roubaixtuesday
self serving virtue signaller
That would be because there was no intention to appoint anyone else.
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That would be because there was no intention to appoint anyone else.
Rusty Nails
We remember
- Location
- Living in the slow lane
Exactly.
Anyone with any real experience of recruitment interviewing will know that often there is a target recruit and other people are only added to the process to give it a veneer of fairness.
kingrollo
Guru
Full lockdown and we coped.
The point is we wanted / hoped to avoid lockdown. The hospital admissions always lags more than you expect .
From memory cases started to rise in sept - it was late Nov when it hit critical on admissions ( approx)
kingrollo
Guru
Best case figures
75% of UK population vaccinated
90% effective rate.
20% of infections requiring hospital treatment
UK population 62 million.
We could easily have 3rd wave.
- Location
- Somewhere wet & hilly in NW England.
Where have you got those figures from please?
Rocky
Hello decadence
I think they are back of an envelope calculations. I’d agree with all of them apart from the 20% figure for hospital treatment. That seems a bit high. I’d also say it was probably a middling to worse case, rather than a best case.
lane
Veteran
14 day lag from test positive to hospitalisation. So current 7 day average hospitalised is 860 and tested positive 14 days ago (7 day average from 14 to 7th May) is 13,898. 860 divided by 13,898 is roughly 6%. So it looks like 6% of tested positive number now end up in hospital. Presumably lower than previously due to vaccinations which means more younger people as a % test positive but are less likely to be hospitalised. It would have been higher previously and I think may well have been around 20%. Someone in the 50-64 year age group is 4 times more likely to be hospitalised than someone in the 30-39 year age group and by 75-84 age group this is 6.5 times more likely. So it is easy to see that 6% hospitalisation now could have easily have been 20% pre-vaccination days.
What I don't understand is given the lag re hospitalisations why they are increasing by 25% 7 day average currently when 14 days ago cases were not increasing by 25% but were more or less stable. It makes me wonder if this is an impact of the Indian variant becoming more prevalent and it has a different characteristic which is putting more people in hospital for some reason - possibly more likely to put younger un-vaccinated in hospital than previous versions such as the Kent variant.
Given hospitalisations seem to now be increasing FASTER than cases were increasing 14 days ago it looks very uncertain that the link between infections and hospitalisations has yet been broken. Given exponential increase in cases is now certain I don't think the picture looks very promising at all.
Previous post projected 250,000 cases in 6 weeks time, although in reality likely to be higher due to unlocking, @6% hospitalisations would put 15,000 in hospital which is a manageable but concerning figure - but in reality likely to be higher and could easily be double which will put unsustainable pressure on the NHS.
Fundamentally we are following a road map that was not designed to work in the current changed circumstances with the Indian variant.
What I don't understand is given the lag re hospitalisations why they are increasing by 25% 7 day average currently when 14 days ago cases were not increasing by 25% but were more or less stable. It makes me wonder if this is an impact of the Indian variant becoming more prevalent and it has a different characteristic which is putting more people in hospital for some reason - possibly more likely to put younger un-vaccinated in hospital than previous versions such as the Kent variant.
Given hospitalisations seem to now be increasing FASTER than cases were increasing 14 days ago it looks very uncertain that the link between infections and hospitalisations has yet been broken. Given exponential increase in cases is now certain I don't think the picture looks very promising at all.
Previous post projected 250,000 cases in 6 weeks time, although in reality likely to be higher due to unlocking, @6% hospitalisations would put 15,000 in hospital which is a manageable but concerning figure - but in reality likely to be higher and could easily be double which will put unsustainable pressure on the NHS.
Fundamentally we are following a road map that was not designed to work in the current changed circumstances with the Indian variant.
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Craig the cyclist
Über Member
He made them up
lane
Veteran
I am sure @kingrollo can speak for themselves but I think you will find that the population of the country quoted is as reasonable approximation as we can get and the 90% effective rate is in line with many studies after a second dose.
Ajax Bay
Guru
- Location
- East Devon
Yes. All @kingrollo other figures are best case, except that one, and the UK population (67M) - maybe he was using over 6s. And UK is not near 75% with second dose (or even first), maybe by 21 Jun for 75% first dose (49M).
