Coronavirus: COVID-19

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mr.WHO
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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by mr.WHO » Wed, 14. Jul 21, 11:57

BaronVerde wrote:
Wed, 14. Jul 21, 11:51
That's roughly the same as the CDC article. And by your terms doesn't contain any 'data' either. What's important, contrary to your claims it states that severe Long COVID does show up in 10-15% of all cases, and 5% of all cases have critical symptoms, affecting the function of lung, heart or nervous system, possibly disabling the person.
That's why I mentioned that the studies were on Asians - I wouldn't be suprised if the figures of US would be several times higher.

Edit: Please note that I pointed out frequent mismanagement of the numbers between case total and hospitalized (hospitalized are fracture of all case total, so 30% of hospitalized is still a fracture of total recovered).

By complaining about media I refer to the Long COVID and SARS impact on case of total recovered, while most of media and articles seems to focus on percentage among hospitalized.

I'm quite sure we would come to swift agreement, if bloody media would actually pay attention to proper figure alingment and standarization.


See the section "In severe cases":
Around 10–15% of people who develop COVID-19 experience severe symptoms, and approximately 5% become critically ill. People with severe symptoms can also experience long COVID.

That's already 0.15 x 0.05 out of all COVID cases.

Then there is a breakdown by lungs, hearth and nervous with linked articles and data that show approx 30% of of that study have 1+ years effects.

This means

0.15 x 0.05 x 0.3

I and don't even want to go into that some of these are either not pernament (in slow, but noticable reversal for 1+ year) or highly subjective (the fatigue study).
Last edited by mr.WHO on Wed, 14. Jul 21, 13:52, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by BaronVerde » Wed, 14. Jul 21, 12:17

mr.WHO wrote:
Wed, 14. Jul 21, 11:57
Edit: Please note that I pointed out frequent mismanagement of the numbers between case total and hospitalized (hospitalized are fracture of all case total, so 30% of hospitalized is still a fracture of total recovered).
People are of course aware of uncertainties. Uncertainties have numbers.
mr.WHO wrote:
Wed, 14. Jul 21, 11:57
I'm quite sure we would come to swift agreement, if bloody media would actually agree and pay attention to proper figure alingment and standarization.
I can only say what I do when I look for relevant information. I go to the sources, published and peer reviewed work. And I don't allways understand everything and I don't have access to all of it because much is paywalled. I sometimes read popscience articles and if they name their sources (a link to the published, peer reviewed article) I am inclined to accept it's findings. But I ignore any news outlets, social media.

And quite fundamentally, if you found a study that you think supports your argument, name it, link it. Don't just claim 'I've read somewhere'. Not meaning that personally, but that's how disinformation can be spread to the meak.

There are a lot of journals around, the two most fundamental are probably www.sciencemag.org and www.nature.com. For most of the content expert knowledge is needed, and it is paywalled. But there are pop science interpretations (for instance phys.org, scienceinsider.com) where people process new findings for a more general audience, and they allways link the study or work they refer to. That's actually the most secure sign that an information is legit, if it names its source.

And then, of course, there is all the textbook knowledge one needs to understand for instance articles from the geoscience (my field). One can't just jump in and read an article on a specific subject. I wouldn't understand a single word of it. But that doesn't mean I am in a position to scoff or ridicule it. It is my problem if don't understand specific things.

Hope I could help somewhat :-)
Last edited by BaronVerde on Wed, 14. Jul 21, 12:33, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by mr.WHO » Wed, 14. Jul 21, 12:30

I must clarify my numbers from previous post, because after a lunch time I came to conclusion that I made two big assumtions that leads to undervalue:

"Around 10–15% of people who develop COVID-19 experience severe symptoms, and approximately 5% become critically ill. People with severe symptoms can also experience long COVID."

This means I shouldn't really use 0.15 x 0.05 because "People with severe symptoms can also experience long COVID".

This means the statement apply to 0.15, but the part "can" means anything between 0.000001 to .99999, so I made an assumption that it's only safe to take critically ill as a sure count (linked articles freaquently mention that most of long term dammage are due to physical damages to lungs, muscules in most extreme cases as well as artificial respiration), thus 0.05, but this is surely the lowest count and must be bigger.

