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.

@Northernsoulgirl45

Probably. That makes the figures even worse.

@Northernsoulgirl45 this might interest you re: testing numbers.

mobile.twitter.com/fascinatorfun/status/1293603497737322496

There’s an interesting side diversion about the number of deaths they’ve removed today. According to the PHE last month 47% of deaths recorded from Covid after 28 days have covid listed as their primary cause of death on the registration.

Which leaves roughly 2.5k deaths that were counted and possibly shouldn’t have been. Presumably some of those may have had covid 19 listed as a co-morbidity, but not as the primary cause.

2 5 thousand. Where did the 10,000 they talked about come from than?

Or was it 5000?

It’s 5000 which is the number of people who died more than 28 days after a Covid test who the government took off the daily deaths figures yesterday. These are the people who were ‘dying of covid because they can’t ever die of anything else’.

Only half of them did die of Covid, just not quickly enough. I think PHE are going to publish a 28 day and 60 day cut off but the government will only be putting the 28 figure on the dashboard.

And I’ve just realised this isn’t the thread I meant to post it on. It was supposed to be the problems with Covid numbers thread. 🤦‍♀️

I would also being interested to know this given that the overwhelming majority of people who get the virus are asymptomatic or only have very mild symptoms.

No - not the OVERWHELMING majority

Data showing supposedly asymptomatic people on day of test also includes PRE symptomatic

Doing nothing was never going to happen anyway - the question should be what would have happened if we'd have stuck with voluntary social distancing instead of hard lockdown.

Judging by the level of self entitlement on various threads - which I hope to duck isn’t symphonic of the population as a whole - there would have been a casual disregard for social distancing

one in 14 people who catch it in the U.K. news hospital treatment
I believe this statistic has been done as number of cases today (1000ish) and hospitalizations today (142). 142/1000 x100 = 14

But that is 14%, not 1 in 14. So actually more like 1 in 7.
HOWEVER this does not take into account cases which arent picked up which is going to be quite a lot. Asymptomatic or very mild cases in non-hotspot areas will still be going untested. I think it isnt really a statistic which is easy to calculate.

No - not the OVERWHELMING majority

Well the CDC have said that the actual number of infections is at least 10-12 times the amount of confirmed cases. So yes it would seem that most dont know they have it or don't experience symptoms severe enough to be tested if that is the case and certainly not severe enough to seek medical attention.

sorry should specify that that refers to the US. So the CDC believe that there have been at least 50 million cases in the US. I believe we would know about it if most were not asymptomatic

No - your are drawing incorrect inferences. A failure to get a test does not by default mean the person is asymptomatic.

In fact the CDC calculated the number of aysmptomatic at 40%

Admittedly this was late month and, who knows, maybe in a few weeks we hae moved from 40% to OVERWHELMING majority , as you assert

(last month)

Nothing to do with the article, but I too think it's been over-sold a bit. everyone is so dramatic, so alarmist, they keep promising a second wave/peak, every time we have D Day celebrations or something or there's going to be a second peak ....

I don't think there will be a huge peak, maybe a minor one, but I don't think it will be that big when the kids to go back to school.

and I don't think the flu season will be any worse than a normal flu season.

I just think it's all hyped up, yes we have a problem, yes people are catching it, yes people are dying.

but the drama of it all is worse than it needs to be. just need to do the right thing and play by the rules and wear a mask etc.

Well the CDC have said that the actual number of infections is at least 10-12 times the amount of confirmed cases. So yes it would seem that most dont know they have it or don't experience symptoms severe enough to be tested if that is the case and certainly not severe enough to seek medical attention.

Significant numbers of those would have occurred February through to April when the USA had its main infection peak, when it was difficult to get tested. Like in the U.K., people were advised to stay at home if ill. They were generally only tested if they were serious enough to require hospitalisation in many cases, and even then many are believed to have died of Covid, especially in the North-east, without being tested.

So yes, the US may have only counted 10% of actual infections, and many of those untested infections will have been assymptomatic or barely symptomatic, but nowhere near 90%.

There may not be a big second peak, but until more people start taking it a little more seriously, wearing masks and maintaining distance, paying people to stay off work if they are sick, then the economy will be skuppered . For a significant number of people catching the virus is actually a very bad idea, so much so that they will be minimising their involvement in society until they trust society. No pub trips , no shopping trips....

