Covid - coming out of Lockdown 3 - no politics, less opinion and more facts and information.

[woodenhead]

10 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

We returned from our trip to Germany this afternoon, having had no issues with having to show our covid passes everywhere we went.

 

On leaving St. Pancras in our taxi and travelling along a very congested and slow Euston Rd, onto Marylebone Rd, we came across a large group of anti-vax, anti-covid passport, anti-restrictions protestors, stood all along the central reservation, not far from Madam Tussauds.

They we’re holding up various placards containing slogans, such as “No Vax”, “We won’t be your Guinea Pigs”, “No employment apartheid “, “Protect health care workers from discrimination “, “The pandemic will be over, when we say no more” ……etc, etc.

Others we’re walking though the slow moving traffic, trying to hand out pamphlets, or flyers.

 

Surprisingly, they mostly  looked very “middle class” in appearance, looked to be in their 30’s and early 40’s at a guess, some were younger, 50% women and all looked reasonably well dressed, or turned out.

Certainly not the “white working class” stereotype, often portrayed as “thick” by the media.

Not wishing to be too political, but as a pure guess, but I wondered if they were the typical London middle class, left wing agitator types, intent on stirring up trouble.

They seemed to be very well coordinated and practiced in their actions and behaviour, which might have been a bit of a give away.

 

 

.

 

Maybe they are health workers concerned about being compelled to have the vaccinations after having read the multipage release forms that are required for any healthworker receiving a vaccine and then having to consent to it.

 

Imagine, your job or your consent, it's not consent when your livelyhood depends on the jab.

[boxbrownie]

45 minutes ago, 3rd Rail Exile said:

I'm the sort of strange type who does actually read the instructions each time... 

 

First four boxes I used were very clear on leaving for the full 30 minutes but not longer. 

 

Latest two are different and have revised instructions which do say prominently on the front that the tests may be different from those you have used before.  These say "Wait 15 minutes before you read your result.  Read the result when the timer reaches 15-30 minutes. Do not read after 30 minutes."  Followed by:  "IMPORTANT Wait for 15 minutes to read the result. Do not read the result after 30 minutes."  To me, the mention of "15-30 minutes" adds confusion - if you want 15 minutes, stick to saying 15 minutes!  

 

But at least the latest two boxes avoid the "wipe your tonsils without touching anywhere else in your mouth" malarkey - they're strictly nose only! 

 

Fully agree that the large swathes of the general public aren't likely to have realised that there are differences...

It seemed clear to me all the versions we’ve had so far basically say take the “reading” between 15 and 30 minutes, that’s it.

I just mentioned that the two old strips I found in my jacket pocket are still looking like they are fresh and still show a negative test, the only slight difference is the stripe has changed from pinky/red to almost black now, I guess that’s the way “officials” can tell it’s an old test strip?  Otherwise they look fine.

[boxbrownie]

52 minutes ago, 3rd Rail Exile said:

  

 

But at least the latest two boxes avoid the "wipe your tonsils without touching anywhere else in your mouth" malarkey - they're strictly nose only! ..

All three boxes we’ve had so far have only been the nose swab type, I didn’t even know there were some that you needed to swab your tonsils as well……only did that when we had the test to go into hospital for my knee replacement last year.

[Bernard Lamb]

[Oldddudders]

We heard the other day that some poor soul in the UK had died from Omicron. 

 

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19790744.omicron-uks-first-death-variant-was-unvaccinated-conspiracy-theorist/

 

If this report is true, we really shouldn't gloat, but.....

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

Well an engineer should be competent at modelling, knowing where to have confidence in it and where not and the difficulties in applying it in the real world, but rather less about what the inputs should be and the relevant factors and their magnitudes and relationships.

 

Indeed. Being one, I'm bound to agree.

