COVID19

[Marky147]

Like another Ivor, but doesn't grift on Patreon, and just chirps from his castle?

I think Hugh Osmond is probably not really understanding, Ivor Cummins and the "stats" guy are much more deliberate in their misinformation.

After 10 years of 'working', you'd think he would

Is that the 'statsjon' or something similar?

I've seen him get pulled apart by loads of people for being really, really snide and underhand with his work. Surprised Boris hasn't gotten him on the firm, to be fair.

[Doobs]

Like another Ivor, but doesn't grift on Patreon, and just chirps from his castle?

I think Hugh Osmond is probably not really understanding, Ivor Cummins and the "stats" guy are much more deliberate in their misinformation.

After 10 years of 'working', you'd think he would

Is that the 'statsjon' or something similar?

I've seen him get pulled apart by loads of people for being really, really snide and underhand with his work. Surprised Boris hasn't gotten him on the firm, to be fair.

Yeah, he is statistics guy; he has dropped the Jon when it would be more accurate to drop the statistics guy bit.

I am sure you get a fella in the waste treatment plant monitoring how much waste comes in.  People probably refer to him as the statistics guy too, but in reality he is just the fella that counts turds. 

This is an example from earlier, where he was banging on about the failures of Welsh Government as they have "let acute bed numbers drop".

https://twitter.com/Stat_O_Guy/status/1343654965609451520/photo/1

So I checked just now, and literally the first thing I came across on the Welsh hospital admissions data site was this.  "From 13 November 2020, only critical care beds that could be staffed are included as available. Previously all critical care beds had been included regardless of whether they could be staffed."  See  https://gov.wales/nhs-beds-admissions-and-hospitalisations-during-coronavirus-covid-19-pandemic. 

So what his chart shows is the hospitals changing their reporting to only show those beds that can be usefully used.  There seems very little chance that they have really reduced the actual number of beds in their hospitals. 

He then doubles down on his misinformation by adding to his chart that "most patients require little covid treatment (est 30% to 70%)".  So the Welsh hospitals are currently struggling with increased admissions, and have chosen to respond by removing beds and shipping in a bunch of patients that don't need much treatment?  Up to 70% of them!  Why don't his readers just pull the face I am when reading these things?     

If you look at the data, I'd say that it is very likely that on every date since 16 December Wales has had over 100 Covid admissions a day (the reason we can't be certain is because there is going to be some lag from pre Christmas reporting, so the numbers on the 20 December and 21 December are both showing 90+ and not 100+ and we have no data since the 22 December). 

This data lag is presented as "the fact the Welsh Government have instilled fear of positive tests as the reason for undemocratic measure is misleading. Their test results are up. But in peak wave 1 Wales admitted 100+ per day for 25+ consecutive days. In this wave the longest 100 sequence was 4 days."   The reality is that we are likely on 13 consecutive days already and cases have been rising, so presumably we aren't going to see less than 100 admissions a day anytime soon. 

I mentioned the other day that the daily Welsh Covid deaths had already passed the peak from wave 1, but that gets no mention in his thread.   

If he did this once, you could let it slide as maybe it isn't too clear what is happening, but he does the same sort of thing daily. 

[Marky147]

Just looked, and he gets pulled by a few people, whilst being lauded by those smiley faces.

Obv well on the firm with Hartley & sneakyemperor.

[Doobs]

Just looked, and he gets pulled by a few people, whilst being lauded by those smiley faces.

Obv well on the firm with Hartley & sneakyemperor.

His feed is simply where many in that group  go for their "evidence".  This morning he opened up with retweeting someone who was claiming a study showed no asymptomatic or presymptomatic spread of Covid. 

I found the study here https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2774102#figure-table-tab

The abstract says this

Household secondary attack rates were increased from symptomatic index cases (18.0%; 95% CI, 14.2%-22.1%) than from asymptomatic index cases (0.7%; 95% CI, 0%-4.9%),

Which means they think it is lower, and not that they think it is zero. 

They then said this

We found significantly higher secondary attack rates from symptomatic index cases than asymptomatic or presymptomatic index cases, although less data were available on the latter. The lack of substantial transmission from observed asymptomatic index cases is notable. However, presymptomatic transmission does occur, with some studies reporting the timing of peak infectiousness at approximately the period of symptom onset

So they make note of the fact they have little data on asymptomatics and recognise peak infectiousness might be when people move from presymptomatic to the first symptoms.  This is hardly a glowing reference for people who have positive tests to just go about their business and helps explains why people with positive tests are told to isolate immediately.   

