Coronavirus (2021) thread

[Alan Harper's Tash]

I’m sure everyone won’t mind putting their arguments to one side for a moment and wholeheartedly agree that this lot are scum:

'Covid deniers' storm hospital and accuse nurses of 'kidnap'

Merseyside Police arrested a man after a group stormed the Liverpool hospital

www.liverpoolecho.co.uk

Scum

 

[SWP's back]

Currently. Rising though.

Well of course and around 90% of those needing treatment unvaccinated.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Well of course and around 90% of those needing treatment unvaccinated.

It doesn’t matter what people are in for once capacity is reached. 2/3 of patients are currently in for Covid reasons. Hundreds of thousands of new cases per week. We‘re outrageously lucky that the strain is milder.

It can still pressurise the NHS though.

 

[SWP's back]

Not for you!

But it is. It’s a strawman. It’s hyperbole.

There’s nothing wrong in saying that numbers are meaningless without context and that hospitalisations with or because of covid is an important distinction.

Same goes for deaths with or because of covid (especially at a time when between 500k-1m a day are likely contracting omicron). It means nearly everyone dying in January has a bloody good chance of also testing positive for covid. That doesn’t mean to say it killed them.

The flip side of your coin is ignoring all the data that came out of SA and Sage producing models with 3% CFRs for omicron which we all knew was bullshit at the time.

 

[Octavian]

This thread is turning into a case study for confirmation bias.

There’s a bit of both sides going on. Some, like myself, like to see the positives in life and whilst I don’t want to blindly ignore bad news, I focus on the positives. Others are pessimistic and look at everything through a negative lens.

The facts are this variant is far less deadly and will never cause the deaths Delta and Alpha did, especially with the vaccines but we still need to keep an eye on the NHS’s capacity, which is still not warranting a lockdown and if we go the same way as SA, hopefully case numbers will improve and will never warrant one.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

But it is. It’s a strawman. It’s hyperbole.

There’s nothing wrong in saying that numbers are meaningless without context and that hospitalisations with or because of covid is an important distinction.

Same goes for deaths with or because of covid (especially at a time when between 500k-1m a day are likely contracting omicron). It means nearly everyone dying in January has a bloody good chance of also testing positive for covid. That doesn’t mean to say it killed them.

The flip side of your coin is ignoring all the data that came out of SA and Sage producing models with 3% CFRs for omicron which we all knew was bullshit at the time.

So what daily death figures are you predicting for the 20th Jan?
How many in hospital with it?

 

[SWP's back]

It doesn’t matter what people are in for once capacity is reached. 2/3 of patients are currently in for Covid reasons. Hundreds of thousands of new cases per week. We‘re outrageously lucky that the strain is milder.

It can still pressurise the NHS though.

It can still, it hasn’t yet. But some in here appear desperate for it to.

 

[Octavian]

It doesn’t matter what people are in for once capacity is reached. 2/3 of patients are currently in for Covid reasons. Hundreds of thousands of new cases per week. We‘re outrageously lucky that the strain is milder.

It can still pressurise the NHS though.

I think the graph was for all patients with covid, rather than all patients full stop.

2/3 of patients who have covid in hospital it’s the primary reason, whereas 1/3 have another primary reason.

The data for those in hospital who don’t have covid at all, are nothing to do with the graph.

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

There’s truth in this but each case is different. I was reading about a young pregnant lady (24) who ‘died of COVID because she wasn’t vaccinated’. I actually bothered to read the whole article. It was in the last paragraph where they explained she’d had multiple underlying health issues, she’d suffered a blood clot which left her in a coma, caught COVID while in hospital and she died a couple of days later (thankfully baby was saved). That simply isn’t a COVID death and the pressure being put on pregnant women to get vaccinated (who are otherwise very healthy) is completely absurd. The headline is was ‘24 year old mum to be dies would still be alive if she’d had her vaccines’. Mental.

Sorry but you’re very wrong on the issue of pregnant women and the vaccine. We have never seen anything like the numbers of pregnant women in critical care although Omicron might reverse that trend. Delta affects the lungs and, funnily enough, pregnant women have a much reduced lung capacity/volume, which gets less and less the longer the pregnancy goes. That, coupled with a virus which attacks the lungs is a disastrous mix and could have been readily avoided by taking the vaccine.
What you have to remember is that the higher the level of care you need, the more likely you are to need it if you’re unvaccinated or haven’t had any infection induced immunity.
One in 5 people on ECMO (the very highest level of care needed for covid patients) are unvaccinated pregnant women and about 93% of everyone on ECMO is unvaccinated.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

It can still, it hasn’t yet. But some in here appear desperate for it to.

