Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion
- Thread starter Sasaferrato
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elbows
Well-Known Member
You havent got that many posts here so its not hard to read them all. If you dont want to be viewed in certain ways then you should think about what you come out with. Just to give one example, you went on about people who still believed in the merits of masks in certain contexts as being 'ultras'. That use of language can be read into every bit as much as my use of swearwords pointed in your direction. And beyond the pandemic threads you give hints about your political stance and your worldview with the way you've described GB news etc.
Long ago some people described to me the issues they had with the level of vitriol and language used in my posts at times. I explained that I struggled to change, that its part of the package of what you get from me. It has its downsides, but I wasnt in a place in my life where I could realistically hope to change that during the pandemic, so I didnt promise to change. And if I manage to change over time, responding more politely to people with your sort of crap pandemic beliefs will remain the greatest challenge.
In any case the real window of opportunity where peoples views on the virus and the pandemic could be most influenced by other individuals posting on forums like this one was relatively short-lived. It was mostly in effect during a few short months when the virus first arrived on the scene and people didnt know what to think or how big a deal it was. It wasnt long before they had all manner of dramatic ways to judge for themselves, through their own experiences and the huge flood of information and attention and changes to daily life and unpleasant death data and tales of personal loss. The virus rather dominated peoples lives and all sorts of lessons had to be learnt in a hurry. Most people are unlikely to substantially change their views now, that bit of history is done, and any revisions to it will be very gradual affairs as certain memories and details fade, and as some things get mushed together in peoples memories. For a number of years now people like me have mostly just been preaching to the already converted, and people like you are mostly talking to your own congregations too. We're just reinforcing our own existing views.
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existentialist
Tired and unemotional
You're tilting at the wrong windmill, old son.
gentlegreen
I hummus, therefore I am ...
elbows
Well-Known Member
Charts are another example where the usefulness of me continuing to post them here has become far more questionable as the years have gone by.
Sometimes they still tell stories that I think are worth telling though.
Here for example is monthly all cause death data for England from the ONS, up to and including October 2022. The horrible number of deaths in the first 2 waves still stand out rather obviously, but this year we can also see another story emerging. The ongoing presence of the virus, the benefits of vaccination balanced against the removal of other restrictions, the state of the NHS, the ambulance service, and a bunch of other things have combined to cause the normal seasonal dips in deaths to fade from this sort of chart for 2022 in a way that has rarely if ever been seen before. I'd quite like to hear from people as to whether this is news to them.
One of the reasons I still go on about the pandemic is because I dont think that sort of story is being told properly in the media, even though they do cover all manner of aspects of it. It just doesnt seem to get joined up into a cohesive story, routinely supported by this sort of data, and it doesnt seem to lead to much public discussion about whether we should at least consider tweaking our approach.
The data comes from plucking one set of numbers from Monthly mortality analysis, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics
As always with data there are caveats. If I do the same graph but with age standardised death rates instead of raw number of deaths, this year doesnt compare so badly with many of the years shown from earlier this century. I do intend to discuss that more one day when I have time. Also note that I didnt start the bottom of the y axis at 0, just because I didnt want a load of pointless blue area taking up space.
Sometimes they still tell stories that I think are worth telling though.
Here for example is monthly all cause death data for England from the ONS, up to and including October 2022. The horrible number of deaths in the first 2 waves still stand out rather obviously, but this year we can also see another story emerging. The ongoing presence of the virus, the benefits of vaccination balanced against the removal of other restrictions, the state of the NHS, the ambulance service, and a bunch of other things have combined to cause the normal seasonal dips in deaths to fade from this sort of chart for 2022 in a way that has rarely if ever been seen before. I'd quite like to hear from people as to whether this is news to them.
One of the reasons I still go on about the pandemic is because I dont think that sort of story is being told properly in the media, even though they do cover all manner of aspects of it. It just doesnt seem to get joined up into a cohesive story, routinely supported by this sort of data, and it doesnt seem to lead to much public discussion about whether we should at least consider tweaking our approach.
The data comes from plucking one set of numbers from Monthly mortality analysis, England and Wales - Office for National Statistics
As always with data there are caveats. If I do the same graph but with age standardised death rates instead of raw number of deaths, this year doesnt compare so badly with many of the years shown from earlier this century. I do intend to discuss that more one day when I have time. Also note that I didnt start the bottom of the y axis at 0, just because I didnt want a load of pointless blue area taking up space.
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wemakeyousoundb
hopefully not gimboid
just thought I'd chip in from an uneducated viewpoint
you are obviously pushing a denialist agenda and are
(in my personal opinion)
a fucking ignorant fool/...tool of the misinformation brigade/...willfull carrier of the brain disease
let the debate continue
and you can keep JAQingoff
elbows
Well-Known Member
The real pandemic response soul searching that matters is of the 'why were we slow to act and slow to acknowledge some of the fundamentals of this virus?' variety.
