Tommy_Dickfingers
Well-known member
I was pandering to the MSM and their obsession with the 2nd wave, I suppose what I was saying is are we better placed to naturally fight off any more attacks quickly
They more or less have herd immunity, which is why the infection detection rate is falling rapidly
The pandemic in Sweden has taken almost precisely the course that Johan Giesecke predicted in that first Unherd interview. And other countries are now facing exactly what he predicted, that coming out of lockdown would be difficult.
Your problem with the 65,000 excess deaths is you are assuming they are all covid-19 causes.
What else are you attributing 20,000 excess deaths to?
I appreciate correlation isn't perfect science, but the excess deaths did appear to go up significantly while virus attributed deaths rose, and reduced to minus 0 when the virus attributed deaths reduced significantly?
No, it's not "more or less". It's more like "they don't have herd immunity" based on the widely estimated fatality rates, their own testing results, along with any other nations virus and antibody testing results.
Sweden's numbers are falling because the R rate is falling or is less than 1, because of the awareness, social distancing, masks, washing hands or whatever else they are asked to be doing (and they're doing what they're asked), not forced to be doing. T
Herd immunity needs like 60% at least, so seeing as Sweden has 10.25m people, it would need 6.15m infections for 60%.
Based on 5,500 deaths the only way Sweden could have the minimum 60% herd immunity is if the death rate is 0.09% (like the 0.1% that guy quotes)
Now lets get down to why I think he's talking balls:
In the UK we think the fatality rate is 10 x that amount, at 0.9%, so based on those numbers Sweden has had about 610k infections, which is about 6% immunity, not 60%, which sounds a lot more likely.
Based on Sweden's 750k tests, they have had 78k confirmed cases (at the time of the test, assuming not antibody tests also), which is about 10%, and nowhere near 60%, unless their tests don't work and read false negative?
If they do work, that's 1 in 10, having a positive test, so lets start with the most immunity they could have is about 10%, seeing as most of those testing positive were probably those that were already in hospital. This makes the probability of those sick/ in hospital testing positive much higher (showing major symptoms/ dying), which means the probability of the public on the street testing positive a lot lower, this brings down the herd immunity percentage.
So rough example numbers:
That might be 40k positives out of 100k tests on suspected cases in hospital
That leaves 40k positives from 650k tests, which is about 6% immunity of the public. This coincidentally marries up almost exactly with a 0.9% fatality rate (UK prediction) based on 5,500 deaths from 650k infections.
You might say that is only testing for a current infection, not a previous infection, but it's still going to be relatively accurate as to get to "herd immunity 60%" figures then that would mean that tons of people got infected in March, April, May and then it just disappeared, which we all know can't happen, as people would still be being infected and there would be a much higher current positive test rate.
From the antibody test results on New York they had estimated that they had more than ten times the number of cases that got reported/ positive tests initially, and almost double the reported covid deaths, so this came in at 23,430 deaths from about 1.7m infections. So a 1.4% fatality rate.
That guy you quoted thinks it's 0.1% fatality rate, which is about 10% of the UK's estimate or 7% of the New York study's 1.4%. No idea what he's basing that 0.1% figure on, but nobody else is doing that and Sweden's test figures nowhere near reflect this.
In the UK we've had 65,000 excess deaths, which would mean pretty much every single person in the UK has had it, based on 0.1% fatality rate, or 45m people based on the 45k deaths the UK uses. Yet we only have had 300k positive tests from 13.8m carried out (2.2% positives).
We currently test 70k per day, and get 700 cases (about 1% infection rate, but obviously a lot of those will already be in hospital).
Going for herd immunity early and risking death by infection is also kind of pointless if there's the possibility of a vaccine or better treatment available, which it's certainly looking like there is, and this was always going to be the case with the entire world fighting it. Effectively Sweden accepted defeat, when going 1-0 down at home after 5 minutes, and said lets just call it a 3-0 loss huh? Every other country went on the defensive for a bit and is now getting back in the game, Norway, Finland and Denmark equalised almost instantly. The USA keeps scoring own goals.
Yes, for other nations confirmed infections might go up slightly when lockdowns get lifted/ have been lifted, but equally it might just be because there's more testing and tracing available, less gets through the net. Even the places that are increasing are nothing like the exponential growth seen in March/ April. There's drugs available now which can treat this far better and half the world is working on vaccine at a pace that has never been seen before.
The best course of action looks to be pretty much what Asia said on day 1:
Lockdown early before the problem starts and maintain the lockdown until you have one, two or all of these:
1) Sufficient testing, tracking and tracing capability
2) A vaccine
3) Treatment which reduces the infection/ death rate to a point where it's insignificant (not creating excess deaths)
You can also do it with herd immunity, but nobody has proven that yet.
