Cyprus-Forum.com

[erolz66]

OK, so how do the calculations look if you assume that healthy under-50's whose statistical change of being killed if they contract Covid is so minimal as to be close to zero are not kept under house arrest, but you do everything in your power to protect the groups that are at risk including isolating them if necessary. Can you run that calclulation please?

There is no concept of 'herd immunity' by age group. It could only work if there was total separation of age groups.A ridiculous notion. Herd immunity is about the 'herd' , all of it , hence the name 'herd' immunity. It just makes no sense to talk about 'herd immunity' by age group unless each age group is a separate 'herd'.

Of course I am no expert in the field, but my understanding is if you let the non-vulnerable majority go about their business and the virus rapidly spread among them, with close to zero risk and with the vast majority not experiencing any symptoms at all and those that do suffering something like a cold or the flu, you will rapidly attain the degree of immunity needed to prevent the virus from being able to spread and hence annihilating it. Then, you can bring the risk groups you have been protecting back into society with the virus now gone.

All you are doing , having had the numbers using your preferred IFR guess that you claim is the mainstream consensus thrust in your face, is revert to a position of 'old peoples shortened lives' do not really matter but without the guts to just come out and say that plainly.

[erolz66]

A write up of Ionannidis' recent study (and it is important to stress that the different results as compared to certain studies dating from a couple of months ago do not necessarily point to a lack of consensus in the scientific community but are due to the recent availability of the results of empirical scientific studies in the field) can be found here:

Stanford study suggests coronavirus might not be as deadly as flu

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/sta ... dly-as-flu

Might - from the same source, the spectator that you quoted and that used the ONS numbers to 'prove' that cvid-19 was not as deadly as the flu, when the ONS figures only went up to a week where there had only been 11 UK covid attributed deaths. At that time the spectators chosen 'expert' was plain and simple and clear.

The simplest way to judge whether we have an exceptionally lethal disease is to look at the death rates. Are more people dying than we would expect to die anyway in a given week or month?

[erolz66]

Of course I am no expert in the field, but my understanding is if you let the non-vulnerable majority go about their business and the virus rapidly spread among them, with close to zero risk and with the vast majority not experiencing any symptoms at all and those that do suffering something like a cold or the flu, you will rapidly attain the degree of immunity needed to prevent the virus from being able to spread and hence annihilating it. Then, you can bring the risk groups you have been protecting back into society with the virus now gone.

What do you mean by 'bring back in to society' exactly ? You are going to enforce separation of populations based on age are you ? Exactly what kind of enforced separation are talking about here ? Lock old people up ? What age would be your cut off point ? 85 ? 75 ? 65 ? How old are YOU Tim ? how old is CG ? What about high risk groups that are not based on age ? Separate THEM from the rest of society as well ? Strong data on various ethnic mionority groups having higher rates of infection ? Separate them based on ethnicity as well ? Higher rates for diabetics. Separate them as well ?

And you talk about the dangers of covid-19 leading to a police state ?

[erolz66]

Of course I am no expert in the field, but my understanding is if you let the non-vulnerable majority go about their business and the virus rapidly spread among them, with close to zero risk and with the vast majority not experiencing any symptoms at all and those that do suffering something like a cold or the flu, you will rapidly attain the degree of immunity needed to prevent the virus from being able to spread and hence annihilating it. Then, you can bring the risk groups you have been protecting back into society with the virus now gone.

What do you mean by 'bring back in to society' exactly ? You are going to enforce separation of populations based on age are you ? Exactly what kind of enforced separation are talking about here ? Lock old people up ? What age would be your cut off point ? 85 ? 75 ? 65 ? How old are YOU Tim ? how old is CG ? What about high risk groups that are not based on age ? Separate THEM from the rest of society as well ? Strong data on various ethnic mionority groups having higher rates of infection ? Separate them based on ethnicity as well ? Higher rates for diabetics. Separate them as well ?

And you talk about the dangers of covid-19 leading to a police state ?