Here for example is the outgoing WHO chief scientist:
When it coes to explaining why that happened, the explanation is entirely inadequate, seemingly an attempt to dodge the difficult reasons why:
Those explanations dont properly ring true to me, or at the very least dont offer the full picture. Better clues are likely to be found in some 'unrelated' parts of that interview when they speak about the challenges of working with all the nations and their politics. For example they were much happier to discuss this when they could point to an example where they can say the WHO stuck to its guns:
From Science | AAAS
Not just airborne stuff and the implications of it either. Asymptomatic spread too, which was the main thing I tried to pick at along these lines in the early months of the pandemic. There was a bias against details which were inconvenient and had large ramifications. The tune was changed by WHO and by individual governments later on, and some of them then have the nerve to claim that a lack of knowledge about those things was the reasonable excuse for their pandemic failings, and was only possible to fix with the benefit of hindsight. But enough people were speaking up about those things in the early days of the pandemic to demonstrate that hindsight was not actually required. I can probably find some other examples too, since there are no shortage of vested interests that get in the way of the best possible response, but this post is probably long enough already and I think I've made my point.
This sort of thing is why I will continue to swear, especially at those who want to feed those vested interests rather than starve them, undermining reality and the prospects for a reasonable response to future pandemics. People should look into the HART group if they want to see a vulgar, barely disguised example of that sort of lobbying and agenda, and then consider how the babbling contrarian shitheads are playing into that agenda with their crap.
Here for example is the outgoing WHO chief scientist:
When it coes to explaining why that happened, the explanation is entirely inadequate, seemingly an attempt to dodge the difficult reasons why:
Those explanations dont properly ring true to me, or at the very least dont offer the full picture. Better clues are likely to be found in some 'unrelated' parts of that interview when they speak about the challenges of working with all the nations and their politics. For example they were much happier to discuss this when they could point to an example where they can say the WHO stuck to its guns:
From Science | AAAS
Not just airborne stuff and the implications of it either. Asymptomatic spread too, which was the main thing I tried to pick at along these lines in the early months of the pandemic. There was a bias against details which were inconvenient and had large ramifications. The tune was changed by WHO and by individual governments later on, and some of them then have the nerve to claim that a lack of knowledge about those things was the reasonable excuse for their pandemic failings, and was only possible to fix with the benefit of hindsight. But enough people were speaking up about those things in the early days of the pandemic to demonstrate that hindsight was not actually required. I can probably find some other examples too, since there are no shortage of vested interests that get in the way of the best possible response, but this post is probably long enough already and I think I've made my point.
This sort of thing is why I will continue to swear, especially at those who want to feed those vested interests rather than starve them, undermining reality and the prospects for a reasonable response to future pandemics. People should look into the HART group if they want to see a vulgar, barely disguised example of that sort of lobbying and agenda, and then consider how the babbling contrarian shitheads are playing into that agenda with their crap.
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teuchter
je suis teuchter
I don't think you've addressed a single one of the questions that you've been asked about your various apparently evidence-free assertions on this thread.
elbows
Well-Known Member
By the way I note that the flu, covid and RSV pressures combined with other factors relating to lack of hospital staff and care home capacity issues is being reported in a very similar manner in the USA of late. eg:
archive.ph
They have some especially eye-watering staffing figures:
This version of learning to live with covid is not very impressive, and much of what is mentioned int he article stands in stark contrast with the 'clap for NHS workers' and the parades past hospitals mentioned in this American piece.
Hospitals hitting capacity from RSV, flu, covid and staffing shortage…
archived 21 Nov 2022 18:52:57 UTC
They have some especially eye-watering staffing figures:
This version of learning to live with covid is not very impressive, and much of what is mentioned int he article stands in stark contrast with the 'clap for NHS workers' and the parades past hospitals mentioned in this American piece.
elbows
Well-Known Member
I wont have time to read the report into the faulty test results at the Wolverhampton lab till another day.
However I would say that the estimates of what increase in infections, hospitalisations and deaths these errors caused offer some clues about what good the testing system as a whole was during that phase of the pandemic. It was not a useless thing like some would have us believe.
However I would say that the estimates of what increase in infections, hospitalisations and deaths these errors caused offer some clues about what good the testing system as a whole was during that phase of the pandemic. It was not a useless thing like some would have us believe.
Immensa lab errors may have led to 23 Covid-19 deaths
A report says 39,000 people may also have been given incorrect PCR results from a private lab.
www.bbc.co.uk
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I think that nuance will be lost on the antivaxx mouthbreathers, who will no doubt be going "see? Testing is useless, just like vaccination. HRED IMUNITIE"I wont have time to read the report into the faulty test results at the Wolverhampton lab till another day.
