I stopped reading once I no longer found them funny. Which, as far as I recall, was after the second one. Plenty of her recent stuff is vicious shite, and she's a hypocrite for suddenly shedding crocodile tears over how language makes people feel.
That's interesting that you find a talent such as Hyde relentlessly unfunny. It means that your politics plays a big role in what makes you laugh. Nothing wrong with that, nothing at all, but this is not so much the case with me. I often wish it was, actually, because I do not enjoy chuckling at the occasional zinger that, for example, the ghastly Rod Liddle comes out with. Fortunately (for me) there is a genuine and objectively verified negative correlation between right wing views and a facility with comic prose, so although it does happen - me creasing up at the likes of Rod - it is not a routine everyday event.
All the best comedy is right wing, you're just too stupid to realise it
A lot of comedy that left wingers find funny and edgy, I guess the likes of Frankie Boyle and Russell Brand, is just what is known as right wing comedy but with different targets
Were there any complaints about the all-female Scottish press conferences?
Thought not.
Not only that but I suspect the all-female Holyrood press conference made up of politicians and scientists probably had more in common with the all-male Westminster press conference made up of politicians and scientists than they do those "on NHS frontline or suffering worst financially or juggling kids and work".
One suspects that Nicola Sturgeon is working flat out on this no different to male politicians and doesn't have magical genitalia that enables her to know how other women in completely different circumstances are coping.
Off out into the garden, trying to spend the next few hours NOT musing on Nicola Sturgeon's magic genitlia....
I'm possibly not seeing the point. What have death counts for January and February being quite good got to do with the current pandemic? I thought we were concerned about the covid-19 deaths that started to shoot upwards on an exponential line over the past 10 days or so - beyond the scope of that graph.
And even more concerned with preventing that exponential from getting traction and out of control. I mean, yes, if we can stop the upwards line from running away, we can keep deaths down to [eyeballs the y-axis, does some mental arithmetic, realises that the extra 5000 deaths over the past week, unless offset by far fewer deaths than normal will already spike us to the past the highest point on that graph in midwinter 2015] maybe the top of that graph? Without needing to redo the y-axis.
So, yes, it's a good way of re-emphasising that it's not too late as long as we stick with the measures we're taking, I suppose. We can still stop this being a runaway disaster. Sure, it'll probably look pretty bad when the last week's figures are added to it - after all, we're getting a spike upwards starting already, even though "only" 1200 people had died by then (950 covid-19 deaths in the week leading up to the final point on the graph).
The point I take from it is there are a lot of people, for want of a better phrase, ‘living on borrowed time’, because flu usually kills thousands more in Jan & Feb than it did this year
I don't think that it works quite like that. Rather reminiscent of the Final Destination movies. In any case, that thick black line over January and February seems to be pretty close to the average of the other lines (if possibly a bit high - bear in mind that the thin blue line, for 2010-2014 therefore has five times the weighting of the lines for each of the individual annual lines after them).
So that graph isn't saying that thousands more are usually killed in Jan & Feb. It's saying fewer are usually killed in Jan & Feb - the precise opposite of your claim.
Take a look at it. The 2020 line is significantly above average deaths for 3 of the first 10 weeks, noticeably (but not hugely) above it for 4 more of them, almost bang on it for 2 of them, and a bit below it for one. We're looking at maybe 4,000 extra deaths in 2020 in the first 10 weeks than the average for 2010-2019.
2020 is well below average for the last 5 years
Your original graph had 10 years of data on it. It included 2010-2014. I thought you wanted to discuss what was shown by that graph. Going to the ONS and getting the raw data, plugging it into a spreadsheet and producing an unsmoothed graph gives this:
So we were discussing the first graph you showed, you claimed it showed that deaths in 2020 to date (or, at least, in Jan and Feb, the first 9 weeks) were "thousands" below average. I pointed out that it didn't. As per the graph I've just added.
You've now shifted to a different, shorter baseline. Why?
I didn’t post the original graph and hadn’t even looked at it. Sorry, I have been following the person on Twitter who updates the graph I posted and was talking about that time frame
I wonder why they chose that time frame?
I doubt it’s out of dishonesty, as you imply. He seems quite open minded, agenda free and genuinely curious about the stats.
The fellow who made the other graph is a sceptic, and he chose the 10 year time frame
Jesus Christ, we have a killer virus spreading the world and these twats are more concerned about gender balance and diversity. The holders of the departments responsible for this are men, so no shit sherlock that men are there.
And they are conveniently forgetting there are 3 of the supporting scientific and medical experts regularly doing the pressers for female.
Not to make an issue of it but has Beth Rigby noticed the gender balance of fatalities for this disease?
Hence why it will take Labour 10 years to get back in power.
The need another GE to flush out these MPs.
Are Labour's fringe of nutter MPs really any more eccentric than Mark Francois or Daniel Kawzcynski? Going further back, are these people nuttier than Nicholas Fairbairn or that bearded oddball from North London who used to be sympathetic to the IRA (I forget his name - presumably disappeared in the end)?
At the end of the day, Parliamentary parties have some, to put it kindly, eccentrics. The party leadership (and, more to the point, whips) doesn't necessarily need to get them out of Parliament - they need to manage them. All these people have things they want (a way into Government, a Committee place, a gong or whatever) and things they fear (deselection, demotion, exposure of some secret or other). You do a bit of that, and a bit of disassociating yourself from the fringe figures, and it tends to be okay.
Labour's Parliamentary group, I am sure, moved to the left under Corbyn. But is there a critical mass of swivel-eyed loons that makes it unmanageable? I don't see convincing evidence for that. Part of that is because, although you have replacements for MPs who stood down, no candidate in a target seat won in 2019 (except Putney, and I understand she is a very mainstream Starmer backer).
I'm possibly not seeing the point. What have death counts for January and February being quite good got to do with the current pandemic? I thought we were concerned about the covid-19 deaths that started to shoot upwards on an exponential line over the past 10 days or so - beyond the scope of that graph.
And even more concerned with preventing that exponential from getting traction and out of control. I mean, yes, if we can stop the upwards line from running away, we can keep deaths down to [eyeballs the y-axis, does some mental arithmetic, realises that the extra 5000 deaths over the past week, unless offset by far fewer deaths than normal will already spike us to the past the highest point on that graph in midwinter 2015] maybe the top of that graph? Without needing to redo the y-axis.
So, yes, it's a good way of re-emphasising that it's not too late as long as we stick with the measures we're taking, I suppose. We can still stop this being a runaway disaster. Sure, it'll probably look pretty bad when the last week's figures are added to it - after all, we're getting a spike upwards starting already, even though "only" 1200 people had died by then (950 covid-19 deaths in the week leading up to the final point on the graph).
The point I take from it is there are a lot of people, for want of a better phrase, ‘living on borrowed time’, because flu usually kills thousands more in Jan & Feb than it did this year
I don't think that it works quite like that. Rather reminiscent of the Final Destination movies. In any case, that thick black line over January and February seems to be pretty close to the average of the other lines (if possibly a bit high - bear in mind that the thin blue line, for 2010-2014 therefore has five times the weighting of the lines for each of the individual annual lines after them).
So that graph isn't saying that thousands more are usually killed in Jan & Feb. It's saying fewer are usually killed in Jan & Feb - the precise opposite of your claim.
Take a look at it. The 2020 line is significantly above average deaths for 3 of the first 10 weeks, noticeably (but not hugely) above it for 4 more of them, almost bang on it for 2 of them, and a bit below it for one. We're looking at maybe 4,000 extra deaths in 2020 in the first 10 weeks than the average for 2010-2019.
2020 is well below average for the last 5 years
Your original graph had 10 years of data on it. It included 2010-2014. I thought you wanted to discuss what was shown by that graph. Going to the ONS and getting the raw data, plugging it into a spreadsheet and producing an unsmoothed graph gives this:
So we were discussing the first graph you showed, you claimed it showed that deaths in 2020 to date (or, at least, in Jan and Feb, the first 9 weeks) were "thousands" below average. I pointed out that it didn't. As per the graph I've just added.
You've now shifted to a different, shorter baseline. Why?
I didn’t post the original graph and hadn’t even looked at it. Sorry, I have been following the person on Twitter who updates the graph I posted and was talking about that time frame
I wonder why they chose that time frame?
I doubt it’s out of dishonesty, as you imply. He seems quite open minded, agenda free and genuinely curious about the stats.
The fellow who made the other graph is a sceptic, and he chose the 10 year time frame
Everyone had an agenda
As for the sceptic, I wonder if he'll continue posting it after the update next week....
It would be useful as a smoother indicator but the site does not give me that option. The only option is to choose which countries to graph. https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
Jesus Christ, we have a killer virus spreading the world and these twats are more concerned about gender balance and diversity. The holders of the departments responsible for this are men, so no shit sherlock that men are there.
And they are conveniently forgetting there are 3 of the supporting scientific and medical experts regularly doing the pressers for female.
Yep has anyone asked which women they want to be leading the press briefings?
