[A.Greenhorne]

This seems quite a good tool to compare total mortality across countries and years. Some interesting comparisons to be made.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-raw-death-count?tab=chart&stackMode=absolute&country=~SWE&region=World

[Offwidth]

FT have finally got round to updating the excess death plots for the recent covid waves.

https://www.ft.com/content/a2901ce8-5eb7-4633-b89c-cbdf5b386938

In excess deaths above the expected average Sweden (+12%) are now fifth following Belgium (26%), Spain (24%) the UK (18%) and Italy (15%) in the EU countries shown; above France, Netherlands and Austria  (all 11%).

Denmark and Norway have no discernible excess deaths.

Back on Sweden the population behaved pretty well on voluntary prevention measures, outside of their care homes, in the first wave. The more recent wave has been more problematic for the general population. The lesson from Sweden to me is a social contract between government and its population benefits greatly in fighting a pandemic.

[stone]

spooky stuff:- https://virological.org/t/lineage-specific-growth-of-sars-cov-2-b-1-1-7-during-the-english-national-lockdown/575

"Background: The emerging B.1.1.7 SARS-CoV-2 lineage has proliferated rapidly in the U.K. Here we use a combination of daily local SARS-CoV-2 incidence data and weekly genomic surveillance data from COG-UK to infer its infection dynamics and parameters during English national lockdown from November 5 to December 2 2020.

Methods: A hierarchical Bayesian model is used to jointly model lineage-agnostic spatiotemporal SARS-CoV-2 PCR test data and genomic sequencing data of the B.1.1.7 lineage. This analysis infers the total and lineage-specific temporal incidence in each local authority and estimates the historic basic reproductive ratio R for new and other SARS-CoV-2 lineages per local authority.

Findings: We find strong and consistent evidence that B.1.1.7 proliferated (R>1) during the English lockdown in 86% (215/246) of lower tier local authorities with an average R value of 1.26. At the same time other lineages contracted (R<1) at an average R value of 0.86 in most regions, leading to 81% (200/246) of regions showing B.1.1.7 proliferation while other lineages diminished.

Implications: The emerging B.1.1.7 SARS-CoV-2 lineage spreads faster than its predecessors. It continued to grow during a lockdown in which other lineages shrank. These analyses suggest that stricter measures are required to contain the B.1.1.7 lineage."

[tomtom]

Thanks Stone. Reports today Saying the PHE data on contact tracing of the new variant positive cases is showing a 50%+ increase in the number of contacts testing positive over other variants....

[stone]

Thanks Stone. Reports today Saying the PHE data on contact tracing of the new variant positive cases is showing a 50%+ increase in the number of contacts testing positive over other variants....

Yes, secondary attack rate was 15.1% versus 9.8% for the other variants https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/948152/Technical_Briefing_VOC202012-2_Briefing_2_FINAL.pdf

[Fiend]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55489932

 

[duncan]

Thought this was an interesting snapshot of what’s happening locally. It’s from the Zoe/KCL app. so an estimate based on reported symptoms however these numbers historically compare well with actual test results.

My symptoms started on the 16th and I tested positive on the 21st. It looks like I’m one of many.

[tomtom]

That’s grim Duncan (stats and your own illness). Hope you’re feeling better soon.

[andy popp]

Very sorry to read that Duncan. Hope you're already beginning to feel better?

[Falling Down]

Sorry to hear Duncan. I hope you are feeling better. Don’t be shy to call if you need anything.

This thing is absolutely ripping through London at the moment. W was very poorly and tested positive just before Christmas on the 20th so we were isolating - she’s recovered now but still tired.

All three of my close friends and several acquaintances have positive cases in their households and one had the paramedics out yesterday with breathing problems. 

Stay safe y’all. Wear your masks, wash your hands and try not to socialise.

[danm]

Get well soon Duncan. It's definitely on a different level now in London and the SE. My brother is in a bubble with my sister, out of the 6 of them including children, half now have it, and my sister says many of her friends have it. Scary times.

[Will Hunt]

Do we understand yet why the new strain is more infectious and what that might mean practically for the social distancing measures we take? Droplets containing the virus aren't going to travel 70% further. I think I read on the BBC that the virus was more successful at infecting cells, so this might mean that the infectious dose is lower, ergo you don't have to be in close contact with someone for as long on order to pick it up? Could it be roughly the same but a lesser proportion of infected persons present as asymptomatic - so we identify more cases?

[duncan]

Thanks everyone, I had a very quiet Christmas! I’m recovering, but still get exhausted after trivial amounts of activity, and feeling quite ‘foggy brained’. This all seems pretty standard, verging on good for man of my vintage. Longer term outlook is still a little uncertain but I’m pretty positive and fortunately I don’t have to rush back to anything. 

