1 out of every 1,000 people in South Carolina tested positive for Covid yesterday.
Our governor said he thinks we are doing a good job handling the virus.
Our governor said he thinks we are doing a good job handling the virus.
SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)
- Thread starter Don't Kill Bill
- Start date
I suspect you have probably answered this earlier but just checking to see how you are doing with it?
My lungs feel clear, thankfully. I am getting winded if I do something simple like walk upstairs or for more than 10-15 minutes at a time. My worst symptoms have been fatigue and headaches. I wake up after 7-8 hours and feel as though I’ve not slept and if I try and concentrate on doing something for more than 20-30 minutes I get this brain fog and then a splitting headache.
On the positive side, I was cooking for myself today and smelled the garlic and lemon that I was cutting up. It’s the first I’ve smelled something since New Years Day.
Global coordinated hard lockdown for at least 30 days. Anything else is throwing pebbles into a river.
We've at least found a point of agreement!
The rules were never planned to be loosened for NYE? Unless you're saying that people ignored the rules (which or course they did because they felt they were too draconian).
Your original question was in regards to treating people like adults and it having a negative effect on public health. I think in its totality this is obvious if you equate treating people like adults with giving them a small window of freedom, I don't though.
The question is to what level you're willing to impinge of people's liberties and how much safer would that make them. On the one extreme you have people that would be happy for the government to pass laws preventing people from leaving their house, enforcing it with the military and imprisoning people for failing to comply (China effectively). On the other extreme you have people who don't believe the virus exists at all. As is often the case both extremes scare the shit out of me.
It would be interesting to see what level of safety differing people would be willing to give up their freedoms to achieve. Would some people accept annual restrictions to reduce the yearly NHS crises? Whilst not comparable to covid excess deaths in England/Wales in the Winter of 2017/2018 were estimated at 50,100. Should we have locked down back then in hindsight? Should we have to wear masks every Winter?
My view in that scenario would be no. I would not "give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety". Although my response was the same to the swath of restrictions brought under the guise of protecting us from terrorism.
In terms of the Covid response I think it's been all over the place. I think restrictions have been made based on zero data that are likely to have actually worsened the problem (e.g. 10pm curfew). I think that restrictions have been brought in without thought as to compliance which again would have worsened the problem, meaning a lighter restriction would counter-intuitively see greater compliance and reduced spread (e.g. plunging London into tier four on 19th, causing thousands of people to flee, spreading the new strain across the country). I think that some restrictions have been placed where the social/economic cost is far worse than the benefit (e.g. closing Covid secure hospitality venues and forcing people to drink together in their homes). We're also applying the same rules to differing categories of risk which to me is inane. My risk profile (having not been within 2 metres of anyone 70+ since March) is completely different to a care home worker and yet we're treated equally. For me that means cracking a pistachio with a sledge hammer; for them the rules may well have been too lax throughout.
I'm also not really sure what the UK is trying to achieve, we're not merely trying to "protect the NHS", as restrictions were prevelant throughout the summer when cases were low (in some cases new restrictions were introduced then e.g. wearing masks and restricting travel). Likewise we're obviously not trying to eradicate the virus.
To summarise the negative effects on the health system are unfortunate and restrictions that are data lead, proportionate and targeted at the right people would be stomach-able. Restrictions that are lead by hunches, are disproportionate to the point of causing huge swathes of people to ignore them completely and are implemented in a blunderbuss approach of hitting as many people with as many restrictions as possible irrespective of the effect on spread in my view are counterproductive.
This was what I meant by treating people like adults, not Boris starving people for months then offering them an all you can eat buffet and being shocked that they ate themselves to the point of vomiting.
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It is demoralising and yes very frustrating. The arrogance is shocking as well. Infuriating.
You criticise the government for making assessments based on no data, and then go on to make assessments that are in direct contradiction of the data.
Yes, it may be true based on loose theories from economics and social psychology that closing Covid seure hospitality venues and forcing people to drink in homes would lead to greater spread. The reality is in November, the spread slowed. In December, the spread increased. Those rules were draconian, and yet it didn't lead to this "unexpected" response to government effort. Maybe it did lead to people congregating in more dangerous ways, but in smaller numbers. Maybe it did lead to more people rejecting the rules, but not the majority.
