Covid19 Part XVII-24,841 in ROI (1,639 deaths) 4,679 in NI (518 deaths)(28/05)Read OP

podgeandrodge wrote: »

But then we have people saying deaths are overstated:

Professor Walter Ricciardi, Scientific Adviser to, Italy’s Minister of Health, reports, “On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88% patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three.”

Recording the numbers of those who die with Coronavirus will inflate the CFR as opposed to those that died from Coronavirus, which will deflate the CFR.

Report from the Italian National Institute of Health: analysed 355 fatalities and found only three patients (0.8%) had no prior medical conditions. See Table 1 in the paper; (99% who died had one pre-existing health condition): 49% had three or more health conditions; 26% had two other ‘pathologies’, and 25% had one.

The most common problems in the 355 who died were: 76% high blood pressure; 36% diabetes, and 33% ischemic heart disease.

The average age of deceased and COVID-19 positive patients was 79.5 years (median 80.5, range 31-103). The median age of those that died was >15 years higher than patients who contracted the infection (median age: died 81 years – infected 63 years).

Yeh I dont know anymore. A british study determined the opposite
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-warning-as-major-study-finds-most-elderly-victims-would-not-have-died-otherwise-11980675

But also important to remember how many people have comorbidities. For example about 2.5 billion people worldwide have hypertension, in some countries the majority of the population has a comordbidity, so it's not necessarily that reassuring

[Deleted User] wrote: »

You know more obviously but there are multiple studies that show children are far less infectious, hence far safer
https://www.hiqa.ie/reports-and-publications/health-technology-assessment/evidence-summary-spread-covid-19-children

The HIQA metastudy (from their ptess release https://www.hiqa.ie/hiqa-news-updates/hiqa-publishes-four-evidence-summaries-support-national-response-covid-19 ) indicates “While the evidence is limited, it appears that children are not substantially contributing to the spread of COVID-19 in their household or in schools."

This is a far cry from stating that children are far less infectious.

The same press release goes on to say “An Australian study that examined potential spread from 18 confirmed (nine students and nine staff) cases to over 800 close contacts in 15 different schools found that no teacher or staff member contracted COVID-19 from any of the initial school cases. One child from a primary school and one child from a high school may have contracted COVID-19 from the initial cases at their schools.”

i.e. in the only referenced study in which there were comparable numbers of child and adult index cases all (2) transmission was from a child index case to another person. Though this appears to contradict the summary in Table 1 in their report
"Number of secondary cases in students: N=2
Presumed student to student transmission:
N= 1 (high school), secondary case diagnosed
based on presence of antibodies.
Presumed teacher to student transmission:
N= 1 (primary school), secondary case
diagnosed as nose/throat swab positive.
Presumed student to teacher transmission:
N= 0"
Which in itself appears to be self contradictory.

However it is clear that children can transmit the virus.

Basing child infectivity on the relative number of child index cases is flawed logic as the possibility of child index cases would have been significantly reduced by restrictions which closed childcare facilities and schools.

In China only one person per household was allowed to leave to shop for essentials. Similarly in other countries an adult going shopping or to essential work would have been the only person in a household in a position to be exposed and become an index case.

One cannot extrapolate from the examples cited in the HIQA metastudy that children are likely to be less infectious.

The numbers in the cited studies are very low and it would be unsound to make any projection to a larger population in very different circumstances.

The largest population study I've seen ( https://zoonosen.charite.de/fileadmin/user_upload/microsites/m_cc05/virologie-ccm/dateien_upload/Weitere_Dateien/analysis-of-SARS-CoV-2-viral-load-by-patient-age.pdf ) which compares viral load, as a proxy for infectivity, in 3712 SARS-CoV-2 positive patients from 59,381 screened found no difference in viral load between age groups and cautions - "The viral loads observed in the present study, combined with earlier findings of similar attack
rate between children and adults (2), suggest that transmission potential in schools and
kindergartens should be evaluated using the same assumptions of infectivity as for adults."

bekker wrote: »

Does anyone know just what tests are being are included in the number of tests being reported in Ireland.

