Generic Virus Thread

[Troglodyte]

45 minutes ago, Stevo985 said:

It's like saying "well Aston Villa didn't need to spend £200m on a new defence in the summer as they only conceded 10 goals the following season"

I like this analogy 

'I bet Barcelona are wishing they were never lumbered with Lionel Messi seeing as since he joined, they've won ten league titles and four Champions Leagues anyway.'

[Troglodyte]

17 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Tomorrow’s Financial Times reckons the true figure, based on their analysis of ONS figures, is potentially double the official figure, at 41,000 deaths.

 

 

I have no idea if the Financial Times is any good at numbers.

 

They're good at multiplication but only when it's related to money.

I mean, they make it pretty obvious from the title, duh...

[terrytini]

1 hour ago, Stevo985 said:

 

It's like saying "well Aston Villa didn't need to spend £200m on a new defence in the summer as they only conceded 10 goals the following season"

If only .......

[VILLAMARV]

On 19/04/2020 at 01:53, jackbauer24 said:

That is a failure on transparent data collection.

There's a lot in that post and I don't really want to get into it tbh but on this point, as we're talking about deaths, it's basically the most transparent data we have, you know - health wise. In that you can actually go and look at death certificates whereas live patient data is protected, or i should say, heavily governed by privacy law. (and rightly so imo) 

There is, imo, a failure within the media to report properly on this topic, which there is clear public interest and demand for, that does justice to the nuances and complexity. (as you rightly say... it's complicated)

On 19/04/2020 at 10:50, jackbauer24 said:

I'm not going to keep debating this as I know I'm either not making myself clear or there is a lack of understanding from either side.

15,000 + 4,000 people = 19,500 who have died WITH Coronavirus. My argument is neither you or I actually know how many died BECAUSE of Coronavirus. Is that a statement I am not making clear? I am not suggesting the deaths are lies, I am suggesting the means of recording are deeply flawed.

What flaws are you referring to?

On 19/04/2020 at 11:00, HanoiVillan said:

This distinction that you're determined to make between 'dying with' and 'dying from' is not a distinction that I have ever heard anyone make in any context previous to this virus. Where are all the cancer truthers wanting to know whether people are dying 'with but not from' cancer?

Something is either listed as a cause of death or it isn't. Deaths can have multiple causes (and often do). Just because there are multiple causes of death, doesn't mean that one of the causes isn't important.

Right, on this whole with/from thing. 

Quote

The death certificate... used in England and Wales is compatible with that recommended by WHO. It is set out in two parts. Part I gives the condition or sequence of conditions leading directly to death, while Part II gives details of any associated conditions that contributed to the death, but are not part of the causal sequence.

The selection of the underlying cause of death is based on ICD rules and is made from the condition or conditions reported by the certifier, as recorded on the certificate.

The underlying cause of death is defined by WHO as:

• the disease or injury that initiated the train of events directly leading to death
• the circumstances of the accident or violence that produced the fatal injury

ONS website

So... 'from' would be recorded in part 1 as above, whereas 'with' would be recorded in Part 2.

All I could find on the specifics of the Coronovirus records was this from the WHO website

Quote

The COVID-19 disease outbreak has been declared a public health emergency of international concern.

• • An emergency ICD-10 code of ‘U07.1 COVID-19, virus identified’ is assigned to a disease diagnosis of COVID-19 confirmed by laboratory testing.
  • An emergency ICD-10 code of ‘U07.2 COVID-19, virus not identified’ is assigned to a clinical or epidemiological diagnosis of COVID-19 where laboratory confirmation is inconclusive or not available.
  • Both U07.1 and U07.2 may be used for mortality coding as cause of death. See the International guidelines for certification and classification (coding) of COVID-19 as cause of death following the link below.

Most of the world follows the WHO protocols for recording deaths and they use these clinical codes basically. It's complicated but through necessity. It's standardised so we can compare apples to apples. To suggest we don't have a comprehensive understanding in the subtle differences between dying 'with' or 'from' is simply not true. 

(And @HanoiVillan, if interested in the 'cancer truthers' bit then look up cancer survival - all-cause mortality vs mortality attributable to cancer. They're not asking for them because they are published already   )

Anyway, carry on.

[HanoiVillan]

4 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

Right, on this whole with/from thing. 

ONS website

So... 'from' would be recorded in part 1 as above, whereas 'with' would be recorded in Part 2.

