UKH

Grim. And what’s even more grim is that if we assume these people caught it 3 weeks ago, when we were reporting 20,000 cases a day, we could be reporting (mid week) 3000 deaths a day in 3 weeks time (because we are now reporting 60000 new cases a day).

Fully get issues of reporting lags, high % of younger people catching the virus etc. 
This lockdown lite that we are in needs sacked off and proper lockdown brought in - my gut feeling is cases will not come down quickly enough. 
 

Neil Ferguson was on "Inside Health" at 1530 saying that another 20000 deaths are inherent in the current situation

I've been mentally running a few different plots ahead in my head to get broad brush estimates.  I decided there's no benefit to doing that any more, and it's not healthy.  

Given a choice of proper enforcement or stricter lockdown I would choose the former, but I think over-legislating for under-compliance is what we'll see.

What does he mean by inherent? We will have far more than that by the time this wave is over... 

I took it to mean, that even if everyone was given a 100% effective vaccine tomorrow then 20000 more people would still die as they have it already, so there is nothing that can now be done to reduce that number.

Well, a million people currently have it and if R = 1 then they are going to give it to another million.

If 1% of 2 million infected people die that's 20,000 deaths.

Of course, currently  R > 1 and it doesn't stop after the first generation of infection.

So, unfortunately, he is probably being optimistic.

Pretty much self inflicted.  We had the data to see a lockdown would be needed and indications of a new variant a few weeks ago and instead of reacting immediately we loosened up over Christmas. 

That they are inevitable from the numbers of people currently infected; take the total number of new cases in the last 3 weeks, and multiply by the current case fatality rate. That's how many deaths are 'baked in', even if we could magically halt the spread completely today.

If there are currently 1 in 50 people infected, that's, roughly 1.3 million people. At a CFR of 1.5%, that's your 20k.

he said "baked in" - I couldn't bring myself to repeat it

The most disgusting and shocking lack of leadership in my (long) lifetime - I am truly appalled that it has got to this - again. It is nothing less than a national tragedy

Chris

We* are getting what we voted for... although to be fair the field was rubbish anyways and I am not sure the other camp would have fared much better.

*I wasn’t British yet so I didn’t even get to vote.

I mean this in the most sincere way possible. As a result of hospitals nearing capacity, it would stand to reason that people are not getting the care they need hence bringing forward the lag between contraction and death. Hopefully the number deaths based upon case rate will be lower than a linear extrapolation would suggest.

Either scenario isn't a nice prospect.

Indeed - completely predictable. 

Deaths per day is at 600 at the moment. Reporting issues mean some days are very high and some very low but there has been no individual day (in this wave) on which more than 600 deaths actually occurred (that is the current peak, reached on 27/12.) Comparisons with the first wave peak in deaths are, fortunately, still spurious at this point. It's obviously still bad though, and will keep going up a lot, no doubt to above the first peak in a couple of weeks.

I reckon most of us on here are saying about the same, and it seems odd splitting hairs in arguments. But part of what you’ve said is contradictory. As you say, due to reporting lags the figures are inaccurate. Therefore we do not know how many people have died ‘today’  so it may (likely?) be much higher than 600 per day. But given current daily cases reported I can’t see how deaths won’t be three times higher than current levels. I reckon in order to understand trends then so long as you look at the same info you will notice the same trends. So wintertrees info is very accurate.  But you could also look at ‘deaths reported every Wednesday’ and it would show about the same trend. 
No doubt things will get way worse. As a friend once said to me: ‘Mick, me and you are always in the shit, it’s just the depth that varies’. 
 

I think 600 is pretty accurate as an estimate.  We never really know until a week or so later, and it’s better to look at a filtered version of deaths averaging out the statistical noise - a variation of perhaps +/- 30 a day to 60 a day in the actual date data.

Yes, comparing the same day week-on-week is a good way, but only for the actual date not the reporting date as the later can have many times more variation than the statistical noise in the actuals, as variable reporting sometimes compounds this.

