Controversial Covid post

ChrisTheRed said:
Sadly there are too many people that soak up everything that comspiracy-laden alternative media feeds them and then seek out confirmation bias and are unable to consider anything outside of that and if you are someone that is not that way you're portrayed by them as a granny murdering covid lie believing leftie maniac.
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Ravshoutsatbeck said:
Working as an intensive care doctor throughout both waves the numbers in the press seem to correlate with the numbers seen at work.

All medical tests have a false positive rate and a false negative rate. The Covid PCR test has a significantly higher false negative rate than false positive. If anything I think the numbers in the press are underestimating the prevalence. We are getting a lot of people admitted to hospital that have made no effort to get a test despite symptoms later in the disease progress.

The population of the hospital is currently completely different to a normal October with multiple wards having only covid on, and we are getting to the point where it is going to be increasingly difficult to safely continue normal elective care because of a lack of staff/space to provide high quality care.

I have seen first hand people dying of Covid and the current workload is high, but we do seem to be better at treating the condition.
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That is kind of his point - it does become a self fulfilling prophecy if his assertion is correct.
At any one time there are scores of viruses causing respiratory problems. They start to hit this time of year.
If we test lots and people are falsely diagnosed with Covid, then come to hospital with a respiratory disease then..... it’s Covid.

The acid test is to come (and we have been saying that for some time).
If excess deaths spike - he is absolutely wrong.
He is pretty unequivocal though and seems to have a decent pedigree.
 
zorro_mfc said:
That is just the point though it does. It affects all of us. That is the point.

I have edited as I was discussing the issue I didn’t mean to get personal as that’s not the point it’s about the issue itself.
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Except it doesn't as because I've already explained in previous weeks I'm not visiting anywhere that isn't my parent's house or our covid secure kitchen at work. The joys of Amazon and Asda delivery. Oh and the little corner shop for the sweets, fags and booze.

Surprised Yeadon hadn't been torn to shreds on this thread yet for having a different, difficult to accept opinion.
 
Very interesting opening post Fabio. I said a little while ago I would have some very unusual 'bedfellows' over the next few months. My political leanings have always been what would generally be considered left leaning but as you say anyone questioning the general narrative is only given a voice on the "right wing" media.

I have posted less recently as it was really not good for my mental health constantly reading up background to the virus, checking out data etc. And I'm generally fairly 'stable' I can only imagine the pressure that people who are now fearing for their employment, have had medical procedures delayed, and are unable to see family within care homes are feeling.

At the start of all this I was very much of the Ferguson view and soaked up all his modelling of hundreds of thousands of deaths. I believed we should have closed everything down earlier and believed Ferguson's modelling of "lockdown" and release cycles during the summer to keep the virus "in check". However, when you actually look at the data for what has transpired that modeling just doesn't seem to hold up. The curves follow classic shapes for this kind of virus passing through a population and the shapes vary depending on location around the world.

I wanted to believe the Gupta paper when it came out suggesting that there may already have been significant immunity built up but it got shouted down and I believed that "shouting down". Then a number of papers came out detailing the role of t-cells and at the very least in principle supported what many scientists had been saying from the beginning.

I thought that would be the turning point........

At the very least the government/SAGE should made a hotline to those research groups and started a survey to investigate how many people within the UK may have been exposed, how many had prior immunity. Not an easy assay and not something that could be rolled out nationwide but no need. Carry out a survey in a similar manner to the antibody survey.

Why was this not done? Why do SAGE continue to rely on seroprevalence alone?

But then things just started to get weird...... things started to open up but other restrictions were put in place..... mandatory masks during the summer, one way systems in shops and pubs, bizarre rules such as "you must wear a mask while walking around a bar/waiting to be seated, but it is not required when seated".

THE fundamental issue is the ignorance of prior immunity / deliberate misleading of the government (which I don't know) regarding potential prior immunity. It has hardly even been acknowledged by SAGE that this may exist. Why not? If they don't think this is the case then why have they been unable to come out and explain why they are relying on seroprevalence only?

Testing and false positives are also very important. This is something I have read less about so haven't commented too much but it is pretty obvious that even if the false positive rate is low (there will be some level of false positives) with mass testing (which seems to be a goal of SAGE and government - for what end?) there will be loads of false positives and that will have huge implications on the running of public services and on people's lives. SAGE, as far as I'm aware (correct me if I'm wrong) have not published their false positive rate for pillar 2 testing, why not?
 
