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Fool me once....

The home for all non-political Coronavirus (Covid-19) discussions on The Lemon Fool
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This is the home for all non-political Coronavirus (Covid-19) discussions on The Lemon Fool
gryffron
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Re: Fool me once....

#420298

Postby gryffron » June 17th, 2021, 10:39 pm

Nimrod103 wrote:*Some younger people will die and get sick from Covid, but the number of disease victims is likely to be much smaller than the number of young people who die or get sick from the side effects of the vaccines.

The amount of school days being lost to covid is still huge. One child tests positive* - whole year group sent home for a fortnight.

Vaccinating children would prevent this. Is that worth it?

Gryff

* and remember, the tests they are using in schools are unreliable and can give false positives. So in many cases school disruption is caused by nothing more than a faulty test result :(

tjh290633
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Re: Fool me once....

#420299

Postby tjh290633 » June 17th, 2021, 10:40 pm

I suspect that, if the restrictions are not removed, we may see civil disobedience on an unprecedented scale. Effectively there could be a revolution against the needless prolongation of restrictions.

TJH

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Re: Fool me once....

#420302

Postby Nimrod103 » June 17th, 2021, 11:01 pm

gryffron wrote:
Nimrod103 wrote:*Some younger people will die and get sick from Covid, but the number of disease victims is likely to be much smaller than the number of young people who die or get sick from the side effects of the vaccines.

The amount of school days being lost to covid is still huge. One child tests positive* - whole year group sent home for a fortnight.

Vaccinating children would prevent this. Is that worth it?

Gryff

* and remember, the tests they are using in schools are unreliable and can give false positives. So in many cases school disruption is caused by nothing more than a faulty test result :(


Why not just cut out the school testing, which is a farce. As if on cue, the latest Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/0 ... e-pioneer/) - Covid testing in schools is hugely disruptive and should be suspended, experts have said, as it emerged that up to 60 per cent of "positive" tests a week are coming back negative when checked.

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Re: Fool me once....

#420305

Postby Lanark » June 17th, 2021, 11:09 pm

murraypaul wrote:The cases are going up in the unvaccinated population, as are hospitalisations.
Which is the argument for delaying further until more people can be vaccinated.
58% of the adult population has been double-vaccinated, which means 42% have not.


It would be interesting to make a chart adjusted to show the % of unvaccinated people getting infected per week instead of the % of all people getting infected per week, it would no doubt be showing a MUCH faster rate of change.

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Re: Fool me once....

#420310

Postby Sunnypad » June 17th, 2021, 11:45 pm

Sane people!!
Thank you.

I had been thinking, the whole board can't be full of crap...

Duly rec'd.

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Re: Fool me once....

#420383

Postby UncleEbenezer » June 18th, 2021, 9:54 am

gryffron wrote:The amount of school days being lost to covid is still huge. One child tests positive* - whole year group sent home for a fortnight.

Vaccinating children would prevent this.

What on Earth brings you to that conclusion?

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Re: Fool me once....

#420405

Postby 88V8 » June 18th, 2021, 10:40 am

I suspect we were on target to unlock as per agenda, until the idiots who had decided to visit unvaccinated India decided it was a good idea to come rushing back, as allowed by the idiot* in No 10.

V8

* for whom I voted

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Re: Fool me once....

#420412

Postby murraypaul » June 18th, 2021, 10:54 am

I'm a little surprised they did delay, but I think there are two key factors.

a) I think they realise that this is the last chance, once they have unlocked then introducing another lockdown would be politically very very difficult or perhaps impossible

b) They screwed it up so badly over the Christmas holidays that it has made them more cautious this time

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Re: Fool me once....

#420428

Postby XFool » June 18th, 2021, 11:26 am

Sunnypad wrote:XFool

I keep an eye on the data and the law

So at present we have about 0.016% of the country testing positive

That's a major increase in the last couple of weeks.

In my local postcode, we have 7 cases which is a 250% increase on last week.