Wasnt the CMO last year a woman - for diversity sakes a shame she was not still in place.
More seriously, it's one of those issues where one can support the intended point but in reality what is being demanded is unclear. The PM, his de facto deputy and the health secretary are men so are bound to do most briefings. There have been others leading some days so opportunity for others, but it wont change who Boris has in the top political positions. How he has picked them is a separate matter.
BBC just interviewed a British bloke living in Wuhan (he's an English teacher) - he said he had Covid symptoms "back in late November/early December" and that the provincial government covered up the stats as opposed to the Beijing government.
Interesting. Makes you wonder if it could have been circulating in Wuhan as far back as September/October?
I think that unlikely. The doubling rate that we have seen, and resultant mortality would have made it obvious very quickly. The same goes for people getting respiratory symptoms in the UK over the winter too.
“Infection occurs across all ages but proportionally less in children under the age of 15,” says Kluge.
“The burden of severe disease is greater in older people, particularly men and those with underlying health conditions.”
“Although the majority of cases remain mild, almost 40% result in hospitalisation and 5% require intensive care. Among those who have lost their lives, two-thirds are male and 95% are over the age of 60."
A far as I'm concerned until it is proved otherwise by their revolting government I working on the perfectly reasonable assumption that this virus accidentally escaped from their laboratory in Wuhan.
I said that a few minutes ago!
Sorry didn't see your comment but it's worth repeating anyway! The extraordinary softness of the West towards the Chinese regime needs to end.
"Up to 50% of our regular staff are off work through sickness, self-isolation and FEAR."
We owe a huge debt of gratitude to those who despite their fear keep rocking up to the coal face to do their part for us all.
There must be some NHS staff staying home because they are scared. Not everyone can be exemplary all of the time. But the overall absence rate of 8% strikes me as low in the circumstances. It's at least triple that on TfL.
I'm possibly not seeing the point. What have death counts for January and February being quite good got to do with the current pandemic? I thought we were concerned about the covid-19 deaths that started to shoot upwards on an exponential line over the past 10 days or so - beyond the scope of that graph.
And even more concerned with preventing that exponential from getting traction and out of control. I mean, yes, if we can stop the upwards line from running away, we can keep deaths down to [eyeballs the y-axis, does some mental arithmetic, realises that the extra 5000 deaths over the past week, unless offset by far fewer deaths than normal will already spike us to the past the highest point on that graph in midwinter 2015] maybe the top of that graph? Without needing to redo the y-axis.
So, yes, it's a good way of re-emphasising that it's not too late as long as we stick with the measures we're taking, I suppose. We can still stop this being a runaway disaster. Sure, it'll probably look pretty bad when the last week's figures are added to it - after all, we're getting a spike upwards starting already, even though "only" 1200 people had died by then (950 covid-19 deaths in the week leading up to the final point on the graph).
The point I take from it is there are a lot of people, for want of a better phrase, ‘living on borrowed time’, because flu usually kills thousands more in Jan & Feb than it did this year
I don't think that it works quite like that. Rather reminiscent of the Final Destination movies. In any case, that thick black line over January and February seems to be pretty close to the average of the other lines (if possibly a bit high - bear in mind that the thin blue line, for 2010-2014 therefore has five times the weighting of the lines for each of the individual annual lines after them).
So that graph isn't saying that thousands more are usually killed in Jan & Feb. It's saying fewer are usually killed in Jan & Feb - the precise opposite of your claim.
Take a look at it. The 2020 line is significantly above average deaths for 3 of the first 10 weeks, noticeably (but not hugely) above it for 4 more of them, almost bang on it for 2 of them, and a bit below it for one. We're looking at maybe 4,000 extra deaths in 2020 in the first 10 weeks than the average for 2010-2019.
2020 is well below average for the last 5 years
Your original graph had 10 years of data on it. It included 2010-2014. I thought you wanted to discuss what was shown by that graph. Going to the ONS and getting the raw data, plugging it into a spreadsheet and producing an unsmoothed graph gives this:
So we were discussing the first graph you showed, you claimed it showed that deaths in 2020 to date (or, at least, in Jan and Feb, the first 9 weeks) were "thousands" below average. I pointed out that it didn't. As per the graph I've just added.
You've now shifted to a different, shorter baseline. Why?
I didn’t post the original graph and hadn’t even looked at it. Sorry, I have been following the person on Twitter who updates the graph I posted and was talking about that time frame
Okay, fair enough. You can understand the confusion, though...
BBC just interviewed a British bloke living in Wuhan (he's an English teacher) - he said he had Covid symptoms "back in late November/early December" and that the provincial government covered up the stats as opposed to the Beijing government.
Interesting. Makes you wonder if it could have been circulating in Wuhan as far back as September/October?
I think that unlikely. The doubling rate that we have seen, and resultant mortality would have made it obvious very quickly. The same goes for people getting respiratory symptoms in the UK over the winter too.
“Infection occurs across all ages but proportionally less in children under the age of 15,” says Kluge.
“The burden of severe disease is greater in older people, particularly men and those with underlying health conditions.”
“Although the majority of cases remain mild, almost 40% result in hospitalisation and 5% require intensive care. Among those who have lost their lives, two-thirds are male and 95% are over the age of 60."
Nearly 40% of coronavirus sufferers have to be hospitalised?!? That's waaaaaay more than the usual estimates of 5-15%.
That's horrifying, as well. Can it be true?
I would say with the ease this virus spreads if 40% needed to be hospitalised we would know about it
Yes, my thoughts as well. But it seems this is what he said?!
40% of sufficiently serious cases require hospitalisation. That's not the same as the number who are infected... Remember, in Italy / Spain / UK we are only testing very serious cases, not everyone who has symptoms, so that will skew things quite a lot.
BBC just interviewed a British bloke living in Wuhan (he's an English teacher) - he said he had Covid symptoms "back in late November/early December" and that the provincial government covered up the stats as opposed to the Beijing government.
Interesting. Makes you wonder if it could have been circulating in Wuhan as far back as September/October?
I think that unlikely. The doubling rate that we have seen, and resultant mortality would have made it obvious very quickly. The same goes for people getting respiratory symptoms in the UK over the winter too.
If correct, that does of course have policy implications:
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article ...The R0 values we estimated have important implications for predicting the effects of pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical interventions. For example, the threshold for combined vaccine efficacy and herd immunity needed for disease extinction is calculated as 1 – 1/R0. At R0 = 2.2, this threshold is only 55%. But at R0 = 5.7, this threshold rises to 82% (i.e., >82% of the population has to be immune, through either vaccination or prior infection, to achieve herd immunity to stop transmission).
We then evaluated the effectiveness for nonpharmaceutical interventions, such as contact tracing, quarantine, and social distancing, by using the framework by Lipsitch et al. (19) (Appendix 2). We extended the framework to consider a fraction of transmission occurring from infected persons who would not be identified by surveillance and can transmit effectively (15). This fraction is determined by the fraction of actual asymptomatic persons and the extent of surveillance efforts to identify these persons and persons with mild-to-moderate symptoms. Results show that quarantine and contact tracing of symptomatic persons can be effective when the fraction of unidentified persons is low. However, when 20% of transmission is driven by unidentified infected persons, high levels of social distancing efforts will be needed to contain the virus (Figure 6), highlighting the importance of early and effective surveillance, contact tracing, and quarantine. Future field, laboratory, and modeling studies aimed to address the unknowns, such as the fraction of asymptomatic persons, the extent of their transmissibility depending on symptom severity, the time when persons become infectious, and the existence of superspreaders are needed to accurately predict the impact of various control strategies...
BBC just interviewed a British bloke living in Wuhan (he's an English teacher) - he said he had Covid symptoms "back in late November/early December" and that the provincial government covered up the stats as opposed to the Beijing government.
Interesting. Makes you wonder if it could have been circulating in Wuhan as far back as September/October?
I think that unlikely. The doubling rate that we have seen, and resultant mortality would have made it obvious very quickly. The same goes for people getting respiratory symptoms in the UK over the winter too.
If correct, that does of course have policy implications:
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article ...The R0 values we estimated have important implications for predicting the effects of pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical interventions. For example, the threshold for combined vaccine efficacy and herd immunity needed for disease extinction is calculated as 1 – 1/R0. At R0 = 2.2, this threshold is only 55%. But at R0 = 5.7, this threshold rises to 82% (i.e., >82% of the population has to be immune, through either vaccination or prior infection, to achieve herd immunity to stop transmission).
