UK Testing - Dont hold your breath - Page 2

Hi, 

  Yes, I understand that along with a lot of other countries the UK is only reporting covid19 deaths that occur in hospitals. 

I was in the UK from March 10th and I clearly remember the PM and others in government and public health warning us to follow social distancing guidelines, otherwise stricter measures would have to be introduced. The impression given in many posts was that nothing was being done, which is not correct.

Could the lockdown have been implemented quicker, yes. Would it have made a difference, possibly. The UK went into lockdown one day after Germany.

I listened to the link you supplied yesterday and that was very balanced, unlike some posts I have read recently.

Aitch.

You are right Ray, as you will remember many saying International Women's Day should not have gone ahead in Madrid and they should not have allowed A. Madrid to travel, with fans, to Liverpool on the 12th March.

Individual mistakes but were made by several countries but I only see the UK getting slated on this post. Regardless the facts are that the UK is showing stats that are no worse, if not better, than many countries in Europe. So the government and it's scientific advisors must be getting something right.

Aitch.

Hi Aitch,

"Regardless the facts are that the UK is showing stats that are no worse, if not better, than many countries in Europe."

I'm sorry, but if you'd seen Prof. Anthony Costello, UCL Institute for Global Health, give evidence at last Friday's Health and Social Care Select Committee, you would know your statement is incorrect.  Data modelling shows that the UK's trajectory of infections and deaths is currently on the same course as Italy; he also said that the UK is likely to have the worst death rate in Europe.

"So the government and it's scientific advisors must be getting something right."  

They are now, having U-turned on their unproven "herd immunity" strategy, but only time will tell how much damage has been done whilst they pursued a course of action that the WHO and top scientists told them was flawed.  Now they just(!) need to get PPE, testing, contact tracing and ventilators sorted 😔

Kind regards,

Kim

Look at the stats and you will see what I say is correct. It might change for the worse but that's an opinion, not a fact.  

The good news at the moment is that just all Europran countries are showing a reduction in deaths.

Aitch.

Hi Aitch,

You keep saying, "Look at the stats, I'm correct", but without explanation.  

Here are some facts for you: based on today's reported numbers, a selection of country death rates as a percentage of their infection rates:

Italy             13.33%

UK               13.24%

Spain          10.42%

Germany      3.42%

So what do these facts tell you please? 

Kind regards,

Kim

Hi Kim,

        the stats I refer to are the death rates I referred earlier in this thread, my post yesterday. To save you looking back the link is:

www.worldometers.info

 Death rate per million of population is given by country, take a look. I The site is updated daily from the officially released government figures. 

Aitch.

Hi Aitch,

I've been looking at that website daily for weeks and the only conclusion I feel can be safely drawn from it is the pattern of progression of the disease in-country when compared to each other.

As you didn't answer my question about a specific data set, let me ask you the same question about the data you've chosen, i.e. Death rate per 1m head of population (yesterday's numbers, as not all countries' data has been updated yet for today):

USA           128

Spain         446

Italy            399

France       310

Germany     58

UK              243

What do these facts tell you please?

Kind regards,

Kim

Hi, what the facts tell is each country's death rate per million of population. I believe this is a more accurate rate than using numbers of people infected as infection rates also take into account the number of people tested. Those testing numbers vary greatly by country. 

Rgds,

Aitch.

Ray, the figures in the website are over many weeks and individual hiccups in figures will balance out over time.

Yes, the UK figures are hospital deaths, as are many other countries. 

I have not seen anyone querying the US figures, where did you read that?

Aitch.

What the figures tell us, Aitch, is that any one of those data sets, taken in isolation, can tell a different story (and, being humans, many will pick the set that best suits their argument).  However, my belief is that these figures only start to make sense when they're ALL built into a computer model; even then, they have to be constantly updated as they evolve.  Sophisticated algorithms are written to represent non-numercial data, i.e. processes (in this case, individual intervention strategies such as contact tracing, testing, isolation, etc.), so that the approaches taken by each country in managing the disease in their own geography can also be included in the model, for comparison. Even if we assumed that all the data by country on Worldometer is correct, it isn't sufficient information to say that the UK "is doing at least as well, if not better" than other countries, without computer modelling.

So, back to my original complaint about the UK government's approach to how they intially dealt with Covid-19: their "60% herd immunity" theory - it had nothing to do with these statistics.  It was based on assumptions about previous pandemics, even though, like the rest of the world, the UK government knew this was a "novel" coronavirus, something we had never seen before.  The WHO and countries ahead of the UK on the infection curve were saying, in particular Italy, "don't make the same mistake we did", yet they still persisted with their herd immunity theory and delayed taking the most effective action, i.e. lockdown, until computer modelling proved their initial approach to be flawed.

I'm sorry, I know this isn't what you want to hear.  I know you'd rather I say that the UK government has handled this superbly, but I'm afraid the evidence does not support that.

Kind regards,

Kim