Lockdown Deaths

[Alvez_48]

Contritium praecedit superbia, Alvez...

I don't think anyone has ever argued that those in younger age groups are at high risk of hospitalisation or death (although a small number are). The fact remains, however, that the higher the level of spread across the community, the higher the probability of people in older age groups and/or those with underlying health conditions (who are at significantly higher risk) of contracting the virus. That's the reason for the rest of us to try and suppress the virus, not because we should be personally scared of catching it.

It is still the case that the countries which have dealt with this best are the ones which recognised it as a SARS-type virus and immediately imposed measures (usually test, track and isolate) to suppress its spread, keeping numbers to manageable levels and preventing widespread community infection. Those which have dealt with it worst (including the UK), initially dealt with it as a flu-type epidemic, allowing community spread to occur and being forced to change tack (and impose lockdowns) when it became clear that things were spiralling out of control. I've said before, but I'll restate it yet again, lockdown is not the optimal policy response to the virus, it is an admittance of failure by the governments concerned.

Finally, I think you're confusing my willingness to point out factual errors as some sort of advocacy for a particular policy position. I like to think that I do that on both sides of the argument, but it's unfortunately the case that those who were anti-lockdown from the start have tended to be the ones promoting false statistics and/or statements completely unsupported by evidence.

I want us to be out of this situation as quickly as everyone does. If that means that I need to admit to being wrong about a few things, I would be delighted to do so. I am still awaiting, however, your admittance that you were wrong about more than 50% of the population having already had the virus (current evidence estimates 7%), wrong that people weren't dying of Covid-19 but simply with it (death registrations show 95% of people with Covid died as a direct consequence of the disease) and wrong that the Infection Fatality Rate was about 0.06% (current evidence shows 0.75-1% for the UK).

We have no idea what % of the population have had the disease or have natural immunity to it, so your wrong there.

You're also wrong on IFR repeatedly found to be around 0.2-0.4% please point me to where I stated 0.06 (but still much closer to actual IFR than Neil Ferguson) if I did that's incorrect my apologies.

As for your with / of comment I'd like to read about it so please show me.

Even if everyone who has died with covid has died of it and every excess death as a result of it (both statements patently not true), the response to the virus has been completely disproportionate, if you agree with that I'll happily apologize for including you in the list.

 

[Laughing]

Alvez, the response may be disproportionate, thing is, we have no way of knowing that.

Clearly the government didn't make the right decisions at the right time, as the released SAGE/SPI-M minutes show. In that respect the lockdown became necessary as the virus was out of control and it was the only course of action left to the government. The government, essentially tried to tough it out instead of managing the epidemic.

As for mortality rates, I don't really see the point in arguing those. Whatever number we have today will probably change over time once we get a handle on the virus and understand how widespread it really is.

For where we are now, I think lockdown should continue, though in a couple of weeks we will know whether i am right or wrong Haimes' tweet will be cold comfort for those who lost someone. My son was hospitalised, and he is 35, so just unlucky I guess.

The crowing is a bit unattractive, from anyone, given the current death toll.

 

[Alvez_48]

I'm not crowing at all laughing mate, infact I'm angry.

Angry at all the people that are suffering and will suffer a catastrophic change in circumstance in the next few months and years as a direct result of the response.

I'm sad to hear your son had to go to hospital I assume he made it through and hope he is well currently, having someone so close be that affected is a terrible thing to happen to a person.

 

[Randy]

Contritium praecedit superbia, Alvez...

I don't think anyone has ever argued that those in younger age groups are at high risk of hospitalisation or death (although a small number are). The fact remains, however, that the higher the level of spread across the community, the higher the probability of people in older age groups and/or those with underlying health conditions (who are at significantly higher risk) of contracting the virus. That's the reason for the rest of us to try and suppress the virus, not because we should be personally scared of catching it.

It is still the case that the countries which have dealt with this best are the ones which recognised it as a SARS-type virus and immediately imposed measures (usually test, track and isolate) to suppress its spread, keeping numbers to manageable levels and preventing widespread community infection. Those which have dealt with it worst (including the UK), initially dealt with it as a flu-type epidemic, allowing community spread to occur and being forced to change tack (and impose lockdowns) when it became clear that things were spiralling out of control. I've said before, but I'll restate it yet again, lockdown is not the optimal policy response to the virus, it is an admittance of failure by the governments concerned.