We then evaluated the effectiveness for nonpharmaceutical interventions, such as contact tracing, quarantine, and social distancing, by using the framework by Lipsitch et al. (19) (Appendix 2). We extended the framework to consider a fraction of transmission occurring from infected persons who would not be identified by surveillance and can transmit effectively (15). This fraction is determined by the fraction of actual asymptomatic persons and the extent of surveillance efforts to identify these persons and persons with mild-to-moderate symptoms. Results show that quarantine and contact tracing of symptomatic persons can be effective when the fraction of unidentified persons is low. However, when 20% of transmission is driven by unidentified infected persons, high levels of social distancing efforts will be needed to contain the virus (Figure 6), highlighting the importance of early and effective surveillance, contact tracing, and quarantine. Future field, laboratory, and modeling studies aimed to address the unknowns, such as the fraction of asymptomatic persons, the extent of their transmissibility depending on symptom severity, the time when persons become infectious, and the existence of superspreaders are needed to accurately predict the impact of various control strategies...
Equally, doesn’t a higher than presumed R0 also imply a higher than presumed asymptomatic/mild infection rate?
I'm possibly not seeing the point. What have death counts for January and February being quite good got to do with the current pandemic? I thought we were concerned about the covid-19 deaths that started to shoot upwards on an exponential line over the past 10 days or so - beyond the scope of that graph.
And even more concerned with preventing that exponential from getting traction and out of control. I mean, yes, if we can stop the upwards line from running away, we can keep deaths down to [eyeballs the y-axis, does some mental arithmetic, realises that the extra 5000 deaths over the past week, unless offset by far fewer deaths than normal will already spike us to the past the highest point on that graph in midwinter 2015] maybe the top of that graph? Without needing to redo the y-axis.
So, yes, it's a good way of re-emphasising that it's not too late as long as we stick with the measures we're taking, I suppose. We can still stop this being a runaway disaster. Sure, it'll probably look pretty bad when the last week's figures are added to it - after all, we're getting a spike upwards starting already, even though "only" 1200 people had died by then (950 covid-19 deaths in the week leading up to the final point on the graph).
The point I take from it is there are a lot of people, for want of a better phrase, ‘living on borrowed time’, because flu usually kills thousands more in Jan & Feb than it did this year
I don't think that it works quite like that. Rather reminiscent of the Final Destination movies. In any case, that thick black line over January and February seems to be pretty close to the average of the other lines (if possibly a bit high - bear in mind that the thin blue line, for 2010-2014 therefore has five times the weighting of the lines for each of the individual annual lines after them).
So that graph isn't saying that thousands more are usually killed in Jan & Feb. It's saying fewer are usually killed in Jan & Feb - the precise opposite of your claim.
Take a look at it. The 2020 line is significantly above average deaths for 3 of the first 10 weeks, noticeably (but not hugely) above it for 4 more of them, almost bang on it for 2 of them, and a bit below it for one. We're looking at maybe 4,000 extra deaths in 2020 in the first 10 weeks than the average for 2010-2019.
2020 is well below average for the last 5 years
Your original graph had 10 years of data on it. It included 2010-2014. I thought you wanted to discuss what was shown by that graph. Going to the ONS and getting the raw data, plugging it into a spreadsheet and producing an unsmoothed graph gives this:
So we were discussing the first graph you showed, you claimed it showed that deaths in 2020 to date (or, at least, in Jan and Feb, the first 9 weeks) were "thousands" below average. I pointed out that it didn't. As per the graph I've just added.
You've now shifted to a different, shorter baseline. Why?
I didn’t post the original graph and hadn’t even looked at it. Sorry, I have been following the person on Twitter who updates the graph I posted and was talking about that time frame
I wonder why they chose that time frame?
We see this sort of thing with global warming all the time. People only showing the small amount of data that fits the conclusion they started with.
Seems like isam needs to follow more honest people on twitter.
Sturgeon wants to see children back in school as soon as possible.
Well, if she was asked that, what a dumb question. What was she supposed to say? ‘It’s my life’s ambition to destroy our education system, so I’m hoping to find a way to keep children out of schools until all the buildings have burned down and all the teachers have died?’
OF COURSE she was going to say she wanted them back as soon as possible. That only becomes a meaningful question if she can put a date on it. At the moment I am thinking early June is the likeliest point.
BBC just interviewed a British bloke living in Wuhan (he's an English teacher) - he said he had Covid symptoms "back in late November/early December" and that the provincial government covered up the stats as opposed to the Beijing government.
Interesting. Makes you wonder if it could have been circulating in Wuhan as far back as September/October?
I think that unlikely. The doubling rate that we have seen, and resultant mortality would have made it obvious very quickly. The same goes for people getting respiratory symptoms in the UK over the winter too.
“Infection occurs across all ages but proportionally less in children under the age of 15,” says Kluge.
“The burden of severe disease is greater in older people, particularly men and those with underlying health conditions.”
“Although the majority of cases remain mild, almost 40% result in hospitalisation and 5% require intensive care. Among those who have lost their lives, two-thirds are male and 95% are over the age of 60."
Nearly 40% of coronavirus sufferers have to be hospitalised?!? That's waaaaaay more than the usual estimates of 5-15%.
That's horrifying, as well. Can it be true?
I would say with the ease this virus spreads if 40% needed to be hospitalised we would know about it
Yes, my thoughts as well. But it seems this is what he said?!
40% of sufficiently serious cases require hospitalisation. That's not the same as the number who are infected... Remember, in Italy / Spain / UK we are only testing very serious cases, not everyone who has symptoms, so that will skew things quite a lot.
And a case is "sufficiently serious" if it may require hospitalisation? That statistic doesn't tell you much, if anything.
I'm possibly not seeing the point. What have death counts for January and February being quite good got to do with the current pandemic? I thought we were concerned about the covid-19 deaths that started to shoot upwards on an exponential line over the past 10 days or so - beyond the scope of that graph.
And even more concerned with preventing that exponential from getting traction and out of control. I mean, yes, if we can stop the upwards line from running away, we can keep deaths down to [eyeballs the y-axis, does some mental arithmetic, realises that the extra 5000 deaths over the past week, unless offset by far fewer deaths than normal will already spike us to the past the highest point on that graph in midwinter 2015] maybe the top of that graph? Without needing to redo the y-axis.
So, yes, it's a good way of re-emphasising that it's not too late as long as we stick with the measures we're taking, I suppose. We can still stop this being a runaway disaster. Sure, it'll probably look pretty bad when the last week's figures are added to it - after all, we're getting a spike upwards starting already, even though "only" 1200 people had died by then (950 covid-19 deaths in the week leading up to the final point on the graph).
The point I take from it is there are a lot of people, for want of a better phrase, ‘living on borrowed time’, because flu usually kills thousands more in Jan & Feb than it did this year
I don't think that it works quite like that. Rather reminiscent of the Final Destination movies. In any case, that thick black line over January and February seems to be pretty close to the average of the other lines (if possibly a bit high - bear in mind that the thin blue line, for 2010-2014 therefore has five times the weighting of the lines for each of the individual annual lines after them).
So that graph isn't saying that thousands more are usually killed in Jan & Feb. It's saying fewer are usually killed in Jan & Feb - the precise opposite of your claim.
Take a look at it. The 2020 line is significantly above average deaths for 3 of the first 10 weeks, noticeably (but not hugely) above it for 4 more of them, almost bang on it for 2 of them, and a bit below it for one. We're looking at maybe 4,000 extra deaths in 2020 in the first 10 weeks than the average for 2010-2019.
2020 is well below average for the last 5 years
Your original graph had 10 years of data on it. It included 2010-2014. I thought you wanted to discuss what was shown by that graph. Going to the ONS and getting the raw data, plugging it into a spreadsheet and producing an unsmoothed graph gives this:
So we were discussing the first graph you showed, you claimed it showed that deaths in 2020 to date (or, at least, in Jan and Feb, the first 9 weeks) were "thousands" below average. I pointed out that it didn't. As per the graph I've just added.
You've now shifted to a different, shorter baseline. Why?
I didn’t post the original graph and hadn’t even looked at it. Sorry, I have been following the person on Twitter who updates the graph I posted and was talking about that time frame
Okay, fair enough. You can understand the confusion, though...
Yeah my fault.
@alistairhaimes is the fellow I’ve been following on Twitter. Lots of data, make of it what you will. The more the better I say
My father's home, which has been locked down for some weeks, had its first death yesterday. Five more this morning, and my father now has a fever.
It is one thing to expect these things; quite another when they happen.
I recall you said when this first broke a few weeks ago how you feared you might never see him again. Hopefully that will not prove to be the case. All the best with it.
I'm possibly not seeing the point. What have death counts for January and February being quite good got to do with the current pandemic? I thought we were concerned about the covid-19 deaths that started to shoot upwards on an exponential line over the past 10 days or so - beyond the scope of that graph.
And even more concerned with preventing that exponential from getting traction and out of control. I mean, yes, if we can stop the upwards line from running away, we can keep deaths down to [eyeballs the y-axis, does some mental arithmetic, realises that the extra 5000 deaths over the past week, unless offset by far fewer deaths than normal will already spike us to the past the highest point on that graph in midwinter 2015] maybe the top of that graph? Without needing to redo the y-axis.
