The big Coronavirus thread

First.Aspect

rick_chasey said:

First.Aspect said:

Pross said:

rick_chasey said:

Pross said:

surrey_commuter said:

Pross said:

surrey_commuter said:

Does nobody else find it frustrating that we may have peaked at the back end of last week yet our best guess at that won’t be for another two weeks.

Has anybody seen an estimate for what each week of lockdown is costing the economy

Genuine question, what is counted as the peak then? The death rate appears to be slowing so I assumed that meant we are over the peak.

That is my point, maybe deaths are slowing or maybe none are being counted in the Midlands because Mrs Miggins always takes the week after Easter off and she is the only one who knows the password.

We're counting in the same way as most other countries. .

Er no.

This suggests otherwise https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200401-coronavirus-why-death-and-mortality-rates-differ

It also makes the point that there is no right or wrong method just that some countries do things differently to others.

No there are two correct ways to count. 1. the way that gives the highest number. 2. any way we aren't doing it.

This is getting boring now. How about we move on to what to do next, rather than ooh Ethel about what just happened.

How about the *actual number of people dying as a result of coronavirus*. Not just those in certain circumstances. Otherwise it’s pointless.

Here’s the death rate in my own home: zero.

Pointless otherwise. You’d make bad accountants.

Have you considered lion taming? It is more interesting.

(a) You record that 10000 people died last month, 100 died this month. Lift lockdown?

(b) You record that 7000 people died last month, 70 died this month. Lift lockdown?

The same number of people actually died. What does it matter if the decision is the same.

Once you reduce by an order of magnitude, the S/N issue becomes more significant, but right now it isn't, at all.

The timing was arguably about a week or 10 days too late, and history will judge. But that was a policy decision, not a lack of data.

Raab is talking about lockdown till June now. They are scrambling. They need to test in order to have enough resolution to get out of it. So now, I agree. But to date Rick you are someone shouting at the tide for six hours and then claiming you've pushed it back.

rick_chasey

Is the death count a proxy for infection rates as there is no adequate testing?

Yes. Ergo it needs to be done right.

ddraver

morstar said:

France, Italy & Switzerland all had Ski season and figure highly in mortality rates.
Austria similar but less pronounced.

I have previously on the thread suggested that every ski resort must be an infection hub but that doesn't appear to be the case.

Verbier and Ishgul are, apparently, notable exceptions. (I suspect there are others), but Nendaz which is the same ski area as Verbier, has few cases. As I said, EVERYONE I know here thinks they've had it in Verbier but in Nendaz is is the 'opposite' - no one knows anyone who has had it. Likewise Chamonix & Morzine (which are the places where I have friends/colleagues to ask). I can't really see much difference between the resorts as viral hubs, they all have raucous bars and tightly packed cable cars...

I dont have any explanations for why this might be, but the pattern may not as be as clear as I assumed.

First.Aspect

rick_chasey said:

Is the death count a proxy for infection rates as there is no adequate testing?

Yes. Ergo it needs to be done right.

Really? Is that the level of your understanding?

No, the policy -rightly or wrongly - is test people who have symptoms, plus selected others (NHS workers at the moment). So you test only a proportion of those infected, missing the mildly symptomatic or asymptomatic. Your confirmed infected rate is a proxy for the overall infected rate. This is why the calculated % mortality rate varies so dramatically between countries and why scientists the world over are trying to guestimate overall mortality rates. Even German scientists.

The death rate from these cases is a proxy for the overall death rate. It is reasonable to assume that this is more accurate than the infected rate, because it is self filtering - people with severe symptoms are most likely get into the health system and people tend not to cough to death at home alone and in vast numbers without mentioning it to anyone.

There has been a scientist standing next to a politician every day for weeks now trying to explain this sort of stuff in simple enough terms. And if that's not simple enough, there have been scientists explaining that in simpler terms in phone ins for a few hours either side.

Jesus if there is one post to show how you are filtering information it is this one. Do you just groan and rock backwards and forwards in front of the radio and miss hearing stuff?

First.Aspect

ddraver said:

morstar said:

France, Italy & Switzerland all had Ski season and figure highly in mortality rates.
Austria similar but less pronounced.

I have previously on the thread suggested that every ski resort must be an infection hub but that doesn't appear to be the case.

Verbier and Ishgul are, apparently, notable exceptions. (I suspect there are others), but Nendaz which is the same ski area as Verbier, has few cases. As I said, EVERYONE I know here thinks they've had it in Verbier but in Nendaz is is the 'opposite' - no one knows anyone who has had it. Likewise Chamonix & Morzine (which are the places where I have friends/colleagues to ask). I can't really see much difference between the resorts as viral hubs, they all have raucous bars and tightly packed cable cars...

