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You use the words "properly planned" as if they are a concept this administration gives a flying chuff about.
Two words, minister, "plausible deniability".
Death levels now back to normal?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-53233066
Now i'm not going to suggest that the virus has gone away, but are the people now dying from this the ones who would have probably died of some other disease in this period?
Not necessarily. It could easily be completely different people. The social distancing measures may have reduced (as well as in some cases adding to) deaths by all sorts of unrelated causes. You can't simplistically say that the people dying of this Coronavirus now would have been dying now anyway, far from it.
Yes, all-cause mortality is back to historic baseline. I use ten-year mean. There are a couple of outliers (45-64 and 65-75), but the numbers are now modest. The question now is whether they will dip below baseline (subjects would have died anyway) or remain above (life expectancy has fallen). Personally, I suspect the former.
Proportion of positive tests is what really matters in pillar 1 and 2 data. I have some analyses of lower tier authority data that identified Leicestershire as a hot spot, but there are others.
Proportion of positive tests is what really matters in pillar 1 and 2 data.
Is that proportion of tests, or proportion of people tested?
Shocking headline from the BBC, sends completely the wrong message "deaths back to normal- everybody crack on"
We've been quick to criticise poor government communication, but the media have been giving it the full "Squirrel!" as well.
Leicester may have more underlying respiratory issues too. I recall a news article from a few years ago that identified air pollution in Leicester as one of the worst places in the country.
EDIT : 9th worst in Europe BBC News
Air quality isn't great in Southampton either, between all the personal vehicles and the cruise ships, Woolston area by the water has been worst hit by covid-19.
BBC should be shot for that "just flu bro" headline, some don't need much encouragement to pretend this pandemic is over, when the truth is far closer to us being on a knife edge.
Proportion of tests.
If you test more people you will find more cases 😉 But whether that means more transmission or more finding is moot. The harder endpoints are hospital admissions (same fraction will always report for hospital) and eventual deaths (same proportion of hospitalised patients still die). Deaths are declining to a few hundred/week now. That’s the hardest endpoint. Other-cause deaths must be lower because the expected number of people are dying.
The harder endpoints are hospital admissions (same fraction will always report for hospital) and eventual deaths (same proportion of hospitalised patients still die).
As I understand it from a BBC report the other day, the number of Covid patients dying in hospital has dropped from 6% to 1%. Various reasons were put forward, including people being admitted earlier in the illness now there is more capacity, and treatment being more effective.
So do those kind of factors knock out your "same proportion" hypothesis?
Not really, the ons prevalence data looks at 20k tests. We might be admitting a few percentage points more patients, but deaths are deaths, survival from the ITU is not great (25-33% die). And the elderly don’t find their way into them in the first instance. Nursing home mortality is declining. That’s a key barometer outside of the community.
Hi @TiRed firstly as I've not said it at any point, thanks for all your contribution to the thread.
Secondly, if you have the right data, what's the chances of this Leicester lockdown only lasting two weeks. I could care less about pubs, shops etc. But chucking the bike in the car is generally what I live for! Bit of a longshot I know!
Other-cause deaths must be lower because the expected number of people are dying.
Negative consequences of lockdown , including people scared away with cancer, heart disease etc now abating
But pubs still closed, traffic still lower, millions not commuting to work, less opportunity to get run over etc and lockdown is also protecting us from other diseases that we might normally encounter
So is that the entire population of Leicester nipping round to Dominic Cummings' mum and dad's then?
So the US has bought up the entire world supply of Remdesivir (Yay for capitalism!)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jun/30/us-buys-up-world-stock-of-key-covid-19-drug
Has this been established as actually useful in ARDS?
Has this been established as actually useful in ARDS?
My colleagues on covid wards said that with dexamethasone it's been really good
Bind for UK, at this point sensible thing would be to just by cheap from Asia, but UK pharma companies would hit the roof
So the US has bought up the entire world supply of Remdesivir (Yay for capitalism!)
