Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[cupid_stunt]

Priti Patel leading today's press conference, so expect more news about police are about to get tough on people taking the wrong sort of exercise or drinking coffee in a public place...

I remember her last one, telling us shop lifting was down.

Yeah, most the bloody shops were closed, you twat.

 

[rutabowa]

Priti Patel leading today's press conference, so expect more news about police are about to get tough on people taking the wrong sort of exercise or drinking coffee in a public place...

ffs. get my mate above on, would be far more effective genuinely. they shouldn't have any divisive political figures delivering important messages, it should be actual human beings.

 

[Sue]

I don't know how you lot can do it to yourselves. Good that someone does though as means the rest of us can just look on here instead .

ETA Just to clarify, watch Patel, Johnson etc.

 

[souljacker]

Just received a covid test in the post. It says that you have to post it in a priority post box. It seems a bit mad that you actually have to walk there? The post box is in front of a parade of shops where there are often loads of people. The previous test I took for the Zoe study you arranged a courier.

You should be able to get a courier to collect. It was definitely available to me when I took my last test (which was recommended to me to take by Zoe but was ordered through the gov site).

 

[TopCat]

Well the BBC have confirmed Priti this afternoon but no confirmation of the time yet.

 

[cupid_stunt]

I don't know how you lot can do it to yourselves. Good that someone does though as means the rest of us can just look on here instead .

ETA Just to clarify, watch Patel, Johnson etc.

Masochism.

 

[bimble]

I’m not going to sit through Patel, her weird fixed smile gives me bad dreams. If she announces deportation for sitting on a park bench I’ll read it here.

 

[elbows]

Are case numbers coming down for real? Or is it just a stat gathering blip?

I believe there are signs of falls in some regions. I started to pick up on this last week but the signals were a bit too weak for me to say much beyond some vague waffle about how I hoped to see tentative signs of an improvement in the coming days.

We should probably expect that the likes of the regional data from the ZOE Covid app to show indications of this first, which should also be supported by postiive case data on the official dashboard. I believe I heard that ZOEs recent estimates for R in London was now below 1, or at least within a range that includes a lower end value of less than 1. But I havent looked for myself. Anyone here looked into this?

Mostly I wait for hospital data to show signs of this stuff before going on about it with more certainty. And we are not quite there yet with that data, but I hope that a time comes this week where I can post graphs that start to tell that story. Only once that shows up really clearly will I start to comment on regional variations in the picture, which might be significant, especially to start with.

 

[Spandex]

Are case numbers coming down for real? Or is it just a stat gathering blip?

Carl Baker, a statistician in the House of Commons library, has produced this map showing weekly change up to 6th Jan:

As you can see, some areas (especially in the south east) saw falls that week while other areas (Merseyside, West Midlands, parts of Lancs, Isle of Whight) saw massive rises.

 

[elbows]

Summary of deaths during 2020 from the ONS, note figures are for only England & Wales.

Bad stuff, I knew that sort of number was coming based on what data showed a few weeks ago at that stage, so made a post about how it would be over 600,000, but still had to wait for the final bits of data. I dont actually know where the Guardian got 608,000 from since the ONS themselves say:

Using the most up-to-date data we have available, the number of deaths up to 1 January 2021 was 614,096

(from Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics )

That would push the figure above the 1918 level. But perhaps the Guardian have compensated for the fact that the first weeks data for 2020 was for week ending 3rd Jan 2020, so included some days from the end of 2019. I dont know. Its quite possible I missed something else where this is explained. Either way, a final number for the year usually takes a very long time indeed to be published, but it should end up hugely different from these early provision figures.

ONS also have trouble trying to do death modelling estimates by date of occurrence and excess deaths (rather than total deaths) for the last week of 2020 because it was a 53 week year and they dont have a 53rd week for most of the last 5 years figures that they use to come up with a baseline average above which counts as excess.