However I would say that the estimates of what increase in infections, hospitalisations and deaths these errors caused offer some clues about what good the testing system as a whole was during that phase of the pandemic. It was not a useless thing like some would have us believe.
Immensa lab errors may have led to 23 Covid-19 deaths
A report says 39,000 people may also have been given incorrect PCR results from a private lab.www.bbc.co.uk
elbows
Well-Known Member
I'll stick this here because although not a pure covid story, its important to explore the cause for the higher than normal levels of death this year, and get some sense of which factors may account for what proportions of the excess:
From My mum's 40-hour wait to get to A&E with hip break
And this is the sort of statement The Royal College of Emergency Medicine have made about this sort of thing in recent months:
rcem.ac.uk
From My mum's 40-hour wait to get to A&E with hip break
And this is the sort of statement The Royal College of Emergency Medicine have made about this sort of thing in recent months:
Emergency Care in crisis as more patients than ever before face dangerously long waits in Emergency Departments
Responding to the latest Emergency Department performance figures published by NHS England for October 2022, Dr Adrian Boyle, President of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, said:
rcem.ac.uk
_Russ_
Never not Knowingly Misunderstood
Considering the huge decrease in testing compared to earlier stages then its fair to assume the current rise is proportionally greater than the published figures show
and of course the NHS in an even worse state and most people think its all over and other viral and bacterial infections are increasing and...etc
and of course the NHS in an even worse state and most people think its all over and other viral and bacterial infections are increasing and...etc
teuchter
je suis teuchter
elbows
Well-Known Member
Yeah, it depends on which published figures Russ means. The ONS survey was fiddled with in a manner that made it even laggier, but it should not have been spoilt by changes to testing in the way the daily positive case numbers will have been. Because of how the ONS survey is done, it isnt affected by the change in availability of free tests or peoples attitudes towards tests.
There have been changes to in-hospital testing regimes this year, and we might have expected some of those to at least make a difference to how many 'incidental' cases were detected in hospital. However in recent waves any resulting change has not been hugely obvious, eg estimates of number of people catching covid in hospital seemed similar to what the data detected previously.
There have been changes to in-hospital testing regimes this year, and we might have expected some of those to at least make a difference to how many 'incidental' cases were detected in hospital. However in recent waves any resulting change has not been hugely obvious, eg estimates of number of people catching covid in hospital seemed similar to what the data detected previously.
Elbows i've followed your posts for the past couple of years, i bet thousands of others have benefited. too, folk like you change lives. Thank you and others for guiding us through the pandamic. I remember you said a year or two ago you're a self educated man, truly inspirational. You are the reason why many follow threads like this. The Anti vax meme thread has been fun too for work mates much in need of light entertainment.
i'm Slightly drunk as moving home and just been out with fam at a place we've been going for 40 years, house sold stresfull times so they say. i'ts snowing here and 1 am just been out with our pooch Rox for a game of ball, one more glass of presco then lights out x
i'm Slightly drunk as moving home and just been out with fam at a place we've been going for 40 years, house sold stresfull times so they say. i'ts snowing here and 1 am just been out with our pooch Rox for a game of ball, one more glass of presco then lights out x
elbows
Well-Known Member
Cheers, thousands is likely rather a big exaggeration but impossible to measure I suppose. I'm happy enough even if I was only a very very small help to a few people for a very limited period of time in the grand scheme of things. A nerd with too much time on my hands, wanted to give a little back but there are great limits to what I can achieve. Especially these days given the stage we are at.
Chz
Stark Raving Sane
Sorry if this has already been brought up before. It's a long thread.
Had the Boy looked at by the GP who says he has shingles brought on by a depressed immune system. Doctor goes on to say that there's a popular opinion in the GP community that covid "resets" the immune system and you're suddenly vulnerable to loads of previous things that you should be immune to. Like chicken pox/shingles. Is there any data that actually suggests this? I'm sure GPs are just as vulnerable to pop theories as the rest of us.
They also went and gave him antibiotics, even though he has no infections that respond to it. They've said there's so much going on out there (like the strep A that's going around), that they're giving preventative amoxicillin to vulnerable children.
Had the Boy looked at by the GP who says he has shingles brought on by a depressed immune system. Doctor goes on to say that there's a popular opinion in the GP community that covid "resets" the immune system and you're suddenly vulnerable to loads of previous things that you should be immune to. Like chicken pox/shingles. Is there any data that actually suggests this? I'm sure GPs are just as vulnerable to pop theories as the rest of us.
They also went and gave him antibiotics, even though he has no infections that respond to it. They've said there's so much going on out there (like the strep A that's going around), that they're giving preventative amoxicillin to vulnerable children.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Well there is a lot about the immune system that we dont understand as well as we should.