Finally, I think you're confusing my willingness to point out factual errors as some sort of advocacy for a particular policy position. I like to think that I do that on both sides of the argument, but it's unfortunately the case that those who were anti-lockdown from the start have tended to be the ones promoting false statistics and/or statements completely unsupported by evidence.

I want us to be out of this situation as quickly as everyone does. If that means that I need to admit to being wrong about a few things, I would be delighted to do so. I am still awaiting, however, your admittance that you were wrong about more than 50% of the population having already had the virus (current evidence estimates 7%), wrong that people weren't dying of Covid-19 but simply with it (death registrations show 95% of people with Covid died as a direct consequence of the disease) and wrong that the Infection Fatality Rate was about 0.06% (current evidence shows 0.75-1% for the UK).

Why should he admit he is wrong about more than 50% of the country having the virus when you then go on to say 7% is an estimate?

Also bear in mind that there are reports out there that state that those who have had covid-19 virus may NOT have antibodies. So you could quite easily have had covid-19 yourself and never ever know for 100% if you did or not.

 

[Laughing]

My son is fine now Alvez, and interestingly enough he never drove to my house in the event he might need childcare, and he has 4 kids all under 8.

Anyway, we are all angry, or should be. There will be an economic impact, and that will cause severe hardship, and death in some people. You are not wrong. It doesn't mean that the lockdown was the wrong decision at the time it was made.

Had we followed SPI-M advice, the lockdown may not have been necessary, we don't know. Likewise we don't know what the cost in human life would have been with no lockdown.

I am not even convinced that we are through the pandemic yet, unfortunately. I hope we are, and yesterdays figures, albeit one day only, does give hope, as does the reduction in hospitalizations.

We will know in a couple of weeks I suspect, one way or the other.

One other thing, I think we would all love to get back to some sort of normality, a pint with mates, going to the office, cuddling your grown up kids. Jeeze, going to our village cafe and having a coffee and a natter with locals. Just the day to day that we all took for granted.

 

[bear66]

Why should he admit he is wrong about more than 50% of the country having the virus when you then go on to say 7% is an estimate?

Also bear in mind that there are reports out there that state that those who have had covid-19 virus may NOT have antibodies. So you could quite easily have had covid-19 yourself and never ever know for 100% if you did or not.

The 'estimate' is the scientific way of explaining that it is based on sample data of a cross section of the population. It will always be an estimate unless 100% of the population are tested. The figure is now two weeks out of date though so, hopefully, the ONS will give us the latest figure this week.

If your second point is correct, the figure may be higher but we can only be at a very early stage of understanding that. Long term covid-19 testing followed by antibody testing of the same population would ultimately validate that. It may be bad news for any vaccine development though if even the disease fails to produce antibodies.

More conventional understanding of what's happened across 11 European countries can be seen in the peer reviewed publication linked below. The peer review comments on the paper and authors' answers can also be read.

Link

 

[Billy Horner]

Why should he admit he is wrong about more than 50% of the country having the virus when you then go on to say 7% is an estimate?

Also bear in mind that there are reports out there that state that those who have had covid-19 virus may NOT have antibodies. So you could quite easily have had covid-19 yourself and never ever know for 100% if you did or not.

Apologies for not replying earlier, but I got dragged into a minor work emergency yesterday. Bear has already provided a good explanation, but here is the slightly more technical response.

You are correct that neither the 'more than 50%' statement or the 'approx. 7%' figure are definitively 100% accurate. Both have some level of uncertainty attached to them.

However, one is basically a guess whilst the other is a mathematical calculation based upon a randomised sample of the population. Therefore, one figure has little, if any, evidence with which to back it up, whilst the other figure does have evidence upon which it is based.

Furthermore, with the approx. 7% figure (actually 6.78%), we can actually quantify the level of uncertainty which surrounds it. By calculating the confidence interval, we can state how confident we are that the actual figure for the whole population lies within a certain range.

In this instance, the ONS has calculated the 95% confidence interval is the range 5.21% to 8.64%. That is to say that, if we repeated the study many times with many different sample populations, we can be confident that 95% of the time that range would contain the true value that we are seeking to estimate.

So, hopefully, you can see that, although there will always be some level of uncertainty in life, there is the world of difference between a mathematically calculated estimate based upon the scientific study of a randomly sampled population, and a guess.

 

[Billy Horner]

We have no idea what % of the population have had the disease or have natural immunity to it, so your wrong there.

