Worrying times

[Martin Crichton]

herd immunity is a complete myth with respect to Corona virus IMHO

I am also amazed that the nutty professor aka the chief medical officer in the UK still has his job.

IMVHO anyone that has had corona virus will just as easily get it a second time and a third time etc etc

look back on my earlier posts...I did warn here that the masses had no clue of what was coming...

be grateful that it has not mutated yet...a mutation 1-2% stronger will kill several times more than are currently dying.

Wish I didn't sell my NCYT shares at 154p...they are over 400p now

[Alan Walton]

Everything is guess work when all predictions are made; shooting down Sweden will only happen once the full picture is known

At present the % of deaths against total population (taken at the same day since countries are at different points in time) is that Sweden are doing better than France, UK, Italy and Spain; though US and Germany are lower

So we can all query Sweden’s methodology, but at present the raw data is saying that it is better than ours

What happens going forward are just assumptions and nobody can be sure of this

[Matt Mackenzie]

IMVHO anyone that has had corona virus will just as easily get it a second time and a third time etc etc

There is little if any actual hard evidence for this.

[Michael Farthing]

A couple of observations on the summary of the UnHerd interview.



To achieve (Un?)Herd immunity at least 60% - and probably much more - of the population will need to have had the disease. That is approx 40 Million people. Even taking the given mortality rate of 0.1%, this would result in 40,000 deaths. We are on schedule for this number even with a shutdown.

That is precisely his point. The deaths will be as high with the lockdown as without.

This is precisely why his point is wrong. Without the lockdown, the number of infections, hospitalisations and deaths would not be peaking but still rising exponentially. We would have far, far more than 40,000 deaths. If the lockdown had no effect then we must have already reached 'Herd immunity and AT LEAST 60% of the population infected for these numbers to be levelling off and be hitting the 40,000 target. Does anyone believe this? The Swedes calculate the 0.1% death rate by assuming a very high infection rate, for which they have no evidence. It is at best a guesstimate.

So where do get that prediction from! Principally, from the Imprerial team being criticised. But they have no evidence for it other than their own modelling because it hasn't happened anywhere in the world.

However, had the rise been exponential before lockdown then the death rate would have continued to be climbing in line with the number of people becoming infected up to the point of the lockdown. Best evidence seems to be that it takes an average of 5 days from infection to display of symptoms and an average of 21 days from display of symptoms to death - 26 days in all. 26 days from date of lockdown is roughly..err today. So from today we can start attributing falls in the death rate to the lockdown. Anything before today was already in the pipeline. The death rate in England (where we have date of death rather than date of report of death) has been only very slightly rising to a peak on 8 April, since when all daily figures have been lower. There is no evidence for any exponential growth in April. [Caveat: From April 12 the figures are less reliable as full reporting has probably not happened - but these figures are coming in at roughly the same levels of partial reporting as earlier days and do not look likely to overtake the April 8 figure]. i.e. there is clear evidence of plateauing at a date before lockdown would have had any effect on the death rate.

[Gerard Killoran]

That is precisely his point. The deaths will be as high with the lockdown as without.

This is precisely why his point is wrong. Without the lockdown, the number of infections, hospitalisations and deaths would not be peaking but still rising exponentially. We would have far, far more than 40,000 deaths. If the lockdown had no effect then we must have already reached 'Herd immunity and AT LEAST 60% of the population infected for these numbers to be levelling off and be hitting the 40,000 target. Does anyone believe this? The Swedes calculate the 0.1% death rate by assuming a very high infection rate, for which they have no evidence. It is at best a guesstimate.

So where do get that prediction from! Principally, from the Imprerial team being criticised. But they have no evidence for it other than their own modelling because it hasn't happened anywhere in the world.

However, had the rise been exponential before lockdown then the death rate would have continued to be climbing in line with the number of people becoming infected up to the point of the lockdown. Best evidence seems to be that it takes an average of 5 days from infection to display of symptoms and an average of 21 days from display of symptoms to death - 26 days in all. 26 days from date of lockdown is roughly..err today. So from today we can start attributing falls in the death rate to the lockdown. Anything before today was already in the pipeline. The death rate in England (where we have date of death rather than date of report of death) has been only very slightly rising to a peak on 8 April, since when all daily figures have been lower. There is no evidence for any exponential growth in April. [Caveat: From April 12 the figures are less reliable as full reporting has probably not happened - but these figures are coming in at roughly the same levels of partial reporting as earlier days and do not look likely to overtake the April 8 figure]. i.e. there is clear evidence of plateauing at a date before lockdown would have had any effect on the death rate.

