COVID19

[Marky147]

This explains what the problem is with the new strain and how being much more transmissible could be an issue, even though no more dangerous.

https://twitter.com/AdamJKucharski/status/1343567425107881986

His explanation is only five tweets, but thankfully can read them without the quarrels within each one, and below where the quarrels start

[Marky147]

Why a SARS-CoV-2 variant that's 50% more transmissible would in general be a much bigger problem than a variant that's 50% more deadly. A short thread.

As an example, suppose current R=1.1, infection fatality risk is 0.8%, generation time is 6 days, and 10k people infected (plausible for many European cities recently). So we'd expect 10000 x 1.1^5 x 0.8% = 129 eventual new fatalities after a month of spread.

What happens if fatality risk increases by 50%? By above, we'd expect 10000 x 1.1^5 x (0.8% x 1.5) = 193 new fatalities.

Now suppose transmissibility increases by 50%. By above, we'd expect 10000 x (1.1 x 1.5)^5 x 0.8% = 978 eventual new fatalities after a month of spread.

The above is just an illustrative example, but the key message: an increase in something that grows exponentially (i.e. transmission) can have far more effect than the same proportional increase in something that just scales an outcome (i.e. severity).


That's it unrolled by the 'Thread Reader' app, if you're more sensible than me and stay off Twitter.


Time for some more Heroes

[TightEnd]

How would you vote on this and why?

https://twitter.com/rob_yong_/status/1345362151620435969?s=21

[Marky147]

Providing they get one thing right (vaccines), I'd be hopeful of some normal live poker as an xmas present, and voted <12m.

That aside, was surprised he only had 2 crazies in the comments (tf sheeple & it's fake, but your liberties are gone) or words to that effect

[Doobs]

I think it should be late this year, but almost certainly 2022. 

Suspect DTD will want to see some evidence cases are pretty low and most vulnerable people are vaccinated before opening.  Rob seems to have done the right thing throughout, so I have no reason to think he wil stop.

I am not sure I'd want to play in France anytime soon, I saw some poll the other day where only 40% of French people said they were going to get vaccinated.  Add that to the snail's pace vaccine rollout there, and they are definitely a 2022+  Just because our response has been chaotic at times doesn't mean that we are the worst.

[Doobs]

Statistics Guy tweeted this on New Years Eve

Click to see full-size image.

"Statistics" Guy retweeted this on New Years Eve

Click to see full-size image.

[Doobs]

and this on one shot vs two shot vaccines, and why the mutation has made it a better decision.

https://twitter.com/VirusesImmunity/status/1345086669607890945

The jury is out, but the procrastination in many other countries seems the worst decision right now.  It seems certain that most of them are going to get the new variant or already have it.

[Marky147]

Saw Matt LeTissier retweeting him the other day

[Marky147]

and this on one shot vs two shot vaccines, and why the mutation has made it a better decision.

https://twitter.com/VirusesImmunity/status/1345086669607890945

The jury is out, but the procrastination in many other countries seems the worst decision right now.  It seems certain that most of them are going to get the new variant or already have it.

From what John was saying, it's likely everywhere, and we found it because our genome research is huge multiples better than anywhere else in the world, and the USA's is embarrassingly low.

[Doobs]

Saw Matt LeTissier retweeting him the other day

Oh gawd, you have sent me back there, he seems to have become mad as a box of frogs since losing his gig.

He is retweeting Cummins too.  This is the latest Cummins retweet.

https://twitter.com/FatEmperor/status/1345063244457791488

From the BMJ.
To theoretically prevent one severe symptom Covid19 case, 1,370 healthy people must be treated (2 injections).
That's 2,740 vaccination injections per one case mitigated.
That's maybe $137,000 to avoid symptoms in *one* (aged) personThinking face 1/2
To theoretically prevent one Covid19 (aged) death...we have no idea how many more  - the trials were so tiny that there was no intention to look at death / life years saved benefit.
Guessing maybe $500,000 to defer *one* (aged) person's passing?



So, this sounded unlikely, so I checked it.

It isn't the BMJ that said, it is a letter to the BMJ.

The letter makes some pretty big "mistakes"; no surprise there. 

