It's looks like I'm a gonna, if everyone is going to catch it. It's interesting how some people don't even know they have it because they don't get any symptoms.
It has become clear that a hard lockdown does not protect old and frail people living in care homes – a population the lockdown was designed to protect. Neither does it decrease mortality from Covid-19, which is evident when comparing the UK's experience with that of other European countries.
PCR testing and some straightforward assumptions indicate that, as of April 29, 2020, more than half a million people in Stockholm county, Sweden (which is about 20–25 per cent of the region’s population) have been infected. 98 to 99 per cent of these people are probably unaware or uncertain of having had the infection; they either had symptoms that were severe, but not severe enough for them to go to a hospital and get tested, or no symptoms at all. Serology testing is now supporting these assumptions.
The Spectator
Johan Giesecke - Does lockdown really decrease Covid deaths? The UK experience suggests not
What is so difficult to understand about this? No one ever suggested that distancing measures would lower overall covid deaths, the mortality rate of the virus is a fixed property of the virus and it affect on humans. What the logic of this is about is to spread out, as far as is possible, the rate at which this infections occur. We can have a very large determinant affect of the rate by our behaviors.
ReplyDeleteIf we had simply had everyone lick a covid lollipop back at Easter weekend all at once, the rate of infection would be whatever it is... but the number of people sick today would be staggeringly more than if we let it spread by more natural means.
Looking back a year later we would see the same number of deaths for the year but they all would occur in April. Those two scenarios are not the same in any way shape or form. Any more than 5 bus crashes in a weekend is the same as 500 individual car crashes over a year. Same number of highway fatalities, staggeringly different response by the real world dealing with those deaths
How do these people tie their shoes AND chew gum?
I keep trying to tell you if you would get the wax out of your ears that these art degree morons who are the only ones writing and talking about this are not trained to understand first derivative effects
ReplyDeleteCOVID-19-related deaths in nursing homes account for nearly 80 per cent of Canada's total
ReplyDeletehttps://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/long-term-care-homes-covid19-1.5556041
Winning!
They can't tie their shoes or chew gum, but they know how to be hypocrites.
ReplyDeleteTucker Carlson
https://youtu.be/GFNvcw12d08
Matt
ReplyDeleteI know plenty of people without science degrees who have no problem accepting/understanding the logic of these epidemiologists. This actually is quite simple if you don't have a cadre of people who 1) Don't think they will ever get really sick from it.... so fuck it 2) Have been conditioned by their religious background to be suspicious of science people because they are hostile to God 3) Really are hoping for some kind of apocalyptic event (large overlap with above group) 4) Are actually hyper rational or STEM trained and only see data points and not people.... and think they are making a decision that costs us the least amount of money
You have your pet theory based on your priors, I have mine
Greg
ReplyDeleteNo one ever suggested that distancing measures would lower overall covid deaths, the mortality rate of the virus is a fixed property of the virus and it affect on humans.
That is not correct, lowering overall deaths is the proclaimed aim. What you are saying presumes infinite capacity to deal with the ill. The rate of infection can be changed, but so can the mortality rate. If they all come at once, health care systems would be overwhelmed, and millions of people who would have otherwise lived, would die.
ooooooh ooooohhh Liberal Art cat fight!!!
ReplyDelete"no I'm right... no I am.... youre not.... yes I am.... oh no youre not... oh yes I am...."
Let it rip Greg and Calg!!! ding ding!
"Are actually hyper rational or STEM trained and only see data points and not people"
ReplyDeleteYoure the one saying the death rate cannot be changed...
so what is the value of the shutdown then? to make it easier on Providers?
People working on creating a vaccine (science people) are proceeding with a purpose to reduce the death rate from present conditions... same as any competent science trained person doing something...
The area beneath the curve doesn't change, thus there is a minimum number of deaths 'baked in'. To avoid those deaths, the curve itself has to be avoided. Containment was achieved by a few countries who were prepared; in other cases the curve was flattened (mitigated); and in the UK, parts of the US, and elsewhere, lockdown was a failure.
ReplyDeleteClaims that millions would die were estimates, and they were wrong. Some believe it was incompetence, others are claiming it is evidence of a conspiracy.
“ Some believe it was incompetence, others are claiming it is evidence of a conspiracy.”
ReplyDeleteIt’s always incompetence....
Matt, all my degrees and formal teaching experience are in the sciences, mathematics in particular. Trained lots of engineers in differential equations. :-) Making imaginary distinctions between arts/humanities and sciences are not helpful - for there are far too many made too often already. Often enough, insight from the humanities can reap great rewards in the sciences.
ReplyDeleteMy point was that Greg did not present his own side of the case strongly enough, to the point of making statements to which I gave the usual and definitive refutation. Reasoned arguments are not cat fights, in the liberal arts or sciences or anywhere else.
Peter Pan:The area beneath the curve doesn't change
Which curve? Yes, it does. Because the curve of actual mortality over time changes depending on what is done, what the resources are, how many lollipops are licked and how frequently.
thus there is a minimum number of deaths 'baked in'?
Implicitly contradicting the first statement, because saying "minimum" or "baked in" implies variability or "non-baked in" is a possibility.
Based on the lowest estimates of mortality and contagion, no measures at all against the virus, or licking COVID lollipops certainly would kill millions over the whole world, many by far outstripping most health systems' capacity.
