Coronavirus (COVID-19/SARS-CoV-2) outbreak discussion

[noirua]

LA man who mocked Covid-19 vaccines dies of virus

Stephen Harmon, who opposed getting vaccinated, has died after a month-long struggle with the virus.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[noirua]

This is just Middlesbrough a large town in the county of Yorkshire in England. It shows how the Delta variant can lead to an explosion in the number of cases despite the UK having the worlds second best vaccination record :

Coronavirus (COVID-19) | Middlesbrough Council

We are now living with coronavirus. Find out more about vaccines and who is eligible for free tests.

www.middlesbrough.gov.uk

 

[sptrawler]

Mainly because they are locking people down with no ability to recoup costs. Given a lot of people survive week to week on their pay check. It will simply come down to self preservation (right or wrong).
Either our political masters start forward thinking, or end up with a riot.

I usually am on the same page as yourself, however now it sounds as though the media is saying just get the AZ if it's available, yet when Morrison said that several weeks ago he was lambasted, as usual.
The problem is, everyone has been trying to wedge Morrison, when really they should have been just looking out for Australia's best interest.
just my opinion.

 

[mullokintyre]

The sad human face of lockdowns that Ghenghis Dan will not acknowledge.

 

[sptrawler]

The sad human face of lockdowns that Ghenghis Dan will not acknowledge.

View attachment 127951

So amazingly sad, I wonder if he was vaccinated, or had an underlying health condition, or just decided enough is enough.

 

[mullokintyre]

So amazingly sad, I wonder if he was vaccinated, or had an underlying health condition, or just decided enough is enough.

Don't think in this case being vaccinated would have made any difference to the poor bugger.
Suicide always lacks logic and reasoning.
Mick

 

[sptrawler]

Don't think in this case being vaccinated would have made any difference to the poor bugger.
Suicide always lacks logic and reasoning.
Mick

Absolutely and it is everyone's right to chose, sometimes the reason to keep going, is outweighed by effort required to keep going.
Many of us, have had to weigh up that decision, at some time in our lives.
I am noticing a much higher media coverage of full lockdowns and there repercussions, now that NSW is starting to have them, is that because full lockdowns are bad, or because of the media's Sydney centric obsession?

 

[mullokintyre]

Absolutely and it is everyone's right to chose, sometimes the reason to keep going, is outweighed by effort required to keep going.
Many of us, have had to weigh up that decision, at some time in our lives.
I am noticing a much higher media coverage of full lockdowns and there repercussions, now that NSW is starting to have them, is that because full lockdowns are bad, or because of the media's Sydney centric obsession?

As someone from Regional NSW said to me some time ago, NSW stands for Newcastle, Sydney and Woolongong. Nothing else exists.
Mick

 

[sptrawler]

As someone from Regional NSW said to me some time ago, NSW stands for Newcastle, Sydney and Woolongong. Nothing else exists.
Mick

I tend to think that is how the rest of Australia see it, it seems that people in the Sydney area, see the rest of Australia as a life support system for them.
All policies have to be Sydney/ Melbourne centric, the rest of Australia can get stuffed, that's why I started the thread "should we sell W.A to China" a long time ago.
No one gives a $hit about W.A no one wants to live here, the media moved all its coverage over east, the political parties don't give a ratz ar$e about it, other than the mining income.
Now when Sydney starts to feel some actual personal financial pain, it is a national crisis, why? because they have a protected life selling into and buying into the ponzi scheme.
Well the virus ain't buying.
Another way of looking at it is, the Sydney/Melbourne people live with a 50% higher financial stress level than most of the rest of Australia and most of the media presenters live in Sydney/ Melbourne.
Maybe that is why they are so focused on Sydney/ Melbourne outcomes?

 

[mullokintyre]

Some may remember back in early 2020 that one of the experts, Neil Ferguson from the Imperial College in London, had used modelling to predict huge numbers of deaths from the coronavirus in the US and UK,
A bit of examination of his models by American Institue for Economic Research has shown just how far out he was in his predictions.

Figure II: Performance of Imperial College Modeling in 4 Non-Lockdown Countries & the United States

Country (assumed R0 = 2.4)	Imperial Model projected deaths – social distancing (lockdowns)	Imperial Model projected deaths -unmitigated spread	1 year actual deaths (3/26/21)	Overestimate, Lockdown scenario	Overestimate, Unmitigated scenario	Overestimate Percentage – Lockdowns	Overestimate Percentage – Unmitigated
Sweden	30,434	66,393	13,496	16,938	52,897	126%	392%
Taiwan	93,712	179,828	10	93,702	179,818	937020%	1798180%
South Korea	141,198	301,352	1,716	139,482	299,636	8128%	17461%
Japan	469,064	1,055,426	8,967	460,097	1,046,459	5131%	11670%
United States	1,099,095	2,186,315	563,285	535,810	1,623,030	95%	288%

