Covid : Infection rates v death rates and a possible second wave

[yorkie]

I thought Liverpool was fairly badly hit in the first wave also (Spanish fans attending the Liverpool vs Atlético Madrid match on 2020-03-13 spread it all over the place), yet now hospitals are starting to get overwhelmed. In any case, I am doubtful about this herd immunity theory if there are people who managed to get it twice.

What a confused post.
1) no it wasn't
2) (do you have evidence of this?)
3) if you don't think people can develop any immunity, then are you are saying a vaccine isn't going to be any use, and that we should try to eliminate the virus?

A very minor point, but I’ve noticed my local news always announces deaths on social media as deaths “due to” the virus. I’ve tried to explain in the comments section that it’s actually with (past 28 days) and I’ve been called heartless, selfish and other names I cannot repeat on here. People don’t even want to hear the truth because it’s against their agenda/beliefs. What on Earth is going on?

There is a need to assign all all deaths of people who are currently infected with Sars-Cov-2 as 'Covid deaths' even if they did not develop any Covid symptoms and even if they died of something else; this helps to bolster the pro-lockdown brigade's demands for more restrictions

They don't want the truth to get in the way of this.

 

[Tetchytyke]

Personally I think many western European governments do realise that they overestimated this disease, but they just can't admit it

But that doesn't really make any sense as a motivation.

The argument seems to be that they overestimated the risk in the first wave and so they're over-defining cases in the second wave to justify their position. But it doesn't make any sense logically. Governments who know they overestimated the risk first time would, surely, just use the same definitions again and show that a) the lockdown worked and b) the new processes they put in place work. If you know you overestimated it before, and you know the risk is low, the best way of saving face is to big up how bad it was before and downplay how bad it is now. Everything was horrendous and now it isn't. That way you look like a strong and competent leader.

Johnson would be delighted to point out that his Serco Test and Trace works so, really, his motivation is surely to downplay the second phase. You only get to be Churchillian if you win.

It's the same with The Donald in the USA. There's an election in a fortnight. "I beat Covid" is a better strapline than "everything has gone to pot".

Countries usually can't wait to steal a march on competitors by doing something different. I find it interesting that most countries are doing similar things. I don't believe in conspiracy, and I don't believe countries would wreck their economies for a second time just to save face when "we won" is a better message, so there must be something in it.

They don't want the truth to get in the way of this.

Who are "they" and what do "they" stand to gain from lying? What benefit do "they" get from lockdown?

You seem to arguing that those in favour of lockdown are nefarious or duplicitous. I'm genuinely curious as to why you think this.

 

[Richard Scott]

But that doesn't really make any sense as a motivation.

The argument seems to be that they overestimated the risk in the first wave and so they're over-defining cases in the second wave to justify their position. But it doesn't make any sense logically. Governments who know they overestimated the risk first time would, surely, just use the same definitions again and show that a) the lockdown worked and b) the new processes they put in place work. If you know you overestimated it before, and you know the risk is low, the best way of saving face is to big up how bad it was before and downplay how bad it is now. Everything was horrendous and now it isn't. That way you look like a strong and competent leader.

Johnson would be delighted to point out that his Serco Test and Trace works so, really, his motivation is surely to downplay the second phase. You only get to be Churchillian if you win.

It's the same with The Donald in the USA. There's an election in a fortnight. "I beat Covid" is a better strapline than "everything has gone to pot".

Countries usually can't wait to steal a march on competitors by doing something different. I find it interesting that most countries are doing similar things. I don't believe in conspiracy, and I don't believe countries would wreck their economies for a second time just to save face when "we won" is a better message, so there must be something in it.



Who are "they" and what do "they" stand to gain from lying? What benefit do "they" get from lockdown?

You seem to arguing that those in favour of lockdown are nefarious or duplicitous. I'm genuinely curious as to why you think this.

Think the first sentence sums it up, no it doesn't make any sense.

 

[Bantamzen]

But that doesn't really make any sense as a motivation.

The argument seems to be that they overestimated the risk in the first wave and so they're over-defining cases in the second wave to justify their position. But it doesn't make any sense logically. Governments who know they overestimated the risk first time would, surely, just use the same definitions again and show that a) the lockdown worked and b) the new processes they put in place work. If you know you overestimated it before, and you know the risk is low, the best way of saving face is to big up how bad it was before and downplay how bad it is now. Everything was horrendous and now it isn't. That way you look like a strong and competent leader.

