[battery]

Further to the original question and M20s bump:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-59283128
(Link to brainwashing state authority mainstream media site)

I would say that whilst some restrictions on the voluntarily vaccine-refused, specifically in optional/luxury high transmission risk busy indoor social scenarios, might be okay, a full lockdown for them is absolutely not. Just like previous blanket lockdowns irrespective of transmission risks were not. It's disproportionate and unnecessarily vindictive. Restrictions should be about keeping the overall public safe, not about excessively punishing people for their choice (the punishment can be reserved for conspiracy sheeple who actively push an lie-based agenda that carries a risk of further general lockdowns due to encouraging people to avoid more palatable measures).

The alternative is that those who are clinically vulnerable, despite having done the right thing and got the vaccine, are in perpetual lockdown through no fault or choice of their own....

[Offwidth]

Those are both very useful yes, thanks.

But (you knew there was one coming!)... Those are still backward-looking stats though (I know, what other sort are there), and are comparing the relative risk of death of covid in 2020 compared to risks from other causes of death. As we all know, 2020 was the worst of it for covid (hopefully!), so using the 2020 covid fatality stats is creating quite an unrealistic base effect which shouldn't apply to how we live and make decisions *today*. A bit like some of the inflation figures currently. (that doesn't imply I think inflation isn't shaping up as a potential problem btw, but that's a totally different topic).

I'm interested in what the relative risk of covid is *today*, compared to other risks. Because it isn't 2020 anymore, and we're going into the future where we aren't in a pandemic state, not going back to 2020 where we were in a pandemic state.

But I also realise it's virtually impossible to have comprehensive stats of that sort up-to-date. A 12-momth lag is probably the best we can do.

It depends on what decision we are talking about and the importance of each category: statistical risk in the population (which varies with age etc)  risk for a specific person (the 'me' factor or the 'I'm worried for my gran' factor)  or risk of NHS system issues. The driver for pandemic measures is always the last of those as we simply cant operate as a society without functioning hospitals, so governments are forced to act when the system starts to break. Risk for a specific person probably dominates most individual considerations.

Looking at statistical risk first. As I said above:  if unvaccinated, the risks are roughly unchanged (actually the delta strain is more life threatening than the first wave strain but medical responses have increased faster). If vaccinated or with infection immunity risks are still worse than a typical annual flu wave.

On risk for a specific person there is loads we can do to mitigate; so those population stats are not always the risk for us or our loved ones: get vaccinated; always try to meet outside; if you have to go indoors in public try and choose a well ventilated, location at a quiet time; if vulnerable consider an FFP2 mask indoors (mask policy is mainly about preventing spread from the wearer to others indoors but an FFP2 masks gives reasonable protection to the wearer indoors, very important where mask compliance is lax and ventilation poor). Any climber also needs to factor in what happens if they hurt themselves climbing and need to go to hospital.

On NHS system risks: we are in a position as critical as the peak of previous waves. Back then it was mostly about covid but now the cracks are opening in an overstretched system with an exhausted and understaffed workforce. Covid still makes things worse as hospitalisations are still high and infection control clogs up systems. Banning the unvaccinated from working in care homes will make things worse over winter as it reduces care capacity and the overstretched care (especially in the least well funded homes) leads to more general heath problems and so extra admissions.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/14/patients-are-dying-from-being-stuck-in-ambulances-outside-ae-report

[spidermonkey09]

On risk for a specific person there is loads we can do to mitigate; so those population stats are not always the risk for us or our loved ones: get vaccinated; always try to meet outside; if you have to go indoors in public try and choose a well ventilated, location at a quiet time; if vulnerable consider an FFP2 mask indoors (mask policy is mainly about preventing spread from the wearer to others indoors but an FFP2 masks gives reasonable protection to the wearer indoors, very important where mask compliance is lax and ventilation poor). Any climber also needs to factor in what happens if they hurt themselves climbing and need to go to hospital.

This paragraph reads like in an IndySage press release. I appreciate its all good advice but it misses the obvious reality that the above mitigations are not compatible with living an enjoyable life for most people. The majority of peoples jobs will require them to be indoors with the public and the vast majority of people want to be indoors with the public going to sporting events, pubs, concerts, you name it. The point is surely whether putting restrictions on the unvaccinated to allow the vaccinated vulnerable to live a more normal life would have any benefits. I don't know but I can see why the vaccinated vulnerable might be pissed off with the prospect of years of wearing an FFP2 mask indoors; its just not practical or realistic.

[petejh]

The alternative is that those who are clinically vulnerable, despite having done the right thing and got the vaccine, are in perpetual lockdown through no fault or choice of their own....

It isn't true that that's the alternative for clinically vulnerable people.

The real alternative for the clinically vulnerable is that some people will always have to live their lives with increased risk - this was true before covid and it'll be true after the covid pandemic. Clinically vulnerable people are a special case and need special levels of protection and health care, but they shouldn't be the primary deciding factor in how the rest of humanity live their lives.
 
