Coronavirus (OLD)

Originally Posted by Paul

As the old saying goes ...

Their are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Unless every country in the world is using the same reporting system, and the same amout of testing (per population) then raw numbers dont tell you much, and are only useful for daily comparisons in the same country. Comparing countries is somewhat meaninless.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Paul

As the old saying goes ...

Their are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Unless every country in the world is using the same reporting system, and the same amout of testing (per population) then raw numbers dont tell you much, and are only useful for daily comparisons in the same country. Comparing countries is somewhat meaninless.

The steepness and flattening of curves is a useful indicator and papers like the FT are trying to make the data more comparable eg stripping out the deaths in nursing homes in France. It's not so much the absolute figures but the rates and trends that are useful to compare.

This sounds encouraging, given that it's reported in a reputable source.

A vaccine against coronavirus could be ready as soon as September, the British scientist leading one of the world’s most advanced efforts has said.
Sarah Gilbert, professor of vaccinology at Oxford University, told The Times she was “80 per cent confident” that the vaccine being developed by her team would work, with human trials due to begin in the next fortnight.
The government signalled that it would be willing to fund the manufacture of millions of doses in advance if results looked promising. This would allow it to be available immediately to the public if it were proven to work.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/n...mber-flmwl257x

With a huge caveat...

Asked if the most optimistic scenario for a working vaccine was September, she said: “Yes and we have to go for that.” Success by the autumn was “just about possible if everything goes perfectly”.

However, she added: “Nobody can promise it’s going to work.”

No one bets the farm on "we can succeed if nothing goes wrong and it might be possible everything goes perfectly", because that's not the real world...

Here is the Oxford Uni press release from a week or two ago - http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2020-03-27-...-recruitment-0

Still probably a year or so before one gets into full production.

Update - here is the blog from the trial, latest entry last week. https://covid19vaccinetrial.co.uk/bl...ine-deployment

How long will it take to get the Oxford vaccine to deployment?

Vaccine development during an epidemic

Experts have estimated that it will take 12-18 months to develop a new vaccine at high speed. Under normal circumstances, most vaccine development programmes take more than five years, so this is still a considerably accelerated timescale.

This 12-18-month prediction includes the time taken to develop manufacturing processes to produce the vaccine on a larger scale, as well as preclinical testing in animals and evaluation of the vaccine in human participants in a clinical trial. Scientists need to assess the safety and efficacy of the vaccine over a number of weeks and months through phase I, II and III clinical trials. If the vaccine is safe and efficacious, regulatory approval is needed before the vaccine can be deployed.

Many of these stages can be undertaken more quickly if there are no unexpected roadblocks. Firstly, the use of a platform technology approach, i.e. a vaccine delivery system that has been used before and can be adapted for a new pathogen, can shorten the initial vaccine development time. Also, in an emergency situation, large scale manufacturing could be carried out concurrently while the clinical trial is ongoing, which can shorten the overall timescale for vaccine development. This would mean that if the clinical trial is successful, the vaccine would be ready in larger quantities, to be deployed immediately. Finally, regulatory review of promising candidates is also undertaken faster in an epidemic, because more staff and resources are dedicated to the review process.

Oxford University is using all these strategies in order to try to make a vaccine available as rapidly as possible once it is proven safe and effective.

The best-case scenario is that by the autumn of 2020 we could have an efficacy result from the phase III trial to show that the vaccine protects against the virus, alongside the ability to manufacture large amounts of the vaccine, but these best-case timeframes are highly ambitious and subject to change.

Our ability to determine vaccine efficacy will be affected by the amount of virus transmission in the local population over the summer, and we are also beginning to consider initiating trials with partners in other countries to increase our ability to determine vaccine efficacy.

Originally Posted by nomadking

Allowing groups of up to 1000 people to gather, isn't exactly a lockdown, and possibly if anything worse than only allowing groups of more than 1,000. Those from smaller groups will then mingle with people from other smaller groups.


UK has an estimated 2.1m cases, compared to Germany's estimated 460,000.

Can I ask where that figure is from, please?

---------- Post added at 14:33 ---------- Previous post was at 14:13 ----------

Bit of good news from the current pandemic.

Walking the dog this morning, we (me and the Dalmatian) had a chat (across the road) with another dog-walking acquaintance, an anesthesiologist at the local NHS Trust - trauma numbers are way down, especially from car/bike accidents and drunken mishaps.

[pip08456]

Originally Posted by Hugh

Can I ask where that figure is from, please?

---------- Post added at 14:33 ---------- Previous post was at 14:13 ----------

Bit of good news from the current pandemic.

Walking the dog this morning, we (me and the Dalmatian) had a chat (across the road) with another dog-walking acquaintance, an anesthesiologist at the local NHS Trust - trauma numbers are way down, especially from car/bike accidents and drunken mishaps.

Considering there's only 1,712,674 confimed cases worldwide and Germany 122,530

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by pip08456

Considering there's only 1,712,674 confimed cases worldwide and Germany 122,530

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

I think the pertinent word in that sentence is “ confirmed”.

I recall back when it all started and the U.K. only had something like 200 confirmed cases the CMO or CSO said the real figure at that time was more like 20,000.

[Mr K]

No wonder they kept Priti hidden away, she's a gibbering mess.

[Julian]

Bless

Originally Posted by Mr K

The facts are at least 980 have died over the last day, in comparison with other countries we aren't doing well.

They didn't die yesterday - not all of them anyway.

The numbers now include people who died several days earlier but have only just been reported. The Daily Stats are deaths registered and not occurred. This means the deaths for the day before are largely unknown with the majority not in. So we won't know what day was 'the peak' until about a week later.

