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ONS - 1 in 60 - what am I missing?

The home for all non-political Coronavirus (Covid-19) discussions on The Lemon Fool
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This is the home for all non-political Coronavirus (Covid-19) discussions on The Lemon Fool
onthemove
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ONS - 1 in 60 - what am I missing?

#450805

Postby onthemove » October 17th, 2021, 3:29 pm

I've seen these kind of numbers a fair few times during the pandemic...

"In England, the percentage of people testing positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) continued to increase in the week ending 9 October 2021; we estimate that 890,000 people in England had COVID-19 (95% credible interval: 839,700 to 941,300), equating to around 1 in 60 people."
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... ctober2021


From what I've read, people who catch covid don't tend to get re-infected; it's not unheard of, but it's apparently not common.

But we're something like 80 to 90 weeks into the pandemic now.

I realise that each week will be different, but I recall seeing numbers in the 1 in 60 ball park or worse several times now.

If re-infection isn't all that common, surely, if the ONS estimates are even remotely correct, surely the vast majority of people must have had covid by now? And I mean, actually had covid, I'm not talking about vaccine protection, antibodies, etc, at all here.

I'm reading the 1 in 60 as meaning those 1 in 60 had covid in the past week. Or is that my mistake and the 1 in 60 is a running aggregate from throughout the pandemic?

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Re: ONS - 1 in 60 - what am I missing?

#450806

Postby Mike4 » October 17th, 2021, 3:45 pm

onthemove wrote:I've seen these kind of numbers a fair few times during the pandemic...

"In England, the percentage of people testing positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) continued to increase in the week ending 9 October 2021; we estimate that 890,000 people in England had COVID-19 (95% credible interval: 839,700 to 941,300), equating to around 1 in 60 people."
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... ctober2021


From what I've read, people who catch covid don't tend to get re-infected; it's not unheard of, but it's apparently not common.

But we're something like 80 to 90 weeks into the pandemic now.

I realise that each week will be different, but I recall seeing numbers in the 1 in 60 ball park or worse several times now.

If re-infection isn't all that common, surely, if the ONS estimates are even remotely correct, surely the vast majority of people must have had covid by now? And I mean, actually had covid, I'm not talking about vaccine protection, antibodies, etc, at all here.

I'm reading the 1 in 60 as meaning those 1 in 60 had covid in the past week. Or is that my mistake and the 1 in 60 is a running aggregate from throughout the pandemic?



I'm no sure you're missing much, other than the fact that at other times, the prevalence has been WAY lower than one in 60. So over the whole 90 weeks the prevalence might well be only 1 in 100 on average.

But heard recently that something like 93% of the population are now shown to have antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, which means a) 'herd immunity' is a mirage, and b ) we are close to achieving it!

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Re: ONS - 1 in 60 - what am I missing?

#450821

Postby onthemove » October 17th, 2021, 4:41 pm

Mike4 wrote:I'm no sure you're missing much, other than the fact that at other times, the prevalence has been WAY lower than one in 60. So over the whole 90 weeks the prevalence might well be only 1 in 100 on average.


But 1 in 100 over 90 weeks where re-infection is believed to be uncommon would still be towards 90% of people having been infected at some point during the pandemic. And based on the recent survey on here where most of us don't believe, or aren't aware for sure, we've had it, the vast majority of infections must surely be asymptomatic or mild, at least by now?

Mike4 wrote:But heard recently that something like 93% of the population are now shown to have antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, which means a) 'herd immunity' is a mirage, and b ) we are close to achieving it!


As I mentioned, the ONS numbers are specifically infection - it may be asymptomatic, but infection none-the-less.

So the 1 in 100 over 90 weeks is nothing to do with the antibodies provided from vaccination... the 1 in 100 over 90 weeks is implying specifically infection. I believe the ONS survey extrapolates from a random testing program, not based on needing to have had symptoms first, and specifically testing for covid, rather than antibodies. (Though i believe they also do tests for antibodies as well, but I believe the 1 in 60 relates to the positive tests for covid, and extrapolating to the population)

Re. herd immunity, I believe scientists already accept that vaccination doesn't prevent initial infection and transmission, particularly for the new variants, so I don't think most scientists now expect herd immunity to be reached, even if we got 100% vaccination.

