Coronavirus - Data Analysis Thread
Discussion
Elysium said:
vaud said:
Elysium said:
Beyond that, I think the delay is largely political.
Which is the part I never get in these discussions.Boris wants to be popular. He is not an authoritarian…
Lockdowns and extensions seem to be more widely supported than we might have thought they would have been pre-pandemic.
The public are still not ready for these final restrictions to be lifted. In the USA a fully vaccinated person does not need to isolate if they are exposed to COVID.
Thats incomprehensible to most people here.
Elysium said:
That in a nutshell is the problem.
The public are still not ready for these final restrictions to be lifted. In the USA a fully vaccinated person does not need to isolate if they are exposed to COVID.
Thats incomprehensible to most people here.
I think there's a distinct element of horse / barn door here.The public are still not ready for these final restrictions to be lifted. In the USA a fully vaccinated person does not need to isolate if they are exposed to COVID.
Thats incomprehensible to most people here.
- Government (in)actions have (repeatedly) led to tens of thousands of unnecessary deaths. That is widely known, if not truly publicly accepted yet.
- Government continues to put themselves / their own personal interests first...hence the weeks delay in stopping flights from India and the resulting spread of the Delta variant, so Boris could continue to woo the Indian leadership ahead of a trade deal negotiation*.
- ...but Government appears unwilling to be directly seen (for a 4th time?) to be too lax and let more people die**, even if they've done it 3 times already and the stats aren't really supporting them this time.
- No-one ever said they weren't hypocritical and inconsistent about it all...
The reality is this thing won't be over for arguably years to come, and we need to learn to live with it until it mutates to/below the level of influenza. Some level of change-of-behaviour potentially needs to become socially accepted, whether that's mask-wearing, some element of social distancing, or testing and short-term isolation. Which actually might not be too silly, given influenza still causes otherwise unnecessary deaths amongst the old and infirm.
(What's arguably more important is controlling immigration / inbound flights, quite honestly, but that apparently easy step has been consistently beyond the gov'ts grasp...almost as-if they want to keep social controls in place...
)* The same India that has been negotiating trade deals with Australia for 10 years and the EU for 14 years without conclusion!
** Strictly speaking that will happen - R-rate is already clearly above 1, so relaxing things further will increase the spread of (any variant) Covid, which WILL lead to more deaths, even if only a small number thanks to the vaccinations.
ruggedscotty said:
The testing may be doing us a favour -
More tests more infections and all those infections are not turning into hospitalisations !
If anything get those tests up and it will show just how the population isnt getting ill and we can get iopened up and get back to normal.
Good point although the goalposts have moved and now just #cases are The Thing.More tests more infections and all those infections are not turning into hospitalisations !
If anything get those tests up and it will show just how the population isnt getting ill and we can get iopened up and get back to normal.
TX.
Thanks to Elysium for posting various charts, in particular the last one which overlaid plots of positive test results against hospital admissions and deaths with time lags built in for the latter.
It simply goes to confirm my position throughout this affair. Whilst being out and about every single day since kick off, keeping wheels of life turning as best possible, supporting those less fortunate than myself, even though personally no spring chicken here. Essentially have been taking very middle of road position, some of the imposition and closures are inconvenient and difficult to rationalise but stuck to rules because recognised we're in a developing and relatively uncharted territory.
Even when vaccination started it was still an unknown how the theory would work out in real life, but so far a fair bit of the pessimistic end of the theory had been found wanting.
So we got to the stage where light at the end of the tunnel and a opening up again plan put in place. All sorts or arguments about too fast, too slow, too complicated, what have you, all varied views depending where people sit on the opinion spectrum as previously mentioned. Declaring that opening up plan, we then knew that unless something extraordinary happened, opening up would lead to more cases, more people becoming ill, more needing medical intervention including hospitalisation, more deaths. But with the majority of the population and almost all of the vulnerable at risk cohorts vaccinated that it was very likely that apart from a very few people would survive, the health service could survive and turn back to dealing with those who needed other treatments to save their lives and quality of life.
