Media Coverage of COVID -19

[Bletchleyite]

True, but anyone who coughed within last six months will be classified as Covid just to boost project fear. Ironic that we may have to stop publishing death figures because they're not scary enough - you really couldn't make this up!

I don't believe that's the reason. What they were talking about was that the weekly ONS figure, which is filtered to take out "people who died in a car crash after a positive test", being the only figure.

 

[talldave]

I don't believe that's the reason. What they were talking about was that the weekly ONS figure, which is filtered to take out "people who died in a car crash after a positive test", being the only figure.

Stopping the lies then?

 

[MikeWM]

Which is the case because of the measures that have been put in place. If they hadn't, I'm sure that would not have been the case.

People keep making this fundamental error of comparing deaths from COVID with social distancing in place with deaths from other things that don't have any relevance to social distancing because they aren't infectious diseases.

It depends. If we're at, or nearly at, herd immunity - which I increasingly suspect we are - then it doesn't matter if we have 'social' distancing or not.

 

[DB]

Stopping the lies then?

What would be useful would be an accurate figure (those who are actually confirmed to have died from it, alongside figures for ohter common causes of death - cancers, flu, road accidents, possibly one or two others. That would put it into context. The trouble we have is that the figures for this virus are presented on their own and often made out to be of many orders of magnitude larger than those for anything else - which isn't the case.

 

[PHILIPE]

What would be useful would be an accurate figure (those who are actually confirmed to have died from it, alongside figures for ohter common causes of death - cancers, flu, road accidents, possibly one or two others. That would put it into context. The trouble we have is that the figures for this virus are presented on their own and often made out to be of many orders of magnitude larger than those for anything else - which isn't the case.

We are not told about the severity of new cases such as:-

(1) How many admitted to hospital
(2) How many ventilated
(3) How many self-isolating at home

The absence of such information fails to give us a better understanding of the situation.

 

[Bletchleyite]

It depends. If we're at, or nearly at, herd immunity - which I increasingly suspect we are - then it doesn't matter if we have 'social' distancing or not.

Once we reach herd immunity the caseload will decline (and it won't be off a cliff, it will be a curve in the right direction). As it isn't declining, I don't see how one can conclude that. When cases start declining, we can remove lockdown measures - it's as simple as that, really!

 

[DB]

Once we reach herd immunity the caseload will decline (and it won't be off a cliff, it will be a curve in the right direction). As it isn't declining, I don't see how one can conclude that. When cases start declining, we can remove lockdown measures - it's as simple as that, really!

It's at a fairly low level, and to some extent will probably remain there as background noise - as with flu. It's simply not going to taper away to nothing.

 

[bramling]

Once we reach herd immunity the caseload will decline (and it won't be off a cliff, it will be a curve in the right direction). As it isn't declining, I don't see how one can conclude that. When cases start declining, we can remove lockdown measures - it's as simple as that, really!

One wonders if some areas have more herd immunity than others. London, for example, appears to be continuing to be not much of an issue.

 

[DB]

One wonders if some areas have more herd immunity than others. London, for example, appears to be continuing to be not much of an issue.

And given that at one point that was the UK hotspot, tha does rather suggest a level of immunity now.

 

[AdamWW]

There's an increasing belief that most infections are fought by T-Cells rather than antibodies. I can well believe when it comes to antibodies we are sitting at about 10%. However the big unknown is what percentage of us have immunity due to T cells. At 50% you have herd immunity.

Where does the figure of 50% come from?

 

[talldave]

What would be useful would be an accurate figure (those who are actually confirmed to have died from it, alongside figures for ohter common causes of death - cancers, flu, road accidents, possibly one or two others. That would put it into context. The trouble we have is that the figures for this virus are presented on their own and often made out to be of many orders of magnitude larger than those for anything else - which isn't the case.

I'd like to see figures for Covid deaths in perfectly healthy, fit as a fiddle, no underlying obesity/issues people.

 

[AdamWW]

It's at a fairly low level, and to some extent will probably remain there as background noise - as with flu. It's simply not going to taper away to nothing.

Flu is somewhat different because it's not a single virus, it's a every-changing set, so getting flu once doesn't give immunity to all the other ones - hence the vaccine each year being different, and sometimes not that useful.

Now if coronavirus immunity is reasonably short lived, then yes presumably numbers wouldn't taper to nothing. But then we don't really reach a useful herd immunity, do we?

If we have reached herd immunity, why would infections remain at this "low" level rather than continuing to drop?

 

[Bletchleyite]

It's at a fairly low level, and to some extent will probably remain there as background noise - as with flu. It's simply not going to taper away to nothing.

