Meanwhile, in Sweden...

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I watched an hour long video interview with the fella. I think he does over-simplify and generalise and seems quite glib, to be frank... apart from getting emotional about not protecting the elderly.

However, his general assertion that the peak passed a good while ago looks like it might have some validity. In the video he suggests that, as you come out of lockdown, you will get a new hump of infections, but much less dramatic than the first, because there are more people around with antibodies. Anyway, this visualisation looks like the story he tells ... https://metro.co.uk/2020/05/13/coro...falling-faster-london-anywhere-else-12700171/
 
It doesn't matter what language he's speaking. Saying that no children or young adults end up in hospital is not a case of somehow making the wrong word choice or an example of his intended meaning being "lost in translation" - it's just completely and utterly false.

Furthermore, it's not an isolated example. He also said:

Very simple wording, very simple statements and again, totally untrue. It is not over in either country - both have had a worrying upsurge in cases in recent days after relaxing restrictions.

Another untrue claim is:

Numerous videos taken inside hospitals in Italy and Spain, and harrowing testimony from doctors and nurses in those countries, attest to how overwhelmed the hospitals were in those countries, for a while at least.

Then he says that in New York, there was:

Again, absolutely untrue - bodies were being stacked in refrigerated container lorries in New York; in one example there were so many of them that the bodies were being scooped up using forklift trucks. Prisoners from Riker's island were digging mass, unmarked graves on Hart Island and mechanical diggers were used to stack the caskets. All this was dramatic, out of the ordinary and not seen in a normal flu season.

Prisoners dig Hart Island mass graves

Forklift puts bodies of CoVid-19 patients into refrigerated trucks

There are just so many factually incorrect statements in the article that they can't possibly all be excused as mistakes due to language - the guy is just making false claim after false claim.

Also, what's with the ad hominem attack?


Hart Island has been used as mass grave site for hundreds of years.. including last year.. the year before.. it's also used to dispose of unclaimed bodies.

Refrigerated trucks are also often used this isn't a new thing it happens most years in new York during the flu season.

Oh and the reason he's how he is because he's took untold stick from the media for talking honestly... He was in years in a prior video because of the impact it had had on the elderly.

I am sorry for the attack I was just being tongue in cheek honestly.
 

‘The most stringent lockdowns – as in China, Italy, Spain, New Zealand and Britain – have yielded both high and low deaths per million’

Now I know Im taking a small part out, but he fails to put context behind the individual lockdowns

For instance we don’t the extent of China And what has really happened there

Italy spain and U.K. all followed each other into late lockdown, and they all correlate to high deaths per million

New Zealand locked down extremely early, the curtailed the deaths per million

You can not compare countries in reality. Each country has different demographic, have taken different approaches. Some countries are have more population density to others.
 
I think you have to read the earlier article in context. He was mainly discussing Switzerland if I'm not mistaken. They had no children in hospital in Switzerland. There are precious few kids anywhere that are affected. And not many under 40. Those that die generally have some kind of comorbidity. Whereas even a healthy 60 year or above can die of the virus. 2,000 already have in the UK. (The vast majority do have other conditions - mainly high blood pressure).

It's a long time since "science" was driving any decision. Decisions are now almost all made based on the media reaction and public fear. But given we knew so little about the virus I suppose that's not a surprise.

As for New York and New Jersey. I have no idea why but their Covid-19 response has been terrible. Perhaps the density of population is a problem. Lots of people living in high rise blocks with connected ventilation systems or similar. Either way the death rate in New York is one of the highest in the world. If you compare the situation in the US, apart from a handful of outliers they've done really well. 1400 deaths per million in New York state, but then Texas with a similar population has 43 deaths per million. Florida with a massive population of senior citizens is 87 per million. Though they still have moderate levels of infection.

Maybe it really is this Vitamin D question. It's a safe bet Florida and Texas have had more sun than New York of late.
 
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You can not compare countries in reality. Each country has different demographic, have taken different approaches. Some countries are have more population density to others.
Very true. You can't even compare areas with a country. For example, if you live near an international airport you were far more likely to come in contact with the virus. Or if you have an older population (like Sunderland and Middlesbrough) you're likely to have more deaths. And now London - that suffered early - has low numbers of new cases, while the North East is a hot spot. (London probably has some level of herd immunity according to a recent study).

