Coronavirus

[sendô]

Apparently scientists being cautious that Omicron is mild was racist.

Then again, isn't everything these days?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-60039138

"It seems like high-income countries are much more able to absorb bad news that comes from countries like South Africa," said Prof Shabir Madhi, a vaccine expert at Johannesburg's University of the Witwatersrand.

"When we're providing good news, all of a sudden there's a whole lot of scepticism. I would call that racism."

[Hummer_I_mean_Hammer]

^^^ TBF I know some people who had an attitude of 'what do those Africans know?', when I asked them about HK or China they said that they'd be much more advanced and would trust their research more.

I had to direct them to that documentary about Africa... the black panther or something.

[RichieRiv]

Put it this way, if I had to choose between the NHS and South African medical care, I would go with the latter. SA has some of the most advanced health care in the world.

[Hummer_I_mean_Hammer]

Put it this way, if I had to choose between the NHS and South African medical care, I would go with the latter. SA has some of the most advanced health care in the world.

Yeah, but you'd have to go private wouldn't you?

[sendô]

Put it this way, if I had to choose between the NHS and South African medical care, I would go with the latter. SA has some of the most advanced health care in the world.

I dunno, that's quite the ambulance ride.

[RichieRiv]

Yeah, but you'd have to go private wouldn't you?

Yeah of course, but thanks to a low cost of living and an ever weak ZAR it's not actually that expensive. One night's stay in hospital is going to cost you £96 a day.

Admittedly it's a bit of a trek but when I had to have a tooth implant, which was a result of fracturing the tooth whilst in Jo'burg, my Saffer dentist here in the UK said his cousin would have done it for a 3rd of the price in SA and if I were traveling there regularly we could split the treatment to lower the costs.

It's a bit extreme as 12 hours there and back, but it's always interesting making the comparison.

Mrs RR has had to resort to a private GP this week as our surgery appear to be unable to answer the phone and even a visit to the surgery resulted in no appointment for 3 weeks as the receptionist didn't consider it an emergency.

People talk about privatisation of the NHS, but I think it's a case of it heading that way because they simply cannot get the treatment they require from the NHS. I fear that unless things change, then we are heading towards a US-style model simply out of necessity.

[Hummer_I_mean_Hammer]

People talk about privatisation of the NHS, but I think it's a case of it heading that way because they simply cannot get the treatment they require from the NHS. I fear that unless things change, then we are heading towards a US-style model simply out of necessity.

Might have been £96/night, then the costs of return flights, etc. I know people were flying out to Eastern Europe for dental and cosmetic works as it was much cheaper - in fact that's where I had my eyes lazered as it was the more expensive version (the back of the eye, rather than the front of the lens) and was relatively cheap. That said I was living the at the time.

As for privatisation of the NHS covid has conveniently pushed that further along, all primary care suspended unless covid related, etc. PCNs being set up to consolidate all local primary care, rushed governments funding for PCNs, but spend now or lose it, etc. Won't be long before people are forced into private just so that they have any chance of seeing a doctor.(edit: Just seen that I have just repeated what you said... )

[Crouchend_Hammer]

Mrs RR has had to resort to a private GP this week as our surgery appear to be unable to answer the phone and even a visit to the surgery resulted in no appointment for 3 weeks as the receptionist didn't consider it an emergency.

I pay a yearly subscription for a private GP.
Means you can have phone or in-person appointments as many times as you want, whenever you want them - plus they can prescribe medication, refer you to specialists, organise diagnostics etc

They will also do home visits, although that does cost extra

I don't particularly like having to pay it but it has proved valuable for me and my family over the past year

[Hummer_I_mean_Hammer]

I don't particularly like having to pay it but it has proved valuable for me and my family over the past year

One more reason I'm p*seed off with IR35, had to shut down my company so lost this little gem myself.

