Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[Billy the Fish]

From Twitter: Two sources have said Hong Kong health authorities have determined China’s Sinovac vaccine is of no use against the Delta and Omicron variants, thus toughening control measures to minimise any chances of infection. About 40% of the inoculated population chose Sinovac.

AWKWARD.

I'm sure it will all come out in the wash very soon but this subject seems to be very open to interpretation.
It will be interesting to know if sinovac still keeps you out of hospital. I've seen a lot of people judging vaccine effectiveness only on whether it stops you catching covid. I find it hard to believe that it behaves so differently from all the other vaccines.

 

[Weststander]

From Twitter: Two sources have said Hong Kong health authorities have determined China’s Sinovac vaccine is of no use against the Delta and Omicron variants, thus toughening control measures to minimise any chances of infection. About 40% of the inoculated population chose Sinovac.

AWKWARD.

The folk from the HK health authority are now en route to a Xinjiang internment camp for disloyalty to the Party.

 

[dazzer6666]

Interesting commentary on Sage/modelling and the effects of lockdown on virus spread

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...policy-failed/

We haven’t heard much from Sir Patrick Vallance recently. A few weeks ago he wrote an article extolling the reliability of Sage modellers. They speak “scientific truth to power,” he said. He angrily rejected rumours of any negativity bias. Dozens of scenarios had been calculated for omicron deaths, he said, with a huge range of variables. What I’d love to ask him is why, if there was no bias, did every single one of these scenarios end up overstating the threat? Why were they wrong, so wildly wrong? Again?

This isn’t about parading Sir Patrick around Trafalgar Square with a placard of incorrect Sage graphs around his neck. The important question is whether he even thinks there was a problem, whether Sage is capable of error correction – and what he thinks about the fact that the country was very nearly locked down on what turned out to be seriously duff advice. Given that it could happen again, and at any time, are lessons being learned? Or are our scientific advisers still in collective denial?

In an era where all our lives are decided by the quality of epidemic modelling, the ability to scrutinise advice is vital. But Sage models are compiled within a wall of secrecy, protected from scrutiny. Their full figures are never published, nor is the code for them released. This makes error correction far less likely and constitutes a massive flaw in our democracy. “The scary thing is that Vallance has had more power than any of us,” says one Cabinet member.

But what if the error goes far deeper? What if lockdown itself was also built on a premise that turns out to be false? At the time, it was a huge, untested experiment. And two years on, the results are in – from countries, states and regions all over the world. One of the leading universities in the United States, Johns Hopkins, in Maryland, has just collated the data and its conclusion is startling: “We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on Covid-19 mortality.” In other words: an abject failure.

If true, this would be devastating. It would suggest that much of the pain lockdowns caused – the children denied education, ruined businesses, mental health issues, the undiagnosed cancers – was avoidable. And for what? The Johns Hopkins study finds that overall, lockdowns reduced Covid mortality by just 0.2 per cent. “Lockdown policies are ill-founded,” it concluded, “and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”

This isn’t to say that people should (or would) have carried on as normal without lockdowns. The great flaw in the theory was the failure to realise that, even without stay-at-home orders, behaviour adjusts. People hunker down. Mobile phone data now shows that Brits were doing this, even more than Swedes, before the lockdown order was given. The big post-Covid question is whether, in a high-information democracy, lockdowns are needless because people can be trusted to judge the risk, see the news unfold and act independently.

Might this new study find its way to Sir Patrick’s inbox? And might there be a committee somewhere in Whitehall carefully looking at this evidence to see if it is right? You can bet not. This is about politics, not science, and that has been the case for some time. A government that imposed three lockdowns – with huge financial and human cost – will have no interest in studies saying it made a calamitous error. Nor will Labour be saying so, given that Sir Keir Starmer was even more keen on lockdowns than the Tories.

