Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[elbows]

Anecdotal I know, but a guy I was at school with is now spending some nights in hospital with Covid - he'd had both injections..

Unfortunately this is to be expected and highlights one of the problems with thinking about vaccines and the protection they offer in too binary a manner.

Modelling done months ago implied that in this wave the largest numbers of people who end up in hospital will be vaccinated people. Not because the vaccines dont work, but rather the combination of them not working for 100% of people and the high proportion of the population that has been vaccinated. In terms of the real numbers so far rather than the modelling, last time I checked this phenomenon had not yet fully emerged in the data, but it should become more apparent as time goes on.

 

[elbows]

And of course that also means anti-vax fuckwits who indulge in a different version of binary thinking get the wrong end of the stick and the likes of the BBC have to write articles like this one to try to explain:

Covid: Misleading stat claims more vaccinated people die

Vaccines reduce the risk of death but do not eliminate it completely.

www.bbc.co.uk

No vaccine is perfect in preventing people from getting Covid and therefore a small number of people will still die.

And in a world where every single person had been vaccinated, 100% of Covid deaths would be of vaccinated people.

But the actual number of people dying would be much lower - a 20th as many as if no-one was vaccinated, according to PHE estimates.

Although I should note that such articles, for a number of reasons, may end up trying a little too hard to be overly reassuring.

 

[elbows]

Percentage positivity for England from the latest weekly surveillance report that just came out.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/998393/Weekly_Flu_and_COVID-19_report_w26_v3.pdf

 

[elbows]

Some vaccine stats from the same publication.

 

[elbows]

Im just going to take this opportunity to say how much I have hated in particular the framing and priorities of political commentators throughout this pandemic. Fuck all that resembles grown up pandemic public health politics, just the usual shit panto politics. Gossip about the feeling inside the Westminster bubble.

Viki Young for example:

The prime minister was sounding very confident about lifting restrictions on 19 July, on his visit this morning to the Nissan vehicle factory in Sunderland.

What everyone wants to know is how far he'll go when it comes to masks, social distancing, school bubbles, travel.

The feeling around Whitehall is that it's going to be very close to a return to normal life.

I'm hearing that an announcement laying out these details could come as soon as next week, with final confirmation giving formal go-ahead a week later.

Actually I'm much more inclined to look at what Johnson is actually quoted as saying in the article, clues about whether some measures will remain.

"I know how impatient people are to get back to total normality, as indeed am I," he said.

"But I think I've said it before, we'll be wanting to go back to a world that is as close to the status quo, ante-Covid, as possible. Try to get back to life as close to it was before Covid.

"But there may be some things we have to do, extra precautions that we have to take, but I'll be setting them out."

Covid: Boris Johnson upbeat about easing lockdown in England on 19 July

Boris Johnson hopes England will return to as close to the "status quo" as possible on 19 July.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[LDC]

Im sort of expecting that at some point, government will decide that some of the routine data that gets published is getting in the way of the 'learning to live with covid' agenda, and they will attempt to suppress that data. I dont know when they will be stupid enough to try this, but I bet the urge is there.

That exact thing was being talked about on R4 today elbows. Someone saying publishing the figures causes fear and that's getting in the way of us treating it just like all the other respiratory viruses going about. Also said we need to stop testing and a few other gems. Didn't catch who it was, but they had a chunk of airtime.

 

[elbows]

That exact thing was being talked about on R4 today elbows. Someone saying publishing the figures causes fear and that's getting in the way of us treating it just like all the other respiratory viruses going about. Also said we need to stop testing and a few other gems. Didn't catch who it was, but they had a chunk of airtime.

And they will probably get their way, gradually. After all I'm under no illusions that a time will come where I am mostly left talking to myself about that virus, but it would be a stretch to claim that time is already upon us.

I wonder who it was. I never listen to radio 4 so I am clueless about that.

 

[2hats]

Have a feeling it was...


e2a: Confirmed. 17m38s into the programme here:

World at One - 01/07/2021 - BBC Sounds

Forty-five minutes of news, analysis and comment, with Sarah Montague

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[elbows]

That wouldnt be surprising. Funnily enough despite him often being quoted in the press as being a NERVTAG member, his name didnt really show up as having attended any of the recent NERVTAG meetings for which minutes are available online. He is a bad joke in this pandemic, and on the fringes of NERVTAG at best.

