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11 minutes ago, Mark .Y. said:

Ricardo has delivered..................

Hasn't really helped me though, the Netherlands has pretty much exactly 1/4 of our population, is doing 1/4 as many tests and yet has way less than 1/4 cases.

Spain doesn't work out quite as clearly as that but still looks to be in much better shape. 

 

Whereas Germany does a fifth of our testing rate and had 22k positives yesterday.

Its swings and roundabouts and different countries peaking and falling ay different times.

Its tests per million of the populatation. We have carried out over 310 million total tests, Holland 17 million.

i.e. if equalled out then everyone in Holland would have had 1 test whereas everyone in UK would have had 4.5 tests.

Edited by ricardo

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57 minutes ago, Mark .Y. said:

Ricardo has delivered..................

Hasn't really helped me though, the Netherlands has pretty much exactly 1/4 of our population, is doing 1/4 as many tests and yet has way less than 1/4 cases.

Spain doesn't work out quite as clearly as that but still looks to be in much better shape. 

 

Wouldn't that mean to have roughly the same rates as the UK the official figure will be about 1/16 of ours?

On todays figues they have about 1/13th.   That is to say on the official figures they are in a worse position than us.

Obviously there us an argument for saying their testing is more targeted and more likely to result in a positive but without the % positive figures we cannot know.

Edited by Barbe bleu

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15 minutes ago, Mark .Y. said:

Ricardo has delivered..................

Hasn't really helped me though, the Netherlands has pretty much exactly 1/4 of our population, is doing 1/4 as many tests and yet has way less than 1/4 cases.

Spain doesn't work out quite as clearly as that but still looks to be in much better shape. 

 

It is very curious. Hospitalisation is very high here compared to other countries. Some NHS trusts are on alert too atm being reported.

Ps. Interesting to listen to Drakeford today too about how they might consider tougher measures later in the month if case rates rise significantly. Also as someone who watches SC4 a lot there are many many public health adverts and info pieces on Covid (until recently also lunchtime TV announcements).  It really feels as if Wales and England are two very different countries when you compare the ways in which this pandemic is being managed / the messaging.

Edited by sonyc

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3 minutes ago, sonyc said:

It is very curious. Hospitalisation is very high here compared to other countries. Some NHS trusts are on alert too atm being reported.

 

Patients serious or critical

UK   808

France    1200

Germany    1336

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Hospitalisation down 25% on the month

Patients on ventilation down 27% on the month

Total patients down 22% on the month

You'd think a doctor ought to have some idea of the figures but apparently not.

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55 minutes ago, Mark .Y. said:

I have to admit to being confused by our high daily case numbers versus some European countries.

Within the last 3-4 weeks I have been in both Holland and Spain - neither of those countries appears to be doing anything different to us yet their figures (even adjusted for population) are way below.

In both countries, masks are required on public transport (not sure if that happens here), but apart from that you rarely see a mask at all. Bars and restaurants are open with no social distancing, you don't see anybody in a mask in the supermarket and you generally wouldn't know there was any kind of issue.

Yet we have had an average of around 30,000 cases a day for what seems like a couple of months now, it just doesn't feel right to me. Is anybody any good with conspiracy theories ???  😆

We test more than most of those countries combined 

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With so much realtime information available you have to wonder what motivates these lockdown nutters.

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2 hours ago, Mark .Y. said:

I have to admit to being confused by our high daily case numbers versus some European countries.

Within the last 3-4 weeks I have been in both Holland and Spain - neither of those countries appears to be doing anything different to us yet their figures (even adjusted for population) are way below.

In both countries, masks are required on public transport (not sure if that happens here), but apart from that you rarely see a mask at all. Bars and restaurants are open with no social distancing, you don't see anybody in a mask in the supermarket and you generally wouldn't know there was any kind of issue.

Yet we have had an average of around 30,000 cases a day for what seems like a couple of months now, it just doesn't feel right to me. Is anybody any good with conspiracy theories ???  😆

There is no conspiracy, compared to many of our close European neighbours we have a lot more virus - simple as.

