Our system detected that your browser is blocking advertisements on our site. Please help support FoxesTalk by disabling any kind of ad blocker while browsing this site. Thank you.
Jump to content
 Share
filbertway

Coronavirus Thread

By filbertway, in General Chat

Recommended Posts

Guest Sideshow Faes

Guest Sideshow Faes

Posted
Posted
19 minutes ago, Paninistickers said:

Thanks. As is aid, was happy to be corrected on that. 

 

The media however ALWAYS reported the figures as deaths who had had COVID in the last 30 days

 

Pretty such every scientist going expects the death figures to be significantly understated, not overstated, as has been the case in every previous pandemic.

The figures haven't gone down using the new measure. It's just under 200,000 in England alone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • Popular Post
orangecity23

orangecity23

Posted
  • Popular Post
Posted

Why are people still talking about the "Deaths from Covid / Deaths with Covid" argument. It was bollocks, still is bollocks, and always will be bollocks.

 

It was explained repeatedly at the time. They had ONS figures where Covid was the cause of death on the death certificate. These were deaths "from" Covid. These numbers were always at least a week behind, because they would only be reflected when the death certificate paperwork had been done. This was a big problem at the time, as the daily cases would sometimes be increasing on an exponential basis, so waiting an extra week to find out how ****ed everything was before doing anything about it would result in the situation being an order of magnitude worse.

The number of people who died "with" Covid could be easily obtained, up to date every day. The government had a database of all the positive test results. They had a database of all the dead people. All that had to be done was to query the databases to see who was in both. This is why it was the reported number, it was the most up to date data available.

 

Now, would this include some people who died of other causes? Probably. Would deaths from other causes have been wildly varying during this time, increasing daily - or - a statistically small subset that remains more or less the same size over a period of time? Here's a question for all the free thinkers out there - since you were all so concerned about them at the time - do you think we had a massive increase in people being "hit by a bus" over that period - or, maybe, it is the same number of people normally hit by a bus - or, perhaps, given that traffic was at its lowest level for years and most people were inside all day - MASSIVELY LOWER THAN NORMAL?

 

Oh, what do you know:

Chart 2: Percentage change in casualties compared to 2019, by month and severity, Great Britain, January 2020 to June 2022

image-22-1.svg

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-provisional-estimates-year-ending-june-2022/reported-road-casualties-in-great-britain-provisional-estimates-year-ending-june-2022

 

Funnily enough, the argument never goes the other way. There's never a hypothetical person who was tested 31 days ago who died from Covid being excluded from the figures. And when the With and For figures were compared, they always lined up once you applied the 1 week lag. Furthermore, once the conspiracy chat moved onto the vaccine, suddenly everyone who died after having the vaccine was definitely killed by the vaccine. Because thats how conspiacy theorists work - there is no persuading them otherwise, they simply ignore everything that might disprove their theory and double down on any insignificant crumb that could be used to justify it.

image-22-1.svg

  • Like 4
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • Popular Post
leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
  • Popular Post
Posted

Professor Jonathan Van-Tam: "I did not expect my family to be threatened with having their throats cut".

 

Well, yes, you might expect a certain level of decency from the public towards a scientific figure who didn't actually do anything wrong except in the fantasies of those who wanted a scapegoat for a brutal act of nature.

  • Like 5
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Wymsey

Wymsey

Posted
Posted
48 minutes ago, Lionator said:

there’s a new unidentified pneumonia doing the rounds in China. Buckle up folks. Let’s pray it isn’t happening again. 

Does anyone still believe that Covid-19 was made by an 'accidental' leak in a Chinese laboratory?..

  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
Lionator

Lionator

Posted
Posted
46 minutes ago, Wymsey said:

Does anyone still believe that Covid-19 was made by an 'accidental' leak in a Chinese laboratory?..

There was something out in the past couple of weeks about a common ancestor being found in bats so probably not, and no way did anyone release it on purpose at a state level. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Paninistickers

Paninistickers

Posted
Posted
5 hours ago, leicsmac said:

brutal act of nature

Oh come on, I know we'll never agree on the seriousness of COVID or the reaction to it, but 'brutal act of nature' is stretching it a bit.

