Covid-19 and Politics
 

One of the issues is that we weren’t doing confirmation testing and contact tracing.

ETA hadn’t read andiun’s post before posting that, but I had a colleague who had pretty much the same experience.

When you say plateaued you mean the acceleration in the rate rate of deaths has plateaued?

Excellent post, thanks, and pleased to hear you all made it through!

Sure, it's early days and we're still not testing enough people to be sure, but it's unquestionably more evidence that shutting down society knocks the virus out of major circulation.

I'll be able to tell you for sure if it was successful one month from now, as our shutdown is due to end 29 April and it looks pretty likely that restrictions will be lifted and if it doesn't break out, after that, we will have won.

No guarantees that's how it will be, though.

I'm guessing that means you will not be publishing a scientific paper of your findings then.

Belgium

Population - 11,515,793
Covid-19 deaths - 3,903

Sweden

Population - 10,333,456
Covid-19 deaths - 919

If only the Belgians had followed Sweden's lead...

One day, I trust you'll realise what an idiotic post that is.

This is a discussion forum, not the BMJ.

I mean if you look at the graph in the last few days it is flat but high; like a plateau in geography. See link.

Your line of reasoning wouldn't even be acceptable in a high-school essay. I expect better standards here than that.

Your crap gets deeper with every post. You "expect"? Have you bought the forum?

It's quite notable you haven't bothered trying to refute the actual point I made and continue posting snide snot.

Please do continue, or alternatively, show where countries with rigorous lockdown and testing regimes are faring worse than countries without them.

Meanwhile;

Quote:

Coronavirus: Greater Manchester Police warning after 660 parties shut down Greater Manchester Police has warned people not to breach lockdown rules over Easter after it had to break up 660 parties during the pandemic. Chief Constable Ian Hopkins said "each and every one of us need take this seriously". There were 1,132 coronavirus-related breaches reported between 25 March and 7 April, the force said. That included 494 house parties - some with DJs, fireworks and bouncy castles - and 166 street parties. One woman in Bury became the first person in Greater Manchester to be charged under the Coronavirus Act 2020 after police had to repeatedly shut down one of the gatherings. The force, which has released updated figures, also had to deal with 122 different groups gathering to play sports, 173 more gatherings in parks and 112 incidents of anti-social behaviour and public disorder

.

If I can respond to this. What difference would a test have made. You were diagnosed with covid-19 on clinical grounds there and then. That is it you have it. If the test was done and came back positive a day or two later you still had it, but the diagnosis was delayed by a couple of days. If the test came back negative does that mean you don't have it? 30% of tests are false negative; given your history and symptoms the test would have been a false negative perhaps providing false reassurance that you can go out and about.

I don't know exactly what advice you were given, it should have been;
So if this was a new onset of symptoms you should have self isolated for seven days and your wife for 14! If it was felt to be a continuation of your initial illness then you were beyond the infectious period. It is unclear whether a persistent positive swab represents infectivity.

The difference in action between the UK and Costa Rica for the symptomatic person and household is none. The individual with covid-19 isolates as does the family. I am not sure who are regarded as contacts in costa rica, early on contact tracing was done in the UK, but once the number of cases rose it became impractical. The initial policy in the UK of identifying isolating and contact tracing all cases failed.

It is good that Costa Rica has sufficient resources to allow testing of contacts, and retesting of known cases at frequent intervals. Unfortunately the UK does not have sufficient testing ability. This includes not just a lack of laboratory space, but also a lack of swabs. (Only EU manufacturer is in North Italy.)
https://www.ft.com/content/86efe246-...d-da70cff6e4d3

The reality is that however much anyone in the UK wanted to do more tests it was not possible. Similar issues for instance are seen in France. South Korea could do better because it had stockpiled and because it has a larger in country manufacturing resource than the UK. The fault lies not with the current government who were only elected weeks before the pandemic, but their predecessors over years. The lack of UK manufacturing capacity is an issue, but relates to long term policy decisions, and there clearly needs to be a review of stockpiling critical kit. Engineering and manufacturing is not something the UK does well, a good example is the criticism that Dyson has had in trying to respond by developing new manufacturing capacity and a new design for a ventilator. Some people who post here think that trying to respond in this way is criminal. It may be a similar attitude that limited involvement of the industrial sector in testing, but even with increased laboratory space a shortage of swabs is still limiting.

