timmullen1
Labour
Closing account as BossMan declines to respond to messages seeking support.
Posts: 11,823 
|
Post by timmullen1 on Jan 13, 2022 1:26:51 GMT
We have had almost two years of Covid. It is I am assured a very serious disease. No, really We have several thousand councillors in the UK , someone will provide a number, they are on average older and fatter than the average citizen and again someone will supply some numbers. Their deaths if they occur are invariably reported and the reasons for their death almost invariably so particularly if the cause is newsworthy Therefore clearly………. There must logically be a significant number of Covid related deaths among this group of old fat citizens because Covid really is a very serious disease. No , really. It’s just a statistical aberration that I don’t know if any and Aberdeenshire councils 70 strong cohort of free loading buffet visitors have avoided decimation So can anyone give me some numbers to cause me fear ? I would imagine the vast majority were held in May last year given the high death rate in the first wave and the corresponding suspension of elections. Because of the sheer volume of by-elections on that date, and the other, arguably higher profile elections on the same day, they didn’t get the attention from sources like Andrew’s Previews would otherwise give them. Estimating a total is also an inexact science as often, even with Covid, the cause of death isn’t publicised, just as a resignation isn’t. However one page of Google produces many links to council pages on numbers, testing and guidelines, etc., but also www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/tributes-paid-to-dup-councillor-46-who-died-with-covid-19-1.4674842hitchin.nub.news/n/tributes-pour-in-after-respected-hitchin-councillor-dies-from-covidwww.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/mar/31/labour-councillor-dies-from-coronaviruswww.portsmouth.co.uk/news/politics/fareham-councillor-who-died-with-covid-19-set-to-be-honoured-by-borough-council-3423405www.deeside.com/minutes-applause-held-in-memory-of-flintshire-councillor-kevin-hughes-who-died-after-battle-with-covid-19/Abid Hussain: Council 'shock' at ex-Mayor's Covid-19 death www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leeds-55559302 |
|
|
|
Post by andrewteale on Jan 13, 2022 9:17:46 GMT
There were a couple in Scotland and Wales before May, and a couple since May. I think the number of councillors with reported COVID-19 deaths is in the low 20s. Given the demographic of the typical local councillor that's a pretty good outcome.
|
|
|
|
Post by andrewteale on Jan 13, 2022 9:32:44 GMT
We have had almost two years of Covid. It is I am assured a very serious disease. No, really We have several thousand councillors in the UK , someone will provide a number, they are on average older and fatter than the average citizen and again someone will supply some numbers. Their deaths if they occur are invariably reported and the reasons for their death almost invariably so particularly if the cause is newsworthy Therefore clearly………. There must logically be a significant number of Covid related deaths among this group of old fat citizens because Covid really is a very serious disease. No , really. It’s just a statistical aberration that I don’t know if any and Aberdeenshire councils 70 strong cohort of free loading buffet visitors have avoided decimation So can anyone give me some numbers to cause me fear ? I would imagine the vast majority were held in May last year given the high death rate in the first wave and the corresponding suspension of elections. Because of the sheer volume of by-elections on that date, and the other, arguably higher profile elections on the same day, they didn’t get the attention from sources like Andrew’s Previews would otherwise give them. Estimating a total is also an inexact science as often, even with Covid, the cause of death isn’t publicised, just as a resignation isn’t. As often seems to happen, Tim, you posted without checking that what you were writing actually stands up to scrutiny. The Andrew's Previews articles for May last year, which I've just finished editing for the 2021 book collection, run to four parts with tens of thousands of words, discussing every by-election that day (apart from four in South Cambridgeshire which I accidentally missed off).
|
|
|
|
Post by Arthur Figgis on Jan 13, 2022 9:40:14 GMT
I would imagine the vast majority were held in May last year given the high death rate in the first wave and the corresponding suspension of elections. Because of the sheer volume of by-elections on that date, and the other, arguably higher profile elections on the same day, they didn’t get the attention from sources like Andrew’s Previews would otherwise give them. Estimating a total is also an inexact science as often, even with Covid, the cause of death isn’t publicised, just as a resignation isn’t. As often seems to happen, Tim, you posted without checking that what you were writing actually stands up to scrutiny. The Andrew's Previews articles for May last year, which I've just finished editing for the 2021 book collection, run to four parts with tens of thousands of words, discussing every by-election that day (apart from four in South Cambridgeshire which I accidentally missed off). Cause for some election petitions, surely! |
|
timmullen1
Labour
Closing account as BossMan declines to respond to messages seeking support.
