[News] The Coronavirus Good News thread

[The Wizard]

Boris seemed very bullish in that press conference, I think the rumours of the Oxford vaccine showing massive promise may well be correct, lancet said there will be an announcement about it on the 20th July. A couple of days of excellent news that’s even been reported in the papers, which is nice for once.

IF we did produce the first viable mass producible vaccine, it would be a game changer for our economic recovery. Fingers crossed.

 

[Mellotron]

From Johnson's comments it sounds like they may also be feeling quite positive on the vaccine. When asked whether antibody tests were still a game changer, the noises from him and Dido Harding were that we're not looking to ramp up antibody testing, and that the focus for game changing is on a/the vaccine.

He also refers to "Significant normailty" by November - I wonder how this ties with what you have heard, [MENTION=206]Marshy[/MENTION]?

 

[atomised]

Boris seemed very bullish in that press conference, I think the rumours of the Oxford vaccine showing massive promise may well be correct, lancet said there will be an announcement about it on the 20th July. A couple of days of excellent news that’s even been reported in the papers, which is nice for once.

IF we did produce the first viable mass producible vaccine, it would be a game changer for our economic recovery. Fingers crossed.

There does seem to have been a bit of a switch to the positive in the media the last couple of days

 

[Mellotron]

I also don't think it's coincidence that they're looking at the PHE reporting now - be very surprised if we don't see a change in this in coming days.

Also, new cases includes antibody tests, which artificially inflates "new" case figures - perhaps these should be separated too?

 

[The Wizard]

I also don't think it's coincidence that they're looking at the PHE reporting now - be very surprised if we don't see a change in this in coming days.

Also, new cases includes antibody tests, which artificially inflates "new" case figures - perhaps these should be separated too?

New cases include antibodies tests? I don’t think that’s the case, I thought new case numbers only included pillar 1 & pillar 2, which is (NHS U.K, PHE and ‘commercial partners’ whatever that means) antibodies tests are pillar 4, which although counted towards ‘total tests’ aren’t added to the case numbers, that’s as far as I know it anyway.

 

[loz]

The sceptic in me thinks perhaps this was the governments plan all along, calculate deaths one way until they are at a low number, make a big noise about a discredited department that stands to be disbanded and reorganised very soon and then change the way they count them and all of a sudden you have single figure or no deaths !
A bit like Spain have done really !

"“Linking data on confirmed positive cases (identified through testing by NHS and PHE laboratories and commercial partners) to the NHS Demographic Batch Service: when a patient dies, the NHS central register of patients is notified (this is not limited to deaths in hospitals). The list of all lab-confirmed cases is checked against the NHS central register each day, to check if any of the patients have died.”

Here, it seems that PHE regularly looks for people on the NHS database who have ever tested positive, and simply checks to see if they are still alive or not. PHE does not appear to consider how long ago the COVID test result was, nor whether the person has been successfully treated in hospital and discharged to the community. Anyone who has tested COVID positive but subsequently died at a later date of any cause will be included on the PHE COVID death figures.

By this PHE definition, no one with COVID in England is allowed to ever recover from their illness. A patient who has tested positive, but successfully treated and discharged from hospital, will still be counted as a COVID death even if they had a heart attack or were run over by a bus three months later.

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/why-no...NU2DGASb5-coEc

 

[Mellotron]

New cases include antibodies tests? I don’t think that’s the case, I thought new case numbers only included pillar 1 & pillar 2, which is (NHS U.K, PHE and ‘commercial partners’ whatever that means) antibodies tests are pillar 4, which although counted towards ‘total tests’ aren’t added to the case numbers, that’s as far as I know it anyway.

Ah ok, I could be wrong on that, apologies.

 

[beorhthelm]

Boris seemed very bullish in that press conference, I think the rumours of the Oxford vaccine showing massive promise may well be correct, lancet said there will be an announcement about it on the 20th July. A couple of days of excellent news that’s even been reported in the papers, which is nice for once.

IF we did produce the first viable mass producible vaccine, it would be a game changer for our economic recovery. Fingers crossed.

understand its passed on the safety side, no one get adverse effects from the vaccine. the focus is on efficacy, if it prevents infection, which is proving very challenging as the trial volunteers arent coming into contact with the virus. hence suggestions of deliberatly infecting volunteers, fun for an ethics board to review.

 

[The Wizard]

understand its passed on the safety side, no one get adverse effects from the vaccine. the focus is on efficacy, if it prevents infection, which is proving very challenging as the trial volunteers arent coming into contact with the virus. hence suggestions of deliberatly infecting volunteers, fun for an ethics board to review.

