Bijou Drains
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What is interesting is the counries at the bottom of the deaths per capita table all started lock down early and did lots of testing.
I haven’t had time to do it yet, but I would guess that if you correlated it to population density yoiu would also find a significant link, Belgium Netherlands have high population density and if you worked the figures out per capita in SE England I bet they would go right up.
That is a really useful article Marcos, thank you for sourcing it.
The virus escape theory seems like typical Trump approach, throw enough shite around and some of it will hit your enemies. Then you can use it to cover the fact that it was you that farted in the first place.
Nobody is suggessting that Bat flu hysteria case is on the same quantitative level as the Swine flu hysteria.
Actually that is EXACTLY what you are trying to do. If that was not the case why would you have mentioned it, if not to compare, then exactly why did YOU introduce this topic.
You suggest that there is something called bat flu hysteria, and swine flu hysteria. I am not interested in the hysteria, what I compared was the reality of the two situations, and came to the conclusion that they are not comparable. If you have any real, verified evidence to suggest that there is any comparison, why do you not lucidly present it, rather than make vague references to some bizzare swiss website?
For example:
“Northern Italy
It is true that two major vaccination campaigns against influenza and meningococcus were carried out in Lombardy in the months immediately preceding the outbreak of Covid19, notably in the later hotspots of Bergamo and Brescia. Although it is theoretically possible that such vaccinations could interact with coronavirus infections, such a possibility has not been established at present.
It is also true that a high asbestos exposure was present in northern Italy in the past, which increases the risk of cancerous lung disease. But here again, there is no direct connection with Covid19.
Nevertheless, in general it is true that the lung health of the population in northern Italy has been affected for a long time by high levels of air pollution and other detrimental factors, making it particularly susceptible to respiratory diseases.”
To be crude about it, so fuck. I live in Newcastle, the shipyards and the pits were full of asbestos. People are not dying here at the level they died in Northern Italy.
You seem to have forgotten your previous big idea that it was to do with the “prevailing winds”, or some such nonesense.
“It may well be that without the pressure of having to drag their bones out of bed every moring and go to work, some people are much happier having the chance to have a lie in, get some well deserved rest and enjoy a few box sets. Incidentally and in contrast”
How can you be so callous and self centred ?
Don’t be so insulting. I have spent the best part of 40 years of my working career with people at risk of suicide and I have I am not being callous, you clown. I am not playing down the risk of suicide. I was pointing out that. as usual, you have nothing but speculation to back up your view that suicide rates will go up because of the lockdown, as equally vaild piece of speculation is that the pressure of not having to go to work and complete mundane pointless work may actually be a benefit to some people’s mental health.
Another example might be the fact that all of a suddden local authorities and central government have managed to find funding so that all rough sleepers are given accomodation, despite having sepnt the last 40 years suggesting that it is insluable. This fact might actually be a factor in reducing the suicide rate. Additionally the fact that the rough sleeper problem can be resolved so quickly is, to me, another example of how easy it is for physical resources to be used to resolve social problems in extremely quick ways. A socialist society becomes more and more demonstrably possible with all of these examples.
Another example of the crap you are coming out with is
“A Swedish author explains in the British Spectator: „It is not Sweden that is conducting a mass experiment. It is all other countries that are doing it.“
So who was this mysterious Swedish author, none other than Fredrik Erixon, an “economist” known for his previous association with the free market think tank Timbro whos stated aim is “to promote every individual’s right to self-empowerment, and the ideas that individual freedom precedes economic equality, and that political power over individuals and businesses should be minimized.”
Just the kind of people you want to rely on during an international pandemic, much better to rely on some nut job right wing Swedish free marketeer, than mainstream epidemiologists. Next time you start pissing blood, don’t bother with a GP, get yourself off to see Nigel Farage, he’ll sort you out.
With regard to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, if you get a text on your phone saying “knock, knock” don’t answer it, the cunning bastards are working from home.
It’s affecting them disproportianately not because of the fact that they are black, but because they are poor. Other statistics show that minority groups have higher housing density rates a key factor in the spread of the disease.
Ask yourself this, apart from Doctors and Nurses, who are the key workers who are most likely to come into multiple contact with the virus (it is known that multiple contacts increases the morbidity rates). It’s the minimum wage workers who work in shops, distribution centres, who work as cleaners and domestics in hospitals, who empty the bins, work in care homes, home care and nuring home settings.
