When will this shit end?

[stuartbert two hats]

2 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

Some guy on Reddit 

Well that's advanced the debate.

[Zoo Music Girl]

This was reported yesterday but didn't say anything about people being left there to die of course:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-55503536

[Guest]

30 minutes ago, Pipine said:

😢 it must be awful working in the nhs seeing the 50k infections every day knowing that they’ll soon translate into hospitalisations and awful decisions will have to be made.  My heart goes out to anyone having to deal with this.. 

And then coming out of that hospital to a crowd of people clam king the pandemic isn’t real. It must be awful for those people, I admire their drive and motivation to continue every day trying to save lives. 

[zahidf]

11 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Well that's advanced the debate.

I feel some people on here need to be careful about what they post based on... little evidence.

[zahidf]

The MP who spread this around should be ashamed of himself

 

[Chawk]

6 minutes ago, zahidf said:

I feel some people on here need to be careful about what they post based on... little evidence.

In a similar way people from a non-scientific background think calling evolution "The theory of evolution" means we're not sure of it. 

[efcfanwirral]

27 minutes ago, zahidf said:

I feel some people on here need to be careful about what they post based on... little evidence.

To be fair it was on a 5 live phone in and tweeted by an MP. If we wait for full on official confirmation of everything in a "proper" newspaper then we're very restricted...

Bringing things for debate vs awaiting "evidence" especially when the only official sources (the government) lie all the time

Edited January 2, 2021 by efcfanwirral

[stuartbert two hats]

Question from a mate on WhatsApp that I tried to answer three times and gave up, anyone want to have a bash *cough @Toilet Duck*

"Honest question, what do these % immunity scores mean? As I understand it, they looked at how many people with the actual jab got covid vs those who had the placebo and converted this into a percentage. Using this method, how could they say a person has x% immunity after the first jab and then y% immunity after the second jab? A person either has immunity or they don't? They can say 52% or 91% of _people_ are immune (depending on which source is being quoted and for what purpose) after the first jab and that 95% of people are immune after the second jab. That is a big impact from the second jab if we are starting at 52% but not so much if we are starting at 91%. Am I wrong that an individual cannot have a % immunity and if I am, how is this calculated?"

Edited January 2, 2021 by stuartbert two hats

[zahidf]

Just now, efcfanwirral said:

To be fair it was on a 5 live phone in and tweeted by an MP. If we wait for full on official confirmation of everything in a "proper" newspaper then we're very restricted...

I think if its ' there is a new variant making kids more sick' it's a much higher standard needed than a phone in IMO. That MP should have known better.

[steviewevie]

23 minutes ago, zahidf said:

I feel some people on here need to be careful about what they post based on... little evidence.

the science isn't exact, but everything is fast moving, and currently they are thinking it is spreading more amongst children which is why the push for schools to be closed. We can wait until have more knowledge about this new variant spreading in schools, but then it might be too late and we have a terrible February to go with a terrible January.

[steviewevie]

46 minutes ago, parsonjack said:

Official source?

I saw something about it on Guardian website this morning, but can't find it now as it's all stuff about schools opening or not.

[zahidf]

2 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

the science isn't exact, but everything is fast moving, and currently they are thinking it is spreading more amongst children which is why the push for schools to be closed. We can wait until have more knowledge about this new variant spreading in schools, but then it might be too late and we have a terrible February to go with a terrible January.

Thats different to saying 'its more dangerous for kids' which is what she is saying shouldn't have been spread around. 

Closing schools for a few weeks would be the right thing to do anyway to stop the spread. But then the one does with 12 week gap for the second dose is better then if the infectiousness is going up.

[squirrelarmy]

44 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

Some guy on Reddit 

Reddit can be linked to. Being able to see that post in context will also either give it credibility or not. If it’s been debunked or downvoted then we know that its complete hogwash.
 

Reddit is a great source of information but it’s also equally a hive of conspiracy nuts. Like Twitter, news tends to spread fast there. Back up your statements with your sources and we can judge the validity of them based on where the information is coming from. 

[efcfanwirral]

I've read an article on the BBC and still can't work it out - are schools going back monday/tuesday everywhere apart from london and the south east? 

[steviewevie]

1 minute ago, zahidf said:

Thats different to saying 'its more dangerous for kids' which is what she is saying shouldn't have been spread around. 

Closing schools for a few weeks would be the right thing to do anyway to stop the spread. But then the one does with 12 week gap for the second dose is better then if the infectiousness is going up.

yeah but the tweet she commented on was not saying anything about danger to children was he? just that people saying more virulent

[steviewevie]

Mentions London Nightingale hospital in this...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/01/schools-u-turn-and-rising-covid-numbers-crush-hopes-of-new-year-easing

[steviewevie]

4 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Thats different to saying 'its more dangerous for kids' which is what she is saying shouldn't have been spread around. 

Closing schools for a few weeks would be the right thing to do anyway to stop the spread. But then the one does with 12 week gap for the second dose is better then if the infectiousness is going up.

