Coronavirus Thread

[stix]

7 minutes ago, WigstonWanderer said:

Opinion is divided

 

https://www.health.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/2020/03/coronavirus-covid-19-identifying-the-symptoms.pdf
 

See runny nose

Absolute bollocks

[Guest Fktf]

10 minutes ago, Sampson said:

No. But as we've discussed on here many times before "underlying conditions" takes into account about half the population of the UK. It doesn't mean people who were already on their death beds.

 

Listen, all I know is back in March/April time for about 6 weeks or so there were people coughing and struggling to breath in hospitals to an extent that probably any experienced doctor or nurse who had been working in hospitals for 30 or 40 years had never seen before. And that over 50,000 extra people died in those few weeks than usually do.

 

Does that mean it will ever get that bad again and it hasn't already gone through a large percentage of the population? No it doesn't.

 

Does that mean it's the end of the pandemic? Also no.

 

Does that mean we should be incredibly cautious as we turn into the autumn months approaching the typical seasonal flu seasons of November-February given that everything points to a virus of covid's make-up being much worse in those months and we will have the typical flu season on top of that which the nhs capacity is built around? I'd say so, yes.

 

That doesn't mean it will happen. Maybe the same people who get flu will get covid. Maybe the same people who would have died from covid already have died back in the spring. Maybe the virus won't be affected by the winter... All absolutely plausable. But there is a very good chance that the winter could be just as bad or worse as it was back in March/April with the double attack of covid and flu. And the truth is no one knows - scientists or politicians don't even, let alone anyone here. Anyone saying the pandemic is over is just speculating based on guesswork. So far, it's an unusually warm mid-September, temperatures are as high as 30C in some parts of the country.  It's the below freezing temperatures in December, January and February that is of concern much more so than now.

 

All I know is we absolutely should be planning for that very realistic scenario as a society.

There are some scientists on here. And, I'd take the opinion of most on here over a politician (excluding the die hard Tory and Socialist idealists, plus the one liberal) - most on here have no agenda.

 

I agree with everything you say about how we should be preparing. I mean, given what we saw at the back end of last winter, why the hell wouldn't we think it could happen again this winter.

[WigstonWanderer]

1 hour ago, Leicester_Loyal said:

'Approximately 16,000 people may have died as a direct result of the coronavirus lockdown, new government figures show.

The shock number includes an estimated 6,000 people who did not go to A&E because they feared catching the coronavirus, and another 10,000 who died in care homes following early hospital discharges designed to free up capacity.'

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/coronavirus-death-toll-lockdown-uk-covid-19-update-a9660836.html

The first figure is people choosing not to go to hospitals due to fear of catching Covid. How would this be better if there had been no lockdown and 

hospitals and surgeries were even more full of Covid patients?

 

The second figure is not due to lockdown, it’s a total government balls up.

 

So much misinformation and disinformation on here I can’t even be arsed .

Edited 17 September 2020 by WigstonWanderer

[dsr-burnley]

1 hour ago, joachim1965 said:

yes , cancer, heart attack, stroke, car accident, etc etc etc..........

This is a red herring.  You've got a valid point, but this isn't it.

 

The point of Covid deaths is that a lot of them are people who were going to die anyway.  (Well, all of them were going to die anyway, I suppose.)  But they were going to die fairly soon.  It's exactly the same with covid as it is with flu and pneumonia.  How many people are killed each year by flu and/or pneumonia?  About 20,000, estimated, depending whose figures you use.  How many people die each year with flu and/or pneumonia on their death certificate?  About 115,000.  Why the difference?  Because most of them were sying anyway.

 

If you have terminal cancer, flu or covid will finish you off.  If you have a severely weakened heart, flu or covid will finish you off.  Forget the car accidents, the numbers make no difference in the grand scheme. 

