Covid

[lens]

An interesting anecdote Danny, but I'm not sure I see the relevance to any general Covid situation, as you can't compare a small closed community like a submarine with a country as a whole? Not with anything where immunity gained is not 100% and/or permanent.

In the submarine any infection is likely to infect anyone susceptible pretty quickly, and after that the immunity should protect anyone long enough for all cases to die away before the immunity wanes. A country isn't like that. Plenty of opportunity for someone to get it, have a certain immunity for a while, then get an infection elsewhere as the latter starts to wear off.

Of course, you could split the population up into groups of about 100, seal them in metal tubes for a couple of months in isolation, and at the end no Covid! Brilliant! May have certain factors against it though....... (And then does any country that did decide to try it then seal itself off from the rest of the world for evermore?)

[lens]

Sept 14, 2023 20:56:22 GMT alec said:

I notice in these discussions you normally skirt past the science, because I think you're still stuck at the point of focusing on the problems of transmission reduction, rather than taking the time to understand the multifaceted impacts covid is having. I'm more interested in working out how we can mitigate the harms from covid, possibly because I follow the science a bit more on this and I see what's actually happening.

If I "skirt past the science", it's partly because this is a general discussion website, rather than writing a formal paper for review. But largely because I'm less in dispute about the minutiae of the scientific detail you may present - I'll take it as read that being ill, be it Covid or other things - is normally a *bad-thing*. In this case, the detail is far less relevant than the whole. And by "the whole" I don't just mean actual health aspects, but also economic, societal, psychological, educational etc etc aspects as well. I do believe the initial lockdown was valid overall - benefits outweighed the downsides - but also recognise it came with a huge cost in it's own right. What may have been valid then just would not be now.

But it's when it comes to talking about mitigation measures that I'd take the opposite view, when measures stand or fall by detail, no matter how attractive they may seem at first sight. As case in point, the idea of real time monitoring in public places, or the thinking behind the app. Seemed a great idea as a bubble in a focus group, I'm sure, especially to a government desperate for any quick fix at the time? But really, did noone bring up any of the detail that was relevant? That radio waves go through walls - viruses don't? That open air makes a difference to virus transmission, much less so to radio waves? Perhaps the developers were aware of such thoughts - but hey! why rock the boat when there's a lot of money to be thrown your way!?

So when you or anyone else may present a paper going into detail about molecular cell biology, then on a general forum my response is not going to be to question such underlying science, but to ask "OK. So what are we going to do about it? Vaccines mean we're in a very different place to September 2020, what can we do now that is practical, cost effective, and interferes minimally with everyday life?"

[Danny]

Sept 15, 2023 13:39:11 GMT lens said:

An interesting anecdote Danny, but I'm not sure I see the relevance to any general Covid situation, as you can't compare a small closed community like a submarine with a country as a whole? Not with anything where immunity gained is not 100% and/or permanent.

How 'closed'  or 'small' a community is depends on the rate of transmission. What it illustrates is that everyone catches any diseases on board before those diseases have time to mutate and come back. Then the diseases becomes extinct because there are no new carriers available.

This is not much different to what happened in Hastings winter 19/20, or in any place at all in natural conditions. We see exponential growth of a disase, which means most cases happen very quickly in a short period leading up to the peak. Then, we have now clearly established talking about covid, immunity stays high for a couple of months before falling back to background (though with better ability to react in the future). So any community experiences a surge of cases and then no disease, the short term boosted immunity prevents any comeback before the disease dies out.

But what we did was try to slow spread! The duration of every outbreak was deliberately extended, meaning the first to catch it would be becoming reinfectable before it had run through the whole community.

In the submarine any infection is likely to infect anyone susceptible pretty quickly, and after that the immunity should protect anyone long enough for all cases to die away before the immunity wanes. A country isn't like that. Plenty of opportunity for someone to get it, have a certain immunity for a while, then get an infection elsewhere as the latter starts to wear off. Of course, you could split the population up into groups of about 100, seal them in metal tubes for a couple of months in isolation, and at the end no Covid!

The general population has two particular traits with regard to covid. The first is that old people and not young people die or are seriously ill from covid. The second is that young people, not old people, have most of the cases of covid and are the principle route of sustaining and transmission of the disease. The lockdowners argued that if you stop the youngsters travelling around, then they will not meet oldsters to infect them and kill them. Unfortunately this dismally failed, because the oldsters, in particular the ones at greatest risk, relied upon contact with youngsters to care for them. A better course of action would have been to send out all the youngsters to party and give each other covid. They would then catch it very quickly and the disease die out fast. Its possible for oldsters to keep to themselves for a short time, but not a long time as was attempted. (or indeed as some have suggested, extreme physical anti infection measures for the old, which however are unsustainable for any length of time).

So I'd argue we should have been trying to make the country more like a submarine, not less like a submarine. Encourage fast transmission amongst the young and be done with the disease. Overall , fewer deaths. Indeed also less opportunity for mutations to arise, because they can happen in this drawn out phase as people stop being immune and a variant with a slight advantage gets a chance to take hold.

NB, although a new variant may have an advantage because it can reinfect people, that doesnt mean it is a more dangerous disease than the first version. The first version was the one which could most easily infect given that most people had no established immunity to it. if you then change that virus to get around the immunity, it may well make the whole virus less virulent beause it has had to make some sort of change which makes it function less well. But the tradeoff was to get round that immunity. So there is a clear route why viruses in general become less virulent over time as they try to adapt to prioritise evading established immunity.

The implicaion is, if you went through a few cycles of encouraged fast transmission as new vaiants arose, you would reduce the risk of older people who eventually catch covid dying from it. When eventually the odds catch up and they do finally catch it, chances are the one they got was now milder than he original version. So heir chances are better.

The point is that the disease dies out on the submarine, quite quickly.  We have currently engineered a siuation where the Uk has had 1,000,000 concurrent cases of covid for the last two years.  Thats so not what was needed.

[Danny]

Sept 15, 2023 14:14:41 GMT lens said:

Vaccines mean we're in a very different place to September 2020, what can we do now that is practical, cost effective, and interferes minimally with everyday life?"

Hmm. Had vaccines followed the development timeline suggested back in 2020 by some experts in the field, maybe ten years, then we could not have used a vaccine approach at all. If so, then most likely we would have adopted a traditional approach without lockdowns. By now the epidemic would be milder than it curently is. Thats beause it would have worked through the community and created immunity, and deaths, but it would have ended or tailed away naturally by now. So I'd suggest that had vaccines not existed then our position now, ok that means for the survivors, would be better than it now is.

