I don’t understand why infections are rising so sharply

[MissChanandlerBong22]

Just looking at the stats for my area. 60% of adults double jabbed. 80% have had one jab. Yet cases aren’t much lower than they were during the height of the pandemic in January.

I appreciate that hospital admissions and deaths are much lower of course. But I’m struggling to understand why cases are still so high. Is the virus spreading wildly among the 20% of unvaccinated adults? Or among the 20% of unvaccinated adults and the 20% of single jabbed adults? Or is it still circulating around everyone, but people who’ve been jabbed generally aren’t developing symptoms?

Delta has a higher risk of hospitalisation than previous variants. Sorry no link as I've read it in several places recently but if you google it there's plenty there confirming.

The short answer to the OP is that cases have been rising for months, but people don't tend to worry about exponential growth if it's low numbers.

This one has vaccine info in regards to admissions and death. Lots of graphs for those who like them.

assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/1001358/Variants_of_Concern_VOC_Technical_Briefing_18.pdf

This one is about what the Zoe app found
www.pulsetoday.co.uk/news/clinical-areas/immunology-and-vaccines/gps-and-data-indicate-continued-rise-in-double-vaccinated-covid-cases/

up to a third of apparently recovered and discharged from hospital Covid patients die within the next 3-6 months. Often no longer testing positive for Covid, their deaths will have been recorded as heart attacks, strokes, pneumonia, sepsis, blood clots etc.

That's pretty concerning @tealightsandd considering the average age of hospitalised patients is (or was in January) about 60. What's the source for this and why "up to" a third - have multiple studies been done?

Cases are rising Because we're not locked down this time. The risk of one person spreading it to another is much lower than last time, but the opportunities for it to spread are much higher because we're mixing with each other again.

No one has ever said the objective is to stop the disease from ever spreading through the population. The objective has always been to suppress transmission to buy time for us to get immunised and to avoid overwhelming the NHS so that people who do become seriously ill can get treated.

Once we're immunised or have built up immunity by actually catching covid, we then inevitably live in a world where covid circulates and continues to mutate. We might well end up having booster jabs or new vaccines that are more effective against emerging new strains. If there's another flare up of a strain that starts killing lots of people, we'll end up locking down again just as we did when covid first spread.

The only part of this process that isn't working is the Westminster government's utterly moronic COMMUNICATION. They set dates way in advance which suggests a level of certainty that is inevitably a complete fantasy. The public then get spooked when the fantasy forecast turns out to be wrong and you get misguided threads like this one. If we haven't but up to the magic 19th July date, we'd probably have pushed the relaxation of restrictions back a week or two and no one works have batted an eye.

Similarly if the morons hadn't said the relaxation would be irreversible, the travel business wouldn't think it reasonable to complain when the government had to put restrictions in place quickly, e.g. France last week. The message to the travel industry should be "adapt or go bust, you're on your own, get on with it and stop complaining about reality".

I agree @AlecTrevelyan006; particularly the point about industry. At some point the message has to be adapt or fail because we’re simply not going back to 2019. The wimpy communication from this government hasn’t, at any point, drummed this message home. Neither has it made a similarly needed point that all the plans for vaccination never included under 12’s and there was no magic plan to mitigate the spread in children. The situation in schools was inevitable and people could have least prepared themselves. Too busy blustering over ‘freedom day’ and extra bank holidays if we won the football. Boris is so desperate for his triumphant place in history it’s embarrassing.

It's not complicated. This is a different strain that spreads more easily (but that's not necessarily a big deal as there are fewer deaths or people in hospital.)

Yes as you suggest, people who've been vaccinated are getting it but it's not as serious, just unpleasant usually.