Coronavirus and the impact on football

[Steveo]

Fair enough sid, I guess i just need to be a bit creative and think a bit harder haha

Probably goes for most of us too Kev.

[scientificred]

Dear Taksin

The quote that offends you was taken out of context (by you). I made those comments about covid being a bad respiratory virus (which it is) in response to SR's comment

"Flu does not carry such an inhumane suffering."

By inhumane I meant

People going into ICU and not being able to see their friends or family and being surrounded by people looking like aliens.
Then as ther health diminishes being offered the respirator which they do not know whether they will come back from and asked to basically collect their last will and testament together in perhaps 30 minutes.
During this process all their friends and relatives are suffering and then if they should die the funeral is limited to a very few people and then to add further pain they have to remain distant.

Further to your argument for herd immunity:
How would this be conducted practically?
UK population about 67m
People over 65 in UK about 20%
Other people at risk about 10%
That makes about 30% of population or about 20m
Many of these are also still key workers
Apart from that almost all of those people lives are inextricably linked to the other 70%
e.g. They may need care from the other part or are themselves carers for the other part.

And regarding experts I notice you have recently used the term 'leading expert'
Does this discount previous experts.
How expert do you consider yourself at this point in time or could you admit that you are still learning?

[Nineteenx]

I honestly think they don't know enough about it, people who have had it get reinfected, but do they actually get reinfected? The continuing health issues of many people that have had appear to support the suggestion that it is similar to glandular fever, in that once you've had it, it never really leaves you.

It also seems to affect people in different ways, suggesting it attacks the immune system or body at it's weakest point, whatever that person's weakest point is.

Re the economy, to me if we'd have closed our borders, had people wearing masks earlier and had the first lockdown for a month or 2 longer while keeping our borders closed and having very strict quarantine rules for anyone coming in or out of the country, then we'd have likely seen it off by now, this isn't a second wave we're seeing, this is going back while there were too many cases, going back because they thought economically they needed to and doing more damage to the economy in doing so

[Taksin]

Hi scientificred

Thanks for your post. I won't go back over the context of all these comments in order to clarify matters further. My conversation with CD has shown the futility of getting into petty arguments. I repeat that my reason for contributing on here is simple. I believe a terrible, enormous mistake is occurring, which I wish to speak out about.

By inhumane I meant

People going into ICU and not being able to see their friends or family and being surrounded by people looking like aliens.
Then as ther health diminishes being offered the respirator which they do not know whether they will come back from and asked to basically collect their last will and testament together in perhaps 30 minutes.
During this process all their friends and relatives are suffering and then if they should die the funeral is limited to a very few people and then to add further pain they have to remain distant.

All of those definitions are to do with the response to the virus, not the virus itself. In my opinion, someone who dies of the flu is dying just as tragically - it's just that none of the above measures are added to compound the tragedy. Of course an elderly and infirm person for whom the flu or covid is the disease that carries them over the threshold is a different kind of tragedy to a young healthy person overwhelmed by a fever whilst in the prime of life. I do think that distinction is worth making as we weigh up the tragedy of this disease in its own right or in comparison to other respiratory diseases, but I have made that case many times over.

When you said this disease was particularly inhumane, you were not the first person I have heard say that. I have in fact heard it said many times, over and over. I say that as someone who thought he was going to die for two nights running when I had the disease. It was scary. But remember my friend actually did die of the flu a few years ago when he was much younger and healthier than I am now, so I am still scratching my head trying to understand why people have come to see this disease as especially horrifying.

And regarding experts I notice you have recently used the term 'leading expert'
Does this discount previous experts.
How expert do you consider yourself at this point in time or could you admit that you are still learning?

Did you know that the Nazis produced a book/pamphlet called something like 100 scientists refute Albert Einstein's relativity theory. They wanted to discredit his Jewish science. His reply was that it would only take one of them to prove him wrong. Nowadays, consensus is used all the time to build a political position around 'the science'. That isn't how science works. Something is true or not, understood or not.

The current problem is actually more complex than anything Einstein worked on. He was working on pure physics. This problem we have now involves tourism, manufacturing, border control, hospitality, human contact and isolation, the immune system, health, demographics, nursing home practices, race and poverty, unemployment, central bank money creation, the grieving process, virology, pathology, epidemiology, psychology, hospital waiting lists and funding pathways, journalism and the media, billionaire charity foundations and global governance, medi-business, political polarisation, human rights and liberties, a US election campaign etc etc etc

The Imperial college algorithm, now widely discredited, was not capable of taking these things into account, was it?

