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If he really had a mild case, he was massively overtreated. The things they said they were doing to him are things that are only done to people with a severe case, and generally for a reason. There are side effects.
Also, the death toll from COVID in the US appears to be underreported by about 30% if you look at the increase in deaths above normal for the time period.
And how do you fill up an Excel spreadsheet? The 64K record limit was lifted back around Excel 2000, or so, wasn't it? Isn't the current limit something so crazy high that it could hold ALL the UK deaths for the period, COVID and non-COVID alike?
Frankly, at this stage I'm surprised they weren't using Notepad++.Quote:
It was Lotus 1-2-3
No, it didn't did it? Combine that with the Drive Past Photo Op and the guy's a sociopath. I still don't wish poor health on him but, yeah... straight up sociopath.Quote:
It didn't take long
I think with Excel data modeling you can store millions of rows.Quote:
Originally Posted by Shaggy Hiker
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...0-5c75dbcb0f7b
Turns out the spreadsheet was originally created in 2007. Not sure which version of excel but our NHS often run behind on technology so I'm guessing it was pre 2000. I'm trying to find more information but there seems to be an absence of anything concrete. About the best thing I can find is this but it's mostly speculative.Quote:
And how do you fill up an Excel spreadsheet?
edit> Apparently it exceeded the max columns, rather than the max rows. But that begs the question, who the hell makes a record columnar?
This is the sort of mess you get when you let MS Office weenies run loose. Hilariously enough many will put "programmer" on their resumes.
We used to find this sort of crapfest all over the place before I retired. I got caught up in a lot of projects that involved trying to harvest such sequestered data and get it into databases. Not so much "data cleansing" as "data power washing."
I'd suggest that people be licensed with periodic re-exams, but then look how poorly that works for automobile operator licensing. Scary who is allowed behind the wheel.
Hard to imagine any "developer" would downgrade CSV data into any Excel workbook format. If I felt CSV was problematic due to locale differences I'd probably opt for conversion into naked DBF files instead. Though old and crusty, dBase 3, 4, and 5 formats are still readable on most platforms, even IBM mainframes.Quote:
Originally Posted by jdc2000
But the nature of the data makes locale issues pretty irrelevant anyway.
Who the hell are these "developers" they've been paying? Whale biologists masquerading? ;)
If you're going to make outrageous statements like that, you should at least provide a cetacean to back it up.Quote:
Originally Posted by dilettante
Anyways, you may be close. I would guess that they didn't hire anybody, just found somebody with just a bit of knowledge and enlisted them to the task. That's the way these kinds of things usually arise, in my experience. Not through planning, but through the opposite.
If I had to guess I'd suspect either slave wage illegal immigrants from Eastern Europe or ne'er-do-well nephews of inbred aristocrats. But who can tell what the U.K. looks like culturally any more? COVID has sort of put a damper on travel for most of us.
The moron in chief is back to it again...
"Facebook on Tuesday removed a post from President Trump in which he falsely claimed that Covid-19 is less deadly than the seasonal flu. Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone confirmed the company removed the post for breaking its rules on Covid-19 misinformation."
I can hear the face masks from his base hitting the ground now!
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/06/tech/...lse/index.html
There's just so much wrong with this it almost feels like a hoax.
As Dil says, why did need to go via any middle format - let alone excel?
Did they not even have any error checking in place? I mean, something was wrapping that import process.
Why did it need to be in any file format at all? Is this not stuff you'd be putting into your centralised DB in real time? Why the need to store it separately (risking loss) and then import?
I've never really had a problem with internal departments running their own spreadsheets as long as nobody tries to make the argument that they're somehow my responsibility. They can provide a useful (and often necessary) stopgap until the Dev team can develop a proper solution. And they act as a brilliant spec for that development once the Dev team are ready.Quote:
This is the sort of mess you get when you let MS Office weenies run loose.
The kind of idiot who thinks excel is a valid format for holding national covid data in, on the other hand... that idiot's an idiot.
You've clearer never seen NHS computer systems :)Quote:
There's just so much wrong with this it almost feels like a hoax.
