One-*** efficacy questions

[Selwyn]

You have unfortunately taken it out of context.

"The government says cases are "slowing down", but testing numbers have also dipped, meaning the true caseload could be far higher"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-india-56976214

If you read my comments after you will see that I took it very much in context

Look at Our World in Data and look at the data from India now. Curves slowing, testing massively ramped up so naturally more covid on the pcr.

I'm correct about it. You need to look beyond the narrative you are fed and see the data yourself.

 

[Selwyn]

@Rorschach


I know one family that lost 5 people to covid.

I know of someone who didn't think covid was a big deal when they had it, broke lockdown, snuck around to her dad's for Christmas's. Merry Christmas, he died 2 weeks later.

I know a family of 4. Mum, dad, son and daughter. Son fit young and strong. Everyone but the daughter died within the same week.

My wife and I manage a number of people. 4 of which were young strong and healthy, and have long covid. They have to crawl up stairs. One was too weak to turn their head and drink water from a straw. One has a wrecked heart. Another almost died a half dozen times.

I wonder what cost benefit analysis they'd prefer?

The people I know that haven't experienced bad covid first hand trivialise the impact, forget they are lucky, and generally treat their wallet as higher importance than another's life.

It's easy to call for cost benefit analysis if youre not having having to pay the debt, from an armchair, with super power of hindsight.

The easiest way not to catch a disease is to not be near people with it. Lockdown ensures that. What more benefit than being alive is there?

So you cherry pick one family in a vanishingly rare scenario and then extrapolating that to say that other people must only value money over lives? There is evidence out there if you care to look at it that virus' constantly ebb and flow and we should manage with that expectation.

Anyway the person who "broke lockdown" for xmas seems a strange story. Firstly as xmas day people were allowed to visit each other and secondly it seems extremely unlikely people died of covid 2 weeks after infection - all the data suggests the spread is longer than that.

You do realise the poorest in society will bear the brunt of this? Its not the cosseted pensioners, its not the zoom workers. Do you value the higher cancer rates and those deaths at home under covid deaths?

 

[Selwyn]

I don't know Southend woodworker from Adam but I have heard many simalar cases.

Cheers James

How many have been like this?

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/covid-christmas-bubble-family-dead-b1793964.html
Sounds like some of you may know the same family. By far and away most of the Covid deaths are for very old, very infirm and vulnerable people with an average age of 83.

 

[Selwyn]

uh, they were? I remember tons of stories like this:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/18/nyregion/new-jersey-family-coronavirus.html

Tons? A few in the very early days when no one took any precautions at all. Certainly not tons.

 

[Rorschach]

Here is a recent bbc article giving the opinion of the guy who‘s modelling led to the first nationwide restrictions
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-56988070

Eh gads I can't think of anything more terrifying that Neil Ferguson telling me everything is going to be ok! Now we really are stuffed!

 

[Selwyn]

Your question is quite profound as it points to an essential paradox of this pandemic (maybe all pandemics are similar). The pandemic is not at all uniform, its in reality a series of very local epidemics.
You can be in one region and not hear of a case and just down the road its pandemonium. In our case rural North Yorkshire has hardly had any cases locally, yet there are streets in Bradford decimated by it. The cases we know of, are all of friends/relative who either live in conurbations or in one case commuted to a NHS trust in London from Yorkshire. Some of the island really show this clearly, Barra and islands of Scotland, no cases for months and then suddenly they are overrun with it. Isle of Man had no cases from May to January and then 100 a day in February. Before vaccination broke this pattern, the outlook was zero cases in a town until it arrives.. it grows exponentially until people react/isolate and then it peters out. and the cycle repeats itself in another location or comes back for a second visit.

The paradox is that for most people they either see very little or a lot. You don't get an average smeared across the world. its also why the pandemic has been more deadly than might have been the case. Its creeps up on unsuspecting locations and then pounces exponentially. Only in states with draconian government action have they successfully dealt with this adversary.

This is absolutely not the case. There are plenty of USA states and countries that told people to carry on as normal. Even our lockdowns weren't a genuine prevention of mixing they just a collection of daft rules strangling business.

