Main Coronavirus / Covid-19 Discussion Thread

Poojah said:

Seems to be effective if so. Apparently a significant number of people queueing for their vaccine in Bolton yesterday were from a demographic which has been eligible for vaccination for some time.

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crodonilson said:

We should have learned by now that's not how covid works and taking the whole cases across the UK on face value doesn't tell the true picture. At the moment there are small clusters where the indian variant is taking hold. Bolton, Blackburn, Glasgow, Bedford. Look at the increase in cases in this areas in the past few weeks when starting from very small numbers and with many restrictions still in place. With indoor mixing, hugging and hospitality now open and people moving freely across the country the likelihood is this now spreads to more towns/cities and ultimately nationwide, so the increase in numbers in areas where the Indian variant is becoming the dominant strain will be repeated elsewhere and now multiply quicker, that will feed through to the national numbers which are already modestly rising within a few weeks. We have to hope that the transmissibility isn't as much as the 50% doomsday scenarios predicted by some members of SAGE otherwise we could be in real trouble.

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dsr-burnley said:

Just for context, the number of cases reported in the 7 days to 17th May was 15,540. In the 7 days to 10th May, 15,367. In the 7 days to 3rd May, 14,904. "Modestly rising", indeed. I think the step from "modestly rising" to "doomsday" is a little bigger step than you imply?

I wonder if the doomsday-ness of the current opening up will be more apocalyptic, or less apocalyptic, or about equally apocalyptic, as the last doomsday scenario when they re-opened the secondary schools?

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crodonilson said:

Latest data shows the total number of positives up a shade over 1% in the last 7 days compared to the previous 7 days, but there has been a decline of over 10% in the number of tests carried out so I think we can conclude that overall cases are modestly rising, yes and in areas where the Indian variant has begun to take hold they are increasing much ore steeply and it's not so much about where we are now but where we cold be in 2, 4 or 6 weeks time if this variant spreads nationwide which it will surely do unless the mass testing and vaccination works.

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dsr-burnley said:

Testing in Bolton and Blackburn and other affected areas has increased, not reduced. The areas where testing is going down are the areas where nobody has any symptoms and nobody is catching the disease. Don't let the 10% overall drop fool you.

If mass testing and vaccination fails, then lockdown has failed as well. It will be time to allow people to lockdown if they wish or to go free if they wish. The only sensible reason for compulsory lockdown is to buy time for a vaccine; if there is no vaccine, then there is no point for young people at least to spend their lives hiding.

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crodonilson said:

No, no, no.

The point of lockdowns has predominantly to prevent our healthcare services from being overwhelmed which would not only have an impact on people with covid getting the treatment they require but all other services being compromised, not to mention the focus on covid meaning again waiting lists increase for all sorts of other conditions and operations. If there is a risk in future (and I sincerely hope if people are sensible and follow the rules this will not again be the case) of the NHS being overwhelmed I would fully expect our government to protect those services and lockdown again, as an absolutely last resort.

What predominant members of sage are advocating now is not another lockdown but a pause on the reopening until we can fully establish the risk associated with this new variant, that would be prudent and sensible and enable us to avoid the scenarios of March, November and January where the government buried its head in the sand and was reactionary rather than proactive to the impending threats which led to 3 national lockdowns and 130,000+ dead.

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dsr-burnley said:

Testing in Bolton and Blackburn and other affected areas has increased, not reduced. The areas where testing is going down are the areas where nobody has any symptoms and nobody is catching the disease. Don't let the 10% overall drop fool you.

If mass testing and vaccination fails, then lockdown has failed as well. It will be time to allow people to lockdown if they wish or to go free if they wish. The only sensible reason for compulsory lockdown is to buy time for a vaccine; if there is no vaccine, then there is no point for young people at least to spend their lives hiding.

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crodonilson said:

Latest data shows the total number of positives up a shade over 1% in the last 7 days compared to the previous 7 days, but there has been a decline of over 10% in the number of tests carried out so I think we can conclude that overall cases are modestly rising, yes and in areas where the Indian variant has begun to take hold they are increasing much ore steeply and it's not so much about where we are now but where we cold be in 2, 4 or 6 weeks time if this variant spreads nationwide which it will surely do unless the mass testing and vaccination works.

