Monday 1st March 2021

[refitman]

Morning all.

[Willow904]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... tw-nytimes" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Behind the Lines of Britain’s Covid War

I found this article in the New York Times more informative and in depth than anything I've read in the British press lately.

[refitman]

Happy Saint David's Day.

[AnatolyKasparov]

Good morefternoon, all.

[RogerOThornhill]

Good afternoon.

Well, this is a good appointment for GB News - another Spiked acolyte.

https://twitter.com/GBNEWS/status/1366359941016145922" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Good news only from the point of view that at least they won't be on the BBC any longer...

[AnatolyKasparov]

GB News might be a blessing in disguise if it corrals a load of grifters in a place where most won't actually ever hear them.

[GetYou]

Anyone get a better backronym for this than Gammon Broadcasting?

[tinyclanger2]

Happy Saint David's Day.

Had Christmas in St David's a few years ago.
Some of the coastal path round there was terrifying.
Especially when it's windy.

[tinyclanger2]

I have a colleague at work called something Gammon, but I keep recalling it as Bacon.
It's getting tricky.

[AnatolyKasparov]

UKIP's candidate for the London mayoralty is called Gammons.

[tinyclanger2]

Meanwhile I think it's fair to say:

>_< this sodding virus.

('Scuse my Old Frisian)

[howsillyofme1]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/202 ... tw-nytimes

Behind the Lines of Britain’s Covid War

I found this article in the New York Times more informative and in depth than anything I've read in the British press lately.

personally I found it a pile of crap based on hearsay and a lot of anecdote etc. I am pretty sure that when the final reckoning is done some of the things we assume are correct now will be found to be lacking evidence and are based on preconceptions. Opinions are no substitute for facts and remember correlation is not causation......but a lack of correlation can rule out causation. I do not deny Covid is a very serious disease that required some strict measures to contain the spread but I do consider myself very sceptical of the efficacy of lockdowns (and masks as well to be honest).

For there to be causation there needs to be a demonstrated benefit against the null hypothesis - in this case not 'doing nothing' but perhaps the original WHO pandemic recommendations from 2019 that ruled out lockdown.....

This is typical of much of what I se in the liberal press and starts from the assumption lockdown works - an extreme policy requires absolutely robust data and that is most certainly not the case here. Look at the liberal use of 'could' and 'may' to support rather definite conclusions

Yes, the Government are incompetent and give mixed messages, yes they failed to invest in health services and yes they sent ill people back into care homes for which they have much to be criticised

Western Europe failed and we should also definitely not compare death rates across countries as there is no consistent measure so the only thing that will tell us is analysis in the future - and how many deaths were caused by Covid and how many are secondary effects that may last for decades?

The lack of objectivity in the press goes across the spectrum and lockdown extremists are as plentiful as the other side - you seen the latest one about anal swabs of school kids?

[howsillyofme1]

For example, a very well respected summary from the EU on facemasks

Confirms what I have seen from reading the evidence in the trials - poor quality, no clear conclusions and needs a lot more work but you wouldn't know it from what you read

https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publicati ... ansmission" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

They recommend it for a few user cases but don't sound particularly convincing and is more as a 'it can't do any harm' rather than 'it works'

[Sky'sGoneOut]

The Star Mangled Banner.

[howsillyofme1]

if we see Sweden as almost being a control (and it is not that great because of the issues on comparing data across countries but it is the best we have)

Looking at overall excess deaths and not just Covid then Sweden does not seem to be a particularly good example of a country that did not enter a legally mandated lockdown - now we have seen lots of reasons being put forward ,all of them seem to be excuses rather than anything based on robust data. There may be a reason why they managed to avoid the extreme seen elsewhere in Europe and the examples of Norway and other countries will be thrown at it but there seems to be very little reasoning behind that and there are counter-arguments as well.

Attempts to claim certainty in a hugely complex issue are difficult to justify but we have seen much of that in the liberal press and elsewhere - with models not proving to be as predictive as they would like and doomsday scenarios not playing out. A very nasty year for deaths in certain demographics that will be helped massively by a vaccine (why are pro-lockdowners so vaccine sceptical all of a sudden with their almost cultish love of the word 'variant' - when virologists seem a lot more relaxed in the main).

https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistic ... _data_.gif" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.euronews.com/2021/02/17/eu- ... 9-s-impact" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I am not saying this data proves anything but I have avoided many strong predictions with any certainty apart from my, possibly flawed, opinion. I just want to see a similar approach from the other side of the argument

[Willow904]

