CV and mad panic behaviour

[LP]

There are a number of issues people do not want to hear.

- Firstly aggressive immediate social isolation policies work to slow the spread, they save lives, but they do social and economic harm, the question may be is the other extreme any less harmful?

- Detent policies work, using masks to delay/slow the spread, disinfection and sterilisation, limiting travel, restricting business activities, staffing levels, etc, etc.. These things do not stop the spread, nobody I know with any scientific credibility actually made that claim, but they do slow it no matter how many difficulties they also create.

Really, most of the efforts were ultimately about buying time against the worst of the pandemic effects, slow the spread to find a treatment or vaccine, and therefore save lives. Weak political will killed people, that is really self-evident.

What happens next time, I worry now that the politicians will just assume the next pandemic can be resolved by technology, and so they will be even more reluctant to act, a very human way to think, but a virus isn't human!

[Thryleon]

The next pandemic's biggest problem will be the boy who cried wolf factor.

Taking the approach they did was largely ok, provided the pandemic was the threat that it could have been.

Thing is, because it wasn't, the dissenting people, who are now struggling to live, work and put food on the table, will not comply, particularly if they take the road of comply or else.  Our healthcare system was done severe damage by people forcing those who refused vaccination out of the system, particularly when there were some alternatives, and Ill leave that there as I have a very specific example in mind where a nurse was effectively removed from the system, at age 43 and 6 months pregnant, when they offered to start mat leave early, and only return to work vaccinated.  Due to the rigidness of those in charge, she is lost to the healthcare system and was a clinical nurse educator in cardiology.  Very specialised, and sure, no one person is that important, but when you have a nursing shortage, treating people like that is not going to yield good outcomes, and their colleagues will likely agree with them.

[Lods]

I guess one of the problems with the 'after judgement' is always going to be this...

If measures taken prove effective in minimising the damage...the real potential for damage is never realised.

[LP]

The next pandemic's biggest problem will be the boy who cried wolf factor.

Taking the approach they did was largely ok, provided the pandemic was the threat that it could have been.

Thing is, because it wasn't, ................

How many people died in Greece for example?

I think last time I saw the figures the Deaths per Day there tripled at the peak of the pandemic, this wasn't a threat? :o

Deaths in Australia are still about 20,000 per annum up on the long term averages, and it's expected to stay that way for another year or so before it diminishes, provided there isn't another highly contagious virus or variant.

I think those people count for something, it reminds me of the TAC ad, who would you pick from your family as a sacrifice?

[Thryleon]

How many people died in Greece for example?

I think last time I saw the figures the Deaths per Day there tripled at the peak of the pandemic, this wasn't a threat? :o

Deaths in Australia are still about 20,000 per annum up on the long term averages, and it's expected to stay that way for another year or so before it diminishes, provided there isn't another highly contagious virus or variant.

I think those people count for something, it reminds me of the TAC ad, who would you pick from your family as a sacrifice?

LP, the official numbers are statistically biased.  During our peak covid periods, you had record numbers of sick people not getting treatment for serious illnesses, and not going to their appointments, because of the perceived risk the pandemic posed.  Seeing a GP during this time was generally quite difficult, so the whole referral process breaks down and in some cases will lead to misdiagnosis, as well as potential illness and death as a consequence.  I know I rang up to try and get a GP appointment and was only able to get in with a week lag which I found a bit ridiculous but it is what it is.  As a consequence you will see impact adversely to health care for some people, which may very well blow out the morbidity.

When you see official covid numbers,  the problem I see is that there is already a statistical anomaly here.  People who aren't sick or feeling sick, were not guaranteed to be tested, and ergo, didn't get tested unless they had to perform a public duty or felt symptoms or go through mandatory testing.  This means that the actual positive case count could well be far below the total number of positives we have, as the positives we have are likely to be skewed towards those with symptoms, or in a setting where testing was regularly undertaken. 

