Coronavirus (Covid19) Corner

[Whyperion]

there is an obvious ripost to the second home thing with some exemptions. I shall avoid it. Actually to travel for the good of your mental health is now allowed as long as you social distance at the end of it. That might be a get out for young children though normally the get close up enough to exchange fleas never mind anything else.

On Statistics
While the latest figures show the UK recorded another 2,445 confirmed cases, analysis by the Office for National Statistics suggests there are 8,000 new infections a day in England. (Friday I presume, the graph shows an increase over the week, that might be more testing catching more, it might be the consequences of the last weekend and lockdown loosing with construction increasing. There are going to be plenty of economic consequences coming as the high street , leisure and sport really does change. I still think the Govt support needs to be swapped by August to getting people into training for more public services, healthcare, police, teaching, local social services and council housebuilding. These might not be socially distancing roles but they are necessary and hopefully if younger people can be engaged it can avoid a 2million unemployed situation.

[Sue]

I am aware of these figures and the extra cases. I think everyone is getting obsessed with numbers and comparing countries as well . I think the same issues exist in all countries. There will be or have been far more cases than reported . Large numbers of people infected that only testing brings to light, limited testing then lower numbers. Even larger numbers that have never been tested. I think it will now be in every society at some sort of level wether we know it or not as it manifests itself in so many different ways depending on genetics, age, underlying conditions, and even blood group apparently. I am now of the opinion that overall numbers are meaningless as they can never actually be determined, in any country .

[Stanley]

" I am now of the opinion that overall numbers are meaningless as they can never actually be determined, in any country ."/i]
Dead right Sue. They are a tool used by the mentally superior ruling classes to reassure and inform the great unwashed who don't really understand these things. I heard one statistician the other day say thaT IN HIS OPINION OVERALL THEY COULD BE SAFELY DOUBLED. hE COULD BE RIGHT. (bUGGER CAPS LOCK!)
Well done P, nice summing up.

[Marilyn]

I disagree. Numbers are important....eventually.
(Were numbers not important when we counted our war dead/plague deaths/Spanish flu deaths/polio cases?)

[Stanley]

They were calculated much later when the dust had settled and were reasonably accurate. The point is that 'off the cuff' daily numbers can't be trusted to be accurate.
Accurate numbers are important. Inaccurate ones are dangerous.

[plaques]

We could go on for ever bandying numbers about. Chart after chart being shown to highlight their particular theme. Numbers are never as simple as people think. Here is a 5 minute YouTube which may explain why charts are presented in different ways.
Vox Charts.

[Sue]

I stand by what I said . Overall numbers depend on what they include and who wants to include them. Numbers can so easily be manipulated. I watch them but am more interested in the trends than the actual numbers. I compare graphs and numbers from various official sites, few of them agree on numbers although they do agree on trends.

[Sue]

I disagree. Numbers are important....eventually.
(Were numbers not important when we counted our war dead/plague deaths/Spanish flu deaths/polio cases?)

These are mainly final numbers not daily reported ambiguous numbers that vary from country to country and who includes what and which hour of the day they were released. Trends are the key.

I used to play with interpreting numbers in different ways when I taught disease and control and when I worked in disinfectant research. There are always to show the data in Different ways to suit the need of the person. In this present scenario there are different estimates by different people on the overall numbers. The official ones are not necessarily the actual numbers, that is in every country. It is not possible to measure it.

[Marilyn]

Stats can be manipulated to many degrees. I agree. I never trust stats. Someone always has an agenda.
But...death rates are death rates.
( it is not about individuals taking Aspirin who happen to ride bicycles)

[Tizer]

Stats can be manipulated to many degrees. I agree. I never trust stats. Someone always has an agenda.

You can trust statistics when they are done properly and interpreted objectively. It's when they are mis-used that we shouldn't trust them.
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Here's an article explaining the problem of 'silent spreaders', the pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals who appear to be in full health but are infecting those around them. There is increasing evidence that covid-19 is being spread this way more than we've thought. The mystery of 'silent spreaders'

[Sue]

I agree but about the death rates to a certain extent but the data quoted and compared and enlarged on is largely those with the disease. Also even death rates may not be true. People have died who have not been attributed to the virus and vice versa. I was talking online to a friend yesterday, whose relative had died from Covid or so they thought, and the post mortem Showed they hadn’t. I self report on an app, the symptoms are listed, you tick them. Just because you have the symptoms you don’t have to have the disease and vice versa. My own niece had symptoms but the test came back negative. So finite quoted numbers may not be right, however statistically they will show a trend .

