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Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

srb7677 said:
Can't be sure about that. Some people who have had it would never have known having been asymptomatic. This is especially true for many younger people.

Others who have had it have experienced symptoms identical to a cold, and with test kits no longer free for most people, many wouldn't have bothered testing.

And there has been a particular problem with test reliability with the omicron variant, because the tests often give false negative results.
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LFTs are very good at false negative, so they can only be relied on when they tell you that you are positive, hence the "probably not contagious" wording on the test report website.
sheothebudworths said:
www.theguardian.com

Is UK at start of new Covid wave driven by BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants?

Virus may be evolving to refavour infecting lung tissue. We assess what this could mean for the course of the pandemic
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
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Yep, and there was something posted on another thread about omicron not being any good for herd immunity as it doesn't seem to stop re-infections.
 
quimcunx said:
I can be pretty sure that some of us haven't had it yet, even if I can't say with 100% that I personally haven't. Especially true for older people or people who would likely not cope well with it. I would love to think I had it mildly enough to not know I had it. I am 99.9% sure I haven't had it. I've had PCR tests every time I've had possible symptoms.
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Same for me.
 
quimcunx said:
Have they decided that vaccines, the thing they were pinning everything on, aren't needed any more? I had my last one in November. Even in that shithole of a country USA I heard someone my own age saying he's getting his 2nd booster.
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The spring boosters were given to over 75's and certain categories of vulnerable people and care home residents.

The current advice in regards next autumns vaccine campaign is as follows, but could still be changed:

The JCVI’s current view is that in autumn 2022, a COVID-19 vaccine should be offered to:

  • residents in a care home for older adults and staff
  • frontline health and social care workers
  • all those 65 years of age and over
  • adults aged 16 to 64 years who are in a clinical risk group
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www.gov.uk

JCVI provides interim advice on an autumn COVID-19 booster programme

The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) has provided interim advice to government regarding coronavirus (COVID-19) booster doses this autumn.
www.gov.uk www.gov.uk
 
Its a numbers game, it alway has been and it always will be. It was a numbers game when we had no vaccine and it certainly is now that we do have that tool available.

Factors that influence that numbers game include properties of the virus as it evolves over time, age-linked risk of hospitalisation or death, and the extent to which protection offered by previous vaccine doses against hospitalisation or death actually wanes over time. They were never going to bother revaccinating the whole population every so often unless a combination of data and clues about these factors combined to show a picture where the number of hospital admissions and deaths could easily soar beyond levels they think the system can cope with. And for the bulk of the population, 3 doses was enough to get the situation to a place where it was deemed we could cope last winter. The extent to which the magic number will be 4 doses instead of 3 for next winter remains to be seen. Plus the 3rd dose was also important because it gave them a chance to give people a mRNA shot who had previous only had an Oxford AZ shot, and also the timing of that booster campaign coincided nicely with the arrival of the Omicron threat.

Personally I broadly agree with taking a data driven approach and not revaccinating for the sake of it if the gains from giving more doses beyond the third at the moment are insignificant for the general younger population. However this doesnt mean I'm a fan of the current pandemic approach as a whole, since I remain deeply unhappy with the entire 'dont give a shit about trying to suppress the disease, prevent outbreaks, reduce spread, keep the number of infections low' approach. ie I dont believe in asking the vaccines to carry all of the weight of the pandemic on their own, and there are many aspects of the UK approach which involve pushing our luck and not taking a precautionary approach. And my attitude towards future boosters requires ongoing decent data from around the world, to make sure we dont miss any signs of significant waning of protection or immune-evading viral evolution that should really require the masses to get another dose of vaccine.
 
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This new wave may well be the biggest test yet as to whether the UK establishments 'live with Covid by doing almost fuck all different to normal times' can be gotten away with.

Because this time we dont have a well timed booster campaign for anywhere near as many people. We may well not have a variant that is milder in terms of not targeting the lungs. We dont have much in the way of rules left, or much free testing, or a public 'keen to save Christmas' or a government keen to ask people to do the right thing, or a media that will loudly and constantly reinforce such messages. And hospital infection control measures have progressively been reduced in various ways.

So the most obvious thing we do have left is a reliance on the overarching theme of 'the population is different now to what it was at the start, because there is now a complex immunity and protection picture, a situation where the virus (or at least the spike of the virus via vaccines) isnt brand new to everyones bodies'. Plus some proportion of the most vulnerable already died from it.

And those sorts of fundamentals are broadly what makes a pandemic a pandemic in the first place, and where the main action and justification is for the 'we can go back to normal' people. There are potential flaws and limitations to that sort of simplistic approach though, and not just from attempting to pretend we've reached that point too soon. eg even when the virus lacks the potential to kill at such high rates, it can still place quite the burden on healthcare, a burden that was not there before this virus arrived, a burden that can upset another kind of numbers game in an ongoing way.

