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

jojojo said:
Year on year comparisons won't work at the moment. This time last year we were looking at the European version of the virus. A couple of months later and we hit the Alpha variant - twice as infectious. 7 months after that we hit the Delta variant - twice as infectious as Alpha. Plus we've gone from "some measures" - like masks, controls over how many people could socialise, no crowds at football matches, entire classes of kids being sent home for one case etc etc to everything open.

In other words we should be seeing a lot more cases, hospitalisations and deaths than we are. In the UK we've basically been sat at roughly peak case numbers, without approaching peak hospitalisations or deaths. Not great but the covid deaths pattern looks like this:
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You can see it in terms of deaths/100 thousand people as a heat map through the pandemic at:
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths?areaType=nation&areaName=England

Or for hospitalisations, take a look at:
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare?areaType=overview&areaName=United Kingdom
Hospitalisations are lower than they were when we were experiencing similar case rates in the past. Average age has gone down, reflecting high vax rates amongst the older ones and high case rates amongst school kids and their parents.
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Cheers, mate. The numbers are kinda conflicting in different countries to form some sort of a pattern. There are naturally lot of variables out there with lockdowns, safety measures, vaccination, efficiency and so on.

Worrying part is that I think it's pretty obvious that this virus will become seasonal just like influenza as it naturally evolves into different variations, whilst some of the vaccines wanes in efficiency after couple of months.

Think the key should always be hospitalization rate and keeping that low as death rate really depends on if the health system can handle the load and if the virus can be treated in due time, whilst hopefully even though being more contagious should be less dangerous when it circulates more and more like the flu..
 
Buster15 said:
Very interesting.
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There's a lot of speculation around it at the moment.

Worst case is that one of the PCR tests is giving more false negatives than usual, possibly due to a mutation in the virus. However there's a strong case for saying that all we're seeing is that where case numbers are high (as with secondary school students) you're seeing the normal false negative rate on PCR.

On the technical side, they're looking at whether the LFT is showing positive for a different coronavirus (more like there common cold types).

Alternatively, it may all be about the samples - the PCR tests can miss the virus if there's too much mucus (snot!) on the sample. Hence the false negative may be worse when it's testing kids and the vaccinated - who are more likely to get a runny or blocked nose as one of the symptoms.
 
jojojo said:
There's a lot of speculation around it at the moment.

Worst case is that one of the PCR tests is giving more false negatives than usual, possibly due to a mutation in the virus. However there's a strong case for saying that all we're seeing is that where case numbers are high (as with secondary school students) you're seeing the normal false negative rate on PCR.

On the technical side, they're looking at whether the LFT is showing positive for a different coronavirus (more like there common cold types).

Alternatively, it may all be about the samples - the PCR tests can miss the virus if there's too much mucus (snot!) on the sample. Hence the false negative may be worse when it's testing kids and the vaccinated - who are more likely to get a runny or blocked nose as one of the symptoms.
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If the virus has evaded to avoid PCR testing, that’s as sure a sign of test, trace and isolate working as anything if it’s proven to be an effective evolutionary pressure.
 
jojojo said:
There's a lot of speculation around it at the moment.

Worst case is that one of the PCR tests is giving more false negatives than usual, possibly due to a mutation in the virus. However there's a strong case for saying that all we're seeing is that where case numbers are high (as with secondary school students) you're seeing the normal false negative rate on PCR.

On the technical side, they're looking at whether the LFT is showing positive for a different coronavirus (more like there common cold types).

Alternatively, it may all be about the samples - the PCR tests can miss the virus if there's too much mucus (snot!) on the sample. Hence the false negative may be worse when it's testing kids and the vaccinated - who are more likely to get a runny or blocked nose as one of the symptoms.
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That’s strange. On what basis are they deciding the PCR negative is false? Surely the much more likely scenario is the LFT giving a false positive?
 
Pogue Mahone said:
That’s strange. On what basis are they deciding the PCR negative is false? Surely the much more likely scenario is the LFT giving a false positive?
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It go either way really. They're looking at both.

If the LFTs are showing false positives, then they're doing so at a much higher rate than normal (their usual problem is too many false negatives) - hence they're looking at specificity issues with one of the currently circulating other coronaviruses.

