Covid

[Deleted]

Data day:

ONS Infection Survey (w/end 23Dec): 1 in 25 for England and almost certainly 1 in 20 or higher by now (see guesstimate from a few days ago). Ranging from 1 in 15 in London (which might be plateauing in more recent, less accurate data) to 1 in 45 in NE (wider confidence ranges on the regional data)

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/31december2021

From NHS England then from weekly update for Primary Diagnosis Supplement 31 December 2021 (XLSX, 22KB) then the % of 'from' continues to drop 67% (-5% on the week). In the daily updates for Daily Admissions and Beds X December 2021 (XLSX, 41KB) then the % of table3/table1 (ie admissions from community / total) fairly stable around 77%.

www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-hospital-activity/

Addition: So for EG. Then on 28Dec (last info in the 'Primary diagnosis') then patients in hospital primarily with Covid: 5,578. From NHS beds data then 'total' patients in hospital 'with' Covid: 9,546. So 58% of folks in hospital 'with' Covid caught it in community and required NHS primarily for Covid (and 42% did not). Some press has either ignored or overstated the 'incidentals' issue.
NB A 'bed is a bed' but we see minimal increase in the highest dependency beds and if you were going to hospital for something other than Covid but just happened to have Covid then that is minimal impact on 'net' demand (although I appreciate infection control means some additional burden trying to ensure Covid and non-Covid patients are kept separate). 

[Deleted]

and a detailed update on Omicron from UKHSA

- When the reduced risk of hospitalisation was combined with vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease, the vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation was estimated as 52% after one dose, 72% 2 to 24 weeks after dose 2, 52% 25+ weeks after dose 2 and 88% 2 weeks after a booster dose.

www.gov.uk/government/news/covid-19-variants-identified-in-the-uk

See posts from several days ago about the implications on how much higher infections can be WRT to risk of overwhelming NHS. Admissions 'with' Covid and patients in hospital are still going to go up for a while but certainly WRT to patients in hospital then it should be a lower peak than Jan'21 and it will certainly be shorter (SAGE reports and SPI-M modelling[1] highlighting that locking down now would have negligible impact as infections are 'baked in' at this point)

Overall then the vast majority of highest risk groups had their booster over 2weeks ago (but so no long ago to see much waning yet). EG see COVID-19 weekly announced vaccinations 16 December 2021 which shows vaccination %s up to 12Dec. Note also the BAME refusenik issue (see previous post with ONS data) which means majority of some ethnic minority groups have refused the opportunity to improve their immunity via free vaccines. Areas with high % of those groups in the population are v.likely to see the highest risk of overwhelming their local NHS.

www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-vaccinations/

[1] All their reports can be found at www.gov.uk/government/organisations/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies

[Danny]

Dec 31, 2021 15:48:57 GMT @tw said:

and a detailed update on Omicron from UKHSA

- When the reduced risk of hospitalisation was combined with vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease, the vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation was estimated as 52% after one dose, 72% 2 to 24 weeks after dose 2, 52% 25+ weeks after dose 2 and 88% 2 weeks after a booster dose.

So basically... entirely consistent with a recent jab giving added immunity which fades over a few months. The effect of each booster disappears and falls back to that of just one jab over this time.  You could have 100 boosters and be no better off than having just had one.

[lens]

Dec 31, 2021 16:53:27 GMT Danny said:

Dec 31, 2021 15:48:57 GMT @tw said:

and a detailed update on Omicron from UKHSA

- When the reduced risk of hospitalisation was combined with vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease, the vaccine effectiveness against hospitalisation was estimated as 52% after one dose, 72% 2 to 24 weeks after dose 2, 52% 25+ weeks after dose 2 and 88% 2 weeks after a booster dose.

So basically... entirely consistent with a recent jab giving added immunity which fades over a few months. The effect of each booster disappears and falls back to that of just one jab over this time.  You could have 100 boosters and be no better off than having just had one.

Hardly - have just one booster and it's effects will wane after about 6 months. Have 100 at six monthly intervals, and you'll keep high protection for about 50 years.........

[Danny]

Dec 31, 2021 20:50:55 GMT lens said:

Hardly - have just one booster and it's effects will wane after about 6 months. Have 100 at six monthly intervals, and you'll keep high protection for about 50 years.........

Do you not see the problem in giving everyone two vacinations a year which cost at a guess £20-£50 each....when we could simply allow our own immune systems to take over for nothing?