Johnson would be delighted to point out that his Serco Test and Trace works so, really, his motivation is surely to downplay the second phase. You only get to be Churchillian if you win.

It's the same with The Donald in the USA. There's an election in a fortnight. "I beat Covid" is a better strapline than "everything has gone to pot".

Countries usually can't wait to steal a march on competitors by doing something different. I find it interesting that most countries are doing similar things. I don't believe in conspiracy, and I don't believe countries would wreck their economies for a second time just to save face when "we won" is a better message, so there must be something in it.

I'm afraid this post is a little on the naïve side. You see public servants and politicians don't like to admit they were wrong. Indeed many will go out of their way to avoid admitting errors, even if the result of this is more errors. I've seen it all my professional life, more so in the last 15 years where I have been involved in the business management & more recently application development within my department.

Think "Yes Minister" & "Yes Prime Minister", and you will get what I mean.

 

[Richard Scott]

I'm afraid this post is a little on the naïve side. You see public servants and politicians don't like to admit they were wrong. Indeed many will go out of their way to avoid admitting errors, even if the result of this is more errors. I've seen it all my professional life, more so in the last 15 years where I have been involved in the business management & more recently application development within my department.

Think "Yes Minister" & "Yes Prime Minister", and you will get what I mean.

Like lots of comedy shows probably closer to truth than many would like to admit?!

 

[greyman42]

A very minor point, but I’ve noticed my local news always announces deaths on social media as deaths “due to” the virus. I’ve tried to explain in the comments section that it’s actually with (past 28 days) and I’ve been called heartless, selfish and other names I cannot repeat on here. People don’t even want to hear the truth because it’s against their agenda/beliefs. What on Earth is going on?

It might put things into perspective if the media announced deaths due to the virus and deaths that have got nothing to do with the virus.

Because they're not? Lockdown would be no great problem for the working class if they were paid while unable to work.

In fact I'd say the majority of the working class would probably support lockdown for any length of time if it meant they got full pay throughout.

That's not much good for those that want to carry on having a social life.

 

[Crossover]

16,171 positive result today by reporting day - a slight increase on yesterday

 

[Tetchytyke]

I'm afraid this post is a little on the naïve side. You see public servants and politicians don't like to admit they were wrong.

There is no political advantage whatsoever in making the second wave look worse than it is. "We had lockdown, it worked" is a wonderful message to give, especially in an election year. The incentive is to make the second wave look better than it is.

Lockdown rules were eased right off. That's the crucial thing to remember. It's why the idea that governments are locking down again because of not wanting to lose face doesn't logically work. There's no face to lose. "Lockdown was necessary, lockdown worked, lockdown ended, I'm amazing" is the strongest politicial message. Nobody has to admit they were wrong, even if they were.

As Johnson is showing, a second wave and a second lockdown just makes you look incompetent.

I'm well aware that people stick to dogmatic beliefs to avoid losing face. There are those like lockdown sceptic Prof Sunetra Gupta who, back in June, said half the UK had had Covid, there was herd immunity, and so it was on its way out. Clearly not, eh.

Sunetra Gupta: Covid-19 is on the way out

The author of the Oxford model defends her view that the virus has passed through the UK's population

unherd.com

Her group at Oxford produced a rival model to Ferguson’s back in March which speculated that as much as 50% of the population may already have been infected and the true Infection Fatality Rate may be as low as 0.1%.

Asked what her updated estimate for the Infection Fatality Rate is, Professor Gupta says, “I think that the epidemic has largely come and is on its way out in this country so I think it would be definitely less than 1 in 1000 and probably closer to 1 in 10,000.” That would be somewhere between 0.1% and 0.01%.

 

[43066]

There is no political advantage whatsoever in making the second wave look worse than it is. "We had lockdown, it worked" is a wonderful message to give, especially in an election year. The incentive is to make the second wave look better than it is.

But lockdown clearly didn’t work, it only delayed the inevitable. The government was panicked into locking down based on death projections which have been roundly discredited.

What they cannot do is admit that the wrong strategy has been followed, and pivot to a more sensible approach of beefing up NHS and mortuary capacity, and reducing restrictions on all but the most vulnerable. So they will double down and continue with the current mess until either we get a vaccine or the money runs out.

