Why are numbers rising?

[Csj50]

Hello everyone,

American here, living in the US, due to travel to London in two days with my 2 year old and getting cold feet as I see cases are still quite high and maybe even rising. I’m surprised by this bc I know the UK has a fantastic double vaxxed rate for adults- so out of curiousity what is driving up the numbers? Holiday? Is it the younger population?

We are going to see vaccinated family so will not do things like sightsee, but am still quite nervous that I will test positive and not be able to return home. Very anxious, but I’m not sure if the data is scarier than how things actually are, if that makes sense. Many thanks.

Move people are catching it because we have pretty much returned to 'normal'. Less people are dying from it because a lot are vaccinated.

Enjoy your visit!

You’ll be as safe, if not safer, here than if you were at home. Numbers are creeping up as people take more risks, the vaccines are not infallible, sadly.

There is a lot of covid about. I know lots of people who have caught it recently, including my son, many of whom were double vaxxed. No-one I personally know has been hospital level ill with it but plenty of self-isolation.

I do not, sadly, think the data is scarier than it currently is but you need to think about what you would be doing. All the people I know who have caught covid have been working, going on public transport, going to pubs, etc. They have masked / sanitised, etc, where required but they have been in crowded settings. Would that be you?

People are mixing more.

Why would they not be rising, when all restrictions have been removed?

There are still millions of unvaccinated people, and the Delta variant that accounts for most cases here also seems to infect a lot of vaccinated people, as well as some who have had covid previously.

The risk of testing positive and having to delay your flight back is of course real and no one can really say it definitely won't happen. It's a risk for all international travel at the moment.

People are socialising more. That’s it.

Life doesn’t feel scary out and about. Where we are most people are wearing masks in shops etc and it mostly feels back to normal.

@Csj50

coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/cases?areaType=nation%26areaName=England#card-cases_by_specimen_date_age_demographics

The government dashboard here has this high level view of cases (confirmed through testing) by age demographic.

Cases have come down a lot since the Euros football tournament, but flattened off recently. Significant proportion in the younger age bands, the majority of whom are not yet, or only very recently, double jabbed.

The UK does more testing than almost any other country per head of population. This will undoubtedly explain our apparently high numbers.

Sorry , meant to say partially explain our high numbers.

Not sure how much it affects numbers but we haven’t vaccinated teenagers here yet. There are no plans to as of yet.

am still quite nervous that I will test positive and not be able to return home

There is a realistic chance of this. You should think through what you would do, how you would feel, if it happened and base your decision on that. What would the procedures be?

I have recently had to isolate at home for ten days and hated it and that was with house / garden, etc. I think I would struggle to do it in a hotel so am not travelling internationally while it is a risk.

It's interesting to hear an outsiders perspective as everyone I know is pretty much back to normal and life for me is largely unaffected by covid

Maybe we're all fooling ourselves but no one even really talks about it any more, they are getting on with their lives and have adapted to the changes

Looking at the overall statistics is pretty meaningless, if you're visiting London you're at zero risk from a nightclub outbreak I read about in Lincoln for example

By comparison I read earlier a discussion prompted by a case where a small child accidentally killed its mother with a gun. Most non US posters were commenting on how unsafe your gun laws are but you probably never give that a thought and wonder why the rest of the world has that impression of the US

My point is that outside impressions can be very misleading.

UK statistics are published by Public Health England (PHE) and the Office for National Statistics (ONS) do random sampling and make estimations of the prevalence. It's probably worth bearing in mind that prevalence is higher than the daily rate as infections last for more than one day.

At the moment Northern Ireland has the highest rate of infections in the UK. Scotland and Wales have lower rates.

Because our shit for brains government are just letting it rip.

Their strategy is to go for herd immunity through the back door by getting as many of our children infected with Covid (and potentially Long Covid) as possible.

Vaccination doesn't eliminate catching Covid although it reduces the risk and makes serious illness much less likely. We have about 80-100 deaths a day at the moment.

We have become accustomed to running a high level of cases here and aren't alarmed by these numbers much any more. Whether that was always the plan, I don't know. There were decisions or lack of decisions very early on that meant the UK couldn't or wouldn't operate like Aus, Germany or NZ with strict shutdown and control of cases.

I don't have the slightest respect for our government but I do wonder if over time this will even out in most countries. In the meantime, I would say testing positive is a potential risk and if this were impossible to manage, I would avoid the UK right now.

Because our shit for brains government are just letting it rip.

It isn’t “ripping” at the moment though. The case numbers aren’t rising much. Hospital occupancy is ok. We’re nowhere near the 100,000 that was talked about. At the moment, we seem to have been lucky that plenty of people are still being cautious and while schools are off we’ve got a bit of a reprieve.

That’s not to say things won’t change when autumn and winter come with the schools going back but at the moment, the government gamble seems to have worked.

This graph shows the comparison of UK and US (and other countries’) daily cases.

It’s worse here than in the US but not massively so.

There is a realistic risk you might catch it if you are out and about. The vaccines only protect around 50% from catching the delta variant.

I'm off to London for astudy trip with my daughter next week too.

I'm over fifty and double jabbed. We are taking all usual precautions and taking face masks etc.

Think we got to the point where we thought if we don't do it we will never do anything again and we haven't been away for five years.

We've got a hotel, don't intend to go to crowded places and will be travelling by train.

Enjoy your trip.

Is this a serious question?! We’ve been in lockdown for 82 years, now we aren’t, people are mixing, just like the cold, stomach bug etc, it’s going to spread. Being vaccinated is nothing to do with it, the vaccination lessons the symptoms and the need to be hospitalised.

How are people still not getting this?! Good grief!!

No, we plan on doing outdoor things only (eating outdoors, outdoor activities), and since we are not sightseeing, no public transit at all. Esp since my 2 year old won’t mask.

I thought you no longer had to isolate unless not vaccinated?

What are the rates currently where you live in the US, @Csj50?

@Csj50

I thought you no longer had to isolate unless not vaccinated?

That starts on the 16th of august.

The misconception about the vaccine is that it's a cure that stops people catching and spreading it.

It literally prevents you from becoming severely unwell and/or dying. It doesn't prevent spread. That's why numbers are rising despite the vaccine as people return to normal life.

It literally prevents you from becoming severely unwell and/or dying. It doesn't prevent spread.

It reduces your chance of becoming severely unwell or dying but it doesn’t prevent those things happening in everyone who has been doubly vaccinated. Vaccines aren’t perfect.

Vaccines do reduce the rate of transmission. There have been studies demonstrating this.