Coronavirus - General Chat - No statistics

[XFool]

Independent Sage:

WEEKLY BRIEFING 2ND JULY 2021

Latest numbers on COVID-19 in the UK – 2nd July 2021

https://www.independentsage.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/07/WeeklySlides_2July2021.pdf

"With our excellent vaccination programme plus better public health measures we don’t need to
reach population immunity through infection and its consequences but that seems to be the plan.
It’s a terrible plan."

[1nvest]

I think people who think this is all a hoax will never get a "wake up call" from anything in the external world. The nature of such people being, effectively, to deny reality itself.

The problem is that according to PHE sometime ago, 80% of sufferers only get a up to a mild illness and up to 30% of sufferers actually get no symptoms at all: hence the whole problem of the asymptomatic spreaders totally unaware that they have it.

So amongst those who think it all a hoax perpetuated by the Illuminati, Prince Philip, the Masons etc and the vax converts your rear end into a 5G transmitter there will be quite a few who fall into the above 80% or 30% categories.
While the unfit, old, obese and existing ill deniers may get the wake up call, the rest will have the suspicions confirmed when they test positive and find that much as they suspected - that for them its like a winter's cold of varying severity or has nowt effect on them at all.
Rather than getting a wakeup call they are going to get mad, as they will in their eyes have proved themselves right all along.

Not having 20% of the population vaccinated is a good diversification. If in five, ten, whatever years the hastily tested vaccine is associated to causing blindness in 100% of cases, or major birth defects ... whatever !!!

[servodude]

I think people who think this is all a hoax will never get a "wake up call" from anything in the external world. The nature of such people being, effectively, to deny reality itself.

The problem is that according to PHE sometime ago, 80% of sufferers only get a up to a mild illness and up to 30% of sufferers actually get no symptoms at all: hence the whole problem of the asymptomatic spreaders totally unaware that they have it.

So amongst those who think it all a hoax perpetuated by the Illuminati, Prince Philip, the Masons etc and the vax converts your rear end into a 5G transmitter there will be quite a few who fall into the above 80% or 30% categories.
While the unfit, old, obese and existing ill deniers may get the wake up call, the rest will have the suspicions confirmed when they test positive and find that much as they suspected - that for them its like a winter's cold of varying severity or has nowt effect on them at all.
Rather than getting a wakeup call they are going to get mad, as they will in their eyes have proved themselves right all along.

Not having 20% of the population vaccinated is a good diversification. If in five, ten, whatever years the hastily tested vaccine is associated to causing blindness in 100% of cases, or major birth defects ... whatever !!!

Why do you think it was hastily tested?
- try and draw comparisons with other drugs

-sd

[1nvest]

Why do you think it was hastily tested?

What if the vaccine does cause unidentified conception through birth defects? Clinical trials cannot possibly have had the time to test/observe such.

What if Covid only kills 0.2% of a population, data suggests that most have mild/no symptoms whereas the relatively small percentage that it does kill may already have been killed by it.

Forcing vaccination onto all, care staff sacked if they refuse, not allowed to travel ...etc. is something you'd more usually associate with China, such as mass surveillance/loss of privacy which is also massive in the UK. Abuse and torture also, such as the imprisonment and isolation of patients in care homes, loss of human rights etc.

Proportionately there were fewer deaths in 2020 than in 1976 the year of a heat wave. Sweden who were much more relaxed have seen fewer deaths than some other EU states, more than yet others, inconclusive that imposed imprisonment actually helped on the Covid front, whilst having caused many many other issues/deaths.

Current rates are of the order 20,000/day contractions, 20/day deaths (0.1%) ... relative to around 1500/day deaths that more usually/generally occur, mostly as a result of Cancer, Heart, Dementia conditions and where for many with such risk/conditions the usual pre-Covid standard of identification/treatment/care is massively lower nowadays.

[murraypaul]

Current rates are of the order 20,000/day contractions, 20/day deaths (0.1%)

Do you think that possibly the low numbers are due to the vaccine?

