To want to tear my hair out when people talk about the ‘R number’ increasing - IT DOESN’T MEAN WHAT YOU THINK IT MEANS!

[GinFling]

I am SO sick of everyone having a hot take on this virus - from friends and colleagues, and especially the media. Article after article about how the R value is increasing, nearly over 1, etc etc, and how this means we are heading for a second wave/disaster/the sky falling in. No, it is more complex and nuanced than that, and in fact it’s harder and harder to have a low R as the virus gets less prevalent. It is also hugely skewed by local outbreaks - such as in care homes and hospitals.

These two articles are quite helpful in understanding it:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/health-52944037
unherd.com/2020/05/what-the-headline-covid-figures-dont-tell-you/

I wish everyone would just STOP using R to pretend to know what they’re talking about. We’re not all statisticians or virologists, for good reason.

Come off the gin and calm down.

Add it to the list of things to blame the Government for. It was their decision to us R at briefings as a way of representing the danger level of the virus.

I'll be honest I'm totally clueless about it all. One thing I really don't get is if the infected is going up why are the Government allowing shops etc to open.
What was the point of Lock down to just end it when we're not even out of the pandemic. I might sound thick but I don't understand. People talk about a second wave, but The first wave hasn't even gone anywhere..

The infection rate isn't going up! It's steadily reducing.

Peak infections were before we even started lockdown.

And they have been reducing ever since.

That's why the school issue is so odd. Back in February and March the virus was far more widespread than it is now, and children were in school.

Though bringing school into this discussion probably isn't a good idea

Regional R numbers are indeed verging on meaningless at the moment. The BBC health correspondent James Gallagher was explaining this very well yesterday. Basically the regions are far too big (mine stretches from Doncaster to tge Scottish border FFS), plus the R number's usefulness deteriorates the more rapidly infections fall & the fewer infections there are. But its become the thing the media loses their shit about now that every other indicator is pointing steadily downwards. "Argh the R number is above 1!!!" stories are good clickbait basically and the British media just lives for scare story clickbait (saying this as a forrin' - the media in this country never fails to have something We're All Going To Die Of).

I refuse to be told I can't have an opinion, however uneducated, about the worst crisis I've experienced in my life so far.

not sure that it is necessarily safe to go and mix around @GinFling - I guess it depends on the underlying data.

The rate of death compared to infections looks pretty high - which is possibly due to under-testing. It could also be due to outbreaks in care homes. But outbreaks in care homes might be at least partly related to community infections. I guess there is not enough data to say.

Given past experience I would say it is better to be more cautious.

I recommend the Numbers And Graphs threads here @GinFling, you might find them helpful.

I refuse to be told I can't have an opinion, however uneducated, about the worst crisis I've experienced in my life so far.

No one is being told they're not allowed an opinion. But given that so much is riding on what we're being told is fact, surely it's best if you inform yourself as much as possible from as wide a range of sources as possible? So that then you're confident your opinion is as well informed as it can be?

If we all just pick sides, dig our trenches and refuse to concede an inch, where will that get us?

I’m in one of the areas where apparently the R number is close to 1 but if I go online and look at how many cases and how many deaths in my area (using postcode) there’s hardly any 🤔, we have only had one death within 5 mile radius of our address, the nearest big town has only had 3 deaths yet people are panicking like crazy about the R number?

As Smel and others have said, I think R0 and Re (Can't subscript easily) mean what I think they mean.

Putting that pompous reply aside, in line with Bikerun's post, it does remind me of the armchair constitutional lawyers and historians and international trade experts who emerged with Brexit. I expect they'll be back this year when push comes to shove.

Is anyone going to explain WTF a "hot take" is?

I remember the briefing where Boris really bigged up the R as one of the most important ways they would be measuring the risk level and deciding how much to ease lock down. There was even a patronising video for the hard of thinking. Then a few weeks later R is meaningless as we are not using it at all.

Really interesting thread, I’ve learnt some bits I didn’t know. Being shielded seeing headlines shouting about the increased r rate makes me feel like I’ll never get out of this house so I feel quite reassured learning what I have.

The important number as reported by the Government is the number of people believed to have the virus.

1 in 400 two weeks ago
1 in 1000 a week ago
1 in 1700 now.

Unless we are being told utter crap (quite possible) that is very relevant.

For certain Boris Johnson won’t understand the R number.

All he will be concerned about is what ‘spin’ he can put on any statistic.

Why is OP getting so much agro?
It's a valid point. Thank you for the article OP.

There are two potential additional risks to the shielded community, either or both might apply to each of the conditions:

a) being more likely to catch the disease, even from slight exposure,
b) becoming considerably more ill if they have the symptomatic disease. This includes substantially higher risk of death, but also those who do not die may well require longer hospitalisation, greater intervention and substantial rehabilitation.

Some of the assessments are 'best guess' because the numbers of people with each co-morbidity who are also known to have had COVID can be very small, so extrapolations are made from how they get on with diseases from other similar viruses. And of course as SARS-CoV-2 is so new and not yet fully understood, the models have their limitations, so policy tends to be conservative - the last thing the government wants is COVID hitting the shielded community . Not just concern for the vulnerable, but also the pragmatic point that >2m people succumbing in 1st peak would in themselves overwhelm NHS capacity.

@HesterShaw1

And they have been reducing ever since.

That's why the school issue is so odd. Back in February and March the virus was far more widespread than it is now, and children were in school.

Though bringing school into this discussion probably isn't a good idea

Exactly this!

‘
It makes a change from everyone knowing all about education because they went to school and they've bred!’

Charming. And teachers wonder why they get a hard time on MN when some idiot with a huge chip on their shoulder drops something like this in to a thread which has nothing to do with education ?

I have just Googled "What is a hot take?"

Apparently it is 'a "piece of deliberately provocative commentary that is based almost entirely on shallow moralizing" in response to a news story, "usually written on tight deadlines with little research or reporting, and even less thought"'

I totally agree with you OP this ‘R’ crap is utter nonsense. Any town with a hospital will have a higher R than places without one.

Why is OP getting so much agro?

1. Because you aren’t allowed to question ‘science’ unless you have PHD in the field

1. Because if everyone stops believing the fear about the R some are terrified that they will stop complying.

To be fair, i dont watch many briefings but i did watch the one when i thought schools might go back. It was Boris with a nando's chart and a fuel gauge and he talked at lenghth about how the r had to stay below 1 - like on and on.
So the message i took from that was the government felt the r had to stay below 1.