New lockdown in England, including school closures, announced by Johnson, 4/1/21

[duncanp]

Some more good stats coming in today, with 12 million the total of first vaccine doses now, and only 373 reported deaths (down from 587 on the same day last week). Looking at how the deaths' graph is shaping in comparison to the hospital occupancy one, I do think the vaccine being targeted at those most at risk of death is having an effect now, as the deaths' graph is falling more rapidly (down 23.3% over last 7 days, compared to hospital admissions being down 19.7%):

UKHSA data dashboard

Showing public health data across England

coronavirus.data.gov.uk

View attachment 90150
View attachment 90152
View attachment 90151

And new cases are falling by about 25% per week at the moment.

So if they carry on falling at that rate, then in 6 weeks time (21st March) they will be down to under 4000 per day, and only a small percentage of those 4000 will require hospitalisation.

This should be well within the ability of the NHS to cope, otherwise there is something seriously wrong with the NHS.

Perhaps the government should be asking the NHS how many COVID patients in hospital can you cope with, and I suspect that if you ask three different people that question you will get four different answers.

So all in all there is a lot to be hopeful about at the moment.

 

[island]

Neighbouring Tiers on the English/Welsh borders on different levels with pubs open one side but not the other resulted in Hereford's pubs trying to ascertain where a lot of people had come from and refused to serve the "visitors".

Which is another case of overinterpreting the rules. Pubs in England were not required to enquire into where their customers were resident.

 

[Hadders]

Just been on a shopping trip to Morrison's, they've got a new ruling on the self service machines saying only one person can be at each machine. As usual there's no enforcement of social distancing in the rest of the store. It's one of these things where you think it's probably a good idea given the situation, but then wonder why they've waited 11 months to introduce it as cases are declining and people are being vaccinated. The other thing was that 2nd person in the three lots of people I saw being told about this was going and standing the other side of the aisle to the exit from the self service machines, so instead of packing shopping with someone in their support bubble they were standing with strangers and being passed by other strangers leaving the shop (there isn't enough space to apply the two metre rule properly either).

The queuing to get in is supposedly still on, though I've never seen it happening when I've been past.

Not sure if it's the same at their other stores, but this one brought back the queuing system (the Trolley/Handbasket queues version) in the shop for about a fortnight last September, abandoning it before we went into Tier 3 and the new Lockdowns ...

It's to do with the staff working in that area. Staff working in supermarkets have become much more worried in the last few weeks, mainly due to the Government's media campaign. They are demanding that management do something to enforce social distancing.

One genuine problem area is the payment area (not just self scan but traditional tills as well). If people shop in family groups then it is much harder for staff to keep a safe distance from customers in these areas, especially the self scan area.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

And new cases are falling by about 25% per week at the moment.

So if they carry on falling at that rate, then in 6 weeks time (21st March) they will be down to under 4000 per day, and only a small percentage of those 4000 will require hospitalisation.

This should be well within the ability of the NHS to cope, otherwise there is something seriously wrong with the NHS.

Perhaps the government should be asking the NHS how many COVID patients in hospital can you cope with, and I suspect that if you ask three different people that question you will get four different answers.

So all in all there is a lot to be hopeful about at the moment.

Don't ask them it will be zero!

What we need to be able to do is restore normal treatments for cancer as a matter of urgency then assign capacity to deal with Covid patients then restore elective surgery. The NHS is sized at 100-120k beds so I would suggest 10k Covid patients would have limited impact especially as flu in-patients have been negligible this season.

Given current trends by 15/2 review date they originally gave when last regulations were imposed we will be below 20k hospitalised and at Boris's 22/2 roadmap date less than 15k so they have no excuse but not to set out the way out of this.

 

[Crossover]

It's to do with the staff working in that area. Staff working in supermarkets have become much more worried in the last few weeks, mainly due to the Government's media campaign. They are demanding that management do something to enforce social distancing.