Luckily enough, the vaccine is being given to people in Brazil as well, where the infection is fairly rife so hopefully that gives us better results, I think even without direct infection they can still measure whether someone has the viral antibodies in their blood but obviously as you say, need to be sure it prevents people from being infected.

 

[Bodian]

"“Linking data on confirmed positive cases (identified through testing by NHS and PHE laboratories and commercial partners) to the NHS Demographic Batch Service: when a patient dies, the NHS central register of patients is notified (this is not limited to deaths in hospitals). The list of all lab-confirmed cases is checked against the NHS central register each day, to check if any of the patients have died.”

Here, it seems that PHE regularly looks for people on the NHS database who have ever tested positive, and simply checks to see if they are still alive or not. PHE does not appear to consider how long ago the COVID test result was, nor whether the person has been successfully treated in hospital and discharged to the community. Anyone who has tested COVID positive but subsequently died at a later date of any cause will be included on the PHE COVID death figures.

By this PHE definition, no one with COVID in England is allowed to ever recover from their illness. A patient who has tested positive, but successfully treated and discharged from hospital, will still be counted as a COVID death even if they had a heart attack or were run over by a bus three months later.

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/why-no...NU2DGASb5-coEc

That's bizarre. It means you could be totally asymptomatic - yet still be recorded a couple of months later as a covid death?

 

[loz]

That's bizarre. It means you could be totally asymptomatic - yet still be recorded a couple of months later as a covid death?

Yup, thats what it means.

A friend of mine is a carer they had an old lady who caught Covid while in hospital in March, she recovered and was sent back to her care home. She very sadly died suddenly while brushing her teeth. Put down as a Covid death even though she had no symptoms at the time, the whole care home and careers where then checked and no one was found positive.

It really is a weird way of counting Covid deaths ?

 

[Chicken Run]

Yup, thats what it means.

A friend of mine is a carer they had an old lady who caught Covid while in hospital in March, she recovered and was sent back to her care home. She very sadly died suddenly while brushing her teeth. Put down as a Covid death even though she had no symptoms at the time, the whole care home and careers where then checked and no one was found positive.

It really is a weird way of counting Covid deaths ?

Wow if this is accurate it does make you wonder how many people across the UK who unfortunately lost their lives were recorded COVID death and perhaps died for other reasons?

 

[blue-shifted]

Wow if this is accurate it does make you wonder how many people across the UK who unfortunately lost their lives were recorded COVID death and perhaps died for other reasons?

Yeh, always better to look at the deaths above average stats

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Yeh, always better to look at the deaths above average stats

Wouldn’t these be even more flawed?

We’ve completely fecked it up

 

[CHAPPERS]

She very sadly died suddenly while brushing her teeth.

Of?

I think we possibly need to be careful with this until the government decide how they ARE going to count Covid deaths, especially since Boris was pushed into confirming an independent review into the government response to the pandemic this week. Now suddenly there were less deaths? How many less?

 

[LamieRobertson]

Sir Tom has been knighted

 

[LamieRobertson]

NHS England have announced 16 COVID-19 associated deaths today. This is split across five dates - the earliest being June 20th.

For the first time since Match 11th, we have a day no longer subject to change that is under 10. Remember, the orange section is subject to change.

[tweet]1284121547075190791[/tweet]

RIP the 16

 

[Ludensian Gull]

NHS England have announced 16 COVID-19 associated deaths today. This is split across five dates - the earliest being June 20th.

For the first time since Match 11th, we have a day no longer subject to change that is under 10. Remember, the orange section is subject to change.

[tweet]1284121547075190791[/tweet]

RIP the 16

I really don't understand that 114 deaths on coronavirus tracker . I know that covers UK but don't understand your figures and dates . Just me being dim I expect

 

[AlbionBro]

Wow if this is accurate it does make you wonder how many people across the UK who unfortunately lost their lives were recorded COVID death and perhaps died for other reasons?

An old friend of mine was recorded as dying with Covid, but he didn't even have it, but the care home still wanted to put Covid as the cause, his daughter said he did not have it, it was a sudden death, probably a stroke, as he had had eight previous ones. Seems very wrong I am not sure we will ever know the real amount as private care homes seem to have a rule of their own.

 

[Joey Jo Jo Jr. Shabadoo]

I really don't understand that 114 deaths on coronavirus tracker . I know that covers UK but don't understand your figures and dates . Just me being dim I expect

The 114 are the number of deaths reported across the whole of the UK in all settings.

The 16 reported in [MENTION=11350]LamieRobertson[/MENTION] post are for NHS England only, so basically people who have died in a hospital in England after testing positive for Covid-19. Because there is sometimes a delay in reporting deaths it means that those 16 people died on 5 different dates, the earliest date of death of the 16 was June 20th.