Around half the UK population have now already had covid19

It is said that for every case that requires hospital treatment, there are at least another 100 cases in the wider population.


Going by that figure, it is now likely to be around 30 million people here in UK who have already had covid19.


And having already had their immune systems successfully fight off this new virus... They don't need any vaccine.


We are not talking about smallpox here, or the plague or ebola etc... We are talking about a version of the common cold virus that for nearly 99.9% of people it causes either no symptoms or mild/moderate symptoms much like influenza causes.

yeah tommy thats why the hospitals are overwhelmed by dead and dieing covid sufferes and by shed loads of others that WOULD be dead or dieing without intensive care....

common cold my arse...

It's a 'corona' virus... The same family of virus that is responsible for the common cold...

yeah and......
mumps and measles (along with a whole host of even more deadly viruses) are in the same family as newcastle disease (fowl pest ) (NOT avian flu)... one of the most common cause of pneumonia is mycoplasma pneumonii, the same family contains mycoplasm that only infect chickens and others that are "commensals" i.e harmless passers in the night to us.....

so thats got no bearing..... and flu has many members in its family that are fairly harmless as well

as usual Tommy you are talking "tommy rot"

Are you saying it's not a corona virus?


Or are you saying Corona viruses aren't the cause of many common colds?

Tommy Monk wrote:


It is said that for every case that requires hospital treatment, there are at least another 100 cases in the wider population.


Going by that figure, it is now likely to be around 30 million people here in UK who have already had covid19.


And having already had their immune systems successfully fight off this new virus... They don't need any vaccine.


We are not talking about smallpox here, or the plague or ebola etc... We are talking about a version of the common cold virus that for nearly 99.9% of people it causes either no symptoms or mild/moderate symptoms much like influenza causes.

According to worldometer, you have had 2.5 million cases. Let's say that member is only half the acrual cases. That puts the UK at about 5 million cases, which is plausible but not likely. I know of dozens of people that have had it. I only know of one person that actually has antibodies and have no idea when they had the virus.

But between the widespread infection and the vaccines, herd immunity should be a matter of months, I hope.

I dont know any nurses in the UK, but I know several here. They are tired and worn out. They are ready for a break.

Recently it was said that the daily confirmed case rate was 20,000 and that means the likely actual number of daily cases was nearer 100,000...


But it has long been said that for every hospital admission there is at least another 100 cases...


So far we have had about 260,000 hospital admissions so that equates to at least 26 million actual cases...

330, 000 and counting in the US. The Trump genocide almost rivals the WWII German tally.

Tommy Monk wrote:


Are you saying it's not a corona virus?


Or are you saying Corona viruses aren't the cause of many common colds?

Stop talking rubbish,you have zero idea what you are blethering about......Yes its a corona virus and yes many corona viruses cause the common cold (as do rhino viruses)
That doesnt mean that this particular one shares the same relatively benign pathogenicity of the version that causes the common cold. Thats like saying gorgonzola is cheese therfore its as mild as emmentaal.

Stop being pedantic...

Stop being a cretin

Tommy Monk wrote:


Are you saying it's not a corona virus?


Or are you saying Corona viruses aren't the cause of many common colds?

It's a deadly new mutation of the Corona virus....which is why getting on for two million  people have now died globally and according to the latest ONS figures 88,000 people in the UK have died or with of Covid19 since February.

On average 17,000 people die annually in the UK of flu and flu related illnesses.

I’m sort of in the middle with it all to be honest.
Most people don’t die of it, those that do are either elderly or vulnerable, much like they would succumb to the flu...and we don’t wear masks in the flu season.

I’m truly tired of the crap that this government puts out now. I couldn’t have family over at Christmas but I can still go to work at a non-essential restaurant and serve people? What the fuck?

Comparing the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 to the coronavirus that causes the common cold is like comparing a missile to a BB.

Viruses, like all other living things, mutate. It's not impossible to imagine the AIDS virus mutating into a form that was more infectious -- say, through airborne droplets -- or the Covid-19 virus mutating into a form that attacks the human immune system.

Such a mutation would make earlier versions of either virus seem tame by comparison. And the cold virus is quite tame compared to the Covid-19 virus.

The point of this thread was not to debate the semantics around what the covid virus is or isn't... I was merely pointing out that it is not smallpox/ebola/plague etc... It is totally benign for around 99.9% of people.


The point was to highlight that it is estimated nearly half the uk population has already had it by now!

