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

[Hobby]

25 minutes ago, iL Dottore said:

Not according to my quick review of the paper (which can be found here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7721859/)

 

December 2020 so before the vaccine rollout...

[Rivercider]

Locally I am aware that some hospital departments have cancelled pre-planned visits to free up resources for Covid patients. Hopefully they will not be required,

 

cheers

[hayfield]

I am in the East of England area, thankfully hospitalisations are low, seemingly there are signs infections are also reducing. But certainly not a time to let your defences down

[iL Dottore]

1 hour ago, boxbrownie said:

Yes I did, my Son is a Doctor who was on a Covid ward during the first and second peaks and has lost several colleagues and friends working in the NHS to this virus.

 

I was agreeing with your points and pointing out how frustrating it is when I hear people who don’t take it seriously enough.

 

So I am not quite sure what you mean by replying in such a way.

My very, very sincere apologies for my misunderstanding. I did read the post and I understood the complete opposite of what was meant. The way it was phrased ("You sound just like my Son……I’ve given up trying to pass the message on to unbelievers") gave the impression that you considered your son an "unbeliever" (and I sound like him...).

 

I'm afraid I did take umbrage as I also thought "unbeliever" was a reference to me quoting the low IFR rate in certain age groups - something that is often done by CoVID deniers and Anti-Vaxxers who absolutely love taking data out of context to "prove" a non-existent (fictional and/or fantastical) point.

 

Your son (and all his colleagues treating patients) has my admiration.

 

And I, like you, am frustrated by those who refuse to face the facts (I have a relation - in her early 60s - who refuses to be vaccinated despite a number of clinical vulnerabilities because the vaccines "haven't been proven to work"/"they were developed so fast - there must be something they're hiding" [the reason changes each time we talk]).

 

Again, sorry for having misread your post (good to know we're on the same side )

 

iD

[Reorte]

4 hours ago, hayfield said:

Clearly headline figures do tell a story, but you need to drill down to find accurate info. This is why ZOE seems far more accurate and informative

The ZOE estimates are probably the most accurate assessment of the overall situation, but they also measure a slightly different thing - the number of people with symptoms. Because symptoms don't immediately clear up it is reasonable to expect a peak in the people with symptoms to occur some time after a peak in the number of new cases. In the case of the January peak the highest Zoe number was on the 11th Jan, the peak in new cases was on the 1st (by specimen date, 7th by date reported).

[boxbrownie]

4 hours ago, iL Dottore said:

My very, very sincere apologies for my misunderstanding. I did read the post and I understood the complete opposite of what was meant.

 

iD

No worries, my post was brief and easily misunderstood.

[hayfield]

Been into town for the first time in ages, as you would expect in the open many without masks

 

Shopping centre walkways 20-30% without masks

 

In M&S less than 10% without masks, mainly older teenagers/early twenties

Menswear shop all staff wearing masks

Model shop yesterday all staff and customers wearing masks plus old social distancing rules in place

 

Glad to say most folk still being careful/respectful to others

 

Latest infection rate data still decreasing nationally and the local 7 day average is also declining

 

Interesting this wave is baffling the experts as the infection rate is declining at a similar rate it increased, different to previous spikes, or is it a slightly false dawn ?

[Neil]

3 hours ago, hayfield said:

.....  Interesting this wave is baffling the experts as the infection rate is declining at a similar rate it increased, different to previous spikes, or is it a slightly false dawn ?

 

The boffins I've seen on the news (C4 and Newsnight) advise that it's too early to declare that it's all over. There's a suspicion that there was a rise in cases due to the Euro's which has worked it's way through the statistics and is now tailing off but that we've yet to see the results of the lifting of restrictions in England.

[Oldddudders]

The daily map on the Government website has an easily-understood colour key. This time last week much of the UK was red - bad. Today much of Southern England is back to mere blue, and Scotland, which had been pure red in the lowland areas, is now also back to blue. This may only be a temporary respite, but the change is significantly widespread. 

