Coronavirus (2021) thread

[Healdplace]

It doesn't, I'm afraid.

If cases catch up with vaccinations in terms of yielding immunity, that's maybe 100,000 cases daily.

Current hospitalisation rate ~5%.

5,000 hospitalisations a day.

But if these are short term hospitalisations not weeks on ICU as in January that will make a difference too, will it not?

The hospital data IS by far the thing to watch.

And yes it is rising. But even in the NW and Scotland not out of control.

There is a lag. We are seeing this become apparent in ongoing data. But even in a region with 2000 - 3000 cases a day we still only have 445 in hospital - easily the most in the UK. And 83 on Ventilators. Ditto. Versus a month ago 174 and 22.

Scotland is rising too but again not out of control with lower numbers still. From 83 patients and 4 ventilated in that month to 171 and 18 yesterday.

THat is a significant rise but not an out of control number given the tens of thousands of cases in that month.

We know why - of course - 80% of those catching it are under 40. 4% of those catching it are over 60.

A gigantic change from January that makes 60,000 cases then very very different from 60,000 now.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

It doesn't, I'm afraid.

If cases catch up with vaccinations in terms of yielding immunity, that's maybe 100,000 cases daily.

Current hospitalisation rate ~5%.

5,000 hospitalisations a day.

5000 hospitalisations a day means the vaccines dont work but they do and they have been rolled out to the vast majority of the vulnerable people now. So that number cannot be right can it?

 

[Healdplace]

The hospital data seems to be showing a less lengthy stay from anecdotal accounts which with Covid makes sense given the drastically different profile of those catching it.

So if you have 1000 admissions a day and 900 of them go home 48 hours later and most of the rest avoid icu that is a very different proposition to 1000 admissions a day and 250 of them ending up on icu.

And right now we are nowhere near 1000 admissions a day.

There were 171 in England on Monday and not far off half the number in NW than the previous Monday.

 

[Manchester33]

Aren't these people tested regularly though and by regularly I mean several times per week plus before and after every flight? Surely cases would be picked up before that person travels as even asymptomatics will test positive whether they quarantine or not.

I can understand if people are messing about trying to avoid the system but to my knowledge it's currently extremely difficult to do so because other countries have the same restrictions. For example, you can't currently fly to Frankfurt from India and then to here because you face the exact same restrictions in Germany. The other route is through Turkey or the UAE for example but both are on the red list.

The Indian variant also generally does not exist in Europe where cases are falling so the hopping scenario seems unlikely. Another thing is you also have to test negative to actually fly in the first place so an amazing sequence of events needs to occur for you to get here, avoid quarantine and then spread the virus about.

It sounds to me like we need to suspend all arrivals directly or indirectly from countries of concern, forget quarantine.

The tests are not 100% accurate. In fact, anyone with the slightest bit of knowledge on the subject knows they're not fit for purpose (but there's lots of money for companies to make and our government - and their friends - are very happy with that).

This is a quote about PCR tests

False negatives, however, are more common. According to PHAC, approximately 98 per cent of patients tested within two days of their exposure will still get a negative result from PCR tests. That number drops to 50 per cent over the first five days post-exposure, and 10 per cent after that until symptoms disappear.

That is from this article

Basically, private companies are making a huge amount of money through these PCR tests that aren't accurate in the slightest. They pick up some cases, but nowhere near ALL cases.

 

[twosips]

Wales gave hope that Delta could be stopped very soon by vaccination. These numbers are really bad in that context - it shows that exponential growth is still seen even at Wales' vaccination rates.

All UK nations are now growing ~exponentially (straight line on log plot) with similar doubling times. If anything, Wales is growing fastest, though the data is far too short and noisy to conclude that robustly.

View attachment 19903

Continental Europe should be very concerned by this data IMO. 60,000 travelling to Wembley seems like madness.

I thought we all knew that vaccines don't stop cases, just lessen severity and hospitalisations? Am I missing something here?

 

[Healdplace]

5000 hospitalisations a day means the vaccines dont work but they do and they have been rolled out to the vast majority of the vulnerable people now. So that number cannot be right can it?