I think the reasons are pretty obvious as well: - firstly we dropped all restrictions, including even enforcing basic mask wearing, whilst we still had very extremely high levels of virus circulating, and secondly despite all the bullsh*t we keep hearing from Johnson we are behind many of our neighbours in vaccination rates.

If you compare our daily cases with France we are at 36,000ish per day. The French 7 day average for daily cases is 4,300 - a massive difference.

As  @Virtual reality has just pointed out, our greater levels of testing may account for some of the discrepancy. But if you look at a rather better defined and actually more crucial measure, i.e. deaths, then the UK performance remains grim.

Uk is currently suffering 127 daily deaths (unchanged from last week), France is at 37 per day and falling (20% down on last week).

That I'm afraid is the reality, so no need to look for any conspiracy theories unless you are referring to Johnson's pathetic attempts to sell the notion that the pandemic is over and everything back to normal.

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4 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

There is no conspiracy, compared to many of our close European neighbours we have a lot more virus - simple as.

I think the reasons are pretty obvious as well: - firstly we dropped all restrictions, including even enforcing basic mask wearing, whilst we still had very extremely high levels of virus circulating, and secondly despite all the bullsh*t we keep hearing from Johnson we are behind many of our neighbours in vaccination rates.

If you compare our daily cases with France we are at 36,000ish per day. The French 7 day average for daily cases is 4,300 - a massive difference.

As  @Virtual reality has just pointed out, our greater levels of testing may account for some of the discrepancy. But if you look at a rather better defined and actually more crucial measure, i.e. deaths, then the UK performance remains grim.

Uk is currently suffering 127 daily deaths (unchanged from last week), France is at 37 per day and falling (20% down on last week).

That I'm afraid is the reality, so no need to look for any conspiracy theories unless you are referring to Johnson's pathetic attempts to sell the notion that the pandemic is over and everything back to normal.

What if the people dying are not tested?

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59 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

What if the people dying are not tested?

Strange question, I imagine for the unfortunate people that are dying whether they were tested or not is the last thing on their minds 🙄

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5 hours ago, ricardo said:

Possible good news depending of course upon which Hospital door they exited by.😄

Unfortunately Ricardo quite often 150 + exit by the door that exits to the funeral directors each day, they are not being discharged.

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1 hour ago, Creative Midfielder said:

Strange question, I imagine for the unfortunate people that are dying whether they were tested or not is the last thing on their minds 🙄

Quite.  

But if they haven't been tested for covid then they won't be recorded as dying with covid. 

I hope you are right and that numbers are very low in France etc but until you know more about the comparative testing regimes these comparison figures are largely meaningless.

 

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8 hours ago, Barbe bleu said:

Quite.  

But if they haven't been tested for covid then they won't be recorded as dying with covid. 

I hope you are right and that numbers are very low in France etc but until you know more about the comparative testing regimes these comparison figures are largely meaningless.

 

I see you still just can't get your head around the fact that other countries are dealing with the pandemic better than we are.

The idea that the 'comparative testing regines' is key to understanding the actual death figures is ludicrous on so many levels I'm not going to get into that discussion.

Whilst it is true that there are differences in how countries count Covid deaths (the UK for instance has long used the 28 day rule to trim our daily numbers) if you had any experience of the very thorough (almost pedantic) approach of the French public service bureaucracy or the excellent French health service (widely recognised as the best in the owrld) then you would not be questioning their figures and certainly not in comparison to the UK ones whose provenance has shown to be shakey on a number of occasions.

Either way tests are an indicator, mainly of trends or at the individual level an early warnings, deaths are definitive (and seriously ill patients in hospital is another better indicator than tests) and no amount of whataboutery explains away a near four fold difference between ourselves and our nearest neighbour.

I'm not suggesting there is a single factor, it may be because they've vaccinated more, they almost certainly have been better at containing the spread, they have a much better resourced health service - it is probably a combination of those and other factors but the actual outcome is very clear - they haven't got off lightly by any means but they are suffering less badly than us both now and cumulatively since the start of the pandemic.

From what I hear from friends etc, life has returned back to 'normal' (not really the right word but not sure what else to use) more in France than the UK. Presumably, not just their low official numbers but the public perception/experience of low case numbers is the key to this.

