COVID19

[Doobs]

Just for you Marky.  I wasn't going to bother watching this as things are looking up, but some quality face pulling frrom half way when discussing Japan, Guernsey and France.  The Japan discussion is a bit mind boggling to be fair.   

[Marky147]

Can't beat a bit of JC

Wasn't up when I checked earlier, but will watch now.

[Doobs]

https://mobile.twitter.com/cjsnowdon/status/1356372408832151553

Did a few more of these when I tuned into Cummins twitter yesterday   

The Isle of Man really isn't your poster boy against lockdown. 

Neither is Belarus who fearured heavily yesterday, but clearly just lie about their Covid stats whilst the population has to get on with life.

And meanwhile in yesterday's other featured location of Sweden, they updated their mortality stats yesterday; and there is zero sign of excess deaths falling well into January.  There is definitely an argument that Sweden is no worse than us; and that people may well have been persuaded to do all this stuff here without imposing mandatory lockdown, but we probably needed less Cummins types for it to have worked here.

[Doobs]

Doesn't look like wave 2 will be better than wave 1.


https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending22january2021


In Week 3, deaths involving COVID-19 accounted for 45.1% of all deaths in England and Wales; this is the highest proportion of deaths involving COVID-19 that has been recorded during the pandemic.

Of the 8,422 deaths involving COVID-19 in Week 3 in England and Wales, 7,592 had this recorded as the underlying cause of death (90.1%).

Obligatory good news; cases are still falling significantly, but not as fast as in lockdown 1.  Hospital admissions are also falling noticeably too.  Vaccinations are still at a high level.

[Marky147]

https://mobile.twitter.com/cjsnowdon/status/1356372408832151553

Did a few more of these when I tuned into Cummins twitter yesterday   

The Isle of Man really isn't your poster boy against lockdown. 

Neither is Belarus who fearured heavily yesterday, but clearly just lie about their Covid stats whilst the population has to get on with life.

And meanwhile in yesterday's other featured location of Sweden, they updated their mortality stats yesterday; and there is zero sign of excess deaths falling well into January.  There is definitely an argument that Sweden is no worse than us; and that people may well have been persuaded to do all this stuff here without imposing mandatory lockdown, but we probably needed less Cummins types for it to have worked here.

That was the jist of the article someone posted by Chris Snowdon.

Trying to portray them as some posterboy for how to do things, isn't gonna fly. Even that Anders who he traps on about said they made a balls of it, didn't he?

However, as Snowdon said, they no doubt had a better 2020 than we did.

[Doobs]

https://mobile.twitter.com/cjsnowdon/status/1356372408832151553

Did a few more of these when I tuned into Cummins twitter yesterday   

The Isle of Man really isn't your poster boy against lockdown. 

Neither is Belarus who fearured heavily yesterday, but clearly just lie about their Covid stats whilst the population has to get on with life.

And meanwhile in yesterday's other featured location of Sweden, they updated their mortality stats yesterday; and there is zero sign of excess deaths falling well into January.  There is definitely an argument that Sweden is no worse than us; and that people may well have been persuaded to do all this stuff here without imposing mandatory lockdown, but we probably needed less Cummins types for it to have worked here.

That was the jist of the article someone posted by Chris Snowdon.

Trying to portray them as some posterboy for how to do things, isn't gonna fly. Even that Anders who he traps on about said they made a balls of it, didn't he?

However, as Snowdon said, they no doubt had a better 2020 than we did.

I don't think there is much in it, they likely win 2020, but could easily lose 2021.  Their lockdown was less severe, but happened and their economy was still damaged.  The deaths haven't finished yet, and they are later in the cycle, so they could overtake us.   We have lower vitamin D, a worse health service and poorer benefits, so started from a worse place. 

Would definitely take the Australian experience over theirs anyway.

Captain Tom has died.  RIP.   Proper hero.

[tikay]

Very sad news on Captain Tom.

Click to see full-size image.

[RED-DOG]

Very sad news on Captain Tom.

Click to see full-size image.

I said that today and my daughter said that the last year must have been one of the best of his life. He raised millions for charity (unwittingly providing for his family in the process) had a number one record, met the Queen, got a telegram, a knighthood and achieved worldwide fame and adoration.



Not a bad way to go.

RIP Sit Tom.