You can find anecdotal evidence of these things happening, and loose theories to explain why they happen and the implication of them. That's great and all, but we do have the actual data. Community transmission did go down when people were allowed to do less things. When people were allowed to do more things in December, they did them, and the virus spread more quickly. We have tested whether lighter restrictions lead to better compliance, more sensible decisions and reduced spread. The opposite happened. That's a really simple fact that you just choose to ignore when theorising about how things would work.
You still think we weren't trying to protect the NHS, even though you can now see that the NHS was actually at risk of being overwhelmed...that fact is staring us in the face right now. Restrictions in summer were not to protect the NHS being overwhelmed in the summer, it was to protect the NHS being overwhelmed at all. Clearly if we had kept those restrictions until now, the NHS wouldn't be at risk of being overwhelmed. We removed those restrictions and now that risk is very real. That should make it pretty plain why restrictions still existed while we had some control on community transmission: it was to maintain control. It isn't about the number of people dying, it is about the systemic risk posed by the volumes that come through hospitals. Attitudes like yours in the government convinced people that wasn't a proportionate response.
The 50k excess deaths in 2017-18 did not come with 10x the number of hospitalisations too. This is the data:
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If the NHS was at material risk of being overwhelmed in 21 days, then yes society would have to make sacrifices to protect an essential institution. If we get to a point where car crash victims cannot get urgent medical care, then yes we need to do things differently. It is a normal part of society to do things differently in emergenies. Especially when we're protecting the things that protect us in emergencies
Your assessment of your own risk profile is just a little bit misleading. The fact you haven't come into direct contact with 70+ year olds doesn't mean you don't pose a transmission risk to 70+ year olds. That's one of the biggest misconceptions in the pandemic, we judge ourselves and our individual contacts rather than the network and chains we exist in. When you pass it onto someone else they pass it onto someone else. It doesn't matter that the person you passed it onto is safe, because eventually it gets passed onto someone unsafe. The whole point of the restrictions is to reduce the chains of transmissions, and it's mostly people who do not feel at risk from the virus that are extending and multiplying those chains.
The question was whether you believe that people being afforded more freedom in the build-up to and during Christmas was a major contributor to this spread, and whether that tells you anything about individuals' ability to make these risk assessments? You still don't want to go there. You just want to fall back on generalities that need to be true to justify your worldview. That's really bizarre in a moment when the NHS is at material risk of being overwhelmed in 21 days as a direct result of moving closer (but still far away from) your preferred response.
Its clearly worse.. a lot worse.. but this is just to say I reserve a special amount of hatred for people who use charts that don't start at 0.
Yeah, it's pretty much page 1 in the 'how to lie with statistics' book.
(Not saying this guy above is lying or being disingenuous, it's just a wider point. The abuse of statistics throughout Covid has been quite annoying)
I 100% feel for you, because unfortunately it's the kind of attitude that's holding us back. Attitudes like this can negate the correct attitude and behaviours of dozens/hundreds of people, simply because one person doesn't believe it.
I will never forget a ~30 year old son who I had to ring to tell him that his mother was unfortunately dying from COVID and whether he would like to come in to see her in an isolated cubicle for her final moments. I remember throughout her whole admission she was saying she was the only person in her whole family that believed in the COVID fears - and the rest of the family didn't follow any of the rules, despite her constant wishes. Who was the one who required hospitalization and eventually died to it? Her obviously.
The phone call itself was fairly uneventful, I explained what was going on and asked him to come in if he wished. When he came in he looked confused, as if he misunderstood over the phone. An hour later, he left the cubicle after his mother passed and he was completely different. I genuinely can still picture him saying "I don't understand - I thought this was all fake" before bursting down into tears.
It's terrible for me to say - but sometimes, the only thing that will make someone listen is when they experience the pain close-to-home.
I'm sorry to hear about your brother - I just hope he sees sense soon. You've tried your best. Only thing you can do is do the right thing yourself and just hope that he doesn't put anyone else at risk, especially those you care about.
