Coronavirus

[Bryn]

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

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000lcyg/select-committees-science-of-covid19-committee

Use the PID m000lcyg in get_iplayer if it will not play directly.

[Bryn]

https://covid.joinzoe.com/post/covid-clusters

I hope that works without registration.

[johnb]

Thanks Bryn, that's very interesting indeed.

The [King's College] press release headline states:

"Data from the COVID Symptom Study has revealed six distinct ‘types’ of COVID-19"

Just to avoid confusion - I've traced the preprint of the King's College, London study and they are NOT saying that there are six distinct types of Covid-19 virus going around, as the press release might be taken to imply (admittedly there are quotes around the word "types").

My understanding is that they have found that the symptoms can be grouped into six distinct clusters which are each indicative of the future severity of the disease and what treatment might be required.

[Pulcinella]

The Guardian website makes it clear in its headline:

Coronavirus symptoms fall into six different groupings, study finds

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/17/covid-19-symptoms-falls-into-six-different-groupings-study-finds-coronavirus

[johnb]

As the government has suspended publication of their daily figures (from DHSC) for those dying of Covid-19 I've posted a chart showing the latest figures from NHS England for deaths in hospitals together with the figures from the latest ONS report and the usual DHSC figures.



(Apologies for the following long tedious explanation.)

ONS
The ONS figures are by date of death. They go up to the date of death 10th July and include deaths registered by 18th July. There will be some future adjustments for deaths registered after 18th July where the date of death is up to the 10th July.

They include all deaths where Covid-19 is mentioned on the death certificate and are regarded as the most accurate source.

NHS England
The NHS England figures are by date of death for those dying in hospital of CV19, whether confirmed by test or not (approx 10% of Covid-19 deaths in hospitals since late April have not had a positive test result). From what I gather the figures are considered reliable.

They reflect the prevalence of the virus in the general community.

The difference between the ONS and NHS England figures is predominantly care home deaths.

DHSC
These are the figures usually announced by the government on a daily basis and published on the gov.uk website.

Publication of the figures has been suspended pending the outcome of a review into their accuracy and suitability for purpose, however they are still available in one of the downloadable data files.

The deaths are only available by date reported and are intended to include deaths in all settings where the deceased has been tested positive for CV19. They do not include instances where Covid-19 is mentioned on the death certificate but where there has been no positive test.

It is very puzzling why deaths reported by the DHSC have exceeded those from ONS in recent weeks. Hopefully the review will shed some light on this discrepancy.

Sources:
NHS England: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistic...-daily-deaths/
ONS: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulat...nglandandwales
DHSC: the "Download the latest deaths data as CSV or JSON" file on: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/?_ga...441.1586449922

(The daily death counts for Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are currently insignificant compared to those for England.)

[Jazzrook]

'Socialism in a time of pandemics' by Joseph Choonara:

https://www.isj.org.uk/socialism-in-a-time-of-pandemics/

JR

[johnb]

I've updated my post #3264 to include DHSC data and have made it even more tedious and long winded.

[DracoM]

1. What I am still truly grappling with is that this pandemic struck ages ago, figures locally and nationally are lower than for months, town looked more or less normal and cheerful.
2...............and yet that same comfortable and comforting little town is suddenly - and I do mean suddenly - covered with masks / warnings / markers / restrictions etcetc WAY, way more stringent than since the start, nay since as little as three weeks ago - as if the pandemic had only just struck, and is raging at its height.
...and now?
3. Fear, avoidance, suspicion, emptier and emptier streets - and all this strenuous stuff, as I say, started / actioned literally MONTHS AFTER the thing first arrived!
4. This last weekend we had MORE bikers, cyclists, walkers, visitors than for weeks.

Utterly bizarre.

[teamsaint]

1. What I am still truly grappling with is that this pandemic struck ages ago, figures locally and nationally are lower than for months, town looked more or less normal and cheerful.
2...............and yet that same comfortable and comforting little town is suddenly - and I do mean suddenly - covered with masks / warnings / markers / restrictions etcetc WAY, way more stringent than since the start, nay since as little as three weeks ago - as if the pandemic had only just struck, and is raging at its height.
...and now?
3. Fear, avoidance, suspicion, emptier and emptier streets - and all this strenuous stuff, as I say, started / actioned literally MONTHS AFTER the thing first arrived!
4. This last weekend we had MORE bikers, cyclists, walkers, visitors than for weeks.

