[reordered]
>They also call for a new consistent reporting model, since constantly changing tally definitions are difficult to track and risk panic if disease burden is overstated by large scary numbers. Which is rich when you look at what they've been doing, or consider that the UK death definition is "within 28 days of positive test" in a cohort overwhelmingly aged over 80y, but that can wait. ;-)
I have fewer problems with the "4 weeks" definition - in fairness it should be "5 weeks after vaccination" to level the playing field by the 5 days between infection and symptoms when test is not ordered due to contact with known carrier.
"Reasoning" (more gut level opinion elevated into discussion context) stems from apparent dichotomy of "Death by/with" on C19 or clear correlation of risk with overall "closeness to death" ("dry wood" hypothesis from Swedens Tegnell). As "Death by/with" nowadays is used as argument of entrenched pro/con sides, it is somewhat poisoned, but data I trust shows:
a) death soon after positive PCR often shows "typical" C19 residuals in lungs or blood vessels
b) age distribution and excess mortality only "highten" typical distritution but do not claim many in youth / having typically long life expectancy
my mental model is that C19 is - when finding a bag of water with compromised health and immune system - working internally like a spreading cancer with turbo-charged high cell replication rate, finding chinks of weakness in each body and replicating in that sub-system, causing death at a time often months, not years earlier than "expected". Explaining autopsy-identifiable "by" reported often, but also explaining "dry wood" seen in statistical data.
So operational definition following timespan aka "closeness of death" clearly having cases outside definition, bad not too bad as a concept.
>Since we posted, UK and German scientists now say there can be no herd immunity with delta variant which inevitably will become endemic, only ending clinical relevance once every available host dies or recovers, since "vaccines" regrettably are not preventing infection.
Well, nice to see scientists now following my gut estimates of Easter 2020. Perhaps you can peer-review (more on the quality of authors and whether it is an unscientific outlet used to hike article # only) of
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0250780which follows some of my ideas so closely that I am afraid to fall into the trap of having found an echo chamber article on the internet "proving" my idea. Have not seen much "wrong" (but areas where I am out of my depth) except perhaps focusing too much on "esacape" fitness and vs. hightened infection risk in "immunity-unchanged" population.
@Kevin: perhaps you remember my ramblings on "escape mutation" being an unscientific description and misnomer for "escape selection" as an answer to a post of yours few weeks back - this article is right along that line, but I had not come across it when I answered the post of yours (in which you correctly negated / ridiculed?) the idea of mutation rate "boosted" by vaccination posted by a third - model uses static mutation rates encountering populations with differences in vaccination / immune status.
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>Whether politicians are capable of the resulting next step segue is yet to be seen. The fate of vaccine passports will be interesting; do those proposing mandates and othering have the ability to change direction, or are they too invested in their certainty?
"Politicians" as a group encountered all over the world (having to content with populations prone to offer different levels of violence / unruliness at different levels of provocation / unneeded regulations / perceived injustice) will not show similar behaviour except often trying to gain short term personal benefit ranging from reelection to personal graft.
I find it refreshing that there IS a change in how responses to the virus is measured as beneficial or adequate: Bloomberg had a list with categories including "personal freedom", economic categories and medical C19 data, where Germany was not even under best 10 AND behind the states - Norway was 1st, Switzerland 2nd. Of course I'd alter some of the scale dimensions (on base distribution of population / excess mortality for instance) but a refreshing switch from the official German POV - which takes up a higher % of my attention as I live here than the shares of population and economic strength allow ;-)
Some politicians already argue for a monthly discount in individual health insurance cost for vaccinated - might be better in the long run. Free quick tests will end in October (for now at least) except for well defined targets like school children - at least an indication that cost is starting to be relevant now after moronic hiking the deficit instead of following Rabin, Trump and Johnson mode of operation to go all in early on vaccination. They should have financed vaccination manufactoring facilities instead of socialist distribution centers, which most of the time had no stuff to work with.
BTW on topics of "data to look at": some of my pet peeves echoed for/in the States:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/09/america-is-flying-blind-when-it-comes-to-the-delta-variantNozy me: What is your line of argument on if/when/what to vaccinate for your offspring or even younger (aka kids) ?
