On topic, big hostage to fortune in these front pages. The governments cannot afford ANY easing of restrictions right now that risks increasing the infection rate. Otherwise we will have a repeat performance of the case and death levels we experienced over the past few weeks. Hence the easing off measures only apply to low risk, outdoors and minimal contact activities.
But if people are led to believe lockdown is over, there could be frustration when it turns not to be, and worse, a catastrophic reprise of the epidemic.
I wonder how many readers of the Sun will have the impression that the rules have been relaxed already.
In a way they have. "Exercise once a day only" only existed in Michael Gove's head. "You can now go out more than once a day!" will be a marvellous loosening considering that you could always do so.
No restriction on frequency of exercise, length of exercise, location of exercise. Just because as I put it "a gobshite cabinet minister" said it doesn't make it the rules. The rule of law is the rules. With the emphasis on law.
I mean I keep a copy of the SI on my phone when I am out cycling because if some policeman stops me to ask me what I'm up to and is arsey about it I will have the law at hand, literally. I could go out 50 times a day, should I choose (I don't) but it is not illegal.
I get the whole nudge thing but it's not the law (cf don't drink and drive, smoking kills, etc).
Moth du Jour: Hummingbird Hawkmoth. A migrant from Europe, they are a not infrequent visitor to our gardens.
I seem to remember a story that as the troops crossed the channel on D-Day there was a noticeable migration movement of these moths going the other way. Insect migration is much less noticeable than that of birds but equally fascinating.
Bird migration I can get my head round. Insect migration - not so much. The Painted Lady is remarkable: it marches north, with fast developing waves of eggs --> larvae --> adults and then when the weather starts to turn in the far north, it does the same heading south. Coastal radar stations record them in their millions both ways.
Silver Y moth is another one. I can remember tramping across moorland in Yorkshire one summer and, at every step, flushing these moths. They must migrate in countless millions to the British Isles.
It does seem likely that there is some substantial genetic effect here, or at least some quite big effect which is not simply social deprivation and pre-existing conditions. If that is correct, then it is further reason to be cautious about international comparisons.
Eastern Europe has a very low death rate
Yes, and Germany and Austria of course. Maybe there is some genetic or cultural factor here, overlaying the differences in government and healthcare-system response.
What are the adjustments the ONS make to create the level playing field between ethnicities, Richard?
I think the lockdown is stupid and pointless and is probably killing or harming more people than the virus. I am amazed at the almost total lack of questioning of the policy and how readily people submit themselves to these rules. Now the bloke who recommended it is caught breaking his own policy. We have empty hospitals, idle doctors, vulnerable people isolated, mental health problems soaring, urgent treatments cancelled, people too scared to go to the doctor, businesses folding, unemployment surging. And yet virtually no one outside the twittersphere (maybe Peter Hitchens) has seriously asked WTF?
I am also surprised people just accept that the lockdown as the panacea to prevent Covid 19 spread, especially as our R figure was likely below 1 when we went into lockdown (based on the hospital admission peak on the 2nd April 2020). Maybe this much talked about enquiry will find that the lockdown only had a marginal impact on Covid-19 and that the other negative impacts of it were greater than its positives.
I really don't believe that graph as you can make it say whatever you want by picking different lag times. The government's advice was R was around 2 when the lockdown started.
I am not basing it on that graph at all because I don't know what parameters he used to produce it. I am just using basic common sense. If the peak of hospital admissions was the 2nd April then logically the peak of infections must have been 10-15 days before that. If that is wrong then please correct me. For it to be the peak of infections then the R figure must be below 1 from that day forward or there would another day when the peak was higher and consequently the peak of hospital admissions would be at a later date. If my logic is wrong then I am sorry. I know it is simplistic and the only way to really know is to test everyone in the country every day. As this can't be done I think Hospital admissions is best method of measuring when the peak of infections was.
I really can't see any logic to thinking the peak of infections being after the peak of hospital admissions.
its been a busy few days with work so not had much chance to even look at PB let alone post. But just wanted to say what a fantastic thread header Cyclefree wrote for the previous thread. Extremely well presented and informative.
PB at its best.
I agree. Just read it. Very good. As was Alastair's WW2 one.
Thank you both.
I hope the government reads, understands and follows!
We will see.
Did I detect just a touch of special pleading for your daughter in there?
Yes. Unashamedly so. Watching her trying to build up and maintain the business and her concern for her employees and the effect this is having on her and others in her situation in this area has given me an insight I did not have before. At least not at such a visceral level. I am, frankly, desperately worried. If it is not viable - and I don’t see how it will be for a while yet - its closure will have a terrible effect on lots of people, directly and indirectly, and there are not many alternatives available.
And do not forget my sons either. Or me, come to that. My work is not really feasible if people cannot meet. The entire Cyclefree family could very soon be permanently unemployed unless we can get jobs with the NHS which will likely soon be the only employer left in the country.
Tough times. Those outside the public sector and large safe companies are very exposed.
It does seem likely that there is some substantial genetic effect here, or at least some quite big effect which is not simply social deprivation and pre-existing conditions. If that is correct, then it is further reason to be cautious about international comparisons.
Eastern Europe has a very low death rate
Yes, and Germany and Austria of course. Maybe there is some genetic or cultural factor here, overlaying the differences in government and healthcare-system response.
Curious divergence amongst descendents of what should be similiar haplogroups from the south asian continent.
My guess would be a non linearity of consequence for the control factors (It hits the vulnerable MUCH harder than those who aren't) - so even if you control for those factors there is still an effect.
Mr. Jonathan, do you actually disagree with me about the statistics?
Do you disagree with my criticisms over the app/care home situation? Or that the Chinese cover up made things significantly worse in countries such as the UK and France?
Or is it only the single pro-Government line in my post that you consider to perhaps be worthy of doubt?
I have lost patience with the way this government spins and manipulates data to serve its short term political ends and am depressed that people go along with it.
It is perfectly valid to discuss why our death count is so high, even if the government would prefer us not to.
The facts that the UK, esp England, is one of the highest density countries in Europe (only Netherlands and Belgium are higher) and our status as a major economic hub and our wealth allowing international travel and our cherishing of the liberal democracy ideals have to be primary factors as to why our death rate is high.
If I had been writing a book on which European countries would be most affected by a global pandemic I would have had UK as favourite.
I`m long pissed off that this dreadful situation, which the government is battling like crazy to get us out of, is being used by many to bash the government for party political reasons. I find it shocking and immoral.
Please lay off party politics. I don`t vote Conservative, but support them in what they are trying to do, as I would any party at this time. We are all in this together.
Maybe if they stopped lying all the time, admitted some mistakes and said they were doing their best then people may not be so cynical. Hard to believe anything they say due to the obvious lying and cheating on numbers etc. You just cannot trust a liar.
No the world is looking at their own countries and thinking what to do next. The UK has a very weird narcissistic view of itself, the rest of the world dont spend 70% of time on their own country, 20% thinking about us and 10% thinking about the rest of the world.
If people are looking at other countries they are probably looking at US, China, South Korea and Germany for very different reasons.
The Times really hasn't moved on from the Fog in Channel days, has it?
This is one of these one-way valves, where it’s fine for the Prime Minister preposterously to claim that “there will be many people looking now at our apparent success”.
All countries should be trying to learn from other countries successes and failures. We learned the consequences of a collapsing health service from Italy and reacted accordingly. We didn't learn from the devastation of care homes in both Spain and Italy. I think its also legitimate for countries to take some pride in their own achievements, whether that is the ventilator machines built by F1 here or the remarkable successes of SK and Germany. But the idea of British exceptionalism and that others look to us especially for guidance is ridiculous, whoever it comes from.
The fact is that, had the UK got away relatively scot free with the Covid crisis, the people slagging the government now would not have given them any praise at all. They would have found a way to show that the countries who had it worse than us were destined to suffer more due to an ageing population, pollution etc etc
It’s amazing how the people who start from a fixed point of view, then use a crowbar to make every bit of news fit it, probably genuinely don’t realise they’re doing it.
It is called holding those to account that should have greater resources than us to make decisions of great import. We know that all of you that bought the "get Brexit Done" bullshit will no doubt supinely wag your tails and take what ever crappy dog food "Boris" serves up to you. The rest of us are questioning why we have a cabinet so full of lightweights and more importantly why we have the highest death rate in Europe. The latter is very very important.
Fair point Mr FoREMAIN, maybe I place too much emphasis on Brexit
I am sure you wouldn't wish me to change my longstanding name. I could suggest a change for you, as someone so susceptible to the word of the liar aka Boris Johnson, to perhaps iGullible?
Wait, no, I tried reading it and gave up after he complained that we don't have a functioning free press, on the basis that they won't all write what he wants them to write.
I think his point is more that they seem to write what the government wants them to write. The best bit of the article for me was - regarding the Ferguson thing - his saying how tacky and inappropriate it was to splash the WOMAN'S face all over the front pages. I'm glad I'm not alone in finding that completely outrageous.
Oh yeah, that's a decent point, but I didn't get that far, and it's got nothing to do with the main issue. But on the first bit, I think he's entirely wrong: it's much more sensible for the papers to focus on the judgment of one of the Government's lead advisors than to obsess over round numbers and inappropriate international comparisons. Albeit that they may be doing it for the wrong reasons.
So "100k" (aka 83k) tests on a particular day merits an orgy of positive coverage but going top of the league table on deaths on a particular day merits but a shrug? This sounds to me like highly selective "obsessing over round numbers".
Fairly sure I never said that about the testing? I'm happy to agree that the focus on the testing numbers was ludicrous. Hancock and his team deserve some credit for hitting a target that looked almost impossible a few weeks before, but that's about it.
It is the Mail, Telegraph, Sun, Express cohort I refer to, not you. And on the general point. Landmarks. The day unemployment hits, say, 2m is not of massively more significance than the day before when it was 1.96m or the day after when it will be 2.05m. Nevertheless these iconic moments of measurement tend to trigger discussion and introspection. Us passing Italy on Covid-19 deaths is surely such a moment. But no, we have a "married hotty" to get stuck into. The "we" being the 'gang of four' Tory press pack not you or I, for the avoidance of doubt.
The Ferguson news was much bigger than the fake news of nonsense comparisons the scientists say to take precautions with.
