UKH

After Boris' speech today, it is interesting and slightly unsettling to read this https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-52604676

We are in no way as good a position as Germany, so to see infection rates rise, today's speech is troubling at best.

agreed, it's one thing to see infections start rising when you have 20k active cases (down from a peak of ~73k which you coped with really well) (Germany), compared to 183k live cases which haven't peaked yet!

What level of active cases does the government think the NHS can cope with, does anyone know the latest thinking (if indeed there is any)?

I think the decision is based on a balance of economic damage from lockdown vs deaths from the virus. Nobody in the government is going to stand up and say "we think it's worthwhile letting another 30 000 people die if it means the economy is going to be 10% stronger in a year's time" but behind the facade, the question that has been answered today is "how bad does the economic impact have to get before the economy is put ahead of peoples lives?".

Putting it that way makes it sound bad.

But

On the flip side, you have to remember the economy is intimately linked to early deaths too - when it goes down the toilet, people lose jobs, the government axes welfare programs and more people fall into poverty and the end result of that trend is also more early deaths.

In the end Death always wins. The government just get to decide how to pay the butchers bill.

R is quoted as 1.13 in Germany and here 0.5 to 0.9.

They seem to have focused on precision and timeliness of information which puts them in a much better position for letting science guide their decisions. 

But then they have somebody famously numerate in charge.

https://mobile.twitter.com/QuickTake/status/1250754686375931904

Correction: Coronavirus deaths always win

https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld201617/ldselect/ldnhssus/151/15109....

quotes:

In the UK non-communicable diseases cause an estimated 89% of deaths

About a third of all deaths are classed as premature. That equates to 44 years of lost life per 1,000 people or 2.6 million years each year across England and Wales

We felt, however, that two public health issues—mental health and obesity—warranted particular focus. Both conditions affect millions of people in England and both cost the NHS and the wider economy billions of pounds a year, but the progress made in tackling both conditions has been wholly inadequate, with potentially devastating implications for the long-term sustainability of the health and care systems.

/quotes

inaction on obesity is of special significance as it feeds into the equation for cv19 mortality

This news story is a bit overrated in my view.

First, the story focuses on an estimate for R_0 (partially based on estimates for future new cases) as opposed to the actual measured new cases (which still decrease, but maybe not as fast as expected).

Second, media is extremely good at writing stories with negative news. R_0 in Germany has been below 1 for about 1.5 month now. Except for three days. Each of which generated a news story in the media. Of course the fact that R_0 was at its lowest only 5 days ago went unmentioned.

Third, the R_0 values oscillate with a period of 1 week because people record less in the weekends. The currently high value of R_0 coincides with the peak of this oscillations. It seems the oscillation becomes more pronounced now that there are less cases in the country.

Finally, in a local view the map with high corona activity shows a few (less than 5) regions with significant new corona outbreaks. Three weeks ago this was over 30.

This, saved me the typing!

However, over the weekend in several cities a mixture of conspiracy theorists / fascists abused the easing of the lockdown to organize some medium sized anti lockdown demonstrations.

With active collaboration of the police (now there is a surprise...) they broke all rules in the book concerning e.g. the number of participants, openly flouted social distancing and hygiene/mask regulations, and even threatened passersby wearing masks.

I would not be surprised if that caused new infection clusters.

Arseholes.

CB

To add: The current increase is apparently largely explained by mass testing the workers at several large slaughterhouses, where a large fraction of East European contract workers living in group accomodation tested positive.

CB

That equates to about 2 weeks loss of life per person. Doesn't sound like there's a problem with avoidable illness based on that metric.

Complacent bollocks.

There's always going to be wild swings when the testing isn't randomly across the population but special groups are singled out, we saw this with asylum homes and now slaughterhouses. We also know that the number of positive cases detected depends on the number of tests carried out, the criteria for a test being given and the numberof tests available or carried out. Several times in March no more positive cases could have been detected in Germany as the number of tests couldn't have found any more. What the real figures are in countries with lower testing capabilities is anyones guess.

You're right, so I think that must mean across a random group of public - healthy or not. This is evident from another earlier statement:

// When it published its report in 2010, the Marmot Review, Fair Society Healthy Lives identified striking levels of health inequalities across the country, including that people in the poorest neighbourhoods in England would on average die seven years earlier and spend more of their life living with a disability.244 //

and from 

http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2009-03-18-moderate-obesity-takes-years-life-expec...

//The Oxford University research found that moderate obesity, which is now common, reduces life expectancy by about 3 years, and that severe obesity, which is still uncommon, can shorten a person’s life by 10 years. // 

In all events, our current concern is cv19  - when coronavirus finds it's target we might easily see a decade or more chopped off a victim's life  

Exactly. This is why testing capacity should be split into contact tracing, patient diagnosis, surveillance of at-risk groups (e.g. health workers and nursing home residents) as well as proper, unbiased population sampling. You really can only extrapolate overall infection levels from the latter.

The Heinsberg study was badly flawed if that had been the main question. Testing multiple household members introduced dependencies between data points.  It was, however, useful to address other issues, e.g. transmission rates within families.

BC

That is brilliant.

You're going to need to elaborate on that a little. To me complacent means that one is overly confident of a positive outcome without putting effort in to ensure it... I don't understand how being confident that the outcome will be terrible either way can be complacent...

Is collaboration the right word? This would mean the police are actively helping the protesters break the law. If the police were collaborating with those breaking the law, they should have been removed from their posts and arrested.

Or do you mean that the police simply did not intervene and stood by and watched without making any actions to stop it?