Coronavirus Thread (Off Topic, Politics) (112 Viewers)

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Deleted member 5849

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fernandopartridge said:
Aye but if the vaccine nevertheless provides protection against severe disease it isn't a huge problem. I am in no way a denialist but I am finding the recent reporting to be hysterical, particularly in relation to variants and vaccine efficacy.
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Yeah. Technically they're right, in that a vaccine isn't working as it should. If, however, Covid can start behaving as per the flu (a threat and potential killer to some, OK, but you've got to be fairly unlucky to be finished off by it in any one year) then that is not too bad a result!
 
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Deleted member 5849

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Brighton Sky Blue said:
There is an argument that higher viral loads would be more conducive to new variants arising. Though I keep saying flu variants arise every year and the annual jabs for that are changed accordingly. They will have big problems with vaccine take up and civil disobedience if they start arguing for lockdowns even after everyone has protection against severe illness.
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The way I see it, if we can keep holding it back to not being a huge threat until antivirals are developed, we're probably as good as we're going to get. Naive to expect eradication with vaccines if everybody across the world isn't getting vaccinated, but if we can at least function until it burns itself down to a less malevolant version, that would be fine!
 
shmmeee

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
Brighton Sky Blue said:
There is an argument that higher viral loads would be more conducive to new variants arising. Though I keep saying flu variants arise every year and the annual jabs for that are changed accordingly. They will have big problems with vaccine take up and civil disobedience if they start arguing for lockdowns even after everyone has protection against severe illness.
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Totally out of my area here, but wouldn’t the higher R number mean we have less time to prep a COVID variant vaccine compared to flu? What’s the lead time from discovery to serious impact on services?
 
B

Brighton Sky Blue

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shmmeee said:
Totally out of my area here, but wouldn’t the higher R number mean we have less time to prep a COVID variant vaccine compared to flu? What’s the lead time from discovery to serious impact on services?
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The flu vaccine is actually made pre-emptively. Work is done to predict the mutations that will likely follow in the next cycle, and that's how they get the vaccines ready in time. This could easily be done in COVID's case as it seems to be favouring certain mutations irrespective of which variant it is, and ramping up production capacity would shorten the time further still.
 
shmmeee

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
Brighton Sky Blue said:
The flu vaccine is actually made pre-emptively. Work is done to predict the mutations that will likely follow in the next cycle, and that's how they get the vaccines ready in time. This could easily be done in COVID's case as it seems to be favouring certain mutations irrespective of which variant it is, and ramping up production capacity would shorten the time further still.
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That’s really interesting. Possible stupid question, why can’t we make a vaccine for all the possible main groups of variants and pump people with all of them at once?
 
Sky_Blue_Dreamer

Sky_Blue_Dreamer

Well-Known Member
shmmeee said:
That’s really interesting. Possible stupid question, why can’t we make a vaccine for all the possible main groups of variants and pump people with all of them at once?
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Interesting thought, but initial thought is could it cause an overactive immune system?
 
B

Brighton Sky Blue

Well-Known Member
shmmeee said:
That’s really interesting. Possible stupid question, why can’t we make a vaccine for all the possible main groups of variants and pump people with all of them at once?
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This article is old, but explains the science quite well

How the seasonal flu jab is made - BBC News

You would just need genetic data from enough places with outbreaks to make a calculated estimate of which strains would become dominant that year. In theory, with the much more advanced tracking of variants and mutations we have in 2021, we would likely be much more accurate. It should be possible to make a 'combi' jab like you get for the winter flu shot, and maybe even combine COVID and flu jabs into one.
 
Sky_Blue_Dreamer

Sky_Blue_Dreamer

Well-Known Member
Brighton Sky Blue said:
I last engaged with mathematical education when someone said 'it's easy just use the Taylor expansion', to which 'I don't know what that is' met with a vacant expression and my vow never to take it again
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If I remember rightly it's a 4-4-2 but with the wingers and full backs really hugging the touchlines
 
Earlsdon_Skyblue1

Earlsdon_Skyblue1

Well-Known Member
Was just wondering if anyone on this thread had the death figures properly? Getting lost in data.

