Coronavirus: COVID-19

[felter]

I wish it was my own conspiracy theory, but I'm afraid it's not. I got the story from the BBC keep up to date ticker thingy, where numerous doctors and coroners have been trying to register home deaths from Covis-19, but they are not being allowed to register them as official, as only deaths in hospitals are being counted. So even if the death certificate gives covid-19 as the reason of death, they are not being officially counted by the UK government. As for them doing testing, just the news story from the NHS today that they are only being able to do 13,000 daily tests, when they should be doing 25,000 daily tests, due to them not being supplied with the test kits from the government. So 12,000 people a day that should be tested aren't being tested, leads to the question just how many of those 12,000 have the virus and are not being officially counted. So unfortunately I speak the truth, sorry about that if you don't like it.

As for them being late in updating, I know that the Scottish government are not doing a full reported count over the weekends, so on a Monday or Tuesday it looks like a bad day for Scotland, but it's actually number from several days, so I do know that is happening but it's only at the weekends. I guess they are trying to give people a rest.

[CBJ]

Please link the article. I read one that sounds very similar to the one you describe, but it didn't come to the conclusion that there was some kind of conspiracy. As I said, doctors dealing with patients in the home almost certainly won't have the means to confirm the cause of death as COVID-19. If they can't confirm the causes of those deaths then fairly obviously those deaths won't be included in a statistic that counts "confirmed COVID-19 deaths". As Alan said a few posts back, interpreting data involves understanding that data. Journalists often don't, and nor do their readers, which can lead to people getting worked up over things they really don't need to.

[Vertigo 7]

CDC is saying 1 in 4 infected are asymptomatic - carriers that show no symptoms. Need a better reason to avoid the public as much as possible?

[Gavrushka]

Had a drunken neighbour hammering on my door last night. - Well, after throwing handfuls of chipped bark at my window for a minute or two... - I had to get them to back off, but thinking something terrible had happened, opened the door. (This was at 22:40 last night.) - Turns out she had had the brilliant idea of baking pies for everyone on lockdown, and came to me because a great way to tell our neighbours was because I had the internet... - I've a security camera has recorded the whole drunken episode, but Vertigo's post above mine just underlines how these halfwits are, as a whole, leading to further loss of life.

Right now, I'm wondering whether I should inform the police. - I believe their powers would cover such idiocy, albeit by way of scaring the shit out of her. Maybe it's best to just keep a copy of the video*, and have a quiet and distant word, telling her to stop being such a f***wit, drunk or otherwise.

I think the upshot is that many people don't handle social isolation well. - An acquaintance (by social media) living on Canary Wharf, said her neighbour had a 'playdate' yesterday, with both mothers and kids staying. - How is this gonna be panning out another month from now, if people can't make it past a fortnight without descending into idiocy?



*Video is in format mp4, but won't play outside of my iVMS software, although I can take screenshots. - Says file format not supported. Is there a way to fix that? Codecs or whatever?

[felter]

Use Handbrake, it's a free open source video transcoder, if it can't open and and change it's format, probably nothing can.

[Gavrushka]

Use Handbrake, it's a free open source video transcoder, if it can't open and and change it's format, probably nothing can.

Brilliant, thank you! it's converted into an 'm4v' file, whatever that is, and now plays with my default Win10 player. (It would play in the proprietary CCTV software, but not elsewhere, prior.)

[felter]

M4V, that's apples DRM format, if it has the DRM turned on it only allows the products to be viewed using an apple device. Handbrake allows you to pick the format you want to output to, you could have changed it to MP4 or even MKV with better file size, as that is one of the main things Handbrake is good at, taking a large video file and shrinking it's size down without the loss of quality.

[Gavrushka]

Worked it out now, thanks for the heads up. It's scary to watch stupidity in action, and you just know she and her husband will be off out for a jolly jaunt this weekend, likely on the hunt for the more wine...

I *haven't* gone further than is necessary to cut the lawns, and nor will I. - I just saw the UK death toll today, and I don't want to play a part in anyone's future demise, but the cumulative actions of all those who feel they're not doing any harm by ignoring the lockdown will lead (a statistical certainty) to many additional unnecessary deaths.

