One-*** efficacy questions

[TominDales]

. How many teenagers do you know directly have been seriously ill? Remember schools have been open again for 2 months now.

Two. My niece and her boyfriend got Covid 12 months ago in London, she lost her sense of smell and has had stomach aches to this day, its was very severe last April until September and have lessened in the last six months. She resigned her job in November and is taking a sabbatical (she is young) and plans to start work again later this year.
A work friend of my 19 year old son who is now 20 years old has also had a very bad stomach. He was off-work for six months. He was the leader of their friendship group organising footie, nights out, also amateur boxing he was also charismatic supervisor at the venue where they work. He was complety incapable of any of this activities for six months, at one point his GP said he may be disabled for life. He is on medication and he is slowly recovering, a working part time. Being only 19 years old, and going from fit to invalid, has been a shock to him and his friends.

 

[RobinBHM]

I thought this was interesting:

Dogs can better detect Covid in humans than lateral flow tests, finds study
French trial shows dogs were able to detect presence of coronavirus with 97% accuracy

 

[RobinBHM]

Whataboutery

It is in endemic in the UK.

Wrong

You've been claiming Covid has been endemic for months and months.
It is only just now becoming endemic due to our vaccination programme....but it's still a pandemic, here and everywhere else.

It's yet another thing you are wrong about.

 

[RobinBHM]

Two. My niece and her boyfriend got Covid 12 months ago in London, she lost her sense of smell and has had stomach aches to this day, its was very severe last April until September and have lessened in the last six months. She resigned her job in November and is taking a sabbatical (she is young) and plans to start work again later this year.
A work friend of my 19 year old son who is now 20 years old has also had a very bad stomach. He was off-work for six months. He was the leader of their friendship group organising footie, nights out, also amateur boxing he was also charismatic supervisor at the venue where they work. He was complety incapable of any of this activities for six months, at one point his GP said he may be disabled for life. He is on medication and he is slowly recovering, a working part time. Being only 19 years old, and going from fit to invalid, has been a shock to him and his friends.

This is why long Covid should be considered when talking about the lower age groups and the dangers of Covid - it's not simply "a few people over 80" It has affected a lot of people and it can be very debilitating - like your sons work friend.


My niece has 2 colleagues that have long Covid.
One has respiratory problems, loss of stamina and brain fog and has had to give up her job
The other has heart problems.

My wife knows a family where a 42 year old died, whilst her elderly mum didn't get it.

 

[selectortone]

Two. My niece and her boyfriend got Covid 12 months ago in London, she lost her sense of smell and has had stomach aches to this day, its was very severe last April until September and have lessened in the last six months. She resigned her job in November and is taking a sabbatical (she is young) and plans to start work again later this year.
A work friend of my 19 year old son who is now 20 years old has also had a very bad stomach. He was off-work for six months. He was the leader of their friendship group organising footie, nights out, also amateur boxing he was also charismatic supervisor at the venue where they work. He was complety incapable of any of this activities for six months, at one point his GP said he may be disabled for life. He is on medication and he is slowly recovering, a working part time. Being only 19 years old, and going from fit to invalid, has been a shock to him and his friends.

You're wasting your breath, or typing time. No amount of first hand experience will sway these two guys.

They are stuck away in provincial backwaters which are blessed to have been relatively unharmed by covid. I posted evidence from a nurse friend of my daughter at Bournemouth General, RobinBHM has posted about his niece, others have posted similar accounts. We have had people with medical, pharmaceutical and other related backgrounds giving their accounts. Yet these two persist with their insinuations that it's all a giant world conspiracy to sell vaccines and keep us under the thumb of tyrannical governments.

They have dug themselves into such deeply entrenched positions that it's a complete waste of time trying to reason with them. This thread could be really useful and has contained some excellent information, but it keeps being sidetracked off into conspiracy-land.

(waits for the laughing emoticon from Mr Rorschach...)

