Generic Virus Thread

[Genie]

2 minutes ago, rodders0223 said:

Seems pretty low to me tbfh 

I assumed it to be sarcasm but could be wrong.

[bickster]

16 minutes ago, phily85 said:

Yes this would be the case as the scientist job is to look at work case scenario

Absolutely wrong and utter rubbish. The scientists model expected outcomes only one of those outcomes is the worst case scenario, there are many other outcomes as a result of that modelling. The models establish the most likely outcomes and that is what is presented to the government.

[sidcow]

21 minutes ago, phily85 said:

Yes this would be the case as the scientist job is to look at work case scenario and it's the only scientific way of eliminating the virus completely.

Unfortunately we are not going to be able to do this in the real world as there are many other considerations to take into account

 

21 minutes ago, foreveryoung said:

But I thought the main thing we need to do is follow the science.

I'm not saying if it's right or wrong, I'm just saying that people have been dropping in here moaning about potential Government restrictions and saying they are being OTT and should wait and study the data and that seems to be exactly what they are doing, yet people are moaning.

[Xann]

Had been intending to respond to a post on social media by an anti vax friend supposingly quoting 'The Lancet', but I'm glad I left it.

One of her other friends had already taken issue...

Quote

I've written a huge essay of a message here, but I'd really appreciate it if you could take the time at some point to read all of it. I write this because I care about keeping people safe - whether they're my family, friends, or strangers, as well as myself of course. I hope that the detail in which I'll have explained everything helps you to see, with some critical thinking, what is true and what is misinformation.

Please look at the actual writing in the report which I've linked above. It says the complete opposite of the text you've shared which is not a source, but just a statement that has no link or description of where that information has come from. There is a mountain of evidence from labs all over the world collected over the past year that strongly demonstrates that the vaccines reduce transmission rates and reduce chances of long covid.

Over 8 billion doses have been delivered globally, and 3.63 billion people have been fully vaccinated (46% of global population) so far. It is tragic that deaths have occurred as a result of serious side effects of the vaccine, but this number is very small because the chances of this happening is incredibly rare - it's 1 in a million. Medicine isn't absolute and not perfect, which is why scientists are continually looking at how things can be improved. Science as a practice is never satisfied with so-called truth. Those who developed the vaccine are going off theories and constantly reviewing and improving their formulas precisely to make them safer as well as more effective. Because science is confident to say "we don't know ALL of the possible facts, that's why we're constantly learning, but here's what we have so far and it's working".

In normal times, vaccination development is a slower process because of bureaucracy, but in an emergency situation such as a pandemic, institutions have decided to prioritise the development of the covid vaccine without the unnecessary bureaucratic steps in the way. They still had to ensure that all health and safety procedures and standards were followed, which is why they have developed a vaccine that has reduced the rate of transmission deaths and hospital admissions since most people became vaccinated.

That is, until stronger variants like delta and omicron appeared. These stronger variants had the opportunity to mutate into existence because many people remained unvaccinated AND the virus was failed to be contained thanks to a lack of other measures being implemented sufficiently and for long enough (just like the climate crisis, we can't rely on just one tool to deal with it, but many - masks, ventilation, adequate contact tracing, regular testing etc). These mitigations were quickly dropped thanks to capitalist governments like ours putting short term profit via having the economy carry on "as usual" before people's health.

The vaccines still have an effect against omicron and delta, but not as much as they did against weaker variants. This was bound to happen, because that's what you get when you give a virus more opportunity to infect people who have been vaccinated. If the virus infects a healthy vaccinated person, they'll have a bit of a rough time but they'll most likely come out of it fine. If the virus affects more vulnerable/chronically ill people, whose immune systems are already weakened compared to the average population, the virus doesn't struggle as much, and might even spend more time in their body before their immune system finally manages to fend it off completely. This is why some of the most dangerous virus mutations we see coming out of more deprived, malnourished populations, people whose bodies are weakened and give a virus more opportunity to enhance itself and mutate into a stronger variant.

This is why scientists were warning leaders all year to end vaccine apartheid, to persuade the UK and some other western countries to waive the vaccine patents so that other countries could reproduce the most effective vaccines like Pfizer (which would be cheaper for those countries and more logistical in terms of transport and storage). But selfishly, our leaders refused to agree to that. All in the name of profit. Let Big Pharma help people only at a profit. Obviously pharmaceutical companies' behaviours are intertwined into capitalist agendas, but do you really think so many rich white people would be rushing to get their first vaccine dose while many of us waited if the vaccine was likely to easily harm them?