Why have we not seen spikes in genuine illness in Schools since they went back?
Why have we not seen spikes in supermarket workers who are on the front line?

 

[Selwyn]

My wife knows a family that caught Covid. There were 2 sisters in their 40s and one aged 42 died. She was a policewoman with no comorbidity.

I listen to LBC radio, their political correspondent caught Covid in March last year. He got so ill at home his girlfriend called the ambulance. He was in hospital for a week. He was recently saying that for months after he had fatigue and needed a few hours rest each day. He said his stamina level is significantly reduced and couldn't play something like 5 a side footy for more than 5 minutes before being cream krackered.

There are now around 1 million people with long Covid, I do wish people would stop trying to claim "it's just a mild illness for the vast majority."

For the vast majority it won't even be an illness. Their immune system will have fought it off without them knowing.

 

[Selwyn]

If I could play 5 a side for 5 minutes without being cream krackered, I would be delighted!!!

The last few posts of this thread have a familiar narrative that has parallels to the guards on saws debate... Those that have not lost their fingers and don't know anyone who has lost fingers think it's a myth and they will be saved by careful practices. Those that know someone who lost fingers or have lost a finger themselves can see the damage that has done and use guards. The problem with that approach when it comes to Covid is that the "no guard" people are risking other people's fingers as well as their own.

What about the sector who argue table saws present a risk to society and therefore must all be dismantled and chucked away?

No one is saying Covid is a myth.

 

[southendwoodworker]

So you cherry pick one family in a vanishingly rare scenario and then extrapolating that to say that other people must only value money over lives? There is evidence out there if you care to look at it that virus' constantly ebb and flow and we should manage with that expectation.

Some of the evidence you have presented is of scientifically questionable quality. It is very easy to form an opinion and read news and "facts" that support our confirmation bias, both I and you have both shown that. I presented what I have seen; and you from what you have read. What I am suggesting is that perhaps, through luck, you might have not seen the the true impact of covid.

Anyway the person who "broke lockdown" for xmas seems a strange story. Firstly as xmas day people were allowed to visit each other and secondly it seems extremely unlikely people died of covid 2 weeks after infection - all the data suggests the spread is longer than that.

I was meaning during the christmas period rather than specifically christmas day.

"2 weeks" ok, right, I'll talk to my mate and ask him: "specifically and in detail, how long from when your cousin infected your uncle till he died, because selwyn from a wood working forum needs to know, because he doesn't really believe in covid".

I'm not going to do that, thats messed up. You either believe people in their life experiences or don't.

You do realise the poorest in society will bear the brunt of this? Its not the cosseted pensioners, its not the zoom workers. Do you value the higher cancer rates and those deaths at home under covid deaths?

Rich or poor, in the UK, everyone is suffering from lack of cancer treatments because theres a pandemic killing people. If youre rich, it doesnt mean you get treatment before someone poor...

Deaths at home and untreated cancer are a sad side effect of a health system under extreme stress whilst it refocusses its attention on something that is killing people quicker and is spreading. The health systems not big enough to handle both at the same time, they had to focus on the big emergency thats taking people out today, and hope that once the fires out they can then turn their attention back to the slower killers, of less people. It's a poo decision, and I wish neither had to be made. But dude, you put out the fire first

 

[southendwoodworker]

@southendwoodworker I am sorry to hear of the troubles you have experienced but I can assure you your experience is far from common, indeed I would say it's almost fantastically exceptional.

yeah it's not been nice, no one in my immediate circle have died. i've been lucky. its when you reach out a bit further you get to see some of the reall sorrow thats happened

Then why aren't the BBC all over it? They are gagging for stories like this.

There is a lot of these stories about the place, but people don't often want to talk about it.

news around covid is also a bit delayed, it takes time for some for it to reach the papers, if ever. Not because its being suppressed by media or government, but because there is so much going on and by the time it has surfaced it might be a month after anyone cares or that it would make a difference.

I and my partner work in "covid related matters".

 

[Selwyn]

Some of the evidence you have presented is of scientifically questionable quality. It is very easy to form an opinion and read news and "facts" that support our confirmation bias, both I and you have both shown that. I presented what I have seen; and you from what you have read. What I am suggesting is that perhaps, through luck, you might have not seen the the true impact of covid.



