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Coronavirus - how is it/has it affected you?

GB72 said:
Very much this. At the end of the last lockdown, I am note sure we did open up too soon. By the end of the summer, cases were low and pretty much everything was open. 2 things then came along, Winter weather and the re-opening of education. That is why I believe that schools will open in isolation on 8th March so as it can clearly be seen as to how much of a factor they are in the spread of covid. No rise in cases, crack on with opening other things.

Too easy to point fingers at the high profile, and I suspect relatively few in number, large scale breaches which some outlets want to publicise as the norm. If there are any breaches to 'blame' for an increased spread, I suspect it is the ones that we do not see or hear about, families having a meal because, you know, they are all careful and it will be fine, nice normal, middle aged couples meeting for a few drinks at a weekend etc. The little breaches that never make the press. I suspect that they are far more widespread.
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Here is a paper from Nature, probably the most highly regarded scientific journal, about the effectiveness of Govt (not the UK, general view) interventions on Covid. It is a bit data heavy, so look for the first graphic and look at the importance from top to bottom. Nature article
 
Ethan said:
Here is a paper from Nature, probably the most highly regarded scientific journal, about the effectiveness of Govt (not the UK, general view) interventions on Covid. It is a bit data heavy, so look for the first graphic and look at the importance from top to bottom. Nature article
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Yeah, interpretation of that sort of date is well outside of my wheelhouse. Am I reading that right that cancelling small gatherings and closing education had the most significant impact on reduction of the spread of covid or have I got this the wrong way round.
 
GB72 said:
Yeah, interpretation of that sort of date is well outside of my wheelhouse. Am I reading that right that cancelling small gatherings and closing education had the most significant impact on reduction of the spread of covid or have I got this the wrong way round.
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Spot on. Most important at the top, least important at the bottom.

Nature.jpeg
 
Leftitshort said:
I’m not sure why all of your conclusions, wry smilings & hmmmmm (ings) have the finger of blame attached. We’ve got 3 pandemics; the disease, the fear, and the pointy finger blamey one!!!
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Methinks you read too much between the lines where there is only white space. If I now find myself pointing the finger at anyone, it is those identified by @SR. I'd rather that specific contexts have been identified so we can tighten up on these. But seems not. Though the Nature chart is very interesting in that regards.

Remember my question was simple - If we are in lockdown why still 10,000+ new infections daily? No doubt some will look to find my agenda in that asking - unfortunately for them I have to report that there is none.
 
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SwingsitlikeHogan said:
Methinks you read too much between the lines where there is only white space. If I now find myself pointing the finger at anyone, it is those identified by @SR. I'd rather that specific contexts have been identified so we can tighten up on these. But seems not.

Remember my question was simple - If we are in lockdown why still 10,000+ new infections daily? No doubt some will look to find my agenda in that asking - unfortunately for them I have to report that there is none.
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As already mentioned, the answer is likely to be that it is because we are simply not in lockdown. Schools are full of children that are the offspring of 'apparent' keyworkers. A larger number of employers are demanding that staff go to their places of work rather than WFH. More shops are open as 'essential' that were not open in Lockdown 1.0. These accompanied with the more transmissible variants probably account for the vast majority of the new infections.

Reading the media you'd think the vast majority of the population are out gallivanting around and breaking rules however in reality it's a noisy minority however the truth doesn't make nearly so much an interesting story or clickbait online.
 
SwingsitlikeHogan said:
Methinks you read too much between the lines where there is only white space. If I now find myself pointing the finger at anyone, it is those identified by @SR. I'd rather that specific contexts have been identified so we can tighten up on these. But seems not. Though the Nature chart is very interesting in that regards.

Remember my question was simple - If we are in lockdown why still 10,000+ new infections daily? No doubt some will look to find my agenda in that asking - unfortunately for them I have to report that there is none.
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You seemed to favour SR’s supposition, a drum that’s been banged from the beginning, rather than the reality of LP’s. People are still working, inside everywhere. This is where transmission occurs.
 
So as the 10,000+ daily infections appears to be down in the main to the virus being highly infectious - no matter how hard we might try. An so might we consider this level as that which we might consider as the underlying baseline for when we re-open. Because we are only going to be doing more that we currently are.

I am thinking that the hope is that come 8th March and schools re-opening, the daily numbers will be closer to 5,000...maybe even 1,000 and that that becomes our baseline level of infection in the community? And on that basis if - say - 5% of infections result in hospitalisation that means say 50-125 new hospitalisations a day (I plucked 5% out of the air) - and the NHS can cope with that. Of course long-covid skips short term hospitalisation so we have to be cautious about becoming too comfortable with a baseline daily infection rate and baseline hospitalisation level. But as for any illness there will be such a baseline.
 
