Covid 19

[PeteHall]

That great virologist/epidemiologist Donald J Trump said that too.

Reductio ad Trumpum? 

[aardgoose]

How many genes are the UK testing for postive result to be reported ?

What do you mean?  The main PCR tests for three different targets of the covid genome. Is that what you mean?

As to Lateral Flow Tests [LFT], they are being used because they are quick and cheap. But they aren't very accurate and will only detect cases with high viral loads. PCR are very accurate and sensitive but are costly and slow requiring specialised labs. LFT tests generate a lot of false negatives, ie people are told they are OK when they are not. This is all documented and well known.

Lots of questions... No official answers just ever growing statistics...

There are lots of answers from official sources. You refuse to either read them or understand them, and them claim they haven't been answered and go on to quote well known deniers.

How can labs scale up test capacity and maintain accuracy...?

By building new labs and staffing very quickly, the so called 'lighthouse labs'.  They aren't relying on the existing pathology labs, although capacity in universities and research institutions is used for full sequencing - ie testing the full genome of the samples.

See here for the full sequencing effort:
https://www.cogconsortium.uk/

I'm not denying that something isnt happening but im in the camp of its similar to what is to be expected in a bad flu year but with the added bonus of reduced staffing which links to the over testing.

No, you are denying there is something, you just did. You are grasping for excuses to ignore people dying, because you don't want to be inconvenienced. You are just repeating all the same myths that have been repeatedly discredited. You are behaving like every other conspiracy theorist. There isn't over testing, they are testing people reporting symptoms.

Covid has a much higher fatality rate than flu, and that is ignoring the long term organ damage in people that survive.

There is a massive community of scientists working in this virus, for example here. This doesn't happen with the common cold or 'flu.

https://virological.org/c/novel-2019-coronavirus/33

1800 people recorded dying of covid in the last two days, London's hospitals are at maximum capacity. Cases are increasing rapidly. We haven't had the spike from Christmas gatherings yet. 

I'm sorry trying to save lives upsets you so much.

[RobinGriffiths]

This is what pisses me off. And I won't do the clickbait tw*ts the favour of providing a link. The Daily Mail has had headlines along these lines for months: 'Experts warn those areas that spent Christmas in Tier 4 are most at risk of even TIGHTER 'Tier 5' Covid restrictions in January - despite data showing cases may already be falling in some of them'

The italic bit being the trope they have been trotting out for months. Exactly the same headline when Lockdown 2 came, Blah, Blah, Lockdown 2 coming despite, blah, cases in blah going down.

When the dust settles, I hope the role of the media in all this is taken into accout when the enquiry begins.

[Laurie]

If this disease was killing everyone who caught it would the attitude to lockdowns be the same as now?
Where do you draw the line?

[oldfart]

The NHS should now be getting the extra £350 million a week from Boris's brexit bonus. He tends to keep his promises like the one where he said "F*&k business".

[Fjell]

Well, strangely, it has come to pass.

The next budget is €1.8tn for 7 years. Most of it now based on GNI.

The UK’s share of EU+UK GNI is about 15%.

So 0.15 x 1800000 * 1.15 / 1.1 / 52 / 7 = £775mln per week. And I can assure you we would not get half back (Ireland will get about a third of theirs).

No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition.

Best not to bring it up.

[martinb]

This is what pisses me off. And I won't do the clickbait tw*ts the favour of providing a link. The Daily Mail has had headlines along these lines for months: 'Experts warn those areas that spent Christmas in Tier 4 are most at risk of even TIGHTER 'Tier 5' Covid restrictions in January - despite data showing cases may already be falling in some of them'

The italic bit being the trope they have been trotting out for months. Exactly the same headline when Lockdown 2 came, Blah, Blah, Lockdown 2 coming despite, blah, cases in blah going down.

When the dust settles, I hope the role of the media in all this is taken into accout when the enquiry begins.

Unfortunately, OFCOM is fairly toothless when bringing the role of newspapers and the likes of the BBC to account.

And, the Levison 2 enquiry was quashed by the government on the behest of some of its more implicated MP's and Newspaper Oligarchs.

So the chance of the government or the media being held to account is vanishingly small.

[NewStuff]

No, you are denying there is something, you just did. You are grasping for excuses to ignore people dying, because you don't want to be inconvenienced.

Emphasis mine. Every single conversation with one of the anti-vax/denier lot boils down to this.
Much as I have an exceedingly healthy disregard for authority, there are times you need to buckle down and deal with it. This lot don't want to, they don't like it, it's not compatible with their lifestyle and mindset. All of the fluff, posture and misdirection is simply to hide the fact they haven't got the spine to admit they're cunts and simply don't want to deal with the inconvenience. I've seen people that can barely add up to 10 using their fingers tell PhD biologists they're wrong about this, and it's all a hoax. Worse still are the reasonably intelligent one that know they're wrong, but still put personal liberty ahead of a clear need for a short term societal responsibility. No-one has yet explained to me why the entire world puts everything on hold to deal with this, or why for the first time ever, governments have got their act together and are maintaining a global veil of secrecy and coordination with each other, when normally they struggle to organise a piss-up in a brewery. It's deffo a hoax or the numbers are wrong,or some other bullshit because that explains away their own responsibility nicely. It's not their fault, they're not the bad ones. There is absolutely no concept of personal responsibility.

