gregs24

So how would you have packaged it then ?

There are strict legal packaging laws for medicines and tests that involve hazardous substances, slightly different as you say to TK!

idem quod

Correct The range of possibilities were considered and of course it is easy for those who have no responsibility for decision making and bucket loads of hindsight to be oh so clever. The omicron variant was identified in very late November and by a month later was spreading rapidly globally. There was anecdotal evidence on virulence from South Africa but as we have seen throughout this pandemic, you cannot just extrapolate from one country to another. Just look at omicron in France compared to the UK to see the differences. I'm quite sure those same people moaning about scare stories and fearmongering would be the first to moan when the bodies were piling up - but of course they don't have those responsibilities, only opinions! With choices come responsibilities and consequences, just ask Novak! I'm not for compulsory vaccination (and in reality how could you ever achieve it outside of a totalitarian state ?) of the entire population, but other people's actions that impact on me do matter.

I have already explained my background earlier in the thread As soon as you mention 'Kool Aid' I'm afraid it reveals your true colours. Open Mind - Oh dear 🤣 Goodbye - ignore

Not going over this again - all covered before. Sad how the same old rubbish just gets repeated over and over. When figures are presented to prove it is rubbish the figures are obviously made up, government hoaxes etc etc. All a bit sad really

Never mind the 150k or so who have died from COVID at a time when without vaccines social restrictions were the only option available. How bad would it have been without those restrictions?

Completely incorrect. The modelling (which can never be 'precisely right' as it is a prediction) was constructed using many variables into a range of scenarios. This gave a range of solutions and interestingly different countries in Europe are fitting some of those curves quite well. If you don't know what goes in to the model and what data is used you cannot simply claim 'bullsh*t' and that you know better. So ignorant, uninformed (your words, and not ones used by me at you) guesses don't cut it. IF you had provided evidence for your predictions, why the modelling data was incorrectly used, that certain assumptions were wrong, that you considered the best case scenario was valid for x, y and z reasons then you would be taken seriously. But you never did - you just say the same stuff over and over again about civil liberties, authoritarian scare tactics etc. What data exactly that was 'rammed down your throat' was incorrect ? You even quoted some data yourself last week when you thought (misguidedly) that it backed up your argument. You also have to remember that this modelling data was largely discounted by the government who DID NOT apply any significant restrictions in England and simply advised people to be cautious. Odd that you didn't mention that?

Understanding the origin of COVID-19 requires to change the paradigm on zoonotic emergence from the spillover to the circulation model (nih.gov)

Once again Captain Hindsight knows best! Seriously, I wrote a long post last week about WHY our data has come out so well compared to modelling and also looked at other nearby countries such as France where they haven't. We have dodged a bullet here rather than the modelling being wrong which by it's nature has to rely on estimates and predictions. Even cursory examination of the modelling data will show why we have seen what we have - you really need to look at what data goes in to those graphs and also what the actual data was as we went along to see why we are where we are. Still plenty of people in hospital and deaths from COVID even though we had a 'best case' scenario. Worth mentioning his first successful appeal when he arrived was won on procedural errors rather than proving visa compliance. The prosecution dropped the case rather than losing. He tried to pull a fast one and got caught.

You would think when the first 2 or 3 'parties' were discovered that the best thing to do was to come clean on all the others rather than pretend they didn't exist. Every time another one is discovered it brings it all back to the fore. Hopeless management of a bad situation.

Ahh OK Yes, and questionable whether those restrictions in Scotland have actually done anything useful compared to England. Personally believe England got it right (but was a riskier strategy) My mother is a Royalist and Boris fan - she is in a right pickle now 🤣

If those numbers are indeed the truth @ChrisJ - and I suspect that they probably are - then that’s kinda what I expected to see. Funny how government figures are the truth when you think they say what you want them to .... Just check out all those 'serious underlying issues' you describe (the data is all in the linked spreadsheet in the post above) - many are very common such as obesity and blood pressure, and many of us on here will have them and live with them for many more years with good quality of life. It was never going to be a mass extinction event - not sure where you read that scare story ? No need to be 'unscientific' when the evidence is in the very link you are commenting on. In England - what restrictions ?

Correct. What you have to remember (and some choose to ignore) is that underlying conditions are frequently present in many people. There 'co-morbidities' are things such as asthma, vascular disease, dementia ( a very significant risk factor) etc etc. These conditions are VERY COMMON, especially in older people so that chance of death without a co-morbidity is actually quite low. To suggest (as some have) that this means restrictions are excessive is ridiculous and demonstrates a lack of understanding. It is trying to push the 'agenda' that COVID alone isn't serious and all the government controls are over the top. Incidentally England has amongst the lowest number of restrictions in place.

