[IanP]

If anything numbers appear to coming down more quickly than in the original lockdown despite rules being less strict and population movement/interactions being noticeable higher.  Does anybody have any view as to why this is?

I think this is placing the cart before the horse; it isn't that this lockdown is going well, just that rules were so lax over Christmas and caused such a high number of cases that the "lockdown lite" we have gone into has looked effective in comparison to the massive amount of household mixing that occured over the festive period, and in the rammed shops that led up to this.

Not trying to make any claims about why this might be happening just asking the question.  Had thought about possible hangover from December mixing but wouldn't we then have expected the trend to have changed by late Jan/Feb?

Really wanted to highlight how weak our knowledge in this area seems to be.  And when the government says it is 'following the science' that's pretty meaningless without admitting to where the uncertainty in the science is as.well.

[Oldmanmatt]

If anything numbers appear to coming down more quickly than in the original lockdown despite rules being less strict and population movement/interactions being noticeable higher.  Does anybody have any view as to why this is?

I think this is placing the cart before the horse; it isn't that this lockdown is going well, just that rules were so lax over Christmas and caused such a high number of cases that the "lockdown lite" we have gone into has looked effective in comparison to the massive amount of household mixing that occured over the festive period, and in the rammed shops that led up to this.

Not trying to make any claims about why this might be happening just asking the question.  Had thought about possible hangover from December mixing but wouldn't we then have expected the trend to have changed by late Jan/Feb?

Really wanted to highlight how weak our knowledge in this area seems to be.  And when the government says it is 'following the science' that's pretty meaningless without admitting to where the uncertainty in the science is as.well.

No.
Because once you had a large number of infections created during the Xmas mingle, there would have been a secondary, smaller, tranche of infections from those people and tertiary tranche from them etc. Decaying away as lockdown effects kicked in. Lockdown not being 100% effective, means the infections don’t just stop.
On the other hand, it’s clearly working, so what ever the difference with #1, what  we are doing is  effective.

[nik at work]

Cheers Stubbs.

From my perspective...

Blah blah blah...

...wondered if there was a stat/study basis for the lack of compliance claim.

Eh? Lockdown 1 was like a ghost town here.... next to no traffic any time of day - curtains twitching if you went out etc....

Ok, pure spitballin’ speculation here but... from memory you’re in the “suburbs”( Didsbury??) soooo.... maybe people aren’t coming out into the “sticks” so much due (perhaps) to a combination of weather and a clearer(? Relative term...) and seemingly more enforced (lots of media reports of fines...) limit on travel to exercise. So you see more people locally as they haven’t all driven out to Ladybower to get their exercise walking shoulder to shoulder with countless other people... All I can say is Hathersage and surrounding area has seemed noticeably quieter this lockdown as far as I can tell (and less businesses are open).
Whether this is better or worse, I dunno. Just my impression doesn’t tally with a particularly noticeable lack of compliance this time round.

I guess the only take home is the rather obvious statement that whatever we are seeing as individuals is no more than a very small snapshot...

[tomtom]

The row over who’s in the at risk group has started up. Many asthmatics who thought they would be in (ie have to have a flu jab) have now been told they’re not.

Looking at the list of those in the at risk group - there are many conditions there that the less charitable might say are self inflicted. Including Obesity, Diabetes, heart disease, liver damage..... I expect there to be all sorts of “fat 35 year old alcoholic getting covid jab” etc.. headlines coming out in the future.

[teestub]

Were you already in the Peak for the first lockdown Nik?

So lockdown 1 here:
- it was an event when a car came through the village, people very reticent to leave their own properties for any reason and certainly weren’t driving to exercise. All car parks closed at walking places (reservoirs etc.)
- local market town completely deserted, only supermarkets open and they all had v strict limits on numbers in store at once, one way system etc.
- only business that seemed to be ongoing was construction, all other offices completely closed with people working at home.


Lockdown 3
- traffic through village prob 75% usual.
- people driving into village to walk and cycle, other car parks at beauty spots etc. well used.
- most pubs, restaurants and cafes in town open for take out so lots of people milling about (despite the cold compared to first lockdown).
- lots of people I know being forced back into offices under the auspices of ‘Covid safe’ working practices.
- way more kids in school that previous and also nurseries a s child care open and available.

[abarro81]

All I can say is Hathersage and surrounding area has seemed noticeably quieter this lockdown as far as I can tell (and less businesses are open).

