Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[nicko31]

We are giving kids flu jabs ?

Used to be just the over 55s

Certainly secondary as nasal spray in many cases...

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

Yeah its a bit slow, from my experience a lot will getting done in the next few days as schools are doubling up with the flu jab. So relieved this is happening

Meanwhile today highest case numbers since full easing on July 18, this isn't where we should be now...

We should be at 300k cases shouldnt we?

 

[Thunder Bolt]

Are the numbers accurate? Are the tests accurate?

[tweet]1448933102647193603[/tweet]

 

[JC Footy Genius]

We should be at 300k cases shouldnt we?

I think you will find that if we had listened to all of nicko's doomsday pandemic warnings everyone should have died of covid several months ago ...

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk

 

[crodonilson]

We should be at 300k cases shouldnt we?

BREAKING
UK infection rates at highest level since January - ONS
Just over one million people in the UK are estimated to have had Covid in the week to 9 October - the highest figure since the end of January, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

This is 1.5% of the population – or one in 65 people – up from one in 70 the previous week.

The ONS survey is based on testing a random sample of people from private households.

So currently nearly 1m people in England have Covid, highest since January and continuing to increase.

 

[beorhthelm]

as an antedote to the "omg rising cases", yesturday reported 2 cases on ventilation and 28 hosptialisation.

cases do not translate to severe illness anymore, pointless watching them. between vaccine and a softer variant (it isnt said much but it is), we have managed covid.

 

[Thunder Bolt]

[tweet]1448725441884434442[/tweet]

 

[dsr-burnley]

There's nothing much new developing in the coronavirus at the world at present, or so it seems. So it might be a good time to sit back and think of long term.

The two options, pending further developments of course, are to

OPTION ONE - keep things as they are now, not many restrictions at all. Let number of cases flow where it may.

OPTION TWO - reintroduce some or all of the measures of lockdown.

Obviously (for people who remember all my earlier posts!) I'm in favour of option one. Yes, people are dying who could be saved by option two, I accept that. And obviously, I might become one of them, though the odds are in my favour, just as they are in everybody's favour. Such is life - people die.

But I have been looking at the numbers. Over 80's are my "speciality" since my mother is in that number. In the 13 weeks covering July 3rd to October 1st, 70,130 people over 80 have died according to death certificate records. Of those, 3,363 had coronavirus as a cause of death, primary or secondary. That's a fraction short of 5%.

So what does that mean for old people? as it stands, in normal pre-coronavirus times, a person over 80 has (on average) a 10% chance of surviving to this time next year. Chilling, isn't it. Time is short! (And 70k dead out of 3m over 80's, in the summer months, shows that stat to be accurate.) So if the death rate is 5% higher because of coronavirus, then the death rate becomes 10.5% chance of dying.

So here's the issue. Under option 1, the old person has a 10.5% chance of dying because coronavirus is rampant and they might catch it and might die of it. But, if they retreat to their homes, they give up football and theatre and eating out and meeting friends and perhaps even give up meeting their children and grandchildren, they can reduce their chance of dying from 10.5% to 10%. Would they take the offer? Not a chance. Or very little chance, anyway.

If covid restrictions was a short term option, just temporary and the problem will be solved, then we could go for it. But it isn't. One thing we have certainly learned over the last 19 months is that we can't make this go away by lockdown. All we can do with lockdown is marginally improve our chances of survival, while giving up our chances of fully enjoying the life that we have - a life, remember, that still has a significant chance of ending this year. The gains from restrictions, as things are at present, are too small to be worth it.

 

[nicko31]

I think you will find that if we had listened to all of nicko's doomsday pandemic warnings everyone should have died of covid several months ago ...

Sent from my SM-G970F using Tapatalk

We've the outlier on cases and deaths in Europe again. Johnson squandered any early lead in vaccinations, that's all in the rear view mirror

Johnson got bored of rules and dumped all mitigations, he abdicated responsibility. Just like he's done his whole life.

Plan B now!!!!

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

We've the outlier on cases and deaths in Europe again. Johnson squandered any early lead in vaccinations, that's all in the rear view mirror

Johnson got bored of rules and dumped all mitigations, he abdicated responsibility. Just like he's done his whole life.

Plan B now!!!!

View attachment 141296

ICU admissions.

England - 657
France - 1326
Germany - 1320

We test significantly more than the others. Hence the asymptomatic cases being identified.

If Johnson is bored of it, what’s the rest of Europe?

You clearly don’t care about numbers of tests taking place as a potential reason why cases are higher, why not?

 

[CHAPPERS]

ICU admissions.

England - 657
France - 1326
Germany - 1320

We test significantly more than the others. Hence the asymptomatic cases being identified.

