Coronavirus (OLD)

[jfman]

I’m sure they don’t need experts in the UK to point out the flaws in their article outlined by Carth above.

Good clickbait though.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Kushan

Can you explain how going into lockdown later means we get a less substatial second wave?



There's plenty of ways to avoid the virus without going into permanent lockdown:

Practice social distancing. Wear a mask. Wash your hands.

Super simple stuff, but too many people aren't doing it, too many people think they know better, or that it's a scam, or that there's worse things to get. If you want to avoid lockdown after lockdown, get people to do the super simple stuff and fine/arrest those who refuse.

Some, including jfman, say that we locked down too late, allowing the virus to take hold. It has been calculated that this resulted in the peak being not far short of what it would have been had we done nothing. If that is correct then it has probably brought down already most of those who were going to die anyway. That means there will probably be no second wave, unless of course the virus mutates, in which case anything could happen.

This would explain why other countries that locked down earlier have a second wave now - it is attacking those now who would have got it had it not been for the lockdown.

On your second point about social distancing, etc, isn't that what we are doing now?

https://www.gov.uk/government/public...fects#contents

Guidance
COVID-19: long-term health effects
Published 7 September 2020

Around 10% of mild coronovirus (COVID-19) cases who were not admitted to hospital have reported symptoms lasting more than 4 weeks. A number of hospitalised cases reported continuing symptoms for 8 or more weeks following discharge.

Persistent health problems reported following acute COVID-19 disease include:

- respiratory symptoms and conditions such as chronic cough, shortness of breath, lung inflammation and fibrosis, and pulmonary vascular disease
- cardiovascular symptoms and disease such as chest tightness, acute myocarditis and heart failure
- protracted loss or change of smell and taste
- mental health problems including depression, anxiety and cognitive difficulties
- inflammatory disorders such as myalgia, multisystem inflammatory syndrome, - - Guillain-Barre syndrome, or neuralgic amyotrophy
- gastrointestinal disturbance with diarrhoea
- continuing headaches
- fatigue, weakness and sleeplessness
- liver and kidney dysfunction
- clotting disorders and thrombosis
- lymphadenopathy
- skin rashes

---------- Post added at 09:42 ---------- Previous post was at 09:41 ----------

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Some, including jfman, say that we locked down too late, allowing the virus to take hold. It has been calculated that this resulted in the peak being not far short of what it would have been had we done nothing. If that is correct then it has probably brought down already most of those who were going to die anyway. That means there will probably be no second wave, unless of course the virus mutates, in which case anything could happen.

This would explain why other countries that locked down earlier have a second wave now - it is attacking those now who would have got it had it not been for the lockdown.

On your second point about social distancing, etc, isn't that what we are doing now?

Could you provide a link to these calculations, please?

[denphone]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Some, including jfman, say that we locked down too late, allowing the virus to take hold. It has been calculated that this resulted in the peak being not far short of what it would have been had we done nothing. If that is correct then it has probably brought down already most of those who were going to die anyway. That means there will probably be no second wave, unless of course the virus mutates, in which case anything could happen.

This would explain why other countries that locked down earlier have a second wave now - it is attacking those now who would have got it had it not been for the lockdown.

On your second point about social distancing, etc, isn't that what we are doing now?

Not from my own small observations they ain't.

[tweetiepooh]

Looking at the new "super simple" rule for groups in England - at request of police.

No groups bigger than 6 out or in. Seems simple but if you have a large family that can make things hard to meet grandparents or others but here is my thought - which is riskier
Two large families meeting up exceeding the 6 size or even a group of known participants in a small group (say around 15)
A fluid set of people that are mixing and meeting but never in a group bigger than 6. e.g. students going out in the evening. start in one pub as a six group, 3 move off to pub 2 and 3 others now join the first group, and so on. Much more mixing around, hard to track/trace but never breaks the 6 group limit.

The first obeys the spirit of the law but breaks the letter, the latter (may) keep the letter of the law but breaks the spirit.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by jfman

I really don’t believe almost all the countries in the world are simply acting out of paranoia. Italian hospital beds weren’t filled by paranoid people in February, they were filled by pneumonia patients.

I do recognise that on a personal level my risks are extremely low. However that isn’t true of everyone in my social circle, family and friends (or indeed, for a significant amount of purchasing power in the economy). If the herd immunity advocates got their way statistically the chances would be that some of them would catch it with a higher mortality level based on age and underlying health issues.

If this was just a flu we are back to the circular conversation where nobody would have noticed. Hospitals wouldn’t have been busier, it’d just be normal, as generally they are equipped to cope with flu every year.

Numbers go down because of significant effort and mitigation. They go up without. At £210bn in cost to date, that’s a lot of Government paranoia. Would have been cheaper with a super-injunction, a D-Notice and hoping nobody noticed.

You are the only one droning on about the flu! Nobody has claimed that the people in Italian beds were fictional. And you talk about straw man arguments!