And then repeat for every virus we currently control ourselves using our immune system? Do you want us all bankrupting ourselves boosting drug company profits? If you are willing to pay from your own pocket for the injection, thats fine by me. have as many as you like.

[Matt126]

Jan 1, 2022 18:55:18 GMT Danny said:

Dec 31, 2021 20:50:55 GMT lens said:

Hardly - have just one booster and it's effects will wane after about 6 months. Have 100 at six monthly intervals, and you'll keep high protection for about 50 years.........

Do you not see the problem in giving everyone two vacinations a year which cost at a guess £20-£50 each....when we could simply allow our own immune systems to take over for nothing?

And then repeat for every virus we currently control ourselves using our immune system? Do you want us all bankrupting ourselves boosting drug company profits? If you are willing to pay from your own pocket for the injection, thats fine by me. have as many as you like.

The cost of the vaccinations is very small compared to the amount we are spending on Free Lateral Flow tests , PCR testing, test and trace etc

[lens]

Jan 1, 2022 18:55:18 GMT Danny said:

Do you not see the problem in giving everyone two vacinations a year which cost at a guess £20-£50 each....when we could simply allow our own immune systems to take over for nothing?

"Simply"? I won't dispute that having caught Covid may give a level of immunity for a while afterwards - but at the cost of likely being far more ill, and likely with a higher chance of death. That's the personal side - I'd rather get my level of immunity from a vaccination, rather than the disease in an unvaccinated state, thank you very much.

Whilst I only personally know of one person whom Covid has led to life changing health problems (early on), it's marked how the illness is far more mild nowadays amongst the vaccinated (including my wife) and how they are less likely to transmit it, than amongst people a year ago pre vaccines. In my wife's case "mild flu" lasted 24 hours - last year I was typically hearing "I felt very ill for two weeks".

I wouldn't dispute that herd immunity is realistically the only long term end game - but getting there via a mixture of vaccination and infection must be a better solution than relying on infection alone. As far as cost goes, then even if we were talking of 50 million adults and £100 each per year, then the £5 billion pa such would cost seems pretty good value for money, compared to what the pandemic has cost over the last 2 years! You may have more of a point if vaccine immunity did only last 6 months, whilst infection immunity was for life - but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I remain sceptical of many of the measures that Covid has brought in it's wake - the famous app seems to have been a total failure (when did you last hear an official mention it recently?), it's difficult to believe Test and Trace has been worth the billions spent on it (in my wifes case, a lateral flow test gave a negative result in spite of a runny nose - which lulled her for 3 days into a false sense of security that "it was only a cold"), and mask mandates and vaccine passes etc only seem to have very limited effect. Lockdown worked at first - but hardly sustainable in the long term, and arguably tended more to delay the inevitable than prevent it.

Whereas vaccines seem to have been the one single shining star after saying all that. A relative bargain given the money saved in keeping people out of hospital and avoiding further lockdown etc.

[leftieliberal]

Professor Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh University castigating Michael Gove for his statments on covid at the beginning of the epidemic:

www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/02/britain-got-it-wrong-on-covid-long-lockdown-did-more-harm-than-good-says-scientist

I'm going to look forward to reading his forthcoming book: "The Year the World Went Mad: A Scientific Memoir."

[Deleted]

Jan 2, 2022 11:38:59 GMT leftieliberal said:

Professor Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh University castigating Michael Gove for his statments on covid at the beginning of the epidemic:

www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/02/britain-got-it-wrong-on-covid-long-lockdown-did-more-harm-than-good-says-scientist

I'm going to look forward to reading his forthcoming book: "The Year the World Went Mad: A Scientific Memoir."

I'll wait for the public inquiry when the SAGE advice, readily available at: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies and discussed at length back at the on UKPR, reminds folks that in Spring'20 UK and devolved govts were 'following the Science'. Of course individuals are seeking to say 'weren't me', help their books sales and some press have a bias perhaps - hopefully we can avoid this thread turning copy+paste of biased media.

