The reality is.

[UserNeedsGin]

...Coronavirus cases across England appear to be levelling off, despite flare-ups in local hotspots, according to estimates from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).

An estimated 1 in 1,900, or 28,300 people in England currently have the virus.

This is from BBC News. Chances of you meeting someone with covid is slim. Some people just seem to think it is everywhere. The constant covid news deluge needs to stop, so people can move on and not fret about something they are unlikely to get.

But hospitalisation for any respiratory illness, be that flu or covid, are always lower in the summer months.

True. But they aren't just lower, they are practically non-existent. 3 people in the whole of August so far in the whole of Scotland.

Compared with the start of May, when hospital admissions were running at around 40 PER DAY.

It is weird that covid has dropped off so quickly and more people are dying of flu now. Even allowing for summer, surely you would still expect more covid deaths than flu given we are all meant to be susceptible to it

It's great that cases are currently low
But we want both cases and hospitalisation to stay low
So it's not a reason to think we can slack off, or do a lot more than we currently do, because then we go backwards, and end up with more restrictions

Well yes, obviously? Saying “I’m glad cases are so low now” does not mean you’re off to lick door handles at the hospital on your way to a rave because you think the virus has gone away now!

But life is scary, pretending it's all lovely won't change the reality of the fact that nothing is certain, everything changes and bad shit happens.

But nobody’s saying that!

Would you reply to someone saying “lovely sunny day today” with a lecture about how much it’s going to rain in the autumn and how bad it is to ignore storm damage? You wouldn’t, would you?

Also, the 3 people is the ones we know about. I agree that there has been an ebb, but there is a (currently relatively small) reservoir of people with this in the community (so squish lots of kids in together and we have a very good scenario for a resurgence of infection).

I note that a re occurrence of 6 cases in Wuhan prompted testing to be rolled out for 11 million people.

Whereas we are blase about infection in the community of 28,300, and probably another 50 k or so undetected (as far as I can understand).

It isn't clear why, when we have infections running at up to 1,300 a day (the ones we know about)we have declining deaths and ICU admissions.

Lets hope the decline in morbidity and mortality continues and we don't suddenly find in winter that we have infected a load of extremely clinically vulnerable people who get really, really ill.

How are people saying its levelling off, when clearly daily cases have been rising over the last 3 or 4 weeks, we were 400 odd cases a day and today 1400 cases. That's not levelling off at all.

@Jrobhatch29 I work in London and around 20 people had it and they paid for antibody tests and had it

[quote SodomyNonSapiens]@Silvercatowner Fri 14-Aug-20 17:17:35

Yes @IAinentDead I am aware Coronavirus is a virus not flu. That's why I said 'virus' not 'flu'.

But what you said applies to new flu strains - not Coronavirus ones[/quote]
Sorry I don't agree.

The poster said that what's happened with the 1918 pandemic was .....

That tends to happen with flus.

So that could be what is happening with covid.

It could be despite it being a coronavirus and not a flu. It may not be.

But we don't actually have evidence either way so cannot say posters are right or wrong.

But it's a valid hypothesis as there's some data that points to it being a possibility.

@GoldenOmber

But life is scary, pretending it's all lovely won't change the reality of the fact that nothing is certain, everything changes and bad shit happens.

But nobody’s saying that!

Would you reply to someone saying “lovely sunny day today” with a lecture about how much it’s going to rain in the autumn and how bad it is to ignore storm damage? You wouldn’t, would you?

Actually there's been a lot of chat about how the love,y summer has caused such dry land it's been why flash floods have occurred with the storms.

These conversations do happen.

Maybe not everyday. But certainly within the fields responsible for monitoring and reporting.

Therefore those in the field responsible for monitoring and reporting are right to say 'yes, cases across large swathes if the uk are low. But if we don't continue x y and z which seem over reaction when the epidemic is low in places, then we will see at rise'

This is all or nothing.

It's all to keep covid as nothing.

Hospital numbers

@Orchidsindoors

How are people saying its levelling off, when clearly daily cases have been rising over the last 3 or 4 weeks, we were 400 odd cases a day and today 1400 cases. That's not levelling off at all.

Have cases actually been rising or are we just finding more of them? We have increased testing massively.

ONS survey suggests that cases are levelling. ZOE survey suggests that cases are decreasing.

The raw numbers dont really tell you much, you have to look at other factors at the same time I.e. number of tests, location of tests, proportion of positive tests, response to tests, hospitalizations, death rates, etc.

Therefore those in the field responsible for monitoring and reporting are right to say 'yes, cases across large swathes if the uk are low. But if we don't continue x y and z which seem over reaction when the epidemic is low in places, then we will see at rise'

Yes, and they absolutely can and should, but they are not obliged to pole-vault into threads on Mumsnet to go "BUT IT'S AWFUL ACTUALLY STOP THINKING LIFE IS LOVELY ROSES AND FUN YOU NAIVE FOOLS."