Second the 0.3 chance for Lungs, hearth and nervous dammage - this could be 0.3 in case one person got one or all 3, but this could also stack (many different people getting different condition).

So in actualy it could be anything between 0.3 to 1.


I'd love to get my hands on 2021 data, so we could fill out the blanks and propability with actual figures.
Last edited by mr.WHO on Wed, 14. Jul 21, 14:23, edited 3 times in total.

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by BaronVerde » Wed, 14. Jul 21, 12:50

mr.WHO wrote:
Wed, 14. Jul 21, 12:30
"Around 10–15% of people who develop COVID-19 experience severe symptoms, and approximately 5% become critically ill. People with severe symptoms can also experience long COVID."

This means I should really use 0.15 x 0.05 because "People with severe symptoms can also experience long COVID".
I see you're moving to the light side of the force :-)

Just trying to be funny, but yes, I think that's how we must interpret this: 10-15% of all COVID cases can develop 'long COVID'.

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by mr.WHO » Wed, 14. Jul 21, 12:55

BaronVerde wrote:
Wed, 14. Jul 21, 12:50
mr.WHO wrote:
Wed, 14. Jul 21, 12:30
"Around 10–15% of people who develop COVID-19 experience severe symptoms, and approximately 5% become critically ill. People with severe symptoms can also experience long COVID."

This means I shouldn't really use 0.15 x 0.05 because "People with severe symptoms can also experience long COVID".
I see you're moving to the light side of the force :-)

Just trying to be funny, but yes, I think that's how we must interpret this: 10-15% of all COVID cases can develop 'long COVID'.
Then I would say you're doing exactly the same mistake as me, but with overestimation.
The actual number is somewhere between yours and mine.

Edit: We also should factor in the vacine, at least in the West the deployment is in advance so this will significantly impact the base factor of 15% severe cases (we see this in US, UK and Israel).

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by Tamina » Wed, 14. Jul 21, 20:49

It is impossible to measure numbers for something that is only a vague name for a broad undefined number of loosely defined impairments.

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by mr.WHO » Wed, 14. Jul 21, 21:49

Tamina wrote:
Wed, 14. Jul 21, 20:49
It is impossible to measure numbers for something that is only a vague name for a broad undefined number of loosely defined impairments.
I'm somewhat happy with the article I found today:
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articl ... oronavirus

- despite some flaws, like mistaking Total hospitalization with Total recovered this is first systematic work that I found among all of internet junk.
- links to source data as well as initial quality check of source author/publisher
- links to some basic definitions (ableit I laughed that one definition link contain some WHO presentation all in French :? )
- try to gather broad scope of various conditions like Hearth, lungs and nervous (untill now I was only to be able to get on dimensional studies, like lungs only).
- actually doing gradation between mild and sever cases, not mixing everything into one bag.
- seems that there is broad geographical spectrum (Bejiin, HK, UK) - the older studies that I was refering about Long SARS was from Singapore, which after some thought, might not be a good refence point (analog to SARS, Singapore seems to be dealing with COVID really well, so its severe covid figures will be much lower than other contries).


While not perfect, it seems like good starting point - if we could get more such articles with 2021 data from more countries it could actually provide clear overview.
Looking through various snippets of articles released in last two weeks, I think we are slowly reaching critical mass for data gathering, so I think we should have more and such articles in upcoming months.

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by Alan Phipps » Wed, 14. Jul 21, 22:31

I had a mildly amusing Covid test incident today. I had to do a further rapid antigen test at home this afternoon so that I could go and visit a patient in hospital. At the end of the half-hour self-test I reported the negative test result to the online NHS results statisitics gathering site as directed by the test kit. This evening I received a nice e-mail from the NHS telling me that my recent test result was negative - phew, I'm glad about that! :D
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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by BaronVerde » Wed, 14. Jul 21, 23:02

@mr.WHO: just a heads up, there is much more literature on SARS as a general illness and the SARS-COV family of viruses, put together over the last two decades. Dig in :-)


Here's how my vaccination went: First shot smoothly, nadito. They had to register me since I am an alien and not a member of the national health system. Second shot no symptoms just a little itch like from a mosquito. They couldn't find my previous reguistration from 3 weeks earlier in their database so they registered me again. Will go to free my confirmation next week and see if they have to register me a third time. Three times is for real, or so they say :-)

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by exogenesis » Sat, 17. Jul 21, 11:05

Chips wrote:
Tue, 13. Jul 21, 12:10
....

