Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[elbows]

Not sure when the Christmas period deaths are supposed to hit? Maybe in another week or 10 days? Will presumably be a further bulge on whatever shape the deaths graph is at at that point.

You must have missed my long and winding posts talking about the various reasons I didnt neessarily expect to see a Christmas death spike at all.

Without repeating in full, reasons included the fact that the bad increases with deadly implications were being seen continually well before Christmas anyway, and the vastly reduced forms of contact that would happen over Christmas as a result of people being on holiday from schools and workplaces. And that this mixture of Christmas-specific things combined with changing regional pictures over a broader period of time in terms of both infection levels and response measures/behavioural changes would be more likely to result in the usual steep but somewhat steady ascent and peak, rather than anything with obvious fingerprints of Christmas all over it.

 

[brogdale]

you seem pretty consistently pissed off at the numbers tbf

Thanks, I'm glad to hear that, tbh.

 

[killer b]

Thanks, I'm glad to hear that, tbh.

I'm not sure it's doing you any good though.

 

[brogdale]

I'm not sure it's doing you any good though.

I'm genuinely concerned at the danger of becoming accustomed to these appalling figures. It reminds me a little of being a kid and watching the news when stories about Northern Ireland came on and just, kind of, zoning out.

 

[teuchter]

I'm going to put my money on the peak in deaths having already occurred, somewhere around the 14th of January. It'll take a few days to see whether or not that's me being over-optimistic. Sadly it probably is over-optimistic to hope that it'll stay below the first wave peak. It looks like it's going to end up about the same.

In any case, of course it's the area under the curve that really matters and there's no question it's going to be worse than the first one.

 

[elbows]

Oh and Wilf regarding your Christmas question, the folowing article may be of interest. For once I am not going to pick at any details in it that I might not fully agree with.

Did we see a Christmas coronavirus spike?

Christmas gatherings were cut back but was there still an impact on Covid cases?

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[Sue]

I'm genuinely concerned at the danger of becoming accustomed to these appalling figures. It reminds me a little of being a kid and watching the news when stories about Northern Ireland came on and just, kind of, zoning out.

Yeah, I was saying on the London Unlockening thread that when they brought in the 800+ purple colour, I thought it was shocking. Then my local area very quickly went purple and has been 1000ish since before Christmas (and nearly 1300 at one point). Today, we're down to just below 800 and it feels like things are much better (a friend messaged me to say as much). Maybe they are but it's still a shocking number (and no doubt the local hospital is still under immense pressure). I too fear we're becoming acclimatised to it.

 

[Wilf]

You must have missed my long and winding posts talking about the various reasons I didnt neessarily epect to see a Christmas death spike at all.

Without repeating in full, reasons included the fact that the bad increases with deadly implications were being seen continually well before Christmas anyway, and the vastly reduced forms of contact that would happen over Christmas as a result of people being on holiday from schools and workplaces. And that this mixture of Christmas-specific things combined with changing regional pictures over a broader period of time in terms of both infection levels and response measures/behavioural changes would be more likely to result in the usual steep but somewhat steady ascent and peak, rather than anything with obvious fingerprints of Christmas all over it.

Yeah, didn't see your post, but that's what I was thinking with my talk of a 'bulge within a trend'. From memory, the period since November has taken us through the dance of the several tiers, Breathe On Your Relatives Day, 'lockdown', all within an upward trend and new variants. Then there's back to work and back on the buses and trains from about Jan 4 onwards. Maybe even statisticians of the future won't be able to point a biro at a point on the graph and shout 'aha, there it is' with any confidence. Having said that, there will be some fairly easy graphs to draw in terms of 'if the government had acted then rather than then'.