@howsillyofme1
I feel like we must have read completely different articles. What I liked about the article is the way it looked at people's experiences of the pandemic and how it's impacted people's lives and jobs. We have had very little in domestic media about what's actually happening, particularly the impact on funerals. Regardless of what people die of and regardless of the rights and wrongs of restrictions, the weeks long waits for funerals is something that is happening right now for lots of people, not being able to attend funerals in the normal way is a lived reality for many people and yet it feels like nobody's talking about these things. Not here in the UK, anyway. I feel like I know more about what's going on in other countries. Here it's all targets and numbers - number of tests, numbers of cases, numbers of vaccines. None of it feels very meaningful. Someone talking about relatives streaming funerals on phones gives context to otherwise meaningless numbers - in this case the number 30, the number of people currently allowed at a funeral.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

This is typical of much of what I se in the liberal press and starts from the assumption lockdown works - an extreme policy requires absolutely robust data and that is most certainly not the case here.

Meh. The infection rate drops during lockdowns and rises when they're lifted. That's incontrovertible. With an airborne virus when fewer people are sharing poorly ventilated indoor spaces the virus has less chance of spreading. That's hardly rocket science. It could be argued lockdowns involving limits and bans on outdoor interactions are too strict but to try to cast doubt on whether limits/bans on indoor activity are justified is just silly.

Take students for example, in my City the infection rate was brought down by the first lockdown, remained fairly low for the next two months, then the students returned and it went through the roof. The rapid rise began in the student areas, spread to the city centre and from there throughout the rest of the city. This was quite clearly caused by the students mingling in their residences, pubs, restaurants, shops, etc. They passed it on to each other, then to people working in the city centre and those people passed it on to their families or housemates. And that didn't only happen here, it happened in cities across the country. So either this resulted from the students mingling indoors in inadequately ventilated spaces or students somehow transmit the virus differently to everbody else. All evidence points to the former and absolutely none to the latter.

It took another lockdown months to bring the infection rates back down to their previous levels. Months of a second wave that lockdown sceptics had assured us would never happen. A second wave which was far worse than the first. Which resulted in the uneccesary deaths of thousands of people. You'd think lockdown sceptics might have learned something from this. Evidently not.

[howsillyofme1]

@howsillyofme1
I feel like we must have read completely different articles. What I liked about the article is the way it looked at people's experiences of the pandemic and how it's impacted people's lives and jobs. We have had very little in domestic media about what's actually happening, particularly the impact on funerals. Regardless of what people die of and regardless of the rights and wrongs of restrictions, the weeks long waits for funerals is something that is happening right now for lots of people, not being able to attend funerals in the normal way is a lived reality for many people and yet it feels like nobody's talking about these things. Not here in the UK, anyway. I feel like I know more about what's going on in other countries. Here it's all targets and numbers - number of tests, numbers of cases, numbers of vaccines. None of it feels very meaningful. Someone talking about relatives streaming funerals on phones gives context to otherwise meaningless numbers - in this case the number 30, the number of people currently allowed at a funeral.

Hi Willow

Yes these stories are of interest but they are interspersed with certainties that have not been shown to be correct - perhaps the NY Times could spend some time looking at its own country and also the experiences there.

The limits on funerals and all the lockdown measures are not 'scientific' - some may be based on science somewhere - but are political in nature. I agree totally on the focus on raw data but there are a lot of people who are fixated on this and the Government would be accused of a 'cover-up' if they tried to change it

Look at the furore over the '28 day rule' which was in lines with most international mores and made perfect sense when you think of it (and was only one of 3 data points looked at). The immediate reaction was 'cover up' and Government trying to hide the number of deaths

We should tell stories but we should also be careful as well....my dad died of complications linked to flu in 2015 after a wait for 6 hours in an ambulance and 8 hours in hospital corridor before being admitted......I don't remember too many people caring about that at the time!

It is not the stories and it is not the need to bring home the realities of what happens in ICU and the horrible situation that is caused by a pandemic but we also need to not create fear and hopelessness which seems to be the aim of a not insignificant number of people in the 'liberal' camp - look t how the 'variants' and vaccines are being talked about now - again with lots of 'coulds' and 'mays'.

I come from a different perspective from most of my peer group - I would say open and justify closing rather than closing and justify opening

We will see in the future what the right approach was for future pandemics but I have a feeling that lockdowns may not have been the great success they are portrayed as being - rather a panic measure driven by the 'seen to be doing something' and the inadequacy of our political classes. Merkel is not doing so great now after her appalling botching of the vaccine rollout

[howsillyofme1]

This is typical of much of what I se in the liberal press and starts from the assumption lockdown works - an extreme policy requires absolutely robust data and that is most certainly not the case here.

Meh. The infection rate drops during lockdowns and rises when they're lifted. That's incontrovertible. With an airborne virus when fewer people are sharing poorly ventilated indoor spaces the virus has less chance of spreading. That's hardly rocket science. It could be argued lockdowns involving limits and bans on outdoor interactions are too strict but to try to cast doubt on whether limits/bans on indoor activity are justified is just silly.

