Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[dsr-burnley]

Nice work .... would you be available to do my accounts?

How did you guess I was an accountant?

 

[Billy the Fish]

To get some idea of what a faster-spreading variant could mean for the months ahead, modelling teams that feed into Sage worked up different scenarios. Assuming the vaccines hold up, more people could be hospitalised than in the first wave – putting the NHS at risk – if the variant is much more than 30% more transmissible, University of Warwick models show. At 40% more transmissible, hospitalisations could reach 6,000 per day, far above the peak of the second wave, and 10,000 per day if the variant is 50% more transmissible.

That is if we do nothing. If step three easing of restrictions in England on Monday is cancelled, the third wave will be far more modest, reaching 300 hospitalisations per day, even if the virus spreads 50% more easily than the Kent version. Holding off on step four on 21 June may be less effective: under that scenario a variant little more than 40% more transmissible could trigger more daily hospitalisations than seen in either UK waves so far.


Johnson: India Covid variant could jeopardise June reopening – video
A third wave of the coronavirus will drive people into hospital despite the mass vaccination programme. While the vast majority of older and more vulnerable people have been inoculated, the vaccines are not 100% protective, and do not work in everyone. As a result, scientific advisers expect many of those hospitalised in the third wave to be vaccinated, just not well protected from their shots.

What we know about the Indian Covid variant so far | Julian Tang
Millions more have not yet been called for their jabs. Among those will be people unaware they are clinically vulnerable. And so more deaths will duly follow. Modelling from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, seen by Sage on 5 May, found that a 50% more transmissible variant could trigger a third wave with deaths peaking at 1,000 per day in late July. We have not seen those kinds of numbers since February.

AKA a complete load of bollocks

 

[e77]

I worked in the Midlands for the last couple fo days, getting there by train. First time back in an office for 15 months and it was really odd. I know it will vary from office to office but getting everyone back into the office without any social distancing is going to prove challenging. Also you are still encouraged to keep your distance on public transport so until that is changed people won't be commuting.

Got back to Euston and it was much the same as ever with people crowded in front on the platforms waiting for their train.. I suspect we will know by end of May how we are getting on, my suspicion is slight bump in infections but hospital admissions stay low.

I just think everything returning to normal by June 21st is ambitious and there will be a lot of people WFH for a while yet.

 

[nicko31]

I worked in the Midlands for the last couple fo days, getting there by train. First time back in an office for 15 months and it was really odd. I know it will vary from office to office but getting everyone back into the office without any social distancing is going to prove challenging. Also you are still encouraged to keep your distance on public transport so until that is changed people won't be commuting.

Got back to Euston and it was much the same as ever with people crowded in front on the platforms waiting for their train.. I suspect we will know by end of May how we are getting on, my suspicion is slight bump in infections but hospital admissions stay low.

I just think everything returning to normal by June 21st is ambitious and there will be a lot of people WFH for a while yet.

Until everyone is vaccinated its a minefield and shouldn't really be attempted in mid-large size businesses. One case and you're got a school type situation where everyone gets sent home and has to self isolate.

That will be pretty unpopular especially coming into the holiday season

 

[crodonilson]

And we won't see them in July either. When you start trying to boost your case by saying that some people who don't know they are ill will die, then you're clutching at straws.

Here are some numbers.

1. Population. There are 52m adults in this country, roughly speaking 1m over 85, 23m between 45 and 84, 28m between 18 and 44.

2. 20m people are fully vaccinated. These are nearly all the 1m over 85s, and the other 19m are in the 45-84 group.

3. 16m have had no vaccination at all. This is perhaps 60,000 over the over 95s (3%), perhaps 3m of the 45-84s (10%), and 12m of the under 44s.

4. 16m people have had 1 jab. Negligible numbers in the over 85s, so by balancing figures this is 6m 45-84s, 10m under 44s.

All those figures are pure demographics and are not controversial. The numbers jabbed could be marginally tweaked, that is all.

5. And then we have vaccination effectiveness. 97% prevention from death after two jabs, 80% protection from death after 1 jab. Government stats.

6. And there is death rates. It has been established from actual numbers recorded to date that the death rate for an unvaccinated over 85 who catches the disease is 5%. Take account of the vaccination prevention rate of 97%, and a vaccinated over 85 has a death rate of 0.15%.

