Coronavirus (2021) thread

[Healdplace]

The cases rise almost every week from Tuesday through Wednesday and Thursday to Friday then fall back over the weekend.

It will be a factor of when people choose to get tested and if you do more tests you almost inevitably find more cases.

Week to week comparisons are the only real guide.

They are down week to week but the fall is reducing to a flat line as GM numbers have for a week or more.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

For another thread but as a staunch brexiter this just totally reaffirms how delighted am i to be out.

That attitude reaffirms all my prejudices about Brexiters!

Anyway, have a read of the current EU plans I posted upthread. It looks like they may not be so far behind, which is very good news.

 

[Rammy Blue]

I'm going to guess we were testing considerably less though? Feel free to correct me there but it feels like everyone is being tested all the time these days for various reasons. Certainly feels different compared back to then. If we test shit loads, surely we'll naturally find a lot more?

Yep, hence why hospital figures are so important now.

 

[unicorn]

Absolutely this - get the teachers vaccinated as well and give the kids a chance to actually have a childhood and future before it's too late for many

Agree that teachers need to be a priority for vaccination before blokes in their 50s like me who aren't going very far for the forseeable future.

 

[blueparrot]

I'm going to guess we were testing considerably less though? Feel free to correct me there but it feels like everyone is being tested all the time these days for various reasons. Certainly feels different compared back to then. If we test shit loads, surely we'll naturally find a lot more?

Thats probably true, but if we were testing less and not finding cases that were out there then cases would have risen and hospital admissions would have been higher too, but it pretty much flatlined at a low level June, July August so would suggest it was a truish measure.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

I'm going to guess we were testing considerably less though?

Test positivity was consistently <1% at the time, tests in the 1-200,000 range. So not as many as now, but lower positivity. Not a test artefact.

 

[Tim of the Oak]

Czechs are trying to negotiate with AZ for more vaccines but apparently EU are trying to block them from making private agreements as all has to come through the EU.

Considering the country has current infection numbers not far off the UK, despite being about 7 times smaller, and has managed under 500,000 total vaccinations in 2 months due to not having enough supplies from the EU, it all seems a bit petty really.

Hungary have done their own thing so maybe the Czech Government needs to show more bottle.

 

[twosips]

Test positivity was consistently <1% at the time, tests in the 1-200,000 range. So not as many as now, but lower positivity. Not a test artefact.

Ive just been looking at the numbers and there are loads of 600-800 days. They would have double IMO at least with 4/5x the testing numbers, even with a low positivity range. Below 1k still feels v v difficult.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Ive just been looking at the numbers and there are loads of 600-800 days. They would have double IMO at least with 4/5x the testing numbers, even with a low positivity range. Below 1k still feels v v difficult.

Not necessarily.

More testing = higher proportion of cases found = more people isolating = lower R number = Less cases.

More testing, paradoxically, can give us a much better chance of getting to really low case numbers.

A thought experiment:

No testing = zero cases
Everyone tested every day = zero cases - we wipe it out overnight

 

[shemnel]

my feeling is that testing should continue to look for potentially dangerous variants but that the IFR should be constantly updated, should have been since last autumn really.

this way you can see that with an IFR of ~0.8% it's very concerning, plus shitloads of people are susceptible to severe illness.

As you vaccinate, severe illness decreases, hospital cases and NHS pressure decreases and the IFR goes down massively as the older ages stop dying in the same numbers.

If the constantly monitored/modelled IFR is nice and low, based on testing, Zoe apps and so on, and is comparable to other day to day illnesses, this is a good sign that things should be retuning to normal

Surely the cases should matter less and less as the year progresses? Why would it matter if we have less than a 1000 cases or 3000 cases, if barely any of them result in death?