Yes, true, it'd bounce around in people who weren't immune and in people whose immunity had worn off, like cold viruses and the likes, but it would be running at a roughly constant level (give or take seasonal variations) with no social distancing. At present we may well be near the level of herd immunity that allows it to run roughly constant (with a slight upwards trend) with measures, but that doesn't mean we are without them. A good guide, as I said, would be when it starts trending downwards with the measures, then you can remove some to flatten it and so on.

Indeed, I don't think there will be any more reopening of anything until the trend is back down. I have doubts about schools (or rather, if we will need to row back on pubs etc, or on others in our homes, to allow for schools).

 

[DB]

Flu is somewhat different because it's not a single virus, it's a every-changing set, so getting flu once doesn't give immunity to all the other ones - hence the vaccine each year being different, and sometimes not that useful.

Now if coronavirus immunity is reasonably short lived, then yes presumably numbers wouldn't taper to nothing. But then we don't really reach a useful herd immunity, do we?

If we have reached herd immunity, why would infections remain at this "low" level rather than continuing to drop?

Herd immunity doesn't mean nobody has it, so it can still remain at a low level. It seems to be unclear to what extent it mutates as well - obviously not as much as flu does, but there seems to be a view that there are variants of it out there.

 

[AdamWW]

Herd immunity doesn't mean nobody has it, so it can still remain at a low level. It seems to be unclear to what extent it mutates as well - obviously not as much as flu does, but there seems to be a view that there are variants of it out there.

I think there is no evidence of mutation into something that previous exposure doesn't give immunity to - it would be huge news if there was. And if it does, then just as with short lived immunity, then herd immunity doesn't really work.

Of course herd immunity doesn't mean that nobody has it and I don't know why you'd think I thought that.

Herd immunity means that each person infects on average 1 person or less.
If it stays at 1 then infection levels will remain constant.
But it won't stay at 1, will it, because the more people have it, the fewer people around there are who can catch it, and the number each person can infect will keep on going down.
So while once you reach herd immunity infection rates don't just go to zero, but they shouldn't remain at a constant level, surely?

 

[DB]

I think there is no evidence of mutation into something that previous exposure doesn't give immunity to - it would be huge news if there was. And if it does, then just as with short lived immunity, then herd immunity doesn't really work.

Of course herd immunity doesn't mean that nobody has it and I don't know why you'd think I thought that.

Herd immunity means that each person infects on average 1 person or less.
If it stays at 1 then infection levels will remain constant.
But it won't stay at 1, will it, because the more people have it, the fewer people around there are who can catch it, and the number each person can infect will keep on going down.
So while once you reach herd immunity infection rates don't just go to zero, but they shouldn't remain at a constant level, surely?

Possibly so, and that could well be why variation is being seen in different parts of the country - and why London doesn't seem to have a particular issue now.

 

[carlberry]

I think there is no evidence of mutation into something that previous exposure doesn't give immunity to - it would be huge news if there was. And if it does, then just as with short lived immunity, then herd immunity doesn't really work.

Most diseases mutate and often mutate in a way that existing immunity has little or no value. Flu is a classic example (and up to now has been the one with the most fear associated with it) because of the (relative) frequency that more dangerous mutations arrive.

 

[talldave]

Possibly so, and that could well be why variation is being seen in different parts of the country - and why London doesn't seem to have a particular issue now.

Which fits with my theory that you can either let it rip through and do its worst or you can stretch the pain out over months/years. Areas behind London are now going through the process in slow motion with statistical measurements that are small enough to be meaningless used to blunder in and out of mini-lockdowns that just slow down the slow motion. Glad to be in London!

 

[carlberry]

I'd like to see figures for Covid deaths in perfectly healthy, fit as a fiddle, no underlying obesity/issues people.

I suspect the figures for the master race will be very close to 0.

 

[Freightmaster]

I'd like to see figures for Covid deaths in perfectly healthy, fit as a fiddle, no underlying obesity/issues people.

I read a study a few weeks ago which concluded that over 90% of deaths across all age groups involved people
who had serious preexisting conditions (including clinical obesity), so to answer your question, that would put
the current death tally for the 'healthy' population at less than 5000, and in the order of 500 for the under 45s!




MARK

 

[initiation]

I read a study a few weeks ago which concluded that over 90% of deaths across all age groups involved people
who had serious preexisting conditions (including clinical obesity), so to answer your question, that would put
the current death tally for the 'healthy' population at less than 5000, and in the order of 500 for the under 45s!




MARK

I can't locate the complete dataset but this covers English hospital deaths and was published 16 July 2020
For those under the age of 60 with no pre-existing conditions, 302 people have died. For those under 40 years old, just 37 have died. It is absolutely crazy when you look at the numbers like that.