I really wouldn’t be too upset. The patients in whom it seems to work need to be mild/moderate, O2 >94% on room air and treated early. It’s an IV drug with daily infusions. You would not be admitted to a U.K. hospital with those symptoms so you wouldn’t get it anyway. It doesn’t do much for the sickest patients.
In fact,I’m very skeptical that it’s doing anything. And it’s my day job to test these things! Now dexamethasone, that’s a different matter. As will be tocilizumab/sarilumab in the most severe patients. The anti-Covid antibodies will also be along soon. I have a lot more faith in those.
not moving on I see
molgrips
Subscriber
Quite. Scotland’s figure’s have been largely on a par with the UK average. A little better than England, worse than Wales and NI. Also up there with the worst of Europe, too (Somewhere around Spain and Belgium IIRC).According to the govt:
England 287 cases/100,000 people
NI 259
Scotland 291
Wales 501
I think using case numbers in isolation is a bit skewed you need to look at cases/deaths/testing, and that'll give you a more accurate gauge?
Cases
Eng 160,587 / 55.98m * 100k = 286 per 100k
Ni 5,760 / 1.882 * 100k = 306 per 100k
Sco 18,251 / 5.454m * 100k = 334 per 100k
Wal 15,743 / 3.136m * 100k = 502 per 100k
Deaths
Eng 39,187 / 55.98m * 100k = 70 per 100k
Ni 551 / 1.882 * 100k = 29 per 100k
Sco 2,482 / 5.454m * 100k = 45 per 100k
1,510 / 3.136m * 100k = 48 per 100k
Testing
Eng 2,293,944 / 55.98m * 100k = 4097 per 100k
Ni 101,506 / 1.882 * 100k = 5393 per 100k
Sco 272,561 / 5.454m * 100k = 4997 per 100k
Wal 182,303 / 3.136m * 100k = 5813 per 100k
I used the numbers from here.
https://coronavirus-staging.data.gov.uk/testing
ps confirmed cases only obv. doesn't include the excess deaths from ONS/NRS/NISRA
You can’t simplistically say that the people dying of this Coronavirus now would have been dying now anyway, far from it.
I listened to an interesting episode of More or Less on R4 a couple of weeks ago. I expect you can still stream it. Hosted by Tim Harford (economics/stats guy) his guest speaker was an actuary.
They were talking about whether it is true to say "the majority of deaths are in older/vulnerable people who would have died soon anyway"
By relating it to life expectancy stats for people of various ages/conditions that make them higher risk, they disproved this theory.
One of the examples was (from memory) a man in his 80s, overweight, smoker, heart condition. The insurance world (callous as this sounds) still puts his life expectancy at over 5 years, so while someone might say "he'd have died in a couple of months anyway" it's statistically unlikely.
So is that the entire population of Leicester nipping round to Dominic Cummings’ mum and dad’s then?
Nope, they'll satisfy themselves with travelling 5-10 miles outside the city and descending on pubs in the surrounding towns and villages like a plague of locusts.
If the police are on the lookout they can also increase their drink-drive arrest rates into the bargain.
@petefromearth - I mentioned this weeks ago. These people are dying because of Covid, not dying with it. The words are very important.
So the US has bought up the entire world supply of Remdesivir
This just shows how insular and selfish the American government has got. By god that nation has gone backward a rate of knots.
Anyway, to post something more positive this morning I’m paying the VED and taking the car for a drive at lunchtime, first time I’ve driven for 3 months!
Anyway, to post something more positive this morning I’m paying the VED and taking the car for a drive at lunchtime, first time I’ve driven for 3 months!
I'm sure its positive on a personal level but a significantly reduced number of cars on the roads has been one of the few positives of the virus.
It’s a fair point. The car needs a run though and I need to get some paint for the weekend and a few other bits so to be fair it’ll be properly warmed up on a 20 min motorway cruise going the long way around and takes into account what could have been several Independent trips.
