Covid 19 Part XXI-27,908 in ROI (1,777 deaths) 6,647 in NI (559 deaths)(22/08)Read OP

17-08-2020 12:45PM

podgeandrodge wrote: »

I see the Covid Tracker is showing 100% feeling good and 0% showing some symptoms in last few days, having been 1-2% some symptoms for quite a while.

Nice to see.

Noticed that myself but I also noticed the check ins dropped from somewhere around 250k to 150k so maybe that's part of it ðŸ€·*♂️

17-08-2020 12:47PM

Boggles wrote: »

Not only that, the amount of back stabbing and thievery that goes on in order to win one of those awards is startling.

And how often it is post doc researcher or even PHD student who made the breakthrough, and though they can sometimes barely understand the science, its the supervisor that gets the credit.

caveat emptor · 17-08-2020 12:48PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Is astonishing how many believe a Nobel implies the holder is never wrong. The list of winners who disintegrated into a level of madness in later life as their field passed them by and they became irrelevant is long.

But the other noble laureate who predicted "it'll be grand" is held up as reason we shouldn't listen to any expert?

If an expert is talking through his hole then that's on him.
It doesn't mean you give up on science.
That's my point.

growleaves · 17-08-2020 12:49PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Another huge misconception on here if the "peer review" process which is often used to imply its indisputable fact. Peer reviewed means it has scientific merit, not that it is settled science. This only arrives once the scientific community has challenge, replicated, ruled out alternate explanations and arrived at a settled consensus. A peer review in and of itself is just establishing whether a paper, study etc is of sufficient merit to be entered into the discussion. A paper can be wrong but still merit scientific consideration.

I agree. What is peer review but verification from a committee of senior scientists? Which is credible but not ultimately definitive. Peer review as a standard dates from around 1941 (was no real science done before then?) and now people who have positivism on the brain think that theories are legitimate or validated because of rubber-stamp verification. Yet the Invisible College and others neither had nor needed such.

The one to zero deaths a day might meet Levitt's definition of covid burnout, I can't remember exactly what he theorised. But my point was only that we should listen to alternate theories and be open-minded to them. Imperial College were wrong about a lot too and people cheered them like they were the home football team.

17-08-2020 12:50PM

How hard would it have been for Ireland to close its borders around mid-march?

And by that I mean mandatory 2 week self isolation for anyone coming into the country, and a restriction on flights entering the country.

Ger Roe · 17-08-2020 12:52PM

gilberto_eire wrote: »

Noticed that myself but I also noticed the check ins dropped from somewhere around 250k to 150k so maybe that's part of it &#55356;&#56375;*♂️

Yeah, I think the app use took a hit with the recent google update issue - the download total seems to have remained, but it looks like fewer people are interacting with it on a daily basis - lower amount of check in's would suggest that some people dumped it during the battery issue and didn't re-install.

I wonder how effective it is now, considering that it didn't reach the hoped for download target in the first place and then was deleted by what seems like a considerable amount of people?.

caveat emptor · 17-08-2020 12:55PM

Deleted User wrote: »

How hard would it have been for Ireland to close its borders around mid-march?

And by that I mean mandatory 2 week self isolation for anyone coming into the country, and a restriction on flights entering the country.

Extremely hard considering
aviation industry,
vitner's,
bord faite,

are big government backers and important industries.
How important versus the damage of rolling lockdowns will be found out soon enough.

The pub is an essential industry on this island.
A lot has to do with our priorities as a nation.

They closed the border during foot and mouth. No fvcks given.

Non solum non ambulabit · 17-08-2020 12:56PM

Deleted User wrote: »

7 day average is stable for the past 7 days, so is nothing like the approach to the peak. 78 on the 8th Aug and still 77 on the 16th, compared to 70 on the 19th Mar and 205 on the 27th. At no point in the initial outbreak did the number of cases plateau for a week. This tells us we have a level of control

Also add in that we were unable to test at that point as well. Lucky to do 2K tests a day.

hmmm · 17-08-2020 01:04PM

Jimi H wrote: »

The message from the government seems to be a little lost now and I think we’re all tired of it and suffering from a little fatigue.

