Coronavirus (2021) thread

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

From CDC in the USA:

The Delta variant is as contagious as chickenpox and may be spread by vaccinated people as easily as the unvaccinated, an internal C.D.C. report said.

Delta variant is more transmissible than the viruses that cause MERS, SARS, Ebola, the common cold, the seasonal flu and smallpox, according to the document.

(I presume they mean spread by vaccinated people who are infected despite being vaccinated, not by vaccinated people who are not infected because they were vaccinated.)

Seems to knock the vaccine passport argument into the long grass then.

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Cases back down!

29, 622 v 36, 389 last week - after the fall was underway

848, 492 tests - down from 897, 980 yesterday and 1 million 300 last week

68 all settings deaths (was 64 last Friday)

It really is looking like this wave has peaked.

68 deaths. So, yesterday, your chances of dying with Covid was 1 in a million.….

 

[The Light Was Yellow Sir]

Sky's take on the numbers by the way.

Lots of cases going under the radar. We are living atop a powder keg of unseen cases.

Perhaps. But....

THIS is why the positivity numbers matter as do the trends and awareness that things like the ONS data survey today tell you what was happening 2 weeks ago not as of now. And, unless you look at the way tests are accumulated over 5 days to get the numbers released daily then not to see the actual day to day trend as you are looking partly at last week all the time.

You would think after 18 months of this pandemic TV Companies might be aware of how it all works. But that involves actually finding out and there are far more important stories to chase obviously.

For those pondering as in the posts last night WHY I bother to seek out and post lots of data I went looking for it to inform myself. Not to post in here. Because I knew the media would handle the pandemic this way and I wanted to look for the data direct to be sure I was seeing what was happening not what they wanted to tell us was happening or had had the nous to even look to find even if someone was telling us.

Having worked on TV shows I knew it was much easier to say what you are told to say. Not check if it is real.

This government has awarded £322M worth of contracts for Covid advertising purposes to British media companies until March 2022.
In the tradition of not biting the hand that feeds you, the woeful performance of the media doesn’t need that much explaining……

 

[Summerbuzz]

68 deaths. So, yesterday, your chances of dying with Covid was 1 in a million.….

Yes, it would improve all manner of health statistics considerably if people didn't live so long.

 

[Healdplace]

Cases across the regions:


Change in last 24 hrs V seven days ago




SOUTH


East DOWN 175 to 2462 V 3081

London DOWN 580 to 3753 V 5187



London still the highest region in England going solo.

Biggest fall today



South East DOWN 297 to 3418 V 4533 - Still second highest single region - behind London but ahead of North West.



But everywhere has closed up to be not far apart at all - very different from a week or two ago when it was like Game of Thrones - the north versus the rest!





South West UP 160 to 2977 V 2745 - UP week to week and this area is very high for its small size (having shot up during the global summit there and not stopped). Under 400 cases behind NW when they were under 100 cases in total before that Summit!





MIDLANDS



East UP 122 to 2530 V 2613

West DOWN 148 to 2420 V 3683




COMBINING THESE TWO INTO ONE AS THE NHS DOES TOTALS 4950 - STILL THE LARGEST REGION








NORTH



North East DOWN 28 to 1470 V 2112



Yorkshire UP 10 to 3259 V 3756


NE & YORKSHIRE as Zoe and the NHS combines these two for the hospital data and this is now the third biggest area with 4729 cases. Ahead of the biggest southern regions. But behind the Midlands.



AND



NORTH WEST DOWN 215 to 3373 V 4172






Past weeks NW numbers are 4172 - 3615 - 3464 - 3281 - 2683 - 2999 - 3588 - 3373

Equivalent NW numbers a week earlier 7256 - 7424 - 6962 - 5176 - 5058 - 5322 - 5600 - 4172


Look at the week to weeks above:-

DOWN 3084 - DOWN 3809 - DOWN 3498 - DOWN 1895 - DOWN 2375 - DOWN 2323 - DOWN 2012 - DOWN 769





GM numbers in past week 1623 - 1618 - 1410 - 1330 - 1088 - 1251 - 1381 - 1331


Total in GM from the NW cases Total 39.5 % was 35.9% yesterday and 39.9% a week ago.

 

[Deleted member 77198]

68 deaths. So, yesterday, your chances of dying with Covid was 1 in a million.….

1 in 2 chance of dying at all times.

You either die or you don’t.

 

[inbetween]

People don't seem to be able to get away from the fear of a doomsday variant. I posted some quotes from one of the creators of the AZ vaccine on this thread Coronavirus (2021) thread

Basically, it's extremely unlikely that there will be a variant that can escape vaccines because to do so, it would require such a huge change to the spike protein as to make the virus itself non-functional.

Unfortunately, the media love the idea of a variant bogeyman as it allows them to scream hysterical headlines and government seem to like them too as it aligns with their published objective of 'increase sense of personal fear'. Hopefully over time some perspective will prevail because variants will never go away and we can't base all policy on a hypothetical variant. Labour were talking more nonsense when they demanded that border policy 'in case we allow a new variant in'. There will ALWAYS be new variants and so this just isn't a credible policy.

