Covid 19, nothing to fear

Though I do not want to talk more on this topic, I just want to say just search in google "Alcohol causes cancer".

It makes a difference to me!

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I think you can take rational precautions while not being driven by fear.

Things like not going to supermarkets and getting as much food as you can delivered. Also taking exercise where you are not likely to meet anyone else. I took it always one step behind what the government advise was. That is I started isolating when it was first suggested, not the two weeks after when it became policy. That was In the beginning, I still ware a mask when I visit supermarkets and try to avoid crowded places as much as possible even now all restrictions have been lifted.

Reaching the age of 70 with having spent the last 12 years taking 7 pills a day for a heart condition gives you a much more relaxed view of your mortality. While at the same time still not ready to give up now.

It is odd that if you are young and want to die you take some pills. If you are old and want to die you stop taking the pills. :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

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Hi,
My step-daughter, who I live with and family, tonight found out she was in a Covid area three days ago.
The site, reported tonight is what is called a Tier 2 site. Shopping Centre.
She has to get a test tomorrow and isolate until she gets a result, so we are shutting the household down til then.
She has booked in for a test at a place that from what I have heard are quicker than 24hours.

Might have to do my groceries online tomorrow.

Tom... :smiley: :+1: :coffee: :australia:

Yes, my attitude to Covid is a bit weird.

I really am the weird one, who during the lockdowns and shutdowns followed all the rules and regulations. After all, I may not know I am infected and have no right to spread the virus.

For everyone else I know of in my family and locality, lockdown rule breaking, some minor, some major, was the norm.

I wonder if everyone else had followed the rules & regulations if the most recent of the lockdowns (in the UK) would have been needed.

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The problem I have with the whole was the thing was handled was the exaggerated death figures. In the UK (I don't know about anywhere else) they were (are) quoted like this:
"In there past 24 hours there were 123 deaths as a result of Covid 19 reported, that's people dying within 28 days of a positive Covid 19 test" (I don't know the exact wording used, but something like that). You could just as easily say they died within 28 days of a hair cut, so they must have died of a hair cut. To me this made the whole thing utter nonsense as we do not know how many were really dying of Covid, but very obviously a lot fewer than reported. The figures were also not put in any context, so how many people normally die of a heart attack or cancer or on the road in a similar time frame? These are big killers but we don't lock the country down for them, we just do what we can to mitigate them and accept that we all have to go of something eventually.

Hi,
Our figures in Australia are given in media releases in the mornings.
They tell us.
How many NEW cases detected in the past 24Hours.
How many deaths in the past 24Hours.

Then they get down to explaining where and possibly how.
Also if any of the deaths had pre-existing conditions.

This is a report for 15th Oct 2021.


Sadly tonight a teenager has succumbed, they report that there were pre-existing conditions, but that does make it anymore acceptable.

Population of Victoria estimated 6.7 million.
Population of Melbourne estimated at 5.0 million.

I live in Ballarat, population, estimated 110,000.
Current active Covid cases 14.

Ballarat COVID vaccination tracker showing 83.6% of residents (aged 15+) having received their first vaccination, while 53.5% of residents (aged 15+) were fully vaccinated.

Tom... :smiley: :+1: :coffee: :australia:

The death rate is difficult to quantify as there can be multiple causes in any one situation. That is why it is almost impossible to compare death rates between countries because they use different methods which will give different figures. My take in this is that our method could be an understatement of the true death rate. If someone comes into hospital and has a positive test, and then they die 29 days later they will not count. It seems unlikely that you would test anyone in an induced coma because they are still serious ill.

A better measure is the excess death rate taken against an average of the number of deaths over the last N years. But how many years is N will still affect the result.

I try to go to the hairdresser only once a year whether I need it or not.

Indeed. Also, the death rate for any given year is quite noisy, so taking one year (any year) and comparing it with the average for the previous years produces a result with a confidence band around it. That is never mentioned, as far as I recall.

The difference is, those things are not contagious.

I agree, it is, but hiding that difficulty behind a single statement that if you have a positive covid test and die within 28 days then you must have died of covid is dishonest nonsense and assumes the public is stupid. That way of presenting the figures drove a lot of the claims that the figures were exaggerated, including by me. You get a positive covid test and get run over by the proverbial and very dangerous bus and your death is reported as due to covid. You have a serious heat condition that you are unlikely to survive anyway, test positive for covid, die of a heart attack and you are reported as dying of covid.

I was more concerned with comparing to other things that kill us in large quantities, such as the things I mentioned. However, the fact that different countries' figures cannot be compared also shows they are unlikely to be accurate. If different countries used different methods but the results were considered accurate despite that then they could still be compared. They can't be compared because they are so inaccurate.

But my point is that a positive test followed by a timeout is a completely dishonest way to measure deaths from covid. It doesn't matter how many days you count, it's the wrong way to do it. We need the figures for people who died of covid, not the figures for people who died some number of days after a positive test. If someone has a positive covid test and a mild case of covid 19 then gets something else seriously wrong with them and dies then clearly they died of the serious thing, not covid, but they will be counted as a covid death. If someone gets a positive covid test, gets a serious case of covid 19, is in hospital on a ventilator and dies then it's probably fair to count them as a covid death. If the figures had been based on these kinds of assessments then I'd have taken them seriously, but they weren't.

Agreed, but that's not what we were presented with and I got totally sick of hearing the figures as presented. Only in more serious reporting, such as New Scientist, did I get those kinds of figures.

OK, what about influenza? That kills lots of people every year but it passes with little comment.

And a large chunk of cancer is caused by background radiation. The next worse thing is being ruled by self-righteous pricks.

We set speed limits based on "the acceptable death level".
That's because we have a much higher hypocrisy level, "we only preach right and wrong".

IIRC it's because the influenza virus is not as contagious, and because the spreading is an exponential function, it's not as dangerous to the "herd" as it is to the unlucky individuals that contract it.

Background radiation, phoo. It's the meteorites you have to look out for:
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1961301059823

It's like a fire. Keep the amount of fuel small, isolated from more and it can be kept under control.

But get a bunch of childish JERKS and spreading the fire, it amounts to their EFFING PRECIOUS FREEDOM TO JERKDOM putting the fire in control.

BTW, that isn't just about fire or infectious disease.

But it missed!

That was just cosmic delivery of a very valuable rock, too valuable to leave on the porch.

That is not reported as a death due to covid. The doctors signing the death certificates has to be sure that covid was a contributing factor.

Mike, sorry, you are missing the point I am making: the figures as broadcast on the telly every night were (are) for people dying within 28 days of a positive covid test. Not people dying within 28 days of a positive covid test and certified by a doctor as having covid as a contributing factor, that is NOT what is said. It is NOT stated that a doctor has had to certify covid as a contributory factor. Even if you know that covid is a contributory factor in someone's death covid being contributory is not the same as saying they died of covid.