[XFool]

Current rates are of the order 20,000/day contractions, 20/day deaths (0.1%) ... relative to around 1500/day deaths that more usually/generally occur, mostly as a result of Cancer, Heart, Dementia conditions and where for many with such risk/conditions the usual pre-Covid standard of identification/treatment/care is massively lower nowadays.

Right from the early day of this pandemic something quite odd has struck me. It has struck me again and again, over the last two years.

The unarguable and repeated inability of a proportion of the population to grasp the (I think) very simple concept of 'infectious'. From ex-high court judges down, to commentators in newspapers and magazines, politicians and others interviewed on radio and television, to posters on bulletin boards, to people in the street. All rushed to demonstrate - often by false analogy - their apparent incomprehension.

Sure, I have little doubt that some of those are both far more intelligent and much better educated than I am. I bet they can give a more exact and succinct dictionary description of the word than I, likely explain its linguistic root - Latin, Greek whatever. It's relation to other words, both in English and other languages. I can't.

But the mystery remains: Why can they not grasp its meaning; the very concept and its real world implications?

It's one of those many mysteries of human beings, usually hidden from sight, lying in wait, to be outed following some striking and unusual circumstances in the world - such as a global pandemic.

It has been my 'takeaway' lesson from the pandemic.

[Mike4]

According to the news this morning Robert Jenrick says after July 19th "Freedom Day", the wearing of masks will be a matter of personal choice, and we may still choose to wear them if we wish.

Have our ministers still not grasped the we wear masks to protect other people, not ourselves?

My wish is other people will still wear them, particularly those who deny there is any sort of Covid problem. They are the most likely to infect me.

[XFool]

My wish is other people will still wear them, particularly those who deny there is any sort of Covid problem. They are the most likely to infect me.

Bad luck! They are the people least likely to wear them, surely?

[Mike4]

My wish is other people will still wear them, particularly those who deny there is any sort of Covid problem. They are the most likely to infect me.

Bad luck! They are the people least likely to wear them, surely?

Yes, that was the whole point of my post!

[servodude]

It has been my 'takeaway' lesson from the pandemic.

Mine was the takeaway will be the last thing to close during a lockdown

[dealtn]

The unarguable and repeated inability of a proportion of the population to grasp the (I think) very simple concept of 'infectious'. From ex-high court judges down, to commentators in newspapers and magazines, politicians and others interviewed on radio and television, to posters on bulletin boards, to people in the street. All rushed to demonstrate - often by false analogy - their apparent incomprehension.

What proportion do you think that is? I would think the majority understand the concept of infectious quite easily. Anyone who has lived in a house with someone with a cold, and then subsequently got "the sniffles" should understand it readily.

There is perhaps another proportion of the population that don't seem to understand how people can simultaneously grasp "infectious" as a valid concept, but also not agree with every single "essential measure" to combat it with respect to Covid.

[Mike4]

The unarguable and repeated inability of a proportion of the population to grasp the (I think) very simple concept of 'infectious'. From ex-high court judges down, to commentators in newspapers and magazines, politicians and others interviewed on radio and television, to posters on bulletin boards, to people in the street. All rushed to demonstrate - often by false analogy - their apparent incomprehension.

What proportion do you think that is? I would think the majority understand the concept of infectious quite easily. Anyone who has lived in a house with someone with a cold, and then subsequently got "the sniffles" should understand it readily.

I'd estimate it at about 10%. So nothing like a majority but enough for the false comparison to be made on here regularly.

There is perhaps another proportion of the population that don't seem to understand how people can simultaneously grasp "infectious" as a valid concept, but also not agree with every single "essential measure" to combat it with respect to Covid.

True, but this is a straw man. We are discussing people comparing steady state road deaths with Covid deaths that grow exponentially without intervention, and suggesting they are equivalent.

[dealtn]

The unarguable and repeated inability of a proportion of the population to grasp the (I think) very simple concept of 'infectious'. From ex-high court judges down, to commentators in newspapers and magazines, politicians and others interviewed on radio and television, to posters on bulletin boards, to people in the street. All rushed to demonstrate - often by false analogy - their apparent incomprehension.

