Coronavirus (2021) thread

[Healdplace]

England hospital numbers over the weekend rose from 5851 Friday to 5992 today. Up 141.

As usual they fell Saturday and rose over the next two days.

Last week they went from 5992 Friday to 6094 on Monday - a rise of 102.

Monday to Monday they are still down by 102 as you can see. The previous Monday to Monday were falls of 330 & 440 - so the numbers are levelling off but very slowly,

They usually fall slowly mid week but we will see if that still happens now the fall is so modest.

Full regional numbers on the data thread later.

 

[blueinsa]

This one is correct

We should all lockdown until such a time every single human being on the planet can correctly pronounce it.

 

[Gabriel]

 

[Manc in London]

We should all lockdown until such a time every single human being on the planet can correctly pronounce it.

I agree but I think the pandemic may well have passed by that point.

 

[Claytop]

Javid: Gap between infection and infectiousness may be shorter with Omicron​

‘Javid says scientists believes the "window between infection and infectiousness may be shorter" for the Omicron variant than Delta.’


That would be good news in my mind, I think.

 

[Marvin]

Javid: Gap between infection and infectiousness may be shorter with Omicron​

‘Javid says scientists believes the "window between infection and infectiousness may be shorter" for the Omicron variant than Delta.’


That would be good news in my mind, I think.

That would be one reason why it would be more transmissible, but I don't follow why that could be good news?

 

[roubaixtuesday]

336 omicron confirmed according to Javid.

Back of envelope sums:

*if* they are mainly community infections rather than travellers; *if* we are sequencing a third if all cases, then there's about 1000 community transmissions currently that are being picked up as covid positives.

*if* the very tentative initial view that the rate of spread here is similar to SA, these will treble weekly or thereabouts.

So around a month until omicron overtakes delta, with massive uncertainty. I'd guess that's maybe pessimistic, but who knows?

Past experience shows that the public reacts to surges by reducing contacts, so even if that pans out, it doesn't necessarily mean total covid cases will rise at the implied rate.

It also suggests that caution from government on messaging around parties, testing, WFH would be sensible to reduce the risk of drastic measures being necessary later. Particularly given current rising delta and the high risk Christmas period approaching.

And it's a completely open question whether severity is different to delta. Big spectrum of views out there on that ranging from panic over reported high rate of severe paeds cases to excitement over reported lower overall rate of severe illness. No conclusive hard data for some days yet at least, I think.

Get vaxxed, get boosted, get your kids vaxxed. Scots government suggesting daily lfts for all, which isn't a bad idea if we have capacity.

 

[Healdplace]

Why if it is so much more infective are numbers only inching up by a few a day? If its only about 40 of 40,000 cases last week in a day and 80 out of over 50,000 cases today added this looks very different from the steep vertical line on graphs in South Africa we get shown.

I know its early days and Delta is well established here but I expected thousands of Omicron cases by now a couple of weeks after starting to look for them.

I dont understand statistics enough to know why that expectation is obviously wrong. But presumably it must be.

 

[grunge]

Why if it is so much more infective are numbers only inching up by a few a day? If its only about 40 of 40,000 cases last week in a day and 50 out of over 50,000 cases today added this looks very different from the steep vertical line on graphs in South Africa we get shown.

I know its early days and Delta is well established here but I expected thousands of Omicron cases by now a couple of weeks after starting to look for them.

I dont understand statistics enough to know why that expectation is obviously wrong. But presumably it must be.

we don’t genomic test every case, so there will be some lag there.

but I guess in the UK we have so many delta cases that omicron has less people to infect. Even with the boost of some immunity evasion that’s gotta be having an impact on numbers.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Why if it is so much more infective are numbes only inching up by a few a day? If its only about 40 of 40,000 cases last week in a day and 50 out of over 50,000 cases today added this looks very different from the steep vertical line on graphs in South Africa we get shown.

I know its early days and Delta is well established here but I expected thousands of Omicron cases by now a couple of weeks after starting to look for them.

I dont understand statistics enough to know why that expectation is obviously wrong. But presumably it must be.

What's your source for the numbers 40 and 50? Javid quoting 336 today.

In general, we should expect exponential growth, so the rate of increase is proportional to the numbers already. A worst case scenario might be doubling every 3-4 days, which would equate to 40 cases this time last week being 160 cases today.

We don't expect growth of thousands before cases are airway in the thousands.