Lockdown’s Last Lingerings - (Covid since L2 ended)

[Reorte]

27 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Must be the case. Last summer, plenty of cafes did a good job serving out of windows/hatches to customers who were outside and well-separated, which is about as far from a crowded city centre pub in risk terms as you can imagine.

Several are still doing that - that's permitted at present. There's one near me that seems to be doing more business than usual that way, I've frequently not got anything when I was intending to due to the number of people hanging around (distanced, it just meant a long wait).

[Andy Hayter]

10 hours ago, Reorte said:

 

No, that's not how it works - there's not a 100% chance of any infection passing on to anyone else even without the vaccine. You can say that on average infected people pass it on to N others, but that's not quite the same thing. If it's a 60% overall level of protection then when everyone's vaccinate the R number gets reduced by 60%, from what it would otherwise be. With no measures in place at all that would still be greater than 1, but get it the overall number of cases down low enough with other measures, and with the additional protection from the vaccine, and you've got a situation that whilst not eliminated can be controlled without too many additional problems and restrictions (e.g. contact tracing can work even without apps with low numbers).

 

No-one's claiming today's situation, right now, represents the end. But it points towards it.

 

It's quite hard to say just what the percentage probability of passing on the virus actually is. That'll depend on how many people you meet, under what conditions, and all the other factors affecting transmission. You can look at the total number of cases and say "on average each person passes it on to X more", but to say what the probability of me passing it on to you (purely for example!) is you need to specify the circumstances.

 

Someone elsewhere has posted an Israeli report saying that of half a million people vaccinated with two doses they've had 500 cases, 4 serious ones, and no deaths so far.

 

 

I did not explain myself well.  When I suggested that the transmission was 82%, I was not suggesting that 82% of population would get it.

 

If as we saw in January around 60000 cases per day with the current level of vaccination and your quoted transmission protection, a release of lockdown would result in around 50000 cases per day.   We have a long way to go yet.

[Railpassion]

Poor leadership has a big part to play in the death toll. I think most people accept this. Political pressure from certain factions led to delay and ineffective decisions. Much will come out in the next year. 

 

On my earlier point about schools, I think it is established that u11 schools pose less of a risk and should be the first to open. Secondary schools pose more risk particularly in the older age groups. 

 

So many of the adult population have not been exposed to covid19 yet and a significant number of under 50s could be hospitalised and die. My family work in hospitals and tell me their ICUs are now full of people in their 30s. Yesterday they lost a woman in her 20s.

 

Voices in the media this morning, mostly MPs, are calling for an early end to restrictions. These people have already caused thousands of unnecessary deaths. They are dangerous. 

Edited February 15, 2021 by Railpassion
Autocorrect

[Nearholmer]

47 minutes ago, beast66606 said:

Rude.

 

So how much transmission is allowed ? and where is this documented ? - I need to check if my wife is on the expendable occupation list.

Probably was a bit rude, yes, provoked by a post that seemed to say it was OK to mix for random social reasons, because we are allowed to mix for very necessary, practically  unavoidable reasons. Maybe I was being too prickly.

 

I used the term “afford”, because that’s what it amounts to: as a society we can afford a tiny bit of spread, in order to get necessary things done, because our health services can cope with the results of that, but we can’t afford more, because they can’t.

 

Of course zero spread is what we’d really all like, but from where we are now, that isn’t a practical proposition in the short-term - we need some people doing their jobs, and even with the very best precautions conceivable, that means there is some spread.

 

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by Nearholmer

[hayfield]

47 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Must be the case. Last summer, plenty of cafes did a good job serving out of windows/hatches to customers who were outside and well-separated, which is about as far from a crowded city centre pub in risk terms as you can imagine.

 

I have just briefly listened to the start of an interview of a covid research group member. What they are asking for is a return to the tier system, that sounds to be good sence, but these tiers need to be managed

 

As you say many cafes/gastro pubs operated in compliance with the law, that's what we would expect. As you said it it totally different to some other city/town center drinking dens/ some of these ethnic smoking and presumable gambling premises. Anyone including religious venues should be given either a yellow or red card according to the missdemour and in the worst cases prosecuted under health and safety for endangering the public.

