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Whats confusing?
Your post? Hotels weren't shut in tier 3 before.
scotroutes suggestion was either we vaccinate or tell people that they have to self isolate for ever (as a joke presumably) I thought that was harsh treatment for the folk who’re immune (as a joke). No backtracking needed.
I missed out my bit about "valid medical reason", but anyroadup, how are you going to test for those who are either immune or will develop an immune response? After all, if 30-50% of folk fall into these categories than that's a lot fewer doses required and we can all get back to normal early next year.
Did anyone make much sense of johnson's remarks and (non) answers?
Chris Whitty's responses when invited to comment by johnson are getting closer and closer to...I agree, prime minister; he's playing with johnson.
Sod the government, I'll be sticking to a pretty harsh personal lockdown till the person I'm shielding has the jab at least. Hopefully me at some point too. I'm extremely lucky that I can basically go hermit through all this and I appreciate most people can't.
With (hopefully) a matter of months before vaccine it would be beyond shit if she caught it now "'cos Christmas."
I thought that was harsh treatment for the folk who’re immune (as a joke). No backtracking needed
Ah..you stating 30-50% were immune was a joke. Sorry I didn't get that..maybe because you doubled down with a link to the bmj ...
Anyhow.. dantsw's link to the guardian was interesting..in particular..
While the Oxford results may not immediately look so good, the scientists say they are not comparable, because they have included people who become mildly ill as well as seriously ill, unlike the other two.
Can someone in the know expand a bit more on this point?
I missed out my bit about “valid medical reason”, but anyroadup, how are you going to test for those who are either immune or will develop an immune response? After all, if 30-50% of folk fall into these categories than that’s a lot fewer doses required and we can all get back to normal early next year.
Unless they are loaded I can't see how they'd pay for tests .. that's the sort of money a government finds in order to save double on vaccinations. (Be it 10, 50 or 70%)
However at the moment it doesn't matter if you pay for one privately or not as the UK government isn't acknowledging them. Potentially millions could be going to work, school etc. but I assume we have to wait for the "UK made, world leading vaccine" so we can all be grateful.
stevextc
Free MemberI missed out my bit about “valid medical reason”, but anyroadup, how are you going to test for those who are either immune or will develop an immune response? After all, if 30-50% of folk fall into these categories than that’s a lot fewer doses required and we can all get back to normal early next year.
Immune is still going to be a pretty small number overall. "will develop an immune response", not entirely clear what you mean there but if you just mean "immune system will fight off the disease without much harm" then there's no way to know
The difference in actual vaccine levels required isn't going to be huge either way- easier to brute force it than to try and be clever and introduce multiple processes and tests and doubts etc.
I can't help feeling the mass testing is backward and should be in at tier 1 / 2 where people are still relatively free to meet. Dealing with preventing escalation first.
Ah indeed, could be clear in 20 minutes or so.
I still haven’t got a clue.
Did anyone make much sense of johnson’s remarks and (non) answers?
Not just me then.
I was sat in the car ranting at Boris' failure to say "we have to still be careful" when he came out with a long-winded string of big words instead
KISS, you complete and utter Bellend.
“It is the season to be jolly careful”
Let’s just be “jolly careful”… that’ll keep people in jobs… in touch… in good health… alive. Don’t ask how he could be clearer… ask how he could be any less clear! I fear for the pubs and hospitals alike.
I haven't seen this linked previously (apologies if I missed it)
They started work the same saturday morning that Chinese scientists published the genetic sequence of the virus, and largely had the vaccine designed that weekend. Most of the rest of the time has been scaling up through the various trial stages. Including safety trials.
Remarkable
I think I mentioned this at the time, worth a listen…
PROFILE
The no-nonsense scientist whose team is developing a coronavirus vaccine at record speed. Mark Coles discovers the many talents of Oxford University vaccine specialist, Professor Sarah Gilbert.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000l71b
.
.
.
Edit: it was actually this one I was thinking of…
THE LIFE SCIENTIFIC
How did Sarah Gilbert and her Oxford team get so far, so fast in developing a vaccine for Covid-19?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000mj18
dantsw:- sorry for not replying sooner, I don’t have the graphic you requested but will add it if I look at that region in more detail.
Have been looking at the admissions and deaths data for the first wave by region.
Here’s a chart showing the curves for deaths by region in the first wave....
Looks like a difference in timings, particularly between North West and London. So, here is a chart showing the admissions and deaths for the North West....
