USA has recorded 1 million cases in the first 5 days of December 😱😱

If you look at the US infection graphs on worldometers, you can see daily cases sharply increase 4-5 days after thanksgiving. Suspect we’ll see the same here after Christmas.

@mudmuncher: no

Two key points:……

@gray, thanks, I see where I was going wrong now.

If it’s 29/70 really need to think in terms of 140 infections rather than 99 which is what it would likely have been with an ineffective vaccine.

I’ve just listened to the BioNTech boss on news night – the 90% efficacy means 90% reduction in symptoms.

I have it in my head the Ox/Az 70% is actually reduction in infection rather than Symptoms. They also have had no serious cases.

Didn’t they routinely screen the Oxford subjects irrespective of symptoms but only tested people who had symptoms for the biontech vaccine, so asymptomatic cases in the mRNA trial would be missed, so the Oxford vaccine might actually have a similar efficacy when that is factored in.

but the actual equation should be (50-50)/100 = 0% effective

Meant (50-50)/50 = 0%

The null hypothesis is essentially what would happen if there was no difference, in this case of 100 infections, you would expect about 50 from each if the drug does nothing vs placebo.
Therefore, if there IS a statistically significant difference between the arms it’s attributable to the drug.

That is, assuming you get your randomization (who goes into what treatment arm) correct of course, and don’t unconsciously bias one of the groups towards better/worse outcomes. Thats pretty basic and I wouldn’t usually bother saying it – but you know, we seem to have given a load of people the wrong dose so…..

Yes I know and that is what I stated – 50/50 is zero effect, based on the numbers tired gave the 95% mRNA is only 90% effective and the ~70% ox/az is only 41%. My point was using tired’s rationale for his numbers above then a completely useless vaccine would be rated at 50% effective (50/100) but the actual equation should be (50-50)/100 = 0% effective

Edit :- What I’m trying to say is if you have a 70% effective vaccine then in my mind the split should be 15/85 not ~30/70 as tired was suggesting.

Efficacy is calculated based on events not total population treated. So you dose 40,000 people, half on each arm, and you look when you’ve acquired 100 infections. The null hypothesis is that there will be about 50 infections in a each. The alternative is that the split is not even because the vaccinated arm has done something.

The mRNA vaccines split about 5/95. Think heads and tails. The AZ/OX vaccine split about 29/70 (but they haven’t released the real numbers). Both are very unlikely by chance.

@Tired are you mistaken with your figures/calculation above or have I been misunderstanding the figures quoted for vaccine effectiveness ~95% for mRNA and ~70% for OX/AZ.

If someone told me a vaccine was 50% effective then I’d assume it would cut the number of infections in half, but the inference from your numbers above is it would do absolutely nothing, 50/50 infections vaccine/placebo

For the ~70% effective oxford vaccine where you quote 29/70, then zero effect would be 49.5/49.5 (99 samples). Therefore number of infections prevented based on 29/70 is 49.5-29=20.5, surely then the effectiveness is 20.5/49.5 = 41%

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.

33k yesterday 27k today, its looking like the flattening on cases didnt happen to me.
If you look at the cases graph here

When the 2nd lockdown was announced a lot of people piled into pubs/restaurants, visited friends and family for the last time Etc. Factoring in the incubation time, delay in getting a test, delay getting results and reporting delays the uptick in numbers in the last few days could possibly correspond to the period just before lockdown.

I use OSMaps app on my phone to mark out the route I want to follow, then export the gpx to my Garmin watch which gives you a breadcrumb trail but also alerts at turnings and buzzes if you go off route, most of the time this is fine but occasionally I’ll stop to look at the detailed map on the phone if I’m unsure.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/metro.co.uk/2020/10/29/scientist-who-infected-himself-twice-says-herd-immunity-hopes-are-futile-13501883/amp/

Concerning the second infection was far worse than the first.

Yeah, planning on sticking to the underside of the slates where they overhang the valley, then onto the lead.

Doesn’t need to be wide as I’m only sealing one side. Have ordered some 50mm flashband which was the narrowest I could find.

Would flashband peel off the slates ok when I need to remove?

Based between Reading/Oxford

They claim there’s insufficient evidence.

That report is nearly 4 months old now and I recall the NICE study was critised for not reviewing all the latest evidence at the time.

PHE advise is everyone takes 10 micrograms?

I think that’s a general recommendation in place before Covid. It’s also a fairly low dose. I’ve been taking 50ug for the last few months.

