Enclosed are the charts for the week ending 14th Jan 2022. I’ve omitted the Vaccinations chart and added a reproductive number chart which gives some idea about the rate of reproduction of the virus and a daily official isolations chart to get some indication of the position re. incidence of persons sickened by the Virus. Total isolations are increasing gradually but Official Isolations are going down slowly and the Reproductive rates are actually decreasing at this stage. Deaths are still relatively low. The charts seem to be indicating that we might yet escape the dire UWI model predictions. So far, so good.
Lyall Small
BU Covid Dash – Fighting the Numbers
Enclosed are the charts for the week ending 14th Jan 2022. I’ve omitted the Vaccinations chart and added a reproductive number chart which gives some idea about the rate of reproduction of the virus and a daily official isolations chart to get some indication of the position re. incidence of persons sickened by the Virus. …
189 responses to “BU Covid Dash – Fighting the Numbers”
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Another super spreader event could happen shortly, but not here!!
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tsunami-advisory-west-coast-california-oregon-washington-alaska/
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When we were told the Best DoSantos lab was buying all these extra testing kits and we were left to assume the worst for our population, we were misled.
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Tests could go as high as 10K per day!!
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Weather
Wednesday January 19, 2022
Showers early with scattered clouds.
Temperature 83/75 Degrees F*
Wind 19 MPH
Humidity 70 percent
Precipitation 44 percent/Amount 0.06″
Sunshine 6:25AM
Sunset 5:53PM
Subject to change slightly.
Covid Awareness = High
Voter Turnout = 59 percent.
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The UWI worst case figure of 3,500 cases per day is based on a 20-30% positivity ratio in the 10,000 visitors who will be present at any one time.
We only got 2 things to worry about, floods in the UK and Floods here!!
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@John
You love more water than “Noah & Moses”.
You’re a walking tsunami…Lord help US.
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If you look carefully you will see it is Geography and Nature that fascinate me.
Let’s look at Taiwan now for a moment and its imported cases.
https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202201140009
“The weekly record of 140 imported Omicron infections was a sizable increase on the 79 cases recorded from Dec. 31 to Jan. 6, reflecting the growing dominance of the contagious variant abroad. The first cases of imported Omicron infection in Taiwan were reported on Dec. 11.”
We are looking at the same phenomenon as Taiwan, THEGROWING DOMINANCE OF THE CONTAGIOUS VARIANT ABROAD!!
Taiwan has very few local cases.
It’s COVID numbers are a measure of its need to participate in the international economy as is Singapore’s as is ours.
I’ll make another prediction!!
Our COVID case numbers will follow those in the catchment area from which our tourists come.
As theirs plateau and fall, ours will too.
The UK is on its way down, so by my logic, ours should soon be on its way down.
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“Food for thought.”
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UK vs Barbados
So long as we have the numbers of tourists that we do, our COVID cases will be determined to a large extent by the country of origin of most of the tourists because most of our testing will be done on that population as a requirement for them to travel.
Even if the UK gets more floods and their cases rise again, our local population may not be significantly affected because by and large it is few of us who come into contact with the tourists but even more importantly, the spread will be airborne so it will be small compared to if we were to have floods and the virus got into our water.
All of what I am saying is simple common sense.
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And old “Simon & Garfunkel fan.” Ain’t you???
However, I don’t intend to steer this ship off course..I’m not trying to piss Blogie off.
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The COVID-19 cases are more widespread than is commonly realized.
That means that the death rates are LOWER.
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John; You’re slowly getting to see that the epidemic is truly ONE global phenomenon. Omicron’s arrival, spiking of the UK epidemic and elimination of the Delta variant (wherever it was found) is obvious from the charts. Each of the variants have characteristic properties and appear to be sequenced in an almost teleological preordained manner to perform an intricate dance that depends on interactions between man and the variants.
It is not by chance.
But, look carefully at all the charts you have shown on BU. I think you will eventually come around to the ultimate truism and realisation that water or floods have very little to do with Covid’s global spread. It is mankind’s movements and interactions and behaviours that are encrypted in the virus and in man’s DNA.
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…. and John;
I suspect that your original gut feeling was right that the ultimate number of Omicron cases will be significantly lower than predicted by the UWI group. But I suspect they also knew that all the while. -
The more I see of the curves worldwide the surer I become that water is where it will be defeated.
Individual countries need to solve/mitigate their particular issues on their own.
When the weather cycles back the virus will disappear, regardless of variant because it will have lost the means to spread to hosts …… just like the Spanish Flu did after the 6 year deluge!!
Water is the key!!
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Too early to call?
