O/T:- Are we over-reacting to COVD19?

[BigFatPie]

Perhaps you should refer to some of your political soulmates at The New Statesman

“why do BBC newsreaders refer, as each day’s coronavirus infection figures are announced, to a “jump” in cases? Not an “increase” but a “jump”, passing, as my Oxford English Dictionary puts it, “abruptly from one… state… to another, omitting intermediate stages”.

“The progression implies that we are most likely at the beginning of an epidemic. But we aren’t there yet. The BBC, if it must use alarming words – no doubt it is keeping “rocket” in reserve – should save them for later stages “

The media use of hyperbole has been appalling, and turned what should be deep, and genuine concern, into bog roll looting panic

Latest BBC update;

Posted at 16:0416:04
BREAKING
UK death toll rises to 35
Four**** more people have died from the coronavirus in the UK, raising the death toll to 35, the UK's health department says.

There have been a total of 1,372 positive tests for coronavirus in the UK as of Sunday, up from 1,140 on Saturday, the department added.

I’m no fan of the BBC news department, but I can’t see any hyperbole there. Moaning about media ‘hyperbole’ in what even our idiot PM says is the biggest health crisis in a generation seems to be getting your priorities wrong.

[drillerpie]

Driller, not good at this but this maybe the interview 🤷*♂️

https://youtu.be/jzvOwF48z4s

Thanks, I'll have a look!

[drillerpie]

Driller, not good at this but this maybe the interview 🤷*♂️

https://youtu.be/jzvOwF48z4s

I thought it was a bit of a softball interview to be honest.

These are the questions I would've asked him:

The CMO says we will reach Italian numbers of cases in 4 weeks, but we will see a different response to the Italian one (ie no lockdown). Seeing as Italy had to shut the country down to protect the health system, and the UK has half the Italian number of intensive care beds per capita, is that feasible?

As I understand it we don't yet know for sure whether people who have been infected can be reinfected, or how quickly the virus mutates. Does this make the 'herd immunity' plan risky?

The number of tests carried out per capita in the UK is relatively low, and the CMO estimates the true number of case to be 5-10 thousand. Given that these cases will now be multiplying exponentially, and given that the plan is to try manage the number of in patients at a constant level just below NHS capacity, won't the lack of data (the fact that we don't know exactly how many cases we have and where), make the planning exceptionally difficult?

There is already a body of evidence to suggest that early action (as in Singapore, Hong kong etc) such as social distancing and obligatory mask wearing negates the need for a lockdown later on. Would this have been preferable?

[jackal2]

I certainly listen to him, just as I listen to many other experts in the field who are questioning the different response compared to in other countries. An important part of science is peer review and consensus, so when the health officials in one country take a radically different course of action to most other countries, I think it's wise to consider other points of view.

No sh*t? I'm sure that's what our CMO is doing all the time and I've got no reason to think his qualifications and judgement are notably inferior/superior to others elsewhere. As long as the Government follows his advice rather than reacting to the media, I think that's the safest bet.

I didn't dodge it, I answered that delaying the spike is a good thing as it gives time to prepare. Why would you have a bigger spike down the line? The number of potential infections is the same, but you would have had more time to procure equipment, train staff, build specialised hospitals etc.

Actually, spreading and flattening the spike is the best outcome so we don't have to build excessive additional capacity, hence the phased approach. As I've said previously, if you over-quarantine people whose immune systems can successfully fight COVID-19 anyway, you risk suppressing those systems to a point where some become less 'ready' than they would otherwise have been, potentially to greater detrimental effect.

You've cleared up your own point. The suicide rate is stable, while deaths from coronavirus multiply exponentially. When you posted your misleading statistics, Italy had had two deaths in the space of a few days.

So the public interest is best served by overplaying an illness that kills a relatively small number of people quickly and then disappears, whilst ignoring one that kills a relatively large number of people more slowly and continues? Using that logic, if Notts County win their next game 10-0 then I don't care if they lose the next 10 games after that.

Now N.Italy has been under lockdown for a week and they're still getting about 200 deaths per day. If they hadn't chosen lockdown the health service wouldn't have been able to continue functioning. That is why Coronavirus is receiving more government attention than suicides do and I think it's hard to argue with that.

I never did argue with that. My point was about the media not the Government. Of course Coronavirus will be the Government's priority for the next few months while the virus is active, and so it should be, but this does not excuse the media from overplaying the threat and scaring people into panic buying industrial quantities of toilet rolls!

Apart from the fact that I don't think you can tar all of the media with the same brush, because some newspapers dedicate more space than others to mental health issues, I think your obsession with the media and their motives is clouding your judgement.
I also think you are failing to distinguish between what the media reports because it is relevant, like coronavirus, what is not relevant but is in the news purely because it sells, like celebrity gossip and so on, and things that should be in the news but aren't, like provision of mental health professionals.
Just because suicide is under reported, doesn't mean coronavirus is being driven by media hype.

Literally as I write, the number of COVID-19 cases recorded worldwide is 163,332 from which there have been 6,086 deaths against a world population of around 7.8 billion people. The effect of Coronavirus on the world population is and will be miniscule and temporary. Suicide sees 800,000 die each year which is still a small number but ongoing. The level of fear being created around Coronavirus by the media is demonstrably, ridiculously excessive.