Are we getting wires crossed between lockdown 3 vs 2 and 3 vs 1? The peak is rammed at the moment compared to lockdown 1 as far as I can tell (I went out v little there in lockdown 1 but it was just a couple of walkers here or there round burbage when I did, vs the current state of affairs where it's like bank holiday parking every single weekend!)

[spidermonkey09]

Were you already in the Peak for the first lockdown Nik?

So lockdown 1 here:
- it was an event when a car came through the village, people very reticent to leave their own properties for any reason and certainly weren’t driving to exercise. All car parks closed at walking places (reservoirs etc.)
- local market town completely deserted, only supermarkets open and they all had v strict limits on numbers in store at once, one way system etc.
- only business that seemed to be ongoing was construction, all other offices completely closed with people working at home.


Lockdown 3
- traffic through village prob 75% usual.
- people driving into village to walk and cycle, other car parks at beauty spots etc. well used.
- most pubs, restaurants and cafes in town open for take out so lots of people milling about (despite the cold compared to first lockdown).
- lots of people I know being forced back into offices under the auspices of ‘Covid safe’ working practices.
- way more kids in school that previous and also nurseries a s child care open and available.

My experience tallies entirely with Stubs. In the first lockdown my office was closed and those that werent furloughed were working from home. Now in this lockdown, the office is open with 10 people in there pointlessly every day!

[nik at work]

Yeah was in Peak for whole of Covid. Strange difference we’re seeing, but as I said above we’re all just seeing localised snapshots.

Barrows, lockdown 2 was chaos, lockdown 1 was quiet certainly but (for me) busier than now. Like I say, just my very small snapshot.

TomTom asthma didn’t seemingly affect Covid outcomes last time I looked into it.

There are about 66 million people in the UK, someone has to be first and someone has to be last. People have been split into rough groups of priority, some people will end up a bit up the queue and some a bit down, but so what. As if 60-odd million (less the kids obvs) are all going to be vaccinated in the perfect order. Add more people to the next cohort, but then put the target date back to allow for this. What’s the gain?? The Saturday Guardian had a deeply disappointing article featuring a range of entitled middle class squeaky wheels bleating about why they should be next in line. Crap stupid journalism is available on all media platforms...

None of that is directed at you specifically TomTom, just general comment.

[Bradders]

Just walked past the local playground; absolutely rammed with kids and parents. In lockdown 1 it was padlocked shut....

Popped into M&S on Saturday and again it was full to bursting, people having to practically elbow past one another like they were in a packed pub. I'm completely mystified as to why the supermarkets around here have abandoned the limits on numbers to be honest, really bizarre in the context of a far worse level of transmission etc.

[sdm]

The government's traffic level statistics shows that, while transport levels are still down on normal levels, they are much busier than during lockdown 1.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/959864/COVID-19-transport-use-statistics.ods

Everything I see locally and among friends points towards individual observance of lockdown 3 being quite good. But a lot more people are in 'covid secure' work and school than in lockdown 1 so from that perspective, lockdown is less severe. Shopping is also less restricted.

I don't think there is a single reason why cases are dropping fast this time, I suspect it is a combination of all of the following plus other things that I didn't think of:

- Greater immunity among the population due to natural immunity and the first early signs of vaccines taking effect. We should see this effect increase rapidly over the next few weeks due to vaccines.

- Much better testing. In the beginning, there was next to no testing of asymptomatic/mild cases. These are the cases that drive transmission as they are likely to be the healthier, most active people who are least likely to isolate. Mass lateral flow tests miss a lot of positives and have the potential to lead to compliance problems due to false negatives, but they also pick up a lot of additional positives among people who wouldn't have been tested otherwise so they may be helping to cut transmission routes.

- Mask wearing. Last spring, I rarely saw another person wearing a mask. Now, most people I see are wearing one even when they walk outdoors around town.

- Test and trace. It's still far from the level it needs to be but it's a lot better than the nothing that we had during March/April.

- Better covid measures in workplaces, care homes, hospitals etc. Again, far from perfect but a lot better than before.

- Burnout among the most active people? I think this is less certain but I suspect that during each outbreak, the virus is able to rapidly spread among the population who have the most interactions. After a few weeks, a lot of the most active people in the area will have been infected already so future transmissions are harder won.

It is promising that cases are dropping rapidly despite the extra interactions from last spring, despite the vaccines only just starting to have an effect and despite the dominant strain being more transmissible than last spring. This gives me a lot of hope that we are capable of opening up soon to some degree without making things too much worse against these variants.