If living in 'perpetual lockdown' as you put it really *was* the only alternative then that would imply that zero covid is the desired outcome. Thankfully no government is stupid enough to think achieving zero covid is possible in the long term. Even NZ, the most isolated country and most able to seal itself off from the rest of humanity, has given up on zero covid. https://www.thinkglobalhealth.org/article/end-new-zealands-zero-covid-policy

[Offwidth]

Am I misunderstanding something really obvious here on the discussion of excess deaths?

There ARE significant excess deaths right now (deaths above the average baseline of previous years) :  they have been averaging around 14% since the beginning of August.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/29october2021

Excess mortality (%) is a plot category for Our World in Data, if people want to look at the graph of UK excess deaths and compare with other countries.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer

As Johnny points out we have lost a lot of the old/vulnerable to covid , and along with flu numbers being low so far, this should be a low year for two of the biggest factors, cancer should be higher due to treatment delays from covid.

I'm keeping an eye on the numbers as this escalation in ambulance delays is really serious for heart problems (our biggest killer) and strokes. I'm worried most right now about that but it's hard to see in excess deaths: it's certainly not huge yet (compared to covid deaths) as the covid deaths are close to the excess deaths (and which broadly match the variation).

On Matt's point about 'people would have died soon anyway':  various analysis indicates covid deaths take about a decade off life expectancy so on average that's not true for the majority.

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/longevity/497097-those-who-died-from-covid-19-lost-more-than-a-decade-of

Except, the actual all cause mortality reports, disagree. Pick a few.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/weekly-all-cause-mortality-surveillance-2021-to-2022

I think the point is, that whilst we are sitting above the 5 year median, we are not outside of typical fluctuations around that median. Meaning, Covid, under current conditions, is not increasing the individual’s risk of death by a statistically significant amount, albeit a measurable one.

Fig 1, of those reports give a very strong impression of how different things are to the previous waves, but you can also see, quite clearly, that we are very much within “normal” bounds.

Edit: basically, we are in the fuzzy territory, where many thing combine to alter the world from “normal”. We still have increased social distancing, widespread mask use, increased awareness and reduced activity in many areas, added to a severely whittled vulnerable population and a largely vaccinated population.
So, Covid is probably responsible for more of the total share of deaths, where the overall non-Covid deaths are somewhat reduced by the overall situation. If that makes sense?

I'd agree with most of what you subsequently say but if you read the reports' detail and the ONS reports I think the headline statement on the all cause mortality report is close to dishonest. It's certainly a misuse of statistics. When we have high years we know why from the detail. The detail shows the opposite....mostly it's a low year with most excess deaths due to covid or covid knock-on effects.  Prior to Boris I never would have thought I'd say a civil service produced document headline statement could be close to dishonest. What's going on for example with NHSE pressure is that we are long past politically neutral normal checks and balances being lost and we are now actively suppressing information in behalf of covering for the government.

https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Trashing-their-careers.html?soid=1102665899193&aid=NVtok1OAiPA

(there are several more blogs that are more specific to covid bad news suppression or suppression of news of other failures
with senior management leaking as Lilley will post it ....this is an ex advisor to the tories on NHS management)

Again my concern right now is not that we need restrictions to stop some imminent covid wave (that IS the case in Europe but not here). Our UK problem is a multifaceted NHS perfect storm. These Ambulance service delay numbers are unheard of. The wider scale  of Trust OPEL 4 reports are unheard of (failures are so bad that the public are at risk). The public are sleepwalking through this until they need to be the ones needing urgent care.

[Offwidth]

This paragraph reads like in an IndySage press release. I appreciate its all good advice but it misses the obvious reality that the above mitigations are not compatible with living an enjoyable life for most people. The majority of peoples jobs will require them to be indoors with the public and the vast majority of people want to be indoors with the public going to sporting events, pubs, concerts, you name it. The point is surely whether putting restrictions on the unvaccinated to allow the vaccinated vulnerable to live a more normal life would have any benefits. I don't know but I can see why the vaccinated vulnerable might be pissed off with the prospect of years of wearing an FFP2 mask indoors; its just not practical or realistic.

I'm a fan of Indie SAGE. What the critics of Indie SAGE brush over is the implications of what you correctly point out above ends up  in the list of their concerns and advice.  Covid disproportionately hits the most deprived and most vulnerable the hardest. All their advice was always based on clear concensus science at the time and I find it weird there is pushback against that from progressive thinkers.

Wearing an FFP2 mask is a big benefit in highest risk areas if the person is especially vulnerable.... that's not a common position for the most vulnerable who are living independently, unless they are not aware of various rights they have. For the big exceptions, in care homes or hospitals say, the staff should have the PPE not the individuals. This is partially british exceptionalism again: Germany mandated FFP2 mask use for all in indoor public space.