One thing I'm interested in is the reckoning and wondering what role the graphs and the evidence will play in terms of discussing the blood that is on johnson et al's hands. There are going to be long weeks and months ahead with this and we may never revert back to normal. However there's no sense this is turning into a government threatening disaster for the tories. What's missing is a bigger politics that shouts back about the inequalities of Covid and puts the stats and evidence into a narrative (or perhaps just a politics). Without that politics - and we are without that politics - people will just be relieved to living life again. Lots of isolated bereavements, lots of lives affected, but nothing quite coming together as a focused howl of rage.

 

[Wilf]

I'm genuinely concerned at the danger of becoming accustomed to these appalling figures. It reminds me a little of being a kid and watching the news when stories about Northern Ireland came on and just, kind of, zoning out.

Agree. One aspect of the deaths is that they feel rather anonymous now. Lots of people have lost relatives and people have been very ill themselves, but at a societal level the bereaved haven't become a 'thing' to challenge government or even get into our consciousness each day. It felt very real to me when my Mum died in a care home in May, but I'll admit the daily figures have 'receded' for me since. Don't get me wrong, I'm still fucking angry, but you experience the figures in the abstract rather than as 'people'.

 

[Pickman's model]

Agree. One aspect of the deaths is that they feel rather anonymous now. Lots of people have lost relatives and people have been very ill themselves, but at a societal level the bereaved haven't become a 'thing' to challenge government or even get into our consciousness each day. It felt very real to me when my Mum died in a care home in May, but I'll admit the daily figures have 'receded' for me since. Don't get me wrong, I'm still fucking angry, but you experience the figures in the abstract rather than as 'people'.

we're at the level of everyone in selby being killed. by the end of the month this might have changed to the level of lincoln

 

[Orang Utan]

People doing way too much figure watching. It’s not really that useful, is it?
It’s just another way to make yourself feel bad.
Don’t torture yourself

 

[Wilf]

Discussing this kind of stuff, the government's failures... the next thing I clicked on was this:
Ministers set to halt plans for daily Covid tests in English schools | Education | The Guardian

Well done matt, well done boris, well done nadhim. The fucking stress these cunts have caused education workers.

 

[elbows]

I'm going to put my money on the peak in deaths having already occurred, somewhere around the 14th of January. It'll take a few days to see whether or not that's me being over-optimistic. Sadly it probably is over-optimistic to hope that it'll stay below the first wave peak. It looks like it's going to end up about the same.

In any case, of course it's the area under the curve that really matters and there's no question it's going to be worse than the first one.

I have stuck a similar (albeit not colour-coded) graph of the first wave peak (by the same measure, deaths within 28 days of a positive test) next to my usual colour-coded one to aid with comparisons. Although as you say, its too early to tell, so I'm not making any claims that the levels now reached in the deaths by date of death are covering the very peak period we will ultimately see with the benefit of hindsight.

The only sense I have that the peak this time might not be as high as last time stems from the terrible underreporting the first time due to lack of testing, and indeed a failure to look around properly for cases and deaths in the period before we started actually noticing and recording the deaths. But thats a complex subject best discussed on the nerdy thread next time I share a different sort of graph. Which was going to be today, but I have run out of energy so it may well have to wait till tomorrow.

 

[cupid_stunt]

I'm going to put my money on the peak in deaths having already occurred, somewhere around the 14th of January. It'll take a few days to see whether or not that's me being over-optimistic. Sadly it probably is over-optimistic to hope that it'll stay below the first wave peak. It looks like it's going to end up about the same.

In any case, of course it's the area under the curve that really matters and there's no question it's going to be worse than the first one.

Why on earth would you think that?

It's already been pointed out on a number of occasions that the 7 day average of reported deaths tends to be a early sign of what the 7 day average of deaths by actual date will look like, the curves tends to be very similiar, and the former continues to go up.

I have no idea why this hasn't sunk in, perhaps you are just in denial, because that would involve accepting you were wrong.

So, let's take hospital admissions as a gauge instead, deaths after admission tends to average around the 2 week mark, admissions on the 1st Jan. were 3,359 and peaked almost 2 weeks later on 12th Jan. at 4,550, over 35% more, and continued to be up on 1st Jan. every day since, or at least up to the latest date available, 15th Jan.