If the PCR tests are showing false negatives, it may just be that they're doing so at the normal rate - but getting a lot more positive samples than normal, hence the negatives are noticeable. It's that denominator problem.

If you've got a 1000 samples, only one positive, and you've got a false negative error rate of 1 in a 100, chances are that you're really unlikely to miss it. If you've got 1000 samples, and 100 positive, chances are you'll miss at least one of the positives. Obviously those aren't the real numbers, but they give an idea of why it may turn out that nothing odd is going on - and that we need to be more cautious about PCR always trumping LFT.
 
jojojo said:
It go either way really. They're looking at both.

If the LFTs are showing false positives, then they're doing so at a much higher rate than normal (their usual problem is too many false negatives) - hence they're looking at specificity issues with one of the currently circulating other coronaviruses.

If the PCR tests are showing false negatives, it may just be that they're doing so at the normal rate - but getting a lot more positive samples than normal, hence the negatives are noticeable. It's that denominator problem.

If you've got a 1000 samples, only one positive, and you've got a false negative error rate of 1 in a 100, chances are that you're really unlikely to miss it. If you've got 1000 samples, and 100 positive, chances are you'll miss at least one of the positives. Obviously those aren't the real numbers, but they give an idea of why it may turn out that nothing odd is going on - and that we need to be more cautious about PCR always trumping LFT.
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Yeah, prior probability big factor in test accuracy. Bit of a head melter but hugely influential.
 
jojojo said:
There's a lot of speculation around it at the moment.

Worst case is that one of the PCR tests is giving more false negatives than usual, possibly due to a mutation in the virus. However there's a strong case for saying that all we're seeing is that where case numbers are high (as with secondary school students) you're seeing the normal false negative rate on PCR.

On the technical side, they're looking at whether the LFT is showing positive for a different coronavirus (more like there common cold types).

Alternatively, it may all be about the samples - the PCR tests can miss the virus if there's too much mucus (snot!) on the sample. Hence the false negative may be worse when it's testing kids and the vaccinated - who are more likely to get a runny or blocked nose as one of the symptoms.
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Your point about the 'snot' in the back of the nose, as well as a likelihood of increased mucus in the throat is definitely something you would get with a heavy cold or flu. The LFT leaflet does tell you to cough and blow your nose before doing the test.
 
With respect to those medically unable to have the vaccine, here in NZ out of a population of 5 million we are being told there are only about 100 people unable to take the vaccine. What sort of numbers of people unable to take the vaccine are authorities telling people in other countries?
100 out of 5 million seems an incredibly low number to me.
 
golden_blunder said:
Yep now saying open up may not go ahead on 22nd
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Is it a surprise? Our rubbish healthcare can't cope in winter even without Covid. The government have shown they will do whatever it takes to not expose it for the shitshow they have helped it become.

I'm still optimistic we will lift restrictions and that this is mostly scare mongering and trying to gauge public opinion.
 
golden_blunder said:
Yep now saying open up may not go ahead on 22nd
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Sorry I’m not really following Ireland related Covid news but are you saying that you guys still haven’t fully opened up yet since vaccinations have began? Must be frustrating. We have been fully open since end of May and Covid passports have been introduced recently to keep it this way for those who are immunized either through Covid recovery or vaccination. Don’t think we’re going back to any kind of lockdown from here, healthcare system seems to be coping well with the latest increase in cases which are beginning to flatten now.
 
Rajma said:
Sorry I’m not really following Ireland related Covid news but are you saying that you guys still haven’t fully opened up yet since vaccinations have began? Must be frustrating.
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Not fully opened up but life is pretty normal. Still need vaccine passports to go to restaurants (not often enforced) and some restrictions around large gatherings which doesn’t affect many people.
 
Massive Spanner said:
Is it a surprise? Our rubbish healthcare can't cope in winter even without Covid. The government have shown they will do whatever it takes to not expose it for the shitshow they have helped it become.

I'm still optimistic we will lift restrictions and that this is mostly scare mongering and trying to gauge public opinion.
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I disagree, whatever you think of the healthcare is irrelevant. Covid cases are going up almost everywhere and its due to opening up too much too soon. Also a lack of mandatory vaccine.
 