Well we have no idea whether there is such a thing as natural immunity to the disease, if that's what you mean? As for the most up-to-date evidence for the prevalence of antibodies in the UK population, please see the latest ONS release on their Coronavirus Infection Survey in conjunction with Oxford University:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...scovid19infectionsurveypilot/england14may2020

You're also wrong on IFR repeatedly found to be around 0.2-0.4% please point me to where I stated 0.06 (but still much closer to actual IFR than Neil Ferguson) if I did that's incorrect my apologies.

Apologies, my mistake. I've got you mixed up with someone else. You've previously stated it was in the range 0.1-0.3%, so at least you're moving in the right direction now!

As for your with / of comment I'd like to read about it so please show me.

Latest ONS analysis of leading causes of death in link below. States that there were 33,841 deaths involving Covid-19 between 1 March and 30 April 2020, of which 32,143 (95%) had Covid-19 assigned as the underlying (i.e. main) cause of death.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...d19englandandwales/deathsoccurringinapril2020

Even if everyone who has died with covid has died of it and every excess death as a result of it (both statements patently not true), the response to the virus has been completely disproportionate, if you agree with that I'll happily apologize for including you in the list.

Whilst I don't agree that the response has been disproportionate, I have stated before and am happy to do so again, that imposing a lockdown is not the optimal policy response to the virus. It is a necessary response from those governments which allowed the virus to spread within the community unchecked for too long, and who then needed to impose extreme measures to bring the situation under some level of control.

Increasing amounts of evidence worldwide are showing us that those countries which have handled the situation the best are the ones which suppressed the virus at all costs by immediately implementing test, track and isolate systems. If the UK is to get out of the mess we find ourselves in, we will require such a properly resourced and professionally delivered system in place (not the current feeble attempt by the government) before we are able to do so.

 

[Alvez_48]

Latest ONS analysis of leading causes of death in link below. States that there were 33,841 deaths involving Covid-19 between 1 March and 30 April 2020, of which 32,143 (95%) had Covid-19 assigned as the underlying (i.e. main) cause of death.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...d19englandandwales/deathsoccurringinapril2020

That just says it's 95% died with ... 95% also had co-morbidities so just word play from your angle.

Well we have no idea whether there is such a thing as natural immunity to the disease, if that's what you mean? As for the most up-to-date evidence for the prevalence of antibodies in the UK population, please see the latest ONS release on their Coronavirus Infection Survey in conjunction with Oxford University:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopula...scovid19infectionsurveypilot/england14may2020

Simply not true loads of evidence there is natural immunity and new studies support this.

And as for the IFR I'm closer to the reality then you are so you made a big pride comes before the fall statement before then coming up with the same stuff as always.

Thankfully for both of us it's going away (like all seasonal respiratory diseases do) quickly now.
Fingers crossed it doesn't resurface in a more severe way come flu season but I'm worried it will.

I should hasten to add meanwhile whatever civil liberties we had left have been further curtailed under the guise of sagety as well as the much covered economic impact.

 

[Randy]

I see tonight's Panorama program is about the cases of cancer that have been neglected over the lockdown period..

For example this lady is on the program tonight

https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...nt-die-18541677.amp?__twitter_impression=true
This lady's treatment was stopped after the NHS decided to change into the NCS, appreciated some lucky ones managed to continue their treatment but this scandal is only just starting to come to light in the media now that covid-19 deaths are falling into double figures.

Also reports in the newspapers this morning that the lockdown could cause 35,000 cancer deaths. Newspapers obviously used coronavirus instead of lockdown in their headlines.

Who's heads will roll because of this? Will be definitely watching this tonight.

 

[ForssAwakens]

I see tonight's Panorama program is about the cases of cancer that have been neglected over the lockdown period..

For example this lady is on the program tonight

https://www.manchestereveningnews.c...nt-die-18541677.amp?__twitter_impression=true
This lady's treatment was stopped after the NHS decided to change into the NCS, appreciated some lucky ones managed to continue their treatment but this scandal is only just starting to come to light in the media now that covid-19 deaths are falling into double figures.

Also reports in the newspapers this morning that the lockdown could cause 35,000 cancer deaths. Newspapers obviously used coronavirus instead of lockdown in their headlines.

Who's heads will roll because of this? Will be definitely watching this tonight.

The government, the root cause of excess deaths and the nhs not being able to run at normal capacity in other areas all stems from the decision to lockdown too late

 

[Randy]

https://www.theguardian.com/educati...oncerns-over-school-closures?CMP=share_btn_tw

Sadness. Williamson and Hancock have these kid's blood on their hands