Coronavirus

[french frank]

One thing that does concern me is the keeping of particular precautions “ just” to make people feel safe.

I feel I'm probably overlabouring a point (again ) but there are situations where whether an individual feels "safe" doesn't depend on what they themselves decide to do, but on what other people decide to do: bus journeys where they may choose to wear a mask but have no choice but to sit in the next seat to someone who isn't wearing one. If people are deterred from travelling, that isn't their free "choice".

There is the additional point that the trajectory may be going steadily down, but that is after we've had restrictions for several months. What happens when all restrictions are suddenly lifted? As Simon B said: Anything.

[Bryn]

I know.

Of course official figures contain large numbers of probable false positives etc,so one is an estimate,( which has proved very accurate in predicting the trend, the other is an indicator of confirmed case numbers at best.

This wave is topping out.

I hope you are right but the daily figures for this week appear to tell a rather different, less encouraging, story. Meanwhile, the unseasonal upswing in Norovirus infections, currently concentrated among the young, emphasises the importance of retaining the three standard amelioration measures of "hands, face and distance".

[teamsaint]

I feel I'm probably overlabouring a point (again ) but there are situations where whether an individual feels "safe" doesn't depend on what they themselves decide to do, but on what other people decide to do: bus journeys where they may choose to wear a mask but have no choice but to sit in the next seat to someone who isn't wearing one. If people are deterred from travelling, that isn't their free "choice".

There is the additional point that the trajectory may be going steadily down, but that is after we've had restrictions for several months. What happens when all restrictions are suddenly lifted? As Simon B said: Anything.

The point about feeling safe is not that we don’t want people to feel safe ( of course we do) but if measures are kept in place with the sole intention of making people feel safe, and not because they actually make the for a safer situation, this will in the end be self defeating. People need to feel safe because it actually is safe. Otherwise, measure which serve only in the end, to reinforce fear, will self perpetuate. Won’t they?

But maybe I am labouring the point........

[french frank]

The point about feeling safe is not that we don’t want people to feel safe ( of course we do) but if measures are kept in place with the sole intention of making people feel safe, and not because they actually make the for a safer situation, this will in the end be self defeating. People need to feel safe because it actually is safe. Otherwise, measure which serve only in the end, to reinforce fear, will self perpetuate. Won’t they?

But maybe I am labouring the point........

Heh, heh. Well, I was under the impression that social distancing and mask-wearing did make people safer and not just make them feel safer. I thought that was why we've all been urged to do so. And I'm not sure what 'collateral damage' is caused by continuing this.

[Serial_Apologist]

Heh, heh. Well, I was under the impression that social distancing and mask-wearing did make people safer and not just make them feel safer. I thought that was why we've all been urged to do so. And I'm not sure what 'collateral damage' is caused by continuing this.

I agree. There are other safety removals that will make me feel more unsafe, such as removing the 2 metre distance requirement and quite possibly perspex screens at counters and check-outs. I shall probably revert to wearing two face masks when out shopping, as I did in Phase 1.

[Mandryka]

My layperson's suspicion is that this outcome is broadly what Prof Whitty et al are expecting, and regard as either the least worst option or one among a set which are in equipoise, providing whichever is chosen happens slowly. This is the problem from their perspective with the "unlocking" - the unknown and unknowable degree to which that deceleration might be undone.

We’re at 50K today, so 100K by the end of the month. And 100K was put forward as the plateau point. That must be because of expectations about the effect of schools closing in England (based on observations in Scotland.)

Scotland go back to school a couple of weeks before England I think, so what happens there should feed into any decisions about reintroducing NPIs in September. That and increased immunity in the population.

[Mandryka]

Does anyone have a view on the relation between the number of new positive tests in a day on .gov.uk and the number of new covid cases in the UK on the same day? Can we use the hospitalisation data to get a feel for how much the .gov.uk new positives data underestimates the number of new cases? Or indeed the ONS estimates of the number of people with Covid in a week?

(Can’t get my head round this conundrum!)

[teamsaint]

Heh, heh. Well, I was under the impression that social distancing and mask-wearing did make people safer and not just make them feel safer. I thought that was why we've all been urged to do so. And I'm not sure what 'collateral damage' is caused by continuing this.

The reason I mention it is just that some politicians have used it as an argument to keep masks in certain settings.
Collateral damage is part of the wider discussion on restrictions and mitigations really, though little good can come of long term wearing of random fabrics so near the airways, save the possible control of covid or other respiratory infection.

[Dave2002]

Well the easy answer is that, in the end, we will all have to make judgements about behaviour , as we all used to. It is clear that for now, many mitigations will stay in place, and that seems sensible, hopefully as part of a winding down process.

However, somewhat typically of people who might be effectively agents in Johnson's government, the solicitor general in a recent radio interview couldn't quite wriggle out of some of the conundrums.

So - we are all going to have to act according to our own "common sense" etc. What happens if an employer insists on staff returning to a work environment, and an individual refuses on the grounds that it's not safe? If the employer insists, the employee might be dismissed, or then be able to claim constructive dismissal. It gets more interesting if an employer asks staff to turn off any monitoring system which might detect asymptomatic Covid. Then what happens if a member of staff actually does get Covid and this is known in the organisation - does this cause mass walk outs? Who is responsible? Who is going to "get sued" and what will the outcomes be?

A muddled mess - which seems commonplace these days!

