Coronavirus Thread

[Ollie93]

3 minutes ago, filbertway said:

I think it's another interesting one. They must make a lot of money from tourism, which is essentially dead there now.

 

Will be interesting to see how the country copes economically. Again - short term, great, they've kept the number of deaths down. Will it have negative long term effects though?

I think it will. If you go to Queenstown for example, all their money is in tourism, the economy is crippled. It's such a fine line tbh.

[leicsmac]

2 minutes ago, filbertway said:

I think it's another interesting one. They must make a lot of money from tourism, which is essentially dead there now.

 

Will be interesting to see how the country copes economically. Again - short term, great, they've kept the number of deaths down. Will it have negative long term effects though?

Well, let's say the US tops out at about 200,000 deaths directly from Covid, a conservative estimate and to say nothing of the economic strife it has caused there that might result in more - that's roughly 1/1600 of the population.

 

Divide the NZ population (4.886 mill) by 1600 to get the same death per capita rate and you get roughly 3053 deaths. Right now NZ has...22.

 

I'm going to be honest, I think it might take quite a bit of economic turmoil caused directly by Covid to cause another 3000-odd deaths in NZ, and that's not even taking into account the aforementioned economic result deaths in the US, too. Stranger things have happened, though.

[RowlattsFox]

Is there much tourism during the winter months in New Zealand? Maybe would have had a much bigger impact on the economy had the virus hit between October-January.

[simFox]

It will be interesting to see how NZ is affected to date. But the fact is, they can't hide behind the sofa forever, so at some point they are going to have to face the virus. I'm not so sure a vaccine will be enough, it hasn't cured the flu.

[BrokenRecord]

4 minutes ago, simFox said:

It will be interesting to see how NZ is affected to date. But the fact is, they can't hide behind the sofa forever, so at some point they are going to have to face the virus. I'm not so sure a vaccine will be enough, it hasn't cured the flu.

The vaccine will, in theory, be enough. The idea behind it is to stop the virus reaching the lower resperatory tract, which is what causes most of the life threatening issues. Of course someone with COPD or other lung diseases will be in danger from the virus, but it should stop it being such a danger to those who are over 40. So at the worst they'll feel under the weather, but not end up going onto ventilators. Meanwhile we will still have people developing the best strategies to deal with those who do get very sick from it.

[whoareyaaa]

https://granitegeek.concordmonitor.com/2020/08/05/analyzing-covid-data-with-a-weird-frequency-of-digits-law/

[filbertway]

10 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Well, let's say the US tops out at about 200,000 deaths directly from Covid, a conservative estimate and to say nothing of the economic strife it has caused there that might result in more - that's roughly 1/1600 of the population.

 

Divide the NZ population (4.886 mill) by 1600 to get the same death per capita rate and you get roughly 3053 deaths. Right now NZ has...22.

 

I'm going to be honest, I think it might take quite a bit of economic turmoil caused directly by Covid to cause another 3000-odd deaths in NZ, and that's not even taking into account the aforementioned economic result deaths in the US, too. Stranger things have happened, though.

I'm talking about quality of life more than just lives lost.

 

I expect scientists and doctors to only worry about the the disease and the health of the population, drawing conclusions based on data and taking risk averse approaches. I also think they pay very little attention to the economic issues that can be caused by essentially asking the country to cease operating, or operating at a level where jobs and industries are put at severe risk.

 

Much like I would expect an economist to advise in keeping the economy going - although they're probably terrified of doing that due to just being called heartless and not caring about people.

 

As I say - short term, the benefits of locking down are stats going down. We won't see the long term effects for a while, but I'm struggling to see anything but economic struggle for a lot of countries and people.

 

NZ unemployment is expected to double in September when wage subsidy runs out. At the minute their unemployment rate is masked by the fact that people aren't actively seeking work. Countries will have less money coming in from tax and will need to support more people out of work. The longer we're in this kind of limbo, the worse the effects will be.

 

Even on here it seems to be split on what the correct approach going forwards is, so I think it's fair to say that any decision makers are gonna get backing and slaughtered in equal measure. It'll be interesting in a year or two to see how individual approaches worked for different countries.

 

Ours seems to be governed by popular opinion and the media so let's hope the loudest shouters are right

 

I enjoy reading your posts on here btw @leicsmac Always find your posts measured and interesting 

[fuchsntf]

Booked my Covid- vaccine Russian holiday....Moskovskaya Osobaya  airlines

[leicsmac]

5 minutes ago, filbertway said:

I'm talking about quality of life more than just lives lost.

 

I expect scientists and doctors to only worry about the the disease and the health of the population, drawing conclusions based on data and taking risk averse approaches. I also think they pay very little attention to the economic issues that can be caused by essentially asking the country to cease operating, or operating at a level where jobs and industries are put at severe risk.

 

Much like I would expect an economist to advise in keeping the economy going - although they're probably terrified of doing that due to just being called heartless and not caring about people.

 

As I say - short term, the benefits of locking down are stats going down. We won't see the long term effects for a while, but I'm struggling to see anything but economic struggle for a lot of countries and people.

 

NZ unemployment is expected to double in September when wage subsidy runs out. At the minute their unemployment rate is masked by the fact that people aren't actively seeking work. Countries will have less money coming in from tax and will need to support more people out of work. The longer we're in this kind of limbo, the worse the effects will be.

 

Even on here it seems to be split on what the correct approach going forwards is, so I think it's fair to say that any decision makers are gonna get backing and slaughtered in equal measure. It'll be interesting in a year or two to see how individual approaches worked for different countries.

