Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[wemakeyousoundb]

Anyone seen any reports of positive LFD and then negative PCR?

We got lines on Friday but just had negative PCR results. This is a surprise as we've had sneezes, bit of runny nose, diarrhoea, nausea, banging headache, scratchy throat. He's been sleeping. I've got my usual fatigue but also an heavy painful trunk. Slightly raised temp and sweats for me. ETA to add itchy eyes which we both remarked on but I've now also seen listed as a symptom


Although upon googling I've just seen that we no longer do a PCR after a LFD.

pretty sure that LFD are still for asymptomatic/no symptos situations
so PCR needed/justified if you have symptoms
also:
other viruses are currently available
hope you are Ok

 

[zahir]

Anyone seen any reports of positive LFD and then negative PCR?

My understanding is that when this happens it's quite likely that the lateral flow test was correct. If it's a few days between tests then maybe that explains the negative PCR anyway.

 

[teuchter]

Surely this is just showing that the NHS needs to be much better funded? What are such types suggesting? That people dying of COVID should be ignored by the NHS?

I dunno, yes they do seem to be saying that NHS capacity should be increased, although I might suspect that once the potential imposition of Covid related restrictions has passed they might lose interest in that project.

 

[Fruitloop]

Heard anecdotally that mech venitilation might be a particularly bad proxy for Omicron, because it has a lower affinity for the lungs and so ICUs are seeing very ill patients with d dimer scores off the chart but not requiring ventilation

 

[teuchter]

teuchter — I think the best way of thinking about it is that ordinary deaths in winter run at about 0.08% per month (i.e., I’m going to use that to extrapolate the likely “excess” deaths). Crudely, if we apply that to the number of people getting COVID, that tells us how many of those people we might expect to have ordinarily died anyway in a normal year. If it’s 100,000 per day getting COVID, for example, then that’s an exposure rate of about 3 million people per month, and about 2,400 of those people would ordinarily have likely died even without COVID. However, the current weekly average of deaths with COVID is actually 1660, which is about 3 times this normal rate, giving us about 5,000 excess deaths per month, or 160 per day.

So even by trying to statistically strip out the deaths that are somehow incidental to having COVID, we’re still left with a massive excess death rate right now. An excess that is surely unpalatable, which means it doesn’t massively matter what the “true” number is, it’s just something that needs handling.

For what it's worth here is what I'd do with these numbers.

0.08% x population of c60M = 48,000 deaths per month = 1600 deaths per day in a "normal winter".

Pre Omicron, say 1 in 100 people has Covid at any one time. That means that even if Covid didn't actually kill anyone, 16 people per day would die "with Covid" and be included in the numbers. But if official Covid numbers are running at 100 a day, and someone tries to argue that this is not the real number because of this "with Covid" issue, then I'd reject their argument because maybe actually only 84 people are dying "of" Covid, but so what, 100 or 84 is not a big difference. And also, assuming the background prevalence is staying very roughly around 1 in 100, then if the official numbers go up or down I'll take it as reasonably likely that the increase or decrease is "real". In fact even if the background prevalence doubled to 1 in 50, then it doesn't produce a massive shift in the recorded numbers (they "artificially" shift from about 100 to 115 or so).

However...say, in the Omicron era, 1 in 10 people has Covid at any one time. Then, even if Covid doesn't kill anyone, doing the same sums, 160 people per day die "with Covid". Now, if someone says to me that the official numbers indicate, say, 200 "with Covid" deaths per day, but 160 of these probably actually died of something else, I no longer feel I can say "so what" because now it's plausible that in fact a very large proportion of that 200 have in fact died of something else, and just happened to have Covid at the time.

At the moment we are looking at a 7-day average of about 235, up from an average of around 115 that was relatively stable through most of December.

If someone tries to tell me that those additional 120 deaths per day are mostly just an artefact of the greater background prevalence of Covid, then I find that difficult to write off entirely. It seems plausible to me that at least some of it can be explained this way.

The main way in which the argument would fall down of course is if the prevalance in the group of people who have died is a lot lower than it is in the general population. And if we assume that people dying tend to be in older age groups then yes, this is significant.

Looking at the graphs in the ONS survey that elbows linked to does suggest that prevalence ranges from about 2.5% in the over 80s, rising to about 5% once you get to 60 year olds.



