Coronavirus - Here come the variants

[Bandage]

Our head office on the continent now has “home” testing kits in the office. Staff can use them, as and when they like, and are not compelled to report test results to HR. However, if you test positive you must leave the building immediately, get an official test ASAP and self isolate if it comes back positive too.

[ironmoth]

Christ above. I feel a lookalike coming on…

[Gman]

Marie 🇮🇪 💚☘ (DubhLinn76)

[myboyblue]

More than 600 positive Covid-19 cases have been identified through temporary walk-in testing centres that have been set up at locations around the country for people without symptoms, a Govt briefing has heard `

[Fagan_ODowd]

Old Normal Or Nothing (NothingOld)

[Fagan_ODowd]

Leo Varadkar: ICU numbers to be below 50 before we reopen | Newstalk

We are at 48.

[glasagusban]

PINTS!

[glenshane]

Ah, but new variants

[Fagan_ODowd]

@glenshane

Ah, but new variants

Think there were variants when he gave that interview

[TheBlackSpot]

@Batigol

the only way we would know was through stamps in their passport. That’s where a passport card comes in handy.

Passports! Passport cards! Next thing they’ll want us to carry vaccination cards/passports. A serious assault on our fundamental freedoms and human rights.

Down with this sort of thing!

[Malarkey]

@Fagan_ODowd

@Malarkey

@Tank

@Malarkey

@the_man_himself

Is excess deaths not the best parameter to look at?

No. Because it is infection rates that clog up, in the first instance, normal society.

With respect, is the point of the excess deaths figure not that it is an attempt to quantify the effects of that very clogging up?

Another fair query and so I will try to address it, best as I can. Have never said other than that I can muster hardly any certainties about this whole terrible process. I specified measures, typically emergency measures, a consideration for which infection rates are far more significant than ‘excess death’ rates.

First of all, ‘excess death rate’ is not the same as Covid-linked or Covid-caused ‘death rate’. To measure excess deaths against average deaths, typically done on an annual basis, you obviously require time – and time is precisely what this virus, where delay for a few days could be hugely significant three and four weeks later, does not allow. Beyond a certain point, infection rates are maths.

Item: Boris Johnson, in late 2020, was levered by his backbenchers into opening back up much more swiftly and much more broadly than was advisable. As that ordure hit the fan, his backbenchers kept a safe distance and went notably quiet. They are your basic fuckwits, Charles Walker very much included.

Now the fuckwits return, making the same noises as last year, having learned nothing. While part of this dynamic is pandering to stupidity, plenty of the dynamic is twinned ideological discomfort, unease about deep state action being required and unease about conceding that the earth is ultimately sovereign, not homo sapiens. Or is it mere coincidence that climate change deniers and Brexiteers are nearly to a man anti lockdown bugles? Among Brexit’s key aspects was an attempt to deny that nature, via geography, is sovereign, not homo Farage.

The bane of left wing perspectives is self righteousness and torpor. The bane of right wing perspectives is impatience and recklessness. My attitude is pragmatism, a case by case analysis. Lile any sensible person, I cannot countenance the chaos that would unfold from simply opening up society and letting the virus do its thing. Loons here deny this path is what they want, offering guff instead of logic. But King Ignoramus let that mask slip last night. All the while, they give no thought to the legal implications of compelling people to accept risk by going to work.

Impatience, as I say…

The loons are chidish, into the bargain. Ever present in their toxic melange is hostility, during crisis, to anyone with a public sector job. During boom, those same people sneer at anyone so unambitious as to work in the public sector.

Childishness, as I say…

Therefore I could not believe, logistically or ethically, ‘herd immunity’ via rampant infection rates was ever a runner. To say this option is an economic magic bullet remains the prerogative of loons, whether via The Barrington Declaration or on the internet. A lot of people have shown their truest colours over the last 12 months – and the timbre of those colours can never now be bleached.

The ‘excess deaths’ canard essentially tries to say: ‘These people, in actuarial terms, would have died in any case. We cannot do away with death blah blah blah.’ This statement is incredibly stupid in any terms you like. First, modified behaviour will modify actuarial outcomes, short term and long term. The Japanese live longer in large part because of their diet. Second, at a far more immediate level, lots of people did not die last winter of flu because Covid precautions doubled as flu precautions. This hardly complex factor gets ignored by the loons when they prate about ‘excess deaths’.

