Chat about Novel Coronavirus - 2019-nCoV - COVID-19

It's worth looking at the "four tests" that were announced alongside "data not dates":

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-response-spring-2021/covid-19-response-spring-2021-summary

They're all entirely subjective, and none of them consider raw number of cases or general suffering. I'd say they're all arguably being met.

I also don't want to pass anything on to people who aren't able to wear a mask.

That's my motivation.

You guys are right, BUT (my annoyance/anger/upset) if few people do wear mask and stay 2m away.

Friends and loved ones have died and I could not cope with the guilt of causing someones death/suffering.

Haven't we had the mask discussion on this thread already?

EDIT - About filtration levels of masks.

I'd say they're all arguably being met.

To be honest, I would too.

I'm far from anti-lockdown (although I've absolutely hated it), but the pulling of the narrative away from "lockdown to prevent deaths"/"lockdown to prevent the NHS from becoming overwhelmed" towards "lockdown to stop the emergence of a non-existent and hypothetical variant" is problematic, imho.

Anyway, I hope the hospitalisations and deaths remain low.

Face coverings seem to have done little to mitigate the spread of COVId. Scotland has the highest case numbers in the world despite mask discipline. This combined with the lack of any conclusive testing as to their effectiveness would suggest face coverings are pointless other than as a psychological tool to make people feel better.

About half the people on my train last week weren't bothering with face masks, and of course whole pubs and restaurants are already full of people not wearing masks.

What was the view on AC doing something against Covid?

I guess the things that bother me are:
There's still a large number of people who haven't had one dose, never mind 2 doses.
The infections : fatalities ratio is
5 million : 128000 = 39:1 (2.5%)

I know there's going to be a "well how many of the most at risk are still unprotected?".
If the population to receive a vaccine is approximately 52 million (18+) and we're at 45 million vaxx, this would give us the 86% dose 1 uptake number we have. So there's what? 7 million people (18+) who are unprotected (completely).
I'm not comfortable there.

I'm also not comfortable with 19 million not having dose 2, and there being a mad sprint to get those done.
Before 19th July when the schools break up. So that people can go on holiday.

face coverings are pointless other than as a psychological tool to make people feel better.

Nonsense.

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/4/e2014564118

Face coverings seem to have done little to mitigate the spread of COVId

Absolutely ridiculous and irresponsible statement. The science supports masks reduce the spread of covid.

Scotland doesn't have the highest case rates in the world. It's currently highest in Europe.

Your posts do seem to be drivel more often than not.

Nonsense

Indeed

I guess the things that bother me are [...]

To be honest, I hope those things bother everyone.

The thing that makes me somewhat-relieved/hopeful is that despite those numbers, and despite an explosion in cases, the knock-on to hospitalisations an deaths appears to have been weakened (well, more than appears to have been - statistically it has). The question is how weak the new relationship is. Even a weaker relationship could be very bad at 100k cases a day. But this does seem to have been taken into consideration in the (non-political) decision.

(Non-political in the sense of the decision makers and contributors who are not politically motivated. Not in the sense that I'm claiming the decision had not relationship to politics).

‘.... rule the waves ....’ very sad understanding.

That study is an evidence based review. It is not based on double blind testing and includes the extrapolation of the results of influenza studies. My comment referred to conclusive testing.

There's a delay though isn't there, and that is concerning, between cases being discovered and them going to hospital.
I'm still concerned about the harm (long term) caused by lockdown and also the harm (long term) caused by getting covid and surviving.

And none of this is coming across in any communication from the government. It feels very much like sticking it to the kids repeatedly. As in, "it's your fault you're all down the pub" "ah you don't need vaccinating yet" and finally "ah, get on with it".

Everytime I've run through Herne Hill (by the station) it's not 20 - 29 year olds sitting on the pavement outside pubs. They're the ones doing the serving.

(I am aware of observation errors)

I await a link to a comprehensive double blind test which shows the efficacy of face coverings to support the science.

Your point about Europe doesn't change how the use of face coverings seems to have had limited impact on case numbers in Scotland.

I fail to see how my comments are irresponsible or drivel. Your own lack of sentence structure has produced a wonderful word slurry...
The science supports masks reduce the spread of covid.

There's a delay though isn't there, and that is concerning, between cases being discovered and them going to hospital.

The relationship can be tested with a delay taken into consideration. The latest (delta) wave has been going on long enough to find analogues in the October and December waves. More data will allow us to be more confident, of course. You can pull the raw data from data.gov.uk, pull out as many days as you can/want with a two-week lag, and just model the relationship for equivalent periods at different times. It's still a very, very, strong statistical relationship, but the impact this time compared to previously is (so far) weaker.

(there are, of course, probably much better ways of modelling this. I'm no epidemiologist. But I'm sure regression is one of their tools).

I'm still concerned about the harm (long term) caused by lockdown and also the harm (long term) caused by getting covid and surviving.

Me too.

And none of this is coming across in any communication from the government. It feels very much like sticking it to the kids repeatedly. As in, "it's your fault you're all down the pub" "ah you don't need vaccinating yet" and finally "ah, get on with it".

Totes. They're fucking useless. And pricks.

There's also the impact this is having on kids who have now lost two years of education.

You're now on ignore. Have a lovely day!

Please tell me how a double blind study of masks and covid transmission would get past an ethics committee.

https://youtu.be/mJ-aYwiE22M

That study is an evidence based review.

Well, quite. I figured that it would have been pointless and time consuming pasting links to the literally hundreds of papers written on the subject using various populations for study. Hence why I chose one of the various summaries instead.

points deducted for "hence why".

Please tell me how a double blind study of masks and covid transmission would get past an ethics committee.

The Danish actually did this. https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/m20-6817

The conclusion was that mask wearing does not by itself significantly change the chance of being infected in a low to moderate Covid infection environment with high adherence to social distancing and other measures in place.

Edit: The study was also conducted when restaurants, bars and other indoor activities were not possible.

Edit2: The study also acknowledged that it did not account for people being infected at home whilst not being masked.

points deducted for "hence why".

Fair

Yeah, we're not modelling beyond "draw some lines". But my work is at an operational "what the fuck is going on out there" level, not a "what will it look like and what can we do to help bring numbers down" lvel.

I can and have seen the hospital beds numbers staying relatively stable for about a month, and if you look at coronavirus.gov.uk you can see it's increased (both daily and 7 day average) for the last 2 or 3 weeks.

It is a valid response to post the summary document.