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The U.K. is having startlingly massive numbers of covid positive cases.
Many of them are children, recently returned to school.
So, how come this happens in the U.K. but not in Poland, Germany, Italy, France or Spain?“So, how come this happens in the U.K. but not in Poland, Germany, Italy, France or Spain?”
Maybe you can tell us what you think about that MN? You ask many questions but rarely reply to any answers given.
Germany has done 836,725 tests / million.
U.K. has done 4,331,536 tests / million.
So, the U.K. has so far conducted more than five times the rate of Germany.
So, either over testing by U.K. or under testing by Germany.Chris Whitty has claimed every child will catch covid, unless they are vaccinated, then they still might catch it. The U.K. claims 7,565,864 cases of confirmed covid, Germany claims 4,185,633 cases of confirmed covid. Germany has a much bigger population than does the U.K.
So, either they will have more Delta cases in the coming weeks or they are ignoring covid, in those people who do not show symptoms, or people are more reluctant to get tested for covid in Germany?Michael, I think you’ve identified one of the major reasons for the sort of discrepancies between the figures for various countries that you pointed out earlier.
– “So, either over testing by U.K. or under testing by Germany.”
What do you think the correct level of testing is? Tell me what you think, then I’ll tell you what I think. I suppose a closely related question is, what is the purpose of testing?
Or rather (correcting myself as an afterthought), what are the various purposes and benefits of testing?
BTW Denmark has 14 mil tests /per million
?Few weeks ago We went to a funeral to Denmark.
After a funeral some of us went to the restaurant but a young guy did’t have vaccine “passeport” so he was asked
to get a test. Free test was just around a corner. By the time I had 2 cigarrettes and a pint in front of the restaurant he got results on his mobile and we went in. Similar experience my wife had few months ago. She had to take a test before having a lunch in the restaurant. testing was just down the road for free.No wonder Danes are at 14 mil/mil and death 500/mill
“So, either they will have more Delta cases in the coming weeks or they are ignoring covid”
Or, they just have fewer cases. Have a look here and look at positivity rates and number of tests per confirmed case (and indeed, all the other data sets). France does 70 tests per confirmed case and the UK 30. Looked at it that way you could say France is overtesting compared to UK. The positivity rate is 1.4% in France and 3.3% in UK and 7.5% in Germany.
Clark – September 24, 2021 at 20:02
If you make covid vaccine, you want to keep on making covid vaccine.
If you make covid face masks, you want to keep on making covid face masks.
If you are a private firm, doing covid tests, you want to keep on testing for covid.
Some people/groups have been hanging on to a money tree and they do not want to release their grasp.As more than three quarters are now effectively immune from death by covid, this pandemic is winding down in Europe.
So far, nearly 90% of people in the U.K. aged 16 and over, have had their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine and more than 82% have had their second.
– If you make covid vaccine, you want to keep on making covid vaccine.
– If you make covid face masks, you want to keep on making covid face masks.
– If you are a private firm, doing covid tests, you want to keep on testing for covid.Maybe we need to reconsider capitalism. It’s true that it motivates a lot of productivity, but everything gets done, not for its own sake but for reasons that aren’t relevant to the activity it motivates.
Michael, beware speaking too soon about the pandemic winding down. That certainly isn’t how it looks to the doctors and medical staff. They get overloaded every winter, and the major part of that is ‘flu and the like. But due to lockdowns, those were nearly absent last winter, so they’re likely to be back with a vengeance this time.
Plus, vaccine immunity fades. This is gradual and there’s no clear line, but the timescale I keep hearing is “about six months”. Because the UK’s vaccine rollout started early, that six months is coming due for a lot of people just as we enter winter and everyone’s indoors. And this winter, it looks like the UK will have trouble keeping the heating on.
We could be deep in the shit; this is not the time to let down our guard.
Clark – September 25, 2021 at 01:01
“As we start to learn from our various responses to covid-19, it is critical that we explore beyond how many tests were completed and which businesses were closed, and consider what efforts were made to address the specific needs of communities on the margins. Guidance documents dating back decades suggested the need for testing to be linked to interventions and the importance of an equity lens given socioeconomic inequities and structural racism. Ultimately, an enduring lesson of covid-19 will be that our strategies didn’t leverage core surveillance principles, and as a result they—either by design or by accident—better protected wealthier communities. And in that, they have been a resounding success.”
https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2021/04/16/covid-19-testing-programs-who-benefits/
It has been obvious to almost everyone that this impacts people who live in houses of multiple occupation, very hard.
It impacts, those who can not afford to lose daily income, possibly meaning they steer clear of testing.
It impacts people (illegal or otherwise) who want nothing to do with officialdom.
It impacts those of very low intelligence.
It impacts those nearing the end of their lives.But Clark’s question is what are the purposes of covid testing?
I think the main purpose was for the government/NHS to make strategic decisions.
Michael, that’s an excellent link, and I thoroughly agree with your observations beneath it.
Testing was eventually deployed, but where was the economic help for the poor and the vulnerable? It is impossible for anyone to take advantage of a test if they have to work or starve, or if there’s no quarantine refuge so they can protect those with whom they share housing.
– “I think the main purpose was for the government/NHS to make strategic decisions.”
I agree, that is how it was used in the UK, whereas in New Zealand, Australia, China and various islands it was used with trace-and-test to suppress community transmission.
In suppression using trace-and-test, the correct number of tests is “enough to test everyone potentially exposed”, and it can be relatively low. In strategic management, it’s “the more, the better”, because more tests always yield more detail of where the virus is spreading and within which demographics.
