[TobyD]

I don't know if a link has been posted before but this is interesting in a  geeky way

https://airborne.cam/

I think we're heading for another Autumn and Winter of soaring infections, and ineffectual local lockdown. Data not dates has been a bit dubious so far at best, if they go for full or nearly full opening up on June 21, I think we're stuffed and the reliance on data will have been a total lie.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/29/covid-in-england-what-is-the-impact-of-lifting-restrictions-on-21-june?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

It will surely look very different, this time. 74% of the adult population has had it’s first vaccine dose, 48% the second and those numbers increasing by 1/4 million per day and a 1/2 million per day respectively. That’s going to massively impact the hospitalisation and death curve peaks, this Autumn.
Also, the highly localised nature of current outbreaks, with large swathes of the country seeing suppressed or extremely low rates. The official maps are a little miss leading in that respect (for instance, the South Hams show as a moderate outbreak, over a largeish area, because they have 9 new cases, some Northern areas show the same scale/colour because they’ve had 800 new cases).
If (if) the vaccine(s) succeeds in suppressing the disease into something more akin to a very bad Flu season, we will not be looking at such extreme mitigation measures.

Maybe. But if the variety is 50% + more transmissible than the Kent one, it's not unlikely that we'll end up going the way of India itself by unlocking everything with a lurking reservoir of cases which will turn into a worse wave come autumn.
I am being a pessimistic bastard though.

[battery]

I don't know if a link has been posted before but this is interesting in a  geeky way

https://airborne.cam/

I think we're heading for another Autumn and Winter of soaring infections, and ineffectual local lockdown. Data not dates has been a bit dubious so far at best, if they go for full or nearly full opening up on June 21, I think we're stuffed and the reliance on data will have been a total lie.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/29/covid-in-england-what-is-the-impact-of-lifting-restrictions-on-21-june?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

It will surely look very different, this time. 74% of the adult population has had it’s first vaccine dose, 48% the second and those numbers increasing by 1/4 million per day and a 1/2 million per day respectively. That’s going to massively impact the hospitalisation and death curve peaks, this Autumn.
Also, the highly localised nature of current outbreaks, with large swathes of the country seeing suppressed or extremely low rates. The official maps are a little miss leading in that respect (for instance, the South Hams show as a moderate outbreak, over a largeish area, because they have 9 new cases, some Northern areas show the same scale/colour because they’ve had 800 new cases).
If (if) the vaccine(s) succeeds in suppressing the disease into something more akin to a very bad Flu season, we will not be looking at such extreme mitigation measures.

Maybe. But if the variety is 50% + more transmissible than the Kent one, it's not unlikely that we'll end up going the way of India itself by unlocking everything with a lurking reservoir of cases which will turn into a worse wave come autumn.
I am being a pessimistic bastard though.

You seem to be assuming that that vaccine is not effective against the Kent or India variant which is not the case.

https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1346

[erm, sam]

Toby do you watch the ZOE ap covid videos? Prof Tim Spector does weekly update video based on the data they get from the ap. Very informative and mostly less depressing then the Guardian and more nauanced than anything else.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCa09am-cOsC-FSgr_nLkFFA

I think the below one is the weekly update one..



I imagine this has been mentioned before but worth reminding..

[slab_happy]

You seem to be assuming that that vaccine is not effective against the Kent or India variant which is not the case.

https://www.bmj.com/content/373/bmj.n1346

Also, those numbers are re: symptomatic disease. The vaccines tend to hold better against severe illness/hospitalization even when they don't stop infection completely, and there are hopeful signs that this is proving to be the case with B.1.617.2:

https://twitter.com/JamesWard73/status/1398012064942235648 (thread with some interesting estimates -- based on earlier model of calculations outlined in https://twitter.com/JamesWard73/status/1397884961227689984)

Losing a chunk of the partial protection you get from a single dose really sucks, but it looks like we're seeing very little breakthrough in fully-vaccinated people (who are also the most vulnerable groups). So that's really going to change how things play out.

