General News Discussion

[eFestivals]

16 minutes ago, LJS said:

Do we know if Sweden's figures are more accurate?

(Serious question: I don't know the answer)

no idea.

I'm pointing out that the fairly close comparison of that graph doesn't necessarily hold as true, because of what we know about the non-accuracy of the official UK numbers. The gap could be much wider, or the other way.

What we do also know, tho, is that Sweden doesn't have multi-generational households like the UK, it has very different ski-ing holiday destinations (mostly within Sweden), much better social cohesion, not an international travel hub, etc, etc, etc.

A simple compare of the numbers doesn't really tell us much, because no two countries are the same.

However, it's true that the best performing countries - which isn't Sweden (so why would we want to be like Sweden?  ) - all have effective track and trace in place. Which we don't.

Edited October 16, 2020 by eFestivals

[lost]

38 minutes ago, LJS said:

Do we know if Sweden's figures are more accurate?

(Serious question: I don't know the answer)

Frances aren't. When the Belgians say "We are being honest and counting all deaths" they are talking about their neighbours the French who only count deaths in hospital. They don't test deaths in the community, I'm not sure if that includes nursing homes but if it does they could be up there with Belgium. This is why you need to be careful comparing countries.

[JoshD]

16 hours ago, LJS said:

Its failed to materialise anywhere in the world because the predictions of "apocalyptic" deaths were based on what would happen if no action was taken.

Correction - whether or not governments take action the population will alter their behaviour. A model that assumes people live in a vacuum is worthless.
 

16 hours ago, LJS said:

Anyone who thinks the economy would just tick along nicely in these circumstances is living in cloud cuckoo land.

The economy would have been massively fucked either way, but at least we wouldn’t have borrowed hundreds of billions to be paid for by future generations - the people being asked to endure the most hardship and at the least direct risk of the disease.

The rich won’t pay. Even though they should. The burden will fall on the poorest who pay twice. Once in insufficient support and once in later austerity or later squeezes.

 

16 hours ago, LJS said:

I think it is certainly true that a straight correlation between different levels of lockdown in different countries and death rates is not 100% clear

Given the imposition of lockdowns (complete ones), I’d argue the rates need to be inarguable. As in, this graph is measured in units of hundreds and this graph is measured in units 10,000s. The only places that apply to where lockdowns can be credited are NZ/Oz, and the ship unfortunately sailed a long time ago to copy them. The real differences among those governments can control (so excluding climate/demographics), I would put to you, are in things like track and trace effectiveness. Lock down to improve track and trace is an argument I have time for, but do you have confidence our government will? If this is the route we’re going down, I’d prefer to see T&T improved first, and once everyone agrees it’s up to snuff but for the capacity issue, then I’d accept broad controls to get the numbers down.

The other factor btw is whether or not they fucked up with hospitals and care homes. And remember that the reason many governments fucked up with care homes, btw, is because they were shit scared of Covid. Sturgeon admitted that.
 

6 hours ago, eFestivals said:

hospitals have unlimited capacity now that they didn't have in April...?  

No, but equally the medical demands of Covid are also not unlimited. The sad truth is that many of those who get it and die from it don’t stick around for that long. We might have had to turn away non-Covid patients for a while, but... we did that anyway.

The best we can do is compare against other places. Many of those with far less robust healthcare systems to our own, plus nonexistent (as opposed to not-great) T&T. Remember many of the things we were panicking about in March turned out to be less important than we thought. Eg ventilators.

This peer reviewed paper puts the mortality rate at 0.2% and that’s across a range of medical treatment and healthcare systems. In some areas that’s slightly higher but with the right interventions to protect the vulnerable it could equally be lower. 

6 hours ago, eFestivals said:

I think the UK needs a "I refuse treatment for covid" pledge from the let-it-rip advocates. 

Why not - we had a “refuse treatment for everything else unless it will kill you in the next 5 minutes” pledge during April when Covid outranked everything else. That wasn’t a pledge anyone signed up to either, and it disproportionately harmed those below the average age of Covid death. 

The only people I hear saying we should truly “let it rip” are the conspiracy lot going on about 5G and Bill Gates. In the cases of many of those I’d suggest there may be mental health issues at play and I wouldn’t treat their refusal pledge as being worth the paper it’s written on. 