The "threshold" effect was the following day when UK numbers passed 30k.
OK. So we'll discuss it on the day that the final final audited numbers are available for all countries in a few years then. Unless it clashes with the Merseyside derby or something.
I think the lockdown is stupid and pointless and is probably killing or harming more people than the virus. I am amazed at the almost total lack of questioning of the policy and how readily people submit themselves to these rules. Now the bloke who recommended it is caught breaking his own policy. We have empty hospitals, idle doctors, vulnerable people isolated, mental health problems soaring, urgent treatments cancelled, people too scared to go to the doctor, businesses folding, unemployment surging. And yet virtually no one outside the twittersphere (maybe Peter Hitchens) has seriously asked WTF?
I am also surprised people just accept that the lockdown as the panacea to prevent Covid 19 spread, especially as our R figure was likely below 1 when we went into lockdown (based on the hospital admission peak on the 2nd April 2020). Maybe this much talked about enquiry will find that the lockdown only had a marginal impact on Covid-19 and that the other negative impacts of it were greater than its positives.
I really don't believe that graph as you can make it say whatever you want by picking different lag times. The government's advice was R was around 2 when the lockdown started.
I am not basing it on that graph at all because I don't know what parameters he used to produce it. I am just using basic common sense. If the peak of hospital admissions was the 2nd April then logically the peak of infections must have been 10-15 days before that. If that is wrong then please correct me. For it to be the peak of infections then the R figure must be below 1 from that day forward or there would another day when the peak was higher and consequently the peak of hospital admissions would be at a later date. If my logic is wrong then I am sorry. I know it is simplistic and the only way to really know is to test everyone in the country every day. As this can't be done I think Hospital admissions is best method of measuring when the peak of infections was.
I really can't see any logic to thinking the peak of infections being after the peak of hospital admissions.
It typically takes 5-6 days for symptoms to appear, not 10-15.
Wait, no, I tried reading it and gave up after he complained that we don't have a functioning free press, on the basis that they won't all write what he wants them to write.
I think his point is more that they seem to write what the government wants them to write. The best bit of the article for me was - regarding the Ferguson thing - his saying how tacky and inappropriate it was to splash the WOMAN'S face all over the front pages. I'm glad I'm not alone in finding that completely outrageous.
Oh yeah, that's a decent point, but I didn't get that far, and it's got nothing to do with the main issue. But on the first bit, I think he's entirely wrong: it's much more sensible for the papers to focus on the judgment of one of the Government's lead advisors than to obsess over round numbers and inappropriate international comparisons. Albeit that they may be doing it for the wrong reasons.
So "100k" (aka 83k) tests on a particular day merits an orgy of positive coverage but going top of the league table on deaths on a particular day merits but a shrug? This sounds to me like highly selective "obsessing over round numbers".
Fairly sure I never said that about the testing? I'm happy to agree that the focus on the testing numbers was ludicrous. Hancock and his team deserve some credit for hitting a target that looked almost impossible a few weeks before, but that's about it.
It is the Mail, Telegraph, Sun, Express cohort I refer to, not you. And on the general point. Landmarks. The day unemployment hits, say, 2m is not of massively more significance than the day before when it was 1.96m or the day after when it will be 2.05m. Nevertheless these iconic moments of measurement tend to trigger discussion and introspection. Us passing Italy on Covid-19 deaths is surely such a moment. But no, we have a "married hotty" to get stuck into. The "we" being the 'gang of four' Tory press pack not you or I, for the avoidance of doubt.
The Ferguson news was much bigger than the fake news of nonsense comparisons the scientists say to take precautions with.
The "threshold" effect was the following day when UK numbers passed 30k.
OK. So we'll discuss it on the day that the final final audited numbers are available for all countries in a few years then. Unless it clashes with the Merseyside derby or something.
Well obviously the Merseyside derby would be more important.
It does seem likely that there is some substantial genetic effect here, or at least some quite big effect which is not simply social deprivation and pre-existing conditions. If that is correct, then it is further reason to be cautious about international comparisons.
AFAICT the virus is racist, sexist, and ageist. If it could speak and use the wrong pronouns that would be a full house.
It does seem likely that there is some substantial genetic effect here, or at least some quite big effect which is not simply social deprivation and pre-existing conditions. If that is correct, then it is further reason to be cautious about international comparisons.
Eastern Europe has a very low death rate
Yes, and Germany and Austria of course. Maybe there is some genetic or cultural factor here, overlaying the differences in government and healthcare-system response.
What are the adjustments the ONS make to create the level playing field between ethnicities, Richard?
Obviously there are many uncertainties (hence the error bars), but this is about as authoritative as any analysis can be on the data currently available.
I think the lockdown is stupid and pointless and is probably killing or harming more people than the virus. I am amazed at the almost total lack of questioning of the policy and how readily people submit themselves to these rules. Now the bloke who recommended it is caught breaking his own policy. We have empty hospitals, idle doctors, vulnerable people isolated, mental health problems soaring, urgent treatments cancelled, people too scared to go to the doctor, businesses folding, unemployment surging. And yet virtually no one outside the twittersphere (maybe Peter Hitchens) has seriously asked WTF?
I am also surprised people just accept that the lockdown as the panacea to prevent Covid 19 spread, especially as our R figure was likely below 1 when we went into lockdown (based on the hospital admission peak on the 2nd April 2020). Maybe this much talked about enquiry will find that the lockdown only had a marginal impact on Covid-19 and that the other negative impacts of it were greater than its positives.
I really don't believe that graph as you can make it say whatever you want by picking different lag times. The government's advice was R was around 2 when the lockdown started.
I am not basing it on that graph at all because I don't know what parameters he used to produce it. I am just using basic common sense. If the peak of hospital admissions was the 2nd April then logically the peak of infections must have been 10-15 days before that. If that is wrong then please correct me. For it to be the peak of infections then the R figure must be below 1 from that day forward or there would another day when the peak was higher and consequently the peak of hospital admissions would be at a later date. If my logic is wrong then I am sorry. I know it is simplistic and the only way to really know is to test everyone in the country every day. As this can't be done I think Hospital admissions is best method of measuring when the peak of infections was.
I really can't see any logic to thinking the peak of infections being after the peak of hospital admissions.
It typically takes 5-6 days for symptoms to appear, not 10-15.
Agreed, particularly for fatal cases.
If the virus can get to work early and hard on your kidneys, lungs and heart (As it will be doing quickly in fatal cases) it's definitely not going to be 10-15 days before symptons.
Mr. Jonathan, do you actually disagree with me about the statistics?
Do you disagree with my criticisms over the app/care home situation? Or that the Chinese cover up made things significantly worse in countries such as the UK and France?
Or is it only the single pro-Government line in my post that you consider to perhaps be worthy of doubt?
I have lost patience with the way this government spins and manipulates data to serve its short term political ends and am depressed that people go along with it.
It is perfectly valid to discuss why our death count is so high, even if the government would prefer us not to.
The facts that the UK, esp England, is one of the highest density countries in Europe (only Netherlands and Belgium are higher) and our status as a major economic hub and our wealth allowing international travel and our cherishing of the liberal democracy ideals have to be primary factors as to why our death rate is high.
If I had been writing a book on which European countries would be most affected by a global pandemic I would have had UK as favourite.
I`m long pissed off that this dreadful situation, which the government is battling like crazy to get us out of, is being used by many to bash the government for party political reasons. I find it shocking and immoral.
Please lay off party politics. I don`t vote Conservative, but support them in what they are trying to do, as I would any party at this time. We are all in this together.
Maybe if they stopped lying all the time, admitted some mistakes and said they were doing their best then people may not be so cynical. Hard to believe anything they say due to the obvious lying and cheating on numbers etc. You just cannot trust a liar.
No the world is looking at their own countries and thinking what to do next. The UK has a very weird narcissistic view of itself, the rest of the world dont spend 70% of time on their own country, 20% thinking about us and 10% thinking about the rest of the world.
If people are looking at other countries they are probably looking at US, China, South Korea and Germany for very different reasons.
The Times really hasn't moved on from the Fog in Channel days, has it?
This is one of these one-way valves, where it’s fine for the Prime Minister preposterously to claim that “there will be many people looking now at our apparent success”.
All countries should be trying to learn from other countries successes and failures. We learned the consequences of a collapsing health service from Italy and reacted accordingly. We didn't learn from the devastation of care homes in both Spain and Italy. I think its also legitimate for countries to take some pride in their own achievements, whether that is the ventilator machines built by F1 here or the remarkable successes of SK and Germany. But the idea of British exceptionalism and that others look to us especially for guidance is ridiculous, whoever it comes from.
The fact is that, had the UK got away relatively scot free with the Covid crisis, the people slagging the government now would not have given them any praise at all. They would have found a way to show that the countries who had it worse than us were destined to suffer more due to an ageing population, pollution etc etc
It’s amazing how the people who start from a fixed point of view, then use a crowbar to make every bit of news fit it, probably genuinely don’t realise they’re doing it.
It is called holding those to account that should have greater resources than us to make decisions of great import. We know that all of you that bought the "get Brexit Done" bullshit will no doubt supinely wag your tails and take what ever crappy dog food "Boris" serves up to you. The rest of us are questioning why we have a cabinet so full of lightweights and more importantly why we have the highest death rate in Europe. The latter is very very important.
Fair point Mr FoREMAIN, maybe I place too much emphasis on Brexit
I am sure you wouldn't wish me to change my longstanding name. I could suggest a change for you, as someone so susceptible to the word of the liar aka Boris Johnson, to perhaps iGullible?
I think the lockdown is stupid and pointless and is probably killing or harming more people than the virus. I am amazed at the almost total lack of questioning of the policy and how readily people submit themselves to these rules. Now the bloke who recommended it is caught breaking his own policy. We have empty hospitals, idle doctors, vulnerable people isolated, mental health problems soaring, urgent treatments cancelled, people too scared to go to the doctor, businesses folding, unemployment surging. And yet virtually no one outside the twittersphere (maybe Peter Hitchens) has seriously asked WTF?