[nirvana]

https://mobile.twitter.com/cjsnowdon/status/1356372408832151553

Did a few more of these when I tuned into Cummins twitter yesterday   

The Isle of Man really isn't your poster boy against lockdown. 

Neither is Belarus who fearured heavily yesterday, but clearly just lie about their Covid stats whilst the population has to get on with life.

And meanwhile in yesterday's other featured location of Sweden, they updated their mortality stats yesterday; and there is zero sign of excess deaths falling well into January.  There is definitely an argument that Sweden is no worse than us; and that people may well have been persuaded to do all this stuff here without imposing mandatory lockdown, but we probably needed less Cummins types for it to have worked here.

That was the jist of the article someone posted by Chris Snowdon.

Trying to portray them as some posterboy for how to do things, isn't gonna fly. Even that Anders who he traps on about said they made a balls of it, didn't he?

However, as Snowdon said, they no doubt had a better 2020 than we did.

I don't think there is much in it, they likely win 2020, but could easily lose 2021.  Their lockdown was less severe, but happened and their economy was still damaged.  The deaths haven't finished yet, and they are later in the cycle, so they could overtake us.   We have lower vitamin D, a worse health service and poorer benefits, so started from a worse place. 

Would definitely take the Australian experience over theirs anyway.

Captain Tom has died.  RIP.   Proper hero.

Good last point on Sweden v Australia, with all we know now, isn't the real situation eventually gonna boil down to:

Lockdown using the kinds of approaches in Europe and the Americas = long period of uncertainty, high death rates, high damage to the economy.

Lockdown using the harder lockdown alternatives used in parts of Asia and the Antipodes = lower death rates and, in the round, a quicker return to normality.

League tables of European/American countries that show relatively better outcomes currently in terms of deaths or the economy don't really advance the thinking about how to do things much, much better in the  future. While GB, Sweden, Germany might have very different death rates the approach has basically been the same, there are obviously some nuances around timing and approaches that shift the needle a bit either way but still loads of dead and lots of people being supported in non value add activity over very long periods with consequent damage to the economy etc.

Kuku was right ages ago that we would end up with the worst of all worlds - high deaths, high economic damage - but this is true of (nearly) all Western countries so it's not really a good party political scoring point - more that our culture/systems in the West weren't remotely ready for the kind of actions needed to minimise the impact in any kind of meaningful way.

Be really interesting to see what sort of choices would be made in the West for any future pandemic and if any real lessons get learned


 

[Marky147]

Big JC going through the updated Oxford/AZ figures.

[Doobs]

As it is a Wednesday, just a quick update.

I think we can ignore today's big number of deaths as it always high on a Tuesday or Wednesday.  Deaths by date of death surpassed the wave 1 peak on 12 January and are only likely to be revised up from there.  Again, that isn't that accurate either, as testing was lower in wave 1, so they are only higher on the official definition.  In reality, we are probably a bit below wave 1 peak still.  1,100 UK Covid deaths in a day (1,000 for England alone) is still pretty shocking as I was hopeful we could keep it below 500 when we went into that mini lockdown in November.

Cases are much brighter; cases per day are now consistently lower than the ones 7 day previously (the last exception was the 8 January and that was compared to New Year's Day).

Hospital Admissions appear to have turned down, but at worst they are level.  There is still a lot of daily fluctuation, but there should be a clear downward trend by next week.

Vaccinations went above 300k yesterday, which I think was the target.  If they go on like that, the deaths are going to start falling soon enough.  Deaths must be close to their peak anyway right now, given the effect of lockdown on cases and admissions.

Finally, I read the BBC saying there was no evidence of a Christmas increase in cases.  I think there was a small blip that is hard to see as the cases were volatile because of the bank holiday.  It is pretty clear the cases were still increasing into the New Year and started falling soon after lockdown.   I think most people were restrained at Christmas and they probably did the right thing.

Wednesday again.  

Get the bad news out of the way.  Deaths were still rising on the 19 January, which is 8 days ago.  I think there is every chance that will be the peak for this wave, as the growth rate has been slowing and the days after are sufficiently lower that they are unlikely to catch up after the lag has worked its way completely through.  I think it is much more likely that this is due to lockdown than vaccinations.  The vaccinations didn't really kick off in volume until the New Year so it is unlikely to have had any noticeable effect yet (the effect of vaccination is noticeable after about 11 days with the Pfizer vaccine and there is a 3 week lag from infection to death).  

