The trouble with voluntary distancing is it takes two to (do the 2m) tango. Hard to voluntarily distance in public areas from.others who don't want to.
From The Mail
Vaccine passports: It's all over! Cabinet agrees it's time to 'live with Covid'... and you WON'T have to show proof of vaccination to attend mass gatherings
[...]
The move comes amid growing confidence that Boris Johnson will press ahead with plans to lift social distancing rules next month despite a surge in Covid cases.
He told the Cabinet yesterday that our vaccination success means Britain will be able to 'live with Covid' because the link between virus cases and hospitalisations has been broken.
Yesterday saw another 20,479 cases – with the seven-day total up 70 per cent in a week – but one government source said Freedom Day would go ahead as planned even if cases are more than twice as high as they are now.
'We need to get used to the idea of treating Covid more like flu,' the source said. 'People have the flu vaccine, which helps reduce serious illness, but we still get large numbers of cases and significant numbers of deaths.
'When we get to July 19, cases look like they will be potentially very high, perhaps as many as 30,000 or 40,000 per day. But that is not in itself a reason not to go ahead, provided hospitalisations and deaths remain at relatively low levels.'
[...]
A Downing Street spokesman said: 'Cabinet agreed that once we have completed the road map, we will be able to live with Covid in the future – even if cases continue to rise – thanks to the protections provided by the vaccine.'
In what appeared to be a co-ordinated series of interventions, Michael Gove said people will have to live with Covid in 'the way that we live with flu', which claims thousands of deaths each winter but does not require society and the economy to be locked down.
Home Secretary Priti Patel also addressed the issue, saying Britons would have to 'adapt' to living with coronavirus. The shift follows the appointment of Sajid Javid as Health Secretary following Matt Hancock's resignation. In a declaration of intent, Mr Javid used his first Commons appearance on Monday to drive home the message that it was time to 'start returning to normal' after 15 months of crippling curbs.
Ministers now look almost certain to lift the main social distancing measures on July 19 – but debates continue over whether to carry on asking people to wear masks on public transport and work from home.
[...]
One issue that appears to have been settled is that of Covid passports. Whitehall sources told the Mail that they will be shelved for domestic use, despite ongoing trials at Wimbledon and Wembley. Pilot schemes have controlled access to mass events by requiring those in attendance to supply proof that they have been vaccinated or tested for Covid.
Ministers now believe that the success of our vaccination programme means such measures will not be required across Britain this summer, avoiding another potential clash with MPs.
[...]
'It is looking unlikely that we will have to make Covid certification compulsory, even for mass events,' a source said.
'It will be needed for foreign travel and some events may choose to run their own schemes, but it does not look like we will need legislation at this stage.
'The work has not been wasted. It will be needed for travel and we will have a system in place which could be used if we need it in the winter.' Indeed, plans for widespread use of the passports could be revived in the event of another major wave of Covid. This would allow venues to stay open even if cases soar dramatically. No 10 said the PM was 'increasingly confident' there would be no need for further delays to lifting curbs on our freedoms.
It’s more like 60-70% depending upon the vaccine. I’ll try to find the data.jdc wrote: ↑Wed Jun 30, 2021 1:31 amSounds about right - r0 of 7, 86% coverage needed for herd immunity with 100% effective vaccine. VE of .9 would make it 95.55% needed if me maths is right.Herainestold wrote: ↑Wed Jun 30, 2021 12:58 amIn the face of Delta, with a vaccine efficacy of 90% you need population coverage of 97%.
Or maybe it was the other way around. In either case it is not possible. Not without vaccinating children.
Without enough vaccination, the only way to get immunity is through infection, and Delta is very good at that, it won't take long to confer immunity to the rest of the unvaccinated population.
I just hope the morgues are ready for the onslaught.
Do we have reliable figures on vaccine efficacy against transmission of delta?
https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk ... y-20932480Greater Manchester's pandemic death rate has been 25 per cent higher than the national average, new research reveals - warning the scale of England's pandemic divide was ‘avoidable’ and that its causes must finally be urgently addressed by ministers.