Unlike Einstein's critics, the experts I have invoked can't prove anyone wrong as very few people are even presenting any finished science worthy of disproof. They all have available to them the same, cloudy data that appears to show very few clear patterns. They are guessing and wishing things fitted their imagined view of how things work and what needs to happen.

We should be arguing with them as there is so much at stake.

Yes there are leading experts - there is a hierarchy. If the top minds in epidemiology globally create a document such as the Great Barrington Declaration, as they did this week, we are justified in asking why we are still following a discredited strategy drawn up by a disgraced individual. Even if it was just two walls of opposing august scientists, I have already said I don't think we should follow scientists when the stakes are so high and the effects so complex. They are only human. We have to decide for ourselves and do our best to weigh up the evidence.

p.s. I have never claimed to be an expert and I regard the issue as irrelevant. We are all talking here.

[Nineteenx]

The economy is at stake largely because Eintsein was entirely accurate in 1949

90% of the UK population aren't capable of making an informed political decision, most have shown themselves to be entirely incapable of following a political thread.

I went absolutely berserk when I saw that fraud Farage standing in empty factories blaming the EU for the demise of UK manufacturing in his PPB in the last election. I have a form of autism, a part of that is it automatically recognises and stores important information for me, so I've followed the political thread, in its entirety all the way from 83/84 to present day, the Conservative party did for UK manufacturing, and tried to do away with anything else that had unionised jobs, it had absolutely fuck all to do with the EU

We're in a highly precarious economical state because of bunch of morons who 90% plus of can't follow a political thread and are ridiculously easily manipulated by the media into accepting the unacceptable and into voting for who they are told to, for reasons that are entirely false kept voting for the fucking Tories and THEN voted for fucking Blair who was another Tory and let the UK become entirely reliant on service sector jobs in the process

[Taksin]

The WHO does not advocate lockdowns.
We may well have a doubling of world poverty and malnutrition by next year
This is a terrible catastrophe

[Taksin]

The science does not support lockdowns
More children have died from seasonal flu this year than from covid-19

[Taksin]

https://unherd.com/2020/10/covid-experts-there-is-another-way/?pt

Here's the great Barrington Declaration for anyone interested.




As infectious disease epidemiologists and public health scientists we have grave concerns about the damaging physical, and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection.

Coming from both the left and right, and around the world, we have devoted our careers to protecting people. Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health – leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice.

Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed.

Fortunately, our understanding of the virus is growing. We know that vulnerability to death from COVID-19 is more than a thousand-fold higher in the old and infirm than the young. Indeed, for children, COVID-19 is less dangerous than many other harms, including influenza.

As immunity builds in the population, the risk of infection to all – including the vulnerable – falls. We know that all populations will eventually reach herd immunity – i.e. the point at which the rate of new infections is stable – and that this can be assisted by (but is not dependent upon) a vaccine. Our goal should therefore be to minimize mortality and social harm until we reach herd immunity.

The most compassionate approach that balances the risks and benefits of reaching herd immunity, is to allow those who are at minimal risk of death to live their lives normally to build up immunity to the virus through natural infection, while better protecting those who are at highest risk. We call this Focused Protection.

Adopting measures to protect the vulnerable should be the central aim of public health responses to COVID-19. By way of example, nursing homes should use staff with acquired immunity and perform frequent PCR testing of other staff and all visitors. Staff rotation should be minimized. Retired people living at home should have groceries and other essentials delivered to their home. When possible, they should meet family members outside rather than inside. A comprehensive and detailed list of measures, including approaches to multi-generational households, can be implemented, and is well within the scope and capability of public health professionals.

Those who are not vulnerable should immediately be allowed to resume life as normal. Simple hygiene measures, such as hand washing and staying home when sick should be practiced by everyone to reduce the herd immunity threshold. Schools and universities should be open for in-person teaching. Extracurricular activities, such as sports, should be resumed. Young low-risk adults should work normally, rather than from home. Restaurants and other businesses should open. Arts, music, sport and other cultural activities should resume. People who are more at risk may participate if they wish, while society as a whole enjoys the protection conferred upon the vulnerable by those who have built up herd immunity.

Great Barrington, Massachusetts, 4th October 2020

[Taksin]

They haven't even started talking about football

[ianlfc]

As times are tough for alot of people and football is one of the few releases in life. Sky and the premier league have decided to charge £15 for games on pay per view.