 

The Indonesian tsunami. AIDS. Bubonic Plague. Ebola. That recent hurricane in Mexico. Aggressive stomach cancers. Yup, brutal. A flu like illness that causes a week or so of sub par health for 99% of people?  

Link to comment
Share on other sites
leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted (edited)
31 minutes ago, Paninistickers said:

Oh come on, I know we'll never agree on the seriousness of COVID or the reaction to it, but 'brutal act of nature' is stretching it a bit.

 

The Indonesian tsunami. AIDS. Bubonic Plague. Ebola. That recent hurricane in Mexico. Aggressive stomach cancers. Yup, brutal. A flu like illness that causes a week or so of sub par health for 99% of people?  

The thing killed more people than half of the things on that list, and more than all wars and conflicts in the 21st Century put together. (Not to mention we have treated all of the above with the greatest seriousness anyway.)

 

Perhaps brutal is overstating it somewhat, but the sheer number of hats on the ground and the short time it took to deliver them merited at least as much attention as it got, and possibly more.

 

NB. I'm assuming the actions of a few "free-thinkers" towards the family of Van-Tam was unacceptable?

Edited by leicsmac
  • Thanks 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites
orangecity23

orangecity23

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Paninistickers said:

Oh come on, I know we'll never agree on the seriousness of COVID or the reaction to it, but 'brutal act of nature' is stretching it a bit.

 

The Indonesian tsunami. AIDS. Bubonic Plague. Ebola. That recent hurricane in Mexico. Aggressive stomach cancers. Yup, brutal. A flu like illness that causes a week or so of sub par health for 99% of people?  

 

4th Deadliest Pandemic in human history - brutal. 5th deadliest - NO BIG DEAL

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_epidemics_and_pandemics

 

2nd deadliest? Just a piffling little flu like illness, don't see why anyone made a big fuss at the time, it's not like it killed more people than WW1 - oh wait. It did.

 

  • Like 1
  • Thanks 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
  • 2 weeks later...
leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted
28 minutes ago, DennisNedry said:

There are still scientists that believe this https://mol.im/a/12811711

To clarify, that this virus could have gotten out of the Wuhan lab accidentally and the Chinese covered it up is possible - there's currently no theory that meets an adequate burden of proof (despite what this talking head might say expressing opinion as fact), though the zoonotic origin is considered most likely by most.

 

The virus being released deliberately or even the inference thereof (like in this article) is ridiculous xenophobic Yellow Peril rubbish that is par for the course for the Mail, but which no really self respecting scientist should have his name on.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites
DennisNedry

DennisNedry

Posted
Posted
22 hours ago, leicsmac said:

To clarify, that this virus could have gotten out of the Wuhan lab accidentally and the Chinese covered it up is possible - there's currently no theory that meets an adequate burden of proof (despite what this talking head might say expressing opinion as fact), though the zoonotic origin is considered most likely by most.

 

The virus being released deliberately or even the inference thereof (like in this article) is ridiculous xenophobic Yellow Peril rubbish that is par for the course for the Mail, but which no really self respecting scientist should have his name on.

I'm not saying I agree with him by the way, it's really impossible for the average Joe to know one way or the other. 

 

In the defence of the author, he doesn't explicitly say it was deliberately released although I would accept it is perhaps inferred as one option, alongside accidental escape. He also suggests that the US could have been in collaboration with China.

 

What interests me more is these kinds of statements:

"The giveaway that the Covid virus is man-made are those telltale receptors, one of which is known as the Furin Cleavage Site. HIV fixes mainly on to one receptor - but the Covid virus binds to several, allowing it to lock into cells in the nose, mouth, lungs and elsewhere in the body.

This gives the virus what we call a hypercharge, making it much more positively charged than any virus has been before.

The Covid virus is designed for maximum impact - no such structure has occurred naturally in other coronaviruses"

 

"in 2013, molecular biologists in the Wuhan Institute announced that such a viral structure had been created by genetic modification in the lab. They openly admitted they were working on this technique to magnify the viral charge, in so-called 'gain-of-function' research".

