Coronavirus (2021) thread

[Manchester33]

Are we still on this? Cases aren't the focus, correct. But it's what they'll lead to when they rapidly accelerate, as they're about to, and where that places on number of people in hospital.

There is no point in waiting until they're already overwhelmed before taking action. The right time is now.

I'm just fed up with the whole thing. There are two possible outcomes.

1 - The vaccines aren't effective and there's no hope, so we may as well open up and crack on with life because COVID is here to stay.

2 - The vaccines are effective and all the vulnerable people have been offered theirs. So let's open up and crack on with our lives.

The latter is clearly true as we can see from all the data from the past 6 months. How much longer should we drag out these utterly pointless restrictions?

 

[grunge]

It's getting there!!
Every time you put the news on it's always fucking on

we're 6/7 months from it being "nearly 2 years" Its like saying "Shit, I need to get my Christmas presents bought as its nearly Christmas, in April".

and as myself, and lots of people have said before, just stop watching the news. when it comes on, turn it off and put something else on, or read a book, play a game or something. but to be honest over the last few weeks I've been getting the feeling your relishing wallowing in it and complaining about it. stop complaining about the news and just stop watching. You will be far better off for it.

 

[Manc in London]

It's a huge payday for everyone within SAGE so of course they're going to drag it out.

I think the most likely scenario is that the SAGE are just shit scared of getting anything wrong, so they are ultra-cautious to cover their backs at any cost. There's no incentive for them to encourage a rational approach to opening.

I suggest you are aiming your ire at the wrong people. SAGE provide information to Government. This will be scrutinised by Government and then they make the decision. Whether or not you think the information is useful or the decisions being made are correct, it is down to the Government not SAGE.

You have likely fallen into the trap set by Government. Perceived poor performance and making wrong decisions are nothing to do with them it's someone else's fault.

 

[Healdplace]

Wales data:

THIS IS FOR TWO DAYS - SAT & SUN REMEMBER

1 death - this is the first Welsh death in 11 days (27 May was the last) reported from Covid.

75 cases - no data last wk as Bank Holiday but wk before was 101.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

You need to stop focussing on cases. Cases are absolutely irrelevant.

As posted above - there is a clear link from cases to hospitalisations. They are a leading indicator of what is most relevant.

Cases are currently rising exponentially, with a doubling time below two weeks. Hospitalisations are rising at what seems to be a fairly consistent 5% of cases, only half what it was before the vaccination programme.

The lesson of the pandemic is that focussing on *today's* issue - "incredibly low" deaths and inpatients as you state it - will be very rapidly be overtaken by events unless we look ahead, and recovering from a wave is far harder than preventing it.

So, what do we expect looking ahead? Reasons that exponential growth will stop:

(1) Run out of susceptible people - everyone unvaccinated gets infected. Needs a huge number of infections.
(2) Summer and seasonal effects. Maybe, nobody can quantify, but should help somewhat.
(3) Vaccinations stop it. Absolutely should do, but very hard to know how soon. Wales gives us hope.
(4) People change their behaviour when faced with renewed proliferation. That's probably already helping in Bolton.

Reasons the growth will accelerate:

(1) Removal of all restrictions 21st.

So as things stand, today, we should expect hospitalisations to double faster than every two weeks for some time to come if we go ahead with a significant relaxation 21st June. I think they're somewhere north of 100 daily right now. If that doubles every ten days, we're over 1000 daily in a month. If it goes down to 7 days, 2000 daily in a month.

In that context, further relaxation is very hard to support, with the data we have today. In a week's time, perhaps it will look different, though that seems increasingly unlikely. It also now seems very unlikely we'll have any kind of definitive view for the 14th when a decision will be made.

Of course, much is uncertain, as the modelling posted above by others shows. It may be that seasonal effects are large, we're already close to herd immunity, and the whole thing fades in a matter of a short number of weeks. Equally, a peak of hospitalisations comparable to January is still possible. The cost of delaying relaxation by a couple of weeks for this to become clearer is very low compared to the consequence of finding out we've set a route to a significant further wave by going ahead.

Here's that graph of hospitalisations as a % of cases (10 day lag) again:

 

[grunge]

It's a huge payday for everyone within SAGE so of course they're going to drag it out.

I think the most likely scenario is that the SAGE are just shit scared of getting anything wrong, so they are ultra-cautious to cover their backs at any cost. There's no incentive for them to encourage a rational approach to opening.

How is it a huge payday? 23 members of sage, 13 are just salaried civil servants that will get no extra cash ( Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty for example )

 

[Healdplace]

According to Sir David KIng via Sky 4% of all current new cases are from double vaccinated people.