So I guess that my conclusion would be that the increase we can see in the (28 days/with covid) death rate over the past couple of weeks is, plausibly, influenced by the large rise in background prevalance, but this probably doesn't account for all of it.

(If we re-do my sums in the first bit of this post assuming we are looking at prevalence in, say, over-70s instead of the general population, we could say that pre Omicron, incidental covid deaths might have been 5 per week, and post Omicron, 50 per week)

 

[Orang Utan]

A colleague has been told to come into work after 10 days self-isolation even though they’re still testing positive. They also got told not to tell anyone. That ain’t right, is it?

 

[editor]

A colleague has been told to come into work after 10 days self-isolation even though they’re still testing positive. They also got told not to tell anyone. That ain’t right, is it?

You got a union there?

 

[LDC]

A colleague has been told to come into work after 10 days self-isolation even though they’re still testing positive. They also got told not to tell anyone. That ain’t right, is it?

That's council place? Do you have a whistleblower person?

 

[Chilli.s]

A colleague has been told to come into work after 10 days self-isolation even though they’re still testing positive. They also got told not to tell anyone. That ain’t right, is it?

Leak that to the guardian or private eye

 

[StoneRoad]

A colleague has been told to come into work after 10 days self-isolation even though they’re still testing positive. They also got told not to tell anyone. That ain’t right, is it?

They should refuse on Health & Safety grounds, in particular, safeguarding their own health.
One can't work effectively when ill, leaving aside whether or not if their covid is still infectious.

& also: inform whichever Union(s) are applicable.

 

[killer b]

A colleague has been told to come into work after 10 days self-isolation even though they’re still testing positive. They also got told not to tell anyone. That ain’t right, is it?

It's right they are able to go into work even though they're still testing positive - they could test positive for weeks.

 

[zora]

Eh? Self-isolation ends after 10 days regardless of test result, no?
The bit where they say "not to tell anyone" sounds iffy, because it sounds like they don't understand the guidance and want to pull a fast one, but the principle of returning to work is in accordance with guidance.
(But of course, once again the more complex rules now - I.e. being able to "test yourself free" with negative LFTs on Day 6 and 7, is causing a lot of confusion, in this case people thinking they have to provide a negative result on Day 10).

 

[killer b]

The bit where they say "not to tell anyone" sounds iffy

Probably just wanting to avoid undue panic from colleagues who don't know what the rules are

 

[zora]

Yeah, but at the same time it seems to have created an air of scandal or hush up in itself.
Might be better to try and communicate the actual guidance to staff.

What I meant was that if there was anything dodgy about it, as several posters seemed to think, it would be that aspect, but not the fact that they told the staff member it's okay to come back.

 

[zora]

For anyone wondering:
Quote from article from 2 days ago (can't link to it on my phone right now, Cambridge News)
"So the answer is: you can leave self isolation after 10 days if you are still testing positive with a lateral flow. But ONLY if you don't have a high temperature, and you're not feeling unwell."

 

[killer b]

either way it's unlikely the guardian or private eye would be interested

 

[zora]

Well, indeed. I was puzzled by the number of posters who seemed to think this was a case for whistle-blowing or union involvement, and my response was to them.

 

[LDC]

Well, indeed. I was puzzled by the number of posters who seemed to think this was a case for whistle-blowing or union involvement, and my response was to them.

I slightly mis-read and assumed they were still ill as they'd been told not to tell anyone. Seems an odd thing to tell someone if it's all allowed.

 

[Orang Utan]

Eh? Self-isolation ends after 10 days regardless of test result, no?
The bit where they say "not to tell anyone" sounds iffy, because it sounds like they don't understand the guidance and want to pull a fast one, but the principle of returning to work is in accordance with guidance.
(But of course, once again the more complex rules now - I.e. being able to "test yourself free" with negative LFTs on Day 6 and 7, is causing a lot of confusion, in this case people thinking they have to provide a negative result on Day 10).

I looked on the Covid guidelines on self-isolation and it’s not very clear at all

 

[Orang Utan]

It doesn’t make sense - surely if they’re positive they should not be at work?

 

[LDC]

It doesn’t make sense - surely if they’re positive they should not be at work?

"You do not need to take any more LFD tests after the 10th day of your self-isolation period and you may stop self-isolating after this day. This is because you are unlikely to be infectious after the 10th day of your self-isolation period. Even if you have a positive LFD test result on the 10th day of your self-isolation period you do not need to take any more LFD tests after this day and you do not need a follow-up PCR test."

