Covid

[Danny]

Oct 6, 2023 15:25:16 GMT alec said:

I think you were one of those falsely claiming that infection strengthens us, while the sensible experts were publishing papers, cited here, that show how the more viral infections you get in your life, the earlier you're going to die.

I know of no evidence thats the case. If it were true, then we would have had cast iron evidence of it years ago. Even victorian scientists could study the people who had most infections and those the least and see who lived longest. I dont mean infections which kill you directly, obviously. I mean people who survive infections, comparing those with most and least and looking for a correlation with age at death. There is no such evidence. We do have evidence smoking reduces your life expectancy, also alcohol, drugs, over eating. dangerous occupations. But not that repeat colds kill you.

Everyone seems to think that the immune system is a self replenishing attribute, but few apparently appreciate that some elements of immunity are, rather like female human eggs, created once at birth and not replenished thereafter.

The entire human body has a limited capacity to regrow. However the ultimate limit does not seem to be the total number of new cells we can grow, we have a great reserve for our typical lifetime. The problem seems to be that cells degrade as we age and accumulate large amounts of genetic damage. The unique point about egg cells is that they do not divide and so risk mutations, its a mechanism to keep them pristine. We die of old age because the cumulative damage means the whole system fails. The way our immune system works is by killing cells identified as infected, so they can no longer reproduce either themselves or a disease. Its quite true that our cells already contain much viral DNA, we have adopted it for our own purposes. What has not been demonstrated is that harm by covid or any other invader causes cumulative harm which results in our deaths. There are disease which can kill in the long term, for example HPV warts virus can cause cell mutations undetectable to the immune system which however in the long term can become cancerous and so deadly.  But thats not about running out of cells.

[alec]

Danny - "I know of no evidence thats the case."

What - you don't remember the paper I posted that detailed the shortening of life that correlated with number of lifetime infections? Or is it that you do remember it but instead choose to ignore data that doesn't fit your world view?

"If it were true, then we would have had cast iron evidence of it years ago."

Umm...we do. It's the primary reason why 50% of children used to die before adulthood and life expectancy was 40 years.

[alec]

Fascinating paper here, with an international study of hip fractures and covid - www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1479666X2200049X?ref=cra_js_challenge&fr=RR-1

Care is required, as the data comes from the pre-vaccine era, but there are lots of interesting observations. The first notable factor is that people suffering hip fractures had ten times the rate of covid positive tests than the background infection levels. That suggests very strongly that many hip fractures and other fall injuries are likely caused by covid. This is far from the first time I've seen this, with doctors in the US being advised by the CDC to assess falls and balance problems as potential signs of covid infection.

The other key finding is that whether or not the patients had covid before admission or whether they caught it in hospital, they were three times more likely to die than those with a hip fracture who were covid negative. Again, this matches a wealth of other data showing a very substantial increase in all cause mortality after covid infection, as well as numerous studies showing far worse outcomes for hospitalised patients with covid, even where covid is incidental to the reason for admission.

The argument over 'with' or 'from' covid is immaterial in many regards, given what we know about the mortality statistics. It worsens other conditions, and tolerating high levels of covid inside hospitals on the basis that patients are primarily there for other reasons is one of the more stupid aspects of the pandemic that the medical community have gone along with.

[lens]

Oct 6, 2023 17:10:34 GMT alec said:

Yet too many keep asking for more data, instead of boning up on what we actually already know, preferring apparently to base their outlook on how their wife felt.

alec, please don't misrepresent me. I am not "basing my outlook on how their wife felt". Just using her case to illustrate that "longCovid" is not *necessarily* very severe. In the majority of cases (yes, including hers) it's typically an inconvenience lasting a few months. Yet such is still classified as "longCovid".

Reread the core of what i previously wrote. "Of everyone I know who has had Covid (.......), a few people have had some effects lasting a few months, but the great majority haven't even had that."

You repeatedly refer to long Covid in connection with serious health complications lasting a very long time. I don't doubt in some cases that may be the case. But in many - I'd even say the great majority - that is just not the case. Of the scores of people I know who have had Covid, only a few have gone on to have anything that could be described as "long Covid" in the first place, and to the majority it's been no different to cold or at worst flu type symptoms.

Anecdotal, yes, and please don't insult me by suggesting I'm therefore implying long Covid with serious implications doesn't happen. But if the latter was commonplace, then statistically I'd expect to be aware of many more serious instances.

[alec]

lens - apologies - I didn't mean that to sound quite so bullish. Blame it on the frustration.

I actually agree with much of what you say, which is why I'm finding this situation so frustrating. Aside from the substantial excess deaths we are still experiencing, with covid effects being the only plausible explanation for the majority of these, the outcomes of covid infection on an individual basis is where I think the problem lies. You're right - most people so far have covid and recover from the acute phase relatively quickly, with a fairly high proportion carrying minor symptoms for several weeks/months afterwards, and a smaller number suffering clear and debilitating post viral issues. This latter category so far appears to equate to around 1 - 2% of infections, so for an average social circle of 80 - 120 friends, most people will be (un)lucky to know someone properly laid out with long covid. As it happens, I do, but only one person.

However, that's just for now. Even if it stays at this level, adding an extra 1% to the long term sick is bad for the NHS and the wider economy. While this would pass many individuals by, the aggregate effect is very bad indeed. And to add to that we know that the chances of LC increase with each infection. It's almost certainly true to say that no one in the world has caught covid 10 times yet, and it's also completely true to say that no one knows with any certainty what will happen when we do.

