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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

maomao said:
Is it possible that they're counting on having already vaccinated enough over 80s to keep the death figures a bit more palatable once the surge starts to properly kick in?
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No I wouldnt expect that to make much difference, although it does of course depend on what period we are taking about.

From a daily situation management aspect its always been about number of hospitalisations rather than number of deaths (unless deaths reached such a level that the death management system couldnt cope). From what I can tell they've already blown it big time when it comes to keeping levels within a certain range that stood some vague chance of being compatible with the winter NHS. But much like the horrible period in the first wave, I doubt they are quite sure exactly what levels will be reached before the tide is turned.

Here are the latest English regional figures I have for the number of Covid-19 patients in hospital beds. Data goes up to 3rd January even though axis labels only go up to 30/12/20.

Screenshot 2021-01-03 at 20.24.05.png
 
And when I say that, its not just a one sided equation, not just a ase of how many deaths will be prevented by vaccination. On that side of the equation there are also factors such as better hospital treatment in the second wave. But on the other side of the equation there are factors such as a decline in quality & availability of healthcare that comes at times of the most intense stress on hospitals etc.

The question of what level of death a government might think they can get away with is also complicated by things like it being very hard to tell quite what level of death is acceptable to the public. I never found any answers to this, although I suspect people may be partially judging daily death rates in the current wave by the standards set in the first wave. I care about both the peak levels reached and the totals reached, which is one of the reasons I keep giving a separate figure for number of deaths in the second wave so far compared to the first. But when it comes to the peak rate of death, as usual I do not have any proper predictions. Especially as the daily amount of death currently increasing and other data such as number of positive ases and hospitalisations indicate that trend will continue.

I suppose acceptable death is not really just about a number, its about the context and peoples perceptions of how avoidable those deaths were. When it comes to blame, I could cast my sights far and wide across all sorts of different parts of the establishment and their chosen experts when it came to slow and inadequate first wave response. The Johnson side of the state has less cover in regards to second wave failings, eg lots of SAGE etc advice from summer onwards that they didnt stick to properly, not so many failures of modelling this time round, less people to blame for timing fuckups. And perhaps a greater sense of heard earned knowledge going to waste. Various other institutions & management failings still on show in the second wave too, still not purely a Johnson & Co special act, but overall less excusable errors and more condemnable ones this time around.
 
maomao said:
Is it possible that they're counting on having already vaccinated enough over 80s to keep the death figures a bit more palatable once the surge starts to properly kick in?
Click to expand...
That will undoubtedly be high on the list of things they are taking into account, for sure.
 
existentialist said:
That will undoubtedly be high on the list of things they are taking into account, for sure.
Click to expand...

Someone tell me what a palatable death rate is then? Or total?

For a start they are not going to manage to have less deaths in the second wave than there were in the first. At least not on paper using some versions of the stats, and probably not with other official versions of the stats either, apart from perhaps excess deaths which is a complicated subject when it comes to winter and us not having the usual flu deaths, offsetting the totals in a way that undercounts the pandemic picture.
 
elbows said:
Someone tell me what a palatable death rate is then? Or total?
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I think people pay more attention to the daily rate than the total. They probably think they can get people acting more normally with daily rates in the low (3-4) hundreds because that's what was hapening at the beginning of December.

Problem is, if they do resign themselves to swamping the hospitals, death rates will go up because they're unable to treat those who might have otherwise be saved as well as adding to deaths from other causes. I wasn't trying to justify their behaviour I was seeking to understand it.
 
Spandex said:
On the Marr interview, amongst digging his heels in over school closures and hinting at more restrictions to come, Johnson said there has been a "stubborn" epidemic in Kent and parts of London due to the new fast-spreading virus variant.

View attachment 246811

Since when has "Kent and parts of London" included Essex, Buckinghamshire and East Sussex? Does he really not know what's going on and how bad it is in the south east? Is he in denial? Is he playing it down? Or did he just mis-speak?
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With todays update (still not current - for eg the Brighton figures shown here are up until the 29th and give a rate of 485, while a couple of, probably incomplete, days forward is already more like 540) -

1609707473853.png
 
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maomao said:
I think people pay more attention to the daily rate than the total. They probably think they can get people acting more normally with daily rates in the low (3-4) hundreds because that's what was hapening at the beginning of December.