 

[cactustwirly]

Just read a very very interesting article, written by an expert immunologist. Basically saying that Sage is wrong and the virus is close to dying out, as only around 30% of people are susceptible to the virus.
The author also says that second waves aren't normally what happens in a pandemic, it's normally just one main wave. The so called "second wave" may actually just be a series of local outbreaks in areas where herd immunity is lower.

I know the website looks like it's a dodgy conspiracy theory place, it's actually not, referencing good peer reviewed papers from very well respected journals such as Nature.

What SAGE Has Got Wrong – The Daily Sceptic

by Mike Yeadon “It’s Easier to Fool People Than It […]

lockdownsceptics.org

The article is way too long to quote fully, but here's a summary.

SAGE made – and continues to make – two fatal errors in its assessment of the SAR-CoV-2 pandemic, rendering its predictions wildly inaccurate, with disastrous results. These errors led SAGE to conclude that the pandemic is still in its early stages, with the vast majority (93%) of the UK population remaining susceptible to infection and that, in the absence of more action, a very high number of deaths will occur.

• Error 1: Assuming that 100% of the population was susceptible to the virus and that no pre-existing immunity existed.
• Error 2: The belief that the percentage of the population that has been infected can be determined by surveying what fraction of the population has antibodies.

Both of these points run entirely counter to known science regarding viruses and to a significant amount of evidence, as I will demonstrate. The more likely situation is that the susceptible population is now sufficiently depleted (now 28%) and the immune population sufficiently large that there will not be another large, national scale outbreak of COVID-19. Limited, regional outbreaks will be self-limiting and the pandemic is effectively over. This matches current evidence, with COVID-19 deaths remaining a fraction of what they were in spring, despite numerous questionable practices, all designed to artificially increase the number of apparent COVID-19 deaths.

 

[Tetchytyke]

But lockdown clearly didn’t work, it only delayed the inevitable.

You cannot simultaneously argue that a) Covid rates are being over-represented and the risk vastly overstated and argue that b) "the inevitable" was merely "delayed". The two positions are fundamentally contradictory.

If the numbers and risk are overstated, "the inevitable" isn't happening. If "the inevitable" is happening, then the numbers and the risk cannot be overstated.

pivot to a more sensible approach of beefing up NHS and mortuary capacity and reducing restrictions on all but the most vulnerable.

So the risk is overstated but also we need more body bags?

As for shielding "the vulnerable", the NHS and social care sectors employ 3m people between them. There are 3.2m people aged over 80. It is quite simply impossible to isolate 6m people from wider society. As we saw in the spring with huge numbers of deaths in care homes.

Just read a very very interesting article, written by an expert immunologist. Basically saying that Sage is wrong and the virus is close to dying out, as only around 30% of people are susceptible to the virus.
The author also says that second waves aren't normally what happens in a pandemic, it's normally just one main wave.

There were several waves* during the Spanish Flu pandemic, which took about 18-24 months to work its way through the world. So that's clearly nonsense to start with.

(*Wikipedia states 4 separate waves)

Prof Sunetra Gupta said the same thing back in May/June. Yet here we are. I suppose it will eventually come true if the sceptics keep saying it for long enough

 

[Class 33]

16,171 positive result today by reporting day - a slight increase on yesterday

Yep, and 150 deaths today.

It appears cases are starting to level off now. I do believe that we reached the peak of 19,724 on Wednesday and cases are now starting to gradually fall. Over the last few days at least, cases are certainly not surging out of control.

Deaths are sadly steadily increasing though. Within the next 2 to 3 weeks they'll probably reach an average of 200 something per day. But hopefully by mid November we should have reached the peak of deaths of this spike, and they should then start falling week by week.

 

[43066]

You cannot simultaneously argue that a) Covid rates are being over-represented and the risk vastly overstated and argue that b) "the inevitable" was merely "delayed". The two positions are fundamentally contradictory.

If the numbers and risk are overstated, "the inevitable" isn't happening. If "the inevitable" is happening, then the numbers and the risk cannot be overstated.

I’ve not said cases are being over represented. My position is quite simply that there is clearly nothing we can do to prevent the spread of the virus short of locking down or developing a vaccine. Hundreds of thousands of people are going to die whatever we do.

So the risk is overstated but also we need more body bags?

As for shielding "the vulnerable", the NHS and social care sectors employ 3m people between them. There are 3.2m people aged over 80. It is quite simply impossible to isolate 6m people from wider society.