The big question however is how the deaths and severe illness toll would have compared between the two approaches. Supporters of lockdown argue that overall it saved lives compared to not using lockdown. Partly the argument for lockdown relied upon vaccines being considerably more effective than they turned out to be. Partly, it assumes lockdowns actually slowed the disease enough to allow people to be vaccinated, even partially effective, before they could be infected by the disease.

See above, I argue that the reason why Hastings didn't notice it had an unusual new disease winter 19/20 is precisely that what actually happened followed the pattern I suggest. Young people caught it quickly, schools and workplaces did their thing spreading it rapidly bewteen kids, parents and workers. Much more slowly did it reach pensioners, who were the ones at risk. It ended naturally in the general population before becoming serious amongst the old.

I think you would agree that what we needed to do was stop old people catching covid? And agree that whenever a vaccine became available, it would mitigate the risk for those people, not however eliminate it. However, the issue was what approach would minimise risk getting through the process of establishing immunity. My argument is that lockdown did not minimise deaths, or if it did reduce them somewhat it was not nearly enough to compensate the cost of lockdown, which as we are now seeing would inevitably mean future deaths from economic consequences. I also think that getting through the waves of covid faster would have minimised overall disruption to the NHS and therefore improved overall care for other illnesses.

[Danny]

Sept 7, 2023 21:09:22 GMT alec said:

A sign of how immensely complicated immunity to covid-19 is, and the origins of log covid - www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.adf6598

The rather quaint idea from March 2020 that we would all develop immunity to covid was always hope triumphing over reality, but this paper shows how the complexities extend further.

Corona virus which are relatives of covid cause colds. People ordinarily do not die from them, or even get sriously ill. Such diseases DO create cross immunity with covid, they are that closely related. My expectation, as I assume was the expectation of medical professionals, was that covid woudl eventually settle down to a similar seiousness to colds and flus.

I am also sure 'the common cold' kills a number of people every year. In common with covid, thats because it is more dangerous if you have an impaired immune system. There wee some 10,000 deaths a year pre covid from unidentified pneumonias. Some of those would be 'colds'.

And note that just because a virus has mutated to evade pre existing immunity doesnt mean it has become more dangerous. If we have a wave of colds, its annoying but ultimateley its a lot better than a significant killer. It is a signal we have tamed covid and so can stop worrying about it particularly.

[Danny]

Sept 12, 2023 22:05:37 GMT alec said:

A long but fascinating thread about the benefits of the Novovax protein based jab over the mRNA alternatives -

It's very surprising that so many countries have opted solely for the mRNA vaccines, when all the evidence tells us that Novovax is better, both for it's efficacy, lower sie effects and ease of handling.

Seems to be saying Novavax is more of a 'whole virus' vaccine than are the others. It has been long reported that vaccines made from deactivated whole virus have better lasting power against new strains than selective vaccines which pick targets. The disadvantage historically has been they are harder to make, therefore taking more time and costing more.

[Danny]

Sept 13, 2023 17:24:50 GMT lens said:

But doesn't that make the mistake of believing "immunity" to be a binary choice - either "immune" or "not immune"? Believing a person is either in a state as we all were in March 2020, or alternatively in an "immune" state where Covid exposure would not lead to any infection at all?

Whereas in reality - through vaccination and/or past infection - surely the truth is that nearly everybody *HAS* acquired (relative to March 2020) a very significant immunity to Covid? Even if short of 100%?

To the extent that in the first year an infection would typically lead (even in an otherwise healthy individual) to a couple of weeks of incapacitation, whereas now (and even with little or no overt precautions) an infection is 1/ far less likely after an exposure, and 2/ far less likely to have a serious outcome if it does occur?

So isn't the reality that we all have acquired considerable immunity - even if not 100%?

Just to point out that we did not start out with zero immunity to covid. Other related corona viruses create some cross immunity, and anywhere which had recent exposue to sars and mers had more immunity than most. This may well be how countries around the pacific with such exposure had so much better outcomes trying to contain covid.  UK Kids were reported as having three or four corona virus infections very year, and it is interesting how the exposure rate to corona viruses before covid, fewer infections as you get older, turned out the exact inverse of the severity of covid in the general population. The group which had the most corona virus infections pre covid had the least serious effects from covid. The group with fewest such infections had the worst outcomes. Correlation or causatiion? 

[alec]

Danny - "Such diseases DO create cross immunity with covid, they are that closely related."

Except that in the paper cited, infection with HCoV OC43 actually worsens the symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 infection, assisting the development of long covid.

Once again, you seem to be working really hard to come across as distinctly dumb.

[alec]

lens and Danny - "Just to point out that we did not start out with zero immunity to covid. Other related corona viruses create some cross immunity.."

Just to flag up that Danny is completely wrong here, as per my last post. He confuses specific immunity with more general immune responses. We were completely naive to covid, and in some cases, 'cross immunity' was actually negative. Eg, it made covid infection worse.

[Danny]

Sept 14, 2023 7:08:40 GMT alec said:

lens - "..but for you to say "We are probably in a significantly worse situation now than in 2020 as a result" is simply absurd."

No it's not, because I'm taking a reasonable view of where this is going, as well as addressing the here and now.

History tells us all diseases die out or fall to manageable levels. The reasonable view has to be that covid is no longer a pressing concern. While that doesnt mean we should stop researching it, or what might be done better if it ever becomes serious again, right now there is no reason whatsoever to think it will not follow the historic pattern.

The real question is whether what was done in this epidemic was a massive over reaction already.

It was an experimental approach based upon the idea a highly effective vaccine could be developed rapidly, which had never previously been possible. Plus specific tests for the disease before significant symptoms had developed which meant intervention was possible much more generally. The evidence seems to be such testing really didnt make much difference, it wasnt accurate enough, numerous enough or fast enough to significantly limit spread. The vaccines mitigated symptoms but frankly do not seem to have really halted or reduced the total of cases and obviously have not eradicated covid. The testing while inadequate to prevent spread did count millions of cases and therefore give the impession this was a vast epidemic, whereas before testing existed such enumaration based on diagnosis of general symptoms would not have been possible. It made it look much worse than it really was, in particular compared to past epidemics which couldnt count cases in this way.

We've still got around 1,000 in hospital because of covid, clogging up valuable bedspaces and resources, and on the last available figures we're seeing 200 per week die with covid as a causal factor.

I wonder how many of those had teminal cancer? Or terminal something else? The something else alone would have killed them, the covid alone would not.

