Tory Party special – Jeremy Hunt: Cycling the answer to air pollution; Iain Duncan Smith: "You're more likely to die on a bicycle than from Covid-19"; Cyclist’s Strava response to Melbourne’s ‘Karen’; Wiggo rocks summer look + more

peasantpigfarmer wrote:

UK Corvid deaths this year = 45k+

Time to start culling crows?

mdavidford wrote:

peasantpigfarmer wrote:

UK Corvid deaths this year = 45k+

Time to start culling crows?

I suggest stoning.

I think we've been through all this before. The strain on medical services, especially intensive care, is one of the main reasons there was so much 'hysteria'. Plus the over 40s have the right not to die prematurely due to a brexthick govt being unable to coordinate an effective response to a pandemic and a govt that managed to outsmart those useless Europeans when to came to total deaths and cases. Bravo!

Was the strain any greater than during a very severe flu season like 99/00.

No.

Is the mortality for healthy people under 40 currently exceptional.

No.

The economic damage being done by a blanket lockdown will cause more deaths amongst those healthy under 40s than it will prevent.

Look up research on the long term damage to health caused by recessions and economic shocks. It should help put things in perspective.

As for COVID cases/deaths etc we can only judge the effectiveness of any country's strategy after several years and possibly even decades have passed.

Damage to health is not caused by recessions it is caused by the way society chooses to allocate the resources available at any one time. COVID has been very, very good for the environment and climate change and hence good for health. One piece of research suggested that if emission levels could be maintained at lockdown levels we may have a chance of keeping temperature rise to 1.5 degrees C. To do this would mean changing from our comsumerist throw away society to a sustainable one. Perhaps we could measure succes by happiness rather than economic activity. I am not sure how this could be done but I'm sure we could do better than returning to the status quo and cycling has an important part to play.

If you're working ont he basis that Covid-19 is just like a normal winter 'flu then I think you've missed a crucial component of the threat. Also, just focussing on deaths is short-sighted, discounting those who have required treatment and hospitalisation.

I don't disagree that the economic, social and psychological fallout from lockdown isn't severe. However, it has given us chance to look at what we do and why and to consider whether life could be different (and hopefully better). And economies bounce back, even though economic growth isn't the only metric one should use.

And why the focus on under-40s? Do the rest of us not count?

Simon E wrote:

And why the focus on under-40s? Do the rest of us not count?

I bet you'll find that rich_cb is under 40 and therefore his attitude is "I'm alright, Jack!".

(And - no, once you are past forty in our society what they'd like is for us to go off and find a big red crystal like in Logan's Run).

It's not like a 'normal' winter flu.

The mortality from COVID is comparable to a very severe winter flu season. Prior to COVID we have had excess deaths at around the 50000 mark twice in the last 25 years. So it's unusual but certainly not unprecedented.

Economies might bounce back but the long term damage to people continues. Look at all the ex industrial areas in the UK. How healthy are the people in those areas compared to the national average?

Now consider that the economic shock to those areas happened a generation ago and that the national economy has hugely expanded since then.

That's the risk with COVID. We destroy large swathes of our economy and the health repercussions continue for generations.

The reason to focus on the under 40s is because that's where the disparity between actual risk and perceived risk is greatest.

Relaxing restrictions on the young and healthy doesn't necessarily put more vulnerable groups at greater risk if it's don in a sensible manner.

Except that "die by getting on a bicycle" pretty clearly implies a per trip risk, rather than the annual risk for anyone who currently cycles, which would be considerably lower.

The "by getting COVID" bit is more ambiguous. It could mean

1. How likely is someone in that age group to catch and die from the virus over a given time period
2. For deaths in that age group, how likely is it that that death will be from the virus
3. If someone in that age group contracts the virus, how likely is it that they will die from it

[It wouldn't surprise me if IDS himself doesn't actually know which of these he's talking about - he's likely just repeating a comparison he's seen elsewhere which has taken two statistics which produce vaguely similar numbers and gone 'aha! This is lower than that!' without bothering to worry about whether they're comparable.]

If we're talking about deaths per trip for cycling, then comparing 1 or 2 is completely apples and oranges. However, 3 is not a particularly useful risk to consider without the context of how likely it is that you would contract the virus.

In any case, it's just daft to compare the risk of death of a random infection, which carries risks of other harms (health, physical and psychological; social; economic;...) and no obvious benefits, with that from something that's a choice, and has associated health benefits.