Just like meteorologists can probably cope with hearing "lovely weather we're having" without replying with a lecture about flooding.

I'm so confused about what to think

Should we go about life at normal going to loads of different places??

Half the things we go like the free council events for children aren't on.

I'm scared and worried about it all from what I hear and depressed from everything being different and find it hard to cope with.

I am by nature an optimist and down-player and I still don't fully understand what made governments around the world decide on very stringent measures (which in themselves are causing health, social, economical and mental health harm - and have/will cost lives) for this particular bug.

Having said that, as a frontline HCP the run up to March, living through April has been frightening, exhausting and upsetting.

I think a measured approach is right: it's great that the numbers are down and feeling a sense a sense of relief is quite deserved.
But, and it's a big but, if we go back to our 'old normal', the numbers can flare just as quickly again.

So its important to not get demob happy and start 'licking hospital door knobs on the way to a rave' (I loved that comment!) while also not running around hysterical or depressed.

One day at a time. Good hand washing, wear masks in crowded areas, social distancing where possible, reduced travelling.

It will all be well in the end. But it might take a while.

@GoldenOmber

Therefore those in the field responsible for monitoring and reporting are right to say 'yes, cases across large swathes if the uk are low. But if we don't continue x y and z which seem over reaction when the epidemic is low in places, then we will see at rise'

Yes, and they absolutely can and should, but they are not obliged to pole-vault into threads on Mumsnet to go "BUT IT'S AWFUL ACTUALLY STOP THINKING LIFE IS LOVELY ROSES AND FUN YOU NAIVE FOOLS."

Just like meteorologists can probably cope with hearing "lovely weather we're having" without replying with a lecture about flooding.

Fair enough.

And I'm certainly in the careful but live my life camp!

We've done water parks and theme parks and zoos this summer.

I've just been extra aware of what the risks could be.

They certainly haven't stopped me enjoying myself!

I'm interested in the "virus in sewage" thing. From my limited knowledge, wouldn't it only take fragments of the virus to be present to be PCR positive so it could be bits of other coronaviruses? In the same way they are now saying the same for some throat & nose swabs? That they pick up fragments of (non infective) virus, possibly not even the virus.

Have cases actually been rising or are we just finding more of them? We have increased testing massively.

ONS survey suggests that cases are levelling. ZOE survey suggests that cases are decreasing.

Does anyone have any factual and reliable information to answer this?

Its not that we are having more cases than before we are just finding and registering more cases, those mild and asymptomatic cases we are registering now where always in society beforehand we just didn't have the capacity to acknowledge and register them previously

I'm really struggling with the numbers: everybody seems to be counting something else, here and world wide, criteria get changed , typical symptoms but no test and not mentioned on death certificate won't show up anywhere, Covid positive person run over by a bus will get counted.... etc etc.

Lies, damn lies and statistics.

IMO the only halfway interesting number is deaths (can't argue with that) per 100000 of population.

1 million extra tests were conducted in July compared to June. This would explain increased positives

There was a thread someone had resurrected a couple of weeks back that someone had started in November talking about this strange virus they had, Covid symptoms including the loss of smell and taste . Certainly makes you wonder .

I think the difficulty in listening to all the stats is that what we heard in March was stats of people dying in hospital of Covid , so deaths of people who probably contracted it a few weeks previous. And without testing we have no idea of the numbers of people who actually had it. At that point we were all still going into work , shopping, using public transport , hugging friends , no masks etc . News now reports on hotspots and increases but given we had no baseline of infections we were living with in March i can see why people aren't making the connection as to how little community infection there now is in most places .

@Mustbetimeforachange

I'm interested in the "virus in sewage" thing. From my limited knowledge, wouldn't it only take fragments of the virus to be present to be PCR positive so it could be bits of other coronaviruses? In the same way they are now saying the same for some throat & nose swabs? That they pick up fragments of (non infective) virus, possibly not even the virus.

From what I've read they were looking for 3 specific genes. They only found 1 in that sample, so I guess it would depend on how common that particular gene is in corona viruses. It is one of the possible explanations they were looking at though.

“1 in 10 to 20 had it around march and april time”

No. Just yesterday they said 3-6% have had it. Overall.

That’s 1 in 20 to 33 through 2020 so far.

I agree with three points that it’s less common now than the beginning though. Just a pedant for stats

I don’t totally understand the sewage thing. But I have read they have been finding the virus present in poo. So they’d been using the sewage to determine where the next outbreak would be.

Then then started sampling old sewage samples and found the virus to be present as far back as March 2019. This was in Spain.