 

Yellow card a warning red cards immediate cessation of trading, reopening once an appropriate length of closure has been served and proof of corrective steps have been taken. This should extend to all organisations including religious. Most thankfully are acting as you would expect, some though believe they are above the law, perhaps the threat of loosing their charitable status, and closure of the premises.  Perhaps even prosecution of the trustees in the most serious cases  

[hayfield]

59 minutes ago, beast66606 said:

Rude.

 

So how much transmission is allowed ? and where is this documented ? - I need to check if my wife is on the expendable occupation list.

 

Or is it actually that the aim is to reduce overall transmission across the board by encouraging / forcing social distancing, whether at work or not while accepting that some activities must continue.

 

 

I retired from an occupation that is on the list, and pre lockdown I worked like many with no protection. My daughter sees things we never expect we would see, including post mortems of some of whom had covid, except when in hospitals she has nothing but basic protection, she is most certainly on the list, but being 40 and a female more likely to get mild symptoms. In fact it is thought she had it in March last year, rather than the flu

 

Covid will be with us for a long time, its not just our country but the whole world that is affected, so transmission will always be there. According to the experts by the autumn there will be several exciting drugs available to treat this infection. We accept influenza, covid will be considered in the same manner. A few more people getting an annual jab

 

Nobody is being thrown under the bus, but humanity cannot lock itself away from every infection. There will be a point when we have to go back to something near normal

[monkeysarefun]

2 hours ago, Hobby said:

 

I would respectfully suggest that we couldn't have done that. We've discussed this before, Monkey, the circumstances of the UK are nothing like that of sections of Aus, both from population density/movement/work and attitudes of the population in a small crowded island like ours. Had our population had a similar "attitude" (wrong word, but it'll do) to those countries such as Japan and other Far East countries then perhaps we could have but for reasons peculiar to Western Europe (and the USA) that was never going to happen. 

 

Please stop comparing apples and pears and suggesting they are the same!

Respectfully back, I'm not talking about the whole of Australia but Melbourne, a city of over 4 million people packed as densely as anywhere in the UK. If it had spread through even just the city, ignoring the rest of Victoria, let alone  the other states, infection rates would have been the same as any other populated area on earth including the UK.

 

In contrast the 400 or so cases that the UK was getting in July were for the whole of the UK so presumably they would have been actually more spread out than here and therefore more easily traced and isolated.

 

 

[Nearholmer]

33 minutes ago, monkeysarefun said:

In contrast the 400 or so cases that the UK was getting in July were for the whole of the UK so presumably they would have been actually more spread out than here and therefore more easily traced and isolated.

 

I'm largely with you on this Monkeys, but not entirely.

 

Looking back on the position we were at here in late-July to early-August, if we'd operated a very precautionary regime with "internal borders" and effectively sealed external borders, and had top-flight "track and trace", its conceivable that most of the autumn/winter mayhem could have been avoided. But, we didn't, and neither did any other country in Europe to the best of my understanding.

 

And, while its conceivable that we could have avoided most of the autumn/winter mayhem, I don't believe its anything like certain that we would have, because I'm not convinced that the role of climate/weather/seasons  in all of this is yet fully understood. If, as I strongly suspect, fairly distant aerosol transmission outdoors is possible in damp and cool conditions, then a tiny number of cases could still have multiplied, and track and trace would have been thwarted.

 

Without wishing ill upon the people of Aus, I do wonder how things will go as you tip towards Autumn and Winter again, although I don't understand how close a Melbourne winter is to a Northern European Winter ........ is it quite as depressingly horrible?

 

[Having checked, no the climate in Melbourne is not as horrible as here, in fact it looks quite nice! Average 123 hours of sunshine in a month in mid-winter, pretty mild temperatures - more like Portugal than Preston.]