Yes, the risks to the young and healthy are overstated. It makes no sense to ruin the lives of these people to save those in their eighties and nineties. Even someone in their eighties who contracts Covid only has a ten percent chance of mortality and they have that of passing away each year anyway.

Best endeavours to isolate 6m sounds a lot more palletable than destroying the economy of a country of 70m.

 

[cactustwirly]

You cannot simultaneously argue that a) Covid rates are being over-represented and the risk vastly overstated and argue that b) "the inevitable" was merely "delayed". The two positions are fundamentally contradictory.

If the numbers and risk are overstated, "the inevitable" isn't happening. If "the inevitable" is happening, then the numbers and the risk cannot be overstated.



So the risk is overstated but also we need more body bags?

As for shielding "the vulnerable", the NHS and social care sectors employ 3m people between them. There are 3.2m people aged over 80. It is quite simply impossible to isolate 6m people from wider society. As we saw in the spring with huge numbers of deaths in care homes.



There were several waves* during the Spanish Flu pandemic, which took about 18-24 months to work its way through the world. So that's clearly nonsense to start with.

(*Wikipedia states 4 separate waves)

Prof Sunetra Gupta said the same thing back in May/June. Yet here we are. I suppose it will eventually come true if the sceptics keep saying it for long enough

What about other diseases such as SARS and Mers?
Wikipedia is hardly an accurate source of information anyway.

 

[yorkie]

What about other diseases such as SARS and Mers?
Wikipedia is hardly an accurate source of information anyway.

And when someone says " Wikipedia states ...", you know they're talking a load of nonsense (what they mean is "an author on Wikipidia, who I can't be bothered to name, wrote this in an article published on Wikipedia, which I can't be bothered to link to, or quote from")

 

[Tetchytyke]

Wikipedia is hardly an accurate source of information anyway.

Spanish Flu came in several waves (literature says three, four, or five, take your pick) and, indeed, H1N1 still affects us all now, most recently in 2009. SARS-Cov-1, MERS-Cov and SARS-Cov-2 are all very closely linked too.

It was an interesting article by someone with an interesting professional career (leaving aside the carping about SAGE members' "skillsets", which reads mainly as saltiness that he wasn't invited). But the bibliography was an interesting list of all the same names- Bhattacharya, Gupta, etc- all saying the same thing that they've been saying since day one. No new names, no new evidence.

I find it fascinating that it's the same handful of names saying the same thing about lockdowns not working, just as they have been since day one. That's not to say Gupta, Bhattacharya and Leneghan are not eminent scientists, but I am surprised more people are not joining their ranks. Even the "Great Barrington Declaration" was just the same names, including Dr Phil Hammond who, as MD in Private Eye, wrote as late as February that SARS-Cov-2 wouldn't amount to much.

 

[cactustwirly]

Spanish Flu came in several waves and, indeed, H1N1 still affects us all now, most recently in 2009. SARS-Cov-1, MERS-Cov and SARS-Cov-2 are all very closely linked too.

It was an interesting article by someone with an interesting professional career (leaving aside the carping about SAGE members' "skillsets", which reads mainly as saltiness that he wasn't invited). But the bibliography was an interesting list of all the same names- Bhattacharya, Gupta, etc- all saying the same thing that they've been saying since day one. No new names, no new evidence.

I find it fascinating that it's the same handful of names saying the same thing about lockdowns not working, just as they have been since day one. No new names.

What he does say about antibodies not being an accurate measurement of immunity, is backed up by decades of research into how the human immune system works. It is true that Antibodies are produced by the immune system in response to an infection, but it isn't the only defence. They are actually quite short lived and have a limited effect on viruses. It is the T cells that provide immunity, this isn't currently being tested.

The immunity to Corona viruses from previous infections from other related Corona viruses (such as the ones that cause the common cold) was very well researched after the SARS and Mers pandemics.

Finally you can actually see herd immunity working from the infection figures, the infection rate is climbing slower than in March and April, which does suggest that the virus is running out of viable hosts to infect.

 

[bramling]

But that doesn't really make any sense as a motivation.

The argument seems to be that they overestimated the risk in the first wave and so they're over-defining cases in the second wave to justify their position. But it doesn't make any sense logically. Governments who know they overestimated the risk first time would, surely, just use the same definitions again and show that a) the lockdown worked and b) the new processes they put in place work. If you know you overestimated it before, and you know the risk is low, the best way of saving face is to big up how bad it was before and downplay how bad it is now. Everything was horrendous and now it isn't. That way you look like a strong and competent leader.