As can be seen, Imperial College wildly overstated the projected deaths in each country under both its “unmitigated” scenario and its NPI-reliant “social distancing” scenario – including by orders of magnitude in several cases.
Similar exaggerations may be found in almost every other country where Imperial released projections, even as most of them opted to lock down. The Imperial team’s most conservative model predicted 332,000 deaths in France under lockdown-based “social distancing” and 621,000 with “unmitigated” spread. At the one year mark, France had incurred 94,000 deaths. Belgium was expected to incur a minimum of 46,000 fatalities under NPI mitigation, and 91,000 with uncontrolled spread. At the one year anniversary of the model, it reached 23,000 deaths – among the highest tolls in the world on a per capita basis and an example of extreme political mismanagement of the pandemic under heavy lockdown to be sure, but still only half of Imperial College’s most conservative projection for NPI mitigation.
Just over one year ago, the epidemiology modeling of Neil Ferguson and Imperial College played a preeminent role in shutting down most of the world. The exaggerated forecasts of this modeling team are now impossible to downplay or deny, and extend to almost every country on earth. Indeed, they may well constitute one of the greatest scientific failures in modern human history.

Ferguson and the Imperial college had form on this.
In a stats persons view
From Statistical Modelling

[Imperial College epidemiologist Neil] Ferguson was behind the disputed research that sparked the mass culling of eleven million sheep and cattle during the 2001 outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. He also predicted that up to 150,000 people could die. There were fewer than 200 deaths. . . .

In 2002, Ferguson predicted that up to 50,000 people would likely die from exposure to BSE (mad cow disease) in beef. In the U.K., there were only 177 deaths from BSE.

In 2005, Ferguson predicted that up to 150 million people could be killed from bird flu. In the end, only 282 people died worldwide from the disease between 2003 and 2009.

In 2009, a government estimate, based on Ferguson’s advice, said a “reasonable worst-case scenario” was that the swine flu would lead to 65,000 British deaths. In the end, swine flu killed 457 people in the U.K.

So the real scandal is: Why did anyone ever listen to this guy?

So now it seems that the recent falls in cases in the UK seem to be a bit of a dissapointment to the expert epidemioligists.
from

The number of reported coronavirus cases in the UK has fallen for the sixth day in a row, offering further hope that the peak of a third wave has passed.
There were 24,950 positive cases on Monday, a decrease of 15,000 from 39,950 last Monday and down from 54,000 on July 17. One model shows the R number at below one, suggesting that the pandemic is shrinking.

Boris Johnson and health officials were still urging caution, particularly as the impact of lifting legal limits on social contact in England last Monday has not yet been reflected in the data.

Dr Christopher Jewell, of Lancaster University, an epidemiologist who sits on the government’s Spi-M panel of advisers, said: “We will know more as the week unfolds, but certainly our current model-based estimates have gone from R [being roughly] 1 three days ago to R being less than 1 today (Tuesday).”

He said he suspected that the fall in cases “had something to do with schools breaking up and contact patterns changing”, but he warned that the fall could be explained by other factors, including the possibility that people “may be less inclined to get tested if they have summer holidays booked”.

One professor described previous warnings that Britain could have more than 100,000 new infections a day over the summer as a “substantial over-estimate”. Paul Hunter, of the University of East Anglia, said the fall in cases was likely to be linked to Euro 2020, when lots of people were likely to have caught the virus when they came together to watch games in large groups. “A lot of people might be disgusted by me saying this, but ultimately the Euros might turn out to be one of the things that make the rest of the summer less stressful, as we’ve effectively immunised a lot more younger people who wouldn’t otherwise have come for or been available for a vaccine,” he said. “But I would stress that I would never suggest that as a control strategy in advance.”

it just shows that scientists, experts, genii etc do not always get it right.
The problem lies in when to believe them, and when to look a little sceptically at what they have to offer.
The one thing you can be sure of, they are not universally correct.
Sometimes not even the consensus is correct.
Mick

 

[moXJO]

I usually am on the same page as yourself, however now it sounds as though the media is saying just get the AZ if it's available, yet when Morrison said that several weeks ago he was lambasted, as usual.
The problem is, everyone has been trying to wedge Morrison, when really they should have been just looking out for Australia's best interest.
just my opinion.

I was on the same page here. So was Bas from memory. AZ was completely political and now the same twitter idiots have swung back and said to get it. Meh, nothing wrong with disagreements.

My thoughts: stopping people working while simultaneously altering stimulus. At a time when rents are $500+ and 2 bags of groceries will set you bag $100. For my way of thinking is setting up a hard landing.