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According to the BBC, we are Europe's Covid hotspot. I have no idea if that is true but the mere mention of it makes me smile after all the gloating earlier about how well we had done and Europe was siht. Something to do with fat ladies I believe.

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3 hours ago, Creative Midfielder said:

 

From what I hear from friends etc, life has returned back to 'normal' (not really the right word but not sure what else to use) more in France than the UK. Presumably, not just their low official numbers but the public perception/experience of low case numbers is the key to this.

Where do you live if you don’t think life is back to normal in the Uk? Other than a percentage of people still choosing to wear masks in Sainsburys what’s not ‘normal’ now?

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3 hours ago, Creative Midfielder said:

I see you still just can't get your head around the fact that other countries are dealing with the pandemic better than we are.

The idea that the 'comparative testing regines' is key to understanding the actual death figures is ludicrous on so many levels I'm not going to get into that discussion.

No, the reason you are not getting into thst discussion is because you perhaps know that the daily death returns from any country are only as reliable and/or broad as its testing and reporting regime: Test more, find more as ricardo would succinctly put it.

Come back with a full description of a nation's testing and reporting regime and then weighted comparisons become possible but until then all we can really see in the data of other nations nations are trends.

You would have mocked Donald Trump on these very pages for putting forward the same fallacy as you now are. I suspect though that you are so blinded by your own prejudices that you cannot actually see this.

In the long run I reckon that mortality in France will be lower than in the UK and that the UK will be judged as an average performer, with its very exposed  position and intrinsic vulnerabilities being the only thing that saves it from from a far more damming verdict. But you were not talking about long run averages,  you were trying to snipe some points with tired old comparisons between two things that cannot really be compared.

Edited by Barbe bleu

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44 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

In the long run I reckon that mortality in France will be lower than in the UK and that the UK will be judged as an average performer, with its very exposed  position and intrinsic vulnerabilities being the only thing that saves it from from a far more damming verdict

I see the point you're making here BB and you're likely to be correct on the testing / number of infections ratio. Also it IS difficult to be able to compare. Yet, why cannot you and Creative Midfielder both be right? I disagree with you that our 'exposed position' is the 'only thing' that saves our response from a more damning analysis.

Think of the care homes issue (it will never be forgotten by relatives), think of the lack of preparedness before (The National Risk Register), the PPE issue, the scandal of contracts (the Good Law Project will be busy for years on this?), the political mixed messaging. The list might be longer. Look at the way the NHS has been used.

It will be reckoned with at some stage. You'll know my politics I'm sure and I won't bang on more about shortcomings (lots of administrations have been caught well off-guard) but i will praise the economic support and vaccine procurement. We know just how well the vaccine roll out has been (NHS and volunteers). The government has learnt I feel too - like many others.

Overall though, it hasn't been a sure-footed government managing this pandemic. I don't really believe anyone can say with hand on heart that this administration has managed the pandemic well. If they do, then likewise they will be 'blinded by prejudices' as you've stated. 

I copy here one report (from an Observer editorial...think it is a fair view). When the enquiry does come the truth will emerge. The trouble comes that when you're in the midst of something it is often hard to see the wood for the trees isn't it?

 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/may/30/the-observer-view-on-deadly-government-incompetence?

Edited by sonyc

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3 hours ago, sonyc said:

I see the point you're making here BB and you're likely to be correct on the testing / number of infections ratio. Also it IS difficult to be able to compare....

, the PPE issue, the scandal of contracts (the Good Law Project will be busy for years on this?), the political mixed messaging. The list might be longer. Look at the way the NHS has been used.

 

CM will be right that france will have a lower overall mortality.  Its the misuse of daily data that I object to.

On the PPE issue I am not sure what the good law project is really trying to do with its case.  If the intent is to make a point about transparency in decisions then fair enough but otherwise even if they are successful nothing will happen other than a judge will saysl the decision(s) were unlawful and the government will say 'we note the decision but disagree with the analysis, and anyway what do you expect in a pandemic'.  At this point everyone will move on to something else and forget about the case.