Johnson would be delighted to point out that his Serco Test and Trace works so, really, his motivation is surely to downplay the second phase. You only get to be Churchillian if you win.

It's the same with The Donald in the USA. There's an election in a fortnight. "I beat Covid" is a better strapline than "everything has gone to pot".

Countries usually can't wait to steal a march on competitors by doing something different. I find it interesting that most countries are doing similar things. I don't believe in conspiracy, and I don't believe countries would wreck their economies for a second time just to save face when "we won" is a better message, so there must be something in it.



Who are "they" and what do "they" stand to gain from lying? What benefit do "they" get from lockdown?

You seem to arguing that those in favour of lockdown are nefarious or duplicitous. I'm genuinely curious as to why you think this.

Equally no politician wants to admit they’ve wasted half a trillion pounds and lost a lot of people their jobs in the process on grounds which are clearly turning out to have been an over-reaction.

Boris would only have to look to Tony Blair as an example of a prime minister whose reputation was completely ruined by a wrong decision.

I’m not sure it’s actually that much of an issue - it could quite easily be squared up by saying that we now have six months real experience of how Covid behaves, meaning we can now make better and more informed decisions.

One difficulty is we never were told the actual reason for why we went into lockdown back in March. There’s been various threads on here which make some pretty relevant guesses, but unless Boris tells us we never will know for sure. The lack of measurable and specific objectives mean a segment of the population now think lockdown is the default reaction to any hint of rising cases. That’s just plain wrong on many levels.

 

[Domh245]

Equally no politician wants to admit they’ve wasted half a trillion pounds and lost a lot of people their jobs in the process on grounds which are clearly turning out to have been an over-reaction.

Boris would only have to look to Tony Blair as an example of a prime minister whose reputation was completely ruined by a wrong decision.

I’m not sure it’s actually that much of an issue - it could quite easily be squared up by saying that we now have six months real experience of how Covid behaves, meaning we can now make better and more informed decisions.

One difficulty is we never were told the actual reason for why we went into lockdown back in March. There’s been various threads on here which make some pretty relevant guesses, but unless Boris tells us we never will know for sure. The lack of measurable and specific objectives mean a segment of the population now think lockdown is the default reaction to any hint of rising cases. That’s just plain wrong on many levels.

Couldn't agree more with this

 

[Tetchytyke]

What he does say about antibodies not being an accurate measurement of immunity, is backed up by decades of research into how the human immune system works.

Given his professional experience, I did pay attention to the points he raises about immunology. Food for thought too, especially his comments on not seeing a second wave in London. It's interesting enough, there is evidence that people who got SARS-Cov-1 still have T-cell immunity to it 17 years later.

I don't know if lockdown is right or wrong, I'm not nailed to any camp, and I was sceptical about lockdown early on. I also thought that lockdown was eased too soon and too quickly.

From what I've seen, the big motivation for the full lockdown was seeing the health system in Italy go into meltdown, which it demonstrably did. I know here there was a very real fear there wouldn't be enough healthcare staff to cope, and everyone was diverted to emergency care. My wife, a clinical psychologist, was going to be deployed as a HCA.

Luckily those fears were unfounded, though of course we'll never know whether the Nightingale Hospital lay empty because of lockdown or because the fears were overstated.

My gut is that lockdown was OTT but that the UK came out of it too quickly. But the fact that most governments in the world are acting in a similar way, and epidemiologists I know are worried, makes me wonder what I'm missing.

Equally no politician wants to admit they’ve wasted several hundred billion pounds and lost a lot of people their jobs on the process on grounds which are clearly turning out to have been an over-reaction.

Oh nobody wants to admit that.

I guess my point is really that you don't prove the efficacy of the first lockdown by overstating the numbers in the second wave. If anything, the opposite is more true: small numbers now mean you can claim the first lockdown was extra specially successful.

 

[yorkie]

Equally no politician wants to admit they’ve wasted half a trillion pounds and lost a lot of people their jobs in the process on grounds which are clearly turning out to have been an over-reaction....

Exactly.

Also, the media and the hysterical brigade of vocal idiots on social media, have made it very clear that Covid deaths are much more important/newsworthy than any other deaths.

