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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

It doesn't make any sense, given that mutations are more likely to arise more quickly, when you have a great number of infections. So even in an optimistic scenario where everyone under 40 is left unvaccinated, catches it but is basically fine aafter a couple of weeks, they can still pass it on to people who for legit reasons, can't have the vaccine, or those who's immunity is wearing off.

I mean it's a fucking stupid idea isn't it? I must be missing something.
 
Although the daily hospital admissions/diagnoses figures are no longer a straightforward story of continually rising numbers, the picture is still very messy and very far from being a sustained drop in all regions. And the Midlands has caught up with London in terms of raw numbers (not adjusted for regional population size). This data goes up to 12th January and is from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

Screenshot 2021-01-14 at 18.44.42.png
When smoothed out using 7 day averages it looks like this:

Screenshot 2021-01-14 at 18.50.29.png

And this is how the total number of Covid-19 patients in hospital looks per region of England. This data goes up to this morning, 14th Jan so covers a more recent period than the admissions data.

Screenshot 2021-01-14 at 18.54.43.png
 
xenon said:
It doesn't make any sense, given that mutations are more likely to arise more quickly, when you have a great number of infections. So even in an optimistic scenario where everyone under 40 is left unvaccinated, catches it but is basically fine aafter a couple of weeks, they can still pass it on to people who for legit reasons, can't have the vaccine, or those who's immunity is wearing off.

I mean it's a fucking stupid idea isn't it? I must be missing something.
Click to expand...
the video says "young" but no age is mentioned, so I guess someone in Great Barrington who is 39&9/10th decided old was over 40
 
frogwoman said:
Some places it still seems to be increasing:(
Click to expand...

Yes so far its following the assumptions that the South East, London and the East of England would see the trajetory changes first, and things would keep getting worse in other regions. There are also no guarantees that those Southern regions will continue to improve, or that any sustained decreases there happen quickly enough.

I thought it was important to talk about tentative signs for about a week now, but I dont want to give an inappropriately comforting picture of what that means.

Even stuff I was going on about at length just the other day about how there has been no notable lag between whats shown in the daily version of hospital admission and case data is not guaranteed to remain true at every stage. I would especially expect some of these things to diverge if we end up with situations where levels of disease are changing in different ways in different age groups over a particular period, ie if the wave rages on for people more likely to be hospitalised, and in care homes, at a time when overall cases are falling because less vulnerable age groups who make up a big chunk of the positive case numbers happen to be at a later, downward stage of the curve.

But certainly when it comes to positive cases, the latest weekly surveillance report confirms what we've already seen in various other bits of data recently, things have a fallen a bit.

www.gov.uk

National flu and COVID-19 surveillance reports

National influenza and COVID-19 report, monitoring COVID-19 activity, seasonal flu and other seasonal respiratory illnesses.
www.gov.uk www.gov.uk
 
They are incompatible with basic reality and react badly to being reminded of this fact every day by the intrusion of reality. And if there is one thing you get in a pandemic, its reality intruding in a manner that no amount of humbug can mask.
 
platinumsage said:
This only applies to that specific Innova lateral flow test.
Click to expand...
Many of the same problems apply to all lateral flow devices, particularly their sensitivity at any given time in the infection and, highly relevant here, transmission windows. Quantitative tests would have to be performed almost daily to determine where one is in each window.
platinumsage said:
The government bought 2 million of these lateral flow tests last week which are 98% accurate (although they require a blood sample taken by a clinician, they will be useful in many settings as they give a result in 10 minutes).
Click to expand...
That's an antibody test, not an antigen test, so of no use as the basis for making decisions upon as regards your ongoing interaction with other people (travel, work, school, etc) and the potential consequences of that for others whilst you are potentially infectious. The government has approved two other LFD antigen tests (non-quantitative), but again single use methodology suffers the same limitations.
 
Last edited:
philosophical said:
Today I got a letter from Imperial College/ipsos MORI/NHS asking me to take part in a COVID-19 in-home antibody testing research study.
You're supposed to prick the tip of your finger to get a blood spot for testing, the results are apparently known within 10-25 minutes but they want me to be aware that the antibody test is not 100% accurate at an individual level.
Click to expand...
I'd be interested in this.
 
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