COVID19

[Doobs]

FWIW Just got my antibody blood test kit.  I was supposed to get one a month or so ago, but it never came.  The first one was something to do with Zoe, but not sure if this one is.  It is all presumably general population monitoring to see how many have antibodies and with what symptoms.

Forgot to mention this.  It takes a good half hour to watch the video, set it all up* and do the blood test.  Then you have to trek to the nearest NHS post box afterwards. Then a few days later they tell you you have antibodies to Covid that could have come from catching the disease or having the jab.  Given I had the jab in June, then the result wasn't much of a surprise.  Anyway, guess I did my bit, even if it did feel like a big waste of time. 

* I had to do this twice, as when I watched the video, I realised I should have been drinking a lot of water the day before the test and half an hour before, and I simply hadn't.  Would probably have been better if I hadn't just poured a glass of wine too...  If you get a test, make sure you watch the video before opening your box.

I might see if I can get in with my Dr when I go for my flu jab, and ask if she'll test me for antibodies. The nurse at my infusion said that would be my best course of action.

Yeah, should have sent it you, as you are much more likely to fail than me.  It would probably screw up the stats, and the jabs don't work grifters would love that.  Hit up Tim Spector on Twitter, he engages with people and seems to run a lot of this antibody testing. 

[Marky147]

FWIW Just got my antibody blood test kit.  I was supposed to get one a month or so ago, but it never came.  The first one was something to do with Zoe, but not sure if this one is.  It is all presumably general population monitoring to see how many have antibodies and with what symptoms.

Forgot to mention this.  It takes a good half hour to watch the video, set it all up* and do the blood test.  Then you have to trek to the nearest NHS post box afterwards. Then a few days later they tell you you have antibodies to Covid that could have come from catching the disease or having the jab.  Given I had the jab in June, then the result wasn't much of a surprise.  Anyway, guess I did my bit, even if it did feel like a big waste of time. 

* I had to do this twice, as when I watched the video, I realised I should have been drinking a lot of water the day before the test and half an hour before, and I simply hadn't.  Would probably have been better if I hadn't just poured a glass of wine too...  If you get a test, make sure you watch the video before opening your box.

I might see if I can get in with my Dr when I go for my flu jab, and ask if she'll test me for antibodies. The nurse at my infusion said that would be my best course of action.

Yeah, should have sent it you, as you are much more likely to fail than me.  It would probably screw up the stats, and the jabs don't work grifters would love that.  Hit up Tim Spector on Twitter, he engages with people and seems to run a lot of this antibody testing. 

I meant get my Dr to do it for me, so I don't have to worry about cocking it up

[Doobs]

FWIW Just got my antibody blood test kit.  I was supposed to get one a month or so ago, but it never came.  The first one was something to do with Zoe, but not sure if this one is.  It is all presumably general population monitoring to see how many have antibodies and with what symptoms.

Forgot to mention this.  It takes a good half hour to watch the video, set it all up* and do the blood test.  Then you have to trek to the nearest NHS post box afterwards. Then a few days later they tell you you have antibodies to Covid that could have come from catching the disease or having the jab.  Given I had the jab in June, then the result wasn't much of a surprise.  Anyway, guess I did my bit, even if it did feel like a big waste of time. 

* I had to do this twice, as when I watched the video, I realised I should have been drinking a lot of water the day before the test and half an hour before, and I simply hadn't.  Would probably have been better if I hadn't just poured a glass of wine too...  If you get a test, make sure you watch the video before opening your box.

I might see if I can get in with my Dr when I go for my flu jab, and ask if she'll test me for antibodies. The nurse at my infusion said that would be my best course of action.

Yeah, should have sent it you, as you are much more likely to fail than me.  It would probably screw up the stats, and the jabs don't work grifters would love that.  Hit up Tim Spector on Twitter, he engages with people and seems to run a lot of this antibody testing. 

I meant get my Dr to do it for me, so I don't have to worry about cocking it up

Not the easiest thing to do, you need to put a firm push on the lance thing to get enough blood.  That is hard enough with just the mental barrier to contend with.   Still, great opportunity to do OMG I have sliced my finger japes with the kids.

[Marky147]

FWIW Just got my antibody blood test kit.  I was supposed to get one a month or so ago, but it never came.  The first one was something to do with Zoe, but not sure if this one is.  It is all presumably general population monitoring to see how many have antibodies and with what symptoms.

Forgot to mention this.  It takes a good half hour to watch the video, set it all up* and do the blood test.  Then you have to trek to the nearest NHS post box afterwards. Then a few days later they tell you you have antibodies to Covid that could have come from catching the disease or having the jab.  Given I had the jab in June, then the result wasn't much of a surprise.  Anyway, guess I did my bit, even if it did feel like a big waste of time. 

* I had to do this twice, as when I watched the video, I realised I should have been drinking a lot of water the day before the test and half an hour before, and I simply hadn't.  Would probably have been better if I hadn't just poured a glass of wine too...  If you get a test, make sure you watch the video before opening your box.