All of these settings have a higher than average number of minority groups working in them, add this to housing density and you have your answer. What have the hardest hit areas all have in common, London, Madrid, Lombardy, Barcelona, Wuhan? (and it’s not the prevailing wind, which Dave B put forward some days ago)
It’s population density!
When this virus gets into Lagos, Cairo, Istanbul, Rio, etc. it will really take off.
Yes I think it’s a lot of overblown sinister shite. We are into month five of this thing and precisely 566 people have died of the virus so far in the whole of Scotland.
The first case of Scotland was reported on 2nd March, so Scotland is only 1 month and 10 days into this. With the symptoms taking up to 14 days to develop, it’s less than this.
On top of that the ONS calculates that there is an under reporting of “at least 8%” of deaths, that brings the death toll up to about 612. There were 1,755 people in intensive care last night in Scotland with either diagnosed or suspected coronavirus. The survival rate from intensive care for coronavirus is not great.
The current rate of death is doubling every 7-8 days, although it is starting to flatten slightly, it is still rising. it would be fair to expect somewhere in the region of 3,500 deaths by the end of June, even with all of the social distancing measures and lock down. Without that it could run into the 10s of thousands.
To put that four month figure into context into a Scotland wide context, in the four month figure for Scotland Dec 2018-19, there were 340 deaths from chronic lower respiratory diseases (e.g COPD, Smoking related non cancerous diseases, pulmonary fibrosis, etc.), 170 deaths from pneumonia, 130 deaths from other respiratory diseases, and 100 deaths from flu. That is 740 deaths in four months for ALL RESPIRATORY DISEASES, compared to the possible deaths of 10s of thousands, if measures were not put in place, and you think that is an over reaction?
As to the idea that it is some kind of huge conspiracy to put in social controls on the the population, this theory is dangerous because it credits those in control of our society with too much ability and strategic control.
Do you really think that there is the talent and ability in our government to pull something like that off. You just have to watch Hancock’s half hour every night to see what a bunch of fuckwits are in control. They can’t even manage to organise to have enough plastic gloves, never mind a world wide consipiracy to take dictatorial control by inventing a mass media panic and then using it to their own ends.
Presumably, according to the conspiracy theorists, you would expect that the chief scientific officer for Scotland would be knee deep in this dark and corrupt conspiracy. Yes the Chief medical officer who breaks her own rules, goes up to her 2nd home in Fife and then posts a fucking picture of her self there on bloody twitter. Not the brightest member of the Illuminati, eh?
The political class (so to speak) in this country, and I am sure in all countries, are generally made up of vain, venal mediocrities, similarly the majority of journalists and media personalities. One way or another I have met quite a few of them through work and for the most part they don’t know whether it’s Pancake Tuesday or Sheffield Wednesday.
As for the Senior Civil Service, I have had to go down to Westminster a few times and work with some of them when they were carrying out a national enquiry surrounding Children’s Residential Care, and they could not look at a stick without picking up the wrong end of it, another bunch of clowns.
If you think that mob of privately educated goons, who entered work half way up the ladder because of Daddy’s connections, could conspire to pull something like this off, when they struggle to organise tea, coffee and biscuits, your sadly mistaken.
I am confident that if you took the case to other national governments, you would find exactly the same thing. Presumably good ol’ Donald would have to be part of this conspiracy. He couldn’t hold his own water never mind a secret like that.
So if it’s not them, who else could it be, the wise and wily capitalists, maybe it’s Tim Martin, who thinks that the virus “doesn’t spread in pubs” or maybe it’s the FCB himself Mike Ashley who thinks that sports wear is a vital service during lock down. Again I think you’re giving these pillocks far too much credit to think they have the wherewithal to do anything like this.
If you want to see how the political, journalistic & secret service wallahs, organise a conspiracy, take a look at the Watergate conspiracy, it was a complete shambles from begining to end. That’s the kind of conspiracy our ruling and governing classes are capable of, a complete fuck up!
“I’m a big believer in capitalism – but some markets simply don’t function properly in a pandemic, and the market for lifesaving supplies is an obvious example”- Bill Gates
So medicine, clothing, food, water and shelter are not lifesaving supplies unless there’s a pandemic?
