Coronavirus

[Crouchend_Hammer]

What would be great (0bvioisly it won't happen) is if Covid was banned from the news (all platforms) for the immediate future

One quick round up of the current situation and then no more reporting of it at all

Try and remove it from the top of mind of everyone so we can all begin to get back to normal

[Hummer_I_mean_Hammer]

^^^^ true, we should move on to drug resistant infections, in 2019 something like 1.3 million died of these infections with close to 5 million associated deaths.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-01-20-es ... 0in%202019.

[Burnley Hammer]

^^^^ true, we should move on to drug resistant infections, in 2019 something like 1.3 million died of these infections with close to 5 million associated deaths.

https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2022-01-20-es ... 0in%202019.

I was hoping it would be replaced by something more cheery

[Big George]

If you are interested in the with Covid/of Covid argument. The first 10 minutes of this are pretty good at explaining the numbers involved.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0013r9w

[bonzosbeard]

A question for Dr Venk if he doesn't mind answering.

The new omicron variant BA2, which I believe is no worse than the original, is spreading 2x faster.

My question is if Britain already has it ?

I'm not alarmed at the virus itself as it's mild and we're vaccinated, I just don't want restrictions coming back.

[Crouchend_Hammer]

Related to my post above, why do need this article on front page of BBC homepage?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-60161124

There is no reason except to deliberately keep Covid front page news

Nick Tringle just regurgitates the same article day after day. A fraud of a journalist

[Collison Theory]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... n/26/match hematicians-covid-projections-modelling

Fantastic excuse from an expert explaining how even though the experts got it so badly wrong, they were experts so were justified all along. And we should be grateful to the likes of Ferguson.

Sculldugery pure and simple. We were lied to, and it's still going on to justify everything that's happened in the past two years.

If you want people to tell you certainties, try religion.

No one has yet managed an even semi convincing explanation about why they would "lie", more anti science nonsense.

In fact, one of the biggest errors was originally not going into lockdown quick enough because the modelling underestimated how quickly it was spreading. But we don't talk about that because it doesn't fit the narrative that scientists deliberately gave false information to cause lockdowns, risking their professional reputations due to fantastical "sculldugery".

[DrVenk]

My question is if Britain already has it ?

Yup. Best estimate about 1% of cases.

Best place to track lineages is here:
https://covid19.sanger.ac.uk/lineages/raw?show=BA.2

[Burnley Hammer]

My 7 year old has just tested positive tonight.

Me and the missus testing negative although I still strongly suspect the virus I had 2 or so weeks ago was COVID despite the two negative tests I had. It was followed by 4 days of severe brain fog to the point where I had to take time of work as I couldn't think at all... and there's only ever been one virus that's done that to me before.

[666 hammer]

If you want people to tell you certainties, try religion.

No one has yet managed an even semi convincing explanation about why they would "lie", more anti science nonsense.

In fact, one of the biggest errors was originally not going into lockdown quick enough because the modelling underestimated how quickly it was spreading. But we don't talk about that because it doesn't fit the narrative that scientists deliberately gave false information to cause lockdowns, risking their professional reputations due to fantastical "sculldugery".

How about money and fame. Or do you imagine science is so pure that money doesn't sway it?
Whether for funding projects or wage packets. It is only human to want to earn good money for all the hard work put into studying ect.

[Plashet Grove Pete]

In fact, one of the biggest errors was originally not going into lockdown quick enough because the modelling underestimated how quickly it was spreading. But we don't talk about that because it doesn't fit the narrative that scientists deliberately gave false information to cause lockdowns, risking their professional reputations due to fantastical "sculldugery".

When you say "in fact" do you have any evidence? Or are you just making "facts" up to support your unproven theory?

