Shops/pubs/indoor mixing 'not till cases under 1000 a day'

[bathsh3ba]

According to The Telegraph.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/02/16/covidlockdown-continue-cases-drop-1000-day/

First it was save lives.
Then it was prevent hospitalisations and protect the NHS.
Now it's all down to cases apparently.

Beginning to think the whole thing is pointless. OK so schools may partly open and some outdoor mixing but even that is sounding unsure.

@CountessFrog

But 1000 cases of young fit people isn’t the same?

And that is exactly what they will do. The testing sites will start to be closed and numbers will decrease.

Sorry wrong reply!

@Positivevibesonlyplease

Schools opening will definitely push rates up. According to data from December, 12-16 year olds were 7 times more likely to be the first person in their household to be infected and hence to infect everyone else. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/948617/s0998-tfc-update-to-4-november-2020-paper-on-children-schools-transmission.pdf I’ve copied the relevant section below: *This analysis shows that children and young people are more likely to bring the virus into the household than those aged 17+. They are also less likely to catch the virus within the household. This is consistent with previous analysis of household transmission (14 October). • External exposure shows how likely someone is to be the first case in their household. Young people (aged 2-16) are much more likely than those aged 17+ to be the first case in their household. In particular, those aged 12 to 16 are nearly 7 times as likely to be the first case in their household, compared to those 17+. • Transmissibility shows how likely someone is to pass the virus on within the household, if they are the first positive case. The analysis shows that 2 – 16 year olds are more than twice as likely to pass on the virus within their household compared to people aged 17+*

The difference is that this time round we have a vaccine and we are approaching spring

I don’t care anymore. My parents have now had their first jab and will have completed the three week period of building up immunity very soon. After that we will be mixing indoors on a regular basis!

No vaccine will be 100% effective at preventing hospitalisation and death

The AZ vaccine is!

www.astrazeneca.com/media-centre/press-releases/2021/covid-19-vaccine-astrazeneca-confirms-protection-against-severe-disease-hospitalisation-and-death-in-the-primary-analysis-of-phase-iii-trials.html

Just came on to counter this misinformed comment.

hamstersarse

I think it’s probably impossible to get to 1000 cases a day because of how the false positive cases occur when prevalence is low in the general community.

Lower the prevalence - higher the false positive. Even a false positive of 1% would mean 1000 cases is literally impossible

I think it’s probably impossible to get to 1000 cases a day because of how the false positive cases occur when prevalence is low in the general community.

Lower the prevalence - higher the false positive. Even a false positive of 1% would mean 1000 cases is literally impossible

This is wrong in several counts. Please, anyone who is wondering about this, if you have ten minutes, watch David Spiegelhalter himself explain (he was being misquoted last year, which led to this kind of thinking).
m.youtube.com/watch?v=XmiEzi54lBI

Firstly, if you are testing symptomatic people, the prevalence doesn’t affect the false positives in any meaningful way. The prevalence issue only matters for random testing.

Secondly you quote 1% as prevalence. I think you are really referring to the false positive rate. The false positive rate for the PCR is way, way, way lower than 1%.
the false positive rate is more like 0.05%

Finally, just look at the ONS data (which is random testing) from last summer, if you were correct, the levels being measured would have been many fold higher.

The thing is we've no idea if all variants will stay controllable. We only have to look at the Spanish flu to know that sometimes pandemics affect the younger generation. So I'm more than happy for them to take a very cautious, slow return to any kind of normal.

All this 'but vaccinations!' is far too simplistic. It's all new, they need consistent data to prove numbers stay within manageable levels. They don't actually want to keep everything shut down, what possible reasons would they have except the massive public health crisis. I trust the CMO and the CSA.

@Positivevibesonlyplease

Schools opening will definitely push rates up. According to data from December, 12-16 year olds were 7 times more likely to be the first person in their household to be infected and hence to infect everyone else. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/948617/s0998-tfc-update-to-4-november-2020-paper-on-children-schools-transmission.pdf I’ve copied the relevant section below: *This analysis shows that children and young people are more likely to bring the virus into the household than those aged 17+. They are also less likely to catch the virus within the household. This is consistent with previous analysis of household transmission (14 October). • External exposure shows how likely someone is to be the first case in their household. Young people (aged 2-16) are much more likely than those aged 17+ to be the first case in their household. In particular, those aged 12 to 16 are nearly 7 times as likely to be the first case in their household, compared to those 17+. • Transmissibility shows how likely someone is to pass the virus on within the household, if they are the first positive case. The analysis shows that 2 – 16 year olds are more than twice as likely to pass on the virus within their household compared to people aged 17+*

Ok, but that still doesnt need to be a problem. Most households with school aged children are made up of younger people who have tiny risk of dying. Those with higher risk are getting the vaccine now,so the risk is getting simillar to that of child bringing flu,norovirus or chicken pox home. This counting of cases when testing tons of people doesnt make any sense to me.

@GetOffYourHighHorse

The thing is we've no idea if all variants will stay controllable. We only have to look at the Spanish flu to know that sometimes pandemics affect the younger generation. So I'm more than happy for them to take a very cautious, slow return to any kind of normal.

All this 'but vaccinations!' is far too simplistic. It's all new, they need consistent data to prove numbers stay within manageable levels. They don't actually want to keep everything shut down, what possible reasons would they have except the massive public health crisis. I trust the CMO and the CSA.

