Corona Virus main thread

[ricardo 7,384]

12 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

Because increased testing is almost being used (remember Trump?) as a safety valve to say there is no need to worry, its just testing.

Increasing testing obviously finds more cases. What is important is the percentage of positives not the actual number. 1k positves in 10k tests is obviously more concerning than 2k positives in 100k tests.

The percentage of positives has been under 1 percent for a month or more.

The other important factor to watch is the number of Covid patients in hospital. In England yesterday that total was 480.

 

[Yellow Fever 3,767]

14 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Increasing testing obviously finds more cases. What is important is the percentage of positives not the actual number. 1k positves in 10k tests is obviously more concerning than 2k positives in 100k tests.

The percentage of positives has been under 1 percent for a month or more.

The other important factor to watch is the number of Covid patients in hospital. In England yesterday that total was 480.

 

Be wary of testing numbers per-se. In totality its not generally 'random' testing and hence may be self selective for positives or indeed negatives! The ONS 'random testing is more informative but slower to produce results. 

I note that several government bodies are now thinking that's its increasing despite the statistical noise. Also there are quite plausible explanations for the lower hospital admissions - principally that it's more prevalent now in the not so socially distanced young (asymptomatic or only mild illness) than the elderly. 

[Van wink 2,994]

When I see what’s happening in some pubs atm I shudder. There are many doing the right thing but it’s the few that will screw it up for the rest of us.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

1 hour ago, ricardo said:

Increasing testing obviously finds more cases. What is important is the percentage of positives not the actual number. 1k positves in 10k tests is obviously more concerning than 2k positives in 100k tests.

The percentage of positives has been under 1 percent for a month or more.

The other important factor to watch is the number of Covid patients in hospital. In England yesterday that total was 480.

 

I am hoping that the hospitalisation rate as well as the death rate will drop to as close to zero as possible. But then we will be moving toward a position where the virus becomes an annoyance rather than a threat. And although we do see pockets of disobedience, I think the majority of us have become accustomed and accepting of the measures needed. Social distancing and queuing are as much a part of my life now as mowing the lawn.

I just get confused when the mission statements change. Today, the Radio was focusing on the R rate again, something that hasn't been mentioned for a while. And when it was mentioned, some said it wasn't important. As an ex printer, I am not au fait with most things scientific but try and understand everything. And that isn't easy for me with so many different opinions and ideas. I just want reliable facts

 

[ricardo 7,384]

France, Spain and Germany all steadily increasing again.

4586, 3650, 2034.

Did they relax too soon?

https://www.rki.de/EN/Home/homepage.html

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by ricardo

[ricardo 7,384]

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

1288 today, still running about 0.6 percent

If there is to be an upick as in Europe we should start to see it next week.

[sonyc 5,510]

15 minutes ago, ricardo said:

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

1288 today, still running about 0.6 percent

If there is to be an upick as in Europe we should start to see it next week.

Surely we must expect (with confidence?) that our infection rate will rise again to somewhere near the infection levels of France etc? The 7 day average has been gradually rising (and we all saw how the rates here started gradually and then increased quite quickly as the R rate increased back in March....even in February). 

Yet, its the hospitalisation rates that will be most telling this time (plus the population is better educated and schooled in taking the health prevention measures). If we don't see hospital admissions increase in the same way, it will be far more hopeful ....that we might live with Covid more comfortably. Plus,  if we believe the vaccine  stories emerging then that could be another hopeful sign.

Edited August 22, 2020 by sonyc

[Van wink 2,994]

36 minutes ago, ricardo said:

France, Spain and Germany all steadily increasing again.

4586, 3650, 2034.

Did they relax too soon?

https://www.rki.de/EN/Home/homepage.html

 

Yes and they had lower infection figures than ours when we relaxed

[Van wink 2,994]

36 minutes ago, sonyc said:

Surely we must expect (with confidence?) that our infection rate will rise again to somewhere near the infection levels of France etc? The 7 day average has been gradually rising (and we all saw how the rates here started gradually and then increased quite quickly as the R rate increased back in March....even in February). 

