Corona Virus main thread

[sonyc 5,517]

Fairly shocking differences exposed here in how areas faired during lockdown whixh emphasises such massive regional / north-south and economic divisions in our country. Yet, are we really shocked?

VW posted recently about Whitty's comments on health inequalities. Interesting to note Norwich listed as just one of the areas that did well in personal savings accruel (Exeter, York too) versus Blackburn, Bradford the worst). Metropolitan area differences are most marked.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/22/northern-english-cities-faced-avalanche-of-debt-during-covid-study?

For any of us it will remain very difficult (without personal experience) to understand such regional variations and how these affect the day to day lives of people. What a strange country of such massive variation. Not good.

I ought to apologise here in case I am  boring posters of the Bradford reference because it will feel irrelevant? Yet, these things are real. Locally here, rates of new infections were nearing 2000 yesterday and the Zoe graph is alarmingly steep. Just have to hope hospitalisation doesn't follow.

Lockdown was a terribly bad experience for many with debt levels soaring. What tends to happen of course is that crime levels inevitably increase and lag behind (and then house insurance, car insurance rises etc etc). Domestic violence, mental health problems are all linked too. 

We need policies that address such structural differences and disadvantage.

Two tier Britain. Affluence and comfort versus poverty and anxiety. Not sure if any other northern canaries will sense the same? Aggy I think is Manchester based, Tettey in North Yorks, WBB Birmingham area, ICF Nottingham area I believe. The pandemic has exposed cruelly such difference🙁

 

[Aggy 755]

9 hours ago, Essjayess said:

Cannot really compare this 3rd wave with the first 2 waves as the circumstances are vastly different. First 2 waves brought on the necessary lockdowns, we did not have vaccinations, the variants were different.

This 3rd wave has come at a time when  vaccinations are getting higher each day, but...because of that this wave is increasing without increasing lockdown, yet this Delta variant is more transmissable..so thats the difference. What is now definte is that both hospital admissions and deaths are increasing AND speeding up..admisions 2 or 3 weeks ago were at a slow pace...now its  nearly at a moderate  rate. Deaths a couple weeks ago had been at stable or steady level...now they are rising slowly. We just cannot say how much the increase of speed will be in the rise factor of these two most important sectors

Without doubt vaccination has curtailed Delta to a big extent, without vax it would have been scarily rampant  here. But no one knows to what extent the situation will be a few weeks from now..we are trying to get back to some semblance of normality, yet knowing the short history of this awful virus so far should tell us caution is still needed for a time yet or maybe for longer  even.

Agreed cannot compare with earlier ‘waves’. My point was exactly that - that focussing solely on infections (and ignoring the effect of vaccines) is completely pointless, yet a number of people continue to do it. 

We locked down to avoid hospitals being overwhelmed. That would have led to even more death. But there’s nothing at the moment which suggests hospitals are anywhere close to being overwhelmed due to this ‘third wave’.

The deaths and hospitalisations are barely increasing. It’s clear the vaccines are working. The increase in hospitalisations and deaths is just nowhere near proportionate to the increase in cases, even when you take the hospital/death “lag” into account. If hospitals were going to be overwhelmed, the number of hospitalisations would already be much higher than it is.

So if there’s nothing to suggest hospitals are going to be overwhelmed, vaccines are working, and more people continue to get vaccinated, the only reasons to increase or even keep restrictions are (a) if anything changes or (b) to “wait and see” if anything changes. 

The wait and see option is massively blinkered. “The science” already this week suggesting lockdowns will lead to more flu deaths this year as a result of decreased immunity. Scientists and health professionals according to the BBC reckon flu will kill more this winter than covid. 

So the point is, yes, proportionate caution is required of course, but the fascination of some with infection numbers is, frankly, dangerous. If hospitals aren’t going to be overwhelmed then lockdowns and significant intrusive restrictions based on infection numbers “just in case” will do more harm than good. 

Edited June 23, 2021 by Aggy

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

2 hours ago, Aggy said:

Agreed cannot compare with earlier ‘waves’. My point was exactly that - that focussing solely on infections (and ignoring the effect of vaccines) is completely pointless, yet a number of people continue to do it. 

We locked down to avoid hospitals being overwhelmed. That would have led to even more death. But there’s nothing at the moment which suggests hospitals are anywhere close to being overwhelmed due to this ‘third wave’.

The deaths and hospitalisations are barely increasing. It’s clear the vaccines are working. The increase in hospitalisations and deaths is just nowhere near proportionate to the increase in cases, even when you take the hospital/death “lag” into account. If hospitals were going to be overwhelmed, the number of hospitalisations would already be much higher than it is.