That leaves those who have reached a different conclusion having considered all the trade-offs, and part of their calculations are rightly the availability of care. A similar argument would be that car drivers should be denied care because they increase risks for everyone and know what they’re getting into.

[lost]

36 minutes ago, JoshD said:

Why not - we had a “refuse treatment for everything else unless it will kill you in the next 5 minutes” pledge during April when Covid outranked everything else. That wasn’t a pledge anyone signed up to either, and it disproportionately harmed those below the average age of Covid death. 

I actually read elsewhere and honestly I still don't believe it. The NHS still hasn't resumed bowel cancer screening since March. Its the 2nd most common cancer in the country apparently.

This is what happens when you make a population obsessed with numbers they have no ability to put into any context and create league tables of death for them to rate each countries politician. Any politician at the moment who wants to be re-elected would quite logically redirect resources from cancer to covid even if it means killing 3 people to save 1.

[viberunner]

6 hours ago, eFestivals said:

hospitals have unlimited capacity now that they didn't have in April...?

The standard NHS April capacity was sufficient, they were stretched but made it; the NHS Nightingale hospitals had almost no patients (only a fraction of their capacity was used). So we don't have unlimited capacity but we have significant amounts of unused capacity.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/04/london-nhs-nightingale-hospital-placed-on-standby

[eFestivals]

24 minutes ago, viberunner said:

The standard NHS April capacity was sufficient, they were stretched but made it; the NHS Nightingale hospitals had almost no patients (only a fraction of their capacity was used). So we don't have unlimited capacity but we have significant amounts of unused capacity.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/04/london-nhs-nightingale-hospital-placed-on-standby

The NHS capacity wasn't actually sufficient back in April. Oldies with covid in care homes were denied hospital as the default, while huge numbers of ordinary people with covid who called 999 who would have normally been admitted were not.

The extra capacity of the nightingales is great in theory but there's just not the trained staff to operate them in the way people expect with hospital care.

It might just be possible to 'manage' our way thru very high infection rates, but it's not sufficient provision in the normal healthcare way.

 

[eFestivals]

1 hour ago, lost said:

I actually read elsewhere and honestly I still don't believe it. The NHS still hasn't resumed bowel cancer screening since March. Its the 2nd most common cancer in the country apparently.

This is what happens when you make a population obsessed with numbers they have no ability to put into any context and create league tables of death for them to rate each countries politician. Any politician at the moment who wants to be re-elected would quite logically redirect resources from cancer to covid even if it means killing 3 people to save 1.

It's tragic that treatments have had to be paused along with the far fewer new cases being detected, but as far as the numbers go these are causing far fewer deaths than covid.

And it's not all bad. Colleague of my wife had treatment yesterday for skin cancer, with diagnosis less than a month ago. Things are not at a stop.

[eFestivals]

2 hours ago, JoshD said:

A similar argument would be that car drivers should be denied care because they increase risks for everyone and know what they’re getting into.

The similar argument would be one where the car driver refuses to go along with measures to reduce the need of medical help, such as refusing to wear a seatbelt. 

[feral chile]

14 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

It's tragic that treatments have had to be paused along with the far fewer new cases being detected, but as far as the numbers go these are causing far fewer deaths than covid.

And it's not all bad. Colleague of my wife had treatment yesterday for skin cancer, with diagnosis less than a month ago. Things are not at a stop.

I had my annual screening on time.

[kaosmark2]

3 hours ago, JoshD said:

 

Given the imposition of lockdowns (complete ones), I’d argue the rates need to be inarguable. As in, this graph is measured in units of hundreds and this graph is measured in units 10,000s. The only places that apply to where lockdowns can be credited are NZ/Oz, and the ship unfortunately sailed a long time ago to copy them. The real differences among those governments can control (so excluding climate/demographics), I would put to you, are in things like track and trace effectiveness. Lock down to improve track and trace is an argument I have time for, but do you have confidence our government will? If this is the route we’re going down, I’d prefer to see T&T improved first, and once everyone agrees it’s up to snuff but for the capacity issue, then I’d accept broad controls to get the numbers down.

Our t&t is working now, had been for a few weeks. The issues with it are capacity (slightly), but mostly lack of confidence. The app is good, secure, and just needs more uptake. 