I work with a lot of data vis and I don't get the fundamentalism about it. Starting with 0 is the best default and a sensible choice for most scenarios but not all. In the first chart they started at 0 because 0 is a possible number in that data range, in the second it doesn't get close. The FT are a pretty strong voice in data journalism and this guy spends a lot of time thinking about the right way to show things. He didn't do it because he's trying to mislead people or because he's unaware of the downsides of it. Edward Tufte played a pivotal role in the development of data vis and his view directly opposes yours, mostly because of his fundamental belief in the importance of the data:ink ratio. Here's a more modern take with some examples. These aren't uninformed views.
Anyway, interesting story about the discovery of new variants. While it is true that the UK are very good at sequencing the genome, it wasn't until people in South Africa started worrying about their strain of the virus in November that the UK scientists' attention was drawn specifically to this variant. There's just too many variations to look at systematically, so it calls into question whether all that time invested could be better spent elsewhere. It was only after the spread started to look problematic in South Africa that people looked specifically in detail at the virus, it wasn't picked up in regular surveillance.
The parallels between the original variant taking off in China over Chinese New Year, and the new variants (they have identified another in Brazil) taking off in the West during Western New Year...that's a little troubling. History rhyming but with more severe consequences.
I man I grew up with, we used to live 3 doors apart when we were kids, died from Covid this week. He was only in his early 50's
Wildly veering off topic, but people obsessing about y-axes starting at zero when there's a perfectly reasonable baseline to start from are my least favourite type of statistics pedants.
Impressive post.
I really don’t understand how we’re now over 9 months in and people still aren’t grasping that this has always been about the hospitalisation rate.
I think that it's partially due to how media focused a lot on deaths rates and deaths totals.
Putting the goal at hospitalisations is the exact reason why Europe and Americas have failed and Asia and Ocenia have succeeded. They have both better economy and better health.
I don’t understand your point...the 15% needing hospital treatment for pneumonia which was what the data said at the start was clearly a major factor in the steps China took.
I'm not following how is that the exact reason? Asia and Oceania acted in a way that would limit infections and therefore hospitalizations and deaths. In my opinion, the actual difference is that in Europe and America politicians have tried to maintain a false sense of freedom which was inappropriate for the situation and lengthened the problem.
And then they kept the infections low or at zero. As did many other countries. They didn't let it back up to a level were hospitals are close to having problems.
The goal and messaging in Europe has been that everything is just fine before hospitals are over-run.
The goal should have been to keep it at the level where test and trace works, or even lower.
You set up a wrong goal, you will fail even if you achieve that goal.
The virus is bad for the economy, restrictions are just a by-product of the virus. Keep it better under control and your economy and health does better.
Oh it absolutely is done to emphasize the spike.. This was posted on twitter.. I cant speak about the intent.. but it certainly ends up being misleading.
Of course there are cases where it doesnt need to be starting from 0. the link you posted mentions it being unnecessary when plotting temperature.. that makes total sense.. cases where small variances are significant. It also makes sense if its only for people familiar with reading charts ..
If it was 10000 going to 10500, and that 500 increase was significant, then starting at 0 would be unnecessary .. that is not the case . it started from 550 and went up to 1000.. there is no reason for it to not have started at 0.
The only reason it has been done that way is to trick the casual observer into thinking it has doubled whereas it has gone up by 33% .
anyway. the bit about hatred for anyone who doesnt start at 0 is way too broad.. I totally agree there are cases where it doesnt help.. but I also dont think this is one of those..
also, from the quartz article you linked
And while its not a bar chart, it is clearly plotting several lines and comparing them.. not having them start at 0 when it easily could have been is misleading.
The bar chart is the critical point of their point, though. There's basically univeral agreement in the data viz community that bar charts that don't start at 0 can only mislead. There is quite broad disagreement about whether line charts not starting at 0 should be considered informative or misleading, and broad disagreement about the context to apply those two assessments. I don't care enough to argue against your view, you're welcome to it, I'm just making the point that it has been debated in the academic literature and many arguments have been put forward for why it should not start at 0 that don't depend on a misinformed author, or a misled reader. If you can't acknowledge the significance of Edward Tufte's contribution to the craft, or you can't acknowledge the significance of his own view on this subject, then that's at least one of the reasons why you hate people making that decision. You haven't taken the time to consider the merit of it. It doesn't mean you would agree with them - many don't - but you wouldn't dismiss it so casually if you engaged with his view and the principles informing it.
An interesting angle...and a very fair point.
