Coronavirus

[Nick Armstrong]

Had the first AZ jab yesterday - fortunately it hasn't made me feel sick.

Ditto (on Saturday afternoon). No after-effects at all, not even stiffness of the arm or in fact the slightest trace of the jab.

[johnb]

@johnb Do you, by any chance, have a link to a site that has Covid cases by much finer geographic granularity, please ? I see that Northumberland is spiking quite alarmingly but as it's a very large county, it would be useful to know where the hotspots are. TIA.

Forgive me for touting my own wares but you might find my Power Bi maps of the UK useful. They use the same raw data (from the dashboard website) that the Dashboard map uses. Do take a look and let me know what you think. (I try to update the map each day but the updates use the same link.)

https://app.powerbi.com/view?r=eyJrIjoiZDkxMTQwYTAtZGI2MS00MjI2LWJkYzEtNDQ3ZjM0ZDczZTE0IiwidCI6IjQyMTI4YmIwLTJjZjgtNDY3MC1iNzRhLWZhNDlmNGJkMDQzZSJ9

There are pages for interactive for "MSOA Cases" and "MSOA Increase/Decrease (in Cases)".

Click on, say, the "MSOA" button, this will take you to the MSOA map of England, with the option to see the latest 7 days or the 3 weeks prior.

Click on "North East" in the table of Regions/Nations. The map will zoom into the NE and the tables shown will update accordingly.

Click on "Northumberland" in the list of Local Authorities and the map will zoom in to that LA. The table of MSOA areas will update to show just those for Northumberland. You can zoom in and out using the mouse scroll wheel or the controls on the map. Similarly you can use the mouse to move the selected area.

The table of MSOA areas can be sorted by clicking on any of the column headings.

You can then click on the various W/E dates to show the past 3 weeks.

Same with the "MSOA Increase/Decrease" button.

The map can be reset to show the whole of England by clicking on the "Clear Filters" button

[johnb]

An example of the MSOA Cases page, with Northumberland selected. As you can see large swathes of the Local Authority are below 3 cases/wk which means the data is suppressed by the DHSC.



(Apologies again for yet another graphic.)

[Cockney Sparrow]

World at One today at 13:27 - chap from Airfinity on latest analysis of the EU and UK vaccination programmes. Discussion on the (yet to be authorised by EU) plant in Netherlands - production of which Johnson is offering to "go Dutch" with the EU.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000td16

He elaborated on the lipid component produced by Croda in W Yorks. "Absolutely vital component of the MRNA vaccine.......Pfizer/Biontech vaccine heavily reliant on that lipid". And, IIRC that the EU is heavily reliant on the Pfizer (presumably not least because of the disinformation effects in EU take up of Astra-Zen).

I was also confused after the American trial was reported on 10pm News BBC1 last night, to have 100% effect of averting hospitalisation or worse. And yet reading (Times, or Guardian) "80%" efficacy. Glad to read the article on BBC News website, which clears up my confusion:
“The vaccine was 79% effective at stopping symptomatic Covid disease and 100% effective at preventing people from falling seriously ill”

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-56479462

I'd had a figure of 80 - ?84% effectiveness in my mind previously - so fairly stringent caution very much needed. Not that I'll be heading for air flights or drinking dens even after this latest news.
(OTOH the Royal Opera has just sent advance notice of its season announcement - which I now can't find!! I think they must have recalled the email......was it a dream - Traviata with 6 different Violettas - no not at the same time!....Peter Grimes, Ermonela Jaho In Cav or Pag? booking opens May date - can't remember more, I only scanned it - but you read it here first - even Stormin Norman hasn't got it...yet). Risks I would take - Opera, concert performances, choir rehearsals, art exhibitions. And the usual, friends and family etc).

[Simon B]

(OTOH the Royal Opera has just sent advance notice of its season announcement - which I now can't find!! I think they must have recalled the email......was it a dream - Traviata with 6 different Violettas - no not at the same time!....Peter Grimes, Ermonela Jaho In Cav or Pag? booking opens May date - can't remember more, I only scanned it - but you read it here first - even Stormin Norman hasn't got it...yet). Risks I would take - Opera, concert performances, choir rehearsals, art exhibitions. And the usual, friends and family etc).

https://www.roh.org.uk/news/the-royal-opera-house-reveals-highlights-of-its-first-full-season-since-2019

It seems more like an aspiration than the likely outcome to me, but what do they have to lose? Hope for the best, plan (behind the scenes) for the worst maybe?

On the more general point, there seems to be a glaring problem with claims and reporting about all the vaccines and studies. Without a definition (in each case, as they all seem to be different) for what "effectiveness" actually means it is harmfully ambiguous. Also, it gives further ammunition to such as those residing on the other side of the Portal For The Deranged that is e.g. the Daily Wail comments section...

