sonyc 5,447 Posted October 9, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, Mark .Y. said: 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 Here you go Mark. UK quite behind Italy and Spain. I tend to use Our World in Data for such sources. Good source for lots of things. Edited October 9, 2021 by sonyc 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Barbe bleu 804 Posted October 9, 2021 (edited) 3 hours ago, Creative Midfielder said: 👍 Plenty to chew on there, although the section on @Barbe bleu's sanity, or otherwise, seemed a little flimsy 😀 You are getting offensive now. Wind your neck in. I'll give a illustration. In country (a) covid tests are readily available and routinely undertaken. Unfortunately a man has terminal cancer and dies. Just before his death he tests positive for covid and is recorded as a covid casualty. In country (b) less value is placed on testing. They are carried out where symptoms are present and worrying but otherwise they are not. Unfortunately a man has terminal cancer and dies. Just before his death no covid test is carried out. He is not recorded as a covid casualty. I'll agree with you about excess deaths, it is this measure that will reveal which of the two approaches better reveals the true state of the pandemic but your original post was not about excess deaths, this is something you have introduced just now (and with which I would fully agree) Edited October 9, 2021 by Barbe bleu Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Barbe bleu 804 Posted October 9, 2021 1 hour ago, Mark .Y. said: 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 Can you say that again for CM's benefit? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yellow Fever 3,690 Posted October 9, 2021 2 hours ago, Mark .Y. said: 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 I haven't looked at this for ages - but I think you can ONLY see 'weekly' z scores not cumulative. Choose your poison! Perhaps I'm playing with the site wrong too! SonyC graphs look and feel correct. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Creative Midfielder 1,976 Posted October 9, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, Barbe bleu said: You are getting offensive now. Wind your neck in. I'll give a illustration. In country (a) covid tests are readily available and routinely undertaken. Unfortunately a man has terminal cancer and dies. Just before his death he tests positive for covid and is recorded as a covid casualty. In country (b) less value is placed on testing. They are carried out where symptoms are present and worrying but otherwise they are not. Unfortunately a man has terminal cancer and dies. Just before his death no covid test is carried out. He is not recorded as a covid casualty. I'll agree with you about excess deaths, it is this measure that will reveal which of the two approaches better reveals the true state of the pandemic but your original post was not about excess deaths, this is something you have introduced just now (and with which I would fully agree) Your examples are contrived, marginal and irrelevant, and in any case you have no evidence that there is any significant difference in testing strategy between the two countries I compared. But since you don't like the result of the comparison, you are groping for a very speculative and unsubstantiated explanation to replace the several factual explanations I provided. But enough of that futile discussion - I did introduce excess deaths because you were trying to dispute other well founded statistics on very spurious grounds, and excess deaths are a measure over which there can be no real dispute - something which you have just acknowledged. So if I scroll back a few posts I see that @Sonyc has very kindly posted a nice chart showing excess deaths in a variety of European countries which shows very clearly that France, over the course the pandemic, has performed very much better than the UK (and to nobody's surprise Germany has performed better than both). So maybe we can give up on the nonsense that the UK performance has been good, or even average. We are in the bottom group, struggling to avoid relegation, and it is long past time we should have a Public Enquiry running to produce an objective analysis of what has gone wrong and what should be done to fix it. Edited October 9, 2021 by Creative Midfielder Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Barbe bleu 804 Posted October 9, 2021 (edited) 13 hours ago, Creative Midfielder said: Your examples are contrived, marginal and irrelevant, and in any case you have no evidence that there is any significant difference in testing strategy between the two countries I compared. But since you don't like the result of the comparison, you are groping for a very speculative and unsubstantiated explanation to replace the several factual explanations I provided. I don't know any more about the testing regime in France (or anywhere else) than the details provided by ricardo. I've never claimed to either. And nor do you. And as it is you and not me that tried to compare figures I would say that the onus is on you to demonstrate why the figures are comparable. Otherwise its just a cheapshot by you and not robust debate. Edited October 10, 2021 by Barbe bleu Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mark .Y. 350 Posted October 10, 2021 (edited) 12 hours ago, sonyc said: Here you go Mark. UK quite behind Italy and Spain. I tend to use Our World in Data for such sources. Good source for lots of things. Thanks sonyc ...............that is much clearer I guess the only issue around it is each countries method of recording Covid-19 deaths. I know for sure that Spain under-reported relevant deaths at the start of all this, it caused a huge amount of controversy amongst the Spanish people and in the media. Conversely, I seem to remember something about Belgium almost over-reporting their death figures. Edited October 10, 2021 by Mark .Y. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yellow Fever 3,690 Posted October 10, 2021 Here's a good read that puts a few myths to bed. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/10/covid-by-numbers-10-key-lessons-separating-fact-from-fiction 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ricardo 7,239 Posted October 10, 2021 4 hours ago, Yellow Fever said: Here's a good read that puts a few myths to bed. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/10/covid-by-numbers-10-key-lessons-separating-fact-from-fiction This chart is a good guide to the age group risk of death 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ricardo 7,239 Posted October 10, 2021 National 34,574 - 38 rate of increase of 7.8% over 7 days Local Norwich infection rate 308.8 up 0.9% (7days) 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 26,157 85.5% done Norwich numbers 74.6% 2nd Dose 32,755 78.5% done 68.5% In Hospital 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 01-10-2021 6,590 30-09-2021 6,763 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