[petejh]

English exceptionalism maybe. I have to put on a mask to walk around a shop here in Wales. Have you considered moving here, it sounds like you'd enjoy life more?

At heart you're making an argument for the health service dictating policy on areas of how we live our lives that are outside the remit of a health service to decide. I think that isn't OK, you think it is.

On excess death versus a long-term norm. The figures are what they are. You can see where we stand in the reports Matt linked (thanks). Why should it matter if the figures are lower for other causes and higher for covid or higher for other causes and lower for covid? The people are still dead, or not.   

[spidermonkey09]

I'm a fan of Indie SAGE.

I know you are. I'm not though, I think they're great scientists but media obsessed and too often propose totally unworkable, pie in the sky 'solutions,' which they present as common sense thinking but in reality are anything but due to the practicalities. As Pete says, they consistently make arguments that the health service should dictate policy, which I don't agree with. I don't think they're bad people, just a bit single issue obsessed. As a humanities graduate I might suggest they embody some of the more unfortunate traits of scientific thought...

Being a progressive doesn't equate to being a covid hawk, thats a simplistic inference.

Given you mentioned Germany in a positive light, in the interest of balance its worth pointing out their rates are going the wrong way and they are looking at a significantly worse winter than the UK, despite the mask mandate which you mention. No easy answers.

[Offwidth]

On the Wuhan lab issues, this channel 4 documentary was a balanced look at the situation as known around now.

 https://www.channel4.com/programmes/did-covid-leak-from-a-lab-in-china

I've not seen any convincing evidence the lab leak theory is even equally likely, let alone most likely, but it was clearly possible and there is clear evidence of problems with the work undertaken in Wuham and with problems with the safety precautions for the specific gain of function experiments. This work was partly funded by US researchers using US government funding who ethically would not have been allowed to do the work in the US;  any of the riskiest work, if carried out in the US (it happens....as they have a defensive bio-warfare capacity) would be done under much stricter safety measures than it was in Wuhan. Some US researchers were caught with their pants down, ethically speaking, due to distortion of public risk appraisal of the lab leak theory when in a position of conflict of interest. Even Fauci was tainted ethically on the matter: when he said no US money was used on 'gain of function' work in Wuhan that was a potentially dishonest position as it intrinsically defined 'gain of function' in a very specific way, rather than the general understanding of the term, which did include US funded work in Wuhan.

[Oldmanmatt]

Am I misunderstanding something really obvious here on the discussion of excess deaths?

There ARE significant excess deaths right now (deaths above the average baseline of previous years) :  they have been averaging around 14% since the beginning of August.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/29october2021

Excess mortality (%) is a plot category for Our World in Data, if people want to look at the graph of UK excess deaths and compare with other countries.

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data-explorer

As Johnny points out we have lost a lot of the old/vulnerable to covid , and along with flu numbers being low so far, this should be a low year for two of the biggest factors, cancer should be higher due to treatment delays from covid.

I'm keeping an eye on the numbers as this escalation in ambulance delays is really serious for heart problems (our biggest killer) and strokes. I'm worried most right now about that but it's hard to see in excess deaths: it's certainly not huge yet (compared to covid deaths) as the covid deaths are close to the excess deaths (and which broadly match the variation).

On Matt's point about 'people would have died soon anyway':  various analysis indicates covid deaths take about a decade off life expectancy so on average that's not true for the majority.

https://thehill.com/changing-america/well-being/longevity/497097-those-who-died-from-covid-19-lost-more-than-a-decade-of

Except, the actual all cause mortality reports, disagree. Pick a few.

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/weekly-all-cause-mortality-surveillance-2021-to-2022

I think the point is, that whilst we are sitting above the 5 year median, we are not outside of typical fluctuations around that median. Meaning, Covid, under current conditions, is not increasing the individual’s risk of death by a statistically significant amount, albeit a measurable one.

Fig 1, of those reports give a very strong impression of how different things are to the previous waves, but you can also see, quite clearly, that we are very much within “normal” bounds.

Edit: basically, we are in the fuzzy territory, where many thing combine to alter the world from “normal”. We still have increased social distancing, widespread mask use, increased awareness and reduced activity in many areas, added to a severely whittled vulnerable population and a largely vaccinated population.
So, Covid is probably responsible for more of the total share of deaths, where the overall non-Covid deaths are somewhat reduced by the overall situation. If that makes sense?

