Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:


Outdated and fudging the numbers. The author takes 3 to 3.5 weeks as the median time to death, which is BS because that is based on a median age of 60 years old in a small sample size. A bigger sample size shows that it is about two weeks for over 70 year olds (he even includes said source but completely ignores that inconvenient tidbit) and guess what 4/5ths of deaths in Italy, Spain and France are 70+ years old. So his numbers are based on a metric that ignores the fact that the median age is well over 70, accounting for over 4/5ths of deaths in these countries. Guess what, if you take about two weeks, the official lockdown date and death peak actually are pretty close!
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jmv.25689?af=R

This source is even more problematic. To start, it defines a narrow scope of lockdowns which as far as I am aware, is wholly inapplicable to what we are discussing in the US:

Before I can explain exactly why lockdowns don’t work, we need to define what “lockdowns” are and, especially, what they are not. I define lockdowns as having three characteristics. First, people are ordered to stay at home or required to provide a reason for movement outside of home. Second, assemblies are limited to a very small (usually single-digit) threshold. Third, many businesses and activities are forced to close, even if they do not technically constitute assemblies and would like to stay open. Stay-at-home orders, low assembly thresholds, and business closures together constitute a lockdown. Without those three features, it’s not a lockdown.

What the author states does work, is what most Americans are referring to as a "lockdown" (whether its appropriate to do so or not):

These other policies—travel restrictions, large-assembly limits, centralized quarantine, mask requirements, and school cancellations—do work. Because COVID is an extremely severe disease that, if left unchecked, will kill hundreds of thousands of Americans, it is vitally important that policymakers focus their efforts on policies that do work (masks, central quarantines, travel restrictions, school cancellations, large-assembly limits), and avoid implementing draconian, unpopular policies that don’t work (lockdowns).

So on that basis alone it already fails to be meaningful in this debate, as the "lockdown" being described is not really applicable to the experience in most states (honestly, I'm assuming that New York and New Jersey are the strictest/tightest in the country by virtue of how severe the outbreak here has been, what we have here doesn't meet the authors definition of a lockdown by any stretch, so I don't imagine that to be the case anywhere else. I know from my friends in other states they have been free to go out and about and businesses remain open for curbisde service, etc. where they don't involve an assemblage of people/prolonged contact between individuals (i.e. barber shops, gyms, tattoo parlors)


The author also states that the Netherlands have not have a lockdown - now I could be wrong, please correct me, but everything I have read indicates that they are - in fact - on a lockdown. So on top of the issues you pointed out, theres also some basic factual errors that question the veracity and soundness of the authors arguments.

Ultimately, this article has not aged well. As noted elsewhere, Swedens numbers would currently be catastrophic if it wasn't Sweden - a country with a small population of 10 million people spread out over an impressively large area, and it is catastrophic if you adjust your frame of reference in relation to its Nordic neighbors - particularly Denmark which has half the population but 14x the density, and yet only a fraction of the deaths of Sweden.

Links to a subscriber locked article, so since you read it, it shouldn't be hard to copy paste?

https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2020/05/01/do-lockdowns-save-many-lives-in-most-places-the-data-say-no/

Its not very convincing, it hinges on this:

To normalize for an unambiguous comparison of deaths between states at the midpoint of an epidemic, we counted deaths per million population for a fixed 21-day period, measured from when the death rate first hit 1 per million—e.g.,‒three deaths in Iowa or 19 in New York state. A state’s “days to shutdown” was the time after a state crossed the 1 per million threshold until it ordered businesses shut down.

but it fails as a meaningful test because the places slowest to shut down tended to be places with a lower pop density and a lower R0, so its basically meaningless to do the comparison the way the authors structured it - theres a reason why its an opinion piece in the WSJ (great paper, gakky opinion column) and not in a peer-reviewed study or scholoarly journal. The author does acknowledge this at one point (beyond the paywall):

Our correlation coefficient for per-capita death rates vs. the population density was 44%.That suggests New York City might have benefited from its shutdown—but blindly copying New York’s policies in places with low Covid-19 death rates, such as my native Wisconsin, doesn’t make sense.

