Covid - coming out of Lockdown 3 - no politics, less opinion and more facts and information.

[Hobby]

The words "causal link" have been used several times in earlier posts and links, it's worth just giving the definition of that phrase I think...

 

"The correlation between a factor and an outcome could be a coincidence, or it could be caused by a completely different factor."

[hayfield]

The figures today and tomorrow will be interesting when the Welch and NI figures are added,  Thankfully most of the indicators are still in decline showing we are on course to easing the restrictions

 

Whilst the infection rates in France are exceptionally high, with other not too far behind. I see reports of the larger member countries are ramping up their vaccination rollouts, seemingly there is an uplift in supply resulting in a ramping up of vaccinations, Italy being one country being very bullish anticipating several million vaccinations a week. Good news indeed for all

[Jonboy]

2 hours ago, hayfield said:

 

What is strange/needs analysing is that Germany has seen more cases using a much lower number of vaccines ?

I suspect if you look at the methodology that Germany have used to prioritise vaccines there is much bigger spread in ages ranges that have received it.

 

This is apparently because their decentralised health systems dont have sufficient detail on file to target age groups en-mass in the way the uk have done, partly due to GDPR....

 

In some areas they seemingly resorted to guessing age based on first names... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/15/german-covvaccine-officials-play-name-game-to-comply-with-data-privacy-laws

[woodenhead]

48 minutes ago, Jonboy said:

In some areas they seemingly resorted to guessing age based on first names... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/15/german-covvaccine-officials-play-name-game-to-comply-with-data-privacy-laws

I am sure they have skirted around the one first name that would not have been popular after the mid forties but I'd put money on 90% of them having been first in line for the vaccine.

 

 

[hayfield]

The death rates whilst very sad for those directly affected are looking so much better,

At the beginning of Jan the 7 day average peaked at about 1200  a day

By the start of Feb they only dropped to just under 900 a day

By March it was just under 200 a day

Late March (29th) 36 a day

The last 7 days there has been 212 deaths a drop of 175 on the previous 7 days (though some of these may have occurred in an earlier period)

New infections likewise are down 35% on the previous 7 days 

 

Certainly both the lockdown measures and vaccination roll out seem to be working, the dark cloud on the horizon is the increasing infection rates on the Continent, lets hope their vaccination roll out will have the same effect

[Neil]

29 minutes ago, hayfield said:

..... Certainly both the lockdown measures and vaccination roll out seem to be working, ......

 

Yes they do, but it will be interesting to see which is having the greater effect on suppressing cases as lockdown eases.

 

Interesting isn't the best word to use here but I'm stuck for one which encompasses both the fascination to see what actually happens, a worry that things may get worse again and a horror that to prove the theory risks with lives will be taken again.

[hayfield]

1 minute ago, Neil said:

 

Yes they do, but it will be interesting to see which is having the greater effect on suppressing cases as lockdown eases.

 

Interesting isn't the best word to use here but I'm stuck for one which encompasses both the fascination to see what actually happens, a worry that things may get worse again and a horror that to prove the theory risks with lives will be taken again.

 

Supposedly Europe is suffering from what is called the Kent variant, we have had this. Plus with those at most risk of serious illness having at least one vaccination hopefully we will have some in built immunity.

 

Germany is a strange one though, they suffered far less in the 1st European wave than most countries. About the same time we were starting to get the Kent variant, they had a second wave which was far worse for them than the first. Then they had a period of declining infections, only to now suffer from a third wave.

 

I keep hearing in the UK we have only had 2 waves, but certainly in Essex we started to recover from the autumn wave around Christmas, but in Jan got completely hit by the Kent variant. I think its the so called South African and Brazilian variants which could cause some issues, hopefully as I said earlier we have half the adult population with a basic form of protection 

[2mm Andy]

5 hours ago, Jonboy said:

I suspect if you look at the methodology that Germany have used to prioritise vaccines there is much bigger spread in ages ranges that have received it.

 

This is apparently because their decentralised health systems dont have sufficient detail on file to target age groups en-mass in the way the uk have done, partly due to GDPR....

 

In some areas they seemingly resorted to guessing age based on first names... https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/15/german-covvaccine-officials-play-name-game-to-comply-with-data-privacy-laws

 

Don't forget that Germany also initially restricted vaccination using the A-Z vaccine to the under-65s because of concerns over a lack of evidence of efficacy in the elderly patients. I believe they only changed their approach in early March.

 

Andy

[Rods_of_Revolution]

53 minutes ago, Neil said:

 

Yes they do, but it will be interesting to see which is having the greater effect on suppressing cases as lockdown eases.

 

 

Seasonality will almost certainly have the greatest effect on suppressing cases, with last Summer proving the point, where in England we had many weeks with no substancial increase in the number of excess deaths, in fact the majority of excess mortality over the Summer was likely caused by the heatwave. Summer was also the period with the most lax restrictions.

