Archer-181 wrote:
I have gone really deeply into the Vaccine data. I also have regular discussions with my Doctor friend. Apart from the ONS data, there does seem to be the definite spike of infections 3 weeks after the jab.
Archer-181 wrote:
The curves which show the initial infectious period of virus shedding show absolutely no difference between Vaccinated and the Unvaxxed.
Could you post a reference to this data? Like a link or a identifiable citation of a research paper?
Archer-181 wrote:
In the 1950’s this would have just been another bad Flu season.
Most likely; it would have been the worst flu season this side of the 1918 pandemic by a factor of at least ten or so, though, so it isn’t obvious what the reaction would have been to the severity. But certainly the hysteria/abundance of precaution (take your pick…) about variants and case numbers would not have occurred, policy would have been mostly driven by hospitalisation and deaths.
Cobalt wrote:
Most likely; it would have been the worst flu season this side of the 1918 pandemic by a factor of at least ten or so, though, so it isn’t obvious what the reaction would have been to the severity. But certainly the hysteria/abundance of precaution (take your pick…) about variants and case numbers would not have occurred, policy would have been mostly driven by hospitalisation and deaths.
The obvious questions about this are what would have happened with a virus like this in the 1950ties, when ICU capabilities and the ability to test, let alone vaccinations, were not anywhere where they are today. Countless people have been saved by todays capabilities so the carnage a virus like this would have caused in the 50ties would have been a sight worse.
The question however is what would really have happened in terms of herd immunisation, with practically no protections and no vaccinations in place. Would we have seen one giant wave which kills maybe 10-30% of the population and be done? I honestly have no idea. I can not even begin to imagine this kind of virus being let loose at a practically unprepared and unprotected population.
However, the question also is whether it would have happened at all, seeing that in the 1950ties travel was not anywhere as commonplace. Would the virus really have been able to spread world wide or just have ravaged Wohan and the other core places it did? The spread in this case here most definitly was caused by commercial air travel and the globalized trade system, which brought the virus from Wohan to Italy and Germany. In the 1950ties, this kind of international travel just started to exist, mass travel like today only started in the 1980ties really.
The other question is, how governments would have regulated the pandemic, once they reckognized it as such, which probably would have taken a lot longer. The way I recall vaccination regimes e.t.c. in the 1960ties, where at least in Switzerland (and I believe in the UK as well) certain vaccinations were simply imposed without asking anyones consent and where people were much more trusting into the medical profession as well as their governments as in fake news 2021, would they have experienced the same kind of resistance and artificial prolongation by refusal to take the necessary measures?
In the end of course, the question will be, how much better did we do in 2020-2030, where the pandemic could in theory have been stopped when it started but was not due to the collapse of public order, refusal to support measures, refusal to vaccinate and therefore most probably infinite prolongation of the pandemic. Most of us won’t be there to know the answer to this as this pandemic as it goes will most likely rage on well beyond our lifetime.
Mooney_Driver wrote:
Everyone will get infected. Everyone. No exception.
That’s not controversial, is it? We’ve known for a long time that Covid-19 is going to be endemic.
What would have happened in 1950 is, of course, idle speculation…
You are absolutely right – hospital treatment not available 70 years ago might have significantly elevated the death rate – perhaps @Malibuflyer can tell us that, I have no idea what that treatment involves other than general system stabilisation, oxygen and ventilation.
There are other factors that might make a difference in either direction.
I doubt it would amount to a 10% killer, for that it would have to kill otherwise healthy individuals of all age groups, which it doesn’t.
[Please note that as always I am talking in orders of magnitude Covid-19 is OOM 1% of the population without vaccination; a bad flu season is 0.1%, a normal flu season is 0.01%. Humans are around 1m tall, the Earth has a 10,000 km diameter, etc]
It would, however, have spread around the world. The acute phase (during which increasingly more transmissible deadly strains are prevalent) has now gone on for two years; even in the 1600s it would have spread across the globe. The big issue here is the significant spread by people before onset of symptoms – even by a significant proportion of vaccinated or recovered and reinfected. There also is significant spread by people who never develop symptoms.
Of course stamping it out much harder in the early days could keep numbers under control. China, Australia, New Zealand and to a lesser degree Taiwan and Japan show that a combination of mask wearing, lockdowns, closed borders etc. can keep numbers low. But no country has been able to keep it out or once in, get rid of it entirely. All they can do is hold out for the vaccine or for the hoped-for, but not guaranteed highly infectious, “mild” strain. If that doesn’t work, the next more transmissible strain might well overwhelm them.
It’s hard to imagine what would have happened if the current Covid Virus appeared in 1950 (perhaps it did, but while international travel had been already sizeable this relates only to travel within continental Europe and between Europe, North America and the UK colonies – travel between Europe/US and China was much less so the path from a Chinese fish market to Europe would have been substantially longer).