I dont have any explanations for why this might be, but the pattern may not as be as clear as I assumed.

Is it a class thing?

john80

rick_chasey said:

john80 said:

surrey_commuter said:

coopster_the_1st said:

surrey_commuter said:

Does nobody else find it frustrating that we may have peaked at the back end of last week yet our best guess at that won’t be for another two weeks.

Has anybody seen an estimate for what each week of lockdown is costing the economy

£2.4bn a day

Well with 20,000 care homes it surely must be cost effective to hire somebody to sit in each one and count the bodies., even at a grand a day that leave a lot of change

Unfortunately for you the majority of the population think that is a waste of money and would rather the government just carried on focussing on what the NHS needs instead of providing you with more figures. Spoiler alert. Old people in nursing homes die often and in residential care home quite often.

Given what is unfolding in Belgium right now, I’d suggest this tone is off. Don’t forget in Ireland, France, Belgium, Spain, care home deaths are between 40-50% of total covid deaths.

If we take a prior posters point that the average stay in a nursing home is around 18 months or so then they do die often. Given that around 50% of the deaths in hospitals are over 80 the Belgian figures are hardly surprising. By all means set up the system to reduce the likelihood of passing Covid into the nursing and residential homes but lets not pretend that isolation of old people from their families in the last stages of life is not without consequences either. Some of what some nursing homes are doing such as getting staff to live in is an excellent idea if you can staff it.

pangolin

Are we talking about testing for infection or testing for antibodies here?

Because even if we scale up to Ricks hopeful 1 million a week, that is well over a year to test the country. Over those timescales only an antibody test is useful (its no good knowing an NHS worker wasn't infected 6 months ago).

But I thought we didn't have a reliable enough antibody test yet. Am I mistaken?

Pross

Have to admit I like the tech solution they're using in Liechtenstein. Now if they could roll out 30 or 40 million of those ready for when the daily deaths hopefully get down close to zero, sort out a platform that could cope with the numbers and is operated by a company that can be trusted with the data and finally get the testing sorted out then we might get a worthwhile way of test and track.

One addition that could improve it would be if they could talk to each other so that they logged other users that come within a contact zone. Seems neater than use a phone app. Obviously the civil liberties lot would be up in arms though.

kingstonian

pangolin said:

Are we talking about testing for infection or testing for antibodies here?

Because even if we scale up to Ricks hopeful 1 million a week, that is well over a year to test the country. Over those timescales only an antibody test is useful (its no good knowing an NHS worker wasn't infected 6 months ago).

But I thought we didn't have a reliable enough antibody test yet. Am I mistaken?

Nope, you’re right, we’re still waiting for a reliable antibody test to become available

tailwindhome

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1250904238399598594?s=19

rjsterry

rick_chasey said:

Counting people who die in a certain type of building isn’t counting everyone is it? Regardless of where you fall on if it was corona or something else that made them pass.

Nobody is counting everyone as you describe it, within the daily numbers of deaths. But we are all counting everyone - the numbers just take longer to collate. There are really good reasons why it is not practical to have an up to date number of all C19 deaths day by day. I've mentioned that determining cause of death is not an instantaneous process. Mrfpb has explained why nursing home staff have more urgent things to do in many cases.

kingstonian

tailwindhome said:

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1250904238399598594?s=19

That’s interesting info, thanks for sharing

rjsterry

pangolin said:

Are we talking about testing for infection or testing for antibodies here?

Because even if we scale up to Ricks hopeful 1 million a week, that is well over a year to test the country. Over those timescales only an antibody test is useful (its no good knowing an NHS worker wasn't infected 6 months ago).

But I thought we didn't have a reliable enough antibody test yet. Am I mistaken?

The bit that seems to have been missed in the discussion of testing is that widespread community testing can tell you when R falls below 1 - i.e. The numbers of new infections are reducing. This is effectively one of the government criteria for relaxing lockdown. In other words they now have to scale up testing to at least a level where they can satisfy their own criteria.

Oops, I see @First.Aspect has just made the same point.

Stevo_666

Interesting article in The Times on the race for our true exit strategy - a vaccine. Free to subscribe if you want to read.

https://thetimes.co.uk/article/when-will-a-coronavirus-vaccine-be-ready-and-how-would-it-work-xglthwwpj

morstar

I think there is a philosophical difference in this thread between what we think is happening.