But going back to my point in my OP ... if the ONS numbers are right, and even with your more cautious 1 in 100 per week estimate, surely irrespective of the vaccination status, most people have now had covid anyway now.

And if so ... surely it means the pandemic is all but over.

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Re: ONS - 1 in 60 - what am I missing?

#450867

Postby XFool » October 17th, 2021, 7:27 pm

onthemove wrote:Re. herd immunity, I believe scientists already accept that vaccination doesn't prevent initial infection and transmission, particularly for the new variants, so I don't think most scientists now expect herd immunity to be reached, even if we got 100% vaccination.

But going back to my point in my OP ... if the ONS numbers are right, and even with your more cautious 1 in 100 per week estimate, surely irrespective of the vaccination status, most people have now had covid anyway now.

And if so ... surely it means the pandemic is all but over.

Shurley shome mishtake?

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Re: ONS - 1 in 60 - what am I missing?

#450879

Postby Lanark » October 17th, 2021, 7:43 pm

Mike4 wrote:But heard recently that something like 93% of the population are now shown to have antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, which means a) 'herd immunity' is a mirage, and b ) we are close to achieving it!

Having anti-bodies is not the same as being vaccinated.

For one thing anti-bodies are known to decline by about 50% over 6 months.
For another thing 90% of adults aged 16 and over is only about 75% of the whole population

So to achieve herd immunity they need to:
- Get a move on in vaccinating children (we are currently MONTHS behind other countries in this)
- If under 12s are not going to be vaccinated then we need 100% of all over 12 year olds to be vaccinated to have any hope, so some serious inroads need to made into the minority of vaccine hesitant hold-outs.
- Start giving booster shots every 6 months rather than once per year (we are miles away from having the capacity to do that)
- Shut down air travel with any countries that still have high rates (currently just about anywhere has lower rates than the UK but that could change)

If all of that is done before another variant appears, then we might achieve herd immunity.

That seems unlikely to happen, so we are probably looking at years of lingering illness, though with vaccination much lower death rates.

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Re: ONS - 1 in 60 - what am I missing?

#450882

Postby jfgw » October 17th, 2021, 8:20 pm

onthemove wrote:I've seen these kind of numbers a fair few times during the pandemic...

"In England, the percentage of people testing positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) continued to increase in the week ending 9 October 2021; we estimate that 890,000 people in England had COVID-19 (95% credible interval: 839,700 to 941,300), equating to around 1 in 60 people."
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... ctober2021



That is prevalence. Someone testing positive for, say, six consecutive weeks will be counted each week. PCR tests can detect dead bits of virus and return a positive as a result.

The most recent incidence (i.e., new positive) datum (19 September 2021 to 25 September 2021) is 0.1241% whereas the prevalence datum for the same period is 1.21%.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/download/table?f ... d4e48.json


Julian F. G. W.

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Re: ONS - 1 in 60 - what am I missing?

#450883

Postby onthemove » October 17th, 2021, 8:23 pm

XFool wrote:
onthemove wrote:Re. herd immunity, I believe scientists already accept that vaccination doesn't prevent initial infection and transmission, particularly for the new variants, so I don't think most scientists now expect herd immunity to be reached, even if we got 100% vaccination.

But going back to my point in my OP ... if the ONS numbers are right, and even with your more cautious 1 in 100 per week estimate, surely irrespective of the vaccination status, most people have now had covid anyway now.

And if so ... surely it means the pandemic is all but over.

Shurley shome mishtake?


Care to elaborate?

Why do you think there's been some mistake?

I'm just trying to interpret the official / scientific numbers that are being reported.

If you think you can add some clarity to the discussion, please feel free.

Just to clarify - by 'all but over', I meant, covid now endemic and circulating like the common cold, with people now tolerant (biologically speaking) of it - if most people have now had it, the chances of future serious complications are significantly reduced, as the majority of people would already have now encountered the worst effects.

