Re: Coronavirus - Numbers and Statistics

[XFool]

UK Covid infections climb by a million in a week

BBC News

Covid cases have climbed by a million in a week in the UK, data from the Office for National Statistics reveals.

"Swab tests suggest about one in every 16 people is infected, as the contagious Omicron variant BA.2 continues to spread."

[dealtn]

UK Covid infections climb by a million in a week

BBC News

Covid cases have climbed by a million in a week in the UK, data from the Office for National Statistics reveals.

"Swab tests suggest about one in every 16 people is infected, as the contagious Omicron variant BA.2 continues to spread."

Just 300 in intensive care with a need for a ventilator. A remarkable change in the medical need compared to earlier waves with latest dominant variant. I'm sure few predicted an outcome as relatively benign as this, especially those opposed to what was labelled a "let it rip" policy.

[XFool]

Just 300 in intensive care with a need for a ventilator. A remarkable change in the medical need compared to earlier waves with latest dominant variant. I'm sure few predicted an outcome as relatively benign as this, especially those opposed to what was labelled a "let it rip" policy.

Only 300 on a ventilator? What brought us this satisfactory(?) state of affairs? Vaccination.

Remember, the "let it rip" policy was originally that of the 'Lockdown Sceptics' and 'Great Barrington' promoters, prior to the development of the vaccine. That was their 'solution'.

Who knows, if latterly we had carried on a bit longer with a few easy, simple additional precautions we might now have even fewer than 300 on ventilators. (To be fair, that is what many people are doing.)

Still, it was ever the fate of history to be rewritten.

[dealtn]

Just 300 in intensive care with a need for a ventilator. A remarkable change in the medical need compared to earlier waves with latest dominant variant. I'm sure few predicted an outcome as relatively benign as this, especially those opposed to what was labelled a "let it rip" policy.

Only 300 on a ventilator? What brought us this satisfactory(?) state of affairs? Vaccination.

Remember, the "let it rip" policy was originally that of the 'Lockdown Sceptics' and 'Great Barrington' promoters, prior to the development of the vaccine. That was their 'solution'.

Who knows, if latterly we had carried on a bit longer with a few easy, simple additional precautions we might now have even fewer than 300 on ventilators. (To be fair, that is what many people are doing.)

Still, it was ever the fate of history to be rewritten.

Sorry I am confused. Are you arguing that I am wrong to say few predicted this outcome, or not. I can't recall many, wherever the stood on the debate about relaxation of the rules, proclaiming we would have such low numbers concurrent with anything like 4 million infections.

It may well be the case that were relaxation to have come later the number on ventilators would be below 300. Would that have been a better outcome for society? It's not at all obvious that continued, or worse restrictions, and say 200 on a ventilator, would have been seen as a preferable outcome for society as a whole. Most seem quite content with few/no restrictions and relatively few dying or in intensive care.

It's hard to see many arguing for a complete ban on using cars to radically reduce the 4/5 deaths, or 50-60 serious injuries per day. Such trade offs are what society gets taking into account both quantity and quality of life factors, despite the individual tragedies concerned. Rightly or wrongly the government, in deciding what it believes to be what society desires, has taken us to where we are. The relative lack of indignation or vocal clamouring for an alternative suggests they have struck a balance not too far away from society's preference (whether by design or accident or luck).

[Julian]

Just 300 in intensive care with a need for a ventilator. A remarkable change in the medical need compared to earlier waves with latest dominant variant. I'm sure few predicted an outcome as relatively benign as this, especially those opposed to what was labelled a "let it rip" policy.

Only 300 on a ventilator? What brought us this satisfactory(?) state of affairs? Vaccination.

Remember, the "let it rip" policy was originally that of the 'Lockdown Sceptics' and 'Great Barrington' promoters, prior to the development of the vaccine. That was their 'solution'.

Who knows, if latterly we had carried on a bit longer with a few easy, simple additional precautions we might now have even fewer than 300 on ventilators. (To be fair, that is what many people are doing.)

Still, it was ever the fate of history to be rewritten.

I don’t disagree that vaccination have almost certainly been the biggest factor but better early-stage therapeutics to disrupt the viral replication cycle before a patient deteriorates to the stage of needing to go onto a ventilator has probably also played a part.