One genuine problem area is the payment area (not just self scan but traditional tills as well). If people shop in family groups then it is much harder for staff to keep a safe distance from customers in these areas, especially the self scan area.

I would concur with this. I visited our local Sainsbury’s a month or so back and there was an entire family (Mum, Dad and either two or three kids) crammed round a self service machine. Problem was they also spilled out across another one and the walkway so it was impossible to get past them whilst maintaining any distance at all

 

[brad465]

Don't ask them it will be zero!

What we need to be able to do is restore normal treatments for cancer as a matter of urgency then assign capacity to deal with Covid patients then restore elective surgery. The NHS is sized at 100-120k beds so I would suggest 10k Covid patients would have limited impact especially as flu in-patients have been negligible this season.

Given current trends by 15/2 review date they originally gave when last regulations were imposed we will be below 20k hospitalised and at Boris's 22/2 roadmap date less than 15k so they have no excuse but not to set out the way out of this.

What will also be interesting is how long it will be before we're no longer in excess deaths: while we've been in excess for most of this winter wave, not all deaths with Covid have actually been excess, according to the ONS, as this graph shows from the latest data:

Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, including deaths involving the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, by age, sex and region.

www.ons.gov.uk

The latest data captured the peak of reported deaths according to the GOV dashboard and they've been plummeting since, so if this trend keeps up for a while, I wouldn't be surprised if later in February deaths are already back to the 5 year average, and may even for a time go below after.

 

[35B]

One of the major problem with insisting on that approach is the thorny issue of 'false positives',
which isn't that much of a problem when prevalence is high, as they effectively get drowned out
by the tens of thousands of genuine positive results, but if virus prevalence was to fall significantly,
as it did last Summer, the situation is reversed and the false positives become dominant.


Specifically, it's thought that somewhere between 98% and 99% of positive PCR results are 'true' positives,
but even if we are generous and assume that the figure is as high as 99.5%, that still means that 0.5% are
false positives, so on a day when 700,000 tests are performed, that means that at least 3,500 are
false positives, even if the number of actual 'cases' on that day is zero!!


In other words, while it should be possible to get genuine cases under 1000 per day later in the year as per
Hunt's statement, it will be impossible to prove that they are at that level because of the statistically flawed
nature of the PCR test in a low prevalence environment.



This is the main reason why 'zero covid' is a ridiculous pipe dream - because there is absolutely
no way of knowing for sure that there are less than 3,500 cases, never mind zero!!







MARK

I find it interesting that Melbourne has reported 23,000 tests with zero positives:
https://twitter.com/vicgovdh/status/1357810038539231232?s=21

That suggests testing can prove that zero exists.

 

[yorkie]

I find it interesting that Melbourne has reported 23,000 tests with zero positives:
https://twitter.com/vicgovdh/status/1357810038539231232?s=21

That suggests testing can prove that zero exists.

What do you think a positive test proves?

Edit: I recommend you watch this video:

Recently I tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. In this video I explain how the PCR test was done, what the Ct value that I received means, and why I was not worried about the result.

 

[Freightmaster]

I find it interesting that Melbourne has reported 23,000 tests with zero positives:
https://twitter.com/vicgovdh/status/1357810038539231232?s=21

That suggests testing can prove that zero exists.

Countries with low prevalence tend to use much higher PCR* 'thresholds' when processing tests;
there is nothing stopping the UK from doing the same if we wanted to - in fact, we should have
done so from day one really, but our government seems to enjoy using the dubious figures that
the current testing protocol gives to scare people into compliance!

*Lateral Flow 'rapid' tests already have a high threshold because of the way they work,
so false positives don't tend to be an issue with those.





MARK

 

[Solent&Wessex]

I don't want to see regional-based tiers. But it frustrates me to see most of the country (including urban areas like Birmingham, Liverpool and London) now seeing rapid decline in cases, whereas 'the northern towns and cities' (specifically Greater Manchester, East Lancashire, Leeds and West Yorkshire) are seeing a much slower decrease, levelling off in some areas.