I mean, does it not speak volumes that Dominic Cummings, King Loon, backed away from the herd immunity route? With no whispering involved?

@Malarkey

@Tank

@Malarkey

@the_man_himself

Is excess deaths not the best parameter to look at?

No. Because it is infection rates that clog up, in the first instance, normal society.

With respect, is the point of the excess deaths figure not that it is an attempt to quantify the effects of that very clogging up?

Another fair query and so I will try to address it, best as I can. Have never said other than that I can muster hardly any certainties about this whole terrible process. I specified measures, typically emergency measures, a consideration for which infection rates are far more significant than ‘excess death’ rates.

First of all, ‘excess death rate’ is not the same as Covid-linked or Covid-caused ‘death rate’. To measure excess deaths against average deaths, typically done on an annual basis, you obviously require time – and time is precisely what this virus, where delay for a few days could be hugely significant three and four weeks later, does not allow. Beyond a certain point, infection rates are maths.

Item: Boris Johnson, in late 2020, was levered by his backbenchers into opening back up much more swiftly and much more broadly than was advisable. As that ordure hit the fan, his backbenchers kept a safe distance and went notably quiet. They are your basic fuckwits, Charles Walker very much included.

Now the fuckwits return, making the same noises as last year, having learned nothing. While part of this dynamic is pandering to stupidity, plenty of the dynamic is twinned ideological discomfort, unease about deep state action being required and unease about conceding that the earth is ultimately sovereign, not homo sapiens. Or is it mere coincidence that climate change deniers and Brexiteers are nearly to a man anti lockdown bugles? Among Brexit’s key aspects was an attempt to deny that nature, via geography, is sovereign, not homo Farage.

The bane of left wing perspectives is self righteousness and torpor. The bane of right wing perspectives is impatience and recklessness. My attitude is pragmatism, a case by case analysis. Lile any sensible person, I cannot countenance the chaos that would unfold from simply opening up society and letting the virus do its thing. Loons here deny this path is what they want, offering guff instead of logic. But King Ignoramus let that mask slip last night. All the while, they give no thought to the legal implications of compelling people to accept risk by going to work.

Impatience, as I say…

The loons are chidish, into the bargain. Ever present in their toxic melange is hostility, during crisis, to anyone with a public sector job. During boom, those same people sneer at anyone so unambitious as to work in the public sector.

Childishness, as I say…

Therefore I could not believe, logistically or ethically, ‘herd immunity’ via rampant infection rates was ever a runner. To say this option is an economic magic bullet remains the prerogative of loons, whether via The Barrington Declaration or on the internet. A lot of people have shown their truest colours over the last 12 months – and the timbre of those colours can never now be bleached.

The ‘excess deaths’ canard essentially tries to say: ‘These people, in actuarial terms, would have died in any case. We cannot do away with death blah blah blah.’ This statement is incredibly stupid in any terms you like. First, modified behaviour will modify actuarial outcomes, short term and long term. The Japanese live longer in large part because of their diet. Second, at a far more immediate level, lots of people did not die last winter of flu because Covid precautions doubled as flu precautions. This hardly complex factor gets ignored by the loons when they prate about ‘excess deaths’.

I mean, does it not speak volumes that Dominic Cummings, King Loon, backed away from the herd immunity route? With no whispering involved?

Excess Mortality Blog #9

Link here to an attempt at a reasonably real time view on excess death posted by the Society of Actuaries

Thanks. I was aware that the ‘excess deaths’ marker had been ‘speeded up’. But it is instructive to see the process in action. Thanks still more.

Of course, my fundamental point is unchanged. Infection rates, not death rates of either kind, are what drive government responses and measures – and properly so, in my view. Government incompetence, of which we have seen plenty examples, is a separate issue.

People who emphasize ‘excess deaths’ figures are nigh invariably using such figures to argue for no form of lockdown at all on economic grounds. I find these exhortations risible, if only for the chaos that would result if they were heeded.

