Social distancing, .. what's that?

[AJB Temple]

I am certainly not adverse to taking a different route for Covid, herd immunity should be explored.

What I don't advocate is making a change for ideological reasoning.

If herd immunity is going to be given serious consideration, those in favour need to provide both reasoning and expectations.

Herd immunity will kill people, we need to know how many
And we need to know how the vulnerable can be protected

The argument "we must have herd immunity because of lockdown isn't working"..... that's not acceptable reasoning.

I don't generally participate but just a couple of points:

• Herd exposure is inevitable over time, whether by direct or vaccine exposure. At present we do not have vaccine access.
• Herd immunity is not a given. We do not know whether exposure will result in temporary, permanent, long term or zero immunity. We will not know for some years.
• We cannot possibly know how many will die as a result of "herd immunity" because that is a forecast, otherwise known as a guess.
• In the absence of a vaccine, the vulnerable logically can only be protected by isolating themselves (which is better than forced isolation).

 

[Rorschach]

Lockdowns/measures kill people, no lockdowns/measures kill people. Everything we do will kill people, we just have to decide how many and who will die. Would we prefer to see young people die/suffer for decades or would we prefer older people (average age of a C19 victim is 84) die instead?

 

[Trainee neophyte]

I've not heard of off guardian before.

I avoided off-guardian.org for years because they had the name "guardian" in the title, and I can't be doing with insane, extremist weirdo news reporting such as that found in The Guardian. However, off-guardian.org does have some interesting things to say, sometimes.

I see no one has actually addressed the pretty basic maths, but just tried to rubbish the source either out of general fear of the non-mainstream (scary) bits of the internet, or perhaps a desire to not have to consider that Covid19 may not be as bad as we have all been led to believe.

So, the WHO have announced that they estimate a total infection rate of 10% of the world population. This isn't a conspiracy theory; they really did announce it. I checked, and everything. We can talk about whether they are mistaken, misled, lying or just incompetent, but in their opinion, backed up by some research, 10% is the number they came up with.

We know how many people there are in the world, and we know how many have been declared dead by covid19, so divide one by the other to get a percentage. Is that percentage better, worse, or about the same as, for example...influenza deaths? 780,000,000 ish people have had the coronavirus. Of these, 1,1,061,539 according to Off-guardian.org have died. I make that 0.136% fatality rate, which we can charitably round up to 0.14%.

Wikipedia claims that the average seasonal influenza ifr is "<0.1", and that the 1918 Spanish 'flu epidemic was 2%-3%.

0.14% seems to be much more in the ballpark of seasonal 'flu than world shattering pandemic chaos.

 

[artie]

We know how many people there are in the world, and we know how many have been declared dead by covid19,

We know how many people there are in the world, and we know how many have been declared dead WITH covid19,

Which may skew the numbers quite a bit, since I don't see figures for people who died WITH flu or other viruses.

 

[RobinBHM]

0.14% seems to be much more in the ballpark of seasonal 'flu than world shattering pandemic chaos

Unfortunately that is not based on equivalence, for 2 main reasons

Firstly you are comparing seasonal flu, where there has been no attempt to reduce infection rate

Versus Covid where huge effort has been made with social distancing and infection control

Secondly the data on flu mortality isn't very good. Indeed the media have made claims of flu this year, using ONS figures that are actually " pneumonia and influenza"

 

[Selwyn]

Unfortunately that is not based on equivalence, for 2 main reasons

Firstly you are comparing seasonal flu, where there has been no attempt to reduce infection rate

Versus Covid where huge effort has been made with social distancing and infection control

Secondly the data on flu mortality isn't very good. Indeed the media have made claims of flu this year, using ONS figures that are actually " pneumonia and influenza"

The infection controls for flu and covid are the same. The data on covid mortality isn't very good either - most deaths with covid didn't have post mortems mainly because they were 80'odd year old and so there was no real point

 

[RobinBHM]

Lockdowns/measures kill people, no lockdowns/measures kill people. Everything we do will kill people, we just have to decide how many and who will die. Would we prefer to see young people die/suffer for decades or would we prefer older people (average age of a C19 victim is 84) die instead?

We would prefer the minimum deaths and minimum economic damage.


In America people in their 80s account for less than half of all covid-19 deaths; people in their 40s, 50s and 60s, meanwhile, account for a significantly larger share of those who die. The median covid-19 sufferer in America is a 48-year-old; in Italy it is a 63-year-old

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Versus Covid where huge effort has been made with social distancing and infection control

Anecdotally I can confirm that these mostly placebo measures don't work: I have a snot oozing child languishing on the sofa right now with a cold, despite having enforced mask wearing and distancing rules that are much stricter than the UK. How on earth do you manage to catch a cold when fully masked up at all times in public?

Greece has its Covid infection numbers climbing now, because the virus has made it into the population, and it will do its thing until it is over. Masks or no masks.

Edit: And another thing

It just struck me that the number of infections is irrelevant: how many people have caught the disease is not at issue; how many people have died after contracting the disease is what we are looking at. On that basis, it seems to be similar to influenza. Masks and social distancing don't affect the course of the disease once you have got it.

 

[RobinBHM]

The infection controls for flu and covid are the same

I have no doubt that is true.

But I am sure you appreciate that is not relavent.