Edited February 15, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Hobby]

I know you are only talking of Melbourne, Monkey, but I am pointing out that whilst that is a relatively isolated city we have many large centres of population very close to each other and in many cases they overlap (look at the NW across to West Yorks, the West Mids and London and the SE). And that's before you take into account the different make up and attitudes of that population and the lack of ability to police (control) said population effectively. The two countries are simply not comparable.

 

As I said we've discussed this before and not agreed so I can't see the point in going over old ground, you are convinced the two are similar, I'd say they are anything but and population density is only one of a number of major differences between them. I only wish our population was more like yours and those of Japan and so on and we'd have a fraction of the number of deaths. However they aren't. 

[Trevellan]

Here on the Isle of Wight, people are voting with their feet, or rather, wheels. Traffic levels during this latest lockdown have quickly returned to near normal at certain times of day. It makes a mockery of the supposed lockdown.

 

And before the keyboard warriors try to pick a fight, I drive buses on a part-time basis and I worked throughout Lockdown 1 last year (and since). Compliance was generally high during L1, with a few notable exceptions, and traffic was extremely light. As time has gone on, people appear to be taking a more liberal interpretation of essential journeys. More annoyingly for us, visitors have continued to travel to holiday homes from the mainland, including London when it was in Tier 4 and we were in Tier 1.

 

Covid restrictions don't just have economic consequences. I know of several people whose mental health has suffered and who are desperate to return to some sense of normality. Therefore, while I understand the rational behind lockdown and the tier system, it's fast losing credibility with so many seemingly ignoring the restrictions with impunity.

[rocor]

19 hours ago, Neil said:

There's a problem with the selective opening of (quiet? local? country?) pubs if that's what's being suggested. What do you think the irresponsible drinkers who flooded the town and city centre pubs will do if their first choice of boozer remains closed? Secondly, with public transport problematical, how do you think they'll get there?

 

Although generation wise I fall into the category of “decrepit old git”, I do still remember being young. One of the last sort of pubs that the younger me and my mates would have wanted to visit, would have been a quiet country pub populated by the middle aged locals. The more likely scenario of having a drink when the pubs are closed, is the lads stocking up on supermarket beer and going back to somebody's gaff to drink them. 

[boxbrownie]

1 hour ago, hayfield said:

. In fact it is thought she had it in March last year, rather than the flu

Has she not been tested for antigen?  My Son has been in A&E for the past two years and is now tested twice a week as are his colleagues.

[monkeysarefun]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Without wishing ill upon the people of Aus, I do wonder how things will go as you tip towards Autumn and Winter again, although I don't understand how close a Melbourne winter is to a Northern European Winter ........ is it quite as depressingly horrible?

 

The weather and its effect on covid here is  intriguing.

 

In Perth last month a security guard caught the UK variant while working in a covid hotel, he had no contact with cases there so its still unclear how he got it but the fact that he did so easily was a huge concern and bore out the increased infectiousness of the strain.

 

He wasn't diagnosed positive until 5 or 6 days after his last shift and in that time he'd gone to the pub, shopping, out to various locations so it was assumed it would be the start of an outbreak like the UK is seeing with it.

But after more than  3 weeks now there hasn't been a single case. Not in the general public, nor the thousand or so close contacts that had been identified, not even his flatmates..

 

Similarly in Brisbane, UK strain, cleaner in a hotel, no direct contact with positive cases,  travelled around to shops and family gatherings and so on before getting diagnosed, yet only her partner caught it.

Currently there is an outbreak in Melbourne, again UK strain spread this time by a nebuliser that a positive guest was using. Its too early to tell if it'll go the same way but today there was only one new case and that was in a family member of a positive case so it is looking hopeful for them.

 

So the warmer weather is an obvious point of difference between here and there and might reduce the strains potency, but then again Sth Africa, Brazil and Mexico are similarly warm right now, and they are having horrendous daily infection and death figures so there must be something else, maybe Vegemite.

