The government doesn't want the public to have Covid-19 home test kits!

[Carana]

They keep saying that the only valid comparisons between countries is to compare excess death figures, information which won’t be available for some months.

They're available for some countries, but not all yet.

A good explanation of the complexity of comparing countries (aside from @jburnmurdoch ) :

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/30/coronavirus-deaths-how-does-britain-compare-with-other-countries?CMP=share_btn_tw

[Carana]

Ah. If confirmed, a bit of good news.
A number of reported cases of coronavirus patients relapsing after overcoming the disease were actually due to testing failures, South Korean scientists say.
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-scientists-conclude-people-cannot-be-infected-twice-11981721

[Mr Gray]

This is what we need for other countries to make an accurate assessmnet




and a bit of  a reality check for those who claim more people die from flu

[Carana]

The FT has done this for a dozen or so countries so far.

https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest

[Mr Gray]

The FT has done this for a dozen or so countries so far.

https://www.ft.com/coronavirus-latest

so England and wales 52%.....Belgium 60%....Spain 72% ....italy 90%..


So Uk certainly not heading for the most deaths....someones lying...and if you look at population density...the UK is doing pretty good...
Sweeden at 23% ...with such a low population density may be considered to be doing badly.


I do like numbers

[Carana]

I'm not sure who you think is lying.

The FT is using excess deaths as a proxy, but is waiting to see if the concept pans out.

I'm not sure why they're only counting England and Wales. Either there were no excess deaths in Scotland or NI, which seems unlikely, or they haven't got the figures yet.

At the moment, it seems to be a useful indicator of where countries have been over or under reporting for whatever reason.

[Mr Gray]

I'm not sure who you think is lying.

The FT is using excess deaths as a proxy, but is waiting to see if the concept pans out.

I'm not sure why they're only counting England and Wales. Either there were no excess deaths in Scotland or NI, which seems unlikely, or they haven't got the figures yet.

At the moment, it seems to be a useful indicator of where countries have been over or under reporting for whatever reason.

It really is quite simple.. those who I think are lying are those taht suggest that the Uk will have the worst record re deaths re co-vid..... It's far to early to make that claim and if you look at the figures i've shown its not supported by the evidence

[Mr Gray]

Theres alot of misinformation that need to be challenged...there are claims that the WHO have published data that shows mobile phone radiation may cause cancer...thats true ...but at the same level as pickled vegetables and talcum powder...and below the level of meat

[Carana]

Yeah, well.

Anyway, here's another challenge for those trying to keep tabs on Covid numbers.

Read the explanatory para.
https://twitter.com/DHSCgovuk/status/1256255822025428992

The UK isn't the only one that has changed its reporting system, and some change their formating, which messes up automated updating and it takes time to sort through.

Another example is the US:


NOTES:

In accordance with new CDC guidelines:

    New York: the numbers shown below include probable deaths (and, consequently, probable cases for the same number) as reported by New York City
    Maryland: includes probable deaths, as reported by the Department of Health (Section: "COVID-19 Statistics in Maryland")
    Wyoming: includes probable cases, as reported by the Department of Health

Most state reports and dashboards (such as Texas, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Missouri, etc.) lag behind or show incomplete data with respect to the data shown by individual counties on their official websites and dashboards, which is what we collecte and aggregate when possible to show the most updated and accurate number in the table below. We will soon publish state-level pages with graphs and the breakdown by county.

[Venturi Swirl]

It really is quite simple.. those who I think are lying are those taht suggest that the Uk will have the worst record re deaths re co-vid..... It's far to early to make that claim and if you look at the figures i've shown its not supported by the evidence

There are some people who actively WANT Britain to have the worst record for deaths, for politically motivated reasons.  They may pretend otherwise of course...

[Carana]

It's not a football league scoring points.

It can be easier to look at numbers and forget that each person was a living human being, someone's mum or dad, uncle or aunt, husband or wife, cousin, or even someone's child. Or best friend. Whether that's in the UK or at the other end of the world.

[Mr Gray]

It's not a football league scoring points.

It can be easier to look at numbers and forget that each person was a living human being, someone's mum or dad, uncle or aunt, husband or wife, cousin, or even someone's child. Or best friend. Whether that's in the UK or at the other end of the world.

To some ..including posters here...it is about scoring points in order to attack the governement. Deaths in excess of the "norm" are probably the best indication of the true rate of deaths we can have at the moment. By looking at the numbers in other countries it can help us decide the best option going forward to minimise deaths. The problem is that there are other factors involved such as population density which can play a major part. Sweeden seems to have gone down the herd immunity route but that may well have been an absolute disaster in the UK. Then there is more than one strain of the virus....could it be possible that New Zealand has a less virulant strain.

[Robittybob1]

To some ..including posters here...it is about scoring points in order to attack the governement. Deaths in excess of the "norm" are probably the best indication of the true rate of deaths we can have at the moment. By looking at the numbers in other countries it can help us decide the best option going forward to minimise deaths. The problem is that there are other factors involved such as population density which can play a major part. Sweeden seems to have gone down the herd immunity route but that may well have been an absolute disaster in the UK. Then there is more than one strain of the virus....could it be possible that New Zealand has a less virulant strain.

All our cases seemed to be able to be traced back to various persons who had travelled overseas.    I don't think there was one variant going around.

[Carana]

How do you feel that Jacinda has handled it so far, Rob? From the outside, IMO, she seems to have been on the ball.

[Robittybob1]

How do you feel that Jacinda has handled it so far, Rob? From the outside, IMO, she seems to have been on the ball.

She is one remarkable person.   In the beginning, I thought she had locked the country down too early, as I imagined they were hoping for a controlled rate of spread of the virus through the population.   But now they have basically eliminated the virus from the country. 
OK so now we have 5 million people in desperate need of a working vaccine.  When will the vaccine come? How likely will NZ be on the priority list?
I feel we will be waiting a long time.

Long before Covid 19 appeared on the scene I had developed the concept of using sub minimal infective doses of a disease to develop immunity.
So from what I've heard Covid 19 has a "minimal infective dose" of 1000 virus particles.

Therefore if it was possible to count the number of virus particles in a dose if we were to take a dose close to the minimal infective dose our bodies would develop immunity but we would remain without symptoms.

OK, I believe this would have to be applied in an isolated situation for I'm sure these people would still be spreading the disease, so they need to be isolated till they were noninfectious (approx 2-3 weeks).

I have written to the Director-General of Health regarding this proposal but I never got a reply.
As far as I know, no one else is using the minimal infective dose as a control method so there isn't an article backing my idea as yet.  https://www.newscientist.com/article/2238819-does-a-high-viral-load-or-infectious-dose-make-covid-19-worse/