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Yoda said:

A rather more balanced view on the B1.617.2 variant. Crodo, it would do you the world of good to read this thread from someone at the FT as things may not be as bad as you are fearing.

[tweet]1394359535754698755[/tweet]

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crodonilson said:

Thanks, I also found the below BBC article somewhat reassuring despite the chilling table on possible hospitalisations against transmission rates of the variant

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Poojah said:

Just for reference, given the slight inconsistency in test numbers in recent times, here's the UK's rolling positivity rate since the beginning of February, based on the data I downloaded from here: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

View attachment 136824

In a nutshell, the rolling positivity rate has been between 0.29% and 0.24% since the 20th April, bobbing up and down at modest intervals. I don't think we've seen enough data yet to suggest that numbers are rising in any meaningful way.

FWIW, I'm not dismissing the Indian variant as a complete non-issue - I think we've learned not to make too many assumptions about this virus over the course of the past year or so. However, I would reaffirm that we are currently seeing localised outbreaks where there are large communities of people of South Asian heritage (hence the variant's arrival there in the first place), whom are statistically less likely to be vaccinated and more likely to be living in multi-generational accommodation than the general population.

The situation is being monitored closely, and preventative action is being taken in the form of surge vaccinations. This seems the appropriate call for now. If, in the coming days and weeks, we see a statistically significant rise not only in cases but also in hospitalisations and deaths then I would concur that we should consider a slowing or even a rollback of restriction easing.

However, we are absolutely not there yet, and there are many reasons to believe that we won't ever be in my opinion.

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beorhthelm said:

i'd like to see the table references and parameters, to confirm if this is with vaccines. other models do not show anything like this, even with r =1.6.

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crodonilson said:

To get some idea of what a faster-spreading variant could mean for the months ahead, modelling teams that feed into Sage worked up different scenarios. Assuming the vaccines hold up, more people could be hospitalised than in the first wave – putting the NHS at risk – if the variant is much more than 30% more transmissible, University of Warwick models show. At 40% more transmissible, hospitalisations could reach 6,000 per day, far above the peak of the second wave, and 10,000 per day if the variant is 50% more transmissible.

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crodonilson said:

Johnson: India Covid variant could jeopardise June reopening – video
A third wave of the coronavirus will drive people into hospital despite the mass vaccination programme. While the vast majority of older and more vulnerable people have been inoculated, the vaccines are not 100% protective, and do not work in everyone. As a result, scientific advisers expect many of those hospitalised in the third wave to be vaccinated, just not well protected from their shots.

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crodonilson said:

To get some idea of what a faster-spreading variant could mean for the months ahead, modelling teams that feed into Sage worked up different scenarios. Assuming the vaccines hold up, more people could be hospitalised than in the first wave – putting the NHS at risk – if the variant is much more than 30% more transmissible, University of Warwick models show. At 40% more transmissible, hospitalisations could reach 6,000 per day, far above the peak of the second wave, and 10,000 per day if the variant is 50% more transmissible.

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crodonilson said:

What we know about the Indian Covid variant so far | Julian Tang
Millions more have not yet been called for their jabs. Among those will be people unaware they are clinically vulnerable. And so more deaths will duly follow. Modelling from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, seen by Sage on 5 May, found that a 50% more transmissible variant could trigger a third wave with deaths peaking at 1,000 per day in late July. We have not seen those kinds of numbers since February.

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dsr-burnley said:

And we won't see them in July either. When you start trying to boost your case by saying that some people who don't know they are ill will die, then you're clutching at straws.

Here are some numbers.

1. Population. There are 52m adults in this country, roughly speaking 1m over 85, 23m between 45 and 84, 28m between 18 and 44.

2. 20m people are fully vaccinated. These are nearly all the 1m over 85s, and the other 19m are in the 45-84 group.

3. 16m have had no vaccination at all. This is perhaps 60,000 over the over 95s (3%), perhaps 3m of the 45-84s (10%), and 12m of the under 44s.

4. 16m people have had 1 jab. Negligible numbers in the over 85s, so by balancing figures this is 6m 45-84s, 10m under 44s.

All those figures are pure demographics and are not controversial. The numbers jabbed could be marginally tweaked, that is all.

