Coronavirus

[G STAR RAM]

1 minute ago, Albert said:

I said your reasoning for such a challenge was wrong. 

It's interesting that you're trying to weasel out of your own position and put it on me. The simple facts here are:

• You claimed that you challenged the official narrative based on the statistics. 
• Multiple posters asked you for those numbers are you failed to provide anything for the longest time. 
• People noted that bed occupancy would not be a good measure of that for a multitude of reasons, and you were asked to compare rates of respiratory illness. 
• You then posted raw bed occupancy numbers. 
• When it was noted that people had already discussed why this is a poor measure, you then starting for ways out of your own argument. 

So here we are, you trying to wriggle out of your own point by making it about me somehow. My challenge was, however, about the lack of evidence you had for challenging what you yourself called the official narrative. 

Thank you for confirming that you have nothing to back your OPINION up other than just what you have heard in the media. Glad we put that to bed.

[BIllyD]

Couple of interesting stats

NHS figures showed 5,176 critical care beds occupied on January 17 compared to 3,066 same time last year 

NHS intensive care units are almost 70 per cent busier than they have been at any time over the past five years.

A quarter of NHS hospital trusts — or 35 out of 132 — had no spare capacity in their intensive care units on January 17. Just 14 facilities were completely full on the same day last winter. 
 

Figures showed 86 per cent of England's 5,992 intensive care beds were full at this date.

This is similar proportion to the last four years — when units were between 83 and 87 per cent full — but there were only 3,746 ICU beds on average over the last four years.

Note this was a few weeks ago, numbers have dropped.

[Albert]

5 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Thank you for confirming that you have nothing to back your OPINION up other than just what you have heard in the media. Glad we put that to bed.

I'm not talking about what I 'heard in the media'. As noted, I make no claims of having direct evidence through statistics, etc about this, because that was never my point. 

You have claimed, and maintained, that you are challenging the official narrative, this implies you're challenging the claims of a lot of people by your own admission. You've also noted that you lack the key data to do this. What this implies is that you have, in essence, rejected a view held by the people who should have the actual data on hand, without having such yourself. That's been my entire point. 

It's interesting to see that you are continuing to try and frame as being about me though. It seems you lack any other tactic in these kinds of discussions. 

[G STAR RAM]

2 minutes ago, Albert said:

I'm not talking about what I 'heard in the media'. As noted, I make no claims of having direct evidence through statistics, etc about this, because that was never my point. 

You have claimed, and maintained, that you are challenging the official narrative, this implies you're challenging the claims of a lot of people by your own admission. You've also noted that you lack the key data to do this. What this implies is that you have, in essence, rejected a view held by the people who should have the actual data on hand, without having such yourself. That's been my entire point. 

It's interesting to see that you are continuing to try and frame as being about me though. It seems you lack any other tactic in these kinds of discussions. 

Its ok just to admit you've claimed something you can't back up, God knows I have had to it numerous times on here.

Probably would have just been easier at the beginning to just admit it was your opinion, as I had noted, rather than the fact you was trying to pass it off as.

Anyway, off to book my 2022 holiday, have a nice evening. 

[Albert]

9 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Its ok just to admit you've claimed something you can't back up, God knows I have had to it numerous times on here.

This case is one of them for you, but you seem to be refusing to right now. 

There's nothing for me to admit here though. I challenged your challenge on the basis of you having no data to do so. That hasn't changed in any way. 

9 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Probably would have just been easier at the beginning to just admit it was your opinion, as I had noted, rather than the fact you was trying to pass it off as.

It's not an opinion to say you had nothing to make the claim. The issue is you had nothing to make the claim. 

9 minutes ago, G STAR RAM said:

Anyway, off to book my 2022 holiday, have a nice evening. 

Seems ambitious. Let's hope it goes well for you. 

[jimmyp]

These figures don’t include the respiratory high dependency units, they have also massively increased capacity. 
 

[GboroRam]

SHAFT! 

{Thanks APILN) 

[DarkFruitsRam7]

 

[Wolfie]

1 hour ago, GboroRam said:

SHAFT! 

{Thanks APILN) 

We really have done well with the vaccine roll out and this policy.

[B4ev6is]

I am so sick and tired of this flaming goverment telling people not to book holidays when person in charge of travel book a holiday in Cornwall if freaking goverment or popurtaions can book holidays during the summer how dare they say to normal people your not allowed to regardless if vaccine or not.

Saying start losing resitions once people have the jab this has made me angry if they can go on holiday why cant pubs open cinerma open football stadiums and other things.