1finny said:
That is kind of his point - it does become a self fulfilling prophecy if his assertion is correct.
At any one time there are scores of viruses causing respiratory problems. They start to hit this time of year.
If we test lots and people are falsely diagnosed with Covid, then come to hospital with a respiratory disease then..... it’s Covid.

The acid test is to come (and we have been saying that for some time).
If excess deaths spike - he is absolutely wrong.
He is pretty unequivocal though and seems to have a decent pedigree.
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This is just false.

There is a clear second spike in cases.

The current in hospital situation is nothing like normal. We have one ICU in my hospital that has nothing but covid (we had no cases for a few weeks in August).

We still test for other illnesses - this is not flu.
 
Just to add.....

I am not a covid denier, it is very real. politicians have very difficult decisions to make and I would understand erring on the side of caution. Even Mike Yeadon concedes had he been in Whitty's shoes in March he would also have "called the lockdown".

However, when the science is misinterpreted (for what end?) then very serious questions need to be asked. At the moment those questions only seem to be being asked by some Tory back benchers. I have no idea why Starmer wants to place greater restrictions across the nation as a whole. Some regions have few to no covid patients within their wards and are unlikely to see a significant rise.
 
Ravshoutsatbeck said:
This is just false.

There is a clear second spike in cases.

The current in hospital situation is nothing like normal. We have one ICU in my hospital that has nothing but covid (we had no cases for a few weeks in August).

We still test for other illnesses - this is not flu.
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Yeadon disagrees with you
No one is saying this is flu btw
Watch the video and feel free to help us understand why he is wrong
 
BobUpnDown said:
5Live Science are having a podcast next Sunday re - lockdown or not - should be interesting.. they were asking for people to call in this week with debate points... ( or rants for some )

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b043wvt9
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The media definitely seem to be exploring both sides of the lockdown argument more and more now.
This article from the express about this weekends protest in London was an eye opener for sure.

https://www.express.co.uk/comment/e...3-tier-2-tier-1/amp?__twitter_impression=true
 
RandySavage said:
The media definitely seem to be exploring both sides of the lockdown argument more and more now.
This article from the express about this weekends protest in London was an eye opener for sure.

https://www.express.co.uk/comment/e...3-tier-2-tier-1/amp?__twitter_impression=true
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The problem with this give equal air time thing is that conspiracy theorists by Bob who props up the pub in The Red Lion gets the same validity of view as a scientist who has spent 40 years in the field.
 
Ravshoutsatbeck said:
This is just false.

There is a clear second spike in cases.

The current in hospital situation is nothing like normal. We have one ICU in my hospital that has nothing but covid (we had no cases for a few weeks in August).

We still test for other illnesses - this is not flu.
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And there are hospitals in other areas of the country with few to zero covid patients. The north will still have some, for sure, I do not deny that it is still in circulation in certain areas of the country. I personally know doctors and consultants in major northern hospitals and they are coping, busy yes (they tell me they often are at this time of year) but nothing like the predictions. Which is understandable because the predictions are based on 90% still susceptible.
 
BoroMart said:
The problem with this give equal air time thing is that conspiracy theorists by Bob who props up the pub in The Red Lion gets the same validity of view as a scientist who has spent 40 years in the field.
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SAGE could come out and shut down conspiracy theories instantly if they came out and explained why their modeling assumes 90% still susceptible. If they could do that with some science and data then great, it would help more people understand because at the moment it doesn't stack up.

Why don't they?
 
1finny said:
Yeadon disagrees with you
No one is saying this is flu btw
Watch the video and feel free to help us understand why he is wrong
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We are still getting some normal respiratory illnesses, this is not being falsely labeled as covid. There is a clear clinical picture as well as the PCR test that makes the belief that other illnesses are being labeled as covid is wrong.

I have spent more than 50 hours of the last week as the doctor taking referrals for intensive care overnight in a city centre hospital. It is not a case of waiting to see if this guy is wrong, his views are incompatible with what I am seeing in clinical practice.
 
Ravshoutsatbeck said:
We are still getting some normal respiratory illnesses, this is not being falsely labeled as covid. There is a clear clinical picture as well as the PCR test that makes the belief that other illnesses are being labeled as covid is wrong.

I have spent more than 50 hours of the last week as the doctor taking referrals for intensive care overnight in a city centre hospital. It is not a case of waiting to see if this guy is wrong, his views are incompatible with what I am seeing in clinical practice.
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Where do you work and what is your role?
 