[Incubi]

So America now has more confirmed cases than both Spain and Italy combined, while their death toll has jumped above 5k. Meanwhile Trump has taken to a different point of view, but it had to get personal for that to happen. Turns out he had a friend, well he knew someone (as I don't think he actually has friends) that was in hospital due to the virus, he got in touch with the hospital to find out how he was doing just to find out he was in a coma, suddenly the virus got real for him.

It turns out the numbers here in the UK cannot be trusted, as Boris has been playing the game. The death count is propabably at least 20% higher than we are being told, as to be on the official death toll you have to be in hospital when you die. Along with the fact that only certain people or the ones in hospital are the only ones being tested, not to mention that they haven't even been testing the doctors or nurses, the ones at the most risk. To think the other week there, they had the cheek and audacity to accuse Iran of lying about their numbers, just for them to be doing the exact same thing.

Europe as a whole has had more than half the global reported deaths. While I understand comparing numbers based on borders, I think it also creates stigmas and endangers people.

Meanwhile stupidity is deafening. People are believing that black people are immune and that the coronavirus is a Chinese disease. This reminds when people thought Aids was a gay disease and the gay bashings that this created in the 80's. Now the Chinese are being attacked and poor health coverage in black communities put those communities at greater risk. Also people do not seem to understand that all surrounding communities have an impact on one another, taking from each other endangers yourselves, a concept that grocery store hoarders need to be taught. Sorry if this seemed like a rant, I am very concerned of the cost of human ignorance on our ability to beat this pandemic.

[RegisterMe]

@Incubi I didn't read it as a rant. I read it as calling out real fears / sensible concerns about humans being humans (particularly in this day and age of highly partisan media, echo chambers, and fake news etc).

There might be some finger pointing to do when we get out the other side of this. Right now it doesn't help. Anybody.

[RegisterMe]

Also this is... brilliant.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politi ... to-the-nhs

[felter]

So America now has more confirmed cases than both Spain and Italy combined, while their death toll has jumped above 5k. Meanwhile Trump has taken to a different point of view, but it had to get personal for that to happen. Turns out he had a friend, well he knew someone (as I don't think he actually has friends) that was in hospital due to the virus, he got in touch with the hospital to find out how he was doing just to find out he was in a coma, suddenly the virus got real for him.

It turns out the numbers here in the UK cannot be trusted, as Boris has been playing the game. The death count is propabably at least 20% higher than we are being told, as to be on the official death toll you have to be in hospital when you die. Along with the fact that only certain people or the ones in hospital are the only ones being tested, not to mention that they haven't even been testing the doctors or nurses, the ones at the most risk. To think the other week there, they had the cheek and audacity to accuse Iran of lying about their numbers, just for them to be doing the exact same thing.

Europe as a whole has had more than half the global reported deaths. While I understand comparing numbers based on borders, I think it also creates stigmas and endangers people.

Meanwhile stupidity is deafening. People are believing that black people are immune and that the coronavirus is a Chinese disease. This reminds when people thought Aids was a gay disease and the gay bashings that this created in the 80's. Now the Chinese are being attacked and poor health coverage in black communities put those communities at greater risk. Also people do not seem to understand that all surrounding communities have an impact on one another, taking from each other endangers yourselves, a concept that grocery store hoarders need to be taught. Sorry if this seemed like a rant, I am very concerned of the cost of human ignorance on our ability to beat this pandemic.

The problem is there is no other way to do it. Comparing how one country is doing over another is the only way to know how one country or the other is actually doing. Especially as different countries approach dealing with the virus in different ways. For example: Spain, Italy even the UK are in total lockdown, while America is, I honestly don't know what America is doing it seems to be all over the place, with no sort of a plan at all, where the advice seems to change every other hour.

You could look at the numbers alone but they would just be meaningless, they will tell you what is happening but without a comparison there is no way to know if those numbers are good or bad, don't get me wrong in my book all the numbers we are seeing are bad but just how bad. If you look at the numbers currently America isn't doing so bad, while they may have the most confirmed cases the death rate for those confirmed number is still relatively low but the only way we know that is to compare them to other countries and right now you have to compare the numbers against Spain and Italy. Sadly though they are slowly catching up.