Take students for example, in my City the infection rate was brought down by the first lockdown, remained fairly low for the next two months, then the students returned and it went through the roof. The rapid rise began in the student areas, spread to the city centre and from there throughout the rest of the city. This was quite clearly caused by the students mingling in their residences, pubs, restaurants, shops, etc. They passed it on to each other, then to people working in the city centre and those people passed it on to their families or housemates. And that didn't only happen here, it happened in cities across the country. So either this resulted from the students mingling indoors in inadequately ventilated spaces or students somehow transmit the virus differently to everbody else. All evidence points to the former and absolutely none to the latter.

It took another lockdown months to bring the infection rates back down to their previous levels. Months of a second wave that lockdown sceptics had assured us would never happen. A second wave which was far worse than the first. Which resulted in the uneccesary deaths of thousands of people. You'd think lockdown sceptics might have learned something from this. Evidently not.

QED 'that is incontrovertible' - forgive me but iff it is incontrovertible that lockdowns are the driving force

i. there is a clear difference vs the null hypothesis - the null hypothesis would be the 2019 WHO pandemic management which was pretty much followed by Sweden and some areas in the USA.

ii. Covid deaths is not the measure we should use as the comparison across countries is not possible - we would have to look at total excess deaths and again Sweden is not seen to be amongst the worst. In fact 2020 is only as abnormally high as 2019 was abnormally low

iii. Lockdowns will have an impact and so that would need to be factored in - just as austerity was claimed to have caused 120000 excess deaths then we can assume there will be some impact from lockdown

iv. Lockdown of society is by any measure and extreme action with significant impact on public an economic health. Extreme measures may be required and we could imagine the first lockdown was a case in point - I don't accept it but I understand it. If you do go for an extreme measure though you have to make some attempt to measure the impact

v. Lockdowns will probably have some impact on transmission in certain cases (just like border closures would do as well) but they also have to consider how you come out of them too - we would have had to have a severe lockdown for 1 year whilst hoping on the vaccine

vi. Why are so many proponents of lockdown now moving towards a suppression strategy and undermining the fantastic efforts to get 4 very efficacious vaccines on the market. It is those people who sound like anti-vaxxers

vii. a large number of people have been working during the lockdowns and so lockdown itself is not a really great success

viii. Even after a year there is still no clarity on what the actual 'risk' is of individual activities - absolutely ridiculous

And that is before you get onto masks which have no evidence behind them to speak of......I will be interested to see what future studies say about that particular NPI

I am not saying lockdowns are wrong in all circumstances or they could not be used, what I say is that poor data analysis, absence of any impact assessments and the use of them in a seemingly random fashion is lacking any scientific rigour - it is political

And there is no conspiracy either - there is poor and weak political leadership and over-reliance on behavioural attempts to create fear and also the use of predictive models which, as any scientist knows, is not science! It may be based on some scientific principles and assumptions but if you put some of the real confidence levels on then it would be shockingly imprecise

[Sky'sGoneOut]

If you want to talk about poor data analysis and lack of scientific vigour it would be remiss of me not to bring up how spectacularly wrong the lockdown sceptics in the scientific community have been. Take Sunetra Gupta, who has been wrong about absolutely everything. The common cold provides immunity to the virus. Wrong. 80% of the population are already immune. Wrong. There virus would somehow disappear during the Summer and there would be no second wave over Winter. Wrong. I could go on and on about how wrong she's been. Or how about Carl Heneghan? Amongst other ridiculous nonsense, as a way of dismissing the effectiveness of lockdowns he claimed washing hands was the single most effective method of controlling the virus. An airborne virus. That was laughable then and doubly so now we know infection from surfaces is rare. I find it staggering these disgraces to the scientific method are still employed by their universities. But what was truly scandalous was that both of them were advising Boris Johnson in September and are responsible for the delay in implementing a second national lockdown. They are complicit in thousands of unnecessary deaths.

Under those circumstances I don't think it would be too much to ask for them to show a little humility and contrition. Even offer an apology. But do we see that? No, quite the opposite. Gupta and her idiot followers continue to spout nonsense blithely ignoring the fact they've been wrong time and time again. They're despicable and if there were any justice in this world they'd be held to account for it.

[AnatolyKasparov]

We don't appear to hear quite so much of either Gupta or Heneghan these days - I do wonder why that might be?

