Coronavirus

[BillyStubbsTears]

Do you have to show positive tests to be off work/school?

Probably not, eh?

No. But you have to have a positive PCR test to show up in the numbers I'm talking about. Once again, I've not got a clue what you are talking about.

[knockers]

I think that the case numbers are down due to
people not actually going to be tested anymore. They have their freedom back and don’t want to lose it therefore don’t get tested.
The deaths and hospital numbers are the same/high as the really ill have no choice but to go to hospital or the morgue.

[hstripes]

My take is that, just looking at infection rates in Doncaster on the bbc website and assuming they're replicated elsewhere, both the rise in infection rates in early July and the fall in late July has disproportionately hit the younger age groups whilst the rise and fall in infections in the older age groups is significantly less pronounced.

This is the best explanation I can see as to why hospitalizations and deaths haven't followed the same trend as closely.

Schools must increasingly be the main vector for the spread of the disease given that it's the place where most unvaccinated people meet in large numbers in close proximity.

The Delta variant arrives is spread round the schools and as schools shut recorded cases fall off a cliff. Logic says they'll rise again when schools reopen but perhaps this will not result in a large rise in hospitalizations and deaths given these haven't fallen as significantly as cases have after the schools shut. Perhaps no need to panic too much come mid-September if cases rise??

[BillyStubbsTears]

My take is that, just looking at infection rates in Doncaster on the bbc website and assuming they're replicated elsewhere, both the rise in infection rates in early July and the fall in late July has disproportionately hit the younger age groups whilst the rise and fall in infections in the older age groups is significantly less pronounced.

This is the best explanation I can see as to why hospitalizations and deaths haven't followed the same trend as closely.

Schools must increasingly be the main vector for the spread of the disease given that it's the place where most unvaccinated people meet in large numbers in close proximity.

The Delta variant arrives is spread round the schools and as schools shut recorded cases fall off a cliff. Logic says they'll rise again when schools reopen but perhaps this will not result in a large rise in hospitalizations and deaths given these haven't fallen as significantly as cases have after the schools shut. Perhaps no need to panic too much come mid-September if cases rise??

Possibly, but in every other outbreak, surges in cases in schoolkids bled out into increases in cases in other age groups.

What makes zero sense in the data is that cases were rising rapidly through May and June. Then surged in early July. Then, as though someone had slammed the brakes on, suddenly started falling rapidly (to an extent previously only seen after hard lockdowns). Then just a quickly, stopped falling and started rising relatively slowly, but consistently.

[hstripes]

You're right with your 1st sentence - but the difference perhaps now is the level of vaccination take up especially in older adults amongst whom like I said the rise and fall in cases was much less pronounced. Another sign of just how extremely effective these vaccines are??

I think I saw that in a week just after schools closed recorded cases fell 30% and tests carried out fell 14% (presumably due to lest testing of schoolkids). Suggests half the fall is due to less testing. Given how high a % of unvaccinated people who can spread the disease are schoolkids and how closely they necessarily mix perhaps now with high vaccination rates amongst adults closing the schools is equivalent to a lockdown in impact (on rates if not necessarily on hospitalizations and deaths).

[DonnyNoel]

My take is that, just looking at infection rates in Doncaster on the bbc website and assuming they're replicated elsewhere, both the rise in infection rates in early July and the fall in late July has disproportionately hit the younger age groups whilst the rise and fall in infections in the older age groups is significantly less pronounced.

This is the best explanation I can see as to why hospitalizations and deaths haven't followed the same trend as closely.

Schools must increasingly be the main vector for the spread of the disease given that it's the place where most unvaccinated people meet in large numbers in close proximity.

The Delta variant arrives is spread round the schools and as schools shut recorded cases fall off a cliff. Logic says they'll rise again when schools reopen but perhaps this will not result in a large rise in hospitalizations and deaths given these haven't fallen as significantly as cases have after the schools shut. Perhaps no need to panic too much come mid-September if cases rise??

Possibly, but in every other outbreak, surges in cases in schoolkids bled out into increases in cases in other age groups.

