Coronavirus (2021) thread

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SWP's back said:
As I have my main residence and half of my family in South Africa, I don’t see their data and real world experience as ‘anecdotal’ bud and I read their news as much as I do the UK’s. I think that may be why I’m of a different mindset, they’re a month ahead of us on this.
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It not the data from South Africa that I was saying is anecdotal. Any data from first-world health systems is good data.

My "anecdotal" comment refers to the general public who chip in an say "it's pretty mild" of "it's not as bad as people are making out". My point is that this is not enough for the government to act on. I'm sure they are taking data from around the World, including South Africa, but they have to be sure that the curve of the virus there will be the same as here. Our climate, amongst other factors, could make a difference.
 
Claytop said:
Which is why I imagine a lot of people just won’t bother testing themselves.

The potential to be stuck at home for 10 days over Christmas with a few cold symptoms.
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I can see that happening, But could you go to a Family Xmas Dinner ( Knowing you've a good chance of having it ) with folk there in their 70's 80's or even 90's. Even if Omricon is not as serious?
 
grunge said:
No one official ( science wise ) has said we'll know if its less/more deadly in days. Most said it takes months to know for sure.

but when you think in the space of 3.5 weeks, Omicron was identified, Risk assessed, Detected for sure that it has significant immune evasion and spreads far far faster. and we are starting to see results from studies saying that it seems to be infecting the Broncus rather than getting into the lungs which is good as it then doesn't go on to cause pneumonia. thats actually a hell of a lot of information very quickly.
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It might not be less deadly, but if it isn't then the vaccine/natural immunity is certainly working against it. Either way we come to the same conclusion that no restrictions are required based on what we are seeing everywhere so far.
 
blueinsa said:
The bind they are all in is years of austerity and the continued stripping of capacity from the NHS and social care.

We now must all pay for that by having restrictions and lockdowns imposed on us.

It’s absolutely criminal.

We had a minister on the tv this morning imploring us to save our education system ffs by ex teacher’s volunteering to go teach again.

What the fuck is going on?
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Metaphorically and literally. That’s part of the ‘grown up’ conversation that the country is going to have to have, but that’s one for the politics forum.
 
RobMCFC said:
My "anecdotal" comment refers to the general public who chip in an say "it's pretty mild" of "it's not as bad as people are making out". My point is that this is not enough for the government to act on.
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Problem with that is the danger of the government ending up way behind the public curve. It’s so transmissible and the country is so small that masses will have had it and recovered from it while the government is still urging restraint and waiting for its ‘hard data’.
 
johnnymarrsbarres said:
The same two weeks that we were to wear masks in shops again, like a month ago?

Two weeks my arse. They’re lying scum.
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Angry today, did you not get any last night? It's no big deal to wear a mask is it. Maybe you should visit my mate who spent four months in a coma and now has a choice of a lung transplant that might give him five extra years or living as he is now with, carrying oxygen around with him and he may have 10 years before his organs pack in. And before you ask he didn't drink or smoke nor was he overweight or had any underlying conditions. Just a normal bloke. It's a global pandemic that every government around the world is trying to deal with. Countries are going back into full lockdown as we speak but we won't because the government realise that everyone here will moan as they have already bought their sprouts and potatoes and it's not fair. So they will wait until Boxing Day and announce a two week lockdown.
 
Booster done yesterday, Pfizer this time (AZ x2 last time). No side effects at all, just a sore arm. I had the exact same with the AZ, think I'm just being pumped with water!
 
Eds said:
Angry today, did you not get any last night? It's no big deal to wear a mask is it. Maybe you should visit my mate who spent four months in a coma and now has a choice of a lung transplant that might give him five extra years or living as he is now with, carrying oxygen around with him and he may have 10 years before his organs pack in. And before you ask he didn't drink or smoke nor was he overweight or had any underlying conditions. Just a normal bloke. It's a global pandemic that every government around the world is trying to deal with. Countries are going back into full lockdown as we speak but we won't because the government realise that everyone here will moan as they have already bought their sprouts and potatoes and it's not fair. So they will wait until Boxing Day and announce a two week lockdown.
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Sounds like you’re the one who’s angry.

Sorry to hear about your friend obviously.

But we’re taking about strategy and trends, not anecdotes, however sad those individual stories may be.
 
True_Blue69 said:
It might not be less deadly, but if it isn't then the vaccine/natural immunity is certainly working against it. Either way we come to the same conclusion that no restrictions are required based on what we are seeing everywhere so far.
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Personally Id say we dont have enough data to make a decision either way yet SA is certainly looking very encouraging but they do have a different demographic age wise and there tracking is proven to be way off when it comes to deaths ( 90k official, 275k excess ). there excess deaths tracking comes out weekly every Wednesday so this weeks will be the 1st after the massive spike in cases when you consider a 3 week lag between cases and deaths.