[tomtom]

Sorry to hear Duncan. I hope you are feeling better. Don’t be shy to call if you need anything.

This thing is absolutely ripping through London at the moment. W was very poorly and tested positive just before Christmas on the 20th so we were isolating - she’s recovered now but still tired.

All three of my close friends and several acquaintances have positive cases in their households and one had the paramedics out yesterday with breathing problems. 

Stay safe y’all. Wear your masks, wash your hands and try not to socialise.

This popped up on my Twitter - covid positive test rates for London at 18%...

[andy popp]

Bloody hell Ben - good to hear W is recovering but it's still very scary.

Meanwhile, the idiotic deniers are out in force on FB ...

[tomtom]

Do we understand yet why the new strain is more infectious and what that might mean practically for the social distancing measures we take? Droplets containing the virus aren't going to travel 70% further. I think I read on the BBC that the virus was more successful at infecting cells, so this might mean that the infectious dose is lower, ergo you don't have to be in close contact with someone for as long on order to pick it up? Could it be roughly the same but a lesser proportion of infected persons present as asymptomatic - so we identify more cases?

This article summarises our state of knowledge on this quite well:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/health/coronavirus-variant-transmission.html

[Falling Down]

Bloody hell Ben - good to hear W is recovering but it's still very scary.

Meanwhile, the idiotic deniers are out in force on FB ...

Thanks Andy - all on the mend which is good.  I now understand your second sentence having been on FB last night. 

[teestub]

This popped up on my Twitter - covid positive test rates for London at 18%...

18% of the population or 18% of people tested?

[mrjonathanr]

TT will be referring to tests returned. This table shows current rates per 100,000
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-54324244

[Will Hunt]

Do we understand yet why the new strain is more infectious and what that might mean practically for the social distancing measures we take? Droplets containing the virus aren't going to travel 70% further. I think I read on the BBC that the virus was more successful at infecting cells, so this might mean that the infectious dose is lower, ergo you don't have to be in close contact with someone for as long on order to pick it up? Could it be roughly the same but a lesser proportion of infected persons present as asymptomatic - so we identify more cases?

This article summarises our state of knowledge on this quite well:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/31/health/coronavirus-variant-transmission.html

Thanks, TT.
The tl;dr for anyone interested is that results are currently preliminary but there are a couple of possible differences. The first is some evidence that the virus sits more in the throat than the lungs so each breath, cough, sneeze will contain more of it; the second is some evidence that the variant might bind more tightly to cells it is trying to infect.

I hope everyone here who's currently suffering with it has a speedy recovery.

[tomtom]

This popped up on my Twitter - covid positive test rates for London at 18%...

18% of the population or 18% of people tested?

Yeah - sorry Tim - fortgot to post the link..

[tomtom]

Anecdote alert: Chatting to one of my University friends on a NYE zoom last night - and she works a midwife in the SW. Just been isolating as their 14 YO daughter got it at school - no one else in the family (5) caught it. As a midwife, she was given a load of the lateral flow tests so she can test herself before shifts etc... During isolation - she's been using these (sparingly she said) to test her daughter and family. Every test has come back negative (including her symptomatic daughter who had a positive PCR test). Her (and her colleagues) view of the Lateral Flow tests was that they were so crap they were next to pointless....

[Ru]

Her (and her colleagues) view of the Lateral Flow tests was that they were so crap they were next to pointless....

I read that they had a 40% sensitivity in Liverpool, which is probably slightly less accurate than an educated guess. They have a high specificity, but that's not much use with Covid where you want to isolate those that have it and don't need to worry about false alarms.

[nik at work]

...Covid where you want to isolate those that have it and don't need to worry about false alarms.

I would disagree with this, unless I have misunderstood your meaning? You definitely don’t want large numbers of health professionals (or any other ‘key’ workers) isolating off the back of false positives.

Lateral flow tests are by all accounts pretty much useless.

[Sidehaas]

LFTs are useful for finding asymptomatic positive people from a mass testing programme, as another way to reduce general virus spread. In this scenario, every positive case you find (and then confirm via PCR) is a win, because the person didn't realise they were ill. That's what was done in Liverpool and I think it probably had a positive effect, but not as large an effect as the Govt tried to claim. It's worth noting that quite a few of Liverpool's positive cases are continuing to come via LFT so there are obviously a lot of asymptomatic people around. (This data is now available on the Liverpool council covid dashboard (I'm not sure if it's available for other places), one day last week when I looked, of 800-odd cases in Liverpool, 200-odd were from LFT.)
I agree that using them to screen people and confirm negative is a bad idea, unless there is really no other option or it is part of a belt-and-braces approach to remove further risk in a short time and everyone involved realises it only has a 50% chance of picking the virus up.