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

[Hobby]

1 hour ago, Not Jeremy said:

So it seems we're either Fraser: "We're Doomed!"

 

Or Jones, "Dont Panic!" (Mr Mainwaring)

 

I'm with the Joneses myself.

 

I'm in the "Don't Panic" brigade myself as well, but not Jones's version as he was invariably panicking at the same time whereas I'm trying to keep a level head!

 

1 hour ago, Andy Kirkham said:

I think it could matter because knowing where a quote comes from enables us to judge whether it is is based on a fact or on speculation.

 

According to many on here that means if it's from the Daily Mail it's speculation but if it's in the Daily Mirror or Guardian it's fact... Even though that's complete and utter rubbish!

 

43 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Only [!] his personal experience, but the (very frustrated) doctor interviewed a week or so ago stated that of the Covid patients occupying ICU beds in the hospital where he worked, 90% were unvaccinated.

 

Yes, John, I remember that interview as well (must have been when i was actually listening to either R4 or 5 before I get fed up with their presenters and switch them off, normally within 15 minutes of tuning in, luckily R3 is only one or two button clicks away!).

[Hobby]

[AY Mod]

26 minutes ago, Andy Hayter said:

So if it were three times more infectious but only half the number of people needed hospital treatment, that would cause a rise in hospitalisations or 50% over a very short period = health service chaos.

4.  If the variant runs wild and people have to isolate, what happens to our civilisation when there is a shortage of nurses, delivery drivers, supermarket shelf stackers and so on?

On 05/12/2021 at 11:33, AY Mod said:

Map SA on top of what we currently see here and then picture what it may be like when all those people have to isolate for 7-10 days and the consequent impact on the economy, infrastructure and health services overall. 

 

 

Yup, I think we can both see the issue there irrespective of whether it's mild or not. 

 

So; sources of figures.

 

Officially there have been just over 400 Omicron infections - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59563939

From the link "Using this data, researchers at the University of East Anglia believe there could have been five to six times as many Omicron cases as the official total shows. This data is what is behind suggestions the number of cases is doubling every three days or so and the conclusion that it is more transmissible than Delta."

 

If that data is correct then it's reasonable to say a 25% increase in cases per day is a cautious estimate.

 

What would that give in case numbers?

If those cases isolated (irrespective of their symptoms) how many people would be not working or WFH?

 

 

By the end of January the numbers don't even work. If it can be caught more than once some of people may appear more than once in those calculations.

 

So, at what point will intervention come? In healthcare terms only when/if the systems can't cope but if the current rules are followed on the information which is being given solutions will need to be found way before the middle of January.

 

This is why the spread needs limiting, not just because of actually catching it. Advocating carrying on as much as possible without decisive actions normally comes from those fervent about reducing economic damage but it seems that approach is more likely to cause greater economic impact. It's not as simple as bodies in mortuaries vs. the economy.

[Neil]

2 hours ago, Not Jeremy said:

.... Listening to the radio yesterday, it is astonishing (to me) that all the experts I heard being asked about it could not bring themelves to even slightly articulate or agree that it might not be as bad as the doomsday scenarios you lot are so fond of. ....

 

I think it's just that they don't know (all the experts I seen on TV news programmes say it's too early to know the implications - tests ongoing) and are therefore reluctant to offer an opinion, even with caveats.

 

3 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

.... This is why the spread needs limiting, not just because of actually catching it. Advocating carrying on as much as possible without decisive actions normally comes from those fervent about reducing economic damage but it seems that approach is more likely to cause greater economic impact. It's not as simple as bodies in mortuaries vs. the economy.

 

All previous experience with Covid suggests that the best outcomes happen when swift and decisive action is taken. Getting ahead of the virus and infections should be the goal. Waiting for definitive results looks like it will give Omnicron a two to three week head start.

[Nearholmer]

24 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

By the end of January the numbers don't even work.

Im not sure they work earlier than that either, because that way of representing it seems to assume that (a) everyone who has it knows they have it, and isolates, and (b) the fact that they isolate does nothing to slow the rate of transmission, neither of which sounds quite right to me.

 

Doesn’t alter the fact that if it spreads very easily, we would likely see even harder pressure on health services than now, and possibly an “isolation-demic” that causes lots of disruption.

 

I do hope to goodness that the more thorough modelling doesn’t indicate that we need another hard lockdown …… my children are nowhere near to getting the affects of previous lockdowns out of their systems.