 

I'm sure all sorts of local factors/circumstances make the outcomes different in different places, and I'm susprised that he expects to see things "top out"  as low as c20% of the population becoming infected, but I do agree with him that confounding factors start to limit spread at some stage; it is very unlikely to go zooming up to a church-steeple point. What he calls "living in clusters" is similar to the affect that I mentioned in terms of people "holing up", and all of the questions about the degree to which different individuals act as spreaders when infected, and all of the questions about degrees of pre-existing immunity (from prior infection, and/or from vaccination) definitely apply.

 

A proper model, such as the ones that LSHTM have created, rather than a simple "back of a fag packet calculation" such as I've done, will allow all of the variables to be adjusted individually, and when people talk about "worst case" and "best case", those will be arrived at with "all the dials set high" and "all the dials set low" (or at the edges of the reasonable ranges). In many modelling cases it is possible to assign probabilities to particular "dial settings" and to arrive at some sort of probabalistic distribution of the range of outcomes, and it is certainly possible to carry out sensitivity testing by leaving all dials except one at a fixed position, then swinging that one across the range, then doing the same with others in turn -  often vital to identifying factors that individually have very large affects, which is then good for designing mitigating interventions.

 

But, I am not at all sure about his approach that seems (so far as I could understand what he was doing - he didnt completely explain it) to involve extrapolating the likely peak-level from one wave to the next, especially given that it is never very clear what proportion of cases are actually being captured/recorded (he did acknowledge that difficulty), and because things like levels of formal restrictions, and degrees of self-imposed restrictions, vary between waves (those things, or possibly some sort of "social contact index" will be represented as variables in a proper model).

 

In summary, I don't really think he explained why he thinks it will top where he thinks it will top in sufficient detail, but I do think he's right that a crude assumption of unconstrained doubling until a very pointy peak is reached would be wrong ........ but, I suspect he's doing proper epidemiologists a gross disservice by assuming that their models are that crude.

 

 

Edited December 17, 2021 by Nearholmer

['CHARD]

9 minutes ago, Oldddudders said:

We heard the other day that some poor soul in the UK had died from Omicron. 

 

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19790744.omicron-uks-first-death-variant-was-unvaccinated-conspiracy-theorist/

 

If this report is true, we really shouldn't gloat, but.....

 

"The first person to die from the Omicron variant in the UK was an unvaccinated conspiracy theorist, it has been claimed.

 

A man, giving his name only as John, made the claim after phoning in to Nick Ferrari’s radio show on LBC.

John, from Smithfield, said his sister told him that his stepfather had died from Omicron in a hospital in Northampton.

 

He said he knew it was his stepdad because his sister had been informed by doctors at the hospital."

 

 

Sounds 100% kosher, beyond doubt. 

 

I don't gloat about anyone's death, even those in a demonised minority that it seems to be open season to mock, vilify, ridicule, scapegoat and soon enough probably witch-float. 

Edited December 17, 2021 by 'CHARD
typo

[EddieB]

49 minutes ago, boxbrownie said:

All three boxes we’ve had so far have only been the nose swab type, I didn’t even know there were some that you needed to swab your tonsils as well……only did that when we had the test to go into hospital for my knee replacement last year.

The earliest ones were tonsils and nostril, changing to nostrils only around three months ago.  The changes were explained and clear with the first boxes and again with the recent revised timings version. 

 

I can't imagine many being confused by these changes, as has been suggested.  It's a common narrative to treat one another as part of an ignorant herd at this time. 

 

Anyone that has used LFT kits over many months will know that sometimes an entire box is defective, and odd tests in others do not give a clear result.  When you log on to the Government website to report results, it's usually to find yourself stuck in "loading" until you abort, and then it works normally.  You could try reporting these issues...

 

 

[EddieB]

The South African medic who first identified omicron is on record as saying the UK has over-reacted, based on their experience of treating patients in her country.  She contrasts medical expertise and first-hand knowledge with modelling data - which is highly variable according to the parameters used within the model.

