One-*** efficacy questions

[Selwyn]

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".

WHO figures 0.15%. You need to remember that the PCR tests are creating this figures as well. We are testing ourselves into a blind alley.

Who is ignoring their plight? Are you saying that because I think lockdowns acheived nothing that I want people to die of covid? If so you are wrong. Its like saying lockdown fanatics want more people to die of other deaths. The cost/ benefit analysis of lockdown are coming out now and they don't look pretty at all - whatever happened to "first do no harm"?

Context is very important.

 

[southendwoodworker]

No need for ad hominem attacks.
It will sink in eventually that you have been totally played by all this. Lockdown hasn't proved a saving of a single life, but we do know what harm it has done.

Anyway how many people do you know who have died of Covid?

Earlier in this discussion I presented 11 people that I know have died from covid. 5 from one family, 3 from another, one more, and then a couple more.

I also presented two others I know that have serious long covid complications. Both of them young strong and healthy.

You and Rorschach trivialised them, in particular one death. You then ignored my replies and one of you, paraphrasing, said that you couldn't reply to my post because it was too hard to unpack.

You ask for evidence, then consistently disregard it. One of the links you've presented is from a known quack website, with low reputation and poor credibility, which endorses child labour.

It's very clear you both have small social circles, in areas that have luckily had low death rates, and have argued that because you haven't witnessed the sadness that it mustn't be real.

You've presented conspiracy theories about the government trying to control us, and disregarded opinions of the world wide scientific community. Who are smarter and more qualified than any of us here.

I understand and sympathise that you've had someone (or you) impacted by the lack of capacity of the NHS to deal with their other health issues, be it cancer therapy or mental health support. Lockdowns have sucked for all people, in some form, to differing degrees.

But no one here is going to be able to really convince you otherwise. Your opinions are entrenched and I think they'll only change when you experience first hand the sorrow from seeing a covid death or long term covid. Which I honestly hope doesn't occur.

As someone who has been part of the covid response, and my partner too, with what I thought a small social sphere, as well as deaths in my peripheral circles, and long covid in immediate circle, I find your arguments presented very frustrating.

The only evidence I can probably share would be censored emails from care home workers begging for help as people died around them.

 

[Selwyn]

Earlier in this discussion I presented 11 people that I know have died from covid. 5 from one family, 3 from another, one more, and then a couple more.

I also presented two others I know that have serious long covid complications. Both of them young strong and healthy.

You and Rorschach trivialised them, in particular one death. You then ignored my replies and one of you, paraphrasing, said that you couldn't reply to my post because it was too hard to unpack.

You ask for evidence, then consistently disregard it. One of the links you've presented is from a known quack website, with low reputation and poor credibility, which endorses child labour.

It's very clear you both have small social circles, in areas that have luckily had low death rates, and have argued that because you haven't witnessed the sadness that it mustn't be real.

You've presented conspiracy theories about the government trying to control us, and disregarded opinions of the world wide scientific community. Who are smarter and more qualified than any of us here.

I understand and sympathise that you've had someone (or you) impacted by the lack of capacity of the NHS to deal with their other health issues, be it cancer therapy or mental health support. Lockdowns have sucked for all people, in some form, to differing degrees.

But no one here is going to be able to really convince you otherwise. Your opinions are entrenched and I think they'll only change when you experience first hand the sorrow from seeing a covid death or long term covid. Which I honestly hope doesn't occur.

As someone who has been part of the covid response, and my partner too, with what I thought a small social sphere, as well as deaths in my peripheral circles, and long covid in immediate circle, I find your arguments presented very frustrating.

The only evidence I can probably share would be censored emails from care home workers begging for help as people died around them.

I think you must be mixing me up with someone else as I would never use the phrase "hard to unpack" and I have yet to produce any conspiracy theory.

Were the 5 people from one family in the newspapers? Its a highly unusual number. very very unusual.

I find your arguments for lockdown very frustrating too. Care home workers were put in that position because of a specific govt policy that moved the unwell covid infected into care homes from hospitals. Luckily this didn't last a long time yet it happened and its because of lockdown policy this happened, lockdown will do more damage than it saves.

 

[Terry - Somerset]

WHO figures 0.15%. You need to remember that the PCR tests are creating this figures as well. We are testing ourselves into a blind alley.

Could you provide a link to the 0.15% as it seems completely divergent from reported figures be they national or european.

I also don't understand your point on testing - IFR is the ratio of infections (cases?) to fatalities.

It has little to do with testing save that a lack of testing may cause the number of cases to be understated, equally deaths due to covid may be understated. Transparency would help!

 

[Selwyn]

Could you provide a link to the 0.15% as it seems completely divergent from reported figures be they national or european.

I also don't understand your point on testing - IFR is the ratio of infections (cases?) to fatalities.

It has little to do with testing save that a lack of testing may cause the number of cases to be understated, equally deaths due to covid may be understated. Transparency would help!

https://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf
Remember this is real world data not scare story media rubbish. Now obviously you will have to adjust it for age, comorbidites etc. so 0.15 is not a constant. but its pretty good.