Leftitshort said:
You seemed to favour SR’s supposition, a drum that’s been banged from the beginning, rather than the reality of LP’s. People are still working, inside everywhere. This is where transmission occurs.
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I don't favour it at all. I am pretty agnostic on it. I'd rather it wasn't 'just how it is', I'd rather there was something specific identifiable, but if we can't then 'that's just how it is' will be how it is. I simply asked the question why in lockdown we have 10,000+ today.
 
Leftitshort said:
Do you even read what you write?

‘@SR has answered my 'Why?' question with the answer I fear is correct’
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I don't want it to be correct...it is not what I want - that is why I wrote 'I fear' - but only 'fear' as in my view it is easier to control and contain something if you can put a box around it and apply specific and targetted control measures.
 
I am in a positive frame of mind as so I am looking at it from another point of view. We have people working, more places open and more kids at school (no figures for that, just quoting what has been said above) and still the numbers are going down at a pretty dramatic rate now. Maybe loosening the restrictions a bit will not be the worst option.

As per Ethan's very helpful chart above, however, we still have the biggest hurdle to clear, kids going back to school. It helped push up the numbers last time and could do it again and so we all wait at home and see what happens (not saying kids going back to school is not the right thing, I think it is very important but the selfish bit in the back of my head, I have no kids and at nearly 50 am pretty unlikely to, keeps pointing out to me that the things I want to do are being held up so as other people's children can go to school. It is a horrible thought and one I do not like but in the interests of being open I will not deny that it does fight its way out some times).
 
Reports that Northern Ireland staying in Lockdown until 1st April is not good. Does not raise much in the way of hope for anything in England until late March.
 
Liverpoolphil said:
Because we aren’t in a full lockdown

Many people are still going to work on a daily basis , people are still flying in , public transport still going strong , some schools still open

People are still interacting with each other

The numbers would have been the same during the previous lockdown if we did the same level of testing
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Exactly. IIRC, the first advice was if getting symptoms go home and take paracetamol and stay there. I'm not sure testing was pushed. It wasn't as easily feasible then anyway.
And , yes, this lockdown isn't as tight as the first.
Also, how many youngsters bothered to get tested. Don't think all of them did. And with vaccination being about for some time now, the ratio of old to young infected must have changed.
The ratio of tested positive to "going into hospital" would be different I should think.
 
Keeping with the positively, the data from Israel is amazing :-

נדב איל Nadav Eyal on Twitter: "פרסום ראשון: מחקר של בכירי משרד הבריאות ובכירים בפייזר (אני יודע, תיכף אגיע לזה): החיסון יעיל בכ-90% נגד הדבקה, כ-93% נגד אשפוזים ונגד תמותה. עושה שימוש במידע מותמם ולא אישי של המתחסנים בישראל, וב"מתחסנים" הכוונה היא לשבוע אחרי מנה שנייה. מתייחס לאמצע ינואר עד פבר'. @ynetalerts https://t.co/R1RpdAlCFJ" / Twitter

Just in case you cant get your computer to translate it says :-

First publication: A study of senior Health Ministry officials and Pfizer officials (I know, I will soon get to this): The vaccine is about 90% effective against infection, about 93% against hospitalizations and against mortality. Using unindented and personal information of the vaccinated in Israel, and "vaccinated" means one week after a second dose. Refers to mid-January to Feb
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Real world results for Pfizer, mainly old people data, amazing results in this age range, far greater than I was hoping for, just a few months ago. Hopefully the case/death figures will keep dropping and dropping.

Plenty of light coming for next autumn/winter and hope summer arrives early here and oxford vaccine real life results in older people come in just as good in due course.

Lockdown sucks, some of the rules are rubbish, but feeling positive, forward we march, bring on the summer!
 
Heard from a friend today who was taliking with a respite home re a family member that despite all their efforts and never having a case before they recently (a couple of weeks ago) has a Covid - 19 outbreak in the home. However all residents had already been vaccinated and no one had a serious illness and no hospitalisations and all had recovered. So some really positive news.
 
Leftitshort said:
You seemed to favour SR’s supposition, a drum that’s been banged from the beginning, rather than the reality of LP’s. People are still working, inside everywhere. This is where transmission occurs.
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No, the reality is the graph.If I've understood it correctly- Small gatherings that shouldn't have happened.
They would have been breaches of guidance/rules.
So, SR is right. People misbehaving.
 
D-S said:
Heard from a friend today who was taliking with a respite home re a family member that despite all their efforts and never having a case before they recently (a couple of weeks ago) has a Covid - 19 outbreak in the home. However all residents had already been vaccinated and no one had a serious illness and no hospitalisations and all had recovered. So some really positive news.
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That is the sort of story I like to hear. Shows the dangers are still there but with a positive outcome due to the vaccine.
 
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