Yet, its the hospitalisation rates that will be most telling this time (plus the population is better educated and schooled in taking the health prevention measures). If we don't see hospital admissions increase in the same way, it will be far more hopeful ....that we might live with Covid more comfortably. Plus,  if we believe the vaccine  stories emerging then that could be another hopeful sign.

Hospitalisations will start after several generations of the virus and it begins to move from the young into the more vulnerable population, imho. 3 or 4 weeks

[How I Wrote Elastic Man 1,187]

Germany staging some live gigs with crowds 

Should be an interesting experiment 

Link

[Aggy 754]

2 hours ago, Van wink said:

Hospitalisations will start after several generations of the virus and it begins to move from the young into the more vulnerable population, imho. 3 or 4 weeks

Why hasn’t it moved into the more vulnerable population already? Infections have been on the up for ages. Is there a logic to your 3-4 weeks or just a punt?

[Van wink 2,994]

26 minutes ago, Aggy said:

Why hasn’t it moved into the more vulnerable population already? Infections have been on the up for ages. Is there a logic to your 3-4 weeks or just a punt?

Spreading within peer groups of young folk atm, and will pass and reinfect within these groups for four or five generations of virus, but  it would appear, according to the guy I heard from the LSHTM, London Scool of  Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, which was the bees knees when I was studying, in certain areas of the US this has been the pattern and after around five generations it gets into the more vulnerable groups. So not a punt, based on some expert knowledge, but still however speculation.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

1 minute ago, Van wink said:

Spreading within peer groups of young folk atm, and will pass and reinfect within these groups for four or five generations of virus, but  it would appear, according to the guy I heard from the LSHTM, London Scool of  Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, which was the bees knees when I was studying, in certain areas of the US this has been the pattern and after around five generations it gets into the more vulnerable groups. So not a punt, based on some expert knowledge, but still however speculation.

Does seem that speculation is the favourite method at the moment, even among the science.

Never known such a serious matter to produce such division.

[Van wink 2,994]

5 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

Does seem that speculation is the favourite method at the moment, even among the science.

Never known such a serious matter to produce such division.

It’s a great unknown KG with conflicting evidence from all over the world. You pays your moneys and you takes your choice.

I’m coming from a very precautionary point of view because for me the health aspect takes precedence, but that caution may lead to much more significant other poor health outcomes further down the line...

[sonyc 5,510]

3 hours ago, Van wink said:

Hospitalisations will start after several generations of the virus and it begins to move from the young into the more vulnerable population, imho. 3 or 4 weeks

That doesn't feel very hopeful then .....end of September. Maybe if this is the case we will see a whole range of local measures or mini lockdowns.

I'm reading today too that the UK must massively increase its testing capacity (and the ease of taking them) so that citizens can feel be more reassured when going about their work and leisure. That would perhaps bring forward the subject of health 'passporting' if testing could become a regular task.

In the meantime I will be looking at hospitalisation data in the likes of France / other similarly sized European countries. By the end of September too schools will have re-opened.

[Aggy 754]

41 minutes ago, Van wink said:

Spreading within peer groups of young folk atm, and will pass and reinfect within these groups for four or five generations of virus, but  it would appear, according to the guy I heard from the LSHTM, London Scool of  Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, which was the bees knees when I was studying, in certain areas of the US this has been the pattern and after around five generations it gets into the more vulnerable groups. So not a punt, based on some expert knowledge, but still however speculation.

If that’s the case (and I know you’re not saying it definitely is), has anyone tried to work backwards and figure out how many deaths there were pre-Feb/March before it presumably got to 4th/5th generation and spread to vulnerable folk?

[Van wink 2,994]

8 minutes ago, sonyc said:

That doesn't feel very hopeful then .....end of September. Maybe if this is the case we will see a whole range of local measures or mini lockdowns.

I'm reading today too that the UK must massively increase its testing capacity (and the ease of taking them) so that citizens can feel be more reassured when going about their work and leisure. That would perhaps bring forward the subject of health 'passporting' if testing could become a regular task.

In the meantime I will be looking at hospitalisation data in the likes of France / other similarly sized European countries. By the end of September too schools will have re-opened.