Therefore, the Government is putting us on a course that is likely to increase deaths from other courses, in order to reduce the headline figures of Covid deaths.

I guess my point is really that you don't prove the efficacy of the first lockdown by overstating the numbers in the second wave. If anything, the opposite is more true: small numbers now mean you can claim the first lockdown was extra specially successful.

Your argument is muddled and nonsensical.

The more 'effective' the first lockdown is, the less immunity the population has, meaning more cases will surge in any second 'wave'; just look at Czech Republic!

Your argument is - and has been ever since March - all over the place and makes no sense; I think this is done deliberately to make it difficult to disagree with you; after all how does one disagree with someone who has no coherent, consistent argument?

 

[Tetchytyke]

I’m not sure it’s actually that much of an issue - it could quite easily be squared up by saying that we now have six months real experience of how Covid behaves, meaning we can now make better and more informed decisions.

That's really what I'm getting at. "We know lockdown worked but we know more about Covid now, so we don't need another lockdown" is a perfectly coherent message. There's just no incentive to deliberately overstate cases.

As for political pressures, a man who got his job by exploiting divisions on Brexit is, quite frankly, not going to care about "the hysterical brigade". Either way.

 

[yorkie]

That's really what I'm getting at. "We know lockdown worked but we know more about Covid now, so we don't need another lockdown" is a perfectly coherent message. There's just no incentive to deliberately overstate cases.

You are missing the point again; the 'incentive' is to minimise 'deaths with Covid'.

 

[birchesgreen]

Wikipedia is hardly an accurate source of information anyway.

With respect Wikipedia can be a very accurate source of information especially when the subject has been well researched, and has the advantage over other encyclopedias in that you can see who has edited the article and when. Now i am not saying its perfect but just blanketly disregarding it is very lazy.

 

[Tetchytyke]

The more 'effective' the first lockdown is, the less immunity the population has, meaning more cases will surge in any second 'wave'; just look at Czech Republic!

You have said before you think both the numbers and the risk to be overstated by people not wanting "the truth" to get in the way of lockdown.

So if "the truth" is that the second wave isn't that bad, then that can easily be used by politicians to show that the first lockdown was successful. They then get to bask in glorious success and unemployment rates- Kryptonite to any politician- don't have to rise.

You are missing the point again; the 'incentive' is to minimise 'deaths with Covid'.

You don't minimise deaths with Covid by overstating the infection rate and stating everyone who gets Covid then dies is killed by Covid.

The political incentive is to downplay the second wave, not big it up.

 

[bramling]

That's really what I'm getting at. "We know lockdown worked but we know more about Covid now, so we don't need another lockdown" is a perfectly coherent message. There's just no incentive to deliberately overstate cases.

As for political pressures, a man who got his job by exploiting divisions on Brexit is, quite frankly, not going to care.

I think that would work were it not for the “worst death rate in Europe” badge which Boris reluctantly now wears. He knows there’s a real danger of ending up with a reputation as bad or worse than Blair’s.

Something else, we’re all looking for a logic. Boris is increasingly showing himself to be not only not particularly sharp nor capable, but he now also looks visibly worn down by this. Some of his recent performances have been utterly dire - hesitant and not on top of the brief at all. Hancock likewise, and again this is someone who clearly struggles with his role, and only manages to muck through by putting in a lot of effort. Most of the rest of them are utterly useless (for example Williamson, Patel). Could it be that they’re just not up to it, and there actually simply is no coherent strategy, and they just flap with the wind?

Then there’s the other elephant in the room. If we didn’t have Covid, what would be the main item attracting wall-to-wall news coverage at the moment? He’s not exactly doing a wonderful job with that either. It seems inevitable we’re heading for a shambles there too, at least for a short or not so short period. One could say Covid is a blessing, and a certain unplanned illness earlier in the year provides a good exit strategy for one person at least. Meanwhile having half the population busy beating each other up over stuff like masks means they’re not scrutinising Brexit too closely.

 

[yorkie]

You have said before you think both the numbers and the risk to be overstated by people not wanting "the truth" to get in the way of lockdown.

So if "the truth" is that the second wave isn't that bad, then that can easily be used by politicians to show that the first lockdown was successful. They then get to bask in glorious success and unemployment rates- Kryptonite to any politician- don't have to rise.

This post doesn't make any sense and I have no idea what you are trying to say.

Your posts made a lot more sense back in March:

There is huge clear water between "no action" and "martial law".

