Interpreting the Law

[Arthur Marshall]

And all because LadyG went to Lincoln. I knew going there would cause trouble. Horrible place.

[Ange]

All these conflicting numbers and statistics just leave me baffled, and numbers were my living

I'll just carry on as I always have, keeping myself and my loved ones as safe as I can in the hope we'll come out of the other side of this and hug each other again one day.

[Guest]

7 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

And all because LadyG went to Lincoln. I knew going there would cause trouble. Horrible place.

Its not a place to go if you have walking difficulties for sure.

 

I had always assumed being in Lincolnshire it was 'flat', how wrong I was.

[Richard10002]

3 hours ago, Rickent said:

All media outlets were reporting 75000 deaths, go look it up.

That's the peterboat way of doing things..... why not provide a link/s to your source/s, you must have several given that you state that ALL media sources ..........

[alias]

9 hours ago, Rickent said:

The cases are rising due to the unsuitable test, it is not designed to diagnose, it cannot differentiate one virus from another, it produces a high number of false positives,

ONS have this to say about the test in a paper on their methods for their infection survey:

 

"Test specificity

Test specificity measures how often the test correctly identifies those who do not have the virus, so a test with high specificity will not have many false-positive results.

We know the specificity of our test must be very close to 100% as the low number of positive tests in our study means that specificity would be very high even if all positives were false. For example, in the most recent six-week period (31 July to 10 September), 159 of the 208,730 total samples tested positive. Even if all these positives were false, specificity would still be 99.92%."

 

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/methodologies/covid19infectionsurveypilotmethodsandfurtherinformation#test-sensitivity-and-specificity

[Bod]

 

Does anyone have a link, that will take me to the number of Covid tests done on a daily basis.

We hear of the number of positive tests, but never of the total or negative tests carried out.

To my mind, the really important information is never given, "What is the percentage of positive returns against the total number of tests carried out."

It is the rise or fall of this percentage figure that will show what is happening.

 

Bod.

[alias]

10 minutes ago, Bod said:

 

Does anyone have a link, that will take me to the number of Covid tests done on a daily basis.

We hear of the number of positive tests, but never of the total or negative tests carried out.

To my mind, the really important information is never given, "What is the percentage of positive returns against the total number of tests carried out."

It is the rise or fall of this percentage figure that will show what is happening.

 

Bod.

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/testing

 

Note the caveats, particularly that these are numbers of tests rather than the number of individuals tested, and reported against the date of test processing (rather than sampling). 

[Arthur Marshall]

11 minutes ago, Bod said:

 

Does anyone have a link, that will take me to the number of Covid tests done on a daily basis.

We hear of the number of positive tests, but never of the total or negative tests carried out.

To my mind, the really important information is never given, "What is the percentage of positive returns against the total number of tests carried out."

It is the rise or fall of this percentage figure that will show what is happening.

 

Bod.

You won't get that, because Serco et al will regard it as commercially important info. Remember, they are in this to make a profit, not save lives. For the same reason, the Govt have shown no interest in the WHO instant test though it's quicker and cheaper than anything else, as well as being available now - because it has to be administered by a health professional, ie the NHS. They may of course be forced to in the end.

[restlessnomad]

25 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

You won't get that, because Serco et al will regard it as commercially important info. Remember, they are in this to make a profit, not save lives. For the same reason, the Govt have shown no interest in the WHO instant test though it's quicker and cheaper than anything else, as well as being available now - because it has to be administered by a health professional, ie the NHS. They may of course be forced to in the end.

you cant collect and derive that data easily, much easy to get number of tests and the date of test(because they are centralized), no need to make up some conspiracy theory. For statistical purpose I think we can assume its 1 test per individual.

 

The WHO test deal was published today, we dont know when they will be ready. (and whether UK will find the accuracy acceptable)

Edited September 29, 2020 by restlessnomad

[Jerra]

1 hour ago, Bod said:

It is the rise or fall of this percentage figure that will show what is happening.

 

Bod.

According to a Prof on a programme I watched the percentage of +ves is staying the same through out.

[Alan de Enfield]

44 minutes ago, restlessnomad said:

For statistical purpose I think we can assume its 1 test per individual.

Many are tested every 2-weeks because of their proximity to the 'public' (Taxi drivers, for example)

[Ironmaiden]

11 hours ago, The Happy Nomad said:

Now that is a very very bold statement.......very.

 

Can you please support that with some very very clear clinical evidence.

 

(After you have clarified what carbon monoxide has got to do with the discussion of course).