If Johnson is bored of it, what’s the rest of Europe?

You clearly don’t care about numbers of tests taking place as a potential reason why cases are higher, why not?

Those ICU figures are odd. How come we are reporting so many more deaths if our ICU figures are lower?

 

[nicko31]

ICU admissions.

England - 657
France - 1326
Germany - 1320

We test significantly more than the others. Hence the asymptomatic cases being identified.

If Johnson is bored of it, what’s the rest of Europe?

You clearly don’t care about numbers of tests taking place as a potential reason why cases are higher, why not?

I know we test more but for many days now we've been second highest cases in the world.

I can't comment on ICU but in the past week, deaths per million across these closest neighbours

UK - 12
Germany - 5
Ireland - 5
France - 3
Netherlands - 2

All these countries have some mitigations in place, these actions save lives...

 

[Kinky Gerbil]

I know we test more but for many days now we've been second highest cases in the world.

I can't comment on ICU but in the past week, deaths per million across these closest neighbours

UK - 12
Germany - 5
Ireland - 5
France - 3
Netherlands - 2

All these countries have some mitigations in place, these actions save lives...

And of those deaths how many have refused the vaccine?

What should the government do to force people to take the vaccine? Hold them down ?

 

[dsr-burnley]

And of those deaths how many have refused the vaccine?

What should the government do to force people to take the vaccine? Hold them down ?

I don't think that's relevant to the question as posed, because Germany etc. also have people (probably still more than us) who haven't yet been vaccinated.

The vital question that must be concerning Germany, France, and other countries with a lower rate of transmission but also with restrictive procedures in place is this. What happens when they let it go and release the restrictions? Do they get the same sort of numbers as we have? And if so, does that mean that their restrictions must not be released this side of next summer, because coronavirus in winter is probably worse than in summer for various reasons? Or perhaps even that their restrictions should never be released?

It's the vital question, hypothetical in England's case. If we need to have restrictions because this disease is killing too many people, is there a suggestion for how we get out of restrictions?

 

[Bozza]

Excellent twitter hread from the FT's John Burn-Murdoch which is well worth a read. First tweet here >>>

[tweet]1449801652207239176[/tweet]

For those that can't or don't want to make that click/tap...

We're likely doing a lot worse than much of Europe right now due to the following, in order of significance...

- Waning immunity. We got going with vaccinations a lot quicker than Europe, but we're now seeing immunity waning due to the length of time that has elapsed from the initial jabs.
- There's a lot more mixing indoors at large events in the UK than in Europe.
- Lots of people in the UK never wear masks any more, whilst elsewhere this is not very common.

We could be in for a bumpy ride.

 

[Weststander]

These real world quantitative facts don’t reveal the UK as uniquely in a really bad place just now. They do confirm, as we knew already, that we test far more.





Other than modelling which often fails to pan out and opinion, why is the UK deemed by a few to be in a really bad Covid place just now? In facts.

 

[The Clamp]

I think some people are addicted to life under Covid.

 

[e77]

I think some people are addicted to life under Covid.

But again we get back to the argument that a little intervention stops a large intervention later.

Maybe we have to having rolling Covid vaccine boosters for everyone? Reading that Twitter thread it seems the problem isn't so much the reduction in face mask wearing but us having more mass gatherings. I am not sure the current government have got the will or intention to start restricting them again.

 

[Weststander]

But again we get back to the argument that a little intervention stops a large intervention later.

Maybe we have to having rolling Covid vaccine boosters for everyone? Reading that Twitter thread it seems the problem isn't so much the reduction in face mask wearing but us having more mass gatherings. I am not sure the current government have got the will or intention to start restricting them again.

Just asking, perhaps the great British public and many of our politcians/scientists see Flu levels of deaths as a not unnacceptable consquence of the UK's economy, education system, travel, mental welbeing and life in general carrying on?

Chasing ultra low Covid metrics ad infinitum comes at a huge price elsewhere.

(As always, subject to the hospitals not being overwhelmed).

 

[Fat Boy Fat]

We are an immune population not just through vaccinations but also exposure to the virus. I'm immune to covid and I've never had the vaccine. This can only be through continuous exposure, which both myself and the rest of the population continues to have.

I would go so far as to say mask wearing is counter productive - as like you say immunity will wane without exposure. Frequent exposure to covid is surely desirable at this point to almost all of us.

We are still lightyears ahead of most of the world in terms of the balance of social freedoms and susceptibility to covid.

I've said it before, I think you and Crodo are the same person, with two personalities.

One of which likes to spout doom and gloom and the other that Covid is nothing but a walk in the park.

Quite frankly I find both personas annoying and lacking in emotional intelligence!