[Bisto]

I saw a person tweeting that if hotel quarantine gets shut down maybe we could sue people who bring the virus into the country and spread it …this really is the gift that keeps giving …

[johnnysachs]

Yes ICU numbers < 50, hospital numbers < 200 and cases <100 were the metrics being talked about in order for a relaxation. In this case though 2 out 3 is bad and the mining of asymptomatic cases in walk in centres will keep us in level 5 for another while yet. And of course you have the total curve ball with variants too.

[BruidheanChaorthainn]

Anybody know what happened their living with COVID plan and all the different levels?

[Fagan_ODowd]

@Malarkey

@Fagan_ODowd

@Malarkey

@Tank

@Malarkey

@the_man_himself

Is excess deaths not the best parameter to look at?

No. Because it is infection rates that clog up, in the first instance, normal society.

With respect, is the point of the excess deaths figure not that it is an attempt to quantify the effects of that very clogging up?

Another fair query and so I will try to address it, best as I can. Have never said other than that I can muster hardly any certainties about this whole terrible process. I specified measures, typically emergency measures, a consideration for which infection rates are far more significant than ‘excess death’ rates.

First of all, ‘excess death rate’ is not the same as Covid-linked or Covid-caused ‘death rate’. To measure excess deaths against average deaths, typically done on an annual basis, you obviously require time – and time is precisely what this virus, where delay for a few days could be hugely significant three and four weeks later, does not allow. Beyond a certain point, infection rates are maths.

Item: Boris Johnson, in late 2020, was levered by his backbenchers into opening back up much more swiftly and much more broadly than was advisable. As that ordure hit the fan, his backbenchers kept a safe distance and went notably quiet. They are your basic fuckwits, Charles Walker very much included.

Now the fuckwits return, making the same noises as last year, having learned nothing. While part of this dynamic is pandering to stupidity, plenty of the dynamic is twinned ideological discomfort, unease about deep state action being required and unease about conceding that the earth is ultimately sovereign, not homo sapiens. Or is it mere coincidence that climate change deniers and Brexiteers are nearly to a man anti lockdown bugles? Among Brexit’s key aspects was an attempt to deny that nature, via geography, is sovereign, not homo Farage.

The bane of left wing perspectives is self righteousness and torpor. The bane of right wing perspectives is impatience and recklessness. My attitude is pragmatism, a case by case analysis. Lile any sensible person, I cannot countenance the chaos that would unfold from simply opening up society and letting the virus do its thing. Loons here deny this path is what they want, offering guff instead of logic. But King Ignoramus let that mask slip last night. All the while, they give no thought to the legal implications of compelling people to accept risk by going to work.

Impatience, as I say…

The loons are chidish, into the bargain. Ever present in their toxic melange is hostility, during crisis, to anyone with a public sector job. During boom, those same people sneer at anyone so unambitious as to work in the public sector.

Childishness, as I say…

Therefore I could not believe, logistically or ethically, ‘herd immunity’ via rampant infection rates was ever a runner. To say this option is an economic magic bullet remains the prerogative of loons, whether via The Barrington Declaration or on the internet. A lot of people have shown their truest colours over the last 12 months – and the timbre of those colours can never now be bleached.

The ‘excess deaths’ canard essentially tries to say: ‘These people, in actuarial terms, would have died in any case. We cannot do away with death blah blah blah.’ This statement is incredibly stupid in any terms you like. First, modified behaviour will modify actuarial outcomes, short term and long term. The Japanese live longer in large part because of their diet. Second, at a far more immediate level, lots of people did not die last winter of flu because Covid precautions doubled as flu precautions. This hardly complex factor gets ignored by the loons when they prate about ‘excess deaths’.

I mean, does it not speak volumes that Dominic Cummings, King Loon, backed away from the herd immunity route? With no whispering involved?

@Malarkey

@Tank

@Malarkey

@the_man_himself

Is excess deaths not the best parameter to look at?

No. Because it is infection rates that clog up, in the first instance, normal society.

With respect, is the point of the excess deaths figure not that it is an attempt to quantify the effects of that very clogging up?