Sir Michael Marmot, whose report weeks before Covid-19 warned health was already ‘faltering’ in England and regional divides widening after a decade of uneven austerity, also finds nearly four months more was wiped off male life expectancy in the North West last year than the national average.
His report, looking at the impact of the pandemic in Greater Manchester and proposing steps to ‘build back fairer’, also finds that lockdowns were not timed to chime with the pattern of the pandemic here, while the measures themselves have already ‘particularly damaging’ social, health and economic impacts.
Sir Michael told the M.E.N. the extent of the uneven pattern had been ‘avoidable’, pointing to long-term trends over more than a decade that resulted in this part of the country being more exposed to the pandemic.
“The pandemic, Covid, is not just about a virus,” he said. “It’s about the nature of society.”
Sir Michael’s report has strong echoes of his review of health inequality in late February 2020, which found that life expectancy was falling for the poorest people in every part of England outside London, a pattern particularly pronounced in parts of the North and a sign, he said, that society was effectively moving backwards.
His latest review looks at the way Covid then ‘exposed and amplified’ that inequality for Greater Manchester and seeks solutions, echoing warnings from officials and politicians reported by the M.E.N. previously.
Arguably most stark is its findings on the pandemic’s deadliest impacts.
“While England has experienced high Covid-19 mortality rates compared with other countries, the rate in Greater Manchester has been even higher than the average in England,” finds the report.
“Analysis shows that rates of mortality from Covid-19 in Greater Manchester are 25pc higher than in England as a whole.
“Life expectancy in the North West of England also declined more during 2020 than in England overall.”
That fell by 0.9 years for women and 1.3 years for men nationally, according to provisional figures for last year, but in the North West the figures were 1.2 years and 1.6 years respectively.
These are ‘jaw dropping’ falls, said Sir Michael, but noted they were ‘even bigger’ in this part of the country.
“That’s enormous,” he said of the North West’s fall in life expectancy, adding that there is also a ‘remarkable’ correlation with poverty.
Every borough within Greater Manchester has seen higher than average death rates, apart from Stockport and Trafford, highlighting inequalities within the conurbation as well as with the rest of the country.
Poverty, working and living conditions, types of employment and the ‘interconnected’ nature of Greater Manchester all partly explain Covid’s impact here, it says, but it also finds that the timings of lockdown measures did not marry up with the pattern of the way the virus was playing out here.
“The timing of the containment measures implemented in England did not align well with the trajectory of the pandemic in the city region,” it finds, echoing criticisms from other health experts that the first lockdown ended too soon for the pandemic's pattern here.
“The city region has also experienced particularly damaging longer-term economic, social and health effects from a combination of local and national lockdowns during the autumn of 2020 and through the first half of 2021.
“Impacts include deteriorating community and environmental conditions as the public purse is further strained, widening inequalities during children’s early years and in educational engagement and attainment, increasing poverty and income inequality, rising unemployment, particularly for young people, and deteriorating mental health for all age groups but again particularly for young people.
“All of these negative impacts will damage health and widen health inequalities in Greater Manchester. This report assesses these unequal impacts and makes proposals about how to take urgent, remedial action.”
Sir Michael and his team from University College London, who have been working on the report with the Greater Manchester system, specify a range of ways in which the conurbation was already more vulnerable to a health crisis such as Covid-19, pointing to the clear correlation between degrees of poverty and those most likely to catch the virus, suffer serious illness and potentially die from it.
Nearly half of Manchester’s neighbourhoods are in the poorest 10pc nationally, it points out, while nearly one in 20 people across the conurbation live in overcrowded housing.
That rises to more than one in ten people from ethnic minority backgrounds across the North West. Everywhere in Greater Manchester apart from Trafford and Stockport - again - already had higher than average numbers of people on low incomes. Trafford and Stockport were the only boroughs to begin the pandemic with above-average life expectancy and the only ones not to see above-average death rates from Covid.
