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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

platinumsage said:
No one ever batted an eyelid about 20,000 flu deaths other than the peak impacts on hospitals in winter, and urging over-50s to get jabbed. I find it a bit strange that some people think this new disease should be managed so utterly differently.
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Just returning to this again, I would certainly agree that in terms of risk to government of the public not accepting this, I'd suspect that the situation with hospitals and other medical care is more likely to be the problem area than sheer number of deaths.

I dont find it that hard to believe that people could 'learn to live with covid' in the manner government desires, if this can be done whilst still allowing routine medical care to happen. But as soon as hospitals come under prolonged pressure, and the rest of the system fails to deliver, I somehow doubt the public will just be prepared to take it in the chin.

This wave will certainly test this, and thats when we will find out whether the government has pushed for this approach too soon, risking much.
 
LynnDoyleCooper said:
Just a quick reminder; the economy and the way it's run kills loads of people as well.
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Yes and when modelling was done looking at the likely burden in terms of death, quality of life years lost etc, it was a bit awkward. Because they had to factor in a large number of deaths and illnesses not happening as usual, because such deaths reduce at the start of recessions! (eg see #1 )
 
Another potential issue with medium to long term management of this virus is that we dont know what will happen to vaccine uptake figures going forwards.

The authorities better hope that the initial vaccines have a long-lasting effect, because we'd generally expect the number of people feeling a pressing need to get their shots to decline over time, especially if a huge part of the overall risk starts to fade from view.

There is also a potential consequence on this front if it turns out that the government have shifted to 'learning to live with covid' too soon. Because if this current wave turns out to be very large and deadly, some proportion of people will, no matter how much the underlying detail is explained to them, likely develop some defeatist thoughts about the covid vaccines. "they didnt work" stuff, even when the reality is that vaccines actually manage to carry a considerable burden. It remains to be seen whether what counts as success as far as the government is concerned actually resembles success in the minds of the average person.
 
Scotlands approach is quite farcical these days.

www.bbc.co.uk

Scottish government lifts Manchester travel ban

The ban had sparked a row between First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham.
www.bbc.co.uk

However, Health Secretary Humza Yousaf said the measure - and a similar ban on travel to and from Bolton that was announced in May - is to be lifted from midnight on Tuesday after a "careful review of the data".

A ban on non-essential travel to the Blackburn with Darwen local authority area will remain in place for at least another week.
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I don't think its unreasonable to say most people had any idea how many people die from flu each year. I think most of us were aware it does kill but not to the extent of 20,000 in a bad year.
 
Teaboy said:
I don't think its unreasonable to say most people had any idea how many people die from flu each year. I think most of us were aware it does kill but not to the extent of 20,000 in a bad year.
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There's around 600k deaths a year in the UK, so even in a bad year, the flu 'only' accounts for around 2.5% of that, which I guess is why it's no considered to be 'big news'.
 
elbows said:
If people look at the actual numbers and news reporting each winter, there isnt really much sense of a stable picture with flu.

ie there are bad epidemic years and years where the burden is much smaller. And the effects of this are not subtle, they show up in all the excess mortality graphs quite clearly. I will probably fish out a few of those later, highlighting some large flu epidemics.
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I did say relatively stable. As in not five cases one year, 500,000 the next. Although of course individual flu strains do behave exactly like that.
 
Teaboy said:
I don't think its unreasonable to say most people had any idea how many people die from flu each year. I think most of us were aware it does kill but not to the extent of 20,000 in a bad year.
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www.health.org.uk

One year on: Three myths about COVID-19 that the data proved wrong

Three charts measuring 'years of life lost' that disprove three ‘myths’ that were prevalent at the start of the pandemic.
www.health.org.uk www.health.org.uk

30,000 in a bad year.

  • In a bad flu year on average around 30,000 people in the UK die from flu and pneumonia, with a loss of around 250,000 life years. This is a sixth of the life years lost to COVID-19.
 
At the risk of repeating myself,

I have no idea where all this is heading. Cases are as high as they were in January, yet with hospital admissions currently much lower (deaths too), we appear to be in the twilight zone with only one direction of travel, guaranteed to increase at least positive cases. I don't understand how that can coexist with normality.

At the risk of...
 
glitch hiker said:
At the risk of repeating myself,

I have no idea where all this is heading. Cases are as high as they were in January, yet with hospital admissions currently much lower (deaths too), we appear to be in the twilight zone with only one direction of travel, guaranteed to increase at least positive cases. I don't understand how that can coexist with normality.

At the risk of...
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Yeah, that's roughly my concern as well. Cases and hospitalizations are going up quickly with some break in the relationship between them and deaths, but not a complete break. And infectiousness is higher, and all restrictions will be gone in less than 3 weeks.... feel like we could end up with very high levels of cases and hospitalizations and even if deaths are low it will be very difficult for things to function as normal, including the NHS.
 
I went for a PCR test today. They took no details of my own and I was just given a 'test receipt' with a barcode on it. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? In the end I had to spend 20 mins on the phone to the NHS to register it. Or have I missed something really obvious?
 
Supine said:
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Yes so the same sort of thing as I got when I plotted cases by age group using a logarithmic scale earlier. The vaccine effect shows up as bigger gaps between the different lines, but the lines all still follow eachother in direction, on similar trajectories.

And until we see what level cases ends up peaking at, we cant tell what the maximum extent of the horror will be of other things on the graphs like hospitalisations and deaths.
 
editor said:
I went for a PCR test today. They took no details of my own and I was just given a 'test receipt' with a barcode on it. What the fuck am I supposed to do with that? In the end I had to spend 20 mins on the phone to the NHS to register it. Or have I missed something really obvious?
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Go to the web address on one of the 2 pieces of paper they gave you. I've just done this - it works.
 
glitch hiker said:
At the risk of repeating myself,

I have no idea where all this is heading. Cases are as high as they were in January, yet with hospital admissions currently much lower (deaths too), we appear to be in the twilight zone with only one direction of travel, guaranteed to increase at least positive cases. I don't understand how that can coexist with normality.

At the risk of...
Click to expand...
Cases breached previously detected levels in Scotland, but for the other nations and regions of England, that point hasnt been reached just yet. There are a few age groups in a few regions that I can zoom in on which have reached or gone past previous waves highs, but not the overall figures.

Although we also need to consider the difference between positive cases detected via testing, and the actual number of infections in reality. Including chances to the testing regime over time. General population survey testing provides clues about how the present level of infection compares to past waves, but only in hindsight since it lags behind the picture we get via testing of symptomatic people & contacts.

The current situation and what will come in the next weeks cannot really coexist with the old sense of normality. Even the government knows this, so this wave is considered to be part of the push back towards normality, rather than actually arriving at that destination. Its a high risk approach not only in terms of public health, but also politically there will be heavy ramifications if they've pushed too far and this whole exit attempt blows up in their face. Even then they will have a consolation prize in mind, the idea that this is the exit wave and either via vaccines or via getting infected, after this wave they will expect population immunity levels to be reasonably good, further unlocking their 'back to business as usual' destination. 'If at first you dont succeed, try try again' is in play.

The great unknowns remain whether the numbers of this variant vs the vaccines will add up, and whether even if the government get away with their plan this time or in the near future, what variants may come along to spoil the viability of their approach at any point.
 
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