Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[elbows]

Apart from Test and Trace being a collossal waste of money and a near abject failure.
With the Omicron variant now sweeping the country unabated, is there work of any real use? I'm not sure there is anymore. Disband it and save the money.

In my book it was only considered a total failure because there was massive overselling of how much could be expected from contact tracing in the first place. More can be expected of it if it is combined with a wide range of policies that actually attemtp to suppress outbreaks and keep overall number of infections as low as possible.

But there is another version of success from such systems which this country has actually made heavy use of. When a million people are told to self-isolate in a week, that does have an effect on levels of viral prevelance, it ends up acting like a sort of mini, targeted lockdown. And that stuff does affect the size of the peak. People can look at rates such as 1 in 20 of the population being infected at the same time as a failure if they want, but its still a better outcome than 1 in 10 or 1 in 5 being infected.

 

[gentlegreen]

The recent Omicron wave tells naive me, that for all the testing and tracing, there are millions who either cannot or will not comply with basic mitigation strategies - and maybe a lot of younger people deliberately "getting it over with" ...

 

[elbows]

The recent Omicron wave tells naive me, that for all the testing and tracing, there are millions who either cannot or will not comply with basic mitigation strategies - and maybe a lot of younger people deliberately "getting it over with" ...

You'd need to see the same variant in a completely unmitigated wave in order to really judge.

People were not asked to mitigate as much this time, vaccines are still asked to carry the bulk of the weight, and compliance has always varied by age and circumstance.

 

[elbows]

 

[gentlegreen]

John Campbell made a video about this

Here's his video on the topic deconstructed so you don't have to watch it on his channel ... :-

Spoiler: youtube video

 

[SpookyFrank]

Probably better if they took this stuff straight to the banks they work for and said, 'look there's a public health emergency, maybe stop fucking working folk over for a week or two'.

 

[teuchter]

Probably better if they took this stuff straight to the banks they work for and said, 'look there's a public health emergency, maybe stop fucking working folk over for a week or two'.

That would definitely work. They should definitely do this. I wonder why they haven't.

 

[SpookyFrank]

That would definitely work. They should definitely do this. I wonder why they haven't.

Because they like money more than they give a shit about public health.

 

[kabbes]

Because they like money more than they give a shit about public health.

I mean, the first point I would make is that very very few of them work for banks. It’s not the most important point, but it is the first of them.

 

[teuchter]

We should have an "actuaries are awful" thread where everyone can blame actuaries for various things and explain why they are terrible people, and a few posters can defend them probably only to be contrarian. It would take inspiration from the brewdog and libdems threads.

 

[wemakeyousoundb]

We should have an "actuaries are awful" thread where everyone can blame actuaries for various things and explain why they are terrible people, and a few posters can defend them probably only to be contrarian. It would take inspiration from the brewdog and libdems threads.

which begs the question
do Brewdog use libdems actuaries?

 

[teuchter]

Tim Spector on the radio this morning saying he feels less optimistic than a couple of weeks ago ... case numbers no longer falling rapidly and their app picking up an uptick in children which might then move through the age groups.

Omicron falling fast, but new uptick detected in children

According to ZOE COVID Study incidence figures, in total there are currently 144,527 new daily symptomatic cases of COVID in the UK on average, based on PCR and LF test data from up to three days ago.

covid.joinzoe.com

 

[Cloo]

It sounds to me like falling adult cases have been compensating for rising 5-18yo ones in overall figures , but I'm assuming there's a point where that stops being the case , or at best infections 'stabilise' at a high level. Omicron had only just got going when kids were off for two weeks, so it was pretty obviously going to ramp up this month in that cohort.

 

[wtfftw]

and we've failed to vaccinate the under 12s

 

[zahir]

 

[StoneRoad]

So, is this really the right time to relax even the weak "Plan B" ???

I don't think it is, not yet.

 

[gentlegreen]

Why do we think the children are so out of step ?

 

[existentialist]

Why do we think the children are so out of step ?

The mitigation rules in schools have been so weak and ineptly established that rampant infection is a given. Added to which, a lot of (especially younger) children will not have been vaccinated.

 

[Wilf]

I just did my first face to face lecture in nearly 2 years (mixture of lockdown and being off sick). Then University still advises masks to be worn in communal areas and, in my school, in class. However this has become pretty much a joke as the government itself bins the regulations. Result: about 40 students, one wearing a mask.

