0.2%

Archibald Knox said:
Oh well, even if you were right about early days (which I dispute) your opinion completely ignores Bozo’s response to the Delta (India) and Omicron (RSA) variants. We have taken back control of our borders... welcome in !!!
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Omicron, first detected on 22 November, the decision to move SA and others to the red list was taken on the 25th November, before the WHO even listed it as a VoC.

Delta, the UK govt announced India was going on the red list on 19 April, we were one of the first countries in the world to do this, PHE classified it as a VoC on 7 May.

In both cases, I challenge you to find a country that reacted faster.


Archibald Knox said:
170,000+ deaths and still rising at ca. 1500 per week. The highest cumulative total in Europe. Not a lot to crow about. But then again, if no-one you loved snuffed it with Covid then I suppose that makes it easier to defend the cretin in No.10
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If you don't include Russia in Europe, Italy is likely a long way top in absolute terms, followed by Ukraine and Poland with us in fourth place, the difference of course is that we accurately record, or even over-record Covid deaths and other countries don't.

All of which is meaningless anyway because we have the second largest population in Europe and the absolute number of deaths is heavily influenced by population size, if you look at relative mortality we're very much middle of the pack.

Which isn't to say that any of this is good, but you're trying to play party politics on the back of 150,000+ deaths, and the story you're telling is not accurate.
 
Archibald Knox said:
Party politics? 170,000+ UK Covid deaths vs 53 NZ deaths.
Them’s the facts. No disputing that.
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NZ got lucky because they're isolated and had few travellers to/from affected areas.

We were unlucky because we had huge numbers of travellers to/from Europe and thus the virus was here before we knew anything about it.

You're literally complaining that we didn't shut the borders in January.

The idea that the two countries are remotely comparable is pure fantasy.
 
Can't be bothered constantly arguing about what was correct or not during this most unusual time, if we really got it that wrong so did most of the whole world.
 
Lost Seasider said:
Omicron, first detected on 22 November, the decision to move SA and others to the red list was taken on the 25th November, before the WHO even listed it as a VoC.

Delta, the UK govt announced India was going on the red list on 19 April, we were one of the first countries in the world to do this, PHE classified it as a VoC on 7 May.

In both cases, I challenge you to find a country that reacted faster.




If you don't include Russia in Europe, Italy is likely a long way top in absolute terms, followed by Ukraine and Poland with us in fourth place, the difference of course is that we accurately record, or even over-record Covid deaths and other countries don't.

All of which is meaningless anyway because we have the second largest population in Europe and the absolute number of deaths is heavily influenced by population size, if you look at relative mortality we're very much middle of the pack.

Which isn't to say that any of this is good, but you're trying to play party politics on the back of 150,000+ deaths, and the story you're telling is not accurate.
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Second largest? France and Germany have a larger populace surely?
 
Lost Seasider said:
NZ got lucky because they're isolated and had few travellers to/from affected areas.
We were unlucky because we had huge numbers of travellers to/from Europe and thus the virus was here before we knew anything about it.
You're literally complaining that we didn't shut the borders in January.
The idea that the two countries are remotely comparable is pure fantasy.
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I am not just talking about January 2020. Delta and Omicron were much later. Bozo still reacted like a slug.
170,000+ UK Covid deaths vs. 53 NZ Covid deaths over 2 years. And currently running at 1500+ deaths per week in the UK. Effectively zero in NZ. Unarguable incompetence. Doesn’t that penetrate your thinking? I thought not.

And now Bozo wants to remove all Covid precautions while infections are still running high. Ignoring “the science”. Bozo will kill many more - he’s a bigger serial killer than Harold Shipman. Though Shipman knew what he was doing.
When’s the Public Inquiry ???
 
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Archibald Knox said:
I am not just talking about January 2020. Delta and Omicron were much later. Bozo still reacted like a slug.
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You should have no trouble finding a whole long list of countries that reacted faster to Delta and Omicron then.


Archibald Knox said:
170,000+ UK Covid deaths vs. 53 NZ Covid deaths over 2 years. And currently running at 1500+ deaths per week in the UK. Effectively zero in NZ. Unarguable incompetence. Doesn’t that penetrate your thinking? I thought not.
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It's pointless to compare two countries that are on the other side of the planet, a more realistic comparison is to the rest of Europe, and you're only cherry-picking NZ because it suits your argument.


Archibald Knox said:
And now Bozo wants to remove all Covid precautions while infections are still running high. Ignoring “the science”. Bozo will kill many more - he’s a bigger serial killer than Harold Shipman. Though Shipman knew what he was doing.
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We've got as much immunity as we're ever going to get, the effect of replacing a legal requirement with guidance is minimal anyway, unless you want to keep the restrictions forever they're going to have to go at some point, so if not this month (subject to conditions) then when?
 
