Coronavirus outbreak

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A friend's son is a bobby in London somewhere. He said that during the early lockdown crime almost dried up, and it became very easy to nick drug dealers: because the streets were almost empty, the only people just casually parked up for no apparent reason were very very likely to be dealing!

Our local force used the surplus resources to have a focused campaign on known/strongly suspected offenders that could otherwise have slipped through the net until a later date, and seem to have done a reasonably thorough job. Credit to them for taking the opportunity.
 

PK99

Legendary Member
Location
SW19
The Independent abandoned any pretence of objective reporting many years ago. Nowadays it's basically an exercise in confirmation bias for Lib Dem voters. And if some people die as collateral damage of its self-righteous mission, so be it.

For several years after it was founded the Indy was my newspaper of choice, as it was the best non-partisan news source.

I can't remember when, but it did change and became a platform for Hobby Horses and sensationalism. I have not read it for years now.
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
I can't remember when, but it did change and became a platform for Hobby Horses and sensationalism. I have not read it for years now.
Arguably it became partisan under Kelner's editorship (1998-2011) and INM's ownership, which was then entrenched by the sale to now-Lord Lebedev's family. Surprisingly, it seems to be part-owned by a Saudi investor now.
 
There is a new pandemic spreading in my workplace; people with proper haircuts! :O (we're in England, I should stress)
Another colleague - looking rather shaggy, I must say - has persuaded a local pro to come and cut his a few days before the official "Go" day.

I wonder if this will be a thing before each new Roadmap Step; folks covertly jumping the gun in the weeks before, cos in their minds it's now kiiiiinda OK?
 

deptfordmarmoset

Full time tea drinker
Location
Armonmy Way
The SAGE meeting (85) considered modelling (Warwick Uni) of the hospitalisation levels (and worse) for England assuming relaxation of (most of) the restrictions in stages from March to June.
Executive Summary (very precised, easy read at link: 2/3 of a page)
  • Models impact of relaxations in England
  • Will be a third wave with a summer (July/August) peak of hospitalisations: severity depends on many factors/assumptions/uncertainties
  • Uncertainties:
    • transmission levels at each relaxation step;
    • seasonality effect (both on virus and on outside/inside and ventilation behaviour;
    • vaccine efficacy (in particular preventing transmission),
    • uncertainty in the population-level immunity due to infection,
    • confounding behaviours, both beneficial and detrimental (extended caution even after relaxations; restriction fatigue, post-vaccination ‘freedom’),
  • Lower than expected vaccine efficacy or higher transmission (R) after Step 4 (21 June ish) lead to larger wave; while seasonality acts to suppress the summer wave.
And a Tim Spector update:


  • Not accounting for waning immunity (natural infection or vaccination induced),
  • Nor accounting for the chance of vaccine escape variants.
View attachment 582635
And finally, the modelling suggests that during this summer wave, of whatever severity, at its peak about 80% of the resultant deaths will be people who have received both doses of vaccine (45% over 80 and 35% 50-79). ETA: Important to recognise that this does not represent a failure of vaccination, but simply indicates that with high population coverage there will be fewer hospitalised cases, and a higher proportion of these individuals will have been vaccinated.
There were two other models informing SAGE (from Imperial College and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM)) but Warwick University produced the better one last time. Serves to illustrate the caution which the next few months will demand.

On the third wave question, the Zoe people have just sent out an email saying that, as UK rates fall to among the lowest in Europe, this 3rd wave is unlikely....

Cases plummet back to July levels
April 8, 2021​
According to the ZOE COVID Symptom Study UK Infection Survey figures, there are currently 1,924 new symptomatic cases of COVID in the UK on average, based on swab tests data from up to five days ago [*]. This compares to 4,152 daily cases a week ago a decrease of 54% from last week. That’s down 98% from a peak of 69,000 at the beginning of the year. In terms of prevalence, on average 1 in 1,394 people in the UK currently have symptomatic COVID. (Full table of regional results below).​
Other key findings from ZOE COVID Symptom Study UK Infection Survey this week:
  • The UK R value is 0.7
    • Regional R values are: England, 0.8, Wales, 0.5 Scotland, 0.8 (full regional breakdown included in table below).
    • The R values reflect the significant drop in cases in the last week
    • The average rate of prevalence for symptomatic disease across the UK is 1 in 1,394 (full regional breakdown included in the table below)
The ZOE COVID Symptom Study UK Infection Survey figures are based on around one million weekly reporters and the proportion of newly symptomatic users who have positive swab tests. The latest survey figures were based on data from 6,200 recent swab tests done between 20 March to 3 April 2021.​
A Tim Spector update:​

 
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midlife

Guru
Our Trust is pretty coy about how many patients with COVID are in our hospital but have said that there are "less than 3" with none in ITU. Second peak was in the hundreds..
 

Ajax Bay

Guru
Location
East Devon
significant drop in cases in the last week
From 'official' ie UK NHS figures of cases reported (7-day average), it's noticeable that from 5-23 Mar, daily cases flat-lined at just under 6000 a day. But since then (13 days) the rate has dropped to 2865 (5 Apr) - so halved in a fortnight - and the cases since then give confidence that this is not a double PH Easter weekend reporting dip.
Comment: This level is well below a key 'initial prevalence' figure used to inform the SAGE modelling which predicted the third wave (see my earlier post #17410).
The latest ONS coronaviruscovid19infectionsurvey (data up to 3 Apr) figures have just been published.
NW England still a 'problem' region with cases rising a bit; the rest mostly declining or flat (does not reflect the drop of the last week).
coy about how many patients with COVID are in our hospital
Since 21 Feb, daily count of confirmed COVID-19 patients in hospital (7-day average) has declined in an almost perfect exponential decay with an index 0.76 (per week,; about 3.4% less each day), from 16,972 to 3,349 (3 Apr). This means about 3% of all the UK's hospital beds are occupied by a patient who has tested positive for COVID-19.
Less than 0.8% of (genomically assessed positive) cases are variants of concern. The dominant virus in UK is still the B.1.1.7 (and similar) one, the increased transmissibility of which caused so much grief from December onwards.
Variants of concern or under investigation: data up to 7 April 2021
 

MontyVeda

a short-tempered ill-controlled small-minded troll
How is he more responsible for 127k deaths?
ignoring the advice of the experts in March last year is very likely to have had a significant impact on the C19 death toll. Paying people to go to the pub last summer would have likely had a significant impact of transmission rates. Ignoring different experts regarding the 2nd lockdown at the end of last summer would have likely had a significant impact on infections and deaths... Boris had a choice between treating the pandemic seriously, or treating it with reckless disregard. Unfortunately for many, Boris chose the latter.
 

Craig the cyclist

Über Member
ignoring the advice of the experts in March last year is very likely to have had a significant impact on the C19 death toll. Paying people to go to the pub last summer would have likely had a significant impact of transmission rates. Ignoring different experts regarding the 2nd lockdown at the end of last summer would have likely had a significant impact on infections and deaths... Boris had a choice between treating the pandemic seriously, or treating it with reckless disregard. Unfortunately for many, Boris chose the latter.

And of course that would be completely correct............well, if it wasn't totally wrong.

Screenshot 2021-04-12 09.17.46.png
 

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