Admin - I  know exactly what your stance on language is, and I usually respect that. However, I fully feel that any lesser words don't even begin to convey my contempt for the twats that keep this dragging out and subjecting all of us to endure this for far longer than we needed to.

[Stuart Anderson]

No, you are denying there is something, you just did. You are grasping for excuses to ignore people dying, because you don't want to be inconvenienced.

Emphasis mine. Every single conversation with one of the anti-vax/denier lot boils down to this.
Much as I have an exceedingly healthy disregard for authority, there are times you need to buckle down and deal with it. This lot don't want to, they don't like it, it's not compatible with their lifestyle and mindset. All of the fluff, posture and misdirection is simply to hide the fact they haven't got the spine to admit they're cunts and simply don't want to deal with the inconvenience. I've seen people that can barely add up to 10 using their fingers tell PhD biologists they're wrong about this, and it's all a hoax. Worse still are the reasonably intelligent one that know they're wrong, but still put personal liberty ahead of a clear need for a short term societal responsibility. No-one has yet explained to me why the entire world puts everything on hold to deal with this, or why for the first time ever, governments have got their act together and are maintaining a global veil of secrecy and coordination with each other, when normally they struggle to organise a piss-up in a brewery. It's deffo a hoax or the numbers are wrong,or some other bullshit because that explains away their own responsibility nicely. It's not their fault, they're not the bad ones. There is absolutely no concept of personal responsibility.

Admin - I  know exactly what your stance on language is, and I usually respect that. However, I fully feel that any lesser words don't even begin to convey my contempt for the twats that keep this dragging out and subjecting all of us to endure this for far longer than we needed to.

"people that can barely add up to 10 using their fingers" is now my go to insult. Brilliant, just brilliant. 

Your choice of language? Think sometimes such brutal vernacular is needed. Cuts through the BS.

[Pitlamp]

Actually it puts a lot of people off.

Folk are more likely to warm to someone's point of view if it's articulated with reasoned argument.

[Stuart Anderson]

Actually it puts a lot of people off.

Folk are more likely to warm to someone's point of view if it's articulated with reasoned argument.

As much as I admire and respect your optimism and general good natured altruism, enough people have had enough time given to them with reasoned argument and it's still not filtering through their tinfoil hat/exceptionalism/selfish gene.

[kay]

The reality is that many (but by no means all) people who have died of Covid have been in their last year or two of life.

Is there any evidence for this statement?

I've seen people compare life expectancy at birth with average age of death by Covid, but that is the wrong comparison. The comparison should be with remaining life expectancy having managed to reach a certain age. For example, an 85 year old woman has a remaining life expectancy of more than 7 years even though she is already older than the life expectancy from birth.

The idea that most people dying of Covid are in their last year or two of life has been seized upon by many on social media to argue we should just get on with life, because those who die "would have died anyway in a few months".

[NewStuff]

Actually it puts a lot of people off.

Folk are more likely to warm to someone's point of view if it's articulated with reasoned argument.

At this point anyone in that position is not going to change it with a reasoned argument. We're long past the point of being nice. Being nice drags this out and reinforces the position that they can do whatever they please if they make enough noise to make it awkward. Worse still is people who have been begrudgingly doing things to prevent the spread seeing them doing what they damn well please, and emulating that.

[Pitlamp]

You have a good point with that last sentence.

[aardgoose]

The years life lost argument is certainly disputed.

https://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2020/05/28/coronavirus-and-lost-life-three-million-years/

[maxf]

The years life lost argument is certainly disputed.

https://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2020/05/28/coronavirus-and-lost-life-three-million-years/

I would hate to see the years lost to alcohol but that doesn't stop most people does it...

[Stuart Anderson]

The years life lost argument is certainly disputed.

https://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2020/05/28/coronavirus-and-lost-life-three-million-years/

I would hate to see the years lost to alcohol but that doesn't stop most people does it...

How do you catch alcoholism? (Asking for a friend).

[mikem]

Dependency by drinking too much...

[Stuart Anderson]

Dependency by drinking too much...

So how far away must I stand from a transmitter? Should I wear a mask or would a cagoule be better (spillage)? Is there a contact time limit to which I should adhere to avoid 'getting' alcoholism from another person?

[maxf]

The years life lost argument is certainly disputed.

https://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2020/05/28/coronavirus-and-lost-life-three-million-years/

I would hate to see the years lost to alcohol but that doesn't stop most people does it...

How do you catch alcoholism? (Asking for a friend).

I made my comment because surrounding the situation is the idea that we can all help stop people dying early by limiting our own lives to save others and help the NHS as we have been doing in various lockdowns for the best part of last year and will likely be doing for some of this year too at least.

Life is not just lost to corona virus however, some causes are out of our hands but some we have direct control over like whether we choose to drink alcohol or not, a guick Google suggests that around 25,000 lives are lost every year due to alcohol. You might say that this is preventable. Maybe some of the corona deaths might have even been prevented as a knock on effect of improving the poor health of those who succumbed for such reasons.

