I certainly donât think itâs the flu but things have moved on from July even. I had never seen what you stated so was curious.
There is no point in denying that this is a shit virus. Even with 2x the mortality that is shit, with one age group in particular being impacted.
The key goes back to hospitalisations. Deaths really are divorced from them sadly as so many are iso hold: I donât have faith that these are properly modelled.
Nolan claimed we were catching 1 in 3 cases at peak. He used testing data from the mid to end of April to justify that and the SCOPI study.
Of course what we really want to know is what the true surveillance levels were when we reached hospitalisation peak vs today. That peak was April 13th with nearly 900 and near 150 in ICU, and basically two weeks following full lockdown of March 28th. We had tested just 30k by the end of March and we had restricted testing to people with 2 symptoms. We test that in two days now and per the HSE they are finding 80% have very mild symptoms or none at all. Our positivity rose from 6% to 15% and then 19% from the second last week of March to the first week of April. Ours has risen from 2% to 7% in 4-5 weeks.
The SCOPI study he used is very flawed. Firstly it uses a narrow age band or 12-69, we now know that different age groups are likely susceptible to this. Secondly it was for just two counties and Nolan appears to be ignoring that 25% of confirmed cases now are from Dublin vs near 50% then. Thirdly, it was conducted in July. There are studies showing that antibodies can be gone within 3 months, with some asymptomatic cases not even having them. I can fully accept that
this is evolving all the time but you have to least caveat these things.
The WHO estimate that 10% of the worldâs population have got Covid. Now we can say that less than 2% of Ireland have gotten it through luck/mitigation, but it is still very unlikely that our surveillance caught 1 in 3 cases in March which led to peak hospitalisations as was claimed.
If we roll back two weeks, NPHET wanted a level 5 lockdown straight away. Within 2 weeks of March 28th, we had 900 hospitalisations. Within 2 weeks of their latest demand, we had 300 (33.33% of peak) and 30 odd in ICU (nearly 20% of peak), and many of these hospitalisations are questionable (see Michael McNamaraâs questions are the Oireachtas over what defines a hospital case).
I can fully accept that we are trying to keep hospitals running this time and also that there is a fear of the flu season, but there is also the reality that we had significant excess capacity available for stretching even at the height of Covid.
I struggle to have faith in the modelling when they failed in their surveillance efforts over the summer months. I struggle to have faith when we know R went below 1 pre March 28th and the full lockdown. Was it schools (now open but closed back then) that drove it below 1?
I understand that part of their efforts are focused on reducing traffic full stop; but Glynnâs Oireachtas committee appearance gave an insight to their ignorance of human behaviour and what people actually do. They were critical of just a 20% YoY reduction in traffic in September. They didnât seem to understand the concept that many need to be on site to work and simply go to school & that many that would have taken public transport might now be driving to adhere to public health advice.
That indicated a fear from NPHET, I donât think they really know how to control this beyond lockdowns. They wanted mandatory air quarantines in May after all. They are engaged in a game of just trying to reduce activity, but have no idea what the real drivers are.