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FeersumEnjineeya said:

Foxy said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

Philip_Thompson said:

MaxPB said:

dixiedean said:

138 dead. Almost a plane crash load.
138 dead in any incident in the UK would have led the news for days if not months a mere 6 months ago.

How many of those died naturally or of other causes though? The death statistics are untrustworthy at the moment, the ONS series is better.

I suspect the overwhelming majority if not all.

I think this is care homes combining with the flaw in the date for PHE.

It is worth remembering that all care home patients have been tested for COVID and all are getting tested weekly which means any COVID patient who has had th virus since testing became widespread is known about.

And care home residents die on average within a year of admission. They don't have a long life expectancy.

So any care home resident who has tested positive, recovered, then later dies of natural causes (as they're expected to do within a year) gets recorded as a COVID death by PHE.

It wouldn't surprise me if hundreds or even thousands of care home residents a month who have recovered from COVID are dying of entirely natural causes and PHE are erroneously recording them as COVID deaths.

I see you are making up the facts to suit your case again, Philip.

"The statistics show that the average length of stay in a single residential care home in England that ended in a service users’ death was around 26 months, although this statistic does not include any previous stays in other homes."

https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2017-09-05/8937

That may be the Mean, but I think the Median is shorter.

It's extremely unlikely that the median is less than a year if the mean is 26 months. You'd have to have a very strange distribution of life expectancies, with most of the inmates popping their clogs within a few months of arrival and a lucky few living there for many years.

No, I think that is often the pattern. Old folk don't move well, and there is high mortality after a move. Some do live on for a good few years.

Anyone fancy some freedom fighter's tears?

https://twitter.com/LaraCrabb/status/1286568323887620096?s=20

Theuniondivvie said:

Anyone fancy some freedom fighter's tears?

https://twitter.com/LaraCrabb/status/1286568323887620096?s=20

Philip_Thompson said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Foxy said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

Philip_Thompson said:

MaxPB said:

dixiedean said:

138 dead. Almost a plane crash load.
138 dead in any incident in the UK would have led the news for days if not months a mere 6 months ago.

How many of those died naturally or of other causes though? The death statistics are untrustworthy at the moment, the ONS series is better.

I suspect the overwhelming majority if not all.

I think this is care homes combining with the flaw in the date for PHE.

It is worth remembering that all care home patients have been tested for COVID and all are getting tested weekly which means any COVID patient who has had th virus since testing became widespread is known about.

And care home residents die on average within a year of admission. They don't have a long life expectancy.

So any care home resident who has tested positive, recovered, then later dies of natural causes (as they're expected to do within a year) gets recorded as a COVID death by PHE.

It wouldn't surprise me if hundreds or even thousands of care home residents a month who have recovered from COVID are dying of entirely natural causes and PHE are erroneously recording them as COVID deaths.

I see you are making up the facts to suit your case again, Philip.

"The statistics show that the average length of stay in a single residential care home in England that ended in a service users’ death was around 26 months, although this statistic does not include any previous stays in other homes."

https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2017-09-05/8937

That may be the Mean, but I think the Median is shorter.

Thank you Foxy.

I don't appreciate being accused of making things up.

Well stop making things up then. Or at least quote your source if you expect to be taken seriously. I gave a concrete, reliable source for the figure of 26 months. You have given no source at all for your claim of less than 12 months, other than "I read it somewhere".

Excuse me? Not only did I quote it, I tagged you in it.

Philip_Thompson said:

@FeersumEnjineeya "56% residents dying within a year of admission" - https://academic.oup.com/ageing/article/43/3/375/16665

Sorry, I missed that. I note though that it refers to a sample of residences from the south-east of the UK. It is not a national statistic like the one I gave.

I'd also note again that average does generally refer to the arithmetic mean. If you are instead referring to the median, then you should explicitly say so.

In this case though median gives a much better picture than mean: it’s a bit like half-life for radioactive decay. Calculating the average life of a carbon 14 atom would give a very misleading number.

Thank you. In the context of the logical (not political) argument I was trying to make regarding trying to understand the statistics I certainly think the median is more relevant.

Now that it's settled that the mean average is indeed within 12 months I wonder if anyone wants to go back to the original post that sparked that and say if it makes sense or not?