So there is a reluctant acknowledgement that lockdowns *do* make an impact, what the author has failed to do however is extrapolate why it worked in NYC but seemed to have no impact in other areas - in this case its an issue of time. The author here struggles to really take timescales into consideration - his 21 day metric is arbitrary and irrelevant, the virus doesn't cease spreading or killing after 21 days, just because no obvious impact emerged in Wisconsin over a 21 day trial period does not mean that over an extended timeframe - say 210 days - the loss of life experienced in Wisconsin couldn't be catastrophic if a lockdown was not enacted. R0 is, after all, a measure or reproduction - if R0=2 gets you 1 million cases after 21 days, it doesn't mean that R0=1 won't *ever* get you 1 million cases, it just means that it will take a bit longer to get there. NYC is densely populated, the R0 as a result is higher, which is how you get to an estimated 20% antibody-positive rate in the City despite the fact that the rest of the state only measured at 3.6% over the same timeframe - left to its own devices, the virus will continue to spread through upstate NY until the rest of NY State has *also* reached 20% positive... and then it will continue spreading from there. It may take a lot longer, but that doesn't mean it won't happen.

While a big part of the lockdown is to flatten the curve to avert a healthcare collapse, there is stilla goal of trying to prevent deaths, not necessarily because its the morally correct thing to do, but because excess deaths still carry a hard economic cost -one which is demonstrably worse than the cost of the lockdown itself. By extending the timeframe of the virus and slowing the rate of deaths you buy time to develop the vaccine with which those deaths are averted and the costs associated are avoided.

The author is also *hugely* biased, so theres that.

This uses the bad research of your first source so it already invalidates itself.

In this case the article is misleading and spudquar apparently didn't actually read it. The headline is ‘Lockdowns Don’t Work’ - note the quotes. Thats because its addressing the assertion that they do not work, and arguing that they, in fact do, specifically in reference to the first article that squarbar posted. I.E. - this article is a takedown of the first one he referenced:

And then it turns out there is evidence they work. Stone writes:

The best evidence [for lockdowns] comes from Wuhan, where China imposed a strict lockdown in late January. Researchers have found that this lockdown, combined with other prior policies, as well as population behavioral changes, may have reduced the reproduction rate of the disease from 3.9 to 1.3: a big change, but not enough to prevent the spread of the disease. In Wuhan, the reproductive rate did not drop to 0.3, a level at which the disease can truly be beaten, until after centralized quarantine measures had been put in place. It was centralized quarantine that beat COVID in Wuhan, not lockdowns.

“Lockdowns can help reduce the rate of spread by two-thirds, but they aren’t enough to break this virus on their own” is a far cry from “lockdowns don’t work.” I would add that there’s also this study on stay-at-home orders from the U.S., though it focuses on case growth rather than deaths. (And I should concede that I share Stone’s concerns about the quality of the Chinese data.)

Then he looks at the death curves in various countries that have locked down. Deaths usually start to drop about two weeks after a lockdown, but Stone argues, based on numerous medical sources, that it takes 20 days for an infection to result in death — so this striking pattern can’t actually be an effect of the policy. I hope the experts he relies on have this number right, because if not, the graphs in the piece imply something very different indeed.

It’s also possible, of course, that these government lockdowns came on the tail of voluntary social distancing that started to turn things around early. There’s strong evidence of this from the U.S., including some that Stone recently posted on Twitter. (Here in Northern Virginia, it also matches my personal experience that businesses were closing and events were being canceled well before the official stay-at-home order.) If that’s the explanation, the lockdowns could have reinforced the trend and kept people in the habit of social distancing when they otherwise would have stopped, or they could have just been redundant. In the latter case, the measures were unnecessarily coercive, but lifting them won’t do much for the economy until people are willing to come back out again.

Lastly, Stone provides some general details about a model he built that predicts U.S counties’ per-capita death tolls as of April 19 based on some characteristics of the counties and what government policies they had in place. The results suggest school closings and mass-gathering bans work while full lockdowns do not. I’m inherently skeptical of these kinds of exercises, and I’m especially dubious that a model can reliably tease out the independent effects of interrelated policies that rolled out in fast succession throughout the country, rather than just confirming that the policies worked in conjunction with each other. But I hope he shares more details about the model elsewhere so it can undergo at least an informal peer review on social media.