Herd immunity is not something man invented. It's nature. You advocate a lockdown until such time as we have a vaccine. You are living in cloud cuckoo land, mate, and you need to get real.

As a self stated economist, I despair of the way you look at the figures. You don't seem to have grasped that the more people you test, the higher number of positive results you are going to pick up. That should be obvious to a man like you - basic stuff really. So while it is correct for the media to say that the number of people testing positive is increasing, the reason for this has been ignored. I would have thought you would have picked that up. We have no reliable way of knowing whether the actual number of infected people is rising because we have no stable set of data to measure it against.

What we should all be watching is the hospital admission rates. They remain very low, and that should tell you all you need to know. Until that rises significantly, there is no cause for alarm.

People should be allowed to get on with their lives now. Vulnerable people should be advised to shield (there should be no compulsion) and care homes should be told to introduce stringent measures to ensure that those in their care are protected. That is what is required. To be clear, a national lockdown is totally unnecessary and would be widely ignored. Enough is enough.

[Sephiroth]

Safe, Schmafe. I'm unlikely to take the vaccine because my record of reaction (albeit not life threatening or anything close) to flu vaccines. Nobody's explained this to me but I suspect it's the way my immune system over-reacts to the vaccine.

To put some flesh on this, I have a mild anti-immune condition which seems to be fading but it's lasted some years. What worries me about the Covid vaccine is that it will provoke the anti-immune reaction in my lungs. That's life-threatening.

I stress that the above are layman's fears - the doctor hasn't said anything even if you could get past the barbed wire.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Mr K

We have a vaccine for flu. That's the difference.

And many people don't bother to get it. Myself included.

[Kushan]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Some, including jfman, say that we locked down too late, allowing the virus to take hold. It has been calculated that this resulted in the peak being not far short of what it would have been had we done nothing. If that is correct then it has probably brought down already most of those who were going to die anyway. That means there will probably be no second wave, unless of course the virus mutates, in which case anything could happen.

This would explain why other countries that locked down earlier have a second wave now - it is attacking those now who would have got it had it not been for the lockdown.

That doesn't explain anything. The idea that Corona only kills the old and weak has long since been disproved, there's plenty of cases of young, fit people also dying from it.

Furthermore, you're comparing the death/hospitalisation rate to the infection rate. Just because a bunch of people died the first time around doesn't stop the virus spreading the second time around. This kind of attitude is going to cause further spread because you don't think it'a as serious as last time.

The virus hasn't eased off, it's just as virulent and deadly as before. We've got better at treating it but that's all.

We had 30 deaths yesterday, jumping from single-digits and the highest we've had in a month. That's not a coincidence.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

On your second point about social distancing, etc, isn't that what we are doing now?

It's what we're supposed to be doing now, but as I said far too many people aren't taking it seriously. You only have to look around as you go to the shops, or visit a pub to see people who just don't care. If everyone did it properly, we wouldn't be having these peaks again.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

Some, including jfman, say that we locked down too late, allowing the virus to take hold. It has been calculated that this resulted in the peak being not far short of what it would have been had we done nothing. If that is correct then it has probably brought down already most of those who were going to die anyway. That means there will probably be no second wave, unless of course the virus mutates, in which case anything could happen.

This would explain why other countries that locked down earlier have a second wave now - it is attacking those now who would have got it had it not been for the lockdown.

On your second point about social distancing, etc, isn't that what we are doing now?

Old Boy the contortions that you put yourself in to justify the Governments steps at every stage and the contradictions that result are utterly laughable.

No lockdown - they're going to die anyway - has become we had a late lockdown, there were early deaths but it's alright now. Despite the obvious contradiction that many believe we are better at treating complex cases.

Again there's no evidence to support that we won't go into a second wave unless we keep present restrictions and likely add to them. Steps the Government are taking from next week. It's speculative nonsense, much like your claim that it won't like high temperatures.

---------- Post added at 10:04 ---------- Previous post was at 10:02 ----------

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

You are the only one droning on about the flu! Nobody has claimed that the people in Italian beds were fictional. And you talk about straw man arguments!

Herd immunity is not something man invented. It's nature. You advocate a lockdown until such time as we have a vaccine. You are living in cloud cuckoo land, mate, and you need to get real.

As a self stated economist, I despair of the way you look at the figures. You don't seem to have grasped that the more people you test, the higher number of positive results you are going to pick up. That should be obvious to a man like you - basic stuff really. So while it is correct for the media to say that the number of people testing positive is increasing, the reason for this has been ignored. I would have thought you would have picked that up. We have no reliable way of knowing whether the actual number of infected people is rising because we have no stable set of data to measure it against.

What we should all be watching is the hospital admission rates. They remain very low, and that should tell you all you need to know. Until that rises significantly, there is no cause for alarm.

