So this new mask mandate...

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MartinCarpenter
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Re: So this new mask mandate...

Post by MartinCarpenter » Thu Dec 09, 2021 9:35 am

Stephen Westmoreland wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:14 am
Kind of with Nick on this one. Masks only work if they are the correct type and everyone complies perfectly. There is no justification for restrictions now when the latest scariant is unknown and those in power are clearly not following their own rules. With the amount of people with vaccines and infection, there should be a high amount of herd immunity established.

Vaccines do not stop you catching COVID, just prevent quite a few hospitalisations.
Forget the shower of fools currently in charge of UK Gov - listen to all the public health/science people, who were asking quite loudly for restrictions with potentially quite severe adverse effects projected. Real reasons to be very cautious for the moment.
(Especially as these restrictions are only expected to slow things, not nearly enough to stop it.).

NickFaulks
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Re: So this new mask mandate...

Post by NickFaulks » Thu Dec 09, 2021 9:50 am

MartinCarpenter wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 9:35 am
listen to all the public health/science people
You mean the group of politically selected charlatans whose forecasts so far have been proved massively wrong - and all in the same direction.
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Stephen Westmoreland
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Re: So this new mask mandate...

Post by Stephen Westmoreland » Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:01 am

The forecasting has been woefully wrong..

Looks like hospitality is exempt from masks still. Don't go into work but work Xmas parties are fine. Good job on the latter, bearing in mind all those parties held last Xmas by the Conservatives....
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MartinCarpenter
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Re: So this new mask mandate...

Post by MartinCarpenter » Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:07 am

NickFaulks wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 9:50 am
MartinCarpenter wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 9:35 am
listen to all the public health/science people
You mean the group of politically selected charlatans whose forecasts so far have been proved massively wrong - and all in the same direction.
Well, no, and that's rather amazingly rude and inaccurate.

They've been doing quite well in terms of accuracy. Partially because they back fit the models, but predicting social behaviour (which this amounts too) is amazingly hard. If you read the Sage modelling minutes they're actually incredibly careful and clear on where the potential for error in the predictions lie, and what might control it.

They're very much not responsible for what the newspapers then make of it.

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Chris Goodall
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Re: So this new mask mandate...

Post by Chris Goodall » Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:16 am

Stephen Westmoreland wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:14 am
Vaccines do not stop you catching COVID, just prevent quite a few hospitalisations.
That's all vaccines ever do. Your immune system can't fight an infection you don't yet have. Your chance of dying of a given CoViD episode doubles every 7 years, and the vaccine reduces your effective CoViD age by 30 years.
Stephen Westmoreland wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:01 am
Don't go into work but work Xmas parties are fine.
So is the atmosphere at a typical chess club more like an office or a party? 🥳
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Stephen Westmoreland
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Re: So this new mask mandate...

Post by Stephen Westmoreland » Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:22 am

Chris Goodall wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:16 am
Stephen Westmoreland wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:14 am
Vaccines do not stop you catching COVID, just prevent quite a few hospitalisations.
That's all vaccines ever do. Your immune system can't fight an infection you don't yet have. Your chance of dying of a given CoViD episode doubles every 7 years, and the vaccine reduces your effective CoViD age by 30 years.
Stephen Westmoreland wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:01 am
Don't go into work but work Xmas parties are fine.
So is the atmosphere at a typical chess club more like an office or a party? 🥳
We had 11 in last night and 4 kids earlier. It was more office like with people quiet and playing. Other times it is more party like!
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NickFaulks
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Re: So this new mask mandate...

Post by NickFaulks » Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:27 am

MartinCarpenter wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:07 am
They're very much not responsible for what the newspapers then make of it.
But they are very much responsible for their own public statements when they do their media rounds.
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Angus French
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Re: So this new mask mandate...

Post by Angus French » Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:37 am

The most recent Hospital Surveillance Update from South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases had this (Highlights, p1) to say about the severity of illness in the fourth COVID-19 wave (from the Omicron variant):
SA NICD report wrote:Among patients who already had a hospital outcome and were no longer still in hospital, during the early third wave, 66.1% of COVID-19 admissions were severe, and during the early fourth wave, 32.9% were severe. However, there was higher percentage of severe admissions among children <20 years during the fourth wave. It must be noted that severity data has several limitations at the early phase of the wave when numbers are small, mild patients are more likely to be admitted as a precaution, patients are diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 incidentally when admitted for other reasons, and because there has not been sufficient follow-up time for severity and outcomes to have emerged.
This tweet with accompanying chart claims hospital admissions in Gauteng Province (the epicentre of the outbreak in South Africa) are currently doubling every five days.

In the UK, minutes from the SAGE meeting of 7 December have this:
Minutes for SAGE meeting of 7 December wrote:8. Some early indications from South Africa suggest less severe disease in those hospitalised when compared to previous waves, though this likely reflects at least in part the characteristics of those being admitted to date, who are younger than in previous waves (low confidence). A modest reduction in severity would not avert high numbers of hospitalisations if growth rates remained very high.

