Coronavirus - the killer flu that will wipe us out? (Vol. 7)

[Graveworm]

grumbledoak said:

Graveworm said:

That's great when dealing with events that don't increase exponentially. If there is a a return to that, then 86 percent capacity becomes a 75% deficit in 2 or 3 days and 2 or 3 days later it's able to cope with less than 30 percent of demand. Even if action is taken to reduce transmission on day zero there is still 7-10 days of growth in ICU cases before the reduction gets down that far down the cycle.

Transmission was never exponential. That was only ever an assumption in a computer model that proved to have zero predictive power. In real science it would now be considered falsified. Instead the word was used to scare a largely innumerate nation.

Have you seen the graphs for number of new cases, numbers admitted to hospitals, numbers admitted to ICU or numbers dying? There was exponential growth.
R0 of 2 is exponential growth. Even countries like Japan at one point exceeded that let alone the UK US at the peak.

[Leptons]

RTB said:

Yep, pretty much every expert has maintained that airborne transmission is possible in certain circumstances.

This will then be interpreted by some as the disease is airborne in all circumstances and we can have a little panic until someone points out that the pattern of transmission in the community looks a lot more like a droplet/fomite spread than an airborne spread.

Interestingly one of the reasons that droplet spread is worse in winter than summer is due to the fact that cold air is dryer than warm air and so the droplet size remains much smaller for longer and can hang in the air for a greater length of time. In summer the air holds more water and so these tiny droplets rapidly increase in size and fall to the ground. Another reason why transmission in refrigerated workplaces is worse, the air in these places is very dry.

So in winter, the virus will probably behave more airborne-like than in the height of summer. Let's hope for a mild winter.

Shouldn’t be much of a problem now that it’s the rainy season in the UK.

[grumbledoak]

Graveworm said:

Have you seen the graphs for number of new cases, numbers admitted to hospitals, numbers admitted to ICU or numbers dying? There was exponential growth.
R0 of 2 is exponential growth. Even countries like Japan at one point exceeded that let alone the UK US at the peak.

As I said, "largely innumerate"

[red_slr]

Japan seeing a slow ramp up of cases the last week or so.

Will be interesting to see how they control it.

[otolith]

An exponential term will dominate during the early part of spread into a naïve population, but it's not a complete model for the course of an epidemic once you include modelling of immunity and behaviour change. The poor intuitive grasp the public has of exponential growth and resulting lack of understanding of how quickly things can get out of hand remains a risk factor because of that period during which it is relevant.

[motco]

Leptons said:

RTB said:

Yep, pretty much every expert has maintained that airborne transmission is possible in certain circumstances.

This will then be interpreted by some as the disease is airborne in all circumstances and we can have a little panic until someone points out that the pattern of transmission in the community looks a lot more like a droplet/fomite spread than an airborne spread.

Interestingly one of the reasons that droplet spread is worse in winter than summer is due to the fact that cold air is dryer than warm air and so the droplet size remains much smaller for longer and can hang in the air for a greater length of time. In summer the air holds more water and so these tiny droplets rapidly increase in size and fall to the ground. Another reason why transmission in refrigerated workplaces is worse, the air in these places is very dry.

So in winter, the virus will probably behave more airborne-like than in the height of summer. Let's hope for a mild winter.

Shouldn’t be much of a problem now that it’s the rainy season in the UK.

Anyway according to the Blind Friggin' Panic merchants we're in a climate heating emergency so a mild winter is guaranteed!

[vaud]

From a source in the NHS, they are worried about the winter, partly because of CV19 but also because they are predicting a bad flu season - it was/is bad in the southern hemisphere and our winter flu variants follow theirs.

[RTB]

vaud said:

From a source in the NHS, they are worried about the winter, partly because of CV19 but also because they are predicting a bad flu season - it was/is bad in the southern hemisphere and our winter flu variants follow theirs.

Let's hope there's a big push to get more people vaccinated against the flu then.

[anonymous-user]

vaud said:

From a source in the NHS, they are worried about the winter, partly because of CV19 but also because they are predicting a bad flu season - it was/is bad in the southern hemisphere and our winter flu variants follow theirs.

Andrew medley was talking yesterday about this. Suggesting it's one reason for treading water in the UK. They are getting their ducks in a row for winter.

[markyb_lcy]

RTB said:

vaud said:

From a source in the NHS, they are worried about the winter, partly because of CV19 but also because they are predicting a bad flu season - it was/is bad in the southern hemisphere and our winter flu variants follow theirs.

Let's hope there's a big push to get more people vaccinated against the flu then.

NHS are calling for just that...

(3 days ago)
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/uk-...

The Independant said:

Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Sir Simon Stevens said the NHS was preparing for the virus to rebound this winter, adding: “I think we’re going to need the biggest ever flu immunisation season we’ve ever had.”

(snip)

Last week Downing Street announced that eligibility for an NHS flu injection would be expanded as ministers try to protect the health service.