People in the 50ies might have had less obesity and diabetes but therefor much more malnutrition and a generally much lower health status (one must not forget that life expectancy in the 50ies has been 10 years lower than today). Ventilation was still rudimentary compared to what it is today and we did not have things like ECMOs (which saves a lot of lifes these day) at all.
Indicator what might have happened is something between the russian flu (which killed 100.000 out of a population of about 35mn in UK; btw. latest research indicates that the Russioan Flu might have been a Corona-Virus and not a flu at all) and the Spanish Flu. Historic deatrh rates, however, have to be taken with massive grains of salt as death registers have been far less sophisticated than today and especially within the poor part of the population actually nobody cared.
What would have been completely different, however, would have been the approach to vaccination: Mandatory vaccinations have been a common thing and therefore as soon as a vaccine would have been available, people would have been vaccinated.
There are certainly some things we have not learnt or we have unlearnt over the years.
The so called Spanish flu of 1918 ( which had little or nothing to do with Spain) IIUC was believed to be brought back from soldiers returning from the war. Perhaps the word pandemic hadn’t even been thought of and maybe it too would have gone unnoticed (lack of mass communication) if it hadn’t been for the fact that so many children were killed by it. Records show that nearly every family in certain parts of the UK lost at least one child to it. Some lost more. But some historians say that there is no doubt that there were many (including politicians) who denied its dangers and others claimed ot was the natural order of things because some people were having far too many children.
Back in the 1950’s I well remember forming a line with the rest of my classmates as we were jabbed with one vaccination or another.
The authorities no doubt told our parents that the jabs were for our own good and we as children had no say in the matter. Not that we would ever have thought to say I’m not having that".Oh how things have changed kids challenge adults now, people say no to the government.Many know better than the doctors, scientists or whoever, even if they only have a Sunday School certificate to their name.
In the case of Covid 19, many protest any retrictions that impinge on new found freedoms or civil liberties. The people who actually fought to give us these liberties are mostly already dead, any left are in the high risk bracket for dying of Covid, and even their children are in that high risk bracket now.
The most frightening thing about Covid is: WE DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN.
Cobalt wrote:
China, Australia, New Zealand and to a lesser degree Taiwan and Japan show that a combination of mask wearing, lockdowns, closed borders etc. can keep numbers low. But no country has been able to keep it out or once in, get rid of it entirely. All they can do is hold out for the vaccine or for the hoped-for, but not guaranteed highly infectious, “mild” strain. If that doesn’t work, the next more transmissible strain might well overwhelm them.
Absolutely and that is why their zero covid tactics can only work over time if they get everyone vaccinated at the same time. Otherwise they will be in a worse situation than we are (if that is possible)
Malibuflyer wrote:
Indicator what might have happened is something between the russian flu (which killed 100.000 out of a population of about 35mn in UK; btw. latest research indicates that the Russioan Flu might have been a Corona-Virus and not a flu at all)
That one might be a very worthy research as it would show how a Corona virus behaves if unchecked.
Malibuflyer wrote:
What would have been completely different, however, would have been the approach to vaccination: Mandatory vaccinations have been a common thing and therefore as soon as a vaccine would have been available, people would have been vaccinated.
Absolutely. And our politicians should stop messing about and make them so again. This is about survival, not re-election.
gallois wrote:
The most frightening thing about Covid is: WE DON’T KNOW WHAT’S GOING TO HAPPEN.
Absolutely. And the very high frustration potential that new variants bring. This will get more and more people to simply give up.
A few weeks ago, we were relatively happy and felt save if vaccinated and could have a almost normal life again. All that is gone now with Omikron. It’s back to masks, lockdowns and testing even for vaccinated people. I fear that this will mean a lot more folks won’t bother, as they will see no immediate benefit anymore. While 2G was a good step to take, 2G+ may well be a massive step back. For this kind of thing, a full lockdown might be even less damaging.
BTW: As for Covid being a sickness of the fat and unvaccinated: Music lovers are shocked today about the death of Carlos Marin, one of the singers of Il Divo. Marin was 53, healthy and vaccinated, yet he succombed to Covid within a few days of having to be hospitalized in Manchester.
Maybe those who think they are invincible should think again.
The UK now has 12 deaths “with” the new variant, and the details are a closely guarded secret – presumably because if people found that that these 12 were [usual description of CV19 ICU occupancy] they might get the idea that this new variant isn’t much of a problem 
Even the Daily Trash has no info, and they are pretty good at digging up the dirt 
Peter wrote:
presumably because
I’d presume no CT but rather that 12 patients are a very small group for such a public topic and therefore any disclosure of medical data for those cases would be a significant intrusion into data privacy.