I am also surprised people just accept that the lockdown as the panacea to prevent Covid 19 spread, especially as our R figure was likely below 1 when we went into lockdown (based on the hospital admission peak on the 2nd April 2020). Maybe this much talked about enquiry will find that the lockdown only had a marginal impact on Covid-19 and that the other negative impacts of it were greater than its positives.
I really don't believe that graph as you can make it say whatever you want by picking different lag times. The government's advice was R was around 2 when the lockdown started.
I am not basing it on that graph at all because I don't know what parameters he used to produce it. I am just using basic common sense. If the peak of hospital admissions was the 2nd April then logically the peak of infections must have been 10-15 days before that. If that is wrong then please correct me. For it to be the peak of infections then the R figure must be below 1 from that day forward or there would another day when the peak was higher and consequently the peak of hospital admissions would be at a later date. If my logic is wrong then I am sorry. I know it is simplistic and the only way to really know is to test everyone in the country every day. As this can't be done I think Hospital admissions is best method of measuring when the peak of infections was.
I really can't see any logic to thinking the peak of infections being after the peak of hospital admissions.
10 days before would be 23rd, the date lockdown was announced. 15 days would be 18th. Boris asked everyone to social distance on the evening of the 16th and that week businesses were cancelling travel, asking people to work from home etc. My last day in the office was the 19th and I had already made the decision not to go to the pub or the gym. So a peak date for hospitalisations is completely consistent with lockdown and the measures that immediately preceded it.
It does seem likely that there is some substantial genetic effect here, or at least some quite big effect which is not simply social deprivation and pre-existing conditions. If that is correct, then it is further reason to be cautious about international comparisons.
AFAICT the virus is racist, sexist, and ageist. If it could speak and use the wrong pronouns that would be a full house.
It does seem likely that there is some substantial genetic effect here, or at least some quite big effect which is not simply social deprivation and pre-existing conditions. If that is correct, then it is further reason to be cautious about international comparisons.
Eastern Europe has a very low death rate
Yes, and Germany and Austria of course. Maybe there is some genetic or cultural factor here, overlaying the differences in government and healthcare-system response.
The reason for Eastern Europe's low death rate is more likely to be a combination of less international travel and rapid lockdowns. The Czech Republic and Slovakia, for example, began their lockdowns before they had recorded any Covid-19 deaths. We, on the other hand, waited until over 300 people had died of the virus! It's really no great mystery.
Most people right now are trying hard to follow the advice.
Can you not see the problem? The *advice* being one thing and the *law* being another thing is a Bad Thing when you want people to do something.
No! Absolutely not!
I have faith in the British public than you do. The law should be the MINIMUM necessary, the lowest common denominator. The advice should be BEST PRACTICE and a higher standard.
If someone has special reasons to feel they need to exercise twice in a day then I'd rather they use their common sense. I'd rather not see the Police involved with that.
I hope we never see the day where the law is used to enforce all advice.
It does seem likely that there is some substantial genetic effect here, or at least some quite big effect which is not simply social deprivation and pre-existing conditions. If that is correct, then it is further reason to be cautious about international comparisons.
Eastern Europe has a very low death rate
Yes, and Germany and Austria of course. Maybe there is some genetic or cultural factor here, overlaying the differences in government and healthcare-system response.
Curious divergence amongst descendents of what should be similiar haplogroups from the south asian continent.
My guess would be a non linearity of consequence for the control factors (It hits the vulnerable MUCH harder than those who aren't) - so even if you control for those factors there is still an effect.
It could be genetics but not necesssarily, especially if the figures reflect the chance of infection and not just death once infected. Class, or occupation, might explain why some groups are more likely to be infected than others. More West Indian than Chinese bus drivers, for instance. Different religions, and class, amongst Asian groups. Even geography as different ethnic groups are not uniformly distributed around the country, and nor is the virus. More research is, as they say, needed.
I wonder how many readers of the Sun will have the impression that the rules have been relaxed already.
In a way they have. "Exercise once a day only" only existed in Michael Gove's head. "You can now go out more than once a day!" will be a marvellous loosening considering that you could always do so.
Why is there a significant difference between Pakistani/Bangladeshi and Indian cases, isn't that a bit like a control between western and eastern europeans ? Points to some non genetic factors perhaps ?
It does seem likely that there is some substantial genetic effect here, or at least some quite big effect which is not simply social deprivation and pre-existing conditions. If that is correct, then it is further reason to be cautious about international comparisons.
Eastern Europe has a very low death rate
Yes, and Germany and Austria of course. Maybe there is some genetic or cultural factor here, overlaying the differences in government and healthcare-system response.
Curious divergence amongst descendents of what should be similiar haplogroups from the south asian continent.
My guess would be a non linearity of consequence for the control factors (It hits the vulnerable MUCH harder than those who aren't) - so even if you control for those factors there is still an effect.
One of the key features of this virus is its randomness. Iran has been massively attacked by it with probably 60-70K deaths as a minimum. Iraq has just 102 deaths. That looks like an incredible achievement by the Iraq Government or is it just the randomness of the virus?
My furlough has been extended by another two weeks. I just wish I could do something with the time other than sit at home. So far I've started learning Italian, become a pretty decent baker, learned how to make pasta without a pasta machine and started researching how to brew my own beer. I'm running out of things to do.
I picked up a bit of Italian when inter-railing as a youth.
e pericoloso sporgersi - it means "do not lean out of the window".
And I'll go with your perp Covid bonds - very good idea - so long as you consider my property tax. Year 1 quite big then annually at a low enough rate to avoid that "negative feedback loop" we were rather worried about.
It does seem likely that there is some substantial genetic effect here, or at least some quite big effect which is not simply social deprivation and pre-existing conditions. If that is correct, then it is further reason to be cautious about international comparisons.
Eastern Europe has a very low death rate
Yes, and Germany and Austria of course. Maybe there is some genetic or cultural factor here, overlaying the differences in government and healthcare-system response.
The reason for Eastern Europe's low death rate is more likely to be a combination of less international travel and rapid lockdowns. The Czech Republic and Slovakia, for example, began their lockdowns before they had recorded any Covid-19 deaths. We, on the other hand, waited until over 300 people had died of the virus! It's really no great mystery.
Quite, the two week delay of being infectious before falling ill plus the infectivity and exponetial growth means it has to be stamped on hard early.
It does seem likely that there is some substantial genetic effect here, or at least some quite big effect which is not simply social deprivation and pre-existing conditions. If that is correct, then it is further reason to be cautious about international comparisons.
Tables on pages 20-21 show Asians doing worse than the (White) reference group, but African Americans doing slightly better (albeit the p-value on the hospitalisation table isn't particularly encouraging.
Albeit the studies agree that there's some kind of genetic effect, but I would have expected results from "African American" in the US to translate more or less to "Black" in the UK?
When celebrating VE Day tomorrow we might remember the second-worst consequence of WW2, after the Nazis and their unspeakable horrors, was the suffocating atmosphere of social conformity the British had to endure in order to defeat them. This was not finally dispelled until the 1960s, and even then we had a continuing culture clash between the young, who craved every sort of freedom, and their parents, who had built their sense of identity around the uniformity of wartime.
Some comments here have, correctly, mentioned the impossibility of relying on the police to enforce lockdown. But a greater danger lies in the social breakdown between conformists and libertarians fighting a war of attrition over every aspect of "social distancing" that they have chosen to enforce or reject. Particularly as this will cut across other deep divisions of age, class, race etc.
Sorry, I have no idea what is meant by the "suffocating atmosphere of social conformity the British had to endure in order to defeat" the Nazis. From what I understood from speaking to people who lived through the war, it was mainly rationing and bombing that had to be endured on the Home Front, and even the latter depended where you lived.
As for the 1960s, I think you might have missed a generation in between.
I have no idea what is meant by the "suffocating atmosphere of social conformity the British had to endure in order to defeat" the Nazis.
I'll put you down as "conformist" then. The best ones don't even notice it.
Conformists are best? But in any case, I was not alive during the war. My own contribution to defeating Hitler was precisely zero.
I think the lockdown is stupid and pointless and is probably killing or harming more people than the virus. I am amazed at the almost total lack of questioning of the policy and how readily people submit themselves to these rules. Now the bloke who recommended it is caught breaking his own policy. We have empty hospitals, idle doctors, vulnerable people isolated, mental health problems soaring, urgent treatments cancelled, people too scared to go to the doctor, businesses folding, unemployment surging. And yet virtually no one outside the twittersphere (maybe Peter Hitchens) has seriously asked WTF?
I am also surprised people just accept that the lockdown as the panacea to prevent Covid 19 spread, especially as our R figure was likely below 1 when we went into lockdown (based on the hospital admission peak on the 2nd April 2020). Maybe this much talked about enquiry will find that the lockdown only had a marginal impact on Covid-19 and that the other negative impacts of it were greater than its positives.
I really don't believe that graph as you can make it say whatever you want by picking different lag times. The government's advice was R was around 2 when the lockdown started.
I am not basing it on that graph at all because I don't know what parameters he used to produce it. I am just using basic common sense. If the peak of hospital admissions was the 2nd April then logically the peak of infections must have been 10-15 days before that. If that is wrong then please correct me. For it to be the peak of infections then the R figure must be below 1 from that day forward or there would another day when the peak was higher and consequently the peak of hospital admissions would be at a later date. If my logic is wrong then I am sorry. I know it is simplistic and the only way to really know is to test everyone in the country every day. As this can't be done I think Hospital admissions is best method of measuring when the peak of infections was.
I really can't see any logic to thinking the peak of infections being after the peak of hospital admissions.
It typically takes 5-6 days for symptoms to appear, not 10-15.
According to the Covid tracker app data, peak number of symptomatic infections (ie people with current illness) was 1 April with over 2 million. As of yesterday, 266,000.
The reason for Eastern Europe's low death rate is more likely to be a combination of less international travel and rapid lockdowns. The Czech Republic and Slovakia, for example, began their lockdowns before they had recorded any Covid-19 deaths. We, on the other hand, waited until over 300 people had died of the virus! It's really no great mystery.
Eastern Europe, possibly. But given the close connections between Northern Italy and Austria and Germany, it is very odd, bordering on inexplicable, that the latter two weren't more badly hit in the early stages of this.
One thing I don't know, but would be interesting to see, is how the Alto Adige did. I don't recall them being particularly badly hit.