[Plashet Grove Pete]

From the previously quoted Guardian article excusing and defending the inaccuracies of the modellers:

"Critics of modelling also fail to acknowledge that highly publicised projections can become self-defeating prophecies. Top of the list of the Spectator’s “The ten worst Covid data failures” in the autumn of 2020 was “Overstating of the number of people who are going to die”. The article referred to the fact that Imperial College modellers’ infamous projection – that the UK would see 250,000 deaths in the absence of tighter measures – never came to pass. The Imperial model is widely credited with causing people to change their behaviour and with eventually ushering in the first UK lockdown a week later, thus averting its own alarming projections".

Which can be translated as deliberately overstating possible impacts to scare people to take draconian measures; if we hadn't done so our wildly incorrect predicitions might have come true - so we were right all along to exaggerate and you should be thanking us.

Or as the old joke goes:

"Why are you banging that drum and shouting?"

"Becasue it keeps the elephants away"

"But there aren't any elephants in England"

"Well, that shows it's working, doesn't it?"

Still, thanks Neil Ferguson. You deserve our undying and eternal gratitude.

[Collison Theory]

How about money and fame. Or do you imagine science is so pure that money doesn't sway it?
Whether for funding projects or wage packets. It is only human to want to earn good money for all the hard work put into studying ect.

And who would you pay for a project, someone who has a track record of making excellent models, or someone who makes terrible models that massively overstate risk?

When you say "in fact" do you have any evidence? Or are you just making "facts" up to support your unproven theory?

I honestly thought you'd already know about what I'm talking about considering how much you post here, but-

https://www.bmj.com/company/newsroom/uk ... oo-flawed/

Basically, SAGE were underestimating how quickly the cases were doubling initially, they said it was every five days but it was every three, or something like that, right at the start. This was from the More of Less statistics podcast so I can't link, though I do recommend it for a reasonable overview of what's been going on- it's BBC though so I know a lot of people won't go near it. The latest episode has a solid debunking of that "17,000 deaths" figure that has been going around a lot (including on here).

As for your last post- we've had strict measures, and over 150,000 deaths, 250,000 deaths without those measures doesn't sound far fetched at all.

[Beavis Danzig]

lovely of the BBC to take a swipe at Dr John Campbell for spreading misinformation by completely miscontextually twisting one of his videos that he did on the ONS figures of those who died purely from covid without underlying symptoms, implying that those figures have become; "a weapon of the cruel and heartless to dismiss the deaths of the people we love."

cruel and heartless figures like Dr JC who kept many of us sane with his calm anaylsis of the omicron situation in SA while the BBC were out in in their plague doctor outfits wringing bells in the streets.

(

joke of an organisation.

[Collison Theory]

lovely of the BBC to take a swipe at Dr John Campbell for spreading misinformation by completely miscontextually twisting one of his videos that he did on the ONS figures of those who died purely from covid without underlying symptoms, implying that those figures have become; "a weapon of the cruel and heartless to dismiss the deaths of the people we love."

cruel and heartless figures like Dr JC who kept many of us sane with his calm anaylsis of the omicron situation in SA while the BBC were out in in their plague doctor outfits wringing bells in the streets.

joke of an organisation.

I'm not sure why you didn't share the link, but here it is- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60145237

The quote that you gave (you talk about you important context is) isn't from a bbc journalist, but from a grieving son who was reasonably upset that people were using the 17,000 figure to discount the death of his father.

If anyone clicks the article above you'll see it isn't remotely an attack on Dr Campbell, whose name appears once in paragraph 17. I watched the start of the video you linked, and he says "of course I did not say 6000 people died from Covid". If you pause the video, you can clearly read the article doesn't claim that, it says "The Daily Expose" made that claim.

This has really emphasised to me the importance of the BBC- because elsewhere we just get media telling us what you want to hear. Of course most people would rather hear reassurance than a hard truth.

[Crouchend_Hammer]

There is no way of knowing what the number of deaths would have been with an earlier lockdown or even if no lockdowns at all. There might have been a similar amount with no lockdowns but without all the rest of the associated problems and deaths that lockdowns led to.

