Coronavirus - the new strain XX

[MVV]

In the coffee queue yesterday the 3 people in front of me were socially distancing despite the markers on the floor having been removed, one was not wearing a mask and two were wearing masks but below their noses. All the staff were wearing masks correctly. In the supermarket in the evening I noticed more people were wearing masks below their noses than above and this time it included some of the staff who again all had masks. Is this some kind of show of support for mask wearing but without the inconvenience of actually wearing one? The covid thing seems to be getting a bit surreal as the nonsense grows.

I’m waiting for the mask jackpot. When some ****wit walks into a lamp post because he’s wearing it over his eyes!

 

[TheDecameron]

Tweet from Sajid Javid:

Full recovery from Covid a week after testing positive. Symptoms were very mild, thanks to amazing vaccines. Please - if you haven’t yet - get your jab, as we learn to live with, rather than cower from, this virus.

So that's where 129000 of us went wrong (with another 20000 or so still to come). We were just scaredy cats and didn’t look this little virus full in the eye and tell it to go away.

What an idiotic, odious little man.

I read it as ‘please- if you haven’t got it yet, get your virus’. Every bit as manipulative as Trump’s personal Covid stunt.

 

[TheDecameron]

Health Secretary Sajid Javid apologises for his poor choice of word when he said people should no longer "cower" from coronavirus,

BBC 1 minute ago

someone’s ‘ad a word. Won’t be Johnson or any other Tory though.

 

[hc25036]

Health Secretary Sajid Javid apologises for his poor choice of word when he said people should no longer "cower" from coronavirus,

BBC 1 minute ago

someone’s ‘ad a word. Won’t be Johnson or any other Tory though.

More like a poor choice of health minister…..

 

[mandryka]

People are going to have to make their own risk based decisions.

People can't make their own decisions because they're subject to outside pressures. Some of these are economic: they may have to put bread on the table, their employer may ask them to take risks which they would prefer not to take. And Javid this morning was working to create social pressures, create a society where people who are cautious about covid risk taking are stigmatised as cowering cowards.

 

[TheDecameron]

What’s the betting that had Trump won a second term, Javid would have been citing his personal leadership in the face of adversity,

 

[hc25036]

People can't make their own decisions because they're subject to outside pressures. Some of these are economic: they may have to put bread on the table, their employer may ask them to take risks which they would prefer not to take. And Javid this morning was working to create social pressures, create a society where people who are cautious about covid risk taking are stigmatised as cowering cowards.

Agreed, plus understanding risk is difficult and often counterintuitive. Part of my job was describing the risk involved in taking part in clinical trials and it was one of the very hardest things I had to do once we started checking the understanding of what we had written.

Let’s try an example: Data shows that AZ vaccination gives 60% protection against infection with the delta variant. Does this mean:-

a. Everyone has at least some protection, or

b. 40% of us have no protection?

Answers on a postcard…..

 

[mandryka]

Agreed, plus understanding risk is difficult and often counterintuitive. Part of my job was describing the risk involved in taking part in clinical trials and it was one of the very hardest things I had to do once we started checking the understanding of what we had written.

Let’s try an example: Data shows that AZ vaccination gives 60% protection against infection with the delta variant. Does this mean:-

a. Everyone has at least some protection, or

b. 40% of us have no protection?

Answers on a postcard…..

When I was at school this was sixth form, lower sixth -- I was a maths specialist and my teacher was a statistician, he was a good teacher. I really don't know where ideas like expectation come up in the state school system these days, maybe nowhere. I bet it's true that the great majority of people have had very little if any experience thinking about probability.

 

[wacko]

More like a poor choice of health minister…..

On the contrary. He is exactly what BoJo wants.

 

[IanW]

Agreed, plus understanding risk is difficult and often counterintuitive. Part of my job was describing the risk involved in taking part in clinical trials and it was one of the very hardest things I had to do once we started checking the understanding of what we had written.

Let’s try an example: Data shows that AZ vaccination gives 60% protection against infection with the delta variant. Does this mean:-

a. Everyone has at least some protection, or

b. 40% of us have no protection?

Answers on a postcard…..

I am sure that it is very difficult to explain risk that really gets the message across.

Your example makes that pretty clear as I read your statement as meaning that across a population, 60% fewer people will get infected.

b. is clearly incorrect, even if worded as additional protection due to the vaccine.

a. would seem likely (as it is in some sense opposed to b. which is not correct), but is not necessarily derivable from your original statement, as in presumably this depends on the virus, the potential host and how the vaccine works etc.

Please correct my statements as appropriate!

 

[russel]

Agreed, plus understanding risk is difficult and often counterintuitive. Part of my job was describing the risk involved in taking part in clinical trials and it was one of the very hardest things I had to do once we started checking the understanding of what we had written.

Let’s try an example: Data shows that AZ vaccination gives 60% protection against infection with the delta variant. Does this mean:-

a. Everyone has at least some protection, or

b. 40% of us have no protection?

Answers on a postcard…..

AIUI if you expose 100 people to the virus 40 would develop symptoms as opposed to 100 unvaccinated.

