Open questions / observations - trying to open a balanced thread to discuss

[Nerdygirl]

Like many people I have been thinking a lot about covid and I have a number of questions/observations going round my head and wondered if anyone felt the same and what your thoughts are

1. Given the number of people that were dying earlier in the year is it fair to assume that the infection rate was much higher and so many more people had it back then. By my rough calculations that over 100k a day at least if we are seeing roughly 30k a day at the moment and 400 ish sad deaths ? Therefore there will be a larger degree of people who will have some T cell immunity perhaps than thought

1. If the virus is so virulent how have highly populated countries like China, Japan , Taiwan managed to get back to normal life as reported by western reporters without a vaccine. Yes lockdowns were extreme in China but other countries like Italy went for a hard approach and we’re not able to contain this.

1. Whilst I know it’s not flu, there does seem to be a huge drop in flu cases and is it a fair assumption that some of these covid cases would have been flu?

1. For those that think this is part of the nwo. What is the end goal and how has this been engineered on a massive global scale . Who stands to gain?

1. There seems to be mounting evidence in the reliability of PCR tests? Why is this not addressed by the media or government as is feeding mistrust

1. How comes infection post post hospital admission is high? If they cannot control it in the hospital then what hope is there in broader society which lends itself to the argument of a hard lockdown would be needed to bring this under control

1. What happened to the 40k deaths a day prediction? What infection rate was this based on ?

1. If covid is spread through aerosol then why let gyms which are inside and have people heavy breathing open?

1. If the new strain has been identified in September and is 70 % wouldn’t we be expecting to see even greater number of infections

10. If the government is following the science why haven’t they shut schools which has showed the high rate of infection happening there?

I am sure people have many more questions and I would love to have an open discussion on these points but any other unanswered questions.

Would love to know if I am alone in thinking this! I can’t get my head round the lack of questioning or perhaps I am being thick and it’s clear for everyone else

My thoughts:

1. Yes, clearly far more were actually infected in the first wave when we couldn’t/weren’t testing. Equally, there are far more now than we think due to the number of people who are either asymptomatic or display symptoms other than the ‘magic’ 3. Still nowhere near enough for herd immunity though. That’s only ever been achieved by vaccination, as far as I’m aware.
2. European lockdowns were nothing compared to those in China. Some other countries closed borders fast and/or tested and quarantined everyone on entry, thus reducing numbers of infections. They were more on top of checking people - more routine temperature taking at shops/cafes/work places etc. Even at homes where they were blocks of flats.

1. It’s not flu, as you say, so no, no tested covid cases are flu. Flu numbers have dropped because everything we are doing to slow covid also slows flu, which is less communicable anyway. Look at the figures for flu in NZ or Australia from their flu season and see the same there, even with very low covid case numbers.

1. Lizards? Aliens? Inexplicably given the rhetoric about the elite, communism? In reality it’s largely an antisemitic conspiracy theory.

1. I’m not an expert here, but most of the ‘evidence’ I’ve seen has been from covid deniers or has been misrepresented. Most serious scientists recognise that, like any test, it has flaws, but it’s the best we’ve got and not bad at all really.

1. People in hospital are by definition vulnerable. There’s massive asymptomatic infection. Hospital staff see multiple people a day and an airborne virus can trot around a building faulty efficiently. These are guesses, but it fits with why other infections (like MRSA for eg) become a problem in hospitals.

1. I don’t ever remember a 40k deaths a day prediction. What was it for? The world? Europe? What are the actual figures? I’ve no clue on this one.

1. I agree. And in Wales they’ve been shut quite a lot. I think it’s a trade off between health (including mental health) and infection, with reduced numbers and better ventilation being employed to reduce risk. I wouldn’t go to one though.

1. 70% what? You haven’t fallen for the lie posted a couple of times on here that it’s 70% transmissible have you? It’s 70% more transmissible, raising the R rate by between 0.4 and 0.9. And we are seeing massive numbers and huge increases consistent with this in places where it’s prevalent (eg Wales, with about 60% of cases being the new variant apparently)

10. I have no idea on this one. I think it’s that they hitched themselves to schools open for all and don’t know how to backtrack. There were always better, safer options than the not-really-open-for-huge-numbers-but-we-can-pretend model the 4 nations have all gone for.

Sorry too many questions for me. I don't know much about most if them.

1. Flu rates are likely down because of the social distancing and other measures. Also, flu death rates may be further driven down because covid killed many vulnerable people - the same group who would be more likely to die from flu complications. They can't die twice. This was predicted way back - I remember hearing about it on radio 4 more or less.

(at least) Two of your assumptions are wrong.

Things are not 'normal' in Japan, Taiwan or China.

Back in March-April people understood less about best ways to treat covid than they do now, this is a big reason the death rates fell since then.

Nosocomial infections are common.

The tests for covid detect covid or not; they don't detect flu.

I don't understand most of the other comments you made.

Schools are open because
1)productivity slowed so enormously when they were closed. They're the easiest childcare solution to allow the country back to work
2) the outcomes for all except the most privileged children were alteady significantly affected by closures this year. Closing them for longer would increase poverty and crime and harm employment and productivity in the longer term.

Thanks for the responses - with regards to the pcr failure rate . This comes from the WHO

My assumption about flu is , is it the same people that would have likely succumbed to flu but have succumbed to covid instead recognising that flu is very dangerous to vulnerable individuals

Sorry @cardibach that should read 4K a day

@Nerdygirl

Like many people I have been thinking a lot about covid and I have a number of questions/observations going round my head and wondered if anyone felt the same and what your thoughts are

1. Given the number of people that were dying earlier in the year is it fair to assume that the infection rate was much higher and so many more people had it back then. By my rough calculations that over 100k a day at least if we are seeing roughly 30k a day at the moment and 400 ish sad deaths ? Therefore there will be a larger degree of people who will have some T cell immunity perhaps than thought

1. If the virus is so virulent how have highly populated countries like China, Japan , Taiwan managed to get back to normal life as reported by western reporters without a vaccine. Yes lockdowns were extreme in China but other countries like Italy went for a hard approach and we’re not able to contain this.