[Oldddudders]

Do I not recall that early in the pandemic we were told that people in certain racial groups seemed to suffer more/worse than caucasians? If true, then the disparity between age-profiles between UK and SA may not be so significant, since I assume a higher % of Afro-Caribbean population there. . 

[Reorte]

Just now, Oldddudders said:

Do I not recall that early in the pandemic we were told that people in certain racial groups seemed to suffer more/worse than caucasians? If true, then the disparity between age-profiles between UK and SA may not be so significant, since I assume a higher % of Afro-Caribbean population there. . 

I was never sure whether or not that wasn't much more of a result of social factors than physical ones.

 

One negative aspect for SA will be the high HIV level there.

[beast66606]

2 hours ago, Dunsignalling said:

Only [!] his personal experience, but the (very frustrated) doctor interviewed a week or so ago stated that of the Covid patients occupying ICU beds in the hospital where he worked, 90% were unvaccinated.

 

John

 

 

 

You mean Dr Anon-y-mous in the Guardian ? - that'll be accurate then.

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

It tells you the proportions of admissions vaccinated vs not (and Table 10 tells you the proportion of deaths similarly), but what it doesnt tell you explicitly is anything about proportions of those who are most seriously ill, or proportions of those occupying ICU capacity.

 

It may be true that "vast majority of those most seriously ill in hospital with Covid are un-vaccinated", or it may not. Tables 9 and 10 taken together hint that that is not the case. They strongly hint that most the majority of the most seriously ill are frail elderly people who have been vaccinated. But, the tables simply don't contain the information that demonstrates conclusively one way or another.

 

I suspect (no figures to prove one way or the other, 'cos I still can't find any, despite wasting lots of time hunting) that the headline message that is both true, and needs to be shouted loud and clear, is that younger and middle-aged adults who have declined vaccination are consuming a hugely disproportionate amount of resource, occupying ICU beds for long periods etc..

 

You do know that ICU beds can change by the hour ? - those figures are what we have, I don't but "my feelings" I'm afraid, that just sounds like "I want to find a way to ignore these facts" - or "weasel words"

 

So you say the figures don't show us anything and then claim "<what> needs to be shouted loud and clear, is that younger and middle-aged adults who have declined vaccination are consuming a hugely disproportionate amount of resource, occupying ICU beds for long periods etc.." - how do you know this ? how do you know they've declined vaccinations ? how do you know how much resource they take ? - you note I quote references for my comments, it's about time you started quoting references for yours.

[Dunsignalling]

15 minutes ago, beast66606 said:

 

You mean Dr Anon-y-mous in the Guardian ? - that'll be accurate then.

 

You do know that ICU beds can change by the hour ? - those figures are what we have, I don't but "my feelings" I'm afraid, that just sounds like "I want to find a way to ignore these facts" - or "weasel words"

 

So you say the figures don't show us anything and then claim "<what> needs to be shouted loud and clear, is that younger and middle-aged adults who have declined vaccination are consuming a hugely disproportionate amount of resource, occupying ICU beds for long periods etc.." - how do you know this ? how do you know they've declined vaccinations ? how do you know how much resource they take ? - you note I quote references for my comments, it's about time you started quoting references for yours.

Live interview on Radio.

 

And equally you know absolutely sod all that might contradict the words you have put in my mouth... 

Edited December 8, 2021 by Dunsignalling

[beast66606]

5 minutes ago, Dunsignalling said:

Live interview on Radio.

 

And equally you know absolutely sod all to contradict the words you have put in my mouth... 

 

What was the doctors name and on which radio station and when was it broadcast - I'd like listen to it so I can know "sod lots"

 

[Nearholmer]

27 minutes ago, beast66606 said:

So you say the figures don't show us anything and then claim "<what> needs to be shouted loud and clear, is that younger and middle-aged adults who have declined vaccination are consuming a hugely disproportionate amount of resource, occupying ICU beds for long periods etc.." - how do you know this ? how do you know they've declined vaccinations ? how do you know how much resource they take ? - you note I quote references for my comments, it's about time you started quoting references for yours.

Please read what I wrote, which was heavily caveated to make clear that it was based on suspicion rather than hard facts, rather than   accusing me of saying something I didn’t.

 

So, why do I have that suspicion (which, to repeat, isn’t backed by hard numbers, because I can’t find any)?

 

Because:

 

- roundly a fifth of the population over 12yo is not fully vaccinated, yet they form roundly a third of those being admitted to hospital. Disproportion.

 

- the fatality rates are consistently higher for unvaccinated people across all age groups. Disproportion.

