Do you think we will see worse numbers than April?

[hettyhooverdoover]

I remember early April, deaths from Covid peaked to nearly 1k a day for a couple weeks. Is it going to get as bad again do you think? There wasn't much testing then but I wonder how many cases they had before the peak...:-(

Not sure R works quite like that

Complete isolation of everyone would take the R to zero no matter what the virus natural R is,
So even if this R is ( currently ? Natively ? ) 0.4 more than the first R , that gap will close as both Rs approach zero

@whenwillthemadnessend
The problem is that over 80's are around 3.5 million.
Unfortunately nobody is fully vaccinated yet, not even those half a million you mention. You need two doses of the vaccine and some days after the second dose you develop the full immunity (or nearly full)

I dont know if the army would be better rolling it out really. They are stretched. All those services do the flu vaccination and the standard vaccination programne very well.

The Army would be great at implementing the plan, such as transporting vaccine in correct cold conditions, setting up pop up vaccination centres, and doing some of the staffing of jabs themselves.

They would not be particularly good at dealing with NHS patient records and working out the prioritised local lists for jabs, nor sorting out where they can be done using existing NHS facilities/staff and wherebaugmentation is needed.

There are still a lot of people in the military (not just the Army) and Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without something coming up. This year it's likely to be flood response as well as pandemic logistic plans

Unfortunately nobody is fully vaccinated yet, not even those half a million you mention.

Well no, you're right, none are fully immunised but the first does may provide enough protection within the weeks that follow to provide high levels of protection of illness and death.

www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-comments-made-by-tony-blair-suggesting-we-should-consider-using-all-available-vaccine-doses-in-january-as-first-doses-rather-than-keeping-some-back-for-use-as-second-doses/

And while there is lots of discussion around it - I'm not convinced they will change current vaccine plans based on this, I do think there is reason to be hopeful the first vaccine alone will have a mitigating effect.

I have posted this on another thread but the hospital admissions are the same as at peak.
I know it depends on location somewhat but at what point is it a major concern?

Very possible. Especially with the new strain. In my immediate area we've gone from having a record high of about 40 cases per week in early December to 160 in the past week. That's with us being tier 3 then 4, and the majority of people wearing masks in shops.

Yes i think death rates will soar over coming weeks. For many many reasons, mainly because we have so many who are floating the rules, whereas back in March this wasn't really a problem.

I also don't think enough people have been sensible with how they have chosen to mix on Christmas day . So many pics on my social media friends with elderly relatives round, many with clearly more than 3 households.

Yes obviously but we have to start somewhere and it's only been a few weeks.

Let's face it you would have to live under a rock to believe schools are safe.
When schools first Returned I didn't want them to go back then I realised what it did for people's mental health and I was so relieved for them being back but now with Christmas I think a few extra weeks off are needed . In Ireland cases are shooting up again, and that's without Christmas meet ups. Schools won't close here though, our education minister says nobody wants it.

It doesn't bare thinking about does it...I've been looking at the USA and their figures after thanksgiving were truly awful.

@coffeeandteav

I have posted this on another thread but the hospital admissions are the same as at peak. I know it depends on location somewhat but at what point is it a major concern?

Oh my goodness. That is very worrying

@Remmy123

I they won't as have far greater knowledge how to treat covid

There is greater knowledge which should prevent a lot of deaths, especially at current rates. But as infection rates climb and we run out of staff and beds then more people will die, not because we don’t know how to treat them but because we can’t treat them. They won’t get CPAP, etc.

Yes

I saw an interview with someone who works for PHE or whatever it's called now, who said it's estimated 1 in 85 people have Covid and the new peak is expected on 20th January thanks to all the restriction flouting, and that that peak will make last spring look like a party.
Hoping he's wrong.

No. Because we are now much better at treating it. And the vaccination programme has started.

(I mean numbers of deaths)

We are much better at treating it but there is a capacity problem if enough people get sick (no use knowing people need CPAP and dexamethasone if you've no hospital beds left. The vaccination programme will really help when everyone over 60 is done, but we are nowhere near that yet.

More than half a million people have been vaccinated by now. The 616, 933 figure was up to 20 December. My friend was vaccinating people up to 6.30pm on Christmas Eve.

More than half a million people have had their first vaccination. They'll need a second one plus 7 days before they are safe. I'm not dissing the vaccine rollout, I think it's been amazing but it cant produce an instant improvement. We just need to keep a lid on things for 3 more months.

Its half a million in total. That includes elderly and health care workers.

@WouldBeGood I don’t have a ‘methodology’. It’s just basic maths. With exponential growth, the numbers go up frighteningly quickly.

Unless something happens to shorten the doubling time, that’s where we are heading. That’s scary but not scaremongering.

I think the Oxford vaccine would be a game changer more of it ordered and much easier to move about
With regard to the army look how quickly they cleared Dover once they got going
The younger the people being vaccinated the easier it could become Large vaccination centres running 24/7 sleaves up amazing the speed they could go if needed

I think worse - mainly cos more people followed the rules at the start - now so many people do what they want...

I think things will definitely get a little worse before we start to see an improvement.

The SE is 7 weeks into it's surge of numbers with the new variant. Yes, hospital admissions are back to April levels, but those taking up ventilator beds are well down.

14 April - hospital admissions = 21,276 - in ventilator beds = 3,324
22 Dec - hospital admission = 21,286 - in ventilator beds = 1,529

The new variant caught us on the hop - SE was blamed for flagrant rule breaking before it turned out there was a new variant that spread much more easily. With that knowledge, the unavoidable lockdown, new therapies, and vaccines coming on board, all will help.