Meanwhile in the Omicron wave then patients in hospital in England updates (change on previous day)

27Dec: 8,474 (+938) 
28Dec: 9,546 (+1,072)
29Dec: 10,462 (+916)
30Dec: 11,452 (+990)
31Dec: 12,395 (+943)
1Jan: 12,615 (+220)
2Jan: 13,151 (+536)

Obviously far too early to draw conclusions and Xmas impact will take another week to see in hospital data but with a less severe variant, high (mostly vaccine) immunity in majority of most at risk, effective drugs, etc then by not following the lockdown advocates in this wave (as per the (not reckless) Freedom Day in Summer'21 (England mainly)) then we'll hopefully get through Omicron wave quickly via the only exit strategy - population immunity (again, most of which is now via vaccination but some additional benefit from exposure to less severe variants that due their higher transmissibility can at best be 'mitigated' (spread out) but not 'suppressed' in a naive pursuit of 'Zero Covid').

Still some difficult weeks ahead of course but we're close to making Covid 'endemic' and treating it like flu. Vaccines and treatments will continue to develop and hopefully keep pace/stay ahead of the virus.

[Deleted]

PS I'll repost source for 'earliest' NHS England data of the most important data (as the gov.uk dashboard 'lags' for multiple reasons).
www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-hospital-activity/

[leftieliberal]

Jan 2, 2022 16:33:44 GMT @tw said:

Jan 2, 2022 11:38:59 GMT leftieliberal said:

I'll wait for the public inquiry when the SAGE advice, readily available at: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies and discussed at length back at the on UKPR, reminds folks that in Spring'20 UK and devolved govts were 'following the Science'. 

Well we have not only had SAGE but Independent SAGE expressing their views. We have also had the authors of the Barrington Declaration (although they seem to be rather quiet these days). Actually I don't have a great deal of faith that the public inquiry will give us definitive conclusions, but I think we will get some very good epidemiological studies which will show why some countries were better at dealing with the virus than others.

[Deleted]

Jan 2, 2022 18:03:04 GMT leftieliberal said:

Jan 2, 2022 16:33:44 GMT @tw said:

I'll wait for the public inquiry when the SAGE advice, readily available at: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/scientific-advisory-group-for-emergencies and discussed at length back at the on UKPR, reminds folks that in Spring'20 UK and devolved govts were 'following the Science'. 

Well we have not only had SAGE but Independent SAGE expressing their views. We have also had the authors of the Barrington Declaration (although they seem to be rather quiet these days). Actually I don't have a great deal of faith that the public inquiry will give us definitive conclusions, but I think we will get some very good epidemiological studies which will show why some countries were better at dealing with the virus than others.

The official SAGE give the official advice but govts make decisions. The UK media have already conducted their 'trial' and no surprises it is according to their bias (eg Groan v Torygraph at the extremes). I would expect most folks who have paid attention and kept an open mind are aware many 'mistakes' were made by all govts in all countries. Any public inquiry should focus on the facts for which their is a record but 'definitive conclusions' will hopefully focus on lessons to learn (many of which have been, some off which have not) - naive of course, it will be a 'witch hunt' with media demanding 'blood' and hence sadly possibly why official SAGE, official advice now is so 'cautious'

There is certainly a wide range of genuine expert opinion ranging from 'lockdown fanatics' to 'let it RIP'. 'Independent' SAGE seem to be 'popular' with 'Zero Covid' so perhaps worth revisiting their opinion from 15Dec (see my Dec 15, 2021 at 5:57pm on page 3). What is your view of the accuracy of their prediction and attempt to sway the decision making?

www.independentsage.org/emergency-statement-on-omicron-15-december-2021/

At the other end of the spectrum, then from Great Barrington Declaration, GBD (4 Oct'20) then note in their declaration they said:

Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage

gbdeclaration.org

Two points:
1/ By Oct'20 we knew highly effective vaccines were likely to be available in the coming months and hence IMO a lockdown was justified back then and CON HMG made a mistake by waiting too long (see comments made at the time). 
2/ The GBD is now redundant as we have highly effective vaccines and drug treatments available and the new dominant variant is less severe. Several of the experts who wrote the GBD (eg Dr. Sunetra Gupta) were at the 'let it RIP' end of the spectrum (popular with CRG and the Torygraph).

We armchair folks have the benefit of being able to read all the all expert views (should we choose to) but not having to make the very difficult decisions based purely on the info available at the time (ie we can all be 'experts' in hindsight and applying selective 'memory' of the info and opinion given at the time). IMO then CON HMG (for England) are rightly now taking a broader set of expert opinion before making their decisions: thankfully ignoring 'Independent' SAGE; treating official SAGE as 'overly cautious' and ensuring they get the opinion of a broader set of experts who look at a broader range of issues (eg the socio-economic factors and broader 'health' issues).