Utterly bizarre.

It's crazy. the responses just don't fit with the actual situation on the ground. There should have been targeted responses far earlier esp people returning or coming in from hot spots .

And the responses now need to be in line with local conditions, and with proper messaging being passed out into the community. Infection rates in my are are currently very low. If you act with a modicum of good sense, you will be fine, and you can easily protect yourself, and others.
Masks may be useful in some situations, ( EG busy trains) but they are are not the full answer, and are ( IMO, sorry if it isn't a popular view) helping to spread an unnecessary climate of fear that is going to cause untold misery and health damage due to the economic impact of a recession that is , in part, being driven by fear, and not legitimate health concerns.
And, ( again sorry if it is an unpopular view) GPs need to stop encouraging this climate of fear , and start actually responding to health needs.

My 80 YO mum has just been invited to her annual check up, on Zoom. She won't be doing it that way. And even though she has several underlying conditions, she just wants to get on with her life, and take the very low risk she is exposed to.

[DracoM]

<< My 80 YO mum has just been invited to her annual check up, on Zoom. She won't be doing it that way >>

Yes!

And if a routine annual etc medical assessment needs to be made eg weight, blood pressure, urine etc, then who the hell is going to go the GP, hang around for that in a waiting room with all that goes with that, for a routine that MUST be done?

We are steadily painting ourselves into a corner.

I have never seen our streets here so apprehensive, unpeopled, monosyllabic / wordless / greetingless.
LAST week, yes - as recently as last week - it was NOTHING like this.

Bizarre.

[Simon B]

...responses far earlier esp people returning or coming in from hot spots.

Right at the very start, like February, agreed. Once there was significant local epidemic growth underway, incoming travel bans would have just been theatre IMO. Run the numbers.

Start with 40k UK already infected. Basic estimates suggest this had happened by about March/17th. Less than 1% of UK epidemic to-date had then occurred. At this stage, the doubling time was about 3 days, and the 10x time was 10 days.

Project forward in two scenarios:

1) Total travel ban or massive effort to somehow identify & quarantine 100% of imported cases:
If there are 0 imported cases, 20 days later you've hit 3.47 million infections.

2) Zero effort to stop imported cases - basically what actually happened:
A figure of 15k people/day flying into the UK during lockdown was given. What's a realistic estimate for how many had live infections? 1%?

With 150 extra infections introduced per day and all things being equal, 20 days later you have 3.53 million infections i.e. 1.9% more.

3) Result:
By eliminating 100% of these 150 infections/day for 20 consecutive days, you buy yourself a whole 2 hours or so in the progress of the epidemic.

4) Conclusion:
Once the local epidemic has got going, worrying about imported cases is displacement activity.

You can fiddle about with the numbers, argue with how estimates are arrived at & the oversimplified model etc but that is tinkering at the edges. Crucially, the number of infected people coming into the country can't possibly increase exponentially for long, while the number of infected people already there absolutely does. In the rapid growth phase of the epidemic, once the number of ongoing local infections is much larger than the plausible number of daily imports, imports become essentially irrelevant.

TL;DR:

This is all a very long-winded way of saying that it's precisely when prevalence is at its lowest (now, ish) that paranoid anti-infection measures will have the greatest useful long-term effect. Exponential phenomena behave in a way which seems to be the opposite of most non-scientific people's intuition. The biggest effect you can have on an epidemic is when you can barely see any evidence of it.

[teamsaint]

Simon B, yes, I was talking about at the very start, assuming of course that what we think or were told was the very start was indeed the very start.

Re your final point, that is no doubt correct. But one issue is that the spread of the virus isn’t, sadly, the only game in town.

[DracoM]

Another deadly virus embedded in this:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/20/englands-chief-nurse-dropped-from-covid-19-briefing-after-refusing-to-back-cummings-ruth-may

[Serial_Apologist]

Another deadly virus embedded in this:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics...mings-ruth-may

There has to be lots more stuff in the woodwork just waiting to come out.

[Dave2002]

There has to be lots more stuff in the woodwork just waiting to come out.

Russian donations to Tories - but maybe covered up - if "that" report is pulled again. We know of some from previous reports. We also know that Dominic spent several years in Russia. Why?