Agent Sparrow
the age of slippers and migraines
How long have you been on urban/the internet?
Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion
- Thread starter Sasaferrato
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brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
Primarily because that's incorrect.
In the latest UK data sets available, deaths from influenza run at just under 4 per day, whereas the last week's official Covid death toll is 122 per day.
elbows
Well-Known Member
People sometimes visibly change their views about highly specific details, but its pretty rare to see people changing their overall stance before our very eyes.
What happened in the first wave, and what measures were required to deal with it, were a big shock for people and that did shift a lot of attitudes rather quickly. It was a rude awakening for sure. But various instincts and priorities havent gone away, and given the chance and an evolving picture, many clearly want to return to their pre-pandemic comfort zones with only some minor lessons learnt.
Also keep in mind the timing of the current heated discussions. Thats just the way it goes during the up phase of a big pandemic wave. More people feel the need to state their views, their hopes, their fears, their disgust of the consequences of inaction, or their perceptions that some overreact to the threat, and their eagerness to avoid further big restrictions. And there are many more uncertainties this time around, and people remember how horrible the lockdown last winter made them feel, how hard it was to cope with compared to the first one. And people have been sold certain ideas about how much pandemic weight vaccines can reasonably be expected to carry on their own.
Personally I refuse to abondon precautionary principals until it is clearly demonstrated that the acute phase of this pandemic is over. If part of the pandemic exit transition involves a very large wave but with a much lower quantity of health consequences, then I will inevitably be accused of having overreacted to that wave. So be it, I'd rather be mostly on the right page during the bulk of the pandemic and then wrong at the end of it, than wrong all the way through till the final wave finally allowed my attitude to be compatible with reality. And when it comes to how much weight vaccines can carry on their own, clearly even the current government knows there are some limits, which is why even they went as far as to switch on 'plan B' for England and are further fiddling with the rules for January, eg masks in classrooms for secondary schools.
Chilli.s
mingling jets and statuettes
This is rubbish
prunus
Tick tock.
In short, no.
In slightly longer, it’s encouraging that the most successful* so far variant seems to be less pathogenic - every step up in transmissibility reduces the number of possible alternative variants that can invade the dominant variant. There may be a possible one that’s slightly less transmissible than omicron but that’s 10x more deadly - that one is now basically out of the picture as a possible variant (if it arises now it probably** won’t be able to spread).
* It seems to be outcompeting delta, which implies that although delta immunity to omicron infection is weak, the reverse is probably not the case, thank goodness. Although really need to see the picture in a highly unvaccinated population to be sure.
** depending of course on whether it has immune escape from omicron- and other prior-variant derived immunity.
bimble
floofy
Thanks, i understand some of that, but not the bits about reinfection. If having had vanilla covid doesn't protect you in any long term way from having delta /omicron why would having omicron protect you from having whichever future version? It is all pretty complicated.
Nah sorry this is just idiotic.
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
And, of course, there is a potential competitive advantage to a variant which infects people readily AND tends to allow them to carry on for much longer without having to take to their bed, etc.
I'll bet someone's written a paper on the "perfect" viral infection - highly transmissible, minimally symptomatic, minimally restricting of the activities of its host. And I imagine it's probably some kind of cold virus. So. perhaps, there's an evolutionary pressure on viruses to select for those characteristics. #notafuckingvirologist #notadvocatinglaissezfaire
existentialist
Tired and unemotional
So far as I understand how immunity works, prior infections can INCREASE your immune system's ability to detect and respond to related variants. The operative terms there are "can" and "increase". It's always a mistake to think of anything in this context (eg "does/doesn't protect you") in such binary terms. And, of course, there is the important factor - one that our current government appears to be incapable of grasping - that it's not about individual protection, so much as providing a less facilitative environment for the virus(es) to rip through the population.
Mation
real life adventure worth more than pieces of gold
What does 'doom-mongering' mean?
I'd have thought it would be predicting inexorably terrible outcomes, rather than judging that it's possible to do more to prevent things from becoming worse, or that it's too early to say how things will turn out, based on current data.
I think there will be some amount of covid death and illness we'll have to live with, but don't think we've done nearly enough yet to minimise it.
I'd have thought it would be predicting inexorably terrible outcomes, rather than judging that it's possible to do more to prevent things from becoming worse, or that it's too early to say how things will turn out, based on current data.
It sounds like the end you see involves individuals doing what they can to prevent spread and minimise risk, and that, after that, there will be some remaining amount of death or illness that we'll just have to live with, because we've done what we can. Have I misread you?
