Coronavirus in the UK - news, lockdown and discussion

[two sheds]

Hmm. I'm immunocompromised and got my booster in October. Not heard anything about another jab/booster.

I'd phone your GP. I asked about a booster because of asthma but am not immunocompromised so they said no. I'd phoned 111 as I recall and they told me to ask my GP. So hopefully they'd say yes to you.

 

[elbows]

So yeah, daily hospital acquired infections in England. A graph I dont post all that often despite my interest in the subject, because the data isnt routinely made available in this form and has to be figured out by subtracting one set of daily admissions/diagnoses figures from another, an imperfect methodology. And one that likely doesnt manage to capture the full picture. And given the changes to hospital testing regimes this year, we might expect even more of the picture to be missed these days, but this will vary by hospital and this new wave may have caused some to bring back forms of testing they previously abandoned.

Another reason I dont post this graph too often is that it tends to show the same sort of trends as seen in the main headline hospital covid data. Same goes for admissions from care homes.

Data goes up to June 27th. Made by subtracting 'Estimated new admissions to hospital from the community' from 'Estimated new hospital cases' using the daily spreadsheet from Statistics » COVID-19 Hospital Activity

 

[LDC]

Maybe I will do a graph of some possible hospital acquired case numbers for England shortly.

Make sure you add eleventy-thousand from my workplace...

There's no effort being made at all here now to keep people with Covid separate in the acute setting of A&E - including in the waiting room. We've started to see admissions to us for Covid again after a good break start again as well. No idea about the numbers in ICU (they have been pretty low like 1-3ish so far this year), the Trust stopped sending out email updates to staff with numbers off sick, in hospital, in ICU beds, etc. a bit ago now. Anecdotally feels like more staff are starting to be off sick with it again now.

 

[Cloo]

Thanks elbows - I'll book in son for 2nd lot then!

 

[Sue]

I'd phone your GP. I asked about a booster because of asthma but am not immunocompromised so they said no. I'd phoned 111 as I recall and they told me to ask my GP. So hopefully they'd say yes to you.

Tbh, i was told at the time the 'booster' was actually a third primary dose and I'd get a booster on top. I didn't hear anything and it wouldn't let me book online so I chased it with my GP twice and they were like so I left it.

 

[elbows]

ONS figures:

ONS Covid infections up more than 30% on last week Around 2.3 million (2,294,300) people in the UK had coronavirus in the week ending on 24 June, according to the latest estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

This is up about 32% from around 1.7 million the week before.

The ONS says that this is likely caused by infections compatible with Omicron variants BA.4 and BA.5.

That's about 3.5% of the population (roughly one in 30 people), up from roughly one in 35 the week before.

In both England and Wales about one in 30 people would have had coronavirus in the week ending 24 June, data just released says.

In Northern Ireland it was about 1 in 25 and in Scotland the rate was about 1 in 18.

Taken from the BBC live updates page because I dont have much time right now. Other entries on that page continue with the BBCs job of helping the usual normalisation agenda in ways I've discussed plenty before, including stupid quibbling about whether this even counts as a new wave, and digging out Van-Tams comments again. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-62008118

 

[elbows]

Although there is perhaps a desire to get people to pay a bit more attention to it, eg the BBC decided to show a few of the graphs this time:

 

[weepiper]

Ugh one in 18 anecdotally lots of things are getting cancelled because people are ill (gigs/events, shops with signs in the window apologising for staff shortages etc)

 

[xenon]

I'm going to Glasgow in a few weeks, with family. The oldest ones in the group have had covid a couple of months ago, so hopefully will be OK. I'm resigned to getting it at some point.

 

[elbows]

(Cranfield/Essex/others) Wastewater based epidemiological analysis indicates SARS-CoV-2 infections in schools led those in the surrounding community by around 2 weeks (study period October 2020 till year end), suggesting (surprise!) school infections are a significant driver of community spread.
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0270168.

I see school holiday timing got a brief mention on the BBC live updates page when discussing potential factors in regards Scotland:

Scotland has had the highest rates of Covid infection since the end of May and the virus has become more and more prevalent ever since.

This is partly because the infection rates here never fell as low as it did in other nations – but some have suggested colder weather and earlier school holidays could also be a factor.

From 12.55 entry of https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-62008118

 

[elbows]

That live page has finished now but they did manage to highlight an issue that has been bothering me for a long time, and making me angry when people make comparisons to the pressure health systems face with flu in winter.

The president-elect of the Royal College of Emergency Medicine says he is concerned about work force problems as Covid infections rise.

Dr Adrian Boyle says there has been a "modest rise" in hospitalisations, but the "big problem" was people being unable to work because they have coronavirus.

"What we’re seeing is lots of staff off and that’s creating lots of problems that we can’t open wards, we don’t have enough beds."

He told the BBC that these consequences were leading to emergency departments filling up and long waits for ambulances.

"The waits [for ambulances] we’ve had in April and May have been much longer than we’ve seen in winter periods in previous years," said Dr Boyle.

"We're getting pretty worried about [staff] burnout.

"I’m worried about nursing staff working in hospitals getting pretty fed up and beginning to walk away."