[Ian Hargrave]

The big picture in terms of overall infection statistics is probably more palatable than anecdotal reporting of individual cases which would seem not to buck the trend. Disturbingly today I hear of instances of two who are both seemingly protected by double dose vaccine who are hospitalised.One is not in a good place.This isn’t the time for conclusion jumping….much as we might like it to be.

 

 

[hayfield]

12 hours ago, Neil said:

 

The boffins I've seen on the news (C4 and Newsnight) advise that it's too early to declare that it's all over. There's a suspicion that there was a rise in cases due to the Euro's which has worked it's way through the statistics and is now tailing off but that we've yet to see the results of the lifting of restrictions in England.

 

Neil

 

I think again this nasty condition has the experts in a quandary, given its past history it never gives up this easy, but infections has seemingly reduced very quickly, one possibility is that folk have stopped testing, on the other hand the vaccines may well be the game changer we have been told about and the quick burn has taken the fight out of it. Time will tell, as I said yesterday shoppers in Chelmsford still on the whole were wearing masks indoors, lets hope the worries are unfounded

[Reorte]

1 hour ago, hayfield said:

I think again this nasty condition has the experts in a quandary, given its past history it never gives up this easy, but infections has seemingly reduced very quickly, one possibility is that folk have stopped testing, on the other hand the vaccines may well be the game changer we have been told about and the quick burn has taken the fight out of it. Time will tell, as I said yesterday shoppers in Chelmsford still on the whole were wearing masks indoors, lets hope the worries are unfounded

A lot of people seem to be rather keen to say "oh, it's all a drop in testing", but the drop isn't that large - and not much different from the rise in testing when cases were going up and they weren't saying that was all just due to a rise in testing (because it almost certainly wasn't).

[AY Mod]

Pointers for other indicators to look out for - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57984170

[hayfield]

1 hour ago, Reorte said:

A lot of people seem to be rather keen to say "oh, it's all a drop in testing", but the drop isn't that large - and not much different from the rise in testing when cases were going up and they weren't saying that was all just due to a rise in testing (because it almost certainly wasn't).

 

The Essex health supremo is worried that people have both stopped testing and come off the NHS application and this could be part of the reason why numbers have decreased so quickly

 

We went shopping a bit early and it coincided with the builders from a local building site buying their 11ises, needless to say none were wearing masks. which is what I have noticed for months Had we arrived a bit later we would not have seen any.  

 

As for shoppers doing their main shop only 2 were not wearing masks. In the main the vast majority are still taking care and respectful of others

 

[Reorte]

3 minutes ago, hayfield said:

 

The Essex health supremo is worried that people have both stopped testing and come off the NHS application and this could be part of the reason why numbers have decreased so quickly

 

Yes, that's what keeps getting repeated, but my point was that the drop in testing seems to be fairly similar to the increase in testing on the rising case side, so it makes just as much sense to shrug off the rising numbers we saw (and I don't see any reason to believe that that wasn't a genuine rapid increase in cases). I suppose I'm just naturally sceptical of treating the case numbers as meaningful only when they're going in one particular direction. The decline in testing numbers is also considerably lower than the decline in cases (13.8% vs 30.8% in the last week).

 

Hospital admissions and deaths will be rather less affected but they also lag; hospital admissions should be dropping soon if the decline is real, deaths a bit later.

[MPR]

The gov.uk infection map https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/interactive-map/cases allows you to move a slider and look at infection rates over time - it is interesting to see the trajectory of infection rates in the areas where the delta-related increases were experienced early on. (Thinking of Darwen here and later, central Oxford or Durham as examples) There seems to be a pattern of steep increases in infection up to around 1800-2000 cases/100k followed by steady, even steep decline, presumably as the pool of susceptible & available population is reduced by vaccination or infection . The local map then resembles a doughnut at the MSOA level, with adjacent suburbs’ infection rates following (and lagging) the pattern seen in city centres. Whilst  I understand that all the factors being discussed in the thread above could also be very significant influences on rates, I wonder if this pattern is repeating across the UK as a whole now.

