Another press conference tonight with BJ

[Teenageromance]

So any predictions about tonight? Must be an announcement if BJ doing it

Out of people in ICU 60 year old male is a good choice for impact on behaviour

Feels shaky to me

Out of people in ICU 60 year old male is a good choice for impact on behaviour

I think you’re on to something there.

Sam on Sky just said that the male in their 60s was used as an example, and that further information about the new variant will follow regarding its impact on different age groups.
I know my DD who is an ICU nurse has said that they have many more patients in ICU who are in their 60s rather than in the first wave, when they seemed much older.

@squishedblueberry

I don’t understand when he said that there’s no evidence of higher mortality rate in hospital patients with the new variant but that the new variant is showing a slightly higher mortality rate. Does that mean more people getting it at home and not being hospitalised are dying from it? Am I being dense?

The inference I drew is that people with the new variant are more likely to go to hospital, but among those who go to hospital, death is no more likely than previously.

But your inference is also possible.

They gave the example of a man in his sixties but said the increase was across the board.

The inference I drew is that people with the new variant are more likely to go to hospital, but among those who go to hospital, death is no more likely than previously

Ok is this it? Maybe!

I didn't understand the stuff about hospitals. If what you've said is true wouldn't they present it slightly differently

Otherwise how I'd that different to saying higher transmission =greater mortality (for the same mortality rate)

More news about the vaccine. Schools possible re opening. Lockdown extended

I missed anything about schooks, was all quite medical

From the Telegraph blog earlier in the day:

New variant is 30 per cent more deadly - Prof Neil Ferguson
The new variant of coronavirus is 30 per cent more deadly than the first version, a top Government adviser has claimed.

Prof Neil Ferguson, who sits on the Government's Nervtag advisory committee, said the latest evidence from university reseachers suggests around 30 per cent more people die of the new variant of Covid - but the data is patchy.

"It is a realistic possibility that the new UK variant increases the risk of death, but there is considerable remaining uncertainty. Four groups - Imperial, LSHTM, PHE and Exeter - have looked at the relationship between people testing positive for the variant vs old strains and the risk of death," he told ITV.

"That suggests a 1.3-fold increased risk of death. So for 60 year-olds, 13 in 1000 might die compared with 10 in 1000 for old strains.

"The big caveat is that we only know which strain people were infected with for about 8 per cent of deaths.

"Only about 25 per cent of people who eventually die from Covid get a pillar 2 test before they are hospitalised (at which point they get a pillar 1 test, but pillar 1 tests don’t tell us which strain they were infected with).

"And we can only distinguish the new variant from the old variant for about 1/3 of pillar 2 tests. All that said, the signal is there and is consistent across different age groups, regions and ethnicities."

www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/01/22/news-boris-johnson-lockdown-end-fines-storm-christoph-brexit/

@StealthPolarBear

I think the 60s thing was just an example, they'll have similar stats but prob slightly different for other ages and for women

They did not say that though.

I think he said "for example"
There will be an overall figure which I imagine will be standardised for age and sex. Having a figure for your own age and gender identity is much more meaningful.

They'll have chosen that age/sex as the example because it's a nice round number - 10 per 1000 becoming 13 or 14 sounds nice and clear.

Yes and presumably because thwyre higher risk in general, if they'd picked women in their twenties it would have been slightly less meaningful iyswim, and the error around it would have been much larger

Well carefully choosing ‘examples’ is a time honoured persuasion technique

A very sobering nrws conference.
New variant has s higher mortality rate and there was zero talk about lights at the end off the tunnel.
This year will be a write off again

They have used the 60 year old Male as the baseline for analysis since I started reading the odd scientific paper.

If you look at personal risk analysis, the 60 year old Male is the default. Your covid age is based on the 60 year old Male.

If they had used care homes, it's something like 1 in 3 die. Using over 80s it's 10 in a hundred rising to 13 or 14 per hundred with the new variety

The 60 year old Male was not chosen to scare you, but for consistency

We’re getting smashed behaviourally there’s no doubt. Come on the stage where they tell us all to spend.

Come on the stage where they tell us all to spend.

I can’t wait

@likeamillpond

A very sobering nrws conference. New variant has s higher mortality rate and there was zero talk about lights at the end off the tunnel. This year will be a write off again

The train you saw has turned up but it turns out to be a freight train. A very long, slow one.

Keating me either

I got the freight train blues:(

I think I need to rewatch as I'm still confused about the higher mortality rate.
Depressing about the new variants that might be more resistant to a vaccine as well.
Doesn't feel like there's going to be an end to this does there? I mean the rational part of my brain tells me of course this is and this can't be forever but every time I feel a bit more positive (our cases regionally are massively dropping) there seems to be more bad news.