 

[Rorschach]

Damn, Sweden still doing so badly, I wish I hadn't looked up to them as a guide for what we should do.......

 

[John Brown]

I thought this was interesting:

Dogs can better detect Covid in humans than lateral flow tests, finds study
French trial shows dogs were able to detect presence of coronavirus with 97% accuracy

I found that interesting.
Especially so, since I saw/read something many years ago, whereby in double-blind tests, drug and explosive sniffing dogs performed no better than random, and the supposition was that they tended to pick up on body language clues from either their handler, or the suspect.
I believe they've had good results with cancer and other conditions, though.
I also remember reading that bees are even better sniffers, and can be trained more quickly.

 

[RobinBHM]

Its not childish at all. We don't need special long covid clinics

And that is exactly what is childish.

Anything that doesn't fit with what you believe is dismissed without any evidence, facts or data.

 

[Rorschach]

Anything that doesn't fit with what you believe is dismissed without any evidence, facts or data.

Who does that remind me of? Give you a clue, begins with R and ends BHM

 

[RobinBHM]

Damn, Sweden still doing so badly, I wish I hadn't looked up them as a guide for what we should do

Ah yes, good old Sweden.

"Denmark, Norway and Finland, with a combined population of around 16.75 million, have recorded 4,331 deaths attributed to coronavirus as of Thursday (259 per million). All three enforced lockdowns early on in the pandemic. Sweden, by contrast, has registered 12,798 deaths, and possesses a population 10.2 million, meaning it has a far higher death rate than its immediate neighbors (1,255 per million"

https://abcnews.go.com/Internationa...19-lockdown-strategy-worked/story?id=76047258


By the way are talking about the Sweden that:
Coronavirus: Sweden brings in rule of eight for diners amid spike in infections


Faced with the reality of a winter surge, Sweden is finally bringing in some harsher restrictions after months of being one of the few countries with no lockdown

Sweden is to close its upper secondary schools for the first time during the coronavirus pandemic in a bid to put the brakes on its second wave of Covid.

 

[Rorschach]

And my point is proved, thank you

 

[RobinBHM]

Who does that remind me of? Give you a clue, begins with R and ends BHM

If you ever get around to posting any actual data from qualified sources I will look at it.

But you haven't and can't.....because anything from a high quality source disagrees with you

 

[RobinBHM]

And my point is proved, thank you

As I said, you posted a simplistic graph of Sweden, without explaining what non pharmaceutical interventions they had used.

I've just posted that Sweden did need to use to reduce spread......which disproves your argument they don't work.


By the way, I could easily post examples of Australia, New Zealand, South Korea to prove lockdowns work.....but I understand demographics, geography etc play a part, so rather like Sweden, its all about the detail.

 

[RobinBHM]

No you can't achieve elimination

New Zealand proves you wrong

 

[RobinBHM]

It is your presumption that growth in covid increases exponentially but the fact it that it doesn't. It doesn't in places where there is no lockdown either - all virus' ebb and flow

They increase exponentially before the peak.

What happens is the infections spreads as fast as can via transmission......and when you have the vulnerable staying at home, there is less transmission and a lower peak.

You are using the simplistic argument that because viruses come in waves that means we can't influence what happens with the peaks.

I recommend you go and learn the basics of epidemiology, it will help you.

 

[Selwyn]

They increase exponentially before the peak.

What happens is the infections spreads as fast as can via transmission......and when you have the vulnerable staying at home, there is less transmission and a lower peak.

You are using the simplistic argument that because viruses come in waves that means we can't influence what happens with the peaks.

I recommend you go and learn the basics of epidemiology, it will help you.

Actually I'm no arguing virus come in waves at all. A lot of them just circulate, peter out and become endemic - all the common colds etc we get are past virus that would have killed people with their novelty. No waving at all.