And none of this is necessary if you control the spread as places like SK have done, all WITHOUT having to shut down local economies. Without significant increase in deaths (shortened lifespans). Test, track , trace. We know this has worked to date. It is only speculation that it can not continue to work for another 6 months, year, 2 years. So on the speculation that at some point in the future SK's approach will fail and the virus will break out and spread exponential we are going to instead lock up old, ethnic groups, people with medical conditions , the poor until enough of the remaining population has been infected so that over all herd immunity is reached. This is your solution is it Tim ?

[Tim Drayton]

I would remind you that the current policy is to forcibly lock everyone up.

[Tim Drayton]

... having had the numbers using your preferred IFR guess that you claim is the mainstream consensus thrust in your face...

Mainstream consensus? When did I claim that? Apart from that, I said I was accepting your figures for the sake of argument, but, if they were correct, a similar or roughtly equivalent number of people would die of flu every year in Cyprus, which they obviously don't, so I am afraid that your calculations must be based on false premises.

[erolz66]

I would remind you that the current policy is to forcibly lock everyone up.

You are in Cyprus right ? Talk about hyped up doom mongering out of all proportion to reality. You should work in the media. You were forced to stay in doors were you ? People pointing guns at you if you went outside ? Not allowed out to buy food ? To exercise ? Could you go out today ? Tomorrow ? Your 'plan' to have any chance of working would involve enforcing your chosen groups to be isolated to a vastly greater degree, with a vastly greater degree of enforcement and for a much longer period of time than anything you have suffered to date. And in SK the vast majority of citizens NEVER had ANY restrictions on their movements within SK at all.

[erolz66]

... having had the numbers using your preferred IFR guess that you claim is the mainstream consensus thrust in your face...

Mainstream consensus? When did I claim that? Apart from that, I said I was accepting your figures for the sake of argument, but, if they were correct, a similar or roughtly equivalent number of people would die of flu every year in Cyprus, which they obviously don't, so I am afraid that your calculations must be based on false premises.

cyprus47300-1650.html#p897055

Yet this is the consensus (around 0.37% not 0.3%) ....

consensus
/kənˈsɛnsəs/
Learn to pronounce
noun
a general agreement.
"there is a growing consensus that the current regime has failed"

You are saying there is consensus of IFR for covid-19 of .37 %. If that guess is correct it means that covid-19 is 3.7 times more deadly than flu, Hundreds and thousands DO die from flu every year and especially in the regular cyclical spikes that occur every 5- 10 years. 3.7 times MORE, and in addition, will die from covid-19 than flu if YOUR chosen guess number is correct. If it is 0.7% then seven times more people will die from covid-19 than flu. That is what IFR means.

[erolz66]

Let's take this simple shall we.

IFR - Infection fatality rate. This is the % of people who if infected will die. The clue is in the words infection and mortality rate.

Flu, where there is some immunity in the general population from prior infection and from annual vaccine shots, kills 0.1% of those who get infected. More for vulnerable groups less for less vulnerable groups but on average 0.1% of people who get it die from it. Not everyone gets it in a given year but of those that do 0.1% will die from it. There is no 'herd immunity' with the flu because it mutates too quickly. No one has ever suggested a way of dealing with it is to get herd immunity because that can not work with the flu.

Covid-19. People ARE suggesting that the way for society to deal with this new virus is to just accept the inevitable that it can not be controlled or contained and thus we should quickly seek to obtain herd immunity. This REQUIRES a certain minimum % of the population to get infected in order to WORK. Seeing any difference with flu yet Tim ? Getting any inkling why your comparison " a similar or roughtly equivalent number of people would die of flu every year in Cyprus," might be a bit flawed here ? Herd immunity for covid-19 without a vaccine REQUIRES people to be infected. A number like 60% is not any more or less a guess than 30% or 90%. What ever this guess number is it is REQUIRED than this many people get covid-19 for herd immunity to protect the remaining %. So plug in your guess IFR and you get how many people HAVE to die before herd immunity has an affect. So to say that this must be wrong because 60% of 1.2 million in cyprus times by flu IFR of 0.1% do not die each year misses the point entirely that it is not REQUIRED that 60% of the population get flu each year. For covid-19 herd immunity that may well be REQUIRED. Got it yet ?

[repulsewarrior]