Why is there a significant difference between Pakistani/Bangladeshi and Indian cases, isn't that a bit like a control between western and eastern europeans ? Points to some non genetic factors perhaps ?
Wealth and job sectors. Indians are much more likely to be in office based roles and have much higher wealth.
It does seem likely that there is some substantial genetic effect here, or at least some quite big effect which is not simply social deprivation and pre-existing conditions. If that is correct, then it is further reason to be cautious about international comparisons.
Eastern Europe has a very low death rate
Yes, and Germany and Austria of course. Maybe there is some genetic or cultural factor here, overlaying the differences in government and healthcare-system response.
Not sure if it applies to Germany and Austria, but compulsory vaccination against tuberculosis is common across Eastern Europe and some people are drawing a link to that.
I wonder how many readers of the Sun will have the impression that the rules have been relaxed already.
In a way they have. "Exercise once a day only" only existed in Michael Gove's head. "You can now go out more than once a day!" will be a marvellous loosening considering that you could always do so.
No restriction on frequency of exercise, length of exercise, location of exercise. Just because as I put it "a gobshite cabinet minister" said it doesn't make it the rules. The rule of law is the rules. With the emphasis on law.
It could be genetics but not necesssarily, especially if the figures reflect the chance of infection and not just death once infected. Class, or occupation, might explain why some groups are more likely to be infected than others. More West Indian than Chinese bus drivers, for instance. Different religions, and class, amongst Asian groups. Even geography as different ethnic groups are not uniformly distributed around the country, and nor is the virus. More research is, as they say, needed.
The ONS have adjusted for all those factors. They accounted for about half of the total discrepancy only.
It does seem likely that there is some substantial genetic effect here, or at least some quite big effect which is not simply social deprivation and pre-existing conditions. If that is correct, then it is further reason to be cautious about international comparisons.
Eastern Europe has a very low death rate
Yes, and Germany and Austria of course. Maybe there is some genetic or cultural factor here, overlaying the differences in government and healthcare-system response.
The reason for Eastern Europe's low death rate is more likely to be a combination of less international travel and rapid lockdowns. The Czech Republic and Slovakia, for example, began their lockdowns before they had recorded any Covid-19 deaths. We, on the other hand, waited until over 300 people had died of the virus! It's really no great mystery.
The reason for Eastern Europe's low death rate is more likely to be a combination of less international travel and rapid lockdowns. The Czech Republic and Slovakia, for example, began their lockdowns before they had recorded any Covid-19 deaths. We, on the other hand, waited until over 300 people had died of the virus! It's really no great mystery.
Eastern Europe, possibly. But given the close connections between Northern Italy and Austria and Germany, it is very odd, bordering on inexplicable, that the latter two weren't more badly hit in the early stages of this.
One thing I don't know, but would be interesting to see, is how the Alto Adige did. I don't recall them being particularly badly hit.
German / Austrian social habits are very different to Italian ones.
I think the lockdown is stupid and pointless and is probably killing or harming more people than the virus. I am amazed at the almost total lack of questioning of the policy and how readily people submit themselves to these rules. Now the bloke who recommended it is caught breaking his own policy. We have empty hospitals, idle doctors, vulnerable people isolated, mental health problems soaring, urgent treatments cancelled, people too scared to go to the doctor, businesses folding, unemployment surging. And yet virtually no one outside the twittersphere (maybe Peter Hitchens) has seriously asked WTF?
I am also surprised people just accept that the lockdown as the panacea to prevent Covid 19 spread, especially as our R figure was likely below 1 when we went into lockdown (based on the hospital admission peak on the 2nd April 2020). Maybe this much talked about enquiry will find that the lockdown only had a marginal impact on Covid-19 and that the other negative impacts of it were greater than its positives.
I really don't believe that graph as you can make it say whatever you want by picking different lag times. The government's advice was R was around 2 when the lockdown started.
I am not basing it on that graph at all because I don't know what parameters he used to produce it. I am just using basic common sense. If the peak of hospital admissions was the 2nd April then logically the peak of infections must have been 10-15 days before that..
So, err, the 23 of March then? When lockdown was enacted?
It does seem likely that there is some substantial genetic effect here, or at least some quite big effect which is not simply social deprivation and pre-existing conditions. If that is correct, then it is further reason to be cautious about international comparisons.
Eastern Europe has a very low death rate
Yes, and Germany and Austria of course. Maybe there is some genetic or cultural factor here, overlaying the differences in government and healthcare-system response.
Not sure if it applies to Germany and Austria, but compulsory vaccination against tuberculosis is common across Eastern Europe and some people are drawing a link to that.
Yes, I've seen that suggestion. But it doesn't seem to have helped us in the UK, where the cohort who had the BCG vaccine have been badly hit.
The reason for Eastern Europe's low death rate is more likely to be a combination of less international travel and rapid lockdowns. The Czech Republic and Slovakia, for example, began their lockdowns before they had recorded any Covid-19 deaths. We, on the other hand, waited until over 300 people had died of the virus! It's really no great mystery.
Eastern Europe, possibly. But given the close connections between Northern Italy and Austria and Germany, it is very odd, bordering on inexplicable, that the latter two weren't more badly hit in the early stages of this.
One thing I don't know, but would be interesting to see, is how the Alto Adige did. I don't recall them being particularly badly hit.
As I recollect, Austria and Switzerland were hit hard to begin with, but managed to get things under control, presumably thanks to their advanced health services. The same goes for Germany to a certain extent (or more precisely, Bavaria).
Wait, no, I tried reading it and gave up after he complained that we don't have a functioning free press, on the basis that they won't all write what he wants them to write.
I think his point is more that they seem to write what the government wants them to write. The best bit of the article for me was - regarding the Ferguson thing - his saying how tacky and inappropriate it was to splash the WOMAN'S face all over the front pages. I'm glad I'm not alone in finding that completely outrageous.
Well, part of the problem with story-by-chewing-up-press-releases is that you are still writing a story based on the press release. However much you chew. Hence the New Labour realisation of press control - simply embed some nice chewy stories in the press releases and the press will play good dog.
I'm reading the Campbell diaries atm. Seems so long ago now.
On the topic of digging into stories, technicalities etc. WMDs and Iraq - what if someone had asked the question, that seemed obvious to me at the time, about the 45 minute thing...
"What is it that they can deploy, in 45 minutes?"
Quite. The Iraq War offers a good example of how neither the press nor the Opposition should disarm for the sake of national unity.
More importantly it is an example of where that pesky technical detail nonsense is important.
Too many people in this country think that understanding the technical details (even at a high level) is beneath them, icky and/or nerdy.
I had an interesting conversation with a major historian, a while ago. He was basically horrified by my proposed thesis - the technical issues which blocked/delayed switching production between sectors in WWII. Apparently this wasn't interesting. It was quite clear, that to him, the details of specialist machine tools (for example) was trade, yucky and generally should be reserved for people like the tank restorers at Bovington.
It could be genetics but not necesssarily, especially if the figures reflect the chance of infection and not just death once infected. Class, or occupation, might explain why some groups are more likely to be infected than others. More West Indian than Chinese bus drivers, for instance. Different religions, and class, amongst Asian groups. Even geography as different ethnic groups are not uniformly distributed around the country, and nor is the virus. More research is, as they say, needed.
The ONS have adjusted for all those factors.
Not according to the guy from the ONS on 5Live at 10:00.
He said that there was a load more analysis required as they do not have the data to adjust of occupation and a shed load of other contributing factors that may be causing some groups to becoming infected more often than other groups.
If you go back to the start of the show you will hear of all the problems with jumping to conclusions as many seem to have on here....
My furlough has been extended by another two weeks. I just wish I could do something with the time other than sit at home. So far I've started learning Italian, become a pretty decent baker, learned how to make pasta without a pasta machine and started researching how to brew my own beer. I'm running out of things to do.
I picked up a bit of Italian when inter-railing as a youth.
e pericoloso sporgersi - it means "do not lean out of the window".
And I'll go with your perp Covid bonds - very good idea - so long as you consider my property tax. Year 1 quite big then annually at a low enough rate to avoid that "negative feedback loop" we were rather worried about.
I'd only have a wealth tax on non-primary residences and increase CGT on property investments and increase income taxes. I'd also have punitive taxation on property owned by people/companies that aren't resident for tax purposes. No more using London property as a bank account for oligarchs and tax evaders based in the Virgin Islands.
The reason for Eastern Europe's low death rate is more likely to be a combination of less international travel and rapid lockdowns. The Czech Republic and Slovakia, for example, began their lockdowns before they had recorded any Covid-19 deaths. We, on the other hand, waited until over 300 people had died of the virus! It's really no great mystery.
Eastern Europe, possibly. But given the close connections between Northern Italy and Austria and Germany, it is very odd, bordering on inexplicable, that the latter two weren't more badly hit in the early stages of this.
One thing I don't know, but would be interesting to see, is how the Alto Adige did. I don't recall them being particularly badly hit.
The reason for Eastern Europe's low death rate is more likely to be a combination of less international travel and rapid lockdowns. The Czech Republic and Slovakia, for example, began their lockdowns before they had recorded any Covid-19 deaths. We, on the other hand, waited until over 300 people had died of the virus! It's really no great mystery.
Eastern Europe, possibly. But given the close connections between Northern Italy and Austria and Germany, it is very odd, bordering on inexplicable, that the latter two weren't more badly hit in the early stages of this.
One thing I don't know, but would be interesting to see, is how the Alto Adige did. I don't recall them being particularly badly hit.
German / Austrian social habits are very different to Italian ones.
I think the lockdown is stupid and pointless and is probably killing or harming more people than the virus. I am amazed at the almost total lack of questioning of the policy and how readily people submit themselves to these rules. Now the bloke who recommended it is caught breaking his own policy. We have empty hospitals, idle doctors, vulnerable people isolated, mental health problems soaring, urgent treatments cancelled, people too scared to go to the doctor, businesses folding, unemployment surging. And yet virtually no one outside the twittersphere (maybe Peter Hitchens) has seriously asked WTF?
