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Added a disclaimer on page 662. Many need to post better. |
On January 13 2021 23:06 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +If you read my mortality analysis, you will get the idea. But for the first wave, many countries show no improvement thanks to measures, in most the number of cases drop because of the end of the wave of influenza period. No. I have studied the initial curve of Spain, and the connection between the hard lockdown and cases is perfect. You should do the same, it shows the difference between "nothing" and "everything" very clearly, in a very vulnerable country. You must note the delay, though. It takes a few weeks from being infected, then having symptoms, then being tested and the results being reported. Taking that into account, it is very obvious that the peak of new infections was the week before the lockdown. What is really interesting is that the first hard lockdown lasted so long, and that the numbers remained low until travel between regions were reopened in July, despite other relaxations from May on. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/
I analyzed Germany and I differ, but maybe in Spain it worked and you are right. Show me your analysis and will gladly give you feedback.
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NY Gov Cuomo is now claiming the economic costs of lockdowns is too great and NY must reopen.
Never thought i'd see him say those words but good to finally see it.
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On January 13 2021 20:48 Racket wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2021 18:46 Amui wrote:I agree with your numbers, but disagree with the conclusion. The lower mortality is a a result of the restrictions, and not in spite of them (and the control thing I'm not even going to comment on). Germany has the lowest total deaths and deaths per capita of all its neighbors by quite some margin. I'd call that a success. If you had Spain, Italy or France per capita numbers instead, you'd still end up with similar restrictions at some point, just with twice as many people dead. How can you prove restrictions had such effect on the number of deaths? Restrictions had no effect on containing spread in Germany. Not in the first, not in the second wave. Neither wave showed any signs of healthcare collapse. Each and every death Germany had can be compared to any other country in terms of medical treatment procedures. No country had any medical treatment which has been proved to be better, so that other countries thought worth using. Germany has between 20k and 30k positives a day since at least a month, number of deaths have in Germany nothing to do with number of positives. There is no correlation between number of positives and number of deaths. The first wave had 10k deaths with around 250k positives. The second wave has till now 30k deaths with 1.700k positives. Again, neither wave was near healthcare collapse. In my opinion, numbers show that the number of deaths have more to do with the age of your population and the state of your healthcare system, than with any other variable I can think of. Aside from the bunch of opinions in that analysis, the numbers speak for themselves. If restrictions have an impact, I have not yet found any scientific articles proving it. Most excess deaths I see in other countries seem to be related to healthcare system's condition, population characteristics and collateral damage produced by restrictive measures. Also, an article from IOANNIDIS: ASSESSING MANDATORY STAY-AT-HOME AND BUSINESS CLOSURE EFFECTS ON THE SPREAD OF COVID-19 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eci.13484
Despite reading the following from your blog, should let me know that I know better than actually interact with you:
I do not care whether the virus exists or not, some people focus on that instead of going for a less controversial argument. Yes, I understand you, no government, university or institution even after ten months of pandemic has a sample of the virus to give you for research. Not one of all those papers published in renowned journals actually isolated the virus even though they put it in the title of the paper. What did they sequence if they have no virus? I do not care. People are dying. Not all from COVID as we can see here. I hope we turn this around, so doctors are able to use their knowledge and abilities to help these people, instead of being threatened with losing their license if they do not follow WHO and government guidelines. The governments, mass media, the WHO, pharmaceutical industry and who knows who else are clearly behind this. You cannot keep trusting them. They came up with a new way of classifying deaths and forced it into each and every country. People are suffering and dying because of this pandemic and not only from COVID, inform yourself and build your own opinion, if not for you at least for your loved ones. This is costing immense collateral damage, in terms not only of money and future but also of lives.
If you ACTUALLY are interested in how one does sequencing of sars-covid-2, you can read about it in the following published article and its references, or you can go down to your local university and ask a biochemistry professor. You could also check out what happened regionally to Northern Europe in 2017-2018 regarding the three different influenza virus strains at that time.