9. Although there are several unknown factors, preliminary modelling suggests that without any changes to measures in place, the number of hospitalisations from Omicron may reach 1,000 per day or higher in England by the end of the year (and still be increasing at that point).

10. The overall scale of any wave of hospitalisations without interventions is highly uncertain, but the peak could reach several times this level. The peak is highly likely to be higher than 1,000 to 2,000 Omicron hospital admissions per day without intervention to slow the speed of increasing infections; for it to be below this level there would need to be only a small degree of immune escape and very high protection from boosters against Omicron.

11. The impact of changes in transmissibility and immune escape on overall numbers of admissions is likely to be much more significant than the impact of any changes in severity (high confidence).
Also in the UK, PCR test results with SGTF (SGTF = S-Gene Target Failure, an indicator for Omicron) were up from 2% of cases on 4 December to 6.4% of cases on 6 December.

NickFaulks
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Re: So this new mask mandate...

Post by NickFaulks » Thu Dec 09, 2021 11:56 am

Angus French wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:37 am
The most recent Hospital Surveillance Update from South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases had this (Highlights, p1) to say about the severity of illness in the fourth COVID-19 wave (from the Omicron variant)
How many people have actually died from ( not with ) Omicron? They are being remarkably coy about that, which makes you wonder whether the answer is zero.
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Matt Bridgeman
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Re: So this new mask mandate...

Post by Matt Bridgeman » Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:04 pm

There’s certainly a lot in the recent Sage reports;

‘If Omicron's immune escape reduces vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation from, say, 96 per cent to 92 per cent, that would effectively double the number of vaccinated individuals who are not protected from hospitalisation.’

‘Even if severity of Omicron were half that of Delta, the sheer number of infections could lead to significantly more pressures on health and care settings.’

‘If Omicron in the UK combines increased transmissibility and immune escape, irrespective of severity, it is highly likely that very stringent measures would be required to.. control growth and keep R below 1.‘

Sage seem to want a lot more than Plan B being brought into action very soon.

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Re: So this new mask mandate...

Post by NickFaulks » Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:13 pm

Matt Bridgeman wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:04 pm
There’s certainly a lot in the recent Sage reports
Yes, but they just start from the restrictions they wish to impose and then pull some numbers out of the sky to justify them.

If real life refuses to follow their models, then its real life's fault, not theirs.
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Angus French
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Re: So this new mask mandate...

Post by Angus French » Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:31 pm

NickFaulks wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 11:56 am
Angus French wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 10:37 am
The most recent Hospital Surveillance Update from South Africa's National Institute for Communicable Diseases had this (Highlights, p1) to say about the severity of illness in the fourth COVID-19 wave (from the Omicron variant)
How many people have actually died from ( not with ) Omicron? They are being remarkably coy about that, which makes you wonder whether the answer is zero.
The report (which is for week 47) does give an age breakdown for the 23 recorded COVID-19 deaths in the City of Tshwane from 14-27 November - see fig. 11, p16. There was no corresponding breakdown I can see in the previous (week 46) report. I guess it's a bit early to reporting Omicron deaths as there's usually a lag of some days if not weeks from infection to death. Also, it's difficult to identify Omicron cases - so some of the 23 deaths could be from the Delta variant.

NickFaulks
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Re: So this new mask mandate...

Post by NickFaulks » Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:54 pm

Angus French wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:31 pm
so some of the 23 deaths could be from the Delta variant.
Or indeed all of them.
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Angus French
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Re: So this new mask mandate...

Post by Angus French » Thu Dec 09, 2021 1:01 pm

NickFaulks wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:54 pm
Angus French wrote:
Thu Dec 09, 2021 12:31 pm
so some of the 23 deaths could be from the Delta variant.
Or indeed all of them.
I should think that unlikely - if a breakdown was provided in the latest report but not the previous one. Also, I believe COVID cases, hospitalisations and deaths in South Africa had reduced to very low (near zero?) levels before the new wave started.

There is also this TV interview from a few days ago with Professor Rudo Mathivha who heads the ICU at Chris Hani Baragwanath hospital in Johannesburg (within Gauteng Province). She’s especially concerned about the increased incidence of more severe COVID cases among children (who are unvaccinated). She reports on the very quick deterioration and death of a 15 year old.

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Re: So this new mask mandate...

Post by Joseph Conlon » Thu Dec 09, 2021 1:06 pm

As a sanity check figure to compare with, a year ago hospital admissions peaked at around 4200 admissions a day from a population that was, broadly, entirely unvaccinated. It would be striking and remarkable if any similar number could be reached within a population where many more people have some form of natural immunity to Covid and also 80+% of those over 12 are double vaccinated and a third of those over 12 are triple vaccinated.

I do develop a certain irritation with the large number of bio/public health folk with habits of taking exponentials (which arise from solving a linear equation) and blithely extrapolating them without considering the non-linear effects that always come in. Every exponential blows up to enormous values. That's what they always do. In every real world system, something tames this.