What proportion do you think that is? I would think the majority understand the concept of infectious quite easily. Anyone who has lived in a house with someone with a cold, and then subsequently got "the sniffles" should understand it readily.

I'd estimate it at about 10%. So nothing like a majority but enough for the false comparison to be made on here regularly.

There is perhaps another proportion of the population that don't seem to understand how people can simultaneously grasp "infectious" as a valid concept, but also not agree with every single "essential measure" to combat it with respect to Covid.

True, but this is a straw man. We are discussing people comparing steady state road deaths with Covid deaths that grow exponentially without intervention, and suggesting they are equivalent.

I don't think it is a straw man though.

In general I agree, but not every comparison of a "road death" and a "covid death" involving "exponential" or "infectious" is by someone who doesn't understand this concept. That "equivalence" isn't misunderstood by many, including hopefully advisers. It does feel some don't understand how it is not every comparison between "steady state" and "non-linear" that is false.

Measles is a horribly infectious disease. If it arrived on these shores for the first time this year and killed multiple 1,000s and the long-measles version caused significant blindness I am sure society would be throwing multiple billions of pounds at locking down and developing a vaccine. Similar to Covid. But years down the line when it is endemic but only affecting a few, rightly more time and effort is spent on trying to cure cancer, for example. Or the prevention of those "steady state" road deaths.

The existence of the infectious nature of measles, or the non-linear potential of it, hasn't changed - yet the swing from "measles" to "road death" as a societal concern will occur. At some point the same will be true of Covid.

[Gersemi]

I think the thing most people seem to fail to grasp is there is no such thing as a 'Covid secure' environment. Protective measures can be taken, but as long as people are within a sufficiently close contact with one another (however briefly) there is a chance of becoming infected if the other person is infected. Essesentially in putting in place restrictions we are saying we are going to allow a certain level of risk, but we are going to chose where to allow that risk to take place. Eg the supermarket, because people need to buy food, schools because education is important etc etc.

So you get people saying why can X be allowed, but not Y - the risk is similar. But the point is that if you allow X and Y then you have doubled the risk (or more). So to limit the spread you have to chose which activities you are going to allow.

Still I'm sure infections will go down soon - plenty of people have said that every time we have had a lockdown infections were going down already, so we don't actually need to restrict anything to get infections to go down. Or does that only work if we know restrictions are coming up?

[Julian]

The unarguable and repeated inability of a proportion of the population to grasp the (I think) very simple concept of 'infectious'. From ex-high court judges down, to commentators in newspapers and magazines, politicians and others interviewed on radio and television, to posters on bulletin boards, to people in the street. All rushed to demonstrate - often by false analogy - their apparent incomprehension.

What proportion do you think that is? I would think the majority understand the concept of infectious quite easily. Anyone who has lived in a house with someone with a cold, and then subsequently got "the sniffles" should understand it readily.

There is perhaps another proportion of the population that don't seem to understand how people can simultaneously grasp "infectious" as a valid concept, but also not agree with every single "essential measure" to combat it with respect to Covid.

I think there are at least three groups of "don't understand" people at play here...

1 - Those who genuinely don't seem to grasp the concept.

2 - Those that are anti some or all of the various lockdown restrictions and simply choose to cite numbers and arguments that ignore the infectious aspects in order to make their case to those who might not be particularly critical or analytical thinkers hence might not notice the omission, or those that are in group 1 above in which case they'll probably swallow that anti-lockdowner's arguments hook, line and sinker.

3 - Those who do actually understand infectiousness but don't really fully grasp its potential consequences because they have no intuitive understanding of the concept of exponential growth. Put those people in front of the chess board demonstration when you put one grain of rice on the first square, 2 on the second, 4 on the third and carry on doubling until you get to crazy amounts of rice where you need to draw pictures to represent just how much rice you would be trying to fit onto pretty much any square after the first row. And even if you did put such people in front of that chess board I suspect many would go away thinking it was some sort of deceit and just couldn't be right. As a computer scientist it's second nature to me but I do sort of understand how some people who haven't lived and breathed the concept for their entire adult lives (and much of my childhood in my case) simply can't seem to form a really visceral connection with the concept.