 

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by monkeysarefun

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, Trevellan said:

Covid restrictions don't just have economic consequences. I know of several people whose mental health has suffered and who are desperate to return to some sense of normality.

Anything but rare - a high price is being paid in mental health terms.

[rocor]

4 hours ago, beast66606 said:

 

Except when shopping, as we all know the virus does not transmit when shopping, or working, or volunteering, or .... - the virus is clever enough to know when you are following a guideline activity and it will stay clear, break the guideline and you're done for.

 

 

 

I was out shopping today in a supermarket, standing in the queue at the check out. As far as I could see, everyone was wearing masks, and standing on the floor markings that separated us all by two metres. A woman walked up to another one who was in the queue ahead of me. They then both engaged in conversation while being less than ½ a metre a part. I am just posting this as an observation.  

[beast66606]

2 hours ago, hayfield said:

Nobody is being thrown under the bus, but humanity cannot lock itself away from every infection. There will be a point when we have to go back to something near normal

 

I know - I'm with you. I was answering someone else.

[LBRJ]

4 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Are you serious, or are you winding us up, or being a bit loose with the actuality?

 

I ask, because, as I’m sure you know, right now, all these socialites should be staying at home, not mixing between households.

 

My question is a genuine one, because it seemed to me that last year there were very different attitudes and levels of adherence to distancing rules in different places.

 

I am serious, though not agreeing with the points.

Round here there is only the merest hint of any noticeable lockdown when one is out and about.

 

There are people about all day long 

schools are about 80% full

traffic on the main road is not much less than normal levels 

nearly all the local shops are open ( I mentioned before the Flower Shop now has a rack of Veg, to be an "essential shop ")

 

Local field paths that used to be barely visible are now like well worn cart tracks as people discover the Near Peak™

Sledging and mountain biking are in over drive (though the sledging may stop now its Spring all of a sudden....)

[Nearholmer]

22 minutes ago, LBRJ said:

I am serious, though not agreeing with the points.

 

I vaguely remember we talked about this before, and trying to remember where you are, I looked at the rates of change of cases between your area and ours, and they are radically different.

 

Here, casual observation suggests that lockdown is being pretty well observed so far, and we have had a consistently <20% per week reduction since the start of the year, taking us down from c1000/100k.week to c140/100k.week. Basically, the way cases and then deaths shot-up round here has frightened nearly everyone into behaving themselves.

 

Where I remember you being, the fall rate over the same period is much less, c10% per week, from c350/100k.week to c190/100k.week.

 

It really does suggest very different levels of adherence to lockdown.

Edited February 15, 2021 by Nearholmer

[beast66606]

4 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

It really does suggest very different levels of adherence to lockdown.

 

It also suggests the virus doesn't behave in a predictable way as described by monkeys ^ ^

 

[LBRJ]

In the seven days to 09/02 our MOSA had 4 cases,  a drop of 20% and a "Rollin Rate" of 63.4.

That is putting us near the low end the graph.

 

Edited February 15, 2021 by LBRJ

[Nearholmer]

37 minutes ago, beast66606 said:

It also suggests the virus doesn't behave in a predictable way as described by monkeys ^ ^

 

I'm sure there's some of that too - odd cases of surface or distant airborne transmission that defy tracing or obvious logic.

[beast66606]

56 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

I'm sure there's some of that too - odd cases of surface or distant airborne transmission that defy tracing or obvious logic.

 

Some people aren't spreading it as expected and the South African variant which appeared in some areas with no obvious route - I'd rather keep an open mind rather than vilify the whole population, with no evidence, for every outbreak. Anyway, I'm off to a party in Mayfair .... (joke)

[Nearholmer]

4 minutes ago, beast66606 said:

I'd rather keep an open mind rather than vilify the whole population, with no evidence, for every outbreak.

 

Que?

[beast66606]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

It really does suggest very different levels of adherence to lockdown.

 

Evidence ?

[Nearholmer]

All the things that LBRJ listed that led to the discussion in the first place.