Is that trend static, going up or down, and even more important where are the cases and what is the ratio to the population as a whole. I prefer death rates per 1000 pf the population much more meaningful. But big figures have big impact, big news. In the case of the UK no one reports recovery, well its mot news is it. Lets scare the people to death. The official figures for Rochdale I don’t remember but I do know its gone done from 0.9 % of the population to 0.6% and is dropping by the week. I compare with the same day of the week. Reporting is different over the weekend for example.0.6 doesn’t sound as bad as over 1000 cases but it is more meaningful to me as I have or should I say had no idea of our population size

[Cathy]

Oh man, I must be feeling hopeful today, or maybe just fed-up, and not to mention that I feel like ‘our new normality’ of more freedom and spontaneity is just around the corner. Our state is slowly opening up, internally.
A couple of weeks... ??
Our current growth factor for the Coronavirus is 1.03. We are told it needs to be below 1.0.
We are also told to expect isolated outbreaks, but don’t throw stats at me, I’m seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

[Sue]

Oh man, I must be feeling hopeful today, or maybe just fed-up, and not to mention that I feel like ‘our new normality’ of more freedom and spontaneity is just around the corner.
A couple of weeks... ??
Our current growth factor for the Coronavirus is 1.03. We are told it needs to be below 1.0.
We are also told to expect isolated outbreaks, but don’t throw stats at me, I’m seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

Absolutely in the UK it is between 0.7 to 0.9 depending on where you live, apparently
In London it is 0.4

[Marilyn]

I still believe it can only be solved by social distancing.
This comes right back to ground zero of fundamental rights. Some people will never tolerate lack of freedoms.
But honestly...this IS the bottom line. Stop travelling, stop mingling, stop dining together/ having lovers/ moving between households/attending pubs or social gatherings.

[Gloria]

I still believe it can only be solved by social distancing.
This comes right back to ground zero of fundamental rights. Some people will never tolerate lack of freedoms.
But honestly...this IS the bottom line. Stop travelling, stop mingling, stop dining together/ having lovers/ moving between households/attending pubs or social gatherings.

I totally agree Marilyn.

[Sue]

I still believe it can only be solved by social distancing.
This comes right back to ground zero of fundamental rights. Some people will never tolerate lack of freedoms.
But honestly...this IS the bottom line. Stop travelling, stop mingling, stop dining together/ having lovers/ moving between households/attending pubs or social gatherings.

I agree completely, plus good hygiene, but social distancing does not have to mean isolation, thats what people need to understand. You can travel provided you don’t mingle ie no public transport. I am not sure where pubs have crept in again. In fact where I live there are hardly any pubs left, they closed years ago! Where are these pubs or restaurants or cafes except where lockdown has been lifted on them. I still think the vast majority abide by the rules but the minority are publicised. Rule keepers are not news.

[Tripps]

You can travel provided you don’t mingle.

Difficult / impossible in Central London and the Tube is your only option.

For the first time I'm glad my lad travels in on a motor bike, so no public transport needed; though he's working from home now and has been told he will be doing so until October or later. They've even offered to buy him a desk for his bedroom / office.

This is going to take a long time. I'm taking my own decisions, and being a student of the odds I've decided the 'value bet' is to stay isolated for quite a while longer yet.Too many 'unkown unknowns ' out there for my liking.

[Sue]

Here is a breakdown of what the public thought of lockdown. Around 90% said they followed the rules.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/05/ ... c-opinion/


Yes I think public transport is a real issue and you won’t get me on a plane for a long time

[plaques]

I'll just throw another one in the melting pot. Are statins beneficial in preventing covid-19 infection? There is nothing to prove a link with statins as a causation in catching the coronavirus but those with high lipids may be in the higher risk group if they do catch it. Bringing the cholesterol down may in itself be beneficial. But the suspicion remains if you have to take them for known medical reasons does this mean you are actually in the 'vulnerable' group as far as the severity of the illness is concerned should you get it.
As always the advice is to contact your doctor if you have any concerns about your medication.