But I am oversimplifying somewhat, the central 'population immunity picture is different' likely can carry quite a lot of real weight, and we still arent 100% reliant on it to cope with this wave and future wave. Some older people got a well timed booster again, more treatments are available, some people are still being cautious. School holidays arent here yet but are looming and usually help. And if the situation gets real bad then behaviours will change in response again, the media will pay more attention, etc etc. But if those things are required then a mockery will still be made of various relaxed attitudes and the governments 'the pandemic is over, we can live with the virus without special effort' shit.

We've been here before with me probably making similar points, but the amount of good fortune with these new Omicron versions sounds like it will be less than what we enjoyed with the first few Omicron versions, and so I consider this to be a fresh test. And there is some evidence that all the Omicron infections that happened already havent made a wonderful difference to the population immunity picture, may not have really got us any closer to the promised land.
 
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elbows said:
This new wave may well be the biggest test yet as to whether the UK establishments 'live with Covid by doing almost fuck all different to normal times' can be gotten away with.
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Seems like only a year ago that Tim Martin and Lord Sumption were arguing for the "Swedish Model"
Sounds like we will now get to try it - courtesy of a beached-whale Prime Minister whose ministers are chosen to be less intelligent than even he is.
 
This really isnt the first time we are trying it - they always wanted to do it but couldnt do it without blinking in the pre-vaccine era. From the moment vaccine rollout began they put plans in place to do it as quickly as they possible could. There were a few timing setbacks due to Delta and then Omicron along the way, but they were still broadly able to stick to that plan. Depending on exactly what people count, this will be somewhere between the 2nd and 4th time it is really being tested by new variants/new waves.

A year ago when they were trying it despite Deltas arrival, it was still necessary for a bunch of people to come out and justify the 'do little' approach on the basis of a load of shitty claims about 'endemic equilibrium' and stuff like that. We've now come far enough that they dont even feel the need to bother dressing it up in that way. And the likes of Javid have basically been using the same 'move on, treat it like flu' rhetoric since the moment he got the health job almost a year ago.

As for Johnson, the establishment are aware that he has no 'moral authority' left in terms of any future covid restrictions and public advice, as a result of partygate. So there will be a big mess if we were to end up in a future situation where they need to apply the pandemic brakes in some way with Johnson still at the helm. What they'll actually do to sort that probably causes a few nerves, so they are probably just crossing their fingers and hoping that situation doesnt arise. I have no prediction as to whether it will because its very difficult to guess quite how bad a particular wave might be in terms of hospitalisations, or how the story of the viruses evolution will go in future.
 
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The latest ONS figures, which inevitably lag behind by about a week:

In the week ending 9 June, the Covid rates are:
  • One in 50 in England - up from one in 70 the week before
  • One in 45 in Wales - up from one in 75
  • One in 45 in Northern Ireland - up from one in 65
  • One in 30 in Scotland - up from one in 40
Click to expand...

www.bbc.co.uk

Covid infections up after Platinum Jubilee celebrations

The latest UK figures cover the long weekend of partying and suggest one in 45 has Covid.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
Yeah and unfortunately Scotland has had higher rates for quite some time now but I havent seen very much commentary about it.
 
elbows said:
Yeah and unfortunately Scotland has had higher rates for quite some time now but I havent seen very much commentary about it.
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I mean anecdotally it certainly feels like we're in the early part of another wave here (lots of people I know have recently had/currently have it). I don't know what the reason is but everyone has pretty much stopped bothering with facemasks so perhaps that's part of it.
 
yeah, it's hard to think what's different between Scotland and England to account for the difference. and it has been for a while now. Maybe a bit more likely to socialise inside because of the temperature difference?
 
I just did a bit of housesitting - left before the owners came back - both now have quite bad covid following their trip. Seems to be a lot of virus about now.

Giving blood today, I put a mask on before entering the building (checked on the website, which said masks were required, and just seems sensible.) The nurse asked if I knew that I didn't have to wear one...said it was the first day they haven't had to since the pandemic began. Kept mine firmly on :)
 
elbows said:
As part of the 'lets learn to be shit about this virus' they are only going to bother updating the dashboard once a week from July onwards. They say this decision will be kept under review in the coming weeks.

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Not impressed with that decision, nor the "logic" apparently behind it.

especially with the two omicron variants currently available [my small workforce had been managing to stay relatively clear of infections, so far only three have managed to catch it. And all of those cases have been in the past three / four months and no-one actually came into work with it, either.
 
It's not a very informative study. It only spells out the obvious: that (a) being infected with SARS-CoV-2 and exhibiting symptoms is not as good as not being infected by it, and (b) multiple infections somewhat increase the disease burden risk. Also note that this work draws exclusively on healthcare data from the US Department of Veteran Affairs! (The study cohort is overwhelmingly male, median age ~65 and with significant pre-existing co-morbidities).
 
