The coronabrexit thread. I mean, coronavirus thread

[ketteringram]

17 minutes ago, GboroRam said:

How anyone has managed to get 2 years in and never have done one I don't understand. 

I tested positive last week. That was my first test. Though my Mrs reckons I did one last year, but I've no memory of that. But I am senile!

[GboroRam]

34 minutes ago, ketteringram said:

I tested positive last week. That was my first test. Though my Mrs reckons I did one last year, but I've no memory of that. But I am senile!

Definitely impressive. I've done so many my gag reflex is roughly where I wish my wife's was. 

[angieram]

Are people staying at home when they test positive? Lots of people telling me they aren't bothering now they don't have to.

Feels like there's no wonder it's spreading quickly again.

[ketteringram]

22 minutes ago, angieram said:

Are people staying at home when they test positive? Lots of people telling me they aren't bothering now they don't have to.

Feels like there's no wonder it's spreading quickly again.

There's a lot of people where I work who have it, or certainly look and sound as though they have it. I do a strange shift pattern, which gives me six days off every few weeks. I tested positive at the end of my last day before those six off. I think a lot of people are working through it, though I think I would have struggled to get through those first couple of days after I tested. Fairly physical, 12 hour shifts etc.

[Rev]

2 hours ago, angieram said:

Are people staying at home when they test positive? Lots of people telling me they aren't bothering now they don't have to.

Feels like there's no wonder it's spreading quickly again.

I work afternoons, along with my son and 1 other, the others at my work do mornings. 

All the morning shift have it, along with the 2 gaffers who cover both shifts. 

I had a text Sunday, to say all the others with Covid would be gone by the time we got in, so we'd be fine to work. 

Within 10 minutes of starting, the MD who'd only tested positive the day before came down to the shop floor and started working!

I realise that everyone is going to catch it sometime, but it seemed reckless in the extreme to carry on working in the same room, at the same time, as someone who had it.

Eventually the message got through, and he left the shop floor, but then went out to fetch his lunch. 

As far as I can tell, the guidance is still to isolate until you test negative on day 5 at least, but it's being ignored.

[Norman]

10 minutes ago, Rev said:

I work afternoons, along with my son and 1 other, the others at my work do mornings. 

All the morning shift have it, along with the 2 gaffers who cover both shifts. 

I had a text Sunday, to say all the others with Covid would be gone by the time we got in, so we'd be fine to work. 

Within 10 minutes of starting, the MD who'd only tested positive the day before came down to the shop floor and started working!

I realise that everyone is going to catch it sometime, but it seemed reckless in the extreme to carry on working in the same room, at the same time, as someone who had it.

Eventually the message got through, and he left the shop floor, but then went out to fetch his lunch. 

As far as I can tell, the guidance is still to isolate until you test negative on day 5 at least, but it's being ignored.

I know of a place of work that has told its staff that they won't pay for the first 3 days off work - like normal SSP. 

That's why people aren't testing or off there. People can't afford it. 

[uttoxram75]

25 minutes ago, Norman said:

I know of a place of work that has told its staff that they won't pay for the first 3 days off work - like normal SSP. 

That's why people aren't testing or off there. People can't afford it. 

That starts at our place from next week. Covid absence will disappear overnight.

[Eddie]

4 hours ago, angieram said:

Are people staying at home when they test positive? Lots of people telling me they aren't bothering now they don't have to.

Feels like there's no wonder it's spreading quickly again.

Colour me surprised... not!

To tell the truth, I do not and will not condemn those taking such action, irrespective of whether it contributes to the continual propagation of the virus.

I reserve my utter contempt and hatred for the British government who are so lacking in foresight that they have effectively declared the pandemic 'over' prematurely by removing all payments for those falling ill with Covid-19 and removing curtailing free testing.

Edited March 30, 2022 by Eddie

[Boycie]

Losing free testing is a shame, losing sick pay? What’s sick pay? ?

Edited March 30, 2022 by Boycie

[Archied]

12 minutes ago, Boycie said:

Losing free testing is a shame, losing sick pay? What’s sick pay? ?