Rapid SARS-CoV-2 whole-genome sequencing and analysis for informed public health decision-making in the Netherlands
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On January 13 2021 23:12 Racket wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2021 23:06 Slydie wrote:If you read my mortality analysis, you will get the idea. But for the first wave, many countries show no improvement thanks to measures, in most the number of cases drop because of the end of the wave of influenza period. No. I have studied the initial curve of Spain, and the connection between the hard lockdown and cases is perfect. You should do the same, it shows the difference between "nothing" and "everything" very clearly, in a very vulnerable country. You must note the delay, though. It takes a few weeks from being infected, then having symptoms, then being tested and the results being reported. Taking that into account, it is very obvious that the peak of new infections was the week before the lockdown. What is really interesting is that the first hard lockdown lasted so long, and that the numbers remained low until travel between regions were reopened in July, despite other relaxations from May on. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/ I analyzed Germany and I differ, but maybe in Spain it worked and you are right. Show me your analysis and will gladly give you feedback.
Just a quick one:
First of all, for the first wave, the testing capacity was limited, so the numbers are far from perfect.
The first wave started getting momentum at the end of February 2020.
The lockdown national lockdown was imposed the 14th of March, and was the hardest in Europe. There were some other restrictions in place in Madrid the week before that.
The new cases reported peaked the 20th of March, then started a slow decline, which is consistant with that new infections happened in the beginning of the March.
Daily deaths peaked the 2nd of April with 996, then started declining, which is also consistant with the lockdown doing its job. Although the lockdown brought new infections down, it did obviosly go to 0 from day one, but the effect was dramatic anyway. People would still be infected in hostpitals, residents and in their homes. Personally, I don't think grocery stores were the infection bomb many feared it to be at that point.
The situation stablized around 200-500 new cases in May 2020, and the restrictions were slowly lifted through phases.
It should also be noted that during the first wave, some provinces had 10 times as many cases as others acording to antibody test studies.
The worst mistake was being so unprepared when the pandemic first got a foothold in February, and life continued exactly as normal in early March.
I am also critical if it was really necessary to keep the initial lockdown as long and hard as it was. Some measures, like not allowing people to have a walk outside ANYWHERE and closing ALL schools until the summer are just not worth it imo.
During June, the domestic travel restrictions were gradually lifted, and in July, the number of cases started growing again. This has been critizied in the Lanclet. There were also some questionable calls like reopening bars and clubs, and allowing private parties at any size, as long as the capacity was only filled 50%. The 2nd wave hit Spain earlier than the rest of Europe, but I am not getting into that discussion further right now.
The relation between the most effective measures and the curve can be seen very clearly in my opinion, especially restrictions to domestic travel.
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On January 14 2021 00:30 Neneu wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2021 20:48 Racket wrote:On January 13 2021 18:46 Amui wrote:I agree with your numbers, but disagree with the conclusion. The lower mortality is a a result of the restrictions, and not in spite of them (and the control thing I'm not even going to comment on). Germany has the lowest total deaths and deaths per capita of all its neighbors by quite some margin. I'd call that a success. If you had Spain, Italy or France per capita numbers instead, you'd still end up with similar restrictions at some point, just with twice as many people dead. How can you prove restrictions had such effect on the number of deaths? Restrictions had no effect on containing spread in Germany. Not in the first, not in the second wave. Neither wave showed any signs of healthcare collapse. Each and every death Germany had can be compared to any other country in terms of medical treatment procedures. No country had any medical treatment which has been proved to be better, so that other countries thought worth using. Germany has between 20k and 30k positives a day since at least a month, number of deaths have in Germany nothing to do with number of positives. There is no correlation between number of positives and number of deaths. The first wave had 10k deaths with around 250k positives. The second wave has till now 30k deaths with 1.700k positives. Again, neither wave was near healthcare collapse. In my opinion, numbers show that the number of deaths have more to do with the age of your population and the state of your healthcare system, than with any other variable I can think of. Aside from the bunch of opinions in that analysis, the numbers speak for themselves. If restrictions have an impact, I have not yet found any scientific articles proving it. Most excess deaths I see in other countries seem to be related to healthcare system's condition, population characteristics and collateral damage produced by restrictive measures. Also, an article from IOANNIDIS: ASSESSING MANDATORY STAY-AT-HOME AND BUSINESS CLOSURE EFFECTS ON THE SPREAD OF COVID-19 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eci.13484 Despite reading the following from your blog, should let me know that I know better than actually interact with you: Show nested quote +I do not care whether the virus exists or not, some people focus on that instead of going for a less controversial argument. Yes, I understand you, no government, university or institution even after ten months of pandemic has a sample of the virus to give you for research. Not one of all those papers published in renowned journals actually isolated the virus even though they put it in the title of the paper. What did they sequence if they have no virus? I do not care. People are dying. Not all from COVID as we can see here. I hope we turn this around, so doctors are able to use their knowledge and abilities to help these people, instead of being threatened with losing their license if they do not follow WHO and government guidelines. The governments, mass media, the WHO, pharmaceutical industry and who knows who else are clearly behind this. You cannot keep trusting them. They came up with a new way of classifying deaths and forced it into each and every country. People are suffering and dying because of this pandemic and not only from COVID, inform yourself and build your own opinion, if not for you at least for your loved ones. This is costing immense collateral damage, in terms not only of money and future but also of lives. If you ACTUALLY are interested in how one does sequencing of sars-covid-2, you can read about it in the following published article and its references, or you can go down to your local university and ask a biochemistry professor. You could also check out what happened regionally to Northern Europe in 2017-2018 regarding the three different influenza virus strains at that time. Rapid SARS-CoV-2 whole-genome sequencing and analysis for informed public health decision-making in the Netherlands
I was not referencing the method, in case you understood that, I know how it is done. Or do you imply you can sequence a complete virus genome without ever having a complete virus sample?
You do not need to answer.
On January 14 2021 00:55 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 13 2021 23:12 Racket wrote:On January 13 2021 23:06 Slydie wrote:If you read my mortality analysis, you will get the idea. But for the first wave, many countries show no improvement thanks to measures, in most the number of cases drop because of the end of the wave of influenza period. No. I have studied the initial curve of Spain, and the connection between the hard lockdown and cases is perfect. You should do the same, it shows the difference between "nothing" and "everything" very clearly, in a very vulnerable country. You must note the delay, though. It takes a few weeks from being infected, then having symptoms, then being tested and the results being reported. Taking that into account, it is very obvious that the peak of new infections was the week before the lockdown. What is really interesting is that the first hard lockdown lasted so long, and that the numbers remained low until travel between regions were reopened in July, despite other relaxations from May on. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/ I analyzed Germany and I differ, but maybe in Spain it worked and you are right. Show me your analysis and will gladly give you feedback. Just a quick one: First of all, for the first wave, the testing capacity was limited, so the numbers are far from perfect. The first wave started getting momentum at the end of February 2020. The lockdown national lockdown was imposed the 14th of March, and was the hardest in Europe. There were some other restrictions in place in Madrid the week before that. The new cases reported peaked the 20th of March, then started a slow decline, which is consistant with that new infections happened in the beginning of the March. Daily deaths peaked the 2nd of April with 996, then started declining, which is also consistant with the lockdown doing its job. Although the lockdown brought new infections down, it did obviosly go to 0 from day one, but the effect was dramatic anyway. People would still be infected in hostpitals, residents and in their homes. Personally, I don't think grocery stores were the infection bomb many feared it to be at that point. The situation stablized around 200-500 new cases in May 2020, and the restrictions were slowly lifted through phases. It should also be noted that during the first wave, some provinces had 10 times as many cases as others acording to antibody test studies. The worst mistake was being so unprepared when the pandemic first got a foothold in February, and life continued exactly as normal in early March. I am also critical if it was really necessary to keep the initial lockdown as long and hard as it was. Some measures, like not allowing people to have a walk outside ANYWHERE and closing ALL schools until the summer are just not worth it imo. During June, the domestic travel restrictions were gradually lifted, and in July, the number of cases started growing again. This has been critizied in the Lanclet. There were also some questionable calls like reopening bars and clubs, and allowing private parties at any size, as long as the capacity was only filled 50%. The 2nd wave hit Spain earlier than the rest of Europe, but I am not getting into that discussion further right now. The relation between the most effective measures and the curve can be seen very clearly in my opinion, especially restrictions to domestic travel.