I’m not thinking about the future much right now, more doing what I can to best look after those in my household etc.  Which currently is dealing with the problems caused by giving one of us key worker status against all reason and logic.

I think it's highly likely Labour would have been better because the left wing politics is about people before profit. If you look at the US it's the democrat states that have had the strictest lockdowns and the right wing states that have ignored the scientists the most. Arizona is currently in a dire state with run by a Trump loving governor.

What’s that?  Well outdated here and USA.

Hope all is OK with your key worker issues.  Interestingly there are slightly fewer keyworker children at my wife’s school than earlier in the week...

Thanks Mick.  We’ll see.  Our school is about 50% full it seems. We are under no circumstances going to use it.  I shan’t say more for hopefully obvious reasons.  I have no standing to complain compared to those shouldering far more burden then us on many different ways, but this  stupidity repeated across the country is part of why we are where we are, and in this case I can weigh in directly with the full force of my evidenced position.  

I did a rough "gut feel" calculation in my head yesterday when looking at the Gov dashboard - even though the data was a few days "late" for most of the stuff there I quickly came to the conclusion that we are likely to exceed last March/April's peak on pretty much every statistical measure on that dashboard.

Which means probably somewhere between 100-150k deaths before this is all over, and I think no chance it'll be less than 100k, likely it'll be closer to 150k than 100k, and there's some chance it'll be more than 150k.

Unfortunately, I think it's highly unlikely that enough vaccination will happen in time to make that conclusion wrong - I would like to be wrong on this but I'm not very hopeful.

Grim reading. 

BBC News - Covid: Half of patients at some hospitals have virus
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55575100

Wales is run by a Labour Government and they seem to have made a right mess of things.

It is concerning that in one day we have had more deaths than many countries have had in total. I hope it improves soon but wouldn't be surprised it things got a lot worse.

Dave

Locally the scheduled arrival for our "over 80s" batch of Oxford/AZ vaccine is 1st week February..

I would tend to agree with you, the government response has been chaotic, but most of our European neighbours are doing similarly badly.
Are they all making similar mistakes? Are they recording deaths differently? 

(Germany did much better in the first wave but are having a bad winter. Spain appear to be doing better right now. France and Italy have pretty similar figures to the U.K.) 

Not sure where you are getting your figures from, I only check the UK, France and Spain on a regular basis, but the latter two appear to be managing much better than the UK

Chris

I think you are confusing lag in the data, with the difference between deaths by reporting date (which is what the 1000 figure is) and deaths by date of death.  It's best just to completely ignore the data by reporting date and use the date of death figure. This is very accurate after a few days lag - so when I say 600 on 27th, I'm confident that's about right, there is no major lag issue with it remaining. The rising trend of deaths (by date of death) is actually fairly smooth and consistent - more so than trends in cases by specimen date.

I don't think you can make a simple ratio of cases three weeks ago to deaths now, however, I would agree with you that daily deaths will probably reach treble the current level in due course (which would be 1800, not 3000). Where they top out and how long they stay there will depend on vaccination success.

To be fair, there has been little point comparing country performance since the new variant became prevalent, it has changed the picture entirely. In November and as we planned to exit lockdown 2 I actually thoight they were handling it ok for a short period, but everything else throughout the government have cocked up.

In terms of Covid deaths:

France - 66.5k

Spain - 51.5k

Germany - 38.6k

Germany started reporting 1,000 deaths a day.

So we are worst but not by a huge amount. 

My main criticism then is that London should never have been in tier 2 that was clearly a political choice. I think they also got the messaging wrong according to the grape vine people in the south east were running roughshod over all the rules of tier 2 without even realising it.

It would have been fine if it hadn't been for the new variant.

It was (as ever) responding too slowly to that that was the issue.

I agree that the number of people likely to die under current circumstances could treble based on events that have already oC occurred, and I agree that this is much closer to 1800/day than 3000/day.   Perhaps it’s less than that 1800/day, because infections with the new variant seem to have shifted the demographic spread to a lower average age.

