Non - Pandemic

Excellent Ch4 documentary tonight on the UK vaccine taskforce work to identify and secure vaccine supplies. Some real unsung heroes on there and some really interesting insights into the problems they faced.
 
redharry said:
Who knows what the numbers are. I recall the early numbers from the Chinese authorities claiming a tiny number of deaths in the Wuhan area when evidence showed their crematoria were working 24/7 instead of a few hours a day.
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Just like we stopped showing comparisons when our death rates started showing an unhealthy situation. ;-)
 
DJ said:
Unfortunately no one knows, due to the way India records deaths in normal times and now basically no records.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1391238136961830914
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Hard to wrap your head around such incredible numbers. A huge country of course so everything is on a large scale, but still.

What seems odd is that, as far as the data suggested, India seemed quite mildly impacted in the initial months and outbreaks of the pandemic.
 
redharry said:
The actual article doesn't really give a great deal of concern, a moderate chance of transmission equal to the Kent variant, no evidence of increased severity of illness or ability to bypass vaccination. But a good excuse to scare people again by some of the social media types.
https://www.newscientist.com/articl...=social&utm_source=Twitter#Echobox=1620677755
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No it doesn’t re the variant in the UK.

But as it goes on to mention another variant that is in India and more concerning.

When some people see what is happening in India, possibly think the variant we have here is the same, so when you read the whole article and these paras below it explains it more.


Encouragingly, the variant does not seem more harmful. “There isn’t any evidence that this causes more severe disease,” said Peacock, referring to data from the UK. She noted the mortality rate has been high in India but the country was operating in challenging circumstances, and there was no reason to think the variant caused more severe disease.

The total number of confirmed cases of the variant in the UK stands at 520, with 318 of those between 28 April and 5 May. Mapping of cases that have been genetically sequenced suggests hotspots in central and north-west England, with the highest rates in Bolton. Being officially designated a variant of concern by PHE means surge testing is available to local areas to contain its spread in tandem with contact tracing.

Unlike the other two versions of the India variant, it does not have the E484Q mutation, which is in the same position on the virus as E484K, a mutation linked to helping the it evade antibodies. For that reason, Peacock says the variant circulating in the UK “worries me less” than another version prevalent in India, B.1.617.1.

Ravi Gupta of the University of the Cambridge said research suggests B.1.617.1 does have a greater ability to bypass defences triggered by vaccination or an earlier coronavirus infection. Gupta said there are signs it is better at spreading among vaccinated people, even though vaccination still appears to protect against severe disease . “In terms of controlling transmission there may be a degree of compromise,” he said.



https://www.newscientist.com/article/2277153-indian-coronavirus-variant-in-the-uk-seems-to-be-more-transmissible/#ixzz6u
 
MB1980 said:
Yes and if someone visited gp or hospital after covid for something unrelated to covid it would be counted in covid death figures.
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If they died within 28 days of a positive test they would, not just if they went to the doctors or hospital. I don't see why people get their knickers in a twist about this like it's some conspiricy. It's not like thousands of people who died in car crashes are getting counted in the covid figures plus they always said excess deaths is the best measure. Last time I looked excess deaths matched reported covid deaths fairly closely suggesting their chosen methodology isn't overestimating covid deaths.
 
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SlowDownDerek said:
If they died within 28 days of a positive test they would, not just if they went to the doctors or hospital. I don't see why people get their knickers in a twist about this like it's some conspiricy. It's not like thousands of people who died in car crashes are getting counted in the covid figures plus they always said excess deaths is the best measure. Last time I looked excess deaths matched reported covid deaths fairly closely suggesting their chosen methodology isn't overestimating covid deaths.
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The suggestion is that a high proportion of the deaths being reported now are not covid deaths. Approx one third of official covd deaths, according to the Office of National Statistics, are deaths where covid is recorded as a secondary cause on the death certificate. This generally means that either it was noted but wasn't really a cause of death, or else that the patient was dying anyway and covid perhaps hastened them along.

I don't think there is any doubt that the hundered thousand plus figure over the past year plus accurately represents the deaths covid caused. But of the current 10 or so per day, it may very well be that 3 or 4 shouldn't really be there.
 
dsr-burnley said:
The suggestion is that a high proportion of the deaths being reported now are not covid deaths. Approx one third of official covd deaths, according to the Office of National Statistics, are deaths where covid is recorded as a secondary cause on the death certificate. This generally means that either it was noted but wasn't really a cause of death, or else that the patient was dying anyway and covid perhaps hastened them along.

I don't think there is any doubt that the hundered thousand plus figure over the past year plus accurately represents the deaths covid caused. But of the current 10 or so per day, it may very well be that 3 or 4 shouldn't really be there.
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Well there might be some truth in that but I don't see why it matters so much given that numbers are so low anyway.

What's more problematic is that lockdown related deaths will be starting to show now - eg cancer deaths caused by delays in treatment or misdiagnosis. You'd think that excess deaths will become an increasingly unreliable indicator of covid deaths from now on.
 
SlowDownDerek said:
What's more problematic is that lockdown related deaths will be starting to show now - eg cancer deaths caused by delays in treatment or misdiagnosis. You'd think that excess deaths will become an increasingly unreliable indicator of covid deaths from now on.
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Hopefully the fear of that will have been somewhat overstated. No doubt there will be individual tragedies but not the waves people said.
 
DJ said:
Hopefully the fear of that will have been somewhat overstated. No doubt there will be individual tragedies but not the waves people said.
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Hopefully but cancer screening and diagnosis dropped significantly last year and that can't be good. I've not seen any heart attack or stroke figures but you'd think any spike in these would show up fairly easily in the stats.
 
SlowDownDerek said:
Hopefully but cancer screening and diagnosis dropped significantly last year and that can't be good. .
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Nope, it’s not a good sign. I’m just hoping the scare stories and numbers don’t conspire and be proved accurate.

I know that locally covid didn’t appear to disrupt the process in certain areas, so fingers crossed.
 
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