For myself, I don't keep that close an eye on the data.

Sunnypad wrote:I did hear the vicar say "no one is safe till the whole world is vaccinated" which I thought was unfortunate. There are elderly members if the congregation who won't hug their grandkids now.

Sunnypad

I think everything needs to be interpreted correctly and it helps to understand the context. It seems to me that what the vicar said is reasonable (it has been repeated often enough in the public media), but perhaps some are taking it a bit too literally? To me a remark like that sounds as if it is advocating for the generosity of rich countries towards poorer countries in relation to distributing the vaccines - while pointing out that this is actually in our own interests as well. This interpretation sounds to me like what I would expect from a vicar! Perhaps some of his flock take it too literally and feel he is merely frightening them? Why would he do that?

Sunnypad wrote:I'm in a quandary at the moment because I see the insanity of the conspiracy groups but frankly I see insanity in the acceptable line as well.

I am glad you too see "the insanity of the conspiracy groups" - I find it frankly stunning, what it reveals about our fellow men (usually more than women). Who knew?

Then there is all the politically motivated comment, opinions and 'thinking' in the media. Don't get me started...

The virus, the pandemic, is a natural phenomenon in the real world. Viruses don't do politics! Political opinions and ideologically driven beliefs are worthless in the face of physical reality. Physical reality doesn't do politics. I am sure you remember, as I do, that tale from our childhood of a wise king from antiquity who reputedly demonstrated to his sycophantic flatterers that even a king could not order the natural world to obey his commands. Still less a mere prime minister. :)

Sunnypad wrote: And one group will provide practical support (they have already) and one group will not.

I am not sure what you are referring to here.

Sunnypad wrote: There must be some sane "middle way" folk.

There is. Politics aside, I assume the government are trying to follow the best scientific advice available to them and that, IMO, is your "middle way". The media went overboard on "Freedom Day", but it was never a date that could be set by a prime minister. It was always an expectation, an aiming point, that could - if things worked out - be accomplished. But its realisation was always circumscribed by events in the real world, not by what people wanted.

We (and the pandemic) are on a trajectory. All these opinions we hear based on static pictures: "This date; that date; look at this number now" are pretty meaningless. My take on it is that the whole thing is dynamic, it isn't about what this or that data says now. The science is always trying to look forward to predict where we and the virus are going to be.

I keep hearing about "lockdown", but we haven't been in a real lockdown for some time now (some would even say "never"!). We are under various recommendations and restrictions, getting ever more relaxed over time (subject to you know what). Right now there continues to be a race between vaccination of the population and the spread of the virus and its mutations.

But we have vaccines and our trajectory is ultimately knowable in outline, if not known definitely and precisely in time.

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Re: Fool me once....

#420675

Postby Nimrod103 » June 19th, 2021, 8:02 am

XFool wrote: Politics aside, I assume the government are trying to follow the best scientific advice available to them


From the outset I have also assumed this.
Yet the advice of the UK scientists from the outset has been that there is no point in trying to put up barriers to keep the original virus or its variants out. I have heard various SAGE scientists make that point.
Yet because of that scientific advice, we have had to put back Freedom day because of the arrival of the Indian variant. Other nations including continental European countries do not seem to be suffering an Indian wave. So the UK scientists have a clear case to answer IMHO.

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Re: Fool me once....

#420699

Postby Itsallaguess » June 19th, 2021, 10:31 am

Nimrod103 wrote:
Other nations including continental European countries do not seem to be suffering an Indian wave.

So the UK scientists have a clear case to answer IMHO.


I think you'd probably find that the UK scientists answer might be to simply say 'Shall we give it a little time...?'

The Delta (‘Indian’) variant of Covid-19 is spreading in southwest France, with 114 confirmed new cases and 134 suspected cases reported this week.

The new numbers were confirmed by Didier Couteaud, departmental manager at regional health agency l'Agence régionale de santé (ARS) Nouvelle-Aquitaine.