Lot of sensible folk seem to be saying that the next week or so is when we'll get a much clearer sense of which way things are heading, and there are very strong reasons for delaying/modifying the June 21st re-opening. But the hope is that (fingers crossed) we hit "rough but manageable" rather than "oh fuck it's gone exponential, full lockdown again immediately or we're all gonna die."

Decent overview:

https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1397995388267810818 (thread)

[TobyD]

...

Lot of sensible folk seem to be saying that the next week or so is when we'll get a much clearer sense of which way things are heading, and there are very strong reasons for delaying/modifying the June 21st re-opening. But the hope is that (fingers crossed) we hit "rough but manageable" rather than "oh fuck it's gone exponential, full lockdown again immediately or we're all gonna die."

I'd be more confident in your assessment,  if the breadth of definition of manageable included what the deeply incompetent government could cope with. Unfortunately I slightly suspect that full opening up will be delayed slightly then everyone will try to forget about it for a couple of months,  and it will then go tits up again, because the government haven't been paying attention to isolation,  borders... etc

[slab_happy]

I'd be more confident in your assessment,  if the breadth of definition of manageable included what the deeply incompetent government could cope with. Unfortunately I slightly suspect that full opening up will be delayed slightly then everyone will try to forget about it for a couple of months,  and it will then go tits up again, because the government haven't been paying attention to isolation,  borders... etc

Oh yeah, there's a wide potential gulf between "this could be kept under control with some sensible and obvious strategies" and "this government can actually manage to deploy the sensible and obvious strategies as opposed to finding new and inventive ways to fuck up."

However. We're still in a very different situation dealing with B.1.617.2 from countries with much lower vaccination levels. Or from the situation we'd be in if this had more effective vaccine escape than it currently seems to.

[danm]

Unfortunately, nothing operates in a vacuum. My neighbour is an A&E doctor at the Northern, and says that they are the busiest they have EVER been right now dealing with non-Covid emergency cases, as all the people who were sick over the last year but stayed at home because of Covid are now turning up in a really poor state. There are also lots of people who cannot get a GP appointment who have given up and gone to A&E instead. Numbers wise they are at 400 odd new patients a day, when 250 is about average in winter flu season. It won't take much extra to push already knackered healthcare staff to the brink, when they are maxed out in what is usually their quiet season where they get to recharge for the incoming winter. Let's hope for the best anyway, no thanks to the arseholes in Westminster.

[Ged]

I don't know if a link has been posted before but this is interesting in a  geeky way

https://airborne.cam/

I think we're heading for another Autumn and Winter of soaring infections, and ineffectual local lockdown. Data not dates has been a bit dubious so far at best, if they go for full or nearly full opening up on June 21, I think we're stuffed and the reliance on data will have been a total lie.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/29/covid-in-england-what-is-the-impact-of-lifting-restrictions-on-21-june?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other

Surely it would need some extremely catastrophic news in terms of vaccine efficacy for that to be the case, which currently doesn't look to be the case. Come autumn, we will have vast swathes if the adult population double dosed. Even thought they'll still be cases, that's very different to cases that a putting people in hospital. Prevention from severe cases seems likely from current data.

As an aside, I no longer even look at the guardian. I think they are doing some shameful scaremongering

[mrjonathanr]

HM gov seems to be putting quite a bit of reliance on vaccines to compensate for failure to manage the pandemic more effectively. They mitigate the risk hugely, but I am not hugely confident that will be sufficient to manage things well without more basic competencies.

Ged. Scaremongering, or presenting views you’d rather not hear?

[slab_happy]

Really informative, long thread on what the CEOs of NHS trusts in hotspot areas are currently seeing -- not just re: Covid admissions but pressures on hospitals overall:

https://twitter.com/ChrisCEOHopson/status/1398871050931290112

[TobyD]

Even thought they'll still be cases, that's very different to cases that a putting people in hospital. Prevention from severe cases seems likely from current data.