Logically to me if there are thousands or tens of thousands of care residents on PHEs database for having tested positive (even if months ago and they've recovered) then a considerable number may die of natural causes which will be a considerable factor in the non-hospital deaths getting recorded.

The fact we are not getting many hospital deaths, but lots of non hospital ones, and excess deaths are negative (on a real-time basis) to me this is the only thing I can think of that squares all those figures. Otherwise it doesn't make sense why people are dying outside of hospitals in considerable numbers but not inside.

Um.

The above establishes that the Median was within 12 months, *not* the Mean.

I'll assume a typo :-) .

https://twitter.com/SalomonSoup/status/1286718595016413186

Theuniondivvie said:

Anyone fancy some freedom fighter's tears?

https://twitter.com/LaraCrabb/status/1286568323887620096?s=20

I just don't get the mentality here. If a government's diabolical plan to curtail my liberty involves making me cover up my ugly face in public whilst leaving my political and speaking liberty intact, I think I can live with it.

Philip_Thompson said:

I don't understand the "lockdown sceptics" opposed to masks.

Masks are the alternative to locking down FFS!

I think such people reveal themselves through such action as actually just being contrarian.

kle4 said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Anyone fancy some freedom fighter's tears?

https://twitter.com/LaraCrabb/status/1286568323887620096?s=20

I just don't get the mentality here. If a government's diabolical plan to curtail my liberty involves making me cover up my ugly face in public whilst leaving my political and speaking liberty intact, I think I can live with it.

I hesitate to pronounce on Britishness, but I'd imagine laughing at people like this is closer to its spirit than howling on the internet about mask Nazis and face nappies.

state_go_away said:

kle4 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

I don't understand the "lockdown sceptics" opposed to masks.

Masks are the alternative to locking down FFS!

I think such people reveal themselves through such action as actually just being contrarian.

Its not about being contrarian at all. If you dismiss people as being a bit awkward or weird who disagree with the mainstream establishment view you get things like Brexit. I remember the same sort of dismisssiveness and arrogance then when it was thought anyone who did not want to stay in the EU was a racist or at least a fruitcake. Its good some people do challenge directives like this n any case as its not clear cut masks will do anything to help covid 19 go away

TO be clear I did vote to remain in the EU/ but was livid at the time at the sneering of the remain campaign and its right on celebrities who frankly lost the vote in the end literally as it was that sneering that pushed at least 2% to vote to leave

Andy_JS said:

Philip_Thompson said:

I don't understand the "lockdown sceptics" opposed to masks.

Masks are the alternative to locking down FFS!

Could we have avoided the lockdown by wearing masks earlier?

I think you would have had to be a visionary to have recommended mask wearing during February there is evidence that where mask wearing was ‘normal’ they have had a better pandemic.

LadyG said:

Tony Blair is Not Optimistic about The Bug

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53525470

The stats support him. i just noticed that in the last two days the world reported 275-280,000 new cases.

By a margin, these are the highest daily totals. This damn virus is ACCELERATING

India is starting to register a lot of cases. That may be the explanation.

state_go_away said:

kle4 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

I don't understand the "lockdown sceptics" opposed to masks.

Masks are the alternative to locking down FFS!

I think such people reveal themselves through such action as actually just being contrarian.

Its not about being contrarian at all. If you dismiss people as being a bit awkward or weird who disagree with the mainstream establishment view you get things like Brexit. I remember the same sort of dismisssiveness and arrogance then when it was thought anyone who did not want to stay in the EU was a racist or at least a fruitcake. Its good some people do challenge directives like this n any case as its not clear cut masks will do anything to help covid 19 go away

I was a Brexit supporter at the time, I definitely do not dismiss people who take a view other than the 'mainstream' nor automatically dismiss their views, indeed I would rather hear the thoughts of people I do think as racists, idiots, or racist idiots, than not hear them, as it means I know what they think and even terrible, terrible people can occasionally have an idea which is reasonable.

But if someone is ideologically opposed to locking down, or opposed to locking down for some other reason, then on a practical basis they should support masks as masks are the means by which the government is relaxing said lockdown.

Questioning the effectiveness or not of masks is actually secondary to the point - whether you believe masks will help or not, if you don't want lockdown to continue or be reimposed, you should back the measures proposed to stop that happening.

