Covid : Infection rates v death rates and a possible second wave

[Howardh]

Quite possibly.

In places where extra restrictions have been put in place, the infection rate has stopped rising or is falling.

Bury, Oldham, Blackpool, Bolton, Rossendale and Blackburn with Darwen all have lower infection rates for Week 39 (the week ending October 1st) than they do for week 38.

Last week, Bolton had the highest infection rate in England. This week it only has the 10th highest infection rate.

Even where I live (Sandwell - which has been under a less severe local "lockdown") the infection rate has dropped slightly this week.

Of course this is only one week's figures, and it is too early to confirm that this is a long term trend, but the first sign of a pandemic being brought under control is for infections to stop rising so quickly, and then to start falling, albeit gradually.

Witht he increase of testing, it has been pointed out that you will find more unsymptomatic cases, so the number of infections will be a lot higher in the past. So if the number of deaths remains low and stable (none would be fantastic but that's probably unnattainable until a vaccine) maybe we could live with the current rate of infections without having further restrictions?
And actually reduce a few such as movement in Wales, the pointless 10pm curfew. On the latter I hope that, even if bars are banned from serving alcohol after 10pm, patrons can drink up slowly - and maybe even buy soft/warm drinks from the bar? That to me would make more sense, drinking up time + the option to stay longer in a non-alcohol environment?

 

[WelshBluebird]

And actually reduce a few such as movement in Wales, the pointless 10pm curfew. On the latter I hope that, even if bars are banned from serving alcohol after 10pm, patrons can drink up slowly - and maybe even buy soft/warm drinks from the bar? That to me would make more sense, drinking up time + the option to stay longer in a non-alcohol environment?

The problem there is that is starts to get more complicated, especially if the police / local councils do want to start enforcing it. Right now it is pretty easy to tell if a place is still open past 10pm. With your suggestion it becomes a lot easier for places to serve regulars on the sly after 10pm and have the "but they are just drinking up" excuse if they do get checked up on.
Not that I agree with the curfew, it is bloody stupid, but that is probably the reasoning behind not doing something like you suggest.

 

[SouthEastBuses]

6,914 new cases today. Still pretty high, but At least a bit of a drop since yesterday's 7,108. And a sign that the rate seems to be levelling out and not surging further.

Deaths 59. Also pretty high compared to a few weeks ago. But at least a drop of 12 from yesterday.

Indeed, I'm glad that cases are going down slightly. It means that this second wave won't be as bad as we thought (I always thought that it would be unlikely that the second wave would be catastrophic).

 

[yorksrob]

The problem there is that is starts to get more complicated, especially if the police / local councils do want to start enforcing it. Right now it is pretty easy to tell if a place is still open past 10pm. With your suggestion it becomes a lot easier for places to serve regulars on the sly after 10pm and have the "but they are just drinking up" excuse if they do get checked up on.

I don't recall it being a massive issue in the days when pubs had to call last orders. I'm sure that some pubs in deep rural areas would have had never ending lock-ins, but everywhere else would be empty half an hour after time had been called.

 

[duncanp]

One solution might be to say that no-one can enter a pub after, say, 10pm, but anyone already in there will be able to stay until normal closing time.

The pub would still be limited by whatever its' COVID secure capacity is, but this measure would ensure that you don't have everyone spilling on to the streets at the same time.

I don't think this will happen though.

 

[takno]

Quite possibly.

In places where extra restrictions have been put in place, the infection rate has stopped rising or is falling.

Bury, Oldham, Blackpool, Bolton, Rossendale and Blackburn with Darwen all have lower infection rates for Week 39 (the week ending October 1st) than they do for week 38.

Last week, Bolton had the highest infection rate in England. This week it only has the 10th highest infection rate.

Even where I live (Sandwell - which has been under a less severe local "lockdown") the infection rate has dropped slightly this week.

Of course this is only one week's figures, and it is too early to confirm that this is a long term trend, but the first sign of a pandemic being brought under control is for infections to stop rising so quickly, and then to start falling, albeit gradually.

To be honest it looks like the figures in particular areas are rising and falling completely independently of the never-ending merry-go-round of infections. It looks a lot more like a rise driven by schools and then unis going back, which is falling back due to the underlying value of r being slightly under 1 than anything else at the moment. The trouble is that Boris, Nicola and their merry band of wannabe-hero experts will claim it's all due to the restrictions they put in last month, and we'll never be free of them.

The only possible exception is the 10pm curfew, which nobody seems particularly keen to defend, and has had a much larger impact on the hospitality sector than the government anticipated.

 

[Meerkat]

Incidentally, if you look at the current set of figures, three of the five local authorities with the biggest increase in their infection rates are in Surrey (Woking, Spelthorne and Waverley, which have all seen their rates shoot up by a factor of between 6 and 10 within a week) Whereas other local authorities in Surrey (Reigate & Banstead, and Mole Valley) have seen falling infection rates for the same week. The authorities in these areas need to use their local knowledge to find out the reasons for these anomalies is neighbouring council areas.

