@hmng is it your opion that a) there are very few deaths above and beyond the normal number of deaths in a particular country and therefore Covid 19 is not a pandemic? b) The 12% of deaths which are recorded as Covid 19 deaths are basically equal to the number of deaths that would happen in a normal flue season?
Have you considered the number of road traffic accidents and work related accidents which are no longer occurring due to lockdowns and if not would that skew your figures.
All being so IMO you argue your case well, so do you think that the government and its scientific advisers have not seen these figures or are ignoring them for one reason or another?
Or is it your point that the public is at fault for misinterpreting the numbers of deaths being reported each day and we should carry on as usual.
This is not an attack I am genuinely interested and could even come round to your way of thinking if I could understand what graphs and statistics really were saying.
The debate may be highly polarized now, but I’m still interested to understand the exact reasoning of @hmng.
Going back say 5 months. Rumors of a highly contagious virus for which there is no cure or vaccine in a country which is not known for its openness.
So if you would have ruled the world what exactly would you have done?
hmng wrote:
Remember that only 12% of death certificates showed a direct link of death from Covid.
The question is what that means as different countries use different methods and criteria for establishing the link. E.g. a representative for Norway’s health authority has said that their number of “Covid-19 deaths” would be higher if they reported in the same way as Sweden does.
Airborne_Again wrote:
E.g. a representative for Norway’s health authority has said that their number of “Covid-19 deaths” would be higher if they reported in the same way as Sweden does.
Any reference? As far as I know, Norway report it the same way as Germany, UK, Netherlands, Denmark etc.
aart wrote:
So if you would have ruled the world what exactly would you have done?
Shut down travel to that country or to the place if it can be better defined. Check every single passenger coming from that country on arrival and put them in quarantine for 14 days as is done now. If some get through the net, isolate them, trace their contacts, possibly shut down the immediate community where they have been exposed to.
At that time, this would most probably have stopped the whole thing from ever leaving china in larger numbers. And hopefully, that is how a next such scenario will be dealt with.
Apart: Keep the stocks of critical materials well under control and make sure no beancounter in hospitals and state organisations decide it’s too expensive to keep the pre-defined number of masks e.t.c. This particular item will most probably result in a criminal investigation in this country. There should never have been a shortage of masks and protective gear, but there was because bureaucrats disregarded the law.
LeSving wrote:
Any reference? As far as I know, Norway report it the same way as Germany, UK, Netherlands, Denmark etc.
Interview with Trine Hessevik Paulsen from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health here: https://www.svd.se/dodstal-kunde-varit-hogre-om-vi-raknat-som-sverige
The article is behind a paywall, but the relevant part is (translated into English)
“In Sweden, the regional health authorities check the lists of people infected with the corona virus against the population register — meaning that everyone who died and have tested positive for the virus are counted. In Norway, the physicians report deaths to the Institute of Public Health by phone.
– We could have a higher number of registered cases if we counted the way Sweden does, says Trine Hessevik Paulsen."
Just to avoid misunderstandings: In no way does the article suggest that this accounts for the whole difference in death figures between Norway and Sweden. That Norway has succeeded better in preventing spread of the virus to institutions for the elderly is an important factor.
I wonder whether it is true that the Chinese wet markets are fully back in operation?
I wonder havinng read Biology at University if there is any more risk with one virus now hugely embedded in the population, another coronavirus would have even greater opportunity to to exchange RNA and result in another variant?
It seems to me this biological RNA pool closely exposed to humans must stop, and not in six months or a year, when the politicians get around to it, but must stop NOW.
I wonder how long should this happen it would take to pick up a new variant of the virus, but which might render the work on vaccines of little value?
I wonder?
aart wrote:
Going back say 5 months. Rumors of a highly contagious virus for which there is no cure or vaccine in a country which is not known for its openness.So if you would have ruled the world what exactly would you have done?
The case in December is not different as the situation today or at the end of the lockdown, you could always argue there is limited data and too early to judge now or in December, but surely even back then once you start getting a steady plus 25% infected everyday this suggest an epidemic where suppression is no longer effective so you have to lockdown, but hey someone is telling me don’t worry this is a random up/down thingy I can see it using a 10 years historical graph, but they fails to tell me when they think it will stop, revert or level off but we may know for sure in one month 
Doing nothing is obviously about 1bn people infected in one month you don’t need a PhD for that, locking down everything only means the problem is shifted few months down the road while some technology/capacity emerges…
The only thing that could have been done differently is suppressing the virus early in Dec but once this is out on +25% pace everyday on every country you have to lockdown, once this is back to +1% you can pursue suppression again if ever that happens again but I highly doubt this will ever happen (China/SK did not manage this in Dec or now)
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Shut down travel to that country or to the place if it can be better defined. Check every single passenger coming from that country on arrival and put them in quarantine for 14 days as is done now. If some get through the net, isolate them, trace their contacts, possibly shut down the immediate community where they have been exposed to.
Even if that was possible at a political level that would not have worked. We now now that you can be asymptomatic, you can also be negative, after being positive and then become positive again. Possibly because the virus can reactivate AFAIK.
Its a catch-22 situation, you can’t have a detailed understanding and the supporting testing technology/regime for a novel virus. This last statement hold true for eternity, which is why you need to be adaptable.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Apart: Keep the stocks of critical materials well under control and make sure no beancounter in hospitals and state organisations decide it’s too expensive to keep the pre-defined number of masks e.t.c. This particular item will most probably result in a criminal investigation in this country. There should never have been a shortage of masks and protective gear, but there was because bureaucrats disregarded the law.
Yes, that will come soon for sure after the mess, a heavy “sanitary regulation” (view it the same way as “banking regulation” in 2010 or “aviation regulation” in 1970, 1990)
