Page 14 of 20
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2021 11:20 am
by Tessa K
Severe acute cases in the US are not the same as long Covid here, which is what we were talking about. The US has handled the whole pandemic even worse than us so there's little point comparing.
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Thu Aug 05, 2021 2:05 pm
by Herainestold
Tessa K wrote: ↑Thu Aug 05, 2021 11:20 am
Severe acute cases in the US are not the same as long Covid here, which is what we were talking about. The US has handled the whole pandemic even worse than us so there's little point comparing.
The point is that it disproves the contention that covid is relatively harmless to children. Even now serious illness in children is less than in adults, but the Delta wave is infecting more children and making them sicker than previous covid strains.
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Fri Aug 06, 2021 10:38 am
by Woodchopper
From a few days ago
Surprise dip in UK COVID cases baffles researchers
Daily recorded infections have more than halved since mid-July. Few researchers anticipated such a sharp decline, and they are now struggling to interpret it.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02125-1
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2021 6:14 pm
by Woodchopper
England, Scotland and Wales now show drops in cases in the ONS survey.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulation ... august2021
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2021 7:07 pm
by KAJ
That's for data up to 31 July. On 4 August in the COVID-19 thread I (tentatively)
suggested the drop had slowed. I think the evidence is now stronger.
Here's my routine plot of cases by specimen date (the red line is 7 day moving average, the black line is a regression fit).
(Please let's avoid going down the plot details rabbit hole, this plot is really only intended for me. The data is at coronavirus.data.gov.uk if you prefer another analysis or presentation.)
- SpecCases.png (43.54 KiB) Viewed 2397 times
In the regression fit the latest 5 data are zero weighted as being "incomplete", they can be confidently expected to increase.
The regression fit is worsening as each day's data comes in.
Code: Select all
Coefficients:
Estimate Std. Error t value Pr(>|t|)
(Intercept) 9.982951 0.058133 171.727 < 2e-16 ***
poly(date, 2)1 0.405377 0.183947 2.204 0.034627 *
poly(date, 2)2 -2.299162 0.184872 -12.437 5.29e-14 ***
dayMon 0.338866 0.080546 4.207 0.000186 ***
dayTue 0.312758 0.080613 3.880 0.000473 ***
dayWed 0.328606 0.080716 4.071 0.000275 ***
dayThu 0.285785 0.080854 3.535 0.001233 **
dayFri 0.190567 0.081027 2.352 0.024798 *
daySat 0.006005 0.081243 0.074 0.941526
---
Signif. codes: 0 ‘***’ 0.001 ‘**’ 0.01 ‘*’ 0.05 ‘.’ 0.1 ‘ ’ 1
Residual standard error: 0.1395 on 33 degrees of freedom
Multiple R-squared: 0.8889
I find the residuals plot even more suggestive...
- Resids.png (11.47 KiB) Viewed 2397 times
I think the drop began on 16 July and lasted not much more than a fortnight.
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2021 7:41 pm
by Woodchopper
I agree, it looks like cases have plateaued, possibly along with hospital admissions.
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2021 8:06 pm
by Sciolus
OffTheRock wrote: ↑Sun Jul 25, 2021 4:10 pm
It doesn't explain the confusing group of people who voluntarily wear a mask on the bus, but under their chin. I kind of get the not covering the nose thing. That group of people have always existed. Up until now I'd always assumed the the 'under the chin' group of people were just breaking the rules because they didn't want to wear a mask. But now they don't have to wear a mask and their are still wearing it under their chin anyway.
I was sitting in a cafe earlier, and watched as a woman came in, sat down, took a mask from her bag, looped it over her ears, and carefully tucked it under her chin. She still had it like that when I left.
Mask wearing has definitely reduced over the last couple of weeks.
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Sun Aug 08, 2021 9:14 pm
by lpm
Thanks KAJ. A plateau at 30,000 would be a great result, particularly as it's so weighted to 18-30. We had feared a plateau at 100,000.
Could all go downhill fast in September.
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2021 5:43 am
by shpalman
That seems to me to be a confusing use of "plateau" in the sense that cases have just gone through a local minimum, not maximum.