Same here , just had hernia op after putting it off for 20 odd years ??‍♂️,, there was a time when people on here who tested positive were met with concern and hope you are ok , now it’s moved to concern over the inconvenience it causes so I get the feeling most are seeing it as cold or flu like virus and the fear is rescinding 

Edited March 30, 2022 by Archied

[Eddie]

3 hours ago, Archied said:

Same here , just had hernia op after putting it off for 20 odd years ??‍♂️,, there was a time when people on here who tested positive were met with concern and hope you are ok , now it’s moved to concern over the inconvenience it causes so I get the feeling most are seeing it as cold or flu like virus and the fear is rescinding 

I agree that seems now to be that accepted feeling.

I'm not saying it's right - equally I'm not saying it's wrong.

Food for thought - the current death rate in the UK is around 200 per day 'with Covid-19' (and currently it is rising steadily), which equates to around 70,000 deaths per year. That's between 2.5 and 3 times the average number of annual deaths due to both influenza and pneumonia added together in the years immediately before the pandemic.

My cold, calculating and decidedly logical brain suggests that, with official ONS statistics suggesting that currently, approximately 7% of the population actually have Covid-19 at the moment, the methodology behind the determination of 'what is a Covid-19 death?' is flawed, certainly with respect to the analysis of the trend.

Allow me to explain.

• 7% of the population currently have Covid-19
• Covid-19 is detectable via a Lateral Flow test for between 7 and 10 days on average
• Therefore, in the last month, between 20 and 30% of the population have had Covid-19
• A death 'with Covid-19' is statistically triggered by the presence of a positive Covid-19 test 'within the last 28 days' (i.e. pretty well the same time period, so up to a third of those deaths might well be people who have recovered and died of something else (the old 'knocked down by a bus but had Covid last week' clutter.

Anyone is free to interpret the above any way they want but for me, the only consistent way of ever separating the 'wheat from the chaff' or uncluttering the 'noise' from the plethora of statistics, and the only consistent way of doing so since the start of the pandemic, is simply to look at 'excess deaths', i.e. how many are dying compared to a 'normal' year.

Which leads me on to another point - what is a 'normal' year so that excess deaths may be effectively determined? The current method of determining so is to take the previous 10 years of figures, average them out week-by-week and compare them to the current week in a particular year. But we are still (arguably) in a pandemic. The elevated mortality figures from the current year (and the previous two) will be (I assume) included in 'the previous 10 years' in future calculations.

I can see plenty of statistical work for conspiracy theorists, Covid-deniers, anti-vaxxers, doom-and-gloom merchants, mask-lovers, mask-haters, scientists, insurance company life-table compilers and for those with cold, calculating and decidedly logical brains in future years - unless WWIII, Giant Meteorite or (perish the thought) a pandemic finish us all off first.

Edited March 30, 2022 by Eddie

[Eddie]

3 hours ago, Boycie said:

Losing free testing is a shame, losing sick pay? What’s sick pay? ?

Been there. For most of my working life, I was self-employed, and for long periods of that, especially as I aged beyond my 50's, I was self-unemployed as my health declined for one reason or another. It was nice having a "I've got a space-hopper" sticker for the windscreen of my car, but worthless really when I couldn't even get out of my house to get to the car in the first place.

One thing though - I certainly learned to appreciate the NHS.

[Archied]

20 hours ago, Eddie said:

I agree that seems now to be that accepted feeling.

I'm not saying it's right - equally I'm not saying it's wrong.

Food for thought - the current death rate in the UK is around 200 per day 'with Covid-19' (and currently it is rising steadily), which equates to around 70,000 deaths per year. That's between 2.5 and 3 times the average number of annual deaths due to both influenza and pneumonia added together in the years immediately before the pandemic.

My cold, calculating and decidedly logical brain suggests that, with official ONS statistics suggesting that currently, approximately 7% of the population actually have Covid-19 at the moment, the methodology behind the determination of 'what is a Covid-19 death?' is flawed, certainly with respect to the analysis of the trend.