Obviously, there is then the question of how is it endemic if reinfection isn't common? The answer is, I don't know. Perhaps this is what I'm missing. But I'm just going by the reported information from the main stream media, government, etc. For example .. "PHE's ongoing study on immunity in healthcare workers found 44 potential re-infections in a group of 6,614 people who had previously had the virus. Researchers conclude reinfection is uncommon" https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-52446965

If you think the reinfection rate is higher, could you provide a link to more recent evidence? (Genuine request, I'd be interested to know the latest scientific research on this).

Or do you interpret the 1 in 60 people infected in the past 7 days differently? Details here if you want to check ... https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... ctober2021

Or do you think people previously infected might have lower tolerance next infection? Though this would disagree with the message we're being given ("Experts have been clear we should expect to be infected repeatedly over our lifetimes. But each reinfection should be milder than the previous one." https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-58334835)

But then we need to take into account that the R rate of the delta variant is very high ... this is largely the reason why scientists no longer feel herd immunity will be reached.

If so, that could explain the discrepancy ... reinfection rates might be low... but if the opportunity for reinfection from a high R rate is there, then that is probably what will still enable it to remain endemic, even when reinfection rates are 'low'.

In other words, (made up numbers for illustration) if you only have a 1 in 10 chance of reinfection, that might feel low, but if you encounter 10 opportunities for getting infected, the overall opportunity becomes significant. (e.g. see Bayes Theorem .. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem )

But then, like I say, if that's the case, this is it, covid is over, it's now endemic, we live with it going around like the common cold and get on with business as previously usual.

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Re: ONS - 1 in 60 - what am I missing?

#450887

Postby XFool » October 17th, 2021, 8:45 pm

onthemove wrote:
XFool wrote:
onthemove wrote:Re. herd immunity, I believe scientists already accept that vaccination doesn't prevent initial infection and transmission, particularly for the new variants, so I don't think most scientists now expect herd immunity to be reached, even if we got 100% vaccination.

But going back to my point in my OP ... if the ONS numbers are right, and even with your more cautious 1 in 100 per week estimate, surely irrespective of the vaccination status, most people have now had covid anyway now.

And if so ... surely it means the pandemic is all but over.

Shurley shome mishtake?

Care to elaborate?

Why do you think there's been some mistake?

It appears confusing to me. That scientists: "don't now expect herd immunity to be reached" along with: "surely it means the pandemic is all but over."

onthemove wrote:Just to clarify - by 'all but over', I meant, covid now endemic and circulating like the common cold...

OK. That does perhaps clarify it. Not pandemic, but endemic. This has to be the ultimate situation, though how sure can we yet be that that state has now been reached?

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Re: ONS - 1 in 60 - what am I missing?

#450888

Postby onthemove » October 17th, 2021, 8:56 pm

jfgw wrote:
onthemove wrote:I've seen these kind of numbers a fair few times during the pandemic...

"In England, the percentage of people testing positive for coronavirus (COVID-19) continued to increase in the week ending 9 October 2021; we estimate that 890,000 people in England had COVID-19 (95% credible interval: 839,700 to 941,300), equating to around 1 in 60 people."
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... ctober2021



That is prevalence. Someone testing positive for, say, six consecutive weeks will be counted each week. PCR tests can detect dead bits of virus and return a positive as a result.

The most recent incidence (i.e., new positive) datum (19 September 2021 to 25 September 2021) is 0.1241% whereas the prevalence datum for the same period is 1.21%.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/download/table?f ... d4e48.json


Julian F. G. W.


Thanks

That would seem to explain it.

Makes me wonder why they choose to headline the 1 in 60 number then - seems odd, and very open to misunderstanding.

It looks like there's quite a big difference between...

Number of people who got covid in a particular week
Number of people who had covid in a particular week

The latter counting the same infection multiple times in different weeks, but that being the number that's being headlined.

Surely I'm not the only one misunderstanding this?

And that said, even if people do realise it's referring to prevalence, I thought most infections (that didn't end up in hospitalisation) cleared up in around a week or so, so I wouldn't have expected the difference (10x) that the numbers you've provided seem to indicate! Again, another reason why I'm surprised that I'm seeing the 1 in 60 figure quoted so often.

Anyway, probably does explain what I'm missing.

Thanks.


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