Are the current daily cases good?

[Cherrychocchip]

I'm sorry if it's a stupid question but I Google covid cases today most nights and it seems to range between £2-2.5 ish k but doesn't drop lower. Is that a concern?
The deaths have almost vanished which is great but I keep expecting cases to go under £2k and they don't. Cab someone who has a substantially better knowledge than me explain please.

No it’s not a concern, what you need to focus more on now is hospital admissions and then deaths.

Cases were critical when we were not vaccinated, but now with most of the vulnerable vaccinated, then there is much fewer serious illness and subsequent deaths.

So now you need to focus on hospital admissions and deaths. Cases are still important, but they are now not the critical indicator.

So to make it clearer, it’s like tracking how many get flu. It’s not hugely relevant because so few of the cases turn to serious illness or death.

Agree with Bluntness. People need to stop focussing on getting covid and focus on the fact you won't get seriously ill from it. On a personal and population level.

Agree with PP, it's hospital and admissions we need to worry about. We're going to have to live with this virus. While the vaccine is thought to reduce transmission it won't erradicate Covid, the main point of it is to lessen the effects so that catching it is more like having a cold or other viral infection.

The figures are pretty encouraging so far, they are flat despite schools back, indoor children’s activities back, outdoor mixing & inevitably a fair whack of rule breaking at this point .. I’d expect them to raise in May probably but as PP, so long as hospitalisation remains low, all good.

There’s been really promising evidence the vaccines are holding up against the Kent & Indian variants .. SA we may need boosting for but that’s on the way for the vulnerable hopefully 🙏🏼

It’s no time to get complacent, because there’s still Long Covid, which can really impact on people, and cause organ damage. 13-15% isn’t too high a percentage, but if it does spread around the unvaccinated (especially children) then it adds up. If a whole class got it, then that’s 4 or so children who are ill or impacted for over 5 weeks later. It’s only a few months more before younger people can be vaccinated, so while the numbers are staying pretty level, the lower we can keep them, the fewer people get chronic illness.

@Cherrychocchip

I'm sorry if it's a stupid question but I Google covid cases today most nights and it seems to range between £2-2.5 ish k but doesn't drop lower. Is that a concern? The deaths have almost vanished which is great but I keep expecting cases to go under £2k and they don't. Cab someone who has a substantially better knowledge than me explain please.

Yes, cases do matter.

Because cases will inevitably rise as we open up (from a high base of 14,000 new cases a week) and cases still lead inevitably to hospitalisations and deaths.

The ratio has hopefully changed a bit now that we have fully vaccinated the most vulnerable segment of the population but the more cases we allow the more chance the virus will get to people it can make seriously ill.

The more cases the more mutations and more chance of troublesome new variants too.

Yes and no.

Case numbers are VERY important because as we relax restrictions what we were hoping to see was the benefit of vaccinations taking over to keep case numbers low - and we are!!

Ideally, case numbers would still be falling, but sadly too many people are too lax about the rules now.... but it's not that important.

More of a concern is the rise in the number of cases of certain mutations where we aren't entirely sure if the vaccines will be as good at preventing transmission. I'm really hoping the Indian variant ISN'T one of those because we already appear to have lost control of that one by acting too late over Indian travellers.

In summary, the news is still good, don't worry about case numbers plateauing, but there ARE still pitfalls out there that hopefully the UK can avoid.

I think SAGE was suprised they'd kept dropping since any reopening started in March, they were expecting a rise.

JVT said recently that it was pretty much as low as they're ever going to go so it's not a disaster now the link between cases and deaths is effectively broken.

If increased covid spread and more covid cases have no relationship with covid deaths and covid hospitalisations then where are the future covid deaths and future covid hospitalisations going to come from?

It’s not great. Most of these are community outbreaks which is why people need to stick to the rules for now. More cases = more chances for virus to evade vaccine pressure.