1 in 1700 has the virus

[Wowthisisreal]

How do you feel about this figure?

For me it makes a lot of my fears and concerns be about the virus feel redundant (I'm quite chill but also cautious).

It also makes me feel like some people's reactions are now OTT.

Surely this is now a similar figure to people to have a cold? Or chicken pox? Or cold sores? (I have no idea but just an observation)

It kind of makes the fact it's still illegal to go in someone else's house a bit mind boggling as well.

The Zoe app and the ONS figures are different. Depends which you want to look at.
Infection rate is low but we absolutely must keep up social distancing to keep it low

And no it’s 1/1,700 up to June 7, so after lockdown was eased
www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/coronaviruscovid19infectionsurveypilot/12june2020

@sourcreamandchives 90 million we dont have a population that big

@sourcreamnchives also probably more have had it as testing was limited at the beginning plus some show no symptoms

It does reassure me a bit but I am conscious of the fact that 1 in 1700 does not mean the first 1699 people I meet will be ok and I just need to avoid the last one it could be anyone of them.
I am clinically vulnerable so, although I don't need to shield, the consequences could be worse if I caught it so I will continue to be careful

I have decided that I’m just not going to worry about it any more!! Of course I’m still washing my hands a lot, I’m going shopping early in the morning to avoid people, I’m still walking and bike ridding most days.

But have been seeing family and friends in my garden.

I’m back to work next , so now have my masks ready!!

"It also makes me feel like some people's reactions are now OTT."
Why - because their reactions are different to yours?

"Surely this is now a similar figure to people to have a cold? Or chicken pox? Or cold sores? (I have no idea but just an observation)"
Bit of a meaningless observation if you have no idea if the stats for those other infections. If you're going to make a statement you should at least base it on some facts.

@noteverythingisblackandwhite

That's why I posed it as a question.

The chances of any individual having it is low but the problem is the exponential growth. Someone somewhere is that 1 in 1700 and it could start to spread again. Hopefully numbers will come down even further and they get the test and trace up to scratch.

@fivebrokentests of course I get that. But in theory that one person will be isolating and at the moment with the R rate below one will be infecting 1 person in theory only etc etc.

To reiterate I am cautious myself and I'm not going anywhere really apart from gardens like we are allowed etc. I wash my hands regularly. I just felt that figure was quite promising.

I believe the 1 in 1700 figure comes from an ONS study which involved obtaining swab tests from a relatively small sample of people, but a sample selected to be representative of the UK population. So first point is that it's v important that the sample really was representative. Assuming it was, my next thought is that I recall hearing on the Radio 4 programme More or Less that swab tests only pick up 70% of positive cases, so actual figure may well be worse than 1 in 1700. The Zoe app data tells me that my area has a higher than average rate of Covid infections. So if my daughter's school were to start back as normal tomorrow with 1500 pupils plus staff, the odds are that someone in school will have the virus, and given the rate the virus spreads, it will pretty soon be more than one person who has it. I also know that a local primary school didn't open on its government-appointed day of 1 June because they had two confirmed Covid-19 cases among their pupils (separate households). I can also see an obvious potential for a recent outbreak to ripple out to where I live if containment measures aren't effective.

So right now I do think we are headed in the right direction, but am v concerned the government is going to squander the progress made by relaxing too many measures too quickly. I also think the economy v lowering infection rates debate is a false choice because lots of people (including me) are not going go out to busy places unless infection rates fall.

A cold won't kill 3.4% of people who get one though.

We are 1 in 1,000,000 in Ireland now and still opening up in stages, maintaining social distancing etc. Had a much more severe lockdown but it's worth it now.

Thanks @lilypond2 those were some really interesting points!

Back in March or perhaps February, there was just 1 in 66m infections.

I’m not sure that is correct, is it not the case that there were over 1000 separate instances of the virus being brought into the U.K. so all starting outbreaks rather than 1 patient zero?

A cold won't kill 3.4% of people who get one though.

Is the death rate for Covid not less than 1%?

Since when was the fatality rate 3.4%?!

And presumably decreasing over time as treatments are found, not just drugs, but protocols for oxygen, CPAP, monitoring or whatever else.

what worries me isn’t the current numbers. It’s the potential for exponential growth if too much of lockdown is released too early
I agree. Don't forget it is only at this rate because lockdown has supressed it. It can very easily spread quickly again if people stop taking it seriously.

My dp works in retail, when full lockdown was in place neither if us had a cold or aby illness. Now its relaxed a bit both caught a cold. So I suspect the dirty bastards are back out in force.

Per WHO, Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died

Mortality rate in Ireland so far is 1,717 deaths out of 25,383 cases so 6.7%. Nearly 1,000 still infected so that will probably rise.

The reality though is so random.

I caught Covid and I hadn't been outside for other health reasons but I caught it from a friend.
It was just before lockdown so I am not reassured by what the Govt say or their statistics,
It must have been so random that my friend caught the virus standing in a queue at a chemist in a small town.
we thought we would be safe living away from big cities.

@Thisdressneedspockets

This was in the ons report for 7th June. Why is it only now being made more public?

It hasn't only just been made public - the figure has been quoted often in the media since it was published!

To be frank I think it is now time to start opening up and getting the economy moving again. I'm a director of a large company- we've been trying everything possible to avoid redundancies so far including managers taking 70% pay cuts, stopping all recruitment and closing offices.

We have held out as long as possible in the hope that business would pick up, but we are now putting the business at risk if we don't take action. So we are going to have to discuss a major cost reduction plan at board level tomorrow and that is likely to result in a third of the workforce being made redundant.

It is the last thing any of us wanted to do and we had ambitious expansion plans pre-Covid, but I worry that the cure is now becoming worse than the virus- particularly for young people. I'm also going to have to tell the 20 graduates we had due to start in September that we no longer have jobs for them.

Our youngsters have suffered enough and it is time their futures were prioritised and we start opening up faster.

If you genuinely believe every case, worldwide, has been tested and accounted for that might be a sensible statistic.

Allowing for asymptomatic cases, mild cases, untested cases, the fact that worldwide testing and data gathering is going to be pretty patchy and that healthcare in the UK is very different to the likes of Brazil or Yemen I’m going to say that’s an utterly meaningless and verging on scaremongering statistic, especially in a thread about the number of infected people in the UK.

@YoungsterIwish

Per WHO, Globally, about 3.4% of reported COVID-19 cases have died

Mortality rate in Ireland so far is 1,717 deaths out of 25,383 cases so 6.7%. Nearly 1,000 still infected so that will probably rise.

That's CFR - case fatality rate - % of deaths in known cases. Which is not the same as % of deaths amongst those who catch it of course, as many cases go undetected.

The IFR - % of deaths amongst those infected - is thought by the CEBM (and others) to be around 0.4%. And that varies very widely by age - over 80, it's about 15%. Under 40, it will be much smaller than that.

I think if you live in a town with that number of people as the population, happy days. You have one spreader.

If you live in a London Borough where the population is the same as the entirety of Newcastle, 1 in 1700 is actually an awful lot.