Erm, with regards to your post prior to this quoted one - the figures of the UK have for infections have a lag for hospitalisations - 2 weeks? Deaths lag even more.
Secondly, while deaths are now majority of vaccinated old (and are definitely a lot lower than if there were no vaccinations), the numbers of young being hospitalised are rising - they aren't immune to it. Obviously with zero restrictions it's going to go a heck of a lot faster and people argue that having more vaccinations prior to this would reduce this number quite a bit.

Off the back of that, long covid is a thing, and if vaccination reduces the chances of suffering from it, then that's a strong argument as well - delay would reduce the numbers who may have their future lives permanently impacted by long covid.

On the flip side, delaying longer pushes things into Autumn when flu and others may rise their head as usual and/or covid would likely transmit much quicker/easier due to confines and spaces. Last year due to lockdowns the flu wasn't too bad, but every year it kills a few hundred per day during peak winter times (allegedly), so delaying longer risks pushing covid into that area and overwhelming hospitals dramatically as both viruses are acting at the same time.
We're going to need "top up" jabs as well, immunisation doesn't give lifetime immunity, so trying to get the majority of the young *intentionally* infected may help reduce transmission rates in autumn, while govt can focus on jabs for the older again.

The sad thing is there's a lot of capacity for vaccinations going unused. I rescheduled mine, and had no problems whatsoever picking a date a mere week away. Nearly every day had majority of vacant slots to chose from. So many more members of society *could* get immunised, but the yooof don't seem interested or believe in it. Who knows. Maybe give them a free pint if they get jabbed or a 50% reduction on entry price to a match or club.

As for mutations and evolving - if there's a 0.0001% chance of a mutation, then the difference between 10,000 daily infections and 1,000,000 daily infections would be significant - and of those some of the mutations may prove to be far more virulent and deadly. If the R number drops below the ability to maintain spreading the virus due to vaccinations and restrictions, then the chances of more mutations (and having a really bad mutation) drop, and any new ones may die out prior to actually spreading. Covid may never die out entirely, but the hope is to ensure due to vaccinations and more than the R rate drops below 1. Going "let it rip everywhere" may just result in more really bad mutations.

There are arguments for both ways (don't throw off restrictions vs going free) as they outline. Personally I think it's mental that they're going as far as they're going - 70,000 crammed into a stadium, talk of night clubs and so on. Are they really necessary and important in the scheme of things? Not really, and delaying with a public statement that lack of vaccination uptake being the reason may help tease people out (I think that's what they're doing with talk of people who are vaccinated not having to isolate on return from holidays, which in turn has led to some threatening doctors and medical staff as they want a second jab way before time allows purely so they can go on holiday). Politicians don't have their eye on the wellbeing of the public alone. They've other considerations, including their own electability.
Kept meaning to say thank you for this post, says most of the things I've been wanting to allude to.

A recent worrying figure is that 58% of UK pregnant women have not had a vaccination (i.e. declined to have jab),
possibly due to earlier announced worries about side-effects.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57840159

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by Chips » Sun, 18. Jul 21, 12:11

mr.WHO wrote:
Tue, 13. Jul 21, 12:43

The Long SARS was well studies and it wasn't out of ordinaty to have symptoms up to 3-6 months (including temporary changes in lungs). Only Most sever cases were above 12 months and having pernament dammage is like winning a lotery (I think there was only a dozen or two dozen cases out of all SARS cases).
For someone who seems so focussed upon numbers and statistics, the idea that a dozen or two cases in... was it 9000 cases of the virus in total (SARS), is like "winning the lottery" (where odds of winning the jackpot I assume, are usually in the tens or hundreds of millions to 1), is only slightly less amusing statistical voodoo than seeing you critique a lack of statistics followed by misuse of figures when you have them in subsequent posts (though you do eventually realise). Does highlight a very soft version of the risk with people grabbing and (mis)using data though.