At some point, politicians become so wedded to policies that they can never allow themselves to believe they were errors. Tony Blair will never accept that the Iraq war was a mistake, just as Margaret Thatcher never disowned the poll tax. But both had strong opponents, providing robust democratic challenge. This time, lockdown – in spite of its lack of scientific evidence – was backed by Left and Right, Holyrood, Westminster, Cardiff Bay. It is precisely in such consensus that the biggest mistakes in politics are most likely because there is no challenge, no inquiry, no one to identify mistakes.

This matters because there will, soon, be a new Covid variant. Genomic sequencing means we’ll start to detect new pathogens that might have gone unnoticed even a decade ago. If so, we’ll face the same questions: what to do? Can the healthcare system cope? The risk is that, having cried wolf so many times, Sage would not be believed even if its models were right. Track record matters. A recent Swedish book about the country’s refusal to lock down uncovered emails from health officials saying – in effect – that since Imperial’s Professor Neil Ferguson and his team got swine flu so badly wrong, their figures for Sweden’s Covid deaths would probably be incorrect too. (So it was to prove.)

Given Ferguson’s record, it was never clear why so much store was placed on his original suggestion that lockdown could potentially reduce Covid deaths by up to 98 per cent. At the time, even Sir Patrick and Sir Chris Whitty didn’t buy it. Both rejected lockdown – then realised, to their horror, that they risked being accused of causing an extra 20,000 deaths by failing to do so a week earlier. Even this figure came from Ferguson, and has since been debunked.

It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that our liberty, collectively, depends on Sir Patrick (or his successor) putting together a team capable of providing better epidemiological modelling.

A new group should be created, senior to Sage, that would check everything given then add in economic and social effects, to judge the overall effect of lockdowns. And ask basic questions: do these models assume people would not change their behaviour anyway? If not, why miss out such a basic point?

Denmark’s models got omicron right because they did adjust for behaviour. One bank, JP Morgan, got Britain’s omicron forecasts right because it used South African data. Britain has plenty of scientists who could have done the same – but they don’t seem to be in the right place. Next time, they should be.

The lessons on how to handle the next pandemic are all there: we just need a government capable of learning them.

 

[Fat Boy Fat]

As always, there are two sides to every story...

https://www.google.com/amp/s/nationalpost.com/health/johns-hopkins-study-finding-lockdowns-do-little-to-prevent-covid-deaths-flawed-critics-say/wcm/e767a323-7ff6-4750-81b6-eed5f50ea4fd/amp/

 

[LamieRobertson]

Interesting commentary on Sage/modelling and the effects of lockdown on virus spread

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/202...policy-failed/

We haven’t heard much from Sir Patrick Vallance recently. A few weeks ago he wrote an article extolling the reliability of Sage modellers. They speak “scientific truth to power,” he said. He angrily rejected rumours of any negativity bias. Dozens of scenarios had been calculated for omicron deaths, he said, with a huge range of variables. What I’d love to ask him is why, if there was no bias, did every single one of these scenarios end up overstating the threat? Why were they wrong, so wildly wrong? Again?

This isn’t about parading Sir Patrick around Trafalgar Square with a placard of incorrect Sage graphs around his neck. The important question is whether he even thinks there was a problem, whether Sage is capable of error correction – and what he thinks about the fact that the country was very nearly locked down on what turned out to be seriously duff advice. Given that it could happen again, and at any time, are lessons being learned? Or are our scientific advisers still in collective denial?

In an era where all our lives are decided by the quality of epidemic modelling, the ability to scrutinise advice is vital. But Sage models are compiled within a wall of secrecy, protected from scrutiny. Their full figures are never published, nor is the code for them released. This makes error correction far less likely and constitutes a massive flaw in our democracy. “The scary thing is that Vallance has had more power than any of us,” says one Cabinet member.

