Summer Solstice Unlockdown

[lpm]

The UK roadmap is to completely unlockdown by 21 June.

(They're calling it "no social contact limitations", so could still mean other requirements such as wearing masks etc).

Step 1: 8 March: schools; 29 March: rule of 6 for outdoor meetings. Minimise travel and no holidays.

Step 2: 12 April Outdoor pub gardens and food. Non-essential retail, hairdressers, gyms, libraries. Funerals for 30, weddings for 15. Outdoor attractions. Households could go on holiday to self-contained accomodation.

Step 3: 17 May Indoor pubs and food. Rule of 6 indoors. Indoor attractions and sport. Hotels. Outdoor/indoor events, festivals & sports - but for restricted capacity. Possibly international travel.

Step 4: 21 June No legal limits on any social contract. Remaining businesses can open, including nightclubs. No longer need to work from home. Probably international travel.

As a reminder, all groups 1-9 will be first dosed by 15 April (1 May effective immunity) and all adults by 31 July (15 Aug effective immunity). There will still be millions adults unvaccinated at the 21 June date.

[headshot]

"Back to normal by spring" is what they said in November.

I can't help but think they've worked backwards from that date to hit their arbitrary target.

[lpm]

Full PDF of plan now published. Worth a read.

https://t.co/ZPaSQR0dXb?amp=1

[OffTheRock]

The last option ought not to be an option because vaccine roll out, while simultaneously feeling like the most likely option because Boris.

[Herainestold]

The last option ought not to be an option because vaccine roll out, while simultaneously feeling like the most likely option because Boris.

It seems that every country except Israel and maybe Australia (because it is just getting started), feel that their government has screwed up the vaccine roll out.

[Martin_B]

The last option ought not to be an option because vaccine roll out, while simultaneously feeling like the most likely option because Boris.

It seems that every country except Israel and maybe Australia (because it is just getting started), feel that their government has screwed up the vaccine roll out.

Can we blame Boris for our vaccine roll-out, then?

[Herainestold]

Presumably if Boris wasn't in charge the UK would be ahead of Israel in the vaccine race.

[Sciolus]

The strategy seems to be carry on running hot, hope the vaccines control symptomatic cases and maybe spread as well, and hope to hell that having loads of virus circulating in a half-immunised population doesn't encourage new mutations to take hold.

[lpm]

We'll be lucky to stay at 5,000 cases per day.

For context, the Excel f.ck up kept reported cases at 6,000 for a few days, with the number jumping to 10,000 per day when the problem unwound. This sort of level is perillously close to the cliff edge. A couple of doublings and...

We need to be under 1,000 - when a couple of doublings still leaves room to save the situation.

[bob sterman]

We'll be lucky to stay at 5,000 cases per day.

Indeed.

One hope I have is that if the vaccines can reduce transmission signficantly - and a lot of transmission was previously happening in healthcare settings - then they will have a substantial effect on overall case numbers because people who tend to spend a lot of time in healthcare settings (NHS staff and older people) will have been vaccinated.

[OffTheRock]

The last option ought not to be an option because vaccine roll out, while simultaneously feeling like the most likely option because Boris.

It seems that every country except Israel and maybe Australia (because it is just getting started), feel that their government has screwed up the vaccine roll out.

It's not about screwing up the vaccine roll out. That's going well, which is why the last option shouldn't be an option. But Boris is in charge of everything else to so f.cking the unlockdown up seems almost a certainty.

[lpm]

The great race begins: virus vs vaccine.

Schools unlocked with 7-day average officially at 5,889. Given the lags of a week or two, it's probably fallen to about 4,000 today - a bit better than the 5,000 I forecast.

Will it fall from here? Stay around the same level? Start going up? About half the UK population has some sort of immunity, either from the illness or the vaccine. That's going to drag R back, counterbalancing schools pushing it forward.

Still looks 50/50 to me.

[bob sterman]

The great race begins: virus vs vaccine.

Schools unlocked with 7-day average officially at 5,889. Given the lags of a week or two, it's probably fallen to about 4,000 today - a bit better than the 5,000 I forecast.

Will it fall from here? Stay around the same level? Start going up? About half the UK population has some sort of immunity, either from the illness or the vaccine. That's going to drag R back, counterbalancing schools pushing it forward.

Still looks 50/50 to me.

