Coronavirus (2021) thread

[KS55]

I suspect they are slowing down the release of the data to keep people stIcking to the rules....if we get to less than a score of deaths per day in the coming weeks and hospital cases under 1k there will be pressure to accelerate lockdown easing....

I expect the Beeb and Hancock just quote the number some data manager gives them. No sinister motive.

 

[Tim of the Oak]

I suspect they are slowing down the release of the data to keep people stIcking to the rules....if we get to less than a score of deaths per day in the coming weeks and hospital cases under 1k there will be pressure to accelerate lockdown easing....

A crucial thing for hospitals is when the full range of clinical services reopen and we are some way off that, although significant progress is being made. The authorities aren’t as interested in one or a few days hospital figures which create pressure for relaxing restrictions early, like you wrote.

 

[worsleyweb]

£100,001 or £100 billion? And what do you think the impact will be, whether it’s 10 laptops or a million laptops?

not sure what you are trying to do here?

 

[Marvin]

It maybe a one off but I watched BBC News at Ten last night and in their coronavirus update I thought there was a change of tone and I wondered if this was my mis-reading or something significant...

The essential message I got was that that now that schools are about to open, and beyond that, activity starts to rise, infection levels could rise too. R could go above 1 but this would no longer be so serious because vaccination breaks the link between infection and serious illness.

I may have interpreted this incorrectly but I took that to indicate a shift in policy from trying to reduce the epidemic to focusing instead on serious illness.

I could be reading something into the report that is not there. See what you think because if this is real, and not a product of my imagination, then it will get repeated again.

 

[worsleyweb]

850 kids tested at my lads school - none positive.

 

[ganganvince]

More evidence that increasing the gap between doses was right must admit I was against it.

Single-dose Oxford–AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine followed by a 12-week booster

Vaccines to prevent COVID-19 infection are crucial for an effective global pandemic response. In The Lancet, Merryn Voysey and colleagues1 report the updated primary efficacy results for the Oxford–AstraZeneca ChAdOx1 nCoV-19 (AZD1222) vaccine from three single-blind, randomised controlled...

www.thelancet.com

 

[Manchester1894]

My boss is off for a test this morning. Made her own bubbles (best mate, nephew, daughter/son who don't live at home anymore) - and she said yesterday that her best mate and nephew are positive.
Same thing happened with a mate, made a bubble with 2 family households and found a girlfriend during that time thats now part of the bubble. 2 people including him became positive. SHe's a teacher.
One of my mates, has his massive Sikh family of brothers round. Another load of positive tests.

No wonder we're not getting cases all the time. People just don't think it's real until they get it. And the households they choose and in turn choosing another 3/4 households and so on. Chain reactions of idiots.

I get the human need for interaction is inbuilt into us, but those that choose 3/4 households are being so selfish it's f*cking angers me.

 

[Marvin]

Ministers have already indicated this matters less than it used to because the vaccination programme has begun to break the link between infection rates and serious illness and death - the R number is not one of their tests for slowing the pace of lifting lockdown.

From the BBC Health correspondent Nick Triggle.

So this is a briefing as I suspected. This is significant. It means the UK government will carry on re-opening the economy even if the epidemic expands providing hospitalisation remains under control. One way of thinking about this is that we are trying to convert Covid into 'flu. A seasonal epidemic but one that doesn't alarm us too greatly.

You might welcome this, or you might be alarmed. It really depends on the scope for variant growth and evolution, and the ability of vaccine manufacturers to roll out a variant vaccine.

 

[Brightwell’s left peg]

Ministers have already indicated this matters less than it used to because the vaccination programme has begun to break the link between infection rates and serious illness and death - the R number is not one of their tests for slowing the pace of lifting lockdown.

From the BBC Health correspondent Nick Triggle.

So this is a briefing as I suspected. This is significant. It means the UK government will carry on re-opening the economy even if the epidemic expands providing hospitalisation remains under control. One way of thinking about this is that we are trying to convert Covid into 'flu. A seasonal epidemic but one that doesn't alarm us too greatly.

You might welcome this, or you might be alarmed. It really depends on the scope for variant growth and evolution, and the ability of vaccine manufacturers to roll out a variant vaccine.

It has to be welcomed.

This won’t be eradicated, so if we’ve vaccinated 99% of the people likely to get seriously ill or die, what valid justification is there for continuing to hide from it.

My kids go back to school next week, and I’ll be seriously pissed off if they get sent home again because of positive tests at school. It will be very bad for their mental state, which is already worryingly bad.

We have other threads complaining about tax increases and lack of pay rises. We have to get on with life and quickly.

 

[Manc Born & Bred]

My boss is off for a test this morning. Made her own bubbles (best mate, nephew, daughter/son who don't live at home anymore) - and she said yesterday that her best mate and nephew are positive.
Same thing happened with a mate, made a bubble with 2 family households and found a girlfriend during that time thats now part of the bubble. 2 people including him became positive. SHe's a teacher.
One of my mates, has his massive Sikh family of brothers round. Another load of positive tests.

No wonder we're not getting cases all the time. People just don't think it's real until they get it. And the households they choose and in turn choosing another 3/4 households and so on. Chain reactions of idiots.

I get the human need for interaction is inbuilt into us, but those that choose 3/4 households are being so selfish it's f*cking angers me.

On what planet were they living when they thought creating multiple bubbles was what they were allowed to do. Absolute morons. And not only that think of all the other innocent people they would be potentially putting at risk. I sincerely hope they actually isolate properly and have maybe learnt a lesson. Glad my kids are taught by someone so stupid, ignorant and selfish.

