Current Affairs Coronavirus Thread - Serious stuff !!!

[Bungle]

Coronavirus: Impact of new variant on children investigated

Experts urgently assess whether the mutation of coronavirus spreads more easily among the young.

www.bbc.co.uk

This will be fun (not) if true. My eldest is doing her GCSEs this year, but she has already had to isolate three times due to infections in her year.

Yep my son is in the same boat, 3 separate isolations for him so far in his GCSE year and not really showing any signs of improving anytime soon. It'll likely mean an additional year at college as he'll have to enter his course at level 1, can't see him hitting his predicted grades that he'll need for level 2 anymore.

It's bad enough for all the kids missing that social interaction but I feel especially sad for those going through the most important year of their school life.

 

[davek]

Dave, stick to social sciences where you can get away with not understanding sampling methods.

Even super fag packet maths shows a population of 4.6 million (over 55’s as a catch all demographic) with 95% confidence level and a 3% confidence interval would require 1067 participants. Granted to get even greater accuracy, you’d want a bigger sample, but to say it’s too small is literally ridiculous.

What?

 

[PhilM]

Yep my son is in the same boat, 3 separate isolations for him so far in his GCSE year and not really showing any signs of improving anytime soon. It'll likely mean an additional year at college as he'll have to enter his course at level 1, can't see him hitting his predicted grades that he'll need for level 2 anymore.

It's bad enough for all the kids missing that social interaction but I feel especially sad for those going through the most important year of their school life.

It's incredibly worrying.

We already know that the 15-21 age bracket has been the most prevalent with the virus in recent weeks, so if this strain is even worse it could be carnage.

We're lucky that she is quite level-headed and committed so has fully engaged in online learning and has revised, but still it'll have some impact on her.

Any more time off this year and it really can't be a level playing field and others, who aren't as resilient, may really struggle even more,

My wife is saying that her school's Y6 will be sitting SATS and the data can be used as a performance indicator even though they've had a few periods off.

 

[davek]

Because I can see at least a couple of potential reasons why raising the percentage of elderly patients may not be as simple a solution as you suggest and some other aspects.

1) A large number of elderly patients have mutiple medical issues and be on several medications. Having high % of them may have complicated assessment of the efficiency and particularly of adverse reactions, especially in early rounds.
2) The population of people in the older age groups willing to volunteer (or get mdeical approval to do so) might have been lower than younger ages
3) This was an untested vaccine, having large numbers of the most vulnerable take it seems like a high risk/reward situation that may well not pay off, especially for the participants
4) I have no idea, and I would be interested if you do, if there has been documented large differences in the reactions of old people versus young to previous vaccines. There has been a history of lack of gender representation in other medical trials causing problems (gender differences https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4800017/) and some diseases impact racial groups differently (eg sickle cell) but when I was more seeped in this stuff earloer in the year I don’t recall anything re age although I could have missed it/forgotten.
5) I assume medical statistical analysis is quite developed in these trials and even with relatively small data sets they can make some reasoned assumptions, at least to decent confidence intervals
6) The vaccine has not yet been approved and Phase 3 results have not been released as far as I am aware so declarative statements such as “the Oxford vaccine is not what we need” seem premature at best.

But I have no medical training - I have no idea how big/small some of these factors would be so given a choice between you, me or the scientists I’m betting in the latter to know what they are talking about!

However an olive branch - show me a medical paper, or even a decent twitter thrread or scientific article, that summarizes your concerns and I promise to read it and get back to you with something more substantive.

"But I have no medical training - I have no idea how big/small some of these factors would be so given a choice between you, me or the scientists I’m betting in the latter to know what they are talking about!"

But it's the peer review by scientists that flagged up the imbalance in demographic, not me.

I would urge you and others to read this article:

Bloomberg - Are you a robot?

www.bloomberg.com

 

[Mutzo Nutzo]

Then that's what I originally stated about vulnerable groups needing to have another vaccine than the Oxford one.

There's a lot of laughable flag waving going on for this AstraZenica vaccine because it was made in Oxford. I have no truck with such nonsense. I comment on them being not fit for purpose because the leading medical journal of the country indicated strongly that they aren't.

