaths over expected deaths is the only way to get a decent handle on mortality due to the Pandemic, direct and indirect. Even Boris said wait to see those figures, admittedly he's gone quiet on them since they revealed the full horror of the UK excess mortality. We have hit another high too, the worst recession of the G7 - any reasonable person might think being top of those two undesirable indices might be cause for concern and proper scrutiny.

But no, there are a few brown people risking their lives in the channel. What's a few extra UK deaths and an economic disaster compared to that?

 

[NeilR]

I haven't been active on this thread for a while but I was sent a link to this article which I think is an excellent commentary on where Britain is right now:

https://amp-theatlantic-com.cdn.amp...sj-atMx1Ih6Jsq06agyaQf4nuPF1p8mB4ZcD_bjqDW0CY

The last paragraph:

But just because other countries screw things up does not mean Britain’s problems aren’t real and serious, and just because the country has recovered in the past does not mean it will again. It has been overtaken by many of its rivals, whether in terms of health provision or economic resilience, but does not seem to realize it. And once the pandemic passes, the problems Britain faces will remain: how to sustain institutions so that they bind the country together, not pull it apart; how to remain prosperous in the 21st century’s globalized economy; how to promote its interests and values; how to pay for the ever-increasing costs of an aging population.

If Britain is to solve them, it needs to up its game or be left behind; to realize it is no longer “world leading” in as many fields as it thinks, and that its problems run far deeper than whichever crop of politicians is in charge. “The really important question,” Boyd said, “is whether the state, in its current form, is structurally capable of delivering on the big-picture items that are coming, whether pandemics or climate change or anything else.”

Britain was sick before the crisis hit. If it is to survive the next one intact, it has to address its underlying health conditions.

 

[stephen bennett]

What about the failure to count corona deaths due to a lack of confirmation from a test? Why not just report excess deaths over the expected normal?


Sorry to say so, but that’s because they’re tories, Tim. More people did not vote tory than did, I suspect only those who support them believe anything they say and more people don’t support them than do. Those people that don’t support them see them as dangerous and incompetent, imo.

I’d love to be a fly on the wall with these people. I’m sure that behind the scenes they are laughing their socks off at the population as they discuss and agree their next lie and catch-phrase. I mean, do they really believe the stuff they come out with? Nah, I don’t think so.[/QUOTE

I agree, but I do find it strange Brian that you can’t see that the same people are also ‘laughing their socks off‘ at the population over the fact that the UK voters also bought the Brexit lies too.

Same people. Same methodology. Same propaganda.

Stephen

 

[eisenach]

Yes, that's right. Under the previous method, if you were run over by a bus but had had a positive test at any time, you were counted in the CV mortality stats. Our method of ascribing "cause" of death is never perfect - but the previous one did overstate the gross figure. That everyone would think the change was a fiddle is predictable (but understandable).

The Radio 4 programme "More or Less" did a good piece on this yesterday. It's near the beginning:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000llw2

 

[gavreid]

As this goes on I can see them doing less and less about it, they'll retrospectively point back to their (debatable) initial big effort of total lockdown, furlough scheme and a load of other figures they fancy making up, then they'll just blame everyone for being fat and not following advice. It will slowly be life back to normal, with local hot spots coming and going until there is a vaccine and whatever happens up until then is your own lookout.

You can already feel their underlying boredom with the whole situation, it's starting to feel like a massive chore for them to keep talking about it.

They'll try to for sure - it's a race against time though. If there is a big second wave they can't bluff it out and there are signs around Europe that cases are rising quite significantly already.

 

[Chops54]

If you look at the HYS pages of any BBC news article on it they've managed to convince most of the population it no longer matters and life should just be back to normal. I just wish more of the population would get themselves better informed, of course if they did you can argue we wouldn't have the Tories in government in the first place

They don't need to convince most of the population it no longer matters because most of the population have already decided it doesn't matter. I think many people are happy to accept the consequences just so they can pay the bills and have those holidays they feel so entitled to. They don't it's going to happen to them

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

My understanding of the excess deaths figure is that we're not recording any significant excess deaths at the moment, and that this perhaps reflects the fact that Covid merely 'brought forward' a proportion of deaths that would have happened over the next few months (apologies if this sounds callous, not intended). This suggests that excess deaths is unlikely to be useful as a real-time sense check over the official figures as the rolling 6-month figure may not be significantly different to normal.

The 28-day figure does seem a bit arbitrary, especially in light of the known facts about how long it can be from diagnosis to death in many cases (c40 days, IIRC). I do agree that it is dumb to record a death as Covid-related if a person tested positive and then went under a bus (unless, perhaps, they stepped out in front of it while having a violent coughing fit), but I can't imagine there are many such instances, certainly far fewer than 5000, which would be 1 in 9 of every Covid death.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

They don't need to convince most of the population it no longer matters because most of the population have already decided it doesn't matter. I think many people are happy to accept the consequences just so they can pay the bills and have those holidays they feel so entitled to. They don't it's going to happen to them

To be fair this is not an entirely irrational position, if you are young-ish and in normal health. Nobody takes extreme precautions to avoid getting flu, for example, which for many people would be a similar experience to Covid. I think the possibility of a severe reaction is just a bit too remote for most people to factor in. It's like playing Russian roulette with a gun with 30 chambers and one bullet. Plus, how many people do you know who had Covid? And of them, how many had it bad?