Yes that’s the answer really, look at what’s happening in Europe and there is a very good chance we will see the same here.

[How I Wrote Elastic Man 1,187]

Any volunteers?

[Van wink 2,994]

2 minutes ago, Aggy said:

If that’s the case (and I know you’re not saying it definitely is), has anyone tried to work backwards and figure out how many deaths there were pre-Feb/March before it presumably got to 4th/5th generation and spread to vulnerable folk?

I can’t answer that other than to say its thought that in Germany the virus spread initially, though several virus generations, amongst a young fit population, in the UK that seems to have been different and it got into vulnerable groups much sooner, assisted to no mean extent by poor policy decisions around late lockdown and lack of travel restrictions etc. The pandemic has progressed with subtle differences in different countries.

[Aggy 754]

43 minutes ago, Van wink said:

Yes that’s the answer really, look at what’s happening in Europe and there is a very good chance we will see the same here.

Only looked at France, Germany,  Italy and Spain on the link below. When looking at the three day average death rate the first three have no increase. Spain had no increase until three days ago when it jumped from regularly being high teens/low twenties to mid fifties, where it has been for three days. Will be interesting to see if that drops back down again or continues to rise.

Other than that fairly minimal rise in Spain though (well, a rise of 25 or a 100 per cent increase depending on how people want to spin it!) the others looks stable - all have significant increases in new infections but none are showing any trend of increased deaths. Spain might change that but equally could drop back down again (Italy had a couple of daily spikes over the last month or so as well and dropped straight back down again).

(Separately, no idea how Germany announce their numbers - every other day or something perhaps as the daily charts seem to jump up and down a lot, but go into the 3-day and 7-day rolling average charts which smooth the “v”s).
 

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/france?country=FRA~DEU

(starts on France as I’ve just copied and pasted the link I posted previously on here - easy enough to add countries to view all at once, or to view country by county.)

[Aggy 754]

52 minutes ago, Van wink said:

I can’t answer that other than to say its thought that in Germany the virus spread initially, though several virus generations, amongst a young fit population, in the UK that seems to have been different and it got into vulnerable groups much sooner, assisted to no mean extent by poor policy decisions around late lockdown and lack of travel restrictions etc. The pandemic has progressed with subtle differences in different countries.

Would be interesting to know why that was the case in the Uk. If correct that it does get to vulnerable people after 4th or 5th generation elsewhere, I’d imagine it’s more likely that we’d probably find it was prevalent earlier in the Uk than we imagined - that it probably didn’t spread to vulnerable people earlier here, we just didn’t know it had been around in the younger people as long as it has.

I have doubts about this though. I struggle to see why it would be prevalent in the young and not more vulnerable or elderly people. I can see why that is probably the case currently, because the vulnerable/elderly are still probably “shielding” to a greater extent than twenty five year olds. But before lockdown when everyone was mingling, how does it work? Do other viruses work like that?

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by Aggy

[Van wink 2,994]

I think you may have misunderstood my point Aggy, probably me being clumsy in  the way I made it. The current phase of the pandemic In the UK is possibly behaving in this way because of the population it is infecting atm, I’m not saying it has always behaved that way. It will just take the opportunities to create chains of infection as they arise. Nothing is consistent in this, the variables constantly change, which Is what makes it so hard to predict. 

Edited August 22, 2020 by Van wink

[sonyc 5,510]

1 hour ago, Van wink said:

Yes that’s the answer really, look at what’s happening in Europe and there is a very good chance we will see the same here.

The only 7 day rolling average graphs I could find for new cases, hospitalisation and deaths in the UK is for the whole of the North West. The trends are interesting.

 

[ricardo 7,384]

1041

Steady as she goes.

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

[sonyc 5,510]

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/23/why-do-covid-fatalities-remain-low-when-infection-numbers-are-rising?

Scientists disagree or don't know. 

[Van wink 2,994]

18 minutes ago, sonyc said:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/aug/23/why-do-covid-fatalities-remain-low-when-infection-numbers-are-rising?

Scientists disagree or don't know. 

Fascinating stuff. 