 

We can also be quite sure that the immunity within the population from having contracted Coronavirus in 2020 will also act in suppressing the virus to a significant extent, or else the Winter period would have been worse (in terms of standard deviations from the mean, as Winter always has the highest deaths regardless) than the original outbreak in April last year, but it wasn't. The lockdown over Winter was effectively more lax than during April, as evidenced by the Google Mobility data.

 

Seasonality, followed by immunity either from the virus or vaccines, will be the biggest supressing factors. Lockdowns are the subject of much debate and there are scientific papers which support and deny the correlation with them and a positive outcome, so it's not obvious whether they work or not. Same with face coverings, it's not obvious whether they work or not, based on the various scientific studies available. Transmission indoors seems to be a significant factor, but outdoors the transmission is seemingly very low, so with Summer favouring outdoor activities and good ventilation, this also contributes to the seasonality supression.

 

 

[Reorte]

16 minutes ago, Rods_of_Revolution said:

Seasonality, followed by immunity either from the virus or vaccines, will be the biggest supressing factors. Lockdowns are the subject of much debate and there are scientific papers which support and deny the correlation with them and a positive outcome, so it's not obvious whether they work or not.

Purely based on the case rates alone the evidence that lockdowns do work seems reasonably strong - measures come in, a week or two later cases start to decline. There's quite a lot of argument over just what level of lockdown achieves what effect - it may be the case that a very strict one confers little additional benefit, and a casual one may just impose a bit of hardship and difficulty with no impact on the disease.

[Oldddudders]

My German friend has been fighting cancer for more than couple of years, is 60, finally got a jab last week. He is less than generous towards the Government's handling of Covid, believing the recent/current lockdown to be rather ineffectively lax.

 

France remains a basket-case. The latest lockdown is a great deal less draconian than before, and running a couple of months late, to my mind. Positive tests and hospital admissions are running at more than 10x the UK rate, while ICU cases are even worse. Presidential elections are next year.....

[Rods_of_Revolution]

Just now, Reorte said:

Purely based on the case rates alone the evidence that lockdowns do work seems reasonably strong - measures come in, a week or two later cases start to decline. There's quite a lot of argument over just what level of lockdown achieves what effect - it may be the case that a very strict one confers little additional benefit, and a casual one may just impose a bit of hardship and difficulty with no impact on the disease.

 

That may be the case if you look at the situation in the UK, but if you look across the World you can find plenty of examples which show the opposite.

 

This paper is quite interesting: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-84092-1

 

Quote

The analysis was performed using linear regression with special attention to residual analysis. After preprocessing the data, 87 regions around the world were included, yielding 3741 pairwise comparisons for linear regression analysis. Only 63 (1.6%) comparisons were significant. With our results, we were not able to explain if COVID-19 mortality is reduced by staying at home in ~ 98% of the comparisons after epidemiological weeks 9 to 34.

 

You can find other papers which suggest that they do work, but it's far from settled as to what the effects of lockdowns really are and where they work or don't work. Locking down healthy people in their millions is not something which has been done or really studied before the last year; traditionally it's just been the sick who have been quarantined. There's also the confounding factor that lockdowns cause allsorts of other effects, both long term and short term, so it's difficult to determine the net positive or net negative of such an action.

 

The data support seasonality being the biggest factor in supressing the virus. If we could have extended last Summer indefinitely, the virus would have remained at those low levels, despite the lax restrictions.

[Neil]

5 minutes ago, Rods_of_Revolution said:

.... The data support seasonality being the biggest factor in supressing the virus. If we could have extended last Summer indefinitely, the virus would have remained at those low levels, despite the lax restrictions.

 

I wouldn't be so sure, about half an hour ago on Channel 4 news one of the boffins from the government's sage advisory group said that we will likely experience an increase (rather than a full blown third wave) this summer in July.

[Pete the Elaner]

1 hour ago, hayfield said:

 

Germany is a strange one though, they suffered far less in the 1st European wave than most countries. About the same time we were starting to get the Kent variant, they had a second wave which was far worse for them than the first. Then they had a period of declining infections, only to now suffer from a third wave.

 

 

The media keeps trying to force feed us about a third wave but if you look at figures, you will struggle to find evidence of it anywhere.

What you will find is a prolonged second wave. You mentioned Germany. They had a less severe first wave than the UK in spring 2020, then started to suffer from their (far worse) second wave in late October/early November. This peaked in mid January & they are still recovering from it.

[Rods_of_Revolution]

Just now, Neil said:

 

I wouldn't be so sure, about half an hour ago on Channel 4 news one of the boffins from the government's sage advisory group said that we will likely experience an increase (rather than a full blown third wave) this summer in July.