The UK is testing 100k people for antibodies over the next month (my lass has been asked to do one), so we will find out soon enough.
No idea. Nobody knows yet do they?
Tell you what. Of all the people on here bandying figures aboutand talking about Sweden, you are the least well informed and most clueless. Keep posting this ill-researched stuff, and I'll presume that you are trolling me. Your posts in June stating that Sweden had a 7 day rolling average of 50 deaths when they hadn't had a single day with 50 deaths in weeks says all I need to know about your expertise with numbers.
The herd immunity goes way beyond positive antibody tests. Those with covid specific T cell response are 3 times the number of those those with antibodies. There are also some pople whose body fights off infection at the muccous membrane level. Herd immunity is about the lack of available hosts for the virus who are vulnerable to it. That's why Stockholm has scarcely any cases and why the daily deaths curve there was the same as it has been everywhere that the virus has spread rapidly through the community.... steep rise to a peak followed by a gradual decline to just isolated cases. Add to that the fact that the medics gradually deiscovered the best treatments.
Anyway, I'll go back to ignoring you. Don't troll me on this thread.
If you are so sure I'm sure the WHO and Public Health England would love to hear your thoughts.Not really a good answer that is it.
There's one pretty obvious answer, it's called a pandemic. Your beloved Sweden's excess deaths marry up almost exactly to their Covid-19 deaths.
If you are so sure I'm sure the WHO and Public Health England would love to hear your thoughts.
Spoiler alert too, this country is no longer in a pandemic.
Which country? Sweden? Or the UK?
If you are referring to the UK then we have a greatly decreased number of cases and deaths because of the measures which were put in place (e.g. distancing) not because the virus . This is very simple and agreed on by most scientists on both sides of the "lockdown" / "best approach" (e.g. Tegnell and Sridhar are very much polar opposites in their favoured approach to dealing with the virus but both agree on the role "distancing" plays in slowing the spread of the virus).
Look at the number of US states which introduced restrictions, began to release them, and are now seeing a rise in cases. There are very clear reasons for this, it is basic stuff.
The UK, like much of Europe, has for months had restrictions in place which have meant the number of contacts between people has been dramatically decreased and thus the virus cannot spread as easily and cases come down.
"Herd immunity" I hear people say, along with "T-cells". Well, herd immunity would be another reason that cases would drop. Are we there yet? No one knows but we will begin to find out as and when society returns to 'normal' functions. I also hear people saying shops and pubs are open and we are seeing no rise in cases. The levels of mixing and interactions of people is still no where near 'normal' levels and only when it is and we see no rise in cases can we consider there may herd immunity. There was never going to be a significant rise in cases from a few thousand people at a beach or an outdoor protest yet those on one side of the debate wanted to push the idea that this would begin a "2nd wave" while those on the other side used the absence of an increase in cases as support for their argument that there wouldn't be a "2nd wave". Both positions born out of dogma without recourse to logical thinking. Completely ridiculous.
Dr John Campbell has a YouTube channel which is very informative and approaches things from a scientific perspective. I was hoping that the UnHerd interviews would do the same when I started watching those a few months ago but sadly they seemed to have been dominated with guests on one side of the debate. Anyway, Dr Campbell's latest video (see link below) covers a recent publication in Nature which looks at T-cells and immunity. Without going into the details there is one very important quote:
"understanding pre-existing T-cell immunity in the general population is of paramount importance for the management of the current Covid-19 pandemic"
Absolutely! Current studies while important and investigating our fundamental understanding say nothing about the applicability to the situation amongst the general population. I have no idea how easy it is to test for this in the general population compared with antibody testing (which can be complex for various reasons) but that is likely the only way to get some idea about how much of the population is still susceptible to the virus.
Borolad: "Those with covid specific T cell response are 3 times the number of those those with antibodies".
I'd be interested in seeing a link to that study if you have it, it is a very interesting area and it would be great if there were far fewer susceptible individuals than we think. That would mean we'd be able to get back to normal faster/more easily. I'd not have to work stupid hours, I'd be able to get along to football training, and I'd be able to meet more friends/workmates down the pub. Sadly, I still don't see data/evidence that suggests we're near herd immunity in the UK. W
Spain are seeing a rise in cases (early days but the trend is clear) as they relax restrictions and while I hope this is due to increased testing (I cannot comment on testing levels there) Occam's razor might suggest that it is due to the relaxing of restrictions leading to more contacts between people. This in turn is leading to the virus spreading again. And that can only happen if there is not herd immunity.
Dr John Campbell video:
It REALLY, REALLY wouldn't have.There is no second wave. Would have seen it happen by now.
Spoiler alert too, this country is no longer in a pandemic.