From:

[Withdrawn] [Withdrawn] Stay at home: guidance for households with possible or confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) infection

www.gov.uk

 

[elbows]

I think the BBC fucked up their reporting of the deaths figure yesterday.

Yesterdays daily deaths reported number was a larger one, mostly because of the weekend catchup but also because number of deaths has actually been rising.

However on the main BBC news bulletins they claimed this was because of a technical error causing underreporting in the late December period. This is incorrect - the technical problem was with ONS death cause codes, which affects the 'covid mentioned on death certificates' figures, which are not the same figures as the daily reported deaths figure at all. So the ONS figure for a particular period had to be corrected, not the daily number of deaths within 28 days of a positive test.

 

[Chilli.s]

For anyone wondering:
Quote from article from 2 days ago (can't link to it on my phone right now, Cambridge News)
"So the answer is: you can leave self isolation after 10 days if you are still testing positive with a lateral flow. But ONLY if you don't have a high temperature, and you're not feeling unwell."

Thanks for that, I misunderstood the rules

 

[Orang Utan]

"You do not need to take any more LFD tests after the 10th day of your self-isolation period and you may stop self-isolating after this day. This is because you are unlikely to be infectious after the 10th day of your self-isolation period. Even if you have a positive LFD test result on the 10th day of your self-isolation period you do not need to take any more LFD tests after this day and you do not need a follow-up PCR test."

From:

[Withdrawn] [Withdrawn] Stay at home: guidance for households with possible or confirmed coronavirus (COVID-19) infection

www.gov.uk

The search I did on that website did not take me to that page. No wonder people are confused!

 

[elbows]

I note that even the Triggle article on the peak makes mention of fears of a long, flat peak or for cases to drop very slowly.

But Prof Medley says there is still a risk of a long, flat peak or for infections and serious illness to drop very slowly. Last winter the lockdown halted the virus in its tracks and ensured a relatively quick descent from the peak.

This slow decline has - to some extent - been seen in South Africa, where the variant was first reported. There, cases have been dropping much more slowly after an initial big fall once they peaked.

Omicron: Has the winter wave peaked already?

Cases are falling and hospital admissions appear to be plateauing - has the UK weathered this wave?

www.bbc.co.uk

I dont have a prediction about that, its just one of those possibilities I have to keep an eye out for, especially without lockdowns etc this time, given what happened with the Delta wave.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

For what it's worth here is what I'd do with these numbers.

0.08% x population of c60M = 48,000 deaths per month = 1600 deaths per day in a "normal winter".

Pre Omicron, say 1 in 100 people has Covid at any one time. That means that even if Covid didn't actually kill anyone, 16 people per day would die "with Covid" and be included in the numbers. But if official Covid numbers are running at 100 a day, and someone tries to argue that this is not the real number because of this "with Covid" issue, then I'd reject their argument because maybe actually only 84 people are dying "of" Covid, but so what, 100 or 84 is not a big difference. And also, assuming the background prevalence is staying very roughly around 1 in 100, then if the official numbers go up or down I'll take it as reasonably likely that the increase or decrease is "real". In fact even if the background prevalence doubled to 1 in 50, then it doesn't produce a massive shift in the recorded numbers (they "artificially" shift from about 100 to 115 or so).

However...say, in the Omicron era, 1 in 10 people has Covid at any one time. Then, even if Covid doesn't kill anyone, doing the same sums, 160 people per day die "with Covid". Now, if someone says to me that the official numbers indicate, say, 200 "with Covid" deaths per day, but 160 of these probably actually died of something else, I no longer feel I can say "so what" because now it's plausible that in fact a very large proportion of that 200 have in fact died of something else, and just happened to have Covid at the time.

At the moment we are looking at a 7-day average of about 235, up from an average of around 115 that was relatively stable through most of December.

If someone tries to tell me that those additional 120 deaths per day are mostly just an artefact of the greater background prevalence of Covid, then I find that difficult to write off entirely. It seems plausible to me that at least some of it can be explained this way.

The main way in which the argument would fall down of course is if the prevalance in the group of people who have died is a lot lower than it is in the general population. And if we assume that people dying tend to be in older age groups then yes, this is significant.

