Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[nicko31]

7 day cases up 46%, higher now than Italy, Germany and catching France and Spain up fast.

Still 55% of UK population with one dose (33% protection) or no protection at all

Clubbing on June 21st, a Mid Summer Night's Dream

Stay outside everyone folks if you can...

 

[atomised]

Nice try. Now let’s see how that pans out, with particular regard to your point 2.

I really hope your sanguine attitude to all this is right, and sincerely trust Crodo’s doom and gloom is just that, doom & gloom - however, in most likelihood I feel it will be somewhere between the 2 - but how many dead will that mean and what’s an acceptable number?

It's always been somewhere between the 2 opposites as the likely outcome. Reading balanced stuff rather than just that matching one view gives a better picture than Crodos

 

[atomised]

Why don't all these people coming out with sweeping statements like 'this has to end', 'lockdown zealots' and 'NHS narrative' start actually blaming the people who didn't close the borders to India when everyone was suggesting? At every single stage when a small intervention was needed the government delayed and a bigger intervention was needed later on. Every single time.

If they had done it the spread would have been held up and we would have had a bigger window to vaccinate people and would quite possibly be looking forward to most or all restrictions going on the 21st.

But no, keep on Googling or articles that superficially help your argument and laying into Crodonilson, who although is a touch Private Frazer has actually predicted things much better than the open everything up crew.

Because people want balance. Not just a relentless stream of negativity. I'm neither open everything up crew nor its all doom and gloom thank you very much

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Why don't all these people coming out with sweeping statements like 'this has to end', 'lockdown zealots' and 'NHS narrative' start actually blaming the people who didn't close the borders to India when everyone was suggesting? At every single stage when a small intervention was needed the government delayed and a bigger intervention was needed later on. Every single time.

If they had done it the spread would have been held up and we would have had a bigger window to vaccinate people and would quite possibly be looking forward to most or all restrictions going on the 21st.

But no, keep on Googling or articles that superficially help your argument and laying into Crodonilson, who although is a touch Private Frazer has actually predicted things much better than the open everything up crew.

Has he?

He was predicting carnage when opening schools.

The Indian variant is already everywhere, including places with stricter controls - we should have stopped flights - but it’s spread with out without restrictions, how have other countries coped? Why are other countries allowing travel with 2 jabs freely / test from the U.K. if they are overly worried by us?

The NHS boss now saying it’s not as bad is superficially helping the argument now?

 

[Bozza]

The NHS boss now saying it’s not as bad is superficially helping the argument now?

Chris Hopson's weekly updates are excellent, clear and balanced but he's absolutely not saying "it's not as bad" in any way, shape or form.

I encourage everyone to spend a couple of minutes reading through his update this morning - 25 posts starting here >>> https://twitter.com/ChrisCEOHopson/status/1401403305809547269?s=20

Some good news from the Delta hotspots, which is great to read. However, my concern with this is we've thrown the kitchen sink at these Delta hotspots in terms of the army being on the street, surge testing and vaccinating pretty much anyone who'll take a needle in their arm. Can we do this on a far broader scale, should we need to?

Beyond that, he details the grown-up questions that need to happen. "Opening all the things" will have real consequences on a number of fronts as he indicates. That's not to say we don't accept those consequences, but people need to be up-front and transparent about what they are and what they mean.

Seriously, read his tweet thread - you won't be worse off for doing so.

 

[Bozza]

Given the extra importance of being double-dosed to provide the required protection agains the Delta variant, I'd be interested to see some debate about pegging our relaxations against a target, or targets, of vaccination progress, eg:

"When we are three weeks beyond the point at which 70% of the UK population have been double-jabbed then XXXXX can happen"

I don't know what the actual number(s) would be, so please don't attack the 70% number - I pulled it out of the air.

But it strikes me that this approach sets a very clear and transparent target of population protection that should provide good levels of confidence as to what is "safe". You'd also like to think that this would incentivise those sitting on the vaccine fence to get themselves jabbed as each and every person who takes up the vaccination moves us all closer to our shared ultimate goal.

Maybe I'm being too simplistic, but I'd like to see some discussion around this.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Chris Hopson's weekly updates are excellent, clear and balanced but he's absolutely not saying "it's not as bad" in any way, shape or form.

