Coronavirus

[Sid]

Don't even entertain Trump's criticisms of WHO. He's talking shite. It's cos in the press briefing the day before a female journo went after him, looking for answers about the body count. And it's obvious Trump was late to act like the Tories were, and that's cost a lot of lives. So he was embarrassed and angry, and then lashed out.

[swampash]

Limited re-opening over here next week.

[Sid]

Hundreds of UK care home deaths not added to official coronavirus toll

Care England, the industry body, estimated that the death toll is likely to be close to 1,000, despited the only available official figure for care home fatalities being dramatically lower.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... icial-toll

They're not testing for it on care homes. It's mad. They should be one of the first cos they're most at risk. Can't help thinking this is more Tory eugenics.

The fatality numbers are missing a lot of people in every country. Care homes is a factor, people dying at home too. Every country adds more deaths a few weeks or even months after the fact, when officials have the time to do more thorough accounting and analysis. I've read that this is what always happens during epidemics. There were also more deaths that went unacknowledged early on, when they were just attributed to pneumonia, especially among the old. The latest daily numbers are usually basically just people who died in hospital, and even then some corona victims will go uncounted at first because they died without being officially tested.

From the guardian

About half of all Covid-19 deaths appear to be happening in care homes in some European countries, according to early figures gathered by UK-based academics who are warning that the same effort must be put into fighting the virus in care homes as in the NHS.

Snapshot data from varying official sources shows that in Italy, Spain, France, Ireland and Belgium between 42% and 57% of deaths from the virus have been happening in homes, according to the report by academics based at the London School of Economics (LSE).

So the deaths in care homes is probably bigger than even Care England reckon, especially given that we're on course to be the worst affected European country

It's interesting how another story from, i assume, a different journalist that you quoted previously was implying that various countries were not including care home deaths yet now both Italy and France (the two countries that were mentioned previously) have 'official sources' that those amazing economists have managed to find despite them evading everyone else. Than god for economists is all i can say. where would we be without them?!

Not a dig at you, Sid. I just find it sort of laughable how these things are all so blatantly contradictory. It's also quite laughable how the LSE have suddenly found the time in a global financial meltdown to do statistical analyses of epidemiological data. Maybe they were just calculating how much pension deficit was being wiped out by Covid-19 and thought it would be an interesting aside to publish.

It's fine, I'm used to putting stuff up and you destroying it

This from the guardian

Two of the largest providers of care homes in the UK have revealed the deaths of 521 residents from coronavirus in recent weeks, in the clearest sign yet of the rising scale of fatalities outside the NHS which are not yet being officially announced.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... rus-deaths

UK care home Covid-19 deaths 'may be five times government estimate'

Charity estimates 7,500 fatalities so far but says precise figure difficult to gauge

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... t-estimate

"Without testing, it is very difficult to give an absolute figure,” Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, said. “However, if we look at some of the death rates since 1 April and compare them with previous years’ rates, we estimate a figure of about 7,500 people may have died as a result of Covid-19.”

Tbf Fub, the LSE might be right

[swampash]

Re. the LSE, despite the name suggesting otherwise, they are very well known for things beyond economics. Including statistics.

[swampash]

And while we're on statistics, has anyone else noticed the perfect correlation between the progress of the shutdown and the length of the roots growing out on the heads of the wanna be blonde Sky News chicks?

[Sid]

Pressure is building on Johnson, especially now there's a slick centrist in opposition

[FuB]

The fatality numbers are missing a lot of people in every country. Care homes is a factor, people dying at home too. Every country adds more deaths a few weeks or even months after the fact, when officials have the time to do more thorough accounting and analysis. I've read that this is what always happens during epidemics. There were also more deaths that went unacknowledged early on, when they were just attributed to pneumonia, especially among the old. The latest daily numbers are usually basically just people who died in hospital, and even then some corona victims will go uncounted at first because they died without being officially tested.

From the guardian

About half of all Covid-19 deaths appear to be happening in care homes in some European countries, according to early figures gathered by UK-based academics who are warning that the same effort must be put into fighting the virus in care homes as in the NHS.

Snapshot data from varying official sources shows that in Italy, Spain, France, Ireland and Belgium between 42% and 57% of deaths from the virus have been happening in homes, according to the report by academics based at the London School of Economics (LSE).

So the deaths in care homes is probably bigger than even Care England reckon, especially given that we're on course to be the worst affected European country

It's interesting how another story from, i assume, a different journalist that you quoted previously was implying that various countries were not including care home deaths yet now both Italy and France (the two countries that were mentioned previously) have 'official sources' that those amazing economists have managed to find despite them evading everyone else. Than god for economists is all i can say. where would we be without them?!

Not a dig at you, Sid. I just find it sort of laughable how these things are all so blatantly contradictory. It's also quite laughable how the LSE have suddenly found the time in a global financial meltdown to do statistical analyses of epidemiological data. Maybe they were just calculating how much pension deficit was being wiped out by Covid-19 and thought it would be an interesting aside to publish.

It's fine, I'm used to putting stuff up and you destroying it

This from the guardian

Two of the largest providers of care homes in the UK have revealed the deaths of 521 residents from coronavirus in recent weeks, in the clearest sign yet of the rising scale of fatalities outside the NHS which are not yet being officially announced.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... rus-deaths

UK care home Covid-19 deaths 'may be five times government estimate'

Charity estimates 7,500 fatalities so far but says precise figure difficult to gauge

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... t-estimate

"Without testing, it is very difficult to give an absolute figure,” Martin Green, the chief executive of Care England, said. “However, if we look at some of the death rates since 1 April and compare them with previous years’ rates, we estimate a figure of about 7,500 people may have died as a result of Covid-19.”

Tbf Fub, the LSE might be right

My point wasn't really whether they were wrong or right but that, of all organisations, they'd somehow been able to find supposedly hidden data and analyse it.

[swampash]

Surprised to learn the UK is only just starting to look at using blood plasma from the recovered. Could have been started weeks ago, as it was here (and the USA I think?). Was an approach used for the Spanish Flu' epidemic a century ago.

[FuB]

Surprised to learn the UK is only just starting to look at using blood plasma from the recovered. Could have been started weeks ago, as it was here (and the USA I think?). Was an approach used for the Spanish Flu' epidemic a century ago.

It shouldn't really be that much of a surprise the UK has dragged its heels on yet another stage... however blood plasma needs to be harvested from recovered positive cases and they, obviously, need to be 100% recovered and free from any possibility of passing any residual infection on. This means you're going to have to go through your first wave at least before you've got anyone to harvest it from. I suppose you could get it from other countries that are further down the road of the pandemic but there would obviously be ethical, logistical and regulatory issues to overcome.

China was already trialling it by early February and reported promising results via the WHO. I'm not sure how much worldwide data there really is as to the efficacy of this type of treatment in Covid-19 patients and the only documented studies i'm aware of were very limited in number and, in every case, combined plasma treatment with other treatments (both known and experimental) so it's very difficult to determine if the plasma actually had any effect. Without any carefully controlled studies it's only ever going to get licensed in worst-case last resort scenarios but, if it shows promising results, you'd expect they'll fast track it as much as they can.

[Sid]

Fub, what do you make of this? Research suggests corona causes permanent lung damage

https://www.rainews.it/tgr/tagesschau/a ... ce61c.html