Telling them it won't be that bad won't cut it, because it's all very well if you are low risk but it's a whole different game if you are high risk. The more people go on about having to get back to normal, the more likely those people will retreat. Because they will see that people are putting their own short term interests above both the interests of the more vulnerable and the long term good of the country ( there is a link between having more deaths and having a bigger economic hit )

Those people need to believe that the virus is under control so that they have a low chance of catching it. With cases creeping up, that's not under control. More people socialising will make them go up faster, so you should be grateful to the people who being extra cautious, they are saving you from. Local lockdowns

You can't make people pretend it's ok if for them it is not. You can't tell them it's ok as cases are currently really low when we all know that detected cases will always be up to a week behind infections and cases can rise extremely quickly.

@Oblomov20

Nothing to do with the article, but I too think it's been over-sold a bit. everyone is so dramatic, so alarmist, they keep promising a second wave/peak, every time we have D Day celebrations or something or there's going to be a second peak ....

I don't think there will be a huge peak, maybe a minor one, but I don't think it will be that big when the kids to go back to school.

and I don't think the flu season will be any worse than a normal flu season.

I just think it's all hyped up, yes we have a problem, yes people are catching it, yes people are dying.

but the drama of it all is worse than it needs to be. just need to do the right thing and play by the rules and wear a mask etc.

So do you think the current situation in the US is just hype then?

Or the situation that they had in Northern Italy?

@ScorpioSphinxInACalicoDress

These foul comments about "they were all going to die anyway so why should I...." have been rife on MN since March. It's extraordinary to think there are sentient human beings in our midst who actually believe that just because someone was 75 they are expendable so long as younger people don't have to wear a mask. Etc.

Some people just have dirty souls I guess.

I'd be interested to see if they're the same posters not wanting to send their children to school in September. Because I've seen some Covid sociopath deniers on MN saying they're worried. Which is odd.

Yes. So much so. Thank you for this. It's been crazy-making.

All those witty women, I thought, was this always there behind the mask? Or has some dark tide brought up these soulless ones?

It's one thing to be smug, complacent, and almost belligerently ignorant and/or ill-informed, but the heartlessness is astounding.

@Hearhoovesthinkzebras are you feeling less anxious now, have you gone back to work? xx

So do you think the current situation in the US is just hype then?

You can't compare us to the US because the US have a very unhealthy population and many have no acsess to healthcare.

Tbh you can't compare any counties because there are too many
variables

Do you know I haven’t seen many heartless threads, just common sense.

@Alabamawhirly1

So do you think the current situation in the US is just hype then?

You can't compare us to the US because the US have a very unhealthy population and many have no acsess to healthcare.

Tbh you can't compare any counties because there are too many
variables

The UK population is quite spectacularly unhealthy. It’s a reasonable comparison.

And I’m not sure the virus is checking who does and doesn’t have healthcare before it infects them. I’m not sure paying for healthcare is the limiting factor in the worst affected areas. It’s the fact that the hospitals are running out of ICU beds.

Nowhere has run out of ICU beds. Not even New York. New cases are now declining in the most recent hot spots of Arizona, Florida, and texas and there is no current danger of running out of beds. Even at their peaks it didn't happen.

[quote Alex50]@Hearhoovesthinkzebras are you feeling less anxious now, have you gone back to work? xx[/quote]
Nope. If anything I'm even more anxious because I can see all the opportunities people are giving Covid to spread, from not wearing masks, no SD, coughing onto gloved hands but then happily handing money to cashiers, staff being sat too close to each other, and more.

@DasPepe

The utter hypocisy is bewildering. I’d like to call it “lockdown privilege”. Not one person who has agreed with this mess of arguments, has revealed that they or someone they know has been in face sick with Covid. So whilst lockdown was not great, these people have benefited from it by not being exposed. Not one person has said “oh yes, my DM has passed away but I mean she was always going to die for eventually”.

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.

@DasPepe brilliant post

The UK population is quite spectacularly unhealthy. It’s a reasonable comparison.

And I’m not sure the virus is checking who does and doesn’t have healthcare before it infects them. I’m not sure paying for healthcare is the limiting factor in the worst affected areas. It’s the fact that the hospitals are running out of ICU beds.

The UK population is unhealthy compared to most of Europe. But we are nothing compared to the US.

Not having access to healthcare means many US citizens already have completly untreated or badly manged illnesses. So they will be hit harder if they catch covid. It also means they are less likely or able to acsess medical help if they get ill with covid or will put off acsessing help until its too late.

This means that even if the spread is comparable to another country, people will be getting more sick. Which means more tests done, more hospital admission and more deaths.

If people get less sick from covid, they won't get tested, won't get hospital treatment and won't die. So the sats for the country can look like the infection is being managed better - when actually it's just that the population aren't getting as ill.

So comparing the US infection rate to the uk is pointless.