Also, using death rates with control measures in place as an argument for removing those control measures makes no sense.

And that's not to mention the cherry-picking of the age group - if he's proposing to treat everyone over 40 as 'vulnerable', that's an awful lot of people to 'protect'.

Still, that's all probably a bit irrelevant to a cycling forum...

It's hard to compare risks for two very different things but as I said in my post it is possible to get a vague comparison of risk.

Cycling reasonably regularly for the duration of the pandic probably carries a reasonably similar risk of death to catching Coronavirus if you are under 40and fit and well.

Both carry a low risk of fatality and that's the point I think he was trying to make.

Coronavirus is not particularly dangerous to those who are healthy and under 40.

Ironically it is those people who benefit least from an all encompassing lockdown that will suffer its consequences most profoundly.

It's possible to get a vague comparison of risk. What I'm saying is that in the case of the two risks in question (whichever they are, since he wasn't clear, and quite possibly doesn't know himself), it doesn't tell us anything meaningful to do so.

Even your best case scenario / argument is that with all the disease prevention of lockdown, social distancing, personal hygiene routines, PPE and massive cost to the NHS in treating tens of thousands of seriously ill people, that the current excess deaths are only as bad as the worst flu outbreak in recent history.

You are also only considering deaths, when there is increasing evidence of long term complications for many people who survive the disease, from anosmia through to permanent reduction of lung function, brain and heart damage. This aspect is certainly different to the normal flu.

People who become severely unwell due to influenza will often suffer long term health consequences including organ damage.

The strain on the NHS during a severe winter flu season is not much different. The PPE being worn now is no different to that worn during the swine flu pandemic.

The COVID pandemic is different to a severe flu season but not dramatically so in terms of mortality or long term health sequelae.

The difference is the level of public fear and for many people that level of fear is entirely disproportionate to the level of risk.

Which obviously is still a bad outcome,but if the governments report that 200,000 will die purely as a result of lockdown conditions (which I suspect was the trigger for the conversation IDS was having) which is the better case scenario?

FWIW I think people are just over reacting to the fact it was IDS who said it,rather than what was actually said,its a tenuous link to cycling at best and doesnt need nth degree dissection to prove its absolutely right or absolutely wrong.

But we all know the risk is relative right? For most under 60 Covid will Not kill you. It may not even show any symptoms. If you're stuck in nursing home or hospital ward with careers with no ppe spreading it about them maybe you are at great risk.

I'm more bothered about blind old people in a Jazz or Prius than Covid.

Around 829 people in Eng & Wales would disagree with you if they were still alive.

Around 2% of COVID deaths in Eng & Wales are in the under 40's according to Uk Gov stats (which may  be fudged amended soon).

Rick from your comments it seems you are under fourty. I'm sixty so have a substantially different perspective. Try to think of people as people, not broken down by some arbitrary grouping the suits your agenda. 

Yep, he has been spouting the "Britain shouldn't have been closed, should have gone with Herd Immunity" that most right wingers spout for this. I might be more at risk of dying on my bike then by Covid, however I don't give that risk to the next person to spread that risk to someone more susceptible exponentially.

Plus the risk of dying might be lower, but the risk of long term health consquences are pretty much the same across most age ranges I believe at the moment. Anecdotally I'm aware of two people in my social circles who have trouble breathing easily or even doing simple exercise like walking a few hundred yards who who were reasonably fit and healthy before getting it.  

It is pure, unadulterated, gold standard, statistical bollocks. It is a statistically meaningless phrase. 

But he is genuinely  too thick to know. The man is an actual fool. He was too thick to get to university, so he lied on his CV about attending a quite prestigious italian university.

the little onion wrote:

But he is genuinely  too thick to know. The man is an actual fool. He was too thick to get to university, so he lied on his CV about attending a quite prestigious italian university.

I'd never heard of this, so I checked and it's true, and he attended a different university to the one he claimed he'd attended, and only for a year and gained no qualifications.  Also true is that he was less than honest about his attendance at Dunchurch College of Management, which actually consisted of a few short courses of a couple of days; again, no qualifications.

But like a true tory, he still thinks he's brilliant; Dunning-Kreuger strikes again.

So UK COVID deaths this year so far: 45,312 (source: worldometer)

Uk cyclist deaths this year: 76 (based on info collated from news reports - see https://twitter.com/lostinmanc/status/1284429852368605186?s=20 )

Yeah, okay IDS.