The big Coronavirus thread

sungod

First.Aspect said:

I read an article this morning that purported to show that infection numbers almost exactly track the testing number spike, with a gradual uptick of the other metrics.
...

infections rising with tests could be explained as...
a) doing more tests detecting proportionately more infections
b) people with symptoms acting to get a test, thus increasing the number of tests and detected infections

a) suggests constant infection rate in the population

b) suggests increasing infection rate in the population

given the apparent increased transmissibility of omicron, i'd assume that it's b) more than a)

rjsterry

First.Aspect said:

kingstongraham said:

First.Aspect said:

I read an article this morning that purported to show that infection numbers almost exactly track the testing number spike, with a gradual uptick of the other metrics.

Just listening to the zoe study podcast, which reflects this. Except London, which is an outlier.

I'll admit it is a huge risk, but I suspect that the government is banking on us seeing what SA has seen, in terms of hospitalisations in comparison to previous waves.

London being an outlier for that so far isn't that comforting. Once it got going here, it really went ballistic at least for a few days. If that happens elsewhere later, positive case numbers are not going to be pretty.

FWIW, with the triple jabs, I'm fairly relaxed about potentially getting infected again, but I don't want to be spreading it about.

London's vaccination rates are very poor. It isn't clear that the pattern will be reflected elsewhere, other than the inner cities that also have poor rates.

... Where most people live.

kingstongraham

sungod said:

First.Aspect said:

I read an article this morning that purported to show that infection numbers almost exactly track the testing number spike, with a gradual uptick of the other metrics.
...

infections rising with tests could be explained as...
a) doing more tests detecting proportionately more infections
b) people with symptoms acting to get a test, thus increasing the number of tests and detected infections

a) suggests constant infection rate in the population

b) suggests increasing infection rate in the population

given the apparent increased transmissibility of omicron, i'd assume that it's b) more than a)

I'm doing lateral flow tests more often now than before, (even though I'm not submitting any of them via the app). So bit of both, I'd say.

One positive test begets multiple more tests as well, so that will drive the number of tests up as well.

First.Aspect

rjsterry said:

First.Aspect said:

kingstongraham said:

First.Aspect said:

I read an article this morning that purported to show that infection numbers almost exactly track the testing number spike, with a gradual uptick of the other metrics.

Just listening to the zoe study podcast, which reflects this. Except London, which is an outlier.

I'll admit it is a huge risk, but I suspect that the government is banking on us seeing what SA has seen, in terms of hospitalisations in comparison to previous waves.

London being an outlier for that so far isn't that comforting. Once it got going here, it really went ballistic at least for a few days. If that happens elsewhere later, positive case numbers are not going to be pretty.

FWIW, with the triple jabs, I'm fairly relaxed about potentially getting infected again, but I don't want to be spreading it about.

London's vaccination rates are very poor. It isn't clear that the pattern will be reflected elsewhere, other than the inner cities that also have poor rates.

... Where most people live.

This only makes sense in a Michael Gove, "We want all schools to be above average" kind of a way.

Vaccination rates are below average in some urban areas of the UK.

TheBigBean

kingstongraham said:

FWIW, with the triple jabs, I'm fairly relaxed about potentially getting infected again, but I don't want to be spreading it about.

I'd imagine your initial covid infection offers quite a bit of protection too.

kingstongraham

TheBigBean said:

kingstongraham said:

FWIW, with the triple jabs, I'm fairly relaxed about potentially getting infected again, but I don't want to be spreading it about.

I'd imagine your initial covid infection offers quite a bit of protection too.

Possibly, but it's almost two years on now, so I'd expect the full boosted vaccine to give pretty much the same.

kingstonian

rick_chasey said:

kingstonian said:

rick_chasey said:

I do feel like we’re en route to a car crash and no one is doing anything about it.

2-3 weeks is when it translates to deaths and the numbers are just going crazy

When you say “no one is doing anything about it”, you’re excluding the ramped-up rollout of boosters, the need to show Covid passes for Access to large venues and the guidance to wear face masks on public transport & in shops etc ?