I was meaning during the christmas period rather than specifically christmas day.

"2 weeks" ok, right, I'll talk to my mate and ask him: "specifically and in detail, how long from when your cousin infected your uncle till he died, because selwyn from a wood working forum needs to know, because he doesn't really believe in covid".

I'm not going to do that, thats messed up. You either believe people in their life experiences or don't.




Rich or poor, in the UK, everyone is suffering from lack of cancer treatments because theres a pandemic killing people. If youre rich, it doesnt mean you get treatment before someone poor...

Deaths at home and untreated cancer are a sad side effect of a health system under extreme stress whilst it refocusses its attention on something that is killing people quicker and is spreading. The health systems not big enough to handle both at the same time, they had to focus on the big emergency thats taking people out today, and hope that once the fires out they can then turn their attention back to the slower killers, of less people. It's a poo decision, and I wish neither had to be made. But dude, you put out the fire first

My point was that you claimed that someone died because someone else "broke the rules" on Xmas day. The reality is that person sadly died not because anyone broke the rules but because a nasty virus infected them and they were unlucky. The covid virus is so all ubiqutous and everywhere that the very idea that track and tracing a virus does anything is laughable.

There is not a pandemic killing people in the UK now. There was last last March but even that was exacerbated by bad decisions early on.

Go to our world in data look at world covid deaths vs world covid cases. Look at the curves, look at the data. Look at how predictable the viral curves are. Mankind is so arrogant in the face of natural phenomena sometimes.

 

[sometimewoodworker]

Overflowing hospital is explained by the HC underspend in India.

While the HC spending has had an effect it has little to do with what is currently happening in India.
The thought in India was that after the first wave no more needed to be done so went back to life as normal, dismantling the emergency facilities and relying on vaccination.
So they were incredibly badly prepared for the mutation of the virus making it much more transmissible, meaning vast numbers need hospitals that rapidly became overwhelming full with resources exhausted, meaning that many people who could have been treated are now dying.
More funding could have allowed for resources to be stockpiled allowing for more time before the hospitals had to close for admissions, better planning could have done the same. Neither happened.

 

[southendwoodworker]

My point was that you claimed that someone died because someone else "broke the rules" on Xmas day. The reality is that person sadly died not because anyone broke the rules but because a nasty virus infected them and they were unlucky. The covid virus is so all ubiqutous and everywhere that the very idea that track and tracing a virus does anything is laughable.

I never said christmas day. I clarified in the previous post that i meant christmas period. You are grasping on to the least significant part of the message being presented to sustain your argument.

You are using the word "claim" to make what I said hold less value. Lets put this into perspective, we are on a wood working forum, here to chat about that with other interested people. We take peoples posts at face value for what is said. If you need qualifications and evidence of experience, and a cv, and such to gain confidence in what people are posting here about covid, perhaps this might not be the right place for you to discuss it. Perhaps a medical forum. Believe me or not, I don't care. I'm just chilling and had a few minutes to spare to type a response. I'm not making money from sharing my experience, I'm not selling anything, I don't have anything to gain, I don't even get internet points from it.

I understand where you are coming from, but they wouldn't have caught the virus if the daughter hadn't given it to them. We're quibbling of logical semantics here, sure the virus did the act of killing, but they gave it to the father. They were the only visitor to the father.

Lets look at it a different way:
You know someone is vulnerable to peanut allergies and could die from it. If you knew there was peanut in the food you gave to someone, who is to blame?
1. The peanut purely because it chose to exist?
2. The person for having the cheek of being allergic to peanuts?
3. Or the person who gave the food to the victim knowing it could take them out?

Your logical semantic juggling here is saying your answer is 1. I am saying 3.

There is not a pandemic killing people in the UK now. There was last last March but even that was exacerbated by bad decisions early on.

Understood, and you are right, we've now currently gotten a grip on it, and the initial decisions made on limited data made effective response hard. Im neither agreeing or disagreeing to the governments decisions there.