All I could find on the specifics of the Coronovirus records was this from the WHO website

Most of the world follows the WHO protocols for recording deaths and they use these clinical codes basically. It's complicated but through necessity. It's standardised so we can compare apples to apples. To suggest we don't have a comprehensive understanding in the subtle differences between dying 'with' or 'from' is simply not true. 

(And @HanoiVillan, if interested in the 'cancer truthers' bit then look up cancer survival - all-cause mortality vs mortality attributable to cancer. They're not asking for them because they are published already   )

Anyway, carry on.

Very interesting and useful post, thanks. The only thing I would disagree with is the bolded, which is that I think the reason they're not asking for them is that they're not part of an ongoing culture war

[Brumerican]

On 16/04/2020 at 07:47, wazzap24 said:

Were you baked when you posted this, because this is the kind of post I regularly delete around midnight when I’m battered?! 

Some of the ‘previous content’ I’ve cleared when it saves a draft post in a thread is amazing. 

 

Yup . Was going through some things that day . Still am to a degree but I'm getting there. 

[wazzap24]

5 hours ago, Brumerican said:

Yup . Was going through some things that day . Still am to a degree but I'm getting there. 

I hope you’re ok mate. Apologies if the piss-take misfired, it wasn’t my intention. 

[blandy]

11 hours ago, Stevo985 said:

I was making a point that old people who probably would have died anyway are SOMEBODY'S relatives. And they matter. Whether they would have died in a couple of years or not

I accept that. The difficulty is that people will and have died as a result of lockdown.  Spouse will have been battered, cancer patients untreated, people with mental struggles....and so on. Statistically it’s fewer than Covid will have taken, but if someone introduces a “if my aunt or uncle or mom dies as a result of lockdown, I won't take any comfort in the fact that you think it was necessary” it just unnecessarily personalises a discussion on stats.  Everyone’s lives matter.

[DCJonah]

@LakotaDakota you should read the article in the FT today  

Financial Times

You might find this part interesting.

"The ONS data showed that deaths registered in the week ending April 10 were 75 per cent above normal in England and Wales, the highest level for more than 20 years."

And that's with a lockdown. 

 

[bickster]

This parachute has slowed my rate of descent but I've slowed down now so I'm taking it off as I don't need it anymore

[Genie]

37 minutes ago, blandy said:

I accept that. The difficulty is that people will and have died as a result of lockdown.  Spouse will have been battered, cancer patients untreated, people with mental struggles....and so on. Statistically it’s fewer than Covid will have taken, but if someone introduces a “if my aunt or uncle or mom dies as a result of lockdown, I won't take any comfort in the fact that you think it was necessary” it just unnecessarily personalises a discussion on stats.  Everyone’s lives matter.

 

Quote

Deaths in England and Wales have nearly doubled above what would be expected, hitting a 20-year high.

The Office for National Statistics said there were 18,500 deaths in the week up to 10 April - about 8,000 more than is normal at this time of year.

A third were linked to coronavirus, but deaths from other causes also increased, suggesting the lockdown may be having an indirect impact on health.

Beeb

[blandy]

30 minutes ago, DCJonah said:

@LakotaDakota you should read the article in the FT today  

Financial Times

You might find this part interesting.

"The ONS data showed that deaths registered in the week ending April 10 were 75 per cent above normal in England and Wales, the highest level for more than 20 years."

And that's with a lockdown. 

 

Sorry to repeat this point, but those deaths from CV19 registered that week are of people who caught it pre lockdown. It takes around 3 (grim) weeks on average from getting infected to death. Pedantry, maybe, but the lag needs to be understood to make best use of the data.

[DCJonah]

20 minutes ago, blandy said:

Sorry to repeat this point, but those deaths from CV19 registered that week are of people who caught it pre lockdown. It takes around 3 (grim) weeks on average from getting infected to death. Pedantry, maybe, but the lag needs to be understood to make best use of the data.

Yep. Good point. 

Shows the lockdown probably should have happened earlier then. But still strong evidence that this isn't just normality which @LakotaDakotaseems to continually argue that it is. 

[sne]

Yeah so the study on anti-bodies put forward yesterday to support the Swedish line of doing nothing has now been redacted. The study suggested than only 1 out of 1000 get any symptoms from the virus and that going by these numbers Stockholm could have reached herd immunity by May.

First it turned out they had counted wrong by a factor of 10 meaning it was 1 out of 100 not 1000. And then it turned out that the sample size was so small that the study wasn't statistically reliable anyway and that some in the study were already in the statistics used.

It was a huge story when they put this stuff forwards yesterday, but today when they retract it it's a footnote that you have to search to find on any of the big news outlets.

