Ok then let's see what the Prime Minister has to say........

[frozendaisy]

It's the hope that destroys you isn't it!

[quote Derbygerbil]@hamstersarse

Prof Hennegan makes a very valid point, and we should be re-testing all positives - or taking two tests - to minimise people and their contacts having to isolate unnecessarily. However, the problem false positives doesn’t explain away the recent rise in infections, it just means that they are somewhat overstated (but then again many more who are infected are never tested).[/quote]
I think ‘somewhat overstated’ doesn’t quite cover the problem with false positive testing.

It is somewhere in the region of 90 false positives per 10,000 tests. So that’s around 900 cases a day on the numbers. A lot!

This is one of the problems with our definition of ‘cases’ never mind the monstrosity projection graph from Whitty and Valance.

Dr Michael Yeardon explains more here in an excellent piece. The website title may put off a lot of people, but ‘dissenting’ medics are being marginalised and this site is by Toby Young (another mn favourite!) and is actually proving to be a true bastion of free speech around covid. Don’t judge til you read it!

lockdownsceptics.org/lies-damned-lies-and-health-statistics-the-deadly-danger-of-false-positives/

Really what were you thinking? Something to do with the secret lizard government ? Or UFOs?

Of course not, but I do believe that the British aren't a compliant people by nature and culture, and some elements of government would prefer that the population be taught to do as they're told more automatically - which is precisely what has happened.

Remember the whole world is doing this. It's not a secret Tory plan.

The whole world is not repeatedly locking down their entire domestic economy - precisely because it is so incredibly damaging to the economy and residents.

We're either being lied to about how serious this is and/or the response is being terribly bungled or its something else. But the response we are experiencing does not match the data we have on this disease vs other diseases which also kill and cripple millions each year.

If they want buy in, they need to tell us what we are buying in to.

@LastTrainEast

"I’m sorry but it really isn’t the disease you make out. It on a par with flu, depending on the exact fatality rates you see, but pretty similar in terms of death rate and who it impacts."

lol how would YOU know?

You're not a hamster are you.

Have you even looked at the stats

Even Whitty describes it as a ‘mild illness for the majority’

Why are you so scared of it? Are you like this about all things that carry minute risk?

As far as I understand it:

1. Most of the population still hasn't had it.
2. Most people who get it will be ok without intervention.
3. However some people will need hospital treatment in order to get better and others won't get better at all.
4. Others again will die. 400k positive tests, but actually about 4 million infections (from 7% positivity rate in antibody testing) and 40k deaths so far. Even if that's mainly old people, if case numbers go up that gets to a very difficult number of deaths to manage - you risk ending up having to run crematoriums all night. You might well start having to use temporary morgues etc.
5. If hospitalisations increase (say 20% of population get it in a short period and 10% of those who get it need hospitalising : you then need 1.3 million hospital beds: if you don't provide them, you have increased deaths. So then you're back to the reason nightingale hospitals were built.

Because even though it's "mild" compared to MERS or ebola, if there's no residual immunity (as there are for many flus) and no immunity from vaccination, then the numbers get problematic quickly. And we still don't have either of those.

@Areyousureted

It astounds me how so many many people with no qualifications whatsoever in medicine, science and infectious diseases seem to think they no better than the world Leading experts

The thing is, there is an awful lot of difference of opinion amongst these world leading experts.

Whitty and Vallance do not have a consensus.

@Nacreous

As far as I understand it:

1. Most of the population still hasn't had it.
2. Most people who get it will be ok without intervention.
3. However some people will need hospital treatment in order to get better and others won't get better at all.
4. Others again will die. 400k positive tests, but actually about 4 million infections (from 7% positivity rate in antibody testing) and 40k deaths so far. Even if that's mainly old people, if case numbers go up that gets to a very difficult number of deaths to manage - you risk ending up having to run crematoriums all night. You might well start having to use temporary morgues etc.
5. If hospitalisations increase (say 20% of population get it in a short period and 10% of those who get it need hospitalising : you then need 1.3 million hospital beds: if you don't provide them, you have increased deaths. So then you're back to the reason nightingale hospitals were built.

Because even though it's "mild" compared to MERS or ebola, if there's no residual immunity (as there are for many flus) and no immunity from vaccination, then the numbers get problematic quickly. And we still don't have either of those.

But an awful lot of scientific opinion states that there is a degree residual immunity, because of other coronaviruses.

A significant number of people are simply not susceptible.

middleeager, you posted: 'Months ago BJ said "You will all lose somebody you love." This has not come to pass thank God. It was scaremongering and lies.'

What he actually said was: "I must level with you, the British public. Many more families are going to lose their loved ones before their time."

Neither scaremongering nor lies.

I'm no fan of this government, but let's not make things up.

Could you send me some links/references for papers on that please? Preferably peer reviewed but I'll take early release if necessary! I have an openathens account so should be able to get to most things when I put my proper laptop on tomorrow.

Our nhs has been so underfunded, it cannot cope. That’s why they’re locking down.

The tories cannot bear to give public services money and would rather give it to their rich mates instead. That’s what happened with track and trace.