The other side of this are the research numbers that very clearly show a general decline in health that is linked to prior covid infection. We're seeing big increases in the rates all all sorts of major and minor health conditions, and again, the only viable conclusion that can explain the majority of these and their timing is covid. The vast majority of these extra visits to the GP are by people who would never assign covid as the causal factor for their ailments, but we have a wealth of data that shows the links are there. So my fit, cycling sister who had covid and then lost her balance on two occasions leading to falls, one requiring hospital treatment, does not believe her now resolved balance issue had anything to do with covid, but we have excellent data from dozens of countries that shows post covid balance problems are very common. Likewise my cousin who needed three days in hospital to sort out her jaundice six weeks after a covid bout doesn't believe the two are linked. In her case, no cause was found, she recovered, and again, post covid malfunction of the liver and jaundice is a known medical phenomena. I have another friend who had 'mild' covid, then developed a bacterial sinusitis infection which has dogged her on and off for over a year now. Guess what? Covid is known to be linked to...bacterial sinusitis infections, but she doesn't connect the two. I've three friends who caught covid last winter and then went on to catch flu within 6 weeks. They all said the covid bout was unpleasant but OK, but they were flattened completely by flu. They were completely out of action for 4 weeks, 5 weeks and 7 weeks respectively. Again, it's now established that covid (even asymptomatic) causes a faster crash than HIV in your CD4+ T cell count (long term effect not yet known with certainty) and that this is likely to make you susceptible to other infections and struggle to clear them when you do get infected. So in aggregate, we see worse flu symptoms, more RSV, more tonsilitis, etc etc, even though the individuals will just believe they've had a nasty flu infection.

It's clear from the research and the data that covid is driving many more people to seek medical attention, and that this is a key factor in rising pressure on health services all over the world. But it's also true that few individuals are making the connection in their own cases, and hospitals and health systems are happy to ignore covid as a causal factor. So I wouldn't expect you, your wife, or many of your friends to have knowingly experienced severe long covid, but you would be an extremely unusual cohort if you were not experiencing a significantly higher rate of medical problems now than you did pre covid.

The other cause of my frustration is the attitudes expressed to the small percentage who die or suffer very serious consequences from covid infection. I posted a while ago the facts about polio, which surprised me. I recall it was something like 75% of infections resulted in no noticeable symptoms, around 24% suffered a mild short term illness with a full recovery, and around 1% suffered severe consequences. In other words, probably about the same as a single round of covid post vaccination. Yet I'm not hearing anyone say we should be relaxed about polio. And that's a disease you only catch once.

I suspect that's the nub of many of the discussions we have, plus the wider debate. I'm looking at the aggregate effects, the scientific findings, and the future potential. Most other people are focused on the very narrow area of the personal effects of the acute phase only. The two sets of data fit together perfectly well - I can agree with what you have just posted, but still be completely correct to believe that covid is a developing shit show. I just feel very frustrated that I'm going to have to wait until far too many people have experienced the worst side of covid before society decides to take the necessary actions.

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

Oct 10, 2023 15:36:15 GMT alec said:

lens - apologies - I didn't mean that to sound quite so bullish. Blame it on the frustration.

I actually agree with much of what you say, which is why I'm finding this situation so frustrating. Aside from the substantial excess deaths we are still experiencing, with covid effects being the only plausible explanation for the majority of these, the outcomes of covid infection on an individual basis is where I think the problem lies. You're right - most people so far have covid and recover from the acute phase relatively quickly, with a fairly high proportion carrying minor symptoms for several weeks/months afterwards, and a smaller number suffering clear and debilitating post viral issues. This latter category so far appears to equate to around 1 - 2% of infections, so for an average social circle of 80 - 120 friends, most people will be (un)lucky to know someone properly laid out with long covid. As it happens, I do, but only one person.

However, that's just for now. Even if it stays at this level, adding an extra 1% to the long term sick is bad for the NHS and the wider economy. While this would pass many individuals by, the aggregate effect is very bad indeed. And to add to that we know that the chances of LC increase with each infection. It's almost certainly true to say that no one in the world has caught covid 10 times yet, and it's also completely true to say that no one knows with any certainty what will happen when we do.

The other side of this are the research numbers that very clearly show a general decline in health that is linked to prior covid infection. We're seeing big increases in the rates all all sorts of major and minor health conditions, and again, the only viable conclusion that can explain the majority of these and their timing is covid. The vast majority of these extra visits to the GP are by people who would never assign covid as the causal factor for their ailments, but we have a wealth of data that shows the links are there. So my fit, cycling sister who had covid and then lost her balance on two occasions leading to falls, one requiring hospital treatment, does not believe her now resolved balance issue had anything to do with covid, but we have excellent data from dozens of countries that shows post covid balance problems are very common. Likewise my cousin who needed three days in hospital to sort out her jaundice six weeks after a covid bout doesn't believe the two are linked. In her case, no cause was found, she recovered, and again, post covid malfunction of the liver and jaundice is a known medical phenomena. I have another friend who had 'mild' covid, then developed a bacterial sinusitis infection which has dogged her on and off for over a year now. Guess what? Covid is known to be linked to...bacterial sinusitis infections, but she doesn't connect the two. I've three friends who caught covid last winter and then went on to catch flu within 6 weeks. They all said the covid bout was unpleasant but OK, but they were flattened completely by flu. They were completely out of action for 4 weeks, 5 weeks and 7 weeks respectively. Again, it's now established that covid (even asymptomatic) causes a faster crash than HIV in your CD4+ T cell count (long term effect not yet known with certainty) and that this is likely to make you susceptible to other infections and struggle to clear them when you do get infected. So in aggregate, we see worse flu symptoms, more RSV, more tonsilitis, etc etc, even though the individuals will just believe they've had a nasty flu infection.

It's clear from the research and the data that covid is driving many more people to seek medical attention, and that this is a key factor in rising pressure on health services all over the world. But it's also true that few individuals are making the connection in their own cases, and hospitals and health systems are happy to ignore covid as a causal factor. So I wouldn't expect you, your wife, or many of your friends to have knowingly experienced severe long covid, but you would be an extremely unusual cohort if you were not experiencing a significantly higher rate of medical problems now than you did pre covid.