I am also surprised people just accept that the lockdown as the panacea to prevent Covid 19 spread, especially as our R figure was likely below 1 when we went into lockdown (based on the hospital admission peak on the 2nd April 2020). Maybe this much talked about enquiry will find that the lockdown only had a marginal impact on Covid-19 and that the other negative impacts of it were greater than its positives.
I really don't believe that graph as you can make it say whatever you want by picking different lag times. The government's advice was R was around 2 when the lockdown started.
I am not basing it on that graph at all because I don't know what parameters he used to produce it. I am just using basic common sense. If the peak of hospital admissions was the 2nd April then logically the peak of infections must have been 10-15 days before that. If that is wrong then please correct me. For it to be the peak of infections then the R figure must be below 1 from that day forward or there would another day when the peak was higher and consequently the peak of hospital admissions would be at a later date. If my logic is wrong then I am sorry. I know it is simplistic and the only way to really know is to test everyone in the country every day. As this can't be done I think Hospital admissions is best method of measuring when the peak of infections was.
I really can't see any logic to thinking the peak of infections being after the peak of hospital admissions.
It typically takes 5-6 days for symptoms to appear, not 10-15.
According to the Covid tracker app data, peak number of symptomatic infections (ie people with current illness) was 1 April with over 2 million. As of yesterday, 266,000.
I reported a sore throat on that app around that time, which turned out to be hayfever and a touch of coronacondria. No idea if that was recorded as a case of covid 19.
It does seem likely that there is some substantial genetic effect here, or at least some quite big effect which is not simply social deprivation and pre-existing conditions. If that is correct, then it is further reason to be cautious about international comparisons.
They're not taking the fact they tend to live in densely-populated urban areas into account though.
I think the lockdown is stupid and pointless and is probably killing or harming more people than the virus. I am amazed at the almost total lack of questioning of the policy and how readily people submit themselves to these rules. Now the bloke who recommended it is caught breaking his own policy. We have empty hospitals, idle doctors, vulnerable people isolated, mental health problems soaring, urgent treatments cancelled, people too scared to go to the doctor, businesses folding, unemployment surging. And yet virtually no one outside the twittersphere (maybe Peter Hitchens) has seriously asked WTF?
I am also surprised people just accept that the lockdown as the panacea to prevent Covid 19 spread, especially as our R figure was likely below 1 when we went into lockdown (based on the hospital admission peak on the 2nd April 2020). Maybe this much talked about enquiry will find that the lockdown only had a marginal impact on Covid-19 and that the other negative impacts of it were greater than its positives.
I really don't believe that graph as you can make it say whatever you want by picking different lag times. The government's advice was R was around 2 when the lockdown started.
I am not basing it on that graph at all because I don't know what parameters he used to produce it. I am just using basic common sense. If the peak of hospital admissions was the 2nd April then logically the peak of infections must have been 10-15 days before that. If that is wrong then please correct me. For it to be the peak of infections then the R figure must be below 1 from that day forward or there would another day when the peak was higher and consequently the peak of hospital admissions would be at a later date. If my logic is wrong then I am sorry. I know it is simplistic and the only way to really know is to test everyone in the country every day. As this can't be done I think Hospital admissions is best method of measuring when the peak of infections was.
I really can't see any logic to thinking the peak of infections being after the peak of hospital admissions.
It typically takes 5-6 days for symptoms to appear, not 10-15.
According to the Covid tracker app data, peak number of symptomatic infections (ie people with current illness) was 1 April with over 2 million. As of yesterday, 266,000.
I reported a sore throat on that app around that time, which turned out to be hayfever and a touch of coronacondria. No idea if that was recorded as a case of covid 19.
its been a busy few days with work so not had much chance to even look at PB let alone post. But just wanted to say what a fantastic thread header Cyclefree wrote for the previous thread. Extremely well presented and informative.
PB at its best.
I agree. Just read it. Very good. As was Alastair's WW2 one.
Thank you both.
I hope the government reads, understands and follows!
We will see.
Did I detect just a touch of special pleading for your daughter in there?
Yes. Unashamedly so. Watching her trying to build up and maintain the business and her concern for her employees and the effect this is having on her and others in her situation in this area has given me an insight I did not have before. At least not at such a visceral level. I am, frankly, desperately worried. If it is not viable - and I don’t see how it will be for a while yet - its closure will have a terrible effect on lots of people, directly and indirectly, and there are not many alternatives available.
And do not forget my sons either. Or me, come to that. My work is not really feasible if people cannot meet. The entire Cyclefree family could very soon be permanently unemployed unless we can get jobs with the NHS which will likely soon be the only employer left in the country.
Tough times. Those outside the public sector and large safe companies are very exposed.
I am not sure there are many safe companies left.
Certainly not in many sectors. The Footsy is still 6k ish though. Seems far too high to me, I must admit. Implies a strong and speedy bounceback is considered quite a likely outcome.
It could be genetics but not necesssarily, especially if the figures reflect the chance of infection and not just death once infected. Class, or occupation, might explain why some groups are more likely to be infected than others. More West Indian than Chinese bus drivers, for instance. Different religions, and class, amongst Asian groups. Even geography as different ethnic groups are not uniformly distributed around the country, and nor is the virus. More research is, as they say, needed.
The ONS have adjusted for all those factors.
Not according to the guy from the ONS on 5Live at 10:00.
He said that there was a load more analysis required as they do not have the data to adjust of occupation and a shed load of other contributing factors that may be causing some groups to becoming infected more often than other groups.
If you go back to the start of the show you will hear of all the problems with jumping to conclusions as many seem to have on here....
I think the lockdown is stupid and pointless and is probably killing or harming more people than the virus. I am amazed at the almost total lack of questioning of the policy and how readily people submit themselves to these rules. Now the bloke who recommended it is caught breaking his own policy. We have empty hospitals, idle doctors, vulnerable people isolated, mental health problems soaring, urgent treatments cancelled, people too scared to go to the doctor, businesses folding, unemployment surging. And yet virtually no one outside the twittersphere (maybe Peter Hitchens) has seriously asked WTF?
I am also surprised people just accept that the lockdown as the panacea to prevent Covid 19 spread, especially as our R figure was likely below 1 when we went into lockdown (based on the hospital admission peak on the 2nd April 2020). Maybe this much talked about enquiry will find that the lockdown only had a marginal impact on Covid-19 and that the other negative impacts of it were greater than its positives.
I really don't believe that graph as you can make it say whatever you want by picking different lag times. The government's advice was R was around 2 when the lockdown started.
I am not basing it on that graph at all because I don't know what parameters he used to produce it. I am just using basic common sense. If the peak of hospital admissions was the 2nd April then logically the peak of infections must have been 10-15 days before that. If that is wrong then please correct me. For it to be the peak of infections then the R figure must be below 1 from that day forward or there would another day when the peak was higher and consequently the peak of hospital admissions would be at a later date. If my logic is wrong then I am sorry. I know it is simplistic and the only way to really know is to test everyone in the country every day. As this can't be done I think Hospital admissions is best method of measuring when the peak of infections was.
I really can't see any logic to thinking the peak of infections being after the peak of hospital admissions.
The problem is that distributions don't behave in the way you'd like them to. You can't just subtract an arbitrary number from the distribution of deaths with respect to time, and expect that to closely approximate the distribution of infections. You might get a reasonable result, but you also might not - in practice, the functions that govern the death curve will be rather more complicated than just "infection plus x".
It does seem likely that there is some substantial genetic effect here, or at least some quite big effect which is not simply social deprivation and pre-existing conditions. If that is correct, then it is further reason to be cautious about international comparisons.
AFAICT the virus is racist, sexist, and ageist. If it could speak and use the wrong pronouns that would be a full house.
I'm sure it takes no account of pronouns, so it probably does have a full house.
It does seem likely that there is some substantial genetic effect here, or at least some quite big effect which is not simply social deprivation and pre-existing conditions. If that is correct, then it is further reason to be cautious about international comparisons.
They're not taking the fact they tend to live in densely-populated urban areas into account though.
Yes I think they are:
We find that adjusting for region of residence and the rural and urban classification improves the model fit and reduces substantially the odds ratios for all ethnic groups. Ethnic minority groups are also more likely to live in London and in an urban area compared with the White population. The probability to be infected by COVID-19 is likely to vary by region of residence and to be higher in more densely populated urban areas
It does seem likely that there is some substantial genetic effect here, or at least some quite big effect which is not simply social deprivation and pre-existing conditions. If that is correct, then it is further reason to be cautious about international comparisons.
They're not taking the fact they tend to live in densely-populated urban areas into account though.
Yes I think they are:
We find that adjusting for region of residence and the rural and urban classification improves the model fit and reduces substantially the odds ratios for all ethnic groups. Ethnic minority groups are also more likely to live in London and in an urban area compared with the White population. The probability to be infected by COVID-19 is likely to vary by region of residence and to be higher in more densely populated urban areas
Is it more finely granulated than "rural" and "urban"?
I think the lockdown is stupid and pointless and is probably killing or harming more people than the virus. I am amazed at the almost total lack of questioning of the policy and how readily people submit themselves to these rules. Now the bloke who recommended it is caught breaking his own policy. We have empty hospitals, idle doctors, vulnerable people isolated, mental health problems soaring, urgent treatments cancelled, people too scared to go to the doctor, businesses folding, unemployment surging. And yet virtually no one outside the twittersphere (maybe Peter Hitchens) has seriously asked WTF?
I am also surprised people just accept that the lockdown as the panacea to prevent Covid 19 spread, especially as our R figure was likely below 1 when we went into lockdown (based on the hospital admission peak on the 2nd April 2020). Maybe this much talked about enquiry will find that the lockdown only had a marginal impact on Covid-19 and that the other negative impacts of it were greater than its positives.
I really don't believe that graph as you can make it say whatever you want by picking different lag times. The government's advice was R was around 2 when the lockdown started.
I am not basing it on that graph at all because I don't know what parameters he used to produce it. I am just using basic common sense. If the peak of hospital admissions was the 2nd April then logically the peak of infections must have been 10-15 days before that. If that is wrong then please correct me. For it to be the peak of infections then the R figure must be below 1 from that day forward or there would another day when the peak was higher and consequently the peak of hospital admissions would be at a later date. If my logic is wrong then I am sorry. I know it is simplistic and the only way to really know is to test everyone in the country every day. As this can't be done I think Hospital admissions is best method of measuring when the peak of infections was.
