On the way down?

[UncleEbenezer]

As children are now on school holidays, their infection rates should reduce for the next few weeks as they will have fewer chances to get infected. Unless they get vaccinated, I expect their infection rates to rise again once they return to school and are exposed to other infected children.

Alternatively, as families travel on holiday, they create a spike in infections.

[MrFoolish]

As children are now on school holidays, their infection rates should reduce for the next few weeks as they will have fewer chances to get infected. Unless they get vaccinated, I expect their infection rates to rise again once they return to school and are exposed to other infected children.

Alternatively, as families travel on holiday, they create a spike in infections.

You're not exactly trying to look on the positive side!

But anyway, it would seem obvious to me that there will be more encounters with kids at school than on holiday.

[Mike4]

2. Covid symptoms are different in the vaccinated compared to the classic covid symptoms you need to get a test. The Zoe survey will pick up these cases, but anyone who has them will either think its not covid, or will be refused a test because they have the 'wrong' symptoms.

Are they?

I know Dr John is repeatedly commenting that Delta variant symptoms are headache, sneezing and runny nose rather than anosmia and cough associated with Alpha variant (and still stated on the government web pages), but this is not what you are saying above. Or is this what you mean perhaps?

If not, what symptoms do vaccinated people get please, that are different from unvaccinated people's symptoms?

Many thanks...

[swill453]

2. Covid symptoms are different in the vaccinated compared to the classic covid symptoms you need to get a test. The Zoe survey will pick up these cases, but anyone who has them will either think its not covid, or will be refused a test because they have the 'wrong' symptoms.

Not sure what you mean by the "Zoe survey will pick up these cases". Zoe will only count them after a positive test, they don't get counted just because you report symptoms.

Scott.

[1nvest]

Is it not now just comparable to catching a cold? Covid 30,000/day contractions, 60/day deaths, for 1 in 500 contracting a cold might lead to subsequent complications/death? For many catching a cold might be mild symptoms, same with Covid. We don't mask up and isolate when colds are about, nor restrict individuals movements according to whether they've had the flu jab or not.

[Gersemi]

2. Covid symptoms are different in the vaccinated compared to the classic covid symptoms you need to get a test. The Zoe survey will pick up these cases, but anyone who has them will either think its not covid, or will be refused a test because they have the 'wrong' symptoms.

Not sure what you mean by the "Zoe survey will pick up these cases". Zoe will only count them after a positive test, they don't get counted just because you report symptoms.

Scott.

The Zoe app asks you to list and symptoms if you are unwell and you get emailed to take a PCR test if you report certain symptoms. I have been emailed each time I have reported any symptom, which were headache, sneezing or runny nose. Once you are on the government site if you don't declare the classic symptoms you are directed to a page where you can say you have been asked to take the test by Zoe. So many people using the Zoe app will take a test even though they have the "wrong " symptoms, so Zoe can count the positive cases.

[AWOL]

Is it not now just comparable to catching a cold? Covid 30,000/day contractions, 60/day deaths, for 1 in 500 contracting a cold might lead to subsequent complications/death? For many catching a cold might be mild symptoms, same with Covid. We don't mask up and isolate when colds are about, nor restrict individuals movements according to whether they've had the flu jab or not.

Nowhere near comparable. A combination of vaccination and social distancing/barrier protection will be needed for some time.

[AWOL]

Is it not now just comparable to catching a cold? Covid 30,000/day contractions, 60/day deaths, for 1 in 500 contracting a cold might lead to subsequent complications/death? For many catching a cold might be mild symptoms, same with Covid. We don't mask up and isolate when colds are about, nor restrict individuals movements according to whether they've had the flu jab or not.

... of course the biggest impact danger on the UK's national Risk Register before COVID19 was pandemic flu, and there is no reason we couldn't get a Flu pandemic too in which case it would be face masks, social distancing, vaccines etc. A flu pandemic would be handled in the same way. Part of the problem here is that we semi-prepared for a flu pandemic, and were not prepared for a non-flu pandemic.