 

From what I've read those worst-case scenario models are based on a theoretical variant appearing with significantly different properties to the current variants; a real 'what if'. None of the SAGE worst-case scenario models have reflected reality yet, so there's little evidence to suggest this one will.

[hayfield]

5 minutes ago, Pete the Elaner said:

 

The media keeps trying to force feed us about a third wave but if you look at figures, you will struggle to find evidence of it anywhere.

What you will find is a prolonged second wave. You mentioned Germany. They had a less severe first wave than the UK in spring 2020, then started to suffer from their (far worse) second wave in late October/early November. This peaked in mid January & they are still recovering from it.

 

The latest figures I saw show its been back on the increase again for the past few weeks, whether its a third wave or  a reoccurrence of the second wave depends on how you look at it, but very similar to what we experienced earlier in the year in the south

[AY Mod]

2 minutes ago, pctrainman said:

these are just some of the real facts take them and do with them what your controlled minds allow you

 

RMweb is not the place for conspiracies. Move along.

[pctrainman]

This is no Conspiracy , so I will move along nowhere , I am supposed to live in a Democracy and you should not need to be reminded of that .

[AY Mod]

2 minutes ago, pctrainman said:

you should not need to be reminded of that .

 

Don't patronise me, I will be one of the few who read the junk you had posted where you clearly disregarded forum rules.

[pctrainman]

Go yopurself and your site you Brain dead Moronic fool .

[Bernard Lamb]

2 hours ago, hayfield said:

 

 

 

Germany is a strange one though, they suffered far less in the 1st European wave than most countries. About the same time we were starting to get the Kent variant, they had a second wave which was far worse for them than the first. Then they had a period of declining infections, only to now suffer from a third wave.

 

 

By strange I hope you mean atypical.

If you dig into the figures you will find that although the second wave was several times worse than the first it was still a lot less than in the UK.

Several reasons for these figures including the structure of around 16 semi autonomous states. the rise of the AfD, the second wave hitting the older population in the former East German cities very hard and the attitude of a large section of the population to vaccination and the ineffective roll out of the same.

There is still a long way to go, with no doubt some further unexpected twists and turns still to come in many countries.

Bernard

 

[hayfield]

2 minutes ago, Bernard Lamb said:

By strange I hope you mean atypical.

If you dig into the figures you will find that although the second wave was several times worse than the first it was still a lot less than in the UK.

Several reasons for these figures including the structure of around 16 semi autonomous states. the rise of the AfD, the second wave hitting the older population in the former East German cities very hard and the attitude of a large section of the population to vaccination and the ineffective roll out of the same.

There is still a long way to go, with no doubt some further unexpected twists and turns still to come in many countries.

Bernard

 

 

I could not think of a better word. As you say Germany did well in the first wave, but as you have said have been hit very hard in the second wave

 

I should have said third wave of infections (not deaths), infections seemed to bottom out in mid Feb but sadly have increased greatly since. Thankfully deaths have remained subdued and hopefully will stay this way.

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/germany/

 

If anything the UK has benefitted from having a national health system, plus not hampered by data protection laws supposedly preventing ages being accessible. Seemingly the EU is seeing an increase in the amount of vaccines they are receiving, as the likes of France, Italy and I guess others are ramping up their vaccine regimes   

[Rods_of_Revolution]

9 minutes ago, Bernard Lamb said:

By strange I hope you mean atypical.

If you dig into the figures you will find that although the second wave was several times worse than the first it was still a lot less than in the UK.

Several reasons for these figures including the structure of around 16 semi autonomous states. the rise of the AfD, the second wave hitting the older population in the former East German cities very hard and the attitude of a large section of the population to vaccination and the ineffective roll out of the same.

There is still a long way to go, with no doubt some further unexpected twists and turns still to come in many countries.

Bernard

 

 

Comparisons are also difficult as there is no standard way to record 'a case' or 'a death' with regards to Coronavirus; each country has its own methodology. That's before variables such as demographic and geographic differences are considered. In terms of the number of standard deviations from the normal number of deaths, Germany has done much better than England, not better than Wales or NI though. NI has done suprisingly well, if you look at the Z-Scores, you struggle to even spot the pandemic in the usual noise.

 

EUROMOMO provide a useful graph tool to compare Z-Scores: https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps#z-scores-by-country

[LBRJ]

Its my turn for an injection tomorrow....

I wouldn't say I'm scaredy nervous, but I only booked it this morning so I'm a bit new to this idea!

 

[Reorte]

50 minutes ago, LBRJ said:

Its my turn for an injection tomorrow....

I wouldn't say I'm scaredy nervous, but I only booked it this morning so I'm a bit new to this idea!

 

Had my first one earlier this evening. Barely any noticeable side effects so far, although it sounds like it varies considerably from person to person.