The other cause of my frustration is the attitudes expressed to the small percentage who die or suffer very serious consequences from covid infection. I posted a while ago the facts about polio, which surprised me. I recall it was something like 75% of infections resulted in no noticeable symptoms, around 24% suffered a mild short term illness with a full recovery, and around 1% suffered severe consequences. In other words, probably about the same as a single round of covid post vaccination. Yet I'm not hearing anyone say we should be relaxed about polio. And that's a disease you only catch once.

I suspect that's the nub of many of the discussions we have, plus the wider debate. I'm looking at the aggregate effects, the scientific findings, and the future potential. Most other people are focused on the very narrow area of the personal effects of the acute phase only. The two sets of data fit together perfectly well - I can agree with what you have just posted, but still be completely correct to believe that covid is a developing shit show. I just feel very frustrated that I'm going to have to wait until far too many people have experienced the worst side of covid before society decides to take the necessary actions.

It’s been very useful to see your debates on the matter, revealing how different people see such things. In some cases it depends perhaps on where they work, if they still work. An outbreak of Covid at a school can have quite some educational impact on the whole school, esp. if it then means other infections may then be worse, whereas if someone is just working from home…

Another aspect is how people prioritise. If Covid is the eighth-worst cause of death say, to some people, that means you should concentrate resources on the bigger causes. Whereas to some of us, being the eighth-worst is still pretty bad! 

[Mr Poppy]

Thank you to those using this thread to discuss Covid amongst those still interested in Covid and by doing so not clog up the main thread with something that has no polling relevance.

[alec]

Thanks Trevor. You'll probably have noticed that if I have a post specifically about covid, I'll place it here, with a signpost on the main thread, but where there is a post about how covid is affecting other relevant issues - like education, the economy, or the health service - I post it on the main thread.

That's because all these other issues are highly relevant in polling terms, and ghettoeising posts just because they contain the word 'covid' is just silly.

[Mr Poppy]

Oct 13, 2023 12:05:37 GMT alec said:

Thanks Trevor. You'll probably have noticed that if I have a post specifically about covid, I'll place it here, with a signpost on the main thread, but where there is a post about how covid is affecting other relevant issues - like education, the economy, or the health service - I post it on the main thread.

That's because all these other issues are highly relevant in polling terms, and ghettoeising posts just because they contain the word 'covid' is just silly.

Why would I have noticed that when you know I hide your posts on the main thread? I do unhide posts on the Issue Specific threads as those threads don't seem to suffer from the partisan/groundhog stuff that plagues the main thread.

No idea why folks need constant reminding with 'signposts' on the main thread as 'new' posts on an Issue Specific thread will show up as 'new' and anyone interested in that specific issue can view them, reply, add more info, etc. 

I had assumed you, Danny and the few others who continue to want to discuss Covid were doing so on this thread - as I stated when I thanked you for doing so. I appreciate it still interests a few people but pretty sure a lot of folks on the main thread are glad to see Covid discussion moved to this thread.  

[alec]

Thanks Trevor. I signpost because a number of people have said they find it useful. Accepting that others have different ways of doing things that they find enjoyable and/or useful is just part of life. There's no need to be judgemental about such things.

Who knows. I might start signposting for you on the Issue Specific threads if there's something you'll be interested in on the main thread....Wouldn't that be fun?

[lens]

Oct 10, 2023 15:36:15 GMT alec said:

lens - apologies - I didn't mean that to sound quite so bullish. Blame it on the frustration.

I actually agree with much of what you say, which is why I'm finding this situation so frustrating. ......... You're right - most people so far have covid and recover from the acute phase relatively quickly, with a fairly high proportion carrying minor symptoms for several weeks/months afterwards, and a smaller number suffering clear and debilitating post viral issues. This latter category so far appears to equate to around 1 - 2% of infections, so for an average social circle of 80 - 120 friends, most people will be (un)lucky to know someone properly laid out with long covid. As it happens, I do, but only one person.

Thank you alec - good. I was asking "how big a problem is it really quantitatively", and in ball park figures I suspect about 1% of infections for *severe* long Covid symptoms after infection may be reasonable. Though will obviously depend on any definition of "severe". And whether or not it's random amongst the population. But you originally said "Early evidence suggests that quantitatively it lies somewhere between big and massive. ............we have robust data showing some astonishing levels of excess deaths that mirror waves of covid, so yes, it's going to be a really big problem, quantitatively." Is it really then - given such numbers - "somewhere between big and massive"? Personally, I'd say not. Certainly not on a personal level to the great majority of people anymore, anyway.

You mention people you know having falls etc, and ask if Covid could be involved. Well, a while back I broke my ankle. So ah-ha! Could that be another case, you may ask!!? Sorry. I've never had Covid, and this was a few years ago anyway. 

Oct 10, 2023 15:36:15 GMT alec said:

However, that's just for now. Even if it stays at this level, adding an extra 1% to the long term sick is bad for the NHS and the wider economy. While this would pass many individuals by, the aggregate effect is very bad indeed. And to add to that we know that the chances of LC increase with each infection. It's almost certainly true to say that no one in the world has caught covid 10 times yet, and it's also completely true to say that no one knows with any certainty what will happen when we do.

And yet again, on a national level, then no illness is good illness. I say again I'm not dismissing the whole subject out of hand. But I plead again for a sense of proportion. Very roughly - and from before Covid - statistically roughly 1% of the UK population will die of various causes *every year*. Many more will be very ill, in many cases life changing. Here we're talking about 1% of cases going to long Covid - far fewer dying - and at current case rates that's a very small percentage of the entire population.