It's probably more to do with reducing the initial points of infection. Taiwan hasn't any lock down, but closed it's borders early, does test and trace, provides everyone with masks, and has 7 deaths in a population of over 20 million, 140 miles from the Chinese coast. New Zealand again doesn't have many international airports. The UK and US had people arriving from all over the world carrying the virus (in particular to New York) and so ended up with wide spread infection before they had a chance for test and trace.
 
This fella is brilliant. Very thoughtful. Balanced ... and avoiding extreme positions. It's long but, I think, now the best thing I've watched on the epidemic. He actually talks about the regional variations in severity, different kinds of lockdown, about places like New Zealand. Superb.
 
I was going to write a long reply on the nonsense written in the spike article (it hits top sot for the mis-information I've seen so far!) but I think one 'gem' sums things nicely:

Wittkowski: One could argue that maybe one per cent of all cases would die. But one per cent of all people infected does not make any sense. And we had that evidence by mid-March.

spiked: Just to clarify, cases are different from people infected?

Wittkowski: Cases means people who have symptoms that are serious enough for them to go to a hospital or get treated. Most people have no symptoms at all. But waking up with a sore throat one day is not a case. A case means that someone showed up in a hospital.

WOAH there! If this situation wasn't so serious I'd be laughing at such junk. So by his reckoning only 1% of people who go to hospital die due to this virus. Think about that......

UK hospital deaths ~28,000 (don't start on the died with vs died of, his calculation would still be so far out). His 1% of all cases ("a case means that someone showed up in a hospital") dying would mean that 2,800,000 people (2.8 million!!!!) have "showed up in a hospital". This is clearly garbage and is just another case of someone misrepresenting case fatality rate (CFR) vs infection fatality rate (IFR) to drive an agenda.
 
I was going to write a long reply on the nonsense written in the spike article (it hits top sot for the mis-information I've seen so far!) but I think one 'gem' sums things nicely:

Wittkowski: One could argue that maybe one per cent of all cases would die. But one per cent of all people infected does not make any sense. And we had that evidence by mid-March.

spiked: Just to clarify, cases are different from people infected?

Wittkowski: Cases means people who have symptoms that are serious enough for them to go to a hospital or get treated. Most people have no symptoms at all. But waking up with a sore throat one day is not a case. A case means that someone showed up in a hospital.

WOAH there! If this situation wasn't so serious I'd be laughing at such junk. So by his reckoning only 1% of people who go to hospital die due to this virus. Think about that......

UK hospital deaths ~28,000 (don't start on the died with vs died of, his calculation would still be so far out). His 1% of all cases ("a case means that someone showed up in a hospital") dying would mean that 2,800,000 people (2.8 million!!!!) have "showed up in a hospital". This is clearly garbage and is just another case of someone misrepresenting case fatality rate (CFR) vs infection fatality rate (IFR) to drive an agenda.

Whatever the merits/de-merits of Prof Knut's hypothesis, you're probably best not wagging a finger with maths like that.
 
And just to provide a link to UK hospital admissions:

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-uk-hospital-admissions/

Hospital admissions a longggggg way from 2.8 million, but you knew that.
Not to mention equating antibodies with immunity (although no evidence submitted). And misrepresenting how South Korea suppressed infection, saying it just ran is course. The spike in infections this week shows that it never ran it's course but needs vigilance to suppress it. Then says half way to herd immunity (with no evidence) but a second spike is impossible. The 1% looks about right from the ONS figures on likely transmission in the UK this week. (This will be dependent on age groups affected.)
 
Interesting: (From Dagens Nyheter)

Public Health Institute Director Camilla Stoltenberg comments on the Norwegian procedure during the pandemic
in a DN interview.

- It went very, very fast. We never had
a real discussion before the political decision was made, she says.

According to Norwegian media, Prime Minister Erna
Solberg was pressured to make quick decisions on the shutdown when Denmark acted the day before. According to Stoltenberg, the Norwegian Public Health Institute agreed with the politicians on many points, but not to close schools and pre-schools.