Lost Seasider said:
You should have no trouble finding a whole long list of countries that reacted faster to Delta and Omicron then.




It's pointless to compare two countries that are on the other side of the planet, a more realistic comparison is to the rest of Europe, and you're only cherry-picking NZ because it suits your argument.




We've got as much immunity as we're ever going to get, the effect of replacing a legal requirement with guidance is minimal anyway, unless you want to keep the restrictions forever they're going to have to go at some point, so if not this month (subject to conditions) then when?
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As Boris has demonstrated, there has never been a lockdown enforced in this country. Right at the start there was some pretence of staying at home, but even then, people were still free to go out more or less as they liked, and did. Basically, we've relied on the public doing what they think is social distancing. Examples of that not being the case are innumerable.

Many countries enforced a far stricter lockdown than us, which reduced the impact undeniably.

As you say, replacing a legal requirement with guidance is indeed minimal because there hasn't been any major effort to enforce the legal requirement. That's why the farce of what went on in Whitehall is so damaging. There has been no leadership or example from the top all the way through, as some of us have been saying all the way through.
 
Lost Seasider said:
It's pointless to compare two countries that are on the other side of the planet, a more realistic comparison is to the rest of Europe, and you're only cherry-picking NZ because it suits your argument.
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I am comparing the best with one of the worst. The extremes that were possible in managing Covid and protecting the public (a government’s primary purpose, by the way). That’s not “cherry picking”, it’s defining the range of possibilities.

180,000+ dead in the UK vs. (still) 53 in NZ.

On any metric you can’t say Bozo has performed well. When’s the Covid Inquiry going to report? I bet he will have emigrated by then (he probably regrets giving up his USA citizenship now).
 
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Archibald Knox said:
I am comparing the best with one of the worst. The extremes that were possible in managing Covid and protecting the public (a government’s primary purpose, by the way). That’s not “cherry picking”, it’s defining the range of possibilities.

180,000+ dead in the UK vs. (still) 53 in NZ.

On any metric you can’t say Bozo has performed well. When’s the Covid Inquiry going to report? I bet he will have emigrated by then (he probably regrets giving up his USA citizenship now).
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We're actually fairly middle of the pack in terms of deaths, and not one of the worst as you seem to think.

Unfortunately, we don't share NZ's natural advantage of being thousands of miles from anywhere, and ten thousand miles from Europe, so the virus got into this country before we even knew it was in Europe, and long before NZ closed the borders to non-NZ nationals.
 
180,000+ (one hundred and eighty THOUSAND plus !) corpses in the UK (and still rising) vs. 53.
Just “natural advantages” being the difference? ... bollocks !
 
www.bbc.co.uk

BBC Radio 4 - More or Less, Vaccinating children, lockdowns, and ebikes

Jabs for five- to 11-year-olds, lockdown effectiveness, and being green on two wheels.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk

The programme above gives a dispassionate discussion of the science / research behind the 0.2% claim. 'Unproven' would be a polite way of describing the paper's 0.2% claim. The main problem with the research appears to be a partial selection of studies to be included in the meta-study that the authors carried out and a heavy reliance on a single study from SA (meta studies are supposed to be an overall picture of the state of research and not rely heavily on any singe source). Their definition of lockdown also requires scrutiny as they are combining all sorts of different measures under the term 'lockdown'.

So overall the paper is probably not the silver bullet that some on here would like it to be.
 
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ElBurroSinNombre said:
www.bbc.co.uk

BBC Radio 4 - More or Less, Vaccinating children, lockdowns, and ebikes

Jabs for five- to 11-year-olds, lockdown effectiveness, and being green on two wheels.
www.bbc.co.uk www.bbc.co.uk

The programme above gives a dispassionate discussion of the science / research behind the 0.2% claim. 'Unproven' would be a polite way of describing the paper's 0.2% claim. The main problem with the research appears to be a partial selection of studies to be included in the meta-study that the authors carried out and a heavy reliance on a single study from SA (meta studies are supposed to be an overall picture of the state of research and not rely heavily on any singe source). Their definition of lockdown also requires scrutiny as they are combining all sorts of different measures under the term 'lockdown'.

So overall the paper is probably not the silver bullet that some on here would like it to be.
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It was a pile of dogshit which few people actually read, and apparently saw fit to mock those who actually did as if taking 5 minutes to read the thing is a great undertaking.

They threw out all the papers that showed lockdowns worked and cherry picked data and then somehow decided to come to an average figure as if that's how it works.
 
Without wanting to get into a debate, all I'm going to say is strap yourselves in fellas - it is going to be the first study of many.
 