As Dil says, why did need to go via any middle format - let alone excel?
Ha! Actually, I have. I just assumed they'd done better on this one. My naivety knows no bounds.
I spent some time working in banking a while back and that was an eye opener. Up to a decade ago (and possibly still today) our whole finance industry was run on Access.
----------------
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr04gHbP5MQ
This is a point that people often miss. The movies make it look like the government and other large, established, profitable industries are all using cutting edge technology and have access to the best of everything. That's just not the case. A whole lot of them are using archaic systems that happen to work and nobody remembers how or why. Whole lot more bailing twine and chewing gum than the movies tend to depict.Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
You sound like a city boy.
A fisherman knows you can't bail with twine, and a rancher or farmer knows what a standard unit of hay is.
One spelling error...yeesh.
I was reaching for a pun but it eluded me. Better to have just not posted.
Yeah we bale hay with wire around here, or at least we use to. But I have to admit, I have haven't seen one up close in a long time.
Around here we see a lot more of the large bales, big cylinders.
Starting to see more and more of that. Worked in the hay fields a couple of summers as a kid, my dad bucked the bales and my mom drove the truck. My job was to walk in front and make sure the bales were all lined up straight. Hot hard work, led to some shouting matches on a biblical scale.Quote:
Originally Posted by dilettante
I did a bit of baling and bailing, both, as I was growing up. We dealt with the smaller, 40lb bales, not those massive cylinders they have now.
I do remember one super hot day when the chaff coming up from the baler looked like smoke...and then it got darker, and we realized it WAS smoke. The moving parts on that hot day had set fire to some of the chaff.
Fun times, those were.
I think this is worth noting...Up until now strictly non-political:
‘Dangerously incompetent’: medical journal condemns Trump’s handling of pandemic
New England Journal of Medicine publishes editorial saying current US leadership ‘recklessly squandered lives’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...administration
Those darned incompetent medical journals. They really are getting dangerous.
Well that's no secret. Anyone (well that's an over statement) who cared enough to pay attention saw it a long time ago. But nice to see it being said publicly by the NEJM. Wish more organization that have a lot more clout than we have would speak up. Way to many people dying needlessly.Quote:
Originally Posted by TysonLPrice
Evidence for zinc is growing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIvRR_y5i-k&t=822s
Well here we go again. The US and most of Europe COVID cases are soaring upwards. I don't know how people in Europe are reacting but in the US it doesn't seem to be bothering people much. In my circle of friends and family I'm the only one that even checks on this. But being retired does give me more time for these types of things. Most people just seem to be annoyed that thing aren't reopening faster.
I think its gonna be a long hard winter for a lot of people. The only bright spot I see is the death rate seems to have dropped significantly (just a guess haven't seen current numbers). Lets hope a vaccine arrives sooner than later.
EDIT: What is up with Belgium. they had @ 8,200 new cases today. The US has @ 30x their population. That ratio would be @ 246,000 new cases in one day in the US. We are bad but that's off the charts.
I suspect there is some unidentified cultural element, probably related to how much families and other social units intermix come hell or high water.
I saw a talk on Switzerland. There were very different outcomes among its 3 mostly geographically separate major subcultures.
Vaccine projections seem to be pulling back across the board. Trials keep hitting various snags.
We recognise it's happening but I'm seeing a whole lot of denying the science for a response.Quote:
I don't know how people in Europe are reacting
On the left, labour are calling for increased measures and a circuit breaker lockdown - except in the North, who've got sky high levels of infection, where they are saying they'll refuse to respect the lockdowns that are already in place. And on the right we have a ongoing refusal to publish any evidence for the effectiveness of any of the proposed measures along with a lot of back bench support for not taking any measures because... FRIDUM!
What's really disturbing to me is the growing rhetoric I'm hearing (particularly from the right) that we should just say screw it and go for herd immunity. To put that in context, we've had over 43,000 deaths and we believe roughly 7% of people have been infected. Assuming herd immunity cuts in at about 90% that means we're willing to accept over 500,000 deaths so that John can go to a pub. Couple that with the associated rhetoric that vulnerable should just have to lock themselves away permanently or die early and, screw it, we might as well dive right in and start up a Eugenics program.
