Coronavirus (2021) thread

[Invisible Man's Bandage]

Me & my wife have just got back from a short break in Somerset and we both felt like we had gone back in time six months. We went into Taunton several times and mask wearing was far higher than in Gtr Manchester, with up to 80% of people putting one on when going into shops. There was a high proportion wearing masks even just walking about outside.

Now the strange thing for me is that at home in Salford mask wearing has collapsed (barely saw one in Tesco this morning) & vaccination rates are much lower than the West Country but cases here have dropped off a cliff but they have been rising down there. What is the reason for that?

 

[Healdplace]

GM boroughs weekly past 7 day case totals:

Bury 495, Rochdale 528, Bolton 708, Oldham 751 , Salford 789, Tameside 1071, Wigan 1087, Manchester 1198, Trafford 1216, Stockport 1536

At the right end of the table Bury back on top but Rochdale close. But both well up today.

At the wrong end of the table Stockport FELL and Machester was UP so their lead decreased by 20 to 338 most in two weeks! More signifcantly Trafford's bad run saw it overtake Manchester into second - almost as shocking as Stockport doing so. I do not recall Manchester EVER being third in this table given its much bigger piopulatuion than the rest of the boroughs.

Hint of change in the air.

 

[blue b4 the moon]

Me & my wife have just got back from a short break in Somerset and we both felt like we had gone back in time six months. We went into Taunton several times and mask wearing was far higher than in Gtr Manchester, with up to 80% of people putting one on when going into shops. There was a high proportion wearing masks even just walking about outside.

Now the strange thing for me is that at home in Salford mask wearing has collapsed (barely saw one in Tesco this morning) & vaccination rates are much lower than the West Country but cases here have dropped off a cliff but they have been rising down there. What is the reason for that?

I was in Lincolnshire last weekend for the horse racing in Market Rasen, as you say totally different, some in masks outside more than 70% wearing them in shops & supermarkets.

It's no wonder the NW and GM are constantly high in infections even taking into account population density.

 

[Healdplace]

Seriously?

If we vaccinated the majority in August (or ideally July, before they broke up) how on earth could this be true?

I would have done that too - as soon as they broke up for Summer - but I think they maybe factored in reluctance from families given the difficulty in getting younger adults to take it too and once it got close to mid August and by the time they would have got enough jabs done they likely saw that the risk/benefit of not rushing in the last week or two was probably OK if school returm drove a rise in cases.

I think it started off as needless tardiness and ended up as a make do and mend policy they obviously never declared as stating openly they risked kids by dithering will not win votes.

 

[Invisible Man's Bandage]

I was in Lincolnshire last weekend for the horse racing in Market Rasen, as you say totally different, some in masks outside more than 70% wearing them in shops & supermarkets.

It's no wonder the NW and GM are constantly high in infections even taking into account population density.

But in Salford, with the second lowest proportion of vaccinations after Manchester, cases have dropped like a stone and I'm struggling to figure out why.

 

[Healdplace]

But in Salford, with the second lowest proportion of vaccinations after Manchester, cases have dropped like a stone and I'm struggling to figure out why.

This has nothing to do with vaccination rates I suspect. Just as Stockport having easily the best vaccine levels in GM but the highest cases lately does not.

It is children driving the current case numbers. THe biggest age group of all catchng it UNDER 15 who have largely not been vaccinated in any borough.

That is why these things are happening that look counter intuitive.

And also why despite high case numbers day after day hospital numbers are not rising and indeed for two or three weeks have been falling - as are deaths.

The pandemic has turned into a casedemic because of the radical change in the age of those mostly catching it.

Hence why it matters if this happens NOW rather than deeper into the winter when the risk of spread to the more vulnerable would risk escalating and stessing out the NHS at what is already expected to be a tough time with other things like flu.

In essence if the kids all catch it now before hugging granny at Christmas the consequences will be better than the other way around.

 

[blue b4 the moon]

But in Salford, with the second lowest proportion of vaccinations after Manchester, cases have dropped like a stone and I'm struggling to figure out why.

Maybe the percentage of people excluding kids that put themselves at risk have nearly all had it now and the rest of the borough are very careful?

Oldham it seems hasn't got anywhere near that point yet.

 

[Invisible Man's Bandage]

This has nothing to do with vaccination rates I suspect. Just as Stockport having easily the best vaccine levels in GM but the highest cases lately does not.

It is children driving the current case numbers. THe biggest age group of all catchng it UNDER 15 who have largely not been vaccinated in any borough.

That is why these things are happening that look counter intuitive.

But I don't think that overall there is an older population in Salford than say Stockport. It isn't more affluent and it has a sizable proportion of minority groups so there is no obvious reason for the huge difference between the areas.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

The pandemic has turned into a casedemic because of the radical change in the age of those mostly catching it.

We are currently hospitalising more children than at any point in the entire pandemic.

Not sure they or their parents would regard it as a "casedemic".

Coronavirus (COVID-19) latest insights - Office for National Statistics

www.ons.gov.uk

The data is reported as rates per 100,000, about 1.3. If my maths is right, we're currently hospitalising about 150 kids a week with covid, and have been all summer. By contrast, rates in adults are way down.

 

[BlueAnorak]

Let's be honest, you're deliberately misrepresenting the modeling

You're the one who claims they are in any way accurate.
if they were accurate, actual numbers should be somewhere between the lower and upper quartiles of the predictions with actual numbers occasionally falling outside the range. They never are.