The 114 confirmed cases have been sequenced and screened, while the other 134 cases are awaiting confirmation but are probably the Delta variant, the ARS said.

During a press conference, Landes prefect Cécile Bigot-Dekeyzer said: “The health situation is improving, [but the Delta variant] is definitely present and spreading. It is starting to appear in other parts of the country [too].”

In Landes, 15 out of 18 communities are now affected, compared to just six last week, when only 30 cases had been identified. Now, “30% of cases [in Landes] are of the Delta variant”, the prefect said.

Mr Couteaud at the ARS said: “We only have partial results so far, but in 99% of cases it’s the Delta variant that is showing up. The Delta variant is increasing, but we are seeing a drop in the number of positive cases in the department. The [Delta] variant is ‘eating’ the others, so to speak.”


https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/114-cases-of-Covid-19-Delta-variant-traced-in-southwest-France-in-Landes


France has a low number of Covid-19 cases linked to the Delta variant but so did the UK just a few weeks ago, the [French] government has warned. So is France at risk of another spike in Covid-19 cases just as things are looking good on the epidemic front?

France’s health minister Olivier Veran said on Tuesday that the levels of the Delta variant (first discovered in India) in France remain low.

Nevertheless it came with a warning that France is currently seeing the same level of infections involving the Delta variant as were seen in the UK just 3 to 4 weeks ago.


https://www.thelocal.fr/20210615/covid-variants-is-france-likely-to-see-a-resurgence-like-that-in-the-uk/

It's not clear, but did you think they'd found some magic way of keeping these more infectious variants out?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

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Re: Fool me once....

#420711

Postby Nimrod103 » June 19th, 2021, 11:17 am

Itsallaguess wrote:
Nimrod103 wrote:
Other nations including continental European countries do not seem to be suffering an Indian wave.

So the UK scientists have a clear case to answer IMHO.


I think you'd probably find that the UK scientists answer might be to simply say 'Shall we give it a little time...?'

The Delta (‘Indian’) variant of Covid-19 is spreading in southwest France, with 114 confirmed new cases and 134 suspected cases reported this week.

The new numbers were confirmed by Didier Couteaud, departmental manager at regional health agency l'Agence régionale de santé (ARS) Nouvelle-Aquitaine.

The 114 confirmed cases have been sequenced and screened, while the other 134 cases are awaiting confirmation but are probably the Delta variant, the ARS said.

During a press conference, Landes prefect Cécile Bigot-Dekeyzer said: “The health situation is improving, [but the Delta variant] is definitely present and spreading. It is starting to appear in other parts of the country [too].”

In Landes, 15 out of 18 communities are now affected, compared to just six last week, when only 30 cases had been identified. Now, “30% of cases [in Landes] are of the Delta variant”, the prefect said.

Mr Couteaud at the ARS said: “We only have partial results so far, but in 99% of cases it’s the Delta variant that is showing up. The Delta variant is increasing, but we are seeing a drop in the number of positive cases in the department. The [Delta] variant is ‘eating’ the others, so to speak.”


https://www.connexionfrance.com/French-news/114-cases-of-Covid-19-Delta-variant-traced-in-southwest-France-in-Landes


France has a low number of Covid-19 cases linked to the Delta variant but so did the UK just a few weeks ago, the [French] government has warned. So is France at risk of another spike in Covid-19 cases just as things are looking good on the epidemic front?

France’s health minister Olivier Veran said on Tuesday that the levels of the Delta variant (first discovered in India) in France remain low.

Nevertheless it came with a warning that France is currently seeing the same level of infections involving the Delta variant as were seen in the UK just 3 to 4 weeks ago.


https://www.thelocal.fr/20210615/covid-variants-is-france-likely-to-see-a-resurgence-like-that-in-the-uk/

It's not clear, but did you think they'd found some magic way of keeping these more infectious variants out?