The other side of the coin of saying the number of cases is understated is that a lot more covid has passed through the population to absolutely zero effect and people didn't get tested because they weren't ill and had no symptoms - it doesn't mean that covid has not passed through them though.

This little video on the ireland may help you contextualise:

https://odysee.com/@IvorCummins:f/ultimate-risk-update-the-bottom-line:b

 

[Chris152]

https://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf

0.15% doesn't seem to appear anywhere relevant in the document you linked to.

 

[Selwyn]

0.15% doesn't seem to appear anywhere relevant in the document you linked to.

It was his estimate based on the data.

No one can come up with an exact % ifr because there are so many variables (age, comorbidities etc even when people are pretending covid can kill people equally indiscrimenantly). He says the median IFR appears to 0.23% and is probably substantially lower. Listen to his interviews to hear more.

Certainly lockdown is an overreacting at these IFR levels, let alone injecting the world!

 

[Chris152]

Ah, so you thought we'd read the full article and make the same estimate. Fair enough.
Maybe take a look at the post I made a while back, indicating how punters can fail to understand how the scientific community will rightly offer different perspectives on things and the dangers of latching onto one without enough understanding to judge between those available. A quick read around the net and you can see quite easily the suspicion with which the research by Ioannidis is regarded by others in the field. To treat his account as accurate you'd need either to be a fellow specialist in the field who saw the veracity of his research into IFR, or just another punter who's simply decided to regard is as true coz it suits you.

 

[D_W]

The area where I live is 70% vaccinated, about 50% both shots (50% of the total population of adults).

population on this side of the state is 4MM.

Zero new deaths. Everything is open, though some still working from home (most of us because we like it better, I'd guess, though some workplaces are going to have to figure out what they'll do long term as their employees will seek work at home employment if they try to go full time office - places like google, etc, where competition for top talent is stiff).

Very few new cases, no mask mandate now, and most large retailers in the last few days removing mask requirement for vaccinated.

This is why we don't gnash our teeth about "this or that possible variant" as anything defeating the vaccines will spread quickly, yet nothing. Even the local news has given up on scary stories.

 

[Woody2Shoes]

The whole point of lockdown(s) was to avoid a tsunami of infection (it's been known since early on that this bug is very transmissible in the right circumstances) which would blow up the healthcare system (and possibly civil society). As DW says, in the US and the UK, the number of people (in groups more vulnerable to be hospitalised) vaccinated and/or previously exposed to the virus is such that we probably no longer need to worry about that tsunami - as long as no evil mutant strain evolves to evade existing antibodies (however acquired). I believe strongly that lockdown was right, and largely worked as intended (although everyone went slightly bonkers at Christmas and we paid a high price for that).

 

[Selwyn]

Ah, so you thought we'd read the full article and make the same estimate. Fair enough.
Maybe take a look at the post I made a while back, indicating how punters can fail to understand how the scientific community will rightly offer different perspectives on things and the dangers of latching onto one without enough understanding to judge between those available. A quick read around the net and you can see quite easily the suspicion with which the research by Ioannidis is regarded by others in the field. To treat his account as accurate you'd need either to be a fellow specialist in the field who saw the veracity of his research into IFR, or just another punter who's simply decided to regard is as true coz it suits you.

Ionaddis has often said 0.15%. It could even be lower, I'd not be surprised if it is but of course a number of factors come into play. The worldwide evidence every day still gets a little clearer that this isn't the great killer it was claimed. Loads of countries didn't lockdown because they couldn't afford too and the general thrust of IFR isn't massively different - there are no major outliers.

Now you may want to claim he's a crank but he's pretty well qualified and I think he doesn't appear to wildly off on his predicitions.

Maybe you decide to regard lockdowns as reducing covid just coz it suits you? We can all play that silly game.

 

[Selwyn]

The whole point of lockdown(s) was to avoid a tsunami of infection (it's been known since early on that this bug is very transmissible in the right circumstances) which would blow up the healthcare system (and possibly civil society). As DW says, in the US and the UK, the number of people (in groups more vulnerable to be hospitalised) vaccinated and/or previously exposed to the virus is such that we probably no longer need to worry about that tsunami - as long as no evil mutant strain evolves to evade existing antibodies (however acquired). I believe strongly that lockdown was right, and largely worked as intended (although everyone went slightly bonkers at Christmas and we paid a high price for that).

It may have been the point of it. However despite using words like "blow up the healthcare" "tsunami of infection" "evil mutant strain" etc. there is precious little evidence that it was necessary or effective, and I don't disagree with the 2-3 week lockdown maximum that we had back in March in order to bring a bit of order/ calm but there was no need to extend it.

Put it this way if covid managed to spread so quickly in March 2020 how come it didn't manage to spread so quickly in August or July 2020? It was just as capable of increasing exponentially then as March if you believe its not got a strong seasonal element to it.

 

[RobinBHM]

The cost/ benefit analysis of lockdown are coming out now and they don't look pretty at all

You are right.

The countries which were slow to lockdown, had weak controls ended up with the highest death rates and the worst economic damage.

