Covid-19 discussion thread

[MyNameIsTerry]

Couple of things. As testing capacity has increased the mortality rate has decreased along with it. In the first wave of this pandemic, we were only testing those ill enough to require medical intervention. Common sense dictates that if you’re hospitalised with this virus your chances of dying are of course greatly increased.

At that time, the mortality rate was in the region of around 4-5%. That gradually lowered to 3-4% as testing capacity improved and as it has improved further, it’s now around 2-3%. So again, there’s no reason to think that if testing was expanded further that we wouldn’t see another drop in the true mortality rate.

Calculations are only valid if the numbers you’re crunching are accurate in the first place. Most epidemiologists and virologists estimate that the true mortality rate is actually below 1% of cases. Asymptomatic cases appear to make up a fair percentage of cases and of course, certain symptoms can be so vague that a test is never performed and the case is never found.

The problem is that even a mortality rate of 1% can be a very high number of deaths if the virus is highly infectious which, unfortunately, this virus is.

It was over 11% in my city. Even once they adjusted to 28 days it remained at this.

As you say, %s are meaningless when you aren't counting correctly. They said from the beginning 2% was likely and since then they've had much more time to collect data, observe and model all over the world.

[pulisa]

Professor Hugh Pennington comprehensively dismantled Hancock's claims this morning on BBC News and basically said that the reason it's spreading so quickly in the South-East is simply because people are not following the advice on distancing and other matters - and he thinks the Christmas break is ill-advised and we'll pay the price for it come January.

I heard the term "bubble fatigue" on the radio the other day in reference to a cricketer who was tired of all the restrictions and had decided to withdraw from the team.

I'm sure "Covid fatigue" will soon become medicalised and a reason to opt out.

[Gary A]

Hi Gary, how's it going?

The mortality rate for the virus is about 2 in every 1000 cases. That is well below 1%. The abject terror is not warranted.

N, what you and people like you need to stop doing is being so black and white about this. The mortality rate matters but not nearly as much as the reproduction number of the virus. It’s also far more dangerous as a virus due to a lengthy incubation period, of up to 14 days. You’re also not looking at the percentage of people who end up in hospital and stretch the resource beyond anything manageable. That will happen if we just let this thing roam free.

Obviously we want that mortality rate to be as low as possible, but what good is a low mortality rate when we don’t attempt any prevention of the virus infecting 3 people for every 1? Eventually that number runs away with itself and all of a sudden a low mortality rate still equals hundreds of thousands of people dead.

The “abject terror” isn’t warranted, you’re correct, but what is warranted is a sensible approach aimed at doing all we can to stop this from multiplying completely out of control. Your approach is giving this thing more wood to burn.

[Pamplemousse]

For those of a mathematical persuasion, this is informative; I believe it was first posted here.

https://ncase.me/covid-19/

[nomorepanic]

The link I attached is a very good article. From a rock solid source. I thought this was "No More Panic".
The article I posted goes a long way to alleviating people's fears...i.e. "No More Panic" I thought that's what we wanted here.

PM me it please then I can have a look. I may have removed the wrong link.

The post was reported a couple of times so we acted on that.

[AntsyVee]

Have they found why that happened, Vee? Why people stopped bothering?

When they brought masks in I noticed people gave up cleaning their hands. Social distancing also declined.

One big factor is lack of control. Once door marshals disappeared it became the usual free for all. So I think more needs to become regulatory and forced onto businesses.

I don’t there is any one reason people stopped bothering... Holidays are pretty sacred here. People want to see their loved ones, and were willing to take the risks. Others have “covid fatigue.” Others think it’s a hoax. Others think it’s no worse than the flu.

[Pamplemousse]

I don’t there is any one reason people stopped bothering... Holidays are pretty sacred here. People want to see their loved ones, and were willing to take the risks. Others have “covid fatigue.” Others think it’s a hoax. Others think it’s no worse than the flu.

I had an e-mail from a friend today. He's very right wing (to put it mildly!) and what he wrote was just pure Facebook/Breitbart/whatever, weapons-grade garbage. It follows the Trumpian blame of China, links Fauci to Wuhan, why did it take so little time to develop, it was because Trump's sanctions against China were working, refers to Dopey Joe...

How do you deal with that politely?

[Lencoboy]

Couple of things. As testing capacity has increased the mortality rate has decreased along with it. In the first wave of this pandemic, we were only testing those ill enough to require medical intervention. Common sense dictates that if you’re hospitalised with this virus your chances of dying are of course greatly increased.

At that time, the mortality rate was in the region of around 4-5%. That gradually lowered to 3-4% as testing capacity improved and as it has improved further, it’s now around 2-3%. So again, there’s no reason to think that if testing was expanded further that we wouldn’t see another drop in the true mortality rate.

Calculations are only valid if the numbers you’re crunching are accurate in the first place. Most epidemiologists and virologists estimate that the true mortality rate is actually below 1% of cases. Asymptomatic cases appear to make up a fair percentage of cases and of course, certain symptoms can be so vague that a test is never performed and the case is never found.

The problem is that even a mortality rate of 1% can be a very high number of deaths if the virus is highly infectious which, unfortunately, this virus is.

I reckon you're probably correct re the testing capacity thing.

It's still highly likely that actual infections in the UK were far higher during the first half of this year as only those who were extremely ill and already in hospital were being tested, hence why the deaths figures in April-May were a lot higher than they have been so far during this second bout.

And community testing for Covid didn't really start properly until around June-July, which could be one plausible explanation for the steady upturn in daily cases from late July onwards, obviously coupled with many people starting to drop their guard and do as they pleased once again.

IMO, the rot really started to set in again from around late August after people came back from their holidays in mainland Europe.

There were/are various other factors involved too.

[AntsyVee]

I had an e-mail from a friend today. He's very right wing (to put it mildly!) and what he wrote was just pure Facebook/Breitbart/whatever, weapons-grade garbage. It follows the Trumpian blame of China, links Fauci to Wuhan, why did it take so little time to develop, it was because Trump's sanctions against China were working, refers to Dopey Joe...

How do you deal with that politely?

I’m a teacher. I wouldn’t be a very good one if I didn’t believe that education is the answer. I try to just remember that these views come from people who have an agenda to spread by using miseducation. The rest of us have to promote education from a variety of sources. If we just get angry and yell at the people who are getting the misinformation, then all they will do is get angry and defensive themselves (if they aren’t already by what they are hearing). No one learns when they’re angry.

[Gary A]

I had an e-mail from a friend today. He's very right wing (to put it mildly!) and what he wrote was just pure Facebook/Breitbart/whatever, weapons-grade garbage. It follows the Trumpian blame of China, links Fauci to Wuhan, why did it take so little time to develop, it was because Trump's sanctions against China were working, refers to Dopey Joe...

How do you deal with that politely?

How did Noivous get your email address?