Also... as an aside just for a bit of perspective... back in 1968, there was a really bad flu year that killed well over a million people worldwide... And that was at a time when the world population was less than half of what it is today...

Tommy Monk wrote:


Also... as an aside just for a bit of perspective... back in 1968, there was a really bad flu year that killed well over a million people worldwide... And that was at a time when the world population was less than half of what it is today...

And it's thanks to successful immunisation programmes that many diseases have been effectively wiped out or controlled that have enabled people to live longer in the last 50 odd years.

There's no point vaccinating the half of UK population (or more) who have already had it...

Is Tommy REALLY that stupid, or is he trolling?

Tommy Monk wrote:


There's no point vaccinating the half of UK population (or more) who have already had it...

Then you may as well say there is no point vaccinating people with the flu jab if they have already had the flu, which is obviously wrong. That's why people have the flu jab annually, viruses mutate, as Corvid19 already has.

Also, not even the scientists know how long people are immune for if they have already had it, and apart from you, I haven't heard anyone announce that half the population have had it anyway.

Andy wrote:Is Tommy REALLY that stupid, or is he trolling?

...said the troll...

Syl wrote:

Tommy Monk wrote:


There's no point vaccinating the half of UK population (or more) who have already had it...

Then you may as well say there is no point vaccinating people with the flu jab if they have already had the flu, which is obviously wrong. That's why people have the flu jab annually, viruses mutate, as Corvid19 already has.

Also, not even the scientists know how long people are immune for if they have already had it, and apart from you, I haven't heard anyone announce that half the population have had it anyway.

You say "the flu" like it is only one type that keeps going around, when there are many different types of flu...


Each one mutating in its own way over time.


There is only one type of covid19... And it is in a few different mutated forms... But essentially still the same... So if you've had it once and been fine, then your body/immune system should be wiser to it and more effective in dealing with it if exposed again.


A mutation occurs while a virus is replicating itself and when there is a mistake in the genetic sequence whilst it does this... Almost always resulting in the virus being less effective and less harmful than before...

Also... I've never had a flu jab... I'm 49 so not called in for one...


Maybe it should be only those who have the flu jab who should have a covid jab .. not the 30 million or so UK people who have already had the covid virus ..?

Tommy Monk wrote:The point of this thread was not to debate the semantics around what the covid virus is or isn't... I was merely pointing out that it is not smallpox/ebola/plague etc... It is totally benign for around 99.9% of people.

The point was to highlight that it is estimated nearly half the uk population has already had it by now!

Sorry tom, but you were the one who resorted to semantics...in your resort to biological categories.

BTW...you haven't substantiated one thing you have said on this thread. MD had to straighten you out on the numbers. Otherwise, this is just another rumor thread.

I've already explained the methodology around the numbers... And the numbers don't need straightening out...

Tommy Monk wrote:I've already explained the methodology around the numbers... And the numbers don't need straightening out...

The term methodology is wonderful, tom, but it means you have to have a system of methods that logically leads to some truth or knowledge.

As with any system, garbage in, garbage out. You have no data, hence no substantiation.

Who said that for every case requiring hospitalization there are 100 other cases?

Tommy Monk wrote:

Syl wrote:

Then you may as well say there is no point vaccinating people with the flu jab if they have already had the flu, which is obviously wrong. That's why people have the flu jab annually, viruses mutate, as Corvid19 already has.

Also, not even the scientists know how long people are immune for if they have already had it, and apart from you, I haven't heard anyone announce that half the population have had it anyway.

You say "the flu" like it is only one type that keeps going around, when there are many different types of flu...


Each one mutating in its own way over time.


There is only one type of covid19... And it is in a few different mutated forms... But essentially still the same... So if you've had it once and been fine, then your body/immune system should be wiser to it and more effective in dealing with it if exposed again.


A mutation occurs while a virus is replicating itself and when there is a mistake in the genetic sequence whilst it does this... Almost always resulting in the virus being less effective and less harmful than before...

There are various different flu viruses every year....even so, on average in the UK 17,000 people die of flu or related illnesses.

So far 88,000 people (latest ONS figures) have died of Covid19 in the UK in less than a year....so stop comparing the two.

By the way, the 2 latest strains of coronavirus are not thought to be weaker than the original strain, they are estimated to be 70% more virulent though, which makes them far more lethal.

Maddog wrote:Who said that for every case requiring hospitalization there are 100 other cases?

Tommy.

Syl wrote:

Maddog wrote:Who said that for every case requiring hospitalization there are 100 other cases?

