Coronavirus

[Anastasius]

...that I gather participation in trials by the BAME community is/has been low and that section of the population tends to be harder to engage with vaccination anyway, yet it is known they are at greater risk.

Any ideas why that is? Not a hidden judgemental question....just curious.

[Serial_Apologist]

Any ideas why that is? Not a hidden judgemental question....just curious.

Black people in particular have been used as trial material for new treatments, both here and in America, is all I understand.

[oddoneout]

Any ideas why that is? Not a hidden judgemental question....just curious.

I was curious as well but the article, which wasn't about that as such, didn't explain any further. Some of it may be cultural as there can be problems with vaccination programmes in other countries. A colleague involved with a very small charity in one of the African countries mentioned the resistance faced in some places. Mind you the way she (gung ho 'christian' woman of mature years lacking tact) spoke about it one could have some sympathy with the Africans - bossy white english people treating them like naughty children! I suspect some at least may be down to lack of trust combined with poor communication and therefore understanding - part of the wider difficulties involved with trying to engage such groups in health and social matters generally.

[Bryn]

So, Rudy has gone down with the Trump virus. That's what comes from mixing with such a criminal fraternity.

[french frank]

So, Rudy has gone down with the Trump virus. That's what comes from mixing with such a criminal fraternity.

What, by far the greatest mayor in the history of NYC, that Giuliani?

[Bryn]

What, by far the greatest mayor in the history of NYC, that Giuliani?

The very same. Someone get him the bleach. If he has to go on a ventilator they will have to find a different access point to light him up from the inside.

[Dave2002]

Another evalutation of different countries from Bloomberg - https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/c...ience-ranking/

Access to vaccines is a factor - though why the UK is listed (position 28) with 5 I'm not sure. Are there more possibles coming along?

How the weighting is done seems odd too - not sure which are considered most important right now.

[duncan]

But after all that I did get my first jab. But I'm 99.9999% convinced I have the placebo . One of the most common adverse reactions is redness at the injection site. They even give you a ruler to measure the size. I can't even see where the injection site was. Ergo placebo.

Thanks for your reports, all very interesting. I've run clinical trials and we sometimes asked participants if they think they have had the 'real' treatment or not to gauge the convincingness of the fake treatment. People who know they have had the placebo might behave differently to those who think they have had the real thing. The effect of knowing which treatment you have had might - speculating here - reduce the relative effectiveness of the vaccine as the placebo group might take extra care to stay clear of Covid.

Any ideas why that is? Not a hidden judgemental question....just curious.

The Tuskegee Syphilis 'study' has left African-Americans understandably suspicious of medical research. It's harder to recruit low income groups in general: if you're paid per hour it's difficult to take the time to participate in voluntary medical research. Well-conducted research will take pains to recruit participants who are representative of the wider population. We've had some success using church leaders to help recruitment amongst BAME patients.

[johnb]

I see that has been a change in the pattern of the decline in Covid-19 cases across the country. Some areas are now starting to show week on week increases - and this is data from before the end of the lockdown.

Worrying.



The details can be investigated further using the interactive CV-19 cases by local authority maps I've been maintaining using Power Bi:

https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiZDkxMTQwYTAtZGI2MS00MjI2LWJkYzEtNDQ3ZjM0ZDczZTE0IiwidCI6IjQyMTI4YmIwLTJjZjgtNDY3MC1iNzRhLWZhNDlmNGJkMDQzZSJ9

[Anastasius]

Thank you for posting that, John. As you say, it is worrying...very. I think the phrase that you're looking for is 'They think it's all over'. You and I (and others) all know that it is not. The small town in Northumberland ...not a ten minute drive from us.. now boasts the highest count (of 40) in Northumberland for KNOWN Covid infections last week. The next highest is only half that figure which suggests some knuckle-dragging oxygen-stealer held an illegal party.

Do the stats on which the maps are based factor in the number of tests being carried out in a particular area compared to the number of tests in the previous week ? Tests...not positive results, for clarification.

[johnb]

It is infuriating the way the Covid-19 increases in the South East are reported in the media and by the government.

There is seemingly an attempt to link the increase in infections with the new strain of Covid. However, IMO the major cause of the increases in the SE (and elsewhere) is that people have been taking a very relaxed approach to the restrictions. Full Stop.

Also people are attributing the increases/decreases in the current case figures to what has occurred in the post lockdown tier system. This is not the case.

PHE publishes, each day, day by day cases by specimen date for each local authority. However, when looking at increases/decreases it is important to use case figures that are reasonably complete. To do that one has to disregard the 5 most recent days which are subject to future amendment. This means that, say, if we use the case data published yesterday, 14/12/20, the latest reliable data included in those figures is for w/e 09/12/20.

