China Coronavirus

[Milltown Row2]

FFS, lads. China can mass test 4.7 million people in a few days because China is f**king massive with virtually limitless resources.

There are 1,393 million people in China.
There are 6.8 million people in Ireland.

Proportionally, what China is doing is like Ireland testing the whole of Omagh or Mullingar over a few days. It could be done, but unlike in China, COVID is everywhere here so there's no point focussing all your attention on one town.

This mass testing idea is just naive nonsense with our current available resources.

And, even if in a parallel universe, where testing everyone was possible - what's the point? Huge numbers are currently running around in the full knowledge that they have the virus and don't give a shite. These selfish pricks would just reinfect the populace as quick as you thought you had a handle on things.

It's fair to say China has a slight advantage when it comes to getting the population to comply.

So true! I'm looking out the window at work and at times ya wanna head out and put your toe right through people!

[armaghniac]

344 cases in Hospitals in the 26 with 39 in ICU.
Highest numbers since 20th May.

Pretty much the same number 342 in the 6 counties, which is significantly more than the previous 8 April peak of 322.
Antrim hospital has pretty much closed its A&E as it is over capacity.

[sid waddell]

Who laughed?!

And he won't be able to back this up, this narcissist comes from the school of Trump or Johnston, keep repeating lies over and over, with ever more conviction and someone might believe them. 

It much be such a miserable existence coming on the Internet everyday to get on like that. I just don't get it.

I'd say it's lot more miserable of an existence when one is laughing at children being ripped from their parents' arms

[Angelo]

FFS, lads. China can mass test 4.7 million people in a few days because China is f**king massive with virtually limitless resources.

There are 1,393 million people in China.
There are 6.8 million people in Ireland.

Proportionally, what China is doing is like Ireland testing the whole of Omagh or Mullingar over a few days. It could be done, but unlike in China, COVID is everywhere here so there's no point focussing all your attention on one town.

This mass testing idea is just naive nonsense with our current available resources.

And, even if in a parallel universe, where testing everyone was possible - what's the point? Huge numbers are currently running around in the full knowledge that they have the virus and don't give a shite. These selfish pricks would just reinfect the populace as quick as you thought you had a handle on things.

Slovakia are going to do it.

[armaghniac]

And, even if in a parallel universe, where testing everyone was possible - what's the point? Huge numbers are currently running around in the full knowledge that they have the virus and don't give a shite. These selfish pricks would just reinfect the populace as quick as you thought you had a handle on things.

This mass testing would be best done when cases had been reduced after lockdown. Then test everyone and then take no nonsense about the need to isolate for those people indicated positive. Get a few nice hotels, with good food, fast Internet, and free Netflix and require people to spend their time there.

[LeoMc]

So we are down to 2 ICU beds here in the North, 1 in SWA and 1 in Causeway coast.

There are 108 in total, 60 occupied by non-Covid, 39 by Covid cases, leaving 9 empty. However 6 of those are Paediatric and 1 in specialist cardiac.

We have had a trickle of deaths when we have the capacity and learned knowledge. Let it rip, eh.

[imtommygunn]

Is that with or without nightingale?

It's getting bad - really bad. Antrim closing doors in emergency department not a good sign. Even if lockdown works you'd expect another week or two of hospital numbers growing.

[Ed Ricketts]

FFS, lads. China can mass test 4.7 million people in a few days because China is f**king massive with virtually limitless resources.

There are 1,393 million people in China.
There are 6.8 million people in Ireland.

Proportionally, what China is doing is like Ireland testing the whole of Omagh or Mullingar over a few days. It could be done, but unlike in China, COVID is everywhere here so there's no point focussing all your attention on one town.

This mass testing idea is just naive nonsense with our current available resources.

And, even if in a parallel universe, where testing everyone was possible - what's the point? Huge numbers are currently running around in the full knowledge that they have the virus and don't give a shite. These selfish pricks would just reinfect the populace as quick as you thought you had a handle on things.

Slovakia are going to do it.

They're not really.

China's mass testing uses PCR. It will be reliable, but they are presumably pulling in lab and staffing capacity from all over their massive country to make this happen.

Slovakia are using volunteers to roll out some rapid antigen tests, none of which have been proven to be very reliable. A lot of countries had a look at these earlier in the year and decided they weren't worth the effort.

From what I've read online, many in Slovakia seem to be dismissing the exercise as a PR stunt pulled to mask some big failings in other areas. No COVID app, no track & trace worth talking about, insufficient lab testing capacity, etc.

Maybe what Slovakia are doing will help their situation, but it's not really testing as we've come to understand it.

