Coronavirus

[Witton Park]

Do you ever feel that you are a little obsessed with this thread? However much time you spend researching about CV doesn't seem to be doing much good or changing the situation. Just saying.....

Not so much with the thread, but perhaps with the topic.

I'm at an age with children and grandchildren now and my youngest daughter having just sold her house and about to upgrade and take on a very serious mortgage, that I look ahead to the sort of place they are likely to be living in.

I can't say I'm overly optimistic.

Set a precedent for closing down the country in the current Autumn circumstances and you are accepting almost annual lockdowns for a couple of months.

Speaking out and voicing my opinion is all I can do.

[Witton Park]

The following quote from the study report undermines the assertion above:
"These findings do offer evidence about the degree of protection mask wearers can anticipate in a setting where others are not wearing masks and where other public health measures, including social distancing, are in effect. The findings, however, should not be used to conclude that a recommendation for everyone to wear masks in the community would not be effective in reducing SARS-CoV-2 infections, because the trial did not test the role of masks in source control of SARS-CoV-2 infection. During the study period, authorities did not recommend face mask use outside hospital settings and mask use was rare in community settings (22). This means that study participants' exposure was overwhelmingly to persons not wearing masks."

I'll answer the question that you probably meant to ask.

So you choose to dismiss the explicit and clear qualification to the study findings in the report published by those, who conducted the study, in preference for an interpretation by two epidemiologists which include one of high international standing?

Yes - let's call it siding with a peer review.

Interestingly though a raft of scientists have come out to pan the experiment because they also feel it shows masks make a small, non statistically significant difference.
Like Trish Greenalgh of Oxford Uni who said it wasn't high quality science
or
Dr Vincent Rajkumar who said "Ignore the Danish study. Masks work. Wear a mask"

So clearly they feel that the study suggests masks don't work.

But most significantly Professor Bundgaard (the lead scientist) has said in an interview that to put the findings in to perspective they show that if 300 people wore a mask for a month, they could save 1 person from being infected.

Note infected, not a fatality or admission, merely an infection.

Note also that these findings are based on use of a three layer surgical face mask, EN approved with a 98% filtration rate.
The wearers were highly likely to have worn them correctly having all received instructions and protocol and in full knowledge that they were part of a clinical trial.

So with all that in mind, I think it's appropriate to assert that the trial found no significant benefit to the wearing of masks by the public.

[Mike T]

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, on twitter:

"This is total BS. The study DOES NOT show masks have no significant effect.

Statistically, the study is junk science. It wasn't easy to publish because of the flaw."

[noel]

Interesting article by a Consultant at the coal face:

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co...paign=sharebar

Thanks Mike. Some very good points in that, by someone who knows.

[Wetherby whaler]

Quote from the New York Times article which covered it:
“Our study gives an indication of how much you gain from wearing a mask,” said Dr. Henning Bundgaard, lead author of the study and a cardiologist at the University of Copenhagen. “Not a lot.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/h...s-denmark.html
Channelling a bit of Paul Daniels there.

[Mossdog]

Thanks Mike. Some very good points in that, by someone who knows.

Yes, some good points. However, I don't think it's fair to label those who question how this pandemic has, and is, being managed as all "conspiracy theorists who say that coronavirus is a 'scamdemic'". It is both reasonable and necessary to ask questions about whether the Covid response has been proportionate, or not.

I recall how back in February this year Rory Stewart, who had been the UK’s international development secretary, and active during the Ebola crisis, warned how there had been significant excess deaths, greater than those recorded directly from ebola, in those countries affected by ebola but related to other conditions. These were due to the disproportionate focus by international and local west African efforts on ebola. He cautioned against similar consequences in this and other countries and his warning appears to have largely gone unheeded, with just lip-service acknowledgement.