Go to our world in data look at world covid deaths vs world covid cases. Look at the curves, look at the data. Look at how predictable the viral curves are. Mankind is so arrogant in the face of natural phenomena sometimes.

so all ubiqutous and everywhere that the very idea that track and tracing a virus does anything is laughable.

It has been proven multiple times to be effective. what you talking about?

South Korea, covid
New Zealand, Covid
Australia, Covid
Vietnam, covid
Japan, covid
Taiwan, covid
Ebola 2014 and 2016
and the WHO changed is methodology around smallpox, pivoting from doing a "vaccinate all" to "when someones infected, do track and trace and then vaccinate those contacts; then once under control vaccinate all"

 

[Jonm]

While the HC spending has had an effect it has little to do with what is currently happening in India.
The thought in India was that after the first wave no more needed to be done so went back to life as normal, dismantling the emergency facilities and relying on vaccination.
So they were incredibly badly prepared for the mutation of the virus making it much more transmissible, meaning vast numbers need hospitals that rapidly became overwhelming full with resources exhausted, meaning that many people who could have been treated are now dying.
More funding could have allowed for resources to be stockpiled allowing for more time before the hospitals had to close for admissions, better planning could have done the same. Neither happened.

We were caught out by the UK/Kent variant being more transmissible, hence the third lockdown.

 

[Selwyn]

yeah it's not been nice, no one in my immediate circle have died. i've been lucky. its when you reach out a bit further you get to see some of the reall sorrow thats happened




There is a lot of these stories about the place, but people don't often want to talk about it.

news around covid is also a bit delayed, it takes time for some for it to reach the papers, if ever. Not because its being suppressed by media or government, but because there is so much going on and by the time it has surfaced it might be a month after anyone cares or that it would make a difference.

I and my partner work in "covid related matters".

I never said christmas day. I clarified in the previous post that i meant christmas period. You are grasping on to the least significant part of the message being presented to sustain your argument.

You are using the word "claim" to make what I said hold less value. Lets put this into perspective, we are on a wood working forum, here to chat about that with other interested people. We take peoples posts at face value for what is said. If you need qualifications and evidence of experience, and a cv, and such to gain confidence in what people are posting here about covid, perhaps this might not be the right place for you to discuss it. Perhaps a medical forum. Believe me or not, I don't care. I'm just chilling and had a few minutes to spare to type a response. I'm not making money from sharing my experience, I'm not selling anything, I don't have anything to gain, I don't even get internet points from it.

I understand where you are coming from, but they wouldn't have caught the virus if the daughter hadn't given it to them. We're quibbling of logical semantics here, sure the virus did the act of killing, but they gave it to the father. They were the only visitor to the father.

Lets look at it a different way:
You know someone is vulnerable to peanut allergies and could die from it. If you knew there was peanut in the food you gave to someone, who is to blame?
1. The peanut purely because it chose to exist?
2. The person for having the cheek of being allergic to peanuts?
3. Or the person who gave the food to the victim knowing it could take them out?

Your logical semantic juggling here is saying your answer is 1. I am saying 3.




Understood, and you are right, we've now currently gotten a grip on it, and the initial decisions made on limited data made effective response hard. Im neither agreeing or disagreeing to the governments decisions there.





It has been proven multiple times to be effective. what you talking about?

South Korea, covid
New Zealand, Covid
Australia, Covid
Vietnam, covid
Japan, covid
Taiwan, covid
Ebola 2014 and 2016
and the WHO changed is methodology around smallpox, pivoting from doing a "vaccinate all" to "when someones infected, do track and trace and then vaccinate those contacts; then once under control vaccinate all"

NZ and Oz did not have enough people with the disease to sustain it. It is so crucial to the story.
Taiwan, Japan, South Korea had all had SAR and MERS. You need to remember who this disease kills - overwhelmingly the old and the obese. Its really wierd that everyone is trapped in this era of covid still not being explainable

https://www.aier.org/article/lockdowns-are-no-substitute-for-focused-protection/

 

[Selwyn]

We were caught out by the UK/Kent variant being more transmissible, hence the third lockdown.

