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

jojojo said:
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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It gets worse - looks like the PCR problem affected tests between 8th September and 12th October.

From what I've read so far, it seems to be tests done at local testing centres in some parts of the country - in particular Berkshire and to the west.

UK public health are estimating 43,000 positives were missed on PCR. Hopefully the people with symptoms stayed home despite the positive PCR. More likely they took the result literally and went back to work/school/uni and round to their gran's as normal.

I suspect we'll see a guidance change about how seriously to take a LFT positive.
 
Today is the first day where the Covid Pass is required to go to work in Italy. There had been a lot of fears in the news that there would be mass protests but so far there is nothing, a few small gatherings here and there but not enough to disrupt anything. As a country we're up to 85% vaccinated and many of the regions are well over 90% so i guess there's just not enough people against the vaccine.
 
looks like we are heading into another winter of restrictions - because of the cnuts that wont get a vaccine it would appear
 
Pogue Mahone said:
He has a point. With cases as high as they are in the UK we were always going to be dragged along with them. Which is not to say we don’t have issues of our own to deal with but still…
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I bet it was some DUP heads sent undercover to cough everywhere down here. Germ warfare
 
Dumbstar said:
Damn. Are these Russian numbers? Then you probably need to double it?
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If The Economist is right then undercounting in Russia runs very high. Comparing excess deaths to official covid deaths prior to July 31 2021, they reported 155k covid deaths, but had 652k excess death in the same period.

As a comparison, most European countries are within a few percent on official covid deaths to excess deaths.

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker
 
I see that cases are on the rise again, consistently over 40k and, even more worryingly, the hospitalisations heading towards 1k per day, even before flu season.

This winter is going to be brutal!
 
Jericholyte2 said:
I see that cases are on the rise again, consistently over 40k and, even more worryingly, the hospitalisations heading towards 1k per day, even before flu season.

This winter is going to be brutal!
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Hospital rates are slightly worrying but deaths compared to ever rising infection rates are really encouraging. Still under 200 a day at peak times of the week.

Shows the vaccines have done their job so lock down in any form is not required. The stats will sort themselves out when the anti vaxxers tired of this life have run out of it. Those that can't take the vaccines but would like to will require very special care and isolation. Hospital admissions too should reduce as a result.
 
Dumbstar said:
Hospital rates are slightly worrying but deaths compared to ever rising infection rates are really encouraging. Still under 200 a day at peak times of the week.

Shows the vaccines have done their job so lock down in any form is not required. The stats will sort themselves out when the anti vaxxers tired of this life have run out of it. Those that can't take the vaccines but would like to will require very special care and isolation. Hospital admissions too should reduce as a result.
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In this situation though, despite the relatively low death rates, it’s the hospitalisation that is the most important as, independent of the ‘outcome’, it’s putting a strain on hospitals / taking up beds that will inevitably be needed for the worsening flu season as everyone will be out mixing again unlike last year.
 
Jericholyte2 said:
In this situation though, despite the relatively low death rates, it’s the hospitalisation that is the most important as, independent of the ‘outcome’, it’s putting a strain on hospitals / taking up beds that will inevitably be needed for the worsening flu season as everyone will be out mixing again unlike last year.
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We're relying more or less entirely on vaccines now. The theory is that the boosters will pull the death rates down and have some impact on hospitalisations. Meanwhile getting a vaccine into the rest of the (12+) population will pull down hospitalisations and also reduce case rates. Mass flu vaccination will help keep flu hospitalisations down as well.

From the point of view of the statistical models. We could be through this covid wave by Christmas, if it works out right. Leaving the hospitals a bit more capacity for flu cases.

The vaccine program in schools has been slow to get going though. So it looks like England will follow Scotland and start using walk-in centres with the 12+, rather than using school vaccine days.

The booster campaign has made a sluggish start as well, but is starting to speed up now. It's a tough job though. The vaccine rollout uses staff from GPs and hospital settings who are already overwhelmed. The initial rollout used a lot of volunteers as well, but they're now heading back to work, or back to the projects they were doing before covid. Fewer people around for volunteering, and past volunteers running out of steam.

Incidents like the Wolverhampton PCR lab messing up tests don't help either. Presumably a good percentage of people who got false negative results went back to work/school or went round to see granny afterwards.
 
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McGrathsipan said:
Do we all need a booster or even one every 6 months?
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I think we will all need one eventually. I hope it won’t be needed again every six months.

It’s possible that an initial couple of doses followed by another one 6-12 months later is the best way to give long term protection. That dosing regime wasn’t tested when developing these vaccines because it would have taken too long to get results.

The whole world will be watching Israel very closely for the next 6 months, that’s for sure.
 
Pogue Mahone said:
I think we will all need one eventually. I hope it won’t be needed again every six months.

It’s possible that an initial couple of doses followed by another one 6-12 months later is the best way to give long term protection. That dosing regime wasn’t tested when developing these vaccines because it would have taken too long to get results.