[Andicis]

I wonder how many masks they'll be recommending towards the end of the pandemic ?

[Albert]

5 hours ago, Andicis said:

I wonder how many masks they'll be recommending towards the end of the pandemic ?

You see, it's this kind of ridiculous post that's led to a lot of people ignoring recommendations that could have helped so many people throughout this pandemic. 

Their point is that masks work well, but they need to be worn properly. One way of assuring that this is the case is to wear a cloth mask over a surgical mask. 

[JoetheRam]

1 hour ago, Albert said:

You see, it's this kind of ridiculous post that's led to a lot of people ignoring recommendations that could have helped so many people throughout this pandemic. 

Their point is that masks work well, but they need to be worn properly. One way of assuring that this is the case is to wear a cloth mask over a surgical mask. 

Exactly - it's just saying what is best practice. But we still struggle to get everyone to wear any mask at all so I don't think the advice is getting through.

People just don't care enough about other people. But who can blame them, most people are twits.

[BIllyD]

It takes a long time for the effects of the vaccines to be seen, but initial indications are coming.
The case fatality rate (deaths vs number testing positive) in the over 80s has already dropped by over a third.

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-vaccines-are-beginning-to-slow-deaths-among-vulnerable-new-research-shows-12214504

[angieram]

10 minutes ago, BIllyD said:

It takes a long time for the effects of the vaccines to be seen, but initial indications are coming.
The case fatality rate (deaths vs number testing positive) in the over 80s has already dropped by over a third.

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-vaccines-are-beginning-to-slow-deaths-among-vulnerable-new-research-shows-12214504

That's great news. I listened to the briefing yesterday (I don't very often) and felt they were very much trying not to get ahead of themselves by claiming this without hard evidence to back it up. This study is at an early stage but if it continues in the same direction (as expected/hoped) then things will improve rapidly over the next few weeks.

The Government are being pushed by journalists all the time to answer questions they don't yet know the answers to, or announce changes that they haven't yet decided on; I find it a bit pathetic, to be honest. 

I also think that the Government don't yet want the wider population to go rushing out there too soon and undoing all the good work of the last few hard weeks. Which they surely will, if they think things are improving! 

 

[Ghost of Clough]

11 hours ago, DarkFruitsRam7 said:

 

 

[GboroRam]

28 minutes ago, BIllyD said:

It takes a long time for the effects of the vaccines to be seen, but initial indications are coming.
The case fatality rate (deaths vs number testing positive) in the over 80s has already dropped by over a third.

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-vaccines-are-beginning-to-slow-deaths-among-vulnerable-new-research-shows-12214504

I read that as a drop in the fertility rate, but then the over 80s bit confused me.

[BIllyD]

30 minutes ago, angieram said:

That's great news. I listened to the briefing yesterday (I don't very often) and felt they were very much trying not to get ahead of themselves by claiming this without hard evidence to back it up. This study is at an early stage but if it continues in the same direction (as expected/hoped) then things will improve rapidly over the next few weeks.

The Government are being pushed by journalists all the time to answer questions they don't yet know the answers to, or announce changes that they haven't yet decided on; I find it a bit pathetic, to be honest. 

I also think that the Government don't yet want the wider population to go rushing out there too soon and undoing all the good work of the last few hard weeks. Which they surely will, if they think things are improving! 

 

You are totally right, we can currently hear a sound in the distance that we think is probably hooves and it won’t be long until it’s clear that the cavalry are on their way.
 

Until that point though we still need to be cautious, there is still a big danger we undo everything we have done over the past couple of months. 

[deanoakaram4life]

7 minutes ago, BIllyD said:

You are totally right, we can currently hear a sound in the distance that we think is probably hooves and it won’t be long until it’s clear that the cavalry are on their way.
 

Until that point though we still need to be cautious, there is still a big danger we undo everything we have done over the past couple of months. 

Is that you Boris?

[Shang]

9 minutes ago, BIllyD said:

You are totally right, we can currently hear a sound in the distance that we think is probably hooves and it won’t be long until it’s clear that the cavalry are on their way.
 

Until that point though we still need to be cautious, there is still a big danger we undo everything we have done over the past couple of months. 

I think we'll hear on the 22nd (Boris's Route to Unlock announcement) that we're waiting for two weeks after the kids go back to school to see if lockdown can be released. They'll want to see how many cases we get in that time to determine whether or not it's too risky to let the rest of us out, so they'll be downplaying the current case numbers to avoid people getting their hopes up.

It could be that having kids back increases the R number to above 1 so the rest of us will have to carry on what we're doing until all the over 50s are vaccinated (which would be early May).