Posts: 11,823
|
Post by timmullen1 on Jan 13, 2022 10:13:39 GMT
I would imagine the vast majority were held in May last year given the high death rate in the first wave and the corresponding suspension of elections. Because of the sheer volume of by-elections on that date, and the other, arguably higher profile elections on the same day, they didn’t get the attention from sources like Andrew’s Previews would otherwise give them. Estimating a total is also an inexact science as often, even with Covid, the cause of death isn’t publicised, just as a resignation isn’t. As often seems to happen, Tim, you posted without checking that what you were writing actually stands up to scrutiny. The Andrew's Previews articles for May last year, which I've just finished editing for the 2021 book collection, run to four parts with tens of thousands of words, discussing every by-election that day (apart from four in South Cambridgeshire which I accidentally missed off).
My apologies, I was out of action in May last year and missed much of April and May worrying about a) my mum’s hospitalisation, b) rearranging my care package to add on extra hours, and c) getting the house rearranged for her return that didn’t cost the five grand my local council wanted to charge me. I had a vague memory from previous years, possibly/probably wrong, that you only did the equivalent of pen portraits for some of the contests on so-called Super Thursday’s. Thank you for the unnecessary dig in your first sentence, I won’t respond as I’m not in the elite on here who can respond to personal attacks without getting told off, however you have just reinforced what a totally unpleasant and unwelcoming site this is, and why I don’t recommend it to my worst enemy. Now go and stroke your arrogance whilst I deal with my morning carer, she’s actually more important than you. |
|
|
|
Post by andrew111 on Jan 13, 2022 21:31:33 GMT
Trying to somehow calibrate the number of Covid deaths in the UK using the statistically small number of councillors in the country is one of the daftest pieces of analysis I have seen in the last couple of years. The Covid death rate is already well known within the somewhat artificial parameters used, and much more reliably recorded than "councillors who died from Covid".
Trying to do it using the much smaller number of people who post on this site would be even dafter.
|
|
|
|
Post by andrewteale on Jan 13, 2022 22:16:47 GMT
Well, the number of councillors in the country is something over 20,000, which is big enough that you can draw some proper statistical conclusions if you tread carefully. There's enough data there to make a reasonable stab at answering questions like "is the reported death rate for councillors in line with that of the population at large?".
If you do the standard tests and get a statistically significant difference, it would be reasonable to try and think of reasons why this might be. Skewed sample? (yes: the set of councillors is older than the population, for a start - can we control for this?) Underreporting? (probably) Councillor lifestyles? (who knows?) This is all textbook stuff for statisticians: look at real world data and see what conclusions you can draw, if any. Doing this sort of exercise might end up telling you very little once all's said and done, but that doesn't make it daft.
Having said that, Boog's anaylsis has missed one thing: the rollcall of deceased councillors is for two municipal years, which included ten months before the pandemic started.
But another reason I put that list together was the human aspect. Behind the statistics are real people who got taken from us before their time should have been up, and there is value in remembering that.
|
|
|
|
Post by andrew111 on Jan 14, 2022 0:44:30 GMT
Well, the number of councillors in the country is something over 20,000, which is big enough that you can draw some proper statistical conclusions if you tread carefully. There's enough data there to make a reasonable stab at answering questions like "is the reported death rate for councillors in line with that of the population at large?". If you do the standard tests and get a statistically significant difference, it would be reasonable to try and think of reasons why this might be. Skewed sample? (yes: the set of councillors is older than the population, for a start - can we control for this?) Underreporting? (probably) Councillor lifestyles? (who knows?) This is all textbook stuff for statisticians: look at real world data and see what conclusions you can draw, if any. Doing this sort of exercise might end up telling you very little once all's said and done, but that doesn't make it daft. Having said that, Boog's anaylsis has missed one thing: the rollcall of deceased councillors is for two municipal years, which included ten months before the pandemic started. But another reason I put that list together was the human aspect. Behind the statistics are real people who got taken from us before their time should have been up, and there is value in remembering that. I am not saying there is no value in recording deaths on your site "in memoriam" Andrew I am saying that it is completely daft to try and infer whether Covid is a serious disease (since that is the stated aim) from a much smaller and much less well controlled set of data than we have already in the official statistics. |
|
|
|
Post by andrewteale on Jan 14, 2022 8:06:05 GMT
