Why are cases rising?

[Thedarksideofthemoon30]

I feel so depressed today. I had the vaccine last week and now I’m thinking what was the point?!

I

I dont know what they are getting out of scaring people

Scared people are more easy to bend to your will. Which is almost the entire remit of the daily mail

REACT study had better numbers today equal to late September

Local news last night was suggesting the authorities were concerned about signs of compliance starting to break down. I didn't catch the article properly but they were definitely saying that they felt fatigue was creeping in.

For me its therefore a question mark hanging over things and its a race against time with the vaccine.

Its also why i think stricter restrictions for slightly longer are wiser as the effect on the R from the same restrictions in 2021 will be less than they were in 2020 due to lower compliance and that will need to be factored in.

Cases are NOT rising

The Zoe app will ask you if you have had the vaccine so I would hope in the week or so after your vaccine date, they would put any symptoms down to vaccine side effects!

This is not really fact, it's just a data trend with no identified cause. The zoe app asks a range of quite generic questions which infer infection.

Local news last night was suggesting the authorities were concerned about signs of compliance starting to break down

Given the ever decreasing case numbers it would demonstrate that either people continue to be compliant or that massive dips in cases has been achievable alongside less compliance. I find myself in the odd situation in which the latter is the good news story.

@FourTeaFallOut

Local news last night was suggesting the authorities were concerned about signs of compliance starting to break down

Given the ever decreasing case numbers it would demonstrate that either people continue to be compliant or that massive dips in cases has been achievable alongside less compliance. I find myself in the odd situation in which the latter is the good news story.

They were talking about small areas of the region where there had been an uptick in cases which bucked the national trend.

And these small areas do have to be a concern because even if cases drop everywhere else if there pockets of high case incidence and low vaccination up take (unfortunately the two seem to be more correlated than not) that potentially has implications for everyone.

Ah right. In that context, your position makes more sense. We have a few pockets like that in our area. I don't think there are many avenues to improve compliance at this point.

@Vargas

Tim Spector from Covid app tweeted about this earlier. There's a suggestion that people are logging side effects of vaccines in the app and this might be showing as rising cases. Another suggestion is people not being careful in first two weeks after vaccination when there is NO protection.

It's more than a suggestion. I have the zoe app, felt rubbish for two days afterwards my vaccination, and was bewildered that the app still wanted me to log symptoms even though I'd told them I'd had the jab. They spelled out that they wanted me to log symptoms, even if they were side effects of the jab. As I was doing it I was wondering how they were going to distinguish between the two.

It's more than a suggestion. I have the zoe app, felt rubbish for two days afterwards my vaccination, and was bewildered that the app still wanted me to log symptoms even though I'd told them I'd had the jab. They spelled out that they wanted me to log symptoms, even if they were side effects of the jab.
As I was doing it I was wondering how they were going to distinguish between the two.

You would think it would be possible as the vaccination symptoms are gathered separately on the app, but it doesn’t appear to be happening yet - when I reported today predicted cases are allegedly up by 2000 in my area, nearly back up to the December peak, which can’t be right (actual cases down by 50 on the BBC website).

The Daily Mail did say the rise was on a symptom tracker app but probably the vast majority of people won’t even know what that is and will just react to the scary headline. Not helped by thread titles like this one.

Re Zoe - "the incidence estimates have been slightly inflated by vaccine effects (which are to be corrected"). mobile.twitter.com/ThatRyanChap/status/1362375183949062147

@RubaiyatOfAnyone

OP, may I introduce you to Betteridge’s Law?

Hadn't heard of that one before, very useful!

[quote CoffeeandCroissant]Re Zoe - "the incidence estimates have been slightly inflated by vaccine effects (which are to be corrected"). mobile.twitter.com/ThatRyanChap/status/1362375183949062147[/quote]
That’s reassuring. As long as the official daily new cases from PCR testing continue to reduce then hopefully it’s a false alarm.

I’m a massive fan of the ZOE project but it is only estimates based on a limited number of users. It’s been a great early warning tool for the government (when they’ve chosen to take its estimates into consideration) but it’s not infallible.

It’s not rising, in fact it’s dropping across the world. You can’t look at it at such a micro level. It tells you nothing, you need to look at macro trends. And irs dropping swiftly.

@Bluntness100 I agree with you but I still think that small indicators are worthy of investigation right now whilst it’s still unclear about the state of play regarding vaccines and variants.

If we’d been this alert to the data at the end of November who knows where we’d be regarding the Kent variant (probably worrying about the Brazilian one and the others - I know! )

@SpringtimeBluebells

Cases are NOT rising

From the Government Coronavirus website, number of infections.

17-02-2021 12,718

16-02-2021 10,625

15-02-2021 9,765

Also from the government coronavirus website, number of infections.

17-02-2021 2,227

16-02-2021 10,239

15-02-2021 13,782

Which is by date of specimen, and shows that taking a single day in isolation doesn't really prove anything. The week on week trend is still going down

@ConcernedAuntie the official daily new cases from testing figures follow a weekly pattern that’s day dependent. They always tend drop lower on a Sunday and then we have a few days (Wednesday to Saturday generally) where they’re higher so they need to be looked at either as weekly totals or comparing with the previous weeks corresponding day (iyswim). Whether that’s down to testing capabilities or public behaviour (waiting to see whether symptoms develop over a weekend) I couldn’t say but it’s a definite pattern and has been seen throughout the pandemic across a lot of countries.

The ZOE project is independently collating symptomatic data (so quicker but less reliable although they do collate test information if one is taken) so is more of a ‘budgie down the coal mine’ tool. It’s not perfect but it has proven itself a reliable indicator throughout the pandemic (they’re the reason loss of taste/smell was added to the testable symptoms list). Their predicted cases have stalled in decline and started showing small rises but they think they’ve identified why (see link from @CoffeeandCroissant above).

@InterfectoremVulpes

Also from the government coronavirus website, number of infections.

17-02-2021 2,227

16-02-2021 10,239

15-02-2021 13,782

Which is by date of specimen, and shows that taking a single day in isolation doesn't really prove anything. The week on week trend is still going down

Exactly

Ans a single day doesn’t show anything in a single area. You need to look at the over all macro trend.

The way some people panic is really concerning.

Sorry if you think I'm over reacting Bluntness.

This morning we buried a much loved family member who died aged 48 of Covid, leaving behind two teenagers and a wife who has just been made redundant from her job. I don't want this happening to any more people than necessary.

A new variant? People not complying with lockdown?

I’m a massive fan of the ZOE project but it is only estimates based on a limited number of users. It’s been a great early warning tool for the government (when they’ve chosen to take its estimates into consideration) but it’s not infallible.

Me too, hoping they’ve not already done the corrections for vaccine side effects because if they have it’s showing massive rises in my area . The reason I queried it in the first place is because it’s always been pretty accurate before.

I feel the same @MrsFezziwig. I’d noticed a slow down and small rise before they released their statement acknowledging it and was worried. It’s only natural to be concerned when so much is resting on the numbers continuing to decline.

I hope your area can figure out why and take some action.

Very sorry to hear that ConcernedAuntie