Why is this? These areas had higher case numbers throughout late Summer and Autumn as well, so in a way it's not surprising they have had more restrictions since July than the rest of the country has had.

There is an interesting article on the BBC website about the issues in Bradford. It is focused on vaccination and the worryingly high % of elderly Pakistani residents refusing to accept the vaccine.

The article examines some of the reasons why this is the case and also involves discussions with GPs.

They mention some of the same issues that I put forward as reasons why the areas you mention have generally speaking always had comparatively high rates to the rest of the country:

High proportions of minority ethnic communities.
Socio - economic conditions including housing type, housing density, multi generational households, language barriers.
Employment type.

Coronavirus doctor's diary: Why are some of Bradford's elderly refusing the vaccine?

About one in five people aged 80 or over in Bradford's Pakistani community has refused the Covid vaccine.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[yorkie]

There is an interesting article on the BBC website about the issues in Bradford. It is focused on vaccination and the worryingly high % of elderly Pakistani residents refusing to accept the vaccine.

The article examines some of the reasons why this is the case and also involves discussions with GPs.

They mention some of the same issues that I put forward as reasons why the areas you mention have generally speaking always had comparatively high rates to the rest of the country:

High proportions of minority ethnic communities.
Socio - economic conditions including housing type, housing density, multi generational households, language barriers.
Employment type.

Coronavirus doctor's diary: Why are some of Bradford's elderly refusing the vaccine?

About one in five people aged 80 or over in Bradford's Pakistani community has refused the Covid vaccine.

www.bbc.co.uk

The lack of take-up of the vaccine is a concern but this won't be having a material effect yet, but it could start to soon, therefore exacerbating the problem.

Some people want the regional system scrapped; if that happens some places could hold the whole country back.

As for your list of reasons, there are spot on I think, but here's another factor; see this post:

https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/vaccine-progress-approval-and-deployment.211585/post-4986266

The stage of epidemic in northern towns has always been behind London, both in terms of the rise in cases and now, crucially, the decline in cases.

All of these factors combined risk having a cumulative effect that could make it harder to release restrictions in certain places as soon as others.

 

[HSTEd]

Cold bloodedly, if 20-40% of a minority community don't take up the vaccine it won't matter too much in hospitalisation terms.

They will catch it, some fraction of them will die, and that will be it.

It's depressing, but ultimately it is a tragedy entirely of their own making.

 

[35B]

What do you think a positive test proves?

Edit: I recommend you watch this video:

I observe as a layman that PCR testing is the primary means of identifying who do and do not have Covid. I also observe that some assert that the risk of false positives means that it is unreliable when used to identify the absence of the virus, yet somewhere which has used it for that purpose has done so and not had any positive test results, in circumstances where public health officials could reasonably be more concerned about the impact of false negatives than false positives. I also understand, again as a layman, that the sensitivity of PCR tests is driven by what is being tested rather than its overall prevalence.

My conclusion is therefore that use of PCR tests to prove that somewhere is free of Covid is legitimate science and possible. The question of whether zero Covid is or is not a reasonable strategy to follow, or can be achieved at a reasonable cost, is somewhat different and completely independent of how it may be proven or tested for.

Finally, I’ll observe that the likes of NZ and Australia, having gone for that strategy quickly and early have achieved that result at significantly lower cost in lives or livelihoods than countries which have merely tried containment strategies.

 

[notlob.divad]

There is an interesting article on the BBC website about the issues in Bradford. It is focused on vaccination and the worryingly high % of elderly Pakistani residents refusing to accept the vaccine.

The article examines some of the reasons why this is the case and also involves discussions with GPs.