Speaking yesterday, Sir Michael explained how poverty, types of work and housing have all had a direct bearing on higher the likelihood of people in most parts of Greater Manchester catching Covid and becoming sick.
“When you’ve got something like a pandemic it builds on the existing inequalities," he said. "So, for example, if you’re in a low income household you’re more likely to be working in a frontline occupation which means you get greater exposure which means that poorer people are more at risk of getting Covid and severe Covid and fatal Covid.
“And similarly if you’re in an overcrowded household, you’re at greater risk of transmission of infection and getting severe Covid and potentially Covid.”
The report points - like its predecessor in February 2020 - to the uneven way in which cuts have played out across the country since 2010 and warns that had a bearing on how the pandemic played out.
Cuts to public health funding saw the North West lose more per head than the national average over eight years, while the North East lost twice as much per person as much as the South East. Northern urban councils were consistently hit with bigger budget cuts than southern shire ones.
“The cuts to funding were regressive – poorer areas and those areas outside London and the South experienced proportionately larger cuts,” says the latest report.
“The resulting damage to local authorities with greater deprivation have affected the course of the pandemic and, crucially, the resilience of areas to cope with the economic and social impacts of pandemic containment measures.”
Asked whether the scale of the unequal patterns seen during the pandemic were avoidable, Sir Michael pointed to those uneven cuts.
“That was government policy," he said. "So was it avoidable? Yeah, of course it was avoidable.
“Different policies might have yielded different outcomes.”
His latest review now calls on government to urgently take heed of its findings as part of any ‘levelling up’ agenda.
It reels off a list of practical recommendations, many of them aimed at the local leadership, including working with employers to introduce a Greater Manchester wage that matches the income needed for a healthy life here and a goal to provide training or education to all school-leavers.
But many will require government to spend more and spend differently - such as a doubling of Greater Manchester’s health prevention budget in five years.
Sir Michael said it had been ‘inspiring’ working with Greater Manchester on the research.
“I didn’t get the sense that people were looking at this and thinking 'it's too awful, there’s nothing we can do about it’,” he said.
“They say: we want to make Greater Manchester the best place for children to grow up and for people to flourish. But they can’t do it without government funding as well.”
Local government organisations all over the country - including the North East - had been in touch about working to mitigate the uneven impact of the pandemic on health, he says, but as yet he had ‘not had a response’ to the report from ministers.
I'm expecting more than 30,000 new cases today.Woodchopper wrote: ↑Wed Jun 30, 2021 7:22 am
Vaccine passports: It's all over! Cabinet agrees it's time to 'live with Covid'... and you WON'T have to show proof of vaccination to attend mass gatherings
[...]
The move comes amid growing confidence that Boris Johnson will press ahead with plans to lift social distancing rules next month despite a surge in Covid cases.
He told the Cabinet yesterday that our vaccination success means Britain will be able to 'live with Covid' because the link between virus cases and hospitalisations has been broken.
Yesterday saw another 20,479 cases – with the seven-day total up 70 per cent in a week – but one government source said Freedom Day would go ahead as planned even if cases are more than twice as high as they are now.
'We need to get used to the idea of treating Covid more like flu,' the source said. 'People have the flu vaccine, which helps reduce serious illness, but we still get large numbers of cases and significant numbers of deaths.
'When we get to July 19, cases look like they will be potentially very high, perhaps as many as 30,000 or 40,000 per day.
I'm saying that because there's usually a jump in case numbers mid-week, as a day-of-the-week effect. But the 7-day average (which is less than 18,000 per day right now) won't go above 30,000 for another week or so.Woodchopper wrote: ↑Wed Jun 30, 2021 8:28 amI think that the weekend is more likely. But yes, this seems like another case of ministers being hopelessly behind where the curve is going.