You don't get it, do you? Unemployment and destitution are two of the biggest underlying causes of early death- poor people die up to 9 years before rich people. (Source: https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/health-43058394). Tipping 6m+ people into unemployment and destitution is going to have significant and long-lasting effects. It will kill people, and more than a few thousand too.

That's not to mention even the short-term effects of social isolation on those with mental health issues, or those at risk of domestic abuse. Children hidden away from authorities for weeks on end is an abuser's paradise.



Were it either/or then I'd possibly agree more, but the massively increased morbidity for those who are unemployed and/or destitute means it isn't an either/or decision.

I understand the modelling showed the NHS would come close to collapse, which was the issue. Having spare capacity for unexpected illness was "inefficient" and chopped out by this government and those who voted for them. Ironic, really, that this government's biggest supporters are the over 70s. I'm not laughing.

But the data from Italy really does suggest that those who die- and even those who are tested and shown to have it- are primarily those who are both ill and elderly. The average age of a victim is 78.5; the average age of someone who's caught it and needed help is 63.

I understand why these decisions have been made but, ultimately, the deep depression it will inevitably cause will do more harm to more people than Coronavirus.

...The night pubs were banned in the UK I went out here (not banned then here), I washed my hands, paid contactless, sat separate to others, and didn't lick either the tables or the other customers. Funnily enough I didn't catch Coronavirus. And it did wonders for my mental health, something which always deteriorates for me when I am isolated.

You were right back in March; I can't really understand where the illogical arguments that are now being made have come from. Most people who agreed with the measures back in March now realise that they were not appropriate.

It's extremely rare to come across someone who has gone the other way and I do not comprehend your argument now at all.

With respect Wikipedia can be a very accurate source of information especially when the subject has been well researched, and has the advantage over other encyclopedias in that you can see who has edited the article and when. Now i am not saying its perfect but just blanketly disregarding it is very lazy.

Wikipedia is not a primary source; you are right that many of the sources referenced on Wikipedia are very accurate.

Wikipedia requires its authors to provide appropriate references; it therefore makes sense when posting on this forum to refer directly to the primary source itself.

I do not agree that @cactustwirly has been in any way "lazy"; quite the opposite, in fact.

 

[trebor79]

Most of the rest of them are utterly useless (for example Williamson, Patel). Could it be that they’re just not up to it, and there actually simply is no coherent strategy, and they just flap with the wind?

Given the entire cabinet was picked for allegiance to Brexit rather than ability it's of no surprise that the majority of them are absolutely useless.
I don't think a single one of them actually understands the public health issue in the way they claim to.
Hancock just uses hyperbole to justify his actions. Boris just isn't on top of it, even when the first lockdown was announced, he said in the address to the nation "and all schools will close. State run schools. And I think private schools will too, err, we have the power to do that, I think, don't we?" whilst obviously looking at someone standing off camera for affirmation.

 

[Yew]

You have said before you think both the numbers and the risk to be overstated by people not wanting "the truth" to get in the way of lockdown.

So if "the truth" is that the second wave isn't that bad, then that can easily be used by politicians to show that the first lockdown was successful. They then get to bask in glorious success and unemployment rates- Kryptonite to any politician- don't have to rise.



You don't minimise deaths with Covid by overstating the infection rate and stating everyone who gets Covid then dies is killed by Covid.

The political incentive is to downplay the second wave, not big it up.

I think it's not the numbers being overstated, but a false equivalency being made; back in March, a "case" was someone who was sick in hospital and had a test, now it can be someone who apart from the test doesn't even know they have the thing.
So far, it seems that this second wave is fairly limited to areas that didn't have a large first wave. However it seems that every man and his dog can present wild speculation about catastrophic exponential growth, as we saw Our Chief Manipulation Medical Officer present a few weeks ago.


Further to that, we saw Boris using the Sunk-cost fallacy over the summer "we don't want to waste all our sacrifice in lockdown", which is not typically the argument who has a a strong position

 

[Tetchytyke]

Meanwhile having half the population busy beating each other up over stuff like masks means they’re not scrutinising Brexit too closely.

Well indeed.

I don't think there's a depth this government won't plumb. I'm just not convinced that the current situation is because Boris doesn't want to admit he cocked up the first time. Especially as his own backbenchers- including, importantly, the Chair of the 1922 Committee- are starting to revolt.

The whole thing is rather a mess, isn't it?