I really can't see any logic to thinking the peak of infections being after the peak of hospital admissions.
It typically takes 5-6 days for symptoms to appear, not 10-15.
According to the Covid tracker app data, peak number of symptomatic infections (ie people with current illness) was 1 April with over 2 million. As of yesterday, 266,000.
I reported a sore throat on that app around that time, which turned out to be hayfever and a touch of coronacondria. No idea if that was recorded as a case of covid 19.
In the new world it might mean that friends of your friends might have to self-isolate for 14 days.
The reason for Eastern Europe's low death rate is more likely to be a combination of less international travel and rapid lockdowns. The Czech Republic and Slovakia, for example, began their lockdowns before they had recorded any Covid-19 deaths. We, on the other hand, waited until over 300 people had died of the virus! It's really no great mystery.
Eastern Europe, possibly. But given the close connections between Northern Italy and Austria and Germany, it is very odd, bordering on inexplicable, that the latter two weren't more badly hit in the early stages of this.
One thing I don't know, but would be interesting to see, is how the Alto Adige did. I don't recall them being particularly badly hit.
As I recollect, Austria and Switzerland were hit hard to begin with, but managed to get things under control, presumably thanks to their advanced health services. The same goes for Germany to a certain extent (or more precisely, Bavaria).
Germans send their old people to Eastern European care homes
BoE suggesting that future quarters will have some of the biggest growth the country has ever seen.
Yes. But you do know what the end result on the numbers are if something decreases by 90% and then increases by 90%...
The BoE seemed were more optimistic than that, weren't they?
They were. But we are talking baseline economic size here and the bounce back has to be pretty incredible to reach the status quo ante.
Yeah, I think the prediction was a couple of percent smaller. Not bad for something that fell 15% in a single year, and I think would meet Boris Johnson's definition.
It could be genetics but not necesssarily, especially if the figures reflect the chance of infection and not just death once infected. Class, or occupation, might explain why some groups are more likely to be infected than others. More West Indian than Chinese bus drivers, for instance. Different religions, and class, amongst Asian groups. Even geography as different ethnic groups are not uniformly distributed around the country, and nor is the virus. More research is, as they say, needed.
The ONS have adjusted for all those factors.
Not according to the guy from the ONS on 5Live at 10:00.
He said that there was a load more analysis required as they do not have the data to adjust of occupation and a shed load of other contributing factors that may be causing some groups to becoming infected more often than other groups.
If you go back to the start of the show you will hear of all the problems with jumping to conclusions as many seem to have on here....
The guy wasn't claiming it to be any more than it is, making clear that additional data is required that they do not have as not present in census or death certificate data.
Was asking for others to use the data to perform more analysis to better understand what is happening.
For example the ONS guy wanted data that showed if being BAME lead to greater chance of catching virus or greater chance of dying if catch virus or somewhere inbetween.
Not the faintest chance I will use this App and I know others who feel the same.
I'd consider the Apple / Google one if it's proven it doesn't store data.
I've seen a lot of that view on facebook. Makes me very sad.
We need this app. We need it to work. We need as many people to use it as possible, despite their distrust and disgust of the Tories.
Otherwise people die.
The data is only stored on your own device until the point at which you choose to contact the NHS using it.
No, that's how the Apple/Google solution works. The NHS one works with a big database of names and locations behind it.
No, the data of who you have contacted is only stored on the device until you report positive. At that point it is shared and those people are pinged.
Records of contacts will be stored on phones. If a user comes down with coronavirus symptoms they report this in the app. That data is then shared with a health service database and their anonymous ID matched with other phones they have come into contact with.
Not with the NHS solution, only with the A/G solution. the NHS solution is using a central database of contacts.
Saying that contacts are stored on phones is not saying that contacts are *only* stored on phones. The language used is deliberately vague.
"You won't share anything until you need to make a report, with all the data remaining on your phone until you need to report that you're having COVID-19 symptoms"
Doesn't sound vague to me.
They refer to sharing with others, those with whom you've been in contact. They are also correct that the data remains on your phone.
What they're deliberately not saying is that it also resides on the government servers at all times. The company who have been writing the software are a big database company, with apparently zero experience of writing mobile apps.
I'm generally supportive of the government, but they've screwed this one up.
No, the quote is from an article on a technology website which is quite explicit that the data will not leave your phone. Your idea that "won't share anything" means you are still sharing it with the government is wrong. The data does not reside on the government servers. Quite apart from the civil liberties aspect, there are lots of technical reasons why you simply wouldn't do this.
In that case, why would you have a big data company with little experience on mobile apps write the thing?
From a technical standpoint, the way you'd do it if you wanted a contract tracking app is exactly what A and G have done, with a long list of anonymised ID number pairs and no other information. The way you'd do it if you want to track locations and interactions of known people in a large central database is the way NHSX have done it. Now, that's not to say that knowing about the location of infection hotspots is a bad thing, but there's a lot being said by omission about what the NHSX app does and how it works.
Who are the big data company you say wrote it? I can't find any information about that.
The privacy concerns, as I understand it, are around the fact that the app sends your contact information to a central server when you report yourself as having symptoms or are diagnosed. That allows the central server to send notifications to those devices that have been in contact with you.
The difference is that NHSX app does not send your contact information unless you tell it you are infected as per my earlier post whereas the Google/Apple approach doesn't send your contact information under any circumstances.
Not the faintest chance I will use this App and I know others who feel the same.
I'd consider the Apple / Google one if it's proven it doesn't store data.
I've seen a lot of that view on facebook. Makes me very sad.
We need this app. We need it to work. We need as many people to use it as possible, despite their distrust and disgust of the Tories.
Otherwise people die.
The data is only stored on your own device until the point at which you choose to contact the NHS using it.
No, that's how the Apple/Google solution works. The NHS one works with a big database of names and locations behind it.
No, the data of who you have contacted is only stored on the device until you report positive. At that point it is shared and those people are pinged.
Records of contacts will be stored on phones. If a user comes down with coronavirus symptoms they report this in the app. That data is then shared with a health service database and their anonymous ID matched with other phones they have come into contact with.
Not with the NHS solution, only with the A/G solution. the NHS solution is using a central database of contacts.
Saying that contacts are stored on phones is not saying that contacts are *only* stored on phones. The language used is deliberately vague.
"You won't share anything until you need to make a report, with all the data remaining on your phone until you need to report that you're having COVID-19 symptoms"
Doesn't sound vague to me.
They refer to sharing with others, those with whom you've been in contact. They are also correct that the data remains on your phone.
What they're deliberately not saying is that it also resides on the government servers at all times. The company who have been writing the software are a big database company, with apparently zero experience of writing mobile apps.
I'm generally supportive of the government, but they've screwed this one up.
No, the quote is from an article on a technology website which is quite explicit that the data will not leave your phone. Your idea that "won't share anything" means you are still sharing it with the government is wrong. The data does not reside on the government servers. Quite apart from the civil liberties aspect, there are lots of technical reasons why you simply wouldn't do this.
In that case, why would you have a big data company with little experience on mobile apps write the thing?
From a technical standpoint, the way you'd do it if you wanted a contract tracking app is exactly what A and G have done, with a long list of anonymised ID number pairs and no other information. The way you'd do it if you want to track locations and interactions of known people in a large central database is the way NHSX have done it. Now, that's not to say that knowing about the location of infection hotspots is a bad thing, but there's a lot being said by omission about what the NHSX app does and how it works.
Who are the big data company you say wrote it? I can't find any information about that.
The privacy concerns, as I understand it, are around the fact that the app sends your contact information to a central server when you report yourself as having symptoms or are diagnosed. That allows the central server to send notifications to those devices that have been in contact with you.
The difference is that NHSX app does not send your contact information unless you tell it you are infected as per my earlier post whereas the Google/Apple approach doesn't send your contact information under any circumstances.
Just to add, I believe NHSX has said they will publish the source code to the app, so we'll be able to see exactly what it does send.
BoE suggesting that future quarters will have some of the biggest growth the country has ever seen.
Yes. But you do know what the end result on the numbers are if something decreases by 90% and then increases by 90%...
The BoE seemed were more optimistic than that, weren't they?
Much more. 14% decline followed by 15% growth.
So let me get this straight on views on the BoE:
a) Brexit: useless, politically motivated, all remainers, forecasts should be ignored; and b) CV-19: seers of our age, got it about right, sounds sensible, yes we'll take those forecasts.
I think the lockdown is stupid and pointless and is probably killing or harming more people than the virus. I am amazed at the almost total lack of questioning of the policy and how readily people submit themselves to these rules. Now the bloke who recommended it is caught breaking his own policy. We have empty hospitals, idle doctors, vulnerable people isolated, mental health problems soaring, urgent treatments cancelled, people too scared to go to the doctor, businesses folding, unemployment surging. And yet virtually no one outside the twittersphere (maybe Peter Hitchens) has seriously asked WTF?
I am also surprised people just accept that the lockdown as the panacea to prevent Covid 19 spread, especially as our R figure was likely below 1 when we went into lockdown (based on the hospital admission peak on the 2nd April 2020). Maybe this much talked about enquiry will find that the lockdown only had a marginal impact on Covid-19 and that the other negative impacts of it were greater than its positives.
I really don't believe that graph as you can make it say whatever you want by picking different lag times. The government's advice was R was around 2 when the lockdown started.
I am not basing it on that graph at all because I don't know what parameters he used to produce it. I am just using basic common sense. If the peak of hospital admissions was the 2nd April then logically the peak of infections must have been 10-15 days before that. If that is wrong then please correct me. For it to be the peak of infections then the R figure must be below 1 from that day forward or there would another day when the peak was higher and consequently the peak of hospital admissions would be at a later date. If my logic is wrong then I am sorry. I know it is simplistic and the only way to really know is to test everyone in the country every day. As this can't be done I think Hospital admissions is best method of measuring when the peak of infections was.
I really can't see any logic to thinking the peak of infections being after the peak of hospital admissions.
It typically takes 5-6 days for symptoms to appear, not 10-15.
According to the Covid tracker app data, peak number of symptomatic infections (ie people with current illness) was 1 April with over 2 million. As of yesterday, 266,000.