I think you summed up the rest of the articles well enough.

 Sqorgar wrote:
Holy goal post moving, Batman! I think at the point that you are trying to argue "depends on what the definition of terrorist organization is", you've moved past actual discussion into semantic minutiae - the last refuge of someone without a real argument.

Holy missing the point, Batman! The point of that section, beyond the one sentence you half-read, is that your accusations of "terrorist" are basically unsupported. TPLF is *not* classed as a terror org by the US govt as you asserted, was in fact the ruling political party (and the *only* party) in Ethiopian politics until around 2016/2017, and Tedros level of involvement in the TPLF's more nefarious activities seems to be an unkown, but also unlikely, variable given that he only joined it later in its history after a series of internal reforms and restructuring designed to give it greater legitimacy on the world stage as a ruling government. I.E. - there is a burden of proof on your shoulders to prove that Tedros is in fact a terrorist.

https://www.theburningplatform.com/2020/04/04/the-crimes-of-tedros-adhanom/ (links to plenty of sources within the article)

So the only thing worth a damn in all of that is basically this: https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/11/04/open-letter-government-ethiopia

Just about everything else has nothing to do with him, is unsubstantiated, factually inaccurate, suspect, or heavily spun.

Truth be told, I'm not necessarily a fan of Tedros and he probably is a bit scummy, but you have to actually be able to verify and prove it and theres a frightening lack of evidence to support the assertion.

It's hard to argue about predictions unless you want to come back in a month and have this conversation again.

This is the most sensible thing youve said in the past 138 pages.

Flu season only runs for 4 months.

Flu "season" is the period where its most prevalent, that doesn't mean that the other 8 months of the year its dormant: https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/season/flu-season.htm

While seasonal influenza (flu) viruses are detected year-round in the United States, flu viruses are most common during the fall and winter.

It also can last longer than 4 months:

The exact timing and duration of flu seasons can vary, but influenza activity often begins to increase in October. Most of the time flu activity peaks between December and February, although activity can last as late as May.

You are right. And given how extraordinary a worldwide lockdown is, I assume you have the extraordinary evidence that it is making a difference. I maintain that there is no evidence that it does make a difference, but I'll soften my stance somewhat to, even if it does make a measurable difference, this measurable difference is so insignificant that it does not justify itself.

We've shared a number of scholarly articles already indicating that it does make a difference, and contrary to your assertions we are witnessing it make a difference *in real time*.

Can't find it now, but I read that all infectious diseases follow the same basic curve, and that COVID-19 was no different. It was something measured in, I think, 2 week intervals for 8 weeks(?).

Yes, all infectious diseases follow the same basic exponential curve in a vacuum when their spread is unimpeded and unmitigated.... once you start throwing countermeasures at it, that is no longer true.

The differences we're seeing in individual country results is due to the differences in testing capabilities and reporting. For instance, how Japan reports COVID-19 deaths is completely different than how Italy reports them. South Korea had enormous early testings while the US was very late to the testing and tested very little.

Sure, this will effect data... up until you run up against a place like New Zealand where the outcome of the spread cannot be explained by reporting inconsistencies.

Closing schools doesn't seem to make a difference.

And yet some of the sources you linked earlier outright stated that closing schools *does* make a difference. Which is it, sudbar? Does it make a difference? or does it not? And if it doesn't make a difference, then how do you justify sourcing information to support your arguments from sources that insist closing schools *does* make a difference?

I mean, this claim is in and of itself absurd, since there is almost universal agreement amongst health experts that school closures play a huge impact in limiting viral spreads, but I suppose expert opinion hasn't mattered to you at all thus far, why should that matter now.

Mass gatherings have shown to be super spreader events, and banning them could make a difference - but it is likely that they did it far too late for it to have made a significant difference.

They banned gatherings within a week of their first confirmed case, and then tightened the restriction again a week later... how much sooner does it need to be for it to make a difference, do you think?

What goal posts have I shifted?

Where did it start, was it 12k dead? The virus is no big deal unless 12k people have died? That sounds familiar, then I think you upped it to 20 or 25, then 50, etc.Every time we run up against one of your arbitrary numbers you say "oh well, I didnt take this into consideration, but I bet its not going to kill another x thousand people"

in my stated position that this virus is "just a flu, bro"

Even though it demonstrably isn't (an argument that is also supported by a number of the sources you have shared).