They mention some of the same issues that I put forward as reasons why the areas you mention have generally speaking always had comparatively high rates to the rest of the country:

High proportions of minority ethnic communities.
Socio - economic conditions including housing type, housing density, multi generational households, language barriers.
Employment type.

Coronavirus doctor's diary: Why are some of Bradford's elderly refusing the vaccine?

About one in five people aged 80 or over in Bradford's Pakistani community has refused the Covid vaccine.

www.bbc.co.uk

Contrast that with this article from The Guardian, focussing on the Vaccine rollout in Toxteth.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...nce-liverpool-gps-tackle-the-vaccine-race-gap

Showing these barriers can be overcome, if you put in place a system people can work with rather than treating it as "one size fits all". With a mass vaccination program, there is a very high risk that all you do is take a lot of low hanging fruit, where as you really need to get in up among the branches if you want to get the best results.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Feb 2021 ==

Cold bloodedly, if 20-40% of a minority community don't take up the vaccine it won't matter too much in hospitalisation terms.

They will catch it, some fraction of them will die, and that will be it.

It's depressing, but ultimately it is a tragedy entirely of their own making.

And if that is the attitude taken into the vaccination program, then it is entirely not of their own making. If people are not willing to address the concerns of minority communities, then that is the problem not the people who have the concerns. I will accept that once everything has been done to address those concerns, not taking the vaccine is on them, just as it is with the growing prevelence of non BAME anti-vaxers. But as the article I shared above shows, saying problems with vaccine delivery amongst the BAME community are "Entirely of their own making" is really wide of the mark.

 

[35B]

Contrast that with this article from The Guardian, focussing on the Vaccine rollout in Toxteth.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...nce-liverpool-gps-tackle-the-vaccine-race-gap

Showing these barriers can be overcome, if you put in place a system people can work with rather than treating it as "one size fits all". With a mass vaccination program, there is a very high risk that all you do is take a lot of low hanging fruit, where as you really need to get in up among the branches if you want to get the best results.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Feb 2021 ==


And if that is the attitude taken into the vaccination program, then it is entirely not of their own making. If people are not willing to address the concerns of minority communities, then that is the problem not the people who have the concerns. I will accept that once everything has been done to address those concerns, not taking the vaccine is on them, just as it is with the growing prevelence of non BAME anti-vaxers. But as the article I shared above shows, saying problems with vaccine delivery amongst the BAME community are "Entirely of their own making" is really wide of the mark.

I’d also suggest that, whoever makes the tragedy, that if it happens within a defined community, the implications diminish us all as a society, and can affect us all.

 

[notlob.divad]

I’d also suggest that, whoever makes the tragedy, that if it happens within a defined community, the implications diminish us all as a society, and can affect us all.

Agreed 100%.

And it isn't just BAME Communities. I have an old friend who has quite an array of health conditions and disabilities. He has been offered the vaccine multiple times, but has repeatedly turned it down. He wants to know if it is safe for him with his specific set of conditions. Now obviously no-one knows 100% that it is safe for any individual, but any response to his questioning has apparently been a rather condesending "we think you will be safe". Now obviously that is probably the right technical response, but it doesn't brew confidence within him. What he really needs is someone to sit down with him and address the very obvious concerns he has, point to the balance of risk of being vacccinated in a controlled environment with medical staff on hand ready to step in, v's catching Covid out in the community, (which knowing some of his conditions is unlikely to turn out well for him).

 

[takno]

Agreed 100%.

And it isn't just BAME Communities. I have an old friend who has quite an array of health conditions and disabilities. He has been offered the vaccine multiple times, but has repeatedly turned it down. He wants to know if it is safe for him with his specific set of conditions. Now obviously no-one knows 100% that it is safe for any individual, but any response to his questioning has apparently been a rather condesending "we think you will be safe". Now obviously that is probably the right technical response, but it doesn't brew confidence within him. What he really needs is someone to sit down with him and address the very obvious concerns he has, point to the balance of risk of being vacccinated in a controlled environment with medical staff on hand ready to step in, v's catching Covid out in the community, (which knowing some of his conditions is unlikely to turn out well for him).