To see why look at how the stats are reported. Here are today's numbers from NHS England: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistic...pril-2020.xlsx

You can see that yesterday 'only' had 115 deaths. So where did the other 802 come from? They've been added to the totals of previous days. The same will happen in the coming days for yesterday's 115 deaths.

This isn't your fault though because it's seems every journalist in the country is running with 'deadliest day yet' headlines. The only ones who are not appear to some of the BBC who (but not always!) use the word 'reported deaths', Sky and the FT. Reporters writing 'xxx died yesterday' is flat out untrue.

Drives me crazy. These organisations need to balance out the profile of their journalists to get a few with a background that isn't an arts degree. It's not a surprise some of the best reporting in this has come from places with decent economics reporting (Not including Preston - he has been rubbish).

The only tier below them are the newspaper columnists who are completely out of their depth with epidemiology, statistics and pandemics (and can't crib something they half-understood from a BBC documentary about global warming) who nevertheless bestow us with what they reckon. There should be more people who know statistics and public health policy and not someone who can bang out a few hundred words on why COVID-19 is the fault of capitalism to a reliable schedule. Morons.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by Mr K

No wonder they kept Priti hidden away, she's a gibbering mess.

That remark goes hand in hand with your bio:

Services: ... Wife

Originally Posted by Damien

They didn't die yesterday - not all of them anyway.

The numbers now include people who died several days earlier but have only just been reported. The Daily Stats are deaths registered and not occurred. This means the deaths for the day before are largely unknown with the majority not in. So we won't know what day was 'the peak' until about a week later.

To see why look at how the stats are reported. Here are today's numbers from NHS England: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistic...pril-2020.xlsx

You can see that yesterday 'only' had 115 deaths. So where did the other 802 come from? They've been added to the totals of previous days. The same will happen in the coming days for yesterday's 115 deaths.

This isn't your fault though because it's seems every journalist in the country is running with 'deadliest day yet' headlines. The only ones who are not appear to some of the BBC who (but not always!) use the word 'reported deaths', Sky and the FT. Reporters writing 'xxx died yesterday' is flat out untrue.

Drives me crazy. These organisations need to balance out the profile of their journalists to get a few with a background that isn't an arts degree. It's not a surprise some of the best reporting in this has come from places with decent economics reporting (Not including Preston - he has been rubbish).

The only tier below them are the newspaper columnists who are completely out of their depth with epidemiology, statistics and pandemics (and can't crib something they half-understood from a BBC documentary about global warming) who nevertheless bestow us with what they reckon. There should be more people who know statistics and public health policy and not someone who can bang out a few hundred words on why COVID-19 is the fault of capitalism to a reliable schedule. Morons.

And ... breathe. There now, feel better?

Good point, well made though. A part of journalist training is in rapidly assimilating facts and explaining them in a way the chosen readership can understand. There are however limits to this process. Sometimes you just need someone with relevant expertise. It’s not surprising some of the best commentary has come from reporters with an actual grounding in economics.

Peston is the notable exception because he is making the basic error, as are many of the Arts-educated set, of treating this as a political crisis and trying to report in terms of whether one minister or another is competent, what decisions Raab is allowed to take while Boris is sick, whether the correct decisions have been taken around testing and so on - even to the extent of treating the scientists recommendations as political statements to be challenged on the basis of five minutes’ reading of something on Wikipedia, or a phone call with a favourite contact (there is footage doing the rounds of Robert Peston being handed his ar53 live on air by one of the gov’s senior advisers having tried, unsuccessfully, to lecture him on his chosen specialist field).

The reality is, only scientific expertise is going to identify solutions, and only resources whose availability is predicated on years of health, industrial and economic policy can implement those solutions. All the politicians can do is act on advice. The big political stories are a year down the road yet, when we begin to look in to how prepared we were, how prepared we could have been, and which industries we designate as strategic, to ensure domestic control and production in the future.

[Hom3r]

Originally Posted by Paul

As the old saying goes ...

Their are lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Unless every country in the world is using the same reporting system, and the same amout of testing (per population) then raw numbers dont tell you much, and are only useful for daily comparisons in the same country. Comparing countries is somewhat meaninless.

George Canning. I can prove anything by statistics except the truth.

[Mr K]

'Dangerous idiot’: Trump says ‘germ is so brilliant antibiotics can’t keep up with it’ in chaotic White House coronavirus meeting

The day coronavirus became the number one cause of death among Americans, US president Donald Trump appeared to confuse the viral disease with a bacterial infection which could be treated with antibiotics.

In a meandering address to journalists on Friday which lasted over two hours and veered between incomprehensibility and flippancy, the president pondered the nature of the deadly virus, which he described as a “very brilliant enemy”, and a “genius”.

Asked by a journalist about the level of testing for the coronavirus across the US, the president answered: “This is a very brilliant enemy. You know, it’s a brilliant enemy. They develop drugs like the antibiotics. You see it. Antibiotics used to solve every problem. Now one of the biggest problems the world has is the germ has gotten so brilliant that the antibiotic can’t keep up with it.

"And they're constantly trying to come up with a new – people go to a hospital and they catch – they go for a heart operation – that's no problem, but they end up dying from – from problems. You know the problems I'm talking about. There's a whole genius to it."

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-a9460636.html

God help us. Please tell me they took 'the button' away from him a long time ago.

Originally Posted by Mr K

God help us. Please tell me they took 'the button' away from him a long time ago.

I doubt it.

On the bright side, he probably could not figure out how to press it.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Mr K

No wonder they kept Priti hidden away, she's a gibbering mess.

Priti Patel confuses Britons with bungled coronavirus figures at press briefing
The Home Secretary was visibly nervous as she addressed the nation during the daily coronavirus briefing. Ms Patel mistakenly said that there had been "three hundred thousand and thirty four, nine hundred and seventy four thousand" coronavirus tests in Britain.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/12...ases-deaths-UK