I'd agree with most of what you subsequently say but if you read the reports' detail and the ONS reports I think the headline statement on the all cause mortality report is close to dishonest. It's certainly a misuse of statistics. When we have high years we know why from the detail. The detail shows the opposite....mostly it's a low year with most excess deaths due to covid or covid knock-on effects.  Prior to Boris I never would have thought I'd say a civil service produced document headline statement could be close to dishonest. What's going on for example with NHSE pressure is that we are long past politically neutral normal checks and balances being lost and we are now actively suppressing information in behalf of covering for the government.

https://myemail.constantcontact.com/Trashing-their-careers.html?soid=1102665899193&aid=NVtok1OAiPA

(there are several more blogs that are more specific to covid bad news suppression or suppression of news of other failures
with senior management leaking as Lilley will post it ....this is an ex advisor to the tories on NHS management)

Again my concern right now is not that we need restrictions to stop some imminent covid wave (that IS the case in Europe but not here). Our UK problem is a multifaceted NHS perfect storm. These Ambulance service delay numbers are unheard of. The wider scale  of Trust OPEL 4 reports are unheard of (failures are so bad that the public are at risk). The public are sleepwalking through this until they need to be the ones needing urgent care.

I’d have to disagree.

I think the mistake in your thinking, revolves around trying to compare the highly unusual NOW, with a smoothed, averaged, “normal”; THEN.

What results, from the various factors, is that you are not, statistically, more likely to die now, than in previous years (well, not much more. A little). It is just more likely to be Covid that gets you, than more “traditional” risks, if you are unlucky enough to get got.

The other issue is, that, unfortunately (and again, I have to force my Engineer head to take over and push my Human, down, to write this), a Grand and a bit of excess deaths, is small change in a population close to 70M.

This doesn’t mean I’m advocating for relaxation of anything, mandate-wise and I absolutely believe we could make things much better with quite simple measures. In fact, in hindsight, I think the previous Flu spikes could and should have been mitigated and I wish I’d been as aware of their severity before all this.

[Offwidth]

I'm a fan of Indie SAGE.

I know you are. I'm not though, I think they're great scientists but media obsessed and too often propose totally unworkable, pie in the sky 'solutions,' which they present as common sense thinking but in reality are anything but due to the practicalities. As Pete says, they consistently make arguments that the health service should dictate policy, which I don't agree with. I don't think they're bad people, just a bit single issue obsessed. As a humanities graduate I might suggest they embody some of the more unfortunate traits of scientific thought...

Being a progressive doesn't equate to being a covid hawk, thats a simplistic inference.

Given you mentioned Germany in a positive light, in the interest of balance its worth pointing out their rates are going the wrong way and they are looking at a significantly worse winter than the UK, despite the mask mandate which you mention. No easy answers.

That's foolish rhetoric.

We tried the IndieSAGE discussion before and you couldn't substantiate anything about Indie SAGE proposals being 'pie in the sky'. The only  major problems I've seen are with occasional individual members of IndieSAGE speaking outside the group agreed positions (Costello at times in particular).

In science terms there is no such thing as a covid hawk. The so called scientific covid doves, like the Great Barrington group, were always proved plain wrong based on hard evidence.

In Germany the FFP2 mask mandate was based on clear science with no significant  cost implications (they are not so expensive nor in short supply now). German case numbers are going up fast as they are less well vaccinated and have lower overall population antibody levels (vaccination and fewer were infected there), so far the impact on their hospitals is much lower than ours (the German government can't try and cover-up, like Boris, as it's federal). ...I'll lay strong odds they end up overall with lower economic impacts from lockdowns, much lower per capita deaths, and much lower serious knock-on effects to other parts of their  health systems (like what's happening now in our ambulance emergency).

[spidermonkey09]

I can't really be arsed with a massive debate on this, as we aren't going to change each others minds. You have a different view to me, fair enough, but its not the only view.

I think the mistake you are making, which IndieSage are equally guilty of, is seeing it as a purely scientific question when quite clearly it isn't; its a public health and political question as well. I don't deny that all of ISage and your suggestions would be great ideas and make perfect sense in a controlled environment or lab. My point is that human societies don't operate like an experiment or equation and ISage too often don't take that into account.

[Offwidth]

I’d have to disagree.

I think the mistake in your thinking, revolves around trying to compare the highly unusual NOW, with a smoothed, averaged, “normal”; THEN.

What results, from the various factors, is that you are not, statistically, more likely to die now, than in previous years (well, not much more. A little). It is just more likely to be Covid that gets you, than more “traditional” risks, if you are unlucky enough to get got.

The other issue is, that, unfortunately (and again, I have to force my Engineer head to take over and push my Human, down, to write this), a Grand and a bit of excess deaths, is small change in a population close to 70M.

This doesn’t mean I’m advocating for relaxation of anything, mandate-wise and I absolutely believe we could make things much better with quite simple measures. In fact, in hindsight, I think the previous Flu spikes could and should have been mitigated and I wish I’d been as aware of their severity before all this.