We're only accepting this because it isn't as bad as an arbitrary point earlier in the pandemic, but 200 deaths is just bad. It would count as a crisis in any other circumstances.

I mentioned 10,000 a year dying pre covid from unidentified pneumonias. No one batted an eye. Partly because its unavoidable, nothing practically could be done to pevent it. Partly because it is hugely people who are aleady ill, sick, weakened by some other condition. Partly because there was no specific label to what they had, was it mostly one disease quietly killing the weak, was it many?

At a time when we should be seeing negative excess deaths, we're running at 5% more deaths than pre-pandemic, which is directly causing a fall in life expectancy, and with the biggest proportionate impacts on young adults.

Oh dear. Covid really doesnt affect young adults. If what you are saying is that now we have an excess of deaths by young adults, then it suggests they are dying from something else. Which of course is consistent with reports very few are currently being hospitalised with serious covid. Which of course is consistent with underfunding of the NHS affecting all its activities, so you would expect this to impact the young proportionately just as much as the old. If you are in a road traffic accident now, does underfunding mean here will be extra delay before you get seen and so you die?

You could choose to explore a different metric - say, the overall health of the nation, or the number of pediatric hospitalisations, or the number of people unable to work due to chronic health conditions, and you would see that everything is heading in the wrong direction, with covid the main driver for these trends.

Ah, you see what you did there...you made a list of recorded facts, but then ASSERTED they were caused by covid.

There are a steadily growing number of young people with chronic diseases because we are much better at keeping such people alive. There are issues such as diet, mostly over eating but also what we are eating, lack of exercise. Its highly likely covid lockdown made all that worse. Then we have brexit and the labour shortage especially in the care sector, again lockdown has caused a step change for the worse in such care, as is the impending bankruptcy of all local authorities, and inevitably this will have pushed more people into long term not working. You dont sem to be too good at distinguishing the effects of covid from the consequences of what we changed during the epidemic, hoping to mitigate the epidemic but with all sorts of longer term ill effects on general health.

How many extra deaths would you say are due to undefunding of social services at the current time?

[alec]

Danny - "History tells us all diseases die out or fall to manageable levels."

No it doesn't. It tells us the complete and total opposite.

Unless humans act to suppress disease transmission, diseases keep on weakening and killing. That's the simple reason why world population growth failed to rise significantly for 200,000 years, and sometimes fell catastrophically, until the last 10,000 years or so. You're just completely wrong.

What actually happened is that infectious disease was less of a burden on global populations during the pre-farming era, (up to 10-12,000 years ago) because we were predominately based on small hunter-gatherer groups, with limited close quarters mixing. There would have been bacterial and fungal infections, and some viruses too, but these struggled to spread beyond a small group because of limited travel and contact. Most infectious disease outbreaks would have died out because of this. Global population was limited by other factors.

Then, very recently indeed, in evolutionary terms, we started gathering together in settlements and then cities, and that's when we see diseases start to appear and we get very high mortality rates from infectious diseases. So much so that for thousands of years the population failed to grow, and sometimes shrunk. The diseases didn't go away - they just sickened and limited the population.

Humans learned enough about transmission to start taking action to stem the spread of disease (isolation of the sick, face coverings, burning the dwellings of those who died of disease, among other things) and this is when we started to see a very slow rise in population numbers. This only really took off in the modern era once we achieved a greater understanding of pathogen transmission and then later came up with vaccines and treatments.

It was the human response to containing disease that led to where we are now, not some daft notion that diseases 'just go away'.

"I wonder how many of those had teminal cancer? Or terminal something else? The something else alone would have killed them, the covid alone would not."

Again, just total bollocks. Among those who have died with covid as a cause of death, 65 - 70% it is listed as the cause, for the remainder it's a contributing factor, but not the main cause.

Interesting also to see 179 under 4 year olds admitted to hospital (England only) in the latest week. It's by some way the highest rate of hospitalisation of any age group up to 60, but I guess they will all have cancer or summat.

"you made a list of recorded facts, but then ASSERTED they were caused by covid."

No I didn't. You're comprehension skills are very poor indeed. I asserted that covid "is the main driver" for these facts, which is objectively true.

"There are a steadily growing number of young people with chronic diseases because we are much better at keeping such people alive. There are issues such as diet, mostly over eating but also what we are eating, lack of exercise. Its highly likely covid lockdown made all that worse. Then we have brexit and the labour shortage especially in the care sector, again lockdown has caused a step change for the worse in such care, as is the impending bankruptcy of all local authorities, and inevitably this will have pushed more people into long term not working."

Yes, yes, yes - all so very dull and boring.

The problem you have, which is one you have hidden from throughout, is that we see precisely the same patterns everywhere there has been high levels of covid infection, in countries that didn't have lockdowns, didn't have Brexit, don't have stressed health and social care sectors etc etc etc.

You've never got this, probably because you never actually look at the evidence.

[leftieliberal]

I had always wondered just how accurate rapid antigen tests for Covid were and here is the answer:
theconversation.com/tests-that-diagnose-diseases-are-less-reliable-than-youd-expect-heres-why-213359

Rapid antigen tests for COVID-19 are another widely used imperfect test. A review of these tests found that, of people without symptoms but with a positive test result, only 52% actually had COVID.

Among people with COVID symptoms and a positive result, the accuracy of the tests rose to 89%. This shows how a test’s performance cannot be summarised by a single number and depends on individual context.

So, if you are symptom-free, a positive Covid test is only fractionally better than tossing a coin. The Government could have saved a great deal of money and disruption by simply telling people with symptoms to isolate for 10 days.

[lens]

Sept 19, 2023 7:14:34 GMT Danny said:

Sept 15, 2023 14:14:41 GMT lens said:

Vaccines mean we're in a very different place to September 2020, what can we do now that is practical, cost effective, and interferes minimally with everyday life?"

So I'd suggest that had vaccines not existed then our position now, ok that means for the survivors, would be better than it now is.

The big question however is how the deaths and severe illness toll would have compared between the two approaches. Supporters of lockdown argue that overall it saved lives compared to not using lockdown. Partly the argument for lockdown relied upon vaccines being considerably more effective than they turned out to be. Partly, it assumes lockdowns actually slowed the disease enough to allow people to be vaccinated, even partially effective, before they could be infected by the disease.

Danny, the "big question" has been answered - even if you do not know the answer!! Or choose to ignore it!