What makes zero sense in the data is that cases were rising rapidly through May and June. Then surged in early July. Then, as though someone had slammed the brakes on, suddenly started falling rapidly (to an extent previously only seen after hard lockdowns). Then just a quickly, stopped falling and started rising relatively slowly, but consistently.

Based on nothing but gut feel I'd put most of the surge down to the Euros (seen in Scotland a week or so previous) and then the fall down to the end of the Euros, the decline in school kids doing twice weekly tests due to breaking up and the number of people deleting the Covid app so a reduction in asymptomatic positives who only got tested as were told to.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

I think the valid point is around the age of those infected. Are those stats available?  I think that was a good point made earlier in the thread about the mix of cases.

[bpoolrover]

OK, so I've kept my mouth shut on this thread since I clearly got the prediction of what was going to happen at the back end of July wrong. Hands up. It happens.

Now we are a month down the line, there's something very odd emerging from the data. From 15th-30th July, there was a drop of nearly 50% in the weekly running average of new positive test results (fell from 47k to 25k in that fortnight).

That's long enough ago that we should by now have seen a similar drop in hospital cases and deaths.

We haven't.

The 7 day running average of COVID numbers in hospital peaked at 6,027 on 30 July. It then dropped by a couple of hundred over the next week or so, but is back up 5980 today. Today's specific daily number of the people in hospital with COVID are the highest they have been since 17 March.

For COVID deaths, the weekly average never fell at all. You expect the trend in deaths to map the trend in new positive cases with a delay of about three weeks. Sure enough, after the new cases suddenly started dropping on 16 July, after weeks of rapid increases, the daily deaths kept on rising sharply until 6-7 August. Exactly as you'd expect. But they then didn't exhibit the massive fall in new cases over the next fortnight. Instead, the 7 day average deaths rate has gone up from 85 on 6 August to 93 today. And today we have seen the highest daily reported death figure (170) since early March.

Still (thankfully) relatively small numbers (if you think the equivalent of a full passenger load of a 747 dying every 3-4 days is small). But it's one to keep an eye on, now that new daily cases are back on an upward path. With schools and universities re-opening in the next month and the end of summer weather pushing more people back indoors, there's a decent possibility that we haven't seen the worst yet.

first of all welcome back bst glad your well, out of interest will it change the way or change the people you get the stats off, I always find looking at the positive stats and the negative ones and find the middle ground normally works best

[BillyStubbsTears]

Bpool.

Thanks. Much appreciated.

In this case, I WAS quoting the middle ground of all the modellers'. Absolutely no-one was predicting a 50% drop in new positive tests over the last fortnight of July. And as I say, the lack of a commensurate drop in hospitalisations and deaths suggests that something odd has happened that I've not seen anyone yet explain or predict.

Given that experience, I'm not going to be predicting anything about where we are going now. But it is clear that the new cases, hospital numbers and daily deaths are all rising again. This needs watching carefully.

[bpoolrover]

No probs mate,it's strange in Blackpool and the fylde numbers have come down quite a lot, in wyre which is ten mins away they have gone up quite a lot, at the hospital the numbers are staying low, there is 22 in hospital and half of them are not in for covid but other reasons, I've not seen what it's like in other places thou

[BillyStubbsTears]

Sheffield has had higher numbers of positive cases over the past 2-3 weeks than at any time in the whole epidemic.

Local ups and downs I guess.

[Not Now Kato]

Posted without comment
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLQfovGJKyw

[Ldr]

No probs mate,it's strange in Blackpool and the fylde numbers have come down quite a lot, in wyre which is ten mins away they have gone up quite a lot, at the hospital the numbers are staying low, there is 22 in hospital and half of them are not in for covid but other reasons, I've not seen what it's like in other places thou

Hospitalised numbers dropping since start august here

[BillyStubbsTears]

They are rising nationwide though, after a very brief, small drop. Back up the the highest levels since mid-March.