The code isn't even accurate. It's terrible, amateurish, bug ridden, and poorly constructed. Can you say your calculations are correct if your calculator is missing the 6 button?

The code, per your own sources, isn't even the code used by the model, so how is it even relevant?

Gitzbitah wrote:edit- I stand corrected! Still, I appreciate all of the excellent information you put into your post.

whatd i do wrong??

 insaniak wrote:
Particularly don't go to Twitter today. It's nuts over there right now, with people screaming about censorship all over the place because they don't understand how Twitter Trends work...

Honestly I do think they shadowban certain entries on there. I've seen some right wing hashtags get blocked while the left wing hashtags made in response stayed open. Also I followed someone that supported Bernie this time around with a bunch of Antifa followers out in the open in their posts. I apologize if this is getting political but it's just what I've seen. I won't argue about it here. Believe it or not dakka is a fairly moderate place online compared to a lot of places (at least mostly).

chaos0xomega wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:


Outdated and fudging the numbers. The author takes 3 to 3.5 weeks as the median time to death, which is BS because that is based on a median age of 60 years old in a small sample size. A bigger sample size shows that it is about two weeks for over 70 year olds (he even includes said source but completely ignores that inconvenient tidbit) and guess what 4/5ths of deaths in Italy, Spain and France are 70+ years old. So his numbers are based on a metric that ignores the fact that the median age is well over 70, accounting for over 4/5ths of deaths in these countries. Guess what, if you take about two weeks, the official lockdown date and death peak actually are pretty close!
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jmv.25689?af=R

This source is even more problematic. To start, it defines a narrow scope of lockdowns which as far as I am aware, is wholly inapplicable to what we are discussing in the US:

Before I can explain exactly why lockdowns don’t work, we need to define what “lockdowns” are and, especially, what they are not. I define lockdowns as having three characteristics. First, people are ordered to stay at home or required to provide a reason for movement outside of home. Second, assemblies are limited to a very small (usually single-digit) threshold. Third, many businesses and activities are forced to close, even if they do not technically constitute assemblies and would like to stay open. Stay-at-home orders, low assembly thresholds, and business closures together constitute a lockdown. Without those three features, it’s not a lockdown.

What the author states does work, is what most Americans are referring to as a "lockdown" (whether its appropriate to do so or not):

His definition of the three parts is applicable for France, Spain and Italy. But as said, his method is fatally flawed by not taking age into account when looking at when those stringent lockdowns in those would kick in with death toll. It undermines his basic argument of why it supposedly doesn't work.

The author also states that the Netherlands have not have a lockdown - now I could be wrong, please correct me, but everything I have read indicates that they are - in fact - on a lockdown. So on top of the issues you pointed out, theres also some basic factual errors that question the veracity and soundness of the authors arguments.

As Bran Dawri and I have mentioned, the Netherlands most definitely has what would be called a lockdown. We hit two of the self described criteria of the author, small assemblies and forced closure of business. We're just slightly less strict than our immediate neighbours.

But it is a lock down and described as such, just because it doesn't hit one out of three self described criteria does not make it less of one.

Links to a subscriber locked article, so since you read it, it shouldn't be hard to copy paste?

https://danfromsquirrelhill.wordpress.com/2020/05/01/do-lockdowns-save-many-lives-in-most-places-the-data-say-no/

Its not very convincing, it hinges on this:

To normalize for an unambiguous comparison of deaths between states at the midpoint of an epidemic, we counted deaths per million population for a fixed 21-day period, measured from when the death rate first hit 1 per million—e.g.,‒three deaths in Iowa or 19 in New York state. A state’s “days to shutdown” was the time after a state crossed the 1 per million threshold until it ordered businesses shut down.

but it fails as a meaningful test because the places slowest to shut down tended to be places with a lower pop density and a lower R0, so its basically meaningless to do the comparison the way the authors structured it - theres a reason why its an opinion piece in the WSJ (great paper, gakky opinion column) and not in a peer-reviewed study or scholoarly journal. The author does acknowledge this at one point (beyond the paywall):

Our correlation coefficient for per-capita death rates vs. the population density was 44%.That suggests New York City might have benefited from its shutdown—but blindly copying New York’s policies in places with low Covid-19 death rates, such as my native Wisconsin, doesn’t make sense.