ElBurroSinNombre said:
Is it safe to unstrap myself yet?
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Plenty of other studies including the Lancet one but Lost has already deboonked that one. Honestly lads, I'm bored with this stuff now. The evidence is clear, if you're going to pooh pooh universities and the Lancet applying the scientific method with "well, I don't think..." and stuff like that then it really is a waste of everyone's time. No point arguing with idiots is there?
 
rockontommy said:
Plenty of other studies including the Lancet one but Lost has already deboonked that one. Honestly lads, I'm bored with this stuff now. The evidence is clear, if you're going to pooh pooh universities and the Lancet applying the scientific method with "well, I don't think..." and stuff like that then it really is a waste of everyone's time. No point arguing with idiots is there?
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Exactly.
So why won't you respond to the valid criticisms of the 0.2% claim paper (the thread subject) that several people on here including myself have pointed out? You may find it hard to believe that sometimes scientists (and in particular economists), actually disagree with one another in publications. And sometimes they may seek publicity or publish papers for the wrong reasons. So just because you can find one scientific source that agrees with your pre-existing view point, it doesn't mean that you are necessarily right. Just because you want something to be true doesn't mean that it is actually true. Science is essentially about putting your theory into the public domain and inviting other people to critique it, which several have done on this thread already. But instead of defending your viewpoint you tend to fall into name-calling.
There is actually a scientific term (from the psychological literature) for what you do - it's called Confirmation bias, in that humans have a tendency to attach more importance to evidence that confirms their pre-existing view.

Confirmation bias - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
JJpool said:
That's the only 2 its been in AFAIK.

The mainstream media is the BBC, Sky channel 4, ITV, the Guardian, independent as well, etc etc.

You'd think this would be big news, as if true would spell an absolutely disastrous policy decision thats cost more lives than it took and crippled the country.

But of course we know a lot of the media mentioned above were just as culpable in lockdowns.

This report is but the start I reckon.

How many time do people have to be on the wrong side of something to realise they were wrong and will be wrong again?
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So the Telegraph and Mail aren't MSM?

Give up now. You know thats nonsense.
 
Lost Seasider said:
Omicron, first detected on 22 November, the decision to move SA and others to the red list was taken on the 25th November, before the WHO even listed it as a VoC.

Delta, the UK govt announced India was going on the red list on 19 April, we were one of the first countries in the world to do this, PHE classified it as a VoC on 7 May.

In both cases, I challenge you to find a country that reacted faster.




If you don't include Russia in Europe, Italy is likely a long way top in absolute terms, followed by Ukraine and Poland with us in fourth place, the difference of course is that we accurately record, or even over-record Covid deaths and other countries don't.

All of which is meaningless anyway because we have the second largest population in Europe and the absolute number of deaths is heavily influenced by population size, if you look at relative mortality we're very much middle of the pack.

Which isn't to say that any of this is good, but you're trying to play party politics on the back of 150,000+ deaths, and the story you're telling is not accurate.
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We don't have the second largest population in Europe. I stopped reading after that.
 
ElBurroSinNombre said:
Exactly.
So why won't you respond to the valid criticisms of the 0.2% claim paper (the thread subject) that several people on here including myself have pointed out? You may find it hard to believe that sometimes scientists (and in particular economists), actually disagree with one another in publications. And sometimes they may seek publicity or publish papers for the wrong reasons. So just because you can find one scientific source that agrees with your pre-existing view point, it doesn't mean that you are necessarily right. Just because you want something to be true doesn't mean that it is actually true. Science is essentially about putting your theory into the public domain and inviting other people to critique it, which several have done on this thread already. But instead of defending your viewpoint you tend to fall into name-calling.
There is actually a scientific term (from the psychological literature) for what you do - it's called Confirmation bias, in that humans have a tendency to attach more importance to evidence that confirms their pre-existing view.

Confirmation bias - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
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I have already told you I'm bored of it. Fairly plain really.

Why can't you two read the room btw? Most people want to commit C-19 to the memory hole. I thought a couple of smart cookies would've picked up on that by now.
 
rockontommy said:
Plenty of other studies including the Lancet one but Lost has already deboonked that one.
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So, the Lancet study, here's what they've done and what the problem is.

The study is about excess mortality. Normally what you do is take a 5-year historical average of deaths, compare the deaths in the year under review with that average, and the difference is excess mortality, a pretty simple task in reality.

What the authors of the Lancet study have done instead is create a model (I know you're a big fan of those) that uses 30+ covariates to try to predict, erm, something, maybe expected deaths, maybe number of people who've died, it's not clear.

The issue is that the results are an obvious nonsense. The model says that Germany suffered almost twice as many Covid deaths as they think they did, Finland over 3 times and Denmark damn near 14 times, and NOBODY HAS F***ING NOTICED!!!!!!!!!!!