1. Whilst I know it’s not flu, there does seem to be a huge drop in flu cases and is it a fair assumption that some of these covid cases would have been flu?

1. For those that think this is part of the nwo. What is the end goal and how has this been engineered on a massive global scale . Who stands to gain?

1. There seems to be mounting evidence in the reliability of PCR tests? Why is this not addressed by the media or government as is feeding mistrust

1. How comes infection post post hospital admission is high? If they cannot control it in the hospital then what hope is there in broader society which lends itself to the argument of a hard lockdown would be needed to bring this under control

1. What happened to the 40k deaths a day prediction? What infection rate was this based on ?

1. If covid is spread through aerosol then why let gyms which are inside and have people heavy breathing open?

1. If the new strain has been identified in September and is 70 % wouldn’t we be expecting to see even greater number of infections

10. If the government is following the science why haven’t they shut schools which has showed the high rate of infection happening there?

I am sure people have many more questions and I would love to have an open discussion on these points but any other unanswered questions.

1. Yes. Obviously. Nobody was being tested and if MN is a microcosm of the macrocosm, Covid didn't exist in March
2. Britain could have done what other countries did if the govt had wanted to. China lie
3. Of course not. The flu season is just starting. It might be a weak flu strain this year like last year. People probably won't catch it as much because of mask wearing.
4. Only idiots think this
5. Because the govt's mates are running it probably.
6. Haven't heard that this is the case. Do you mean carehomes? If you mean infections happening in hospital because the poor fuckers working there are wearing plastic bags instead of PPE.
7. Those figures were if there was no lockdown. Obviously.
8. It's all about the money, money.
9. Testing is crap. Asymptomatic cases (like the majority of the new strain) don't get tested.

10. They've never followed the science.

Re 2.

It’s really interesting reading about Japan - their death rate is incredibly low compared to UK/US/much of Europe/Brazil etc. but they never legally enforced any lockdown measures. They took an approach very different to ours based on avoiding the ‘3 C’s’ - closed poorly ventilated spaces, crowded public areas, and close-contact activities. Nearly all shutdown as far as I can tell was voluntary. They also took a different approach to track and trace whereby instead of trying to find people that one person may have infected, they worked backwards to the source and then tried to catch everyone who may have been infected by that source. It looks by the figures to have been a really sensible approach based on their knowledge, capabilities and culture. By contrast it seems to the lay observer that our approach consisted mostly of panicking and copying other countries.

1. Weren't these the figures they had to apologise for after ONS (or someone similar) pointed out they were based on incorrect assumptions? I think it was actually 4k a day deaths not 40k

10. Closing schools means the most vulnerable children become even more likely to miss out. The scheme to make sure they all have laptops is rubbish, and even then they might not have safe homes with wifi etc. It's the govt policy I agree with the most. However it seems incompatible with suppressing the virus in secondary schools. So need some sort of compromise.

1. You could lower flu rates too every year with hands face space!

People are respiratory ding to 10 as though there are 2 choices schools open, or schools shut. I’m sick to death of saying this, and several other MNers are in the same position, that is nonsense .
Schools can be open to ensure the least possible harm to education but they can’t be open to all, all the t8me, with no mitigation measures in a pandemic. But nobody, and I don’t just mean government, nobody, seems prepared to think about that. They just go schools closed completely = bad (agreed), there for schools open completely = good. Nope. Schools open completely = massive risk for anyone who works in one or comes into contact with children or school staff and massively disrupted education. This is even worse for the disadvantaged children. These children, by the way, have always been disadvantaged, and teachers have always tried to advocate for them. Seems suddenly to be way more people who care because they can use it as a non-selfish argument for their own children being in school all day.
Makes me very cross.

Respiratory ding? Responding

Also therefore.
My iPad wants to make me look illiterate.

From what I can gather we are approaching the same number of cases during the peak but are only counting the deaths of those tested within 28 days. During the first peak we didn't have a 28 day cut-off

1. Given the number of people that were dying earlier in the year is it fair to assume that the infection rate was much higher and so many more people had it back then. By my rough calculations that over 100k a day at least if we are seeing roughly 30k a day at the moment and 400 ish sad deaths ? Therefore there will be a larger degree of people who will have some T cell immunity perhaps than thought

I think we are so better at therapeutic treatment now than we were in the spring (steroids, proving, etc)

2. If the virus is so virulent how have highly populated countries like China, Japan , Taiwan managed to get back to normal life as reported by western reporters without a vaccine. Yes lockdowns were extreme in China but other countries like Italy went for a hard approach and we’re not able to contain this.

We don’t all report statistics in the same way.

3. Whilst I know it’s not flu, there does seem to be a huge drop in flu cases and is it a fair assumption that some of these covid cases would have been flu?

Covid measures, especially hand washing, are effective against flu.

7. What happened to the 40k deaths a day prediction? What infection rate was this based on ?

This was based on if we do nothing (preventative and treatment).

8. If covid is spread through aerosol then why let gyms which are inside and have people heavy breathing open?

Good question.

9. If the new strain has been identified in September and is 70 % wouldn’t we be expecting to see even greater number of infections

We are seeing greater infections.

10. If the government is following the science why haven’t they shut schools which has showed the high rate of infection happening there?

It’s a balancing act.