Coronavirus (2022) thread

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Healdplace said:
Even with the obviouly less than actual case numbers of around 200,000 a day and a bit over 2000 a day going into hospital you can see that. And that 200,000 is an underestimate of cases and the 2000 a real number. So it is a tiny fraction.

On this day last year we were a few days from the peak of the Jan 2021 wave. With 60,916 cases on 5 Jan.

There were 4119 admissions from that level of cases then.

Today it is half that from over 3 times as many cases. So even on that measure about six times as many testing positive were going into hospital last year v today.

There were 30,686 in hospital a year ago and just under 18,000 today. And 2645 on ventilators then v 868 today.

This is a very different situation to a year ago. On every measure.
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Good to see the South African experience being recreated in the U.K.

All that worry in the media for fuck all.
 
roubaixtuesday said:
The level of delusion here is remarkable.

Despite the "scaremongering" (ie reality) resulting in a significant drop in contacts and the impact being at the absolute best case of what was possible, we're still in a position where "NHS stretched like never before."

Without the "scaremongering", all done as a conspiracy to get a "few extra quid", this would, of course, be worse.

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I don't think it's quite delusion, it's more because COVID is a regional phenomenon. We can continue to obsess over national numbers but national numbers do not reflect the reality regionally.

London hospitals can probably cope with huge influxes but can local hospitals elsewhere? Chorley hospital is 2 minutes from me but this government closed its 24/7 A&E department so anyone with COVID would have to go to Preston. However, everyone in Preston and around Preston is also going to Preston. I've heard that Preston A&E wait times are far in excess of 4 hours.

You can see how any influx in cases and staff illness could easily overwhelm certain hospitals locally and that is what is probably happening specifically at a local level. It doesn't mean we need to take action but it is certainly exposing the flaws in local and regional hospital capacity.

Now I'm not calling for restrictions but we need to understand that data is pointless without context and that context has to reflect reality, simply comparing it to the peaks of last year is pointless and removes any context.
 
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inbetween said:
I don't think it's quite delusion, it's more because COVID is a regional phenomenon. We can continue to obsess over national numbers but national numbers do not reflect the reality regionally.

London hospitals can probably cope with huge influxes but can local hospitals elsewhere? Chorley hospital is 2 minutes from me but this government closed its 24/7 A&E department so anyone with COVID would have to go to Preston. However, everyone in Preston and around Preston is also going to Preston. I've heard that Preston A&E wait times are far in excess of 4 hours.

You can see how any influx in cases and staff illness could easily overwhelm certain hospitals locally and that is what is probably happening specifically at a local level. It doesn't mean we need to take action but it is certainly exposing the flaws in local and regional hospital capacity.

Now I'm not calling for restrictions but we need to understand that data is pointless without context and that context has to reflect reality, simply comparing it to the peaks of last year is pointless and removes any context.
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Agreed.

In addition, local A&Es could be swamped with falls from the freeze over. That’s nothing to do with Covid but part of the context.
 
hgblue said:
I think this is probably correct. My daughter had Delta a few months ago and has what I presume to be Omicron now. However, it's unbelievably mild, two days of a sore throat and a bit of a headache and she's already feeling better.
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I wonder how much of that ("unbelievably mild") is down to her having a decent level of immunity due to prior illness and vaccination?
 
Tim of the Oak said:
Agreed.

In addition, local A&Es could be swamped with falls from the freeze over. That’s nothing to do with Covid but part of the context.
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Yep and even if we delve into the data, North-West admissions have already hit last years peak (479 reported on 3/1/22 vs 480 on 20/1/21) and we're very likely to exceed it.


With the number of cases out there, it's actually stupid to say that hospitals aren't being swamped or at least aren't at serious risk of being swamped. The real question is where the line lies as to when the influx is too much but we just don't really have that information.

The one thing I will agree with folk is that there's probably nothing we can do about it other than to do our best. France is reporting far more cases and they have far more restrictions. Clearly with the transmissibility of Omicron the only option available is to go hard or go home.
 
Johnny Mars Bar said:
You think it’s a ‘delusion’ to call out the press for scaremongering?
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It's a delusion to say that the reporting of Omicron generally was scaremongering for financial gain, yes.

As I said, despite it being at the very best end of what the early data indicated possible, it has, nevertheless, resulted in "NHS stretched like never before."
 
inbetween said:
Clearly with the transmissibility of Omicron the only option available is to go hard or go home.
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No. This is absolutely not the case. The data clearly indicates that even the mild restrictions and people#s self imposed behavioural change in the UK slowed the rise of omicron significantly.

We have not either gone "hard" or "home".

Every marginal reduction in transmission results in a reduction in peak impact. And it's the size of the peak that does the damage.

Of course, there's a balance between what is desirable, but "go hard or go home" is a false dichotomy.
 
roubaixtuesday said:
It's a delusion to say that the reporting of Omicron generally was scaremongering for financial gain, yes.

As I said, despite it being at the very best end of what the early data indicated possible, it has, nevertheless, resulted in "NHS stretched like never before."
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Tbf even before Covid we got articles every Winter stating the NHS was at it's limit and close to breaking point. I imagine we'll get them every year going forward too until something's done about the state that it's fallen to.
 
Gaylord du Bois said:
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I'd seen data showing quite high ZX deaths for SA. Delving into the link in that twitter post, overall SA is indeed higher than Gauteng.

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Gauteng seems to be a low outlier for XS deaths for this wave for SA provinces, though to emphasise, they are lower than delta almost everywhere in SA. According to the link there "a significant proportion of the current excess mortality being observed in South Africa is likely to be attributable to COVID-19." It's about a quarter of the delta wave FWIW.


I have zero insight into what any of this means, or to what extent it informs the UK future.


AIUI large gatherings are still banned in SA, and "The wearing of masks in public places is still mandatory, and failure to wear a mask when required remains a criminal offence"

Coronavirus COVID-19 Alert level 1 | South African Government

Alert level 1 The National State of Disaster has been lifted as from 5 April 2022. Current regulations in place under National Health Act as published on 4 May 2022.
www.gov.za www.gov.za
 
Do wonder if an outcome of this pandemic might be some form of ‘national social service‘ for young people in the coming years, which would see them work for a year in the NHS and social care more generally. It could help in alleviating a backlog that will take years to clear, raise health awareness issues in society earlier, thus preventing them later, and go some way to repairing the bonds of social cohesion that appear to have come unstuck.
 
Claytop said:
Tbf even before Covid we got articles every Winter stating the NHS was at it's limit and close to breaking point. I imagine we'll get them every year going forward too until something's done about the state that it's fallen to.
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I agree with that, absolutely. But it's also true that COVID is having a huge additional impact.
 
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