[Simon B]

Does anyone have a view on the relation between the number of new positive tests in a day on .gov.uk and the number of new covid cases in the UK on the same day? Can we use the hospitalisation data to get a feel for how much the .gov.uk new positives data underestimates the number of new cases? Or indeed the ONS estimates of the number of people with Covid in a week?

(Can’t get my head round this conundrum!)

The widely accepted rule of thumb is that you can more-or-less double the official "positive tests recorded today" figure to get to an estimate of the "true" figure. The most reliable guide to calibrating this is probably the ONS Infection Survey, updated weekly. This is as close are you're getting to a "gold standard" as it just swabs a quite large number of (hopefully) random people each week and sees what fraction get a positive test:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/16july2021

All of these figures, official and otherwise, are estimates of the true "people infected daily" figure, which is unknowable. The official daily count is, from a statistical point of view, effectively a largely uncontrolled random sample statistic where the participant selection is more ad-hoc than either of the other two as it is influenced by e.g. shifting government advice on who should or must get tested etc. All you can really be sure of is that it's probably bad if the figure is rising rapidly.

So far, all of these different measures have been well correlated, once the different lags in them are corrected for. The absolute numbers don't matter for those purposes, it's the trends. If the shape of the curves is the same, then they each predict each other.

Looking at the most recent behaviour I do wonder if the link has weakened for some reason. But then I'm not a professor of epidemiology or statistics...

[muzzer]

“Unlocking” so far seems to have meant a spike in cases from people understandably out and about too near to each other. Unlocking is meant to get people back to work and a semblance of the usual forms of economic activity. It will be very bad news indeed imho if we get one without the other over an appreciable period of time.

Tim Spector thinks the rate of increase in cases has now peaked and will tail off, but slowly. The point he always makes but with as I see it the seasoned medic’s sigh is that people need two jabs. I wonder if this age old view of human nature is what is behind Whitty’s dry and mumsy caution.

Because who wants to be told we’re doomed by our own ignorance and stubbornness? That would let the witch doctors back in ;) Look at the state of ‘Dr Hilary’, words fail me.

If only we had democratic leadership that understood its duties and role in what is supposedly an advanced society.

I hope all boarders are staying safe. This weather is too good to miss, suitable precautions being taken of course.

[french frank]

Unethical? Well, at least a discussion point.

The situation, of course, is very different now, but I am rather reminded of Sweden's go-it-alone policy which resulted in more than three times the number of deaths than Norway, Finland and Denmark put together. Sweden is certainly a busier transport hub than Norway and Finland, but this is a point being made about the UK by these scientists.

Already Bristol has suspended garden waste collections for 10 weeks because of a shortage of drivers, Covid cited as one reason, and there was no fortnightly waste collection here yesterday. 'Collateral damage' can be caused by unlocking too.

[Dave2002]

Unethical? Well, at least a discussion point.

Interesting article.

What do we know about the situation in African countries, where the virus is perhaps now running rampant, and presumably new versions emerging all the time?

Sadly this is still a complicated problem. Looked at now Sweden's policy might be viewed as wrong - but in a few years time that view might change again, depending on the total number of cases and deaths eventually recorded.

So called Long Covid - I'm still not sure if it's the same disease - but it does seem related - is now seen to be causing problems in young people - with significant cases of organ damage.

[Cockney Sparrow]

Hunt was on "Today" R4 this morning (about 8:10 - 8:20). He acknowledged that there is uncertainty about the course of the infection on unlocking, but picked up on concerns about the doubling of hospital admissions for Covid. He also pointed to the Netherlands and Israel (vaccination rates similar/better) who are further along the same route we are taking - and that they are having to consider restriction measures to avert hospital overload.

I think Hunt avoided using the term "lockdown" but he pointed out that the language being used was now modified from the initial Johnsonian boosterism of freedom day. He also pointed out that the restrictions on international travel arrivals / returnees (such as they are - seem as leaky as a sieve to me) are a sign of that part of the management strategy being put in place to contain the sppread of the virus (and variants I suppose...).

(Also, in the run up to 9am, a french politician (by profession a medic) baffled by the restrictions on arrivals from France because the variant in question is only located in French speaking ex-colonial countries*. She said it smacked of political aggression to France........)

(* Actually I'd need to check what she said - maybe there is a minimal occurence somewhere in France)

[Serial_Apologist]

Hunt was on "Today" R4 this morning (about 8:10 - 8:20). He acknowledged that there is uncertainty about the course of the infection on unlocking, but picked up on concerns about the doubling of hospital admissions for Covid. He also pointed to the Netherlands and Israel (vaccination rates similar/better) who are further along the same route we are taking - and that they are having to consider restriction measures to avert hospital overload.

I think Hunt avoided using the term "lockdown" but he pointed out that the language being used was now modified from the initial Johnsonian boosterism of freedom day. He also pointed out that the restrictions on international travel arrivals / returnees (such as they are - seem as leaky as a sieve to me) are a sign of that part of the management strategy being put in place to contain the sppread of the virus (and variants I suppose...).

(Also, in the run up to 9am, a french politician (by profession a medic) baffled by the restrictions on arrivals from France because the variant in question is only located in French speaking ex-colonial countries*. She said it smacked of political aggression to France........)

(* Actually I'd need to check what she said - maybe there is a minimal occurence somewhere in France)

What a situation has now transpired that we now give serious attention to what Hunt, of all people, has been telling us for some time!