“ohn; You’re slowly getting to see that the epidemic is truly ONE global phenomenon. Omicron’s arrival, spiking of the UK epidemic and elimination of the Delta variant (wherever it was found) is obvious from the charts. Each of the variants have characteristic properties and appear to be sequenced in an almost teleological preordained manner to perform an intricate dance that depends on interactions between man and the variants.”
Xxxx
Debunking the idea viruses evolve to become less deadly over time
Unfortunately, that means it’s nearly impossible to predict the future of the pandemic.This sentiment is echoed by other infectious disease experts in the field.
“The end game is really bringing down the virus to low levels where we just live with it. And what omicron will do is bring the virus down to low levels in the community because it’s causing so much immunity,” say Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious diseases doctor and Professor of Medicine at UCSF. “It’ll bring it down to a controllable phase, which we call endemicity. So after this surge, we should be in the end game of the pandemic and into endemic.”
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We can and must eradicate it in the water.
Thereafter its prevalence will be limited to what airborne transmission can support which is the low level of which you speak.
Suspect it will then disappear.
Might even get rid of the common cold and flu in the process.
They have never been attacked in the water.
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@John
Can you repeat it 100,000 more times?
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A bird in the hand
There is a Jamaican proverb which states “A bird in the hand is worth more than two in the bush”. In other words, it is unwise to risk losing the bird you already have to go chasing after the two you see in the bush.
I cannot help but question the Government’s decision to call early an election when they already enjoyed a comfortable majority of all but one seat in Parliament. Why risk losing this majority?
It is, therefore, ironic that the current administration has made several statements on the campaign trail discouraging people from giving the “pity vote” or the “vex vote” or from voting in an Opposition.
Our Government has long included the two-party system, where one consists of the Opposition. The current administration operated as the Opposition party for the previous decade and fought valiantly for matters which they believed were in the interest of the people.
If an Opposition party was necessary and useful then, why is voting in an Opposition being discouraged now?
Then there is the issue of COVID positive people being denied the right to vote. Pursuant to Section 6(1) of the Representation Of People Act,
a person is entitled to vote if “he is qualified to be an elector for that constituency and is on that day registered in the register of electors”. In fact, the only fetter to voting mentioned in the act is where “a person who is subject under any enactment to any incapacity to vote is not entitled to vote as an elector at an election in a constituency”.
This means that a person whose name appears on the register of electors must be allowed to vote unless some other enactment says he is subject to an incapacity that prevents him from voting.
Register of electors
Consequently, whether or not people are COVID-positive, they have the right to vote once their names appear on the register of electors. So enshrined is the right of those on the register of electors to vote that Section 26 of the act prevents a person from being excluded from voting where they don’t meet some of the necessary qualifications of Section 7, but instead allows the vote to be cast but open to challenge or legal penalty. The spirit of the Representation Of People Act is to ensure that someone who is qualified and appears on the list of electors is not excluded from voting unless a separate piece of legislation explicitly prevents them from voting. While the COVID directives prevent a person who tests positive from leaving isolation or quarantine, the directives do not prevent a person from voting. There is, therefore, no legal basis for preventing COVIDpositive people from voting or for failing to amend the directives to ensure that the rights conferred on electors under the Representation Of People Act are preserved.
The Government had a moral obligation, in calling the election during a pandemic and 17 months before it was constitutionally due, to ensure that adequate provisions were made for all of those who appear on the list of electors to be able to cast their vote. The short notice also hampered people from challenging the matter in court.
During the recent United States elections, St Louis allowed COVID-positive people to do drive-thru voting. This allowed them to appear in person without being a danger to others while the election officers who assisted were clad in full PPE. Another example is The Bahamas, where people were allowed to leave quarantine for the purpose of voting.
COVID does not discriminate and all electors, regardless of party loyalty, will be affected by the Government’s failure to make voting arrangements for those who are COVID-positive and the contacts of those who are positive.
The Barbados electorate is famous for making its disappointment known at the polls and this may result in the loss of the comfortable majority the Government currently enjoys.Michelle M. Russell is an attorney with a passion for employment law and labour matters. Email: mrussell.ja@gmail.com
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RE @John
Can you repeat it 100,000 more times?
WHY SHOULD HE NOT REPEAT HIS HYPOTHESIS IF HE IS CONVINED AND CONVICTED THAT HE IS CORRECT?
IS HE NOT JOINING IN THE DISCUSSION, NEVER KNOWING HOW EXPRESSING HIS VIEW MAY MAKE A DIFFERENCE?. -
You will not derail this blog as is your objective. Make a point or move on.
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JohnJanuary 16, 2022 4:49 AM
We can and must eradicate it in the water.