Report date for positives are not the date of infection, it is calculated statistically. Meaning you cannot measure the reproduction value by looking at one graph. Just checking www.worldometers.info is not enough to build an opinion, hope you did not do that.
I think you will begin to question the narrative and yourself when cases and deaths keep going up even with the hardest lockdown and will be attributed to a new strain.
Anyways, thanks guys. I will see myself out, I tried my best with the time I invested and of course I can be wrong, the data and results I found tell me otherwise though, it is not a matter of opinion. Hope you fare well and stay healthy.
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The problem with all these "flatten the curve" / stable nonzero level of accepted spread strategies is that they only work until they don't. A slip-up that causes disease to spread further and wider than was planned for and you end up in deep shit. It worked for summer but immediately failed as winter rolled in.
Not that Cuomo is wrong, though - it's too late for a China approach and six more months of western-style lockdown isn't feasible either. Vaccines are the only chance to return to normalcy at this point.
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On January 14 2021 01:10 Racket wrote:Show nested quote +On January 14 2021 00:30 Neneu wrote:On January 13 2021 20:48 Racket wrote:On January 13 2021 18:46 Amui wrote:I agree with your numbers, but disagree with the conclusion. The lower mortality is a a result of the restrictions, and not in spite of them (and the control thing I'm not even going to comment on). Germany has the lowest total deaths and deaths per capita of all its neighbors by quite some margin. I'd call that a success. If you had Spain, Italy or France per capita numbers instead, you'd still end up with similar restrictions at some point, just with twice as many people dead. How can you prove restrictions had such effect on the number of deaths? Restrictions had no effect on containing spread in Germany. Not in the first, not in the second wave. Neither wave showed any signs of healthcare collapse. Each and every death Germany had can be compared to any other country in terms of medical treatment procedures. No country had any medical treatment which has been proved to be better, so that other countries thought worth using. Germany has between 20k and 30k positives a day since at least a month, number of deaths have in Germany nothing to do with number of positives. There is no correlation between number of positives and number of deaths. The first wave had 10k deaths with around 250k positives. The second wave has till now 30k deaths with 1.700k positives. Again, neither wave was near healthcare collapse. In my opinion, numbers show that the number of deaths have more to do with the age of your population and the state of your healthcare system, than with any other variable I can think of. Aside from the bunch of opinions in that analysis, the numbers speak for themselves. If restrictions have an impact, I have not yet found any scientific articles proving it. Most excess deaths I see in other countries seem to be related to healthcare system's condition, population characteristics and collateral damage produced by restrictive measures. Also, an article from IOANNIDIS: ASSESSING MANDATORY STAY-AT-HOME AND BUSINESS CLOSURE EFFECTS ON THE SPREAD OF COVID-19 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/eci.13484 Despite reading the following from your blog, should let me know that I know better than actually interact with you: I do not care whether the virus exists or not, some people focus on that instead of going for a less controversial argument. Yes, I understand you, no government, university or institution even after ten months of pandemic has a sample of the virus to give you for research. Not one of all those papers published in renowned journals actually isolated the virus even though they put it in the title of the paper. What did they sequence if they have no virus? I do not care. People are dying. Not all from COVID as we can see here. I hope we turn this around, so doctors are able to use their knowledge and abilities to help these people, instead of being threatened with losing their license if they do not follow WHO and government guidelines. The governments, mass media, the WHO, pharmaceutical industry and who knows who else are clearly behind this. You cannot keep trusting them. They came up with a new way of classifying deaths and forced it into each and every country. People are suffering and dying because of this pandemic and not only from COVID, inform yourself and build your own opinion, if not for you at least for your loved ones. This is costing immense collateral damage, in terms not only of money