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Covid 19 Part XXXV-956,720 ROI (5,952 deaths) 452,946 NI (3,002 deaths) (08/01) Read OP

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Comments

  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 36,650 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06


    In the MVCs afaik they are using Pfizer BA.4-5 so the latest updated version.

    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



  • Site Banned Posts: 5,975 ✭✭✭podgeandrodge


    Do the "old" antigen tests equally find the new Omnicron variants creeping in from US etc.? i.e still so close to original covid that no chance of test not seeing it?



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 36,650 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06


    I dont think there is much data yet re kraken

    This article mentions reduced sensitivity re asymptomatic omicron

    https://www.verywellhealth.com/can-rapid-tests-detect-omicron-6832866

    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,669 ✭✭✭walus


    The Continuous Mortality Investigation in UK recent update states the following:

    • Mortality for 2022 as a whole was 4.5% higher than 2019, but 7.8% lower than in 2020 and 2.2% lower than in 2021.
    • There is a striking difference in how mortality rates in 2022 compare to 2019 at different ages – ranging from 2.5% higher for ages 75-84 to 7.8% higher for ages 20-44.
    • In the UK, there have been around 155,300 more deaths from all causes than expected from the start of the pandemic to 6 January 2023. Of these, 72,900 occurred in 2020, 47,500 in 2021, and 31,000 in 2022.
    • In the UK, the second half of 2022 had 26,300 excess deaths, compared to 4,700 in the first half of 2022.

    https://actuaries.org.uk/news-and-media-releases/news-articles/2023/jan/17-january-23-cmi-says-2022-had-the-worst-second-half-for-mortality-since-2010/

    The 7.8% for 20-44 year cohort is particularly worrying.

    One must wonder what these figures for Ireland look like.

    ”Where’s the revolution? Come on, people you’re letting me down!”



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 5,273 ✭✭✭xxxxxxl


    Why are they using "Kraken" it's a stupid unofficial name. Is it for Fear factor ?



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,932 ✭✭✭✭Johnboy1951


    This video is worth watching as it goes through how bad the English data is - so bad it cannot be used to compare Vaxxed and Unvaxxed outcomes. The data was queried with the regulator by Norman Fenton, Martin Neil, Clare Craig and Scott McLachlan, and recently they got a reply from the regulator.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-N-17_j_44



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 36,650 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06


    This BBC article gives a good summary on factors in the excess deaths.

    • Covid is still killing people, but is involved in fewer deaths now than at the start of the pandemic. Roughly 38,000 deaths involved Covid in 2022 compared with more than 95,000 in 2020.
    • In November, for example, it took 48 minutes on average for an ambulance in England to respond to a suspected heart attack or stroke, compared to a target of 18 minutes... On 1 January 2023, the president of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine suggested the crisis in urgent care could be causing "300-500 deaths a week".
    • Some of the excess may be people whose deaths were hastened by the after-effects of a Covid infection.number of studies have found people are more likely to have heart problems and strokes in the weeks and months after catching Covid, and some of these may not end up being linked to the virus when the death is registered. As well as the impact on the heart of the virus itself, some of this may be contributed to by the fact many people didn't come in for screenings and non-urgent treatment during the peak of the pandemic, storing up trouble for the future.
    • Finally, figures up to June 2022 looking at deaths from all causes show unvaccinated people were more likely to die than vaccinated people. While this data on its own can't tell us it's the vaccine protecting people from dying - there are too many complicating factors - if vaccines were driving excess deaths we would expect this to be the other way around.



    Post edited by odyssey06 on

    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



  • Posts: 4,806 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    It is actually incredible that you can look at those excess deaths and try to blame long COVID and try to make some link to unvaccinated while not even mentioning all the unnecessary cancelled screenings and very urgent treatments...



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 36,650 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06



    I linked an article from a highly reputable news organisation, the BBC. I have given a fair and balanced summary of the article so to suggest it is something I have come up with myself is what is incredible. And by incredible I mean completely without merit or foundation and a deliberate act of misrepesentation, if not outrightly deceptive.

    Look at the post you quoted:

    • Some of the excess may be people whose deaths were hastened by the after-effects of a Covid infection.number of studies have found people are more likely to have heart problems and strokes in the weeks and months after catching Covid, and some of these may not end up being linked to the virus when the death is registered. As well as the impact on the heart of the virus itself, some of this may be contributed to by the fact many people didn't come in for screenings and non-urgent treatment during the peak of the pandemic, storing up trouble for the future.