I think this is the key problem. People should be getting vaccinations because it's the right thing to do for them based on the balance of risk between taking it and not taking it. For the over 70s and people with relevant health conditions that balance is going to be overwhelmingly in favour of the vaccines, falling to almost certainly in favour for the over 50s, and on balance probably in favour for everybody else. That message will clear enough people over the line to save the lives and empty the hospitals, and we can all stop having our lives interrupted by this.

Now the lunatics who appear to need to be doing everything as a favour to other people have got involved, and people have started chuntering on about elimination again. It muddies the message, worries people, and makes the whole process feel pointless because a vaccine is no longer even your passport to leaving the house. These people need to be stopped - they're trying to help but they're wrecking lives and ultimately killing people.

 

[Yew]

I think this is the key problem. People should be getting vaccinations because it's the right thing to do for them based on the balance of risk between taking it and not taking it. For the over 70s and people with relevant health conditions that balance is going to be overwhelmingly in favour of the vaccines, falling to almost certainly in favour for the over 50s, and on balance probably in favour for everybody else. That message will clear enough people over the line to save the lives and empty the hospitals, and we can all stop having our lives interrupted by this.

Now the lunatics who appear to need to be doing everything as a favour to other people have got involved, and people have started chuntering on about elimination again. It muddies the message, worries people, and makes the whole process feel pointless because a vaccine is no longer even your passport to leaving the house. These people need to be stopped - they're trying to help but they're wrecking lives and ultimately killing people.

I've got no problem with elimination, as long as I'm not a prisoner in my own home until it happens.

 

[takno]

I've got no problem with elimination, as long as I'm not a prisoner in my own home until it happens.

I don't have a problem with it, except that it's almost certainly not possible, and it's not a great deal more useful than endemic circulation with the vulnerable vaccinated. Even then, if the attempt was low cost I'd say go for it - eradicating smallpox through vaccination with a highly-effective vaccine was an example of a low cost and prudent eradication of a very serious disease. The trouble is that we are trying to do it against a much less serious disease, meaning that less effort is justified, and using much higher cost tools which are so ineffective that it's probably not possible anyway. Suppression of normal life for a further extended period of time is not a price worth paying to be part of some hare-brained moonshot.

Either way, we're starting to make the vaccine look like part of a hare-brained moonshot plan, rather than part of a plan for self-preservation and reopening the economy. That isn't a recipe for getting people to take it

 

[Spamcan81]

What do you think a positive test proves?

Edit: I recommend you watch this video:

So he wasn't worried by the result. That must be so encouraging for those who are critically ill from this damned virus.

 

[roversfan2001]

So he wasn't worried by the result. That must be so encouraging for those who are critically ill from this damned virus.

Are you worried when you come down with the flu? People die from that too so surely everyone must be worried if they catch it, no?

Obviously this isnt the flu, but the IFR isn't too dissimilar. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if the flu was actually more deadly than COVID-19 for most people under 50.

 

[py_megapixel]

Briefing today, lead by Matt Hancock...

Don't forget to have your bingo cards out (for those not already aware of this concept, here's a thread about it!) and your expectations suitably lowered...

Or just don't bother watch it at all. You don't need to these days; anything relevant will quickly be picked up by the media.

 

[Bertie the bus]

Or just don't bother watch it at all. You don't need to these days; anything relevant will quickly be picked up by the media.

Quickly picked up by the media and twisted or quoted out of context. If people believe the media version more than the actual version it is no wonder some of the polls show the public have a strange understanding.

 

[ExRes]

Briefing today, lead by Matt Hancock...

Don't forget to have your bingo cards out (for those not already aware of this concept, here's a thread about it!) and your expectations suitably lowered...