Enough now, this latest decision is a mistake. The shift has been made from saving lives from Covid to preventing spread of infection, which in turn means moving away from saving lives that are not at risk from Covid. The case for doing this has not been made.
It simply goes to confirm my position throughout this affair. Whilst being out and about every single day since kick off, keeping wheels of life turning as best possible, supporting those less fortunate than myself, even though personally no spring chicken here. Essentially have been taking very middle of road position, some of the imposition and closures are inconvenient and difficult to rationalise but stuck to rules because recognised we're in a developing and relatively uncharted territory.
Even when vaccination started it was still an unknown how the theory would work out in real life, but so far a fair bit of the pessimistic end of the theory had been found wanting.
So we got to the stage where light at the end of the tunnel and a opening up again plan put in place. All sorts or arguments about too fast, too slow, too complicated, what have you, all varied views depending where people sit on the opinion spectrum as previously mentioned. Declaring that opening up plan, we then knew that unless something extraordinary happened, opening up would lead to more cases, more people becoming ill, more needing medical intervention including hospitalisation, more deaths. But with the majority of the population and almost all of the vulnerable at risk cohorts vaccinated that it was very likely that apart from a very few people would survive, the health service could survive and turn back to dealing with those who needed other treatments to save their lives and quality of life.
Enough now, this latest decision is a mistake. The shift has been made from saving lives from Covid to preventing spread of infection, which in turn means moving away from saving lives that are not at risk from Covid. The case for doing this has not been made.
The ONS report on deaths in England and Wales during Wk 22 (ending 4th June) was issued today:
1. This is the 14th consecutive week where all cause deaths are at or below normal levels
2. There have been 10,801 fewer deaths in this period than we would expect to see based on the 5 year average
3. There were just 57 deaths 'due to' COVID in wk 22 accounting for 0.7% of deaths. This is identical to the PHE 'deaths within 28 days' figure, which covers all of the UK
4. 42% of deaths where COVID was mentioned on the death certificate were not caused by COVID. The highest proportion since the start of the pandemic. This suggests that we are identifying very ill people who happen to have COVID when they die, rather than true COVID deaths.
5. These deaths are likely to be linked to cases in week 20. There were 16,316 of these, which suggests a CFR of 0.35% (35 deaths per 10,000 cases)
1. This is the 14th consecutive week where all cause deaths are at or below normal levels
2. There have been 10,801 fewer deaths in this period than we would expect to see based on the 5 year average
3. There were just 57 deaths 'due to' COVID in wk 22 accounting for 0.7% of deaths. This is identical to the PHE 'deaths within 28 days' figure, which covers all of the UK
4. 42% of deaths where COVID was mentioned on the death certificate were not caused by COVID. The highest proportion since the start of the pandemic. This suggests that we are identifying very ill people who happen to have COVID when they die, rather than true COVID deaths.
5. These deaths are likely to be linked to cases in week 20. There were 16,316 of these, which suggests a CFR of 0.35% (35 deaths per 10,000 cases)
Scotty2 said:
And Boris bottled it and refused to start lifting restrictions.
Can someone please send him Elysium's graphs.
100% - This is one of my Can someone please send him Elysium's graphs.
fat80b said:
Scotty2 said:
And Boris bottled it and refused to start lifting restrictions.
Can someone please send him Elysium's graphs.
100% - This is one of my Can someone please send him Elysium's graphs.
What happens if you forecast an 4% hospital admission rate with a R of 1.5+ amongst the demographic who have not received 2 jabs?
Especially June - September?
I've not got the time to do an analysis, but from some work I did a week or two back then R should drop below 1 in about two weeks providing human behaviour continues as it has been. I have no idea how much R will increase when all restrictions are relaxed, but by then we should have even more people jabbed to drop R a corresponding amount.
spikeyhead said:
I've not got the time to do an analysis, but from some work I did a week or two back then R should drop below 1 in about two weeks providing human behaviour continues as it has been. I have no idea how much R will increase when all restrictions are relaxed, but by then we should have even more people jabbed to drop R a corresponding amount.