Edited July 28, 2021 by MPR
added link

[Rivercider]

2 hours ago, Reorte said:

A lot of people seem to be rather keen to say "oh, it's all a drop in testing", but the drop isn't that large - and not much different from the rise in testing when cases were going up and they weren't saying that was all just due to a rise in testing (because it almost certainly wasn't).

I would imagine that the peak was a combination of things.

The crowds watching the England matches at the Euro 2020 will have had a major effect just has there had been a previous rise in Scotland. England played on  July 3rd, July 7th, and July 11th, (with daily cases on those dates 23,525  37,823 and 29,993), then peaking at 60,715 on the 16th, five days after the final match. 

Less testing and the break up of schools will obviously also had an effect.

 

cheers

[Rivercider]

1 minute ago, Rivercider said:

I would imagine that the peak was a combination of things.

The crowds watching the England matches at the Euro 2020 will have had a major effect just has there had been a previous rise in Scotland. England played on  July 3rd, July 7th, and July 11th, (with daily cases on those dates 23,525  37,823 and 29,993), then peaking at 60,715 on the 16th, five days after the final match. 

Less testing and the break up of schools will obviously also had an effect.

Edit - at work this morning a friend of mine told me that her brother (a former drinking buddy of mine who is now about 60) has been struggling a little to shake off Covid. He watched the England football at the pub with his sons, and they all caught it.

1 minute ago, Rivercider said:

cheers

 

[AY Mod]

25 minutes ago, MPR said:

I wonder if this pattern is repeating across the UK as a whole now.

 

Largely yes. Taking Bolton as the first escalation of Delta it radiated outwards from there plus the points it 'jumped' to and then radiated from there. Then, like ripples from a pool it radiates outward until the ripples blend/clash with those radiating from other points until, like the surface of a pond with several stones lobbed in, the patterns become messy and confusing.

[Joseph_Pestell]

15 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

The daily map on the Government website has an easily-understood colour key. This time last week much of the UK was red - bad. Today much of Southern England is back to mere blue, and Scotland, which had been pure red in the lowland areas, is now also back to blue. This may only be a temporary respite, but the change is significantly widespread. 

Whereas here in France only a few areas were in the red last week. This week, it's the whole country.

[AY Mod]

4 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

Whereas here in France only a few areas were in the red last week.

 

Do you have a link to such maps for France?

[Joseph_Pestell]

6 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

Do you have a link to such maps for France?

 

Sorry, no. Just seen the maps in the newspapers this morning when having a cafe in the village bar.

[hayfield]

8 minutes ago, Joseph_Pestell said:

 

Sorry, no. Just seen the maps in the newspapers this morning when having a cafe in the village bar.

 

 

The figures for changing colours may well be different, but looking at Worldometer analyses yesterday both France and Spain overtook the UK infection rates

[hayfield]

29 minutes ago, AY Mod said:

 

Largely yes. Taking Bolton as the first escalation of Delta it radiated outwards from there plus the points it 'jumped' to and then radiated from there. Then, like ripples from a pool it radiates outward until the ripples blend/clash with those radiating from other points until, like the surface of a pond with several stones lobbed in, the patterns become messy and confusing.

 

The strange thing was when the Delta virus hit, initially everywhere but the North West the outbreaks were seemingly kept under control, even the first couple of weeks the infected areas were quite localised, once it took hold it really took off

[AY Mod]

2 minutes ago, hayfield said:

The strange thing was when the Delta virus hit, initially everywhere but the North West the outbreaks were seemingly kept under control, even the first couple of weeks the infected areas were quite localised, once it took hold it really took off

 

Like Tetris, it's straightforward at the start but gets harder the faster they come at you and you can be quickly overwhelmed. Make a mistake early on and you're constantly on the back foot.