_Os_ wrote: Sat Feb 12, 2022 10:36 pm
I said I would check back in 2022 ...
Biffer wrote: Mon Dec 20, 2021 2:05 pm
_Os_ wrote: Mon Dec 20, 2021 1:37 pm
So now we're going to discuss the dictionary, when we can all Google the meaning of words. Endemic is something that's always there.
One of the dumbest things about all this, is you can read everything from actual scientists (journal articles and full press releases, not articles in the media filtered through journalists) and just repeat what they say. And it makes no difference, you will be told you're a moron. If you advocate for maximum mitigation, which has failed, no one questions that.
This from the first page first paragraph of the MAC's assessment sent to the minister of health:
"quarantine is only likely to be effective and/or practical in certain circumstances, and is an extreme, though sometimes necessary control measure for a disease outbreak. It is one potential control measure among many options, including isolation, and widespread testing campaigns. It does not generally have a role for endemic diseases, where control is not possible".
Just this block of text has three references from different US institutions/journal articles.
The whole of page two then goes on to describe that there should be no quarantine or isolation because it's now pointless (guess why dictionary dude), concluding with: "We propose that quarantining be discontinued with immediate effect" and "we further propose that contact tracing be stopped", and "this applies equally to vaccinated and non-vaccinated contacts". Page three continues explaining those recommendations. Page four the references.
So I read the top scientists advising my government, then I'm wrong and you want me to read the dictionary to you? I don't know where to go with that.
It’s just the way you’re using endemic seems to carry some implication of lower risk, that’s why I asked. If that’s unintentional fair enough, but if you want to maintain that you’re looking at this in a purely scientific way, you need to make sure you use language better.
And I get my info from very good sources - I work for a Uk government science lab, so we’ve been getting in house briefings from leading scientists and researchers all the way through the pandemic. Head of vaccination research for the MRC, that kind of thing. Twenty or thirty minutes at a time, straight from the horses mouth, unfiltered by media. It also means I have access to medical and science journal full texts, so you can be guaranteed I’m using that as well.
So who was correct ... South Africa's MAC months back when they were ignored whilst many were going into full hysteria mode, or South Africa's MAC now quite a number of places are doing what they pointed out months ago?
dpedin wrote: Mon Dec 20, 2021 4:16 pmPH mitigations help avoid disease becoming endemic and then killing people! When done properly it will save lives and hold back community transmission until effective vaccines, medications, etc are developed and can be deployed. The likes of NZ, Japan and other are doing this successfully - see their covid death rates per 100k of pop - whereas the UK response has been awful - see our death rates. The difference for this has been the different PH responses.
I snipped this reply down, to just focus on the meat of it.
This is the zero Covid mantra that hasn't worked, isn't it? People in developed nations have had the chance to be vaccinated. More people in developing nations have had the option to be vaccinated, than the narrative of developing nations not having access lets on, for example Namibia vaccine stocks expiring and being destroyed because there wasn't uptake (people didn't assess the Covid risk as high). My experience with the vaccines is getting double jabbed asap. Then requesting to get a booster asap, being told I was too young. Then everyone shitting themselves in hysteria about Omicron and being requested to get a booster, then being told I could not get a booster because I had Covid too recently and therefore didn't qualify. Then just deciding this had all become a bit stupid and not caring.
NZ and Japan were never valid comparisons to the UK. The UK is deeply integrated into Europe's regional economy (even with Brexit that's still the case), the UK is also a hub for Commonwealth countries (especially India/Pakistan/Bangladesh) and their interactions with Europe, there's a massive movement of people between the UK/London and elsewhere. A lot of the UK's economic strength is based on this. NZ and Japan aren't like this, Japan has a large tourism industry they decided to shutter and is culturally completely different to anywhere outside east Asia, NZ is a geographically isolated place with a much smaller population and economy. People basing their thinking on some very fringe cases like this, ended up taking bad positions (that they were/are almost religiously attached to and cannot be talked down from). The difference between the UK and Japan or NZ, is not how and when they did lockdowns, it's that they're completely different places.
