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I like arsebiscuits and his predictable rants, could I put a leash on him and take him for a walk?
I'd also like to extend my thanks to TiRed. Not sure if I ever did in lockdown 1 or when he got his award.
Your analysis and explanations near single handedly helped me through a very tough time in April. As an emotionally barren/analytical person; having someone explain the science to me was far more help than anything else.
Very easy to label someone you disagree with as a conspiracy theorist isn’t it.
Actually I think we are labelling you a troll.
Arsebiscuits is funny
Pretends he wants serious debate, but just chick's out loads of insults!
It's just a way to select scrutiny from any of his 'arguments', such as they are
I would also like to thank TiRed for his very clearly written and easily understandable posts.
+1
why would another forum care (unless its a personal attack on TiRed).
Some sort of meh.
Well, arsebiscuits has got me convinced.
Of what, I'm not yet sure...
Another massive thanks to TiRed from me. 🙂
I’m also back on a bike – two hours on Zwift so far this week has been an experience – an FTP of 175W is a long way to go…Rollers today.
Wow!
Having seen some of your rides on Strava including the fixed gear M25 loops that's a hell of a knock back you've had due to Covid. Hope you're on the mend soon and thanks for all of the helpful posts.
I see that the new strain is causing 60% of cases in South Wales so I guess that explains why Wales have done quite so badly (although personally I think we unlocked too much after the too short firebreak). If you look at the maps the increases in the SE are similar magnitude to the S. Wales increases.
I also think I read that a similar mutation was found in South Africa
Hope you’re on the mend soon and thanks for all of the helpful posts.
What’s 125 watts among friends 🙂 my club mates will be happy with me at the back in the spring. Nine months with little more than gentle walking is going to take its toll. It comes back pretty fast with training. Could have been a lot worse.
https://m.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/coronavirus-france-boris-johnson-conference_uk_5fe0949dc5b6a7df66663ac2?utm_source=upday&utm_medium=referral
Will he announce another lockdown?
We really are the basketcase of the world right now aren't we! Essentially the whole world is scared of catching the new strain from people travelling from here to them so they're all pulling the drawbridges up. We're going to be in the wilderness for a long time now!
(although personally I think we unlocked too much after the too short firebreak)
We were backed into a corner on having a short one as Westminster refused to release funds to help support businesses that had to close. That forced Drakeford to guarantee it would only be for 2 weeks and he then had to release everyone enough for businesses to reopen. Even when England went into their firebreak and released the money he couldn't go back on those promises se we were properly stitched up by Boris and co. We're paying the price for that now.
Well, looking at StuE’s link… if MPs do return to parliament, I hope they do so remotely.
We’re going to be in the wilderness for a long time now
Doubt it..I see 2 scenarios..
Either..the mutation has already made it a way to the continent, In which case within 2 weeks not letting us in will make sod all difference
Or..
Another mutation will pop up soon enough in Europe that is just as contagious
What we really need is a mutation which is far more contagious but much less severe, thus providing some level of immunjty with very little illness. How likely is that to occur?
From an evolutionary perspective, wouldn't all viruses want that outcome?
How likely is that to occur?
Very. Eventually. But we don't have to wait for millions to die waiting for that happen... we can (and should) contain any outbreaks, and develop and deploy vaccines and other prophylactic measures. We live in the modern world, let's make use of the advances we have made.
Very. Eventually. But we don’t have to wait for millions to die waiting for that happen… we can (and should) contain any outbreaks, and develop and deploy vaccines and other prophylactic measures. We live in the modern world, let’s make use of the advances we have made
from a purely academic perspective, is lockdown/facemasks/distancing etc helping or hindering the natural progression towards a milder virus?
From an evolutionary perspective, wouldn’t all viruses want that outcome?
A virus can't 'want' an outcome, it isnt a living organism, any mutation is just random mistakes when it replicates. The more contagious mutations are more successful at infecting therefore spreading they are
The two most depressing sentences right now are;
1 Boris is taking personal charge
2. Boris to give an updated COVID statement
there’s a number 2* headed our way at 5 pm apparently
*both metaphorically and literally
helping or hindering
It's saving millions of lives. Waiting for nature to thin the herd and eventually, hopefully, do its thing doesn't need consideration... this is 2020, not 1920*.
[* fourth wave of Spanish Flu, just in case you didn't get the reference ]
We’re going to be in the wilderness for a long time now
I’m not convinced. Detection of the new variant Y501 is less reliable by conventional pcr. Thw string of amino acids use to prime the amplification reaction, and hence detect the presence of viral RNA, might miss the change and there is also a deletion as well, which means that the primer may not latch on at all. Multiple primers are used for the teat, however.
Hence it might just be catch up. Other companies have the strain but have not need detecting it reliably. We shall see.
Companies or countries?
Living in the north kent hot spot I don't think any practical lockdown will work.
In mid September we had some of the lowest number of cases in the country 2nd from bottom. Cases started to rise before half term. Half term school closed cases rising faster then lockdown school open cases rising faster, then tier 3 cases rising faster. Tier 4 ?
