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Covid19


Davetrials

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Mark - gotcha about the PCR / lat flow tests. As far as I can work out you take a lateral flow test first, and then a PCR test in an attempt to confirm that result? I guess my point is why do we use the rapid tests at all, when they aren't accurate. (Edit: I guess a positive result on a lateral flow makes you 'cautious' and take a PCR, if you didn't bother with the lateral flow at all you might never know that you potentially had the virus... That makes sense now).

I think I have also figured out why PCR tests are not being used to end self-isolation, because again they are inaccurate in the case of negative results (false negatives up to 29% - eg. if the first test is negative, in up to 29% of cases repeat testing gives a positive): https://www.bmj.com/content/bmj/369/bmj.m1808.full.pdf

As far as I can figure out, asymtomatic people will still have the virus 'particles' (for want of a better word) but already have the antigens available to produce the antibodies to prevent the virus from causing harm, hence should still test positive (but then again with no symptoms, I guess you are less likely to go and get tested). Perhaps wrong there!

 

Interesting point about breast cancer screening. My thoughts around stuff like this are definitely unusual, and my opinion of the medical profession as a whole is gradually decreasing, but I do see that what they do is remarkable and can 'save' lives - inverted commas because I don't believe you can ever 'save' a life, only prolong it, because death is the only certainty that we have. The quality of life that many people experience after serious medical interventions is debatable, so that leads me to question the validity and motives of such processes.

Anyway, back to breast cancer... Roundabout story but a few people close to me are definitely seriously affected by what I would call health anxiety - either living their lives bouncing from one test result to another, or have spent considerable time worrying about an 'abnormal' test result, or both. To me, quality of life holds more importance than length of life, so while I appreciate that regular testing (of all sorts) can 'save' lives, what is the cost of that?

https://www.komen.org/breast-cancer/screening/mammography/accuracy/  - "After 10 yearly mammograms, the chance of having a false positive is about 50-60 percent"

Cervical cancer is another one - regular screening encouraged, but lots of false positives and worried people. The actual percentage of cervical cancer prevalence is hovering around 0.7%, but "A long-term cohort study of 3,406 HPV-negative women who had annual Pap smears for 5 years found a 14.4% rate of false-positive cytology that resulted in unnecessary interventions and treatments" - https://www.karger.com/Article/Fulltext/365059

If people spent their time eating properly and doing exercise instead of having tests and worrying about whatever the results might throw up, would that be better at preventing cancer? Hard to say, but that's what I plan to do - while still being mindful that I will probably get cancer or another life-ending disease at some stage. If I can make as small an impact as realistically possible on the planet until that point, then bugger off and leave the space and resources for someone else to enter the world, then happy days.

 

I guess the above links back to Covid, in that I think we should just crack on (and have from the start). It is a disease created by nature to remove the weakest of our species, because we are too numerous. It's not going away, and so far the average age of a UK Covid death has been 80.3, with an average life expectancy of 81.3 - we've ruined 18 months' worth of life already so I'd say we're into negative equity with that badboy. The amount of people down the bowls club (yes, I play crown green bowls :lol:) who have completely changed (aged years) since I last saw them, and have said they feel pretty miserable now, is well over half.

Bowing out of this thread now...

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23 minutes ago, Adam@TartyBikes said:

I'd say we're into negative equity with that badboy.

I suppose out of everything you said this is the thing to highlight here. Unlike cancer screenings, and personally deciding when to accept those interventions and treatments, our actions with covid affects everyone else around us. So personal opinions on how we value our freedoms over the last year and a half, how much we value people not getting sick, dying, and the value we individually believe that those last 10 to 15 years of our lives are worth really become irreverent and are just thrown into a melting pot with everyone else's opinion. If you're one of the outliers, you're gonna be pissed, but what can we do about it?

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 04/08/2021 at 8:42 AM, Adam@TartyBikes said:

I think I have also figured out why PCR tests are not being used to end self-isolation, because again they are inaccurate in the case of negative results...

It is purely the incubation period. All viruses have different incubation periods. A regular cold is approx. 1-3 days, AIDS is approx. 1-10 years. Evidence suggests with Covid-19 it's 2-14 days. The testing is done at two stages purely to see if you test positive at those times, and therefore counting back from either of those test dates (if you have it at the first date, it's possible you didn't get it from the contact they're getting in touch about) to work out who would need to be contact traced.

I only raised the cancer thing before as your position on testing appeared to be "if it isn't perfect, we shouldn't do it". I have several family members who are alive now because their cancers were caught early through testing, so my point was more that although cancer testing isn't perfect, it can still save lives. I agree that the desire to keep people alive at all costs does cause compromises on quality of life, but again, it's a little baby/bathwater to lump them all in together.

Again, also worth pointing out that covid 'problems' aren't just death. I know several people with long covid - you and I have a mutual friend who has been having issues with it for some time now - who were/are young, fit and healthy. It was and continues to be a shit time for them. Also worth noting that in the US, the Delta variant has caused a spike in younger people being admitted to hospital seriously ill. It's no guarantee that it's 'just' an old persons illness, and the more people who have it the more scope for mutations that can cause changes in the age ranges who could potentially be affected by it.