Summer 2020 remains a fair preview of how they would change the mood music to try to get people back to a normal mindset. They stopped the daily briefings. The press attempted to shift away from Covid being the main focus of the top headlines. That failed badly last time. This time around the government will hope to get a wave with lots of cases but not so much of the other stuff, and then they will use that to justify removing all sorts of things.

 

[elbows]

And of course sections of the press fucking love to quote Dingwalls stance. There is no point listening to his view of when it is safe to let society carry on as normal, let younger people catch it etc, because he has had that same stance since before the pandemic began. Waves of death made no difference to his attitude at all, so he is no kind of guide as to what a reasonable approach might be as the nature of the pandemic changes via vaccines etc. What a piece of shit he is.

 

[Cat Fan]

I decided its better to post Englands graph now, using yesterdays data, rather than wait, given the trajectories and levels reached relative to previous wave are different for England as a whole compared to the North East graph I posted by mistake in my previous post.

Still the cases in older age groups are going up with the usual curves.

View attachment 276241

We know that most under 50s haven't had the second dose, so it's comforting that the numbers are low in the older age groups which have almost all been double jabbed.

We just need to hurry up and get everyone who can be vaccinated vaccinated!

The government could be doing a lot more to encourage vaccination I think.

 

[xenon]

That exact thing was being talked about on R4 today elbows. Someone saying publishing the figures causes fear and that's getting in the way of us treating it just like all the other respiratory viruses going about. Also said we need to stop testing and a few other gems. Didn't catch who it was, but they had a chunk of airtime.

and on LBC yesterday. I wasn’t listening to oclosely but urban favourite Ian Duncan Smith was mentioned.

 

[elbows]

We know that most under 50s haven't had the second dose, so it's comforting that the numbers are low in the older age groups which have almost all been double jabbed.

We just need to hurry up and get everyone who can be vaccinated vaccinated!

The government could be doing a lot more to encourage vaccination I think.

The current rates of vaccination are limited by supply.

And its a great mistake to look at the case numbers by age and conclude that all is well with older age groups.

Plotting the same data on a logarithmic scale can help with that, because it shows that the rates of growth are still bad in the older age groups, and that if the current wave keeps growing, the absolute numbers for older groups wont take that long to reach high levels.

What this data doesht show is exactly what the hospital and death burden from that will be. That story will show up via a combination of data and its simply too early for me to judge yet.

Same data as earlier, but log scale. The fact many of these lines got steeper recently is a cause for concern.

 

[elbows]

Since I posted the rather alarming non-logarithmic version of that data for the North East region by mistake earlier, I suppose I ought to post the logarithmic version of the North Easts figures too.

 

[elbows]

I am really quite close to Tamworth.

From the 15:43 entry of the BBC live updates page: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57676408

Football fans watching Euro 2020 games in pubs and bars have been linked to a town's rapid rise in Covid-19 infections.

Cases in Tamworth started to rise after the England versus Scotland match on 18 June.

The town recorded the biggest increase in cases of any English local authority area between the week to 19 June and the week to 26 June.

Numbers testing positive increased five-fold, from 54 the previous week to 293. It recorded its highest number of cases on 28 June, when 93 were identified.

Staffordshire Council served Tamworth Sports Bar with a 48-hour closure order, after several positive Covid-19 cases were linked to the venue, but it chose to shut voluntarily on 29 June. It aims to reopen on 12 July.

Dr Richard Harling, director for Health and Care at Staffordshire County Council, says: "The outbreak in Tamworth is mainly among the 18-34 age group, who are likely to go out and drink especially when there is an England game on.

"With the majority of cases being the Delta Variant, having lots of people mixing would give a good opportunity for the virus to spread."

 

[bimble]

i've not been following things properly, and maybe this is an entirely stupid question but:
I have a mostly baseless idea that this particular month, despite the impending joyous announcement and all, would be a really good month to just reduce risk and hunker down, more hunkering than i've been doing lately and more than I plan to do in future.

Is that at all sensible?

I just told my parents that i wont go fly to visit them end of this month even though i probably would be allowed to by then. They will of course think i'm being ridiculous. As said before, my main fear is the long covid.
If this month is the same risk as next month and the rest of the year then I am being ridiculous.

 

[bimble]

Or is going this month safer than doing it sometime in the next 2 months? that might be more likely.

 

[teuchter]

Or is going this month safer than doing it sometime in the next 2 months? that might be more likely.

I think the answer is that no-one knows, because the extent to which prevalence is decoupled from serious illness remains to be seen.