The fact that AZ are looking to join forces with the Sputnik V project to improve their drug's efficacy speaks volumes.

Again you’re jumping the gun.

Wait for the results and analysis of the next trial before writing it off.

Results so far show it to be safe, effective, easily transportable and cheap.

Looks pretty good from my point of view.

As for the Sputnik thing. It’s another trial to see if it improves efficacy. Hardly a tie-up at this point in time.

you should stop reading the daily express Dave, it will do you no good. Your legs must be sore from all this knee jerking you’re doing.

 

[davek]

Can anyone believe we're still not in a national lockdown? The rest of the world has locked the Banana Republic out, but within its borders people in some areas are still able to go out to the gym, have their back sack and crack done, follow that up with a meal at a restaurant and then go shopping for Christmas.

It's insane.

 

[BlueToff]

You don’t have - and won’t have - nearly the right data yet to spout lines like this.

That's why I explicitly said unverified. It was just a few reports - they come up if you search google - in the papers.

 

[BlueToff]

Comparing figures from a year with strict social restrictions and a typical year without is false equivalence - flu deaths are lower because of the restrictions.

Influenza is not as easily as transmitted and measures such as distancing, cleaning and closed schools, which took place, are proven to be successful.

View attachment 111863
Even if the overall mortality figures are similar or lower than previous years, you have to take into consideration multiple other factors playing a part.

Examples could be less regular travel equating to less deaths on the road, less accidents in the work place and reduced transmissions of viruses.

Without all this, the numbers may* have been horrific. *likely to be.

Again I didn't mean to say - and I don't think I said - that the numbers wouldn't have been horrific if we hadn't had locked down.

 

[Deckard2049]

Can anyone believe we're still not in a national lockdown? The rest of the world has locked the Banana Republic out, but within its borders people in some areas are still able to go out to the gym, have their back sack and crack done, follow that up with a meal at a restaurant and then go shopping for Christmas.

It's insane.

What is your obsession with backs, sacks and cracks? Do you prefer hairy love making partners? It’s a proper vendetta/fetish/obsession you have.

Honestly, to quote Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam; you are in more dire need of a blowjob than any man in history.

 

[tsubaki]

Can anyone believe we're still not in a national lockdown? The rest of the world has locked the Banana Republic out, but within its borders people in some areas are still able to go out to the gym, have their back sack and crack done, follow that up with a meal at a restaurant and then go shopping for Christmas.

It's insane.

It’s only insane if it isn’t part of a plan. Has herd immunity ever been actually dropped?

 

[PhilM]

It’s only insane if it isn’t part of a plan. Has herd immunity ever been actually dropped?

Herd immunity is the only way to overcome the virus. How we get herd immunity is the issue at hand and where the government has to be questioned.

 

[Nymzee]

That's why I explicitly said unverified. It was just a few reports - they come up if you search google - in the papers.

I can't say I care much for unverified reports. Rather wait till the info is actually available in the future before making proclamations.

 

[davek]

What is your obsession with backs, sacks and cracks? Do you prefer hairy love making partners? It’s a proper vendetta/fetish/obsession you have.

Honestly, to quote Robin Williams in Good Morning Vietnam; you are in more dire need of a blowjob than any man in history.

*sigh*

 

[davek]

It’s only insane if it isn’t part of a plan. Has herd immunity ever been actually dropped?

I dont even think it's ever been that. These people think in the short term; they make policy to get them through a few weeks of potentially negative media reports.

We have the worst people in power at the very worst time. That's why this is Plague Island - the pariah of the civilised world.

 

[Bungle]

It's incredibly worrying.

We already know that the 15-21 age bracket has been the most prevalent with the virus in recent weeks, so if this strain is even worse it could be carnage.

We're lucky that she is quite level-headed and committed so has fully engaged in online learning and has revised, but still it'll have some impact on her.

Any more time off this year and it really can't be a level playing field and others, who aren't as resilient, may really struggle even more,

My wife is saying that her school's Y6 will be sitting SATS and the data can be used as a performance indicator even though they've had a few periods off.

I would imagine she's in the minority if our sons school is anything to go by. He's got additional needs so I'm in regular contact with them and they're pretty open about the fact that understaffing coupled with the constant changes to what's being asked of them during this has left them in a mess.