Genuine Coronavirus question

[Happygogoat]

No hate please, genuinely just interested in views but posting here for traffic as the Coronavirus board has exploded.

Am I over thinking this but... if all these “models” predicted the second wave to have been worse than the first, and prior to the first wave people were going about their normal lives without restriction - surely this demonstrates all the restrictions / masks and curfews etc didn’t/doesn’t work? We're back here anyway.

And even with the “oh it’s because everyone broke it!” argument - surely even with people breaking it.... things HAVEN’T been 100% normal? Certainly in terms of crowded events.

So is this a virus being a virus?

What can we do/when will it end?

YABU

Why not read one of the zillion other threads debating this subject?

They'll never get it under control with schools and universities in. Our numbers sky rocketed when the schools went back

@Brighterthansunflowers

YABU

Why not read one of the zillion other threads debating this subject?

Happy to receive links to suggested, as you point out there are so many it's hard to see the wood from trees.

Also thanks for the YABU - don't think I actually voiced a view, merely questions genuinely struggling with this debate and don't know what to think. Grateful for healthy and respectful commentary/debate.

I agree with Flyonthewall01, numbers only started to rise again when schools, colleges & universities went back, then it went on from there.

I think we'll keep going in circles with lockdowns until there's a vaccine and it becomes effective among the population. I'm despairing at seeing just how bad this second wave is predicted to be.

surely this demonstrates all the restrictions / masks and curfews etc didn’t/doesn’t work? We're back here anyway.

The opposite surely. Within a few weeks of weeks of lockdown inflection rates had plummeted. As soon as things start to open up again it starts to rise, but slowly because masks, curfews. And when schools and unis go back, infection rates go right up.

I'm not claiming to have answers, but blaming schools and unis feels lazy IMO.

Schools went back in Scotland in (early?) August, then in England and Wales in first week of Sept. Unis followed in the last week of Sept I think?

All sorts of other stuff was happening at the same time. Eat out to help out, big changes in weather so v different circumstances for the virus, plus people being inside a lot more. And I'm sure loads of other factors which I could think of if it wasn't so late.

To blame 'schools' is a bloody broad brush for something very complicated! Did Scottish cases start going up from exactly 2 weeks after schools went back?

Just because one or two things happened around a similar time numbers climbed doesn't mean those things are to blame. How do you explain the huge regional variation? Are all the schools and unis in Leicester and Manchester?

A bit more measured thinking wouldn't go amiss

@ArranBound

I agree with Flyonthewall01, numbers only started to rise again when schools, colleges & universities went back, then it went on from there.

I think we'll keep going in circles with lockdowns until there's a vaccine and it becomes effective among the population. I'm despairing at seeing just how bad this second wave is predicted to be.

I guess that's my question. If we're just going in circles with lockdowns (and destroying the economy each and every time? is there a better way to manage this? Is there ANY way to manage this?

And I say this from the angle of feeling helpless rather than as a person suggesting I have any bright ideas!! :(

Well stick it in the CV section then

Lots of us don't want to read the same crap over and over again.

Yes it's a virus being a fucking virus, what else would it be a fucking Donald Trump bot

Without a decent test trace isolate support system we will be stuck here - but this Gov spunked the money giving jobs to their mates rather than something that worked 🤷‍♀️

They aren't trying to stop the virus ffs, they are trying to manage the rate of its spread whilst keeping the NHS running

@NannyGythaOgg

Well stick it in the CV section then

Lots of us don't want to read the same crap over and over again.

Yes it's a virus being a fucking virus, what else would it be a fucking Donald Trump bot

To be frank, there is barely room in there and tbh a lot of that is the "is this allowed?!" questions.

The title of this referenced CV with the hope that anyone uninterested and irritable wouldn't need to click in to trouble themselves with it

I teach at a university and the hygiene measures are incredibly strict. The campus is almost empty because students are taught in bubbles and are in 1 day per week every 3 weeks. They stay in the same room. Its a much cleaner environment than the supermarkets. Study spaces are limited and have to be booked in advance, likewise library spaces.

The students in halls have been subject to some of the most strict rules on quarantine possible. I wonder if the effect is exaggerated because the university is empty.

Some teaching staff don't want to go in, but I feel much safer than going to the supermarket, or the bank, or petrol station, etc..

You are extremely unreasonable for starting this thread here. This is not a question that has not been asked and discussed a zillion times already. NOBODY KNOWS. Now go make your point, whatever point you want to make, on the appropriate board, so that those of us who need to escape the topic for FIVE FUCKING MINUTES can do so. Thank you.

if all these “models” predicted the second wave to have been worse than the first, and prior to the first wave people were going about their normal lives without restriction - surely this demonstrates all the restrictions / masks and curfews etc didn’t/doesn’t work?

No, it doesn't. They do work but they are not 100% effective. No one expected them to be.

The aim was never to eradicate the virus, just slow down the spread so hospitals were not overwhelmed and everyone who needed treatment got it, and protect the most vulnerable from catching it. They reduced the number of transmissions (and therefore the number of deaths) because the fewer people an infectious person comes into contact with, the fewer they can infect. But 40% of the population were still going to work during lockdown.

Possibly, they also reduced the severity of the disease in people who were infected because the initial infective dose is lower if you wear a mask and socially distance. It has also been suggested that masks may act like a vaccine by exposing people to a low dose of the virus, elliciting an immune response but not causing people to develop symptoms.

The second wave is inevitably worse because at the beginning of epidemic in the UK we started with just a few people bringing the virus into the country. Let's say 10. R was approx 3, so they infected 30 people, who infected 90 people. This time around, when we relaxed measures, we started with thousands of infectious people. Let's say 1000 as an illustration, and R is approx 1.3 now. They would have infected 1300, who then infect 1690.