Hospitalisations are definitely dropping now, the level is down to around 3,000 a day from 4,000 at peak and the total number of people with Covid in hospital has begun to fall (it is only 5% down from the peak).

Cases are now falling at a faster rate than last week, with cases a week ago down around 50% from their peak around the New Year; Cummins is claiming that this was due to them deliberately targetting lockdowns at the known peak in the cases curve.  You'd think it they knew enough to time it that well, they'd know enough to save the 100k lives wouldn't you Ivor?  

Vaccination numbers have been doing brilliantly, there was a fall at the weekend, but they hit nearly 500,000 a day at the end of last week.

I hope they don't f it up again with a rush to reopen too soon, but think things are looking good for the UK right now.

 

Just going to do a very quick update, as everything is looking good, well as good as Covid 5,000 deaths a week can look.

Covid Deaths did peak on the 19 January at just over 1,200 a day, and are now likely below a 1,000 a day now (There were 900 or so 7 days ago, so probably down to about 700 today).   

Hospitalisations were well over 4,000 a day at peak and they have dropped noticeably over the last week to about 2,500.  The number of people with Covid in hospital has fallen from 40k to nearer 30k, so hopefully the medical staff are getting some kind of respite, though they are still clearly very busym and I don't think ICU ares down as much.  I am not checking now, but they weren't far off their peak a couple of days ago.

Cases have also fallen rapidly down to about 20k from about 50k at peak (they were all over the place due to the bank holidays at Christmas, but I don't think the 7 day average got much higher than 50k).  I wouldn't be too excited about this one, as they still aren't as low as they were when mini lockdown 2 ended, so those calling for a quick end to lockdown are clearly a bit premature.

We are getting to the time when we should start seeing the effects of the vaccinations and deaths amongst those in their 80s should start dropping noticeably.  We may well be seeeing that already, but I haven't got figures split by age group now and Match of the Day starts soon.  I'll have nosey around tomorrow.

Marky has posted Dr John's Astra Zeneca update and it all looks very promising, with better results with 1 12 week gap than a 6 week one.  Numbers aren't high enough in the trial to be absolutely sure that serious illness is a thing of the past after vaccine.  Given how few over 80s they have in the trial, I dare say we really should refrain from making this claim until that data comes through, but for now results are looking very good.

All good news, so goodnight all.   

   


Cases were down to about 25,000 7 days ago.

[Marky147]

It took 45 days for 10% of the UK's adult population to receive a Covid vaccine dose.

It's taken just 13 more days to hit 20%.

https://twitter.com/Coronavirusgoo1

Flying along now!

[Marky147]

You know you've made it when they make a video using that Hitler scene!

https://www.captiongenerator.com/2129947/Ivor-Cummins-downfall

[Doobs]

You know you've made it when they make a video using that Hitler scene!

https://www.captiongenerator.com/2129947/Ivor-Cummins-downfall

Oh God, that is brilliant.  

"It's OK Clare, you deleted your tweets."

Cummins is going madder by the day?  Surely all this good news is a good thing if your aim is to end lockdown, but he seems to be preparing for some kind of war?  

And what is this about?  Even his favourite sources are now collaborators?

https://twitter.com/FatEmperor/status/1357487736714907649

Sorry
@BallouxFrancois
 - you've become a collaborator with the bad guys. Sad to see - but hey....

Edit

Worked it ouy, Ivor is definitely getting a bit fragile

https://twitter.com/Marco_Piani/status/1357469544969822208/photo/1

[Doobs]

I was thinking that Ivor's chart this morning would be hard to beat for bad science.  He compared the total number of deaths vs total number of vaccinations and implied a connection.  FWIW If you look at number of deaths weekly or monthl[/by you are going to see a negative correlation going forward.  How much of that is due to lockdown, vaccination or possibly herd immunity you can debate   

But his followers somehow always manage to trump him.

https://twitter.com/Curiousthough/status/1357644045267447812

Yes and surely the curve should be going the other way even if people are only partially vaccinated they should be developing immunity.

Looks like it's the opposite to immunity.

A vaccine to increase your likelihood of dying from covid.

Clearly the only way that the total number of deaths is going to go down is if the vaccine starts resurecting people.

Dr John has put up a video on the sputnik vaccine which is probably just interesting for two of us.