"Contrary to the idea of a trade-off, we see that countries which suffered the most severe economic downturns – like Peru, Spain and the UK – are generally among the countries with the highest COVID-19 death rate"
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-health-economy
Oh dear, that's your argument shot down in flames

 

[Chris152]

Maybe you decide to regard lockdowns as reducing covid just coz it suits you? We can all play that silly game.

No, I think lockdowns are probably the right thing to do on account of what seems to be the overwhelming consensus among the world's leading authorities on the matter. What I most certainly wouldn't do in the midst of a pandemic is repeatedly cite highly questionable accounts, based on no greater knowledge than bits and bobs I've found on the net, as if I were in a position to know they were true. That'd be deeply foolish, given the potential consequences. It'd be a complete failure to recognise the limits of my knowledge and understanding, and a complete failure to recognise and act according to my responsibilities to others. That'd certainly be a terribly silly game to play.

 

[RobinBHM]

The area where I live is 70% vaccinated, about 50% both shots (50% of the total population of adults).

population on this side of the state is 4MM.

Zero new deaths. Everything is open, though some still working from home (most of us because we like it better, I'd guess, though some workplaces are going to have to figure out what they'll do long term as their employees will seek work at home employment if they try to go full time office - places like google, etc, where competition for top talent is stiff).

Very few new cases, no mask mandate now, and most large retailers in the last few days removing mask requirement for vaccinated.

This is why we don't gnash our teeth about "this or that possible variant" as anything defeating the vaccines will spread quickly, yet nothing. Even the local news has given up on scary stories.

That's excellent news, I'm pleased to hear the vaccination programme is going well in USA.

We see in the UK media some parts of the states are struggling to get people to have the vaccine and there are various incentives including a weekly raffle or a free beer or free uber taxi etc.

Is there much of an issue with anti vaxxers - or is it just the media making a story

 

[Rorschach]

The whole point of lockdown(s) was to avoid a tsunami of infection (it's been known since early on that this bug is very transmissible in the right circumstances) which would blow up the healthcare system (and possibly civil society). As DW says, in the US and the UK, the number of people (in groups more vulnerable to be hospitalised) vaccinated and/or previously exposed to the virus is such that we probably no longer need to worry about that tsunami - as long as no evil mutant strain evolves to evade existing antibodies (however acquired). I believe strongly that lockdown was right, and largely worked as intended (although everyone went slightly bonkers at Christmas and we paid a high price for that).

Ok, but once we had reached a peak and number were going down, why were we so slow to release the lockdown?

 

[RobinBHM]

No, I think lockdowns are probably the right thing to do on account of what seems to be the overwhelming consensus among the world's leading authorities on the matter. What I most certainly wouldn't do in the midst of a pandemic is repeatedly cite highly questionable accounts, based on no greater knowledge than bits and bobs I've found on the net, as if I were in a position to know they were true. That'd be deeply foolish, given the potential consequences. It'd be a complete failure to recognise the limits of my knowledge and understanding, and a complete failure to recognise and act according to my responsibilities to others. That'd certainly be a terribly silly game to play.

The vast majority of viroligists and epidemiologists do agree that lockdowns to flatten the curve are the right thing to do.

My view is, like yours: not being an expert myself, I take the majority consensus view as being the most truthful account.

Clearly there is a lot to learn about lockdowns, there have been mistakes, I'm sure some interventions may have been wrong.

However those that simply want to have a simplistic "lockdowns are wrong" refuse to engage in a nuanced debate and will throw any misleading data set to prove their point.

 

[RobinBHM]

Ok, but once we had reached a peak and number were going down, why were we so slow to release the lockdown?

When are referring to?

This year?

 

[Rorschach]

When are referring to?

This year?

All the lockdowns.

 

[D_W]

That's excellent news, I'm pleased to hear the vaccination programme is going well in USA.

We see in the UK media some parts of the states are struggling to get people to have the vaccine and there are various incentives including a weekly raffle or a free beer or free uber taxi etc.

Is there much of an issue with anti vaxxers - or is it just the media making a story

Combination of the two. If you go to very rural areas, you'll find people who don't trust the medical establishment as much (not to the point that they won't go to the dr., but if they have already have covid, they won't get vaccinated, and some who are young and healthy won't either. And then a small minority of people who should have more sense won't).

I think county health care and local health plans generally have an initiative to get as many vaccinated as possible and they'll come up with creative ideas (not sure what the fed. reimbursement is for giving vaccines, as there may also be profit motive).

Generally here, though, most are going to get the vaccine - expectation from the outset has been 70% but I think after seeing a 90%+ uptake among front line workers and nursing home residents, it's expected to end up at 80%+, and some of the remaining cohort will have had covid, so some level of immunity will be closer to 90% and that should be enough to shove covid off into the penalty box.

I may come off as a contrary crank, but it seemed like a clear case to me and I got pfizerized as soon as it was available (back in feb and early march? two shots were only 3 weeks apart that I recall). My dad would be in the category of folks who voted for trump and had bumper stickers with trump stuff (and my mother has a car in the same driveway next to it with hillary and biden stuff all over it - terrible . both of them!), but he also got vaccinated right away, as did my mother. I think that's more typical here - that even folks politically opposed to it recognize how effective it is and bite their tongue.