SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

golden_blunder

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I don't get why you think that though. Every European country has been doing it? Opening hospitality followed by a brief, sharp, strict lockdown when it looks like things could go wrong. I also don't see how it makes any sense by your logic that someone working in a pub would prefer to be out of work longer than in work as long as it wasn't just for a few weeks at a time.

But uh.. yeah.. maybe NPHET are seeing something that no other country is, right?

Also how do you know we're close? That's not a trick question. I just don't know how anyone can be so certain. The vaccines haven't been working well in Chile, the Brazilian variant looks like an absolute nightmare that will likely get here eventually, and cases will obviously go back up again as it gets colder. How can you say for certain we are near the end of this nightmare? How do we know that Christmas won't be a total shitshow again and this brutally long lockdown will have been completely pointless?

I really hope the vaccines are as great as you and NPHET and our government are so certain they will be!
In regards to Chile didn’t they get the Chinese vaccine? If so, it’s a bit shit, barely passes the regulatory pass mark
No doubt they also have the Brazilian variant in the country
 

Massive Spanner

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Should come quicker now with AZ restricted to over 60s surely?
How come he hasn’t been done already? I thought the 70s were done
You'd hope so.

Who knows, I wouldn't trust a word the HSE and government say about what is and isn't done. My father knows plenty of other over 70's who haven't been done yet. He was originally told mid April, then late April, now there's no definitive date, I'm guessing due to the pause on AZ this week. My co worker's 82 year old granny only got her first dose a week ago. They're talking nonsense.
 

Pogue Mahone

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You'd hope so.

Who knows, I wouldn't trust a word the HSE and government say about what is and isn't done. My father knows plenty of other over 70's who haven't been done yet. He was originally told mid April, then late April, now there's no definitive date, I'm guessing due to the pause on AZ this week. My co worker's 82 year old granny only got her first dose a week ago. They're talking nonsense.
That’s shit news about your dad. Crazy he hasn’t been done yet. Apparently they’re opening the online portal for <70s tomorrow. 69 year olds can register on day one, 68 on day two, and so on.
 

Massive Spanner

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That’s shit news about your dad. Crazy he hasn’t been done yet. Apparently they’re opening the online portal for <70s tomorrow. 69 year olds can register on day one, 68 on day two, and so on.
I can only assume that it's intentionally slower in Sligo where cases are lower than in big hotspots like Dublin and the border counties, maybe? My partner's 71 year old dad is in North Dublin and he had it last week. It's a shame they haven't been transparent about all of it though. Anyone I say it to is shocked cause they've just assumed over 70's are done.
 

Pogue Mahone

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I can only assume that it's intentionally slower in Sligo where cases are lower than in big hotspots like Dublin and the border counties, maybe? My partner's 71 year old dad is in North Dublin and he had it last week. It's a shame they haven't been transparent about all of it though. Anyone I say it to is shocked cause they've just assumed over 70's are done.
Don’t think so. My folks got done last week in Skibereen. Where there’s been zero cases for about a month now. And they were done later than all their friends. It seems incredibly unfair to me that there are any 70+ year olds still waiting when they’re about to start allowing people in their 60s register online.
 

golden_blunder

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Don’t think so. My folks got done last week in Skibereen. Where there’s been zero cases for about a month now. And they were done later than all their friends. It seems incredibly unfair to me that there are any 70+ year olds still waiting when they’re about to start allowing people in their 60s register online.
Yeah I don’t think it’s right
 

prateik

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Isn't almost everyone in the high risk category vaccinated in the UK ?

Worst its ever been here in India and people still arent wearing masks.. and millions are travelling from all over the country for the Kumbh.
 

Balljy

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I find it hard to believe that mask wearing on the tube would be non-existent. Surely it's pre Covid footage?
I don't think the one linked is quite as live as being suggested so that might true. I saw it cut at one point to a different street.
 

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In case it has not been posted in this thread yet: The Lancet Psychiatry has published what may be the first large study on suicide trends during the pandemic. Surprisingly, numbers are not up anywhere they checked for the period up July 31, 2020. Here are their methods and interpretation of their findings in their own words:
Methods: We sourced real-time suicide data from countries or areas within countries through a systematic internet search and recourse to our networks and the published literature. Between Sept 1 and Nov 1, 2020, we searched the official websites of these countries’ ministries of health, police agencies, and government-run statistics agencies or equivalents, using the translated search terms “suicide” and “cause of death”, before broadening the search in an attempt to identify data through other public sources. Data were included from a given country or area if they came from an official government source and were available at a monthly level from at least Jan 1, 2019, to July 31, 2020. Our internet searches were restricted to countries with more than 3 million residents for pragmatic reasons, but we relaxed this rule for countries identified through the literature and our networks. Areas within countries could also be included with populations of less than 3 million. We used an interrupted time-series analysis to model the trend in monthly suicides before COVID-19 (from at least Jan 1, 2019, to March 31, 2020) in each country or area within a country, comparing the expected number of suicides derived from the model with the observed number of suicides in the early months of the pandemic (from April 1 to July 31, 2020, in the primary analysis).