It’s also not something I’ll be doing every day of course.
Anyway, to post something more positive this morning I’m paying the VED and taking the car for a drive at lunchtime, first time I’ve driven for 3 months!
Are you sure your eyesight is up to driving?
Are you sure your eyesight is up to driving?
That a good point. As I'm from London I best use the Government's demonstrable guidance to find out by using the same route...
Anyway, to post something more positive this morning I’m paying the VED and taking the car for a drive at lunchtime, first time I’ve driven for 3 months!
Enjoy! I did the same with the motorbike last week and that's the first time it's been ridden since October.
In fact,I’m very skeptical that it’s doing anything. And it’s my day job to test these things! Now dexamethasone, that’s a different matter. As will be tocilizumab/sarilumab in the most severe patients. The anti-Covid antibodies will also be along soon. I have a lot more faith in those.
That was my impression, too. Cheers.
So, looking at the local data, who's next for local lockdown? I'm looking at Bradford and seeing a lot of similarities in terms of in-hospital positive testing.
Unfortunately, it's going to be hotspot after hotspot from now on. Whack-a-mole is the perfect analogy.
New Scientist on Scotland's approach.
Puts forward Scotland might actually get to virus controlled if it weren't for England.
You’re all thinking it wrong. You should be thinking “low spots” Not “hot spots”. These are early days for an endemic pathogen which has been experienced by about 5% of the population - three times that in London. You read it here first.
Lockdown was about gaining breathing space not eradication.
Unfortunately, it’s going to be hotspot after hotspot from now on. Whack-a-mole is the perfect analogy.
Wasn't it always a case of hotspots, there were just a lot of them. Now we are just hoping there aren't going to be multiple simultaneous large flare ups. Guess the question is have we got to the point where it's just going to keep smouldering away or have we just created the ideal conditions for flare ups. I'm going for the latter unless we get a big shift in messaging and attitudes. I did have a WTF moment when July 4th was referred to as Super Saturday - unless we get away from seeing things a life style experience and back to life and death then I can't see how we get a handle on this.
Whackamole is the perfect analogy. Once you see the mole and **** it over the head the mole has already dug up half the lawn and copped off with Mrs Mole who is now carrying a litter of ten more moles.
Spaffs sometimes gets things right, but mostly by the same means that a broken clock gets the time right twice every day.
It's Boris - The Phantom Raspberry Blower of Old London Town is more likely
Nope, they’ll satisfy themselves with travelling 5-10 miles outside the city and descending on pubs in the surrounding towns and villages like a plague of locusts.
So this means that the infection area circumference will be pushed out by that 5-10 miles every time. They'll then lockdown that area, those people then drive the 5-10 miles to the next towns etc, etc.
Except in this case the mole is not receiving the fatal whack. I'm reading that the Leicester issue is related to garment sweatshops where workers were told to report to work even though furlough money had been claimed. Apparently participating in religious festivals has put some minority groups way above the going rate. Why would Suppurate Saturday being any different?
Uh oh
My London borough is in there... how does this news feel amongst the potential pub goers of the weekend? One would hope they lock it down right away, but I'm kinda almost convinced to put my mortgage on the fact it'll be next Monday, right...?
It is believed that the City of Bradford and boroughs in London, including Brent and Harrow, could be the next to lockdown after sources confirmed there were an increased number of COVID-19 cases over the last week.
Well, that didn't take long!
Lockdown was about gaining breathing space not eradication.
That was a political choice, and the wrong one.
We absolutely should be eradicating, and then opening up with a working track/trace/isolate system in place (that includes local bodies being given full information and the means to act, and the existence of a mobile app to help us do our bit). We should safely have all our kids back at school, and be using public transport relatively normally again... the fact that we are not is down to the political decisions of this government.
x100000, kelvin
Success for UK would have looked like Germany.
One would hope they lock it down right away, but I’m kinda almost convinced to put my mortgage on the fact it’ll be next Monday, right…?