- There was nothing we recommended, says
Stoltenberg.
 
https://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/over-25-of-the-uk-likely-to-have-had-covid-19-already/

It's time to face reality... This thing is disappearing, which is good news!

Anyone who still fearmongering needs to get a grip.

"Disappearing"? Incidence decreasing yes, because of measures put in place. As that paper mentions.... "We show how effective Social Distancing and Lockdown has been. Though this is a tragedy, it could have been far worse"

Fearmonging does not help. I am not fearmonging. Just to provide a counter argument to this latest study, a couple of links: in which the merits of this study are questioned. An author blocking other scientists on twitter for asking questions (not abusing) is always a worrying sign. Often a sign that they are unable/unwilling to explain and simply want to hide behind the "it has been peer reviewed", which doesn't necessarily mean anything.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1261058066495074304.html

and this from Adam Kucharski:


It would be great if the virus has spread more widely that current studies suggest. Kucharski's models have estimated the numbers of people already infected in various countries and those figures have fitted pretty well with the serology studies carried out. The serology studies could be wrong, they could underestimate the percentage of population infected, that would be fantastic. There is legitimate debate to be had about measures which have been put in place and the impact they have had, are having, and how we may move away from them but sometimes it is difficult to even get to the debate due to hyperbole, tabloid headlines, and mis-representation of data (from both sides of the 'lockdown' argument).

New York city was showing ~20% if I remember correctly and we know how badly hit that was (though just a typical flu season say some). If you know of a serious serological study which supports >20% infected across the whole of a country I'd love you to point me towards it.
 
"Disappearing"? Incidence decreasing yes, because of measures put in place. As that paper mentions.... "We show how effective Social Distancing and Lockdown has been. Though this is a tragedy, it could have been far worse"

Fearmonging does not help. I am not fearmonging. Just to provide a counter argument to this latest study, a couple of links: in which the merits of this study are questioned. An author blocking other scientists on twitter for asking questions (not abusing) is always a worrying sign. Often a sign that they are unable/unwilling to explain and simply want to hide behind the "it has been peer reviewed", which doesn't necessarily mean anything.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1261058066495074304.html

and this from Adam Kucharski:


It would be great if the virus has spread more widely that current studies suggest. Kucharski's models have estimated the numbers of people already infected in various countries and those figures have fitted pretty well with the serology studies carried out. The serology studies could be wrong, they could underestimate the percentage of population infected, that would be fantastic. There is legitimate debate to be had about measures which have been put in place and the impact they have had, are having, and how we may move away from them but sometimes it is difficult to even get to the debate due to hyperbole, tabloid headlines, and mis-representation of data (from both sides of the 'lockdown' argument).

New York city was showing ~20% if I remember correctly and we know how badly hit that was (though just a typical flu season say some). If you know of a serious serological study which supports >20% infected across the whole of a country I'd love you to point me towards it.

Have you re-worked your maths yet?
 
Whatever the merits/de-merits of Prof Knut's hypothesis, you're probably best not wagging a finger with maths like that.

Please tell me where I am wrong, happy to have mistakes explained.

28,000 is 1% of 2,800,000.

He stated "maybe one per cent of all cases would die" and "A case means that someone showed up in a hospital". So, by his definition, not mine, that 1% is 28,000. That would mean total cases (remember that is "someone showed up in a hospital") would be 2,800,000. This is obviously not the case and I would hope he just got confused but given some of the other statements in the written interview I think it may not be.

I have watched some of a video interview with Wittkowski and he says some sensible things and makes a great point about protecting the elderly and care homes. He says that care workers should have been paid over time and stayed in the homes with the vulnerable for a period of time. He says a few weeks I would have thought more. Not sure how easy that would be to do, care workers often have children to look after for example, but the principle is sound. However some of the other stuff he comes out with in the interview almost seems detached from reality or wilfully misrepresenting situations.
 
I was Actually in Sweden a year ago today ( Stockholm). We visited the Vassa.

A beautiful country esp the archipelagos
 
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