There follows a guest post by a Daily Sceptic reader, who wishes to remain anonymous, who has some questions about the changing risk estimates being produced by the QCovid risk calculator and why important factors like previous infection are not taken into account.
The QCovid risk calculator was developed by University of Oxford, commissioned in 2020 by the Chief Medical Officer for England on behalf of the U.K. Government, and describes itself as a “clinical decision tool intended to support conversations between clinically trained professionals and patients about COVID-19 risk”. There is a clinician tool and a patient tool; the clinician tool differs only in some of the questions but delivers the same estimates.
I am a 49 year-old female with no pre-existing health conditions of note and am not obese. My daughter is a 19 year-old female with no pre-existing health conditions of note and is not obese. We ran the QCovid risk calculator in summer 2020 when considering the risk posed to ourselves and therefore the potential benefit of a vaccine. My risk of dying was one in 62,000 or 0.0016% and my risk of hospitalisation was one in 4,000 or 0.025%. My daughter’s risk of dying was one in 500,000 or 0.0002%. This data must have related to the variants around at the time although the risk calculator never made that clear.
I checked the risk calculator again multiple times over the past 18 months and it had not changed (or possibly was not updated).
I checked again on January 11th 2022 and the calculator has changed. The questions are the same, but the data generated is different.
- You can now select whether or not you are vaccinated – however it doesn’t ask which vaccine you might have had, or indeed when it was delivered. We now know this makes a difference. It also doesn’t make any reference to the number of doses. This also makes a difference.
- The risk assessment doesn’t delineate between variants and we know Omicron is significantly less harmful than Delta or Alpha. Are they suggesting the risk posed to my health is equivalent?
I have a BSc in medical biochemistry and a Masters in law; I am analytical and data driven – I spend my days reviewing data, searching for patterns and loopholes. I am not a mathematician, but something about the data the calculator is now offering doesn’t feel right. The estimates provided by QCovid for both people (mother and daughter) are below, vaccinated and unvaccinated:
Comments:
- By their own data I am less likely to contract coronavirus and die than I was before, whether vaccinated or not (line ii).
- However I am also more likely to catch coronavirus and be hospitalised if unvaccinated now than I was before (line i).
- There’s a new line in the data showing the risk of dying after a positive test – this can only be included to demonstrate the relative difference between vaccinated and unvaccinated, as the absolute risk differences in the other lines are so small (line iii).
- This table of results may look very different when considering Omicron with higher transmissibility, less effective vaccine, but lower virulence.
- My daughters risk of catching and dying of Covid is no different whether vaccinated or not (line v).
- My daughter’s risk of catching coronavirus and then being hospitalised is the same as mine despite our age difference.
- There’s no reference to the impact of prior infection or treatment protocols. Prior infection will dramatically reduce a person’s risk from Covid.
I suggest that the above data and the inclusion of lines (iii) and (vi) has been included to encourage people to get vaccinated, yet there is important data missing. It would be interesting if a mathematician or statistics analyst could review the QCovid risk calculator, assumptions and algorithm and draw attention to the misinformation and lack of transparency that is being used to influence vaccination uptake in private and clinical settings.
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Avoiding the “C” word is definitely the right path for keeping the excellent London Calling podcast on the rails.
Agreed, and the use of “tin foil hat” is best avoided. We don’t want them to avoid controvery; just avoid making it personal.
The whole reason I listened to this podcast was to hear a debate. Now this tension and avoiding of topics is too much like my own family dynamics.
What a shame.
Yes, I want to hear them respectfully debate each other, not avoid topics.
Indifference to Davos hardly seems to be a sensible policy when that seems to be where much of the authoritarian lunacy originates or is advanced.
Does the ‘indifference to Davos’ imply a new and mysterious source of funding?
Tell me it’s not so!
That scenario that Toby put across during the London riots where middle class property owners are defending their homes, well, this would be a different kettle of fish because the underclass and middle class would be in the same boat regarding food shortages. Back then they had plenty of food and access to cash. There is a Gun shop in town, if there was unrest a group of us would ransack the place and tool ourself up. No offence to the owners.
Food riots in Britain with marauding gangs of murderers and rapists? I suppose it’s possible but looking at how the sheeple willingly gave themselves up to the slaughter from lockdowns and “vaccines” I think the real problem might be getting people on the streets at all.
P.s. James and Toby; be nice to each other or your mothers might bang your heads together to make you behave.
James was on particularly good form tonight in regard to the reality of civil unrest. Not just his comments but the understanding behind the comments. Young seems to be a very nice person. a cheeky cheery chappy who might be good company if you’re feeling a bit down or recovering from painful surgery. But the whole discussion is rather naive. Bear in mind that we have no conditioning at all for times where stoicism is required; we don’t even have the rudiments left of a shared creed, Don’t assume that in the terror times you will be getting eight hours of comfortable sleep a night. You will be lucky to get one or two and if you do hear a creak downstairs you will rise into an erect posture with shotgun or crossbow or whatever in hand. The reality that is coming will be a complete break with the reality of our lives so far.Given the schismatic nature of the horror to come you have to apply your nous and spirit to find a way out. We have been robbed of the deeper understanding of the faculties of imagination and will and how this intertwining disrupts reality.
Toby and James – I love listening to you guys every week. I am team James but I do wish James wouldn’t get angry and talk over Toby when he disagrees with him. Toby for the most part remains easy-going even when James insults him. I think it is so good to hear different points of view and I really want to hear how Toby counters James’ points, but we don’t get to because James gets mad or talks over him or doesn’t want to talk about it.
Come on now, where’s the spirit of James Frazer (Dad’s Army)?
I am much more on James Delingpole’s side of this argument than I am on Toby Young’s – I think Young’s either in a classic state of denial, in that he can’t face the fact of what is being and will be done to us, or he is more naive than I would’ve imagined him to be.
However, I find Delingpole’s performances on these podcasts often juvenile and at times cringeworthy.
His brittle arrogance, affectations of hauteur and froideur, and refusal even to consider the possibility that he (and those of us who suspect that he is correct) might be wrong is childish, banal, and irritating, and also counter-productive.
I suspect, having listened to the latest podcast, that Young has said that there can be no more of this if the podcast is to continue, and that the prospect of his final boat being burned is what turned Delingpole into a wheedling, simpering imitation of his normal persona.
Unfortunately, the resulting podcast was very dull.
It ought to be possible for the two of them to discuss Covid and its associated scandals in an adult fashion, with give-and-take, consideration for alternative viewpoints, and no sniping.
Certainly Young is capable of doing this (and clearly tries hard to do so); it remains to be seen whether Delingpole is.
While I’m on, it would be nice if he could stop all this silly “mummy and daddy arguing” rubbish. I would think the audience is mostly adult, and this is juvenile nonsense.