I encourage everyone to spend a couple of minutes reading through his update this morning - 25 posts starting here >>> https://twitter.com/ChrisCEOHopson/status/1401403305809547269?s=20

Some good news from the Delta hotspots, which is great to read. However, my concern with this is we've thrown the kitchen sink at these Delta hotspots in terms of the army being on the street, surge testing and vaccinating pretty much anyone who'll take a needle in their arm. Can we do this on a far broader scale, should we need to?

Beyond that, he details the grown-up questions that need to happen. "Opening all the things" will have real consequences on a number of fronts as he indicates. That's not to say we don't accept those consequences, but people need to be up-front and transparent about what they are and what they mean.

Seriously, read his tweet thread - you won't be worse off for doing so.

I read them yesterday.

Given the current narrative in the media is it’s completely out of control everywhere, I stand by my post of him saying it’s not as bad The headlines say.

The road map was done inline with modelling which we are still under the best case.

I agree there needs to be a conversation about what will be accepted, Whitty and Vallance have maintained this will be the case, but none of the ministers seem to want to talk about it.

 

[Bozza]

I read them yesterday.

Given the current narrative in the media is it’s completely out of control everywhere, I stand by my post of him saying it’s not as bad The headlines say.

The road map was done inline with modelling which we are still under the best case.

I agree there needs to be a conversation about what will be accepted, Whitty and Vallance have maintained this will be the case, but none of the ministers seem to want to talk about it.

You must have a time machine then, as he only posted his thread at 6am this morning!

This was the last SPI-M modelling BTW.



The good news is if Hancock's estimates this morning of Delta being 40% more transmissible are correct, then regardless of what happens from here (a tidal wave, a ripple or somewhere in between), we are in a better position than we thought we were.

The difference between 50% and 40% is huge when it comes to exponential growth.

 

[e77]

Because people want balance. Not just a relentless stream of negativity. I'm neither open everything up crew nor its all doom and gloom thank you very much

Unfortunately it is what it is. When the dates were issued at the end of February I remember thinking it all looked achievable apart from the June 21st plan to get rid of all restrictions.

This all said we apparently reach Herd Immunity in September. At that point we do have to open up again as there is noting else we can do but even then we need something of a cultural shift. If you wake up one morning with a cough you previously dragged yourself into work as you were more or less accused of skiving if you didn't. That can't be allowed to continue.

 

[e77]

Has he?

He was predicting carnage when opening schools.

The Indian variant is already everywhere, including places with stricter controls - we should have stopped flights - but it’s spread with out without restrictions, how have other countries coped? Why are other countries allowing travel with 2 jabs freely / test from the U.K. if they are overly worried by us?

The NHS boss now saying it’s not as bad is superficially helping the argument now?

Every time we underestimated the impact of the virus and opened things up too quickly or delayed a difficult decision it came back to haunt us. While he went OTT most of the time this was closer to his opinion than those who wanted everything opened up quicker.

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

You must have a time machine then, as he only posted his thread at 6am this morning!

This was the last SPI-M modelling BTW.

View attachment 137410

The good news is if Hancock's estimates this morning of Delta being 40% more transmissible are correct, then regardless of what happens from here (a tidal wave, a ripple or somewhere in between), we are in a better position than we thought we were.

The difference between 50% and 40% is huge when it comes to exponential growth.

My apologies - I read the ones from yesterday and assumed was the same -
[MENTION=21205]RP13[/MENTION]1 has a whole host of charts - another middle ground



This is where we are for hospitalisation compared to the predictions, with the lesser variant.

We are still under on everything with step 3 being the biggest change (in my view)

 

[Bozza]

My apologies - I read the ones from yesterday and assumed was the same -

[MENTION=21205]RP13[/MENTION]1 has a whole host of charts - another middle ground

View attachment 137422

This is where we are for hospitalisation compared to the predictions, with the lesser variant.

We are still under on everything with step 3 being the biggest change (in my view)

The magnitude of the peaks of the chart weren't my point.

My point is an increase of 40% transmissibility is significantly better than 50%. A lot more than the raw numbers suggest.

 

[nicko31]

Given the extra importance of being double-dosed to provide the required protection agains the Delta variant, I'd be interested to see some debate about pegging our relaxations against a target, or targets, of vaccination progress, eg:

"When we are three weeks beyond the point at which 70% of the UK population have been double-jabbed then XXXXX can happen"

I don't know what the actual number(s) would be, so please don't attack the 70% number - I pulled it out of the air.