Some things have been done - whether they have gone as far as some would wish or recommend is another thing.

OK let's do a bit of housekeeping.

"gone as far as some would wish" isn't really what it's about. I wish we didn't have any of this, so it's not about wishing. The strawmanning of people who "want" lockdown because they think it is the safest course of action consistently plagues otherwise decent debate on the merits or otherwise of public health intervention. So can we all accept none of us want any of this and it's a discussion about the best gov't policy and not wish-casting?

Secondly, the large venue guidance is pretty minimal (what proportion of people are we talking about here?) and I get the the masks help but they really don't help that much, a maybe a couple of tenths off the R rate.

Anyway, here's this from the guardian:

The risk of reinfection from Omicron is more than five times higher than Delta and shows no sign of being milder than the previous coronavirus variant, according to a study by Imperial College London. The results, based on data from the UK Health Security Agency and Britain’s National Health Service, analysed people who tested positive for Covid-19 in a PCR test in England between 29 November and 11 December.

which, if true means we're relying exclusively on the efficacy of the vaccination programme (which I think we all knew anyway, hence the booster focus).

I guess the question is that, with the risks the aged face because of their age, does the AZ, AZ, Pfizer/moderna combo do enough against omicron to counter-act the large number of simultaneous infections?

You omitted that I’d also used the word “recommend”. I agree none of us are wishing for Coronavirus to even be here, and much less impacting lives as it is.

What do you feel should happen now, if the current approach isn’t enough?

kingstonian

In other news, second jabs for 12-15 year olds can now be booked. Don’t seem to be many locations available yet so I booked for my kids to be jabbed at Lewisham Hospital which is about an hour away. May be more locations made available at a later date, but we’ll happily travel to Lewisham to get it done if need be.

N0bodyOfTheGoat

Self certification for work absences that began since 10th December has been extended from the usual 7 days to 28 days, apparently to free up GP practices more during the drive to get the population boostered.

Seems to have been a very quiet change, I've not seen anything on BBC website.

rick_chasey

kingstonian said:

What do you feel should happen now, if the current approach isn’t enough?

I guess I would want more signalling that it is very serious for a start. There are a lot of people who think it's not gonna be as bad regardless of how people behave. That needs to be addressed.

I can't really see good reasons to keep mass-gathering events going as all the evidence is they are super-spreader events.

Hopefully sage has much more evidence about what behaviours actually do spread it and which doesn't and they can focus on those, but get really strict on them.

FWIW everyone who I know got covid got it from either a wedding, a funeral, a football match or a dinner party. Funerals and dinner parties are tricky - funerals are well, funerals, and Christmas is basically a day where the whole nation holds a dinner party.

A lot of it hinges on what the data and the models are telling the gov't. I don't really have that info, so I can't make a call.

Here's a question I don't know the answer to. Say there is a likelihood deaths a day will peak at between 3,000-6,000, as has been reported in the more extreme models.

At what % likelihood that that 3,000-6,000 deaths a day peak happens do you cross the threshold from "stay the course" to "fairly serious lockdown like Jan 2020?"

Jezyboy

rick_chasey said:

kingstonian said:

What do you feel should happen now, if the current approach isn’t enough?

I guess I would want more signalling that it is very serious for a start. There are a lot of people who think it's not gonna be as bad regardless of how people behave. That needs to be addressed.

I can't really see good reasons to keep mass-gathering events going as all the evidence is they are super-spreader events.

Hopefully sage has much more evidence about what behaviours actually do spread it and which doesn't and they can focus on those, but get really strict on them.

FWIW everyone who I know got covid got it from either a wedding, a funeral, a football match or a dinner party. Funerals and dinner parties are tricky - funerals are well, funerals, and Christmas is basically a day where the whole nation holds a dinner party.

A lot of it hinges on what the data and the models are telling the gov't. I don't really have that info, so I can't make a call.

Here's a question I don't know the answer to. Say there is a likelihood deaths a day will peak at between 3,000-6,000, as has been reported in the more extreme models.