If I use the 614,096 figure then this is what the historical deaths picture looks like for England and Wales. I used an estimate based on weekly numbers for the 2019 figure too. And none of this stuff is adjusted for population size and age, just raw numbers. So I'll quote a tiny bit of population size context from that Guardian piece:

The death toll is second in absolute terms to the record set in 1918, when 611,861 people died at the peak of the flu pandemic in England and Wales. However, the mortality rate was higher in 1918, when approximately 38.4 million people lived in England and Wales, compared with 59.4 million today.

 

[Steel Icarus]

Well the BBC have confirmed Priti this afternoon but no confirmation of the time yet.

Eighteen past twelvetynumber

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

I think some of those who believe that this is Bill Gates doing, or is part of the "Great Reset", or that it is a government plot to enforce communistic tyranny, will find themselves in interesting contemplative spaces when, two years on from now, if things are back to normal, they will look back and see themselves as one of those who willfully broke the rules. In the absence of any of their fears having coming true, that must be a weird space to be in, especially if people reflect back on this period similar to how grandparents looked back on the "war effort."

I have an acquaintance who was totally convinced a few years back that Planet X was going to appear and destroy all life on Earth (part of the Mayan calendar mumbo jumbo). Totally unphased when it didn't happen. I'm sure many of the current crop of deniers will quickly find someone else to blame when things turn out differently to their expectations. 5G caused it, for example. By the way, Gates starts with the letter G and if you add 1 to the number of letters in Bill you get 5. See what I mean?

 

[andysays]

I’m not going to sit through Patel, her weird fixed smile gives me bad dreams. If she announces deportation for sitting on a park bench I’ll read it here.

Have they leaked this already?

 

[BigMoaner]

By the way, Gates starts with the letter G and if you add 1 to the number of letters in Bill you get 5. See what I mean?

 

[miss direct]

Can they deport me back to Turkey please? I sat on a bench for a whole hour today, reading a book.

 

[TopCat]

We desperately need some entertainment after having Whitty in his own advert of hell unleashed.

 

[Artaxerxes]

Can they deport me back to Turkey please? I sat on a bench for a whole hour today, reading a book.

Careful now.

 

[Smangus]

We desperately need some entertainment after having Whitty in his own advert of hell unleashed.

Agreed, but Patel and her rigor mortis isn't it.

 

[Lord Camomile]

Priti Patel on the mic for this evening's government Covidisco.

* dancefloor empties *

 

[Sue]

Has the briefing or whatever happen Anything of any import to report?

 

[TopCat]

Has she been on already?

 

[LDC]

She tripped over on the way to the lectern, and is now suggesting capital punishment for those that break lockdown unless you have an income of over £185,000 a year.

 

[Numbers]

Can they deport me back to Turkey please? I sat on a bench for a whole hour today, reading a book.

May I ask. Do/would you consider moving back? It’s not been easy for you for such a big move.

 

[planetgeli]

Following online. But giving her a number to read out straight off was risking it a bit no?

 

[Numbers]

Following online. But giving her a number to read out straight off was risking it a bit no?

My missus said ‘good, get the numbers out of the way early’.

 

[cupid_stunt]

1243 new deaths reported today, up from 830 last Tuesday.

The 7-day average of reported daily deaths was 676 last Tue., it went up to 926 yesterday, this takes it to 984 or 985, that's a total 45.6% increase in the last 7 days.

 

[LDC]

I mean I'm one of the first to moan about people breaking rules, but fucking hell, a year into this pandemic, 1,200+ dead today, the whole country in a fucking mess, some grim weeks ahead, and what they're going on about is some people having raves and some not wearing masks on trains. What a fucking joke.

 

[frogwoman]

Has she said how sorry she is to 1243 families?

 

[kebabking]

She tripped over on the way to the lectern, and is now suggesting capital punishment for those that break lockdown unless you have an income of over £185,000 a year.

Sensible policies for a happier Britain.

 

[weltweit]

Well she didn't answer the first question.