[Deleted]

Just FWIW then London hospitals admissions from community (table3 in NHS Hospital Activity file)

25Dec: 257
26Dec: 292
27Dec: 321
28Dec: 331
29Dec: 361
30Dec: 330
31Dec: 246

Whilst the cases data is flawed then perhaps we're seeing the plateau we saw in London cases a week ago now starting to be seen in admissions? Could still be a Xmas impact that means admissions rise again soon but could also be that with a large amount of vaccine and 'acquired' immunity and significant 'behavioural adjustment' that London is possibly peaking? TBC of course but it does make some of the 'predictions' from just a few weeks ago look embarrassingly wrong (see Independent SAGE or some of the modelling from official SAGE - who gave such a range a 'possible outcomes' that they perhaps hope have forgotten some of the crazy numbers in their 'reasonable worst case' projections and note:

'12. Warwick’s model is of hospital admissions for COVID-19, not admissions of people for other reasons who also test positive' (ie hence why Table3 in NHS data is the numbers to compare some of their projections to)

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1043851/S1460_-_SPI-M-O_consensus_statement_to_SAGE.pdf

NB I'm not overly critical of SAGE as they are experts and will be aware they have to play it safe for their own self-interest. My point is more that govts have very difficult decisions to make given the official advice they get is so 'vague', full of caveats and with a 'cautious' bias. Boris and CON HMG took a huge risk in 'assuming' the better case scenarios which so far seems to have been the correct decision as more studies support the 'better case' assumptions WRT to severity, effectiveness of vaccines and 'behavioural adjustment' (which IIRC even Prof Lockdown did accept can have the same effect as enforced lockdowns - but with a lot less socio-economic damage)

[Danny]

Jan 2, 2022 2:05:49 GMT lens said:

Jan 1, 2022 18:55:18 GMT Danny said:

Do you not see the problem in giving everyone two vacinations a year which cost at a guess £20-£50 each....when we could simply allow our own immune systems to take over for nothing?

"Simply"? I won't dispute that having caught Covid may give a level of immunity for a while afterwards - but at the cost of likely being far more ill, and likely with a higher chance of death.

Zoe found immunity to reinfection after infection lasted twice as long as immunity to infection post double vaccination. The issue about risk is not so much whether you have been vaccinated, but rather whether you were ever at serious risk. This is now largely predictable based simply on age,  but also other factors such as obesity and various illnesses. By now tens of millions of people have had covid in the UK and all of those must be considered safe. Thats a minimum estimate and maximum must be approaching the entire population, though progressively fewer in the oldest age groups. I have not seen any data comparing unvaccinated people ending up in hospital with a proper risk calculation based upon their age and previous medical history. Its entirely possible the observed outcome fits precisely this prediction. So it has never been important to vaccinate everyone, only those at high risk. See the item linked above by Alec. (note SA reckons pretty much 100% have immunity, and thats 70% having caught it, while presumably the 30% vaccinated were also exposed, so even without a vaccination though maybe with higher deaths, it would have been over by now even with no vaccine. Its very likely almost all ogf the Uk has been exposed whether or not they got ill.)

Whilst I only personally know of one person whom Covid has led to life changing health problems (early on), it's marked how the illness is far more mild nowadays amongst the vaccinated

But its also milder amongst the unvaccinated. There seems to be only a small subset of the unvaccinated at high risk of bad outcomes (community data on outcomes of infection), which is pretty much what you would expect if thats the ones either at identifiable high risk or not yet exposed (or both).

and how they are less likely to transmit it,

See above reasons why lockdown has been a wrongheaded poliy. It is only advantageous to prevent high risk people catching it. Its a benefit for low risk people to simply get it over, which is anyway inevitable.

I wouldn't dispute that herd immunity is realistically the only long term end game - but getting there via a mixture of vaccination and infection must be a better solution than relying on infection alone.

The SA data suggests their policy of 30% double vaccinated and nothing more planned seems to be working well. We have gone far beyond the diminishing returns threshold in the UK.

As far as cost goes, then even if we were talking of 50 million adults and £100 each per year, then the £5 billion pa such would cost seems pretty good value for money, compared to what the pandemic has cost over the last 2 years!

But we vaccinated in the spring and are still spending vast sums on those other measures. Vaccination has not ended all that other spending. SA has also ended mass testing and the vast cost of ordering symptomless people home.  Its this policy of isolating the well which is causing huge problems now.

