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

Yes well perhaps u should not be so fast to dismiss discussions or viewpoints that u dont like or did not thought of or whatever as those of a loon thinking covid is a hoax.

Umm, where have I done that?

I think the point I'm trying to make is that, in my opinion, Covid is more serious than you are suggesting (not less) as you seem to be dismissing the stats as 'dirty' given the increasing prevalence of the virus within the population and that this taints the death stats proportionally. But that's not what the stats really say.

The whole point of a vaccination strategy is that, in the worst case that everyone gets infected at some point (and everyone will, multiple times, whether they know it or not), then a much lower percentage of people die than if everyone was unvaccinated. Testing is a crude measure, PCR tests are very very sensitive and with a simple positive/negative result they do not distinguish (well they do, but the details of the results are rarely shared) between someone who is mildly infected, asymptomatic and will get rid of the infection in a day or so, and someone who is hugely infected, becomes infectious for a reasonable period and may have significant health problems (up to and including death) due to the corresponding disease.

Also, focusing on deaths as a binary good/bad outcome is a very dangerous metric. Plenty of people will have huge life altering after effects of Covid infections and that's a natural consequence of increased immunity (either through natural infection or vaccination); simply put - many people who would have died will now survive but with life altering after effects.

I just took yr response like that. No interest in trying to understand my point but fast to dismiss.

Did u even read my example point now to understand what i was getting at? Or just want to talk about how its more dangerous than u think that i think it is?

No, I've read your examples and they don't present anything new or, in my opinion, anything credible. Greater minds than ours who analyse the stats have adjusted for increased prevalence in the population and still think the rising stats are of great concern.

Occam's Razor suggests that it is very unlikely that a random person on the Internet has found a fundamental flaw in the analysis of death stats that have been pored over by thousands of people whose job it is to do so with the benefit of many years of training and experience.

I respect your right to believe otherwise and have reached the limit of how much time I will spend arguing with a random stranger on the Internet. Enjoy.

Ok :) So you are not saying that its incorrect and can point me to how and where im thinking wrong? Just that u know that others with greater minds must have thought about it allrdy.

Ok got it. Im out.

Greater minds than ours who analyse the stats have adjusted for increased prevalence in the population and still think the rising stats are of great concern.

Can you link to who you are referencing please?

How long can covid stay dormant for? We have an outbreak in Shanghai now that the govt are saying is from someone who came from abroad, but given all the tests and quarantines that people have to do to enter China, it would have to have been dormant (with the "importee" testing negative the entire time) for at least 25 days.

Don’t you start with the assumption that anything the CCP says is a lie?

We had that here but they eventually came to the conclusion that someone leaving quarantine got contaminated by stale air in the hotel corridor which had recently been used by a fresh arrival. We’re looking at dropping from 21 to 14 days because omicron has shorter incubation periods.

I reckon we're going to go up - every city has their own rules and Shanghai is 14+7. There are a few cities that are 21+14, I think there's one with no international flights that insists on 21+14 (in arrival city) and then another 14+7 in that city. If I remember correctly, it's Shenyang, which is a total shithole.

But our GDP is always growing, there's no crisis in the property sector and we defeated covid!!!

AFAIK the statistics are using the same method to calculate deaths as last year.

There's been a lot of "but maybe the person didn't die of COVID" discussion, but if you died, have a heart condition and the flu, what killed you? Well, the flu is going to be on the death certificate in any case.

Perhaps it's not perfect as in ok it was actually the heart problem, flu or not, but it's pretty hard to work that out.

Now in your example, I don't know if you can work out delta Vs omicron without testing a lot of people who died for what they had.

That's probably what you need to do and not sure the NHS has time but perhaps someone is trying to figure out the delta Vs omicron deaths percentage.

So I'm looking at the stats and think that the counting method has not changed, which means deaths don't look so good.

Though I can't tell you if it's leftover delta or that there are just so many omicron cases it compensates for the "mildness".

But not sure that means these are presented to scare people. As they always showed them this way.

Novax’s visa’s been cancelled.
Drama continues.

10 mins after court business hours on a Friday, when the tournament starts next week.

Solid fuck you from the Aussie government.

Potential 3 year ban from entering Australia too. Though if he doesn’t fortuitously catch covid shortly before each Australian open, then he won’t get an exemption anyway.

I think u are missing the point or perhaps im missing yours, theres always that possibility ;)

Cause thats what im getting at. Unless u Change the way of representing covid deaths after possitives. The more infectious variant Will always make more deaths in the statistics regsrdless if thats the case or not in reality. Cause a much bigger group would now die with a close in time possitve test and Will as such be a datapoint in covid death statistics as they are represented in that chart.

There is no way around that. To make that even more clear. Lets say a new variant would be so infectious that everyone was infected all the time but we dident have any symptoms at all and certainly not deaths yet we were all tested possitive for it. In this case all deaths in society would be a datapoint On that chart. Hence its useless for comparing different variants but not for tracking the same variant

Gutted. He's such a well rounded, nice individual.

I'll try to find some examples but it's generally people like David Spiegelhalter, Kit Yates, Christina Pagel, etc.

• https://twitter.com/d_spiegel
  
• https://twitter.com/Kit_Yates_Maths
  
• https://twitter.com/chrischirp
  

That's fair but I guess imperfect bit consistent statistics is what we have.

It's very difficult to die of just one thing, unless you are a French royal meeting the guillotine ;)

Perhaps someone is trying to work out better stats, but until that's done we don't know how "off" they are with Omicron / mass vaccination.

If they even are off, it's just hard comparing like for like.

I'd really like to see good long COVID stats myself, those don't exist yet. It's another WIP.

Yes ofc. Nothing is perfect. I have never seen this discussed and its v interesting to me at least that covid death could be declining whilst that death chart is increasing when a more contagious variant is introduced.

I can’t see any public statements they have made that support your position regarding the current increase in deaths.

You should both follow the COVID actuaries on twitter, they literally discuss this stuff and try to cut it different ways regularly to show the potential range. This is bread and butter stuff for them.
https://twitter.com/COVID19actuary
https://twitter.com/ActuaryByDay
https://twitter.com/john_actuary

Add Bristol Johnson is another good mathematician looking at Covid stats
https://twitter.com/BristOliver but he seems to of been deleted or nuked his account, hopefully will be back

I have never seen this discussed: What have you not seen discussed? :)

These tweets from the COVID19actuary account are supporting what @badboybjorn has suggested - that the increase in deaths is connected to the prevalence of omicron.

https://twitter.com/COVID19actuary/status/1481305431444230154

COVID-19 deaths in English hospitals increased by 43% week-on-week. With COVID prevalence so high this may include more who people who died of other causes, but with COVID, than usual. Purple estimates are based on the pattern of reporting delays in the last two months. 5/5

https://twitter.com/john_actuary/status/1481307462154301441

Interesting to see in this regular update from @COVID19Actuary that whilst admissions have levelled off, there has been a big jump in deaths. Athough this could be partly due to more "with COVID" deaths with such high prevalence.

Given this is a reasonable discussion to have with regards to the data, i would say @greenbank owes @badboybjorn an apology for his arrogant, insulting and dismissive tone.

Did I say they weren't? I was just pointing out that there are a lot of people who look at these stats for a day job and publish there opinions on it, there isn't a need to guess

Also edited my last post to add another actuary

Thank you for sharing. My contention was with @greenbank and his ‘appeal to authority’ fallacy, not with you.