Cheers,

Itsallaguess


We may indeed just be a few weeks ahead of continental Europe in terms of Covid Delta (India) spread. Unfortunately had the SAGE advice been to close the borders earlier to the Indian variant, we could have been on the same track as Europe, which would have bought us some time and got more people vaccinated before the variant arrived in force.
I am not happy that SAGE scientists seem to have got off scot free in this epidemic. I note that some MPs were calling for Chris Whitty's knighthood to be witheld a bit longer until there was more evidence of responsibility/culpability.

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Re: Fool me once....

#420712

Postby Lanark » June 19th, 2021, 11:34 am

"no one is safe until the whole world is vaccinated"

This is absolutely the case, we need 70%+ vaccinated across every country in the world. A lot of places are still at around 10%

Unfortunately you can't negotiate with a virus, so if you want unrestricted international travel, that is what needs to happen.

The difficulty is that some of the vaccines cost $17 per dose, in countries where the average salary is $1 /day thats going to be a hard sell.

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Re: Fool me once....

#420713

Postby Lanark » June 19th, 2021, 11:42 am

Nimrod103 wrote:Unfortunately had the SAGE advice been to close the borders earlier to the Indian variant, we could have been on the same track as Europe

Scientific advice is always based on observed facts, so it is always going to be looking out of the back window. Politicians are supposed to be able to use a modicum of common sense and spot trends they can react to, even if the evidence isn't in yet.

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Re: Fool me once....

#420716

Postby murraypaul » June 19th, 2021, 12:12 pm

Closing borders, like adding India to the red list, is a purely political decision.

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Re: Fool me once....

#420724

Postby XFool » June 19th, 2021, 1:00 pm

Lanark wrote:Scientific advice is always based on observed facts, so it is always going to be looking out of the back window. Politicians are supposed to be able to use a modicum of common sense and spot trends they can react to, even if the evidence isn't in yet.

I don't agree with that at all - indeed I feel it is a complete misunderstanding.

The whole endeavour of the scientific modelling etc. of the pandemic is to attempt to predict where real world things are likely headed. The point of that is to tell the politicians in advance what is likely to happen, so they can then decided what they need to do, or are prepared to do, to avoid it or prepare for it.

There has been criticism that UK politicians have not always reacted appropriately promptly on the basis of the information (predictions) they had available. At least not until the real world started to catch up with the predictions, but that meant the political decisions ("common sense"?) came rather too late.

I merely report this without expressing an opinion on the matter.

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Re: Fool me once....

#420734

Postby Nimrod103 » June 19th, 2021, 1:43 pm

XFool wrote:
Lanark wrote:Scientific advice is always based on observed facts, so it is always going to be looking out of the back window. Politicians are supposed to be able to use a modicum of common sense and spot trends they can react to, even if the evidence isn't in yet.

I don't agree with that at all - indeed I feel it is a complete misunderstanding.

The whole endeavour of the scientific modelling etc. of the pandemic is to attempt to predict where real world things are likely headed. The point of that is to tell the politicians in advance what is likely to happen, so they can then decided what they need to do, or are prepared to do, to avoid it or prepare for it.

There has been criticism that UK politicians have not always reacted appropriately promptly on the basis of the information (predictions) they had available. At least not until the real world started to catch up with the predictions, but that meant the political decisions ("common sense"?) came rather too late.

I merely report this without expressing an opinion on the matter.


I agree with what you have written about the use of scientific modelling in prediction. But do we actually know whether any decisions were taken for political reasons against scientific advice? Is there any evidence of that?

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Re: Fool me once....

#420736

Postby XFool » June 19th, 2021, 1:47 pm

Nimrod103 wrote:I agree with what you have written about the use of scientific modelling in prediction. But do we actually know whether any decisions were taken for political reasons against scientific advice? Is there any evidence of that?

I am not really sure. Which is why I didn't offer my opinion. My impression, from reports in the media, is less political decision than perhaps political inertia.

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Re: Fool me once....