The best illustration is probably New Zealand, which due to geography kept Covid almost completely out until well after a vaccination programme was well established. It serves as a useful control in a global experiment compared to the UK (or a typical European country). And if you go to worldometers you will find the covid death rate per million is just under 1 per thousand for NZ compared to about 3.3 for the UK. So even simplistically, you may infer you only got between a quarter and a third of the deaths per capita in NZ versus the UK. But it doesn't stop there. After vaccination, deaths were disproportinately higher amongst those who had refused vaccination compared to those who were vaccinated, which skewed the headline statistics. It's reckoned that if 100% of the NZ population had been vaccinated, the death ratio for UK:NZ would be more like 10:1 than 3.3:1.

Vaccinations against Covid work. Not 100%. But it's reckoned about 90%. Direct result is to typically save 9 lives out of every 10 that would otherwise die. And that's without taking account of reducing illness severity for others.

As for the bit highlighted, then really words fail me. Conjure up images of someone who has been ill, glances at a pile of dead bodies, shrugs and says "oh well, got it over with quickly, normal life gets back normal more quickly now". Please.

Sept 19, 2023 7:14:34 GMT Danny said:

See above, I argue that the reason why Hastings didn't notice it had an unusual new disease winter 19/20 is precisely that what actually happened followed the pattern I suggest. Young people caught it quickly, schools and workplaces did their thing spreading it rapidly bewteen kids, parents and workers. Much more slowly did it reach pensioners, who were the ones at risk. It ended naturally in the general population before becoming serious amongst the old.

Danny, I really don't know why I'm rising again to the Hastings bait, but if Hastings had it badly enough in 2019 to make a big difference to immunity in 2020, it would have been noticed. In round numbers, about 1% of the UK population are expected to die in a year. About 0.02% in a week. (OK, I know there will be seasonal variations, but.....) In a community of 100,000 you'd statistically expect 20 deaths in an average week. Now let's imagine a disease taking hold over a period of 10 weeks, with a death rate of 0.1% of those who get it. You'd therefore expect 100 deaths amongst the 100,000, or 10 per week over the period. You'd expect the death rate to be 50% higher for the period! That would get picked up statistically. Quite apart from the hospitals being full of very ill people who may not eventually contribute to such statistics.

It's *conceivable* Covid existed in Hastings in a small form in Hastings in 2019 - but if not enough to ring alarm bells, then not enough to give your claimed subsequent immunity.

[lens]

Sept 19, 2023 10:15:47 GMT leftieliberal said:

I had always wondered just how accurate rapid antigen tests for Covid were and here is the answer:
theconversation.com/tests-that-diagnose-diseases-are-less-reliable-than-youd-expect-heres-why-213359

Rapid antigen tests for COVID-19 are another widely used imperfect test. A review of these tests found that, of people without symptoms but with a positive test result, only 52% actually had COVID.

Among people with COVID symptoms and a positive result, the accuracy of the tests rose to 89%. This shows how a test’s performance cannot be summarised by a single number and depends on individual context.

So, if you are symptom-free, a positive Covid test is only fractionally better than tossing a coin. The Government could have saved a great deal of money and disruption by simply telling people with symptoms to isolate for 10 days.

I remember going heavily into the maths behind this at the time, and not only do I fully agree with you and the highlighted sentence, there's even more to it. A lot depends on the number of actual cases per 100,000 at the time. Key is recognition of false positives (positive result, but in someone not infected) and false negative (got the disease, but test shows negative).

I think it was reckoned at the time that the false positive rate was about 0.2% - so even with no disease at all, you'd expect to get about 200 positive tests in sampling 100,000 completely healthy people. (!!) When (real) cases were quite high, that may have mattered less as they would be outnumbered significantly by "real" positives, but when cases were small it meant that in the absence of symptoms a positive result was as likely to be a false result as genuine. The argument for routine testing was that it would pick up cases which would otherwise be missed (so help prevent onward transmission), but there was always another side to the coin.

And that was false negatives giving a false sense of security. And I can claim such first hand. In autumn 2021 my wife felt "somewhat unwell" with mild flu like symptoms, and at the time was required to do twice weekly LFT tests, and did such after having symptoms for a day or so. It was negative - so we carried on as normal. Four days later (and after having to spend one day in bed, but by then feeling much better) she did her second test of the week - positive. (Later confirmed by PCR.) The first test had completely the wrong effect, so yes, leftieliberal is absolutely correct that (at least in our case) a far, far better approach would have been "simply telling people with symptoms to isolate for 10 days".

So was general LFT testing worth the money? I think it's worth looking at what happened when LFT testing was abolished. When the end of "free" tests was announced there were howls from some quarters, and dire warnings that it would lead to an "explosion" of cases. Which never happened. Look at the graph of cases versus time and there was no abrupt change at the time of abolition. (And the same can be said for the end of Test and Trace and compulsory mask mandates.)

That's not to say LFT tests were completely worthless. (Same with masks and test and trace.) LFT tests may have been of value in niche situations such as care homes if properly used *in addition* to other measures where you really, really wanted to keep covid out, but I'd say it's very questionable whether they were remotely worth the money in the wide way they were used. If they were at all better than advice to "simply telling people with symptoms to isolate for 10 days".

[leftieliberal]

Sept 19, 2023 22:32:22 GMT lens said:

Sept 19, 2023 10:15:47 GMT leftieliberal said:

I had always wondered just how accurate rapid antigen tests for Covid were and here is the answer:
theconversation.com/tests-that-diagnose-diseases-are-less-reliable-than-youd-expect-heres-why-213359

Rapid antigen tests for COVID-19 are another widely used imperfect test. A review of these tests found that, of people without symptoms but with a positive test result, only 52% actually had COVID.

Among people with COVID symptoms and a positive result, the accuracy of the tests rose to 89%. This shows how a test’s performance cannot be summarised by a single number and depends on individual context.

So, if you are symptom-free, a positive Covid test is only fractionally better than tossing a coin. The Government could have saved a great deal of money and disruption by simply telling people with symptoms to isolate for 10 days.

I remember going heavily into the maths behind this at the time, and not only do I fully agree with you and the highlighted sentence, there's even more to it. A lot depends on the number of actual cases per 100,000 at the time. Key is recognition of false positives (positive result, but in someone not infected) and false negative (got the disease, but test shows negative).

That's not to say LFT tests were completely worthless. (Same with masks and test and trace.) LFT tests may have been of value in niche situations such as care homes if properly used *in addition* to other measures where you really, really wanted to keep covid out, but I'd say it's very questionable whether they were remotely worth the money in the wide way they were used. If they were at all better than advice to "simply telling people with symptoms to isolate for 10 days".