Alan, as Robert Tressell put it:
“mingling with part of the crowd were a number of well dressed individuals dressed in long garments of black cloth of the finest texture , and broad brimmed soft felt hats. Most of these persons had gold rings on their soft white fingers and glove like calf-skin boots on their feet. They belonged to the great army of imposters who obtain an easy living by taking advantage of the ignorance and simplicity of their fellow men, and pretending to be the “followers” and “servants” of the lowely Carpenter of Nazareth – the Man of Sorrows, who had nowhere to lay his head”
From BBC News
“The Archbishop of Canterbury has issued a plea to crematoriums and local authorities to ensure they treat those who die during the coronavirus lockdown with dignity.”
Humans should have dignity when they die, the follower of the Nazareen Carpenter isn’t too bothered about them having dignity when they are alive.
“If you want to be perfect, go, sell what you have and give to the poor” (Matthew 19:21),
Church of England net worth – £7.8 billion, £5.2 billion in investments.
Hypocritical old fucker
ONS recorded 1,413 suicides for 4Q19, compared with just 1,130 over the same period in 2017, resulting in a massive 25% increase.
But in real terms it’s a rise of only 283 individuals, as the size of the number of people who commit suicide is a relatively small number in terms of the overall population.
That is an extra 1200 per year without lockdown!
That is only a rise of that size if the trend from quarter 4 continues into the following 3 quarters of the year, you have no evidence to support this other than speculation on the results of the lockdown. It may well be that without the pressure of having to drag their bones out of bed every moring and go to work, some people are much happier having the chance to have a lie in, get some well deserved rest and enjoy a few box sets. Incidentally and in contrast, reports are that there has been a 82% drop in road deaths during the lock down and a 20% fall in violent crime
From your earlier post you quoted a epidemiologist saying about swine flu:
“But this is not the definition of a pandemic I learned, which has to be severe, with a much higher than usual death rate.”
The 2009 swine flu pandemic had a reported Case Fatality Rate (CFR) of 0.03% (from the same BBC article), with an estimate of between 700 million and 1.4 billion infections, this resulted in a total death toll of between 150,000 and 570,000
The current estimate is that there have been at least 1.87 million cases of Covid 19, and I accept that this is probably a big underestimate due to asymptomatic cases. So far there have been reported deaths of 108,000 people from Covid 19. An estimate (again probably an overestimate) of the CFR from the Chinese outbreak is 3%, the CFR from South Korea is 1.95%.
Your main argument seems to be that there is very little difference between the Covid 19 outbreak and the swine flu outbreak, the statistics show otherwise. This outbreak is “severe with a much higher that usual death rate”, it is by definition a pandemic. This outbreak has been linked to nearly as many deaths as the lower estimate for swine flu and this has been produced by an estimated 1.97 million cases. It took at least 700 million cases of swine flu to produce that level of morbidity. Even with the wildest allowances for poor statistics, the comparison is facile.
You made earlier attempts to compare this with seasonal flu which kills approximately 500,000 world wide annually. Coronavirus, as stated earlier, is estimated to have killed 108,000 people so far and has a doubling rate of between 7 and 8 days (Also consider that this is the rate of death and doubling that follows practically world wide distancing and lock down measures, which are not in place during the annual flu season). Therefore, at the current rate, and there is no reason to believe it will slow down, by 20th April the death toll will be 216,000, by the 28th April it will be 432,000 and by the 6th May it will be approaching 1,000,000. So in just over 5 months it will have doubled the annual death toll for seasonal flu and whilst it will not continue to rise at either an exponential or a geometric rate, it will continue to rise at more than an arithmetic rate. Once the outbreak moves into the slums and shanty towns of South America, Africa, the Indian Subcontinent, the rate will increase again.
The idea that this is some kind of overreation is countered not only by the statistics but by the facts. Doctors and nurses who were not likely to die because of pre existing conditions are dying in numbers never seen during seasonal flu outbreaks and not seen during the swine flu epidemic. They are burying people in Central Park, ffs.
“Professor Neil Ferguson, who is recovering at home from Covid-19, told the Science and Technology Committee that experts were now expecting around 20,000 deaths, although said it may turn out to be a lot less.”
If it’s less than 20,000 I’ll show my arse in HO front window the next time we get to have party conference
Put it this way Dave, can you point to any week in the last 40 years where flu has been recorded as a cause of death on nearly 5,600 death certificares in any single week (rough figures this week) and can you then point to another single week where more than 7,000 have had flu as a cause of death in that week, (which is I suspect roughly the figures to expect next week.)
Lets look at the stats you use in a bit more depth
According to UK office of national statistics
week 13 2020 = 150,017 have died
including 642, by then , covid deaths .