Allow me to explain.

• 7% of the population currently have Covid-19
• Covid-19 is detectable via a Lateral Flow test for between 7 and 10 days on average
• Therefore, in the last month, between 20 and 30% of the population have had Covid-19
• A death 'with Covid-19' is statistically triggered by the presence of a positive Covid-19 test 'within the last 28 days' (i.e. pretty well the same time period, so up to a third of those deaths might well be people who have recovered and died of something else (the old 'knocked down by a bus but had Covid last week' clutter.

Anyone is free to interpret the above any way they want but for me, the only consistent way of ever separating the 'wheat from the chaff' or uncluttering the 'noise' from the plethora of statistics, and the only consistent way of doing so since the start of the pandemic, is simply to look at 'excess deaths', i.e. how many are dying compared to a 'normal' year.

Which leads me on to another point - what is a 'normal' year so that excess deaths may be effectively determined? The current method of determining so is to take the previous 10 years of figures, average them out week-by-week and compare them to the current week in a particular year. But we are still (arguably) in a pandemic. The elevated mortality figures from the current year (and the previous two) will be (I assume) included in 'the previous 10 years' in future calculations.

I can see plenty of statistical work for conspiracy theorists, Covid-deniers, anti-vaxxers, doom-and-gloom merchants, mask-lovers, mask-haters, scientists, insurance company life-table compilers and for those with cold, calculating and decidedly logical brains in future years - unless WWIII, Giant Meteorite or (perish the thought) a pandemic finish us all off first.

As you know ,how covid deaths have been defined and counted has been a bug bear of mine from day one , my level of fear of the virus has in the main been judged on what I’ve experienced around me ,had to be out and about working through the whole thing as have my whole close family and as I’ve said many times we don’t know a single person who has died from it or been seriously I’ll from it , of course that does not mean that there are not people who have and that I don’t feel extremely sad for those who have suffered but it does inevitably have a large effect on my fear level of the virus versus the fear levels induced in people and some of the measures used which we are not really paying enough respect to 

[Stive Pesley]

https://www.startribune.com/brazilian-study-finds-ivermectin-an-ineffective-covid-19-treatment/600160777/

Why is this not being widely reported?? It's a conspiracy I tells ya! ?

[Eddie]

2 hours ago, Archied said:

As you know ,how covid deaths have been defined and counted has been a bug bear of mine from day one , my level of fear of the virus has in the main been judged on what I’ve experienced around me ,had to be out and about working through the whole thing as have my whole close family and as I’ve said many times we don’t know a single person who has died from it or been seriously I’ll from it , of course that does not mean that there are not people who have and that I don’t feel extremely sad for those who have suffered but it does inevitably have a large effect on my fear level of the virus versus the fear levels induced in people and some of the measures used which we are not really paying enough respect to 

And as you know, I have always stressed the importance of what is termed 'excess deaths' above everything else. In other words, look at the preceding years week by week, month by month, examine the morbidity figures and compare them to the current month. You can completely ignore the cause of death - just the actual raw figures. 'Something' was killing an extra 10% compared to normal rate of death - and there was a rapidly mutating pathogen present in the population, the presence of which was being found in an awful lot of dead people. The longer correlation is a thing, the more evidence there is that causation is likely.

If the average number of deaths in England and Wales for (say) April is 45,000 and then in 2020 you get an April figure of around 88,000, something remarkable has happened in that month. You just don't get outliers like that in 'normal' circumstances. In 'normal' years, in England and Wales, between 42 and 48 thousand people pop their clogs each and every month. The lower figures tend to be summer months, the higher figures tend to be for those in winter time. Of course there is variance - people don't die to order, but if the statistical population is large enough, then the natural variance is minimal in comparison to the whole.

A couple of things about the most recent morbidity figures.

It is clear that lockdowns had at least some cursory effect on the number of deaths, which continued to increase for 3-4 weeks after the start of each lockdown before levelling off then falling away.

