SARS CoV-2 coronavirus / Covid-19 (No tin foil hat silliness please)

[Balljy]

Just had a video call with a friend my age in London who has deteriorated all week and may not survive tonight. He doesn't even have the breath to whisper.

Sorry to hear that.

 

[Beans]

Think this is one of the highest amounts in a single country worldwide for deaths per capita?
1300 would be like 6500+ in the US..

That's scary! What percentage of people aren't wearing masks in England do you think? Could it be worse than in the US, per capita?

 

[finneh]

@finneh this is the direct result of "treating people like adults" over the Christmas period, removing the restrictions but plainly communicating the risks. Is it possible, based on this evidence, that individual adults aren't able to make appropriate risk calculations in this scenario, and therefore expose the health system to more risk than could be justified? Is it right that individuals can choose to push medical staff to the brink - at a time when medical staff burnout was already a serious problem pre-pandemic - simply because they choose not to accept the risks that they're exposing themselves to? I can't imagine people think the amount of pressure medical staff are being put under is reasonable, especially given so many of the infections are entirely avoidable.

Considering the rules were only relaxed for one day in about two-thirds of the country I pray your inference that this was all as a result of Christmas day are correct (as cases will then drop like a stone imminently)

However given that the South East, East and London has now been in full lockdown with no-one allowed to mix for nearly three weeks (with schools closed) and cases still don't seem to be plummeting it might also be that treating people like toddlers isn't working either?

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Considering the rules were only relaxed for one day in about two-thirds of the country I pray your inference that this was all as a result of Christmas day are correct (as cases will then drop like a stone imminently)

However given that the South East, East and London has now been in full lockdown with no-one allowed to mix for nearly three weeks (with schools closed) and cases still don't seem to be plummeting it might also be that treating people like toddlers isn't working either?

Simple question. In your opinion would the hospitals be better or worse off, right now, had there been less restrictions in the weeks leading up to Christmas?

 

[Wibble]

Considering the rules were only relaxed for one day in about two-thirds of the country I pray your inference that this was all as a result of Christmas day are correct (as cases will then drop like a stone imminently)

However given that the South East, East and London has now been in full lockdown with no-one allowed to mix for nearly three weeks (with schools closed) and cases still don't seem to be plummeting it might also be that treating people like toddlers isn't working either?

The UK is far from in full lockdown. They only just started demanding travellers arriving from overseas have a negative covid test FFS and the borders are still wide open. Whatever the infection figures now they would be much worse without the restrictions there are though.

 

[Wibble]

Just had a video call with a friend my age in London who has deteriorated all week and may not survive tonight. He doesn't even have the breath to whisper.

Hope your friend pulls through.

 

[Wibble]

Ive just fallen out with my brother.
I have finally snapped with his Covid denial - lockdown protest bullshit. Repeating twitter bullshit as gospel but criticises anyone else that may you know listen to a doctor or someone that actually knows what they are talking about. Not feckin Karen from Facebook.
I havent been so fecking angry in years. I feel like driving to his house to punch his lights out the complete imbecile.

The world is fecked and he becomes the type of prick that is exacerbating the problem. Posting videos of the English police going into someones house claiming its in Ireland and that our right are being trod on as we are in lock down. Refuses to read any sort of credibly sources news or medical professionals opinions, wont look at the videos of health care staff on their knees. A selfish prick and I am so disgusted with him. I am ashamed of him. Livid. I have left the family whatsapp now as its making me want to smash him the arsehole.

I hope he gets a fecking horrible dose of it

That must be incredibly frustrating.

 

[finneh]

Simple question. In your opinion would the hospitals be better or worse off, right now, had there been less restrictions in the weeks leading up to Christmas?

That is a really interesting question in fairness and I guess it depends on what restrictions you're talking about.

For example I know some people in London who were planning on abiding by the three households rule and seeing only their sibling/parents on Christmas day. When the rules became more onerous allowing for no mixing they disregarded them completely and several friends from different households met up instead. Naturally in that anecdotal scenario if one person were positive tightening restrictions would have likely increased infection.

I suppose a parallel would be would more or less people be killed by car accidents if the speed limits were reduced by 90%. I'd probably say they would increase because people would disregard the limit completely and just go with their gut instead; which would often result in going too fast.

If you're referring to the government abandoning the social distancing policy or informing people to no longer hand sanitise then of course many more.

