Coronavirus Thread

[st albans fox]

14 minutes ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

Seen a few graphs floating around from this site. You can play with the data and comparisons yourself:

 

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/united-kingdom 

 

Now I'm no data scientist, but if you look at the numbers of cases and deaths in the UK the direction of travel wouldn't seem to be taking us to a very fun place

 

if you take into account that a large number of the current ‘surge’ in cases are school age related , does that affect your viewpoint ???

 

deaths appears to be a fairly flat since end aug with seven day rolling average around 110/125 

 

Imo, the issue we have now is getting those older age groups boosted as their immune response  will have wained ……

 

And I do believe that face coverings should be re introduced in mass gathering settings (certainly indoors). 
 

is there any decent data now available to compare england and the other home nations who retained the face covering rule …

 

Edited 20 October 2021 by st albans fox

[Bellend Sebastian]

11 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

if you take into account that a large number of the current ‘surge’ in cases are school age related , does that affect your viewpoint ???

 

deaths appears to be a fairly flat since end aug with seven day rolling average around 110/125 

 

Imo, the issue we have now is getting those older age groups boosted as their immune response  will have wained ……

 

And I do believe that face coverings should be re introduced in mass gathering settings (certainly indoors). 
 

is there any decent data now available to compare england and the other home nations who retained the face covering rule …

 

I was simply looking at the direction of travel of the cases and deaths lines. Thanks to the vaccines the risks of hospitalisation and death is obviously much reduced, but letting the virus run riot is still going to translate into a lot of the latter even if the death rate is a lot lower than it was before.

 

It just feels to me that we've collectively given up being careful, not because the risk has gone, but more because we've all got a bit bored by it all

[fox_up_north]

I've mentioned before I spent most of 2020/2021 working either in schools or hospitals. Covid just felt like an eventuality and when things started opening up, in August, I started going to the gym, the pub and other things. But I have somehow managed to avoid getting it - possibly because I've no kids and most of the people I socialise with don't either.

 

But now I'm work from home and seeing the numbers rise, I am definitely going to cut back. I've been getting a cough and a cold, which has just made me take stock.

 

I took a train into Manchester yesterday for the first time in a while and I must have been the only one wearing a mask. Even staff weren't. It does feel like we've gone far too lax. 

[CosbehFox]

48 minutes ago, Bellend Sebastian said:

Seen a few graphs floating around from this site. You can play with the data and comparisons yourself:

 

https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus/country/united-kingdom 

 

Now I'm no data scientist, but if you look at the numbers of cases and deaths in the UK the direction of travel wouldn't seem to be taking us to a very fun place

 

 

 

 

 

 

Agreed but we have to place in the context of a few things:- 

 

1) we’ve been ‘open’ far longer than most European countries

2) our level of testing is far more significant than other countries. In fact Germany have stopped free testing 

I think at times it’s been difficult to compare countries performances because of so many different variables. Israel told us this months ago about vaccine waning and I suspect the same will happen across Europe 

Edited 20 October 2021 by Cardiff_Fox

[Legend_in_blue]

58 minutes ago, Cardiff_Fox said:

Agreed but we have to place in the context of a few things:- 

 

1) we’ve been ‘open’ far longer than most European countries

2) our level of testing is far more significant than other countries. In fact Germany have stopped free testing 

I think at times it’s been difficult to compare countries performances because of so many different variables. Israel told us this months ago about vaccine waning and I suspect the same will happen across Europe 

Indeed.  The levels of testing in the UK are obscene as these numbers show.  Worldwide, last 3 months:

 

 

[Legend_in_blue]

1 hour ago, Mike Oxlong said:

I’m expecting the usual cycle

 

1. The likes of Sage, JCVI, NHS say that increased restrictions are required 

2. Government poo-poos the idea and are quite clear that this is not necessary 

3. Approximately 2 weeks later the government recognises the wisdom of the earlier advice and acts upon it 

Currently this is where we're at when comparing against best and worst case scenarios from our experts at Sage.