Interpretation: This is the first study to examine suicides occurring in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in multiple countries. In high-income and upper-middle-income countries, suicide numbers have remained largely unchanged or declined in the early months of the pandemic compared with the expected levels based on the pre-pandemic period. We need to remain vigilant and be poised to respond if the situation changes as the longer-term mental health and economic effects of the pandemic unfold.
Link: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(21)00091-2/fulltext

Suicide rates are not a full indicator of mental health, of course, and July 31 is by now a fairly early cut-off date. But this is encouraging news.
 

Stanley Road

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Isn't almost everyone in the high risk category vaccinated in the UK ?

Worst its ever been here in India and people still arent wearing masks.. and millions are travelling from all over the country for the Kumbh.
Our bangalore office has had to shut, thanks to idiotic management allowing people to come to work infected.
 

Brwned

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If you deny people the chance to excercise and get some natural light than we will go straight from a coronovirus pandemic to a mental breakdown pandemic and lose a significantly amount more people to suicide than even the worst case scenario of the virus, not to mention the health problems lack of natural light/abscene from the sun will cause.
So, about that...

In case it has not been posted in this thread yet: The Lancet Psychiatry has published what may be the first large study on suicide trends during the pandemic. Surprisingly, numbers are not up anywhere they checked for the period up July 31, 2020. Here are their methods and interpretation of their findings in their own words:


Link: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(21)00091-2/fulltext

Suicide rates are not a full indicator of mental health, of course, and July 31 is by now a fairly early cut-off date. But this is encouraging news.
 

Wibble

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I’m talking about people who own/run pubs/restaurants and I can assure that what you describe is their worst nightmare. I also don’t think that what you describe is a) as common as you think in the rest of Europe and b) the preferred approach for the people that live/work there
Close down and open up costs a fortune each time. Throwing stock away and restocking again for open up alone is hugely expensive.
 

Brwned

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How many calculators has Essien given in West London?
:lol:

And in some countries suicide rates are better than usual. Not that mental health issues in general are in any way irrelevant.
Oh absolutely, there's plenty of legitimate mental health concerns. The suicide comments just always left me very uneasy because they were being used as a justification for someone's position on the lockdown / public health measures, which is a bit grim if you give it any thought. It was just said so casually, of course suicides will increase, and in this case they'll sky-rocket. For there to be more sucides than covid deaths you'd need to have 30x as many suicides as 2020, and 2020 was already the highest year on record.

There was no acknowledgement that actually, suicides are quite complicated, the idea that more unhappy people for a temporary period = more suicides is so simplistic that it's almost offensive to the people they're supposedly trying to protect - and the fact they're using them as a political football in the process makes it a bit dark. You were being cruel if you weren't considering this obvious impact of the lockdowns, how could you be so callous as to ignore these young, otherwise healthy people being pushed over the edge...and it was never acknowledged that this might be entirely fictional, an argument created to give moral justification for their own position.
 

Pogue Mahone

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Oh absolutely, there's plenty of legitimate mental health concerns. The suicide comments just always left me very uneasy because they were being used as a justification for someone's position on the lockdown / public health measures, which is a bit grim if you give it any thought. It was just said so casually, of course suicides will increase, and in this case they'll sky-rocket. For there to be more sucides than covid deaths you'd need to have 30x as many suicides as 2020, and 2020 was already the highest year on record.

There was no acknowledgement that actually, suicides are quite complicated, the idea that more unhappy people for a temporary period = more suicides is so simplistic that it's almost offensive to the people they're supposedly trying to protect - and the fact they're using them as a political football in the process makes it a bit dark. You were being cruel if you weren't considering this obvious impact of the lockdowns, how could you be so callous as to ignore these young, otherwise healthy people being pushed over the edge...and it was never acknowledged that this might be entirely fictional, an argument created to give moral justification for their own position.
Suicide wouldn’t be the only barometer of mental health, to be fair. Looks as though people with eating disorders have done very badly during the pandemic. Just one study but it showed a 66% increase in admissions between 2019 and 2020.