Massive Spanner said:
Is it a surprise? Our rubbish healthcare can't cope in winter even without Covid. The government have shown they will do whatever it takes to not expose it for the shitshow they have helped it become.

I'm still optimistic we will lift restrictions and that this is mostly scare mongering and trying to gauge public opinion.
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I wouldn’t disagree that our healthcare service is pretty shitty but when it comes to uncontrolled exponential growth the difference between a shitty service being overwhelmed and best in the world ending up just as screwed is only a matter of a few weeks.

That’s why improving the healthcare service has never been a way to get through the pandemic. It’s something we should be working on regardless and it’s good that the pandemic has made this even more of a priority but it’s just not possible to build a heath service so good that we can completely ignore covid. I’m hopeful that the vaccination roll-out has been good enough that we won’t get the crazy explosion of cases we got this time last year. Or anything even close to that. But you can see why the people calling the shots have squeaky bums right now.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Not fully opened up but life is pretty normal. Still need vaccine passports to go to restaurants (not often enforced) and some restrictions around large gatherings which doesn’t affect many people.
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I see, anyway I don’t think there’s much sense to any further restrictions when you see in real-time what sort of positive impact booster shots are having on the delta spread. Countries should just focus on the roll out of those 3rd shots as quickly as possible to the most vulnerable groups.
 
Rajma said:
I see, anyway I don’t think there’s much sense to any further restrictions when you see in real-time what sort of positive impact booster shots are having on the delta spread. Countries should just focus on the roll out of those 3rd shots as quickly as possible to the most vulnerable groups.
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Yeah, we’ve started on 80+ and immune suppressed. I’d like to see us crack on all the way down to aged 60 before the weather gets properly shit and everyone is indoors all day and night.
 
Stanley Road said:
I disagree, whatever you think of the healthcare is irrelevant. Covid cases are going up almost everywhere and its due to opening up too much too soon. Also a lack of mandatory vaccine.
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We have 92% of over 12s fully vaccinated in Ireland so I really don't know what on time is if that's still too soon.
Pogue Mahone said:
I wouldn’t disagree that our healthcare service is pretty shitty but when it comes to uncontrolled exponential growth the difference between a shitty service being overwhelmed and best in the world ending up just as screwed is only a matter of a few weeks.

That’s why improving the healthcare service has never been a way to get through the pandemic. It’s something we should be working on regardless and it’s good that the pandemic has made this even more of a priority but it’s just not possible to build a heath service so good that we can completely ignore covid. I’m hopeful that the vaccination roll-out has been good enough that we won’t get the crazy explosion of cases we got this time last year. Or anything even close to that. But you can see why the people calling the shots have squeaky bums right now.
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I don't disagree with any of that. It is horribly depressing to have vaccination rates like ours and still potentially be in a position where we can't lift restrictions fully. Somewhat predictable, though.
 
Massive Spanner said:
We have 92% of over 12s fully vaccinated in Ireland so I really don't know what on time is if that's still too soon.

I don't disagree with any of that. It is horribly depressing to have vaccination rates like ours and still potentially be in a position where we can't lift restrictions fully. Somewhat predictable, though.
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Yeah it’s shite. Cases on the up everywhere. In other highly vaccinated countries too. Much less bad than it would have been without such a high take-up. Still shite though. Delta is such a fecking cnut. I’m fine with current restrictions through the winter, if that’s what it takes. Disappointing all the same.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Yeah it’s shite. Cases on the up everywhere. In other highly vaccinated countries too. Much less bad than it would have been without such a high take-up. Still shite though. Delta is such a fecking cnut. I’m fine with current restrictions through the winter, if that’s what it takes. Disappointing all the same.
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I'm a bit of a pessimist and sort of thought that was always going to happen. Not the end of the world, it would be nice to not have to do table service at the pub but other than that it's not so bad. I do think the government cocked up though by encouraging people to go back to offices on Sept 18th while other establishments still haven't opened at all in 18 months. The missus is on the train again cause roads are too busy and she said it's pretty full up again.
 
