Love this tweet

[Returnofrros]

Of course some do some don’t, it looks like that’s always been the way.

I agree on lockdown points there too but I do then expect you to acknowledge that while what you say has merit, it’s also the case that for some people lockdown will have saved their life.

There isn’t a right or wrong with how to deal with Covid, so many variables. My issue with both UK and Scottish governments has been too long to make decisions, flip flopping and talking to us like we’re badly behaved children.

I think not that many, certainly not as many as people think, deaths had already peaked before 1st lockdown.

I think social distancing, hand washing has been as effective.

And the age of death hmac.....83 with covid....what's ave age of death of people who have missed treatment not diagnosed etc....it will surely be far younger.

That's not to say an elderly persons life is not worth less but there has to be a balance.

Boris getting I'll didn't help although has redeemed himself a bit with vaccine roll out in England, Hancock not being locked in a box didn't help, Sturgeon no comment🙄....I'm away to clear my path.

[Deeranged]

I'm not sure the NHS in Scotland is struggling just quite as badly as the English trusts.

I only had one reason to contact my GP in 2020 and had a telephone conversation followed up fairly quickly by an appointment for a steroid injection.

I am concerned however that both my mother in law and father in law, who both have chronic respiratory conditions, are having telephone appointments with their respective consultants. Mother in law in particular has had a couple of dips that would have normally seen her hospitalised, but she wasn't admitted. That can't be right.

[grantzer]

So prove it, show me the literature, show me the published data. I've reviewed a publicly available report and proposed a hypothesis based on that report, you've rejected it with the word 'twaddle' and by saying 'people are dying'. I know people are dying but I'm saying not as many as we're being told are dying. Do you know the difference between subjective evidence and objective evidence? My hypothesis is based on objective evidence, your rejection of it is purely subjective.

I'll counter your argument that a 95 year old with cancer might die of Covid before the cancer kills them by proposing another 95 year old with cancer might die of that cancer having tested positive for Covid ten days earlier but having shown no symptoms of Covid. they are then a Covid death statistic - would that be right? I have a real world experience of just that happening however my uncle was 'only' 87.

Doctors are not lying about cause of death, I did initially think that might be going on as it was suggested in the media but the report shows what's really happening. The Covid death statistics being reported are not in fact 'death caused by Covid' they are deaths reported with Covid mentioned on the death certificate. By that measure a death certificate might well say 'Cause of death - bowel cancer, the deceased tested postive for Covid-19 ten days previously but displayed no signs of respiratory distress' but it's mentioned on the death certificate and the doctor would be negligent not to mention the positive test. However Covid will not have caused that particular death.

I'm not saying you're wrong, I just want you to prove that I am.

Ok, I will try and make this as clear as I can.

You looked at number of deaths from non covid related illnesses,and saw the number had dropped. I agree

You then decided that you knew why,because people dying with non covid related illnesses were being recorded as covid deaths. With zero evidence. I disagree

I offered an alternative explanation. You disagreed with me.

Doctors are trained in medicine,I think we can all agree on that. They would be my go-to guys if I was looking for a cause of death. They say covid,I won't argue,they say cancer,I won't argue. They say hit by the 1B, again,I will go with that.

You however say you know better, despite your lack of medical expertise, the fact you have not examined any bodies,but because it suited a hypothesis you came up with to suit the results as you saw them.

Most research is done the other way round, but that doesn't really matter when your best guess is to go with doctors somehow writing covid on a death certificate for absolutely no reason,other than to annoy you.

Your research into this included looking at a set of numbers,then jumping to a conclusion,so I don't really need to prove you wrong,although the explanation above should go a long way to doing that.

I am guessing research methods was second year......shame

[Deeranged]

Ok, I will try and make this as clear as I can.

You looked at number of deaths from non covid related illnesses,and saw the number had dropped. I agree

You then decided that you knew why,because people dying with non covid related illnesses were being recorded as covid deaths. With zero evidence. I disagree

I offered an alternative explanation. You disagreed with me.

Doctors are trained in medicine,I think we can all agree on that. They would be my go-to guys if I was looking for a cause of death. They say covid,I won't argue,they say cancer,I won't argue. They say hit by the 1B, again,I will go with that.

You however say you know better, despite your lack of medical expertise, the fact you have not examined any bodies,but because it suited a hypothesis you came up with to suit the results as you saw them.

Most research is done the other way round, but that doesn't really matter when your best guess is to go with doctors somehow writing covid on a death certificate for absolutely no reason,other than to annoy you.

Your research into this included looking at a set of numbers,then jumping to a conclusion,so I don't really need to prove you wrong,although the explanation above should go a long way to doing that.

I am guessing research methods was second year......shame

You're becoming too much like hard work so my last words on this.

I said there looks to be a correlation between numbers of Covid deaths and the reduction in numbers of expected deaths. I didn't say for absolutely certain that was the only reason, I proposed it as a hypothesis. That's all I've done.

I agree doctors are trained in medicine, however they are not the go to guys in establishing cause of death every time, that'll be the coroners. Doctors can only diagnose pre mortem and cannot make any call post mortem unless they themselves are qualified to carry out and report on the relevant examination. The doctors are quite correct in seeing a positive Covid test on the patient's pre mortem records and adding that to the death certificate, I made that very clear in my previous post. Once that word appears on the certificate however the death is attributed to Covid whether that has been the genuine and final cause or not. Such a death might normally be considered sudden and a post mortem might have been ordered however the one word on the certificate means that no post mortem will be required.