As for the UK's response. If you go back and look at the original Neil Ferguson models. Mitigation much more mild than eventually happened, was supposed to reduce deaths from 250k to 50k (from memory, but it was in that ballpark). Everything the UK did was far more extreme and for longer than was originally planned for. It's obvious the entire thing has become hopelessly politicised, people demand Johnson lockdown, and when he does it's too late, and when he doesn't he's a killer. Some people seem to have wanted a two year long lockdown and the torching of the UK economy. There was a lot of hysteria in June/July last year about an imminent wave of death and the need to lockdown, same again in November/December, Johnson (or whatever the dynamics are within the Tory leadership) was correct to not lockdown both times. The NHS backlog that lockdowns have produced will likely end up killing a lot of people who shouldn't have died, and endemic Covid will still be a fact.
Public health measures (ie lockdowns of some soft or hard variety) and aiming for zero Covid, just means something that's unwinnable never ends. I'm happy there's been movement globally towards the MAC's position back in mid December (including in NZ seeing as you mentioned them).
Wow - what a mix of nonsense and misinterpretation of what folk have posted.
Of course NZ and Japan are different, every country is different to a greater or lesser degree and no. doubt any comparison used will be ignored by many. However they are valid examples/comparisons of the difference in PH approaches adopted by different countries and whilst it might be more or less difficult for countries to implement these types of mitigations the bottom line is that these are political decisions driven by the Govs of those countries - some value PH differently to others. They are also valid comparisons because it can show the different impact the various PH strategies can have on the populations of those countries, the covid virus doesn't discriminate. Death counts are a useful measure? I used both of Japan and NZ because they are 1st world developed island nations who could control their own borders the same way as the UK could if it wanted. The fact that the UK did not control their borders in the same way and adopted a very different set of PH mitigations was a political choice - we all picked. form the same menu of PH mitigations - and of a different PH strategy. So let's compare the success/failure of their PH strategies - UK deaths per million population - 2,373, Japan - 158, New Zealand - 10.78. If neither are an accepted comparison then lets use Germany, not an island nation but very similar in demography etc to the UK and fully integrated into the wider EU, with lots of migration from Eastern Europe, Turkey, etc - death rate per million for Germany is 1,440 per million population, about 60% of the UK's death rate.
Zero covid, or more correctly elimination strategy, is a tried and tested PH strategy for dealing with pandemic outbreaks and involves border control, rapid case detection, TT&T, improved personal hygiene, physical distancing in indoor and confined areas, a informed communication strategy to make sure people know what to do, etc. Google the NHS Measles Guidelines, which is a far more infectious disease than covid, as a good example of a plan for an elimination strategy. This is standard practice for a whole range of infectious diseases/viruses and is used for everything from embola to measles outbreaks. The aim of an elimination strategy is to control and minimise community transmission, to minimise ill health and deaths as much as possible and to get outbreaks under control. This is not to be confused, although it often is, with an eradication strategy which aims to get rid of the disease/virus completely. As far as I am aware only polio has ever been truly eradicated? From the death rates above it is blindingly obvious that those countries that have adopted an elimination strategy have been immeasurably more successful that the UK.
I am not entirely sure what a 'soft lockdown' is to be honest. We had a lock down in early 2020 but since then I don't think the UK has had a lock down since, we have however had various PH mitigations put in place when required but not a full lock down? Some sectors have had it hard and I would have been happier to see greater support for leisure, music, pubs, restaurants, etc in place. Many other sectors have made money out of the pandemic.
You also seem to be confused about the difference between PH modelling and predictions?
In terms of economic performance the UK, according to the FT analysis in January 2022 of five economic and financial indicators—gdp, household incomes, stockmarket performance, capital spending and government indebtedness—for 23 rich countries, the UK comes 22 out of 23 just above Spain although Germany and Japan are in the bottom end of the table as well. so it doesn't look like sacrificing people for economic performance really worked out does it? This isn't politicalising the issue this is saying that the UK Gov got it badly wrong and need to be held to account!
Finally as the vaccines roll out they are minimising hospitalisations and deaths, although not completely. The likes of NZ have therefore decided that now is the time to gradually lift restrictions as vaccines and medicines can do the heavy lifting. This was always the plan, go back to why have an elimination strategy, and to portray this as failure or anything else is just a nonsense. NZ has had 5% of the covid deaths the UK has had.