[bpoolrover]

They are rising nationwide though, after a very brief, small drop. Back up the the highest levels since mid-March.

our hospital is very good at communicating while there are 22 in hospital with covid half are not poorly with it they are in for other reasons, so does that mean it's the same in other places if so it would be a different picture

[drfchound]

As I understand it, of the people who are becoming hospitalised with covid, nowhere near the same as last year are in ICU.

[SydneyRover]

Posted without comment
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLQfovGJKyw

There are questions in it Dickos & Hound should be able to answer surely the NHS detective tag team.

[bpoolrover]

Posted without comment
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLQfovGJKyw

There are questions in it Dickos & Hound should be able to answer surely the NHS detective tag team.

look back at the first 300 pages it has been covered time after time on them, we all know things went wrong an when there is a enquiry in spring they need to explain

[BillyStubbsTears]

Bpool.

But we know the date of the inquiry starting means that it won't report until after the next election. So no-one will ever be held to account by the electorate.

[SydneyRover]

Posted without comment
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLQfovGJKyw

There are questions in it Dickos & Hound should be able to answer surely the NHS detective tag team.

look back at the first 300 pages it has been covered time after time on them, we all know things went wrong an when there is a enquiry in spring they need to explain

And a lot of this stuff is not just 'things going wrong' it's dead set cronyism.

[bpoolrover]

Bpool.

But we know the date of the inquiry starting means that it won't report until after the next election. So no-one will ever be held to account by the electorate.

quite probably but the 1st 300 pages of this thread were discussing it, is it not better to look at how things are going now

[SydneyRover]

Bpool.

But we know the date of the inquiry starting means that it won't report until after the next election. So no-one will ever be held to account by the electorate.

quite probably but the 1st 300 pages of this thread were discussing it, is it not better to look at how things are going now

Is it not better to do both bp, have an immediate inquiry to establish where things went wrong and root out corruption so the same mistake will not be repeated and look at where things are now? is the government incapable of doing both?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Bpool.

But we know the date of the inquiry starting means that it won't report until after the next election. So no-one will ever be held to account by the electorate.

quite probably but the 1st 300 pages of this thread were discussing it, is it not better to look at how things are going now

Bpool
Do you think things are going well at the moment? Relative to, say, most other European countries?

We DID get a head start on vaccination. But most European countries have now caught up, while having way lower infections in this wave. Which means that the are seeing far fewer deaths and far less stress on their health systems as they get back to full economic performance.

Don't you think we should be asking why we are settling for 100 and rising deaths per day for the foreseeable future, while Germany has 15 and falling?

[BillyStubbsTears]

Interesting info coming out of Scotland.

Their school holiday starts and ends a few weeks before ours.

They had a massive drop in positive test outcomes in early July. The kids went back to school this week, with regular testing. The number of positive tests per day across the country has doubled.

That suggests our daily positive cases number will shoot up in early Sept.

Which is not the really important thing in itself. What really matters is whether those that means another spate of kids having to self isolate and miss school.

Or if they don't, whether the virus spreads in unvaccinated kids in classrooms, they take it home and it spreads in the wider, more vulnerable population.

It's all starting to feel that we've been complacent this past few weeks and we are walking into another difficult Autumn.

My best guess is that September-November will see either a disrupted start to the school year or COVID deaths rising sharply.

[bpoolrover]

Kids have been walking round with covid all summer holidays, I can't produce facts but just from what the kids have said,
They will do more testing but I don't think real cases will rise, testing has fallen quite a lot since kids broke up

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Again BST what do we different then? Is it back to lockdown?  I've been in Scotland this week visiting family, yesterday was the first day kids were back at school where I was (it was always a Wednesday or Thursday at my school aswell).

They do push testing a bit more up there though. They were giving tests out in Tesco yesterday for example.

[SydneyRover]

Here's few interesting fact about covid, of course not everyone believed all of this or even any of it.

''One year on: Three myths about COVID-19 that the data proved wrong''

Myth 1: ‘Those who die from COVID-19 would have died soon anyway’

In the first year of COVID-19 (5 March 2020 to 5 March 2021), 1.5 million potential years of life were lost in the UK as a result of people dying with the virus. In England and Wales alone this figure is 1.4 million.
On average, each of the 146,000 people who died with COVID-19 lost 10.2 years of life.