Here’s London.....
Was a little surprised to see the death rate peak so early on, it looks like 6th of April.
Have done quite a bit of digging and the most recent article here suggests that time from exposure to death is around 23.5 days...
I did come across another article which referred to a study suggesting the time between exposure and death was around 18 days but I can’t find the link for it now.
So can anyone explain why...
1. Despite all regions locking down at the same time there is a marked time difference between the peaks in London and the North West?
2. The death rate in London peaked 14 days after lock down was introduced. Is this not 9 days earlier than would be expected according to the article linked to above and 4 days earlier than the other study I mentioned? If so, does this not suggest that infection rates were dropping in London before the lockdown was introduced?
Sorry if this has been done before. Please feel free to challenge my data, I do make mistakes sometimes 🙂
So that's more bluster and confusion from Boris then. Again.
Sod the government, I’ll be sticking to a pretty harsh personal lockdown till the person I’m shielding has the jab at least. Hopefully me at some point too. I’m extremely lucky that I can basically go hermit through all this and I appreciate most people can’t.
I'm in a similar boat. Having to help out may parents while limiting their exposure via me is a lot easier when I'm unemployed and have savings to fall back on. It means I can easily have days in between seeing them and me seeing others, buys me time to let any symptoms show before I visit them. If I was working and constantly meeting multiple people I'd feel anxious about picking it up and passing it on so would visit less, currently I can manage gaps between risky scenarios but still get out and about by choosing quiet times for shopping etc. Riding is solo and away from crowds with no visits to others at all. Christmas is planned to be very simple with absolute minimum of family contacts regardless of the rules: christmas day just me, mum and dad. My birthday a few days later (40th!) will be with my sister and New Year will be on my own. Celebrations can be psotponed to the summer.
Ref the AZ vaccine, can anyone explain why a 1/2 dose followed by a full dose is more effective than 2 spaced full doses? Seems counterintuitive.
Think of it as if you're your immune system but you're learning how to juggle. Starting with 2 balls gives you a chance to learn the technique so that when you get 3 or 4 balls you have less of a jump in skillset to make. The small dose gives your immune system a chance to learn how to fight the Covid without being overwhelmed and dropping the ball. Then when it gets exposed to the full dose it can cope much better and learn the skillset to do it immediately.
Is this not 9 days earlier than would be expected
Because we didn’t go from “normal” to “lockdown”, we began acting very differently before the government stepped in… that’s bound to have an effect. The major of London was calling for the people of London to change behaviour before the PM had even accepted that he had a job to do.
It wasn’t just the Mayor of London…
https://fullfact.org/health/coronavirus-lockdown-hancock-claim/
16th of March, the health secretary was calling for strong social distancing measures. Even up here, we were already acting differently a week before he made that call… I wouldn’t be at all surprised if in London more people were getting on with lockdown type behaviours than elsewhere in the UK, because they were way ahead on hospital admissions, and could see the evidence of the size of the problem there, that we could not in the North at that point. Many people had already shifted away from commuting and sharing workspace well before the ‘lockdown’ begun on the 23rd of March… especially in London.
Fair enough Kelvin. It makes sense that the changes in behaviour pre ‘official lockdown’ may explain this. Looking at the chart again it looks like there is a sharper downturn in the death rate around the 11th April so perhaps this is the ‘official lockdown’ kicking in?
kelvin
Full MemberIt wasn’t just the Mayor of London…
https://fullfact.org/health/coronavirus-lockdown-hancock-claim/
16th of March, the health secretary was calling for strong social distancing measures.
This is from the email my employer's head of HR sent (based in the US, but UK offices did the same).
This is a reminder that we are asking all employees and contractors to work remotely on Thursday, March 12
I haven't had a full week in the office since then. I imagine plenty of other companies will have started around the same time.
We had a travel ban about a week before that.
My dads care home locked down and banned all visits on the 12th. I had a race cancelled on the 14th.
It’s also not as simple as taking peak death date and walking back N days. Time to death is a random variable and smooths out the infection time series. Peak to peak can be significantly different to mean time.
In my modelling a “lockdown date” of the 21st simulates data very accurately indeed at national scale. That’s a couple of days earlier than the final official lockdown announcement but much later than many of the initial voluntary actions.
Thanks for the additional replies, appreciated.
