Wuhan virus 2020

[Jimbuna]

The number of people in the UK infected with coronavirus is falling, says the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

About 4.4 million people had the virus in their body in the week up to 9 April, down from nearly 4.9 million the week before.

That's about one in 15 people testing positive for the virus.

The study, which uses its own testing, gives the clearest indication of the virus's spread since free testing ended in England.

It tests thousands of people at random - whether or not they have symptoms - to estimate how much virus there is in the country.

The number infected still remains very high, despite the 10% drop recorded by the ONS.

The BA.2 form of the Omicron variant helped push up the number infected with the virus to record levels in recent weeks, and is only now starting to decline.

Sarah Crofts, from the ONS, said: "Across most parts of the UK, infections have thankfully begun to decrease.

"It is too early to say if we have passed the peak of infections, and infections overall remain high."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61106918

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

More than 10,000 people who signed up to help deliver Covid-19 vaccinations have now taken permanent roles with the NHS in England.

About 71,000 people took paid roles and thousands more volunteered to help with the programme which has now given more than 120 million doses.

The 11,483 who have chosen to stay in the NHS include former airline cabin crew members, gym managers and chefs.

NHS England said they would help tackle the backlog caused by the pandemic.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-61135281

[ET2SN]

Semi related, but most of China is in lockdown due to the London/Washington D. C. flu which means the ships aren't getting loaded (and we're screwed).

[Jimbuna]

[Skybird]

Well, this is what real "madate Nazism" looks like.



https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/21/c...hnk/index.html

[Skybird]

The NZZ writes on Ivermectin:


It's an invitation for all those who promote the anthelmintic ivermectin for the treatment of covid-19: As researchers wrote in a mid-March paper in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases (LINK), ivermectin can be linked to lower mortality rates than the antiviral remdesivir. The post was shared 5000 times on Facebook and 15,000 times on Twitter. U.S. psychologist Jordan Peterson tweeted that it was a "bang for the buck," and pulmonary specialist Pierre Kory called the post an "important study." They reach hundreds of thousands of followers with it. But they are wrong.

Because it is not a study, but merely a short summary, called an "abstract" in professional circles. A team of medical students and an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Miami wrote this abstract after presenting a research project in progress via poster at a conference. The collection of all conference papers eventually ended up in the journal. It is a common way to document scientific conferences.

However, there was no published study, so the reported results are not meaningful. The abstract authors did write a manuscript and submitted it for publication, says the abstract's first author, medical student Iakov Efimenko, in a public clarification. But independent reviewers rejected the technical paper because of technical deficiencies, he says. As a result, Efimenko's supervisor decided to cancel the study, he said.

The authors nevertheless sent the abstract to the above-mentioned journal, which published it without review. This, too, is - unfortunately - common. However, the scientific errors in the abstract would probably have been noticed in a proper peer review.

Of the errors made by the Miami team, one is particularly serious, emphasizes intensive care physician Nicholas Mark of the Swedish Medical Center in Seattle when asked. The selection of the samples was biased. The authors selected patient data from a large national database and compared the mortality risk of ivermectin-treated patients with that of remdesivir-treated patients. However, no reliable conclusions could be drawn from such an invalid sample.

"No physician prescribes ivermectin for covid 19 disease because there are no robust studies on it. Those who are treated with ivermectin have already left the hospital. But those who receive remdesivir are usually hospitalized and in poor condition," Mark says. So, he says, it's a comparison between a group with mild symptoms and one with severe symptoms. That the latter had a higher risk of death is obvious, he says.

The aborted study is a prime example of how statistical association is confused with causality, Mark says. "Suppose one group of people is just staying in a McDonald's restaurant and a second group is staying in a hospital. Compare them, and you'll find that more hospital inmates die than McDonald's patrons. That doesn't mean the fast-food chain is doing you any good."

Another shortcoming, he said, was the highly uneven size of the groups chosen in the sample. Indeed, of 41,000 patients studied, more than 1,000 included treatment with ivermectin. In contrast, about 40 000 had been treated with remdesivir. Such an imbalance makes a sound statistical evaluation impossible.

Despite all the errors, Nicholas Mark praises the courage of abstract author Efimenko. He countered via Twitter the falsehoods that had been knitted from the abstract. "I am the first author and I think you are misrepresenting our results. Let's talk about it," Efimenko wrote in response to a tweet from science Youtuber John Campbell. The latter had uploaded a video about the alleged ivermectin sensation on YouTube shortly after the abstract was published. It had reached an audience of more than 2.2 million viewers. But unlike the false reports, Efimenko's rebuttal is going down on the web.

Campbell and a number of other ivermectin advocates did retract their videos within days of uploading them. In "correction" videos, however, they denied accusations of spreading misinformation. They only admitted to having fallen for the "waste study." On the other hand, the statement that ivermectin works against Covid-19 was not retracted.

One of the Youtubers also justified himself by saying that even a fact check by the Associated Press news agency failed to detect that it was a revoked study. But this is a lie, because the news agency has explained very precisely that a real study never existed.

This false claim by the Youtuber is also probably calculated. Because the motives for the instrumentalization are easy to recognize. The lung doctor Kory earns money by prescribing ivermectin treatments, science youtubers like Campbell earn their income through high click numbers.

Bad studies are sometimes retracted, while conference abstracts are not. But would a retraction of the flawed abstract have made Kory see reason? It is unlikely to have done so. Already, two of Kory's publications from 2020 and 2021 that appeared to show ivermectin's efficacy in treating covid-19 disease were retracted for errors. Kory then published one of those studies in an altered form in another journal. Its editors have since expressed concerns as well. A retraction is likely to follow.

But that will no more dissuade cherry-pickers like Kory from their theories than the broad consensus of reputable studies showing that ivermectin is ineffective against covid 19 disease. A new clinical trial that finds the worming drug no more effective than a placebo lines up. But in the ivermectin-savvy Internet bubble, people will ignore that, too.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)


Its not the first time that statistics and methods behind promoting the "success" of Ivermectin have been shreddered.

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]

[Jimbuna]