Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread

[dazzer6666]

Went for a short walk (on normally busy pavements/roads) early afternoon today - eerily quiet. Very little traffic and not many people about.

 

[clapham_gull]

Went for a short walk (on normally busy pavements/roads) early afternoon today - eerily quiet. Very little traffic and not many people about.

Yep strolled across the very busy A24 (the "4 lane" bit) between Balham and Tooting not bothering with the crossing just at the start of rush hour.

 

[Nobby]

The stark reality of this situation is. people, don’t get ill with anything at the moment including Covid

Hospitals really struggle at all times of the year and nearly fall over in winter, as anyone who has experience of being in one at that time will confirm.

The NHS are now in a really desperate situation, one which could reasonably have been foreseen. Many more will die and that could have been avoided

A two week earlier lockdown, obvious to a blind bat, would have saved around 750 lives per day

When (not if), we have 2,200 - 2,500 per day dying at the end of January, it will be fairly easy to work out how much lower those numbers could have been

 

[Marty___Mcfly]

It definitely feels different to the first lockdown though. I don’t know whether it was the novelty factor, fear or just a sense of doing the right thing but when people were told to stay at home, they stayed at home. I would go for a run on my lunch break and the only other people I would encounter would be other people doing the same.

It got to the point where it was easier to run in the middle of a 40mph road because there was more chance of encountering someone running the other way on the path than a vehicle. In the space of an hour you might see the odd ambulance or food delivery van - there were virtually no civilian vehicles on the road those first few weeks.

I’ve scarcely been out myself since this one began (more out of work responsibilities than compliance) but when I have road traffic certainly feels more ‘normal’ than it did first time around.

It just seems a little counterintuitive. The circumstances are clearly more dire, and yet the restrictions looser. I just hope it’s effective because looking at some of the faces (well, eyes) of the many NHS workers interviewed on the news tonight was absolutely heartbreaking. There’s going to be some serious PTSD kicking around amongst hospital workers when this is all over. I feel for them.

Perhaps a publicly donated fund to help get them whatever help it is they need and deserve would be more apt than a half hearted clap on one’s doorstep.

I think in the March one it got to the point that even tradesmen and construction sites had shut down, and other ‘non-essential’ businesses shut down - that is when the traffic really dropped. Particularly when the white vans stopped racing around it went to a proper ghost town.

At present, most people who can’t work at home are still going to work. Plus, parents still taking children to / collecting them from pre-school care.

I think there are less pedestrians around than prior to lockdown.

My overall feeling is that people are taking it seriously, but lots of people still have reasons to go out- particularly those still going out to work.

 

[crodonilson]

Far too many places still open. How can garden centres and off licences be classed as essential services?? In reality for at least the month of January could we not suspend construction sites across the country too (most were suspended for 2 weeks around xmas in any case?) Also last time the big takeaway chains, McDonalds, Greggs etc were all closed. The March lockdown got the R rate down to approx 0.6, if the new strain is 70% more transmissible that would keep the R rate above 1 this time. Given that the lax attitude of people out and about and the higher number of places still open I think cases will continue to rise, by mid February there is absolutely no chance we will be or we should be coming out of lockdown. May is the very earliest I can forsee lockdown ending and even then it will be to let schools reopen.

 

[Nobby]

Did Keral ever recover, or is he still injured?

I get 168,844 cases in w/c 9th December, so 4,738 deaths is 2.8% of that. What numbers have you used to get 4.3%?

Thanks for the sarcastic response.

Kayal was twice the player Barton was. Suffered many injuries in his career unlike Barton who caused many injuries, including, if I remember correctly, stubbing out a fag in a young players eye.

Defending him, tends to suggest that you are one of the Burnley Neanderthals, not some reasonable individual coming on here, having lovely discussions with Albion fans. Can’t blame you I suppose, Burnley forums probably don’t get much in the way of cerebral thinking.

Week ending 9th December- my apologies, not commencing.
Cases 107,566. Deaths 4,694 up to 4th Jan.
Last seven days - 5.01%. 3.31% 3.08% 2.58% 3.94% 5.91% 6.58%. Whether you take the cases from a week later, the trend is still the same. Deaths vs cases are getting worse. As I said, hopefully because less cases are being identified in the tests

 

[Machiavelli]

I know vaccine supply is going to be an issue. But to ramp up the vaccinated numbers..... In addition to allowing pharmacy's to administer the Oxford vaccine, if they could somehow get supply's into private physicians with strict price capping, the government could massively increase total vaccinated numbers quicker and save millions.

Yes everyone should get it free, but if you're currently not eligible until late 21 or 2022. Who wouldn't pay £20 odd quid to get it done sooner?