#420742

Postby Nimrod103 » June 19th, 2021, 2:07 pm

XFool wrote:
Nimrod103 wrote:I agree with what you have written about the use of scientific modelling in prediction. But do we actually know whether any decisions were taken for political reasons against scientific advice? Is there any evidence of that?

I am not really sure. Which is why I didn't offer my opinion. My impression, from reports in the media, is less political decision than perhaps political inertia.


That doesn't really answer my point. Whether it is decision or inertia, we should probably believe the scientific advise given by Whitty, Vallance, SAGE etc was consistent with the decisions made. Boris early on made it clear that Covid decisions were his and the government's alone. But really all he was saying was a statement of the constitutional position that the Govt was in control, not some unelected body of scientists. I don't think there is any evidence of any decisions being made that were not suggested or supported by the scientists, yet the politicians will ultimately take the cudos for what goes right and the rap for what goes wrong.

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Re: Fool me once....

#420745

Postby Julian » June 19th, 2021, 2:36 pm

XFool wrote:
Lanark wrote:Scientific advice is always based on observed facts, so it is always going to be looking out of the back window. Politicians are supposed to be able to use a modicum of common sense and spot trends they can react to, even if the evidence isn't in yet.

I don't agree with that at all - indeed I feel it is a complete misunderstanding.

The whole endeavour of the scientific modelling etc. of the pandemic is to attempt to predict where real world things are likely headed. The point of that is to tell the politicians in advance what is likely to happen, so they can then decided what they need to do, or are prepared to do, to avoid it or prepare for it.

There has been criticism that UK politicians have not always reacted appropriately promptly on the basis of the information (predictions) they had available. At least not until the real world started to catch up with the predictions, but that meant the political decisions ("common sense"?) came rather too late.

I merely report this without expressing an opinion on the matter.


One problem I see with the science underlying all of these decisions is the confidence in the accuracy of the models.

In the engineering world modelling can be spectacularly accurate, e.g. the finite element analyses used by major automotive manufacturers to crash test their cars using computer simulations rather than real physical prototypes, but the car manufacturers have that level of confidence in their modelling because they have spent literally decades back-testing their models against copious amounts of data from real life experiments and tuning their models as necessary where deviations between simulation and reality were found. It is also, compared to a pandemic, a relatively constrained problem.

To me there seems to be a pretty much impossible number of variables that can affect the future progression of a pandemic e.g. numerous individual characteristics of the pathogen itself (or pathogens when dealing with mutations), local climates and demography of outbreak locations, population densities and behaviours, local restrictions in place, vaccination and medication efficacy not to mention differing time functions for achieving efficacy, etc, etc, etc. Then couple that with the limited number of large scale pandemics for which reliable large granular data sets are available, and that's even if one epidemic or pandemic could realistically be compared with another due to the vast number of variables I just mentioned; there seems to me to be little meaningful opportunity to back-test models against past experience in a way that is likely to significantly increase confidence in a model's ability to predict the path of the next pandemic(*).

Putting those two factors together, the huge number of variables and the lack of any significant amount of meaningful data to back-test against, and I really am left wondering just how much uncertainty and variation there might have been in the various models that the government was looking at in the early days, and presumably still now. I would not be surprised if the uncertainty range was so huge between the best, mid and worst case predictions across the whole set of models out there such that it left a massive amount of room for political instincts to become a major factor at all stages while still remaining at least within the best/worst case bounds.

- Julian

(*) I would love to be wrong and for this pandemic to not only herald a huge boost in vaccination and other medical technology but also be the start of a step-change in the accuracy of pandemic modelling. I am sure many epidemiologists are seeing this as the most exciting time ever for epidemic/pandemic modelling in terms of the amount of data being collected around the world and I would be quite surprised if we don't see an awful lot of back-testing happening over the current years to try and improve the whole science of modelling this stuff but I just fear that it is all too complex to ever get to a point where confidence levels in such models can ever be that high. Time will tell I suppose and I would love to be wrong.


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