Again I agree with most of what you say. I can see why you think the way you do on the .gov headline, but I think you are wrong on trusting that headline statement on any government  communication where it disagrees with headline statements on much more independent bodies (in this case the ONS). Previous high mortality periods in November have identifiable reasons which simply do not apply right now. Independent criticism of government information has really accelerated, in numbers and scale of concern,  under this particular govenment. Climbers have talked of their personal negative experience on the serious erosion of civil service independence as employees, here and on the other channel.

The actual critical health issue around mortality that we face right now, is there is no guarantee you can get into a hospital on time if facing a highly time dependent major medical emergency. The level of this threat is as high as it ever has been (and past times as high were in the much bigger earlier covid hospitalisation peaks). Covid is only part of it but the fairly light touch  'plan B' covid restrictions are one of the few levers we can use quickly and without major economic impact in tackling the genuine national health emergency we are facing right now. Things will likely get even worse as the winter comes in.

[Offwidth]

I can't really be arsed with a massive debate on this, as we aren't going to change each others minds. You have a different view to me, fair enough, but its not the only view.

I think the mistake you are making, which IndieSage are equally guilty of, is seeing it as a purely scientific question when quite clearly it isn't; its a public health and political question as well. I don't deny that all of ISage and your suggestions would be great ideas and make perfect sense in a controlled environment or lab. My point is that human societies don't operate like an experiment or equation and ISage too often don't take that into account.

Again this isn't about opinions. IndiSAGE work hard in good faith as scientists, for no pay and in their own time, on behalf of providing the best information they can for the public. Anything that is 'pie in the sky' would be easily provable as such, and widely distributed (as they piss off all sorts of bad covid actors and covid sceptic media outlets ).  You can insult their work but can't be arsed to even provide a single example of where they have been proven scientifically wrong.

[Johnny Brown]

Interesting analysis of data here

https://dr-no.co.uk/2021/11/15/when-the-facts-change/

The main takeaway for me is that charts clearly show the vaccine has saved thousands of lives in the over 60's cohorts. Given the lack of other tools with similar levels of effectiveness it seems sensible to continue until clearer data emerges that the case is otherwise. I'm not sure that is present here.

The chart for the under 60's does seem to show a real and consistent trend. However it is worth noting the tiny increase - from 1 per 100,000 to 2.5, and the gap is closing not growing. A tiny difference like that could easily be accounted for by small behavioural differences between the two groups, specifically more cautious behaviour by some of the unvaccinated. Whilst not untrue, the summary that 'being fully vaccinated roughly doubles your chance of dying' seems leading at best.

[abarro81]

I CBA to do the digging but is this just what they covered on More or Less ages ago - essentially a function of how you work out how many people there are that are unvaccinated. There are multiple systems/estimates and depending on which one you use you get very different figures per 100k now that vaccinated numbers are so high. Worth looking up the old episode if you're interested, shouldn't be hard to find

[petejh]

It would be good to get your thoughts on the Dr. No analysis Steve. Cheers

I'll give you mine while OW gets around to slaughtering you.

The chart is showing all-cause mortality rate per 100,000 for people aged 10-60.
All cause mortality for that age group is a very low number, relative to older age groups.
That blog has zoomed in on a very small number i.e. 1 or 2 per 100,000, and made it look significant.
Is it significant?
The difference is between 1 death per 100,000 or 2 deaths per 100,000.

My fag packet maths:
There are  approx 36 million people aged between 10-60 in the UK.
36m/100,000 = 360
If the weekly death rate was 1 per 100,000 then 360 people died per week.
If the weekly death rate is 2 per 100,000 then 720 people died per week.

So the chart is talking about the difference between very approximately. 360 deaths per week and 720 deaths per week, from all causes.

How many people in total die per week in the UK from all causes?
= there were approx. 11,000 deaths per week from all causes in the UK last week and this is around average.

So 360 or 720 out of a total of 11,000.

That's just first impressions and bag of fag packet calcs. Take from it what you will. My first impressions were it seems counter-intuitive. But thinking it through, how many of those 360 or 720 people in age 10-60 actually died from covid, does it say?
Any, a tiny number? It must be a tiny number because around 700-1000 people per week are dying from covid, and the vast majority of those are over 60.
I honestly haven't bothered to look into it any further than that, but it looks like your blog's author is focussing in on a tiny number, who mostly didn't die from covid, and trying to make it seem significant in terms of covid.

If that's true, and I'm happy to proved wrong, than what a total fucking cunt.

I notice you haven't replied to the point about looking at the prior likelihoods of there being a bio research lab in the same country as the country of origin of a pandemic.

[Oldmanmatt]

I’d have to disagree.

I think the mistake in your thinking, revolves around trying to compare the highly unusual NOW, with a smoothed, averaged, “normal”; THEN.

What results, from the various factors, is that you are not, statistically, more likely to die now, than in previous years (well, not much more. A little). It is just more likely to be Covid that gets you, than more “traditional” risks, if you are unlucky enough to get got.