Was just trying to work out how many more people died last year than against any other year.
 
chiefdave

chiefdave

Well-Known Member
Earlsdon_Skyblue1 said:
Was just wondering if anyone on this thread had the death figures properly? Getting lost in data.

Was just trying to work out how many more people died last year than against any other year.
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According the the BBC nearly 85,000 higher in 2020 than the average of the previous five years.
www.bbc.co.uk

Covid: 2020 saw most excess deaths since World War Two

Last year saw 697,000 deaths registered in the UK - 14% above what would be expected.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
Earlsdon_Skyblue1

Earlsdon_Skyblue1

Well-Known Member
chiefdave said:
According the the BBC nearly 85,000 higher in 2020 than the average of the previous five years.
www.bbc.co.uk

Covid: 2020 saw most excess deaths since World War Two

Last year saw 697,000 deaths registered in the UK - 14% above what would be expected.
www.bbc.co.uk
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Thanks Dave.

Been trying to get to the bottom of it, but it seems like the data is very confusing. The article is weird as well. The death rates are highest since 2008 there, so not sure where the WW2 reference comes from.

Just seen Shmmeee's post as well.

I don't know why there is so much smoke and mirrors around this stuff. The more I google it, the more you get lost in knots. From what I can see, the amount of deaths in 2020 stops being reported before December (again weird), but at that time there was 20,000 less than the year before. This article below looks interesting, but it is giving me a headache after a long day writing:

www.reuters.com

Fact check: Posts inaccurately compare 2020 deaths in England and Wales with previous years

Social media posts have presented misleading statistics about the death toll in England and Wales as supposed evidence the coronavirus pandemic is not real.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com
 
shmmeee

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
Earlsdon_Skyblue1 said:
Thanks Dave.

Been trying to get to the bottom of it, but it seems like the data is very confusing. The article is weird as well. The death rates are highest since 2008 there, so not sure where the WW2 reference comes from.

Just seen Shmmeee's post as well.

I don't know why there is so much smoke and mirrors around this stuff. The more I google it, the more you get lost in knots. From what I can see, the amount of deaths in 2020 stops being reported before December (again weird), but at that time there was 20,000 less than the year before. This article below looks interesting, but it is giving me a headache after a long day writing:

www.reuters.com

Fact check: Posts inaccurately compare 2020 deaths in England and Wales with previous years

Social media posts have presented misleading statistics about the death toll in England and Wales as supposed evidence the coronavirus pandemic is not real.
www.reuters.com www.reuters.com
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What smoke and mirrors?

Full dataset for last year is here:https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/pe...dandwales/2021/copyofpublishedweek042021.xlsx

I think you’re confusing death rate and excess deaths.

The death rate is how many people per million die each year and has been dropping forever:

8E963A6E-463A-4FE9-B9C2-7ABEB3BB0FBE.jpeg

So a minor uptick doesn’t seem so bad. But if you just download that spreadsheet and sum the year versus the previous years you’ll see the number of people that represents is huge.

This Sky article explains it:COVID-19: How mortality rates in 2020 compare with past decades and centuries
 
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fernandopartridge

fernandopartridge

Well-Known Member
shmmeee said:
Anyone else stunned by that excess deaths graph? The shooting up in 2008 that never really went down again?

I mean on an abstract I know economic contraction without support costs lives, but never seen such a stark graphic demonstrating it.

View attachment 18671
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Saw a chart in the FT the other day, the UK is the only developed economy where real wages have declined whilst GDP has grown
 
Saddlebrains

Saddlebrains

Well-Known Member
Headlines like this are fucking rife at the moment.

Im struggling this time round If i see much more of this kind of 'news' it just makes it fucking worse.

Sorry about the language. Fucking pissed off
 

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Sky Blue Pete

Sky Blue Pete

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Wow there’s a statistic

102000 people with Covid treated in hospital in the last month. A third of the total number treated in hospital during the whole pandemic!!!

What a mistake allowing it to get out of hand in December
 
Earlsdon_Skyblue1

Earlsdon_Skyblue1

Well-Known Member
fernandopartridge said:
Why? 120k covid deaths, many elderly who would probably be expected to die this year anyway.
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I'm trying to compare facts and figures correlating with population growth but pretty much every website has different information.

Even 'full fact' (a source previously used on this board) has posted two corrections on its article.

It's a mire.
 
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