At what % likelihood that that 3,000-6,000 deaths a day peak happens do you cross the threshold from "stay the course" to "fairly serious lockdown like Jan 2020?"

6000 deaths a day seems quite ambitious when you've triple vaccinated the vast majority of the vulnerable.

kingstongraham

The previous high was 1,359 - four times that level seems pretty unlikely.

kingstongraham

Was it Havering that hit a big number of cases last winter? Not sure it was like this:



That only includes three days when it had actually gone up.

Stevo_666

Jezyboy said:

rick_chasey said:

kingstonian said:

What do you feel should happen now, if the current approach isn’t enough?

I guess I would want more signalling that it is very serious for a start. There are a lot of people who think it's not gonna be as bad regardless of how people behave. That needs to be addressed.

I can't really see good reasons to keep mass-gathering events going as all the evidence is they are super-spreader events.

Hopefully sage has much more evidence about what behaviours actually do spread it and which doesn't and they can focus on those, but get really strict on them.

FWIW everyone who I know got covid got it from either a wedding, a funeral, a football match or a dinner party. Funerals and dinner parties are tricky - funerals are well, funerals, and Christmas is basically a day where the whole nation holds a dinner party.

A lot of it hinges on what the data and the models are telling the gov't. I don't really have that info, so I can't make a call.

Here's a question I don't know the answer to. Say there is a likelihood deaths a day will peak at between 3,000-6,000, as has been reported in the more extreme models.

At what % likelihood that that 3,000-6,000 deaths a day peak happens do you cross the threshold from "stay the course" to "fairly serious lockdown like Jan 2020?"

6000 deaths a day seems quite ambitious when you've triple vaccinated the vast majority of the vulnerable.

Agree. Rick at least does refer to them as more extreme models.

rick_chasey

Look you can think it's as unlikely or likely as you want.

What's the likeihood threshold after which you lockdown?

You can move the sticks to 1,500 peak per day if it makes you feel better - question remains - at what likelihood of that outcome would you consider locking down?

Risk is severity x likelihood, right?

Stevo_666

rick_chasey said:

Look you can think it's as unlikely or likely as you want.

What's the likeihood threshold after which you lockdown?

You can move the sticks to 1,500 peak per day if it makes you feel better - question remains - at what likelihood of that outcome would you consider locking down?

Risk is severity x likelihood, right?

Not sure as I don't have the facts or expertise, but should we allow our approach to be dictate by these extreme/outlier models? I'm sure if the Chris Whittys of this world thought that these models were mainstream and even fairly likely they would be advocating full lockdown now.

rick_chasey

That's the whole argument though, right? In this situation you can't know the facts. You work on probabilities, which the models spit out for you.

You have to make decisions on incomplete data.

So say with all the data we have there is a 1/3 chance you get a peak like you got in Jan 2020 with a peak of 1,500 a day dead, and that roughly works out to another what, 50-60,000 dead in total?

Would you lockdown on a 1/3 chance? If not, what chance would you lockdown on? 1/2? 4/5?

First.Aspect

rick_chasey said:

Look you can think it's as unlikely or likely as you want.

What's the likeihood threshold after which you lockdown?

You can move the sticks to 1,500 peak per day if it makes you feel better - question remains - at what likelihood of that outcome would you consider locking down?

Risk is severity x likelihood, right?

Well if the peak last year was deemed acceptable, then no lockdown would be required for a predicted "plan B" peak that's the same.

rick_chasey

First.Aspect said:

rick_chasey said:

Look you can think it's as unlikely or likely as you want.

What's the likeihood threshold after which you lockdown?

You can move the sticks to 1,500 peak per day if it makes you feel better - question remains - at what likelihood of that outcome would you consider locking down?

Risk is severity x likelihood, right?

Well if the peak last year was deemed acceptable, then no lockdown would be required for a predicted "plan B" peak that's the same.

Was it acceptable? Just because it happened doesn't mean it's acceptable?

If you break it down into what numbers you think are acceptable and where your risk threshold is for likelihood for deaths above that acceptable threshold you can quite quickly land on whether you change your plan or not.