Opposing both lockdown and the means by which the lockdown has been permitted to be relaxed is what I would call contrarian, and the attempt to conflate it with something like Brexit is unbelievably tenuous.

kle4 said:

state_go_away said:

kle4 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

I don't understand the "lockdown sceptics" opposed to masks.

Masks are the alternative to locking down FFS!

I think such people reveal themselves through such action as actually just being contrarian.

Its not about being contrarian at all. If you dismiss people as being a bit awkward or weird who disagree with the mainstream establishment view you get things like Brexit. I remember the same sort of dismisssiveness and arrogance then when it was thought anyone who did not want to stay in the EU was a racist or at least a fruitcake. Its good some people do challenge directives like this n any case as its not clear cut masks will do anything to help covid 19 go away

I was a Brexit supporter at the time, I definitely do not dismiss people who take a view other than the 'mainstream' nor automatically dismiss their views, indeed I would rather hear the thoughts of people I do think as racists, idiots, or racist idiots, than not hear them, as it means I know what they think and even terrible, terrible people can occasionally have an idea which is reasonable.

But if someone is ideologically opposed to locking down, or opposed to locking down for some other reason, then on a practical basis they should support masks as masks are the means by which the government is relaxing said lockdown.

Questioning the effectiveness or not of masks is actually secondary to the point - whether you believe masks will help or not, if you don't want lockdown to continue or be reimposed, you should back the measures proposed to stop that happening.

Opposing both lockdown and the means by which the lockdown has been permitted to be relaxed is what I would call contrarian, and the attempt to conflate it with something like Brexit is unbelievably tenuous.

The link is the need to sneer (in this case contrarian is used by yourself as a sneer) at the off mainstream establishment view

Andy_JS said:

kle4 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

I don't understand the "lockdown sceptics" opposed to masks.

Masks are the alternative to locking down FFS!

I think such people reveal themselves through such action as actually just being contrarian.

https://twitter.com/PaulEmbery/status/1286658392019202053

Another one who has missed the point. It was about people who opposed lockdown ideologically who also oppose the action to come out of lockdown that I was talking about, not efficacy of masks.

There are people debating efficacy of masks. There are also people decrying the imposition of masks as primarily an issue of freedom. The latter are contrarian. The former may or may not have a point, I don't know nor do I much care.

In point of fact I don't have a mask and haven't been out and about as a result.

https://twitter.com/jonronson/status/1278297386058727425

state_go_away said:

kle4 said:

state_go_away said:

kle4 said:

Philip_Thompson said:

I don't understand the "lockdown sceptics" opposed to masks.

Masks are the alternative to locking down FFS!

I think such people reveal themselves through such action as actually just being contrarian.

Its not about being contrarian at all. If you dismiss people as being a bit awkward or weird who disagree with the mainstream establishment view you get things like Brexit. I remember the same sort of dismisssiveness and arrogance then when it was thought anyone who did not want to stay in the EU was a racist or at least a fruitcake. Its good some people do challenge directives like this n any case as its not clear cut masks will do anything to help covid 19 go away

I was a Brexit supporter at the time, I definitely do not dismiss people who take a view other than the 'mainstream' nor automatically dismiss their views, indeed I would rather hear the thoughts of people I do think as racists, idiots, or racist idiots, than not hear them, as it means I know what they think and even terrible, terrible people can occasionally have an idea which is reasonable.

But if someone is ideologically opposed to locking down, or opposed to locking down for some other reason, then on a practical basis they should support masks as masks are the means by which the government is relaxing said lockdown.

Questioning the effectiveness or not of masks is actually secondary to the point - whether you believe masks will help or not, if you don't want lockdown to continue or be reimposed, you should back the measures proposed to stop that happening.

Opposing both lockdown and the means by which the lockdown has been permitted to be relaxed is what I would call contrarian, and the attempt to conflate it with something like Brexit is unbelievably tenuous.

The link is the need to sneer (in this case contrarian is used by yourself as a sneer) at the off mainstream establishment view

That use of the word contrarian must be a sneer is your inference only. Why do you suppose you automatically assumed such a thing? Do you secretly believe it should be sneered at?

And it was an assumption, as shown by your as it turns out incorrect suggestion that use of such a 'sneer' was 'the same sort of dismissiveness' as people dismissing Brexit supporters, even though I supported Brexit for many years.