I reported a sore throat on that app around that time, which turned out to be hayfever and a touch of coronacondria. No idea if that was recorded as a case of covid 19.
I've been reporting mild hay-fever symptoms for some time, until last week when I hit 5 of the symptoms. I watched one of their podcasts - they correlate symptoms with people who report that they have had tests and whether they were positive or not. So I would guess it is likely they ignore niggly hay fever
BoE suggesting that future quarters will have some of the biggest growth the country has ever seen.
Yes. But you do know what the end result on the numbers are if something decreases by 90% and then increases by 90%...
The BoE seemed were more optimistic than that, weren't they?
Much more. 14% decline followed by 15% growth.
So let me get this straight on views on the BoE:
a) Brexit: useless, politically motivated, all remainers, forecasts should be ignored; and b) CV-19: seers of our age, got it about right, sounds sensible, yes we'll take those forecasts.
Is that it?
I think he was commenting more on the tweet, and how the person tweeting didn't seem to realise that the BoE basically said the same thing as Johnson.
My furlough has been extended by another two weeks. I just wish I could do something with the time other than sit at home. So far I've started learning Italian, become a pretty decent baker, learned how to make pasta without a pasta machine and started researching how to brew my own beer. I'm running out of things to do.
Are you in town? How about birds and birdsong; cloud types; tree types; counting paving stones; 8hr plank; learning the harppenny whistlelead guitarpiano recorder online; War & Peace; A la recherche du temps perdu; Catcher in the Rye; the entire Alex Rider back catalogue; the entire Asterix back catalogue; etc
Trouble with Catcher in the Rye is it only takes 3 hours. Although it can consume far more time if you read it and then spend months pretending to be Holden Caulfield - as I did.
It does seem likely that there is some substantial genetic effect here, or at least some quite big effect which is not simply social deprivation and pre-existing conditions. If that is correct, then it is further reason to be cautious about international comparisons.
They're not taking the fact they tend to live in densely-populated urban areas into account though.
Yes I think they are:
We find that adjusting for region of residence and the rural and urban classification improves the model fit and reduces substantially the odds ratios for all ethnic groups. Ethnic minority groups are also more likely to live in London and in an urban area compared with the White population. The probability to be infected by COVID-19 is likely to vary by region of residence and to be higher in more densely populated urban areas
Is it more finely granulated than "rural" and "urban"?
They adjust by region, so effectively yes.
Obviously more research is needed, but it seems to me that, as with many other diseases, there's a high chance that genetic factors correlated with race are significant.
BoE suggesting that future quarters will have some of the biggest growth the country has ever seen.
Yes. But you do know what the end result on the numbers are if something decreases by 90% and then increases by 90%...
The BoE seemed were more optimistic than that, weren't they?
Much more. 14% decline followed by 15% growth.
So let me get this straight on views on the BoE:
a) Brexit: useless, politically motivated, all remainers, forecasts should be ignored; and b) CV-19: seers of our age, got it about right, sounds sensible, yes we'll take those forecasts.
Is that it?
No one said that about the BoE forecasts tbf, it was the treasury report that got a lot of shit for predicting a bunch of stuff that didn't happen.
Wait, no, I tried reading it and gave up after he complained that we don't have a functioning free press, on the basis that they won't all write what he wants them to write.
I think his point is more that they seem to write what the government wants them to write. The best bit of the article for me was - regarding the Ferguson thing - his saying how tacky and inappropriate it was to splash the WOMAN'S face all over the front pages. I'm glad I'm not alone in finding that completely outrageous.
Is there any evidence to the claim the government wanted them to write that?
And anyway his whole thesis is nonsense since he's spinning the claim that the UK's death toll is higher than Italy's when we know that is factually incorrect given Italy's death toll isn't trying to include the care home deaths of which we know there have been a lot.
So he's complaining the press aren't lying. What a shame.
Can I link to a memo from the government asking for the papers to lead with a massive photo of Ferguson's girlfriend rather than our Covid-19 death toll becoming the highest in Europe?
Let me have a root around. I'll be back.
Thanks. Let me know when you are back.
Again feat toll being highest in Europe is nonsense unless you look per capita (Belgium are worse) or like for like with accurate stats (Italy and Spain are worse)
It's a landmark that ought to trigger debate and introspection. The debate to include points of context and mitigation such as "apples and pears" and the introspection to focus on the lives lost, mistakes made, the way forward. That's what I would expect. Not a foaming laceration of the government. Not an airbrushing of the big picture in favour of sexist trivia.
Pointing out the hypocrisy of those involved in leading our response is not sexist trivia. It wasn't with NZ's health minister, it wasn't with Scotland's CSO and it isn't with Ferguson. Pointing out hypocrisy is part of what a free press should be doing and airbrushing that out to hyperventilate over fake comparisons isn't progress.
Why was the woman's face splashed bigger than anything else?
I think the lockdown is stupid and pointless and is probably killing or harming more people than the virus. I am amazed at the almost total lack of questioning of the policy and how readily people submit themselves to these rules. Now the bloke who recommended it is caught breaking his own policy. We have empty hospitals, idle doctors, vulnerable people isolated, mental health problems soaring, urgent treatments cancelled, people too scared to go to the doctor, businesses folding, unemployment surging. And yet virtually no one outside the twittersphere (maybe Peter Hitchens) has seriously asked WTF?
I am also surprised people just accept that the lockdown as the panacea to prevent Covid 19 spread, especially as our R figure was likely below 1 when we went into lockdown (based on the hospital admission peak on the 2nd April 2020). Maybe this much talked about enquiry will find that the lockdown only had a marginal impact on Covid-19 and that the other negative impacts of it were greater than its positives.
I really don't believe that graph as you can make it say whatever you want by picking different lag times. The government's advice was R was around 2 when the lockdown started.
I am not basing it on that graph at all because I don't know what parameters he used to produce it. I am just using basic common sense. If the peak of hospital admissions was the 2nd April then logically the peak of infections must have been 10-15 days before that. If that is wrong then please correct me. For it to be the peak of infections then the R figure must be below 1 from that day forward or there would another day when the peak was higher and consequently the peak of hospital admissions would be at a later date. If my logic is wrong then I am sorry. I know it is simplistic and the only way to really know is to test everyone in the country every day. As this can't be done I think Hospital admissions is best method of measuring when the peak of infections was.
I really can't see any logic to thinking the peak of infections being after the peak of hospital admissions.
6-15 days from exposure to hospital admission; median 11 days.
I think that there has been too much emphasis on we did what seemed right on the evidence we had at the time and not enough on well, if we knew what we know now... On that I agree.
Nonsense, it's a novel virus, to not go as precautionary as possible was always wildly irresponsible.
So you think we should have closed the economy down for SARS? Or H1N1 or bird flu? Novel virus is not the criteria, nor is there any absolutes.
International flights from any region with cases when SARS 1 was going round ? Yes.
We live in a globalised world. The damage that would cause would outweigh the benefits by an order of magnitude.
Plus what do we do with the potentially millions of Britons abroad?
If the incidence of the virus is similar in the place from where the flight started, it makes no difference to the UK. Mixing two pots (albeit unequal in size) of the same temperature water makes no difference to the temperature of the combined pot.
No transmission during a long distance flight occurs ?
A curious theory.
So your concern is transmission during the flight, not foreigners coming into the country bringing the plague with them. OK. I understand that. It's similar to a crowded pub - maybe not quite as bad if they wear masks.
You seem particularly agitated by flights. Your original post that sparked my response was blocking international flights from any region with cases when SARS 1 was going round as an example. Not transmission on the flight.
BoE suggesting that future quarters will have some of the biggest growth the country has ever seen.
Yes. But you do know what the end result on the numbers are if something decreases by 90% and then increases by 90%...
The BoE seemed were more optimistic than that, weren't they?
Much more. 14% decline followed by 15% growth.
So let me get this straight on views on the BoE:
a) Brexit: useless, politically motivated, all remainers, forecasts should be ignored; and b) CV-19: seers of our age, got it about right, sounds sensible, yes we'll take those forecasts.
Is that it?
No one said that about the BoE forecasts tbf, it was the treasury report that got a lot of shit for predicting a bunch of stuff that didn't happen.
BINGO!
You have a bit of time on your hands and were looking for things to do - so what better way to spend your extended furlough than by trawling through PB posts to see what leavers were saying about Mark Carney and the BoE in the run up to and after the referendum.
Wait, no, I tried reading it and gave up after he complained that we don't have a functioning free press, on the basis that they won't all write what he wants them to write.
I think his point is more that they seem to write what the government wants them to write. The best bit of the article for me was - regarding the Ferguson thing - his saying how tacky and inappropriate it was to splash the WOMAN'S face all over the front pages. I'm glad I'm not alone in finding that completely outrageous.
Is there any evidence to the claim the government wanted them to write that?
And anyway his whole thesis is nonsense since he's spinning the claim that the UK's death toll is higher than Italy's when we know that is factually incorrect given Italy's death toll isn't trying to include the care home deaths of which we know there have been a lot.
So he's complaining the press aren't lying. What a shame.
Can I link to a memo from the government asking for the papers to lead with a massive photo of Ferguson's girlfriend rather than our Covid-19 death toll becoming the highest in Europe?
Let me have a root around. I'll be back.
Thanks. Let me know when you are back.
Again feat toll being highest in Europe is nonsense unless you look per capita (Belgium are worse) or like for like with accurate stats (Italy and Spain are worse)
It's a landmark that ought to trigger debate and introspection. The debate to include points of context and mitigation such as "apples and pears" and the introspection to focus on the lives lost, mistakes made, the way forward. That's what I would expect. Not a foaming laceration of the government. Not an airbrushing of the big picture in favour of sexist trivia.
Pointing out the hypocrisy of those involved in leading our response is not sexist trivia. It wasn't with NZ's health minister, it wasn't with Scotland's CSO and it isn't with Ferguson. Pointing out hypocrisy is part of what a free press should be doing and airbrushing that out to hyperventilate over fake comparisons isn't progress.
Why was the woman's face splashed bigger than anything else?
Men seem to like that watching that sort of thing. So people tell me.
I've got a radical idea - lets tell people what they can and cannot do. And then empower the police to enforce it. That way everyone is clear what we can do.