On the subject of vitamin D, I don’t know why the govt aren’t recommending people take this as a prophylactic to guard against Covid and also high dose IV vit D given given to anyone admitted to hospital.

The small pilot study below showed only 2% of patients given IV vitamin D on hospital admission for Covid progressed to ICU, vs 50% of patients who weren’t given vit D. None of the patients taking vit D died.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960076020302764

Small numbers in the study I know, but pretty startling results. Surely for something so cheap and risk free they should be jumping on this.

Maybe the fact it is so cheap and doesn’t have patents associated with it means drug companies aren’t interested in pushing it.

The message I took away from it was that a national lockdown wasn’t appropriate because it isn’t currently appropriate for Cornwall or Kent.

Still don’t understand their rationale for this. R>1 everywhere, it’s just infection levels are a lowish in the south (at the moment) but the south is still on the wrong trajectory.

It seems inevitable we’ll have to have a number of on/off lockdowns when it gets really bad. For a series of fixed period lockdowns With exponential growth you could bounce between 200 to 1000 daily deaths, 20 to 100 or 2 to 10 daily deaths. The time in lockdown would be identical between the 3 scenarios, however the deaths, impact on health etc are far worse by delaying. Unfortunately we are governed by morons.

Picked up my new Spur on Friday. First impressions are excellent. Had a T130 for 4 years prior so will be on this a while I think!

@lawman91 – Nice, what was the lead time to get a spur. Just found out from Orbea the OIZ TR isn’t available until April

D) it’s pretty clear they are setting Burnham up. They can easily impose tier 3 without the mayor but have created this conflict so they can blame him if the hospitals get overwhelmed

There is a repeatable daily pattern in the numbers due to reporting logistics.

Monday is always low.

Last Monday was 50 deaths so we have a 60% increase at 80 this Monday.

If that 60% increase follows through to tomorrow’s deaths where we had 143 last Tuesday (Tuesday is always high), We could sadly pass the 200 deaths in a day milestone. (229 tomorrow based on a 60% increase)

You can’t really infer much looking at day to day trends.

241 deaths today sadly, close to the 229 I suggested yesterday.

Today’s numbers (modulo random Excel bugs in PHE’s reporting) are 80, and 67 yesterday (weekends always low though). 7 day moving average has been flat the last day or two.

https://coronavirus-staging.data.gov.uk/details/deaths

Of course, it’s entirely possible that it will pick up again.

There is a repeatable daily pattern in the numbers due to reporting logistics.

Monday is always low.

Last Monday was 50 deaths so we have a 60% increase at 80 this Monday.

If that 60% increase follows through to tomorrow’s deaths where we had 143 last Tuesday (Tuesday is always high), We could sadly pass the 200 deaths in a day milestone. (229 tomorrow based on a 60% increase)

You can’t really infer much looking at day to day trends.

https://www.runnersworld.com/gear/a25750345/running-shoes-flat-feet/

Some ideas if you haven’t seen this article already.

Thanks! Will take a look.

Can anyone recommend running shoes with no arch support?

I have flat feet and find trainers with arch supports become painful to run in.

I’ve tried some Saucony Omni iso2’s and Brooks Transcend 7 but have had to send them back as the arches are too high.

From sky news…..

A widely-circulated open letter calling on governments to pursue herd immunity is counting homeopaths, therapists and fake names among its “medical” signatories, leading to accusations that it falsely represents scientific support for the controversial position.

The Great Barrington Declaration, a letter organised by prominent advocates of herd immunity, claims to have been signed by more than 15,000 scientists and medical practitioners, as well as more than 150,000 members of the general public.

Yet Sky News found dozens of fake names on the list of medical signatories, which anyone can add to if they tick a box and enter a name. These included Dr. I.P. Freely, Dr. Person Fakename and Dr. Johnny Bananas, who listed himself as a “Dr of Hard Sums”.

https://news.sky.com/story/coronvairus-dr-johnny-bananas-and-dr-person-fakename-among-medical-signatories-on-herd-immunity-open-letter-12099947

Just bought a rab borealis at £65. Lightweight and packs down really small.

I did a couple of 5Ks last week. First time I’d been running in about 15years. Despite doing a fair bit of cycling my legs ached for days but what I’d didn’t expect was my core ached even more, so I assume running must give your core a pretty good workout.

I got a demo bike from YT which I took for a lap of swinley.

