Coronavirus

[Rich B]

OK, pick the stat you want use instead of just “constantly complaining”.

As I said, we are doing better than France, Italy Belgium, and Spain, but not as well as Germany and Austria (accepting any anomalies in reporting obviously). These are fair comparisons and where lessons should be learnt/given.

You comparing us to Saint Lucia and the Falklands doesn’t really help, as no government short of Kim Jong Un could have closed us down enough to beat them.

Doing better by what measure?

deaths per million. That’s the stat you were quoting, and it seems a pretty sensible one to judge success by to me?

[NotoriousREV]

Oh, so you agree it’s a fair stat despite saying we should use a fair stat?

[Rich B]

Oh, so you agree it’s a fair stat despite saying we should use a fair stat?

It’s a fair gauge to compare us with our peers and their governments actions, but clearly not a fair or useful one to compare us with remote isolated islands.

Which European countries actions do you think have been the best?

[NotoriousREV]

Oh, so you agree it’s a fair stat despite saying we should use a fair stat?

It’s a fair gauge to compare us with our peers and their governments actions, but clearly not a fair or useful one to compare us with remote isolated islands.

Which European countries actions do you think have been the best?

By the stats, and trying to be reasonable about population size, Ukraine. Countries whose figures I trust? Probably Greece, they have 13 deaths/million.

We're 5th out of the G7 and 17th in the G19 (G20 minus the EU as a single entity), although admittedly there's a couple of countries I'm a tad suspicious of.

[Simon]

I wonder if this is because they're only really testing people once they get to hospital admission, by which point their symptoms are much more acute. I think the other nations are testing in larger numbers, including members of public who don't ever need hospital care and who are likely to survive better.

To be fair, I don't think there's a direct correlation between 'late to lockdown' and number of deaths/million. That's because on the whole the NHS isn't overwhelmed to the point where fatalities increase. There's more likely to simply to be a correlation between 'late to lockdown' and 'total number of cases/deaths'.

[NotoriousREV]

I wonder if this is because they're only really testing people once they get to hospital admission, by which point their symptoms are much more acute. I think the other nations are testing in larger numbers, including members of public who don't ever need hospital care and who are likely to survive better.

To be fair, I don't think there's a direct correlation between 'late to lockdown' and number of deaths/million. That's because on the whole the NHS isn't overwhelmed to the point where fatalities increase. There's more likely to simply to be a correlation between 'late to lockdown' and 'total number of cases/deaths'.

You don't think "late to lockdown" means "greater opportunity for the infection to spread"? Bearing in mind our lack of testing and therefore no real idea of infection rate. Also, we know viral load is the best indicator of severity, so the more exposure you get, the more likely you are to die.

[Rich B]

Oh, so you agree it’s a fair stat despite saying we should use a fair stat?

It’s a fair gauge to compare us with our peers and their governments actions, but clearly not a fair or useful one to compare us with remote isolated islands.

Which European countries actions do you think have been the best?

By the stats, and trying to be reasonable about population size, Ukraine. Countries whose figures I trust? Probably Greece, they have 13 deaths/million.

We're 5th out of the G7 and 17th in the G19 (G20 minus the EU as a single entity), although admittedly there's a couple of countries I'm a tad suspicious of.

Difficult one again, as those put China and USA as dealing with it “better” than us!


The Eastern European countries do seem to be coping better in numbers - what are they doing that is doing it?

[drcarlos]

It’s a fair gauge to compare us with our peers and their governments actions, but clearly not a fair or useful one to compare us with remote isolated islands.

Which European countries actions do you think have been the best?

By the stats, and trying to be reasonable about population size, Ukraine. Countries whose figures I trust? Probably Greece, they have 13 deaths/million.

We're 5th out of the G7 and 17th in the G19 (G20 minus the EU as a single entity), although admittedly there's a couple of countries I'm a tad suspicious of.

Difficult one again, as those put China and USA as dealing with it “better” than us!


The Eastern European countries do seem to be coping better in numbers - what are they doing that is doing it?

