UK Covid death toll

[baggy1]

So you want to base predictions on cases and admissions on testing asymptomatic people, not people who actually have symptoms or even on real life cases, admissions and ICU occupancy. Nuts

I'm surprised baggy1 that you slurr me for no reason but make no attempt to counter the army testing numbers.

Apart from the obvious fact that it isn't me that you have quoted there or slurred you I will attempt to answer the points with my views.

I've never once referred in all of the posts with a view on testing apart from early days saying it is pointless comparing testing data as it is inconsistent. It is also pointless taking about tests when you don't know how many individuals have been tested.

Testing people only with symptoms seems counterproductive when the general belief is that the disease can be spread by asymptomatic people. Testing en masse means that you can identify who has got it, even asymptomatic, and ask them to isolate and therefore reduce the spread until they have completed a two week period. That seems sensible to me.

I've no opinion on the testing and the success rate because I haven't looked at it, that is why I haven't made any opinions on it.

June is the summer and it wasn't spreading as much because we were outdoors and schools / unis were off. Those things have reversed now and we are seeing an increase in hospitalisations, who would have thought, eh? Again I've avoided talking about cases because it's a meaningless point unless you have 100% of the population tested - you keep asking me for an opinion on that, I've never talked about cases - see testing above.

You talk about hospital beds as if the whole hospital is one big dormitory and doctors / nurses as one big homogenous pot - there are 5900 ICU / CCU beds in England, there are a very limited number of critical care doctors and nurses as well. Covid treatment involves ICU / CCU mainly, when that starts spilling over into other areas then we have problems. Hospitalisations are increasing but happily seem to be slowing down, I'll update later when I get yesterday's figures in but it's looking positive. That is probably down to the higher tier lockdowns that occurred a few weeks ago in the north that has helped reduce the spread. We are over 2/3rds of the way to the maximum amount for April / May and it was heading to go well past it until measures were put in place - I've shown the figures consistently for the past few weeks.

Your graphs are at best misleading and if i'm honest basically shite - you don't understand the data behind them (comparing winter deaths with spring summer deaths is not excess deaths) and you put them out as if they are fact. 

So no I didn't slur you and you have got that carried away with proving your 'facts' that you think that I did somehow. I've kept to two simple facts throughout - excess deaths and hospitalisations. They are good indicators for this real threat that is happening and, I think, useful for people on here. As for tests and cases, you've got me mixed up with someone else as I've never bothered with them as they are pointless stats IMO.

I think this whole statement and especially about testing and the bold bit makes me question you're entire argument and motives. I'd go as far to say that you've been taken in if you've not even looked at it after 8 mths. I find that staggering.

The argument it didn't spread in summer is facile if you know anything about respiratory viruses or understand anything about how it transmits. Not to mention the fact that if we are going to even entertain that it's because of the outdoors and unis being off that doesn't make sense on so many levels of other congregations that happen as to be moot.

The ICU beds are a homogenous pot in regions. That's why there's not hundreds in every hospital. Hospitals got busy not because of admissions but because of isolating staff.

As for my graphs they are produced from the same data you use. They show a picture of fact. Not all of it. Call them shite but that's like posting excess deaths figures every week and calling them all covid. They are not. Nor were they in the Spring. Nor will they be next week.

The big thing about ALL the graphs though is that they all showed a flattening and a reduction PRIOR to any decision on lockdown2. That's what Whitty, Van Tam and Vallance used 3 week old data. But if you've not worked out what that shower of SAGE shit is about then god help you.

The fact you won't entertain a conversation about the testing regime or that we should be treating symptoms not cases is telling.

And one last time for the record lockdowns do not work, 30 years of WHO research with an updated paper in Oct 2019 said they had no lasting efficacy, nor masks not test and trace. But if you know better than them then you must be Chinese because that's all the world has done - follow them into the abyss.

But thankfully I've now got to the nub of your delusion and I either you're just winding me up or you actually believe what you're being spoonfed.

You miss the point massively - I haven't been talking about testing because I've just been putting facts about hospitalisations and excess deaths up. I haven't opined on testing on here because it's pointless.

And at last we are getting to the simple question I keep asking you but you avoid - if the 60+k excess deaths this year are not due to covid, what else has happened to cause this year to have increased deaths. This year blows all other years out of the water with deaths and you still think that it's not all down to covid, you even try to downplay it by saying 2017/18 had 49k excess deaths when in fact it didn't, they are just figures showing the difference between winter and summer - Shock news, more people die in winter.

The lockdown 2 came too late again, cases were rising and are still rising but you just want to let them continue. You are right they are flattening but that is after locking down the north west. And when the test and trace system is so shit its next to useless the only option is to lockdown.

And since you started with accusing me off slurring you (when you were looking at Strawman's post) and then end up by calling me delusional or gullible shows a lot. I've tried not to get into the name calling and asked you many times to take a step back but you keep feeling the need to insult.

You have gone too far into wonderland and can't step back to a moderate position. Look back over the posts and tell me where I haven't been either factual or reasonable to both sides. I can see both sides of the argument and haven't changed my approach all year, something that you thanked me for earlier in the year because at that point it suited your views (excess deaths and hospitalisations were down to normal) but as soon as they start rising and I report that you accuse me of having an agenda. That's fanatical.