Another fair query and so I will try to address it, best as I can. Have never said other than that I can muster hardly any certainties about this whole terrible process. I specified measures, typically emergency measures, a consideration for which infection rates are far more significant than ‘excess death’ rates.

First of all, ‘excess death rate’ is not the same as Covid-linked or Covid-caused ‘death rate’. To measure excess deaths against average deaths, typically done on an annual basis, you obviously require time – and time is precisely what this virus, where delay for a few days could be hugely significant three and four weeks later, does not allow. Beyond a certain point, infection rates are maths.

Item: Boris Johnson, in late 2020, was levered by his backbenchers into opening back up much more swiftly and much more broadly than was advisable. As that ordure hit the fan, his backbenchers kept a safe distance and went notably quiet. They are your basic fuckwits, Charles Walker very much included.

Now the fuckwits return, making the same noises as last year, having learned nothing. While part of this dynamic is pandering to stupidity, plenty of the dynamic is twinned ideological discomfort, unease about deep state action being required and unease about conceding that the earth is ultimately sovereign, not homo sapiens. Or is it mere coincidence that climate change deniers and Brexiteers are nearly to a man anti lockdown bugles? Among Brexit’s key aspects was an attempt to deny that nature, via geography, is sovereign, not homo Farage.

The bane of left wing perspectives is self righteousness and torpor. The bane of right wing perspectives is impatience and recklessness. My attitude is pragmatism, a case by case analysis. Lile any sensible person, I cannot countenance the chaos that would unfold from simply opening up society and letting the virus do its thing. Loons here deny this path is what they want, offering guff instead of logic. But King Ignoramus let that mask slip last night. All the while, they give no thought to the legal implications of compelling people to accept risk by going to work.

Impatience, as I say…

The loons are chidish, into the bargain. Ever present in their toxic melange is hostility, during crisis, to anyone with a public sector job. During boom, those same people sneer at anyone so unambitious as to work in the public sector.

Childishness, as I say…

Therefore I could not believe, logistically or ethically, ‘herd immunity’ via rampant infection rates was ever a runner. To say this option is an economic magic bullet remains the prerogative of loons, whether via The Barrington Declaration or on the internet. A lot of people have shown their truest colours over the last 12 months – and the timbre of those colours can never now be bleached.

The ‘excess deaths’ canard essentially tries to say: ‘These people, in actuarial terms, would have died in any case. We cannot do away with death blah blah blah.’ This statement is incredibly stupid in any terms you like. First, modified behaviour will modify actuarial outcomes, short term and long term. The Japanese live longer in large part because of their diet. Second, at a far more immediate level, lots of people did not die last winter of flu because Covid precautions doubled as flu precautions. This hardly complex factor gets ignored by the loons when they prate about ‘excess deaths’.

I mean, does it not speak volumes that Dominic Cummings, King Loon, backed away from the herd immunity route? With no whispering involved?

Excess Mortality Blog #9

Link here to an attempt at a reasonably real time view on excess death posted by the Society of Actuaries

People who emphasize ‘excess deaths’ figures are nigh invariably using such figures to argue for no form of lockdown at all on economic grounds. I find these exhortations risible, if only for the chaos that would result if they were heeded.

It’s an odd approach to take because the excess deaths suggested by this study would suggest that some action needs to be taken. Almost 4000 excess deaths over an annual average of circa 30,000 deaths is pretty stark.

[Malarkey]

@Fagan_ODowd

@Malarkey

@Fagan_ODowd

@Malarkey

@Tank

@Malarkey

@the_man_himself

Is excess deaths not the best parameter to look at?

No. Because it is infection rates that clog up, in the first instance, normal society.

With respect, is the point of the excess deaths figure not that it is an attempt to quantify the effects of that very clogging up?

Another fair query and so I will try to address it, best as I can. Have never said other than that I can muster hardly any certainties about this whole terrible process. I specified measures, typically emergency measures, a consideration for which infection rates are far more significant than ‘excess death’ rates.

First of all, ‘excess death rate’ is not the same as Covid-linked or Covid-caused ‘death rate’. To measure excess deaths against average deaths, typically done on an annual basis, you obviously require time – and time is precisely what this virus, where delay for a few days could be hugely significant three and four weeks later, does not allow. Beyond a certain point, infection rates are maths.