 

I note that the death in the UK has been ascribed to "with" omicron, not "because of" omicron, most likely an underlying health condition.  Would we still "gloat" had that same person been one of the  statistically small sample that had died within days of taking a vaccine - perhaps under compulsion?

[Oldddudders]

18 minutes ago, 'CHARD said:

Sounds 100% kosher, beyond doubt. 

Significantly, while Boris rightly made play of the fact that an Omicron death had occurred, there was no mention of their vaccination status. After all, had the deceased indeed been unvaccinated, that would have reassured those who have had a couple of jabs. As it is, there are long queues for vaccination boosters everywhere, which most of us feel is in the national interest. 

[Barry O]

Just now, Oldddudders said:

Significantly, while Boris rightly made play of the fact that an Omicron death had occurred, there was no mention of their vaccination status. After all, had the deceased indeed been unvaccinated, that would have reassured those who have had a couple of jabs. As it is, there are long queues for vaccination boosters everywhere, which most of us feel is in the national interest. 

local retired GP reports it was a 70+ aged man with no jabs.. but I have no evidence to prove it.

 

Baz

[Nearholmer]

26 minutes ago, EddieB said:

on record as saying the UK has over-reacted,

 

Unfortuntely, we won't know whether she is right about that until probably February.

 

Those in charge are damned either way, it seems to me:

 

- if they throw the best modellers and the best models at it, and that indicates that a "tsunami" is coming, and then ask people to act to limit the impact, they are castigated in advance by people who don't like bad news and accuse them of panicking, and again afterwards by the same people if the mitigations are effective "because it wasn't as bad as they said it would be"; or,

 

- if they arrive at a view that it won't be all that serious (as it seems possible they may have done in February 2020), and it actually turns out to be very serious indeed, they will be castigated by all and sundry, including probably some of the people who are currently in the above camp.

 

The only way to keep all the people happy all of the time is to say in advance that it will be no great issue, and to be proven right about that. In the present circumstances, notably the present lack of track-record in a population comparable to ours, it would take a very brave person to make that statement, and a very lucky one to be proven right. The PM clearly doesnt feel brave and lucky on this one.

 

FWIW, which probably isnt a lot, my feeling based on everything I've read, and the numbers I've run, is that the issue isn't about the severity of illness in the coming wave, its about the sheer speed of it - even if this variant is markedly mild, the very small proportion of people made  badly ill by it will amount to a large absolute number in a very short time. Which is what keeps being said.

 

 

Edited December 17, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Neil]

12 hours ago, Ron Ron Ron said:

.... Not wishing to be too political, but as a pure guess, but I wondered if they were the typical London middle class, left wing agitator types, intent on stirring up trouble.

They seemed to be very well coordinated and practiced in their actions and behaviour, which might have been a bit of a give away.

 

12 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

Given the persuasion of those MPs who voted against restrictions, they could equally well have been from that side of the spectrum.

 

I guess that the anti-vax movement encompasses both ends of the political spectrum from the libertarian right to the anti-establishment left. If your belief in something (your overriding right to choose for yourself or that everything the 'establishment' tells you is to further it's own goals) is strong enough then you can convince yourself that the science is wrong. We've seen similar alliances across the political divide before (the B word) so it's not surprising  that the anti-vax movement can gather support from otherwise unlikely bedfellows.

[Neil]

32 minutes ago, EddieB said:

.... I note that the death in the UK has been ascribed to "with" omicron, not "because of" omicron, most likely an underlying health condition.  Would we still "gloat" had that same person been one of the  statistically small sample that had died within days of taking a vaccine - perhaps under compulsion?

 

I don't think anyone is gloating but (if true) it is of legitimate interest.

 

Edit to include: It occurs to me that there is a danger with linking death so tightly with being unvaccinated. It could lead to complacency in the fully jabbed.

Edited December 17, 2021 by Neil

[Nearholmer]

Yes, libertarian/anarchist views, and their opposite in terms of authoritarian views, exist as a separate axis, at ninety degrees to the conventional left-right. 