You may have more of a point if vaccine immunity did only last 6 months, whilst infection immunity was for life - but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Well actually...its possible protection against serious outcome IS essentially for life (either from a bad cold type infection or double vaccination), or at least for the duration of our experience with covid thus far. That is, to the extent vaccination has been shown to work which isnt perfect (you would expect it to fail as a technique with some people, especially the very old, etc).

I remain sceptical of many of the measures that Covid has brought in it's wake - the famous app seems to have been a total failure

And yet we are still doing the same thing the app did by manual testing and notification, just as uselessly.

Lockdown worked at first

It appeared to work in april 2020, but there were special circumstances that the epidemic looks to have already pretty much peaked by the time it was imposed, and some of the pre lockdown measures made matters worse not better, espeically in spreading covid to high risk people (mass crowding in shops).

[Danny]

Jan 2, 2022 16:33:44 GMT @tw said:

high (mostly vaccine) immunity in majority of most at risk,

Thats almost certainly wrong. No vaccinations took place before december 2020. before then we already saw off original and kent strains of covid without benefit of vaccine, which means the Uk population had attained enough immunity through infection to see them off without mass death. Very few have died from covid compared to historic epidemics. This would hardly have registered in Victorian England. The likelihood is we started with immunity to covid through vaccination by other circulating corona viruses(which cause millions of colds each year in the UK) and this did most of the work of protecting us.

Our man made vaccine works to reduce the proportion affected still more, but it is not doing most of the work.

Jan 2, 2022 22:55:20 GMT @tw said:

The official SAGE give the official advice but govts make decisions.

Not really. Sage give advise as answers to questions asked by government. Government chooses a policy. sage creates public advice to fit that chosen policy. So it dosnt really give impartial advice to the public.

Imagine I have a choice of shooting a burglar or letting him run away. Given the decision has been made to shoot him, Sage advise on best gun, where to stand, lighting, weapons training etc. But maybe tear gas would have been more sensible.

[birdseye]

Dec 31, 2021 15:32:25 GMT @tw said:

Data day:

Addition: So for EG. Then on 28Dec (last info in the 'Primary diagnosis') then patients in hospital primarily with Covid: 5,578. From NHS beds data then 'total' patients in hospital 'with' Covid: 9,546. So 58% of folks in hospital 'with' Covid caught it in community and required NHS primarily for Covid (and 42% did not). Some press has either ignored or overstated the 'incidentals' issue.
NB A 'bed is a bed' but we see minimal increase in the highest dependency beds and if you were going to hospital for something other than Covid but just happened to have Covid then that is minimal impact on 'net' demand (although I appreciate infection control means some additional burden trying to ensure Covid and non-Covid patients are kept separate). 

I believe that in the UK we have 140,000 hospital beds so I fail to understand the endless NHS moans about overwork thanks to covid admissions.

A staff representative was on TV today saying that a further 1 million staff would be neede in 10 years on top of the current 1.5 million.

[birdseye]

Jan 2, 2022 11:38:59 GMT leftieliberal said:

Professor Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh University castigating Michael Gove for his statments on covid at the beginning of the epidemic:

www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/02/britain-got-it-wrong-on-covid-long-lockdown-did-more-harm-than-good-says-scientist

I'm going to look forward to reading his forthcoming book: "The Year the World Went Mad: A Scientific Memoir."

Is that confirmation bias? After all there are hordes of other scientists arguing for more severe lockdowns. There never will be a clear black and white answer to the question of what strategy we should have taken - just endless arguments and axe grinding.

[Deleted]

leftieliberal In fairness to Prof Woolhouse then he was an advocate of 'splitting the herd' but his article in the Guardian perhaps is a selective 'memory' of timing and what UK had available at the time (eg on testing). In a book he'll only give his opinion, which he can selectively reinterpret with a bit of shifting on dates and what was actually available at the time - a public inquiry offers a Q&A and the facts shouldn't be reinterpreted by poor memories. 

