SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

Have visualisations gone too far?

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You're basing this on what research exactly?

It's not like we haven't had these non-peer reviewed models issued in the UK as well. We had one weeks ago that went through the tabloids claiming 50% of the UK were infected but thankfully our government rightly ignored it as nonsense.

PHE think it's below 10% with the exception possibly being London.

Yeh, it's important these non-peer reviewed studies are used with caution. But it is the best we have so far. The study below looked for antibodies in blood donors, I think they come up with a number around 14% when accounting for the sensitivity of the test. This was mid April, so will be rapidly increasing.

Yeh - 10% + in London might be about right?

Great example of being cautious of early studies...checkout the retraction! :lol:




You see the bolded part, that's what makes it weak. You don't draw conclusions when you don't understand the basic mechanics, it doesn't mean that you are scaremongering but simply acknowledging the limitations of your current knowledge. Some people are scared that they can't even accept a simple, "we don't know yet".

Well not peer reviewed conclusions, but speculation on an internet forum I think is OK. Do you just not want to speculate? It's a pretty obvious prediction based on everything we know about coronavirus that we'll develop immunity.

We don't know yet for 100% signed and scientifically sealed but I bet ask anybody in the medical community privately and they'd be 99% certain we will have immunity. My boss was in hospital and the doctors were telling him he'll be developing anti bodies over the next week or so (as they discharged him).
 
Sweden only test hospital patients mate and staff, so the number of “recovered” is simply not updated. That much is obvious though I thought?
Fair enough, which takes me back to my original point where I said there's obviously reasons behind the figure being so much higher than the average. If you're only testing hospital patients and staff, that comes with its own issues, which is where I'd caution other countries looking at your case as one to follow.

I've seen Americans in favour of getting back to work using Sweden as an example. My boss brought Sweden up last week too, as he's clearly keen to get us back to work. The problem is they're just looking at the part of the argument that suits their agenda and there's much more to it. Like you said, the Swedish approach suits Sweden. It could be catastrophic applied to other countries.
 
People here talking about as if lockdown can last for another year. :lol: My country's government is already talking about how to resume the summer tourism season and in general looking for a way out of the situation as quickly as possible.

No country can survive a lockdown until next year, as rich as you believe you are. The citizens will start having severe issues with dealing with such strict restrictions. I can also see the more powerful countries starting more conflicts for resources around the world and the struggle for influence in regions all over the globe will intensify.
 
Like you said, the Swedish approach suits Sweden. It could be catastrophic applied to other countries.

To be fair, they asked the FHM experts here after a press conference about a Trump comment regarding Sweden’s approach and the reply was along the lines of:

“Our approach is designed specifically for Sweden, why would anyone even consider how that could work in other vastly different countries and cultures. Each country must have their own strategy”.
 
Tom Britton from Stockholm Uni uses it and they collaborate. Still up for that bet :)

Tom might, but the model doesn’t, so you made it up. It’s rather amusing how you can try correcting the likes of Pogue for a few percent difference in a stat yet you’ve no problem replying with utter bullshit yourself.

The model is published, go look man. You’d probably enjoy it too being a maths bloke, it’s more than a little over my head I’m afraid.

“Let’s have a bet”, why is that your go to? aren’t you like 37 years old?

You seem to have some serious Sweden issues too man as you barely post in here if Sweden isn’t the subject, big brother Scandy issues? Gutted they are so close yet somehow ended up being so much better looking? I get it
man, I do, but being non-Scandy myself I’d prefer you leave me out of it and keep your demons to yourself, or focus them on an actual Swede.
 
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Yeh, it's important these non-peer reviewed studies are used with caution. But it is the best we have so far. The study below looked for antibodies in blood donors, I think they come up with a number around 14% when accounting for the sensitivity of the test. This was mid April, so will be rapidly increasing.

Yeh - 10% + in London might be about right?






Well not peer reviewed conclusions, but speculation on an internet forum I think is OK. Do you just not want to speculate? It's a pretty obvious prediction based on everything we know about coronavirus that we'll develop immunity.

We don't know yet for 100% signed and scientifically sealed but I bet ask anybody in the medical community privately and they'd be 99% certain we will have immunity. My boss was in hospital and the doctors were telling him he'll be developing anti bodies over the next week or so (as they discharged him).