So there is a reluctant acknowledgement that lockdowns *do* make an impact, what the author has failed to do however is extrapolate why it worked in NYC but seemed to have no impact in other areas - in this case its an issue of time. The author here struggles to really take timescales into consideration - his 21 day metric is arbitrary and irrelevant, the virus doesn't cease spreading or killing after 21 days, just because no obvious impact emerged in Wisconsin over a 21 day trial period does not mean that over an extended timeframe - say 210 days - the loss of life experienced in Wisconsin couldn't be catastrophic if a lockdown was not enacted. R0 is, after all, a measure or reproduction - if R0=2 gets you 1 million cases after 21 days, it doesn't mean that R0=1 won't *ever* get you 1 million cases, it just means that it will take a bit longer to get there. NYC is densely populated, the R0 as a result is higher, which is how you get to an estimated 20% antibody-positive rate in the City despite the fact that the rest of the state only measured at 3.6% over the same timeframe - left to its own devices, the virus will continue to spread through upstate NY until the rest of NY State has *also* reached 20% positive... and then it will continue spreading from there. It may take a lot longer, but that doesn't mean it won't happen.

While a big part of the lockdown is to flatten the curve to avert a healthcare collapse, there is stilla goal of trying to prevent deaths, not necessarily because its the morally correct thing to do, but because excess deaths still carry a hard economic cost -one which is demonstrably worse than the cost of the lockdown itself. By extending the timeframe of the virus and slowing the rate of deaths you buy time to develop the vaccine with which those deaths are averted and the costs associated are avoided.

The author is also *hugely* biased, so theres that.

Sounds like more number fudging by just throwing an overwhelming amount of data at the reader without a decent basis to base any conclusions on. I might bother to read it tomorrow, but your overview seems to make it pretty clear which way its leaning.

This uses the bad research of your first source so it already invalidates itself.

In this case the article is misleading and spudquar apparently didn't actually read it. The headline is ‘Lockdowns Don’t Work’ - note the quotes. Thats because its addressing the assertion that they do not work, and arguing that they, in fact do, specifically in reference to the first article that squarbar posted. I.E. - this article is a takedown of the first one he referenced

I probably should have spend some more time writing this one. My problem is more that the article doesn't go into the numbers of the bad source, while this can all be verified by going through the links and looking at the death toll data. It could have been much better and pointed out the severe flaws in the handling of the original sources to fudge a conclusion that isn't actually there. The issue with leaving those numbers up is that it opens itself up to attacks as an interpretation versus a 'statistical analysis' it doesn't refute.

Lockdowns work. The problem is that a lengthy lockdown crushes the economy.

However until people feel safe to go outside, they won't even if the lockdown is lifted. The economy will still get crushed, whatever the government wants to do.

People won't feel safe without a powerful Test, Trace and Isolate operation. The UK still after months of this crisis has only just produced a promise to create a TTI taskforce.

 flamingkillamajig wrote:


Twitter is the new Tumblr. I heard when Tumblr started censoring nsfw content Tumblr refugees started coming in to Twitter. Remember like 5 years ago when twitter was somewhat sane? Yeah don't go there. Now there's freaking Antifa and similar there and they roam in the open.

People that don't like racists are definitely the biggest problem on social media.

Twitter only has the weight it does because it's concise and open so politicians and journalists use it. Otherwise it has all the same pros and cons of any other social media. I think provided you always bear in mind that a character limit prevents nuance it's a pretty useful comms tool. It does also encourage wild speculation just to Produce content and stay in people's eyelines, which is problematic in unfolding situations like the current one, but so does rolling news, so...

Twitter is useful certainly if you don't want actual content and sense in post. Good for populist fools for making empty claims without content. Not good for any actual real communication.

You'll be on there, then?


36,000 English and Welsh coronavirus deaths as of 01.05. The previous week was far better than the preceding two, but still ca.50% above the five-year average.

ca 50 % above, even with lower ammounts of accidents etc?

well so much for that, do wonder though how much it is from lack of people going to the doctors in the first place. Then again accidents are also pretty high in mortality rate.