 

I personally know 2 people who died of pneumonia and are officially recorded as that.  One was my grandmother.  she had a series of strokes and spent her last week of "life" lying in bed in a nursing home, asleep.  It was officially pneumonia that killed her, but if it hadn't been that, it would have been something else.  And my godfather - he was genuinely living as healthy a life as a 102 year old can do until he got pneumonia and died.  

 

But the point is, they were both nearing the end of their lives as a result of old age and wear and tear, and something was going to happen in the end to finish them off.  Ultimately, we all die of the same thing.  We stop breathing.  And a respiratory disease is a sure way of stopping the breathing of those whose body is already finding it hard work.

 

So this is the question you should be asking.  How many of these coronavirus deaths were people who were looking likely to go on for years if the virus had not intervened; and how many were on death's pathway already and coronavirus happened to be the thing that shuffled them off it; but something else would have done relatively shortly anyway.

[dsr-burnley]

18 minutes ago, Finnaldo said:

People dying within a month of Covid could fairly be considered a Covid death, no? I understand that shouldn’t be the case if they clearly die of something else (an accident or other physical trauma death) but if I otherwise it’s fair assume it greatly weakened them. 
 

Anecdotally, almost a decade ago my grandad got cancer, and beat it. But he was a shell of the man he was afterwards and within a few months he was in end of life care in LOROS. I don’t think he would have deteriorated anywhere near as quick without the cancer, ultimately it did kill him. Personally I could see that applied to some post-Covid deaths too. 

That's exactly the point.  As you say, some deaths by eg. heart attack are because coronavirus weakened them first.  But the reverse is true in spades - many many deaths by coronavirus are because something else weakened them first.  If your late grandfather had caught flu or coronavirus in his last days, it would still have been the cancer that was the underlying cause.

[Nod.E]

21 minutes ago, Finnaldo said:

People dying within a month of Covid could fairly be considered a Covid death, no? I understand that shouldn’t be the case if they clearly die of something else (an accident or other physical trauma death) but if I otherwise it’s fair assume it greatly weakened them. 
 

Anecdotally, almost a decade ago my grandad got cancer, and beat it. But he was a shell of the man he was afterwards and within a few months he was in end of life care in LOROS. I don’t think he would have deteriorated anywhere near as quick without the cancer, ultimately it did kill him. Personally I could see that applied to some post-Covid deaths too. 

Issue comes when there are so many false positives. Too easy for anyone feeling ill to get a test and it show as a positive and by virtue of them feeling ill (leading to the test being taken), that person is at risk of death. They had to feel ill to take the test.

 

Appreciate it's not just ill people getting tests, but you're more likely to if there are symptoms of something. The symptoms are so broad that they cover many different causes of death.

 

Also, you're feeling ill, you go to hospital, you're probably at a higher risk of catching Covid.

Edited 17 September 2020 by Nod.E

[Guest Fktf]

2 hours ago, UniFox21 said:

For what it's worth, a fair few academics at the institution I work at don't believe we'll get far into the term before lock downs occur

Freshers flu is going to be killer this year 

[Nod.E]

7 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

This is a red herring.  You've got a valid point, but this isn't it.

 

The point of Covid deaths is that a lot of them are people who were going to die anyway.  (Well, all of them were going to die anyway, I suppose.)  But they were going to die fairly soon.  It's exactly the same with covid as it is with flu and pneumonia.  How many people are killed each year by flu and/or pneumonia?  About 20,000, estimated, depending whose figures you use.  How many people die each year with flu and/or pneumonia on their death certificate?  About 115,000.  Why the difference?  Because most of them were sying anyway.

 

If you have terminal cancer, flu or covid will finish you off.  If you have a severely weakened heart, flu or covid will finish you off.  Forget the car accidents, the numbers make no difference in the grand scheme. 

 

I personally know 2 people who died of pneumonia and are officially recorded as that.  One was my grandmother.  she had a series of strokes and spent her last week of "life" lying in bed in a nursing home, asleep.  It was officially pneumonia that killed her, but if it hadn't been that, it would have been something else.  And my godfather - he was genuinely living as healthy a life as a 102 year old can do until he got pneumonia and died.  