I think there will be some amount of covid death and illness we'll have to live with, but don't think we've done nearly enough yet to minimise it.
weltweit
Well-Known Member
I think the world has to bite the bullet and vaccinate everybody, with up to date vaccines. Variants are produced mainly in infected populations, if we don't vaccinate everyone there will be more variants and next time or the time after we might not be as lucky as we have so far been with Omicron.
Steel Icarus
we move
Fewer
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
I thought those figures seemed very low, compared to those wildly reported, you do need to include deaths "due to influenza and pneumonia", as flu is a very common cause of pneumonia, and cases of pneumonia caused by flu tend to be more severe and deadly.
SpookyFrank
A cheap source of teeth for aquarium gravel
andysays
Love and solidarity
It's OK everyone, the government have made another announcement about testing
No word on where all these new test kits are going to magically appear from, but I'm sure it's all under control.
Covid: English secondary pupils to be tested before starting term
No word on where all these new test kits are going to magically appear from, but I'm sure it's all under control.
Omicron exposes a fundamental fault line between individualism and collectivism that little bit more than delta did. The more a disease has very high transmissibility and very low (serious) morbidity/mortality, the more an individual can reasonably feel that they personally have little to gain from prophylactic measures, even though society as a whole still needs them.
At the extreme, imagine a virus that can transmit just by looking somebody in the eye and whose immunity period only lasts for weeks post-recovery, but whose serious illness/death rate is incredibly low (say 1-in-100 million, or whatever it takes to make the maths work). People can only protect themselves by completely isolating forever, but an individual’s value in doing so is negligible — every time they leave the house to walk to work, their personal risk is likely higher from the traffic than from the disease. Meanwhile, the isolation is devastating. And yet, this disease still has the potential to overwhelm the health services.
Omicron is a long way off that thought experiment, but it’s a step closer to it than Delta was, which means more individuals might reasonably conclude that their personal risk balance has fallen on the side of carrying on with life. This is why community health measures can’t be left to individual choice. If we need to prevent transmission for the sake of overall community protection, it has to be a community-level actor making the decision what to do.
At the extreme, imagine a virus that can transmit just by looking somebody in the eye and whose immunity period only lasts for weeks post-recovery, but whose serious illness/death rate is incredibly low (say 1-in-100 million, or whatever it takes to make the maths work). People can only protect themselves by completely isolating forever, but an individual’s value in doing so is negligible — every time they leave the house to walk to work, their personal risk is likely higher from the traffic than from the disease. Meanwhile, the isolation is devastating. And yet, this disease still has the potential to overwhelm the health services.
Omicron is a long way off that thought experiment, but it’s a step closer to it than Delta was, which means more individuals might reasonably conclude that their personal risk balance has fallen on the side of carrying on with life. This is why community health measures can’t be left to individual choice. If we need to prevent transmission for the sake of overall community protection, it has to be a community-level actor making the decision what to do.
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cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
Interesting interview with the head of NHS Providers on BBC News, saying the data suggests cases in London peaked before Christmas, and that now seems to be filtering into the levelling off of both staff sickness and admissions across London hospitals, with the caveat that it's too early to know how the mixing over Christmas & New Year will play out, but the hope is that it was a fast climb to an early peak, followed by a fast drop off after that peak.
So, I guess that's the hope of the government, that it will follow what happened in South Africa, so fingers crossed that their gamble could well pay off, personally I'll continue to be concerned for a while yet.
So, I guess that's the hope of the government, that it will follow what happened in South Africa, so fingers crossed that their gamble could well pay off, personally I'll continue to be concerned for a while yet.
I think I'd wait to see what happens when the kids go back to school.
_Russ_
Never not Knowingly Misunderstood
..and not forgetting there are bits of the UK outside the M25, Wales for instance is perhaps a week and a half maybe 2 weeks behind London so the christmas bulge with be at a time when we are stifl on a rapid upwards trajectory so might not showw up distinctly
Steel Icarus
we move
I've been trying to put my finger on this concept for a while (for myself, really, not to post here) so thank you for doing so so articulately.
elbows
Well-Known Member
For me the story of Londons positive case figures so far is a story that must be told by age groups.
Whats happened so far is that the 'early peak spotters' who thought there were signs of a peak around the 15th December in Londons figures had in fact spotted something real happening, but it was somewhat more complex than that. The number of positives being detected had reached a point where the numbers were no longer shooting up rapidly in a key age group that usually contributes massively to the overall number of cases. And a peak was seen in some of those age groups. But in some other age groups where there have been bigger implications for hospitalisation figures in past waves, the numbers in the London region kept growing well past that date, and still havent necessarily stopped growing yet. Availability of testing is another issue I cannot determine the impact of in this data.
There are 19 age groups and in the past on another thread I did post graphs of them all for the London region. Today I have simplified this into 4 larger age groups instead.