All moot anyway given the death figures are completely unreliable

[Plashet Grove Pete]

There is no way of knowing what the number of deaths would have been with an earlier lockdown or even if no lockdowns at all. There might have been a similar amount with no lockdowns but without all the rest of the associated problems and deaths that lockdowns led to.

All moot anyway given the death figures are completely unreliable

Absolutely Crouchy. The science is dubious to say the least, but when the argument is essentially "OK we were wrong, but we would have been right if you hadn't done what we told you to do, so we were right after all" you realise it's pointless arguing.

Glad some people think it was all worthwhile.

[Plashet Grove Pete]

I'm not sure why you didn't share the link, but here it is- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/60145237

The quote that you gave (you talk about you important context is) isn't from a bbc journalist, but from a grieving son who was reasonably upset that people were using the 17,000 figure to discount the death of his father.

If anyone clicks the article above you'll see it isn't remotely an attack on Dr Campbell, whose name appears once in paragraph 17. I watched the start of the video you linked, and he says "of course I did not say 6000 people died from Covid". If you pause the video, you can clearly read the article doesn't claim that, it says "The Daily Expose" made that claim.

This has really emphasised to me the importance of the BBC- because elsewhere we just get media telling us what you want to hear. Of course most people would rather hear reassurance than a hard truth.

You think the BBC has been straight with it's reporting of this and has been focusing on hard truth? Wow.

[Beavis Danzig]

This has really emphasised to me the importance of the BBC- because elsewhere we just get media telling us what you want to hear. Of course most people would rather hear reassurance than a hard truth.

this is the full quote:

"The misleading "17,000" figure was spread by influential accounts online. On 14 January, former Islamist turned counter-extremism activist Maajid Nawaz tweeted that the figures were evidence of "narrative collapse", implying the larger reported death figures were not genuine.

Then on 20 January, Dr John Campbell, a retired nurse educator who has amassed a huge following on YouTube, released a video describing the figures as a "huge story" and suggested Covid deaths were "much lower than mainstream media seems to have been intimating"


it's 100% clear what this article is trying to achieve by framing him in this context and has absolutely nothing to do with "hard truth", nor was their hysteric fear mongering when the hard data regarding omicron coming from SA that dr john neutrally communicated to us painted a very different picture.

[Collison Theory]

Absolutely Crouchy. The science is dubious to say the least, but when the argument is essentially "OK we were wrong, but we would have been right if you hadn't done what we told you to do, so we were right after all" you realise it's pointless arguing.

Glad some people think it was all worthwhile.

How were they "wrong" when it's a hypothetical? They said (quoting you) "the UK would see 250,000 deaths in the absence of tighter measures". So they weren't wrong, they were talking about an outcome that didn't happen. That's like you saying "West Ham will lose unless we start Antonio", then we start Antonio and win, and me saying "ha, you were wrong".

I would respond to your other comment but there's no actual argument in it. I will however make a prediction that you also feel the BBC are biased against your general political viewpoint.

this is the full quote:

"The misleading "17,000" figure was spread by influential accounts online. On 14 January, former Islamist turned counter-extremism activist Maajid Nawaz tweeted that the figures were evidence of "narrative collapse", implying the larger reported death figures were not genuine.

Then on 20 January, Dr John Campbell, a retired nurse educator who has amassed a huge following on YouTube, released a video describing the figures as a "huge story" and suggested Covid deaths were "much lower than mainstream media seems to have been intimating"


it's 100% clear what this article is trying to achieve by framing him in this context and has absolutely nothing to do with "hard truth", nor was their hysteric fear mongering when the hard data regarding omicron coming from SA that dr john neutrally communicated to us painted a very different picture.

You still haven't given any indication why this article is wrong in any way. I watched the first five minutes of the video you shared and neither does he- I don't know if he's burying the lede or if that's just his style.

What I know for sure is true is that many people took this "only 17,000 Covid deaths" idea literally and spread it around the internet. I don't know if any of them came from this Youtuber, though looking at his follower count it seems likely.