 

[Tony L]

My understanding of the excess deaths figure is that we're not recording any significant excess deaths at the moment, and that this perhaps reflects the fact that Covid merely 'brought forward' a proportion of deaths that would have happened over the next few months (apologies if this sounds callous, not intended). This suggests that excess deaths is unlikely to be useful as a real-time sense check over the official figures as the rolling 6-month figure may not be significantly different to normal.

Do you have any citation for that theory? It is very different to what I understood from the FT website a while back which indicated the excess death figures were a far better indicator than the government’s woefully incompetent data collection and overtly political presentations.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Do you have any citation for that theory? It is very different to what I understood from the FT website a while back which indicated the excess death figures were a far better indicator than the government’s woefully incompetent data collection and overtly political presentations.

No I don't, sorry. It may be a misunderstanding, but I'm sure I'd read somewhere or other that the excess deaths figure was now back to normal, or even below normal for the time of year. I'll have a rootle around.

Edit: Medical Express
which does note that excess deaths figure has now dropped 8% below the annual average for the time of year.

 

[gavreid]

They won't go back and recount the cases passed off as pneumonia that were likely to have been covid - such as my neighbour. This is why excess deaths was an important statistic.

Flu deaths have been supressed by the covid measures but cancer deaths are about to increase so the figure could become more convoluted.

 

[Tony L]

No I don't, sorry. It may be a misunderstanding, but I'm sure I'd read somewhere or other that the excess deaths figure was now back to normal, or even below normal for the time of year. I'll have a rootle around.

Edit: Medical Express

Here’s the FT analysis which does show a clear ‘spike’, but I can’t see how we can avoid a second wave and corresponding spike sometime very soon. The first wave clearly didn’t kill all the elderly, all the diabetics, all the cancer patients, all the morbidly obese etc, so a huge potential remains. As I mentioned upthread most folk aren’t even wearing masks on busses up here in a high-risk area. The second wave is coming for sure.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Here’s the FT analysis which does show a clear ‘spike’, but I can’t see how we can avoid a second wave and corresponding spike sometime very soon. The first wave clearly didn’t kill all the elderly, all the diabetics, all the cancer patients, all the morbidly obese etc yet, so a huge potential remains. As I mentioned upthread most folk aren’t even wearing masks on busses up here in a high-risk area. The second wave is coming for sure.

There's also a third, collateral wave, of people with acute illness who didn't receive timely treatment during the crisis (so, cancer patients having treatment deferred, transplant candidates, etc) which may not manifest until the actual Covid crisis is past.

 

[tonerei]

There's also a third, collateral wave, of people with acute illness who didn't receive timely treatment during the crisis (so, cancer patients having treatment deferred, transplant candidates, etc) which may not manifest until the actual Covid crisis is past.

The simplest measure will be the excess deaths. Covid, Cancer etc add them all up and compare to previous years month per month. Anything else will just muddy the waters ( Ah just hit on their solution. Definitely go for the most confusing option)

 

[jackbarron]

Now if you have a COVID positive test and die a lingering death beyond 28 days, you are not counted.

There are an increasing number of people in the UK with long-term Covid symptoms. I know a man and woman who have had them for over three months. The symptoms are multiple and come and go.

These two are in their late Forties and are usually very active. He makes and sells guitars and amps. She has produced some well-known music documentaries, which many of you might have seen. Both have been physically and psychologically knocked out, unable to work.

The idea that if they die from the virus it won't be counted as a Covid-19 fatality is insane. But I wouldn't expect any different from Hancock and Johnson.

There was a report on the long-term victims of Covid-19 on Channel 4 News. The presenter said there are 100,000 of them, I think. The woman from Public Health England immediately wanted to know where Channel 4 got the figures from. Fair enough.

Long-term victims of Covid-19 are something Hancock and Johnson are no doubt trying to mask. Most of the media are only too happy to help them out.

The government has consistently refused to allow Channel 4 News an interview with a Minister. I've got a feeling they didn't even get to talk to Dominic Cummings, when he did the Q/A session in the garden of Number 10. Why? Johnson and Hancock don't like their reports.

There were more people out and about in the area where I live yesterday. Less were wearing masks, even on public transport and in supermarkets.

The pubs and restaurants are getting fuller. Social distancing is disappearing. I reckon there will be a spike in infections and deaths in the next couple of months. Hancock and Johnson's 28-day rule won't be able to hide that.

Jack

 

[Tony L]

Boris Johnson: What I Did On My Holidays (Cold War Steve).