Coronavirus outbreak

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For the second wave, different in what way?

For example, Italy re-opened bars and restaurants in mid-May. The second wave didn't occur until 4-5 months later.
 

PK99

Legendary Member
Location
SW19
This. Different countries in Europe had widely differing strategies, and virtually all of them saw a second wave in the autumn.

Presumably this is the Autumn uptick in question - looks bad, does it not?

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The European comparator data is interesting in this context.



European autumn uptick.png
 

roubaixtuesday

self serving virtue signaller
For example, Italy re-opened bars and restaurants in mid-May. The second wave didn't occur until 4-5 months later.

Not so; cases in Italy rose consistently from early July.

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I don't know what restrictions were in place when, but the *strategy* seems very similar to the UK, as does the outcome: restrictions were lifted as cases fell, then cases rose when restrictions were lifted.

A log scale shows this much more clearly than linear plots do, which obscure exponential growth at low absolute numbers.
 

PK99

Legendary Member
Location
SW19
Not so; cases in Italy rose consistently from early July.

View attachment 589600

I don't know what restrictions were in place when, but the *strategy* seems very similar to the UK, as does the outcome: restrictions were lifted as cases fell, then cases rose when restrictions were lifted.

A log scale shows this much more clearly than linear plots do, which obscure exponential growth at low absolute numbers.

I think this plot is a little more clear


Italy from may.png
 

lazybloke

Today i follow the flying spaghetti monster
Location
Leafy Surrey
Agreed with most of your post, but pretty please, let's not go back to saying the UK is an island nation just like Australia!!!
I must have missed discussion of island nations - dare I do a search?

I mentioned Australia not because it's an island nation but because it has managed covid very well. I could have said NZ, Iceland, Jamaica, Taiwan or IoM. I could also have said Finland or Israel.

The overall UK response to covid has been so poor that natural defenses like the sea have been rendered useless.
Boris needs to learn from those mistakes. His covid strategy relies largely on our successful vaccination programme, but needs also to be informed by successes elsewhere. Develop best pratice.

Don't rush to open everything up prematurely, it won't bring normality back, but it will cause more death.
There is no normality when 127,000 loved ones are missing. don't add to that number.

Could do better, C-
 

lazybloke

Today i follow the flying spaghetti monster
Location
Leafy Surrey
This. Different countries in Europe had widely differing strategies, and virtually all of them saw a second wave in the autumn.
If you want to compare to other Europen countries, feel free to wallow in conclusions of "we all faced the same problems".

Then look at countries that actually did well, and have a think about what they did differently.
 

MrGrumpy

Huge Member
Location
Fly Fifer
May I ask you to share on what that recollection is based? Were these the main reasons?
Certainly back in February 2020, people returning from the continent was the main conduit for virus import (rather than from China or other areas where outbreaks had been reported). But in the autumn of 2020?
I suggest that the necessary travel and attendance and new residence of hundreds of thousands of students at their new colleges/universities must be well up there as a 'main reason'.
Another 'main reason' was the emergence (didn't recognise it for some time) of the VoC variant B.1.1.7 with significantly higher transmissibility (with a fully susceptible population, unlike in May 2021 btw).
And, with moderate uncertainty, the seasonal effect of moving into autumn will have been a 'main reason' Current modelling assesses (makes reasonable assumptions) that as 10-20%.
EOTHO:
"A back of the envelope calculation suggests that the program is accountable for between 8 to 17 percent of all new local infection clusters during that time period."
A Treasury spokesperson rejected the economist’s findings. “We do not recognise these figures – which, as the study itself admits, are ‘back-of-the-envelope’ calculations. Many other European counterparts have experienced an uptick in cases, irrespective of whether similar measures for the hospitality industry have been introduced.”
Ok maybe not the whole reason but it did add to it
https://news.sky.com/story/coronavi...d-second-wave-of-covid-19-study-says-12118285
 

PK99

Legendary Member
Location
SW19
If you want to compare to other Europen countries, feel free to wallow in conclusions of "we all faced the same problems".

Then look at countries that actually did well, and have a think about what they did differently.

IMO, it is less about what they did differently than it is about what different inherent characteristics they have.
 

lazybloke

Today i follow the flying spaghetti monster
Location
Leafy Surrey
IMO, it is less about what they did differently than it is about what different inherent characteristics they have.
Sure; those different characteristics would be important in the initial shape of how the pandemic affects each country, but then each government must respond appropriately (and learn lessons along the way to refine that response).
Depending on how you measure the course of the pandemic, we'd either agree or disagree on whether characteristics or response was the biggest influence on the result. Either way, I still think HMG could have done better.
 

PK99

Legendary Member
Location
SW19

https://fullfact.org/news/did-eat-out-help-out-cause-covid-spread/

Extracts;
Much of this has been fuelled by a paper published* in October which suggested the scheme was responsible for 8-17% of new infection clusters (i.e. infections that shared a common location).

This appears to have been misunderstood by several media outlets, who conflated it with a rise in actual infection rates.

##


How reliable are these findings?
It is plausible that EOHO increased contact between people (the possibility of transmission via restaurants was acknowledged recently by Professor Jonathan Van-Tam) and this would therefore raise the likelihood of them spreading Covid. It is hard to estimate the size of this specific effect, however.

The study itself refers to the 8-17% figure as a “back of the envelope calculation”, suggesting it is a rough estimate. The 17% figure is the upper limit of this estimate, but it could be as low as 8%.

Other experts** have also warned against relying too heavily on the numbers in the paper’s conclusions.

##

* (Preprint) https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economics/research/centres/cage/manage/publications/wp.517.2020.pdf


** https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/...t-out-to-help-out-scheme-and-covid-19-spread/
 

SpokeyDokey

68, & my GP says I will officially be old at 70!
Moderator
If you want to compare to other Europen countries, feel free to wallow in conclusions of "we all faced the same problems".

Then look at countries that actually did well, and have a think about what they did differently.

I don't think you can say at this stage which countries did well until the course of the pandemic ends globally.

According to Worldometer we are now in 17th place re deaths/million population (high to low) and steadily dropping down the rankings.
 

mjr

Comfy armchair to one person & a plank to the next
The European comparator data is interesting in this context.
The usually cautions about different reporting standards and methods should be remembered. Headline numbers are not all directly comparable.

Also, the discussion was about wave start dates. Graphs of rate of growth are available on ourworldindata and would be more informative.
 

lazybloke

Today i follow the flying spaghetti monster
Location
Leafy Surrey
I don't think you can say at this stage which countries did well until the course of the pandemic ends globally.

According to Worldometer we are now in 17th place re deaths/million population (high to low) and steadily dropping down the rankings.
Not disagreeing with that in any way, all because of our early access to the AZ vacccine; a fantastic success story.

Nevertheless, the the government failed in other areas of covid strategy:
- failed to prevent community transmission of variants
- failed to prevent entry of Indian variant
- ignored sage advice
The above failings have contributed to significant numbers of deaths in this country.

Thank you for pointing that deaths are still increasing in other countries; that doesn't excuse errors made here.

God help us if a really nasty and vaccine-resistant variant emerges; as current evidence suggests the UK will not be able to deal with it effectively.
Many countries would be in the same boat, but not all of them. So I'll repeat myself; lessons can be learned from successes elsewhere.
 
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