But this has to be weighed up against the emergence of new variants. We are already seeing a number of worrying mutations despite the fact that there has so far been little evolutionary pressure for the virus to mutate. A half vaccinated society provides that pressure and opening up too much too early is the perfect way to maximise the chances of worse variants emerging. This is the strongest reason for governments to take a cautious approach to reopening.

[battery]

There are about 66 million people in the UK, someone has to be first and someone has to be last. People have been split into rough groups of priority, some people will end up a bit up the queue and some a bit down, but so what. As if 60-odd million (less the kids obvs) are all going to be vaccinated in the perfect order. Add more people to the next cohort, but then put the target date back to allow for this. What’s the gain?? The Saturday Guardian had a deeply disappointing article featuring a range of entitled middle class squeaky wheels bleating about why they should be next in line. Crap stupid journalism is available on all media platforms...

None of that is directed at you specifically TomTom, just general comment.

I caveat everything I'm about to say with the fact that it is all anecdotal based purely on experiences of my group of friends....

It seems that priorities for vaccines are being left to local authorities and decision making is inconsistent. For example, SEN teachers are being offered the vaccine in a neighbouring LA areas but not here, however nursery workers are now classed as health and social care and can get a vaccine. In some local authorities, charities that work with children and young people at risk are being offered the vaccine...

I'm not sure if teachers are being offered it in any of these areas but surely they should be.

It is definitely busier in our area in lockdown 3 than lockdown 1 and I know our local primary school had to turn some people away who wanted a place for their child under the revised keyworker definitions.

[Will Hunt]

A revised definition of keyworker status had passed me by. When did this happen?

I'm apparently a key worker now so get out there and clap for me, you miserable low-lifes.

[SA Chris]

As long as it's a sarcastic slow clap, I'm in.

[Offwidth]

The government's traffic level statistics shows that, while transport levels are still down on normal levels, they are much busier than during lockdown 1.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/959864/COVID-19-transport-use-statistics.ods

Everything I see locally and among friends points towards individual observance of lockdown 3 being quite good. But a lot more people are in 'covid secure' work and school than in lockdown 1 so from that perspective, lockdown is less severe. Shopping is also less restricted.

I don't think there is a single reason why cases are dropping fast this time, I suspect it is a combination of all of the following plus other things that I didn't think of:

- Greater immunity among the population due to natural immunity and the first early signs of vaccines taking effect. We should see this effect increase rapidly over the next few weeks due to vaccines.

- Much better testing. In the beginning, there was next to no testing of asymptomatic/mild cases. These are the cases that drive transmission as they are likely to be the healthier, most active people who are least likely to isolate. Mass lateral flow tests miss a lot of positives and have the potential to lead to compliance problems due to false negatives, but they also pick up a lot of additional positives among people who wouldn't have been tested otherwise so they may be helping to cut transmission routes.

- Mask wearing. Last spring, I rarely saw another person wearing a mask. Now, most people I see are wearing one even when they walk outdoors around town.

- Test and trace. It's still far from the level it needs to be but it's a lot better than the nothing that we had during March/April.

- Better covid measures in workplaces, care homes, hospitals etc. Again, far from perfect but a lot better than before.

- Burnout among the most active people? I think this is less certain but I suspect that during each outbreak, the virus is able to rapidly spread among the population who have the most interactions. After a few weeks, a lot of the most active people in the area will have been infected already so future transmissions are harder won.

It is promising that cases are dropping rapidly despite the extra interactions from last spring, despite the vaccines only just starting to have an effect and despite the dominant strain being more transmissible than last spring. This gives me a lot of hope that we are capable of opening up soon to some degree without making things too much worse against these variants.

But this has to be weighed up against the emergence of new variants. We are already seeing a number of worrying mutations despite the fact that there has so far been little evolutionary pressure for the virus to mutate. A half vaccinated society provides that pressure and opening up too much too early is the perfect way to maximise the chances of worse variants emerging. This is the strongest reason for governments to take a cautious approach to reopening.

Good list... I'd add transmission outdoors must be very low or all those protests in various countries would have linked to clear major infection events. That means big numbers in popular walking areas just look worrying rather than being a serious risk. I think lag between infections and hospitalisations was also important in the first wave... SAGE got the data wrong last March and by the time that was obvious the spread was serious, before any major population precautions at all.