How about this:
Central estimate figures
By 4 June: 40% of UK population vaccinated (2 doses) plus another 20% with first dose only (projected from NHS figures*)
By 30 June: 50% of UK population vaccinated (2 doses) plus another 25% with first dose only (projected from NHS figures*)
74% effective rate (14 days after second dose, Pfizer/AZ average), 33% after first dose (gov.uk #)
6% (medium uncertainty - so 'made up') of infections requiring hospital treatment (Overall (from the start) it's been about 10% of those testing positive have been admitted to hospital (NHS figures*). There is evidence (aiui) that even those vaccinated infected are much less likely to need hospital. And all the unvaccinated are under 30 and the admission rate is very low for that third of the population.)
UK population 67 million. (ONS)
Decision on 'no earlier than' 21 Jun date will be made on data available on 7 Jun latest, to inform the 4 tests, and the critical one is hospitalisation trend.
We are absolutely certain to have a 3rd wave - all the models have predicted one (even without a variant with increased transmissibility (some uncertainty over that)) and the timing has also been suggested (central estimate) as peak end July (NB for summer hols, peeps).
I think estimating peak cases is problematic. Current estimate of doubling time is 12 days (my estimate from NHS figures*). How much of the increase (which was expected after the 17 May relaxation date) is down to the increased Reff and how much due to the increasing proportion of cases being the B.1.617.2 variant means an increased R0?
(In UK) There is a dog fight on between increased spread through reduced NPIs and VoC effect, and the increasing percentage vaccinated.
Cross post with @lane and others.
* NHS figures from: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases and its sibling pages
# https://www.gov.uk/government/news/vaccines-highly-effective-against-b-1-617-2-variant-after-2-doses
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Eric Olthwaite
Guest
OK. But there us a huge difference between
a) a significant 3rd wave of infections resulting in a small increase in serious illness and deaths; and
b) a significant 3rd wave of infections resulting in a big increase in serious illness and deaths
Many of the "experts" admit they have no way of predicting the relative likelihood of (a) and (b), but suggest it's best to plan for (b) just in case,
But that's not reality, or rational. We don't live our lives governed by the worst case scenario without some judgement about how likely that is.
Ajax Bay
Guru
- Location
- East Devon
Quite right, Eric, and I'm a 'beer glass half full' (till it's not) person, but if cases do double every 12 days, then we'll be on about 15,000 cases a day by 21 Jun. If the percentage needing hospital is 6% then that reads as 900 a day admissions 10 days later. That's the same as mid October and we saw how that turned out.
What changes will be made in UK in the next weeks to (at best) increase the doubling time?
Difference (from October)! By 21 Jun 75% vaccinated population will have significant protection from serious infection and also from transmission Edit: and we are moving into the summer so might expect a 10% benefit from that: these are increasingly depressing the effective R number. However, dealing with B.1.617.2 variant (half of infections?) which is (low certainty) more infectious that B.1.1.7 which was 50% more infectious than the wild variant (in October) - increases the R number.
Pretty sure that "experts" would say there was High Certainty of a "significant 3rd wave of infections resulting in a small increase in serious illness and deaths". Your (b) less certainty (and my prediction is 'not'). So contingency planning, which may include 'following the data' on 10 Jun.
ETA: "Sir Tim Gowers, University of Cambridge (you'll recall referred to by Mr Cummings describing the epiphany in early March 2020 within No 10) has observed that the downside of being “a bit more cautious” [ie choosing a later date for Phase 4) was a lot smaller than the downside of getting it wrong (letting cases exponentially increase and hope that that doesn't convert into too much serious illness and/or long COVID. (Source: Aol quoting Guardian)
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Ajax Bay
Guru
- Location
- East Devon
Quick scan suggestion.
7-day average cases started clearly trending up from about 14 May (date of specimen) up by about 10%.
Hospital admissions fairly flat (average about 110 per day 1-17 May). These are up 10% (as at 25 May) - expected mean lag is 9 days (from January curve/data).
I see no particular anomalies which might flag up concern: I have not tried to derive your figures.
Bear in mind that numbers in 'COVID beds' might be affected by a younger cohort in hospital and perhaps a longer stay in hospital (and much higher percentage survive, mercifully). Expected mean lag between admission peak and peak bed occupancy is 10 days (from January curve/data).
HTH