 

[marco]

It has to be welcomed.

This won’t be eradicated, so if we’ve vaccinated 99% of the people likely to get seriously ill or die, what valid justification is there for continuing to hide from it.

My kids go back to school next week, and I’ll be seriously pissed off if they get sent home again because of positive tests at school. It will be very bad for their mental state, which is already worryingly bad.

We have other threads complaining about tax increases and lack of pay rises. We have to get on with life and quickly.

just my take here,your correct and at some point were going to have to crack on but before i think we have to make sure that those at high risk have had both injections and certainly all above 30 have had at least one or pref everybody has had one,coming out just that little bit to soon will cost lives,its worth just hanging on a little longer if we can

 

[johnnytapia]

850 kids tested at my lads school - none positive.

If they used lateral flow I’d caveat that slightly. Good news but not particularly accurate, if lateral flow is the barometer.

 

[Healdplace]

I expect the Beeb and Hancock just quote the number some data manager gives them. No sinister motive.

It is I expect simply because Gov UK - the official site for data - is regularly behind. It updates at 4 pm on days it is working (it has been very late twice this week due to different issues) but the England hospital data is often not added until late at night and at weekends might not be at all.

For the other nations it is always at least a day behind and up to 3 days behind at weekend.

As of this morning it is up to date for England but has Thursday data for the other three nations and will likely stay like that until Monday evening now.

The data is easy to access as the other three nations all announce it before 4 pm every day and I post it in here- but Gov UK still always 'updates' at 4 pm to the day before for the three nations not to that day.

Its a small thing. Am I being pedantic? Very possibly. And I do not think there is an agenda behind it. I just think it is laziness.

However, that is why I am concerned. Because it begs the question what else are we happy to have less than up to date information on at a top level in the midst of a pandemic? Especially if on that day you are making a point about being over 12,000 in hospital which must have been pre planned as it was repeated several times. It had not been over 12, 000 then for more than 24 hours in the published data. And it just infers sloppiness that nobody bothered to take a minute to look up the true numbers before making a big deal of this nationally.

As I say I am probably just being overly fussy as I freely admit to being a tad obsessed with the daily numbers after posting them for months now.

 

[Brightwell’s left peg]

just my take here,your correct and at some point were going to have to crack on but before i think we have to make sure that those at high risk have had both injections and certainly all above 30 have had at least one or pref everybody has had one,coming out just that little bit to soon will cost lives,its worth just hanging on a little longer if we can

Why 30...why not 29, 28, 25 etc? Any time we come out will inevitably cost lives, as infections will cost lives, but so few as to not warrant the restrictions for the rest. At this point in the vaccination program, it’s probably as dangerous as flu. People die from flu and we don’t shut things down. It’s time.

 

[Healdplace]

Latest Weekly Pop Score table for the England regions:

Same basis as the one I post nightly for Greater Manchester - cases per 100,000 population across past 7 days - with the caveat the data I post is from that day. The Gov UK data here is 6 days old as it uses the final allocated to day of test information that takes up to a week to compile.

Also remember LOWEST pop score is the best - so East Midlands is bottom of this table not top.

Region // Weekly Pop Yesterday // Weekly Pop 7 days before // UP/down


East Midlands 130 // 171 // Down 41 (- 28%)

Yorkshire 115 // 154 // Down 39 (- 25%)

North West 106 // 153 // Down 47 (- 31%)

West Midlands 106 // 157 // Down 51 (- 33%)

North East 102 // 142 // Down 40 (- 28%)

East 67 // 95 // Down 28 (- 30%)

London 55 // 82 // Down 27 (- 33%)

South East 53 // 80 // Down 27 (- 34%)

South West 44 // 69 // Down 25 (- 36%)


As you can see big drops everywhere much in line with Greater Manchester. Any region under 100 is doing well Everyone now 130 downwards is excellent and clear proof of a falling pandemic everywhere.

Only a few weeks ago there was a big disparity with some regions not falling much and the southern regions dropping like a stone. This has evened out as the southern regions do not have much further to fall.

Greater Manchester has done particularly well as ten days ago every GM borough was above even the 130 of the 'worst' region (East Midlands) and only Trafford used to be below the North West average.

As of last night only Rochdale at 133 is above all the regions and only Bolton at 110 and Tameside at 108 and Wigan at 107 - JUST above the NW average.

The other six GM boroughs are all below the NW Pop Score and four of them are sub 100 - so below the regional score of all but the four southern regions. And Trafford at 67 is identical to East in the table above.

 

[Healdplace]

Wales data:

7 deaths - was 16 last week

195 cases - was 198 last week

1.6% positivity - was 1.7% last week

Weekly Pop score 48 - down from 51 yesterday - was 72 last week

 

[worsleyweb]

I honestly am starting to think the opening up is too slow.

 

[Healdplace]

Wales vaccination update:


983, 419 first doses given - 16, 377 today - was 15, 502 yesterday & 14, 002 last Saturday

168, 163 second doses given - 13, 344 today - was 15, 374 yesterday & 8991 last Saturday

 

[I'm With Stupid]

What is it about people who used to be famous being anti-maskers? A letter to the health secretary urging them not to recommend masks for children in schools has been signed by such A-listers as Lee Hurst, Anthea Turner, Tim Henman, Matthew Le Tissier, Richard Madeley, Sue Cook and Carol McGiffin. It's like a who's who of 90s lack of talent. And presumably the majority too old to actually have any school-age children.

 

[Tonster]

I honestly am starting to think the opening up is too slow.

And you’ve arrived at that conclusion before we’ve even reached the first restriction easing on Monday?