Covid Vaccine Poll

[CraigHew]

Nicola follows Boris's lead, usually offset by a week or so 

[Steve (sdh2903)]

6 minutes ago, OldStager said:

its just occured to me steve, as your in scotland, are your restrictions currently tighter than englands, i havent seen one of nicola's daily talks for months now...

 

No neither have I . Restrictions are largely the same. She has to make them slightly different so she can claim its all her work. As @CraigHewsays it's effectively the UK policy but different timings etc. 

[Richard (OldStager)]

ah ok thanks, she always used to implement what boris was about do , to be first, maybe someone had words with her.

 

having just seen some more news, i see some football game thats going on, the gov are allowing up to 60k viewing, well thats one heck of a sample size for an experiment, so lets see how cases look in a week or two, maybe they did that a to see what would happen, big risk, but hey lets see how it goes, i am genuinely interested in seeing what happens. i dont do football, neither do i follow f1 anymore, are f1 allowing significant folks in the circuits... i watched a 24 race the other week and trackside was deserted.

 

 

[jim_l]

What we see a lot of is something psychologists call ‘confirmation bias ‘People look for things that support their point of view,

 

So Adam can

a)     pick a 2 week period in which 0.156% of the population caught it,

b)    state that it only kills 5% of people in the 70-85 group,

c)     use that data to conclude that it is a low risk thing that only kills 7.8 people per 100,000 in the most at risk group.

 

Interesting approach, exclude almost all of the last 16 months, exclude the over 85’s, in which the case fatality rate is 28%, Ignore the fact that it has killed 200 people per 100,000 in our population as a whole? If you are looking for a comfort blanket that would work, the reality is quite far from that!

 

I can paint a different picture if I want, 127,000 dead in the UK alone, the equivalent of 500 passenger jets (8 a week) leaving UK airports and crashing killing all on board.   Holiday anyone? 

 

You see, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

[CosKev]

10 hours ago, AdamR said:

What is "long Covid" though?

 

A lad from work has been suffering badly with long covid for nearly 6 months apparently,funnily though after 6 months we go onto half pay, so his long covid has all of a sudden got better🙄😏🤬

[Steve (sdh2903)]

10 minutes ago, jim_l said:

You see, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

 

Indeed. There are stats to support the biggest nutter views and the views of the most risk averse if you look hard enough. 

 

One stat I would be actually intrigued to see (but impossible) is how many people have actually been killed by covid as the primary cause. I know that probably sounds morbid but anyone who dies of a heart attack but happens to have tested positive for covid 3 weeks earlier is recorded as a "covid" death. Which in my view gives a false impression. 

 

(I know this seems to be the accepted standard, but I fail to believe that all countries have reported on a level playing field) 

[AdamR]

31 minutes ago, jim_l said:

What we see a lot of is something psychologists call ‘confirmation bias ‘People look for things that support their point of view,

 

So Adam can

a)     pick a 2 week period in which 0.156% of the population caught it,

b)    state that it only kills 5% of people in the 70-85 group,

c)     use that data to conclude that it is a low risk thing that only kills 7.8 people per 100,000 in the most at risk group.

 

Interesting approach, exclude almost all of the last 16 months, exclude the over 85’s, in which the case fatality rate is 28%, Ignore the fact that it has killed 200 people per 100,000 in our population as a whole? If you are looking for a comfort blanket that would work, the reality is quite far from that!

 

I can paint a different picture if I want, 127,000 dead in the UK alone, the equivalent of 500 passenger jets (8 a week) leaving UK airports and crashing killing all on board.   Holiday anyone? 

 

You see, there are lies, damn lies, and statistics.

 

28% fatality rate is barely any higher than normal risk of death (17%) for being 85. And that's AT 85, not any ages over, where clearly the chance of dying increases year on year.

 

The 28% stat is 'over 85' - of course a 95 year old is going to pop their clogs if they get Covid, but then again they probably would if they got a heavy cold, or walked up the stairs too quickly, or...

 

As Steve says, there are no stats for people who have died specifically because of Covid, we don't know the truth.

 

I have some other very pragmatic (unpopular!) thoughts about this subject I'll keep to myself 😄

[jim_l]

1 hour ago, AdamR said:

28% fatality rate is barely any higher than normal risk of death (17%) for being 85

 

28% of our over 85s is 450,000 people,  5% of our 70 to 85s is 550,000 people,  a million in total, just saying.   

 

We do know how many people have died because of Covid, it is the published 'excess deaths' figure, it is people that have died earlier than they otherwise would have, because of Covid. 