We certainly have to be focusing lockdowns in future on vaccine evading variants. Not just more infective ones. They are a problem but not THE problem if vaccines are working - hence the emphasis has to be on any that will kill the vaccine efficacy.

And acting swiftly to stop that coming into the UK and spreading if it does by localised lockdowns.

They should be straight with people and explain that and people will understand and respond.

Happily as yet we have not really got one of these but it is likely possible we may if we are too slow reducing Covid to near zero all over the planet. Not an easy or overnight job. And one that will never entirely remove this possibility. As near zero is the best we can aim for. Not zero.

These strict measure can never be off the table. But we seem to have gone the opposite route to saying no more localised lockdowns. In effect giving up on stopping the more dangerpus threats from getting here as fast as possible. That surely cannot be the path for the future. Especially as we have some of the best testing labs in the world and can do this far better than most nations could dream and have the advantage of being an island which allows us some degree of control (but far from total control) on who and what we let in.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

But if these are short term hospitalisations not weeks on ICU as in January that will make a difference too, will it not?

The hospital data IS by far the thing to watch.

And yes it is rising. But even in the NW and Scotland not out of control.

There is a lag. We are seeing this become apparent in ongoing data. But even in a region with 2000 - 3000 cases a day we still only have 445 in hospital - easily the most in the UK. And 83 on Ventilators. Ditto. Versus a month ago 174 and 22.

Scotland is rising too but again not out of control with lower numbers still. From 83 patients and 4 ventilated in that month to 171 and 18 yesterday.

THat is a significant rise but not an out of control number given the tens of thousands of cases in that month.

We know why - of course - 80% of those catching it are under 40. 4% of those catching it are over 60.

A gigantic change from January that makes 60,000 cases then very very different from 60,000 now.

I agree - I'm not arguing that we're in the same position that we were in January.

But equally 4,000 daily admissions would scupper many other NHS activities, delay cancer care etc etc.

Vaccination is far more effective.

Schools breaking up should help too (hopefully we'll see Scotland slow or dip in a week or two) as it breaks many chains of infection. We should vaccinate the 12-17yos to halt the wave, and to stop September resurgence.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

We certainly have to be focusing lockdowns in future on vaccine evading variants. Not just more infective ones. They are a problem but not THE problem if vaccines are working - hence the emphasis has to be on any that will kill the vaccine efficacy.

And acting swiftly to stop that coming into the UK and spreading if it does by localised lockdowns.

They should be straight with people and explain that and people will understand and respond.

Happily as yet we have not really got one of these but it is likely possible we may if we are too slow reducing Covid to near zero all over the planet. Not an easy or overnight job. And one that will never entirely remove this possibility. As near zero is the best we can aim for. Not zero.

These strict measure can never be off the table. But we seem to have gone the opposite route to saying no more localised lockdowns. In effect giving up on stopping the more dangerpus threats from getting here as fast as possible. That surely cannot be the path for the future. Especially as we have some of the best testing labs in the world and can do this far better than most nations could dream and have the advantage of being an island which allows us some degree of control (but far from total control) on who and what we let in.

We will never get rid of covid19 , Like Sars and murs it will be here for ever , hopefully it will just mutate until its no longer a big threat.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

I agree - I'm not arguing that we're in the same position that we were in January.

But equally 4,000 daily admissions would scupper many other NHS activities, delay cancer care etc etc.

Vaccination is far more effective.

Schools breaking up should help too (hopefully we'll see Scotland slow or dip in a week or two) as it breaks many chains of infection. We should vaccinate the 12-17yos to halt the wave, and to stop September resurgence.

Im sorry, but how do you see 4000 admissions on a daily basis after the vaccination programme we have had? That doesn't add up to me?

 

[roubaixtuesday]

I thought we all knew that vaccines don't stop cases, just lessen severity and hospitalisations? Am I missing something here?

Vaccinations do stop many (most with two jabs) cases and much onward transmission. The latter is very hard to quantify, but here's a table summarising for the various vaccines (I think there may be more up to date versions of similar, but it gives the general impression)

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