To wonder why covid cases are still so high?

[katiemumma20]

I didn’t really know where else to post this but it’s really just a nosey post! If you’ve had covid in 2021 I’m wondering where did you get it from? Supermarket? Hospital? Or another place of work? This post really isn’t meant to be judgemental I’m just wondering! I’m a secondary school teacher and hoping beyond hope that cases take a dramatic plummet between now and the 8th of March as I was disappointed the cases were still at 10,000 today!

My sister, a teacher, from school. Twice. Then her entire family. Twice.
My cousin, a TA, from school. Then her partner and his parents.
6 school staff in my school. From school. And their families.
My ds' best friend- from school. Then his entire family.

Suffice to say, having seen my school close from infections during this lockdown, I am not looking forward to having all 35 kids back in at once.

I suppose I could have caught it in a supermarket or other shop, in theory. Much more likely that I caught it from my husband, and that he caught it from the care home where he works, which was in outbreak after Christmas. The other piece of evidence is that he started symptoms about 3 days before me - so we don’t think I caught it in the supermarket, gave it to him and then he took it into the home.

I caught it from my class in school. I was one of six of us in class to test positive. We all tested within our isolation period after the index case so it certainly came from school. State primary.

@MrBullinaChinaShop

Lockdown has done a great job of preventing flu deaths this year. Should we lock down every winter to prevent them going forward?

No.

There is an article on how cases are levelling off on the zoe website. It is not seen as a cause for concern though. It is mainly the younger age groups catching it so presumably at work, in supermarkets etc.
covid.joinzoe.com/post/rates-level-off-but-not-a-cause-for-concern

Tim Spector OBE, lead scientist on the ZOE COVID Symptom Study app and Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King’s College London, comments on the latest data:

“The data over the last few weeks shows that the daily new cases have started to plateau at just under 10k cases but this isn’t reason to panic. The key metric isn’t just the total number of cases, which is mainly among people of working age. We need to focus on the pressure on the NHS and the number of admissions and deaths, which are both still falling rapidly. We are in a similar situation to late May last year, just before restrictions were lifted but the difference this time is, while the variants may be more infectious, we have a vaccine that works and the older age groups are largely protected. Having some residual infections in the population is inevitable for a while and although we want to push it lower, it shouldn't be a major cause for concern. With decisions now being made on data rather than dates, it feels like we on track to lift restrictions sooner rather than later.”

@Waxonwaxoff0

I haven't had it but pretty much everyone I know who has had it caught it at work. My workplace had 19 cases in January. (Factory)

Factories one of the highest risk areas.

Very few cases here 8 in 100,000 and when higher the people I know that had it were care home workers and NHS workers. I don't know of any others

I live in an area where infections have just started going up again. Sigh.

There are still many people who are household mixing and breaking rules.

@starfish4

My elderly Aunt and Uncle tested positive 2 Jan - definitely xmas mixing as their DS and DIL tested positive five days earlier. Only other place they could have got it was packaging on food dropped off.

Wow they mixed with people that tested positive 5 days before? Lots of Christmas mixing would no doubt have spread and led to the Jan peek

@Waxonwaxoff0 oh I agree, it was just a comment in response to say that if we have any cases people will still die and that’s sad. Just pointing out that people die of flu every year and always have done which people have always accepted, and the majority of those deaths would be stopped by lockdown.
People seem to forget that people die all the time.

Just read that out area have increased in the 20-24 age group, and then spreading to their households.

Anna I think you've misunderstood.... they mixed on day one. On day 3, the first household tested positive. On day 8, the 2nd household did. None of the knew they were positive when they mixed.

Because the government keeps testing, testing, testing, testing, and therefore finding, finding, finding, finding. (And probably fiddling figures to justify keeping the absurdly long lockdown in place.)

I’m in greater Manchester where cases have basically stopped dropping and stalled. Still fairly high at about 180 per 100k weekly round here.

I know a primary school (open to key workers) has had a significant outbreak with several children and teachers positive and is now totally closed . That has definitely skewed the numbers locally.

Don’t worry everyone i have figured out true answer to my own question. Popped to the garage and post office this morning and for the short half an hour I was out, 3 of the 4 staff I came across didn’t have masks on and weren’t behind screens. And two customers out of about 12 had no masks on either! Had forgotten about this as haven’t left the house in so long. I am no longer wondering why cases are still around 10,000.