 

As I say, how am I to evaluate these comments? I've no scientific knowledge. What he's saying could be bollocks. I don't know.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, DennisNedry said:

I'm not saying I agree with him by the way, it's really impossible for the average Joe to know one way or the other. 

 

In the defence of the author, he doesn't explicitly say it was deliberately released although I would accept it is perhaps inferred as one option, alongside accidental escape. He also suggests that the US could have been in collaboration with China.

 

Yeah, he doesn't have to say it explicitly, the inference is enough. The Mail (and their legal team, obviously) are very good at such inferences that fall just short of libel.

 

1 hour ago, DennisNedry said:

What interests me more is these kinds of statements:

"The giveaway that the Covid virus is man-made are those telltale receptors, one of which is known as the Furin Cleavage Site. HIV fixes mainly on to one receptor - but the Covid virus binds to several, allowing it to lock into cells in the nose, mouth, lungs and elsewhere in the body.

This gives the virus what we call a hypercharge, making it much more positively charged than any virus has been before.

The Covid virus is designed for maximum impact - no such structure has occurred naturally in other coronaviruses"

 

"in 2013, molecular biologists in the Wuhan Institute announced that such a viral structure had been created by genetic modification in the lab. They openly admitted they were working on this technique to magnify the viral charge, in so-called 'gain-of-function' research".

 

As I say, how am I to evaluate these comments? I've no scientific knowledge. What he's saying could be bollocks. I don't know.

 

As you say, it is really damn difficult when someone with credentials comes out with this kind of stuff because it sounds like they know what they're talking about (and they do) and it's difficult for a layman to parse such comments. That's what makes it all the more difficult to weed out the dishonest actors from the honest ones, especially when the former are telling a group of people what they want to hear. It's frustrating and I have sympathy for folks who would read this and be not sure what to think of it because it's (accidentally or deliberately) not framed at a level for everyone to understand - not good science communication, again, accidentally or by design.

 

In this case, what he's saying here is a blend of half-truths ("HIV fixes mainly on to one receptor - but the Covid virus binds to several, allowing it to lock into cells in the nose, mouth, lungs and elsewhere in the body") and speculation dressed up as fact ("The Covid virus is designed for maximum impact - no such structure has occurred naturally in other coronaviruses"). It says just about enough that's true to sound good, but doesn't tell anywhere near the whole story - a common tactic used by such "mavericks" to get people on their side of a particular scientific issue.

 

It is very frustrating because again, as you say, it's difficult for people to parse the truth of it because of the phrasing and because there's just enough fact in there, and some people won't try because it satisfies their confirmation bias, and the Mail knows this.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Paninistickers

Paninistickers

Posted
Posted

Genuine question. What are these protestors at Johnson's evidence complaining about exactly? 

 

Lockdown was to slow the rate and spread of infection, right? With the intended end effect to avoid hospitals becoming overwhelmed. It wasn't about preventing spread, but slowing it. The horse had bolted. 

 

 

a weak immune system was always gonna struggle, regardless if you caught the thing in March or November. I can't stand Johnson, but you can't blame him for an individual reaction to a virus. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites
leicsmac

leicsmac

Posted
Posted
25 minutes ago, Paninistickers said:

Genuine question. What are these protestors at Johnson's evidence complaining about exactly? 

 

Lockdown was to slow the rate and spread of infection, right? With the intended end effect to avoid hospitals becoming overwhelmed. It wasn't about preventing spread, but slowing it. The horse had bolted. 

 

 

a weak immune system was always gonna struggle, regardless if you caught the thing in March or November. I can't stand Johnson, but you can't blame him for an individual reaction to a virus. 

Just my take, but I think it's just a reaction from those who think that because he was the PM at the time, the buck stopped with him on the whole matter.

 

I don't buy that unilaterally either - we don't have an executive system of government in that way so it's not just on him. However, given the raw numbers of deaths, it's a fact that the UK didn't respond to the crisis as well as comparable nations did and that at least in part lies at the feet of the government response.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
 Share
Go to topic listing

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...