The numbers are low so small absolute rises make big percentage rises.
Woking’s cases were driven by Maybury (lots of Asians - big families, small houses, public facing jobs) and Sheerwater, which is deprived even by national standards (not all Surrey is rich.....).
Spelthorne isnt really Surrey (wrong side of the river!), it’s more West London and has quite a significant Asian presence.
Waverley is surprising, but the numbers are low enough it could be one college/workplace/party....

 

[duncanp]

The numbers are low so small absolute rises make big percentage rises.
Woking’s cases were driven by Maybury (lots of Asians - big families, small houses, public facing jobs) and Sheerwater, which is deprived even by national standards (not all Surrey is rich.....).
Spelthorne isnt really Surrey (wrong side of the river!), it’s more West London and has quite a significant Asian presence.
Waverley is surprising, but the numbers are low enough it could be one college/workplace/party....

Thanks for the background information.

This is why the authorities on the ground need to look into the reasons for the rise in the infection rate in more detail, using their local knowledge, rather than saying "..OMG!!! Look at the rise in the infection rate!! Local lockdown now, please!!"

 

[Class 33]

Top-of-head thinking, looks like infections have flattened these last few days, could it be that the spike was pupils and students, seeing each other for the first time earlier this month, have taken it home, and all those at risk of being infected have now done so, so there's a new batch of herd immunity?

Anyhow, if the numbers do come down after wild September maybe they can work out what caused it - and more importantly what didn't.

Yes, the infections have flattenned over the last few days. And HOPEFULLY they will be on their way down, albeit probably only gradually and could well take around 3 to 4 months to get down to fairly low numbers again.

Those significant drops from Saturday to Monday really had me(and I expect many others) fooled that infections are falling rapidly. But it appears this is due to a reporting backlog of the infections. A drop from 5,693 to 4,044 the next day seemed too big a drop to be true, as did the MASSIVE rise from 4,044 right up to 7,143 the next day. That was a big kick in the stomach seeing that massive rise, when I was at the time thinking the infections per day were rapidly falling. But alas, all these figures were due to a reporting backlog.

The current 7-day rolling average of infections is 6,259. Let's hope things are on their way down.

 

[johnnychips]

I don’t often agree with Donald Trump, but it does seem to be that the more people you test, the more people you find infected. At that meat plant in Cornwall, they seem to have tested everybody, found a lot of positives, but a lot had no symptoms.
Where I work, there was an outbreak of coughing and high temperatures in our ‘bubble’ and 7 out of 33 people were positive. But nobody else had the test as that was when there was a crisis - don’t get tested unless you get symptoms! I just wonder if everyone had been able to have the test - myself included - how many would have been positive?

 

[trebor79]

I don’t often agree with Donald Trump, but it does seem to be that the more people you test, the more people you find infected. At that meat plant in Cornwall, they seem to have tested everybody, found a lot of positives, but a lot had no symptoms.

It was the same at the meat plant here. I think given the known fact that it spreads more easily in such settings it's reasonable they test employees if one or two workers have tested positive.
Here they eventually found something like 150 positives out of a workforce of 500, but only 1 of those required hospital treatment and again the vast majority were completely unaware that they had it.

 

[Jimini]

One solution might be to say that no-one can enter a pub after, say, 10pm, but anyone already in there will be able to stay until normal closing time.

The pub would still be limited by whatever its' COVID secure capacity is, but this measure would ensure that you don't have everyone spilling on to the streets at the same time.

I don't think this will happen though.

My local doesn't let anyone in after 9pm, last orders at 9:15, bar shuts at 9:30, everyone out by 10 latest.

 

[Howardh]

My local doesn't let anyone in after 9pm, last orders at 9:15, bar shuts at 9:30, everyone out by 10 latest.

What's the situation with hotels? OK, the bars might close at 10, but surely if you ar a resident you can continue drinking in the lounge, after all it's your "home" whilst booked in? What can they do, throw you out back to your room?

 

[Crossover]

What's the situation with hotels? OK, the bars might close at 10, but surely if you ar a resident you can continue drinking in the lounge, after all it's your "home" whilst booked in? What can they do, throw you out back to your room?

I heard reports of one B&B allowing orders to be placed for consumption after 10pm in ones room

 

[yorksrob]

What's the situation with hotels? OK, the bars might close at 10, but surely if you ar a resident you can continue drinking in the lounge, after all it's your "home" whilst booked in? What can they do, throw you out back to your room?

I was at a travelodge and I think they said the bar would be closing at ten.

 

[Howardh]

I was at a travelodge and I think they said the bar would be closing at ten.

What about drinking up though? Suppose a guest bought a beer just before ten and wanted to sit in the lounge drinking up watching TV, or brought their own beer in and sat in the lounge? It is their place of residence after all when booked?

 

[yorksrob]

What about drinking up though? Suppose a guest bought a beer just before ten and wanted to sit in the lounge drinking up watching TV, or brought their own beer in and sat in the lounge? It is their place of residence after all when booked?

