advertisement


Coronavirus - the new strain XII

Status
Not open for further replies.
Crikey, 5 tiers for Scotland apparently (well, it has to be different doesn’t it). IIRC, Sturgeon said ‘stay alert’ was too complicated!
 
matt j said:
Has there been any solid advice on how to get the region out of tier 3 back to 2? I've heard zero mention of it, even when the R rate comes down.
Click to expand...

I think the idea is that the regional MOHs come to a plan, I suppose with the input of Westminster. It’s a radically decentralised approach if I understand correctly, each region deciding to try different things on the basis of local knowledge. (Not sure whether that answers your question or not.)
 
So that must mean that we had more cases than France 4 weeks ago I suppose. And so more now. But why didn’t it show up as more cases, given we’re testing more? Don’t understand.

Unless Brits are less healthy, a more vulnerable population. I think there’s some evidence for that.
 
mandryka said:
So that must mean that we had more cases than France 4 weeks ago I suppose. And so more now. But why didn’t it show up as more cases, given we’re testing more? Don’t understand.

Unless Brits are less healthy, a more vulnerable population. I think there’s some evidence for that.
Click to expand...

I think it probably does mean that. I've consistently said watch the hospitals and the deaths rather than the published case numbers, and remember the reported deaths in the UK is an underestimate based on the 28 day thing (you can add 10% easily). The thing to worry about now is if, and how quickly the death count goes up from here as the hopitalisations have been growing exponentially all month.
 
droodzilla said:
The new intake of Tory MPs really are scum:

https://twitter.com/AaronBastani/status/1318968577156911104

https://twitter.com/AaronBastani/status/1318925271291121667

Both gained seats from Labour in 2019.

If you still believe fairy tales about the Conservative Party ever returning to moderation and the centre ground, just look at the new breed of far-right populists. This is the future unless we all unite to stop it.

Angela Rayner was right.
Click to expand...
Ahem...my point for quite some time now but very few appear to get it.

Taking pfm as a small example, people won’t unite to stop it, there are other priorities.
 
matt j said:
Has there been any solid advice on how to get the region out of tier 3 back to 2? I've heard zero mention of it, even when the R rate comes down.
Click to expand...
I would imagine that if you get the rate back below 400/100k then it's back to T2. Tough though, how this will be achieved in practice is anyone's guess. Let's be honest, if you get R down to 0.9 with an infectious window of 2 weeks, that means that it takes 2 weeks to get from 500 to 450, another 2 weeks for 400, another 2 weeks for 350. 6 weeks minimum even if you achieve a step change in behaviour across the population.
 
Wirral is about 300/100K but we've been tier 3 for a week... they just make it up I suspect?
Notts last week was and is today around 800/100K and still Tier 2
 
ffe73752b86e091c28dccbf4641b7ca14a19cc02_2_792x1000.jpeg
 
Kit Malthouse: "But, it's a pandemic, it was never going to be easy"

It would have been a damn sight easier if you and your bunch of merry ****ers had actually followed the science i.e. the real science not the one you paid suck up scientists to manufacture for you.
 
tiggers said:
Look you may have a soft spot for the Guardian and yes it is better than most, but they all do the same thing to one degree or another. They ran a piece very similar 3/4 weeks ago, it's really not news to anyone that keeps themselves abreast of the situation and anyway the article contains a lot of negative hypotheticals. At the end of the day a vaccine will help massively and while I am the first to say we won't ever eradicate the virus we will be better able to live with it after the provision of a reliable vaccine. Yes, planning for not having one is sensible, but planning for having one is important too.
Click to expand...

I have a soft spot for expertise.

I don't care where that is published. It would probably have been in the Telegraph too, but I stopped reading after they went Brexit mad. But I've read enough in Science journals (and I'm originally a biologist) to know this writer's assumptions are very likely to be correct.

Forgive me if I misunderstand your point, but are you suggesting that newspapers should not publish expert opinion in case it scares people? Don't listen to this bit of 'project fear' (or 'reality check' as I prefer to call it) from the BBC if so. Comparing an article written by a respected health professional with the Daily Mail is ludicrous, is it not?

I'm impressed by your faith that an article about the efficacy of vaccines on Coronaviruses published a month ago in a minority circulation newspaper is all the information people need to hear.

Perhaps, you could critique David Salisbury's article and point out where he is wrong here and in his other calculations?

For example

To stop transmission, we must vaccinate anyone who can transmit infection. Anything less means that our goal is only individual protection and not the interruption of transmission. A recent announcement from the head of the UK vaccine taskforce, that the strategy will be targeted vaccination, makes it abundantly clear that the UK vaccine strategy at the moment is not to try to interrupt transmission, despite having hundreds of millions of Covid-19 vaccine doses on contract. With less than 10% of the population showing evidence of having been infected, targeted vaccination will not allow “life as previously usual” to return.

or

Vaccines protect individuals against disease and hopefully also against infection, but no vaccine is 100% effective. To know what proportion of a community would be immune after a vaccination programme is a numbers game – we must multiply the proportion of a population vaccinated by how effective the vaccine is. (and then the evidence he uses to back this up)

I agree we need to tackle both pathways. But at the moment, we seem to be focussing all our hopes on one. It's the Government (and other populist leader's) fault for 'bigging up' vaccination as a 'silver bullet', of course. Eventually, the Government will be forced into following proper mitigation measures. The alternative is too horrifying to contemplate.

Stephen
 
droodzilla said:
Angela Rayner was right.
Click to expand...

She was absolutely right but it was an unfortunate thing to say in the house - it's going to be used repeatedly against her by her political opponents.

Her aunt died of covid-19 last week. I'm not surprised she's taking the governments failings personally.
 
gavreid said:
. The thing to worry about now is if, and how quickly the death count goes up from here as the hopitalisations have been growing exponentially all month.
Click to expand...

There’s another thing to remember, treatment has improved according to the news, so the rate of transition from hospitalisation to death should be less than in Spring. The system should be able to cope with more.
 
stephen bennett said:
Perhaps, you could critique David Salisbury's article and point out where he is wrong here and in his other calculations?

For example

"To stop transmission, we must vaccinate anyone who can transmit infection. Anything less means that our goal is only individual protection and not the interruption of transmission. A recent announcement from the head of the UK vaccine taskforce, that the strategy will be targeted vaccination, makes it abundantly clear that the UK vaccine strategy at the moment is not to try to interrupt transmission, despite having hundreds of millions of Covid-19 vaccine doses on contract. With less than 10% of the population showing evidence of having been infected, targeted vaccination will not allow “life as previously usual” to return."

or

"Vaccines protect individuals against disease and hopefully also against infection, but no vaccine is 100% effective. To know what proportion of a community would be immune after a vaccination programme is a numbers game – we must multiply the proportion of a population vaccinated by how effective the vaccine is." (and then the evidence he uses to back this up)

I agree we need to tackle both pathways. But at the moment, we seem to be focussing all our hopes on one. It's the Government (and other populist leader's) fault for 'bigging up' vaccination as a 'silver bullet', of course. Eventually, the Government will be forced into following proper mitigation measures. The alternative is too horrifying to contemplate.
Click to expand...
Just to chew over the first of your Salisbury quotes for a moment (I've added quotation marks, as the pfm quote function italicises anyway): Do we need to 'stop transmission'?

We don't need a cure if the disease can be handled to minimise deaths and longer term effects. I know 'long Covid' and all, which is the hole in my argument, but if Covid can be managed down to 'just another like seasonal flu' by better treatment, and vaccinating the vulnerable, then we don't necessarily need to 'stop transmission'.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.


advertisement


Back
Top