So all the reasons you’ve been given are wrong then and it’s purely down to some people not wearing masks?

@MrBullinaChinaShop it wasn’t meant to be taken that seriously.

The only people I know who have had Covid in any serious way picked it up in hospital- only 3 but all elderly and all died. But one had had a major stroke and was at end of life care, tested positive after a couple of weeks in hospital and died shortly after but can't say whether it was Covid or the stroke, the other two were extremely elderly and had many underlying conditions.

Anyone else had only been to work or the supermarket and had very mild cases. Workplaces vary from a secondary school to city centre office to film set.

It's not necessarily mixing IME that has been the issue and blaming the 'young' for rule breaking isn't achieving anything.

And yet the 7 day rolling average is still dropping despite all the rule breakers flouting and flocking all over the place 🤔

My neighbour went into hospital in Jan. He tested negative going in but positive later on. He didn’t show any symptoms until the second week and went down hill rapidly. He was in his 70s and he died.

I know a few people who had it before Christmas, all in their late 40s - early 50s, all work in factories or retail, all quite ill with it but non hospitalised luckily. All now recovered.

@katiemumma20

Interesting comments thanks all. I would really disagree with people saying that number of cases don’t matter, only hospital admissions/ deaths matter. As long as there are cases there will be deaths and that is very sad. We also don’t know enough about long covid at the moment and there is some not very nice anecdotal evidence about individuals’ experience with long covid in both adults and children. I for one do not want to catch covid even if I wasn’t to get I severely, as I don’t want to risk getting long covid either.

Friend of mine has long COVID after a very mild dose. He used to be really fit, playing football twice a week and running. He did the 3 peaks challenge in 2019. Now he struggles to walk a mile and can't even get out of bed some days. He's been like this on and off for 6 months. He's only 35.

There's a lot they don't understand about the long term effects of this virus.

@starfish4

My elderly Aunt and Uncle tested positive 2 Jan - definitely xmas mixing as their DS and DIL tested positive five days earlier. Only other place they could have got it was packaging on food dropped off.

why on earth did your Aunt and Uncle see their DS and DIL 5 days after they tested positive? Of course they didn't pick it up from food they picked it up from DS and DIL! wonder it's still spreading if people do silly things like this (appreciate it's not you OP, who was plain daft)

@Frazzled2207 I presume @starfish4 meant that their aunt and uncle tested positive on 2nd jan, DS and DIL tested positive 5 days earlier (28 dec) but that they had been together on xmas day before anyone had any symptoms x

@katiemumma20
Ah ok you’re right I can’t add up
Apols @starfish4

Cases have risen this week in my area, as a whole it doesn’t look like a big rise but when you look by postcode you can see the Patti isle area where there are pockets of cases. Deprived areas where families live in multigenerational households and lots of people who work in factory or warehouse settings.

@Weepingwillow22

There is an article on how cases are levelling off on the zoe website. It is not seen as a cause for concern though. It is mainly the younger age groups catching it so presumably at work, in supermarkets etc. covid.joinzoe.com/post/rates-level-off-but-not-a-cause-for-concern

Tim Spector OBE, lead scientist on the ZOE COVID Symptom Study app and Professor of Genetic Epidemiology at King’s College London, comments on the latest data:

“The data over the last few weeks shows that the daily new cases have started to plateau at just under 10k cases but this isn’t reason to panic. The key metric isn’t just the total number of cases, which is mainly among people of working age. We need to focus on the pressure on the NHS and the number of admissions and deaths, which are both still falling rapidly. We are in a similar situation to late May last year, just before restrictions were lifted but the difference this time is, while the variants may be more infectious, we have a vaccine that works and the older age groups are largely protected. Having some residual infections in the population is inevitable for a while and although we want to push it lower, it shouldn't be a major cause for concern. With decisions now being made on data rather than dates, it feels like we on track to lift restrictions sooner rather than later.”

Not sure what he means by the final bit?

“sooner rather than later” is this British for “on track” or is he implying the govt should being the dates forward. Because as far as I’m aware, they were clear they could only move back? Albeit, I am expecting a big u-turn on this, and some of the step 2 (May 19th) to be moved forward several weeks.