 

As it happens, if my guess is correct it is highly likely that I agree with your 'pragmatic and unpopular' thoughts. 

 

The issue is not just the number of deaths, as I have said before, if that many extra people die in a little over a year, it is the manner of those deaths, the lack of treatment for those that might have survived, the lack of care for those that do succumb to it.  It is families watching loved ones drown in the fluid in their own lungs, with no care available.   All of that while almost all other treatments are suspended due to lack of resources. 

 

Sorry - just painting pictures again. 

 

Anyway, let us leave it there, we may have exceeded our non Westfield discussion quota. 

[Blatman]

7 hours ago, Steve (sdh2903) said:

OK @BlatmanI understand your view, but answer me this, how do we move forward when other mutations appear? More lockdowns whilst we "understand" them?

 

The delta variant has been in circulation for near 3 months with tens of thousands of cases to study and the line is still we're still understanding the impact. 

 

So would you be in favour of further lockdowns of several months each to understand each mutation? 

 

Well, more restrictions if we were to see a surge in severe infections, hospital admissions and/or deaths. I definitely didn't and wouldn't support lockdowns or restrictions "just to see".

 

How do we move forwards? There's no right answer to that. Me personally, I am content to place significant trust in the medical profession, a bit less in how government interprets it for delivery and none in how the media report it.

 

I can answer how I will move forwards though. Right here right now, if restrictions were lifted I think I would still wear a mask in the shops and try to keep people further away that spitting distance. I don't find either of those things to be any sort of hardship. But I'd visit friends, mix in groups of people etc, although I think I'd avoid capacity events at venues and stadiums for a while longer. A different girl every night is bound to increase risk so I'm sticking to just two a week with a vaccine cert and a lateral flow test before things get interesting...  

 

[Steve (sdh2903)]

8 hours ago, Blatman said:

. A different girl every night is bound to increase risk so I'm sticking to just two a week with a vaccine cert and a lateral flow test before things get interesting...  

 

Good to hear your taking precautions 

 

 

[Blatman]

2 hours ago, Steve (sdh2903) said:

 

Good to hear your taking precautions 

 

 

 

Thats what living through the 80's AIDS epidemic does for you  

[maurici]

12 hours ago, jim_l said:

All of that while almost all other treatments are suspended due to lack of resources. 

Is that actually true tho?

 

Me and my partner, have been unlucky enough to have to use NHS, hospital and GP care A **** LOAD this past 18 months... for non life threatenig issues thankfully. (about twice as much as the ammount of health care we did need in the 5 previous years since we arrived at the country... and that previous occasions treatment and attention was poor to say the least, being used to private care back in our country)

 

3 MRIs, a short stay at the hospital, countless gp appointments and blood tests, neurology appointments and even a dermatologist.

 

Nothing had over 7 days wait, with blood tests and GP apointments available next day after a phone call. The best NHS attention I have ever had has been during the pandemic.

 

I have to say that when our first issue arose, we were terrified, as according to the media we were destined to find the poorest, most unresourced, and saturated medical attention ever... and, at least in cheshire that isn't true.

[Arm]

Good comments there Blatters

 

Media info is at same level as Facebook and Twitter. Medics I believe and certainly my wife is more than educated enough to have a good understanding. 

 

Anyone in government,  of any and all party type is to be questioned. All parties and countries are juggling needs and politics, idiots and the press. All badly compromised. 

 

Anyone who says we should be following and or believing china needs a good head rattling.

[Richard (OldStager)]

2 minutes ago, Arm said:

Good comments there Blatters

 

Media info is at same level as Facebook and Twitter. Medics I believe and certainly my wife is more than educated enough to have a good understanding. 

 

Anyone in government,  of any and all party type is to be questioned. All parties and countries are juggling needs and politics, idiots and the press. All badly compromised. 

 

Anyone who says we should be following and or believing china needs a good head rattling.

has anyone else noticed where those covid tests come from, the ones that are free from phamacies, i take it the nhs pays a fair amount for these.

[Blatman]

So the tests are made in China. As long as we trust they are manufactured to the required specs and not tampered with post QC, then there is no problem. Plenty of folk will look at the "Made in China" label and immediately dismiss it as "bad" out of hand and it is precisely that sort of narrow thinking that the red tops pick up on and make a headline. 

If there were a fundamental problem with the tests (and there is a little bit of a problem as far as accuracy goes) we would have known by now.

The tests are susceptible to both false negatives AND false positives. Last time I checked, false positives were a far greater proportion that false negatives. But as a percentage of the whole these false readings are negligible. The irritation quotient caused by a false test result is conversely very high, and understandably so.