Excess deaths are actually not registering hugely at the moment. About 4% above five year average.

The place to go is the ONS link below. Deaths lag by two weeks due to official reporting methodology, but these are the gold standard.

Of course there will be a further wave to pass through due to lags from hospitalisations. And this may push us into excess death territory in the coming couple of weeks before the peak has fed through the system.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending1april2022

These drug names may seem unfamiliar but at least no-one is going to prescribe them…

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Too smug, too soon. I’ve (unsurprisingly) got Covid.

Good news is that apart from being very tired, mrs_oab appears to be on the mend. 👍

Two whole years we’ve avoided it….!

Mrs caught it day 2 Easter holidays having avoided it in a. Front line teacher situation for 2 years….

6days later she tested clear …..I tested positive the next day …… 10 days later I test clear …. Daughter tests positive the same day.

Nightmare.

One of my reports – his wife got it Thursday , he had symptoms Friday. Was still testing neg on lft yesterday but did test positive on a PCR. His son tested positive on an lft today. At least his covid got the message to get the whole lot essentially at once

How long have people been on a very feint LFT line for? This is the third day where the test is just about visible yet I stopped having symptoms 5-6 days ago.
Was only feeling ill for 3days, this is day 11 since first testing positive.
I know I’m allowed outdoors (obviously I’m not about to go to cinema/cafe/pub) but at some point I will need to interact with people. Don’t really want to be in positive test limbo for weeks.

After day 10 your free to go about your business anyway no.

Yes but I do want to go to the cinema and a drink with some friends at the weekend but I do give a toss about other people so not if there’s still a chance of giving it to someone.

Just an ask really; I had a dose of Covid – suspected Omicron – the week after Christmas and after a 3-4 week post viral fatigue. I had a non covid/LTF negative virus in March which gave me a 2 week post viral fatigue.

At the weekend, I cycled my hardest / longest road rides since Covid – 50km easy on Saturday and 113km moderate>hard on Sunday. Yesterday I awoke very tired yet within expectations, but literally started to crash with fatigue from 3pm and by 7:30pm couldn’t stay awake and was craving sweets. I’d refer to it as a “fatigue bomb”. I’m ok today, just feeling a little weary currently.

Is this a post covid thing others have experienced or just a normal to-be-expected post viral symptom? When I’ve virus before I never experienced this.

After day 10 your free to go about your business anyway no.

Not sure you even “have” to wait 10 days any more. Obviously sensible people do.

I’m seeing the daily deaths from covid reported as doubling yesterday (296 to 646)… and it’s only a daily count. Not seeing any reporting specifically on it (and the testing is dropping away as it’s no longer free… surprise!).

WTF is happening?

Bank holiday reporting lull.

Yesterday’s total was missing the Scottish numbers but are exaggerated due to the 4-day weekend.

2200 covid deaths over the last 7 days, a higher rate of infection and deaths than over winter. Hardly a mention of it anywhere.

But yeah, all restrictions lifted, mask wearers in public are in the tiny minority.

The Tories are committing democide and the press are letting them get away with it

It’s not just the Tories and papers though. Most people seem to be happy to pretend it’s over. And it’s easy to do so, unless you are in contact with healthcare (as a patient or worker) and see what’s happening in medical settings. It’s like a permanent winter in the NHS.

I know.
We spent last night at Forth Valley Royal Accute Assessment Unit.
10 hour wait. Staff and resources barely coping. Absolutely full of elderly and covid patients.
As two covid positive people there was nowhere for us to hide – so we sat on the floor next to the only open window for 6 hours, vainly trying to keep away from the 91 year old couple in front of us.
The ward couldn’t kick people home quick enough today – and at 11 when I returned, A&E and the AAU were full already.
🙁

The Tories are committing democide and the press are letting them get away with it

Well, they’ve got form.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-61227709

Confirming what we already knew about the ‘Ring of Steel’ around care homes. It was a ring of steel stopping the poor residents escaping from the untested Covid+ patients chucked in with them.

Boris tries to wriggle out by saying we didn’t know it could be asymptomatically transmitted at the time. We didn’t know for sure, but the r-number made it a likely scenario, and should have led to a more precautionary approach. I seem to remember plenty of people piping up about this at the time.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jun/09/matt-hancock-was-warned-of-covid-care-home-risk-in-march-2020

I suspect this is the moment for which he was trying to hang on to Hancock as his human shield.

Boris tries to wriggle out by saying we didn’t know it could be asymptomatically transmitted at the time.

Hancock tried to use today this as well. Wilful ignorance. Page back to March ’20 in this thread to see what was being talked about then.

Interesting paper on which countries are underreporting COVID – flagged by Poisson underdispersion. India’s not on the list as the excess deaths figures aren’t available.

Full list of countries with statistically significant underdispersion: Albania, Algeria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Cambodia, Egypt, El Salvador, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Mongolia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Syria, Turkey, Uzbekistan, Venezuela, Qatar, Tajikistan, UAE, Nicaragua.

My paper on Poisson underdispersion in reported Covid-19 cases & deaths is out in @signmagazine. The claim is that underdispersion is a HUGE RED FLAG and suggests misreporting.

Paper: https://t.co/X1ulWty1nM
Code: https://t.co/qLkVD7msEa

Figure below highlights 🇷🇺 and 🇺🇦. /1 pic.twitter.com/F152mqgTyq

— Dmitry Kobak (@hippopedoid) April 26, 2022

All the best and brightest regimes well-represented there. I find it hard to believe that the likes of Russia and Belarus would issue false reports…

If you read the magazine, you’ll have read Adam Boggon’s tales of rides you’re glad you weren’t on. When he’s not losing friends by taking them on terrible outdoor adventures, he’s a doctor, and he wrote this for the Lancet. It’s about being part of one of the first vaccination centres.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2600(21)00553-1/fulltext

That’s great writing. He needs to get a book deal.