 

[Pogue Mahone]

That is a really interesting question in fairness and I guess it depends on what restrictions you're talking about.

For example I know some people in London who were planning on abiding by the three households rule and seeing only their sibling/parents on Christmas day. When the rules became more onerous allowing for no mixing they disregarded them completely and several friends from different households met up instead. Naturally in that anecdotal scenario if one person were positive tightening restrictions would have likely increased infection.

I suppose a parallel would be would more or less people be killed by car accidents if the speed limits were reduced by 90%. I'd probably say they would increase because people would disregard the limit completely and just go with their gut instead; which would often result in going too fast.

If you're referring to the government abandoning the social distancing policy or informing people to no longer hand sanitise then of course many more.

Either you’re unbelievably stupid (and I don’t think you are) or the anecdote you’ve used to answer my simple question is the most disingenuous thing I’ve ever read.

 

[esmufc07]

 

[Pogue Mahone]

Absolute fecking shambles.

 

[finneh]

Either you’re unbelievably stupid (and I don’t think you are) or the anecdote you’ve used to answer my simple question is the most disingenuous thing I’ve ever read.

My point is that governmental actions cause the population to react in ways that might be unexpected. Closing pubs where social distancing is enforced might encourage people to drunkenly mix in households with no social distancing. Closing schools might force working parents to drop their kids with elderly Grandparents. Rules that people deem too onerous may well be ignored and in an environment where people have lost confidence in the rules I don't think it's disingenuous to suggest they are likely to use their own potentially miscalibrated judgment to navigate through.

100 years ago in the US who'd have thought that banning the sale of alcohol would result in greater levels of corruption...

 

[Adcuth]

How in the hell are JLR workers "critical" workers? The current situation with the virus is way worse than where we were in March, but the government response is so full of holes, even calling it half-arsed would be excessively complimentary. It's like a 16th of an arse. Maybe just the anus. It's an anus response.

Also been told they have to go to work if their partners get tested positive and they will test them daily until they themselves test positive. Some sort of trial that is yet to be approved by the government

 

[Wibble]

My point is that governmental actions cause the population to react in ways that might be unexpected. Closing pubs where social distancing is enforced might encourage people to drunkenly mix in households with no social distancing. Closing schools might force working parents to drop their kids with elderly Grandparents. Rules that people deem too onerous may well be ignored and in an environment where people have lost confidence in the rules I don't think it's disingenuous to suggest they are likely to use their own potentially miscalibrated judgment to navigate through.

100 years ago in the US who'd have thought that banning the sale of alcohol would result in greater levels of corruption...

Yet countries who have acted more decisively have had very high levels of public cooperation and have suppressed covid almost to the point of eradication in some cases.

The problem in the UK is a clueless government doing far too little, far too late, in an often inconsistent and poorly communicated way.

The idea that too much restriction is the problem if frankly ludicrous.

 

[Adcuth]

Unbelievable numbers today.

That knobhead Boris and his small group of dickheads (Rishi, Michael Gove, Hancock, Gavin Williamson) need to be publicly flogged for their handling of this.

Can the queen step in and lock them in a dungeon for a while?

 

[Wibble]

I may be exaggerating the coagulopathy. It’s really interesting and stuck in my memory but calling it “the main driver” could be poetic license!

Saw this today

https://www.sciencealert.com/autops...-damage-coronavirus-can-inflict-on-your-brain

 

[Brwned]

Considering the rules were only relaxed for one day in about two-thirds of the country I pray your inference that this was all as a result of Christmas day are correct (as cases will then drop like a stone imminently)

However given that the South East, East and London has now been in full lockdown with no-one allowed to mix for nearly three weeks (with schools closed) and cases still don't seem to be plummeting it might also be that treating people like toddlers isn't working either?

I know you like to rely on loose theories that can be moulded to fit any scenario, but we can add some actual substance to your theory and see some of the flaws which lead to some misleading conclusions.

Cases fell from 25k a day in early November to 14k at the beginning of December, which is when the first set of rules were relaxed. There were plenty of Christmas shoppers and after shops re-opened they had jumped on up to 37k just a couple of weeks later. According to Google's mobility data, you had almost as many people shopping in early December as you did in early September, when cases were 5x lower. By some measures, retail footfall was down just a few % YoY. Clearly cases being almost 3x higher before Christmas amplifies the impact of the Christmas spread, and clearly the two sets of approaches in November and December led to different epidemiological outcomes. To say they both aren't working, with no distinction, is to ignore that obvious fact.