Strategic management is more expensive than suppression using trace-and-test in every way. It costs more lives, more hospital resources, more tests, more damage to the economy, more time spent under lockdown.
The initial budget for the U.K. Test and Trace service was £15 billion, rising to £22bn in November 2020, and a further £15bn was allocated for 2021–22 to bring the total for the two years to £37bn.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHS_Test_and_Trace#Lighthouse_labs
That is BIG MONEY!
Almost all of the work is outsourced to consultants and contractors!I might have quoted on my facebook wrong Data and do not like it.
https://vaccinetracker.ecdc.europa.eu/public/extensions/COVID-19/vaccine-tracker.html#uptake-tabAccording to this I am right but if I go to Our World in Data gives me:
https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations?country=OWID_WRL.According to one cca 90% and the other 75%.
It is a big difference.After checking Michael’s claim of 90% in UK over 18’s and Our World in Data (67%) probably it’s % of total population in Our World in Data. TBH annoying.
Why is Westminster lifting restrictions?
Vaccines are not 100% efficient but nevertheless provide less hospitalisation. If most of the population is vaccinated there will be less hospitalisation (and the system might cope) and people infected with weak symptoms might develop natural immunity. IMHO we gave up eradicating it and are going for herd immunity with manageable deaths. I just hope that vaccinated will be a very small %.
2 weeks ago Denmark lifted all restrictions.
My wife is Danish so we keep an eye on Motherland ?.Just looking at the thread for the first time in a while, and it appears that not a single conspiracy theorist wants to tackle the fact that all restrictions have been lifted.
Is this just something they want to ignore? Has the Real Conspiracy gone elsewhere now?
It might be useful to tell anti-vaxxers that they have fallen for a real scam perpetrated by the pharmaceutical industry. By encouraging people not to get vaccinated, they are going to make vastly more money out of the drugs needed to treat them when they get ill! Furthermore, a low take-up of vaccine is likely to encourage that vaccines be mandated, so then they’ll get to sell even more of them. Poor fools! They should get vaccinated at once, putting an end to this fiendish lie.
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Incidentally – and Clark might be interested in this in particular – a shrink called Lifton came up with a concept in the 1960s called the “Thought terminating cliche”. This would cover phrases like “follow the money”, “do your own research”, “that’s just your opinion”, and so on.It stops any progression of a discussion in its tracks. They are meant to put the burden of proof straight back onto the opponent, requiring nothing from the individual advancing a non-conventional notion, while implying the questioner of it is lazy, ignorant, probably gullible and lacking in the deep knowledge that allows the proposer to dismiss questions or even debate.
This works very well with cults – it prevents thoughts of a reality-based nature intruding on individuals. Q-Anon is full of this sort of thing, along with the anti-vaxxer, science denying flat-earthers in general.
Glenn_nl, thanks.
So far, in the United Kingdom about 90% of people aged 16 and over have had their first dose of a coronavirus vaccine.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274
We are now jabbing Secondary age school children.
A couple of days ago, I saw masses of children, in uniform, swanning about, with glee on their faces, the only thing that made sense, was they had been jabbed, then allowed to leave school early.“Our World in Data (67%) probably it’s % of total population”
It is, Pigeon English; I guess that way they could make meaningful comparisons. On the other hand, it’s not unreasonable of UK and other countries to quote the percentage of people vaccinated within their targeted population. As they didn’t target under 18s initially I don’t think you can fault how they presented those figures.
“IMHO we gave up eradicating it and are going for herd immunity with manageable deaths.”
I don’t think it’s just your opinion. On the IoM the government stated publically they were moving from an elimination strategy to a mitigation strategy. Look how New Zealand was ridiculed in the MSM for continuing an elimination strategy and also by Australia’s Prime Minister. Ireland’s politicians are saying the same thing, effectively planning for an endemic disease. The world missed its chance to eradicate it (politically if not theoretically).
Clark will say it could still be done and I agree with him but it won’t be.
Russia seems to be doing rather badly, lately.
They now have the highest number of deaths in Europe from/with covidU.K. covid deaths = 136,168
Russia covid deaths = 203,900U.K. ICU = 916
Russia ICU = 2,300U.K. Deaths / million = 1,993
Russia Deaths / million = 1,396It might still be possible to eliminate SARS-CoV-2; it depends how much it has got into animal populations, and how well it transmits back from them.
The real tragedy is that due to late action, millions have become convinced that lockdown is pointless, so if an even nastier variant turns up our major defence will have been undermined.
Serial passage in communities of humanised mice in which only older mice had been vaccinated turned up a variant that was lethal to adolescents and younger. I’m reminded of the plagues that God sent against the Egyptians in the Old Testament.
I went next door, last evening to ask for an onion, the woman told me that all her three children, now have covid, neither the man or woman have been jabbed, they thought they were too young and fit for it to bother them.
I hope they were right, for if they stay living in the same house as their children, they will catch it.MN
Not necessarily. Friend of mine, brother in law had it but wife (friend sister did not).
In his ex wife family similar bizarre events occurred (some people got it others did not) some people he was worried had it easy, other fit and young hard.Gllen nl
Antivaxxers fell for the biggest scam of them all. Vaccines are a plot to depopulate the Earth so they are not taking it. Real plot is to get rid off Antivaxxers?.
The U.K. seems to have very high numbers of covid positive cases compared to the rest of Europe?
U.K. = +37,960
France = +1,309
Germany = +4,814
Poland = +421
Italy = +1,772
Spain = +1,679
Ukraine = +3,007Makes you wonder why the U.K. is doing so badly?
