Coronavirus

[Simon B]

I was too flippant in my initial response - apologies. My excuses involve having just spent a morning dealing with the consequences of someone not pausing to consider the veracity of "information" they'd received - in an entirely unrelated context.

Anyway, I'm slightly surprised that the name of the author in the originally inked article wasn't enough on its own as a red flag...

Tyler Durden? "Fight Club" not ringing any bells?! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Narrator_(Fight_Club)

[french frank]

Quite. As Frenchie says, there is a need ot check sources.

When one has nothing better to do,it's quite an intellectual work-out to follow up the sources and cross-check to verify that the sources you've been reading are"trustworthy". Really? It takes us on quite a journey, but what I sense/suspect here is alt-right activity fuelled by another world power. It's no wonder we're hearing so much about cognitive bias and cognitive dissonance. All about how to manipulate public opinion and behaviour.

[Bryn]

But isn't that what our mainstream media is usually doing - manipulating public opinion? For instance, if there was no default partisanship in our mainstream media we would hear as much bashing of the UK and USA intelligence services, regarding cybersecurity breaches / hacking / foreign government interference, as we do of Russia's and China's. That's a rather more worrying manipulation of public opinion and behaviour - that we just happen to be the good guys - because in fact they're ALL at it.

Fair point, except here we have rather more 'errors' of commission than omission. Nevertheless, we should not forget the Trump administration's spying on Merkel et al.

[oddoneout]

More matters numerical

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/17/matt-hancock-calls-urgent-inquiry-phe-covid-19-death-figures

At first I thought it was more government massaging of statistics, but there is a bit more to it than that.

[johnb]

More matters numerical

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/17/matt-hancock-calls-urgent-inquiry-phe-covid-19-death-figures

At first I thought it was more government massaging of statistics, but there is a bit more to it than that.

I don't think it is a deliberate massaging of the stats, more a dubious methodology that might have seemed reasonable in the first month or two but as time has gone on has proved to be very flawed.

It might explain something I have been puzzling over for a few days: as far as I can judge, in recent weeks the ONS Covid-19 death figures for England & Wales (based on death certificates) have been lower than the England & Wales figures (based on positive Covid-19 tests) published on the gov.uk website, whereas it should be the other way round.

[Dave2002]

.....that he or BJ or everyone might be resigning because they can't cope with DC any more.....aaaarrgghhh!!!!
?Maybe............or was I just awakening from an awful dream?

I'm not sure which part of your dream would have been awful.
Perhaps the reality that some of things one might dream of may not actually happen!

[Bryn]

Good exegesis on SAGE currently being broadcast on the BBC News channel (television). Hopefully to be made available via the iPlayer, later. (Lords Science and Technology Committee, that is.)

[DracoM]

Am watching it now. and - wow! - is it good ...... and so much better than ANY of the drankly skeletal / vague / misguided bs from major politicians!

And ALL are saying that this virus is with us for a very long time. The talk is 'many months' , not weeks.

And a fascinating answer from Prof Whitty on SCHOOLS re-convening.

[LMcD]

Lady Dido Harding says: 'Every week NHS test and trace gets better', and yet the percentage of contacts traced has apparently fallen from 90.6% in May to 71.1%. Gets better than what? I don't like being lied to.

[oddoneout]

Lady Dido Harding says: 'Every week NHS test and trace gets better', and yet the percentage of contacts traced has apparently fallen from 90.6% in May to 71.1%. Gets better than what? I don't like being lied to.

Better at not testing and tracing?

[teamsaint]

No positive tests at Salisbury Hospital in 2 weeks and no deaths in over a month.

https://www.salisburyjournal.co.uk/news/18584790.no-positive-covid-19-tests-salisbury-hospital-since-july-2/

I do think that a realistic picture of the real risk where people live would be enormously helpful , not least for those who would like to, but are fearful of, resuming some of their usual activities, where that is possible.

[Dave2002]

Good exegesis on SAGE currently being broadcast on the BBC News channel (television). Hopefully to be made available via the iPlayer, later. (Lords Science and Technology Committee, that is.)

Probably be on the Parliament channel tomorrow - but it isn't yet. The Science and Technology Committee from yesterday with Patrick Vallance is available.

[DracoM]

Lords' Select Cttee is in iPlayer - complex but VERY revealing.

[Dave2002]

Lords' Select Cttee is in iPlayer - complex but VERY revealing.

I can only find the one from 6th July - do you have a link?

[johnb]

More matters numerical

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/17/matt-hancock-calls-urgent-inquiry-phe-covid-19-death-figures

At first I thought it was more government massaging of statistics, but there is a bit more to it than that.

I see that PHE has suspended publishing the figures for Covid-19 deaths.

I can't believe that nobody at PHE realised that there were problems with their figures. Surely someone must have done periodic quality checks against the ONS data.

I'm not sure that PHE not having a 28 day cut off will account for all the discrepancy between PHE and ONS data but I wouldn't be surprised if corrected figure reduced the current reported daily deaths by 20% to 35% . [Edited]

These are the papers that sparked the review. The second link contains a chart showing the discrepancy between ONS and PHE deaths for deaths in England:

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/why-no-one-can-ever-recover-from-covid-19-in-england-a-statistical-anomaly/

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/an-update-on-ons-death-data-and-how-it-differs-to-phe-daily-updates/