 

It's difficult to justify increasing restrictions based on this but I'm sure they'll find a way.  They always do.

 

 

[st albans fox]

24 minutes ago, Legend_in_blue said:

Currently this is where we're at when comparing against best and worst case scenarios from our experts at Sage.

 

It's difficult to justify increasing restrictions based on this but I'm sure they'll find a way.  They always do.

 

 

R has been around 1 so I guess the actual is not far from reasonable against the prediction 

I think with school kids now driving the cases, R will go up before dropping back again. You would assume that the age group of adults being infected by their kids is not in the age risk area so hospitalisations will not notably increase 

[Legend_in_blue]

7 minutes ago, st albans fox said:

R has been around 1 so I guess the actual is not far from reasonable against the prediction 

I think with school kids now driving the cases, R will go up before dropping back again. You would assume that the age group of adults being infected by their kids is not in the age risk area so hospitalisations will not notably increase 

 

There are various factors at work for sure.

 

I see your wish for bringing back the mask will most likely prove to be the case over the coming weeks.  Government passed through an extension to the coronavirus laws for a further 6 months without bothering to turn up and vote on it the other day and various NHS chiefs this morning are spreading their annual winter messages of doom.

 

It doesn't bode well.

[Babylon]

It’s either Covid or Flu… but I feel f****** shit.

[st albans fox]

2 hours ago, Legend_in_blue said:

 

There are various factors at work for sure.

 

I see your wish for bringing back the mask will most likely prove to be the case over the coming weeks.  Government passed through an extension to the coronavirus laws for a further 6 months without bothering to turn up and vote on it the other day and various NHS chiefs this morning are spreading their annual winter messages of doom.

 

It doesn't bode well.

If it means I can do all the things that I want to do and used to do then wearing a mask is a price I’m happy to pay. 
 

I think that the public would accept that in exchange for not having more significant restrictions in place 

 

 

[Legend_in_blue]

All this talk of plan B.  What about plan C?  This graphic pretty much sums up the situation for plan C.  This should have been plan A all along though.  Two years on and still not adequately addressed.

[dsr-burnley]

1 hour ago, st albans fox said:

If it means I can do all the things that I want to do and used to do then wearing a mask is a price I’m happy to pay. 
 

I think that the public would accept that in exchange for not having more significant restrictions in place 

 

 

What if it means other people can't do the things they want to do and have recently been allowed to do?  People who rely on lip reading cannot function in a masked-up world.

[ajthefox]

Thought this was an interesting graph...

[st albans fox]

13 minutes ago, ajthefox said:

Thought this was an interesting graph...

The blue is only going to expand as we head into winter ……. Hence they can’t afford for the covid portion to grow much larger …..

@Legend_in_blue says above, we have allowed the NHS bed count to drop too low and we reap what we sow. 
 

 

 

[st albans fox]

31 minutes ago, dsr-burnley said:

What if it means other people can't do the things they want to do and have recently been allowed to do?  People who rely on lip reading cannot function in a masked-up world.

The lip reading is a good point - if there is data that shows that renewed enforced mask wearing will prevent another lockdown then I’m afraid those who lip read will be left behind.   This is why I asked if there was available data across the four nations which illustrated if England was doing worse than the others in the light that no mask mandate exists here. 

[Legend_in_blue]

1 hour ago, st albans fox said:

The lip reading is a good point - if there is data that shows that renewed enforced mask wearing will prevent another lockdown then I’m afraid those who lip read will be left behind.   This is why I asked if there was available data across the four nations which illustrated if England was doing worse than the others in the light that no mask mandate exists here. 

 

Perhaps the BBC should begin to quote excess death figures from the home rather than meaningless daily case numbers generated from a ridiculous number of tests undertaken every 24 hours.

 

 

[dsr-burnley]

2 hours ago, st albans fox said:

The lip reading is a good point - if there is data that shows that renewed enforced mask wearing will prevent another lockdown then I’m afraid those who lip read will be left behind.   This is why I asked if there was available data across the four nations which illustrated if England was doing worse than the others in the light that no mask mandate exists here. 