I'd suggest you are seeing a sneer where none existed. What is was, was a criticism. You may not think it a valid one, and others may agree, but trying to turn the target of my criticism into martyrs of some mainstream 'sneering' is laughable. At the very least if you are looking for a sneer I'd think you will have to look at bit harder.

USA Dem Veep pick -- Karen Bass has shortened on Betfair and has now replaced Tammy Duckworth as third favourite.

Significant? Probably not on most days but this is when the Biden team is supposed to wrap up its background checks so it is possible a revised shortlist has leaked.

Btw I get the impression one of the main players closes their position each day, presumably so as not to get caught out by overnight news.

Kamala Harris 2.8
Susan Rice 4.6
Karen Bass 6.6
Tammy Duckworth 7.8
Elizabeth Warren 16.5
Val Demings 18
34 bar

https://twitter.com/ProjectLincoln/status/1286392679232942080

RochdalePioneers said:

I can understand why people are freaked about masks. It's about as far from normal as you can get. They aren't fun if you wear glasses or have asthma or suffer from claustrophobia or a whole host of other things.

So as well as the libertarian lunatics I suspect other objections are from people who just don't like the bloody things. Yes I got the train this afternoon as a planned way home from mega bike ride but won't be doing so unless absolutely have to. And trips to the shops can get pared back as well.

I wonder when they will say we can take them off again...

They are a bit odd and can be a bit uncomfortable, but people will get used to them. People felt the same about seat belts when they first started being used - it felt very odd and uncomfortable to use one. Now it seems odd and uncomfortable not to.

Andy_JS said:

LadyG said:

Tony Blair is Not Optimistic about The Bug

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53525470

The stats support him. i just noticed that in the last two days the world reported 275-280,000 new cases.

By a margin, these are the highest daily totals. This damn virus is ACCELERATING

India is starting to register a lot of cases. That may be the explanation.

A lot of countries like India, Peru etc did a big thing about "We Are Locking Down Harder Than Anyone".

Turned out that a lockdown is hard to do, and requires a substantial economic infrastructure to actually allow people to stay home.

rcs1000 said:

Masks.

The primary goal is not to prevent you being infected, it is to prevent you from spreading the disease to other people.

It is transmitted via when people breath, or sing, or sneeze, or play beer pong.

When people wear masks, a large portion of droplets and aerosols from the upper repository tract are trapped, and even those that do depart the mouth and nose, go less far.

If everyone wore masks it would not completely stop CV19 transmission. However, it would make it much less likely that people with CV19 passed it on to other people unknowingly.

This is not complicated.

What gets me are the idiots who argue that because masks are imperfect we shouldn't bother with them. An "argument" that applies to essentially everything. I could beat those people with a big stick.

Malmesbury said:

Andy_JS said:

LadyG said:

Tony Blair is Not Optimistic about The Bug

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-53525470

The stats support him. i just noticed that in the last two days the world reported 275-280,000 new cases.

By a margin, these are the highest daily totals. This damn virus is ACCELERATING

India is starting to register a lot of cases. That may be the explanation.

A lot of countries like India, Peru etc did a big thing about "We Are Locking Down Harder Than Anyone".

Turned out that a lockdown is hard to do, and requires a substantial economic infrastructure to actually allow people to stay home.

You can lockdown too early, as well as too late, and getting the timing just right requires either luck or hindsight.

glw said:

rcs1000 said:

Masks.

The primary goal is not to prevent you being infected, it is to prevent you from spreading the disease to other people.

It is transmitted via when people breath, or sing, or sneeze, or play beer pong.

When people wear masks, a large portion of droplets and aerosols from the upper repository tract are trapped, and even those that do depart the mouth and nose, go less far.

If everyone wore masks it would not completely stop CV19 transmission. However, it would make it much less likely that people with CV19 passed it on to other people unknowingly.

This is not complicated.

What gets me are the idiots who argue that because masks are imperfect we shouldn't bother with them. An "argument" that applies to essentially everything. I could beat those people with a big stick.

Oh yeah - I have that at work with smart people all the time: "There's no point in doing x, because it misses 10% of edge cases."