The old chestnut that the public sector is inefficient, and the private sector will magically accelerate the process. It wouldn't. It would complicate it, and slow it down. This is why even our current government, stuffed full of free market ideologues, are leaving it to the NHS to deliver the vaccines. It's also why we spend half as much money for a better healthcare service than they do in the US.

 

[Napper]

Far too many places still open. How can garden centres and off licences be classed as essential services?? In reality for at least the month of January could we not suspend construction sites across the country too (most were suspended for 2 weeks around xmas in any case?) Also last time the big takeaway chains, McDonalds, Greggs etc were all closed. The March lockdown got the R rate down to approx 0.6, if the new strain is 70% more transmissible that would keep the R rate above 1 this time. Given that the lax attitude of people out and about and the higher number of places still open I think cases will continue to rise, by mid February there is absolutely no chance we will be or we should be coming out of lockdown. May is the very earliest I can forsee lockdown ending and even then it will be to let schools reopen.

Always going to be cases though. Cases not the issue as 99.7 recover or have no symptoms. Issue is cases impacting extremely vulnerable. Once these are protected then cases wont really have alot of relevance . Look at deaths outside the elderley and vulnerable and it really is nothing that should stop people living alongside other illnesses. Thats the hope

 

[crodonilson]

Always going to be cases though. Cases not the issue as 99.7 recover or have no symptoms. Issue is cases impacting extremely vulnerable. Once these are protected then cases wont really have alot of relevance . Look at deaths outside the elderley and vulnerable and it really is nothing that should stop people living alongside other illnesses. Thats the hope

It will take quite some time for the pressure on thew NHS to relieve, I really can't see how we can morally exit lockdown until the pressure on the NHS from Covid has been practically eliminated (or at least down to last summers levels). Thanks to the advancements in treatment more people are recovering but it's a slow process so many of this people who are in now and of the 50-60k and rising of daily covid cases will be hospitalisations in a couple of weeks, these case rates are going to stay at 50k plus for the next 6 weeks minimum so the pressure on the NHS to continue treating these patients will go well beyond the hoped (and lets be honest unrealistic) expectation that all of the most vulnerable will have been vaccinated by mid Feb. This lockdown must be stricter to try and bring cases and in turn hospitalisations down in the short to medium term and must be longer than the end of March legislated to protect our NHS.

 

[Napper]

It will take quite some time for the pressure on thew NHS to relieve, I really can't see how we can morally exit lockdown until the pressure on the NHS from Covid has been practically eliminated (or at least down to last summers levels). Thanks to the advancements in treatment more people are recovering but it's a slow process so many of this people who are in now and of the 50-60k and rising of daily covid cases will be hospitalisations in a couple of weeks, these case rates are going to stay at 50k plus for the next 6 weeks minimum so the pressure on the NHS to continue treating these patients will go well beyond the hoped (and lets be honest unrealistic) expectation that all of the most vulnerable will have been vaccinated by mid Feb. This lockdown must be stricter to try and bring cases and in turn hospitalisations down in the short to medium term and must be longer than the end of March legislated to protect our NHS.

be tiered though. Places like sussex where hospitals are not under pressure should be ok. Have to remember all hospitals are under pressure in winter. The nightingales are not open so think we should be ok.

The media are on a shock campaign remember.

 

[Steve in Japan]

I was discussing the rationale for a full lockdown with a relative the other day, who said that cases were growing "exponentially" and so it was necessary. A quickly look at the gov.uk data, whether at a national level or regional level, shows that the daily increase in cases peaked (at least in this phase) on 29th December. I do understand that any new cases are bad news. But we appeared to be on the right track pre the Johnson bombshell, possibly because of the school holidays.

 

[Machiavelli]

I was discussing the rationale for a full lockdown with a relative the other day, who said that cases were growing "exponentially" and so it was necessary. A quickly look at the gov.uk data, whether at a national level or regional level, shows that the daily increase in cases peaked (at least in this phase) on 29th December. I do understand that any new cases are bad news. But we appeared to be on the right track pre the Johnson bombshell, possibly because of the school holidays.

Cases are not rising exponentially, but they have risen dramatically over the last month or so (they were consistently below 20,000 back then), and continue to do so. I don't know what figures you're referring to, but yesterday's number of 62,322 was the highest recorded daily number on record.
We were not on the right track pre the Johnson bombshell, and the high number of cases and yesterday's record are in no small part of the decision to open up Christmas (which had to be restricted).

 

[Steve in Japan]

Cases are not rising exponentially, but they have risen dramatically over the last month or so (they were consistently below 20,000 back then), and continue to do so. I don't know what figures you're referring to, but yesterday's number of 62,322 was the highest recorded daily number on record.
We were not on the right track pre the Johnson bombshell, and the high number of cases and yesterday's record are in no small part of the decision to open up Christmas (which had to be restricted).