 

But the point is, they were both nearing the end of their lives as a result of old age and wear and tear, and something was going to happen in the end to finish them off.  Ultimately, we all die of the same thing.  We stop breathing.  And a respiratory disease is a sure way of stopping the breathing of those whose body is already finding it hard work.

 

So this is the question you should be asking.  How many of these coronavirus deaths were people who were looking likely to go on for years if the virus had not intervened; and how many were on death's pathway already and coronavirus happened to be the thing that shuffled them off it; but something else would have done relatively shortly anyway.

Great post.

 

This is what is meant by 'underlying'.

[StanSP]

1 hour ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

I think @StanSP means snoffles.

 

Much worse.

 

 

I think I mean shingles

[Leicester_Loyal]

20 minutes ago, WigstonWanderer said:

The first figure is people choosing not to go to hospitals due to fear of catching Covid. How would this be better if there had been no lockdown and 

hospitals and surgeries were even more full of Covid patients?

 

The second figure is not due to lockdown, it’s a total government balls up.

 

So much misinformation and disinformation on here I can’t even be arsed .

That's all the media is full of atm.

[Nod.E]

25 minutes ago, WigstonWanderer said:

The first figure is people choosing not to go to hospitals due to fear of catching Covid. How would this be better if there had been no lockdown and 

hospitals and surgeries were even more full of Covid patients?

 

The second figure is not due to lockdown, it’s a total government balls up.

 

So much misinformation and disinformation on here I can’t even be arsed .

People are only scared because of the fear portrayed in the media, lockdown being a central part of that. 

 

And as Covid really isn't that bad, not that many incremental deaths would've occured by people coming in to contact at hospital anyway. Think of a line graph of the deaths of super vulnerable people and their deaths over a 6 month period. Imagine a massive chunk of those people in that graph dying over the course of the first month instead of being stretched over 6. All you're doing is recoiling that line and you have your spike.

Edited 17 September 2020 by Nod.E

[Guest Fktf]

23 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

This is a red herring.  You've got a valid point, but this isn't it.

 

The point of Covid deaths is that a lot of them are people who were going to die anyway.  (Well, all of them were going to die anyway, I suppose.)  But they were going to die fairly soon.  It's exactly the same with covid as it is with flu and pneumonia.  How many people are killed each year by flu and/or pneumonia?  About 20,000, estimated, depending whose figures you use.  How many people die each year with flu and/or pneumonia on their death certificate?  About 115,000.  Why the difference?  Because most of them were sying anyway.

 

If you have terminal cancer, flu or covid will finish you off.  If you have a severely weakened heart, flu or covid will finish you off.  Forget the car accidents, the numbers make no difference in the grand scheme. 

 

I personally know 2 people who died of pneumonia and are officially recorded as that.  One was my grandmother.  she had a series of strokes and spent her last week of "life" lying in bed in a nursing home, asleep.  It was officially pneumonia that killed her, but if it hadn't been that, it would have been something else.  And my godfather - he was genuinely living as healthy a life as a 102 year old can do until he got pneumonia and died.  

 

But the point is, they were both nearing the end of their lives as a result of old age and wear and tear, and something was going to happen in the end to finish them off.  Ultimately, we all die of the same thing.  We stop breathing.  And a respiratory disease is a sure way of stopping the breathing of those whose body is already finding it hard work.

 

So this is the question you should be asking.  How many of these coronavirus deaths were people who were looking likely to go on for years if the virus had not intervened; and how many were on death's pathway already and coronavirus happened to be the thing that shuffled them off it; but something else would have done relatively shortly anyway.