 

Edited by Barbe bleu

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I don’t think you want to get too worked up about rates in other countries atm, we are all following different strategies, I’ve not been a supporter of ours, far from it, but the theory was we unlocked early and the subsequent wave of infection occurred during the summer and was heading downwards by the Winter. I never liked that idea as for me it allowed the level of infection to peak to high, I would have preferred a more gradual easing. It’s too early to say if our strategy is working but indicators atm seem to suggest it might just be, we are acquiring widespread herd immunity and as Spectre said last week, the best possible protection it seems you can have is infection followed by vaccination, not an I approach I would recommend though 😉

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Every global problem there is, we seem to get the worst of it in Western Europe First the recession in 2007, now this. At least it means heard immunity being built up I guess.

Wearing masks sucked, but sometimes we saw a funny side to it to soften the blow, such as when we were on our Falmouth pub crawl and in the last pub the maid maid came up to us, before saying “The manager says to put your masks on”, and when I put mine on the barmaid laughed and said “Looking good!”. Did also have fun with matching the mask pattern to my sweatshirt.

Am glad that’s over where I go out though, as if you’ve been double jabbed, it’s now an option in many of the pubs I’ve been to in recent times.

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3 hours ago, Barbe bleu said:

No, the reason you are not getting into thst discussion is because you perhaps know that the daily death returns from any country are only as reliable and/or broad as its testing and reporting regime: Test more, find more as ricardo would succinctly put it.

You are getting beyond ridiculous.

When Ricardo says 'Test more, find more' he is talking about the daily total of confirmed cases and of course his observation is correct, which is why I said that testing is useful and interesting but only to indicate trends and as an early warning at an individual level.

But to suggest that the reliability of the daily death returns is intrinsically linked to the test regime in place is one of the most ridiculous things you've ever come up with and not remotely worth debating.

Your premise seems to be that other countries appear to be doing much better than us with regard to Covid deaths because they are far less competent than the UK in diagnosing Covid and are therefore recognising and recording Covid deaths as such but as something else. If that is what you are suggesting then I would say:

  1. You are batsh*t crazy
  2. The excess deaths figures will prove you to be wrong

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National

33,950  - 133

rate of increase of 5.4% over 7 days

 

Local

Norwich infection rate     318.1  down 0.2% (7days) not updated today

16 patients in the N&N  5th Oct ( up 1 on previous report))

 

Vax ( vax percentages have been recalibrated to include 12-16 yr olds)

1st Dose      30,944             85.4% done                            Norwich numbers   74.5% 

2nd Dose     28,404             78.5% done                                                               67.9%

 

In Hospital (not updated today)

07-10-2021                                      6,763
06-10-2021 6,828
05-10-2021 6,850
04-10-2021 6,777
03-10-2021 6,592
02-10-2021 6,437

Only National cases and deaths updated so far

 

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1 hour ago, Barbe bleu said:

If CM had said in the long run France  (or germany)  will return lower figures than the UK he will probably be proved right. 

 

Except that I did - 'the actual outcome is very clear - they haven't got off lightly by any means but they are suffering less badly than us both now and cumulatively since the start of the pandemic.'

But as usual when faced with something undeniable but inconvenient or unpalatable from your perspective, you always opt to simply ignore the point.

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17 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

You are getting beyond ridiculous.

 

When Ricardo says 'Test more, find more' he is talking about the daily total of confirmed cases and of course his observation is correct, which is why I said that testing is useful and interesting but only to indicate trends and as an early warning at an individual level.

 

But to suggest that the reliability of the daily death returns is intrinsically linked to the test regime in place is one of the most ridiculous things you've ever come up with and not remotely worth debating.

 

Your premise seems to be that other countries appear to be doing much better than us with regard to Covid deaths because they are far less competent than the UK in diagnosing Covid and are therefore recognising and recording Covid deaths as such but as something else. If that is what you are suggesting then I would say:

  1. You are batsh*t crazy
  2. The excess deaths figures will prove you to be wrong

Easy enough to find out

https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps

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1 hour ago, ricardo said:

Easy enough to find out

https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps

Not sure if I'm misreading it but I set the weekly excess deaths to 2021 and seems to me we are pretty much in line with, if not better than, many European countries ???

Certainly seem to be better (lower average z score) than Spain, the Netherlands and Italy........and possibly Germany too ??

Happy to be corrected if I have read it wrong    

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