In Greece the compliance to public precautionary testing is likely to have been avoided.  Knowing how their systems work, bribing an official will get you what you want, when you want it and if you don't have money, you are better off not being sick.  On multiple occasions, I was told that COVID appeared on a death certificate for people that actually never got admitted or a positive diagnosis and no autopsy was performed in those cases.

So, what we have is a death rate for Covid Positive patients who actually had symptoms severe enough to see a doctor, or need to present that positive case to their employer.  Not a death rate for all covid positive people (some will simply have avoided testing) and others may have died from non covid related causes.

This same statistical gymnastics was used initially to assume that 100% of covid positive people, ended up in ICU with pneumonia like symptoms based on bad assumptions, and data coming out of Italy.

Looking at the statistics: Greece 5.55M total covid cases.  Total deaths 34,779.  You hear these numbers and the assumption is that covid isnt the killer that those said it was.  I know you are pointing to the extra deaths per day, but again, you have to weigh each case on its merits, not just the data.

What is good for one country doesn't apply elsewhere for a variety of reasons.  My faith in the ability of our nation to risk manage has been severely dented by many of the measures enforced and promoted during our covid journey.  Thats not going to go away because I am a critical thinker, and Im not someone who is demanding that there is hell to be paid.  My example of that nurse earlier, is someone I know very intimately, and had been attempting to have a child for no less than 5 years, and wasnt about to put their foetus at undue risk, using the same risk assessment techniques she used to assess outcomes for the patients that she saw.  THAT is the underlying point I want to make here.  We have people, who's job and training was to make these sorts of decisions disagreeing with a HR and government mandate.  How does that happen?

[LP]

LP, the official numbers are statistically biased.  During our peak covid periods, you had record numbers of sick people not getting treatment for serious illnesses, and not going to their appointments, because of the perceived risk the pandemic posed.  Seeing a GP during this time was generally quite difficult, so the whole referral process breaks down and in some cases will lead to misdiagnosis, as well as potential illness and death as a consequence.

It's my understanding that wave of illness is still coming, it's why the death rate is expected to remain high for a further extended period, and it wasn't the cause of the short term spike during the pandemic.

Most of those reports correct for the things you are concerned about, it's part of the data normalisation, there is nothing you and I can discuss that the epidemiologists don't already know, it's not some secret discussed in the corners of the dark web.

I used Greece as an example, because if I recall you mentioned you have relatives there and might be travelling to see them soon, so it relates to that analogy of the TAC Ad. Greece is not a special case, region to region the reported figures vary, this depends on local reporting standards and definitions of disease which vary region to region, but the thing is the virus doesn't vary region to region, so you know the truth is pretty much global and you can use a bell curve to establish the most likely figures. A region reporting success is probably under-reporting, and a region reporting devastation is probably over-reporting.

We can see now as the figures retrospectively become more standardised/normalised, the numbers converge to the global mean, and it's not pretty.

If I wanted a worst case scenario to support my assertions more strongly, I could have used the UK, where the high population density meant the peak Death Rate increased by almost tenfold!

It's not spin, it wasn't spin historically, and it won't be spin moving forward.

[ElwoodBlues1]

https://www.health.gov.au/health-alerts/...statistics
Looks like three doses of vaccine was enough for most.....still a decent amount of cases being registered and we all know
that there a lot under reported but it will be interesting to see if we get a spike in the winter months and even if we do I doubt it will be as newsworthy as in the past.

[madbluboy]

Matt Hancock was Britain's former health secretary.

[Mav]

Gee, I hope they weren’t experimenting on homeless people ….  : Imagine how sad the Bond franchise will be if it has to dump such brilliant Bond villain storylines …

[Mav]

Another pandemic on the horizon?

H5N1 is infecting millions of animals. If it crosses over to humans, it will be worse than COVID, Salon.

Hmmm … a bird flu with 53% mortality in humans would be a nightmare if it mutates to allow human to human transmission. At least there are vaccines and anti-virals available. And even better, anti-vaxxers and anti-lockdown era will be the first to go if it ever reaches pandemic proportions.