Coronavirus outbreak

[lane]

@Ajax Bay variant cases are currently doubling close to weekly, and total cases and hospitalizations as a result rising about 30% week on week.

Clearly that's fundamentally changed, and SAGE scientists including Edmunds have said so.

Hospital admissions this week tripple previous week where I live.

 

[Ajax Bay]

80% of the new cases in South Hams (area in Devon) LTLA are the new δ variant.
12 cases of the 15 in a population of about 90,000.
I fear the percentage increase in deaths UK-wide tomorrow will be infinite (compared to today).
Roughly 0.7% of the beds in the NHS are currently occupied by patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 28 days.

 

[Milzy]

80% of the new cases in South Hams (area in Devon) LTLA are the new δ variant.
12 cases of the 15 in a population of about 90,000.
I fear the percentage increase in deaths UK-wide tomorrow will be infinite (compared to today).
Roughly 0.7% of the beds in the NHS are currently occupied by patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 28 days.

This is nothing no deaths today. However Boris getting married earlier leads me to believe the 21st June date will be put back by a month or two.

 

[midlife]

80% of the new cases in South Hams (area in Devon) LTLA are the new δ variant.
12 cases of the 15 in a population of about 90,000.
I fear the percentage increase in deaths UK-wide tomorrow will be infinite (compared to today).
Roughly 0.7% of the beds in the NHS are currently occupied by patients who have tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 28 days.

Ohhh, how did you get the delta sign in the post?

 

[Ajax Bay]

OT!!: I suspect the (not) shotgun marriage (was the date brought forward) was 'driven' by needing a bona fide 'wife' in place for the G7 summit leaders' spouses hosting.
δ
α

 

[roubaixtuesday]

May I enquire on what data you are drawing to get your estimate?

Maths prof

Haven't run the numbers myself.


View: https://mobile.twitter.com/BristOliver/status/1399744418534592512

 

[Ajax Bay]

Right: Professor Johnson shows doubling in 14 days . . . . in England. Add in the other parts of UK and you get the estimate I shared.
I guess you could have showed 5 day doubling in Bolton earlier in May, if one had chosen that dataset. Let's screw down by effective (I wish) T&T and any adult first and all over 50s second vaccination surge, as well as diligent adherence to NPIs.
Area Cases Rate per 100,000

Blackburn with Darwen	623	416.2
Bolton	1,111	386.4
Rossendale	226	316.2
Hyndburn	132	162.9
Bedford	282	162.7
Renfrewshire	260	145.2
East Renfrewshire	132	138.2
Glasgow City	837	132.2
Ribble Valley	79	129.7
Kirklees	523	118.9
Burnley	102	114.7
Preston	161	112.5

 

[midlife]

Is it me, or does that show a real failure of test and trace?

 

[Ajax Bay]

You'd hope that a complete list of arrivals from India for the key two weeks running up to 23 April, with home addresses where they were self-quarantining would be shared with local authorities. But there was a cock-up for 10 days in May, I think (sharing of test results - IT issue). Apart from the whole T&T effort being generally judged only partially workable/effective.

 

[lane]

The real failure was not keeping the Indian variant out of the country for a while longer or at least massively reducing its chance to enter the country so it arrived in n much smaller numbers. Although I personally don't see the big issue with delaying the dale a few weeks beyond the 21st if need be. Shame the 21st has become such a big issue.

 

[Ajax Bay]

Setting 'no earlier than' dates, clearly caveatting those with saying that decisions will be driven by the data, specifying the tests the data would inform, and spacing the phases 5 weeks apart so the/any effect of changes have time to show up in the data was a reasonable approach. Some may not see 21 Jun as a 'big issue' but business and general life needs an indication of dates for forward planning.
Edit: Here's a plot of (UK) cases (blue) and admissions (orange, multiplied by 10: it's the correlation I'm after), hospitalised (grey).

Cases bottomed out at around 2000 on about 30 Apr (but essentially 'flat' for about 20 days 20 Apr - 9 May).
Admissions normally lag 'cases' by maybe 9 days. But it's been 'flat' from 27 Apr - 23 May; rising slightly since then, but matched by greater discharges from hospital COVID beds.

 

[Milzy]

Is it me, or does that show a real failure of test and trace?

No it only shows ethnic & poor areas on the rise.

 

[lane]

Setting 'no earlier than' dates, clearly caveatting those with saying that decisions will be driven by the data, specifying the tests the data would inform, and spacing the phases 5 weeks apart so the/any effect of changes have time to show up in the data was a reasonable approach. Some may not see 21 Jun as a 'big issue' but business and general life needs an indication of dates for forward planning.
Edit: Here's a plot of UK) cases (blue) and admissions (orange, multiplied by 10: it's the correlation I'm after), hospitalised (grey).
View attachment 591849
Cases bottomed out at around 2000 on about 30 Apr (but essentially 'flat' for about 20 days 20 Apr - 9 May).
Admissions normally lag 'cases' by maybe 9 days. But it's been 'flat' from 27 Apr - 23 May; rising slightly since then, but matched by greater discharges from hospital COVID beds.

When it became named "freedom day" it then carried significant political weight it is hard to row back from - especially for someone like Boris.

I have "general life" myself and quite a lot planned over the next few months but it can all be managed within the existing level of restrictions. You probably have a point about business forward planning.

 

[Wobblers]

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)

B1.617.2 now accounts for more than 80% of UK infections. It's clearly outcompeting B.1.1.7 - that supports the data that it's 50% more transmittable. That puts its R0 at 6 - or higher. Herd immunity for B1.617.2 requires over 85% of the population to be vaccinated, meaning children will need to be vaccinated as well. There is no data to support your idea of a summertime 10% decrease in R: Brazil's location on the equator did not prevent it experiencing two very large waves.

Furthermore, a single vaccine does confers far less protection against B1.617.2: about 33% compared to over 80% for other variants. With less than 50% of all adults currently fully vaccinated close to half the population will still be vulnerable even by 21st June.

Unfortunately, we are primed for a substantial third wave of this variant. This is reflected in the most recent data, which shows that growth in the number of CV19 cases has propagated from the original hotspots in Glasgow, Bolton and W. London. With the exception of the extreme SW and south and central Wales, all regions are now showing growth in numbers. We are in the third wave, and the restrictions in place are not preventing exponential growth. Further relaxation of restrictions will merely serve to make things worse.

 

[Wobblers]

No it only shows ethnic & poor areas on the rise.

No. It does not. All regions in the UK with the exceptions of the SW, south and mid Wales are experiencing growth in cases. There is no correlation with ethnicity or poverty.