platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
It doesn't reduce it enough to get R below 1, so the exponential growth continues. It's only a case of when the peak happens.
Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion
- Thread starter Sasaferrato
- Start date
It doesn't reduce it enough to get R below 1, so the exponential growth continues. It's only a case of when the peak happens.
Johnny Doe
Well-Known Member
Yup, that's going to be an incubator. The campaign from hospitality to open everything has been wrongheaded from the start. They should have been campaigning for funding to stay closed
platinumsage
HaveMyPassword123
It's where we're at. This is why Whitty and Valance are on board with this ending of restrictions now, because there are no good choices and this is the best one.
belboid
Exasperated, not angry.
That’s adults not population
maomao
普費斯
They've been 'on board' with everything anyway. They're senior civil servants. It's their job to be. It doesn't prove anything.
Your argument is based on the assumption that all waves are equal in size.
Doctor Carrot
Marxist Henchman
I just need to ask this because I'm feeling pretty concerned with this drastic move to dropping all restrictions. I was feeling OK but with potentially huge amounts of infection around and of the delta variant I'm kinda bricking it again.
My situation is I work in a shop, I was double jabbed with AZ 2 months ago, I wear a surgical mask all day, I'm in the second category of vulnerability, the shop is extremely well ventilated due to the door being open all day and I'm about to go into a situation where more and more people are going to stop wearing masks in the shop after the 19th.
For the sake of my sanity, and I mean that literally at this point, what are my risks of:
1. Catching it
2. Getting symptomatically ill from catching it. I'm thankfully not concerned about being hospitalised with it.
3. Getting long covid. That's my biggest concern as a dear friend of mine has had ME getting on for 10 years and it completely and utterly derailed their life.
I appreciate there are unknowns in this but I'd just like some evidence of these risks, how mild or severe they are and to what extent and how I need to protect myself further or not because I'm just fucking exhausted with it all. I'm exhausted with people not taking it seriously, exhausted with shit heads not wearing masks and exhausted with trying to work all this stuff out and searching for useful information. So if someone who has access to useful information about this then could they please share it with me? Thanks.
My situation is I work in a shop, I was double jabbed with AZ 2 months ago, I wear a surgical mask all day, I'm in the second category of vulnerability, the shop is extremely well ventilated due to the door being open all day and I'm about to go into a situation where more and more people are going to stop wearing masks in the shop after the 19th.
For the sake of my sanity, and I mean that literally at this point, what are my risks of:
1. Catching it
2. Getting symptomatically ill from catching it. I'm thankfully not concerned about being hospitalised with it.
3. Getting long covid. That's my biggest concern as a dear friend of mine has had ME getting on for 10 years and it completely and utterly derailed their life.
I appreciate there are unknowns in this but I'd just like some evidence of these risks, how mild or severe they are and to what extent and how I need to protect myself further or not because I'm just fucking exhausted with it all. I'm exhausted with people not taking it seriously, exhausted with shit heads not wearing masks and exhausted with trying to work all this stuff out and searching for useful information. So if someone who has access to useful information about this then could they please share it with me? Thanks.
Supine
Newt Member
Whitty pretty much contradicted everything Johnson said in the press conference.
2hats
Dust.
Just under 51% of the population. A population that's now being encouraged to mix with other sub-populations of the global population with lower, some far lower, levels of vaccination.
prunus
Tick tock.
~34 million are double jabbed in the UK now, and so should be more or less fully protected* by the 19th, = just over 51% The other 49% are concentrated in the younger age groups. Guess which age groups are more likely to be cramming into nightclubs and pubs and other social melees? I reckon 75% or more of those crowds will be incompletely protected. Massive explosion in infections anyone?
Also - it seems from noises coming out of the government that the modelling tightrope they're walking to try to justify opening in July relies on people continuing to isolate if they have symptoms/test positive. From what I can gather there's going to be a lot a lot of people who throw that out with the rest of the regulations. Sniffle? Fuck it let's go clubbing. Going to get tested? Nah, no point, it's over. Work in hospitality? Don't get tested - we need the staff. App telling you to isolate? Delete the app.
I am by nature a pessimist, but that doesn't mean I'm wrong to be very worried we're heading into a shitstorm.
* e2a: and fully protected looks like perhaps only 65% protected against delta at best, from data coming out of Israel.
souljacker
innit
True but there isn't a vaccine available for under 18s unless they are vulnerable or live with someone who is.
And is it UK adults, or England adults?
Because the media keep giving figures for UK, instead of each nation, because going by each nation = lower % in England.