[Frances_iom]

The RoH dropped into my email abt 10.30 this morning - I assumed a significant proportion of forumites (esp those within travelling distance) would be friends and have had the same missive with the note that "Friends' booking for the 2021/22 Season will open online on Tuesday 17 August 2021". Guess that means productions start mid Sept tho that well be the smaller Linbury + maybe the new ballets - The Season will open with a new production of */Rigoletto /*directed by Oliver Mears, his first since he became Director of Opera in 2017. There will also be
new productions of Handel's oratorio */Theodora/*; Janáček’s */Jenůfa/*; Britten's */Peter Grimes/*; and Saint-Saëns’s */Samson et Dalila/*. We are also excited to see the return of many opera favourites, including */Nabucco /*starring *Anna Netrebko*, */Madama Butterfly/* starring *Sonya Yoncheva*, */Cavalleria rusticana /and /Pagliacci/* starring *Jonas Kaufmann* and *Ermonela Jaho*, and */La traviata/* with no less than six sopranos taking on the lead role, including *Hrachuhí Bassénz* and *Pretty Yende*.

I do hope their plans turn out ok but I can't see foreign travel opening up much before early 2022 at best.

I also hope the EU war of words is sorted out but the UK put its money at risk with pre-production orders based on research re the various vaccines being planned but not then available - the EU in true form decided to try and force down the price with concomitant delays in the haggling and then the complete and utter shambles of denigrating the Oxford/AZ vaccine with the effect we can all see both in EU and here in UK re takeup in parts of inner cities

[french frank]

An example of the MSOA Cases page, with Northumberland selected. As you can see large swathes of the Local Authority are below 3 cases/wk which means the data is suppressed by the DHSC.

I read one report which said that the number of cases was 'increasing in some areas'. My MSOA, which for 7 days in a row had been 'fewer than 3 cases' in the previous 7 days, has now started to rise again. I see the same for other local MSOAs here too, so although Bristol overall is, just about going down/standing still, the situation in individual MSOAs is more mixed which could create a problem. This seems to be the case in other larger areas where there's a mix of 'fewer than 3 cases' and a couple of places I could see with over 30 cases.

[Frances_iom]

I suspect this rise will be found in certain school catchment areas and will be due to transmission between children then by transfer to their family - the Kent variant which is now the dominant strain seems very capable of infecting even the youngest child - look at the dash board for the current IoM outbreak where school children were the major transmission vector

[johnb]

I read one report which said that the number of cases was 'increasing in some areas'. My MSOA, which for 7 days in a row had been 'fewer than 3 cases' in the previous 7 days, has now started to rise again. I see the same for other local MSOAs here too, so although Bristol overall is, just about going down/standing still, the situation in individual MSOAs is more mixed which could create a problem. This seems to be the case in other larger areas where there's a mix of 'fewer than 3 cases' and a couple of places I could see with over 30 cases.

The problem with the confirmed cases that are reported on the government dashboard, whether by local authority or by MSOA, is that the underlying trends are now largely obscured by the massive increase in testing in the last week or so. The more people you test, whether symptomatic or not, the more cases you will find. (Then there is the issue of false positives with the lateral flow tests - but that is opening up a bag of worms.)

A better indication of the underlying trends is now, probably, the hospital admissions. For England as a whole hospital admissions still continue the trend of the last couple of months, declining at a rate that fluctuates between 20% and 30% a week.

(There is also the weekly ONS survey which is independent of the level of testing and which measures prevalence rather than incidence.)

[french frank]

the underlying trends are now largely obscured by the massive increase in testing in the last week or so.

That is actually reassuring . I shall become as 'immune' as I'm likely to get after 2 doses of the vaccine, so was intending to sniff the air next week. Or even visit the Coop at 8am … Looks as if the rain might be more off-putting than the virus!

Re schools - that too, I suppose, as I'm wedged between three primary schools. Though in light of johnb's comments maybe increases of 200% aren't too alarming (esp. as that's from 2 to 6).

[DracoM]

Q: why is it that that we do not get regularly the numrerical comparisons between usual year-on-year winter respiratory e.g. flu related death tolls per week set againt current Covid deaths?

My guess is we might be pretty shocked by the usual wintr tolls!

[Simon B]

A better indication of the underlying trends is now, probably, the hospital admissions. For England as a whole hospital admissions still continue the trend of the last couple of months, declining at a rate that fluctuates between 20% and 30% a week.

And (maybe) informatively: The rate of decline of admissions has been consistently at a lower exponent than that for deaths, by quite a margin and for some while. While this could be demographics (e.g. the most susceptible having unfortunately already succumbed) it is another indicator in favour of vaccine effect.

[johnb]

Q: why is it that that we do not get regularly the numrerical comparisons between usual year-on-year winter respiratory e.g. flu related death tolls per week set againt current Covid deaths?

My guess is we might be pretty shocked by the usual wintr tolls!

Well the flue deaths this year will be very, very low indeed. I remember a member of staff at a hospital being interviewed on a R4 news programme, she said they hadn't seen any flue patients this year.

[johnb]

And (maybe) informatively: The rate of decline of admissions has been consistently at a lower exponent than that for deaths, by quite a margin and for some while. While this could be demographics (e.g. the most susceptible having unfortunately already succumbed) it is another indicator in favour of vaccine effect.

Since you mention it, these are two I prepared earlier (although the decreases from the peaks, as at 18/03/21, were 95% and 90% for deaths and hospital admissions respectively, in England):





Once again, apologies for yet more visuals.

[Anastasius]

Is this any help?

Oh yes, most definitely. Thank you very much.