Re: Coronavirus
 

Earlier, I wondered why black people made up 1/3 of the population of Chicago, yet accounted for 70% of coronavirus cases. It was suggested that it might be because black people were more likely to live in poverty/have poorer health to start with, were more likely to be in occupations that couldn't be done from home or even that it was because they congregated together more.

A doctor on Channel 5 this morning said that vitamin D helps to fight this and other viruses and that, because the colour of dark skinned people makes it harder for the body to create vitamin D, this is likely to be the reason why black Americans are being disproportionately affected.

That's something i'd not previously thought of.

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Literally whitewashing.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Are the people dying from it, insufficient in Vitamin D? Unlikely. A lot of people have died that don't have dark skin.



More likely they hang around in "gangs" of one sort or another. Obvious example is religious groups. One person brings it into a group and it spreads within that group. Multiple identified examples of where a religious gathering has led to large spreading.

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I don't know wether to laugh or cry at that scientific revalation.

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What got me angry was the people saying they should have stayed in China and not came home.... A Holes.

Re: Coronavirus
 

Yes, that's kind of what I was saying. Except that the media has bolstered this into a much bigger thing to fear than it actually is.

I did not incorrectly interpret your post - I was correcting your interpretation of mine. No matter.

These ridiculously high figures that have been banded about recently should be put into context. First, there was a study made projecting that the UK was facing an extraordinary number of deaths. That report was found to be grossly inaccurate and much more realistic corrections have been made.

The comparisons that are being made with other countries are naive to say the least. These comparisons do not always explain adequately the varying population size of each country (for example, Italy has a smaller population than the UK, so why wouldn't our number of deaths be higher? Even more important is population density. That is why London's figures stand out on our national graphs.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...ering-numbers/

[EXTRACT]

Apocalyptic predictions that Britain’s coronavirus death toll will be the largest in Europe have abounded over the past week.

The “scaremongering” began after a report from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), based at the University of Washington in Seattle, suggested the UK could reach 66,000 deaths by August, peaking at nearly 3,000 a day, and accounting for more than 40 per cent of total deaths across the Continent.

The figures were gleefully seized upon by the Left-wing press and emblazoned over front pages as evidence that the Government’s strategy has failed.

Yet, within hours, British experts had branded the modelling as “absurd”, and by this weekend the IHME had revised down its estimate to 37,494 – and admitted it could be as low as 26,000 which is not hugely dissimilar to Imperial College’s figure of around 20,000.

For anyone following the trajectory of deaths it was clear that something extraordinary would have to happen for our daily death rate to shoot up to 3,000. All other countries have exhibited a smooth upward trend followed by gradual leveling off, so the UK would have needed to experience a trend-defying upward kick to get anywhere close to the IHME figures.

Keith Neal, emeritus professor in the epidemiology of infectious diseases at the University of Nottingham, said: "Redoing their prediction in under a week strongly suggests major flaws in their models. This is not the first model to be shown to have got their projections seriously wrong. Although this is a pandemic, the epidemiology in each country is different and different within countries.”

Explaining the updated figures, the IHME said the new data had taken into account the effect of social distancing and included four more days of data.

But epidemiologists at Imperial also pointed out that the model showed Britain had already exceeded its intensive care capacity by three times, even though the NHS currently has plenty of spare critical care beds.

Prof James Naismith, director of the Rosalind Franklin Institute and Professor of structural biology at Oxford University, said: “I note the IHME updated their forecasts and they have substantially lowered the worst-case and central scenarios for deaths.

“It is to be greatly regretted that too much online and media coverage of the earlier IHME predictions focused on worst-case scenarios without making absolutely clear the very large ranges that the IHME clearly stated for their UK predictions. When these ranges are deliberately omitted (or obscured) by others, who then choose to focus on worst-case scenarios, this is little more than reckless scaremongering.”

It is also unfair to compare countries that have vastly different population densities, social mixing, demographics and family structures. Take Ireland as an example. As of lunchtime yesterday, the country had recorded 8,928 cases and 320 deaths. Which is 65 deaths per million people. In contrast, Britain had 78,991 cases and 9,875 deaths, 145 deaths per million. However, the population density of Ireland is lower than in Britain, approximately 186 people per square mile compared to 727 people in the UK. And while 83 per cent of Britons live in urban areas, just 63 per cent of Irish people do.

Re: Coronavirus
 

We don't yet know that Britain will not be the worst in Europe - simply their updated mathematical modelling have offered a different opinion on the matter.

All of the mathematical modelling - including the one you kept referring to as 'proof' that something like 60% of the country already have had Coronavirus -make guesses to plug all of the unknowns.

South Korea has 1302 people per square mile, and 81% in urban areas - so it's equally sub-optimal to shrug our shoulders and claim we couldn't do any better and simply blame population density.

I get that some people want to deflect all possible blame from the Government, I really do, but if we don't appropriately learn the lessons adequately then we leave ourselves exposed for a second/third wave or any future pandemic. Both human and economic costs.

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Don’t eat an undercooked bat, should be the biggest lesson learnt.

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Is that where it originated though? It would appear that China may not think so why else would it clamp down on research into the origins of it?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-pages-suggest

In other news.

Risk of dying from a stroke drops by a quarter with thousands of lives saved

Re: Coronavirus
 

It's not just about that, Mr K, it is about population densities. Clearly, if certain countries like the UK have a lot of people living or travelling close together (eg those tube trains in London), you will have more people acquiring the virus.

It's not as simple and as clear cut as some may believe. Additionally, the tests have to be accurate or they will not produce the desired results in containing this thing.

---------- Post added at 17:24 ---------- Previous post was at 17:22 ----------

Oh, does that help? :D

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For more than 20 seconds as long as you sing God Save the Queen.

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While washing your hands, of course.

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BREAKING: President Macron extends French lock down until May 11th.

Britain may follow/extend by same length.

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Sacrebleu!