Return to exponential growth means that cases will be at March levels of 100,000 a day by October

[Peony9876]

Is anyone else concerned that covid cases are now doubling every 7 to 8 days?
www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-infections-england-cases-rise-covid-b421934.html

By returning to exponential growth we will be back where we were in March by mid October. In March it was estimated that cases were vastly underreported with estimates that there were around 100,000 a day.

If we apply the current rate of transmission to the current case numbers we have
11th sept 3539 cases a day
18th sept 7078 cases a day
25th sept 14156 cases a day
2nd oct 28312 cases a day
9th oct 56624 cases a day
9th oct 113248 cases a day
16th oct 226496 cases a day
23rd oct 452992 cases a day

Surely this will mean the nhs getting overwhelmed again and being back in lockdown by October?

This is an interesting read on exponential growth bias and why most people vastly underestimate the spread.
www.bbc.com/future/article/20200812-exponential-growth-bias-the-numerical-error-behind-covid-19

@GetOffYourHighHorse

It will have just been in a random article.

Two things - most cases are not in rural.communities and Glasgow is definitely not a village.

Also knocking in villages would be harder actually, due to staff time involved. Rural services harder to deliver usually.

Wales Scotland and NI went with traditional council public health teams, and are getting good contacts. England went with the serco etc. new centralised contract and are getting much worse results.

All the Scottish stats should be published now, I remember reading they were getting some flak for being slow to publish.

We cannot have a situation for much longer where everyone is asked to put their lives on hold, other conditions are not detected and treated, the economy is destroyed and mental health problems go through the roof, for a virus that poses no or very little threat to most people.

We will not be able to detect and treat other conditions if large numbers of covid patients fill up hospitals and healthcare settings. Just because covid is mild for many people won't stop that happening if cases keep rising - a small percentage of a huge number will still be too many for hospitals to cope with.

Also, widespread covid infections will make going into hospital too dangerous for some people with other conditions, regardless of whether there are beds for them.

There is no option right now where we can decide to ignore covid spreading, reduce infection-control measures, and still have good general healthcare. Good general healthcare depends on controlling covid infection rates and keeping them low.

I'll reinforce that. You can not have good health care if your doctors and nurses are sick or just worn out from all the deaths they are seeing and the hours they have to work in full PPE, it's draining.

We all know now what to do - wear masks, avoid people if you can, especially avoid infecting the elderly. Wash your hands often and sanitise them when you cant. If you really cant wear a mask where a face shield. Demand your school allows, even encourages children who can to wear masks.

In winter (October to March) take a supplement of vitamin D. This may reduce your chance of serious illness and possibly even of dying from Covid. It will certainly help with other respiratory problems.

@eeeyoresmiles

But there is just no evidence that the rise in cases is leading to hospitals being overwhelmed nationally. Of course there will always be specific areas where there are challenges, but hospitals have not been overwhelmed at any stage and I wousjnr expect it to happen now when the cases are among young people.

Remember there are also lots of Nightingale hospitals that cost hundreds of millions and have not needed to treat a single patient.

Remember there are also lots of Nightingale hospitals that cost hundreds of millions and have not needed to treat a single patient.

The nightingale hospitals on their own are useless if there are not enough healthy, qualified and trained HCPs to staff them.

[quote Ecosse]@eeeyoresmiles

But there is just no evidence that the rise in cases is leading to hospitals being overwhelmed nationally. Of course there will always be specific areas where there are challenges, but hospitals have not been overwhelmed at any stage and I wousjnr expect it to happen now when the cases are among young people.

Remember there are also lots of Nightingale hospitals that cost hundreds of millions and have not needed to treat a single patient.[/quote]
Hospitalisation rates are already going up in the north west and cases will not stay amongst just young people - we are dangerously kidding ourselves if we assume that will happen. It would be fantastic if he did but why would that happen? Middle-aged people haven't magically become immune over the summer.

If cases keep doubling every 7/8 days, then that means that 7/8 days before a theoretical day X when capacity is exceeded in local healthcare, things could still look pretty much OK, with space available in hospitals, but by that point everyone destined to end up in hospital on day X will already have been infected and it will be too late to stop them becoming iller.

We have to look at the trajectory, not just where we are right now.

There are reports today of hospitalisation increasing.

'There are reports today of hospitalisation increasing.'

Yes and soon the deaths will sadly start. Yet still people harp on about civil liberties as if only meeting 6 people is a shocking restriction.

I just hope they stick with this now and don't make any more changes. It would be lovely to relax a bit at Christmas but that will herald the retuen of hundreds of thousands of students, and families travelling across the country and abroad - I think there will be another spike then.