[kaosmark2]

Uber actually forced to pay their tax!

https://goodlawproject.org/update/hmrc-to-collect-1-5bn-uber/?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=uber&utm_medium=social media

 

Edited October 23, 2020 by kaosmark2

[eFestivals]

2 minutes ago, kaosmark2 said:

Uber actually forced to pay their tax!

https://goodlawproject.org/update/hmrc-to-collect-1-5bn-uber/?utm_source=twitter&utm_campaign=uber&utm_medium=social media

 

that's fantastic!  

[kaosmark2]

10 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

that's fantastic!  

Considering we've had 11 years of big business making backdoor deals to get away with it, I'm shocked as well as delighted. 

[LJS]

12 hours ago, kaosmark2 said:

Considering we've had 11 years of big business making backdoor deals to get away with it, I'm shocked as well as delighted. 

It's great, obviously. 

What's not great is that these guys had to go to court to make HMRC do their job.

[eFestivals]

8 hours ago, LJS said:

It's great, obviously. 

What's not great is that these guys had to go to court to make HMRC do their job.

I agree, although it's worth pointing out that's exactly how the whole system is designed to work and it shows that it does work. Just about anything can be challenged in court.

The Good Law Project does some superb work. Crowdfunded. 

https://goodlawproject.org/membership/

[eFestivals]

great to see that Marcus Rashford is now running the country.  

Even when the govt says 'no' he still makes more useful things happen than Spaffer at his best

[Comfy Bean]

1 hour ago, eFestivals said:

great to see that Marcus Rashford is now running the country.  

Even when the govt says 'no' he still makes more useful things happen than Spaffer at his best

Agreed 👍 

Jaw dropping how Mundell and the Scottish Tories decided to use their vote on this. 

Atleast Macdonalds will be able to cover their free meal offer when they pick up their cheque from the job retention thing in January. 

[kaosmark2]

10 hours ago, LJS said:

It's great, obviously. 

What's not great is that these guys had to go to court to make HMRC do their job.

I don't disagree, but considering all of the agreements HMRC made in 2010 with the likes of Vodafone/Topshop/etc, its nice to see the correct result being applied once again. 

[feral chile]

On 10/16/2020 at 2:52 PM, lost said:

I actually read elsewhere and honestly I still don't believe it. The NHS still hasn't resumed bowel cancer screening since March. Its the 2nd most common cancer in the country apparently.

This is what happens when you make a population obsessed with numbers they have no ability to put into any context and create league tables of death for them to rate each countries politician. Any politician at the moment who wants to be re-elected would quite logically redirect resources from cancer to covid even if it means killing 3 people to save 1.

Cancer and covid aren't competing for separate resources. Cancer patients are at risk of sepsis, so covid is a risk factor for them. Keeping them safe from covid would be part of their risk assessment/treatment.

[kaosmark2]

Tier 1+...

🤦‍♂️

[eFestivals]

16 hours ago, kaosmark2 said:

Tier 1+...

🤦‍♂️

that's something (Bristol Mayor) Marvin has made up, to avoid going into tier two. Bristol has areas higher than in Liverpool at the mo.  

[kaosmark2]

3 hours ago, eFestivals said:

that's something (Bristol Mayor) Marvin has made up, to avoid going into tier two. Bristol has areas higher than in Liverpool at the mo.  

I know, its just Marvin being absolutely ridiculous. 

[eFestivals]

28 minutes ago, kaosmark2 said:

I know, its just Marvin being absolutely ridiculous. 

I don't really disagree, but...

He's obviously coming under pressure to do something, and presumably he's decided it's better to keep out of tier two if he's able to. 

He might just get away with it, as infection levels at the uni's are now starting to fall back, although it's very obviously fanned out into the wider population now. I'm guessing he's hoping the 'normal' Bristol population won't be spreading it around to the extent students have done.

[eFestivals]

I see Labour has been hammered by the EHRC report.  

[lost]

Absolute car crash for Starmer on the TV currently. Making a statement that anyone who thinks antisemitism claims have been exaggerated has no place in labour whilst Corbyn simultaneously releases a statement saying the findings have been exaggerated. 

I guess he doesn't have enough control of the party machinery to act.

Edited October 29, 2020 by lost