Thereafter its prevalence will be limited to what airborne transmission can support which is the low level of which you speak.
Suspect it will then disappear.
Might even get rid of the common cold and flu in the process.
They have never been attacked in the water.
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That’s probably what happened with the Spanish Flu.
The weather changed and it no longer got into the water and was able to spread widely.
Airborne transmission was left and cases dwindled.
In two shakes it was gone and the people back then were none the wiser.
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Australia is going to become the laughing stock of the Tennis World.
They should have moved the tournament to WA where there is not much COVID.
People should soon start realising how crazy the Government of Australia is.
Novax is going to be a hero.
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Testing! Testing! re. Barbados vaccinations data percentages.
https://imgur.com/Q0T8ESt -
It worked! Will post some explanatory comments later today
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😀Now, I will have to look at your graphs in the same way that I look at 🐇/🐰’s. At least you did not put ‘Flood’ as a part of the graph😀
More seriously, two questions..
How do you explain the behavior of two of the graphs between 12/21 and 1/22. Why does the curve for the partially vaccinated remain relatively flat? -
TheOGazertsJanuary 16, 2022 9:52 AM
😀Now, I will have to look at your graphs in the same way that I look at 🐇/🐰’s. At least you did not put ‘Flood’ as a part of the graph😀
More seriously, two questions..
How do you explain the behavior of two of the graphs between 12/21 and 1/22. Why does the curve for the partially vaccinated remain relatively flat?++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Cuh dear Theo
Give the man a chance to expound on his graphs.
He is caught between a rock and a hard place!!
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If you add the three graphs together you will get a flat line with a fall off at the end.
It doesn’t match the sharp increase in the blue line at the top of the blog which I would assume has to do with isolations.
So, in an attempt to give Lyall a way out I would suggest that the graph just published is only for the local population and the one at the top is for both locals and tourists.
The rise is due as in the case of Singapore and Taiwan due to the opening of the border.
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Of course, I could be wrong.
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TheOGazerts / John / Critical Analyser;
I have to attend a Zoom meeting within minutes so I will not be able to give explanations for the next 3 hours or so. But the posting of the graph is just a trial run for using the Imgur app to post graphics. The data is real authentic data from the GIS website. The data actually doesn’t make a lot of sense to me either. Lots of questions can be posed.
eg: Why do the numbers from the population of presumably sick persons in Barbados always have significantly fewer persons who have been partially vaccinated as compared with the other categories? It might be because it reflects the parent barbados population which would then have 5% or so persons that are partially vaccinated? But does that make sense?
Why
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“Australia is sticking to their way of doing things.”
@David, that’s the beauty of rubber meeting road … not always the gorgeous look to please all but pretty enough to be legal and acceptable by reasonable people.
The initial problem with this affair was why did the Aussies issue a waiver in the first place … that created this entire mess.
The man is the only player apparently not vaxxed at the Open. That the ATP or an arm of the Morrison govt would see fit to give him an option to visit and play and then have the immigration officials and ultimately the Immigration Minister renege on that was rather ridiculous!
Anyhow my take aways for my lil Bdos are:
Look how fast a court proceeding can be expedited when NECESSARY and of public interest, far less seriously impacting citizens. 🤦🏾♂️
Note how legal issues are often decided in very NARROW terms … as reflected in the Chief Judges comment that:
“These grounds focus on whether the decision was for different reasons irrational or legally unreasonable. It is no part of the function of the court to decide upon the merits or wisdom of the decision.”And on the very funny side (funny how people does say amazing things when it suits them) this remark from a Serb living in Australia:
“I really was surprised that a person such as a minister could overturn a judicial system.” …. Whaatttttt!Why de badword … he from SERBIA in trute … home of a deep history of communism and authoritarian rule … so he playing ignorant of the power of a minister – even in a democracy ! 🙄🤦🏾♂️
Ah well. We Bajans know that real, real good tho!
@LyallS, thanks for the continued counter point excellence to @John’s abuse of stats … no one frets the man’s technical nous but that he uses it so egregiously to obfuscate is rather distressing!
Lata
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… and it looks like it is better to be partially vaccinated than fully vaccinated … by far.
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Do we have date so that time horizons can be established regarding the waning of the vaccine?
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@John
Novax is going to be a hero
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Freudian slip? I thought the name is Novak
As someone wrote “ Novak, Novax, Novisa” -
Here’s another explanation for the flip flop.
All of the visitors are vaccinated … assumption!!