However you seam to mix COVID, season influenza and the common cold. The common cold isn't worth dicussing in death terms, flu has a nasty annual death toll, most of which could be avoided by vaccines, face masks, and social distancing, this killed a 56 year old healthy friend of mine two years ago (flu+pneumonia), and Delta/Lambda COVID 19 which are in a different ball park.

To understand the risks think beyond deaths to an evolving virus that has the potential to make people seriously ill and cause lasting organ damage.

I wish more people had studied immunology, virology, pharmacology, and genetics at University! Not realistic to expect the general public to all have a couple of bioscience degrees but it would certainly lead to more rational views.

[onthemove]

flu has a nasty annual death toll, most of which could be avoided by vaccines, face masks, and social distancing (....) To understand the risks think beyond deaths to an evolving virus that has the potential to make people seriously ill and cause lasting organ damage.

Colds and flu haven't stopped evolving. You acknowledge yourself that a new variant of flu could result in a serious pandemic.

But we don't wear masks and lock ourselves up to prevent the evolution of the flu.

I wish more people had studied immunology, virology, pharmacology, and genetics at University! Not realistic to expect the general public to all have a couple of bioscience degrees but it would certainly lead to more rational views.

Sometimes people at the coal face need to take a step back and look at the bigger picture.

Just because the science says you can do something to achieve a particular theoretically 'optimal' outcome, doesn't always mean that it's socially desirable. Take for example the genetics of which you speak. Selectively breeding plants and live stock has been used for eons to improve them. Yet it's widely accepted that we shouldn't apply the same ideas to human reproduction. We don't ban people - even those with proven genetic ailments - from having their own children.

Prior to the 19th July, there seemed to be what can only be described as hysteria from scientists and the media, screaming at the government not to ease restrictions. Warnings of doom that if the government eased restrictions, the virus would spread.

Yet after that date, infections are going down, and not just quietly either, but quite dramatically.

So what does that tell us?

Well, according to the scientists ...

"But we haven't reached "herd" (or "population") immunity - where so many people are immune that the virus struggles to spread.

If that happened, then the growth in cases would be expected to gently slow down, level off, and then case numbers will start to fall.

Instead, reported cases shot up dramatically and then fell equally precipitously. "It's unlikely that herd immunity could lead to that fast a transition," said Prof Donnelly." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57971990

Similarly...

"UK appears to defy dire ‘freedom day’ predictions as Covid cases fall .....

It is still unclear, even to the country’s most esteemed modellers and epidemiologists, what exactly is going on.

The sharpness of the peak suggested that it wasn’t driven by immunity. Levels of immunity differ across the country, and that being the case, different regions would reach their peaks at different times before cases began to fall. The result would be cases plateauing and remaining stable for some weeks before eventually trending downwards." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... cases-fall

I've held off up until now commenting on the drop post-19th July to give time for things to filter through.

I've said all along that I don't believe in compulsion, and mandatory enforcement of behaviour, and would have much preferred the Swedish model where it has largely been left to individual responsibility - albeit with a government fully acknowledging in a dispassionate way the seriousness of covid (distinct from Trump, USA and Bolsanario, Brazil).

Throughout, my arguments have been shot down by the lockdown fanatics insisting that it requires compulsion, and there seemingly being some underlying presumption that people will always push their behaviour to the limits of what they're legally allowed - as though they are unthinking zombies who won't change their behaviour in response to the situation around them. A rather arrogant presumption from the lockdown fanatics that they themselves are better than average, and everyone else needs to be compelled to do exactly what the fanatics demand - backed up by legal sanctions.

Well, it seems that some are starting to accept ...

"“A little more humility in the face of uncertainty would do everyone some good,” said Mark Woolhouse, professor of infectious disease epidemiology at Edinburgh University.

“I think that modellers admit themselves that it is not easy to know why this is happening,” one senior government source said. “Certainly the scientific advisors are cautious. I think the change of approach you’ve seen from some of the modellers over the last week shows you how hard this is to predict.”

