"The virus is growing exponentially" - erm, no, it isn't. That would be a growth function biting into an infinite pool of susceptibles. There are a range of epidemiological curves, these are growth functions biting into a shrinking pool of susceptibles. The Gompertz one is good but there are many others, none are exponential. A forgivable mistake in March 2020, but for crying out loud man, we've been over this repeatedly in the last 9 months.
The beauty of the epidemiological curves is they help you understand how pandemics normally end, that small is less ugly (I was going to say beautiful) in containing spread, and that seasonality is due to humans going through annual cycles of mixing.
He wants churches closed because singing will spread infection, seemingly unaware this has been banned for months. He makes a statement that churchgoers are much older than the general population (whatever that actually means) based on statistics only from the Church of England ignoring the large numbers of non-conformist and independent churches which are usually well populated by teens and young families.
He wants schools closed because he says there is some evidence that this strain spread more easily in children and the link given states only that there is a hint of this and also that caution should be exercised re this claim.
Hi cliff, thanks for stopping by. I'm sorry you didn't read to the end, but I'm glad you felt strongly enough to leave a comment.
To take your points in turn...
To be clear: professional and amateur choirs *can* sing under the guidance. So it doesn't materially change my point that the congregation cannot. It is not possible to guarantee anyone singing is Covid free, no matter how much we would *like* that to be the case. With a much more infectious Strain of the virus we risk people dying who would have been safe a few months ago. I do not call for services to be closed off lightly and know the real pain that will cause, but we cannot wish the disease away.
I'm well aware that many other churches have younger congregations, but that doesn't stop my point being true. *On average* the population that attends church services are older than the wider public. This means they are, on average, at greater risk of death from the virus than the general population. Happy to correct the record if you can show I've got this age point totally wrong.
Finally the point about schools is this: even without the new strain, the schools are a major vector of transmission. I personally think that keeping them open is one of the more reasonable transmission increasing decisions the government has made, but the early evidence that the new strain *could* be transmissed easier changes the calculation. Of course it might *not*, but we could be waiting weeks for the science to confirm this, after which people will be dead and it will be too late. All this when we have a vaccine.
Re churches and singing, the churches I know about now use recordings not choirs - and for those that do, if that is a danger then the remedy is surely just to ban the choir singing not the church meeting.
Re average age of church attendees, I don’t have figures for this nationally but as a guide the last official census sadly back in 2005 showed 16247 people attending Anglican churches, total attending other churches 21163. Since then many Anglican churches have closed but there has been considerable growth particularly in the black, independent and “new” churches and their age profile is much younger.
What I am saying is that to rely for your argument on just the Anglican figures is incorrect and lazy – the BBC also like to do this regularly to point out how interest in Christianity is declining and that is no surprise from them, but one would hope a serious commentator would be more careful. The Brierley Faith survey using 2013 figures showed Anglicans 21%, Catholics 25%, other Protestant total 54% - and also shows Pentecostal and new churches growing. So I challenge your point being true.
Re the schools, my point was that to base drastic action (where the spin-offs re child welfare educationally and domestically, family stress and the economy/jobs are huge) on reports of only possible effects particularly from a source that has proved unreliable in the past is not a good argument.
I have now read to the end and don’t disagree with other ideas and that all eyes should now be on the rollout, to which I would add one idea I heard this morning that the second Pfizer jab which only improves effectiveness by around 3% should be abandoned in favour of vaccinating people more quickly.
"The virus is growing exponentially" - erm, no, it isn't. That would be a growth function biting into an infinite pool of susceptibles. There are a range of epidemiological curves, these are growth functions biting into a shrinking pool of susceptibles. The Gompertz one is good but there are many others, none are exponential. A forgivable mistake in March 2020, but for crying out loud man, we've been over this repeatedly in the last 9 months.
The beauty of the epidemiological curves is they help you understand how pandemics normally end, that small is less ugly (I was going to say beautiful) in containing spread, and that seasonality is due to humans going through annual cycles of mixing.
Perhaps as well Twitter banned him.
He wants churches closed because singing will spread infection, seemingly unaware this has been banned for months. He makes a statement that churchgoers are much older than the general population (whatever that actually means) based on statistics only from the Church of England ignoring the large numbers of non-conformist and independent churches which are usually well populated by teens and young families.
He wants schools closed because he says there is some evidence that this strain spread more easily in children and the link given states only that there is a hint of this and also that caution should be exercised re this claim.
At this point I stopped reading.....
Hi cliff, thanks for stopping by. I'm sorry you didn't read to the end, but I'm glad you felt strongly enough to leave a comment.
To take your points in turn...
To be clear: professional and amateur choirs *can* sing under the guidance. So it doesn't materially change my point that the congregation cannot. It is not possible to guarantee anyone singing is Covid free, no matter how much we would *like* that to be the case. With a much more infectious Strain of the virus we risk people dying who would have been safe a few months ago. I do not call for services to be closed off lightly and know the real pain that will cause, but we cannot wish the disease away.
I'm well aware that many other churches have younger congregations, but that doesn't stop my point being true. *On average* the population that attends church services are older than the wider public. This means they are, on average, at greater risk of death from the virus than the general population. Happy to correct the record if you can show I've got this age point totally wrong.
Finally the point about schools is this: even without the new strain, the schools are a major vector of transmission. I personally think that keeping them open is one of the more reasonable transmission increasing decisions the government has made, but the early evidence that the new strain *could* be transmissed easier changes the calculation. Of course it might *not*, but we could be waiting weeks for the science to confirm this, after which people will be dead and it will be too late. All this when we have a vaccine.
Thanks again for commenting
Hello Jeremy, thanks for coming back to me.
Re churches and singing, the churches I know about now use recordings not choirs - and for those that do, if that is a danger then the remedy is surely just to ban the choir singing not the church meeting.
Re average age of church attendees, I don’t have figures for this nationally but as a guide the last official census sadly back in 2005 showed 16247 people attending Anglican churches, total attending other churches 21163. Since then many Anglican churches have closed but there has been considerable growth particularly in the black, independent and “new” churches and their age profile is much younger.
What I am saying is that to rely for your argument on just the Anglican figures is incorrect and lazy – the BBC also like to do this regularly to point out how interest in Christianity is declining and that is no surprise from them, but one would hope a serious commentator would be more careful. The Brierley Faith survey using 2013 figures showed Anglicans 21%, Catholics 25%, other Protestant total 54% - and also shows Pentecostal and new churches growing. So I challenge your point being true.
Re the schools, my point was that to base drastic action (where the spin-offs re child welfare educationally and domestically, family stress and the economy/jobs are huge) on reports of only possible effects particularly from a source that has proved unreliable in the past is not a good argument.
I have now read to the end and don’t disagree with other ideas and that all eyes should now be on the rollout, to which I would add one idea I heard this morning that the second Pfizer jab which only improves effectiveness by around 3% should be abandoned in favour of vaccinating people more quickly.