Not Online!!! wrote:
ca 50 % above, even with lower ammounts of accidents etc?

well so much for that, do wonder though how much it is from lack of people going to the doctors in the first place. Then again accidents are also pretty high in mortality rate.

Yes. 33.6% of all deaths are coronavirus related, but I've not gone through the detail for this set of figures. Until recently, flu and non-CV-19 respiratory deaths were tracking the average. You'd expect accidents to have dropped off significantly. I'm not sure where the extra ones are coming from. Serious illness that isn't treated or where the patient doesn't seek medical help for fear of coronavirus, presumably.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending1may2020

nfe wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
ca 50 % above, even with lower ammounts of accidents etc?

well so much for that, do wonder though how much it is from lack of people going to the doctors in the first place. Then again accidents are also pretty high in mortality rate.

Yes. 33.6% of all deaths are coronavirus related, but I've not gone through the detail for this set of figures. Until recently, flu and non-CV-19 respiratory deaths were tracking the average. You'd expect accidents to have dropped off significantly. I'm not sure where the extra ones are coming from. Serious illness that isn't treated or where the patient doesn't seek medical help for fear of coronavirus, presumably.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending1may2020

Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't the extra ones on top also be partially Covid-19 deaths? I see that they only register where Covid 19 is listed as cause of death. But that might be underreported, given that it can exacerbate other health issues to a critical point.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

nfe wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:
ca 50 % above, even with lower ammounts of accidents etc?

well so much for that, do wonder though how much it is from lack of people going to the doctors in the first place. Then again accidents are also pretty high in mortality rate.

Yes. 33.6% of all deaths are coronavirus related, but I've not gone through the detail for this set of figures. Until recently, flu and non-CV-19 respiratory deaths were tracking the average. You'd expect accidents to have dropped off significantly. I'm not sure where the extra ones are coming from. Serious illness that isn't treated or where the patient doesn't seek medical help for fear of coronavirus, presumably.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending1may2020

Correct me if I'm wrong, but can't the extra ones on top also be partially Covid-19 deaths? I see that they only register where Covid 19 is listed as cause of death. But that might be underreported, given that it can exacerbate other health issues to a critical point.

Depends, i assume that it is also tumor based , beeing not found and or not treated and or having weakened imune systems as a side issue of treatment making the virus the final nail in the coffin.

Probably also a higher suicide and diabetes related case due to the isolations going on, but that depends on how the "lockdown" is implemented and or how it is build and i'd assume that city folk are hit alot harder for that one .

Not Online!!! wrote:

Depends, i assume that it is also tumor based , beeing not found and or not treated and or having weakened imune systems as a side issue of treatment making the virus the final nail in the coffin.

Probably also a higher suicide and diabetes related case due to the isolations going on, but that depends on how the "lockdown" is implemented and or how it is build and i'd assume that city folk are hit alot harder for that one .

True, without more detailed statistics its hard to say. A lot of experts seem to think the numbers are at least in some sense higher than the official ones, if not only because of a lack of testing in early days and awareness.

Though terminal patients dying off due to lack of treatment is possible, but since it has been only about two months, you would expect that to go down eventually. Not many diseases go from undiscovered, to terminal to dead in two months, those are the numbers you will see months down the line most likely, when delayed treatment actually start having its effects on their health.

As for suicide rate, that shouldn't be too hard to track, but at the same time accidents will have gone down, so some balancing would be expected around those kinds of cases.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Not Online!!! wrote:

Depends, i assume that it is also tumor based , beeing not found and or not treated and or having weakened imune systems as a side issue of treatment making the virus the final nail in the coffin.

Probably also a higher suicide and diabetes related case due to the isolations going on, but that depends on how the "lockdown" is implemented and or how it is build and i'd assume that city folk are hit alot harder for that one .

True, without more detailed statistics its hard to say. A lot of experts seem to think the numbers are at least in some sense higher than the official ones, if not only because of a lack of testing in early days and awareness.

Though terminal patients dying off due to lack of treatment is possible, but since it has been only about two months, you would expect that to go down eventually. Not many diseases go from undiscovered, to terminal to dead in two months, those are the numbers you will see months down the line most likely, when delayed treatment actually start having its effects on their health.