I hear what you're saying, but the virus ultimately doesn't care if we are tired of it.

I find it hard to see how the current strategy of trying to control the numbers will work, especially if the public aren’t on board.

I think personally the public are on board, but they haven't been told that this is going to last a long time (hopefully we get a vaccine during 2021). The message got lost during the reopening phases, as if that was it and now it's all back to normal, and so people just went back to doing what they always did.

People are going to get scared if the numbers go up in the coming weeks - we need a constant level of awareness, not cycles of relaxation and then worry.

I'm not a fan of masks, but they are a very visible reminder that life is not back to "normal" yet - we should consider mandating masks everywhere like Italy. Similarly if there are other actions we could take just to repeat the message that we are in a national emergency and people need to adopt their behaviour, that would be helpful also.

giveitholly · 17-08-2020 01:06PM

caveat emptor wrote: »

Extremely hard considering
aviation industry,
vitner's,
bord faite,

are big government backers and important industries.
How important versus the damage of rolling lockdowns will be found out soon enough.

The pub is an essential industry on this island.
A lot has to do with our priorities as a nation.

They closed the border during foot and mouth. No fvcks given.

What has the vintners got to do with closing the borders?

froog · 17-08-2020 01:08PM

Micky 32 wrote: »

Nah your post is still irrelevent to me so i’lll only qoute what is relevent.

All I did was post that a handful of people i know quite well contracted Covid 19 and fully recovered. Certain posters didn’t like it and tried to make out it was lies because it didn’t fit in their doom and gloom little world. Pathetic.

it was more like people pointing out how useless a personal sample size of a few people is to come to any kind of conclusion.

fly_agaric · 17-08-2020 01:09PM

bb1234567 wrote: »

https://mobile.twitter.com/mlevitt_np2013/status/1287036738565738496?lang=en

So the darling Nobel Prize winner Michael Levitt has been completely wrong about his prediction of the pandemic effectively totally ceasing in the USA at 170k deaths. Now they are at 173k deaths and over 225k excess deaths and no end in sight to the epidemic there. Now I think it time to stop and question those who hold unwavering belief in certain individuals opinion's just because of their reputation, because time and time again it has turned out wrong since the covid outbreak began.
This prediction was so evidently going to false even when he announced it , it was clear as day, but you've posters being called out as 'armchair epidimiologists ' to in any way question the theories of somebody like this . If anything this pandemic has taught its that well regarded and intelligent scientists and researchers are more than capable of talking out their ass in order to please certain audiences and let them hear what they want to.

He is not a doctor or epidemiologist afair (more a biologist?).
However even highly intelligent and capable people can let their beliefs and biases intrude on their thinking.

There's a kind of interesting article here about a group of scientists (incl. Levitt) who were trying to get their own unconventional "anti-lockdown" ideas across to Trump back in March and directly influence the US govt. response in a sort of backchannel way (may have been posted before, likely was given size of these threads and my intermittent reading).

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/ioannidis-trump-white-house-coronavirus-lockdowns

Micky 32 · 17-08-2020 01:12PM

froog wrote: »

it was more like people pointing out how useless a personal sample size of a few people is to come to any kind of conclusion.

No it wasn’t. Stop defending that crap. I was basically accused of lying. People should be happy to see that most people are ok. Some posters on here just don’t want to know unless you get brain damage or a lung transplant.

Will we mention 84 out of the 87 people in the meet factory didn’t even get sick?

growleaves · 17-08-2020 01:15PM

fly_agaric wrote: »

He is not a doctor or epidemiologist afair (more a biologist?).
However even highly intelligent and capable people can let their beliefs and biases intrude on their thinking.

