Reorte

Yes, the timing fits, but what I find odd is that there hasn't been a plateau in hospitilisations, which I'd have expected to occur after cases but before deaths.

New cases have definitely gone back in to decline but deaths seem to have stalled in the last week, and of course that's the one that really matters (doesn't matter how many catch it if no-one dies). I can't see an obvious explanation, if it was a result of the temporary stalling of declining cases (and the timing's right) I'd have expected to have already seen it appear in hospitilisations, but there's no sign there.

My guess about very sudden local spikes is that they'll involve a specific location or group (which might involve people breaking the rules but may not; we've seen a few cases of areas suddenly showing up high due to outbreaks in prisons as an example).

A big if, but if a variant stops re-infection soon afterwards (or during) by other variants then the most successful one will be one that's incredibly infectious but so mild that no-one even knows they have it, or wouldn't if it wasn't for testing, and it would stop others. That's a fairly far-fetched best-case scenario but less extreme versions probably explain why we haven't died out from disease millenia ago.

Apologies for the sneering then, although "you continue to live with misapprehensions however" continues in the same tone. I'm not under any misapprehension however. We look backwards simply because we need sufficient data in order to work out what's going on, and that's what provides the most recent information we've got - it's the closest we can get to the current picture, even if it isn't current (although you can always extrapolate somewhat, but that's taking us in to estimating the current number). We can only work with the data that we've got. Sometimes there seems to have been too much obsession with the older but thus more reliable data - talk about how things are getting worse but the corner's almost certainly been turned, and, more worringly, the opposite, where the situation's clearly going up again but that hadn't yet shown up in the most reliable data sets. What that means as regards to the R number is that you can still have a more recent (yes, still not "right this minute") number or estimate though, albeit with larger error bars. But that's what we've got to work with. How else do you decide whether or not we need to do more?

Pretty sure numbers will eventually increase again. It's also not unreasonable to assume that they won't reach previous levels for a long time, if at all, but where they'll end up I really wouldn't like to guess.

OK fair point, less than 1 if you're not taking the log of it. Negative as in the log is, that it's indicating negative growth. I'll hold my hands up to that one! I suppose it could be negative if some people can go around sucking the virus out of others without catching it but I'm not aware of the existence of that superpower

"Given that you don't understand the R rate" - I suggest that you refrain from personal sneers like that just because you disagree with what someone is saying. I understand it perfectly well. When the numbers are so low that a few cases can shift it either way then you're in a situation where there's not actually much of a problem. It's displayed as a range because like any measurement of absolutely anything there's an uncertainty attached to it. Of course the numbers are historic, you can't measure (but you can estimate) what the future will be. That's what you've got to work with, that's the data which tells you, as close as is possible, the current state of play, whether we're in an improving or worsening situation, whether measures are effective or more needs to be done. It is not "such an esoteric number that outside of the circle of epidemiologists it has little real value," it's the measure of the key, vastly important factor of whether the pandemic is spreading or declining. Whilst strictly speaking yes, it's the number of people it's passed on to (on average) that's very closely related to the change in the total number of cases. Uncertainties about the real number of cases (tests don't get them all), sample dates, smoothing out the lumps and bumps in the measured numbers (e.g. the weekend effect) mean that you need to estimate it rather than measure it directly, but it's by no means esoteric.

That's why there's an argument for them during the vaccination roll-out, particularly when the people most at risk still have little protection, but also why it seems questionable for the time they might appear, particularly in a country where the number of people refusing vaccination is low. And if it is all about risk then really the people with sound medical reasons for not being vaccinated shouldn't be able to have an exception. There are three factors to consider IMO - what's the R rate at the time, what are the total number of cases at the time, and what's the risk (both of catching it in the first place and of a severe outcome). On the first, there's a case if they change it from positive to negative (or allow it to stay negative with other changes, such as allowing various events). On the second, that number needs to be low to begin with regardless (even with a negative R rate if you're starting from a high place that's still a lot more infections, so the case there is to stay shut anyway). On the third if the risk from infection is low enough anyway (there's never zero risk in anything) then the odd person slipping through is something we'll have to live with, like we do with all sorts of other diseases.

Pinkish, plastic container - sure it wasn't screenwash?

When it comes to such choices whilst familiarity comes in to play there's also familiarity by proxy, i.e. books, photos, film, and there's far more of that for BR than for earlier (and more for the Big 4 than earlier, and so on). That's bound to have its influence.

Thankfully the UK seems to be a country with very few of the won'ts.

Although I'm sceptical of passports (once a very large proportion of people have been vaccinated) it's hard to see how it could turn out more will die from implementing it.

It's not quite that simple though - there's plenty of objection to the idea from people who aren't at all anti-vaccine. "If having a passport..." - that IF is the question; has the case really been made that it will, or is "well it won't make things worse" sufficient?

Indeed, and the vaccination programme is something to be proud of. Ah, might've changed since I heard then - I thought the possibility of requiring them to go in to a restaurant or stadium was still a possibility. I've no problem with the idea for entering another country. Better make sure it's just that situation we're talking about, we may have been talking a little cross-purposes.

As long as it does provide a meaningful reduction of an otherwise unacceptably high risk there's a case that can be made. But also there's a line at which it's not going to wash even though the risk isn't zero, which is why we don't carry them for other diseases. For those OK with the idea, what's your exit condition? What bothers me (apart from the question about just how they'll actually achieve much) is not understanding the concerns. Understanding the concerns but believing they're very much outweighed by the benefits I can understand, but not understanding why it bothers some people (and worse still sneering at them - not that I'm accusing anyone here of doing that) is always a worry.

No, they're just all different components of it, depending upon the level of risk at a particular time and place. Even then it should be remembered that the solution may be a "least bad" situation rather than "this makes it perfectly OK." No ethics are "correct", although some are almost universally shared.

In which case we'll never be free of it anyway, so it brings us back to "what's the actual point?" Either vaccination works or it doesn't, and it certainly seems to work, so the only argument I can see for them requires the vaccination programme to be ongoing. And you were expected to show it to go about ordinary everyday activities within this country?

Driving has always been a privilege though (even though in practical terms the world's reshaped itself around easy access to cars that it's not possible for a significant proportion to do without one).

Fair enough, but then it would make more sense to have it now, rather than by the point where there'll be very few unvaccinated.

Purely on the practical side of the covid passport idea, what is it actually going to achieve, once the vast majority of adults have been vaccinated? Especially if medical exceptions to being vaccinated count (the virus doesn't care exactly what reason you had for not having a vaccine, whether it was due to genuine medical need or tinfoilhattery). It would be possible to make a stronger case for them if vaccination take-up was low but the UK's pretty good in that respect. And I do wish that people would recognise that the ethical aspect of it isn't non-existent just because they don't happen to agree with it personally.

Scary.

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.

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.

IMO there's both a general aesthetic preference and a nostalgic one. I was born after steam ended on BR so I can't be said to have a nostalgic preference but the general BR steam colours I like (for locos; for coaches I really rather like maroon and aren't at all keen on blood and custard). A good example of nostalgia on the other hand is that I smile when I see a loco in BR blue. It's not actually a livery that I like at all from an aesthetic perspective (especially blue and grey - perhaps two tone coach liveries just don't do it for me), but I do like the sense of nostalgia from my childhood with it (BR ones I liked from when I was alive were the InterCity swallow and the two-tone Railfreight Grey).