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2021 7:11 am
by bob sterman
shpalman wrote: ↑Mon Aug 09, 2021 5:43 am
That seems to me to be a confusing use of "plateau" in the sense that cases have just gone through a local minimum, not maximum.
Plateau = "a period during which there are no large changes" or "a relatively stable level, period, or condition" or "to reach a particular level and then stay the same."
As in "I'd been losing about a pound a week on my diet, but recently I've plateaued and haven't lost an ounce" (e.g.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictio ... sh/plateau)
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2021 8:05 am
by shpalman
lpm wrote: ↑Sun Aug 08, 2021 9:14 pm
A plateau at 30,000 would be a great result, particularly as it's so weighted to 18-30. We had feared a plateau at 100,000.
Could all go downhill fast in September.
A plateau at 30,000 when that's the minimum is not a great result, it could still go downhill up to 100,000.
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2021 10:10 am
by Sciolus
shpalman wrote: ↑Mon Aug 09, 2021 8:05 am
lpm wrote: ↑Sun Aug 08, 2021 9:14 pm
A plateau at 30,000 would be a great result, particularly as it's so weighted to 18-30. We had feared a plateau at 100,000.
Could all go downhill fast in September.
A plateau at 30,000 when that's the minimum is not a great result, it could still go downhill up to 100,000.
Yeah, that would be negative.
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2021 2:08 pm
by shpalman
Prof. Christina Pagel on Twitter has some graphs
Most regions are flat, but NE continuing to decline a lot from its large peak and some regions Yorks, E Midlands, SW) are going up slightly.
Cases are now very concentrated in young adults. Cases in under 15s have dropped a lot since end of term - partly fewer cases and partly less testing.
Cases dropping older adults too but more slowly than in children.
I don’t think anyone predicted just how much a pool of infection school kids were.
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2021 2:17 pm
by Tessa K
The biggest drops were in 15-29 year olds so that includes students as well as school kids plus younger adults who, hopefully, are now getting vaccinated. Although much less in London than the rest of the country. I've always thought kids were germ bags.
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Mon Aug 09, 2021 2:28 pm
by shpalman
First dose uptake in the 18-24 age range in England has increased from 48.5% on the 1st of July to 61.4% on the 1st of August (and second dose uptake has gone from 15 to 20%)...
... so I don't see how this is changing fast enough to make a difference to the case rate. You can't really spin the latter as a big relative increase [(.2-.15)/.15] because you have to look at how much susceptible population is left.
England has slowed to fewer than 30,000 first doses per day.
I too flagged up how "children don't tend to suffer badly from covid ≠ children don't catch and spread covid".
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Sat Aug 14, 2021 9:06 pm
by raven
shpalman wrote: ↑Mon Aug 09, 2021 2:28 pm
... so I don't see how this is changing fast enough to make a difference to the case rate. You can't really spin the latter as a big relative increase [(.2-.15)/.15] because you have to look at how much susceptible population is left.
What concerns me is that we've still got a fair chunk of people in their 50s & 40s unvaccinated according to this PHE graphic - (which I prefer to the heat map because all the white space really emphasises how far we have to go.) There's no change in those age groups, presumably because those who haven't come forward by now aren't going to.
- Screenshot 2021-08-14 at 21-33-49 Weekly Flu and COVID-19 report_w32 - second doses pdf.png (32.83 KiB) Viewed 2146 times
shpalman wrote: ↑Mon Aug 09, 2021 2:28 pm
I too flagged up how "children don't tend to suffer badly from covid ≠ children don't catch and spread covid".
Yes, I don't see how we can really squash transmission without extending vaccination down into at least secondary age kids. 16-17yrs olds is a start, but from this graph there's a lot of transmission in the younger secondary cohorts too.