No government has ever put infection control or social distancing measures in place for flu.

There has been massive intervention globally to reduce R value of Covid, so making any comparisons is using non comparable data sets. I.e. It's a false equivalence.

And there has been a flu vaccine in place for around 20 years

 

[Selwyn]

I have no doubt that is true.

But I am sure you appreciate that is not relavent.

No government has ever put infection control or social distancing measures in place for flu.

There has been massive intervention globally to reduce R value of Covid, so making any comparisons is using non comparable data sets. I.e. It's a false equivalence.

And there has been a flu vaccine in place for around 20 years

Well it is relavent actually. The most relavant thing about it all is that unless you go North Korea style or are an island nation like NZ who seems to want to let no one in then you will not stop a virus doing its thing. We are virus, virus came from us in the swamp all those years ago.

The R value doesn't mean much in the great scheme of things. What really matters are how ill people are getting and what numbers of people are getting ill.

 

[artie]

Unfortunately that is not based on equivalence, for 2 main reasons

Firstly you are comparing seasonal flu, where there has been no attempt to reduce infection rate

Versus Covid where huge effort has been made with social distancing and infection control

You do talk such utter nonsense.
Is it your opinion that because no one said "the measures" were directed at flu that they would have no effect, but because "the measures were announced to tackle covid, that is what they tackle. My mind is well and truly boggled.
Surely a sane person would see that IF they work for one they would work for both.

 

[Trainee neophyte]

Surely a sane person would see that IF they work for one they would work for both.

I assume the argument is that Covid19 numbers are current, with lockdown, whereas influenza numbers are all historic (and much more "accurate", or at least there is a lot more not very good data) pre-lockdown. Either way, it makes no difference because the ifr is all about having caught the disease, what are the chances of death or survival. A mask is not going to help with getting better. It's not in any way therapeutic.

 

[RobinBHM]

You do talk such utter nonsense.
Is it your opinion that because no one said "the measures" were directed at flu that they would have no effect, but because "the measures were announced to tackle covid, that is what they tackle. My mind is well and truly boggled.
Surely a sane person would see that IF they work for one they would work for both.

No because most of the arguments regarding flu are based on historical figures
UK isnt in a flu season whilst covid has been around so comparisions are rather pointless

And youve ignored the point regarding a flu vaccine

on the subject of flu -we dont test for flu, so statistics arent know anyway, it is recorded as FLI: flu like illness

 

[RobinBHM]

then you will not stop a virus doing its thing

I dont understand how that can be true

if a virus does its own thing regardless of what social distancing and infection control measures are put in place, then are some people arguing for her immunity

The R value doesn't mean much in the great scheme of things

It is important it tells us the rate at which the virus spreads.
lower the value below one the virus dies out
over 1 it starts to multiply exponentially

What really matters are how ill people are getting and what numbers of people are getting ill.

that is important, but it doesnt mean the R value is not a valuable metric in the tool to reduce mortality as well as govt decision making

 

[RobinBHM]

I assume the argument is that Covid19 numbers are current, with lockdown, whereas influenza numbers are all historic (and much more "accurate", or at least there is a lot more not very good data) pre-lockdown. Either way, it makes no difference because the ifr is all about having caught the disease, what are the chances of death or survival. A mask is not going to help with getting better. It's not in any way therapeutic.

a mask is an infection control measure, nothing to do with mortality or treatment.

it is a simple measure to reduce somebody infected spreading virus.

 

[RobinBHM]

On that basis, it seems to be similar to influenza.

no, because of the massive social distancing and infection control put in place to reduce covid
and there is a vaccine for flu
and people arent tested for flu so deaths are recorded as flu like illness
so you cant compare the data.

 

[doctor Bob]

Robin it seems strange you question figures yet never acknowledged that your figure for GDP was incorrect by 100%?
I did point it out quite politely, and of course it's your privilage to ignore it, however it potentially could make you look silly when you pick up others "incorrect figures", some may even say that you are picking and choosing to suit, others may not, who knows?

 

[selly]

I dont understand how that can be true

if a virus does its own thing regardless of what social distancing and infection control measures are put in place, then are some people arguing for her immunity


It is important it tells us the rate at which the virus spreads.
lower the value below one the virus dies out
over 1 it starts to multiply exponentially


that is important, but it doesnt mean the R value is not a valuable metric in the tool to reduce mortality as well as govt decision making

Social distancing could slow the spread or reduce viral load. Not prevent it. No one has a problem with keeping distance or washing hands generally

 

[doctor Bob]

Apparantly a UK google search for the Great Barrington Declaration does not bring it up anymore, just news articles on it.
Use a VPN and it comes up, so it is being geographically blocked, I'm amazed by this, this sort of thing happens in China not uk.
Maybe I'm wrong, I hope so.

 

[Rorschach]

Apparantly a UK google search for the Great Barrington Declaration does not bring it up anymore, just news articles on it.
Use a VPN and it comes up, so it is being geographically blocked, I'm amazed by this, this sort of thing happens in China not uk.
Maybe I'm wrong, I hope so.

It doesn't appear to be blocked, but it would appear google is purposely pushing away from top rankings. Either that or the articles are getting more hits and so appearing higher in the rankings, more people talking about it than actually reading it maybe.

https://gbdeclaration.org/