Myth 2: ‘It’s just a bad flu season’

In a bad flu year on average around 30,000 people in the UK die from flu and pneumonia, with a loss of around 250,000 life years. This is a sixth of the life years lost to COVID-19.
We have more detailed data for England and Wales. This shows us that, even looking only at those aged older than 75 (who account for most COVID-19 and flu deaths) – COVID-19 has been much more deadly. In 2018, a bad flu year, around 25,000 people older than 75 died from flu or pneumonia. These people lost a total of 140,000 years of life – 5.75 years each on average. This is about a quarter of the life years lost among those older than 75
from COVID-19.

More years of men's lives have been lost in the pandemic than women’s. Again, looking at England and Wales, women older than 75 lost around four-times more years of life than for a bad flu season; for men it was five times higher.

Myth 3: ‘COVID-19 is the great leveller – we are all equally at risk’

COVID-19 was not the great leveller. People in the 20% most deprived parts of England were twice as likely to die from COVID-19 as those in the least deprived areas. They also died at younger ages, so may have lost more years of life. While existing health inequalities mean these people may have had lower life expectancy, the analysis found that in total, 35% more lives were lost in the 20% most deprived areas than the least, with 45% more years of life lost in total.
On average, each person who died in the most deprived quintile lost 11 years of their life, compared with 10 years in the least deprived.

https://www.health.org.uk/publications/long-reads/one-year-on-three-myths-about-COVID-19-that-the-data-proved-wrong

[Axholme Lion]

What do you want to do stay in lockdown forever and ever?

[BillyStubbsTears]

What I want is for people to remember how we have ended up, every single step of the way, with one of the worst outcomes in Europe. I want people to reflect on the decisions that got us here.

[Ldr]

Here's few interesting fact about covid, of course not everyone believed all of this or even any of it.

''One year on: Three myths about COVID-19 that the data proved wrong''

Myth 1: ‘Those who die from COVID-19 would have died soon anyway’

In the first year of COVID-19 (5 March 2020 to 5 March 2021), 1.5 million potential years of life were lost in the UK as a result of people dying with the virus. In England and Wales alone this figure is 1.4 million.
On average, each of the 146,000 people who died with COVID-19 lost 10.2 years of life.

Myth 2: ‘It’s just a bad flu season’

In a bad flu year on average around 30,000 people in the UK die from flu and pneumonia, with a loss of around 250,000 life years. This is a sixth of the life years lost to COVID-19.
We have more detailed data for England and Wales. This shows us that, even looking only at those aged older than 75 (who account for most COVID-19 and flu deaths) – COVID-19 has been much more deadly. In 2018, a bad flu year, around 25,000 people older than 75 died from flu or pneumonia. These people lost a total of 140,000 years of life – 5.75 years each on average. This is about a quarter of the life years lost among those older than 75
from COVID-19.

More years of men's lives have been lost in the pandemic than women’s. Again, looking at England and Wales, women older than 75 lost around four-times more years of life than for a bad flu season; for men it was five times higher.

Myth 3: ‘COVID-19 is the great leveller – we are all equally at risk’

COVID-19 was not the great leveller. People in the 20% most deprived parts of England were twice as likely to die from COVID-19 as those in the least deprived areas. They also died at younger ages, so may have lost more years of life. While existing health inequalities mean these people may have had lower life expectancy, the analysis found that in total, 35% more lives were lost in the 20% most deprived areas than the least, with 45% more years of life lost in total.
On average, each person who died in the most deprived quintile lost 11 years of their life, compared with 10 years in the least deprived.

https://www.health.org.uk/publications/long-reads/one-year-on-three-myths-about-COVID-19-that-the-data-proved-wrong

10.2 years lost doesn’t stack for mean given the ave age of death

https://www.ons.gov.uk/aboutus/transparencyandgovernance/freedomofinformationfoi/averageageofthosewhohaddiedwithcovid19