So, yes, it's a good way of re-emphasising that it's not too late as long as we stick with the measures we're taking, I suppose. We can still stop this being a runaway disaster. Sure, it'll probably look pretty bad when the last week's figures are added to it - after all, we're getting a spike upwards starting already, even though "only" 1200 people had died by then (950 covid-19 deaths in the week leading up to the final point on the graph).
The point I take from it is there are a lot of people, for want of a better phrase, ‘living on borrowed time’, because flu usually kills thousands more in Jan & Feb than it did this year
I don't think that it works quite like that. Rather reminiscent of the Final Destination movies. In any case, that thick black line over January and February seems to be pretty close to the average of the other lines (if possibly a bit high - bear in mind that the thin blue line, for 2010-2014 therefore has five times the weighting of the lines for each of the individual annual lines after them).
So that graph isn't saying that thousands more are usually killed in Jan & Feb. It's saying fewer are usually killed in Jan & Feb - the precise opposite of your claim.
Take a look at it. The 2020 line is significantly above average deaths for 3 of the first 10 weeks, noticeably (but not hugely) above it for 4 more of them, almost bang on it for 2 of them, and a bit below it for one. We're looking at maybe 4,000 extra deaths in 2020 in the first 10 weeks than the average for 2010-2019.
2020 is well below average for the last 5 years
Your original graph had 10 years of data on it. It included 2010-2014. I thought you wanted to discuss what was shown by that graph. Going to the ONS and getting the raw data, plugging it into a spreadsheet and producing an unsmoothed graph gives this:
So we were discussing the first graph you showed, you claimed it showed that deaths in 2020 to date (or, at least, in Jan and Feb, the first 9 weeks) were "thousands" below average. I pointed out that it didn't. As per the graph I've just added.
You've now shifted to a different, shorter baseline. Why?
I didn’t post the original graph and hadn’t even looked at it. Sorry, I have been following the person on Twitter who updates the graph I posted and was talking about that time frame
I wonder why they chose that time frame?
I doubt it’s out of dishonesty, as you imply. He seems quite open minded, agenda free and genuinely curious about the stats.
The fellow who made the other graph is a sceptic, and he chose the 10 year time frame
Everyone had an agenda
As for the sceptic, I wonder if he'll continue posting it after the update next week....
Jesus Christ, we have a killer virus spreading the world and these twats are more concerned about gender balance and diversity. The holders of the departments responsible for this are men, so no shit sherlock that men are there.
And they are conveniently forgetting there are 3 of the supporting scientific and medical experts regularly doing the pressers for female.
Yep has anyone asked which women they want to be leading the press briefings?
I thought the Deputy CMO was a much better communicator than the CMO. She would be good.
Perhaps the Home Sec would be good too as could answer questions on lockdown enforcement etc.
Care homes are where the real horror of this pandemic will have been unleashed when the final tallies are made.
Yes, this graph spells it out
I hadn’t known about the high schools figure for the latter part of last year. That looks like it could be why so many people said they had something then and confusing it with this virus.I know that I felt crap for a couple of weeks, so the kids taking it home to parents maybe explains that. Thankfully, as opposed to then, parents were removing students at massive rates, as the publicity about Coronavirus was difficult to avoid, well before they were told to do so. That proactive response has probably helped to keep numbers way down and action during the pre official lockdown, so that the country was already closing down, may have saved many from getting seriously ill.
I'm possibly not seeing the point. What have death counts for January and February being quite good got to do with the current pandemic? I thought we were concerned about the covid-19 deaths that started to shoot upwards on an exponential line over the past 10 days or so - beyond the scope of that graph.
And even more concerned with preventing that exponential from getting traction and out of control. I mean, yes, if we can stop the upwards line from running away, we can keep deaths down to [eyeballs the y-axis, does some mental arithmetic, realises that the extra 5000 deaths over the past week, unless offset by far fewer deaths than normal will already spike us to the past the highest point on that graph in midwinter 2015] maybe the top of that graph? Without needing to redo the y-axis.
So, yes, it's a good way of re-emphasising that it's not too late as long as we stick with the measures we're taking, I suppose. We can still stop this being a runaway disaster. Sure, it'll probably look pretty bad when the last week's figures are added to it - after all, we're getting a spike upwards starting already, even though "only" 1200 people had died by then (950 covid-19 deaths in the week leading up to the final point on the graph).
The point I take from it is there are a lot of people, for want of a better phrase, ‘living on borrowed time’, because flu usually kills thousands more in Jan & Feb than it did this year
I don't think that it works quite like that. Rather reminiscent of the Final Destination movies. In any case, that thick black line over January and February seems to be pretty close to the average of the other lines (if possibly a bit high - bear in mind that the thin blue line, for 2010-2014 therefore has five times the weighting of the lines for each of the individual annual lines after them).
So that graph isn't saying that thousands more are usually killed in Jan & Feb. It's saying fewer are usually killed in Jan & Feb - the precise opposite of your claim.
Take a look at it. The 2020 line is significantly above average deaths for 3 of the first 10 weeks, noticeably (but not hugely) above it for 4 more of them, almost bang on it for 2 of them, and a bit below it for one. We're looking at maybe 4,000 extra deaths in 2020 in the first 10 weeks than the average for 2010-2019.
2020 is well below average for the last 5 years
Your original graph had 10 years of data on it. It included 2010-2014. I thought you wanted to discuss what was shown by that graph. Going to the ONS and getting the raw data, plugging it into a spreadsheet and producing an unsmoothed graph gives this:
So we were discussing the first graph you showed, you claimed it showed that deaths in 2020 to date (or, at least, in Jan and Feb, the first 9 weeks) were "thousands" below average. I pointed out that it didn't. As per the graph I've just added.
You've now shifted to a different, shorter baseline. Why?
I didn’t post the original graph and hadn’t even looked at it. Sorry, I have been following the person on Twitter who updates the graph I posted and was talking about that time frame
I wonder why they chose that time frame?
I doubt it’s out of dishonesty, as you imply. He seems quite open minded, agenda free and genuinely curious about the stats.
The fellow who made the other graph is a sceptic, and he chose the 10 year time frame
Everyone had an agenda
As for the sceptic, I wonder if he'll continue posting it after the update next week....
To be fair to the five-year person, the ONS publish, on their weekly deaths spreadsheets, the deaths that year and the five-year average for before for comparison. I had to go back to the 2015 data to get the 5 year average for 2010-2014 to ensure I was comparing like with like on the original graph. There does seem to have been a bit of a shift between 2010-2014 and 2015-2019 in deaths - possibly a couple of bad flu years (2015 and 2018 stand out a bit), but all years for 2015 onwards have been consistently worse than 2010-2014.
It does damage the "stored up deaths" case a bit, though - those who survived 2015-2019 got through a period of consistently higher fatalities. 2020 might have been very slightly a reversion towards the earlier level (but only slightly - it was still consistently above he 2010-2014 average), but that definitely got scuppered in weeks 12 and 13 already, and weeks 14-15 will likely be horrific.
BBC just interviewed a British bloke living in Wuhan (he's an English teacher) - he said he had Covid symptoms "back in late November/early December" and that the provincial government covered up the stats as opposed to the Beijing government.
Interesting. Makes you wonder if it could have been circulating in Wuhan as far back as September/October?
I think that unlikely. The doubling rate that we have seen, and resultant mortality would have made it obvious very quickly. The same goes for people getting respiratory symptoms in the UK over the winter too.
“Infection occurs across all ages but proportionally less in children under the age of 15,” says Kluge.
“The burden of severe disease is greater in older people, particularly men and those with underlying health conditions.”
“Although the majority of cases remain mild, almost 40% result in hospitalisation and 5% require intensive care. Among those who have lost their lives, two-thirds are male and 95% are over the age of 60."
Nearly 40% of coronavirus sufferers have to be hospitalised?!? That's waaaaaay more than the usual estimates of 5-15%.
That's horrifying, as well. Can it be true?
I would say with the ease this virus spreads if 40% needed to be hospitalised we would know about it
Yes, my thoughts as well. But it seems this is what he said?!
40% of sufficiently serious cases require hospitalisation. That's not the same as the number who are infected... Remember, in Italy / Spain / UK we are only testing very serious cases, not everyone who has symptoms, so that will skew things quite a lot.
Also, I'm not sure what this means in terms of asymptomatic infections. If R0 were huge you would expect it to have already swept entirely through populations across Europe (perhaps it has!).
BBC just interviewed a British bloke living in Wuhan (he's an English teacher) - he said he had Covid symptoms "back in late November/early December" and that the provincial government covered up the stats as opposed to the Beijing government.
Interesting. Makes you wonder if it could have been circulating in Wuhan as far back as September/October?
I think that unlikely. The doubling rate that we have seen, and resultant mortality would have made it obvious very quickly. The same goes for people getting respiratory symptoms in the UK over the winter too.
“Infection occurs across all ages but proportionally less in children under the age of 15,” says Kluge.
“The burden of severe disease is greater in older people, particularly men and those with underlying health conditions.”
“Although the majority of cases remain mild, almost 40% result in hospitalisation and 5% require intensive care. Among those who have lost their lives, two-thirds are male and 95% are over the age of 60."
