Covid-19 Discussion

[merc85]

Have you thought of raising this sorry state of affairs with your local MP merc85? If for no other reason than to make your dissatisfaction known.

Best of luck.

Yes i did, ChipChop

Sir Benard Jenkin,

3x emails,

One stating why i believe he should abject to the suppression of human rights that is corona virus act 2020,
His reply was he thought it was a good idea to keep the act going for another 6 months becaus eof how deadly this virus was.

2nd email,

Was my displeasure at him voting for the act seeing has the survival rate is 99.98%, His reply was that he understood the Social Phycological impact and economical sacrifice that is asked from the public.

3rd email was myself telling him that he had know idea of the impact its made personally to my family stating the above reasons, to which there was no reply.

 

[markjay]

These are borne out in the Govt's ONS stats but I can't locate them quickly enough.

This is the link to the ONS info on the Government's website:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/generator?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/articles/leadingcausesofdeathuk/2001to2018/60b0bce1&format=csv

 

[markjay]

Yes i did, ChipChop

Sir Benard Jenkin,

3x emails,

One stating why i believe he should abject to the suppression of human rights that is corona virus act 2020,
His reply was he thought it was a good idea to keep the act going for another 6 months becaus eof how deadly this virus was.

2nd email,

Was my displeasure at him voting for the act seeing has the survival rate is 99.98%, His reply was that he understood the Social Phycological impact and economical sacrifice that is asked from the public.

3rd email was myself telling him that he had know idea of the impact its made personally to my family stating the above reasons, to which there was no reply.

Personally, I think that your 3rd email carried the most powerful argument.

To my mind, your personal circumstances and the detrimental effect that the Government's COVID-19 policies had on you and your family's health and well-being are the strongest augments against the measures imposed.

The emails raising the issue of the suppression of human rights and the national statistics are less personal and much easier dismissed.

It may be the case that you have made yourself a disservice by putting non-personal matters ahead of your own difficulties in the two previous emails. It may have caused the 3rd email to sound disingenuous.

My view... if this helps. Hopefully you will get a meaningful reply to your last email.

 

[markjay]

You don't do irony, do you, MJ? You are doing exactly the same as those whom you accuse of ... well, doing the same as you, but with a different viewpoint. Otherwise I enjoy your posts, which are often enlightening.

Thanks for the compliment... I think.

We're good

 

[Deleted member 65149]

Here is another overview covering several years:

View attachment 103469


The article in full: How many people die of the ’flu each year?

These are borne out in the Govt's ONS stats but I can't locate them quickly enough.

You forgot to mention what it said beneath the chart "The ‘deaths with Coronavirus’ figure is correct as of Easter Sunday, 12 Apr 2020 at 4am." So comparing just over 3 months of Covid figures with annual flu deaths is completely meaningless isn't it? You also forgot to mention that there are already 42,825 Covid-19 recorded deaths within 28 days of a positive test - and we still have three months to go.

 

[Swotty]

This is the link to the ONS info on the Government's website:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/generator?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/causesofdeath/articles/leadingcausesofdeathuk/2001to2018/60b0bce1&format=csv

Thanks - that is very helpful, MJ.

 

[Swotty]

You forgot to mention what it said beneath the chart "The ‘deaths with Coronavirus’ figure is correct as of Easter Sunday, 12 Apr 2020 at 4am." So comparing just over 3 months of Covid figures with annual flu deaths is completely meaningless isn't it? You also forgot to mention that there are already 42,825 Covid-19 recorded deaths within 28 days of a positive test - and we still have three months to go.

That's why I linked to the whole article!

 

[Swotty]

Thanks for the compliment... I think.

We're good

 

[Deleted member 65149]

That's why I linked to the whole article!

But why post a great big misleading chart? What was the point of that?

 

[Benzowner]

Anyone any ideas why there should be a significant North South divide on the current number of
infections?

 

[Swotty]

But why post a great big misleading chart? What was the point of that?

I posted both at the same time, not just the chart.

 

[st13phil]

Anyone any ideas why there should be a significant North South divide on the current number of
infections?

I haven't read any analysis that claims to be definitive, but reasons postulated include:

1. The areas hit hardest now escaped relatively lightly earlier in the year, so are now more susceptible to infection (the "dry tinder" / herd immunity theories)
2. Outbreaks are centred on University Towns which have seen a rapid influx of a large number of students
3. The prevalence of multi-generational households and relative poverty in the worst affected areas

...and I'm sure there are many more.