You would have to marvel and the folly if the government go for spin over substance and hold off because it doesn't fit with the fourth timeline. Have they even changed the alert level? Although this situation does expose the flaws in that scale - seeing as it appears it was written to be all about coming out rather than understanding going back. Even if it went back to go level 4 the action is maintain the current levels. They would need to be at level 5 for action to address the flare up.
Not forgetting that thousands of people should be alive now, or in far better health, but are not, through political choice. And thousands more will have their fate sealed in the upcoming months. A poltical choice. Still… 4th July… let’s party…
I’m reading that the Leicester issue is related to garment sweatshops where workers were told to report to work even though furlough money had been claimed.
Meanwhile, on local news they have been reporting closures of schools and meat factories in the city for a couple of weeks now.
I’ve said it before, but we are in an era of a fifth coronavirus. I don’t believe in eradication. Cross-transmission and importation will be with us regardless of local lockdowns. But I absolutely believe in protecting the most vulnerable. The lack of testing and discharging into nursing homes has been an abject failure in that regard.
That’s where I would be placing all my efforts in time for schools reopening (local transmission), universities returning (mass regional mixing) and winter.
Edit:Wrong thread
I don’t believe in eradication.
You don’t believe in eradication in the UK. Other countries have it as a short term political aim, ‘till either care or prophylactic measures are good enough for us to “live with” the virus. That is how you protect the vulnerable in the short term, not lock them and their families and carers off from a population that keeps the virus spreading thanks to a political choice that we should accept that.
I don’t believe in eradication. Cross-transmission and importation will be with us regardless of local lockdowns.
It just feels that there hasn't been enough emphasis on damping down and keeping down so there is atleast a fighting chance of containment for future flare ups. Scotland seems to have achieved the damp down very effectively but has a very real and risk of rapid importation flare ups from England. I am very concerned team Boris is very much the Sun has got his hat on hip hip hip hurray / Happy Days are here again. The latter being particularly appropriate given the latest round of How Boris am I, How Boris am I, what a fine day for rehashing old cash and claiming to be Franklin D Roosevelt. You'd kind of want them to be pushing the risk / mitigation message harder but that's just not jolly.
Be upbeat. Show some guts. Fine parents. Spread the bonhomie (not the virus, somehow).
Timing is everything…
Earlier into lockdown. Earlier out.
Get track/trace/isolate in place before coming out, not months afterwards.
Test in the community when the epidemic is growing, not afterwards.
Lockdown care homes before sending infected people into them, not afterwards.
Quarantine people when the countries they are coming from are struggling with the virus, not after the have it under control.
Boris is Captain of the Golgafrinchan B Ark.
That’s where I would be placing all my efforts in time for schools reopening (local transmission), universities returning (mass regional mixing) and winter.
Here in MK weve had a nursery & school had to close down because of children, staff & parents getting it
https://www.miltonkeynes.co.uk/health/coronavirus/nursery-centre-covid-19-outbreak-assures-people-there-no-risk-wider-public-milton-keynes-2895764
we were on a list in the Express ! of regions likely to go into lockdown, presumably because of this one flare up
but the official stats say only 2 new cases in the last week, presumably this is because the pillar 2 data is not being made public
My colleague at Mk hosital says theyve reopend a covid ward & have one serious case in there
either way the local facebook groups are having a meltdown!
Lets hope the government are learning from all this before schools/unis go back in autimn/winter
Hopefully they will, but they really do seem to make things harder for themselves & all of us
Well, I was wrong about trusting people to wear masks properly. After seeing a clip of passengers and staff at Man airport preparing for fights, there were quite a few with masks off their nose, touching their masks continuously and fiddling with them.
Wash hands thoroughly,
Get a mask that fits properly and DON'T touch it until you can safely dispose of it (or better still get a re-usable mask that can be washed at 60), when it's safe to take off.
Then wash hands thoroughly once again.