Anyhow, apparently the UK has a new trial - so that instead of isolating after being notified you've been in contact with someone who's got Covid, you can instead submit daily tests in order to continue working (out of work, you must self isolate still). The headline article is undoubtedly going to be read by many who don't then read the article and just see "they won't self isolate". Wonder what'll happen with that!

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57877373

Oh look, a u-turn on that one. I didn't even get to click post before it happened.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-57879730

Perhaps someone somewhere pointed out the "Do as I say, not as I do" is not the way to go for leadership...

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by BaronVerde » Sun, 18. Jul 21, 12:39

Those idiots lack the personality to lead. They're utterly inapt for the job.

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by exogenesis » Mon, 19. Jul 21, 00:35

Looking back to the so-called 'Great UK Covid Clean-out of 2021',
it looks like that on one specific day, when daily cases of viral infection were soaring (again) & with follow-on deaths rising,
the UK decided it was the ideal time to remove mandatory restrictions (these were social measures designed to minimise infection),
& allow a return to normal social interactions, after a period of more than a year of what was then termed 'lock down'.

With the world watching, it seemed for a while as if things were under control,
and many countries unfortunately then followed suit.

Despite a strong vaccination program, where at least 75% of the UK population had been innoculated,
overall it was a disaster for the UK, population & economy wise.
Mostly this was caused by multiple resurgence of infection due to viral mutations.

After the UK mostly recovered some 10 years later it was decided that these decisions
could no longer be left purely in the hands of politicians,
but based on a fully independant medical & science led commitee, with national powers.

On a somewhat positive side, at the time, the reduction in the weak & vunerable members of the UK
somewhat strengthened the population, just allowing those people who could cope with with the viral infection to survive,
leading to a healthier average state.

Now several decades later, with the looming threat of the world-wide pandemic of 'Monkey Virus J-23',
can we expect these historical lessons will help us ?
We can only hope.




Please tell me we're not really going to do this,
are we ?

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by pjknibbs » Mon, 19. Jul 21, 07:44

I think that's a little bit "the sky is falling", exogenesis. For a start, the deaths at the moment aren't really tracking the number of cases. Just compare now with January--back then, we had about the same number of cases but the deaths were thousands a day, now, it's double digits.

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by Gavrushka » Mon, 19. Jul 21, 13:21

I feel it was a mistake to remove compulsory mask wearing, but not of removing other restrictions. Mask wearing was made a legal requirement *because* it is a way of helping protect others from an infection the wearer might have. - Thing is, those who aren't concerned with the wellbeing of others aren't gonna give a stuff now it's optional whereas the more empathic will do the 'right thing' regardless.

As someone on Twitter wrote just a few hours ago:
Joanne Harris wrote:If your freedom limits the freedom of others, then it was never “freedom” at all.
There may be those who will now try and justify why it's okay not to wear masks in shops, on transport or wherever there are people gathered together, but short of those with medical exemptions, the reason is because they don't care enough about the wellbeing of others.

And, the thing is, that's just the way the world is, and why we need laws. Some people will do the right thing because it's the right thing, whereas others do it reluctantly because 'consequences.'
“Man, my poor head is battered,” Ed said.

“That explains its unusual shape,” Styanar said, grinning openly now. “Although it does little to illuminate just why your jowls are so flaccid or why you have quite so many chins.”

“I…” Had she just called him fat? “I am just a different species, that’s all.”

“Well nature sure does have a sense of humour then,” Styanar said. “Shall we go inside? It’d not be a good idea for me to be spotted by others.”