On top of that, the rules that were outlined at the beginning of December said people from multiple households could mix for multiple days over Christmas, which many people made plans for and stuck to. Many people in this thread said they were going to do exactly that, and the ONS survey released today suggests they were among millions. They made the very adult decision to do what was best for themselves, they bought the turkey after all, what's a bit of covid compared to throwing away a good turkey? So the cases flowed from the Christmas period, not Christmas day.

If you look at the dates the tests were conducted (rather than reported), you see a simple pattern. There were around 40k cases a day in the three days before Christmas eve, and 45k cases in the three days after Christmas day. It was growing each week as a result of people doing normal things like shopping, but it wasn't blowing up. On the 29th it jumps up to 81k, and on the 30th it was 71k. 5-6 days after Christmas eve and it goes through the roof. The only other day to go above 70k in the entire pandemic was on the 4th Jan, following on from New Year's, and they haven't finished reporting cases from that day. The 5th Jan already has 50k cases reported, and it might well join those days in the top 4 peak.

Suddenly locking down when things go out of control doesn't lead to a sudden fall. The surge in cases that came directly from Christmas and NYE mean there's much more of the virus in the community, and it doesn't all spread just at once. People that have it now pass it to people in their household a few days later. People pick it up with almost no symptoms, do shopping for the next week and pass it onto nobody, and then just one person gets it and they start another chain. Australia have had cases at almost 0 for months, but those small chains keep forming week after week, even when it's few people passing it on. Which is why when they had to lock things down in Melbourne, it eventually brought things under control but there was no plumetting.

So no, cases wouldn't drop like a stone imminently if the primary driver of this surge was Christmas and NYE. It just means the peak will be much higher, community transmission will remain much longer, and the health system might reach a breaking point it otherwise wouldn't if we continue to make these adult decisions. Likewise, the fact that lockdown isn't leading to plummeting cases isn't evidence that it doesn't work, because we know how it worked last time. We went from 500 cases to 5,000 cases in 3 weeks between March and April, and we went from 5,000 cases to 500 cases in the 3 months between April and July. The higher that peak, the longer it takes to come down. People don't get to have a couple of days where things are let loose, and then they can have a couple of days of living in isolation to make up for it. That isn't how community transmission works. That's the point. We assess that risk poorly as individuals.

Now that I've answered your question, can you answer the original question with a direct answer?

 

[Adcuth]

Also been told they have to go to work if their partners get tested positive and they will test them daily until they themselves test positive. Some sort of trial that is yet to be approved by the government

Btw can anyone confirm if this is actually legal to implement.

 

[Wibble]

Btw can anyone confirm if this is actually legal to implement.

Sounds mad. The opposite of what should be mandated.

 

[Carolina Red]

1 out of every 1,000 people in South Carolina tested positive for Covid yesterday.

Our governor said he thinks we are doing a good job handling the virus.

 

[Stack]

1 out of every 1,000 people in South Carolina tested positive for Covid yesterday.

Our governor said he thinks we are doing a good job handling the virus.

I suspect you have probably answered this earlier but just checking to see how you are doing with it?

 

[Carolina Red]

I suspect you have probably answered this earlier but just checking to see how you are doing with it?

My lungs feel clear, thankfully. I am getting winded if I do something simple like walk upstairs or for more than 10-15 minutes at a time. My worst symptoms have been fatigue and headaches. I wake up after 7-8 hours and feel as though I’ve not slept and if I try and concentrate on doing something for more than 20-30 minutes I get this brain fog and then a splitting headache.

On the positive side, I was cooking for myself today and smelled the garlic and lemon that I was cutting up. It’s the first I’ve smelled something since New Years Day.

 

[freeurmind]

Global coordinated hard lockdown for at least 30 days. Anything else is throwing pebbles into a river.

 

[finneh]

The problem in the UK is a clueless government.

We've at least found a point of agreement!

So no, cases wouldn't drop like a stone imminently if the primary driver of this surge was Christmas and NYE.

The rules were never planned to be loosened for NYE? Unless you're saying that people ignored the rules (which or course they did because they felt they were too draconian).

Now that I've answered your question, can you answer the original question with a direct answer?

Your original question was in regards to treating people like adults and it having a negative effect on public health. I think in its totality this is obvious if you equate treating people like adults with giving them a small window of freedom, I don't though.