 

[bimble]

I am not worried about 'serious illness', the hospital kind, for myself personally, so its just about prevalence, how likely i am to be sat next to covid on a flight.

 

[Supine]

I am not worried about 'serious illness', the hospital kind, for myself personally, so its just about prevalence, how likely i am to be sat next to covid on a flight.

the chance is growing larger every day

 

[LDC]

Or is going this month safer than doing it sometime in the next 2 months? that might be more likely.

As numbers of cases are going up, and are almost certainly going to continue to do so for a while, the likelihood of you coming into contact with someone that's infected is less now than it will be in 2/3/+ weeks, all other things being equal.

 

[lazythursday]

I'm in exactly the same situtation bimble - on the one hand, much more confident because double jabbed... but on the other, increasingly worried that it's becoming much easier to catch because of local case numbers and increasingly crowded spaces like public transport. Two of my friends are self isolating at the moment, one of which I spent loads of time with a few days ago. And I really feel I should go and see my mum but she's unvaccinated and I've probably missed the window of opportunity again.

 

[bimble]

Some vaccine stats from the same publication.

View attachment 276263
View attachment 276264

bloody men eh. The numbers there would suggest lots of people must be in some sort of relationships where they disagree about whether its a good idea to get the vaccine.

 

[bimble]

I would think that as numbers of cases are going up, and are almost certainly going to continue to do so for a while.

So the likelihood of you coming into contact with someone that's infected is less now than it will be in 2/3/+ weeks, all other things being equal.

i am not double vaxxed until 12th of this month so was thinking 10 days/ 2 weeks after that, for travel to see parents. It was either this or September. Maybe this, end of July, is a better bet. What a crappy calculation to be trying to make.

 

[teuchter]

I've just had my second jab ... so should become increasingly protected over the next 2-3 weeks, but it looks very likely that prevalence will be going up over that same period, so am similarly unsure about everything.

 

[Storm Fox]

I've just had my second jab ... so should become increasingly protected over the next 2-3 weeks, but it looks very likely that prevalence will be going up over that same period, so am similarly unsure about everything.

I've had my 2nd jab this afternoon, but I similarly unsure.

 

[Doctor Carrot]

Unclear which countries you are suggesting that timetable for. Because as far as the UK goes the explosive growth in cases is happening now, no need to wait for autumn.

I meant this country. I'm aware cases are going up now but by the way things look with opening up I can't see them being low by autumn and cases go up anyway over the time as more people are indoors.

It's a shit show isn't it? Why the fuck are they letting cases run this high? They know it runs the risk of a vaccine escaping variant taking hold.

 

[bimble]

Having thought about it a bit more, it looks like, very roughly, prevalence is going to increase here for at least a couple of months, after which maybe it will get better (once 80% are fully vaccinated or something) or else maybe at some point the government will tell everyone to go indoors and alas and who could have predicted this etc.
Buut either way, maybe the sooner the better is the best i can do as a risk minimisation strategy, if I don't want to get the long covid but do want to see my parents this year, so the opposite of what i thought.

 

[Brainaddict]

Why the fuck are they letting cases run this high? They know it runs the risk of a vaccine escaping variant taking hold.

Imagine yourself as a person who has spent their entire life doing a shit job of everything and taking risks that would destroy other people's careers, but your level of privilege is so enormous, and your ability to bullshit so immense, that you are constantly rewarded for this, over and over again, until finally you are rewarded with the job of running the country. I think you can now answer that question.

We really do have the worst possible prime minister at the worst possible time.

 

[elbows]

Having thought about it a bit more, it looks like, very roughly, prevalence is going to increase here for at least a couple of months, after which maybe it will get better (once 80% are fully vaccinated or something) or else maybe at some point the government will tell everyone to go indoors and alas and who could have predicted this etc.
Buut either way, maybe the sooner the better is the best i can do as a risk minimisation strategy, if I don't want to get the long covid but do want to see my parents this year, so the opposite of what i thought.

Yes that sort of thing. Although you can chuck in a few more factors such as when the Euros football ends (or England get knocked out), and the effects of school holidays which are expected to reduce R in their own right. Plus the increasing numbers of people who will have some immunity via catching the disease in the recent past or the near future.

April or May were good times to do stuff. I dont know exactly when this wave will peak so I cant say when the next good window of opportunity will occur. There may be a time in between this wave and whatever happens in autumn/winter where rates drop quite low again, reducing risk.