Yup - on the side of the virus is the fact that the group of adults interacting most closely with the kids (parents, teachers) are not in the segement of the population with high vaccination rates at the moment (e.g. > 70s).

So I think case numbers will trend up - but perhaps not hopsitalisations and deaths to a great extent.

[Bird on a Fire]

No kids and very few parents will have been vaccinated yet. I don't see what's going to be different this time around.

ETA as bob says

[Grumble]

The great race begins: virus vs vaccine.

Schools unlocked with 7-day average officially at 5,889. Given the lags of a week or two, it's probably fallen to about 4,000 today - a bit better than the 5,000 I forecast.

Will it fall from here? Stay around the same level? Start going up? About half the UK population has some sort of immunity, either from the illness or the vaccine. That's going to drag R back, counterbalancing schools pushing it forward.

Still looks 50/50 to me.

Yup - on the side of the virus is the fact that the group of adults interacting most closely with the kids (parents, teachers) are not in the segement of the population with high vaccination rates at the moment (e.g. > 70s).

So I think case numbers will trend up - but perhaps not hopsitalisations and deaths to a great extent.

I think all we can aim for right now is that it becomes endemic but controlled

[Sciolus]

The good thing about Johnson's roadmap is that it's changing one parameter* at a time, so if cases go up again over the next few weeks we can confidently attribute it to schools. Likewise with later stages. Since we still don't have a good grasp of what encourages spread and how much, this is a really useful experiment.

*Well, two, because there's the weather as well.

[lpm]

The 17 May Step 3 is going to be formally confirmed.

There's been a hell of a lot of jumping the gun - nobody seems to understand (or deliberately choose to misunderstand) the Step 2 rule of outdoor pubs. It's still two households only, limit of 6 people. But generally we are seeing larger groups of friends gathering.

So the amount of change on 17 May will be lower than it seems. My guess is that people will still avoid much of the indoor activity allowed in Step 3, particularly if there's a lucky period of good weather.

With average of 15 deaths a day there's a pretty good argument for bringing Step 4 forward from 21 June. It's not clear why we are continuing lockdown restrictions that damage the economy and people's lives for a largely non-fatal disease. Arguments for continued lockdown/zero Covid tend to wander about without focus, from variants to Long Covid to vaccine escape. Without a coherent argument against it's pretty clear the anti-lockdown side is going to win with ease.

[headshot]

Many venues in the theatre and other seated live entertainment sectors aren’t opening until September, making use of furlough.

They anticipate that the 50% capacity limits between 17th May and 21st June, plus ongoing hesitancy to gather indoors, will mean their business mode is unsustainable until more are vaccinated.

[Bird on a Fire]

Many venues in the theatre and other seated live entertainment sectors aren’t opening until September, making use of furlough.

They anticipate that the 50% capacity limits between 17th May and 21st June, plus ongoing hesitancy to gather indoors, will mean their business mode is unsustainable until more are vaccinated.

Speaking of which: https://www.musicweek.com/media/read/sk ... ues/083123

Sky Arts has commissioned CC-Lab to produce a new music documentary and live performance format entitled The Live Revival.

The series will shine a light on hard-hit small music venues, which have been shuttered during the pandemic.

Phil Edgar-Jones, director, Sky Arts and Entertainment, said: “The pandemic has accelerated many trends – whether that’s how we shop or how we consume our entertainment – and many familiar areas of life might change forever, so on Sky Arts we wanted to turn our attention to the plight of the small music venue; the places all the great bands or solo artists started out and learned their craft. And we’ve been overwhelmed by the response from some of the greats of British music who have gone back to the places they began to pay homage with incredible performances that shine a light on these important places.”

The Music Venue Trust will also support the series as part of their #SaveOurVenues campaign. The charity is committed to protecting, securing and improving grassroots music venues and ensuring their survival following the unprecedented threat to their existence in the past year.

[Tessa K]

Boris is relying on the fact that now the oldest and most vulnerable are mostly vaccinated, if there is another wave of the same variants it will be young people who get it. They won't get as ill and need hospital treatment so that's all OK.

If there's a new variant that the vaccines can't cope with we will be screwed.

Foreign travel while kids are still unvaccinated is a dumb idea because kids are germ bags and will bring back Covid to infect all the unvaccinated. Not everyone will quarantine properly even if that system is in place.