The other issue is, that, unfortunately (and again, I have to force my Engineer head to take over and push my Human, down, to write this), a Grand and a bit of excess deaths, is small change in a population close to 70M.

This doesn’t mean I’m advocating for relaxation of anything, mandate-wise and I absolutely believe we could make things much better with quite simple measures. In fact, in hindsight, I think the previous Flu spikes could and should have been mitigated and I wish I’d been as aware of their severity before all this.

Again I agree with most of what you say. I can see why you think the way you do on the .gov headline, but I think you are wrong on trusting that headline statement on any government  communication where it disagrees with headline statements on much more independent bodies (in this case the ONS). Previous high mortality periods in November have identifiable reasons which simply do not apply right now. Independent criticism of government information has really accelerated, in numbers and scale of concern,  under this particular govenment. Climbers have talked of their personal negative experience on the serious erosion of civil service independence as employees, here and on the other channel.

The actual critical health issue around mortality that we face right now, is there is no guarantee you can get into a hospital on time if facing a highly time dependent major medical emergency. The level of this threat is as high as it ever has been (and past times as high were in the much bigger earlier covid hospitalisation peaks). Covid is only part of it but the fairly light touch  'plan B' covid restrictions are one of the few levers we can use quickly and without major economic impact in tackling the genuine national health emergency we are facing right now. Things will likely get even worse as the winter comes in.

No, this isn’t about headlines, nor is it that the reports “lie”. Thus far, the numbers indicate a trend, that broadly reflects, typical yearly mortality rates, at the upper range of such. Should that receive constructive interference by a compounding, say, Flu, surge, then we will be in deep do do. There are many reasons to criticise the government’s apparent lack of preparedness for such a confluence of events and the overstressed nature of of hospital provision,  after almost two years of sustained pandemic.
However, the environment is dynamic.
First dose vaccine numbers continue to rise, particularly in high spreading, younger, groups.
Second doses continue to rise.
Boosters are racing up.
Treatment protocols are developing rapidly and are already massively improved on this time last year.

A compounding Flu season is by no means guaranteed. Much of the global Covid precautions mitigate against Flu in equal measure to Covid.
There surely cannot be a dispute that the current wave is dramatically better managed than previous waves? Clearly, vaccination is far more effective than previous mitigation methods combined. Obviously, if you used lockdowns and other mandates, you could control it to even lower numbers. But at what cost?

If (if) that compounding Flu (or whatever) appears, then, as a layman, I can see the need to react, strongly.

Also. I have been a Civil Servant now for 10 days (mostly sat at home, because, Covid). But I have been chatting with plenty of my new colleagues for several weeks. The disruption and current inability to “get things done” is pretty unprecedented and frustrating for them. The Civil Service is a behemoth of quite ancient and ingrained routine and structure. Sending them all home to work, hasn’t played out very well. Probably, better than them all sitting in offices trading pathogens and being severely ill or dead, but it wasn’t meant to work as it is right now. So, trying to infer, as you have, nefarious intentions and cover ups, based on things not being “like they were”, might be a little premature. Possibly even unjustified. Please don’t do a Dan.

Also.

Stop making me defend the friggin Government. I agree they’re a bunch of Tossers and have screwed this up plenty.

[abarro81]

I CBA to do the digging but is this just what they covered on More or Less ages ago - essentially a function of how you work out how many people there are that are unvaccinated. There are multiple systems/estimates and depending on which one you use you get very different figures per 100k now that vaccinated numbers are so high. Worth looking up the old episode if you're interested, shouldn't be hard to find

Here it is:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m000zkzq

It's cases not deaths but the stats issue may be comparable. Or may not as this seems to be based on an ONS not PHE report. Someone else can put the effort in to working this out...

[spidermonkey09]

You can insult their work but can't be arsed to even provide a single example of where they have been proven scientifically wrong.

I have literally just said I don't think the issue is scientific. I say again, I don't doubt their science. I doubt their critical evaluation of how the science fits into a workable public health policy.

https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2504
https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2504/rr-4

The above is a reasonable reflection of my opinion on the group. A few quotes from it below.

- Referred to the relaxing of restrictions in July 21 as 'a dangerous and unethical experiment'- wrong.
- Former member Alyson Pollock: 'Often, it ended up advocating things when it hadn’t sufficiently thought through the uncertainties in the evidence and the potential for harm—including prolonged lockdowns, school closures, and mass testing.'
- Pollock: the group 'rapidly moved (toward) wanting to make policy, sometimes without sufficient scientific expertise or scientific evidence to inform it.'
- June 2020 - Independent Sage became supporter of a zero covid position - since proven to be absolute bollocks
 - set up with the help of activist group Citizens, founded by Caroline Cadwalladr; a good journalist in 2016, since descended into conspiracy theory nonsense
- Francois Balloux, UCL Genetics head - 'i think the group started convincing themselves of increasingly implausible things'
- 'In some circles, ISage has become a byword for poorly evidenced alarmism'
- Massive media reach: over 85,00 media citations and numerous media appearances. If you think they haven't been paid for those appearances and benefited from their increased exposure I have a bridge to sell you. As David King put it 'all 12 members have become media personalities'...