Looking at the graphs in the ONS survey that elbows linked to does suggest that prevalence ranges from about 2.5% in the over 80s, rising to about 5% once you get to 60 year olds.

View attachment 305571

So I guess that my conclusion would be that the increase we can see in the (28 days/with covid) death rate over the past couple of weeks is, plausibly, influenced by the large rise in background prevalance, but this probably doesn't account for all of it.

(If we re-do my sums in the first bit of this post assuming we are looking at prevalence in, say, over-70s instead of the general population, we could say that pre Omicron, incidental covid deaths might have been 5 per week, and post Omicron, 50 per week)

Couple of things:

Prevalence in over-70s has only risen recently. As usual, the initial surge was among the young. Remember that death rates reflect infection rates 2-3 weeks ago, not right now.

The other thing muddying the waters is the number of delta deaths still occurring. I don't know if the figures for that are available. Thankfully delta does appear to have been knocked out by omicron now, but we won't be down to just omicron deaths for at least another couple of weeks.

Govt website shows infections in the over-60s in London now falling, which is encouraging in terms of getting any nasty shocks with deaths in the next couple of weeks. Looking wider at Denmark, Ireland and other places with huge omicron waves, they're all seeing a similar uptick in deaths from a low level but nothing big. Fwiw my prediction would be deaths rising a little more over the next week or so before falling back, possibly quite quickly.

ETA:

One final point, looking at South Africa (both official covid deaths and excess mortality), it is clear that omicron has killed a significant number of people. It just hasn't killed anywhere like as many people as previous strains. Excess excess deaths in SA from omicron so far are probably around 5-10,000 (it also has some excess deaths atm for other reasons to do with the fallout from the pandemic ). To put that in context, SA's excess deaths since March 2020 stand at nearly 300,000.

 

[teuchter]

Couple of things:

Prevalence in over-70s has only risen recently. As usual, the initial surge was among the young. Remember that death rates reflect infection rates 2-3 weeks ago, not right now.

That's true for people that die "of covid" now - they will correlate with infection rates 2-3 weeks ago.

But people who die "with Covid" now - they will correlate with infection rates now, not 2-3 weeks ago.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

That's true for people that die "of covid" now - they will correlate with infection rates 2-3 weeks ago.

But people who die "with Covid" now - they will correlate with infection rates now, not 2-3 weeks ago.

Yeah, and that's a decent way of telling roughly whether deaths are predominantly 'of' (including co-morbidities) or predominantly 'with'. If the deaths curve roughly mirrors the infection curve with a two-week lag, then we can say that it's mostly 'of'. Certainly the hospitalisation rate has followed the expected lag of about a week or so.

 

[elbows]

The other thing muddying the waters is the number of delta deaths still occurring. I don't know if the figures for that are available. Thankfully delta does appear to have been knocked out by omicron now, but we won't be down to just omicron deaths for at least another couple of weeks.

Yeah Im not sure as they are publishing much data on that any more - daily Omicron updates from UKHSA seemed to stop at the end of 2021, and whenever I saw these reports for Delta and then Omicron in the past, the figures for number of Delta deaths and number of Omicron deaths, hospitalisations and cases seemed like only a fraction of the full picture, I dont think they really lined up fully with the overall totals reported elsewhere.

In terms of number of infections from different variants, I note that at the moment the ONS population survey stuff is being published 2 days earlier than it used to be. Which means the latest version came out today. They mention that Delta variant compatible infections hae fallen to very low levels, but I havent yet checked what underlying data is available from them on this, I will.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey headline results, UK - Office for National Statistics

The latest data from the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection survey, containing high-level estimates for England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

www.ons.gov.uk

And there are uncertainties with the picture they present, such as:

• In England, the percentage of people testing positive has increased among age groups aged 50 years and over, however, infections remain lowest in those aged 70 years and over; in all other age groups, the percentage of people testing positive has increased over the most recent two weeks, but the trend is uncertain in the most recent week.

• COVID-19 infections continued to increase across all regions of England except the East of England, and London; the percentage of people testing positive has decreased in London in the most recent week and in the East of England, the trend is uncertain.

This report covers up tp the week ending January 6th.

 

[elbows]

I found the data relating to the variants from that report. But note the date it goes up to.

We also need to keep in mind that all the ONS population survey figures are applicable to households, not hospitals, care homes etc.



From Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey headline results, UK - Office for National Statistics