Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[Fat Boy Fat]

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).

Agree, as long as the vulnerable aren't just thrown to the wolves.

 

[Weststander]

Agree, as long as the vulnerable aren't just thrown to the wolves.

The booster campaign is vital, we need the same focus and logistical effort as 9 months ago.

 

[Fat Boy Fat]

The booster campaign is vital, we need the same focus and logistical effort as 9 months ago.

Agree, sadly from my experience that focus is currently sadly missing in some areas.

 

[vegster]

Once again the UK is "World beating " ... almost 50,000 new cases a day now, how long before we get a nasty new variant I wonder ?

 

[dsr-burnley]

Once again the UK is "World beating " ... almost 50,000 new cases a day now, how long before we get a nasty new variant I wonder ?

Probably quite along time. Nasty new variants tend to flourish when the old variant is struggling, because there is, so to speak, a gap in the market. When the existing variant is doing very nicely thank you, spreading away easily, infecting people in large numbers, a new variant is likely to be swamped by numbers and never get a foothold. It's when the old variant isn't infecting people that a new variant has space to expand.

 

[e77]

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).

There is stuff that could be done without wrecking the economy. The booster programme is hardly flying and we were very slow vaccinating children. My flu jab has already been cancelled once because the chemist couldn't get a locum in to do it.

We have as a society abandoned face covering in England. It isn't a miracle prevention but it does reduce infections.

I get we can't have lockdown forever and public events had to start up again but I just think as a society we have chosen to put it out of our mind. In a sense I understand that after the last 18 months but we have to be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that is causing more infections than other countries.

 

[W.C.]

How is covid not a walk in the park at the moment. It is still around, it always will be, it persists in numbers, but the trends are flattened. Hospitalisation and deaths remain low. We are exactly where we want to be... for now.

I have always predicted covid and flu will become a problem in winter and I still expect that. I predict not enough elderly or vulnerable will get the flu jab and that will cause a problem in the hospitals as the numbers will be greater than usual due to lack of exposure to influenza, in addition to covid.

It is quite obvious that we want covid to linger so we all get exposed to it in low levels to keep our immune responses sufficient as to not get unwell.

Huh? Looking in from the outside it's mental how the UK has normalised the number of cases/deaths whilst not wanting to do something as simple as wearing a mask.

 

[Fat Boy Fat]

Huh? Looking in from the outside it's mental how the UK has normalised the number of cases/deaths whilst not wanting to do something as simple as wearing a mask.

Yes, it's weird how some people were saying a while ago that many of the public appeared to be suffering Stockholm Syndrome as they were scared of their captors.

Now it's in complete reverse! The government say "run free" and the public do with gay abandon and little thought for the consequences for them or others.

 

[beorhthelm]

Once again the UK is "World beating " ... almost 50,000 new cases a day now, how long before we get a nasty new variant I wonder ?

you'll notice there hasnt been any further variants of concern. i saw something, probably on CNBC, that Delta is outcompeting and crowding out other variants. there has been a couple of variants of interest in South America that haven't spread.

 

[Fat Boy Fat]

you'll notice there hasnt been any further variants of concern. i saw something, probably on CNBC, that Delta is outcompeting and crowding out other variants. there has been a couple of variants of interest in South America that haven't spread.

Or there's this...

https://amp.ft.com/content/f1ec9d5d-9e02-4cc4-95e7-1dcbb1844d43

 

[crodonilson]

Grim numbers at the moment, it didn't have to be this way.

 

[Fat Boy Fat]

Grim numbers at the moment, it didn't have to be this way.

Not sure "grim" is the right word, concerning maybe.

The worrying thing is we don't hear a peep from the government - it's almost like they've lost interest (long before the most recent tragedy)!

 

[Notters]

Confusing situation in the Notters household at the moment.
We've had horrible coughs and colds all year (the joys of having a 1 and 6 year old).
The latest one started last Monday which we all seemed to get at roughly the same time (perhaps a little odd in itself).

Didn't think anything of it as we've had so many (bear in mind I'm also on a vaccine trial and have had about 30 tests in the last year).
Went to Light Night festival on Friday and were in the street food area, where I said to my wife "doesn't that curry smell good" - to which she said "what curry" or similar.
We then worked out that she couldn't smell anything, even vinegar right under her nose.

She did a LFT the following morning which came up positive straight away.

We all went for a PCR test on Saturday and her and our eldest daughter came back positive, me and and my youngest daughter (who has the worse cough and snottyness of us all) negative.
Have been doing regular LFTs and still all negative for me.

I guess I could just have a different virus but have very similar symptoms to my wife, though can still smell.

 

[Yoda]

"Grim" is the picture in Russia at the minute. Widely thought to have been under reporting figures (only 33-34k cases officially at the moment is a prime example).

ICU units being over run (even though their government reporting the opposite), have just reported over 1,000 deaths for the first time (again, always believed to be under reporting this too), only about 33% fully vaxxed, and no measures to control/contain the current Delta wave.

Remember when taking our figures into account, the vaccine wasn't about protecting from infection (that's a bonus if it does). It's main job is to prevent serious illness and death which it still is. A friends wife is a nurse in Worthing Hospital and 95% of their covid patients are unvaxxed. Case numbers are only an issue to the unvaxxed/anti-vaxxers.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

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.

The thing you are overlooking is that the measly 0.5% is with the year's worth of restrictions. Take the restrictions away and the risk of death would shoot up.

I have said all along, once the lay of the land was clear, that the old and at risk for other reasons should be protected, and the others should get on with it. With vaccination doubly so.

However the old and at-risk are much more that 0.5% more likely to die if they get Covid.