 

[Deleted member 65149]

I posted both at the same time, not just the chart.

Pathetic response, so instead I’ll ask what the point was of your whole post that provided information that’s so much out of date you may as well have shouted about the number of flu deaths during the great plague of 1665-66! With very little hope of an answer to my question; what was the point of that post?

 

[merc85]

PCR TEST NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE!

https://www.fda.gov/media/134922/download

Page 39

Performance Characteristics

2nd Paragraph

"Quote"
Since no quantified virus isolates of the 2019-nCoV are currently available, assays designed for detection of the 2019-nCoV RNA were tested with characterized stocks of in vitro transcribed full length RNA.

"Un Quote Which is NOT cv19" lol

WHY are we testing for something we havent even been able find ? And using a Test that wasn't and cannot be used reliably to find cv19?

 

[markjay]

Anyone any ideas why there should be a significant North South divide on the current number of
infections?

Not as such, but the way it has been explained, is that initially the infection spread by people arriving from abroad, mainly from China and Italy, and they have either landed or travelled to various parts of the country, which lead to a (roughly) even spread of infections across the UK during the first two months, and this is also typical of how new infections spread in the age of air-travel in general.

Once the infection is spreading internally by transfer in the community, the overall picture starts to change over time. The so called 'second-wave' is likely to start from one or two particular locations, rather than starting spontaneously everywhere at the same time, and therefore local lockdowns aimed at isolating the 'hot spots' as they start to emerge is the correct way of preventing this 'second wave'.

A good metaphor is wildfire. Once put-out, the firefighters will not bother spraying thousands of acres of woodland with water or other chemicals, instead they will keep a watch for any hot spots that are emerging, and will only target these. The rationale behind it is that the fire will not reignite spontaneously all over the forest, instead it will start from a hot spot. For this reason, keeping a watchful eye on the terrain and quickly reacting to any hot spots is how they deal with the aftermath of a wildfire.

The same logic is being applied to where we are now in the pandemic: monitoring infection levels and hospital admissions levels across the country, and tightening the anti-COVID measures or imposing local lockdowns only in these specific areas that start to become hot spots, in order to 'extinguish' the infection before it spreads to other regions in the country.

And, as previously mentioned, the important statistic is not so much the absolute numbers, but the rate-of-change which is used as a predictor for a looming rise in infections.

That said, this is only a partial answer and it obviously does not explain whet the hot spots are where they are.

Interestingly, last night I heard a talk given by Dr Tim Spector of Kings, whose recent book is called Spoon-Fed: Why almost everything we’ve been told about food is wrong, and he claims that the current COVID hot-spot map for the UK correlates surprisingly well with the data we have regrading feeding habits (i.e. that areas where less nutritional food is consumed, have higher rates of COVID-19 infections). This is obviously only a correlation study, so before jumping to the conclusion that this is the sole reason for the divide, we should also consider the possibility that other joint factors are at place, such as demographics, wealth, cultural factors etc.

 

[Benzowner]

I haven't read any analysis that claims to be definitive, but reasons postulated include:

1. The areas hit hardest now escaped relatively lightly earlier in the year, so are now more susceptible to infection (the "dry tinder" / herd immunity theories)
2. Outbreaks are centred on University Towns which have seen a rapid influx of a large number of students
3. The prevalence of multi-generational households and relative poverty in the worst affected areas

...and I'm sure there are many more.

University towns I don't think is a reason, Bristol has two universities and a number of colleges, with an increased covid count, but nowhere near those in the north of England,

I guess we do have a lot of fields in the south, but even London seems to have escaped the worst, but as you say, they did have a hammering the first time round.

 

[merc85]

And don't worry if your livelihood is going down the pan , Or your job.

Just retrain as something else, Simple screw you

This Ad Telling A Ballet Dancer To Retrain In 'Cyber' Is Pissing People Off

The government-branded ad saying 'Rethink. Reskill. Reboot' has been circulating on Twitter.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

 

[ChipChop]

Anyone any ideas why there should be a significant North South divide on the current number of
infections?

This PHE document gives a lot of regional breakdown of data. May help you work out the answer to your question.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/923668/Weekly_COVID19_Surveillance_Report_week_40.pdf

 

[SW18]

Here is another overview covering several years:

View attachment 103469


The article in full: How many people die of the ’flu each year?