 

Ours seems to be governed by popular opinion and the media so let's hope the loudest shouters are right

 

I enjoy reading your posts on here btw @leicsmac Always find your posts measured and interesting 

Firstly, thank you for the compliment.

 

It's certainly possible that at least some scientists are only looking at the death toll directly due to Covid and overlooking the economic concerns, but I do also think that some can also find ways of quantifying the "quality of life" metric that you talk about and include it in their calculations. It's a key part of the picture, after all - those economic concerns do affect lives directly and indirectly and should be included in reliable models.

 

The issue here is that all of the models are very much conjectural because of our lack of information on how the disease perpetuates exactly, and as such making a decision based on that data is tricky - as it is split on here, so it is in the wider world because we simply can't predict things going forward in the way that can be done with other scientific models because we don't have enough puzzle pieces yet to make a coherent picture.

 

With that known and the additional knowledge that at least some of what we're doing now - whatever it may be - is causing the virus lethality to go down, the safest course of action is to simply continue until we have new information that indicates a different pathway would result in less overall suffering.

[simFox]

Some of what who is doing exactly, because there seems to be a number of different approaches.

 

Aus/NZ - totalitarian lockdown

Europe - full lockdown plus regional

USA - state/county variations

Sweden - social distancing

Brazil - beach party

[leicsmac]

One more there:

 

Belarus - vodka and sauna festival

[The People's Hero]

10 hours ago, Crinklyfox said:

Thanks for the info - I've never been Bob.  

He hasn't really. It was all the work of wily ol' TPH.

 

See if you can spot any others. Its a tedious, tedious game which is probably even worse than it sounds.

 

 

[Costock_Fox]

Oh FFS, 5000 zombies. 2020 can do one.

[simFox]

2 minutes ago, Costock_Fox said:

Oh FFS, 5000 zombies. 2020 can do one.

Still 4.5 months to go! 

[worth_the_wait]

England's "official" Coronavirus death toll is apparently to be reduced by about 5500 later this week.

 

The item was buried somewhere in the middle of BBC's Six O'Clock News programme. 

[st albans fox]

2 hours ago, worth_the_wait said:

England's "official" Coronavirus death toll is apparently to be reduced by about 5500 later this week.

 

The item was buried somewhere in the middle of BBC's Six O'Clock News programme. 

Interesting - you need to have tested positive for covid within 28 days prior to death for it to be counted as a covid death.  Here’s a novel idea = why not allow the health professional responsible for the death certificate to work out what was the cause of death !   I mean this new rule says that someone on a ventilator for 29 days after no longer testing positive won’t have died from covid .......   just nonsense.
the doctor who knows the patient will know if covid was the main contributor to the death - why govt have to get involved is just more crap piled on top of the enormous pile already created .....

[Sol thewall Bamba]

3 hours ago, worth_the_wait said:

England's "official" Coronavirus death toll is apparently to be reduced by about 5500 later this week.

 

The item was buried somewhere in the middle of BBC's Six O'Clock News programme. 

That'll be labeled as a "cover up" by the lockdown lovers then, even though the data is readily available from a reputable source. 

 

[Nuneatonfox in Manchester]

Let’s be honest, it’s bullshit.

[Stivo]

11 hours ago, st albans fox said:

Interesting - you need to have tested positive for covid within 28 days prior to death for it to be counted as a covid death.  Here’s a novel idea = why not allow the health professional responsible for the death certificate to work out what was the cause of death !   I mean this new rule says that someone on a ventilator for 29 days after no longer testing positive won’t have died from covid .......   just nonsense.
the doctor who knows the patient will know if covid was the main contributor to the death - why govt have to get involved is just more crap piled on top of the enormous pile already created .....

Boris Johnson was admitted to the icu 11 days after his positive test so he was then only 18 days away from being “cured” of Covid 19 regardless of the actual outcome.

I think that the government should be more open and not just bury this change.  What were the listed causes of death of these 5000 people, where did they die and were they ever admitted to hospital with covid19 or not?

 

If a significant number died of drowning, car crashes, flu,  without going to hospital or heart attacks, strokes long after being discharged from hospital then I agree that they are correct to remove them.

 

if on the other hand a significant number died in icus having been admitted to hospital with covid19 and never discharged then they surely have not.

[Trav Le Bleu]

18 hours ago, Costock_Fox said:

Oh FFS, 5000 zombies. 2020 can do one.

 

[Brenfox]

On 12/08/2020 at 10:21, Sol thewall Bamba said:

Eat out to help out is clearly having the desired effect here, everywhere is rammed inside and out. 

Is that serious or jest? I've not ventured near a pub/restaurant in months.

[Monk]

I have 3 friends in NZ and they're all super happy with the government's response there, and I would be too when you compare it to the calamitous handling elsewhere. How @simFox can call Arden Totalitarian is beyond me.

[Sol thewall Bamba]

29 minutes ago, Brenfox said:

Is that serious or jest? I've not ventured near a pub/restaurant in months.

Completely serious. I called 7 places last week before getting a table and the queue was out the door of the coffee shop I go to yesterday.

[leicsmac]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/science/coronavirus-bayes-statistics-math.html

 

A dense and interesting, if somewhat flawed, look at how important Bayesian analysis (as in, the world is complex, treat it as such and update your "priors" as often as possible) is in the field of stopping Covid, as well as other areas.

 

It's telling that places with leaderships that are seemingly more willing to adapt to the information available are doing "better" (figuratively speaking) at fighting Covid thus far than those who are not.

[TheUltimateWinner]

Welp, I'm waiting for my results, my partner got hers back last night (negative) within the 24 hour target window, but mine still hasn't turned up even though they were taken at the same time.

 

Just want to go on a walk!