Good news is that the lockdowns do seem to be starting to work, no comparison needed to see that just look at France, their daily confirmed cases are dropping every day. Sadly the UK numbers are still rising and they are predicting around 14K deaths by this time next week, as it seems the number of confirmed deaths in the UK doubles every 3.5 days, So currently 3.6k deaths in 3.5 days that will be around 7K, another 3.5 days after that it's 14k. After that the lockdown should start to kick in and numbers should start to ease off but only time will tell, especially as a lot of people are not abiding by the lockdown.

What's happening in Germany, they were doing so well and all of a sudden things have got really bad. Their death count is still pretty low compared to others but their confirmed cases has gone through the roof.

[RegisterMe]

The problem is there is no other way to do it. Comparing how one country is doing over another is the only way to know how one country or the other is actually doing. Especially as different countries approach dealing with the virus in different ways. For example: Spain, Italy even the UK are in total lockdown, while America is, I honestly don't know what America is doing it seems to be all over the place, with no sort of a plan at all, where the advice seems to change every other hour.

You could look at the numbers alone but they would just be meaningless, they will tell you what is happening but without a comparison there is no way to know if those numbers are good or bad, don't get me wrong in my book all the numbers we are seeing are bad but just how bad. If you look at the numbers currently America isn't doing so bad, while they may have the most confirmed cases the death rate for those confirmed number is still relatively low but the only way we know that is to compare them to other countries and right now you have to compare the numbers against Spain and Italy. Sadly though they are slowly catching up.

Good news is that the lockdowns do seem to be starting to work, no comparison needed to see that just look at France, their daily confirmed cases are dropping every day. Sadly the UK numbers are still rising and they are predicting around 14K deaths by this time next week, as it seems the number of confirmed deaths in the UK doubles every 3.5 days, So currently 3.6k deaths in 3.5 days that will be around 7K, another 3.5 days after that it's 14k. After that the lockdown should start to kick in and numbers should start to ease off but only time will tell, especially as a lot of people are not abiding by the lockdown.

What's happening in Germany, they were doing so well and all of a sudden things have got really bad. Their death count is still pretty low compared to others but their confirmed cases has gone through the roof.

I disagree with much of the above. I will come back to it later (when I've had some sleep).

[Chips]

As for them doing testing, just the news story from the NHS today that they are only being able to do 13,000 daily tests, when they should be doing 25,000 daily tests, due to them not being supplied with the test kits from the government. So 12,000 people a day that should be tested aren't being tested, leads to the question just how many of those 12,000 have the virus and are not being officially counted. So unfortunately I speak the truth, sorry about that if you don't like it.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52149832

Again, actual news reports do not support your opinion.

How have the government's promises evolved?
At first, 10,000 tests were promised by the end of March, rising to 25,000 by the end of April. Now the government has quadrupled its pledge to 100,000. It didn't quite meet its first pledge, breaking the 10,000 mark two days late on 2 April.

Are these problems being addressed?
At first, only a small number of public health laboratories were being used to do coronavirus tests. In the past fortnight, this was extended to a further 40 NHS labs around the UK. Now the government is saying it will start to use the lab capacity of private companies to carry out coronavirus tests. The UK has a large pharmaceutical and biomedical industry whose capacity could "easily" allow the country to do many more tests than it is now, according to Dr Rupert Beale, who has been involved in developing a diagnostic test for coronavirus at the Francis Crick Institute, which will be made available to NHS staff in the area. But so far, this industry hasn't been tapped into, he said.

As well as labs, Health Secretary Matt Hancock said the government would now call on UK-based "pharmaceutical giants" GlaxoSmithKline and AstraZeneca to make the reagents necessary to carry out the tests. The UK has faced problems getting hold of the relevant reagents, which have been in high global demand. This has been a global problem, but some countries were in a better position than others.

I mean, criticising isn't an issue. What is an issue is just plain making things up or misrepresenting. You don't have to do that. Yes, they missed their 10k target by 2 days, but the 25k target was end of April - so there isn't "12000 not being tested that should".
Don't like the timescale? Believe it should have been earlier? Absolutely fine to say. Bad decisions not to ramp it up faster, not to immediately get all labs involved instead of trying to keep it centralised to a few? Not realising the numbers that'd be required and ordering chemicals and more in advance? Very bad. All this is definitely worth stating. Definitely a very valid critique.

