(08-03-2021, 04:09 AM)Thryleon date Wrote:Thing is, people are going to have their platforms.  I recognised something about social media a while ago.  Ever noticed, that its almost a giant propaganda machine anyway?

(08-03-2021, 03:01 AM)flyboy77 link Wrote:It's a facile risk assessment to be fair.

The risk assessment is entirely qualitative, not quantitative!

Funny how they have a low confidence in a comment "Delta has at least an equivalent case fatality rate to Alpha" when their own data suggests quite the opposite ie Delta 5x LESS deadly.

The numbers are the numbers - and yes, they will change over time BUT Delta is pretty much 100% now in UK (has been for some time). Alpha numbers are now all but set in stone (as that strain has disappeared).

(08-03-2021, 04:34 AM)dodge date Wrote:Low confidence in fatality rate, as the numbers are low (they state this).  They also have had essentially 6 weeks of high Delta cases against ~14 mnths Alpha data.  I would hope that they would be looking at the data impassively and making informed conclusions as they are working in depth with this everyday.  Personally, I am pretty OK with taking British Health at their word.

(08-03-2021, 03:41 AM)LP link Wrote:What you did or didn't post is irrelevant, it's your original conclusion you post that exposes your confusion.

The falling mortality of the original strains, and the rising case numbers of the Delta strain, would eventually expose the myth of what you persist with if it wasn't for the mitigation steps being taken. The delayed cross over is a consequence of mitigation not in difference to it.

Mitigation steps that included improved understanding of Sars-CoV-2, better treatment regimes, snap lockdowns, wide spread vaccinations, faster contact tracing and better quarantine.

(08-03-2021, 04:18 AM)Mav link Wrote:If Flyboy is correct, the mystery is why Gladys & Slomo have battened down the hatches as Delta started gathering strength.

After all, Gladys’ position was “We don’t do lockdowns!” She loved to smirk when asked why she wasn’t following Victoria’s example. She had every reason to respond to Dan Andrews and the media like the Norman soldiers in Monty Python & the Holy Grail:
Slomo would have happily joined her, given that he has taken a beating over the slow rollout leaving us vulnerable to Delta. But despite having every political reason to hold her line, she has instead capitulated and ordered increasingly severe lockdowns and Slomo has tried to convince everyone that he’s going to kick the strollout into top gear.

Perhaps if Gladys had retained Flyboy as her data analyst she wouldn’t have been bum-rushed into a rookie mistake.

Or maybe the real data analysts warned her that laughing at Tim the rabbit would end up with blood on her hands.

(08-03-2021, 06:03 AM)flyboy77 date Wrote:Who the f... are you to tell me what I am thinking?

(08-03-2021, 06:03 AM)flyboy77 date Wrote:Any idiot knows that lockdowns have never previously been recommended in history, prior to 2020, as EVERYONE with half a clue knows the cost of  lockdown is simply far, far too great.

(08-03-2021, 06:03 AM)flyboy77 link Wrote:Any idiot knows that lockdowns have never previously been recommended in history, prior to 2020, as EVERYONE with half a clue knows the cost of  lockdown is simply far, far too great.

Quote:A large clinical trial has found no evidence that the drug hydroxychloroquine protects people from COVID-19.

Some world leaders have embraced hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19 or as an agent to prevent the disease. David Boulware at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and his colleagues randomly assigned 821 people to take either hydroxychloroquine or a placebo within 4 days of exposure to SARS-CoV-2 (D. R. Boulware et al. N. Engl. J. Med. http://doi.org/dxkv; 2020). Some study participants were health-care workers who had contact with infected people; others shared a house with an infected person.

Quote:Our starting point is the situation as of spring 2021. During the COVID-19 waves in winter 2020–2021, many European countries experienced high numbers of infections that, in some places, overwhelmed hospitals. This was partly due to insufficient ICU capacity in some countries [[2]]. Delayed responses and lower effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) compared to the first wave also played a part [[3]]. Even countries that have had relatively few cases and a low death toll until then were hit severely in the winter. As of early 2021, Europe is experiencing another surge in cases, which appears to have peaked in April 2021. The emergence and severity of these waves has varied greatly across Europe (see Fig. 1, Fig. 2). The future development of the pandemic will also likely be heterogeneous. In the following sections we focus on three key factors that contribute to this heterogeneity.