[Kev59]

People who died "with" Covid = 152,000
People who died "of" Covid..... = 17,000
And "probably" 50,000 excess deaths caused by cancer

Media haven't reported on it yet. They're still busy reporting from some hospital nurse who says that they are about to be overwhelmed due to the restrictions being lifted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UHvwWWcjYw&t=9s

[Burnley Hammer]

People who died "with" Covid = 152,000
People who died "of" Covid..... = 17,000
And "probably" 50,000 excess deaths caused by cancer

Media haven't reported on it yet. They're still busy reporting from some hospital nurse who says that they are about to be overwhelmed due to the restrictions being lifted.

Not quite. It's 17,000 covid deaths with no underlying health conditions... those that did have underlying health conditions may still have died 'of' covid

[Burnley Hammer]

The mortality rates of healthy vs unhealthy vs very unhealthy (however they're defined) has been available before now, although admittedly not very easy to find:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/visualisations/d ... nload.xlsx

[Burnley Hammer]

Just tried plotting the data from above on a graph, which is for the 18 to 39 age range. It does show that mortality rates amongst the healthy were extremely low in comparison with those with poorer health - regardless of vaccination status. As for the effect of one dose and two doses on the unhealthier of the population... I'm not really sure what to make of it. It's all over the ****ing place! If anyone else wants a go then feel free - I've most probably done something wrong

All health categories - GH = Good Health, PH = Poor Health, VPH = Very Poor Health. Vertical Axis is mortality per 100,000 people.



And just the 'healthy' category:



Edit: from the notes:

Good Health is where the number of recorded hospital episodes since 1 January 2020 is less than 3 and the number of comorbidities recorded from 1 January 2010 to 1 January 2020 is 0,
Poor Health is where the number of hospital episodes is less than 12 and the number of comorbidities is less than 2
Very Poor Health is all other cases.

The percentages of 18-39 year olds in our dataset with very poor, poor, and good health are 6.4%, 5.3% and 88.4% respectively.

[RichieRiv]

Make your own minds up....

[666 hammer]

Very interesting Burnley Hammer. That graph seems to indicate no vaccine is better than 1. And if healthy not required, in fact it is a little worse.

[Burnley Hammer]

Very interesting Burnley Hammer. That graph seems to indicate no vaccine is better than 1. And if healthy not required, in fact it is a little worse.

I find it odd that the mortality rate for one jab shoots up in october for healthy people and people with very poor health, and yet the mortality rate for unvaccinated doesn't. The whole thing is odd though... .if I take the recent figures from the vaccine surveillance reports then I get very consistent figures exactly as you'd expect (apart from the U18 figures which are a bit unusual). These figures here though just seem really random.

If correct though, it does show that the difference between a vaccinated and unvaccinated healthy person pales into insignificance when comparing with the difference between an unhealthy person and a healthy person regardless of vaccination status.

['Appy 'Ammer]

Who else is pissed off that they have lifted the work from home guidance?

My company could not wait to announce the return in an email yesterday. I deleted it. Don't want to go back. Luckily we are being given the option of hybrid or remote coming in soon

[Denbighammer]

Am I the only one who thinks something decidedly odd is going on?

Why are the media not getting wound up about the death numbers we've had the last few days? 300+ again yesterday. I'm sure that this weeks dead will be miles up on last week's.

They seem to have gone back to being fixated by case numbers, which have dropped. However, have they not dropped only because testing has been drastically reduced? After two years of Doom and gloom, what warrants the sudden positivity?

['Appy 'Ammer]

^^^^^ Money. Get back to work you lousy animals, my pension pot is ragged in commercial property. Says Party doners.

[Burnley Hammer]

Am I the only one who thinks something decidedly odd is going on?

Why are the media not getting wound up about the death numbers we've had the last few days? 300+ again yesterday. I'm sure that this weeks dead will be miles up on last week's.

They seem to have gone back to being fixated by case numbers, which have dropped. However, have they not dropped only because testing has been drastically reduced? After two years of Doom and gloom, what warrants the sudden positivity?

This is deaths within 28 days though which was always going to be higher due to the sheer number of infections. The deaths with covid mentioned on the death certificate figure looks to be around 3 times smaller - about 100. There's a lag with this figure but it looks like they've just updated it recently. It was stuck on 31st December for a while but now goes up to 7th January.