Wokingham Borough currently has an infection rate of 201.8 per 100,000 people with 351 new cases reported in the seven days to June 15. The cases have risen by 47.5% week-on-week, according to the Public Health England.
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source

hmm

(although 201 is within the 'dark blue' shade on the map)

and that's presumably with much reduced testing / reporting

although is there a class / income level thing going on with testing? (as in many people can't afford to pay for tests / can't afford to take time off work if they do get it)?

lowest (pale green) rates / not enough data to report areas seem to be in the most working class bits of E London. Broad demographic of wokingham borough is more towards middle class / reasonably well off remainers so maybe higher levels of testing / reporting still?
 
Looking at the pandemic from that local an angle always carried risks of getting the wrong impression about true local trends and personal risk, including the risk of focussing on a picture that reflected the recent past rather than what was soon to happen.

And yes, variations in attitudes to testing and ability to financially weather the costs of getting infected and having to isolate always had the potential to distort the figures. And thats there is indeed a different version of that distortion in play now, via evolved attitudes to the pandemic, lack of access to free tests, etc.

Hospital data and ONS infection survey data are the figures I would pay attention to these days, even though those are laggy and not very local. They are useful for seeing what the recent trend has been and gaining clues about where things are going, and are not so affected by changes to the testing regime. Anecdotal evidence via forums such as u75 also continues to have some use, still seems to be a pretty good and timely guide, for overall trends and for parts of the country that are well represented by active posters here.
 
In terms of implications of those u75 anecdotes, the most obvious thing is that reassurances people had in the past about the relatively lower risk of getting infected when attending gatherings outdoors in the summer dont seem very valid this time around.

It would be tempting to ascribe all of that increased risk to the recent variants, but I suppose there are plenty of other potential factors too. ie far more people are going to such gatherings, behaviours have changed a lot, and the much higher prevalence of the virus much increases the risk of having contact with someone who was already infected. Especially compared to the previous two summers when the virus was still recovering from the very low prevlance levels it had been pushed down to by formal lockdowns months earlier. We'e not enjoyed such low prevalence levels as we got post-lockdowns for pretty much a whole year now, not that I miss lockdowns and the impact they had on people, I just miss the impact they had on the virus.
 
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Leighsw2 said:
We're fucked aren't we?
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Some limitations of the study have been pointed out. It may also be necessary to point out that although this study found reinfection risks in the vaccinated, it doesnt mean that all the positive impact of vaccines comes undone.

I cannot say we are fucked because vaccines make a big difference, and because different people will have different ideas about what being fucked means. I can say that each wave will provide a test as to the extent that the immunity picture and vaccines will protect people and health services, but these tests come with quite different buffers and chances of getting away with the sloppy UK approach than would have been the case in the pre-vaccine era. If the numbers game goes wrong in any of the waves to come then we'll probably have quite a bit of time to see it going that way, and to anticipate being fucked in a more dramatic way. eg a long period where people and authorities stick their heads in the sand in the wake of very bad data before we could reasonably be expected to see that leading to an incredibly bad situation more reminiscent of the earlier pandemic period.

The areas where I dont need to wait for such eventualities before claiming we are fucked is in areas such as the long term overall health of the population, and slow grinding pressure on health services. It seems reasonable to conclude that the health of populations has been permanently changed by the presence of this virus, that side of the picture not being something that vanishes once the acute pandemic period is over. Even there I suppose I have to stick some caveats into my use of the word permanent, since the implications could somewhat fade, or become even more obvious, over time.
 
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weepiper said:
Fucking hell 😫 Covid in Scotland: One in 20 had the virus last week
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I've seen this showing up in various little ways, such as an electronic musical instrument store in Glasgow having a notice on its website that they had to shut their retail premises due to covid-related staff shortages this week.

Have the Scottish media been dwelling on this stuff or are they largely ignoring it as part of the current agenda?
 
As promised here is a quick attempt to show a whole years worth of ONS estimated % comparisons between the nations. I did it because I had a sense that Scotland also hit a higher peak in the last wave but couldnt remember, and so wanted to see all the nations on a single chart over a longer period than shown in the last official chart I posted above. England blue, Wales orange, Scotland grey, Northern Ireland green. Sorry about the lack of date labels, and I also left out the 95% credible intervals.

Made with data from .xlsx from this page: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Infection Survey, UK - Office for National Statistics

Screenshot 2022-06-24 at 13.53.jpg
 
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BBC coverage of the ONS figures features Van-Tam falling into line with the agenda by making comparisons to flu in the winter, never mind that its not winter.

My own framing of the risks has of course evolved too because in the vaccine era the risk of hospitalisation and death is not the same, so I dont freak out about infection data in the way I would have done in the early waves. I'm still not happy about how far they've pushed the normality agenda though, the change to framing has gone too far and ignores other sorts of consequences. The numbers game has changed, but that change also demonstrates the cold calculations and the extent to which indifference towards public health prevails when the risks are not so acute and are not at a system-breaking level.

www.bbc.co.uk

Covid: UK infections continuing to rise

The increase, with an estimated one in 35 people testing positive, is being driven by newer variants.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
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