By similar calculation, death rates for 44-85 are 1% unvaccinated, 0.2% after one jab, 0.03% after 2 jabs.
And for under 45s, 0.005% with no vaccination (only 1 in 20,000 die), 0.0006% after 1 jab, 0.0002 after 2 jabs.

And let's see what that does to the model. Let's assume that everyone in the country breathes in enough coronavirus to catch the disease, all at the same time. How many deaths?

Over 85 vaccinated = 1m people, 0.25% death rate, 2,500 deaths.
Over 85 unvaccinated = 60k people, 5% death rate, 3,000 deaths.
45-84 fully vaccinated = 19m people, 0.03% death rate, 5,700 deaths.
45-84 half vaccinated = 6m people, 0.2% death rate, 12,000 deaths.
45-84 unvaccinated = 3m people, 1% death rate, 30,000 deaths.
under 45 half vaccinated = 10m people, 0.0006% death rate, 60 deaths.
under 45 unvaccinated = 13m people, 0.005% death rate, 650 deaths.

This is a total - if everyone in the country catches the disease at the same time - of 54,000 deaths. This is not a "reasonable worst case scenario" this is if EVERYONE catches it at once. So any suggestion that it is reasonable to suppose we might get 1,000 deaths per day in late July is ABSOLUTE NONSENSE. They can only get that figure by assuming that the vaccine makes no difference at all.

I just love how everyone has become more experts in covid than epidemiologists and mathematical modellers who have dedicated their life to these kind of things but Joe Public seems to think his back of a fag packet calculations are more reliable than anything the experts can come up with.

Just a few caveats to your figures, firstly lumping 45-84 year olds together, there is a rather huge difference in death rates between someone in their early 80's to someone in their late 40's. There would also likely be a big difference in social mobility of these people when these stats and percentages you have produced would have been monitored.

Secondly, the figures you quote, the government stats are of a period in time, the vaccinated stats are at a period where we were largely under lockdown, so the death rate is low and it is believed vaccines are highly effective in preventing serious illness but we are now mixing far more and vaccinated people are mixing far more than they were previously, that's fine when cases remain low but if transmission is significantly increased and cases go up then they are far more likely to come into contact with the disease so we just don't know what the death rate for vaccinated people will be with a highly transmissible variant and indoor mixing where the risks are so much higher. We also don't know for sure (although we have are very hopeful) whether the vaccines are as effective with this new variant at preventing severe disease. So to take stats from a previous period of time when another variant was dominant and strict distancing and applying to now when the circumstances are very different could be very dangerous indeed. The good news is early indications seem to show that there is only a slight increase in transmissibility with the new variant and nowhere near the 50% doomsday scenario. This is all not to mention the real issue of potentially overwhelming the NHS again, and how many of the population will be unlikely to die but could require hospitalisation, this will be as much if not more of a risk going forwards with covid than the likely death count as treatments improve and vaccinations prevent deaths and very serious illness.

 

[beorhthelm]

Just a few caveats to your figures, firstly lumping 45-84 year olds together, there is a rather huge difference in death rates between someone in their early 80's to someone in their late 40's. There would also likely be a big difference in social mobility of these people when these stats and percentages you have produced would have been monitored.

why not, the models are lumping the whole population together.

point about becoming experts is totally valid, however there are many experts, many models, saying many different things. when a model makes assertions such as 1000-7000 cases per day, while actual reported numbers are 2000, its fair for a layman to raise an objection.

 

[dsr-burnley]

I just love how everyone has become more experts in covid than epidemiologists and mathematical modellers who have dedicated their life to these kind of things but Joe Public seems to think his back of a fag packet calculations are more reliable than anything the experts can come up with.

Just a few caveats to your figures, firstly lumping 45-84 year olds together, there is a rather huge difference in death rates between someone in their early 80's to someone in their late 40's. There would also likely be a big difference in social mobility of these people when these stats and percentages you have produced would have been monitored.