It is believed that the City of Bradford and boroughs in London, including Brent and Harrow, could be the next to lockdown
So putting an arbitrary lines along streets in a metropolis like London, without any reliable testing and any actual enforcement is going to achieve......what?
This was a balls up from the moment we didn't lockdown early and properly. Without a proper test, track and trace, this is all basically a waste of time.
So this means that the infection area circumference will be pushed out by that 5-10 miles every time. They’ll then lockdown that area, those people then drive the 5-10 miles to the next towns etc, etc.
Yep, and I live 5-10 miles outside Leicester's 'naughty boy lockdown line', so all the peckerheads are heading in my direction. Leicester is c.600,000. If 1% are peckerheads (it is more) then that is 6,000 people who are going to tunnel under the wall* to go for a pint in surrounding villages and towns. Then we're locked down for two weeks, despite the fact that the damage has already been done and a further 5-10 miles gets locked down next time.
*Drive down a totally open and unpatrolled road.
Too little, too late, and not done properly. The English covid response perfectly illustrated.
Then we’re locked down for two weeks, despite the fact that the damage has already been done and a further 5-10 miles gets locked down next time.
Leicester is pretty much bang in the middle of England. how many weeks before this creeping wall of misery encompasses us all?
The idea is return to level 4 for the city? Then level 3 for the buffer zone? Being overly cautious I'd want be seeing atleast 10miles at level 3. Then County / regional - movement restrictions on top of that. Stressing of biosecurity nationally and really ramming that message home locally. That said, seeing as this was seen as a high case area 8 days ago I'm thinking it's already too late.
It is amazing the government have a list of areas and a risk and an alert scale but don't seem to be using it. County level might be too broad and district / borough level is better.
Germany is looking at making lockdowns a more local thing than the existing district/borough approach. I watch in near dismay as they iterate through their post-national lockdown phase, improving their response style each time, and compare it to the UK, currently looking for its arse with both hands.
Well, as Derbyshire is on the Daily Express List of Doom I shall look forward to an imminent announcement.
Not forgetting that thousands of people should be alive now, or in far better health, but are not, through political choice. And thousands more will have their fate sealed in the upcoming months. A poltical choice.
That is nothing new. An NHS with unlimited funding would be able to give better treatment and better support to a wide range of physical and mental health conditions. There is a political decision regarding how much money to give the NHS which ultimately means thousands die or live in misery every year. This year its being reported on the news, most years those people just suffer quietly waiting for treatment that may never come.
Currently - these people die of this novel Coronavirus even with the best medical care available to them. We can not save them just by “supercharging” the NHS. We need to keep the virus away from people ‘till we know enough to save more lives when people get the virus, or have ways of stopping people transmitting/catching the virus. This medical emergency is precisely because the virus is “new”. So this is new.
I’m with you on NHS funding, and the political decisions around them, but we are currently at the stage with this virus that actions need to happen outside the NHS to save lives.
oldagedpredator Subscriber
The idea is return to level 4 for the city? Then level 3 for the buffer zone? Being overly cautious I’d want be seeing atleast 10miles at level 3. Then County / regional – movement restrictions on top of that. Stressing of biosecurity nationally and really ramming that message home locally. That said, seeing as this was seen as a high case area 8 days ago I’m thinking it’s already too late.
It doesn't fell like there's any idea. As far as I can tell, there's a map that's been produced with a red line around the city and some of the county. Within that line, non-essential shops closed yesterday, school's close tomorrow and none of the of the 4th July relaxations are happening. On top of this, it's been 'recommended' that no non essential travel is taken. No idea on exercise, meeting people etc. it's just not been communicated.
This was said to be for two weeks, which in theroy started yesterday but I read today that it'll be reviewed on the 18th, pretty much 3 weeks. To me, due to my lifestyle and work, it feels pretty much like I'm back at the 23rd March for another 3 weeks.
Where I live, is within the Charnwood Borough, same as dannyh, about half a mile inside the red line.