Nice bike, looks great in the green. It was definitely a lot better on the downhills, jumps and drop offs than my old Anthem 29er, however I was still a bit faster overall on the anthem on a lot (But not all) of the sections given the anthem climbs so well. I wasn’t too impressed with the forecaster tyres so I’d change them and the brakes were a bit underwhelming, the BB felt quiet low and I had a few more pedal strikes than usual. I think for most of the trails in the U.K. it is a really good option.

I see Trump just tested positive for Covid. A few good swigs of bleach should sort him out!

Text book “cyclist with good CV strength goes running and gets injured” behaviour. Cy25k is as much about building your joints and muscles up as it is about the fitness that it’s most often associated with.

May be guilty of this too. Went running for the first time in 20 years on Sunday. Was pretty pleased as I knocked out a 5k without stopping.

Woke up on Monday and I could hardly walk. Tuesday was just as bad, legs still a bit sore today. If I do stretches before/after will that eliminate the sore legs or do I need to build up the distance more gradually?

I have a lezyne alloy drive and I was looking to replace it.

Firstly it always seems to have unscrew the valve core when you remove and second the plastic thread where the adapter tube screws in has become cross threaded and suspect it won’t last much longer.

Another large leap in cases today 6,178

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

If you cant be civil feel free to **** off!

Not directed at you AA, just saying the rules aren’t the best.

How would the school act differently? The head is aware of the situation and I asked if they wanted me to try and get tested.

I understand your point of view and in an ideal situation contacts should be tested regardless but they are not. Thems the rules, I dont like them but thats it. Anyway I’m off out on the turbo, speak later!

“Thems the rules”…..devised by bozos for bozos!

I think if you can’t/don’t want to get a test then you have to assume you have Covid based on your misses positive result and the fact you now have similar symptoms.

That being the case the school should really inform the parents of all the kids in your classes (and maybe even the whole year/school) that you most likely have Covid. This would hopefully ensure that any minor sniffles are not dismissed and the kids you have come into contact with have a much lower threshold for getting a test/isolating.

A positive or negative test wont change my situation or the situation of anyone else so what would be the point?

It definitely will.

There are a lot of coughs and colds going around the schools at the moment and due to the shortage of tests a lot of parents are just assuming their child doesn’t have Covid, especially where a classmate has a negative test result. If a teacher/child in the school gets a positive then this should massively increase the index of suspicion for Covid and encourage everyone to get a test who has symptoms.

I have been told by track and trace to only get a test if I get a cough, a fever or changes in taste or smell. I dont have any of these.

They have to put a framework of basic rules in place because a lot of the general population (no doubt including some of the call center track and tracers) aren’t the sharpest tools in the box.

It’s obvious the fact your misses has tested positive that the strict rules on the 3 symptoms should go out of the window. You should exercise your common sense and get a test ASAP.

This is whats worrying me. Son came home from school with a cold, week later wife got bad head cold, no coughing, no fever a few days later wifes sense of smell went, tested came back positive. I caught the same cold, headache, felt rough but no specific symptoms so have not had a test. 100% convinced I’ve had what wife had.

AA – Sounds like you most likely have Covid if your wife has tested positive and you have symptoms. Surely you should get a test so your contacts can be notified and to help PHE monitor the spread of the disease. I think this is especially important given you work in a school.

Cases have been increasing since the 2nd week of July onwards. Therefore R has been greater than 1 for 2 months+. They should have been tweaking the restrictions months ago to get R<1 to get infection levels down before Schools/Unis went back.

Actually just to correct myself, the increase could be explained by the increase in testing, however hospital admissions have been increasing for at least 3 weeks which still implies R>1 for at least the last 4 weeks.

That’s not even vaguely true, is it?

Cases have been increasing since the 2nd week of July onwards. Therefore R has been greater than 1 for 2 months+. They should have been tweaking the restrictions months ago to get R<1 to get infection levels down before Schools/Unis went back.

Update from my barber shop for those interested. Well over 50%, maybe 75% favour just getting on with it and letting whatever deaths occur just happen.

By definition the people going to the barbers are probably less risk averse. If you asked the same question to the people who are still cutting their own hair at home I suspect you’d get different answers.

Well, I finally got around to riding to the bank today and was prevented from entering. Did manage to pay the cheques into the ATM so not a wasted journey.

The OSMaps app (ordnance survey) is pretty good. You also download offline maps/routes to your phone so you don’t need to worry about 3/4G signal.

It’s about £25/year for all the UK maps, or if you buy a paper map you can use the code to just get the map for your area. I tend to plan a route on the computer which syncs with the phone. You can also see other people’s routes which is good for inspiration.