As for suicide rate, that shouldn't be too hard to track, but at the same time accidents will have gone done, so some balancing would be expected around those kinds of cases.

It depends on your criteria. the whole with vs of thing that keeps getting mentioned but is never really gone into by anyone.

The problem being that statistics have not yet crystallized enough, usually this takes years (traffic accident data in the UK has only up to 2018 so far as I can google). People can say suicides go up, but traffics deaths can go down. That swings both ways, like overall crime versus domestic abuse and such. As said, its been a relatively short period, so people lacking treatment that weren't already at the end of their treatment options will likely suffer the effects in months or years from now and such. Only very immediate causes will affect that average much on the short term.

I'm hesitant to ascribe the excess over average deaths to other causes, because we know that Covid-19 death tracking hasn't always been very accurate. As testing capability improves that uncertainty should diminish.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
The problem being that statistics have not yet crystallized enough, usually this takes years (traffic accident data in the UK has only up to 2018 so far as I can google). People can say suicides go up, but traffics deaths can go down. That swings both ways, like overall crime versus domestic abuse and such. As said, its been a relatively short period, so people lacking treatment that weren't already at the end of their treatment options will likely suffer the effects in months or years from now and such. Only very immediate causes will affect that average much on the short term.

I'm hesitant to ascribe the excess over average deaths to other causes, because we know that Covid-19 death tracking hasn't always been very accurate. As testing capability improves that uncertainty should diminish.

also in the case of suicides we do know that culture plays quite hard into that aswell, especially religious one.

Not Online!!! wrote:
also in the case of suicides we do know that culture plays quite hard into that aswell, especially religious one.

Yes, things like suicide rates aren't going to look anywhere near the same across countries during this pandemic, as availability of mental health services and the level of government support for citizens in the economic downturn are also quite significant factors besides the major one you already mentioned. But in a few years we should be able to look back at suicide rate increases, because sadly, cause of death should be quite clear.

Hopefully as many people as possible can get the help they need in this difficult time.

Just been watching channel 231, the rolling BBC news channel.

There have been 50,000 deaths in the UK more than normal for the period 1st March to 1st May.

Not all those are virus infection deaths, although of course at least 30,000 are. The rest are people who die for instance from a heart attack and don't go to hospital.

OTOH there are fewer deaths from traffic or industrial accidents.

50K more when several major sources (eg roads) are having far reduced numbers means that there's a scary potential that the number of Corona deaths could be greater than the 50K.

If you'd had a reduction in other sources of death and an overall net increase then the gain in deaths is greater than just the increase alone.


Of course with the information being sketchy and such its hard to know where the line is drawn. That said the numbers are scary and we are only 2 months into this with lockdowns.



I'd also say that more people are starting to really feel the isolation aspects. I think its going to get harder and harder to keep people under lockdown. Even those in high-risk groups are more and more likely to break isolation measures for some social contact.

There was a big survey last week. The results were:

48% strongly support the lockdown and are coping well. That's people like me who have anice house and a little garden.

44%: support the lockdown but they are finding it difficult. That's people like my mother who is very gregarious and misses all her friends, even though she'se got a nice house anda big garden.
It must be far worse for people cooped up in little flats with no outdoor space.

9% flout the lockdown.

What will happen is that some of the 44% will drift into the 9% flouter category.

Another survey showed that over half of 18-24 year old males had flouted the lockdown, compared to 25% of females in the same age bracket.
The same survey showed that people with depression get worse in lockdown, while people with anxiety, like me, get better because we feel protected from the threat of infection.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Another survey showed that over half of 18-24 year old males had flouted the lockdown, compared to 25% of females in the same age bracket.
The same survey showed that people with depression get worse in lockdown, while people with anxiety, like me, get better because we feel protected from the threat of infection.

That first part follows normal trends, I think... teenage boys think they're invincible and do all sorts of irrational things...

I had not thought about this helping the mental health of people with anxiety, but that makes sense! Folks getting to work from home would I think be having a positive impact in that regard - hopefully that can continue somewhat even after the crisis is over, for jobs that can be done as (or even more) effectively remotely.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Just been watching channel 231, the rolling BBC news channel.

