O/T. The Government's handling of Covid

[ramAnag]

Something to be celebrated today, over 400,000 first dose vaccinations were announced in 24 hours. An amazing stat, that if continued will allow the government to hit its target.

Unfortunately, it appears not to be newsworthy, at least not on the BBC news UK, website. Looking down the many headlines today, you will not find this important stat, I wonder why?

Admire your capacity for looking on the bright side, Ram.

Maybe the reason ‘why’, is that your particular ‘amazing stat’ was somewhat overshadowed by other announcements.

[Ram59]

[QUOTE=ramAnag;39680002]Admire your capacity for looking on the bright side, Ram.

Maybe the reason ‘why’, is that your particular ‘amazing stat’ was somewhat overshadowed by other announcements.[/QUOTE

Your defence of the government hating BBC, never ceases to amaze. I shall list some of your more important announcements,

Can Wales meet it's vaccine targets?
Collapsed wall rail line closed until February.
Football 'a young man's game' - Edwards
School return 'unlikely' for all in February
National League North & South halted
Edinburgh landmark site goes back on the market.
Your pictures of Scotland 15-22 January
Woman led on railway tracks to pose for photo.

Do you really want me to carry on with the other announcements that over shadowed the massive achievement by all involved in the vaccination programme?

[Trickytreesreds]

You can't be suggesting the BBC is biased, surely?

[MadAmster]

Here's something taken from the WHO website. It brings up false positives. As I've been saying for months here and elsewhere, a lot depends on the number of times the samples are "magnified" (Ct's) in order to identify the presence of Sars-CoV-2. World experts say that above 35 Ct's, any virus found will be dead and signify that the "owner" of the sample HAD Covid, once upon a time, but is no longer infectious and won't have been, possibly for several weeks. The UK (and the NL) use 45Ct's. That means that a lot of positive tests shouldn't see the "donor" having to quarantine/isolate as they are no longer capable of spreading the virus.

From WHO web page:
Home/News/WHO Information Notice for IVD Users 2020/05
WHO Information Notice for IVD Users 2020/05
Nucleic acid testing (NAT) technologies that use polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for detection of SARS-CoV-2
20 January 2021 Medical product alert Geneva Reading time:
Français
Español
Product type: Nucleic acid testing (NAT) technologies that use polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for detection of SARS-CoV-2
Date: 13 January 2021
WHO-identifier: 2020/5, version 2
Target audience: laboratory professionals and users of IVDs.
Purpose of this notice: clarify information previously provided by WHO. This notice supersedes WHO Information Notice for In Vitro Diagnostic Medical Device (IVD) Users 2020/05 version 1, issued 14 December 2020.
Description of the problem: WHO requests users to follow the instructions for use (IFU) when interpreting results for specimens tested using PCR methodology.
Users of IVDs must read and follow the IFU carefully to determine if manual adjustment of the PCR positivity threshold is recommended by the manufacturer.
WHO guidance Diagnostic testing for SARS-CoV-2 states that careful interpretation of weak positive results is needed (1). The cycle threshold (Ct) needed to detect virus is inversely proportional to the patient’s viral load. Where test results do not correspond with the clinical presentation, a new specimen should be taken and retested using the same or different NAT technology.
WHO reminds IVD users that disease prevalence alters the predictive value of test results; as disease prevalence decreases, the risk of false positive increases (2). This means that the probability that a person who has a positive result (SARS-CoV-2 detected) is truly infected with SARS-CoV-2 decreases as prevalence decreases, irrespective of the claimed specificity.
Most PCR assays are indicated as an aid for diagnosis, therefore, health care providers must consider any result in combination with timing of sampling, specimen type, assay specifics, clinical observations, patient history, confirmed status of any contacts, and epidemiological information.
Actions to be taken by IVD users:
Please read carefully the IFU in its entirety.
Contact your local representative if there is any aspect of the IFU that is unclear to you.
Check the IFU for each incoming consignment to detect any changes to the IFU.
Provide the Ct value in the report to the requesting health care provider.
Contact person for further information:
Anita SANDS, Regulation and Prequalification, World Health Organization, e-mail: rapidalert@who.int
References:
1. Diagnostic testing for SARS-CoV-2. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2020, WHO reference number WHO/2019-nCoV/laboratory/2020.6.
2. Altman DG, Bland JM. Diagnostic tests 2: Predictive values. BMJ. 1994 Jul 9;309(6947):102. doi: 10.1136/bmj.309.6947.102.

The number of new cases is inflated by these flawed tests that actually indicate that you have had Covid but don't have it any more. I have tried to find out how many of the "new cases" are, in fact, old cases not previously diagnosed. IMO, new cases isn't a valid stat, or at least, nowhere near as valid as we are led to believe. Hospitalisations and deaths tell us much more.

[ramAnag]

[QUOTE=Ram59;39680044]

Admire your capacity for looking on the bright side, Ram.

Maybe the reason ‘why’, is that your particular ‘amazing stat’ was somewhat overshadowed by other announcements.[/QUOTE

Your defence of the government hating BBC, never ceases to amaze. I shall list some of your more important announcements,

Can Wales meet it's vaccine targets?
Collapsed wall rail line closed until February.
Football 'a young man's game' - Edwards
School return 'unlikely' for all in February
National League North & South halted
Edinburgh landmark site goes back on the market.
Your pictures of Scotland 15-22 January
Woman led on railway tracks to pose for photo.