 

 

How about a Msc in advanced nursing studies along with a 1st in epidemiology and many years on critical care,  and with regard to the carbon monoxide, I used that as an example. You cannot just stick a pulse oxy on someones finger and say that they are fine, because blood gas analysis can give you a true picture of what is going on. 

Hope that will clarify it for you. 

[Guest]

28 minutes ago, Ironmaiden said:

How about a Msc in advanced nursing studies along with a 1st in epidemiology and many years on critical care,  and with regard to the carbon monoxide, I used that as an example. You cannot just stick a pulse oxy on someones finger and say that they are fine, because blood gas analysis can give you a true picture of what is going on. 

Hope that will clarify it for you. 

We were not discussing Carbon Monoxide though? We were discussing Covid.

 

So why is it not an indicator in the issue we were actually discussing?

 

(My son in law spent weeks in ICU with Covid and the team caring for him were constantly very conscious of what his Oxygen levels were, are you saying they were wrong to do so?).

[Tony Brooks]

8 minutes ago, The Happy Nomad said:

We were not discussing Carbon Monoxide though? We were discussing Covid.

 

So why is it not an indicator in the issue we were actually discussing?

 

(My son in law spent weeks in ICU with Covid and the team caring for him were constantly very conscious of what his Oxygen levels were, are you saying they were wrong to do so?).

 

I thought the issue under discussion had taken a turn to discuss the degree to which mask wearing affected those with asthma. In that respect I can see nothing off topic or incorrect in @Ironmaiden's warning that there may be flaws in the experiment methodology that rendered the results questionable.

 

It was just a mini-side branch from the man topic but still worthy of discussion.

Edited September 29, 2020 by Tony Brooks

[Guest]

6 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

I thought the issue under discussion had taken a turn to discuss the degree to which mask wearing affected those with asthma. In that respect I can see nothing off topic or incorrect in @Ironmaiden's warning that there may be flaws in the experiment methodology that rendered the results questionable.

 

It was just a mini-side branch from the man topic but still worthy of discussion.

It might be interesting but it is also over complicating the issue.

 

Pulse oximetry is a widely used and generally regarded as a reliable indicator of a person's Oxygen saturation, particularly in patients diagnosed with Covid 19 and many other conditions. (It is of course none invasive and has some limitations and it is not the only indicator).

 

It's one of the first things our Ambulance service checks if called to a patient suspected of needing hospital admission due to Covid.

[alias]

13 hours ago, Rickent said:

possibly, I am sorry but I am not on planet fear.

 

That reads as though you have looked at the data and concluded that you are at low risk so it doesn't matter - surely I have misunderstood?

 

Looking at the other pages on the spreadsheet that this image comes from other details emerge, for example the pre-existing conditions include a substantial number of deaths of people with asthma and diabetes.  I suspect a lot of people with similar ailments normally survive a long time with the right treatment. Are they not worth saving because of a manageable health condition?  

 

Turning to whether the outbreak is over, the early stages of exponential growth in deaths from a low number will always be hard to see using a linear scale on the graph like those you have posted. Try this one instead:

 

Also of interest may be the estimate of cases from the covid.joinzoe.com project that picks up trends in new cases from individual reporting some days before they hit the DHSC stats.

    

[Richard10002]

20 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

It was just a mini-side branch from the man topic but still worthy of discussion.

Lots of side branches, designed to divert from the point in question.

 

I wonder how many people have breathing difficulties that are severely affected by the wearing of a mask. It seems that 5.4 million are being treated for asthma, but these will range from mild to severe, so not all will be affected by a mask.

 

In fact many, like Smelly, are resisting the wearing of a mask merely because they don't like it for some reason.

[Bobbybass]

I downloaded the NHS APP which links via Bluetooth. I have a Bluetooth lister on my phone which shows connection during the day. When I'm sitting in my car it shows me linked to cars next to me. When I stand in my local town waiting to cross the road , it links me to passing cars and people on passing buses ☹️

 

That means I could be told to isolate because a passing bus had a future Covid sufferer.

 

Not so good ☹️

[alias]

17 minutes ago, Bobbybass said:

I downloaded the NHS APP which links via Bluetooth. I have a Bluetooth lister on my phone which shows connection during the day. When I'm sitting in my car it shows me linked to cars next to me. When I stand in my local town waiting to cross the road , it links me to passing cars and people on passing buses ☹️

 

That means I could be told to isolate because a passing bus had a future Covid sufferer.

 

Not so good ☹️

Isolation instructions are based on a points system.  You would have to be within 2 metres of each person later turning out to be infected for 15 minutes. Longer periods would apply to people further way - I think the details are linked from the app somewhere.