Item: Boris Johnson, in late 2020, was levered by his backbenchers into opening back up much more swiftly and much more broadly than was advisable. As that ordure hit the fan, his backbenchers kept a safe distance and went notably quiet. They are your basic fuckwits, Charles Walker very much included.

Now the fuckwits return, making the same noises as last year, having learned nothing. While part of this dynamic is pandering to stupidity, plenty of the dynamic is twinned ideological discomfort, unease about deep state action being required and unease about conceding that the earth is ultimately sovereign, not homo sapiens. Or is it mere coincidence that climate change deniers and Brexiteers are nearly to a man anti lockdown bugles? Among Brexit’s key aspects was an attempt to deny that nature, via geography, is sovereign, not homo Farage.

The bane of left wing perspectives is self righteousness and torpor. The bane of right wing perspectives is impatience and recklessness. My attitude is pragmatism, a case by case analysis. Lile any sensible person, I cannot countenance the chaos that would unfold from simply opening up society and letting the virus do its thing. Loons here deny this path is what they want, offering guff instead of logic. But King Ignoramus let that mask slip last night. All the while, they give no thought to the legal implications of compelling people to accept risk by going to work.

Impatience, as I say…

The loons are chidish, into the bargain. Ever present in their toxic melange is hostility, during crisis, to anyone with a public sector job. During boom, those same people sneer at anyone so unambitious as to work in the public sector.

Childishness, as I say…

Therefore I could not believe, logistically or ethically, ‘herd immunity’ via rampant infection rates was ever a runner. To say this option is an economic magic bullet remains the prerogative of loons, whether via The Barrington Declaration or on the internet. A lot of people have shown their truest colours over the last 12 months – and the timbre of those colours can never now be bleached.

The ‘excess deaths’ canard essentially tries to say: ‘These people, in actuarial terms, would have died in any case. We cannot do away with death blah blah blah.’ This statement is incredibly stupid in any terms you like. First, modified behaviour will modify actuarial outcomes, short term and long term. The Japanese live longer in large part because of their diet. Second, at a far more immediate level, lots of people did not die last winter of flu because Covid precautions doubled as flu precautions. This hardly complex factor gets ignored by the loons when they prate about ‘excess deaths’.

I mean, does it not speak volumes that Dominic Cummings, King Loon, backed away from the herd immunity route? With no whispering involved?

@Malarkey

@Tank

@Malarkey

@the_man_himself

Is excess deaths not the best parameter to look at?

No. Because it is infection rates that clog up, in the first instance, normal society.

With respect, is the point of the excess deaths figure not that it is an attempt to quantify the effects of that very clogging up?

Another fair query and so I will try to address it, best as I can. Have never said other than that I can muster hardly any certainties about this whole terrible process. I specified measures, typically emergency measures, a consideration for which infection rates are far more significant than ‘excess death’ rates.

First of all, ‘excess death rate’ is not the same as Covid-linked or Covid-caused ‘death rate’. To measure excess deaths against average deaths, typically done on an annual basis, you obviously require time – and time is precisely what this virus, where delay for a few days could be hugely significant three and four weeks later, does not allow. Beyond a certain point, infection rates are maths.

Item: Boris Johnson, in late 2020, was levered by his backbenchers into opening back up much more swiftly and much more broadly than was advisable. As that ordure hit the fan, his backbenchers kept a safe distance and went notably quiet. They are your basic fuckwits, Charles Walker very much included.

Now the fuckwits return, making the same noises as last year, having learned nothing. While part of this dynamic is pandering to stupidity, plenty of the dynamic is twinned ideological discomfort, unease about deep state action being required and unease about conceding that the earth is ultimately sovereign, not homo sapiens. Or is it mere coincidence that climate change deniers and Brexiteers are nearly to a man anti lockdown bugles? Among Brexit’s key aspects was an attempt to deny that nature, via geography, is sovereign, not homo Farage.