Nearly 40% of coronavirus sufferers have to be hospitalised?!? That's waaaaaay more than the usual estimates of 5-15%.
That's horrifying, as well. Can it be true?
"CDC estimates".
When it says "The conclusions, findings, and opinions expressed by authors contributing to this journal do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Public Health Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the authors' affiliated institutions."
It's just in a journal published by CDC. The twit doesn't understand how scientific publishing works.
My elderly parents are getting great support. Government food boxes, volunteers have got their medication, people called on them to ask if ok. Big Society in action.
Hopefully, as a nation we can continue you this after the virus has gone.
Private labs claim PHE is refusing to share blood samples Public Health England is hampering the development of accurate antibody tests by refusing to share vital blood samples from Covid-19 patients, private laboratories have claimed.
The tests, which have been heralded as a potential “game changer” by the Prime Minister, are used to confirm whether an individual has previously had a coronavirus infection and may now be immune.
But private laboratories have claimed that Public Health England (PHE) has not responded to multiple requests asking for blood samples from Covid-19 patients, despite interventions from the former Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt.
These blood samples are required to validate the antibody assays.
According to leaked correspondence shown to The Telegraph, John Bell, a professor from Oxford University who is advising the Government about antibody tests, is among those who has not received assistance from official sources.
PHE does not appear to have covered itself in glory in this. A bit too much "command and control".
I would be interested to see what happens to whoever breaks that log jam after the crisis is over.
My guess it that the apparatchiks will destroy him/her for being guilt of going against the system.
This is now much wider than public health. We need a national effort to beat COVID comparable to D-Day in World War 2. Public Health England should be prepared to work with the private sector and researchers who could make a valuable contribution to developing antibody tests. Their attitude to researchers reminds me of the British Library who sidelined researchers, refused to talk to them and answer questions, and opened up their buildings to large numbers of tourists so crowding out the researchers. If Public Health England will not cooperate with independent researchers, I hope that the government will remind them of their responsibilities.
Private labs claim PHE is refusing to share blood samples Public Health England is hampering the development of accurate antibody tests by refusing to share vital blood samples from Covid-19 patients, private laboratories have claimed.
The tests, which have been heralded as a potential “game changer” by the Prime Minister, are used to confirm whether an individual has previously had a coronavirus infection and may now be immune.
But private laboratories have claimed that Public Health England (PHE) has not responded to multiple requests asking for blood samples from Covid-19 patients, despite interventions from the former Health Secretary, Jeremy Hunt.
These blood samples are required to validate the antibody assays.
According to leaked correspondence shown to The Telegraph, John Bell, a professor from Oxford University who is advising the Government about antibody tests, is among those who has not received assistance from official sources.
PHE does not appear to have covered itself in glory in this. A bit too much "command and control".
I would be interested to see what happens to whoever breaks that log jam after the crisis is over.
My guess it that the apparatchiks will destroy him/her for being guilt of going against the system.
This is now much wider than public health. We need a national effort to beat COVID comparable to D-Day in World War 2. Public Health England should be prepared to work with the private sector and researchers who could make a valuable contribution to developing antibody tests. Their attitude to researchers reminds me of the British Library who sidelined researchers, refused to talk to them and answer questions, and opened up their buildings to large numbers of tourists so crowding out the researchers. If Public Health England will not cooperate with independent researchers, I hope that the government will remind them of their responsibilities.
Oh, it is very common in government and large organisations...
Spearfish torpedo hydraulics upgrade program for example....
BBC just interviewed a British bloke living in Wuhan (he's an English teacher) - he said he had Covid symptoms "back in late November/early December" and that the provincial government covered up the stats as opposed to the Beijing government.
Interesting. Makes you wonder if it could have been circulating in Wuhan as far back as September/October?
I think that unlikely. The doubling rate that we have seen, and resultant mortality would have made it obvious very quickly. The same goes for people getting respiratory symptoms in the UK over the winter too.
“Infection occurs across all ages but proportionally less in children under the age of 15,” says Kluge.
“The burden of severe disease is greater in older people, particularly men and those with underlying health conditions.”
“Although the majority of cases remain mild, almost 40% result in hospitalisation and 5% require intensive care. Among those who have lost their lives, two-thirds are male and 95% are over the age of 60."
Nearly 40% of coronavirus sufferers have to be hospitalised?!? That's waaaaaay more than the usual estimates of 5-15%.
That's horrifying, as well. Can it be true?
"CDC estimates".
When it says "The conclusions, findings, and opinions expressed by authors contributing to this journal do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Public Health Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the authors' affiliated institutions."
It's just in a journal published by CDC. The twit doesn't understand how scientific publishing works.
That seems somewhat tangential to the main point, unless the research is flawed or shouldn't have been published in that journal?
BBC just interviewed a British bloke living in Wuhan (he's an English teacher) - he said he had Covid symptoms "back in late November/early December" and that the provincial government covered up the stats as opposed to the Beijing government.
Interesting. Makes you wonder if it could have been circulating in Wuhan as far back as September/October?
I think that unlikely. The doubling rate that we have seen, and resultant mortality would have made it obvious very quickly. The same goes for people getting respiratory symptoms in the UK over the winter too.
“Infection occurs across all ages but proportionally less in children under the age of 15,” says Kluge.
“The burden of severe disease is greater in older people, particularly men and those with underlying health conditions.”
“Although the majority of cases remain mild, almost 40% result in hospitalisation and 5% require intensive care. Among those who have lost their lives, two-thirds are male and 95% are over the age of 60."
Nearly 40% of coronavirus sufferers have to be hospitalised?!? That's waaaaaay more than the usual estimates of 5-15%.
That's horrifying, as well. Can it be true?
I would say with the ease this virus spreads if 40% needed to be hospitalised we would know about it
It is quite possible that lots of people with COVID19 are admitted in different health systems, particularly those that are in care homes in this country.
Whether that is appropriate or not is a slightly different question.
BBC just interviewed a British bloke living in Wuhan (he's an English teacher) - he said he had Covid symptoms "back in late November/early December" and that the provincial government covered up the stats as opposed to the Beijing government.
Interesting. Makes you wonder if it could have been circulating in Wuhan as far back as September/October?
I think that unlikely. The doubling rate that we have seen, and resultant mortality would have made it obvious very quickly. The same goes for people getting respiratory symptoms in the UK over the winter too.
If correct, that does of course have policy implications:
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article ...The R0 values we estimated have important implications for predicting the effects of pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical interventions. For example, the threshold for combined vaccine efficacy and herd immunity needed for disease extinction is calculated as 1 – 1/R0. At R0 = 2.2, this threshold is only 55%. But at R0 = 5.7, this threshold rises to 82% (i.e., >82% of the population has to be immune, through either vaccination or prior infection, to achieve herd immunity to stop transmission).
We then evaluated the effectiveness for nonpharmaceutical interventions, such as contact tracing, quarantine, and social distancing, by using the framework by Lipsitch et al. (19) (Appendix 2). We extended the framework to consider a fraction of transmission occurring from infected persons who would not be identified by surveillance and can transmit effectively (15). This fraction is determined by the fraction of actual asymptomatic persons and the extent of surveillance efforts to identify these persons and persons with mild-to-moderate symptoms. Results show that quarantine and contact tracing of symptomatic persons can be effective when the fraction of unidentified persons is low. However, when 20% of transmission is driven by unidentified infected persons, high levels of social distancing efforts will be needed to contain the virus (Figure 6), highlighting the importance of early and effective surveillance, contact tracing, and quarantine. Future field, laboratory, and modeling studies aimed to address the unknowns, such as the fraction of asymptomatic persons, the extent of their transmissibility depending on symptom severity, the time when persons become infectious, and the existence of superspreaders are needed to accurately predict the impact of various control strategies...
Good luck to your father.
My mum is in sheltered housing, with lots of other oldsters. If it gets in there, it will take out dozens.
I live in fear of the news. It seems inevitable; I hope I am wrong.
Likewise. They seem like sitting ducks. However she remembers listening to German bombers going overhead and is pretty phlegmatic about it all.
I'm possibly not seeing the point. What have death counts for January and February being quite good got to do with the current pandemic? I thought we were concerned about the covid-19 deaths that started to shoot upwards on an exponential line over the past 10 days or so - beyond the scope of that graph.
And even more concerned with preventing that exponential from getting traction and out of control. I mean, yes, if we can stop the upwards line from running away, we can keep deaths down to [eyeballs the y-axis, does some mental arithmetic, realises that the extra 5000 deaths over the past week, unless offset by far fewer deaths than normal will already spike us to the past the highest point on that graph in midwinter 2015] maybe the top of that graph? Without needing to redo the y-axis.
So, yes, it's a good way of re-emphasising that it's not too late as long as we stick with the measures we're taking, I suppose. We can still stop this being a runaway disaster. Sure, it'll probably look pretty bad when the last week's figures are added to it - after all, we're getting a spike upwards starting already, even though "only" 1200 people had died by then (950 covid-19 deaths in the week leading up to the final point on the graph).