Tommy.

I like your wit. Like that Billy fellow from Avon on something said a few centuries ago, brevity is its soul.  

Too bad that art is lost on many around here.

It was said by an expert the other day that although here in UK we are currently doing 350,000 or so tests a day, and getting tens of thousands of confirmed cases from these tests, the real actual number of cases out there is likely to be at least 5 times higher...


It has long been said by other experts I've seen/heard on TV/radio that for every case requiring hospital treatment there is likely at least another 100 actual cases out there...


If you compare actual hospital admission figures with confirmed test figures for the recent period of time (while we have been doing hundreds of thousands of tests a day), then the hospitalisation per case rate looks much higher than when you factor in that there are many times more actual cases out there than are being confirmed by testing.


Surely we all know/accept that a sizeable group of people have no symptoms at all or mild/moderate symptoms, and haven't gone in for testing...?


Or haven't you been paying attention...?

Who?

Tommy Monk wrote:

It was said by an expert the other day that although here in UK we are currently doing 350,000 or so tests a day, and getting tens of thousands of confirmed cases from these tests, the real actual number of cases out there is likely to be at least 5 times higher...


It has long been said by other experts I've seen/heard on TV/radio that for every case requiring hospital treatment there is likely at least another 100 actual cases out there...


If you compare actual hospital admission figures with confirmed test figures for  the recent period of time (while we have been doing hundreds of thousands of tests a day), then the hospitalisation per case rate looks much higher than when you factor in that there are many times more actual cases out there than are being confirmed by testing.


Surely we all know/accept that a sizeable group of people have no symptoms at all or mild/moderate symptoms, and haven't gone in for testing...?


Or haven't you been paying attention...?

Experts have said all sorts of things.

I would need to see positive tests at 100 times the hospitalization rate. There is no doubt that thousands of cases have been missed in the UK. Tens of millions in the UK and every single other country doesn't sound very plausible.

The virus has been in UK since Nov 2019 but testing was non existent for a few months, and then very thin on the ground for a few months more although hospitalisations were sky high...


Also...


"8 Oct 2020 · LONDON (​Reuters) - People who were asymptomatic accounted for 86% of the people who tested positive for covid19 during lockdown..."


https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-asymptomat/no-symptoms-for-86-of-lockdown-covid-cases-uk-study-says-idUKKBN26T2O7



So there must be a further huge total number who have been asymptomatic and never tested at all...!

Have a look at the graphs here...


They show data sets going back to beginning of April 2020...


https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

And yes I do think official case and death figures are wildly inaccurate.


I know plenty of people who have had all the symptoms and never been tested so not on the list of cases.


And it is also known that plenty of people go to hospital for a wide range of very serious life threatening conditions, then catch covid while in there, then when they pass away their death is listed on the covid death figures.


We also know that a huge number of cases are asymptomatic or very mild symptoms so vast majority never get tested so also not on actual case number list.

Tommy Monk wrote:

There is only one type of covid19... And it is in a few different mutated forms... But essentially still the same... So if you've had it once and been fine, then your body/immune system should be wiser to it and more effective in dealing with it if exposed again.


A mutation occurs while a virus is replicating itself and when there is a mistake in the genetic sequence whilst it does this... Almost always resulting in the virus being less effective and less harmful than before...

Tommy, unless you know more than the experts, who themselves admit they don't know exactly how the new mutations will affect people, apart from the fact they do know that the so called UK mutation and the SA mutation is far more contagious than the original virus,  you cant possibly say with any conviction that..

A....the immune system will be able to deal better with new strains

B.....the new strain will be less harmful.




"The new South African coronavirus mutation is the fastest-spreading Covid strain yet and will likely present a “very, very significant problem” for the UK, the health secretary has warned.

Speaking on the BBC’s Today programme, Hancock said he was “incredibly worried” about the South African variant. “That’s why we took the action that we did to restrict all flights from South Africa, and movement from South Africa, and to insist that anybody who’s been to South Africa self isolates,” he added.

Leading medical experts last month made pains to allay fears that a separate coronavirus mutation currently wreaking havoc across the country would present problems for the UK’s vaccination efforts.

Professor Chris Whitty, England’s chief medical officer, said there was “no current evidence to suggest” the B117 strain would hinder rollout of the Pfizer and Astrazeneca vaccines.

However, health officials have since suggested that available vaccines may be ineffective against the new South African variant.