If we look at w/e 09/12 - the mid point of that week is 06/12. But this reflects when people were tested, not when they contracted the infection - for that one has to go back a further 3 to 7 days, 29/11 to 02/12 [edit].

So the the case numbers we are currently seeing predominantly reflect the effects of the lockdown, not the subsequent tier system.

Additionally, when you look at the data - for many of those local authorities with increasing cases, the cases began increasing during the lockdown, with infections (as opposed to tested cases) rising from around 15th - 20th November, after an initial fall at the start of the lockdown.

[Cockney Sparrow]

Perhaps this (incomplete extract/summary of a Sunday Times article will throw some light as to how we got here. (Sorry but I have limited time this afternoon)


Sunday Times 13/12/20
“48 hours in September when ministers and scientists split over Covid lockdown”

Johnson had had to agree with scientists, and was preparing lockdown from about Monday, September 21. Supported by Cummings, Hancock, and Gove.

Sunak opposed it - predictions of 500,000 redundancies. A follow on meeting Johnson and Sunak - ¾ of those invited were in favour of a more liberal approach avoiding lockdown. Prof Sunetra Gupta, Prof Carl Heneghan, Anders Tegnell, Swedish pandemic response architect. Prof John Edmunds London Sch Hygiene & Tropical Medicine gave the view of Sage - they wanted a two week circuit-breaker lockdown (confirmed in paper he authored with others at the time).

Johnson changed his mind and sided against an immediate lockdown. The article – very long, also addresses the economic and other considerations but the main thrust is that the scenario from loosening over the summer led to the clear direction apparent by September, and again a delay in taking decisions to restrict contact and transmission - as in March when the 11-week lockdown was one of the longest in Europe - because of the high numbers of infected persons in the precious 3 to 4 weeks.

It’s a very long and detailed article – perhaps the Times is one of the very few news organisations undertaking this sort of investigative reporting. Despite its ownership and anti BBC stance, I think it deserves support.

I haven’t time to continue giving a flavour of the article but one shocking aspect is inside information from a Doctor on a Covid facility in Manchester - under restrictions since July. The ITU at his hospital was at capacity with Covid patients by the last week of October
“Seriously ill coronavirus patients, he said, were starting to die without getting access to life-saving mechanical ventilation” (as in places in the first wave).

“The doctor, who asked to remain anonymous because he fears he might be disciplined for speaking out, said that from the end of October onwards “a good 70% to 80% of Covid patients” who needed intensive care treatment were denied it.”…. “We haven’t got the capacity,” he said.”…”This included patients in their thirties and forties”

On Friday October 30, health officers presented to No 10 that hospitals would be overrun in every part of England within weeks unless there were changes .

Johnson had to give way. But No 10 staff fearing he might change his mind, as in September –leaked the news to the press. Suspicion fell on Cummings (who had backed Sept lockdown) and Cain and that was the start of the estrangement with Johnson

[Cockney Sparrow]

As an afterthought to the information from Manchester, I wonder if the Nightingale hospitals are incapable of being used - with the shortage of staff, there is no-one to man them?

[oddoneout]

As an afterthought to the information from Manchester, I wonder if the Nightingale hospitals are incapable of being used - with the shortage of staff, there is no-one to man them?

That's the key bit of information they would rather you didn't know/think about! The staffing shortages in the NHS are such that existing services/departments can struggle to run even without the additional Covid load, so there is certainly no spare to run additional facilities. There is a limit in any case to the extent to which it is possible to deploy staff into activities that are outside their experience, even if numbers weren't a problem. Training such staff exacerbates existing shortages as well, even if management dismiss it as temporary issue. The traditional reliance on overseas recruiting is being nobbled by Home Office policy.

[Anastasius]

Many thanks to Johnb for his excellent research and to Cockney Sparrow for the Sunday Times resume - depressing reading though it is.

Up here, as I may have mentioned, the local town (Hatwhistle) has recently had the highest rate of infections for Northumberland. 1099 per 100,000. It was 17 one week, 40 the next and now well over 50. And why ?

Because some knuckle-dragging oxygen-stealing woman decided that she should hold her (illegal) 40th birthday. She worked in the local plastic factory at Plenmeller. She infected a large number of them which then spread back into the local community. So are people adhering to self-isolation ? No. A large number of the other KDOS's are wandering around the town, going into shops etc. I despair at this disregard for others and has me itching to wield a large baseball bat as trying to reason with these cretins is pointless.

Replicate this idiocy over the rest of the country, factor in the ignorant and dismissive attitude of many young people and come early January we will be in meltdown.