5. And then we have vaccination effectiveness. 97% prevention from death after two jabs, 80% protection from death after 1 jab. Government stats.

6. And there is death rates. It has been established from actual numbers recorded to date that the death rate for an unvaccinated over 85 who catches the disease is 5%. Take account of the vaccination prevention rate of 97%, and a vaccinated over 85 has a death rate of 0.15%.

By similar calculation, death rates for 44-85 are 1% unvaccinated, 0.2% after one jab, 0.03% after 2 jabs.
And for under 45s, 0.005% with no vaccination (only 1 in 20,000 die), 0.0006% after 1 jab, 0.0002 after 2 jabs.

And let's see what that does to the model. Let's assume that everyone in the country breathes in enough coronavirus to catch the disease, all at the same time. How many deaths?

Over 85 vaccinated = 1m people, 0.25% death rate, 2,500 deaths.
Over 85 unvaccinated = 60k people, 5% death rate, 3,000 deaths.
45-84 fully vaccinated = 19m people, 0.03% death rate, 5,700 deaths.
45-84 half vaccinated = 6m people, 0.2% death rate, 12,000 deaths.
45-84 unvaccinated = 3m people, 1% death rate, 30,000 deaths.
under 45 half vaccinated = 10m people, 0.0006% death rate, 60 deaths.
under 45 unvaccinated = 13m people, 0.005% death rate, 650 deaths.

This is a total - if everyone in the country catches the disease at the same time - of 54,000 deaths. This is not a "reasonable worst case scenario" this is if EVERYONE catches it at once. So any suggestion that it is reasonable to suppose we might get 1,000 deaths per day in late July is ABSOLUTE NONSENSE. They can only get that figure by assuming that the vaccine makes no difference at all.

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dsr-burnley said:

And we won't see them in July either. When you start trying to boost your case by saying that some people who don't know they are ill will die, then you're clutching at straws.

Here are some numbers.

1. Population. There are 52m adults in this country, roughly speaking 1m over 85, 23m between 45 and 84, 28m between 18 and 44.

2. 20m people are fully vaccinated. These are nearly all the 1m over 85s, and the other 19m are in the 45-84 group.

3. 16m have had no vaccination at all. This is perhaps 60,000 over the over 95s (3%), perhaps 3m of the 45-84s (10%), and 12m of the under 44s.

4. 16m people have had 1 jab. Negligible numbers in the over 85s, so by balancing figures this is 6m 45-84s, 10m under 44s.

All those figures are pure demographics and are not controversial. The numbers jabbed could be marginally tweaked, that is all.

5. And then we have vaccination effectiveness. 97% prevention from death after two jabs, 80% protection from death after 1 jab. Government stats.

6. And there is death rates. It has been established from actual numbers recorded to date that the death rate for an unvaccinated over 85 who catches the disease is 5%. Take account of the vaccination prevention rate of 97%, and a vaccinated over 85 has a death rate of 0.15%.

By similar calculation, death rates for 44-85 are 1% unvaccinated, 0.2% after one jab, 0.03% after 2 jabs.
And for under 45s, 0.005% with no vaccination (only 1 in 20,000 die), 0.0006% after 1 jab, 0.0002 after 2 jabs.

And let's see what that does to the model. Let's assume that everyone in the country breathes in enough coronavirus to catch the disease, all at the same time. How many deaths?

Over 85 vaccinated = 1m people, 0.25% death rate, 2,500 deaths.
Over 85 unvaccinated = 60k people, 5% death rate, 3,000 deaths.
45-84 fully vaccinated = 19m people, 0.03% death rate, 5,700 deaths.
45-84 half vaccinated = 6m people, 0.2% death rate, 12,000 deaths.
45-84 unvaccinated = 3m people, 1% death rate, 30,000 deaths.
under 45 half vaccinated = 10m people, 0.0006% death rate, 60 deaths.
under 45 unvaccinated = 13m people, 0.005% death rate, 650 deaths.

This is a total - if everyone in the country catches the disease at the same time - of 54,000 deaths. This is not a "reasonable worst case scenario" this is if EVERYONE catches it at once. So any suggestion that it is reasonable to suppose we might get 1,000 deaths per day in late July is ABSOLUTE NONSENSE. They can only get that figure by assuming that the vaccine makes no difference at all.

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