Covid 19 Coronavirus

[Hugh]

Greetings,

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TTFN

Hugh.

[daveuprite]

Well worth a read...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... oronavirus

[Flyfifer]

Going back to the R.
I see Northern Ireland have pronounced theirs R as 0.79.

There was a learned chappie interviewed on the telly late last night about R.

Fundamentally he said it can only be said to be a number that existed at an earlier time, as the modelling is always retrospective.

The interviewer then said to him that Germany had just declared R as 0.75.
After a little teeth sucking he diplomatically said something like --- R always has a range. 0.75 is very specific, I imagine a range of plus minus 0.2/0.3 would also have been mentioned.
He then added that is what R would have been back at the point in time the retrospective modelling related to, it can never be for the present time.

So methinks the Northern Ireland R at 0.79, unless stated with codicils, is politics.
If NI can't go with Boris's road map, with an alleged 0.79 , what will it take for them to follow----- ????

[daveuprite]

Going back to the R.
I see Northern Ireland have pronounced theirs R as 0.79.

There was a learned chappie interviewed on the telly late last night about R.

Fundamentally he said it can only be said to be a number that existed at an earlier time, as the modelling is always retrospective.

The interviewer then said to him that Germany had just declared R as 0.75.
After a little teeth sucking he diplomatically said something like --- R always has a range. 0.75 is very specific, I imagine a range of plus minus 0.2/0.3 would also have been mentioned.
He then added that is what R would have been back at the point in time the retrospective modelling related to, it can never be for the present time.

So methinks the Northern Ireland R at 0.79, unless stated with codicils, is politics.
If NI can't go with Boris's road map, with an alleged 0.79 , what will it take for them to follow----- ????

I refer the honorable member to my reply some pages ago....

No, you clearly just don't understand the epidemiological maths. R , in an uncontrolled population, is always an estimate. In a closed population under scrutiny (lab conditions etc) R can be exact. But not in the current circumstances.

However when something is an estimate, that does not mean it is wildly inaccurate or guesswork. Lots of very important decisions, policies, strategies and calculations are based on estimates which are themselves based on sound scientific research, and they are vital to our daily lives. In epidemiology of an uncontrolled sample, in this case 'the entire world human population', the reproduction rate of a communicable disease will fall within a range of likelihood. Much of statistics and modelling uses that well-established technique.

R is not a political construct. The use of R might be, if a politician wants to weaponise it - i.e. use it to defend themselves against an accusation of negligence or to attack another political actor/state - and we are seeing that kind of behaviour a lot right now. But a fact 'X', and how that fact X is deployed, are different things.

[Flyfifer]

So begging your pardon m',lud and acknowledging your positive input ---

I think where I have always been going with R is that, as interesting as it is, there are several other , relevant ,relatively easily collated, displayed every day, numbers.

People can see those numbers, they are solid, not modelled.

If the rates of decrease (hopefully) of those continue reasonably uniformly --- government will do/allow XYZ.

The problem with those however is they are definite and politicians don't like definites.

P.S. anybody who gives a two decimal place number that cannot have a plus/minus 0.2 range is clearly deluded.

[daveuprite]

Russia registered more than 10,000 new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, continuing a grim trend that has seen the country become a global virus hotspot, AFP reports. Health officials reported 10,028 new cases over the last 24 hours, bringing Russia’s total number of infections to 242,271.
The Kremlin this week eased a national lockdown to slow the spread of the virus, despite a steady rise in numbers that has brought Russia to second place in a global tally of infections, behind the United States. Guardian 13/05/20

So it looks like Putin is vying with Trump to win the CV19 Incompetence Cup. Other potential trophy holders include Johnson, Bolsonaro and Dutertes. All of them characterised by their nationalist exceptionalism, early dismissal of the dangers, arrogant reluctance to learn from others, denialism and a kind of self-important reckless immaturity. Other strong contenders in the Manslaughter Premiership are Modi of India and Amlo (Obrador) of Mexico - both displaying a breathtaking contempt for the people they govern.

When the terrible Covid death tally is eventually added up, it looks like as many as half the number could be classed as totally avoidable and the responsibility of just a handful of world leaders. What awful times to live in.

[simonw]

Well worth a read...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... oronavirus

As much as I like the occasional Guardian article, 'UK takes a pasting from world's press over coronavirus crisis' is hardly any sort of meaningful or useful measure or commentary! Because the world's press is revered for its impartiality and laser-like focus on the facts, and not at all ever concerned with creating stories which will make people buy their wares or see their advertising

Further, throw away lines like '.. UK is experiencing the worst death rate in Europe..' which links through to an article about the UK having 40,000 deaths or something like that, are a bit meaningless. A 'rate' is usually one measure against another related measure (e.g., number of deaths per x number of population, etc.) not a single number. And as such, the total number of deaths is rather meaningless. All of the UK press seem to have broadly missed this essential point when reporting the numbers. And then you get into the detail, which is even more cloudy, when you start to look at what is measured and how it's measured.

The trouble, of course, is that the minister says everything is under control, the Daily Mail says we're all going to die (especially if we have sex more than once a year - it's always good to work sex into the story line somewhere, as that sells advertising/clicks/papers), so where's the truth? Somewhere in between. Probably. Maybe.

[OnHellas]

Apparently Piers Morgan could have had it all sorted now if he’d been the PM......with confidence that high I say hand him the reins and we’ll all be out in or bikes heading of in to Europe by the end of the month!!

[daveuprite]

Well worth a read...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... oronavirus

As much as I like the occasional Guardian article, 'UK takes a pasting from world's press over coronavirus crisis' is hardly any sort of meaningful or useful measure or commentary! Because the world's press is revered for its impartiality and laser-like focus on the facts, and not at all ever concerned with creating stories which will make people buy their wares or see their advertising

Don't really get your point here. The article simply casts an eye over the press coverage in other countries of how the UK has coped with covid. And it discovers, as you could if you read the source articles themselves, that most coverage is highly critical and generally aghast that the UK failed to learn from disastrous policies elsewhere despite having a headstart to do so. Italian health professionals in particular have been appalled that the terrible mess made in Italy was not taken by the UK government as a huge opportunity to prevent a similar outbreak several weeks later. UK mismanaged it badly, costing thousands of lives, and numbers now exceed Italian numbers.

Most non-tabloid press does not only publish pieces to please its advertisers - that's too cynical and not substantiated by the articles that appear, nor by the funding model some newspapers operate under, for instance the Guardian itself, which is funded by the Scott Trust. That's not to say that abuse of interest never happens, but it's much rarer than people like to think.

And yes the numbers DO matter. The comparative numbers of deaths between different countries provides a useful way for each country to learn from what's going on elsewhere, even though there are some discrepancies in data gathering (not important enough to undermine comparisons). Indeed the UK government daily briefings were happy to include a comparative graph between countries (until yesterday!) and suddenly now seem very sensitive to comparison - now that UK deaths exceed all other European countries.

[phil_h]

Apparently on radio 4 this morning they said:
'there’s evidence that many people susceptible to Covid-19 have low levels of Vitamin D'

So, good news that everyones being told to stay inside