I assume you've done the research and can answer this yourself? Or you're just assuming covid19 isn't killing people that would have lived for many more years

Edited 17 September 2020 by Fktf

[Leicester_Loyal]

https://www.ft.com/content/77a1e3b6-3864-4a24-88af-df19fd22f235

 

'Second national lockdown proposed by UK scientific advisers '

[Guest Fktf]

Just now, Leicester_Loyal said:

https://www.ft.com/content/77a1e3b6-3864-4a24-88af-df19fd22f235

 

'Second national lockdown proposed by UK scientific advisers '

Paywall:(

[Guest Fktf]

6 minutes ago, Nod.E said:

People are only scared because of the fear portrayed in the media, lockdown being a central part of that. 

 

And as Covid really isn't that bad, not that many incremental deaths would've occured by people coming in to contact at hospital anyway. Think of a line graph of the deaths of super vulnerable people and their deaths over a 6 month period. Imagine a massive chunk of those people in that graph dying over the course of the first month instead of being stretched over 6. All you're doing is recoiling that line and you have your spike.

Evidence from anywhere for this?

[Kopfkino]

25 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

This is a red herring.  You've got a valid point, but this isn't it.

 

The point of Covid deaths is that a lot of them are people who were going to die anyway.  (Well, all of them were going to die anyway, I suppose.)  But they were going to die fairly soon.  It's exactly the same with covid as it is with flu and pneumonia.  How many people are killed each year by flu and/or pneumonia?  About 20,000, estimated, depending whose figures you use.  How many people die each year with flu and/or pneumonia on their death certificate?  About 115,000.  Why the difference?  Because most of them were sying anyway.

 

If you have terminal cancer, flu or covid will finish you off.  If you have a severely weakened heart, flu or covid will finish you off.  Forget the car accidents, the numbers make no difference in the grand scheme. 

 

I personally know 2 people who died of pneumonia and are officially recorded as that.  One was my grandmother.  she had a series of strokes and spent her last week of "life" lying in bed in a nursing home, asleep.  It was officially pneumonia that killed her, but if it hadn't been that, it would have been something else.  And my godfather - he was genuinely living as healthy a life as a 102 year old can do until he got pneumonia and died.  

 

But the point is, they were both nearing the end of their lives as a result of old age and wear and tear, and something was going to happen in the end to finish them off.  Ultimately, we all die of the same thing.  We stop breathing.  And a respiratory disease is a sure way of stopping the breathing of those whose body is already finding it hard work.

 

So this is the question you should be asking.  How many of these coronavirus deaths were people who were looking likely to go on for years if the virus had not intervened; and how many were on death's pathway already and coronavirus happened to be the thing that shuffled them off it; but something else would have done relatively shortly anyway.

 

But yet there's plenty of studies looking at years of life lost (YLL) which show that that the people dying aren't just being finished off. Just off the top of my head, there was one from Italy that suggested it to be something like 11 years once long-term health conditions were factored in. Of course, you'd want to go one step further and look at QALYs as well but I think it's pretty evident from the range of YLL (and the metric does have its limitations) studies that the narrative that some are keen to push, that it's just finishing off people that were likely to go soon anyway, is just carelessness. Many people have long-term health conditions that are being managed just fine and having that condition doesn't mean they are knocking on deaths door. It also, of course, doesn't account for the years taken from people as a result of possible 'long Covid' issues.

[Dan LCFC]

16 minutes ago, Leicester_Loyal said:

https://www.ft.com/content/77a1e3b6-3864-4a24-88af-df19fd22f235

 

'Second national lockdown proposed by UK scientific advisers '

It's too daft to laugh at at this point.

[dsr-burnley]

21 minutes ago, Fktf said:

I assume you've done the research and can answer this yourself? Or you're just assuming covid19 isn't killing people that would have lived for many more years

That's a strange assumption.  Why would you assume that?  If I knew the answer I would certainly tell you.