SO F**KING WHAT??? DON'T LET GREAT BE THE ENEMY OF GOOD. 90% IS A HELL OF A LOT BETTER THAN 0%.

rcs1000 said:

https://twitter.com/jonronson/status/1278297386058727425

I doubt it. It's part of an ongoing anti-rational trend. Sod science, I'll decide the facts as I please, thank you. See also: flat Earthery, AGW denial, anti-vaxxers, anti-GMers, 5G conspiracy theorists and religious belief in general. I have given up being amazed at the utter nonsense that people are capable of giving credence to.

rcs1000 said:

https://twitter.com/jonronson/status/1278297386058727425

And a President of the United States running for reelection boasting on TV about passing a dementia test.

"You have to say these five words and if you get them in the right order you get extra points."

A truly bizarre episode in history. There will be many books.

glw said:

rcs1000 said:

Masks.

The primary goal is not to prevent you being infected, it is to prevent you from spreading the disease to other people.

It is transmitted via when people breath, or sing, or sneeze, or play beer pong.

When people wear masks, a large portion of droplets and aerosols from the upper repository tract are trapped, and even those that do depart the mouth and nose, go less far.

If everyone wore masks it would not completely stop CV19 transmission. However, it would make it much less likely that people with CV19 passed it on to other people unknowingly.

This is not complicated.

What gets me are the idiots who argue that because masks are imperfect we shouldn't bother with them. An "argument" that applies to essentially everything. I could beat those people with a big stick.

What gets me is I don't see anyone arguing against underpants. Society deems it necessary that we cover our junk out of decency and even the libertarians amongst us are pretty happy we live in a society where pants-wearing is enforced.

So everyone is cool with the state legislating to make sure we cover up our bits in public, but when the state asks us to put a cloth covering over our faces to actually save lives, people lose their minds. Madness.

OllyT said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Anyone fancy some freedom fighter's tears?

https://twitter.com/LaraCrabb/status/1286568323887620096?s=20

I regularly come across videos of no-maskers (usually Americans) having tantrums in shops and airlines, last one being a "Karen" being hauled off an AA flight to great applause from all the other passengers.

Without exception they come across as total loonies. Why anyone could possibly get that het up about being asked to wear a face covering in the interests of trying to stop the virus spreading is completely beyond me.

Even if they think it's not going to do much good does it really matter? I think there must just be a small number of bloody minded souls that wander round looking for something to rant about, I suppose it's a form of attention seeking.

Is it necessary for you to describe people you disagree with as loonies?

kinabalu said:

rcs1000 said:

https://twitter.com/jonronson/status/1278297386058727425

And a President of the United States running for reelection boasting on TV about passing a dementia test.

"You have to say these five words and if you get them in the right order you get extra points."

A truly bizarre episode in history. There will be many books.

Am personally waiting for the movie - a title role that Danny DeVito was born to play.

LadyG said:

kle4 said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Anyone fancy some freedom fighter's tears?

https://twitter.com/LaraCrabb/status/1286568323887620096?s=20

I just don't get the mentality here. If a government's diabolical plan to curtail my liberty involves making me cover up my ugly face in public whilst leaving my political and speaking liberty intact, I think I can live with it.

The strangest thing about all this, for me, is that I have started to find masks "sexy". They make you concentrate on the eyes, and the rest of the face is left to your vivid imagination. Masks, in this light, are coquettish: like a flirtatious Victorian woman hiding her face with a lacy fan.

Covering up can be as erotic as revealing. The same process happens if you spend a long time in a conservative Islamic country.

Went to Tesco’s today and the butcher. Everyone was wearing a mask of some type.

What I miss is not being able to smile at people. Or have them smile back.

Richard_Nabavi said:

RochdalePioneers said:

I can understand why people are freaked about masks. It's about as far from normal as you can get. They aren't fun if you wear glasses or have asthma or suffer from claustrophobia or a whole host of other things.

So as well as the libertarian lunatics I suspect other objections are from people who just don't like the bloody things. Yes I got the train this afternoon as a planned way home from mega bike ride but won't be doing so unless absolutely have to. And trips to the shops can get pared back as well.

I wonder when they will say we can take them off again...

They are a bit odd and can be a bit uncomfortable, but people will get used to them. People felt the same about seat belts when they first started being used - it felt very odd and uncomfortable to use one. Now it seems odd and uncomfortable not to.

The ones recommended by our very own @Charles are very comfortable, if not cheap.