[Reorte]

8 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Yes, libertarian/anarchist views, and their opposite in terms of authoritarian views, exist as a separate axis, at ninety degrees to the conventional left-right. 

And even they're an average of various views. Everyone will have different opinions on different issues that might look like different points on the axis, which is appropriate because a sensible stance on one issue isn't necessarily the same on another. Beware of anyone who calls anyone inconsistent, they might just be struggling with thinking further than "This sort of position is right, therefore everything has to fit in with it."

[WessexEclectic]

24 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Those in charge are damned either way, it seems to me:

 

A real life Kobayashi Maru scenario...

[Reorte]

4 minutes ago, WessexEclectic said:

 

A real life Kobayashi Maru scenario...

What, they try to get around it by cheating behind everyone's back? Sounds about right

[Railpassion]

Omicron has mutated from Beta therefore the immunity in SA is quite different to ours. Unlike the UK, where only a minority caught covid, in SA there was large scale infection with beta. Omicron is coming up against beta antibodies in SA and therefore it's not so damaging. Our immune response to wild covid and delta after boosters is excellent. It's a medical triumph to have such effective vaccines. But Omicron will get round them in our population more easily and many more will be ill, particularly children. 

 

We will only be clear of this in the next five years or so. In the next 18 months things will become better as vaccines are adapted and anti virals created but there will be setbacks. 

 

We owe all those in the NHS and the scientists creating vaccines an enormous thank you.

 

 

 

 

[Nearholmer]

2 hours ago, Neil said:

guess that the anti-vax movement encompasses both ends of the political spectrum from the libertarian right to the anti-establishment left.

I’m beginning to realise that there is another position that is firmly held by quite a few people, not anti-vac, or Covid-denial, but what might be termed “The Ostrich Position”.

 

Its a sort of determined unwillingness to look discomforting truths, or discomforting possibilities, square in the eye, almost to wish them away by deliberately ignoring them, and part of it seems to revolve around things almost not existing unless they affect the individual very directly, personally, or very close family or friends.

 

It’s probably a perfectly ordinary response to stress, as is my own tendency to pick at things, analyse things to death, etc., but to me it seems to come very close to denial, if not actually to be denial.

 

(I am aware that ostriches don’t actually bury their heads in the sand to avoid confronting difficulty)

 

 

Edited December 17, 2021 by Nearholmer

[lapford34102]

First estimates of  vax +  booster effectiveness against Omicron

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-59696499

 

A faint glimmer perhaps

 

Stu

[2750Papyrus]

28 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I’m beginning to realise that there is another position that is firmly held by quite a few people, not anti-vac, or Covid-denial, but what might be termed “The Ostrich Position”.

 

 

"It won't happen to me" - a view held by many generations of young men and women, perhaps most famously Bomber Command and Merchant Navy crews.

[Nearholmer]

When it comes to the young being convinced of their own immortality, that poses no mystery to me. It’s the significant number of Older Ostriches that surprises me. Maybe that’s more a case of being firmly convinced of their own mortality, and working hard to turn a blind eye to it.

[fulton]

Just been shopping in the centre of Dusseldorf, every non food shop very strict on showing covid pass and ID, my NHS pass only raised mild interest, the Xmas market was fenced off with controls on entrance, we have decided to stay in Germany now until the New Year, we got caught last Xmas with the French closing the border. No body seems to have any issues showing ID which seems such a big thing in the UK.

Edited December 17, 2021 by fulton
Spelling

[boxbrownie]

4 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

We heard the other day that some poor soul in the UK had died from Omicron. 

 

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19790744.omicron-uks-first-death-variant-was-unvaccinated-conspiracy-theorist/

 

If this report is true, we really shouldn't gloat, but.....

No idea what variant, but poor old Jethro died from Covid a couple of days ago, and he (from reports) had been triple jabbed