 

[Ponty]

People can't make their own decisions because they're subject to outside pressures. Some of these are economic: they may have to put bread on the table, their employer may ask them to take risks which they would prefer not to take. And Javid this morning was working to create social pressures, create a society where people who are cautious about covid risk taking are stigmatised as cowering cowards.

Of course, externalities apply to a whole range of events and situations which occur in the course of life. A communist state such as China is an option, providing folk are happy with their front doors being welded up as part of state responsibility and control.

 

[hc25036]

I am sure that it is very difficult to explain risk that really gets the message across.

Your example makes that pretty clear as I read your statement as meaning that across a population, 60% fewer people will get infected.

b. is clearly incorrect, even if worded as additional protection due to the vaccine.

a. would seem likely (as it is in some sense opposed to b. which is not correct), but is not necessarily derivable from your original statement, as in presumably this depends on the virus, the potential host and how the vaccine works etc.

Please correct my statements as appropriate!

The data are population statistics. What they mean is that 40% of those in the trial had no protection from infection. Of course, additional data showed that 90% had protection from hospitalisation for severe disease, but that still leaves 10% unprotected….

The point is that population statistics do not apply to the individual. I am either 100% or 0% protected. I don’t know which and behave accordingly.

 

[mandryka]

I thought it meant this:

Suppose you had a random sample of 100 unvaccinated people, and conditions are such that X of them would be expected to catch the virus.

Now, take a random sample of 100 vaccinated people, in the same conditions as before. You would expect 60% of X to catch the virus.

 

[paulfromcamden]

I am either 100% or 0% protected. I don’t know which and behave accordingly.

I'm not sure I've understood. I thought the point was that everyone who has the vaccine will be afforded some protection - as individuals we just don't know how much.

 

[IanW]

The data are population statistics. What they mean is that 40% of those in the trial had no protection from infection. Of course, additional data showed that 90% had protection from hospitalisation for severe disease, but that still leaves 10% unprotected….

Isn't the statement that 40% of those in the trial had no protection a bit of a difficult one to make. As in some of those 40% may have had a less severe infection, and therefore did have some protection from the virus? As in the protection provided by the vaccine is on a continuum, as you have described above.

The point is that population statistics do not apply to the individual. I am either 100% or 0% protected. I don’t know which and behave accordingly.

I had got as far as it was population based and not individual in my first statement. To find out if you are protected in any sense you would have to be in a position to be infected!

 

[hc25036]

I'm not sure I've understood. I thought the point was that everyone who has the vaccine will be afforded some protection - as individuals we just don't know how much.

Protection from severe disease - about 90% - not from infection.

 

[hc25036]

^^^
All of the above, and me not being completely clear in my choice of words, shows why it is so difficult.

 

[hc25036]

Isn't the statement that 40% of those in the trial had no protection a bit of a difficult one to make. As in some of those 40% may have had a less severe infection, and therefore did have some protection from the virus? As in the protection provided by the vaccine is on a continuum, as you have described above.


I had got as far as it was population based and not individual in my first statement. To find out if you are protected in any sense you would have to be in a position to be infected!

This is getting too deep! Trials - especially of this size - test a yes/no answer for reasons of manageable patient numbers and statistical ‘power’. Valid conclusions are therefore only infected/non-infected and would have been on regular pcr tests. So, as @russel and @mandryka pointed out above, and to avoid tedious calculations, imagine that in the group given the placebo let’s say 100 gave a positive pcr test. That being the case, 40 in the (same size) vaccinated group also gave a positive pcr test. End of study…..

Further studies show that protection from serious illness (aiui hospitalisation and oxygen therapy) is around or above 90%. Again, a population result.

So, I am double jabbed and can be quite comfortable in the odds, but I cannot see those figures and believe that I am 90% protected from serious illness. I could be 100% protected, or 30% or zero%. I do know that, because of the successful vaccination campaign there is a lower risk of me meeting a big dose of the virus - or there was until July 19th - but until I do meet the virus in an infectious situation the jury is out on my future health.

 

[IanW]

This is getting too deep! Trials - especially of this size - test a yes/no answer for reasons of manageable patient numbers and statistical ‘power’. Valid conclusions are therefore only infected/non-infected and would have been on regular pcr tests. So, as @russel and @mandryka pointed out above, and to avoid tedious calculations, imagine that in the group given the placebo let’s say 100 gave a positive pcr test. That being the case, 40 in the (same size) vaccinated group also gave a positive pcr test. End of study…..

Further studies show that protection from serious illness (aiui hospitalisation and oxygen therapy) is around or above 90%. Again, a population result.

So, I am double jabbed and can be quite comfortable in the odds, but I cannot see those figures and believe that I am 90% protected from serious illness. I could be 100% protected, or 30% or zero%. I do know that, because of the successful vaccination campaign there is a losing risk of me meeting a big dose of the virus - or there was until July 19th - but until I do meet the virus in an infectious situation the jury is out on my future health.

Understood. I got carried away, forgetting that the experiment to provide the information used to make your statement would come from a simple yes / no basis.