However, that 1800/day is predicated on everyone receiving the current standard of care - which has significantly reduce fatality rates from the spring, which in turn were better than highly triaged care would likely be.  Whilst hospital capacity has been boosted since the spring, the standard of care is leading to higher occupancy for a given death rate than the spring, which means the situation given by hospitalisations is more relevant to the stand of care being maintained than deaths.

I think some more growth in cases (at the national level) lies ahead of us before they stabilise.  I don’t think I have anything like solid enough grounds to run those models forwards and share the results. They worry me and I try not to make speculative negative predictions.

I agree, and I hope there is scope for the new lockdown and for increasing behavioural awareness/choices to help.  I think this Friday is the next opportunity to get good data on the recent past situation together.  

Tier two was not good enough to control the ‘normal’ Covid. Parts of London/SE have rates nearly double those of Greater Manchester at its peak last autumn. Impossible to pin down the effect of the new variant, but leaving London in Tier two was a stupid as leaving Liverpool region in tier two (rates have risen quickly there, higher then similar areas in GM).

BJ has just claimed we have found and finished testing two more new meds that reduce risk of death by 25% and are available immediately. He couldn't pronounce them so I'm not sure what they were (not dexamethasone), or indeed how genuine it is as the usual scientists aren't alongside him.

Italy is the worst by deaths per capita in Europe....we are 2nd.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
I was looking at death rate, rather than case rate, on worldometers. Case rate is much more affected by level of testing.

Like I said, Spain does appear to be doing better this winter, but was as bad as anywhere in the first wave. Germany, France and Italy are all doing as badly as the U.K. over the past month or two. 
Your graphs are worrying for the U.K. regarding recent cases though, considering the lag involved. 

It hit the BBC pretty fast - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-55574662 - anti inflammatories; they cut the time for survivors on ICU significantly.  Reasonable difference to outcome. 

Tier 1 was useless.  Tier 3 brought "old COVID" down.  Tier 2 about kept it level in many places.

It was the coming of the new strain that kicked it off.  Though I'm intrigued as to where it is spreading more readily, other than schools.  I do wonder if part of the huge growth is that if it gets into a given household it's near-guaranteed it gets to everyone, whereas the old one didn't always.

It’s interesting that the biggest % increase is in the 20  - 30 year olds. I’d guess only a small percentage of this age group would have children at school.  And guess a large % not at their parents . So  employment and socialising likely to be factors. But agree about everyone catching it if living in the same house. 

And another >1000, 1,162 deaths reported today. If you read out just their names with sufficient reverence (i.e. no rushing) it would take 45-50 minutes!!!

It's all looking a bit bleak.

That sort of age group is probably the most likely to be living in an HMO, and in HMOs people often stay in their rooms anyway if it's not a shared house of friends.  Perhaps the new strain manages to get around more readily in that situation?  But it's also the case (as you sort-of say) that that age group is probably the most likely to just socialise anyway.

It’s horrendous, but we are a not quite second. You can throw Belgium in the list above us, plus a few small and very small countries.

I forgot to say, can you imagine how those scientists must feel by now?

That's not true. Looking at the EU and the UK, Belgium have the highest deaths per capita but they are the most honest in counting all covid related deaths. I think using the actual deaths with covid on the death certificate from the ONS, we might now be third after Slovenia. Officially we are 9th in the world (all European) and heading fast towards Italy in 5th and San Marino is top. You can rank the table in the link by deaths per million.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/

We must also remember Italy was hit hard first time and the Lombardy hospital system went well beyond capacity and CFRs surged as a result. They lost many thousands more lives than you would expect compared to the UK because of that.

Excess deaths of the UK are higher than Italy but lower than Belgium.

https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386938

They have had stricter lockdowns than UK though of course with no proper border it was always going to be totally susceptible to virus leakage and government policy in England.

Unfortunately this is going to climb quite rapidly as hospitals are unable to provide the usual standard of care. A hospital in Kent has declared this in relation to critical care today:

https://www.hsj.co.uk/coronavirus/breaking-hospital-declares-it-may-refuse-...