[Milltown Row2]

FFS, lads. China can mass test 4.7 million people in a few days because China is f**king massive with virtually limitless resources.

There are 1,393 million people in China.
There are 6.8 million people in Ireland.

Proportionally, what China is doing is like Ireland testing the whole of Omagh or Mullingar over a few days. It could be done, but unlike in China, COVID is everywhere here so there's no point focussing all your attention on one town.

This mass testing idea is just naive nonsense with our current available resources.

And, even if in a parallel universe, where testing everyone was possible - what's the point? Huge numbers are currently running around in the full knowledge that they have the virus and don't give a shite. These selfish pricks would just reinfect the populace as quick as you thought you had a handle on things.

Slovakia are going to do it.

They're not really.

China's mass testing uses PCR. It will be reliable, but they are presumably pulling in lab and staffing capacity from all over their massive country to make this happen.

Slovakia are using volunteers to roll out some rapid antigen tests, none of which have been proven to be very reliable. A lot of countries had a look at these earlier in the year and decided they weren't worth the effort.

From what I've read online, many in Slovakia seem to be dismissing the exercise as a PR stunt pulled to mask some big failings in other areas. No COVID app, no track & trace worth talking about, insufficient lab testing capacity, etc.

Maybe what Slovakia are doing will help their situation, but it's not really testing as we've come to understand it.

Well the numbers here in the north are getting out of control, whatever we are doing (Nothing) doesn't seem to be bringing the numbers down. The government here is a pile of dung, with absolutely no balls to make a decision that may hurt their vote!

Playing politics with peoples lives.

For a civilised first world part of Europe we've a third world approach

[RedHand88]

Who laughed?!

And he won't be able to back this up, this narcissist comes from the school of Trump or Johnston, keep repeating lies over and over, with ever more conviction and someone might believe them. 

It much be such a miserable existence coming on the Internet everyday to get on like that. I just don't get it.

I'd say it's lot more miserable of an existence when one is laughing at children being ripped from their parents' arms

Again, who laughed? What are you talking about???

[armaghniac]

Is that with or without nightingale?

It's getting bad - really bad. Antrim closing doors in emergency department not a good sign. Even if lockdown works you'd expect another week or two of hospital numbers growing.

Nightingale will help keep ill but not critical Covid patients away from other patients, if it can be staffed, of course.
In the 6 counties, numbers have declined signficantly in Derry, from a very high level, have gone down slightly in Belfast, but are up in most other districts. The overall number is down a bit since Derry and Belfast have more people.

In April they sent some patients to England, but things are not great in many parts there. There is talk of sending some patients to the South, which might be possible for a few patients, but not very many.

[Seaney]

Again, who laughed? What are you talking about???

Best ignoring him he is a pathological liar, makes everything about the person rather than the discussion, has abused folk over and over and yet cries foul when he is caught out - which let's be honest isn't a hard thing to do. 

[sid waddell]

Again, who laughed? What are you talking about???

Best ignoring him he is a pathological liar, makes everything about the person rather than the discussion, has abused folk over and over and yet cries foul when he is caught out - which let's be honest isn't a hard thing to do. 

I laughed at this

Birds of a feather flock together

[Angelo]

FFS, lads. China can mass test 4.7 million people in a few days because China is f**king massive with virtually limitless resources.

There are 1,393 million people in China.
There are 6.8 million people in Ireland.

Proportionally, what China is doing is like Ireland testing the whole of Omagh or Mullingar over a few days. It could be done, but unlike in China, COVID is everywhere here so there's no point focussing all your attention on one town.

This mass testing idea is just naive nonsense with our current available resources.

And, even if in a parallel universe, where testing everyone was possible - what's the point? Huge numbers are currently running around in the full knowledge that they have the virus and don't give a shite. These selfish pricks would just reinfect the populace as quick as you thought you had a handle on things.

Slovakia are going to do it.

They're not really.

China's mass testing uses PCR. It will be reliable, but they are presumably pulling in lab and staffing capacity from all over their massive country to make this happen.

Slovakia are using volunteers to roll out some rapid antigen tests, none of which have been proven to be very reliable. A lot of countries had a look at these earlier in the year and decided they weren't worth the effort.

From what I've read online, many in Slovakia seem to be dismissing the exercise as a PR stunt pulled to mask some big failings in other areas. No COVID app, no track & trace worth talking about, insufficient lab testing capacity, etc.

Maybe what Slovakia are doing will help their situation, but it's not really testing as we've come to understand it.

It' mass testing whatever way you look at it.