Why do you think these increased hospital admissions will not result in higher deaths over the next week or two?

 

[elbows]

One thing I'm interested in is the reckoning and wondering what role the graphs and the evidence will play in terms of discussing the blood that is on johnson et al's hands. There are going to be long weeks and months ahead with this and we may never revert back to normal. However there's no sense this is turning into a government threatening disaster for the tories. What's missing is a bigger politics that shouts back about the inequalities of Covid and puts the stats and evidence into a narrative (or perhaps just a politics). Without that politics - and we are without that politics - people will just be relieved to living life again. Lots of isolated bereavements, lots of lives affected, but nothing quite coming together as a focused howl of rage.

In a sane world they would be fucked because in the first wave there were a range of establishment failures, especially early on, so the blame can be spread around a fair bit. But in the second wave it sounds like the government diverged from the key winter planning assumptions, as indicated by the following sorts of comments from official SAGE documents. The media etc should already be able to hang the government with this, but they dont, and I am left feeling like I exist in some strange parallel universe.

The epidemic is close to breaching the agreed Reasonable Worst Case Scenario on which NHS, DHSC and HMG contingency plans are based. As outlined by COVID-S, planning has followed a strategy under which action is taken in mid-September to halt epidemic growth. Unless the measures announced on 22nd September reduce R back below 1, it is likely that infection incidence and hospital admissions will exceed the planning levels.

Thats from a September 23rd SAGE document: https://assets.publishing.service.g...SAGE59_200923_SPI-M-O_Consensus_Statement.pdf

I originally mentioned this on the nerdy thread along with some other carefully selected SAGE quotes. #45

 

[nagapie]

is this the case if all the schools need loads of extra staff though? Don't disagree there's stuff that can be done, but I don't think there's enough agency staff available to expand schools massively

I don't know the exact figures, no, but could make a start.

 

[nagapie]

I thought we had a shortage of teachers, not a surplus looking for jobs.

I don't think there are shortages across the board, for example no shortages in Devon and Cornwall and mega shortages across the rest of the country in science and maths.
But as someone else pointed out, there are also support staff agencies, teachers not in the profession, must be tons of artists from all disciplines out if work - lots of pools to draw from to bring some form of education and socialisation together.

 

[cupid_stunt]

People doing way too much figure watching. It’s not really that useful, is it?
It’s just another way to make yourself feel bad.
Don’t torture yourself

Of course it's useful, because it gives us an indication of the direction of travel, and therefore when we will be over the peak, then how fast the figures start dropping, therefore when restrictions may start being lifted.

Strikes me as one of the most important elements for a discussion thread concerning covid in the UK, and it's actually starting to look positive - new cases continues to drop, patients in hospital are therefore starting to the level out & should start dropping, and after the lag so should the deaths.

 

[Leighsw2]

Yeah, didn't see your post, but that's what I was thinking with my talk of a 'bulge within a trend'. From memory, the period since November has taken us through the dance of the several tiers, Breathe On Your Relatives Day, 'lockdown', all within an upward trend and new variants. Then there's back to work and back on the buses and trains from about Jan 4 onwards. Maybe even statisticians of the future won't be able to point a biro at a point on the graph and shout 'aha, there it is' with any confidence. Having said that, there will be some fairly easy graphs to draw in terms of 'if the government had acted then rather than then'.

One thing I'm interested in is the reckoning and wondering what role the graphs and the evidence will play in terms of discussing the blood that is on johnson et al's hands. There are going to be long weeks and months ahead with this and we may never revert back to normal. However there's no sense this is turning into a government threatening disaster for the tories. What's missing is a bigger politics that shouts back about the inequalities of Covid and puts the stats and evidence into a narrative (or perhaps just a politics). Without that politics - and we are without that politics - people will just be relieved to living life again. Lots of isolated bereavements, lots of lives affected, but nothing quite coming together as a focused howl of rage.