Problem is, if they do resign themselves to swamping the hospitals, death rates will go up because they're unable to treat those who might have otherwise be saved as well as adding to deaths from other causes. I wasn't trying to justify their behaviour I was seeking to understand it.
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Dont worry, at no stage did I get the idea you were trying to justify such government behaviour.

I was just pressing quite hard on the question of exactly what constitutes and acceptable level of death, because I know from the past that this is not an easy aspect to get a conversation going about that actually includes much detail. I know this is largely because people wont have a single fixed number in mind, its more about how things feel, in the same way that most people endured the first part of the original wave & lockdown in a similar shocked state, and the shock noticably started to wear off at a certain point. The data not being able to deliver shocking new highs was a part of that, but hardly the only ingredient, there was also the sense we were past the peak and that however bad the hospital situation had got, things were past the point of maximum danger, the threat was slowly diminishing, certain scenarios had been avoided. All those bets are off again now that we find ourselves at this stage again, although I could also have said the same months ago about different regions.

Daily rates by date of death are now above the level seen earlier in this wave, recently they have moved well into the 500's for the UK. But I know that in terms of the daily numbers people pay attention to because thats what the headline news goes with, the daily announced deaths gets more focus. And they are all over the place but I expect the couple in a row that were in the 900's may have caught the casual observers eye, even though they were catchup data days.
 
^^^Christ, this is 100% terrifying. Maybe one caveat around Tier 4 working or not working: The sudden introduction of Tier 4 and the whole clusterfuck around the Christmas restrictions and the fact that NYE fell into this period may have invited more rule-breaking than we would otherwise have seen or will see. [Disclaimer: Not that this is any reason to not err massively on the side of caution now in terms of further measures!]
Bit of anecdata I have posted on one of the covid threads before: At least three out of five households in the block of flats where I live (in Tier 4) weren't here for a full three days over Christmas. And when I got home from the shops on NYE a guy was just being dropped off outside my house, carrying a bottle of something. I was this close to asking "hmmm...do you live here...?", but he wandered off a bit further down the street.
Makes me sound like a right curtain-twitcher, but I couldn't help observe it, and it's just not what I normally see.
 
zora said:
^^^Christ, this is 100% terrifying. Maybe one caveat around Tier 4 working or not working: The sudden introduction of Tier 4 and the whole clusterfuck around the Christmas restrictions and the fact that NYE fell into this period may have invited more rule-breaking than we would otherwise have seen or will see. [Disclaimer: Not that this is any reason to not err massively on the side of caution now in terms of further measures!]
Bit of anecdata I have posted on one of the covid threads before: At least three out of five households in the block of flats where I live (in Tier 4) weren't here for a full three days over Christmas. And when I got home from the shops on NYE a guy was just being dropped off outside my house, carrying a bottle of something. I was this close to asking "hmmm...do you live here...?", but he wandered off a bit further down the street.
Makes me sound like a right curtain-twitcher, but I couldn't help observe it, and it's just not what I normally see.
Click to expand...

This. All over Christmas there have been loads of parking spaces in our road. There's never usually any at all.

Today... All the spaces are full again.

I've become a curtain twitcher too. When I go out the front for a cigarette at night I automatically think "where are you off to?" when I see someone walking or driving. I don't want to be like that but it's just happening to me. I'm being judgemental.

And I don't want to be
 
Wilf said:
Was just talking to my partner about her daughter who works in a supermarket. One of the workers got a ping off the test and trace to say she'd been in contact with someone with the virus in the shop and should isolate. She was told to either delete the app off her phone or not get paid
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Where I work we are advised (I don’t think it’s an instruction!) to disable the app’s contact tracing when on checkouts. Mine is always on and I only very occasionally get a notification of possible Covid exposure.

Some weeks ago we were told to use the Venue Check-in when entering the staff dining room but that has now been changed so only visitors are to check in, and again, we are advised to disable contact tracing when in there to reduce the possibility of having to isolate.

Hope to find out more about the number of positive staff cases identified by our Serial Testing lab.
 
20Bees said:
Where I work we are advised (I don’t think it’s an instruction!) to disable the app’s contact tracing when on checkouts. Mine is always on and I only very occasionally get a notification of possible Covid exposure.