But what if the error goes far deeper? What if lockdown itself was also built on a premise that turns out to be false? At the time, it was a huge, untested experiment. And two years on, the results are in – from countries, states and regions all over the world. One of the leading universities in the United States, Johns Hopkins, in Maryland, has just collated the data and its conclusion is startling: “We find no evidence that lockdowns, school closures, border closures, and limiting gatherings have had a noticeable effect on Covid-19 mortality.” In other words: an abject failure.

If true, this would be devastating. It would suggest that much of the pain lockdowns caused – the children denied education, ruined businesses, mental health issues, the undiagnosed cancers – was avoidable. And for what? The Johns Hopkins study finds that overall, lockdowns reduced Covid mortality by just 0.2 per cent. “Lockdown policies are ill-founded,” it concluded, “and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”

This isn’t to say that people should (or would) have carried on as normal without lockdowns. The great flaw in the theory was the failure to realise that, even without stay-at-home orders, behaviour adjusts. People hunker down. Mobile phone data now shows that Brits were doing this, even more than Swedes, before the lockdown order was given. The big post-Covid question is whether, in a high-information democracy, lockdowns are needless because people can be trusted to judge the risk, see the news unfold and act independently.

Might this new study find its way to Sir Patrick’s inbox? And might there be a committee somewhere in Whitehall carefully looking at this evidence to see if it is right? You can bet not. This is about politics, not science, and that has been the case for some time. A government that imposed three lockdowns – with huge financial and human cost – will have no interest in studies saying it made a calamitous error. Nor will Labour be saying so, given that Sir Keir Starmer was even more keen on lockdowns than the Tories.

At some point, politicians become so wedded to policies that they can never allow themselves to believe they were errors. Tony Blair will never accept that the Iraq war was a mistake, just as Margaret Thatcher never disowned the poll tax. But both had strong opponents, providing robust democratic challenge. This time, lockdown – in spite of its lack of scientific evidence – was backed by Left and Right, Holyrood, Westminster, Cardiff Bay. It is precisely in such consensus that the biggest mistakes in politics are most likely because there is no challenge, no inquiry, no one to identify mistakes.

This matters because there will, soon, be a new Covid variant. Genomic sequencing means we’ll start to detect new pathogens that might have gone unnoticed even a decade ago. If so, we’ll face the same questions: what to do? Can the healthcare system cope? The risk is that, having cried wolf so many times, Sage would not be believed even if its models were right. Track record matters. A recent Swedish book about the country’s refusal to lock down uncovered emails from health officials saying – in effect – that since Imperial’s Professor Neil Ferguson and his team got swine flu so badly wrong, their figures for Sweden’s Covid deaths would probably be incorrect too. (So it was to prove.)

Given Ferguson’s record, it was never clear why so much store was placed on his original suggestion that lockdown could potentially reduce Covid deaths by up to 98 per cent. At the time, even Sir Patrick and Sir Chris Whitty didn’t buy it. Both rejected lockdown – then realised, to their horror, that they risked being accused of causing an extra 20,000 deaths by failing to do so a week earlier. Even this figure came from Ferguson, and has since been debunked.

It’s not much of an exaggeration to say that our liberty, collectively, depends on Sir Patrick (or his successor) putting together a team capable of providing better epidemiological modelling.

A new group should be created, senior to Sage, that would check everything given then add in economic and social effects, to judge the overall effect of lockdowns. And ask basic questions: do these models assume people would not change their behaviour anyway? If not, why miss out such a basic point?

Denmark’s models got omicron right because they did adjust for behaviour. One bank, JP Morgan, got Britain’s omicron forecasts right because it used South African data. Britain has plenty of scientists who could have done the same – but they don’t seem to be in the right place. Next time, they should be.

The lessons on how to handle the next pandemic are all there: we just need a government capable of learning them.

Did you see the interview with the Danish modeller on Unherd.com

 

[e77]

Covid 19 infects people via face to face contact, almost exclusively with a minority of infections coming off surfaces. Any restrictions that reduced face to face contact reduced the spread of the virus.

