Supine
Newt Member
I don't rate invisible covid as good news. I don't think you should either.
General Coronavirus (COVID-19) chat
- Thread starter phillm
- Start date
I don't rate invisible covid as good news. I don't think you should either.
I think I've been pretty positive, I even used the word 'optimism' which is most unlike me.
I think the problem lies in not necessarily what the reporting is saying but the conclusions you are drawing. If you were here saying this is an interesting topic for discussion and I don't think its getting enough coverage then I'd say you're probably right. It appears to me though that you are saying this is a fact and as such all local restrictions should be lifted and potentially the national ones as well. Its this I have a problem with because I don't think the evidence is strong enough to come to that conclusion.
At some point we are going to have to accept a level of pain and suffering because there will be a stage where the actions the government may take are deadlier than the virus itself. I'm not convinced we have enough information yet to say we are at that stage.
waterloowelshy
Well-Known Member
Of course its good news. If you are testing positive without even knowing you have it, then that implies that the disease is reducing in strength. As per the Reuters article with evidence from Singapore in terms of the mutation of the virus - and it losing strength as it mutates. That is really good news.
2hats
Dust.
Spandex
A crazy bulbous punchbag of sound
There's a few things that could be happening to explain the current high infection rate/low death rate we're seeing at the moment. It could be:
1. Covid has mutated to a less deadly form - this has been suggested as a possible end point since C-19 first appeared. If it is this, great.
2. Young people, having noted the low personal risk to themselves, are doing stuff that older people aren't and are spreading it around people who are low risk. If it is this, it's not good as it keeps the virus in circulation and could kick off a higher death rate later on when higher risk groups catch it from them.
3. Covid is a seasonal virus like other Coronaviruses - this was also suggested from the beginning and we might just be fooling ourselves into a false sense of security over the summer lull before it kicks off again in the autumn. If it is this, things could get really bad by the end of the year.
4. Something else
It might be one of these or some of these or all of these. We don't know for sure yet. We do need to be careful of putting our faith in one study supporting our favourite view. It takes numerous studies replicating results to get any sense of certainty. At the moment every researcher in a relevant area wants to be the first to have a game changing result and in the rush to publish mistakes can be made. Best to wait until subsequent studies support any findings.
At the moment I'm keeping an open mind, hoping for 1. and fearing 3. Only time will tell us what is actually going on.
1. Covid has mutated to a less deadly form - this has been suggested as a possible end point since C-19 first appeared. If it is this, great.
2. Young people, having noted the low personal risk to themselves, are doing stuff that older people aren't and are spreading it around people who are low risk. If it is this, it's not good as it keeps the virus in circulation and could kick off a higher death rate later on when higher risk groups catch it from them.
3. Covid is a seasonal virus like other Coronaviruses - this was also suggested from the beginning and we might just be fooling ourselves into a false sense of security over the summer lull before it kicks off again in the autumn. If it is this, things could get really bad by the end of the year.
4. Something else
It might be one of these or some of these or all of these. We don't know for sure yet. We do need to be careful of putting our faith in one study supporting our favourite view. It takes numerous studies replicating results to get any sense of certainty. At the moment every researcher in a relevant area wants to be the first to have a game changing result and in the rush to publish mistakes can be made. Best to wait until subsequent studies support any findings.
At the moment I'm keeping an open mind, hoping for 1. and fearing 3. Only time will tell us what is actually going on.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
More precisely, it CAN be shared...because you shared it. But you will find that this site is highly - and vocally - sceptical of people who appear from nowhere, and then start posting to a very specific agenda, as you clearly appear to be doing. It may also not be your fault, but you happen to be one of a number of people who have suddenly appeared on the site and are all posting in a very similar way, in support of a very similar line of argument. That kind of thing makes people suspicious.
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
But as has already been pointed out, that's not the whole story, and as we're in the middle of it still there's sense to being cautious, so continuing with proven actions like lockdowns is far from 'baffling' as you said, for example, but sensible. It seems very like you've decided something and are seeking 'evidence' to prove that.
LDC
On est tous des pangolins
You quite clearly have very little understanding of this from your posts, and the above is a prime example, so you with your posts on something you both seem so certain about, yet have so little understanding of, are obviously going to be treated with a raised eyebrow, at the very least...