 

You can see the log of potential contacts under settings>Google (sevices and pferences)> COVID 19 exposure notifications and mine only seems to log exposure checks with the app in the foreground on the screen.  I was in two minds about using the app anyway as there is an unpatched bluetooth security vulnerability that the phone is too old for the manufacturer to fix (Moto G5s). 

 

ETA So I'm one of the 12 million or so people who have downloaded it but can't use it effectively.  I wonder how many more? I don't think they will have a way of detecting active users.

Edited September 29, 2020 by alias

[GUMPY]

33 minutes ago, alias said:

Isolation instructions are based on a points system.  You would have to be within 2 metres of each person later turning out to be infected for 15 minutes. Longer periods would apply to people further way - I think the details are linked from the app somewhere.

I could be sitting in my car for 20minutes in a traffic jam and in the next car is a +ve covid tested person, our phones link for 20 minutes according to the app we have been together..............except we haven't........

[alias]

9 minutes ago, Loddon said:

I could be sitting in my car for 20minutes in a traffic jam and in the next car is a +ve covid tested person, our phones link for 20 minutes according to the app we have been together..............except we haven't........

Yes, and the same issue is faced by people working with the public from behind perspex screens. They are advised to avoid the error by switching off Bluetooth. 

 

Certainly a credibility issue for the app though.

[Tam & Di]

I see a lot about tests for those who have or don't have Covid. What about those of us who have had it and have subsequent tests to show we now have anti-bodies. I see no reports of anyone having Covid a second time, and I was advised that given my anti-bodies it is almost certain that I would not carry infection either. OK, none of that is 100% proven, but it's a much more useful piece of information than simply knowing if you now have it or not.

 

Tam

[IanD]

59 minutes ago, Loddon said:

I could be sitting in my car for 20minutes in a traffic jam and in the next car is a +ve covid tested person, our phones link for 20 minutes according to the app we have been together..............except we haven't........

No remote diagnosis system like this is perfect, working for everybody and giving no false positives or negatives, and there are always cases which can catch it out -- and of course the same applies to any other way of diagnosing disease, including doctors.

 

The point is not whether there are exceptions (like the ones quoted) but whether there is a net benefit overall even given such errors, and I expect this is clearly the case for the NHS Covid-19 app.

 

It's like the historical objections to seatbelts on the grounds that if the car rolls over and catches fire you could be trapped inside -- potentially true, but not a valid reason to refuse to do something which saves a huge number of lives.

 

People often use spurious reasons not to do something (like mask-wearing) to cover up the fact they don't want to do it for some claimed personal reason (infringement of personal freedom, government overstepping their power, conspiracy theories...) in spite of the fact that the benefits to society as a whole -- meaning, other people as well as themselves -- are clear.

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Richard10002 said:

Lots of side branches, designed to divert from the point in question.

 

I wonder how many people have breathing difficulties that are severely affected by the wearing of a mask. It seems that 5.4 million are being treated for asthma, but these will range from mild to severe, so not all will be affected by a mask.

 

In fact many, like Smelly, are resisting the wearing of a mask merely because they don't like it for some reason.

I am resistant to wearing a mask because I find it uncomfortable and constricting, that is just how I feel. However I manage this by avoiding places were they have to be worn so I don one as little as poss.

 

Just a couple of examples.

 

All our shopping is via. home delivery now and if I cant get a delivery 'click and collect'. I havent been to the barbers since January and as a result my wife has become adept at cutting my hair after watching a good few you tubers.

 

If one can acheive the same result by not increasing the risk I see no need to increase the risk by going to places where the risk is potentially higher, and the win win is I always hated food shopping anyway.

 

 

Edited September 29, 2020 by The Happy Nomad

[Athy]

24 minutes ago, The Happy Nomad said:

 

 

All our shopping is via. home delivery now and if I cant get a delivery 'click and collect'. I havent been to the barbers since January and as a result my wife has become adept at cutting my hair after watching a good few you tubers.

 

If one can acheive the same result by not increasing the risk I see no need to increase the risk by going to places where the risk is potentially higher, and the win win is I always hated food shopping anyway.

 

 

Quite so - we alternate weekly between Tesco and Waitrose deliveries. It took me a while to get used to the change of routine, as I love supermarket shopping, but we have rarely been into a supermarket in several months. When we go to the boat, we take all our food and drink with us. We've been into a couple of antique centres and a couple of garden centres, but these are not crowded places. I do visit the butcher's next door to us, but they operate a strict one-customer-in-shop policy.

I actually went into Wisbech and back on the 'bus last week, I felt that I was being quite adventurous.