I understand. You’re in Indonesia.
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Quite an achievement! Looks like all those additional, government approved, Christmas flights from the UK after the travel ban helped a lot!
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There’s an open border at NI border so it’s almost impossible to control. Also NI has been really bad for a month or so already.
But it was really families meeting up for Christmas which has caused this I’d say. The govt bowed to the pressure from families and the publicans and resteranteurs and the public wanted to have some fun. The UK variant is spreading rapidly.
Bad news for our primate cousins…
BBC News @finley 
- Last year saw the largest increase in UK deaths in a single year since 1940, according to provisional ONS figures
- In 2020, nearly 697,000 deaths were registered, compared with an average of nearly 606,000 each year between 2015 and 2019
Yeah, I did the calculations earlier today. The death rate for 2020 is about 10% higher than is has been recently, although it’s worth noting that most of that is due to the peak that occurred in April, not this December’s modest increase in deaths.
Also worth noting that there has been a dramatic decline in the death rate since 1980. 2015-2019 represented an extreme low point; I suspect that timeframe has been taken as a reference by the media because it artificially inflates the severity of the current “crisis”.
Looking back in history a little bit, we’re currently at the same death rate as the early 2000s.
Do you have a link? I can’t find the number of reduced deaths in 2021.
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That’s complete bollocks. The population in 1940 was much lower, so speaking of raw death rates is meaningless. I can’t even find the rate for 1940, but 1950 was about 11.5. 2015-2019 was about 9.5. 2020 was about 10.5; as mentioned, it’s about the same as 2000.
I guess it’s too much to expect journalists to have a GCSE in math.
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But it’s handy to throw that 1940 reference in there, just to harden and amplify the hysteria.
If we assume a UK pop’n of 68 million, then 697,000 deaths gives a death/1000 figure of 9,756. That’s an increase on recent years (around 9,200), but lower than 2005 and all other years before that.
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I agree if they are talking about nominal numbers and not rate it doesn’t mean much to compare all the way back to 1940. However 91k more deaths yoy , or an increase of 13.7% in the death rate yoy is definitely not bollocks.
But it’s less bollocks than 2005, when we were all living happily under one roof.
And the pubs were still open.
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Continued from Taiwan Covid-19 thread:
As a reply to:
my post:
Blockquote
Actually reading the news about some of the cases - discovered 1 week after quarantine - but with negative test at the end of quarantine - I since quite a few weeks don’t believe in 0 cases in Taiwan anymore.
I’m sure covid-19 is just not very dangerous here - with Taiwan having the highest vitamin-D levels of any developed country. Hence for most of the year - R will be around 0.8-1.2 maybe. Also the lowest Vitamin-D levels here are not with the elder, but with the 30-39 year old female - which are not a risk group.
Vitamin D deficiency in elder is <10%. That’s why Taiwan coped so well - the measures imposed were good and helped, but the real deal is the low vitamin D deficiency. Same reason why in Europa Norway and Finland get away with much less strict measures, and Denmark/Sweden kinda okay. While super Vitamin D deficient countries like Italy take the ****
Now I think the government knows about Covid-19 slowly spreading - that’s why they put the mask edict since 01. december. Luckily soon it will get sunnier again - and if it hasn’t spread badly by March, it will go away again. Clearly the government must have that strategy, while not telling the people to stop panic and keep Taiwan officially covid free…
I know this opinion is way against the mainstream - but reading up on all proper studies on Vitamin-D and coronavirus - I think it’s quite safe to assume that Vitamin D is the vital part in this. Just really speculating about the government actions where I take more a guess in the blue.
I couldn’t find any other developed country with less Vitamin D deficient people than Taiwan. It’s ahead of Norway/Finland. India on the other hand - huge deficiency but rather young people. Otherwise that would be the worst hit country (people living close to each other / no good sanitation, low Vitamin D, and so on). There is a clear correlation between Vitamin D deficiency and Coronavirus spreading.
Only some stupid studies not showing it - like giving people in ICU vitamin D instead of Calcifediol (Brazil, cause Vitamin D takes 7-14 days to rise - and if the cytokine storm is already there/over than it’s too late) - or studies just dosing ridiculously low. Most adults would need to supplement 4000IU per day, 400IU won’t do anything significant…
Just…No.
Vitamin D has been spuriously associated with every disease under the sun. Its because it’s so easy to do a clinical study as data is commonly available.
Why can’t people accept Taiwan acted early , strictly and has excellent quarantine and contact tracing systems. Why isn’t that enough…
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When they include people that died within 28 days of testing +ve to a test that likes false positives, the numbers for C19 deaths as well as cases are flawed.
it definitely isn’t coincidental…
there are enough studies linked. The people saying vitamin D doesn’t help quoting ages old studies or quoting the 2 single studies not showing a correlation (the study design clearly was wrong, once way too little Vitamin D given, once way too late Vitamin D instead of the quickly working Calcifediol) vs the dozens of studies showing a clear correlation speak bounds.
Also clear by the metastudy here: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.01.20242313v1
An increase compared to what? Depending on what you select as your reference, you can make that look better, or worse, according to your beliefs.
The raw death rate is ~10.3 for 2020. Here’s the historical chart.
So yeah. Deaths are up. No doubt about it. But not outrageously so. Of course, nobody could admit that, because that would mean admitting guilt to economic and social sabotage on a grand scale with pretty much buggerall to show for it. So they’ll keep wringing their hands and getting the press to play funeral dirges until we all believe what they want us to believe.
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Wait! cake’s sending us a Twitter link!
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