Yes, that could happen.shpalman wrote: ↑Wed Jun 30, 2021 8:53 amI'm saying that because there's usually a jump in case numbers mid-week, as a day-of-the-week effect. But the 7-day average (which is less than 18,000 per day right now) won't go above 30,000 for another week or so.Woodchopper wrote: ↑Wed Jun 30, 2021 8:28 amI think that the weekend is more likely. But yes, this seems like another case of ministers being hopelessly behind where the curve is going.
Sure, but don't forget Test & Trace. The UK is a massive tester of its population and we're now picking up a higher % of cases than in the 1st and 2nd waves. We're even getting more asymptomatic cases, via mass testing of every pupil in a year group for example. Gone are the days when the actual cases were 2x to 3x official cases, it's now probably more like 1.5x to 2x.bob sterman wrote: ↑Wed Jun 30, 2021 6:41 amThe trouble with voluntary distancing is it takes two to (do the 2m) tango. Hard to voluntarily distance in public areas from.others who don't want to.
And the trouble with voluntary masks in the community to reduce transmission is that to reduce R we really need people who are infectious to wear them - not people who are worried about being infected.
Awarded gold star 4 November 2021 Yes, indeed. Despite Delta, based upon case numbers R is currently about 1.5. So everything is bringing it down to nearly below 1. That everything will be a consequence of vaccines, and also all the other behaviour designed to reduce transmission.lpm wrote: ↑Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:33 amI don't think it's right to just do maths of R=7=86% and vaccine efficacy=67% and the rest of the sums. It's more like R=7 but Test & Trace cuts that in half to 3.5, and basic voluntary measures and people not behaving normally takes it to 3.0, and outdoor summer life without schools temporarily takes it to 2.5.
that test and trace was still not working properly or contacting people quickly enough, and pointed to the lack of support for people to self-isolate.
And when people know they are infected, they mostly isolate. The virus hits a lot of dead ends. The Trace part in the UK has obviously been a fiasco but there's voluntary tracing - people with a positive test generally inform all their recent contacts personally, leading to others getting tested or even voluntarily isolating. This isn't going to stop on 19 July.
Or ever, but they are particularly bad at the moment. 
Awarded gold star 4 November 2021
Awarded gold star 4 November 2021 In the UK, when people know they are infected - most do not isolate themselves fully for the required period.lpm wrote: ↑Wed Jun 30, 2021 9:33 amAnd when people know they are infected, they mostly isolate. The virus hits a lot of dead ends. The Trace part in the UK has obviously been a fiasco but there's voluntary tracing - people with a positive test generally inform all their recent contacts personally, leading to others getting tested or even voluntarily isolating. This isn't going to stop on 19 July.
Thing is, it now seems like the Govt position on this is that R doesn't need to be <1 because those at risk of serious illness/death are protected.
In previous waves, the UK's Tuesday case numbers were typically the closest or any day to the mean for the week (Mon-Sun) that contained that Tuesday, and there were big drops in recorded cases on Sunday and Monday. In the current wave there seems to be a bit of a dip on Sunday but otherwise it's fairly even. Presumably this represents some change in the patterns of who is getting tested, where and when.Woodchopper wrote: ↑Wed Jun 30, 2021 8:56 amYes, that could happen.shpalman wrote: ↑Wed Jun 30, 2021 8:53 amI'm saying that because there's usually a jump in case numbers mid-week, as a day-of-the-week effect. But the 7-day average (which is less than 18,000 per day right now) won't go above 30,000 for another week or so.Woodchopper wrote: ↑Wed Jun 30, 2021 8:28 am
I think that the weekend is more likely. But yes, this seems like another case of ministers being hopelessly behind where the curve is going.
Awarded gold star 4 November 2021 It's estimated that about 14 million Americans get flu each year (source: this, followed by in-my-head calculation of the total cases for the last 10 years in Table 1). That would scale to 2.8 million Brits. Assume they all get it at an equal rate and that all the cases occur in a 100-day winter season from early December to mid-March, that would be 28,000 per day. But again, that's estimated total cases, whereas today's 26,068 is confirmed cases with a test. I think we can assume that there are at least some people with Covid going "oh crap" and staying in for a few days, without getting tested.