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by mr.WHO » Mon, 19. Jul 21, 16:43

In Poland we have outdoor mask lifted over month ago, while still retaining indoor mask (e.g. public transport, shopping malls).
In my city (population circa 800k) we already had mass outdoor events, like Beer festival a month ago (thousands of people for 3 days with nearly nobody wearing a mask), while indoor events are still limited to 50% capacity and rather infrequent comparing to pre-covid times.
Two weeks ago we had an outdoor Food festival with similar numbers of participants and I can atest there was no social distancing and masking was in name only (you can't eat in mask).
So far the numbers are kept steady and for over two weeks we have ~100 new cases and ~10 deaths for entire country. Numbers of hospitalizations is steady around 500 and there is only 2-3 days lag in tracking. I'd expect that these would be the numbers for my city alone, not the whole country.

IMO, at least in Poland case it might be that during summer time we stay longer in outdoor activity and the cities are less densly populated, so transmission chain is somewhat limited naturally.

According to this one, on weekly trends, we have +9% of cases and -28% deaths, so vacinees are starting to kick in well.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavir ... ekly_table

I'd say the crucial part of mask mandate is focus on indoor and that's what I intend to do even if all mask mandates would be lifted.
I already see that barely 1 out of 10 person wear mask outdoor, but it's around 9 out of 10 wearing one indoors (and I count incorrect wearing, with nose sticking out as no mask).

Everyone expect new wave around September/October when people will get back to mainly indoor activities.


BTW I'd argue if we should count a busy street in the middle of London (or any other huge city) as "outdoor" - IMO, in such case, I'd probably still wear a mask.

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by Alan Phipps » Mon, 19. Jul 21, 19:48

I'm still wondering what I'll do if somebody I don't know at all gets too close to me (indoors or outdoors) and either sneezes or coughs in my direction without properly covering it up. I think I will be quite worried and very annoyed.
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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by mr.WHO » Mon, 19. Jul 21, 20:40

Alan Phipps wrote:
Mon, 19. Jul 21, 19:48
I'm still wondering what I'll do if somebody I don't know at all gets too close to me (indoors or outdoors) and either sneezes or coughs in my direction without properly covering it up. I think I will be quite worried and very annoyed.
Actually, yesterday I was riding a bike and stopped next to badly coughing person. I'm vacinated for over a month, but it was still a bit displeasing - it could be flu, it could be COVID, or it could be tuberculosis.
You will have to get accustom to it or never again go outside of your home. Albleit, I always tried to stay away from coughing people ever since I watched Contagion, so it's nothing new for me.

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by Tamina » Mon, 19. Jul 21, 20:53

Alan Phipps wrote:
Mon, 19. Jul 21, 19:48
I'm still wondering what I'll do if somebody I don't know at all gets too close to me (indoors or outdoors) and either sneezes or coughs in my direction without properly covering it up. I think I will be quite worried and very annoyed.
So Corona hasn't changed anything in that regard? :D

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Re: Coronavirus: COVID-19

Post by fiksal » Mon, 26. Jul 21, 13:57

What an unpleasant second shot for me was. But it's done.


On a related note, majority of Russians I know are not vaccinated on purpose. The ones living in Russia I can forgive, because I myself cant make sense out of the vaccine quality over there. The ones living not in Russia, I feel I must limit interactions with.

One specifically said yesterday that he would've gotten many vaccines if he'd think COVID was real.

Gavrushka wrote:
Mon, 19. Jul 21, 13:21
I feel it was a mistake to remove compulsory mask wearing, but not of removing other restrictions. Mask wearing was made a legal requirement *because* it is a way of helping protect others from an infection the wearer might have. - Thing is, those who aren't concerned with the wellbeing of others aren't gonna give a stuff now it's optional whereas the more empathic will do the 'right thing' regardless.

As someone on Twitter wrote just a few hours ago:
Joanne Harris wrote:If your freedom limits the freedom of others, then it was never “freedom” at all.
There may be those who will now try and justify why it's okay not to wear masks in shops, on transport or wherever there are people gathered together, but short of those with medical exemptions, the reason is because they don't care enough about the wellbeing of others.

And, the thing is, that's just the way the world is, and why we need laws. Some people will do the right thing because it's the right thing, whereas others do it reluctantly because 'consequences.'

Indeed. Those who arent concerned, arent vaccinated didnt wear the mask properly half the time, but they would wear it right occasionally on pure accident.

We still have them mandatory till September at least.
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