Come on FD thats not really true at all, firstly the Tier 2 lockwown measure are already in place here, The Northern Majors are just rejecting the idea that they should be put into a full Tier 3 lockdown without proper financial support.Quote:
On the left, labour are calling for increased measures and a circuit breaker lockdown - except in the North, who've got sky high levels of infection, where they are saying they'll refuse to respect the lockdowns that are already in place
They reject it becasue they know if this was happening in the south we would be having a full national lockdown, and they also reject it because the Government own top medial advisor Jonathan Van Tam told them to there face in a meeting that the tier 3 lockdown was unlikely to work on its own.
Sage has already told them they should do a full national circuit breaker lockdown for 2 - 3 weeks and use that time to make test and trace work, but the government are in denial about test and trace system and the fact that it has failed badly.
I am not really worried about this its mainly the same voices who are in denial about Covid in the first place.Quote:
What's really disturbing to me is the growing rhetoric I'm hearing (particularly from the right) that we should just say screw it and go for herd immunity
I was watching a recent Trump Rally and they had a big red arrow, maybe twenty feet long, pointing at the entrance that said "Trump Super Spreader". I'm not kidding. That's falling in line with the Trump administration new policy of "let it rip" and build herd immunity. If Trump loses I think tens of thousands of lives will be lost unnecessarily while he is still in office. If he wins I think it will be in the hundreds of thousands.Quote:
What's really disturbing to me is the growing rhetoric I'm hearing (particularly from the right) that we should just say screw it and go for herd immunity. To put that in context, we've had over 43,000 deaths and we believe roughly 7% of people have been infected. Assuming herd immunity cuts in at about 90% that means we're willing to accept over 500,000 deaths so that John can go to a pub. Couple that with the associated rhetoric that vulnerable should just have to lock themselves away permanently or die early and, screw it, we might as well dive right in and start up a Eugenics program.
I saw the same thing but assumed the arrow had been put there by Trump opponents as a dig at him. Do you think it was put there by Trump supporters? Because that would be new levels madness. Talk about dancing in the shadow of Vesuvius.Quote:
I was watching a recent Trump Rally and they had a big red arrow, maybe twenty feet long, pointing at the entrance that said "Trump Super Spreader". I'm not kidding.
It probably is. London's looking like it's going that way. I honestly don't think the choice of areas to lock down is a North/South thing, it's just that you've got the overwhelming number of cases up there. I'm with you on the financial support, though, and that might be a North/South thing.Quote:
if this was happening in the south
I'm also with you on the denial over Test and Trace but a circuit breaker wouldn't give us enough time to fix that. What it would do is push the level down instead of up for a few weeks which, given the exponential nature of Covid spread, could have a very important impact.
I absolutely believe that. If you saw the people interviewed in that piece you would to. As for a "new level of madness"; The Trump administration new policy of "let it rip" and build herd immunity fits that nicely. Didn't the UK start out that way?Quote:
I saw the same thing but assumed the arrow had been put there by Trump opponents as a dig at him. Do you think it was put there by Trump supporters? Because that would be new levels madness. Talk about dancing in the shadow of Vesuvius.
Some voices were calling for it, yes. But then Boris caught it and was confronted with the reality of what that would actually mean for real people. There aren't many good things to say about Boris but one of them is that he's not as big a sociopath as Trump.Quote:
Didn't the UK start out that way?
Our state is fairly rational, as the US goes (ONLY on COVID, don't hold me to that statement in ANY other area...heck, I'm shocked the governor is being so rational about COVID). The gov came up with four tiers of lockdown. We moved up steadily, and without any particular thresholds being cleared, but once we got to level four, things stopped. The governor has consistently kept us in that level 4, while allowing individual cities and counties to step back to other levels. By now, the whole concept of levels has blurred out to the point where they don't really matter. At each level, certain types of businesses have to close back down, but we've had Boise go to level 3...with bars staying open, which isn't level 3.