The whole world will be watching Israel very closely for the next 6 months, that’s for sure.
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Bloody depressing to think it still has a hold of us
 
Massive Spanner said:
They need to figure something out. Pubs have adjusted to measures. They've been shut for over 18 months now.
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I know but nightclubs are the very definition of what this virus loves aren't they. Hundred of people in a small space for hours - generally stuffy as feck.
I dont think they will let them open
 
McGrathsipan said:
I know but nightclubs are the very definition of what this virus loves aren't they. Hundred of people in a small space for hours - generally stuffy as feck.
I dont think they will let them open
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I was in Kilkenny at the weekend and you could say that about almost every pub there to be fair. Don't think many are abiding by the restrictions at this point across the country (better in Dublin though) which is why we are such a mess compared to other countries. Think Pogue made a good point before that we seem to socialize in a very different way here in Ireland, which is true.
 
Pogue Mahone said:


Good/detailed thread on what’s going wrong in the UK right now. Makes concerning reading.
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It all comes down to the gamble on boosters (and vaccinating the unvaxxed) doing enough to pull down hospitalisations and deaths. It remains too close to call really, especially as you dive into the details. Certainly there's not enough difference between England, Scotland, Wales to suggest that simple fixes - like face masks, night clubs etc actually make much difference in a country with high vaccination rates and high rates of past infection.

Looking at England, case rates in 18+ peaked in early July just over 30k/day, "the Euros effect". Since the grand reopening (full football matches, night clubs, no masks etc) adult case rates have been roughly stable at under 20k/day. Currently those cases are concentrated in adults who live with school kids. Meanwhile, cases amongst the school aged have gone through the roof, they now account for about half the daily case total. The latest ONS survey says more than 8% of 12-16s currently test positive on PCR.

The ethics and the epidemiology of letting it race through the under 16s is questionable, particularly as the vaccination campaign started late and has started slow. However it does look like between prior infection and vaccination (probably now using walk-in centres as well as school vaccine days) secondary school kids are likely to reach, if not herd immunity, then some kind of stable equilibrium in the next month or so.

There are also the first glimmers of a disproportionate (to the rest of the community) fall in case rates among the over 80s. Whether that's a random blip, a behavioural shift (more of the older ones staying home, more grandkids not visiting grandparents or whatever) or the first sign of the booster rollout in action we'll have to wait and see
 
Anybody familiar with the Italian data who can explain this report in the Guardian today:

Italy reported 44 coronavirus-related deaths on Monday, up from 24 the previous day, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections fell to 1,597 from 2,437.

Italy has registered 131,585 deaths linked to Covid since the outbreak in February last year. It has the second highest toll in Europe behind Britain, and the ninth highest in the world. The country has reported 4.7 million cases to date.
The number of patients in hospital with Covid - not including those in intensive care - stood at 2,428 on Monday, up from 2,386 a day earlier.

I can find the official daily cases site but not the official up to date hospital/deaths data. Basically what's odd is that those hospital numbers are roughly a third of the UK, and deaths a quarter of the UK but cases are running at a tenth (or less). Is that an age distribution of cases thing - are there more older people catching covid? Is it down to vaccination rates in the different age groups? Anyone familiar with the backstory to those numbers?

@Penna @11101
 
jojojo said:
Anybody familiar with the Italian data who can explain this report in the Guardian today:

Italy reported 44 coronavirus-related deaths on Monday, up from 24 the previous day, the health ministry said, while the daily tally of new infections fell to 1,597 from 2,437.

Italy has registered 131,585 deaths linked to Covid since the outbreak in February last year. It has the second highest toll in Europe behind Britain, and the ninth highest in the world. The country has reported 4.7 million cases to date.
The number of patients in hospital with Covid - not including those in intensive care - stood at 2,428 on Monday, up from 2,386 a day earlier.

I can find the official daily cases site but not the official up to date hospital/deaths data. Basically what's odd is that those hospital numbers are roughly a third of the UK, and deaths a quarter of the UK but cases are running at a tenth (or less). Is that an age distribution of cases thing - are there more older people catching covid? Is it down to vaccination rates in the different age groups? Anyone familiar with the backstory to those numbers?

@Penna @11101
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The only reasons I can think of are the Green Pass requirement and the fact that even in White Zones we still have to wear masks when we go inside a shop, office or whatever. It's still being enforced and people are still complying.

Also a lot of young teens were vaccinated during the summer months, whereas the UK has been dithering over that.

We were also behind the UK with the vaccine rollout, so maybe people here still have higher levels of protection - I didn't get my second dose till the back end of June, even at my age.
 
Penna said:
The only reasons I can think of are the Green Pass requirement and the fact that even in White Zones we still have to wear masks when we go inside a shop, office or whatever. It's still being enforced and people are still complying.

Also a lot of young teens were vaccinated during the summer months, whereas the UK has been dithering over that.

We were also behind the UK with the vaccine rollout, so maybe people here still have higher levels of protection - I didn't get my second dose till the back end of June, even at my age.
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It's more why the hospital rate is so high compared to the case rates that I was looking at. A third of the hospital patients (or more if the ICU stats really aren't included in that figure) but only about a tenth of the cases. It suggests the cases profile (and/or the vaccination profile) is different.
 
jojojo said:
It's more why the hospital rate is so high compared to the case rates that I was looking at. A third of the hospital patients (or more if the ICU stats really aren't included in that figure) but only about a tenth of the cases. It suggests the cases profile (and/or the vaccination profile) is different.
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I would speculate partly it's down to the age demographic here, and partly that people just don't bother getting tested anymore. I don't know the actual testing numbers but everybody is vaccinated so people who get ill stay at home and wait it out.
 
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