Coronavirus

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Apparently, S Korea relies on testing/screening alone - nailing down the denominator - and NOT broad nation-wide “stay at home” orders.

This enables them to work from “bottom up” treating/isolating only those individuals who are infected.

Not “top down” mass quarantine orders that are inherently leaky because people have to venture out for necessities

We, the US, are working from ignorance because of poor data by way of slow start at MASS testing - no idea what the denominator is. The S Koreans were ready to go with massive testing.

Our federal health services failed.
 
S Koreas’s Mass testing identified those who were infected but asymptomatic AND infectious.

Those so identified as infected were then quarantined and treated, often before their infections could grow to fatal “too late to save ‘em” levels.

That bottom up approach proved superior to the top down approach of testing only those who presented with symptoms as those positives could have been identified much sooner and before they infected others.
 
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The South Koreans worked up from the bottom of the pyramid, the base.

Statistically, they established the denominator - got a far far better idea of the total, how many were infected. From that number, compared to total national population, they could project or calculate total percentage infected.

Then, working from that total, the denominator, to the numerator, to the numbers of those quarantined or hospitalized or deceeasd, they could calculate much more accurately the percentages. Simple fractions.

Here in the. US we had bureaucrat scientists, arrogantly telling the nation - and Trump - what percentages were hospitalized or died, etc but those percentages - on their face - were dubious if not fraudulent because the public health bureaucrats had no idea what the denominator was. They were , and largely remain, ignorant of the total number of infections.

That’s why the “models” and projections are revised contiuously.

And, that ignorance derived from their pre-pandemic decisions re testing preparedness. These are epidemiologists, after all. Someone should resign.
 
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"Antibiotics used to solve every problem. Now one of the biggest problems the world has is the germ has gotten so brilliant that the antibiotic can’t keep up with it."

-Dr. Donald Trump, M.D
 
Without a vaccine, those infected with COVID-19 must be identified, then quarantined from the rest of the population to have any meaningful reduction in the numbers, both infected and deceased.

Look at this chart:

 
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These numbers look bad.

But to me, I still argue they are of relatively little value.

To be of value, I believe the numbers need to show how many EXTRA people died with covid19 vs the normal daily average.

Yes, saying 1000 people died with covid19 in the U.K. in a 24 hour period sounds horrific. BUT the normal average daily death rate in the U.K. is 1600.

One thousand six hundred deaths EVERY DAY is NORMAL.

So, if that 1000 covid19 related deaths made the daily total 2600, THAT is meaningful.

Conversely, if the TOTAL that day was only 1000, then it was a bloody good day!

And, if the total deaths were 1600... there has been no deviation from normal.

I really wish they’d show this delta, the ‘extra’ deaths related to covid19, that would be meaningful.
 
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Ok, I’ve found where to get total death rates from for the U.K.: https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/pe...englandandwales/2020/publishedweek132020.xlsx

The data only covers up to week 13 at present.

The first chart shows total deaths in the top row, the second chart shows total number of people who died with covid19 (not killed BY...)

The Covid numbers only started in week 11 and are low in weeks 11,12,13. So it doesn’t tell us anything yet. It’ll be interesting to follow though...
Coronavirus
Coronavirus
 
NPeteN said:
"Antibiotics used to solve every problem. Now one of the biggest problems the world has is the germ has gotten so brilliant that the antibiotic can’t keep up with it."

-Dr. Donald Trump, M.D
Click to expand...
He's not a doctor, but he plays one on tv.
 
Rural physician discusses inherent flaws in death certificates and then goes on to discuss how they are now being skewed; skip to 5 minute mark:




Here is brand new official memo setting out new rules which inflate the COVID-19 death counts:

Coronavirus
 
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The NHS, the CDC, the WHO, the NIH - all of them benefit by exaggeration, by discounting less spendy therapies.

"You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before." ... Rahm Emanuel
 
xbacksideslider said:
Rural physician discusses inherent flaws in death certificates and then goes on to discuss how they are now being skewed; skip to 5 minute mark:




Here is brand new official memo setting out new rules which inflate the COVID-19 death counts:

Coronavirus
Click to expand...


Sorry, but I call BS on this. Of course there are imperfections in death certificates. Always have been, always will be. That NVHSS memo is just updating best guidance for this new situation. It doesn't indicate there is some kind of conspiracy going on to 'trump' up the numbers for some obscure "illuminati" driven agenda. The doc in the video is pushing some kind of agenda just from her tone alone.
 
Where’s the BS? She’s making a case (a very clear case IMHO) that the current data gathering and subsequent statics being used are flawed.

She didn’t propose any master plan conspiracy theory. She is saying that the world is knowingly putting itself into the biggest Depression since the 1930s and is doing so using flawed data. And that that is worrying.

People in power like statistics partly because of the fact that they do not have detailed knowledge of the issue in hand. This is not a criticism, just being head of a large global corporation doesn’t mean you know every detail of every aspect of everything that goes on in that corporation. And exactly the same (but even more so) applies to heads of state. To make sense of complex matters quickly, they like to be presented with clear statistics.