Yeah I forgot Belgium... 

Let's get this right.
All the good things that have happened in Wales concerning Covid-19 have been down to the Welsh Government and all the bad things have been caused by the UK/English one?

Same in Scotland according to to SNP voters.... 

How well have other countries across continental Europe fared?  I’ve seen snippets in the media and some are others worse.  I guess all are grateful for the channel at lease slowing down arrival of the newer UK variant 

The Welsh firebreak lockdown was a failure. They unlocked way too fast when they came out and the results were predictably bad. Welsh rates in the badly hit regions were far higher in that period than those over the border, they definitely can't blame it on the English.

Just FYI. The below shows how useless tier 2 was in Merseyside. I know New Covid + Five Days of Cmas may have played a part, but not to this extent ( when compared to neighbouring areas kept in tier 3)

I think the weekend sampling low on Dec 26/27 was probably deeper than normal.  It’s a bit hard to tell with how messed up the sampling noise is over xmas.

I think those numbers would still look awful without the extra deep low, but they look worse with it.

They're also slower with their vaccination programme:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-55573436

Liverpool region has gone ballistic, yes. The weekly increase will look slightly less in 2-3 days once the Christmas cases that got deferred until 28/29th are in the same counting week as the 25th low. But it's still horrific.

I think it's a combination of things.Tier 2 has allowed things to spread more, and probably presented less of a barrier to spread of the new variant than Tier 3 would have done. We should see if the move to Tier 3 made any difference in the early part of next week. Additionally, I think a lot of infection has spread across from Wrexham and Flintshire - there was a hotspot developing there in December and cases in the closer areas of the Wirral were initially rising ahead of the rest of Merseyside a couple of weeks back, whereas Wirral has generally had lower cases than the rest of the area for the previous few months. I wouldn't be surprised to find the Wrexham outbreak was the new variant as it seems to have developed in apparent isolation of other high infection rate areas and then spread rapidly - but that's pure speculation. Either way, given the rapid rises in Liverpool region now and the way they steepened quite suddenly around Christmas I think it's highly likely the new variant is driving it.

So we are fairly knackered and going to get worse yet. The incomplete data for the area is already going to take Sefton (and I assume the rest of the region, but haven't checked) to London rates, ie 900-1000, within 2-3 days. I suspect (based on behaviour seen in the SE) we'll level off around 1000 or slightly more next week, and then start to fall once the lockdown takes effect in the data after another week.

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=ltla&areaName=Se...

Fortunately we are locally still at below half the hospital occupancy of in November. It will rise fast but at least there is some capacity in the system.

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare?areaType=nhstrust&ar...

(That trust covers the vast majority of the area, excluding much of the Wirral I think.)

Edit to say, I wouldn't criticise the government decision to put us in Tier 2 in November before we knew about the variant. At the time, rates were low and all the evidence was that a more relaxed version of Tier 2 had worked in Liverpool to flatten rates (indeed, turn them down) in early October. I would have made the same decision at the time. The problem is it didn't work quite enough in late November, presumably because of colder weather, and the Government were 2 weeks late putting us in to Tier 3. That has made us more vulnerable to spread and establishment of the new variant.

Re Liverpool and tier two:  my memory is fuzzy with all the different changes that occurred back then, but my recollection was that in early autumn cases went bonkers, in part linked to students. Stringent measures brought in and then extensive and unique community testing helped pull rates down. Other areas with similar rates did not have the community testing. I think the hospital bed space, combined with the gov wanting to reward the heroic efforts (quote) informed the decision to go into tier two. 
I also heard that Mancs were to blame for popping on the train to party in Liverpool. Not convinced personally. 
Scotland is interesting as tier two type measures have made no difference in most places there, rates shooting up before New Covid could be blamed. 