@alreadytaken

I'll reinforce that. You can not have good health care if your doctors and nurses are sick or just worn out from all the deaths they are seeing and the hours they have to work in full PPE, it's draining.

We all know now what to do - wear masks, avoid people if you can, especially avoid infecting the elderly. Wash your hands often and sanitise them when you cant. If you really cant wear a mask where a face shield. Demand your school allows, even encourages children who can to wear masks.

In winter (October to March) take a supplement of vitamin D. This may reduce your chance of serious illness and possibly even of dying from Covid. It will certainly help with other respiratory problems.

Well said. I'm f&@king sick of how some people are behaving.

Ecosse Northfield Park had to declare a critical incident. That means ambulances go elsewhere because the hospital has no capacity. It was the first hospital to do so but others were only a day or two away if lockdown had not happened. The NHS was on the point of being overrun and the only reason it was not is that sensible people were taking action before lockdown.

Sensible people will vote with their feet again as cases rise. If you wish to avoid the economy being trashed act sensibly and dont spread the virus. If you wish the NHS to be able to treat patients act sensibly and dont spread the virus.

But if you want a trashed economy go on preaching stupidity.

I’d love to be sensible and prevent the spread but I have to work in classrooms across all bubbles.Doors and windows open and lots of hand washing but that’s it! Come winter we’ll have to close doors.

This is an old thread, but I thought i's bump it today, when new cases bust through 20k (having hovered just under it for a few days already)

The predictions in the opening post really weren't far wrong

And that's only the cases where people are actually being tested... Work colleague's wife got a positive yesterday, he's said he's lost his sense of smell today.
Doesn't see the point in getting tested as they're already isolating, which in a way I can understand as it's not going to change what they are already doing.

Ah, but 20k actually is an underestimate (testing isn't very good). SAGE have been saying that the actual community daily incidence is more like 50k (community studies have been giving estimates ranging from 22k to 74k and rising).

@AllPowerfulLizardPerson

This is an old thread, but I thought i's bump it today, when new cases bust through 20k (having hovered just under it for a few days already)

The predictions in the opening post really weren't far wrong

Is that a joke? The opening post says we could be on 452992 cases by 23rd October! We aren’t doing great that’s for sure but I’m pretty certain we’re nowhere near that!!

@AllPowerfulLizardPerson

This is an old thread, but I thought i's bump it today, when new cases bust through 20k (having hovered just under it for a few days already)

The predictions in the opening post really weren't far wrong

Have you must-read the OP, that's not what it says at all 20000 isn't even 10% of the figure quoted for 16 October unless I'm getting it totally wrong

Remember there are also lots of Nightingale hospitals that cost hundreds of millions and have not needed to treat a single patient

They were very much needed BUT the UK hasn't the trained staff to run them.
Hospitals in areas of low CV are usually fully to capacity in the winter (a few years ago nhs stopped all elective surgery for 3 months) so, no chance of moving nhs staff around... before you suggest that again!

I think you are right in that the death rate is likely to be lower this time around due to better treatments and possibly more shielding of the most vulnerable.
Interestingly, and worryingly, Birmingham has the 65th highest infection rate and the 6th highest death rate.

The OP was trying to extrapolate figures if there was exponential growth, they put 9th October in twice.

The figures aren't quite as alarming as that at the moment, thank goodness.

However, the studies looking at community prevalence do estimate big rises in figures, around 50k and rising.

So we could hit much higher numbers within the next month and, with older people getting infected, there are likely to be higher figures for deaths as well.

It doesn't look as though covid will fade away benignly as some people hoped.

@Youandmeareluckytobeus

I think you are right in that the death rate is likely to be lower this time around due to better treatments and possibly more shielding of the most vulnerable. Interestingly, and worryingly, Birmingham has the 65th highest infection rate and the 6th highest death rate.

What shielding?

Increasingly it feels like the track and trace numbers cannot be trusted to provide accurate figures or reflect the trends across age groups. Universities were mass testing a few weeks ago causing spikes as asymptomatic cases got picked up but outbreaks in many workplaces do not lead to increased testing on the whole, like they would have done in July and August.

The ons and react studies although a week out of date are probably the best measure of community infection trends at the moment and this will be more true if infections rates continue to increase.

It does seem like the doubling rate is more like 10 to 14 days than 7. Tier 3 restrictions might make this 14 to 21 days but I'm a bit dubious it will get the r rate under control.

SAGE has said Covid is spreading faster than worst-case scenario:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-54750775

"Scientists crunching the numbers estimated that, by mid-October, there were between 43,000 and 74,000 people being infected with coronavirus every day in England.
"Their report said: "This is significantly above the profile of the reasonable worst-case scenario, where the number of daily infections in England remained between 12,000-13,000 throughout October.""