Cases are going up, but not deaths?

[greyinganddecaying]

There's clearly a surge in cases (especially in the north west) but is there anywhere that shows if the number of deaths is going up at the same rate? Or do we need to wait awhile to see this?

I'm really hoping that the vaccinations mean that the death rate is slashed, but I don't know where to look (& am skeptical about some of the government figures I've seen).

There also seems to be quite a lot of summer flu deaths (despite a low prevalence worldwide), and deaths from issues very often caused by Covid such as pneumonia, sepsis, stroke, and cardiac. And it was recently reported that hospitals are seeing lots of children with 'winter' viruses.

I thought it was quite well known by now that we are seeing a surge in things like RSV recently? There are now a lot of young children who have never been exposed to RSV due to lockdown travel bans and masks, and so they are getting more severe cases of it.

It's worrying but we have to power through this--bringing the restrictions and social distancing back would just amount to kicking the can down the road, because the viruses will roar back the moment you lift the rules and stop social distancing and there will be even more kids with even less immunity by that point.

It would help if we had an RSV vaccine to help us over the difficult phase. I heard one was in development.

Add in that 30% of Covid tests (gold standard PCR, not wildly inaccurate left) are false negatives and it's not unreasonable to wonder.

You say this all the time. Can you explain your understanding of it? I have said this to you before but the way you say it seems to suggest that you think 30% of tests are giving the wrong result.

Nobody (government included) is disputing the false negative figures, but 'll leave the explaining to the experts, i.e. doctors OliveTree75

www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n287/rr

www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00271-1/fulltext

m.timesofindia.com/india/34-of-rat-results-false-negatives-turn-positive-on-rt-pcr-testing-finds-study/amp_articleshow/83701379.cms

www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1930043321001874

A real-time reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) is the gold standard in diagnosis for infection of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), but the false-negative result is the problem in the prevention and control the pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).

We report a 36-year-old man with 4 times negative RT-PCR results, but clinical, radiological (chest X-ray and chest CT scan), and serological examinations showed a high suspicion of COVID-19.

[quote Tealightsandd]Nobody (government included) is disputing the false negative figures, but 'll leave the explaining to the experts, i.e. doctors OliveTree75

www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n287/rr

www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(21)00271-1/fulltext

m.timesofindia.com/india/34-of-rat-results-false-negatives-turn-positive-on-rt-pcr-testing-finds-study/amp_articleshow/83701379.cms[/quote]
Seriously don't need you to prove the 30% figure with studies.....i know.
Was generally just a question as it sounds like you misinterpret it from the way you write your posts. (maybe you don't but the way you write it makes it sound like you do). It is 30% of people who actually have covid that get a false negative, not 30% of all negative tests. It is not enough people for us to be misdiagnosing flu, pneumonia, RSV etc left, right and centre like you keep implying.

The man in the case above repeatedly tested negative. His Covid diagnosis was only confirmed through antibodies.

A sizeable proportion of false negatives absolutely means there will be at least some misdiagnoses.

Particularly when patients can repeatedly test false negative.

Yes I agree it is clear it is not 30% of negative tests which are wrong but that 30% of positive cases are missed

We think DS was one - had symptoms and tested negative. DH caught the same but then got a cough - thought better safe than sorry so tested and he was positive.

Actually that's rubbish about false positives, which as stated by the experts are a tiny number and not what's worrying doctors.

www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6034273

PCR tests are not prone to false positives, despite what's on Facebook, experts say

Sorry misread your post but nevermind, it was worth posting the article anyway. Too many have claimed there's a false positive issue. Which is untrue.

@Tealightsandd

Actually that's rubbish about false positives, which as stated by the experts are a tiny number and not what's worrying doctors.

www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6034273

PCR tests are not prone to false positives, despite what's on Facebook, experts say

Nobody has mentioned false positives.

And the main issue is that around 30% of Covid patients test false negative. Which is a significant number.

Cross post Olive
I misread Quartz's post.