 

- disproportion at entry to hospital, and disproportion at the worst outcome suggest strongly to me that there will be disproportion in other outcomes too: length of stay in hospital overall; and, length of stay in ICU if that is needed.

 

Now, that isn’t proof of anything, but it is sound deductive reasoning.

[Hobby]

1 hour ago, beast66606 said:

What was the doctors name and on which radio station and when was it broadcast - I'd like listen to it so I can know "sod lots"

 

As I said earlier I also heard it so he wasn't making it up, and the Doc went out of his way to say it was only his experience. It was either R4 or 5 and a few weeks back. Sorry I can't be any more specific but when i saw the comment it rang a bell straight away. I've a feeling it was somewhere in the SE but not 100% sure. Ease off, Beast, he wasn't making it up!

[Bernard Lamb]

2 hours ago, beast66606 said:

 

You mean Dr Anon-y-mous in the Guardian ? - that'll be accurate then.

 

You do know that ICU beds can change by the hour ? - those figures are what we have, I don't but "my feelings" I'm afraid, that just sounds like "I want to find a way to ignore these facts" - or "weasel words"

 

So you say the figures don't show us anything and then claim "<what> needs to be shouted loud and clear, is that younger and middle-aged adults who have declined vaccination are consuming a hugely disproportionate amount of resource, occupying ICU beds for long periods etc.." - how do you know this ? how do you know they've declined vaccinations ? how do you know how much resource they take ? - you note I quote references for my comments, it's about time you started quoting references for yours.

Indeed you did, In particular in respect of Table 9. However you failed to point out that:- a) There was a comment regarding the need for caution. b) There was a long rider as a note at the bottom of the table with a more comprehensive explanation. 

Bernard

[APOLLO]

Information is key to all this. FACTUAL information published daily by the government / NHS.

 

Each hospital listed with occupancy, number of covid cases, intensive care use, number of unjabbed in IC etc etc. We cam then see in real time where the situation is going and prepare ourselves for further restrictions if needed.

 

Is this info available already, on one site easy to look at etc ?

 

Brit15

 

 

[Nearholmer]

Most of it is, but the bit that i can’t find is vaccination status of Covid patients in ICU.

 

Maybe it isn’t a figure that is collected, because it isn’t something that anyone would need to manage things like bed allocation in the near-term.

 

But, access to that would allow us to calibrate against the anecdotes from medical staff (not just in the U.K., but many countries) that “ICU is full of the un-vaccinated”, and, probably more important, it must be necessary to calibrating future demand modelling.

 

It might be there somewhere, but I genuinely can’t find it. I can find the relevant figures from New South Wales, but they aren’t transferable to the U.K.!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 8, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Torper]

From The Times, 4th November: "Doctors and nurses have told of their anger and frustration at not being able to treat seriously ill patients as new figures show that more than 90 per cent of Covid sufferers requiring the most specialist care are unvaccinated."

 

From The Guardian 21st November "But the story is different on our intensive care unit. Here, the patient population consists of a few vulnerable people with severe underlying health problems and a majority of fit, healthy, younger people unvaccinated by choice. Watching the mix of patients coming in with Covid, it feels to me like hardly anybody has been vaccinated nowadays; of course, this is because the people that have been vaccinated are getting on with their lives at home. If everyone got vaccinated, hospitals would be under much less pressure; this is beyond debate."

 

From the BBC re Gloucester Hospitals NHS Trust: "We're seeing younger people, unvaccinated, who take up around 75 percent of the intensive care beds and that's not just here, that's nationally".

 

From The National Institute for Public Health & The Environment, The Netherlands: "The chance that a fully vaccinated person with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 will be admitted to hospital is 17 times lower than for a non-vaccinated person. The chance of ICU admission for a fully vaccinated person is 33 times lower."

 

From the USA: "the Michigan Health & Hospital Association (MHA) has found that three out of four COVID patients are unvaccinated (76%), 87% of COVID ICU patients are unvaccinated and 88% of COVID ventilator patients are unvaccinated."

 

DT

[Reorte]

17 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Most of it is, but the bit that i can’t find is vaccination status of Covid patients in ICU.

You could try rummaging around in here: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/articles/coronaviruscovid19/latestinsights

 

Admittedly I've not found anything in that lot to answer the question though.

[Nearholmer]

Busy now, will have a further delve later, although I have looked there before.

 

One country has got so fed-up with unvaccinated occupying IVU that they’ve withdrawn free care from the - harsh!