There's a kind of interesting article here about a group of scientists (incl. Levitt) who were trying to get their own unconventional "anti-lockdown" ideas across to Trump back in March and directly influence the US govt. response in a sort of backchannel way (may have been posted before, likely was given size of these threads and my intermittent reading).

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/stephaniemlee/ioannidis-trump-white-house-coronavirus-lockdowns

Interesting subheading:

'John Ioannidis’s controversial studies claim that the coronavirus isn’t that big a threat.'

Since all the studies that claim that coronavirus is a big threat have also been controverted then they are also, by definition, controversial studies.

In fact are there any high-profile non-controversial studies on coronavirus? Doubtful

froog · 17-08-2020 01:17PM

Deleted User wrote: »

Another huge misconception on here if the "peer review" process which is often used to imply its indisputable fact. Peer reviewed means it has scientific merit, not that it is settled science. This only arrives once the scientific community has challenge, replicated, ruled out alternate explanations and arrived at a settled consensus. A peer review in and of itself is just establishing whether a paper, study etc is of sufficient merit to be entered into the discussion. A paper can be wrong but still merit scientific consideration.

Levitt has been spectacularly wrong however on this

peer review weeds out a lot of bad science. of which there is a lot nowadays. it gives us some confidence the paper's science/method is good and the author's/institution reputable.

ignoring or playing down the importance of this system does allow you to pick and chose whatever bad science is floating around to suit your confirmation bias so i can see how that view point is preferable for some people.

seamus · 17-08-2020 01:21PM

Non solum non ambulabit wrote: »

Also add in that we were unable to test at that point as well. Lucky to do 2K tests a day.

In the week of 21st - 27th March, 13,300 tests picked up roughly 1,500 cases. on a positivity rate of 10-11%

In the week of 6th - 12th April (just picked one at random), we did just shy of 20,500 tests, and had a positive rate of 21%. There's no decimal point missing there. Twenty-one percent of all people tested, had Coronavirus.

In the last seven days, we did just short of 47,000 tests, with a positivity rate of 1.2%.

The raw new case numbers are scary perhaps, but we are still a million miles away from the conditions we had in March.

In many respects it's like in March we were out with a small torch looking for cockroaches and finding them everywhere. Now we're searching with a massive spotlight and only finding them in isolated corners, and in small numbers.

Wolf359f · 17-08-2020 01:23PM

caveat emptor wrote: »

Extremely hard considering
aviation industry,
vitner's,
bord faite,

are big government backers and important industries.
How important versus the damage of rolling lockdowns will be found out soon enough.

The pub is an essential industry on this island.
A lot has to do with our priorities as a nation.

They closed the border during foot and mouth. No fvcks given.

Have you a source on that? I was aware there was restrictions on animals and dairy products crossing the border but not on people.

podgeandrodge · 17-08-2020 01:24PM

For anyone interested in the mask debate, on either side, you may find this article interesting from Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota's Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy - as someone who has been accused of being anti mask, but confirms he is not anti mask but puts his views on the matter in context.

It's a robust defence of his view on masks, and his being publicly taken out of context by various scientists on the matter.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/07/commentary-my-views-cloth-face-coverings-public-preventing-covid-19

seamus · 17-08-2020 01:28PM

HSE testing data is up. Very few swabs taken over the weekend. I'd expect cases in the range of 30-60 this evening, although there could be some hold over from the end of the week that might push it up.

froog · 17-08-2020 01:29PM

Micky 32 wrote: »

No it wasn’t. Stop defending that crap. I was basically accused of lying. People should be happy to see that most people are ok. Some posters on here just don’t want to know unless you get brain damage or a lung transplant.

Will we mention 84 out of the 87 people in the meet factory didn’t even get sick?

haven't seen anyone accuse you of lying to be honest but maybe i missed the post.

look there is narrative from a good few posters in these threads that the virus has weakened/was never that bad. there is no evidence for this and the reason for low hospitalization rates right now has been pointed out several times: younger people getting it, lag effect of cases -> hospitalisations -> deaths, therapeutic strategies improved.

what we really don't need right now is people believing COVID is nothing to be concerned about anymore and having scenes like the dublin pub all over the country. it's dangerous.