So if there’s nothing to suggest hospitals are going to be overwhelmed, vaccines are working, and more people continue to get vaccinated, the only reasons to increase or even keep restrictions are (a) if anything changes or (b) to “wait and see” if anything changes. 

The wait and see option is massively blinkered. “The science” already this week suggesting lockdowns will lead to more flu deaths this year as a result of decreased immunity. Scientists and health professionals according to the BBC reckon flu will kill more this winter than covid. 

So the point is, yes, proportionate caution is required of course, but the fascination of some with infection numbers is, frankly, dangerous. If hospitals aren’t going to be overwhelmed then lockdowns and significant intrusive restrictions based on infection numbers “just in case” will do more harm than good. 

The deaths and hospitalisations are barely increasing

Unfortunately that doesn't appear to be the case - 41% increase in people on ventilators in a week https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/23/nhs-alarm-rise-number-uk-covid-patients-ventilators

It is true that hospitalisations are rising proportionately less than in previous waves which shows that the vaccines are having an effect but they are still rising and we are still getting very serious cases many of which will still result in long Covid or death.

On top of that the increasing Covid hospitalisationa are going to make it very difficult/impossible for the NHS to make any inroads at all into the massive backlog of cases (both major and minor) that has built up over the last 15 months. The idea that the NHS wasn't overwhelmed last year, and couldn't be overwhelmed again is risible IMO.

I guess it all depends on your definition of 'overwhelmed' - as far as I can see the NHS has been, is currently and for the foreseeable future will be overwhelmed in the sense many people are dying preventable deaths because the NHS lacks the resources to treat them. Of course you could argue that has always been the case and in a sense you would be right but really only at the margins. What I am talking about is the serious but relatively routine stuff that the NHS does cancers, strokes, heart attacks amd many other serious conditions that in 'normal' times would be quickly and often effectively treated by the NHS. So whatever you want to call it, we are still a long way off getting back to business as usual in the NHS and rising Covid admissions are going to push it even further into the future.

[Aggy 755]

14 minutes ago, Creative Midfielder said:

The deaths and hospitalisations are barely increasing

Unfortunately that doesn't appear to be the case - 41% increase in people on ventilators in a week https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jun/23/nhs-alarm-rise-number-uk-covid-patients-ventilators

It is true that hospitalisations are rising proportionately less than in previous waves which shows that the vaccines are having an effect but they are still rising and we are still getting very serious cases many of which will still result in long Covid or death.

On top of that the increasing Covid hospitalisationa are going to make it very difficult/impossible for the NHS to make any inroads at all into the massive backlog of cases (both major and minor) that has built up over the last 15 months. The idea that the NHS wasn't overwhelmed last year, and couldn't be overwhelmed again is risible IMO.

I guess it all depends on your definition of 'overwhelmed' - as far as I can see the NHS has been, is currently and for the foreseeable future will be overwhelmed in the sense many people are dying preventable deaths because the NHS lacks the resources to treat them. Of course you could argue that has always been the case and in a sense you would be right but really only at the margins. What I am talking about is the serious but relatively routine stuff that the NHS does cancers, strokes, heart attacks amd many other serious conditions that in 'normal' times would be quickly and often effectively treated by the NHS. So whatever you want to call it, we are still a long way off getting back to business as usual in the NHS and rising Covid admissions are going to push it even further into the future.

Not increasing anywhere near enough to risk overwhelming of hospitals.

As for the backlog etc previously being “only at the margins” I’m afraid that’s miles off the mark and suggests to me you’ve been lucky enough not to need to use the nhs much over the last decade. The nhs is virtually overwhelmed most winters, especially if we vaccinate against the wrong strand of flu. Virtually every year there are pleas from health authorities about lack of funding and the dire state the nhs is in. The waiting list before covid was the longest it’s ever been. People were already dying because they couldn’t get “non emergency” treatment quickly enough.

And as to your last sentence, why stop at covid? Car crashes will push it further, let’s ban driving. Pedestrians hit by buses will push it further, let’s ban buses and crossing roads. Eating a sausage roll will push it further, let’s ban anything other than eating vegetables and drinking water. 

Edited June 23, 2021 by Aggy

[Creative Midfielder 1,996]

57 minutes ago, Aggy said:

Not increasing anywhere near enough to risk overwhelming of hospitals. -  Wrong I'm afraid - that may what you understandably wish to believe, but wrong nevertheless.