Richard_Nabavi said:

RochdalePioneers said:

I can understand why people are freaked about masks. It's about as far from normal as you can get. They aren't fun if you wear glasses or have asthma or suffer from claustrophobia or a whole host of other things.

So as well as the libertarian lunatics I suspect other objections are from people who just don't like the bloody things. Yes I got the train this afternoon as a planned way home from mega bike ride but won't be doing so unless absolutely have to. And trips to the shops can get pared back as well.

I wonder when they will say we can take them off again...

They are a bit odd and can be a bit uncomfortable, but people will get used to them. People felt the same about seat belts when they first started being used - it felt very odd and uncomfortable to use one. Now it seems odd and uncomfortable not to.

It used to be odd and uncomfortable to wear a helmet on a bike or motorbike.
Slightly less uncomfortable than a fractured skull, mind.

bigjohnowls said:

Mexicanpete said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Bit of a reek of trying to convince himself. Not a whiff of mea culpa naturally.

https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1286693381620596736?s=20

A world beating Prime Minister?

Yes world beating, indeed miles ahead.

In terms of Covid deaths per Million in all the major Nations of the World we are in a league of our own.

Waits for PT, Big G, Rob et al trying to convince us San Marino and Belgium are major Nations.

I was just questioning Johnson's own analysis of the job he seems to think he has done over the last twelve months.

The lack of humility and self awareness is reminiscent of Trump.

rcs1000 said:

https://twitter.com/jonronson/status/1278297386058727425

The Spanish Flu saw the Anti Mask League in California.

"Coronavirus driven out in most local areas

Almost nine in ten people live in areas that have effectively driven out coronavirus, analysis of official data shows.

Ward-level data on positive coronavirus tests shows that 48 million people live in areas of England that have had no confirmed cases in the past four weeks, suggesting that local transmission of the virus has been halted." (£)

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/coronavirus-driven-out-in-most-local-areas-rmllw92z2

Alistair said:

rcs1000 said:

https://twitter.com/jonronson/status/1278297386058727425

The Spanish Flu saw the Anti Mask League in California.

Bet the KKK were and are anti maskers.

Malmesbury said:

England Deaths - Hospital vs Other Settings.

Usual caveats apply. Interesting that the slope on the 7 day trendlines is so similar.

I note that the 7-day moving average number of daily new cases reported for the UK has now risen to 656 from a low point of 545 on 8 July. Hopefully this doesn't represent the start of a second wave of infections, but it does look a little ominous. It'll be interesting (and of course worrying) to see if this is reflected in rising deaths over the coming weeks.

Cyclefree said:

LadyG said:

kle4 said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Anyone fancy some freedom fighter's tears?

https://twitter.com/LaraCrabb/status/1286568323887620096?s=20

I just don't get the mentality here. If a government's diabolical plan to curtail my liberty involves making me cover up my ugly face in public whilst leaving my political and speaking liberty intact, I think I can live with it.

The strangest thing about all this, for me, is that I have started to find masks "sexy". They make you concentrate on the eyes, and the rest of the face is left to your vivid imagination. Masks, in this light, are coquettish: like a flirtatious Victorian woman hiding her face with a lacy fan.

Covering up can be as erotic as revealing. The same process happens if you spend a long time in a conservative Islamic country.

Went to Tesco’s today and the butcher. Everyone was wearing a mask of some type.

What I miss is not being able to smile at people. Or have them smile back.

Will be nice when we can get back to normal, but definitely better to be able to get out and about and at least see and talk to people, than being locked down again. Its remarkable how many states in the USA are now going into second lockdowns having to shut down pubs and restaurants etc again, lets hope that never happens again here!

Hope your daughters reopening is going well. Best wishes for her.

williamglenn said:

Some of the replies to that tweet are hilarious.

https://twitter.com/Warnzwifey/status/1286592653472272385

You won't be surprised to learn that she's a Brexiteer and Farage fan.

https://twitter.com/Warnzwifey/status/1220293576539721728

Mexicanpete said:

bigjohnowls said:

Mexicanpete said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Bit of a reek of trying to convince himself. Not a whiff of mea culpa naturally.

https://twitter.com/BorisJohnson/status/1286693381620596736?s=20

A world beating Prime Minister?

Yes world beating, indeed miles ahead.

In terms of Covid deaths per Million in all the major Nations of the World we are in a league of our own.

