Never has a virus been so oversold

[StitchInLime]

A friend just sent this article from The Spectator to our Whatssap group and I have to confess, I'm struggling to counter the statements made in it.

www.spectator.co.uk/article/never-has-a-virus-been-so-oversold

HAS this virus been oversold? Now we have a better understanding of it, is it time to relax a bit?

Or is this article wrong? And if so, how (no need to get into debate about the author and source, but I mean the quoted stats)? I feel I need to argue against it in the Whatssap group but am struggling with how.

Totally agree, Ibake - this is how I feel too. Lockdown was necessary at that time, but we cannot keep prioritising Covid over everything else, it is too damaging to health. Health is more than just not having Covid.

If people are going to keep misquoting the media misreporting of that ONS study it should be pointed out that:

While these negative health impacts of lockdown exceed the impacts of COVID-19 directly, they are much smaller than the negative impacts estimated for a scenario in which these measures are not in place

Ah, @RafaIsTheKingOfClay - stop spoiling a rant / false polemic by going to the source material.

And New Zealand - who managed to completely avoid CV by locking down completely - now has it, how long ago did they lift their lockdown? I'm really sorry it's got there. I have friends there.

They're locking down a bit again.

While these negative health impacts of lockdown exceed the impacts of COVID-19 directly, they are much smaller than the negative impacts estimated for a scenario in which these measures are not in place

^
This

It’s bizarre and nonsensical that some people seem to believe that the impact on non-Covid conditions would have been better had everything carried on regardless. I’m not sure how any cancer treatments would have continued, or heart attacks treated, had the UK been overwhelmed like Bergamo (who, by the way, had the resources of the rest of the country to assist which we wouldn’t have done):

Ask people in Brazil about that

Ask them what?

I don’t think many would want to be Brazil

Brazil has fewer deaths per million inhabitants than the UK does!

Brazil has fewer deaths per million inhabitants than the UK does!

Who is at the top?

@Jux

And New Zealand - who managed to completely avoid CV by locking down completely - now has it, how long ago did they lift their lockdown? I'm really sorry it's got there. I have friends there.

They're locking down a bit again.

Just reading about this. Quite incredible, the strength of lockdown. Obviously in keeping with initial strategy.

The mere fact that someone seriously uses the term "low hanging fruit" in conversation is enough to prove that they are massive bell end.

I spend all day laughing at you wankers who use buzzwords like that... "Moving forward, we should touch base and blue sky this idea about low hanging fruit, and upskill our happiness team. Revert if you need any clarification".

You're just an empty talentless vessel that's been filled to brim with meaningless corporate sewage. Normal people laugh at you when speak 😂😂😂😂😂

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay I am aware of what the ONS report says and I never said we should not have locked down initially.

Indeed I think we should have done it 1-2 weeks sooner and people such as myself returning from abroad should have been quarantined properly as opposed to trusting I would behave myself (I did!)

I specifically said we were right to lockdown as we didn't know what we were facing. However I then went on to say that I am against this as a continued approach now that we know more. We have treatment options. We have low hospital numbers. We have 67 people on a vent bed.

All of this is data that should be forming our decision making process going forwards as we weigh up our approach on covid versus our approach on all other aspects of society namely health, education and the economy.

I was going to read it but now I know it’s by Lionel Shriver I won’t. She’s a wee bit nuts, to say the least.

It's in Auckland, 4 cases in one family, so it's not a drastic outbreak and easily contained. Still, the whole of Auckland is being locked down.

Personally, I think this is what ought to happen if you want your measures to be effective and not half-hearted. There's no doubt that their PM values lives over money.

People are infinitely resourceful and inventive. I'm quite sure that if the entire world were to follow suit/had followed suit, we would have found ways to continue feeding the economy one way or another.

Brazil has fewer deaths per million inhabitants than the UK does!

Or more accurately, fewer deaths from confirmed cases. I’d imagine Brazil have a significant number of Covid deaths that aren’t on any official register.

Rafa, thanks for clarifying. I won't engage with the MN Covid deniers and eugenics fans who cherry pick and twist articles to support their own ego-rants.