Pretty sure the i4 will effectively replace the V6 with time. Cars being sold later in the 2020' will be i4's

Not sure if this was directed at my post but if it was: The peak in a pandemic wave is actually not dependent on infecting everybody. The Rt or R0 is the rate of transmission, this is expressed as greater or less than 1. If greater than 1 the disease wave is growing, if less than 1 it is contracting. There are two major influencers of this. Firstly the transmissibility of the virus in a naïve population (if you like the maximum spread it can achieve) and secondly the impact of vaccination and other mitigating preventative measures on spread. This can be clearly shown in the response to lockdown measures in 2020 and the impact of vaccination. When the R0 drops below 1 the wave will contract quickly because of a lack of available hosts. There will still be people who do not catch it, but effectively the route to them is blocked by somebody else higher up the chain who didn't pass it on. Don't underestimate the significance of breaking this chain (even if only partially) on numbers of cases when spread is logarithmic. In the UK with high levels of circulating delta this Autumn (similar to SA) and a rapid booster roll out (by two weeks post booster you are 80% less likely to be ill with omicron and less likely to shed) the virus will run out of hosts much more quickly, but also the rate of climb will be slower. France was at least 2 weeks behind the UK initially, but rapidly overtook us in the last week or so. The rate of climb of cases is MUCH steeper, because more hosts are available (less natural immunity and less boosters). So the vaccine booster roll out slows the growth and reduces the peak as well as helping reducing severity of cases. As regards data - SA data strongly suggest all of the above and so does UK data compared to some European countries including France. Peer reviewed analysis will not be available until the omicron wave is over and full data can be examined.

COVID-19 death rate vs. Population density, Jan 11, 2022 (ourworldindata.org) Very poor correlation on here, but you also need to consider other factors such as weather / humidity / mobility etc. Transmissibility is only over fairly short distances, if everybody in London was 2m apart all the time then transmission would be drastically reduced - but we already know that from social distancing measures. You can have 9 million people 2m apart and have no more risk of transmission than 5 people 2m apart, but what you do have is a greater number of potential hosts if transmission does occur. As an example if you put 30,000 people in a football stadium with 1 shedding COVID case almost all the people present would not be at risk, just the ones immediately around the case. If you put that one person in a theatre with 1000 people indoors then far more people would be at risk. If you put 100 cases in the 1000 seat theatre then almost everybody would be at risk. So number of cases makes a huge difference as does the environment. Population density needs to be carefully thought about as well. France is twice the size of the UK but there are large parts of the country where virtually nobody lives, most live in cities as with the UK so probably very little difference. Other papers here explaining in more detail Spreading of COVID-19: Density matters (plos.org) Temperature and population density influence SARS-CoV-2 transmission in the absence of nonpharmaceutical interventions | PNAS

Interesting data coming out of France. 280k cases today which in reality means double or more than that when you consider how many asymptomatic cases there are with omicron. Population is almost identical size to the UK. 21k hospitalisations there on the 10th which is higher than the UK and still rising fast, but most significant 3751 in intensive care compared to 857 in the UK. This means it is very likely the death rate will be higher. What I find interesting is that those figures are at or even above the UK worst case predictions, and the UK is close to the best case scenario in the modelling. And the difference is? Two major factors, firstly the UK has had a much higher background delta wave for several months before omicron and also a very effective booster roll out. Both of these things result in much better immunity to both infection and subsequent illness. Three doses of vaccine result in orders of magnitude higher levels of antibodies compared to 2 doses and /or natural infection.

The NHS consists of over a million fantastic people and provide us with one of the best health services for free at point of use. Few other countries come close and most fall very short.

Agreed This has been a problem for some time - people waiting to be discharged with nowhere to go, such as those requiring care in a home or at home. Lack of care workers is a major problem.

'those are groups whom are all actually expected to die.' - BUT NOT NOW. Distinguish between people who are more at risk (of which age is just one factor) and being old makes you more likely to die. If being old was the only reason then there would not be any increased deaths in old people, just the normal rates of death. Excess deaths above normal are currently 173K. COVID clearly kills more older people (this data is irrefutable) but many if not most would NOT have died if it were not for COVID at this time. So actually most of those old people who died of COVID were NOT expected to die at this time. The perception (which I am not alone in) was that if they were expected to die anyway then somehow this means the figures are less significant. To the many who have lost aged relatives before their time this would be seen as offensive.

And I have explained why in detail - 'Death certificate mentions COVID' is the closest to what you want for all the reasons explained. Death certificates are legally prescribed - I have given you all of the information you need to understand this and how they are filled in. If you read and understand the link I gave you it will be abundantly clear why the above three definitions are used worldwide. Neither I nor anybody else can give you 'died of covid' because that probably means the death certificate has been completed incorrectly. People die of pneumonia, vascular collapse etc etc as a result of COVID. So the primary cause of death is say 'pneumonia' and the underlying cause of death is 'COVID' - as in COVID caused the pneumonia. This is why certificates where covid is the ONLY thing mentioned are probably actually incorrectly filled in and hence very rare. I'm sorry if you still don't understand this and there is nothing more I can add to help you. I can assure you however that this is not a conspiracy or fearmongering

Wow - you just don't get it. Clearly that is NOT the case as at least 2 of the three metrics do not require COVID on the death certificate to be included. Why is this so hard to understand ?