It uses the data from a short trial where Covid was not as common as it is now to estimate the risk of illness.  So during the short trial there were only 90 cases in a 15,000 placebo group in that 2 months.  In the UK, we have had a higher ratio of deaths than that in the last 10 months or so, never mind the serious illnesses.  I don't think anyone is expecting the protection from the vaccine to only last 10 months.  So the serious illnesses saved are massively understated, I am guessing by a factor of at least 20, and even the deaths would be way higher than his estimated rate of serious illness.

Then he uses a price per vaccine of $50, which is not far out for Moderna, but Astra Zenecca is providing those for two or three quid.  So that is out by a factor of at least 10 for the main UK source of the vaccine.

So overall he has mislead people about the source, and happily overstated the cost of saving someone from serious illness or death by an enormous amount.  Similar shit every day no doubt.


 

[Marky147]

Keep his lemmings sipping the kool-aid, and paying for his Patreon, no doubt.

[Doobs]

Saw Matt LeTissier retweeting him the other day

Oh gawd, you have sent me back there, he seems to have become mad as a box of frogs since losing his gig.

He is retweeting Cummins too.  This is the latest Cummins retweet.

https://twitter.com/FatEmperor/status/1345063244457791488

From the BMJ.
To theoretically prevent one severe symptom Covid19 case, 1,370 healthy people must be treated (2 injections).
That's 2,740 vaccination injections per one case mitigated.
That's maybe $137,000 to avoid symptoms in *one* (aged) personThinking face 1/2
To theoretically prevent one Covid19 (aged) death...we have no idea how many more  - the trials were so tiny that there was no intention to look at death / life years saved benefit.
Guessing maybe $500,000 to defer *one* (aged) person's passing?



So, this sounded unlikely, so I checked it.

It isn't the BMJ that said, it is a letter to the BMJ.

The letter makes some pretty big "mistakes"; no surprise there. 

It uses the data from a short trial where Covid was not as common as it is now to estimate the risk of illness.  So during the short trial there were only 90 cases in a 15,000 placebo group in that 2 months.  In the UK, we have had a higher ratio of deaths than that in the last 10 months or so, never mind the serious illnesses.  I don't think anyone is expecting the protection from the vaccine to only last 10 months.  So the serious illnesses saved are massively understated, I am guessing by a factor of at least 20, and even the deaths would be way higher than his estimated rate of serious illness.

Then he uses a price per vaccine of $50, which is not far out for Moderna, but Astra Zenecca is providing those for two or three quid.  So that is out by a factor of at least 10 for the main UK source of the vaccine.

So overall he has mislead people about the source, and happily overstated the cost of saving someone from serious illness or death by an enormous amount.  Similar shit every day no doubt.


 

I'd forgotten that Stuart McDonald had done this last year, but he retweeted it this morning. I don't know if it is just coincidence, or if he was aware of all the retweeting of Ivor Cummin's  "estimate" of the cost of vaccinations.

https://www.covid-arg.com/post/vaccine-priorities

In that, they estimated only 20 vaccinations are needed to prevent one death in the highest priority group and only 4,000 right down the over 55s.   So the cost of the vaccinations to save one 55 year old is only £10k or so, and the cost of vaccinations for the life of one person over 85 is less than £100.   

There is an implicit assumption that future deaths would be equal to past deaths, and even that is quite conservative (ie assuming just 60k deaths from wave 2 and after it we had no vaccine is at the optimistic end of projections). 

[Marky147]

Irks me, but can't imagine how irritating it is for people like him and yourself, whose job it is to do stuff like that properly, and have others being purposely misleading.

[neeko]

The question of the day is when will Boris announce all primary schools are to close, can he make it to next weekend to close the schools next Monday or will he announce it tomorrow afternoon to cancel it from Tuesday morning.

The numbers are obvious he has to do the latter, but when will he bow to the inevitable.

[Pokerpops]

The question of the day is when will Boris announce all primary schools are to close, can he make it to next weekend to close the schools next Monday or will he announce it tomorrow afternoon to cancel it from Tuesday morning.

The numbers are obvious he has to do the latter, but when will he bow to the inevitable.

Where are you seeing these obvious numbers?
To me, it seems that the teaching unions have decided that political point scoring outweighs the education and mental health of children.