To give a pertinent example, it was known for a long time that measles does bad things to the immune system, but some of the detail was only confirmed via studies more recently. So we can find plenty of articles from just a few years ago, 2019, about that research which appears to demonstrate that measles causes 'immune amnesia'.
Just one example: Measles infection wipes our immune system’s memory, leaving us vulnerable to other diseases - Wellcome Sanger Institute
It is not surprising that GPs found it attractive to apply this same theory to explain some of the immunity picture showing up in populations in the wake of this pandemic. Whether that is the actual mechanism in the case of covid I cannot say, I havent looked for covid-specific research about that and it may still be too early. And who knows which theories will survive for a long time and which will be superseded at some stage. Other possibilities probably remain plausible.
To give a pertinent example, it was known for a long time that measles does bad things to the immune system, but some of the detail was only confirmed via studies more recently. So we can find plenty of articles from just a few years ago, 2019, about that research which appears to demonstrate that measles causes 'immune amnesia'.
Just one example: Measles infection wipes our immune system’s memory, leaving us vulnerable to other diseases - Wellcome Sanger Institute
It is not surprising that GPs found it attractive to apply this same theory to explain some of the immunity picture showing up in populations in the wake of this pandemic. Whether that is the actual mechanism in the case of covid I cannot say, I havent looked for covid-specific research about that and it may still be too early. And who knows which theories will survive for a long time and which will be superseded at some stage. Other possibilities probably remain plausible.
_Russ_
Never not Knowingly Misunderstood
How do you feel, compared to first time?
Orang Utan
Psychick Worrier Ov Geyoor
A bloke came into work today and walked around the spit guard to get far too close (a few inches), even for non-pandemic times.
I told him to step away and he asked why. I told him ‘because of COVID’ and he snorted incredulously, telling me it was gone. I attempted to disabuse him of that notion but he wouldn’t listen, but he did step behind the spit screen.
Where are these people getting their info from? Whoever said it was over?
I told him to step away and he asked why. I told him ‘because of COVID’ and he snorted incredulously, telling me it was gone. I attempted to disabuse him of that notion but he wouldn’t listen, but he did step behind the spit screen.
Where are these people getting their info from? Whoever said it was over?
Steel Icarus
ersatz maven
They want it to be over, the "general mood" is that it's over
elbows
Well-Known Member
Last weeks covid & influenza report for England showed a fairly complicated picture. I could probably describe influenza growth as explosive, especially in certain regions and age groups, but still with much more to come if it is to reach levels seen in previous bad flu seasons. Various broader indicators for 'influenza-like illness' and 'coughs' picked up by various healthcare surveillance systems were also showing plenty of this sort of increasing pressure.
With covid there were further signs of resurgence, but I mostly wouldnt call the rises explosive, and it was the same story with covid hospital admissions/diagnoses data. ie the increases were not resembling the dreaded degree of steepness we've been used to seeing at a certain stage of new waves in the past. I suppose I have to be slightly careful with the hospital data due to other pressures on the system at the moment which could limit the number of people they could actually admit over the period, but I wont get carried away with assumptions about how much impact that will have on those figures. As usual there was regional variation but I'll wait till the picture is clearer before trying to describe those.
However if the ZOE study data turns out to still be a useful guide to this wave, then based on what thats started to show recently we might see a far steeper covid resurgence in subsequent data. But I'll keep an open mind about that and I wont be any the wiser till Thursday since hospital data is only published once a week these days.
With covid there were further signs of resurgence, but I mostly wouldnt call the rises explosive, and it was the same story with covid hospital admissions/diagnoses data. ie the increases were not resembling the dreaded degree of steepness we've been used to seeing at a certain stage of new waves in the past. I suppose I have to be slightly careful with the hospital data due to other pressures on the system at the moment which could limit the number of people they could actually admit over the period, but I wont get carried away with assumptions about how much impact that will have on those figures. As usual there was regional variation but I'll wait till the picture is clearer before trying to describe those.
However if the ZOE study data turns out to still be a useful guide to this wave, then based on what thats started to show recently we might see a far steeper covid resurgence in subsequent data. But I'll keep an open mind about that and I wont be any the wiser till Thursday since hospital data is only published once a week these days.
elbows
Well-Known Member
How Covid has dealt the NHS a lasting blow
The health service is treating fewer patients than before Covid, so why is it still struggling?
www.bbc.co.uk
Hard for that writeup to cover all aspects of the report in enough detail so if not going to read the whole report, may be of benefit to read this twitter thread:
One part of that which I was bound to want to draw attention to:
elbows
Well-Known Member
I havent spent too much time with this week data yet, but the BBC has this, which isnt too surprising given the previous weeks trends:
Flu hospital admission rates shoot up to overtake Covid
The under-fives and over-85s are most likely to become ill - getting a jab is urged.
www.bbc.co.uk
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