Fund the nhs properly. Stop giving serco money for testing and for the love of god, get rid of Dido that waste of space failed CEO. Chuck money in to the people who already know how to run the NHS (clue, it’s those in the NHS). Chuck money into the social care sector. Then they can better afford to manage covid and we don’t need to lock down.

@hamstersarse You say "I’m sorry but it really isn’t the disease you make out. It on a par with flu, depending on the exact fatality rates you see, but pretty similar in terms of death rate and who it impacts."

Yesterday Whitty said "And what we’ve seen in other countries, and are now clearly seeing here, is that they’re not staying just in the younger age groups, they’re moving up the age bands and the mortality rates will be similar to, slightly lower than they were previously, but they will be similar to what we saw previously. And these are significantly greater, for example, than ordinary seasonal flu. So seasonal flu normally in the UK would on average a year would kill around 7,000 people a year tragically, and in a bad flu year, as there was for example about three years ago, it might kill upward of 20,000 a year. This virus is more virulent than flu. So the numbers people talk about are not unreasonable numbers for us to be thinking about. Treatment is better, there is no doubt about that. Doctors, nurses have learned to treat this much more effectively and we have new drugs such as dexamethasone. These will reduce the mortality rate, but they will definitely not eliminate or take it right down to trivial levels.".

I'm going to have to believe the scientist with direct access to the data over a random on Mumsnet I'm afraid.

Here's the full transcript of the Vallance/Whitty press conference yesterday.

www.gov.uk/government/speeches/chief-scientific-advisor-and-chief-medical-officer-briefing-on-coronavirus-covid-19-21-september-2020--2

@Nacreous

As far as I understand it:

1. Most of the population still hasn't had it.
2. Most people who get it will be ok without intervention.
3. However some people will need hospital treatment in order to get better and others won't get better at all.
4. Others again will die. 400k positive tests, but actually about 4 million infections (from 7% positivity rate in antibody testing) and 40k deaths so far. Even if that's mainly old people, if case numbers go up that gets to a very difficult number of deaths to manage - you risk ending up having to run crematoriums all night. You might well start having to use temporary morgues etc.
5. If hospitalisations increase (say 20% of population get it in a short period and 10% of those who get it need hospitalising : you then need 1.3 million hospital beds: if you don't provide them, you have increased deaths. So then you're back to the reason nightingale hospitals were built.

Because even though it's "mild" compared to MERS or ebola, if there's no residual immunity (as there are for many flus) and no immunity from vaccination, then the numbers get problematic quickly. And we still don't have either of those.

T cell immunity is something you haven’t accounted for in your doomsday.

This means that a high percentage of the population seems to have immunity from past exposure to a previous related virus, e.g. the common cold. The cruise ships were the perfect example of this playing out when people who shouid have got it, just didn’t. I’m sure we all know stories of people in the same household not getting it when others had been in close contact.

“This growing body of research documenting pre-existing immunological responses to SARS-CoV-2 may force pandemic planners to revisit some of their foundational assumptions about how to measure population susceptibility and monitor the extent of epidemic spread.“

From this article:

www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3563

[quote FatGirlShrinking]@hamstersarse You say "I’m sorry but it really isn’t the disease you make out. It on a par with flu, depending on the exact fatality rates you see, but pretty similar in terms of death rate and who it impacts."

Yesterday Whitty said "And what we’ve seen in other countries, and are now clearly seeing here, is that they’re not staying just in the younger age groups, they’re moving up the age bands and the mortality rates will be similar to, slightly lower than they were previously, but they will be similar to what we saw previously. And these are significantly greater, for example, than ordinary seasonal flu. So seasonal flu normally in the UK would on average a year would kill around 7,000 people a year tragically, and in a bad flu year, as there was for example about three years ago, it might kill upward of 20,000 a year. This virus is more virulent than flu. So the numbers people talk about are not unreasonable numbers for us to be thinking about. Treatment is better, there is no doubt about that. Doctors, nurses have learned to treat this much more effectively and we have new drugs such as dexamethasone. These will reduce the mortality rate, but they will definitely not eliminate or take it right down to trivial levels.".

I'm going to have to believe the scientist with direct access to the data over a random on Mumsnet I'm afraid.

Here's the full transcript of the Vallance/Whitty press conference yesterday.

www.gov.uk/government/speeches/chief-scientific-advisor-and-chief-medical-officer-briefing-on-coronavirus-covid-19-21-september-2020--2[/quote]
Completely up to you what you believe.

I’m interested what you thought of ‘that graph’ which projected but didn’t project 50,000 cases a day by mid October?

Did you think that was realistic and true?

Finally a restriction which is actually enforceable just about, the early closure of pubs. At least a month later than it should have been.

Go to Germany as I have and see restrictions that are few, but happen and are observed. So it is nearer to normal life, only with a face covering and a proper track and trace system.

@hamstersarse no I don't think that we'll ever see 50,000 positive test results a day as there isn't the testing or processing capacity to deliver the number of tests to show that many positives.