SAGE also got masks wrong initially. They were fretting about epidemiological evidence and not paying attention to the practical experiences in the far east (eg for SARs) and the simple barrier physics evidence.

https://theconversation.com/masks-help-stop-the-spread-of-coronavirus-the-science-is-simple-and-im-one-of-100-experts-urging-governors-to-require-public-mask-wearing-138507

Finally we may have got lucky. After the government dithering led to the very fast rise into January it's probable the R number for the Kent variant turned out to be nearer the optimistic end of initial estimates.

[tomtom]

A revised definition of keyworker status had passed me by. When did this happen?

I'm apparently a key worker now so get out there and clap for me, you miserable low-lifes.

Well it is a downgraded critical worker list....

[slab_happy]

I'd add transmission outdoors must be very low or all those protests in various countries would have linked to clear major infection events.

Interestingly, looks like masks make a significant difference when it comes to protests. Notably, the BLM protests (with near-universal masking) don't seem to have been super-spreader events, whereas there's a study suggesting that some of the German anti-lockdown protests may have been:

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/black-lives-matter-protests-didnt-contribute-to-covid19-surge#No-evidence-of-protest-spread
https://www.politico.eu/article/anti-corona-restrictions-protests-responsible-for-coronavirus-outbreak-study-shows/

Obviously the comparison may be skewed because if you're at an anti-lockdown protest you're probably taking a more cavalier attitude towards regulations and may be much more likely to be infected to begin with.

And being packed into a crowd next to the same people for a prolonged period of time, all shouting, is about as high-risk as you can get outdoors. Otherwise, it does look like transmission outdoors is normally very low.

I'd consider being at a march/protest as very different in risk level from "being in a busy walking area" in the countryside, where you might have to go within 2 metres of someone momentarily to pass them in a narrow lane or whatever, but can broadly still stay distanced.

[Offwidth]

I'm not convinced just by the way some events are pictured as busy outdoor situations where the virus spread. Some American research indicated genuine outdoor spread events were very rare.

The classic misused example is the white house superspreader event which was partly indoors and people were in multiple physical contact, including hugging, in public view outdoors.

The wider context of such events is important...are people mixing households in vehicles to get there...are there pre- or post- meetings indoors...in those european football matches was the risk on the terraces or more in queues in the packed toilets or in the bars before and after? In lockdown denial protests many people are being the opposite of trying to be as careful as possible but that will carry beyond the visible outside protest.

[spidermonkey09]

Thought this was a good and convincing piece: https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/coronavirus/2021/02/how-uk-could-vaccinate-every-adult-mid-may-and-end-lockdown .

[tomtom]

Thought this was a good and convincing piece: https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/coronavirus/2021/02/how-uk-could-vaccinate-every-adult-mid-may-and-end-lockdown .

I'll bite

Its a good argument but.... Its based on what we know at the moment. This all holds true if we think of CV19 as behaving much like a bad flu (which has been a mistake in the past.)

I'm gonna go all Rumsfeld on y'all... There are known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns.

For CV19 - there are precious few of the first (Known knowns), plenty of the second (known unknowns) and who knows about the third category.. for Flu - we know most of the first two - and so can thus manage it much better. With Covid, we still dont know with much certainty that much about its transmission (we know alot more than we did - but there is still alot of uncertainty in the science I'd argue). There are a couple of massive known unknowns. Including - the longevity of the vaccine, how effective it is to mutations, how effective updates/boosters are for this. Further - an important known unknown on our horizon is Long Covid. This could be a massive future issue for well over a million people - and thus a considerable drain on both economy and the workforce... so even with the vaccinate everyone plan, people will still get it and get LC - as well as the existing sufferers...

(edit - and then there are the unknown unknowns..)

Put simply - I dont think we know enough about it to be able to make such predictions. Thats a job for journalists :D

[spidermonkey09]

Thought this was a good and convincing piece: https://www.newstatesman.com/science-tech/coronavirus/2021/02/how-uk-could-vaccinate-every-adult-mid-may-and-end-lockdown .

I'll bite

Its a good argument but.... Its based on what we know at the moment. This all holds true if we think of CV19 as behaving much like a bad flu (which has been a mistake in the past.)

I'm gonna go all Rumsfeld on y'all... There are known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns.