And case rates aren't that high at the moment. Look at coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare?areaType=nation&areaName=England for the graph of patients admitted to hospital with Covid. (Yes, *with*, not *for*.) It's showing a rise over the last few weeks - but from a very low trough around July, and in spite of that rise is still currently **below** even all previous troughs right back to July 2021! I've seen panicky headlines along the lines of "cases have risen 50% in just a couple of weeks!!" Quite true - but the pattern for several years now has been peaks and troughs, and somehow the pattern also seems to be alarm over the up slopes, and a deafening silence the other side of the peak. I suspect we're going to see the same here.

Oct 10, 2023 15:36:15 GMT alec said:

.......... I can agree with what you have just posted, but still be completely correct to believe that covid is a developing shit show. I just feel very frustrated that I'm going to have to wait until far too many people have experienced the worst side of covid before society decides to take the necessary actions.

But what are "those actions"!? And that's really the hub of the question. The only really undeniably effective measures in the last three years has been vaccination and strong lockdown - and the latter is not realistic in the long term. All the rest seem to have had marginal benefit at best, and in many cases the cost and side effects may have been worse than any health benefit. The withdrawal of such as LFT tests, masking in general, and test and trace just didn't have any correlation with case rates then rising.

And even if agreeing that "no illness is good illness whatever the level", then I've personally witnessed two friends who have had anxiety and mental health issues over the last few years **because** of all the actions due to Covid - whilst suffering little or not at all from the illness itself. Before even thinking of the economic harm that anti-covid measures have caused, both nationally and personally to many. All such needs to be equated with harms directly caused by Covid.

[alec]

lens - would disagree on the definitions of 'big or massive'. Once again, I go back to polio. A disease which incapacitates 1% of the population really is massive in it's long term implications, which is what we are seeing now in terms of excess deaths, pressure on the NHS, lost educational opportunities and the substantial loss of economic efficiency. And I think the more minor - but still serious - impacts go alot wider than 1% of the population. For example, recent data from Finland shows 1.3 times the demand on primary healthcare services, with the increases matching covid waves. That's a huge budget impact.

[lens]

Oct 15, 2023 7:16:07 GMT alec said:

.................lens excess deaths, pressure on the NHS, lost educational opportunities and the substantial loss of economic efficiency. And I think the more minor - but still serious - impacts go alot wider than 1% of the population.

I mentioned earlier the mental health effects that are the other side of the coin. The fear being instilled into some people and causing more harm than Covid itself. And right on cue there is now this from the BBC (hardly the home of alt-right conspiracy theorists): www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-66994137 . Quote:

"Before the pandemic, Sally enjoyed regular trips abroad and played golf three or four times a week, socialising with the other members at her club.

Now in her mid-70s, she enjoys good health. But despite having been vaccinated against Covid, Sally says the virus has changed her approach to life.

"I've not been on a plane since the pandemic started," she says. "I just don't think it is worth the risk.

"I still play lots of golf - and in the summer, I enjoy having a drink on the terrace. But I don't really do any socialising inside. I skip the Christmas parties and other events when the weather turns."

Sally is not alone, with research suggesting anxiety over Covid continues."

No - Sally is not alone. And I've already mentioned knowing a couple of people who have been suffering severe anxiety and other mental issues. In one case, a marked improvement came after she actually caught Covid! "The worst" had happened! And on recovery a feeling of "was that all there was to it?" And a great improvement in mental health. No, I won't dispute the outcome has been very different for others, but I think you need to start accepting that in many cases the fear caused in some by anti-Covid precautions is at least as big a problem as the illness itself. Also from that link:

"But there is plenty of evidence to suggest the virus is on its way to becoming just another respiratory bug to contend with, alongside flu and others maybe lesser known, such as respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), rhinorvirus and adenovirus."

And that does seem to be backed up by the graph shown of "How 2022 and 2023 compare". Currently the no of patients in hospital with Covid is at it's lowest since well before the start of 2022 - the point I made in the last post, and which you prefer to ignore. Yes, it's currently rising - but is still well below even every trough in the last 18 months! There is every reason to suppose it will start to fall again soon, and I'd suggest at a level well below that of previous peaks. But let's wait and see?

The other point to pick up on is that not only does such a graph show a decaying amplitude, but a dramatic shift in frequency. During 2022, it had a period of roughly 3 months, whereas now the period is much longer. This is picked up on in the BBC article:

"Covid is "well on the way" to becoming seasonal, Prof Hunter says, with flu likely to cause more deaths from now on. And eventually, Covid will become "just another cause of the common cold", like the other coronaviruses that circulate."

[alec]

lens - I believe Nick Triggle (author of that ludicrously rubbish article which is now the subject of multiple complaints due to the factual inaccuracies and biases) is married to a right wing Tory MP. He is known as a minimizer and has a terrible record covering the health impacts of covid, always opting to quote scientists who have repeatedly got predictions about the course of the pandemic wrong.

The idea of comparing graphs from 22 and 23, when the entire basis of testing has been completely changed, is just stupid. For information, this is the third year on the trot Prof Paul Hunter has claimed the virus is on the way to becoming seasonal, he's been wrong every time, and he was instrumental in getting the Great Barrington Declaration off the ground, not signing it for reasons of wanting to obscure his involvement. All this, from articles exposing the right wing financiers of the GBD that I've posted on here previously. It's a propaganda piece, from a discredited news organisation.

The actual scientific evidence is that there is no clear signal for seasonality of covid, the upswings and downswings of infections actually mirror the emergence of variants,rather than seasons, there is abundant evidence that the time between reinfections is now reducing (would be opposite if becoming seasonal) and we are also seeing the first emergence of mutations that will likely set us on the path to distinct serotypes, which means multiple variants with little or no cross immunity circulating simultaneously. as with Dengue fever. And as with Dengue fever, this potentially leads to the conditions whereby prior infection or vaccination actually worsens subsequent reinfections.

All there in the science that Nick Triggle and his selected contributors choose too ignore.