Not sure they have, I think the order will only come once they are being made.

Most up to date summary appears to be this
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...rs-coronavirus
The Red Bull / Renault ventilator is deemed not suitable, the parapac ventilator has been ordered, but this is a transport ventilator and not one that would be used longterm on ITU. Others awaiting approval.

This is a "skeptic" forum, not a "faulty reasoning forum". It's even in the name. I'm surprised you didn't notice.

Edit: To be as informative and pedantic as possible, what are the things that can and do make "correlation means causation" lead to incorrect conclusions? Can you think of any?

Gosh, if only I'd thought of that before:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com...d.php?t=343171

Covid-19 and Politics
 

You missed out one major thing in the account given, no contact tracing. The reason SK has been so successful is down to 4 things, reacting quickly, testing, contact tracing and enforced quarantine.

The major irresponsibility in the UK was the lack of rigorous contact tracing and enforced quarantined. That was a matter of political will so the failing for that rest solely at the governments’ feet.

What we haven’t seen from any Dyson ventilators is that the design has been approved. We were initially told that the approval (based on the prototype) would be something like a week away.

You seem to be spreading disinformation deliberately:



The one woman returning from Wuhan was allegedly isolated successfully: "The case was fully isolated and there are no reports of further spread." And that appears to have been the last thing Sweden did right.

You should have chosen to compare Belgium with any other Scandinavian country - and you know it! There is no reason why any country should follow Sweden's example.

Boris Johnson is recovering at Chequers but he won't be returning to work because he needs Hancock or someone to get as much of the blame for the ******** as possible

Next he'll be calling you a communist. That's what he considers good standards!

From what I have read, someone who gets it as bad as Boris can require a good deal of time to fully recover.

Some interesting statistics being reported by the BBC:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52278825

If I understand that correctly, stripping out the Coronavirus fatalities, deaths in the UK were 25% higher than expected. I wonder if:

• It's just a statistical fluctuation - nothing to worry about
• It's an indication that there are a lot of Coronavirus deaths not being recorded as such
• It's an indication that there are people dying because they cannot or choose not to seek treatment - for example, I understand that some cancer patients are having their chemotherapy postponed
• Coronavirus is having knock-on healthcare effects - for example I've read reports that heart attack deaths are through the roof in New York for no easily understandable reason

Or maybe it's a combination of things.

IMO it does fly in the face of the idea that it's not worth worrying about Coronavirus because the people who have died were about to pop their clogs anyway.

And then thousands of infected people came back from their ski vacations in the Alps and readily spread the disease over days before a few ended up in the hospital.

Relatively shortly after that point a decision was made, that since Sweden lacked the ability to follow up a significant portion of people who were potentially infected, and that there was no way to change that without severly compromising the functioning of the healthcare system, that the least bad response was to try and keep the infection in check by a combination of voluntary and mandatory measures.

The fact that Belgium, a country with comparable population that has instituted far more sever mandatory measures than those that apply in Sweden, experienced far more deaths is quite clear evidence that reducing the difference in deaths between Sweden and the other Nordic countries to one single thing is completely faulty.

The only major difference is that Swedish politicians have not faced any significant pressure to jump on the band-wagon and adopt the most extreme measures simply out of a fear of looking like they are not doing enough. Meanwhile BJ and Macron are acting like they are fighting a war. Like what the ****!?

I’m not sure which thread I posted it in but I am pissed off that his girlfriend was not only allowed to breach the new essential travel only law but was helped to do so by the police and security services!

Wonder if it is probably people with “fragile” health either not seeking help or being triaged and not receiving it?

My mother is not dying from her health issues, she is stable, but her health is fragile, so a severe cold could quite easily move her from being stable to being at death’s door in a matter of hours. (One did do about 18 months ago). If people like her can’t receive prompt treatment they will die sooner than they would have done if the health system was working as usual.