and future but also of lives. If you ACTUALLY are interested in how one does sequencing of sars-covid-2, you can read about it in the following published article and its references, or you can go down to your local university and ask a biochemistry professor. You could also check out what happened regionally to Northern Europe in 2017-2018 regarding the three different influenza virus strains at that time. Rapid SARS-CoV-2 whole-genome sequencing and analysis for informed public health decision-making in the Netherlands I was not referencing the method, in case you understood that, I know how it is done. Or do you imply you can sequence a complete virus genome without ever having a complete virus sample? You do not need to answer. Show nested quote +On January 14 2021 00:55 Slydie wrote:On January 13 2021 23:12 Racket wrote:On January 13 2021 23:06 Slydie wrote:If you read my mortality analysis, you will get the idea. But for the first wave, many countries show no improvement thanks to measures, in most the number of cases drop because of the end of the wave of influenza period. No. I have studied the initial curve of Spain, and the connection between the hard lockdown and cases is perfect. You should do the same, it shows the difference between "nothing" and "everything" very clearly, in a very vulnerable country. You must note the delay, though. It takes a few weeks from being infected, then having symptoms, then being tested and the results being reported. Taking that into account, it is very obvious that the peak of new infections was the week before the lockdown. What is really interesting is that the first hard lockdown lasted so long, and that the numbers remained low until travel between regions were reopened in July, despite other relaxations from May on. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/spain/ I analyzed Germany and I differ, but maybe in Spain it worked and you are right. Show me your analysis and will gladly give you feedback. Just a quick one: First of all, for the first wave, the testing capacity was limited, so the numbers are far from perfect. The first wave started getting momentum at the end of February 2020. The lockdown national lockdown was imposed the 14th of March, and was the hardest in Europe. There were some other restrictions in place in Madrid the week before that. The new cases reported peaked the 20th of March, then started a slow decline, which is consistant with that new infections happened in the beginning of the March. Daily deaths peaked the 2nd of April with 996, then started declining, which is also consistant with the lockdown doing its job. Although the lockdown brought new infections down, it did obviosly go to 0 from day one, but the effect was dramatic anyway. People would still be infected in hostpitals, residents and in their homes. Personally, I don't think grocery stores were the infection bomb many feared it to be at that point. The situation stablized around 200-500 new cases in May 2020, and the restrictions were slowly lifted through phases. It should also be noted that during the first wave, some provinces had 10 times as many cases as others acording to antibody test studies. The worst mistake was being so unprepared when the pandemic first got a foothold in February, and life continued exactly as normal in early March. I am also critical if it was really necessary to keep the initial lockdown as long and hard as it was. Some measures, like not allowing people to have a walk outside ANYWHERE and closing ALL schools until the summer are just not worth it imo. During June, the domestic travel restrictions were gradually lifted, and in July, the number of cases started growing again. This has been critizied in the Lanclet. There were also some questionable calls like reopening bars and clubs, and allowing private parties at any size, as long as the capacity was only filled 50%. The 2nd wave hit Spain earlier than the rest of Europe, but I am not getting into that discussion further right now. The relation between the most effective measures and the curve can be seen very clearly in my opinion, especially restrictions to domestic travel. Report date for positives are not the date of infection, it is calculated statistically. Meaning you cannot measure the reproduction value by looking at one graph. Just checking www.worldometers.info is not enough to build an opinion, hope you did not do that. I think you will begin to question the narrative and yourself when cases and deaths keep going up even with the hardest lockdown and will be attributed to a new strain. Anyways, thanks guys. I will see myself out, I tried my best with the time I invested and of course I can be wrong, the data and results I found tell me otherwise though, it is not a matter of opinion. Hope you fare well and stay healthy.