We can influence the peaks of virus' to a degree but we don't need to trash the economy to do it, that is my central point. Particularly with a disease with an IFR of 0.14% and 0.03-05% amongst 20-50 year olds. Its a good thing the vulnerable stayed at home

A lot of very well qualified epidemiologists have been saying this again and again. A lot of the covid issues are being manufactured because of the PCR tests. We will have killed more from lockdown and lost more years of quality of life in the end than any lockdown. The second lockdown was particularly henious and unneccessary.

 

[Selwyn]

New Zealand proves you wrong

They will still get covid unless they want to stay locked up forever. You have to be capable of thinking further than just what the BBC says each day

 

[Selwyn]

As I said, you posted a simplistic graph of Sweden, without explaining what non pharmaceutical interventions they had used.

I've just posted that Sweden did need to use to reduce spread......which disproves your argument they don't work.


By the way, I could easily post examples of Australia, New Zealand, South Korea to prove lockdowns work.....but I understand demographics, geography etc play a part, so rather like Sweden, its all about the detail.

Er, no one was arguing against some NPI. A lot of this is voluntary anyway. Its why the peaks of covid in the UK occured before lockdown. You are the fanatic who thinks only confining people to their houses will work.

 

[Selwyn]

You're wasting your breath, or typing time. No amount of first hand experience will sway these two guys.

They are stuck away in provincial backwaters which are blessed to have been relatively unharmed by covid. I posted evidence from a nurse friend of my daughter at Bournemouth General, RobinBHM has posted about his niece, others have posted similar accounts. We have had people with medical, pharmaceutical and other related backgrounds giving their accounts. Yet these two persist with their insinuations that it's all a giant world conspiracy to sell vaccines and keep us under the thumb of tyrannical governments.

They have dug themselves into such deeply entrenched positions that it's a complete waste of time trying to reason with them. This thread could be really useful and has contained some excellent information, but it keeps being sidetracked off into conspiracy-land.

(waits for the laughing emoticon from Mr Rorschach...)

I think we can all agree its a very nasty disease but the facts remain the IFR is 0.14-15%. For 20-50 year olds is 0.03-05%. Under no other circumstances would we be vaccinating the world like this. A lot of business' have been trashed and our country will be poorer for a number of years which will without doubt affect our ability to provide quality healthcare in the future.

When you look at the figures and you start to strip away at the deaths due to the care home complete **** up, the nosocomial infections, the pcr positive tests combined with comorbidities you can see what the idea that it is a silent killer roaming the land doesn't stack up. We knew so much more about it from April 2020 yet stuck to the modelling from 2 months before.

I don't see what is conspiratorial about that statement.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

I am not sure where IFR of 0.15% arises - this would suggest on a UK population of 66m that fatalities would be ~100k. We have already reported 127k.

To date the UK have reported 127k deaths on 4.5m cases = ~2.7%. Similar figure for Europe are 1062k deaths on 46m cases = ~ 2.3%

I suspect there are some significant errors in these figures. Cases are almost certainly under reported due to lack of testing capacity and asymptomatic infection. Reporting of deaths can be imprecise due to measurement criteria used.

Assuming UK deaths to date are skewed towards the more elderly, and that the rate in the population as a whole would be less than 2.7% reported, it is likely to be higher than 0.15%.

That severe or fatal covid victims are old and/or vulnerable is correct. Does that justify ignoring their plight to avoid the damage done to the rest of society due to lockdown.

I do not believe life should be prolonged at almost any cost. Personally I have no desire to spend the final months or years of my life a dribbling incontinent wreck and a burden on my family. But this should be a rational personal choice when able.

Balancing this are large numbers of elderly far removed from the paragraph above who live fulfilling and worthwhile lives. They need to be protected.

Just imagine for a moment that the pandemic were like the Spanish flu 100 years ago and predominantly affected the young. How would you react if the elderly asserted "we only have a few years to live, we worked hard all our lives, lockdown would deny us these final pleasures, etc".