As for the backlog etc previously being “only at the margins” I’m afraid that’s miles off the mark and suggests to me you’ve been lucky enough not to need to use the nhs much over the last decade. The nhs is virtually overwhelmed most winters, especially if we vaccinate against the wrong strand of flu. Virtually every year there are pleas from health authorities about lack of funding and the dire state the nhs is in. The waiting list before covid was the longest it’s ever been. People were already dying because they couldn’t get “non emergency” treatment quickly enough.

As it happens I have been lucky enough not to need to use the NHS much over the last ten years. As it also happens I have several close family members working in the NHS and for the last 15 months working at the very front of the frontline. So it also happens that even if I don't have the first hand experience of the professionals working in the NHS have, then I have something like the next best thing.

And what they tell me is that the problems of under-resourcing that have indeed plagued the NHS for the last 10 years as a result of Tory austerity policies were ones that could have ameliorated at pretty much any point by putting in the necessary resources and secondly, because the NHS is extraordinarily good at delivering good outcomes with insufficient resources that it has never (until last year) resulted in large numbers of deaths that could have 'reasonably' been prevented. What it meant was that a lot of people with still serious/painful etc conditions but which weren't potentially fatal were treated more slowly than should have been the case..

Anyway whatever problems pre-existed in the NHS before the pandemic they were of a completely different order of magnitude to those created when the NHS was overwhelmed last year, as it unquestionably was - I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree about that.

 

[Essjayess 307]

Aggy we both seem to agree on certain things, especially that this wave is different statistically to the at least 2nd wave, which increased so rapidly in all 3 sectors that lockdown had to happen and yes the vaccination program has  duly done a job in slowing  the increase in people  getting infected by the Delta variant. But my concern is that infections are now at 80k for the 7 day rolling rate compared to 14k a month ago and more worrying that hospital admissions have doubled in the last fortnight..they were at a low of around 750 patients per week and now around 1.5k..and that is speeding up. Yes true it may not be at a stage yet where hospitals are filled to brimming as like previously...but can anyone say with certainty that the type of scenario we had last year just wont happen again? Deaths to are starting to rise.

Scotland has today recorded a new high for daily Covid infections, despite the vaccination program. Overall my point being...all areas associated with Covid..infections, admissions and now  deaths are increasing and nobody can say how high  these stats may go, but this is Covid and even with the amazing job done thru the vax program i truly believe utmost caution must be exercised at this time.

[ricardo 7,385]

National

16135 - 19

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

Hospital patients 1508

vax

1st  299,837

2nd 250,875

a much better effort

 

 

 

 

Edited June 23, 2021 by ricardo

[ricardo 7,385]

[ricardo 7,385]

Link between cases and admissions is decoupling.

[Yellow Fever 3,780]

7 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Link between cases and admissions is decoupling.

Are you trying to tell us that somewhere between 2.5% an 5% of people who test positive (PCR confirmed) for Covid are admitted still - and we still have vast numbers of people unvaccinated or only 1 dose (something like 40% although it is a shrinking target)?

Wow

That really does explain why the government slammed on the brakes!

[ricardo 7,385]

3 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Are you trying to tell us that somewhere between 2.5% an 5% of people who test positive (PCR confirmed) for Covid are admitted still - and we still have vast numbers of people unvaccinated or only 1 dose (something like 40% although it is a shrinking target)?

Wow

That really does explain why the government slammed on the brakes!

Daily England numbers are here: https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-hospital-activity/

Total beds occupied in England dropped from 1,301 yesterday (the 22nd) to 1,255 today (the 23rd).

[ricardo 7,385]

Mostly the unvax'd young, 20 - 24 group. Almost nothing in the vulnerable elderly (vax'd) groups.

Edited June 23, 2021 by ricardo

[Aggy 755]

3 hours ago, Creative Midfielder said:

 

Anyway whatever problems pre-existed in the NHS before the pandemic they were of a completely different order of magnitude to those created when the NHS was overwhelmed last year, as it unquestionably was - I guess we're just going to have to agree to disagree about that.

I don’t see that this point is at all relevant to what was being discussed. I certainly haven’t said one way or another whether the nhs was overwhelmed last year.

You seemed to be suggesting earlier that lockdowns and intrusive restrictions could be justified to help clear the backlog. Your justification was that previously the backlog was minimal and “only on the margins” whereas now it was not only on the margins.

The point I was making is that it simply isn’t the case that before covid the nhs’ problems were only ‘on the margins’ as you suggested. If we didn’t lockdown pre-covid to clear the backlog when waiting lists were the longest they’ve ever been and people were dying because they couldn’t get “non emergency” treatment quickly enough, why would we lockdown for the same reason now?