[sonyc 5,510]

1 hour ago, Van wink said:

Fascinating stuff. 

Interestingly, many similar points / theories / speculation raised in this thread.

[Yellow Fever 3,767]

14 minutes ago, sonyc said:

Interestingly, many similar points / theories / speculation raised in this thread.

I would agree but those that think the virus is any way significantly different to what we largely saw last April I suspect are clutching at straws. I'd go with the social changes and better treatments for now. It's a tiger by the tail.

[sonyc 5,510]

14 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

I would agree but those that think the virus is any way significantly different to what we largely saw last April I suspect are clutching at straws. I'd go with the social changes and better treatments for now. It's a tiger by the tail.

I tend to agree. One other thing though...that North West (UK) graph gave me the idea of younger people making up a far bigger proportion of the positive results (where infection was milder / less of a problem? Asymptomatic? Who knows). I'm a bit frustrated that we are not being given the age ranges or age cohorts like we used to see in March & April. It feels as if there are fewer indicators (being reported).

Edited August 24, 2020 by sonyc

[sonyc 5,510]

Found a study (EU) and figure 7 shows the clear indicators of age cohorts January to May and then June to July.

Address below as cannot somehow copy and paste a PDF. (Will keep trying)

https://www.ecdc.europa.eu

Find it under LATEST UPDATES (scroll down) and it's the first article. The pdf is a downloadable link within. Lots of fascinating info and graphs.

 

....the pdf is a download 4.1MB and covers the UK only (covid-19-rapid-risk-assessment-20200810)....it is dated 10th August.

 

Notes copied here but so far no success with graphs!

Age and gender
As of 2 August 2020, age and gender were reported for 736 389(95.8%) of the 768 652 cases reported in
TESSy. The largest proportion of cases overall were reported among 5059 year-olds (18.1%) and among both 
males and females. Only 1.9% of cases were reported among children below 10 years of age and 3.7% among 
1019 year-olds (Figure 7a). Age distributions varied by severity of infection, with a higher representation of 
older people among hospitalised patients and deaths (Figure 7). The male-to-female ratio overall was 0.9, 
however this varied by age-group and severity, with more males than females admitted to hospital, requiring 
intensive care or respiratory support and also dying.
The age-distribution was different when comparing the periods of January – May and June – July. Between 
January and May 2020, 40% of cases were aged 60 years or above and the largest proportion of cases were 
reported among 50-59 year-olds (18.7%). In contrast, in June and July, persons aged 60 years or above 
accounted for 17.3% of cases and the largest proportion of cases were reported among 20-29 year-olds
(19.5%). The proportion of cases diagnosed among children and youths aged below 20 years also increased
from 4.2% of cases between January and May to 12.8% in June and July. The median age decreased from 54
years in January – May to 39 years in June – July. The proportion of mild-cases overall increased between the 
two periods (+11.9%), with the biggest increase among persons aged 70-79 years (+7.3%), 60-69 years 
(+6.8%) and children below 10 years of age (+6.3%). Among other age-groups, the proportion of mild cases 
changed by less than 5%. These changes could be related in part of the expansion of testing over time, leading 
to more testing of milder cases, particularly among younger persons, as well as potentially increased 
transmission among younger people once public health measures were lifted. 
The age-distribution of mild (non-hospitalised) cases changed over time, with the median age decreasing from 
46 years in January – May to 35 years in June - July. Hospitalised cases also tended to be younger in June and 
July compared to previous months (median age: January – May: 67 years; June - July: 57 years). The median 
age of cases admitted to intensive care or who required respiratory support remained stable over time (January 
– May: 65 years; June - July: 64 years) although 20.4% of cases admitted to intensive care or requiring 
respiratory support were below 50 years of age in June and July compared to 14.2% between January and May
(Figure 8(i)). Almost all deaths were among persons aged 60 years or over in both periods, however there was a 
lower proportion of deaths among 60-79 year olds in June and July compared to January to May (January - May: 
26.3%; June - July 20.0%) and a higher proportion of deaths among persons aged 80 years or over (January 
May: 58.4%; JuneJuly 66.2%).

 

 

Edited August 24, 2020 by sonyc