    I will further link one of such studies, discussed on the vaccines thread, showing a significant increase in all cause mortality risk for post covid infections, the cohort in this group were unvaccinated given the timelines, but it clearly establishes that long covid as a plausible factor in deaths well beyond the timelines for what is classed as a covid death.

    This study demonstrates patients with COVID-19 to be associated with increased risks of CVD and mortality post infection (acute phase). These risks remain increased even up till a year post recovery and are associated with long-COVID


    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



  • Posts: 4,806 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    It's so lazy and yet so typical to see the mainstream media blaming COVID, long COVID and even bloody climate change on excess deaths.


    Why is nobody looking at the general busyness of hospitals and concluding that maybe it is their fault for cancelling so many things over the last 3 years while they lay practically empty at some stages.

    Why is nobody asking for a report on the full impact of reduced screenings and treatments?

    Why is nobody questioning reduced immunity? Too many people locked up and restricted from gyms etc and now our overall health is worse.


    It should be a major priority to understand why so many are dying in so many countries.

    I guess deep down they have a good idea but it's easier to blame COVID and climate change.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 627 ✭✭✭DLink


    It should be pretty obvious to a normal person that after two years (give or take a few months before any pedants try to get a dig in) of lockdowns restrictions and curtailed services that there'd be a knock on effect.

    I didn't have a cold in two years (again, give or take a few months), yet I "caught a bad dose" that wasn't covid in early December that I still haven't fully shaken off.

    Reduced immunity perhaps?

    I'm not a boards.ie certified medical professional so I can't answer that one legally, but anecdotally I believe bugs and "bad doses" are playing catch up on us.



  • Moderators, Education Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 35,227 Mod ✭✭✭✭AlmightyCushion


    It could just be that there is a bad dose going around like the flu that was circulating late 2019 prior to covid.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 627 ✭✭✭DLink


    And, for example, what about the missed cancer appointments / diagnoses?

    You can't blame a "bad dose" for them.



  • Moderators, Education Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 35,227 Mod ✭✭✭✭AlmightyCushion


    I never said anything about any of that. All I said was just because there is a bad dose going around, it doesn't mean it is because our immune systems are weakened because of lockdowns or restrictions. We have had plenty of bad doses in the past.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 627 ✭✭✭DLink


    Well I'm sticking with the reduced immunity story, can't be making excuses for the pointless covid restrictions.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 36,650 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06


    And along similar lines, this is an article pre-dating Covid, concerned about a new more dangerous strain of Strep A.


    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 36,650 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06


    We need to be specific about what we mean by "reduced" immunity or "immunity debt". We may have lost some of the carryover immunity e.g. flu infection from one year carrying over from one year to the next but there is absolutely nothing to suggest that our immune systems are worse at fighting off infections. We know that such 'carryover' is very limited because you can get infected again and again with flu, RSV and the flu vaccine needs to be updated each year to account for new strains.

    And we are seeing a surge in 'novel' infections ie children encountering a disease for the first time but nothing to suggest that their immune systems at 'worse' at that than before.

    But sadly, those with political or ideological agendas have been quick to fit this into their pre-existing narrative: some have said it’s a consequence of lockdown and children not being exposed enough to diseases and building up an “immunity debt”, while others have said it’s due to weakened immune systems from prior Covid-19 infection, given that the majority of children have now had Covid-19.

    Neither of these hypotheses has enough data to support it yet. And in fact one could also argue that restrictions on social mixing and the reduced transmission of all infectious diseases delayed strep A infection in children, including severe cases. A similar argument can be made for the benefits of delaying RSV infection in infants, which can trigger recurrent wheezing and asthma during childhood.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/06/strep-a-uk-myths-deaths-children

    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,932 ✭✭✭✭Johnboy1951



    Maybe you should see the response shown in the video I linked and how the data on which the BBC based its article is questioned.

    As for the BBC being reputable ..... yes it used to be but anyone taking notice knows its former reputation is considerably tarnished now.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 36,650 ✭✭✭✭odyssey06


    Random bunch of youtubers v the BBC?

    Right.

    Come back to us when you have some real data and not a bunch of youtubers 'just asking questions' in a long winded video. Nobody has time to sit through all the videos linked on this forum.