Sir John Bell, regius professor of Medicine at the University of Oxford, said there was a “big question mark” over whether the variant may be resistant to the vaccine.

“The mutations associated with the South African form are really pretty substantial changes in the structure of the protein,” Bell told Times Radio yesterday. "

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/uknews/matt-hancock-south-african-coronavirus-mutation-more-of-a-problem-than-current-strain/ar-BB1csbZd?ocid=msedgdhp

As a virus mutates over time, it is likely to become less harmful although may become more contagious.


Covid has always been asymptomatic for up to 80-90% of those infected by it, and vast majority of the rest of infected people have mild to moderate symptoms like a cold or flu.


I maintain my belief that a huge number of people have already had it by now, and many times more than is shown by official testing figures... And once we stop delaying the spread through fit and healthy people, then enough of us all would have had it to put us at a level needed for herd immunity, and the virus will have run its course and fukked off!

Here is an article from July 2020 about an earlier mutation of the covid virus...


https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200703/Mutated-European-strain-of-coronavirus-more-contagious-but-less-potent.aspx


It also talks about this variant being more contagious... This happens all the time with viruses...


They normally become more contagious but less potent over time.

From in the last 4 months there have been an average of about 20,000 positive tests a day... If you factor in that there are probably likely at least 5 X that in the greater public, then that is 100,000 a day ..


Then multiply that by number of days in 4 months...


100,000 x 30 x 4 =

12,000,000 (at least) is the more likely real number of cases in the last 4 months alone!!!


This is just a rough estimate to show you the huge numbers of people who have likely already had it that I'm talking about...


And remember that this is only last 4 months... This virus has been going about in UK for about 14 months now in total!!!



So when you think about it... My theory that half the population of UK have already had it by now, is not so unbelievable... Is it...?

Tommy Monk wrote:
As a virus mutates over time, it is likely to become less harmful although may become more contagious.

Not true.  With mutation, it could possibly end up worse than the plague.

Tommy Monk wrote:Covid has always been asymptomatic for up to 80-90% of those infected by it, and vast majority of the rest of infected people have mild to moderate symptoms like a cold or flu.

Your figure of "80-90% is way off.  "Studies show that [only] 40-to-50% of people who test positive for COVID-19 have no symptoms."  https://www.uchealth.org/today/the-truth-about-asymptomatic-spread-of-covid-19/

"Asymptomatic" means the target individual does not show strong symptoms.  S/he can still transmit the deadly virus.

The danger of herd immunity is that immunity might never be reached.  Since we have no measure of prediction to determine who/why people die from the virus, it will keep on killing so far as we know.  If 100% if the population contracts the disease, and we willingly kill off the remainder (as seems to be Trump’s plan), there may still be children born that have the vulnerability, or genetic flaw that creates symptoms and death.

Immunity only means that the individual who survives the disease has developed antibodies.  It says nothing about stopping transmission.  People who have survived the virus, or who will survive the virus, are conceivably still out there to infect those who have the vulnerability.

Sorry quill, this statement is true...


"As a virus mutates over time, it is likely to become less harmful although may become more contagious."


And you obviously didn't read the Reuters reticle I posted earlier...


8 Oct 2020 · LONDON (​Reuters) - People who were asymptomatic accounted for 86% of the people who tested positive for covid19 during lockdown...


https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-britain-asymptomat/no-symptoms-for-86-of-lockdown-covid-cases-uk-study-says-idUKKBN26T2O7

Also... Not all people who successfully fight off the virus develop antibodies as the bodies T cells do the job in some people.

Tommy Monk wrote:

Sorry quill, this statement is true...

"As a virus mutates over time, it is likely to become less harmful although may become more contagious."

But it's not based on empirical evidence, is it?  The Covid virus has not been around long enough to know what long-term liabilities will ensue.

We know: 1) only 50-60% are asymptomatic and will avoid death; 2) however, all of them will carry the virus and transmit it to others; and 3) as of 2-days ago, the confirmed deaths worldwide are 1.84-million...probably an underestimate.   https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid

These trends are strong enough to say it's unwise to rely on such hit-and-miss strategies like herd immunity.  The high, and increasing transmission rate means that we may never reach collective immunity with this disease.

My statement is true going by what is generally known to be the case about all viruses.


They all mutate over time, and this is because they make mistakes in their genetic code whilst replicating... normally resulting in it being less able to function as effectively as it did before.


You also seem to still be ignoring the evidence given in the Reuters article I posted, which showed that something like 86% of people in UK who tested positive for covid19 during lockdown were asymptomatic... which means they had no symptoms at all...!