But it is not clear who will be included.

The government has already ordered extra stockpiles of the vaccine in preparation.

Ministers also want to ensure that more people in groups already classed as “at risk” receive a jab this year.

[otolith]

Flu jab is dirt cheap, just bloody pay for it and be done with it.

[Robertj21a]

RTB said:

Let's hope there's a big push to get more people vaccinated against the flu then.

Isn't the usual reluctance by the public often due to the inefficiency of the vaccine. All too often it seems that we only get the right strain identified to make it truly effective with quite a small %.

[Munter]

Robertj21a said:

RTB said:

Let's hope there's a big push to get more people vaccinated against the flu then.

Isn't the usual reluctance by the public often due to the

majority of the population being simpletons.

(See also antivaxers, confusion around "be alert", and those who don't understand exponential growth as discussed above, among many other topics. Unfortunately the education system in the UK is not good enough to turn out a full population with the ability to understand anything vaguely complex.)

[vaud]

Robertj21a said:

Isn't the usual reluctance by the public often due to the inefficiency of the vaccine. All too often it seems that we only get the right strain identified to make it truly effective with quite a small %.

There are multiple strains, and it is updated each year IIRC.
It is fairly good: "Overall efficacy is calculated at between 50-60% for adults aged 18 to 65 years"

https://publichealthengland-immunisati.app.box.com...

[frisbee]

smashing said:

JagLover said:

smashing said:

frisbee said:

So you think 16% available ICU capacity is adequate then? Just under 1000 beds left when hospital admissions for COVID-19 are running at 350 a day and rising.

Interesting.

What was the average ICU capacity pre-covid?

The ICU stat was debunked before.

Most ICUs run at 90%+ capacity in normal times. They can be expanded when required.

I thought as much, thank you.

He's clueless or it's a scared response.

Look up the numbers yourself, make your own judgement.

I'm not hiding myself away but I'm not going to take unnecessary risks.

[Zirconia]

Robertj21a said:

RTB said:

Let's hope there's a big push to get more people vaccinated against the flu then.

Isn't the usual reluctance by the public often due to the inefficiency of the vaccine. All too often it seems that we only get the right strain identified to make it truly effective with quite a small %.

Anecdotal. People were going bonkers trying to get the fu jab that had missed the autumn push, these were people entitled to it. Apparently more meh than inefficient.

Personally I have avoided the flu for the last 20 odd years and I put it down to the jab and luck. I know some years they get it wrong, prior the jab I would usually get the flu at some point in the year and hated it.

[Robertj21a]

vaud said:

Robertj21a said:

Isn't the usual reluctance by the public often due to the inefficiency of the vaccine. All too often it seems that we only get the right strain identified to make it truly effective with quite a small %.

There are multiple strains, and it is updated each year IIRC.
It is fairly good: "Overall efficacy is calculated at between 50-60% for adults aged 18 to 65 years"

https://publichealthengland-immunisati.app.box.com...

Thanks, better % than I thought. My perception (shared by many I fear) was that we had to virtually *guess* which strain would apply and the vaccine would then also have to be obtained too far in advance to be very effective.

[Vipers]

Slight deviation, with the spike and lockdown in Victoria in NSW, this is what our son in law in Freshwater NSW sent me, for reasons unbeknown to me, the ozzies refer to those living in Victoria as "Mexicans"

[RTB]

Robertj21a said:

vaud said:

Robertj21a said:

Isn't the usual reluctance by the public often due to the inefficiency of the vaccine. All too often it seems that we only get the right strain identified to make it truly effective with quite a small %.

There are multiple strains, and it is updated each year IIRC.
It is fairly good: "Overall efficacy is calculated at between 50-60% for adults aged 18 to 65 years"

https://publichealthengland-immunisati.app.box.com...

Thanks, better % than I thought. My perception (shared by many I fear) was that we had to virtually *guess* which strain would apply and the vaccine would then also have to be obtained too far in advance to be very effective.

There is an element of luck, not just in the strains chosen in the vaccine but in the efficacy of each component of the vaccine (trivalent and quadrivalent). If the most prominent strain is also the one that the multivalent vaccine protects best against then we have a better year, if we have a year where there relatively poor protection to one of the strains and that ends up being the one that spreads most widely then we have a bad year.

I might be being unfair but I think the justification that people haven't had it because it doesn't work anyway comes after the decision that they don't like needles and don't want to pay a tenner to be stabbed in the arm

I think some of the larger employers (big multinationals) that have decent sized occupational health departments should be offering flu vaccinations to their employees (I know a lot do but not all). My work offers it to everyone and pushes it quite hard. You don't have to save many days missed work to have it make economic sense either.

[grumbledoak]

Robertj21a said:

Isn't the usual reluctance by the public often due to the inefficiency of the vaccine. All too often it seems that we only get the right strain identified to make it truly effective with quite a small %.

It's 10% - 60%
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/flu-vaccine-eff...