We need to be critically thinking about how science is not a racial-capitalist agenda, but that a lot of science has been taken hostage by racial capitalism. It is not decolonial thinking to reject vaccines when millions of people in the global south are begging for vaccines because all their family is dying around them from covid; science isn't a european thing. Cultures around the world have historically practised scientific pursuit and contributed scientific developments, and they still do today. We know that science has been victim to scientific racism, but again that's what happens when ideology (like racism, capitalism), takes science hostage.

You are MUCH more likely to die from covid than the vaccine. And you are MUCH less likely to go to hospital or die of covid, or suffer from long covid if you are vaccinated. We have incontrovertible evidence supporting both of these things. The statement in the picture you posted completely misinterprets the data on purpose.

We can continue our anti-capitalist and decolonial praxis by not trusting the government, but by trusting honest scientists and activists who care for humanity. Some people, understandably hurt by the eurocentric world we live in, just want to live with a neat worldview that looks like "western medicine is all bad and evil" vs "tea tree oil, ginger and turmeric is enough to save mel" despite us literally being saved from various diseases thanks to childhood vaccinations. I love herbal medicine and I appreciate the ancestors who used investigative practices (you could even say scientific investigation in some cases) to figure out which herbs can help with which ailments. It is also true at the same time that herbal medicine and other practices that help with wellbeing (such as yoga) alone cannot solve every medical problem.

People are making a huge profit playing off minorities' fears these days - valid fears due to the disgusting history of medical racism in the western world, but nonetheless there are many charlatans actively putting people in danger by providing them with misinformation in the name of decolonial thinking (and ruining the value of the word). Science itself is simply another dominant narrative that culture has adopted. Any form of knowledge production (science or otherwise) can go in a dogmatic direction if there are people trying to use it to their advantage and hold a position of power.

Rejection of science and medicine in favour of deliberately misleading theories, often for nefarious and political gains, has become a key feature of the political right in the U.S. and increasingly around the world. Please don’t fall victim to the growing anti-vax, anti-science movement. They are the other side of the capitalist coin, opposite to the selfish bastards in big pharma but just a different kind of shit.

I would say that Quantum love in action is if everyone (leaders included) chooses to care for and protect each other from this dangerous virus.

 

The article to which she's referring in the second paragraph - https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02183-8/fulltext

 

[bickster]

1 hour ago, foreveryoung said:

but more people are dying from flu at this present time.

Can you evidence this please?

I'll evidence that your talking shite ahead of your answer

Quote

Respiratory DataMart system (England)

The Respiratory Datamart system was initiated during the 2009 influenza pandemic to collate all
laboratory testing information in England. It is now used as a sentinel laboratory surveillance
tool, monitoring all major respiratory viruses in England. Seventeen laboratories in England will
be reporting data for this season. As this is based on a sample of labs - SARS-CoV-2 positivity
figures quoted here will differ from those quoted in the Confirmed COVID-19 cases section,
however, they are included to facilitate comparison with data on other respiratory viruses.

In week 49 2021, out of the 112,173 respiratory specimens reported through the Respiratory
DataMart System (based on data received from 16 out of 17 laboratories), 2,503 samples were
positive for SARS-CoV-2 with an overall positivity of 2.2%. The highest positivity was noted in
the 5 to 14-year olds at 8.9% in week 49.

The overall influenza positivity is low but increased slightly to 1.2% in week 49, with 68 of the
5,772 samples testing positive for influenza (including 26 influenza A(H3N2), 35 influenza A(not
subtyped) and 7 influenza

Weekly Covid and Influenza Report for Week 49 2021 (Page 21) - We are currently in week 51 these are the latest figures available

In a nutshell, rates of infection with Influenza are very low right now so how more people of dying with it than COVID is beyond reasoning

 

[blandy]

1 hour ago, AVFCDAN said:

44 deaths recorded today, this is starting to spiral out of control.

The most recent 5 days stats are incomplete. It takes up to 5 days for test results, hospitalisations and deaths to be fully compiled for any date.

Quote

Data for the last 5 days, highlighted in grey, are incomplete.

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths?areaType=overview&areaName=United Kingdom

[cheltenham_villa]

2 hours ago, pas5898 said:

Sorry.