I think this is highly likely. This is taken from the Govt website and shows percentage growth in the rolling 7 day case rate. Bars above the line show growth and bars below the line show decline. The higher the bar the more rapid the change.
The growth rate has been slowing since 7th June. If that trend continues we should see a peak of cases on or around the 21st March from which point they will hopefully begin to reduce. Maybe around the 13k cases per day mark:
This has already happened in Bolton:
Reflected in cases by specimen date here:
Interesting thread from James Ward that offers an explanation why we might be wrestling with Delta whilst other countries and regions seem to be out of trouble:
https://twitter.com/JamesWard73/status/14049144016...
He notes that, with hindsight, the UK may have been better off it we had opened earlier and allowed more spread before Delta arrived. I agree, but I don't believe hindsight is needed. I think it was obvious we would end up here.
The Govt 'idea' that we need to keep cases under control to avoid the risk of variants has been proven false twice now, with variants messing us up despite our attempts to restrict transmission. Each time the variant has been attuned to the environment. This is natural selection. Its not a new concept.
https://twitter.com/JamesWard73/status/14049144016...
He notes that, with hindsight, the UK may have been better off it we had opened earlier and allowed more spread before Delta arrived. I agree, but I don't believe hindsight is needed. I think it was obvious we would end up here.
The Govt 'idea' that we need to keep cases under control to avoid the risk of variants has been proven false twice now, with variants messing us up despite our attempts to restrict transmission. Each time the variant has been attuned to the environment. This is natural selection. Its not a new concept.
Elysium said:
The Govt 'idea' that we need to keep cases under control to avoid the risk of variants has been proven false twice now, with variants messing us up despite our attempts to restrict transmission. Each time the variant has been attuned to the environment. This is natural selection. Its not a new concept.
True, but in the case of the Delta variant, it was unequiovally carried here from India, so if the government had done what many other nations did over 12 months ago and kept strict control over our borders (India was already a "red" country, FFS - we should have banned flights in), then we wouldn't be faced with it now, AND we would be relaxing the restrictions.This one is all down to Boris - he allowed Indian flights to keep coming in as he wanted to curry* favour with the Indian leadership because of the trade talks, against medical advice.
* Pun intended.
havoc said:
True, but in the case of the Delta variant, it was unequiovally carried here from India, so if the government had done what many other nations did over 12 months ago and kept strict control over our borders (India was already a "red" country, FFS - we should have banned flights in), then we wouldn't be faced with it now, AND we would be relaxing the restrictions.
This one is all down to Boris - he allowed Indian flights to keep coming in as he wanted to curry* favour with the Indian leadership because of the trade talks, against medical advice.
* Pun intended.
I completely agreeThis one is all down to Boris - he allowed Indian flights to keep coming in as he wanted to curry* favour with the Indian leadership because of the trade talks, against medical advice.
* Pun intended.
He took a chance and f
ked it.By delaying this variant by even a few weeks we would have hit the 21st target date. That really should have taken all precedence.
havoc said:
Elysium said:
The Govt 'idea' that we need to keep cases under control to avoid the risk of variants has been proven false twice now, with variants messing us up despite our attempts to restrict transmission. Each time the variant has been attuned to the environment. This is natural selection. Its not a new concept.
True, but in the case of the Delta variant, it was unequiovally carried here from India, so if the government had done what many other nations did over 12 months ago and kept strict control over our borders (India was already a "red" country, FFS - we should have banned flights in), then we wouldn't be faced with it now, AND we would be relaxing the restrictions.This one is all down to Boris - he allowed Indian flights to keep coming in as he wanted to curry* favour with the Indian leadership because of the trade talks, against medical advice.
* Pun intended.
Variants spread everywhere and the idea that they have a particular geographic origin is more media concoction than reality. It’s no more than the location where they are first found. As an example the Alpha variant occurred pretty much simultaneously in Kent and the Netherlands, but the UK sequenced it first and as a result it became the UK Variant. The confusion this creates is one of the reasons why the WHO switched to Greek letters.
