When is this wave expected to peak?

[Thelm]

I can’t find much info on this online (and it may be that we don’t know) but does any have any information/links they can share with me please?

Thanks in advance.

@HSHorror

Goldenomber- dont scotland still have masks in schools in secondary?

Yes, masks at secondary, at least until the schools broke up last week.

We seeing as the data by school age group seems to have disappeared from the covid and flu report then i would go with that one.

@GoldenOmber

Please explain why the person who created the histograms chose to vary the age ranges for each bar and has used different age ranges for each graph.

It is not ‘the person’ and it is not a one-off bar chart for this week. It is how Public Health England and Public Health Scotland count this routinely - the person who does those charts just pulls the numbers from the publicly available data, and has since March last year. (And is if I recall right a man in his early 20s, so hardly has a nefarious motivation to pretend that the issue is with 20-somethings.)

So what you’ve got is data that looks like cases aren’t being ‘driven by’ schools, and two possible explanations for why it looks like that:

A) cases aren’t being driven by schools;
B) cases are being driven by schools, but PHE and PHS have worked together from the start to cover this up and also work with all the amateur data modellers to make sure they’re in on it too.

You want to go with the conspiracy theory angle that’s your right, but I think the simplest explanation is the one most likely to be true.

It's a very odd way to present data that is just confusing to everyone. It doesn't allow any reasonable comparison of the bar heights because each bar represents a completely different proportion of the population. If you want to be able to draw conclusions using different sized age categories you'd need to change the bars to be cases per 100,000 population and then they would be comparable.

For what it's worth I don't think either of your conclusions can be drawn from that graph. My conclusion, we need to draw a better graph and then we can discuss what is driving infections.

@GoldenOmber

Scotland’s cases today. Our schools broke up at the end of last week, so maybe too early to see any impact on case numbers yet.

I think you have to bend quite far over backwards to assume schools are the driver with a pattern like that. But hopefully schools closing for summer will help at least.

I've worked out a way we can improve this graph so the bars are at least comparable. If we divide each bar by the number of years represented it will give us a rough estimate of cases per each age. It's not accurate and also depends on people getting tested which may also vary by age but I can't account for that.

0-14: 28.3 cases per age
15-19: 110 cases per age
20-24: 140.2
25-44: 68.2
45-64: 31.4

So that would suggest cases are highest in young adults and not 25-44 year olds as initially suggested by the graph...

If vaccines were 100% effective in stopping transmission, then for Delta Herd Immunity is 83%.

They don't, it's more like 60-80%, so you can't achieve HI from vaccines alone.

Vaccine+infection, or vaccine+booster should mean people are even less likely to transmit, and HI may be possible this way.

Guessing the peak is very difficult, but I suspect that it will start coming down within 4 weeks. India's delta wave peaked 6 weeks after the initial rise, and is now almost over, though this isn't particularly helpful in predicting the UK curve as the pattern of vaccination and prior infection is different.

If everyone is vaccinated, and you need extra infection to achieve HI, you may as well relax restrictions and get it over with quickly.

Depends if it comes home I guess.

LOCKDOWNS COMING HOME!

Hopefully it'll burn out by the time the kids go back in September with most adults double jabbed.

Then no doubt another variant will kick off from all the international travel.

Providing hospital admissions and deaths remain low or on a par with winter flu then case rates become far less relevant and of far less concern. It would be helpful to have comparators between flu/colds/COVID.

@Itsprobablynotcominghome

Depends if it comes home I guess.

LOCKDOWNS COMING HOME!

Thank you very much. I now have this in my head on repeat! 🤦‍♀️

@RosesAndHellebores

Providing hospital admissions and deaths remain low or on a par with winter flu then case rates become far less relevant and of far less concern. It would be helpful to have comparators between flu/colds/COVID.

If covid hospitalisation rates stay on a par with winter flu rates, then you need at least double hospital capacity.

That would be normal winter planning I.e. cancelling non-urgent procedures. and then something else on top.

If we want to continue as normal, then the flu + covid rates combined need to be at the same rate as a normal winter.

And that doesn’t start to deal with the enormous backlog we need to clear because of the times we let covid get out of control before.

Thank you very much. I now have this in my head on repeat! 🤦‍♀️

Snap

@RafaIsTheKingOfClay - I’m not sure one does need double the acute hospital provision. We perhaps need to look at the provision and think about specialist units for communicable diseases.

