Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

[Mike4]

Not that I've seen. Although I think there have been 14 million or so known cases across the world, and as far as I know they haven't found anyone who has "got it" twice yet. I think it's one of those things that is difficult to prove scientifically, but anecdotally it appears to be the case, although it isn't known how long such an immunity lasts.

There are 'lots' of anecdotal cases of people getting it twice according to Dr Martenson. He did an in depth video recently examining the possibility and includes an interview with the doctor husband of one proven case. The doctor's wife caught it, recovered including negative PCR tests, then caught it again three months later IIRC. Will see if I can find it.

Here it is. He's rather 'hyper' in delivery but his content seems thorough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhyEBIpaIaM

P.S. skip forward and start watching at 2.00 minutes where discussion of this subject begins.

There were reports only a few days ago suggesting that immunity after infection only lasts a few months

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-immunity-may-only-last-a-few-months-study-suggests-12027655

There have been reports of people getting it twice going back as far as February, thereby illustrating this point. I've not seen any statistical analysis of people getting it twice though. If the chance of getting it once in a six month period is say one in 1000, are the chances of getting it twice in six months one in a million (assuming no immunity is derived from the first infection)?

[PinkDalek]

The same one in a thousand chance, isn’t it?

[Maroochydore]

I used to think that the "Man eaten by shark dies of coronavirus" meme was a joke. It turns out that Public Health England (PHE) treat this as a rule, because they've been recording any death of a person who has tested positive for coronavirus as a coronavirus death. PHE has thus decided that it is impossible to recover from the coronavirus, even if you have recovered. A truly spectacular error, one that the country will be paying for for decades.

Absolutely correct - the example I read this morning was a poor soul who tested positive for coronavirus and later died in a road traffic accident.

Yep, was counted as a Covid death.

The good news is all the 'statistics' are now under review. The bad news is PHE is carrying out the review.

Prepare to cover behinds.

[UncleEbenezer]

Absolutely correct - the example I read this morning was a poor soul who tested positive for coronavirus and later died in a road traffic accident.

Yep, was counted as a Covid death.

Failed the Barnard Castle eye test?

Sorry, I'll get me coat. Noting the possibly-serious point that if the covid aftermath affected his/her driving, it might indeed be implicated.

[Nimrod103]

There are 'lots' of anecdotal cases of people getting it twice according to Dr Martenson. He did an in depth video recently examining the possibility and includes an interview with the doctor husband of one proven case. The doctor's wife caught it, recovered including negative PCR tests, then caught it again three months later IIRC. Will see if I can find it.

Here it is. He's rather 'hyper' in delivery but his content seems thorough.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhyEBIpaIaM

P.S. skip forward and start watching at 2.00 minutes where discussion of this subject begins.

There were reports only a few days ago suggesting that immunity after infection only lasts a few months

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-immunity-may-only-last-a-few-months-study-suggests-12027655

There have been reports of people getting it twice going back as far as February, thereby illustrating this point. I've not seen any statistical analysis of people getting it twice though. If the chance of getting it once in a six month period is say one in 1000, are the chances of getting it twice in six months one in a million (assuming no immunity is derived from the first infection)?

AIUI there is no clear evidence of anybody in the World catching this virus a second time. Repeat positive tests after people supposedly recovered from the first infection are, AIUI, being attributed to poor or inaccurate tests, or the tests picking fragments of the RNA of the virus, which has been destroyed and is no longer infectious.

My personal opinion is that once many further studies and analyses are carried out around the World, it will be found that much of the testing was incredibly inaccurate in its results.

[GoSeigen]

I used to think that the "Man eaten by shark dies of coronavirus" meme was a joke. It turns out that Public Health England (PHE) treat this as a rule, because they've been recording any death of a person who has tested positive for coronavirus as a coronavirus death. PHE has thus decided that it is impossible to recover from the coronavirus, even if you have recovered. A truly spectacular error, one that the country will be paying for for decades.

Absolutely correct - the example I read this morning was a poor soul who tested positive for coronavirus and later died in a road traffic accident.

Yep, was counted as a Covid death.

Link or reference please.


GS

[swill453]

Absolutely correct - the example I read this morning was a poor soul who tested positive for coronavirus and later died in a road traffic accident.

Yep, was counted as a Covid death.

Link or reference please.

It doesn't look like it's a very big issue. Only 10% of the deaths occur more than 28 days after a positive test, and nearly half of those have Covid on the death certificate anyway https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53443724

Scott.