What we don't have is test and trace. I'm not sure that is being done anywhere in the US. So, basically, our policy, which is better than what seems to be happening in many states, amounts to "worry...but don't do anything."
Nor us. Not that you'd believe it from the Government rhetoric.Quote:
What we don't have is test and trace.
I was listening to an interesting interview yesterday where a virologist was pointing out that test and trace was largely pointless without mass randomised testing to start finding carriers before they're symptomatic, if they become symptomatic at all. Without that the the virus will have spread several times before you catch a carrier by which time attempts to "Trace" are basically impossible.
I think this is something where we really should be looking to China. The level of testing they're doing embarrasses the West.
I guess we need to set up lots and lots of guard booths where everyone must submit to a test before proceeding. Every workplace and shop?
In an ideal world, yes.Quote:
Every workplace and shop?
Our tests would have to be fast enough to be meaningful. Currently, that's the case for antibody testing, but that's not the kind of testing that would matter for this. That only says whether or not you HAD the virus, not what your current status is. A cough test would be ideal, but whatever the test for current spreading is, it has to get results in a meaningful amount of time. Currently, we can take a week. It's not great.
There are new tests becoming available which can apparently give results in under an hour, and are based on a simple saliva swab.
I don't know how many will be available, or whether they'll make it across the pond to you guys.
One of the universities has been doing a fairly large randomised test for months (about 100 thousand people I think), but it is tiny in comparison to what we need. It has been great at finding out how many people get the virus without symptoms tho - apparently 80% of the people who get the virus have no symptoms.Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
Hopefully the new quick tests will help with testing and tracking (as it sounds like they will be cheaper, and less work for the staff), and so will better uptake of the app (as it apparently does automatic contact tracing and alerting people that they need to isolate due to a contact).
THAT is what I'm more worried about. We haven't had effective use of the tests we already have. It does seem to be getting better out here in the hinterlands, but it doesn't seem consistent.Quote:
Originally Posted by si_the_geek
Yeah, it seems to be based on where you live.
Right now anyone in Detroit can get a free test on demand. Everyone else has free State-funded testing available, but only on proof of need (health or elder care worker, doctor's prescription). Things are getting more open but they don't take just anyone. If you are retired or got laid off and stay home you are on your own.
https://www.michigan.gov/coronavirus...0157--,00.html
There are also options like Rite Aid testing, but only in a handful of locations mainly in big cities so far. It appears to be tied to Google for some odd reason and requires installing a phone app and allowing monitoring and taking regular surveys. It is probably too invasive of private information for a lot of people.
The delay isn't the time it takes for the test itself, it's the logistics. The test itself takes less than 24 hours and in the UK we typically turn them around within 48 hours. We may not have the logistics in place to achieve a 24 hour turn around but if we're talking about an ideal world it's what we should be aiming for.
But it's not really about the time it takes to turn the test around because that time will be lost whether we're doing mass randomised testing or testing in response to symptoms. What we're doing at the moment is waiting for people to become symptomatic, which means they can have been spreading for a week before we even start to recognise that tracing is something we might need to do. Randomised testing removes that week.
Edit> Accidentally missed a page of posts:blush: I didn't know that the test time was an hour as Si says but I think that does back up what I was saying about it being a problem of logistics. Availability of tests will be an issue if we want move to mass testing but, again, that's really an issue of production/logistics and therefore addressable with enough effort.
I think that's a really important consideration. The uptake of our test and trace app has been low because of this and they've just announced that the data from the test and trace system as a whole is going to be shared with the police which is likely to drive the engagement down further.Quote:
It is probably too invasive of private information for a lot of people.
Yep, a sister company of the group of which I belong developed such a test. The result are pretty impressive, result in 45 minutes, 87% to be detected, 99% the result is correct.Quote:
Originally Posted by si_the_geek
https://www.cnrs.fr/en/covid-19-launch-production-phase-easycov-saliva-based-screening-test-market-entry-france-and-europe
https://www.cnrs.fr/en/covid-19-easy...eal-situations
Oh. Effort. THAT's what we've been missing. We don't DO effort, especially these days.Quote:
Originally Posted by FunkyDexter
What good is a test today tomorrow? Retesting needs to be done at least weekly. Daily testing is probably impractical until they open those drive-up Instant Testing booths. Breath on a strip, if it turns yellow you're infected. Sort of like soil testing. ;)
A lot of good if your goal is Test and Trace. If you're carrying infectious, the risk of you passing it on increases exponentially over time. You meet 5 people today and put them at risk. Each of them puts 5 people at risk tomorrow and each of them put 5 people at risk the day after.Quote:
What good is a test today tomorrow?
