Controversial Covid post

My personal view is things will be back to pretty much normal by next summer - purely on the basis that if we don’t there will few businesses left that can survive and people in general will have said feck this we’ve had enough, we want our normal lives back



🐔
 
Ravshoutsatbeck said:
We clearly had a drop off in summer and a steady rise again in the last month. I am not an infectious disease expert, but from what I had read - the current situation is not that surprising.

We are treating admissions with dexamethasone and remdesivir depending on the specific context. Most people admitted to hospital are at least in for a few days receiving oxygen.

I am not sure about the way forward - but think test, trace and isolation with strong financial support from those who are effected. I can see arguments for lockdowns to reduce infections, but I can also understand the desire to avoid further economic hardship.

My current concern is that is the numbers continue as they are it will become almost impossible for hospitals to continue other services that are required.

I think without further restrictions we are likely to have more deaths in the elderly population - both from covid and from disruption to normal elective care, but this is not clear because the specific circumstances are all unique and everyone is trying their best to predict the way forward.

As for Yeadon - I feel the test has greater false negatives than false positives. (We have had patients that have only been positive on their second or third swab despite clear covid patterns on CT scans and an appropriate history)

I am unsure if Yeadon has a specific reason to selectively choose the evidence he is presenting. He is a biochemist whose PhD was in respiratory insults that has work almost exclusively in the pharmaceutical industry. I am going to look into the company that he is CEO of.
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That’s part of the conundrum isn’t it?
Who is motivated by what, to say what?
Yeadon, Cummins et al presenting data saying others are being economical with the truth.
They say (they would) it is because they are independent, want transparency and they have no axe to grind.

What has Vallance to gain by misleading us? No idea.
He was, however, happy to put the absolute sch1ts up everyone showing the cases graph at 80000 a day by Oct 15th.
In hindsight clearly wrong and in foresight they told us it was illustrative - they wanted us to be scared. They could have put other illustrations up for balance.
 
So, this false positive argument...

It argues that the Covid rates aren't as high as they are being portrayed by the test results as the tests aren't accurate. And that scientists who know this as fact are struggling to get airtime on the MSM and can only get it on very right wing media pages?

And whilst all this is happening, with these few 'experts' who struggle to get airtime, the Government and the majority of the scientific community are either unaware or ignoring it whilst actively ruining the economy? Plus you'd think the Tories are ruining their chances of getting back into power?

And this story is playing out all over the world - no other Government has learned that the tests are producing false positives, or if they do ALL of them are covering this up??


Lads, this sounds like Flat Earth stuff to me and the reason it get's no airtime is it's Batsh11t Crazy.
 
MolteniArcore said:
So, this false positive argument...

It argues that the Covid rates aren't as high as they are being portrayed by the test results as the tests aren't accurate. And that scientists who know this as fact are struggling to get airtime on the MSM and can only get it on very right wing media pages?

And whilst all this is happening, with these few 'experts' who struggle to get airtime, the Government and the majority of the scientific community are either unaware or ignoring it whilst actively ruining the economy? Plus you'd think the Tories are ruining their chances of getting back into power?

And this story is playing out all over the world - no other Government has learned that the tests are producing false positives, or if they do ALL of them are covering this up??


Lads, this sounds like Flat Earth stuff to me and the reason it get's no airtime is it's Batsh11t Crazy.
Click to expand...

I wouldn't call the daily mail and telegraph far right wing. The spectator fair enough.
It's not a 'few' experts either it's a lot across many different fields. 👍🏻
 
Alvez_48 said:
I wouldn't call the daily mail and telegraph far right wing. The spectator fair enough.
It's not a 'few' experts either it's a lot across many different fields. 👍🏻
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Cool - that's the bit I was a bit unsure of.

Can you explain this part of my question then?

"...the Government and the majority of the scientific community are either unaware or ignoring it whilst actively ruining the economy? Plus you'd think the Tories are ruining their chances of getting back into power?

And this story is playing out all over the world - no other Government has learned that the tests are producing false positives, or if they do ALL of them are covering this up??"
 
1finny said:
That’s part of the conundrum isn’t it?
Who is motivated by what, to say what?
Yeadon, Cummins et al presenting data saying others are being economical with the truth.
They say (they would) it is because they are independent, want transparency and they have no axe to grind.

What has Vallance to gain by misleading us? No idea.
He was, however, happy to put the absolute sch1ts up everyone showing the cases graph at 80000 a day by Oct 15th.
In hindsight clearly wrong and in foresight they told us it was illustrative - they wanted us to be scared. They could have put other illustrations up for balance.
Click to expand...

This is the pro / anti lockdown argument in a nutshell (and I'm not singling you out Finny, it's just your post was the last one replying to Rav).

An expert on the front line is telling us his ACTUAL experience suggests that the vast majority of what is being reported in the news is correct - we have a 2nd wave that is showing no real signs of slowing and something needs to be down about it.