ACitizenErased · 17-08-2020 01:31PM

seamus wrote: »

HSE testing data is up. Very few swabs taken over the weekend. I'd expect cases in the range of 30-60 this evening, although there could be some hold over from the end of the week that might push it up.

Seems to be no increase in referrals at all.
https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/news/newsfeatures/covid19-updates/integrated-information-service-testing-and-contact-tracing-dashboard-17-august-2020.pdf

Thierry12 · 17-08-2020 01:33PM

growleaves wrote: »

Interesting subheading:

'John Ioannidis’s controversial studies claim that the coronavirus isn’t that big a threat.'

Since all the studies that claim that coronavirus is a big threat have also been controverted then they are also, by definition, controversial studies.

In fact are there any high-profile non-controversial studies on coronavirus? Doubtful

Course he we was right

People go on about the US like it's a warzone and everyone's dieing, apocalyptic stuff , when they have practically same death rate as we do.

They've had 170,000 deaths vs our 1,744 deaths

They have a population of 330,000,000 we have 4,900,000

They have 0.051 death rate vs our 0.035 death rate and they counted so many deaths as Covid, extra money for a Covid death.

bodhrandude · 17-08-2020 01:34PM

seamus wrote: »

In the week of 21st - 27th March, 13,300 tests picked up roughly 1,500 cases. on a positivity rate of 10-11%

In the week of 6th - 12th April (just picked one at random), we did just shy of 20,500 tests, and had a positive rate of 21%. There's no decimal point missing there. Twenty-one percent of all people tested, had Coronavirus.

In the last seven days, we did just short of 47,000 tests, with a positivity rate of 1.2%.

The raw new case numbers are scary perhaps, but we are still a million miles away from the conditions we had in March.

In many respects it's like in March we were out with a small torch looking for cockroaches and finding them everywhere. Now we're searching with a massive spotlight and only finding them in isolated corners, and in small numbers.

That's an excellent way of looking at it Seamus.

Micky 32 · 17-08-2020 01:37PM

froog wrote: »

haven't seen anyone accuse you of lying to be honest but maybe i missed the post.

look there is narrative from a good few posters in these threads that the virus has weakened/was never that bad. there is no evidence for this and the reason for low hospitalization rates right now has been pointed out several times: younger people getting it, lag effect of cases -> hospitalisations -> deaths, therapeutic strategies improved.

what we really don't need right now is people believing COVID is nothing to be concerned about anymore and having scenes like the dublin pub all over the country. it's dangerous.

One poster was trying to suggest the recovered people were lying to me ffs.

Regarding the second part of your post, it has nothing to do with me what other posters think.. I did nothing of the sort posting that the virus is weakening or claiming Covid is nothing to worry about .etc etc stop twisting things around.

seamus · 17-08-2020 01:38PM

ACitizenErased wrote: »

Seems to be no increase in referrals at all.
https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/news/newsfeatures/covid19-updates/integrated-information-service-testing-and-contact-tracing-dashboard-17-august-2020.pdf

I we were to look at the trend, I would probably say that referrals last week were up 10-20% on the previous week. But that's purely from me eyeballing the graphs, not at all reliable.

Close contact numbers also appear to be stable, possibly down slightly. Which is also a good thing. Hopefully as everyone starts returning from holidays that will stabilise and drop a bit more.

Boggles · 17-08-2020 01:44PM

ACitizenErased wrote: »

Seems to be no increase in referrals at all.
https://www.hse.ie/eng/services/news/newsfeatures/covid19-updates/integrated-information-service-testing-and-contact-tracing-dashboard-17-august-2020.pdf

The right side of the graph is definitely bigger than the left side.

Also that is a quite high amount of swabs taken for a Saturday.