I specifically said politicians, public figures and pseudo-scientist, by pseudo-scientist I'm talking about scientists that are willing to run their mouths at every opportunity as long as there is a camera around. You can make all the speculations that you want but public figures shouldn't. And since we are in the context of herd immunity, the mechanics of the immunity is key, even if you have immunity the consequences and its length need to be known and understood. You should dismiss anyone that makes definitive claims on a virus that no one knows.

As for the 10%, from the limited studies done in France it's supposed to be in that ball park for regions that have been heavily affected.
 
Government really going all out to meet the 100k testing target by end of tomorrow
Now all asymptomatic NHS and social care staff and patients in hospitals and care home residents eligible

Well overdue I think but with obvious implications for workplace and need to update guidance for asymptomatic staff regarding return to work and if/when to re-swab. Should also be interesting to see prevalence now and compare vs community figures to see if frontline workers have increased incidence especially amongst asymptomatic staff and whether with large enough samples we could extrapolate from that data and make local/national inferences.

I'll book mine soon but worried about how the swab itself looks pretty uncomfortable and false reassurance though as a study in JAMA showed true positive rate of 63% with nasal swabs
 
Apparently cancer deaths are at an all time low, as are heart attacks.

Someone in canteen was just telling me. Think they said it was on Facebook like so you know. Apparently a lass from a morgue? Is saying all deaths where she works are covid 19, not one other type of death recorded at all.
 
Tom might, but the model doesn’t, so you made it up. It’s rather amusing how you can try correcting the likes of Pogue for a few percent difference in a stat yet you’ve no problem replying with utter bullshit yourself.

The model is published, go look man. You’d probably enjoy it too being a maths bloke, it’s more than a little over my head I’m afraid.

“Let’s have a bet”, why is that your go to? aren’t you like 37 years old?

You seem to have some serious Sweden issues too man as you barely post in here if Sweden isn’t the subject, big brother Scandy issues? Gutted they are so close yet somehow ended up being so much better looking? I get it
man, I do, but being non-Scandy myself I’d prefer you leave me out of it and keep your demons to yourself, or focus them on an actual Swede.
I don't have any problem with Sweden, I think they have misscalculated a little bit. It is hard to take any calculations that implicitly or explicitly put the death rate at 0.3% when 0.25% of NYC's total population has already died. I haven't criticised Sweden's approach once, apart from maybe calling it risky. I have criticised many of your posts.

I am a poker player, so I am used to take peoples money, can you blame me for trying.
 
And what's to say the other lot would of faired any better? There all as bad as each other. Get your head out of the sand.
Government really going all out to meet the 100k testing target by end of tomorrow
Now all asymptomatic NHS and social care staff and patients in hospitals and care home residents eligible

Well overdue I think but with obvious implications for workplace and need to update guidance for asymptomatic staff regarding return to work and if/when to re-swab. Should also be interesting to see prevalence now and compare vs community figures to see if frontline workers have increased incidence especially amongst asymptomatic staff and whether with large enough samples we could extrapolate from that data and make local/national inferences.

I'll book mine soon but worried about how the swab itself looks pretty uncomfortable and false reassurance though as a study in JAMA showed true positive rate of 63% with nasal swabs

Mildly uncomfortable for a second. Preferable to a blood test. Nowhere near as bad as it looks (had it done and seen the videos where it does look pretty excruciating)
 
Apparently cancer deaths are at an all time low, as are heart attacks.

Someone in canteen was just telling me. Think they said it was on Facebook like so you know. Apparently a lass from a morgue? Is saying all deaths where she works are covid 19, not one other type of death recorded at all.



Isn't that weird though? If the 'news' itself is an actual report, then it's complete bollocks, there's no way nobody is dying of other causes, so that would suggest that some areas are inflating covid19 death numbers by simply not looking into cause of death (which I strongly doubt). Maybe some areas aren't equipped to be performing all these tests so are just ticking the covid19 box due to volume of work/capacity.
 
Isn't that weird though? If the 'news' itself is an actual report, then it's complete bollocks, there's no way nobody is dying of other causes, so that would suggest that some areas are inflating covid19 death numbers by simply not looking into cause of death (which I strongly doubt). Maybe some areas aren't equipped to be performing all these tests so are just ticking the covid19 box due to volume of work/capacity.

If true.

The lady from the canteen heard on Facebook...

What an absolute waste of time.
 