[lens]

Oct 15, 2023 16:22:57 GMT alec said:

lens - I believe Nick Triggle (author of that ludicrously rubbish article which is now the subject of multiple complaints due to the factual inaccuracies and biases) is married to a right wing Tory MP. He is known as a minimizer and has a terrible record covering the health impacts of covid, always opting to quote scientists who have repeatedly got predictions about the course of the pandemic wrong.

Well.... I really don't know what to say to that. Other than I hope you've put it in writing to the BBC that you are concerned about the accuracy and lack of impartiality of one of their correspondents? Or has it more to do with his writing disagreeing with your own strongly held beliefs - and therefore he MUST be wrong?

Oct 15, 2023 16:22:57 GMT alec said:

The idea of comparing graphs from 22 and 23, when the entire basis of testing has been completely changed, is just stupid. ............All this, from articles exposing the right wing financiers of the GBD that I've posted on here previously. It's a propaganda piece, from a discredited news organisation.

That graph quoted on the BBC piece is straight from the NHS and the government website, as I previously gave the link for. coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare?areaType=nation&areaName=England

The parts referenced concern patient admissions, and patients in, hospital with Covid, and I'm interested to see exactly what you think is "just stupid" about looking at such data? Yes, lateral flow testing at home, even test and trace etc comparisons now will have different criteria over time, but ....... statistics from within hospitals!? (And which are probably indicative of rates in the community at large.) If anything may they not be minimising the numbers at the start, when such testing was only starting to get into it's swing?

Or is it the case that the graphs are "just stupid" because they don't fit what you wish to believe? I'm not just sucking in what is being said by "right wing financiers" or "biased minimiser journalists" - just looking at the most basic data from the government statistics and seeing what can only be described as a pattern of reducing peaks and troughs over the last few years, with the period between the peaks getting steadily longer.

And the BBC - a "discredited news organisation"? Putting out a "propaganda piece" from a "journalist known as a minimiser"? Oh please. The BBC may not always get everything right, and I find it's presentation sometimes lacking nowadays, but...... "discredited news organisation"!!? If the BBC is now "discredited", then please tell me what news organisations you do go to for trusted news!?

For myself, I'm going to see what happens with the relevant graph - on the government website - in the next few months. I fully expect a peak to be reached (at a lower point than in 2022) then start to decline.

[alec]

lens - yes, I and several hundred others have complained about Triggle's inaccuracies.

The point about hospital admissions data is the very significant change in testing protocols. There is no longer any routine testing on admission, so yes, the numbers will be very different. We now have doctors forums where doctors themselves are complaining that their hospital administrators are refusing them permission to test patients with symptoms where the family presents a +ve LFT test, and in some cases families complaining that their +ve test relatives have died and the hospital has refused to put covid on the death certificate.

[alec]

lens - good article here (US based) exploring the reasons behind the propaganda - www.thenation.com/article/society/covid-pandemic-panic-calm-advice/

Worth following the links too. Chakrvarty has consistently been accurate in his published papers concerning the path of the pandemic, predicting waning immunity, leaky vaccines and rapid variant evolution way back in 2020. You rarely hear from him because the BBC and others only talk to the falsely reassuring scientists who have been consistently wrong.

[alec]

It looks like the new variants in the Pirola clan are beginning to have a real world impact. The initial BA.2.86 was very rapidly flagged as of concern, due to it's very high number of mutations and it's likely immune evasion. Those early concerns were justified, as it showed significant relative growth advantage. However, one of the factors that has been noted previously across many of the shifts in variants has been that the drive to evade immunity leads to a set of mutations that typically reduces the ACE2 binding efficiency. So in terms of human infectivity, the variants take two or three steps forward but one step back. What has then been observed previously has been the emergence of secondary strains linked to the original new variant that adopt a set of mutations that 'corrects' the previous reducting in binding efficiency, and it's normally these second generation variants that have created the significant waves.

This is now happening with Pirola. A new variant, JN.1, was identified a few weeks ago, with a series of mutations that improve the ACE2 binding affinity to go alongside the substantial immune evasion, with the result hat it now has a substantial growth advantage over BA.2.86 (+100% per week) which in turn has a significant growth advantage over the various variants currently dominating the landscape.

So the predictions of a new Pirola variant with worse properties emerging has been quickly born out, and in some countries (France, possibly the UK) this is starting to look like leading a wave into November/early December. There is no clear idea yet whether severity will be worse or not, other than small numbers of cases reported more or less anecdotally that are hinting at worse symptoms. We also don't know how effective prior infection or vaccination will prove, against both infection or severe symptoms. It's wait and see time.

Here's an explanatory thread -

[leftieliberal]

Long Covid less frequent now: inews.co.uk/news/science/long-covid-less-common-new-cases-2708683

The risk of getting long Covid when infected with the virus is just a tenth of what it was at the start of the pandemic, according to scientists tracking the virus.

Imperial College London’s REACT study found a combination of immunity built up from previous infections and vaccinations – and the fact that the virus is less severe now than it was earlier in the pandemic – have contributed to the declining risk.

About 2.8 per cent people who have caught the Omicron variant of Covid have gone on to develop long Covid, defined as having symptoms for 12 weeks or more.

Omicron has been dominant in the UK in various mutations, or subvariants, since January 2022. These have a variety of names – such as Pirola, or BA.2.86, Arcturus (XBB.1.16) and Kraken (XBB.1.5) – all of which have descended from the Omicron variant.

That compares to just over a fifth with the original, “wild type”, strain of Covid, 13.8 per cent for the Alpha variant and 9.3 per cent for Delta, according to the Imperial scientists, who have been monitoring Covid since the start of the pandemic.

“We find that compared to wild type virus, those infected when Omicron was dominant were far less likely to report symptoms lasting beyond 12 weeks,” said Christina Atchison, of Imperial College London.

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

The Times version of the REACT study! (Posted it before I saw your post, leftieliberal!)