Well, the number of councillors in the country is something over 20,000, which is big enough that you can draw some proper statistical conclusions if you tread carefully. There's enough data there to make a reasonable stab at answering questions like "is the reported death rate for councillors in line with that of the population at large?". If you do the standard tests and get a statistically significant difference, it would be reasonable to try and think of reasons why this might be. Skewed sample? (yes: the set of councillors is older than the population, for a start - can we control for this?) Underreporting? (probably) Councillor lifestyles? (who knows?) This is all textbook stuff for statisticians: look at real world data and see what conclusions you can draw, if any. Doing this sort of exercise might end up telling you very little once all's said and done, but that doesn't make it daft. Having said that, Boog's anaylsis has missed one thing: the rollcall of deceased councillors is for two municipal years, which included ten months before the pandemic started. But another reason I put that list together was the human aspect. Behind the statistics are real people who got taken from us before their time should have been up, and there is value in remembering that. I am not saying there is no value in recording deaths on your site "in memoriam" Andrew I am saying that it is completely daft to try and infer whether Covid is a serious disease (since that is the stated aim) from a much smaller and much less well controlled set of data than we have already in the official statistics. And if you didn't have the official statistics - as we didn't at the start of this business? It was studies like this, with a bit more sophostication, that helped us get a handle on how serious Covid is. 22 months down the line a compare and contrast job is not daft, because if no significant difference is found that's an independent check showing the official statistics are of reasonably good quality. |
|
|
|
Post by andrew111 on Jan 14, 2022 11:05:50 GMT
I am not saying there is no value in recording deaths on your site "in memoriam" Andrew I am saying that it is completely daft to try and infer whether Covid is a serious disease (since that is the stated aim) from a much smaller and much less well controlled set of data than we have already in the official statistics. And if you didn't have the official statistics - as we didn't at the start of this business? It was studies like this, with a bit more sophostication, that helped us get a handle on how serious Covid is. 22 months down the line a compare and contrast job is not daft, because if no significant difference is found that's an independent check showing the official statistics are of reasonably good quality. Data from councillor deaths does not give any realistic check on the robustness of national statistics. We don't know their ages without further investigation, we don't know their vaccine status, we don't know if they had co-morbidities, and it is unlikely that councillors (who are active citizens but also tend to resign before they die if they have long term illness) are representative of their age group. Furthermore, the reporting of cause of death is up to the family, and often unrecorded. If 17 were the correct number it is under representing the official data and the obvious conclusion is that the councillor data is unrepresentative, not that the official statistics are wrong. |
|
|
|
Post by andrewteale on Jan 14, 2022 16:15:35 GMT
And if you didn't have the official statistics - as we didn't at the start of this business? It was studies like this, with a bit more sophostication, that helped us get a handle on how serious Covid is. 22 months down the line a compare and contrast job is not daft, because if no significant difference is found that's an independent check showing the official statistics are of reasonably good quality. Data from councillor deaths does not give any realistic check on the robustness of national statistics. We don't know their ages without further investigation, we don't know their vaccine status, we don't know if they had co-morbidities, and it is unlikely that councillors (who are active citizens but also tend to resign before they die if they have long term illness) are representative of their age group. Furthermore, the reporting of cause of death is up to the family, and often unrecorded. If 17 were the correct number it is under representing the official data and the obvious conclusion is that the councillor data is unrepresentative, not that the official statistics are wrong. Having now had a chance to crank through some maths, I agree with all of that. 19 (I did another countup) reported councillor COVID deaths out of ~20000 in the period March 2020-April 2021 is clearly significantly lower than the population at large, and you give all sorts of reasons to believe this is due to the set of councillors being unrepresentative of the population at large. I can't speak for others on this thread, but personally I've never believed the official COVID death statistics to be significantly wrong. |
|
Harry Hayfield
Green
Cavalier Gentleman (as in 17th century Cavalier)
Posts: 2,922
|
Post by Harry Hayfield on Jan 14, 2022 16:37:34 GMT
Ceredigion has 42 councillors at the moment and a population of 73,300, therefore this means that for every councillor represents 1,745 people. Since the pandemic started there have been a grand total of 102 deaths in the county from coronavirus suggesting that if councillors were representative, no councillors would have died. I can report that no councillors have died from coronavirus since the pandemic. There is no data however to determine whether the council as a whole is older or younger than the UK average.
|
|
|
|
Post by jamesdoyle on Jan 15, 2022 22:14:49 GMT
andrew111 we should accept government statistics uncritically also andrew111 we should regard this government as a pack of liars. Yes. Government statistics are produced by experts, whereas this government is a pack of Conservatives. |
|
|
|
Post by jamesdoyle on Jan 15, 2022 22:23:22 GMT
Hi James, welcome back. Please don't call me a lady's front bottom again. That was really hurtful. It was an unfortunate comparison. Women's anatomy has a lot to recommend it. |
|