The point I take from it is there are a lot of people, for want of a better phrase, ‘living on borrowed time’, because flu usually kills thousands more in Jan & Feb than it did this year
I don't think that it works quite like that. Rather reminiscent of the Final Destination movies. In any case, that thick black line over January and February seems to be pretty close to the average of the other lines (if possibly a bit high - bear in mind that the thin blue line, for 2010-2014 therefore has five times the weighting of the lines for each of the individual annual lines after them).
So that graph isn't saying that thousands more are usually killed in Jan & Feb. It's saying fewer are usually killed in Jan & Feb - the precise opposite of your claim.
Take a look at it. The 2020 line is significantly above average deaths for 3 of the first 10 weeks, noticeably (but not hugely) above it for 4 more of them, almost bang on it for 2 of them, and a bit below it for one. We're looking at maybe 4,000 extra deaths in 2020 in the first 10 weeks than the average for 2010-2019.
2020 is well below average for the last 5 years
Your original graph had 10 years of data on it. It included 2010-2014. I thought you wanted to discuss what was shown by that graph. Going to the ONS and getting the raw data, plugging it into a spreadsheet and producing an unsmoothed graph gives this:
So we were discussing the first graph you showed, you claimed it showed that deaths in 2020 to date (or, at least, in Jan and Feb, the first 9 weeks) were "thousands" below average. I pointed out that it didn't. As per the graph I've just added.
You've now shifted to a different, shorter baseline. Why?
I didn’t post the original graph and hadn’t even looked at it. Sorry, I have been following the person on Twitter who updates the graph I posted and was talking about that time frame
I wonder why they chose that time frame?
I doubt it’s out of dishonesty, as you imply. He seems quite open minded, agenda free and genuinely curious about the stats.
The fellow who made the other graph is a sceptic, and he chose the 10 year time frame
Everyone had an agenda
As for the sceptic, I wonder if he'll continue posting it after the update next week....
A lot of comedy that left wingers find funny and edgy, I guess the likes of Frankie Boyle and Russell Brand, is just what is known as right wing comedy but with different targets
P.G. Wodehouse? He was funny and if with us today would almost certainly not have been enamoured of Corbyn's Labour.
BBC just interviewed a British bloke living in Wuhan (he's an English teacher) - he said he had Covid symptoms "back in late November/early December" and that the provincial government covered up the stats as opposed to the Beijing government.
Interesting. Makes you wonder if it could have been circulating in Wuhan as far back as September/October?
I think that unlikely. The doubling rate that we have seen, and resultant mortality would have made it obvious very quickly. The same goes for people getting respiratory symptoms in the UK over the winter too.
If correct, that does of course have policy implications:
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article ...The R0 values we estimated have important implications for predicting the effects of pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical interventions. For example, the threshold for combined vaccine efficacy and herd immunity needed for disease extinction is calculated as 1 – 1/R0. At R0 = 2.2, this threshold is only 55%. But at R0 = 5.7, this threshold rises to 82% (i.e., >82% of the population has to be immune, through either vaccination or prior infection, to achieve herd immunity to stop transmission).
We then evaluated the effectiveness for nonpharmaceutical interventions, such as contact tracing, quarantine, and social distancing, by using the framework by Lipsitch et al. (19) (Appendix 2). We extended the framework to consider a fraction of transmission occurring from infected persons who would not be identified by surveillance and can transmit effectively (15). This fraction is determined by the fraction of actual asymptomatic persons and the extent of surveillance efforts to identify these persons and persons with mild-to-moderate symptoms. Results show that quarantine and contact tracing of symptomatic persons can be effective when the fraction of unidentified persons is low. However, when 20% of transmission is driven by unidentified infected persons, high levels of social distancing efforts will be needed to contain the virus (Figure 6), highlighting the importance of early and effective surveillance, contact tracing, and quarantine. Future field, laboratory, and modeling studies aimed to address the unknowns, such as the fraction of asymptomatic persons, the extent of their transmissibility depending on symptom severity, the time when persons become infectious, and the existence of superspreaders are needed to accurately predict the impact of various control strategies...
Good luck to your father.
My mum is in sheltered housing, with lots of other oldsters. If it gets in there, it will take out dozens.
I live in fear of the news. It seems inevitable; I hope I am wrong.
Likewise. They seem like sitting ducks. However she remembers listening to German bombers going overhead and is pretty phlegmatic about it all.
My aunt likened it to waiting for the V1 engines to stop.
There's also some evidence that a proportion of recovered people don't display very many antibodies to the virus. Why is thus far unclear, but would increase the sensitivity required of any test, and might go some way to explaining the difficulty of developing a reliable one.
One interesting fact I found in my meander through the ONS data from our earlier discussion: the ONS data is explicitly not up to date on COVID-19 deaths. It says up front:
"Note that up-to-date counts of the total numbers of deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19) are published by Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) on the .GOV.UK website. ONS figures differ from the DHSC counts as the latter include deaths which have not yet been registered."
As at 27th March (the last date mentioned), the ONS figure was for a total of 647 covid-99 deaths, spread over weeks 11,12, and 13 (obviously spiking higher the later you go). As at 27 March, we'd declared a total of 759 covid-99 deaths (and we expect this number to be revised upwards when more information from deaths outside of hospitals comes in).
In week 14 (not yet on the charts), we declared 2,846 covid-19 deaths, and in week 15 to date (only first four days declared so far), we've had 2,624 declared covid-19 deaths.
I'm possibly not seeing the point. What have death counts for January and February being quite good got to do with the current pandemic? I thought we were concerned about the covid-19 deaths that started to shoot upwards on an exponential line over the past 10 days or so - beyond the scope of that graph.
And even more concerned with preventing that exponential from getting traction and out of control. I mean, yes, if we can stop the upwards line from running away, we can keep deaths down to [eyeballs the y-axis, does some mental arithmetic, realises that the extra 5000 deaths over the past week, unless offset by far fewer deaths than normal will already spike us to the past the highest point on that graph in midwinter 2015] maybe the top of that graph? Without needing to redo the y-axis.
So, yes, it's a good way of re-emphasising that it's not too late as long as we stick with the measures we're taking, I suppose. We can still stop this being a runaway disaster. Sure, it'll probably look pretty bad when the last week's figures are added to it - after all, we're getting a spike upwards starting already, even though "only" 1200 people had died by then (950 covid-19 deaths in the week leading up to the final point on the graph).
The point I take from it is there are a lot of people, for want of a better phrase, ‘living on borrowed time’, because flu usually kills thousands more in Jan & Feb than it did this year
I don't think that it works quite like that. Rather reminiscent of the Final Destination movies. In any case, that thick black line over January and February seems to be pretty close to the average of the other lines (if possibly a bit high - bear in mind that the thin blue line, for 2010-2014 therefore has five times the weighting of the lines for each of the individual annual lines after them).
So that graph isn't saying that thousands more are usually killed in Jan & Feb. It's saying fewer are usually killed in Jan & Feb - the precise opposite of your claim.
Take a look at it. The 2020 line is significantly above average deaths for 3 of the first 10 weeks, noticeably (but not hugely) above it for 4 more of them, almost bang on it for 2 of them, and a bit below it for one. We're looking at maybe 4,000 extra deaths in 2020 in the first 10 weeks than the average for 2010-2019.
2020 is well below average for the last 5 years
Your original graph had 10 years of data on it. It included 2010-2014. I thought you wanted to discuss what was shown by that graph. Going to the ONS and getting the raw data, plugging it into a spreadsheet and producing an unsmoothed graph gives this:
So we were discussing the first graph you showed, you claimed it showed that deaths in 2020 to date (or, at least, in Jan and Feb, the first 9 weeks) were "thousands" below average. I pointed out that it didn't. As per the graph I've just added.
You've now shifted to a different, shorter baseline. Why?
I didn’t post the original graph and hadn’t even looked at it. Sorry, I have been following the person on Twitter who updates the graph I posted and was talking about that time frame
I wonder why they chose that time frame?
We see this sort of thing with global warming all the time. People only showing the small amount of data that fits the conclusion they started with.
Seems like isam needs to follow more honest people on twitter.
Take it up with them if you care that much. Although @Andy_Cooke has just explained why the 5 year time frame is used, so you can just take that one on the chin instead.
I was shocked to hear last night an interview from a NY ER doctor that said the ER room at his hospital isn't segregated between suspected CV and non-CV.
That is even dumber than the usual questions from the press pack at the daily conferences.
I'm possibly not seeing the point. What have death counts for January and February being quite good got to do with the current pandemic? I thought we were concerned about the covid-19 deaths that started to shoot upwards on an exponential line over the past 10 days or so - beyond the scope of that graph.