The number of deaths since the start of the vaccination process (and for convenience, let's say the start of the 'fully vaccinated' process and pick an arbitrary date of March 2021), and the number of excess deaths, is considerably lower than the corresponding month-by-month figures for March 2020 to March 2021.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

 

As far as your personal experience is concerned, that may be age-related (I have no idea how old you are). I'm an old git, therefore I know a lot of old gits. Those relations I have from my parents' generation who haven't yet shuffled off this mortal coil are even older gits. One of those died 'with covid-19'. I was not particularly active on LinkedIn, yet 8 (eight) of my former work colleagues did likewise. Interestingly, all of those were considerably older than me. The 8 LinkedIn deaths were all in the pre-vaccination days, but that got to me to the point that I deleted my account.

Here's an interesting point. From birth do death, you will most likely interact directly with upwards of 50,000 people. That's enough to fill Pride Park and leave sufficient left over for an average gate a couple of seasons ago at the Gumps. But of those, there might be around 100 friends and family who you would regard as 'close' (i.e. if you threw a party, they would consider coming - probably double that if there was free beer).

• Population of England and Wales (the data the ONS use) : 56 million
• Deaths 'with Covid-19' in England and Wales : 165 thousand

In other words, 1 person out of every 339 in the country died 'with Covid-19'.

In even more other words, the likelihood of you even knowing a 'close friend' or 'family member' dying 'with Covid-19' is about 1 in 3 (assuming my previous figure of 100 you might regard as 'close'.

In yet even more further different other words, the best thing I ever did was to close my LinkedIn account.

[Archied]

15 minutes ago, Eddie said:

And as you know, I have always stressed the importance of what is termed 'excess deaths' above everything else. In other words, look at the preceding years week by week, month by month, examine the morbidity figures and compare them to the current month. You can completely ignore the cause of death - just the actual raw figures. 'Something' was killing an extra 10% compared to normal rate of death - and there was a rapidly mutating pathogen present in the population, the presence of which was being found in an awful lot of dead people. The longer correlation is a thing, the more evidence there is that causation is likely.

If the average number of deaths in England and Wales for (say) April is 45,000 and then in 2020 you get an April figure of around 88,000, something remarkable has happened in that month. You just don't get outliers like that in 'normal' circumstances. In 'normal' years, in England and Wales, between 42 and 48 thousand people pop their clogs each and every month. The lower figures tend to be summer months, the higher figures tend to be for those in winter time. Of course there is variance - people don't die to order, but if the statistical population is large enough, then the natural variance is minimal in comparison to the whole.

A couple of things about the most recent morbidity figures.

It is clear that lockdowns had at least some cursory effect on the number of deaths, which continued to increase for 3-4 weeks after the start of each lockdown before levelling off then falling away.

The number of deaths since the start of the vaccination process (and for convenience, let's say the start of the 'fully vaccinated' process and pick an arbitrary date of March 2021), and the number of excess deaths, is considerably lower than the corresponding month-by-month figures for March 2020 to March 2021.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

 

As far as your personal experience is concerned, that may be age-related (I have no idea how old you are). I'm an old git, therefore I know a lot of old gits. Those relations I have from my parents' generation who haven't yet shuffled off this mortal coil are even older gits. One of those died 'with covid-19'. I was not particularly active on LinkedIn, yet 8 (eight) of my former work colleagues did likewise. Interestingly, all of those were considerably older than me. The 8 LinkedIn deaths were all in the pre-vaccination days, but that got to me to the point that I deleted my account.

Here's an interesting point. From birth do death, you will most likely interact directly with upwards of 50,000 people. That's enough to fill Pride Park and leave sufficient left over for an average gate a couple of seasons ago at the Gumps. But of those, there might be around 100 friends and family who you would regard as 'close' (i.e. if you threw a party, they would consider coming - probably double that if there was free beer).

• Population of England and Wales (the data the ONS use) : 56 million
• Deaths 'with Covid-19' in England and Wales : 165 thousand

In other words, 1 person out of every 339 in the country died 'with Covid-19'.