I have never said I know better than any doctor, I most definitely don't, I just question the validity of the dataset.

Most research is done by looking at empirical evidence, conducting appropriate analysis and reaching some kind of conclusion. I haven't actually done much research on this subject, all I've done is look at a report that I was directed to as disproving my initial thoughts and have formed a hypothesis in support of my original thoughts from that report. I raised a question that will most likely be asked later by people employed to do so and possessing the analytic tools and resource to properly investigate the correlation.

I've proposed no conclusion. I've asked you to disprove my hypothesis.

Research methods was pretty much core in both my degrees.

[grantzer]

You're becoming too much like hard work so my last words on this.

I said there looks to be a correlation between numbers of Covid deaths and the reduction in numbers of expected deaths. I didn't say for absolutely certain that was the only reason, I proposed it as a hypothesis. That's all I've done.

I agree doctors are trained in medicine, however they are not the go to guys in establishing cause of death every time, that'll be the coroners. Doctors can only diagnose pre mortem and cannot make any call post mortem unless they themselves are qualified to carry out and report on the relevant examination. The doctors are quite correct in seeing a positive Covid test on the patient's pre mortem records and adding that to the death certificate, I made that very clear in my previous post. Once that word appears on the certificate however the death is attributed to Covid whether that has been the genuine and final cause or not. Such a death might normally be considered sudden and a post mortem might have been ordered however the one word on the certificate means that no post mortem will be required.

I have never said I know better than any doctor, I most definitely don't, I just question the validity of the dataset.

Most research is done by looking at empirical evidence, conducting appropriate analysis and reaching some kind of conclusion. I haven't actually done much research on this subject, all I've done is look at a report that I was directed to as disproving my initial thoughts and have formed a hypothesis in support of my original thoughts from that report. I raised a question that will most likely be asked later by people employed to do so and possessing the analytic tools and resource to properly investigate the correlation.

I've proposed no conclusion. I've asked you to disprove my hypothesis.

Research methods was pretty much core in both my degrees.

Well you are not very good at it. Correlation suggests a link,you offered correlation as"proof". No research ever proves anything,it only provides evidence. Unless,like in your case,you look at some numbers,jump to a conclusion,the tell everyone to prove you wrong. You presented this mumbo jumbo as proof you were right,

I presented the same evidence,but with a different theory as to why the outcome came to be,then you told me my evidence was rubbish,and not as good as yours.

The only difference between the two is that I have the entire medical profession on my side,you have nobody

[Taintedice]

Taintedice. THANKS FOR THE LINK.
Is the figure for expected deaths shown anywhere. I can't get the arithmetic to work out. My bad no doubt.

At the very top, the All Persons tab has a graph showing Cumulative Deaths from the start of the pandemic till 15th Jan. The expected deaths is based on the 5-year average adjusted for any known factor that needs to be taken into account. For example, 90,000 people were hit by buses in 2020 28 days after testing positive for covid so that should be factored in, as bus drivers aren't normally this careless.

[Taintedice]

I am not prepared to call the ONS figures unreliable. I don't understand the thinking behind them. In particular I don't know how the expected deaths figure is arrived at. It surely isn't too difficult to explain but I put in the words expected deaths into the search function and nothing relevant came up.

There are thousands of civil servants at ONS and PHE painstakingly researching and collating these figures, but deeranged has a year at the Open University so best listen to him

[Taintedice]

I stopped looking at pictures and started reading when I was four years old. Then after a year at The Open University and I just knew I'd done the right thing at the right time.

That's impressive, at 5-year old I was still eating crayons and making mudpies in the school sandpit.

[Taintedice]

Utter twaddle..

You have come up with a hypothesis,and provided some "evidence", which in your opinion suggests your hypothesis is correct.

Your evidence is your best guess,which isn't actually evidence, so all you really have is a hypothesis.

As a counter to your hypothesis, I will suggest one of my own. People are dying of covid. Some of those people also had other health conditions. Some died with covid who probably would have died soon anyway,seeing as they are generally elderly,with existing health issues.

As an example, a 95 year old with cancer dies of covid before the cancer can kill him. He probably would have died from cancer in six months, and is therefore in the expected deaths category.

He counts as a covid death,because covid ended his life. The number of people dying of cancer has just gone down.

Repeat that for a year,and for all illnesses.

Now evidence is tricky. But if you assume that doctors lie,to promote a hypothesis from deeranged,then the theory from deeranged looks a bit less waffle. But only a little less.

My hypothesis also looks sketchy,because I cannot suggest a leap of faith is in any way evidence supporting it. I can only go with the fact that I can see no reason for doctors to lie about cause of death.

This really is spot on, I don't know how rros and deeranged can keep on arguing otherwise. Cancer deaths were down in 2020 because covid claimed so many victims of all diseases first. Is that a reason to multiply these deaths by a factor of 5 or 6, by saying ach, they were going to die anyway. Ghoulish thinking.

The Branch Covidian rationale for opening up the country and the NHS so people can get treated for cancer is that it's only people who have cancer who are dying. It makes no logical sense whatsover.

[Taintedice]

My point is and has been all along there is another side to lockdoon....there is a price to pay, some people will "breeze" through, others will struggle financially, some with their health, some both and others it will cost them their life.

This has been going on since 2010-11 when tory austerity kicked in, hundreds of thousands of people have died because of the conditions you described. Why the concern now, because it's affecting you.