This. Plus it took about 3 weeks to go from about 1500 cases a day at the end of last August to a firebreak lockdown recommended. And that was with a less transmissible strain.

Given that we don’t yet know what the impact of schools returning is going to be, and we are all agreed that that should be a priority it’s probably a bit early to speculate on how long it will take to open everything else up.

'Plus it took about 3 weeks to go from about 1500 cases a day at the end of last August to a firebreak lockdown recommended. And that was with a less transmissible strain.'

Exactly. People have such short memories. We've gone from 60k to 10k but it could easily swing the other way! and because priority groups are vaccinated people want to rush it .

If cases are halving every fortnight then we need just over 3 fortnights from now to go down to 1k per day. If we really can open everything up in early April that would be really great!

Cases might start going down even faster of course once the effect of having a lot of people vaccinated kicks in. That would be even better.

I'd still be happier if they spoke about a combination of cases, hospitalisations and deaths rather than just cases.

Even if shops opened April, they'd still wait 3 weeks between each new sector re-opening, so it would be July before we really saw a change.

I can probably just about cope if they at least bring schools back on a rota basis but another 6 weeks of full-time home schooling with no option for my kids to see their friends other than on a 1:1 walk will break me.

The Kent variant has been traced back to September. So we have been dealing with the more easily transmitable variant since then. We just didn't know it at the time.

@bathsh3ba

I'd still be happier if they spoke about a combination of cases, hospitalisations and deaths rather than just cases.

Even if shops opened April, they'd still wait 3 weeks between each new sector re-opening, so it would be July before we really saw a change.

I can probably just about cope if they at least bring schools back on a rota basis but another 6 weeks of full-time home schooling with no option for my kids to see their friends other than on a 1:1 walk will break me.

Totally right. I agree

Firstly, if you are testing symptomatic people, the prevalence doesn’t affect the false positives in any meaningful way. The prevalence issue only matters for random testing.

Yet, we are testing people without symptoms? So the FPR is potentially a real problem, especially we are aiming for 1000 cases a day! If we limit tests to symptomatic people, fine, but we are not going to be doing that, and you know that! Even if the FPR is 0.05%, 1000 a day cases to lift lockdown on that basis is stretching it.

We are doing 500,000 tests a day - or there or thereabouts. Are these all symptomatic people? I don't think they are, hence the concern.

They know 1000 cases wont happen
Welcome to police state uk

Why don't we all just wait to see what the plan says rather than believing every newspaper story

The nonsensical aspects of this ends when the people, en masse, stop complying.

With severely symptomatic episodes, hospitalisations and deaths falling - hopefully even the most cautious amongst us will accept and understand that there is nothing more that can be done to mitigate the impacts of COVID and we shun, arbritrary, unnecessary mass testing of the healthy and embrace normality again. It is the only way to stop the absolute tsunami of health and social problems flying down the line at us from getting catastrophically worse.

The whole point of the restrictions was to buy time to vaccinate. Well, here we are. It is moving at pace. We've got through a huge chunk of the most vulnerable and ploughing through the next most. Late spring (tops) should see the dismantling of the vast majority of these restrictions.

You can't buy time indefinitely without there being a clear plan as to what you a buying time for.

From what I can see, people are getting closer and closer to no longer giving a shit. After a year of deaths being reported in the news, people are naturally becoming desensitised to it. We are evolved to care most about protecting ourselves and our own families - many people will see their own families and friends once the vulnerable people they personally care about are vaccinated.

Just as cases are falling and most of us are looking for the government to show us a way back to some sort of normal, its now in the news that testing focused on the three main symptoms only picks up 69% of cases. If the PCR was offered to people with a wider range of symptoms than the current three up to a third more cases would be picked up. Seems odd to me that its widely known for many months that some people never present with the three symptoms, cough, fever and loss of smell, and yet its only now they want to extend the list of symptoms. Just at the point scientists and government move the focus to an absolute measure of positive cases rather than hospital admissions or deaths, that they appear to be keen to pick up every last positive case for their data. I am in favour of extending the list of symptoms, but then I was in favour of doing this before this second peak, and had they been looking to pick up 98% of symptomatic Covid cases we might not have got to the point where we are now. I don't trust this government, or their motivations.

Problem they have is compliance. I’m not a knob, nor are my friends. We’ve all stuck to the rules for the large large part & all with young children. It’s been hard. But I’ve heard many many people I know say once their parents are double vaccinated, they’ll be seeing them again in Spring or using them for childcare.. I genuinely think they’ll struggle from Spring onwards, way more mixing..

Most households with school aged children are made up of younger people who have tiny risk of dying

I’m in my 50’s with teens. I’m in a teacher in a secondary school in an area where late babies are the norm. The majority of parents are 40’s and 50’s. Very few young parents.

@XenoBitch

They say 'protect the NHS'.... I feel it is a lie now. They want zero Covid.

I don’t think they do, they know that is not possible.

I think it’s more that they have finally learned that if cases are not at a certain low level then any release of measures will just leave us back where we started....now with the vaccines we should be able to avoid that if things are done carefully.

Do people not believe we will be down to 1000 cases a day in 6 weeks? If not, why not?

Indoor mixing happening for many now

Allowed or not

I’ve had 3 party invites just this week from people who would never have asked few months ago

Amongst our age group -40s we are no longer following the social mixing rules