 

22 minutes ago, Essjayess said:

Aggy we both seem to agree on certain things, especially that this wave is different statistically to the at least 2nd wave, which increased so rapidly in all 3 sectors that lockdown had to happen and yes the vaccination program has  duly done a job in slowing  the increase in people  getting infected by the Delta variant. But my concern is that infections are now at 80k for the 7 day rolling rate compared to 14k a month ago and more worrying that hospital admissions have doubled in the last fortnight..they were at a low of around 750 patients per week and now around 1.5k..and that is speeding up. Yes true it may not be at a stage yet where hospitals are filled to brimming as like previously...but can anyone say with certainty that the type of scenario we had last year just wont happen again? Deaths to are starting to rise.

Scotland has today recorded a new high for daily Covid infections, despite the vaccination program. Overall my point being...all areas associated with Covid..infections, admissions and now  deaths are increasing and nobody can say how high  these stats may go, but this is Covid and even with the amazing job done thru the vax program i truly believe utmost caution must be exercised at this time.

Of course we can’t say with absolute certainty. But when have we ever been able to say with absolute certainty that something nasty won’t come along in the future and kill millions and overwhelm hospitals?

 But all of the signs say with a pretty good level that the hospitals won’t be filled to anywhere near the same level they were previously. Not because of this variant anyway. 

On hospitalisations, the gov.uk stats Ricardo links to suggests 1,508 patients currently in hospital with covid - in total. There must have been more than 8 people in hospital last week. So if (as appears is the case) there has been 1,500 admitted in the last week, then that must mean either people are staying in hospital for a lot shorter amount of time (more good news suggesting hospitals won’t be overwhelmed) or they are dying quicker - which we know isn’t the case as the deaths remain very low. 

I’m not against any caution, just over-caution that leads to more problems than it solves. 

 

[Aggy 755]

30 minutes ago, ricardo said:

Total beds occupied in England dropped from 1,301 yesterday (the 22nd) to 1,255 today (the 23rd).

I don’t think this counts as data though. 

[Yellow Fever 3,780]

1 hour ago, ricardo said:

Mostly the unvax'd young, 20 - 24 group. Almost nothing in the vulnerable elderly (vax'd) groups.

Just taking the data at face value.

16000 or so today confirmed cases.

That's something like anther 400 to 800 to be admitted in due course (2.5 to 5%) each day.

Yes caution needed until we have this clearly flattening (and a the moment spread is very regionally lumpy).

Hopefully the 2 doses in the young will kick in more fully by mid July.   

[Aggy 755]

10 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Just taking the data at face value.

16000 or so today confirmed cases.

That's something like anther 400 to 800 to be admitted in due course (2.5 to 5%) each day.

Yes caution needed until we have this clearly flattening (and a the moment spread is very regionally lumpy).

Hopefully the 2 doses in the young will kick in more fully by mid July.   

Are the pcr tests carried out randomly?

[Aggy 755]

16 minutes ago, Yellow Fever said:

Just taking the data at face value.

16000 or so today confirmed cases.

That's something like anther 400 to 800 to be admitted in due course (2.5 to 5%) each day.

Yes caution needed until we have this clearly flattening (and a the moment spread is very regionally lumpy).

Hopefully the 2 doses in the young will kick in more fully by mid July.   

Also, and I haven’t seen anything more than Ricardo’s chart so no idea how the data is collected, but given the percentage appears to still be going down and taking the lag into account, I’m not sure we can say 2.5-5 per cent will be accurate when those who tested positive today would normally be hospitalised? 
 

Presumably those showing as admitted today were infected weeks ago. So of those infected today, it’s a pretty good chance a higher proportion have been vaccinated (as lots more vaccines have been administered in the last few weeks), and so the percentage when the “hospitalisation lag” catches up could well be smaller?

Edited June 23, 2021 by Aggy

[Yellow Fever 3,780]

39 minutes ago, Aggy said:

Are the pcr tests carried out randomly?

No. 

[BigFish 1,986]

[ricardo 7,385]

If you dont do many tests you won't  find many cases.

Positivity rate is lower in the UK

 

[Yellow Fever 3,780]

50 minutes ago, ricardo said:

If you dont do many tests you won't  find many cases.

Positivity rate is lower in the UK

 

Are... the joys of true ONS random sampling. However in the chart shown the current trends are clear.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

21 hours ago, Rock The Boat said:

Because this is what happens when a bumbling geriatric gets voted in as the most powerful man on earth. If he was really on the ball he would have gotten all that 1,8 billion vaccines manufactured and distributed around the world. But as he has to take afternoon naps it sadly isn't going to happen.