In Whitehall, one of the theories is that there continues to be sustained public caution, despite the change of enforcement. “People are still generally wearing masks, keeping their distance,” one adviser said. “That means you still see the effects of that caution. People know now what the behaviours are that will protect them and those appear to be still being used.” " https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... cases-fall

Which is rather backing up the point I've made all along, that we didn't need to resort to legal restrictions.

Managing covid, has always been a game of statistics. We should have allowed people more flexibility to play their part as best they can, rather than being forced. People should have been able to make their own judgements as to whether to visit relatives on their death beds, etc.

imv, the drop starting at or around the 19th July has come about because this time the message is that it's different. This time Boris made it clear he intends it to be the last. He even went ahead with it, even when the numbers were rising.

And this, in my view, has resulted in a transfer of responsibility. Before, people have just played the part of passengers, just doing what they were told, because, well, they had not choice... it was mandated in law and the police would deal with you if you tried to exercise your own judgement.

Up until this point, people had relinquished responsibility quite simply because the government had unilaterally assumed responsibility and hadn't given people a choice. So people effectively shrugged their shoulders, presumed the government was 'following the science' and stayed at home as instructed, or ate out to help out, as per the government's edicts at the time.

But now people see it differently. With Boris opening up with cases still rising, and scientists and the media screaming about 100's of thousands of cases, etc, people have now assumed responsibility themselves, even at the same time the legal requirements have been relaxed.

And what have we seen so far?

Well, when under legal restrictions, cases were rising; now restrictions have eased cases have fallen far more sharply than pretty much any of the virologists, epidemiologists, etc, have predicted.

It seems to me, that the when responsibility is meaningfully shifted onto the people, away from the government, and people recognise that, that in actual fact, when people are able to voluntarily adapt their behaviour as they choose, rather than being forced... it's actually resulted in significantly better infection control overall so far.

I really do believe that throughout this pandemic, the government and the scientists really should have had more faith in the general public.

Scientists would have been better, instead of directing their voice towards the government, and telling the government how to dictate to people how they must behave...

... all along it would have been better if both the scientists and the government had treated the population as adults, and given the public all the available information, and let each individual adapt their behaviour as best as they are able, without resorting to legal compulsion.

Tentatively, I believe the otherwise seemingly paradoxical drop in cases after restrictions were relaxed, would seem to provide emerging evidence to back up this point of view.

The latest facts, on the face of it, certainly do not seem to back up the claims that legal compulsion was necessary to control the virus.

[Julian]

...
... of course the biggest impact danger on the UK's national Risk Register before COVID19 was pandemic flu, and there is no reason we couldn't get a Flu pandemic too in which case it would be face masks, social distancing, vaccines etc. A flu pandemic would be handled in the same way. Part of the problem here is that we semi-prepared for a flu pandemic, and were not prepared for a non-flu pandemic.
...

I've heard that said many times by seemingly credible experts since pretty much the beginning of this pandemic. What I still don't understand to this day is how the response to the two would have been different. In what way is/was the flu pandemic play book inadequate for the coronavirus pandemic that we have encountered? One thing I imagine might have been a key difference is an assumption that there would be a high probability that one or more acceptably effective vaccines would be available in significant volume reasonably early on in the pandemic since I assume that the assumption was(*) that the existing flu vaccine knowledge and manufacturing capacity would deliver a suitable pandemic-appropriate vaccine fairly quickly but in what other ways was the flu pandemic response significantly different to the coronavirus (ideal) response? (I do note your use of "semi-prepared" re our prior flu pandemic preparations which of course is a whole other issue in itself.)

...
I wish more people had studied immunology, virology, pharmacology, and genetics at University! Not realistic to expect the general public to all have a couple of bioscience degrees but it would certainly lead to more rational views.

Oh boy; ain't that the truth! As you say, "not realistic to expect the general public to all have a couple of bioscience degrees" but the thing that's driven me almost to rage at times are members of the general public who seem totally unaware of their lack of knowledge, have no appreciation of the scientific process or of how complicated all of this stuff is, yet still feel able to aggressively assert all sorts of blatantly unscientific nonsense as irrefutable fact and any scientists who has spent decades of their lives studying and subsequently researching in the fields you mentioned are simply "brainless idiots" or similar if they have any contrary opinions. I thought that a sentence from a Facebook post from someone way back in April last year summed up that phenomenon rather well...