The info can be got from the coronavirus graph on the government site - you can split it between countries.

 

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=nation&areaName=Scotland

 

Based on Wikipedia population figures, England 56,287,000  Wales 3,153,000  Scotland 5,463,000  Northern Ireland 1,894,000

 

From 1st August, which was a fortnight after England lifted the mask rules and other countries didn't:

 

As of 1st August, England had a 7-day average of 23,419 cases per day (42 per 100,000) which has bobbled about and risen to 38,861 (69)

Wales had a 7-day average of 651 cases per day (21 per 100,000) which has risen steadily to 3,111 (99)

Scotland, 1,141 cases per day on 1st August (21 per 100,000) which shot up to 6,391 (117) before reducing to 2,582 now (47).

N.Ireland, 1,072 on 1st August (57) rising to 1,742 (92) and dropping to 1,245 now (66).

 

The "now" figures area bout 3 days behind.  But what this shows, basically, is that there's a lot more to it than mask wearing.

[FoxyPV]

3 hours ago, st albans fox said:

The blue is only going to expand as we head into winter ……. Hence they can’t afford for the covid portion to grow much larger …..

@Legend_in_blue says above, we have allowed the NHS bed count to drop too low and we reap what we sow. 
 

 

 

The tories have systematically gutted the NHS so there aren't the required number of staff or beds

 

Fixed that sentence.

[Legend_in_blue]

Slide time at the presser.  

 

We aren't sorting this with boosters.  We need to stop mass testing.  We're just going round and round in circles otherwise.

 

100k a day according to Javid.  Ferguson will be unimpressed.  We're nowhere near his 200k.

[st albans fox]

1 hour ago, Legend_in_blue said:

Slide time at the presser.  

 

We aren't sorting this with boosters.  We need to stop mass testing.  We're just going round and round in circles otherwise.

 

100k a day according to Javid.  Ferguson will be unimpressed.  We're nowhere near his 200k.

Other countries will be so jealous of our high case rate …….they can only dream of this de facto booster rate being given to the under 50’s 

!

[dsr-burnley]

6 hours ago, FoxyPV said:

The tories have systematically gutted the NHS so there aren't the required number of staff or beds

 

Fixed that sentence.

Just for the sake of accuracy, the Blair-Brown government cut NHS overnight beds by 15%, the Cameron-May-Johnson governments have cut them by 10%.  Both Labour and Tory have messed about with the NHS and wasted vast amounts of money on the wrong things.

[Babylon]

15 hours ago, Legend_in_blue said:

Slide time at the presser.  

 

We aren't sorting this with boosters.  We need to stop mass testing.  We're just going round and round in circles otherwise.

 

100k a day according to Javid.  Ferguson will be unimpressed.  We're nowhere near his 200k.

I'm not sure how that fixes the issues, if the case rights do rise so will hospitalisations and deaths. Unless you're suggesting we just basically put our fingers in our ears and pretend it's not happening. 

[StanSP]

Hahahahaha

 

'the Pope owns all the businesses...joint enterprise'

 

How fvcking stupid 

 

 

I really hope they got dashed straight in the bin after this

 

[ealingfox]

32 minutes ago, StanSP said:

Hahahahaha

 

'the Pope owns all the businesses...joint enterprise'

 

How fvcking stupid 

 

 

I really hope they got dashed straight in the bin after this

 

 

The best kind of morons are morons that think they're really smart. Like the people who try and cite Magna Carta as a reason they don't have to obey laws.

[yorkie1999]

16 hours ago, FoxyPV said:

The tories have systematically gutted the NHS so there aren't the required number of staff or beds

 

Fixed that sentence.

That's not quiet true though, 26000 beds were lost when Labour were last in power, the reduction in hospital beds is as much to do with technological advances in healthcare as it is anything else.  Patients spend half the time in hospital that they did 20 years ago.