Exactly.
And all restricted periods are not equal either, as I said yesterday - it's easier to avoid socialising indoors in summer versus in winter, and therefore better to ask people to "lockdown" now than later.
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Smangus
comatose at a desk
I would like to know what proportion of infected people are likely to end up with long Covid and how that translates to our younger population in numbers potentially going forwards.
So X people are likely to be infected in the next (say) 3 months, of that Y% are likely to end up with long Covid to varying degrees which equals Z number of people. Or something along those lines.
If Javid is touting 100K a day infections at some stage then Z cannot be an insignificant number going forwards and the implications it has for the future quality of life for these people and the cost to the country of their care.
There seems to be a massive hole in the debate overall about this, or am I missing something?
Death or hospitalisation is not the only outcome, Long Covid had potentially far reaching effects. Not enough is being made of this by the media , Labour and other parties imo.
So X people are likely to be infected in the next (say) 3 months, of that Y% are likely to end up with long Covid to varying degrees which equals Z number of people. Or something along those lines.
If Javid is touting 100K a day infections at some stage then Z cannot be an insignificant number going forwards and the implications it has for the future quality of life for these people and the cost to the country of their care.
There seems to be a massive hole in the debate overall about this, or am I missing something?
Death or hospitalisation is not the only outcome, Long Covid had potentially far reaching effects. Not enough is being made of this by the media , Labour and other parties imo.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Yes, people who test positive on a lateral flow test are supposed to get a PCR test.
This is one of the reasons I've been ignoring the stories about kids finding ways to generate positive lateral flow tests.
The other reasons are that its a story that people who seek to deny this wave will seize upon. And that we have plenty of evidence via other forms of testing, sewage monitoring results shared by Scotland, rising hospitalisations etc that demonstrate the very real nature of this wave.
On a couple of levels it would actually be hilarious if youngsters had subverted the lateral flow testing system in this way. It would serve government right for treating the needs of children so poorly in this pandemic, and for trying to use lateral flow tests in inappropriate ways.
Anyway it was notable yesterday that the governments plans to remove the self-isolation rule for contacts of positive cases was a straightforward dropping of those rules, rather than replacing self-isolation with regular testing (as trialled by the likes of Gove as an alternative to him having to self-isolate recently).
Exactly.
As an aside most kids I know or hear about from other people even the ones that normally hate school seem pretty keen to go rather than be stuck at home again.
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
There's not a lot in it, TBF, Wales ahead, Scotland & England neck-and-neck, NI behind, therefore the UK figures matches the figures for England.
andysays
Love and solidarity
"the peak" is not some abstract thing that just happens independently of what measures are taken.
Taking the wrong measures, which it appears we're doing yet again, will allow numbers to keep rising so that the peak is higher and happens later than it might otherwise have, had better measures been taken.
Oh, that's new! Thanks. Last time I checked, admittedly a couple of weeks ago, it was very different.
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
The more young people that are vaccinated the less virus circulates, not only helping the NHS, but also offering a modicum of protection for the vulnerable. Early on in the crisis, the cranks were proposing 'let it rip but protect the vulnerable'. This time we are going with let it rip without protection for the vulnerable (particularly the end of social distancing). It isn't just a case of when it happens. This is Dunkirk, but without the flotilla of small ships even if, making the analogy yet more torturous, most of the troops stuck on the beach have improved body armour.
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
Yep, every bit of governmental body language, every sly 'nudge', is pushing people in this direction.
Storm Fox
Trying the find the next noun to verb
While allowing the enemy to test which weapons best defeat the improved body armour.
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
I guess this is positive, and could keep this wave under some sort of control.
www.independent.co.uk
UK ‘very close to herd immunity’ as Covid antibodies estimated in 90% of adults
Public Health England expert says country ‘very close’ to reaching critical level of protection
www.independent.co.uk
Cat Fan
Cats and stats
Some studies have said 10%. But vaccines might reduce down the proportion.
Still, if most of the 100k are unvaccinated it's a huge impact.
elbows
Well-Known Member
Well one of the big problems is that some of the most sensible options are destroyed by past mistakes.
For example it is entirely understandable for people to conclude, when watching Delta spread around the world, that it would not have been possible for the UK to entirely keep this variant out.
However I consider it to have been an entirely realistic option that we could have really significantly reduced the amount of seeding of that variant here. And that would have made a difference to timing.
