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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

It says 'assuming' in the title of the graph. They're 'assuming' you can read.

Yes, no one extends such an assumption to absurdity unless they're being absurd. (Or rather, no one picks such a graph out of a lengthy document and cites it as a motive for urgent action unless they're being disingenuous.)
 
Yes, no one extends such an assumption to absurdity unless they're being absurd. (Or rather, no one picks such a graph out of a lengthy document and cites it as a motive for urgent action unless they're being disingenuous.)

They're extrapolating less than a month into the future. Considering how long it takes for any controls to show up in the infection rate, that doesn't seem unreasonable.
 
They're extrapolating less than a month into the future. Considering how long it takes for any controls to show up in the infection rate, that doesn't seem unreasonable.

If they extrapolated another two weeks there would be 64,000,000 infections. Im not sure why 2hats think that graph is the most useful one to quote here.
 
Yes, no one extends such an assumption to absurdity unless they're being absurd. (Or rather, no one picks such a graph out of a lengthy document and cites it as a motive for urgent action unless they're being disingenuous.)
It's a projection of what would happen if cases continue to rise at the current rate, in support of the suggestion that urgent action should be taken to reduce transmission and ensure that cases don't continue to rise at the current rate.

And you've got some front accusing anyone else of being disingenuous, you disingenuous prick
 
The almost complete lack of direction from depiffle makes me wonder if the callous barstweard is actually back on the "let it rip" mode [at the behest of those who worship money & profit].
I mean by that - Planning that everybody gets it, even the vaccinated, and hope that form of hybrid herd immunity provides enough reduction in spread and severity that the NHS survives the overload until the new year or whenever.
And the devil can take the hindmost, especially those whose immune system can't cope. Admittedly, the death toll should not as high as before vaccinations, but still far, far too many [and from other causes, not just covid.

In reality, chrimble festivities & associated social mixing is going to infect a massive segment of the population with omicron & subsequently kill a lot of people.
Because enough [ie vast majority] people are not going to volunteer to be sensible, are they ?

My local area has 91.6, 85.8 and 48.7 % for the various jags, and the case rate 5 days ago was 243.4 / 100,000 and rising.
Despite these appearing to be good signs ie all better that the county and national rates, I am still very worried.
 
It's a projection of what would happen if cases continue to rise at the current rate, in support of the suggestion that urgent action should be taken to reduce transmission and ensure that cases don't continue to rise at the current rate.

It supports nothing of the sort. You could have drawn a similar graph for any doubling time up to a million cases a day e.g. for alpha or delta, and it wouldn’t support anything other than the fact you can draw a line.
 
It supports nothing of the sort. You could have drawn a similar graph for any doubling time up to a million cases a day e.g. for alpha or delta, and it wouldn’t support anything other than the fact you can draw a line.

Its a government dummies guide to exponential growth and low doubling times. There are good reasons why it was deemed necessary to provide an illustration of the timing of measures required to stop the numbers reaching levels that break the NHS quickly.

It is well known that the totals involved dont actually end up going beyond a certain, still very high level, because there is more than one way to break an egg - namely population fear and informal 'take matters into our own hands' responses, and massive disruption to number of contacts between people due to self-isolation etc, end up acting as an equivalent to lockdown if no formal lockdown is declared. And even if that didnt happen, ultimately at some stage the number of susceptible people is insufficient for the virus to maintain exponential growth. However, if the objective of authorities is to avoid levels of hospitalisation that break the system, and to have some pro-active control over the number of cases, they feel compelled to act in more formal ways long before such points are clearly demonstrated to have been reached.

Sturgeon made a strongly related point in her press conference yesterday - some combination of the above cannot be avoided by trying to ignore the pandemic or the need for authorities to take action. Because if you try to ignore it, all you get instead is a messy, uncontrolled version where the authorities have abdicated their responsibilities, and the disruption happens in a chaotic, informal manner with few reassurances about what horrible level of hospitalisation will be reached in the meantime. Those are my words not hers, but making broadly the same point.

I dont think the authorities can take the risk of ignoring what even shithead Johnson called the remorseless logic of exponential growth. Especially when they are only going to discover the true hospitalisation ratio of this version of the virus, with this level of population vaccination, via the real world data that will emerge at the same time (well, slightly lagged) as the wave emerges. Because unless that ratio ends up being wonderful, by the time you discover the ratio its too late to have the required degree of influence over the number of infections that will be required if the ratio turns out to be too similar to the ratio seen in past waves.
 
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And given the number of avoidable deaths that happened due to terrible errors of perception and timing made as the first wave started growing, its exactly the sort of material the agency with responsibility for health security should produce.