There are only a few ways that the R number of a virus can change.

1. It mutates so it becomes more or less infectious. That hasn't happened, we know that from sequencing the genome.

1. Immunity, either from having had the virus and recovered or a vaccine. If half the population is immune, the infectious person will only be able to infect half as many people as they would if nobody was immune (because half the people they meet will be immune). We don't have a vaccine and only a very small percentage of the population has has immunity from infection. That will reduce R but only by a small amount.

1. "Physically" stopping transmission of the virus ie wearing masks, socially distancing and reducing the number of contacts each infectious person has ie lockdown. Again, if you halve the number of contacts an infectious person has, they will infect half the number of people. That is what brought R down to 1. Now we have relaxed the rules, R is increasing.

I think it's more the seasonal fear that we're coming into winter.

But no I don't think masks really do anything and for the most part people have been doing almost what they were doing before covid anyway.

We've never really stopped going to shops, everywhere is very busy. Workplaces are places where it spreads the most too.

Cases started rising again when pubs opens not schools know your facts then parents passed to kids so it spread in schools

If this is a coronavirus question, then why isn't it in the coronavirus section??

Lockdown did work, the virus reduced, it was when the economy opened up again that it started rising again, which I’d hardly surprising

Add to the mix all the thousands that say they are not going to comply, along with uni students who think they are invincible and we are where we are now

YABU putting this in AIBU. a lot of people are struggling with their mental health, health anxiety & general stress. There is a Covid Topic to allow them to hide the topic, but people like you think your thread is more important & should get more attention,

It's selfish.

Quite apart from the fact that it's ni different to eleventy billion others - why the need anyway?

Do the decent thing, report your OP & ask Mn to please move it to the CV topic.

That aside. You're making NO sense. Try reading the other threads to see if you can get a grip on why we need to lock down.

Happygogoat, I share your concerns and questions. I don’t think lockdown is inevitable now or that it was in the spring. The viewpoints which the government has listened to are not the only viewpoints.

You are probably aware of the website Lockdown Sceptics but if not do look at it. They collect articles and analysis from a wide range of sources. Kings College London do not agree with the figures put forward by Imperial, and nor do many experts from Oxford.

The media love a sensational scare story and have whipped up fear and frenzy, which our government have acted on by imposing restrictions. I find it insane and the fear brings out the worst in some people

The second wave would be worse because we are just heading into winter at the point of rapid growth, unlike in February/March, when we were coming out.

It is interesting to look at the reporting on this. Today’s Independent leads with ‘Boris imposes lockdown - 40 days after ignoring scientists’ warnings’. They don’t mention that other scientists have given (and still hold) different views.

The prediction of how many deaths there would be without lockdown is just that - a prediction.

OP. The point of the lockdown was to bring transmission down not stop it. The first lockdown did this well. Obviously the fewer cases we have the slower the growth (r) will be, this lockdown will hopefully achieve similar reductions in case numbers and a corresponding drop in the r number. Therefore it is working. Modelling is very useful but it is not perfect, the reason the second wave always looked worse is that it is predicated on more and more dispersed cases across the country as a starting position and assumptions that people will congregate closer in winter. It probably doesn't account for modified behaviours well as the is not a lot of data available at the moment. In concept it's a little like a closed loop control system such as cruise control. To balance the system you monitor changes in the output (feedback) and use this to modify the system gain to maintain the output. Without going into detail closed loop control systems work best when you account for the rate of change and averaged system error too ( look at PID controllers if you like you know more). This means that if we only respond to case numbers (x in 100k) the response will be peaky, if we account for growth changes it will be smoother (synonymous with differential) and if we manage to account for behaviour impacts (synonymous with integral) it would be better again. The problems are tuning and also that the public would throw their hands up at restrictions being imposed for what look like minor fluctuations. Simply as people we want to respond to the waves not the ripples. Does that help?

The lockdown did work, but instead of a gradual return to normality it went to eat out to help out, Travel abroad, no testing at airport upon return, care for grandchildren even if you’re vulnerable as we’ve got to get the economy running and people back at work, mask wearing exemptions etc

Am I over thinking this but... if all these “models” predicted the second wave to have been worse than the first, and prior to the first wave people were going about their normal lives without restriction - surely this demonstrates all the restrictions / masks and curfews etc didn’t/doesn’t work? We're back here anyway

Prior to the first wave, the virus was new, had only relatively recently arrived in the UK and therefore the amount of virus circulating in the community was small.

But then it grew and, as is the way of highly transmissable infections, numbers increased geometrically. This was the first wave. The lockdown worked, it reduced the rate of infection, and numbers affected fell.

But it was still present in the community, and it was still being transmitted. When lockdown ended, cases remained low but people continued to become infected, albeit much more slowly, because of the infection control measures taken.

When schools reopened and students went back to university, the pubs and restaurants were back in business, the rate of infection increased because the numbers of people in contact with one another was so much greater than it had been since lockdown and that brought us to where we are now: the second wave.

The only things that would stop new infections are a vaccine and a massive vaccination programme, or letting the virus run its course until everyone (or nearly everyone) has either had it and become immune or died.

A vaccine is still a long way off. Even if we disregarded the ethics of allowing large numbers to become ill, die or face longterm disability, letting it run its course would have massive implications for society's ability to function. How would we cope if essential services (emergency services, energy and water supply, healthcare, food supply and distribution, telecoms) became unable to function because so many staff were ill and unable to work?

Effective testing, tracking and tracing would have made a big difference. Asymptomatic people could be identified and isolated, which would reduce the rate of infection, but we don't have that. That is why everyone will have to reduce the number of people they are in contact with, to reduce the level of infection to one that enables our health system to cope and society to function. And the better compliance is, the quicker that will happen.