 

[elbows]

The mitigation rules in schools have been so weak and ineptly established that rampant infection is a given. Added to which, a lot of (especially younger) children will not have been vaccinated.

Ans there was a school holiday which postponed further rises for a brief period.

 

[gentlegreen]

The mitigation rules in schools have been so weak and ineptly established that rampant infection is a given. Added to which, a lot of (especially younger) children will not have been vaccinated.

What I mean is I always assumed the elephant in the room was children, so why were they not leading or at least in sync ... given children don't live in isolation ..

 

[elbows]

Johnsons mask removal etc politically driven timing really sucks. I'll post various positive cases per day in England per age group graphs today. I've set the graphs to go back as far as the Delta wave.I wont post every single age group but with try to capture all the main trends.

As usual these are by specimen date so the most recent days of data are incomplete and will grow further.

First the youngest age groups:

 

[elbows]

Although I mentioned Johnson, obviously the other nations have also deemed this period as a suitable moment to relax certain measures too. I expect this is the usual combination of relaxing after a clear peak, and having more confidence about how cases will translate to hospitalisations with Omicron. It could still backfire in future, but perhaps ina. way not dissimilar to Delta where its the slower, grinding pressure on health services which is an issue. It isnt clear to me what level of infections they consider tolerable for long periods of time, probably rather a lot.

Here is the next set of age groups, where as with the last wave they were responsible for plenty of cases and saw some dramatic falls. But some of the current levels of infection are still not all that far off the peaks seen in the Delta wave in these age groups, and clearly the trends are starting to change recently.

 

[SpookyFrank]

So, is this really the right time to relax even the weak "Plan B" ???

I don't think it is, not yet.

Time to force schools to get rid of masks.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Tests for people entering the U.K. to be scrapped from next Monday, apparently.

 

[elbows]

At least Openshaw and NERVTAG arent going along with optimism about the future evolution of the virus that doesnt seem to be grounded in fact or a high degree of genuine scientific confidence.

More now on advice from scientists that we shouldn't drop our guard against Covid just yet.

Professor Peter Openshaw, a member of the New and Emerging Respiratory Virus Threats Advisory Group, says it’s not certain Covid will become less severe over time.

The professor of experimental medicine at Imperial College London tells BBC Radio 4's Today programme that after many discussions the group has “no way of concluding that viruses have to become less severe over time.”

He says the next Covid variant “could be more severe” adding "there's no rule about this."

Openshaw also says reinfections - where somebody tests positive again after a previous bout of Covid - are increasing and warns “we still have to take this disease very, very seriously".

From the 12:44 entry of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-60108374

 

[elbows]

Time to force schools to get rid of masks.

I note that Zahawi said no when asked about sanctioning headteachers, but obviously I wouldnt trust the tories not to try to achieve the same result by slightly different means. But maybe they are just posturing and wont actually stop the sensible decisions some schools are still taking.

More now on the government’s decision to remove guidelines for pupils to wear face masks in secondary school classrooms in England.

Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi tells BBC Breakfast he believes it is the "right decision".

The minister says wearing masks in classrooms “causes a communication challenge and a learning challenge”.

Asked if there will be any sanctions for headteachers who continue to mandate mask-wearing in classrooms, he replies: "no” and says he “will work with headteachers to support them".

From 9:21 of the BBC live updates page https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-60108374

 

[elbows]

Concluding my graphs for now:

In a few age groups we may be seeing more obvious signs of spread from the youngest age groups:



Further up the age groups the trends and levels have been a bit more hopeful up to this point:



In the very highest age groups we see a somewhat different pattern. This may be due to more people in these age groups being picked up via hospital and car home testing rather than community testing, and also potentially due to more of these cases being driven by hospital and care home outbreaks, the timing of which may be a bit different to the wider community:

 

[kabbes]

At the kabbess’ university, they have been requested to not wear masks during lectures. Something that horrifies her and, I suspect, the lecturers too.

 

[existentialist]

What I mean is I always assumed the elephant in the room was children, so why were they not leading or at least in sync ... given children don't live in isolation ..

Give it time...I think that's starting to happen. As others have said, there will have been a lag between kids resuming school and rates going up.