Name one poster that wants a lockdown.

 

[SWP's back]

I think the graph was for all patients with covid, rather than all patients full stop.

2/3 of patients who have covid in hospital it’s the primary reason, whereas 1/3 have another primary reason.

The data for those in hospital who don’t have covid at all, are nothing to do with the graph.

A good point.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

I think the graph was for all patients with covid, rather than all patients full stop.

2/3 of patients who have covid in hospital it’s the primary reason, whereas 1/3 have another primary reason.

The data for those in hospital who don’t have covid at all, are nothing to do with the graph.

However you want to interpret it, the only meaningful statistic is keeping the hospitals functioning.

This may mean zero restrictions, some restrictions and maybe tighter restrictions.

Currently, there is no need for further restrictions, but if hospitalisations keep on rising sharply, that may have to change.

 

[SWP's back]

Name one poster that wants a lockdown.

I didn’t say any posters wanted a lockdown so you’re building strawmen again, although Mark desperately doesn’t want to have to go back into work again as he enjoys it from home.

There are posters on here who post solely on this thread however which I find rather puzzling.

 

[SWP's back]

However you want to interpret it,

Correctly would probably be the best way, no? Especially when we are discussing ignoring data/facts that don’t suit….

 

[Bluewonder]

The NHS England primary diagnosis supplement has just been released for the week ending 28 December.

It shows an overall increase of 2,076 people in hospitals with Covid (a total of 8,321).

In terms of primarily being treated for Covid, there has been an increase of 1,146 (a total now of 5,578).

This means that 45% of the net increase in people hospitalised with Covid is incidental.

 

[Healdplace]

Flip the coin over and it is utterly pointless to disregard them because we don’t have the data of how many are dying because of covid.

It’s the glass half full vs glass half empty approach.

Hospital numbers are rising sharply. They are nowhere near where they were at this time last year. Therefore we don’t need to lock down at the moment.

If admissions continue to double for the next few weeks, then that will have to be looked at. Is it Covid? Is Covid a major factor? Is Covid a minor factor? Etc.

I’m as hopeful as anyone that it looks like Omicron could well be our route out of this pandemic. We will know for sure in about 6-8 weeks.

It‘s still prudent to be wary of what might happen whilst we see what happens.

Exactly, thank you.

Using words like fetishise as in the earlier posts about the data to which you reply is frankly bonkers. Numbers are numbers, They inform. Politicians decide. Instead of blaming those who post the numbers argue with those who decide what to do wth them.

Not to mention you only know the numbers as they are and make your mind up as you do because someoe collated and posted them allowing different opinions of them to develop, That is how concensus is reached. Not via ignorance of the facts.

Anything else is called guessing. And nobody sane plans a pandemic around hopeful guesswork.

 

[Hart of the Matter]

Just had Delta just before Christmas. Am I still susceptible to Omicron?

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

I didn’t say any posters wanted a lockdown so you’re building strawmen again, although Mark desperately doesn’t want to have to go back into work again as he enjoys it from home.

Here are posters on here who post solely on this thread however which I find rather puzzling.

Sure. Statisticians, modellers etc will be drawn here because that’s their job/hobby.

I gave up religiously staring at and interpreting stats a long time ago. I tend to flick in and out to see where the trends are going every now and then.

If Mark is forced back into the office, then he maybe should look for another job that offers WFH. I doubt he wants to extend the misery of the pandemic solely to work from home more.

What are people desperate to happen then, if not lockdowns? Hospitalisations?

If so, I ask the question again. Name one poster desperate for that to happen.

 

[hilts]

Quick question. Is there any correlation between how contagious you are and the brightness/thickness of the line on an lft test?

I use mine as a torch

 

[Octavian]

However you want to interpret it, the only meaningful statistic is keeping the hospitals functioning.

This may mean zero restrictions, some restrictions and maybe tighter restrictions.

Currently, there is no need for further restrictions, but if hospitalisations keep on rising sharply, that may have to change.

Yeah I do not disagree with that. We need to look at capacity as the primary source of information to decide what to do or hopefully not do!