I remember the early days when the original Nightingale hospitals were intended to be 100% ventilator beds and the call went out to industry to produce affordable new designs in large numbers and my impression was that that was because at the time little could be done to interfere with nature taking its course and vulnerable patients deteriorating to the stage where all that was left to do was put them on a ventilator. Now we have a range of antivirals, monoclonal antibodies plus a good understanding of at what stage in the disease progression they should be used. The initial great hope, Remdesivir, is now pretty much at the bottom of the list in terms of early-stage interventions since it is the least effective of the early stage treatments in terms of reducing hospitalisations and deaths with stuff like Paxlovid, Molnupiravir and bebtelovimab considered superior. Sotrovimab was also on that list although sadly it looks as if its effectiveness against the BA.2 variant is significantly reduced (https://www.statnews.com/2022/03/25/fda ... t-omicron/).

We also have pretty good clinical data now about which steroids are most effective for later stage illness when the immune system has gone into inflammatory overdrive which possibly also helps keep people off ventilation.

- Julian

[XFool]

Sorry I am confused. Are you arguing that I am wrong to say few predicted this outcome, or not.

No. Irrelevant.

It's hard to see many arguing for a complete ban on using cars to radically reduce the 4/5 deaths, or 50-60 serious injuries per day. Such trade offs are what society gets taking into account both quantity and quality of life factors, despite the individual tragedies concerned.

Are you seriously equating the economic and social consequences of continuing with a few easy, simple precautions (masks, free LF Tests), with a complete ban on the use of motor cars?

It's a point of view...

[dealtn]

Sorry I am confused. Are you arguing that I am wrong to say few predicted this outcome, or not.

No. Irrelevant.

Good. We agree. Not sure how clarifying is irrelevant. It wasn't clear to me at all what your initial reply to me was saying or arguing.

It's hard to see many arguing for a complete ban on using cars to radically reduce the 4/5 deaths, or 50-60 serious injuries per day. Such trade offs are what society gets taking into account both quantity and quality of life factors, despite the individual tragedies concerned.

Are you seriously equating the economic and social consequences of continuing with a few easy, simple precautions (masks, free LF Tests), with a complete ban on the use of motor cars?

It's a point of view...

I'm not equating that at all. Again all I am saying is that there are multiple prohibitions available to the authorities to deal with all kinds of issues affecting the country that result in deaths and serious injuries. The spectrum of those responses range from extreme to almost minimal, and society gets to judge and influence those prohibitions.

In the case of road accidents we see little clamour for significant change from existing legislation. Evidence suggest the current prohibitions regarding Covid are also acceptable to society. Do I agree with every single one of those restrictions? No. Are members of society prohibited from adopting additional measures themselves? Again no.

My response to your initial news link was merely to point how how far the travel has come regarding the pandemic, and that few would have imagined it would be possible to have 4 million infections and as few as 300 on ventilators. A view you have confirmed you also share.

[XFool]

Sorry I am confused. Are you arguing that I am wrong to say few predicted this outcome, or not.

No. Irrelevant.

Good. We agree. Not sure how clarifying is irrelevant. It wasn't clear to me at all what your initial reply to me was saying or arguing.

My response to your initial news link was merely to point how how far the travel has come regarding the pandemic, and that few would have imagined it would be possible to have 4 million infections and as few as 300 on ventilators. A view you have confirmed you also share.

No. It's not "a view I share", I have not said it is "a view I share". I said I thought it was irrelevant, I still do.

[Lootman]

My response to your initial news link was merely to point how how far the travel has come regarding the pandemic, and that few would have imagined it would be possible to have 4 million infections and as few as 300 on ventilators. A view you have confirmed you also share.

No. It's not "a view I share", I have not said it is "a view I share". I said I thought it was irrelevant, I still do.

And your reason for thinking that a minuscule rate of serious illness is irrelevant is . . . ?

[dealtn]

Sorry I am confused. Are you arguing that I am wrong to say few predicted this outcome, or not.

No. Irrelevant.

Good. We agree. Not sure how clarifying is irrelevant. It wasn't clear to me at all what your initial reply to me was saying or arguing.

My response to your initial news link was merely to point how how far the travel has come regarding the pandemic, and that few would have imagined it would be possible to have 4 million infections and as few as 300 on ventilators. A view you have confirmed you also share.

No. It's not "a view I share", I have not said it is "a view I share". I said I thought it was irrelevant, I still do.

I asked "Am I wrong to say few predicted this outcome, or not?"

You replied "No".

Are you now changing your response to "Yes"?

Is it any wonder I am confused?

You now think more than a few predicted an outcome where multiple millions were infected, but only 300 would be on a ventilator in intensive care?