On its members - Deepti Gurdasani has repeatedly been alarmist about every single new variant that has been reported. She has also amplified the voices of absolute morons like Eric Feigl-Ding on Twitter. Christina Pagel is more sensible but still falls prey to alarmism and selective use of statistics alarmingly often. Ditto Zubaida Haque, Kit Yates. Costello you have acknowledged has repeatedly got carried away with the sound of his own voice. I'm not going to footnote every tweet where they have been alarmist, I'll leave it to those who are interested to have a browse. I still follow some of them as some of what they say is interesting. Edit: its telling that Devi Sridhar, a Scottish govt advisor, was previously well into the rhetoric of ISage and zero covid before steering well away as they dug themselves even deeper.

Fortunately none of the people in the group are listened to. They have zero power and influence and long may it stay that way. It is unfortunate that what began as a really good initiative and forced greater transparency from the government has degenerated quite so far.

[Offwidth]

It would be good to get your thoughts on the Dr. No analysis Steve. Cheers

It's an incorrect  explanation of cherry picked information, some of which is wrong. Firstly you can't die of covid vaccinated until you are vaccinated! This means the trend between start and finish misleads. More importantly risk of covid death when vaccinated is not insignificant for the highest risk groups (the very old and very vulnerable) and the vast majority of those at highest risk are now vaccinated (by around a factor of 20) compared to the unvaccinated, so there are now more deaths in the vaccinated than in the unvaccinated. The rates quoted per one hundred thousand by DrNo for the unvaccinated are plain wrong and I can't say why without seeing more of of the methodology than is provided.. My guess is Dr No almost certainly uses a wildly incorrect population as a denominator but maybe makes other mistakes as well. Other research looking specifically at comparative risk for the unvaccinated versus the vaccinated shows time and time again roughly  the same risks as before for the unvaccinated and much reduced risks from the vaccinated from the actual populations in the research data.

We have had endless discussion about people making such errors on the other channel.  The actual unvaccinated population has a sizable uncertainty and overestimated in the UK data used on the tables. Yet we know the exact number in the age group who have been vaccinated. When we subtract a known number from a similar sized  number with an error (on the big side) it  transfers a much bigger proportional overestimate error into the result*. Divide a big over-estimated result into the known deaths and you get an massively underestimated death rate.

* It used to be the other way round as we used a different underestimated population data set and ended up with >100% vaccination in some age categories..... as Spain still does.

[Offwidth]

I have literally just said I don't think the issue is scientific. I say again, I don't doubt their science. I doubt their critical evaluation of how the science fits into a workable public health policy.

https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2504
https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2504/rr-4

The above is a reasonable reflection of my opinion on the group. A few quotes from it below.

- Referred to the relaxing of restrictions in July 21 as 'a dangerous and unethical experiment'- wrong.
- Former member Alyson Pollock: 'Often, it ended up advocating things when it hadn’t sufficiently thought through the uncertainties in the evidence and the potential for harm—including prolonged lockdowns, school closures, and mass testing.'
- Pollock: the group 'rapidly moved (toward) wanting to make policy, sometimes without sufficient scientific expertise or scientific evidence to inform it.'
- June 2020 - Independent Sage became supporter of a zero covid position - since proven to be absolute bollocks
 - set up with the help of activist group Citizens, founded by Caroline Cadwalladr; a good journalist in 2016, since descended into conspiracy theory nonsense
- Francois Balloux, UCL Genetics head - 'i think the group started convincing themselves of increasingly implausible things'
- 'In some circles, ISage has become a byword for poorly evidenced alarmism'
- Massive media reach: over 85,00 media citations and numerous media appearances. If you think they haven't been paid for those appearances and benefited from their increased exposure I have a bridge to sell you. As David King put it 'all 12 members have become media personalities'...

On its members - Deepti Gurdasani has repeatedly been alarmist about every single new variant that has been reported. She has also amplified the voices of absolute morons like Eric Feigl-Ding on Twitter. Christina Pagel is more sensible but still falls prey to alarmism and selective use of statistics alarmingly often. Ditto Zubaida Haque, Kit Yates. Costello you have acknowledged has repeatedly got carried away with the sound of his own voice. I'm not going to footnote every tweet where they have been alarmist, I'll leave it to those who are interested to have a browse. I still follow some of them as some of what they say is interesting. Edit: its telling that Devi Sridhar, a Scottish govt advisor, was previously well into the rhetoric of ISage and zero covid before steering well away as they dug themselves even deeper.