Supine
Newt Member
It implies no such thing. Show me actual peer reviewed scientific evidence that mutation is causing it to weaken and I promise to be over the fucking moon with joy. Until then speculation is just that. And significantly flawed from what I've read about mutations so far.
waterloowelshy
Well-Known Member
fair point. I started posting as I find it genuinely interesting. And yes, I admit I think the evidence is now suggesting that lockdown has no positive impact whatsoever. At the outset I was 100% in favour of lockdown, but the more research undertaken and the more I have reviewed the stats (mortality / age / underlying health issues) the more I am convinced that this has been blown out of all proportion. The fact that its so emotive to challenge the lockdown view, as evidenced on here, pretty much demonstrates the fear that has been drummed in to everyone over the last few months.
waterloowelshy
Well-Known Member
But it now seems to be the case that asymptomatic spreaders are not spreading it because they are.... healthy. And therefore not walking around sneezing and coughing over people. So, even this position on asymptomatic spread has changed recently.
waterloowelshy
Well-Known Member
This article referenes the Lancet study of this week.
Singapore scientists find coronavirus variant with milder infections
Researchers in Singapore have discovered a new variant of the COVID-19 coronavirus that causes milder infections, according to a study published in The Lancet medical journal this week.
www.reuters.com
waterloowelshy
Well-Known Member
Lancet journal in full.
Interpretation
The ∆382 variant of SARS-CoV-2 seems to be associated with a milder infection. The observed clinical effects of deletions in ORF8 could have implications for the development of treatments and vaccines.
No-one's threatened you with a ban, have they?
This persecution complex is extremely tedious.
two sheds
Least noticed poster 2007
indeed, suddenly in 2003
where did that McDonald Islands flag come from?? I've been looking at that for a while.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
If there's really a variant associated with mild infections, that's great news. Viruses mutate all the time though and it does not necessarily mean every time someone catches covid that it will mutate into that form, or for that matter mutate back. It seems a bit of a dangerous thing to rely on tbh.
Supine
Newt Member
So from a quick read...
This mutation was in Singapore. The study data was from Jan to March. There is no indication this mutation has become more prevalent over others. Has it even spread to the west? Questions questions.
Sample size of <300... Percentages tend to vary widely with low numbers.
Edit to add: I kept reading, this variant wasn't seen again after March!
I think its always useful to remind ourselves what sort of site this is. A message board by it's nature is quite an old fashioned version of social media and as such people who use it tend towards a higher age demographic. Also and again due to its very nature there are members here who are more house bound than others for varying reasons. People who will be considered to be in a higher risk group.
Whilst I'm not saying that people shouldn't speak their mind or we should shy away from difficult topics I do think we need to be mindful of the audience. With something like the virus its very easy to get blase with statistics and yes the and the hospitalisation and death rates are encouraging (as anything can be in this whole shit show) but that's not much comfort to those who are still understandably worried and scared. Letting the virus rip through society will possibly (likely?) mean some people here getting ill.
I dunno, does this sound patronising? Apologies if it does.
Whilst I'm not saying that people shouldn't speak their mind or we should shy away from difficult topics I do think we need to be mindful of the audience. With something like the virus its very easy to get blase with statistics and yes the and the hospitalisation and death rates are encouraging (as anything can be in this whole shit show) but that's not much comfort to those who are still understandably worried and scared. Letting the virus rip through society will possibly (likely?) mean some people here getting ill.
I dunno, does this sound patronising? Apologies if it does.
Supine
Newt Member
Maybe some people are house bound. I'm sitting on a packed train full of tourist wankers going on holiday though. Always enjoy a good chat about covid in this situation!
I think the main point is you need to back up statements on urban with fairly good sources because there is an expected quality level. Just saying something is true with no evidence ain't gonna work
I think the main point is you need to back up statements on urban with fairly good sources because there is an expected quality level. Just saying something is true with no evidence ain't gonna work
I think the main point is you need to back up statements on urban with fairly good sources because there is an expected quality level. Just saying something is true with no evidence ain't gonna work
1st rule of urban. No matter how obscure the topic of conversation it will be someone here's job or passion.
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
And, there goes any last bit of credibility you had.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Do the 65000 excess deaths you are sweeping under the carpet with that ridiculous attitude not leave rather a bulge?
elbows
Well-Known Member
I think you missed one of the more obvious options:
Due to lockdowns etc the number of people infected fell to a very low level.
With restrictions eased, levels of infection have started to increase in various countries.
Cases, especially mild or asymptomatic cases, are far more likely to actually be counted now because testing capacity etc changed a lot compared to the first wave.
So, even though cases are rising, they are still a very small number of cases at any one time compared to the actual number of people that were infected at any one time during the peak of the first wave.
And this low number of current infections is reflected in hospitalisation and death stats.
If numbers infected, and demographics involved, go back up beyond a certain level, rises in hospitalisations and deaths will be expected to rise too.
But due to changes in testing etc, we would not expect to see the ratio of positive cases:deaths to be the same as the first time around.
