How quickly would it spread

[[AUTO]a41crkjo6gcxr]

Say there was no social distancing or masks abd everywhere was open.

Say you took one positive case and they went round crowded bars and clubs over Christmas, how quickly would it spread? How many would get sick? How many would die? Given all the people in those places then went back home and to work with zero distancing or precautions

Very fast.

Soon find out. Thats exactly what happened on the Isle of Man.

Very few cases so far despite lots of testing.

Running wild from 23rd of December to about 48 hours ago when lockdown and social distancing started

This happened in Brisbane in Australia. A cleaner caught the new UK strain from someone in hotel quarantine. She walked around unaware for at least 5 days.
79 close contacts so far. Our city has just been put on lockdown for 3 days to try and find all contacts and stop
movement. We don't mess about here.

The older strains of the virus are estimated to have an R number of 3 with no restrictions. The new UK variant is estimated to increase the R number by 0.5-0.7 if I remember correctly. So each person would on average pass the virus on to 3.5 - 3.7 people.

The average time from contact to becoming infectious / getting symptoms is about 5-6 days.

So I reckon infections would quadruple each week or so.

If you assume (for ease of maths) that each infected person can infect 2 others. (Natural infection for Covid is actually higher)

Day 1 - 1
Day 2 - 2
Day 3 - 4
Day 4 - 8
Day 5 - 16
Day 6 - 32
Day 7 - 64
Day 8 - 128
Day 9 - 256
Day 10 - 512
Keep going
By the time you get to 20 - you are at 1,000000

That is exponential growth. It happens really fast.

Remember back in Spring when they thought one man travelling in from China was a super spreader- and look how far that has gone, despite lockdowns and tiers etc.

And yet 17 days after he started being g out and about there are hardly any cases - like single figures despite extensive testing of people in the same places.

The guy tested positive with symptoms on NYE and had been in a club with no distancing and 1000 other people on Boxing Day.

People aren't sick

But the point is that the 1st person doesn't need to infect lots of other people for it to spread. They only need to infect 2 others. And then each of those 2 others and so on for it to become a problem.

[quote [AUTO]a41crkjo6gcxr]And yet 17 days after he started being g out and about there are hardly any cases - like single figures despite extensive testing of people in the same places.

The guy tested positive with symptoms on NYE and had been in a club with no distancing and 1000 other people on Boxing Day.

People aren't sick[/quote]
Oh well that proves it's all a conspiracy then doesn't it. Just a way of getting us all 5g chips inserted so Bill Gstes can track us.

[quote [AUTO]a41crkjo6gcxr]And yet 17 days after he started being g out and about there are hardly any cases - like single figures despite extensive testing of people in the same places.

The guy tested positive with symptoms on NYE and had been in a club with no distancing and 1000 other people on Boxing Day.

People aren't sick[/quote]
Presumably that's because they're testing and isolating all possible contacts?

Or maybe he wasn't contagious when he was partying on Boxing Day.

@titchy simply stating facts and saying this is an interesting situation to observe how it develops.

[quote [AUTO]a41crkjo6gcxr]And yet 17 days after he started being g out and about there are hardly any cases - like single figures despite extensive testing of people in the same places.

The guy tested positive with symptoms on NYE and had been in a club with no distancing and 1000 other people on Boxing Day.

People aren't sick[/quote]
That’s five days in between. He might well not have been contagious on Boxing Day. In fact, if his symptoms started on NYE, I wouldn’t have expected him to be.

It wouldn't double every day though MrsFrisby because it takes 5-6 days to become infectious. Using my (very possibly incorrect) estimate of quadrupling every week:

Week 1 - 1
Week 2 - 4
Week 3 - 16
Week 4 - 64
Week 5 - 256
Week 6 - 1024
Week 7 - 4096
Week 8 - 16,384
Week 9 - 65,536
Week 10 - 262,144
Week 11 - 1,048,576
Week 12 - 4,194,304
Week 13 - 16,777,216
etc.

Also we know that transmission is very uneven, so lots of people don't transmit it to anybody and a few people infect loads of others.

Research has already shown that some people don’t pass on to many others whilst other people are superspreaders who infect significant numbers.

[quote [AUTO]a41crkjo6gcxr]@titchy simply stating facts and saying this is an interesting situation to observe how it develops.[/quote]
It's not though is it given you don't know if he was infectious on Boxing Day.

As a pp said, if you want to see how quickly it's spread, consider the one family who brought it to Europe a year ago.

He probably wasn’t infectious on Boxing Day. It’s likely that people are infectious two days before they develop symptoms.

Sounds like he wasn't contagious on boxing day. You're contagious for around 48 hours before symptoms start.

Yourr timeline is way off for him to be infecting everyone that night.

He had symptoms for a few days before being tested.

Only very mild, hence not immediately going for a test.

The person was also out and about all over the island right up until 30th December. I only highlighted Boxing Day as that was the biggest single venue.

Maybe he's just not super spreader. Some people spread it more than others

What is your point though?

This is a very useful video from Professor Hugh Montgomery

@dementedpixie

Maybe he's just not super spreader. Some people spread it more than others

What is your point though?

That it's interesting to see how this pans out.

It was spreading as 7 other contacts tested positive this week so it was fully in the population for a period when people were doing more socialising and mixing than usual.

I personally mixed with thousands of people over Christmas and new year, hundreds within 2m. I was in a pretty full pub with friends when they announced the lockdown.

By rights it should spread massively but doesn't see to have

It’s not as simplistic as you’re implying @[AUTO]a41crkjo6gcxr, there are a lot of variables that can only be estimated since there is no way to tell 100% who is contagious, who is susceptible and how those two interact.

If it’s of interest it’s worth researching Typhoid Mary to gain an understanding of how differently people can carry disease and importantly, infect others.

@LangClegsInSpace yes you're right, I was just trying to simplify and shouldn't have used days as the quantifier.

The reality is as the spread takes hold the actual time between the doubling starts to decrease - and before you know it - it is everywhere!

@[AUTO]a41crkjo6gcxr

But it's too soon to be seeing the knock on effects yet. And assuming effective test and trace in operation - the transmission chains can be broken very quickly from just 1 initial case. This is how other countries have kept it under control. Problem comes when positivity rates increase and test and trace doesn't work like that anymore.