Via a combination of measures we could have bought more time, so that the explosion of cases would not have happened well before the schools finished for summer. That would have given us a bit more wiggle room, and a different proportion of the population having had 2 doses by the time the shit was trying to hit the fan.
Whichever way the government twist and turn, premature freedom days are incompatible with basic pandemic reality. Until we see what the peak will be like in this wave, we cannot fully judge quite how catastrophic this latest attempt will be. But we can already judge that its the worst of all worlds in some ways, because the disruption makes a mockery of those who were expecting normality, with a load of hospitalisations, long covid etc on top.
The whole 'if not now then the winter, and that will be worse' is a silly way to frame things. There is a rationale to it, but its one that features unknowns. We dont actually know if population immunity thresholds will be reached, or how well they will hold up against future variants. When this current wave peaks we probably wont be able to be sure that its down to population immunity alone, eg by then it could also be attributed to disruption due to self-isolation and people changing their behaviour in the face of stunning levels of infection, schools being off for the summer etc.
I also look back and like to think about how a broadly similar approach to the one the UK has taken could have happened but with very different framing. eg instead of bullshitting about a permanent freedom round the next corner, we could have framed things more honestly. The reality has involved periods of strong measures and periods of relative relaxation. They could have been honest about giving us periods of relaxed rules for us to recharge our batteries, without claiming that these periods would last beyond a few months.
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Cat Fan
Cats and stats
True, but a lot depends on whether those antibodies are effective against the Delta variant or not.I guess this is positive, and could keep this wave under some sort of control.
UK ‘very close to herd immunity’ as Covid antibodies estimated in 90% of adults
Public Health England expert says country ‘very close’ to reaching critical level of protection
elbows
Well-Known Member
I usually water down such figures a bit to account for the fact they dont include people under 16 or care home residents.
If this wave peaks sooner than plenty of people are expecting then this may be why, although other possible contributions include stuff I mentioned in previous post, eg all the disruption and self-isolation and behavioural changes in response to this wave.
This is also an area where Delta has changed the equations - perhaps we already have levels of protection that would have been enough to make a wave of Alpha cases quite modest and slightly more akin to 'a ripple' like the foolish Tim Spector suggested this wave would be some time ago.
The level of positive cases that Scotland has reached did not give cause for optimism on this and other fronts. But if Scotlands numbers dont keep going up, and show signs of coming down soon, some optimism may yet be salvaged.
Personally I'm very much hedging my bets, which is why I have no prediction for when or at what levels we will peak at in this wave.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
I don't think people who want 'freedom' at any cost are as big a constituency as the government seems to believe. They generally take the covers of the papers as a proxy for the public mood and I think the likes of the mail, with their endless whinging headlines about when can we go on holiday, are some distance away from what people are actually concerned about.
elbows
Well-Known Member
One of the downsides to the sense that herd immunity might be just around the next corner is that it encourages the authorities to hold their nerve and let cases etc go well past the levels where they blinked and imposed lockdowns etc in previous waves.
When I say that the government may 'get away with' the current approach, this sort of thing is why, if it turns out that we do reach a point where a peak is induced due to the virus not finding enough susceptible individuals to sustain its exponential growth.
Certainly without the level of immunity granted by vaccines and prior infections so far, I think its reasonable to say that we'd already have reached breaking point in this wave, as far as hospitalisations go. Every time I do a graph these days I see the effects of vaccines showing up, usually in the form of bigger gaps between different age groups numbers than seen in previous waves. But some of these gaps may shrink a little as the levels of infection and hospitalisation rise overall. And bigger gaps between them doesnt mean cases arent still rising exponentially in all groups, so far they still are.
When I say that the government may 'get away with' the current approach, this sort of thing is why, if it turns out that we do reach a point where a peak is induced due to the virus not finding enough susceptible individuals to sustain its exponential growth.
Certainly without the level of immunity granted by vaccines and prior infections so far, I think its reasonable to say that we'd already have reached breaking point in this wave, as far as hospitalisations go. Every time I do a graph these days I see the effects of vaccines showing up, usually in the form of bigger gaps between different age groups numbers than seen in previous waves. But some of these gaps may shrink a little as the levels of infection and hospitalisation rise overall. And bigger gaps between them doesnt mean cases arent still rising exponentially in all groups, so far they still are.
teuchter
je suis teuchter
It's very hard to get a handle on 'long covid' and its prevalence. There's no agreement on how to define it.
I think this is quite a good article.
unherd.com
I think this is quite a good article.
Does Long Covid really exist?
Patients with debilitating symptoms are being treated like political pawns
unherd.com
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