So there is broad agreement among the political parties in Sweden about the chosen path? I haven't read Swedish media lately so I don't know. Here in Norway there is little disagreement. The economic rescue package was hammered through in our parliament with only one of the tiny parties not voting for it.

Sweden: 22 Scientists Say Coronavirus Strategy Has Failed As Deaths Top 1,000

Have you achieved herd immunity yet?

There is pretty much no political controversy about the current course of action. They know as much as anyone that the problem is systemic and that trying to score political points is more than likely going to bite them in the ass because everyone shares part of the blame for the current situation.

Region Stockholm has seen something like half of the deaths of the entire country. Healthcare, as well as care for elderly, are the responsibility for the regional and municipal governments there and they have been under the control of the right-wing parties for a long time.

From what I've read, the fact that so many more people have died in Sweden compared to Norway or Finland has been to a large degree caused by the disease finding its way into care homes for the elderly. Something like half of the care homes in Stockholm have cases of infected people. Of those who have died, at least 40% have died there.

I love how they think. The politicians who have caused this situation are to disregard the experts and professionals and somehow solve the problems on their own using... what exactly? Politics! That's what we really need!

The cows in the field next to us have :p

As far I am concerned, donations to party are bribery. Being it legal does not change it is immoral to prioritize donor over others. But you are being disingenuous, of course.

I will now repeat what I said and what you even cited:

THIS is my reason. I don't know where you got "you disagree with the political views of the owner of the company" (maybe projection?). I got to know he is Conservative party member only after you said you have no idea and I thought it is worth looking into.

Dyson happens to be "longtime Conservative party member" and gave away millions to that party. I am sure preferential treatment of that company by your government and politicians that you support is completely accidental. :rolleyes:

Source (just one from many, there is a lot on net about it):
https://www.thecanary.co/discovery/a...l-ventilators/

No corruption here, no sireee.

Could it be that more people with covid-19 ended up in Belgium than Sweden?

As in more people travelled from Wuhan or had been at the European epicentre and then Belgium than Sweden.

*Hint*

Care home residents form a very large percentage of all Covid-19 deaths, so it isn't that.

Have another go.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...19-death-rates

Not in Norway or Finland, at least relative to Sweden, Belgium or France.

Is flattening the curve not just a way to get herd immunity without overwhelming the health service?

There are plenty of different factors that play in, which is why one should avoid the temptation of trying to pin it on one single obvious difference.

Most of the individuals were infected in areas around the Alps and Northern Italy. Many, but not all, were there on vacation and engaging in winter sports. So called "after-ski" events and tightly packed ski-elevators have been pointed out as being environments where many were likely to be have been infected.

It dose not seem implausible that more Belgians were vacationing in those areas than Swede's, meaning that they could've faced a significantly larger initial caseload. We have mountainous areas with snow that you can ski at here in Sweden, at least for the present.

Belgium appears to be on much the same curve as France, which is perhaps natural given the geography.. I don't know that they have the same ski-culture as we have.

Want to try backing up that bold assertion with evidence, maybe?

I don't know how you'll go on proving France's rate is lower, since they don't appear to publish that number, but the care facilities themselves are saying it's under-counted, whatever the number is.

Finland - how are the numbers there? This is a terrible translation but seems to indicate eight age-care deaths in Helsinki alone. At that time, Finland's total was 40 deaths.

Your move.

Meanwhile, in NZ politics, NZ's Prime Minister is wildly popular, while her main opponent, Simon Bridges, has tried very hard to stay relevant.

He managed to seize on a report by a bunch of moronic non-medical academics asking for our lockdown to be ended because of the danger to the economy. Bridges is now calling for a return to work asap.

It plays beautifully to his core voters - rich, white people - but isn't going to work when Jacinda and her plan has about 99% support.

Speaking of Sweden, how are they doing?

See if you can spot the anomaly in these countries with fewer than 20,000 cases:

http://charman.co.nz/swedencovid.png