Note that I said “during the pandemic” and not “during lockdown”. Lockdown critics like to pretend that the only negative consequences are due to lockdown while the pandemic itself (relatives getting sick or dying, fear of the virus etc) will also cause huge stress and anxiety.
 

Brwned

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Suicide wouldn’t be the only barometer of mental health, to be fair. Looks as though people with eating disorders have done very badly during the pandemic. Just one study but it showed a 66% increase in admissions between 2019 and 2020.

Note that I said “during the pandemic” and not “during lockdown”. Lockdown critics like to pretend that the only negative consequences are due to lockdown while the pandemic itself (relatives getting sick or dying, fear of the virus etc) will also cause huge stress and anxiety.
Aye, that's what I was saying in the first sentence. There were plenty of legitimate mental health concerns so there was no need to jump to the extremes of suicide and proclaim them as a foregone conclusion. It was done simply for its moral impact, to match up lives against lives, and moreover to value one life over another. It wasn't just about how many more suicides there would be, but who they would affect.
In terms of the numbers the latest UK figures have 718 people dead under 80 without pre-existing conditions. A tragedy of course (for every death) but so is the poverty we're sure to see, so is the increase in suicides
Agreed. In my view there should have to be ironclad and irrefutable evidence that a lockdown is going to be save a substantial amount of years of life (I say years of life because saving 100 people 3 months isn't worth one person in their 20's who would otherwise live another 60 years committing suicide due to depression. Likewise someone in their 30's who hasn't had a cancerous lump checked out).
 

tombombadil

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So, about that...
Not surprised about that. The whole thing has been propaganda to force govs to allow businesses to reopen. It beggars belief that people were trying to argue more people would die from suicides than from a fecking pandemic. And this was despite the mortality rate reaching 11% in Italy. It's shocking how delusional human beings can be. And how selfish and greedy.
 

Wibble

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Oh absolutely, there's plenty of legitimate mental health concerns. The suicide comments just always left me very uneasy because they were being used as a justification for someone's position on the lockdown / public health measures, which is a bit grim if you give it any thought. It was just said so casually, of course suicides will increase, and in this case they'll sky-rocket. For there to be more sucides than covid deaths you'd need to have 30x as many suicides as 2020, and 2020 was already the highest year on record.

There was no acknowledgement that actually, suicides are quite complicated, the idea that more unhappy people for a temporary period = more suicides is so simplistic that it's almost offensive to the people they're supposedly trying to protect - and the fact they're using them as a political football in the process makes it a bit dark. You were being cruel if you weren't considering this obvious impact of the lockdowns, how could you be so callous as to ignore these young, otherwise healthy people being pushed over the edge...and it was never acknowledged that this might be entirely fictional, an argument created to give moral justification for their own position.
I totally agree.
 

Pogue Mahone

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Wasn’t sure about posting this. Partly because @lynchie told me that yer man is a known drama queen, partly because I think/hope we’ll never see scenes like this in Ireland/UK. I do think it’s worth sharing, though, to give an idea of how dark things can get when a health service gets overwhelmed. And that’s what happens without the sort of lockdowns we’ve had to ensure to keep the caseload manageable.
 

MTF

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Wasn’t sure about posting this. Partly because @lynchie told me that yer man is a known drama queen, partly because I think/hope we’ll never see scenes like this in Ireland/UK. I do think it’s worth sharing, though, to give an idea of how dark things can get when a health service gets overwhelmed. And that’s what happens without the sort of lockdowns we’ve had to ensure to keep the caseload manageable.
This is also mismanagement though. Rio, where these reports are from, currently has fewer ICU beds than it did 10 months ago. This latest wave of covid has been more transmissible, and possibly more deadly, but it will always be impossible to dissociate the effects from the virus' mutation from the worsening hospital situation.

This is Brazil though, where the government's ability to deliver good outcomes for its citizens in several areas has arguably gotten worse in general over the past 10-15 years.
 

Pogue Mahone

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This is also mismanagement though. Rio, where these reports are from, currently has fewer ICU beds than it did 10 months ago. This latest wave of covid has been more transmissible, and possibly more deadly, but it will always be impossible to dissociate the effects from the virus' mutation from the worsening hospital situation.

This is Brazil though, where the government's ability to deliver good outcomes for its citizens in several areas has arguably gotten worse in general over the past 10-15 years.
What he’s describing is 100% down to the worsening hospital situation. But it’s something that gets glossed over whenever we talk about “letting it rip”. The idea that life could get back to normal if we were to double our number of ICU beds. Even if you magic hundreds of ICU beds out of thin air (along with magical pixies to staff them) they’re still no good to you if you run out of the drugs you need to use them. I know for a fact there’s been hospitals in Ireland scenario planning about running out of oxygen!