BoroMart said:
The problem with this give equal air time thing is that conspiracy theorists by Bob who props up the pub in The Red Lion gets the same validity of view as a scientist who has spent 40 years in the field.
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Marty people like Yeadon and Ioannidis have 40 years in the field. 😉
 
T_A_D said:
And there are hospitals in other areas of the country with few to zero covid patients. The north will still have some, for sure, I do not deny that it is still in circulation in certain areas of the country. I personally know doctors and consultants in major northern hospitals and they are coping, busy yes (they tell me they often are at this time of year) but nothing like the predictions. Which is understandable because the predictions are based on 90% still susceptible.
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I am based in a northern ICU and maybe there are other areas that are fine. This is not normal for October.
 
Ravshoutsatbeck said:
I am based in a northern ICU and maybe there are other areas that are fine. This is not normal for October.
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I said earlier in this I’ve been in touch with 2 consultants one in a South Yorks hospital, one in Manchester.
The South Yorks has gone from 4 cases in Sept to around 150 as of yesterday.
Manchester is better than last year.

Yeadon does acknowldege some locations could be worse than March but, in general, a 2nd wave can’t happen (unprecedented for this kind of virus)

One thing that would help is how do you diagnose Covid in your hospital?
 
Cambsred said:
When I hear him speak with such certainty and confidence I find it hard not to want his argument to be correct. He is reliably informing me that if I just get on with things everything will be fine.

I am not confident or knowledgeable enough regarding herd immunity, and the length of time people remain immune for- although some of the research from the original sars suggests at > 17 years immunity remains. Hopefully once we have it we can then move on.

@T_A_D is a big advocate for t- cell immunity and talks in the same vain as Dr Yeadon. I am sure immunity is present throughout the population, to the extent that is suggested in the podcast I am not as sure- again, a lot of people were infected in March so who knows. I am of the subjective opinion that it passed through my household- and our antibody tests are all negative- but who knows as testing was not up to gear at that time.

His second wave stuff I think is semantics- I feel the idea that we are in a second wave would suggest we ended a first wave- virus do pass through populations as they pass through. The northwest seem to have been grumbling along throughout the last 6 months. I would expect in coming out of lockdown London would take off again- but it has not yet. Perhaps a high level of immunity is already present. The next few weeks will answer that I suspect.

Medically, i can only speak for what I am aware of in the East of England. Nowhere was overwhelmed, however the ITUs were full of patients, particularly the large specialist hospitals. There were very few cases from May- August, and now they are trickling through the doors again (not many) but certainly more admissions that previously.

Some anecdotal worrying cases of long term conditions appearing now due to fear of hospitals/ not wanting to bother GPS/ hospitals which is concerning- this is the mortality/ morbidity impact of long term lockdown/ media scareing. And these will be the excess deaths that are because of locking down specifically, rather than covid (obviously they come hand in hand).

I can't help but feel that they slated modelling during the podcast, then guessed using possible models what the actual immunity/ population resistance was present.

I take his message as- people will die from it, we will develop immunity, he thinks we probably have got a good level in the populace, more people will die of it, but they will die of other stuff too. "The most vulnerable will die anyway"

I think that is always going to be the case- lockdowns if done early enough and for long enough will slow the spread- and I think it has. Vaccines may or may not help, but they will likely provide some short term immunity and help the most vulnerable.

My two questions have always been:

How many deaths can you accept without doing anything?

How do we weigh up deaths versus long term post viral symptoms with a virus that appears to me probably as deadly at the flu- however far more virulent and therefore a lot more post viral consequences and it spreads to a lot more people increasing the amount of deaths.

He also goes on to talk about law suits and I must be right because he hasn't sued me. Science isn't always clear cut, this is such a nonsense story. It really does devalue his argument and feels quite petulant.
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Your two questions are very valid ones. There is always a balance to be struck but when the starting point for "modelling" is seemingly so far off and SAGE refuse to discuss/debate/explain their position then the questions become almost impossible to answer.

As for Yeadon, yes, he can come across a bit "shouty" but he is happy to lay it on the line because of his principles and he knows what he is talking about. I don't know him personally but I do know people who have worked with him and hold him in high regard.

If he is wrong then it would be very simple for SAGE to come out, with data, and explain their position. However, the silence is deafening.
 
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