This sounds very much like what happened after the 1918 flu pandemic - people just wanted to forget and live again. And the 1920s and '30s belonged to the Tories.

 

[SpookyFrank]

FFS:

Test And Trace Paying Nearly A Million Pounds A Day To Consultants Deloitte

Test And Trace Paying Nearly £1m A Day To Private Consultants

Government officials reveal new figure, as they plan to spend £15bn in just three months on more testing.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk

And none of these 900 consultants, all of whom are apparently hyper-geniuses since they each warrant the pay of 10 ordinary mortals, pointed out that you can't use excel for a database with millions of entries?

 

[Orang Utan]

Of course it's useful, because it gives us an indication of the direction of travel, and therefore when we will be over the peak, then how fast the figures start dropping, therefore when restrictions may start being lifted.

Strikes me as one of the most important elements for a discussion thread concerning covid in the UK, and it's actually starting to look positive - new cases continues to drop, patients in hospital are therefore starting to the level out & should start dropping, and after the lag so should the deaths.

It’s not changing our behaviour though, just making us worry loads more. A lot of people are speculating with not enough knowledge. Don’t think that’s helpful either

 

[elbows]

It’s not changing our behaviour though, just making us worry loads more. A lot of people are speculating with not enough knowledge. Don’t think that’s helpful either

People vary in what helps them at times like these. I wont be changing my approach.

 

[Pickman's model]

It’s not changing our behaviour though, just making us worry loads more. A lot of people are speculating with not enough knowledge. Don’t think that’s helpful either

no one ever has full information during events like this, like wars, like any sort of crisis.

 

[Monkeygrinder's Organ]

It’s not changing our behaviour though, just making us worry loads more. A lot of people are speculating with not enough knowledge. Don’t think that’s helpful either

I'm not sure what the alternative is. Just ignore it? Go on what Boris Johnson says?

 

[elbows]

no one ever has full information during events like this, like wars, like any sort of crisis.

I'm particularly bad when I suddenly dont have access to a view of the pandemic I'd been used to getting from a very particular angle via specific, regular data.

So for example my state of mind declined when, during the first wave, there was a period where they stopped publishing hospital data at a really crucial moment, and for quite some time. And right now I can feel my brain melting as a result of the 'new variant by region' data I was expecting to see last Friday not coming out due to the broader ONS infection survey report being delayed for 'lab test delays/further quality assurance required' reasons.

 

[Cloo]

I can't believe we have over 3 years before we might even be able to get rid of these useless, murderous bastards and the fact that there's not much sign people are even willing to vote them out when it comes to it.

 

[cupid_stunt]

It’s not changing our behaviour though, just making us worry loads more. A lot of people are speculating with not enough knowledge. Don’t think that’s helpful either

Why would anyone 'worry loads more' when cases are going down, hospital admissions are dropping from the peak on the 12th Jan., total patients in hospital are stabilizing as result, which will mean deaths will start going down fairly soon?

 

[elbows]

I can't believe we have over 3 years before we might even be able to get rid of these useless, murderous bastards and the fact that there's not much sign people are even willing to vote them out when it comes to it.

I suppose given the damning info that is already available in SAGE etc documents, let alone whatever details are still private, it would not shock me if the tories go for another election before a pandemic public inquiry comes along.

 

[Pickman's model]

I can't believe we have over 3 years before we might even be able to get rid of these useless, murderous bastards and the fact that there's not much sign people are even willing to vote them out when it comes to it.

only if you think they'll be ejected by electoral means.

 

[Miss-Shelf]

You give extra funding to utiilise community spaces and buy in extra staff. For example there is a church hall around the corner from my school that we used to use for exams when we were under construction. Teaching agencies are full of staff waiting to be employed in schools. Just need funding and extra staff to organise, oversee and facilitate.

universities have a lot of classrooms that are going under or not used right now