One in 20 UK patients have Covid symptoms a year after infection
Sufferers can develop “persistent and burdensome illness”

“One in 20 people still have Covid-19 symptoms a year after infection, according to the largest UK study looking at the “lasting impacts” of the virus.

The analysis by Imperial College London involved 276,000 members of the public who were regularly tested for Covid during the pandemic as part of the React surveillance study.

In total, 59 per cent of these participants tested positive for the virus between 2020 and last year, and were asked to report their symptoms and any long-term effects.

While most people recovered from Covid-19 within two weeks, one in 13 reported symptoms three months later, meeting the threshold for “long Covid”.

One in 20 patients had symptoms a year after infection, with mild fatigue, difficulty concentrating and joint pain the most common.

Other persistent symptoms included loss or change of sense of smell or taste, shortness of breath, severe fatigue, chest tightness or pain and poor memory.

The authors of the study, published in the journal Nature Communications, said it provided a “snapshot of the continued impact of Covid-19 in the UK”.

…

Women, patients with other health conditions and those with severe initial infections were more likely to develop long-term symptoms.

The analysis also found that the likelihood of getting long Covid symptoms was decreasing as immunity built up in the population, making infections less severe.

….

The study found that people infected in the Omicron wave of the pandemic — from December 2021 onwards — were 88 per cent less likely to develop persistent symptoms than those infected with early “wild-type” strains of the virus”

[alec]

Report of yet another study detailing the cardiovascular risks from covid infection - www.medscape.com/viewarticle/997638?form=fpf

This one adds some rather worrying data regarding direct infection of the arterial tissues, leading to long term inflammatory responses and an elevated risk of CV disease. There is a discussion about it in this thread, from a senior UK cardiologist who has been highlighting the CV risks from covid for a long time -

I think it's very clear at this stage that there are more deaths arising from covid than are being counted - possibly a great deal more - and the most worrying possibility is that those we are formally diagnosing as 'long covid' are just the canaries in the coal mine" as Dr Duncan says. Other data is showing that even asymptomatic infections are leaving blood vessel damage, and we don't know if this resolves, if it is cumulative, or whether it will translate into widespread cardiovascular health impacts over time.

It's just not a cold, and nothing like 'flu. Only SARS viruses have been found to do these things.

[alec]

Interested in how sometimes, medical science can just get things so terribly wrong. Worse, when that happens, the wrong theories can be so embedded into the architecture of scientific credentials, positions and power structures, that the reaction isn't one of accepting new knowledge and learning, but of digging in a fighting to discredit those who propose the new thinking. Unfortunately, this has happened time and again in the medical world, where the complexities and hidden nature of much of the discipline allows false theories to persist way beyond their useful lifespan.

There are signs of change though, across two key fronts. In the US and elsewhere there is now a groundswell within the medical community that the failure to recognise airborne viral transmission as the main form of contagion by SARS-CoV-2 was a huge error that has killed thousands of people. This documentary (advert clip only, sadly) has aired on the CBS flagship 60 minutes, and is a sign that the issue of airborne transmission has now broken through to the mainstream -

The resistance to this has been very high level, very powerful, very political, and very obstinate. It started at the WHO, who represented the status quo, with public health and medical bodies universally wedded to the false doctrine of droplet spread as the primary route of respiratory transmission. Very rapidly (by March 2020) there was concrete epidemiological evidence that directly contradicted this, with clear evidence of aerosol (airborne) transmission. This has been added to with experiment data where actual live virus has been captured in indoor air samples and subsequently cultured from real life situations, proving without any doubt that airborne transmission is occurring. Yet it has only been very slowly that public health bodies have started to downgrade the handwashing advice and instead promote masking and clean air measures. Indeed, many infectious disease specialists are still downplaying airborne transmission, finding ready allies across government and industry, as the political element of this is the oft stated fact that handwashing places the onus onto the individual, whereas if airborne infection is accepted as the main danger, then those who own and run buildings will become responsible. I don't think anyone should underestimate the power of this dynamic. It explains why the Koch brothers and other right wing billionaires have poured millions into high profile campaigns to discredit the efficacy of masks and the threat from SARS-CoV-2 in general.

The second area where change is slowly being recognised is in the role of engineers and engineering science, as opposed to medical science. Nowhere is this more evident than the science behind masking, but it also applies to the technical issues around clean air provision. Despite being known to work in a highly effective manner when correctly applied, masks have been relentlessly attacked as ineffective. The correct approach would have been to understand the potential benefits of masking, learn how best these can be delivered and where things can go wrong, and then train those people you want to mask to do so properly, to avoid many of those mistakes. Part of the campaign to discredit masking was done via medical scientists, with the 'Evidence Based Medicine' brigade often leading the charge. EBM rest heavily on randomized control trials, elevating these to a near godlike status. For medical interventions and drug treatments, the are a great approach. You can't see what goes on inside the body, so designing trials that strip away confounders and biases is one of the best ways to work out how a complex system is responding to an intervention.

But masking is a physical intervention, like building a bridge or sending passenger jets into the sky. We can measure the effects using engineering science - RCTs are not only not needed here, but they would actually be inferior. But that doesn't stop the EBM fundamentalists saying otherwise. This thread gives some insight into this dynamic -

Prof Carl Henegan is the director of the Oxford University Evidence Based Medicine Institute and has been prominent in criticising many of the pandemic measures, downplaying the numbers with long covid, understating the value of masking, and criticising the idea of large scale airborne spread. He is a senior academic with a high profile, and has got nearly everything about the pandemic wrong. He came in for some torrid forensic questioning at the covid inquiry last week, and looked like a startled rabbit in the headlights, as first the inquiry KC but even Lady Hallet, the chair, made clear what they thought of much of his evidence. This came after some very constructive sessions from engineers and experts in ventilation, where the issue of airborne spread and the measures required to combat it were given, probably for the first time, a genuine and fair hearing in a public forum.