Fortunately none of the people in the group are listened to. They have zero power and influence and long may it stay that way. It is unfortunate that what began as a really good initiative and forced greater transparency from the government has degenerated quite so far.

I'm happy for others to judge that.

At least I see partly where your scepticism comes from now in all that smoke and mirrors. That's a highly one-sided political hatchet job by a scientific journalist. Cherry picking the same journalist rather than giving different articles by different fellow scientists, in why specific policies were clearly 'pie in the sky' (your words) and ignoring the formal replies from Indie Sage to the BMJ article isn't a balanced position; linking such is just reinforcing your prejudiced and exaggerated position. If there is so much policy smoke why does no one show any clear fire in the official group agreed communications, let alone 'pie in the sky' positions. It's also not logically possible to be highly influential with multiple mainstream media appearances at the same time as not listened to and completely without power. The political attacks on them are usually from those who resent their influence.

By far the biggest issue in this pandemic was being too slow to lockdown in the face of exponential case growth and in that too slow to respond to linked clear information on new variants. This has killed tens of thousands in the UK and led to longer lockdowns with all that extra unnecessary social and economic damage. IndieSAGE group outputs called both areas right.

Finally I would defend Pollock's position, as it isn't how you state it... it's much more nuanced... disagreement on some minor points and on emphasis in policy and later research showed that position to be over-cautious in some cases (in particular mask efficacy was always obvious from other research and didn't need to wait for large scale epidemiological style evidence).

[seankenny]

Interesting analysis of data here

https://dr-no.co.uk/2021/11/15/when-the-facts-change/

Aside from Offwidth's points about not knowing the size of the unvaccinated populations, we do know that the unvaccinated population is going to skew considerably younger than the second dose population. And young people (excepting the under ones) die at a far lower rate than older people, especially those in their fifties.

It's almost as if to work out what's going on you'd need to control for age, rather than just plotting out some death rates on a graph.

Death rates for England and Wales by age here: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/death-rate-by-age-group-in-england-and-wales?country=~England+and+Wales

[Offwidth]

 

No, this isn’t about headlines, nor is it that the reports “lie”. Thus far, the numbers indicate a trend, that broadly reflects, typical yearly mortality rates, at the upper range of such. Should that receive constructive interference by a compounding, say, Flu, surge, then we will be in deep do do. There are many reasons to criticise the government’s apparent lack of preparedness for such a confluence of events and the overstressed nature of of hospital provision,  after almost two years of sustained pandemic.
However, the environment is dynamic.
First dose vaccine numbers continue to rise, particularly in high spreading, younger, groups.
Second doses continue to rise.
Boosters are racing up.
Treatment protocols are developing rapidly and are already massively improved on this time last year.

A compounding Flu season is by no means guaranteed. Much of the global Covid precautions mitigate against Flu in equal measure to Covid.
There surely cannot be a dispute that the current wave is dramatically better managed than previous waves? Clearly, vaccination is far more effective than previous mitigation methods combined. Obviously, if you used lockdowns and other mandates, you could control it to even lower numbers. But at what cost?

If (if) that compounding Flu (or whatever) appears, then, as a layman, I can see the need to react, strongly.

Also. I have been a Civil Servant now for 10 days (mostly sat at home, because, Covid). But I have been chatting with plenty of my new colleagues for several weeks. The disruption and current inability to “get things done” is pretty unprecedented and frustrating for them. The Civil Service is a behemoth of quite ancient and ingrained routine and structure. Sending them all home to work, hasn’t played out very well. Probably, better than them all sitting in offices trading pathogens and being severely ill or dead, but it wasn’t meant to work as it is right now. So, trying to infer, as you have, nefarious intentions and cover ups, based on things not being “like they were”, might be a little premature. Possibly even unjustified. Please don’t do a Dan.

Also.

Stop making me defend the friggin Government. I agree they’re a bunch of Tossers and have screwed this up plenty.

The gov.uk headline that there is no statistically significant excess death now is partly dishonest in my view for the reasons I gave. It's far from unique in that as a government report headline, and many past examples have been picked out by independent bodies, including the Royal Statistical Society.  Nearly everything else I agree with (including regret for making you think you need to criticise government for unfair reasons)

One area where I do disagree is that "management" right now is 'not bad',  but the consequences of the mismanagement I see are much less serious than they were in exponential growth phases pre vaccination. There are many grounds for optimism (as per your list) but there are also still risks ... NHS cracks cause bits to 'fall off', large pockets who are vulnerable but largely sheilding, flu, and any new covid variant with significant vaccine escape.

[abarro81]

Well there's noting like a hashtag to convince me  Especially as I see on the preview that they don't like the UK terror threat system (wtf has that got to do with a sensible debate on this?). And at least one of the OTs posting a picture on there is moronic too. In fact, from the brief preview I'm swayed to thinking that I'm fine with the mandate, so that backfired...

Come on Dan, convince me to care...