On another thread someone (I think - he hasn't explained himself yet) has mocked the effectiveness of vaccination because Colin Powell was double jabbed and yet died from Covid. He died because vaccination merely lowers the impact of Covid, not because vaccination is in general, pointless. If you are old and/or immunosuppressed Covid may well kill you if you get it, even if you are double jabbed.

So you can slice it anyway you like. 'Such is life - people die'. Yes, but I am not keen on throwing my old self on the pyre just so you can swan around without the faff of wearing a mask.

 

[dsr-burnley]

The thing you are overlooking is that the measly 0.5% is with the year's worth of restrictions. Take the restrictions away and the risk of death would shoot up.

I have said all along, once the lay of the land was clear, that the old and at risk for other reasons should be protected, and the others should get on with it. With vaccination doubly so.

However the old and at-risk are much more that 0.5% more likely to die if they get Covid.

On another thread someone (I think - he hasn't explained himself yet) has mocked the effectiveness of vaccination because Colin Powell was double jabbed and yet died from Covid. He died because vaccination merely lowers the impact of Covid, not because vaccination is in general, pointless. If you are old and/or immunosuppressed Covid may well kill you if you get it, even if you are double jabbed.

So you can slice it anyway you like. 'Such is life - people die'. Yes, but I am not keen on throwing my old self on the pyre just so you can swan around without the faff of wearing a mask.

I don't suppose your risk of death increases any more than mine. It's about 5% across the board. If you are at an age and state of health such that you have a 1% chance of dying within a year in normal times, than at present it is about 1.05%. If you're old enough that the risk is normally 20%, then it becomes 21%. That sort of risk. I really can't see that last Christmas & New Year lockdown makes any difference to those figures based on July to September. The effects of that lockdown have surely worn off now.

The question is, what are the old people being protected for? If the idea was to lockdown short term to let the virus go away, fine. If it was to lock down short term to let the vaccine take effect, fine. But we know lockdown doesn't stop the virus, and we know the vaccine doesn't stop the virus. My mother was 86 when this lot started. She is 88 now. Short term measures don't make the virus go away, and she isn't interested in long-term measures that ruin her life for now, in hopes that she may enjoy a long and fulfilled life later.

(I think you're missing my point about old people being 0.5% more likely to die of Covid. Obviously old people who have Covid are more than 0.5% more likely to die; old people who don't have covid havve 0% chance of dying from covid. But over the past 3 months, the two groups combined - ie. over 80's as a group - have an annualised 10% chance of dying of non-covid causes plus an extra 0.5% chance of dying of covid. They can improve their odds by stopping indoors and avoiding meeting people; that is their free choice.)

 

[Billy the Fish]

I get we can't have lockdown forever and public events had to start up again but I just think as a society we have chosen to put it out of our mind. In a sense I understand that after the last 18 months but we have to be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that is causing more infections than other countries.

I'm still convinced that we're approaching equilibrium with covid in the UK and everyone else is simply kicking the can down the road with restrictions.

The choice everyone faces is whether to to have restrictions every winter or accept numbers like we're seeing here. Covid will still be spreading in the winters of 2022, 2023, 2024........

 

[Fat Boy Fat]

I'm still convinced that we're approaching equilibrium with covid in the UK and everyone else is simply kicking the can down the road with restrictions.

The choice everyone faces is whether to to have restrictions every winter or accept numbers like we're seeing here. Covid will still be spreading in the winters of 2022, 2023, 2024........

You’re probably right. As long as those who are CEV have the opportunity to make choices to prolong their lives, like not being forced into face to face meetings for things like benefit claims, and other such situations, just because for the majority “it’s over”.

 

[crodonilson]

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.

The thing is you're basic stats are focused on pre-covid times, and the whole need for lockdowns and other measures wasn't so much about people dying, it was to prevent the health service from essentially collapsing due to demand exceeding supply. If that happened the chances of someone in their 80's dying in the next 12 months would increase despite covid if they couldn't get the proper care or diagnosis for a number of different things they are liable to suffer from which increase with old age. Waiting lists have increased immeasurably, pressures on A&E waiting times have increased dramatically and the NHS is buckling as we speak. Some basic mitigation measures, face coverings, working from home where possible, social distancing where possible and limits on numbers in private households could all help to reduce that strain.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

I don't suppose your risk of death increases any more than mine. It's about 5% across the board. If you are at an age and state of health such that you have a 1% chance of dying within a year in normal times, than at present it is about 1.05%. If you're old enough that the risk is normally 20%, then it becomes 21%. That sort of risk. I really can't see that last Christmas & New Year lockdown makes any difference to those figures based on July to September. The effects of that lockdown have surely worn off now.

The question is, what are the old people being protected for? If the idea was to lockdown short term to let the virus go away, fine. If it was to lock down short term to let the vaccine take effect, fine. But we know lockdown doesn't stop the virus, and we know the vaccine doesn't stop the virus. My mother was 86 when this lot started. She is 88 now. Short term measures don't make the virus go away, and she isn't interested in long-term measures that ruin her life for now, in hopes that she may enjoy a long and fulfilled life later.

(I think you're missing my point about old people being 0.5% more likely to die of Covid. Obviously old people who have Covid are more than 0.5% more likely to die; old people who don't have covid havve 0% chance of dying from covid. But over the past 3 months, the two groups combined - ie. over 80's as a group - have an annualised 10% chance of dying of non-covid causes plus an extra 0.5% chance of dying of covid. They can improve their odds by stopping indoors and avoiding meeting people; that is their free choice.)

Yes but it isn't a board and you can't combine it. If I, and other identifiable people get Covid they have a strong risk of dying. The average (age- and comorbidity-uncorrected) risk of death if you get Covid is about as useful a statistic as the annual average temperature on Earth would be to someone planning to spend a week in the Sahara or a week in Yakutsk.

https://covid-101.org/science/whats-the-chance-of-dying-if-you-get-covid-19/