ACitizenErased · 17-08-2020 01:46PM

Boggles wrote: »

The right side of the graph is definitely bigger than the left side.

Also that is a quite high amount of swabs taken for a Saturday.

An increase on such a small scale is not really significant.
Mass testing swabs are received on Friday and Saturday into the lab, it doesn’t mean the swabs were taken that day. Same thing happened during nursing home testing.

caveat emptor · 17-08-2020 01:47PM

Wolf359f wrote: »

Have you a source on that? I was aware there was restrictions on animals and dairy products crossing the border but not on people.

For the 15th time. Why do we have to go around in circles. The point is there were checks on every road at the border. People could cross.

This is a different situation. The blanket claim that we can't police our border in the face of a national threat is not true.
Incidentally I don't think the NI border is needed. People in the north want cooperation on the issue as does Scotland etc. We have similar measures and they could easily be aligned.

We have a common travel are and we are not in the Schengen area anyway so UK & Ireland approach makes most sense. Some form of mandatory testing etc.

But again this could / should have been done months ago. The economic damage is baked into the cake now for another wave (Europe-wide). Countries are at least trying. Finland, Italy implementing mandatory testing for arrivals. Saying it can't be done is lazy and unrealistic. We have a massive advantage in that everyone arrives by boat or plane. QR code - passport, test, quarantine. It is doable and my guess is it will be done maybe next year when the aviation industry's life support gets switched off. You can only throw so much good money after bad.

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/opinion/want-to-know-what-a-hard-border-looks-like-the-2001-foot-and-mouth-crisis-holds-the-key-37824268.html

It was part of a foot-and-mouth outbreak that had begun in Britain in February of the same year. Overnight a hard border, a hard economic border, descended - one that the Republic of Ireland brought down like an iron curtain over the not-just-so-hard border.

Given the importance the beef and dairy industry played - and plays - in the Republic's economy, it was no surprise.

It acted swiftly and with the sort of methodical planning that one, well, associates with the Germans rather than the Irish.

The BBC news site of the time gives more than enough hints of what went on: "Irish premier Bertie Ahern tells the Irish Parliament that more than 1,000 police and soldiers are on duty at border crossings, ports and airports" and "Irish Defence Minister Michael Smyth criticises Northern Ireland border controls as not being rigorous enough to prevent foot-and-mouth spreading into the Irish Republic. He calls for a greater Royal Ulster Constabulary presence at the border."

KrustyUCC · 17-08-2020 01:49PM

Rte really ramping up concerns about the reopening of schools

I wouldn't be surprised if NPHET recommend more restrictions over the next few weeks

Hope I'm wrong though

bb1234567 · 17-08-2020 01:49PM

Thierry12 wrote: »

Course he we was right

People go on about the US like it's a warzone and everyone's dieing, apocalyptic stuff , when they have practically same death rate as we do.

They've had 170,000 deaths vs our 1,744 deaths

They have a population of 330,000,000 we have 4,900,000

They have 0.051 death rate vs our 0.035 death rate and they counted so many deaths as Covid, extra money for a Covid death.

We have 1200 excess deaths to their 225,000 however. Confirmed deaths do not paint the full picture . There is strong evidence of very significant undercounting of deaths actually, in states such as Florida which have reported 'pneumonia deaths' as multiples more than even in a bad winter influenza outbreak. That doesn't seem suspicious to you? Massive increase in pneumonia deaths in July unrelated to the ongoing pandemic ? Many states such as Texas only count covid deaths if it was the primary cause of death.
(Obviously this is the most logical practice)but either way, overcounting certainly not an issue in the US as it may have been here.

Also,for whatever reason, younger people are dying in much larger numbers in the US. 20% of their deaths have been under 65. Compared to what maybe 5% here? Iirc. Obviously this will mean a much larger impact on excess deaths there as these people would not have died any time soon most likely.

Covid 19 Part XXI-27,908 in ROI (1,777 deaths) 6,647 in NI (559 deaths)(22/08)Read OP

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