By week 13 of 2018 which ends 30<sup>th</sup> march
Week 13 2018 = 164,625 had died.
This high figure was generally attributed to an influenza outbreak.
[Which actually seemed to run on a bit for another 3 weeks or so
if elevated deaths above the normal for that time of year is any indication.]
So far so good
Anyway by this time in 2018 14,500 more people than now had died ; because of a influenza outbreak.
Actually, no. Those are the figures for reporting week 13, which if you look at the ONS site, clearly shows that these were the figures which were extrapolated at the a later date from data that came in at a much later date, when all causes of death were known.
This is not the case now, all deaths have not been reported and analysed at this point, it will be many months before this is complete. Also as your figures only refer to the deaths at week 13, including Covid deaths of 642, the two figures are in no way comparable. There have been an addtional nearly 7,500 Covide deaths since this point
As you say in your stats the flu season in 2018, had by this time produced approximately 14,500 extra deaths. However the flu season was at its peak in week one of 2018, having followed on from the 2017 late flue season peak figures, and by week 13 was pretty close to the end of its impact. Even so that gives a figure of about 1,000 extra deaths per week due to flu in 2018. We are currently experiencing a death rate of at the very least 5,250 per week, as reported in government figures, however that does not include the hundreds, possible thousands of non hospital deaths (deaths in care homes, etc.). To go back to the point I made earlier, when all deaths from Covid 19 are reckoned, ususally weeks and months later, the actual figures are likely to be very much higher.
So where does this leave us in the comparison of flu deaths and Covid 19 deaths. Well we are probably reaching the same figures now as we had for the flu season in 2018, however that has been reached when all of the efforts about social distancing, lockdown, etc. have taken place. Ask yourself this, what would the death rate be like if that HADN’T TAKEN PLACE?
You go on to say
As covid in the UK does look like peaking
Even the most optomistic epidemiologists are talking about a peak being at least 2 weeks away, so what makes you think it is peaking now?
I happy to bet you any sum of money that the death rate in the UK will continue to rise further and that the number of additional deaths is higher than 30,000
[ using say South Korean data and time frame as a model]
The S Korean time frame is absolutely incoparable with the UK outbreak, as the detection and isolation of cases in S Korea was incomparable to the UK situation, the mass testing of South Korean citizens was many, many times higher than the UK and the lockdown and stringency of measures taken by the S Koreans were much more far reaching and earlier than the UK. In fact it looks likely that the S Korean outbreak was in comparison very small, however becasue of the % of tests per head of population, they arrived at much higher figures than that of say Western Europe, where even the most developed testing system in Germany is estimated to have not identified 87% of those infected with the virus.
The ONS data is only available up to week 13. and in that week only 539 people suspected of covid 19 infection died.
And although there is a detailed breakdown etc, there were too few deaths by that week to make any firm conclusions
So why are you trying to make them?
It is perfectly clear that Covid outbreak is in no way comparable to the flu epidemic of 2018. You ask how many people remember the Flu outbreak of 2018, well I remember it well, my mother died in it. But what I don’t remember is that there was any shortage of critical care beds in the ward she was on, I don’t remember doctors and nurses being so vulnerable that they were wearing high level PPE wherever possible, I have no recollection of Doctors, Nurses and Care Staff dying of Flu at that time. Neither do I recall a national lock down to slow down the rapid, out of control spread of flu, in 2018. I do however remember being able to be with her in the hospital as she died, something that would not be possible with Covid 19.
As to the Swedish approach, last week a petition signed by more than 2,000 doctors, scientists, and professors calling on the Swedish government to tighten restrictions and enforce strict containment measures.
“We’re not testing enough, we’re not tracking, we’re not isolating enough – we’ve let the virus loose,” said Cecilia Soderberg-Naucler, a professor at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm. “They are leading us to catastrophe.”
I have more faith in professor Soderberg-Naucler’s understanding of the situation, than I have of yours.
Here’s an idea what about doing as we have always done and describe ourselves as either Socialists or Communists.We don’t want to get ourselves mistaken for the so called and mysterious “fellow travellers” some comrades keep banging on about, as being the most important source of new recruits (although I can think of very few occasions in the 38 years I’ve been in the party when one of these “fellow travellers” have ever joined the party)
In my experience the fact that others have a misconception of what is meant by those terms is actually a good starting point ot engaging them, rather than a hinderance to discussion.