I really wonder how you'll deal with the dissonance when we vaccinate enough people to reach herd immunity and we go back to normal. ;-)
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Not disagreeing with him. You have to pick and choose your battles, and if you choose wrong, you can kill off businesses which could've stayed open in the absence of restrictions. You have to bite the bullet and make a hard choice to kill some businesses though, because of the risk they pose to the public.
We're current around a R0 of .9 or so in BC it seems, with a small (10-20% bump) over christmas/new years which was well above my expectations.
The long list of stuff we've got in place.
https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/emergency-preparedness-response-recovery/covid-19-provincial-support/restrictions
It largely revolves around stopping large gatherings, and group physical activity. Non-essential gatherings like churches services, fitness classes etc. are suspended.
A full lockdown (everything closed) won't happen in a western country now that a vaccine is available and being deployed. Restrictions should and will be in place.
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On January 14 2021 01:15 LegalLord wrote:
The problem with all these "flatten the curve" / stable nonzero level of accepted spread strategies is that they only work until they don't. A slip-up that causes disease to spread further and wider than was planned for and you end up in deep shit. It worked for summer but immediately failed as winter rolled in.
Not that Cuomo is wrong, though - it's too late for a China approach and six more months of western-style lockdown isn't feasible either. Vaccines are the only chance to return to normalcy at this point.
I think flat curve of 1 is a bad strategy long term. You need r0 to be 0.85-0.95 long term, so that one holiday doesn't fuck you over.
Looking back at 2020, effective measures were.
1. China style lockdown. Brutal, totalitarian, but unquestionably effective. You can go from Wuhan to normal in 2 months.
2. Masks - WITH population buy-in.
3. Reducing contacts+track and trace.
4. Western style strong lockdowns. Markedly less effective than the China one, but probably the best you can get.
5. Targeted restrictions - Maximum effect for minimum impact.
Ineffective measures.
1. Masks - Without population buy-in. Masks really do nothing if people wear them on their chins. Even if masks reduce spread by 75%, one person without is worth 4 people with a mask.
2. Western weak lockdowns. Being scared of treading on freedoms ultimately just ends up costing time and lives. Either going full beans or nothing, because half assing really doesn't work well.
3. Political messaging - telling people to be responsible is effectively useless. Half people follow the guidance, and then the other half goes and parties, and ultimately the first half feels like they wasted their time when it inevitably ends in disaster.
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At least for Europe, a Wuhan-style lockdown was impossible for practical reasons. The virus was already all over Europe by the time our governments reacted. It's one thing to lock down a province and massively support it from outside, and totally another to lockdown the whole continent.
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I think it should be obvious that masks in public settings should be forgotten as an impactful measure on the macro level. It is too new, and using them correctly for extended amounts of time is simply unrealistic.
I have started thinking of them more as what they are: spit catchers, having a lot in common with diapers. It is really, that disgusting, and unless almost all the virus you emit is caught in the mask and stays there, they don't work.
Yes, hand hygiene matters much more than wearing them as many hours as possible.
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On January 14 2021 04:01 Slydie wrote:
I think it should be obvious that masks in public settings should be forgotten as an impactful measure on the macro level. It is too new, and using them correctly for extended amounts of time is simply unrealistic.
I have started thinking of them more as what they are: spit catchers, having a lot in common with diapers. It is really, that disgusting, and unless almost all the virus you emit is caught in the mask and stays there, they don't work.
Yes, hand hygiene matters much more than wearing them as many hours as possible.
If surgeons can wear them for 10+ hour surgeries, you can wear them for 30 min while you're indoors shopping.
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Norway28738 Posts
As a Norwegian during winter I've grown quite fond of masks - breathing has become a good way to warm my face.
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I see you two have either good and tight masks or don't wear glasses :-D
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Norway28738 Posts
I can definitely see how fogging glasses can be annoying, but indeed, I do not.
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Cloth masks are a lot more comfortable than surgical ones for "winter accessory" purposes. Surgical masks aren't designed for keeping your face warm, perhaps understandably.
The thing gets soggy from all the mouth-breathing, though, so I generally prefer not to. I can tolerate it if I have to.
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EPT
