Coronavirus

[Dave_Mole]

If Oscar Wilde were alive today I feel sure he would be posting on the Forum

Yup
"For us there is only one season, the season of sorrow".

[Graham Breeze]

Yup
"For us there is only one season, the season of sorrow".

When the Forum has culture, why would we miss fell races?

[Dave_Mole]

When the Forum has culture, why would we miss fell races?

Well, as Thomas Carlyle would have it: culture is the process by which a person becomes all that they were created capable of being. So it should help with PBs on races, too

[Graham Breeze]

Well, as Thomas Carlyle would have it: culture is the process by which a person becomes all that they were created capable of being. So it should help with PBs on races, too

Well I never...who would have thought?

[Dave_Mole]

Well I never...who would have thought?

Unless he was talking about yoghurt....

[Llani Boy]

Whale that's not the offishal line but it cod sardinely be true!

It reeely is not my plaice to carp on but you seem to be a dab hand at this Mossdog!

[Mossdog]

If Oscar Wilde were alive today I feel sure he would be posting on the Forum

Indeed, after all did he not say that "Shellfishness is not living your life as you fish to live it. Shellfishness is wanting others to live their lives as you fish them to"!

Enough already!

[Graham Breeze]

Indeed, after all did he not say that "Shellfishness is not living your life as you fish to live it. Shellfishness is wanting others to live their lives as you fish them to"!

Enough already!

Indeed he did - although, alas, so often mistranscribed.

[Witton Park]

You're right of course Stolly. You can't catch sepsis etc. like you can catch covid. However, on 'the 'upside' (there isn't one really) these other diseases don't have the significant additional collateral effects of Covid-19 related policies. Interesting article in Unherd this morning ...

"Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health – leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice".

Stating the bleedin' obvious, we're faced with a very complex problem and discounting alternative perspectives because they're not the received authoritative opinion isn't helpful.

https://unherd.com/2020/10/covid-exp...nd=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3

Just watched the video. One new and interesting point they made was an idea to facilitate shielding amongst older workers who are pre-retirement at about 25 minutes in.

If you have a 60 year old bus driver, they should have the option not to work. One way to facilitate this and support them would be (say) a 3 - 6 month sabatical where they can draw down on their pension now and then retire 3-6 months later.

They didn't quite set it out like that, but it seemed a good idea and something that I haven't come across before.

[Witton Park]

Stolly "I still think the major problem is still mixing households indoors at home"

Muddy "In a number of places the recent spike seems to have been caused by the return of students."

Muddy "Of equal concern still is the administration at PHE. The IT tech problem, which led to the missed 16,000 cases is apparently because the data was being uploaded to an Excel spreadsheet"

The first two comments are predicated on the testing system and data flowing from it being robust. The final comment shows that you cannot trust the information we are being given.

https://assets.publishing.service.go..._negatives.pdf

The reliability of the test results have been long debated and this link seems to be a paper put together by Porton Down.

"Unless we understand the operational false positive rate of the UK’s RT-PCR testing system we risk overestimating the COVID-19 incidence, the demand on track and trace, and the extent of asymptomatic infection."

That's 3rd June and we still don't have anything satisfactory in the public domain that I have seen to suggest it has been dealt with. In fact yesterday morning there was a piece on the BBC where they seemed to be coming late to the issue of false positives.

So I'm uncomfortable with pointing the finger at a few postcodes of mainly Asian ethnicity here in Blackburn that caused our spike back in July and are still in stricter lockdown measures 12 weeks on.

Rather than mixing in households or other indoor settings, it could be that these were people previously infected perhaps back in March/April but not picked up until June/July.

They could have been following guidance, they might not have been infectious at all, or for weeks, and hence the cases did not lead to hospital admissions.

Then the SWAT team of testers comes in, and finds even more of these that were previously exposed to the virus, but they get counted as "cases".

It seems quite possible that the spikes are just the product of a testing system that isn't as reliable as it is being presented to us.

That is even without considering any operational failings that may occur at the many outdoor testing centres, and through postal test kits.