Kind of feel that this is unstoppable now even with a national lockdown similar to March.
@kentishman similar here in Bucks. Zero cases in my girls' school then a rapid rise to school shut due to the number of staff having COVID or isolating within 6 weeks.
This summer's exams need to be replaced by teacher assessment and until we have sufficient vaccination remote learning (except for those that need to be in school for a good reason).
I still hope it's not unstoppable but we need to do what we can. Not shutting schools has become a party political thing now - we need to rise above that.
Hospitals appear to be driving new cases again so we may need to modify the vaccination strategy - perhaps it's time to switch to front line staff and vaccinating anyone coming in for elective treatment?
Companies or countries?
Countries - wrote it on my phone!
@TiRed, do you have any insight as to why much of the modelling is still so disastrously wrong? I see the Cambridge BSU group have just updated their estimate of R in London...to 1.1. It's clearly nonsense and yet this stuff is pushed into SAGE on a regular basis.
https://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/now-casting/
When my models generate palpable nonsense I look for why they are wrong, I don't just publish the results as a forecast that others are expected to take seriously.
Mrs Nobeer getting her vaccination tomorrow, a little good news, gave me a bit of a feeling of positivity today.
Hopefully not too long before she starts vaccinating folks herself. 🙏🏻
Good to hear @nobeer I take it that she got a negative test result then? I know that you were waiting on one
A bit of a positive slant on things over the last few months... `The kids are alright'
ONS report shows student compliance was very high and higher than the general population
Although unfortunately many people and particularly Conservative voters think it is all somebody else's (the public's) fault, rather than the Government losing public messaging over the Barnard Castle debacle or indeed just a consequence of the infectability of this new strain: https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1341056675034374148
Aye, she did Tom, took over 48hrs but got there in the end. She was a tad frustrated as the wee yin's test was back in 18 hours, crabbit wee bugger that she is! 😆
WTF is the press conference for/about?!
Yeah right! Our current approach is why the UK has one of the worst death statistics going, far worse than Sweden even.
The fact that the UK's response has been poor, does not negate the fact that we have had a response. If you judge our poor performance, think how much worse it would be with no intervention. The countries you should be following most closely are Norway and Finland. These countries have traditionally had little excess winter mortality. Sweden chose a slightly different route, with a plan to higher infection and greater immunity. Sadly, there has been little evidence of the presence of that immunity as restrictions were lifted.
Oh and whilst we’re at it why not choose to shaft our economy in the process? The GBD does not propose this. And it is a choice.
A functioning economy requires a healthcare service that can treat the infirm. The mortality noted so far is in line with the age at which treatment has not been given. Whilst the media has put minds at rest regarding dying with comorbidities, enormous numbers of previously healthy people (of working age) have been admitted to hospitals and then ITUs. The fact is, they have done a remarkable job of managing morbidity. What do you think would happen when there is no room in the HDU/ITU for those in their 70's. Then their 60's? And (gulp) their 50's? At a blunt level, when pregnant women start dying due to lack of treatment, what then (pregnancy is a comorbidity that increases relative risk 4x).
That’s of course assuming that lockdowns do actually save lives, or do they just serve to kick the can down the road whilst making the poorest in society even poorer still?
By your own admission, roughly 300,000 UK citizens are expected to die, whether that be over the course of one, two or perhaps three respiratory seasons. In 2020 there have been almost 100,000 deaths than in 2019. About a third of the above total. Lockdowns reduce transmission, which reduces admissions and deaths. Removal of lockdown has seen a universal rise in transmission, admissions, and deaths. There is currently no evidence of a significant effect of immunity. That will be the role of vaccination.
Oh and where has that seasonal flu gone by the way? Have masks and social distancing magically stopped it’s transmission but somehow not stopped the transmission of Covid?
No it reduces them both. COVID19 is about twice as transmissible as influenza, and about four times as pathogenic. Prevention of COVID19 has a greater effect on influenza transmission. Influenza is a disease of children with significant morbidity. Admissions of young children to hospital exceed that of the elderly.
Imagine if we had spent the £400 billion we have so far spunked up the wall on Covid on something worthwhile.
We'd be Norway - too late. They have a fund of Eu50,000 per capita from their North Sea Oil returns. Great healthcare and negligible excess mortality in 2020. Hindsight is wonderful. But the UK was already seen to be woefully unprepared for a pandemic. And found out.
"It's only when the tide goes out that you learn who has been swimming naked"
Wonder what the £ per QUALY saved is? Bet it’s more than the recommended £30k.
Ask a Health Economist. But factor in avoided morbidity costs for the 10% affected with longer-term disease and the opportunity costs of a healthcare meltdown on general increased mortality in the presence of limit healthcare. Pandemics don't care for Qualy's, but of course it won't be "cost effective".
Having just come back to this thread after some considerable time, looking at the last page and noticing comments about @arsebiscuits post, I’ve gone forward and read it.