 

No, I haven't done the research and I don't know the answer.  That is why I ask the question.  But yes, I am assuming that of the 40-odd thousand people who have died with coronavirus after having a recent positive test, that some of them had underlying conditions and would have died anyway, and that some of them had nothing wrong and could have carried on living for many many years.  I don't know what the split is.  With flu and pneumonia, about 20% of the recorded deaths are generally analysed as being caused by flu and pneumonia, not by other causes.  Is coronavirus the same?  I suspect it might be - but I want to know. 

[dsr-burnley]

14 minutes ago, Kopfkino said:

 

But yet there's plenty of studies looking at years of life lost (YLL) which show that that the people dying aren't just being finished off. Just off the top of my head, there was one from Italy that suggested it to be something like 11 years once long-term health conditions were factored in. Of course, you'd want to go one step further and look at QALYs as well but I think it's pretty evident from the range of YLL (and the metric does have its limitations) studies that the narrative that some are keen to push, that it's just finishing off people that were likely to go soon anyway, is just carelessness. Many people have long-term health conditions that are being managed just fine and having that condition doesn't mean they are knocking on deaths door. It also, of course, doesn't account for the years taken from people as a result of possible 'long Covid' issues.

That Italian one is the only one I remember.  It seemed pretty unlikely, though, because what it was saying was that there was no difference between the life expectancy of the people who died with coronavirus from the general population (age adjusted) as a whole.  Which seems pretty unlikely bearing in mind that we know it disproportionately affects the already ill.

 

It also seems unlikely because about 40%, I think, of the deaths occurred in care homes.  The average life expectancy remaining to care home residents, as best I can find out, is about 2 years.  So if 40% of the deaths are people averaging 2 years to go, then the other 60% would have to average 17 years to go to get to 11 overall.  And bearing in mind that even people not in nursing homes, the average age of death is well into the seventies, it seems unlikely,  If you have any more studies, by all means link them.  I'd be interested.

[Nod.E]

1 hour ago, Fktf said:

Evidence from anywhere for this?

Let's see. The total lack of entire neighborhoods dropping dead, despite the most invisible and infectious disease in recent times inevitably having spread, and continuing to spread. That enough?

 

The people panicking about cases increasing contradict themselves in their panic.

 

If you accept it's spreading like wild fire (It is, it's basically inevitable at this point, and you do accept this if you're panicked), you are also accepting that we're in a bad place case wise. If you accept this and realise how quickly it has come after schools went back, you must also accept the inevitability of it all. What's your solution? Stop everything for 2 or 3 years until there's a vaccine or it just all blows over? While we're at it let's make it illegal to leave the house without sun cream in summer due to the cancer this causes.

 

Either it's spreading like wildfire and we're not dying from it at a rate that should raise any more concern than the next cause of death, so it's not a concern.

 

OR

 

It isn't spreading that much because of the measures we have in place. So it isn't as much of a concern as it might be.

 

Clearly the second option isn't right as here we are in the midst of the inevitable panic off the back of schools returning. So clearly these half measures don't work.

 

Choose one. Either restrictions work or they don't. The only possible argument you have at this point is that we should batten down the hatches to save any unnecessary loss of human life, which, frankly, is not only ridiculous, but counterproductive due to the side effects of such an approach leading to, you guessed it, long term loss of human life.

 

Lockdown should be regarded an absolute last resort. Only when hospitals are at tipping point should it be considered an option. The damage caused from lockdown psychologically and economically are far too great to treat it as an 'ah well best to be on the safe side, eh' option.

 

It's the equivalent of breaking your left leg to stop the pain in your right. 

 

60 million people die every year for fvck sake. Covid has 'only' killed 1 million and that's a rate that will slow down as medicine is already catching up. And that's also with some very questionable attribution with Covid seemingly cropping up on death certificates and taking all the plaudits. Polio used to kill 500k every year before a vaccine! 

 

Sick to fvcking death of idealistic, head in the clouds thinking.