As an aside, I no longer even look at the guardian. I think they are doing some shameful scaremongering

The Guardian certainly presents a pessimistic and cautious point of view in their headlines,  although it's worth noting that a lot of the rest of the paper is full of enthusiasm for restaurants,  holidays,  festivals  etc.
I'd say that its eminently worth reading,  as an effective opposition to the number of papers who campaign constantly for opening up everything yesterday,  of which there are many. 
Surely the lesson of countries that act incautiously and assume that they have it under control is near or actual disaster soon afterwards. 
It is not just the Guardian that is worried about the June 21 date.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-57304369

[TobyD]

So it seems that quite a few scientists are concerned about any further opening up in June (reported in most places today).
Whether they are right or not,  I am by now completely despairing about what the government will do about it.  I have a horrible feeling of inevitability that BJ will try to please everyone, and opt for some sort of half way house opening up, hoping to keep scientists and businesses happy but succeeding in neither stopping exponential growth of infections or from preventing a lot of hospitality from going bankrupt.  I know it's a virus thread and not politics,  but one of the issues with having a group of ministers who don't appear to be terribly intelligent is that they still haven't understood the meaning of the word exponential.

[Sidehaas]

I don't think it's about stopping exponential growth of infections any more. If you wanted to do that you would have to reverse the 17th May changes as a minimum, but it's not clear whether that would be enough with this new variant. That action would only be taken if a new variant came along (or new data on the current new one) that made hospitalisation load and death risk much higher than currently expected.

The Govt policy at the moment is more about managing infections low enough (ie doubling time low enough and hence peak number of live infections at any one time low enough), to ensure that the total hospitalisations they get, from both unvaccinated people and people who go to hospital despite being vaccinated because they are extremely frail or just unlucky, is manageable in the NHS. Even with no reduction in vaccine effectiveness, hospital overload is still possible if rates get extremely high and if you do get a reduction in vaccine effectiveness then obviously it becomes more likely. The challenge at the moment is that we just don't know how many cases is 'ok' because previous hospitalisation rate data is all 'overtaken by events' with the vaccine and the new variant together. So, when it comes to determining next steps, the thing the Govt will be watching is hospitalisation data, especially in vaccinated people, and eventually death data. Cases are going to keep rising unless something goes badly wrong and we have to reverse previous relaxations, but a removal of all restrictions (and hence allowing still faster doubling times in case rates) might have to be delayed if they aren't sure enough about the hospitalisation data, or if cases appear to be rising too fast already.

I certainly value the Guardian's coverage on covid more than most papers. It's still a bit hit and miss though. If you are good with numbers, you can get a better picture of what is happening just by regularly looking at the data yourself (and there are good weekly discussions on ukc, if you find it interesting rather than depressing, that are usually better informed than any of the papers (edit, there is a lot of waffle in between!)). Some of the scientists currently making headlines are doing so because they think the objective should be to keep cases down now that there is a new variant around rather than allow them to rise. But that bird has definitely flown.

My bet is Boris will go for a delay of a few weeks or months in removing all restrictions, but with some sort of halfway house sop to his backbenchers in the meantime. Cabinet ministers have been warming us up to that for the past fortnight.

[joel182]

Zero daily covid deaths in the UK for the first time since March 2020. I guess it's likely this will get corrected upward at some point. Still an absolutely remarkable milestone after averaging around a thousand deaths a day in January.

[TobyD]

Zero daily covid deaths in the UK for the first time since March 2020. I guess it's likely this will get corrected upward at some point. Still an absolutely remarkable milestone after averaging around a thousand deaths a day in January.

This is certainly great news, although it's a bit of a useless statistic on its own the weekly report is slightly better as an indicator of infections about a month ago. This particular figure has a lot to do with the fact that fewer people are working on the bank holiday.
That said, it's still good to hear.

[tommytwotone]

...and don't forget there were zero COVID deaths reported back in July last year, which prompted all sorts of "unlock now, it's all over" type talk.

[slab_happy]

Vaccination clinic volunteers needed at a bunch of places in England:

https://nhsvolunteerresponders.org.uk/i-want-to-volunteer/volunteer-roles/steward-volunteer/locations

Looks like we might possibly be getting a big vaccine push in June, fingers crossed? Or they just need people.

