For help, advice and discussion about stuff not related to aviation. Play nice: no religion, no politics and no axe grinding please.
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By MikeE
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1878705
Flyin'Dutch' wrote:
flybymike wrote:If only Whitty, Van-Tam, Harries, Hancock, et al, had known all this before spreading all that misinformation .


I think that history will be harsh on them.


Through the lens of 20/20 hindsight, possibly....

Regards

Mike
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By johnm
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1878726
low&slow wrote:But they're supposed to listen to the 'experts' & the 'experts' were adamantly opposed to masks.



Experts advise and those advised listen and then decide on their assessment of the balance of the views and evidence they've heard. Experts also learn in most cases and may then change their advice. Having had a quick look there seem to have been two issues. One was a shortage of PPE, such that medics were using bin bags for gowns and lower standard masks. The other was social scientists who didn't believe that the UK populace would wear masks or tolerate lockdowns...
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By MikeB
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1878730
I don't recall the various experts in the daily covid briefing being "adamantly opposed"; my recollection was them saying evidence was mixed as there were pros and cons for mask use. This was later revised to being strongly supportive of mask use, but I see no issue in minds being changed. What does seem to be the case though is that those who are currently opposed to vaccines were also opposed to masks throughout. In fact I don't know anyone who has declined the vaccine but supports covid measures such as social distancing and mask use.
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#1878774
local paper manages to put bad spin on good news story (that lots of people are eager to be vaccinated, and locally organised centre is largely coping very well):

https://www.gloucestershirelive.co.uk/n ... ed-6115824
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By Flyin'Dutch'
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1878828
low&slow wrote:But they're supposed to listen to the 'experts' & the 'experts' were adamantly opposed to masks.


There are some of us who are able to tune in to different suppliers of information outside of the UK HMG Pressbriefings and or the Beeb...
Paul_Sengupta liked this
#1878834
Flyin'Dutch' wrote:
low&slow wrote:But they're supposed to listen to the 'experts' & the 'experts' were adamantly opposed to masks.


There are some of us who are able to tune in to different suppliers of information outside of the UK HMG Pressbriefings and or the Beeb...

We all can if we take the time, thanks to the wonder that is YouTube.

I do struggle with most US news outlets, probably because their domestic audience demands partisanship. Closer to home, DW is pretty good, France24 changes with the wind and is comically aligned to Macron (for now), but for a real laugh, Sky News Australia is very reliable. :thumleft: There is also a wealth of small-fry commentators pushing out information and opinions.

All in all, it's very easy to get a rounded outlook without much effort or the BBC and I'm still not convinced that masks contribute much more than safety signalling.
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By Paul_Sengupta
FLYER Club Member  FLYER Club Member
#1878843
StratoTramp wrote:Cases don't matter in the same way they used to


Agree.

StratoTramp wrote:and are largely academic


Disagree.

StratoTramp wrote:They should only track hospitalisations - at least front and centre now most of the country is vacinated.


They are tracking them, and deaths. The correlation between cases and hospitalisations and deaths is still there, just at a much lower figure now.

StratoTramp wrote:I thought many of those in hospital now 60-70% were unvaccinated.


Probably higher but they're still taking up beds and they're still dying.

StratoTramp wrote:50-200 deaths a day is miles less than any other cause of death


In the vaccinated, yes, it's currently running at 0.8% of all deaths. In the unvaccinated though it's 37.4% of all deaths.

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19latestinsights/vaccines

StratoTramp wrote:Using full numbers as there was a survey last year in July that stated the british public thought the death toll of covid was 6-7%. That would have been 4.5 million bodies.


I hadn't seen that. Maybe the question asked was for the over 60s.

StratoTramp wrote:People thought it was 100 times worse than it was at the time.


No, it was around 1.6-1.8% so if what you say is true above, they thought about 4 times worse, not 100.

If it hadn't been for the lockdowns, the body count would have been close to a million.

StratoTramp wrote:Even if a mask reduces transmission by 10% it depends on 10% of what.


Depends on what the 10% is. The "worst case" studies suggest 50% effective, but that's 50% of scenarios which would benefit - it may well be 10% of *all* transmissions including schools, within families, etc. On 10% of what? Well, of the R number.

StratoTramp wrote:They didn't because they predicted panic buying. But that's only because they overplayed the severity at the start with all the images from Italy and china.


They didn't overplay it. :roll:

If anything they underplayed it, saying how those who died had other underlying heath issues, in a bid to stop any panic within the population. There are still people, even on this thread, who believe that anyone who died was at death's door anyway, which is clearly not the case.

StratoTramp wrote:Two doses of Pfizer was 85% protection or something. What is the point in reducing 15% by a further 10% (1.5%)


Because the numbers are huge. 15% of the whole vaccinated population equates to a lot of people.

Flyin'Dutch' wrote:There are some ... who are able to tune in to different suppliers of information outside of the UK HMG Pressbriefings and or the Beeb...


Yes, like on-line forums and YouTube. :clown:

Anyway, new case figures are coming down slightly this week, as many predicted they would in half term.
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