 

It really is as simple as people needing to chill the fvck out about this. Sorry if my perspective offends you, and apologies that I'm not sh*tting the bed over this. I'm aware that's the popular response.

Edited 18 September 2020 by Nod.E

[Leicester_Loyal]

6 minutes ago, Nod.E said:

Lockdown should be regarded an absolute last resort. Only when hospitals are at tipping point should it be considered an option. The damage caused from lockdown psychologically and economically are far too great to treat it as an 'ah well best to be on the safe side, eh' option.

This is key for me. It was fine to do for a couple of months in order to give us some time to prepare ourselves, but we can't keep doing it every 8 weeks when there's a slight rise in case numbers locally.

[leicsmac]

32 minutes ago, Nod.E said:

Let's see. The total lack of entire neighborhoods dropping dead, despite the most invisible and infectious disease in recent times inevitably having spread, and continuing to spread. That enough?

 

The people panicking about cases increasing contradict themselves in their panic.

 

If you accept it's spreading like wild fire (It is, it's basically inevitable at this point, and you do accept this if you're panicked), you are also accepting that we're in a bad place case wise. If you accept this and realise how quickly it has come after schools went back, you must also accept the inevitability of it all. What's your solution? Stop everything for 2 or 3 years until there's a vaccine or it just all blows over? While we're at it let's make it illegal to leave the house without sun cream in summer due to the cancer this causes.

 

Either it's spreading like wildfire and we're not dying from it at a rate that should raise any more concern than the next cause of death, so it's not a concern.

 

OR

 

It isn't spreading that much because of the measures we have in place. So it isn't as much of a concern as it might be.

 

Clearly the second option isn't right as here we are in the midst of the inevitable panic off the back of schools returning. So clearly these half measures don't work.

 

Choose one. Either restrictions work or they don't. The only possible argument you have at this point is that we should batten down the hatches to save any unnecessary loss of human life, which, frankly, is not only ridiculous, but counterproductive due to the side effects of such an approach leading to, you guessed it, long term loss of human life.

 

Lockdown should be regarded an absolute last resort. Only when hospitals are at tipping point should it be considered an option. The damage caused from lockdown psychologically and economically are far too great to treat it as an 'ah well best to be on the safe side, eh' option.

 

It's the equivalent of breaking your left leg to stop the pain in your right. 

 

60 million people die every year for fvck sake. Covid has 'only' killed 1 million and that's a rate that will slow down as medicine is already catching up. And that's also with some very questionable attribution with Covid seemingly cropping up on death certificates and taking all the plaudits. Polio used to kill 500k every year before a vaccine! 

 

Sick to fvcking death of idealistic, head in the clouds thinking.

 

It really is as simple as people needing to chill the fvck out about this. Sorry if my perspective offends you, and apologies that I'm not sh*tting the bed over this. I'm aware that's the popular response.

[Nod.E]

10 minutes ago, leicsmac said:

Sanctimony doesn't

Edited 18 September 2020 by Nod.E

[leicsmac]

26 minutes ago, Nod.E said:

Sanctimony doesn't

It's true, though.

 

Peoples responses to this crisis seem to be, by and large, focused on if they or people close to themselves are at risk from it and/or how the measures taken to combat it affect them personally. That's because, deep down, the idea of other people dying out of their line of sight is abstract to them.

 

It's not a new phenomenon, either - quite often the response to humanitarian adverts showing just how bad famines/war atrocities in various areas of the world is an "oh God, that's terrible"....and then keep eating dinner. This isn't sanctimonious, it's something that simply is a matter of record - and I include myself as guilty of that, too.

 

I guess my point is that I'd rather if people were going to advocate for a position where a massively above average loss of life and suffering (but not likely them personally) is possible (but not certain, obviously) that they'd have the basic honesty of purpose to admit that they're driven by self-interest while doing it.

[Nalis]

Have the WHO actually done anything to help or have they just come out with warnings and shit slogans like 'test, test, test'?