My personal belief is that the UK position remains one of protect the NHS (to coin a phrase) until herd immunity or a vaccine arrives.

It is not one of stop the virus.

The government states consistently through many different voices that it sees limited value in a test that is immediately out of date.

The test they want is the antibody test which is not yet ready to a standard they are happy with. They like this test as it is both absolute and confirms an individual can become productive.

The lock down will be managed to keep mortality and hospital capacity managed while allowing herd immunity to build.

To clarify, this is not my policy but it is what is happening.

If the social distancing is enough to allow a gradual spread without a second peak, the whole thing will just rumble on for months to come with a gradual decline in mortality and a gradual return to normality. Other tools and measures will be used to improve both care and protection (e.g. better medical response and apps).

I guess I don’t believe that we are simply slow to get ourselves into the same position as Germany or South Korea, I simply don’t think that is an objective.

US will be first major western economy to be more or less back to normal and I suspect we will probably be the next to follow. Although we will be considerably more cautious than US, we will be the next.

I think the belief remains to get through this without exceeding capacity. Testing may reduce mortality but it is not an exit strategy, it is a management strategy that is perceived to have an untenable duration and cost.

focuszing723

I think people will ne

kingstonian said:

tailwindhome said:

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1250904238399598594?s=19

That’s interesting info, thanks for sharing

Yes. Cheers Tailwind, good to see the declines.

tailwindhome

If you saw this picture 6 months ago what would you think had happened?

First.Aspect

tailwindhome said:

If you saw this picture 6 months ago what would you think had happened?

V for Vendetta was on again the other night.

focuszing723

Something crazy, like a pandemic. I would probably second guess that thought though, as nobody is wearing face masks.

kingstongraham

tailwindhome said:

If you saw this picture 6 months ago what would you think had happened?

I'll be honest, I saw it yesterday, and I'm none the wiser what is happening there even now.

Queuing for the showers in a Hancock based cult?

kingstongraham

Morning all, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/16/number-coronavirus-pandemic

Noone's sure about the actual numbers (could be higher, could be lower), but the multiplication sounds reasonable.

pangolin

tailwindhome said:

If you saw this picture 6 months ago what would you think had happened?

City 17 from Half Life?

Actually except for the occasional alien that is quite like London in lock-down

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8LQqo67W2ZY

coopster_the_1st

kingstongraham said:

tailwindhome said:

If you saw this picture 6 months ago what would you think had happened?

I'll be honest, I saw it yesterday, and I'm none the wiser what is happening there even now.

Queuing for the showers in a Hancock based cult?

Opening of another Nightingale hospital

rick_chasey

tailwindhome said:

If you saw this picture 6 months ago what would you think had happened?

Is he explaining to all the staff who are not being tested why his mate and biggest political donor is in charge of testing?

kingstonian

China have adjusted (doubled) the death count they saw in Wuhan. Seems a bit weird to do so now.

Stevo_666

kingstonian said:

China have adjusted (doubled) the death count they saw in Wuhan. Seems a bit weird to do so now.

Imagine the reaction from some on here if that was London or the UK making that level of adjustment so long after the event.

nickice

There have been a couple of interesting articles in the Telegraph today and yesterday. One strongly criticising the Swedish approach as it's led to a higher death count compared to other Scandinavian countries, though I think it's a bit soon to offer this as a major criticism. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2020/04/16/sweden-has-shown-not-tackle-coronavirus-fights-now-save-face/

The other, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/04/16/uk-faces-eight-ten-waves-coronavirus-population-achieves-herd/, talks about 8-10 waves before herd immunity is achieved as according to a Dutch study, only 3% of citizens have developed immunity. I'd bet the number who've had it is actually much higher as it seems a lot of young people have no antibodies or barely traceable antibodies which is a major problem for future policy.

nickice

Also, 8-10 waves, if correct would mean there is no way the Tour is going to happen this year.

briantrumpet

Some more interesting regional stats here: https://www.hsj.co.uk/news/coronavirus-deaths-mapped-first-trust-records-500-fatalities/7027212.article

The regional variation continues to be stark - the number of deaths per 100k is ten times higher in the Black Country than Devon.

https://d3e6tmgg461bic.cloudfront.net/Pictures/780xany/4/1/6/3045416_deathspercapchart16.4.20_851356.png

nickice

Could the disproportionate number of ethnic minority health workers dying be something to do with vitamin D (it takes much longer for them to produce it from sunlight)