There have been 50,000 deaths in the UK more than normal for the period 1st March to 1st May.

Not all those are virus infection deaths, although of course at least 30,000 are. The rest are people who die for instance from a heart attack and don't go to hospital.

OTOH there are fewer deaths from traffic or industrial accidents.

This is based on the article nfe posted I think. The important bit in there is that those 30k deaths are noted as Coronavirus deaths. So those 20.000 over average might also hide a number of Coronavirus deaths, but were not recorded as such. Its a massive upswing, but I believe emergency treatment in the UK was always ongoing right? So people would have to actively refuse to go with critical conditions.

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Just been watching channel 231, the rolling BBC news channel.

There have been 50,000 deaths in the UK more than normal for the period 1st March to 1st May.

Not all those are virus infection deaths, although of course at least 30,000 are. The rest are people who die for instance from a heart attack and don't go to hospital.

OTOH there are fewer deaths from traffic or industrial accidents.

This is based on the article nfe posted I think. The important bit in there is that those 30k deaths are noted as Coronavirus deaths. So those 20.000 over average might also hide a number of Coronavirus deaths, but were not recorded as such. Its a massive upswing, but I believe emergency treatment in the UK was always ongoing right? So people would have to acA&E being overstretchedtively refuse to go with critical conditions.

A&E is always open, though possibly at some times they were very stretched with Covid-19 victims.

he problem is more around people as you say actively refusing to go with their heart attack or whatever. The point is, I suppose, that this time last year those same people would have called an ambulance, and this year they didn't. The UK death rate from heart attacks is roughly 10,000 a month. Maybe Covid doubled it by deterring victims from attending and by A&E being overstretched.

I think the point is that the excess death rate shows we are not doing very well even if the government wants to avoid comparisons with Italy and so on because of the different way such data is recorded.

It also varies a lot on your region. However because of resource sharing a region under less pressure might wind up with less staff as they get moved around.


I'd also note that our local doctors was having 40-60 min wait times and was FULL all the time. It's not empty. That's, locally, a lot of people no longer going to the doctors who once were on a regular basis. How many were those just getting off work or there for aches and pains of a mild non-medical nature;and how many were something serious or small that turns into serious etc...

 Overread wrote:
It also varies a lot on your region. However because of resource sharing a region under less pressure might wind up with less staff as they get moved around.


I'd also note that our local doctors was having 40-60 min wait times and was FULL all the time. It's not empty. That's, locally, a lot of people no longer going to the doctors who once were on a regular basis. How many were those just getting off work or there for aches and pains of a mild non-medical nature;and how many were something serious or small that turns into serious etc...

I wonder if surgeries are full because the population are now free to attend appointments without work getting in the way of trying to get time off? I know I have an appt booked that I would never have been able to attend if I wasn't locked down.

Lots of seniors aren't making appointments because of shielding.

tneva82 wrote:
Twitter is useful certainly if you don't want actual content and sense in post. Good for populist fools for making empty claims without content. Not good for any actual real communication.

On the other hand, if someone cannot create a sentence that says something of value they will probably struggle with saying something of value at all.

Brace yourselves fellow Brits... The taxes are coming. Chancellor considers increases in income tax, stopping state pension rises, and freezing public sector pay. Looks like someone looked in the piggy bank.

I was expecting this. But I’m sure that it’ll only be us poor bastards who have to fork up more.

The WFH Revolution will be ending soon.....

My company has decided that now the politicians have decided that it is safe to go back to work, all buildings are expected to go back to the office. WFH will be over because.... fear of labor laws and punch laws is leading the decisions. Workers get 0 input in it.

Those protests are paying great dividends for their astroturf sponsors. I would be impressed if i was sitting on the moon watching it all play out. In the thick of it, I am less impressed.

Surely the right time to talk taxes is after you've got the majority of the workforce working again. Or at least relaxed restrictions so that there's potential for the majority to get back to work. Remembering that this whole year the tourist industry and anything connected to it is basically a dead duck. Even if work restrictions relax no one is going on long distance holidays and even within the country travel might be restricted/discouraged etc....

Next year is when you want to roll out tax increases alongside measures to boost the economy and promote the UK as a fantastic (empty ) holiday destination.