 

[tolmie's hairdoo]

Just been offered and booked my second jab for June 19 - less than eight weeks between the two.

Wife also.

Very happy.

 

[Healdplace]

I agree entrirely with roubaix and I am starting to believe this time we will take the sensible and cautious path.

By mid July we should know where this is heading and those 3 weeks may make all the difference.

Everyone believes it will be very hard to impose another full lackdown based on levels of desire to retuern to normality.

Far safer and more likely to work to be straight now and explain this short extension than let the virus rip and hope for the best - then get into trouble and come 6 weeks from now be forced into trying to lock down again. For what will inevitably be longer than 3 weeks.

This short postponement is the only sensible way to move on from here.

The only thing that will stop that is the - it now seems most unlikely but not entirely impossible - collapse of this escalating wave spreading out from Scotland and the NW everywhere else.

 

[M18CTID]

According to Sir David KIng via Sky 4% of all current new cases are from double vaccinated people.

Which is good news surely? We'll jab our way out of this IMO

 

[roubaixtuesday]

I'm just fed up with the whole thing. There are two possible outcomes.

1 - The vaccines aren't effective and there's no hope, so we may as well open up and crack on with life because COVID is here to stay.

2 - The vaccines are effective and all the vulnerable people have been offered theirs. So let's open up and crack on with our lives.

This isn't the case at all. The real world is not a black and white place.

There is a third possibility:

3. Vaccines are effective but not 100%, and there are still sufficient unvaccinated and vaccinated but vulnerable people to overload our hospitals if we just open up now.

 

[RobMCFC]

I've been expecting the number of 1st jabs to pick up pace recently but that doesn't seem to be happening. Seems to be 100K start of the week to 200K end of the week for a while now. Is this because of the AZ issue? Anybody have any inside info?

 

[Healdplace]

And Manchester 33 - Roubaix's third possibility is the truth from all the data we have.

 

[Manc Born & Bred]

According to Sir David KIng via Sky 4% of all current new cases are from double vaccinated people.

I think the UK had roughly 33- 35 k cases in the past seven days so that's around 1,300 - 1,400 people a week who have had two jabs. That's around 0.005 of all people who have had both jabs. Whilst I feel incredibly sad for those people, how many of them go on to be hospitalised and then how many die? The whole point of the vaccines was to protect the vulnerable which it looks like it is doing. Obviously the more people that get jabbed the better as then there will be fewer people that can catch the virus who can then pass it on. However whilst we continue to jab 1,000s of our citizens we still can't stop unvaccinated people coming into the country as well as unvaccinated people who think that they are entitled to a holiday abroad.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

According to Sir David KIng via Sky 4% of all current new cases are from double vaccinated people.

Much care needed interpreting this.

Fore example:

Could be extremely good news: vaccines 96% effective
Could be extremely bad news: despite almost all cases now being in younger people, we're still seeing spillover into the vaccinated older cohort - and should expect this to increase directly in proportion to the total caseload (which is in younger people).

 

[roubaixtuesday]

my wedding next month is going to be cancelled (for the third time) if these restrictions aren't lifted.

Very sorry to hear that, must be a nightmare. I really hope the situation allows it to go ahead.

 

[Manc Born & Bred]

 

[Healdplace]

Much care needed interpreting this.

Fore example:

Could be extremely good news: vaccines 96% effective
Could be extremely bad news: despite almost all cases now being in younger people, we're still seeing spillover into the vaccinated older cohort - and should expect this to increase directly in proportion to the total caseload (which is in younger people).

Agreed it is most likely to be more or less what we expected. Vaccines work pretty well. But some are unlucky.

True of every vaccine. Indeed 96% effective would be beyond best expectations 12 months ago I suspect.

We also do not know if the 4% had been double vaccinated last week or last month. The time lag could be a big difference. As could underlying conditions.

Many factors at work here. Not a face value good or bad news story. Actually much as I think the data implied we would see.

 

[grunge]

I did mine via the GP so no go here :( Id be 8 weeks next week.

 

[Manchester33]

How is it a huge payday? 23 members of sage, 13 are just salaried civil servants that will get no extra cash ( Patrick Vallance and Chris Whitty for example )

Honest question - had you heard of either Vallance or Whitty before the pandemic?

I hadn't (and I'm reasonably sure 95% of the British population hadn't). These people are household names now. The pandemic has unquestionably increased their reputation and status and if you don't think they'll profit personally off the back of this then I think you're wrong.