The media have obviously been asked to not be overly critical or ask to many questions during this crisis. It's a proud tradition that lives on from the cold war days here in Sweden when we had the same ruling party on and off  for more or less 50 years.

Edit: Now the news that they are redacting the study is up on the big news outlets again 

Edited April 22, 2020 by sne

[wazzap24]

15 hours ago, sne said:

So turns out Trumps beloved Klorokin wasn't the Covid-19 killer he claimed it to be.

https://www.beaumontenterprise.com/news/article/More-deaths-no-benefit-from-malaria-drug-in-VA-15215594.php

That’s about as reliable as the dodgy ‘trial’ that started the whole Trump miracle cure debacle in the first place. Haphazard at best and not yet peer reviewed. 

As I said the other day, the US media is an unreliable source of info for drug trials at the moment as it’s become a political point scoring exercise on both sides. 

There are a decent number of proper clinical and other treatment programmes underway now that will provide much better data and proper, reportable outcomes.

This is one to keep your eye on. 
 

https://www.recoverytrial.net/

Quote

A range of potential treatments have been suggested for COVID-19 but nobody knows if any of them will turn out to be more effective in helping people recover than the usual standard of hospital care which all patients will receive. The RECOVERY Trial will begin by testing some of these suggested treatments: 

• Lopinavir-Ritonavir (commonly used to treat HIV)
• Low-dose Dexamethasone (a type of steroid, which is used in a range of conditions typically to reduce inflammation).
• Hydroxychloroquine (related to an anti-malarial drug)
• Azithromycin (a commonly used antibiotic)
• Tocilizumab (an anti-inflammatory treatment given by injection)

Data from the trial will be regularly reviewed so that any effective treatment can be identified quickly and made available to all patients. The RECOVERY Trial team will constantly review information on new drugs and include promising ones in the trial.

 

 

[wazzap24]

21 minutes ago, wazzap24 said:

That’s about as reliable as the dodgy ‘trial’ that started the whole Trump miracle cure debacle in the first place. Haphazard at best and not yet peer reviewed. 

As I said the other day, the US media is an unreliable source of info for drug trials at the moment as it’s become a political point scoring exercise on both sides. 

There are a decent number of proper clinical and other treatment programmes underway now that will provide much better data and proper, reportable outcomes.

This is one to keep your eye on. 
 

https://www.recoverytrial.net/

 

 

Interesting points from that ‘study’ 

368 patients treated, all male, median age over 65 and from what I can tell, they were all seriously ill.

interesting to note the point about black people and the ongoing wider concern that it’s hitting that demographic harder.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.16.20065920v1.full.pdf

Quote

Our study cohort comprised only men whose median age was over 65 years. Therefore, the results may not necessarily reflect outcomes in women or in younger hospitalized populations, nor can they be extrapolated to pediatric patients. Our findings may also be influenced by the demographic composition of patients in our cohort, the majority of whom were black. Disproportionately higher rates of Covid-19-related hospitalization among the black population have also been reported in the United States as a whole

 

[terrytini]

But black people were more likely to die anyway so what’s the big deal ? ( just following one of the alternative lines of logic).

[Lichfield Dean]

 

[HanoiVillan]

2 hours ago, sne said:

Yeah so the study on anti-bodies put forward yesterday to support the Swedish line of doing nothing has now been redacted. The study suggested than only 1 out of 1000 get any symptoms from the virus and that going by these numbers Stockholm could have reached herd immunity by May.

First it turned out they had counted wrong by a factor of 10 meaning it was 1 out of 100 not 1000. And then it turned out that the sample size was so small that the study wasn't statistically reliable anyway and that some in the study were already in the statistics used.

It was a huge story when they put this stuff forwards yesterday, but today when they retract it it's a footnote that you have to search to find on any of the big news outlets.

The media have obviously been asked to not be overly critical or ask to many questions during this crisis. It's a proud tradition that lives on from the cold war days here in Sweden when we had the same ruling party on and off  for more or less 50 years.

Edit: Now the news that they are redacting the study is up on the big news outlets again 

Thanks. I thought that conclusion seemed bizarre yesterday, so I'm not surprised it has turned out to be rubbish. I think some people are so desperate for good news that they'll believe anything at this point.

[Chindie]

I'm increasingly of the mindset that there isn't going to be a vaccine for this thing and the current situation is mostly about trying to control the impact until we can work out longer term mitigation strategies and try to get ahead of it as best we can.

But going forwards we'll have a new disease that takes out significant numbers of people, particularly so for those middle age and up. And potentially has impact long term on even those that survive