Do I think that cases are rising exponentially, yes because we can see that in the positive case numbers and the hospitalisations, both of which are showing a doubling number over a 7-8 day period.

Quick question. Let's say we have no restrictions and just let the virus burn through society (we don't do that for flu by the way as we have vaccinations but let's ignore that). Do you think that society and the economy will continue unaffected? If so, who do you think will be driving the delivery van, teaching the kids, working in the hospitals, running the water treatment facilities, delivering post, stocking shelves.........while everyone is at home recovering from the virus?

Before the lockdown in March DD's school were down to 7 kids out of 26 as the others were off sick and the school was running using supply teachers as they had a 15% deficit in teachers and TAs.

@ApplesinmyPocket thanks for finding this. I knew that wasn’t the original quote as recorded. I’m no fan of Boris but misquoting can be damaging.

Hamstersarse I think you are right about immunity. I know at least a few of my colleagues that work for the NHS that have tested negative for antibodies, never had Coronavirus symptoms yet they lived with people who became symptomatic and eventually tested positive for antibodies.

This means that a high percentage of the population seems to have immunity from past exposure to a previous related virus, e.g. the common cold.

There is no such thing as the common cold, it's a catch all term for hundreds of viruses. If some pre-existing T cell based immunity does exist it will be caused by one or more of the 4 other human coronaviruses which sometimes cause flus.

“This growing body of research documenting pre-existing immunological responses to SARS-CoV-2 may force pandemic planners to revisit some of their foundational assumptions about how to measure population susceptibility and monitor the extent of epidemic spread.“

Even the bit of the article you quoted uses the word may which, when unqualified, in Science means a speculative possibility. Also from that article:

But they were all quick to note that this is speculation....“People say you don’t have proof, and they’re right,”....“It’s also possible that this absolutely makes no difference. The cross reactivity is too small or weak to affect the virus. The other outcome is that this does make a difference, that it makes you respond better.”...“Right now, I think everything is a possibility; we just don’t know.

@hamstersarse you lose all credibility when you start with the "It's just the flu" nonsense. In case you missed it, a previous poster quoted Whitty pointing out that a bad flu year is 20,000 deaths. We're already at more than double that and approaching triple that. There's a lot of this year left to go.

The t cell hypothesis is just a hypothesis. The people that published that were very clear that a lot more research is needed before relying on it. And even if it does make the disease milder for some, it does not prevent them from catching it and infecting others who may not be so lucky.

The false positives are a problem when numbers infected are very low or you're doing surveillance testing on mostly healthy people. Unfortunately, in many, many areas of the UK, numbers are high and nearly all getting tested are symptomatic. In this case, the much higher numbers of false negatives are a problem as lots of people are thinking they're safe to wander around when they're actually infectious.

Hamstersarse I think you are right about immunity. I know at least a few of my colleagues that work for the NHS that have tested negative for antibodies, never had Coronavirus symptoms yet they lived with people who became symptomatic and eventually tested positive for antibodies.

You should probably email the BMJ. They definitely won't know of cases like this or have already explained it. The reasons for this certainly won't already be widely reported in medical literature or the press. This new information will revolutionise how we deal with the virus.

[quote Derbygerbil]@hamstersarse

Prof Hennegan makes a very valid point, and we should be re-testing all positives - or taking two tests - to minimise people and their contacts having to isolate unnecessarily. However, the problem false positives doesn’t explain away the recent rise in infections, it just means that they are somewhat overstated (but then again many more who are infected are never tested).[/quote]
I thought we did. Someone on a thread the other day linked to government guidelines for labs that suggests that all weak positives should be retested or resampled to deal with the issue of whether they are picking up an early stage infection or inactive virus from someone recently infected but no longer infectious.

And I believe most of the tests require 2 positives for confirmation anyway.

So IF we are getting a lot of false positives, the question is probably, why are the labs we’re using not using standard/recognised procedures.

Genuine question: Do the people who value what they reckon over people who spend years studying this (on a hugely complex subject where they have no expertise) do this in the rest of their life?

Do you argue with the car mechanic when she says you need new breakpads?

Do you cut your own hair?

When you get to the checkout do you explain that the till has probably added it up wrong?
Do you phone the takeaway and then tell them exactly how they should make a good Lamb Biryani?
Do you watch Shakespeare and think 'yeah but he should have done this'?

I just can't comprehend how people cope without the ability to at least loosely define the topics they don't understand.

@Areyousureted it’s crazy - too many people getting facts from fb 😢

@hamstersarse

Why has no one realised you can’t suppress a virus?!!!

Sweden has.

Section 21 notices will be issued for renters to leave in March

Face masks to protect others will probably be the last thing on their minds.

And yet it can't be COVID - because they wouldn't reopen the schools, and put their own kids back in, if a whole generation of kids would be rendered disabled by long COVID

Polly Toynbee
@pollytoynbee
·
Sep 18
Eton Head confirms to me that every pupil had a Covid test on arriving at school. Imagine if every child and teacher in the country had access to those private tests. Instead growing numbers stuck at home for lack of a test..