As someone with a Masters in disease control, you can only imagine the sheer hell on earth that Facebook is for me at the moment.

From Chantelle who has impressively made the leap from bath bomb retailer to consultant virologist in a matter of weeks and can tell you exactly why the government and their experts are wrong, to Bob who claims to have secret intel from a secret government group on the secret programme of secret treatment measures that the government are definitely bringing in at 3pm next Thursday, only it’s a secret, but he’s posting it on Facebook so he feels like 007, to Steve who thinks it’s all a load of b*#@ocks and if he wants to wander round town he bloody well can cos he doesn’t feel sick and why the hell is ‘spoons shut cos his granddad didn’t fight the Nazis for him to be told to stay inside even if pornhub premium is now free for a week.

Bob and Steve are probably something of a depths-of-first-lockdown anachronism now but the line about Chantelle has stuck with me.

- Julian

(*) A lot of assuming going on here!

[Itsallaguess]

Scientists would have been better, instead of directing their voice towards the government, and telling the government how to dictate to people how they must behave...

... all along it would have been better if both the scientists and the government had treated the population as adults, and given the public all the available information, and let each individual adapt their behaviour as best as they are able, without resorting to legal compulsion.

Tentatively, I believe the otherwise seemingly paradoxical drop in cases after restrictions were relaxed, would seem to provide emerging evidence to back up this point of view.

The latest facts, on the face of it, certainly do not seem to back up the claims that legal compulsion was necessary to control the virus.

Might things be a little more nuanced than that, though?

Might it be the case that because of earlier compulsions and legal requirements, the public were able to clearly see an ongoing link between good behaviour regarding COVID-related health-protocols, and statistical evidence of that widespread good behaviour working in terms of bringing each wave of rising infections back down.

Latest figures suggest that over 90% of adults are still wearing masks outside of their homes (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ays-survey), but to assume that level of intelligent behaviour would have been the case right at the start of the pandemic is a leap of faith that I'd not be willing to take, I'm afraid...

It seems that you're perhaps suggesting that we've all been treated like kids, and that we should all have simply been 'trusted' to 'do the right things' right from the get-go, but the reason why we treat kids like kids is so that they ultimately grow up *to do* those 'right things', *because* they've had it instilled in them, using 'rules' when they were younger, as to the most appropriate way to behave in later life....

I think the above Guardian article is encouraging in that we seem to have learnt the most appropriate ways to now behave regarding COVID risks, and the situations that present the highest chances of cross-infections, at least in large enough numbers to be very worthwhile, but I'm not convinced we'd have got there straight away, without a period of 'enforced education', and that seems to be where we collectively are in the UK today, thankfully...

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[AWOL]

From Chantelle who has impressively made the leap from bath bomb retailer to consultant virologist in a matter of weeks and can tell you exactly why the government and their experts are wrong, to Bob who claims to have secret intel from a secret government group on the secret programme of secret treatment measures that the government are definitely bringing in at 3pm next Thursday, only it’s a secret, but he’s posting it on Facebook so he feels like 007, to Steve who thinks it’s all a load of b*#@ocks and if he wants to wander round town he bloody well can cos he doesn’t feel sick and why the hell is ‘spoons shut cos his granddad didn’t fight the Nazis for him to be told to stay inside even if pornhub premium is now free for a week.

This is possibly the most amusing thing I have ever read! Personally, I just struggle with the "it's breaching my civil liberties to expect me to cover my face, wash my hands, and not cough all over you" argument. Strangely enough everyone is converted once they are on a ventilator while their mates are in Weatherspoons.

[onthemove]

Might it be the case that because of earlier compulsions and legal requirements, the public were able to clearly see an ongoing link between good behaviour regarding COVID-related health-protocols, and statistical evidence of that widespread good behaviour working in terms of bringing each wave of rising infections back down.