They're trying to do something under than lockdowns to manage and best of luck to them, let's see how they get on.

[sid waddell]

I see the crank of choice for the Covid deniers, Dr. Martin Feely, lied outright in his latest Irish Times article (he's being silenced, doncha know, writing very prominent articles in the Irish Times as he is)

This is a thorough demolition of Dr. Feely's "talking points"

----------------

https://twitter.com/andrewflood/status/1320762629229629440

Yesterday the @IrishTimes again published a #Covid19 piece that had not been fact checked. Piece by Martin Feely suggests the WHO had put forward a mortality of 0.1386%. This is untrue & this false claim was already directly addressed by WHO Oct 12th /1

https://twitter.com/andrewflood/status/1315997403762262016

There been a lot of misleading claims that the WHO suggested a low IFR for #Covid19 When specifically asked about that Oct 12th WHO says research converges at an IFR of 0.6% full segment at 19.27

The piece then refers to a a paper by "research expert Dr J Ioannidis which reports an overall Case Fatality Rate of 0.27%". But Ioannidis paper gave an IFR not CFR estimate of 0.27%, this is a significant error in itself as well as providing two contradictory estimates /2

WHO says IFR research converges on an IFR of 0.6% so both Martin's claims are misleading.  The WHO bulletin is not a policy statement but collects research of interest, presumably the Ioannidis paper was interesting for being an outlier with low IFR but about that.. /3

Ioannidis is somewhat infamous for claiming early in the pandemic that IFR was 0.02-0.04%, about 1/10th of the current claim.  He's one of a number of media savvy researchers who got a lot of airtime because their low IFR estimates aligned with business interests /4

His latest study still has an IFR less than half of the 0.6% the WHO says other research is converging on.  The reason appears to be because of the way he selected what research he included and excluded in this review as detailed in this thread /5

All this is very complex which is all the more why the responsibility is on the so called paper of record to fact check pieces like this.  It is not at all reasonable to expect the average reader to be able to do so, indeed the reader is not warned this hasn't been done /6


Martin opens with an ironic in the light of the above warning that much commentary is based on a "lack of understanding of Covid realities". Yet he goes on to question why cases are an important metric despite the very simple reality that they tell you how many are infectious /7

Cases also indicate how many people will be hospitalised in the future, will need ICU & perhaps most importantly how many will die.  There is a very long lag between cases and deaths so a basic reality is that waiting for deaths to alert you would doom you to many many more /8

It's only 3-4 weeks after Leo suggested copying the 'cases don't really matter' approach Belgium had adopted but now the butchers bill for doing so has started to become clear  as Belgium hits ICU number beyond what our public system has /9

Dividing by 2.3 the (Belgian) numbers in Ireland would mean
2100 in hospital, 185 new yesterday
330 in ICU, 21 new yesterday
5400 daily new infection
18 daily deaths

Martin, after warning abt scaremongering goes on to undermine hope that vaccine is on the way or that it could make much of a difference. In fact vaccine findings are expected in the next 2-3 months with very large quantities already under production /10

He then misrepresents WHO again by claiming they say lockdowns don't work.  This isn't correct, they correctly say they should be a last resort & the sort of testing to discover cases that Martin don't understand, along with the measures he opposes are 1st line of defence /11

He says "The number admitted to hospital in Dublin increased slightly over the past 4 weeks" when in fact over the last month those in hospital with Covid have increased a not very slight 350%. Again surely a claim that should have been fact checked by
@IrishTimes
/12

He then again confuses CFR & IFR in the conclusion referring to a CFR for flu in 2018 that at 2.14% was "almost 10-fold higher than for Covid-19". The CFR for Covid in Ireland is not 0.214 but 3.3% - again fact checking should have picked this up /13

The only reason the 2018 flu has a CFR of 2.14% is precisely because unlike Covid only the sick were tested for it. If the same was applied to Covid19 the CFR in Ireland would be around 15-20%, it is lower only because those cases Martin didn't want counted are  /14

Martin's article is an example of sunk costs fallacy, once someone takes a bad position they tend to dig further into it. That's his excuse but there really isn't an excuse for the last of fact checking by the Irish Times, and not for the first time

The media have taken a similar infotainment approach on #Covid19 as they have to Climate Change.  Instead of providing representative fact checked explainers of the science to enable public understanding they present this sort of debate with outlier positions for clicks /16

It doesn't even reflect the publics position, polls show that runs between 4 and 6 to 1 in favour of the restrictions. Creating an impression of a 50:50 debate only makes sense if you are a business lobbyist valuing profit over lives /17