Agreed. When my sister was dying in a hospice last year, I had to take a LFT in advance every time I went to visit her. Fortunately I didn't get any positives, false or otherwise, but I could imagine relatives being denied contact with a dying patient because of a false positive.

[alec]

lens & leftieliberal - South Korea had excellent success using LFT tests for backward contact tracing, where it doesn't matter if you miss a few tests. The key aim is to identify the source of an outbreak.

The other point worth mentioning is that I believe LFT tests have become less efficient over time as the virus mutates. Not sure how much of a drop off there has been, but there is also quite a good body of literature that identified how the test is conducted affects efficacy.

All of this highlights what happens when governments take their eyes off the ball. As I've already detailed, we have real time air samplers that can detect covid in minutes in indoor air, and we have 30 second breath tests that have shown 99.9% accuracy. Care homes would be ideal applications for this technology, and governments should have been targeting development funding into these technologies, but instead they gave up after thinking they had cracked covid with the first generation leaky vaccines.

And every time I mention these technological breakthroughs, someone pops up to say how they won't work.....

[lens]

Sept 20, 2023 15:56:32 GMT alec said:

lens & leftieliberal - South Korea had excellent success using LFT tests for backward contact tracing, where it doesn't matter if you miss a few tests. The key aim is to identify the source of an outbreak.

The other point worth mentioning is that I believe LFT tests have become less efficient over time as the virus mutates. 

Well, my first hand experience (my wife's false negative, despite having symptoms) dates from October 2021 from memory, so reasonably early on after their introduction. If they have become even less effective over time, I can only say again it's a good thing they were dropped when they were. Our experiences were far from unique, and I heard various stories from friends of false negatives, or certainly not showing up positive until several days after symptoms had already developed. So interesting to see validatory statistics from leftieliberal.

And do note I did previously say "LFT tests may have been of value in niche situations such as care homes......" - it was the concept of general and routine testing that I'd argue was a waste of time. Or at the very least not cost effective.

Sept 20, 2023 15:56:32 GMT alec said:

And every time I mention these technological breakthroughs, someone pops up to say how they won't work.....

Depends what you mean by "won't work"? All of them may have worked in terms of doing what they said on the tin technically. The problem was that either their creators or a desperate government grabbed at straws and too often promoted them as "the answer". Which nearly always seems to have turned out to have been simple naive optimism. (And costing eye watering amounts of money as well.)

Which is arguably what you seem to be guilty of with regard to such as air quality monitors now. As I said before, they are again something which may well have niche use value - it's when claims are made that general and widespread deployment will be of great value in cutting overall cases that I'll call "rubbish", for all the practical reasons I gave before. (And which I don't think you could refute at the time?)

[alec]

lens - if you're looking at 'air quality monitors' then we have a wealth of kit that is extremely cheap and cost effective, and proven to work well in reducing infections. The obvious starting point is CO2 monitors, which cost <£100 for very good ones, and have a proven track record of substantially reducing infections when used properly.

Viral air detectors, which I think is what you are actually talking about, will become cheap and cost effective in many setting, with the costs for room air samplers already around $1,000. That's tiny, in the context of the potential benefits in hospitals, care homes etc.

I think your looking for excuses in the main, which is fine, but you need to understand the risks we are taking with unconstrained transmission. The evidence is piling up that covid is a very serious disease, with the main impacts well beyond the acute phase.

[alec]

As promised, here's that Italian study on children's post covid health risks - onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/apa.16966

This is yet another good quality study that strips out the effect of lockdowns and other covariates and identifies a very significant increase in a range of other health conditions in children after a single covid infection. Mental health conditions show the biggest risk increase, but many other conditions are also substantially elevated.

These effects are by no means restricted to children, nor are they eliminated by vaccination or prior infection. In fact, other research (lots of it) finds that the risks of developing health conditions actually increases after second and third infections.

Don't catch covid is the simple message.

[alec]

Also of interest - ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2023.307377

This examines the infamous Cochrane Review on masks and - surprise surprise - finds that yes, masks do work.

[lens]

Sept 21, 2023 7:19:49 GMT alec said:

Also of interest - ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2023.307377

This examines the infamous Cochrane Review on masks and - surprise surprise - finds that yes, masks do work.

But if we actually look at what your link says, then "masks do work" doesn't really tell the whole truth, does it? From the conclusions of your own link:

"If all types of studies are considered, it is clear that well-fitting, properly used masks do have a measurable and significant effect on reducing transmission when properly worn by the vast majority of the population during times of high community transmission. Although the data in the two new studies included in the Cochrane update on masks are accurate, modeling studies correctly predict the small effect sizes that those studies observed....."

In other words, they may have an effect - but in general it's small. I'd go further and say that any effect is highly dependent on setting. In clinical use - worn all the time, worn properly, with scrupulous attention to removal as well as fitting, and using one time only N95 masks - the effect may be very worthwhile. Just trying to enforce a mask mandate in such as a supermarket on the other hand is pretty pointless. And that goes a long way towards explaining why there has never been any correlation between case rates and periods of mask mandates. Why when the mask mandate in England was dropped (but not in Scotland) case rates in England didn't change for the worse. Why in the Republican-Democrat death rate comparison you previously linked to, there was a marked correlation when vaccines were introduced - but nothing for mask mandates.

It just has never been a case of "masks work!" or "masks don't work!", much though that is the way the debate has often been framed, especially in the US. (Including by yourself.) Like with many things they have a place, but should never have been seen as a universal panacea. If I was to go into an intensive care ward - even a care home - it may be sensible to wear a mask. But popping into the supermarket for half an hour? Forget it. (And regarding the latter, then I've heard it said "so what, if it's only for 30 minutes or an hour?" - which completely ignores the staff required to wear such for 8-12 hours. And do you seriously expect a single one to wear an N95 to a proper standard whilst working a full shift?)

[alec]

lens - don't get too hung up on mask mandates. It's rates of mask wearing that count, and yes, there is a lot of evidence that those who mask more get sick less often, a fact that also scales to population level studies. Indeed, one of the big problems with gauging efficacy is that populations take their own precautions rather than religiously follow government advice, blurring the temporal boundaries of formal mandates.

[Danny]

Sept 19, 2023 7:38:32 GMT alec said:

Danny - "Such diseases DO create cross immunity with covid, they are that closely related."

Except that in the paper cited, infection with HCoV OC43 actually worsens the symptoms of SARS-CoV-2 infection, assisting the development of long covid.

Once again, you seem to be working really hard to come across as distinctly dumb.