Are routine tests of front line hospital staff included? Are repeat tests of the same individual included?

For months been looking for statistically valid random sampling of selected cohorts of the general population at spaced intervals to get some hard data on spread. We apparently have the spare capacity to do it now, why aren't we?

We have at least 3/4 weeks before average track and trace delay is down to 3 days according to all reports. Starting before the first relaxation, and sampling at 7 day intervals we'd have 3-5 data sets to work with before capacity needs to be focussed on effective track and trace testing.

Tbh I dont know. I got tested the 2nd and colleagues the 7th. They have got their results. I still havent. It's a bit strange.

Kermit.de.frog wrote: »

I support no party. I do support common sense though.

That would be the sense displayed by the callers to the Joe Duffy show, then.

wakka12 wrote: »

Yeh I dont know anymore. A british study determined the opposite
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-warning-as-major-study-finds-most-elderly-victims-would-not-have-died-otherwise-11980675

But also important to remember how many people have comorbidities. For example about 2.5 billion people worldwide have hypertension, in some countries the majority of the population has a comordbidity, so it's not necessarily that reassuring

Correct, and what ultimately matters is how many of them end up sick enough at the same time and requiring hospitalization. Regardless of the ages and comorbidities, the hospitals in Italy were still overwhelmed.

Duke of Url wrote: »

They dont provide any breakdown of numbers.

All they say is we do 40K tests a week.

If asked for breakdowns they are not provided.

Without analytics it could be numbers pulled out from thin air.

They do and have done fairly regularly. A simple division by 7 will give you enough analytics, then apply the turnaround times and you have a graph!

podgeandrodge wrote: »

Professor Walter Ricciardi, Scientific Adviser to, Italy’s Minister of Health, reports, “On re-evaluation by the National Institute of Health, only 12 per cent of death certificates have shown a direct causality from coronavirus, while 88% patients who have died have at least one pre-morbidity – many had two or three.”

That's not saying deaths are overstated, merely that 88% of those who died had an underlying condition.

In order to check, "well was it Covid, or was it their underlying condition", then this is where the measure of excess deaths come into play. That is, we would expect the number of deaths occurring in a country to be largely predictable to within a percentage. When it drifts outside this percentage, it's a random blip. When it's way off, then a large event has affected it; such as a heatwave, cold snap, drought, or outbreak.

As of last week Italy has registered 25,000 more deaths than it would have expected by this time of the year. That's an increase of about 12.5%.

So while it can be claimed that a lot of covid deaths had underlying conditions which may have killed them instead, you still have a lot of deaths to explain.

And in the absence of any other major event, the only conclusion is that if they didn't have Covid, then these people wouldn't be dead.

There are lots of people trying to weasel their way around language technicialities online, asking questions about whether people have died "with" or "of" the disease. And other technicalities like, "Well they had other conditions, how do we know it was covid".

Pandemics don't care about technicalities. There is a virus on the loose and massive chunk of dead people that we didn't expect to be dead. Arguing the philosophical toss about what actually killed them misses the point that they would still be alive if the virus didn't exist.

bekker wrote: »

It's more than a bit strange, it's yet one more example of the cluster**** that the underlies whole testing and notification 'system'.:mad:

Hope your result proves negative.

You do love to do this now don't you - pouncing on anecdotes as evidence of widespread failure! I'd tell the poster to contact the HSE because the internet can't help them.

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

A mates daughter works in a private nursing home. Saw the unfolding ****storm in Italy , implemented several measures including restricting visitors , PPE, temperature checking of staff. Although she was directed to lift this restriction in March she ignored the direction. As of 12.55 today no Covid cases in the nursing home.

They would be part of the 35% who also had no cases.

Boggles wrote: »

Not only was the advice terrible the lack of supports after was horrendous.

It's been a systemic failure on that score inside and outside the homes.
Some are excellent, others are not.