53,000 cases today

[TingTastic]

Shit

[quote HibernatingTill2030]@User158340, probably. I'm in a very high level area, and for the last two weeks, our rates have been dropping. I have no doubt that the schools being closed have paid a part.[/quote]
How would schools closing for Christmas play a part in your figures dropping for two weeks?
Did your schools close earlier than everyone elses?
Yes schools are a big issue but some posts make no logical sense.

@Flapjak I thought lateral flow had 50% false negatives.

@Flapjak

Truelymadlydeeplysomeonesmum I didn't say they drove it; they definitely played a part. Most of them have had only 1 or 2 year groups in at a time for a few weeks prior- 3 or 4 year groups isolating at a time in one local school.

If any of the deniers want to come with me to train medics in “Moral Harm” with the army next week, feel free. Brings the roughest, toughest consultants to tears learning how to deal with deciding which patients will literally live and die. (At current rate we’re about 2-3 weeks off that being a part of their role on a daily basis.)

It's being reported that London patients are being transferred to Yorkshire hospitals

Still think we should all just be getting on with it? 🙄

Back log of results
Much wider testing
False positives with lateral flow
Picking up virus in recovered/recovering patients
People having more than one test to check safe to go back to work / visit recorded as separate cases in the statistics
Cases of any virus usually higher through the winter months (cold/flu/Noravirus)

Fundamentally, you test more, you find more.

I'm no COVID denier but I hold absolutely no stock in how these statistics are being gathered and reported. They've been skewed by lazy recording since the get go.

@endoflevelbaddy

Back log of results Much wider testing False positives with lateral flow Picking up virus in recovered/recovering patients People having more than one test to check safe to go back to work / visit recorded as separate cases in the statistics Cases of any virus usually higher through the winter months (cold/flu/Noravirus)

Fundamentally, you test more, you find more.

I'm no COVID denier but I hold absolutely no stock in how these statistics are being gathered and reported. They've been skewed by lazy recording since the get go.

I agree. But the fact that anyone who needs urgent care now is in a big queue and may not get an ITU bed if they have an MI. CVA, RTA, whatever is a terrifying thought.

The numbers are frightening but the affect on care possibility is dreadful.

If you get a positive with a lateral flow, you retest with a standard test before the numbers are added to the figures. Lateral flow false positives are not counted! This is a complete red herring. If you test positive with a lateral flow then...'get a PCR swab done to confirm the positive result – this may be using a drive through service in the trust, or we may be able to have a swab couriered out to you'

Also we are not picking up the virus in recovered or recovering patients. Only the first positive counts. None others count for 90 days after the first positive test.

Yes, lateral flow tests are not counted here, just PCR.
Not sure if retests are counted or not, suspect not.

Also worth bearing in mind we have no idea how many people were walking around positive in March and April. But definitely there are more people in hospital now (although bear in mind, hospitals may be admitting people earlier than before as well, eg before they get really sick)

Fundamentally, you test more, you find more

Numbers of tests up 0.5%
Number positive up 22.7%

This really isn't a case of more testing finding more

Thank you @SexTrainGlue - it’s exasperating how people just repeat the same (incorrect) lines over and over, and with such authority!

Yup, they cling to nuggets of misinformation like life-rafts.

@MrsHedgeLegs

Because most people are in hospital for other reasons & catch covid in hospital. Yes I’ve had Covid-19. Had worse flu before. Protect the vulnerable don’t destroy our future because of a disease with a 99 percent survival rate.

@MrsHedgeLegs, Doctors have explained it is not possible to protect the vulnerable and let the rest get on with their lives. David Oliver, a NHS acute hospital consultant who has worked on COVID-19 wards and played a variety of senior roles in health leadership and policy, writes:

“It might sound plausible to say that we should just protect the vulnerable and let the rest of us get on with our lives. It’s certainly better than a “do nothing, let it rip through the population and wait for herd immunity” approach condemned by both the WHO and Sweden’s pandemic supremo Anders Tegnell as “dangerous, unethical and unevidenced”.

But moving from rhetoric to reality, vulnerable people live in multigenerational households, they rely on the support and company of younger people – whether families or paid care workers. This remains the case even within hospitals or care homes.

We can’t pack them off to a remote island. And if the infection rate rises in the general population they will be infected too or find themselves with too few uninfected people to support them.

bylinetimes.com/2020/11/26/dispelling-disinformation-if-covid-19-doesnt-kill-the-young-and-fit-why-cant-we-just-ignore-it/

@RaspberryCoulis

Cases mean nothing. We have no idea how many cases there were back in March/April as people weren't tested.