Christ on a pogo stick! Arse biscuits is about right, typical right-wing conspiracy shit that gets spouted by Republicans in the US. Practically quoting the QAnon playbook verbatim.
What an asshole. 💩
WTF is the press conference for/about?!
Anything other than the immediate issue by the looks of it.
Blimey, you lot can be nasty. This does kinda confirm what I was saying the other week. Arsebiscuits is a bit ranty yet there are some fair points in there. But everyone just piles in to ridicule him. Dissent is verboten.
The experts haven’t done a brilliant job so far. And it’s just too easy to blame the government. Labour have backed the Tories all the way, and every other country seems to have made the same mistakes anyway. There is a worrying lack of critical scrutiny of both government and science. The BBC just trots out the government line. Who is putting out the balanced info that we really need, from between the two extremes of government lies and nutty fantasies?
I see a lot of bullying and arrogance on this thread. It’s a hard time for everyone, so a bit of tolerance would be in order.
@TiRed, do you have any insight as to why much of the modelling is still so disastrously wrong?
I did ask them about this. I think it comes down to data streams and treatment of incomplete data. That and some extreme sensitivities to underlying parameters.
I see the Cambridge BSU group have just updated their estimate of R in London…to 1.1. It’s clearly nonsense and yet this stuff is pushed into SAGE on a regular basis.
Clearly a doubling time of a week is incompatible with 1.1, but if you discount the last five days of data for data reporting delays, then estimation becomes harder. But invaribaly estimation of cases and admissions only tend to go UP with reporting delays, so 1.1 isn't even the best case (1.5 is closer to the mark).
When my models generate palpable nonsense I look for why they are wrong, I don’t just publish the results as a forecast that others are expected to take seriously.
This times a hundred. At this juncture, I've been using data-driven regression models from cases to admissions and cases to deaths. That gives me two-week insight. Four is challenging and beyond four is really of little value. Other models will be blowing at six weeks, and policy will render those invalid anyway.
so a bit of tolerance would be in order.
To be fair the majority of what he said was bollocks and he attached a well respected and decorated contributor and person of the thread without consideration to his or others circumstances.
It’s saving millions of lives. Waiting for nature to thin the herd and eventually, hopefully, do its thing doesn’t need consideration… this is 2020, not 1920*.
[* fourth wave of Spanish Flu, just in case you didn’t get the reference ]
Sorry - I get that the lockdown/restrictions is saving lives now and is the right thing to do. But long term is that helping or hindering the virus’s natural progression to eventually becoming less severe?
Are you sure arsebiscuits is a "he"?
I see a lot of bullying and arrogance on this thread. It’s a hard time for everyone, so a bit of tolerance would be in order.
Nah..if you read his post you'd know that arsebiscuits displays no tolerance whatsoever. He set up an account simply to troll and insult people, many whom have suffered greatly due to covid. He deserves all the ridicule he gets, as from his 2 posts so far he comes across as an utter xxxx.
The "less severe" thing is little more than guesswork. It might happen, it might not. Remember smallpox? Centuries of coexistence and it was still pretty dangerous, as flu and even common colds are in populations with no immunity such as native american and amazonian tribes.
It will probably be less severe for us once we've all either had it or had a vaccine, as even with ongoing mutations we will probably have some remnants of immunity. I don't think anyone expects repeated epidemic waves of it for years to come. But that isn't necessarily because of changes in its innate behaviour.
But long term is that helping or hindering the virus’s natural progression to eventually becoming less severe?
Neither - it's providing time to give people a vaccine that is effectively their lifetime infection experience they would have had naturally. With that protection, the virus is probably not that severe, and subsequent mortality might fall into line with other coronaviruses (i.e., relatively benign in the young, serious in the elderly).
Some predictions over the Christmas period. The rise in predicted deaths is due to the rise in reported cases since lockdown. Were deaths to be lower, this would be encouraging from the view of the pathogenicity of the emergent strain. The analysis uses prediction only from the second blue line onwards. Solid lines are restrictions. Dashed lines are relaxation of controls. Horizontal dashed line is April maximum by region/nation. The sharp downturn in Wales in January is a data artifact from case reporting delays now.
Just been told to self isolate. ****.
Two wrongs don’t make a right...
TiRed does seem to be something of a saint and I have a lot of respect for him. But he doesn’t know everything and I can see for myself that he doesn’t get everything right. So there is still scope to question both his analysis and the government line.
I’m wasting my time, I know, but I just don’t get the overpowering consensus on here. In the real world, most people do not trust the science or the government and are not hiding behind the sofa. The doom and gloom here is oddly unrepresentative.
I can see for myself that he doesn’t get everything right
Indeed, I predicted cases, admissions and deaths in the South East would fall during and stabilise after lockdown! Then science. I learned of the new strain at the same time as everyone else. But it does fit the narrative of the last week of lockdown.
I am perfectly happy with decision-making with unknowns. It's part of my day job. I'm actually optimistic. This is now a Global logistics problem more than a science problem (that was not a given). But my timeframe for optimism is a little longer than Boris'.