And even more concerned with preventing that exponential from getting traction and out of control. I mean, yes, if we can stop the upwards line from running away, we can keep deaths down to [eyeballs the y-axis, does some mental arithmetic, realises that the extra 5000 deaths over the past week, unless offset by far fewer deaths than normal will already spike us to the past the highest point on that graph in midwinter 2015] maybe the top of that graph? Without needing to redo the y-axis.
So, yes, it's a good way of re-emphasising that it's not too late as long as we stick with the measures we're taking, I suppose. We can still stop this being a runaway disaster. Sure, it'll probably look pretty bad when the last week's figures are added to it - after all, we're getting a spike upwards starting already, even though "only" 1200 people had died by then (950 covid-19 deaths in the week leading up to the final point on the graph).
The point I take from it is there are a lot of people, for want of a better phrase, ‘living on borrowed time’, because flu usually kills thousands more in Jan & Feb than it did this year
I don't think that it works quite like that. Rather reminiscent of the Final Destination movies. In any case, that thick black line over January and February seems to be pretty close to the average of the other lines (if possibly a bit high - bear in mind that the thin blue line, for 2010-2014 therefore has five times the weighting of the lines for each of the individual annual lines after them).
So that graph isn't saying that thousands more are usually killed in Jan & Feb. It's saying fewer are usually killed in Jan & Feb - the precise opposite of your claim.
Take a look at it. The 2020 line is significantly above average deaths for 3 of the first 10 weeks, noticeably (but not hugely) above it for 4 more of them, almost bang on it for 2 of them, and a bit below it for one. We're looking at maybe 4,000 extra deaths in 2020 in the first 10 weeks than the average for 2010-2019.
2020 is well below average for the last 5 years
Your original graph had 10 years of data on it. It included 2010-2014. I thought you wanted to discuss what was shown by that graph. Going to the ONS and getting the raw data, plugging it into a spreadsheet and producing an unsmoothed graph gives this:
So we were discussing the first graph you showed, you claimed it showed that deaths in 2020 to date (or, at least, in Jan and Feb, the first 9 weeks) were "thousands" below average. I pointed out that it didn't. As per the graph I've just added.
You've now shifted to a different, shorter baseline. Why?
I didn’t post the original graph and hadn’t even looked at it. Sorry, I have been following the person on Twitter who updates the graph I posted and was talking about that time frame
I wonder why they chose that time frame?
I doubt it’s out of dishonesty, as you imply. He seems quite open minded, agenda free and genuinely curious about the stats.
The fellow who made the other graph is a sceptic, and he chose the 10 year time frame
Everyone had an agenda
As for the sceptic, I wonder if he'll continue posting it after the update next week....
BBC just interviewed a British bloke living in Wuhan (he's an English teacher) - he said he had Covid symptoms "back in late November/early December" and that the provincial government covered up the stats as opposed to the Beijing government.
Interesting. Makes you wonder if it could have been circulating in Wuhan as far back as September/October?
I think that unlikely. The doubling rate that we have seen, and resultant mortality would have made it obvious very quickly. The same goes for people getting respiratory symptoms in the UK over the winter too.
If correct, that does of course have policy implications:
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article ...The R0 values we estimated have important implications for predicting the effects of pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical interventions. For example, the threshold for combined vaccine efficacy and herd immunity needed for disease extinction is calculated as 1 – 1/R0. At R0 = 2.2, this threshold is only 55%. But at R0 = 5.7, this threshold rises to 82% (i.e., >82% of the population has to be immune, through either vaccination or prior infection, to achieve herd immunity to stop transmission).
We then evaluated the effectiveness for nonpharmaceutical interventions, such as contact tracing, quarantine, and social distancing, by using the framework by Lipsitch et al. (19) (Appendix 2). We extended the framework to consider a fraction of transmission occurring from infected persons who would not be identified by surveillance and can transmit effectively (15). This fraction is determined by the fraction of actual asymptomatic persons and the extent of surveillance efforts to identify these persons and persons with mild-to-moderate symptoms. Results show that quarantine and contact tracing of symptomatic persons can be effective when the fraction of unidentified persons is low. However, when 20% of transmission is driven by unidentified infected persons, high levels of social distancing efforts will be needed to contain the virus (Figure 6), highlighting the importance of early and effective surveillance, contact tracing, and quarantine. Future field, laboratory, and modeling studies aimed to address the unknowns, such as the fraction of asymptomatic persons, the extent of their transmissibility depending on symptom severity, the time when persons become infectious, and the existence of superspreaders are needed to accurately predict the impact of various control strategies...
Equally, doesn’t a higher than presumed R0 also imply a higher than presumed asymptomatic/mild infection rate?
The doubling rate that we have seen pre lockdown does imply a rather high R0, and that does also fit with some of the outbreaks relating to churches, choirs, marde gras parties etc.
But yes, a high rate af asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic fits too. We need reliable serology to be sure.
I was shocked to hear last night an interview from a NY ER doctor that said the ER room at his hospital isn't segregated between suspected CV and non-CV.
Didn't it get really bad in Italy because it started spreading in the hospitals?
I stopped reading once I no longer found them funny. Which, as far as I recall, was after the second one. Plenty of her recent stuff is vicious shite, and she's a hypocrite for suddenly shedding crocodile tears over how language makes people feel.
That's interesting that you find a talent such as Hyde relentlessly unfunny. It means that your politics plays a big role in what makes you laugh. Nothing wrong with that, nothing at all, but this is not so much the case with me. I often wish it was, actually, because I do not enjoy chuckling at the occasional zinger that, for example, the ghastly Rod Liddle comes out with. Fortunately (for me) there is a genuine and objectively verified negative correlation between right wing views and a facility with comic prose, so although it does happen - me creasing up at the likes of Rod - it is not a routine everyday event.
"Fortunately (for me) there is a genuine and objectively verified negative correlation between right wing views and a facility with comic prose,"
You really must be joking.
Never read Evelyn Waugh? The pantheon of great comic writers is heavily skewed to the right.
I'll happily admit that Waugh (d.1966) was a great comic writer of the right, but he's hardly of the moment. I'm not sure his comedy really resides in him being right wing tbh.
This guy claims to be moderate Labour. This is his reaction when he hears the Jewish Chronicle and Jewish News are closing, laying off dozens of workers
Jewish Chronicle and Jewish News to be liquidated and staff laid off Sources say staff have been told parent company has run out of money during UK lockdown
Going to be a lot of Corbynites scratching their heads at that.
"How does that work? The Jews control all the world's money...."
Get with the program...It is clearly false flag event...they are going to try and look like they aren't in control of the world's economy and struggling just like everybody else....while secretly plotting to relaunch when all this is over...or something like that.
Get over it Francis! Corbyn has gone and ain't coming back, sorry.
Never read Evelyn Waugh? The pantheon of great comic writers is heavily skewed to the right.
Yes, he was funny. Very funny in fact. And right wing enough for anybody. P.G. Wodehouse occurs too. Amis senior. And indeed Amis junior - a genius of comic prose who has gone quite grizzly in his politics.
This guy claims to be moderate Labour. This is his reaction when he hears the Jewish Chronicle and Jewish News are closing, laying off dozens of workers
So, despite the anecdotal info of perfectly healthy young people dropping dead, and not to write off anyone’s passing as trivial, 90% have been aged 60 or over, and over half the total over 80. And almost all (95%?) had underlying health conditions
Those who didn’t die in hospital are more likely to be old and ill too I’d say.
This guy claims to be moderate Labour. This is his reaction when he hears the Jewish Chronicle and Jewish News are closing, laying off dozens of workers
The funniest thing is that in hisTwitter profile this guy calls himself a 'Liberal leftie'. Clearly not the conventional meaning of the word 'liberal'.
So, despite the anecdotal info of perfectly healthy young people dropping dead, and not to write off anyone’s passing as trivial, 90% have been aged 60 or over, and over half the total over 80. And almost all (95%?) had underlying health conditions
I don't think it is quite so much young people dying, it is a not insignificant amount need ICU treatment. That is serious, if they don't get it they die and even if they do, it could be months (if ever) that they make a full recovery.
It seems like given enough time on a ventilator and really good care many can pull through. Where as oldies, they are finding little seems to help.
The EU should know: don't tangle with Ferraris unless you are prepared for them to bitch and moan that everthing has to be set up to their advantage....
So, despite the anecdotal info of perfectly healthy young people dropping dead, and not to write off anyone’s passing as trivial, 90% have been aged 60 or over, and over half the total over 80. And almost all (95%?) had underlying health conditions
Those who didn’t die in hospital are more likely to be old and ill too I’d say.
People of any age over ten or so can become seriously ill, those above forty or so are the ones taking up ICU. Just look at Boris as an indicative example, for God’s sake. You are giving people a false sense of security. Why?
Care homes are where the real horror of this pandemic will have been unleashed when the final tallies are made.
We already seeing that as France start to process the numbers and Spain have admitted they know very large number have died, but don't have exact figures and aren't including them (at the moment).
To emphasis just how easily this thing spreads, Sky had a report from really rural part of France, literally more cows than people, but it had ripped through the whole area and killed 10s of oldies in a local care home already.