No, that's not how it played out. Rates rose around here from the very beginning of September and were already very high before student movements started (late September in Liverpool). The student movements had a very small effect on the trend here and the worst affected area for most of the period (Knowsley) has no students at all. We were probably a source of infections in other areas due to student movements, but not the other way around.

At the turn of the month September/October we were put under restrictions on indoor mixing that were very like the current Tier 2 except that pubs could still serve alcohol without a meal. Behaviours no doubt also changed. Rates flattened and began to slowly drop (peaking on 8/10 I think.) A few days or maybe a week or two later the Tier system started and we went in to Tier 3, this caused rates to drop quite fast. Rates had already dropped from over 700/100k to below 300/100k in the peak areas before the mass testing programme started. I'm sure the mass testing made a small extra difference in bringing them down further, but it was marginal, at least partly because it mostly happened in parallel to the November lockdown. The Government were either lucky or clever in doing the mass testing when and where they did, from the perspective of being able to claim it was a success. Undoubtedly, in early autumn the things that made most difference here were tier 2 and tier 3 restrictions, which are not much different from the current Tier 2.

That just sounds like people wanting someone to blame. I'm sure it happened a bit but probably not much.

(None of this makes any difference now of course.)

Hmmm. All the deaths within 28 days of a positive covid test.

PCR tests are not accurate which means the csses are not accurate! The people getting tested are the same people on this forum. The ones that wear masks every day, wash hands, swallow msm bs and keep their distances are getting positive tests. Lockdowns dont work they make people more sick! 

The hospitals are under staffed, staff are going off sick with no symptoms but with a positive test. The past 10 years the hospitals have been overwhelmed every winter because of lack of funding. The government does not care about the people but yeh carry on believing.

Im going out climbing! 

That's right. All those paramedics, doctors and nurses on UKC are a bunch of liars but your superior intellect sees through all this.

Scum.

1/10. Pretty poor attempt.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz......

I am confident you are completely wrong.

The point about under-staffing due to uncaring government cuts is correct. The rest is covid denial lunacy.

Sorry, you are right to correct me.  Their comment on under funding is not nonsense.  The rest, however...

"When you're dead you don't know that you're dead and the pain is only felt by others. The same thing happens when you're stupid."

This is a quote people like you should take a minute to sit down and think over.

First posts in more than seven years, what made you decide to share your opinions after such a long gap?

^^this. Every single person in a household here got it from a traveller self-isolating within the same house.  Which makes the 'vaccination effect' scary - people are seeing vaccination as a 'personal shield' that will protect them, but when it simply gives you a 90% reduction in likelihood of infection from a baseline of 100% chance, it's not very good.

And still allows you to be an infection vector for the unvaccinated (be less and less of a problem as we get more of the population vaccinated I guess)

I think it was marginal, holding some places not others. York's community cases (student outbreak was well contained) were pretty stable in T2. Christmas shopping added pressure that would of course have passed but unfortunately the new strain changed things. I suspect as winter ground on the weather would have done so anyway. I don't know why some places it worked, others not, probably different a social mix, different employment types, different transport. Quite likely just a bit of luck in avoiding a big super-spreader event or uncontained institutional outbreak, as prevalence falls control gets easier and visa versa.

jk

While much of the spread would be before the test, I guess, I do wonder if they should be requisitioning decent hotels and offering people the option to self-isolate for free in those, in order that they can stay away from family.  Most people don't have such an option, pretty much only those who have a caravan or camper.

I'm not sure this is definitively true, what is true is that there's not data to show that a vaccinated person is not a vector. 

That's a fair point, I'll still be acting as though I can still transmit once I've been vaccinated (until we've done everyone of course)

This is still unproven isn't it? I understand it would be abnormal for a vaccinated individual to be particularly infectious but that there is understandable caution about jumping to conclusions or sending dangerous messages here.

jk

It is, yes.  But there is a "bit" of evidence surrounding asymptomatic cases which may be because of partial immunity from previous coronavirus infections, which give rise to concern that the vaccine might just do the same thing, i.e. stop people getting ill but not stop spread.