But yeah, that's about it I guess. I think we both have fairly different views about this, and neither of them are going to change whatever Boris (or Mark Drakeford this side of the Severn Bridge) are going to do about it so we're in for the ride either way!

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On 04/08/2021 at 5:19 AM, JT! said:

Being anti-vax has extreme connotations linked to it. So I see why people say "I'm not anti-vax but...". I agree with them, they aren't anti-vax. But given the science, if you're not anti-vax, but not taking the covid vaccination (or would any variation of the covid vaccination), you're a hypocrite, not anti-vax.

First response to that is a spade is a spade. Being anti-vax/anti-vaccination is being opposed to vaccinations. It doesn't specify which. People being less sheepish about using that term might give some people a wake-up call.

Second response is that you can be two things at the same time. A lot of the arguments I see people making could basically have "covid" replaced with "MMR" and be fairly similar to the stereotypical anti-vax chat. I think the difference now is that while MMR or general anti-vax chat is more fringe, it's much more widespread for covid and people don't want to have to face up to the fact that some people they are friends with will hold views that should have "extreme connotations linked to [them]", or have a complete denial of what is actually happening in the world (referring again to my friend - who's vaccinated - maintaining that half the people who've been vaccinated are 'seriously ill').

It is what it is at this point though. My family and most of the people I'm closest to are all vaccinated, so from my/our POV they've got reduced risk of serious illness from covid which is the main thing for us. They're all healthy and well having had the vaccine, and the overwhelming data suggests that nothing is likely to change from that in terms of ill effects from the vaccine itself, especially given the time since they had their injections. 

EDIT: Should probably clarify that I would say vaccine hesitancy is different to being anti-vax, but the two generally use reasoning that makes it pretty clear which side of the line they fall on.

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9 hours ago, Alyksett said:

Which is exactly why people doing their own research is dangerous, because they don't know what they're taking and there's zero regulation.

Agreed unless they are clued up on the subject or know someone who is

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When I say clued up I mean if you’re a scientist familiar with the subject or know someone that is (in my case my fiancée who was a biomedical scientist working in infectious diseases labs and studied virology). I totally agree that it can be dangerous to self medicate if you’re not knowledgeable about meds etc. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I agree with much of what he's saying, ivermectin is a drug used in humans and Joe isn't taking the meds designed for horses, and it was very dishonest for anyone to report that.

I've got no issue with people taking ivermectin, I have an issue with people saying they're going to take that instead of the vaccine, and possibly convincing others to do likewise who have vaccine hesitancy.

Joe not taking the vaccine is the biggest mistake he could make when it came to his health. In another timeline, Joe could be dying in hospital right now as he never took the vaccine. Fortunately he sold out his podcast for $100 million so he could buy his way into monoclonal antibody therapy. Who knows where he'd be at without that.

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as much as I would like Ivermectin to be more open to discussion and have more funding for tests I think it's a bit rich of Joe to be jumping to conclusions that is instantly cured him when he also took every other drug available if you're rich and can afford it. I'm not a huge fan of Joe in general (I think he has a little superiority complex) but it'll be interesting to see if Ivermectin becomes less taboo after this.

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I don't think that's too much cause for concern. The test was done in a third world country (harsh but it counts) that isn't as reputable as other sources. They didn't test specifically for Sars Cov 2, they didn't mention if it's in conjunction with other drugs or solely Ivermectin, they didn't say the dosage amount and the sample size was small (they didn't/couldn't give a percentage result).

Ivermectin has been around for ~50 years and been used millions/billions of times...if it caused sperm count issues it's not been a big enough issue to be brought up. As it stands, the worst result you could really get from using Ivermectin is that it doesn't work...that's the worst that can happen and worth more discussion and research.



 

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To be fair, they did mention the dosage right in the abstract, 150µg/kg. It was conducted in 2011 so Covid wasn't around. It's just a study examining the sperm counts. I'm not sure what you mean by percentages, as they said that every one of the participants experienced varying amounts of a decreased sperm count with specific numbers cited in the tables/charts.

It's a single study with a small sample size, so it doesn't mean the end of the world, but it's just surprising that people will brush off the most stringent method of safety when it comes to vaccines and at the same time be okay with taking something that has so little research done on it's efficacy. I can only imagine if a single study came out that said getting the Pfizer jab potentially lowers sperm count to the level this study suggests (And others, cited in the paper)-- and then the level of backlash that would follow. The worst actual link that has come from any of the vaccines has been singe to double digit cases per million. 

 

 

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Ah my bad, I missed that. Sadly I agree that people would happily shout those same stats if the shoe was on the other foot, I’m trying to take emotion out of it (hence calling Joe Rogan out despite him promoting my viewpoint) and look at things scientifically but at the moment there’s still a lot of conflicting test results on both sides, we’re still trying to figure things out and my mindset is that I’d like way more data on both the virus and the vaccines before I would be happy to get vaxxed myself

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