[drillerpie]

No sh*t? I'm sure that's what our CMO is doing all the time and I've got no reason to think his qualifications and judgement are notably inferior/superior to others elsewhere. As long as the Government follows his advice rather than reacting to the media, I think that's the safest bet.


Actually, spreading and flattening the spike is the best outcome so we don't have to build excessive additional capacity, hence the phased approach. As I've said previously, if you over-quarantine people whose immune systems can successfully fight COVID-19 anyway, you risk suppressing those systems to a point where some become less 'ready' than they would otherwise have been, potentially to greater detrimental effect.


So the public interest is best served by overplaying an illness that kills a relatively small number of people quickly and then disappears, whilst ignoring one that kills a relatively large number of people more slowly and continues? Using that logic, if Notts County win their next game 10-0 then I don't care if they lose the next 10 games after that.


I never did argue with that. My point was about the media not the Government. Of course Coronavirus will be the Government's priority for the next few months while the virus is active, and so it should be, but this does not excuse the media from overplaying the threat and scaring people into panic buying industrial quantities of toilet rolls!



Literally as I write, the number of COVID-19 cases recorded worldwide is 163,332 from which there have been 6,086 deaths against a world population of around 7.8 billion people. The effect of Coronavirus on the world population is and will be miniscule and temporary. Suicide sees 800,000 die each year which is still a small number but ongoing. The level of fear being created around Coronavirus by the media is demonstrably, ridiculously excessive.

I don't care about the media. Why are you obsessed with the media? Do you think the Chinese government's reaction was dictated by pressure from the media? Bear in mind the Chinese government and the Chinese media are one and the same. Please address this gaping logical crevice in your argument before writing anything else about the media.

Your posts are so full of contradictions it's getting hard to debate with you. You've just written that you are not arguing a point when in the previous paragraph you tried to argue precisely that point.

I'm running out of ways to explain this to you, but I'll try one more.

350 deaths in Italy today, up from 200 yesterday. Almost a 100% increase in a country where the vast majority of people are at home 24/7. I hope the penny drops soon.

[jackal2]

I don't care about the media. Why are you obsessed with the media? Do you think the Chinese government's reaction was dictated by pressure from the media? Bear in mind the Chinese government and the Chinese media are one and the same. Please address this gaping logical crevice in your argument before writing anything else about the media.

Well I thought it was obvious but I perhaps should have been specific. I am of course referring to the Western/European and especially the UK media's approach rather than the Chinese media who are obviously a completely different entity. I haven't seen their coverage. I do take yours and sidders' point that not all western 'meejia' are equal offenders, but some are definitely placing sensationalism above sensible reporting and information.

Your posts are so full of contradictions it's getting hard to debate with you. You've just written that you are not arguing a point when in the previous paragraph you tried to argue precisely that point. I'm running out of ways to explain this to you, but I'll try one more.

Well I actually think it's your posts that are full of contradictions, but neither of us should be judge and jury in our own court.

350 deaths in Italy today, up from 200 yesterday. Almost a 100% increase in a country where the vast majority of people are at home 24/7. I hope the penny drops soon.

We know the type and trajectory of the illness and Italy is some way ahead of the UK, so prepare for similar figures here in due course, but this does not mean the measures being taken are wrong or that panicking or totally isolating ourselves will save more people. It means this virus will kill a significant number of people within a certain timeframe, only eased or delayed to a certain degree by any measures we take to control it. That's what viruses do. To put it bluntly, sh*t happens.

Only when the final death toll from COVID-19 is known will we truly be able to reflect on its relative scale as a pandemic compared with the likes of these, and its impact on the overall population relative to other causes of death.

For the time being the best thing to do is follow the advice of our public health experts in a calm, rational manner.

[BigFatPie]

Funny about the ‘media’ using too scary words when there is this situation regarding ICU beds;

Critical Care Beds/100,000 population

Germany 29.2
France 11.6
Italy 11.2
Latvia 9.7
UK 6.6

I’m not surprised people who don’t like evidence based policy want to pretend the current situation is BAU. It will demonstrably and finally prove they are wrong about pretty much everything.

[forwardmagpie]

Funny about the ‘media’ using too scary words when there is this situation regarding ICU beds;

Critical Care Beds/100,000 population

Germany 29.2
France 11.6
Italy 11.2
Latvia 9.7
UK 6.6

I’m not surprised people who don’t like evidence based policy want to pretend the current situation is BAU. It will demonstrably and finally prove they are wrong about pretty much everything.

I’m sure you didn’t just cherry pick the countries you put here BFP because that would devalue your point wouldn’t it!

[BigFatPie]

I’m sure you didn’t just cherry pick the countries you put here BFP because that would devalue your point wouldn’t it!

If you’ve got figures that don’t suggest our ICU capacity is completely sh!t in comparison with other high income countries feel free to put them up.

[drillerpie]

I’m sure you didn’t just cherry pick the countries you put here BFP because that would devalue your point wouldn’t it!

Links to data about hospital beds and intensive care beds per capita.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List..._hospital_beds

https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmc...fographic/amp/