Good News Part 6 - we're gonna need a bigger boat. Yeah Science!

[InterfectoremVulpes]

Good news and vibes only please

@FuzzyPuffling

Just whispering that the SW R rates are the worst in the country and still in growth. Don't cheer too loud yet!

I’m hoping it’s because we were the last to have high rates. Still hearing of loads of cases here, but I’m sure they will drop soon.

Amount of people in hospital decreased for 2nd day in a row 🙌🏻

@TheCountessofFitzdotterel wow wow such great news! Let's hope for 500k pd in a few weeks! Even though I'm just sitting at home in tracksuit pants it feels like we are all working towards something!!

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I kind of expected we would have some flip-flopping of councils from green-to-red.

We now have 283 councils with falling cases in England (out of 315) - see the table on the homepage of www.covidmessenger.com.

If you glance through, of those rising, the rises are almost universally fairly small - so nothing to be too alarmed with really at this stage.

But the thing that hits me every time I look at the table, is the phenomenal falls across councils in some counties.

Just look at London! Incredible!

And London is by no means alone! So many counties have dramatic falls across all their councils.

It really is very good news indeed.

Some of the London ones have fallen by more than a third, but the Isle of Wight (which went up very fast) has almost halved 😮

All of Essex falling and my particular district now under 1000 new cases for the week and under 100 for the last day of data. And it was sky high before so I'm taking that as good news 👍

Figures still going down on Zoe too.
Long may it continue please!

Does anyone know what the briefing is about tonight? I’m hoping it’s just an update with no big bad news (sure I will have nightmares with Boris at that podium in years to come!!)

Hmmm so the UK variant is probably more lethal as well as more spready.
BUT...the vaccine still works against it.

I hate "public question time" at briefings. They ask the same questions over and over again. Waste of a question.

So much good news!

I turned it off as soon as the questions started.

@FuzzyPuffling

Hmmm so the UK variant is probably more lethal as well as more spready. BUT...the vaccine still works against it.

Clinging on to the fact they could just be saying this to keep people home!

Regardless - vaccines will save the day again so we all good 💪🏼

70pc of over 80s vaccinated with a vaccine we know works against the new variant is amazing

Bod on R4 said the increase is mortality for the new variant "is not a massive difference". I'll take that given how I know this will be reported.

I didn't catch the briefing, but someone just told me that they said the vaccine isn't effective against the SA and Brazilian variant? That sounds disastrous- am hoping someone here has some science as to why this isn't as bad as my friend is making out...

That’s not quite what they said @twinmum2017 - it was more along the lines of “the other variants may not be quite so susceptible to vaccines but this isn’t fully known yet and there is still massive amounts of data before they can say anything for certain”

@tootyfruitypickle

70pc of over 80s vaccinated with a vaccine we know works against the new variant is amazing

That’s good

Patrick Vallance said the old variant had a mortality rate of 10 per 1,000; new variant possibly 13-14 per 1,000.

I can't remember where I read it (but it was recently) Ox/AZ said they cam tweak their vaccine for new variants with a matter of days.
I don't think I've made that up. Anyone else see it?

Hang on, isn't this is supposed to be a good news thread?

Patrick Vallance said the old variant had a mortality rate of 10 per 1,000; new variant possibly 13-14 per 1,000

Based on a 60 year old man. Young women don't have this level of risk but that would also increase by .3 - I think was the gist.

409k vaccinations is epic. That's well over .5 of the population in a day.

Yes Fuzzy, you haven’t dreamed it!

@FourTeaFallOut

409k vaccinations is epic. That's well over .5 of the population in a day.

Wow was that really how many vaccinations were given today - amazing. Does anyone know the total amount of vaccinations given in total? Thanks.

Didn’t Boris say 1 in 10 of population now had first dose ?