Secondly, the figures you quote, the government stats are of a period in time, the vaccinated stats are at a period where we were largely under lockdown, so the death rate is low and it is believed vaccines are highly effective in preventing serious illness but we are now mixing far more and vaccinated people are mixing far more than they were previously, that's fine when cases remain low but if transmission is significantly increased and cases go up then they are far more likely to come into contact with the disease so we just don't know what the death rate for vaccinated people will be with a highly transmissible variant and indoor mixing where the risks are so much higher. We also don't know for sure (although we have are very hopeful) whether the vaccines are as effective with this new variant at preventing severe disease. So to take stats from a previous period of time when another variant was dominant and strict distancing and applying to now when the circumstances are very different could be very dangerous indeed. The good news is early indications seem to show that there is only a slight increase in transmissibility with the new variant and nowhere near the 50% doomsday scenario. This is all not to mention the real issue of potentially overwhelming the NHS again, and how many of the population will be unlikely to die but could require hospitalisation, this will be as much if not more of a risk going forwards with covid than the likely death count as treatments improve and vaccinations prevent deaths and very serious illness.

You are correct about 45-84 being a big range that would be better if they weren't lumped together, but the publicly available data that I could find is not sufficiently detailed for me to do that. But as you are no doubt implying, the older end of that range is at higher risk, and the older end is also much more comprehensively vaccinated (both in first doeses and second doses), so my calculation will certainly be showing too high a death rate.

The death rate for someone who catches the disease does not change whether they moved in high risk situations or whether it was a very unlucky chance. Death rates given that you have the disease do not change based on how unlucky you were to get it.

In spite of increased testing in Bolton etc., overall covid case rates are still falling. The number of deaths has been in single figures for 5 consecutive days now, and remember that just by the law of averages 2 people per day will die with a positive test even if they have no symptoms. The number of people in hospital is still dropping, as is the number on mechanical ventilators.

I am finding it really hard to see the bad news.

 

[dazzer6666]

You are correct about 45-84 being a big range that would be better if they weren't lumped together, but the publicly available data that I could find is not sufficiently detailed for me to do that. But as you are no doubt implying, the older end of that range is at higher risk, and the older end is also much more comprehensively vaccinated (both in first doeses and second doses), so my calculation will certainly be showing too high a death rate.

The death rate for someone who catches the disease does not change whether they moved in high risk situations or whether it was a very unlucky chance. Death rates given that you have the disease do not change based on how unlucky you were to get it.

In spite of increased testing in Bolton etc., overall covid case rates are still falling. The number of deaths has been in single figures for 5 consecutive days now, and remember that just by the law of averages 2 people per day will die with a positive test even if they have no symptoms. The number of people in hospital is still dropping, as is the number on mechanical ventilators.

I am finding it really hard to see the bad news.

To back that up, today's numbers - infections, deaths and admissions all DOWN week on week. Less than 1,000 in hospital.

Infections - 2,412 - rolling 7 day down 2.6%
Deaths - 7 - rolling 7 day down 27.9% (62)
Admissions - 116 - rolling 7 day down 2.1%
Jabs - 174k/324k, cumulative 37m/20.9m
In hospital - 939

 

[loz]

To back that up, today's numbers - infections, deaths and admissions all DOWN week on week. Less than 1,000 in hospital.

Infections - 2,412 - rolling 7 day down 2.6%
Deaths - 7 - rolling 7 day down 27.9% (62)
Admissions - 116 - rolling 7 day down 2.1%
Jabs - 174k/324k, cumulative 37m/20.9m
In hospital - 939

I think looking at the yougov figures it’s only 3 deaths

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Looks like JVT seems to suggest it’s not going to be 50 percent more transmissible and the vaccine works.


Great

 

[crodonilson]

You are correct about 45-84 being a big range that would be better if they weren't lumped together, but the publicly available data that I could find is not sufficiently detailed for me to do that. But as you are no doubt implying, the older end of that range is at higher risk, and the older end is also much more comprehensively vaccinated (both in first doeses and second doses), so my calculation will certainly be showing too high a death rate.

The death rate for someone who catches the disease does not change whether they moved in high risk situations or whether it was a very unlucky chance. Death rates given that you have the disease do not change based on how unlucky you were to get it.

In spite of increased testing in Bolton etc., overall covid case rates are still falling. The number of deaths has been in single figures for 5 consecutive days now, and remember that just by the law of averages 2 people per day will die with a positive test even if they have no symptoms. The number of people in hospital is still dropping, as is the number on mechanical ventilators.

I am finding it really hard to see the bad news.

Death rates will change according to variables, such as the amount of mixing and likelihood of coming into contact with someone with covid, and the transmissibility of the disease. Whilst all of the data in the vaccines effectiveness is very encouraging it needs to be taken with some understanding of the limitations of that data as it is from a time when lockdown was also doing much of the heavy lifting keeping deaths down.