[zico]

I used to think that the "Man eaten by shark dies of coronavirus" meme was a joke. It turns out that Public Health England (PHE) treat this as a rule, because they've been recording any death of a person who has tested positive for coronavirus as a coronavirus death. PHE has thus decided that it is impossible to recover from the coronavirus, even if you have recovered. A truly spectacular error, one that the country will be paying for for decades.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-health-secretary-matt-hancock-orders-urgent-review-into-public-health-england-death-data-12030392

Imagine setting policy on the basis of the figures produced by a department that is this incompetent. We don't need to imagine this because that is what has been happening. So much for our "world class civil service".

Apparently there are 80,000 Covid patients who've been treated successfully in hospital and sent home.
I've had a stab at estimating what difference this might make in practice.

Let's assume the successfully treated patients are from the 70-85 year old age group, and recovered Covid patients have the same mortality rate as people who've never contracted the disease.
There are 7.160 million people in the UK in this age group, and 206,000 die every year, a 2.8% mortality rate.
So of the 80,000 recovered Covid patients, we'd expect 2.8% of them to die anyway in the next 12 months.
That's 2,300 deaths per year, which equates to 6 per day that would have happened regardless of Covid.
(You can use different assumptions, but we're talking about ball-park figures here).

What this means is that this method of counting overestimates the number of Covid deaths by 2,300/45,000 = 5%. So it will have very little effect on the scale of the first wave deaths.
It will however make a significant difference to the daily reported deaths figures as they (hopefully) get lower, because 6 per day is a big percentage difference if the numbers decrease further.
The current 7-day moving average is 83 deaths per day, so unlikely that an overcount of 6 per day is going to mislead the public or lead to incorrect decision-making.

ONS figures of excess deaths remain the best indicator of the scale of the pandemic, and these are unaffected by this latest development.

[scotia]

ONS figures of excess deaths remain the best indicator of the scale of the pandemic, and these are unaffected by this latest development.

Agreed - and ignore all others!

[servodude]

ONS figures of excess deaths remain the best indicator of the scale of the pandemic, and these are unaffected by this latest development.

Agreed - and ignore all others!

Well, that might suggest to some that the best plan is do nothing, let it become endemic and wait.
Then after 3 years you can point to how you're back within a baw hair of the 5 year average.

Actually...

-sd

[Alaric]

It will however make a significant difference to the daily reported deaths figures as they (hopefully) get lower, because 6 per day is a big percentage difference if the numbers decrease further.
The current 7-day moving average is 83 deaths per day, so unlikely that an overcount of 6 per day is going to mislead the public or lead to incorrect decision-making.

ONS figures of excess deaths remain the best indicator of the scale of the pandemic, and these are unaffected by this latest development.

It's also worth noting that even if or perhaps when the disease is completely eliminated, that method of preparing statistics would continue to indicate the presence.

Working backwards from the number of deaths is also an attempt to estimate the number infected, so it should be important to measure the count without distortion.

[scotia]

ONS figures of excess deaths remain the best indicator of the scale of the pandemic, and these are unaffected by this latest development.

Agreed - and ignore all others!

Well, that might suggest to some that the best plan is do nothing, let it become endemic and wait.
Then after 3 years you can point to how you're back within a baw hair of the 5 year average.

Actually...

-sd

I'm puzzled by your response. This particular thread concerned possible inaccuracies in the number of deaths recorded in English death certificates as being due to Covid-19. I was agreeing with Servodude, and re-iterating my previously expressed view that the best way to evaluate the number of such deaths is to compare the current number of deaths with the average curves of mortality over a number of recent years. This avoids all bias as to whether or not the death certificate correctly or otherwise states that the death is due to Covid-19. I have no idea why you think that this method of computing the deaths due to Covid-19 somehow equates to doing nothing and letting it become endemic. Indeed at the beginning of the outbreak, this method of measuring excess deaths was shown to produce a significantly higher number than the Covid-19 deaths recorded on death certificates - i.e. it was showing up the problem to be more significant than was thought to be the case.

[servodude]

Agreed - and ignore all others!

Well, that might suggest to some that the best plan is do nothing, let it become endemic and wait.
Then after 3 years you can point to how you're back within a baw hair of the 5 year average.

Actually...

-sd

I'm puzzled by your response. This particular thread concerned possible inaccuracies in the number of deaths recorded in English death certificates as being due to Covid-19. I was agreeing with Servodude, and re-iterating my previously expressed view that the best way to evaluate the number of such deaths is to compare the current number of deaths with the average curves of mortality over a number of recent years. This avoids all bias as to whether or not the death certificate correctly or otherwise states that the death is due to Covid-19. I have no idea why you think that this method of computing the deaths due to Covid-19 somehow equates to doing nothing and letting it become endemic. Indeed at the beginning of the outbreak, this method of measuring excess deaths was shown to produce a significantly higher number than the Covid-19 deaths recorded on death certificates - i.e. it was showing up the problem to be more significant than was thought to be the case.