Even the BBC have highlighted the issue:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...from-the-virus

There are scores of medical papers and other health reports describing the implications of, for example, TB reductions, cancer issues, etc, worldwide, if you search for collateral implications. Yet, in the mainstream media we aren't being offered any clear statistics/information regarding such damage that this apparent over emphasis on Covid 19 measures could be having, in contrast to the near daily Covid 19 figures (deaths and cases).

The NHS, as excellent as it usually is, and related Government Depts. do need to be held to account too. I understand how it's not pleasant when, as Mike's article described, " Consultant Physician David Oliver says it can feel like professional integrity and honesty are under attack", but the public have less deference towards many professional groups now. Let's not forget the scores of hospital scandals, such as Staffordshire Hospital, over the last few decades (anyone remember the arrogance of medical staff at the Bristol Hospital babies heart scandal way back in the 1990s?). In such cases, again and again, the integrity and honesty of many NHS staff were found to be wanting, with gross arrogance, negligence, and complicity, or downright criminality, particularly practiced by some of the consultants implicated.

So let's keep hearing from all sides of the debate - please.

[noel]

Yes, some good points. However, I don't think it's fair to label those who question how this pandemic has, and is, being managed as all "conspiracy theorists who say that coronavirus is a 'scamdemic'". It is both reasonable and necessary to ask questions about whether the Covid response has been proportionate, or not.

He was also quite scathing of the mistruths that have eroded public trust. So I don't think he's against questioning how things have been handled.

So let's keep hearing from all sides of the debate - please.

Absolutely. I think we all want to hear people's views whether we agree with them or not.

[Witton Park]

" Consultant Physician David Oliver says it can feel like professional integrity and honesty are under attack"

I've had a few discussions with a Hospital Doctor friend of the family and she knows I am not questioning her professional integrity, because she can only act in her professional setting on the information that is given to her.
She's also recently qualified and I can't expect her to jeopardise her job after 6-7 years of study.

I think this crisis will bring the welfare state generally under the spotlight.

We pay our taxes to provide us with services and yet we have very little say over how our taxes are taken and used and we have very little say over how and when we can access these services and for what.

Such as Carol Player who's sad story I heard a couple of months ago.

Her treatment was suspended and so she's now having to pay private. I made a small contribution and if we do get the races going again, she will get a further one from the proceeds of my relay event.

Life saving cancer treatment, down to low level dental maintenance has gone for a burton.

NICE have a current QALY of around £30k.

If you assume that Covid has cost us £500 Billion (probably more) and saved 500,000 (almost certainly nowhere near that number) lives, the COVID QALY is £1,000,000 assuming we have saved them on average a year.

I'd suggest the real level of the COVID QALY being above £10 million.

So we can blow the QALY level out of the water for a virus that takes 0.5% of those that contract it and not for those that contract a terminal illness that takes 100% of those that contract it.

NHS - pay your tax - need to access services - do you have a Covid priority pass sir? Come on through.

[noel]

I don't dispute these figures at all WP. And you're right it does show how we're taking a seemingly different approach when it comes to covid relative to other things in terms of QALYs.

But what UK politician could say "it'll cost 200,000 lives, but it's a price worth paying in the long run". Whether or not that's true (and it might well be), that would be political suicide.

[Graham Breeze]

I don't dispute these figures at all WP. And you're right it does show how we're taking a seemingly different approach when it comes to covid relative to other things in terms of QALYs.

But what UK politician could say "it'll cost 200,000 lives, but it's a price worth paying in the long run". Whether or not that's true (and it might well be), that would be political suicide.

I agree.

But everything is always about politics.

And I don't think, broadly,the UK politicans have behaved any differently from other politicians. Trump may have adopted a "keep America working and ignor Covid" approach but that was because he thought it would get him re-elected (but he forgot to ask, "How will this play in Peoria?").

UK industry was not shut down for the 1918/19 Influenza pandemic and how many died? Oh yes - 228,000 from a much smaller population. Small pandemic, but not many dead?