Anyway one of the leading SAGE scientists who knows much more about it than you are I believes we are now into our third wave.

Third wave gas now begun and extra restrictions needed SAGE scientist warns

 

[dsr-burnley]

Death rates will change according to variables, such as the amount of mixing and likelihood of coming into contact with someone with covid, and the transmissibility of the disease. Whilst all of the data in the vaccines effectiveness is very encouraging it needs to be taken with some understanding of the limitations of that data as it is from a time when lockdown was also doing much of the heavy lifting keeping deaths down.

Anyway one of the leading SAGE scientists who knows much more about it than you are I believes we are now into our third wave.

Third wave gas now begun and extra restrictions needed SAGE scientist warns

The death rates are the proportion of people who get the virus, who go on to die. When I use the figure of 5% death rate for people over 85, it means that 5% of the over 85's who get coronavirus die of it, not that 5% of all over 85's die of it. And obviously ythis means that the amount of mixing and likelihood of coming into contact is totally irrelevant. I agree that an understanding of the limitations of the data is important, so I hope this helps you get that understanding.

I will repeat. My estimate of 54,000 deaths was based on EVERYONE IN THE COUNTRY catching coronavirus. It was a worst case scenario in that respect. When we take into account such things as mixing and likelihood of coming into contact with the virus, it will certainly be vastly lower than that.

 

[dsr-burnley]

Anyway one of the leading SAGE scientists who knows much more about it than you are I believes we are now into our third wave.

Third wave gas now begun and extra restrictions needed SAGE scientist warns

For the sake of accuracy, the "leading SAGE scientist" does not say that a third wave has begun, and he does not say that extra restrictions are needed. If you insist on scouring the internet for the worst possible slant on things, then go ahead. But when you have found the worst possible slant, do not then add your own even worse slant. Post your doom and gloom honestly, please.

 

[crodonilson]

The death rates are the proportion of people who get the virus, who go on to die. When I use the figure of 5% death rate for people over 85, it means that 5% of the over 85's who get coronavirus die of it, not that 5% of all over 85's die of it. And obviously ythis means that the amount of mixing and likelihood of coming into contact is totally irrelevant. I agree that an understanding of the limitations of the data is important, so I hope this helps you get that understanding.

I will repeat. My estimate of 54,000 deaths was based on EVERYONE IN THE COUNTRY catching coronavirus. It was a worst case scenario in that respect. When we take into account such things as mixing and likelihood of coming into contact with the virus, it will certainly be vastly lower than that.

Understood, although given the vaccines programme only really started in early January and we're only in mid May now and had lockdown or much restricted measures in that time very few people in the vulnerable age groups will have contracted the disease I don't know how you or anyone can say with any certainty the exact percentage of vaccinated people who are likely to die if they come into contact with covid, that sort of study needs to take place over a much longer time period to ascertain these statistics with any certainty.

Also I agree that deaths will become less of an issue, but hospitalisations are the real problem going forwards, even if a maximum of 54,000 (and from the modelling i've seen from people with more knowledge than you or I, I think this is a very conservative estimate) you can multiply that number many times for the possible hospitalisations and as treatment gets better also people are less likely to die but those who do not die will take up more resources as they require treatment and time to get better. We just cannot afford to see hospitalisations from covid to rise into the tens of thousands again, if it does many other people are at risk of dying from a multitude of other things as resources are taken away to cope with yet another covid wave.

 

[dsr-burnley]

Understood, although given the vaccines programme only really started in early January and we're only in mid May now and had lockdown or much restricted measures in that time very few people in the vulnerable age groups will have contracted the disease I don't know how you or anyone can say with any certainty the exact percentage of vaccinated people who are likely to die if they come into contact with covid, that sort of study needs to take place over a much longer time period to ascertain these statistics with any certainty.

Also I agree that deaths will become less of an issue, but hospitalisations are the real problem going forwards, even if a maximum of 54,000 (and from the modelling i've seen from people with more knowledge than you or I, I think this is a very conservative estimate) you can multiply that number many times for the possible hospitalisations and as treatment gets better also people are less likely to die but those who do not die will take up more resources as they require treatment and time to get better. We just cannot afford to see hospitalisations from covid to rise into the tens of thousands again, if it does many other people are at risk of dying from a multitude of other things as resources are taken away to cope with yet another covid wave.