Far lower population densities maybe?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_c ... on_density

[Swervin_Mervin]

Also, we know viral load is the best indicator of severity, so the more exposure you get, the more likely you are to die.

Do we?

[GG.]

That sentence is a bit confused. Viral load doesn't mean amount of virus you've been subjected to. Viral load is amount of virus replicating in your body - i.e. how much has been made.

You would think it's self-evident that the higher the viral load the worse your body will be doing as there is more of the virus in your blood/bodily fluids but apparently that's not necessarily the case. Asymptomatic patients can apparently have as high viral loads as ones badly affected.

We also don't definitively know whether high initial exposure is more likely to mean a higher viral load is achieved, or that load increases more quickly and even then, whether it would necessarily correlate with symptom severity. It has been suggested it may and would explain why larger numbers of otherwise healthy heathcare staff are being badly affected but this article questions that:

https://www.newscientist.com/article/22 ... -19-worse/

I think Dave is suggesting that the later the lockdown, the higher the number of people that would contract at a higher exposure value, therefore we would have more cases with high severity. As above, it’s probably too early to say that would have had a large impact in reducing deaths. The evidence of peak falling at a date prior to the strict lockdown commencing also means that the significance of a full lockdown in and of itself may be being overstated- at least over and above the impact of effective social distancing and other preventative measures such as handwashing.

So, to sum up - no-one definitively knows and the suggestion that a lockdown would have been more effective, earlier, longer, stricter, etc. is all just conjecture at this point no matter how much it would seem to stand to reason.

[Swervin_Mervin]

I know what Dave's suggesting - but has that actually been confirmed? It was posited as a theory a few weeks ago.

Genetics is also seemingly key, or is entirely key, who knows. I hadn't seen this article when I posted - I'd already heard that certain Pharmas were looking into treating the extreme immune response, on the basis the evidence was pointing to a genetic susceptibility being the primary factor.

I'm sure viral load must also play a part, but it would be interesting to know how much, and what degree of overlap is required with genetic susceptibility to result in a severe response.

The genetic side of it just makes conparison with other countries death rates all the more difficult. Then there's population density.

Would be interesting to see the death rate in London specifically against, say, Paris, New York and Berlin

[GG.]

No - high initial exposure to disease severity is not a correlation that has been proven (see new Scientist article above).

Immune response is also very sex dependent. Women's immune systems ramp up a lot quicker in general (thinking being that two X chromosomes (which have a high prevelance of genes related to immune function) results in lower genetic mistranslations as you have redundancy, which then leads to a more effective immune system response. Whilst that's bad for some things (e.g. autoimmune disease incidence, certain cancers), its good for others, such as Covid 19 where a greater number of men die. Also ironic to note that 'Man-flu' may on that basis be a real phenomenon...

On population density, this article is informative: https://theconversation.com/think-your- ... rope-90345. Basically, country population / area is not all that instructive and you need to look at large conurbations.

[drcarlos]

On population density, this article is informative: https://theconversation.com/think-your- ... rope-90345. Basically, country population / area is not all that instructive and you need to look at large conurbations.

Might go some way to explaining why Spain was hit so hard. Whether this is in general or just the very dense urban centres.

The uk is smaller though with 20 million more and we also have some densely packed cities too.

It doesn’t cover France, Italy or Belgium. I may have a look tomorrow for their stats if I get some time.

[Rich B]

It’s almost like it could be dependant on more than one factor....

[Marv]

It’s almost like it could be dependant on more than one factor....

It's them 5G death rays Rich, simple as!

[Rich B]

It’s almost like it could be dependant on more than one factor....

It's Boris and his 5G death rays Rich, simple as!

EFA

[Foz]

[NotoriousREV]

The problem with those figures is that they’re excess deaths above the average and most countries (including the UK) were significantly below average prior to the Coronavirus outbreak.

[drcarlos]

Was a bad week that we 12/4 and it looked to be the peak so far. Things have dropped significantly since though and the monthly average probably wont look anything like as bad as presented there.

[Foz]

The problem with those figures is that they’re excess deaths above the average and most countries (including the UK) were significantly below average prior to the Coronavirus outbreak.

That’s the point of averages tho