This very well might be the time to open up fully but please don't try and rewrite history.

 

[Swansman]

Covid 19 infects people via face to face contact, almost exclusively with a minority of infections coming off surfaces. Any restrictions that reduced face to face contact reduced the spread of the virus.

This very well might be the time to open up fully but please don't try and rewrite history.

Interesting opinion. I've heard it before: masks, social distancing, lockdowns... all very important, apparently.. but no difference between countries that took those measures and those who didnt.

 

[Fat Boy Fat]

Interesting opinion. I've heard it before: masks, social distancing, lockdowns... all very important, apparently.. but no difference between countries that took those measures and those who didnt.

As you say, interesting, but no difference?

Country. Deaths. Population
Sweden. 16180 10.35m
Norway. 1467 5.37m
Finland. 2058 5.53m
Denmark. 3881 5.83m

Oh and of course

NZ. 53 5.08m
Aus. 4248. 25.69m

Clearly, every country is different in terms of demographics, etc., also Countries made their own choices, often based on economics, but to say it makes NO difference is another rewriting of the pandemic.

 

[Swansman]

As you say, interesting, but no difference?

Country. Deaths. Population
Sweden. 16180 10.35m
Norway. 1467 5.37m
Finland. 2058 5.53m
Denmark. 3881 5.83m

Oh and of course

NZ. 53 5.08m
Aus. 4248. 25.69m

Clearly, every country is different in terms of demographics, etc., also Countries made their own choices, often based on economics, but to say it makes NO difference is another rewriting of the pandemic.

Belgium lots of deaths despite using pretty much all the tools in the box, same with Lithuania and several other countries with high covid deaths per million. Some countries that were really not doing much, like Turkey and Sweden, managed better than the ones mentioned above and also better than countries like France, UK and Germany where people were locked up, locked down, wearing masks everywhere etc.

No connection between lockdowns/masks and number of deaths.

 

[Fat Boy Fat]

Belgium lots of deaths despite using pretty much all the tools in the box, same with Lithuania and several other countries with high covid deaths per million. Some countries that were really not doing much, like Turkey and Sweden, managed better than the ones mentioned above and also better than countries like France, UK and Germany where people were locked up, locked down, wearing masks everywhere etc.

No connection between lockdowns/masks and number of deaths.

Lots of countries, got lots of things wrong, particularly in the early stages of Covid, Belgium being one of the major outliers for that. Political decisions were made that proved very costly and lessons weren’t learned quick enough. Since then, when Belgium have been putting various measures in place, their figures have improved dramatically.

There were many variations on the phrase “lockdown” too, with some countries measures more draconian than others, while others measures were more advisory.

The populations of some countries were more in tune to following government advice, while in others large groups felt it their “right” to kick back at authority.

Also, as said, demographics has a large part to play, with a health and age of populations having a major effect.

Housing is a major contributory factor too, for example Sweden has one of the largest single occupancy housing numbers in Europe. The home is clearly where most infections were spread, ergo living alone was possibly safer than being locked down with your family.

Economists can write reports to say restrictions did nothing, but scientists will dispute this. Unless every country applies exactly the same rules and the population of those countries follow them exactly the same, you will never know what really works.

 

[Lyndhurst 14]

Israeli report links Vitamin D deficiency with Covid

https://www.businessinsider.com/study-identifies-link-between-vitamin-d-levels-and-covid-19-severity-2022-2?fbclid=IwAR0QnwdgRKj-TxDdZW4JD_tTgZGb9iYF0ZS39HFAyop0aq9JZcb6TxyT2cs&r=US&IR=T

 

[Fat Boy Fat]

Israeli report links Vitamin D deficiency with Covid

https://www.businessinsider.com/study-identifies-link-between-vitamin-d-levels-and-covid-19-severity-2022-2?fbclid=IwAR0QnwdgRKj-TxDdZW4JD_tTgZGb9iYF0ZS39HFAyop0aq9JZcb6TxyT2cs&r=US&IR=T

To be fair, that’s a little old news, my wife was issued with Vitamin D tablets last year by the U.K. Health Authorities, for the same reason.

 

[Billy the Fish]

To be fair, that’s a little old news, my wife was issued with Vitamin D tablets last year by the U.K. Health Authorities, for the same reason.

I think there was a lot of anecdotal evidence but hadn't been a proper study so there was always a bit of doubt.

As you say though, it's a bit of a no brainer to start supplementing because it's recommended anyway and there were enough stories floating around that it could be beneficial against covid.

I've been using a mouth spray every morning for well over a year now, along with my missus and toddler. I find the spray much easier than the tablets.

 

[Fat Boy Fat]

I think there was a lot of anecdotal evidence but hadn't been a proper study so there was always a bit of doubt.

As you say though, it's a bit of a no brainer to start supplementing because it's recommended anyway and there were enough stories floating around that it could be beneficial against covid.

I've been using a mouth spray every morning for well over a year now, along with my missus and toddler. I find the spray much easier than the tablets.

Is that a vitamin D spray, as my wife is fed up of taking tablets, as she already does about 80 a week for cancer, cholesterol, blood thinners, etc. !!!

 

[Billy the Fish]

Is that a vitamin D spray, as my wife is fed up of taking tablets, as she already does about 80 a week for cancer, cholesterol, blood thinners, etc. !!!

Google Betteryou

It is a bit pricey, I usually wait for Holland and Barrett to do a sale and then stock up. I know Aldi do their own version which is a bit more reasonable.

 

[dazzer6666]

Isolation rules likely to be lifted earlier than planned

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60319947

 

[e77]

Interesting opinion. I've heard it before: masks, social distancing, lockdowns... all very important, apparently.. but no difference between countries that took those measures and those who didnt.

Covid is a virus. Viruses spread by face to face transmission so people not having face to face contact with each other or wearing a mask reducing the spread of droplets is going to reduce, although not entirely eliminate, the spread of the disease.

Please debate the wider impact of the restrictions on things like the economy and mental health but lets do it from a starting point of acknowledging the scientific basis of why they happened.

 

[e77]

Isolation rules likely to be lifted earlier than planned

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-60319947

Funnily enough I am isolating at the moment. Glad I was able to get it in while I could.

I am sure people will say I have said this for every restriction being lifted but I am of he opinion we should wait until winter is over.

 

[dazzer6666]

Funnily enough I am isolating at the moment. Glad I was able to get it in while I could.

I am sure people will say I have said this for every restriction being lifted but I am of he opinion we should wait until winter is over.

I was last week…..so close to making it through…….…..but am in the other camp. As long a the vulnerable are protected (or protecting themselves), I think we need to crack on - me, Mrs D and at least half a dozen pals have had it in the last month or currently have it, none were any more ill than they would have been with a ‘normal’ winter cold bug.

 

[e77]

I was last week…..so close to making it through…….…..but am in the other camp. As long a the vulnerable are protected (or protecting themselves), I think we need to crack on - me, Mrs D and at least half a dozen pals have had it in the last month or currently have it, none were any more ill than they would have been wit a ‘normal’ winter cold bug.

TBF it hasn't been that bad and more importantly not that bad for my 77 year old mother who also had it. When I had my first jab last year I had the shivers that evening and retired to bed and felt fine in the morning. On Sunday evening the same thing happened, which I am assuming was my immune system firing up again.

I start a new contract in a couple of weeks (which will be remote as they don't have an office) but I do wonder if I did have an office to go to, would the expectation had been to drag myself in and potentially infect everyone on the train getting there and the office when I got there? I agree we are getting to the point that legal restrictions can go but they need to be replaced with common sense by us and employers.

I am sure some will but a lack confidence in others to take precautions when they aren't legally obliged.