Unless we stop having waves this often or this large, unless we change the detail that matters when it comes to the 'living with covid' approach here, I do not see how the situation is truly sustainable. The slow grinding pressure will surely reach crunch points when it comes to long term staffing and capacity. Especially when a perfect storm is created via other isues such as awful capacity problems in the social care sector leading to more bed blocking issues in hospitals.

 

[elbows]

Another awful decision that is justified in the laziest of terms via little more than the hideous 'learning to live with covid' phrase:

 

[weltweit]

Anecdotally

I know more people here right now that have covid 19 or have just had it, than ever before.

 

[IC3D]

Lots of primary care nursing staff going off sick again, round 3 for most if not all.

 

[kabbes]

Anecdotally

I know more people here right now that have covid 19 or have just had it, than ever before.

Yeah, me too

 

[2hats]

Effect noted in post #46921 now even more pronounced. Highest positivity rates appear to be in late 40s-early 70s age groups.

​

Increasing contribution from BA.5.1. All BA.5.x easily outstripping BA.4 and BA.2.x cases (BA.2.75 not in play in the UK yet).

​

Meanwhile, in the southern hemisphere, a hint for a potentially large flu wave to arrive later this year - significant influenza A (H3) waves (here, illustrated in Australia and Argentina).

​

 

[elbows]

I guess this is what the change in mood music towards the more gloomy side of things looks like when the wave that causes it is happening at a time when the 'living with covid' agenda is in full effect and they dont actually want the public to react in a very strong way, dont have a major new vaccine rollout to encourage people to take part in etc:

Harries still not a great inspirer of confidence.

Covid: UK hospital cases set to rise, says health chief

Dame Jenny Harries says Britons should lead "normal lives" but take precautions as infections go up.

www.bbc.co.uk

Dame Jenny told the BBC's Sunday Morning programme: "It doesn't look as though that wave has finished yet, so we would anticipate that hospital cases will rise."

She said it is "quite likely" numbers in hospital would peak above where they were in the spring when the BA.2 sub-variant was prevalent but "the overall impact, we won't know. It's easy to say in retrospect, it's not so easy to model forward".

She added: "For this particular wave we have some evidence there may be some slight reduction of the effectiveness of vaccines on variants, but they are still maintaining the majority of people, keeping them safe from severe disease and out of hospital."

I also note articles like this one which are actually now bothering to deliver the modern form of covid bad news in various forms, and even feature experts expressing various degrees of concern. There is dismay that previous Omicron infection isnt doing more for immunity against subsequent Omicrom infection. There is acknowledgement that the whole 'it will settle down and become a winter disease' has been bollocks so far, and of the resulting weaknesses in the comparison to flu. I'm still adjusting to Woolhouse being a voice of reason, although that isnt a brand new phenomenon. There is a return to mentioning stuff about a small percentage of a very big number still being a problem. Someone mentions the NHS being one doubling away from a significant challenge. Long Covid and the impact on the clinically vulnerable both get a mention. The BA.4 and BA.5 growing more easily in lung cells study gets a mention. Disruption due to people being off work sick gets a mention.

In terms of actually doing more proactively about this the article still goes nowhere, instead mentioning the lack of political will to bring back restrictions, and a focus on what the autumn vaccine campaign might involve instead. Someone on twitter recently pointed out that its an interesting exercise to try replacing the world restrictions with protections in sentences, and see how that stuff then reads and what sort of feelings that change of words may cause.

At least these days the 'learning to live with covid' agenda apparently doesnt involve me having to read shit by fucking Nick Triggle from the BBC any more. They get people who arent quite so blatantly shit and vulgar at propaganda to do these sorts of articles instead. Not that I actually know what the story is with Triggle these days, there is always the risk that having said that he might burst back onto the scene at any moment.

Covid is rising again in the UK - should we worry?

The UK is facing yet another surge in cases of Covid. What does it all mean?

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[elbows]

Oh and that article also implies that we are supposed to find it surprising that maybe 1 in 5 people in this country havent had covid yet. But I do have to point out that it seems the source linked to for that is the attack rate table from the MRC Biostatistics Unit, and their modelling is one of the ones I think we used to laugh at earlier in the pandemic for being shit. But I'm tired so I dont know if I got that memory wrong or how kindly I should think of that estimate right now.

I suppose I may as well post screenshots of their attack rate tables anyway. From

https://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/now-casting/nowcasting-and-forecasting-23rd-June-2022/

 

[Brainaddict]

This has probably been discussed but it's disappointing to see the numbers climbing so much not just in summer but in a part of summer that has been pretty warm. Is there any current thinking on whether this is still likely to be a lower spike because of summer, or whether it turns out the seasons just don't make a difference like they do in colds and flu?

 

[two sheds]

Couple of neighbours seem to have it. They both have breathing problems anyway and she's badly allergic to a few things medicinal.

 

[elbows]

This has probably been discussed but it's disappointing to see the numbers climbing so much not just in summer but in a part of summer that has been pretty warm. Is there any current thinking on whether this is still likely to be a lower spike because of summer, or whether it turns out the seasons just don't make a difference like they do in colds and flu?