So if in March there were 5000 cases detected on a particular day and 500 deaths that day, and then in September we see a day with 5000 cases detected but only 15 deaths, I do not need to look far for explanations (these are made up numbers for illustration only). Because I do not make the mistake of thinking that because these were both days with 5000 detected cases, that the wave of infections was actually at a similar level on both those occasions. So I wouldnt expect the death rates to resemble each other either.
Anyway thats the sort of scenario I use as a foundation, and then various other possibilities can be tacked on top if some evidence emerges to suggest that there is more going on.
There are also moments where other factors can kick in which act as death amplifiers. During peaks in hospitalisations, even if system breaking point is not reached, there is a strain which can result in less admissions, worse treatment and more deaths. We are currently at the opposite end of things to that, far away from such a threshold.
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existentialist
Tired and unemotional
I was careful how I phrased it - I said "appear from nowhere" rather than "joined the site". It comes to much the same thing, in practice - a previously silent poster suddenly pops up on the controversial subject du jour, posts various bits of wackiness, and then starts slagging off the site and its inhabitants for daring to confuse them with facts. The only real difference with this one is that he signed up way before he started posting all that nonsense...indeed, suddenly in 2003
where did that McDonald Islands flag come from?? I've been looking at that for a while.
Has there been any actual research suggesting this?
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
No.
Plenty of evidence suggesting asymptomatic people do indeed infect others.
waterloowelshy is a covidiot.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Yes, the asymptomatic stuff has been a hot topic from the start. Early on there wasnt even much consensus about how many asymptomatic cases there were, let alone their role in infecting others. In the first month or so I probably spent quite a lot of my words here keeping an eye on that stuff and expressing skepticism about some of the messages and dominant beliefs, whilst not actually knowing the full truth of the matter myself (still dont, these things arent easy for science to get a grip on quickly or else we would have had all this knowledge sewn up long before this pandemic emerged).
One simplistic way to describe some changes in attitude and belief on this front over time would be to say that various authorities slowly came to terms with the idea, and the implications of it. If I am remembering properly then the rise in acceptance that asymptomatic cases may play a significant role was after all one of the main justifications used by the UK government for changing its masks policy from no masks for the public to masks in a bunch of settings. That may in part have been a convenient excuse for why they had to change to a mask policy that they had previously been quite vocally opposed to, but if so it was still an excuse that had some actual weight to it, it was not an excuse without substance.
It also featured in a way in a bunch of other policy decisions and health messages from the start, albeit in a different, somewhat related form. The reason why whole households were told to self-isolate if one of them had symptoms, rather than just the person who had symptoms being told to isolate, was because of concerns that people were infectious well before they actually showed symptoms. So they already had the idea of transmission without symptoms in their sights, and by focussing on the 'pre-symptomatic' cases which there was no doubt existed, any controversy and non-acknowledgement of the size of and role of people who remained permanently asymptomatic could be somewhat sidestepped.
These days we have a much better idea, demonstrated all over the world, of the very large number of asymptomatic cases that are out there if we actually look for them via testing in very large numbers. So some early errors about that stuff (such as those promoted by the WHOs China Report in late February) are long since gone. Questions about their exact role in transmission are more complicated and its the sort of angle that can be well explored by doing certain kinds of analysis on all the data that track & trace teams will be generating at this stage.
One simplistic way to describe some changes in attitude and belief on this front over time would be to say that various authorities slowly came to terms with the idea, and the implications of it. If I am remembering properly then the rise in acceptance that asymptomatic cases may play a significant role was after all one of the main justifications used by the UK government for changing its masks policy from no masks for the public to masks in a bunch of settings. That may in part have been a convenient excuse for why they had to change to a mask policy that they had previously been quite vocally opposed to, but if so it was still an excuse that had some actual weight to it, it was not an excuse without substance.
It also featured in a way in a bunch of other policy decisions and health messages from the start, albeit in a different, somewhat related form. The reason why whole households were told to self-isolate if one of them had symptoms, rather than just the person who had symptoms being told to isolate, was because of concerns that people were infectious well before they actually showed symptoms. So they already had the idea of transmission without symptoms in their sights, and by focussing on the 'pre-symptomatic' cases which there was no doubt existed, any controversy and non-acknowledgement of the size of and role of people who remained permanently asymptomatic could be somewhat sidestepped.
These days we have a much better idea, demonstrated all over the world, of the very large number of asymptomatic cases that are out there if we actually look for them via testing in very large numbers. So some early errors about that stuff (such as those promoted by the WHOs China Report in late February) are long since gone. Questions about their exact role in transmission are more complicated and its the sort of angle that can be well explored by doing certain kinds of analysis on all the data that track & trace teams will be generating at this stage.
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