    The BBC are basing it on official UK data.

    "To follow knowledge like a sinking star..." (Tennyson's Ulysses)



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 13,932 ✭✭✭✭Johnboy1951


    That has really shown your ignorance.

    no need to say much more.



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,101 ✭✭✭✭Dohnjoe


    Hospitals had to cancel operations and screenings due to the pandemic, likewise during that period less people obviously went for screenings due to Covid. This was the first winter without masks and distancing, ergo we had high cases of flu, Covid, additional respiratory diseases.

    We do have a decent understanding of why there are more excess deaths, there are numerous factors, as already pointed out. Ageing populations, over-crowded hospitals, reduced healthcare staff, delayed treatments/screenings, Covid and long Covid, summer heatwaves, and so on.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,101 ✭✭✭✭Dohnjoe




  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 40,968 ✭✭✭✭eagle eye


    Pointless COVID restrictions? When were these?

    Do you remember what happened when we let people off to Cheltenham and cases exploded when they got back or when we relaxed restrictions in December 2020 and how bad things were in January 2021?

    I don't think anybody liked the restrictions but most accepted they were the right thing at the time.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,669 ✭✭✭walus


    There is neither Ivor Cummins, nor Jesus Christ in it afaik.

    100% BBC content only.

    ”Where’s the revolution? Come on, people you’re letting me down!”



  • Posts: 4,806 ✭✭✭ [Deleted User]


    We didn't have to cancel screenings and treatments. We chose to.

    Hospitals had 2 very quiet years during COVID for the most part. Plenty of people including myself posted about A+E wait times of under 20mins.

    I was waiting for a routine procedure that was cancelled at a time when we had 23 cases in hospital in the whole country.


    The other side of it is that our leaders and health officials and the media terrified people so they stayed away from hospitals.

    It is these failed lockdown policies that is contributing to our excess deaths now.


    This is not surprising though. In fact, several of us predicted the economic pain and excess deaths back in summer 2020.

    What's very predictable and disappointing is people trying to brush it off as COVID, long COVID and unvaccinated etc.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,101 ✭✭✭✭Dohnjoe


    Due to a pandemic.

    ICU's reached critical levels in many cities, medical staff and professionals were pushed to their limits and over them (which is why we have staffing issues now), an estimated 80,000 health staff world wide died due to Covid, over 6.5 million people died.

    You are just sitting here, with hindsight, vaccines, knowledge of Covid, increased resistance, herd immunity, judging a period in time when we didn't have those things.



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,669 ✭✭✭walus


    What is so controversial about what Malhotra said in that interview? Which of the statements that he made are not true?

    ”Where’s the revolution? Come on, people you’re letting me down!”



  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 19,101 ✭✭✭✭Dohnjoe


    Read the links, he's a controversial figure who has anti-vax views.

    The BBC was criticised for letting this guy air his views

    "Scientists have described the doctor as “hijacking” an interview on statins to air his views, causing BBC staff to be “alarmed and embarrassed” by their booking. Malhotra recently retweeted a video by the MP Andrew Bridgen, who had the Tory whip removed on Wednesday after comparing the use of Covid vaccines to the Holocaust."

    "Dr Stephen Griffin, a virologist at the University of Leeds, said: “I am genuinely astonished by the BBC allowing someone with a known extreme fringe view on mRNA vaccines and the extent to which they are associated with cardiovascular problems to either hijack an interview on a tenuously related topic to express these views, or indeed to appear at all following even a cursory background check.”"

    "Prof Marc Dweck, the chair of clinical cardiology at the University of Edinburgh, told the Guardian: “I think that Dr Malhotra’s opinions on both statins and Covid vaccines are misguided and in fact dangerous. The vast majority of cardiologists do not agree with his views and they are not based upon robust science."

    "Dr Matt Kneale, the co-chair of the Doctors’ Association, said Malhotra’s appearance was “deeply dangerous behaviour” and called on the General Medical Council to take action."



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  • Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,669 ✭✭✭walus


    You did not answer the question. The links that you are posting are of no value. I was asking what you disagree with. I'm not interested in what news outlets think about what BBC had done.

    Are you disagreeing with him right off the bat, as he is an anti-vaxxer? 

    ”Where’s the revolution? Come on, people you’re letting me down!”



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