So it means that when they get tested positive here and go into isolation (assuming they did/do) then since the preponderance of the positives are vaccinated visitors and the unvaccinated are locals and in the minority then the percentage of vaccinated in isolation rises and percentage unvaccinated falls.
We can’t have that happening so the visitor positives are taken out of the vaccinated numbers.
The base data set is flawed.
It purports to deal with one population when in fact there are two.
Crap in crap out!!
GIGO
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Oh oh, getting elevated beyond the run of the mill players.
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Here is a trick question to see how sharp you all are.
Tonga experienced flooding as a result of the recent Tsunami.
Will Tonga have a surge in COVID cases and if not why not?
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Here’s Tonga
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A total of 412 positive COVID-19 cases were identified by the Best-dos Santos Public Health Laboratory from the 1 988 tests carried out on Saturday, January 15.
https://www.nationnews.com/2022/01/16/412-new-covid-cases-january-15/
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Hants
Here’s how to tell how many of the 442 cases are imported and how many are local.
Use Lyall’s data.
https://i.imgur.com/Q0T8EStl.jpg
The partially vaccinated (~5%) should NOT be better off than the totally vaccinated (~30%).
That is in complete disagreement with all the data the scientists publish.
The totally vaccinated should be less than ~5%, lets say it should be ~3%.
But it is ~10X out at ~30%.
The only way that can happen is if the partially vaccinated are entirely from the local population and the totally vaccinated are from both, but predominately the imported population.
No way a tourist is going to come partially vaccinated.
Which means for every 1 local there are perhaps 10 X imported in the population.
So the 442 cases are made up of 40-44 LOCAL positives and 400-404 IMPORTED positives.
Therefore the number of local cases has been in double digits since the beginning of Lyall’s data, that is to say from 8 December 2021!!
QED
PS … I was on the pessimistic side
PPS … which is where an Engineer is supposed to be!!
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Here is an interpretation of Lyall’s data.
The vaccinated who are in isolation are predominately imported … tourists.
As Christmas approaches there is a surge in vaccinated arrivals and the 30% number surges to 65%.
The local population in the unvaccinated falls correspondingly.
Most of this segment will be local so you see the dip but there will also be a significant part that is imported.
People who have had COVID already get their medical exemptions.
The only component which does not fluctuate is the partially vaccinated which is practically all local with few if any imported members.
QED
Thanks Lyall, you have confirmed my hypothesis regarding the population in isolation and tested, it is really two separate populations.
Grasshopper
You can learn from this exposition in atleast two ways.
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Vincent CodringtonJanuary 15, 2022 11:15 AM
@ David Bu
Are the statisticians fighting the numbers OR massaging them? They seem to be trying to express blood from stones. One has to start with a model of Epidemiology. Numbers do not speak for themselves.
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Vincent’s brilliant point.
Numbers do not speak for themselves!!
I would add ….
They need to be fitted to a model that speaks for itself.
That’s why all the scientists are getting it wrong.
They are too dazzled/blinded by the science.
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Pretty apt!!
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Dr Campbell making points explaining why Omicron will be THAT variant that will transform COVID-19 from a pandemic to an endemic
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I like this guy but he is too willing to toe the line.
I’ve tried to set him straight regarding water but so far nothing.
Made some good points about how to administer the vaccination, top stuff.
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Eye on Covid reinfections
by COLVILLE MOUNSEY colvillemounsey @nationnews.com
BARBADOS IS SEEING a significant rise in people being reinfected with COVID-19.
A high-ranking official in the Ministry of Health and Wellness told the DAILY NATION that during the Delta variant wave, the country only recorded a handful of suspected reinfections, but this time around the numbers were in the hundreds.
“We are seeing reinfections in the hundreds. I can’t tell you how many, but we are definitely seeing more of these cases. We were not really seeing reinfections before. We had a handful of cases of query reinfections; it was not common. Now we are definitely getting reinfections because of Omicron,” the source said.
Chief Medical Officer The Most Honourable Dr Kenneth George, while not willing to divulge the level of reinfections, said the Ministry of Health was always aware of this possibility and was therefore putting measures in place.
He made it clear the situation was by no means unique to Barbados, noting that people who would have been infected during last year’s Delta wave had little protection by way of natural immunity, as 85 per cent of the variant that is now circulating is Omicron.
“The Ministry of Health is aware that reinfections can take place. This is not only in Barbados, and we are saying that the issues around reinfections, persons who have had Delta before, there is a possibility that you can be reinfected with Omicron and this is known. Based on how the disease is being spread at the moment, the Ministry of Health has good reason to believe that this is predominantly Omicron-type variant in circulation.
“We indicated to the public already that our estimate is that as high as 85 per cent of the variant circulating in Barbados is Omicron, but fortunately the disease profile is not as severe,” said George.