And as usual these graphs show cases by test specimen date, so the most recent days of data are as yet incomplete.
Also note that the y axis scales are different for each of those age groups.
The above translates into the following when it comes to overall number of positive cases detected in the London region:
So I think its reasonable to talk about an overall plateau in London that started well before Christmas. But I'm not willing to make many claims about what will happen next, partly due to Christmas effects on testing, and the age group positives data and hospitalisation data becomes very important to look at. And unlike a year ago, this time schools are set to return, further complicating my expectations.
In regards hospital data for England and its regions, a change of mind seems to have happened over the Christmas period. There was going to be 3 days without data over Christmas instead of the usual 2 day weekend non-publication. But in the end they published on the 3rd day, so it was just the normal weekend break. And then this last weekend it looks like they got rid of the weekend data pause altogether and went back to how things were earlier in the pandemic, with hospital data published every single day. But a handful of trusts didnt file their data on those days, and weekend data usually tended to be of more variable quality, so I am tempted to wait a day or two longer before next producing graphs of those things.
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elbows
Well-Known Member
I suppose I'll post the daily hospital admissions/diagnoses for the London region as they currently stand anyway, to demonstrate why I cannot be sure whether the most recent few days of data reflects a real phenomenon or a data issue.
In a normal week the admissions data with the most accurate trend signals sometimes doesnt arrive till Wednesday. Maybe I have to allow an extra day this week to account for the bank holiday, I dont know. But I'll be unwilling to try to spot the difference between a real trend and the usual fluctuations in data for at least a few days yet. Well, thats my typical stance with hospital data when trying to establish genuine plateaus and downward trends, if things suddenly shoot up again then I can read something into that straight away. If we add the aforementioned positive case data into the mix then it is if course tempting to be expecting a plateau or fall in some of the admissions age groups, but sometimes the reality does not turn out quite as neatly as that, so I just have to wait and see.
Again this is for the London region, not the whole country.
In a normal week the admissions data with the most accurate trend signals sometimes doesnt arrive till Wednesday. Maybe I have to allow an extra day this week to account for the bank holiday, I dont know. But I'll be unwilling to try to spot the difference between a real trend and the usual fluctuations in data for at least a few days yet. Well, thats my typical stance with hospital data when trying to establish genuine plateaus and downward trends, if things suddenly shoot up again then I can read something into that straight away. If we add the aforementioned positive case data into the mix then it is if course tempting to be expecting a plateau or fall in some of the admissions age groups, but sometimes the reality does not turn out quite as neatly as that, so I just have to wait and see.
Again this is for the London region, not the whole country.
Interesting that Tim Spector is saying this on twitter:
W Covid cases in London now decreasing + UK slowing - it is great to see no real change in Covid deaths over last month. The health crisis is in danger of being driven by staff problems due to over- cautious isolation rules. Lets reduce this to 5 days!
W Covid cases in London now decreasing + UK slowing - it is great to see no real change in Covid deaths over last month. The health crisis is in danger of being driven by staff problems due to over- cautious isolation rules. Lets reduce this to 5 days!
elbows
Well-Known Member
Its a difficult judgement call. They already made one change to self-isolation rules and they will want to go further at some point. Its probably just a question of when, and any calculations about the risks of doing this with health care workers in particular, given that there are big concerns about hospital infections in the Omicron wave.
Massive understaffing will kill people, so the pressure to act will not be subtle in the coming days, thats for sure. But then again, if London already peaked in key working age groups at least, then the staff shortage pressures may ease soon in that region anyway. But there may still be a very awkward period where this stuff hasnt fully worked through the system yet, leaving staffing levels in a perilous state.
We are certainly much closer to the stage where if 'patients in mechanical ventilator beds' and deaths data doesnt show an increase fairly soon, some of the fears about this wave will diminish quite rapidly, and that will likely factor into this decision. Since London has been used as an early indicator of what is to come, I suppose I should pay more attention to the ventilation beds and deaths figures for the London region in particular.
Massive understaffing will kill people, so the pressure to act will not be subtle in the coming days, thats for sure. But then again, if London already peaked in key working age groups at least, then the staff shortage pressures may ease soon in that region anyway. But there may still be a very awkward period where this stuff hasnt fully worked through the system yet, leaving staffing levels in a perilous state.
We are certainly much closer to the stage where if 'patients in mechanical ventilator beds' and deaths data doesnt show an increase fairly soon, some of the fears about this wave will diminish quite rapidly, and that will likely factor into this decision. Since London has been used as an early indicator of what is to come, I suppose I should pay more attention to the ventilation beds and deaths figures for the London region in particular.
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