[shpalman]

Boris is relying on the fact that now the oldest and most vulnerable are mostly vaccinated, if there is another wave of the same variants it will be young people who get it. They won't get as ill and need hospital treatment so that's all OK.

If there's a new variant that the vaccines can't cope with we will be screwed.

Foreign travel while kids are still unvaccinated is a dumb idea because kids are germ bags and will bring back Covid to infect all the unvaccinated. Not everyone will quarantine properly even if that system is in place.

The CFR would still be ~0.1% in the younger* people. Better than ~2% which you get when the whole population is susceptible but it won't take long to have 20 times more cases if you let the wave progress without restrictions.

[lpm]

CFR is way lower than 0.1% in under 40s - which is where UK is nearly first dosed to. Remember <40s with pre-existing risks are already vaccinated.

And the words herd and immunity have to be mentioned in close proximity... There's little chance of a new wave with current variants. A wave would need to start now in order to win the race against the vaccination program - otherwise it'll never get headway against all adults being first dosed.

All that really leaves is new variants defeating the vaccines. Which is hypothetical right now. There's no valid reason for lockdown to defend against hypotheticals. The traffic light system can handle the heavy lifting of travel to places like India.

[Herainestold]

CFR is way lower than 0.1% in under 40s - which is where UK is nearly first dosed to. Remember <40s with pre-existing risks are already vaccinated.

And the words herd and immunity have to be mentioned in close proximity... There's little chance of a new wave with current variants. A wave would need to start now in order to win the race against the vaccination program - otherwise it'll never get headway against all adults being first dosed.

All that really leaves is new variants defeating the vaccines. Which is hypothetical right now. There's no valid reason for lockdown to defend against hypotheticals. The traffic light system can handle the heavy lifting of travel to places like India.

CFR is much higher for younger peoples with variants. We actually don't kno what it is for the Indian variant in the UK yet, as the cases have just started to climb and we havent seen the full effect on hospitalizations and mortality. It would be foolish to rapidly unlock now. We need to get everybody vaccinated and start to prepare variant booster doses now. We need to pause the unlock and resume distancing and masking or we are setting ourseves up for a hellish summer.

Last year we ignored the Italian data and thought it cant happen here. Now we are doing the same for the Indian.
.

[bob sterman]

CFR is much higher for younger peoples with variants. We actually don't kno what it is for the Indian variant in the UK yet, as the cases have just started to climb and we havent seen the full effect on hospitalizations and mortality. It would be foolish to rapidly unlock now. We need to get everybody vaccinated and start to prepare variant booster doses now.

Indeed. There's currently a large pool of unvaccinated people in their 20s, 30s and 40s out and about in cities - which new variants could spread through.

With the focus on finishing 2nd doses for risk groups and over 50s - the rate of new 1st doses being given has been pretty low for the past month.

At this rate we're going to have a big chunk of the <50 population either with just a 1st dose, or still not had a first dose, well into June.

[lpm]

CFR is way lower than 0.1% in under 40s - which is where UK is nearly first dosed to. Remember <40s with pre-existing risks are already vaccinated.

And the words herd and immunity have to be mentioned in close proximity... There's little chance of a new wave with current variants. A wave would need to start now in order to win the race against the vaccination program - otherwise it'll never get headway against all adults being first dosed.

All that really leaves is new variants defeating the vaccines. Which is hypothetical right now. There's no valid reason for lockdown to defend against hypotheticals. The traffic light system can handle the heavy lifting of travel to places like India.

CFR is much higher for younger peoples with variants. We actually don't kno what it is for the Indian variant in the UK yet, as the cases have just started to climb and we havent seen the full effect on hospitalizations and mortality. It would be foolish to rapidly unlock now. We need to get everybody vaccinated and start to prepare variant booster doses now. We need to pause the unlock and resume distancing and masking or we are setting ourseves up for a hellish summer.

Last year we ignored the Italian data and thought it cant happen here. Now we are doing the same for the Indian.
.

Fact free b.llsh.t.

Last year we were tracking Italy exactly, with a 14 day lag. This year we are as completely unlike India as it's possible to be.

Cases per day are falling. Falling even though testing levels are very high - leading to a world-beating test positive rate per test of 0.2%. For context Germany positive rate is 12%, France 8% and USA 5%.