I might see if I can get in with my Dr when I go for my flu jab, and ask if she'll test me for antibodies. The nurse at my infusion said that would be my best course of action.

Yeah, should have sent it you, as you are much more likely to fail than me.  It would probably screw up the stats, and the jabs don't work grifters would love that.  Hit up Tim Spector on Twitter, he engages with people and seems to run a lot of this antibody testing. 

I meant get my Dr to do it for me, so I don't have to worry about cocking it up

Not the easiest thing to do, you need to put a firm push on the lance thing to get enough blood.  That is hard enough with just the mental barrier to contend with.   Still, great opportunity to do OMG I have sliced my finger japes with the kids.

I'll definitely try setting one up with the doctor then, as I would most likely open myself up. Seems a lot easier and less to worry about, especially as I've no kids to wind up

[Marky147]

Pretty harrowing stuff.

@TheEconomist suggests that though the official number of deaths caused by #COVID19 is now 4.8m, the best estimate is that the actual toll is 15.8m people with  a 95% chance that the true value lies between 9.8m and 18.5m additional deaths. 1/

https://twitter.com/gregggonsalves/status/1443687754144133125

[Marky147]

This little clip of how each nation's vaccination programme progresssed is quite gucci, and bonus of a Hall & Oates soundtrack, too.

https://twitter.com/LisaMontgo/status/1448321380999651328

[Marky147]

I've swerved Rogan since this kicked off, unless it was someone MMA I wanted to see, and boy am I glad.

He's gone full crackpot, and even had Alex Berenson back last week.

I couldn't even get through 5 minutes of it, as much as I wanted to see just how bad it would get 

[Chompy]

Same here, or been more selective with him at least. Sauna theories are ridic.

Tarantino and Blomkamp are worth watching for film buffs though.

[Marky147]

Same here, or been more selective with him at least. Sauna theories are ridic.

Tarantino and Blomkamp are worth watching for film buffs though.

Mate kept sending me clips of him trying to convince himself a sauna might kill it off. Was almost like listening to Donald talking about lights

Berenson relies on idiots not questioning anything he puts out, and as so many are pissed off at the authorities (rightly), they just swallow it up.

As soon as Rogan said 'you've been right on everything', when they were talking about him getting chucked off Twitter, I was gone.

I can't even watch the MMA ones anymore, as most fighters are in his 'rona can't get me, bro'.

[Doobs]

Another "weekly" "Wednesday update.

There has been signs of a turnaround in cases over the last few days, but as I tend to look a week back to get rid of the lag, it isn't in my figures yet.  It will almost cerntainly be there next time I post, but the fall pretty much started a week ago.

Anyway, onwards.  having said the above, deaths have just continued to rise over the last week or two, and have now been on an upward trend since June.  We have gone through 100 deaths a day in England now (more in teh whole UK). I was reminded the other day that people were losing their minds that SAGE were predicting 200 deaths a day this time last year.  It went way over that in wave 2, but strange how the thought of 200 cases a day was scaremongering, and now over 100 is now "shrug, whatever".  There have been a few studies showing that vaccines are losing their effectiveness in the very old, hence the push for 3rd doses of vaccine, which seems a sensible action to me.  Having said that, the current level of vaccinations is feeble compared to how high it was at the peak, so there should be plenty of capacity to vaccinate oldies and teenagers. 

Hospitalisations are still rising too, and are now up over 1,000 a day, which is the largest they have been since February.  Back then we were gettimg nearer 500 deaths a day, so maybe  "shrug, whatever" is right?   

Cases.  Looking back a week. they were definitely hitting a peak, with cases up only 5% or so on average over the week.  It is a bit surprising as schools have just returned, hopefully this shows that school transmission genuinely is low and the fall over the last few days continues into winter.  It would be really good of hospitalisations and deaths followed in the next couple of weeks too, and we can start looking forward to more normal winter deaths in future years.

Got to go.  Until next time. 

It has taken me a while to come back and it is more like a monthly update now.  Things just seemed really steady for a while, so I didn't give it much attention, and cases appeared to be falling, so thought I'd have a look.  I was pretty surprised by what I found.

I used to do a weekly comparison on a Wednesday as it tended to smooth out the peaks and troughs, and since I posted last time there hasn't been a single week where deaths have fallen, and they are now 50% higher than they were last month.   Deaths were up at about 130 a day on average in England in the week to the 3 November.  If we have reached a more stable endemic state then I was hopeful that we'd be having less than 100 deaths a day.  I don't think we will go back to severe restrictions any time soon, but it is still a bit sad to see this.

Hospitalisations have avaeraged over 1,000 a day for the last month or so, but there are signs the tide could be turning, which suggests that we may well be near the peak of deaths and we may well get deaths below 100 a day.