The question is to what level you're willing to impinge of people's liberties and how much safer would that make them. On the one extreme you have people that would be happy for the government to pass laws preventing people from leaving their house, enforcing it with the military and imprisoning people for failing to comply (China effectively). On the other extreme you have people who don't believe the virus exists at all. As is often the case both extremes scare the shit out of me.

It would be interesting to see what level of safety differing people would be willing to give up their freedoms to achieve. Would some people accept annual restrictions to reduce the yearly NHS crises? Whilst not comparable to covid excess deaths in England/Wales in the Winter of 2017/2018 were estimated at 50,100. Should we have locked down back then in hindsight? Should we have to wear masks every Winter?

My view in that scenario would be no. I would not "give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety". Although my response was the same to the swath of restrictions brought under the guise of protecting us from terrorism.

In terms of the Covid response I think it's been all over the place. I think restrictions have been made based on zero data that are likely to have actually worsened the problem (e.g. 10pm curfew). I think that restrictions have been brought in without thought as to compliance which again would have worsened the problem, meaning a lighter restriction would counter-intuitively see greater compliance and reduced spread (e.g. plunging London into tier four on 19th, causing thousands of people to flee, spreading the new strain across the country). I think that some restrictions have been placed where the social/economic cost is far worse than the benefit (e.g. closing Covid secure hospitality venues and forcing people to drink together in their homes). We're also applying the same rules to differing categories of risk which to me is inane. My risk profile (having not been within 2 metres of anyone 70+ since March) is completely different to a care home worker and yet we're treated equally. For me that means cracking a pistachio with a sledge hammer; for them the rules may well have been too lax throughout.

I'm also not really sure what the UK is trying to achieve, we're not merely trying to "protect the NHS", as restrictions were prevelant throughout the summer when cases were low (in some cases new restrictions were introduced then e.g. wearing masks and restricting travel). Likewise we're obviously not trying to eradicate the virus.

To summarise the negative effects on the health system are unfortunate and restrictions that are data lead, proportionate and targeted at the right people would be stomach-able. Restrictions that are lead by hunches, are disproportionate to the point of causing huge swathes of people to ignore them completely and are implemented in a blunderbuss approach of hitting as many people with as many restrictions as possible irrespective of the effect on spread in my view are counterproductive.

This was what I meant by treating people like adults, not Boris starving people for months then offering them an all you can eat buffet and being shocked that they ate themselves to the point of vomiting.

 

[McGrathsipan]

That must be incredibly frustrating.

It is demoralising and yes very frustrating. The arrogance is shocking as well. Infuriating.

 

[Brwned]

We've at least found a point of agreement!


The rules were never planned to be loosened for NYE? Unless you're saying that people ignored the rules (which or course they did because they felt they were too draconian).


Your original question was in regards to treating people like adults and it having a negative effect on public health. I think in its totality this is obvious if you equate treating people like adults with giving them a small window of freedom, I don't though.

The question is to what level you're willing to impinge of people's liberties and how much safer would that make them. On the one extreme you have people that would be happy for the government to pass laws preventing people from leaving their house, enforcing it with the military and imprisoning people for failing to comply (China effectively). On the other extreme you have people who don't believe the virus exists at all. As is often the case both extremes scare the shit out of me.

It would be interesting to see what level of safety differing people would be willing to give up their freedoms to achieve. Would some people accept annual restrictions to reduce the yearly NHS crises? Whilst not comparable to covid excess deaths in England/Wales in the Winter of 2017/2018 were estimated at 50,100. Should we have locked down back then in hindsight? Should we have to wear masks every Winter?

My view in that scenario would be no. I would not "give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety". Although my response was the same to the swath of restrictions brought under the guise of protecting us from terrorism.

In terms of the Covid response I think it's been all over the place. I think restrictions have been made based on zero data that are likely to have actually worsened the problem (e.g. 10pm curfew). I think that restrictions have been brought in without thought as to compliance which again would have worsened the problem, meaning a lighter restriction would counter-intuitively see greater compliance and reduced spread (e.g. plunging London into tier four on 19th, causing thousands of people to flee, spreading the new strain across the country). I think that some restrictions have been placed where the social/economic cost is far worse than the benefit (e.g. closing Covid secure hospitality venues and forcing people to drink together in their homes). We're also applying the same rules to differing categories of risk which to me is inane. My risk profile (having not been within 2 metres of anyone 70+ since March) is completely different to a care home worker and yet we're treated equally. For me that means cracking a pistachio with a sledge hammer; for them the rules may well have been too lax throughout.