People should be allowed to get on with their lives now. Vulnerable people should be advised to shield (there should be no compulsion) and care homes should be told to introduce stringent measures to ensure that those in their care are protected. That is what is required. To be clear, a national lockdown is totally unnecessary and would be widely ignored. Enough is enough.

By the point that happens it will simply be too late to intervene. Almost nobody catches Covid and falls into a hospital bed on day 2.

Of course we know the actual numbers are rising - testing has been available for those with symptoms for some weeks now. You can bury your head in the sand, as you have throughout the pandemic, but your 'solutions' neither protect public health or the economy.

[OLD BOY]

Originally Posted by Kushan

That doesn't explain anything. The idea that Corona only kills the old and weak has long since been disproved, there's plenty of cases of young, fit people also dying from it.

Furthermore, you're comparing the death/hospitalisation rate to the infection rate. Just because a bunch of people died the first time around doesn't stop the virus spreading the second time around. This kind of attitude is going to cause further spread because you don't think it'a as serious as last time.

The virus hasn't eased off, it's just as virulent and deadly as before. We've got better at treating it but that's all.

We had 30 deaths yesterday, jumping from single-digits and the highest we've had in a month. That's not a coincidence.



It's what we're supposed to be doing now, but as I said far too many people aren't taking it seriously. You only have to look around as you go to the shops, or visit a pub to see people who just don't care. If everyone did it properly, we wouldn't be having these peaks again.

The virus does kill mainly the old and those with underlying medical conditions. Nobody said no-one else would succumb to it, but the percentage is extremely low - look at the statistics.

I don't think you understood my point about the infection rate. My point was that nobody knows at this stage whether or not that is increasing. Obviously, the number of positive tests are increasing, simply because we are carrying out more tests. If we stopped testing, the number would fall again, wouldn't it? Even Trumpy understood that.

I am one of those who has been pointing out for a long time now that this virus has not gone anywhere. That's why herd immunity is so important for us to achieve.

[Carth]

There's also no evidence to prove/disprove that 60% of the population are or have been asymptomatic.

The only data we have is the amount of tests done (mainly on those with symptoms), those who tested positive, and those hospitalised due to having the virus . . which includes those with other (potentially life threatening) illnesses.

[Kushan]

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

The virus does kill mainly the old and those with underlying medical conditions. Nobody said no-one else would succumb to it, but the percentage is extremely low - look at the statistics.

Older people and those with underlying medical conditions are more susceptable to it, but that doesn't mean the virus isn't potentially deadly to everyone else. It's still killing more healthy people than anything like the flu.

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

I don't think you understood my point about the infection rate. My point was that nobody knows at this stage whether or not that is increasing. Obviously, the number of positive tests are increasing, simply because we are carrying out more tests. If we stopped testing, the number would fall again, wouldn't it? Even Trumpy understood that.

Errr...we do know it's increasing and it's nothing to do with doing extra tests. The goverment posts all the data for you to look at, we're actually testing less this week compared to last week (~180,000 tests processed vs ~200,000), yet we have had a big spike in the same time frame. How do you explain that?

And if it's not a big spike, why is the government suddenly scrambling to increase restrictions again?

Originally Posted by OLD BOY

I am one of those who has been pointing out for a long time now that this virus has not gone anywhere. That's why herd immunity is so important for us to achieve.

Sweden tried that and it didn't work. Let's not repeat history.

(Not directed at OLD BOY specifically) I have seen literally every single one of these arguments in this thread:



People need to learn to listen to the experts instead of getting their armchair medical degrees out.

[Carth]

We've been listening to experts for years . . . some examples:

Go to work on an egg . . . ooops sorry, eggs are bad for you
Saddam has lots of nasty WMD's
Diesel engines are best for the environment.
Our vehicle emissions are the lowest . . ever
Cows are causing global warming
Thalidomide is perfectly safe

[jonbxx]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

Safe, Schmafe. I'm unlikely to take the vaccine because my record of reaction (albeit not life threatening or anything close) to flu vaccines. Nobody's explained this to me but I suspect it's the way my immune system over-reacts to the vaccine.

To put some flesh on this, I have a mild anti-immune condition which seems to be fading but it's lasted some years. What worries me about the Covid vaccine is that it will provoke the anti-immune reaction in my lungs. That's life-threatening.

I stress that the above are layman's fears - the doctor hasn't said anything even if you could get past the barbed wire.

Do you mean autoimmune?

Out of curiosity, have you had adverse reactions to other vaccines at all? I am wondering if you have had reactions to either the flu antigen or another component of the vaccine. If it's the flu antigen, then you would be golden as there is next to no similarity between coronavirus and influenza virus so you wouldn't expect to see a crossover reaction.

Of the other flu vaccine components, the biggest risk is egg protein but that's only present in the injected vaccine, not the live nasal one (Flumist and similar) None of the COVID vaccines I can see are grown in eggs.