Waits for PT, Big G, Rob et al trying to convince us San Marino and Belgium are major Nations.

I was just questioning Johnson's own analysis of the job he seems to think he has done over the last twelve months.

The lack of humility and self awareness is reminiscent of Trump.

I lasted about 30 seconds before the overwhelming bombast made me throw up... How anyone can take that clown seriously is beyond me.

FeersumEnjineeya said:

MattW said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Fysics_Teacher said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

Philip_Thompson said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Foxy said:

FeersumEnjineeya said:

Philip_Thompson said:

MaxPB said:

dixiedean said:

138 dead. Almost a plane crash load.
138 dead in any incident in the UK would have led the news for days if not months a mere 6 months ago.

How many of those died naturally or of other causes though? The death statistics are untrustworthy at the moment, the ONS series is better.

I suspect the overwhelming majority if not all.

I think this is care homes combining with the flaw in the date for PHE.

It is worth remembering that all care home patients have been tested for COVID and all are getting tested weekly which means any COVID patient who has had th virus since testing became widespread is known about.

And care home residents die on average within a year of admission. They don't have a long life expectancy.

So any care home resident who has tested positive, recovered, then later dies of natural causes (as they're expected to do within a year) gets recorded as a COVID death by PHE.

It wouldn't surprise me if hundreds or even thousands of care home residents a month who have recovered from COVID are dying of entirely natural causes and PHE are erroneously recording them as COVID deaths.

I see you are making up the facts to suit your case again, Philip.

"The statistics show that the average length of stay in a single residential care home in England that ended in a service users’ death was around 26 months, although this statistic does not include any previous stays in other homes."

https://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/written-questions-answers-statements/written-question/Commons/2017-09-05/8937

That may be the Mean, but I think the Median is shorter.

Thank you Foxy.

I don't appreciate being accused of making things up.

Well stop making things up then. Or at least quote your source if you expect to be taken seriously. I gave a concrete, reliable source for the figure of 26 months. You have given no source at all for your claim of less than 12 months, other than "I read it somewhere".

Excuse me? Not only did I quote it, I tagged you in it.

Philip_Thompson said:

@FeersumEnjineeya "56% residents dying within a year of admission" - https://academic.oup.com/ageing/article/43/3/375/16665

Sorry, I missed that. I note though that it refers to a sample of residences from the south-east of the UK. It is not a national statistic like the one I gave.

I'd also note again that average does generally refer to the arithmetic mean. If you are instead referring to the median, then you should explicitly say so.

In this case though median gives a much better picture than mean: it’s a bit like half-life for radioactive decay. Calculating the average life of a carbon 14 atom would give a very misleading number.

Thank you. In the context of the logical (not political) argument I was trying to make regarding trying to understand the statistics I certainly think the median is more relevant.

Now that it's settled that the mean average is indeed within 12 months I wonder if anyone wants to go back to the original post that sparked that and say if it makes sense or not?

Logically to me if there are thousands or tens of thousands of care residents on PHEs database for having tested positive (even if months ago and they've recovered) then a considerable number may die of natural causes which will be a considerable factor in the non-hospital deaths getting recorded.

The fact we are not getting many hospital deaths, but lots of non hospital ones, and excess deaths are negative (on a real-time basis) to me this is the only thing I can think of that squares all those figures. Otherwise it doesn't make sense why people are dying outside of hospitals in considerable numbers but not inside.

Um.

The above establishes that the Median was within 12 months, *not* the Mean.

I'll assume a typo :-) .

The median for the south east of England was within 12 months. Once again, that is not a national statistic! But what the hell. It if suits Philip's argument to assume that it is, then who am I to argue?

Mutliple other sources have been posted by other people since all saying the exact same thing!

I'm not even trying to have an argument, I'm trying to understand what's going on in the statistics. But yes, many sources now have been posted saying the same thing.

Look, I can just about grudgingly accept the need for masks as a very shot-term necessity.

But I suspect a lot of the fervent anti-masker stuff comes from three things.

One, breathing's pretty fundamental. It's fundamental and universal and basic and automatic in a way that wearing a seatbelt because you're driving a big metal box at 70 on an M-way...isn't. Seatbelts and masks are not a good parallel. Drink-driving and masks is an even stupider parallel. Telling people they're potentially killing people just because they're breathing, even though they don't feel or look sick, isn't an argument anyone wants to hear, even if indirectly it might not be that far from the truth.