Massive Spanner said:
I'm a bit pessimist and sort of thought that was always going to happen. Not the end of the world, it would be nice to not have to do table service at the pub but other than that it's not so bad. I do think the government cocked up by encouraging people to go back to offices on Sept 18th while other establishments still haven't opened at all in 18 months.
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The thing I think they really fecked up on was the decision to stop contact tracing in schools. I didn’t understand the rationale and primary schools are the one and only indoor space where 90%+ of people are unvaccinated. It might be a coincidence that cases stopped decreasing and started increasing within a week of that decision but it doesn’t look good.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
The thing I think they really fecked up on was the decision to stop contact tracing in schools. I didn’t understand the rationale and primary schools are the one and only indoor space where 90%+ of people are unvaccinated. It might be a coincidence that cases stopped decreasing and started increasing within a week of that decision but it doesn’t look good.
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My understanding was that they simply couldn't handle the caseload and that's why it stopped but maybe I'm wrong?
 
Massive Spanner said:
My understanding was that they simply couldn't handle the caseload and that's why it stopped but maybe I'm wrong?
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I don’t think so. My understanding was that they thought testing and asking asymptomatic primary school kids to self-isolate was too disruptive when they don’t get very sick and don’t cause many community outbreaks. I’m not even sure the kids are driving this but each time they relax surveillance like that it sends a signal to be a bit more relaxed about covid in general. With predictable results.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I don’t think so. My understanding was that they thought testing and asking asymptomatic primary school kids to self-isolate was too disruptive when they don’t get very sick and don’t cause many community outbreaks. I’m not even sure the kids are driving this but each time they relax surveillance like that it sends a signal to be a bit more relaxed about covid in general. With predictable results.
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See, I told you it was the kids and schools! I joke.
 
Massive Spanner said:
See, I told you it was the kids and schools! I joke.
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Hehe. Hoist by my own petard!

It’s weird though. Cases fell for several weeks after schools reopened. Which is the exact opposite of what you’d expect if schoolkids were driving transmission.

Yet anecdotally I know an absolute shit-load of cases happening in primary school kids. Every parent does. The timing of this recent increase is hard to explain. If kids driving spread why no increase much earlier in the school term? Why only an increase this last week? Has anything changed other than stopping primary school contacts isolating? Maybe more people back in offices? My office opened up exactly two weeks before this mini-surge. If other offices opened around the same time that might be contributing.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Hehe. Hoist by my own petard!

It’s weird though. Cases fell for several weeks after schools reopened. Which is the exact opposite of what you’d expect if schoolkids were driving transmission.

Yet anecdotally I know an absolute shit-load of cases happening in primary school kids. Every parent does. The timing of this recent increase is hard to explain. If kids driving spread why no increase much earlier in the school term? Why only an increase this last week? Has anything changed other than stopping primary school contacts isolating? Maybe more people back in offices? My office opened up exactly two weeks before this mini-surge. If other offices opened around the same time that might be contributing.
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The 18th was only the guideline for offices. I know a lot only had tiny trial periods then and have been steadily ramping up since. Trains have also increased numbers week on week, assuming other forms of transport too. Then you have universities, schools etc. It's shitty timing that the reopening coincided with all this and coming into winter, I guess.

The problem is that people are saying to keep current restrictions til January which is all well and good til you realise that January and February are the coldest fecking months in Ireland!
 
Pogue Mahone said:
Hehe. Hoist by my own petard!

It’s weird though. Cases fell for several weeks after schools reopened. Which is the exact opposite of what you’d expect if schoolkids were driving transmission.

Yet anecdotally I know an absolute shit-load of cases happening in primary school kids. Every parent does. The timing of this recent increase is hard to explain. If kids driving spread why no increase much earlier in the school term? Why only an increase this last week? Has anything changed other than stopping primary school contacts isolating? Maybe more people back in offices? My office opened up exactly two weeks before this mini-surge. If other offices opened around the same time that might be contributing.
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You've made me so happy using that quote correctly.
 
Looks like at least some of those odd - LFT says positive, PCR says negative - test results are related to problems at one of the testing labs (where the PCR samples get sent). Tests done between 3rd and 12th October in some parts of the country may be affected.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58921280.amp

More details, to follow later today apparently.
 
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