The Lancet put the wrong url in his bio … this works though:
https://adamboggon.co.uk/

That’s a really good article. Highlights the efforts made to make grandiose plans made a reality by incredible efforts from those on the ground.

The madness continues.

Amazed that sitting in a dentist waiting room yesterday EVERYBODY was masked. Wowsers. Until the oldest lady in the room – estimated in her 70’s received a text message, and pulled down her mask under her chin to answer it.

Yes, a text message.

stwhannah – Thanks for sharing that. Everyone should read that article. So well written and very thought provoking.

That article is a valuable read.

Oab_Towers moves towards being Covid-free again. Two lads had it and bounced back, I have had it and am bouncing back – I was ‘released’ from 10 days today, and actually walked about a mile across Dunblane with nothing other than feeling tired. 👍
Mrs_Oab has had a properly rough time for nearly three weeks now – combination of chest infection AND Covid. A couple of hospital jaunts to get quicker tests and care than GP could offer, she is back up and around. That said, she is knackered, painful lungs and aching a lot still…
And to really put the icing on the cake, eldest had a presentation assessment at Uni, 40+ people in a room (but not the tutor who dialled in) – and two of his team tested positive that evening. Eldest didn’t want to give it to his house mates at exam time, so had been hiding away in a tiny room on his own. He basically phoned up and said ‘it is safer for my housemates for me to be at home, and nicer for me if I am to get it’…So fingers crossed we are not about to have another.

My mum is just getting over it in her care home and hasn’t been seriously poorly with it – she’s wheelchair bound, frail as you like, completely gaga with dementia following decades of alcoholism, a (supposedly) terminal brain tumour and radiotherapy.

Maybe our family genes are covid resistant 😉

Pretty much to the same day, my old man in Manilla came down with pneumonia – physically he’s about as debilitated as my mum, with crippling arthritis. He’s got through the other side of it now though.

It’s been a bit of a worrying week

Being in Canada it’s hard to figure out what’s going on in the UK at the moment but I am coming back in a couple of weeks to see various old people. Mainly rural Shropshire and North Wales.

Are there large crosses over half the doors, and the streets looking like a scene from the Walking Dead, or are cases coming right down? Looks like they are but I’m thinking hardly any testing is happening either?

Cases are high, 1500-2000 deaths a week I think, but we’re carrying on regardless.

I was in the UK 2 weeks ago – no “bodies in the streets” I’m happy to say.

Trending down though: https://www.travellingtabby.com/uk-coronavirus-tracker/

Can i ask a favour?

Could someone critique this –

https://jdee.substack.com/p/weekly-deaths-update-part-9?fbclid=IwAR1jxi6UzfECZHiJFhE_vXz7llne23Cw8TV19998Xr0tE0oOLb_HprlM6LU&s=r

– with bullet points..?

TIA

Can i ask a favour?

Could someone critique this –

I’ll critique it, it’s utter horseshit, this is the guy (it’s bound to be a guy/sad ****) who hides behind a pseudonym and claims to have access to confidential nhs “special” data that he statistically modelled to show there was no covid pandemic and thus vaccination was a pointless exercise.

Just another grifter with an agenda that he regurgitates every so often to engender his “big swinging dick” syndrome.

At this point I have to ask if we are looking at an outbreak of a genuinely novel and extremely deadly virus or another variant of influenza coronavirus…

You what mate? What’s an “influenza coronavirus”? I think somafunk’s critique is spot on.

A friend back in South Africa tells me they’re going into what they are calling the 5th wave and that he has workmates at home with severe symptoms.

another variant of influenza coronavirus…

Seems very odd for a ‘former head of clinical audit’ to be so imprecise with his classifications.

I think it’s fair to say that as excess deaths start to look more ‘normal’, the focus should be shifting to morbidity and QoL issues post-covid. This virus may now thankfully be less likely to kill you (and that relies partly on what variants come down the road this year), but it is still something that even fit, healthy people would want to avoid if possible, going by some of the reports of long it is taking to recover.

Mrs S has got it.

Unfortunately, symptoms hit just after she’d walked into Gokyo.
Tested negative, put it down to altitude and dragged herself up Gokyo Ri, but struggled on the way back – Covid plus altitude. Tested positive.

One helicopter ride to hospital in Kathmandu yesterday and she’s fine, recovering well and cheerful.

She’s the second to go down with Covid, one member of the party had already succumbed after they encountered ‘The Coughing Russian’ of Machhermo. 🙂

Seriously, 3 years of avoiding everything and she gets it in one of the least densely populated bits of the planet…..

Yes, the ‘influenza coronavirus’ line was a red flag – I’m getting into arguments with a chap who keeps sending random links like the one above, most of which is sort of outwardly plausible but inherently batshit. I”m losing the will if I’m honest.

I think I’ll just cede defeat – I fear I’m caught in a game of pigeon chess.

Rustyspanner – that’s a real shame, poor her! Gokyo is so beautiful, probably the coolest place I’ve ever been.

She’s safe, which is the main thing.

They set off walking from Lukla via Mong La, did Gokyo Ri Sunday. 🙂

One chap turned back at Machhermo due to Covid, currently isolating in Namche.
The rest banging on, walking back via Renjo La Pass.

She’s already planning the next one!