As Matt notes, if a vaccine is devised, it could change death rates. If more resources were devoted by the "advanced countries" ("retarded countries" is probably a better monicker now) - to public health, socialized medicine beforehand and now, to vaccine development, tried and true measures like contact tracing etc, instead of the pittances now decided on, the change would likely be even larger.
PP: Reading you again, your first paragraph says roughly what I did.
ReplyDelete"Making imaginary distinctions between arts/humanities and sciences "
ReplyDeletethe distinctions are not imaginary they are well documented ... what are you trying to say Ill give you another chance to make your point...
You are right Cal,what I should have said is that we cannot change the percentage of people who will develop critical/lethal symptoms from covid when exposed but we can affect the rate at which we are exposed. The entire goal of our strategies is to slow the number of people exposed so we don’t overwhelm our care systems. We can’t do mitigation strategies at current level til the production of vaccine but our pause has allowed plans to be put in place at tertiary centers if/when we see respikes in infection rate.
ReplyDeleteMatt
I’m saying that the lethality of the virus can’t be changed but we can try and limit the rate of exposure to it. instead of everyone licking the covid popsicle at the same time give it to 5-7% at time over 12-14 months
—————
“People working on creating a vaccine (science people) are proceeding with a purpose to reduce the death rate from present conditions... same as any competent science trained person doing something...”
Which will only be true if there are people who haven’t been exposed at time of vaccine introduction.
No it’s not about just making it “easier” on providers it’s about making sure there is a system that can provide the care that is expected of it, which makes it “easier” on the patients. The patients will suffer if there are too many of them
It’s ridiculous that people even wonder, “Does this distancing stuff work?!” Of course it does..... if practiced by everyone properly.
ReplyDeleteConsider this, if our noses turned red whenever we were infected and were contagious and everyone knew that sign, we would all stay away from the infected guy, someone in a hazmat suit would come get him, trace his contacts and keep him isolated til his nose returned to normal.
What we are being asked to do is exactly the behavior we would exhibit if we all KNEW who was infected.... and it would be 100% effective, but we don’t know who is contagious, so we are practicing a form of “universal precautions”. When you don’t know who has it, assume everyone does, It’s the ONLY thing we can do until we can test everyone or vaccinate everyone. The only question is how long
Well they have to figure out how to reduce the period of time of vaccine development to less than the 70 days or so that it takes to peak out...
ReplyDeleteSo why do they keep saying they are going to have to do clinical trials that maybe take a year when the thing maxes out at 70 days?
by the time they have the vaccine there is no longer a market for it...
Why do clinical trials if they only inject "dead" (improper word) virus?
Cant they certify the process instead of the product?
iow J&J says they have a "platform" why cant they just certify anything coming out of that "platform"?
iow certify the platform not the product...
I know virus is not "living" so dont even start....
ReplyDeleteHere this recombinant technique just inserts the antigen:
ReplyDelete" Once the recombinant virus enters a Food and Drug Administration (FDA) qualified host cell line, it instructs the cells to rapidly produce the HA antigen. This antigen is grown in bulk, collected, purified, and then packaged as recombinant flu vaccine. "
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/prevent/how-fluvaccine-made.htm
What would be the harm in injecting any antigen, even if it didnt work?
"Antigens are usually proteins, peptides (amino acid chains) and polysaccharides (chains of monosaccharides/simple sugars) "
I guess as proteins there could be some allergic to them? but I dont think they inject very much...
Based on the lowest estimates of mortality and contagion, no measures at all against the virus, or licking COVID lollipops certainly would kill millions over the whole world, many by far outstripping most health systems' capacity.
ReplyDeleteWe have countries like Sweden and Brazil who are the doing the usual approach. Their outcomes aren't catastrophic.
Under the column "Deaths/1 million population", the highest rates are mostly in countries that have some sort of lockdown. These are lockdowns that haven't worked.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Lollipop scenario would cull the elderly, mainly in nursing homes, if the experience in "developed" countries is any indication.
It's not been the policy in Canada to give the flu vaccine to everyone. What has changed, or will change in 6 months or a year from now?
ReplyDeleteA vaccine will be given to vulnerable groups, as it always has.
Manaus in brazil has been a catasrophe... very rural underserviced community...
ReplyDeleteManaus:
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/30/brazil-manaus-coronavirus-mass-graves
not good...
Anticipated 4500 deaths out of 2 million is 0.2% or twice as bad as flu.
ReplyDeleteTragedy yes, catastrophe no.
Consider it a control group to compare against.
saw a analysis today in US person said if you take out US deaths in long term care facilities the overall death rate is 0.07%.... I think this is lower than flu... but probably many flu in LTC facilities too....
ReplyDeleteWe need to do a better job in the LTC facilities....
I posted a link earlier about virus deaths in Canada, 80% of which were in nursing homes. This is after all visitors were banned, and measures supposedly taken to protect the residents. It's scandalous.
ReplyDeletePeter Pan : Lollipop scenario would cull the elderly, mainly in nursing homes, if the experience in "developed" countries is any indication.
ReplyDeleteThe point I am belaboring is that this experience, taken at face value, is NOT the correct indication. Because hospitals and health care facilities have not been so overloaded outside of a few areas. In the lollipop scenario, they would be, so the correct indication would be proportional (within an order of magnitude, say) to current hospitalization rates or rates of those whose breathing needed assistance. Because they wouldn't be getting that help in the overloaded / lollipop scenario. The lollipops would kill millions who would otherwise have lived, even on that fudged .07% mortality rate above which would be unbelievably, unrealistically low.