Anyway, from May'20 (ie a bit late for lockdown1): www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-study-estimating-excess-deaths-over-one-year-directly-or-indirectly-related-to-covid-19-based-on-underlying-health-conditions-and-age-of-uk-population-and-making-comments-on-the-ef/

That info was available much earlier and why 'splitting the herd' and such things as 'shielding the most at risk', 'cocooning Care Homes', etc. were discussed as ways to ensure most of the socio-economy could stay open. There was a small effort to 'split the herd' but as a broader policy then libertarians objected and in the 'panic' of Mar'20 when it became clear Covid was circulating far more widely than SAGE had assumed (due in large part to lack of testing capacity at the time) then the 'lockdown for all' button was hit (as it was again in Winter'20-21). Prof Woolhouse's view would be closer to GBD[1] experts opinion than 'Prof Lockdown' on the spectrum of opinion in Spring'20

Of course we now have vaccines as the main tool to 'split the herd' by ensuring the most at risk are regularly boosted via vaccines and hence reducing the risk they overwhelm NHS which would require future lockdowns. I'd still personally like to see vaccine passports and mandatory vaccines with those who put their own lives at risk and risk overwhelming NHS (requiring future lockdowns) being 'coerced' into being vaccinated but the libertarians object to those measures being used more widely.  

[1] I've always called it 'splitting the herd' as it relates to achieving herd immunity by keeping the most at risk as 'split' away from gen.pub as possible. GBD called 'Focused Protection':

'it we have grave concerns about the damaging physical and mental health impacts of the prevailing COVID-19 policies, and recommend an approach we call Focused Protection'

The GBD was written in Oct'20 (by which time vaccines were close enough that a lockdown was warranted) but the Focused Protection view (aka splitting the herd) was held by many of them and myself back in Spring'20 when early/highly effective vaccines were a 'hope' but not a certainty. 

Gove (+Dom, +Hancock who we're 3/4 of the Quad back then) wanted 'lockdown for all', so I certainly wouldn't defend Gove who is the now the only notable 'lockdown fanatic' and outvoted by Rishi, Saj and others in cabinet. We might well disagree but I'm pleased Boris hasn't hit the panic lockdown button this time. I'm not buying Prof Woolhouse's book though and hope he has the decency to give the profits from that to a worthy cause.

[Deleted]

Jan 3, 2022 17:18:31 GMT birdseye said:

Dec 31, 2021 15:32:25 GMT @tw said:

Data day:

Addition: So for EG. Then on 28Dec (last info in the 'Primary diagnosis') then patients in hospital primarily with Covid: 5,578. From NHS beds data then 'total' patients in hospital 'with' Covid: 9,546. So 58% of folks in hospital 'with' Covid caught it in community and required NHS primarily for Covid (and 42% did not). Some press has either ignored or overstated the 'incidentals' issue.
NB A 'bed is a bed' but we see minimal increase in the highest dependency beds and if you were going to hospital for something other than Covid but just happened to have Covid then that is minimal impact on 'net' demand (although I appreciate infection control means some additional burden trying to ensure Covid and non-Covid patients are kept separate). 

I believe that in the UK we have 140,000 hospital beds so I fail to understand the endless NHS moans about overwork thanks to covid admissions.

A staff representative was on TV today saying that a further 1 million staff would be neede in 10 years on top of the current 1.5 million.

NHS have difficult Winters every Winter but at the moment they have three issues: staff absent due to self-isolation; 'incidentals' (who still take up a bed and require segregation); and continuing to offer a 'full service'.

A programme on Ch4 at 7pm but it will likely cover the info in

Longer term then some decisions will be need to made about NHS as it is going to become a 'money pit' but that is beyond the scope of the 'Issue Specific' Covid thread.

[John Chanin]

@tw just a note to say your contributions are not sent into the void. I read them and find them useful, while not always agreeing, but don’t feel competent to comment on most of the issues raised. I suspect this section is quite widely read, and would be more so were it not for the endless witterings by Danny, and the ingrained habit of old timers of waffling on about anything and everything on the main thread.

[oldnat]

Interesting report from US life insurance companies of a 40% increase in deaths among working age people.

[lens]

Jan 3, 2022 22:09:52 GMT oldnat said:

Interesting report from US life insurance companies of a 40% increase in deaths among working age people.

Difficult to reconcile such a statistic with Covid having led to a roughly 10% increase in deaths amongst population as a whole in the US, and average age of victims being around 82-83, though? 

[Deleted]

A view of our future :-

www.spiegel.de/international/world/omicron-has-the-potential-to-stop-the-pandemic-but-that-s-not-the-end-of-the-story-a-b379b1d0-9135-471f-be60-0e9d6ff

[leftieliberal]

Jan 4, 2022 10:03:11 GMT lens said:

Jan 3, 2022 22:09:52 GMT oldnat said:

Interesting report from US life insurance companies of a 40% increase in deaths among working age people.