This is normally ok, but a few assumption changes, or input rule decisions, or errors in the base input data, or skewed input data, can cause big differences in statistical outcome, EASILY big enough to influence decisions made at the top.

Statistical analysis gets very complex in order to factor in myriad of influences factors. It then defeats its purpose by no longer being simple. So people then apply various assumptions to the models to simplify them. Each time this is done, the opportunity to skew the data, intentionally or not, is huge.

Statistical analysis has means and methods to avoid such things, but it all takes time and adds complexity, two things that are under huge pressure in this current case. There will be many honest statisticians involved in the process who raise their hand, but in times of stress, these people often get drowned out.

Calling out errors in the bases level data gathering and inputting in a topic this big and this serious seems very valid to me.

A fantastic, if very simple, example of this happened at Chernobyl. Radiation readings of ‘X’ were found, and whilst X wasn’t good, it wasn’t a disaster. The X readings got past up the echelons of power, each time being taken as fact.

But in reality, the device only went up to X, it was simply maxing out at that figure. People raising their hand to point this out got drowned out!

I am NO covid denier etc. But I am seeing very unreasonable use of statistics currently. And as said earlier, considering the magnitude of the decisions being made on this data, I think this is worrying.

This is why I made the point about the much used ‘death count’ figure. Without something against which to compare this (ie total deaths) it really is meaningless. But it is being splashed all over headlines all over the world.
That is wrong folks.
 
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Mmmm.

I'm with Tornado on this.

According to the presentation Doctor Annie Bukacek is pro-life (anti-abortion), supports gun sports and thanks her pastor when starting her presentation.
Note the white coat and stethoscope for props.

Seems that many right-wingers are concerned that the pandemic is being exploited to stop Trump's re-election. Given his grossly incompetent handling of this outbreak following a similar performance by many European governments (incl UK) they are right to be worried but it's hard for me to believe the conspiracy theories.

The clincher for me - Dr Bukacek's presentation has been re-tweeted by David Icke.

As Tornado states collecting death statistics is an imperfect process but the trends look pretty clear to me.

Agree with Fast Eddie that the COVID-19 deaths need to be seen in context and we'll see how the ONS (UK) stats change. These at least seperate respiratory disease from COVID-19. The numbers for weeks 11-13 show the respiratory disease death levels relatively static at 1488, 1514, 1534 whilst COVID-19 deaths are 5, 103, 539 for the same 3 weeks. Looks like a pattern to me but as ever more data would help and will become available.

Just my opinion.

On a lighter note these guys have had a good idea https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-52234129/cornwall-s-coronavirus-bikers-delivering-to-the-vulnerable

Andy
 
DevonNorton said:
Agree with Fast Eddie that the COVID-19 deaths need to be seen in context and we'll see how the ONS (UK) stats change. These at least seperate respiratory disease from COVID-19. The numbers for weeks 11-13 show the respiratory disease death levels relatively static at 1488, 1514, 1534 whilst COVID-19 deaths are 5, 103, 539 for the same 3 weeks. Looks like a pattern to me but as ever more data would help and will become available.
Click to expand...

The numbers of recorded covid deaths do increase in weeks 11,12,13, that is true. But it is not a trend, or even a meaningful pattern yet, until we can demonstrate that those deaths are actually extra deaths.

This will take some time, but now we know where to look, we can actually look for this rather than relying on media headlines.

My own personal hypothesis at this stage is that the number will show ‘extra’ covid deaths, but that they will less than the ‘1000 per day’ headlines.

BUT...

Even if you do think the lady in the video is a nut job (which she may well be for all I know), you surely cannot discount every quote and example she gave? She clearly demonstrated that there is an underlying skew in the way deaths will be ‘assumed’ to be covid caused.

Also, the NVSS document above shows the same.

And even our U.K. ONS statics do as well, it uses the phrase “Deaths involving COVID-19”... NOT deaths caused by COVID-19.

I’m not a Doctor, so I may be looking at this wrong, but to my mind ‘deaths involving’ can mean:

1. People who would not have died otherwise and were killed by covid-19
2. People who would have died imminently anyway, irrespective of covid
3. People who would have died soon anyway, and death was earlier because of covid
4. People who died whilst having covid even though it was not the cause of death
5. People who die with the ‘check list’ of covid symptoms but actually didn’t have it at all.

There may be other categories to my 5 above. But the only one that really matters is number 1. Everything else is ‘noise’.
 
I dont agree with you, Nigel.

If someone is of compromised health, with pre existing condition that makes them vulnerable to infection, and then they die earlier because of the infection, the infection still led to their death.

If they had not gotten the infection they would still be alive. If they didn't have the preexisting condition, the infection still may be killed them.

If I have stage four cancer and a doctor gives me a week to live, and I die after a moderate auto accident, and the passenger next to me survives, what is the cause of death?
 
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