They didn't really go into that much detail. It was a very quiet bar and I expect we would have been allowed to drink up in our own time.

 

[Class 33]

Yesterday it was reported that the "R" rate may have fallen to 1.1. Which gave some hope that a loosening of restrictions could be on the horizon. Today though it is reported that it HAS increased to 1.6! It's like a rollercoaster all this is. A bad rollercoaster that is not fun to ride.

55 hospital deaths today. So overall deaths are likely to be broadly in the range of the last three days.

Hope there's a further decrease in the cases today at least.

 

[DustyBin]

Yesterday it was reported that the "R" rate may have fallen to 1.1. Which gave some hope that a loosening of restrictions could be on the horizon. Today though it is reported that it HAS increased to 1.6! It's like a rollercoaster all this is. A bad rollercoaster that is not fun to ride.

55 hospital deaths today. So overall deaths are likely to be broadly in the range of the last three days.

Hope there's a further decrease in the cases today at least.

We seem to go from deaths, to the 'R' rate, to infections, back to the 'R' rate..... Anything to scare the public and maintain restrictions....

 

[DB]

We seem to go from deaths, to the 'R' rate, to infections, back to the 'R' rate..... Anything to scare the public and maintain restrictions....

Whichever one makes the situation look worst at a given time is the one they wil use!

 

[adc82140]

Yesterday it was reported that the "R" rate may have fallen to 1.1. Which gave some hope that a loosening of restrictions could be on the horizon. Today though it is reported that it HAS increased to 1.6! It's like a rollercoaster all this is. A bad rollercoaster that is not fun to ride.

55 hospital deaths today. So overall deaths are likely to be broadly in the range of the last three days.

Hope there's a further decrease in the cases today at least.

Aha, but the official R rate is 2 to 3 weeks old. I can quite believe it was 1.6 then. The ONS estimates are more recent, and the recorded cases (the ones by sample date, ie the real ones) are only showing a slow increase which correlates with what the ONS says. Exponential increase it ain't.

 

[Domh245]

Yesterday it was reported that the "R" rate may have fallen to 1.1. Which gave some hope that a loosening of restrictions could be on the horizon. Today though it is reported that it HAS increased to 1.6! It's like a rollercoaster all this is. A bad rollercoaster that is not fun to ride.

Of course, what the media have failed to mention is that there are uncertainties around R, I am shocked to see the media running with the higher of the estimated range (not). The imperial study from yesterday gives R as between 0.7 and 1.5 whilst SAGE has come out with 1.3-1.6 based on their different estimated sources - so there's still a pretty good degree of agreement there. Things are definitely still heading in the right direction by most accounts (ONS infection survey showing a smaller increase in cases, etc) and R is relatively close to 1.

It's only a rollercoaster if you choose to hang on every news release and data update, ignorance is bliss as they say.

 

[greyman42]

My local doesn't let anyone in after 9pm, last orders at 9:15, bar shuts at 9:30, everyone out by 10 latest.

I can't see how someone walking into a pub at 2130 and ordering a drink causes a problem. Perhaps some pubs are making that much profit that they can afford to shut their doors to new customers at 2100.

 

[Class 33]

What's going on with today's COVID stats dashboard? It's running VERY late so far. Perhaps they won't get published today. I guess the person who usually enters these stats is off sick today and they haven't got a replacement in to enter them?!

I'd expect todays cases though to be somewhat over 7,000. Due to the 770 students from Northumbria University testing positive yesterday.

 

[adc82140]

They didn't all test positive at one go. That was a cumulative figure.

FWIW the Scottish and Welsh figures are flat today compared to yesterday.

 

[Bletchleyite]

What's going on with today's COVID stats dashboard? It's running VERY late so far. Perhaps they won't get published today. I guess the person who usually enters these stats is off sick today and they haven't got a replacement in to enter them?!

Maybe he's got COVID.

(Hope not)

 

[SJN]

Apparently the university have said the 770 is the total number of students tested positive since arriving there. They never all tested positive in one day.

 

[Class 33]

Apparently the university have said the 770 is the total number of students tested positive since arriving there. They never all tested positive in one day.

Ah right I see.

Also yesterday's figures were interesting. 6,968 across the UK & Northern Ireland. Though for ENGLAND alone there was a fairly decent drop from 5,589 on Thursday down to 4,797. But there was a sharp rise in cases in Northern Ireland from 259 on Thursday right up to 934.

Doesn't look we're going to get any stats today though by the looks of it. All we know is that there have been 51 hospital deaths today.

 

[talldave]

I found a Covid testing place in our local park today built temporarily in a parking area. Needless to say it was deserted bar the bored to tears hi-vis brigade.

 

[Domh245]

Yes, it would seem there's an issue today with the the number of positive tests, but fixating on the number each day isn't the way to go about things..

re the Northumbria students, I'd read somewhere that they'd been tested privately(/test provided and sourced by the university) and so presumably won't show up in the government data as it doesn't fall under any of their pillars