So I think the earth is slowly turning on this. After three and a half years when we have ceded control of the pandemic agenda to the medical establishment, and they have proved themselves to be not up to the task, the reality is dawning and the baton is being handed to those who know better. While we normally celebrate great medical advances, the discipline of medicine has historically been typified by catastrophic errors of understanding, along with an arrogance and resistance to change, such that these error persist for decades. This has been happening for centuries. It took medicine 30 years to accept that doctors were killing patients by failing to wash their hands. Ignaz Semmelweis demonstrated the efficacy of handwashing in 1847, but he was hounded by the medical establishment for daring to suggest they were responsible for patient deaths to such a degree that he killed himself, and it wasn't until the 1870s that handwashing became more widely accepted. www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/handwashing-once-controversial-medical-advice

In modern times, we still have very highly decorated, senior medical establishment figures trying to hold the discredited line that ME and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome are primarily psychological conditions without a firm physical cause. This has culminated in the withdrawal in 2020 of formal NHS guidance on the use of 'graded exercise therapy' (GET) and the use of cognitive behavioural therapies as cures. A NICE review found that GET was positively harmful and that CBT was not an effective cure, simple statements that patient campaign groups have been telling the medical establishment for over twenty years, only to be told that their illnesses were all 'inside their heads'. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9141828/

Covid, oddly enough, has been instrumental in this particular shift, with the research into long covid showing categorical proof of biological changes causing the same type of symptoms as ME/CFS. Even so, people like Carl Henegan and the CBT brigade are busy engaged in a rear guard action to hold onto the claim that ME is primarily a mental health issue, based on beliefs and feelings, because for some of them, to accept this new knowledge would mean accepting that their entire careers have been based on pushing theories that have caused harm. To do this, they also now have to discredit the lived experience of millions of people with Long Covid, hence the constant attacks on anything that shows this to be a problem.

Many campaigners for women's health issues will also probably recognise a similar dynamic, whether this is about faulty surgical implants or specific female only conditions like adenomyosis - www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-65574106 when the medical establishment is heavily invested in something it believes, getting them to recognise they were wrong is a long and painful process.

So, tectonic plates shifting in the world of airborne transmission, and in the next few decades, that's likely to lead to dramatic improvements in health for everyone. But don't expect the doctors to 'fess up to their part in delaying this, but do expect them to take credit for the improvements.

[Danny]

Oct 8, 2023 8:29:00 GMT alec said:

Fascinating paper here, with an international study of hip fractures and covid - www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1479666X2200049X?ref=cra_js_challenge&fr=RR-1

Care is required, as the data comes from the pre-vaccine era, but there are lots of interesting observations. The first notable factor is that people suffering hip fractures had ten times the rate of covid positive tests than the background infection levels. That suggests very strongly that many hip fractures and other fall injuries are likely caused by covid.

Well no, it doesnt. Firstly all such people would likely have been taken to hospital and promptly caught covid there. Secondly, Actual number of covid cases was massively under reported, there was never anything like the testing capacity to detect them all. You will recall how number of recorded cases went up pretty much in lockstep with the number of available tests. So the official background infection rate is ridiculously too low. Thirdly, all such people would have been tested thereby finding all those who had covid. Or indeed had enoghcovid to trigger a positive result wihtout perhaps even noticing. Very interesting case in the US of a woman whose partner had a case of covid he was unable to shake off. She didnt get ill but continued testing positive all the time he had it. Presumably breathing it in from him and then having enough of it to trigger the tests. One wonders how many hospital staff might have similarly been sent home just from breathing it in but not really being unwell or even infectious. You dont need live virus to get a positive test, dead is fine.

This is far from the first time I've seen this, with doctors in the US being advised by the CDC to assess falls and balance problems as potential signs of covid infection.

Obviously having the usual covid symptoms isnt likely to make you steadier on your feet, true enough. In that sense I guess you may be right, having a headache, etc, is likely to increase your risk of a broken hip.

The other key finding is that whether or not the patients had covid before admission or whether they caught it in hospital, they were three times more likely to die than those with a hip fracture who were covid negative.

Again, a huge propertion of people who died from covid in the first wave lived in care homes,(1/4 to 1/2 depending on the figures and definition of a care home), and a similar proportion of people in care homes have dementia. The issue you refuse to face is that those dying from covid where hugely people already sick, even if just the attrition of old age. Having a severe case of covid was in effect a selective test for whether that person already had underlying illness. You could have taken the group of people who have died from covid and used them as a sample group of some of the most severely chronically ill in the country. Its really not suprising that if they had this warning flag of susceptibility to covid, they were more likely to die from pretty much anything.

Again, this matches a wealth of other data showing a very substantial increase in all cause mortality after covid infection

No. Thats the point. People who died from covid had higher than average risk of dying from anything. The covid test simply selected such people.

[Danny]

Oct 27, 2023 10:22:26 GMT alec said:

There are signs of change though, across two key fronts. In the US and elsewhere there is now a groundswell within the medical community that the failure to recognise airborne viral transmission as the main form of contagion by SARS-CoV-2 was a huge error that has killed thousands of people.

It started at the WHO, who represented the status quo, with public health and medical bodies universally wedded to the false doctrine of droplet spread as the primary route of respiratory transmission. Very rapidly (by March 2020) there was concrete epidemiological evidence that directly contradicted this, with clear evidence of aerosol (airborne) transmission.

I gather covid virus dies if it dries out. Therefore any live airborn virus has to be wet. Whether thats a droplet or an aerosol makes no difference as far as I can see to the practical situation, except presumably bigger droplets would last longer though maybe travel slower. I Dont recall anyone ever saying covid does not spread through the air. I am a bit at a loss to see quite what difference this research makes?

Despite being known to work in a highly effective manner when correctly applied, masks have been relentlessly attacked as ineffective.