My own thinking on this matter includes this sort of stuff:

Seasons make a difference in a few ways. Some may be down to individual health variations during different seasons, some down to UV light destroying the virus in the environment more quickly and other environmental factors, some of them are down to differences human behaviours, eg ventilation issues and meeting indoors.

However these differences only become key difference-makers if things are more delicately balanced between conditions that can cause a wave and those where the virus struggles to get beyond a basic foothold.

Factors that go into how such balances work out include the transmissibility of the virus, human behaviours, and the population immunity picture.

Applying those things to flu, we could suggest that the flu virus doesnt spread as easily as the current covid strains, and that there are prolonged periods where it faces a far more disadvantageous population immunity picture that thwarts its ability to find enough victims to gain explosive growth. So most years (ie years where there isnt a 'brand new' new flu via a new flu pandemic) it struggles to explode until it gains the additional opportunities offered by winter, coupled with just enough ability to evade prior immunity in the population at the time. Depending on the exact state of the populations immunity and how the virus has evolved between that winter and the previous one, we either get a mild or severe epidemic wave in winter.

Clearly the balancing act is still very different with Covid at the moment. Its highly transmissible. It doesnt currently need the winter advantages in order to find enough victims. And there is no solid wall of immunity that thwarts it at this stage, for a bunch of reasons including the speed at which it is still evolving, and the failure of prior Omicron infections to provide strong immunity against future Omicron infection. And this year, unlike the previous 2 years, we didnt have a strong lockdown earlier in the year which pushed the number of infections down to a low enough level that it would take quite a while to substantially bubble up again.

 

[Brainaddict]

My own thinking on this matter includes this sort of stuff:

Seasons make a difference in a few ways. Some may be down to individual health variations during different seasons, some down to UV light destroying the virus in the environment more quickly and other environmental factors, some of them are down to differences human behaviours, eg ventilation issues and meeting indoors.

However these differences only become key difference-makers if things are more delicately balanced between conditions that can cause a wave and those where the virus struggles to get beyond a basic foothold.

Factors that go into how such balances work out include the transmissibility of the virus, human behaviours, and the population immunity picture.

Applying those things to flu, we could suggest that the flu virus doesnt spread as easily as the current covid strains, and that there are prolonged periods where it faces a far more disadvantageous population immunity picture that thwarts its ability to find enough victims to gain explosive growth. So most years (ie years where there isnt a 'brand new' new flu via a new flu pandemic) it struggles to explode until it gains the additional opportunities offered by winter, coupled with just enough ability to evade prior immunity in the population at the time. Depending on the exact state of the populations immunity and how the virus has evolved between that winter and the previous one, we either get a mild or severe epidemic wave in winter.

Clearly the balancing act is still very different with Covid at the moment. Its highly transmissible. It doesnt currently need the winter advantages in order to find enough victims. And there is no solid wall of immunity that thwarts it at this stage, for a bunch of reasons including the speed at which it is still evolving, and the failure of prior Omicron infections to provide strong immunity against future Omicron infection. And this year, unlike the previous 2 years, we didnt have a strong lockdown earlier in the year which pushed the number of infections down to a low enough level that it would take quite a while to substantially bubble up again.

All makes sense, thanks. It does seem to mean that 'living with covid' will never be like living with flu (deadly as that is), at least until we get better vaccines. Omicron seems evolved to be able to create wave after wave ad infinitum.

 

[elbows]

Also consider that even if Covid settles down into a seasonal pattern at some point, the resulting winter pressure on the NHS will come on top of any bad flu pressure. And the health service was sometimes only just coping with the flu pressure on its own.

 

[nagapie]

I haven't been following covid news but staff at my school are dropping like flies again. Why haven't we received another round of vaccinations? Is it just cause our government are shitheads?

 

[SpookyFrank]

I haven't been following covid news but staff at my school are dropping like flies again. Why haven't we received another round of vaccinations? Is it just cause our government are shitheads?

Yup same here. My registers are full of holes as well, suggesting lots of symptomatic covid in kids.

 

[nagapie]

Yup same here. My registers are full of holes as well, suggesting lots of symptomatic covid in kids.

And interestingly its across the country instead of London first like before.

 

[Thora]

No staff at my school either - yesterday only one class (of 5) had a teacher!
All the breakfast/as club staff have it at the moment too and even the outside PE coach was off yesterday.
Barely limping towards the end of term. Children who test positive are back in class in 3 days anyway.

 

[two sheds]

My neighbours think they just caught it from their grandson. They have health problems but I'm not sure whether they got the latest booster.

 

[wtfftw]

My kids class is covid central at the mo - I'm hearing of staff, parents and kids. But we only get officially notified of the chicken pox.

 

[l'Otters]

A guest on indie sage last Friday was explaining that there’s not much more an extra vaccine can do at this point. The cdc in the states just decided on which type to roll out next but apparently it’s not going to make much difference. Different type of vaccine might be on its way - bivalent? Worth reading the other thread for detail.

Anyway
The solution to the current situation is adequately ventilated buildings, classrooms etc; support for staying home when sick, reinstate masks, reinstate free testing.