Instead of saying x but in reality its y and the police are making a nuisance trying to stop people for z
BoE suggesting that future quarters will have some of the biggest growth the country has ever seen.
Yes. But you do know what the end result on the numbers are if something decreases by 90% and then increases by 90%...
The BoE seemed were more optimistic than that, weren't they?
Much more. 14% decline followed by 15% growth.
So let me get this straight on views on the BoE:
a) Brexit: useless, politically motivated, all remainers, forecasts should be ignored; and b) CV-19: seers of our age, got it about right, sounds sensible, yes we'll take those forecasts.
Is that it?
No one said that about the BoE forecasts tbf, it was the treasury report that got a lot of shit for predicting a bunch of stuff that didn't happen.
Oh and, it didn't happen because the BoE acted pre-emptively in word and deed.
I picked up a bit of Italian when inter-railing as a youth.
e pericoloso sporgersi - it means "do not lean out of the window".
Not quite.
It means "it's dangerous to lean out of the window" - which always struck me as an interesting contrast to the nannyish "Do Not" of Britain or the authoritarian "Verboten" or "Interdit" (forbidden) of Germany and France.
I think the lockdown is stupid and pointless and is probably killing or harming more people than the virus. I am amazed at the almost total lack of questioning of the policy and how readily people submit themselves to these rules. Now the bloke who recommended it is caught breaking his own policy. We have empty hospitals, idle doctors, vulnerable people isolated, mental health problems soaring, urgent treatments cancelled, people too scared to go to the doctor, businesses folding, unemployment surging. And yet virtually no one outside the twittersphere (maybe Peter Hitchens) has seriously asked WTF?
I am also surprised people just accept that the lockdown as the panacea to prevent Covid 19 spread, especially as our R figure was likely below 1 when we went into lockdown (based on the hospital admission peak on the 2nd April 2020). Maybe this much talked about enquiry will find that the lockdown only had a marginal impact on Covid-19 and that the other negative impacts of it were greater than its positives.
I really don't believe that graph as you can make it say whatever you want by picking different lag times. The government's advice was R was around 2 when the lockdown started.
I am not basing it on that graph at all because I don't know what parameters he used to produce it. I am just using basic common sense. If the peak of hospital admissions was the 2nd April then logically the peak of infections must have been 10-15 days before that..
So, err, the 23 of March then? When lockdown was enacted?
Absolutely, so that means the biggest reductions in the R figure were before lockdown.
BoE suggesting that future quarters will have some of the biggest growth the country has ever seen.
Yes. But you do know what the end result on the numbers are if something decreases by 90% and then increases by 90%...
The BoE seemed were more optimistic than that, weren't they?
Much more. 14% decline followed by 15% growth.
So let me get this straight on views on the BoE:
a) Brexit: useless, politically motivated, all remainers, forecasts should be ignored; and b) CV-19: seers of our age, got it about right, sounds sensible, yes we'll take those forecasts.
Is that it?
Absolutely not!
It's an initial estimate to be taken with a mountain of salt. However Scott posting that preposterous Tweet suggesting that the BoE was contradictory with what Boris was saying when it's not they're saying the same thing.
As it happens I think the BoE and Boris are being optimistic here but I also think that's the outward projection they should give now. People need hope and confidence.
I've got a radical idea - lets tell people what they can and cannot do. And then empower the police to enforce it. That way everyone is clear what we can do.
Instead of saying x but in reality its y and the police are making a nuisance trying to stop people for z
Despite it not being a legal requirement, the advice has been followed by the great majority of people. I suspect if that hadn't been the case, the advice would have been made more formal.
BoE suggesting that future quarters will have some of the biggest growth the country has ever seen.
Yes. But you do know what the end result on the numbers are if something decreases by 90% and then increases by 90%...
The BoE seemed were more optimistic than that, weren't they?
They were. But we are talking baseline economic size here and the bounce back has to be pretty incredible to reach the status quo ante.
Within 2 years is the BoE projection. Quite incredible if so.
Take off the missed growth and we will have an economy about 4% lower than we might have expected by the end of 2021.
Yes, but that's not the worst result ever, I think it's going to be a lot worse if there's no vaccine by the end of this year as people are hoping for.
Comments
But if people are led to believe lockdown is over, there could be frustration when it turns not to be, and worse, a catastrophic reprise of the epidemic.
I get the whole nudge thing but it's not the law (cf don't drink and drive, smoking kills, etc).
https://twitter.com/NationalTheatre/status/1258322314866954240
(You might want to brush up on your 1974 knowledge beforehand, to get the full experience).
I really can't see any logic to thinking the peak of infections being after the peak of hospital admissions.
My guess would be a non linearity of consequence for the control factors (It hits the vulnerable MUCH harder than those who aren't) - so even if you control for those factors there is still an effect.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/methodologies/coronavirusrelateddeathsbyethnicgroupenglandandwalesmethodology
Obviously there are many uncertainties (hence the error bars), but this is about as authoritative as any analysis can be on the data currently available.
If the virus can get to work early and hard on your kidneys, lungs and heart (As it will be doing quickly in fatal cases) it's definitely not going to be 10-15 days before symptons.
https://twitter.com/thesun/status/1251861228361785344?s=21
But the play is informative and moving. I recommend it, having seen it twice.
I don’t believe Britain is a country of racists. But we have been conditioned to erase the contribution of ethnic minorities to our national identity.
I have faith in the British public than you do. The law should be the MINIMUM necessary, the lowest common denominator. The advice should be BEST PRACTICE and a higher standard.
If someone has special reasons to feel they need to exercise twice in a day then I'd rather they use their common sense. I'd rather not see the Police involved with that.
I hope we never see the day where the law is used to enforce all advice.
Both are relevant. As they should be.
Why is there a significant difference between Pakistani/Bangladeshi and Indian cases, isn't that a bit like a control between western and eastern europeans ?
Points to some non genetic factors perhaps ?
BoE suggesting that future quarters will have some of the biggest growth the country has ever seen.
e pericoloso sporgersi - it means "do not lean out of the window".
And I'll go with your perp Covid bonds - very good idea - so long as you consider my property tax. Year 1 quite big then annually at a low enough rate to avoid that "negative feedback loop" we were rather worried about.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.08.20057794v1.full.pdf
Tables on pages 20-21 show Asians doing worse than the (White) reference group, but African Americans doing slightly better (albeit the p-value on the hospitalisation table isn't particularly encouraging.
Albeit the studies agree that there's some kind of genetic effect, but I would have expected results from "African American" in the US to translate more or less to "Black" in the UK?
One thing I don't know, but would be interesting to see, is how the Alto Adige did. I don't recall them being particularly badly hit.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/langholm-moor-buyout?utm_source=customer&utm_medium=copy_link&utm_campaign=m_pd+share-sheet
HYUFD!!!! COME AND PUT THIS PERSON STRAIGHT!
Bank of England: GDP will grow 15% next year.
Glad to see you're still incapable or reading comprehension and just Tweet garbage. Some stability in a world of chaos.
It has done in every other recession except the one where we throttled off recovery in the Act of self harm called austerity.
Too many people in this country think that understanding the technical details (even at a high level) is beneath them, icky and/or nerdy.
I had an interesting conversation with a major historian, a while ago. He was basically horrified by my proposed thesis - the technical issues which blocked/delayed switching production between sectors in WWII. Apparently this wasn't interesting. It was quite clear, that to him, the details of specialist machine tools (for example) was trade, yucky and generally should be reserved for people like the tank restorers at Bovington.
https://twitter.com/lymanstoneky/status/1258347424591929345?s=21
He said that there was a load more analysis required as they do not have the data to adjust of occupation and a shed load of other contributing factors that may be causing some groups to becoming infected more often than other groups.
If you go back to the start of the show you will hear of all the problems with jumping to conclusions as many seem to have on here....
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_five_live
No idea if that was recorded as a case of covid 19.
Unless that's the point they were making.
Seriously though, Vitamin D?
We find that adjusting for region of residence and the rural and urban classification improves the model fit and reduces substantially the odds ratios for all ethnic groups. Ethnic minority groups are also more likely to live in London and in an urban area compared with the White population. The probability to be infected by COVID-19 is likely to vary by region of residence and to be higher in more densely populated urban areas
Quite a high takeup - even if gov't assumptions require more...
Number of current Covid ICU cases.
https://www.icuregswe.org/data--resultat/covid-19-i-svensk-intensivvard/
Was asking for others to use the data to perform more analysis to better understand what is happening.
For example the ONS guy wanted data that showed if being BAME lead to greater chance of catching virus or greater chance of dying if catch virus or somewhere inbetween.
The privacy concerns, as I understand it, are around the fact that the app sends your contact information to a central server when you report yourself as having symptoms or are diagnosed. That allows the central server to send notifications to those devices that have been in contact with you.
The difference is that NHSX app does not send your contact information unless you tell it you are infected as per my earlier post whereas the Google/Apple approach doesn't send your contact information under any circumstances.
a) Brexit: useless, politically motivated, all remainers, forecasts should be ignored; and
b) CV-19: seers of our age, got it about right, sounds sensible, yes we'll take those forecasts.
Is that it?
Obviously more research is needed, but it seems to me that, as with many other diseases, there's a high chance that genetic factors correlated with race are significant.
You seem particularly agitated by flights. Your original post that sparked my response was blocking international flights from any region with cases when SARS 1 was going round as an example. Not transmission on the flight.
You have a bit of time on your hands and were looking for things to do - so what better way to spend your extended furlough than by trawling through PB posts to see what leavers were saying about Mark Carney and the BoE in the run up to and after the referendum.
Instead of saying x but in reality its y and the police are making a nuisance trying to stop people for z
It means "it's dangerous to lean out of the window" - which always struck me as an interesting contrast to the nannyish "Do Not" of Britain or the authoritarian "Verboten" or "Interdit" (forbidden) of Germany and France.
It's an initial estimate to be taken with a mountain of salt. However Scott posting that preposterous Tweet suggesting that the BoE was contradictory with what Boris was saying when it's not they're saying the same thing.
As it happens I think the BoE and Boris are being optimistic here but I also think that's the outward projection they should give now. People need hope and confidence.