Lots of people are completly against the idea of preventive loss of life because of recent events yet probably are not T total themselves so are part of another problem that isn't being so well highlighted right now (I'm not T total for reference).

There also lots of online shaming about anyone who has an alternative view point to current events, I saw one article stating 'blood on the hands' of people who don't comply with rules (again for reference I have been and will be complying).

I hope those doing the current shaming about those taking a different view (based on evidence from other doctors and scientists* in my case) are so careful with other aspects of their life which might cause un-necessary burden on the health services due to their choices. It would seem to be double standards if they weren't.

If we really must prevent all preventable loss of life then we would be in a very boring world.

"And there is a sizable portion of these across the World not just one or two making noise.

[aardgoose]

(based on evidence from other doctors and scientists* in my case)

I can guess which ones you will be referring to.  A small group of outliers who have been shown to be wrong repeatedly, but are still given media exposure and not questioned on their previous statements.

I won't attribute the quotes, they have enough publicity, for example:

it is likely the British public has more immunity than previously thought and Covid-19 could end up "petering out by itself

If government rules are followed, we will be back to normal by June.

And from May 2020:

I think that the epidemic has largely come and is on its way out in this country

The coronavirus pandemic is “effectively over” in the United Kingdom and “there is absolutely no need for vaccines.

[Stuart Anderson]

The years life lost argument is certainly disputed.

https://blogs.bmj.com/medical-ethics/2020/05/28/coronavirus-and-lost-life-three-million-years/

I would hate to see the years lost to alcohol but that doesn't stop most people does it...

How do you catch alcoholism? (Asking for a friend).

I made my comment because surrounding the situation is the idea that we can all help stop people dying early by limiting our own lives to save others and help the NHS as we have been doing in various lockdowns for the best part of last year and will likely be doing for some of this year too at least.

Life is not just lost to corona virus however, some causes are out of our hands but some we have direct control over like whether we choose to drink alcohol or not, a guick Google suggests that around 25,000 lives are lost every year due to alcohol. You might say that this is preventable. Maybe some of the corona deaths might have even been prevented as a knock on effect of improving the poor health of those who succumbed for such reasons.

Lots of people are completly against the idea of preventive loss of life because of recent events yet probably are not T total themselves so are part of another problem that isn't being so well highlighted right now (I'm not T total for reference).

There also lots of online shaming about anyone who has an alternative view point to current events, I saw one article stating 'blood on the hands' of people who don't comply with rules (again for reference I have been and will be complying).

I hope those doing the current shaming about those taking a different view (based on evidence from other doctors and scientists* in my case) are so careful with other aspects of their life which might cause un-necessary burden on the health services due to their choices. It would seem to be double standards if they weren't.

If we really must prevent all preventable loss of life then we would be in a very boring world.

"And there is a sizable portion of these across the World not just one or two making noise.

Now we're getting somewhere, thanks to your much better expanded point.

That's one of the issues with social media and what appear to be flippant one liners such as your original post (which smacked of "whatabout-ism"). They only do service to people who for whatever reason, don't or won't face up to the part they play in this covid situation - usually in a negative self-centred way. This, obviously, isn't you because like myself, we've been following the guidance (I've got skin in the game - wife works clinical NHS and my livelihood has gone down the pan so I need this resolved as soon as possible).

You do seem to be conflating personal risk taking and putting others health at risk though. Not sure I've seen any NHS guidance on not going running, caving, rock climbing etc. The Dr. who made the claim of 'blood on the hands' is articulating what quite a few medical/clinical personnel are thinking. Whether he should have said it? Maybe it's the shot across the bow quite a few people need - quick yank on the chain - because there are still people taking the piss based on spurious whataboutism.

[NewStuff]

... waffle about alcohol ...

So, tell me again what Alcohol has to do with a contagious virus that kills people?

"And there is a sizable portion of these across the World not just one or two making noise.

No, there isn't. There's a few odd nutters. If you want to drink bleach and shove a UV torch up your arse, feel free, but do it at home eh?

[maxf]

Give me some time and I will spill all my sticking points for you to pick apart....

I'm genuinely open minded about it but have yet to have some of the 'tin foil bridges' points proven to me otherwise...

[Speleofish]

In reply to Kay's question, many of those who died from Covid were residential or nursing home residents who have an average life expectancy of less than 2 years (the British Geriatrics Society quotes 1 year average survival for nursing home residents, 2 years for residential homes). Most of those in hospital with severe respiratory failure who were deemed unlikely to benefit from mechanical ventilation were so categorised because they had major, life-limiting co-morbidities.

There was also a cohort of patients with severely impaired physiological reserve - bad lung or heart disease, severe dementia, major neurological impairment for example. These people can live for considerably longer than two years if they avoid getting severe infections but lack the reserve to survive a prolonged period of intensive care and the slow rehabilitation that follows. Many of these people die every winter, whether from 'flu, bacterial pneumonia or, this year, Covid. One can't say any individual in this group is in the last year or so of life but, statistically, many of them are.