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It’s over folks

It would still be good if it is true though eh? Tim Spector saying this on Twitter:

W Covid cases in London now decreasing + UK slowing - it is great to see no real change in Covid deaths over last month. The health crisis is in danger of being driven by staff problems due to over- cautious isolation rules. Lets reduce this to 5 days!
 
It would still be good if it is true though eh?
Click to expand...

Absolutely, only downer about the statement for me is that its from an epidemiologist which I know should mean its an extremely valid opinion but, I spoke to a high up epidemiologist 2 Novembers ago who told me it was time to just get on with it back then, so I remain hopefull but not yet convinced
 
komodo said:
It would still be good if it is true though eh? Tim Spector saying this on Twitter:

W Covid cases in London now decreasing + UK slowing - it is great to see no real change in Covid deaths over last month. The health crisis is in danger of being driven by staff problems due to over- cautious isolation rules. Lets reduce this to 5 days!
Click to expand...
Fuck off. WHO thought what UK did with regards reduction to 7 with two consecutive LFT's was sensible. It is not happy at all with US (and its 5 days). Had to google who Tim Spector is....kindly epxlain what genetic epidemiology has to to with contagion
 
Spector runs the ZOE Covid app, which certainly has its uses.

His pandemic track record is a mixed bag - data from the app has made him useful at times, such as when describing a far broader range of symptoms than the 'official' ones in the UK.

Sometimes he reads too much into trends in data from his app, leading to premature declarations. Probably his most famous clanger was when, as the Delta wave was just beginning in the UK, he claimed in a youtube video that it would only be 'a ripple'. People tended to post less of his thoughts and videos here since I took the piss out of that ridiculous ripple claim.

In regards his latest comments about self-isolation, komodo already posted that same quote in the main UK thread #45,359 so I responded to that subject there.
 
elbows said:
Spector runs the ZOE Covid app, which certainly has its uses.

His pandemic track record is a mixed bag - data from the app has made him useful at times, such as when describing a far broader range of symptoms than the 'official' ones in the UK.

Sometimes he reads too much into trends in data from his app, leading to premature declarations. Probably his most famous clanger was when, as the Delta wave was just beginning in the UK, he claimed in a youtube video that it would only be 'a ripple'. People tended to post less of his thoughts and videos here since I took the piss out of that ridiculous ripple claim.

In regards his latest comments about self-isolation, komodo already posted that same quote in the main UK thread #45,359 so I responded to that subject there.
Click to expand...
If the bottle neck is availability of tests (which it appears to be), then if anything SI should go back up to say 8 days so tests aren't wasted on trying to see if sick people can go back to work.
 
I know what you mean but there is a hell of a lot of pressure on that front because staffing issues are one of the biggest areas of woe in this wave at the moment, and can come with very severe implications when it comes to the health service.
 
elbows said:
I know what you mean but there is a hell of a lot of pressure on that front because staffing issues are one of the biggest areas of woe in this wave at the moment, and can come with very severe implications when it comes to the health service.
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Aware of that more than you know. However was a opinion piece in Times from someone in SAGE from UCL that got pulled after 15mins, that was propping up Sturgeon and her 10days.. though tbf to Sturgeon I think if she had the tests would have come down to 7 for everybody.

Tests are being manufactured in this country - for export only not licensed here (that needs to change), a fuck ton of testswere air freighted over last month (could happen again I suppose) but implyies there it a sea freight problem (most likely at the docks) shit that needs sorting PDQ
 
gosub said:
Aware of that more than you know. However was a opinion piece in Times from someone in SAGE from UCL that got pulled after 15mins, that was propping up Sturgeon and her 10days.. though tbf to Sturgeon I think if she had the tests would have come down to 7 for everybody.

Tests are being manufactured in this country - for export only not licensed here (that needs to change), a fuck ton of testswere air freighted over last month (could happen again I suppose) but implyies there it a sea freight problem (most likely at the docks) shit that needs sorting PDQ
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Ultimately I would always side with people who want to err on the side of minimising direct health risks, ideally by not allowing a situation where this high a proportion of the public are infected in the first place.

And I certainly believe that things like hospital infections are a major part of the pandemic, one that has not received as much attention as it deserves, not even close. So it would be an understatement to say I have mixed feelings about relaxing self-isolation rules. But I cannot ignore the fact that allowing us to get into stupid circumstances then requires some difficult and far less than ideal attempts to rebalance things in order to hope to cope.

And yeah, Spector is certainly not qualified to make calculations about the right balance in regards self isolation rules. Neither am I.
 
elbows said:
Spector runs the ZOE Covid app, which certainly has its uses.

His pandemic track record is a mixed bag - data from the app has made him useful at times, such as when describing a far broader range of symptoms than the 'official' ones in the UK.

Sometimes he reads too much into trends in data from his app, leading to premature declarations. Probably his most famous clanger was when, as the Delta wave was just beginning in the UK, he claimed in a youtube video that it would only be 'a ripple'. People tended to post less of his thoughts and videos here since I took the piss out of that ridiculous ripple claim.

In regards his latest comments about self-isolation, komodo already posted that same quote in the main UK thread #45,359 so I responded to that subject there.
Click to expand...
And it was bullshit there, too.
 
gosub said:
Fuck off. WHO thought what UK did with regards reduction to 7 with two consecutive LFT's was sensible. It is not happy at all with US (and its 5 days). Had to google who Tim Spector is....kindly epxlain what genetic epidemiology has to to with contagion
Click to expand...

Well the Scottish government's experts are:

A dentist.
A GP.
A sociologist.
An anthropologist.
 
existentialist said:
Actually, that's not a bad spread of skills to manage the response to a pandemic. Kudos for using an anthropologist!

Kinda better than a bunch of failed lawyers, and a gang of Oxbridge PPE graduates, anyway :hmm:
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Except that there is one medical degree amongst the lot of them, and that is a basic degree.
 
The version of his 'only a ripple' claims that I mentioned earlier didnt come till Delta, but it seems that he had actually been claiming the same sort of things months earlier, and was slow to adjust to the emerging reality that variants like Delta brought to the picture, even when Delta first arrived.

eg here is a discussion with him in April 2021, before the variant complications were felt:

www.thenakedscientists.com

Will the UK have a 3rd wave of COVID?

We look at the potential for another wave to hit the UK.
www.thenakedscientists.com www.thenakedscientists.com

So does he think we're in for a third wave as we open up?

Tim - No, not this summer and probably not this year. I think we might have a ripple at the end of the year, as the immunity wanes and we get cold weather again, but I'm not seeing what we would now consider a third wave, in my estimation.
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Tim - Well, the 'third wavers' have been relying on modelling, which is always based on a number of assumptions. The data we're seeing from the ZOE app is much more reassuring than a lot of those assumptions, in terms of: the efficacy of the vaccine, in certainly preventing cases, is much higher than was predicted in a lot of those models. And so that's the reason, I think, we have got our case levels so low; this week they're down below 2000 cases a day where we were back in July last year. It's that detail about the vaccine, that we're seeing... even after one shot we're getting 50% less cases, and after two shots we're getting 15 times less cases. That's the thing that heartens me, that we are progressively moving towards herd immunity. That's why I don't think variants - whether they come from abroad or inside - are going to be able to take hold this year.
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Since then we had two variants with major consequences and the original couple of versions of the herd immunity pitches we were given died on their arse. There will be another version once the Omicron wave has subsided, there will be confident claims, some of them may last and some wont stand the test of time. Spector is not utterly useless but he is not a good source for looking at this side of the pandemic at all.
 
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