I get your point Captain regarding Peak to Peak and variability of time from exposure to death. Note that hospital admissions also peak earlier in London too. Does modelling at National Scale not miss time differences between regions though? Let’s imagine that lockdown has no effect (not saying that’s the case by the way). Modelling at a national scale instead of regional will miss the true picture of what’s happening won’t it?
OK so my next question is regarding the latest data from Covid Zoe....
What’s happening in the South of England? Looks like, for most Southern regions, the infection rate has been slowing since late October. London looks like it has been flat since mid October. I can’t keep track of what restrictions were in place where and when but don’t recall anything being put in place in the South until the latest lockdown from 5 Nov?
Northwind
will develop an immune response”, not entirely clear what you mean there but if you just mean “immune system will fight off the disease without much harm” then there’s no way to know
Am I being naive in thinking that someone who has just had the virus would/could have the same or similar levels of protection as getting a virus?
It seems to me there are lots of families where one or more of them had the virus, think they had or the rest of the house did...who seem (to me) to be lower risk than those who didn't?
The difference in actual vaccine levels required isn’t going to be huge either way- easier to brute force it than to try and be clever and introduce multiple processes and tests and doubts etc.
If we had vaccines NOW ... you can walk into0 any pharmacy in France and get tested to see if you already had the virus. My mate who meets every risk factor had it and didn't even know... and despite the test being pretty accurate did it twice.
The other thing is all the people who "think" they had it are not going to be as likely to get a vaccine. Another mate's wife had what is assumed to be COVID-19 in April and although they share a bed he had no symptoms. Probably unsurprising but neither did the kids...
Given the very limited vaccines do you think they should be at the top of the list and if it was you would you prefer a vulnerable friend/relative/random stranger got one first?
Does modelling at National Scale not miss time differences between regions though?
Yes. And this led to (or at least was used to justify) the end of the Spring lockdown too soon for the North of England… and that led to many of us being put into “almost lockdown” for most of the rest of the year. [ RIP pubs of Northern England. When do my family working in NHS hospitals up here get their restbite? ] TiRed (and I think thecaptain) has been very helpful in giving regional breakdowns for us in this thread. Might be worth paging back and checking them out.
London has a more dynamic epidemic than other regions. Climbed faster and decreased faster. I believe much of this was driven by public transport. It’s a huge driver of transmission, given the enclosed confines, poor ventilation and over-crowding. Anyone who has commuted to Waterloo will know this.
Commuting in London was falling well before the lockdown. This was on the local news every night from the beginning of March.
The North is where it is, not due to poor behaviours, but due to phasing of the epidemic. We unlocked when they were higher than the south due to the initial lag. Then just grew at the same rate. There’s no exceptionalism here. There is a perhaps a little more inter generation mixing in some ethnic groups, but the bigger issue is where it started from in August.
“I’m not here to tell people what they should or shouldn’t do”
Some useful advice from the transport secretary this morning on the radio as regards your travel plans after Monday. Good luck…
Well, “full information” is coming Thursday, according to the same “trying to sound helpful” government source on the radio. No point planning anything ‘till then. Four days of noise… why not tell us what is happening clearly in one go?
but the bigger issue is where it started from in August.
Well, come on, don't leave us hanging...?
No point planning anything ‘till then. Four days of noise… why not tell us what is happening clearly in one go?
A few days ago one of the big science groups published evidence that one of the big contributors to spread was peoples habits after the early leaking of news of restrictions. As we here all know via common sense, when people were told they couldn't go to the pub on Monday/shopping on Tuesday/visit people by Thursday they concentrated on doing exactly the opposite for the few day's prior. So the Government aka Cummings strategy was/is a major factor in transmission which begs the questions - why persist with "leaks" and early information?
Having said that, I do feel this week is being manage slightly better in that its a reverse trend - things could get slightly better for some of us from next Tuesday but we are all on tenterhooks to discover that on Thursday. Will there be a greying of the edges over the weekend, with people blurring the lines of lockdown vs thier applicable Tier on the basis "ah well what could a few days early do..."
Well, come on, don’t leave us hanging…?
i assumed that TiRed means the background level the rise started from in august.
Thanks for the replies. Sorry if I have misunderstood or missed something but I still don’t think anyone has explained....