Am I the only one finding it harder this time?
I thought with football carrying on , support bubbles (I live alone) allowed and it (touch wood) being the last one I'd find it a lot easier this time but I don't.
If it weren't for the fact I'm one of the lucky one's to have a stable income through this and because of such have saved enough money to be able to make up for lost time (travelling, socialising etc) once this is done I dread to think where my state of mind would be at.
I thought with football carrying on , support bubbles (I live alone) allowed and it (touch wood) being the last one I'd find it a lot easier this time but I don't.
If it weren't for the fact I'm one of the lucky one's to have a stable income through this and because of such have saved enough money to be able to make up for lost time (travelling, socialising etc) once this is done I dread to think where my state of mind would be at.
Terrific read and well detailed. Explains much and goes to show to media are just reporting out their arse on what they know.
Why arn't you giving the updates on BBC?
I thought this but I dont know after spending a month in the UK over Christmas. Here in Italy everybody, and I mean everybody, knows somebody who died. Often somebody close. Just before Christmas a colleague lost a grandparent and an Uncle in three days. Consequently people at least around here are wary of the virus even after almost 11 months of it.
But when I speak to friends and family in the UK nobody knows any horror stories. All I hear is a friend or neighbour or postman had it and it was just like the flu. Its strange because it's the worst in Europe in nearly every way.
Its the transparency of the whole saga which has been most worrying for me. People with legitimate concerns over the the flaws in the PCR test, the constant lockdowns or the efficacy of the vaccine seemed to be have been grouped into the "Covidiots" total hoax/anti vax group without a fair hearing. The government response to the crisis has been shameful and their lack of communication to people with valid questions is pathetic. The media doesn't seem to be much better with a constant focus on creating the "scariest/most fear mongering" headline they can devise.
Those who right against the zeitgeist get lumped together.
What exactly would you say your concerns are?
1. The lack of clarity over the operational false positive of the PCR tests. The government doesn't seem to have released this data. I want to know whether the test is fit for purpose.
2. Concerning vaccines, the media went into a frenzy over "95%" efficacy rates. However, the lack of raw data from the vaccine companies is very worrying and the fact it won't be released anytime soon.
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/01/0...ccines-we-need-more-details-and-the-raw-data/
And what about lockdowns?
False positives happen at a rate less than 1/1.000.
3. Mainly surrounding government decisions around Lockdown. Why were the airports still open in the middle of a lockdown? Why did the government not invest more into staff/beds in the summer rather than ploughing on with the vanity Nightingale project? I would like to see a cost/benefit analysis for the decisions they made. I don't think this is too much to ask for.
Think you'll struggle to find any on here that disagrees with that to be honest. Government have been fecking hopeless.
Not seen a constant focus on that. If anything the UK situation seems to be played down, key stages not mentioned and reporting other countries doing bad. It's mostly political points and snark and hearing how such and such a business or group need the government to reduce restrictions.
We should probably see more about the hospitals and people's health badly affected as most don't seem to think this is real or it's a type of cold or flu.
Yeah I don’t think there has been much fearmongering. People seem to think that actually reporting news and estimates is fearmongering when it’s actually... news.
If anything people aren't scared enough. There's so little respect or worry, more annoyance that we're in the situation.
Things can be serious and people (like Piers Morgan) can still be shamelessly fear mongering, the two ain't mutually exclusive.
For example that women that went on the radio and falsely claimed/implied children were starting to be admitted to hospital in serious numbers, if the president of the royal college of paediatrics and child health didn't quickly rebuff that they'd be parents in their thousands if not millions right now panicking on the strength of misinformation.
1. What’s the concern about false positives?Who gives a shit? Seriously. Conspiracy muppets have been banging this drum for ages. Trying to pretend this epidemic isn’t as serious as it seems. Now we have hospitals literally on their knees and it still worries you that some people might have been inconvenienced by being asked to restrict their movements when it might not have been necessary. That’s what worries you?!
2. Pharma companies will post all the clinical study reports online. They’ve been doing it for the last several years. All the data has been submitted to the regulators already though. So what’s your concern here?
So with regards to the first point, do you feel that people are being misdiagnosed with Covid when they have another serious respiratory illness? Or that they don't have any serious illness at all?