I don’t think we can keep variants out by closing borders. It’s more that we get the variant that suits our environment. The UK went a certain way with vaccinations giving most of us a single AZ shot with a 12 week gap. That seems to create a window for Delta that is less obvious elsewhere.
https://time.com/6073345/delta-variant-covid-19/
I would lay blame for many things at Johnson’s door, but this one is, in my opinion, rather more complex.
Elysium said:
I realise that this is a popular narrative and that it is the story that Labour tell us as they lend their support to the extension of restrictions. I’m much less convinced.
Variants spread everywhere and the idea that they have a particular geographic origin is more media concoction than reality. It’s no more than the location where they are first found. As an example the Alpha variant occurred pretty much simultaneously in Kent and the Netherlands, but the UK sequenced it first and as a result it became the UK Variant. The confusion this creates is one of the reasons why the WHO switched to Greek letters.
I don’t think we can keep variants out by closing borders. It’s more that we get the variant that suits our environment. The UK went a certain way with vaccinations giving most of us a single AZ shot with a 12 week gap. That seems to create a window for Delta that is less obvious elsewhere.
https://time.com/6073345/delta-variant-covid-19/
I would lay blame for many things at Johnson’s door, but this one is, in my opinion, rather more complex.
So given they've been taking the credit for the vaccine rollout and they "created the window for Delta" - whose door do we lay any blame? Or do we just crack on and say thanks?Variants spread everywhere and the idea that they have a particular geographic origin is more media concoction than reality. It’s no more than the location where they are first found. As an example the Alpha variant occurred pretty much simultaneously in Kent and the Netherlands, but the UK sequenced it first and as a result it became the UK Variant. The confusion this creates is one of the reasons why the WHO switched to Greek letters.
I don’t think we can keep variants out by closing borders. It’s more that we get the variant that suits our environment. The UK went a certain way with vaccinations giving most of us a single AZ shot with a 12 week gap. That seems to create a window for Delta that is less obvious elsewhere.
https://time.com/6073345/delta-variant-covid-19/
I would lay blame for many things at Johnson’s door, but this one is, in my opinion, rather more complex.
Elysium said:
Interesting thread from James Ward that offers an explanation why we might be wrestling with Delta whilst other countries and regions seem to be out of trouble:
https://twitter.com/JamesWard73/status/14049144016...
He notes that, with hindsight, the UK may have been better off it we had opened earlier and allowed more spread before Delta arrived. I agree, but I don't believe hindsight is needed. I think it was obvious we would end up here.
The Govt 'idea' that we need to keep cases under control to avoid the risk of variants has been proven false twice now, with variants messing us up despite our attempts to restrict transmission. Each time the variant has been attuned to the environment. This is natural selection. Its not a new concept.
100% agree.https://twitter.com/JamesWard73/status/14049144016...
He notes that, with hindsight, the UK may have been better off it we had opened earlier and allowed more spread before Delta arrived. I agree, but I don't believe hindsight is needed. I think it was obvious we would end up here.
The Govt 'idea' that we need to keep cases under control to avoid the risk of variants has been proven false twice now, with variants messing us up despite our attempts to restrict transmission. Each time the variant has been attuned to the environment. This is natural selection. Its not a new concept.
A few million additional infections in the young and heathly last year would have lessoned the winter wave and paid forward benefits that we would have seen over the winter and today.
It's the arogant belief that science thinks it is better than this virus that is causing the most deaths and damage.
The only good thing is the day of reckoning gets closer every day.
Ashfordian said:
100% agree.
A few million additional infections in the young and heathly last year would have lessoned the winter wave and paid forward benefits that we would have seen over the winter and today.
It's the arogant belief that science thinks it is better than this virus that is causing the most deaths and damage.
The only good thing is the day of reckoning gets closer every day.
Could that not have overwhelmed the NHS even worse than it did? Cancellation of even more cancer scans, operations etc and therefore more deaths and damage?A few million additional infections in the young and heathly last year would have lessoned the winter wave and paid forward benefits that we would have seen over the winter and today.
It's the arogant belief that science thinks it is better than this virus that is causing the most deaths and damage.
The only good thing is the day of reckoning gets closer every day.
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