“Looks like, for most Southern regions, the infection rate has been slowing since late October. London looks like it has been flat since mid October”
Has anyone read the COVID Winter Plan doc? Does it say how you get out of Tier 3 back down to Tier 2, or from 2 to 1? That very important piece was missing when we had the 3 tiers recently
I get the feeling that W Yorks & most of the NW are going into Tier 3 again. Most of the NW has been in "virtual" T3 since March apart from a 3 week window
just when you feel the year couldn't be worse
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-55042114
Mrs Brown's boys and Call the Midwife are the headline BBC Christmas shows.
But...
Week 46 mortality analysis shows that deaths for the week-ending a week last Friday were 22.5% above historic 10-year mean. They will start to flatten due to Tiers and Lockdown2. They most likely won't reach 25-30/100k - that would be the worst flu season in 10 years. Note the peak in the second week of the year - that is the post-Christmas "turkey flu" as someone called it yesterday.
i assumed that TiRed means the background level the rise started from in august.
Precisely. In epidemic land, you have to plot data on semi-log plots, since cases, hospitalisations and deaths all grow or shrink in a geometric manner. A common slope indicates the same growth rate, irrespective of the starting levels. Common slopes for admissions were noted across the NHS regions. I've asked them to add a log-option to the plots, on https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/ but none yet.
Here is that data to yesterday on a log plot. look at the slopes - not a lot of difference going on.
Note the North West in particular where cases have turned over, and of course NI and Scotland. Interventions do work. They me economically unpalatable, but that is a different debate.
@TiRed - curious what causes the down-spike on both lines at week 35/36 - some sort of reporting artefact?
@TiRed – curious what causes the down-spike on both lines at week 35/36 – some sort of reporting artefact?
August bank holiday. They don't trend in phase because this year fell in ISO week 36 (Aug 30), one week later compared to 9/10 of the previous years. The dip on Week 19 was VE day.
But…
Spoiler for You should look away now Dr Who fans
Yay!
Many thanks for posting that Tired, its very interesting. That will lag the infection rate charted by Zoe though, won’t it?
Does the data I listed from Zoe not suggest that those trends will start bending soon for the South of England? What is the last date on the x axis? Can you plot the Zoe data in the same format?
I am not suggesting that interventions don’t work by the way. I am, however, questioning why....
The infection rate appears to have been levelling off in Southern England before lockdown 2.
The infection rate appears to have already been decreasing in Liverpool before they went into tier 3.
Yes I expect and have predicted the curve to turnover this week to next. The last date should be Nov 20 and the dashed lines are significant intervention dates. I'm of the opinion that local data is not as helpful due to stochastic variation. Finding one area that looks good, can be countered by one that looks poor. Hence NHS regions are probably the right level, nation too large and UK unhelpful.
I've done the same forward regression with both ONS and REACT surveys. This makes stronger predictions about the course of admissions and deaths. But forward projection to deaths is less than two weeks from prevalence. ONS death projection below. These surveys are informative, trends do feed through the chain. Why should we be surprised otherwise?
thols2, inside that professor's head must be a really weird and scary place.
I was staggered that the government plan to spend £22billion a year on track and trace! It's an absolute shambles.
Thanks again Tired. So are you in agreement that the infection rate began to slow in the Southern regions before lockdown 2 was introduced?
I guess we will have another reference point when the weekly ONS survey figures are published later this week.
So are you in agreement that the infection rate began to slow in the Southern regions before lockdown 2 was introduced?
More than that, he told us, pages ago, that he expected it to, and told us when we were likely to see the effect in the figures for admissions and deaths.
Where are you going with this? That changes in behaviour before lockdown (both mandated by government and chosen by companies and individuals voluntarily based on scientific advice from amongst others SAGE) can reduce transmission?
began to slow in the Southern regions before lockdown 2
A little - there was not a lot of evidence in the South, beyond rule of 6. Tier 1 does little to limit spread. The South West has higher hospital admissions now than in the Spring. Below is a plot of data-derived doubling time and growth rate for the epidemic by region. Note the consistency and 7-10 day doubling, a small fall, and then a decline since lockdown towards stable or shrinkage.
Kelvin,
There are anomalies (from my perspective at least) in the data that I can’t get my head around and this is why I have started posting. I don’t dispute any of the responses I have received (and do greatly appreciate them) but am not yet personally convinced that infection rates are slowing solely as a result of interventions. I have no data to back this up, apart from what I have already posted. This is why I have been seeking feedback.
Haven’t been on the thread much lately so not really up to speed with what has been posted previously, sorry. When I get more time I will go back through the thread.
I will step away for now as I’m spending too much time melting my brain with it all 🙂
Cheers
squaredog