Two, we were all perfectly happy breathing in everyone else's shit when all it meant was feeling miserable from having a snotty cold or a sore throat or shitting and sicking out every orifice from the norovirus. If masks are so good at stopping transmission and are so easy to get used to then have the balls to say we should be wearing them permanently in public to stop transmission of all sorts of other crap no-one wants.

Three, where's the line going to get drawn? I saw an article today musing if it was going to be mandatory gloves in public next. Should we all just migrate to the hazmat suit now and skip the middle man?

SeaShantyIrish2 said:

kinabalu said:

rcs1000 said:

https://twitter.com/jonronson/status/1278297386058727425

And a President of the United States running for reelection boasting on TV about passing a dementia test.

"You have to say these five words and if you get them in the right order you get extra points."

A truly bizarre episode in history. There will be many books.

Am personally waiting for the movie - a title role that Danny DeVito was born to play.

☺ - Amazing you should say that. I cast WH2020 the movie on here a while back and DeVito was my choice for Trump too. I just hope he's available.

Andy_JS said:

It'll be interesting to see how many people carry on wearing facemasks after they're no longer compulsory.

Are you viewing mask wearing as woke?

Great video by Boris sharing his achievements after 12 months. I hadn't seen that, thank you to all his critics who've been sharing it here laughing at it. Made me smile

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Great video by Boris sharing his achievements after 12 months. I hadn't seen that, thank you to all his critics who've been sharing it here laughing at it. Made me smile

It's designed for simpletons

Your bitterness is showing.

CorrectHorseBattery said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Great video by Boris sharing his achievements after 12 months. I hadn't seen that, thank you to all his critics who've been sharing it here laughing at it. Made me smile

It's designed for simpletons

Whose votes count just as much as anyone else’s (at least they have done since, I think, 1948).

Philip_Thompson said:

Pagan2 said:

kyf_100 said:

glw said:

rcs1000 said:

Masks.

The primary goal is not to prevent you being infected, it is to prevent you from spreading the disease to other people.

It is transmitted via when people breath, or sing, or sneeze, or play beer pong.

When people wear masks, a large portion of droplets and aerosols from the upper repository tract are trapped, and even those that do depart the mouth and nose, go less far.

If everyone wore masks it would not completely stop CV19 transmission. However, it would make it much less likely that people with CV19 passed it on to other people unknowingly.

This is not complicated.

What gets me are the idiots who argue that because masks are imperfect we shouldn't bother with them. An "argument" that applies to essentially everything. I could beat those people with a big stick.

What gets me is I don't see anyone arguing against underpants. Society deems it necessary that we cover our junk out of decency and even the libertarians amongst us are pretty happy we live in a society where pants-wearing is enforced.

So everyone is cool with the state legislating to make sure we cover up our bits in public, but when the state asks us to put a cloth covering over our faces to actually save lives, people lose their minds. Madness.

But we aren't being asked to wear masks in shops to save lives we are being asked to wear masks in shops so they can shave a little of the R0 number so they can justify opening bars and restaurants again.

Inconvenience 100% in the hope of offsetting the disease spreading of the 30% that want to go have a pint or meal inside. Thankfully from what I see masks are being largely ignored here at least by small shops.

I am not aware of many if any hotspots that have been traced back to a supermarket, bars restaurants and nightclubs however. I personally would rather the last 3 had been left shut and think that we will have many hotspots crop up due to them

You'd literally rather bankrupt plenty of people's businesses and livelihoods and leave millions out of work than see people wearing a cloth mask? Madness.

People havent had to wear masks in shops we have had no spikes because of it.
Other countries have opened bars and clubs and have new spikes. Me wearing a mask in a shop won't make any difference to the spread.

Frankly if reopening pubs means lots of new spikes and deaths then keep them closed. People will have to find other jobs. I hear lots are being created in delivery services.

Philip_Thompson said:

Great video by Boris sharing his achievements after 12 months. I hadn't seen that, thank you to all his critics who've been sharing it here laughing at it. Made me smile

Yes, "more money for potholes" was a good line - I think. Though he didn't say what they were going to spend it on.

Other than that, struggling with his spiel about "reversing (some of) the Beeching cuts". Not sure this one has a metric by which to test it after over 50 years.