I dont recall anyone in general during periods where mask wearing was required to be using them 'correctly'. Nor were they the sort of masks which medics would use if taking this seriously. Nor were they used once and disposed of. We saw during the epidemic how doctors wore full body suits with air supplies if they really wanted to stop spread.

But masking is a physical intervention, like building a bridge or sending passenger jets into the sky. We can measure the effects using engineering science

Problem is, mask wearing only reduces risk, while you wear that mask. Soon as you stop, the risk returns (even if the masks were being used near enough perfectly to cause a significant drop in risk, which is rather unlikely in general) But assuming they did work well, all you do is delay infections until you stop wearing them. So what you are arguing for is mask wearing all day, every day, forever. Frankly, I would rather catch covid and so would the rest of the world.

Are you wearing a mask all day every day? Including at home, in bed if you share one? The actual risk of you catching covid is pretty high because it is endemic in society.

[alec]

Read the paper Danny.

[leftieliberal]

Links between blood clotting and adenovirus Covid vaccine found: theconversation.com/why-some-people-got-blood-clots-after-the-astrazeneca-vaccine-new-clues-211949

It seems to be some people's genetic makeup that causes antibodies produced by the vaccine to stick to Platelet Factor 4 very strongly, both producing clots and also reducing the number of platelets (which are important for clotting) so leading to severe bleeding.

At 1 in 50,000 levels this sort of effect wouldn't show up even in Phase 3 clinical trials.

[lens]

Oct 27, 2023 10:22:26 GMT alec said:

The second area where change is slowly being recognised is in the role of engineers and engineering science, as opposed to medical science. Nowhere is this more evident than the science behind masking, but it also applies to the technical issues around clean air provision. Despite being known to work in a highly effective manner when correctly applied, masks have been relentlessly attacked as ineffective. The correct approach would have been to understand the potential benefits of masking, learn how best these can be delivered and where things can go wrong, and then train those people you want to mask to do so properly, ................

Ah! Well, taken bit by bit I fully agree with most of that - with one exception. Outside of extreme circles it's not **masks** that have been "relentlessly attacked as ineffective", but rather such as general mask mandates. I'm not disputing that high quality masks, worn and removed to strict protocols in areas where there may be a risk have effect - but that is far, far from the case in general public areas. Which is why there is little or no correlation between times and areas where masking mandates were enforced and case rates.

Engineering science may tell you that a bullet proof vest may save your life if shot. But you'll still die if you're not wearing such the twentieth time somebody tries to shoot you, even if you've been protected 19 times before.

You may argue that therefore the problem is not the mandates themselves, but rather that everyone should be forced to wear them to strict standards? Which frankly is effectively impossible. It would mean high quality masks only, and strictly single use only, changed after a few hours and removed in such a way as to avoid any contamination. And one thing if just for (say) half an hour walking round a supermarket - quite another for anyone required to wear such continuously for an entire working day.

And for how long? Here Danny has a very valid point. Is anyone suggesting public mask wearing (to a high standard) must continue indefinitely and forever? If so, what about pubs, restaurants, etc? Or do mask advocates think it'll be possible to devise a mask that will permit drinking, eating? The most futile policy I recall from the pandemic (apart from the utterly useless app) was when restaurants reopened but required a mask to be worn to go to the toilet. Obviously someone thought Covid viruses would not come out except during a trip to the loo......

So yes, I do criticise any general policy of trying to enforce general mask wearing as bound to be ineffective, but as said in the past, they may have a valid role to play to protect individuals who consider themselves vulnerable. But such individuals will have to wear a high quality mask scrupulously all the time to be effective. Pointless to wear one all week long in the office and shop, only to go to the pub for an hour on a Friday night .........

[alec]

lens - "Which is why there is little or no correlation between times and areas where masking mandates were enforced and case rates."

Except that there is - a great deal of it.

What you're getting confused with is that the studies that don't show the benefits are the ones that don't strictly measure where and when infections occurred.

[lens]

alec - ultimately, you are ducking the questions that both danny and myself have posed. From myself: "Is anyone suggesting public mask wearing (to a high standard) must continue indefinitely and forever? If so, what about pubs, restaurants, etc?"

Straight question, what about a straight answer?

[alec]

lens - "Straight question, what about a straight answer?"

I've actually answered that multiple times already. With a bit of effort, we can eliminate covid. All perfectly possible, according to the experts who rank viruses in terms of their ease of eradication.

As I've said repeatedly, mask wearing isn't very nice and it isn't a long term solution, save for some clinical settings where it possibly ought to become the norm, if other solutions don't prove sufficiently effective. Otherwise, it's very simple; we get on with the business of addressing the challenge of indoor air quality. NHS Scotland are researching UV air cleaning kit. They've released a research note showing that 6 far-UV lights running at 10% power cleared a 32m3 space of 89% of sars virus at just 6W energy consumption without creating any ozone. I've seen Ikea now sell a coffee table with an in built HEPA filter, and the Dundee NHS UV researchers also managed to eliminate 57% of virus particles in a scenario with two diners facing each other at a table with one infected, with a low powered lamp over their heads.

Then we have the studies showing a 20% reduction in school absences in the Bradford schools Hepa filter RCT. That's an enormous impact considering the children are only in the classrooms for 21% of the week and the study only looked at actual school absence rates for sickness, not taking into account where the children actually got infected.

Then we start thinking about Sweden, which pays 90% salary from day one for any certified sick leave, thus enabling workers to stay at home when ill.

And so on. I have repeatedly and rather patiently explained all the various measures and technical solutions to prevent covid and any other airborne infection spreading, and I've repeatedly and patiently explained that while masks are good, they're the last line of defence when everything else has failed, and not particularly helpful as a long term solution.

And every time I get asked the same question, and I give the same reply; engineer out the virus, like we engineered out cholera, typhoid, etc, and in parallel, work on better vaccines.