I live in a hot-spot and it's mostly school kids and students. Local health authority is at least being pro-active with walk in vaccination centres for anyone eligible, this weekend.

@Oblomov21

I don't see the reason for the panic over cases. So long as they aren't seriously ill, don't get long covid, don't need hospital treatment, then what's the concern?

The more cases the government allow, the more people will be seriously ill, get long covid, and/or need hospital treatment. That's the concern.

The more cases the government allow, the more people will be seriously ill, get long covid, and/or need hospital treatment. That's the concern.

So how long are we going to wait, forever? The majority of adults in the UK have had a vaccine, and over half have had two. Are we supposed to live with restrictions forever?

On another point, if you look at the graphs on the Gov website, the low hospitalisations have already plateaued and are possibly going back down. I guess due to more vaccine take up and more people being double vaccinated. This is all great news!

Cases are going up, but not deaths?

Yet...

@userlotsanumbers

Cases are going up, but not deaths?

Yet...

Deaths are going up I think.

Most of the highest 28 day numbers in June were in the last few days.

This last week's 7 day average is significantly higher than the one before.

@Letsgetreadytocrumble

The more cases the government allow, the more people will be seriously ill, get long covid, and/or need hospital treatment. That's the concern.

So how long are we going to wait, forever? The majority of adults in the UK have had a vaccine, and over half have had two. Are we supposed to live with restrictions forever?

On another point, if you look at the graphs on the Gov website, the low hospitalisations have already plateaued and are possibly going back down. I guess due to more vaccine take up and more people being double vaccinated. This is all great news!

It should be going down though right?

We're still in restrictions and more people are vaccinated every day.

If it's plateauing rather than going down then something is going up.

Just like cases were a few weeks ago when reducing cases in some parts of the country concealed the effect of rising cases in others and it looked like a plateau.

That was still Original Covid, which now looks like a walk in the park.

What are you talking about? All the people I know, plus friends of friends etc who had "original" covid, were pretty poorly with fevers, flu like symptoms, aches etc. Loads of my dc's friends (mostly unvaccinated young adults) have had the delta one and none of them have had anything more than a slight sore throat and a sniffle.

Looking only at cases and deaths forgets that there is an intermediate step which is hospitalisation. LOADS of PHE data this week showing impact of vaccines and delta - Meaghan Kall at PHE had a great Twitter thread explainer which is worth reading as the data is so easily misinterpreted.

The excellent Alasdair Munro also had a great Twitter thread this week on Covid, RSV and other issues this week and why the conspiracies are… misplaced.

(@Tealightsandd I see you’re still knowingly misusing the ONS stats on Covid symptoms after 12 weeks. At least you’re consistently dishonest about the way you use them I guess.)

And looking at comparators from eg last October is probably the most useful we have (though obviously doesn’t include Delta’s faster transmission) - but October’s daily death rate when cases were around this level were much higher.

Really recommend Meaghan Kall though. Very good at explaining the data.

@Letsgetreadytocrumble

The more cases the government allow, the more people will be seriously ill, get long covid, and/or need hospital treatment. That's the concern.

So how long are we going to wait, forever? The majority of adults in the UK have had a vaccine, and over half have had two. Are we supposed to live with restrictions forever?

On another point, if you look at the graphs on the Gov website, the low hospitalisations have already plateaued and are possibly going back down. I guess due to more vaccine take up and more people being double vaccinated. This is all great news!

There's optimism and there's reading into data information that isn't there.

Hospital admissions aren't going up at the same rate as cases or deaths, but have still gone up 10.3% in the last 7 days.

Moreover the rises do seem to be concentrated in certain areas, which means those hospitals are being stretched, even if others are not currently.

It's not all over, much as the politicians might like to cross their fingers, sick their heads in the sands and shout "I can't hear you"! This is when we need common sense and careful approaches to keep the numbers down, otherwise we're going to get a repeat of Christmas when they can't ignore it any more.