Cases seems to be all twitter talks about now, maybve because that is where the good news has been.  I don't really buy into the ongoing belief that cases are really tumbling.  4 weeks ago there were 43,000 cases, a week ago 35,000.  So sure cases are falling, but there hasn't been a massive fall off yet.   

I was thinking it must have been a couple of months ago when I posted that we might be entering a more stable state, and just checked 8 weeks ago and we had pretty much bang on 35,000 cases then too.  Now Covid has gone through the secondary schools and there is nowhere else it can really spread rapidly, so there should be a fall from here.  It does feel that we'll need to keep on top of boosters and improving treatments going forward, but that will need most people to keep taking it seriously and we need to keep the proportion that can't be arsed with it anymore quite low.     

Might move to three month updates, can't be arsed with it anymore.

[Marky147]

Don't blame you, I think the only people who aren't tired, are the grifters that think their Patreon/Crowdfunder fun is coming to an end.

https://twitter.com/COVID19actuary/status/1458481494742216708

Think them ramping up the boosters will help, as I think it was something Andrew Croxford posted, which said it looked like it might have been a 3 vaccine programme, so they shouldn't actually be considered boosters, and we just didn't know at the time, as we had to get moving so quickly.

I had mine last week, and nothing but a sore arm. Just have to dodge the vid for a couple weeks, and I'll be on the balcony @ Cosmo for Xmas.

[Doobs]

Don't blame you, I think the only people who aren't tired, are the grifters that think their Patreon/Crowdfunder fun is coming to an end.

https://twitter.com/COVID19actuary/status/1458481494742216708

Think them ramping up the boosters will help, as I think it was something Andrew Croxford posted, which said it looked like it might have been a 3 vaccine programme, so they shouldn't actually be considered boosters, and we just didn't know at the time, as we had to get moving so quickly.

I had mine last week, and nothing but a sore arm. Just have to dodge the vid for a couple weeks, and I'll be on the balcony @ Cosmo for Xmas.

I still need to book mine, but am pretty relaxed and others are more urgent.   

Good luck with dodging the rona for a couple of weeks; my ma has just gone in for a much delayed hospital appointment, and had to hide away for a week before.  Here's hoping there aren't too many Ivor Cummin's fans treating her. Last time before Covid, they all seemed fantastic.

[Marky147]

Think they've got plenty about, and now opened it up to everyone over 50, I think?

Glad that I can get the test 3 days before, and don't need to worry about windows etc.

Even though the south-west obviously went bananas, I'm far enough away from it that it didn't really spill over here.

Got a drive through test at Eastleigh Football Club, which is another bonus, as I don't even need my crutches or chair

[Doobs]

 In amongst all the tweets laughing at Ivor's Swedish meltdown, I just saw this.   Was always my ambition to piss off the Daily Mail, so wp.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10212401/Furniture-firms-profits-soared-4-700-CENT-Hancock-recommended-29m-PPE-contract.html

[nirvana]

In amongst all the tweets laughing at Ivor's Swedish meltdown, I just saw this.   Was always my ambition to piss off the Daily Mail, so wp.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10212401/Furniture-firms-profits-soared-4-700-CENT-Hancock-recommended-29m-PPE-contract.html

Haha, great story that and wp indeed, hopefully good gowns supplied and no idea about the whole scenario but assume this wasn't due to some special relationship with the Tories specifically. If we assume it wasn't it kind of gives the lie to the mass corruption angle in terms of contract awards. More underlines how private entrepreneurs tend to get things done and provide solutions to urgent issues quicker than any Government or public operation can.

Not saying it's so in this case but also underlines how crap central procurement is, a zillion rules and procedures to ensure vfm is obtained absolutely guaranteeing vfm will tend to be the last thing achieved.

Anyway Doobs, https://www.imperial.ac.uk/news/231557/covid-vaccines-effective-household-transmission-delta/ was reading this article as I'm fumming about the Austrian approach. tbf, I would fumm about it even if it made sense. As the old saying goes, what happens in Austria ends up affecting all Europeans, if not the world (OK, maybe not an old saying).

It's quite hard to find meaningful data around the reduction in infection rates and transmission that one could attribute to being vaccinated. So one of the stats is regarding Delta and gives some numbers that would indicate that the risk of becoming infected is reduced but doesn't appear to drop dramatically* and appreciable risk of infection still exists in the vaccinated.(*this statement carries a health warning as quite possible I don't really understand maths well enough to understand the impact of the reduced infection rate).

Anyway, setting aside personal risk, have you seen any articles that take this kind of data showing the reduced risk of being infected and how that plays out in the real world in terms of when we don't have to talk about Covid anymore. ie what date can we stop seeing this as newsworthy if 100% were vaccinated versus 90% etc. May be a waffley question but nub is around - have you seen anything so I can get why large sections of populations and Governments across Europe want to 'blame' the unvaccinated for covid remaining a thing to the extent that you would force people to get a vaccine so covid not being a thing came about sooner