When will this shit end?

[Avalon_Fields]

2 minutes ago, oneeye said:

Statistics Always Getting Exaggerated....

Precisely. 

[steviewevie]

We maybe should have followed SAGEs advice last September.

[Havors]

27 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

by seasonal you mean it spreads more during winter months because people are inside more?

 

That is one of the factors yes, among others. 

[steviewevie]

2 minutes ago, Havors said:

That is one of the factors yes, among others. 

at moment it just looks like it's that and lockdowns that are the only factors.

[Havors]

Just now, steviewevie said:

at moment it just looks like it's that and lockdowns that are the only factors.

😄 lots of things look like something 

The jury is still out on lockdowns full stop, nevermind they are being mistaken for seasonality. 

[jannybruck]

SAGE should have never been allowed to do the media rounds individually. It creates a complete mess, misquotes, undermines policy decisions, and gets people angry. It's done nothing but harm throughout this having often conflicting, underreported information leak out from quotes.

For a government that is so savvy about how to utilise the media, it's baffling that they didn't agree to just put out SAGE stuff through singular official channels and get them to agree to individually not comment.

[Avalon_Fields]

8 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

We maybe should have followed SAGEs advice last September.

Maybe

But they're not Gods. They did not advise a lockdown a year ago (Check their meeting minutes which are published).

[Fuzzy Afro]

1 hour ago, DeanoL said:

That’s all completely reasonable. What you’re missing is that COVID isn’t much older than the first vaccine trials, so every time you talk about unknown side-effects of the vaccine, you can replace “vaccine” with “COVID” and have the same argument.  Yes the vaccine could cause narcolepsy two years after taking it. We just don’t know. But COVID could cause narcolepsy two years after catching it. Even in an otherwise asymptomatic infection. We don’t know that either. 
We won’t be eliminating COVID. So you are getting one or the other. Your choice which!

Up to 20% of the population won’t get either 

[Guest]

11 minutes ago, Avalon_Fields said:

Yes, you're right, but what tends to happen is the worst scenario of a range is taken up by the press (Because the press is driven by bad news stories more than good news). In fairness I do respect Whitty and Valance hugely, but what I find unprofessional is a number of the SAGE team speak to the press and TV on an individual capacity, expressing their own views, whereas collective responsibility is the right approach to take.

I think you are right, individual members of SAGE do need to act more responsibly but also I think the media and their reporting of these models needs to be better as well. 

4 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

at moment it just looks like it's that and lockdowns that are the only factors.

It looks like lockdowns definitely work at getting the prevalence of the virus down to enable us to put in other measures to keep the prevalence low. 

[steviewevie]

4 minutes ago, Havors said:

😄 lots of things look like something 

The jury is still out on lockdowns full stop, nevermind they are being mistaken for seasonality. 

I don't know...you get an increase in cases, then a lockdown and cases come down. No matter the season.

[steviewevie]

3 minutes ago, Avalon_Fields said:

Maybe

But they're not Gods. They did not advise a lockdown a year ago (Check their meeting minutes which are published).

Yes, and mistakes were made and they have learnt from them.

[Havors]

Just now, steviewevie said:

I don't know...you get an increase in cases, then a lockdown and cases come down. No matter the season.

Well some say the R is already in decline every time before a lockdown and its coincidence. This guy from Edinburgh Uni says as much... 

https://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~swood34/

Like I said, so many assumptions have been made of the past year and are still being made now. 

[stuie]

4 minutes ago, Fuzzy Afro said:

Up to 20% of the population won’t get either 

If covid is truly endemic, then everyone will end up with one or the other unless they die first. 

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

I don't know...you get an increase in cases, then a lockdown and cases come down. No matter the season.

Yeah I agree, the data on the dashboard supports the idea that lockdowns work in suppressing the virus. 

[sjseabass]

6 minutes ago, Havors said:

Well some say the R is already in decline every time before a lockdown and its coincidence. This guy from Edinburgh Uni says as much... 

https://www.maths.ed.ac.uk/~swood34/

Like I said, so many assumptions have been made of the past year and are still being made now. 

This argument did make me pause for thought back in the first wave, considering the similarities in case rate changes across countries with wildly different policies on lockdown (or lack of). But looking at the graphs before, during and after the England November lockdown completely convinced me that it is a massive factor.

[Havors]

5 minutes ago, theevilfridge said:

This argument did make me pause for thought back in the first wave, considering the similarities in case rate changes across countries with wildly different policies on lockdown (or lack of). But looking at the graphs before, during and after the England November lockdown completely convinced me that it is a massive factor.

Have a look at his graphs, makes me not assume or be convinced of anything. 

[steviewevie]

 https://fullfact.org/health/can-we-believe-lockdown-sceptics/

[sjseabass]

17 minutes ago, Havors said:

Have a look at his graphs, makes me not assume or be convinced of anything. 

Can you point me in the direction of where he's actually taken his figures for R from? Is it in one of the papers he links to? Because the idea that it was <1 before the November lockdown started but back over 1 before it ended is extremely counter-intuitive if the virus spreads how we think it does.

Edited April 6, 2021 by theevilfridge

[JoeyT]

 

[steviewevie]

1 minute ago, theevilfridge said:

Can you point me in the direction of where he's actually taken his figures for R from? Is it in one of the papers he links to? Because the idea that it was <1 before the November lockdown started but back over 1 by the time it ended is extremely counter-intuitive if the virus spreads how we think it does.

isn't it based on an estimate...4 weeks before death rate or something? I mean there was full lockdown that started on a particular date...but people's behaviour had started to change before that anyway...and lockdown meant a sharper decline and less chance of an overwhelmed health service.

[Fuzzy Afro]

43 minutes ago, stuie said:

If covid is truly endemic, then everyone will end up with one or the other unless they die first. 

Categorically not true 

[JoeyT]

Well...

 

[zahidf]

 

[Havors]

13 minutes ago, theevilfridge said:

Can you point me in the direction of where he's actually taken his figures for R from? Is it in one of the papers he links to? Because the idea that it was <1 before the November lockdown started but back over 1 before it ended is extremely counter-intuitive if the virus spreads how we think it does.

And that is point I believe, the R value for fatal infections does not respect any lockdown.

There is links to the papers he uses. Also, he says at the end its not proof but it is strongly suggestive. This coupled with the disparities between lockdowns and non lockdowns (or lack thereof) means you cannot assume Lockdowns do much good. Especially taking into account the cost of life because of lockdowns. 

Anyone who says lockdowns definitely work or they definitely dont is either disingenuous or lazy. 

[stuartbert two hats]

A tale of two nations:

Wales goes from 94 to 126 cases and 0 to 2 deaths
Scotland goes from 411 to 25 cases and 12 to 0 deaths

As much as anything else, this probably reinforces the point that at low numbers, the data is getting noisy.  But it does illustrate that we're seeing cases + death unambiguously drop everywhere.  I'm supposed to be at work at the moment, so I don't have the last 7 day averages for each nation - would be interesting to see, I'd expect to see drops in both, albeit not as dramatically as in Scotland.