Latest figures suggest that over 90% of adults are still wearing masks outside of their homes (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ays-survey), but to assume that level of intelligent behaviour would have been the case right at the start of the pandemic is a leap of faith that I'd not be willing to take, I'm afraid...

I disagree.

If it were merely a matter of seeing a link between good behaviour and statistical evidence of that good behaviour working, why has there been a drop post 19th July.

As you point out, 90% are still wearing masks, etc.

So why was there any change in direction of the trend, let alone such a marked change in direction? Why didn't then trend just carry on, on its pre-19th July trajectory when one would presume people were also following the protocols then?

Furthermore, it certainly isn't only post-19th July that people would have seen the statistical evidence. Surely the same statistical evidence was there prior to 19th July as well when cases were rising sharply. If people were using the evidence of the link between behaviour and statistics to moderate their behaviour, why wasn't that preventing the sharp pre-19th rise in cases?

My answer to these questions would be that the 19th July was the transfer of responsibility from the government to the people.

[swill453]

My answer to these questions would be that the 19th July was the transfer of responsibility from the government to the people.

The sharp downturn started about a week before post-19th July effects would be shown in the figures.

Scott.

[Itsallaguess]

Surely the same statistical evidence was there prior to 19th July as well when cases were rising sharply.

If people were using the evidence of the link between behaviour and statistics to moderate their behaviour, why wasn't that preventing the sharp pre-19th rise in cases?

Because the 5% of people choosing to ignore the protocols anyway, be they Government-mandatated or voluntary, still amount to a relatively large number of people....

But eventually that pre-19th-July surge in Delta cases, mostly school-term and Euro-induced in it's latter stages, came up against the strong wall of, by then, vaccine-imposed UK resistance, as well as against the wall of 95% of people that are still voluntarily behaving themselves properly in the appropriate social situations anyway...

And here we are...

I don't think it's correct to say that the post-19th-July improvements show that people 'could always be trusted', given that we're in a completely different vaccine-induced situation in the UK now.

I think it's fairer to perhaps say that given the vaccine-induced situation in the UK now, there's enough trust in the general population that much of their COVID-protocol behaviour can now *be* voluntary, rather than written in law, because it makes much less of a difference now, when it is voluntary, than it did when it needed to still be written in law....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[onthemove]

Latest figures suggest that over 90% of adults are still wearing masks outside of their homes (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ays-survey), but to assume that level of intelligent behaviour would have been the case right at the start of the pandemic is a leap of faith that I'd not be willing to take, I'm afraid...

Just to add another point from this as well...

I note the word "still" in their (which I've highlighted).

I point this out, because, as you point out, this is largely a constant before / after the 19th July - perhaps a slight drop after the 19th, but a large number of people still doing so (but not me... I'll use hand gel, keep my distance from others, still only shop when quiet, etc, but I'm no longer wearing a mask now I'm not forced to, but I digress).

My point is, that mask wearing overall, as you say has remained relatively constant during a period where transmission has apparently gone from rapidly rising, to rapidly falling.

To me, this is evidence that wearing masks is probably not the significant determinant in rate of transmission as has been made out.

Clearly, there is something way more significant that has had a far more substantial effect in reducing transmission than any of the so-called expert epidemiologists have anticipated.

As the majority of modellers admit, they have been taken by surprise by the fall in cases post 19th July.

School holidays, etc, are well known - I'd hope the SAGE modellers, Fergason, etc, were already taking that into account! It's not like we haven't already had step changes with people returning to school already in this pandemic for them to already have gathered data on the likely impact of schools for them to include in their models.

Yet here we have evidence over several days now that defies the models.

And yet the only substantive change is that paradoxically, restrictions have been eased right at the point cases were rising rapidly, and all the modellers thought that this should result in an increase in infections, not decrease.

[onthemove]

My answer to these questions would be that the 19th July was the transfer of responsibility from the government to the people.

The sharp downturn started about a week before post-19th July effects would be shown in the figures.

Scott.