![Screenshot 2021-08-14 at 22-03-05 PHE Influenza Surveillance graphs 5 August 2021 - secondary cohorts[...].png](./download/file.php?id=3138&sid=80046359ea718a08f4f3d9940b9b8104)
- Screenshot 2021-08-14 at 22-03-05 PHE Influenza Surveillance graphs 5 August 2021 - secondary cohorts[...].png (125.28 KiB) Viewed 2146 times
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2021 5:32 pm
by temptar
raven wrote: ↑Sat Aug 14, 2021 9:06 pm
Yes, I don't see how we can really squash transmission without extending vaccination down into at least secondary age kids. 16-17yrs olds is a start, but from this graph there's a lot of transmission in the younger secondary cohorts too.
Are you guys not vaccinating teenagers yet?
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2021 6:42 pm
by lpm
Only 16-18.
According to the experts the benefits to 12-16 year olds are extremely low and the extremely low risks could be higher. It's unethical of countries to vaccine children to benefit adults.
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2021 6:59 pm
by OffTheRock
And we're only giving them one dose if they are not CEV. We might give them a second dose, but haven't decided when yet. Maybe within 12 weeks of the first.
Not that the maybe part has been well communicated to the 16 year olds getting the jab who seem to be being told they aren't getting a second.
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2021 6:59 pm
by KAJ
lpm wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 6:42 pm
Only 16-18.
According to the experts the benefits to 12-16 year olds are extremely low and the extremely low risks could be higher. It's
unethical of countries to vaccine children to benefit adults.
Rubella vaccination?
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2021 7:59 pm
by jdc
KAJ wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 6:59 pm
lpm wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 6:42 pm
Only 16-18.
According to the experts the benefits to 12-16 year olds are extremely low and the extremely low risks could be higher. It's
unethical of countries to vaccine children to benefit adults.
Rubella vaccination?
Possibly. I'd assumed we gave children that vaccine primarily to protect pregnant women and their unborn children. [eta - this is mentioned in the green book chapter I linked to.]
Although the risks of rubella include "thrombocytopaenia (the rate may be as high as one in 3000 infections) and post-infectious encephalitis (one in 6000 cases)" while the risks of MMR vaccine include "febrile convulsion (risk 1 in 3,000 doses)" which is mainly from the measles part and "the risk of thrombocytopenia following MMR vaccination is 1 in 30 000 to 1 in 40 000 vaccinated children" which is undetermined but probably from either the measles or rubella component. If the risks from the vaccine are due to the measles component and/or lower than the risk from rubella infection then maybe the rubella vaccine would be worth giving to children to protect them even if the risks to pregnant women and the fetus weren't considered.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.u ... 8-v2_0.pdf
https://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/init ... _sheet.pdf
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2021 8:20 pm
by headshot
Ignore me…wrong post.
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2021 9:08 pm
by bob sterman
KAJ wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 6:59 pm
lpm wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 6:42 pm
Only 16-18.
According to the experts the benefits to 12-16 year olds are extremely low and the extremely low risks could be higher. It's
unethical of countries to vaccine children to benefit adults.
Rubella vaccination?
HPV vaccination for adolescent boys. Main benefit is preventing cervical cancer.
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2021 9:17 pm
by headshot
bob sterman wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 9:08 pm
KAJ wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 6:59 pm
lpm wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 6:42 pm
Only 16-18.
According to the experts the benefits to 12-16 year olds are extremely low and the extremely low risks could be higher. It's
unethical of countries to vaccine children to benefit adults.
Rubella vaccination?
HPV vaccination for adolescent boys. Main benefit is preventing cervical cancer.
Hah! That’s what I posted…the thought “wait, that’s surely not helping adults”
Vaccinating them for when they become adults I guess!
Re: Summer Solstice Unlockdown
Posted: Sun Aug 15, 2021 9:51 pm
by bob sterman
headshot wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 9:17 pm
bob sterman wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 9:08 pm
KAJ wrote: ↑Sun Aug 15, 2021 6:59 pm
Rubella vaccination?
HPV vaccination for adolescent boys. Main benefit is preventing cervical cancer.
Hah! That’s what I posted…the thought “wait, that’s surely not helping adults”
Vaccinating them for when they become adults I guess!
Vaccinating the boys - to protect the the girls (when they all become adults).
Main thing is - the direct benefits to the boys are not as substantial (prevention of some HPV related cancers that are much less common than cervical cancer).