On the other side we have non experts touting theories as to why people might want to mislead the public about the severity of the situation and what their ulterior motives might be.

One uses proof, the other is opinion, a seemingly misguided opinion when looking at the evidence.

I feel bad for Rav - he's there every day flogging his guts out keeping people alive who have infected Covid and wondering how this can be slowed then you have people on here saying it's all a big con, Covid isn't that dangerous and the Government are hiding things from us.

Surgical hat or tin foil hat? I'm with Rav and his surgical hat (y)
 
MolteniArcore said:
Cool - that's the bit I was a bit unsure of.

Can you explain this part of my question then?

"...the Government and the majority of the scientific community are either unaware or ignoring it whilst actively ruining the economy? Plus you'd think the Tories are ruining their chances of getting back into power?

And this story is playing out all over the world - no other Government has learned that the tests are producing false positives, or if they do ALL of them are covering this up??"
Click to expand...

Well I don't really know why but there are plenty of reasons why they could be. There's been big problems with the 'science' industry for a long long time, all related to money of course you should look into it there are a couple of really good documentaries out there. The 'majority' is also a loose term, I don't really know if it is the majority... In this country it seems to be two opposing teams rather than a mob Vs a few lunatics as you like to call them.

This is working fabulously for governments all over the world I mean think about the legislations and restrictions that have been passed world wide the past few months, not to mention if you turn around and say 'we may have over reacted' people will be coming with spikes to your front door for the damage and suffering caused.

Again just opinion but it's far from crack pot like you like to make out.
 
MolteniArcore said:
This is the pro / anti lockdown argument in a nutshell (and I'm not singling you out Finny, it's just your post was the last one replying to Rav).

An expert on the front line is telling us his ACTUAL experience suggests that the vast majority of what is being reported in the news is correct - we have a 2nd wave that is showing no real signs of slowing and something needs to be down about it.

On the other side we have non experts touting theories as to why people might want to mislead the public about the severity of the situation and what their ulterior motives might be.

One uses proof, the other is opinion, a seemingly misguided opinion when looking at the evidence.

I feel bad for Rav - he's there every day flogging his guts out keeping people alive who have infected Covid and wondering how this can be slowed then you have people on here saying it's all a big con, Covid isn't that dangerous and the Government are hiding things from us.

Surgical hat or tin foil hat? I'm with Rav and his surgical hat (y)
Click to expand...

He's not saying that at all and he's a doctor in one hospital (not that we can verify it) not an expert in virology which he's already said himself.

Not to mention the hilarious irony of you trusting completely a random internet username and calling people listening to other expert opinions as crackpots. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
New member too I see, just like him.
 
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MolteniArcore said:
So, this false positive argument...

It argues that the Covid rates aren't as high as they are being portrayed by the test results as the tests aren't accurate. And that scientists who know this as fact are struggling to get airtime on the MSM and can only get it on very right wing media pages?

And whilst all this is happening, with these few 'experts' who struggle to get airtime, the Government and the majority of the scientific community are either unaware or ignoring it whilst actively ruining the economy? Plus you'd think the Tories are ruining their chances of getting back into power?

And this story is playing out all over the world - no other Government has learned that the tests are producing false positives, or if they do ALL of them are covering this up??


Lads, this sounds like Flat Earth stuff to me and the reason it get's no airtime is it's Batsh11t Crazy.
Click to expand...
Strange we had very few/no false positives in July.
 
bear66 said:
Strange we had very few/no false positives in July.
Click to expand...

How do you know there were no false positives in july? Also we processed far less tests in July so the number would be lower but that's the point the numbers were lower in July? I can buy into @Ravshoutsatbeck point regarding false negatives which should also be looked into but you're point is clearly just wrong.
 
MolteniArcore said:
This is the pro / anti lockdown argument in a nutshell (and I'm not singling you out Finny, it's just your post was the last one replying to Rav).

An expert on the front line is telling us his ACTUAL experience suggests that the vast majority of what is being reported in the news is correct - we have a 2nd wave that is showing no real signs of slowing and something needs to be down about it.

On the other side we have non experts touting theories as to why people might want to mislead the public about the severity of the situation and what their ulterior motives might be.

One uses proof, the other is opinion, a seemingly misguided opinion when looking at the evidence.

I feel bad for Rav - he's there every day flogging his guts out keeping people alive who have infected Covid and wondering how this can be slowed then you have people on here saying it's all a big con, Covid isn't that dangerous and the Government are hiding things from us.

Surgical hat or tin foil hat? I'm with Rav and his surgical hat (y)
Click to expand...

I think it is wrong to say Yeadon isn’t an expert - his credentials look pretty good.
Front line experience is invaluable - spot on but, excess deaths is the key measure here and up to 9th Oct they were 1.5% ahead of 5 year average. I’d hope we can all agree that is not significant.
I’m conscious of the lag and, the good thing is we ought to know pretty soon if Yeadon is right - they are absolutely saying no 2nd wave of deaths. If that happens and we get a spike - game over.