Belgium started including care home deaths the other day too.
Interesting that there looks to still be quite a big North-South strip of America stretching from what looks like large parts of Texas, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana that still have no cases.
I'm possibly not seeing the point. What have death counts for January and February being quite good got to do with the current pandemic? I thought we were concerned about the covid-19 deaths that started to shoot upwards on an exponential line over the past 10 days or so - beyond the scope of that graph.
And even more concerned with preventing that exponential from getting traction and out of control. I mean, yes, if we can stop the upwards line from running away, we can keep deaths down to [eyeballs the y-axis, does some mental arithmetic, realises that the extra 5000 deaths over the past week, unless offset by far fewer deaths than normal will already spike us to the past the highest point on that graph in midwinter 2015] maybe the top of that graph? Without needing to redo the y-axis.
So, yes, it's a good way of re-emphasising that it's not too late as long as we stick with the measures we're taking, I suppose. We can still stop this being a runaway disaster. Sure, it'll probably look pretty bad when the last week's figures are added to it - after all, we're getting a spike upwards starting already, even though "only" 1200 people had died by then (950 covid-19 deaths in the week leading up to the final point on the graph).
The point I take from it is there are a lot of people, for want of a better phrase, ‘living on borrowed time’, because flu usually kills thousands more in Jan & Feb than it did this year
I don't think that it works quite like that. Rather reminiscent of the Final Destination movies. In any case, that thick black line over January and February seems to be pretty close to the average of the other lines (if possibly a bit high - bear in mind that the thin blue line, for 2010-2014 therefore has five times the weighting of the lines for each of the individual annual lines after them).
So that graph isn't saying that thousands more are usually killed in Jan & Feb. It's saying fewer are usually killed in Jan & Feb - the precise opposite of your claim.
Take a look at it. The 2020 line is significantly above average deaths for 3 of the first 10 weeks, noticeably (but not hugely) above it for 4 more of them, almost bang on it for 2 of them, and a bit below it for one. We're looking at maybe 4,000 extra deaths in 2020 in the first 10 weeks than the average for 2010-2019.
2020 is well below average for the last 5 years
Your original graph had 10 years of data on it. It included 2010-2014. I thought you wanted to discuss what was shown by that graph. Going to the ONS and getting the raw data, plugging it into a spreadsheet and producing an unsmoothed graph gives this:
So we were discussing the first graph you showed, you claimed it showed that deaths in 2020 to date (or, at least, in Jan and Feb, the first 9 weeks) were "thousands" below average. I pointed out that it didn't. As per the graph I've just added.
You've now shifted to a different, shorter baseline. Why?
I didn’t post the original graph and hadn’t even looked at it. Sorry, I have been following the person on Twitter who updates the graph I posted and was talking about that time frame
I wonder why they chose that time frame?
I doubt it’s out of dishonesty, as you imply. He seems quite open minded, agenda free and genuinely curious about the stats.
The fellow who made the other graph is a sceptic, and he chose the 10 year time frame
Everyone had an agenda
As for the sceptic, I wonder if he'll continue posting it after the update next week....
Comments
The fellow who made the other graph is a sceptic, and he chose the 10 year time frame
At the end of the day, Parliamentary parties have some, to put it kindly, eccentrics. The party leadership (and, more to the point, whips) doesn't necessarily need to get them out of Parliament - they need to manage them. All these people have things they want (a way into Government, a Committee place, a gong or whatever) and things they fear (deselection, demotion, exposure of some secret or other). You do a bit of that, and a bit of disassociating yourself from the fringe figures, and it tends to be okay.
Labour's Parliamentary group, I am sure, moved to the left under Corbyn. But is there a critical mass of swivel-eyed loons that makes it unmanageable? I don't see convincing evidence for that. Part of that is because, although you have replacements for MPs who stood down, no candidate in a target seat won in 2019 (except Putney, and I understand she is a very mainstream Starmer backer).
As for the sceptic, I wonder if he'll continue posting it after the update next week....
https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus
More seriously, it's one of those issues where one can support the intended point but in reality what is being demanded is unclear. The PM, his de facto deputy and the health secretary are men so are bound to do most briefings. There have been others leading some days so opportunity for others, but it wont change who Boris has in the top political positions. How he has picked them is a separate matter.
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0282_article
...The R0 values we estimated have important implications for predicting the effects of pharmaceutical and nonpharmaceutical interventions. For example, the threshold for combined vaccine efficacy and herd immunity needed for disease extinction is calculated as 1 – 1/R0. At R0 = 2.2, this threshold is only 55%. But at R0 = 5.7, this threshold rises to 82% (i.e., >82% of the population has to be immune, through either vaccination or prior infection, to achieve herd immunity to stop transmission).
We then evaluated the effectiveness for nonpharmaceutical interventions, such as contact tracing, quarantine, and social distancing, by using the framework by Lipsitch et al. (19) (Appendix 2). We extended the framework to consider a fraction of transmission occurring from infected persons who would not be identified by surveillance and can transmit effectively (15). This fraction is determined by the fraction of actual asymptomatic persons and the extent of surveillance efforts to identify these persons and persons with mild-to-moderate symptoms. Results show that quarantine and contact tracing of symptomatic persons can be effective when the fraction of unidentified persons is low. However, when 20% of transmission is driven by unidentified infected persons, high levels of social distancing efforts will be needed to contain the virus (Figure 6), highlighting the importance of early and effective surveillance, contact tracing, and quarantine. Future field, laboratory, and modeling studies aimed to address the unknowns, such as the fraction of asymptomatic persons, the extent of their transmissibility depending on symptom severity, the time when persons become infectious, and the existence of superspreaders are needed to accurately predict the impact of various control strategies...
Seems like isam needs to follow more honest people on twitter.
OF COURSE she was going to say she wanted them back as soon as possible. That only becomes a meaningful question if she can put a date on it. At the moment I am thinking early June is the likeliest point.
@alistairhaimes is the fellow I’ve been following on Twitter. Lots of data, make of it what you will. The more the better I say
Perhaps the Home Sec would be good too as could answer questions on lockdown enforcement etc.
It does damage the "stored up deaths" case a bit, though - those who survived 2015-2019 got through a period of consistently higher fatalities. 2020 might have been very slightly a reversion towards the earlier level (but only slightly - it was still consistently above he 2010-2014 average), but that definitely got scuppered in weeks 12 and 13 already, and weeks 14-15 will likely be horrific.
When it says "The conclusions, findings, and opinions expressed by authors contributing to this journal do not necessarily reflect the official position of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Public Health Service, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or the authors' affiliated institutions."
It's just in a journal published by CDC. The twit doesn't understand how scientific publishing works.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/08/eu-most-senior-scientist-mauro-ferrari-resigns-handling-coronavirus-crisis
What does being an NHS volunteer actually involve?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs0tze8i7Yg
My elderly parents are getting great support. Government food boxes, volunteers have got their medication, people called on them to ask if ok. Big Society in action.
Hopefully, as a nation we can continue you this after the virus has gone.
Spearfish torpedo hydraulics upgrade program for example....
Whether that is appropriate or not is a slightly different question.
However she remembers listening to German bombers going overhead and is pretty phlegmatic about it all.
https://twitter.com/ScottGottliebMD/status/1247849207421186048
And of course raises a question about the effectiveness of any potential vaccine.
"Note that up-to-date counts of the total numbers of deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19) are published by Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) on the .GOV.UK website. ONS figures differ from the DHSC counts as the latter include deaths which have not yet been registered."
As at 27th March (the last date mentioned), the ONS figure was for a total of 647 covid-99 deaths, spread over weeks 11,12, and 13 (obviously spiking higher the later you go). As at 27 March, we'd declared a total of 759 covid-99 deaths (and we expect this number to be revised upwards when more information from deaths outside of hospitals comes in).
In week 14 (not yet on the charts), we declared 2,846 covid-19 deaths, and in week 15 to date (only first four days declared so far), we've had 2,624 declared covid-19 deaths.
That is even dumber than the usual questions from the press pack at the daily conferences.
But yes, a high rate af asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic fits too. We need reliable serology to be sure.
Another ‘please let it be bad so I can blame Boris’ monger
https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/1247607265978449925?s=21
Those who didn’t die in hospital are more likely to be old and ill too I’d say.
It seems like given enough time on a ventilator and really good care many can pull through. Where as oldies, they are finding little seems to help.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-52212777
Given it is a proper uni, confident they will be able to do.
The obvious criticism is why we didn't utilize them in the first place.
1) Lives
2) Proper Process and Not Utilising The Wrong Resources (undermining the authority of your own organisation) ?
This Thread had left to set up a testing facility
*Good crisis*
HM The Queen
Boris (presuming he survives)
Andrew Cuomo
Jeremy Hunt
Rishi Sunak (so far)
Matt Hancock
Chris Whitty
*Bad crisis*
Joe Biden
Carole Cadwalladr
The EU
The media, esp. Robert Peston etc
WHO