I rather think what they actually found was that people especially susceptible to the first covid infection, were then also susceptible to another. Everyone by now has been exposed to covid many times (and to vaccines which amounts to the same)  and its only the ones who have responded less strongly who are still showing symptoms of illness, though that doesnt necessarily mean the others arent infected, or may even be passing it on. You are saying that after repeat infections, someone who still gets a significant infection of one strain is more likely to get another. That could be because repeat infections made them less able to resist new ones, but it also could be you have simply selected the subset of the population most suceptible to covid from the very outset, and surprise surprise they are still the most susceptible.

There are a million people in the Uk now with covid. These are all repeat infections. Most are hardly ill, its a cold. In a fortnight's time a different million will have covid, cumulatively that is maybe 30-50 million cases a year depending how long you reckon it lasts. Everyone catching it every year. You remember what colds are, mild respiratory infections caused by a variety of pathogens which we are significantly immune to but not wholly. The normal state for humans throughout history is that for certain types of disease we get repeat infections. The normal outcome throughout history is that most people ignore them and carry on as usual. However, the 10,000 or so people dying every year in the UK from unidentified pneumonia, before covid, all died from something, and I'd suggest it was from pathogens their nearest and dearest were also exposed to but shrugged off, including 'colds'. Its not unusual that certain people are especially susceptible, and its very usual the old are one such group.

And this figure of a million people infected at any one time is pretty much the minimum number throughout the last two years, there have been peaks double or treble. And it isnt counting cases which go totally undetected because they are so mild. I expect these are more numerous than those being counted, maybe a lot more numerous. There is the problem of how you define being infected if its isnt because you have the detectable symptoms, or symptoms you can notice yourself without a lab test. On the whole zoe only records people who are reporting themselves ill because they have symptoms.

[Danny]

Sept 19, 2023 7:40:54 GMT alec said:

lens and Danny - "Just to point out that we did not start out with zero immunity to covid. Other related corona viruses create some cross immunity.."

Just to flag up that Danny is completely wrong here, as per my last post. He confuses specific immunity with more general immune responses. We were completely naive to covid, and in some cases, 'cross immunity' was actually negative. Eg, it made covid infection worse.

I am reporting research done in 2020 in scandinavia somewhere, where they found stored blood from pre covid contained antibodies reactive against covid. Then later research which found people with antibodies to other sars mers had antibodies which reacted against covid, and vice versa people who had had covid or covid vaccines had antibodies which reacted against these other corona viruses. It was proved that exposure to other corona viruses creates cross immunity against covid. I posted all this stuff at the time it was published, and presumably you read it?

[Danny]

Sept 19, 2023 9:40:18 GMT alec said:

Unless humans act to suppress disease transmission, diseases keep on weakening and killing. That's the simple reason why world population growth failed to rise significantly for 200,000 years, and sometimes fell catastrophically, until the last 10,000 years or so. You're just completely wrong.

No, human population rose to the limits of the resources available to it. Technology and knowledge have improved our ability to manage illness, but being able to grow far more food is much more important. Most people being free to do other things, rather than spending most of their time growing (or scavenging) that food. I recall seeing a program which argued the Roman empire fell because of the spread of the mosquito into Europe, which then caused mass dieoffs. But this rather proves my point not yours, we adapted.

What actually happened is that infectious disease was less of a burden on global populations during the pre-farming era, (up to 10-12,000 years ago) because we were predominately based on small hunter-gatherer groups, with limited close quarters mixing. There would have been bacterial and fungal infections, and some viruses too, but these struggled to spread beyond a small group because of limited travel and contact. Most infectious disease outbreaks would have died out because of this. Global population was limited by other factors.

Obviously the less human contact you have, the less likely to catch something. Millions of pensioners in the Uk did not catch covid because pensioners don't meet many people at close quarters, and they never would have with or without lockdown. These same issues still apply.

How do you know we didnt catch diseases back then? I mean, I know you can extract DNA from teeth etc, but how do you do an assay of a prehistoric human's blood to determine his antibodies or what he had been exposed to? I dont recall any diaries recording whether it was a good or bad winter for illnesses? I'd agree with you if you suggest that human disease back then would be more successful if they were good at crossing the species barrier, as covid can - but better. Covid's (and other's) ability to cross species barriers seems to have atrophied somewhat since we now very successfully support purely human strains of viruses, but its still there. Similarly the human ability to smell well has terribly deteriorated since we started living communally.

Then, very recently indeed, in evolutionary terms, we started gathering together in settlements and then cities, and that's when we see diseases start to appear and we get very high mortality rates from infectious diseases. So much so that for thousands of years the population failed to grow, and sometimes shrunk. The diseases didn't go away - they just sickened and limited the population.

Humans as a species are only 200,000 years old. We come with a massive amount of DNA shared by all animals. We are 98% the same as chimpanzees, 90% the same as cats, and 82% the same as dogs. Any successful species must meet others, or they would be extinct from lack of reproduction, crowding isnt a new thing during the evolution of immunity in animals.

"you made a list of recorded facts, but then ASSERTED they were caused by covid."

No I didn't. You're comprehension skills are very poor indeed. I asserted that covid "is the main driver" for these facts, which is objectively true.

You admit it was an assertion, you just wrote in your reply that it was. But again, you repeat the problem by arguing your assertion is objectively true, which is just you asserting your assertion is true. What I usually do when replying to your assertions is point out other possible explanations for what you assert. Like the terrible bias in studies because they are not rigorous controlled trials with control groups. There really arent any such, because no one tried to organise any and then there is the ethical problem of asking thousands or millions of people to do something different to your best recommendations. The closest we have to controlled trials on covid is eg where hastings caught the disease early winter 19/20, but there simply wasnt the mass death feared. This isnt unique, it happened early in the epidemic where it started first. It happened rather better documented during the epidemic when we moved to national lockdowns which were timed to only start after a wave was sufficienly large. But doing that meant wherever it first began was already well into their outbreak before anything was done beyond monitoring and cases in those places were already falling, not growing! In the end such places had no worse outcomes than anywhere else. Similarly, Sweden chose to do it differently to most of the world and had no worse outcome (actually, better than the UK), and Japan did nothing much but had tiny numbers of serious illness. Its very clear based on control group trials such as exist, that lockdown didnt make much difference.

"There are a steadily growing number of young people with chronic diseases because we are much better at keeping such people alive. There are issues such as diet, mostly over eating but also what we are eating, lack of exercise. Its highly likely covid lockdown made all that worse. Then we have brexit and the labour shortage especially in the care sector, again lockdown has caused a step change for the worse in such care, as is the impending bankruptcy of all local authorities, and inevitably this will have pushed more people into long term not working."