My father in law tested positive today. We are also cancelling our Christmas plans (at theirs) which can only be considered a good thing!!

Yes, one other positive so far (excuse the pun) is that were no longer off to the mother in law's on boxing Day.

[phily85]

43 minutes ago, bickster said:

Absolutely wrong and utter rubbish. The scientists model expected outcomes only one of those outcomes is the worst case scenario, there are many other outcomes as a result of that modelling. The models establish the most likely outcomes and that is what is presented to the government.

Yes you are quite right.

I meant it in the case of the full lockdown being recommended as was the original post I was commenting on, the only way to stop the virus completely with the tools we have to stop all interaction between people so there is zero chance it can transmiss.

You then have to work backwards from there to find some sort of middle ground between wiping it out and allowing people to carry on there lives.

Of course the worse case scenario is the only one that gets highlighted by some of the more click hungry media. And fuels the anti vax conspiracy theory  crowd

[Panto_Villan]

44 minutes ago, bickster said:

Can you evidence this please?

I'll evidence that your talking shite ahead of your answer

Weekly Covid and Influenza Report for Week 49 2021 (Page 21) - We are currently in week 51 these are the latest figures available

In a nutshell, rates of infection with Influenza are very low right now so how more people of dying with it than COVID is beyond reasoning

 

Not sure he is talking shite? Quick google suggests ONS says deaths to flu in 2018/2019 were 26k and 29k, and in 2020 the deaths were still 20.5k even with the harshest lockdown  the country has ever seen. Even if somehow remains equally low this year, that’s still an average of 56 deaths a day (presumably disproportionately higher in the middle of winter). We had 44 from covid yesterday. The numbers are certainly comparable.

More importantly, 500 deaths a week to flu pre-covid was apparently considered fine. That’s 71 people a day. It’s worth bearing that in mind for context given covid isn’t running much higher than that this year.

Edited December 20, 2021 by Panto_Villan

[bickster]

3 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

Not sure he is talking shite? Quick google suggests ONS says deaths to flu in 2018/2019 were 26k and 29k, and in 2020 the deaths were still 20.5k even with the harshest lockdown  the country has ever seen. Even if somehow remains equally low this year, that’s still an average of 56 deaths a day (presumably disproportionately higher in the middle of winter). We had 44 yesterday. The numbers are certainly comparable.

More importantly, 500 deaths a week to flu pre-covid was apparently considered fine. That’s 71 people a day. It’s worth bearing that in mind for context given covid isn’t running much higher than that this year.

We didn't have 44 Covid deaths yesterday as has already been explained above

Right now incidence of Influenza is very low if you'd read what I posted. In week 49 of 2021 the were only 68 positive test done in all the labs in the UK that reported results into the scheme by contrast there were over 2500 positive Covid tests. 2.2% of the tests for Covid were positive om;ly 1,2% of the flu ones. Incidence of flu is much lower than Covid right now, given that its also known that its less deadly than Covid, do you honestly think that right now more people are dying of flu than covid?

[AVFCDAN]

1 hour ago, Genie said:

I assumed it to be sarcasm but could be wrong.

It was but with a caveat of course. I don’t make light of the situation at all, for people who have lost loved ones it’s a horrible situation. I’m jabbed and a mask wearer but you have to put some perspective on this. This is something that is clearly going to be worse in the winter months and with mixing without restrictions but the numbers have held firm for months now, this is not the time for more restrictions, let people decide how much mixing they want to do.

Edited December 20, 2021 by AVFCDAN

[markavfc40]

Hospitalisations have been pretty stable for the last few weeks. Case numbers though have doubled over the last week or so. You'd expect hospitalisations to rise sharply if omicron is as severe as delta. If they don't in the next few days that would suggest that the new variant isn't as severe.  Fingers crossed. 

[AVFCDAN]

4 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

Hospitalisations have been pretty stable for the last few weeks. Case numbers though have doubled over the last week or so. You'd expect hospitalisations to rise sharply if omicron is as severe as delta. If they don't in the next few days that would suggest that the new variant isn't as severe.  Fingers crossed. 

Fingers crossed indeed, to be honest if the deaths went up past 200-300 a day with jabs and boosters it’s hard to see a way out of this, you can literally write off 2022 to further restrictions.