Some weeks ago we were told to use the Venue Check-in when entering the staff dining room but that has now been changed so only visitors are to check in, and again, we are advised to disable contact tracing when in there to reduce the possibility of having to isolate.

Hope to find out more about the number of positive staff cases identified by our Serial Testing lab.
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That's shocking, awful for you and colleagues but also a perfect way to reduce the effect of tiers, lockdowns and the rest. I just did a quick search expecting to see more supermarket workers who have been told to disable the app, but didn't find any. However I'm absolutely certain that doesn't mean there aren't any, just that it's the awful state of workers power in this country. Here's a similar story about bank workers though:
Staff at British banks ‘forced to turn off NHS Covid tracing app at work’ (msn.com)

Not sure if you are in USDAW? Even if you are not, might be worth letting them know?

Edit: and some other stories, including NHS Trusts:
GlaxoSmithKline tells staff to turn off Covid app at work - BBC News
Teachers told to disable NHS contact-tracing app, claims union - Personnel Today
Boots workers told to turn off NHS Track and Trace app by bosses for this reason - Derbyshire Live (derbytelegraph.co.uk)
Jaguar Land Rover tells staff to turn off NHS contact tracing app while working - Liverpool Echo
Transport for Wales is telling staff to turn off the NHS' contact tracing app - Wales Online
PSNI officers told to keep NHS Covid-19 app off work phones - BelfastTelegraph.co.uk
Why Preston and Blackpool hospital staff told to turn off Covid tracing app when at work - LancsLive
Police in England have been told not to download the NHS Covid-19 app - here's why | Blackpool Gazette
 
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elbows said:
Dont worry, at no stage did I get the idea you were trying to justify such government behaviour.

I was just pressing quite hard on the question of exactly what constitutes and acceptable level of death, because I know from the past that this is not an easy aspect to get a conversation going about that actually includes much detail. I know this is largely because people wont have a single fixed number in mind, its more about how things feel, in the same way that most people endured the first part of the original wave & lockdown in a similar shocked state, and the shock noticably started to wear off at a certain point. The data not being able to deliver shocking new highs was a part of that, but hardly the only ingredient, there was also the sense we were past the peak and that however bad the hospital situation had got, things were past the point of maximum danger, the threat was slowly diminishing, certain scenarios had been avoided. All those bets are off again now that we find ourselves at this stage again, although I could also have said the same months ago about different regions.

Daily rates by date of death are now above the level seen earlier in this wave, recently they have moved well into the 500's for the UK. But I know that in terms of the daily numbers people pay attention to because thats what the headline news goes with, the daily announced deaths gets more focus. And they are all over the place but I expect the couple in a row that were in the 900's may have caught the casual observers eye, even though they were catchup data days.
Click to expand...

Here's a view on when we'll reach what will probably be quite a significant milestone for some people:

 
Giving Priority to 80-90 year olds in care homes is mistaken imo, they dont spread it around the youngsters do and whilst we all know they are at low risk of harm they are the main spreaders and I believe getting them vaccinated before care home residents would save many more lives
 
Hyperdark said:
Giving Priority to 80-90 year olds in care homes is mistaken imo, they dont spread it around the youngsters do and whilst we all know they are at low risk of harm they are the main spreaders and I believe getting them vaccinated before care home residents would save many more lives
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You need to immunise a very high percentage of the population to affect spread whereas immunising over 80s will save lives immediately.
 
Hyperdark said:
Giving Priority to 80-90 year olds in care homes is mistaken imo, they dont spread it around the youngsters do and whilst we all know they are at low risk of harm they are the main spreaders and I believe getting them vaccinated before care home residents would save many more lives
Click to expand...
The care home death toll mostly resulted from the 'seeding' from untested +ive patient transfers out of the NHS. Hancock has made clear that such transfers can continue and without vaccination this would represent manslaughter.
 
smmudge said:
Plus the purpose of the vaccine is to stop people getting sick / dying from it, and may make little or no difference to how much people spread it around. So makes that argument a bit pointless.
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Does anyone know if there has been any research on whether the vaccine affects transmission, or if any is planned?

It seems like it would be a useful thing to know...
 
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