And yes I know that they were all most likely to have still been able to transmit the virus, I never claimed they were not contagious during the time they were infected, and that is beside the point...


The points I am making are as follows...


Firstly... for the overwhelming vast majority of people this virus is completely harmless, with maybe as many as 80-90% of infected being totally asymptomatic, meaning only a relatively small percentage of those infected suffering anything more than mild/moderate cold/flu type symptoms... and only fraction of this symptomatic group get ill enough to require any hospital treatment, and only a relatively small percentage of those end up dying (vast majority of these deaths are people aged over 70 with other quite serious health conditions and majority of the rest have also got other underlying health issues).


Secondly... If you look at the actual numbers of hospital admissions and then start doing some calculations on what the actual number of infections might be throughout the UK, using the factors I have highlighted... Then this all backs up my original claim on this thread that it is likely that half the UK population (or even more) have already had this covid19 virus by now!!!

Tommy Monk wrote:

My statement is true going by what is generally known to be the case about all viruses.

They all mutate over time, and this is because they make mistakes in their genetic code whilst replicating... normally resulting in it being less able to function as effectively as it did before.

You also seem to still be ignoring the evidence given in the Reuters article I posted, which showed that something like 86% of people in UK who tested positive for covid19 during lockdown were asymptomatic... which means they had no symptoms at all...!

And yes I know that they were all most likely to have still been able to transmit the virus, I never claimed they were not contagious during the time they were infected, and that is beside the point...

The points I am making are as follows...

Firstly... for the overwhelming vast majority of people this virus is completely harmless, with maybe as many as 80-90% of infected being totally asymptomatic, meaning only a relatively small percentage of those infected suffering anything more than mild/moderate cold/flu type symptoms... and only fraction of this symptomatic group get ill enough to require any hospital treatment, and only a relatively small percentage of those end up dying (vast majority of these deaths are people aged over 70 with other quite serious health conditions and majority of the rest have also got other underlying health issues).

Secondly... If you look at the actual numbers of hospital admissions and then start doing some calculations on what the actual number of infections might be throughout the UK, using the factors I have highlighted... Then this all backs up my original claim on this thread that it is likely that half the UK population (or even more) have already had this covid19 virus by now!!!

It's all unsubstantiated nonsense, tom. Soz...

Dont be an idiot quill...


Even a complete simpleton recognises that when a highly contagious virus that's been sweeping through the UK for 14 months now, and where up to 80-90% of those infected have absolutely no symptoms at all, and where testing was nonexistent for the first 4-5 months and very small scale for the few months after (although it was during this period when the NHS was overwhelmed with treating all the covid admissions etc)... and where testing has only been ramped up gradually since then to 100,000 a day and subsequently now up to about 420,000 a day...


Even the complete simpleton would recognise that the official figure for confirmed tested cases is going to be only a fraction of what the real widespread actual case numbers will be!!!


The questions are...

1) What is the true number of actual cases?

Which is impossible to say.

Therefore...

2) What is the best way of working out a fairly reliable best guess estimate based on the information that we do know?

And this is what I have been trying to establish here on this thread.



I have provided what I think about this, and the methodology/reasoning I used...


If any of you can come up with a better way of trying to work it out... Then let's hear it...???

Tommy, this virus hasn't been 'sweeping through the country for 14 months'.
You have a habit of saying something once then continuously repeating it as if it were a fact.

Been going around here in UK since November 2019...


We're now in January 2021...


How many months is that...?

Tommy Monk wrote:


Been going around here in UK since November 2019...


We're now in January 2021...


How many months is that...?

Depends whether you believe in rumour or actual cases confirmed and verified by the WHO experts and world governments.
I had norovirus in January, you probably had similar....some people insist they had corona.


"When did coronavirus first come to the UK?"

"The first confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK were on January 29, when two Chinese nationals fell ill at the Staycity Aparthotel in York. On February 6, a British businessman in Brighton was diagnosed with the virus after catching in in Singapore. The so-called ‘super spreader’ was later linked to 11 other cases, five of which were in the UK. Later that month, on February 28, the first person to catch coronavirus in the UK was diagnosed, a man who lived in Surrey, but who had not been abroad."


https://metro.co.uk/2020/04/19/first-case-coronavirus-uk-covid-19-diagnosis-12578061/?ito=cbshare

https://bfpg.co.uk/2020/04/covid-19-timeline/