I'm also not really sure what the UK is trying to achieve, we're not merely trying to "protect the NHS", as restrictions were prevelant throughout the summer when cases were low (in some cases new restrictions were introduced then e.g. wearing masks and restricting travel). Likewise we're obviously not trying to eradicate the virus.

To summarise the negative effects on the health system are unfortunate and restrictions that are data lead, proportionate and targeted at the right people would be stomach-able. Restrictions that are lead by hunches, are disproportionate to the point of causing huge swathes of people to ignore them completely and are implemented in a blunderbuss approach of hitting as many people with as many restrictions as possible irrespective of the effect on spread in my view are counterproductive.

This was what I meant by treating people like adults, not Boris starving people for months then offering them an all you can eat buffet and being shocked that they ate themselves to the point of vomiting.

You criticise the government for making assessments based on no data, and then go on to make assessments that are in direct contradiction of the data.

Yes, it may be true based on loose theories from economics and social psychology that closing Covid seure hospitality venues and forcing people to drink in homes would lead to greater spread. The reality is in November, the spread slowed. In December, the spread increased. Those rules were draconian, and yet it didn't lead to this "unexpected" response to government effort. Maybe it did lead to people congregating in more dangerous ways, but in smaller numbers. Maybe it did lead to more people rejecting the rules, but not the majority.

You can find anecdotal evidence of these things happening, and loose theories to explain why they happen and the implication of them. That's great and all, but we do have the actual data. Community transmission did go down when people were allowed to do less things. When people were allowed to do more things in December, they did them, and the virus spread more quickly. We have tested whether lighter restrictions lead to better compliance, more sensible decisions and reduced spread. The opposite happened. That's a really simple fact that you just choose to ignore when theorising about how things would work.

You still think we weren't trying to protect the NHS, even though you can now see that the NHS was actually at risk of being overwhelmed...that fact is staring us in the face right now. Restrictions in summer were not to protect the NHS being overwhelmed in the summer, it was to protect the NHS being overwhelmed at all. Clearly if we had kept those restrictions until now, the NHS wouldn't be at risk of being overwhelmed. We removed those restrictions and now that risk is very real. That should make it pretty plain why restrictions still existed while we had some control on community transmission: it was to maintain control. It isn't about the number of people dying, it is about the systemic risk posed by the volumes that come through hospitals. Attitudes like yours in the government convinced people that wasn't a proportionate response.

The 50k excess deaths in 2017-18 did not come with 10x the number of hospitalisations too. This is the data:



If the NHS was at material risk of being overwhelmed in 21 days, then yes society would have to make sacrifices to protect an essential institution. If we get to a point where car crash victims cannot get urgent medical care, then yes we need to do things differently. It is a normal part of society to do things differently in emergenies. Especially when we're protecting the things that protect us in emergencies

Your assessment of your own risk profile is just a little bit misleading. The fact you haven't come into direct contact with 70+ year olds doesn't mean you don't pose a transmission risk to 70+ year olds. That's one of the biggest misconceptions in the pandemic, we judge ourselves and our individual contacts rather than the network and chains we exist in. When you pass it onto someone else they pass it onto someone else. It doesn't matter that the person you passed it onto is safe, because eventually it gets passed onto someone unsafe. The whole point of the restrictions is to reduce the chains of transmissions, and it's mostly people who do not feel at risk from the virus that are extending and multiplying those chains.

The question was whether you believe that people being afforded more freedom in the build-up to and during Christmas was a major contributor to this spread, and whether that tells you anything about individuals' ability to make these risk assessments? You still don't want to go there. You just want to fall back on generalities that need to be true to justify your worldview. That's really bizarre in a moment when the NHS is at material risk of being overwhelmed in 21 days as a direct result of moving closer (but still far away from) your preferred response.

 

[prateik]

Its clearly worse.. a lot worse.. but this is just to say I reserve a special amount of hatred for people who use charts that don't start at 0.

 

[BD]

Its clearly worse.. a lot worse.. but this is just to say I reserve a special amount of hatred for people who use charts that don't start at 0.

Yeah, it's pretty much page 1 in the 'how to lie with statistics' book.