Difficult to reconcile such a statistic with Covid having led to a roughly 10% increase in deaths amongst population as a whole in the US, and average age of victims being around 82-83, though? 

Never trust any tweet which quotes relative increases (or decreases) without referencing the absolute figures behind them.

"The recent decline in U.S. life expectancy appears to have been the product of two trends: (1) an increase in mortality among middle-aged and younger adults, defined as those aged 25-64 years (i.e., "working age"), which began in the 1990s for several specific causes of death (e.g., drug- and alcohol-related causes and suicide); and (2) a slowing of declines in working-age mortality due to other causes of death (mainly cardiovascular diseases) after 2010." www.nap.edu/catalog/25976/high-and-rising-mortality-rates-among-working-age-adults

It's probably nothing to do with Covid and much more to do with social factors; who could blame anyone for feeling suicidal when faced with a Trump presidency, or the failure of the Biden presidency to bring about real change.

[Deleted]

Polling from y'day before the expected 'unchanged' on policy but FWIW then

NB The 'No' are likely mostly those who want 'lockdown' measures but will also be some who want to end Plan B, object to masks, etc. Some polling companies (eg Opinium) split the question out but R&W and YG tracker does not. With NHS under severe pressure and that likely to get worse in the short-term then I doubt the polling will move much further for now but if/when it becomes clear than 'Get Omicron Done' (via boosters and not over reacting) then that kind of polling will likely move to 'Yes' (from both sides of 'No') and that might well boost Boris approval and CON VI (mostly by CON'19 DKs 'coming home')

[Deleted]

and speaking of face masks, the 'popular' policy is:

Boris needs to 'Get Omicron Done' if he hopes to Re-Unite his MPs. Other divisions exist but at the moment the CRG are his biggest problem. Starmer will back Boris on Covid stuff, as he did with the Brexit deal, but it's never good to rely on opposition votes (and on Covid votes then Boris does need Starmer where as he didn't to 'Get Brexit Done')

[Deleted]

Interesting glimmer of hope ?

"Delta could well go extinct
One of the oddities of Omicron is that the protection it gives is backwards compatible. While Omicron is able to easily infect people with immunity to Delta, studies suggest the reverse is not the case. “For some reason which is not entirely clear, the cross-immunity between Delta and Omicron doesn’t seem to be completely symmetric,” Francois Balloux, from UCL, said.

This is excellent news. Alpha may have pushed out the Wuhan strain, and Delta pushed out Alpha — but it was never inevitable that Omicron would supplant Delta. Unlike variants that came before, its chief advantage was that it evaded prior immunity, raising the chance it could coexist with those strains that came before.

If it and Delta had different immunological niches, they could live beside each other — two pandemic waves superimpose, providing a steady supply of hospital admissions. Now it seems likely that thanks to the immunity given by Omicron, Delta is on the way out."

Times

[Deleted]

Latest ONS Infection Survey (for w/e 31Dec):

- 3,270,800 people in England had COVID-19 (95% credible interval: 3,163,500 to 3,377,500), equating to around 1 in 15 people (range: London (1 in 10) and the lowest in the South West of England (1 in 30))
- COVID-19 infections continued to increase across all age groups and were highest among those in school Year 12 to age 24 years
- there were some early signs in the last few days of 2021 that infections may no longer be increasing in London

www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/5january2022

[leftieliberal]

Long covid could be caused by microclots. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/05/long-covid-research-microclots


"Just because we have not yet identified a biomarker for long Covid does not mean biomarkers do not exist. We just need to look harder."

A good maxim. ME/CFS has been around for a long time with little progress made. Perhaps this will trigger new research to detect microclots. Once we have a diagnostic test it will make treatment easier.

[leftieliberal]

An interesting situation is bubbling up in the USA. We already know that the Supreme Court is likely to gut Roe vs Wade, but they could very easily start attacking the ability of Congress to delegate details of legislation to the Executive Branch (rather like secondary legislation in the UK).

www.vox.com/22865247/supreme-court-vaccination-covid-omicron-osha-missouri-biden-nfib

The combination of having to put all legislation through Congress with the power of the filibuster available to the minority party in the Senate, means that democracy in the USA could be effectively paralysed.