But it strikes me that this approach sets a very clear and transparent target of population protection that should provide good levels of confidence as to what is "safe". You'd also like to think that this would incentivise those sitting on the vaccine fence to get themselves jabbed as each and every person who takes up the vaccination moves us all closer to our shared ultimate goal.

Maybe I'm being too simplistic, but I'd like to see some discussion around this.

We're 20m doses from the 46m (70%), at 400k / day that's second week of August with the 3 week on top

They won't do that unless thing got really ugly

 

[Bozza]

We're 20m doses from the 46m (70%), at 400k / day that's second week of August with the 3 week on top

They won't do that unless thing got really ugly

As I said: don't attack (critique) the 70% number which I plucked out of the air just to present an example.

 

[Solid at the back]

Sebastian Payne [MENTION=13834]Seba[/MENTION]stianEPayne
Very important news from Matt Hancock in the Commons, confirming Covid jabs are working. Out of 12,383 Delta variant cases in UK till June 3rd:

- 464 people went to emergency care
- 126 admitted to hospital
- 83 were unvaccinated
- 28 had one jab
- Just 3 both doses

Taken from the Good News thread, but is Matt Hancock really that bad at maths or am I missing something?

126 admitted to hospital, 28 with one dose and 3 with two doses. Doesn't that leave 95 unvaccinated hospitalizations?

 

[dsr-burnley]

Taken from the Good News thread, but is Matt Hancock really that bad at maths or am I missing something?

126 admitted to hospital, 28 with one dose and 3 with two doses. Doesn't that leave 95 unvaccinated hospitalizations?

No, it means 12 "don't knows".

This news is actually a whole lot better than it sounds. On the face of it, 3 out of 126 hospitalised doesn't sound all that impressive. But when you factor in that twice as many people are fully vaccinated as are unvaccinated, and that the fully-vaccinated cohort are the people highly likely to need hospital while the bulk of the unvaccinated are unlikely to need hospital, then overall the protection from needing to go to hospital - based on these figures - must be over 99%, probably by quite some margin.

 

[Bozza]

Taken from the Good News thread, but is Matt Hancock really that bad at maths or am I missing something?

126 admitted to hospital, 28 with one dose and 3 with two doses. Doesn't that leave 95 unvaccinated hospitalizations?

No, it means 12 "don't knows".

This news is actually a whole lot better than it sounds. On the face of it, 3 out of 126 hospitalised doesn't sound all that impressive. But when you factor in that twice as many people are fully vaccinated as are unvaccinated, and that the fully-vaccinated cohort are the people highly likely to need hospital while the bulk of the unvaccinated are unlikely to need hospital, then overall the protection from needing to go to hospital - based on these figures - must be over 99%, probably by quite some margin.

Of those 12 of the 126 have gone "missing"...

- 9 don’t match to a vaccine status at present
- 3 had a first dose in the last 21 days so are not counted as “one dose” yet

 

[crodonilson]

According to reports this morning Pat Vallance and Chris Whitty have issued a 'grim outlook' to the government on the Delta variant, seems like we will are likely to be in for a short delay to the next easing of restrictions between a fortnight and a month if all other data continues to be positive.

 

[Hotchilidog]

According to reports this morning Pat Vallance and Chris Whitty have issued a 'grim outlook' to the government on the Delta variant, seems like we will are likely to be in for a short delay to the next easing of restrictions between a fortnight and a month if all other data continues to be positive.

Given the effectiveness of the vaccines in keeping people out of hospital and reducing transmission to a far greater extent than we thought, a short postponement of a couple of weeks or even a month would give the vaccine roll out that little extra time to get us to the herd immunity line.

The current level of restrictions are far more bearable than the ones we had before. If an adjournment meant we could open up in July with full confidence I'd be all for it.

 

[nicko31]

Given the effectiveness of the vaccines in keeping people out of hospital and reducing transmission to a far greater extent than we thought, a short postponement of a couple of weeks or even a month would give the vaccine roll out that little extra time to get us to the herd immunity line.

The current level of restrictions are far more bearable than the ones we had before. If an adjournment meant we could open up in July with full confidence I'd be all for it.

If the decent spell of weather continues this will help, keep people in the pub garden, not in the pub.