How long did it take us to go from 1-2 cases to 1000 deaths per day? Knowledge is only useful if it translates into action. If we do not take steps to restrict growth, all the knowledge in the world will not save us from a second wave.

Cases are currently rising. Testing and tracing becomes less viable as cases increase. Treatment options alone will not help us if we have an exponentially growing number of patients requiring those options. We need to keep cases below the viable threshold. We can and should try to find as many ways that limit the other costs of restricting spread, but pretending we have beaten this virus solely because we know a bit more about it does nothing.

Cases are only rising in few parts of the U.K. in many areas they are falling and some local authorities recorded zero new cases last week

No new Covid cases last week in

Swale
Redcar and Cleveland
Barrow-in-Furness
Bracknell Forest
Rochford
Exeter
Lewes
Isle of Wight
Mid Devon
North Devon
Wyre Forest
Scarborough
Teignbridge
Forest of Dean
Malvern Hills

The true selfishness of humanity comes out: from wars, unstable governments, through financial insecurity and homelessness, cancer and virus: if it doesn’t affect YOU it’s not a problem.

That goes both ways.

Many of the people that are against full nationwide lockdown, are so because of the massive detrimental effect its had on them or their families life.

In a situation like this you can't save everyone. There will always be winners and losers. It's a bit harsh to call someone who disagrees with lockdown because they will now die of cancer or lose their home and business selfish. Why are those people selfish, but those that want lockdown dispite the hardship and deaths it will cause (on a much larger scale and to a much higher demographic) arnt selfish.

Brazil has fewer deaths per million inhabitants than the UK does!

Who is at the top

Sadly, @MarshaBradyo, on deaths per million, it’s Belgium at the top followed by the UK. See Johns Hopkins data. (Generally deaths per million for micro states with populations under 1m aren’t counted

Her quoting of the Asian flu in 1957 as a good example of an equivalent outbreak is nonsense, but otherwise I largely agree with her.

@Alabamawhirly1 yes, exactly that

Or more accurately, fewer deaths from confirmed cases. I’d imagine Brazil have a significant number of Covid deaths that aren’t on any official register.

True. How many is difficult to gauge though. It's not like people are dying without being recorded whatsoever.

Anyway, Brazil's approach, despite the president being a dick, has been very similar to the UK's, except it locked down sooner and has been more strict on quite a few things, such as in most major cities masks have been mandatory in all public places since long before the UK introduced any mask rules whatsoever. That's probably why the deaths per million is lower than the UK. The media likes to focus on Bolsonaro's ravings but he's largely irrelevant since it's the state governors and city mayors who chose/are choosing how to tackle the pandemic.

All the numbers are bullshit. We've had multiple thousands more cases than have ever been counted, because in March/April it was impossible to get a test if you were a non-essential worker, so our case/death counts are way off and it looks a lot more lethal as a result.

The death figures are misleading too, because anyone who has ever had a +ve Covid test is currently counted, whether it was the cause of death or not.

Why countries/the WHO put so much emphasis on these bullshit numbers baffles me. The fewer tests you do, the fewer cases you find, so the countries with the least effective testing regimes look like they're managing the virus comparatively well. Why does no one really talk about that? There's a reason that many western countries are talked about as having the worst case of CV-19 - and that's because most now have the capacity to carry out lots of tests and they are honest about those figures and about the number of deaths (even though the method for counting those deaths varies).

Why countries/the WHO put so much emphasis on these bullshit numbers baffles me

One reason is that it's important to study which approaches worked best, so that we can use that as a basis for future pandemics (and for the rest of this pandemic, actually. It's not too late for governments to change tack based on evidence from elsewhere around the world, after all).

Of course there is under-reporting in every country and the figures are difficult to compare directly for the reasons you gave, but it's better than nothing I guess.

I suspect Covid data is conversely massively and deliberately undersold and covered up in most parts of the globe and of course especially the developing world with other widespread out of control deadly diseases and essentially no medical care infrastructure.

I therefore think the highest numbers so far recorded in the USA is more a reflection of accountability than say hidden Covid related deaths in really populated and poor undeveloped counties like India, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Brazil and Nigeria etc . These poor developing counties have large uneducated populations and very poor but super corrupt government infrastructure and so are ripe for underreporting and covering up of Covid fatalities.