nevermind, neoliberalism has had it 159 Posted October 10, 2021 On 07/10/2021 at 18:25, How I Wrote Elastic Man said: I'm sure someone will correct me if I am wrong, but I think emergency opening hours for pubs was introduced during WW1.....and eventually relaxed at the end of the 1980's Did you realise this was a serious question? Emergency legislation introduced for the pandemic is still governing everything that is being done, sorry When, why and how something is being done, under this legislation. Has it been rescinded? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
How I Wrote Elastic Man 1,167 Posted October 10, 2021 21 minutes ago, nevermind, neoliberalism has had it said: Did you realise this was a serious question? Emergency legislation introduced for the pandemic is still governing everything that is being done, sorry When, why and how something is being done, under this legislation. Has it been rescinded? Yes, I realised it was a serious question My point was that emergency legislation can take a long time to be reversed, though @Aggy has cast doubts on the accuracy of my recollection of the example I gave To be honest, I'm not sure what legislation you are referring to, as I haven't paid close enough attention to covid in the UK 😳 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yellow Fever 3,690 Posted October 10, 2021 Two graphs and data taken today from the Govt. Covid 'Daily Summary'. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ You can see at a stroke why I don't read too much into the headline 'daily' PCR confirmed tests as opposed to true random sampling - People tested positive UP 7.8% on the week BUT virus tests conducted DOWN 14.2% on the week. I guess as per comments on testing in other countries if you don't test you won't find. Seems that could apply to us as well. Who are we fooling ? Cases People tested positive Latest data provided on 10 October 2021 Daily 34,574 Last 7 days 260,787 18,782 (7.8%) Rate per 100,000 people: 348.3 All cases data Testing Virus tests conducted Latest data provided on 7 October 2021 Daily 962,225 Last 7 days 5,872,003 -973,733 (-14.2%) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Aggy 739 Posted October 11, 2021 15 hours ago, Yellow Fever said: Two graphs and data taken today from the Govt. Covid 'Daily Summary'. https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ You can see at a stroke why I don't read too much into the headline 'daily' PCR confirmed tests as opposed to true random sampling - People tested positive UP 7.8% on the week BUT virus tests conducted DOWN 14.2% on the week. I guess as per comments on testing in other countries if you don't test you won't find. Seems that could apply to us as well. Who are we fooling ? Cases People tested positive Latest data provided on 10 October 2021 Daily 34,574 Last 7 days 260,787 18,782 (7.8%) Rate per 100,000 people: 348.3 All cases data Testing Virus tests conducted Latest data provided on 7 October 2021 Daily 962,225 Last 7 days 5,872,003 -973,733 (-14.2%) I don’t think anyone is fooling or trying to fool anyone. I don’t think anyone is saying we haven’t got infections. We clearly have got high cases but hospitalisations haven’t followed. On that basis, why is there any need to try and fool people? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Aggy 739 Posted October 11, 2021 18 hours ago, nevermind, neoliberalism has had it said: Did you realise this was a serious question? Emergency legislation introduced for the pandemic is still governing everything that is being done, sorry When, why and how something is being done, under this legislation. Has it been rescinded? Didn’t the measures all have a vote in Parliament after they were brought in (admittedly quite belatedly in a number of cases)? Wasn’t there a long stop date on the legislation? I’m not saying you’re wrong, just that I don’t know and have vague memories of these things from months and months ago. What emergency measures are currently in place / what emergency legislation is currently governing everything we do? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ricardo 7,239 Posted October 11, 2021 National 40,244 - 28 rate of increase of 11.4% over 7 days waving slowly up and down for a couple of months now Local Norwich infection rate 308.8 down 3.3% (7days) 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 22,106 85.5% done Norwich numbers 74.6% 2nd Dose 19,451 78.6% done 68% In Hospital 08-10-2021 6,728 07-10-2021 6,770 06-10-2021 6,832 05-10-2021 6,852 04-10-2021 6,780 03-10-2021 6,594 02-10-2021 6,439 01-10-2021 6,592 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
keelansgrandad 6,679 Posted October 11, 2021 What will happen to all the graph paper once this is over? Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ricardo 7,239 Posted October 11, 2021 9 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said: What will happen to all the graph paper once this is over? Make masks out of them.👍 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Creative Midfielder 1,976 Posted October 12, 2021 Interesting report from a couple of HoC Select Committee's and makes many of the same criticisms of this Government's appalling response to the pandemic that some of us were making on here over a year ago in the face of some virulent criticism from the Johnson apologists https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/oct/12/covid-response-one-of-uks-worst-ever-public-health-failures or the front page of pretty much every other paper (except The Express 😂😂). Whilst I'm trying not to drop too deeply into 'I told you so mode', there is one particular bugbear of mine which I posted quite a few times about and attracted a lot of critcism (and/or derision) from certain posters that get a good airing - the failure to learn lessons from other countries: The report questions why international experts were not part of the UK scientific advisory process and why measures that worked in other countries were not brought in as a precaution, as a response was hammered out. While Public Health England told the MPs it had formally studied and rejected the South Korean approach, no evidence was provided despite repeated requests. “We must conclude that no formal evaluation took place, which amounts to an extraordinary and negligent omission given Korea’s success in containing the pandemic, which was well publicised at the time,” the report says. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ricardo 7,239 Posted October 12, 2021 1 hour ago, Creative Midfielder said: Whilst I'm trying not to drop too deeply into 'I told you so mode', 😉 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yellow Fever 3,690 Posted October 12, 2021 This report doesn't pull its punches and does indeed confirm the dither and delay at the the start as we all know. Whereas I could excuse it as incompetence at the start, I can't excuse the same again dither and delay this time last year and then again after Christmas. The clown cannot change his spots or learn anything from experience. Guilty as charged. 1 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Creative Midfielder 1,976 Posted October 12, 2021 7 minutes ago, ricardo said: 😉 I did say 'trying', so thought I did pretty well - I could have said an awful lot more 😃 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
horsefly 4,263 Posted October 12, 2021 1 hour ago, Creative Midfielder said: Whilst I'm trying not to drop too deeply into 'I told you so mode', there is one particular bugbear of mine which I posted quite a few times about and attracted a lot of critcism (and/or derision) from certain posters that get a good airing - the failure to learn lessons from other countries: Indeed! It's really worth watching the Sky News Hotspots documentary of the Covid pandemic. It's particularly relevant because it collates news reports and interviews made throughout the progress of the crisis. I remember one interview with an Italian Mayor when Italy's health service was at breaking point (being 3 weeks ahead of us) and the UK had at that time only experienced a handful of deaths. He literally faced the camera and pleaded with the UK government to change it's cavalier attitude to the virus predicting that it was heading for a bigger catastrophe than Italy was experiencing (he had even withdrawn his children from UK universities because of the appalling response of the government). Needless to say the government did nothing, as these reports confirm. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Yellow Fever 3,690 Posted October 12, 2021 (edited) The sad truth is that this government is by nature and design full of 3rd rate, unthinking populists as required by their Brexity base. As such its no surprise to anybody that they failed so badly when faced with the pandemic. It was simply a problem well beyond their very limited competence, intelligence and imagination to handle. It simply exposed them for what they are and continue to be. Charlatans. At least we know why Johnson choose to 'get away' again. Don't come back. Edited October 12, 2021 by Yellow Fever Alternatively - If you elect a government of fools don't be be surprised when they act foolishly. Covid doesn't care about 'boosterism' (perhaps Woosterisms) or myths. 2 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Creative Midfielder 1,976 Posted October 12, 2021 1 hour ago, BigFish said: Yes, I think the stupidity of his comments made it pretty clear that he hadn't read it, especially all the guff about little was known about the virus, blah, blah, blah - if he had read the report at all he would have known that many of the criticisms revolve around both their poor use/decision making based on the the information they did have and their total failure to learn from other countries and international scientists generally who had more. Most of what he claims wasn't known at the time, was known and being acted on elsewhere. Its becoming a very well-worn phrase but in the absence of anything better it was 'just another load of Tory lies' and I imagine we're going to hear a lot more of them in the next few days. Actually that isn't even a prediction - it's just going to be business as usual ramped up a level 😂 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Creative Midfielder 1,976 Posted October 12, 2021 30 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said: At least we know why Johnson choose to 'get away' again. Don't come back. Yep, bizarre really for someone who apparently thinks he models himself on Churchill and Thatcher. Don’t recall they ever hid like snivelling cowards when the going got tough, but Johnson goes into hiding every time at the first sign of trouble. Utterly useless as a leader and the worst Prime Minister this country has ever had. 4 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
ricardo 7,239 Posted October 12, 2021 15 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said: Utterly useless as a leader and the worst Prime Minister this country has ever had. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_North,_Lord_North 😃 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tetteys Jig 830 Posted October 12, 2021 13 minutes ago, ricardo said: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_North,_Lord_North 😃 wow, strong competition! I suspect there will be people in 200 years time googling Boris Johnson and his cronies and being surprised at just how inept he was as well! Make no mistake though, the problem runs far deeper than Boris. I'd imagine the "solution" we get given is another inept and morally corrupt tory replacing him. "We're in this together" was the biggest lie of them all. They are lucky Sarah Gilbert and co came along to save the day this year really. 3 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
horsefly 4,263 Posted October 12, 2021 16 minutes ago, ricardo said: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_North,_Lord_North 😃 At least Lord North managed to navigate the complexities of the comb: 1 7 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites