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Covid-19

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  • steveTusteveTu Posts: 3,219
    '...(I saw the hospital statistic as well and even the bbc reports on its website that deaths within 28 days of a covid positive, includes a large number for which it wasn't a cause of death)..'
    Fine and that must be true the more prevalent with a non or lesser symptomatic (whether that's due to a less serious virus or to vaccination lessening the symptoms)  spread of the virus . But the gov has always published multiple views of the stats. The 'with covid on the cert' was running at about 110 deaths a day (that's about 40,000 p.a. if that rate continued over the year - which it typically wouldn't) just before Christmas.



    UK - South Coast Retirement Campus (East)
  • On the subject of studies, there seems to be multiple ones running in parallel.  On the link @Obelixx posted it  said they were looking into multiple aspects, who has it now, with or without symptoms,  who has had it, and who has antibodies,  either naturally acquired or through vaccine.  I  have taken part in the UK react study,  where they do PCR tests on a wide range of people, linked with a comprehensive questionnaire to analyse your risk factors.  
    AB Still learning

  • savid javid says we are going to have to learn to live with it like flu which kills 20,000 a year.well covid isn't flu and 150,000 in 18 months is a little more than 20,000.its still here.
  • ErgatesErgates Posts: 2,953
    I did the REACT study too. Also volunteered to have the sound of my cough recorded as part of a study, but my recorder wouldn’t cooperate.
  • They asked me to that recently,  I haven't done it yet.
    AB Still learning

  • ObelixxObelixx Posts: 30,090
    Context @the tidy gardener.   So called Spanish flus which was actually a bird flu that passed to humans, killed 50 million world wide.   Covid is part of a family of viruses that is here to stay but we do now have vaccines which will help and which can be adapted to cope with the latest dominant variant and thus cut numbers of infections and fatalities.
    Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
    "The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
    Plato
  • LunarSeaLunarSea Posts: 1,923
    Can somebody please reassure me that a positive lateral flow test is actually finding the antigen specific to what we now know as the Covid virus? It seems strange to me that we are always hearing about the number of "cases" and yet many of them do not involve actual illness. I wonder how many positive results would have occurred pre-Covid when other Coronaviruses were available?

    Ok no takers? Let me come at it a different way then. I recently saw the lateral flow test described like this:

    "Lateral flow testing has been around for decades - its glorified chromatography. They can be quick and cheap or very accurate and expensive. You make them for a specific Coronavirus or a whole range of Coronaviruses ....."

    The UK Research and Innovation site says "To date seven human coronaviruses (HCoVs) have been identified. Four of them are common; less high risk and typically cause only mild respiratory illnesses in healthy human adults. However, they contribute to a third of common cold infections ...."

    What I'm starting to suspect is that the only way they've managed to furnish the nation with enough test kits is to make them "quick and cheap" and as a result they're detecting "a whole range of Coronaviruses" not just Covid19. Maybe this is the reason there are so many apparent 'cases' and yet comparatively fewer actual illnesses. 

    Any thoughts?
    Clay soil - Cheshire/Derbyshire border

    I play with plants and soil and sometimes it's successful

  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190
    I agree,   They don’t tell you which one it is,  we don’t see many people but our kids do, theres no one in their circle of friends, business or social who haven’t had it or tested positive,  they don’t know anyone who’s been in hospital with it. 
    Of course before Vaccines they did loose a few friends but not now.
    The LF tests don’t know which strain you’ve got,   As you say, could be colds and flu as we always get in the winter.
    The amount of people in hospital through the winter always goes up, a large number of those are in for something else but just tested positive because of the spread,  I don’t think the ICU are full of COVID patients as they were pre vaccine. 

    I cant begin to think of the money China has made with these LFT kits. 
    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Posts: 88,147
    Lyn said:
    ...
    The LF tests don’t know which strain you’ve got,   As you say, could be colds and flu as we always get in the winter....
    Laterak Flow Tests don't register a positive for colds and flu.  

    Following a Positive PCR test the swabs are further tested to check for which variant it is.  We may not be told, but that's how the variants are picked up and tracked. 

    Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.





  • LynLyn Posts: 23,190

    Is this not true then? 


    "Lateral flow testing has been around for decades - its glorified chromatography. They can be quick and cheap or very accurate and expensive. You make them for a specific Coronavirus or a whole range of Coronaviruses ....."

    The UK Research and Innovation site says "To date seven human coronaviruses (HCoVs) have been identified. Four of them are common; less high risk and typically cause only mild respiratory illnesses in healthy human adults. However, they contribute to a third of common cold infections ...


    Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor. 

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