(Not saying this guy above is lying or being disingenuous, it's just a wider point. The abuse of statistics throughout Covid has been quite annoying)

 

[Hernandez - BFA]

Ive just fallen out with my brother.
I have finally snapped with his Covid denial - lockdown protest bullshit. Repeating twitter bullshit as gospel but criticises anyone else that may you know listen to a doctor or someone that actually knows what they are talking about. Not feckin Karen from Facebook.
I havent been so fecking angry in years. I feel like driving to his house to punch his lights out the complete imbecile.

The world is fecked and he becomes the type of prick that is exacerbating the problem. Posting videos of the English police going into someones house claiming its in Ireland and that our right are being trod on as we are in lock down. Refuses to read any sort of credibly sources news or medical professionals opinions, wont look at the videos of health care staff on their knees. A selfish prick and I am so disgusted with him. I am ashamed of him. Livid. I have left the family whatsapp now as its making me want to smash him the arsehole.

I hope he gets a fecking horrible dose of it

I 100% feel for you, because unfortunately it's the kind of attitude that's holding us back. Attitudes like this can negate the correct attitude and behaviours of dozens/hundreds of people, simply because one person doesn't believe it.

I will never forget a ~30 year old son who I had to ring to tell him that his mother was unfortunately dying from COVID and whether he would like to come in to see her in an isolated cubicle for her final moments. I remember throughout her whole admission she was saying she was the only person in her whole family that believed in the COVID fears - and the rest of the family didn't follow any of the rules, despite her constant wishes. Who was the one who required hospitalization and eventually died to it? Her obviously.

The phone call itself was fairly uneventful, I explained what was going on and asked him to come in if he wished. When he came in he looked confused, as if he misunderstood over the phone. An hour later, he left the cubicle after his mother passed and he was completely different. I genuinely can still picture him saying "I don't understand - I thought this was all fake" before bursting down into tears.

It's terrible for me to say - but sometimes, the only thing that will make someone listen is when they experience the pain close-to-home.

I'm sorry to hear about your brother - I just hope he sees sense soon. You've tried your best. Only thing you can do is do the right thing yourself and just hope that he doesn't put anyone else at risk, especially those you care about.

 

[Brwned]

Its clearly worse.. a lot worse.. but this is just to say I reserve a special amount of hatred for people who use charts that don't start at 0.

I work with a lot of data vis and I don't get the fundamentalism about it. Starting with 0 is the best default and a sensible choice for most scenarios but not all. In the first chart they started at 0 because 0 is a possible number in that data range, in the second it doesn't get close. The FT are a pretty strong voice in data journalism and this guy spends a lot of time thinking about the right way to show things. He didn't do it because he's trying to mislead people or because he's unaware of the downsides of it. Edward Tufte played a pivotal role in the development of data vis and his view directly opposes yours, mostly because of his fundamental belief in the importance of the data:ink ratio. Here's a more modern take with some examples. These aren't uninformed views.

Anyway, interesting story about the discovery of new variants. While it is true that the UK are very good at sequencing the genome, it wasn't until people in South Africa started worrying about their strain of the virus in November that the UK scientists' attention was drawn specifically to this variant. There's just too many variations to look at systematically, so it calls into question whether all that time invested could be better spent elsewhere. It was only after the spread started to look problematic in South Africa that people looked specifically in detail at the virus, it wasn't picked up in regular surveillance.

Doctors and nurses at a South African hospital group noticed an odd spike in the number of Covid-19 patients in their wards in late October. The government had slackened its lockdown grip, and springtime had brought more parties. But the numbers were growing too quickly to easily explain, prompting a distressing question.

“Is this a different strain?” one hospital official asked in a group email in early November, raising the possibility that the virus had developed a dangerous mutation.

That question touched off a high-stakes genetic investigation that began here in Durban on the Indian Ocean, tipped off researchers in Britain and is now taking place around the world. Scientists have discovered worrisome new variants of the virus, leading to border closures, quarantines and lockdowns, and dousing some of the enthusiasm that arrived with the vaccines.

...


Soon, his lab was analyzing swabs, shipped on ice by courier overnight. On Dec. 1, he emailed a British scientist, Andrew Rambaut, and asked him to review some of his early findings: a series of strange mutations on the virus’s outer surface.

Dr. de Oliveira, a Brazilian-South African scientist who sports long hair and a surfer vibe, shared his findings at a Dec. 4 meeting of the World Health Organization working group. All took notice because of the variants’ potential to disrupt the vaccine’s effectiveness.