I thought we were now the most powerful nation now we had our sovereignty back😂

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

23 hours ago, Aggy said:

Think people need to start getting past infections. Even the government have said hospitalisations and deaths are what’s important. 

The infections have been going up for weeks. The hospital/death “lag” has had more than enough time to have caught up. Pre-vaccines the deaths and hospitalisations would already have been increasing significantly (and would already be significantly higher than they are now we have vaccines). But they’re not. Vaccines clearly working, hospitals not at risk of being overwhelmed, tens of thousands more vaccinated by 15 July. 

So why did the rise in cases cause the postponement?

That is what I am asking. Not what people think. The Government postponed purely on the rise in the cases of the Delta variant and not everyone vaccinated.

What I am asking is, will the same criteria still be applied on 19 July if the cases are still over 10K a day for instance?

[Aggy 755]

12 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

So why did the rise in cases cause the postponement?

That is what I am asking. Not what people think. The Government postponed purely on the rise in the cases of the Delta variant and not everyone vaccinated.

What I am asking is, will the same criteria still be applied on 19 July if the cases are still over 10K a day for instance?

Well I found it interesting that it came out that Hancock had figures about vaccine efficiency against delta/India variant three days before the announcement on June 14 but failed to mention them to the cabinet until after the announcement. The BBC reported on the 18 th (and I think Indy suggested even earlier in the week) that the vaccines were 75 per cent effective after one dose and around 95 per cent after two, even against the data/India variant.

Had that information been known before June 14, my guess is the delay might not have happened.

Edit: noticeably in the last few days since 18 June, we’ve had numerous government ministers and Boris himself wheel out lines about hospitalisation and things looking good for the July date.

Edited June 23, 2021 by Aggy

[Tetteys Jig 830]

8 minutes ago, Aggy said:

Well I found it interesting that it came out that Hancock had figures about vaccine efficiency against delta/India variant three days before the announcement on June 14 but failed to mention them to the cabinet until after the announcement. The BBC reported on the 18 th (and I think Indy suggested even earlier in the week) that the vaccines were 75 per cent effective after one dose and around 95 per cent after two, even against the data/India variant.

Had that information been known before June 14, my guess is the delay might not have happened.

Edit: noticeably in the last few days since 18 June, we’ve had numerous government ministers and Boris himself wheel out lines about hospitalisation and things looking good for the July date.

no chance they're gonna go with the 5th July date... debatable whether 19th July happens as well... Hopefully the Zoe data is an early indicator of the vaccines/herd immunity taking the lead again.

[Aggy 755]

1 minute ago, Tetteys Jig said:

no chance they're gonna go with the 5th July date... debatable whether 19th July happens as well... Hopefully the Zoe data is an early indicator of the vaccines/herd immunity taking the lead again.

I didn’t know 5 July was being talked about. 19 July I am fairly sure will. If/when the hospitalisations don’t shoot up significantly in the next two or three weeks before then, there’s no justification for not doing so.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

1 hour ago, Aggy said:

I didn’t know 5 July was being talked about. 19 July I am fairly sure will. If/when the hospitalisations don’t shoot up significantly in the next two or three weeks before then, there’s no justification for not doing so.

But based on that premise, there really wasn't a justification this time.

It was based on rising cases v those vaccinated surely.

[Upo 91]

It's probably not a coincidence that early vaccines with longest exposure time to viral mutations no longer work.

We're heading towards enormous number of partially vaxxed people being exposed to massive Delta spread.

Even mRNA vaccines are struggling against Delta at 1 dose. That means the best vaccines we have are defeatable by viral adaptation.

We may not have months. The virus must be eliminated. 

[Well b back 3,203]

Even mRNA vaccines are struggling against Delta at 1 dose. That means the best vaccines we have are defeatable by viral adaptation.
 

2nd dose in the rest of the world is 3 weeks.

[Yellow Fever 3,780]

8 hours ago, Well b back said:

Even mRNA vaccines are struggling against Delta at 1 dose. That means the best vaccines we have are defeatable by viral adaptation.
 

2nd dose in the rest of the world is 3 weeks.

Yes WBB - The irony may be lost but whereas I think we were right to extend to 12 weeks between doses originally when in short supply against the early variants for which the vaccines were targeted  - it has come back to haunt us with the newer Delta variants where clearly 2 doses is needed (and now quickly). A little bit of swings and roundabouts.