This is kind of what I am getting at. The numbers are there, you only need to look.

The highest (in the current phase UK) total is 81,300, recorded 29 Dec. Go and look at the graph and run your cursor along it. The same is true for the South East region, London etc.

So as I said, any new cases are bad, but a bit of context is helpful.




https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=overview&areaName=United%20Kingdom

 

[dsr-burnley]

I was discussing the rationale for a full lockdown with a relative the other day, who said that cases were growing "exponentially" and so it was necessary. A quickly look at the gov.uk data, whether at a national level or regional level, shows that the daily increase in cases peaked (at least in this phase) on 29th December. I do understand that any new cases are bad news. But we appeared to be on the right track pre the Johnson bombshell, possibly because of the school holidays.

"exponentially" is a misused word. In the spread of infectious disease, the increase and decrease is always exponential. "Exponential" doesn't mean it's rising fast, it just means that the number of cases next week is based on the number of cases this week timed by the R number.

 

[beorhthelm]

"exponentially" is a misused word. In the spread of infectious disease, the increase and decrease is always exponential. "Exponential" doesn't mean it's rising fast, it just means that the number of cases next week is based on the number of cases this week timed by the R number.

exponential in this sense means accelerating. dont know why that perfectly good and understood word isnt used. it means the rate of increase is increasing. when the rate decreases we saying it is slowing (even though the number may still rise), we dont say it is decreasing exponentially.

 

[Machiavelli]

This is kind of what I am getting at. The numbers are there, you only need to look.

The highest (in the current phase UK) total is 81,300, recorded 29 Dec. Go and look at the graph and run your cursor along it. The same is true for the South East region, London etc.

So as I said, any new cases are bad, but a bit of context is helpful.




https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=overview&areaName=United%20Kingdom

We are looking at different data. I'm looking at the number of daily cases announced by PHE on a daily basis. For 29 Dec, this was c52000. The figures you're looking at are retrospectively amended, I (perhaps incorrectly) understand -- this means that yesterday's total of 62000 may well be retrospectively amended upwards in due course.

 

[crodonilson]

be tiered though. Places like sussex where hospitals are not under pressure should be ok. Have to remember all hospitals are under pressure in winter. The nightingales are not open so think we should be ok.

The media are on a shock campaign remember.

What I saw on BBC News last night in London hospitals, with the expectations of worse to come in the next fortnight and then i other parts of the country, were very, very grim. No shock campaign, people need to realise what is actually happenming to our NHS currently.

 

[dazzer6666]

Far too many places still open. How can garden centres and off licences be classed as essential services?? In reality for at least the month of January could we not suspend construction sites across the country too (most were suspended for 2 weeks around xmas in any case?) Also last time the big takeaway chains, McDonalds, Greggs etc were all closed. The March lockdown got the R rate down to approx 0.6, if the new strain is 70% more transmissible that would keep the R rate above 1 this time. Given that the lax attitude of people out and about and the higher number of places still open I think cases will continue to rise, by mid February there is absolutely no chance we will be or we should be coming out of lockdown. May is the very earliest I can forsee lockdown ending and even then it will be to let schools reopen.

There won’t be a binary, abrupt end to lockdown in May or any other time. There will be a progressive and cautious reversal through the tiers, region by region, primarily dependent on decreasing pressure on the NHS and reducing infection rates. I reckon there will be quite some easing of restrictions before May in some areas, but a full return to ‘normal’ (ie no restrictions) will be sometime after.

 

[Napper]

What I saw on BBC News last night in London hospitals, with the expectations of worse to come in the next fortnight and then i other parts of the country, were very, very grim. No shock campaign, people need to realise what is actually happenming to our NHS currently.

bbc news , sky news , there you go !

 

[crodonilson]

There won’t be a binary, abrupt end to lockdown in May or any other time. There will be a progressive and cautious reversal through the tiers, region by region, primarily dependent on decreasing pressure on the NHS and reducing infection rates. I reckon there will be quite some easing of restrictions before May in some areas, but a full return to ‘normal’ (ie no restrictions) will be sometime after.

Agreed, the steps out of full lockdown will be very cautious and slow, and rightly so but I feel the tiered ststem will be beefed up so even when we come out of full national lockdown for many areas it will still in effect be a lockdown for many months to come. Schools will be the first to reopen but I find it unlikely that will happen right after Feb half term, closer to Easter in early April and then perhaps in the areas with lowest pressure on NHS non essential retail may be allowed to open sometime in May but I can't forsee hospitality reopening or the ability to visit friends and relatives privately until Summer.