I don't think this is anything new, but think this is likely all out of date anyway. If we now have a strain that is more infectious, and we think we do, then previous studies showing lower transmission in other variants isn't going to be as relevant as it was..

I was probably a bit too generous to him last night, it isn't just some of his stuff that is unreliable, most of it is. 

[Marky147]

Another one in the HB camp, then. Sigh...




Saw this on Twitter, and found the guy on YT.

Nice explanation of the vaccine.

[Doobs]

Another one in the HB camp, then. Sigh...




Saw this on Twitter, and found the guy on YT.

Nice explanation of the vaccine.

That is pretty good Mark.  Top marks for speed of explanation.

[Marky147]

He has a bunch of videos up, which are all really short and I'd guess in the same vein as that one.















Uploaded that last one right after I posted

[neeko]

So the Oxford vaccine is approved. India will probably follow but Europe and the USA will wait, wanting more data.

Who is right will be a question for the history books, but if the UK can get over 2m a week vaccinated  in Jan and Feb then many lives will be saved in the UK.

The interesting bit will be late March when deaths could be below 100 a day but cases over 30,000 a day we saw in Dec, should the lockdowns be eased as deaths are lowish  and declining or kept as cases are high.

Easter is early this year so tourism will want things open PDQ.

If the UK opens up but Europe doesn’t because they have not vaccinated all their old people yet, will holiday resorts open on the costas for the Easter May holidays.

[Jon MW]

...
The interesting bit will be late March when deaths could be below 100 a day but cases over 30,000 a day we saw in Dec, should the lockdowns be eased as deaths are lowish  and declining or kept as cases are high.
...

Obviously politics an always get in the way but in general government policy has never been about keeping deaths low (or cases low for that matter) - government policy has all been about keeping hospitalisations low.

In practice that usually means keeping cases low but in theory if we have high cases, low deaths and low hospitalisations then that would suggest less restrictions.

I would guess we're more likely to have high cases, low deaths and high hospitalisations though.

[Karabiner]

Will the new Covid variant need it's own vaccine or will the current vaccine work just as effectively on both strains?

[Doobs]

Will the new Covid variant need it's own vaccine or will the current vaccine work just as effectively on both strains?

Yes, it should do; Marky's short videos lnked above are very good, and this one covers it

[Marky147]

Good update today.

[Doobs]

Good update today.

Yeah saw that, sounds like the limit caused by the amount of people that can perform vaccinations.  There seems to be huge amounts of vaccine produced in a short time.  All very good news.

Our favourite stats guy was seeing conspiracies everywhere yesterday caused by the late Christmas reporting.  After declaring that the Government figures were wrong, he then declared there were only 89 999 Covid calls on Christmas day across the whole country...  I don't want to waste any more time chasing his stats, but think I saw that London alone reported 4,000 ambulance calls on Boxing Day.  I shouldn't read his stuff, but he gets everywhere.  Need to do a Pads and think positively.

As an aside, anyone volunteering for the schools testing?  Am seriously thinking about it, as it gets me out of the house, but am a bit grumpy as I am getting f all right now.  Surely they could have saved some of Dido's billions to pay people min wage?  There is a lot worse off than me who would welcome it more.

[Doobs]

This is a genuine stats/data fella, who produces good visuals so people can see what is happening.

https://mobile.twitter.com/RP131/status/1344316409355055105

This one shows how the positives by date of test build up from the announced ones (which are by date reported).  You can also see the expected slump in real testing other Christmas, which isn't so apparent if you just look at the positives by date reported.

[Doobs]

... and this one shows deaths.

https://mobile.twitter.com/RP131/status/1344322339417300994

You can see the big lump of deaths that were reported yesterday which were nowhere near as dramatic as it appeared, as a lot of it was just catching up on reporting lag.  There was no conspiracy to make the figures look big yesterday for whatever reason. The deaths reported yesterday were from several days over Christmas.

Once the lag works through over the New Year, I expect there to be a much stronger upslope at the end, but deaths are unlikely to be 900 a day yet. 

We are going to get the same kind of issues over the New Year, but on a lower scale.