They can't even isolate covid let alone a variant. These variants are not significantly different either

 

[southendwoodworker]

NZ and Oz did not have enough people with the disease to sustain it. It is so crucial to the story.
Taiwan, Japan, South Korea had all had SAR and MERS. You need to remember who this disease kills - overwhelmingly the old and the obese. Its really wierd that everyone is trapped in this era of covid still not being explainable

https://www.aier.org/article/lockdowns-are-no-substitute-for-focused-protection/

What about ebola 2014 and ebola 2016, and smallpox eradication?

You said it was laughable, i pointed out, quickly and with low effort, a few solid examples where it has been effective. smallpox eradication is one of the greatest achievements in human history, is not a small thing to conveniently disregard in the whole narrative that "track and trace is laughable"

You might want to consider the link you posted, they aren't particularly credible when scrutinised.

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/american-institute-for-economic-research/
They are a center right based "thing" with also positions that sweatshops are good and climate change isn't real.

From the wiki pedia page, with citations. American Institute for Economic Research - Wikipedia

Policy positions[edit]
AIER statements and publications portray the risks of climate change as minor and manageable,[8] with titles such as "What Greta Thunberg Forgets About Climate Change", "The Real Reason Nobody Takes Environmental Activists Seriously" and "Brazilians Should Keep Slashing Their Rainforest".[9][10][11]

The institution has also funded research on the comparative benefits that sweatshops supplying multinationals bring to the people working in them.[12][13]

COVID-19[edit]
AIER issued a statement in October 2020 called the "Great Barrington Declaration" that argued for a herd immunity strategy to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic.[14] It was roundly condemned by many public health experts.[14][15] Anthony Fauci, the infectious disease expert appointed by the White House, called the declaration "total nonsense" and unscientific.[14] Tyler Cowen, a libertarian economist at George Mason University, wrote that while he sympathizes with a libertarian approach to deal with the pandemic, the declaration was dangerous and misguided.[16] The declaration was also criticized by the Niskanen Center,[17] a formerly libertarian think tank[18] that now calls itself moderate.[19]

AIER paid for ads on Facebook promoting its articles against government social distancing measures and mask mandates.[20]

In October 2020, Twitter removed a tweet by White House coronavirus adviser Scott Atlas linking to an AIER article that argued against the effectiveness of masks.[21]

 

[Rorschach]

What about ebola 2014 and ebola 2016, and smallpox eradication?

Smallpox was a truly terrible disease that killed and maimed many more than Covid ever could. Eradication also took a concerted effort for decades, possibly even centuries depending on your outlook, and at huge cost as the vaccination programme killed a lot of people.

Ebola, well ebola is too deadly for it's own good. It kills pretty quickly, isn't terribly infectious comparatively and burns itself out with minimal intervention once identified.

 

[southendwoodworker]

Smallpox was a truly terrible disease that killed and maimed many more than Covid ever could. Eradication also took a concerted effort for decades, possibly even centuries depending on your outlook, and at huge cost as the vaccination programme killed a lot of people.

Ebola, well ebola is too deadly for it's own good. It kills pretty quickly, isn't terribly infectious comparatively and burns itself out with minimal intervention once identified.

The small pox strategy was two pronged, the vaccination and herd immunity method was delivering slow results. The WHO changed the strategy to surveilance and containment. aka track and that is what sped up its erradication

http://choo.fis.utoronto.ca/fis/cou..., the,and surveillance systems which detected
Ebola, you are somewhat right in that it essentially killed to quick, however, there was epidemics, which could have grown further, without track and trace implemented. it wasn't just a couple unfortunate people, it was 10,000 or something. thats still alot of sadness, everyones life is precious

 

[Selwyn]

The small pox strategy was two pronged, the vaccination and herd immunity method was delivering slow results. The WHO changed the strategy to surveilance and containment. aka track and that is what sped up its erradication

http://choo.fis.utoronto.ca/fis/cou..., the,and surveillance systems which detected
Ebola, you are somewhat right in that it essentially killed to quick, however, there was epidemics, which could have grown further, without track and trace implemented. it wasn't just a couple unfortunate people, it was 10,000 or something. thats still alot of sadness, everyones life is precious

You do realise how ebola is spread don't you? Totally different to coronavirus particles