[Genie]

8 minutes ago, AVFCDAN said:

Fingers crossed indeed, to be honest if the deaths went up past 200-300 a day with jabs and boosters it’s hard to see a way out of this, you can literally write off 2022 to further restrictions.

If we plough through 100k infections a day and it keeps rising then it’ll have to settle down as it’ll run out of people to infect within 1-2 months.

The million dollar question is how many of the 100,000+ per day of infections have to go into hospital? 

It’ll be like a massive chicken pox party.

Edited December 20, 2021 by Genie

[blandy]

33 minutes ago, Genie said:

It’ll be like a massive chicken pox party.

“Work meeting”. You mean work meeting.

[sidcow]

41 minutes ago, AVFCDAN said:

Fingers crossed indeed, to be honest if the deaths went up past 200-300 a day with jabs and boosters it’s hard to see a way out of this, you can literally write off 2022 to further restrictions.

No, it infects so many people so quickly it should rise and fall fairly quickly. They're predicting a peak in Mid January. 

Writing off 2022 will depend on if Omicron can reinfect multiple times, maybe causing more damage each time, or if a new variant arises. 

I am pretty hopeful that from the end of January we should be in reasonable shape and new more up to date vaccines will come on stream to really tackle mutated versions. 

I'm feeling positive for 2022.

Then again I was convinced a month ago that Delta was petering out as it struggled to find new victims. 

[Panto_Villan]

57 minutes ago, bickster said:

We didn't have 44 Covid deaths yesterday as has already been explained above

Right now incidence of Influenza is very low if you'd read what I posted. In week 49 of 2021 the were only 68 positive test done in all the labs in the UK that reported results into the scheme by contrast there were over 2500 positive Covid tests. 2.2% of the tests for Covid were positive om;ly 1,2% of the flu ones. Incidence of flu is much lower than Covid right now, given that its also known that its less deadly than Covid, do you honestly think that right now more people are dying of flu than covid?

No, I don’t. He’s wrong, certainly, but the numbers are close enough that I wouldn’t say he was “talking shite”, so I guess it depends how dismissive of the idea you were being when you used that phrase.

Anyway, you’re using bad data. The testing for flu clearly isn’t capturing all the cases. There’s a spreadsheet on the ONS website here that breaks down deaths by cause per week. The current flu deaths are running at 350-400 a week, which is approximately half the current covid numbers.

I think that’s a LOT closer than most people realise.

[mjmooney]

46 minutes ago, Genie said:

It’ll be like a massive chicken pox party.

AKA 'herd immunity'. 

[sidcow]

1 hour ago, markavfc40 said:

Hospitalisations have been pretty stable for the last few weeks. Case numbers though have doubled over the last week or so. You'd expect hospitalisations to rise sharply if omicron is as severe as delta. If they don't in the next few days that would suggest that the new variant isn't as severe.  Fingers crossed. 

It takes around 2 weeks for new cases to start hitting hospitals. 

So those cases from a couple of weeks ago when case numbers suddenly started a big uptick should be just starting to hit hospitals right now. 

The numbers admitted for the last 4 days are:

14-12-2021	919	615,331
13-12-2021	902	614,412
12-12-2021	850	613,510
11-12-2021	778	612,660

 

So we have seen a steady rise the last few days, indeed the latest figure is 18% higher than the 4 days earlier. 

Actually just noticed these figures (from the Government Coronavirus website) are a week out of date.  Not sure if they are usually this far behind, anyone know? 

[markavfc40]

9 minutes ago, sidcow said:

It takes around 2 weeks for new cases to start hitting hospitals. 

So those cases from a couple of weeks ago when case numbers suddenly started a big uptick should be just starting to hit hospitals right now. 

The numbers admitted for the last 4 days are:

14-12-2021	919	615,331
13-12-2021	902	614,412
12-12-2021	850	613,510
11-12-2021	778	612,660

 

So we have seen a steady rise the last few days, indeed the latest figure is 18% higher than the 4 days earlier. 

Actually just noticed these figures (from the Government Coronavirus website) are a week out of date.  Not sure if they are usually this far behind, anyone know? 

If cases double, and some, then even if hospitalisations increased by 50% then that is still a good sign that the new variant isn't as severe. In fact anything less than the same increase percentage wise in hospitalisations to cases is a good thing but obviously the bigger the difference the better. Early days but early signs seem to be that the increase in cases won't be mirrored by the same increase in hospitalisations and therefore hopefully deaths.