 

https://fortune.com/2021/11/09/singapore-covid-unvaccinated-free-health-care/?_gl=1*ejw0sa*_ga*Q2NpY2U3bC1CVWZzN1IzeTZjT0l6NDk2S3E2MkVqNk1GSHFVMkJlNzNma2M0YmdQTE5hcjJWUW9uZ0QyQkpqdw..
 

“Singapore reports that 5.2 out of every 100,000 unvaccinated people are critically ill or intubated in ICUs owing to COVID, compared with 0.5 out of every 100,000 fully vaccinated people.“

Edited December 8, 2021 by Nearholmer

[beast66606]

7 minutes ago, Bernard Lamb said:

Indeed you did, In particular in respect of Table 9. However you failed to point out that:- a) There was a comment regarding the need for caution. b) There was a long rider as a note at the bottom of the table with a more comprehensive explanation. 

Bernard

 

When people post "suspicions"  you  let them go without comment but when I post an actual official document you try and make out I was hiding something even though it is there for all to see and read ? my mind boggles.

 

There's only 1 footnote, not a and b - the comment a refers to b as a fuller explanation.

 

if there was a hospital with 100 beds, and only 35 people in the world are left unvaccinated and they were all admitted, the other 65 beds were occupied by vaccinated people, then even though there are billions who are vaccinated, the hospital still only has 35% non vaccinated.

If the same hospital was in a universe where 400000000 million billion zillion people were not vaccinated and 65 people were, and 35 non vaccinated people were admitted and the 65 people vaccinated were admitted it still only has 35% unvaccinated people.

 

6 hours ago, beast66606 said:

 

We are being told wrong, Dr Hilary repeated this on Lorraine the other day when he claimed 90% of patients in hospital are not vaccinated (he sort of added "Covid") which is a downright lie, it seems that lies on the "scared" side of the discussion are ok though - the figure is 35%. Table 9 in the linked document

 

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1037987/Vaccine-surveillance-report-week-48.pdf

 

As you are implying there's something wrong with my original comment, I've quoted it above for you - please explain exactly what is wrong with it

 

The footnote to which you refer is shown for several tables, including some which have no admission / occupancy data - it's a generic comment and not relevant to table 9.

[Andy Kirkham]

This looks like some positive news about Pfizer boosters:

https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-three-shots-of-pfizer-vaccine-can-neutralise-omicron-variant-lab-test-shows-12489942

 

The research found that blood obtained from people that had their third booster shot a month ago neutralised the Omicron variant about as effectively as blood after two doses fought off the original virus - which was first identified in China.

Edited December 8, 2021 by Andy Kirkham

[Nearholmer]

Beast

 

You are consistently overlooking  the “disproportion” point. One of the reasons that people get annoyed with the voluntarily unvaccinated is that they consume a disproportionate amount of resource (“more than their fair share”), and in so doing freeze-out others who could otherwise be treated sooner/better for other, non-Covid, illnesses, and put medical staff under ferocious pressure.

 

You will note that my suspicion is borne out by reports from all over the world, but without solid U.K. figures I still regard it is as no more than a suspicion, backed by reasoning, because the % of people in a population who are vaccinated changes the picture greatly. Last April in the U.K., everyone in ICU with Covid was in-vaccinated.

 

Kevin

 

 

[AY Mod]

Well done guys! https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-australia-58740915

 

Anyway, Plan B coming? Means that we ought to be on Plan C.

[beast66606]

45 minutes ago, APOLLO said:

Information is key to all this. FACTUAL information published daily by the government / NHS.

 

Each hospital listed with occupancy, number of covid cases, intensive care use, number of unjabbed in IC etc etc. We cam then see in real time where the situation is going and prepare ourselves for further restrictions if needed.

 

Is this info available already, on one site easy to look at etc ?

 

Brit15

 

Facts ? - how dare you suggest we stick to facts, they are so boring.

 

The NHS did (does ?) not produce bed stat returns frequently enough* for real time data (years ago I used to write software to do such things along, admittedly this was a good few years ago now and things have probably changed. However I suspect even if they do produce the stats more frequently there would be a risk of identifying individuals (low numbers in categories eg. discharge means it's easier to home in on actual people rather than just numbers) so the information would not be made public at such frequency.

 

* Bed occupancy and associated data for a hospital is quite a hefty data cruncher so tended to be updated overnight when I was last involved (early 2000s)

[John M Upton]

Plan B just got the green light.... [Conveniently burying the Christmas Party scandal...]

Edited December 8, 2021 by John M Upton

[Oldddudders]

WFH back in vogue, masks in theatres and cinemas and large public gatherings, Covid pass is obtainable if you have had two jabs, or produce a negative lateral flow.