Likewise the thing leaked to the Guardian:

Screenshot 2021-12-11 at 11.27.jpg

 
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The UK's in the Shite already, isn't it ?

Fuck their "save chrimble" rhetoric - how about saving lives ?
There's almost zero wriggle room in those projections.
And I don't think vaccines can carry the burden alone ...
 
They arent projections so the real extent of wiggle room is unknown. But yes this does still mean that as far as making timely decisions goes, there is no sensible decision-makers wiggle room. But there is room in the picture of what will actually turn out to happen, ie I dont have a completely fixed set of expectations as to how bad this wave will be in terms of hospitalisations and deaths, whatever the timing of formal actions taken. And there isnt much doubt that large shifts in population behaviour are now underway, although I am in no way claiming that these are universal.
 
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Not sad because of potentially more restrictions, but at the numbers.

Where I am, our 12+ vaccination rates are 62.5%/56.3% against a UK average of 89%/81.2%. (There don't seem to be numbers for the booster.)


Those kind of numbers are not unusual in London. And yet on the bus yesterday, half the people still weren't wearing masks. 😡
 
Not sad because of potentially more restrictions, but at the numbers.

Where I am, our 12+ vaccination rates are 62.5%/56.3% against a UK average of 89%/81.2%. (There don't seem to be numbers for the booster.)


Those kind of numbers are not unusual in London. And yet on the bus yesterday, half the people still weren't wearing masks. 😡

The level of mask compliance on public transport is pretty shocking in Scotland too. Buses are generally fine, but level of compliance on trains is awful, even when they are really busy.
 
The level of mask compliance on public transport is pretty shocking in Scotland too. Buses are generally fine, but level of compliance on trains is awful, even when they are really busy.
I haven't been on a train for a few months but last time (July) I observed a lot of people taking their mask off to eat or drink and then just not bothering to put it back on. I've been on buses and the Edinburgh tram very recently and compliance has been pretty good on both of those. I guess you're more likely to eat on a longer train journey.
 
I haven't been on a train for a few months but last time (July) I observed a lot of people taking their mask off to eat or drink and then just not bothering to put it back on. I've been on buses and the Edinburgh tram very recently and compliance has been pretty good on both of those. I guess you're more likely to eat on a longer train journey.

I only get the (party) train from Ayr to Glasgow, so an hour at most. You're not allowed to drink booze on the train at the moment, much to my incovenience, but plenty of people continue to do so, resulting in even less mask wearing. I don't really blame the ticket inspectors for not getting involved - I've seen/heard of enough fights on trains!
 
Covid has proven I’m rubbish at making predictions.

I’m going to bet on ‘stringent measures’ rather than lockdown though.
I suppose I'll bet on something further in the coming week.

I dont think they will want to have to change the rules as stupidly close to Christmas as they ended up doing last time, but that could still happen again too. But maybe they will be a bit earlier this time, especially if the doubling time doesnt seem to be increasing.
 
The level of mask compliance on public transport is pretty shocking in Scotland too. Buses are generally fine, but level of compliance on trains is awful, even when they are really busy.

I was in ASDA (for the first time in a year, and for the same reason) yesterday, nearly half half had no masks, including a lot of the staff.
 
You are looking at a long history of data look at the last section covering the period in question, its fucking flat

As for Gps, I can of course only speak as I find.They were advised to give face to face consultations months ago my lot are still in hiding, I've had some serious problems last spring and all I got was a couple of phone calls, a mis-diagnosis after sending some pictures and ultimately an entirely avoidable trip to hospital for 10 days, ill slag em off as much as I want if thats allright with you.
What troubles me the most about this is your insistence that "GPs were told to resume face to face consultations".

As has already been pointed out, GP services were on their knees before the pandemic, and the people ordering them around are doing this in full knowledge of that fact - these are political decisions, aimed to please the unthinking masses, not the complex risk-based decisions they should be. GPs, remember, are far more at risk than the general population, given that they are much more likely to encounter someone with Covid in the line of their work, and a GP succumbing to illness has a knock-on effect within the service, so they've got every reason to be extra-cautious about exposing themselves to risk.

I do think that it is inevitable that more will go wrong during a time such as this, simply because of the sheer workload it imposes, meaning that the chance of something important being missed is rather greater. But it is not reasonable - or accurate - to lay that at the door of the medical profession. To be fair, it can't all be laid at the door of the government, although there is a great deal they could have done a lot better.

Simply because your own personal views happen to align with those being trumped up against the medical profession in general, you should be careful not to inadvertently further their agenda by adding fuel to their bonfires.
 
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