[Sue]

I'll just throw another one in the melting pot. Are statins beneficial in preventing covid-19 infection? There is nothing to prove a link with statins as a causation in catching the coronavirus but those with high lipids may be in the higher risk group if they do catch it. Bringing the cholesterol down may in itself be beneficial. But the suspicion remains if you have to take them for known medical reasons does this mean you are actually in the 'vulnerable' group as far as the severity of the illness is concerned should you get it.
As always the advice is to contact your doctor if you have any concerns about your medication.

I am sure some one will be researching it. I read today HRT may protect menopausal women because oestrogen has a protective link. It goes on a on. Never have so many factors been investigated for one disease. I wonder how many of the factors affect other diseases too.

[Tripps]

From The DFGM ( Department for Goalpost Moving) - currently working 'incredibly hard'.

The daily coronavirus testing capacity has hit 200,000 but the actual numbers of tests being carried out much lower. The figures released today included capacity for 40,000 antibody tests a day,

In the 24-hour period up to 9am on Sunday, 115,725 tests were carried out or dispatched.

At the beginning of May Boris Johnson said he wanted to carry out 200,000 tests a day by the end of the month. But within hours Downing Street clarified the Prime Minister's remarks to say that the target number referred to capacity rather than actual tests.

The target fell short of the PM’s own promise as long ago as 25 March that test numbers would “very soon” reach 250,000.

[Whyperion]

I am not chasing numbers for the sake of it. Every number is a person, with a potential less life and obviously missed future potential. At some time the NHS will have to change, and expand, to treat diseases of aging and have effective safe nursing home or community care across England, with additional trained and motivated people (some of those wanting to flee Hong Kong might come in useful).

Anyway given the protests against the USA in London and social all togethers in the countryside and beaches the R number will be going up againg.

Back to numbers Spain has recorded its lowest number of new infections in almost three months, with 96 new cases reported on Sunday. Just two deaths were recorded.By comparison the UK recorded 1,936 new confirmed cases and 113 deaths today. In Italy the numbers were 355 infections and 75 deaths.

Spain's figures are a massive fall from early April, when the country recorded 950 deaths and several thousand new cases in a single day.
The country has already begun easing its lockdown restrictions, which were among the strictest in Europe.
I think the last line is telling, the UK even if it 'started late', has been more loose than Spain and the figures now indicate the consequences of that. i suspect that Scottish and NI are frustrated that their number still are not falling as they would like, nor given the lower population and population density why numbers are still not eliminated. The silent spreaders could well be part of the answer.

Also announced (I did not listen so this is BBC report)
6,000 new homes will be built to provide permanent accommodation for rough sleepers in England, including 3,300 in the next year, at a cost of £160m
I am surprised at this, although I have been campaigning for more inventive use of land - like supermarket car parks - where the airspace could accomodate YMCA 'pods' loosely based on shipping containers scaffolded together. But many of the street homeless have multiple additiction issues and the right kind of indivdual and shared dwelling units will be a challenge for service providers. I have already raised the other problem , which I hope might be included of the 'sofa-surfing' group that have jobs of a kind, including in the care sector, that need affordable, secure tenure accomodation.

[Whyperion]

Questionable Stats from the Govt.
"Dr Harries says that modelling showed that isolating the most vulnerable during the peak would protect them.

But there has been a "seismic change", she says, and people are much less likely to come into contact with someone carrying the virus now."

I am not sure about that, has the actual number of active cases really diminished at any time - is peak a myth in that it shows cumulative figures but in any individual setting is the risk of one infected person in any given area has it really gone down (significantly) in England?

[Stanley]

"This is going to take a long time. I'm taking my own decisions, and being a student of the odds I've decided the 'value bet' is to stay isolated for quite a while longer yet.Too many 'unkown unknowns ' out there for my liking"
Exactly my thinking David..... At least two years I reckon.

[plaques]

I'm getting all confused about the covid risk statistics. At the start of the epidemic with the R rate at 4+, ie: the number of people an infectious person is likely to infect if out in the community, which apparently now equates to 1 in 40 for the people likely to catch it. Now the R rate has dropped between 0.7 / 0.9 the odds are now between 400/500 to 1. with some quoting 1000 to 1.

THE likelihood of catching coronavirus is now one in 1,000 - while the chances of Brits meeting someone with the deadly bug have dropped from one in 40 to just one in 500.

These are dramatic changes in the risk factor which frankly I don't understand. If we think of Barlick at its peek of activity then 1 in 1000 makes it virtually totally safe to go out there and mix amongst them.

Could someone (Sue, Tizer) explain what's going on? Otherwise I'm with Tripps and Stanley.