This is ignoring the fact that people began social distancing before the lockdown. For example, sports events were being cancelled well before this incompetent government even recommended it as a sensible course.

As for exponential growth - all epidemics grow exponentially. The only difference is the power of the exponent. The reproductive rate (Ro) of coronovirus is more than 3 whereas for ordinary flu it is about 1.5. Mathematically this is a very big difference for the rate of spread of a virus and its resulting deaths.

I thought all chessplayers knew the story of the chess board and the grains of rice.

[Daniel Gormally]

I've read that herd immunity won't be achieved with this thing until we get about eight waves of the virus. not sure that's true though.

I saw that, can't remember where now. As often happens, the sums looked ok but at some point there was a leap of logic which I couldn't follow.

I'm leaning towards hawkish with this whole corona thing, maybe i've been brainwashed with the herd immunity-swedish approach, but can't get it out of my head that our politicians/scientists are just reactive and unimaginative and are controlled by the british media, who are hysterical in the extreme.

anyone else feel that they've changed their mind on this issue and that we need to come out of lockdown as soon as possible?

[Mick Norris]

Everything is guess work when all predictions are made; shooting down Sweden will only happen once the full picture is known

At present the % of deaths against total population (taken at the same day since countries are at different points in time) is that Sweden are doing better than France, UK, Italy and Spain; though US and Germany are lower

So we can all query Sweden’s methodology, but at present the raw data is saying that it is better than ours

What happens going forward are just assumptions and nobody can be sure of this

I don't think we can really be sure of anything if the numbers aren't being accurately reported, or on the same basis in each country; the BBC website today has

Posted at 14:47 Hospital death toll passes 16,000

The number of covid-19 patients who died in UK hospitals has risen to 16,060 as of 17:00 BST on Saturday, the Department of Health and Social Care say.

That is an increase of 596 in 24 hours - down from the previous daily death toll of 888.

As of 09:00 BST on Sunday, 482,063 tests have been conducted, with 21,626 tests carried out on Saturday.

A total of 372,967 people have been tested of which 120,067 tested positive.

But that doesn't include people dying outside of hospitals, particularly in Care Homes, which they covered earlier

The National Care Forum (NCF) estimates that more than 4,000 elderly and disabled people have died across all residential and nursing homes.

[JustinHorton]

anyone else feel that they've changed their mind on this issue and that we need to come out of lockdown as soon as possible?

What's "as soon as possible" here, though - what criteria would you be applying?

[Daniel Gormally]

anyone else feel that they've changed their mind on this issue and that we need to come out of lockdown as soon as possible?

What's "as soon as possible" here, though - what criteria would you be applying?

lets go with schools first, and shops like hairdressers. gradually other shops and pubs can open.

[JustinHorton]

Right, but before I get back to that, do you have any criteria relating to the death rate in mind, or are you just going to say the schools reopen on a given date?

[Daniel Gormally]

Right, but before I get back to that, do you have any criteria relating to the death rate in mind, or are you just going to say the schools reopen on a given date?

I dunno, but you seem to have a bee in your bonnet, this isn't a questionnaire

[JustinHorton]

OK. I've reported that posting, that can't possibly be an acceptable way to post on here, and it's not the first time.

[Matt Bridgeman]

The Education Secretary today suggested it's still likely to be a lengthy wait before schools go back. In our area there's a late May half-term. I'd think the earliest possible date back at school would be 1st June, but as the summer holidays start on the 17th July, it could equally be the 2nd of September before most children actually get back to school. If the Summer months don't offer some good Covid news, I'm worried that GCSE and A-Level students will continue to have their educations disrupted from September as well.

[JustinHorton]

Whatever date it is, I don't think people are going to go back while there's a high death rate and no testing-and-isolation operation of any note.

(Just in general, it's one of the problems with the herd-immunity strategy that you can either have people carrying on their normal lives, or you can have several hundred people a week dying of a virus, a tally which would of course be much higher without lockdown. But you can't have both, people won't do that.)

[Matt Mackenzie]

Whatever date it is, I don't think people are going to go back while there's a high death rate and no testing-and-isolation operation of any note.

(Just in general, it's one of the problems with the herd-immunity strategy that you can either have people carrying on their normal lives, or you can have several hundred people a week dying of a virus, a tally which would of course be much higher without lockdown. But you can't have both, people won't do that.)

Precisely, the idea that the economy would be motoring along if 1000s a day were dying and our hospitals swamped is simply delusional.