Days later, Dr. de Oliveira recalled, Dr. Rambaut emailed him with a discovery of his own: British scientists had scoured their databases and found a similar but unrelated mutation that appeared linked to a cluster of infections in the county of Kent.

Coming two weeks before Christmas, Dr. de Oliveira immediately thought of the Lunar New Year early in the pandemic, when millions of people in China traveled far and wide for the holiday, some carrying the virus.

“It was crystal clear,” Dr. de Oliveira said in an interview. “These variants will spread nationally, regionally and globally.”

Dr. Rambaut and colleagues released a paper on the variant discovered in Britain on Dec. 19 — the same day that British officials announced new measures. The variant had apparently been circulating undetected as early as September. Dr. Rambaut has since credited the South Africa team with the tip that led to the discovery of the variant surging in Britain.

Public health officials have formally recommended that type of swift genetic surveillance and information-sharing as one of the keys to staying on top of the ever-changing virus. But they have been calling for such routine surveillance for years, with mixed results.

“The message was very clear, that this is the way surveillance has to go,” said Dr. Josep M. Jansa, a senior epidemiologist at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. Just as Covid-19 exposed flaws in the world’s pandemic plans a year ago, the hunt for new variants is exposing gaps in surveillance. “We’re learning,” he said. “Slowly.”

The parallels between the original variant taking off in China over Chinese New Year, and the new variants (they have identified another in Brazil) taking off in the West during Western New Year...that's a little troubling. History rhyming but with more severe consequences.

 

[Fully Fledged]

I man I grew up with, we used to live 3 doors apart when we were kids, died from Covid this week. He was only in his early 50's

 

[lynchie]

Its clearly worse.. a lot worse.. but this is just to say I reserve a special amount of hatred for people who use charts that don't start at 0.

Wildly veering off topic, but people obsessing about y-axes starting at zero when there's a perfectly reasonable baseline to start from are my least favourite type of statistics pedants.

 

[JPRouve]

You criticise the government for making assessments based on no data, and then go on to make assessments that are in direct contradiction of the data.

Yes, it may be true based on loose theories from economics and social psychology that closing Covid seure hospitality venues and forcing people to drink in homes would lead to greater spread. The reality is in November, the spread slowed. In December, the spread increased. Those rules were draconian, and yet it didn't lead to this "unexpected" response to government effort. Maybe it did lead to people congregating in more dangerous ways, but in smaller numbers. Maybe it did lead to more people rejecting the rules, but not the majority.

You can find anecdotal evidence of these things happening, and loose theories to explain why they happen and the implication of them. That's great and all, but we do have the actual data. Community transmission did go down when people were allowed to do less things. When people were allowed to do more things in December, they did them, and the virus spread more quickly. We have tested whether lighter restrictions lead to better compliance, more sensible decisions and reduced spread. The opposite happened. That's a really simple fact that you just choose to ignore when theorising about how things would work.

You still think we weren't trying to protect the NHS, even though you can now see that the NHS was actually at risk of being overwhelmed...that fact is staring us in the face right now. Restrictions in summer were not to protect the NHS being overwhelmed in the summer, it was to protect the NHS being overwhelmed at all. Clearly if we had kept those restrictions until now, the NHS wouldn't be at risk of being overwhelmed. We removed those restrictions and now that risk is very real. That should make it pretty plain why restrictions still existed while we had some control on community transmission: it was to maintain control. It isn't about the number of people dying, it is about the systemic risk posed by the volumes that come through hospitals. Attitudes like yours in the government convinced people that wasn't a proportionate response.

The 50k excess deaths in 2017-18 did not come with 10x the number of hospitalisations too. This is the data:



If the NHS was at material risk of being overwhelmed in 21 days, then yes society would have to make sacrifices to protect an essential institution. If we get to a point where car crash victims cannot get urgent medical care, then yes we need to do things differently. It is a normal part of society to do things differently in emergenies. Especially when we're protecting the things that protect us in emergencies

Your assessment of your own risk profile is just a little bit misleading. The fact you haven't come into direct contact with 70+ year olds doesn't mean you don't pose a transmission risk to 70+ year olds. That's one of the biggest misconceptions in the pandemic, we judge ourselves and our individual contacts rather than the network and chains we exist in. When you pass it onto someone else they pass it onto someone else. It doesn't matter that the person you passed it onto is safe, because eventually it gets passed onto someone unsafe. The whole point of the restrictions is to reduce the chains of transmissions, and it's mostly people who do not feel at risk from the virus that are extending and multiplying those chains.