Yes, yes, yes - all so very dull and boring.

Yes, but thats why the NHS is under performing. You think its boring that we dont have enough resources to manage illness in the Uk... fair enough. Its not new. it was true in 1997 and was a significant reason that tory government was thrown out. Labour initiated a program of catchup for the NHS and life expectancies, etc, improved. Then along came con again with relative cuts and life expectancy started dipping. Its got nothing to do with covid except it has caused a blip upwards for a few years. The real issue is our choice how much resources to spent on health. There always has to be a cutoff, con always in my lifetime placed that cutoff lower than labour. What we are seeing is the result of 13 years of con cuts to government services.

The problem you have, which is one you have hidden from throughout, is that we see precisely the same patterns everywhere there has been high levels of covid infection, in countries that didn't have lockdowns, didn't have Brexit, don't have stressed health and social care sectors etc etc etc.

Interestingly I heard a radio report from somewhere maybe in Africa. It talked about how the economy has never recovered from covid, so I started listening. And they explained that people who were deprived of work because of lockdowns have never been able to recover and are dying because they were legally prevented from doing whatever it was they managed to get by on, and the disruption of their livelihoods continues. In the Uk we had all sorts of subsidies to prevent immediate deaths, but everyone is pretending that didnt have long term consequences and run up massive debts which the government currently is arguing are unustainable.  So why did they do it? (ans: for political reasons so as to be seen to be doing something)

[Danny]

Sept 19, 2023 10:15:47 GMT leftieliberal said:

I had always wondered just how accurate rapid antigen tests for Covid were and here is the answer:
theconversation.com/tests-that-diagnose-diseases-are-less-reliable-than-youd-expect-heres-why-213359

Rapid antigen tests for COVID-19 are another widely used imperfect test. A review of these tests found that, of people without symptoms but with a positive test result, only 52% actually had COVID.

Among people with COVID symptoms and a positive result, the accuracy of the tests rose to 89%. This shows how a test’s performance cannot be summarised by a single number and depends on individual context.

So, if you are symptom-free, a positive Covid test is only fractionally better than tossing a coin. The Government could have saved a great deal of money and disruption by simply telling people with symptoms to isolate for 10 days.

The conclusion about testing should be that Sweden got it right. They didn't do any testing in the general community. Simply said if you personally have symptoms, stay home if possible.

Medical companies, and specifically certain individuals connected to governments, have made fortunes from this which could have been spent on routine medical care, or even just not spent at all and reduced the national debt or taxes. Covid was an absolute bonanza for health research of all sorts. I remember at the start someone being trotted out who was the Uk expert on corona viruses. Who noted it was him and alab assistant or something, and funding had largely dried up since the last corona virus outbreak came and went. It was people such as him who suddenly became the centre of spending.

[Danny]

Sept 19, 2023 15:16:18 GMT lens said:

Sept 19, 2023 7:14:34 GMT Danny said:

So I'd suggest that had vaccines not existed then our position now, ok that means for the survivors, would be better than it now is.

The big question however is how the deaths and severe illness toll would have compared between the two approaches. Supporters of lockdown argue that overall it saved lives compared to not using lockdown. Partly the argument for lockdown relied upon vaccines being considerably more effective than they turned out to be. Partly, it assumes lockdowns actually slowed the disease enough to allow people to be vaccinated, even partially effective, before they could be infected by the disease.

Danny, the "big question" has been answered - even if you do not know the answer!! Or choose to ignore it!

The best illustration is probably New Zealand, which due to geography kept Covid almost completely out until well after a vaccination programme was well established. It serves as a useful control in a global experiment compared to the UK (or a typical European country). And if you go to worldometers you will find the covid death rate per million is just under 1 per thousand for NZ compared to about 3.3 for the UK. So even simplistically, you may infer you only got between a quarter and a third of the deaths per capita in NZ versus the UK. But it doesn't stop there. After vaccination, deaths were disproportinately higher amongst those who had refused vaccination compared to those who were vaccinated, which skewed the headline statistics. It's reckoned that if 100% of the NZ population had been vaccinated, the death ratio for UK:NZ would be more like 10:1 than 3.3:1.

No, you miss the point. NZ succeeded in keeping covid out. The UK DID NOT succeed in keeping covid out. Everything done in the Uk failed to keep covid out. If we had closed the borders in summer 2019, maybe we could have kept it out. And starved. But not caught covid. All over the world all the lockdown etc measures failed to prevent covid spreading once it had arrived. We even imported new strains during periods international travel was heavily restricted, with testing, etc. We were incapable of closing our borders.

The reasons NZ succeeded are probably not related to specific measures. Rather they are to do with the total numbers of people travelling there, the low population density in populated areas and its self sufficiency. However, if you look at a map of which countries succeeded in keeping out covid, they concentrated around the pacific, which also has had more recent exposure to corona viruses. Japan didnt have a problem with covid despite having negligible special rules, they never reached a stage of infection it was worth imposing any until they staged the olympics in the middle of a world epidemic. Like...they had so little problem they though they would have the olympics anyway! See above, but infection by other corona viruses creates cross immunity to covid. Even in the UK the exposure rate to corona viruses by age group before covid is the inverse of the death rate from covid. The young had lots of corona virus, the old died from covid.

Vaccinations against Covid work. Not 100%. But it's reckoned about 90%. Direct result is to typically save 9 lives out of every 10 that would otherwise die. And that's without taking account of reducing illness severity for others.

But they have not stopped covid deaths, Alec will wave that in your face. Instead of 1000 dying in one peak week, we have 3 a day all year round. As Alec will also say, the death rate from covid while reduced is still pretty high. It hasnt stopped! The real world figures do not support that in practice 9/10 deaths from covid were prevented by the vaccination program. As to actual infection, it must be more like 99/100 infections are NOT prevented by vaccination. If that wasnt true then the R for covid would have dropped below reproduction level and its simply hasnt. R has never been much above 1  at its worst and is stuck at 1 now. If vaccines really did prevent 9/10 cases it would have ended in 2021.

The evidence is this: The people who died from covid have always been people with extra risk factors, the most obvious being old age and other illnesses which tend to develop with age (but obviously some younger people). The people who catch most covid have always been young people, who have at times been having x10 more cases than pensioners. Amongst those young they are still merrily catching and spreading covid, because the vaccine does not stop spread. When someone infected comes in contact with a suceptible (usually old) person, they catch it, may become very ill, and may die.  Note that with x10 cases amongst the young (or even with smaller multipliers as now) then R amongst the young might be 1.5, but amongst the old its 0.5, so the disease cannot sustain itself among old people alone (except of course where they are collected together in care homes, hospitals etc).