Friend of mine's been stewarding in London and found it a pretty positive experience.

[tomtom]

Media coverage of the new variant and yesterday’s PHE report into increased transmissibility of Delta etc.. seems to either be “nothing to see here - carry on” or “impending doom”…

I found this Twitter thread that explained quite nicely Inthought some positives and negatives from the report. Somewhere in the middle…

https://twitter.com/jamesward73/status/1400720398480809985?s=21

[Offwidth]

I don't see that distinction of nothing to see here or impending doom in the majority of experts. The problem is with some politicians and parts of the press. Most experts are rightly cautious about the growth of the current main variant but recognise any Boris delay now won't be as serious as it was last summer because of the vaccination efforts. The only genuine full-on doom from most experts is a real risk of variant vaccine escape (from running 'too hot' again here, or via our leaky borders).

[tomtom]

I did start my para with “Media coverage of…” 😁

[spidermonkey09]

The only genuine full-on doom from most experts is a real risk of variant vaccine escape (from running 'too hot' again here, or via our leaky borders).

I actually think your post is very sensible but the above construction really gets my goat. In the grand scheme of covid across the world, 'running hot' here is highly unlikely to produce a vaccine evading variant. There are millions of covid cases across the world and nowhere is more likely than anywhere else to produce a variant.

Re leaky borders, I think there are serious questions over the governments approach to red-listing India, for example, but the fact remains that fully closing borders is impossible and all the variants will get in eventually. There is no scenario where you can keep it out; it will get into NZ and Aus as well, and they haven't got anyone vaccinated compared to the rest of the world. As such, 'closing the borders' might well have gained us a few weeks to second jab more people, but it would not have avoided the importation full stop. Global economies do not allow for the long term closure of borders; the Indian/Delta would have arrived here anyway.

More broadly on variants. clearly they are going to keep emerging. In fact its probably a pretty safe bet that one will evade a vaccine, whether its this vaccine or one of the many successors that will be required, probably for the next 100 years at least. We can't delude ourselves that we can avoid them or that the risk of them is going away.

https://www.itv.com/news/2021-06-02/uk-cant-scamper-down-a-rabbit-hole-at-every-sign-of-a-new-covid-variant-says-oxford-expert

[SA Chris]

I guess the chances of rogue variant will diminish as more and more people are vaccinated? The less transmissions, the less opportunity to mutate on each transmission which means the metaphorical net will begin to gradually close, hopefully before a vaccine evading variant "escapes" and if it does, we are essentially back to square 1, unless it is effectively contained.

[spidermonkey09]

I guess the chances of rogue variant will diminish as more and more people are vaccinated? The less transmissions, the less opportunity to mutate on each transmission which means the metaphorical net will begin to gradually close, hopefully before a vaccine evading variant "escapes" and if it does, we are essentially back to square 1, unless it is effectively contained.

That is only true if looking at it through a UK prism and our very good vaccination rates. The global south has very low vax rates and so its still entirely plausible, even likely, that variants will emerge there and eventually make their way to fully vaxxed nations.

[Oldmanmatt]

I guess the chances of rogue variant will diminish as more and more people are vaccinated? The less transmissions, the less opportunity to mutate on each transmission which means the metaphorical net will begin to gradually close, hopefully before a vaccine evading variant "escapes" and if it does, we are essentially back to square 1, unless it is effectively contained.

That is only true if looking at it through a UK prism and our very good vaccination rates. The global south has very low vax rates and so its still entirely plausible, even likely, that variants will emerge there and eventually make their way to fully vaxxed nations.

Vaccine evasive variants are more likely to occur where vaccines induce suitable evolutionary pressure, so, um, here (the West/N hemisphere). The slower and less efficient a nation’s vaccine roll out, the more likely.
Obviously, at some point in the future, that pressure will move south as poorer countries extend their vaccine programs.

[spidermonkey09]

True. Which sort of leads me back to my original point, which is essentially; variants are going to happen, almost irrespective of what we do to mitigate against it.