And shortages like these becomes more and more inevitable the more countries end up as deep in the weeds as Brazil is right now.
 

MTF

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What he’s describing is 100% down to the worsening hospital situation. But it’s something that gets glossed over whenever we talk about “letting it rip”. The idea that life could get back to normal if we were to double our number of ICU beds. Even if you magic hundreds of ICU beds out of thin air (along with magical pixies to staff them) they’re still no good to you if you run out of the drugs you need to use them. I know for a fact there’s been hospitals in Ireland scenario planning about running out of oxygen!

And shortages like these becomes more and more inevitable the more countries end up as deep in the weeds as Brazil is right now.
For sure I understand that true ICU capacity is personnel + equipment + supplies, and any of those going missing means your capacity is phony.

I guess the summary of my point is that the latest wave in Rio in particular has actually had fewer daily cases of acute respiratory issues than last time, to the tune of a peak of 1,000 daily in April/May 2020, 600 in December 2020, and this time around the peak was 500-550 (I'm getting these from the chart the mayor's office presented last week at their weekly update). So fewer cases but the system now seems potentially more strained than a year ago.
 

Pogue Mahone

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For sure I understand that true ICU capacity is personnel + equipment + supplies, and any of those going missing means your capacity is phony.

I guess the summary of my point is that the latest wave in Rio in particular has actually had fewer daily cases of acute respiratory issues than last time, to the tune of a peak of 1,000 daily in April/May 2020, 600 in December 2020, and this time around the peak was 500-550 (I'm getting these from the chart the mayor's office presented last week at their weekly update). So fewer cases but the system now seems potentially more strained than a year ago.
Oh wow. That’s interesting. I didn’t realise that. Infuriating mismanagement if that’s the case.
 

finneh

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Aye, that's what I was saying in the first sentence. There were plenty of legitimate mental health concerns so there was no need to jump to the extremes of suicide and proclaim them as a foregone conclusion. It was done simply for its moral impact, to match up lives against lives, and moreover to value one life over another. It wasn't just about how many more suicides there would be, but who they would affect.
Surely this is a premature statement? Premature death including suicide as a result of destitution, depression and poverty are going to be spread across a lifetime of misery.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/newseu...-19-official-report-Xxme9YSnPq/share_amp.html

44,000 due to emergency-care problems, such as reduced capacity and patient reluctance to visit hospital. The report estimates a further 130,000 years of life lost due to what it calls adult social care, defined as including "early hospital discharge, non-COVID-19 medical emergencies, impacts of quality of primary care in care homes, patient safety impacts or patients not wanting to transfer to hospitals."

Despite its terrible toll, there have been health benefits from COVID-19, or rather from the resultant restrictions. Between March and December 2020, the report estimates 46,700 years of life gained from reduced tobacco-related illness, 42,900 years gained from lower pollution and 12,700 from fewer road accidents.

However, even these ancillary benefits of lockdown have been outweighed by the negatives, including an estimated 17,800 years of life lost through alcohol abuse, 19,200 through home accidents and 19,700 to adult self-harm.

Looking over the long-term effects, the report estimates another 4,900 years of life could be lost over the next 50 years through pandemic-caused delays to cancer diagnoses. However, a far greater loss of life – 590,000 years – is estimated from "pandemic-induced recession through increased unemployment, reduced income and wealth and increased uncertainty."

I do agree though the short term numbers are surprising. I suppose the whole population being miserable means there's less of a disparity in the short term (although the amount of money a lot of people have saved compared with the amount of money other groups have lost means that comradely wil be short lived).
 
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Brwned

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Surely this is a premature statement? Premature death including suicide as a result of destitution, depression and poverty are going to be spread across a lifetime of misery.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/newseu...-19-official-report-Xxme9YSnPq/share_amp.html

44,000 due to emergency-care problems, such as reduced capacity and patient reluctance to visit hospital. The report estimates a further 130,000 years of life lost due to what it calls adult social care, defined as including "early hospital discharge, non-COVID-19 medical emergencies, impacts of quality of primary care in care homes, patient safety impacts or patients not wanting to transfer to hospitals."

Despite its terrible toll, there have been health benefits from COVID-19, or rather from the resultant restrictions. Between March and December 2020, the report estimates 46,700 years of life gained from reduced tobacco-related illness, 42,900 years gained from lower pollution and 12,700 from fewer road accidents.

However, even these ancillary benefits of lockdown have been outweighed by the negatives, including an estimated 17,800 years of life lost through alcohol abuse, 19,200 through home accidents and 19,700 to adult self-harm.