What do the government gain by inflating the figures ? I really don't understand this one.
Test how easy it is to frighten/manipulate the public. Given we now have people wanting lockdown until the virus is completely gone, safe to say mission accomplished.
 
Test how easy it is to frighten/manipulate the public. Given we now have people wanting lockdown until the virus is completely gone, safe to say mission accomplished.
We also have people chomping at the bit to go back to normal. There's only so long they can continue this. Like other countries the UK will relax their restrictions slowly. Furthermore, the number of deaths only bring more scrutiny to the government, why would they want to increase this?
 
So excess mortality in the UK is a lot higher than the amount of deaths officially attributed to covid-19 and yet the government is actually inflating the figures.

Makes you wonder what's actually killing all these people. In the UK and all the other countries that suddenly have an extremely high excess mortality.
 
Wow, good for Sweden if that's true. I haven't been paying as much attention to Sweden as I thought I would be, it's been quieter than I expected. Given their approach, you'd think media outlets would be all over this situation as they are basically being guinea pigs for a different approach.
Oh dear, looks like the Government here in UK should have stuck to their original plan instead of buckling to public pressure.
 
What do the government gain by inflating the figures ? I really don't understand this one.

The right wing austerity loving, economy focused government want to continue to destroy the economy and hand out money to the public.
 
We also have people chomping at the bit to go back to normal. There's only so long they can continue this. Like other countries the UK will relax their restrictions slowly. Furthermore, the number of deaths only bring more scrutiny to the government, why would they want to increase this?


Yeah it's something I struggle to get on board with. I have time for some conspiracy theories, because those I find convincing, I can always pinpoint where "the money" is and I believe that any conspiracy would involve the rich and powerful becoming richer and more powerful. This situation, I simply cannot see how anyone is making any money from this, which is why I can't get on board with it.
 
We also have people chomping at the bit to go back to normal. There's only so long they can continue this. Like other countries the UK will relax their restrictions slowly. Furthermore, the number of deaths only bring more scrutiny to the government, why would they want to increase this?

Ofcourse they will have to but it's set a clear future precedence showing how easy it can be to scare people into submission.

I mean don't get me wrong the initial lockdown was nessesery but the way some people have gone above and beyond to help implement it and been brainwashed into thinking along the lines of "we can't do anything just incase" (forgetting that pretty much everything they do in life has some risks of sort) is a little worrying.
 
With regards to the questions about Sweden's response to this...

They have a population of about 10.25 million, have had about 20,000 confirmed cases and 2355 confirmed deaths. Norway, Finland, and Denmark combined have a population of about 16.7 million, and have had combined about 21,000 cases and 840 deaths. If you just look at the nations sharing a land border with Sweden, then Norway and Finland combine for 11 million people, about 12,400 confirmed cases and 405 deaths.

Why exactly are we supposed to be praising Sweden again?
 
With regards to the questions about Sweden's response to this...

They have a population of about 10.25 million, have had about 20,000 confirmed cases and 2355 confirmed deaths. Norway, Finland, and Denmark combined have a population of about 16.7 million, and have had combined about 21,000 cases and 840 deaths. If you just look at the nations sharing a land border with Sweden, then Norway and Finland combine for 11 million people, about 12,400 confirmed cases and 405 deaths.

Why exactly are we supposed to be praising Sweden again?
No reason. Yet.
As with almost everything we must wait before we praise or shame most actions when it comes to this virus.
 
No reason. Yet.
As with almost everything we must wait before we praise or shame most actions when it comes to this virus.
And to me, that approach is sensible.

I just see the current "we're winning" campaign by Swedish politicians as an attempt to paper over the drastically lower numbers from their neighbors, who have instituted drastically different policies.
 
Oh feck off. Johnson has kids he won’t even acknowledge publicly. He’ll just use this as an excuse to keep away from Starmer for another few weeks, who will run circles around him.


Yeah I'd love to see this brought up when the inevitable clap-for-baby-Boris crap begins.
 
And to me, that approach is sensible.

I just see the current "we're winning" campaign by Swedish politicians as an attempt to paper over the drastically lower numbers from their neighbors, who have instituted drastically different policies.
I agree, but I have not notice to much of that living here so maybe its more noticable from the outside. The health gouverment belives in the aproach they have chosen and so far my opinion is that it could be worse, but also better.