These are borne out in the Govt's ONS stats but I can't locate them quickly enough.

You forgot to mention what it said beneath the chart "The ‘deaths with Coronavirus’ figure is correct as of Easter Sunday, 12 Apr 2020 at 4am." So comparing just over 3 months of Covid figures with annual flu deaths is completely meaningless isn't it? You also forgot to mention that there are already 42,825 Covid-19 recorded deaths within 28 days of a positive test - and we still have three months to go.

But why post a great big misleading chart? What was the point of that?

I was confused by the chart showing under 9000 COVID deaths. But I see the issue now: it’s deaths only up to Easter Sunday, which is not very helpful. So this says the same thing that I did, that COVID deaths are greatly in excess of flu deaths (when the whole YTD figures are included).

Also to note is that until now ONS has not split out flu deaths from flu and pneumonia deaths. A pneumonia death is not a flu death, there are various other causes of pneumonia.

 

[markjay]

PCR TEST NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE!

https://www.fda.gov/media/134922/download

Page 39

Performance Characteristics

2nd Paragraph

"Quote"
Since no quantified virus isolates of the 2019-nCoV are currently available, assays designed for detection of the 2019-nCoV RNA were tested with characterized stocks of in vitro transcribed full length RNA.

"Un Quote Which is NOT cv19" lol

WHY are we testing for something we havent even been able find ? And using a Test that wasn't and cannot be used reliably to find cv19?

The phrase 'Since no quantified virus isolates of the 2019-nCoV are currently available' has been widely circulated on the Internet as the 'smoking gun' that proves that the CDC is colluding in hiding the truth about SARS-COV-2 (and bizarrely admitting their collusion in the very document that is supposed to hide it................?).

So let's look carefully at what the CDC documents says:

"The CDC 2019-Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel is a real-time RT-PCR test intended for the qualitative detection of nucleic acid from the 2019-nCoV in upper and lower respiratory specimens... Positive results are indicative of active infection with 2019-nCoV.... Negative results do not preclude 2019-nCoV infection... The CDC 2019-nCoV Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel is a molecular in vitro diagnostic test that aids in the detection and diagnosis 2019-nCoV and is based on widely used nucleic acid amplification technology... Detection of viral RNA not only aids in the diagnosis of illness but also provides epidemiological and surveillance information."

So the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention clearly said that this PCD test does detect SARS-COV-2.

Now, this is what the section you are referring to says in full:

'The analytical sensitivity of the rRT-PCR assays contained in the CDC 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel were determined in Limit of Detection studies. Since no quantified virus isolates of the 2019-nCoV are currently available, assays designed for detection of the 2019-nCoV RNA were tested with characterized stocks of in vitro transcribed full length RNA (N gene; GenBank accession: MN908947.2) of known titer (RNA copies/μL) spiked into a diluent consisting of a suspension of human A549 cells and viral transport medium (VTM) to mimic clinical specimen. Samples were extracted using the QIAGEN EZ1 Advanced XL instrument and EZ1 DSP Virus Kit (Cat# 62724) and manually with the QIAGEN DSP Viral RNA Mini Kit (Cat# 61904). Real-Time RT-PCR assays were performed using the ThemoFisher Scientific TaqPath™ 1-Step RT-qPCR Master Mix, CG (Cat# A15299) on the Applied Biosystems™ 7500 Fast Dx Real-Time PCR Instrument according to the CDC 2019-nCoV Real-Time RT-PCR Diagnostic Panel instructions for use.'

Based on this one-liner, 'Since no quantified virus isolates of the 2019-nCoV are currently available', out of a rather technical medical documents that is intended to be read only by medical professionals, very many people on the Internet decided this means that the test won't reliably detect SARS-COV-2. None of these people - based on a Google search of the 'smoking gun' sentence - has any relevant qualifications e.g. a virologist working for a recognised academic institute etc.

So it would seem that some 'laymen' - for lack of a better word - have picked-up a single line from what is a fairly technical and quite complicated professional document - and decided that they understand enough about the science behind it to declare that it nullifies the CDC's PCR test.

With respect to the various individuals on the Internet who re-posted this line, I will reserve judgment until I hear views from qualified virologists (in their own voice).

That said... I somehow doubt that the CDC will have made such a critical mistake by not understanding that their PCR test is flawed... or alternatively have made the gave error of leaving behind such a 'smoking gun' evidence to their alleged collusion.