Hospital admissions are the key measure and even then, the government are not being clear about how they are measuring this - a "covid death" is a death from any cause within 28 days of a positive test which is not the same as a death caused by Covid.

Feel free though to get swept along in the hysteria and panic-mongering which has been the speciality of this forum since February. The rest of us are just getting on with living.

Misinformation by you Raspberry Coulis on measuring covid deaths.

Helpful tweets on this by a GP.

twitter.com/katymcconkey/status/1343604619537231872?s=21

I actually can’t believe how stupid some people are. Where do they get their misinformation from, which keeps getting repeated on thread after thread.

@Aixenprovence

"Hospital admissions are the key measure"

It would be interesting to know if there is a quickly accessible source for a breakdown of hospital admissions figures into:

a) admissions of people testing positive who are admitted because they need to be treated for corona
b) admissions of people admitted for something else (the classic broken leg example, possibly quite rare in reality) who also have a positive test at the time of admission but don't require treatment for corona
c) people already in hospital for something else who then test positive after 7 days and need to be treated for corona
d) people already in hospital who then test positive after 7 days but no symptoms.

Not denying anything btw, just like data.

Agree. That would be helpful

Hospital admissions are the key measure and even then, the government are not being clear about how they are measuring this - a "covid death" is a death from any cause within 28 days of a positive test which is not the same as a death caused by Covid.

Further to RaspberryCoulis’s comment above, I will copy and paste what I wrote elsewhere:

“ There still seems confusion by some on how Covid 19 is recorded on death certificates.

Death certificates have two parts, part 1 the underlying cause of death, part 2 any conditions that may have contributed to the death. The conditions mentioned in part two must be known or suspected to have contributed to the death, not merely be other conditions which were present at the time.

Part 1 lists the underlying cause where you are asked to start with the immediate, direct cause of death on the first line of part 1 then quoting from link below: ‘to go back through the sequence of events or conditions that led to death on subsequent lines, until you reach the one that started the fatal sequence. If the certificate has been completed properly, the condition on the lowest completed line of part I will have caused all of the conditions on the lines above it. This initiating condition, on the lowest line of part I will usually be selected as the underlying cause of death, following the ICD coding rules.” Full details here: assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/877302/guidance-for-doctors-completing-medical-certificates-of-cause-of-death-covid-19.pdf

ONS last mortality monthly update shared as of November 2020 58,977 deaths had coronavirus listed as the underlying cause of death. ONS have also calculated elsewhere so far approx a further 10% of deaths listed coronavirus as a contributing factor in the death.
Details here: www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/monthlymortalityanalysisenglandandwales/november2020#deaths-due-to-covid-19-registered-in-november-2020

So as of today in UK 79,351 deaths have been registered with COVID as involved in the death. About 90% of these will be with COVID as the underlying cause, not just a contributing factor. So approx 10% of these COVID deaths (roughly 8,000) will have COVID mentioned as a contributing factor but not the underlying cause of death.”

It's as if there are people determined to portray night as day

Prfessional explaining why covid deniers are acting as they do edition.cnn.com/2020/08/16/health/pandemic-covid-19-denial-mental-health-wellness/index.html

As for the ones claiming to have had covid and it was "mild" I'm afraid that neurological damage is increasingly being reported in covid patients news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/11/small-study-reveals-details-of-brain-damage-in-covid-19-patients/

Now that people know it occurs they will start to count how often it happens, meanwhile take anti-covid propaganda as an indication of possible neurological damage.

I'm afraid of catching it because of the Russian Roulette nature of how serious the symptoms and long term effects can be.

A friend went to A&E, sent by her GP, with heart problem. He sat on a plastic chair for 18 hours waiting to be seen by cardiologist. When they tried to take blood, he was so dehydrated, they couldn’t get a vein and gave him a litre jug of water to drink. No one, in all the chaos, had offered him so much as a cup of tea. Vending machines all empty.

He waited another 6 hours to be told that the cardio ward was being emptied that day to be taken over by Covid patients and all admissions were cancelled as there would be no beds available. The consultant told my friend to go home, rest and has been given a return date for 16th Jan. Of course, that too will be cancelled.

It’s NOT just about Covid. My friend could literally die waiting. He is a ticking time bomb according to cardiologist and has been told not to return to work until admission (which will not happen).

His description of A&E was “absolute chaos”.

@Guylan that was a really helpful post- thank you.

“Sent by HIS” GP.