For CV19 - there are precious few of the first (Known knowns), plenty of the second (known unknowns) and who knows about the third category.. for Flu - we know most of the first two - and so can thus manage it much better. With Covid, we still dont know with much certainty that much about its transmission (we know alot more than we did - but there is still alot of uncertainty in the science I'd argue). There are a couple of massive known unknowns. Including - the longevity of the vaccine, how effective it is to mutations, how effective updates/boosters are for this. Further - an important known unknown on our horizon is Long Covid. This could be a massive future issue for well over a million people - and thus a considerable drain on both economy and the workforce... so even with the vaccinate everyone plan, people will still get it and get LC - as well as the existing sufferers...

(edit - and then there are the unknown unknowns..)

Put simply - I dont think we know enough about it to be able to make such predictions. Thats a job for journalists :D

- the signs for the vaccines are all good. They work against the current mutations to some degree and they are easily amendable for future mutations. This is a vaccinable disease. New mutations will emerge and probably require new vaccines, but anyone who did GCSE biology knew this already, because viruses mutate. In this respect long term it should be no different from flu and will be managed as such.
- Long Covid. This is a concern, but its a small c concern rather than capitalised. I haven't read any good discussion on this so feel free to link some good pieces, but I don't really think concern over this should affect the current strategy, because the only way to protect people would be to not allow anyone to get it ever again- as you say, people will still get covid once everyone is vaccinated, so this isn't an achievable strategy. So whats the way out? As far as I can see the only foolproof protection against Long Covid is simply to live in lockdown in perpetuity which is a nonstarter.

[slab_happy]

It seems to involve a lot of assumptions, notably:

a)100% take-up (or at least over 90%) of the vaccines in all age groups. This requires ignoring all surveys and data on some of the groups who've already been offered the vaccine -- we're already looking at only 80% for NHS staff and arounds two-thirds for social care staff.

and

b) steady and continuous increase in vaccination rates, with no logistical limits on either the ability to keep expanding the vaccine rollout programme or on vaccine supply.

Whereas we're currently looking at a drop in vaccine supply across the UK before we get back to current levels at the start of March:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-56025767

I'm very hopeful we will start to see a rapid fall in Covid deaths and hospitalisations, but the article's into "perfectly spherical cow" territory if it's trying to make realistic predictions about what we might manage when.

[tomtom]

How the virus will react and mutate is a bit unknown - a relatively small shift in infection rate caused our 30% of fatalities to occur in January... (and probably how it was managed too..)...

We now have a huge melting pot/number of cases within which the virus can mutate as well... (how many 100's of millions of cases around the world?).

Just saying the article seems to be based on the limited information we know at the moment - not what we are going to find out! 

[spidermonkey09]

It seems to involve a lot of assumptions, notably:

a)100% take-up (or at least over 90%) of the vaccines in all age groups. This requires ignoring all surveys and data on some of the groups who've already been offered the vaccine -- we're already looking at only 80% for NHS staff and arounds two-thirds for social care staff.

and

b) steady and continuous increase in vaccination rates, with no logistical limits on either the ability to keep expanding the vaccine rollout programme or on vaccine supply.

Whereas we're currently looking at a drop in vaccine supply across the UK before we get back to current levels at the start of March:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-56025767

I'm very hopeful we will start to see a rapid fall in Covid deaths and hospitalisations, but the article's into "perfectly spherical cow" territory if it's trying to make realistic predictions about what we might manage when.

Yes, fair comment about the assumptions. The one about uptake is an interesting one though isn't it. Is the argument that with lower uptake there is a higher risk of mutations happening or that there are more people at risk due to fewer being vaccinated? Probably the answer is a bit of both, but societally/politically i don't think it would be feasible to delay an unlocking on the basis of people who have been offered a jab turning it down. Tricky ground though.

On vaccine supply, I was exploring this yesterday. The supply is set to increase to double current levels in March, so even with the reduction for the next few weeks we should be on track to jab all over 50's by end of March. Accept the point this may not translate to all adults as the article suggests. perhaps the more interesting discussion is what restrictions will need to remain once all over 50s are jabbed, as that will certainly happen by May.

[tomtom]

Acceptance rates will drop as age of recipients falls....

I mentioned this a few weeks back - but there are a couple of reports showing that once you get down to the 20-30yo's the uptake rate may be in the 60-70% rate..

[spidermonkey09]

Just saying the article seems to be based on the limited information we know at the moment - not what we are going to find out!

Like every article then? 

I mentioned this a few weeks back - but there are a couple of reports showing that once you get down to the 20-30yo's the uptake rate may be in the 60-70% rate..

I remember - but still don't particularly see why it matters in that age group to be honest. If uptake is high in the 50+s then it should have comparatively little impact as far as I can see.