I agree totally.
My opaque, cynical and pithy observation was that after a few years of elevated deaths you're no longer going to be much above average, even if you do nothing.
So if that becomes a target, Goodwin's Law might take over? And the path of least resistance to meet the target is to sit on your hands for a few years.

Probably needed a winky or something also...

-sd

[GoSeigen]

A truly spectacular error, one that the country will be paying for for decades.

What this means is that this method of counting overestimates the number of Covid deaths by 2,300/45,000 = 5%. So it will have very little effect on the scale of the first wave deaths.
It will however make a significant difference to the daily reported deaths figures as they (hopefully) get lower, because 6 per day is a big percentage difference if the numbers decrease further.

Hey, don't let a bit of common sense get in the way of spectacular hyperbole!


GS

[SalvorHardin]

A truly spectacular error, one that the country will be paying for for decades.

What this means is that this method of counting overestimates the number of Covid deaths by 2,300/45,000 = 5%. So it will have very little effect on the scale of the first wave deaths.
It will however make a significant difference to the daily reported deaths figures as they (hopefully) get lower, because 6 per day is a big percentage difference if the numbers decrease further.

Hey, don't let a bit of common sense get in the way of spectacular hyperbole!

Sneer all you like. You might think that it's "spectacular hyperbole", but to me (and many others) it undermines confidence in the rest of their work.

Given such a mistake, and others such as PHE stating that no-one ever recovers from the coronavirus (despite there being millions of examples of such), why should we assume that the rest of their work is 100% accurate?

There's never just one cockroach in the kitchen.

[ursaminortaur]

Given such a mistake, and others such as PHE stating that no-one ever recovers from the coronavirus (despite there being millions of examples of such), why should we assume that the rest of their work is 100% accurate?

I haven't seen reports of PHE stating that but whether it was a mistake would depend exactly what they meant. They could just have meant that it causes problems which will stay with you for life or they may mean that like the chickenpox virus it remains in the body after you appeared to have recovered and may flare up again causing either the same or different symptoms as happens when the chickenpox virus causes Shingles.
(Though I can't say I've heard any definitive reports stating that it does remain hidden in the body after people recover.)

https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/chickenpox/

When you get chickenpox, the virus stays in your body. It can be triggered again if your immune system is low and cause shingles.

This can be because of stress, certain conditions, or treatments like chemotherapy.

[johnhemming]

The quality of the scientific reporting by government about this is particularly low. In particular ranges of uncertainty are reported too much as a certainty. This particular reporting failure is symptomatic of a lack of intellectual rigour in the whole process.

[servodude]

Does anyone with more than two braincells ever assume anything is 100% accurate?

I take just about everything a government says with a pinch of salt; believing to a big degree that they'll say what they think people want to hear rather than what they believe it's the truth. (I know they're not all like that but it's politics for it's own sake mostly.)

Having said that I do look where they put their money and I do know that the firm I'm currently contracting with, for servo work on NIV ventilators, has had a significant amount of cash thrown at them (by an Australian state govt) given the previlence of COPD symptoms in COVID survivors to develop/morph biLevel CPAP in to a home treatment.
And they're relishing it as a market going forward; to them it's as though you could catch apoena or emphysema from the guy next to you in the tube.
I'm a bit pissed off as I turned down a great fun contract making cardboard drones to bomb people because of ethical concerns; turns out there's an oversupply of unethical fuds in the medical devices domain too.

-sd

[johnhemming]

Does anyone with more than two braincells ever assume anything is 100% accurate?

It depends really on what you define as the "two braincells" threshold. There is a form of assumption of certainty in media coverage and reporting. (aka The Westminster Bubble). This in part arises from the challenge of writing reports which correctly report the certainty of the underlying information. It also tends to feed into parliamentary debates. (and others in political bodies).

[GoSeigen]

The quality of the scientific reporting by government about this is particularly low. In particular ranges of uncertainty are reported too much as a certainty. This particular reporting failure is symptomatic of a lack of intellectual rigour in the whole process.

Situation normal IMO. Especially only six months into a completely novel virus and rare pandemic. Everyone makes mistakes, government bureaucracies more often then private sector arguably, but if my kids made a mistake I'd not label them spectacularly incompetent. One fixes one's mistakes and tries to learn from them. I'd be amazed if this particular mistake weren't fixed in due course; whether the lesson will be learned for future pandemics is harder to answer: possibly, but if the next comparable pandemic doesn't turn up for another 100 years then whoever learned the lesson is gone, right?


GS