So the US has bought up the entire world supply of Remdesivir
I hope this doesn’t lead to countries being secretive about promising new treatments for fear of the US buying up all the stock.
Bugger Bedford and Central beds are nice and inside the top 30.
Personally we didn't really ever release lockdown but don't think we will have a choice shortly
BBC have now published a story saying that the lists are fake news and can’t be taken in isolation to predict where a lockdown might occur...which is interesting seeing as they were quick to jump on the story earlier with claims of where the next lockdowns might occur.
And all this would be avoidable if the government actually published all the data
Now Sky are saying there's over 150 places on the new Lockdown list? I mean seriously, this is just a second lockdown/wave isn't it?
Now Sky are saying there’s over 150 places on the new Lockdown list
No they're not, that list in that article is just the top 150 ordered by cases per 100000 in the last 7 days
And it’s not a second wave… it’s the long tail of the first wave that we haven’t finished the job of seeing off.
Do you know I’ve got some weirdness with my eye / contact lenses. I think I need to stop reading the news until it goes away :-/
mudmuncher
MemberI hope this doesn’t lead to countries being secretive about promising new treatments for fear of the US buying up all the stock.
I hope it leads to every country with a pharma industry selling them sugar tablets for a fortune.
So the US has bought up the entire world supply of Remdesivir
It has a generic. If I was a government in Europe I'd just buy that and invite Gilead and the USA to swivel if they kick up a fuss over the patent law.
Speaking of America, looks like its out of control
https://twitter.com/COVID19Tracking/status/1278472369045032960?s=20
4th July weekend as well
All those graphs are going up, except deaths are going down. Why is that?
Is it just that deaths lag behind the other indicators? Can't be that because the peak in the deaths graph matches up with the timing of the peaks in the other graphs
The key thing there is that hospitalisations are up
Which ruins trump's claim it's all down to extra testing
Grim
Hopefully things are moving along with the app…
https://www.theregister.com/2020/07/01/germany_helping_uk_contact_tracing_app/
If we're doing things like Germany, they have a cut-off of 50 cases per 100k for lockdowns
Then we'd have 6 regions locked down
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1278403041100738561?s=19
Those stats aren't terribly helpful in table form because they combine regions and subsets of regions in one list. 🙄
This won’t come as a surprise, but the PHE datasets for NHS cases and deaths are not broken down in the same way as the ONS data - (which is nation, country, upper tier local authority, lower tier local authority). Some NHS trusts may be in the North East, but. Fall in NHS North East etc... Honestly you couldn’t make it up.
So merging pillar 1 and pillar 2 data (when it comes) by authority is nontrivial. Anyway I have yet to see the data but the ONS LTLA data for hospitals showed the same effect in the East Midlands and has for some time.
The key thing there is that hospitalisations are up
The per-state graphs were quite enlightening, it simply looks like the first wave of infection is still sweeping across the continent.
As TiReD has repeatedly pointed out, looking at numbers for a country the size of the US may not be that helpful, the "unit of infection" is much smaller.
The US can be viewed in the same way as the whole of the EU. Think of NY State as Italy. Now add all those countries/states together...
The effect of later importation is a time delay in exponential growth. The epidemic spread is muted for the later countries/states due to earlier lockdown (in theory), but releasing all at the same time will not have the same effect everywhere. Sounds obvious when you say it. The net effect is a longer flatter peak in the epidemic. EU started within about three weeks of each other, probably from a common event (skiing holiday). The US may have had multiple importations or with country spread.
A one size fits all can’t be the answer though in a country that size. Possibly not in the U.K. either. Epidemics are stabilised to local extinction by movements across borders. Be it in a hospital (Ward to ward), a town (home to school), a county (commuting, goods distribution), a country or a continent.
The genie is out of the bottle.
Kryton57
Do you know I’ve got some weirdness with my eye / contact lenses. I think I need to stop reading the news until it goes away :-/
Pop the family in the car and drive to Barnard Castle... soon sort that out.