One thing that interests me is Covid cases in hospital at the moment.
In that South Yorkshire hospital there are 150 ish. If i understand correctly they are Covid +ve because of the test which some say is flawed significanty.
Bear with me - I’m not agreeing.
But, if they are right and a number of these people go on to die they will be ‘Covid Deaths’.
Might be just me but I’d love an open discussion on this.

In the end, I get someone has to make a call and Vallance has the stripes.

The other thing I’d repeat is Vallances famous graph showing 80000 cases a day from Oct 15th. As soon as that was printed the likes of Andrew Neil were saying something like
’not a chance - it’s just basic forecasting that is flawed’

All interesting stuff (if you like this sort of thing)
 
Alvez_48 said:
He's not saying that at all and he's a doctor in one hospital (not that we can verify it) not an expert in virology which he's already said himself.

Not to mention the hilarious irony of you trusting completely a random internet username and calling people listening to other expert opinions as crackpots. 🤣🤣🤣🤣
New member too I see, just like him.
Click to expand...

It's not just one member on here I am trusting - you can see pattern all over social media / forums. You get someone who has (or claims to have) personal experience of the subject and they make sensible, valid points. When the 'other side' can't disprove them as it's experience in their job they say "fair enough, you are a doctor, I believe you and you are doing a great job... BUT I don't believe all the others and my opinion is still right and valid regardless as nothing will change my mind"

It's just like leave and remain. A waste of time discussing, so I'll stop.
 
Alvez_48 said:
How do you know there were no false positives in july? Also we processed far less tests in July so the number would be lower but that's the point the numbers were lower in July? I can buy into @Ravshoutsatbeck point regarding false negatives which should also be looked into but you're point is clearly just wrong.
Click to expand...
Check the figures 521 in 139,000 tests is the lowest percentage positives we had. Also check the weekly ONS infection surveys through from July. These are random selected people rather than those with symptoms so an even lower percentage of positives than NHS figures.

To quote the ONS at this low period in July.

"We know the specificity of our test must be very close to 100% as the low number of positive tests in our study means that specificity would be very high even if all positives were false. For example, in our most recent six weeks of data, 50 of the 112,776 total samples tested positive. Even if all these positives were false, specificity would still be 99.96%."
 
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1finny said:
I think it is wrong to say Yeadon isn’t an expert - his credentials look pretty good.
Front line experience is invaluable - spot on but, excess deaths is the key measure here and up to 9th Oct they were 1.5% ahead of 5 year average. I’d hope we can all agree that is not significant.
I’m conscious of the lag and, the good thing is we ought to know pretty soon if Yeadon is right - they are absolutely saying no 2nd wave of deaths. If that happens and we get a spike - game over.

One thing that interests me is Covid cases in hospital at the moment.
In that South Yorkshire hospital there are 150 ish. If i understand correctly they are Covid +ve because of the test which some say is flawed significanty.
Bear with me - I’m not agreeing.
But, if they are right and a number of these people go on to die they will be ‘Covid Deaths’.
Might be just me but I’d love an open discussion on this.

In the end, I get someone has to make a call and Vallance has the stripes.

The other thing I’d repeat is Vallances famous graph showing 80000 cases a day from Oct 15th. As soon as that was printed the likes of Andrew Neil were saying something like
’not a chance - it’s just basic forecasting that is flawed’

All interesting stuff (if you like this sort of thing)
Click to expand...

I find it all pretty interesting and I agree with you, that 80,000 cases a day thing is odd - I thought as much as I was watching it live - I just put it down to them trying to impress upon us how serious the situation is. I suppose it is getting very serious now.
 
bear66 said:
Check the figures 521 in 139,000 tests is the lowest percentage positives we had. Also check the weekly ONS infection surveys through from July. These are random selected people rather than those with symptoms so an even lower percentage of positives than NHS figures.

To quote the ONS at this low period in July.

"We know the specificity of our test must be very close to 100% as the low number of positive tests in our study means that specificity would be very high even if all positives were false. For example, in our most recent six weeks of data, 50 of the 112,776 total samples tested positive. Even if all these positives were false, specificity would still be 99.96%."
Click to expand...

Right but that's not how it works is it... Every day there will be different numbers of false positives because you have different lab technicians, swabs taken etc.. That day every positive could have been false or not false.

I'm not for a second saying that there aren't 'actual positive' cases and I'm not actually in agreement with Yeadons' assertion that the pandemic is over, although that comes down to semantics. I'm just saying it's something that should be discussed in a controlled setting by people like Yeadon and Vallance so that we can actually try to ascertain the validity of each position. Let's face it, it wouldn't take much for BBC to set these 'debates' up would it? And I don't mean presidential style I mean people talking to get to some conclusions, evidence and opinion on the table.
 
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