Then thinking people are not going to protest as they go broke.
Bjiggles should have fought harder to ensure what she put in place was going to offset the damage. Locking down the Lebanese community was never going to go well. Then for some reason a lot of my Muslim friends are aggressively antivax.

Zero cases seems like a stupid strategy. But a few here were saying the obvious months ago. Get vaccinated for the inevitable shtstorm

 

[bellenuit]

it just shows that scientists, experts, genii etc do not always get it right.
The problem lies in when to believe them, and when to look a little sceptically at what they have to offer.
The one thing you can be sure of, they are not universally correct.
Sometimes not even the consensus is correct.

Of course, but they were predictions based on the best information available at the time. One must view them cogniscent of the fact that being predictions, many things could go wrong or new factors could come into play. It was also a brand new virus and they had little knowledge of it and how it could mutate. They estimated over a million deaths in the US with lockdowns in place and it came in about half that. But what were the predictions of those who ignored science completely, people you seem to have some affinity with.

It's just a Democratic hoax.
It will go away in a few days.
Once the election is over, you will hear nothing more about it.

I would much prefer a government to be overcautious on a new virus that could have proven more lethal and killed in the millions or spawned a mutation that was not controllable through vaccines or other means, than a government that stuck its head in the sand and pretended nothing was going on.

 

[basilio]

Here's the Imperial College forecast for the UK based on various settings:
View attachment 128003
On the basis of the above, the peak number of daily deaths would range from a high of 1900 (black line) to a low of 670 (blue line).
Here's what actually happened:

View attachment 128006

TheUK's first wave was entirely consistent with Imperial modelling as the sharp early peak was due to lockdown measures only occurring in late March 2020. As only a fraction of the UK population was affected by the first wave, a second wave occurred and followed model expectations.
Interpolating Imperial College's forecast a mitigation strategy based on whole of population effect would have resulted in about 165000 deaths, compared to the 129000 which have actually occurred. Vaccination are likely to ensure that deaths will be significantly less than 165000.
Revisionist misuse of data has its pitfalls and if you don't understanding modelling you fall into the abyss that @mullokintyre has.

Thanks for that Redrob. I have read a number of articles from the AIER website and frankly their methodology is pretty shonky.

 

[mullokintyre]

But what were the predictions of those who ignored science completely, people you seem to have some affinity with.

The UK based its first responses to Covid based on the modelling that Ferguson provided.
I am merely pointing out that was miles out.
That does not mean I have an affinity to those who ignored science.
Its an inference that you have made.
I am a sceptical, cynical bugger who likes to see both sides of every argument.
Unfortunately, there seems to be a few folks on here who will only accept reviews, articles, models data analysis etc that suit there own particular bias.
Mick

 

[moXJO]

Thanks for that Redrob. I have read a number of articles from the AIER website and frankly their methodology is pretty shonky.

Did his post get deleted?

 

[mullokintyre]

I was on the same page here. So was Bas from memory. AZ was completely political and now the same twitter idiots have swung back and said to get it. Meh, nothing wrong with disagreements.

My thoughts: stopping people working while simultaneously altering stimulus. At a time when rents are $500+ and 2 bags of groceries will set you bag $100. For my way of thinking is setting up a hard landing.

Then thinking people are not going to protest as they go broke.
Bjiggles should have fought harder to ensure what she put in place was going to offset the damage. Locking down the Lebanese community was never going to go well. Then for some reason a lot of my Muslim friends are aggressively antivax.

Zero cases seems like a stupid strategy. But a few here were saying the obvious months ago. Get vaccinated for the inevitable shtstorm

From my own experience, two of my four kids were badly affected by the Victorian lockdowns, the other two were able to keep working.
Oner of the two who were affected lost his job, indeed the entire business is he started with a mate is gone, I am in a position to help him start agin if he thinks its worth it. At the moment he has no intention of going through it again.
Other son works in hospitality , so his job has been on and off again for 18 months.
I find it instructive that the people most vociferous in business, the media, the government, the public service etc rarely lost any money, much less their jobs. The well paid invariably were able to work from home as if nothing happened, with their biggest concern being what meals could be delivered to their "work from home".
The people most exposed to the virus were those whose jobs could not be done from home, and almost invariably were the lower paid jobs.
The army of delivery drivers dropping all the amazon purchases to the those working from home, the food delivery folks, the guys who manned the service stations, the mechanics, the furniture removers shifting the well to do from their city premises to their country/coastal/mountain retreat. These are the groups who suffered the most.
Then the elites wonder why they revolt.
Mick

 

[rederob]

Did his post get deleted?