Do you really want me to carry on with the other announcements that over shadowed the massive achievement by all involved in the vaccination programme?

Out of interest Ram, which bit of my post was defending the BBC? Not that it needs me to and not that I accept your description of the ‘government hating BBC’.

My point was that perhaps the good news about vaccines was somewhat outweighed by the news about the dangers presented by the new variants (please note I avoided reference to the ‘British variant/virus’ to avoid offending your sensibilities) and the doubts raised by the Israelis about the efficacy of one of the vaccines.

I don’t know if you’re referring to the six o’clock or ten o’clock news. Tbh I didn’t watch either, largely because I’d sat through ninety minutes of the ‘Coronavirus Update’ programme and didn’t want depressing further.

I suppose, from the list you have provided, the message may be that there is other ‘news’ going on in our country and elsewhere.

Surely, had the BBC been as ‘government’ hating as you imply then news items such as the Home Office’s incompetent loss of criminal data, the fact that the UK has the worst (world leading!) per capita Covid figures in the World, and the news that the original information given out about the new variants (anything but British!) seems to have been hopelessly incorrect would have been given priority. Your list suggests they weren’t even mentioned.

[MadAmster]

Following an outbreak in 2 junior schools in the town of Lansingerland, everybody aged 2 and above was tested.

Of the 26K folk tested 292 tested positive. 13% of those had the British variant. (National average last week was 10%, up from 3% the week before). The tests showed (no idea how they worked this out but.....) the results appear to show that U12s are as capable of passing it on as adults are which might be a body blow to schools reopening any time soon. Ours are currently closed until February 9th.

There are similar mass tests going on in 3 other Dutch towns currently having spikes in numbers.

Saw BoJo's press conference yesterday. He said 10 deaths per 1000 of people with the "old" virus. 13 to 14 per 1000 with the British variant. A 30% to 40% increase in deaths per 1000. Should we be more worried?

[Andy_Faber]

the fact that the UK has the worst (world leading!) per capita Covid figures in the World

I listen to a LOT of news from all quarters during the week and after masses of pretty poor easy hit reporting all round, at 5:15 on PM Evan Davies AT LAST offered a searching question that I for one really think needs looking into - that our per capita deaths are worst in the world BUT our per capita admission to hospital and admission to intensive care are well down the list, which by simple computation means the world's worst arises from the fact our survival rate in hospital is world's worst, so (I think he said) 'should we be worried? Is something going on?'. He asked this of an NHS rep who basically just said 'No', and without further interrogation Owen moved on! That is RUBBISH journalism, and failure to interrogate such issues IMO shows we can't trust those reporting to us. I also think this may stem from a reluctance to aim any criticism at NHS, if indeed they emerge culpable

The same applies to UK GDP being worse than anywhere else, again it is a factor of our way of measuring and again there's been a total failure to explain to the concerned population.

I'm not adopting a blindly pro-HMG anti-media stance, just pointing out that we aren't being well served at times

[Andy_Faber]

Should we be more worried?

I don't think the Scientists, the govt or most of the media did a very good job of explaining that increase yesterday - you sum it up well with an increase of 3 or 4 per thousand which is a bit of (an increased) worry, I've seen comments on social media (directly under the HMG etc press releases) assuming we've gone from 10 per 1000 to 40 per 1000 or 40 per 100 - can't do anything but add to general anxiety. The bloke who usually explains so well Jon Van Tam has not been around recently and that's a shame

[Ram59]

[QUOTE=ramAnag;39680153]

Out of interest Ram, which bit of my post was defending the BBC? Not that it needs me to and not that I accept your description of the ‘government hating BBC’.

My point was that perhaps the good news about vaccines was somewhat outweighed by the news about the dangers presented by the new variants (please note I avoided reference to the ‘British variant/virus’ to avoid offending your sensibilities) and the doubts raised by the Israelis about the efficacy of one of the vaccines.

I don’t know if you’re referring to the six o’clock or ten o’clock news. Tbh I didn’t watch either, largely because I’d sat through ninety minutes of the ‘Coronavirus Update’ programme and didn’t want depressing further.

I suppose, from the list you have provided, the message may be that there is other ‘news’ going on in our country and elsewhere.

Surely, had the BBC been as ‘government’ hating as you imply then news items such as the Home Office’s incompetent loss of criminal data, the fact that the UK has the worst (world leading!) per capita Covid figures in the World, and the news that the original information given out about the new variants (anything but British!) seems to have been hopelessly incorrect would have been given priority. Your list suggests they weren’t even mentioned.

If you actually read my post properly, you would see that I said that it was on the 'BBC news UK' website. Then on my answer to your first defence of the BBC, stating that maybe there were more important things to consider, I gave you a list of 'news headlines' which the BBC obviously thought were more important than the vaccine success.

So I gather from your comments that an 'Edinburgh landmark site going back on the market', is a more newsworthy item than the fact that the government is 'currently' on target, with the only action that will free us from this pandemic. IMO, I believe that the success of these vaccines, is the most important thing at the moment, not just for the UK, but the whole world.

I think that you would fail your English 'O' level exam, if you took it again.

[Andy_Faber]

A non-party political observation on today's vaccination number, just over 478,000

bl**dy Hell!

I'm a big optimist but I didn't think 'they' would get anywhere near that. 'They' deserve a case of beer (each) for their efforts