Relaxation of Restrictions, Part VIII *Read OP For Mod Warnings*

ceadaoin. wrote: »

Here is a graph comparing death rates in US states. The average is pretty much the same, lockdown or not. If lockdowns prevented deaths then the highest bars on the chart should be all red, but they aren't. Pretty sure when all is said and done, the rate will equal out across countries too, lockdown or not.

Absolutely it will. A highly transmissible virus will always find an equilibrium. Like water in the ocean.
That's why prolonged lockdowns were never recommended by the WHO.
The two week lockdown to "flatten the curve" made sense with the first or second wave last spring. All restrictions since have been counterproductive.

walus wrote: »

Lockdowns are theory that is largely based on Robert Glass model that is again based on the complexity theory. It does not take into account human psychology at all.

Utterly psychotic so in other words.

This period will not be judged kindly in years to come.

MadYaker wrote: »

This pandemic is a game of using mathematical modelling to try and predict what's going to happen and then planning accordingly. The models get more accurate the more info that is fed into them. If you only consider cases that present to a doctor you're essentially ignoring a huge amount of information that can give us a better image of what is actually happening and allow us to make better plans. More data and information is good, less data information is bad. Case numbers even if they are asymptomatic probably shouldn't be ignored. Id love to sit down and talk to someone who actually does the modelling, I find it fascinating, this new variant must have really put the cat amongst the pidgeons for them.

And this is where you are very mistaken.
Any model is only as strong as its weakest link. Poor quality dirty data is what creates weak and useless models.
Eg. anayisis comparing case numbers between time periods with differing criteria for a person being offered a Covid test is useless. Anyone who studied statistics at the most basic level will know this.
Less data, once its clean and controlled, is always better than more dirty data.
**** in = **** out.

Augeo wrote: »

Indeed, folk won't of can't accept that the restrictions prevented so many deaths. It's like if 800k don't die the covid was just a government wind up.... And the 800k wherever it comes from would have been an early days estimate .

Some seemed to think the "worst case scenaria" was actually a target we should have tried to meet.

Hellrazer wrote: »

I have to play devils advocate on this one. At the time no one knew what the mortality rate of covid was. See my previous post.

However we know now that the death rate is 0.5% or thereabouts.

This can also be applied to Italy -they have 96k deaths and an over 65 population of 26million roughly. That equates to around 0.4% of deaths in over 65s.
Ive tested this with a few countries and even Sweden 2.06 million over 65 has a similar death rate - 12190 in over 65s @0.59% - and they had no lockdowns!!!

The "death rate" is not static, it fluctuates depending on how a health care system can cope.

Also 11 months in if you are still using death as the single metric to gauge a pandemic, you are doing it wrong.

70% of people who required critical care in Sweden were under 69.

Keeping people out of critical care is the target.

Silentcorner wrote: »

Utterly psychotic so in other words.

This period will not be judged kindly in years to come.

No, it will not. I’d love to know who came up with this lockdown-until-vaccine franchise. If we had the governments of 195 countries thinking on their own we would see wide range of approaches being implemented, and possibly a couple of those strategies proven successful already. Instead we have the same strategy implemented by the vast majority of countries which only really worked in 2 of them. That only shows that this is not a universal way to deal with a pandemic.

Why on earth, having now the access to vaccines, are we not selectively isolate the vulnerable and those who care for them and their families, while the rest of us go back to living as we know it, is beyond my understanding. Surely we could do that quite effectively for a period that is required to get that group vaccinated. Also, it would not cost the 250m per week as we currently spend on this prolonged lockdown approach.
But then again if you sunk 30bn into this, another 1bn per month is only 3% more... it is cheap.

Hellrazer wrote: »

But it didn't prevent 96,000 deaths.

As I said - we didn't know the death rate back in March last year so they were right to lock us down when it wasn't known- the death rate could have been 10% for all they knew back then.

However we know now its around .5% and that should not allow them to keep us locked down as severely as we are now.

Yes, you would struggle to find arguments against the first lockdown. Back in the second week of April I did my own maths on this based on the available data and the death rate that I calculated was 0.64%. Subsequent months provided more information that largely confirmed that the death rate is somewhat lower.

So even in the early stage there was data available.

Hellrazer wrote: »

Can you genuinely explain this to me?
Its deaths that we are trying to prevent - no?

Is it though? Genuinely trying to see your side of the argument and why you would want these lockdowns to continue.

It's not my opinion TBF.

The main reason for restrictions is to not overwhelm the health system, when that happens non covid care is reduced to emergency only, and in some cases like we saw in London sadly not even that.

We either have short memories or people were not paying attention, but we just got a stark example of how fast this virus can hospitalize people, over 6,000 since January 1st and that's with applying the brakes pretty quickly. Add to that almost 2000 deaths in the same time frame.

On a plus point, vaccinating health care staff and the over 70s should knock a massive dent in it and should allow for easing of restrictions.

On the other hand it can't be a free for all, because based on the stats from Sweden the majority of people who received critical care were not in this cohort, you can still banjax the system.

And as you more than anyone else are acutely aware, the system was not fit for purpose before this happened.

Ashleigh1986 wrote: »

Now it's the Brazilian variant of covid in Ireland .
Brought in by Brazilian meat factory workers by Larry Goodman to his meat factories ?
Do ye remember keelings and their fruit pickers ?
So while we are limited to 5km, can't go to get our hair cut , can't go to 200 acres plus of a field to play golf , the elite can STILL BRING WORKERS IN FROM HIGH RISK AREAS !!!!

Thousands of Brazilians that live here went home and partied for Christmas too, it's not just factory workers!

The UK have extended their lockdown powers to July...just in case.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain-lockdown-idUSKBN29S0PW