The bane of left wing perspectives is self righteousness and torpor. The bane of right wing perspectives is impatience and recklessness. My attitude is pragmatism, a case by case analysis. Lile any sensible person, I cannot countenance the chaos that would unfold from simply opening up society and letting the virus do its thing. Loons here deny this path is what they want, offering guff instead of logic. But King Ignoramus let that mask slip last night. All the while, they give no thought to the legal implications of compelling people to accept risk by going to work.

Impatience, as I say…

The loons are chidish, into the bargain. Ever present in their toxic melange is hostility, during crisis, to anyone with a public sector job. During boom, those same people sneer at anyone so unambitious as to work in the public sector.

Childishness, as I say…

Therefore I could not believe, logistically or ethically, ‘herd immunity’ via rampant infection rates was ever a runner. To say this option is an economic magic bullet remains the prerogative of loons, whether via The Barrington Declaration or on the internet. A lot of people have shown their truest colours over the last 12 months – and the timbre of those colours can never now be bleached.

The ‘excess deaths’ canard essentially tries to say: ‘These people, in actuarial terms, would have died in any case. We cannot do away with death blah blah blah.’ This statement is incredibly stupid in any terms you like. First, modified behaviour will modify actuarial outcomes, short term and long term. The Japanese live longer in large part because of their diet. Second, at a far more immediate level, lots of people did not die last winter of flu because Covid precautions doubled as flu precautions. This hardly complex factor gets ignored by the loons when they prate about ‘excess deaths’.

I mean, does it not speak volumes that Dominic Cummings, King Loon, backed away from the herd immunity route? With no whispering involved?

Excess Mortality Blog #9

Link here to an attempt at a reasonably real time view on excess death posted by the Society of Actuaries

People who emphasize ‘excess deaths’ figures are nigh invariably using such figures to argue for no form of lockdown at all on economic grounds. I find these exhortations risible, if only for the chaos that would result if they were heeded.

It’s an odd approach to take because the excess deaths suggested by this study would suggest that some action needs to be taken. Almost 4000 excess deaths over an annual average of circa 30,000 deaths is pretty stark.

Yes, I have seen you and @mikehunt point out this truth. Yere calmness has been good. The ‘excess deaths’ emphasis is neither accurate nor helpful.

Childishness and impatience, as I said…

I do not think ‘risible’ as a verdict is overdoing it.

[tallback]

@Malarkey

Infection rates, not death rates of either kind, are what drive government responses and measures – and properly so, in my view.

You say this quite a lot and it does make sense - infection rates (as in cases “detected”) are a leading indicator of disease prevalence and up to now have correlated with the amount of people presenting at hospital, ICU or dying. What you learn from case numbers now presents as outcomes 2-4 weeks later.

I do think though that the vaccination program will alter that correlation. As higher risk populations become vaccinated and the risk for them drops off substantially, set volumes of cases nationally will evidently result in fewer hospitalisations/deaths than previously. 500 cases in April is not the same as 500 cases in January and the breathless daily reporting of case numbers should reflect that fact.

This isn’t an argument for OUITF, just a recognition that the indicators we have been using to determine risk and pressure on the health system are changing and how we interpret them should change too.

[Malarkey]

@tallback

@Malarkey

Infection rates, not death rates of either kind, are what drive government responses and measures – and properly so, in my view.

You say this quite a lot and it does make sense - infection rates (as in cases “detected”) are a leading indicator of disease prevalence and up to now have correlated with the amount of people presenting at hospital, ICU or dying. What you learn from case numbers now presents as outcomes 2-4 weeks later.

I do think though that the vaccination program will alter that correlation. As higher risk populations become vaccinated and the risk for them drops off substantially, set volumes of cases nationally will evidently result in fewer hospitalisations/deaths than previously. 500 cases in April is not the same as 500 cases in January and the breathless daily reporting of case numbers should reflect that fact.

This isn’t an argument for OUITF, just a recognition that the indicators we have been using to determine risk and pressure on the health system are changing and how we interpret them should change too.

Thanks. I agree with all of those highly sensible comments, 100%.

[Copper_pipe]

[Massey]

Does she drag some poor bollix around with her constantly to take photos of her.Christ she’s a dose.