And that is why the vaccines dont work. They cannot eradicate the illness, and Alec has raised some interesting facts why they might have made matters worse in giving rise to this all year round infection instead of winter surges. Meanwhile the small subset of people really at risk of severe illness or dying keeps renewing as people age and sicken. And so the deaths keep clocking up. And if they arent sick enough yet to catch covid seriously because they had their vaccinations, well in six months they will be. So it bought them 6 months, but thats it.

So in considering whether or not any lives have been saved, the question is if the virus had been allowed to spread naturally, how many would have died at that time, and if the number was greater were they truly saved by intervention, or were they only temporarily saved until they sickened some more due to age or other illness anyway and are dying now? Plus, that a natural epidemic would probably have done what all the experts told us, quick rise to peak and then hardly anything. And because it was all over much quicker, would this in fact have limited the numbers dying anyway?

Hastings is an important example, because it had covid winter 19/20 without sufficient death toll to cause any concern. This suggests it would have been the natural pattern. Sure in a bigger place the total number of deaths would have caused alarm, but pro rata there doesnt seem any evidence it would have been much different to what actually happened.

Dont forget that the government expert advice on potential for deaths was their WORST CREDIBLE CASE. As bad as it could possibly be. No one talked about the BEST CREDIBLE CASE, which would most likely have led to doing nothing if followed. Sweden based on medical evidence and a decision made by medical experts instead of politicians  intervened far less. Instead of basing action on the worst possible case, they probably took a line based on most likely outcomes, not worst fears.

As for the bit highlighted, then really words fail me. Conjure up images of someone who has been ill, glances at a pile of dead bodies, shrugs and says "oh well, got it over with quickly, normal life gets back normal more quickly now". Please.

You will recall government did authorise digging of emergency graves, plus masses of ventilators and emergency hospitals. None of them got used. There were no piles of bodies, anywhere in the world. You are simply repeating propaganda, all there ever was was fear of such images which scared politicians.

Sept 19, 2023 7:14:34 GMT Danny said:

See above, I argue that the reason why Hastings didn't notice it had an unusual new disease winter 19/20 is precisely that what actually happened followed the pattern I suggest. Young people caught it quickly, schools and workplaces did their thing spreading it rapidly bewteen kids, parents and workers. Much more slowly did it reach pensioners, who were the ones at risk. It ended naturally in the general population before becoming serious amongst the old.

Danny, I really don't know why I'm rising again to the Hastings bait, but if Hastings had it badly enough in 2019 to make a big difference to immunity in 2020, it would have been noticed.

No. You are ASSUMING covid is naturally a big killer. Thats the point, you are proceeding on the basis of this assumption as did world governments. It has NEVER behaved like that.

In round numbers, about 1% of the UK population are expected to die in a year. About 0.02% in a week. (OK, I know there will be seasonal variations, but.....) In a community of 100,000 you'd statistically expect 20 deaths in an average week. Now let's imagine a disease taking hold over a period of 10 weeks, with a death rate of 0.1% of those who get it. You'd therefore expect 100 deaths amongst the 100,000, or 10 per week over the period. You'd expect the death rate to be 50% higher for the period! That would get picked up statistically. Quite apart from the hospitals being full of very ill people who may not eventually contribute to such statistics.

I very much doubt that a 50% rise in deaths of old people in winter from repiratory disease would surprise anyone. Its NORMAL! I approve you making estimates, but deaths always cluster in the winter anyway. Especially deaths of old people from respiratory disease. The only thing different would be that no one would have been able to identify the bug concerned, which actually isnt too unusual either. They would have known it was definitely not flu, and so the flu monitoring service would have completely discounted the figures. We dont really have any other monitoring of deaths, or didnt then, and definitely not in real time so only published data at the end of a year. So there was maybe a blip in Hastings, but if you looked at returns for Sussex, or the SE, it would still have been negligible. No one's job to look into small anomalies in the stats.

And it isnt 0.1% of people who catch covid who die.  Its rather higher proportion of older people and much smaller of younger. The entire population of Hastings under 50 could have caught it and hardly anyone died. Its very important how much the disease can cross from the young group having most of the case and propagating the disease, to the old group having most of the deaths. As far as I can see, this never figured in any modelling of the diseases progress. What I envisage is a natural outbreak hitting hard and fast amongst the young. Wave of colds, no one visits granny. A couple of months later everyone is over their colds and locally it had pretty much died out. No further risk to granny, and since covid carried away some of the most susceptible, there is a compensating drop in deaths below average from eg flu. The national deaths data through the epidemic showed a short period of below average deaths after each covid wave.

[Danny]

Sept 21, 2023 7:09:17 GMT alec said:

lens - if you're looking at 'air quality monitors' then we have a wealth of kit that is extremely cheap and cost effective, and proven to work well in reducing infections. The obvious starting point is CO2 monitors, which cost <£100 for very good ones, and have a proven track record of substantially reducing infections when used properly.

oh yeah. So you install one in your home. It says co2 is going up, the solution is to open the window. And let out all that winter hot air in the midst of an energy crisis which has made it very expoensive. Dont think thats practical. Now, if you intsalled a £10,000 air conditioning system to exchange heat with new air then that might work....oh....same problem, still terribly expensive.

Not forgetting that care homes are currently going bust because in particular of huge rises in their costs at a time of shrinking budgets for their biggest customer, council social services.

[alec]

Danny - "I rather think what they actually found was that people especially susceptible to the first covid infection, were then also susceptible to another."

No that's not what they found.

"No, human population rose to the limits of the resources available to it."

Completely wrong. Resource availability was not the limiting factor.

You're a bit rubbish at this really.

[lens]

A Covid round-up from the BBC, with some interesting perspective - www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-66848549

"The Office for National Statistics infection survey, which used to test a random sample of the population, was scrapped back in March.

But we do still record the number of people who test positive in hospital across the whole UK, and that figure has been creeping up since the summer.........

On 17 September, 3,019 hospital beds in England were taken up by someone with Covid. That number has tripled since July, but dipped last week, and is just a fraction of the 33,000 seen at the peak of the second wave in 2021.

About a third of those patients were being treated mainly for the disease, with most testing positive after they were admitted for another reason."

And worth looking at the graph ("weekly count of all patients in English hospitals") to get some perspective of where we are now compared to 2020/21. Also worth noting how no less than two/thirds of those in hospital were only found to have Covid after being "admitted for another reason."