Say they're missing huge numbers of tests when they never claimed to have it done at this point? That's just misrepresentation. Stop it - it's unnecessary and will always undermine and reduce actual valid criticisms or things to focus upon.

Not found your claim about a bbc article outlining what you say about doctors and death certificates though. No idea if it's true or not, but the article I linked about inaccuracies in the death counts (and the revisions of their numbers) does cover many angles and is available at present; it outlines why the numbers differ, whereas for your conspiracy theory currently you've offered nothing.

[Santi]

While I fully agree with your post Chips, the government have also been misrepresenting the facts and timelines, any drop in infected or deaths have been commented by government officials as "maybe reaching a plateau but too soon to tell", an ambiguous message that does not help people realise the gravity of the situation, same with supplies of medical equipment.

Plenty of money and companies pledged to supply the NHS, but it is a cutthroat market out there as every country is scrambling to secure medical supplies:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... d-of-april

And this leads to a lack of confidence in governments, so right now Felter is right in doubting what it is being said, I am very much so, and the figures presented are worth of being challenged. Because the whole thing is being muddled, take the quick tests for frontline NHS staff to determine if you have Coronavirus, millions bought, and now they seem to be useless because their detection rate is very low.

[matthewfarmery]

possible Sunday or Monday, US will hit 300k cases.

But in truth, the true number will be far higher. And I think that will go for the UK as well. Especailly as while the government wants to ramp up the numbers tested, I'm not really sure that can easy be achieved. But there is still no light at the end of the tunnel.

There is also problems with Italy, and they need more financial help, With the UK no longer going to full the EU coffers, only a handful of countries will be able to support the total pot. This could very well end up straining the EU, and might even split it. (I still think the way that the EU is now, is a very bad idea, too many countries in, and not all are able to support the EU money wise. Italy been one. At the end of the day, its going to be bad for every country, and may end up reshaping relationships and memberships.

[birdtable]

The Uk may end with stronger links with the EU than is being vocalised and hopefully a more amenable solution for Brexit.... I for one am an European at heart and not American.... No slur intended, just different culture and ideological backgrounds.
It is still a little early to see the results of a more strict adherence to social distancing.

[matthewfarmery]

my prediction came sooner then I thought,

US
Coronavirus Cases:
300,432
Deaths:
8,154
Recovered:
14,514

And Spain and Italy are neck and neck, while Italy has more deaths. This virus is certainly doing a lot of damaged.

[Santi]

There is also problems with Italy, and they need more financial help, With the UK no longer going to full the EU coffers, only a handful of countries will be able to support the total pot. This could very well end up straining the EU, and might even split it. (I still think the way that the EU is now, is a very bad idea, too many countries in, and not all are able to support the EU money wise. Italy been one. At the end of the day, its going to be bad for every country, and may end up reshaping relationships and memberships.

Taking exception to the "the UK no longer going to fill the EU coffers", because that is bollocks if I may be honest. The issue right now is the same as in the 2008 crisis. EU will help any country, but only if they abide to the fiscal policies dictated by Germany, Netherlands and Belgium among others, where debt have to be rein in and budgets to be balanced between income and spending, pretty reasonable if you ask me.

What it is not reasonable is creating a new debt mechanism as Spain and others are asking for, with the most wealthy countries of Europe as the underwriters.

[matthewfarmery]

Germany isn't as strong as it was, these articles might help.

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/italy ... 2020-03-10

https://www.politico.eu/article/coronav ... e-germany/

If Italy isn't helped, it could very well see it fall out of the EU, with a massive debt to boot. Italy should never have been made a member of the EU. And right now, it needs a huge amount of money to get back on its feet, and I'm not really sure the EU can or will bail it out, not without risking a cascade. And Germany isn't too good either, as china is / was the biggest importer. But that now will have more or less bee cut. And lets not forget Germany's government isn't doing too good. But if other EU countries also start asking for handouts, someone will have to foot the bill. So yes, from one country, it could start a cascade. I think the EU is made up of too many countries, and this virus will end up straining relations between the main member states. Of course, they don'#t want to see the EU collapse. But maybe it will be better if the EU project is scraped and something different put in its place? or forgot about the EU and go back to single countries once more?

But the virus will end up either destroying the EU or strengthen ties, but I think the former is more likely, Especially when it comes to Italy.