I am fairly risk averse so I would probably err on the side of more restrictions, not least as the behaviour of people who are essentially imposing voluntary restrictions on themselves by not going into the office etc suggest people's risk appetite is fairly low anyway.

Stevo_666

Probably, but those closest to the data do not appear to be taking that view as far we can see. Probably they know something that we don't, although the evidence we can see (for example from South Africa as posted above) does not seem to be pointing to an extreme scenario.

And of course there is the question of balancing that with the other consequences of a full lockdown which has been well debated before.

rick_chasey

Sure.

I guess if people are arguing public health interventions are still worse than actual pandemics then yes, you're not gonna get a helpful debate.

Worth re-iterating the loss of health services during lockdowns was *because they were dealing with a lot of corona which limited their ability to do other things* and not because *the gov't introduced a lockdown*

kingstongraham

6,000 was not a prediction, it was the extreme end of an "everything has gone against us" range of possibilities. The lowest end of "just plan B" possibilities was 600 a day. That's still a lot, but coming out with the 6,000 means that gets reported as the "scientists warn this could happen" because big numbers are news, then when it doesn't happen, people call them Dr Doom and say they are never right.

Stevo_666

rick_chasey said:

Sure.

I guess if people are arguing public health interventions are still worse than actual pandemics then yes, you're not gonna get a helpful debate.

Worth re-iterating the loss of health services during lockdowns was *because they were dealing with a lot of corona which limited their ability to do other things* and not because *the gov't introduced a lockdown*

That stuff was well debated as mentioned. However as you are keen on probabilities, you are looking at the possibility of what you describe above; whereas a lockdown almost certainly has the negative effects that have been described.

pangolin

https://twitter.com/sajidjavid/status/1472963618497081344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1472963618497081344%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Flive%2Fuk-59724766

It annoys me no end that this will be referred to time and again in parliament in terms of "we rolled out up to a million jabs a day in December", and the fact that they are miles off their previous target of 1 million every day will be swept under the rug.

kingstongraham

pangolin said:

https://twitter.com/sajidjavid/status/1472963618497081344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1472963618497081344%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Flive%2Fuk-59724766

It annoys me no end that this will be referred to time and again in parliament in terms of "we rolled out up to a million jabs a day in December", and the fact that they are miles off their previous target of 1 million every day will be swept under the rug.

The target was a million booster jabs per day, not a million jabs. Saturday was a massively impressive 940,000 so still not hitting that target.

Doesn't bother me that they aren't hitting a very clearly unachievable target they set, it's still amazing work by everyone involved to be given such a late start to ramping it up and still hit 10 million in December so far.

briantrumpet

How long to we wait for the time lag?

There have been 44 further deaths, and week-on-week deaths are still going down, by 5.4% on today’s figure.

I'd say that cases started moving significantly upwards over a month ago now.

pangolin

kingstongraham said:

pangolin said:

https://twitter.com/sajidjavid/status/1472963618497081344?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1472963618497081344%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.bbc.co.uk%2Fnews%2Flive%2Fuk-59724766

It annoys me no end that this will be referred to time and again in parliament in terms of "we rolled out up to a million jabs a day in December", and the fact that they are miles off their previous target of 1 million every day will be swept under the rug.

The target was a million booster jabs per day, not a million jabs. Saturday was a massively impressive 940,000 so still not hitting that target.

Doesn't bother me that they aren't hitting a very clearly unachievable target they set, it's still amazing work by everyone involved to be given such a late start to ramping it up and still hit 10 million in December so far.

Yeah agreed. I suppose I'm more annoyed Boris announced an unachievable target and will claim to have hit it.

pblakeney

It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall in the cabinet right now.
I imagine that there are some "debates" being had.

rick_chasey

briantrumpet said:

How long to we wait for the time lag?

There have been 44 further deaths, and week-on-week deaths are still going down, by 5.4% on today’s figure.

I'd say that cases started moving significantly upwards over a month ago now.

Hospitalisations is a better indicator I'd say

Pross

If we hit anything like the peak levels of deaths or even hospitalisations we did with Delta now we have the majority of people vaccinated we may as well give up.