Or just don't bother watch it at all. You don't need to these days; anything relevant will quickly be picked up by the media.

Don't you mean anything irrelevant will be picked up by the media?

Why bother with Government announcements anyway, just go on social media and follow the experts, there's plenty enough of them on here to keep anybody fixed up

 

[py_megapixel]

Don't you mean anything irrelevant will be picked up by the media?

Why bother with Government announcements anyway, just go on social media and follow the experts, there's plenty enough of them on here to keep anybody fixed up

Perhaps incorrectly, I was including experts' accounts on social media in "the media"

 

[Bikeman78]

It's to do with the staff working in that area. Staff working in supermarkets have become much more worried in the last few weeks, mainly due to the Government's media campaign. They are demanding that management do something to enforce social distancing.

In my experience there are usually two staff, about one metre apart, near the self scan checkouts talking to each other. They can't be that worried.

 

[island]

You can read the speeches from the 5pm briefings on the gov.uk site soon after their delivery.

 

[takno]

You can read the speeches from the 5pm briefings on the gov.uk site soon after their delivery.

I certainly _can_.

 

[Nicholas Lewis]

From the presser Hancock straight into emphasising still loads of people in hospital but fails to mention how much its dropped and the accelerating reduction in daily admissions. EDIT: he did subsequently acknowledge that things are going in the right direction.

On vaccines 91% of >80; 95% of 75-79; 75% of 70-74 on target with vaccine for cohort 1-4. Take up rate is above the 70% they wanted to achieve.

Says current vaccines have an impact on the variants but will adjust teh vaccine to respond to mutations like we do with flu jabs every year.

JVT says SA variant is not dominant its still the UK variant. Says it doesn't look like it has transmissibility advantage over the UK variant. Our vaccines work against UK variant so get a jab now and protect yourself against the real threat. Then through questioning is peeved the scary headlines that have been seen. Also NO new SA cases detected over last two days.

Got sense that zero covid isn't there goal and JVT view is it will be managed like flu is on annual basis in due course.

So despite vaccination rates going well cases, admissions and hospitalisations dropping like a stone and the SA variant isn't the threat media made it out to be we aint budging from our current position. No surprise really and not sure what the 15/2 review is going to consist of but it seems CRG have rolled over now and are targeting May for removal of ALL restrictions so we are stuck inside for weeks yet.

 

[Philip]

From the presser Hancock straight into emphasising still loads of people in hospital but fails to mention how much its dropped and the accelerating reduction in daily admissions. EDIT: he did subsequently acknowledge that things are going in the right direction.

On vaccines 91% of >80; 95% of 75-79; 75% of 70-74 on target with vaccine for cohort 1-4. Take up rate is above the 70% they wanted to achieve.

Says current vaccines have an impact on the variants but will adjust teh vaccine to respond to mutations like we do with flu jabs every year.

JVT says SA variant is not dominant its still the UK variant. Says it doesn't look like it has transmissibility advantage over the UK variant. Our vaccines work against UK variant so get a jab now and protect yourself against the real threat. Then through questioning is peeved the scary headlines that have been seen. Also NO new SA cases detected over last two days.

Got sense that zero covid isn't there goal and JVT view is it will be managed like flu is on annual basis in due course.

So despite vaccination rates going well cases, admissions and hospitalisations dropping like a stone and the SA variant isn't the threat media made it out to be we aint budging from our current position. No surprise really and not sure what the 15/2 review is going to consist of but it seems CRG have rolled over now and are targeting May for removal of ALL restrictions so we are stuck inside for weeks yet.

If the 'stay at home' ie. lockdown is lifted for the 8th March then that would be very good. No one expects pubs to reopen then and probably not for at least another month, but if travel restrictions within UK/England are lifted in March then that would be much better than now. A further boost would be cafes and coffee shops allowed to open (beyond just takeaway), I think this will come before pubs and restaurants - perhaps later in March if progress is continuing well?