A virus is not really a living thing, it's more of a piece of DNA that gets into your body and replicates itself. That replication can only take place in a cell and once that cell has been 'taken' the copied viruses are released and the cell is killed and that is what causes symptoms. In the most serious cases peoples cells are quite literally shot to bits and the immune response to it is so massive (by damaging healthy cells to kill the bad ones) that the person unfortunately dies.

With the current vaccines we are training our immune system to attack the specific part of the virus that helps it to get into these cells before it gets in and not after. If the virus can't get into a cell then it can't replicate and so it's rendered harmless and will be destroyed by other aspects of the immune system.

The only way a virus can get around this is if a mutation changes how the virus gets into a cell (I.E, changes to the spike protein) but the virus cannot trigger this process itself, it just happens or it doesn't.

It's like at the moment I'd like to fly to the shops but I haven't got any wings so I can't fly there. If it weren't for my legs or my car then I'd be waiting a long time for a mutation where I grew some wings....

 

[Healdplace]

Full GM details


Total cases 1331 - DOWN 50 on Yesterday - The whole NW was DOWN by 215

Slightly under par of about 80


Wk to wk DOWN 292 when the NW is DOWN by 799

About right as a split of the NW.



BOROUGH / CASES TODAY / V YESTERDAY / V LAST WEEK



BOLTON 96 / DOWN 2 / DOWN 48

BURY 86 / DOWN 5 / UP 8

MANCHESTER 290 / DOWN 30 / DOWN 22

OLDHAM 102 / DOWN 36 / DOWN 55

ROCHDALE 103 / DOWN 8 / DOWN 37

SALFORD 195 / UP 51 / UP 13

STOCKPORT 122 / DOWN 24 / DOWN 61

TAMESIDE 107 / UP 7 / DOWN 37

TRAFFORD 90 / DOWN 6 / DOWN 9

WIGAN 140 / UP 3 / DOWN 44


Three boroughs sub 100 and others not far off.

More modest week to week falls as now there is further to fall that is inevitable. If you are on 200 and fall 100 you cannot do that again unless you get 0! So this is how it works not bad news.

Salford's turn to have the least good day today. Second to Manchester who fell below 300.

Stockport had the best day today down most week to week.

Most will see weekly Pop Score falls - which is the number that matters most to chart the progress of the pandemic in GM.

And it is going OK See table later,

 

[Healdplace]

Greater Manchester

Weekly total cases:-




Bury 580 , Bolton 706, Trafford 733, Tameside 758 , Rochdale 789, Oldham 860 , Stockport 898 , Wigan 1067, Salford 1088, Manchester 1908

More big falls today. Bury well clear but only 400 separating the rest bar Manchester.

Seven now under 1000 with Salford and Wigan heading to join them any day.

 

[Healdplace]

GM Weekly Pop Data after yesterday:~

Borough / Pop Today / 7 days ago / up or down wk to wk/ Testing is % of local population who have tested positive for Covid over past year.

As ever with Pop going up is bad, going down good - the higher the number the better or worse depending on direction moving. The Pop is total cases in past week versus 100,000 POPulation to even out the comparison versus size and expected cases based on numbers living there.



Salford 421 / 658 / DOWN 237 Testing positive 13.0%

Oldham 363 / 666 / DOWN 303 Testing positive 13.5%

Rochdale 354 / 601 / DOWN 246 Testing positive 13.2 %

Manchester 346 / 516 / DOWN 170 Testing positive 13.5%

Tameside 335 / 623 / DOWN 288 Testing positive 11.3%

Wigan 324 / 715 / DOWN 391 Testing positive 12.7%

Stockport 306 / 564 / DOWN 258 Testing positive 10.1 %

Bury 304 / 524 / DOWN 220 Testing positive 12.4%

Trafford 296 / 501 / DOWN 205 Testing positive 10.2%

Bolton 245 / 476 / DOWN 231 Testing positive 13.2%


MORE GIGANTIC FALLS IN WEEKLY POP - EVERYONE DOWN BY THREE FIGURES IN THE WEEK.

Enjoy it while you can as these will now drop over the next few days as there just is not that far to fall any more.
.
Salford now alone over 400. Probably only for a day. And with Bury the only place to go UP on the day.

Bolton back close to its lowest score since Delta arrived. Should get there t9morrow. And best in GM.

Trafford's great scores have taken t below 300 and Stockport is another good day from joining then.



The first two into Delta in April are now the two best scorers. Good sign



Stockport up by 42 - on 10, 171 - and Trafford up by just 38 to 10, 266

So Trafford's good day cuts the deficit on Stockport to just 95 - half what it was.

Bolton again was the lowest Pop Score in GM today - just 33 - to 13, 244.

Bury up 45 to 12, 453.

Manchester up 53 to 13, 536

Oldham up 43 - lowest here in a while too to 13, 528 - which means Manchester retakes the highest GM Pop Score title back by 8 for highest overall Pop Score across the pandemic.

These two are in an even closer fight than Stockport and Trafford at the other (better) end of the table.

Rochdale up 46 to 13, 285.

Salford up 76 - to 13, 093. Highest rise today.

Tameside up 47 to 11, 345

And Wigan up 42 to 12, 760..