For the UK we need to keep an eye on London but even then the general public doesn't have access to enough data to decide as incidental infections could be pushing the hospital admissions up while not being related to Covid, so Hospital numbers may look bad but may not be.. Id hope that the Gov does have that information available but it wouldn't surprise me id they didn't.

Its going to be an "interesting" couple of weeks that's for sure as this wave has a sense of inevitability to me. even if we lockdown like we did for the 1st wave we're not getting this under control like we did then.
 
RobMCFC said:
It not the data from South Africa that I was saying is anecdotal. Any data from first-world health systems is good data.

My "anecdotal" comment refers to the general public who chip in an say "it's pretty mild" of "it's not as bad as people are making out". My point is that this is not enough for the government to act on. I'm sure they are taking data from around the World, including South Africa, but they have to be sure that the curve of the virus there will be the same as here. Our climate, amongst other factors, could make a difference.
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This is the danger of misinformation and the relentless reporting on things like Twitter. There are people who still believe that one doctors anecdote in SA is golden and therefore this must be a mild variant. The reason why is they're unable to reason because of bias and that anecdote just so happens to fit in with their bias.

The difference for a scientist is a scientist will resolve facts to come to the right conclusion whatever the data says but unfortunately if it's not what people want to hear then they'll take their bias, call conspiracy and then say that scientists are clueless.

This is why the anti-vaxxer movement is relentless, because people are purposely using mediums like Twitter to force opinions with false information to appeal to a bias. Those gullible people are then unable to reason because they'd have to accept that not only are they wrong but they've been duped. For some anti-vaxxers this often ends with them begging for the vaccine in an ICU because COVID has nearly killed them.
 
Look at the data graphically to give you a feel for what is happening. Don't look at the whole country, look where the epidemic is most advanced and that is London.

It's already too late to lockdown for London because specimens lag the infection by 2 days.

This is not an argument for or against lock downs. Their purpose is not to reduce the amount of infection but to flatten the curve so that hospitals can cope. I think they will cope but that's guessing.

Cases and admissions.png
 
The blue phantom said:
I can see that happening, But could you go to a Family Xmas Dinner ( Knowing you've a good chance of having it ) with folk there in their 70's 80's or even 90's. Even if Omricon is not as serious?
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2 things. Shouldn’t the 70/80/90 year olds have a say in what they’d like to do? They’ve probably had a thoroughly miserable 2 years and in many cases will be incredibly lonely.
What’s the point of the vaccinations? They’re supposed to keep most people from getting seriously ill and dying, if they catch covid. If we’re saying that we cant spend time with ‘old people’ to protect ’old people’ it’s all a complete waste of time. I know of many old people who died, in care homes (not of covid) who had a thoroughly miserable and lonely death over the last couple of years, which can’t be right.
 
Marvin said:
Look at the data graphically to give you a feel for what is happening. Don't look at the whole country, look where the epidemic is most advanced and that is London.

It's already too late to lockdown for London because specimens lag the infection by 2 days.

This is not an argument for or against lock downs. Their purpose is not to reduce the amount of infection but to flatten the curve so that hospitals can cope. I think they will cope but that's guessing.

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Thanks. Any idea when we’re likely to have duration/discharge data as well? I think South Africa and (maybe) Denmark have witnessed similar increases but with many people quickly discharged. I appreciate of course that the pressure of many presenting at once is unsustainable.
 
Gabriel said:
Thanks. Any idea when we’re likely to have duration/discharge data as well? I think South Africa and (maybe) Denmark have witnessed similar increases but with many people quickly discharged. I appreciate of course that the pressure of many presenting at once is unsustainable.
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Well maybe the message should be not to all flood to hospital if you're feeling a bit rough with Covid? Abuse of A&E for easily treatable issues is one of the reasons they're overwhelmed.

Tell the GPs to either open up properly or they're getting a 50% tax levy on their earnings in the next budget.
 
SWP's back said:
No. It’s because of their fucking data. Not one doctor’s experience.
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Yes, early data that is based upon a completely different population demographic which is extremely difficult to compare. So far we already know that the vaccines are far weaker which means you cannot compare anything to the last 6 months so we've essentially started this carousel again. Would you sign off that everything will be fine based upon that? I know I wouldn't.

Either way, even if this variant is milder it's still a fact that it's far more infectious. That means more people will potentially go to hospital just as a long product of the number of cases. However, more crucially the number of infections also means that more people will be off work infected than ever before and that reduces our capacity to cope with it. Healthcare capacity is a moving target, it isn't a constant.

I'm not arguing for restrictions or arguing that any data is wrong. I'm arguing that right now it's completely correct to be cautious because we're seeing over 100,000 people catch COVID per day, the highest since the pandemic began.
 
SWP's back said:
No. It’s because of their fucking data. Not one doctor’s experience.
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The lack of reporting in the mainstream media from South Africa has been quite odd. One BBC interview with Coetzee early on and then a later one with her on LBC, yet precious little else. That seems to have led some to conclude that she is a lone voice. I’ve actually seen more sources reported on Bluemoon.
 
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