You want to go with the conspiracy theory angle that’s your right, but I think the simplest explanation is the one most likely to be true.

It's hardly a conspiracy theory to suggest the graph is shit. The ONS data is presented in much easier to understand formats and your young amateur modeller needs to spend more time learning how to present data clearly and consistently rather than manipulating the data to suit himself.

It's hardly a surprise that in a country where the majority of people over 40 are double vaccinated that the majority of the spread of the virus is in the young. It's almost like vaccines actually work .

You are very welcome. Here is the full version:

It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
Lockdown’s coming home.

It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
Lockdown’s coming home

It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
Lockdown’s coming home

It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
Lockdown’s coming home

Everyone seems to know the score
They've seen it all before
They just know
They're so sure
That England's gonna throw it away
Gonna blow it away
But I know they’ll delay
'Cause I remember
The NHS treated like dirt
Nightclub floors still gleaming
18 months of hurt
Never stopped me dreaming
So many jokes, so many sneers
But all those oh-so-nears
Wear you down
Through the years
But I still see all the fuck ups and more
And when Hancock scored
Johnson being a tool
And Sunak chancing

The NHS treated like dirt
Nightclub floors still gleaming
18 months of hurt
Never stopped me dreaming
(What a save, Chris Whitty!)
(Good old England, England that couldn't lockdown three times)
(Vaccinations have got it in the bag)
I know that was then but it could be again
It's coming home
It's coming
Lockdown’s coming home
It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
Lockdown’s coming home (Delta has done it)
It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
Lockdown’s coming home
It's coming home
It's coming home
It's coming
Lockdown’s coming home
The NHS treated like dirt (it's coming home, it's coming)
Nightclub floors still gleaming (lockdown’s coming home, it's coming home)
18 months of hurt (it's coming home, it's coming)
Never stopped me dreaming (lockdown’s coming home)
The NHS treated like dirt (it's coming home, it's coming)
Nightclub floors still gleaming (football's coming home, it's coming home)
18 months of hurt (it's coming home, it's coming)
Never stopped me dreaming (football's coming home)
The NHS treated like dirt (it's coming home, it's coming)
Nightclub floors still gleaming (lockdown’s coming home, it's coming home)
18 months of hurt (it's coming home, it's coming)
Never stopped me dreaming (lockdown’s coming home)
The NHS treated like dirt

I’m annoyed I like that despite really wanting not to @Itsprobablynotcominghome

It’s rather repetitive.

@RosesAndHellebores

It’s rather repetitive.

File any complaints with Baddiel, Skinner, and The Lightening Seeds.

@TheGenealogist 🤣🤣🤣

Ahaha. Just spotted two footballs I forgot to remove.

@Itsprobablynotcominghome

Ahaha. Just spotted two footballs I forgot to remove.

This is still in my head! 😂😂

I actually like it now though!

@Cornettoninja

It’s a suck it and see kind of situation.

India’s recent peak seemed to decline without much intervention. I say seemed because their testing provision was questionable, there’s a lot of rural villages etc. that don’t receive much attention and there were self-initiated restrictions like private companies implementing wfh certainly in the larger cities.

Personally I think the school holidays and the completion of the football should contribute to a noticeable decline.

School holidays finish at the end of July, so that would fit with peak NHS impact in August.

lockdown coming home football song excellent -made me burst out laughing but man and sons here were not impressed by me reading out certain lyrics during the England game

Dident professor spector say that it would move west to east.

South west has highest r rate in the UK 1.3 to 1.6.
Surely this wave will peak in different areas at different times.

Really hoping Bristol peaks soon as 95 plus Bristol schools affected plus South glos additionally.

3 weeks left of term for most state schools.
The cases have been relentless last few weeks

Bristol said r rate 300 per 100k
But its more like nearly 600 for 10 to 14 year old who are non vaccinated.

Cases will drop in August, then it will absolutely tear through secondary schools from September onwards and another year of education will be fucked up. I really hope not, but I fear the government will be rueing the decision not to vaccinate 12-17 year olds.

Will th school holidays act a circuit break.
Sept no masks and no bubbles seems kit harder to control the spread.
Local schools already at break point feels worse than before xmas with delta varient.