Looking over the long-term effects, the report estimates another 4,900 years of life could be lost over the next 50 years through pandemic-caused delays to cancer diagnoses. However, a far greater loss of life – 590,000 years – is estimated from "pandemic-induced recession through increased unemployment, reduced income and wealth and increased uncertainty."

I do agree though the short term numbers are surprising. I suppose the whole population being miserable means there's less of a disparity in the short term (although the amount of money a lot of people have saved compared with the amount of money other groups have lost means that comradely wil be short lived).
Sure, there will be a lot of long-term negative health consequences as a result of the pandemic. Which is what those experts you’re citing weighed up when implementing the measures they recommended, with the intention of minimising the total effects, considering all the scenarios, and recognising the limitations of their estimates. Teasing apart cause and effect in that will involve quite a bit of speculation even years afterwards. Attributing suicides to single events many years earlier isn’t normal, in any case. It’s not usually how suicides are understood.

I’m not now predicting how many suicides will come about as a result of the pandemic, or the lockdown, or the tangled web of events that surround both. I’m not saying look, here’s proof there is no increased suicide risk from these choices. It seems a little foolish to do so if you spend any time thinking about the complex nature of suicides. There are a lot of paradoxes in that particular problem. Which is what made it odd how easily some people found it proclaim months ago how it would certainly lead to x, y and z. And stranger still how they all seemed to share motivations more aligned with their own self interests. Given the subject matter, it might even seem a little callous.
 

finneh

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Sure, there will be a lot of long-term negative health consequences as a result of the pandemic. Which is what those experts you’re citing weighed up when implementing the measures they recommended, with the intention of minimising the total effects, considering all the scenarios, and recognising the limitations of their estimates. Teasing apart cause and effect in that will involve quite a bit of speculation even years afterwards. Attributing suicides to single events many years earlier isn’t normal, in any case. It’s not usually how suicides are understood.

I’m not now predicting how many suicides will come about as a result of the pandemic, or the lockdown, or the tangled web of events that surround both. I’m not saying look, here’s proof there is no increased suicide risk from these choices. It seems a little foolish to do so if you spend any time thinking about the complex nature of suicides. There are a lot of paradoxes in that particular problem. Which is what made it odd how easily some people found it proclaim months ago how it would certainly lead to x, y and z. And stranger still how they all seemed to share motivations more aligned with their own self interests. Given the subject matter, it might even seem a little callous.
I think the overriding point that hundreds of thousands of years of life have been lost as a result of the practical and financial affects we've seen is still an obvious and important one.

I think arguing the semantics of what the specific cause of hundreds of thousands of years of lost life is somewhat academic. Suicide over the next 50 years was an example of this; but alcohol abuse, undiagnosed illness and reduced life expectancy (amount dozens of others) due to poverty are all other examples. That's before even discussing affects that result in misery but not years of death.

I think if you read other posts at the time you'd get the context; albeit that wouldn't have the same "got ya" affect.
 

Brwned

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I think the overriding point that hundreds of thousands of years of life have been lost as a result of the practical and financial affects we've seen is still an obvious and important one.

I think arguing the semantics of what the specific cause of hundreds of thousands of years of lost life is somewhat academic. Suicide over the next 50 years was an example of this; but alcohol abuse, undiagnosed illness and reduced life expectancy (amount dozens of others) due to poverty are all other examples. That's before even discussing affects that result in misery but not years of death.

I think if you read other posts at the time you'd get the context; albeit that wouldn't have the same "got ya" affect.
Those practical and financial effects are - as per your report - “pandemic-induced”. We know that some of the measures taken during lockdown directly contributed to them, but we don’t know whether doing something entirely different would have exacerbated those. The delayed treatments for example are primarily linked to the pandemic, not the lockdown, as numerous members of that committee have said repeatedly. Delaying the spread of the virus was intended to limit that. That is true for many cases, but there are lots of complicated situations.

Suicides were supposed to be one of the less complicated situations. The virus doesn’t cause suicidal tendencies, it’s the social isolation, the economic devastation, and they are only caused by the lockdown, that’s plain to see. Supposedly. So if that simple attribution of cause and effect is already looking tenuous, what about the more complicated ones? Somehow the way the evidence develops doesn’t lead to any questions of those assumptions.

Once a specific example is picked and assessed, it doesn’t matter that it doesn’t fit the narrative, there’s many more examples we can speculate about. It’s easy to fill them with our own ideas of how the world works, without needing any evidence to support it, nor having to justify it when things later don’t pan out that way. It’s a bit of a theme.