wrighty

A resurgence in the Open University perhaps? In my experience (been to traditional uni and done an OU degree, and recently/currently with children across at uni) the teaching aspects of the OU degree are far better than traditional universities who focus much on research (The former polys may be better at teaching). What you don't get at the OU is the social side and life experience. If all that has been killed off by covid, at least for a bit, an OU degree from home for £5000 annual fees (last time I looked) seems much more attractive than £9250 fees across, plus rent, plus travel, plus higher living expenses...

Even odder that the Tory party are siding with the lefties!

His phrase was ‘bag of shite’ if I recall correctly. 3/10.

I’ve also read it. Largely ad hominem attacks on the naysayers because they’re right wing, or have contracts with Boris, or aren’t established epidemiologists. I’ve also read articles in the British Medical Journal. I’m concerned that agenda has been set. If you so much as claim that covid is not so bad, or the restrictions are damaging you’re immediately labeled a covid heretic, or compared with Trump, Bolsanaro, or some Swedish guy. There is a balance to be struck here. I’m not sure where it is, but it’s certainly not at either end of the debate. My son returned to uni at the weekend - I was more concerned about him driving along the M62 than for him catching covid. We need a better understanding of risk, and it needs to be more sophisticated than ‘1 death = murder by government’ vs ‘ government lockdowns kill the economy’

If there’s only been 11 reinfections from 31 million known cases I don’t think we need to be too worried.

My daughter had similar - a single call to make sure she understood she had to isolate and what that meant. For 99% of people that’s surely enough. I don’t think checking up on people every day is necessary. The small proportion of folk who are going to flout the rules will do so anyway. You have to trust people to do the right thing, as long as they know what that is. The problem in the UK right now is that people don’t have a clue.

Boo! I wonder if that was because some stuffed shirt here made an official complaint, or whether some stuffed shirt over there thought you couldn’t allow any levity in official publications. It’s not as if the cat map was likely to get used to plan a route.

https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3563 Another article from latest British Medical Journal - interesting stuff on T cell immunity, cross immunity with common colds, and how prevalence levels for achieving herd immunity may be much lower than the usually quoted 60-75%

https://www.bmj.com/content/370/bmj.m3487 BMJ letter from a public health professor suggesting encouraging youngsters get covid to generate herd immunity.

I see the UK scientific advisers are using an IFR of 0.4% in their estimates of covid fatality https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54234084 50000 cases per day resulting in 200 deaths per day is the prediction. Or is it going to be over 5000 PK?

Am I the only one to think this character assault on Dilligaf is a little bullying in nature? I've half a mind to report the thread to John Wright. Oh, wait...

Fine PK, whatever. So the death rate from covid is over 10% and it’s entirely the fault of serial philanderer totally amoral narcisistic bungling brexiteer bozo and his Eton chums. You’re right - I only wish you’d pointed this out sooner, but I’m convinced now

It is you, over-simplifying things. In the early days, there were far more cases than reported as testing capability was far lower than now. Just go to worldometers, look at the graphs of daily infections and daily deaths. Many countries - USA for example - have a double peak. Try dividing peak deaths by corresponding peak cases. The second peak is a far lower death rate than the first. Because testing is more, and treatment is probably better with nowhere getting overwhelmed (except Brazil, and perhaps India) Infection fatality rate is calculated to be somewhere between 0.2% and 1.4%. And is very age dependent, with risk of dying from covid doubling every 6 years.

It’s an embedded link to the WHO - search for WHO Covid 19 case definition and you’ll get the same thing.