It's the difference between having to trace and contact 5 people if the turn around is a day and 78,125 people if the turn around is a week. (Assuming an average daily contact rate of 5 people which I'll freely admit I've pulled out of thin air:))
Either that or you have REALLY bad breath.Quote:
Originally Posted by dilettante
"Test and Trace" seems like a placebo, where the tests don't have to be effective or accurate and the actual goal is harvesting information on personal movement. No care at all about spreading the infection.
"Test and Quarantine" might do some good with effective testing and a secure leper colony to whisk positives off to for 14 to 21 days.
The quarantine part is clearly implied:rolleyes:, though, you're right that it would be pointless without it.
WOW, France 40,000, Spain 20,000 and the UK 20,000. For some reason Germany has been doing much better than the other European countries. The US is up to 60,000 a day again. I wonder sometimes if other countries are not testing much and under counting the COVID deaths. If not, then the US and Europe must have an above average amount of self entitled idiots. We have the money and health care systems that should make us have the lowest deaths per capita. Instead we are near the highest rates. South America is right up their with us but at least they have the excuse of high poverty and poor health care systems.
Yes we reached a rate of 16% of case (number of detected/ number tested), people in hospital, under breathing system and dying are also rising fast again...
Yes, France has a good reputation for that and it is well deserved. More and more people are not wearing the mask correctly (keep it under the nose) and the young one just remove it as soon as nobody is watching.Quote:
If not, then the US and Europe must have an above average amount of self entitled idiots
we have also a government that think that you can catch covid in a restaurant or in a theater but not in a overcrowded train or subway, a classroom or in an university amphitheater...
They have the best health care (in Europe at least), and were properly prepared for a pandemic - the UK prepared poorly for a different kind of pandemic (Flu based, and the stock was out of date).Quote:
Originally Posted by wes4dbt
It also helps that their leader is female, as apparently countries with a female leader have performed much better than others - because they focus more on the health rather than the economy (which will automatically be better if the infection is under control).
There are lots of countries like that, either they aren't capable for financial/infrastructure reasons (I think India is one of those), and some for political reasons (at least one middle-east country).Quote:
I wonder sometimes if other countries are not testing much and under counting the COVID deaths.
We certainly do :(Quote:
If not, then the US and Europe must have an above average amount of self entitled idiots.
Thankfully one of my neighbours who was very self-entitled has begun changing her ways, but I still see far too many people not taking account of the circumstances - as if masks and distance aren't worth bothering with. We are in a relatively safe region (low infection rates etc), but that doesn't mean people should be acting like everything is normal.
Masks? Masks? Pfft, how privileged. Hold my beer. Real men gargle Iodine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNFJ_IPwZ-g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSqT6vHTMzg
That would be NASTY!!
Almost makes Listerine sound pleasant.
I should know better than to enter this thread with a hot open mic conference call ... I almost did a spittake when I saw the iodine comment/.
-tg
Dr. Atlas is a White House adviser on the coronavirus. On Sunday, Twitter removed a tweet by Atlas, who posted: “Masks work? NO.” The social media platform stated the tweet violated the policy on coronavirus misinformation. Atlas followed his tweet with a series of misrepresentations about the science behind the effectiveness of masks in combating the pandemic.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/17/polit...rus/index.html
He is the top advisor to Trump on the nation's virus response and he is also pushing the "herd immunity" approach which some liken to murder. The US is breaking infection records on a daily basis and winter is closing in. Trump wants to pretend it is almost over and his top advisor says masks don't work. Forty percent of Americans support Trump and his policies. I think this will indeed be a dark winter for the US.