Considering England makes up most of the UK population and that care home deaths are not relevant to younger people, i'd expect your numbers are about right (or even a conservative estimate)

 

[talldave]

I read a study a few weeks ago which concluded that over 90% of deaths across all age groups involved people
who had serious preexisting conditions (including clinical obesity), so to answer your question, that would put
the current death tally for the 'healthy' population at less than 5000, and in the order of 500 for the under 45s!

MARK

So that's about 0.000076% of the population. Mind boggling.

 

[kez19]

The Express is very right-wing, but the whole doom-and-gloom, we must wear masks, etc, thing doesn't seem to have a political alignment - the BBC and the Guardian are at it as well.

This is different from the US, where the mask lobby seems to be more associated with the left.

Oh I agree you may as well throw in ITN/Channel 4 and 5 (STV for my area), but all of them are blowing it out the water - they ramp it up example for me was STV news in terms of the lockdown, yet closer to the stations “home” Glasgow there was an outbreak in Lanarkshire but of course let’s forget Edinburgh and the Nike outbreak but what do the media do in terms of reporting it’s more of a slapped wrist approach but for me because it was Aberdeen and what happened “supposedly” the media gun for it (yes I get there is people not doing things) but it would help to get things in perspective.

To an extent that’s probably why I cannot be bothered that much following these stories where I am but if I look at news elsewhere and other parts of the UK I rather listen too.

I would have used RT as an alternative but even they are questionable so may as well do my own research. Just one point to add I am surprised as to how people will follow so much of it but are now starting to question everything (I say this as in terms of both Scottish and UK governments) and realising it all

 

[adc82140]

New infections are down 20% today. Don't see any headlines about that. Adds to my theory that the 1000 odd reported yesterday was some sort of catch up.

 

[Domh245]

New infections are down 20% today. Don't see any headlines about that. Adds to my theory that the 1000 odd reported yesterday was some sort of catch up.

Mondays are always down in terms of announced positive tests because of the weekend lull. The new COVID data dashboard doesn't have the same data that used to exist on the old one, making it difficult to see what the 1000 yesterday were made of (a lot of backdated cases, or a genuine representation of more positive tests)

 

[MikeWM]

New infections are down 20% today. Don't see any headlines about that. Adds to my theory that the 1000 odd reported yesterday was some sort of catch up.

Though he doesn't seem to answer that specific question, I find David Paton on twitter (@cricketwyvern) to give the best ongoing analysis of the figures. Balanced and factual and lots of graphs.

(Well, mostly balanced. Even he seems somewhat exasperated with what has happened the last few weeks).

 

[kermit]

I found the BBC article by James Gallacher, headlined

"Coronavirus: Is the world winning the pandemic fight?"

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53694982

very helpful today in setting out the bigger picture. I think it helps explain some of the dilemmas our politicians face, and the way that, as human beings, we don't cope well with a virus against which the principal defence is to limit our natural human behaviour.

 

[Freightmaster]

So that's about 0.000076% of the population. Mind boggling.

Absolutely.

The problem is that vast numbers of 'hard of thinking' 20-60 year olds on social media haven't
got the nous to be able to correctly work out the true risk to them/others in their age group,
and instead their thought process goes along the lines of:

- there are 300,000 or so reported cases

- there are 50,000 or so reported deaths

- divide one by the other

- OMG!!!! There is a 17% chance my entire family will be wiped out by this horrible, awful virus,
so I must hide behind the sofa, keep my kids out of school, etc until there is a vaccine...


While this is not the media's fault as such, they have tended to misrepresent/exaggerate the risk of the
virus by being selective with the statistics that they publish.





MARK

 

[talldave]

It happens on here, the other day someone had skillfully divided UK population by 300,000 to come up with a figure to challenge my suggestion that it would take many years of supermarket visits before getting close to an infected person. Sadly they'd forgotten that 50k of their "cases" are dead and thus won't be in Sainsbury's. There was also the casual assumption that people remain infectious forever.

But why let common sense and facts get in the way of a bit of scaremongering?!

 

[Richard Scott]

It happens on here, the other day someone had skillfully divided UK population by 300,000 to come up with a figure to challenge my suggestion that it would take many years of supermarket visits before getting close to an infected perdon. Sadly they'd forgotten that 50k of their "cases" are dead and thus won't be in Sainsbury's. There was also the casual assumption that people remain infectious forever.

But why let common sense and facts get in the way of a bit of scaremongering?!

Probably also forgotten that many of that 300,000 have got over the virus and no longer going to pass it on anyway.