Boris confirmed a week or so before the 19th that the relaxation would be going ahead even though cases were rising. It didn't come completely out of the blue on the 19th. So there is inevitably going to be a blurring around the date.

[Itsallaguess]

As the majority of modellers admit, they have been taken by surprise by the fall in cases post 19th July.

School holidays, etc, are well known - I'd hope the SAGE modellers, Fergason, etc, were already taking that into account! It's not like we haven't already had step changes with people returning to school already in this pandemic for them to already have gathered data on the likely impact of schools for them to include in their models.

Yet here we have evidence over several days now that defies the models.

And yet the only substantive change is that paradoxically, restrictions have been eased right at the point cases were rising rapidly, and all the modellers thought that this should result in an increase in infections, not decrease.

At a time where the UK are eating into the final stages of non-vaccinated adults, and most probably within age-groups that perhaps give higher risk of social cross-infections than some of the older, already highly-vaccinated and still 'cautious' age groups, and at a time when we're likely to, if not actually be *knocking* on the 'herd-immunity' door, at least be within spitting distance of it, then I don't agree with your 'only substantive change' proposal during these recent weeks...

As an aside, it's good to find ourselves collectively disagreeing about 'good news' for a change, at least, and long may that situation last....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[onthemove]

...and at a time when we're likely to, if not actually be *knocking* on the 'herd-immunity' door, at least be within spitting distance of it, then I don't agree with your 'only substantive change' proposal during these recent weeks...

I provided quotes from two different main stream publications earlier in the thread both agreeing that such a rapid change in infection rate is very unlikely to be related to reaching herd immunity. It doesn't fit at all with the pattern expected from reaching herd immunity.

That's the scientists saying that, not me.

[zico]

Might it be the case that because of earlier compulsions and legal requirements, the public were able to clearly see an ongoing link between good behaviour regarding COVID-related health-protocols, and statistical evidence of that widespread good behaviour working in terms of bringing each wave of rising infections back down.

Latest figures suggest that over 90% of adults are still wearing masks outside of their homes (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/ ... ays-survey), but to assume that level of intelligent behaviour would have been the case right at the start of the pandemic is a leap of faith that I'd not be willing to take, I'm afraid...

It seems that you're perhaps suggesting that we've all been treated like kids, and that we should all have simply been 'trusted' to 'do the right things' right from the get-go, but the reason why we treat kids like kids is so that they ultimately grow up *to do* those 'right things', *because* they've had it instilled in them, using 'rules' when they were younger, as to the most appropriate way to behave in later life....

I think the above Guardian article is encouraging in that we seem to have learnt the most appropriate ways to now behave regarding COVID risks, and the situations that present the highest chances of cross-infections, at least in large enough numbers to be very worthwhile, but I'm not convinced we'd have got there straight away, without a period of 'enforced education', and that seems to be where we collectively are in the UK today, thankfully...
Itsallaguess

Completely agree with this. I've been very pleasantly surprised by how widespread mask-wearing has been after "Freedom Day" even in places like Asda. It's also noticeable that the public has been generally a lot more cautious than Conservative MPs in their approach to the pandemic, with strong support for most lockdown measures at all stages of the pandemic. The general public seems to have picked up on how the message of "Freedom Day, Rejoice" changed over a week or two, becoming "Freedom Day, Be Really Careful Out There".

Pure speculation, but I wonder if the initial steep rise in cases was caused by the "Unvaccinated Unworried" as typified by football crowds and Euros-watching parties, and now most of this group has either caught Covid or is immune. Hopefully we also have the "Vaccinated Worried", "Vaccinated Unworried" and "Unvaccinated Worried" groups, none of which should be likely to produce large growths in infection rates. Unfortunately we still have the "Unvaccinated Children" group mixing with vaccinated parents, which has been described as the ideal strategy if you actually wanted to develop a variant with immunity to vaccines.

Every week we get more and more vaccinated people, and although the daily numbers are now down to just under 50k, that's still 1/3 of a million people better protected per week, so if we can avoid increasing numbers of infections, we may have a decent chance of beating the virus.