In even more other words, the likelihood of you even knowing a 'close friend' or 'family member' dying 'with Covid-19' is about 1 in 3 (assuming my previous figure of 100 you might regard as 'close'.

In yet even more further different other words, the best thing I ever did was to close my LinkedIn account.

I’m 60 Eddie so not a youngster ,

excess deaths year on year can have very large unexplained swings as I’m sure you know , the two years before covid were low , so perhaps a five year average over the next years with the covid period included may give a different picture , time will tell and as you say the effects of lockdown s also have to be factored in,

there’s no doubt in my mind covid is/ was real and some people were very susceptible to for varied reasons some of which I’m sure we don’t yet understand so we are not totally at odds on the subject but I think we will be quite far apart on the validity of the response to it , but again time will tell us more

[Eddie]

5 hours ago, Archied said:

I’m 60 Eddie so not a youngster ,

excess deaths year on year can have very large unexplained swings as I’m sure you know , the two years before covid were low , so perhaps a five year average over the next years with the covid period included may give a different picture , time will tell and as you say the effects of lockdown s also have to be factored in,

there’s no doubt in my mind covid is/ was real and some people were very susceptible to for varied reasons some of which I’m sure we don’t yet understand so we are not totally at odds on the subject but I think we will be quite far apart on the validity of the response to it , but again time will tell us more

I decided to look at deaths over the last 16 years.

Not only that, I even produced a table whereby I made allowances for the change in population in England and Wales over the last 16 years.

I'm sorry, but your attempt to wish away the excess deaths by saying "the two years before covid were low" was pretty well as I expected before I wasted the last four hours compiling the statistics.

I'll make a deal with you.

I'll not tell you how to point a roof or build a wall - if you promise not to tell me how to interpret statistics.

[Archied]

37 minutes ago, Eddie said:

I decided to look at deaths over the last 16 years.

Not only that, I even produced a table whereby I made allowances for the change in population in England and Wales over the last 16 years.

I'm sorry, but your attempt to wish away the excess deaths by saying "the two years before covid were low" was pretty well as I expected before I wasted the last four hours compiling the statistics.

I'll make a deal with you.

I'll not tell you how to point a roof or build a wall - if you promise not to tell me how to interpret statistics.

That’s fair , but there’s plenty who are more qualified than me and as and more qualified than you in that area who totally disagree with your interpretation,, and as you happily admit there are many factors involved that make it hard to establish real death figures and percentage/ death rate per case ,

I honestly don’t think there’s been enough concerted effort to get close to real numbers and that includes now when the spin is to say it’s over just as much as when project fear was in full swing, there’s a real sense of feeling manipulated to suit whatever the policy is at the time ,

I do a bit more than point a roof or build a wall ,, I specialise in Leadwork, which when you see it done properly is artwork, done some real stand out stuff over the years 

 

 

Edited March 31, 2022 by Archied

[sonofmidnight]

I'm sitting here having read this forum and wondering why after testing positive 6 days ago I am still self isolating. It seems that many people aren't bothering, aren't going to buy tests and are prepared to let the virus let rip.  However we still don't know the long term effect of this virus and I am very suspicious about what is happening to my brother in law right now. Before Christmas he could walk with ease.After catching covid at Christmas and being double jabbed and boosted he is currently in Derby Royal with severe unstable angina. He can't walk from his bedroom to the toilet without angina. The decline in his health is staggering!! Is this a coincidence or covid? No-one can say. If by staying at home I can perhaps prevent this happening to someone else then I will do so, but I appreciate that I am lucky that I am retired and can afford to do it.

[GboroRam]

2 hours ago, Eddie said:

I decided to look at deaths over the last 16 years.

Not only that, I even produced a table whereby I made allowances for the change in population in England and Wales over the last 16 years.

I'm sorry, but your attempt to wish away the excess deaths by saying "the two years before covid were low" was pretty well as I expected before I wasted the last four hours compiling the statistics.

I'll make a deal with you.

I'll not tell you how to point a roof or build a wall - if you promise not to tell me how to interpret statistics.

Perhaps, pythonesque, some of the dead got better?