Yes.
Here's the Table that simplified Imperial College's calculation on deaths:

Table 4. Suppression strategies for GB. Impact of three different policy option (case isolation + home quarantine + social distancing, school/university closure + case isolation + social distancing, and all four interventions) on the total number of deaths seen in a 2-year period (left panel) and peak demand for ICU beds (centre panel). Social distancing and school/university closure are triggered at a national level when weekly numbers of new COVID-19 cases diagnosed in ICUs exceed the thresholds listed under “On trigger” and are suspended when weekly ICU cases drop to 25% of that trigger value. Other policies are assumed to start in late March and remain in place.

There are too many variables to make definitive statements about what worked best, especially as masks were never in the initial mix.
Some people want to use the extremely high "Do nothing" figures as a basis for claims, rather than look at what was forecast against various mitigation strategies. That's not sound in that every nation has done something, not always soon enough, and not always enough!

(for those who don't read the linked paper, "on trigger" simply means how quickly mitigation strategies were "triggered" - based on people in ICU due to covid)

 

[rederob]

Unfortunately, there seems to be a few folks on here who will only accept reviews, articles, models data analysis etc that suit there own particular bias.

Are you able to confirm that you understand the data you quote?
For example in your post the calculation for US "overestimated" (by Imperial College) is 536000 deaths, but on a worst case scenario Imperial College forecast that lockdowns reduce deaths by about one fifth of the "Do nothing" scenario, so their lockdown estimate is 2200000 x 0.2 = 440000 (compared to 1100000 in your post).
I clarified the meaning of the data in a table you presented regarding vaccinations in Israel, as you requested, and got no reply.

 

[mullokintyre]

Are you able to confirm that you understand the data you quote?
For example in your post the calculation for US "overestimated" (by Imperial College) is 536000 deaths, but on a worst case scenario Imperial College forecast that lockdowns reduce deaths by about one fifth of the "Do nothing" scenario, so their lockdown estimate is 2200000 x 0.2 = 440000 (compared to 1100000 in your post).
I clarified the meaning of the data in a table you presented regarding vaccinations in Israel, as you requested, and got no reply.

It would not matter if I quoted God, you would dispute it.
Thats your perogative, but there are occasions when I just don't respond to trolls.
Mick

 

[mullokintyre]

Exactly. Some good info being dug up. Pieces of a puzzle. World shutdown (to a lesser and greater extent) is not to be sneezed at, excuse the pun, so the more we see of the picture the better we can understand the context of what we are being told (or not told).

Yesterday Scomo said his decisions were taken from ATAGI recommendations. If you look it up you can see the large group of professionals on the board. There is also a link to their 'disclosures of interest' and most of those are 'sponsored travel' and presenting at conferences.

The bigger the money behind them, the bigger and more prestigious the conference, the better the 'travel' and 'perks' and it does no harm to your peer status. Drug companies sponsor conferences so it must be difficult not to be influenced by them when those keynote speakers eventually guide the Australian government and WHO.

Perhaps I am wrong or paranoid. Perhaps my belief in preventative and curative health is too old-fashioned compared to the 'maintenance' style of modern health dished out today where only symptoms are treated with a drug for life or a new chemical injection for every disease and virus that passes through every year for life. It certainly gives doctors a steady income, pharmacists a steady income, drug companies a steady income, but if they cure you of something they all lose because you do not come back. That is a lot of losses to protect. Another piece of the puzzle.

And to back that up comes the news that private pathology groups in OZ are vehemently opposed to anything except PCR tests here in OZ.
From Todays Australian

Private pathology giants have been accused of cartel-like behaviour in refusing to endorse alternatives to PCR Covid testing, unwilling to forgo huge profits in Medicare rebates since the start of the pandemic.

Private pathologists remain vehemently opposed to endorsing any alternatives to PCR testing, which generate a $100 Medicare rebate per test. Rapid antigen tests range from $10 to $15 per test but are not covered by Medicare.

In NSW, PCR tests have cost the taxpayer more than $500m since the start of the pandemic. But many medical specialists believe much cheaper rapid antigen tests should be urgently rolled out for schools, aged-care facilities, manufacturing workers, border staff and hospital workers.

Specialist emergency physician Ian Norton said it was inappropriate that pathology groups would have influence over any public health decision in favour of rapid antigen testing, and has called for an independent group to be appointed to review their use and benefits.

One of the issues with PCR tests is the number of cycles of the PCR test that are required to get a result. According to a paper from National Library of medicine, running more than 24 cycles is prone to produce errors.

SARS-CoV-2 Vero cell infectivity was only observed for RT-PCR Ct < 24 and STT < 8 days. Infectivity of patients with Ct > 24 and duration of symptoms > 8 days may be low. This information can inform public health policy and guide clinical, infection control, and occupational health decisions. Further studies of larger size are needed.

Never let science, public health or ethics get between a large listed co and a buck.
mick