I strongly suspect that group 3 above is the most prevalent. I know technically that isn't a group XFool was citing since they maybe do understand the concept of infectiousness but due to their lack of a true appreciation of exponential growth they are unable to effectively apply that concept to a pandemic of a highly infectious virus and really appreciate what might happen, or in the case of this current pandemic might have happened, had lockdown restrictions and now other attenuating factors (the vaccines) not been put in place.

- Julian

[9873210]

The reason we don't spend a huge amount of effort to control measles and smallpox is we have a (comparatively) cheap and easy way to control measles and smallpox. We also have a cheap and easy way to contain COVID, if only people would use it.

Many people think they won't let a dieses change the way they live. But we spend an enormous amount of effort and have many social customs to control diseases. Water works, sewers, garbage trucks, rabies quarantines, building codes, lots of personal habits. Heck the Germans lack of latrines was a significant factor at El Alamein and the outcome of WWII.

[Mike4]

The reason we don't spend a huge amount of effort to control measles and smallpox is we have a (comparatively) cheap and easy way to control measles and smallpox. We also have a cheap and easy way to contain COVID, if only people would use it.

Yes we have the same method to control both don't we? Vaccines I guess you mean, or do you?

But as the proportion of people vaccinated rises and prevalence falls, there will always be a rump of people who can't see the connection and conclude they don't need it.

Plus there is the 'tragedy of the commons' effect, where individuals act in their own self-interest against the common good.

[dealtn]

I think there are at least three groups of "don't understand" people at play here...

There may be another group also. Some will extrapolate in the "exponential" manner along the lines of the rice and the chess board without realising the real world limitations. In the field of infections, and transmissions, you need to take into account of the shrinking population available to be infected.

At the outset a population of, say 50 million, anyone infected is likely to be next meeting, and potentially infecting, a person vulnerable to infection. They in turn, once infectious is likely to be doing the same. An exponential rise in infections can easily occur. But any infectious disease that can only be caught once, displays a different function type as the available population remaining open to infection shrinks.

The "doubling" as you progress around that chessboard in the real world shrinks.

Real world infection modelling is complex.

[redsturgeon]

Smallpox vaccine, cheap and 95% effective after one dose...for ever. It still took about 20 years to eradicate smallpox.
Covid 19 may be around longer than we would like.

John

[Julian]

I think there are at least three groups of "don't understand" people at play here...

There may be another group also. Some will extrapolate in the "exponential" manner along the lines of the rice and the chess board without realising the real world limitations. In the field of infections, and transmissions, you need to take into account of the shrinking population available to be infected.

At the outset a population of, say 50 million, anyone infected is likely to be next meeting, and potentially infecting, a person vulnerable to infection. They in turn, once infectious is likely to be doing the same. An exponential rise in infections can easily occur. But any infectious disease that can only be caught once, displays a different function type as the available population remaining open to infection shrinks.

The "doubling" as you progress around that chessboard in the real world shrinks.

Real world infection modelling is complex.

Absolutely agree, at the other end there is that alarmist group. I certainly hope my post didn’t give the impression I was in that group. Clearly there are counter forces to unrestrained exponential growth. With I think UK cases doubling about every 10 days at the moment, let’s say 2 weeks though just to be conservative, it those counterforces weren’t in play then in about 22 weeks we’d be getting over 50 million new infections a day in the UK. Clearly an absurd extrapolation. Even now in the late stages though it is still important to remember how for instance cases could still have a fairly wide landscape for growth amongst the unvaccinated adults & children (in both cases with the caveat that only those who haven’t already acquired natural immunity that is still effective would count) plus the gaps in the coverage amongst the vaccinated since it isn’t 100% protection.

I suspect that “ Real world infection modelling is complex” observation is a big reason why this final unlock stage was delayed, yes they wanted longer to build more vaccine cover but the modellers probably were also pleading for just a bit longer to be able to get a better handle on how the various counter forces are attenuating growth at the moment. Personally I am relieved that they did give themselves at least a few more weeks to collect data to make a better informed decision but I do realise that many people take an opposite view.

- Julian