The question was whether you believe that people being afforded more freedom in the build-up to and during Christmas was a major contributor to this spread, and whether that tells you anything about individuals' ability to make these risk assessments? You still don't want to go there. You just want to fall back on generalities that need to be true to justify your worldview. That's really bizarre in a moment when the NHS is at material risk of being overwhelmed in 21 days as a direct result of moving closer (but still far away from) your preferred response.

Impressive post.

 

[Mickeza]

I really don’t understand how we’re now over 9 months in and people still aren’t grasping that this has always been about the hospitalisation rate.

 

[JPRouve]

I really don’t understand how we’re now over 9 months in and people still aren’t grasping that this has always been about the hospitalisation rate.

I think that it's partially due to how media focused a lot on deaths rates and deaths totals.

 

[massi83]

I really don’t understand how we’re now over 9 months in and people still aren’t grasping that this has always been about the hospitalisation rate.

Putting the goal at hospitalisations is the exact reason why Europe and Americas have failed and Asia and Ocenia have succeeded. They have both better economy and better health.

 

[Mickeza]

Putting the goal at hospitalisations is the exact reason why Europe and Americas have failed and Asia and Ocenia have succeeded. They have both better economy and better health.

I don’t understand your point...the 15% needing hospital treatment for pneumonia which was what the data said at the start was clearly a major factor in the steps China took.

 

[JPRouve]

Putting the goal at hospitalisations is the exact reason why Europe and Americas have failed and Asia and Ocenia have succeeded. They have both better economy and better health.

I'm not following how is that the exact reason? Asia and Oceania acted in a way that would limit infections and therefore hospitalizations and deaths. In my opinion, the actual difference is that in Europe and America politicians have tried to maintain a false sense of freedom which was inappropriate for the situation and lengthened the problem.

 

[massi83]

I don’t understand your point...the 15% needing hospital treatment for pneumonia which was what the data said at the start was clearly a major factor in the steps China took.

And then they kept the infections low or at zero. As did many other countries. They didn't let it back up to a level were hospitals are close to having problems.

The goal and messaging in Europe has been that everything is just fine before hospitals are over-run.

The goal should have been to keep it at the level where test and trace works, or even lower.

You set up a wrong goal, you will fail even if you achieve that goal.

The virus is bad for the economy, restrictions are just a by-product of the virus. Keep it better under control and your economy and health does better.

 

[prateik]

I work with a lot of data vis and I don't get the fundamentalism about it. Starting with 0 is the best default and a sensible choice for most scenarios but not all. In the first chart they started at 0 because 0 is a possible number in that data range, in the second it doesn't get close. The FT are a pretty strong voice in data journalism and this guy spends a lot of time thinking about the right way to show things. He didn't do it because he's trying to mislead people or because he's unaware of the downsides of it. Edward Tufte played a pivotal role in the development of data vis and his view directly opposes yours, mostly because of his fundamental belief in the importance of the data:ink ratio. Here's a more modern take with some examples. These aren't uninformed views.

Oh it absolutely is done to emphasize the spike.. This was posted on twitter.. I cant speak about the intent.. but it certainly ends up being misleading.

Of course there are cases where it doesnt need to be starting from 0. the link you posted mentions it being unnecessary when plotting temperature.. that makes total sense.. cases where small variances are significant. It also makes sense if its only for people familiar with reading charts ..

If it was 10000 going to 10500, and that 500 increase was significant, then starting at 0 would be unnecessary .. that is not the case . it started from 550 and went up to 1000.. there is no reason for it to not have started at 0.

The only reason it has been done that way is to trick the casual observer into thinking it has doubled whereas it has gone up by 33% .

anyway. the bit about hatred for anyone who doesnt start at 0 is way too broad.. I totally agree there are cases where it doesnt help.. but I also dont think this is one of those..

also, from the quartz article you linked

Of course column and bar charts should always have zeroed axes, since that is the only way for the visualization to accurately represent the data. Bar and column charts rely on bars that stretch to zero to accurately mirror the ratios between data points. Truncating the axis breaks the relationship between the size of the rectangle and the value of the data.

And while its not a bar chart, it is clearly plotting several lines and comparing them.. not having them start at 0 when it easily could have been is misleading.