It's just not credible. We're talking about first world advanced economies with about as much data as you could possibly wish for, the idea that statisticians can't do a fairly simple excess mortality calculation and are getting it wrong by huge margins is laughable, it fails the smell test, it's the kind of thing that anyone remotely competent looks at and says "nope".

The study's garbage.
 
poolseasider said:
What is a proper lockdown then?
Everything shut apart from food shops,not allowed to visit family and friends.

Because if that's not a lockdown taking away our freedom I'm fucked if I know.
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A much harsher lockdown for say, 2 weeks, then open as normal.
I’m sure our sense of freedom can cope with that. And that includes food shops, garages, all businesses. Only things open: hospitals & care homes, emergency services, some carer’s.
 
JJpool said:
Why are you replying to over a month old post that you already replied to like its just happened 😂
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Because there was no acknowledgement that both France and Germany have larger populations, just some waffle about Russia and Turkey. As it happens, European Russians outnumber us as well, so thanks for making my point.
 
Wizaard said:
Because there was no acknowledgement that both France and Germany have larger populations, just some waffle about Russia and Turkey. As it happens, European Russians outnumber us as well, so thanks for making my point.
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What the hell has that answer got to do with the post you dug up? Which was about main stream media at the time picking up the story.

Your post makes zero sense at all, what have countries got to do with anything in the post you replied to...?
 
tangerine_neil said:
A much harsher lockdown for say, 2 weeks, then open as normal.
I’m sure our sense of freedom can cope with that. And that includes food shops, garages, all businesses. Only things open: hospitals & care homes, emergency services, some carer’s.
Click to expand...

How much harder is that than we actually had, and how much of a difference do you think it would make?

The only practical difference I can see is that Tesco would be shut, and I have my doubts about how much infection occurred there.
 
The lockdowns worked for me, clean air, less rubbish in the streets, no drunks roaming the streets at night, the wonders of online shopping, clean beaches free of dirty nappies, working from home and a community spirit what wasn't there to like? Bring it back I say.
 
Mr Tangerine Man said:
The lockdowns worked for me, clean air, less rubbish in the streets, no drunks roaming the streets at night, the wonders of online shopping, clean beaches free of dirty nappies, working from home and a community spirit what wasn't there to like? Bring it back I say.
Click to expand...

Every cloud and all that. I know what you mean, but I guess so much depends on your life circumstances at the time.
 
Mr Tangerine Man said:
The lockdowns worked for me, clean air, less rubbish in the streets, no drunks roaming the streets at night, the wonders of online shopping, clean beaches free of dirty nappies, working from home and a community spirit what wasn't there to like? Bring it back I say.
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No football to go and watch?

Yeh can’t wait 🙈🙄
 
Lost Seasider said:
Germany, yes, that's why I said second.

France, no: https://www.worldometers.info/population/countries-in-europe-by-population/

Russia & Turkey are both bigger, but it's debatable if they're in Europe or not.

Same ol' @Wizaard, making s*** up.
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Population of France 2021 68 million, Us 65 million. Not making up shit at all.

And the population of the European element of Russia is over 70 million.

The majority of the Turkish population is in Asia, true enough..
 
Wizaard said:
Population of France 2021 68 million, Us 65 million. Not making up shit at all.

And the population of the European element of Russia is over 70 million.

The majority of the Turkish population is in Asia, true enough..
Click to expand...

The last ONS estimate puts as at 67.1 million, depending upon source, date and criteria France is somewhere between 65 - 68 million, but to get to the higher figure you need to include about 2m from overseas departments such as French Guiana.

Russia, it's a matter of judgement whether to include it in Europe or not, generally in these discussions it seems to get excluded, but since they suffered over 1 million excess deaths I'm happy to include them if you are.

You can argue, if you like, whether we have the second, third or fifth largest population in Europe, but I think most on here would agree with my original post, which is to say second behind Germany.
 
Lost Seasider said:
The last ONS estimate puts as at 67.1 million, depending upon source, date and criteria France is somewhere between 65 - 68 million, but to get to the higher figure you need to include about 2m from overseas departments such as French Guiana.

Russia, it's a matter of judgement whether to include it in Europe or not, generally in these discussions it seems to get excluded, but since they suffered over 1 million excess deaths I'm happy to include them if you are.

You can argue, if you like, whether we have the second, third or fifth largest population in Europe, but I think most on here would agree with my original post, which is to say second behind Germany.
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The French treat their overseas territories as integral to being part of the country, sending representatives to their parliament etc hence why I've counted them . Its all bordering on pedantry though 😉
 
Wizaard said:
The French treat their overseas territories as integral to being part of the country, sending representatives to their parliament etc hence why I've counted them . Its all bordering on pedantry though 😉
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Agreed, it's pedantry, but arguing that South America and the Caribbean are in Europe based upon an internal French political settlement is curious, for most.
 
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