 

1 minute ago, steviewevie said:

yeah but the tweet she commented on was not saying anything about danger to children was he? just that people saying more virulent

ok...yeah, she was saying that people had contacted her worried about danger to kids....and yeah, no evidence of that I don't think.

[steviewevie]

3 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

I've read an article on the BBC and still can't work it out - are schools going back monday/tuesday everywhere apart from london and the south east? 

primary schools are (at moment). Secondary schools staying closed nationwide.

[zahidf]

3 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

yeah but the tweet she commented on was not saying anything about danger to children was he? just that people saying more virulent

Thats what virulent means though.  That they are more likely to catch it than other age groups. No evidence of that

 

Edit : just saw your follow up. We agree it seems!

Edited January 2, 2021 by zahidf

[zahidf]

Interesting article on pandemic response: be interested in @Toilet Duck view on it. Especially on whether people who have already had Covid being behind in the queue for vaccines

https://blog.supplysideliberal.com/post/2020/12/31/how-perfectionism-has-made-the-pandemic-worse

[Simsy]

26 minutes ago, efcfanwirral said:

I've read an article on the BBC and still can't work it out - are schools going back monday/tuesday everywhere apart from london and the south east? 

Apart from London and parts of the south east. I think primaries are going back on Monday in most of south east / tier 4 (they are here in Portsmouth)*

 

* Subject to whatever u-turn happens next.

[Euphoricape]

Cornwall gone from being safest area in UK in tier 1, to now having the fastest rising rates in the country.. Surely tourism must be to blame? Very popular with Londoners down here.

 

https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/uk-coronavirus-infection-rates_uk_5fef208ec5b61817a53659ed?utm_source=upday&utm_medium=referral

 

[Toilet Duck]

26 minutes ago, stuartbert two hats said:

Question from a mate on WhatsApp that I tried to answer three time and gave up, anyone want to have a bash *cough @Toilet Duck*

"Honest question, what do these % immunity scores mean? As I understand it, they looked at how many people with the actual jab got covid vs those who had the placebo and converted this into a percentage. Using this method, how could they say a person has x% immunity after the first jab and then y% immunity after the second jab? A person either has immunity or they don't? They can say 52% or 91% of _people_ are immune (depending on which source is being quoted and for what purpose) after the first jab and that 95% of people are immune after the second jab. That is a big impact from the second jab if we are starting at 52% but not so much if we are starting at 91%. Am I wrong that an individual cannot have a % immunity and if I am, how is this calculated?"

So, they’re not % immunity scores, it’s the efficacy of the vaccine in preventing disease and is measured on a population level. What often gets quoted is the mean % of people that were protected (92% etc) but what gets ignored by most people other than scientists are the confidence intervals around that score. Small confidence interval = less variation in the data, wide confidence interval = more variable (so the 95% confidence interval shown on all the data for these vaccines is basically 2 standard deviations from the mean (ie, 95% of observations will occur within this range)). What the regulators were looking for was a minimum of 50% efficacy (at a population level) with the lower confidence interval above 30%...that’s been met by all the current vaccines (and off the top of my head there was only one time point in one of the trials where the lower boundary was 29%). What’s more, all the vaccines met this criteria after 1 shot, but the boost improves it and firms up the immune response. They are probably useable as 1 dose, but better as 2.

The question of whether an individual has a specific  % immunity is more complex and depends entirely on what kind of immune response they mount, with a whole host of things influencing how an individual immune system functions. That variability is what leads to a % efficacy in the population as a whole (some people mount a really robust immune response and are protected, others don’t...but they have all received the same immune stimulant (the vaccine)). There’s differences in exposure too that can influence it and different underlying conditions, so it’s not something that is easily measured (hence we look at how the vaccine performs at a population level rather than an individual one). We can stratify the population based on age, race, co-morbidities etc to see how the vaccine performs in groups of similar people, but can’t accurately say to somebody, get two shots of this vaccine and 9 times out of 10 when you encounter the virus you will not develop disease. 

[Deaf Nobby Burton]

2 minutes ago, Euphoricape said:

Cornwall gone from being safest area in UK in tier 1, to now having the fastest rising rates in the country.. Surely tourism must be to blame? Very popular with Londoners down here.

 

https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/uk-coronavirus-infection-rates_uk_5fef208ec5b61817a53659ed?utm_source=upday&utm_medium=referral

 

Would’ve thought it was just the natural consequence of being in Tier 1, in winter. 

[Toilet Duck]

18 minutes ago, zahidf said:

Interesting article on pandemic response: be interested in @Toilet Duck view on it. Especially on whether people who have already had Covid being behind in the queue for vaccines

https://blog.supplysideliberal.com/post/2020/12/31/how-perfectionism-has-made-the-pandemic-worse

Will have a look and report back! At the moment, I’m making waffles! (Yes, in my head I said that in Donkey’s voice!)...