He noted that the disease presents differently to Delta as according to reports from the Harrison Point Isolation Facility, some of the more seriously ill patients present with early kidney disease.
Head of isolation facilities, The Most Honourable Dr Corey Forde, said the development emphasises the urgent need for booster shots.
“This has nothing to do with natural immunity or vaccinegained immunity. It has to do with time. The concept is that immunity wanes generally after six months or so. Therefore, once this starts you are susceptible to reinfections, hence the concept of boosters and the need for boosters,” he said.
President of the Barbados Association of Medical Practitioners, Dr Lynda Williams, concurred.
“This means natural immunity doesn’t persist very long, perhaps three months, and that immunity to one variant may not confer immunity to another. We knew that the vaccine gave longer protection than the natural virus from the beginning and that’s why the recommendations came that even if you caught the virus, you still needed a vaccine as a ‘booster’ of your own natural immunity,” Williams explained.
She warned that this could certainly pose challenges for the health care system, with more people now with less protection.
“It means that the people who are really protected right now are those who have had two doses and completed them less than six months ago, or would have received their third shot. Anyone who had a single vaccine, or two vaccines more than six months ago, is vulnerable to getting COVID-19. Many of those vaccinated will still have a milder course of infection. We still have a number of unvaccinated people and they remain completely exposed for severe disease,” Williams said. -
Let the isolated vote!
FREE AND FAIR ELECTIONS do not happen by coincidence but must be well planned.
This assertion is an indisputable fact the Electoral and Boundaries Commission (EBC) must accept as it relates to Wednesday’s General Election.
The entanglement in which the Commission finds itself in relation to the inclusion or exclusion of a few thousand COVID-19-positive electors can end up leaving a dirty stain on the country’s otherwise impeccable reputation for the management of general elections.
The uncertain and frenetic situation regarding those eligible voters in either home isolation or Ministry of Health facilities requires an urgent solution that does not appear to disenfranchise anyone.
Adequate time
Barbados, like countries worldwide, has been battling the COVID-19 outbreak since March 2020 and the EBC had more than adequate time to determine all the pros and cons of voting during the pandemic, even as simple an issue of whether it will require thousands of pencils for individual voters to use.
To appear to vacillate on this issue of voters’ rights, leaving thousands of electors “out to sea”, will be a most unfortunate situation that can lead to accusations of voter suppression. The EBC should appreciate that an election can only be considered free when all eligible citizens have the right to register and cast their ballot.
Seventy years after the introduction of adult suffrage and the enfranchisement of the majority to cast their vote in Barbados, it is imperative that the wrong message not be sent during Wednesday’s General Election simply because of the health circumstances the country faces.
There is no excuse of how things can and must be done during this pandemic since there is precedence based on the experiences in other Commonwealth nations that have done so without disqualifying any voter of his or her constitutional right. This issue goes to the very heart of our democracy and the people’s fundamental right to choose their elected officials, which is why many may support the outspoken positions taken by a few lawyers. The concern about COVID-19 positive people voting is a non-issue since the election has been called in the midst of the pandemic with positivity rates on the increase.
The imbroglio in which the EBC finds itself highlights the importance of having public confidence in the electoral system. To deny more than 4 000 eligible people in an election the opportunity to vote may end up being seen as creating unfavourable conditions for some candidates and/or parties.
Realistically, those voting this week will not know how many people they may come into contact with while on the way to and at the polling centre who have the highly transmissible Omicron variant of COVID-19.
The EBC should appreciate that voting is an entitlement people in Barbados have cherished for the past 70 years. It is an enshrined obligation that gives legitimacy to the elected Government.Source: Nation
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The Nation gives the number of eligible voters who will be denied the opportunity to vote as more than 4,000.
The BLP trounced the DLP in the 2018 elections with the margin of victory being well over 500 in most constituencies, but in 2013 and earlier a difference of 100 votes could separate the winner or the loser.
As this pandemic may lead to a smaller voter turnout and as the performance of the BLP with a 30-0 has not been impressive, the removal of 4,000 votes from the election may change the outcome of our elections. It is possible that Mia tilted the scale in her favor.
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Covid-19 is complicated.
We see that the Ministry of Health has introduced a new variable into ‘their model’ … breakthrough infections.
This alone would not explain the strange behavior of the graphs during the period 12/21/2021 to 1/5/2022, but may be a part of the explanation… I suspect that a model that uses only tourist arrivals is woefully inadequateTo the phrase “Numbers do not speak for themselves”, I would add “We should be wary of those who speak for the numbers”.
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