[Itsallaguess]

UK cases clearly looking to have peaked now -



Source - https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[dealtn]

UK cases clearly looking to have peaked now -



Source - https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

I would say that the tested positive number looks to have peaked. But with the amount of testing dropping it's not so clear that "cases" have peaked (unless the definition of "case" is unusual to what I would consider it to mean).

[redsturgeon]

UK cases clearly looking to have peaked now -



Source - https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

I would say that the tested positive number looks to have peaked. But with the amount of testing dropping it's not so clear that "cases" have peaked (unless the definition of "case" is unusual to what I would consider it to mean).

Yes, these figures from the government are now so inaccurate that they are meaningless. They only record people who report their positive test to the government...who does that these days.

The Zoe app estimates about 4.4 million cases of symptomatic covid across the UK currently and 349,000 new daily cases. They also show cases still rising.

https://covid.joinzoe.com/data#interactive-map

John

[pje16]

Yep I've been on Zoe since March 20
the most reliable figures and great weekly videos from Prof Tim Spector

[Hallucigenia]

Perhaps a better guide is hospitalisations, which are currently just shy of the 20k in hospital that we saw at the beginning of January. Fortunately numbers on ventilation are much lower than then - but rising.

[redsturgeon]

Perhaps a better guide is hospitalisations, which are currently just shy of the 20k in hospital that we saw at the beginning of January. Fortunately numbers on ventilation are much lower than then - but rising.

Yes indeed and Scotland are in a much worse position than the rest of the UK.

The hospitalisations are a direct result of the huge rise in case numbers while the lower ICU numbers are happily a result of better treatments and the vaccine effect on serious disease.

John

[Itsallaguess]

Yes, these [cases] figures from the government are now so inaccurate that they are meaningless.

They only record people who report their positive test to the government...who does that these days.

The Zoe app estimates about 4.4 million cases of symptomatic covid across the UK currently and 349,000 new daily cases. They also show cases still rising.

https://covid.joinzoe.com/data#interactive-map

But in the current situation where 'COVID-related symptoms' are clearly not transmuting into the need for critical clinical care in the same way that they did before the large-scale roll-out of our vaccine programme, then aren't any currently-large numbers related to 'symptomatic cases' also equally 'meaningless'?

Mechanical-ventilation bed occupancy for UK hospitals are less than 1/10th of the peak UK demand....

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[redsturgeon]

Yes, these [cases] figures from the government are now so inaccurate that they are meaningless.

They only record people who report their positive test to the government...who does that these days.

The Zoe app estimates about 4.4 million cases of symptomatic covid across the UK currently and 349,000 new daily cases. They also show cases still rising.

https://covid.joinzoe.com/data#interactive-map

But in the current situation where 'COVID-related symptoms' are clearly not transmuting into the need for critical clinical care in the same way that they did before the large-scale roll-out of our vaccine programme, then aren't any currently-large numbers related to 'symptomatic cases' also equally 'meaningless'?

Mechanical-ventilation bed occupancy for UK hospitals are less than 1/10th of the peak UK demand....

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

Only meaningless if you think that hospitalisation is trivial unless you are in ICU. Or if you think that perhaps 10% of cases experiencing long covid is trivial. Or if you think that the numbers missing days off work is meaningless.

The "official" government daily figures are off by around a factor of 6 or 7 times. The ONS figures are more accurate but have a delay built in, the Zoe figures correspond quite closely to the ONS figures and are available on a daily basis.

Unfortunately the Zoe figures don't give the numbers that the government would like to see...I'd hate to think that's why they have been defunded.

Also the those using the government figures might be falsely led to believe that covid is in decline, which it is not. Hopefully it will be in a couple of weeks though. In fact those using the "official" daily numbers to make important decisions might actually find those numbers worse than meaningless.

John

[Itsallaguess]

Also the those using the government figures might be falsely led to believe that covid is in decline, which it is not.

Hopefully it will be in a couple of weeks though.

In fact those using the "official" daily numbers to make important decisions might actually find those numbers worse than meaningless.

So my earlier posts discussing the Government figures showing COVID cases peaking are 'meaningless', but the Zoe figures you're happy to use suggest to you that they might decline 'in a couple of weeks'...

I'm not quite sure there's too much to be arguing about in there John, unless you've simply got a natural inclination to vociferously dismiss anything this Government puts out about this issue....

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

[pje16]

At the "peak" or at least the highest number I can recall, the Zoe App showed the number of cases in my area was 24 thousand (and change) , this morning just over 26K, so I am taking it that the peak may still rise
After all what's in my area is around me - yikes!