[howsillyofme1]

So you have changed the subject and your ad hominem attacks are pretty unpleasant and I would suggest you go and look at the failures across the whole scientific community not just those people

There is some truth in what they say but shows how dangerous it is to make predictions and if inclined I could point you to various disasters from others you possibly don't criticise as much

I see you have not come up with any sort of robust support for lockdown - and remember it is for you to provide it and if you can't it isn't valid explanation. Correlation is not causation but if not correlated then it cannot be the cause

I would also suggest that suppressing the views of epidemiologists and others who put forward a different view to yours is sadly the sign of the authoritarianism that has become commonplace

This is not climate science based on well established science but rather a novel virus that we do not know everything about yet

We cannot even agree on transmission. Droplet vs aerosol vs fomite.....ask an expert get an opinion, ask another get another opinion

Expert opinion is just that and needs evidence - something we have not a lot of and yet it doesn't stop certainty

I am a scientist with 25 years experience in data analysis and risk assessment...I am not a virologist or an epidemiologist but I can see weak evidence when I see it. A case in point is the mask evidence review I linked to earlier....if fomite or aerosols are main transmission then at best ineffective

[howsillyofme1]

We don't appear to hear quite so much of either Gupta or Heneghan these days - I do wonder why that might be?

Shane same cannot be said about Sridhar with her comparisons with measles or others talking about anally swabbing children or undermining vaccines

Heneghan and Guptas views are based on sound scientific theories - whether right or not is another matter but I don't think many on the left seem that bothered about science anymore

[gilsey]

@howsillyofme1
I feel like we must have read completely different articles. What I liked about the article is the way it looked at people's experiences of the pandemic and how it's impacted people's lives and jobs. We have had very little in domestic media about what's actually happening, particularly the impact on funerals. Regardless of what people die of and regardless of the rights and wrongs of restrictions, the weeks long waits for funerals is something that is happening right now for lots of people, not being able to attend funerals in the normal way is a lived reality for many people and yet it feels like nobody's talking about these things. Not here in the UK, anyway. I feel like I know more about what's going on in other countries. Here it's all targets and numbers - number of tests, numbers of cases, numbers of vaccines. None of it feels very meaningful. Someone talking about relatives streaming funerals on phones gives context to otherwise meaningless numbers - in this case the number 30, the number of people currently allowed at a funeral.

One of the best news items I've seen was a while ago, Ch4 reporting from a Bradford Muslim cemetery, very sad indeed.

Most of the media goes out of its way to avoid reporting on the real impact on individuals, presumably part of the general agenda to support the govt.

[howsillyofme1]

A lot of talk about suppressing the views of scientists on here

How about the same suppression of those who are consistently undermining the immunity and vaccine situation

Community immunity comes from a mixture of non-susceptibility, immunity from previous encounter and vaccine. Each have a role to play. Immunity from exposure is not a great option, especially if over 60 but the immunity is likely to be wide ranging and persistent based on SARS and also the lack of reinfection data.

Vaccines are better to prevent infection but can be vulnerable to escape as they are targeted.

Non-susceptibilty may well vary with season and can change quickly so plays a role but is not robust


I have seen many people undermining some or part of this basic immunology and yet have not seen them banned from the media

Those who continually say variants 'may' make vaccines ineffective and that we should keep borders closed for 'foreign variants' based on normal viral mutation are given free reign to pass on their views which border on untruths sometimes - including members of Sage or iSage

The scientific community has been and will be damaged by this - anecdotally many of my colleagues are incredulous

[Sky'sGoneOut]

your ad hominem attacks are pretty unpleasant

If you can provide me with an example of one I'd be happy to apologise.

[howsillyofme1]

your ad hominem attacks are pretty unpleasant

If you can provide me with an example of one I'd be happy to apologise.

Attacking Heneghan and Gupta like that

The may/may not be wrong but are they any more wrong than the proponents of lockdown who produce no evidence for their assertions?

If we go back and see who has been wrong throughout this epidemic it would make for interesting reading but attacks only come one way

How about those promoting cloth masks when the evidence (see link above) suggests absolutely no evidence for them and places have no said they are unsuitable

I am still waiting for your evidence on lockdown....not just opinion pieces with cherry-picked data?

The trouble with cherry picking is that it only takes one counter example to undermine the hypothesis, yours has to be consistent and show causation

[Sky'sGoneOut]

I merely provided examples of how breathtakingly wrong they've been at every single stage of this pandemic and there are plenty more, that is not an ad hominem attack, it's merely highlighting their stupidity, their arrogance and their culpability in the deaths of thousands of people.

Just out of curiosity you didn't sign the 'Great Barrington Declaration' did you?

[PorFavor]

@howsillyofme1

ad hominem
/ad ˈhɒmɪnɛm/
adjective
adjective: ad hominem

(of an argument or reaction) directed against a person rather than the position they are maintaining.
"an ad hominem response"

It's the position\s that they're maintaining being taken issue with, surely?