I agree that if your predictions come true - that the post-vaccine virus spreads further and faster than it ever did before, and the vaccine does not work at all - then we will need to consider other actions. But at present, the virus is coming more and more under control and the vaccine is working tremendously well, so our actions need to be based on those facts. Not on ultra pessimistic speculation.

The 5% death rate for over 85's is based on pre-vaccine figures. I cannot say with certainty that it won't be worse post-vaccine, but there is absolutely no reason to suppose it might. There are all sorts of imaginings that we could take precautions against, but as long as they are only imaginings, we don't.

 

[beorhthelm]

Death rates will change according to variables, such as the amount of mixing and likelihood of coming into contact with someone with covid, and the transmissibility of the disease. Whilst all of the data in the vaccines effectiveness is very encouraging it needs to be taken with some understanding of the limitations of that data as it is from a time when lockdown was also doing much of the heavy lifting keeping deaths down.

so the limited data must be temper positive news but its not to affect negative news. got it.

 

[crodonilson]

so the limited data must be temper positive news but its not to affect negative news. got it.

No but we need to learn to be humble in the face of the virus, with millions of people unvaccinated and able to spread the virus and a new strain which is more transmissible (to what extent we are not sure) I would much prefer we err on the side of caution than sit with our fingers in our ears to the dangers being warned of by scientists pretending it's all definitely going to be ok until the data is irrefutable. That is how we got into a mess in Autumn and Winter, the reason we've done so well up to now from the shocking decisions to not lockdown until 4th January(other than the issues with borders) is exactly because we've proceeded with extreme caution.

My personal view is that the opening of indoors facilities and allowing people to meet indoors, at the exact time a new more transmissible variant arrived on our shores which is now spreading quickly around the country, is a mistake and we'd have been better served to put this next opening up on the roadmap on hold until we new the exact nature of this variant, the impact (or lack of) vaccines has on it and it's transmissibility (and what impact that is likely to have on hospitalisations). There are four tests the government has rightly set, 3 have massive big ticks next to them but the 4th has a question mark currently.

 

[nicko31]

No but we need to learn to be humble in the face of the virus, with millions of people unvaccinated and able to spread the virus and a new strain which is more transmissible (to what extent we are not sure) I would much prefer we err on the side of caution than sit with our fingers in our ears to the dangers being warned of by scientists pretending it's all definitely going to be ok until the data is irrefutable. That is how we got into a mess in Autumn and Winter, the reason we've done so well up to now from the shocking decisions to not lockdown until 4th January(other than the issues with borders) is exactly because we've proceeded with extreme caution.

My personal view is that the opening of indoors facilities and allowing people to meet indoors, at the exact time a new more transmissible variant arrived on our shores which is now spreading quickly around the country, is a mistake and we'd have been better served to put this next opening up on the roadmap on hold until we new the exact nature of this variant, the impact (or lack of) vaccines has on it and it's transmissibility (and what impact that is likely to have on hospitalisations). There are four tests the government has rightly set, 3 have massive big ticks next to them but the 4th has a question mark currently.

Seem a lot rests of how transmissible the Indian variant is. If its 20% more we might just dodge the bullet, if its 50% more there's trouble ahead.

But you are correct the government has chosen to waive their own 4th test, they're put the chips and black and hoping for the best.

 

[dsr-burnley]

Seem a lot rests of how transmissible the Indian variant is. If its 20% more we might just dodge the bullet, if its 50% more there's trouble ahead.

But you are correct the government has chosen to waive their own 4th test, they're put the chips and black and hoping for the best.

Depends how you define "fundamental". A variant that works the same way as the others but spreads a little bit faster - when you consider that the vaccine is working better than envisaged - is that "fundamental"?

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

The Indian variant may not be more transmissible, scientists have told the Government, but warned it was better to "over-react" than risk a third wave.

In documents published by the Scientific Advisory Group for the Emergencies (Sage) on Friday, experts from a consortium of seven universities said the mutated virus appeared to be spreading 40 per cent more quickly than the Kent variant.

However, they said that they could not "conclude with any certainty" that it was because the variant was biologically more transmissible, rather than being caused by mixing patterns in certain areas, or superspreader events.



The problem with over reacting is that it’s dulls people to actual dangers

Let’s not forget, this over reaction would have seen a delay in opening and the previous one would have meant schools not opening.