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Category Archives: science
Masks forever?
There are arguments over the effectiveness of some covid measures. Similarly there is some room for disagreement on how bad the negative side effects of measures are. But the most stark disagreement seems to be over whether covid remains unpleasant … Continue reading
Posted in Coronavirus, politics, science
Tagged anxiety, Coronavirus, covid-19, covid-19 pandemic, Face masks, hormesis, immunity, vaccine, zero covid
1 Comment
Covid vaccination for healthy 5-11 year olds
The NHS are treating this as a vaccination campaign, posting out appointments that haven’t been requested. I feel this approach is at odds with the JCVI advice. Let’s look at a few parts of the JCVI statement: What was advised … Continue reading
Posted in Coronavirus, politics, science
Tagged children, Coronavirus, covid-19, covid-19 pandemic, JCVI, vaccine
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Pandemic thoughts over the last few months
Pandemic mitigation measures have mental health side effects I’ve struggled with anxiety much of my life. In therapy I learned not to put my life on hold to avoid risks… and then a pandemic came along and I’ve been forced, … Continue reading
Posted in Coronavirus, mental health, politics, science
Tagged anxiety, Coronavirus, covid-19, covid-19 pandemic, endemic, Face masks, vaccine
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Should a forty-something woman in Scotland take the AstraZeneca vaccine?
A study published in the BMJ found that, among 18-65 year olds in Denmark and Norway who’d had the AstraZeneca vaccine (mostly healthcare workers), the rate of “excess” thromboembolic events (blood clots), i.e. ones that wouldn’t have been expected to … Continue reading
Posted in Coronavirus, science
Tagged astrazeneca covid vaccine, blood clots, covid-19, covid-19 pandemic, excess deaths, Scotland, vaccine, zero covid
1 Comment
Herd immunity was in everyone’s plan at first
Something else that seems very significant looking back. The whole paradigm we had in the beginning, of having a “contain” phase that is fairly quickly abandoned and moving on to a “delay” phase. This apparently was developed in planning for … Continue reading
Posted in Coronavirus, politics, science
Tagged covid-19, covid-19 pandemic, delay the peak, endemic equilibrium, flatten the curve, herd immunity, suppression, vaccine, zero covid
1 Comment
Covid pandemic, 9 months in
I’ve been looking back over my posts through this pandemic year, trying to make some sort of sense of where I stand after everything I’ve learned. Not that it really makes any difference what I think… but I like to … Continue reading
Posted in Coronavirus, science
Tagged covid denial, covid-19, covid-19 pandemic, excess deaths, lockdown, new uk strain, overdispersion, Scotland, social distancing, sweden, vaccine, zero covid
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Be more afraid?
I recently read a very disturbing Guardian piece detailing the goings-on in an Austrian ski resort back in March, through interviews with people who had been there. It seems this resort (Ischgl) was a hotbed of transmission at that time … Continue reading
Posted in Coronavirus, mental health, moral issues, politics, science, social justice
Tagged anxiety, Coronavirus, covid denial, covid-19 pandemic, fear, Ischgl, kindness, lockdown, shielding, zero covid
3 Comments
Pandemic deaths analysis
I did some analysis of deaths over this pandemic (because I’m morbid like that). I calculated expected “normal” deaths for every week of 2020, based on 10-year-average age-specific death rates for each specific week of the year applied to the … Continue reading
How bad will the next wave be?
The prevailing view has seemed to be that the virus has only reached a small fraction of the population, and that lockdown stopped it in its tracks; lifting lockdown will sooner or later result in resurgence that is just as … Continue reading
Posted in Coronavirus, science
1 Comment
Meaning and Truth 